#the haunted roadside diner
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revisiting the diner part 4.
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Adam and Eve on a Raft: Part III — Missed Connections
(Part ONE — Part TWO)
Rockstar!Eddie x Fem!Reader
SUMMARY: Corroded Coffin just stumbled into the diner where you’ve found yourself at 3:36am. You were tired of driving and starved. The 24-hour greasy spoon seemed like a good option. Seems as though the boys in the band thought the same.
And now it’s days later and you’ve just gotten home…
Warnings: 18+ please!! Minors DNI. Go. Away. Now. Julia is still haunting you; male masturbation; stupid messages on answering machines; Eddie is a goofball and SO SOFT. I apologize for NOTHING.
A/N: This whole story takes place in the 1990’s after Corroded Coffin have gained some fame. Cell phones aren’t really thing for the average person. But answering machines exist. Also - you don’t HAVE to read the other two parts, but it’ll help.
Tagged Readers: @lulukings92 /
************
TWO DAYS AGO…
“Okay, let’s get the road on the show,” quipped one of the drivers as he grabbed his bill and headed to the counter. The others moved to pay theirs as well.
You had left not thirty minutes earlier and as Eddie finished his chili and grilled cheese he eyed the payphone in the corner. The new ink you left him on his wrist was catching his eye every time he moved his arm. He could still feel the warmth of your skin on his as you held him still to write it. God, you were pretty. Effortlessly so. At 3am. At a roadside diner.
He pushed away his bowl and plate and downed the rest of the milkshake. Wiping his mouth, he rose and made his way to the phone. He fished a quarter out of his pocket and checked your number. You said you lived in Providence. The tour wouldn’t take them there for two months. And there was no way you would get his message anytime soon either, but he had to talk to you one more time before they headed out. It was only when he heard your voice on your answering machine that he realized he had no idea what he was going to say.
*************
CURRENT DAY…
You dropped your keys in the bowl by the door and stood still for six fucking seconds just listening to the quiet. You liked the quiet. You needed the decompression when even the intrusion of the radio DJ could grate against your nerves. Nevermind that the journey from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania through New York City and home to Providence had taken you just over the 6 hours you estimated. Even though the world buzzed and bustled around you in the late afternoon when you finally pulled into your parking spot at your apartment, the grind of the road had left you feeling like a wet noodle. Which is probably why you didn’t hit the button on your answering machine when you saw the blinking “16” indicating how many messages had been left for you while you were away.
You left your suitcase by the door and kicked your shoes off, relishing the feel of your area rug in the living room against your bare feet. It was an act of necessity to zombie-march your way to the bathroom to relieve yourself before flopping onto your bed and letting the silence compress and free you at the same time.
Julia was still haunting you.
“Your mom is probably twelve of those sixteen messages, you know,” she said in your head.
“Shuddup,” you mumbled into the mattress. Sleep took you after that.
The phone rang. It was well after dark. You jerked awake with the sound, but let the phone ring out and listened for the message on the machine.
“Honey? It’s your mother. Call me when you get this. I’ve been worried sick. Where are you? You should have been home by now. I hate this damn machine. Call me.”
You groaned when the machine beeped and clicked off. You pushed up on your hands and crawled your way to the phone at your bedside table. The conversation with your mother was filled with as much drama as you had expected, but by the time you hung up at least the guilt that had grabbed you when the answering machine clicked off had left you completely. Now you could seriously sleep.
But first: dinner.
You were starving. Chinese takeout was the answer.
Soon you were ensconced in your living room forking warm shrimp lo mein into your mouth while watching the late movie, Hitchcock’s Rear Window. You glanced over toward your kitchen phone where the answering machine sat on the counter, the red blinking number distracting you in the gloom. Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen. Jesus.
You didn’t think much when you pressed the button, dumping the empty carton in your trash as you did so. The machine beeped loudly and then the automated robot voice of your machine counted off the messages in turn:
BLEEP: Message One: “Honey, it’s your mother. Please call me right when you get back in, okay? I worry about you. I don’t understand why you’re driving when you could have flown. Your father and I would have helped buy the ticket for you. You know that. [sigh] Well…drive safely. Love you very much.” BLEEP
You hit the button to delete the message.
BLEEP: Message Two: “Uh hey. You uh… you just left so this is probably weird, but uh… you really are so pretty. I’m sorry I’m such an idiot, but I just wanted to let you know that. Also, uh… I hope it’s okay if I call you from the road from time to time? I think you’d be cool to talk to, you know, after shows? Or maybe before? I don’t want to keep waking you up in the middle of the night or anything. Not that you need beauty sleep or anything, I mean… you’re really pretty no matter what. I hope you get this message and you drove safe and everything. Damn. Uh… so I gotta go. The guys are all paying their bills and we’re taking off. But thanks for listening, I guess? Jesus… I’m an idiot. Ignore this whole thing if you want. I’m sorry. Um… bye. Bye. Oh! This is Eddie, by the way. Eddie Munson? You know, from the diner? Yeah. Okay. Bye.” BLEEP
You stopped the playback.
The silence in your house was deafening. The TV was still on and Jimmy Stewart was saying something in the background, but your hearing had gone fuzzy for a second. He called. He actually fucking called you. And right after you had left. That was two, almost three days ago. There were seventeen messages. They couldn’t all be from your mother. But could they all be from Eddie?
“He’s a complete goofball,” you could hear Julia say.
“I like goofball,” you countered.
“No you don’t. You like architects and museum curators and tax accountants. Solid, steady men who are totally dependable and about as exciting as a glass of milk,” she argued back.
“But I like a sense of humor,” you said. Your argument even sounded weak to your own ears.
“There’s a sense of humor and then there’s a guy who spends his whole life as a caricature. That’s not funny. He’s a literal rock star. And what are you? A plain office worker who probably won’t have an office to work in considering how you left it with your boss the last day you were in.”
“I was upset. My best friend had died.”
“Uh huh,” said Julia. “As you left, you told him that if he didn’t like it, he could fire you. Honey! I’m the one who does these reckless things. Not you. You’re the dependable one, remember? I’m the one who quits her job to chase bands across the country and sleeps with roadies in the hopes of getting laid by a bass player. You’re the one who carries me home from the concert. You’re the one who posts my bail. You take care of my hangover the day after. You don’t do this.”
She was right. That had been your relationship all along. You were the careful one. She was the wild child. You’d pay her parking tickets while she’d fuck the cop to get out of the speeding ticket. She was the yin to your yang. And now there was only you. Only the yang. Maybe she had rubbed off on you. Maybe you had gone crazy with grief.
You hit the play button.
************************
TWO DAYS AGO…
He mounted the bus with a sigh. Gareth was the first to chime in. “So, was it a real number? Or did she give you the number to the city morgue or something?”
“Fuck off, man,” Eddie said.
“Oh shit. He left a corny ass message and now he thinks he blew it,” said Jeff. He was always the more perceptive of the three men aboard the bus and Eddie hated him for it. He gave him the middle finger and all three men laughed.
Eddie fell into a seat next to his acoustic and brought it into his lap, noodling on it as he thought about how right Jeff was. It was a stupid message. Made him sound so fucking needy. But he was. He hadn’t had a chick in his life since Becca two years ago and they were only together for three tumultuous months until she got sick of him not fucking her enough ‘like a real rockstar should’. But she always wanted to fuck him right after the shows when he was exhausted and had nothing for her. The adrenaline high of being on stage and then mingling with a few lucky fans who got backstage passes was where all his energy went so by the time he got back to the bus or hotel and in her arms, he was spent. He had fallen asleep on her more than once while she was trying to get him hard. It was humiliating because he knew she was right; he wasn’t the rockstar everyone wanted him to be - not even to Eddie himself.
Idly, he wondered what your sex drive was like. You seemed more patient. He liked patient. He needed patient.
“Earth to Eddie,” said Gareth. His head snapped up. “You bunking on this crate tonight or the other one? Driver wants to know.” They had two buses for this tour, a gift from the label to show their gratitude for mounting a 48-city tour in the States and prepping them to hit Europe next year. Not to mention the triple platinum album they recorded.
“I’ll go on the other,” he said. Most of his clothes were there anyway and there were two full beds on that one as opposed to this one that had four spacious bunks and a full size bed in back. “What about you?”
All three of them agreed that they had eaten too much to move and were comfy where they were. “Cool,” said Eddie. “See you in St. Louis, Louis.” And he deboarded the bus, guitar in hand, and mounted the other, nodding at the driver telling him that it was just him that night. He’d be in the back. “Drive slow, man. Wanna sleep.”
The driver nodded and shut the door behind him, releasing the air brake with a hiss. The vehicle moved off at a lumbering pace as Eddie made his way to the back and crawled across the mattress to lie with his head on the pillow, the guitar at his side. As the shimmy of the bus became more rhythmic, he heard the echo of the song lyrics in his head. They were perfect. How he had forgotten such a rock gem of a song, he would never know.
And he was thinking about the woman… or the girl he knew the night before. Even though it was still the same night. Your eyes wouldn’t leave him. They haunted him. The sound of your voice in the answering machine greeting gave him butterflies. And yeah, he had fucked up. He should call you when they get to St. Louis. He knew you still wouldn’t be home, but he thought of the message he’d try to leave. At least he’d try to have a better plan when he called. It was a little after 4:30am and they wouldn’t be to St. Louis for at least six hours, if not more, by his reckoning. That was enough time.
Still, he was so tired. This last show drained him. He didn’t know if he had it in him to keep this shit up for 29 more cities, but he was damn sure going to try. This was the dream after all. Providence. He just had to make it until Providence. Then he would see you again. Provided he was cool and charming in his next message to you. But in order to be cool and charming, he had to sleep.
The engine of the bus shifted and he moved the guitar to a stand on the floor in the corner of the room at the end of the bed. He got undressed down to his checkered boxers and slipped under the covers, punching pillows and roughly getting himself comfortable. He missed being held while sleeping. He would never admit it, but it was a cuddler. He loved the feel of the other person’s body braced against either his front or his back. He loved the companionship. Becca hated that shit. Said he ran too warm and all she ended up doing was sweating. And apparently, according to her, his body would jerk involuntarily in his sleep which woke her up and made her even more angry.
Upon reflection, Eddie was surprised she lasted the three months that she did.
Had you already stopped for the night? Did you liked to be snuggled or not touched at all? Did a double bed suddenly seem really wide and empty for you too? He found himself half hard thinking about you. He imagined cock warming himself inside of you. Gently resting between your folds as he held you close from behind. He wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t press you. Wouldn’t wake you if it could be helped. He would just tenderly connect with you and fall asleep inside you and it would be so natural and so sweetly relaxing. He would love that. He would pay any amount of money to have that with you.
Softly he rubbed against himself, thinking of how slowly he would make love to you. He spit in his hand and rubbed along his length imagining that he was making you wetter by the moment with every touch and nibble and squeeze and kiss and lap of his tongue. How sweet would you taste? What sounds did you make? What sounds could he make you make? A thumb smoothed over his slit, spreading his precum and he sighed. Softly he heard his own voice say your name. God, he wanted you there with him. He needed you. He was certain in that moment, as he felt his breath hitch and his hips come up to fuck his hand in slow undulation, that you would be the balm to his weary soul. You would help to soften the blows that life was dealing to him. The remainder of the tour wouldn’t be a burden. Not with you there.
He saw your tits bounce as you rode him to his climax. Fuck, you were beautiful. Your soul-filled eyes melted his heart and he came in warm spurts in his own hand as he saw you tilt your head back in ecstasy. He couldn’t wait to kiss the column of your throat. To leave bruises there. Your image faded as he caught his breath but he thought he heard your ‘I love you, Eddie’ echo somewhere.
He would leave a better message. He would charm you. He would woo you. He would court you. He would do what it took to take care of you. If only you’d join him. If only you would be his.
*************************
CURRENT DAY…
BLEEP: Message Three: “So uh… maybe you don’t want to hear from me again, but uh… maybe I’m calling to apologize for that other guy who called? So this is me apologizing for being a complete dork last night. Admittedly, I was exhausted. And bowled over by you. So I was kind of in a state, you know? So I’m gonna blame your beauty for stupifying me and turning me into Mister Awkward before. I still hope you’re not running into major traffic hassles. I still hope you’re safe. And I still hope you like me after this message because I think I’m rambling again. Damn. I can’t be normal around you. What the fuck is that, huh? Oh. Uh… sorry for swearing. I’m around a lot of guys all the time and we uh… yeah. Anyways, I thought I’d call you before the sound check and let you know that I’m okay and I still can’t get you out of my mind. What part of the book are you up to anyway? I never asked. I hope you like it. It’s one of my favorites. Always has been. First read it when I was like fourteen and couldn’t put it down-“ BLEEP
BLEEP: Message Four: “Crap. Sorry about that. I didn’t know I’d get cut off that soon, but I suppose I should have. Sorry. Anyway. It’s Eddie again. As if you didn’t know. Sound check is about to start, so I do have to go, but I love hearing your little message greeting on the phone when I call. Really can’t wait to hear you in person. Again. Uh… yeah. So let me let you go. I’ll talk to you later? Okay, sweetheart? Okay. Bye.” BLEEP
You stopped the playback again.
Sweetheart. He called you sweetheart. He-
“He thinks you’re pretty too!” Julia’s mocking voice came through loud and clear. “Eddie likes youuuuuu!!” she teased.
“God Jules! Can’t I have just one good thing?” you said. “Stop it. Get out of my head. And stay out.”
Silence.
You hit the play button again.
BLEEP: Message Five: “Hey this is Darren from work. Bob’s really kinda pissed that you left in such a hurry. Just wanted to let you know so when you got back, you could maybe have your resumé ready to go and a few other jobs lined up? You know, just in case. Okay. Good luck.” BLEEP
Fuck you, Darren. You hated that damn job anyway. But the message he left sent the mood crashing down around your ears. You stopped the playback.
You looked out the window of your living room out onto Providence. Your view wasn’t much, but you didn’t mind. You had the street spread out below you, your favorite diner in the distance, and a few of the skyscrapers lit up like offerings to ancient gods. The steeple from the cathedral was always cool to see in the daylight, but was completely obscured by the night now. It had started to rain. Suddenly, you were very tired. The machine beeped once more before blinking “12” with the other messages stored in memory.
“Goodnight, Eddie,” you murmured. “Wherever you are.”
