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rudysrings · 4 years

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TEACH ME

The lifeguard at the beach yesterday inspired me to write this...y’all tell me that’s 👆👆👆not JJ!!!!

Summary: The reader has to train a new lifeguard, a certain blonde who can’t seem to stop hitting on her.

Word count: 4.1k (Holy shit what did I do)

Warnings: Uh mentions of drowning, weed, fluff? Not much this is really just a sweet oneshot

Credit to @alexa-playafricabytoto for the killer idea...I don’t think I did it justice but here we go anyways 😂

DISCLAIMER: I don’t know shit about lifeguards and was too lazy to do research so this it’s extremely likely that this is HIGHLY inaccurate and I’m sorry about that but just go with it for fanfic purposes, eh?

“Hey, Y/N!” Mr. Rodriguez, your manager called out for you from his office in the beach’s visitor center. You had just clocked in, still in your jean shorts and tank.

You quickly walked over, popping your head in the doorway of his office. Seated in front of him, you noticed, was a blond in a red snapback, a Kildare County Marina T-shirt on. “Yeah, boss?” You asked.

He gave you a rare, sweet smile, gesturing for you to sit down.

Confused, you cautiously walked over, sliding into the empty chair beside the blonde boy. You felt him glance at you but you looked straight at your manager.

“So Kyle’s out on some family emergency this week…” Your manager started.

You scoffed inwardly but didn’t say anything out loud for the sake of being professional. Kyle’s family emergency was most likely him passed out and hungover after a night of drinking, smoking and a shit ton of coke or molly or acid or whatever he was taking these days.

“And seeing as he was your partner and was supposed to train the newbie,” Mr. Rodriguez continued, gesturing towards the boy beside you, “So meet JJ Maybank, your new partner until I decide he’s learned enough from you.”

Your beach’s lifeguards worked on a partner system, due to its size. There were always two lifeguards in every tower to maintain maximum security.

You tried not to groan. JJ Maybank? Of all the people in the world, you had to get stuck with the one notorious for recklessness, theft, and starting fights? Of fucking course, you did.

“Right,” You nodded, giving your manager a tight-lipped smile, maintaining your politeness while subtly letting him know you were not happy with the cards you had just been dealt.

Again, without looking at JJ, you stood up, your hands on your hips. “When do we start?” You asked.

“Right now.”

You nodded, turning on your heel and calling over your shoulder. “You coming, Maybank?”

You heard shuffling as he followed after your long strides. You grabbed a rescue buoy for yourself and tossed one to JJ, who caught it with ease. You walked toward the front desk, smiling at Cheri, one of the receptionists your own age who was always nice to you, letting you get away with things she probably shouldn’t have. Picking up two whistles, you walked out the door and finally greeted the boy.

“So you lifeguard now?”

He shrugged. “I do whatever to pay for my pot.”

You rolled your eyes, walking down the beach towards your assigned tower for the day. “I can respect that.”

“So there are a few things you should know,” You began, to which JJ listened intently.

“I figure Rodriguez has already been through the list of your duties?” You raised an eyebrow in question.

JJ nodded. “Thoroughly. He doesn’t think I’ve a single brain cell, that man. He tried to draw me a picture of the lifeguard tower.”

You held in a smile. “If you ask me, he’s right to think that,” you quipped, making JJ pout.

“Anyways, apart from that, you need to know a few other things that are kind of unwritten. For example, don’t bother telling people to get off the rocks, just be ready to save them if they fall.”

JJ wrinkled his brows. “The fuck kind of rule is that? Not even going to warn people?”

You shrugged. “Unless you want to make a scene with a bunch of Karens shouting at you for dictating rules on a public beach, then you’ll do as I say.”

JJ grumbled. ‘Yes, ma’am.”

“Bob your head every once in a while so you don’t miss the people right below you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Keep the buoy on you wherever you go.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And lastly, don’t ever think someone is faking anything. Doesn’t matter if your friend is pranking you, we gotta do what we gotta do. We have to save every last imbecile on this beach.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Frustrated, You turned towards him, stopping in the sand, one hand on your hip. “Oh, shut your trap with that ma’am nonsense, Maybank. Trust me, you lucked out with getting me as a partner over Kyle—”

JJ nodded. “I sure did, guy’s a total tool. Besides, hot girl over junkie guy,” he whistled low, “no debate there.”

You tried not to blush at JJ calling you hot, but you felt the tips of your ears turn pink.

“Right, well, you can’t be hitting on me while we’re working together, Maybank.”

“Why not?”

You stepped forward, poking him in the chest. “Because you’ve known me since we were kids, yet we’ve never spoken. So don’t go pretending that I’m not invisible anymore.”

JJ frowned.

You turned, “Come on, there’s work to do.”

One the two of you climbed up the tower, you put on your whistle and gestured for JJ to lean forward, so that you could toss it over his neck. He did so, accidentally knocking his forehead on yours. “Sorry,” he mumbled, stepping away.

As he settled in, you stripped your shorts and tank, now left in your ruby red lifeguard one piece.

Today was slow, being a Wednesday off-season, and JJ tried to start a conversation. He pulled out a joint and offered it to you.

You gave him an “Are you kidding me,” look and he shrugged, unbothered, lighting it up and taking a long hit. “So what’s Keith really doing if he’s not having a family emergency?”

“Kieth? You mean Kyle?”

JJ nodded. “Right, him.”

You laughed dryly, “Probably wrecked after popping ten too many pills and sleeping with a few too many girls. Guy doesn’t know when to stop.”

JJ didn’t look at you, looking out at the sea. “So when did you two break it off?”

“What—We—” You spluttered.

JJ took another long inhale from the joint. “It’s easy to see, babe.”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” you snapped, pulling down your sunglasses from atop your head, hoping to hide the emotions that were most definitely swimming in your eyes.

“S’not, I know,”

“Then why ask?”

“Just curious as to how a girl like you ended up with a douche like him.”

You were quiet for a moment, before you said, “He wasn’t always like this.”

“Only doing coke, not into molly yet?” JJ joked.

You chuckled. “No, not like that. He was incredibly kind, he had the biggest heart.” You fingered the wood on the arm of your chair.

“Then what happened?”

“Then his mom died, and I wasn’t enough.” Your hand retreated into your lap.

“He dump you?”

Your eyes narrowed. “No, I dumped him. I’m smart enough to know when I’m getting less than I deserve.”

JJ hummed. “I think I have a chance then.”

You laughed. “You’ve got nothing more than wishful thinking, Maybank.”

“Come to the kegger tonight. I’ll show you wishful thinking.”

You almost gasped at his forwardness. “No, you idiot.”

He turned towards you, meeting your eyes, pleading. You didn’t relent.

“Fine, miss, I’ll just let you keep that stick up your ass then.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

When lunch came around, you let him go first, and when he returned, smelling of way too much weed, you asked, “You mind if I catch some waves? Think you can hold your own for a half hour?”

JJ gave a toothy grin. “Hell yeah, and watch you ride those waves? It’s going to be hard for me to watch anything but you.”

You smacked him over the head. “Do your job or we’ll both be in trouble, Maybank.”

You grabbed your board and climbed down, racing across the sand towards the water. Finally, you let yourself relax, sinking into the waves as they came. You even caught yourself doing a couple tricks, unconsciously trying to impress the blonde boy who was watching you from the tower. You felt high as a kite when you even managed to successfully execute several cutbacks in a row. You thought you heard a celebratory whistle from the direction of the tower and you jokingly gave a salute towards the beach.

As you climbed back up, JJ cheered. “Holy shit! I knew you were good, but god damn, Y/N! You gotta teach me how to do that Rodeo Flip! I’ve been trying to get it down for years!”

You laughed. “We’ll see, Maybank.”

His hands tugging at his hair in excitement, he asked, “How are you not going pro?!”

You shrugged. “I don’t do it for sport. It’s just something I do for me.”

JJ nodded, a renewed look of respect in his eyes. “Word.”

You spent the rest of your shift laughing at the ridiculous tourists on the beach, especially the ones that forgot sunblock.

You told JJ to go on ahead of towards the visiting center as you had a couple of things left to tidy up.

When you returned, he was chatting up Cheri, a thousand watt smile on her face as she enjoyed the attention from the pretty blonde.

You rolled your eyes, shoving past them to dump your equipment and clock out. You didn’t know what that bubbling feeling in your abdomen was, or why your stomach lurched at the thought of Cheri and JJ, or maybe you did, but you chose not to think about it too hard, afraid of the conclusion you’d come to.

As you walked out of the visitor center, turning towards home, you heard JJ call your name. You stopped, closing your eyes and muttering a silent prayer for the patience to deal with this boy.

He jogged out, making his way to you. “Hey!” He greeted, out of breath.

“Here to give me another half-assed invite to some kegger?” You asked.

JJ frowned, shaking his head. “No, I just wanted to clarify something you said this morning. You-You said that I thought you were invisible, because we’ve never spoken.”

“And?” you didn’t see where he was going with this other than to insult you.

“We’ve never spoken because I had the biggest crush on you Y/N. I’ve avoided you everywhere. You were hardly invisible to me. If anything, I didn’t think you saw me.”

You laughed. “Sure, Maybank.”

JJ shuffled his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s true,” he mumbled.

You smiled, “Have fun at the kegger, JJ.” You gave him a peck on the cheek before walking off into the night, the darkness hiding your flaming cheeks.

You heard a celebratory whoop from behind you and bit your lip as you smiled.

Your heart felt light all week as you got closer to your partner. He was actually great at his job, especially with the children patrons on the beach, which greatly surprised you.

You remembered one day in the middle of the week, when you were dropping your equipment off, JJ didn’t have his whistle.

When you asked about it, he simply laughed. “This kid near the docks kept pestering me for it. Little guy wanted to be a junior lifeguard. Couldn’t say no…”

It was at the end of the week when you met his friends, the infamous, self-proclaimed pogues.

The trio had shown up near the end of your shift, claiming to be curious of the job that JJ actually managed to keep for longer than a day. JJ saw them approaching and immediately swore, turning towards you to say, “I’m going to apologize now for what you’re about to experience.”

Before you could ask what that meant, he had left, climbing down the towers to stop his friends from reaching you.

Confused, you made your way down, too, watching as a boy with shaggy brown hair clapped JJ over the back, ruffling his hair aggressively. “So this is what you’ve been missing out on pogue days for?”

A dark haired boy, who looked nervous about simply existing, added, “Not what, who,” nodding at you, standing with your arms crossed over your chest and an eyebrow cocked.

JJ had a permanent blush on his face, but you couldn’t puzzle out why. Meanwhile, you received a slightly reserved smile from the girl holding hands with the nervous boy. She waved politely.

The boy with shaggy hair marched forward, arms wide open to give you a hug. You thrust your hand out on instinct, which he looked at like a difficult algebra equation, before brushing it away gently and pulling you into his tight embrace. The boy gave great hugs, you had to admit. The kind of tight bear hugs you expect from your mom.

You laughed nervously, patting him on the back and looking over his shoulder at the other three, who all laughed. JJ mouthed I’m sorry at you and you responded with I’m going to kill you.

When he finally let you go, he tussled your hair and said, “Nice to meet the girl who’s got my boy tripping over his own feet to get to work. I’m John B.”

You flicked your eyes over to JJ, who was as red as a tomato. He buried his face in Pope’s shoulder, muttering something. You snorted. “Hardly. I’m Y/N.”

The dark haired boy grinned, “Trust me, we know. I’m Pope and this is Kie,” he introduced himself and what you assumed was his girlfriend.

In the next hour, you learned that JJ’s friends were loud, blunt and lacked basic manners in some ways, but they were youthful and thick as thieves, clearly a family.

There was something warm about Pope, something that allowed you to trust him immediately, completely. So when the other three were surfing, and he joined you on the sand, asking you, “So are you feelin’ my boy or what?”, you weren’t afraid to be completely honest.

Giving a short laugh at his bluntness, you admitted, “I don’t really know. There could be something there. There is something there, I think.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

You would feel pathetic to confess this to anybody else, but Pope seemed like he wouldn’t judge you if you admitted to having three children. “I don’t know if we want the same things. I don’t see a guy like that in a serious relationship. Doesn’t seem like the type to settle.”

Pope grinned. “You know him well, then.”

Your heart fell as you thought that Pope was confirming your fears.

“But not well enough, I think. You’d be surprised. He’s kind of...obsessed with you. But not in the “Pokemon gotta catch ‘em all!” kind of way. He doesn’t see you as some sort of spiky eared Pichu…”

He trailed off and you looked at him, absolutely baffled. “I’m sorry...I don’t follow?”

Pope cleared his throat. “He likes you, Y/N, like really respects you and wants to make you happy. Any fool can see that.”

You were sure your entire body was on fire with how hard you flushed. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Well, you keep him on his toes so we don’t mind. And it’s made him a little softer, a little more careful, which we definitely don’t mind. He needs to be checked, that one.”

Pope stood up, reaching his hand out and pulling you up. “Now, JJ tells me you have a killer cutback. Wanna show me?” He asks.

You give him a big smile, grateful for his kind words and ability to seamlessly bring you back to reality from that heavy conversation. “I’d love to. If you can keep up!”

