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1989butcher · 1 year

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Boots

daryl dixon x reader

he gave you a pair of oversized boots a long time ago, and you’ve kept them ever since.

set: alexandria, you got separated when the prison fell.

2.7k words

FLUFF!!!!!!!! i <3 fluff. this is my first fic pls be nice to me 🥹

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Y/N’s POV

I’ve been walking for months with nothing but a near empty backpack and boots that are far too big for my feet. The last time I slept with four walls was a long time ago at the prison. I haven’t even fully began to process what happened, I simply haven’t had the time.

When this whole thing started, I was visiting my brother in Atlanta. I didn’t know when my parents dropped me off at the airport in Michigan would be the last time I saw them. I lost my family, well everyone but Glenn, but after enough time I gained a new one.

The people I met in Atlanta, the ones that made in to the Greene farm, were some of the best people I had come across in my life. I never thought I would enjoy chilly nights eating rabbits, oddly enough I had one as a pet when growing up. Glenn never failed to remind me when I would be eating one, which led Daryl to tease me about it every time he brought one home. “This one look like yours?” He would always bring it to me first. I turned away quickly. “Stop!” I covered my eyes. I think a smile would curl from his lips. I would almost laugh out of anger. I knew every time he did this, he would come right to me to rub it in my face. “I wish I never told you about Thumper.” I said, basically talking into my shoulder. I turned to him on the log I was sitting on, still covering my eyes but peeking in between my fingers. “I ain’t ever gonna let you live this down.” I sighed, while he turned on his heel and walked away.

Glenn was sitting opposite of me, with Maggie of course. “Whatever happened to the little guy?” Glenn asked, his fingers intertwined with Maggie. Couldn’t even begin to believe my big brother found love at a time like this. I went back to building the fire, slower than before in hopes the archer would make a joke about it. “I dunno, after like five years I’m pretty sure he died, but mom said he ran away. Either way, he got a better fate than he would now.” I replied, staring into the dimming fire. I’m sure Maggie said something about rabbits on the farm, but that’s where the memory stops.

The farm being overrun was something inevitable, especially after we found out walkers were living in the barn. I’ll never forget standing there with Daryl, as he ran to Carol to stop her from going after Sophia. I don’t think he will ever forget that either. I know he blames himself, no matter how many times I said it wasn’t his fault. He would hold his head in his hands and I would rub his back, telling him ‘it’s ok’. He would shake his head and always reply no, or more like “Nah.” I just wanted to be there for him and take away his pain.

Speaking of pain, my feet were throbbing. I have been walking on this road for what feels like years. I don’t even know how much time has passed since the prison fell. I think living there was the happiest I had ever been. Our small family from the farm turned into a full on community. We farmed, had animals, kids went to a sort of school (if that’s what Carol wants to call it), and so much more. Runs were sort of fun, although Daryl never wanted me to go. One time, Glenn, Maggie, and I went on a run and promised to be home by sundown, as usual. I was hardcore third wheeling, but that was my brother and Maggie had become my sister. We were singing in the car, celebrating the canned foods we had found in an abandoned mini-van. Laughing, it almost felt normal. It was night when we returned, since we went a bit farther than we predicted. Rick, Tyreese, and of course, Daryl were waiting at the gate as we pulled up. They looked worried sick but I think the three of us were grinning ear to ear. When I stepped out of the car, unscathed, I saw the archer sigh in relief. “Don’t tell me you were worried Daryl, how sweet!” I teased him, handing him a crate of food. He huffed a quick “whatever” and I turned away and smiled. I think he saw me smile, I hoped he did. I never did tell him about the warm way he made me feel, quite literally warm. I was constantly cold, and he would always be bringing me back blankets or jackets. He even replaced my beaten converse with boots. Boots that were too big, but boots none the less. I also never told him they didn’t really fit, but I loved them too much to find a new pair.

The sun was glaring in my eyes. I laughed at the fact that pre-end of the world, I would have wanted sunglasses to avoid wrinkles from squinting. Even though nowadays, all everyone does is squint. I say everyone as if I have seen a single person since all those weeks ago. Feels like a lifetime has passed.

I decided to take a turn down a road with lots of tire tracks. Maybe I could actually find some sort of shed for the night in a few hours. Cook my very own rabbit. Daryl would be proud. At this very thought, I heard a rustle in the woods. I quickly grabbed my knife strapped to my hip. It indeed was a walker. It growled as it slowly made its way from the forest floor towards me. I walked up to it, shoved my knife into its grey skull, and kicked it back into the forest floor.

I brushed the hair out of my face after putting the knife back in a belt loop. “Where am I supposed to put it?” I asked, as Glenn handed me the knife I carry now. He walked away, passing other weapons out from a run he came back from. Those strong, warm arms came from behind me, with a soft grunt he took the knife from my hands and spun me around, wrapping his fingers through the loops on back of my jeans. His dark hair covering his eyes, he looked through the hair at me. Lifting the knife up for me to see, he slid it through a belt loop. “Got it?” He asked. I nodded in reply, my cheeks red with the fact his hands were still on my waist.

I couldn’t take these memories anymore. For all I knew, they were all dead. Or if some weren’t, they assumed I was. I’m sure of it. My family was gone, again. And I couldn’t help but blame myself.

I don’t want to replay that day in my head with what I could have done differently. That heartbreak would kill me. So I kept moving.

As I kept walking, I could swear I heard children laughing. A noise hard to come by these days, and even harder now after being alone. I surely wouldn’t recognize myself with the knotted hair, covered in dirt and blood, some of it was mine.

I picked up the pace, almost as if I was expecting children to come run and laugh by me. I looked around and saw down the road lots of cars lined up. People had to have done that. Survivors had to have done that. I think I was running at this point, I couldn’t tell. My feet have been numb since the last time I slept.

Around the corner from these cars, I saw a wall with a sign that read “ALEXANDRIA”. Holy shit. A town. With walls. I knew walking up to the gates was a bad idea, but at this point if they shot me, they shot me.

My brother was gone, with his wife who became my best friend. Our leader was gone. Same with his son and baby that I had grown extremely close to. The archer, too. And I wouldn’t admit it, but I love that archer.

I walked up the gates, my feet were stunned I had stopped moving. I quietly knocked, with a coarse “Hello?” I hadn’t talked in days, the last drink was from a river probably a day ago.

A man with a dark mullet and khaki shorts opened the gates ever so slightly. “Who are you?” He asked.

“My name is Y/N, is this your community?” I was basically begging. I was fighting tears from welling up in my eyes. A real person.

“I’m not at the liberty to discuss that with you.” He replied sternly. He looked around, as if someone was going to give him an answer. He held a large gun, clearly he didn’t know how to use it. I was frustrated, and I could take him down if need be, but I was going to be civil about this.

“What is it, Eugene?” someone asked him from behind the gate. I swear I’ve heard the voice before, but I thought it was pure exhaustion fueling my delusion/

“One moment, please hand over your weapons.” The man, assumingely named Eugene said. I handed him my knife and my pistol, that maybe had one bullet left in it. Just as quickly as he opened them, he closed the gates. I still had my pocket knife in my backpack. One of those tourists ones with your name on it. Daryl brought it back for me on a run once, and I’ve never used it. Just kept it, like a token.

“I know this knife.” The faceless voice gasped. Now, instead of just the solid wall, both parts of the gates opened and there she was.

Maggie. Maggie Rhee. Tears in her eyes as she held the knife at her waist, her wedding ring my brother gave her shining in the sun. “Y/N?” she said at an almost whisper. I went to reply, but no words came out. Those tears I had been fighting came out in full force as she crossed over to hug me. Her hand at the back of my head as we knelt to the ground to hold each other. Maggie was here, Glenn had to be. And if they were, who knows who else had made it.

I cried into her shoulder for a moment, until she grabbed my face to brush the hair out of my eyes. “I can’t believe it’s really you.” I smiled back at her, bringing her in for another hug. After a few more minutes of tears, we pulled away, stood up, and shut the gates behind us. “Wait here.” she said, running into a house.

I stood there, wiping tears with my shirt. “I’m Eugene.” the mullet man said. Staring awkwardly at me. “Hi.” I said back, taking a deep breath. He went to say something else before someone came out of the house with Maggie, her hands covering his eyes.

I slowly walked towards them. My heart dropped to my stomach and I swear the world stopped. Maggie used her other hand to say ‘Shhh’ to me. I could barely keep it together when she finally removed her hand from his eyes. It was Glenn.

Before he realized it was me I had already gone to hug him. Crying into his thin shirt and sinking to the street. “Oh my God.” he said in reply, coming back down with me, doing the exact same thing Maggie had done. He kissed my forehead and I felt his tears drop onto my head.

“I’m so sorry.” I cried to him. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve listened, I should’ve stayed with you.” He shook his head, sniffled and pulled away. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Y/N. I’m here. Your family is here.” He picked me up from the ground and Maggie came in to hug us again, going to kiss Glenn and wipe his tears. We all sort of exchanged ‘how on earth did you survive’ and ‘you look like shit’ before they took me walking up the street, careful not to tell me about anyone who had died, but who was here. Rick, the kids, Michonne, Carol, Sasha, some people named Tara, Rosita, Abraham, who had come with Eugene. I was in complete disbelief of an entire neighborhood that was safe.

None of them were outside, so seeing me was going to be a surprise, but they had skipped over a certain archer I was missing. While we came up to the porch that Glenn said was Rick’s, I found myself asking if Daryl was here. The couple exchanged looks. Fear took over as I assumed the worst, until Maggie took my hand and nodded. “He’s here, too. Been looking for you for weeks, actually.” My stomach was full of butterflies, even though it had been empty for weeks.

“He was looking for me?” I asked in disarray, the tears that had finally stopped were going to start all over again. My stomach dropped. He searched for Sophia everyday, all day. He never stopped and the heartbreak he has was unbearable. He was sure it was his fault she was gone, and he hadn’t looked hard enough. Glenn nodded. “Ever since,” he looked at Maggie, who looked away onto the street, his voice now lowered “ever since Beth died, he hasn’t been the same.” My heart had broken into a million little pieces. I squeezed Maggie’s hand, quickly saying I was sorry before she assured me she was going to be okay.

Another death that Daryl would blame himself for. I’m certain of that. Probably blamed himself for me running off too.

I followed the pair inside to where Rick was holding Judith on the couch. My first thought honestly was, holy shit a COUCH.

He stood up and smiled, quick to hug me with Judith propped on his hip. He kissed my cheek and brought me in close. I buried my face in his shirt, kissing Judith after. His shirt smelled of fresh laundry, a smell I hadn’t known for a long time. Rick was the most fearless man I had ever met, and I’d be dead without him. All of us would be.

“You’re here.” he broke the silence. I nodded, wiping my tears away. “Don’t know how, but I’m here.” I replied. He smiled again, looking up the stairs to Carl. He raced down them and tackled me into a hug.

“Y/N, I thought you were gone!” He exclaimed. I wanted to reply I thought I was gone too, but instead just laughed. “You couldn’t get rid of me that easy, kid.” playfully knocking his hat off his head. He laughed and flicked me back. “Daryl is not going to believe this.”

My eyes grew to the size of saucers. I was bursting at the seams. I wanted to see him more than I needed a shower at this point. I was looking out the window Rick was seated in front of when I said “Speaking of Daryl, where is he? Where’s everyone, I need to-“ The question didn’t matter anymore. There he was on the street, looking directly through the window. Almost through me. He took a few steps back, as if he was going to take off running. Like I was a ghost.

If anyone said anything to me, I couldn’t be sure. My legs carried me out the door and down the stairs, and into his strong arms. Arms I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. The ones that held me late at night when I was cold, the ones who taught me how to shoot, even shot his crossbow once, the ones I cried into when we lost the farm, the ones I took naps on during long car rides. Home. I was home.

We didn’t say anything to each other. He had dropped his crossbow in the road where he was now holding me, face snuggled into my neck. He was crying. I reached up to rub the back of his head with my hand. “Been awhile, huh?” I whispered, sarcastically, desperately trying to break the silence. He pulled away, tears hidden under his overgrown hair. “Thought I lost ya” He put his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes and smiled. “Never.” I said, placing my hands on his face. His response was the same, putting his hands on mine and giving me the gentlest kiss to ever touch my lips.

Didn’t think the entire community had to watch this go down, especially since that was our first kiss, but it makes for a fun story now. We both sniffled and looked into each others eyes, his blue ones glistening with tears. “Didn’t know I had to go missing for you to kiss me like that, Daryl.” Hearing myself say his name made my heart skip a beat.

He broke eye contact and looked towards the ground. “See ya kept those boots.” he remarked. I pulled his gaze back up to meet mine.

“I thought after long enough they could bring me home.”

#daryl dixon #daryl dixion imagine #daryl fanfiction #twd daryl #the walking dead #daryl #daryl dixon x reader #norman reedus #daryl dixon oneshot #daryl dixon fluff #daryl dixon x y/n #twd fanfiction #daryl dixon x you #the walking dead fanfiction

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escapingrealtiylovinginsanity · 30 days

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[Not] Guilty Part 2

Part 1

A few people expressed interest in this becoming a series. I had a storyline for it when I made the first ‘chapter’. I do warn you guys though I will probably be slow to post. I have a hard time when I feel like I have to write the next chapter of something. Not to mention I am currently packing (and procrastinating packing by writing) to move from Michigan to Tennessee for my new post-grad job!

This is not a spoiler because I hinted heavily (told you really) at it at the end of the first chapter, but I did want to warn everyone- this has the ACCIDENTAL PREGNANCY TROPE. For those of you who do not like those stories, you have been warned. The case is mentioned in this story but is not its main focus, but what will become of the reader and Sonny’s relationship. (I may change the name because it implies otherwise.)

Warnings- mentions of sex abuse, physical abuse, prison violence, suicide and accidental pregnancy trope (just in case you missed it ^)

Thank you for reading that really long author's note <3

The breakup should be harder on you. It was the longest relationship you had been in. The nervousness you had felt when you had crept up to the six-month marker and the kiss of death to every relationship you had ever had. It had come in like a lion, with you causing fights waiting for the inevitable, and out like a lamb when Sonny realized what the problem was. He had maturely communicated that he had no intent in letting you go. It had been smooth sailing for the most part after that. The relief you had felt when it all just seemed to work out. You guys were just a few weeks away from the year mark.

The end was as abrupt as your cousin Randy’s arrest. The betrayal of Sonny going after him without any regard to you. Then the attempted railroading from him to you of Randy’s guilt. The whole thing had left you cold and numb.

You knew Dominick Carisi was a good lawyer and now he could be the one to put Randy away for life. On a charge you were sure he didn’t commit. You hadn’t seen him much since the day you refused to let him into your apartment. You only saw him during court proceedings or meetings with him and Randy’s defense lawyer. Not that he hadn’t tried. He had called, texted, and stopped by your apartment frequently during the first few weeks. You were sure he thought that you were just overacting and that you would come to see the light of your cousin’s misdoings. Process and then accept what was going on. The only difference was you knew deep in your soul that your cousin wasn’t guilty. You wouldn't let anyone railroad you into thinking anything differently.

Not even a man you loved.

You had been actively avoiding him and any emotion that he provoked. You tried to ignore that you were a hot mess. The stress and emotional strain caused constant fatigue and churning in your stomach which had a tendency to make you sick. You had been trying to take care of everything for the case and still work overtime to continue paying your bills and for Randy’s pricy lawyer. You had even tried to get the money to bail Randy out, but Sonny had asked for an outrageous bond that even combined your working-class family couldn’t afford. You had tried to make up for it by putting money in his commissary and visiting once a week. Randy assured you he was okay, but it didn’t help make you feel better. Especially, when you saw the black eye and cut lip on your last visit.

Today was court and it was Randy’s turn to testify. You sat there in support of him and tried not to wince or shift uncomfortably as years of family secrets were let loose in open court. It was to help show Randy’s character the lawyer had explained. It was smart but you didn’t have to like listening to it.

Randy testified to his mental health issues. His bipolar that left him manic and on top of the world one day and then so depressed he couldn’t get out of bed the next. He went on to talk about the sexual and physical abuse he had received at the hands of his own father. How he had used substance to numb himself. He was in tears when he talked about how he could never hurt someone like he had been hurt. He would rather put a bullet in his head.

He had tried to skirt around the question about his uncle. But when he was pressed, he talked about how he had witnessed the brutal murder of his father at his uncle's hands when he had found out and then watched his uncle be arrested and put in prison. How he had been put on multiple 72-hour psych holds in the years following. Listening to it all was hard and made you want to curl up in a corner and sob. It was heartbreaking to listen to. Randy looked and sounded believable- like a victim himself who deserved empathy.

Sonny turned in his seat to look at you. You were only able to maintain eye contact for only a few seconds. It had been long enough to see the understanding in his eyes. The almost audible clicking of all the puzzle pieces of your life that you dodged around or refused to talk about when you were together were finally coming together for him. You could also see the frustration at you not being honest with him and him being blindsided in open court.

When recess was called until Monday you had to keep yourself from running out of the courthouse and instead force yourself to walk at a normal pace. You couldn’t face any of the SVU detectives that you were once close to. You hear your name called and your body freezes without your permission. A Staten Island accent thickened with emotion. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You can’t even turn back to look at him. You feel exhausted as you say. “You didn’t want to listen.”

≪ °❈° ≫

You return to court four days later, and there is something strange brewing in the courtroom. You can feel it in the air. You can see it. There is no jury and the courtroom is empty. The rest happens in a blur. ADA Dominick Carisi stands up and tells the judge they had found further evidence over the weekend and they wanted to drop all charges, except for possession. They offered a deal on time served. You felt the tears rush down your face in disbelief.

You find yourself in the hallway and a hand touches your shoulder from behind. You turn around to see Olivia Benson. “For what it is worth, I’m sorry.” Her face is sincere but all you could hear in your mind was the echoing of her words to you of his guilt and how it was normal to be in denial. It could take a while for your mind to be able to comprehend that someone you know, and love is capable of such malicious intent. “For all the trouble and for all this has cost you.” Even in your haze, you knew she wasn’t talking about the money you had put into Randy’s defense. “With his DNA in her apartment and on that blunt we really thought-”

“Sharing weed with a woman doesn’t mean you're going to rape and kill her.” Your words are bitter and distant even to your own ears.

“Of course not,” Olivia paused gathering her thoughts.

“What happened? What did you guys find?”

“Well, we went back over the timeline. We had a hard time believing Randy because when we interviewed him, he didn’t even know where he had been for most of the night.” You knew he had been hopped up on some pretty strong stuff that night. “Do you know the cemetery a couple of blocks from where we arrested him?” You felt like a bolt of lightning had struck through you. You did in fact know it. It was where his older brother had been buried after he committed suicide at twenty. “There was a security camera there that had been installed because of some teenager destroying headstones. It shows Randy there hours before Mary Moore’s death to hours after it. He slept there all night actually.”

You huff out a laugh. Thomas was Randy’s older brother by almost ten years. He, out of the three sons, had taken the worst of the abuse from their father. He had protected Randy and the youngest David until the moment he had ended it all, but it seemed even death couldn’t stop him from protecting his younger brother.

You see Randy getting released, a bag of belongings in his hand and you start to head over to him completely forgetting that you had been in a conversation with the detective. You are only reminded when you hear her voice raise slightly as she says, “You know, Carisi is the one that started looking back at the timeline. He is the reason this case was dropped.” You freeze feeling something twist in your stomach. An emotion that you don’t want to deal with in this happy moment.

“It doesn’t change anything.”

You stride to Randy’s side and hug. You weren’t allowed to touch him when you were visiting him in lockup. He clings to you burying his face into your neck and you can feel the hot tears against your neck. “Thank you. Thank you so much for never giving up on me.” You hug him tighter feeling your own tears roll down your cheeks.

≪ °❈° ≫

You were sitting back at the apartment curled up on the couch wrapped in a blanket as Randy was spending an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom. You smiled to yourself, just happy that he was home. Even if he was back to crashing on your couch. He joined on the couch, hair still wet from his shower. He leaned back into the cushions with a sigh. The two of you sat in silence processing all that had happened in the last four months.

“I found a rehab program when I was locked up. It focuses on people with mental health issues like my bipolar. I called and they said they had a spot open for me. Someone ran out. Good luck, huh?” You laugh shaking your head.

“Good to know you still have your positivity streak.” You lay back feeling absolutely exhausted. You had been having a fatigue that just wouldn’t go away. “I think it's a good idea though. It would be good for you to get that settled. Your being off and on your meds hasn't been helping. I just want you to be happy, and have a real chance at the life you deserve.”

“Yeah, I know. I hope you know I appreciate everything you have done for me. Everything that you have had to sacrifice.” You say his name, but he cuts you off, “No, really Chickadee. All these years, you didn’t have to do any of it. Without you, I would have been dead or locked up three times over by now.” You reach out and start running your finger through his hair. “It’ll probably be good for you to have to space anyways.”

“I don’t mind you sleeping on my couch.” You assure him.

“I know, but with you being pregnant and all. I’m sure you-”

“I’m sorry about me being what?” Randy doesn’t miss a beat.

“Oh, come on Chickadee. I know you were trying not to make a big deal out of it because of everything that was going on but-” You shake your head at him, laughing.

“Randy, I’m not pregnant.” The finality in your voice makes him turn his position to face you more fully. He quirks an eyebrow at you.

“Are you sure about that?” His tone is one of disbelief as he eyes your form. You smack his shoulder saying his name loudly. “Well, I would check into that, anyhow. You know with the fatigue, upset stomach, morning sickness, and with how big those things have gotten.” He gestures to your breast with a wave of his hand.

You look down at them and feel your mind starting to spiral as you try to think of the last time you had a period. You bite your thumb as you realize it was before the case had started. While it wasn’t uncommon for you to skip when you were stressed out, that was a considerable amount of time. “Alright, I’m kicking you out of my bed. I haven’t had a good night's sleep in almost four months.” Randy didn’t seem to notice your mind spinning. He thought that you were still just messing around with him. He had no idea the can of worms he had just opened in your head.

You stood up numbly as he started making the couch his makeshift bed. Then flopping onto it with a content sigh. You say nothing as you go to grab your purse and head toward the drug store a block over.

#law and order special victims unit #law and order svu #svu #dominick carisi #sonny carisi #sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi imagine #sonny carisi x you

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saturdaynightghostclub · 10 months

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Highway Hypnosis

Chapter 9: Cicely

I met an old woman in a movie theater queue in Chicago right after I graduated college. She was there alone, like me, trying in vain to make her day mean something. I noticed her immediately; in a sea of denim and cotton, she was in a sundress and sandals, the kind you wear to wade through a river when you’re hiking. She noticed me too, though I’m not sure what it was that stood out about me. She asked me where I was from; for some reason I didn’t strike her as a local. I leaned into it, just for a secret to keep, and told her I was from Seattle. And what a coincidence, she was too. “In my past life,” she explained, “I was a mermaid. It kills me to be out here with no water.” I reminded her of Lake Michigan, and she just shook her head. It wasn’t the same.

That woman stuck with me. Maybe I was projecting onto her, but I swore from that moment that I could feel her living deep inside the throes of my body, with her fist curled around my spine, dictating my every move with a benevolence I resented. I grew restless, too big for my mother’s home and entirely too small for whatever lay beyond its front door. There was an inevitability to the woman’s words; she and I would make it back home. Maybe we’d go somewhere and be mermaids together, just jump into the freezing northern waters and reject the world that had brought us up.

As I emerge from the Evergreen river’s icy current, I wonder if this counts. Is it that you can’t be a mermaid in freshwater, or is it more a matter of affinity? Regardless of how the movie theater woman would answer, I think she’d be proud of me. For some reason her hypothetical opinion of me matters more than I’d like to admit.

Jasper’s sitting on a large rock on the river bank, letting the late afternoon sun evaporate whatever cold water is left on his skin in transcendent drops of gold. He spent the night at my place last night, high on life after cracking the library code mystery. There have been remarkably few times throughout my life when I’ve been completely, genuinely at a loss for words, but waking up in his arms this morning was one of them. His face is turned toward the sky, and then suddenly it isn’t. I swim leisurely toward him as his gaze focuses on something on the beach towel to his right—my cell phone, I realize, which must mean it’s ringing. By the time I reach him and haul myself up onto the rock beside him, it’s almost too late. I don’t bother with the caller ID in my hurry to pick up the call, and the regret that washes over me immediately after the damn thing goes live is palpable.

“There you are! Thank goodness, Andie, do you know how many times I’ve tried to call you?”

“Mom? What’s going on, is something wrong?”

“Is something wrong?” My mother asks, incredulous, as if I should already know. “I have called you eight times, Andrea. Eight! And you haven’t picked up once. Care to explain?”

I don’t, but I’ll try. “Service is spotty up here, I honestly didn’t realize you’d even tried calling,” I say, followed by a weak “sorry, Mom.” I realize I’ve unconsciously pulled my knees to my chest, a position I often assume when talking to my mother. A therapist I once saw said it was part of a fawn response, which I suppose is understandable aside from the fact that it happens even during the most benign conversations.

“I don’t want your excuses, it’s not why I called,” she snaps. I figure it would be better to just let her talk, as anything I have to say past this point will be under the lens of her scrutiny, so I wait for her to continue. “I’m coming up to visit,” she says, “on the first of September. I’m staying four days, and I’ll need a ride to and from the airport.”