Sleep took you again within minutes of getting into bed properly. You thought of him again. His smile. His easy laugh. The way he looked at you when you gave him that wink after you played the song on the jukebox. Okay. Now that was a memory to build a dream on. And if he called at 3am and woke you? You wouldn’t mind in the least. Call again, precious boy. Please.
#fanfic#writing#joseph quinn#joe quinn#stranger things#eddie munson#rockstar!eddie x reader#rockstar!eddie munson#rockstar!eddie smut#eventual smut#slow burn#adam and eve on a raft
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standing still
Summary: Hotch & Reid travel to Connecticut for a custodial interview with Chester Hardwick before he's put to death. Their trip does not go smoothly. (ASD!Hotch & ASD!Reid, plus some Hotchgan.) (Coda to 3x14 - Damaged)
Pairing: Hotch/Morgan (but Derek is barely in the story)
Warnings: vomit, meltdown, food, depression, anxiety, divorce, canon-typical mention of crime/murder
Words: 6k
Notes: Ah, well, an idea on a whim yesterday produced 6k words overnight. Where did it come from? I don't know. But it's here. And it puts me over 50k words posted for the month of January which is pretty fucking cool.
**
The hotel is haunted.
Supposedly.
Hotch has heard the stories enough times, he's stayed there plenty over the years. Back when custodial interviews were more common and the jet wasn't an option, and he was the new guy on the block drawing the short straw. Never experienced a ghost that he's aware of, but if he has, they're very hospitable. He likes this hotel. The beds are comfortable, the continental breakfast is simple and predictable, the water pressure in the showers is strong. Not blast your skin clean off of your body strong but pounding those knots out of your muscles strong.
So, if it's haunted, he really doesn't care. But Reid has been doing some digging and he's excited to talk to locals about it. He doesn't believe in ghosts, per se, but he loves to collect stories. So, the hotel is haunted, and people say the prison is too. One of the cell blocks, anyway. He wants to ask the Warden about it in the morning. Connecticut is rife with stories of hauntings that go all the way back to the Headless Horseman.
“Have you heard about the prison? They say it's haunted by a former inmate who was killed by a group of guards. I guess the guards got to a point where they wouldn't go on that cell block, so they turned it into a storage facility. Funny, too, that a prison that still conducts executions is so focused on one death. You would think the whole place would be crawling with the souls of the dead prisoners.”
“I've heard,” Hotch replies quietly, staring at the road. He's lost in his mind. “But I haven't paid it much attention.”
“Well, I don't believe in ghosts but it's fascinating the way these stories take hold. The grip that they have on people, even rational people who say they don't believe, is powerful. People say they've seen file cabinets levitating and they hear moaning and screaming from that end of the prison at the full moon."
“A few minutes of fame can make someone say just about anything. We've seen it plenty of times during cases.”
He's not able to focus on the conversation for long. It comes in bits and pieces, scattered moments between the phone buzzing angrily at his thigh. It's Haley calling. Every fifteen minutes she calls, lets it ring and ring, then leaves a voicemail. That's 20 angry voicemails, give or take, by the time they get there if she keeps up at her current pace. 20 tirades that he has to listen to even though his gut tells him not to. Just delete them, he knows exactly what she wants.
She wants him to sign the papers. He's got them in his go bag. The plan is to read them again, really read them this time, but he doesn't want to and he's definitely putting it off. Derek already read them once. He went through them with a fine-tooth comb, because he's not emotionally involved...not like that anyway. He gave them his seal of approval. “It's all legit, man. She just wants to dissolve the marriage, let you guys manage the rest on your own. It's a good deal. You already gave her everything anyway...”
He's going to be sick if he doesn't eat something. It's a sudden realization, he's been ignoring that pang in his stomach so long that it's practically an emergency now. Up ahead is a roadside diner with a sign that's half lit up in bright yellow bulbs (the other half are in dire need of replacement but by the looks of it they have no real plans to do so). Hotch knows it's a gamble with Reid but it's one he's willing to take. The alternative is worse. Much worse.
“Let's get an early dinner here.” It's barely past lunch time, but he doesn't plan to eat again so that's just how it comes out. Aware that he sounds elderly, an old man after his early bird special, he smiles and tries to play it off casually but his stomach hurts so bad it's hard to hide. “They don't look busy, it'll be fast.”
“Diners aren't known for their cleanliness.”
“It's the only place around for miles. I'm sure we'll be okay.”
Inside, it's exactly what Hotch expects. Emerald green vinyl booths with silver plated tables, the look of every ice cream soda shop from the 1950s. Well, the idyllic version of that decade that mainstream media wants you to feel nostalgic for, anyway. There are framed movie posters on the wall with Ronald Reagan's face on some, Betty Boop on others. Reid looks around and frowns. He's not confident in this place but he walks inside anyway, stepping carefully around the bubble gum and sticker machines in the small entry. One quarter for a hard gumball that tastes like fruity plastic and threatens to chip your tooth until you can manage your way through the exterior. A dentist's worst nightmare. And they're not individually wrapped, just sitting there in the clear glass calling out to children who don't know any better. He shudders at the thought.
At the hostess station, he peers at the framed health department notices hung cockeyed on the wall in cheap frames, studying the dates of their last checks and whether they passed inspection. He eyeballs the kitchen, the greasy flat top, the cooks sweating and swearing and laughing over them. They both look relatively clean, but one has a beard and he's not wearing anything to cover it. It's not exactly a nightmare scenario, it's actually better than he'd anticipated, but he still would rather not eat here. He's got plenty of pre-packaged safe foods in his go bag.
The restaurant isn't busy, though it looks like they've just missed a rush by all of the full dish bins. They're between meal hours. That's a blessing, it affords them time and quiet, both things that Reid can tell Hotch needs. He's usually pretty reserved but today he's a whole new level of difficult.
Hotch slides into his side of the booth immediately, like he needs to sit down before he collapses. The cracked vinyl groans under his weight and he tries to find a spot that's comfortable. Reid reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of Lysol wipes, first getting his side of the table and then his side of the booth. Hotch pays no attention; he's already looking at the menu. Reid always wipes everything down first and it normally doesn't bother Hotch, he finds it endearing if not a little pointless considering the surroundings, but today everything that everyone is doing makes him feel itchy and like he's going to vibrate right out of his skin.
His stomach is bothering him. It's the stress. He can't stop thinking about the voicemails, wondering if he should go outside and listen to them. He could grab some Tums from his go bag while he's out there, kill two birds with one stone but he doesn't want to get back up. He's exhausted by the mere thought of it. Besides, the stomachache will turn into a headache in no time anyway and the Tums will be just as pointless as Reid's Lysol wipes.
“What are you going to order?” Reid asks absentmindedly, looking over the freshly cleaned menu. He's thinking about the cook and his beard, trying to figure out what he can order that's going to require the least amount of human interaction with his food. A piece of pie might be it; he saw them in the case already sliced and covered in plastic. He likes individual pre-packaged servings. It's doubtful they were baked here, he figures they're factory made and packaged by machines, the human part of it being minimal. He could probably get away with not thinking about who sliced it.
But then a slice of pie isn't dinner, and he is hungry.
“I don't know,” Hotch replies quietly, not at all hungry. But he's the one who decided to pull over so he's going to have to order something. He'd just wanted to stop driving, to catch his breath for a minute. Now he's got to come up with some food item that won't upset his stomach further, something that won't kill him when it comes back up later. He's already anticipating a rough night. “Maybe soup and some toast.”
“Did you know that in many restaurants, the soup of the day is made using whatever leftover ingredients are on the verge of needing to be thrown out as a way to curb waste? I saw that the soup of the day here was the tomato basil with garlic toast points, so...”
Hotch frowns behind his menu without looking up. “I suppose I'm doing my part to stop unnecessary waste, then. Tomato soup sounds nice.”
It isn't the response Spencer was hoping for, but he shrugs and turns back to his own menu. Pie. He's going to have pie and he'll snack on the food he brought later. He hails a waitress, not theirs, and asks which pies are made in house. She answers with pride that they make most of them in house, their baker comes in at 3am every day and even makes the crust herself. There are only two they have shipped because the ingredients are hard to keep on hand. When their waitress comes by, he orders one of the two kinds they don't make here. “Pecan, please.”
Hotch orders the tomato soup without a second thought. It comes in a large white bowl set on a little plate with saltine crackers, and the deep velvety velvety crimson of the tomato is a stark contrast to the bowl's brightness. In the center is a dash what looks like basil or parsley and a swirl of heavy cream on top.
“I read that they blend up old vegetables from the salads for tomato soup,” Reid mutters, wiping his fork on his pant leg. There are dishwasher spots on it. “It helps bulk it up, especially when the cost of tomatoes is so high. That soup is probably mostly lettuce and carrots.”
“Reid,” Hotch says quietly, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. There it is, the headache. “Less commentary about the food I'm about to eat would be appreciated.”
Reid smiles awkwardly, twirling his fork in his hands. “Sorry. Force of habit. I find the restaurant business simultaneously fascinating and horrifying.”
Hotch doesn't acknowledge Reid's statement; he just picks up his spoon and swirls it in the soup. Clockwise. He turns it in one big circle around the edge, dragging the spoon along the bowl, and then swoops inward to fold the cream into the red. The soup turns a vibrant peachy-orange and he smiles, the color looks serene and peaceful. He thinks about lettuce when he takes his first bite, but thankfully isn't able to taste it. After three bites he doesn't think about lettuce anymore. He thinks about being a child, about weekend lunches of canned condensed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Every Saturday. Predictable. Comforting.
“Hotch,” Reid interrupts, and when he looks up, he's looking at crime scenes. Spread out in front of them, all over the table, his plate of pie lost somewhere in the middle of the gore...he didn't even realize Reid brought the files inside. It isn't that much of a stretch; the team often does this. They talk loudly about horrific things around the general public because what choice do they have? None of them even flinch at the sight of these things anymore. But not here. Not now. There are children eating with their parents two booths away. Hotch frowns. “Is this everything? I thought there were more. Chester Hardwick killed -”
“Please put those away.” Hotch doesn't care what Reid is about to say, he just interrupts him. His skin goes electric.
“We need to...”
“Not here.” He's about to lose it, he really is. Reid gives him a strange look, almost defiant and definitely confused, but he starts sliding the photos back into their folders just before their waitress brings Hotch his plate of whole wheat toast. He didn't want the garlic toast; his special order took an extra minute and now she was paying dearly for it. Involuntarily, she makes a displeased sound, a surprised little gasp, and he glances up at her with apology written all over in his honey eyes.
“I'm sorry,” Hotch says. “Sometimes we forget where we are when we're working.”
“What um...what is it you fellas do exactly?” she asks, refilling Hotch's coffee with trembling hands. He's on his third cup, his hands are trembling a little too. The coffee isn't making his stomach feel any better but it'll help him finish the drive.
“We're with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI,” Reid chimes in, closing the last of the folders. “We um, we catch serial killers. Today we're on our way to interview one before his scheduled execution.”
She stares, wide-eyed, and Hotch sighs. Under normal circumstances he would just let Reid do what he does. He's not doing anything wrong, and he knows without a doubt that all of the problems he's having are his entirely. He's overstimulated and extra prickly today. “Thank you for the coffee.” He doesn't mean it to sound as dismissive as it does and he's acutely aware as she turns and leaves the table that he's been rude. “Reid, she didn't need all of that information. A simple answer would have sufficed.”
“Sorry,” Reid chirps, digging at his pie. He picks the pecans off of the top first. “Force of habit.”
“So you've said.”
This is their first trip together, one on one. Sure, they've been all over the country as a group, but it's never just been the two of them and Hotch is certain now that he's not in the right frame of mind to handle it. He likes Reid, he enjoys him and his info-dumps. He always learns something new when he's with Reid. Besides, it's startlingly nice to be around another person who doesn't think the same as everyone else, who filters the world through a different operating system. Those were Garcia's words when she, very bluntly, asked if he was autistic. Reid always assumed it, but Garcia had no qualms about simply asking.
She had asked after running into him in the break room and watching him go through his very regimented steps to make his cup of coffee. Not that he did anything out of the ordinary, she explained, just that he didn't get his coffee from coffee stands like everyone else. He always insisted on making his own and he always did the same thing. Dump the filter, clean the pot, make one single cup using his own bag of grounds and a bottle of water brought from home because he didn't like what the filtration system in the building did to the flavor of his coffee. He kept his grounds in a small paper bag in the back of the freezer with his name on them, and his water bottle was labeled as well. All the years she'd known him, it was the same thing, and they disappeared at a very regimented pace. She claimed it was obvious. He knew there was more to it than that, she was just being nice and overly simplistic. He tried not to overthink it, dwell on it...he almost succeeded, too. But he did dwell a little, wondering how many other things he did that were just odd enough to tip her off.
Ultimately it didn't make any difference.
“I don't like my coffee to be a surprise,” he'd said quietly, a little defensive. “Sometimes with coffee shops, you'll get a different thing every day even with the same order. They'll try to surprise you with more of something or less of something, or they'll change the beans they use, or the strength of the brew. I prefer not to guess whether my coffee is what I want.”
“It's okay, sir, I understand completely. I go to the same bakery every time because they've been around for fifty years with the same recipes.”
“Trudeau's?” Hotch asked, smiling. She nodded.
“The one and only. You always know what you're going to get, and it's always going to be good.”
The problem Hotch runs into frequently is that his operating system, so to speak, isn't like Reid's. Or Garcia's. He's the odd man out even here where he thinks he should be able to relate. He knows it's a spectrum, of course he knows that, but it doesn't stop him feeling isolated. The discouragement that comes from knowing how separate he is makes it hard for him to find a way to communicate it.
So, he doesn't. He keeps his mouth shut and his head down and he just forges on.
That Derek learned his tells early on was a mixed blessing. He'd groaned about being profiled, unwritten team rules, but secretly he thought it was nice to be seen.
If Haley wasn't so angry with him, maybe he'd be better able to manage his own expectations and reactions in this situation which was really going quite well, all things considered. He was so skilled at masking and managing that these days when he was raw and vulnerable and completely unable to keep his shields up were few and far between...but since the divorce papers were served, he couldn't name a single day he felt totally in control. Derek helps when he can, where he can. Derek has been a life raft in a raging sea, but he can't fix everything. He's got problems and a life of his own. He's got mountains to climb and traumas to heal. Hotch is acutely aware that he takes more than he gives frequently and needs to do better. Derek would vehemently disagree with that. But it doesn't matter, he's sitting at the table mortified by how rude he'd been to the waitress and to Reid, wishing Derek were here to help him back to the path.
