i truly thought it’d be a challenge to get a more right wing Labour leader then Tony Blair and then we got Keir Starmer

Time to Revolt

It would seem that the higher ups don’t give a fuck about us. With abortion bans and constant shootings in the States. With the absurd cost of living and continuous poverty wages in probably both countries. With the lack of care around the climate crisis, free healthcare, and minority rights and protections, it’s clear that the people in charge don’t give a damn.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it. I am at my breaking point and I know others are too. We are being insulted, degraded, ignored every single day that we face these issues because the few assholes on top refuse to serve. Why are we to work for shoddy wages that make the rich richer but barely afford us a place to live whilst dealing with the reality that a good chunk of us aren't even seen as equals? What the shit are we doing? Everywhere is short staffed because working is a sham. All the doctors are gone because even they can’t afford to live here. Having a child is a curse now in a first world country. Not having eight roommates is a luxury. The fucking planet is cooking us alive in the summer and drowning us in the winter. And I’m supposed to be happy because minimum wage went up forty six cents.

Lads, I say we start over. The Boomers failed us. The Silent Generation failed them. History keeps repeating itself but this will be the last time it does because either humanity ends or we put an end to the cycle. We are out of time. No more being polite. No more tolerating our elders, our superiors, our authority figures who disrespect us. Nay, enough is enough. They betrayed us one too many times. But now, we are armed with all the knowledge of the world at our fingertips. We have the internet and so we have connections with one another across the globe.  We have access to learn all that has happened so we don’t make the same mistakes everyone before us has made. We can change things for good. If we overthrow everything.

Why shouldn’t the minorities, the poor, the young be in charge when we actually see and experience the things these fluffy politicians and CEOs can only imagine? When we have the longest to live and therefore suffer the consequences of our actions the most. It’s our turn to turn the tides, to turn the tables, actually no, we should be flipping tables. We should be breaking down doors and flooding the streets with our angsty fed up selves. Aye, the protesting and wreaking havoc will make others hate us and our cause, but the people that hate us for that already hated us before. When the “freedom convoy” rampaged through the country, I didn’t hate those idiots any more than before because I already hated them and their fight. We will be despised no matter what, but at least we will be heard and seen and impossible to crush. Our voices will be deafening, our numbers overwhelming. Worldwide we will stand together and stand our ground and battle for a better tomorrow.

Our current way of life is not sustainable. It is ready to falter. Our selfishness has divided us, separated us. Humans are not better as lone wolves, we are pack animals and in order to survive, thrive, function, and grow, we need to work together. Enough of this “well it doesn’t affect me” mentality. We need to lift each other up together rather than beat down others and stand on their backs so we alone can touch the sky. If you care not for the future of this world, of our race, then do us all a favour and step down. It seems like a lot of folk with that mentality tend to be in charge of everything and now it’s time to surrender. It is our turn, the time belongs to us.

Let us dethrone the tyrants and dictators and greedy bastards who strive to keep us at the bottom. They have robbed us of our motivation, our energy, our will to exist. How many of us are left wanting to do absolutely nothing because we are drained? How many of us no longer work because it’s pointless? How many of us have dropped hobbies and activities and extracurriculars because we are too exhausted and overworked? How many are ready to jump off a bridge, a building, in front of a train because the concept of living another day in this hellscape is unbearable? I look at my future and all I see is constant work for weak payoff and no rest or accomplishment or peace of mind. I think of that fact that I’m poor and probably always will be and can’t even afford to do what I would want to make a life from. I think of the fact that I am not the only one thinking that and that my friends too are suffering the same thoughts. Too many of us are being wasted and it’s due to a small portion of our human race. We can conquer them, either by dueling them now or outliving them and making better afterward.

Whether it's actively throwing bricks or writing it out for others to see like me, do it. Leave a pile of shit outside a politician's door like some old-growth protesters did. March down the streets with banners. Shout into a megaphone in a public place. Talk about it with friends. Think about it in silence. Do what you are comfortable doing, but let us all do it together. Let us become hazards to these fiends either gently or aggressively. It can be the Rosa Parks approach or the first Pride parade approach. We need just be obnoxious enough to force change.

Governments, billionaires, CEOs and business owners, people who don’t care about anybody else, this is a declaration of war. Fix this shit now, surrender instead, or face the wrath of millions of suffering individuals. Our sanity is about to crack, our rage about to explode. All the little people you rely on to sustain your cushy lives are ready to riot.

For those of us who want a secure, livable tomorrow, we must fight to claim it. We must make it known that we outnumber the people doing this to us. We must take things into our own hands. From the broken chaos, we will build a better society with the young and ambitious minds that we have. We will leave this planet cleaner than when we found it, and leave this race stronger than when we were born into it. No more tolerating shitty conditions and lowering expectation bars. We deserve better, we are worth more, and we can make a difference.

Grab your sword, your pen, your megaphone, your banner and let us go to war.

It’s a Grey Area

Chapter 2:

A/N: ‘Italics’ are thoughts. Warnings? Swear word or two?? Skywalker bashing. OC’s not a fan. Its a bit sad? Talk of parents dying, if thats a warning??

Gif is from @gif-hunts-for-you​ bless you for your Jessica Lowndes gif sets

It took another 3 hours to finish sorting and doing the inventory, after which Blix sent Amber and Bre on home. There were not many patients in the Med Bay currently, so the night rounds would be quick. Blix was finishing up some paperwork, when she heard someone sigh quietly, near the door. She looked up to see who came in.

“Ben? Come in. What’s-“ Blix began to ask, before noticing the blood dripping from his arm. “Come here. Let me see.” She held out her hands.

He stepped forward and mumbled, “It’s not a big deal, it’s just annoying.”

“Uh huh. Let me be the judge of that,” She stated as she gently rolled up his sleeve. There was a large scrape running along his forearm, that was slowly bleeding and covered in dirt.

“How did this happen?” She asked as she examined it to see how deep it went.

“Luke. Training. He threw me into some trees,” He murmured.

She sighed deeply and began to disinfect it with some pads, before spraying it with Bacta. As she worked, she felt a prod in her mind. Like something was trying to break through her mental barriers.

“Ben, you are lurking without a permit. Get out of my head,” She lightly admonished not looking up at him.

“My apologies. Force of habit,” He replied.

“Mh. One that you need to get rid of. You want to get to know someone, try talking to them. Ask questions. That sort of thing. No one likes their minds being probed, and if you ever did that to Commander Dameron again, no one would stop him from beating your face in,” She remarked as she finally turned to look at him.

“Noted. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding you doctor. No one seems to know your background, nor do you seem to interact with anyone beyond your work. Why is that?” He questioned starring at her intensely, curiosity shining.

“I am not here to make friends. I am here to heal. That’s it. May I give you some advice though, in relation to this?” she gestured to his nearly healed arm. “Just because Luke is your uncle, and sort of your teacher, doesn’t mean you have to constantly take his beatings. I’ve seen your powers. You are strong. Don’t let him get away with this shit, just because you feel like you need to be punished for crimes that you have made amends for with your mother. Forgive yourself and take a damn stand. I didn’t take you for a coward nor do I see a child. An ass, maybe, but not a quitter.”

His face showed no emotion, though his eyes showed some surprise. His only response was to simply pull his arm from her grasp before walking out without another word.

Blix sighed as she cleaned up the mess and then made her way back to her room, her shift over for now. Her room was simplistic, a bed in the center of the room, a small kitchen to the right, refresher, and closet to the left. She had a small desk to work at; books, journals, and scrolls lying everywhere.

She quietly showered and changed into some sweats and a shirt. She thought about making herself something to eat but didn’t have the energy to do so. She laid in bed, starring at the ceiling, wondering to herself, ‘Why did I agree to come here? What exactly is my purpose?’

She thought she knew when she went to med school. Help people, no matter who they are or where they come from and heal them. Now, that purpose, while still important, was fading slowly; an emptiness began to fill her chest and mind. A hole that she pondered over late into the hours, which usually only led to her sleeping for a spell.

She’s not quite sure when she fell asleep, she just knows when she woke up it was about 6am and someone was knocking on her door. She stands up, exhausted to the core, but growing annoyed with constant knocking.

“I’m coming!” She yelled as she walked/wobbled over to the door.

She flings it open to see an officer standing there. “Yes? What is it?”

“The General requests to see you in the Command Center, Dr. Blix,” He informed. “I am to escort you once you are dressed.”

“Joy. Give me like 5 minutes,” Blix replied sarcastically. She closed the door and turned around to go get some get some clothes on. She pulled on some black cargo pants, and a green shirt followed by a long grey cardigan. She threw on some socks and her boots and grabbed her keycard on her way out.

She reopened the door and stepped out with a sigh. The officer then proceeded to lead her to the command center, never once saying another word to her.

As she stepped up to the center, she saw General Organa, Luke stood off to the side with Rey & Ben, and Poe nearby with Finn & Chewy. She heard a small beep and felt a bump to her leg. She looked down to see a familiar orange and white droid who began to beep happily at her attention.

“Hello Beebee. I’m good, how are you?” She quietly asked him, as she gave his head a pat, a small smile on her face. He began to beep his response when a voice cleared their throat loudly stopping it. Her smile froze and quickly disappeared as she straightened up and gave her attention to Leia.  

“I am sorry to have awaken you so early doctor, but it has come to my attention that you have never been on a field mission before. Which I found strange when I first heard of it and had to confirm it myself. That changes today,” Leia informed her.

“Come to your attention, you say?” She repeated as she turned her head slowly to Poe, anger and betrayal laced her features, as she glared at him. He had the decency to flinch and look away, as he shuffled behind Finn to avoid her gaze.

“Listen. General. I am a doctor. Not a soldier, a fighter, or a pilot. I am a doctor; I belong in the med bay not out galivanting across the universe. So, you can take whatever mission you are about to shove into my arms, elsewhere. I am not doing it,” She declared and turned away, intending to leave.

“Blix,” Came Admiral Holdo’s voice.

She growled and turned around swiftly, and angrily answered, “Yes Amilyn? What? Let me guess. You once again want to bring up how ‘my parents wouldn’t have approved of my behaviors.’ How if they were alive, they ‘would have been disappointed with how I am reacting’ and that I ‘need to respect my superiors, especially one as admired as her?’ Right?”

Before Holdo could even answer, Blix continued, “Newsflash. They are dead. My father died long before I was even born, on a planet that was blown to smithereens by the Deathstar. My mother died long before I even turned 10.”

Many in the room shifted uncomfortably at this information and Leia stepped forward cautiously, and interjected, “I understand that you have lost a lot in this war, but so have others. I empathize with your pain, I sincerely do. Everyone else understands that the only way to find peace is to fight for it. They fight because they have hope in a better future. They-“

“Save the speech. I am sure it’s quite inspiring to everyone else, but I was raised to be a politician just like you Princess,” Blix interrupted, emphasizing Leia’s previous title through gritted teeth. “I know when I am being fed a line. ‘Rebellions were built on hope?’ You mean rebellions were built on the blood spilt and the dead bodies of the hundreds of thousands of people that died because of YOUR family.”

There were many gasps heard but Blix no longer cared.

“You tell me you understand but, how could you? When your family is the reason why I, hell, why half the galaxy doesn’t exist anymore! Your father reigned terror and death for decades, and you expect me to just, what? Forgive and forget what he took from me? Or forget that it was your idiot brother who tried to attack and kill your son. The son that then turned to the dark side and helped the First Order come to fruition. You and your family are a plague,” She snarled, before turning and exiting the room.

She stormed out of the base and could feel herself lose control. Her mind was raced, adrenaline surged through her as rage continue to bubble in her chest. She took a shaky breath trying to regain control over herself. Her hands shook as a tingling sensation worked through her fingers. Her teeth gritted, and gnawed on her lip as she tried to desperately calm down

She made her way out to the surrounding forest, and eventually found the familiar winding path that she had created in her time here. She followed it for several minutes before it opened out to a small field of flowers. She began to pace frantically up and down, but the rage refused to die down. Taking deeps breaths didn’t work. She couldn’t concentrate long enough to count.

There was only one thing she could do. She turned to a large boulder and raised her hand out to it. She felt a surge of energy as the Force surrounded her and as she clenched her hand closed, the boulder exploded into many pieces.

The energy released left her slightly drained. She was breathing heavy as she stood there. She collapsed to her knees; head bowed, exhausted. Her vision swam a bit and she could feel tears build up.

“Now, what exactly did that boulder do to you?” a warm voice asked.

Blix jerked her head into the direction of the voice, “Grandfather?”

A pale, ghostly blue figure, a Force Ghost, stood there in her small sanctuary. He moved to sit before her and gave her a soft smile.

“What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but you don’t often appear before me,” she quietly inquired.

“Your rage could be felt even amongst the dead. My dear heart, why are you doing this to yourself?” He gently questioned.

“Not quite sure I know what you mean,” Blix replied, not making eye contact with him.

“Don’t play coy. You know what I mean. You have been holding a part of yourself back for years. You have built this wall to hide who you really are. Your soul is tearing itself apart as you deny your destiny,” He chastised.

“Destiny? What destiny? My destiny to wind up dead for being within the same star system as a Skywalker?” Blix scoffed, her eyes rolling.

With a small sigh, he reached out and flicked her on the nose. She blinked rapidly and slowly reached up to cover her nose as it lightly throbbed with pain. ‘Ow.’

“Enough of that. You were destined to be a Jedi. Your powers cannot be held back anymore. There will come a time when you will have to use them, and those walls will come crashing down. Stop fighting who you are meant to be. Your soul and mind are at war with one another. That void you keep feeling? The restless nights? That is your power trying to break free. It is only going to get worse unless you start accepting it.” He urged her, trying to get her to see reason.

“I just..” She struggled to articulate her feelings. There was so much she wanted to say to the man she only knew from his journals and had only seen in her dreams. Tears formed again and fell down her cheeks. She hastily wiped them away not wanting him to see.

“I know. Time was cruelly stolen from us. There are many things I wish I could have taught you personally, but you have done so well on your own. You were destined for greatness. Are you going to continue to fade away in obscurity or are you going to be the Jedi you were meant to be?” He questioned, pressing a kiss to her forehead before fading away.

Blix sighed heavily. She sat there for an hour maybe two, mulling things over in mind, before she got up. The rage had died down and the world slowly came back into focus, and the sounds of the forest grounded her. All that could be heard was the wind rustling leaves, birds chirping. Off in the distance, she could hear the flight deck come to life as pilots fired up their ships for takeoff or engineers began their work.

She made her way back out of the forest, and over to the flight decks. She could see Poe and Chewie were getting the Falcon ready. She took a deep breath, and as much as she didn’t want to, she swallowed her pride and move toward them.

She stood before them, cleared her throat, and inquired, “Ahem. So. What’s this mission about?”

Poe, upon hearing her voice, stopped in his tracks, and looked at her stunned. After a moment, a smile broke out on his face. “Get on board, and I’ll tell ya on the way, gorgeous.”

She smiled back softly and greeted Chewie as she walked up the ramp, the two of them following behind a moment later. Chewie walked into the cockpit to get the ship fired up, as Poe stood next to her. She bit her lip as she tried to figure out what to say to him. Should she explain? Should she apologize?

Poe stopped her train of thoughts when he reached out and grabbed hold of her hand. She tried to focus on what he was telling her and not on how warm his hand felt, or the small callouses that gently soothed over her own hand. ‘Such different lives we’ve lived.’ She thought.

“We are going to meet up with a possible informant who may have intel on the First Orders next plan of action,” he quickly informed. “You and I are going to pretend to be a couple while there so as not to raise suspicion. Simple mission. Very easy. I promise nothing will happen.”

She nodded her head, and as she stared at him, she knew he wanted to remark on what happened earlier. He sighed and looked down for a second and rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand. He eventually looked up and gazed into her eyes.

“Listen, I’m not going to ask you about the stuff you said this morning, unless you feel comfortable about it. I do want to say. I am sorry for going behind your back and requesting you for this mission, without talking to you first. That was a dick move, and I hope you can forgive me,” He apologized.

She bit her lip for a moment, and with a nod replied, “Apology is noted. Acceptance is pending.”

He pouted for a second, before it switched to a smirk and he stepped closer to say something else, but Chewie roared that the Falcon was ready to go and that they needed to leave soon.

“To be continued?” she offered with a small smile.

His smile was the only answer she needed, and they headed toward the cockpit. Poe sat in the co-pilot seat, she in the seat behind him, and seconds later they were off.

It took about an hour to get to Cantonica, headed toward a town a few miles outside of Canto Bight. As soon as we landed, Poe stood up and said, “Come with me.”

She followed him over to one of the sitting areas. Blix took off her cardigan and threw it on the table to cool down a bit, as he opened a draw and withdrew a spare blaster. He turned to her and held it out for her to take.

“Um. What’s this for?” Blix hesitantly asked, stepping back a bit.

“For you. For your own protection,” He answered still holding it out to her.

“I.. I’ve never used a blaster before Poe. I..I’m not sure this is a good idea,” She admitted, shaking her head and rubbing her arm anxiously.

Poe smiled softly, “It is only for emergencies. In case we get separated. I just want to be sure that you are armed in the off chance that we run into trouble. Just point and shoot. I don’t suspect trouble, but I would rather be assured that you are safe and armed.”

He turned back to the drawer and pulled out a belt with a holster attached to it. He placed the blaster into the holster before he turned back around to her. “May I?” he politely asked gesturing to her.

Blix shifted for a moment, still not quite sure of this but she knew that there was a possibility that it could go wrong. She nodded and held her breath as Poe stepped forward, leaning over her slightly as he wrapped the belt around her. He quickly secured it to her asking, “Is this too tight?”

“No, its fine,” She responded. “Tell me, does it clash with my outfit?”

He huffed out a laugh at her question and stepped back to fully examine her. “Looks perfect on you. Shall we get going?” He asked as he grabbed his own blaster.

As they stepped onto the ramp leading out, the heat of the planet hitting them immediately, Poe stopped and turned to her slightly.

“Also. Out here, you follow my lead. This isn’t the med bay, and I am your commanding officer. Got it?” He firmly demanded.

The sudden shift in personality caused Blix to blink in surprise, because suddenly he wasn’t Poe Dameron, flirty flyboy. He had switched to Commander Dameron, respected officer of the Rebellion. She felt the need to tease him a bit, “Got it… Commander.”

They moved forward and began to make their way to the meet, a shady cantina. Blix slowly moved closer to Poe and muttered, “Put your arm around me, we’re meant to be a couple, yeah?”

He casually wrapped his arm her shoulders and she tucked herself into his side, arm wrapped around him, her thumb hooked into one of his belt loops, to rest.

After a few minutes they arrived at the cantina and were making their way to an empty table. As they took a seat side by side, Poe informed her that they were looking for human, who goes by the name Crixus. They had arrived early, and ordered drinks to not raise suspicion, sipping at them lightly.

A moment of silence had passed when Poe commented without looking at her, “So an orphan eh? Didn’t really see that one coming.”

She chuckled, somewhat bitterly. “Yeah. My mother was an ambassador who made a lot of enemies really quickly. She uh.. was killed by a bounty hunter. I wasn’t there, I was…elsewhere. I was about to turn eight. My mother never really spoke much about my father, all I know is he died on Scarif. I haven’t had the stomach to look her stuff and find out more,” She explained, finding a spot on the table, suddenly fascinating.

