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astrozones · 4 years

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Sanders Behavioral Health, Chapter 1: Virgil Starts Freaking Out More Than Usual

Trigger warning: mental health stuff. Major mental health stuff. For the whole fic.

Group Therapy AU. Prinxiety and Logicality eventually.

Three hours.

Three goddamn hours of his life dedicated to therapy. Every. Single. Day.

Except weekends. At least he still had his weekends.

When his father had told him of the “amazing” news, Virgil was seriously rethinking going back to his old family.

Coming from an abusive home to a place where others cared about him was jarring, to say the least. Parts of it he adored. Not being punished for coming home a couple minutes late? He couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful. But since his time at his new family’s house, he had been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and a hint of OCD. And when his parents put him in therapy for the first time, he found it dull, but a good escape from his bad thoughts.

But when his therapist suggested Sanders Behavioral Health, he was apprehensive. Even more so when she told him that three hours of his day would be dedicated to working on his anxiety. His social anxiety, mostly. Virgil had stared at her in disgust, why would he ever want to go there? Why would he want to go somewhere that would give him more anxiety, on purpose, rather than stay at home scrolling through YouTube?

He was even more disgusted when his adoptive father had happily agreed to look into it.

Yes, Virgil wanted to get better. God, he wanted to get better so bad, to be away from the thoughts that plagued his mind. That’s what he told himself, at least.

Maybe he didn’t want to get better. Maybe he wanted to stay in his room all day because that was what he was used to. He was content at this stage, and so what if he was destroying his future and the potential for happiness? He was here now and he was content, wasn’t that good enough?

He would never say that to his therapist. If he did, she would tell his dad, who would in turn tell his mom, and they’d worry about him more. If this was the life he had to live, then so be it.

So here he was, in the lobby room of the building he had dreaded coming to since they made the first call to get him into this institute. He hunched over in his hoodie, idly scrolling through his phone, trying to collect his thoughts. What if he made a mistake? What if it turned out he had been faking it this whole time and they got mad? What if he did something embarrassing? Oh, god, what if they hated him? What if-

The lobby door slammed open. Virgil jumped in his seat, his father gently putting a hand on his shoulder. In stepped a boy that looked just about the same age as himself. Oh, for the love of-

“I HAVE REETUUURNED~,” the boy sung, arms spread as wide as he could with a binder in his hands. “No need to fear, your Prince is here!” Virgil pursed his lips.

“Yeah, ‘prince’, my ass.” he mumbled, looking back down at his phone. The boy spluttered indignantly, to Virgil’s confusion. That wasn’t even a good insult, so why was the boy getting mad at him? Oh god, oh shit, I already made an enemy-

“Roman, please just sign in.” The front desk lady said with a small smile. The boy, or rather, Roman, blushed, with an “oh, right” as he did as he was told.

Roman slumped down in a seat, turning to the only other kid in the room.

“So, Mr. Professionalism, I know it’s only my second proper day here, but what’s with the tie? You wear it every day or somethin’?” Roman’s posture remained slouched and easy-going, the opposite to the other, who was indeed wearing a tie. Tie guy’s posture was pristine and collected, his face not revealing any emotion, except a slight glare.

“I do not. I wear a different tie every day. It is unsanitary to wear the same thing every day. And when I sleep, I change into the proper wear. I would also like to point out that it’s pronounced some thing . With a g. Proper pronunciation is important, lest you confuse someone who is not as knowledgeable with our language. And my name, is Logan. Thank you.” Logan, apparently, finished his monologue with hardly a change in expression. Both Virgil and Roman looked a bit disoriented.

“Allllrighty,” Roman started, ignoring Logan’s hiss of “it’s pronounced al right ”, “Welp, glad to see I’m not the only one who’s early! Don’t you think the weather is great today? So sunny!”

“I do not wish to engage in small talk.” Logan said, returning to his book. Roman blinked at this, his head darting back a bit. He quickly returned to his confident persona and turned to Virgil.

Oh no , was his only thought before he was forced into conversation.

“SOO, Emostein, what’s your opinion on the weather? Since Necktie over there refuses to be nice, that is.” Roman said with a flourish of his hand.

What was he supposed to say? That he never went outside enough to appreciate the weather? That he would rather not say anything? That this whole thing was pushing him to the verge of a panic attack?

So, instead, he murmured, “Emostein?”. Goddamn it, that was dumb-

“Why yes! Like Frankenstein, but judging by your apparel, I had assumed you were emo and listen to My Chemical Romance all day. Am I wrong in this?”

Virgil shoved his head in his hands, blushing from embarrassment. “Ugh, no, you’re not. You don’t need to point it out, though…” He grumbled. God, he hated social situations. Even if it distracted him from the anxiety surrounding this new therapy group.

Whether he had bad luck, or the fates hated him, he couldn’t decide as the door to the rest of the building opened in perfect irony.

“Virgil?” The woman called with a smile. He hugged his few items closer to him as he stood up, making his way through the entrance. He glanced back at the lobby, where yet another kid was entering.

Then, the door was closed.

The woman introduced herself as Rebecca, or Becca for short. She led him on a quick tour of the building before the others were scheduled to come in, something he was grateful for. The place was smaller than he expected. She led him through the cafeteria (a cafeteria? what?), the doors of a couple staff, the bathroom, the check-up room, and the individual rooms. The individual rooms, as she explained, were for when you needed to focus on an ‘exposure’ and couldn’t handle distractions from other people.

Virgil quickly decided he liked these rooms.

Becca let him choose a room, and had him write his name on the whiteboard in front of it. As he did, he heard the entrance door open and a loud voice groan out, “UGHH, but I don’t wanna go in yet!”. Uh oh, people alert! He quickly slipped into the room, Becca joining him soon after.

“While you’re in this program,” she started. “you will be doing exposures, which means you’ll be directly facing the anxiety. It’ll be tough, but the goal is, when you get out of the program, you’re more used to these situations, and when you encounter them, you don’t freak out as much.” At that, she smiled, as if she hadn’t just diminished his already depressed mood.

“Does that sound good?” Becca continued, tilting her head to the side. Virgil stared at her as if she just told him the Sun was purple (not that he would mind that… purple was a very nice color.).

“Not really,” came his reply. “sounds terrible.”

Becca’s smile became just a little more stressed.

“I get your point, but I disagree. See, here and now, you’re not okay. Do you agree?” she stated flatly, and at his small nod, continued, “It’s because you’ve been in this slump for too long. It’s ruining your mood, and unless you do something about it, it’ll just get worse. If you want to get better, you have to do something about it.”

Virgil sighed. Yes, he understood, but he had the right to dislike this.

Becca explained a few more things about the program before handing him a small stack of papers and leaving him to mull over in his silent suffering.

He doodled in between the questions he had just answered as he waited for Becca to come back. Just the classic questions, ‘What do you want to work on while here at Sanders?’, ‘How would you describe your average mood?’, ‘What is (or are) your diagnosis?’, etc.. He glanced at the clock. 5 minutes. He tapped his foot. Fiddled with his hoodie strings. Kicked at the wall. 10 minutes. Hm.

Sanders Behavioral Health had a rule against phones being in the building, for privacy reasons… but, taking a glance around, he couldn’t see any cameras. And he had snuck his phone in by slipping it into his boots when no one was looking. Then there was the fact that no one was in the room with him…

Whipping out his phone, he quickly found a position where his phone was hidden enough that the average passerby wouldn’t notice and opened it up. What to do, what to do…

He scrolled through Tumblr, and responded to a few messages on Discord. He was in the middle of typing one out when there was a knock on the door.

Jumping, Virgil quickly turned to the door while desperately trying to hide his phone. He couldn’t fit in past his shoe in time, could he hide it in his hoodie so the visitor wouldn’t see it? Think fast befo-

The door opened, a stranger walking in. The stranger smiled.

“Hello! I’m Nurse Vicki. You’re Virgil, right? I need you for just a moment so we can do checkups, if you’ll come with me!” Vicki grinned, holding the door open wider. Virgil slid the phone into his hoodie pocket. There was a chance of it being noticed, but it would have to do.

When brought into the nurse’s office, she sat him down and started asking questions.

Are you suicidal? Yes.

Are you going to school regularly? No.

Are you eating healthy? Probably not.

And on, and on, and on, until finally, she took him to track his weight and vitals, and escorted him back to his room. Still no Becca.

The second Nurse Vicki left, Virgil quickly took his phone out and situated it where it wasn’t easily visible in his boot. Yes, it did rub against his foot painfully, but that was just the price he’d have to pay. Without his phone, he felt even more anxious. He knew it was stupid, but what if he got a call? What if he got hurt? What if someone else got hurt? Virgil needed the phone, and if that included sacrificing his comfort, he would do it.

Now, what was he supposed to do? 20 minutes had passed. He studied the vandalism done in pencil on the wall, but that quickly got boring.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

He drummed his fingers on the table.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

He thought about what he was going to do tomorrow- wait, no, that gave him more anxiety.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Sighing, he leaned back and studied the ceiling. Maybe he could fall asleep here. Or maybe he’d just get in trouble for that.

After what seemed like ages, Becca returned. Gathering up the papers, she led him outside the room.

“We aren’t going to start anything today, but I’ll show you the timers and computers. Here’s the check in sheet for them,” she motioned to the top of the computer cart, a basket with multiple stopwatches in it next to the sheets. “and the top row of computers are assessment computers, while the bottom are normal computers. Today, you’ll be getting an assessment computer.”

Stepping aside, she let him check out a computer. As he was writing down his name, another person came in from a second hallway. The loud boy from before- Roman?- glanced in their direction before doing a double take. Cringing slightly, Virgil prepared for Roman to burst out with a loud “hello!”.

Only Roman did nothing of the sort. Once Becca greeted him, he motioned awkwardly to the timer in his hands before walking down the hallway and turning into a staff’s room.

O ...kay?

He may not have known Roman for long, but that seemed entirely uncharacteristic. Pursing his lips, he finished filling out the sheet as Becca and him walked back. Well, almost. Becca stopped in her office for a split second before returning with a binder and a dazzling smile. Virgil sunk into his jacket with a ‘dazzling’ scowl.

Back inside the room, Becca gave him the binder and led him through all that it entailed, before signing him into the assessment computer. And once more, Becca left him to fill out the assessments alone.

Which was fantastic.

Another round of repetitive questions he’d answered a thousand times before-

In the past 7 days how often have you not able to stop feeling sad? Often.

--felt alone? Always.

--feel everything in your life went wrong? Always.

--feel like you can’t do anything right? Often.

--it was hard for you to have fun? Always.