But Derek couldn't come, not this time. Someone had to stay behind and run the BAU while Hotch was away without cell reception in a prison. It puts them all in a vulnerable position and anymore, he preferred to be the one to do it. Which left his second in command to man the ship. Hotch couldn't think of anyone better to run the team, and the fact that Derek had chosen to love him on top of all of his needs, in spite of all of that, he still isn't sure how it happened. He sometimes forgets he's lovable at all.
Today he's completely out of control. It's just fitting, in some way, that his version of out of control still looks very subtle if you don't look too closely. No one can tell he's breaking. He just looks grouchy. He's sure he'll make it to the hotel before the cracks in his armor start becoming visible.
“We should get back on the road. I looked up the traffic reports and if we're not in city limits by 4pm, we're going to be stuck on the highway for an average of thirty to sixty minutes longer than necessary.”
“You've hardly eaten your pie,” Hotch says, poking at his own barely eaten toast. He plans to finish the meal if it kills him, traffic be damned. “I'm not concerned about the time, we don't have anywhere to be until tomorrow.”
They get to the hotel in a reasonable time, not exactly as good as they'd hoped but not as bad as Reid feared. It's possible Hotch might have been going a little over the posted limits in places, but Reid wasn't going to tell anyone. It's still better than Emily's driving. He suddenly understands why Derek always holds the door handle when he's in the passenger seat, though.
“One room?” Hotch asks the clerk, exasperated at the sight of the one key card. He should have known. “They only booked us one room? Would it be possible to get another?”
“I'm sorry sir, there's a convention and a concert here tonight, we're booked solid. I might be able to find you two rooms somewhere else if you'd like me to call around. You'll have better luck just outside the city.”
Hotch knew this hotel. Sure, a second room would be nice but a hotel he wasn't familiar with sounded just a bit too much for him right now. He and Reid have shared a room before. It isn't ideal, not by a longshot, but it works. “No, thank you. One room is fine. There are two beds, though?”
“Yes, sir. It's a double queen. Non-smoking. No pets.”
“We don't smoke or have pets.”
The room is small. That's the first thing that Hotch notices. He's always had a single room here and he thinks it's the same size but with an extra bed. And speaking of beds...the second thing he notices is that the beds are not, in fact, queen sized. They are full, a whole size smaller. He sets his bag neatly on top of the bed closest to the door while Reid goes for the one further in... that's always how they do it. Hotch stays closer to the point of entry, no matter who he rooms with. And then he puts the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. He doesn't care for people coming into his room, to clean or not.
“You can take the first shower,” he offers, pulling out his suit for the next morning and hanging it up. There are voices next door, muffled but clearly a man and some children. Paper thin walls, he can hear everything the man is saying to the children. Telling them to be quiet, to quit stomping, to turn the television down. Reid nods and heads right for the bathroom with his Ziplock bag of cleaning supplies. He always brings his own in order to sanitize the tub and shower head before he uses them, and Hotch, knowing this, always offers the first shower. The first time Reid did it after he showered, he felt filthy. Like Reid was cleaning him off of the tub. Never again.
He doesn't care about who gets the first shower, otherwise. He kicks his shoes off and sits on his bed, leaning back against the bleach scented pillows in their over-starched cases and closes his eyes. His head is throbbing.
Reid leaves the bathroom smelling like Lysol and bleach and Hotch watches as he strips his bed of the comforter. “Did you know they don't wash these?” he asks, dumping it into the corner like it disgusts him. “They wash the blankets and sheets with all sorts of harsh chemicals, they go scorched earth, but rarely the comforter. Not unless it's visibly soiled.”
“I had no idea,” Hotch lies. He does know, he just...once again...does not care. He can't care about everything and he's got more than enough on his plate right now. “I'll take yours, if you don't plan to use it. I get cold.” That's the damn truth. Reid sleeps with the air conditioner on no matter what the season. Hotch can't take it.
“It's all yours.” Reid barely hides the disgust in his features as he tosses the green and gold comforter toward his boss. Hotch doesn't notice the look; he just wads it up beside him and is satisfied knowing he's got a little extra protection against the cold air assault later.
He decides to take a walk down to the vending machine for some pretzels, and that's when he pulls out his phone and listens to the messages. One after another, terse and angry, Haley tells him to sign the papers, to call him, asks him why he won't just do it. Two of the messages are from Jessica calmly telling him to get his head out of his ass and call one of them back. “If you won't talk to her, fine. Talk to me. Just call one of us. Either that or I'm going to assume you've been injured in the line of duty and start calling your bosses...”
Jessica gets the call. He would have tried Haley but he just...he can't. It'll turn into a fight.
"It's about damn time," she says through clenched teeth and he closes his eyes.
“I'm on the road,” he says quietly. “I've been driving all day with Doctor Reid. The constant phone calls and threats are a little much, don't you think?”
“We were worried.”
“No, you were worried. She's only concerned about my signature.”
“Fair enough. Just get it over with. Sign the damn papers.”
“I haven't had any time to read them.”
“You of all people should know exactly what's in there, and besides, I know you already asked Derek to read them. You don't trust him? What's really stopping you?”
He sighs and pushes the button that reads B9 for the pretzels. They get stuck on the way down, jammed between the spiral and the window, and he thinks that's it. He's going to cry. That's all it takes, one single second of that crinkly blue bag of Rold Gold tiny twist pretzels getting stuck right there and the tears are burning tracks down his cheeks. “I need time.”
He's pacing back and forth in front of the vending machine now, wearing a track in the dingy red carpet. His mind loops. The papers. The drive. The soup. The photos. The pretzels. Repeat repeat. He worries the pads of his fingers over his nails until they nearly bleed and his breathing speeds up. Jessica can hear it, she knows exactly what this looks like, but she isn't gentle. He passed on gentle hours ago when he ignored her calls, she figures.
“Suck it up. Read the papers tonight, sign them tomorrow. Be done with it, Aaron. Move on. She already has.”
“I'll read the papers tonight.” He repeats the one part of what she said that he can manage. It makes her pause, re-calibrate her course before she sends him into a tailspin. She's dangerously close and she does feel bad. She understands, Haley has been at her throat all day today too.
“Just sign the papers and I promise it'll make everything better. Do it for Jack, so you two can get back on good terms. Jack needs you both to remember how much you mean to one another. And I know Derek would like it if you'd let it go...please. Sign the papers.”
He can't breathe. He's standing with his back against the wall and overcome with the feeling that his legs are about to give out, the world is about to go dark, he's about to lose whatever shred of control he still held. His body is giving him what little warning it can, and it isn't much. He's better at listening now than he used to be. “I'll call you tomorrow when I'm back in town.”
“Sign the papers Aaron!”
She hollers it into the phone, one last demand. He barely hears it before he hangs up and stumbles back to the room without his pretzels, someone else can have them. He makes his way immediately for the shower, shutting and locking the door behind him.
Reid barely notices, he's got Chester Hardwick's photos spread out all over his bed and he's deep in thought. “The hot water takes a minute,” he says absently, as if Hotch is right there.
It doesn't matter, anyway. He's not going for the shower yet. He almost doesn't make it to the toilet before he vomits. Reid can definitely hear that, and it startles him, but he assumes it's food poisoning and he isn't at all surprised. That damn soup. Lettuce is notorious for salmonella. Hotch is happy to let him think it's food poisoning too, it's a harmless lie. Better than the alternative.
His shower is anything but relaxing. He presses his forehead into the tile so hard it hurts while his stomach cramps and he's worried he's going to throw up again but the pressure he keeps on his forehead stills the nausea. For now. He's not exactly crying, it's sort of just miserable gasping for air while the shower washes away his tears. He can barely breathe. His hands are balled so tight his fingernails cut crescents in his palms and he can feel the small spots of blood pooling there. Sign the papers, Aaron. Sign the papers, Aaron. Uncontested, that's what she wants. He doesn't have a problem with that part of it. He'd willingly give her everything, keep nothing for himself. That isn't it, that isn't it at all. He doesn't want to sign it because signing it is permanent. Right now there is still hope. He still wears the ring. She hasn't worn hers in a long time, sometimes it's around her neck and other times it's nowhere in sight...but his is still firmly in place on his finger. Hope. Some shred, however minuscule, still exists and the minute his signature is on that page it's gone.
And he's alone.
What's he supposed to do with the bare skin where the ring once sat?
He cries harder. The walls are paper thin and if someone on the other side is in the bathroom, they can definitely hear his miserable moaning. Sobbing. He collapses slowly, crumples, his joints folding and his limbs contorting until he's sitting in the tub in a ball sobbing into his kneecaps. He hasn't had a meltdown like this in years, not since Adrian Bale and that bomb put him in charge of the BAU and left him just about as vulnerable as he'd ever been. But he'd had Derek then, and he pulled through. The one constant good was Derek.
“Hotch? Are you alright?”
“Fine,” he grunts with his wet lips in tear pools against his knees. He can't make himself sound fine, but he knows Reid isn't going to push further. He never does. They may not experience things in the same way, but Reid can recognize a meltdown when he sees it and he knows better than to try and intervene. The last thing Hotch needs is extra attention.
He goes about his business instead, glad to be sure now that Hotch's soup wasn't killing him. He prepares, rehearses, but still listens. A meltdown isn't going to hurt Hotch but falling in the shower might and he's more than a little concerned about that. Statistics are overwhelming when it comes to shower related injuries.
When Hotch walks out of the bathroom in sweatpants and a t-shirt with red-rimmed eyes glassy and dazed, Reid doesn't say a thing. Not at first. He notices, it would be impossible not to, but he can't find anything to say about it, so he asks the question that's on his mind.
“What time do we need to be at the prison? I'd like to set the alarm now.”
“7am. We'll be done and on the road by 9am.” That's it. Hotch spreads the second comforter over his bed and he burrows beneath the blankets. That's all he's got in him. Reid stays up pouring over files he's already memorized, full of nervous excitement. Custodials always put him into a frenzied mindset. He hasn't done too many of them and this is definitely the most excited he's been. Chester Hardwick doesn't talk to anyone, refused their requests repeatedly.
The meeting with Hardwick is something neither of them wants to discuss once they're out of the prison. Once they're back in the fresh air under the bright blue sky, not locked up in a cement room with a madman who thinks killing a couple of FEDs will earn him a stay of execution. Maybe it would have, but Reid managed to talk their way out of it. The very thing that Hotch loves about Reid, and the thing that has been getting under his skin for the last day, saved their lives. He's grateful. It isn't lost on him. But it didn't stop him from shedding his jacket and tie, squaring up, almost hoping that Hardwick would try. He could take a beating for thirteen minutes, and he could give it right back. No way Hardwick would have managed to kill both of them, but he still feels guilty. His foul mood, that electric feeling, it didn't go anywhere while he slept. It only got worse.
Chester Hardwick's threats were enough to settle him, to bring him back to the reality where he's in charge, where he's in control.
But he knows he probably owes Reid his life. He starts with an apology that burns his tight lungs, and then explains that Haley wants him to sign the divorce papers uncontested. No lawyers. It's faster that way, he says. And her constant hounding has been getting to him more than it should.
Reid's answer is simplistic and sweet. He doesn't understand the complication, the intricate balance and Hotch smiles sadly. He just asks what Hotch wants and isn't that funny...because it doesn't matter. This whole thing is moving along full steam ahead whether he wants it or not. “What I want, I can't have.”
Reid seems to understand that much. He knows Hotch doesn't want to lose his family; he also knows that his family is already gone. He has no idea what to say, how to respond, but the silence screams so loud it almost hurts. He has to fill it with something. Part of him wants to bring up a conversation he had with the Warden about the haunted cell block, but he refrains. Hangs out in more neutral territory.
“Derek and the team will be back from Indianapolis by the time we get home. He'll know what to do.”
Hotch smiles and nods. “You're probably right.”
“It's a good thing we have him around, huh?”
“Yes,” Hotch whispers, feeling his heart beating wildly against his chest in a different way. Untamed but not painful. “It is.”
"Do you want to stop for lunch? I did some research and there's a diner about fifty miles ahead that gets good reviews." It's clean, that's what he means. None of the reviews talk about food poisoning or flies in the windowsills.
Hotch smiles wearily and nods. "Lunch sounds nice."
When they return to Quantico, Derek is already at his desk finishing up a detailed report of the case for Hotch. All the papers Hotch would normally do, he's already deep in the thick of before it's even asked of him. He hates it so much. But after talking to Reid for a few minutes earlier, he knows it's better to anticipate this one and get ahead of it. They'll have to defend their choice to take the jet and follow Rossi into his cold case that wasn't even on the BAU's radar.
"How was your day?" Derek asks, flipping the page. Reid shrugs and sets his bag down.
"Ultimately uneventful." If only Derek knew. Maybe he'd tell him later, but not now.
Hotch passes through the bullpen without looking at anyone. He just heads directly to his office and shuts the door.
He's got papers to sign.
Derek has his doubts about how uneventful things were, at least given Hotch's icy demeanor. Usually he would at least have greeted them, asked how the case went, asked how the reports were coming so he had a clue about what happened. He did none of those things.
Later, when everyone has settled into the late afternoon workload, Derek enters Hotch's office without knocking. He doesn't do that anymore. Hasn't in a long time. In one hand he's got a mug of tea, steaming and hot, and the other he uses to shut the door behind him.
“Hotch,” he says, approaching the desk cautiously. The divorce papers are right there, signed and ready to be handed over. There are damp places where the tears soaked in, and his bright gold ring sits right at the top. Derek already knows the answer to the question he's about to ask, but it dances over his lips nonetheless. “You good?”
Hotch looks up at him from beneath thick, wet lashes and shakes his head. “No.”
#aaron hotchner#spencer reid#derek morgan#hotchgan#hotch x morgan#criminal minds#fanfiction#autistic hotch#autistic reid#autistic aaron hotchner
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@october-appreciation Thank you!! It's going extremely well -- which is to say the original Launch Day plans were grandiose and impractical, and have steadily been reduced. This is an expected, unsurprising reality. Plans are guidelines, not law books.
Things not done for Launch Day will arise in the coming weeks, or months, or seasons.
Tomorrow exists independent of how much work I got done today, the moon will rise and let me continue.
I built and ran Evil Supply Co. like a man running out of options -- which to varying degrees was accurate.
I dig through the original character stories and origins of Atticus as a character, as an unnamed narrator, and there was a sharp desperation to escape.
To find a way out, find somewhere better.