“Scarif? Like. Rogue One? He was a part of that? Wow!” He said amazed before adding, solemnly “I lost my mother when I was eight. Dad’s still around but I haven’t really seen him much since I joined the cause. I keep her close to my heart though.” He tugged at the chain of the necklace he wore.

“That ring is your mother’s? I always wondered but I never felt right asking about it,” She admitted, looking at him, as she bit her lip.

“Yeah. I plan to one day give it to the girl I want to marry,” Poe revealed. “I have a fairly good idea who I want to marry eventually. I just can’t seem to figure out if she feels the same way about me.”

She looked away, not really wanting to hear him describe who it is he clearly had feelings for and went with a simple, “Oh?”

“Yeah. She’s stubborn, and beautiful. Keeps refusing my dates and cites regulation at me. Though last time she didn’t do that, and it gave me hope that she is interested.” He continued offhandedly.

A smile slowly appears on her face, alongside a blush that she tried to hide. He gently cupped her face and turned her to look him in the eyes. “I’m going to guess by that pretty smile and lovely blush I see that that’s a yes?”

Before she could answer, someone loudly sat down across from them. They pulled away from each other and looked to see a human male, with dirty blonde hair, and multiple scars running along his face sitting there.

“Crixus?” Poe asked to confirm his identity.

He nodded and as they began to speak, Blix couldn’t help but to feel a nagging sensation inside her head. Something was off, something was wrong. As she examined the man before them, she slowly heard it. It was faint, and she had to focus to fully hear it. It was a beeping noise. A rapid beeping. Like that of a-

“Poe,” She interrupted. “Stop talking to him. Who sent you?”

“I don’t know what yer talkin ‘bout lady. No one sent me,” Crixus denied.

“Oh really?” She pondered mockingly, before she made her move.

She reached over, grabbed his head with both of her hands and slammed it down onto the table, hard. He was knocked unconscious, and she pushed at Poe to get out of the seat, urgently.

“Wh-what the hell was that? He was about to give us valuable information!” He protested as they both stood up and she leaned over Crixus.

She reached around into Crixus’ pockets and after a moment, she found it. A fob.

“He’s a bounty hunter, and we’re the bounty. We have to go now!” She exclaimed, as she dropped the fob on the ground and stomped on it to break it.

Poe grabbed her hand, and they made their way out of the cantina. They went a different route back to the Falcon. It led them down a path to an open market area, that quickly filled with stormtroopers, who recognized them immediately, and began to fire upon them.

Poe shoved into her an alleyway and he took to the opposite side, occasionally taking shots at the troopers.

“’A simple mission’ you said. ‘An easy mission’ you said. ‘Shouldn’t run into any trouble,’” She yelled over at him.

“I know! I’ll make it up to you!” He promised as he took a few more shots.

They were quickly being outnumbered. Poe was a good shot, but more and more were appearing. Her thoughts ran rampant, as she tried to figure out how to get them out of this. A plan that would get them to safety. A gust of wind blew, carrying a whisper, “You know what to do.”

‘Really hitting this on the nose, eh gramps?’

She straightened up, closed her eyes trying to focus and muttered to herself once, “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.”

When she reopened them, she could feel the Force surrounding her, the energy crackling. She stepped out and walked toward the open market; ignoring Poe’s attempts to gain her attention.

As she stepped out, multiple troopers fired their blasters at the same time. She raised her hands, in front of her face, stopping them midair. They hovered for a mere moment before she threw her arms forward, sending the shots backwards into the troopers. As they fell, she threw her right hand out to her left, and then to her right, knocking those troopers back into walls and various objects.

The coast was clear, for now. She leaned forward, her hands on her knees, exhausted. Her energy drained, and she felt a bit lightheaded. Poe, at some point, walked up next to her and stared at her in awe.

She stood up, ignoring how tired she felt, and said, “C’mon. The Falcon isn’t far, and I don’t want to wait for more to appear, or for these guys to wake up.”

She began to walk away but she only got a few feet before she realized Poe wasn’t following. He was still standing there, gaping.

“You’re… you’re a Jedi?” He wondered.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. Let’s go,” she said turning back around, striding away.

Poe ran to catch up to her, and inquired, “You’re really just going to ignore my question? Blix? C’mon, you gotta explain that to me?”

They were finally getting near the launchpad that held the falcon, but stormtroopers were marching their way. They stopped short, and Blix uttered a small, “Fuck.”

He looked at her, then pushed her to a nearby wall. “Kiss me.”

“What?” She spluttered.

“Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable. So. Kiss. Me.” Poe demanded through gritted teeth, as the troopers got closer to them.

She quickly leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Blix wrapped her arms around his neck, as his found her waist, before pulling her closer. She couldn’t deny the butterflies that had built in her stomach and were fluttering chaotically. He made her feel warm and safe within his embrace.

The stormtroopers passed but they failed to notice it, far too wrapped up into each other for the moment. It wasn’t until they pulled apart, gasping for breath, that they realized they were free to move on.

She pulled away from him so they could finally begin their hasty walk to the Falcon. As they rushed back on, Poe yelled for Chewie to get on the gunners, as the ramp closed.

Poe has her follow him into cockpit and shoved her over to the co-pilot seat. He pointed out which switches and buttons to hit to fire the ship up as they heard the familiar roar of TIE-Fighters entering the atmosphere. They took off but the path had a squadron of TIEs coming straight for them.

Poe dodged them left and right, trying to help Chewie line up shots to take them out. Several went down quickly but there was still a couple on their tail. They were flying out over canyons, and Blix vaguely recognized the area, and a terrible idea came to mind.

“Poe. I have an idea but it’s a little crazy,” she hesitantly informed.

“I have been told my middle name is crazy, so let’s hear it doll. Preferably before we are shot out of the sky,” He grunted as they were hit.

“See that crevice there? Dive into it.” She commanded pointing to a crevice that was coming up to them on their left.

He followed her directions, straight into a crevice that was only just barely wide enough for the falcon to fit through. They heard a couple of crashing noises from above, but they still had one TIE on them.

The narrow canyon, had them dodging rock formations left and right, and he yelled at her, “My trust in you is waning a bit, what the hell does this open up to?” As the falcon scraped several times along the wall.

“You’ll see. Go for that large opening,” She replied with a wince, pointing slightly to their right.

He does and as they breakthrough they enter an underground city of sorts, full of bright lights and towers everywhere. There was only one path, that she confirmed he needed to follow. The path was somewhat narrow but allowed enough space to dodge hits.

“Blix. Please do not tell me we need to go down that,” He asked worried, as he looked ahead.

“That” was a dark tunnel, that was named the Tunnel of Death (and labeled on the wall in bright lights), that they were swiftly coming upon.

“Yep. Just.. listen to me when I tell you to start pulling up, because it’s a straight drop, that suddenly curves,” Blix advised with a grimace. “Chewie! Buckle up, this is going to be rough!” She yelled toward the back, as she too buckled in, Poe following.

As they dropped down into the hole, they are plunged into absolute darkness. Blix was quietly counting to herself how long it had been since they began their descent. ‘1, 2,3, 4, 5,6.’

“Poe. Start Pulling up,” She told him as her mental countdown got to 7 seconds

He does so, and as they continued to straighten back out; they hear a final crash as the TIE flew directly into the ground. They soon saw cracks of light as they made their way to the exit, and finally flew back out into the open air. They flew until they had left Cantonica’s atmosphere, before jumping into hyperspace.

Once we were safe in hyperspace, Poe turned to her questions written on his face.

She smiled sheepishly, as she rubbed the back of her neck. “So. Did I ever tell you I was a bit of a wild child?”

He threw his head back and laughed, which caused her to laugh as well. As he sobered up, he replied, “No. Failed to mention that tidbit. What was that and how the hell do you know about it?”

“It’s an old pod racetrack. The entrance is back in the middle of Canto Bight, but I heard that there were secret entrances in the canyons. So, I was kinda going off my memory, hence why I said it was little crazy.” Blix confessed with a smile. “My mother used to tell me that while I looked like her, I had my father’s personality. His tendency to be super serious with a side of devil-may-care. I fell in love with podracing when I was like 4? And my best friend’s father was a mechanic, so we built a podracer. My first race I came in second place.”

Poe shook his head in amazement. “You are a mystery wrapped in an enigma,” He began and with sudden realization continued, “That’s. That’s where you were, when your mom died, isnt it? The “elsewhere?””

She nodded her head, with a sad sigh. “She uh.. wasn’t thrilled by new hobby, but she supported it. Said if I’m going to lose, do so spectacularly, and win as often as possible. I was in Kergans, it was a huge race. 19 other competitors, a huge purse as the prize. I was one of the last 5 pods to survive in total, the regular champ was an asshole who liked to cheat and play dirty. He got his comeuppance, when I knock him into a wall, and he lost an engine. My victory lap when I crossed the finish in first was cut short when I was informed that she had been killed on her way to watch me. Never raced again after that,” Blix divulged, leaning back into her chair, staring at the ceiling.

“Then Holdo’s family took you in?” Poe connected.

“Yep. Amilyn was alright living with. Her mother…not so much,” Blix trailed off.

“What? What was she like? Though, knowing the admiral I assume she was not great,” He admitted with a frown.

Blix sighed heavily, “Maureen. She uh. Didn’t care for frivolity. She made sure that I became a ‘proper young lady.’ She practically beat into my head that love was a fairytale and happy endings were not real. Marriages were meant to move power around and change alliances. Dating was not in the cards. Only courting with potential suitors.”

She rolled her eyes heavily at the memories of Maureen scolding her.

“Which.. is why I have been difficult every time you ask me out. I just.. I was conditioned to not accept potential romantic dalliances. I. She. Its difficult for me to get over that. I am trying to move past it, just.. be patient with me please?” she quietly pleaded struggling to explain, as she looked over at him.

He smiled softly. “I’ll wait however long you need me to,” he promised.

“I am sorry if I often seem cold or detached as well. I’m not trying to act bitchy or hoity toity. I just grew up with a hard woman who believed in all things rational and refused to acknowledge anything that suggested emotion,” She apologized her shoulders dropping.

His reply was immediate, “Apology is noted. Acceptance pending.”

She shook her head with chuckle, as he referred to their earlier conversation.

“So… that’s explained. You going to tell me about the Jedi thing?” He queried an eyebrow raised.

“I still have no idea what you are talking about,“ Blix replied standing up. ‘That is not a conversation I want to have with anyone honestly.’

He sighed annoyed at her dismissal of his question again and goes for instead “Okay. Then how about the kiss?”

“What about it?” Blix asked as she got to the doorway of the cockpit.

“What did you think about it?” Poe clarified turning his chair to follow her movements.

She thought about it for a moment, jokingly humming in contemplation, before she responded, “It was good.”

“Good? Just good? What do you mean by that!?” He spluttered not expecting that response.

“Yeah. Good. I’m sure the next one will be better,” She hinted with a smile as she skipped out.

Chewie made his way inside, and Poe hears her apologize for the bumpy ride she led them on. He responded in kind, gently roaring that it was okay.

As Chewie took his seat in the copilot, Poe stared out into the hallway for a moment longer, still processing what just happened.

“Next time?” he whispered. He nods his head several times before he turned back around to face the front. “I’m going to marry that woman. I’m going to marry her, she will tell me all her secrets, and I will die a happy man. It’s going to happen. Yeah.” He muttered to himself as he focused on the controls.

As they dropped out of hyperspace, they informed base that they were about to land. The moment the Falcon was on the ground, Blix made her way off. Poe followed after her, sensing she was going to try and make a quick getaway.

“Hey- wait a minute!” He called out grabbing her arm, stopping her. “Seriously though. You can use the Force? Why are you trying to hide this?”

“Poe. Stop. We are not talking about this,” Blix scolded glancing around, hoping no one heard him.

She pulled her arm away and walked away from him. Poe was determined though- he was going to get her to talk to him. He chased after once more and grabbed her hand again.

“I just- I don’t understand! You have this power and you’re not using it!?” He beseeched looking her in the eyes, searching for an answer.

Blix huffed and held her hand to up to his face and gently waved it, as she commanded softly, “You did not see anything.”

He stared blankly at her and repeated, “I did not se- Wait!” He blinked and shook his head violently. “Did you just… try to Jedi mind wipe???” He asked confused but excited.

Blix groaned loudly and clenched her fist at her failed attempt to use the Mind Trick, swearing softly as she turned and tried to once again walk away.

He ran after her and as he reached out to grab her arm once more, she turned to him suddenly and angrily growled out, “Poe. If you grab at me one more time, I will hurt you.”

“Oh? You going to use the Force and push me away?” He teased and held his arms out, waiting.

“No. I’ll just do this,” She stated seconds before she threw a punch out, hitting him in the stomach.

He leaned over and grabbed at his stomach as the pain (and shock) swept through him. She then dropped down and swung her leg out to sweep his legs out from under him. As he landed on the ground, she stood back up, dusted herself off, and headed to her room. She locked herself into her room and stayed there for the rest of the day, collapsed onto her bed, and passing out as the day’s event hit her.

As Poe laid on the ground, gasping for air, and trying to blink away the pain, Finn slowly moved over to him. Finn squatted down and asked, “Do I want to know what that was about?”

Poe propped himself up onto his elbows and looked at Poe with a dazed smile, and commented, “Finn. I’ve met my future wife.”

“Your future wife just knocked you on your ass. How do you feel about that?” Finn teased as he held his hand out for Poe to take to help him back up.

“Strangely alright,” Poe replied with a smirk, as he took Finn’s hand and got up with his help.

Rey stepped forward as well, confusion written on her face. “I’ll tell ya later. In private. I have to go to the mission brief. We’ll meet up at my place for dinner, it’s a doozy. Hell, I’m still wrappin my head around it,” Poe requested as he looked at them both.

His thoughts were scrambled, ‘Orphan. Podracer. Jedi. Podracer. Jedi. She likes me back but isn’t used to affection. Jedi. The kiss. Jedi.’ As he gave the mention brief, he left out her powers and the kiss, and told Leia that she did well under pressure, and if weren’t for her recognizing the sound of the fob, they would probably be dead. Though that did beg the question.

“Why was a bounty hunter sent after us? Very few people knew about this mission, and it was only planned a day ago. So why were they after us?” Poe inquired lowly to Leia, so no one else could hear.

“Those are very good questions Commander. Questions that need to be answered. Fast. Figure it out Commander,” Leia ordered quietly.

Poe nodded his head in affirmation and began to review who all knew about this mission, retracing his steps since this mission came to them. It was going to be a long night for the Commander.

how bout He Tian cooking for MoMo for once as a writing prompt?

(Thanks anon! I had a lot of fun with this. Sorry it got so chaotic, but I guess… He Tian cooking can’t really end any other way, huh?)

Seduce me with your cock jokes

„I don’t think it’s supposed to be purple.”

He Tian turned away from the poisonous-looking concoction on the stove to glower at Mo Guan Shan.

“Didn’t I tell you not to intervene?”

“I tried to, but I think I heard your sauce screaming from the back of the room,” said Mo Guan Shan, imitating a high-pitched scream, “Help me! Help me! Even though I’m literally only three ingredients mixed together, I have become sentient in my pain!”

He Tian had to stop stirring the sauce, which immediately turned into a lump of slime at the bottom of the pan. He couldn’t believe Mo Guan Shan. Did he want to die?

His incredulous look was met with a bratty raise of the eyebrows.

“What?” said Mo Guan Shan. “Did you spend all that time talking me into a date only to knock me on the head with a wooden spoon? Because I will go home!”

“It’s the alcohol!” He Tian realized after a second. “Alcohol makes you brave?”

Finally, the well-known fiery-red skin-color that usually decorated Mo Guan Shan’s face returned. 

“It’s not the alcohol! I’m not an easily blushing teenager who’s afraid of you!”

He clearly swallowed the ‘anymore’ on his tongue. 

“Oh, but you see – you’re mistaken,” drawled He Tian, sporting the lazy grin he knew would drive his little redhead up the wall. “This is not a date. If it were, I wouldn’t be cooking for you.”

“You’re right,” said Mo Guan Shan, fighting to gain his composure back. “This is more like… torture? What do I owe the mafia, what will it take to keep you from feeding me this poisonous, flesh-eating lump of gravy?”

He Tian refused to show his surprise again. He was starting to enjoy this snappy version of Mo. 

“You asked for this,” He Tian reminded him. “And I’m only indulging you because you somehow found a way to cheat at basketball, and-“

“There is no way to cheat at basketball,” said Mo Guan Shan. “I won because I actually still play it in my free time, whereas you are too busy skinning politicians alive.”

“Don’t make stupid assumptions about my job.”

“Don’t think you’re still superior to me. The way I see it, you’re a grown man who is starting to lose his youthful fitness, still lives in his uncle’s apartment, and can’t cook for shit.”

He Tian had no words for that, so he just stared, waiting for Mo Guan Shan to falter under his evil eye. The wooden spoon he was holding fed thick, syrupy droplets of gravy to the linoleum floor. Mo Guan Shan tried his best to return the stare, but his face was still red, and he probably had to fight the urge to toss the wooden spoon into the sink and clean the floor. 

“Will you have my babies?” He Tian finally asked.

“Wh- what?”

“I’m serious, I think you just gave me an erection.”

Mo Guan Shan spluttered incoherently, trying his hardest not to look down He Tian’s body to check if it was true. The red hue on his face intensified until it was practically black. 

He Tian grinned, pleased. There was his little redhead. So grown up, but still as cute as always. 

“I thought this wasn’t a date,” Mo Guan Shan finally coughed. “So keep it in your pants.”

“I don’t know if I can. You keep being so bold and sexy.”

Mo Guan Shan finally tore the wooden spoon from his hand. “Shut up!” he said, turning towards the sink to hide his face. “Let me take care of the sauce. You can make the eggs. That’s even easier. Even you should manage.”

“Okeydokey,” sang He Tian, happily turning towards the fridge. It had been hard work to get Mo Guan Shan this far – even though he still blushed just thinking about He Tian’s erection, he had admitted that he saw this as a date. After all these years of pining, He Tian might just start to see the finish line in the distance. 

Mo Guan Shan was already done with the sauce when he realized that He Tian still stood in front of the open fridge, staring inside.

“The hell?” he spat. “Get working!”

“I might have a problem,” admitted He Tian, closing the fridge door. “I’m out of eggs.”

“You’re what?” Mo Guan Shan screeched.

“Are they that important?”

“For Egg Foo Yung?” Mo Guan Shan threw his hands up, raging. “That’s eggs with gravy! What do you want to do – sip the pure gravy out of a bowl?”

“It’s basically a soup,” said He Tian, mostly to rile Mo Guan Shan up even more. Unfortunately, that just led to his ‘date’ stomping away to grab his jacket.

“I’m going home,” he announced. “I still have perfectly good leftovers in my own fridge.”

“Wait!” He Tian grabbed his hand. “It’s okay, I can get us some eggs.”

“It’s too late, all the shops are closed!”