He supposed a lot of this came from his past family. And, geez, these were not nice memories to go through. But being pushed around and starved for days on end was bound to take a toll on you, and it sure as hell did in the case of Virgil. It was part of the reason he wore hoodies all the time, to hide the- the- oh god he was not ready to think about this right now.

Shaking his head, Virgil returned to the questions, feeling worse than he had. He felt a tear trying to surface and quickly closed his eyes. Not here , he thought. Not now, I can’t. They’ll make fun of me for it.

And yeah, maybe it was illogical to worry about being made fun of for crying in a literal therapy building, but maybe Virgil wasn’t thinking quite right at that point. Maybe he wasn’t thinking quite right often.

Or maybe he was just stupid.

The last time Becca returned to his individual room was to bring him out to the cafeteria for something called ‘recreational therapy’ which included doing “fun things” with the other patients.

Great.

After putting away his computer, he was instructed to leave his new binder in the cafeteria and to bring a pen or pencil with him.

He didn’t have either and had to ask someone else for it. Oh, god…

Dodging around the others in the cafeteria, he made his way back to Becca and quietly asked for a pen, and, to his disappointment, didn’t get one. He turned around to face the 3 other patients, forced to consider the options as to who might have a goddamn pen.

The others were all the people he had seen in the waiting room earlier. Only one of them he hadn’t really gotten to know, which was the boy in light blue. He was talking to the loud one, ugh, what was his name again… Roman! Yes, he was talking to Roman. Listening in on their conversation he found that they were talking about… dogs? Well, Light Blue was nearly screaming about dogs while Roman was looking a little bewildered at just how loud this boy was about dogs. Which only left Tie Guy, Logan, to ask. If he didn’t have one, Virgil would have to walk out and ask a staff, so asking the scary one it was.

Glancing towards his binder, Virgil saw that he had 3 pens next to it, black, red, and blue. Bingo!

“Hey uh,” he started once he reached Logan. “Um, can I… uh, sorry, can I borrow a pen? Please?”

Logan’s gaze jerked towards Virgil, then back to his pens. “No,” he stated bluntly. “I only have one black pen. As you can see. ”

“But… I could just… use the red or blue one? I don’t really care that much about colors…” Virgil, to say the least, was hella confused. What was this kid’s deal? First the whole tie thing, now Virgil wasn’t able to use one of his three pens? There was no need to be so rude.

“No, you can’t. Red is for spelling errors and blue is for grammar errors. Everyone knows that. You cannot just use a red or blue pen for normal writing!” Logan nearly growled out. Virgil took a few steps back, was it okay for him to be around this guy?! Was he safe?

He felt a tap on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin. Whipping around, he was faced with Light Blue holding a pen. He let out a sigh of relief.

“Heyo! I’m Patton,” Light Blue said. “I couldn’t help but hear your conversation, so sorry for interrupting, but I have a free pen you could use instead! It’s no big deal to me!” Patton’s smile was nearly blinding as he held the pen out. Grabbing the pen, Virgil felt a little… unnerved. Maybe it was just the anxiety talking, but this guy seemed way too nice to be here. Maybe he was just about to leave the program?

“Uh, thanks.” Was the only thing he said in response before retreating to the corner of the room. He could see Becca hovering around the computer before telling them she would be back in a second.

Well ain’t that just fucking great .

“Ooh, scandalous~!” Roman yelled as Becca went to leave the room. “Leaving a bunch of teens unsupervised? Didn’t take ya for the type.” Virgil looked at him. If he remembered correctly, Roman had said this was his second day. So, why was he so… extroverted? He, along with Patton, didn’t really feel like they belonged in this group. Patton seemed too bright and happy, and Roman seemed too loud and confident.

“You is not pronounced ‘ya’.” Logan huffed. Roman turned to him looking a bit confused.

“It’s… not that different, though?”

“Every little thing matters, Roman. I’ve explained this to you before, so why do you continue to lack the capacity to understand it?” Roman spluttered at this, the insult obviously getting to him.

“I was just telling you my opinion, and you don’t need to… insult me over it! Believe it or not, I don’t like being called stupid!” Roman spat out.

Uh oh.

“I did not call you stupid. It seems as if you came to that conclusion yourself, yet I will not deny it.”

“ You implied it you-”

Before Roman could finish, Becca, in all her glory, opened the door and invited them to follow her. Well, maybe invited wasn’t the correct term, but Virgil was well on his way to a massive anxiety attack and couldn’t give a shit.

Once Becca had led them outside and had them all introduce themselves, she gave them a simple two-sided sheet of paper.

“Today, we’re going to be doing a people scavenger hunt! On the paper, there’s a bunch of questions, and it’s your job to find someone who fits the criteria! Once you do, they should sign your paper. Try not to use the same person for most of the questions! Sounds great, don’t you agree?”

“Yay.” Virgil muttered unenthusiastically, curling into his hoodie when both Roman and Patton turned to him.

“Miss Becca, there are four of us. Statistically speaking, it is unlikely for us to be able to fill out the entirety of this sheet, especially with questions like the 13th, which says ‘Someone who has red hair.’ As you can see, none of us have red hair. I must recommend that you reprint this paper with questions we can properly answer.” Logan attempted to smooth down his hair in the wind as he spoke, his paper resting on a clipboard, because of course Logan had prepared himself with a clipboard while the rest of them had to combat the wind attempting to blow their papers away.

“It’s okay, Logan,” Becca smiled sweetly. “You don’t need to answer all the questions before we go back in.”

“Yes I do, or the assignment is incomplete!”

Smile dropping, Becca motioned for the others to start as she turned to talk to Logan. And with that, Virgil was forced to communicate with the last two.

Already, Patton and Roman seemed to be chatting, which left Virgil to awkwardly stand by while they filled the paper out. Virgil could feel his breathing quickening, why did Logan have to be picky? He could be talking to him, which would be better than just standing here with nothing to do!

Roman turned to him once he had gotten the paper signed, smiling slightly at him before skimming his eyes through the paper. Wait, he took it back, he wasn’t ready to talk yet oh no-

“Do youuu….. Like mint ice cream?” Roman asked, looking up from his paper with a smile. Silently, Virgil nodded. After signing the paper Roman gave to him, Roman stayed, looking expectantly at him. What? Oh! He’s expecting a question quick choose one!!!

Looking at his own paper, Virgil chose the first question his eyes landed on.

“Do you, um. Do you speak another language?” He stuttered out. Roman brightened.

“¡Sí! Hablo español.” Roman was bouncing on his heels, grinning impossibly larger. At Virgil’s dubious stare, he seemed to deflate, a small blush growing on his cheeks. “Sorry, uh, yes, I speak Spanish.”

As Virgil handed him the paper, he had more time to stand awkwardly. Roman had hoisted his leg up and was now balancing precariously on one leg while writing against the other one. His tongue poked out from between his teeth as he tried to not fall over.

Roman had green eyes. While Virgil didn’t usually make eye contact, he couldn’t help but notice while this kid was right in front of him . Virgil had always adored green eyes in people, they may be more rare but they were so pretty and-

Roman glanced up at him, and Virgil quickly flushed. “Do you want me to fill out the green eyes question, too? I’m pretty sure I’m the only one of us who has green eyes, so… y’know… while I’m here, might as well, yea?”

All Roman saw was Virgil’s small nod, which Virgil was grateful for as his mind was screaming at the current moment.

Is this guy psychic what the hell how’d he know EXACTLY what I was thinking??? What???? No, Virge, calm down, he can’t be psychic- BUT WHAT IF HE IS????

Once Virgil got his paper back, he turned once more and was suddenly face-to-face with Patton’s smile.

“Heya kiddo! Have you been on a boat ride?” At Virgil’s shake of his head, he continued. “Hm, okay, have you been to a park in the past few months?

On and on the activity went. Surprisingly, Virgil quickly found himself actually enjoying the activity. Roman and Patton were easy to talk to, if slightly disorienting to the extreme introvert.

Unfortunately, the universe seemed to hate him, because after about 10 questions with the others, Logan stormed back into the building, leaving Becca alone. Becca sighed.

“Sorry guys, but I legally can’t leave him or you without a guardian, so if you could follow me please we will go back inside.”

Back inside, Becca took them to the cafeteria, where Logan already was, meticulously rearranging his binder. When Becca approached him, he hissed out, “I will NOT be doing an assignment where I am forced to fail.”

The three looked at each other, Patton seeming to be the only one who knew what was happening. He gave them a sad smile.

“Logan came here before me, but he told me he has extreme OCD. Basically, he gets anxiety when things don’t go the way his mind tells him they have to.” Patton whispered to them. “I think he has a sort of… fear of failing, so he gets the bad feelings when he can’t finish an assignment. Well, more bad feelings than the average person.”

That made sense, Virgil supposed. While he was told he had a bit of OCD, he wasn’t exactly briefed on all the ins and outs, only diagnosed with it. So he had no definitive answer as to what exactly it was, but from what he had heard, that seemed to fit with the behavior Logan was showing.

A couple minutes passed, Virgil tapping his foot aimlessly. He stared at the ground as Logan continued to bicker, and as Becca desperately tried to calm him down. Eventually, Roman spoke up and told Becca that it was check-out time, which apparently entailed them filling out a sheet of paper before they were able to leave.

Thankfully, Becca told Virgil that he didn’t have to fill a check-out sheet today, which left him awkwardly tapping his pen against the table. He noticed Roman doodling in a blank space on the paper, mouthing the lyrics to a song Virgil couldn’t decipher. Patton was watching the clock after he had finished, which left Logan to be the only one still filling out the sheet.

Once they were finally blessed with the absence of silence in the form of Becca loudly exclaiming that they could start sharing aloud and dear God would Virgil have to do that tomorrow? They were finally allowed to leave.

After signing out and riding the elevator down, with all the other patients and their parents in the cramped space, they finally exited the building.

“So, what’d you think?” His dad asked as they walked to the car. Virgil simply shrugged in response.

And maybe, Virgil enjoyed it a little bit, just a little bit. But he wasn’t going to admit it after he claimed so adamantly that he would hate it the days prior.

The ride home was spent with Virgil telling his online friends what had happened in therapy that day, a task that would quickly become routine in his days at Sanders.

And maybe, just maybe, he was feeling a little bit better at returning the next day.

Maybe.

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iainwrites · 7 years

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Love At First Sight

A “Dresden: Year Zero” story. The hardest part? Realising I couldn’t work Elwood Blues into it and make The Blues Brothers canon crossover (he’s on a Mission from Gahwd. Just, you know, a different one than the Knights). Anyways.