I was in a bad place, rapidly decaying, being consumed. I remember explaining, countless times to countless people, "I feel like I am at a piano concert. All eyes on me. I am staring at the keys and realizing I don't know how to play the piano." Crushing anxiety. I had a lot of business dealings and none of them served me -- I was always a tertiary benefactor at best.
Just shy of ten years later, I find myself relaunching, a non-binary fellow. Somehow with better hair?! Amazing.
Prep to launch is travel plans. Pack the car, get ready to go, forgetting something, double check the lists, leave on time but realize we have to stop a million times before we get out of the city.
Launch day, leaving the city, it is in the rear-view mirror.
And then that's it. Drive forever.
Pull over for gas when needed, check out diners and roadside attractions. Largest ball of yarn in the world? Haunted house so scary "seeing is believing"? I'm there!
Endless road trip. Destination fuzzy at best, whatever catches my eye. Vehicle is cozy enough that I have everything I need. Small, modest, lightweight. Happy and sustainable to my needs.
I built Evil Supply Co. because I wanted to escape Earth and find the Netherworld. I'm building this Post Office because I've found it.
Forty years of running.
I'm finally home.
I'm safe.
I'm finally home.
Thank you for coming to this space. I hope the wares offered are things that will delight and thrill you.
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Unsurprisingly, Royce most commonly haunts his hometown of Marshall, particularly the baseball field, the lookout points, and the crash site. Less frequently, he can be found at the highschool, the movie theatre, the graveyard, and the diner ( funny how the jukebox will randomly fire up Wake Up Little Susie – one of Royce’s favourite songs ). Other times, he simply wanders. In some verses, he may find the courage to return to his family home, but generally speaking it’s the one place he avoids.
While it is not always a conscious or voluntary choice – particularly in the years immediately following his death – Royce will ‘re-enact’ his final drive. The local police department is well used to receiving calls about a spectral speeding vehicle, or a wreck smouldering in the middle of that infamous road, of which there is no trace.
On occasion, Royce attempts to hitchhike from the crash site, or may be sighted standing on the roadside covered in blood. Even if a car fails to stop, he is able to appear inside them as they pass. Royce may also harbour an attachment to items that were dear to him in life ( various baseball memorabilia, his lighter, items of clothing, parts salvaged from Little Sweetheart and his mechanics tools to name a few ) and through these he is able to manifest elsewhere – wherever the item is, regardless of whether or not it is in a place he was connected to while alive. This requires energy and focus on his part, is affected by physical distance, and depends on whether memories of a particular item are at the forefront of his mind.
Attachments to people can also form, and he doesn’t need to have known the person in life. It’s possible for him to forge emotional connections with the living, or to feel drawn to those who can perceive him.
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Outrun the Ordinary: A Review of a Film That Pushes the Visual Pedal
Forget popcorn, grab your ray-bans, because "The Outrun" isn't a movie; it's a portal to a neon-drenched oasis where the ordinary takes a sharp turn off the highway and dives headfirst into hyper-stylized nirvana. Buckle up, film fanatics and adrenaline junkies, because this review is about to throw you into the passenger seat of a cinematic joyride that pushes the visual pedal to the floor and leaves the speedometer spinning.
From Blaring Boomboxes to Gleaming Chrome Dreamscapes: The director doesn't just recreate the 80s; they reinvent it, twisting familiar aesthetics into a hyper-realized dreamscape. Picture this: endless highways bleeding into perpetual twilight, vintage muscle cars shimmering like chrome gods under pulsating neon signs, and abandoned diners casting jagged shadows that whisper of untold stories. This isn't your dusty museum exhibit; it's a living, breathing world dripping with retro cool and oozing modern intensity.
But "the outrun movie review" isn't just a feast for the eyes. The soundtrack is the nitrous oxide that fuels the narrative. Synth melodies weave a sonic tapestry that echoes with the ghosts of Eurythmics and Depeche Mode. Each pulsating beat drives the story forward, mirroring the protagonist's restless spirit like a piston pounding the asphalt of the film's heart. It's not just background music; it's a character in itself, a seductive siren song promising escape and redemption on the endless open road.
Beyond the Tail Lights: This isn't just a neon joyride with a retro soundtrack. Beneath the shimmering chrome and throbbing neon lies a story with the depth of a vintage vinyl record. Our nameless driver isn't just cruising; he's running. Haunted by a past as dark as the shadows cast by the roadside diners, he seeks solace in the anonymity of the highway. Each encounter, a fleeting exchange with a drifter, a neon-clad stranger, or a mysterious woman who becomes his temporary co-pilot, chips away at his silence, revealing glimpses of the trauma that fuels his escape.
This isn't just an 80s nostalgia trip. The director uses the decade's aesthetics as a springboard to explore universal themes of loss, longing, and the human need for connection. It's about confronting your demons, both literal and metaphorical, and searching for redemption in the endless expanse of the road. It's about outrunning not just the past, but the limitations of who you thought you were.
Fuel Injected Storytelling: The narrative unfolds with the minimalist elegance of a vintage arcade game. Dialogue is sparse, letting the pulsating landscapes and electrifying soundtrack do the talking. It's a cinematic language that speaks to the gut, bypassing the head and going straight for the heartstrings. Every frame is a carefully crafted brushstroke, every scene a masterclass in visual storytelling, leaving you breathless and begging for more.
Rewind and Replay: "the outrun sundance review" is a film that demands multiple viewings. Each time you cruise through, new details shimmer in the neon reflections, hidden meanings emerge from the shadows, and unspoken emotions flicker in the protagonist's steely gaze. It's a film that grows with you, its resonance deepening with each encounter, leaving you humming the soundtrack and craving the open road long after the credits roll.
Neon Escape and Enduring Resonance: So, why does "The Outrun" stay with you long after the final frame? It's more than just the visual feast, more than the adrenaline rush. It's the story, a simple yet profound tale of facing the past, seeking redemption, and finding connection in the most unexpected places. It's the journey, not just the destination, a constant movement forward that mirrors the protagonist's (and our own) quest for self-discovery.
Final Verdict: "The Outrun" is a cinematic triumph, a neon-fueled odyssey that pushes the boundaries of visual storytelling and transcends the limitations of mere nostalgia. It's a film that stays with you long after the final frame, a reminder that sometimes, the greatest escapes are the ones we take within ourselves. So, fire up the engine, crank up the synthwave, and prepare to outrun the ordinary.
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𝙴𝚟𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝙸𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚝
The moonlight bathed the desolate highway as Chris cruised along, tunes playing softly in the background. Suddenly, a figure emerged from the shadows—a hitchhiker, his grin stretching a bit too wide for comfort.
Intrigued yet cautious, Chris slowed down, engaging in a brief conversation with the hitchhiker. The man's eyes held a peculiar intensity, and Chris's instincts screamed at him to proceed with caution. "Sorry, man," Chris said, conjuring a convincing excuse. "I've got some urgent errands in the opposite direction."
As he drove away, a curious wave of relief washed over him, a sensation both confusing and comforting. Hours later, seeking refuge in a roadside diner, Chris overheard chilling whispers of recent disappearances along the same stretch of road, all eerily similar to the hitchhiker's appearance.
A chill ran down his spine as he connected the dots, realizing he might've narrowly escaped a grim fate. Grateful for the inexplicable sense of caution that spared him, Chris felt a lingering unease, haunted by the thought of what might have been. ✫
#ʙᴀᴛʜɪɴɢᴏᴡʟ#ᴏᴡʟsᴘᴇɴ#short story#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writing#creative writing#my writing#art#artists on tumblr#ominous#spooky#spooky stories#dark academia#light academia
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sometimes you just gotta... develop spooky original characters and spooky lore. it be like that sometimes.
#(i’m making a blog for them)#(it’s like a cryptid aesthetic)#(roadside diners and old gas stations and forests and the like)#(ghosts!! and creatures and hauntings)#(things that linger)#(still figuring out the exact location)#storyteller || ooc
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Indoors
-house overlooking the sea
-cottage in the country
-secluded lake house
-snowy cabin in the woods
-haunted castle
-cathedral with stained glass windows
-manor house during a thunderstorm
-ballroom lit by candlelight
-French chateau
-Victorian conservatory
-sunny artist’s studio
-cozy kitchen
-train ride through the countryside
-traveling caravan
-rest stop off the highway
-roadside diner
-cruise ship
-lighthouse
-damp cave
-creepy basement
-abandoned shack
-empty school or museum
-quiet library
-antique shop in a city
-neighborhood bakery
-used bookstore
-florist shop
-old theater
~~~~~~~~~
Outdoors
-forest in autumn
-misty moor
-beach during sunset
-gazebo overlooking the ocean
-uninhabited island
-storm-tossed boat
-waterfall
-ancient stone circle
-wildflower meadow
-bluebell wood
-secret garden
-treehouse
-park with cherry blossom trees
-country road
-farmer’s market
-apple orchard
-picnic under a tree
-campsite with a bonfire
-abbey ruin
-old stone bridge
-rolling green hills
-snowcapped mountains
-desert at night
-courtyard with a fountain
-narrow cobblestone streets
-medieval town
-carnival at night
-drive in theater
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A quick obituary, if y'all don't mind.
In 2018 my cat Lace died. it was sudden and mysterious and she went to one of her favorite spots to do it alone. She was buried just before a big hurricane at the beginning of summer. a little bit later me and my mom took a road trip to Georgia to see family, and I was inspired by the life and death i saw on the side of the roads to draw the 24/7 Haunted Roadside Diner comics.
In 2022 my cat Coup died. it was a long fight through 7 months of cancer that ended with me holding him at the vet as he took one last big jump after months of losing the ability to do so. he was cremated just before a big hurricane at the end of summer. a little bit later me and my mom took a road trip to Georgia to see family, and I was inspired by the life and death i saw on the side of the roads to draw more 24/7 Haunted Roadside Diner comics after not thinking about them for years.
They were total brats to each other most of the time and they could never agree on anything, but they were my friends for almost half of my life and they called truces to sit on my bed together and comfort me during the Bad Health Times or the Bad Emotions Times. I didn't realize that I was repeating history a little bit until I was almost finished redrawing these first 5 pages, but I think it's funny that even though they tried to go out as they lived, as fussy little opposites, that I started really healing from both of their deaths creatively in the same way. So here's to the prettiest girl in the world and the baby boy. I probably could have gotten weird enough emotionally to write about roadkill ghost stories on my own, but y'all made it way easier to get there.
I redrew the first 5 pages to fit in better with any future 24/7 HRD comics I want to do (and generally flex my improved art/writing skills), so I’ll be posting one of those a day for the next few days. I've got 5 more pages and some illustrations planned for spooky season (October/November) along with some Downtrodden stuff so y'know. Nature is healing.
Hopefully I'll have more to post soon. the future is lookin' lonelier without my small grey guy, but it'll still have bright spots I bet. I hope.
#24/7 haunted roadside diner#the haunted roadside diner#vulture#comic#horror#weird image to put an obituary on but who's gonna stop me?#also don't get used to the capital letters because this is copy pasted from patreon#people have to literally pay me to use the garbage shift key on this laptop
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The one with the road trip
Part 15 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!
Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)
Warnings | 18+ only - no smut but mentions of it
Chapter 15 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 1 | Masterlist
Apologies for any mistakes, this has been written on my phone and its a bit difficult to edit. Once I’m back with a working laptop I’ll give it a once over :)
Bucky had intended on renting a bike so you could ride down to Louisiana but with Sam’s suit it would’ve been an impossible feat.
He settled for hiring an SUV and added you both to the insurance so you could take it in turns driving on the long trip down south.
“Been together one day and we’re already on our first trip” You teased as you rested your feet on the dash, taking in the scenery as Bucky drove. His metal hand gripped the steering wheel as he peaked a glance over to your bare legs, resisting the urge to pull over.
“You’re the one having a mid life crisis doll not me” You feigned offense and swatted the soldier beside you, pleased to get a hit in as he tried to dodge your attack. His eyes remained on the road as he grasped your hand in his. “Less of that thank you” He laughed, bringing your hand to his lips, leaving a kiss on the back before giving it back to rest on your thigh, his hand not leaving yours.
“Looking forward to seeing Sam again?” He didn’t respond but his face said it all. “You’re so dramatic” You chuckled as you leant down to root around in your bag for the road trip snacks. Retrieving a bag of cashews, you offered it to Bucky who gladly took a handful.
“I just know he’s going to ask a billion questions about stuff we’ve not even discussed yet, that we’re probably not even ready to talk about. He didn’t stop asking about you y’know? Y/n this, Y/n that…he kept threatening to ask you out.”
“Oh he did”
The car swerved slightly as Bucky's grip on the wheel tightened, his concentration lapsing for a split second.
“He did what?” He asked, tearing his eyes from the road to glance over at you.
“It was just a bit of harmless flirting-” You began before being cut off.
“We flirted.” Bucky stated, his jaw clenching.
“We also did a lot of things just friends don’t do. Relax Sarge, he only asked to get a reaction out of me.”
Bucky grunted in response, knowing his reaction was a tad over the top but he couldn’t help it. You were his.
“We could always mess with him in return.” You pondered as you took a swig of your drink. “Maybe hold off on telling him about us, it’s only meant to be a flying visit anyway isn’t it? So we wouldn’t have to pretend for long… play him at his own game?”
Bucky smirked in response, completely on board with your little plan.
The next few hours passed with the typical car games and a quick power nap as Bucky continued driving.
“How long until you start at Starks?”
“A month thank god, the GRC wanted me gone pretty quickly, I didn't have to work my notice which was a blessing really. I’ll schedule a day to go and clear out my desk and say my goodbyes. Will you still get your pension if we live out of the country?”
“I’m not sure to be honest, I can pick up work wherever we are though, it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m good with my hands”
“You’re telling me” You muttered under your breath. Bucky heard you loud and clear and let out a laugh as he recalled how you spent most of last night. “Are we crazy? Travelling with no plan, barely any money and only just starting out as a couple?”
“Oh absolutely”
Eventually Bucky took a break from driving after you stopped for food in a roadside diner. It had been a while since you’d driven but you wanted to give Bucky the chance to get some sleep, something you knew he still struggled with.
Despite telling him to try and get some sleep on the back seats, he remained upfront with you, doing his best to battle the drowsiness that had overcome him. He’d not gotten much rest the past few weeks, from battling the Flag Smashers in Europe, to hunting down Zemo and then back to New York. In truth he was worried he’d have a nightmare and wasn’t sure on how he’d react but upon your insistence, he tried to get some shut eye. After an hour or so he dropped off, the sound of you humming along to a song on the radio sending him off into a dreamless sleep.