Laughing, Pope followed you into the ocean, JJ giving you an excited smile as you joined him in the water, content to see you getting along with his family.

Later that night, when his friends left, and JJ was helping you towel off your hair while shaking his own like a wet dog, making you giggle and shriek at the sensation, he asked, “You wanna actually catch some waves outside of this beach sometime?”

It was your conversation with Pope earlier that gave you the confidence to say, “How about tomorrow? It’s our day off…”

“I’ll pick you up before dawn then?”

You nodded, “Sounds perfect.”

He tossed you your towel, casually throwing an arm over your shoulder as the two of you walked back to the visitor’s center.

The next morning, you were a mess. JJ had never seen you in anything aside from your lifeguard uniform and you nearly lost your mind trying to figure out what to wear. You felt like a middle schooler deciding what to wear on the first day of school to impress their crush.

Eventually, you thought to hell with it, and just went with a blue romper over your swimsuit, letting your hair down for once.

You didn’t bother with makeup since you were planning to get soaked anyways.

When you heard the distinct sound of a large engine approaching, you walked out of your house, curious.

When the image of JJ on a dirt bike came into focus, you couldn’t help the cackle that tittered out of your mouth.

He slowed down to a complete stop in front of your driveway, swinging his leg over and walking up to you, spinning the key ‘round his finger.

“Hey, dude!” He greeted, sweeping you up in an unexpected hug. Still, you melted into his frame, letting your usually rigid spine relax, feeling JJ nuzzle into your shoulder slightly and sighing.

You pulled away after a moment and JJ rubbed the back of his neck shyly, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “Sorry, I-uh, I really needed that today.” This boy was touch-starved.

You patted his chest as you walked towards the dirt bike. “S’alright, it happens to the best of us.”

JJ followed you. “You ever ridden one of these before?”

You cocked your head at him. “Oh yeah, all the time.”

He looked surprised, before handing you the keys and raising his eyebrows in challenge. “Prove it.”

You simply smirked and mounted the bike, pretending you didn’t hear JJ mumble “That’s hot,” under his breath. Instead, you started the engine and nodded at him to get on behind you.

JJ smiled before climbing on behind you, scooching forward until every inch of your back was flush against his front.

“Let’s go, babe!” You said, before taking off down the street.

JJ gave you directions, steering you into areas of the Cut you had never been, which was saying something since you knew this town like the back of your hand.

Finally, he pulled up to a small cove, where you saw a small patch of sand. It was the farthest land towards the sea, meaning you would probably find the biggest waves.

“Holy shit, how did I not know this place existed?”

JJ grinned, bringing you to a small shack where a couple of boards were hidden from view in the foliage.

He handed you a board. “I’m full of surprises. Your hair smells nice, by the way.”

“Stop that!” You laughed.

“Stop what?”

You slapped him over the head. “Making me blush.”

“Don’t think I will.”

You rolled your eyes and simply unzipped your romper, ignoring the whistle from JJ as you stepped out in only your swimsuit. You laid the fabric over the handle of his dirt bike and turned towards him. He was still in his T-shirt and swim trunks.

“Aren’t you going to take your shirt off?”

JJ gave a shit-eating grin, “My, my, Y/L/N, at least take a guy to dinner first.”

You shoved at his chest. “No, you dumbass, I meant you can’t surf in that.”

JJ opened his mouth as if to say something before pausing and wrinkling his nose. “It’s just not a good idea for me today.”

“What did you eat a little too much? I can promise I’m not afraid of a food baby, Maybank, I can deal.”

JJ tried explaining before just giving up and pulling his shirt off, leaving you shocked and incredibly confused, not to mention concerned.

Bruises littered his body, beginning at his shoulder and ending far below his ribs. Involuntarily, your hand brushed his skin. “What the fuck happened, JJ?”

He shrugged. “S’my Dad, you know. Gets angry sometimes is all.”

You shook your head sadly. “You don’t deserve that.”

JJ laughed darkly. “That’s up for debate.”

You stomped your foot. “No, it’s absolutely not! No one deserves that, especially not you.”

JJ softened. “You really think so?”

“Of course I do.”

He gave a small smile. “So you won’t make fun of me for not being able to keep up with you today? It’s only because I got my ass kicked, otherwise I’d surf circles around you all day.”

His words made you frown, but you recognized the coping mechanism and simply said, “Oh sure, Maybank. You know as well as I do that there’s not a world where you can surf better than me.”

He shrugged, walking towards the water. “I can sure as hell try, babe!”

Surfing with JJ was an experience on some whole other level. Sharing a wave was something even the most experienced surfers didn’t attempt, but something in you trusted JJ and the two of you tried it out. It was absolutely surreal, until JJ didn’t resurface.

Your euphoric smile quickly turned into a panicked cry. “JJ? JJ?!” You looked around and caught sight of him hanging on to his board, eyes closed. You swiftly untied your board from your ankle and swam over to him, pulling him towards you. He was like dead weight. You dragged him over to the shore and dumped him there, immediately leaning down to check his pulse.

You felt it clear as day, but tears filled your eyes. “JJ! Wake up!”

You began chest compressions immediately. Before you even got to ten, however, you heard a giggle.

Bewildered, you looked at his smiling face, his amused blue eyes laughing at you.

You instantly flinched away, retreating from him. “You were faking?”

JJ nearly choked on his laughter. “You-you should have—” He tried to breathe through the guffaws “—seen your face! Priceless!”

You slapped at his chest with your fists as he sat up, ignoring his slight winces given his prior injuries. “Ay, ay what’s up with that! Stop it, Y/N!”

“You bastard! I thought you were dying!”

JJ softened, before holding the back of your neck and pulling you towards him, leaning in to capture your lips with his. It was sweet and short and he pulled away quickly, asking. “Was that alright?”

You shook your head, pouting. “No, another!”

He smiled, but gave in to your pleas gleefully, his other hand coming over the front of your neck, pulling you closer to him by your throat. You bit his lip harshly, still angry from the stunt he had just pulled and his whined quietly, moving his hand down your spine, hands brushing the bare skin that your swimsuit exposed.

He lay back, pulling you on top of him. You straddled him, allowing him to deepen the kiss. You didn’t realize how much you had wanted this until you were doing it. You were kissing JJ Maybank. And it felt right. It felt as right as surfing did, maybe even better, you dared to think.

Maybe it was the fact that he kissed you like he had all the time in the world and didn’t care, because he was hungry right now. Maybe it was how he held you like he was afraid you would let go. Maybe it was how he managed to wordlessly beg for your skin on his, clearly touch-starved. Whatever it was, it solidified the growing feelings you had for the blonde, blossoming into something new, something stronger, something better, until you couldn’t hear any of your own thoughts other than his name--over, and over and over again.

When you finally broke that time, you smiled into his neck, trying to catch your breath. “Wow,” sighed JJ, “That was some kiss, babe. If you kiss me like that forever, I’ll die a happy man.”

You giggled, but sat up slightly, flicking his nose. You knew you had to get this awful, insecure doubt of yours out of your mouth right now before you let it fester into something that could ruin this beautiful thing you were creating with JJ. “If you ever break my heart, JJ, I swear to God, you better not cheat on me.”

He frowned. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve wanted this forever. Can’t fuck it up now.”

You smiled, bending down for another kiss. JJ stopped you. “Wait. While we’re making promises, let me just say, if you ever get back with Kyle, I will sue.”

You thought the whole town probably heard your laugh then.

K so not my best work but hope y’all liked it!

Tagging @rretrophilee @jjsbxtch @drewsephsmiles @uwubonebabie bc we talked about it! You don’t have to read if you don’t want to lol 💛

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #outer banks #outer banks fanfiction #jj #jj maybank x you #obx #jj imagines #jj imagine #jj x you #jj maybank imagine #jj x reader #jj outer banks #obx jj #jj x y/n #outer banks imagines #outerbanks #obx fanfiction #jj maybank fluff

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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The Legend of the Three Caballeros: Dope-A-Cabana Review (Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Salduos Amigos! Since i’m covering a full series, i’d like to welcome any newcomers to the first part of the epic final stretch of THE RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS! For those of you just joining us, a few months back WeirdKev27, easily my biggest supporter as the only one who comissions any reviews from me, asked if I could do a big project for him: a comission of EVERY major american apperance of those three happy chappies in matching serapes. Give i’ve ALWAYS loved the boys ever since house of mouse and had been sitting on Legend of the Three Cablleros for far too long, more on that in a minute obviously, I happily agreed. Plus the rather nice influx of cash from the comissions was very welcome. If your intrested in comissioning your own, hit me up via my direct messages. It’s 5 dolalrs an episode, though I do do discounts on orders of 3 or more, and 10 for a movie, with again discounts for orders of more than one. And yes that plug was very shamless, but again I have no other job than this. Back to the point these reviews have taken me on a wonderful journey: I got to rewatch the movie and revel in the fun songs, acid trips and super horny Donald Duck, got to both revisit one of Don Rosa’s best story and read another all time classic from the man I hadn’t before, took a trip back to the house of mouse to hear some great songs and see some great cartoons.. and some not so great ones, took a small detour to Mickey and The Roadster Racers to be baffled and annoyed though I am proud to say it was my first review back after I came down with Cornovirus and lost a week of work time. And finally I covered the town where everyone was nice, and got to see the boys have a joyous reunion with Donald and be lushly animated while.. Dewey jackassed around in a B-Plot and Webby resisted the urge to throat chop him. It’s been a long ride and you can find all of it is so far RIGHT HERE IN THIS CONVIENT LINK ! CLICK IT NOW IF YOUR CURIOUS. Point is while this was well paid for.. it’s easily one of the projects i’ve been most proud of and while i’m sad to see it winding down, i’m proud of what i’ve done so far, and I just wanted to heartily thank Kevin for the ride and for being so generious as to fund the whole damn thing. Your a good dude man.

Which brings us here, to the grand finale. The Legend of the Three Caballeros! As the boys first starring roll as a group since the movie, there was really no other way this retrospective could end, and since I have a terrible problem with procastination and really hated this series version of daisy I just kept pushing back watching the series until now. I’m not proud of it but I am happy to correct it and hope you’ll all come along with me. Before we get started I could not find much background on the show. It was directred by Matt Danner who was the character designer for the utter classic Xiaoilin Showdown and currently works on the Muppet Babies reboot, so i’m happy he’s still getting work. Otherwise I couldn’t find much. The most I could was on tv tropes, claming the series was orignally meant for Netflix.. and while I have no proof and this could easily be conjecture.. i’m inclined to belivie it. The series was apparently done long before the Ducktales reboot, to the point Frank Angrones was only vaguely aware of it and it didn’t even remotely impact the series, with Panchito and Jose only debuting in Season 2 because the original idea for bringing them in was scrapped. So while I don’t have proof.. I’m inclined to belivie it since it makes sense: Disney DID have a healthy relationship with Netflix once, setting up the MCU shows and likely being happy there.. but eventually they wanted their own corner of the sky, and likely didn’t want one of their shows bolted to the network like all their marvel shows were. The problem this created though is Disney was CLEARLY left with a show they no longer had a place for. But even with that the show was still done, they COULD have put it on the Disney Now app or just aired it on the Disney Channel. See if there was any fan intrest in season 2 or throw one into production to at least beef up the episode count. I mean the Cabs have a built in fanbase, kids would likely love it... it’s the logical choice. But this is Disney. They’ve had to be drug kicking and screaming into representation, to the point they had to be fought for the gay romance subplot in owl house to happen, try to hide that the Sparkshort “Out” is about a gay man struggling with coming out despite having you know reams of content on the service with either gay subtext or out and out gay characters, and their attempts at doing representatoin to score points in other little ways.. have been pathetic, easily missable bits in movies that could , and have been, edited out in more homophobic countries. My point is yeah i’m still sore about how they and a LOT of the animation industry have to be dragged into doing the right thing over profit, and they often make very stupid decisions for seemingly no reason. They are a good company a good chunk of the time.. but Disney has done fucked up quite a bit. This is one of those times. Instead they dumped the show on the Disney Life app in the phillipines and slowly some other countries, basically the Disney Now equilvent over there, and then just sort of forgot about it until Disney Plus launched. And given how many shows they HAVEN’T put on the streamer for again, seemingly no reason, it is a nice suprise the show finally got a release on there in the US. But before that, and proving what a massive mistake just abandoing the show was, the show did gather a massive fanbase via people uploading the episodes online. So yeah the show was treated REALLY shittily for stupid reasons, but thankfully it still has a fanbase to this day and said shabby treatment, as it always does, just encouraged fans to support it harder. So naturally i’m more than happy to give the series some spotlight as fanbase or no, it badly needs it and Disney sure as hell dosen’t want to do it. So if somebody’s gotta do it, might as well be me. This is the Legend of the Three Cablleros. We open on some narration from Xandra, Goddess of Adventure. Granted she hasn’t been identified yet, and won’t be till next episode.. buuuut it’s easier on me to not have to dance around her name so your learning it now. But Xandra narrates that long ago there were epic battles against the good and the evil and all that by epic heroes, and it’s all cumilated in the Legend of the Three Cablleros. Post title drop we’re treated to the boys, in cool looking armor and with neat weapons, fighting a purple monster man as you do in an really beautiful and epic sequence As this scene illustrates the animation for this show is GORGEOUS, a lavish update of the standard disney style with nice use of shadows. It feels almost film quality in it’s work, and it’s an utter treat to watch and opening at the end was a good call: it both ratchets up excitement and allows the first ep to have some action since this one, as part of a two part premiere, is mostly setup. It’s eyecatching, exciting and makes you want to know what the hell is going on. And since Xandra realizes MAYBE starting the story at the climax was a bad idea, she takes us back a bit.