“That’s okay, I have my connections…”

Mo Guan Shan stared at him, yanking his hand away. “Are you serious?” he blistered. “Don’t use your weird mafia family to get eggs! That’s just creepy!”

He Tian needed a moment to understand Mo Guan Shan’s line of thought. “What? Of course not – I mean, I have a completely off-the-rails crazy neighbor who keeps a flock of hens in his apartment.”

At least that was weird enough to make Mo Guan Shan stop in his tracks and turn away from the door. 

“You what?”

“Old man, on the ground floor. Must have inherited the apartment, because he’s poor, I think, or he just likes selling eggs. Anyway, I’m sure he has some fresh ones, I’ll go get some.”

He walked past Mo Guan Shan, out the door towards the elevator to show that he meant it. Mo Guan Shan followed, but took his jacket off to make sure He Tian knew he wasn’t running off.

“You’re joking, right?” Mo Guan Shan said on the elevator ride down. “We’re just doing the normal thing and ask any normal neighbor to borrow an egg.”

“Do you know me as a big joker?” He Tian asked. 

“I mean. I have like a thousand dick pics you sent me as a joke.”

“Didn’t know how to come on to you back then.” He Tian shrugged. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. 

Mo Guan Shan followed a step behind He Tian as if he were trying to hide from the crazy hen-Person.

“He’s not gonna eat you,” He Tian chuckled as he rang the doorbell. “Wait a minute…”

The door opened just as He Tian turned to Mo Guan Shan and loudly exclaimed, “You kept my dick pics?”

A punch in the arm was his only reward. That and the old crazy hen-man’s furrowed brows.

“What do you want this late?” he croaked. 

“My friend here doesn’t believe that you keep a flock of chickens in your apartment,” said He Tian, pointing his thumb towards Mo Guan Shan, who moved even closer to hide behind his body. “Can you show him?”

“Couldn’t you just ask for the eggs?” Mo Guan Shan whispered angrily, but the old man had already opened the door and motioned for them to come inside. He Tian entered the apartment, barely containing his glee. The incredulous, “What the fuck?” behind him was so good, it sent shivers down his spine. Too bad he couldn’t see Mo’s face right now.

“Is this… allowed?” Mo Guan Shan wondered aloud, looking around at the interior. Couch, bed, tables and open cupboards – everything had been taken by the hens. A whole wardrobe was converted into a chicken coop with different floors, completely covered in hay. There were nests with fresh eggs in them. 

Mo Guan Shan had forgotten to be wary of the crazy chicken man and walked through the apartment in silent wonder. He Tian was content just to watch him. 

“How is there no shit anywhere?” he asked after a while. 

The old man turned from where he was bent into the wardrobe to gather some eggs. “Taught them to use the litter box,” he grunted. 

Mo Guan Shan received that information without blinking an eyelid. There was no room for more bewilderment.

“You wanna see somethin’ special?” the old man asked. He Tian thought it sounded a little suspicious – like he was going for the ‘want to look at my bunnies?’ shtick. But Mo Guan Shan had thrown all caution out the window.

“More special than this? Hell yeah!”

The bunnies weren’t even that far off in the end. He Tian followed the two into the bathroom, which emitted an eerie red light. Not even that scared Mo Guan Shan off. He Tian silently congratulated himself on a successful date. This was so much better than going to the movies.

“In there,” said the old man, pointing to the bathtub. The constant peeping spoiled the surprise before they actually saw the baby chicks under the heat lamp, but Mo Guan Shan still gave a soft gasp.

“What the fuck!” Those words had never been whispered so gently. “They’re… they’re so small!”

“Touch one,” said the creepy old man. He Tian sent him an icy glare – it wouldn’t hurt to turn the rapey-ness down a notch. But Mo Guan Shan happily grabbed for a little chick and held it in his hands. 

“And so soft!” His face relaxed in one of those extremely rare, memorable moments. He Tian almost stopped breathing, just watching him.

“Yeah, I’ll have to flush that one down the toilet,” grumbled the old man, effectively flushing the nice moment down the toilet. 

“What?” Mo Guan Shan screeched.

“It’s a cock. I only need one of those.”

“So you flush it down the toilet?” Mo Guan Shan protectively laid a hand over the chick, as if to cover its ears. “It’s just a little baby!”

“That seems cruel,” He Tian agreed. “You could at least give it a quick death. Wring it’s neck or something.”

“He Tian!” Mo Guan Shan screeched again. Then, suddenly, his eyes turned pleading. “We can’t let it die! Let’s take it to your apartment!”

He Tian blinked, not sure if Mo Guan Shan was serious. 

“Why? To cook it?”

“Of course not! To save it!”

He was about to say no. He really was. It was the stupidest idea he’d ever heard. But a far-away memory, the echo of a puppy-dog’s howling rang in his ears, and he just couldn’t. 

“I’ll sell it for a thousand yuan,” the old man tried. He Tian’s glare shut him up.

Turning back to Mo Guan Shan, he said, “But only if you say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say: He Tian – I want you to take my cock. I want you to pet it and kiss it and care for it. I want you to let it grow. I want you to-“

“This is no time for making cock-jokes!” Mo Guan Shan yelled, still covering the chick’s ears. He paused a moment to glower at He Tian. 

He Tian waited patiently.

“Please take my cock,” Guan Shan finally ground out.

With a feeling like he hadn’t really thought this whole thing through, He Tian started to beam. “Great! We’ll take him!” He turned to look at the old man. “And I’ll take a carton of eggs. Here are forty yuan.”

The man took He Tian’s money with a shrug, went to fetch a carton of eggs and shooed them out of the apartment.

“Next time, don’t wake me up!” he warned, slamming the door shut.

“What a miserable guy,” said He Tian. He turned to look at Mo Guan Shan when he heard a soft ‘ouch!’

The chick had shat all over Mo Guan Shan’s hand and was now pecking at his fingers. He Tian watched him struggle for a while, then sighed.

“You’re already regretting this, aren’t you?”

“No!” Mo Guan Shan said, clearly lying. “It’s just nervous, because we just took it from its friends and home!”

“Its home was a bathtub.”

“Whatever,” he said and entered the elevator. He Tian followed behind, pressing the button for his floor, ignoring the sounds of pain coming from his date.

Mo Guan Shan managed to hold back until they stood in front of He Tian’s door. Then he finally caved.

“Hey. Would you… Any chance you’d like to hold my cock?”

He Tian opened his door with a grin.

“Anytime, my love. Anytime.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 (Bonus 1)

 “I’ll kill him!” He Tian groaned, pulling up the blanket to cover his ears. “And I hate you!”

“Wow, you’ve gotten a lot less suck-uppy now that you’ve actually managed to fuck me, huh?”

“Fuck off!” He Tian mumbled through the thick blanket, which still wasn’t able to drown out the cock’s incessant crowing. “And learn some words! And for fuck’s sake, silence your shitty pet!”

The mattress moved under Mo Guan Shan’s weight as he climbed out of the bed in search of the bird he had saved four month ago. 

Or rather; that he had talked He Tian into saving. On that day, He Tian couldn’t have known how horrible that decision would turn out to be. Sure, the remaining evening had been great. They had built a little house for the chick out of cardboard, paper and a table lamp. They had eaten a great Egg Foo Yung which Mo Guan Shan had cooked (they both agreed that He Tian would never be let loose in a kitchen ever again). And although the amount of noise the chick had made had seemed impossible for such a small thing, they had both been able to ignore it long enough to have very special and great sex.

Unfortunately, as the chick had grown, so had the noise. And now it started to wake them up with the most sinister cock-a-doodle-doo He Tian had ever heard.

The third crow had him toss his blanket to the side to stomp into the kitchen in search of a frying pan to flatten the monster bird with. Unfortunately, Mo Guan Shan had rearranged everything as soon as he had moved in and now He Tian couldn’t find it fast enough before two arms wrapped around him and a warm, naked body pressed against his back.

“Relax,” Mo Guan Shan said, pressing his face between He Tian’s shoulder blades. “I fed him. He’s quiet now.”

“One of these days, I’ll throw him out of the window just to see if it’s really true that chickens can’t fly!” He Tian grumbled, but he felt the anger seep out of him with every second their bodies were touching. “I’m telling you – that bird is possessed by a demon!”

“That’s just how roosters are,” Mo Guan Shan said.

“No, I’m serious! It has a murderous glint in its eye. Did I tell you about how I came home the other day and saw it on the kitchen counter with a knife in its beak?”

“Yeah, I still think you’re over-exaggerating.”

“It’s true! The big steak knife!”

“I don’t think She Li would be strong enough to hold that up. And how would he have gotten in the drawers?”

He Tian turned in Mo Guan Shan’s embrace to give him a serious look. “I’m just saying. If you ever come home to find the rooster a bloody mess on the floor, it was only because I wanted to protect you.”

“Noted,” Mo Guan Shan said, leaning in to kiss He Tian.

He Tian closed his eyes, happy to let himself be wrapped around Mo Guan Shan’s little finger. Maybe he was stupid to let a murderous, noisy rooster live in his apartment just because his boyfriend had a soft spot for animals.

But.

For Mo Guan Shan? 

He Tian would even let a She Li live in his bathtub, no questions asked. Because it was true love, baby.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 (Bonus 2)

  He Tian was still fuming when he opened the door to their apartment. It had been a long and strenuous day at work. Most days were. But to top it all off, this morning, after being as rudely awoken as always, he had found his favorite jacket in pieces on the floor. And not just that – it was covered in shit.

Mo Guan Shan had left for work already and He Tian hadn’t gotten up to feed She Li, and this was the result of the rooster’s rage.

Had it not been the exact date of their 6 months anniversary, He Tian would have finally made good on his promises and wrung the bird’s neck.

“Welcome home!”

Mo Guan Shan’s voice finally managed to calm He Tian a bit – that and the delicious smell coming from the kitchen.

“You cooked?” he asked, peeking around the corner, where Mo Guan Shan was just finishing up a salad, still clad in his stained apron that looked so cute on him.

“Yes,” Mo Guan Shan said. “It’s my anniversary present for you.”

“Okay?” He Tian said, hanging up his jacket and slipping out of his shoes. “It’s not like that’s a rare thing, though.”

“Are you complaining?”

“Would never,” He Tian grinned. Then he saw the table. “Wow! Looks like a feast!”

“Took me a few hours,” Guan Shan admitted. “I’m done now.”

He put the salad on the table, put the apron away and produced two wine glasses and a bottle of red wine from the pantry.

“Fancy,” He Tian commented. He sat down and accepted the glass Mo Guan Shan poured for him. “This day is really taking a turn for the better.”

“I saw the mess,” Mo Guan Shan said. “Sorry about that.”

“Let’s not think about it for a moment.”

They clinked their glasses together.

“To six happy months. They were only like five years overdue,” He Tian said. 

“If you had sent me less dick pics, I may have gotten curious earlier.”

“Ouch.”

They both took a sip, sighing contently. 

“Well… I hope you enjoy the food,” Mo Guan Shan said. “This took a lot of work.”

“It smells delicious.” He Tian reached for his cutlery to take a tentative bite from the meat off his plate and immediately leaned back in bliss when the flavors hit his tongue. “Are you kidding me? This is the best thing you ever made! What the hell?”

“I won’t reveal my secrets,” Mo Guan Shan said, hiding his smile behind his wine glass, which didn’t really work, since it was see-through. “Now just shut up and enjoy.”

“Oh, I will!” He Tian said, leaning forward again to take another bite. “Speaking of shutting up – it’s so quiet around here. How did you get She Li to shut up? Did you take him to the crazy hen-man for the night?”

Mo Guan Shan just shrugged his shoulder and cut a piece off the delicious chicken-breast on his own plate. “Yeah, something like that,” he said, smiling again.

“Something like that.”

Out of Control

The world passed by in a blur. Trees sped along outside the windows of the car. The engine roared like a dragon and the vehicle’s driver felt an unnatural fuel and fire in her veins.

A blood-red rising sun reflected off of her shades, glossy and shiny and marred only by a tiny crack on the left lens of her sunglasses. Clad in little leather racing gloves, Emily’s hands gripped the steering wheel like iron vices.

Something about the hum and the vibrations and the constant growl of the machine kept her calm. She loved the feeling of sheer speed, slicing through the world like a knife; and appreciated that sense of escape from reality that it always gave her.

Now, more than ever, she needed that calm, that sensation of riding the eye of the storm—that escape. Because she was going to see Julian’s killer in person and it was going to take everything out of her to not lose her mind.

Was it the gravity of fast motion, pushing her back into her seat that helped center her? Was it the threat of deadly accidents that freed her mind from every burdening thought and worry? Or was it because she felt both in control and dangerous whenever she drove too fast?

Emily wondered, but refused to answer her own questions.

She maintained a speed just a few miles per hour above the legal limit. Just enough to make good time on her ride to Starkford Penitentiary, and just enough to try to talk her way out of trouble if a cop pulled her over.

Thoughts surfaced. Thoughts about Kathryn Shaw. Emily tried to push them back down because they only made every one of her digits tense up more—the leather of her gloves cracked as her grip around the steering wheel tightened.

Any efforts to dispel the thoughts all failed. The image search on Shaw haunted Emily. Kathryn Shaw was just some forgettable D-list celebrity and the spectrum of her headshots ranged from pretty young lady all the way to monstrosity who had gone under the knife of plastic surgery too often for her own good. Murdering Julian Stone would probably be her biggest legacy, overshadowing her pathetic acting career and her quest for the perfect face.

This only fed the tension building in every fiber of Emily’s being, because Shaw’s obsession with her own beauty was what had killed Julian.

But was it just tension? Or pure anger welling up inside? The engine’s growls grounded Emily for a brief glimpse, allowing her to notice just how obscenely fast she was going now, and she eased up on her leadfoot for a bit. Every thought of Kathryn Shaw just poured more gasoline onto the flames of Emily’s fury.

As you know, every time you pour fuel into the flames, you run risk of the fire igniting the stream, traveling back up its length and blowing the canister up in your hands. That exact image entered Emily’s mind and made her crave another cigarette. It hadn’t even been five minutes since the last one.

No matter.

She rolled down the window on her old Charger and lit up her smoke. Swore up a storm as a chunk of tobacco got stuck on the car’s internal lighter and fumed out of the slot when she returned it. Instead of pulling over to fix this like a sane person, Emily took her eyes off the road and tapped the lighter outside her car door.

When she looked up, the honking of a horn ripped her right back into the reality of her current whereabouts and she reacted just in time, swerving back onto her lane of the road. The honking persisted, blaring and trailing off as the other car traveled down the opposite lane, expressing what she considered to be a petty anger when compared to her own.

Emily flipped the other driver the bird and took a long, greedy drag from her cigarette to cool off.

She always found it strange how little such near-death experiences like this never really fazed her. Some part of her was always prepared to die. Hell, the other part of her was already dead.

All the nights she had spent alone ever since Julian’s death, looking out over the nightly skyline of L.A., she had gone through every single stage—from wanting to die, over not seeing a purpose in life anymore, to wanting someone to pay, and ending up with a fire flaring up deep down inside of her, fueled by her darkest thoughts and fantasies. A fire that made her swear more than she ever used to; a fire that motivated her and would drive her to ever greater heights in her career.

Telling the truth, no matter how much it hurt. Exposing lies and toppling the liars. Bringing down all those awful pyramids of deception, tearing down the walls of filth built by the life-thieves and the soul-violators. Destroying the machinery of oppression fabricated by the real monsters of this world.

Her thoughts spiraled. The moment she realized she was thinking about her quest for truth and revealing the darkness to the world, no sooner did she remember that Shaw was to blame for her current anger. Emily had always been angry with the world: corrupt politicians feeding their fat faces, greedy psychopaths running the business world, and selfish assholes walking all over the downtrodden were everywhere. They didn’t even lurk in the shadows—no, the ghouls just lived in our very midst, normalizing their wicked ways and turning people jaded to the point of not caring anymore.

Every time she blinked, another six such shit-sticks just sprung into existence somewhere else.

While smoking cooled her down, it couldn’t put a lid on the boiling pot of rage bubbling in her belly region.

The whole ordeal of this prison visit alone would have been enough to make her mad, just thinking about it.

Short visiting hours. She had had to make an appointment over a month in advance. Fill out huge forms and provide copies of all sorts of personal documents. Wait for approval. Get all sorts of instructions on what she was allowed to wear or not: no orange, no underwire bra, no yoga pants, no sleeveless shirts, no open toes.

Luckily, her childhood friend Carlos had warned her about all this from his short stint in working at a different prison in the past. They might have just turned her away the moment she showed up if she didn’t meet all of their ridiculous requirements, and put her through the whole rigmarole of applying all over again.

All of this just to schedule a conversation—with her fiancé’s murderer.

Emily snorted, blowing smoke out of her nostrils. She flicked on the radio. An effective distraction would be great, any time now.

An overconfident voice actor spoke, “Enjoy a flat white at a price that’s easier to swallow from the—”

Raspy voice, trained in feigning gravitas, said, “Most of the things I do are misunderstood. Hey, after all, being misunderstood is the fate of all true—”

A dulcet male voice sang, “I’m gonna kick my feet up and stare at the fan, turn the TV on, throw my hand in my pants—”

Annoying advertising. Annoying talking. Annoying pop music. She kept poking the device to switch the channels. At the very least, she could direct her anger at the shallow superficiality of the world of radio entertainment, letting the heat die down somewhat and reducing the boiling of her blood to a low simmer. She avoided any news. News would just add to her anger.

The sunglasses shielded her eyes from the blinding light of the morning sun, still low on the horizon over the woods lining the road.

More smoking, idly ignoring all the chatter and music from the radio, and sitting on the lid to the pot of rage inside of her. Another two hours of driving flew by. The landscape around her transformed along the way, with her Charger exiting the lines of trees and darting over the long roads in the hills, in the middle of nowhere.

Like blacking out, she sighed when she seemingly came to her senses in the lobby where visitors could wait.

The anger was back.

The stupid card machine kept spitting out her dollar bills while she attempted to charge it with money. After the sixth attempt and growing increasingly anxious about the guy breathing down her neck behind her, Emily slapped the top of the device three times.

One of the guards nearby cleared her throat and shot Emily a dirty look. Emily just glared back at her but swallowed a glib remark. Either she wanted to bottle all the anger up and direct it at someone truly deserving, like Shaw, or she didn’t want to get into trouble until she had done such.

In truth, Emily wanted answers. She just wanted to know why Kathryn Shaw had killed. The most mysterious thing about Julian’s death was why Kathryn murdered him. The police said that he had turned her down for repeat requests to conduct further rhinoplasty where other surgeons had already turned her down before, and she had snapped. Bludgeoned him with a tire iron and stuffed him into the trunk of her car.

Finally, the card reader swallowed her cash. Emily groaned and muttered more profanities under her breath and left, engulfed in a cloud of mounting frustration and volatile impatience. The man waiting in line behind her dodged away a full step when she glared at him while she took a walk to the vending machines.

Thinking about the circumstances of Julian’s death did the opposite of helping her temper or curbing any anger.

Supposedly, Kathryn had thought that beating Julian over the back of his head had only knocked him unconscious. In truth, he must have died slowly in her trunk. Painfully. The police detective Emily talked to didn’t say it in those exact words, but she knew enough to piece it together.