Bucky couldn’t quite believe it, he couldn’t remember the last time he slept without being haunted by memories of the Winter Soldier. Granted, he only got four hours of sleep , but it was the best he’d felt in a long time.
When it came to your turn to get some shut eye Bucky insisted on stopping over in a hotel for the night. You’d tried to convince him a motel would suffice after you lost the battle of you sleeping in the car but he was victorious.
To be frank, after spending so many hours in the car, you were grateful to be sleeping in a bed with your super soldier by your side.
As you slept, Bucky took the time to fire off a few emails advising he’d be ending his lease. Having slept earlier, he felt energised and was content in browsing the internet as you slept tucked into his arm.
He did his best not to wake you as he opened a selfie from Shuri of her with Ayo and Nomble, a chuckle escaping his lips as Shuri and Nomble looked to be thoroughly enjoying themselves on a boat trip in New York whilst Ayo sulked in the background.
He also replied to an email from his therapist's office, letting them know he’d be absent from his next session but planned on returning the following week.
Bucky was tempted to let Sam know he was coming but thought it best to surprise him.
The next day was much of the same, both of you switching the drive and stopping off at diners for food. Due to the lack of respect Bucky had for the speed limit, you were making good time and would be in Delacroix the following morning.
“-it was like I didn’t exist. Honestly it was the most humbling experience of my life”
“Sergeant Barnes in his uniform… now that is something I’ve got to see.”
“Maybe one day”
Your eyebrow perked at the thought. “Good god man” You groaned dramatically and sank further into your seat, giggling as you caught sight of the blush covering his cheeks. “For what it’s worth, lack of nutrients from the rationing clearly messed with her eyesight.” You were genuinely baffled how Peggy didn’t swoon for the man next to you.
“Where were you in the 40’s when I needed you huh?”
“I doubt I’d have been your type”
“Intelligent, strong woman with a great sense of humor? And thats not even mentioning your ass.. Oh no, definitely not my type” He replied sarcastically.
“Ha ha fine, I’ll take your word for it.”
“I’d have taken you dancing, maybe gone to a show or even the carnival. Anything you wanted.” He took your hand in his again and kissed the back of it as he pondered just how he’d of won you over back then. He usually didn't like to dwell on life before the war, the pain of losing his family and the future he lost was too much but having you in his life somehow made the memories hurt less. Having you with him now along with the future he could picture with you helped him make peace with his past life and accept that it wasn’t something he could ever go back to.
When Steve was returning the stones, he did wonder whether he should go back with him but the realisation that there wasn’t anything waiting for him apart from a time that he didn't belong to made his decision to remain in the present resolute. And by god was he thankful he stayed.
On your way to your final hotel before arriving at Sams, you’d taken over the driving and had kept Bucky entertained with your off key singing and terrible car games.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” As it turns out, Bucky was a sore loser.
“What? It counts!!”
“You cannot see bacteria Y/N”
“Yes I can! It’s right...right… right there!” You pointed to a random bit of the car interior and held back a laugh at a clearly unamused Bucky.
“You’re so full of shit”
“How do you know I can’t see it huh? Guess it’s my turn again, I spy with my little -”
“No” He cut off as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Absolutely not. I’m going to choose a game.”
You let out a little smile and continued focusing on the road until the super soldier landed on something he liked.
“Okay okay, would you rather sounds fun. Doll, would you rather have the superpower of being invisible or ability to fly.”
“Aw come on Buck these are tame! If I have to answer, without a doubt invisibility.”
“Not dirty enough for you sweetheart?” A tingle rang down your spine at your new nickname. “I’d have to agree, invisibility easily.”
“Buck you’re an actual superhero, you’ve already got powers, leave some for us mere mortals!”
“... you think I’m a superhero?”
“....you’re literally an Avenger.” You reached across towards the man beside you, keeping your eyes on the road as you pressed your hand against his forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”
Bucky rolled his eyes at your sarcasm and swatted your hand away from his head. ��Fine you made your point.”
You shook your head as you returned your hand to the steering wheel, tapping away to the song on the radio.
“The rest of these questions are boring” He muttered as he furiously scrolled through his cell.
“C’mon, go R rated”
“It’s no fun when I already know the answers to these!”
“Pfft doubtful, come on, hit me”
“Spit or swallow, you’re a swallower doll.See?”
“Okay okay! You’re right, I give in. How about we just ask each other some questions?”
“But you already know everything,” He remarked, throwing a few cashews into his mouth.
“When did you first see me as someone other than a friend?” You’d thrown him off guard with that question, his hand stuck in mid air as he went to throw more snacks into his mouth.
“Wouldn't you rather know my most embarrassing sexual encounters?” He offered but was met with silence. “Fine……. I’ve never seen you as just a friend. Yes we were friends before we became more and honestly Y/n if it never progressed further than just friendship I would’ve been fine with it, more than fine with it y’know? Meeting you was the best fucking thing-”
“Buck, it’s okay” Your hand reached out towards him and squeezed his thigh as you kept your eyes on the road.
“There’s more… before we officially met in the lobby when that creep wouldn’t leave you the fuck alone, I’d seen you around. I was coming back from lunch with Yori and he was complaining about having gone for burgers instead of our usual and there you were, headphones in completely oblivious to the world and searching for your keys in your purse as usual. You were just so carefree - everything I wanted to be. And then a couple of days later we met and I was a goner.”
You bit your lip as you fought back a smile, overwhelmed by his honesty. It was a welcome feeling, knowing you weren’t the only one that felt an attraction almost immediately.
“I’d seen you around too, before we officially met I mean. It’s kind of hard to miss you” You chuckled as you snuck a glimpse over at him and found him doing his usual glare. “It was pretty early on for me as well, do you remember when we went for coffee?”
“And you ordered us two cups of sugar? Yeah I remember”
“Mocha Latte’s aren’t bad for you… they just give you a bit of a buzz”
“Especially if you order extra cream…”
“Anyway! I’ve always been attracted to you, I’m not blind y’know but after seeing this dark looming strong man consume a drink like that, and have some residue cream left on his lower lip mind you, I just knew that it was more than just a crush. There’s something oddly charming and attractive about seeing someone so intimidating be so soft. It’s like I’m the only one who gets to see that side of you and I love it”
Bucky didn't quite know what to say, he was slightly flustered at the compliments you were throwing at him and by the knowledge that you’d been interested far earlier than he had ever dreamed of.
“We’re idiots aren’t we? For not realising sooner.”
“Oh without a doubt”
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When We Leave the Diner: A Ghost Story
Finding a past you never knew existed. A history in a place that no longer has a future. Sometimes what haunts us most is what we never knew.
Female Main Character
My mother didn’t know she was adopted until she got sick. Her parents never told her, and when she needed a donor, no one on her side of the family was eligible. After some digging, we found her adoption records. My mom decided not to push the issue. It was bad enough that she was sick and living on borrowed time. Her parents must have not told her for a reason, so she wasn’t going to question them.
I, on the other hand, wanted to figure out my mother’s past. I started tracking my grandparents’ records, finding places they had been around the time of my mother’s birth. Her birth certificate was a duplicate she got from the courthouse ages ago. With some help from my aunt, I was able to find the real one. It listed the doctor who delivered her, as well as the state she was born in, which, due to the adoption process, wasn’t listed on the duplicate my mother had.
When she finally passed away, my mother’s final wishes were to be cremated and her ashes to be spread at sea. I decided to take the trip myself, and visit the town where she was born.
When I set out on the trip, I drive as far as I can stand until I stop at a small roadside cafe called ‘The Dead End Eatery’. The walls of the place are covered in framed newspaper clippings. Each one seems random until I realize they all have to do with death.
“Top off your coffee, ma’am?” the waitress asks.
I nod and point to the wall. “What’s with all the...” I wag my finger around, hesitating to say the word.
“All the death?” The waitress seems absolutely chipper about it.
I nod. “Yeah. That.”
“Gotta have a gimmick,” she states simply. “Back when this place was built, it really was a Dead End until they blasted a road through. So ‘dead end’ needed to mean something.” She stares out the window with a nostalgic gleam in her eye. “After that, what with the sharp bend in the road, a lot of deaths started happening around here.”
I grimace a bit. “Don’t you find that kind of macabre?”
She shrugs. “I’m used to it. Besides, who is going to remember these people after a while?” She gazes back at the clipped articles hanging on the wall. “A lot of the faces you see here are just kids. After their families are gone, so where do they go?”
Furrowing my brow, I look from the coffee to her. “What do you mean?”
A stony look comes over her face, and her eyes almost seem blank. “Lots of stories around her, old ones. They say the land here is cursed, and anyone who dies before their time is trapped here.”
“Like ghosts?”
Her sunny disposition returns. “Yup! Anything else I can get you?”
I shake my head. “No. That haunting tale will be enough.”
Her smile grows. “I have many more if you’re not in a hurry.”
“I’ve had enough death for today.”
The waitress moves on and I slouch in my seat, sighing heavily as I glance back at the wall. My phone rings, and I see it’s my daughter.
“Hey sweetie, how is everything?”
“Fine, but you’re going to have to pay me for babysitting Mom. She keeps trying to repair things while you’re gone.”
“Sorry about that. I’ll be home soon. But it’s funny you call, I’m at the strangest little place.” I glance up at the wall. “It’s this little diner with tons of news clippings about horrible deaths and accidents all over the wall.”
“Can I see?” she asks excitedly. “Take a picture.”
“Yeah, I’ll send a couple of pictures. I’ll probably get a hotel tonight and finish the trip tomorrow. I should be home in a couple of days. If your mother gets into any trouble, just call your brother.”
“Will do. Be safe, Mama.”
I take her pictures of the news clippings around me. One is a story about a young man about to graduate, who had baseball scholarships, offers from some of the best colleges. Then one night his car caught fire, and he ended up driving off the Devil’s Backbone, the name of the sharp curve around the mountain. The accident ended up causing a forest fire, which spread into the town. It was the sort of story my daughter would enjoy.
I leave the diner and get back on the road again. It’s growing dark, but I’ve been assured there’s a hotel at the bottom of the mountain. I see all sorts of signs for the Devil’s Backbone, warnings mostly. There’s a scenic overlook that has some historical plaques all around it, but I’ll have to stop when I come back through.
I’m coming up on the Devil’s Backbone, and it looks like the road completely disappears into thin air. The closer I get, the heavier the air around me becomes. It has a density to it, like a weight sitting on my shoulders. I can smell smoke gathering at the back of my throat. I clear my throat and cough, but the smoke is growing thicker the closer I come to that curve. As soon as I turned the curve, there’s a flaming car barreling towards me.
Everything happens in an instant, but it takes an eternity for me to witness. I don’t know how to react. All I can do is watch, like a viewer observing myself through a screen. The flaming car roars and veers off, crashing through the guardrail and careening off the Devil’s Backbone. Flames shoot up into the air and I sit in my car, still as can be.
After a few moments, I jump out of my car and run towards the railing. Looking over the edge, I see absolutely nothing. “Fuck.” I run my hands through my hair and dig at my scalp. “What the fuck?” I look back towards my car idling in the middle of the road and race back inside, driving away slowly. I take deep breaths, questioning my sanity, my desperate need for sleep. Once I’m around the corner, I see signs for the upcoming town and hotel. I begin to relax, and I tell myself everything is going to be okay.
“Take me to the hospital.”
I look into the passenger seat to see the figure of a man on fire. He looks at me, leaning nonchalantly with his arm out the window.
“Hurry,” he urges. “There’s not much time.”
I scream, stomping on the brakes and nearly launching myself from the car. I stand on the yellow line in the middle of the road, looking back at my car. It’s empty.
Every breath I take feels as sharp as a blade going down my throat. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. There’s a water bottle in the car, but I’m afraid to go back inside to get it. Once I see the lights of another car coming, I reluctantly return to mine. I try to start it, but it stalls. This is the last thing I need. The other car approaches and passes, but a few seconds later, it comes back and pulls up beside me.
“Need some help?” a young woman asks.
In the dark I can barely see her. “I don’t...” I try the ignition again, and huff in frustration. “I don’t know.”
She comes up beside my car. “There’s a pull-off spot just over there. If you put it in neutral, you should just be able to coast to it. I can take you to the hotel just down the way.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” I’m able to get my car off the road and park it. I gather my things from the back seat, including my mom’s ashes. The woman pulls up beside me and I can see her car is an old model, but it looks brand new. I sigh heavily as I take a seat next to her. “Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem at all. I’m glad I was around to help.” I can see that the young woman is extremely pregnant, ready to pop any second. I also notice just how young she looks, almost the same age as my daughter. The girl looks at me and smiles. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I shake my head. “I think I have.”
“Happens a lot around here,” she says softly. “People like to claim this place is cursed.”
“That’s what the lady at the diner told me too.” I fold my hands in my lap and look out the window.
“Traveling?” the girl asks.
I nod, patting the small bag beside me. “I am. My mother died, and she wanted her ashes spread near the ocean.”
The girl gets a strange, concerned look on her face. “Oh,” she says simply.
“You’re pretty brave picking up a stranger,” I say to change the subject. She seems so uncomfortable now. “Especially in your condition.”
The girl’s hand rests over her belly, and her gaze goes out the window. “Not much else to lose now. I figured I could risk it this once.”
“Are you in trouble?” I ask softly.
The girl gets quiet as we pull up outside the hotel. Her eyes linger on my bags as I pull them out with me. “Thanks again,” I say to her. I take some money from my purse and offer it to her. “At least for gas.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t help you for that.” She looks up at me, and her eyes appear completely black. She drives off before I can be sure. I just tell myself it’s the night playing tricks on me.
I get a room at the hotel. Then I call my wife to let her know what happened, and that hopefully I can get the car fixed quickly. “I knew you shouldn’t have gone out there alone!” she frets.
“The car just stalled, it should be an easy fix. I’m fine.”
I hear our daughter making a commotion on the other end, and eventually the phone is handed off to her. “I looked up that article you sent me!” she says excitedly. “About the town and the forest fire.”
“I thought you would.” I lie back in the hotel bed. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“So much!” She laughs. “The fire hit the hospital, and apparently, the people that could help just left! They abandoned so many people in that hospital to burn and die.”
“Oh my god, that’s horrible.”