“For the last time, Nick, you don’t need to do this. Hell, you can’t do this.”

“As my last order as your boss, Harry: shut up. You’ve done good work and you’re finally getting your licence. Even after that… thing with the interview.”

We’ve been bickering like that the whole drive from Ragged Angel Investigations, me trying to convince Nick that he didn’t have the means to buy a car and him being pigheaded and ignoring everything I said. He keeps insisting that since I have my own private investigator license and will be doing work on my own, I need to have my own car and this would be his graduation present. He means well and this is completely altruistic and yadda yadda yadda. He’s never been in this for the money, he says, so why not throw it around for the people who he can actually stand.

The points he makes are actually pretty good, though. Like how I’m a little hard on his car. On everyone’s cars, really, so having to take care of my own may help with my occasional bouts of driver’s rage. And how I can’t really expect to bum a drive off everyone I know, especially when that number is depressingly low. And that I’ve never really gotten an anything present from anyone for my entire adult life (which he knows, thanks to a night of drinking that has rendered our memories very spotty), so I’m probably due for something relatively nice.

At some point, I stop complaining. Nick, never one for long drawn out silences, tries fiddling with the radio, knowing that as long as I had to ride shotgun, he’ll never get anything more than the repetitive squeal of static. Not that that is any different than what you hear on the radio most days. He gives up, just like he always does, and grumbles how he can’t wait to hear something other than all the things falling off his jalopy. I just take it all in sage like silence.

“So you staying in Chicago, Harry?” Nick grunts into the quiet of the car. Like I said, not one for silence.

I shrug. “Not sure, but it’s not like anything is holding me down here. Rent on the apartment can be dropped whenever, as long as I’m good for the back rent with Mrs. Spunkelcrief. No family, barely any friends, and there’s always some other city or town that needs helping. The only person who’d really care is my probation officer, and to be quite frank, screw ‘em.”

“Careful with that, Harry. You don’t want to go pissing off the people who could lock you away.”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, if you knew him, you’d say the same thing.”

“Doesn’t matter. People like us, working for the law, we’re all in the same boat,” he tells me. “You think I got up in Davis’s case when he came down to the office about that Astor girl? He was doing his job; he wasn’t there to screw me over, or because he had it in for me. Your parole guy may be a hardass, but he’s just doing what his bosses tell him to do.”

Yeah. It’s not Morgan’s fault that the Council has a standing “Kill Dresden to death if he acts funny” order on my person. He would be so much nicer if I was just one of the guy’s. Right. And Bob’s a suave British gentleman who is completely chivalrous around women. I keep this biting appraisal of the world in my head, regardless. I respect Nick and can see where he’s coming from, but as far as he knows, I’m just a regular guy on probation. He’s got an inkling that there’s more than meets the eye, thanks to the whole troll incident, but I can’t out and tell him about the magical side of the world without incurring the Council’s wrath.

So I just grit my teeth and mutter, “I guess. Maybe he’s actually nice and fluffy on the inside. Like a wolf.” It seems to make Nick think that I’m still capable of learning something, because he grins, and starts humming something off key to fill the void.

After another couple of minutes, Nick pulls into the lot of his mechanic. From all accounts, Mike is like the Horse Whisperer, a bokor and Frankenstein (not the Monster, the Doctor) all rolled into one tiny, greasy man. We shake hands and I get a jolt of magic off of him, which sends my brain into hypothetical overdrive. Magic users like me are hard on any forms of modern technology, but the Council has been getting reports of what they can only call technomancers. If you were to hear them, these people are barely talented enough to turn water into soup, but they have a certain affinity for machines. Well, Mike, you’re secret’s safe with me.

“Nick did me a solid during the divorce, so you’re getting it good today, Stretch,” he tells me, after I’m pointed towards something that doesn’t look like a midlife crisis. “Wander the lot for as long as you need and come back whenever you find something. We’ll haggle it down to something worthwhile and Nick can finally stop asking about cutting holes in the floor for space.” He gets a bottle cap to the back of the head for that, but doesn’t seem to mind.

He and Nick make their way back to the garage to chat and get their hands dirty on some other rig on the lift, while I move my legs towards whatever’s oldest. Heh. Sounds like my old dancing job.

I walk aimlessly for a while, taking what he has on the lot. A couple of old Camry’s, a few relatively new BMW’s, an Omni that’s seen better days, if not years. Nothing really jumping out at me, but I guess even without thinking about it, I’ve been thinking about what kind of car I needed. Like I said, wizards are hard on modern technology, and if I wanted to drive something reliably, it needed to be older than the Merlin.

The deeper into the lot I go, the further in the past I find myself. I start to pass by cars that were made around the same time I was (always a fun thing to think about), and then start to see things my Dad would have driven when he was my age. They’re all beat to Hell or look like they’re on their last legs, but I start to feel comfortable. The older the technology, the more wizard friendly it usually is. The fewer electronic parts that could blow out, the longer it’ll run with one of us behind the wheel. That’s why Ebenezer still drives that ’37 pickup; not because it’s the best thing on the road, but because it’ll stay on the road. Actually using something like that as a private investigator in Chicago seems a little… okay, a LOT stupid, but that’s what I’m aiming for, but the ideas there.

After a while, I start to tune things out, letting my feet carry me around the lot while my brain takes in at its own speed. Funny thing is, the less attention I pay, the more I start to move around the same group of cars. I’ve been involved with magic long enough to know that repeated, unconscious acts are typically things you should pay attention to, and my soon to be new investigative license will tell me to always trust a hunch. So I bring myself out of my daze and start to look. Not Look, mind you, because you never know what you may happen to see, but to see what I’ve been circling around.

If I had to date them (and I’m definitely not a car guy in any sense of the word), I’d put this particular block of cars around the 1950’s. Most of them look thoroughly ragged and rusted, but that could be put down to how long they’ve been sitting in the lot and that they’re almost half a century old. The main suspects are a couple of jeeps that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of M*A*S*H, but buried somewhere close the middle are a small knot of bubble tops that catch my eye.

Volkswagen bugs, all of the same age, all in different stages of disrepair. Some have doors, but the roofs have been torn off; some have roofs, but the bodies look like they were used in a giant’s soccer game. Each one features a different faded color; each one shares the same color of rust liberally scattered around the frame. Some are bare on the inside; some have seats that look like they’ve been home to animals since before I was born.

But something in my brain looks past all of that. Like its putting together a puzzle, it takes all of the Beetles apart and puts them back together again, making something patchwork, but whole. I couldn’t explain to you why or how I started doing this; it just happened. A gangly guy like me folding myself into a clown car like that. A car that, despite being the right age to be minimally affected by wizardly whims, would probably still need to be in the shop one every few months. No matter the logic I put into it, though, or the thought of other cars on the lot that I passed by, my mind keeps coming back to that group of Beetles.

“What’d you find out here, Stretch?” Mike asks, trundling along through the wreckage, almost as if he owned the place.

I shrug and nod towards the Beetles. “Just these old wrecks. Funny thing is, I keep coming back to them, no matter how unsexy they are.”

Mike grins and sucks on his teeth. “Sounds like me and the old lady.” He says that, but rubs the band on his ring finger with practised habit. “Yeah, these Beetles have been out here for a while, but they just won’t die. Sometimes, for a kick, I see what cars still have juice in them, and those things turn over every single time.”

“Reliable, then?”

“Reliable, stubborn. A little of A, a little of B. You take care of it and nothing short of an explosion will keep one off the road. And even then, you could probably Frankenstein something out of it.”

I stare at the knot of metal in the lot for a long moment, then say (surprising even myself), “Yeah.

“Yeah, Stretch?” Mike asks. He knows what I’m thinking, but gives me a chance to revaluate things before making the final call.

“Yeah, Mike. Find the best one out of the pile, Frankenstein it and I’ll pay you. Or Nick will. Someone will pay you for pulling that kind of miracle off.”

Mike grins, sucks on his teeth again, then stares into the pile himself. I catch him out of the corner of my eye, his gaze getting unfocused and his hands tapping on thin air, almost like he’s playing an invisible piano. When he snaps out of it, I get a quick jolt, like a static shock, only this one goes a little deeper than skin. Whether he realizes it or not, Mike has some talent and seems to be able to use it. A technomancer wizard, in a day and age where we’re supposedly the bane of computer chips and radio signals. Evolution works in mysterious ways.

“Alright then. You’ll have to ride with Nick for a while longer while I get that beauty up and running again, you understand?” he asks me.

I shrug my shoulders. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Big Guy took seven. Take all the time you need. I won’t be going anywhere.”

And really, I won’t. Like I said, as I was wandering around the lot, I let my brain move at its own pace. In between car hunting, I started to realize that I’m not going to be leaving Chicago. Not right away, at least. The incident with the troll made me realize that the dark side of the magical community has a foot hold in this city. Its probably no different in any other major city, but the difference is: I know about it. I can’t just up and leave when I know there’s work to be done. It won’t be pretty, it won’t be easy and I’ll probably get my knuckles rapped (or have my head in a noose) because of it, but its something that I can do to help people.

So look out, beasties of Chicago; Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is here. When you hear the roar (okay, weak chugging) of my car, crawl back to your holes. When my extra long shadow crosses your path, shake in your boots. And if you make me draw wood (shut up, you know what I mean), you’d better make peace with whatever higher power cares about you.

If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who’re you gonna call? Wait. Crap. Those guys in New York have that covered. And I don’t even have an office yet, let alone a phone. Or a paycheck to get one of those. Ah well. It’ll work out.

Probably.

Maybe.

It could happen.

#Dresden Files #fanfic #Iain writes (FINALLY)#year zero

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ecotone99 · 4 years

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[RO] “It should have been you”.