“Okay,” I say, cautiously, “will you send me your flight details in a text so I know what time to come get you?”

“They’re in your inbox already,” she replies, sounding exasperated. Once again, I guess I should have read her mind. Silly me. I inhale, sitting up straighter as Jasper slides an arm around my waist, his hand coming to rest on my hip. I’m not sure if he can hear anything more than my side of the conversation, but he seems attuned to my stress regardless. I cover his hand lightly with my own, resisting my body’s urge to move closer to him.

“Okay, I mean—,” I start. I can’t exactly tell her not to come; I can’t even lament that she didn’t warn me further ahead of time as, per her own testimony, she tried. “—Okay. I’ll see you soon, I guess.”

“Don’t sound so eager, it’s only your mother,” she replies sharply.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I sigh, “I’ll see you in a week. Can’t wait.” She hangs up the phone without saying goodbye. Manners only matter when it’s mine that are lacking. I set the phone down, staring straight ahead for a moment as I close my hand around Jasper’s, lacing my fingers through his.

“Your mom?” He asks after a beat, in his soft way which, infuriatingly, makes me want to simultaneously tell him my deepest secrets and break down sobbing in his arms. How on Earth does he do that?

“Mhmm,” I hum, deciding on a dime to keep the conversation light, “she’s coming up in a week. She didn’t tell me why.”

“Sounds like a real piece of work,” Jasper says, leaning in to kiss my temple before I finally look at him.

“Yeah,” I nod, “you could say that.”

I don’t know if it’s residual teenage rebellion or the fact that I know inherently that my mother will hate him or what, but in this moment, looking at Jasper, I’m hit by a wave of Something that knocks the breath out of me completely. He is truly, completely perfect.

It occurs to me that I’ve been staring at him a moment too long when, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, he says “What?”

I kiss him, and his small noise of surprise is submerged in a current of that sweet, slow darkness that envelops me whenever we’re together.

Jasper and I, in a rare moment of extraverted unison, have agreed to spend the evening with Joshy and Janie at her apartment above the cafe. It was Janie’s idea—she said it would be fun to have “couple friends,” but I get the distinct feeling she’s just curious about what exactly a relationship with the infamous Moss might look like—and, while she vaguely mentioned card games, I know for a fact she’s made no plans beyond sitting around on the floor and passing a bottle of gin back and forth. It’s a refreshingly low-stakes concept; in Chicago, if I wanted to socialize with anyone I needed to go to at least three bars and one late-night taco truck before we settled down for the night. I don’t think I’ve done the old “split a bottle of gin” routine since senior prom.

For some reason I expected Jasper to be nervous about the outing, but he’s not. He’s actually anything but. He even snagged some snacks from the general store on our way to Janie’s because “you can’t show up empty-handed, who raised you?”

The door to the apartment is unlocked, and upon opening it I’m met with an almost-tangible wave of sound. Music, laughter, pots and pans banging around in the kitchen.

“Hello?” I call, “We’re here.”

“Coming!” Janie responds, shortly before rounding the corner with two cocktail glasses hanging from her right hand. “Nice tat, Andie,” she grins devilishly, and after a moment of confusion my hand flies to my neck. I spin to look at Jasper, swatting him with the back of my hand.

“Oh my god, did you give me a hickey?” I hiss, a spark of satisfaction overcoming my embarrassment as his face flushes red.

“Sorry, sorry—ow, Jesus!” He mumbles, stifling laughter and backing away from my attacks until his legs hit the arm of Janie’s couch. “Okay, okay!” He says, finally allowing himself to laugh fully. “Okay, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I swear.” He’s holding out his pinky finger and, with a raised eyebrow, I link mine through it. As long as he swears.

Janie has disappeared back into the kitchen, replaced by Joshy, who’s apparently been banished for burning the popcorn. “Boys,” I say in lieu of a goodbye, sweeping into the kitchen to let them entertain themselves while I endure Janie’s inevitable bout of relentless teasing.

“I cannot believe he did that,” I mutter softly, coming to stand beside her, “I’m going to kill him. You know my mother’s coming to town in a week? Kill him for me, Janie.”

She laughs. “Spoons are in the drawer closest to the fridge,” she says. I understand her meaning; anyone who’s been the unfortunate victim of a hickey is familiar with the cold spoon trick. I search the drawer for the biggest metal spoon I can find before submerging it in a glass of ice water. Janie’s stirring a jar of something gorgeous and purple. She turns to me and says, “Honestly, I’m impressed. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t think anyone’s given me a hickey since high school. What’s that?”

“Gin, I infused it with this blue tea stuff. It’s supposed to be good, we’ll see. So, have you…?” She asks casually.

“Yep,” I reply, trying to match her tone so she doesn’t shriek in response. It’s no use.

“Yes!” She squeaks, “How was it? Was it good?”

I feel myself flush and press the cold spoon into my neck in the vain hope that it’ll bring me back to a normal temperature. “Janie, I don’t even have the words to describe how good it was.”

“Really? Oh my god, Andie! Tell me everything, I can’t believe you didn’t text me immediately,” she says, bringing her tone back down to a whisper-shout that’s no less suspicious than her high-pitched shriek.

“It literally happened last night!” I whisper-shout in response, unable to keep the grin from my face.

“No excuse!”

“Fine, fine! ‘Kay, so first of all, he has a tattoo above his knee—,”

“Ladies?” Joshy asks from the doorway, eyebrow quirked in an amused expression. Shit.

“Coming!” Janie answers brightly, shooting me a look that says plainly “we’ll talk about it later.” I almost wish it was just the two of us tonight, just Janie and I. There’s nothing like a debrief between girls, between friends; I knew I missed having non-men around, but now that I know I have at least one to count on, it's like forbidden fruit. I don’t want to hang out with the boys, I want to dish with my friends. I make a promise to myself, then: I’ll call my college friends tomorrow. I’ll tell them everything. I won’t let go of my adolescence just yet.

#highway hypnosis #writers on tumblr #this chapter brought to you by the time-honored ritual of the Girly Debrief #and the butterfly gin i made for my best friend’s birthday #it’s delicious y’all #Spotify

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xtruss · 4 months

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“Boak Bollocks, Senile Oaf, Human Feces and War Criminal Erik Prince Calls” For U.S. To Colonize Africa And Latin America What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

— Jon Schwarz | February 10 2024 | The Intercept

Erik Dean Prince (Born June 6, 1969, Holland, Michigan, U.S.) is an American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the Founder of the Private Military Company Blackwater. He Served as Blackwater's CEO until 2009 and as its chairman until its sale to a group of investors in 2010. Prince heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group and was Chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group until 2021. Prince is the son of engineer and businessman Edgar Prince, and the brother of former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Erik Prince speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 4, 2023, at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

Erik Prince Has been many things in his 54 years on Earth: the wealthy heir to an auto supply company; a Criminal Navy SEAL; the Founder of the Mercenary Firm Blackwater, which Conducted a Notorious 2007 Massacre in the Middle of Baghdad; the brother of Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education; a Shadow Adviser to Trump; and the Plaintiff in a Lawsuit Against The Intercept.

Last November, Prince started a podcast called “Off LeashOpens in a new tab,” which in its promotional copy says he “brings a unique and invaluable perspective to today’s increasingly volatile world.” On an episode last Tuesday, his unique and invaluable perspective turned out to be that the U.S. should “put the imperial hat back on” and take over and directly run huge swaths of the globe.

youtube

Here’s Are Prince’s Exact Words:

If so many of these countries around the world are incapable of governing themselves, it’s time for us to just put the imperial hat back on, to say, we’re going to govern those countries … ’cause enough is enough, we’re done being invaded. … You can say that about pretty much all of Africa, they’re incapable of governing themselves.

Prince’s co-host Mark Serrano then warned him that listeners might hear his words and believe he means them: “People on the left are going to watch this,” said Serrano, “and they’re going to say, wait a minute, Erik Prince is talking about being a colonialist again.”

Prince responded: “Absolutely, yes.” He then added that he thought this was a great concept not just for Africa but also for Latin America.

Prince and Serrano either do not know or do not care that previous bouts of the European flavor of colonialism led to the deaths of tens of millions of people around the world. Then in the 20th century, the ideology of colonialism gave birth to Nazism.

Like the previous enthusiasts of imperialism, Prince is completely blind to his own motivations and where they inevitably lead. He doesn’t want to do this for America’s benefit, you see. No, it’s because “if you go to these countries and you see how they suffer, under absolutely corrupt governments that are just criminal syndicates, a lot of them deserve better.”

This was the rationale for Britain’s White Man’s Burden, France’s mission civilisatrice, Spain’s Misión civilizadora, Portugal’s Missão Civilizadora, and even Imperial Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which aimed to conquer every nearby country for the benefit of allOpens in a new tab. Imperialists have always told themselves that they are subduing other lands to help their benighted inhabitants. This beneficence somehow always leads to mass death.

This curious psychological phenomenon is famously portrayed in “Heart of Darkness,” the 1899 Novel by Joseph Conrad. The book’s narrator, Charles Marlow, describes his voyage up a river into the interior of an unnamed African country that is obviously Congo in the process of being colonized by Belgium.

Marlow Explains:

It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale … the conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea — something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to.

Marlow attempts to find out what happened to Mr. Kurtz, An Upriver Colonial Agent. When he arrives, he finds Kurtz is living in a villa surrounded by heads stuck on spikes. Marlow learns that Kurtz has written a report for the “International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs.” It begins with Kurtz declaring, “By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded.” Before long it degenerates into an exhortation to “exterminate all the brutes!”

That’s in fiction. In reality, Belgium’s well-meaning imperialism killed perhaps 10 million Congolese.

It always seems to work this way. For instance, here are a series of 2003 quotes about the Iraq War from Mississippi’s Trent Lott, then the GOP’s Senate minority leader:

March 27: “I ask Mississippians of all faiths to pray for all our coalition forces and the Iraqi people as they engage in an intense but noble battle against what is nothing but sheer evil.”

April 15: “We went in there to free those people.”

October 28: “If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens.”

Serrano at least is more in touch with the grimy reality of what they’re talking about, and he excitedly mentions how America could bring lesser nations “the professionalism they need to capitalize on their natural resources.”

In any case, Prince’s words illustrate that we are living in a time in which many of humanity’s worst ideas, ones we thought were long dead and buried, have risen from the grave and are now staggering about again.

Fascism? Maybe things went off the rails last time, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. A pea-brained fear of vaccines? Sure, why not? A conviction that the old lady who lives in the forest is stealing our children and vivisecting them to consume their adrenochrome? That makes perfect sense.

Later in the show Prince also resurrects another old popular favorite, The Enemy Within Is in League With the Enemy Without. “You get the BLM and the Hamas militias of the Democrat Party, very active in the United States this summer,” he says. “When that BLM or Hamas militia shows up to start wrecking things, you show them what law and order looks like, immediately.”

So that’s where we are in today’s America. Maybe we could return to medicine based on the four humors, in which all human afflictions are due to imbalances in your phlegm, blood, and yellow and black bile. And why not give chattel slavery another shot? If we’re going to do imperialism again, really, the sky’s the limit.

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thesheel · 2 years

Text

“If I win the presidency, my judicial appointment will do the right thing, unlike Bush’s appointee John Roberts on Obamacare.” (Donald Trump- 2015) The only aim of Donald Trump in the selection of Supreme Court justices is to further his personal agenda. The above quote from Donald Trump is from 2015 when he was not even president. This attitude of Trump helped him to nominate people to the Supreme Court just to pursue his interests over the interests of the United States. Little did he know back then that these judges would not bow down against his pressure. In his attempt to make the 2020 presidential elections controversial, Donald Trump announced premature victory on election night and filed dozens of lawsuits all over the United States. Even moving to the Supreme Court spilled waters on Trump’s hopes. The Supreme Court of the United States refused to overturn the results of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin based on the lawsuit filed by Texas. The Supreme Court has clear conservative domination with six out of nine conservative judges on the bench. Three of these judges, namely Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, are appointed by Trump himself, and all of them threw the Texas and Pennsylvania election lawsuits away. Now, when all of Trump’s appointed judges made a decision against him, he is going out of the senses. The same Donald Trump, who used to praise his nominations, is trying to degrade them everywhere possible. He remembers his judges with the following words now. The Supreme Court really let us down. No Wisdom, No Courage! (Donald Trump after losing the Texas lawsuit in the Supreme Court) This U-turn of Trump regarding his views about the conservative judges speaks volumes about Trump’s perception about people who are not supporting him in winning the elections. Probably, Trump is right that the judges have “No Courage” for fraud. Republicans who mostly praised Trump as a God are also started to rejecting the fake propaganda of Trump. Most of them believe that supporting a man with an inevitable defeat in the lawsuits can cost them their political careers. Even after the passing of the safe harbor, Donald Trump is reluctant to concede the elections. The electoral college is all set to meet on December 14; still, Trump is pursuing his fake propaganda against the electoral system of the United States. In his battle to overturn the election results, many Republicans have stuck with the President, supporting him with his every move and baseless arguments, yet some have opposed him. The Republican judges and governors have spoken against Trump, suggesting that they don’t want to support an individual over a country. They have denied the falsified claims of Trump and endorsed Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. How did the Republican judges and governors refuse to buy the propaganda of Trump? Let’s have a look. Republican Revolt in the Supreme Court: Trump Getting no Favor from Conservative Judges: “We're waiting for the United States Supreme Court — of which the president has nominated three justices — to step in and do something. And hopefully, Amy Coney Barrett will come through." (Trump’s legal advisor Harmeet Dhillon) Donald Trump thought that Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the other two justices appointed by him could help him in the post-election lawsuits. However, these very judges upheld the integrity of the Constitution along with other justices. The heavily dominated conservative Supreme Court refused to entertain the baseless lawsuits of Trump. Recently, Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton sued four states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Paxton wanted the Supreme Court to extend the December 14 deadline for the electoral college in these four states as, according to him, these states need further investigations of elections. Paxton claimed that these states made changes in their laws, which initiat

ed voter fraud. However, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court had plans to maintain constitutional integrity. All three judges nominated by Trump rejected both the Pennsylvania and Texas lawsuit. The unique nature of the Texas lawsuit, where one state is asking to stop the results of the other states, also raised concerns on Paxton’s ambitions. He is believed to do this to make the president happy and get a presidential pardon, as his security fraud and FBI investigations came into the limelight recently. Trump vs. Democracy: Republican State Judges Preferred the Later: (Trump campaign presented) strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations ... unsupported by evidence…In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state.” (Matthew W. Brann, a Republican Judge from Pennsylvania) Since the presidential election, the Trump campaign has filed more than three dozen lawsuits against the election results. However, to uphold the integrity of the democratic practices of the United States, the judges took some commendable actions. They did not entertain the baseless lawsuits of Donald Trump despite any party affiliation. Judges have been gutting claims of voter fraud and have been throwing out all possible avenues that could undermine the integrity of the Electoral College. These Judges include those appointed by President Donald Trump or any other Republican President. The cases of President Trump rejected by Republican judges are not limited to the post-election lawsuits. Instead, there have been many instances when the Trump Administration was blocked by Republican judges in the process of legislation. How did the Republican judges refuse to bow down in front of Trump before the elections? Let’s look. A California federal judge struck down the efforts of the Trump administration recently to tighten eligibility and not raising the minimum salary of foreign workers. The Federal judges have recently ruled that two appointments of the Trump Administration, including the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Administrator of the Bureau of Land Management, were illegal. So, their work in those rules must be voided. Similarly, two federal judges have blocked Trump from extending a ban on the social media app, Tik Tok. Trump tried to ban the app in one of his moves against China. However, Republicans against Trump made sure that Trump did not take any unilateral action. The President also failed to stop the defamation lawsuit filed against him by a columnist who has accused him of sexual assault. Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by President Trump in 2017, ruled against the Trump administration last June regarding LGBTQ employment discrimination. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another of Trump's appointees, ruled against the attempt to block the release of the president's taxes and financial records. These actions of Republicans against Trump were based on policymaking. However, Trump is mostly shocked by the judges who blocked his attempt to win the elections by unfair means. Trump was sure that his appointed judges would help him win the presidency again. This is one of the main reasons why Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett after the passing of Ruth Ginsburg, just before the election. As Trump tried to challenge the centuries-old electoral system of the United States, the decisions of the Republicans against Trump made him bite the dust. Therefore, the Trump campaign failed in their falsified attempts. Let's have a look at how the Republican-appointed judges stopped the path of Donald Trump to the White House. Before Election Day, US District Judge Andrew Hanen, appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled that nearly 127,000 early votes cast at the Houston drive-through polling stations w

ould be included in the vote count. The decision was similar to other Republican-appointed judges' decisions in the Texas Supreme Court. This was a major setback for Republicans, as they were expecting that the courts would help them in throwing out these mostly Democratic votes. On November 23, Federal Court Judge Matthew Brann, a well-known Republican appointed by Obama, threw out the Trump campaign's lawsuit to invalidate millions of Pennsylvania votes. Remember that Pennsylvania is the state that cemented the presidency of Joe Biden. The Trump campaign claimed that Democrats rigged Pennsylvania; however, Trump's lawyers failed to prove any bit of these claims. In Federal Appellate Court, Trump appointee Stephanos Bibas rejected the President's effort to overturn the election results, saying that “charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.” A conservative judge of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Justice Brian Hagedorn, joined liberal judges in rejecting a lawsuit by the Trump legal team to let the Republican lawmakers decide how to cast the electoral vote. Trump was also shocked due to the decisions of Republicans against Trump. In his phone interview with Fox News, the president put the whole blame for his unsuccessful legal challenges on the courts. He said that his legal team was not given enough chances to prove their cases. Republican Judges Upholding the Constitutional Integrity The rejection of Trump’s claims of voter frauds based on conspiracy theories by the Republican federal judges and the district judges proved that judges of the United States follow the Constitution and do not bow to any political pressure to make biased decisions. During the Trump presidency, there have been instances when it appeared that federal courts were working on a designed strategy to help the administration, but the last few weeks proved this assumption wrong. It is also pertinent to note here that these Republicans' decisions against Trump do not make the judges Democrats. All of these Republican judges should be applauded that they did not bring ideological affiliation into their line of duty. Republican Election Official Defending the Trusted Electoral Process of the USA Against Trump’s Baseless Attacks "Hoaxes and nonsense. Don't buy into such things. Find trusted sources." (Gabriel Sterling, a Republican Election Official from Georgia) The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) claimed that the 2020 presidential elections were the most secure in history. Trump’s rhetoric of election fraud was also rejected by the Republican elected officials. A committee of election officials and senior officers of the Department of Homeland security and the US Election Assistance Commission said in a joint statement that there is no evidence of any kind of mismanagement in voting by mail and the whole election process. It is pertinent to note here that this statement came as President Donald Trump tweeted that his 2.7 million votes were deleted from the voting software. This claim, like many others, lacked evidence and was flagged by Twitter as misinformation. Astonishingly, many officials of the committees mentioned above were appointed by President Trump and are Republicans. CISA Director Christopher Krebs was appointed by President Trump himself. However, he was removed from the office once he busted the conspiracy theories propagated by Trump's campaign. Now Mr. Krebs has filed a lawsuit against President Trump's lawyer, Joseph diGenova, and the Trump campaign for defamation and infliction of emotional stress. Even the United States Attorney General, Bill Barr, a strong supporter of Trump, came out and said that there is no evidence of voter fraud that could have brought a different result. His comments, therefore, cemented the statements released by the Department of Homeland security, US Intelligence,

and independent poll watchers. As the situation stands now, many Republicans still back Donald Trump's falsified claims as they are afraid of post-presidential-term Trump. However, those who reject his rhetoric are increasing with every passing day. The Voter Fraud Commission, established by President Trump, sent requests to all 50 states to provide information on voter fraud and other mismanagements regarding vote count. The vast majority, 44 of the 50 states, refused to provide any kind of information to the commission. These include pure red states as well. A prominent example is the refusal of Republican secretaries of the states, including President Trump's ally Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. The request was rejected as the information requested by the commission was confidential and should not be made public. These attempts of Republicans against Trump also evince that Trump just wants a second term in office without any acceptable reason. Republican Governors Pushing Trump Out of the White House: "That is not what democracy is about." (Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan) After having setbacks from the judges and the election officials, the Republican party and President Donald Trump also faced severe criticism from Republican governors. Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan said that Trump is damaging the party's position in the upcoming Senate run-off elections. He also expressed his concerns about the pervasiveness of Trump's version of the truth, which he is propagating just to overturn the election results. Lt. Governor Duncan is among several other Republican officials who have denied the Trump rhetoric of voter fraud. The list also includes Georgia governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of the State Brad Raffensperger. Similarly, Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey also strongly defended the election process in his state after Republican leaders criticized him for his failure of conducting a free and fair election. He was also criticized as he certified President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the state. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts also rejected the claims of voter fraud, as he was among the first few Republicans who congratulated President-elect and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The governor of Vermont, Phil Scott, also went against Trump's rhetoric and called on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to unite the country. By saying that the “voters have spoken,” he rejected all election fraud claims made by Trump and his team. The governor-elect of Utah, Spenser Cox, also expressed his congratulations to Joe Biden and requested to work together for the people of Utah. A similar tradition was followed by the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, who said that the country is going through a difficult time, and we must all empower the next president to take us out of the crisis. Mike DeWine of Ohio, in his interview with CNN, made it clear that the Republicans need to accept Joe Biden as the winner. Other Republican governors who have openly accepted Joe Biden as president-elect, rejecting claims of President Trump and his legal team, include the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. Judges and the elected officials must not work to propagate the specific agenda. This is what the recent events have concluded. By going against the party's lines, Republican judges and governors have proved that any threat to the American democracy will be tackled with an immediate response. Conclusion The Trump campaign tried its best by filing as many lawsuits as they could. However, the judges made sure that Trump did not harness any unfair advantage just because of his people in the decision-making positions. Despite the passing of the safe harbor, Donald Trump has yet to concede the elections. One thing that is inevitable is that the Trump campaign is not going to win any more votes. Donald Trump also knows that his journey is over in the White House, and thi

s is the reason why he is eyeing the 2024 presidential term. While Trump is destroying America in his last days, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are all set to become the officials as soon as the electoral college meets on December 14. The next move of Donald Trump will be seen in motivating the faithless electors soon. The comments of Republicans about Donald Trump also speak volumes that not many will stand by his side in the aftermath of his removal from the White House, where he will be facing a lot of legal challenges that he evaded due to the presidential powers. Although at least 126 Republican Congressmen support Trump's effort of overturning the elections, this number is decreasing day by day, and soon he will be standing alone competing with other Republicans for the 2024 party's nomination.

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despair-sauce · 2 years

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Kyle and Cartman Talk

After Cartman hung up his phone and quickly ran downstairs to get his mom's car keys and runs outside. In the distance he sees Kyle and goes to walk to the car. Soon enough he pulls up to Kyles house and Kyle walks down his driveway and gets in the passenger seat.

"Do you want to tell me what the fuck happened?" Cartman asks. "Not now...just...drive to that one place in the park, please" Kyle says trying not to explode at Cartman.

Kyle and his mom had a pretty bad fight going on. There was kicking and screaming and crying, it wasn't the best and Kyle is still at the very pissed off end of the spectrum.

It doesn't take long for Cartman to pull up in the park. He turns the car off and breaths in, not knowing if he's really ready to know what happened to Kyle.

"So, what turned you into the jersey devil?" Cartman teases. Kyle is trying his best to calm down, and being near Cartman is helping, but even if, it's hard.

"It's my mom! God she's just so..." "Bitchy?" "Infuriating." Kyle answers.

"Well, we all know that Kyle, but what's making that stand out to you right now?" Cartman asks, slightly concerned since Kyle never speaks bad about his mom.

"She keeps talking about college. I mean yeah I know I should, but....our plans to go to Michigan is more important to me, and of course it doesn't matter to my mom!" Kyle proclaims

Michigan...the four of us have decided to book it to Michigan the day of graduation, after all the ceremonies, and never look back.

"She keeps bringing up how much of a genius Ike is. I'm proud of Ike, I really am, but it's like my mom thinks I'm a total idiot! I-"

"Kyle you are the smartest damn person I've ever fucking met. That tiny little Canadian Jew rat is nothing compared to you," Cartman says. He mean everything he says, all of it.

Kyle looks at Cartman in complete awe. "Do you really mean that?"

"Do I ever lie to you?" Cartman asks. "Yeah actually, you lie a lot," Kyle responds.

"I mean about serious stuff?" Cartman asks. "No, I guess you don't, thank you" Kyle says to Cartman, with an adoring smile on his face.

"When we're at Michigan, you can find a smartass university there, okay?" Cartman says.

"I think smartass highschool is fine for now," Kyle teases.

The next few minutes was a comfortable silence, until Kyle starts talking.

"I can't wait for Michigan," Kyle says.

"God, me fucking neither, just another year of torture and us four are out of here," Cartman adds. "I never mentioned it before, but I'm proud of my little jew for defying his mother and escaping first chance he got! I feel like a proud mama!"

"I guess I picked up a few traits from you, didn't I?" Kyle says.

"It was inevitable Kyle, I'm that amazing am I?" Cartman asks.

"mmm yeah you are" Kyle mutters, but Cartman heard him. Cartman tries to hide his idiotic blush but it's hard when Kyle is right next to him.