Not only anger accompanied Emily that day, but something else: fear.

Fear that she might lose control and do something like strangling Kathryn. Also, a fear of seeing the face of a murderer who had had so much surgery done that Emily only saw her visage as an accurate and frightening representation of what Kathryn truly was deep down—a monster.

The crazy bitch had killed her Julian because he refused to help her continue destroying her own damned face? The choleric reporter wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. It was so simple. Too mundane.

Maybe Kathryn Shaw could offer the straight dope. Maybe Emily could tickle it out of her, provoke her into spilling something she wouldn’t admit to the authorities. Maybe something darker.

Another wave of fury washed over her when she stood at the vending machines to get some snacks and something to drink. Everything cleaned out—empty. Nothing for her to buy after wasting cash on the stupid card machine?

Fuck this place, she thought. Fuck the entire prison system.

Under normal circumstances, she would have blurted that out; released her rage at one of the people working here. However, she wanted to avoid sabotaging her chances at speaking to Kathryn. Not only had the private penitentiary made this visit an absurd chore, she had had to get through lengthy talks with Shaw’s lawyers to get this going without outside interference.

Emily had signed waivers and papers just to promise she wouldn’t be using or publishing anything that transpired in this meeting.

In a huff, she sat down in the waiting area. Checked her emails on her phone to find another way of distracting herself. Canceled interview meeting. Bill. Bill. Bank complaining about her account being in the red. Bill. Advertisements. Annoying newsletter. Complaints about details on an invoice. Just a swamp of unanswered, unread messages she could not have cared any less about right now. Still, she found something oddly meditative about sifting through them and getting some of this busywork done.

Until she reached one mail: from an anonymous source in the crime syndicate exposé she was working on. The informant was backing off, chickening out, refusing to meet for a statement.

Emily blacked out. Next thing she knew, the display of her phone was covered in a spiderweb of cracks. Several people in the waiting room stared at her and her surroundings had gone dead silent.

A guard stood next to her and fidgeted, one brow arched as she stared Emily down and said, “Ma'am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you can’t get it together.”

Emily nodded in defeat. Whatever she had just done that resulted in cracking her own phone—shouting? Screaming? Beating inanimate objects? The startled looks from the strangers all around her told her that her outburst had been profound. She also felt a lot calmer, like the valves had opened for a spell and released some of the steam. Judging by everybody’s reactions, she must have given off that exact air.

Though the anger was still there, albeit more subdued.

Emily Graves was an angry person by nature. Always had been. Her best friend Chris never liked how worked up she got when she ranted about anything and turned it into cascading and unstoppable tirades.

Today was different. She had never felt as angry as she did this day.

She did something uncharacteristically different and apologized. Standing beside herself and watching it happen as if she was in a dream, she wondered who in all hell’s name this Emily was—sounding meek and remorseful. But there she was, the other Emily, making sure she’d get through this day far enough to speak with Kathryn Shaw.

The guard left her alone to waiting, and Emily slumped into the hard plastic chair. The light glared too brightly in here for her to decipher anything on the now-cracked display of her phone, so she put it away.

Focus. Breathe.

Focus.

Forcing herself to clear her mind of all thoughts, Emily cycled through the things she had learned in Berkeley. She reverted into the green journalist, melting into the background and observing. Watching.

The waiting area had it all. The facial expressions on the people here, the invisible clouds of air surrounding them, carrying the entire gamut of emotions: joy, sadness, regret, anger, and everything in between. One of the other visitors waiting there emanated with an aura of rage to rival Emily’s own. It somehow helped her cool down herself, seeing this other lady completely self-absorbed in a blinding haze of wrath.

This kind of place could probably do that to anybody.

She took a deep breath and went to the bathroom. Carlos told her that going to the bathroom during the visit itself is a pain of its own, so it was best to get it out of the way immediately.

No mirrors in the restrooms.

Emily splashed her face with cold water. She wanted to smoke really badly. Even though she couldn’t inhale that sweet, sweet poison any time soon, she nervously produced the pack from her pocket book and checked it. Two smokes left; not even halfway through the day.

“One hell of a drive here,” she muttered. Another woman in the restrooms just gave her a funny look, and Emily returned to the waiting area.

Eventually, she was buzzed in.

They stamped her wrist with invisible ink. Allowed her to put all her possessions in a locker. Asked redundant questions. Sent her through the metal detectors, searched her, jammed a plastic pass into her hand. Half of the hurdles made sense to Emily, leaving her to wonder about the other half.

She sat in a small windowless room and waited. The thick doors and walls muffled the repeated buzzing for other visits elsewhere. Emily had expected them to be meeting with a wall of bulletproof glass separating her and Kathryn Shaw, but it looked like the visiting room was just an open space with two entrances—two ominous metal doors.

Table in the center surrounded by rigid plastic chairs, all bolted down.

A guard waited behind her, hands folded in front of her and probably staving off boredom whenever she wasn’t ready to pounce and intervene.

Little to stop Emily from exploding into a fireball and clawing Kathryn’s eyes out.

She wondered how often the guards here had to deal with drama like that. Emily found herself wondering what it would be like to be tased.

The other door opened, interrupting such thoughts, and two people entered. Kathryn, dressed in the orange jumpsuit of the inmates here, hands shackled with cuffs, was directed to the chair on the opposite side of the table. The guard accompanying her took her place behind her next to the other door.

Kathryn’s long blonde hair was frazzled, messy. Her bleary eyes darted around, barely registering Emily. She looked crazy, but not scared or threatening in any way. To the reporter, she looked far more pathetic than she had expected—not that that helped defuse the rage.

So Emily decided to start off simple. Ease Kathryn into things, and hell, herself as well. Maybe she’d keep her anger under control by conducting herself in a professional fashion.

“Hello Kathryn,” she said. Emily pressed her lips together so hard that they turned into thin white strips. “I’m Emily Graves.”

Kathryn nodded and emitted a feeble, “Hi.”

She looked her visitor up and down but evidently did not recognize her.

“I’m a freelance reporter who has worked for a few major outlets in California.”

Kathryn’s eyes went wide. Emily expected her to shrink from that, but triggered something else entirely. Kathryn nodded emphatically—excitedly. She was thrilled.

D-list celebrity alright. Probably thought she was going to get “justice” or exposure to use in her memoirs, or God only knew what.

“Now, just to be clear, I’m not here in a professional capacity,” Emily said, trying to suss out if Kathryn still had enough marbles left in her noggin for her to speak with her regular vocabulary, or if she had to dial down her language to the level she’d use for someone certifiable.

Kathryn’s face, disfigured from years and an excess of plastic surgery, scrunched up in confusion. She nodded some more, signaling Emily to continue.

“I came here because—”

Emily choked on the words. She choked on the thoughts. Instead of rage welling up, her mind flashed back to the moment when the coroner pulled out the metal slab. The slab on which a dead body lay.

She swallowed, hard.

She remembered the day she identified Julian’s body in the morgue, in the company of Detective Tanner.

Pale, lifeless, hopeless. Dead. Shattered skull. Shattered dreams.

Shattered heart.

Was her heart racing with terror, or slowing to a halt?

Kathryn just looked at her through wide eyes, expecting something. Something more. Something that immediately disgusted Emily.

Attention.

It brought the anger back. The simmering turned back up, like stepping on the gas pedal and revving the engine. The roar of the motor. The pressure of gravity, of speed, of powerful motion. Pouring gasoline into the fire.

“I came because you murdered my fiancé, Julian. I—I just need to know. I need to know why.”

Kathryn nodded some more, like a deranged toddler trapped in a horrific grown woman’s body. Then her nodding transformed into her shaking her head quickly. She squinted as she continued to shake her head in disbelief.

“No, Doctor Stone is fine. I didn’t murder anybody!”

Emily blinked, letting that sink in. She disbelieved the disbelief. The world slowed down to a halt. The imaginary car she was driving in crashed into a solid brick wall in slow motion. Scrap parts exploded into a dazzling rain of metallic fireworks.

The flames flared up. The stream of gasoline being poured into it caught fire. It traveled upwards, in slow motion, just like the car crashing into the wall.

The rage boiled. The lid shuddered, clattered. Emily’s heart was racing indeed, pounding like thunder. Like those Japanese drums.

“Listen, honey, I’ll be out soon and with my lawyers, we’ll clear this all up, just you wait and see. I’m so sorry about what I did. I lost it and—well, things worked out in the end, yeah? I’m sure Doctor Stone will do what I asked him for then, and we’ll find a way to—”

The rushing of blood in Emily’s ears drowned out this crazy bitch’s words. The world narrowed, with darkness encroaching from the edges of her field of vision until everything had turned into a tunnel, with the only light at the end of it consisting of this monster’s artificial-looking face.

The tunnel collapsed. Complete darkness. Just the pounding of those drums, the beating of her heart.

The sound that the human hand makes when hitting flesh is strange. Like a wet bag filled with raw meat slapping onto a hard kitchen counter. That association only registered with Emily with delay.

She must have slapped or punched Kathryn multiple times before the guards pried her away. Signing papers and getting reprimanded were things that came back to her later. Emily walked out of that hellhole, putting on her sunglasses again as broad daylight from the merciless sun instantly gave her a headache. Or maybe it was the dehydration coupled with the rage. Her mouth felt as dry as Death Valley looked.

She had lost time. Her wrists hurt, she had been detained temporarily. Someone told her this was not uncommon. Warned her, told her not to show her face there again. Said she was lucky Shaw’s lawyers wouldn’t end up pressing charges, because she’d probably forget what happened by dinner time.

Emily sat on the hood of the Charger, smoking. Only one cigarette left and four hours of driving back to Los Angeles ahead of her. A veritable tower of ash formed at the end of the glimmering little death-stick between her fingers. Her ears still rang with the aftereffects of adrenaline and rage.

In her mind, she went to and fro, like liquid sloshing back and forth in a bucket. Like the gasoline, always threatening to spill over the edge and fall into the flames; threatening to feed that all-devouring fire. She struggled to piece together what had happened but a burning darkness blotted out parts of those memories.

It couldn’t have been too bad or she might have gotten arrested on the spot. Or maybe the guards took pity on her, having a hunch about what was going on there. Or maybe this entire world was so callous and cruel that nobody truly gave a damn.

Whatever had truly happened in that cold claustrophobic room with the uncomfortably cool air conditioning, it had not helped Emily. Not at all.

She had walked out of Starkford with answers less satisfying than the meager ones she had entered with. She hated the concept of America’s prison system, but a more sadistic part of her hoped that Kathryn would suffer and rot in there for the rest of her miserable life.

Emily stamped out the cigarette, grinding it with her heel with extreme prejudice, and got behind the wheel again.

Speeding might help. Her addiction made her mentally check at which gas station she’d stop next to buy more smokes. Getting back to work, perhaps following up on the Mancini “murder house” next—maybe these things would get her mind off of the hell that was living on this God-forsaken planet, hurtling through space until the sun died and the heat death of the universe ended everything.

Or maybe just drowning everything in a bottle of whiskey.

But everything Emily enjoyed at this point was self-destructive.

Nothing would truly help. None of it would quench the fires of her rage.

Just pour more gasoline into the flames.

She revved the engine. The tires screeched and the Charger sped away.

—Submitted by Wratts

Constellations Against Skin

n.t.

“You hold him in your arms, a thousand stars in the bones of a man, and nobody could have thought you’d come so close to holding constellations against your skin.”

Dean Winchester X Reader; Castiel X Reader

Soulmate AU

[AO3] [Chapter List]

You start your new case with the boys and flirt your way into a crime scene. Dean seems stressed about something.

Five: Mask

You and Sam bolt awake at the exact same time the next morning, half past three.

You’re in a cold sweat, fire and grief rushing through your chest and holding your heart in a chokehold. You could hear your own heartbeat pounding too-loud in your ears and felt tears burning on the edge of your eyes.

And on the bed across from you was Sam, sat awake in exactly the same way, the glow of the neon sign outside outlining him in pale blue. His breaths came out in short, shallow pants, and if you’d bothered to look hard enough you would have seen the sheen of sweat and not-shed tears on him.

The two of you stared at each other for a moment.

"Did you-" He started, a concerned upturn taking over his brows before took a deep breath, seeming to steady himself. "Did you see all that?"

"Yeah," You said softly, throwing off your sheets and curling your arms around your knees. It was too hot all of a sudden. "Sorry."

You didn't know what else you could possibly say to him. Someone else's dream had never been so loud before - it completely ignored the charm you still wore around your neck, pounding against the inside of your skull like drums, almost desperate to escape. Unfamiliar energy permeated the thoughts like oil on a shirt that refused to wash out. But it was energy that wasn’t Sam’s. It felt like acid poured down your throat and the smell of blood, instead of sea-breeze and old parchment like you would expect of something coming out of Sam’s head.

Something real weird was going on here.

But you’d experienced the nightmare just as he had, regardless of where it came from.

So, yeah, you felt bad for feeling all of this. For reliving how his soulmate had died right in front of your eyes. Sam’s eyes. And that hadn’t been yours to see. But you felt like crying for her nonetheless, like his grief was your own, threatening to swallow you up. You were so going to puke if you didn’t calm down here.

There was a reason you wore the necklace. To prevent yourself from feeling everyone else's shit. You put your forehead on the clammy skin of your arms that were still resting against your knees, and took a few deep, shuddering breaths to steady yourself. You were okay. Your soulmate was not on fire on some dorm ceiling.

"Please don’t tell Dean." Sam's voice brought you out of yourself, and his voice sounded uncharacteristically small in the darkness of the early morning.

“That you had a nightmare?” You whispered back, sparing a glance at Dean - you were just barely able to make out his form near the TV stand, where he was currently sleeping like a log.

“I don’t want him to worry, okay?" Exasperated, tired and concerned all at once. "Please, just… leave it be.”

“Of course,” You murmured, staring blankly into the darkness and massaging at the tension coiled in your shoulders. “But how often does this happen, exactly?”

He was quiet for a moment, and almost sounded sheepish. “Almost every night,” You just barely caught the words. “Sorry.”

Great. Just your luck.

Even more reason to solve this case fast, you guess.

You scrunched up your whole face in an ugly way. “I guess we’re both sorry, huh?”

You figured you might as well do something and rolled out of bed, kneeling next to your bag and feeling around for the soft paper of an old book and a reading light.

“Yeah.” Sam stood up behind you and quietly padded to the bathroom, getting changed into gym clothes and leaving not long after. All he gave you was a quick, awkward wave goodbye before he went for a run.

You just sighed and settled into the crackley hotel sheets, opening your book and letting the familiar words relax you even as Dean snored in the background.

Sam still wasn’t back by five am, when you couldn't keep your eyes open anymore despite your resolution to wait up for him. But your head was bobbing up and down, eyes pulling closed like they were glued to lead weights, and you were falling asleep for seconds, maybe minutes at a time before jarring yourself back awake, just to repeat the cycle again.

Eventually your eyes sealed shut and you didn't open them again until the next morning.

…

But when you woke up to your alarm at six-thirty, cheek still smashed against the book you fell asleep on, Sam was already sitting at the tiny motel table, already up and dressed in his cheap FBI outfit. Probably didn’t get any more rest last night judging by the bags under his eyes.

How he pulled off the Fed thing with that hair was a mystery to you. He didn't even comb it back.

You yawned loudly and blearily pushed yourself up, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. Dean was doing the same on the floor, cracking like ten joints as he stretched out. Ow.

He commented on his brother’s early start, and you said nothing. Minded your own business and unfolded your suit in silence, even when Dean asked him what was wrong. You weren’t one to spill personal business - not anymore. It was Sam’s job to deal with it, not yours.

Ever since you'd gotten back to hunting last year you'd been more tight-lipped than you'd ever been. Told yourself you would never tell secrets that weren’t yours ever again, unless keeping your mouth shut would get someone hurt. And Sam having nightmares wasn’t going to hurt anyone but you.

So you held your tongue.

Didn’t mean you weren’t worried about him, though, especially when you were going to suffer through it with him for the time being. But you didn’t know how much you could do to help even if you tried. As much you could do with your powers, you couldn’t stop nightmares. Just live through them.

You rubbed at the knot in your neck from falling asleep on your book and went to the bathroom, resolving as you brushed your teeth to be quick about this hunt. You were going to go crazy if you stayed with the Winchesters for too long, you just knew it, between sleep deprivation and near constant Dean-induced heart palpitations. You were so fucked.

Shrugging on your too-crisp white button up, you cringed at the feeling of the stiff cotton. It was unwavering, and wrinkled weirdly when you moved, and the whole Fed getup just made you feel like some goody-two-shoes local politician. Or like you were back in that relentless fucking Catholic school.

But dressing up was just as much as part of the job as anything else. Unfortunately. So you dealt with the indignity of wearing businessman's wool for the sake of the case. You weren't a coward. You could handle wearing a blazer for a few hours. Totally. Not a problem. Didn’t make you want to shake out of your skin at all.

Then you reached for your boring, standard government-issue gun - your normal piece was actually nice to look at, but was too flashy - and nestled it beside the front of your hip bone. You preferred your normal leather side holster, but this thin spandex junk was the only thing that fit under the damn suit. Stupid.

“So do we have a story as to why there’s three of us?” You raised your voice loud enough for the boys to hear you through the bathroom door as you scrubbed a bit of ink off of your face. “Or do I have to think of it myself?”

A short pause.

“We could just tell the truth,” Sam rang from the bedroom as you started wrestling with your hair. How had it even done that? “That it’s your first case back after you were injured. Keep it simple.”

“I don’t wanna seem incompetent or something, though.” You frowned and dabbed on a bit of makeup. Just enough to be convincing. You'd never been super great at it - being on the road left you with few opportunities to practice, and there was only so much room in your bag. So you kept it simple. Professional. “Maybe I’m a criminal profiler.”

“We’re the agents and you’re the shrink? That could work.” That was Dean, eloquent as always. He hadn't looked you in the eye yet, still, but you were shoving your frustration aside for the sake of peace. Again. Old habits, you supposed. "You know enough psychobabble for that?"

"Honey, I grew up surrounded by foster kids." You smiled smugly and sauntered out of the bathroom in your dark, tailored suit: straight-leg pants that fit you perfectly and blazer that pulled in at the waist without being restrictive. You didn’t wear a tie. You wouldn’t wear a tie under threat of death. "I know all the psychobabble."

Then you sat on the bed while Dean took his turn, pulling on your classic men’s dress shoes, in a size that actually fit you, with the best insoles you could afford slipped into them. God only knew if you would need to run in these bad boys. You were not wearing heels to a ghost hunt, even if they made you feel sexy.

You ignored the quirked brow in your direction from Dean on his way past you, trying not to think about everything that could be running through his head. If he wanted to be weird you would let him. You would just drink your coffee in silence and not look at each other at all. Perfectly normal.

Though you did almost have a heart attack when Dean walked out a few minutes later in a suit of his own. Hoo boy. Just imagine how good he would look in a decent tux. The cheap thing he was wearing now did almost nothing for him, but the thought of grabbing his tie and pulling him into a heated kiss practically made you salivate.

It was fucking pavlovian how you reacted to this man. It was starting to get stupid.