When I was middle school aged, 11 years old, I moved to a different city and obviously started a new school. I had left everyone I grew up with in the old city and have not really gotten to see them much since. That summer I also cut my hair jaw length and didn’t really have a style other than what I guess would be considered tomboy-ish. I really just looked like an 11 year old boy instead of a blossoming young woman like the rest of my female peers. Anyway, I start this new school and I was shy so I just kept my nose in a book for most of 7th grade. I read classics: Frankenstein, Lord of the Rings trilogy, and The Bell Jar. None of my literary interests mirrored my peers so the only kids I really interacted with on a daily basis were the two girls who sat on either side of me in homeroom and the two boys who sat on either side of me in band. I played trombone so the guy to my right played trombone, tuba, french horn, and was basically the whole low brass section. He also would often ask me for my chapstick, you know the soda scented ones , and one time he even took a bite... The other boy, however, only played trumpet and never did anything that strange. The first day of class he played the imperial march on his trumpet though, and I knew he was going to be my best friend in that moment. Let’s call him Aaron. After a while of awkwardness and boring monotonous public education, 7th grade ended and glorious summer was here. I had learned trumpet boy, I mean Aaron, lived within a short bike ride’s distance so I spent a lot of time with him after school. I think we saw Attack of the Clones in theater together that summer. I had made a few more friends by this point and developed a Wednesday Adams-esque style as well. So, within the first few months of eighth grade I am pretty much full on goth girl and I typically would have my nose deep in some Amelia Atwater-Rhodes novel. I’ve also established some sort of reputation as the scary smart quiet goth kid. In between classes one day Aaron comes up to me in the hall and hands me a note. He says, “Before you open that let me tell you what’s going on”. Apparently some of the new 7th grade girls had been hounding him and flirting with him so much he decided getting an intimidating girl to be his girlfriend would alleviate some of the pressure he was feeling. I go to fourth hour math and sit next to my best gal friend and catch her up. We open the note before Mr. Floyd starts teaching and needless to say she teased me and drew hearts with Aaron and my initials in her notebook the whole period. The note was pretty basic and said, “Will you be my girlfriend? Yes or No”. I didn’t circle either and I remember I didn’t have a chance to talk to or see Aaron again until after school ended that day. I waited outside the cafeteria doors where he always waited for his grandpa to pick him up and he didn’t show. I walked home that day with my giant book bag and trombone and felt, not only exhausted because I missed the bus waiting for him, but also a bit defeated. Aaron called me later and we talked on the phone for a while and I told him that I’d be his fake girlfriend. I was really nervous the next day for school. It was my first “boyfriend” and it wasn’t real. I wasn’t sure how to process this information as a hormonal, angsty 12 year old girl. Does he expect me to hold his hand in the halls or do any kind of public displays of affection? Also there was the issue of how this would affect my chances with the guy I had a crush on. Would semi-cute, dark and mysterious, Lamb of God shirt-wearing dude not talk to me anymore because I had a boyfriend? I got dropped off at school early that day and I made my way to the courtyard and pulled my bookmark out of where I left off in Old Man and the Sea and waited for Aaron to get there. Another girl in my grade sat down at almost the same time and I ended up asking her for her advice. She had had an older boyfriend for a year or so and she told me what it was like to be a girlfriend. She calmed my nerves a bit and when Aaron finally got there we were short on time so we shared a quick hug and a “See you after second hour”. Second hour ends and I go to my locker to grab my books for english and math and Aaron shows up. He tells me how disappointed the 7th grade girls are that he has a girlfriend and that they’ve left him alone. I told him I’d see him later and I was glad he was happy. We were inseparable for some time after that. Our parents knew if we weren’t home after school we were somewhere together. He was my best friend and we had a blast together always. Now at some point in the next few months he decides he actually likes one of the 7th grade girls and he “breaks up” with me. I felt sad and hurt and confused. I didn’t know I felt any sort of real romantic way for him so I didn’t know how to express how I felt. So I ignored him. I started taking the bus and I finally bought the Linkin Park CD the guy in my English class told me I would like and I moved on with my life for a few weeks. My gal pals and I started going to this local community center or the mall and playing a game in the arcade called Dance Dance Revolution or DDR. We were at the community center one Friday night playing DDR and we see Aarons 7th grade girlfriend with some other guy being real close and flirty. Aaron arrives like an hour later and she backs off the other dude and they continue with their young courtship rituals. I was heated. I cared for this dude and this little charlatan was going to hurt him like that? No. My gals advised against it but I’ve always ran head first into confrontation when it serves the purpose of protection so I walk over and spill the beans. Aaron went flush in the face and she ran off to the bathroom. I walked outside to cool off and Aaron follows me out there. I didn’t admit my feelings at that point, but he asked me to stay out of his relationships and leaves me feeling high and dry. Clearly they broke up shortly after and I didn’t really talk to Aaron for a while. Then maybe a month later after school I found myself hanging with some new friends - Sarah and Allison at Allison’s apartment a few blocks from my house. These girls were wild animals to me. Sarah and Allison have both had intimate relations with dudes in various forms and I’d never really even been kissed, but I branched out to them from my main friend group because their lives were interesting and I needed to learn what they knew. I told them my Aaron story that day and they say we should invite him over. Looking back it was probably the rumors about Sarah’s jaw that brought him over there since they ended up dating for a brief period after that, but at the time I thought it might have been me. The thought was short lived when he kissed Sarah right in front of me and I left Allison’s apartment feeling pretty low. We’re 12 going on 13 and about to start high school so I should just let everything go, right? It’s not that deep. And so I did and I let myself continue to be friends with Aaron. I even became the girlfriend of one of his friends. He was an interesting dude, really funny, but short and had blue hair and a labret piercing. I wasn’t into him as much as I thought and as soon as Aaron was single again so was I. His friend told everyone that I would break up with anyone for Aaron no matter what and he was right about me back then. Him spilling my secret gave me the courage to tell Aaron and soon Aaron and I were a real couple. We hung out all the time and went on little dates to the park to go hiking. It wasn’t until maybe a month after 8th grade ended that he told me he got held back and had to do 8th grade again. It also sucked more to not know which high school he would end up at. There were two in the city and he lived almost exactly in the middle of both so it was a toss up as far as we were concerned. After he told me about being held back he went on vacation for a few weeks and I didn’t see or talk to him for a while because he didn’t have a cell phone. We broke up when he came back that summer and I started 9th grade single and feeling all by myself. It started the same as middle school. I lost most of my friends to the other high school and I lost Aaron to middle school. I dated other dudes and grew up a bit in 9th grade, as we like to believe, and even got to see Aaron from time to time. He didn’t date anyone I can remember during that year, but he did find out we wouldn’t be at the same high school. The summer after 9th grade I only have one real vivid memory of Aaron. We were at his house and his mom wasn’t home so we scoured her ash trays and smoked the cigarette butts and listened to Metallica really loudly. He told me he didn’t think I was making good choices and he didn’t want to hang out anymore. After that my memories are even fewer and farther in between. I fell into a rough crowd and developed some less than savory habits. I was probably 14 or 15 and I was drunk and scared to go home. I walked to his house from a party and knocked on his window. He was still awake and he talked to me for a while until I felt okay enough to go home. He said he would always love me. Another was right after I turned 16 I started dating this guy who lived two blocks away from me. He had dreadlocks and a handsome tan Italian complexion. He played guitar and loved the same music I did and I fell head over heels hard. The rest of the story with that guy... whoo that’s a whole other crazy saga, but in the middle of being sixteen the dreadlock guy had a baby with another girl. So, I felt lost, and you guessed it, I drove over to Aaron’s house at night and knocked on the window. This time he again was awake and watching a movie but he had a girl in his bed. I was instantly regretting even showing up because I knew he disapproved of my life choices, but he told the girl to give him a minute and he talked to me. I cried a lot. I apologized for not knowing how to be a person and how to do the right thing and for never telling him how I really felt. He told me he was really happy with this girl and she was a good girl and he would probably end up marrying her. He said that it was the best thing for him and that he couldn’t handle all of my complicated life choices and couldn’t be there for me anymore. His words just destroyed me, I just needed someone to be on my side and he wasn’t giving me the validation I needed. Before I left and before he shut the door he looked at me and said the most haunting words. I sometimes struggle to figure out if it was real life or a false memory. It sounded so perfect and tragic. He said, “It should have been you”. And I knew what he meant. It should have been me who stepped up and was honest. It should have been me who made better life choices. It should have been me in his bed watching a movie with him that night...

And so life went on and worked its magic. I made better choices and learned hard life lessons and tried to get better, and Aaron and that girl broke up and he ended up going to the same college I did. He lived off campus with a bunch of dudes I didn’t know and he invited me to a party they had once. I had a beer or two and didn’t stay that late. I had really let myself go looks wise and I was in a terrible place emotionally. I didn’t talk to him for a few more years. It was probably 10 years after I stood outside his window the last time and I was at the mall browsing for new shoes with my boyfriend of a few years when I saw Aaron walk by with his wife. He said, “Hello” and just kept walking. He proposed to her at the Renaissance Festival in the summer before then and I got to see the photos on social media. I check on him every once in a while to make sure he is doing okay.

Sometimes I wish it would have been me. Sometimes I am angry because it should have been me. He did what was best for him. But some nights like tonight I lay in bed wide awake thinking about Aaron, the trumpet boy.

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#Blogger #Story

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superninjaviolinist · 5 years

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The Girl With The Black Dragon Tattoo, Chapter 3

I would find out much, much later, what all this future-talk meant, but at that point I was overtaken by overwhelming panic. Romance and love? Big fat red flags in my book. It’s how I was lured before and I swore to myself that I’d never let it happen again.

I took a step back from the brothers. “Stay away from me.”

“Eva, wait—“ Sam started to say.

I began moving faster towards the Continental. “Both of you just stay the hell away from me!”

I’d automatically locked the door when I’d gotten out, and since my brain had gone stupid all I ended up doing was yank uselessly at the handle. Someone put their hand on my arm and I instinctively swiveled around and punched its owner in the face.

Dean Winchester staggered back a few steps and palmed his cheek. He whipped his gaze over to his brother. “Where the fuck did you pick her up?”

“Oklahoma.” I could swear Sam was trying not to laugh.

“Yeah, well, Busty Asian Beauty she ain’t.”

Oh. That tore it. I hate that magazine. My body was closer to Lucy Liu, the A-list actress, than Lucy Lee, the C-cup porn star, and I was tired of hunters trying to compare my more toned, small-breasted form to those squishy, silicone-enhanced inaccuracies. Time to take a stand.

I walked up to Dean and stabbed him in the chest with my finger. “You listen to me, you dim-witted, inbred hick. I don’t know what pool of stupid you crawled out of but I’m not some starry-eyed slut that’s going to fall into your arms just because you went and made up some sci-fi fairy tale!”

“It ain’t a fairy tale!” Dean shouted down at me.

“You expect me to believe that someone flew you into the future where not only am I dead, but I’d had some kind of relationship with your pretty-boy ass?”

“Yes.”

The conviction with which he said that single word took me by surprise. Either Sam’s brother was a complete lunatic or… well, we’re hunters. Weird and unusual is part of the gig. But time travel? That was stretching it. “Prove it.”

I’d apparently stunned the man. “Uh…”

“Something like this happened before,” Sam offered. “Angels have the power to transport people through time.”

“You expect me to believe that? On your word alone?” I threw my hands in the air. “You’re both crazy! Why the hell did I let you drive me all this way after that shit last night? For all I know you two are psycho killer rapists!”