"So you good now? Are you still hot to the touch?" Cartman teases.

"Shut the fuck up, fatass, yeah I'm okay now, but I don't want to go home yet. Take me to your house!" Kyle says

"Okay."

Kyle didn't expect to win him over so easily. "Wait, really?"

"Uh I mean- fuck you, go to hell, kick rocks and die" Cartman bullshits.

Kyle smiles and hums sweetly for a second. "I pick the movie, you can pick the snacks."

Cartman grumbles and starts the car again, backing up and leaving the park.

"You tread on dangerous waters, jew boy, don't get too cocky, it'll bite you in the ass," Cartman sarcastically warns.

"Yeah well, you'll save me when I drown, right?" Kyle asks.

"Of course I will."

#south park #south park kyman #kyman #cartman x kyle #kyle x cartman #eric cartman #kyle broflovski #they are 17 #god fuck kyman is some gay ass shit #poor Kyle he really has a hard time with his mom #also poor CARTMAN he really has to reassure Kyle he is smart #Cartman is a great fucking tank we all adore this motherfucker #Kyle is 100% the brains in this relationship we all love this asshole #i hope this satisfies you #yknow because i left yall....hanging last chapter

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justoneofthoseghosts · 3 years

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Break me + brettsey

A/N: To the anons who requested for this, I tried my best 🥲 Also, you know I love fluff so wow, this was really emotional to write but I do love a challenge so er, grab some tissues maybe.

Warnings: character death

Throughout the years, Sylvie has learned that life isn’t always fair.

No matter how hard she studied for the 2nd grade spelling bee, someone studied harder and got that big, shiny trophy. She had her first kiss at seventeen with a boy she thought she’d love forever but he ended up being a manipulative jerk, just the first of many who turned out to be frogs instead of princes. Her birth mom sought her out and just as they found their footing, she died at child birth.

But this one, it really takes the cake, Sylvie thinks.

She pleaded with Matt to get his cough checked out weeks ago, asking him politely when she noticed it getting more and more frequent. It crept in especially late at night in bed when they were supposed to be sleeping, instead, she would hear him try to stifle it so as not to wake her. He shrugged it off and told her not to worry, which is classic Matt. She should have known. Even after all these years, her husband is still so stubborn.

One night, when the coughing won’t stop, she manages to get through to him and he agrees to go to the ED. Sylvie grabs the car keys and leads him out the door.

They greet the new charge nurse, who brings them into a treatment room. Sylvie doesn’t think much of it as Ethan comes in and they make small talk and catch up with the ED chief, who at 70 seems to show no signs of retiring. He orders a few standard tests. They wheel Matt off to get an x ray while Sylvie goes to grab a snack from the vending machine.

When Ethan finds her forty minutes later, his face is grim. Her heart drops to the pit of her stomach and she knows it’s not just an ordinary cough.

Stage 4 lung cancer.

Matt Casey, retired CFD battalion chief has stage 4 lung cancer.

It’s like a cruel joke. Matt’s never smoked a single cigarette in his life but his career as a firefighter has finally caught up with him - all the fumes, the smoke, the dust have made their way into his lungs. Sylvie doesn’t cry while the oncologist takes them through their options. She’d gladly sit through a hundred rounds of chemo with Matt if needed.

Except he doesn’t want that.

They argue about it for several weeks. Matt says he wants to spend the rest of his days at home, maybe they can rent a cabin in the woods in Michigan where the air is fresh, the sky is blue and they can just be, waiting for the inevitable.

“Matt,” she starts to say, an edge in her tone. They've been going around in circles and Sylvie is ready to put her foot down.

Matt shakes his head, taking her hand and gently telling her what he's been repeating since that day they found out, “I’ve lived a full life. We have these great kids and grandkids. I can’t ask for anything more.”

Sylvie yanks her hand out of his grasp. She's had enough.

“What would you do if it were the other way around?” She yells, her voice trembling slightly. She doesn’t think she’s every screamed at him this loudly in all their years together but she doesn’t want to give up. She needs him to understand.

Matt sighs, running a hand through his now grey hair. After a beat, he looks her in the eye. She knows he can't lie and say he'll take it lying down if she were to tell him what he's been parroting.

“I’d be begging you to get the treatment because I couldn’t bear to live a day without you,” he admits quietly.

They hold each other’s gazes, neither willing to concede.

“Please, Matt,” Sylvie whispers as she feels the tears threatening to fall. She grabs hold of his arm, squeezing it. She needs him to fight, if not for himself then for her because she doesn't think she can handle life without him, not quite yet.

He finally relents, “okay, okay, we’ll get the chemo.”

He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close. Sylvie burrows deeper into his embrace, sobbing. She cries for the first time since they found out about the cancer and Matt rubs his hand over her back, comforting her.

Sylvie drives Matt to the hospital for his rounds of chemo while he jokes about shaving off his hair. One night, she wakes up to find his side of the bed empty and the light in the bathroom on. She peers in and sees him kneeling in front of the toilet, vomiting. She takes a seat beside him and quietly helps him, remembering their wedding vows.

In sickness and in health.

On the side, she starts to volunteer for the CFD’s firefighters cancer network, trying to raise more awareness on the dangers of such a noble job. She cheers with Matt one Spring morning when Gallo, Violet and Ritter decide to run the half marathon in full firefighter gear, in support of the cause. She’s glad that even if they’ve both retired, 51 still remains to be a part of their family.

Six months in, the doctor tells them that the chemo isn’t working as well as he hoped and the prognosis isn’t good. Sylvie still wants to continue but Matt sits her down one night after dinner.

“I think it’s time we just wait this out, Syl.” He tells her gently, interlacing his fingers in hers.

Sylvie wants to say no because this can’t be how it ends for him, someone spent his life saving people is about to succumb to a deadly, incurable disease. It really, truly is unfair.

But at the same time, she understands his request. He doesn’t want to put their family through another roller coaster ride of emotions, of uncertainty, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’s saying he wants to take the reins and do it his way.

It reminds Sylvie of that quote from Harry Potter she read when she was younger.

To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

She didn't understand it at all at thirteen but she does now, glancing over at Matt and seeing the steely resolve in his eyes.

They’ve been together for over 30 years. They’ve built a home filled with love and kindness, full of laughter and running blonde children who all grew up to be exceptional adults with thriving careers. They have two wonderful, adorable grandchildren. She remembers what Matt told her, how he’s lived a full life.

She feels a tear slide down her cheek and Matt’s other hand brushes it away. She knows the next word coming out of her mouth will break her heart but she says it anyway because it's what's right.

“Okay.”

There’s something in the air, Sylvie thinks and her soul begins to fill with dread. Today, it seems, is the day. Matt’s been in bed for the last three days, not really able to move or eat much. Without the chemo, the doctor told them he had about three months to live and with each day that passed after that, Sylvie started to feel hope that maybe he had more to give.

It’s been a little over a year since the diagnosis. Sylvie’s trying to read a book while Matt is taking a nap. She’s distracted by her thoughts but hears him whisper.

“I think it’s time.”

She nods, her lower lip quivering. She approaches him and kisses the top of his head before making her way out of the room to make a few phone calls.

The house starts to fill with family and friends arriving to say their last good byes. Their kids are here, surrounding their dad and telling stories about how Matt always put them first no matter what. The remaining members of their second shift at 51 start to trickle in one by one. Sylvie told them it was going to be a celebration of Matt’s life, how she didn’t want them to mope around because it isn’t what he would want so they laugh and jest until late in the evening.

Matt kisses his grandkids one last time before they leave and Sylvie climbs into bed with him. He rests his head on her shoulder as she holds his hand and watches his eyes flutter close and his breathing gradually stop.

Sylvie recollects their many years together - growing from friends to something deeper, the first time Matt swung like Tarzan from the aerial after they got together and Sylvie telling him never to do it again and of course he did many more time and she never really stopped worrying, buying a house, their wedding day, the birth of their children, sending off each kid to preschool up until watching them graduate from college, meeting their grandchildren for the first time, celebrating personal and professional milestones together, cheering each other on.

She looks at her husband’s still form thinking yes, it has been a full life.

#you ask for angst and I try to deliver #but wow that was hard to write #and I'm sorry in advance #chicago fire #brettsey #fanfic prompt

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thewhitejournal · 4 years

Text

“The Intern” Part Two

Aaron Hotchner x Reader

hello all! the love on this first part was absolutely unexpected, but i am so grateful for it! here is the link to the first part of the series, go ahead and read that in case you haven’t yet. if you liked this part or have any feedback, do not hesitate to let me know. without further ado, onto the show!

content warnings: mentions of child sexual assault and murder

link to the inspiration for this fictional case

You and Penelope started looking over the file Agent Hotchner had given you. Not soon after you read over some of the details, a blonde woman swung open the door to the office.

”Garcia, debriefing in five. Hi, I’m Jennifer Jareau, but you can call me JJ. I’m the liaison for the team; I’ve heard so much about you, Penelope is so excited to not be alone in her office all the time.” She smiled at you, offering you her hand to shake, and you took it.

”It’s so nice to meet you, I’m (y/n) (y/l/n).” You smiled back at her, and she called for Garcia over her shoulder as she left. You looked up to Penelope, silently asking what your next move should be.

”C’mon kid, you're on this case. I have a little feeling Hotch won't mind if I invite you to work it.” She said to you with a knowing smirk playing on her lips, heat flooding your cheeks. You'd hope not, you didn't want to make the boss mad the first day you were shadowing.

Following Penelope out of her office, you looked around and noticed other agents heading the same way. Agent Jareau was walking ahead of you, talking to a dark-haired woman, and your path aligned with a skinny, long-haired man wearing a sweater vest and gun on his waist that looked like it physically weighed him down.

“Uh, hi, I-I’m Spencer Reid, Garcia told me about you. It’s nice to meet you.” His lips were in a straight line, and he didn’t make direct eye contact with you. You smiled at him.

“(Y/n) (y/l/n).” Without responding, he picked up his pace a bit, catching up to the two women in front of you. Garcia chuckled.

“He’s not the most social butterfly in the garden.” You scoffed, laughing lightly yourself. She assured you he would warm up to you though, which made you feel better. You didn’t want a single member of the team to dislike you.

You all eventually gathered in the debriefing room, and you couldn’t help but wonder where Hotch was. Penelope introduced you to the other agents sitting at the table that you hadn’t met yet, and they welcomed you warmly. Agent Rossi said something about always needing extra help, which gave you a nice feeling in your chest.

JJ stood to present the case, and not a second later, Hotch walked in the door. She must have seen him coming. The only empty seat left happened to be next to yours, and he took it. He gave you a very small smile, then turned to face JJ. You suddenly remembered you were in a room full of profilers; if you were going to steal glances at Hotch, well, it’s probably better you didn’t. How frowned upon is a relationship with the boss, especially with someone not even officially part of the team? You didn’t want to think about that, it was just a silly little crush after all.

Pictures from crime scenes and documents you had to be closer to the screen to completely identify crowded every screen in the debriefing room. A twelve-year-old boy went missing outside of Seward, Nebraska. Unfortunately, he wasn’t missing long, because his body was found in a ditch off of an interstate not three days after he was reported missing. The cause of death was asphyxiation, and there were signs of sexual assault, post mortem.

“You know, this reminds me of the Oakland County Child Killer. He was responsible for the killings of four children in Oakland County, Michigan in 1976 and 1977. Each child's body was discovered in a public area within 19 days of their disappearance, two boys and two girls. The children were all either strangled or shot, and the two boys had been sexually abused.” All this information at once took you by surprise; how did he know all of that? It was like he was reading it straight from a book.

“Are there any more missing kids in the area? This could be some kind of copycat.” Morgan questioned.

“There hasn't been any reported since this boy, Nathan Harrison. Reid, how far apart did the Oakland County Child killer take his victims? If this is a copycat killer, we could try to estimate when the next victim might be.” JJ asked him.

Reid thought for a moment. “His first victim was in February of 1976, and he didn’t kidnap again until December of that year. Then, though, the last two victims were taken only months apart in 1977. I don’t believe this killer had a pattern, other than always placing the bodies where they could easily be seen.” Hotch sighs, eyes darting around the table that’s filled with case files and crime scene photos like he’s taking in all the information. His dark brows are furrowed; you guess he’s thinking of what the team should do next.

“Well, I don’t want to wait around and see if he makes his own M.O. or if he follows this killer’s actions. We’re going to need to do more research on the Oakland County killer and if there are anymore unsolved child cases in Nebraska that might be connected to our unsub. Wheels up in thirty.” Hotch looks around the room at everyone as he says this, and his gaze lingers a second longer on you before he leaves the room. The other agents start gathering the files and coffee mugs they may have brought into the room and head out too.

“Just like that, they’re gone?” You ask Penelope, turning your chair to face hers. You were the only two people left in the room. She nods.

“Just like that. You and I will stay behind and help with all the fun behind the scenes stuff unless they need us out there later.” She stands, jewelry jingling with the motion. You followed suit, trailing behind her back to her office. Looking around the room, the agents were carrying duffel bags out the door and to the elevator. You saw Hotch still standing in his office, preparing his bag and making sure he had everything.

“You think they’d let me come with you?” Your voice lowered. Secretly, she knew you meant Hotch. You didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, this was their case after all.

She only nodded, dangling earrings swinging as she did so. Hotch exited his office and you tried to inconspicuously watch where he was going. You’re sure you can’t have been that sly about it though. He rounded the corner and looked like he was going to go out the door, but he stopped behind you two, calling out for Garcia. You turned around in sync to face him.

“I don’t know what we’re walking in to yet, I want you to have a go-bag ready if needed.” He turned to face you. “(Y/l/n), if you’re comfortable with coming along with us now you’re more than welcome. We’re leaving in fifteen.” With that, he slid past you, walking through the doors to the elevator in the hall. For a split second, you felt his body heat in your space; you even caught a little whiff of his cologne.

You looked over at Garcia. You didn’t know what to do; you were here to shadow as a technical analyst, not as a profiler. You weren’t supposed to be in the field, it wasn’t the plan. You searched her face to try and figure out what she might say next, and if she was okay with you going. Maybe it could be fun, a good experience. It might be a chance to get to know the team better, maybe one to get to know your temporary boss better too…

“You can go if you want to honey, I know it appeals to some people. I am not some people, however. I like my office. My screens. And hey, nobody said you had to stay here. Maybe they’ll make you wanna be a profiler.” She placed a hand on your arm, gently patting it, her smile beaming at you. You gave her a small smile back.

“I don’t know Garcia, I don’t know the first thing about being in the field and profiling and working an actual case like that. I’ve been studying tech stuff, it’s all I know.” Your lips tightened and your brows knitted. Your eyes fell to the floor; you couldn’t look her in the eyes. It felt like you were abandoning her, as silly as it sounds.

“I may not be a profiler, but I can tell you want to work this case out there. I’ll still be here when you come back in one piece.” A small smile came upon your lips, and you met her eyes.

“Thank you, Garcia.” She smiled with her lips. Her eyes scanned your body.

“If you end up needing to stay there, you can probably fit Prentiss’s or JJ’s clothes. I’m going to send you all the teams’ contact information too. Be careful. Tell them they better take care of my girl.” She gave you a quick, unexpected kiss to the forehead. Turning into her office, she grabbed your purse and handed it over to you. She told you where to go to board the jet, and you hurried out to the elevator. You heard her laugh behind you, but you didn’t care. You were excited to be going into the field and getting to be able to know the team and all the ins and outs of the job. Maybe you did want to be a profiler.

Hotch filled your mind again though, inevitably. You were still thinking of how he extended the invitation to you personally, did that mean something? Maybe he was just being nice to you, trying to make you feel welcome here. Or did he really want you to be there with him and the team, did he want to teach you the ropes and spend more time with you? You shook your head to yourself, now heading out to board the jet. You needed to be focused on this case. But you had a feeling that being in a little space with him for at least three hours, which you knew would feel like so much longer, wouldn’t help your focus at all.

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slippinmickeys · 3 years

Text

Five Seconds (4/8)

If you’d like to read at AO3, you may do so here.

June 4, 2018

Mulder stood in the kitchen wearing only sweatpants, the rented house quiet around him. Scully had headed to the local Meijer for supplies of every stripe, and both kids had leapt at the chance to go with her, a rare occurrence the last few years, but a clear result of forced low profile and cabin fever.

He was nursing a rare cup of caffeinated coffee and watching a black squirrel make a nuisance of itself on the residence’s sole backyard bird feeder. When his new cell phone rang, he answered it out of muscle memory.

“Hello?”

“Hello Fox,” said the person on the other end of the line, “aren’t you a sound for sore ears.”

It took him a moment to place the voice.

“Lauren,” he said after a moment, smiling into the receiver, “it’s good to hear from you, too. I take it you got the information I sent you?”

Mulder had had Frohike send her their contact information as they’d previously agreed, and he assumed this was the first of her planned unplanned check-ins.

“It was a little cloak and dagger, even for the District,” she said, and Mulder could hear her smile over the line.

“And I always thought you lived for the drama,” he said companionably.

“Well, I got to wear my best Carmen SanDiego hat, so I guess I can’t be mad.”

Mulder chuckled into the receiver.

“How’s it going?” Lauren asked, her tone shifting to one of sober inquiry.

“It’s going.”

“Dana okay?” her question was sincere, and Mulder marveled how time could change a person.

“She’s good,” he said, “healthy. All systems go. I’m sure she’d want me to send you her best.”

“And the kids? How are they handling it all?”

Mulder sighed.

Will was adjusting, but Lily was miserable. Lonely and bored, unable to talk to friends back home and without the specter and excitement of starting school in the fall. She’d even begged to be able to get a summer job, even as just a waitress at the local Bennigan’s, but Mulder didn’t like the idea of her being away from the house for hours at a time, and Scully wasn’t sold on their borrowed Social Security numbers passing an employment check.

“The kids are… okay.”

“Going that well, huh?” she asked.

“Lil is pretty miserable,” he admitted.

“Of course she’s miserable,” Lauren scolded him, “she’s 18 years old and stuck in a house with her well-meaning parents. She should be at the beach with friends getting day drunk on Bud Light-”

“-she would never-” Mulder interrupted, to which Lauren outright laughed in his ear.

“-I assure you, she already has!”

Mulder sighed again. “Aside from dropping her off at the lake and buying her a rack of shit beer, you got any ideas?”

“College boys in tight pants,” Lauren said.

“Excuse me?” Mulder asked, taken aback.

“Take the family to a football game Fox, you’re in a Big Ten town for Christ’s sake.”

“It’s not football season yet.”

“Just take her somewhere with a lot of people. And give her a little bit of freedom. And when it is football season?”

“Yeah?” Mulder asked.

“Take her to see the tight pants.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

September 3, 2018

It had been months and they started to relax, maybe a bit too much. They were alert, but comfortable. Maybe complacent, Mulder couldn't tell. All he knew was that if he kept the kids in the house for much longer, they'd kill each other and possibly him and Scully in the crossfire, and it would defeat the whole purpose of their hiding out. That said, all was quiet on the homefront -- Darlene and the Gunmen, and to a lesser extent, Doggett, Reyes and Skinner -- had heard nothing with their ears to the ground.

He and Scully had discussed it, and decided that they would let the kids out of the house. They allowed them to socialize occasionally, if they promised to be careful. Will had made a couple of friends around the neighborhood, playing roller hockey in their cul de sac, but Lily hadn't had as much luck, or as much motivation. She had been quiet and keeping mostly to herself, and come September, Mulder had decided to finally take Lauren's advice. They were going to a football game.

William was beside himself with excitement which made up for Lily's lack of enthusiasm. Scully had opted out of attending, citing her increasing need of accessible bathrooms and the inevitable long lines at ladies rooms in sports arenas.

They took the bus to the edge of the MSU campus -- the first time any of them had been on it since moving to the town several months before. There were people everywhere -- most dressed in the hometown colors of green and white, but a rare few -- looking as lost on campus as the Mulders themselves -- in the brown and gold of the visiting team.

Mulder had ducked into the student union to get a campus map, whereupon William insisted he buy all three of them something supporting the hometown team. Lily opted out, but William and Mulder walked out each in a brand new ball cap, the brims stiff and flat -- in addition, William was carrying a big foam finger emblazoned with the number 1 and the gruff face of Michigan State's Spartan mascot, Sparty.

"It's this way," Mulder said, consulting his map and pointing south, and they set off following streams of people headed toward the stadium which sat in the middle of campus.

The day was delightfully mild, and while the sun shone, there were fat clouds everywhere that would cover it as soon as you were at risk of overheating. There seemed to be tailgate parties set up at increasing concentrations the closer they got to the stadium, the air thick with the scent of grilling meat and tinny stereos playing the home school's fight song.

There were frat boys throwing a football back and forth every thirty or so feet, and crowds of coeds sipping beer from green Solo cups, hovering around games of corn hole and beer pong, laughing while they clung to each other like the last few Cheerios floating in a bowl of milk.

Mulder stole a glance at Lily, who looked at them wistfully. School had just started here at Michigan State and the week before at UVA, and Mulder could tell his daughter was fairly heartbroken about not being able to attend.

Mulder pulled up short and Lily and William both stopped several steps past him and turned to look at him expectantly.

"One sec," he said and walked over to a large tent wherein an alumni organization was selling hot dogs and brats to raise funds. He bought three bratwurst and a couple of sodas and walked them back to his kids, hands full and pockets overflowing with napkins and little packets of ketchup and mustard.

He nodded toward a low stone wall that ran along the length of one of the sidewalks and they all sat down and ate sloppily, ketchup plopping to the sidewalk that they leaned over so as not to spill on their clothes. William was of course done first and snapped open his soda, slurping from it happily.

"They call it pop here," he said, raising his can and giving his father a cheeky smirk.

"No one cares, Billy," Lily said, wiping her lips delicately with a napkin and setting the last quarter of the brat on the wall beside her. "I'm stuffed," she declared.

Will happily scarfed the rest of her sausage and Mulder was about to suggest they start moving again toward the stadium when a frisbee glided through the air and scuffed to the ground at their feet. Lily jumped off the wall and picked it up, looking around to find its owner, who was trotting toward them in droopy cargo shorts and an overlarge school shirt that said "I BLEED GREEN."

Mulder shook his head as Lily pulled back and winged it back toward the guy, sailing it in a perfect arc into his waiting hands.

The kid smiled at her, teeth and all.

"Nice arm!" the kid said, giving her one more charming look before trotting back toward his friends who were waiting further across the Diag that cut through the center of campus.

Mulder glanced at Lily who was wearing a small but fading smile.

He stood, balling up the napkin and sausage detritus. He turned to Lily impulsively.

"You want a beer?" he asked her.

She almost blanched and gave him a queer look.

"A beer?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, "you're a college kid now, no reason you shouldn't enjoy a cold one before a football game like all these other coeds."

Lily gave him a suspicious look just as Will piped up, "I want a beer."

"No," Mulder said, cutting off any complaints with a sharp look and then he walked over to a fraternity tent and talked for a moment to the kid that was manning the keg. After a few words, he handed over a few bills of cash and returned to his kids, handing Lily a dripping plastic cup.

He took a sip of his own cup and inclined his head at his daughter.

"Not the best," he said, while she took a tentative sip.

She smiled over the rim of the cup but kept her eyes on the ground.

"Tastes like college," she said, and Mulder couldn't help but smile.

XxX

"Hey Frisbee," Lily heard from several feet to her right.

She stood up from the drinking fountain in a nook of the stadium in between lavatories, and used her wrist to wipe her mouth dry.

The guy who lost his frisbee at her feet while they were eating before the game was standing only yards away, a small cocksure smile on his lips. Lily tilted her head at him.

"I thought that was you," he went on.

She nodded awkwardly and stepped away from the drinking fountain so the person behind her could drink.

"I think you're in the wrong stadium," he said, and when she looked at him in confusion, he smiled kindly and pointed at her shirt.

She'd donned a UVA sweatshirt for the game out of a sense of loyalty or rebellion (she wasn't sure which, if she were being honest) and she only realized when they stepped onto campus how much it actually made her stand out.

"This isn't the UVA game?" she said mock seriously, "God, I took a left heading into Charlottesville and I guess I should have taken a right." The comment earned her a chuckle and a genuine smile. "Guess the extra ten hours in the car should have been my first clue."

The guy took a few steps toward her and held out his hand.

"Travis," he said by way of introduction, and she shook his hand politely. It was warm in hers, and his grip was firm but brief.

"Lillian," Lily said, almost forgetting to introduce herself with her cover name.

"That's pretty," Travis said, and Lily could feel herself blushing, feeling awkward that it wasn't really her name. "So you go to UVA?"

She nodded. "Deferred for a semester while my folks moved here." Her father had told her to stick as close as she could to their actual stories when telling people their covers in order to keep it all straight.

"Cool," said Travis. They stood there awkwardly for a moment.

"I should get back to my seat," she said, "halftime's almost over."

People were streaming back into the seating areas, and she could hear the marching band keeping tempo as they marched off the field.

Travis shoved his hands into his pockets and for a moment looked slightly bashful.

"Yeah," he said, turning away and taking a few steps, before turning back. "Hey, you want to hang out sometime?"

Lily thought to herself that just about anything sounded better than having to spend one more night at home playing Hearts at the dining room table.

"Sure," she said, and Travis pulled out his phone and handed it to her.