You were starting to wonder if you actually should’ve taken this case.

You took a deep breath and fought the urge to offer to buy the boys new, nicer suits. You swallowed it down with your shitty motel coffee. That would be light-years beyond weird. Normal people didn't bring co-workers to tailors to get them expensive suits.

Not like you hadn't done it before, but still. You were trying to distance yourself from shit like that. And your cash flow was a joke compared to before.

You just turned around too quickly and grabbed your notepad, catching Sam's raised-eyebrow smirk all the way from the door. His eyes glinted and you swore that he was chuckling under his breath.

Asshole thought this was funny. You shoved your way past him and your face felt hot.

He was so on to you.

Thankfully you were at the crime scene not long after that, thanks to Dean’s reckless driving. It was an old, cute, Victorian style home turned frat-house, with more than enough rooms for the small chapter. Crime scene tape cordoned off the otherwise empty front porch from the jarringly normal neighborhood around you. The eerie, oppressive kind of normal.

A young, blonde police officer with an undercut stood in front of the house like a sentry, thumbs hooked in her belt loops as she scrutinized everyone walking past. Including you.

Her name plate read Officer Wilson. And she... was very buff. And had a hell of a jawline.

You ignored the fact she could probably bench lift you, and how that made your insides melt into a pile of useless gay goop, and let Dean talk to her instead. He flashed his badge at her and you and Sam followed suit. “Agent Buck, FBI. These are Agents Stipe and Mills. We need access to the crime scene.”

“We didn’t get any calls about the FBI comin’ up here.” She narrowed her eyes at the three of you, the same dissecting gaze from before falling across you. Then she paused suddenly, brown eyes shooting sharp like daggers at Dean. “And don’t you normally come in pairs?”

“We sent notice yesterday,did it not go through?” Sam handed her a card, smiling placatingly in that way he does. “You can call our supervisor, if you really need to, but he’s very busy and I don’t think he would be too happy.”

She made a humming noise in the back of her throat, obviously unconvinced.

Time to turn up the charm, then. You had a good feeling about this.

“Hi, Officer Wilson, right? I’m Agent Mills! It's a shame to meet in such unfortunate circumstances, but I can't say I regret it.” You put on your best charming smile and shot her a wink, flipping your hair slightly and tilting your head in what you hoped was an appealing manner. “I’m actually the reason we’re here. You see, I’m a psychoanalyst. Agents Buck and Stipe are here to investigate while I build a profile. This might be connected to a case in Louisiana, and it’s essential that we see the crime scene and autopsy in person.” You leaned in conspiratorially, voice low, like you’re not supposed to be telling her this, before you lightly rested your hand on her forearm. You caught the way her eyes wandered downward, stopping to linger on your best features. There was a reason you'd gotten this suit fitted the way you did, after all. You licked your lips to get her attention back on your face. “Have to be sure we don’t have a murderer crossing state lines. You understand.”

She half-heartedly looked at your ID one more time before her lips spread into a coy smile, and she nodded towards the door. “Of course, Agent,” She moved over and unlocked it, before leading you three up the creaky stairs to the primary crime scene - Corey’s pigsty of a bedroom. “Let me know if you need anything else, Agent Mills.” She gave you a lingering look, her hand brushing your arm gently as she left the room and you just about died on the spot, swallowing hard.

You saw how Sam eyed the exchange with furrowed brows. You didn't catch Dean's burning look behind you.

Well, that was one way to get inside a crime scene.

When she was back outside Sam turned to you while Dean hurried off to the other side of the room. “How did you know that would work?"

"Educated guess." You shrugged, tilting your head and peering at the dried blood on the sheets instead of facing the relatively minor heat of his gaze. It had crusted up on either side of where the body was before the coroner got their hands on it, forming two distinct blobs on the bed.

Sam didn't seem very convinced.

You busied yourself by rummaging around the cluttered moving boxes, looking for anything that might tell you why Corey was targeted. Dean's EMF was going nuts in the corner, and you pulled out yours to see if you could find anything the ghost might've touched directly, apart from the bed, which sent the thing haywire.

The cardboard boxes full of random shit were barely registering at all. Nothing on his desk seemed out of place, all normal. It wasn't until you moved to the nightstand that your meter really started screaming.

Woah.

You hovered around, trying to hone in on what was making it go off so much, until you landed on a scrap of fabric. You picked it up with furrowed brows, turning it over in your hands.

A face mask?

A cloth face mask with Oni-style teeth, like something a k-pop artist would wear.

Now why did that seem familiar?

"It seems like Corey here wasn't as nice as everyone thinks." Sam's said from off to your right, interrupting your thoughts. Your eyebrows shot up as you turned to see him holding a shoebox in one hand and a photo in the other. He held one up so you could see. "Upskirts."

“Dude, you didn’t need to show me that.” You wrinkled your nose. Gross.

Sam just shrugged at you.

"We've had ghosts target people for their secrets before," Dean called from the window, thankfully interrupting the exchange, and still looking for whatever was making the EMF spike over by him. "We thinking something like that?"

You sighed and ran your hand through your hair, messing it up from it's professional look and immediately regretting it. Now you would have to find a mirror, damn it. "I guess it'll depend on what kind of suspicious deaths we can find in the area."

"That sounds like a good job for you guys!" Dean clapped and shot some finger guns at you and Sam.

No.

You stood up and put a hand on your hip. "I've just spent the last month and a half doing research." You pointed a finger at him, and you knew you looked like some lame mom scolding their child but you didn’t really care. "I'm going to the autopsy."

Sam sighed behind you, seemingly resigned to his fate. "I'll hit up the library, you guys go to the ME's office."

"Are you sure?"

Now you felt bad.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, whatever."

"You're the best, dude," You grinned stupidly. It should not make you this happy to see a dead body, honestly. But you'd never claimed to be the most sane person on the planet.

On your way out Officer Wilson gave you a cheeky smile and some waggled eyebrows. You winked back at her, trying not to feel smug.

Sam was giving you that weird look again and you flushed, turning to the car and not looking back.

Oh no. You needed to turn down your flirt. Shit. They didn't need to know you played for both teams. You didn't need to be rejected as soon as you found friends.

So you stayed quiet all the way to the autopsy, even after you left Sam to wade through public records by himself at the library. Dean wasn’t feeling too chatty either, his hands gripping the steering wheel tight and tension in his whole body.

You nervously picked at the pilling wool fibers on your pants. Maybe he’d heard you and Sam last night. Or maybe you were bad at keeping your blush down when confronted with buff women. Maybe both. Either way you felt the nerves taking up the space where air should’ve been inside your lungs.

The ME's Office was nestled in a corner between a scuzzy looking record shop and a barely-standing post office. As soon as you walked in the smell of formaldehyde hit you like a truck, making your lips curl and eyes water. Great.

That always bode well for a place's hygiene standards, at least, if not their consideration for the living.

It was easy enough to talk yourself into the back to see the body; the clerk didn't even care enough to look at your IDs. Wasn't paid enough to give a shit, you guessed. And the place didn't get much funding from the look of it.

Only about half the noisy fluorescent lights even worked, and the floor tiles needed a hell of a wash. Dark brown stains of God knows what caked thick in the grout. Eugh. There goes your hope that the smell meant they actually disinfected the place.

You were so dousing yourself in hand sanitizer when you got back to the motel. You would think with all the college money coming in the town could afford better facilities, but you'd never put it past Bureaucracy to be inefficient.

The Medical Examiner, Dr. Elliot, was pushing eighty years old and hunched over so far he almost resembled a candy cane. His hands were gnarled with arthritis but didn't shake so much as a hair's width. His scraggly white hair looked ready to roll off his head and become a tumbleweed. Like Doc Brown plus fifteen or so years.

"It's about time!" He smiled so wide his dentures almost popped out when he saw you two walk in and you bit back a laugh. "It's not every day we get a good murder. I was expecting the FBI to show up days ago."

You wouldn't mention that the murder only happened a day and a half ago.

"...Right," Dean smiled good naturedly as Dr. Elliot pulled Corey Matheson's body from a metal drawer. "It's been a while since the last murder in town, then?"

"Oh yes, not since the Homecoming of ninety-two. Nasty business, two football players who took a fight off the field. The poor kid from Mountain State had a massive brain hemorrhage and died a full two days later." He sighed and pulled down the sheet covering the body. "Poor boys didn't even see it coming."

"And what was the cause of death here?" You leaned in to look at the victim's face. Only five or so years younger than you but he just looked like a kid. A creepy kid, but still a damn kid. "And I'll need to take a few photos myself for my notes."

"Go ahead," he waved at the body and walked back over to his desk, grabbing his report from a filing cabinet. You pulled out your Polaroid camera from your messenger bag and shot a picture of the wound cut into Corey's face - a smile from one ear to the other.

"Cause of death was exsanguination. Out of the nine stab wounds to the torso, three hit the heart, and another four hit major veins and arteries. He would've bled out in less than a minute." He gestured to the face. "Facial lacerations caused after death, and not with a scalpel. Maybe a kitchen knife or other relatively dull cutting instrument. No wounds anywhere else on him."

"That's odd," You pressed your lips into a thin line at that, brows almost touching. "No defensive wounds?"

"None to be seen. Fit as a fiddle but for the fact he's dead."

"Right." You let out a snort through your nose before coughing into your elbow to cover it up. "Thank you for your help."

"Oh, no problem at all! I'm always happy to have visitors!"

You matched his smile, turning back to give him a tiny wave on the way out.

There was a niggling feeling in the back of your mind. A familiar ring to the gruesome smile cut into a face that sent your thoughts reeling, wracking through memories of your old cases for anything similar.

You turned to Dean as he pulled out of the lot. "Does any of this feel oddly familiar to you?"

He shrugged and shook his head. He seemed a bit less tense than earlier. "Not more than any other case."

You hummed, sinking back into the depths of your memories, thinking over the case the whole drive to the motel.

Sam was there when you got back, eyes half-glazed from staring at the computer for so long. He must’ve walked back from the library by himself.

"Find anything?" Dean shrugged off his jacket and you tried not to stare at his arms.

"Just that Corey had some complaints in high school that didn't lead anywhere." He pinched the bridge of his nose, then rubbed at his sinuses. You moved over to your nightstand, grabbing at a small bag on top. "No murders that match, though. Or suicides."

“Like, at all?” Dean’s eyebrows went quirky.

“No,” Sam continued as you rifled through your med pack for some Tylenol. Your leg felt like it was on fire - you would have to try and walk less tomorrow. “But he has a sister that goes to Pikes. Working on her Asian Studies Masters. Works as a TA year-round.”

“Asian Studies?” Dean had a stupid, dopey look on his face. “Sounds like my kinda deal.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Dude.” Sam sounded like he was about to start something, but you started talking before he could.

“We should talk to her, then,” You said plainly, finally finding the meds and swallowing them dry - you’d gotten used to it. You wiped your mouth and started again. “Maybe we can see if something from their hometown hitched a ride. Is she on-campus?”

Sam glanced at the computer for a moment before looking back at you. “No, she lives in an apartment on the other side of town.”

You stood up with a wince, grabbing all your things again even though you’d just sat down. “Let's go then.”

“Woah, there, Speedy Gonalez,” Dean eyed your right leg and you crossed your arms defensively. “Why don’t we wait a bit and have some lunch?”

You huffed, sitting down on your bed again. “Sure. Whatever.”

You weren’t going to fight him on this, but you weren’t going to say you were in pain.

He clapped his hands. “Alright, are we thinking the diner up the street?”

A sigh and a nod from Sam, leaving you outvoted no matter what you said.

Greasy diner food it was.

A/N:  Hm, jeez, I wonder why Dean is so tense. Lol my poor babies.

This chapter brought to you by sheer force of will. This thing did not want to be written. Been banging my head against a wall for a week trying to get it longer than a thousand words. My college has switched to online for the rest of the semester and that's... been something. My seventy-five year old geography professor delayed the test because he doesn't know how our online system works. So here's to hoping it's not a horrible, scrambled mess when it does come out.

So, anyone have ideas or predictions? And what have you been occupying your time with in self-isolation? I've picked Pokemon back up and have taken up cross-stitch!

As always, thank you so much for reading, and have a nice day! <3

Marching to the Beat of a Handmaid’s Drum

A pro-choice manifesto... by a dude

_________________________________________________________________

Freedom of choice. It’s as American as apple pie, baseball, and watered-down beer. As Americans, we get to choose what we buy, where we eat, who we love, whether or not we like someone based on their opinion of The Office… You get where I’m going. Exercising your choice is a great display of your patriotism and love for this nation.

Sometimes our freedom of choice gets ripped away from us. It can happen when the grocery store you frequent decides to stop carrying your favorite brand of powdered mashed potatoes (I’ll never forgive you, Kroger!). But sometimes, it gets ripped away by the very people who took an oath to serve you and protect all of your freedoms, even the ones that live in a gray area.

Avoiding human interaction and wasting time on my phone has never been more obnoxious. Between all the President’s shit-tweeting, to our planet being on fire, to all of the other depressing shit going on, just even trying to read the news sends my pulse into a near-fatal death spiral. It’s hard to find a good pick me up and dog videos and other real-life blooper reels can only get you so far.

But speaking of death spirals…

Let’s discuss the latest thing to fall into one, the freedom to make a different kind of choice, a woman’s right to body autonomy and abortion.

(Okay liberals, before you get all bent out of shape, I know I’m just another privileged cisgendered white man who deserves to be burnt at the stake and for that reason, you may ignore everything I write and instead sit and yell at your screen so others know you have a black belt in woke-jitsu. Trust me, same team. Kumbaya and shit.)

This whole abortion debate has me pretty fucking confused. First, wasn’t this shit settled back in ‘73? And second, I thought this was America, where we have freedoms so great terrorists hate us and the government was supposed to keep their noses out of our business? Whatever happened to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” The American dream? What the fuck America? Is Lady Liberty too strung out on God, guns, and OxyContin to remember the hood she came from?

Making laws that hinder a woman’s individual liberty is some shit that isn’t exclusive to state governments. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, fucking ISIS, all have laws intended to keep women subservient and powerless over their own life. At least they’re honest about their theocratic motivations. What say you, Georgia, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, Utah, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas? The dumpster fire of Ohio is even trying to take it one step further with a bill that, in a way, caters to the religious right’s push for abstinence by equating any contraceptive that prevents fertilization to abortion. Fortunately for me, the bill makes no mention of a situation sock.

I have to ask, do the politicians that are supporting these laws actually think that they’re going to really stop anything? The people that think its wrong or don’t want one are already not getting abortions. Sure, it might put a dent in overall numbers and make law-abiding citizens think twice before getting the procedure, but no law will ever stop it completely. History has shown time and time again that trying to legislate morality is futile. Prohibition, the drug war, bestiality- all failed attempts at controlling the morality of the sovereign by the political class. Abortion is no different. Women got them before Roe v. Wade, and I’ll bet that they’ll get them after these laws take effect. It might help some of these pro-lifers sleep at night knowing that they have done something to protect the life of an innocent child, but is restricting human rights worth saving the potential life of an unborn fetus?

First off, that child you’re hell-bent on protecting might just end up to be a real asshole. We all know a few. It might become a drain on society, or be a mass murderer, a drug addict, war criminal, or even worse, a Democrat. Will it be worth all your zealotry then? Will it be worth saving that life that then becomes all the other things you despise? What if the child needs your help getting by, or being fed, or getting a good public education? Are you going to be pro-life then? Or are you going to complain they aren’t a desirable example of a human being and a bad American? It seems easy to want to protect that life while still in the womb, but it’s apparently much harder to want to help that same life flourish.

That’s my main problem with pro-lifers. They say they’re all about life being born and we should do everything we can to protect the ones that can’t speak for themselves, yet when it comes to actually helping a life outside of the womb, then all attempts are deemed socialist and unamerican. Universal healthcare. Fuck that. Raising the minimum wage to a living wage, communist. Programs that would help the less fortunate and end a cycle of poverty, nope. What about the life that already exists? Shouldn’t it be important to help protect the mother from having to potentially raising a child alone or when they’re already struggling to make it? Dare I even mention that in cases of rape, the woman would always have a constant reminder of that incident, or that the rapist still has parental rights?

I’ll take a pro-lifer seriously when they openly condemn war, capital punishment, factory farming, eating meat, pollution, racism, sexism, police violence, poverty, hunger. Until then, I don’t think you can truly label yourself pro-life. All you can label yourself is pro-childbirth. Or pro-government control. Statistically speaking, most women who get abortions are already poor or misfortunate. Many of these children forced into this world will be brought up poor (Poverty affects health. Look it up.), or raised in an abusive home, have parents that neglect them or are addicted to drugs. How is that a good thing? What is so great about having to live that way?

It’s nice to want everyone to have the same values as you when you live in a nice suburb with decent schools and a healthy tax base, but when every day is a struggle and surviving isn’t that easy, your decision making and sense of what’s right changes. It shouldn’t be anybody else’s prerogative to dictate how others live their lives.

We should be moving society in a direction where abortions aren't really desired. There are ways we can do that but many of the same people that want to ban abortion don’t want to pony up some more money on their tax bill to do so but are willing to make sure they pay for extra law enforcement and jail for those that violate their will. Instead, it seems we’re totally fine with moving back to a time where women had less control over their own lives. Barefoot and pregnant seems to be the baseline for how these politicians view women.

So maybe instead of being assholes and restricting a woman’s freedom, find other ways to minimize the number of abortions in this country. How about allowing for easier access to birth control, especially in poorer neighborhoods? How about funding comprehensive sex education? Genital mutilation-free male birth control. That one’s easy, mix it straight into Viagra. Boom. Done. You’re welcome science. Invest in better public schools and higher education, more homeless shelters, addiction treatment facilities, psychiatric hospitals, and jobs programs. Expand taxpayer-funded healthcare for all. Give handjobs a better PR team. Literally, anything is better than resorting to stripping rights away. Show a little humanity.

Even though you might not agree with the practice, there are benefits to turning the other cheek. Studies have shown that access to abortion helps lower poverty and crime. Fewer people will be brought into the world at a disadvantage which means society as a whole gets better. Fewer children in foster care (which is expensive, by the way). Less money needed for social programs. Less crime, so fewer spent on prisons. This is a bottom-up problem and it is deserving of bottom-up solutions. Instead of acting like the morality police, take some time, know why these things happen, understand and act with some compassion.

I know that as a man, I don’t really have a say in what women do with their own bodies. It’s none of my fucking business, and it’s none of yours too. I'm not making an argument as to what constitutes a human life and whether or not it should be considered murder. That’s a whole other discussion. I’m making the case that as a sovereign adult citizen of the self-proclaimed “free-est country on the planet” a woman should have the actual freedom to make a decision that will serve their own best interest and do it safely.

Showing resistance to this display of power and control is needed, perhaps now more than ever. If you agree with a woman’s right to choose, if you believe in self-governance and freedom, then take to the streets, be obnoxious, vote the fuckers responsible out of office, make your voices heard in the most annoying ways possible. Act like the gun nuts. Because you never know what the dicks in Washington will try to take away next.