Okay maybe not that far. No we open properly at Donald’s house, where it’s his birthday! And like the movie, it’s Friday the 13th, an excellent call back. Donald’s making his breakfast, boliling some tea and.. talking with the weird foced warped refelection in the kettle who can apparently only say “right back at you handsome, wink”. Seriously I have so many questoins and all of them are about what this guy is, why is Donald so calm about all of this, and is he still alive after Donald destroys his tea kettle later. Donaldo gets a call from Daisy, whose visting to spend the day with him and is waiting patiently int he bad part of town. I didn’t know Duckburg had a bad part of town but given Glomgold has to get his sharks and bombs somewhere, i’m not surprised. Unless he special orders them, but even then what if he needs a shark or a bomb in a hurry? He’s gotta get them somewhere and now we know where. So there’s that. So all’s going well until Donald’s asshole boss calls and forces him to come in despite Donald having the fucking day off and it presumably being on the schedule. So Donald rushes to work, and we do get some great gags but as you’d expect for Donald it goes poorly and he botches a kid’s haircut despite the mother being very rude.. and also a female version of pete. LIke.. did he remarry after the divorce from peg or is that his sister? Does that mean PJ and PIstol have a cousin I never knew about? I want answers dammit.. and picutures of spider-man. Not for any slander job I just really like spider-man.

Eh it’ll do.As i’m doing a full series this time i’m stopping to talk about the main cast as we go soooo.... Tony Anselmo is naturally Donald, even pitching in to consult the crew on Donald’s characterization here, as really what better expert is there? He’s voiced Donald since the original Ducktales and has stuck with the roll since, only taking a break for Mickey and the Roadster racers and that’s likely because between finishing up this series and the Mickey Mouse shorts, and moving on to Ducktales 2017, he likely simply didn’t have the time for it. Granted given how little he was used in the first season of the show, he probably still could’ve done it but regardless, he’s a legend. Daisy is voiced by Tress Macneile, who not only has voiced the character since House of Mouse and is easily the best voice for her, but is also one of the most storied and legendary va’s in the buisness, having been at this since the 80′s with zero signs of stopping. Just to name a few of her more notable roles, in chronological order; Gadget Hackenwrench, Babs Bunny, Agnes Skinner, Charlotte Pickles, Dot Warner (Which as of last year she’s picked up again and will do the same for Babs, just in case you thought i was exagerating on the “zero signs of stopping” thing), Pookie from Hey Arnold, Mom, Hoodsey Bishop, and Queen Oona among MANY, MANY smaller rolls. I didn’t even realize Charlotte or Hodsey were here, she’s that talented and deserves all the praise.. and way better rolls as Daisy than this one but we’ll both get to that and thankfully much like with Tony, the reboot’s giving her character some depth to work with so she gets to reallys tretch her chops. The woman turns 70 here, will likely keep going until she dies, and is wonderful and deserves more respect.

So because this is Donald, life wont’ stop punching him in the face and it turns out his house burned down, the fire people are destroying everything because their assholes, seriously they destroy both a family heirloom and a picture of his parents despite not being on fire. I’d be genuinely suprised if their general strategy wasn’t scremaing “fire, fire fire” and then going “rock rock rock” while they throw rocks on it. Super brucey bonus prize for the first person who gets that refrence and comments on it. I’ll get back to this in a second but SOMEHOW, beisdes loosing his home, all his possesions and his job... it gets even WORSE and Daisy calls, refuses to listen to him despite him having VERY valid excuses and breaks up with him. Oh and then the fire fighters gladly talk about going home to their in tact houses and partners.

So yeah let’s talk about this. This first 6 or 7 minutes.. is why I didn’t return to the show for a while. My brain has a bad habit of glomming onto certain parts of things, so it remembered the rough to sit through and not very funny first act.. and not the rest of the episode which is very good and likely more indiciative about how good the series is. Thankfully it does get better but this first act .. frames things like it’s DONALD’S fault somehow. I mean yes he did burn his house down.. but even that really isn’t his fault. He was called away suddenly, wasn’t thinking and made a mistake. Hell he proabably woudl’ve had more left if the fire department hadn’t gone crazy with the axes. His being called into work? He took the day off, and his boss was just a dick. His screwing up at the job? he was genuinely trying his best and doing his best and the client was just wholly unresonable. Donald did nothing wrong but the episode WANTS to frame him like some sort of screwup.. which he is, it’s Donald.. but not in this case. It was just a string of uncomfortable to watch bad luck that cumilates in him having nothing left. It’s not funny, it’s jsust really sad and it’s REALLY hard to tell the tone their going for as they seem to awkwardly bounce from jokes to Donald being utterly devistated and alone.

And the worst of this.. is Daisy. Daisy is EASILY the most infamous part of the show, as their portryal.. is pretty bad and apparently gets worse. We’ll see as we go but yeah.. her screaming at and breaking up with her boyfriend without listneing to his side and giving the claim we only have HER word on that he’s always screwing up, ON HIS BIRTHDAY no less, when he’s done nothing wrong, does not make a good first impression nor the fact the show seems to AGREE WITH HER. And look Donald is a trainwreck, this is true.. but the show dosen’t remotely portray him as one until AFTER this scene. As I said nothing that happened was his fault. Donald isn’t irresponsible or a screwup or dating a high schooler or anything. He isn’t Scott Pilgrim. He just has really bad luck. Again, we do see some foibles in the scenes to come.. but we don’t see any that would justify her claims, especially since she seemed perfectly happy earlier with him. Now if she’d say brought up some screwups in the first scene, and gently at that, then this would’ve worked.. but as it stands she just comes off as MASSIVELY unsymapthetic.. especially since Donald later calls her nieces over for help, which is objectively weird not gonna lie.. so she now KNOWS he had to move to a new house and his likely burned down.. yet still apparently has nothing good to say about him.

It didn’t help this rubbed me the wrong way in a very special way. As i’ve made plain before I don’t like THIS version of Daisy, the nagging, selfish, vindictive asshole who will gladly try and cheat on donald, dump him at a moments notice and you know PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE. Which just in case you think i’m exagerating...

She fucking upercutted him..and like here for something that isn’t his fault. I mean this Daisy isn’t physically beating Donald.. but that’s a VERY low bar to clear. And emotional abuse is just as bad, so there. My point is too often in the comics when written poorly, Daisy is a pretty terrible person and I REALLY didn’t want a screen adaptation of this form of Daisy. It took a WHILE to recover from not liking daisy over this version, with help from remembering house of mouse, some good barks story with her and the AMAZING Ducktales version and the suprisingly good Quack Pack version.. I did. But yeah.. this is not a good sign of things to come for the character in this show.

So yeah Donald’s heart is in the basement and his week is at an all time low when a post man shows up and gives him a letter.. well puts it in the box for a good gag but semantics. But the letter turns around as his ancestor Clinton Coot left him an inhertance for his 3Xth birthday: a house of some kind in the swanky neighboring town of New Quackmore. And i’ll also say.. it’s REALLY nice that for once, we focus on the Duck side of Donald’s legacy, or rather the coot but semantics, instead of the McDuck part. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love the clanmcduck, always will and I love Ducktales exploration of it.. but it’s still nice to acknowledge Donald comes from two sides and while one of those may be humble farmers, they still accomplished a lot, including founding Duckburg in most continuities including presumably this one. It’s also a good way to seperate thigns from other properties including the reboot: focusing on a part of Donald’s lineage that isn’t usually touched on and making THEM just as badass as the other side.

So we get a quick montage as Donald takes a cab there and takes in the rich and fancy sights. It’s also a brilliant way to set up New Quackmore and it’s attached instutite as a fancy, upperclass place.. and thus perfectly clash it with Donald. Donald ends up getting dropped off at a big mansion.. which is not his , but belongs to the insittutes head, Baron Von Sheldgoose, played by WAYNE KNIGHT.

Hell. Yes. I freaking love Wayne Knight. In case you don’t know who the man above is, or at least don’t recognize his face, Wayne Knight is a very funny and talented actor and voice actor with a lengthy career primarily in side rolls, with the rolls that he broke out with being loveable asshole and Jerry’s enternal nemisis Newman on Seinfeld and Dennis Nedry, aka “that guy who got sprayed acid in his face by those horrifying frilled dinosaurs that will never not haunt my nightmares”. Seriously that scene fucked me up as a kid and I could not watch that part of the movie. For the most part he’s been a side character man but he has done a LOT of voice work, most notable Zurg in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Dojo for the aformentioned and excellent Xiaolin Showdown, and Mr. Blik for Catscratch and I wish he’d do more. He also recently voiced the penguin in Harley Quin so when I get to that you better belivie i’m looking forward to it. Point is while he may not always get the glory, and had to settle for starring in a mediocre tv land sitcom to get a steady paycheck once, the man is VERY talented, very funny and perfectly cast here.

So Donald makes himself home, finds out it’s not HIS home and gets thrown out by the snooty rich asshole’s bodyguards. As you’d expect. Donald does find HIS home, a run down cabana next door to the mansion with caution tape all over. Still Donald takes it best he can as it’s better than no home at all> What he doesn’t take well is finding out from the executor of the will that he’s not the only one inheriting the house... which is absolutley fair. The guy just had the worst day of his life, and this lady didn’t bother to put in the letter to any of them that they were sharing the house. The Sheldgoose thing was just an average Donald screw up. This is just this lady going...

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But yes we meet our boys.. and the introductions are naturally given this series is about them the best we’ve gotten so far: Jose is thrown off a bus, having ran out of fair, and having wooed all the ladies on board, and quickly charms the executor and is perfectly cordial to Donald, while Panchito parachutes out of a plane and marvels at how he went from nothing to having two new best friends, a run down shack and a sleezy lawyer! In short the two make a great first impression, helped by wonderful casting. Jose is voiced by Eric Bauza, a talented voice actor whose had WAY too many roles to list here, but two of the most notable are being the current voice of Bugs and Daffy, and his most notable role outside that recently has been playing Splinter in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But the guy is endlessly talented, seems really nice, and is easily one of my faviorite Jose’s so far after just one episode. He just.. gets the character perfectly and is thankfully NOT another white guy stepping into the role, so that’s nice. He easily oozes the charm and layabout nature Jose and was a natural in the role and i hope he gets to take it up again at some point. Speaking of naturals we have Jamie Camil as Panchito, who easily steps into the guys boundless energy and the sterotpical bits are swapped out for making him a cloud cuckoolander instead, which I genuinely love and fits the character perfectly. He’s best known for CW Soap Jane the Virgin, where his charcter Rodrigo just sounds like a delight, but has recently picked up a pretty good voice acting career, vocing Don Karnage in the Ducktales reboot, Globgor in Star vs the Forces of Evil and Todd’s Stepdad George in Bojack Horseman. I only hope he gets more voice work as he’s really damn great at it and it’s wonderful to get to see him in a role that’s not limited to a few episodes at best for a change.

So Donald’s less than happy about this, again it’s hard to really be that mad at him when he’s had a really, REALLY bad day and wasn’t told about this, but it’s kept to just the light level of grumpy as to not make him unlikeable. Granted after that intro it’d take a LOT to make him unsympathetic, but after their version of Daisy I really dont’ want to test this series. Our boys also find out they have a groundskeeper, ari, aka THE ARCUAN BIRD! He’s just a delight any time he pops up, doing his usual “ya ta ta ta” bit, and being adorable and hilarioius as always.. and also hilariously failing to fix the boys door. So Donald ends up just accepting he has roomates now, nothing he can do, and the three explore the house finding all sorts of cool old artifacts, feeling they’ve stumbled onto something specail. And you know what that means: YARD SALE! Seriously it feels like a bit out of Wet Hot American Summer or Stella, a series from the same creators you really should check out and that is high praise, trust me.