She put in the number of the phone that Darlene had given her and felt only a little weird entering "Lillian" in the name box.

When she handed Travis back the phone, he used his other hand to lightly touch her arm.

"Hey, it was nice meeting you," he said.

"You too," she smiled and wandered back to her seat, trying very hard to keep a smile off her face.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"So..." Scully started, not sure how to broach the subject, other than just to spit it out, "Lily wants to know if she can go 'hang out with a guy.'"

She was sitting at the dining room table sipping on an iced tea, the dew of condensation slippery and cold on her fingertips. She was feeling pendulous and heavy, the high of the second trimester given way to the rolling agony of the third. Her husband, as she had suspected he would, looked suddenly aghast.

"She... what?"

"She got asked out, Mulder, and would like to know if it was okay with us if she went."

William came breezing through the kitchen then, opening up the fridge door and hanging in front of it, blankly staring at its contents, unimpressed.

"Pick something or don't, Will," Mulder said testily to his current youngest, "but please stop letting all the cold out of the fridge."

Will grabbed a soda and stood while the fridge door closed on its own behind him.

"That's Billy to you," he said, mocking insult, and made his way slowly out of the kitchen, staring at Mulder who affectionately reached out as he passed and messed his red curls into an orange soda froth on the top of his head.

"You need a haircut," Mulder said, and Will lifted his nose, shaking his hair out with dignified hauteur.

"So do you," the boy said and left the room.

Scully chuckled. "Don't take it out on him," she said.

Mulder shook himself and turned back to her.

"Take what out on him?"

"That your daughter is growing up and you're not ready. You look like you did the night she went to prom with Derek Smead."

Mulder looked completely affronted.

"He didn't even come to the house! He just had the limo honk and she ran out the door. You didn't get any pictures! Who does that? No self-respecting gentleman. I honestly still don't believe he's a real person."

Scully chuckled again. "And she left him at the dance after an hour and took the limo with five friends to the Sonic drive-in. She's got a good head on her shoulders, Mulder."

"I know she does."

"So what do you think? Is it safe to let her date?"

"I don't like it."

"I didn't ask if you liked it. I asked if you thought it was safe."

Mulder blew out a raspberry. Scully knew that he was thinking the same thing she was -- they'd let Will hang out with a few new friends so long as he was careful. Lily arguably had more common sense by nature of her age (and her gender, thought Scully). She would take precautions and employ the minimal tradecraft Mulder and Scully had taught her.

"What do you think?" Mulder asked her.

"I think she's 18 years old and we're lucky she even ran it by us. If she were away at school, she'd be making these decisions for herself."

Mulder's shoulders slumped.

"As long as she's careful," he finally said.

"I'll give her some condoms," Scully muttered, an offhand remark.

"Scully!" Mulder blanched.

"I just wanted to see the look on your face," Scully laughed.

Mulder shook his head and turned to walk out of the room.

Scully was still chuckling minutes later.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"Hey Frisbee," said a voice from behind her.

Lily turned to see Travis standing several feet away in the middle of the footbridge. He was wearing black flip flops, a pair of long khaki shorts and a navy blue polo shirt. His hair -- dark tousled waves, cut short but shaggy -- was poking in all directions out of a university ball cap, which, she was relieved to see, was pristinely white without a yellowing band of sweat or scuzz. His face looked freshly shaved and he was smiling.

"Hey yourself," she said, and took a step toward him.

He reached into his pocket as she approached and pulled out a ziplock sandwich bag, filled with a gritty grey substance. She took it with some hesitation.

"Is this... a bag of oatmeal?" she asked.

He colored and put both hands up.

"Okay, so: I was going to bring your flowers, but then I thought you know what would be cute? Flour . So I went to our pantry and I'm looking at this giant bag of flour and I'm like what the hell is she going to do with a giant bag of flour? And then I saw the oatmeal and thought -- well, we're meeting on the footbridge, we could feed the ducks! ...So I brought you oatmeal. Bread is bad for ducks."

Despite the lengthy diatribe, Lily laughed. "It was nice of you to think of the ducks," she said.

"Well," he said, and walked with her to the railing of the footbridge, which crossed the Red Cedar River. "The bag itself is multipurpose. If you think it'd be fun, I thought we could rent a canoe later and go down the river?"

"What does that have to do with the bag?" she asked, leaning over the railing and looking down into the tannin-tinted water. A cluster of ducks, trained to anticipate food, swam quickly toward them.

"We can put our phones in it," he said, leaning into her shoulder a little. "I myself have been through the gauntlet of canoe training at Camp Quitcherbitchin as a young lad, but you're an unknown quantity, Frisbee. What if you dunk us? I aim to save our electronics."

Lily laughed again, charmed despite herself. She opened the baggie and threw a handful of oats to the waiting ducks below, which scurried as fast as they could swim for the feast. Lily offered Travis some, and he took a handful and cast it out. They fed the ducks for a minute or so of comfortable silence.

Finally, Lily asked: "Camp Quitcherbitchin?"

Travis smiled.

"Sleep-away summer camp up north. I went every year. It's actually called Camp Nageesh, but some of the counselors were somewhat less than tolerant of complaints, so the campers called it Quitcherbitchin.”

Lily chuckled. "Canoes, huh?"

"Plus sailboats, swimming and archery. I refuse to divulge which I have a higher level of competency in, in case you're some kind of polymath with a competitive bent."

"You aren't one of those guys who can't stand it when a girl is better than you at something, are you?" Lily asked.

“Are you a polymath with a competitive bent?” Travis grabbed another handful of oatmeal and threw it toward a mother with a brood of ducklings that were having trouble getting into the mix.

“I’ve got some game,” Lily said, arching an eyebrow that would have made her mother proud.

"In that case," he said, turning toward her. His eyes were a mossy green, like her father's. He gave her a small smile, “I look forward to being outmatched."

"Well," said Lily, intrigued. She scattered out the last bit of oatmeal and, blowing some of the grit from the bag, put her phone into it and handed it to Travis for him to do the same. "Let's see what you're made of, Paddles."

XxX

"We seem to be drifting a bit to starboard," Lily called over her shoulder. Travis had taken the backseat ("Do you mind if I steer?" he'd asked). They'd managed to board and push off okay -- the bored-looking livery attendant having given them minimal instruction, but held the craft as they both lifted themselves gingerly aboard.

"I'm aware of that," said Travis, his voice a little tense for the first time.

"You said you were steering," she teased him. They were rapidly making for the opposite shore of the river, the canoe swinging sideways with the current.

"I'm aware of that too," he said back, and then a moment later, she felt the canoe sway radically, followed by a splash. She grabbed the side of the craft for dear life and then swung her head to look behind her. Travis had jumped out of the canoe and was now holding it by the triangle at the stern with one hand, paddle in the other; halting their momentum, which had been about to take them into a bramble of cedar branches hanging low over the water.

"Oh my god!" Lily squeaked. "Are you okay? Did you fall?"

"I jumped," Travis said, "If you headed home with a rat's nest of cedar sprays in your hair, you might not go out with me again."

"And they say chivalry is dead," Lily said, setting her oar down on the bottom of the canoe.

"Will you go out with me again?" Travis said hopefully, and the smile he flashed her made her want to say yes, but instead she teased:

"Too early to make that call."

"This water is really cold, Lillian," he said, and turned, pulling the canoe behind him into the water upstream and back toward the livery.

"It looks it," Lily said. "If I do go out with you again, let's stick with something land-based, huh?"

Travis threw a grin at her and kept trudging, clearly trying his best to keep the craft steady so she didn't fall in herself. She checked her pockets briefly for their phones, which she'd offered to hold on to, and watched him. The river was relatively shallow -- he was a tall guy and the water was only soaking the cuff of his shorts.

"Your parents should call Camp Quitcherbitchin and get their money back, Travis," she said, canting her face up to the sun and closing her eyes briefly. She shrieked when the canoe suddenly lurched to one side. She grabbed the side and looked at her date, who had stopped and was wearing a mischievous grin. He was still wearing the dorky orange life jacket that they'd been required to don, and the whole situation made Lily start laughing.

"Laugh it up, fuzzball," Travis said, turning again to continue the trudge back to base. "I'll have you know that I learned how to canoe on a lake. I forgot to account for one variable."

"The current?" Lily asked.

"The current," he admitted.

They made it back to shore and he helped her out of the canoe, explaining to the still benumbed livery worker that they wouldn't be back, but still throwing a soggy five dollar bill in the tip jar. After retrieving his flip flops from the bottom of the small boat, he offered to take Lily to the campus Dairy Store for ice cream.

"Your campus has a Dairy Store?" she asked him curiously.

"This is Moo U, Lillian," he explained, steering her a few blocks from the river to a large brick building beyond the main engineering hall. "This street is Farm Lane. We have cattle."

Once inside they reviewed the offerings, and Lily noticed that they had a flavor for every university in the Big Ten conference -- even their arch rivals. About which he announced, "I'll buy you anything but the Maize & Blueberry. I like you, but even I have my limits."

Once they had their cones (she with Boilermaker Brownie and he with Hoosier Daddy ("basically strawberry," he explained)), they settled onto a picnic table in the shade.

"So," Travis said, licking a drop that had melted onto his knuckle, "why'd you end up deferring this semester?"

Lily swallowed the bite in her mouth without chewing. They had prepared cover stories but she hadn't yet needed to use hers. Stick with the truth as much as you can , said her father's voice.

"My dad got a job here and my mom is pregnant. She was on bedrest for a while and needed help."

Travis was looking at her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to elaborate, but she didn't -- continuing to nervously lick her cone. After a long moment of waiting, he kindly plowed ahead, asking her about her major and telling her about his. He was a sophomore, from a town in the northern part of the state, and she found him inherently easy to talk to and interesting, and wondered, idly, if that was because he really was interesting or if she were just starved for company and attention.

When they finished up, they threw away their napkins in a nearby trash can and stood looking at each other, only a little awkwardly.

“So... “ Travis started, “still too early to make the call?”

She smiled, remembering what she’d told him in the canoe about going out with him again. “I like your chances.”

He smiled back and she felt a little thrill. “Lillian, will you go out with me again?” he asked.

“Dry land stuff?”

“The driest.”

“In that case, yes.”

She was still feeling the soft kiss he'd given her cheek hours later as she sat around the dining room table, fielding invasive questions from her father and trying to avoid her mother’s eye.

#MSR #AU #Sequel #Of the Eight Winds #X-Files #Fanfic #My fic

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arrow-guy · 4 years

Text

Broken Flock (10/??)

Summary: It’s been two years since you uprooted your life and left to figure out who you really are, leaving behind Bucky and Clint with little more than a note as a warning. Now, New York is calling your name and it’s time to go home. How will Clint and Bucky react to your return, and how will the time have affected your relationship?

A/N: Okay, so this is mostly fluff, thank goodness. And, finally, some answers about who took her. Nothing canon, but definitely fun to mess with. Anyway, please enjoy!

Page dividers by @carryonmyswansong

Pairing: WinterhawkxReader

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Mentions of experimentation, brief description of injury

Part 9

“Not that I’m not grateful or anything, but when can I go home?” I ask.

"We want to make sure you're healed enough to be on your own," Steve says. Bucky gives him a very pointed look and he clears his throat. "But I think you should be cleared before the end of the week."

I nod. "Okay."

"You're not going to argue on that?"

I shrug and shake my head. "No. I don't really see any point in doing so. I’m hurt, you’re telling me that I need time to heal. Seems pretty straight forward.”

"I see."

"Was there anything else?" I ask.

“It can wait till you’re feeling better.”

“No, Steve, I’m fine now.” He frowns and I tilt my head to the side. “What is it?”

“What connection do you have to Dr. Danielle Hoffman?”

“I don’t… is she the woman from the barn?” He nods. “Right. I only knew her as the Doctor. No one used real names and I didn’t bother asking for any, but that doesn’t matter. Dr. Hoffman is the reason that I have wings.”

Clint appears beside the bed. “Wait, you fell into her vat of toxic waste?”

“From what she said, yeah, I think so.” I reach over my shoulder and scratch at my left wing. “There were others like me at one point, but I think they’re dead. She probably found them long before me, partially because I wasn’t supposed to exist.”

“How so?”

“I fell into a vat of whatever was leftover from her initial experiments, I think. That’s how I got my wings. She didn’t have an answer when her lackey asked when I was made.” He opened his mouth, but closed it immediately. “What?”

“What’d she do to you? And why?”

“Steve,” Bucky warns. “That’s enough,”

“It’s fine, Buck, I’d rather talk about it than keep it bottled up. Besides,” I reach out and he grabs my hand. “Considering I’m not dead, I probably got off easy. The rest weren’t so lucky.”

“Okay.” He sits beside me on the bed and envelopes my hand in both of his. “You can stop any time.”

“I know,” I murmur. He kisses the side of my head and I smile. Steve clears his throat and I cough awkwardly. “Anyway… the Doctor was incredibly clinical about everything right up until the last few days, but I think she freaked out after a couple guards saw Clint and Bucky lurking around. That was about when they belted down my wings and started actually leaving marks when they hit me. Partially my fault, if I’m being honest.”

“None of that was your fault, (Y/N).”

I nod. “Mm, yeah, except when I punched a guard in the eye and then intentionally egged them on.”

“Why would you do that?!”

“I don’t know! I was tired of being manhandled and jabbed with needles and dragged hither and yon at every hour of the day. When they were told to hit me, something took over and I told them to not puss out.” I laugh before realizing how morbid it sounds. “Stupid as it is, this really isn’t the worst I’ve been hurt. They didn’t really try all that hard when they came at me.”

“That’s still not okay,” Steve says.

“No, I know that. I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but they hadn’t gotten a single reaction out of me that they wanted since the first day. Their bark was entirely bigger than their bite.” I lean against Bucky and he sighs. “But in that moment, I realized that you’d found me. It was just a matter of time until you got me out of there.”

“Didn’t figure you’d be in Michigan,” Bucky mutters.

I rub my hand up and down his arm. “Still.”

“Was there anything else you learned about Hoffman?” Steve asks.

“No. I was unconscious during most of the tests. She didn’t want me moving around while she worked. Why?”

Steve shakes his head. “Everything we’ve been able to dig up on her leads back to A.I.M., but after that it’s a dead end.”

“Well that would make sense. A.I.M. focussed on genetics for a long time, right? Aldrich Killian weaponized it, but I doubt he was the first one in the agency to do so.”

“You’re right, but Hoffman hasn’t been associated with A.I.M. for almost twenty years.”

“Even better for her, right? If she’s not under their roof, no one can hover while she experiments on, and inevitably mutilate and kill, live, human specimens. Being out on her own was probably the best thing that happened to her.”

“That… that makes a lot of sense.”

“She probably dragged a bunch of disgraced A.I.M. grunts along with her when she left.”

“She did, actually. There were a handful of private contractors in her crew, but just about everyone has ties to A.I.M..”

“What about that wiry, ratty-looking guy?”

“We’re still looking into him. We don’t have an ID yet, but we do know he was weirdly strong.”

“What if he’s one of her experiments?” I ask. “He seemed to be really close to her, not in the way that an evil boss and henchman are close.”

Steve nods. “You’re probably right, I’ll make a note of that.”

“Thank you.”

Suddenly very tired, I lean heavily against Bucky. I shiver and he wraps his arm around my middle.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod and mumble, “Just really, really tired.”

Steve takes this as his cue to leave and promises to get back to me with any new information he has before I’m released. I thank him and he quickly disappears out into the hall. Only when the doors close does Bucky help me lay down. He lays beside me and Clint drags a chair up to the side of the bed. He pouts and complains about the hospital bed being too small.

I laugh. “It’s stupid uncomfortable, Clint, You don’t wanna be up here anyway.”

“No, I really think I do,” he counters. “Bucky’s been hogging you since we got you back. I’m just waiting my turn.”

“Aw,” I poke Bucky’s stomach and he grabs my hand. “You couldn’t let him cuddle with me for a little bit?”

Bucky shrugs. “The bed’s uncomfortable. He’d hate it.”

“We could probably move to one of our rooms, if we wanted,” Clint suggests. “The beds would be more than big enough for the three of us.”

“Wouldn’t we get in trouble?” I ask, looking between Clint and Bucky.

Bucky glances over his shoulder at Clint, who gives him a pleading look. “I’m sure it’d be fine. We just have to be careful with you and keep an eye on your injuries.”

I nod. "Okay, let's do it, then."

I look up in time to see a grin flash across Clint's face before he can tamp down his excitement. He takes his time moving his chair back to the edge of the room and fiddling with something on the couch. Bucky helps me sit up, but refuses to let me walk to the room. Instead, he loops my arms around his neck and picks me up. He wraps my arms around his waist and signals to Clint that we’re ready to go.

"You got her bag?" Bucky asks.

"Of course I do."

"My bag?"

"I drove back into the city after we got you back and packed up some things I thought you might need," Clint explains. "Just some clothes and your tooth brush, but you can't wear a hospital gown the rest of your life."

"Thanks, Clint." I reach out and he takes my hand. "I really appreciate that."

He smiles and kisses the back of my hand. “Thought you might.”

Bucky’s room is closest and he uses me to lead Clint down the hallway, gently pulling him along by our linked hands. The three of us bundle through the doorway and Clint drops my bag in the chair next to the dresser. Bucky allows me to stand on my own and I move to sift through the bag on the chair.

I find a pair of soft leggings and immediately put them on in place of the thin boxers I was provided. I pull one of my shirts from the bag and stare at it, knowing full well that I won’t be able to wear it. It’s too tight and would rub against my still too sensitive skin. I sigh and let it fall back into the bag.

Clint places a gentle hand on my waist and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t wear my shirts. They’re too tight to get on with my injuries.”

“That’s not a problem,” Bucky says.

He pulls one of his shirts from his dresser and cuts two slits down the back from neck to hem. Clint helps me out of the hospital gown and I readjust the straps of my sports-bra before taking the altered shirt from Bucky. I yank the neck over my head and slowly slip my hands through the arms.

“Where’d you get this?” I ask. “It’s huge.”

Bucky shrugs. “Big shirts are more comfortable to sleep in.” He lifts the middle flap from my right wing, positions it between my shoulder blades, and ties the slits off at the hem. “Is that comfortable?”

I shake out my wings and nod. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

I crawl into the unmade bed and lay on my left side. With one eye closed and the other slightly cracked, I watch Bucky change into a pair of sweats. Clint simply strips off his jeans and climbs onto the bed with me. He pulls me to his chest and pulls the covers up to my chin. Bucky slides in beside me and places his hand on my back. Clint rolls us slightly so that Bucky can press closer without crushing my wings. Clint’s hand presses between my wings while Bucky’s arm snakes around my middle. His hand splays out over my stomach and his warmth practically seeps into my skin.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Bucky asks.

I nod. “I’m just sore now, for the most part.”

“Tell us where it hurts?”

“Pretty much everything from the waist up,” I say. “I think my arms got overextended when they chained me up.”

“I’m so sorry,” Clint murmurs.

“Sometimes it still feels like my wings are strapped down.” I sigh and scrub one hand over my face. “It’s hard to sleep when you guys aren’t there.”

Their arms tighten around me, but neither of them speak. With Clint and Bucky tangled around me, I feel so safe and secure that I can finally just relax. The silence that blankets the room is soothing instead of stifling. There’s no urge to explain away the pain or make excuses.

Bucky kisses the back of my neck and I cover his hand with mine. My body grows heavy and I slowly drift off to sleep.

The door slams open startling the three of us awake. I grip Bucky’s hand and both Clint and Bucky’s arms tighten around me.

“Bucky, she’s gone.”

It’s Steve.

“The hell are you talking about, Rogers?” I manage to say.

“But you-”

“Medbay is cold and silent. It’s easier to sleep here, with them.”

“We’ve got new intel, he says, breezing past what I just said.

“Okay?” I try to bury my head in the pillows. “It can wait till tomorrow.”

“But-”

“Go away, Steve,” Bucky says. “She needs her rest.”

“Yeah, Steve,” Clint muffles his snicker against the pillow. “Go away. She’ll find you tomorrow.”

Steve sighs. “Fine.”

He retreats and the door closes.

Bucky sighs and grumbles something about “getting out of here asap.”

“Steve said I’d be cleared before the end of the week,” I mumble. “I’ll bother him about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is twelve hours away,” Clint says.

“No,” I poke his stomach and he laughs. “Tomorrow is whenever I can haul myself out of bed, and there’s no telling when that’ll be.”

“Mm, you’re hilarious,” he says dryly.

“It’s why you keep me around, right?”

Bucky snorts. “Go to sleep.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You know that’s not why we keep you around.”

“But it’s one reason?”

“It’s a bonus.”

“Hmm,” I trace my thumb over Bucky’s knuckles. “An acceptable answer.”

“Sleep, (Y/N),” Clint mumbles. “We’re not gonna go anywhere.”

“Okay.” I nod, yawn, and press my nose to his chest. “Okay.”

-----------

Part 11

Finally, finally we can get away from the Hardcore Sad Times and back to interacting with Clint and Bucky (which I think is pretty great, just for my own peace of mind lmao.)

Anyhow, I’d love to see your reactions! I always like knowing what you guys thought, so please comment, reblog, and/or shoot me an ask!

If you’d like to be tagged in future chapters, please let me know!

Tag List:

@ghostlyhamlet, @claws-of-vibranium, @creaturefeatures101, @buckysendoftheline, @imagine-assembling-the-avengers, @ptprocrastination, @1950schick, @amayasymone23, @arfrona-and-marvel, @ek823, @fanaticfangirl001, @furrywerewolfcollector, @kissofvenom922, @dawn-phantomhive, @fangirlwithasweettooth, @mairhof1, @starryeyesbadguys, @trap-house-homiecide, @buckywhitewolfbarnes, @kaepm981, @howdoesoneadult, @pcdmesamidala, @thefandomplace, @sian22redux, @skeletoresinthebasement, @lady-thor-foster, @jazzcutie, @gaytonystark, @geeksareunique, @nyxveracity, @breezy1415, @darling-loki, @lemonadeorange73, @tofeartheunknown, @queenoftheunderdark

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@avengerscompound, @nerdy-bookworm-1998, @shirukitsune, @keenmarvellover, @katebarton15, @feelmyroarrrr

#winterhawkxreader #readerxwinterhawk #winterhawk x reader #reader x winterhawk #bucky barnesxreader #readerxbucky barnes #clint bartonxreader #readerxclint barton #winterhawk #clint barton #bucky barnes #reader insert marvel fic

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steppedoffaflight · 4 years

Text

Summer’s a Knife - Chapter 9

Catch up on Chapter 8 here

You grin, your heart light. “So, why are you calling me today, Van McCann?” You tease. “Are you looking to get off, or pressure me to run away with you again?”

Van chuckles. “You said your hometown was in Michigan?”

“It is,” You confirm.

“Is Detroit somewhere close to it?”

You sit very still. “Um. Really close, actually.” Your brain knows where this is headed but you can’t get your hopes up. Especially after how harshly you’d scolded yourself for your impulsive Phoenix trip. “Why?”

“We have a show there on Wednesday. So I’m calling about the latter.”

You’re going home.

Word count: ~12.3k

Chapter Nine June 2019

The rush of realizing you’re in love with someone felt so foreign yet so achingly familiar all at once. It completely consumed you. You watched the rest of the show in complete euphoria, eager for that moment when Van would finally be off stage.

And when he finally burst through the door, high on post-show adrenaline and dripping with sweat you leap up from your seat, so happy to see him. If he thinks your excitement is out of place he doesn’t mention it, glowing with the satisfaction of putting on a great show.

“Let’s get back to the hotel,” He pants, grabbing for one of the provided towels and vigorously rubbing at his hair.

“Don’t you shower here?”

“Didn’t bring my stuff. Figured you wouldn’t wanna sit here and wait for traffic to die down anyway.”

He’s gathering his things up quickly, stuffing them into the backpack he’d brought with him. He grins over his shoulder. “Think you can stand the smell?”

It’s easy to hide your smile as you hunch over your bag, gathering your own things. “Might be hard, but I’ll try.”

The other boys flit in and out of the room, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, eager to return to the hotel. It’s not long before you find yourself crammed in an SUV with four extremely foul-smelling men as the driver attempts to navigate the short drive to the hotel, eventually pulling up to the back entrance so the boys can avoid the small crowd of fans milling around in front.

It’s a relief to return to your hotel room after a long day, to finally be alone with Van.

He seems surprised that you ask to shower with him. It is completely out of character for you, but you’re too happy tonight to care.

The shower is all business, but afterwards you’re laid out on the bed, hair dripping all over the sheets as Van fucks you, hard. Sex is the only time you get the opportunity to kiss him, and you don’t let it go to waste. Even as his thrusts jar your body and creak the bedframe, you try your hardest to keep your lips connected. Maybe you go overboard, but Van’s noises suggest it’s a good thing.

You’re so pent up that when you come you practically scream, muffling your noises with one of the hotel pillows. The sexual tension in the room is so suffocating that coming feels like it amplifies it rather than releases it. Rather than tense up with oversensitivity your body relaxes, pliant for Van as he continues to break a sweat, grunting with each movement. Instead of dissolving into his usual sloppy thrusts he stays painstakingly consistent, beads of sweat forming on his hairline. When he comes he doesn’t moan so much as gulp for air.