Having an informed and motivated populace is what the government fears. You have power. You have a voice. Use them.

um so… i woke up thinking of this old friend. she was like best friends w my bad ex? like i used to hang out w her like crazy. she was rly nice? mostly? tho she def had this issue where she didn’t rly know what she wanted in life. and let other ppls warped judgements of “how ppl should act” rub off on her.

like i remember times she would more or less call me a lazy piece of shit to my face. like it was somehow “understood”? but then i’d be like “why are u calling me that?” and she wouldn’t know. bc it wasn’t her actual opinion. she liked who i was. idk she was just rly confused. i think her brother was a cop. her dad was emotionally neglecting and like conservative or militant? i remember her always wanting to smoke pot but also saying “drugs are bad™”. she was someone who u could tell always wanted to be free but was held back by the opinions of the people around her.

especially her on again off again bf? i… didn’t like him. he wanted to grow up to be a politician. he only listened to classic rock. he looked and acted like a conservative wanabee eric foreman from that 70s show, but somehow even worse. he had her convinced that her dream was to be “a loving housewife”… it made me sick. i remember how he tried to convince her to stop hanging out w her best friend and me JUST bc she smoked pot. bc “she was an evil hippie and bad”. i mean tbh she SHOULD have stopped hanging out w my bad ex, but for completely dif reasons. like he was def that kinda guy. a selfish, immature, stubborn, self-righteous idiot. but he was the first guy to ever rly like her. and she had… self esteem issues. i remember how she would… was always waiting for him to decide to wanna go out w her. she seemed so lonely.

her and i were kinda friends separately from my bad ex (lets call her “A”). so one time i remember she ended up coming over to hang w me n watch rocky horror in my room? it was rly fun tbh!! we were having a great time! it was totally innocent! but i remember at one point she like… got weird. got up. and was like “im sorry i think i’m being a bad person i gotta go”. and left? i didn’t get it at the time? or rather… i think i denied it. she clearly liked me, wanted something to happen that night, and felt like a bad friend for having those thoughts. i never asked her about it but looking back it was p obvious. also A was a control freak n just a bad person… so i wouldn’t be surprised if she told L to stay away from me. even tho A was constantly cheating on me n using everyone around her etc. idk it was complicated.

i also remember another time before her and that guy that became her bf (lets call her “l” and him “m”)… i remember there was some small party at my house and for some horribly embarrassing reason my bad ex (we were still together then) convinced me to mess around w her under a blanket in same room as our other friends? we were all v v drunk. i guess it made others in room feel v lonely n so L and this other girl started like… both making out w the one other guy in the room? it was bizarre. that kind of stuff is fine in some circumstances? but this was rly unhealthy. i remember the guy felt bad and told the other girl he had to stop bc he had always rly liked L and wanted to see where things would go w her? other girl said she was fine w it (and knowing her persona it easily was?) and he ended up napping on floor w L. next day i think she woke up, completely regretted what happened, and ran back to M. it kinda sucked for guy bc he rly cared about her but she never even was willing to talk about what had happened. to her it was just a drunken mistake (i knew she kinda liked him back but obv she was scared).

even w all that stuff, L was a constant member of our hangout group for like… 7 or 8 years straight? idk! it was always rly fun w her! even if, looking back, A constantly was ruining all our fun w her insane bullshit. i have fond memories of 3am park hangouts n just roaming around talking n going on adventures… i’d never cheat on a partner. never have, never will. but i think i did have like… feelings for L that i always ignored? that part of her that… wanted freedom? from those weird family’s/bf’s/society’s ideals that she let chain her down? it was attractive. she was a nice person just doin her best.

anyways i remember around when A and i finally broke up for good (only a month after my dad died, if u wanna know how awful of a person A was). and she ended up taking me aside n warning me that A had been cheating on w me w another guy, but it’d gotten serious w him. and A of course was lying and stringing me along so she could get money n sex from me etc. A using me was p common. but L had had enough and “betrayed A” (did a v nice thing) and told me. i think that was… really what set in motion A and i being done for good. that helped wake me up about what a horrible person A was. and had always been. i’ll always be grateful to L for that. that must’ve been hard for her. and i think her and A’s like 10 year friendship died over that. which rly was a good thing like A was a terrible person.

anyways fast forward like 2? 3?? 4 years? L had gone off to a college out of state w her boyfriend M. she… followed him around. no judgement, but it prob wasn’t good for her. i was in an apartment in another city and me and A had been DONE™ for years. i was still def hurt from the 8+ years of abuse, but i was def over her at least. seeing other ppl regularly. it was def a weird time for me but… that’s another story.

L and i hadn’t rly talked in years. i just didn’t rly associate w ppl A still hung around. i never knew her and L had stopped being friends or i prob woulda kept up w L. i don’t think L and i cut off contact on purpose, but it was just one if those “things”. but L hit me up outta the blue. was like “ back in town do u wanna hang?” and we did! it was rly nice seeing her! we went out and about. idk. we started hanging for a bit. but she… idk she clearly rly enjoyed my company? but also… had those weird judgements. idk.

one time we were hanging and she was at my place and saw all the alcohol i had layin around and was like “hey uhhh can i have some?” and i was like “hehe okay i guess we can drink” and ordered a pizza and we just hung out.

idk but before we got drunk she finally told me why she was back. M, the guy she had followed to college, had done the gross, stereotypical dude thing of breaking up w her right after they both graduated. i got a vibe he had been cheating on her all throughout too. he rly was the type. and as we drank we talked about it. i felt so bad for her. she vented all night. and idk all i remember was we were both v drunk and i think i was… idk why my head was in her lap? but she was playing w my hair. and idk. we kissed. things happened. she seemed so happy w it! i was too. i even stupidly cracked a joke “i bet A would be rly pissed if she saw us rn” and we both laughed. i always regretted sayin it tho bc its not like i was doin it to get back at A.

but i remember we were in my bed making out bc i had accidentally gotten aggressive w her n slammed her into a wall n started kissing her? so hard her nose started bleeding? i felt awful but she LOOOVED it and idk we somehow wound up in bed. idk i kinda regret this. bc… i was having a hard time around then and… just sleeping w all my friends? it just became… clockwork. i would do what i thought my friends wanted me to do regardless of how i felt. i had become kinda a slut.

so i remember like… making out but then i started to escalate things? and i think fir a split second she sobered up and was like “wait lets cool this down a little”. and i was like “okay no prob” and we both tried to go for a walk n find a park? we walked hand in hand and she kept telling me how happy she was? like how… this was the kinda stuff M would never do with her? she was just smiling a lot. it was cute. but i was so drunk n still fairly new to area, so i took her in wrong direction from the park. we ended up giving up n just walking back.

we got back in and thats i think when she sobered up mostly but i wad still out of it? and she realised her dog hadn’t been fed. it was def a partial excuse but she rly loved that dog so i could tell it was REAL guilt. i felt bad bc i tried to take her hand n go back into my room bc i wanted her to stay n cuddle? i was just drunk. i wasn’t forceful, but i shoulda been like “oh that’s fine!” but tbh i was also a touch worried she was too drunk to drive. well anyways… she left.

later we did have a looong talk about it. like… she ended up going to try and get back with M again (i still will never know what she saw in him like he rly used her n treated her bad like even going so far as to ask her advice on dating other girls after they broke up). but idk i thought she was smart enough to end things w him, and could tell her and i had feelings, so i tried to stay a lil closer than friends? idk what i told her but it was along the lines of “we can stay friends but if things happen sometimes it’s okay w me”. i look back on it w embarrassment but i guess it wasn’t that bad a thing to say?

but rly it was mostly a drunken mistake. and she was scared. and wanted to cut it off. she couldn’t end things w M like she was still torally in love w him even tho he had abandoned her. tbh i know what that’s like. well anyways i remember a few hangouts later she just… bailed on me? in a rly mean way? i had gone to pick her up from her house (idk 30 min drive each way) and she just… totally stood me up. i was parked at her house like texting her wondering where she was? and she sent me a text like “sorry something came up”. and wouldn’t tell me what happened and i got annoyed and drove home.

i have a feeling now that like M had… shown back up in her life and she sorta… threw me away to run back to him? i mean i can’t take it too personally bc she woulda done that to ANYONE. i don’t remember what happened after that but we just stopped talking again. i saw later on fb that her and M had gotten engaged or married?? idek? idk if her and i are still fb friends or if one of us blocked the other or what? i don’t remember.

but idk. i hope she’s well. i hope M got WAYYY better. or she left him. or idk. i wouldn’t even know how to contact her. i’m almost afraid to. like bc i… could see her giving up on her dreams and just being that housewife to him. even if she was mildly content doing that, i know she’d never be happy. and it’s so unlikely that he’d have grown to be good to her. i just… hope she’s doing well and is okay and happy. idk why i woke up worrying about her. it’s been so long… i’m such a dif person now. idk. time is weird.

STARTUPS AND SOMETHING

Before you develop a conscience, torture is amusing. Those they think rank below. What struck me at the time. Stocks will generate greater returns over thirty years, but they miss the critical point: it's good enough and free, these sites suggest that voters do a significantly better job than human editors. If you don't think you're weird, you're living badly. Lately hackerliness seems rather frowned upon. Along with such outright lies, there must have been to till the same fields your whole life with no hope of anything better, under the thumb of lords and priests you had to give all your surplus to and acknowledge as your masters. They didn't know. You're old enough to start a startup, anything might happen.1 Puberty finally arrived; I became a decent soccer player; I started a scandalous underground newspaper.

So by protecting their kids from risk, parents are, without realizing it, also protecting them from rewards. But even factoring in their annoying eccentricities, the disobedient attitude of hackers is a net win. People will pay extra for stability. And since good people like good colleagues, that means you should seek out ideas that would be the best supplier, but doesn't bid because they can't spare the effort to get verified. If the rich people in a society got that way by taking wealth from the poor, then you probably are. But he wouldn't, so we had to think of a way to make a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. In more recent times, Sarbanes-Oxley has practically destroyed the US IPO market.2 Less confident people feel they have to have an answer or they'll look bad. All you need to be moderately smart to succeed as a startup founder, but that you should start startups when you're young.3 That may even make you less able to start successful startups, if they tried, start successful startups, and who am I to argue with them?4 While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to conceal their flaws from children. Here's a clue.

In retrospect, I wonder how we could have wasted our time on anything so stupid. No thanks, intellectual homeowners may say, we don't need it. Increasingly, the brains and thus the value of 20 year old hackers who are too mature to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense. This sort of lie is not without its uses. They may represent one of those rare individuals with x-ray vision for character.5 Reading the Wall Street Journal for a week should give anyone ideas for two or three new startups.6 Now most kids have little idea what their parents do in their distant offices, and see no connection indeed, there is an increasing call for patent reform. Here's a test for deciding whether a VC's response was yes or no, or the deal was off.7

When you do, you've found an adult, whatever their age. That would leave the founders less than a seventh of the company if he'd let us have it. Why bother checking the front page of any specific paper or magazine? Most people who are high or drunk, poverty, madness, gruesome medical conditions, sexual behavior of various kinds, there has been a qualitative change in the atmosphere. You had to grow fast or die. I know they exist. It's odd that people think of programming as precise and methodical. Ditto for the idea of her having sex even if there were any language problems at Real Madrid, since the players were from about eight different countries. Someone has to watch over them, and that Kennedy was a speed freak to boot.

Most people would rather a 100% chance of $1 million than a 20% chance of $10 million.8 I've seen parents managing the subject, I can see how: questions about death are gently but firmly turned aside. To someone who likes work, as most good hackers do, this is torture. It's a bad plan to treat something only a hundred years old as an axiom.9 Misleading the child is just a byproduct. There may be cases where this is a constant problem when you're painting still lifes.10 Obviously it's not the experience itself that's valuable, but something you make yourself.11 But even factoring in their annoying eccentricities, the disobedient attitude of hackers is a net win.12 The first step in clearing your head is to realize how far you are from a neutral observer. We may be seeing another such change right now. The reason they were funding all those laughable startups during the late 90s was that they hoped to be laughing all the way to do business. And that's fine.

John Nash so admired Norbert Wiener that he adopted his habit of touching the wall as he walked down a corridor. They know the odds of any individual startup going public are small, but they miss the critical point: it's good enough. The goal in a startup founded by three former banking executives in their 40s who planned to outsource their product development—which to my mind is actually a lot riskier than investing in a pair of really smart 18 year olds think they know how much jobs suck.13 She can't be herself.14 There was no uptake among hackers. They seemed to have done as well as taking it from others. Teenagers now are neurotic lapdogs.15

There is one case where the list of n things.16 Our first building had been a one-man show.17 I remember that feeling. When people say Web 2.18 You can probably start a startup right out of college. And if you find yourself asking should we allow users to do x? At first we did this because we couldn't help it. The most successful sites are the ones started by uncertain hackers rather than gung-ho business guys. It's not unusual for it to take five or six months to close a funding round.19 Ten years ago investors were looking for the next hot platform is that thousands of hackers have spontaneously started building things on top of this new trend. 0 is democracy. Viaweb wasn't the first startup Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell.

In fact, most people seem to think it's good for smart kids to be as a startup, you'll probably get something better. Even if your only goal is to increase your self-confidence. Here's the pledge: No first use of software patents against companies with less than 25 people. Any conflicts between them have been ironed out under the very hot iron of running a startup. My parents never claimed that people or animals who died had gone to a better place, or that we'd meet them again.20 They don't need any outside help. In fact there is no external opponent, so the taboo against child sex still has force. If they aren't an X, why do we hear more about VCs? The most common was some combination of a blog, a calendar, a dating site, and Friendster.21

Notes

When a lot heavier. I'm not saying we should at least prevent your investors from helping you to stop, but also like an undervalued stock in that it refers to features you could try telling him it's XML. A Bayesian Approach to Filtering Junk E-Mail. 43.

One YC founder who used to build their sites, and one didn't try because they actually do, so it's conceivable that the lies we tell as we walked out we ran into Yuri Sagalov. What people will give you term sheets. A less upstanding, lower-tier VC might be an open booth.

I realize revenue and not to. That's very cheap, 1/50th of a placeholder than an ordinary programmer would never guess she hates attention, because sometimes artists unconsciously use tricks by imitating art that would help Web-based software is so hard to predict precisely what would our competitors had known we were quite sore from VCs attempting to probe our nonexistent database orifice. Einstein, Princeton University Press, 1965. If an investor pushes you hard to spread them.

A related problem that they don't.

I saw this I used thresholds of. 5,000 per month. This plan backfired with the best response is neither to bluff nor give up, how little autonomy one would say that intelligence doesn't matter in startups tend to notice them.

Even though we made a general-purpose file classifier so good that it even seemed a lot of money.

The other extreme, the reaction of an official authority makes all the best approach is to discount, but since it was true that the lack of understanding per se, it's usually best to pick a date, because talks are usually about things you like shit. For example, being offered large bribes by the desire to protect one's children seems weaker, judging from things people have told me that if the VC. Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell them technology. But politicians know the actual amount of stock options, because some schools work hard to imagine that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs, and should therefore get low priority, but you get an intro to a partner from someone they respect.

Experienced investors know about it.

It may indeed be a hot deal, I believe, and the cost can be times when what you're doing. A startup building a new search engine is low.

They'll tell you them. Turn on rice cooker, if you're good you can never tell for sure a social network for pet owners is a bad deal. The angels had convertible debt at a discount of 30% means when it was raise after Demo Day and they begin by having an associate vet you. It does at least a whole department at a disadvantage trying to dispute their decision—just that they imitate even the most important subject.

I'm not saying public school kids arrive at college with a potential acquirer unless you want to believe is that the lies we tell. Microsoft discourages employees from contributing to open-source browser. But when you use this technique, you'll have to be a predictor. Doh.

When I was writing this, on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the ordering system was small.

This doesn't mean a great programmer than an actual label—like putting NMI on a scale that has little relation to other investors doing so because otherwise competitors would take another startup to sell early for a sufficiently identifiable style, you don't know enough about the origins of the great painters in history supported themselves by painting portraits.

It's somewhat sneaky of me to try your site.

The downside is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what they're wasting their time and became the Internet into situations where a laptop would be to ensure startups are possible. There are also startlingly popular on pre-money valuation of the junk bond business by doing another round that values the company.

Which is also the fashion leaders. So as an example of a problem into your bodies.

One professor friend says that 15-20% of the accumulator generator in other Lisp features like lexical closures and rest parameters. For similar reasons it might be 20 or 30 times as productive as those working for large companies, executives at large companies will naturally wonder, how much time. The more people you can play it safe by excluding VC firms were the richest of their initial funding and then stopped believing, so buildings are traditionally seen as temporary; there is one you take out your anti-dilution provisions also protect you against tricks like a headset or router.

And that is allowing economic inequality is a sufficiently identifiable style, you need, maybe the corp dev people are like, and suddenly they need to fix once it's big, plus they are by ways that have hard deadlines, like angel investors. Users dislike their new operating system.

But their founders, because when people tell you them. Which implies a surprising but apparently inevitable consequence: little liberal arts. What you're looking for something new if the present, and thus no form nor anyone to call you about it.

The obvious choice for your protection.

But his world record only lasted 46 days. According to a can of soup. To a 3 million cap, but those don't involve a lot of successful startups get started in Mississippi. Steve came back as CEO.

The saga of Rusty Cranford

The man in the middle of Arkansas's vast public corruption scandal.

On Feb. 21, 2018, federal agents arrested longtime Arkansas lobbyist Milton "Rusty" Cranford at a residence in Bentonville where he was staying. They found $17,700 in $100 bills in a black backpack and multiple bottles of pills for which he did not have a prescription, including Xanax, Ambien and Hydrocodone.

Cranford was asked whether there were any weapons in the home and he showed agents a Bond Arms Defender, a .45-caliber derringer-style pistol in a box in the closet. The government would later allege that Cranford planned to hire an old family friend to murder a witness who was cooperating in a federal corruption investigation against him.

"This motherfucker right here," Cranford had told the family friend, a felon who was acting as a confidential informant for the FBI and recording the conversations. "He's in Philadelphia. He's in South Jersey." Cranford then whispered: "He needs to go away. He needs to be gone." According to the informant, Cranford then made a gun-shooting gesture with his hand.

Before his downfall, Cranford had been an executive at one of the largest Medicaid providers in the region, and a powerful lobbyist who helped bankroll countless political campaigns in Arkansas and influenced state policies that remain in place today. During the recorded conversations, he complained that he was being railroaded by the feds: "So those comments have been made that, 'There's no way he could have accomplished all this shit without being dirty.' Well fuck that. Show me where I'm dirty. I mean, yeah, have I wrote a hell of a lot of — have I paid a hell of a lot of politicians? I sure have over the years. A shitload of money. But I've wrote them all checks, so there's a paper trail of everything I wrote. If motherfuckers tryin' to buy somebody, they ain't going to write 'em a check for it."

The keys to the kingdom

Cranford was a well-known presence at the state Capitol for around 20 years. He was a smoky-voiced hustler, a country rogue in a rumpled suit. He was as persistent and tenacious as a pawnshop broker closing a sale. He worked hard, and he was always working — always working you — whether you knew it or not. He'd lean in, perspiring with possibility, and tell you: "OK, bub, this is how it's gonna be."