“No, Mom,” she says urgently. “You don’t understand. It gets so much weirder than that. Grandma was born the night of the fire. During the fire!”
I sit back up. “Don’t pull my leg, sweetie.”
“I checked the records you have on Grandma. The hospital on her birth certificate matches with the one that burned down.”
I shake my head. “No, no. When I searched the hospital...”
“It was rebuilt several years later. The new hospital has the same name, but it’s not in the same location as the previous one. The town thought it would be bad luck to build it in the same place.”
“Because of a curse,” I whisper.
“Mom?”
I gather myself for a brief second. “Can you give me the address of where the old hospital used to be… if it still exists?”
“Yeah, I can text it to you.” she says. “Oh, there’s a bunch of other stuff about this guy, too. The one whose wreck started the whole thing.”
“The baseball star?”
“Yeah! I can send you that too. Apparently, he tried to kidnap a girl, and they were found to be secretly married. It’s a soap opera, Mom! It’s really amazing.”
I’m a little in shock. Ghosts and curses aside, my mother was born during such a horrible event. “That’ll give me something to do before I go to bed. Thank you, sweetie.”
She sends me the address. When I try to search it, it only redirects me to the ‘new’ hospital. I can ask whoever is at the front desk about it come morning. After that, my daughter starts sending me articles about this baseball star. His name was James Holden, a bright athlete with the world at his feet. Having come from a poor family, he became a popular mechanic while still in school. He was a local celebrity for his baseball records, and won several prestigious scholarships.
Eventually, he was found to be hiding the daughter of a wealthy lawyer in his home. He was forced to leave town, the lawyer threatening that he would lose his scholarships and job offers should he stay or ever come near his daughter again. His death occurred almost immediately after, when his car caught fire leaving town. He careened off the Devil’s Backbone to his death below. After that, not much else was spoken of him. He seemed to be forgotten, except for the articles hanging in the Dead End Diner.
I wake up the next morning and, as I go to the front desk, I find my car parked right outside the door. I know for a fact I hadn’t driven it here myself last night. The pregnant girl had picked me up! I look out to the road and the multitude of signs warning about the Devil’s Backbone.
I didn’t pay attention last night because of nerves and fatigue, but behind the front desk, there are several family photos taken over decades. In one picture, I see the girl from last night standing by the car that picked me up.
“Can I help you?” the lady behind the counter asks.
I point to the picture. “Who…” I look at her, confused, then back to the picture. “I’m sorry… that girl looks familiar.”
The woman smiles as she looks back. “That’s my aunt. Don’t know how you would know her. She died before I was born. This was taken during her senior year. Grandpa bought her and my mother that car to share.”
“Did she die in the fire?” I ask cautiously.
The woman looks back at me, just as confused as I am. “How do you know about that?”
I laugh in disbelief. “It’s a very long story, but, the short of it is, I think my mother was born in the hospital that burnt down. I was wondering if you could tell me where that is.”
“The hospital was rebuilt. It’s just...”
I shake my head and stop her. “No, I know that. I want to see the old hospital. The one that burned down.”
“Only part of it burned down. The rest is abandoned. If you want to see it, I can give you the directions, but that part of town is closed off. They’ve got a barrier around it and everything.”
“I’d still like to see.”
The woman writes down the directions for me, and I return to my car. I hesitate to get inside it. I feel as though it’s haunted now. Luckily, the ignition works, and I drive off to the abandoned hospital.
There’s a large gate blocking the road, with fencing all around it. The road is cracked and turned up by roots, so I park my back from the entrance. I step up to the gate, looking in to see the ruins of what once was a small town. Walls are overgrown with bushes and vines, and hollow storefronts stare bleakly out into the world with cracked panes blackened by smoke. They just left it like this. They left the remains smoldering, and took their lives somewhere else. How many lives had been abandoned here, though? How many died in this fire? Not just James Holden or my mother’s birth mother, but so many more people. This place is a graveyard.
In the distance I can see a large building which must be the hospital, but it’s hard to tell with all the overgrowth. I step away from the fence and I swear I can smell smoke. It twitches in the back of my throat, making me cough again.
Knowing myself as a teenager, as well as my own children, I know there must be a place in the fence where people can sneak in and out freely. I eventually find the spot where the fence has come loose from one of the poles.
I go back to the car, fetching the bag with my mother’s ashes, and take her with me into town. I call home, and my daughter answers.
“How’s the car?” she asks. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“The car is fine. It started up right away.” I don’t give her the gory details. I’ll save that for another day, when I have time. “I found the place,” I say like a secret. “It’s not just the hospital they abandoned, it’s basically the whole town.”
“What?”
I look into the sky. “I know, it’s so weird to look at. I’ll take pictures, but I’m going to take grandma to the hospital with me. I’ll have to walk, so it could be a while.”
“Be careful! You don’t know what could be hiding there. People could be squatting, and there could be wild animals. Not to mention the buildings themselves.”
“I know, sweetie,” I reassure her. “I’m going to be very careful. I just wanted to call and tell you what was happening.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t seem convinced. “Be careful, and call often.”
“I will, sweetie. I love you.”
I hang up the phone and look back at the gate. Stepping onto the road, I feel a cold breeze whisper around me. I touch the bag to reassure myself. “Let’s see where you were born, Mama.”
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to fill with joy the warrior's heart
Steggy Week 2k20, day 7
Prompt: Free choice
Summary: Trust is earned, and sometimes must be re-earned. Nothing in life is as pure and simple as we might wish it to be.
AO3 link here. Thanks to @steggyfanevents for organizing!
Peggy wakes Saturday morning with light steady at the window and in the first second realizes that Steve is not beside her and in the second remembers why.
“Moving day,” she says aloud, voice shaking sleep from itself, and opens her eyes.
Later, he will explain how he knew she would be there, will tell her about a different, older self he met, one who spoke of returning to the Stork Club even after she had moved from New York, one night a year spent sipping a drink alone and allowing herself the full imagining of what might have been.
But when she comes across him sitting on the steps of the brownstone Howard has loaned to her for the weekend, she doesn’t know any of that. When he looks up as he hears her footsteps on the sidewalk, when the streetlight falls on the shape of his jaw and nose and brow and the familiarity blooms hot and instant within her, all she knows is her feet pulling her forward even as her mind can’t grasp it, even as she cuts off her own gasp and sob. All she knows is her arms around him, his around her, the frantic scramble for logic, the somewhere knowledge that if this is real she’ll hang logic and do it happily.
She takes him upstairs, conscious of the pistol in her garter holster even as she can’t bring herself to relinquish his hand. Nevertheless, she manages long enough to prepare and pour tea for the two of them, manages as she sits across from him and asks quiet questions to which he gives equally quiet answers. (As familiar as he is, there’s so much worn to him now.)
“You might as well interrogate me the way you really want to,” he finally says when he’s corrected yet another small mistaken detail she’s dropped into the recounting of some part of their history. There’s just a bit of cheek to his tone, and it is that, something so tiny and personal and inimitable and him, something she truly believed she would never hear again, which makes her trust that it is truly him back with her again.
They fall asleep on the settees opposite each other. She wakes with her arm dangling; it is vaguely numb, but still reaching toward where he lies sleeping, solid and restless and here.
She is meant to return to Washington in the afternoon and he joins her. The ride is comfortable. They take turns at the wheel (Steve apparently drives now, and fairly well, too), point out landmarks along the route, fall occasionally into deep discussion, sample from each other’s plates in roadside diners, sit in easy silence with the scenery rushing past. Somehow, there’s a feeling of routine to it. They didn’t precisely spend the war gallivanting in cars together, but she has never been able to forget those snatched moments of synchronicity between the two of them: talking late at night once the others had gone to sleep, or during a brief mutual leave in London, what was meant to be greetings between them in the hallway spooling out into a conversation that had them blocking the door at headquarters for a half hour. Sometimes she still goes to sleep to the rhythm of their matched footsteps on patrol during an assignment.
That could be her life from now on, she realizes, the thought rocking into her. That synchronicity, this man, for as long as they were able.
How long will that be? she wonders. How long, this time?
Her hands shake on the wheel and she forces them to stop, forces herself to breathe. But the idea won’t go away.
He had come back to her, he wasn’t leaving, he’d told her that, and Steve’s word is good, Steve is good, she knows that like the fact of her own life. And she also knows that the control, the choices we think or wish we had, that we want to have, can slip from us so easily.
As they enter the city, she asks, eyes forward, “Can I help you find someplace to stay?”
Even without looking, she can imagine the surprised furrow of his eyebrows, can hear the shift in his posture against the seat: so slight, and so clear to her. She doesn’t fault him for assuming that he would be staying with her, after having felt her grip on his arm, having fallen asleep to her voice and sat with her all this while as she returned to the place she is making her home.
She hopes he doesn’t fault her for not being able to let him.
He finds a place in a building several streets over from hers, easily walkable. They eat at the same halfway point diner in the morning. Sometimes they share sections of the Post, sitting and reading silently, pointing out articles of interest, debating politics and trends and culture. Sometimes they tease each other across the table: “Ah, look, they’re bringing the cow in the back, they must have known you wanted a bit of steak and eggs this morning” and “Better give that left curl a stern talking-to, it’s not looking as quite as perfect as the rest.” They don’t part with a kiss, but sometimes they stand so long chatting on the sidewalk outside that people detour around them with exaggerated annoyance.
Talk about work, about their lives, is usually saved for evenings or weekends spent together. They are neither of them particularly good at cooking, but are both perfectly satisfied with sandwiches or restaurant food. They can each muddle through a few simple dishes anyway, and, regardless of whether or not their muddling improves along the way, it’s certainly more enjoyable to prepare things together.
Her kitchen is larger (though no one would call it spacious) but he actually remembered to purchase things like a pot and extra forks, so they split time between the two. Over jacket potatoes served with butter and leftover bits from Peggy’s fridge, she lets out the frustrations that she hides during the day behind cool smiles and sharp retorts, lets out the anger at the men who don’t have any of her experience or skill and yet imagine themselves equal to her. She had forgotten how it felt to allow these words into the safekeeping of one who had never thought such things and never would. She had forgotten the ease, the openness between them that included him revealing his own fear and pain and longing. The night that they sit across from each other at the secondhand card table he’d found and he tells her with such detail about the friends she will not meet for decades if ever, she stretches a hand across to him, holding tightly to his fingers.
When they spend the night together, it’s almost always in her bedroom. Her clothes are there, her hairbrush and lipstick and powder, her soap, toothbrush, indulgently soft sheets; she doesn’t need to pack a bag so she can sleep comfortably and armor herself with perfection for work the next day. Regardless of disapproving stares from neighbors when she and Steve walk out together in the morning, she doesn’t need to worry that she has missed an important call in the night.
So she allows him inside her home and wonders if any of this is wise, whether she might have to buy new sheets, a new bedframe even, if his scent will haunt the place, the remembered sight of him sitting at the table, of the contents of his pockets - loose change and crumpled notes to himself, that same compass, come all this way - on her nightstand, whether she will really ever be at home here again if he persists in becoming so much here and then she is left alone once more.
She can’t help herself. They had been slow and polite and careful last time and she was still left with a heart broken at the thought of what might have been; she’ll take better advantage this time, as much as she can, as long as it lasts.
Six months, she tells herself. Six months, and it will feel safe to let him in completely, to begin discussing a future.
But six months comes and goes, and it doesn’t feel safe, it seems only more dangerous to let him further. Even the small amount she has allowed of time spent and secrets shared seems too much. During a dull meeting one day her mind wanders to the idea of going to City Hall with Steve beside her, of standing up with him in front of a church, and she holds herself distant from him that night and cannot tell him why. He is late one evening for reasons which are perfectly sensible when explained and she tries to avoid cataloging all the small details of him over the next days - holding these crystallized memories in her mind will only hurt later.
She is no coward, she does not need assurances on that score. She's been asked to face battlefields and killers and destruction, to put herself in the way of it all, to take charge, to defend and strike back, and she has done it - she has chosen to do it - without pause.
But even brave people, she tells herself, must be sensible. Even brave people do not simply allow themselves to jump from cliffs with no guarantee of being caught on the way down.
He does not push her, does not even mention time-frames or any expectations he might have had when he came back. The only time he brings it up is in the night, those times she shakes herself from sleep with a gasp or a doubled-over cry. His hand will rest on her back or shoulder, will stroke over her bare stomach, the pressure of those long fingers well-remembered despite herself, and his voice will come, solid in the dark: “I’m sorry I was so late. I’m here now.”
And all she can think is how easily “now” can become “for now.”
They have an argument.
It starts out as simple conversation. She tells him that she is planning for a busy next few days, her time taken up first with meetings and then with fieldwork. He reminds her once again that she has a whole agency that’s meant to take care of fieldwork for her these days. It’s a running joke between them by now; he doesn’t even look up from whatever intricate little sketch he is working on. But, somehow, today it does not feel comfortably amusing. Just now, having Steve sitting at her kitchen table, referencing some new thing shared between the two of them, using a pencil borrowed without thought or permission from one of her drawers, seems constricting, dangerous.
“If I thought someone else would be able to take care of things for me, I would be perfectly capable of telling them so,” she snaps, watching his head come up in surprise.
“Of course you would be,” he says, and then, as if he can’t resist pointing it out, “but it’s pretty rare for you to actually do it.”
“Ah, so the only trouble with having things done successfully is asking people.” She pushes up from the table, paces back to grip onto the kitchen counter. “Unbelievable that I hadn’t simply thought of it earlier. How kind of you to inform me.”
“I’m only saying—”
“Of course you are! After all, we both know how well you delegate, how often you’ve been willing to put others in danger in your place.”
His back is very straight now. “Whether or not that’s true for me, you barely trust any of the people you have over at SHIELD. You don’t trust them to do things right or to work with you or support you, so I don’t know why you hired them in the first place.” He crosses his arms, mouth tight. “When I chose to work with people, it was because I knew I could rely on them.”
The laugh she gives is a single, dagger-tipped note. “How wonderful that must be for you, to have such luxury. I’m meant to protect the world and everyone in it while surrounded by people whose integrity I can’t always count on, much less their respect.”
“So find people you can trust! Hell, I’ve told you I’d step in if you need it - you can’t keep doing everything yourself, Peggy.”
His jaw is clenched, jutting in that stubbornly recognizable way of his, but for once she has no desire to laugh with him over it, to tease him from his tension with kisses or sly remarks. Her jaw clenches in response instead, words coming out tight as her crossed arms.