Even when he’s finished he keeps fucking you, gritting his teeth against his own tenderness. You don’t understand what he’s going for until you feel his calloused fingertips return between your legs, stimulating your clit roughly. This orgasm comes easier, floods over you with more intensity, and leaves you helplessly whimpering, scratching up his back in the process.

He’s barely gotten the condom off before he’s climbing off of the bed and stuffing his legs into a pair of boxers. “Smoke with me.”

You scramble after him, tossing a shirt over your head and slinging on the pair of pajama shorts you’d packed before stumbling out onto the balcony.

He’s slumped over in one of the chairs, cigarette already lit.

Your cheeks burn against the cool night air, and you know your hair’s a mess. Van looks as wrecked as you. Without a shirt on you can see the scarlet flush on his chest.

You shift around in your seat as the nicotine relaxes you, trying to get comfortable. No matter how you sit, the throbbing between your legs is prominent.

“You sore?” Van asks.

When you widen your eyes, confused at how he’d know that, he laughs. He rests his elbows on the arms of his chair, imitating your position. “You look like you’re trying to hold yourself up,” He explains.

“Oh. Yeah. It’ll fade, though.”

“Sorry if it was too much.”

You shake your head vigorously as you suck in a hit. “Don’t be.”

“So much adrenaline from the show,” He runs his fingers through his hair. “And looking at you in the shower afterwards, I was just like… Holy shit.” He shakes his head like he can’t believe he’s telling you this.

You shake your head at his compliment to hide the way your cheeks burn hotter and your heartbeat skips.

“I felt the same,” You tell him. If he’s worried he fucked you too hard he must not have seen the way you were sneaking glances at him any chance you had. “Sorry I tore your back up.”

Van laughs. “You can do whatever you want to me, woman.”

“Oh my god. Shut up,” You giggle.

Van throws his hands up. “I’m being honest!”

He’s finished his cigarette, dropping the butt on the ground. “I gotta have another. You?”

For once, you take him up on it.

The next day consists of a terrible emotional hangover. Nothing brings you down from cloud nine faster than time away with the person you love coming to an end. Even worse, tour was kicking off with a bang, and Van didn’t know when he could expect to be back in town again. He was jetting off tomorrow to the next city, and from there the band would finally have a bus and be traveling by road.

Knowing your time was limited should make you appreciate it more, but it has an opposite effect. You’re in a bitter mood the entire drive home. Van notices but keeps pretending not to, a fact that irks you more. You brush it off as dread at returning to work, just to throw him off your scent. As much as your new feelings demanded to be declared to the world, you knew nothing would scare Van away faster than you ruining this casual arrangement.

He drives himself home so that you can drive the Range Rover back to your place. You help him get his bags inside, your chest aching at this time coming to an end.

“Alright,” Van sighs when he’s sure he hasn’t forgotten anything, clapping his hands together. “I’ll see you when I’m back, yeah?”

You try not to flinch at the uncertainty in that sentence and try your best to seem cheerful. You know you fall flat. “Of course, duh.”

Before you know it Van’s wrapped you up in a warm hug, holding you tight.

“Keep your head up, alright?” He says quietly into your hair, rocking you back and forth. “Don’t let work get you down.”

You nod into his chest, and he lets you go. He presses the car keys into your palm.

“And take a nap when you get home,” He tells you, his eyes still locked with yours. You wish you could kiss him goodbye so bad it makes your throat ache. “You’ll feel so much better.”

“I will,” You croak. He gives you a nod, and with that you turn away, your feet feeling like lead as you force yourself down the porch steps and into the car. He gives you a wave as you head for the gates, and you return it with a grimace and one of your own.

And when you get home, you keep your promise to Van. You don’t even bother to unload the car before marching inside, diving into your bed, and bawling your eyes out into your pillow until your heart feels empty and you fall asleep.

It takes every ounce of strength you have in every bone in your body to drag yourself into work the next morning. And the morning after that. And then the weekend arrives, two days of pure emptiness.

You hated being alone but you also couldn’t think of anything more unpleasant than being around other people right now. You spend the weekend consuming vodka at an alarming rate and scrubbing any surface you can spot in your house before falling into bed at night physically exhausted.

By Monday, you’ve decided you’re angry. First it’s at Mary. She knows how you are with relationships. You two have always joked that you dated to marry. As soon as you realize you can’t envision a future with someone your desire for them fizzles out, inevitably souring your connection. Why did she force something between you and Van knowing that it would be temporary? She’s out of line meddling in your love life, and now there’s a price to pay. When she asks about Arizona you practically one-word her, seething about what she’s done.

And then it’s yourself. What Mary did was unforgivable, but you’re the one who went along with it. You’re just as much to blame. You had your fun in San Diego, but of course that wasn’t enough. You kept going back for more. How stupid of you! You knew there was no way things could work out with Van, so you’re an absolute idiot for sleeping with him again, and again, and again. You were playing with fire this entire time. Like, really, taking time off work for a six hour road trip to hang around your ‘friend’? It was so childish. You needed to save your vacation hours for the holidays to spend time with your family.

And Van. He had to be some sort of sociopath, texting you months after your first meeting to take you out to dinner. Why would he take someone out if he wasn’t planning to date them? It had clearly been a ploy to get in your pants, and you’d been so gullible. Now he was off having the time of his life and you were the one suffering in silence.

But as mad as you want to be at Van, you miss him so much it hurts. Having no sure future to look forward to means every day without him is agony. And while you might get angry, it never sticks. How could he have predicted you’d be stupid enough to fall in love? Surely he couldn’t have known you’d do this to yourself. He was too sweet to do something so malicious.

You flip flop between these moods. In the back of your mind you know you’re not being the slightest bit rational, but the hurricane ripping through your heart is not to be reasoned with.

You find a pack of Van’s cigarettes at the bottom of your purse on Wednesday. You’d thrown them in your bag at the venue in Phoenix so he didn’t forget them, but apparently you’d forgotten about them too. For the first time in years you smoke alone. It calms the ache in your heart while you do it, recalling all the conversations you two have shared during your smoke breaks. In that small moment of clarity you know that no matter how much you’re hurting, every moment you spend with Van is worth it all. And when you’re done with the first cigarette you light another, just like he does.

By Saturday you’ve leveled out, embarrassed about your week-long tantrum. You start texting Mary again, spinning a lie about getting over a nasty cold. Everything in your house is spotless, so you’ve started on those untouched books. They help keep you distracted, even if you picture every romantic lead as Van in your mind.

You’re curled up in one of the chairs on your porch, smoking a cigarette and reading when your phone buzzes with a call in your pocket.

Seeing Van’s name on the caller ID pumps pure joy through your veins. Swiping to accept feels like you’re swiping away the awful heartache that’s been plaguing you all week.

“Where are you?” You ask excitedly as your greeting. You enjoy living vicariously though Van’s travels, even if it stings that you can’t be there with him.

“The lovely city of Chicago,” Van replies. You can hear the smile in his voice. “Where are you?”

“On the porch.” You fold the corner of your book, setting it aside and taking a hit of your cigarette.

“Are you having a smoke?”

“I am.”

“Me too,” Van says. “We’re in sync.”

You grin, your heart light. “So, why are you calling me today, Van McCann?” You tease. “Are you looking to get off, or pressure me to run away with you again?”

Van chuckles. “You said your hometown was in Michigan?”

“It is,” You confirm.

“Is Detroit somewhere close to it?”

“We have a show there on Wednesday. So I’m calling about the latter.”

You make a noise into the phone. It’s overjoyed and exasperated all at once. “Ugh, Van! Why do you always put me on the spot like this? I hate you!”

Van’s laughing. “Let’s save the argument, then. See you Wednesday.”

“No, no, no,” You chant, but you’re already grinning. He’s already won. “I can’t fucking roadtrip to Michigan!”

“You’re not gonna. You’re gonna fly. I’ll get you a ticket.”

Of course you’re going. The one loophole in your vacation time was that you’d promised yourself you’d use it for family time, and if Van’s offering to pay for the flight there’s no way you could turn down the chance to surprise everyone at home. It’s a win-win, family time and Van time. Your heart is already bursting with excitement.

You don’t know what to say. Van’s right, you might as well save the argument.

“You don’t have to do that, Van,” You still insist out of guilt.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m being selfish, actually. I’m glad you’ll get to see your parents, but promise you’ll save some time for me.”

“I promise.” It’s the easiest promise you’ve ever made. “Where are you playing?”

“Saint Andrew’s Hall. Seen anyone there?”

“I have!” You exclaim, thinking back to your teenaged days. “But always with my ex-boyfriend,” You confess.

“Christ. So I’ve got competition, then.”

“Guess so,” You taunt.

“I’ll have to make it extra memorable, then.” He doesn’t lose an ounce of smugness through the phone.

“Can’t wait,” You gush.

“Me either.” There’s a happy silence as you two have sealed your plans. Then: “What have you been watching lately?”

“I’m burned out of everything,” You sigh. “I’ve been reading, actually.”

“Reading what?”

“Um.” You pluck the book up from the seat next to you, reading out the title. “It’s some mushy romance thing I bought forever ago, I dunno.”

“What’s it about?”

You hesitate. “Um… I mean… romance?”

“I get that,” Van laughs. “I mean, I’m going mental with nothing to do. Tell me about the book. What happens in it?”

“Oh, um.” His interest shocks you. “Well…”

Without fail, summers had always been a dreadful time for your workload. It was when most of your coworkers wanted to take advantage of their company-provided vacation days, days that you preferred to save for the fall and winter holidays when you could fly home. That meant that their projects had to be distributed among the handful of employees that were in the office reliably, and you knew that your boss directed more of the burden to you than your coworkers. Not as punishment, but simply because she felt she could trust you with the more important work.

The boss in question, Denise, had been who you’d worked under since you’d been hired at the company fresh out of college. She’d even been who you’d conducted your interviews with, save the final one where she’d been joined by a few other directors. And although coworkers had come and gone over the last couple of years, you two had remained a staple in your department, leading to a pretty solid professional relationship between you. That’s how every summer Denise managed to treat each extra project like praise until you’d accepted too many and were drowning in paperwork and emails.

But for the first time ever you were reaping the rewards of your hard work. There had been no raises (considering you were still pretty young and inexperienced), no promotions, only good comments on your performance reviews (which meant very little, really). Instead, your rewards came in the form of emails approving your time-off requests, even on the ridiculously short notice that Van was forcing on you. There was hardly any uncertainty hanging in the air; you’d send the request first thing in the morning, and usually by the time you got back from lunch you’d have the approval sitting in your inbox. And because now you were one of the employees sporadically missing from the office during these summer months, the requests to take on more work were dwindling.

You made Van wait until you’d gotten your approval email before he booked the your flight, and he’d been texting you most of Monday morning pestering you about it. Once you let him know you’ve gotten the green light, there’s only a short half hour of silence from him before he’s sending over screenshots with ticket information and departure times. He’s booked you a flight bright and early, departing at 7 am tomorrow morning. Considering his eagerness, you’re surprised he doesn’t have you taking a red-eye after work.

What surprises you even more is that on Tuesday afternoon, stumbling off of your five hour flight into the familiar airport of your hometown, Van is standing at the gate waiting for you.

As soon as he catches your eye he grins, rushing towards you while you blink at him in shock.

“What are you doing here?” Are your first words to him. He pries the handle of your rolling carry-on suitcase from your fingers, wrapping his own palm around it as he tucks you under his arm, giving you a squeeze as he starts to direct you towards the doors that lead outside.

“Picking you up!” He responds, as chipper as ever.

“I thought I was gonna take an Uber!” That had been the plan, according to the numerous texts you two had exchanged over the weekend.

“I ended up having some free time,” He shrugs. He’s in the same dark jacket he’d been wearing the night you met him, unbuttoned to expose his usual dark button up. You notice this one isn’t black, though.

“A navy button up?” You gasp in faux dramatics, giving the fabric a playful tug. Van’s arm has fallen from your back, you two walking side by side.

He grins as he peeks down at his shirt. “Look at that. All dressed up for you.”

“You are,” You agree. “How are you even in this jacket?” You hadn’t stepped outdoors yet, but you knew without a doubt it was sweltering outside.

“It’s cold in here.”

His words make you realize the crisp, air-conditioned breeze blowing over your arms, and you shiver, clutching the hoodie you’d taken off on the plane tighter to your chest.

You still can’t wrap your head around the experience of Van pacing around the airport, waiting for you. “How did you even get here?” You ask as he directs you towards a set of doors. You can see the waves of summer heat radiating off of all the cars parked on the pavement through the glass.

“Dave drove,” He explains, pressing his palm into the metal push bar to swing the door open for you. A scorching burst of heat instantly greets your body, and it’s so humid it’s hard to breathe as you step out. “He lemme borrow his car.”

You’re quiet for the rest of the walk to the car, trying to process everything through your jet-lag. You’d boarded the plane at seven, been in the air for almost six hours after the delays, and yet when you glance at your phone it’s minutes away from 4 pm here, hours evaporated with the time difference. Van leads the way, dutifully rolling your suitcase to the parking spot where he had parked Dave’s car before popping your carry-on into the trunk and helping you into the passenger seat. The interior of the car has you sweating in the short time it takes Van to round the vehicle to the driver’s side, and you realize he’s been waiting inside for you longer than you’d thought.

There’s not much catching up necessary during the drive, considering you and Van had been texting consistently. You tell him about the toddler that threw a tantrum on the plane, and a woman in the row in front of you that spilled her drink all over the person sitting next to her during turbulence.

Although evening was descending upon Michigan, in typical June fashion the sun was refusing to go down, and therefore the heat simmered just as violently as it did during the early afternoon. That’s why when Van maneuvers the car to the parking lot behind the hotel, you’re shocked to see all of the boys lounging about in the heat, the only slight shade provided by the towering tour bus that was parked back here as well.

As Van pulls Dave’s car into a parking spot, everyone perks up.

“Look who it is!” Bondy calls from where he’s shading his eyes from the sun as he smokes.

You think he’s talking about Van, but Bob stops kicking the soccer ball against the building and gives you a polite wave. Benji gives you a nod in greeting, pacing around with his phone pressed to his ear. You return the wave and the nod, lagging behind Van as he makes his way towards the side of the bus.

“How are you?” Bondy asks, reaching one of his arms out for his usual half hug. He always treats you like you’re one of his own friends, and your heart swells in gratitude.

“I’m good,” You tell him. “Excited to be home.”

“That’s what Van said. We’re in your territory, huh?”

Van was distracted for a moment by Benji, but before you can respond he claps Bondy on the shoulder. “Bondy’s just been to L.A. pride,” He announces before promptly turning back to Benji, pleading to speak on the phone. His sudden interruption leaves Bondy clearly confused.

“Were you also at pride?” He asks, head tilted.

“No,” You laugh. “I think he’s saying that because I’m bi.”

Bondy laughs, the confusion clearing. “Right. Well, cheers.”

You shake your head in amusement, watching Van stalk Benji over the blacktop. Benji is dedicated to keeping the phone for himself, walking backwards away from him, but Van is undeterred.

“Who’s he trying to talk to?”

“Benji’s mum. She adores Van.”

That doesn’t come as any surprise to you.

“He’s already in a better mood.” Bondy speaks so quietly it sounds like he’s musing to himself.

You turn to look at him instead of watching Van’s antics. “I couldn’t imagine Van in a bad mood.”

“Yeah,” Bondy snickers. “Because he’s always in a good one around you.”

You blink at him, unable to think of a response. As you open your mouth to change the topic, Van flounces back towards you two.

“Let’s get your bags,” He chirps. “I’ll show you the room.”

You’re still contemplating what Bondy’s said as Van unlocks the car, helping you take your things up to the hotel room. It’s the same as any other, but it doesn’t have a balcony like the one in Phoenix.

“Where have you been smoking?” You ask, grinning when Van rolls his eyes in frustration.

“Outside. I’ve already gotten locked out of the side door on accident.”

“Aw. That sucks.”

“It does, actually,” Van scoffs at your giggle.

You get your phone plugged in, checking any notifications that have come in since you landed.

Van plops down on the bed. “What are your plans?”

“Um…” You’re distracted while you respond to your mom’s multiple messages. “I’m going to spend today at home, and then my parents can drop me off back here for the night, and tomorrow I’m all yours.”

Van seems pleased with that arrangement. “How are you getting over there?”

You shrug. “I can Uber.”

“I can drive you, if you want.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever works.” You bite down on the inside of your cheek to suppress a smile.

“Turn where?”

“There!” You try to gesture to the intersection Van has clearly passed through.

“Fuck,” Van sighs, immediately having to reroute.

It’s always trippy being back home. As Van struggles to navigate you gaze out the window, looking wistfully at the homes, businesses, and parks that have shaped your childhood.

“This is my old elementary school,” You tell Van when he pulls into the parking lot as part of redirecting.

“Yeah?” He squints at the playground in the distance. It seems like it snaps him out of his frustration as he absorbs that information.

“Could you imagine living in the same area you grew up in?” You ponder aloud as you think about it. “Like, most people at least move a city over, you know what I mean? But imagine being in the exact same place. Like, if I sent my kids to that exact school.”

You watch the school become a blur as Van drives away from it.

“That’s what Llandudno is like, actually. We’ve got, like, one of everything nearby. So if you stay there, then yeah, you’re going to that same school and shopping at that same shop all your life. Which is fucking weird, like you said. You have kids and they live an exact repeat of your life.”

You go silent as you’re lost in thoughts about creating a family of your own, interjecting only to direct Van.

When he’s pulled up to your house you feel your heart start pounding.

“Did you want to come in and say hi?” You ask him as you gather your things.

Van is quiet for a moment. You hope he’s considering it. “Oh, that’s alright,” He says. “This is your time with them.”

Your heart sinks, but you press on with the rest of your pitch that you’d been mentally rehearsing. “Are you sure? They’re gonna ask about you anyway. You can stay for dinner if you’re hungry.”

Van’s expression is unreadable, but then he shakes his head. “I’m okay. Go catch up with them!”

“Okay,” You try to shrug it off. “See you later.”

“Text me when you’re ready!” Van says cheerfully as you exit the car and close the door. You give him a small wave as a final goodbye before turning to head up to your house.

Your family has already been alerted of your arrival, standing in the doorway excitedly. They wave eagerly to Van, who you catch out of your peripheral vision waving back as he pulls away.

You have less than a minute to try and swallow down the lump in your throat before you make it to the porch. The embarrassment over his rejection burns at your cheeks and makes it hard to breathe. You were stupid to even ask. Why would he want to meet your family? That’s not something you do with casual friends.

It’s easy to push it out of your mind once you’re in the front door, surrounded by people who loved you and were overjoyed to see you.

“Y/N, my God,” Your mom immediately pulls you into a hug. “Who was that who just dropped you off?”

“That’s Van.” When your mom releases you you’re immediately pulled into a hug from your dad. “He’s the friend in the band.”

“He’s good looking!” Your mom exclaims, eliciting a laugh from you. Your older brother had cleared his schedule to see you, and you hug him as well. It’s weird how much closer you’ve become to him as you two have aged. You were always at each other’s throats as children.

“He’s the lead singer,” You explain when you’re finally not in the middle of a hug. “So he’s the one everyone goes crazy for, yeah.”

“You should have invited him inside!” Your dad chimes in.

The lump in your throat is back with a vengeance, and you have to swallow it down quickly to speak. “I did. He’s got something to do with the band,” You lie.

“Probably made him nervous with mom and dad standing there,” Your brother laughs.

You laugh weakly. “Yeah… So, dinner?”

The food’s not quite ready yet, so you spend the first part of your time with everyone helping to prepare it. It’s always chaotic trying to cook with your mom watching you like a hawk making sure you’re doing everything exactly right, but with your dad and brother also crowded into the kitchen so as not to miss a second of catching up you feel suffocated almost immediately upon arriving.

For once, you notice you’ve got things to talk about. You’ve usually got very little to say no matter how many questions your family asks; There’s only so many ways to tell them that work is going good, you’re still single, and disperse an entertaining story about a night out here or there before the conversation runs dry. But tonight you find yourself suddenly remembering so many moments you’ve had with Van that you excitedly relay to everyone. Your mom asks what’s good on Netflix, and you find yourself talking about the show you and Van have watched. Your brother asks about a photo you’d posted on Instagram of a desert landscape and you tell them about road tripping to Arizona and hanging out backstage.

When dinner is done and everyone has migrated to the living room, your brother’s shoes resting at the door suddenly remind you of Sam Fender’s. You introduce your family to his music and describe how funny he was when you met him at the party.

“His album is coming out in the fall,” You gush to everyone when they seem impressed with his voice playing through your phone speakers.

“Jesus, sis, you sound like you’re living it up,” Your brother laughs. “Going to celebrity birthday parties? Backstage at shows? Who are you?”

“I thought the same thing!” Your mom agrees, gesturing wildly with her hands. “What have you done with my daughter?”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” You sigh, exasperated. “You guys act like I was the most boring person in the world!”

“Oh stop,” Your mom scoffs. “We’re only kidding, honey. We don’t think you’re boring. I just think you seem really happy! I’m glad to hear you’re having a lot of fun!”

“You are absolutely the most boring person in the world,” Your brother assures you solemnly. “But at this rate I would encourage you to keep doing whatever drugs you’re on.”

Your mom’s face goes serious. “Are you on drugs, Y/N?”

You give your mom an expression that you hope conveys how crazy she sounds. “No, I’m not on drugs! He’s making a joke!”

“You do smell like cigarettes,” Your dad interjects. “Don’t tell me you’re smoking.”

“That’s from Van.” It’s only a half lie, really.

“Is Van an addict?” Your mom sounds alarmed.

You roll your eyes. “He is about the farthest thing from an addict, mom.”

“Okay, okay,” She throws her hands up in surrender. “I only worry with the whole rockstar thing. I don’t want you dating some junkie.”

You cringe at the word rockstar. “He’s not a rockstar, ew, he’s in a band,” You correct her. “And we’re not dating. Not even close.”

Your mom doesn’t look like she believes it. “Right. Well, if he makes you this happy and he’s as nice a boy as you say he is, maybe you should think about it.”

“We like being friends,” You insist, and it’s the truth. If being friends with Van was the closest you could get to him, you’ll take it in a heartbeat.

By the time Van arrives to pick you up, you’re all talked out. Time had slipped by unnoticed, and it’s past midnight by the time everyone is dispersing with goodbye hugs and promises to be together for the holidays.

You slump into the front passenger seat, exhausted from your long day.

“How was it?”

“It was nice. Dinner was good. Lots and lots and lots of catching up.”

“Yeah? Did they say anything about me?”

You grin. “Of course they did. My mom said you were good-looking, for starters.”

“She couldn’t see me properly,” Van grins. “She didn’t know what she was saying.”

You filter through your mind for anything else you can tell him. You choose to keep talk of how he should’ve joined you and how you two should date to yourself. “She also asked if you were an addict.”

“Christ. What’d you say?”

“I said no. But then I told them about all the weed and your cocaine benders and the molly and actually, I think they’re right.”

There’s a terse moment of silence in the car. You watch Van grip the steering wheel tighter. “You’re taking the piss.”

“Uh, yeah!” You scoff, watching him relax. “Holy fuck, you really think I’d tell them all of that? What the fuck?”

“I dunno what you talk about with your family!” He argues, accidentally turning a corner too fast.

“Not your personal business,” You mumble, crossing your arms. It started out as a joke, but his apparent lack of faith in your ability to keep his secrets actually made you angry. “Nice to know you trust me.”

“I do trust you!” Van insists. “I wouldn’t tell you things in the first place if I didn’t trust you, so stop. Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Mad. Don’t be mad at me.”

The atmosphere in the car relaxes, but you’re still tense. Between your flight, the long conversations, Van’s refusal to have dinner with you and now his lack of trust in you, your muscles were aching from the stress and you were ready for bed. You stay quiet the rest of the way to the hotel.

Van sighs as he puts the car in park. “C’mon,” he urges you quietly.

“I’m not mad,” You tell him, your voice strained. “It’s not a big deal. It’s whatever. I had a really long flight, and a really long day. I’m just really overwhelmed.” You can feel the tears prickling behind your eyes.

Van turns the car off, the space cloaked in silence. You’re both quiet while all of the lights fade until you’re in darkness.

Van looks at you. “I’m sorry.”

Your eyes water. “I said I’m not mad. It was a stupid joke to make.”

“It was pretty fucking good, actually,” Van snorts. “You got me. But I should’ve known better, you’re right.”

His attempts to calm the situation only make everything worse. Of course he’s being sweet after a disagreement. As if you couldn’t love him any more than you already thought you did. And you’re full blown crying now, probably having the opposite effect on him.

“Sorry,” You sniffle pathetically.

“Don’t be. I get it. Jet lag really fucks you up.”

You nod into your hands, wiping your tears away.

“I’m gonna smoke before we head up,” Van starts the car in order to crack the window.

“Crack mine,” You tell him, and he does before he shuts the car off.

It’s only after the first hit of your borrowed cigarette that you break out into a watery laugh.

“My mom and dad said I smell like cigarettes,” You explain to Van, who’s looking at you curiously. “They asked me if I smoked and I lied and said no.”

Van thinks that’s hilarious judging by his fit of laughter. “Your parents don’t know you smoke?”

“Fuck, no! All my life they warned me about cigarettes. They weren’t a big fan of the few times they caught me with weed, but the thought of me smoking sends them through the roof. They’d fucking kill me.”