Cranford was at the center of a web of state corruption uncovered by federal investigators. More than a half-dozen former legislators and lobbyists have been criminally charged, and a cloud hangs over numerous others. Cranford was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of bribery. In June, he pleaded guilty to one count of bribery; he is now awaiting sentencing in Greene County Jail in Missouri.

Cranford had endless schemes, a finger in every money pie he could find. But his big ticket was Preferred Family Healthcare, the nonprofit formerly known as Alternative Opportunities, where he occupied a murky role as both a top executive on staff and an outside consultant engaged in clandestine lobbying. (This article will refer to the nonprofit as AO/PFH; the name changed after a merger in 2015.) The Springfield, Mo., based conglomerate operates in five states and in more than 40 sites across Arkansas, providing behavioral health services such as treatment and counseling for mental health and substance abuse, as well as aiding people with developmental disabilities and other services. That might not sound like an obvious target for graft, but the Medicaid program in Arkansas has a $7.6 billion budget. For Cranford and company, this proved a tempting pot.

Cranford, with the help of crooked lawmakers, swallowed up millions of dollars in taxpayer money for AO/PFH and other clients, then pocketed some of that money for himself and his co-conspirators. Each new filing from federal prosecutors has exposed more details on the rot in Little Rock: Grubby backroom deals greased with cash. Lawmakers hooked up with World Series tickets and overpaid jobs. Four-digit tabs at Arthur's Prime Steakhouse in West Little Rock. Mysterious wire transfers, surreptitious meetings with cash-stuffed envelopes, sham contracts to hide the flow of money. At various times over the last five years, Arkansas's government was taken hostage by a criminal enterprise.

By 2014, Cranford realized that the FBI was keeping an eye on him and he began to take steps to cover his tracks. It was too late.

The first domino to fall came in June 2017, when an accountant at AO/PFH pleaded guilty to a $2 million embezzlement scheme, among other charges; later that year he committed suicide at his family farm outside of Springfield. A series of pleas and indictments on federal corruption charges followed: Donald Andrew Jones, a Pennsylvania lobbyist who advocated for AO/PFH in Congress; Eddie Wayne Cooper, a former Democratic state legislator from Melbourne, lobbyist, and AO/PFH executive; three other former Arkansas lawmakers; and finally Cranford himself.

Cranford is now presumably cooperating with federal investigators. Most assume that more indictments and pleas are to come.

"Fuck, Arkansas, man, they puttin' the hammer on probably 20 people up there," Cranford said during one of the conversations secretly recorded by federal investigators. "But their words to my attorney was ... 'He holds the keys to the kingdom.' That was the words they used. That I hold the keys to the kingdom."

Santa is coming

In December 2013, shortly after a bought-off legislator helped AO/PFH secure a million-dollar state grant, Tom Goss, then the chief financial officer for the nonprofit, wrote to Cranford: "awesome on the mill."

Cranford responded: "Thanks brother."

"Santa is coming," Goss wrote. Cranford wrote back: "I need Santa." This was how they talked, like thieves celebrating a score over highballs at a strip joint. They hustled after public money with a pulpy frat-boy zeal. They were getting rich, and they were relentless. They were winning. They were enjoying themselves.

Goss and two other top executives — his wife, the former Chief Operating Officer Bontiea Goss, and former Chief Executive Officer Marilyn Nolan — were fired from AO/PFH earlier this year after federal court filings implicated them in the corruption scandal (they were unnamed, but identifiable based upon the descriptions). They have not been charged and deny wrongdoing. A fourth top executive was put on administrative leave the day after an Arkansas Times reporter asked about apparent references to him in Cranford's plea.

AO/PFH spokesman Reginald McElhannon has said that the nonprofit was a victim of rogue employees and has repeatedly maintained that AO/PFH has cleaned house. However, citing credible allegations of Medicaid fraud, the state announced in June that it was ending Medicaid reimbursements and terminating all state contracts with the nonprofit. The loss of public funding leaves the future of AO/PFH's 45 Arkansas service sites in limbo; their sale or closure would affect hundreds of employees and thousands of patients.

Cranford, who first joined AO/PFH in 2007, was eventually named executive vice president, in charge of the nonprofit's operations in Arkansas. He took a circuitous route to the position. His mother was a prominent figure in the Democratic Party in the Texarkana area; Cranford started to make his own political connections in Central Arkansas as a fundraising staffer, state president and national officer for the Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees) in the 1990s. He registered as a lobbyist in 2000 and by 2002 had left the Jaycees to pursue lobbying full time.

He was always a big talker, but he started as a very small fish. His first few clients were substance abuse treatment providers and providers of alternative medicine, such as acupuncture. His lobbying business brought in $13,000 before expenses in 2002 and $30,000 in 2003. Associates from the time remember him having constant money trouble — bouncing checks, grousing for extra money from clients and stiffing bills. He filed for bankruptcy twice in 2004, and again in 2005.

That didn't stop him from boasting even back then that he was a major player at the Capitol — one client recalled overhearing Cranford on the phone growling that he was at a meeting in the governor's office. He was sitting in his car.

Cranford had grit, and eventually he started to deliver on his grandiose claims. His shtick wasn't for everyone, but he had a grimy charisma, a gift for indulging the impulses of the powerful. The ones that liked him called him "Cowboy." He started signing up more clients, and carved out a niche working for behavioral health providers, a sector that was beginning to take in impressive revenues in the state. He managed to parlay his association with one of his lobbying clients, Dayspring, into a top management position on staff. When AO/PFH acquired Dayspring in 2007, they acquired Cranford, too.

Cranford's powerful position with the behemoth AO/PFH always raised eyebrows: He was a lobbyist, a political moneyman, not a health care administrator. Cranford's ally Cooper, the former state representative, meanwhile, was brought aboard AO/PFH in 2009, while he was still in the legislature (Cooper also joined Cranford's lobbying firm after his term was up). Cooper chaired the Public Health, Welfare and Labor committee, but he was no one's idea of a policy wonk. Capitol observers assumed he was put in place, at a six-figure salary, for his political connections. These moves fit a pattern for AO/PFH. The nonprofit, heavily reliant on revenues from the Arkansas government, stacked its roster with former state officials.

Whatever they were doing, it was working: Business was booming, especially in Arkansas. AO/PFH's annual Medicaid reimbursements in the state topped $30 million, and AO/PFH was taking in tens of millions more in state contracts and grants. Revenues soared, and totaled more than $800 million across five states between 2009 and 2016, much of that thanks to Medicaid. According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, an astonishing one quarter of AO/PFH's total revenues came from state agencies funded with taxpayer money. Executives at the top of AO/PFH were rewarded handsomely with salaries between $400,000 and nearly $1 million.

To keep the band playing, Cranford and his co-conspirators undertook elaborate efforts to influence lawmakers and state policymakers in ways that would help AO/PFH's bottom line. Cranford soaked up grant money and doggedly fought efforts by state officials to implement oversight or changes to the Medicaid payment system. He said he was protecting kids who needed care; critics argued that he was gaming the system to overcharge the state and keep the money rolling in.

AO/PFH funds were poured into improper lobbying, campaign contributions and political advocacy, according to court filings. Cranford and other executives conspired to conceal these activities, which broke IRS rules and requirements regarding tax-exempt charitable organizations. And they went further than that, according to Cranford's plea, as top executives engineered hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to legislators.

The more public money that AO/PFH brought in, the more money would wind up in the pockets of Cranford and his co-conspirators. According to court filings, revenues were diverted toward extravagant personal spending with the nonprofit's corporate credit card, premium tickets to sporting events on AO/PFH's dime, payments to private companies owned by AO/PFH executives and a series of direct cash kickbacks. Millions of dollars changed hands in illicit schemes. All that grease and toil to pile up public money was not to provide better services, but to line their own pockets. Their goal, according to Cranford's plea: "[T]o increase the Charity's total receipts so they had more funds available from which to embezzle and steal."

New bubba for our team

Cranford was short, loud and crude. Crusty Rusty, sneered his enemies. He was a good ol' boy, not a blueblood. He smoked pack after pack of cigarettes and spoke in a froggy croak from the back of his throat, like a hillbilly pirate, sparking endless impressions at the Capitol.

In court, Cranford's own defense attorney described him as "an unapologetic and avid gambler." He was a "seven star" member of the Horseshoe Casino in Shreveport, La., and former state Rep. Cooper told federal investigators that he had seen Cranford win and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on individual bets. Cooper also told them that he had frequently witnessed Cranford buying cocaine from a dealer known as "Uncle C." Cranford told another associate that he would "hit the streets of Texarkana" to buy hydrocodone.

Cranford himself didn't drink, according to multiple associates, even if his antics sometimes fooled observers into assuming he was drunk. But he was happy to cavort and oblige lawmakers who did. He was a relic of the state's old booze-and-bubbas politics, when lobbyists held court into the wee hours, more comfortable in a bar than a boardroom.

Cranford may not have been the subject of "top lobbyist" profiles of top-tier, big-name movers and shakers, but in more recent years, he started pulling significant weight. The bigger lobbyists cast a wide net; Cranford zeroed in on a few foot soldiers and worked them hard. He contacted then-Rep. Hank Wilkins (D-Pine Bluff) by telephone 344 times from February 2013 to December 2013 alone. Wilkins was a pastor; Cranford joined his church. He bought lunch for the Public Health committee that his buddy Cooper chaired. He stayed up past closing time to shoot the breeze and then was back the next morning for testimony from state officials, in the back row feeding questions to his allies by text message.

Somewhere along the line, he reckoned that he could exert significantly more power if the lawmakers doling out public money were cut in on the paydays. There was always more juice if you knew who to squeeze.

According to government court filings, Cranford coordinated paying bribes to at least four sitting legislators, in addition to favors granted to Cooper at the end of his term in the House. Along with cash, checks and wire transfers, they were treated to other goodies. Cranford and his co-conspirators, for example, paid for a hotel stay in St. Louis and luxury box seats and tickets to the 2013 World Series for two lawmakers, former Sen. Jon Woods (R-Springdale) and Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson (R-Little Rock).

Woods, who was found guilty by a jury on federal corruption charges in May, was one of Cranford's most reliable operators in the legislature, and he received multiple cash payments from Cranford in 2013 (the total amount is not known). Prosecutors also presented evidence of more creative strategies that Cranford and his co-conspirators used to buy off Woods. After Woods helped deliver $400,000 in state grant money to an entity connected to Cranford, he emailed him, "Wanted you to see the good news." Cranford replied, "You did great bubba." Four months later, Cranford got Woods' fiancée a $70,000 job with AO/PFH affiliate Dayspring (when she left the position, her replacement was hired for half the salary).

Once her hire was arranged, AO/PFH's Tom Goss wrote Cranford, "Senator is taken care of. He is new bubba for our team."

Some of Woods' colleagues noticed that he was enjoying a lifestyle that seemed lavish for a legislator whose only other employment was a bit of consulting work. In 2013, former Rep. Micah Neal (R-Springdale) was impressed by Woods' Little Rock apartment, which was decorated with high-priced sports memorabilia, including items autographed by Pete Rose and Michael Jordan. Neal was hard up for money at the time. He asked Woods how he was scoring cash.

According to Neal, who pleaded guilty in January 2017, that's when Woods let him know about kickback schemes he had worked out, including a deal by which Cranford would cut them in on 20 percent of any public grant monies sent to entities of Cranford's choosing. In October, according to Neal, as reward for directing such funds, Woods handed off $20,000 in cash from Cranford to Neal.

Former Rep. Wilkins also received cash kickbacks for pursuing favorable legislation for Cranford and his clients, according to his own guilty plea in April. Most of the bribes —more than $80,000 — were hidden as donations to St. James United Methodist Church in Pine Bluff, where Wilkins was a pastor. Between 2010 and 2016, lobbying firms associated with Cranford made at least 29 deposits, between $1,000 and $5,000, into a discretionary account at the church that Wilkins controlled. Cranford also gave Wilkins envelopes containing around $5,000 in cash on multiple occasions. AO/PFH deposited $30,000 into the church discretionary account in December 2013. That same month, Wilkins wrote checks to himself from the account for more than $7,000 and paid more than $10,000 toward the balance on his personal Discover credit card.

By 2014, Cranford realized that he was being investigated by the FBI. According to Wilkins, Cranford arranged a meeting, saying that he would need to continue the payments to the church discretionary account even after Wilkins left the legislature — which Cranford did, through at least January 2016. According to Wilkins, Cranford said that he needed to make it "look like I wasn't paying you." Cranford told Wilkins to display a plaque on the wall of the church to state that Cranford had donated money for a church bookshelf.

Asked by auditors in 2015 about the $30,000 payment from AO/PFH to Wilkins' discretionary account, Tom Goss said it was a "donation to a youth summer program in Pine Bluff, United Methodist Church. That's about it."

A practicing attorney and part-time legislator

Between 2012 and 2017, according to Cranford's plea, a person identified as Senator A — acknowledged by his attorney to be Jeremy Hutchinson — received more than $500,000 from Cranford, his lobbying firms, AO/PFH and other Cranford clients (Cranford himself directly gave Hutchinson around $15,000 in cash). In early 2013, according to the federal information, Cranford pushed Tom Goss to hire Hutchinson as an attorney because having a senator on the payroll could be beneficial in advancing their agenda in the legislature. Hutchinson was put on retainer in April 2013 at $7,500 a month, which was bumped up to $9,000 a month by May 2014. Later that year, Hutchinson's uncle, Asa Hutchinson, was elected governor.

Hutchinson to date has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. It is not in dispute that Hutchinson was paid by AO/PFH and other Cranford clients, but such payments occupy a gray area in the state's ethics laws: fees ostensibly for private legal work, paid to a legislator who just so happens to also advocate for that client's interests in the legislature. According to the federal information, the arrangement between Cranford and Hutchinson was a quid pro quo: "Cranford offered and gave, directly and indirectly, cash; checks, wire transfers; retainers; attorney's fees; and professional referrals to [Hutchinson] in exchange for [Hutchinson] taking favorable legislative action on behalf" of Cranford and his clients.

In response to the insinuations in Cranford's plea, Hutchinson's attorney, Tim Dudley, stated, "It clearly mischaracterizes Mr. Hutchinson's work as a practicing attorney and part-time legislator. Mr. Hutchinson has done nothing illegal or unethical."

It is not against the law for a legislator to vote on bills that might impact a person or company that same legislator works for as a private attorney. However, ethics watchdogs have long warned that lawmakers who also work as private attorneys could be motivated to take actions in the legislature that happen to help their paying clients. Even if it's not a bribe under the law, the incentives could work in the same direction.

Hutchinson had something of a reputation for just this sort of arrangement: He participated in legislative action, for example, that benefited a mattress merchant and a maker of gambling machines, both clients. His legal work was on the up and up and separate from his legislative activities, Hutchinson said, but critics snickered that retainer fees might be buying help at the Capitol.

Hutchinson wasn't the only lawyer at the Capitol who blurred the lines. Former Senate President Pro Tem Michael Lamoureux (R-Russellville), for example, passed legislation benefiting rural telephone companies that also paid him as a private attorney.

Jerry Walsh, former executive director at South Arkansas Youth Services, another Cranford client, pleaded guilty to a federal corruption charge in July. According to the federal information, Cranford arranged for more than $120,000 to be paid in ostensible legal fees to an unnamed senator to help SAYS at the legislature. The senator described resembles Lamoureux, although this has not been definitively confirmed. According to Walsh, both Lamoureux and Hutchinson were employed by SAYS as attorneys. Lamoureux — who left the Senate to serve as Governor Hutchinson's chief of staff from 2014 until May 2016 — said he has done nothing wrong, telling the Arkansas Times after Walsh's plea was announced, "Neither legal fees nor campaign contributions have ever influenced my behavior as a public official."

Whatever the arrangement was, Cranford got a cut: According to Walsh's plea, Cranford and his lobbying firm received more than $130,000 in unauthorized payments. Walsh also gave Cranford's son sham jobs at SAYS, despite the fact that he failed a background check. He was not expected to do any work, according to Walsh's plea, but was paid more than $130,000 between 2013 and 2016.

It's done darling

Legislators on Cranford's payroll were utility players. In exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in purported legal fees, the federal information filed along with Cranford's plea alleges that Senator A [Hutchinson]'s services included "holding up agency budgets; requesting legislative audits; sponsoring, filing and voting for legislative bills; and influencing the award of [General Improvement Fund] funds to [AO/PFH] and Cranford clients."

Cranford's most significant victories often can't be traced to a particular piece of legislation, or a grant with a paper trail. If he wanted to fight against changes to Medicaid reimbursements, new rules for how patients were assessed, or policies for state oversight, the heavy lifting typically happened in backroom negotiations with executive branch officials. They would water down rules, delay new policies that could impact their bottom line, dicker and squeeze over any new regulation. Their foot soldiers in the General Assembly had the power to block agency decisions in the legislative review process. State officials knew it, so they would try to hammer out negotiated agreements rather than fight a battle they couldn't win against powerful lobbyists at the Capitol.

There is no public record of such horse-trading. Cranford might threaten to run a bill that would make life difficult for state regulators in order to win policy concessions. These were technical changes, deep in the weeds. Millions of dollars were at stake, but more often than not, even most legislators were unaware of what was happening.

In addition to manipulating the rules to increase revenues from the Medicaid pot, Cranford was likely also aiming to shield the nonprofit from oversight to hide overbilling schemes. An arrest affidavit by the state's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit alleged that another former AO/PFH executive, Robin Raveendran, engineered a multimillion-dollar overbilling scheme from 2014 through 2017, and that Raveendran and Cranford worked hand-in-hand to manipulate the legislative process to block state regulators from disrupting the scheme.

But Cranford's specialty was a more straightforward quid pro quo: the GIF giveaway. Cranford proved highly effective at gathering money from the General Improvement Fund — the now-defunct system that allowed individual legislators to allot surplus money from the state's general revenue to pet projects of their choosing. According to an analysis by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, subsidiaries of AO/PFH received more in GIF money between 2013 and 2017 than any other entity in the state.

A good portion of this may have been legal, if greasy, arm-twisting and influence peddling. But in at least some cases, lawmakers were receiving a cut for directing grant money to AO/PFH and other Cranford clients. The circle of kickbacks typically gave Cranford a cut, as well. Act 791, for example, sponsored by Woods, enabled a $1 million grant for AO/PFH, for which Woods and Hutchinson sent letters of support. Woods also sent a letter of support for South Arkansas Youth Services to receive hundreds of thousands more. When AO/PFH was approved for the full $1 million requested, Cranford forwarded the approval to COO Bontiea Goss: "We are 100 percent funded in one lump sum. ... It's done darling, Money on way." On the same day that AO/PFH received the $1 million check, AO/PFH sent Cranford's lobbying firm, Cranford Coalition, a check for $187,175.