For some reason Dean took a good deal of umbrage against what I’d accused him of. “We ain’t psycho… killer… what you said!”

“Eva,” Sam said gently, “what’s wrong?”

Everything. “Nothing.”

“What’s she talkin’ about, ‘last night’?” Dean asked his brother. “Did you two…?”

Both Sam and I vehemently cried, “No!” “Look,” Sam said to me, “we can still get you to Bobby’s. It’s maybe two hours out. After that, you don’t have to see us ever again.”

His sentiments were wrong, but there was no way he could have known what was to come. Our lives would eventually become so intertwined it would be impossible to separate one from the other without creating tremendous, vacuous spaces. Regardless, I warily accepted the offer of transportation. “Long as we’re going straight there.”

Dean was giving his brother the stink-eye. Sam, thankfully, was unrelenting. “Dean, I promised.”

“Fine,” grumbled the pretty-boy. “Get in the back, Xhang Xiyi.”

I put him on the receiving end of one of my finest glares. “I’m not from China, I’m from San Francisco. And I’m Korean, asshole.”

He threw up his hands in surrender and backed away. “Sorry.”

By the way, Dean still can’t tell the difference. It’s all tits and exoticism to him.

After Sam and I got our things we headed out. The tension in the car was thick; not only were the brothers still dealing with the issues had separated them, Dean was pointedly ignoring me. I had the feeling that he was embarrassed over his proclamation and was now pretending he’d never said it.

We arrived at Bobby’s around noon. I escaped the car as soon as it had rolled to a stop, not bothering to wait for Dean to kill the engine. “Hey!” he barked out the window.

“Fuck off,” I said loudly as I tore open the screen door and headed inside.

I expected to be able to throw myself into Bobby’s arms and give him a tremendously big hug. It had been several months since I’d been able to visit and I was very fond of him. He was sitting behind his desk when I walked in the study and rolled out to greet me. Bobby Singer was wheelchair-bound and I had no idea when or how. “What happened?”

Before he could answer, Dean yanked me out of the room, nearly tearing my arm from its socket in the process. He shoved me up against the hallway wall and pressed one of his forearms against my neck. “Don’t you know not to go barging into people’s houses like that?”

“Let me go. Now.”

“I’d take heed, son,” Bobby said. He sounded way too amused by the situation.

“You know her?” Dean asked incredulously.

Bobby didn’t bother answering. Instead, his eyes flicked downwards. When Dean complied with the silent request he found one of the small daggers I kept up my sleeves pointed directly at the V of his jeans. He grimaced at me. “Now that’s just rude.”

“Me and Eva go back a ways,” Bobby answered. “No need to get your undies in a bunch.”

Reluctantly, Dean backed away. “How?”

“None of your business,” I snapped at him. In a far more sympathetic tone, I repeated my query to Bobby. “What happened?”

“Demon,” he replied succinctly as Sam came in bearing my saddlebags. “Guess that thing down in Oklahoma didn’t go so well.”

“Steve’s dead,” Sam said quietly. “The others got away.”

“Still don’t explain why Eva didn’t come here on her own wheels.”

“Because those fuckers ran over my bike!” I exclaimed.

“On purpose?”

“On purpose.”

“Dickhead move. What did you do?”

Yeah, okay, he was right to assume it was my fault; Bobby knew my mouth tended to run faster than my brain. Except this time I had the upper hand. “Tim-fucking-Janklow sucker-punched me and then used me as bait!”

“Bait for what?”

“Me,” Sam replied. “They… Um…”

“No need, son. I get it.” The gentleness in Bobby’s tone was new to me. I’d never seen him act so paternal to anyone other than me before. Most of his relationships with other hunters were purely professional, Rufus Turner being the exception. I suppose you could call Bobby and Rufus frenemies, if you were being generous. Cantankerous old grumps with grudges would be more accurate.

The Winchesters, seeing that their duty to me was done, prepared to leave. They gave their farewells to Bobby and headed back to their car. I followed them to the porch. “Sam.”

“Yeah?”

”Thanks.”

He gave me a smile. God, the man did and still does have the cutest little dimples. “You’re welcome.”

“Say,” Dean inserted, “how do you know Bobby?”

I’d already told him to mind his business, but seeing the way Bobby acted around these two made me trust them a minuscule amount more. “He saved my life.”

“He does that a lot,” Sam said as he opened the passenger’s side door. “Well, good luck with everything, Eva.”

“See ya,” was Dean’s farewell. I waved, their engine turned over, and they were gone.

I headed back inside. “I don’t got a new bike for you, darling,” Bobby said. “But if you hang about I’m sure one’ll turn up. Unless you think you might head on home?”

Home? I didn’t have a home, not really. I had a place of origin, certainly, but San Francisco wasn’t home anymore. The old, narrow house that I grew up in was sold, its blood-spattered walls covered with thick beige paint. I wonder if the new owners know about the history of horrors their million dollars granted them. “Can I stay upstairs?” I asked. “I won’t get in your way.”

“Back in the old bedroom? Sure. You know, there’s parts and frames all around the yard. Maybe you could cobble something together.”

Put together some Frankenstein’s monster of a motorcycle? “Think I’ll just wait.”

“Suit yourself. Room and board’s same price as always.”

“Home cooked dinners and the occasional supply run. Got it.”

Bobby smiled. “Glad to have you back, Eva.”

We’d had this arrangement, at this point, for about five years. I’d get melancholy and need company, he’d get sick of canned chili, and the two of us would be housemates up until one of us needed to get on the road. Unfortunately, with Bobby’s debilitating condition the only one of us able to indulge in extracurricular activities was me, and he wasn’t shy about showing how dejected he was about it. The man found relief by plugging himself into a bottle of whiskey. Hauling up a dead weight, middle-aged, belligerent alcoholic off the floor is about as easy and delightful as it sounds.

He left at one point because of what he said was a witch. I was a little worried about the gleam in his eye, but I knew better than to pry. When Bobby got back, I was surprised to see that his spirits had risen. The older hunter merely said that he’d had a change in perspective.

A Triton motorcycle from the sixties came in shortly after the witch incident and finally answered my prayers. Some idiot had seen the handlebars and the seat as prime parts and had left the engine intact. It was going to take a bit of work, but that baby was going to be mine.

Several weeks after meeting the weirdo Winchesters I was done fixing up the Triton. The day before I’d done a test run and she moved like a dream. I was wiping the last bits of dirt and oil off it when Bobby rolled in. He gave an appreciative whistle. “That is one mighty fine lookin’ bike.”

I gave him a grin. “No backsies. She’s mine.”

“Promise is a promise.” He scratched under his hat a bit, a sure sign that whatever he had on his mind was something that made him uncomfortable. “Look, I got company coming and I don’t think you wanna be here.”

I grabbed a rag and began cleaning my hands. “What, embarrassed that some Asian chick is now King of the Scrapyard?”

He snorted derisively. “You need a couple more decades of tinkering around here before I give up that title.”

“Then what?”

“It’s Sam and Dean. They’ll be here tonight.”

Ick. “You’re right. I better get going.” I sniffed under an armpit. “Do I have time to get cleaned up?”

“Maybe. Depends on whether or not Dean or Sam is driving.”

“Better hurry then,” I said as I started jogging towards the house.

I’d showered and dressed and was putting the last of my things into my saddlebags (of course I’d gotten them replaced) when I heard a car pull up. I looked out of the window and spotted a truck. The woman getting out was around Bobby’s age: Ellen Harvelle. She strode right in and I could vaguely hear her and Bobby greet one another.

I knew the woman from when she’d managed the Roadhouse, a great bar where hunters had gathered to swap info and stories. I used to swing by whenever I was near; it was nice to talk to a woman that didn’t treat me like either a rival hunter or a stupid little girl that didn’t belong. Her daughter, Jo, and I were on friendly terms through mutual association; we both liked her mother. The place had been demolished by a demon, so I was told, and I was happy to see Ellen alive and well.

When I came down the stairs, bags in hand, I saw Bobby and Ellen in the kitchen talking quietly. I didn’t want to interrupt; I’d been brought up to respect my elders’ privacy. That all went to hell when a low, gravelly voice said from behind me, “Who are you?”

I immediately stepped forward and swung my saddlebags around to clobber whoever it was. My belongings smacked into the man’s head before bursting from their confines and scattering everywhere. Apparently I hadn’t closed them as tightly as I thought. Much to my irritation, the stranger didn’t even flinch. I drew a fist back but was arrested by Ellen shouting, “Whoa whoa whoa!” as she came rushing over.

“Cass, you idjit!” Bobby snapped as he followed her.

I let my hand drop and peered at the newcomer. He was almost the same height as Bobby, a healthy six feet, with tousled dark hair and a set of ancient blue eyes. No standard hunter gear (jeans, shirt, flannel, boots); this guy had a trenchcoat, suit, tie, and even dress shoes. It was like being stared at by a weirdly intense accountant. A handsome accountant. Which made him even more weird.

“Who is this?” the man asked, this time directed at Bobby.

“Evangeline!” Ellen cried warmly. She knew I didn’t like being hugged and settled for patting my cheeks. “It’s been a while.”

Yeah, more than a year at least. I gave her a smile. “I missed you, too. Where’s Jo?”

“Oh, she’ll be along soon. Out with those Winchester boys retrieving the Colt.” I couldn’t tell whether the woman was proud or anxious that her daughter was out with those two freaks.

Hold up. “Wait, the Colt?” I asked, astonished. “The Colt?” Everyone knew about the magical gun wrought to kill everything.

“One and only. Were you heading out? It’d be a shame if you two missed each other.”

“‘Evangeline’,” said the stranger in a thoughtful tone. “‘Bringer of good news’.”

I lifted an eyebrow without looking at him. “Someone want to tell me who special ed over here is?”

“That there’s Castiel,” Ellen replied. “He’s an angel. It’s why he doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of what you’d call ‘social graces’.”

“I’m working on it,” the angel said testily.

“Well, keep at it,” I snapped. “Learn that it’s not nice to sneak up on a girl.”

So it wasn’t love at first sight. That’s for fairy tales and silly romantic movies. In fact, it wasn’t even like at first sight. All I came away with from this encounter was the impression that he was just another big dumb idiot. It would take months, years even, for Castiel to make a dent in that thick steel wall I’d built around my heart, but when he did…

“All right, all right,” Bobby scolded, “stop trying to piss him off. Didn’t you wanna head out before Sam’n’Dean get here? Any minute now they’re gonna be drivin’ up.”