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I wish this series was streaming somewhere.. I mean we finally got Clone HIgh streaming Viacom, get on that. Anyways, it’s just.. fucking hilarious, and a LOT of this episode is once we walk back from the writers kicking donald in the junk and acting like it was his fault. Once Donald gets his inhertiance, the episode picks up immensley and we see the shows real charm and hilarirty fly, with jokes coming at a rapid and wonderful pace. The show really did impress me with the second half and made me utterly excited for tommrow.. or I guess today’s, look at the follow up. But we’re still in this episode and being a rich asshole, Sheldgoose isn’t happy about a yard sale, though given this series standards, we not only get some great deliveres from Knight of an outraged “A YARD SALE?!”... but a wonderful gag where Sheldgoose out to white guy it up and yell at them over this..accidently takes a wrong turn in his massive house, and turns around, not loosing how upset he is once. Meanwhile, we meet.. April, May and June. Yeah apparnetly Della isn’t dead or lost in this continuity, so the boys are MIA, and are instead replaced by Daisy’s Nieces, who I hope show up in the reboot before it ends. Especially since the show makes them WAY more tolerable than classic huey dewey and louie and instead enjoyable like Ducktales HDL. While not as indvidual as those three, the three are still idendtical outside of outfits, their voice actress Jessica DiCicco uses her consderiable talents and experince to give each one a unique voice, so while they all share a voice actress, none of them sound alike. And to round out our main cast for now, as our last members will be joining us fully next time, let’s talke about Jessica DiCicco. Jessica is a very talented and increasingly prolific voice actor and if you haven’t heard of her, and you probably have, you’ve defintely heard her voice. Starting out with Disney, hence why the probably called on her for this, she did the voices of Maggie for the Buzz on Maggie and Melina for Emperor’s New School before breaking out as Flame Princess on Adventure Time, whose both one of my faviorite characters from the show and one we’ll be digging into starting next month. And not one to rest easily she picked up a second set of iconic rolls vocing Lynn and Lucy Loud on The Loud HOuse, and funnily enough using those voices for two of the girls here. And along with Loud House she’s also currently starring in it’s Pony and is int he main cast of Close Enough as Candace. My point is she’s exceedingly talented.. as is this whole cast, as it’s a DAMN excellent cast and just further sells that this series deserves better. We’ll get into the girls more next time as they don’t do much here other than get called in by Donald for help, with what I saw of episode 2 fleshing them out more. Point is Sheldgoose offers a million dollars for the cabana and all it’s stuff and the boys are glad to sell.. they just have to find something Sheldgoose desperately wants, a mysterious golden atlas encrusted with Jewels. Our heroes head in to find it with Panchito finding it, and being very specific about it. We also get a nice call back to Ari destroying the door as Jose cleverly calls on him to destroy the lock. So our heroes open the book... and a goddess pops out and threatens to kill them all.

Final Thoughts: Dope-A-Cabana is a decent intro the series, but as i’ve said it’s heavily hampered by a weak and mean spirited first act. But once it gets going it REALLY gets going and as part 1 one of a two part pilot, it does it’s job well once it does get going: introducing our three boys and one of our antagonists well and setting up the side cast and preparing for our last to major additions Next Time: The Boys go on their first adventure, Sheldgoose finds a boss and the girls find their voice. Thanks for Reading, Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye.

#the legend of the three caballeros #The Three Caballeros #donald duck #Jose Carioca #panchito romero miguel junipero francisco quintero gonzalez #panchito pistoles #xandra #april duck #may duck #june duck #baron von sheldgoose #daisy duck #pete pete #disney plus #disney channel #animation #disney

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robinsdoghouseofwhump · 4 years

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Gabriel's Dangerous New Owners (AU)

(Aaaaaah! We finally finished this! Me and miss @whumping-every-day have been working on this piece since November! I'm soso glad to be able to work with her again)

(So backstory, this piece came from an ask that I sent her and it turned into a full blown project. This is the only chapter of this but I think it's my best writing yet. All characters belong to @whumping-every-day)

"Here it is," A small thing was shoved to the floor in front of the cherry wood desk with a thud. "It’s in very good condition, and very well behaved."

The woman behind the desk was impassive. “This is what you’re trying to trade us?” She pursed her lips, eyes cold. “What do you think, Stefan?”

The second figure looming behind her didn’t respond at first, except to cross his arms and frown. “Doesn’t look worth thirty grand to me.”

“No, it doesn’t, does he.” The first man shifted uneasily; this was his last-ditch effort, after all. He didn’t have thirty grand to give them.

“I assure you that it’s worth it. I’ve had a few pets, this one is by far the most obedient. And still so responsive.” The man fisted a hand in the kneeling figure’s hair; there was a small whimper, but no other sound. The narrowing of Stefan’s eyes and the tensing of Maria’s shoulders could almost be mistaken for a trick of the light.

“Here’s a thought,” Maria purred. She leaned forward against the desk, and despite her being perhaps half the weight of the two men in the room, she radiated danger. “We take your boy. And in exchange, instead of breaking every bone in your body and then dumping it into a vat of acid, you can have another month to get us our money.”

“But-” The man balked, and indignation flared in his eyes. “That wasn’t the deal. I’ll give him to you in exchange for waiving my debt.”

“Mmm…” Maria paused, cocked her head, smiled. “Nope.”

Stefan outright laughed behind her, shaking his head. “There you have it. We’ll take what you’re offering… and then, if you haven’t found a way to pay us properly within a month, we’ll take everything else.”

“Really, you’re getting a better deal than most.” Her nails drummed a tat-tat-tat pattern against the polished cherry as Maria spoke. “See, normally when people can’t pay, they don’t walk out in one peice.”

The threat, as tame as it was, elicited another tiny whimper from the boy kneeling on their floor.

"Come on, please, I need more than a month for that much money! Please give me more time." The man's voice wavered a bit, and the two siblings smirked at his begging.

"If you thought that one of your old pets was going to cut it, you're wrong." Stefen frowned. "Come on Todd, I thought you knew how we operate. Human property will buy you an extension. That’s all." The sound of a gun being clicked made the boy duck his head down and cower where he knelt.

Tod went pale, took a step back. “Oh, come on… I’ve got a month, right? I can make that work.” His voice shook ever so slightly, giving away his fear. “I can get your money.”

“Oh?” Maria’s lips pulled up in a grin, saccharine and threatening. “Well now, that’s a change in tune. You have a month. No more.” The man nodded frantically, apparently having given up on words, and Maria waved a hand. “That’s good enough for me, then. You, get out.” The words are very clearly directed at Todd. “And of course, leave your pet plaything.”

Todd nodded shakily, and there was a visible tremor in his hands as he backed away, eyes still fixed on the weapon at Stefan’s hip.

“I’ll get your money,” he squeaked. Then he was at the door, and a guard opened it from the outside. It thudded shut behind him, and then the two siblings were alone with the quivering boy on the floor.

Stefan sighed, and his hand fell from the butt of his weapon. Then he crouched down in front of the little thing. "Hey bud, look at me." The man tipped his chin up with a finger, and frightened blue sapphires welled up with tears met his eyes. "Are you alright?"

No response.

"I asked you a question little one, can you answer for me?" His tone turned softer, but firmer. "Do you have a name?"

The boy only whimpered and shook as tears washed down his dirty cheeks. He was trembling faintly, something distant in his eyes.

"Do you think he's mute?" Maria looked down at the boy and ran a hand along his dark curls. "I wouldn't be surprised, Todd doesn't take very good care of his possessions."

"No, I think he's just scared." Stefan frowned a bit and tapped the boy's chin. "He has a right to be, though. We did just send his owner running like a beaten dog."

“Mm.”

At the mention of a beating, even in passing, the boy trembled harder. It seemed like he was doing his best to be quiet, but he couldn’t help the way his breath was shaky, or the little not-quite-whimpers that escaped every few seconds.

“You’re not going to calm him down right away,” Maria said, pushing to her feet from the plush chair. “I’ll tell you what. Here’s what I think might help…”

She crossed out from behind the desk, and even though she was smaller than her brother, the fluidity in her motions spoke to something deadly. Stefan stepped aside automatically.

The leather of the boy’s collar was stiff against her fingers. Maria tested the give of it as gently as possible, frowning at the state of his neck; it had been rubbed raw from the tightness of it. "Up, little one. Don't be shy." Her words were soft, and the boy shakily scrambled up to his feet, sheer terror etched in sapphire eyes.

"Good boy. Now come along, we need to get you fed and bathed." A warm smile starkly contrasted her demeanor from earlier as she rubbed a thumb along his cheek. "And definitely some rest in a proper bed. These bags aren't flattering at all under your pretty eyes."

"Maria? What are you doing? I thought we were gonna put him with the rest of the other pets." Stefan's tone turned sharper, clearly not amused with the idea of keeping a house pet in their mansion.

"Oh come, brother, can I not give our new guest some comfort?" The woman gently took hold of the boy's hand, noting the redness and bruises on his wrist. "Come along, little one." She led him out of the room with a warm and gentle hand towards the bathroom, the boy trying not to look in awe at the lavish mansion hallway they walked down.

“This is the public wing,” Maria explained as they walked. “This is where we entertain guests, throw balls, conduct business.” And threaten people who owed them money, she finished in her head.

They passed two security guards on the way, both silent and shadowed. They both nodded to Maria as they passed, and she waved them off, signalling that everything was okay. The boy watched them with big, hollow eyes, before refastening his gaze to the carpet.

“And this,” Maria continued like she had never stopped, “is the private wing.” They stopped in front of a pair of oak doors, and they opened soundlessly when she pushed.

There was a lot to see; rich colors, expensive furnishings, decorative rugs and soft throws. But Maria just took the boy’s shoulder and guided him with her to the upstairs bathroom.

He was trembling when they stopped.

"There there, let's get you in the bath, little one." Maria sat on the edge of the tub and turned the dial on the faucet. Warm, steamy water rushed out and quickly filled the marble bath.

"Can you take your clothes off for me?" She gave a gentle smile, and her eyes were warm, dimples showing in olive skin. "We need to get you cleaned up. Then I’ll have one of the kitchen staff bring us something to eat.”

His stomach growled audibly at the mention of food, and the boy’s eyes widened in horror at the sound. But Maria only shook her head.

“Clothes now, food soon,” she murmured, and he nodded quickly and stiffly began pulling his clothes off. “Can you talk, hmm?” The question was gentle, but the boy still flinched, ducked his head. Maria watched him carefully, and her eyes were serious under the warmth.

He seemed to be waiting for something, stuck halfway with one arm in his shirt and one out. They were cheap clothes, Maria noted with displeasure; dirty and ill-fitted. She would get him something nicer soon, perhaps something loose and silky…

"How about you tell me your name? Don't be shy, little bird." Maria ran a hand along his dark curls gently as she helped guide the shirt over his head properly. Then she offered a hand, and the boy hesitated, but still held on tightly as she helped him into the warm tub. The water made him tense up as goosebumps travelled up his bare skin, but he settled in the tub without a fuss.

"I bet you have a beautiful name, and a beautiful voice too." She tried to coax him with a tender tone as she slid a hand down his back with a washcloth, wiping off a sheet of dirt and blood.

"Todd needs to take better care of his things, huh." It wasn’t really a question, and the boy’s big eyes followed her hands as she reached up to stroke his cheek, tenderly tracing across a yellowing bruise. “But then… you’re not Todd’s anymore, are you.” The boy shivered, dropped his eyes, and Maria just smiled faintly.

He didn’t seem inclined to speak; in fact, the boy still looked utterly terrified, and Maria’s smile faded.

“Oh, sweetheart. It’s going to be better here,” she promised gently. More silence. “Come on, then,” she added after a moment. “Time to clean you up. You're doing great, pumpkin. Can you lift your arms so I can wash you down?" She took a shower sponge and pressed it against the bruises on his back, (which was pretty much the entirety of it) gently getting all the dirt and caked on blood off.

Soon, the bath water turned to an ugly brownish-grey.

“Hair next,” she said, and the boy flinched. Maria frowned, but she just squirted the shampoo onto her hands and gently instructed the boy to lie back. “There you go, good.” His hair was oily and dirty, and Maria washed it twice, being careful of the knots and tangles. When it was done she had him sit up, and then offered a hand to help him out of the bathtub. "Oh, sweet thing. You're shivering like a kitten." She wrapped Stefan's heavy robe around him, easily burying the boy in soft and fluffy material.

He looked younger like that, somehow; fresh-faced and shivering, despite the bruises and bloodied lip.

"There, now I can see your handsome face better." She pushed his wet hair past his eyes, still tired and dark. "Let's get you dressed and then we can get you fed. We have lots of fruit and sweets for good boys like you." A hand grabbed his as she led him out to the foyer, where a fresh change of clothes were already set out by the servants.

"I can take it from here, if you want." Stefan's voice came from behind them, and the boy jumped, earning a chuckle from the giant man. "He didn't give you trouble, did he?"

Maria just laughed. “Trouble? From this one?” She shook her head, reached out to gently pet the boy’s wet curls. “You might as well expect trouble from a skittish puppy.”

"That's good at least. He still hasn't spoken, has he?" The question was directed to his sibling, but the pet shrunk down at his tone as Stefan walked over with a clean set of clothes in hand.

He was holding out the silky bottoms in front of the boy, expecting him to step in them. "Come on buddy, one foot first, then the other."

Beside him, Maria raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t want to keep a pet in the manor? You were grouchy about it.”

Stefan huffed, didn’t meet her eyes. “Don’t buy too much into it,” he muttered. Then, to the pet, “You, in the pants, come on. Hold on to me if you have to.”

The boy only looked at the larger man with terror in his eyes, but he reached out with a shaking hand to steady himself against Stefan’s shoulder, then clumsily stepped into the pants.

In the end, the boy was swimming in the clothes. The shirt hung off of his skinny frame, slipping down one shoulder to showcase delicate collarbones and the ring of bruises around his neck.

“Poor thing,” Maria murmured. “Stefan, love, would you ask the kitchen staff to send something up to eat? Something light on his stomach?”

"Some fruit and oatmeal sounds nice doesn't it?" Stefan rang the bell on the wall, signaling the servants to come up. "But I would like him to ask for the food himself."