“Consider, perhaps, that I don't have confidence in the idea of you stepping in. You were gone for years, Steve, and I accepted it. I cannot simply accept that you’re back to stay, that you won’t sacrifice yourself again if you thought it would serve the greater good. I can’t rely on things going right, I can’t rely on you not finding yourself in such a position, and it haunts me, the idea that I might spend my life waiting for the next thing that will take you away from me. So I wouldn’t be so eager to consider yourself someone I can trust. ”
The pencil lies blankly between his stricken fingers. “If you don’t trust me,” he says, “maybe I’d better go.”
He doesn’t slam the door behind him, but it feels as if he has.
Alone in her bed, she realizes that she was right to worry: even though she has so carefully guarded against having Steve with her every night, the bed feels unfamiliar without his weight beside her, his soft breathing or sleepy comments in the dark, the simple smell of his soap. It hurts not to feel his touch, easy against her even in sleep, to think that she might never feel it again.
She gets up at half past two and puts a jacket on over her pajamas. The streets outside her window are silent except for a slight breeze and the light patter of drizzle. She shuts and locks her door quietly, turns to start the walk to Steve’s, and finds him sitting in the hallway.
He is leaning against the wall, chin fallen onto his chest. Hearing the click of her lock, the scuff of her shoes, he looks up to where she stands cat-still in front of her door, keys still in her fist. She cannot see the golden glint of stubble on his cheeks, but she knows she would feel it against her palm if she touched him.
“I wasn’t okay when I came back,” he says quietly, eyes on hers. He swallows. “And even though you’d already told me some about the way things had been for you, I should never have assumed that I knew everything. I should have checked whether you were okay. I know better than to think that just because someone's strong they can't hurt.”
She steps across to him, slides down so that she is at his side, arm against arm.
“Have you been sitting here the entire time?” she asks.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Mr. and Mrs. Roberson didn’t look really impressed, but I don’t like being away from you. I’ve already learned that lesson pretty well.”
“And in the most difficult way.” When she leans against his shoulder, her head fits just perfectly. The blue cotton of his shirt smells faintly of laundry soap, but mostly like a long and difficult day.
"I do trust you," she says, close to the fabric, her words coming carefully. "I know that you are a good man, and that you were forced into a terrible situation, a terrible choice. I don't want you to think otherwise."
"But—"
She overrides his voice. "And still, the world we live in is full of terrible choices, terrible situations. We live them perhaps more than most. And the thought of—" She breathes, starts over again, makes her words simpler. "Losing you once already hurt so very much."
He doesn't try to shove back against her words or feelings or reasoning, does not offer placation or gentle lies. He puts his arm around her.
"I wouldn't regret coming back," he says against her hair, "if you didn't think you could live with the uncertainty. I had to try, and I—I would still be here, in your life, if you wanted me."
"Actually," she says, looking at the wall in front of them. She's noticed the unavoidable paisley wallpaper before, but not the way it curls up from the baseboard. "I think you should come live with me."
She can feel him startle, shift to look down at her. She takes her time meeting his eyes.
"I don't even have a spare key to your place yet," he points out, confused.
"I remember."
"And we just—You just said—"
"Yes, I remember that too," she says, amused despite herself at his polite flapping about. "I was there."
"Then why—?"
"Because I will always want you with me," she says simply. "We circled around each other the first time even though I knew I wanted you with me. You went away from me and I wanted you back. And then you returned, and no matter how I tried to avoid it, I wanted you with me anyway. I want you with me always. And although it cannot happen, regardless of how careful we might be or what luck we might have, I must know better by now than to think I can simply pretend that I can turn away from you. I should know better than to try."
Through long minutes, he doesn't say anything, his heat and even breaths nevertheless soothing beside her. Finally she asks, "Well?"
"Okay." He lets the word float there, then adds, "But if anyone asks, I'm telling them that you asked more romantically than that."
It's ten days until the first of the month. Steve doesn't need nearly that long to pack his things.
Peggy arrives promptly at eight. Steve’s already been over to Stein’s Grocery and gotten the delivery van. Between the two of them, they haul the boxes and a limited amount of furniture, first down from Steve's building, then up into Peggy's.
Everything is moved in by noon, the truck returned, and the sun splashes joy over the pile of boxes in the doorway, the light dwindling as things find their new homes: his small supply of records sliding in with hers, art books, science fiction, and novels amongst the mysteries and classics and occasional paperback romances on her bookcase, clothes in the places she has made in the bureau and wardrobe. She knows that his paints and drawing paper, his pastels, will eventually escape or will be put away messily, but for now they lie neatly stacked in their assigned place on the shelf. His sheets and pillowcases go into the linen cupboard, spares now for their shared bed.
They keep her radio, but trade her secondhand turntable for his - also secondhand, but slightly better quality (Steve still knows how to hunt down a bargain). The armchair that they can both fit into if they curl together just right finds its place in the lounge area; it doesn’t match her sofa in the slightest, but they don’t care.
There isn’t much wall space, but they’re able to find places for a piece of artwork or two. She hammers the nails, he makes sure the frames hang straight. A print of his parents' wedding photo, pictures of him and Bucky, of the Barnes family, join her limited collection of photographs. They both have the same one of them alongside Commandos; for some reason, they tuck his copy behind hers in the frame.
His silverware easily replaces her minimal set. There’s a bit of a bicker over which dishes to keep - he has more settings and complete ones too, she has the deeper bowls and larger plates - but they decide on both for now; they’ll shop around for something together. The single pot and frying pan he brought make the cut easily, as she still doesn’t have any of her own.
(“Considering all the time we just spent organizing the kitchen, one would think we might actually intend to use it.”
“It’s probably a good thing for everyone that we don’t. Do you want me to go pick up from Luigi’s or Good Earth?”
“Neither - Chin’s is better than Good Earth, and they'll deliver here. But whatever number of egg rolls you’re intending to order, double it. You always eat far more than your share.”)
Late and later, with the moon high out the window, they get ready for bed. She stares as he adds his clothes carefully to the laundry hamper, piling them atop hers. She wonders how long it will be before he begins tossing them in less attentively, allowing shirts to drape comfortably over the sides or even drop onto the floor.
There is his toothbrush and his soap beside hers, his razor. His clothes hang in the closet. Anyone who needs to reach him from now on will know to call here.
They climb into bed. Our bed, she thinks, startled by it, until he brings her close and whispers, “Your sheets really are better than mine.”
“It doesn’t do to doubt me,” she reminds him. He laughs. After a time, she adds, “It went well, I think, moving day.”
“It did.”
His familiar weight is beside her, the smell of work washed off and replaced with soap and clean skin. He will be there as long as he can be, and she knows he will try to make that a very long time.
“Let’s not move again for a good while yet,” she says. “I can’t bear the thought of having to do double the packing and then unpacking it all again somewhere new.”
One day, they’ll move somewhere larger, a house where they can host friends and have a back garden to relax in, where they might be able to raise a child or two. But for now...For now…
“Yeah,” he says, sleepy in a way that she usually doesn’t hear him. His arms are heavy and secure around her. He is no longer keeping himself at the ready; he no longer has to. “Right here. We’ll stay right here.”
#steggyweek20#Steggy#Steggy fic#Peggy Carter#Steve Rogers#(I'm kinda obsessed with how fitting this title is ngl)
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to be eating fries and drinking a milkshake in a roadside diner late at night while the rain pours down and you and your friends try to figure out how to get rid of the ghosts haunting their house
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Towns notice him from the outside in. The homeless guy outside the liquor store first, always, or the 7-11 in a dry county. Then whoever’s not from around here, tossing him a peach from the roadside stand, or leaning up against his truck in the parking lot of the hardware store just to chat. If he passes by the same spot two, three times, old women at nowhere bus stops they must have walked miles to get to wave cheerfully. When the waitress at the diner starts refilling his mug for free with a smile, that means it’s about time to leave.
Sometimes, though, Will enters a pocket of space and time where nothing notices him at all. It happens less now that he’s older and less likely to go skittering sideways out of his skin with whatever combination of brain chemicals it is that makes you young. Still, he stumbles into these small interruptions sometimes, like he’s taken shelter in a town too small to be found on any map.
That’s where he is this morning, although when he left the motel the cleaning woman was leaning against the exterior wall to his room like she was hoping to fall through it. His less metaphysical location is Dilles Bottom, Ohio—big enough for Google to have spotted, but only just. There’s an okay diner just outside the notional limits: bad coffee, upholstery on the booths doing alright for its age. The waitress has a name Will is incapable of remembering. She’s not pretty, personable, or particularly industrious; Will doesn’t want to cause her any grief regardless. His two dots and a dash got to him eventually.
There’s a small TV set up at a funny angle over the counter, so that the customer and the short-order cook perched on his stool in the back can both sort of see it. Someone’s up on a stage in a suit and an ugly patterned tie, muted but earnest as a door-to-door salesman, and as Will squints past the spotlights and reflected fluorescent glare, the guy seems to wink at him. Will blinks away sleep and leans in for a better view, wondering whether he’s already been pinpointed, but it’s just Joel Osteen on the other side of the light.
“Want me to turn that up, handsome?” the waitress asks, looking a half-second away from offering him the blueberry muffin that Will knows for a fact has been in the display case since at least last Monday with the intention of doing him a genuine favor.
“No, thank you,” Will says, focusing back on his plate. There’s far too much egg left to scarf down whole, unfortunately. “Actually, could you box this up?”
—–
Read The Fishhook Covenant on AO3.
Rating: T
Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, haunted road trip, excessive americana, swamp god televangelist
Word Count: 4,596
Summary:
Towns notice him from the outside in.
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The Only Thing You Can Never Buy In Heaven
Just finished my first fanfic in more than two years!
Thank you, SPN finale :D
remembering this scene
It’s a wincest one-shot about our favourite co-dependent soulmates, with middlegame Sam/Eileen. It’s mostly canon-compliant, except for Miracle goes to Heaven too, and there’s the Samulet, because I love the Samulet.
Read it on AO3 here or below the cut:
The Only Thing You Can Never Buy In Heaven
Dean loved driving around in the Impala, Led Zeppelin blasting on the stereo – the sound much cleaner now, the acoustic guitar opening of Ramble On coming through as clear as a crisp spring day. Always his favorite song to drive to, along the endless highways of Heaven.
He visited with old friends – Bobby, obviously, his mom and dad, he went to the Roadhouse to catch up with Ellen, Jo, Ash and the rest. There were so many he knew who had died before him – hunters and civilians alike. But mostly, he just drove around – through countryside in all seasons, spring and summer and winter and fall, through mountains and deserts and cities and forests, along the shores of lakes and oceans. He stopped at countless roadside diners and ate countless plates of delicious food, without having to think about cholesterol once.
But there was always something missing – or rather, someone. Someone to tell him to think about cholesterol, even though he didn’t have to. Someone to sit shotgun, and keep him company on nights beneath the stars. He knew he wanted Sam to live a full life, to enjoy all those years he deserved – a career, a family, a house with a white picket fence. And after all, against the backdrop of eternity, what difference did a few decades make?
Enough difference, it turned out, to make him feel constantly like half of him was missing. Especially since there was one thing he couldn’t find, no matter how much he searched, no matter how many boxes he emptied out or pockets he rifled. You’d think that, in Heaven, you should be able to get hold of whatever the hell – or whatever the heaven – you wanted, but there seemed to be at least one exception to that. He found the replica and hung it from the rearview mirror, but it wasn’t the same.
‘Do you have idea where I can find my old necklace?’ he asked Bobby, one time when they were sitting on the porch together, drinking beers and shooting the breeze. Bobby gave him a slightly sad smile, and didn’t ask which one he meant. There could only be one.
‘Think Sam’s still got it,’ he said. ‘Back on Earth. You’ll just have to wait. Won’t seem like no time at all. Like I told you – he’ll be along.’
‘But –‘ Dean creased his brow - ‘Sam still has Baby, too, and yet there she is.’ He pointed at the car, sitting gleaming on the driveway. ‘And – I don’t know how this is supposed to work, I was never that good at all this stuff, but isn’t there loads of stuff in Heaven that’s on Earth too?’
‘Oh, you got that right,’ said Bobby. ‘There are exceptions to the rule, see? Cosmic special cases. And that necklace is one of them. Can’t be in two places at once.’
Dean took a long pull of his beer, thinking. ‘Can’t I make a new one?’ he asked. ‘Or – buy one?’
Bobby laughed at that. ‘Buy one? It ain’t something you can buy, boy. In fact, I figure it’s the only thing you can never buy in Heaven.’
‘I just – don’t feel right without it.’
Bobby turned his shrewd gaze on Dean. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It feels like there’s half of you missing, doesn’t it?’
‘Well – yeah.’
‘That’s ‘cause there is half of you missing. That’s how soulmates work.’
Dean nearly choked on his beer, and Bobby had to slap him between the shoulder blades. ‘Oh, you didn’t think I didn’t know about the soulmates thing, did ya? The amount of time I spent with you boys – gimme some credit.’
‘I – well – we – I thought…’
‘You thought what? That soulmates aren’t supposed to be brothers? That incest would keep you out of Heaven? I think we both know that ain’t true.’
Dean sipped his beer in silence, not trusting himself to say anything at all. He’d always known – or at least suspected – that the link between him and Sam went deeper than any bond normal brothers, or lovers, or even brother-lovers, shared – but soul mates? He remembered what Ash had said to him at the Roadhouse-Heaven, all those years ago – about soulmates having shared Heavens, and had he expected that he and Sam would share their own little piece of eternity?
If he was honest with himself, he’d never thought he’d reach Heaven at all, after his years in Hell, and all the other things he’d done, and now that Jack had reconfigured things so that everyone could visit each other – well, that meant the soulmate rule no longer applied, surely? And yet – the feeling he always had, the ache like he’d lost half of himself – dammit, like half his soul was missing – that had to mean something. He’d wanted Sam to have his own life – had finally come to terms with the idea that they had horizons beyond hunting, and that his baby brother might want to explore those horizons without him – and yet now – there was only one thing he could think about.
He had finished his beer, and was on the verge of getting up to get back behind the wheel (no issues with drink-driving in the Great Beyond) and go for a long drive with only Led Zeppelin for company. Perhaps he’d even see if he could go and visit John Bonham, and some of the other rock stars who’d reached the top of that Stairway a long time ago. Then something burst out of the bushes and came running up to the porch – a shaggy dog, woofing in delight and licking his hands.