Oh shit. I immediately knelt down and started shoving things back into my saddlebags. The so-called angel stepped out of the way and Ellen joined me. I was still scrabbling for wayward arrows when the sound of an approaching engine came rumbling through Bobby’s screen door. “Sweetie,” Ellen whispered as she handed me a shirt, “you wanna tell me why you’re running from the Winchesters?”

“No time,” I answered as I zipped and buckled up. I hurried to the front door and swung it open… only to smack face first into someone’s chest.

“The hell…?” said its owner, one Dean Winchester.

I shoved passed him, nearly knocking Sam and Jo down on the way, and walked as fast I could towards the shed and my bike.

Of course, the dickhead followed me. “Eva!”

I turned around after getting my bags attached. “What?” I snapped.

“I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For freaking you out last time! I shouldn’t have told you… you know…”

“What?” My lip curled into a sneer. “That we were destined to be? That you’re apparently going to be there holding me when I die?” I walked over to the workbench and snatched up my helmet.

Dean grabbed it out of my hands as soon as I got close enough. “Listen, we don’t know the first thing about each other—“

“You’re goddamn right.”

“—And so far the only things I know about you are that you’re hot and you’re freaking insane!”

I breezed by the first thing he said and latched onto the second. “I’m insane?”

The man gave an exasperated sigh and plunked my helmet onto the back of the Triton. “Look, we’re heading out tomorrow to take on Lucifer. Could use another hand.”

I paused. This was important. Fighting ghouls and vampires wouldn’t mean anything if Satan roasted the planet. I could be part of something big, something vital. It could be that my presence could mean the difference between someone living and someone dying.

There were, however, two big issues with Dean’s request, both of them having to do with him. For one, going up against Lucifer was suicide at best, and with Dean in attendance I had no intention of prophetically fulfilling my demise. For the other, there was no way I was going to dive into that handsome, green-eyed trap. Going into a life and death situation with the man would leave too many openings for him to show me that he was worth falling for. “No,” I said as I swung one leg over onto my bike.

Dean looked at me in disbelief, like I’d told him I hated kittens or something. “No?”

“No,” I repeated as I squished my head into my helmet. The engine purred when I turned the key and I revved the handle a few times to get Dean out of the way. He stepped back and I nearly broke the sound barrier getting away from him.

I didn’t see the Winchesters again for several months after that, thankfully. The world didn’t end but the Apocalypse kept on rolling, which meant that they’d probably failed at stopping Lucifer. When I called Bobby about it a week later he broke the news that the Harvelles had died and confirmed my suspicions about the Winchesters’ defeat.

So much time and so many hunts passed that I figured I was done with those two idiots and put thoughts of them aside. In the weeks before it all went to shit there was a werewolf in Utah and a djinn in Vegas (selling “dreams come true” of all things). Afterwards I’d headed to San Francisco and checked on my sister (still whoring it up on Geary), solved a haunting at Ghiradelli Square while I was there, drove up to Idaho for a pair of ghouls, swung all the way over to North Dakota for a nest of vamps (I loathe those assholes), and ended up in Blue Earth, Minnesota after hearing about a demon infestation.

What’s the saying? Hindsight is 20/20. If I had known how bad it was going to get I would have turned the fuck around.

Blue Earth had been taken over by the church. It’s inevitable that when you deal with Heaven and Hell you get tangled up with religious nuts. This wasn’t the first town like this I’d encountered and it wouldn’t be the last. The difference this time was that I’d ridden willingly in and now I wasn’t allowed out.

The inability to go was more due to the abnormal amount of demons surrounding the perimeter than anything else. Anyone that tried to go by freeway ended up running into a blockade. Anyone trying to go through the woods ended up dead.

I think I could have stood the isolationism if a lot of those people didn’t start seriously freaking me the fuck out. In the past seventy-two hours I’d gotten three marriage proposals, dozens of admonishments over my cleavage (you know, the minuscule amount that I had), and several lectures about my habit of using profanities. The latter two I could ignore, the first was unnerving. Couples were marching down that aisle every day, ones I suspected hadn’t even considered the other person as a viable husband/wife prior to that morning. Unfortunately, this town had more men than women, which meant that the more I refused the more frowns were thrown my way. I slept with my blade in hand just in case someone decided to rouse me in the middle of the night for a shotgun wedding.

The bartender, Paul, was the only person I could regularly stand to be around. We’d even flirted a bit, but the watchful eye of Leah Gideon and the Sacrament Lutheran Militia kept us apart.

Speaking of which: Leah Gideon, Prophet of the Lord, gave me the creeps. I don’t know how to describe it, but there was something about her that was just off. It made me want to stab her in the face.

I suppose that’s what happens when you’re the Whore of Babylon masquerading as the pastor’s daughter.

The bar Paul ran was full from lunchtime to closing due to the fact that these people knew the Apocalypse was nigh. It was strange to be around non-hunters who talked about angels and demons casually, slipping them into conversations like some people do sports teams. I suppose with the actual hellspawn around the perimeter and the Prophet talking about her connection to Heaven they had a right to be casual and supercilious about the whole thing, but it didn’t make it any less odd.

Paul was pouring me another beer when they walked in. I’d heard that strangers had rolled into town, demons hot on their tail, I just didn’t expect it to be the Winchesters. There wasn’t much I could do to hide (other than duck under a table), so I did what I could to keep my face pointed away from them. It seemed to work. Sam waltzed right on by while dialing a number on his phone and Dean plopped down at a table almost directly behind me.

I waited to see how long the giant would stay on his call. Once he started talking to Castiel’s voicemail (I didn’t know it then, but for the crime of siding with humanity Cass had been cut off from Heaven’s energy; thus the mundane communication method) I figured that was distraction enough for me to escape. I slapped a twenty down on the bar top, swiveled my stool, and took two steps towards the exit.

“Don’t think I don’t see you there.”

Shit.

“Been a while, Eva,” Dean continued. I turned around, my lips pressed tight. He was slouched in his seat facing the opposite wall and didn’t bother changing positions.

I folded my arms and glowered at the back of his head. “Not long enough.”

“How long would that have to be?”

“I was honestly hoping for, you know, forever.”

Dean gave the peanuts a wry grin. “Yeah, well, me too.”

This was weird. At the time, I didn’t know Dean very well, but I’d gotten the impression from our two rather heated encounters that he was a little more… I don’t know, alive? The way he sat, the way he spoke, it was as if whatever spark had once lit Dean Winchester had guttered out. It was disheartening, and pitiable.

What had happened to him would have been devastating to anyone, really. Dean had basically found out God had said, in terms of the Apocalypse, “Fuck it. You’re on your own.” I’m sure there were more nuances to the message He’d left, but that was the gist. Before receiving that message, Dean had already been on a steady slide towards self immolation and God’s apathy just steepened his descent. This shitstorm at Blue Earth would get him to smash right into the bottom.

Sam slipped by me to sit down with three beers. He held one up to me and gave a small smile in greeting. I’ve never been one to turn down free alcohol. “Hey, Eva,” he said as I sat. “Came here because of the same reason, I assume.”

He was at least unchanged. I nodded. “Been here couple of days already.”

“You’ve been sticking around that long?”

“It’s not a matter of ‘sticking around’. It’s a matter of ‘I can’t fucking leave’.”

Sam glanced at his brother who, I assumed, was supposed to glance back. Instead Dean kept drinking, his eye-line somewhere around his brother’s stomach.

This had passed awkward straight into excruciatingly uncomfortable. I decided to change the subject. “Who were you calling?” I asked (even though I already knew the answer).

“Cass—uh, Castiel. The angel? He said you guys met at Bobby’s and you hit him with your stuff.”

I shrugged. “That’s what he gets for sneaking up on me.”

“He probably didn’t sneak up so much as… appeared in that space.”

“Great. Do they just pop up whenever? Should I expect angels to show up in my shower at some point?” I was starting to wonder whether I could be alone and naked without fearing angelic intrusion.

Sam gave a little chuckle. “I don’t think… well…”

“The bastards are junkless,” Dean inserted. “Probably see a woman’s ass and wonder where her balls went.”

I thought back to that first encounter with Castiel. Clueless and tactless. “Well there’s one less thing to worry about.”

Sam took a swig of beer. “So any clues why the demons are circling this town in particular?”

I shook my head. “Best I could come up with was that they didn’t want the Prophet slipping through their hands.”

“Sounds reasonable.” Sam shook his head. “I can’t believe the angels are making these people do their dirty work.”

Both Dean and I asked, “Yeah? And?”

Sam blinked disbelievingly at us. “And they could get ripped to shreds!”

“They’ve got their stupid little exorcism chant,” I retorted. “Not to mention their phone line to Heaven. Believe me, these guys are a lot more prepared for slaughter than anyone else I’ve met.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Dean added dismissively. “These people ain’t freaking out, they’re runnin’ to the exit in an orderly fashion. I don’t know that that’s such a bad thing.”

“Who says they’re all gonna die?” Sam snapped back. “Whatever happened to us saving them?”

The church bells started ringing, cutting through whatever Dean was going to say (and also the biting remark I had in mind). I sighed and spent a few seconds chugging down the rest of my beer, a good three-quarters of the bottle. When I was done, I found both brothers goggling at me. Apparently girls in their world didn’t really drink. “What? Ding dongs mean Leah’s had another vision. Time for church. You two coming?”

“You know me,” Dean said with a ghost of his former spunk. “Downright pious.”

The Prophet had seen demons about five miles out all gathered nice and neat in an abandoned farmhouse. This all stank of setup and stupidity but it wasn’t like anyone was going to listen to the drunk old maid who’d rambled into town a few days ago. The only thing of any real consequence occurred when Pastor Gideon began the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

Dean was right behind me. Under his breath he muttered, “Yeah, not so much.” When I turned around, puzzled, he shifted, but didn’t acknowledge my silent query.

The raid itself went without a hitch. People running about chanting their little chant and black smoke flying out of the windows like someone had let loose really ugly balloons. It was afterwards when it all went to shit.

Most of us had already left, me included. Sam and Dean had lingered and so had Dylan, the son of some locals (Rob and Jean? Jane?). Not all the demons had hightailed it as soon as the guns started going off; one had decided to hang out underneath the Winchesters’ car. It pulled the young man underneath and slit his throat before the brothers could do shit.

They came driving back, solemn as all hell, and quietly informed the others about Dylan’s fate. His mother let out a terrible wail. I flinched, not at the mangled body in their back seat, but at that unearthly, devastating sound. I’d seen a silent version under my grandparents’ lips at my parents’ wake. No one should live to bury their own child.