The boy looked up with wide eyes as a pitiful whine came out of his throat. Nonononono please… don't make me talk.

"Stefan, you can't ask him to do that, he hasn't spoken a word since he's been here." Maria wrapped her arms around the shaking boy, stilling him as she ran her fingers past his curls more. "We'll work on getting him to talk later, right now he needs to eat."

The boy only trembled in her arms, eyes darting fearfully between Stefan and the floor. He didn’t understand what was going on. These two were strange; the woman had been gentle with him so far, but Gabriel knew that it wouldn’t last for long. And the man… the man frightened him. These two had frightened his Master - or, his former Master, now.

The servants came in silently as Stefan ordered dinner for the boy. “Stefan, I’m going to take him upstairs,” she murmured. “Meet us there?” She waited for a nod, before gently steering the boy out of the room.

He still wouldn’t look up at her. His wrist was limp where she held his hand, and every time she reached out to steady him, he would flinch away minutely before going still. Maria was careful not to let her calm demeanor falter, but her lips thinned just a little as the extent of the boy’s treatment. He really did act like a beaten dog, head-shy and scared out of his mind.

She got him upstairs, and for a moment, she hesitated between the small, private living room or one of the spare bedrooms. Beside her, the boy’s eyes drifted down the hall, past open doors, to one of the beds - his eyes fastened on it, and he immediately went pale.

“No no, hey,” Maria murmured quickly. “This way, sweetheart.” She pulled him along gently, and it took a few moments, but the stricken, horrified expression eventually shuttered and dimmed. “Here we go, sit.”

She tried to steer him to the couch, but the boy dropped like a stone at the command to sit. He folded to his knees on the plush carpet, and then he huddled there, like he was trying to make himself as small as possible.

“I - hmm.” Maria opened her mouth, hesitated, thought better of it. Instead of objecting, she slid around him and sunk onto the couch herself. The position put them at a considerable height difference, but the boy only shied away at her movement and then froze.

Neither of them moved for a long moment, but soon Stefan came upstairs with a silver tray of food. Golden pineapple slices, ruby red cherries, and juicy strawberries adorned the plate, and a large bowl of oatmeal sat in the center of it all. A swirl of maple syrup in it, like liquid amber made the food look so good. Off to the side was a tall glass of a weird brown liquid that bubbled and fizzed and popped.

"Hey there bud, we have food for you." The tall man smiled and set it down on the coffee table. Maria beckoned him to sit as well while her brother got on the other side of the white velvet couch. "Good boys use the furniture here, don't worry."

"That's right, so come up here so we can get some food in that stomach of yours." Stefan's voice was much more soft than it was downstairs, which either made the boy less scared or more uneasy, which seemed like the latter was happening.

“We should send for one of the doctors, tomorrow,” Maria said, mostly ignoring the quiet panic that the boy was having.

The boy knew that pets didn’t belong on the furniture. He had been punished for this before, a snapped backhand to the face if he was lucky, a caning or burns if he wasn’t. Tears rose in his eyes as he hung there in confusion.

He wanted to be good. But good boys use the furniture here - that’s what his new Mistress had said. Was this a new test? Was this his first lesson, to be learned and re-learned until it stuck?

The boy sniffled softly. He wanted to be good. And to be good, this time… he had to do as he was told.

His trembling instantly worsened at the feeling of soft fabric under his hands. He slunk up into the couch like a wounded animal, and when Maria smiled and went to pat his hair again, the boy yelped and twisted his face away to avoid the slap.

“... Yikes.” Stefan raised an eyebrow, frowning at where the boy was still waiting for a blow that wasn’t coming.

“I’m not going to hit you, baby.” There’s an undeniable sadness in Maria’s voice. The boy’s face was still all scrunched up, but he peeled an eye open as the seconds kept ticking by and no slap came.

There were so many bruises staining his skin that Maria didn’t blame him.

"Let's just get him fed and off to bed, I'm too tired for this." Stefen set the platter down on the coffee table, right in front of the shaking boy.

The food smelled so good, and it looked like better food than he had ever had in his life. But… he still couldn't eat until…

"Go on hun, it's all for you." That same sweet voice beckoned him, urged him to take a bite, and he did.

He let a shaky hand pick up a slice of pineapple, yellow like the sun, and not unlike some of the bruises on his neck. He brought the sweet fruit to his teeth and bit down, letting a torrent of nectar burst out and into his mouth. It tasted so good, and soon, the whole platter was cleared of fruit. The bowl of oatmeal was next, and that proved to be a bigger challenge to him. His shaking hand couldn't grip the spoon very well and it kept falling back on the platter. Eventually Stefan had to take the spoon himself and feed the boy.

"You know, the last thing I thought I was going to do tonight was baby a pet too scared to feed himself oatmeal." The dark haired man had a slightly flippant tone, which made the boy fold in on himself even more.

"Brother, be nice to him, you can't blame him for being like this. I mean, who would want to be around a smelly oaf like Todd? I would be shaking too." Maria's voice was less flippant and more sarcastic, but it wasn't directed towards the boy.

"Whatever, let's just get this over with. Where should we put him?" Stefan fed him the last spoonful of oatmeal, his face now a tad messy from the hot cereal.

“I was thinking the second spare room,” Maria answered. “It’s a bit smaller, might be less overwhelming.”

"A spare bedroom? Have you lost your mind sis?" Stefan practically scoffed at the idea of a pet staying in one of their spare bedrooms. "Why not the garage?"

Maria went very still for a moment, and she looked across at her brother with something like disbelief in her eyes. Then her expression clouded and went dark.

“Why a bedroom? Because we live in a goddamn mansion, Stefan. We have so many extra rooms to spare. Also, and I feel like perhaps you have forgotten this, but…” Maria lifted a hand to rest carefully at the back of the boy’s neck, just over the crude collar. “This one isn’t for resale,” she reminded. “This one is ours, personally. So he stays in a bedroom, where he’s close, and he’s getting a custom collar tomorrow.” The words end of story were pretty clear, if unspoken.

"Whatever. He can stay here in a bedroom, but I don't want to be responsible for him." Stefan knew not to argue with his sis too much, he could attest that to the amount of bodies she's racked up alone.

“Fine, you don’t have to be here.” There was a healthy amount of displeasure in Maria’s voice - but then there was a soft whimper and a tremor from beside her, and she winced. The boy had gone ashen pale, and he was hugging his middle, shoulders hunched up around his ears. Maria grit her teeth and made a conscious effort to even out her tone.

“Stefan, if you’re not going to help, you are free to go. I am going to help little mouse here get settled.”

She didn’t wait for her brother’s response; instead she climbed off the couch, and then snapped her fingers gently and patted her thigh.

Clearly the boy had at least some proper training, because as soon as she clicked her fingers he was tripping over himself to follow. He gave Stefan a wide berth on the way past; the boy trembled in the man’s shadow, and there was a wide-eyed terror in his eyes that did not ease till they were out of the room.

Maria took the boy's hand once he was at her side. She led him down the private wing of the mansion and into a narrow hallway. A click of a doorknob, and the creaking of unoiled hinges made way for a small bedroom, though significantly nicer than the small boy thought possible for someone like him.

"This will be your room sweetheart. I hope it'll be ok for you. There is a small bathroom attached that you can use if you need." Maria's warm hands guided him to the bed, and pulled the satin covers back. "Now, you need your sleep. Off to bed with you, chop chop."

For the first time that night the boy hesitated, staring at the soft mattress. It was a test, surely. He couldn’t simply go to bed like he was their guest. He needed to be helpful, useful, good. He balked when his new Mistress gave him a gentle nudge towards the bed, and that made him whimper, because resistance of any kind was bad.

“What’s the matter, love?” Maria wasn’t impatient; not yet, anyway. She reached up to pet her fingers through his hair, and the boy squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and quivered. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you,” she told him softly.

"P-please M-Mistress…" The boy finally whimpered out, though it was nearly too soft to hear. "I-I w-want, want to help, I don't want to be bad."

"Well there we are, I was beginning to think you couldn't talk at all." The woman smiled a bit. "Why don't you just lie down for me and then we'll talk about being useful tomorrow.”

The boy looked up with big, scared blue eyes at that, afraid that he’s done something wrong.

"Come on. Please?" She cupped his cheek gently. "If you be a good boy and go to sleep then I promise I'll give you something to help me with tomorrow. Sound fair?"

It took a moment, and the boy clearly didn’t trust her word. But in the end, his drive to obey her was stronger than his fear of the bed. He crawled in slowly, like the sheets might bite him, and curled into a little ball.

“There you go.” Maria smiled down at him proudly and tucked the blanket in around him. The fluffy blanket dwarfed the boy; he was curled up so small that the lump he made could have just been another fold of the blanket.

“Good boy, sweetheart,” Maria murmured, one last time. She could already tell that praise and encouragement would work wonders with this one. She stroked his soft curls away from his neck softly, and cooed inwardly at the way he shivered. “Sleep well.”

She left him like that, curled up small on the softest mattress he’d ever laid on, under the softest blanket he’d ever touched. A click of the bedroom lock was soon heard, and for a moment, the little boy felt a bit safer in his now brand new home.

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mohini-musing · 4 years

Text

Every Promise Empty

Chasing Ghosts ‘verse

Wide eyes and darting irises are par for the course with Tasha on weekends. She likes her indulgences and neither James nor Steve are into conflict enough to challenge it. Which means that the drugged-out stupor on Saturday is met with blankets draped over her as she dozes and the occasional bottle of Gatorade shoved into her hand when she’s conscious. Sunday’s somnolence edges toward the concerning end of things, but she’s willing to down the fluids James offers and smiles a frankly childlike grin when asked if she’s okay.

“M’good,” she trills. “M’happy. Happy good.”

James pats her like a puppy for that one, tucks the blanket around her, and makes note to brace for impact when the hangover from this shit comes knocking.

“Any idea what’s up with Tasha?” he asks Steve over breakfast on Monday. His sister is still one with the couch. There had been a couple hours of near coherence around midnight, during which they watched an Oscar nominated but utterly forgettable film and Tasha dodged his attempts at figuring out just what she was avoiding.

She had finally retreated to her room for bed, a move James interpreted as at least sober enough to be behind a closed door. They don’t have a lot of rules. Don’t lock the door if you’re fucked up is definitely one of them. Hence Tasha’s propensity for being high as hell in the main living space. His attempt at greeting her this morning earned him a nod and a mumble that might have been hello and might have been a language known only to dwarves in dark caves.

“That’s more your area than mine,” Steve offers back, only barely looking up from the textbook spread out on the table. The class has been kicking Steve’s tail for most of the semester. The spiral bound monstrosity has become a fixture at the table and there’ve been more than a few offers to take care of the thing using various combinations of explosives and incendiaries from James when Steve’s glaring holes into it. There have also been multiple suggestions out of Tasha on how exactly to celebrate after the disposal.

“Point,” James admits. Steve makes no secret of his distaste for Tasha’s habits. There’s something under the surface there, but no one’s willing to dig for it and Steve loves James (and Tasha by extension) enough to put up with her.

The thud from the living room ends the discussion.

“Tash?”

No answer has James sticking his head around the corner to check on matters. She’s on the floor next to the couch. Seizing.

He’s on his knees and shoving a pillow between her head and the carpet in short order. Skinny arms and legs are tightening into a ball and thrashing outward in an ominous pattern. Breaths are shallow and come with a gurgling grunting sound he’ll be well pleased to not ever hear from her again. The seizure itself isn’t his highest concern. The sudden mottling of her skin definitely is.

Her arms are blotches of bright red and ghost white verging on grey. The discoloration is visible on her neck and thighs as well. When her back arches enough to pull her shirt upward, James gets a solid view of the same mottled mess. It’s not new to him. It’s definitely new on Tasha. Last time he saw it was in the barracks.

Steve has his phone in hand when James realizes what he’s about to do.

“No squad,” he tells him.

Steve glares daggers and looks fully prepared to launch into one hell of a lecture. James holds up his hand.

“She’s still in care. Ambulance ride is an automatic call to her worker.”

“Shit.”

James nods his agreement, placing two fingers at the pulse point and verifying what the visibly bounding heartrate already told him. He wasn’t technically trained as a medic. He was trained as an operator. They were expected not to have noncombatants in tow. They were expected to never feel the effects of the things they did. So they didn’t – by whatever means necessary. Some of them stopped feeling anything at all as a result.

“We need to bring her temp down, she’s boiling.” It’s probably an understatement, and when he can manage it he wants a solid read on just how high she’s gone.

Steve scurries off and returns with a couple gallon bags of what look to be the entire contents of the ice maker. James shoves them hurriedly under Tasha’s arms which have gone blessedly still while instructing Steve to go wet down some towels to wrap her up in. He props her on one side with a knee, bringing her chin upward to open her airway as she continues gurgling. A couple sound thumps to her back result in a dribble of saliva and mucus and much clearing breathing.

“Good girl,” he tells her absently.

She’s twitching, her shoulders hitching upward every few seconds. It’s not a seizure exactly. But it’s definitely not normal. Rigors, some largely dormant part of his training reminds him. The body’s attempt to cope with high temp after a spike. She goes utterly stiff, then vibrates while James counts seconds. Steve returns just as her body slackens.