“So how’d you explain the smell?”

“I blamed it on you,” You admit sheepishly. “And that’s not a lie. I’m sorry.” You try to give Van your best puppy dog face in hopes he’ll take pity on you.

Thankfully, he finds the situation funny. “You’re spineless,” He teases. “I’m kidding. That’s fine. I’ll be your scapegoat.”

You’re getting to the point where waking up in hotel rooms doesn’t confuse your brain. What does confuse you is the position you wake up in, much different from how you’d fallen asleep on Van’s chest last night. He’d offered the cuddle as a consolation for your jet-lagged tears, and you’d never been so happy to accept a consolation prize in your life. But somehow you two must have untangled in your sleep, because now you’re on your side facing away from him.

The whole room is still dark and you can hear Van snoring. For once you’ve woken up before him.

As you stretch out to grab your phone off of the nightstand your body brushes Van’s, who you’re suddenly aware is right next to you. Without meaning to you stop breathing, nervous to wake him up. You retract your arm slowly, momentarily forgetting about your phone.

You crane your neck carefully, trying to see exactly how you two were laying. He was on his stomach, the curve of his ass and legs the only thing you can make out beneath the comforter. You flip over to face him as carefully as you can.

His head is resting against the edge of your pillow, and whatever isn’t supported by the pillow is resting in the crook of his bent arm. His mouth is ajar but he’s breathing out of his nose, evident by the snoring that’s intensified by the way the fabric of the pillow is blocking one of his nostrils.

You’ve been as physically close to him as two human bodies can get, but the opportunity to gaze at him can not be wasted. You’re studying the features of his face carefully, your eyes tracing over the contours of his lips when suddenly his phone alarm goes off, startling you.

It doesn’t disturb Van, who only shifts slightly before dozing back off. The phone is too far away for you to do anything about it. You sigh.

“Van?” You’re hesitant when you speak.

“Hmph?”

“Your alarm is going off.”

At that Van starts to shuffle underneath the blankets. One of his arms unfolds so that he can wipe the hair out of his face before he uses his other elbow to support his weight, grasping for his phone.

In his stretch to grab his phone he causes the blankets to slip down, leaving you both mostly uncovered. Instantly your skin protests at the cold hotel room air, and you grasp for the edge of the comforter to haul it back up. It’s slipped just below Van’s thighs, exposing the boxers he’d slept in. As you grip the fabric Van’s finished shutting the alarm off, putting his phone back on the bedside table and flopping onto his back. His readjustment means that you clearly see the way he’s tenting in his boxers.

You tug the blankets up quickly, eyes wide. Van looks like he’s already in the process of drifting back off, eyes closed where he’s laying, oblivious to what you’ve seen. You rest your head back down on the pillow.

“Are you falling back asleep?” You ask after he’s been still for a bit.

“No,” He croaks, but you’re not convinced. He only further proves your point when he gets back on his stomach, curling up into the position he had been in minutes before.

One moment you’re admiring the way his t-shirt stretches across his back, the next your hand has moved of its own accord, your fingers gently scratching him through the fabric. You truly hadn’t meant to do it. But he’s in a white shirt instead of his usual black, and his skin is visible against the cotton, and you’ve been yearning to touch him any chance you get. The fact he was hard only made you crave it more, knowing that he wanted you to touch him as bad as you wanted to touch him.

At the first graze of your fingertips against his shirt you freeze, realizing what you’re doing. You pull your hand away.

Van makes a noise of distaste against the pillow. It sounds like he says something, but you can’t make his words out.

“What?”

“Tease,” He huffs.

You frown. “How?”

“Because,” He mumbles sleepily, shifting against the pillow so that he’s looking at you. “Scratch my back.”

“We gotta get up.”

“After you scratch my back.”

You reach out and run your nails over his shirt as if you’d done it a million times. He smiles, closing his eyes in bliss as you humor him, loosely guiding your hand up and down his spine and over his shoulders.

“Ready to get up yet?” You ask in amusement when Van relaxes into the mattress even more.

“No,” He groans. “I’m so fucking tired.”

Without thinking about it your fingers slide under the hem of Van’s shirt, so that now you’re scratching his skin. You can feel his muscles twitching beneath your fingertips.

“You’re never tired,” You point out.

“I am when I’ve been jet-lagged for a week straight. Fuck.”

Even while he’s huffing about waking up he’s preening under your touch, clearly enjoying himself.

“I’ll get coffee going,” You tell him before slipping your hand out of his shirt, earning yourself a dirty look.

When you head for the coffee machine is when Van realizes you’re not coming back, finally yawning and forcing himself to sit up.

“I gotta get in the shower.”

He’s rubbing his eyes as he finally emerges from bed, stumbling to grab his toiletries from his luggage. You chance a peek at him when he stands up straight, but he’s strategically carrying a pouch with stuff for his morning shave so that his hard on’s concealed.

You busy yourself preparing both of your coffees, filling two disposable cups. He finally makes it into the bathroom, flicking the lights on and getting the water running before shutting the door, the knob clicking as he locks it. You’d been hoping he’d invite you to shower with him, but apparently he was serious about being exhausted.

You start to go through your own things, getting yourself ready. Jet lag had caused you both to sleep well into the afternoon, and it wouldn’t be long before the ride to the venue was here. As long as you try to avoid it, eventually you need to use the bathroom sink, tapping nervously at the locked door.

“Are you knocking?” Van’s voice echoes from the shower.

“Yeah!” You yell against the heavy wooden door. “I need to use the sink!”

There’s the wet slap of footsteps before the knob rattles and the door opens.

Van’s already disappeared behind the curtain by the time you��re in the bathroom. You focus on getting ready through the steam that’s forming on the glass. In perfect timing, once you’re about to complain that it’s too hard to see the spray cuts off, Van stepping out.

He’s dripping water all over the floor, his skin pink from the heat. He doesn’t have a towel immediately in reach, causing him to meander around looking for one, leaving the room for a moment. The steam escapes through the door, helping to clear the mirror.

When he comes back in he’s got one towel wrapped around his waist, another slung over his shoulders, and a hairbrush in hand. When he turns to brush his hair you can tell that he’s soft now.

You suppress a smile at what that implies.

The whole route to the venue you’re engrossed in the familiar sights. The landmarks, the major streets, a restaurant here or there that you’d eaten at after concerts at the very venue you were headed to.

Saint Andrew’s hasn’t changed much, although you can tell there’s been some renovations. The walkthrough with the band feels like deja vu, your body familiar with the layout of the building even though you haven’t been there since high school. Bondy asks where a restroom is, and before one of the staff can answer you point him towards the door without thinking about it. Only once you’re actually backstage, where your brain doesn’t have any material to push memories to the forefront of your mind, do you feel more normal.

You’re good about staying away from the public areas until soundcheck, which you don’t intend to miss. Watching everyone perform as friends rather than professionals in such a laid-back atmosphere has become one of your favorite perks of being a guest. You’re comfortable enough to stray from the wings this time around, instead choosing to venture on stage with the boys. You sit down in the corner, your legs dangling off of the edge, as out of the way and as far from the amps as you can get.

“Eh, didn’t sound right to me,” Bondy jokes after they’ve checked Sidetrack. “Felt a bit flat.”

“Aw, fuck you,” Van tells him, his footsteps vibrating the stage as he makes it back to his microphone. “Focus on yourself. Pretty sure I heard you play the chorus wrong.”

“That was you, actually.”

They do this all rehearsal, all of them poking at each other with no real malice. But you can tell the boys are having an extra dose of fun today with you around.

“Did that sound right to you, Y/N?” Bondy asks. “Maybe it’s just me, I dunno.”

“Yeah, let’s ask Y/N, our true impartial listener,” Van says into the microphone. It reverberates around the empty hall.

“Stop asking me!” You whine, looking over at them. “Everyone sounds great. Grow up.”

Everyone seems to find your irritation funnier than picking on Van.

“What about the drums?” Bondy continues. “I think Bob missed a beat there.”

You shake your head, not justifying him with a reply. Everyone snickers.

They go through their next song in fits and starts as adjustments are made, and your mind drifts away as they talk quietly amongst themselves. You gaze at the polished wooden floor the audience will be standing on later tonight, and your eyes travel up to the high, detailed ceilings of the room. It’s impossible not to remember all the times you’ve been under this ceiling, standing atop this exact floor, watching a band perform on this very stage with your then-boyfriend. You were always here with him because these had been his favorite bands, his group of friends that you two met up with. Looking around the room now feels like being somewhere haunted, like if you close your eyes you can see your life exactly the way it used to be. The way it was when you thought you were content where you were, when you felt your whole future was laid out in front of you and you didn’t have a problem following that path. When you didn’t know what else was out there for you.

You’re startled out of your thoughts by Van plopping down next to you, chugging a waterbottle. You realize they’ve finished soundcheck, everyone starting to quietly disperse.

“You okay?” He asks, gazing out into the space with you.

“Yeah,” You say, distracted.

“We’re only teasing, you know that, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” You brush his concern off. “I know that.”

“You seem upset.”

You shake your head. “I’m not upset. It feels weird being here.”

“Wanna smoke?”

You nod, hopping up to go follow him outside.

Once you’re out of the back door, greeted by a stifling wave of heat and humidity, Van meanders away from the venue. You follow along, looking at what’s changed on the block since the last time you’ve been. The building directly next to the hall is clearly abandoned now, and there’s a lone tree growing in a patch of grass in the narrow strip between that building and the store next to it. Van gravitates toward it, and you’re happy to be in the shade.

“What used to be here?” Van asks, nodding towards the abandoned lot. It’s evident that concert goers seem to know about this little space, considering there’s graffiti etched into the bricks. People’s names, random dates, mysterious phone numbers. There’s some actual tags spraypainted in various spots on the wall, but you’re more interested in the smaller messages.

“A bar. It was cool. Right after the concert everyone would go directly here. I wonder why they closed down. No doubt they made a ton of money.”

“You went?”

“Eh, occasionally. They’d be so packed right after a show you could weasel your way past the person checking IDs sometimes.” Your brain provides you with more memories of your past from the seemingly endless supply it has today.

“Why’d you break up with your last ex?” You blurt out. It’s so nosey and off topic you immediately want to kick yourself, but Van is unfazed, finishing his hit of his cigarette.

“I thought you hated talking about exes,” He points out.

“I do. Guess I’m just feeling really… reflective today.”

Once you were outside Van had slipped on the pair of sunglasses he’s kept dangling from the collar of his button up, so his expression is unreadable. His lenses just reflect you smoking back at yourself, so you look away.

“We were a bad match,” He says. “Always at each other’s throats. I didn’t see as much of a problem with it as the boys did. She did not like them and they did not fucking like her. They had to talk some real sense into me. But I’m glad they did.”

“Why were you with her? If she didn’t get along with anyone?”

“You know, this is gonna sound like such bullshit, but I really think I just forgot what love felt like. When you’re younger, and going to school and what have you, you know who you’re into, you know? Does that makes sense? If you’re in a class with thirty people, it’s easy to pick out who you’ve got a thing for.”

You nod, following along.

“So I met my first love in school. The thing is, though, nothing feels like your first love. Right? So when that’s said and done, you’re trying to find that feeling again, but it’s never the same, whatever. So for a while I would date girls and we would either be intensely in love or have no spark whatsoever. But then you’re an adult, and you’re working, and I’m not in one place very long. If I meet someone I like they’re not someone I see regularly because I’m always doing band stuff. So before you know it you’ve been single forever. Then it’s kinda… alright, our connection isn’t crazy, but it works. I started settling, I guess.”

You nod enthusiastically, his dating history resonating with your own.

“Anyway, when I met her, we had a lot of passion. So to me, I’m like, fuck, okay, I’m in love again. And when we got along, things were-” He gestures smoothly with his hand. “But we never got along. I swear we actually fucking hated each other most of the time. But at least I was feeling something for someone, so I figured we could work things out. Um, but we didn’t. And the fighting was unbearable. Interrupting rehearsals, nights out. We were always leaving early and always screaming in front of people. Bondy and Bob and Benji just got sick of it. Told me to cut it out. So, eventually I did.”

“That was pretty deep,” You remark, and Van laughs. “When’d you break up?”

“Right before Christmas,” Van tells you. “She absolutely freaked. But I got home and my mum and dad were so fucking relieved she wasn’t with me. That’s when I knew everyone had been right.”

“She met your parents?”

“They actually came to see us at a show while she was with me. She was starting shit with me all day, holy shit. They met her that one time and then avoided anything having to do with her like the plague.”

“That sounds genuinely awful.”

Van shrugs. “It is what it is. Learned a valuable lesson. Got some good songs out of it.”

You suppose relationships gone bad do probably hurt less when you make your living off of them.

“Let’s hear yours.”

“My last ex?” You ask, and Van nods.

“Eh. He was cheating on me.”

Van winces. “That’s shit.”

You shrug. “It wasn’t a big deal, honestly. I know that sounds crazy. I didn’t have any real spark with him, I didn’t really care. What I hated the most was how he thought he was so fucking clever and I knew the entire time.”

Van snorts. “How’d you figure it out?”

“Ugh,” You roll your eyes, “It was so easy! He was so stupid! First, when we became official his profile was still up on Tinder. Mine was still up too, okay, whatever-” You hold your hands up in joking guilt, “-But I would catch him actually on the app. And he had previews turned on for his notifications! I would literally catch girls texting him!”

Van chuckles along at your animated storytelling.

“And that’s it, really. I let it go on for a little bit because I was lonely at the time, but then it wasn’t funny anymore and it was over.”

“And when was this?”

“Psh. Long, long time ago. A year ago, at least. Year and a half, maybe.”

Both of your cigarettes are long burnt out. You add them to the collection of the other butts lying in the dirt around the tree.

“Have you ever cheated?” You decide to ask Van. Maybe if he has, you can convince yourself not to be in love with him. You’d have a sensible reason why it’d never work.

“Christ. I have, don’t judge me.”

At his words you perk up, eager to find a flaw.

“I was fifteen,” Van groans when he sees how intently you’re watching him. “It was nothing. I was technically dating a girl in my maths class but I kissed another girl under the bleachers after football practice.”

You laugh so hard your stomach hurts because of course, of course that’s Van McCann’s story of cheating. He tries to keep a straight face, looking rather remorseful, but eventually he cracks too, laughing along.

When you’re here with Van, sweating to death and laughing about innocent heartbreak, you forget all about the ghosts that follow you around this place. It occurs to you then that what’s most important is now. It’s nice to know about Van’s crazy ex, but it’s even nicer that he’s here with you instead of arguing with her. And it’s nice to remember times when you were younger, when things were simpler, but you realize that during your friendship with Van you’re probably happier than you ever were in the past. And it’s wishful thinking, but you can’t help but hope that maybe he feels the same way.

“So, do you actually ever use the bus?” You call to Van in the bathroom. He’s got the door open, fresh out of his post-show shower. You’re kicked back on the bed, texting about the show with Mary.

“Uh, we do,” Van laughs like it was a stupid question. “We’re practically on it twenty-four seven. We’d usually be on it tonight heading to the next place.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“I asked to stay the extra night because I was meeting up with you.”

At this your eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? We can’t get driving to the next place when you need to be at the airport in the morning. I said I had a friend coming in and could we stay an extra night because she has to fly. And they said that was fine with the schedule.”

You immediately shoot a text to Mary relaying your conversation. Just found out Van asked to adjust the schedule for me???

Mary’s reply pings back immediately: EXPLAIN?!?!

You’re typing a summary of what Van’s just said when you hear him speak from the bathroom. You don’t catch what he said.

“I can’t hear you!” You call to him.

“I said,” Van appears in the doorway, shirtless with a pair of sweats slung low on his hips. “Have you ever seen a tour bus?”

“No. Aren’t they like an RV?”

“A what?”

“An RV?”

“What the fuck is an RV?”

You look up at him in exasperation. “You know-” You gesture with your hands, “Giant things, you drive them, you take them camping. They have a kitchen and a bed and stuff? Like a house on wheels?”

Van cocks his head. “A motorhome?”

“Yes! A motorhome, sure.”

“Right. No, they’re nothing like that.”

“Okay, then I have no clue what they’re like.”

Van speaks again while he’s tugging on his t-shirt, successfully muffling his words. Yet when he pops his head through the collar, he’s looking at you for a response.

“I did not hear a word you just said,” You tell him with raised eyebrows.

Van rolls his eyes. “I said, do you wanna see ours?”

You do, but you hesitate. “Are we going to be bugging anyone?”

“Nah. Everyone’s in rooms tonight.”

“Then yeah, I do wanna see.”

Van stuffs his feet into a pair of slippers. “Then c’mon, get some shoes on.”

You hadn’t realized he’d meant right this second, but you get up from the bed, tucking your phone in your pocket and slipping on the flip-flops you’d brought for the shower. He pockets one of the room keys as you follow him out of the suite and down to the parking lot.

There’s nobody around considering the late hour of the night.

“Do you have a key?” You ask curiously when Van approaches the bus empty handed.

“No. You use a code.” He hits a combination of numbers on a small keypad, and with a beep he’s able to slide the door aside, letting you head up the stairs before him.

It looks like a regular coach bus when you look around, like the ones schools rent for long field trips. There’s two pairs of leather seats that face each other, and a small table dividing them.

Van appears behind you, stepping around so that he can lead the tour.

You couldn’t see it from where you were standing, but once you follow Van you see a narrow countertop nestled on one side. There’s a minifridge, a coffee pot, and a microwave nearby in the small space, and a small restaurant-booth seat where you presume people eat.

“Here’s the little kitchen,” Van says, gesturing to the countertop and booth.

Although it’s clear that the space is lived in, given the various foods lined up on the surfaces, there’s no trash or mess to be seen. “It’s really clean.”

Van snorts. “We’re slobs. It’s all thanks to the team.”

“They clean up after you?”

“They take care of the trash. Throw out the old food, get us some new stuff, that kind of thing.”

Van clicks open a door, showing you the inside of a new room. “Bathroom,” He explains, and you peek your head in, surprised to see a sink. You didn’t really consider there was running water in these things.

You’re almost at the end of the bus, and you haven’t seen any bunks. “So, do you, like, recline those seats to sleep? Like a plane?”

Van glances over his shoulder at you. “No. The bunks are upstairs.”

“How do you-” You start to ask, but before you can finish your sentence Van has started climbing up to the second level using a staircase in the corner.

You struggle to keep up with him, amazed as you climb up the steps to a whole new area. Lined against the walls are the actual bunks.

This area hasn’t been cleaned, considering each mattress is piled with rumpled bedding and various belongings. Some bunks were clearly being used as storage instead of a place to sleep, suitcases resting on them instead of blankets.

Van leads you to one of the top beds on the left side. It’s been messily made.

Van pats the colorful quilt resting on top of his sheets. “Here’s mine.”

“It’s made,” You remark, also reaching out to feel his blanket. “This quilt is really nice.”

“I try to at least throw it together in the morning.” He shrugs. “And my mum made me this, actually.”

“What?” You lean in closer to try and examine his quilt. Van messes with something before a light in the bunk comes on, illuminating the small space. “This looks amazing! Like it’s from a store.”

“Yeah. She’s handy with a sewing machine. She made it for me when I was leaving for New York. Now it’s my official touring blanket.”

His story makes your heart swell. You’re quiet as you continue to admire Mary’s work.

“Wanna hop in?” Van interrupts your thoughts.

It takes some maneuvering, but you managed to wriggle your body onto Van’s mattress. It’s about the same size as a twin bed, but the walls on three sides of you mean there’s no luxury of sprawling out.

“How do you fit in here?” You ask him. When you stretch out all the way, your toes bump the opposite end of the bed. You can’t imagine Van fits in here comfortably considering how tall he is.

“Eh, bend your knees a little. I’m used to it.”

You were already short on space, but things start to feel a bit claustrophobic when Van hops into bed with you. You’re stuffed between him and the wall.

“This is a squeeze,” You point out. Van’s pressed so close to you that when he exhales you can smell the toothpaste on his breath.

“You’re telling me.” You can feel his voice rumble through his chest.

There’s a moment of quiet when a thought suddenly pops into your head. “Oh my God, have you ever had sex in here?”

Van exhales a quiet laugh, and you feel his fingertips fussing with the hem of your shirt. “What, hoping to be the first?”

It’s hard to keep your train of thought straight when you feel his fingertips brush over your hipbone. “I’m only asking!” You manage to say.

“Ha. Yes I’ve had sex on a bunk,” He admits. “But, like, a long time ago. This might surprise you, but it’s not the most comfortable experience.”

In retaliation for his sarcasm you slip your own fingers underneath his shirt, pinching his side.

“Oi!” Van cries out in surprise. The space is so small that it sounds like he just shouted at full volume. You cringe.

“Don’t be so fucking loud,” You complain, pinching him again for good measure. “Right in my ear!”

“Well don’t pinch me!” Van scoffs.

“Fine, I won’t,” You hiss before tickling him.

“Cut it out,” Van pleads, twitching helplessly under your fingers. Before you know it he’s pushed your shirt up, tickling you roughly in retaliation.

One second you’re both squirming around, commanding each other to stop, and the next second Van’s lips are on yours. You freeze in surprise.

When he catches you by surprise he kisses you harder, his body shifting so that he’s hovering over you. When your brain catches up you relent on your attack, your arms wrapping around his shoulders instead.

“What are you doing?” You ask when he pulls back.

He grins. “Getting you to stop.”

He’s got a satisfied smirk like he’s won. If only he knew that losing felt like winning first prize to you.

“Well you better keep going,” You taunt him, teasingly tickling at the back of his neck. “Or else.”

You feel his smile as he kisses you again, pressing your lips open with his own so he can deepen it.

When it’s your turn to smile through the kiss he slowly pulls away, eyebrows raised. “What?”

You don’t answer him for a second, happily taking in the features of his face. You move one of your hands away from his shoulder to cup his jaw, running your thumb along the prominent line of it. His morning shave means his skin is silky smooth, no scratch of stubble against your skin. He’s still waiting for a response.

“I missed you,” You tell him. It’s the closest words to ‘I love you’ that you two exchange. “I missed you, like, a lot.”

Van grins, his body shifting so his face is inches away from yours. The feeling of his stomach rubbing against yours, even through your layers of clothes, sends a spark up your spine.

“Miss me?” He chuckles quietly. “I’m right here.”

“Now,” You argue, running your fingers through his hair. It’s still wet from the shower, making your knuckles damp.

Van laughs, kissing you again. This one is lacking heat, just a sweet, quick press of his mouth to yours. “Aw. I missed you too.”

“I’m right here,” You mock him, playfully poking one of the darker freckles on his cheek.

“Oh, I’m aware,” Van teases, leaning forward for another kiss. “And if you don’t mind, I’m prepared to take full advantage of that fact.”

You hate to crack the mood, but at his line you let out a laugh that’s too loud considering your proximity. “Oh, that was smooth, that was smooth,” You praise him, ruffling his hair.

Van looks proud of himself, lowering his chin to your chest and beaming up at you.

“But yeah,” You tell him, sliding your hands over his back, “It’d be a shame if you didn’t.”

With your approval Van starts to heave himself out of the bunk, a tangle of limbs too long to be confined into this space.

“Are we going back to the room?” You ask as Van helps you down.

“No. Somewhere where there’s more space.”

His fingertips are cold as he loosely tangles them with yours, gently tugging you away from the bunks, in the opposite direction of the staircase. It’s not quite hand-holding, but it’s close enough to stun you, gazing down at your entwined hands as Van leads you the short distance to a door. He releases you so that he can swing it open, and by now you’re used to being ushered in first.

He’s led you to a tiny room that only contains a couch, a television in the wall, and a PlayStation surrounded in a tangle of wires on the floor.

“Of course,” Van sighs under his breath as you two take in the couch. It’s covered in clutter, mostly dirty clothes and the PlayStation remotes. Within the blink of an eye he’s crossed the room, starting to toss whatever clothes have been abandoned here onto the floor. You help too, taking care of the remotes, beer bottles, and cigarette boxes. The end result is a clean couch and a messy floor.

“Yeah,” You say to nobody in particular as you relax into the couch, which is long enough to stretch out on. “There’s a lot more space.”

Van tugs his t-shirt off, tossing it onto the floor with the mess. You follow suit.

Only once your shirt is off do you notice the lighting. The small lamp in the bunk had been cozy, but this room is shrouded in the sort of lighting public bathrooms had; it was fluorescent yet dim, casting a yellow glow, and doing everything in its power to illuminate any flaws. Immediately after looking down at your exposed body you wish you could pull your shirt back on.

“I hate these lights,” You declare to Van.

“Hold on,” Van grunts, wriggling around as he searches for something. “We’ve got something better.”

After some commotion the wall the couch is pressed against is suddenly illuminated with a soft glow. It looks as if there’s lighting installed into the back of the couch, but when Van crosses the room and flicks the lightswitch off you realize that the boys have a string of fairy lights resting against the edge of the seats. The atmosphere of the room is suddenly much more welcoming.

You hadn’t realized your shoulders were tense until you feel them sag in relief. At the sight of Van approaching the couch again, however, you tense up again.

“Condom?” You check, terrified of an Arizona repeat.

“Right, right,” Van clicks his tongue, heading for the door again. “I’ll be right back.”

With nobody else on the bus, you can clearly hear the shuffle of Van looking around. Thankfully he returns with a foil packet in hand, locking the door behind him.