Funerary services were hastily put together for that very evening. Sam, Dean, and I stood at the doorway of the church as it filled. We all felt as if going inside would be an unwelcome intrusion; after all, we were the only non-residents currently in town. A young man’s death was too intimate a tragedy to barge in upon.

Eventually, Dylan’s coffin passed by. His pallbearers, none of whom acknowledged our presence, appeared to be an uncle, grandfather, and several of his friends. Mother and father came stumbling up the steps shortly afterwards. I was staring at the grim wooden box when I heard Dean attempt to give his condolences. “Ma’am, we’re just… very sorry.”

“You know,” the woman hissed through her tears, “this is your fault.”

Her husband said her name quietly in admonishment (Jane! That was it), but before they could go any further, I stepped in front of Dean and snapped, “You can’t blame him for a damn demon. What, you think he personally stuck that thing under his car just to fuck over your son?”

“I don’t have to listen to you,” Jane snarled at me. “Blasphemous, drunken whore.”

Dean grabbed my arm and pulled me away before I could smack the bitch. Dylan’s father took the opportunity to hustle Jane inside.

As Pastor Gideon began the service, I jerked my limb out of Dean’s grip. He frowned at me. “She just lost her son,” Dean scolded. “Let her blame whoever she wants.”

I threw my hands up and let them drop. This apathy of his was starting to grate on my nerves. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

Before he could retort there was a commotion inside the church. Sam gestured us over. On the floor was Leah, seizing, her father making blandishments until the fit passed. When it did, Pastor Gideon helped his daughter sit up. “Dad,” she gasped, “it’s Dylan.”

“Just rest a minute, huh?”

“No, listen! Dylan’s coming back.”

Leah Gideon, Prophet of the Lord, stood at the pulpit and promised paradise, including the inevitable reunion with lost loved ones… if we followed the angel’s commandments. As I listened to her rattle off the list of demands my eyebrows crawled higher and higher. No gambling. No drinking. No premarital sex. In fact, no unmarried man or woman was allowed to be alone with the opposite gender without a church-sanctioned chaperone. Prayer morning, noon, and night. Curfew from nine to six.

Dylan’s parents, as well as a majority of the townsfolk, ate it up. Sam and I glanced at each other, astonished. I looked over and saw Paul staring at the girl in disbelief. Dean projected weary resignation.

The brothers split up when the congregation finally dispersed. Dean went back inside to speak to whomever while Sam started walking towards the town’s single motel. Paul had given me one of those sweet smiles of his as he’d passed. Maybe we could start following the rules tomorrow instead…?

I headed for the bar. It was nearly dark, but unlike every other night I’d been in town no one else came in. Whatever. It wasn’t curfew yet and Paul was a local. He flipped the neon “open” sign and settled behind the counter. I swung myself onto what I had privately claimed as “my” barstool and he plunked the usual down in front of me.

A few minutes into my beer and Sam walked in. He greeted us both before sitting beside me.

The boys bantered for a bit, Paul revealing the abrupt change in most of the town’s attitudes once Leah had gone Prophet. He was the only person I knew that was outspoken about the obvious fraudulence underlying everyone’s sudden piety. It’s why I liked him best.

“Not a true believer, I take it,” Paul said to Sam.

“I believe, yeah. I do.” He shrugged. “I’m just pretty sure God stopped caring a long time ago.”

We scoffed at the indifference of our supposed creator. “What about you?” Sam asked me.

I was on my third beer and my guard had slipped a bit. “Parents were devout. I believe that He’s out there but I’ll be damned if I give the son of a bitch the time of day.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Paul said. The three of us clinked mugs.

We continued to drink until curfew. Paul and Sam talked about demons and television and sports while I munched on nuts and irregularly provided my opinions. It was a comfortable spot, cushioned by alcohol, and we drew a modicum of relief after the trials of the past twenty-four hours.

Of course, shit wasn’t done yet. I’d been scrolling through news bits on my phone when my service abruptly died. “What the fuck?”

“What is it?” asked Sam. I showed him. He and Paul pulled out their own phones and, despite the varying carriers, found the same problem. “What the hell?”

“Great,” Paul grumbled. “And it’s ‘curfew’.”

Sam groaned and staggered to his feet. “Guess I’ll see you two tomorrow then.”

We ribbed him for a bit about being a good little cultist before he left. Paul sighed and picked up Sam’s empty mug. “You going too?”

“I dunno.” I gave him a (drunken) smile. “You want me to go?”

He returned the expression, eyes dipping down to the skin I had peeking out from the V of my shirt and back up again. “Not particularly.”

I reached over to grab his button-up and pulled him close. “Then what do you say you lock up that door, close the lights, and we see what happens?”

“Sounds good to me,” he replied huskily.

Sex with Paul was what I had come to expect from these small-town guys, but in his case the alliteration was in a good sense. See, when you live in a place where nearly everybody knows everybody most people end up having no more two or three sexual partners; the variety is lacking and the gossip is damning. These guys were, unfailingly so, inexperienced, with more clumsy enthusiasm than anything else. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.

Paul fell into that same, sorry category, but he had the exception of being gifted in both stamina and endowment. Good God, his was a dick to remember. He was sweet about the whole thing, too, getting all shy about putting on a condom and insisting on lapping at my folds until I was good and wet. I was the one who was pushing, eager to lose myself in the exertion, the alcohol not nearly enough to dull the effects of all the messed up shit that had gone down in the past eighteen hours.

The man obliged, eventually, after he had slid himself deliciously inside of me. We were on the edge of one of the tables and I bit my lip as I gazed into his eyes, my hand gripping his shirt as my legs wrapped around his waist, before quietly requesting he get on with fucking me. Paul grinned, gave me a few experimentally harsh thrusts, before shunting that wonderful cock of his in and out of my cunt.

We were just coming down, wrapped in post-coital bliss with his head resting between my breasts, when a rock came crashing through a window. I let out a shriek and he hurriedly drew away. Paul buttoned his pants back up as he went to investigate while I shoved my bra and shirt down and went looking for my jeans. I didn’t find them before the door smashed in and a half dozen locals, spearheaded by Dylan’s parents, marched in.

My shirt was thankfully long enough to give me a shred of modesty, but it was obvious what we had been doing. Paul was still flushed and his buttons were askew while I was, well, pantsless. Jane’s lip curled up at me. “She was right!” the woman cried. “You’re the reason why the angels are angry at us! Fornicators! Unbelievers! Blasphemers!”

I could have sworn we were in Blue Earth, Colorado, and not Castle Rock, Maine. “We’re two consenting adults,” I said as calmly as possible. “What does it matter?”

“What matters is that you are keeping us from joining our son!”

Okay, that made absolutely no sense, but when Pastor Gideon came rushing in things started to click into place. “Please!” he cried. “Calm down. There’s no reason to do this! Let’s just talk it over.”

“The angels are angry, Pastor,” said one of the other women. “If we want to enter paradise we need to be rid of these people!”

“They need to leave town now,” Rob growled. “Then we can tear apart this den of debauchery and lust.”

A chorus of agreement swept through the group. Bolstered by the support, Rob lifted the bat and smashed it down on the nearest set of liquor bottles. Seeing his livelihood threatened, Paul grabbed the weapon and began grappling with his old friend. Pastor Gideon did his best to physically come between them while shouting for peace.

Jane and another local woman tried to corner me into the bar. I still hadn’t found my pants, goddamnit! “Touch me,” I warned, “and I’ll break your face.”

My bravado was swept away by apprehension when I saw Jane reach into her jacket. There was no mistaking the black object hidden within as anything other than the handle of a semiautomatic. I was contemplating ways of disarming her when a new voice asked, “Need some help, padre?”

Fuck. Dean Winchester. I risked glancing over towards the doorway and saw the poster child for Prozac assessing the situation. My underdressed state made him blink but he was otherwise concerned by the rest. Pastor Gideon took advantage of the momentary lull in violence to plead, “Just everybody cool down for a minute.”

“‘Cool down,’ hmm?” Paul repeated angrily. He turned towards Dean. “My friends are trying to run me out of town. Do you think I should ‘cool down’?”

I lost track of the ensuing conversation as I had, with great relief, finally caught sight of my missing jeans. I was inching towards them when I heard Paul say loudly, “This is my home. You want me out of here? You’ll have to drag me out.”

I snatched up my pants and held them close to my chest. Maybe I’d get ten seconds in all this chaos to shove them back on.

Or not. I was sliding my way to Paul’s side when Dean abruptly slugged Rob. The Pastor shouted, “No no no— stop —“

There were two loud reports. Something punched me in the stomach.

Then nothing.

Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episode “99 Problems” (SPN 5.17).

#Supernatural #ofc #fanfiction #fanfic #Crowley #Castiel #Dean #Sam Winchester

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jackblankhsh · 7 years

Text

Why I Quit: Home Improvement Store -- Selling Tiki Torches

"So I put the gun in mouth, and was about to squeeze the trigger when the radio -- I don't even remember putting it on -- the radio starts playing a Mötley Crüe song. And I thought, 'Oh hell no. The last thing I'm going to hear is not going to be goddamn Mötley Crüe.' Anyway, long story short, searching for a song to fit the moment, I lost the desire to kill myself."

The old veterinarian winked at me, "But it'll come back. It always does. You can only euthanize so many kittens..."

As she trailed off I handed her a tray of sterilized instruments, "Okay. On that note, I quit."

Seeing how the veterinary profession possessed a higher suicide rate than one would expect, I decided not to risk the odds. Being an assistant might've been safer, but still, I've been known to get deeply depressed doing the dishes. The endless nature of it... and just knowing that a family is bringing in a beloved pet too sick to... three months later the bender ended.

I woke up naked with a bed sheet stuck to my face, glued in place by a puddle of blood spilled from my nose. Wrapping it around me like a toga I kicked my way through a grove of bottles in search of my clothes. Glancing back, I saw a curvy women with the contented smile of the well-fucked soundly sleeping. Her SS Edmund Fitzgerald tattoo made me curious for the details lost in the blackout days behind me.

Pulling my jeans out of a bathroom sink, I realized I didn't recognize this place. Turning on my phone I asked it for directions to my place. The map app sprang to life indicating I now stood in Virginia. Consulting another informative application I discovered a terminally malnourished bank account. Inside my wallet a single twenty dollar bill with a note written across it in my handwriting:

"Get out before she wakes up. She's going to stab you."

I've pulled such blackout related pranks on myself before, leaving cryptic notes warning me of various dangers, and gaffs -- insulting cult leaders, obscene calls to the CIA, and unpaid pizza orders -- however, I didn't feel like taking a chance. So, making the mistake of trusting myself, I fled the scene.