“She’s pretty bad,” he comments.

“Mhmm,” James give him. Calling a squad isn’t an option unless she’s definitely dying. And James has seen enough of that to know that they’re not there yet. He tells Tasha’s he’s sorry before tugging her shirt over her head. The barely there pajama shorts won’t interfere with cooling her, a fact he’s immensely grateful for. She’s too far gone to care, but he very much does.

Once Tasha’s swaddled in wet towels and ice bags, James nearly laughs when Steve produces a thermometer from her back pocket. The thing beeps once before he kneels and slips it into Tasha’s mouth. Steve’s voice is gentle, the parental tone James associates with waking from nightmares and that one hellish bout of flu.

Bright red numbers flash over the screen. “Hot damn, that’s up there,” Steve comments, and James has to agree. It’s not brain damage worthy. But it’s not okay.

That’s when Tasha’s stomach chooses to pull inward tightly enough to show off every rib she has before James finds himself in the path of a completely unreasonable volume of stomach acid and sludge.

There’s nothing for it but to shuck off the jeans that probably ought to now be burned before tugging her mouth open enough for the last of the vomit to ooze out the side. She’s whimpering, and the sound is painful to hear. She’s definitely not coherent enough to know what’s happening, but she’s also just aware enough to not like it.

“You’re okay,” James lies to her, smoothing her hair away from her sweaty face. Skin that ought to be pale is bright red. He’s marginally relieved that she’s not gone grey on him, but the flushing combined with the mottled rest of her doesn’t do his adrenaline levels any favors.

Her eyes are mostly open but staring off into nothing. She groans, her throat working a few times before more sludge drips from her lips.

“I’ve got you,” he tells her, taking the paper towel Steve offers him to wipe the mess from her face.

She’s still twitching intermittently, and James is just about to tell Steve something not exactly comedic about at least she’s not seizing again when she goes rigid, head arching back hard and every limb ramrod straight. He can hear Steve muttering the seconds under his breath as they wait for her to stop. She doesn’t.

“Three minutes same as you?” Steve asks him as they round the corner of the second block of sixty long seconds.

“She’ll kill me if we call a squad.”

“She’ll kill her if we don’t.”

James is ready to admit that he might be right when Tasha finally takes a proper breath and goes still. “There you are,” he coos at her as though she’s an infant. She stares blankly in his general direction.

James continues stroking her hair, petting her cheek, running fingertips over her shoulder. Steve pulls the now warm towels from her skin, hauls them to the bathroom, and returns with them rinsed out and cool.

“What the hell did you take, you fucking nightmare?” James asks Tasha while they smooth the damp material over her torso and around her thighs.

“I’m going with anything that wasn’t nailed down,” Steve grumbles. The irritation in his voice isn’t a good match for the gentle touch of his hands on her still mottled skin, though. He gathers the hand towel from under her face, switching it out for a clean one and wiping a bit of stray saliva from her cheek. Then he puts one big hand on James’s shoulder.

“Does she fuck around with benzos?” he asks him.

“This isn’t benzos.”

“Good.”

James isn’t up for asking where that line of questioning came from. He doesn’t really have time to think about it before Tasha’s shoulders are jerking up to her ears and she’s retching hard enough to bring up a stream of frothy bile.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay love. Breathe,” he tells her when she makes a guttural sound he tries hard not to think of as pain. He’s lying. It’s not okay. Not even close. Her temp is still unholy, her body is twitching in fits and starts, and the couple of times she’s opened her eyes are evidence that there is absolutely nobody home.

“I can put her in the bed,” Steve offers.

James nods his agreement. The floor is carpeted, but Tasha is skinny. She’s going to be sore as hell from all the muscle jerks as it stands. Adding bruises to the mix won’t do her any favors. He sits back on his heels as Steve gathers her into his arms, towels and all. A mostly melted bag of ice falls to the floor and James takes it to the kitchen to dump in the sink. When he joins them in his and Steve’s bedroom, Tasha’s in the middle of the bed atop what looks to be a stack of spread out towels. He doesn’t ask how Steve knows what to do here. He’s just glad he does.

Tasha’s still totally out of it, but James can’t stand the idea of not being close enough to touch her. He scoots across the mattress until his leg is against her body, her head against his thigh. Even blitzed, she grips the hem of his hastily donned shorts. Some part of her knows enough to be aware that she’s got an anchor.

“I’ve got you,” he tells her again. It’s a lie. If he had her, she wouldn’t be a hair away from needing a fucking trauma bay.

“This is an overdose, right?” Steve asks.

“Most likely.”

“Anything else we should be doing?”

“Fluids if she’ll drink em, but I’m not sure that’s an option. Not holding her airway well enough to risk it, really. Keep her temp down. Hope like hell she doesn’t keep seizing. Wait until she comes around enough for me to yell at her.”

Steve nods his agreement on all accounts, then disappears through the door into the hall. He comes back with a soda he tosses at James and a Red Bull he pops open for himself. “Gonna be a long day. Might as well caffeinate for it.”

He’s not wrong. Tasha’s still twitching, vomiting up air and bile every time James starts to think she has to be empty. Her eyelids flutter and she whines, babbles in what are probably meant to be words but fall desperately short of being language. She keeps a grip on his shorts, the material wadded tightly in her fist. Steve does the work of switching out towels as they warm, bringing ice and a basin James tries to keep largely wedged between Tasha and the bed. She’s too weak to get up much distance anymore, so it’s less a matter of catching projectile funk and more a matter of collecting what oozes out of her mouth after the retching fits.

James has nearly reached a point of being able to doze off beside her when she goes rigid. It doesn’t last long, 30 seconds, but another comes on its heels, and then a third. The fourth hits and Steve’s there, reaching past James with a plastic tube of buccal versed in hand.

“Open up, love, that’s a good girl,” he coaxes, hooking a thumb between Tasha’s molars. The gel is inserted far back on both sides of her mouth, and it occurs to James that the dose is meant for him and not his barely hundred-pound sister. He sputters as much to Steve, who holds out the applicator and shows him that he’s given her a bit more than half.

For her park, Tasha switches from seizing to retching with every breath. James is more than familiar with the bitter aftertaste of the rescue meds. He’s barfed up his stomach lining plenty of times after needing it. Watching it do the same for Tasha is painful. She’s pale, skin still blotchy, shivering from both fever and cold towels. He pets her hair, wipes her dry lips, rubs lip balm across them to try to stop the cracking. She bleeds anyway.

Ten minutes pass without another seizure. Then ten minutes more. The intermittent twitching continues, but it’s not turning into anything more and James is willing to take it. After thirty seizure free minutes, he tugs Tasha against his chest, propping the pair of them up on pillows and settles in to hold her until she sleeps whatever caused this off.

“I love you,” he whispers in her ear. “I fucking love you.”

#chasing ghosts universe #marvel cinematic universe #Avengers #steve and bucky #Steve Rogers #james bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #emeto #overdose #recreational drug use #seizure #inadvisable medical interventions #au foster siblings #illumivomi #hurt/comfort

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nerianasims · 4 years

Text

Billboards #1 1965

Under the cut.

Petula Clark – “Downtown” -- January 23, 1965

I love this song to bits. I don't entirely know why. Petula Clark obviously sings it wonderfully. There's that little bell that sometimes chimes in. There's a pattern to the song that makes it feel like Broadway, which is, of course, downtown. It's a fantasy version of a downtown in a big city. One thing I love about fantasy is a sense of place, and that's what this entire song is dedicated to. It's an unusual subject for pop music, and it's great.

The Righteous Brothers – “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” -- February 6, 1965

How does one even talk about this song? It feels somehow eternal. This is Phil Spector's production at its best. But Bill Medley's singing is the point. This song is one of the greats.

Gary Lewis And The Playboys – “This Diamond Ring” -- February 20, 1965

Gary Lewis is Jerry Lewis' son. Unlike his father, he does not consist entirely of annoyance-producing molecules, but the song's not good either. In it, the guy's fiancee dumped him and he's selling the diamond ring. A boring, bland heartbreak song that belongs three years or so back.

The Temptations – “My Girl” -- March 6, 1965

My mom used to sing this song to me when I was a little kid. I think a lot of parents sing this song to their little girls; it's that kind of love song. Yet it's not irritatingly antiseptic. It's about true love. True love can be a lot of things. This song is every superlative you can think of. Brilliant in every aspect.

The Beatles – “Eight Days A Week” -- March 13, 1965

It's a good, but not great, Beatles song. Very fun, with a lot of interesting things musically, like the bassline (as usual) and whatever George Harrison does with his guitar.

The Supremes – “Stop! In The Name Of Love” -- March 27, 1965

Finally, Diana Ross actually sounds kinda pissed off. It's also got more of a rock edge. She's still begging, and not threatening to leave the guy's cheating ass. Yet, though there is no explicit threat, I feel like there is an implied ultimatum here.

Freddie And The Dreamers – “I’m Telling You Now” -- April 10, 1965

It sounds like this guy is exaggerating his English accent. Considering the British Invasion, probably. He cackles like a monkey on acid, which is the only interesting thing about the song, which is otherwise a bland love song. Though the cackle is interesting, that doesn't make it good. It's creepy. I don't like this one.

Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders – “The Game Of Love” -- April 24, 1965

"The purpose of a man is to love a woman, and the purpose of a woman is to love a man." Whoo boy. Dated. But the song is 55 years old. Attempting to put that aside, the music is good. The lyrics sound pushy, though. Also it gets terribly repetitive at the end. Meh.

Herman’s Hermits – “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” -- May 1, 1965

Was it once usual for guys to go to their ex-girlfriends' mothers to talk of their heartbreak after the girlfriend dumped them? This song is painfully "look how English I am! You Americans like to throw money at English pop singers, right?" It wears out its welcome quickly.

The Beatles – “Ticket To Ride” -- May 22, 1965

It's interesting how the Beatles seem to have matured five years in one. I can't imagine this group having performed "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The harmonies and rhythms in "Ticket to Ride" are far more complex, the sounds are more varied, and the lyrics are much more mature. His wife/girlfriend is absolutely determined to leave him, and he seems taken by surprise. Yet there are hints he shouldn't have been: "She would never be free when I was around." He goes on, "My baby don't care." Yet underneath there's the suggestion that she simply hasn't got it in her to care any more, because he's exhausted her. Layers of harmony and layers of meaning. It's an intelligent heartbreak song, and those are rare.

The Beach Boys – “Help Me, Rhonda” -- May 29, 1965

I know Brian Wilson was a musical genius but I usually don't like the Beach Boys. It's the lyrics. The narrator was dumped, now he's begging Rhonda to be his rebound. Lucky Rhonda. Then they sing "Help me Rhonda/ Help, help me Rhonda" about five dozen times. Not for me.

The Supremes – “Back In My Arms Again” -- June 12, 1965

Urgh. Don't listen to the Supremes' #1 hits close together. She's got her man back because she stopped listening to her friends' advice. In isolation, there's nothing wrong with that. After all the songs about rotten cheating assholes whom the narrator is desperate to keep, though, it's super uncomfortable. Also using the names of the two backup singers as the friends who give bad advice is in poor taste. And "Flo, she don't know, cuz the boy she loves is a Romeo"? You solely date Romeos! Taken alone, without the context of the other songs, it's good, though I still don't like the strange insult toward the backup singers. Taken with the rest of the Supremes' hits, though, I'm not happy. Especially considering these were all written by men.

The Four Tops – “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” -- June 19, 1965

The Supremes weren't the only people in Motown singing about being hopelessly in love with someone who treated them badly. That's what this song is about. I like it, though the line "I'm weaker than a man should be" is a bit wince-inducing these days. But it's an honest sentiment about how men often feel they're not allowed to be idiots over love, though that's a near-universal human experience. Anyway, good song.

The Byrds – Mr. Tambourine Man -- June 26, 1965

The original version of this song was by Bob Dylan, but the Byrds didn't like it, so they changed the sound and ditched a bunch of the lyrics. The lyrics they were left with don't matter at all. This is all about the music, especially the guitar. It's mellow without being soporific, groovy without requiring drugs to understand. It's nice.

The Rolling Stones – “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” -- July 10, 1965

The Rolling Stones were almost never nice. They went straight for the gut -- or gonads -- found all the nastiest things that people are afraid to say and embarrassed to feel, and hung them up on the front porch. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" sounds kind of silly today, since it's been played and overplayed so much. But that beginning riff still goes straight to the back-brain.

Two years before, pap like "Hey Paula" was clogging the airwaves. Funnily enough, it's the same subject matter: Goddamn I want to get laid. (The idea that Mick Jagger had trouble getting laid is pretty ridiculous, but anyway.) And then there's the critical bit about hating advertisements. They managed to stick a cultural criticism into a song that's about wanting sex. When you can't get no satisfaction, everything is annoying, and things that were already annoying to begin with start to feel unbearable. The Stones go harder in every way than any #1 before them.

Herman’s Hermits – “I’m Henry VIII, I Am” -- August 7, 1965

And here's the opposite. This song must be meant to be annoying, right? One of my friends and I used to sing it at our parents to drive them nuts, and that was before Ghost. It was their fault for exposing us to it in the first place.