When he sits down on the couch, he holds the packet close to the string of fairy lights, squinting at it.

“What?” You ask as Van struggles to read the text on it. You notice it’s an orange color, not the blue of Van’s usual trojans.

“It’s ribbed. Will that work?”

“Sure,” You nod. Truthfully, you’ve never tried them, but you will tonight if it means getting the show on the road. “Whose is that?”

“Bondy’s.” Van sets the condom aside on the floor, proceeding to strip away his sweatpants. “I’ll have to remember I owe him one.”

He says this so casually, as if they borrow condoms from each other regularly. You shake your head at how odd men are as you finish stripping your clothes away.

Once the clothes are off and you two gravitate into the same position you were in on the bunk, the mood starts to come back. It hadn’t gone far, considering Van was still hard. He busies himself with your foreplay, his fingertips gingerly searching for a good spot against your clit.

“There,” You say quickly, when he’s gotten it right. But he’s already moved, the sensation lost.

“Where?” Van tries to move back into his previous place. He’s almost got it right, but it’s slightly off. “Here?”

You reach down between your legs, Van’s fingers going pliant as he allows you to readjust him. “There.”

He adds pressure, moving in his usual wide circle. Your nerves light up with it, your hips twitching up instinctually. He knows he’s gotten it right by your reaction.

In reward you reach down to work on him. The back of your hand brushes his dick. It’s swollen and radiating heat, and a smear of precome brushes over your skin. Van practically jumps out of his skin. You don’t want to bring him any closer to the edge than he already is, so you decide to slide your hand lower instead, gently cupping his balls.

“Shit,” Van hisses, flinching.

You freeze. “Do you hate it?”

“No, no,” He breathes, and you feel him relax.

“How do you like it?”

Van shakes his head. “Never had it. Go easy on ‘em.”

You don’t have the mental space to process what he’s said, too consumed by the way he’s touching you. With his request you keep your touch gentle. You’re both hypnotized, the foreplay going on for longer than usual, and you’re almost tempted to call off the sex and come only from his fingers. You can tell he’s becoming more familiar with your body, his hand keeping the right rhythm as he kisses the spot on your neck that always makes you moan. But he’s not the only one that’s been studying, and instead of your usual breathy moan you let his name slip just to rile him up more.

That seems to snap him out of his daze, and with a playful nip to that spot on your neck he pulls away, stretching down to grab for the condom. You let your hand fall away from his balls, rubbing his inner thigh instead while he slides his foreskin back and gets the condom over himself.

“Any special requests?” He asks as his way of checking in, and you feel the gentle pressure of him nestling into position.

“Yeah,” You reply as you shuffle to make sure your hips are at the right angle. “You better not pretend I’m the girlfriend you fucked in the bunk once.”

Van gives a loud scoff, his eyebrows furrowing. He looks down at you like you’ve just grown a second head.

“Are you kidding?” He asks, cocking his head. “Have you looked at yourself? Why would I fucking want to?”

It had mostly been a joke, but there was always a small part of you that wondered if Van used your arrangement to relive past experiences. It always hurt to consider, especially since he was the clear winner out of everyone you’d ever physically been with. At his sincerity you gulp, giving a small nod.

He shakes his head at you in exasperation. “Christ, Y/N. You know, I’ve never met anyone like you.”

You eye him wearily. “Okay, that sounds like an insult, but to be fair, I’ve never met anyone like you, either!”

Van chuckles as he starts his first slow thrust inside of you, effectively shutting you up. “Deffo not an insult.”

Something about his response makes you unexpectedly emotional. You chalk it up to a heady mix of love hormones and the relaxation that sweeps over you at your anxieties being assuaged. It was in the way he responded enthusiastically, rather than brushing you off. As you two get started it still takes you a minute to shake off the memory of his face peering down at you like you were absolutely insane for even insinuating such a thing. Even then, his words linger.

You know, I’ve never met anyone like you.

#summer's a knife #catfish and the bottlemen #catb #van mccann #van mccann fic #van mccann fanfiction #vanfic #catb fic #please enjoy me waxing poetic about saint andrew's hall

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irwingiggling · 4 years

Text

friends of friends. | pt. 1

A/N: Sooo guess who’s back with a new fic?! Please let me know what you guys think, and if you want me to continue this - I have lots of ideas for it! If you enjoyed it, please give it a like so I know people are interested in reading more :) The band does exist in this fic, but it’s more of a casual thing and none of the boys are famous. In this fic I tried to really focus on the characterization and in improving my writing, so yeah this is my little passion project rn while I’m in quarantine. [Also a little shoutout to @cakesunflower, I don’t know her at all but her fics (wglylm, quiet hours, etc.) and her writing is honestly incredible and she was one of the many awesome writers on here who inspired me to start this. :)]

Word Count: 2,100+

Rating: PG-13 (mentions of alcohol, swearing)

---

"Who's Calum?" Audrey was perched over a tall wooden stool, hands around a mug of steaming hot coffee. Her short brown hair landed just above her shoulders, cascading perilously towards her coffee as she stared down her friend, a sly smile on her face.

"Just a friend of a friend," Rose replied with a shrug.

Audrey's eyebrows arched in response, unsatisfied with Rose's answer.

"No seriously. I barely know him, I met him the other day at some get together Nina dragged me to."

At mention of the other girl, a smile crept onto Audrey's face. "Damn, Nina. How's she doing?" The three were close friends back in university, sharing a dorm for two years. But after school, they'd all started to go their separate ways. Nina was in public relations. A true socialite, she loved meeting new people, and could keep up conversation for hours. Since landing her new job as an assistant for some small music company, she'd managed to drag Rose along to various parties and social gatherings with increasing frequency. The two lived on opposite sides of town in Boston, but remained decently close despite this. On the other hand, Audrey had moved back home to Michigan after school, and the two didn't see her very often at all.

"She's good. Still a true extrovert." Rose said with a gentle shake of her head.

"Gotta love that girl. She was always a go-getter." Audrey laughed, taking a sip of the creamy drink.

In contrast to Nina, Rose would describe herself as a simple person. She had her little apartment, her work, a well-stocked supply of coffee, and her dog, Olive - who she'd somehow managed to sneak under her apartment's 60lb weight limit. Everything else was extra, but as long as she had those few essentials, she was perfectly content. Though as a recent university grad who was still working part-time at a coffee shop, and taking whatever freelance work she could on the side, she didn't have a lot of room for extravagances anyway. In contrast, Audrey found a job as a radio broadcaster back home right out of school, and could now afford to make the flight down to see her girls.

"Anyways don’t try and change the subject, you haven't had a man in your life in ages!" Audrey exclaimed, teasingly poking a finger against the arm of Rose's blue sweater.

Rose gave her head a faint shake, smiling gently. She had no doubt Nina had already recounted the entire work gathering to Audrey over one of her long-winded FaceTime calls. Nina had a way of getting carried away with the stories she told, which likely meant their distant observation of Calum had morphed into a much closer brush than it actually was.

----

She vaguely remembered him from that last work event. He was easily recognizable by his dark curly hair, tanned skin, and youthful appearance, especially since the vast majority of others mingling looked to be in their late 30s. Rose caught drifts of conversations about sales and pitches and various public relations-related stuff. She had caught him looking over at her during one of the speeches. When she met his gaze he'd turned away.

"Who's that?" she asked, tugging lightly on Nina's arm. Nina was in the middle of rambling about some publication technique to boost online views.

"Oh, him? That's Calum. He's a member of one of the newer bands the company's signed. Seems decent, haven't really had a chance to chat with him yet."

Calum.

She never got the guts to go over and talk to him that night, even though he looked like one of the only people who was actually having a decent time, chatting animatedly with an equally tall guy around his age, drink in hand. Instead, she stayed by Nina's side, letting her talkative friend fill the silence and introduce her to many people whose names she would inevitably forget.

---

It was two weeks later, and Nina had caught Rose off guard yet again, getting her to agree to another one of her work parties before Rose even really knew what she was saying yes to. The term ‘party’ was an exaggeration, to say the least. Only the watered-down drinks and the 70s hits playing at a whisper in the background gave the faintest suggestion that this was a party. Rather, it was a way for people at Nina’s company to schmooze with those from other nearby labels and PR companies, collaborating on techniques, getting insider information on new signings and album releases. And Nina was so thrilled at the prospect of sharing her knowledge and making new friends, that Rose felt obligated to say yes. However, not knowing a thing about the music industry or public relations made it difficult to relate to any of the conversations, so she often found herself glued to Nina’s side, maintaining an appropriate amount of nods and smiles to the people Nina talked to, waiting for the agonizingly slow clock to tick down. She sharply reminded herself to not give in to Nina’s pleas again, that this would be the last time she would let her Friday nights turn out like this.

Letting her thoughts wander, she remembered catching a vague glimpse of the dark-haired man earlier on in the night, but she hadn't seen him at all in the past half-hour, and figured he'd gone home. She wished she could leave too, but sadly Nina was her ride, which meant she'd be here for a while longer. By this time Rose was frankly sick of Nina's incessant chatter, and with feigning enjoyment in meeting random people she truly had no interest in.

She politely excused herself from the conversation, and made her way towards the kitchen, in the hopes she could scrounge up another drink to get her through the night. Taking a look around the kitchen, she let out a small sigh when she didn't see any alcohol. However, her eyes landed on the same curly-haired man from earlier. So this was where he'd been hiding out. His cheeks flushed a vague tinge of pink at seeing he'd been discovered, but he let out a relieved breath when he saw that it was her. One of the only other people here around his age, who didn't seem like she'd want to chatter endlessly about the management side of music.

"Hey, I remember you." He stood facing her, a gentle smile on his face. "Calum," he introduced, taking a hand out of his pocket and extending it towards her.

"Rose," she replied, lips curving into a smile as she shook his hand, his larger one temporarily enveloping hers.

"Nice to meet you," he nodded. "Do you work here?" He was sure if he'd seen her before that he would have remembered.

"No, I'm actually a struggling arts major," she confessed with a small chuckle. "My friend dragged me here. Nina."

"Oh," Calum nodded, eyes flashing lightly in recognition of a name he couldn't quite place. "The really… social one?" He asked hesitantly towards the end, unsure exactly how to phrase it.

"Yeah, you can’t miss her,” Rose said, giving her head a small shake in amusement. She felt a sense of relief as Calum's light chuckle flooded her ears.

"So I'm kind of hiding out here right now," he began, looking past her for a second to the crowd of people mingling past the doorway, a sigh of relief leaving his lips as he confirmed none of the guests were interested in pulling him into another conversation.

She chuckled lightly, moving to place her empty glass near the sink. "Do you come to these kinds of things often?"

"Not really," he shrugged, taking another sip of his drink. "But the label wanted me to make an appearance. Somehow I keep drawing the short end of the stick this month for that kind of stuff."

She laughed, glad she didn't have to pretend this was an enjoyable party.

"It's kinda.. stuffy?" he added, nose scrunching at the word.

She nodded in complete understanding. "Yeah. A lot of middle-aged record and publication people. Not exactly my crowd either."

"Tell me about it," Calum sighed, taking a long sip of his fruity drink. "And this was all I could find," he added half-heartedly, raising the glass.

She chuckled, trying to muffle her amusement at the strange drink that didn't seem to quite fit with his look. The vividly coloured mini umbrella and bright purple liquid contrasted sharply with the metal rings that adorned his tanned fingers and the tattoos peeking out from his shirt collar.

Noting her amusement with his drink of choice, his eyes began to light up, and he chuckled along with her.

"I figured," she said, fighting to contain her smile. This only served to make him more amused, a full-blown laugh bubbling out from his full, pink lips. His laugh seemed too pure, too alive for this subdued party.

They stood in silence for a couple beats, letting the low buzz from the various people in the room flood their ears again, before Calum drained the rest of his drink in a gulp. "Did you wanna get out of here?" He asked, setting his empty glass down on the counter beside hers, gesturing vaguely to the direction of the front door.

"Oh!" She wasn't able to mask her surprise, eyebrows rising and a faintly amused but apologetic look on her face. "Wow, um… I think you're great, I really do, but that's just not quite something that I'm-"

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion at her response. He tilted his head slightly to one side, lips parted, as he tried to figure her out. Eventually his lips curved into a smile and a gentle laugh erupted from his mouth as he realized where she was going with this. "Shit, I meant food. My bad."

And then she was blushing profusely, wanting to melt into the floor in embarrassment because how could she fuck that up? She sighed, letting out a small whine of contempt, and when she finally got the courage to look back up at him, he was watching her, eyes sparkling. He dragged his bottom lip between his teeth, trying half-heartedly to contain the smile that still graced his face at her expense.

"Yeah, ok." She nodded, letting out a small chuckle. "I can do food."

---

She didn't quite know how she ended up at the fast-food place at 10pm, seated in a tiny booth across from Calum, watching the curly-haired man munching happily away on fries, their knees occasionally knocking against each other.

When he looked at her it was as if he was looking into her. His dark curls cascaded over his forehead, a hint of stubble on his jaw. His eyes were soft and dark brown. They crinkled around the edges when he laughed and they felt like home. It was weird for her, to feel that way with a stranger. But in many ways Calum felt more like an old friend. Like someone she'd known all her life and was just reconnecting with. At this point in the night he was beginning to look tired and sleepy, but just when she thought he was losing interest, his eyes would light up at a funny comment, and it would bring her in closer, creating the most comfortable, at ease feeling deep in her stomach. That night she learned Calum had a wicked dry sense of humour, and that his warm laugh sounded like honey.

They were there for over an hour, long after the remnants of their burgers had gone cold. Only the buzzing of the neon sign in the front window, and the quiet shuffling of the lone staff member were background noise to their conversation.

Eventually they decided to part ways, both tired and content from the night. They put their empty trays in the garbage, and left. Outside they stood only a few steps apart, trying to use each other's bodies to evade the cold wind blowing through the empty parking lot. It was already April in Boston, but some nights still felt like winter.

"Alright," he said, tugging the hood of his jacket over his head so only a few curls poked out. "Get home safe, ok?"

"I will. You too, Calum."

She turned to leave, but his fingertips brushed across the fabric of her jacket. She looked up, the movement garnering her attention. His tongue darted across his bottom lip, brown eyes searching her own.

"We're doing a little show at The Reign next Saturday night. You should come, if you want."

"Yeah I'd love to. I'll be there."

And then he was smiling, hands buried in his pockets. She took a step back and gave him a wave, which he returned, watching her for a few moments before turning in the direction of his own apartment.

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julesnjd · 3 years

Text

rēˈbərth -- Mason

Aurora, Stella, and Mason left the Conway University area around eight in the morning with the following in the trunk of Stella’s Chevy Chevelle: ten deer bones sitting in a bag of water, a large Taco Bell cup taped shut and full of blood from a pregnant dog, one plastic tupperware container of freshwater pearl oysters, a bottle of red wine, and a bottle of olive oil, three plastic bags full of herb sprigs they’d tied last night, and various sizes of metal bowls and multiple different kinds of knives. It was like they were going to record the weirdest outdoor cooking video ever. Aurora Yamamoto, a Japanese trickster demon with an air of casual indifference sat in the passenger seat. Stella, a vampire, drove while tapping her toes against the gas pedal in time with the classic rock blaring from the radio. Mason, the witch, hid herself in a hoodie in the backseat like she didn’t want to be there despite this whole thing being her idea.

Two weeks ago, Juliet Hill, Mason’s roommate-slash-almost-girlfriend and everyone’s friend, was found face up in the lake on their college campus. It had been ruled a suicide. Her death had left Mason a mess. She’d gone so deep into her grief that she could hardly even say Juliet’s name. It still took a second to get it out from between her teeth.

Mason had sprayed the hoodie, the one Juliet loved most of all her clothes that represented some numetal band she loved, with some of Juliet’s lavender perfume before they left Stella’s apartment. It smelled like her. She couldn’t stop holding the sleeves against her nose. There were still a few blonde hairs strewn around on the hoodie that Mason couldn’t bring herself to remove either. She was also wearing the Saint Monica College sweatpants Juliet always stole from her. Both of these things would go on Juliet’s body as soon as she was back with them. If she was back with them.

She hoped to have Juliet back by dawn.

A week ago, Mason had been visited in a dream by her patron goddess, Bast. She could still hear Bast’s voice in her mind when she thought about it: “This is an imbalance, my child. I will lead you to right it.” It hadn’t been the first time Mason thought that Juliet didn’t deserve to die. She’d been thinking it from the moment it happened. Juliet was too young. She was in the middle of her redemption arc, for lack of a better term. She was turning into a better person. Of course, those had been Juliet’s own words, but it still applied. She hadn’t wanted to die anymore. She’d gone through eighteen years of being the unwanted trouble child, of ruining relationships, of suicidal thoughts, of doing other things that she had only alluded to Mason about yet, but had finally made it to a good place in her life. Of course, that was when he took her.

So Mason was going to bring her back. Well, Stella and Aurora were helping, and so was some human they hadn’t found yet. She didn’t understand why Juliet couldn’t just be friends with a human for once, still. Maybe it had something to do with the repressed siren magic that had to be in her blood, since her twin was a siren. Mason blinked and stared at the back of the car seat in front of her. What if that complicated things? What if they needed siren blood, not human blood? The spell wasn’t for a siren. What if this didn’t work because of that?

“Turn left.” The GPS voice snapped Mason back into the present. Stella and Aurora were talking back and forth in the front seat. Their voices melded with the radio commercials in Mason’s ears as soon as her eyes landed on the clay dolls in her lap. She was keeping them as close to her person as possible to continue the flow of life into the dolls. One represented Juliet. The other represented Mason. If-- After Juliet took her first breath, Mason would have to tie the dolls together and burn them in order to bind their souls. It was the only way to keep Juliet on Earth, an aspect Aurora had advised her was missing from the spell.

Mason had made the dolls by hand. They’d taken over an hour to make. She’d mixed the clay in a pot in Stella’s cheap apartment kitchen, transferred the clay to two mixing bowls, and formed each doll while thinking about the person they would represent. Juliet’s doll had hairs picked off the same sweatshirt Mason was wearing massaged into it, but otherwise it hardly represented Juliet. It was necessary for Mason to think about Juliet while forming the doll. She hadn’t given her this much thought since two weeks ago when Juliet died.

She really missed her. She missed the goofy, toothy grin Juliet would give her when she almost got caught doing something she shouldn’t be. She missed Juliet’s lavender and honey perfumes, or the scent of the green apple shampoo and conditioner Jules used in her tangled mess of curly hair. She missed trying to figure out the best way to describe the color of Juliet’s eyes. The closest she’d come was seafoam, but even that wasn’t right. They were more blue than green. She missed trying to count the freckles on Juliet’s cheeks (106 was the highest she’d gotten) while Jules rambled about something Mason didn’t know much about, like her art classes or things she’d learned in her psychology classes. She missed the tone of her voice when she was talking like that. Her ridiculous laugh that Mason had to coax out of her on the first day they met. Juliet’s hand in hers, even if their palms grew sweaty while they walked together. Juliet’s snoring and sleep talking waking Mason up at night, turned into sleepwalking the night before an exam. Singing in the car together. Everything, every moment Mason had with Juliet was flashing through her mind like she was reliving the last moments of her own life… Which she very well could have been. Nothing felt right without Juliet there too.

She looked down at the formed and dried doll in her hand, trying to hold back her tears. It was lumpy and brown, and to make it even worse it hardly even looked like a person. Her own wasn’t much better off, with her own saliva mixed into it. It looked even less like a person than Juliet’s.

They arrived in Traverse City, a tourist city on the edge of Lake Michigan, about two hours after leaving. The entire drive had seen them surrounded by trees, water, and other cars along the highway. Traverse City was Juliet’s hometown. As soon as they hit downtown, it made sense. Stella’s car coasted through the streets downtown, passing local shops, restaurants, and glimpses of the lake. People lined the sidewalks, excited to take in the summer day, some of them dressed in swimsuits and sheer cover-ups, others a bit more modest. It was easy to picture Juliet wandering these streets with her sister or friends, laughing loud, excusing herself when she inevitably bumped into someone while walking backwards. Hopefully, she’d be able to take Mason shopping there soon. Mason tried going over the Greek for the spell incantations in her head. Fuck if she knew what it meant. Aurora had translated it for her, but she could barely remember. Something about giving Juliet’s soul back.

They stopped at the rundown motel they’d booked and set everything they could need up in the room. They had lunch at a place Juliet had talked about multiple times before, where Mason ordered Juliet’s favorite burger. They went to visit her gravesite afterward.

The walk along the path from the parking spaces of the graveyard was hard. Last time Mason had been here was the funeral, where Juliet’s mother complained about how sad she was having lost her daughter all while smiling and chatting on the phone, even during the eulogy. It had disgusted even Rosaline, Juliet’s twin and their mother’s perfect daughter, to the point of shouting. Juliet would have both hated it and loved it.

The day was comfortably hot in a hoodie and sweats, which was the average of a day in late April. Mason walked alone right now, having left the others at the car after asking for some alone time with Juliet. It would help her feel closer.

When she arrived at the grave, Mason sat on the grass in front of the stone. It was already showing signs of wear. There were new flowers set in front of it, on the grass. They’d been knocked over. White roses were scattered sideways, looking just a little trampled, and the vase they’d been in was pink and black. Rosaline probably left them. They were Jules’ favorite flower and the vase was Rosa and Juliet’s favorite colors. Mason picked them up as carefully as she could, swearing softly when thorns on the first two stung her. Once the vase was upright again and all six flowers were looking better, she traced Juliet’s name with her pinky fingertip.

“You’ll be okay,” Mason whispered. “We’re going to make sure of that. I already told Mama that Stella’s coming home with me after a couple more days around Conway. She’s excited to see Stell, since they used to be friends too. Apparently they went to college together, back when Stella was in college for the first time. That’s something I’ve got to tell you about. It was weird seeing them all buddy-buddy at the funeral.” She laughed weakly. “I think Mama’ll be excited to see you. And she’ll definitely take you in. There’s no way she wouldn’t, especially after how your mom acted at your funeral. You won’t ever have to see your mom again. We’ll take care of you. My family’ll just get even bigger.” She tapped the headstone with splayed fingers. “I can’t wait to see you again, see you breathing and shit. Even if it’s weird. Even if you’re weird. I can’t tell you how many laws I’m breaking to get you here, Julesy. Supernatural and human laws. We’re getting you back tonight. No matter what. I’ll have my best friend back. We can bring more new flowers here tomorrow, too. And get you some to have for yourself.

“I’m doing the right thing by bringing you back, though, right? Stella and Aurora seem to think I’m fucked in the head. They’re indulging me and miss you, so they’re helping, but it feels weird. It feels like they’re-- They already said they’re prepping for the worst. They said they talked about how they’d take care of it if you came back wrong in some way. I didn’t even know that was a possibility. I thought you either came back or you didn’t.” She rubbed her hands together, then started plucking lightly at the tips of the grass, snapping them off with her fingernails. “I just… I wish I knew where you are. Are you in Heaven or Hell? Do those places even exist? What makes one better or worse than the other? I wish I knew so I could know if I need to help you or if I could leave you alone and you’d be happy. I feel like everything’s a fucking wish without you though. I miss you. I want you back.” She sighed weakly, staring at the gravestone and rubbing a blade of grass between her fingers. “I’m so selfish.”

Mason rubbed the headstone one more time for good luck. As she approached the lot, she caught a glimpse of someone standing in the distance, leaning against the car. He was at the car. He killed Juliet. He was going to hurt Stella and Aurora. “Hey!” Mason shouted, starting toward the car. “Get the fuck away from them!”

Andrew Roberts was standing by the car, looking at Mason like she was some bird waddling toward them instead of a powerful witch running at the guy who killed her best friend. She shoved hard at his chest, taking him to the ground and slamming her foot down on his chest hard enough to make him cough. “What the fuck is your issue?” she snapped. “I told you I didn’t need your help. I told you to fuck off. You caused this.”

The last time Mason saw Andrew, he was handing her sheets of paper he’d ripped from a book in the Conway library restricted section. He had threatened to turn her in for attempting an illegal spell if she turned him in for killing Juliet. It was the moment she’d realized Juliet was more important than getting legal justice. Mason could turn him in later, after she had Juliet back. She didn’t want him anywhere near them right now, though. He was the one who killed her for some demon named Kalos. For all she knew, he was going to fuck up their spell so Juliet was required to stay wherever she was.

“Mason!” Aurora hissed, shoes slapping the pavement of the sidewalk as she hopped off the trunk of the car. “Leave him alone. He’s helping us. Andrew, tell her.”

“Like fuck he is! We don’t need him.”

“We do!” Aurora shouted. Her voice was shrill and loud now. “Shut up and listen for once in your life!”

Mason shut up, glaring at Andrew as hard as she could. She wished she could rip his head off already. With her bare hands. They were in a cemetery. It’d be easy to bury him.

Andrew spoke, his voice quiet and trembling. He sat up now that Mason’s foot was off his chest, rubbing at his arms and pushing his long, greasy dark hair off his face. “I didn’t want to kill her. Kalos was going to kill me if I didn’t, though.” He got to his feet, carefully keeping his eyes away from everyone else’s. “I left the watcher he has on me and Aurora is keeping me hidden. I want to help. You need human blood, they just told me. I want to give it. I can spot him easier, too. And I-- She wasn’t a bad person. She doesn’t deserve his f-”

“We need him,” Aurora explained, interrupting him. “He’s the only human we have who’s willing to give the spell blood. We need him. I don’t care what vengeance you have against him right now. Isn’t bringing Juliet back a thousand times more important to you than this?”