It took a few days to get things in order. Sure, I starved for the first few days, and maybe I didn't need to rob that waffle house, or the church picnic, but by the end of the week I procured a room at a nearby hotel, and a job at a home improvement store. I didn't expect it to be too long before I could purchase a bus ticket back to Chicago.

Home improvement shops are essentially giant hardware warehouses. They're utilitarian in design with shelves rising ridiculously out of reach; capacious buildings scented with a

a unique blend of sawdust, paint, and metal. Through canyonesque aisles patrons from all walks of life shuffle, body language telegraphing their own personal degree of knowledge: a burly man tanned into leathery jerky assesses screws by eye, knowing the needed size at a glance; a diminutive blonde housewife navigates her confused husband through electrical supplies, explaining to him what they need to wire a sconce; an old man eyes a toilet skeptically. And of course, the myriad customers who would use a hammer to put in screws.

Mainly due to that last type, employees of such establishments are often practitioners of ninjutsu, particularly the skills known as Shinobi-iri and Intonjutsu. A befuddled customer approaches an apron clad employee. The glazed cow eyes of the witless signal to the ninja an idiotic question is fast approaching. Deftly a smoke bomb is deployed, and the employee vanishes from sight. The more skilled might simply slip over to the next aisle, disappearing the same way spies are known to dissolve from view when a bus passes by.

I never got the hang of such tactics, so instead chose a means of hiding in plain sight. I spent most of my shifts hanging around a middle aged employee named Gus. Having retired after several years as a successful contractor, but not yet ready to stop working entirely, Gus worked part time. If a question revolved around home improvement, Gus knew the answer. Friendly to a degree some might call a fault, he assisted customers before they even finished asking anything. All I needed to do was stand near him, pause as if considering what to say, and he would answer for me. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if he suspected my own ineptitude, and merely wanted to keep me from embarrassing myself.

"I heard the manager ain't too happy with you," Gus said.

I shrugged, "Hey, I get why, but I thought it would help."

Gus replied, "You started barbequing in the patio display."

"I thought it would help sell patio furniture, and let's be clear. I was grilling, not barbequing. Don't tell me there isn't a difference."

Gus held up his hands in surrender, "No argument with that."

I said, "I also thought the smoke might help with the birds."

Birds occasionally slipped into the colossal store. The massive entrance to the open air gardening section allowed them to fly right into the building. Whole flocks eventually started gathering in the rafters requiring a teenager in a cherry picker to ascend, and battle them with a broom, shooing the birds to the exit. Sometimes the birds fought back. The teens didn't always win because some battles can't be fought stoned.

Gus said, "Never you mind about them birds. They ain't bothering nobody."

"Sometimes they shit on people."

"Somebody's always shitting on ya you pay attention." He smiled. So did I. You've got to admire that kind of resigned pessimism. If something bad is inevitable it seems like one can only accept it.

"Excuse me?" a young man in khakis and a polo shirt stepped up to me.

I said, "Yes sir. How may I help you?"

He replied, "I'm looking for tiki torches."

"Aisle six." Gus pointed. The man ignored him. He seemed determined to wait for me to answer.

I pointed where Gus had, "Aisle six."

"Thank you." The man smiled, losing his grin when he looked at Gus, then walked off.

"Was that weird?" I asked.

"Nope. You're paranoid," Gus said.

"Doesn't mean it wasn't weird." But I dropped it, focusing instead on helping Gus inventory plumbing supplies.

Minutes later a thirty-something brunette woman in a khaki skirt and white blouse asked, "Hi, I'm wondering about tiki torches."

"Aisle six, ma'am," Gus said.

"Is he right?" she asked, leaning towards me, away from Gus.

"Like he said, 'Aisle six'."

She lightly touched my shoulder, "Thank you so much."

Cocking an eyebrow I glanced at Gus.

He nodded, "Okay. That was a bit odd."

Three men walked by, all in khakis and polo shirts. As they passed us one said, "Hey bro, you know where the tiki torches are?"

"Aisle six," I said.

"Good to see one of us in charge." He pointed at me.

Now, I have never been mistaken for an authority figure in my life. So I felt compelled to suggest to Gus we check out aisle six. He agreed, and we headed over.

When we arrived the aisle seemed to have been taken over by a docile mob of khaki clad white folks. They happily interacted with one another like long lost friends at an inadvertent reunion. However few seemed to actually know one another. Their convivial nature stemmed from the fact they all kept talking about the same thing:

"You goin' to the rally tonight?"

"Course I'm going. Why you think I'm buying torches?"

A part of me really started hoping Frankenstein's monster had been spotted somewhere in Charlottesville, and these poster children for white suburbia simply were organizing a mob to go after him. That would explain the several men milling around in full tactical gear carrying assault rifles. Each eyed the area as if anxiously awaiting the start of their own private action movie.

A man wearing a black t-shirt with a swastika on it asked, "This where the torches at?"

Seeing how we stood not ten feet from a horde of folks already carrying torches, he displayed exactly the extent of observational skill one expects from someone openly wearing Nazis paraphernalia.

So I said, "Nope."

Gus said, "Customer is always right."

"No kidding," I said.

Gus said, "Don't be rude."

"Listen to the n*****," the Nazis said walking away.

"You wanna know where the rope is too?" I asked.

Gus whispered to me, "Don't piss them off. They are looking for an excuse to do something evil. So how about you shut the fuck up?"

In the three weeks I worked with him I never heard Gus swear. I figured he possessed too much class for such language. So when he swore at me the gravity of the situation pulled me back hard. Plus, it seemed safe to suppose that if I spit enough venom at these fools they would use it as an excuse to not only pound me into paste, but to go after Gus, even if he stayed silent the whole time. Yet, that didn't mean I had to do nothing.

I headed for the manager's office.

A fat man flanked by two riflemen breathlessly asked me, "We're looking for torches."

"Aisle seventeen. All the way the other side of the store." I misdirected him, and kept on walking. I hurried into the manager's office. Paul sat behind his desk filling out paperwork.

Looking up he said, "What's up?"

"There are Nazis buying torches."

Paul leaned back bemused, "Nazis?"

"Honest to god swastika wearing Nazis."

"But they are paying for them."

I folded my arms across my chest, "Yeah. So what?"

Paul shrugged, "If they cause any trouble then throw them out, but hey, sales've been down. This could put us solidly in the black." Perhaps noticing the look on my face he added, "Don't do anything stupid."

"Define stupid." But before Paul could answer I ducked out, slamming the door behind me.

I hurried around the store collecting road flares, duct tape, and lighter fluid. I tied flares to the lighter fluid, opened the container, and poised to ignite the flare, planning to hurl the slopping flaming bomb right into the horde of bigots (I wasn't hundred percent certain it would work, but still wanted to try) -- Gus stood at the edge of the crowd helping a bearded fellow in Klan robes choose a cheaper torch fuel. I couldn't hear their exchange, but it seemed cordial enough. The Klansman's wife even laughed along with Gus when he made some joke. After helping them, Gus then took a torch off the shelf, and placed it in the hands of an elderly man in a motorized wheelchair, a small Confederate flag flying over the chair.

"Who else needs help?" Gus asked. Several ignored him, others simply glared, but a few asked him questions he answered readily. With ready steady polite service he soon cleared the aisle quietly.

Two teenagers wearing Confederate flag shirts stepped over to me. One asked, "Whatcha got there?"

I held up the makeshift flame-grenade, "Most badass way to light your cigarette."

"For real?"

"Yeah, here. Go nuts," I handed it to him, "No charge."

"Thanks man." He slapped his buddy on the chest, and the two went outside.

Gus walked over, "You know that've gone quicker if you helped me out."

I nodded, "I don't always do the right thing."

"You're young. You got time to fix what's wrong." He glanced at his watch, "Hey, if we get to it we can finish inventory."

"Let's do that." And we did. It's odd how calming counting pipe fittings can be.

Inventory didn't take long. Then I decided to punch out early. Walking by the smoldering corpses of two teenagers burnt to a crisp, I lit a cigarette wondering where the rally intended to take place. I wanted to watch them rage and holler, waving the torches a kind man, whom they despised, helped them purchase. Too ignorant to be reasoned with, I suspected the delicious irony of the situation would be entirely lost on them. Someone should be there to appreciate it. But listening to my mp3 player on the walk back to my hotel a song I couldn't remember downloading came on.

Norma Tanega singing "You're Dead". The opening lyrics hit me like golf ball hail, "They have no use for your song. You're dead, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead and outta this world." The song went on in such a black sun tone -- "Now your hope and compassion is gone. You've sold out your dream to the world. Stay dead, stay dead, stay dead, you're dead and outta this world." -- and I listened to it fourteen or fifteen times before I got home.

Cracking open a bottle of whiskey I turned on the TV. Reports of the rally soon dominated the local news. People throwing up Nazis salutes, chanting Nazis slogans about "blood and soil", and all around looking like a golf resort turned up for a midnight torch parade. I saw faces I recognized not only from earlier, but regulars I thought I knew. This wasn't some outsider mob of unfamiliar people, a bigoted other intruding from an alternate reality. I would see them again, probably tomorrow, casually investigating lighting fixtures, purchasing power tools, in need of putty, paint, and tiles for the kids' bathroom; I would see them again because they were ordinary citizens, a sinister part of the community, unnoticed or actively ignored -- "Will Smithers is a decent neighbor, keeps to himself mostly, but be careful what you say around him, he's not, uh, fond of Jews."

Somewhere around one in the morning, unable to sleep, I collected my things. Partly drunk, to a degree somnambulant, I went to the bus station. There I purchased a late night ticket. Dawn cracking I left Charlottesville behind. It felt like running from a fight. Never mind the umbrella concept of America -- we're all united (E pluribus unum) -- it's hard to fight for a place that isn't your home; and those same white supremacist fools exist in Chicago. There would be opportunity enough to resist them on home turf, where I knew them on sight better than in Virginia. Or maybe I just like to think I do... the illusory safety of home. But mostly I think I just needed to get back to somewhere things at least seemed to make sense, surrounded by familiar madness.

Glancing at the time I recalled Gus once told me he got up at five every morning, a routine from his days as a contractor that he never lost. Knowing he'd be up I called him.

"Who's calling my phone?" he said playfully.

"It's me."

"Seems early for you."

"I just wanted to let you know I won't be coming in today. Tell Paul, okay? Tell him I quit."

"I got a sneaking suspicion he won't mind you being gone."

"I may have sold a few power tools off the books." I heard him chuckle. It felt good knowing some folks are still laughing.

#writing #fiction #short story #satire #honestyisnotcontagious #whyiquit #comedy #darkcomedy #humor writing #writer #tikitorches

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