‘Hey, Miracle!’ said Dean, petting his head. ‘You’re a good boy, arentcha, a good boy…’ his voice trailed off as he thought about something. ‘Wait, if you’re here, does that mean…?’
‘All dogs go to Heaven,’ said Bobby, and lifted his beer bottle. ‘Guess he ain’t on Earth no more.’
‘Wow,’ said Dean, his hands pausing in Miracle’s long fur until the dog nudged him to make him continue petting. ‘Did Sammy look after you? Did he give you a long and happy life?’
Miracle just barked enthusiastically, which Dean took as a Yes. He buried his face in the dog’s fur and felt, for a little while, just a little bit closer to Sam.
***
It took Sam a long time to accept that his brother was really gone. The bunker felt so empty, all the time, and as the hunts gradually dried up, he decided he needed to move out. The echoing underground spaces just felt haunted – not by Dean, Sam could have coped with a ghostly brother – but by his absence. He caught himself, several times, eyeing up a gun, or a bottle of sleeping pills, or a coil of rope, or a knife, and wondering how long it would take for him to be reunited with Dean. And he had to admit that, if it hadn’t been for Miracle, he probably would have gone through with it. The dog just kept demanding to be fed, and to be taken out for runs, and to be petted. He never gave up on Sam, so Sam couldn’t give up on himself.
Finally – on the day he got the call about the werewolf hunt – he resolved to leave the Bunker behind him. He knew that, once he turned the light out and closed the door behind him, he’d never be back again. So he packed up the trunk of the Impala with three boxes of possessions: one for himself, one for Miracle, and one for Dean. The last box was full of memories – shirts which still held a lingering scent of Dean, his old leather jacket, his watch, his most beloved vinyl records, his favorite weapons, a few photographs – and his necklace – the one with the amulet.
Sam had kept that necklace in his pocket for so long it had almost become a part of him, but he’d always thought of it as a part of Dean. Now, he lifted it up to the light inside the bunker, looked at that inscrutable face, and felt a powerful tug inside him – a tug of both sadness, and hope. He put the necklace inside the box with the rest, and for the first time since Dean had died, thought that maybe, just maybe, things might turn out right.
That werewolf hunt turned out to be his last hunt for a while. Sam drifted around, sleeping in whatever dog-friendly motels he could find, or on the back seat of the Impala when he couldn’t find one. He scoured the local news and the internet, looking for more cases, trying to throw himself back into the job. Yet it seemed that the monsters were thinner on the ground now, and soon Sam realized his heart wasn’t in it any more – the family business just wasn’t the same without the family.
He toured around for some time, checking in with old friends. He saw Jody and Donna and Clare and Alex. He saw Charlie and her girlfriend. He saw Jesse and Cesar. He saw Garth and his family – little Sam and Castiel were growing well. No Dean though – his absence was a constant pain, like the ache in a missing limb, and Sam felt it even more acutely when he saw other people’s happiness.
He kept seeking people out, further and further flung branches of the extended Winchester hunting family. He tracked down Lisa’s son Ben Braeden, now twenty-one and studying medicine, and looking just a little bit like Dean at the same age. He even reconnected with Amelia, now living happily with her husband Don and their two young children – and a big shaggy dog. He really regretted that particular foray into his own past – it just made him feel miserable, and as he drove away from their picture-perfect house, if it hadn’t been for Miracle on the back seat, he’d have probably driven the Impala straight off a bridge into the nearest canyon.
Finally, he worked his way back to Jody Mills, and as he sat in her house late at night, drinking her wine and eating her potato chips, Miracle gnawing a bone at his feet, she said something to him.
‘You know you need to see her at some point, Sam,’
He didn’t need to ask who she meant.
‘It’s – not that easy,’ he said.
‘Isn’t it? You know she cares about you, and I think you care about her.’
Sam sighed. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I really do. But – me and Dean –‘
‘You had something special,’ Jody filled in for him. ‘She knows that too.’
Sam sighed again. ‘Something special’ was one way to describe what he and Dean had shared, he supposed, but how could he ever really convey the true depth of their relationship? How could he possibly tell someone – anyone – the way he and Dean had lived together, hunted together, slept together (and yes, they had slept together, but almost more significant was the way they had always huddled together for warmth and protection, neither of them ever able to sleep properly without the other). How they had been everything to each other – more than brothers, more than lovers, more than anything?
He looked up, and saw that Jody was smiling at him.
‘And I’m sure she knows how you feel without him. If you’re worried what she’ll think of you – don’t. Most hunters – we got something, some pain, we carry with us.’
‘We’re all damaged goods,’ said Sam, and finished the rest of the glass of wine with one big gulp.
‘What’s damaged can be mended, if you’ll only let someone try,’ said Jody, and took the empty glass from him.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Sam, and got his phone out right then to send a message to Eileen, before the courage could leave him.
They arranged to meet for brunch at a trendy vegan hipster café (which also accepted dogs) in New York City, where Eileen had settled now. Sam remembered how Dean had never wanted to drive the Impala into Manhattan, so he left Baby at a big parking lot in a commuter town and rode the train into town, Miracle on the seat next to him. And he remembered how his brother had always hated these trendy cafes with their avocado toast and their artisan coffees and their stupid plant milks. Meeting Eileen at a place like this felt like moving on – which felt both fresh and good and right, and gave Sam an aching feeling of guilt.
The café was noisy with both music and chatter – Sam felt glad that he’d spent a long time practising his signing beforehand, so that he and Eileen could have a silent conversation in the middle of the hubbub. They sat on a half-collapsed sofa, twisted sideways to face each other, while they drank their almond-milk lattes and ate their sourdough toast, topped with scrambled tofu, wilted spinach, and a sprinkle of dukkah. Delicious, and not a nitrate in sight. Dean would have hated this place.
After exchanging a few stilted words of standard greetings, Eileen asked Sam to describe what happened on his and Dean’s final hunt. He did his best to describe everything to her – and found that having to do so with his hands really helped, because he didn’t have to worry about his voice cracking. Then she asked him what he’d been doing since, and he told her that too – along with an apology for not contacting her sooner.
‘It’s okay,’ she signed. Then she asked him the killer question: ‘And how are you coping without him?’
How was he coping without him? ‘Not well,’ he signed. ‘If it hadn’t been for Miracle here – I think I wouldn’t have made it this far, to be honest with you.’ He pulled a face. It was the closest he’d yet come to admitting to anyone just how close he’d come to ending his own life, stretching out ahead of him like an endless highway, with nobody sitting by his side.
‘I’m glad you’ve made it this far,’ Eileen signed back. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
There was an awkward pause. Sam drained his coffee and then petted Miracle, just for something to do with hands.
‘So – what happens now?’ Eileen signed to him.
‘I think – you-’ Sam stopped, waved his hands in a clearing-away gesture, and started again. ‘I would like you to be a part of my life,’ he signed. ‘If you want to. However you want to.’
Eileen nodded, thoughtfully. Sam knew a moment of pure panic – what if she was going to tell him to get lost, that she’d already found somebody else and wanted nothing to do with him ever again? And that moment of panic told him that actually, no matter how close to the edge of despair he’d gotten over these last months, he did want something more out of life – he wanted Eileen beside him.
‘I would like to be a part of your life,’ she signed, eventually. ‘If you’ll let me in.’
‘I will try my best,’ Sam signed back to her. ‘But – you should know – me and Dean – we were much closer than most brothers. Without him – it’s difficult for me.’
‘I understand,’ she signed. ‘And I don’t mind.’
‘Really?’ Sam accompanied the sign with a pleading look – the kind of look Dean had always called his ‘puppy-dog eyes’.
‘Really. I like you, Sam. I like you a lot. You’re a good man. And if you’ve got baggage – well, I have trust issues myself. We can take things slowly, and I understand if you need time for yourself, sometimes. And maybe I’ll need some time for myself, too.’
‘Thank you,’ signed Sam, and meant it.
Eileen sighed then, and looked away, briefly, before turning back to him.
‘I want you to be honest with me, Sam,’ she signed.
‘Of course,’ he replied, although his heart sank at what she might ask him. Being close to a dead brother was one thing – actual Game of Thrones, Flowers in the Attic incest was another.
She didn’t ask him about the incest. Or at least not in a sexual way. That would almost have been preferable to what she did ask him.
‘Do you think you and Dean were – or are – soulmates?’
Sam blinked a few times, and had to ask her to repeat the question. She did, even saying that word ‘soulmates’ out loud for his benefit.
Well, he’d promised to be honest with her. ‘Yes,’ he signed. She just nodded.
‘I thought so,’ she signed.
‘Is that – a problem?’ he asked. ‘Do you – not want to be in life now?’
‘It’s okay,’ she signed. ‘Thank you for being honest.’
‘Is it really okay? Being with me, knowing I’m soulmates with – somebody else?’
‘Most people never meet their soulmates, or never have one in the first place. I’d rather be with you, knowing you’ve told me the truth, than somebody I don’t know if I can trust.’
Sam nodded, slowly. It made sense. Sort of. To be sitting here, with Eileen, talking about his dead soulmate.
‘Shall I get us some more coffees?’ Eileen asked him.
‘Please.’
***
He and Eileen did take things slowly, at first. Then it felt like they accelerated their life together. After Miracle died – the dog had already been old when he and Dean had found him – it felt like the last thing tying Sam to his old life had gone.
As he hugged the old dog to him in the vet’s office, he whispered to him: ‘You’re a good boy, Miracle. You go straight to Dean now, tell him I’ll be all right.’ Miracle just nuzzled Sam a little, and Sam felt the simple love in that gesture, hoped he could take the message to Dean.
He sat in the front seat – the shotgun seat – of the Impala for a long time after that, crying his eyes out. And yet, he no longer wanted to drive off a cliff. He wanted to stay alive, for at least a little longer. He messaged Eileen, and started driving before she’d even answered him.
When he turned up on her doorstep, she saw the absence beside him, and invited him in without a word.
Shortly after that, they got a house together, in upstate New York, parked the Impala in the garage, under a dust sheet, and started their new life. They got married, in a very low-key ceremony, only a few people – their old hunting buddies – present. Eileen got a job in computing – helping to design and test user interfaces to be suitable for the hard-of-hearing. And, while she didn’t say anything to him directly. Sam realized that, if they were going to settle down properly, he should really get himself an actual job. He hadn’t been a hunter for some time – he’d stopped without even realizing it. So he finished his legal training, and finally qualified as an attorney. It felt weird to be doing a ‘normal’ white-collar job at last, but he consoled himself with the thought that, with all the pro-bono work he did, he was still saving people – and hunting things, in a different way.
A few years later, although Sam had never really seen himself as a father – Dean was the one with the strong paternal instincts - they had a child. When they came to thinking of a name, Sam was filled with all sorts of suggestions – but Eileen shook her head, and signed at him ‘How about Dean?’
And Sam didn’t like that idea at first – it felt too much like revisiting the past he’d tried to leave behind – but the more he thought about it, the more he found he couldn’t think of his little baby boy as anything other than Dean. So Dean it was, and would ever be. He had another Dean in his life now, and he gave his son all the love he had.
He never forgot the other Dean – how could he? – but gradually, over the years, he accepted that he had other people in his life now, who were more important to him than his dead brother. At least for now, and now was the only time that really mattered. He got the Impala out very occasionally – one Halloween he even sat behind the wheel wearing his costume of an old Grandpa, complete with cheap grey wig.
Eileen and he rarely spoke about the car, or the old Dean. His life before her, and their son, became something packed away in a box that he only rarely got out looked at – like the amulet he still kept, tucked away, and occasionally took out. Whenever he did so, he admired the golden gleam of the metal, still untarnished after all these years, and let himself fill up with all the aching sadness that was normally stoppered up.
***
Time worked differently in Heaven. Dean knew that. It took him a while to get used to though – however long ‘a while’ was here. He kept expecting things to change faster than they did, or for people – and Miracle – to age and wither away. It was an adjustment to realize, gradually, that here things just went on and on – unless you changed them yourself. And Dean didn’t really want anything to change, not really. He wanted everything to go on as it was, until –
Until Sam arrived. Dean accepted that he shouldn’t wish his brother would hurry up and get there – they’d have eternity together, after all, and wanting eternity to start sooner made no sense. Not when he’d told Sam to live on without him. He wanted Sam to live a full life, to hook up properly with Eileen at last, get a job, wear some dorky sweaters, even have a kid or two. Enjoy all the apple-pie-and-picket-fence stuff that he, Sam, had always wanted, and he, Dean, didn’t.
Did he? Hadn’t part of him always enjoyed cooking for his little brother, taking care of him? Hadn’t part of him longed for Ben to be his son? Hadn’t part of him wanted to settle down and have a family?
Well, in Heaven, all things were possible. He could find somebody else – like Rufus had Aretha – and have a new life, for a while at least. However long ‘a while’ was, here. He didn’t know how to start finding someone, though, or who that someone would even be. Whenever he tried to imagine sharing his afterlife with anyone, only one person ever sprang to mind.
And then. One day – one moment – when he was standing on the bridge, enjoying the view over river and the forests, Miracle by his side. He felt, without being able to say how he felt it, that his brother was here. At last. Or – time worked differently here. Maybe not at last. Maybe he was right on time.
Eternity had to start sometime, and Dean guessed it was starting now. He smiled.
‘Hey Sammy,’
He turned around. And there he was, exactly as he remembered him. After however many years it had been for him on Earth. Sam looked a little tired – as if the last few months of his life had been a lot to bear. And – almost shy, almost as if he was worried Dean wouldn’t want to see him any more, that he might somehow have moved on, in the time before he arrived in Heaven. Well, for better or worse, he hadn’t.
‘Dean,’ said Sam, and met his eyes, and smiled.
They embraced, Miracle rubbing himself against both of their legs at once. As they did so, Dean felt something hot pressed against him, and when the drew apart again, he saw a light glowing from Sam’s pocket.
‘Is that…?’
Sam dipped his hand inside his pocket, and pulled out the necklace. The amulet. The only thing you can never buy in Heaven. It was glowing, as it had done in the presence of God, except now –
‘I think that means,’ Dean started to say, but then Sam cut him off.
‘I know,’ he said, and lifted the necklace to put it around Dean’s neck again. Dean ducked his head without even thinking, and felt the weight of the amulet fall into place once more. Once more – and forever. And finally, he felt whole again. He had been reunited with the other half of his soul, and he was now complete. And he always would be.
Sam and Dean leaned together against the parapet of the bridge, and knew they had eternity to explore all the vistas of Heaven. Together.
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