Sonny And Cher – “I Got You Babe” -- August 14, 1965

Cher with Sonny is eternally confusing. Though their marriage didn't last, their love was real, and Cher was heartbroken when Sonny died. But anyway, the song. Sonny saying Cher has a "little hand" is goofy. Actually the whole song is kinda goofy, especially the beat that seems to be made of kazoos. Cher's got this powerful, deep voice, while Sonny has a squeaky little thing, but somehow they mesh. The sentiment is sincere, and a good picture of what it's like to be in a happy relationship. It's good.

The Beatles – “Help!” -- September 4, 1965

John Lennon was only 25 when he sang about being "younger, so much younger than today." But for the Beatles, that could have been two years before. They got so famous so fast and so young, I don't know how any of them lived through it. And that is what this song's about; Lennon called it a "public freak-out." But it's still universal. I love this song, and it helped carry me through some tough times.

Barry McGuire – “Eve Of Destruction” -- September 25, 1965

I remember when I first heard this song on the radio in the car with my mother, I asked her what "Old enough to kill/ But not for voting" meant. That's when I learned people used to not be able to vote until they were 21, though young men could be drafted at 18. I was absolutely stunned, and obviously it stuck with me. When you're a little kid, you tend to think the people in charge are generally fair. Then you find out that's not true at all. That's what this song is about, to me.

The McCoys – “Hang On Sloopy” -- October 2, 1965

Speaking of fair, I'm about to be totally unfair. I hate this fucking song. I had to play it endlessly in middle school band, and then I had to play it AGAIN in high school marching band. And the flute part in the arrangements was the most boring thing that has ever been conceived. I hate this song and I will not be listening to it or thinking about it more than this.

The Beatles – “Yesterday” -- October 9, 1965

Why do people in songs lose their significant others so often because they said something wrong and they don't know what it was? That can't be common. Anyway, this song is beautiful and sad. I'm kind of tired of all the covers of it though.

The Rolling Stones – “Get Off Of My Cloud” -- November 6, 1965

I'm listening to the original mono version of this, and mono sounds very strange these days. I keep wanting to check that my speakers are plugged in. Anyway, thanks to Jagger's marbles-in-mouth singing, I can't understand a word of this song except "Hey! you! get off of my cloud!" and I've never known the lyrics until now. And they're not important. Even the chorus isn't that important. This is all about the beat and the music, neither of which I find interesting for the entire length of the song. Not for me.

The Supremes – “I Hear A Symphony” -- November 20, 1965

A thoroughly happy Supremes song! I think Diana Ross is more suited to happy lovesongs than what she had been singing. She has a lot more emotion in her voice than she has before. The violins are lovely. I love this song.

The Byrds – “Turn! Turn! Turn!” -- December 4, 1965

I have always found this song slightly annoying. The Bible verse set to light pop thing doesn't do it for me. The music isn't anywhere near dramatic enough. This should be operatic, or heavy metal, or something else with serious weight. This is thin.

The Dave Clark Five – “Over And Over” -- December 25, 1965

This song is a bit of a throwback to three or four whole years before. It would have been good then. At this point, it's pretty boring. It's about going to a party he didn't want to go to, hitting on a girl, and getting turned down. The snare drum beat is very repetitive, and so is the melody. A big meh.

BEST OF 1965: "My Girl", with stiff competition. WORST OF 1965: "I'm Telling You Now"

#billboard number ones

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be-ready-when-i-say-go · 4 years

Text

Dreaming Like Fools

Soulmates meet in dreams and they don’t always come when you want them, but they come right when you need them.

Michael’s all sold on Odette but Odette has too much going on to be concerned with love quite yet.

This one is for @5-secondsofcolor because without you, I don’t think I would’ve come back to this fic. Happy Birthday, love!!!

Enjoy my masterlist

***No one has my permission to repost with fic, including translations to any other site. © be-ready-when-i-say-go 2020***

CW: Mentions of Death, Blood, and Anxiety. Deals with major health concerns and major surgery.

She’s falling, breathless, and unsure if her flailing limbs are actually helping her. This beats the running, though, from a shadowy figure. She couldn’t make out what it was, if it was someone in particular. But Odette will take the falling instead of the running. Running meant she had to make choices. Falling just means whatever happens happens and there’s not a thing to be done about it. Running means if she gets caught it’s her fault. Falling is just the grace of physics and a little bit of luck.

Miraculously, she lands on a park bench, in a part of town just up the road from her apartment. Across from her on the other side of the paved asphalt, as the echoes of runners coming and going filter around, is a man in a beanie. Part of his dirty blonde hair is casted over one eye. Neither one of them have words at first. Just gazing. They’re apart, but close enough that she takes is his green eyes and soft grin.

This is not happening to her. She remembers all the stories. The way her parents gushed about their first encounter. The awe and wonder they felt, how they knew they were soulmates for each other. Odette doesn’t buy the hype. Soulmates do not meet in dreams. It is such a ludicrous idea. No one could ever just shut their eyes and suddenly be faced to face with their soulmate. It would never work, she thinks. There would always be some mismatch or that they were falling in love with the idea of love, but not necessarily the full person in front of them.

The soulmate thing makes it all too easy and that makes her hesitant. Would this ever really work? Were people just so desperate to fit in that when it happened they let the delusion suck them in?

“I-uh, guess we’re soulmates?” he starts. He tugs at the end of sleeves, curling the excess fabric around his hands.

“I-I guess.” She can’t quite meet his eyes again. Unsure if this is actually happening to her or not. Her gut doesn’t flutter. Her heart isn’t racing. Everything people said would happen isn’t and she’s sure it’s just her subconscious playing tricks on her.

“What’s your name?”

“Odette. You?”

“Pretty name,” his grin is soft. “And I’m Michael.”

“Thanks.” There’s a lull in conversation. She’s never been great at the small talk and would always rather hide under a rock than deal with platitudes.

Michael just watches her, the way she keeps her gaze slightly averted, flicking back to him every so often. His palms are sweating beneath the fabric. He gets the nerves, the uncertainty of the whole ordeal. There’s no warning, no preview screen that counts down from ten. Michael is slightly positive he’s hallucinating too. Having gotten no sleep the night before and fitfully sleeping tonight, he wants to believe he’s making the whole thing up. But even if he is, it’s a nice dream to have, much better than the panic and anxiety that normally plagues him.

“I’m sorry,” she says after a moment. “I-I’m not the greatest at talking. I just never know what to say.”

“It’s okay,” Michael offers. “Why don’t we start with something easy.”

Odette looks up. “Okay.”

His eyes twinkle as he tucks his legs underneath himself. As he ponders the subject to bring up, she takes another look at him. His bottom lip is so plump as he tucks it under his teeth. And for a second, she almost can’t believe the thought crossed her mind and she can feel her cheeks warming. “Do you think pineapple belongs on pizza?”

Michael has to laugh at the way her eyes widen, a rich dark brown color that contrasts to the amber hue of her skin. Her hair falls in ringlets around her head, some strands a light brown, others a honey gold. “It absolutely does not belong on pizza,” she retorts, her wide nose wrinkling at the thought.

Michael covers his chest with his hand. “Ouch, you wound me.”

“You’re kidding me?” Her laughter circles around and Michael closes his eyes just to let the sound settle into his ears with no further distractions. “That’s disgusting.”

“It is not. Have you ever had pineapple on pizza?”

“No, why would I ruin the savory of my pepperoni and sausage with the acidity of pineapple?” Odette is immensely grateful for the topic. It’s not anything about her, it’s nothing about all the shit that’s falling apart in her life. She can handle this.

“Pineapple is acidic, yes, but there’s a zest. Nothing quite like the little kick of sour to really make you savor all the rest of it the pizza.”

She shakes her head, curls gently brushing along her face. “You’re an absolute madman.”

Michael can’t help but grin, watching her. “There are many things I’ve been called in my life, a madman isn’t one of them.”

“I’m happy to be the first.” Though it starts out softly, she can hear the irksome buzzing of her alarm clock. “Sorry,” she offers, feeling herself pulled from the bench. Her arms are rising, the bench starts to fall out beneath her.

“Don’t be. It was nice to meet you, Odette.”

“Nice to meet you too, Michael.” He gives a small wave, watching as the last of the park around them filters out of existence. Her body starts to flicker too. Her wave in return is short and when Odette blinks, she’s staring up at the white of her ceiling. She can hear the creaking steps of her upstairs neighbor. She can hear the piercing cries of the baby across from her too. Music thumps against her windows. It’s just freshly seven in the morning and she knows that her day is full already.

It takes all her might to pull out of bed and Odette blinks again, watching herself in the full length mirror. It’s clear with the streaks of sunlight that in the few days since she last cleaned it, dust would always find its way back to the glass surface. With a huff, she pushes off the bed and pads softly into the kitchen. She can hear the clinking of pots. “Momma if you don’t sit down,” she grumbles.

“I am not the child here,” her mother retorts. Odette only stares. There is a ghostlike hue taking over her mother’s complexion. They look more like twins than mother and daughter, but right now as her mother grips onto the back of the kitchen chairs, it’s clear that no matter age, something is still very wrong.

“Just go to Urgent Care, please, Momma,” Odette urges. She hurries into the kitchen, to aid her mother in settling down in the creaky wooden chair. It’s losing its paint, the mint hue cracking and showing the wooden brown roots.

“I’m fine,” her mother retorts, fingers pressing into her temples. “It’s just the lights.”

“You can’t go to work like this.” Odette knows she’s been out of work for the week because of the migraine but it isn’t improving. Now, the addition of how faint her mother looks. Odette worries. Waiting too much longer for something to happen is only going to cause more damage in the long run.

“I’ve been out of work a week. Who’s gonna pay rent?”

It’s in moments like this that Odette wished she weren’t the only child. That someone else was there to bear the brunt of her mother’s wrath. As her mother shouts into the air about bills to be paid, and grocery to get, Odette silently flips over the pancakes. There is nothing to be said. Nothing that will soothe her mother’s anger, not even the hums of acknowledgement that always threaten to scratch over her voice.

As the eggs fluff under the constant scrape of the fork, Odette is shocked that there’s not more anger. There’s usually a whole breakfast full of her mother’s sadness. Turning her gaze, she spies her mother, head hanging on her neck towards her chest. “I’m sorry, baby,” her mother mumbles. “I’m so sorry.”

Odette assembles the pancakes and eggs, along with her mother’s morning smoothie in front of her. She presses a kiss to her mother’s forehead. Her lips can’t form the phrase, ‘It’s okay’ or even ‘I understand.’ Instead, she prepares her own plate and eats it near the sink, leaning up against the knobs of the cabinets and into the counter. “You shouldn’t go to work not until you go see a doctor. You’re not getting any better.”

“Someone has to take care of us,” her mother objects softly.

“Like my two jobs don’t mean shit, huh?”

Her mother’s glare is sharp and fierce as it lands on Odette. Odette meets the gaze with a blink. She knows she’s playing with fire. She knows that they are on the verge of breaking down. The walls of their life have been beaten in a storm breeze and they are rattling but the both of them try to keep up appearances. But she’s tired, tired of always tip toeing around. “Watch your language around me.”

There’s still nothing in the way of an apology, no sympathetic downturn of her eyes. No averted gaze. Just the continued blank look and pouty lips as Odette polishes off the last of her pancakes. She wonders if it’s going to take her mother dropping dead too for things to finally click. If she ever wanted to know where she got the stubbornness from, the proof was surely looking her in the face.

Odette washes her plate, waiting for the clink of her mother’s dishes against the counter. “If I go to Urgent Care, they’re gonna send me home. Tell me to rest.”

“Or they might be able to tell you what is going on. Or they refer you to a clinic.”

“And then we’re swimming in medical bills.”

“Then we’re just swimming,” Odette replies. When she turns, her mother’s plate is clear thankfully. So she picks it up, dumping it into the soapy water. “Swimming is better than you in continuous pain, Momma.”

It’s a losing battle. And it always will be, if the last year and a half of Odette and her mother butting heads is any indication. Odette finishes cleaning the kitchen, stacking dishes in the rack to dry while they’re gone for the day. It’s as she pulls the plug on the drain, watching it all swirl down that Odette wonders if one more push, one more attempt to speak reason with her mother is worth it. She never quite gets the chance before the front door opens. “Love you. Have a great day,” her mother calls.

“Love you too.” The door closes, the soft clink of keys on the ring shakes as the lock turns.

Her mother shouts from the other side of the door, “Turn down the goddamn music!” Odette strongly believes it’s not heard over the crooning vocals of Luther Vandross of a thousand kisses never being too much.

************************

Michael doesn’t want to call himself a dreamer. Though his track record has proven otherwise. It’s the only way for him to take off in this band, to drop everything and lean into the naivety of youth. But Michael doesn’t really want to call himself a dreamer, though the entirety of his day is spent trying to reconjure Odette. The soft curl of her lips when she smiled. While he was a little hurt at her hard fast stance against pineapple on pizza, he wanted to hear more about the way she viewed the world. From the very brief interaction, Michael was sure she was chalked full of interesting perspectives.