Mason’s fingers curled into fists. Her nails dug into her palm hard enough to sting. “A million times more. This piece of shit doesn’t matter to me at all.” She looked away from him, lips pursed. “I don’t want him anywhere near any of the stuff we have prepped. He waits in the car while we get the body tonight. I don’t want him alone unless he’s in the bathroom, and even that’s got a time limit. Got it?” She looked at him. “Got it?”

Andrew nodded and Mason got in the car without another word. He sat in the backseat on the passenger side. Mason glared at him briefly, then settled for looking out the window instead. Hopefully they’d need enough human blood to bleed him out. She really hoped so.

☥☥

The night air was cool and crisp, as it usually was during the summer. It smelled like soil and decay in the cemetery. The moon was full. Mason’s power felt strong, which was astounding for the night. It was necessary. She was invoking every deity she could tonight. She was bringing life back into a corpse tonight.

Mason stopped to scratch at her neck. Mosquitoes were rampant right now, and the dirt flying up as she dug toward the casket was not helping the itch. She swore softly and kept digging. Her hands hurt at this point. The shovel they’d brought was not meant to be used for so long.

Aurora had already started her illusion. Apparently it seemed to others that they were doing a prayer circle around the grave or having a picnic, an activity that screamed "leave us alone.” Stella brought out the pry bar and sledgehammer from her trunk once Mason hit the concrete burial vault.

Everything was real. They were going to rob Juliet from her grave. Mason got out of the

grave with Stella’s help.

Mason leaned against the car, trying to ignore the pain in her hands as she watched Aurora and Stella use the sledgehammer to break the liner open, then wedge the pry bar between the nailed edges of the coffin. She held her palms out flat, facing the stars, and breathed out slowly. She started praying softly to Bast, asking her to make sure this pain didn’t cause an issue in the spell she was meant to complete. She didn’t know what else to do right now. It was pain from digging combined with pain from the thorn pricks earlier. She hadn’t told anyone yet, but the thorns had apparently embedded in her skin. They’d broken off from the roses and were painful as hell, but Mason had to work around them. Massaging them out from her skin earlier had proven a difficult but fruitful task, albeit one that left behind red marks and a dull ache spreading from her fingers to her palms.

Now that doubt was planted in her mind again. She’d doubted this entire thing two days ago, when Aurora revealed to her that she’d seen a resurrection only once before and no one had come out alive. There was a risk that Juliet wouldn’t come back normal no matter what, demon thorns involved or not. It wasn’t like resurrection spells were listed in a book of 10 Things Every Witch Should Know! or anything. They were illegal as hell and involved some illegal things, both human and supernatural. It went against everything Mason was for, yet here she was, doing this.

Juliet’s death had really fucked with her head, huh?

It took them a minute, but soon enough Mason heard a loud, “Holy fuck, that reeks!” from Stella, followed by Aurora’s high pitched giggling.

Things were going to be alright. They had to be.

She wandered away from the car after they lifted Juliet’s body out of the hole wrapped in a sheet. They needed to be careful with her and keep her as still as possible. They didn’t want to risk hurting her too much. It wasn’t like Mason couldn’t heal whatever broken limbs or whatever happened, but it wouldn’t work on a dead body. She’d have to bring Juliet back, bind their souls, then use her remaining energy to heal whatever happened to her. It wouldn’t be pretty. That much energy, actually, could kill Mason, and that would ruin the whole plan. It was beyond risky.

Andrew got out of the car to open the trunk when Stella and Aurora gathered up the ends of the sheet Juliet was wrapped in and lifted her. They settled her in the trunk and Aurora and Stella drove her back to the motel alone, leaving Andrew and Mason to fill the grave and replace the sod.

While they were gone, Andrew filled the grave again for Mason. She couldn’t move her hands very well. He’d definitely noticed her stiffness, because he immediately started on it without question. She watched him quietly at first, then sighed and sat down on the edge of the grave. Her feet dangled just a little down toward the cracked concrete burial vault and coffin. He glanced up at her for a second as he pushed greasy hair out of his eyes, then looked back at the dirt he was pushing into the empty grave. Mason watched him for a minute, then sighed. Silence was awkward. “Why would you kill all those people? If I were you, I’d’ve killed myself before killing them.”

Andrew stared at her for a second. The shovel in his hand was steady as he stared, then he nodded once. “I want to stay alive,” he admitted. “It’s a better life than the one I was living before.”

Mason stared at him. “I’d rather be dead than know I’m putting someone through this pain.”

“The only people close to me who’ve died deserved it.” Andrew shoved some more dirt into the hole, then stuck the tip of the shovel into the grass. He looked up to meet her eyes. His gaze was always so emotionless. “I didn’t know Juliet was so close to all of you until it was too late. This is the first time I’m dealing with this.”

“Does it make you want to stop?”

Andrew was silent.

Maybe it was just something Mason would never be able to understand.

Mason stared at the dirt as he tossed it into the grave. It made her think of Juliet’s funeral, when her dad had tossed the first handful of dirt into the grave after the vault containing the coffin was lowered. It was tradition. Death was a weird process for the living. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again to say, “I don’t know if I should be bringing her back.”

Andrew stopped transferring dirt for a minute, then sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you. The spell I gave you takes her out of a spell I completed for Kalos.” He met Mason’s eyes. His didn’t waver as he spoke. “She’s not in a good place. She needs saved.”

Mason stared right back at him, then sucked in a shaking, crisp breath once she remembered to. “Really?”

He nodded once, then went right back to placing dirt without a single word.

For some reason, Mason started thinking about how, a couple months ago Juliet had told Mason something that someone in her psychology course had told her about people lying. “Liars look into your eyes dead on when lying because society told them shifty eyes are a sign of a liar. Eyes shift around when you’re telling the truth.”

“Help me with the sod.”

☥☥☥

On their way into the motel room, Mason watched Andrew squash a pearly white maggot into the fibres of the carpet. It had probably fallen from Juliet’s body. Was she full of maggots? Mason really didn’t want to picture that. She didn’t even want to picture Juliet’s corpse at all.

Luckily, she didn’t have to. The sight was right in front of her when she followed Stella and Aurora into the bathroom, Andrew trailing between them. He stared at the body, then looked at Mason, who was slowly losing her composure. Juliet’s body was right in front of her, in a bathtub, looking worse than she’d ever even considered it could look.

Mason hadn’t expected her to look so dead. Her skin was starting to turn yellow, and there were bugs crawling across her face. Whatever makeup the mortician had put on her was caked into her face and dried out, making her lips a weird bright matte red and her eyelids a greenish-black. The dress she was buried in was covered in dirt, but had held up pretty well. It was a shame she couldn’t be wearing it. Her legs looked normal, and so did everything else. She just looked like she was sleeping in a weird position with makeup on and… Mason exhaled slowly, trying not to breathe in the stench. It was awful, like Mason’s bedroom that time she’d hidden weeks of uneaten food from her mama, but somehow worse.

“Andrew, get out,” she said quietly.

He obliged, standing within view of the bathroom door so Mason could keep an eye on him. It was a wonder how good of a sport he was being about this. It made her feel even more uneasy about believing what he’d told her at the grave.

Mason licked her lips, then looked at Stella and Aurora. “Who’s doing this? She needs to be as clean as possible.”

“Stell, you’re the one with the undead expertise,” Aurora said happily, smacking her on the shoulder.

Stella scoffed. “Maybe Mason should! She’s the one who has to spend all this time with Juliet. Plus it feels weird, I’m almost seventy and Juliet’s only, like, a couple months into eighteen. Gross. Plus Mason’s seen her like this before.”

Mason looked at Stella. “Do you want me to throw up? I can’t do it anyway, I have to be as pure as possible. Touching her would be like dying or something. It’s weird.”

Stella groaned and then sank to her knees by the tub. “Fine.”

Mason did hang out in the bathroom, though, watching Stella carefully run her hands over Juliet’s skin after using scissors to cut into the dress. Stella was doing it all with care. She rubbed water gently over Juliet’s stomach, cleaning out the autopsy scar along her chest and between her ribs. She tried to run her hands through Juliet’s hair, but the second Mason saw a clump of curls break out into Stella’s hands, she stopped her. Stella cleaned under Juliet’s fingernails gently with a dollar store toothbrush.

Mason watched her, having moved closer at this point. She stared at the dirt coming out from under the nails into the toothbrush. The dull ache in her own hands increased every time she thought about it. She could deal with the pain. It didn't matter.

Her eyes lifted up to Juliet’s face. The makeup was running down it now. Stella couldn’t rub hard enough to take it off without risking harm. What mattered was Juliet, and this wasn't going to slow her down. Nothing could slow her down now.

Andrew and Stella moved Juliet’s body back into the center of the room. While Stella cleaned Juliet’s body with Mason’s supervision, Andrew and Aurora had pushed the bed into the corner and stacked the nightstand and whatever else they could on top of it to get as much room as possible. It was a mess, and the carpet would definitely be stained, but they could hide it with the bed again. It would work out. Everything would work out.

Stella climbed up on the bed carefully to take down the smoke alarm. She knocked the batteries out of it and dropped it into the drawer of the nightstand to keep it safe. Andrew locked the door and tugged the curtains closed. Mason took out all of the sheets of paper they’d copied, scrawled all over, and drawn on. They had every single note she needed, the timing for everything. Aurora set the fire pit on the floor not too far from Mason or Juliet’s body, filled it with fire wood, and lit it.

The fire sparked to life. Mason shivered.

It was time.

Eyes closed, Mason took a deep breath, then reached forward to cut the stitches holding Juliet’s lips closed as carefully as she could with a small paring knife. Juliet’s lips parted gradually, her jaw falling slack without the pressure of the stitching keeping it tight. She followed that with the same action on the stitches holding her eyelids closed. Her eyelids fell open, exposing pink muscle, ruptured seafoam blue, and gray-white. Her eyeballs were sunken, deflated sacs of some kind of liquid. Mason’s grip on the knife handle tightened. She pried Juliet’s lips apart gently, making sure her mouth hung open wide.

After that came the hard part. Mason gestured for Stella to come close. Stella helped her break up the deer bones, using her vampire strength to snap them. They scraped out as much bone marrow as possible into one of the metal bowls they’d brought. It was hard not to think about how weird it looked. It was like a weird pink hummus. It smelled awful, though. She followed that with a generous pour of the dog blood. She then mixed the two slowly with her fingers, thinking of Juliet. She had to bring her back. This was to bring her back. Juliet’s soul mattered most of anyone’s. She finished mixing the two and reached into the container Stella had opened for her to grab an oyster. She smacked it hard on the floor, then pried open the crack she’d made with her knife. She sliced into the meat of the oyster. She cut the meat up further into pieces as small as she could, then scooped it into the mixture. The pearl fell last. Mason plucked it out and set it gently in the dip of Juliet’s collarbone. She pressed the mixture together with her fingers.

Once she was done with that, she scooped a gentle handful out of the bowl and whispered to herself as she gently smeared some of the mixture along Juliet’s sternum, between her bare breasts, between her ribs, to her navel, along the stitching of her autopsy cut. Her finger bumped along the uneven stitching as she whispered her prayer. Prayers went to Anubis, to Osiris, to Ra, to Bast, to Iris, to Zeus, to Hades, Enki, Nergal, and in general anyone who would help them purely, to bring them life, rebirth, rejuvenation, revival, resuscitation, resurrection, life, life, life. It was all Mason focused on. What she told the others to focus on.

The energy of the room amped up gradually with every prayer. Mason’s fingers glided over Juliet’s limbs with the mixture. She followed the covering of Juliet’s body with her own, smearing the paste down her forehead, along her nose, over her lips, and down to her heart. She was in one of Juliet’s bras and a pair of her sweatpants. Mason placed her entire hand into the mixture, then placed her bloody palm on her ribs over her heart as she sent out the last prayer, a repeat to Bast, begging her to give her the energy necessary to restore life.

Next came the offerings. While Mason was busy with her prayer and the mixture, Aurora poured generous amounts of wine and olive oil into cups and handed them around to everyone. Mason received hers last. She took the plastic cup in her hands, one wrapped around the curve of the cup, the other covering the opening. She was quiet for a breath before she turned the cup to the side and slowly let the mixture pour out onto the carpet of the motel. Her eyes remained closed. When the cup became weightless in her hand, she opened her eyes. There was no stain. There was no stain in front of any of them. She reached up to her ears and removed her authentic gold earrings, holding them in her palms, a piece of lavender infused chocolate between them. She stayed with them extended, palms flat, until the chocolate had melted into her palms. When she opened her eyes again, the contents of her palms were gone.

Mason stood when she was done with that. She moved to the fire, burning larger in the metal pit now. She picked up the Snoopy, holding it gently in her hands. She pressed her lips to its forehead. When she pulled away, there was a bloody lip mark on the white fur. It pained her to do this. It really did. She held the plush toy over the flames. “Juliet has kept this safe since birth. She has slept with it every night for the past eighteen years. I offer this to you, gods, as a sacrifice. Her most precious possession, for your taking.” She lowered it into the flames, setting it gently on the pile of wood. “She’s going to kill me for doing this.” She smiled slightly as she said it. She leaned over the fire and inhaled the smoke produced from burning the fabric, then breathed it out as she spoke the sacrificial incantation. Her eyes lingered briefly on Andrew, who was standing near the door, entranced as he watched the events of the spell unfold. She made herself look away from him. She couldn’t afford malice.

She turned away and grabbed a clean knife. This one was larger than the paring knife. This one was for the living.

Mason started with Stella. She held her hand out to take Stella’s. Her fingers wrapped around Stella’s wrist to hold her in place, her hand straight, palm angled down over Juliet’s gaping mouth. Mason sliced into the flesh of Stella’s palm slowly and methodically. She curled Stella’s fingers in, ignoring the pained hisses, and squeezed her hand as tightly together as she could. Blood poured out from her palm into Juliet’s mouth, onto her teeth, onto her tongue. Once she had enough, Mason let go of Stella’s hand and helped her stand. She gestured for Andrew to step forward.

Mason would be lying if she said she didn’t get some satisfaction from the ritualistic slicing into Andrew’s palm. She pushed the knife as deep as she could, slower than she had for Stella. She pushed it, tearing through his skin, his fat, his muscle, until she hit bone. He didn’t make a single sound. She curled his hand in the way she had Stella’s, holding it over Juliet’s mouth. His blood came out much faster, as he was human and his wound was deeper. She moved his wrist slowly, dragging it up to drip just slightly into Juliet’s eye sockets, then down to pour into her autopsy cut. When she was done, she helped him stand.

Now for herself. She stopped to take a breath to steel herself, then dug the blade into her palm. It sliced easily into her skin, past her own fat and muscle. She could feel the tearing. She let her blood pour into Juliet’s mouth, mixing with the human blood and vampire blood. She followed this by placing small sprigs of sage, ivy, and aloe vertically over her mouth and horizontally over her ribs. When she was done, she turned her hand so her palm hovered over Juliet’s mouth. She spoke.

“O theoí iketévoume gia ti voítheiá sas to éleós sou kai tous epaínous sou. Epistrofí psychís sto sóma kai to aíma…”

O gods we beg for your aid, your mercy and your praise. Return soul to body and blood. With life let this cavity flood.

The more Mason spoke, the more exhaustion threatened. Despite this, she could feel the energy taking over the room. The air rippled like sound waves. Her fingers prickled like they were asleep. The fire burned brighter. Mason wasn't sure if it was herself, the gods, or something else. The fire began to burn at a higher speed, crackling loud and increasing in size by the second.

Then it was gone. All that remained were crumbling white clumps of ashed out wood.

The fire grew out of control, not widening but spreading upwards, almost touching the ceiling. The windows clattered. The ground shook like there was a low-intensity earthquake happening right there in their room.

The stuff of horror movies.

This wasn't a horror movie, though.

This was going to bring Juliet back.

Mason was more sure of that than she ever had been.

She cradled Juliet's face in her palms, pulling her closer as the cheap coffee maker crashed to the floor. The glass decanter shattered. The lamp threatened to do the same, but it stayed on the dresser. The painting above the beds swung wildly on one wire, connected to the ceiling by a flimsy nail that threatened to fall out with the movement.

Mason wasn't focused on any of it at all. She was looking at Juliet. Her Juliet. The girl she loved. The one who took Mason out of her shell, brought light and life out of her. Brought life out of everyone. The one Mason felt like she'd known all her life, who deserved a life. This was an imbalance.

She was righting a wrong. That counted. She was doing it. She could feel it. She could. She felt like she was going to pass out. The pain in her palm spread to her chest. She couldn’t…

She took a deep breath, focusing on Juliet's face, ignoring everything else. One hand on her chest, over her heart. The other on her cheek. Fighting to keep chanting, the words known to heart already.

She was going to wake up. She was going to be okay. She could feel her energy.

And Aurora's energy. She hadn't realized she'd been chanting with her for the past couple minutes, reading from the pages.

She could almost see it already, Juliet’s eyes opening. Those blue eyes. Those lips turning up in a smile, dimpling in the corners. She needed to see that smile.

"Come on, Juliet. Wake up," Mason paused her chanting to whisper desperately. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep going, but she would. Until she passed out. Until.... whatever happened. She wasn't stopping. "Wake up!"

Everything stopped. The lamp finally fell onto the carpet, the light going out. The sound of glass and porcelain shattering went unnoticed. Everyone’s chests heaved as they stared at Juliet's body. Her body, lying still on the white and brown-stained bedsheet, curls spread out around her head in a blonde halo. Mason wished Juliet was on a bed of grass, not some shitty scratchy green carpet in an equally shitty motel, the moonlight shining in through the now open curtains, onto Juliet’s pale skin. Mason needed to take her tanning this summer, or else.

Movement. All they needed was one tiny movement. Miniscule. A finger lifting. A heartbeat. A flutter of eyelashes. A shoulder lifting. A muscle flexing.

A breath.

For the love of every god and goddess in existence, breathe.

That was the only thing Mason could think as she stared at Juliet’s face. It was a horrific image, the woman she loved laying there dead, mouth gaping open and full of blood, face slack, eyeless. Her eyelashes were clipped where the paring knife had knocked against them. Her hair was patchy from where Stella had pulled a clump out while cleaning her body. She was naked, covered in blood marrow, and laid out on a stained bedsheet. She looked so sad.

Maybe Mason wasn’t doing the right thing. Maybe Juliet was in Heaven and Andrew had lied to her. Maybe Mason was playing into Kalos’s wishes by bringing Juliet back. It didn’t make sense for Juliet to be in Hell, anyway. She was too perfect. She was funny, loud, confident, passionate, creative, strong, crazy out-going, and so much more that Mason could hardly think about without crying. Juliet’s soul was bright and perfect and Mason was ruining it with all her worry and need.

All she needed was for Juliet to come back. She couldn’t stop now, even though she wanted to now. Exhaustion was taking over. Doubt was taking over. She didn’t know where Juliet was. She didn’t know anything other than the fact that she needed to complete this spell, so Juliet had to breathe. If she didn’t, they could all die. It was something she’d talked about with Aurora before, when they’d discussed the one other form of the spell Aurora had seen over two hundred years ago. If they didn’t complete it, they’d all be killed.

☥☥

“Wake up!”

Mason’s fist slammed against Juliet’s chest for the third time. “Wake up!” she screamed, then shook her body. “Wake up! Breathe!”

They’d finished the spell. Everything had gone silent and still.

It had stayed that way.

It had taken around three minutes for Mason to start screaming. She’d been screaming at Juliet for the past five minutes. Her throat hurt. Tears and snot were salty in her mouth, combining themselves with the disgusting mixture of raw oyster, dog blood, and bone marrow that had been settling in on her tongue. No one else had moved yet.

She hit Juliet again. Her head lolled to the side, a stupid bowling ball of useless matter. Blood spilled from her mouth onto the sheet, as useless as her head. As useless as her corpse. As useless as the spell. It was all useless.

Stella’s hand rested on Mason’s shoulder when she went to hit Juliet’s chest again. “Mason,” she whispered.

Mason felt like her chest had been ripped open. She sucked in a shaking breath. She whispered, voice trembling as she continued the incantation again. Aurora hadn’t stopped. Stella kneeled next to her, hand tight on her shoulder.

“She’s gone, Mason.”

“No,” Mason whispered. She shook her head, then placed her hands palm down on Juliet’s chest. She pressed down on her. She went into the incantation again, pressing against Juliet’s chest. She imagined her energy flowing, seeping into Juliet’s skin. She could almost imagine filling Juliet with everything she had for her, all the memories and life Mason saw in her, all the perfection and imperfection Mason had seen from Juliet when she was alive, and even after she had died.

Pressure pressed up against Mason’s palms. Her palms rose and fell with Juliet’s chest, second by second, as air filled her lungs all over again. Hope flooded through Mason, extending from her palms. Mason kept breathing out the incantation, nails digging gently into Juliet’s skin. She could feel blood flowing. There was a heartbeat under there. There was another breath on its way.

Everything went silent again as really did she suck in another breath, even slower than the first.

Her eyes had closed. They opened just enough for Mason to see blue irises, shockingly blue compared to the black makeup still caked around them. Mason leaned over her more, grinning so wide her cheeks hurt.

“You’re alive.”

“Mason, the bond--” Aurora piped up.

Mason’s eyes widened and she nodded, grabbing the two clay dolls. She tied them together, then threw them into the burning fire pit with a loud crack, followed by a crackle as they lit up. She started removing the sprigs of herbs from Juliet’s mouth and chest. She helped her sit up, amazed by the chill of Juliet’s skin and the emotion swelling to the surface in her own. Arms flung around Juliet’s shoulders, Mason buried her head in Juliet’s neck and breathed in deep. She smelled like dirt and decay, but she had a heartbeat. She had some semblance of warmth. Why wasn’t she super warm like usual though?

Mason wrote it off fast, because she suddenly felt something flooding down her back and then wriggling. Her entire body stiffened. “What was that?” she asked.

Juliet’s voice was low, scratchy and quiet as she replied, “I threw up.”

Mason made a face of disgust. “What did you throw up?”

Stella sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “The blood. And some maggots.”

Mason whined loudly. “Gross! Gross, gross, gross!” She didn’t pull away from Juliet, though.

Juliet was alive. She was breathing, and she was smiling, and she seemed like she was laughing a little at having thrown up on Mason. She was standing in front of Mason after they got to their feet. She was showering with Mason. She was scrubbing her face clean, scrubbing everything clean… Mason couldn’t stop watching her. She was beautiful. She was alive.

They laid down together once Mason started yawning every three seconds. Stella and Aurora seemed exhausted too. Aurora left the room with Andrew, though, claiming that she didn’t want to stress Juliet out any further. Coming back to life was stressful enough without the man who killed you sleeping in the same room as you. It didn’t help that Juliet kept staring at Andrew wordlessly while everyone moved the room back to normal.

Actually, she was pretty wordless. She’d hardly spoken since coming back, which was really out of character. Mason watched her. Blonde curls were just starting to poke out of the neck of the sweatshirt by the time Mason spoke. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Juliet replied. She left it at that as she sat down on the bed next to Mason. She looked over Mason’s face. Mason stared back, then smiled at her. She smiled back, but it was tight and closed. Jules didn’t smile like that. Her smile was supposed to be loose and dorky and toothy. It was always a grin, not a tight, closed-lipped thing.

Mason let it go, though. She was too tired to fret too much yet. She could do that tomorrow. Stella had turned out the light already. They pushed back the covers on the bed together, which made Mason giggle. They laid together, Mason’s legs wrapped around one of Juliet’s. Practically the second Mason’s eyes closed, she was asleep.

She didn’t know what time it was when she woke, but the moonlight was still coming through the curtains, so she couldn’t have been asleep that long. Mason’s hand was under Juliet’s sweatshirt, though, on her chest. The stitching was still there in Juliet’s skin. It was scratchy against the thorn pricks in Mason’s palm. She’d forgotten about those until now. She could feel Juliet’s chest rising and falling. It was insane to know she’d done this. She’d brought life back into a corpse. Into her best friend. Into the girl she loved. Juliet owed her, like, the best sex ever when they finally did that.

If they did that. If Juliet was normal. Gods, she hoped Juliet was normal. She seemed mostly normal, just missing some of that spark Mason was accustomed to. Her smile wasn’t the same toothy grin. Her voice wasn’t the same emotional voice. Her eyes didn’t have the same shine. Even her freckles didn’t seem like they were in the right spots at the right intensity. Was there even still more than 106 of them? She’d have to count later.

The shoulder under Mason’s temple shifted. She lifted her head to look at Juliet. Jules was restless. Her head tossed a bit, then her entire body went still. She wasn’t even breathing. Mason felt panic start to set in, but Juliet whispered.

“Juliet Hill is no more.” AUTHOR’S NOTE: Part 2, Juliet, is located HERE. It will provide more insight to what has happened at the end of this piece and in Juliet’s absence!

#rebirth #rēˈbərth #senior comprehensive writing #juliet hill #mason hill #rebirth pt 1 #my writing #writing #fiction #short story #these characters are my babies #i will have more of them soon!#i have them in a lot of instances...#portfolio

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