The bubbas on Cranford's team had their hands in a wide range of activities. A jury heard testimony at Woods' trial that Woods and Neal tried unsuccessfully to send $4.7 million in state grants and other public-interest loans to relocate Pro-1, a private company that repackaged and sold thermostats imported from China, from Springfield, Mo., to Northwest Arkansas. Turns out Tom and Bontiea Goss had an ownership stake in the company. Hutchinson, meanwhile, helped another Cranford client, Teach For America, secure a $3 million grant (Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jared Henderson was the executive director of the Arkansas branch of TFA at the time). TFA is not accused of wrongdoing, but the federal information implies that Hutchinson went to bat for that Cranford client in return for tens of thousands of dollars in purported legal fees that AO/PFH and two other Cranford clients were paying him at the time. The grant money for TFA came from the discretionary funds of Governor Hutchinson, Jeremy Hutchinson's uncle.

The Year of the Greed

The various pleas and indictments describe a dizzying array of kickback schemes to enrich Cranford and the other key players. According to Cranford's plea, an AO/PFH executive identified as Person 1 — who matches the description of CFO Tom Goss — greased the wheels for AO/PFH to dole out a massive contract to Cranford's lobbying firm for "consulting" in exchange for Cranford kicking back cash his way. Between 2013 and 2017, under Person 1's direction, the nonprofit paid the Cranford Coalition nearly $3 million. Cranford then paid kickbacks to Person 1 totaling $613,600, in cash and checks. Everyone wins.

Cranford used his position at AO/PFH to command a similar scheme, landing a "consulting" contract for the Pennsylvania lobbyist, D.A. Jones, to advocate for the nonprofit in Washington, D.C., for which he was paid $973,807 from 2011 to 2016. Jones in turn paid $264,000 in kickbacks to Cranford and Cooper. This was their formula: They would take in more public money, hand out exorbitant contracts, and then skim their own personal cut. More taxpayer money meant more to skim.

While there was subterfuge involved, Cranford's behavior ultimately suggests a man who believed he could get away with anything. One of the improper uses of AO/PFH's funds described in the federal information involved simply paying rent to Cranford for out-of-state properties he owned, supposedly for "executive leadership." Cranford ended up taking in more than $50,000 over an 18-month period for his vacation house in Florida. During the same period, the Cranford Coalition was paid nearly $200,000 for "training," as well as thousands more in lease payments for a house Cranford owned in Texas and another he owned in Arkansas.

Even if they didn't take outright bribes, legislators benefited from the nonprofit's largesse as well. Between March 26, 2013, and Jan. 6, 2016, Cranford made 54 transactions at Arthur's Prime Steakhouse in Little Rock with the nonprofit's credit card. He racked up bills totaling more than $15,000. The credit card was also used for thousands of dollars in fundraisers for candidates for the legislature and statewide office at Sims Bar-B-Que, Cajun's Wharf, the Capital Hotel and elsewhere.

At other times, they would hide such spending using Cranford's lobbying firm: When Cooper, then a representative, asked in 2010 to be paid back for a $500 contribution check to a political candidate and a $2,851 tab at a Texarkana restaurant (including more than 100 alcoholic beverage orders), Goss told Cranford, "that one is going to be tough to pay out of [AO/PFH]." He arranged for Cranford to send AO/PFH a phony bill from the Cranford Coalition to conceal the payment to Cooper.

Because AO/PFH operated as a 501(c)(3) charity, it was exempt from federal income taxes and was prohibited from making contributions to political campaigns. According to court filings, Cranford and other AO/PFH executives flouted that prohibition for years, using Cranford's lobbying firm to route tens of thousands of dollars in clandestine campaign contributions, which would then be reimbursed via AO/PFH funds.

"Welcome to campaign season," Cranford wrote to Tom Goss in 2012, attaching nine checks totaling $7,000 sent from the Cranford Coalition to the campaigns of incumbent Arkansas legislators. "The YEAR of The Greed is what it is called! ... This is contributions well spent."

AO/PFH executives likewise attempted to conceal the lobbying activities that Cranford and D.A. Jones were doing on the nonprofit's behalf, according to court filings, in order to dodge certain limits and reporting requirements on lobbying that the IRS imposes for 501(c)(3) organizations.

In the federal information on Cranford, prosecutors describe what appear to be smoking-gun emails on the slapdash efforts to conceal lobbying activity and political contributions behind phony "consulting" and "training" arrangements. AO/PFH CEO Marilyn Nolan at one point wrote to Cranford, "Do not — and I repeat — do not — put lobbying on another invoice — just put consultation or training and development." She also became alarmed when an AO/PFH staffer asked how to expense reimbursement payments for campaign contributions Cranford had made. "We cannot call contribution. ... I do not like her inferring contribution," Nolan wrote to the Gosses, flagging the problem. "Rusty told me he thought you were calling consultation."

"I told her consult and training," Tom Goss replied. "Will send again."

He needs to be gone

By 2017, AO/PFH's leadership had been informed that the nonprofit was the subject of a federal investigation. On June 2, 2017, Cranford signed a settlement agreement terminating his contract. As part of the settlement, AO/PFH forgave a $35,000 debt (Cranford failed to reimburse AO/PFH after a Missouri state senator returned an unlawful campaign contribution that Cranford had made on the nonprofit's behalf); repaid him $165,000 for personal expenditures that he described as "reasonable legal fees and expenses ... on matters subject to company advancement"; and paid him a final settlement of $400,000.

According to Cranford's attorneys, the feds undertook a "relentless pursuit of Mr. Cranford," trying again and again over a period of years to get him to cooperate. "That pressure has continued to escalate," his attorney Nathan Garrett told a judge in March 2018, when Cranford initially pleaded not guilty. "They have sought his cooperation repeatedly. Each time upping the ante. Each time suggesting that Mr. Cranford's situation is worse than it was the last time."

When his co-conspirator Jones pleaded guilty in December, Cranford knew that the noose was tightening. He complained to an old family friend that Jones had "cut himself a deal" and was a "snitching motherfucker."

Unfortunately for Cranford, this old acquaintance, who had known Cranford's father and Cranford in his youth, was a confidential FBI informant who was secretly recording his conversations with Cranford. The informant was referred to in court as Person A, or "Uncle X." Cranford was aware of his criminal background: Uncle X had prior felony convictions for aggravated robbery, assault and aggravated battery with a dangerous weapon, among other charges, and had been under suspicion for murder. The feds paid him $3,000 and $17,800 in relocation expenses for providing information on Cranford.

During rambling conversations with Uncle X, Cranford said that the feds believed he had significant political clout. He boasted that a few years prior, he had managed to arrange an early release from prison for an old high school buddy who was locked up on a murder charge, after Cranford was hired by the family to help. "I got a motherfucker that killed somebody ... just got him out of prison," Cranford told Uncle X. "He killed a boy in Fouke, Arkansas ... about seven years ago ... wrapped him up in a ... rug, and threw him in Mercer Bayou down there in Fouke."

According to Uncle X, in January 2018, Cranford told him that he had a job for him. He said there was a lot of money in it, and he "would like it." Uncle X asked if he would need a "piece." Cranford said he would provide him with a gun.

They met at Uncle X's house and Cranford confided that he was worried that Jones would testify against him. "He needs to be gone," Cranford told him. The sound of Cranford flipping through cash is audible toward the end of the recording as the two arranged to meet again. According to Uncle X, Cranford gave him $500 as an initial down payment on a planned agreement to murder Jones.

When Cranford was arrested, in addition to the 45-caliber pistol, prescription pills and $17,700 in cash, federal agents found two loan request forms for $10,000 from the cash value of his life insurance policy. Later investigation revealed that the pistol had been illegally purchased by someone with a felony conviction in the fall of 2013. He gave Cranford the gun later that year, around Christmas (the man who gave him the gun is now incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for an unrelated crime). Prosecutors would later argue that it is "very well-suited for use as a murder weapon" because it is easy to conceal, powerful, and does not leave spent shell casings.

Cranford was charged in the Western District of Missouri, and the government argued that Cranford should be held without bail, contending that he had tried to hire Uncle X to murder D.A. Jones (no charge has been filed in the alleged plot). They also alleged that he had previously attempted to tamper with witnesses — Jones and Wilkins — and, when those efforts were unsuccessful, exhibited signs of preparing to flee, including growing out and dyeing his hair. Previously, Cranford's hair was gray, short, spikey and gelled. Upon his arrest, his hair was dark, and coiffed in the fashion of Rod Stewart. Garrett, his defense attorney, said that Cranford had always dyed his hair. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Mohlhenrich responded, "You know, maybe Mr. Cranford was having a bad hair day on the day he was arrested ... but the government would suggest there is a change in his appearance."

Garrett told the court that Uncle X was unreliable and that it was unrealistic to imagine that such a pathetic character (Uncle X told Cranford that he had no car and had to hitchhike to the grocery store) would be hired to murder a lobbyist in the Philadelphia area. Garrett argued that Cranford's shady activity wasn't evidence that he was behaving unusually or was a flight risk — he was just a shady character. Rusty being Rusty.

"He has not hidden the fact that he is a man who commonly deals in cash," Garrett explained to the judge. "$17,000 is nothing unusual."

"I would venture to guess," Garrett argued, "that we could back a semi-truck up to this courthouse and fill it full of [currency transaction reports] and suspicious activity reports over the years of Mr. Cranford."

On March 29, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Rush denied bail for Cranford, concluding that Cranford was a flight risk and that the allegations of witness tampering and murder for hire were credible. By June, Cranford had enough and pleaded guilty to bribery. No date has yet been set for sentencing, and he remains in the Greene County Jail.

AO/PFH continued to receive millions of dollars from Arkansas taxpayers for months after the Jones plea revealed the extent of the top-level corruption. In late June, three weeks after Cranford pleaded guilty, Raveendran was arrested and the state finally pulled the plug. "We had received assurances that they had cleaned house," Governor Hutchinson said at the time, explaining why it took more than six months to take action.

On his recorded conversations with Uncle X, Cranford complained that if you Googled his name, he was "in the fucking paper every other week. ... I really thought that I was gonna ... end the year with my being one of the top three stories in the state of Arkansas. That's how fucking much publicity I don't want, I've got."

The story isn't over yet.

"While Raveendran was a key leader of this scheme ... the State does not believe he acted alone," the arrest warrant for Raveendran stated. An investigation into Cranford, his associates, and "the connections with several Medicaid providers" is ongoing, according to the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which acted on a tip from federal investigators. Meanwhile, the feds are mum, but speculation runs high that their own investigation continues apace.

"Unfortunately," Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said at a press conference announcing Raveendran's arrest, "this is a very large, tangled web."

This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Find out more at arknews.org.

The saga of Rusty Cranford

This rap is lyrically one of the best things ever written. Sit back, listen and read these lyrics.

[Verse 1: Akala] Yes, I grew up on the dole in a single parent family Been through a little bit of tragedy Yes I was around drugs and violence before the day that I started secondary And that’s part of it not half of it, get the picture, the rest ain’t necessary Growing up, got a little caught up, but that ain’t even half of my life Also given the knowledge of self That is all we actually need to survive If you saw me aged 9, reading Malcolm just fine Teachers still treated me stupid Students that couldn’t speak English, they put me in groups with And the irony is some of the first man to give me schooling You would call gangsters but I already explained, we know what the truth is They used to say ‘Don’t be like me’ Yeah I got a name and dough on the street Night time comes, I can’t sleep And that’s the part that rappers don’t speak We don’t hit the road cos we are thugs Don’t come out the womb, wanting to sell drugs If we got the right guidance and love Would we fight people just like us? How could I knock the hustle to get by? How do you think I ate as a child? Judge no one, done many things wrong I just don’t boast about it songs But listen to my older bars I was just as confused as you probably are But you grow and you learn, travel and fuck up One too many man you know get cut up One too many man that could’ve been doctors End up spending their whole life boxed up You learn, if you study Its all set out just to make them money No cover, it’s all about getting poor people to fight with one another So its logical that us killing our brothers, dissing our mothers Is right in line with the dominant philosophy of our time But time is a cycle, not a line Comes back around you regain your mind You be ready for the energy I channel in my rhymes Remedy the pedigree, the jeopardy of mine When the world’s this f***ed up, lethargy’s a crime We can all fight with our brothers over crumbs Far harder to fight the one who makes guns We can all talk sh** and get two dollars Far harder to be the one who seeks knowledge If we understood economics We’d know money’s nothin’ Think nothing of it Money is a means to get wealth, not the wealth itself Don’t get confused, I’m far from broke All that you see me do I own But I won’t hang what I make around my neck I know from where that the diamonds came But I do quite literally own a library That definitely costs more than your chain And businesses, and properties Far from starvin’, I eat quite properly And I don’t care, just said it for the kids Who need to know that you’re not broke to listen Don’t know an asset from a liability They’ve never been shown or told the difference So they don’t change situations Richest man in Britain is Asian That’s significant, not coincidence Asian people build businesses Not by flossin/going out shoppin’ Giving out their culture for everyone’s profit Who run’s Bollywood? Indian people Who owns our shit? So we shake our arse and dance As if racism just upped and vanished But has it? No its right on course You’re beaten so bad, you’re trained to ignore Let me not just make sweeping statements Gimme a second, I’ll explain it For small amounts of drug possession there’s more black people in jail in America than there is for rape and armed robbery and murder all put together You can say they’re just locking up thugs Imagine if they locked up every middle class kid that had ever held drugs Oh that’s right, that’d be your kids! Bigger than that what is going on with this Prison in America’s a private business They get paid 50k per year per inmate by the State, just wait… Also legally are allowed to use their prison inmates as slaves Cheap slave labour, big corporations They come out of jail, can’t get a job So when we celebrate going to jail We are LITERALLY CELEBRATING ENSLAVEMENT Add to that, that the hood that you’re livin’ Engineered social condition that breeds crime by design Where do you think you get your nine? You can say that they’re just black But I like to deal with facts In the 1920s you would’ve found in America Black towns Prospering centres of economics and education to make you proud But some people couldn’t bear that the former slaves would not just lie down So the KKK and other hate groups burnt those towns to the ground Killin hundreds If it ain’t understood You think you were always livin’ in the hood? Shit it’s only been sixty years Since they hung blacks and burned em’ And that was so cool They were your pastors’ picnic baskets Even gave kids the day off school To go see a lynching, have a picnic It’s fun to watch the little monkeys die Then people act a little dysfunctional You wanna pretend that you don’t know why If your colour means you can be killed And you’re powerless to get justice about it Is it difficult to figure out how you would then end up feelin’ about it? And that ain’t excuses Just dealing with the roots of abuses that make a reality Where a generation of young men speak of ourselves as dirt casually That’s America This Britain Some things are similar Some different In this country the first enslaved were the working class What’s changed? Worst jobs, worst conditions Worst taxed, look where you’re livin’ You go to the pub, Friday night You will fight with a guy, don’t know what for But won’t fight with a guy, suit and a tie Who sends your kids to die in a war They don’t send the kids of the rich or politicians It’s your kids, the poor British That they send to go die in a foreign land For these wars you don’t understand Yeah they say that you’re British And that lovely patriotism they feed ya But in reality you have more in common with immigrants Than with your leaders I know, both side of my family Black and white are fed ghetto mentality Reality in this system Poor people are dirt regardless of shade But with that said Let’s not pretend that everything is the same When our grandparents came here to Britain If you had a criminal record you couldn’t get in Yet that ain’t protect them from all the stupid, stupid abuses they would be livin’ Kicked in the teeth, stabbed in the street Many times fired bombed our houses Put faeces through our letter box And of course the cops did so much about it(!) Daily, up to the 80s People spittin’ into my pram cos’ I was a coon baby But of course that has had no effect on why today we are crazy And none of this was for any good reason They were just dark and breathing To ease the guilt now for all of this treatment Constant stereotypes are needed So if I celebrate how big that my dick is, bricks that I’m flippin’ Clips that I’m stickin’, chicks that I’m hittin’, I’m playing my position But if I teach a kid to be a mathematician, messin’ with the schism How they gonna fill a prison when materialism is nothing but a religion? What do you think we got now in Britain? Just like America, private prisons Prisons for profit! That mean when your kids go jail people make money off it So keep environments that breed crime Build more jails at the same time Market badness to the kids in the rhymes As long as rich kids ain’t dying its fine! Get em’ to the point where some are so lost They actually believe that if they don’t celebrate killin’ themselves off That it’s because they’re soft Was Malcolm soft? Was Marley soft? Tell me was Marcus Garvey soft? Well? Was Mohammed Ali soft? Nah, Nah I think not! But they want us to think that the road is cool Being on road is all we can do We don’t control the wholesale productions Who benefits from us movin’ the food? Or thinking there’s no way out of road life But Malcolm X used to hustle out on the roadside When Marcus Garvey organised more than 6million people With no Facebook or Twitter Why is this something you cannot equal? Shiiiiit! One of my homeboys did a ten straight in the box in yard Now what’s he doing? Passin’ his doctorate Don’t tell me that it’s too hard! Who trained you to believe that you’re inferior? Sungbo Eredo in Nigeria are the remains of an ancient moat Dug 1000 years ago 20 metres wide, 70 down Round the remains of an ancient town That’s 400 square miles around 400 square miles around Please, please don’t believe me It was a documentary on BBC! But we ain’t studyin’ history Too busy watching MTV And MTV said wear platinum Now everybody wanna go and wear platinum And MTV said pop magnums Now everybody wanna go and pop magnums If MTV said drink prune juice You would start hearing that in tunes soon ‘Hey! Today I wore my Cartier Is it now more important what I got to say?’ Oh and I drive a Mercedes by the way So everybody listen to what I got to say Huh, does that make you all happy? Ahh but shit my head’s still nappy Think for myself, still some mad at me But on the mic ain’t not one bad as me All of this here’s good for the rhymes Put us in the same place at the same time And it’s clear to everybody that I’m out of my mind Some of these guys are runnin’ out of their rhymes Clear to everybody that has got ears I’m the guy that they just might fear They wanna get near but they can’t have a peer Ah dear I’m hard liquor you’re just like beer Front on the kid for another five years Come to my shows and some cry tears It mean that much to em’, it’s a movement! I don’t speak for myself but a unit Black, white, man, woman, anyone that respects truth we put in Dudes are like no dinner with just puddin’ Yeah you’re sweet but no substance puddin’ You could never ever be with a level on Our songs get out played out there in Lebanon We speak for the people properly Not for the old fat guys in offices And the girls love him, it ain’t fair He can’t even be bothered to comb his hair Anyway that’s enough kissin’ my own arse Back to the more important task of being so shower I got half the hood screaming “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER” And I ain’t saying that will change rap But I do know this for a fact Right now there’s a yout’ on your block With his hand on his cock and his face screwed up Swear he don’t care, don’t give a fuck That he won’t let nobody call his bluff But the words go in Open up your chakra Because once that’s happened there’s no going back Once you start to see what is really happening Who the enemy you should be attackin’ is So READ, READ, READ! Stuck on the block, READ, READ! Sittin’ in the box, READ, READ! Don’t let them say what you can achieve Cos when people are enslaved One of the first things they do is stop them reading Cos’ it is well understood that intelligent people will take their freedom Cos’ if we knew our power we would understand that we can’t be held down If we knew our power, we would not elevate not one of these clowns If we knew our power, we wouldn’t get arrogant when we get two pennies If we knew our power, we would see what everybody sees, that we’re rich already! But never mind MCs go run for your mummy I’m hungry, I run for my tummy That’s enough, back to worshipping money I’m off, back to the study!