And he really does not want to call himself a dreamer. But it’s obvious as he gets dressed and makes the drive to the studio that maybe his head is a little in the clouds. Normally, there’s not much thought into his attire, but for the briefest of moments he wonders if the all black and baggy attire would turn her off. Does she like more vibrant colors? The thought doesn’t linger long before he realizes he has to get out the door if he’s going to make it on time. L.A. traffic is unforgiving and the last thing he needs is to be late again this week.

“Someone got laid last night.” That’s the first thing out of Ashton’s mouth upon seeing Michael.

Normally, Michael would smirk, maybe even laugh but hold the details close to his chest. At least for the moment anyway. But all Michael can do at the moment is blush, biting at his lip to attempt to suppress the smile. It's futile and the grin cracks, lifting his cheeks and reaching his eyes. “So, I’m like, eighty percent sure my soulmate was revealed to me last night.”

The boys cheer, gently patting him on his back. “Tell us about the lucky one,” Calum encourages, his arm slung around Michael’s shoulders. In an endearing and slightly subverted way, Michael feels like the younger brother under his older brother’s wing. But it’s nice for just a moment to know that no matter what that support is still there.

“I really don’t know a lot. We only met briefly before she had to go. Just her name. And that she does not like pineapple on pizza.” Michael’s not sure how, but he wishes he could convey the way her nose scrunched up at the thought, the disgust that curled her lips down into a frown. The words escape him just at the thought of Odette’s face.

“Gonna be love sick for a while,” Luke teases. He’s been down this road before. Ashton has too. Both of them have made it seem easy and though for them, it worked out well that both their soulmates live in the area.

Michael and Calum had a running joke that they were the late bloomers in all matters of love. Not that they hadn’t attempted to speed the progress along. Both of them have a treasure trove of stories of relationships and dates that all wound up going nowhere fast. But the two of them were sticking it out for the long haul on being the last two in the group to get their love lives straightened out. Soulmates were said to be revealed when the people needed them. Not just when they wanted love. The cosmos always had a formula, always knew what was coming ahead.

“Sorry to leave ya hanging, mate.” Michael gives a small sympathetic smile. Their day’s a little slow to start, as Luke clutches his first cup of tea for the day.

Calum shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He makes note not to remark on how he doesn’t remember many of his dreams anyway. He liked to think there was a chance he had run into his soulmate but just didn’t remember. Now he would be quested with finding them again, the old fashion way. It is something he tried to find solace in, albeit it is dark and morbid.

“Have you made plans yet to meet her?”

“No, not yet.” The group of them walk down to their booth. Luke and Ashton are huddled together chatting away about something, sounds like it’s about the voice notes that Luke has on his phone. “It was actually kind of a short encounter. By the time I was able to get like two sentences out of her, her alarm went off.”

“There’s always next time, mate,” Calum encourages. He nudges Michael’s shoulder again, a sly grin lifting his cheeks.

Michael’s slight laughter comes out in a squeal and with a twinge of indignation. “That’s that look for!”

“Just happy for you; that’s all.”

“That is not the look of someone happy for someone else. But if you say so.”

“What’s her name?”

“Odette.”

There’s a thoughtful pause as Calum nods, repeating the name aloud. “Definitely not a name I’ve heard before. But judging by the way your cheeks are red, you’re smitten already.”

“Am not!” Michael retorts. He knew he could feel the heat in his cheeks and he knew that even though his drive wasn’t terribly long, he passed the time wondering how much of a fight Odette would put up about who controls music. If she’d scramble to eat breakfast in the car as she went about her day, or did she plan enough time in the morning so enjoy it and not rush. Sure, this was all insane to think about, but Michael couldn’t risk anyone else knowing that he did.

Though, there was no real risk at all. Not with the guys. Luke had shared more about his love life and the challenges when he first found his soulmate. Ashton had always been a little reserved about that, but wasn’t opposed to dropping advice whenever someone needed it. So that always left Michael and Calum wondering, maybe even conjuring up more than what was really to be expected. However, that did not stop and could not stop Michael from envisioning the little things with Odette.

Calum’s laughter isn’t loud but the flickering silence of his choked inhales between his giggly exhales alerts Michael that maybe he is not as good as he wanted to be about hiding just how far down the rabbit hole he was going. Things are going to be rough for the next few days, Michael can already tell.

Micheal’s not sure how he finds it so easy to sleep. The normal battle to sleep consists of the fatigue weighing down his eyes but his mind usually finds something to cling onto. Whether it be conscious or subscious, it always lies with him, chattering in his ears. But tonight, tonight is wholly different. Michael climbs into bed, his Netflix already loaded up with anything to attempt to silence the stress. But as he curls up in his sheets, arms cradling one pillow to his head and chest, his eyes manage to flutter. He’s not even ten minutes into the show and everything about sleep is calling out to him.

He’s not sure at first what is happening. There’s a faint roar of a crowd, just a generalized cheering. And soon it comes in closer to his ears. The area around him is mostly dark with a flickering of light. Should he go towards it? There has to be something said about him walking towards the light. And it’s not completely favorable to him either. But maybe just on the other side there’s something. So his feet carry him while his mind tells him he maybe should turn around now before he gets too far down and can’t get back out.

As the light washes over him, he finds himself in a crowd. The faces aren’t too familiar to him. They bustle by without actually touching him. As if he was not actually real standing there. He’s not sure what he’s meant to be doing here, but he carries on, upstream through the throngs of people. And there, just a head is a gate. He can see patches of green, hear the rattle of basketballs bouncing off backboards.

Michael pushes his way up, holding onto the metal of the gate to keep him stronger than the current and when he steps through, it all falls away. It’s just him. In the park. The same benches from before are off to his left and he wanders over. What will he and Odette discuss tonight? Maybe he should ask if she likes hot sauce on her eggs? Or if sugar belongs in spaghetti?

Michael settles in, legs tucked up underneath of him. Every creak of the gate has him lifting his head. At first it’s just the wind. And sooner rather than later, Michael knows he’s willing the door to creak. He wants to hear it so he does hear it. But there never is anyone. There never is a body that floats in to join him that night.

************

Her mother laughs, before turning her head to look at Odette. The intercom comes on again, another droning voice that’s attempting to convey the urgency of the message without causing a ruckus in the middle of the hospital. Odette’s beginning to hate the sound of the machine tracking her mother’s heartbeat. “Maybe I should’ve listened to you.”

Odette wants to say something. Anything. Instead, she stares at the white floor, watching as harsh fluorescent lights reflect off it into her irises. When the call came in at the front end of the store, with several folks in line and Odette trying to clear them out as her supervisor tried to explain to a customer that the return policy was firmly in place, it almost went unanswered. But the assistant store manager had finally come to help her front end supervisor and answered the ringing phone. It forced one of the floor associates to come up and ring while Odette took her call. Leaving in the middle of a customer tirade and a forever growing line would’ve originally scared Odette. It would’ve made her worried that she wouldn’t have a job.

However, after a few years, and now being the only family her mother has left, the last thing she thought about was her job. The first thing she hoped for was that there were no cops on the road to catch her speeding. During the entire drive, her blood thumped in her veins. She felt the ones in her neck vibrating. The only thing she thought: Not her too. She could not lose her mother, not now. Not after just losing her father. She wouldn’t have it. Even if the universe was trying to kill her slowly, she would fight back. Thankfully, when she arrived at her mother’s job at the grocery store not too far from her department store, her mother was still conscious. But barely able to really walk or stand for any extended period of time.

“You have to say something. Not even swearing at your mother.”

“What do you want me to say? I told you so?”

“Something, I just want you to say something.”

But Odette had nothing to say. Truth be told, she is more worried that this could’ve been the end of the mother. The doctors ran some test, counted her hemoglobin. They told Odette, outside with the flimsy curtain between her and her mother, that it’s a miracle her mother was still alive. She had lost nearly two-thirds of the blood in her body. That her mother’s period hadn’t stopped. They’d have to do some ultrasounds too, to see what exactly was going on. The hospital would try to contact her OB/GYN in the morning to confer with them. None of the doctors were sure how her mother managed to get through any amount of time during her shift or how her mother wasn’t unconscious when she brought her in. But yet, her mother was still, against all the odds as conscious as ever.

Maybe, in a twisted way, her mother being unconscious would’ve hopefully scared her mother some more. Right now, they are in hour two of the noted four for the blood to be brought to the hospital. Because this one is so small, they don’t keep things like blood on site and had to order it to be delivered. Once they got all the bags, it would be another six hours before the transfusion would be over.

“It’s bad when you’re quiet,” her mother continues. “I mean, you’ve always been a quiet girl. But you’re too quiet right now.”

“I told you to go to the doctors sooner. But Dad was right. You’d be stubborn until they put you into the ground too.”

“There it is. There’s the little firecracker I raised up.”

Odette slides down even further into the chair. Her stomach growls and she swears it’s at her back, attempting to take in her spine and nerves as nutrients. But she can’t leave her mother. She has no one else to call to even sneak her a snack. There’s a vending machine. She noticed it when she was trying not to panic as they rushed her mother into a room. “Do you want a snack?”

“No, no, I’m okay.”

Odette tiptoes out into the hallway, bouncing the change in her hands. Nurses breeze past her. There is more for them to worry about. More people behind curtains and in rooms that cling to threads of hope. That’s the only thing around her right now, threads of hope. And maybe the fraying strings of her work jeans at her thighs. That’s less of a worry though. At the front of the machine, she glances over the bright packages. There’s Oreos. And honeybuns. None of it will be filling, but at this moment, she needs something to get her through the night, allow her to keep her head on straight.

As Odette rubs her fingers clear of Oreo crumbs, she wonders just how vicious blood must be, as it slugs down the tubes and into her mother’s IV. The bags are a little shadowy, as if trying to hide their contents but not fully committing to it. She doesn’t check her phone for the time. Her eyelids tell her it’s probably too early in the morning of the next day. She can feel them wanting to shut on her, but she keeps them open. She’ll have to call her job. Tell them she won’t be able to come in for the next couple of days.

“Sleep. We’re gonna be here all night anyway.”

“Cookie?” Odette offers, trying to swallow down the bite to tell her mother that she can’t sleep, she shouldn’t sleep. The last time Odette took her eyes off her mother, they wound up in a hospital bed.

“Why not?” She raises a hand as Odette leans up, extending the bag to her mother’s waiting fingers.

The room swells again, more doctors, more machines and Odette slips out of the way, tries to bury herself in the corner for the time being. Now she wishes the heartbeats were louder as the doctor explains, “Your uterus looks what would be the size of someone carrying at three to four months. Which is not good at all. With the way you’ve talked about your cycle and flow, I’m going to have to say a partial hysterectomy is your only option at this point. There are flash procedures but I don’t think they’d be effective at this stage. Not if you’re losing blood like this. Have you had issues with your cycle before?”

“Nothing that seemed too bad. Flow was getting heavier, I noticed. I wasn’t sure what it was. But I don’t--”

Odette steps in, resting a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “This is about your life.” Her mother will riot, complaining about how their insurance probably won’t cover nearly enough for the surgery. Her mother nods.

Odette feels herself slipping, head falling on her neck. The doctor left and her mother held her peace, thankfully about the surgery. There are no more Oreos to share. There are no more silences to hold. Just her mother in the bed. Odette in the chair, head sliding on her neck. And it’s the drop, when the sliding is finished and there’s nothing left to catch her head, so it drops--that’s what wakes her. The mostly still see through bag of blood is still hanging, still letting gravity pull it down and travel up the IV. A nurse shuffles into the room, taking vitals, her voice low but somehow a bit more chipper for it to be whatever time it is. Odette finally looks at her phone. It’s nearly 6 am.

She’s not sure how much she’s actually slept. It feels like nothing at all. It could be because she kept waking, kept cracking open her eyes to verify it was all just a bad dream. But bad dreams don’t beep like this in real life. They don’t leave her phone at less than twenty percent left in the charge. The doctor comes back in again. “You’ll be hearing from us tomorrow, about a date and time for your surgery. It’s marked as an emergency because we need you sooner rather than later.”

It’s only in the car, when Odette slides into the driver seat after getting her mother settled, that her mother raises hell. “How are we supposed to work this out? How? How?”

The tears come. She can hear them in her mother’s voice. She can feel them stinging her own eyes. But she has the road to watch out for. She has traffic lights to stop at. There are no times for tears. The drive’s somewhere between silent and painfully full of noise. Just white noise, the kind of noise that doesn’t need to be sounded out but it’s buzzing just below the surface. Odette white knuckles her steering wheel, trying to keep her mother’s tears and her own worries from climbing up her throat. At least, not right now.

Her mother is slow as she ascends the stairs of their apartment complex. And she barely gets through a shower before Odette tucks her into her sheets. And only then, when the door to the apartment is closed does Odette let the vicious sob through her chest. It’s not fair, it’s not fair. It’s just not fucking fair. She lost one parent. She cannot lose another one. Her neighbors may bitch but she doesn’t care. Her mother needs the rest. She needs the release. So Odette doubles over in front of their apartment, heaving into the creaky wood, and somewhere in the prickle of the tears and sticky mess of snot she thinks she didn’t even get to see Michael. Not that she slept that long or that deeply. Not that she wanted to rely on him, not that she really thought he was real. But a part of her wanted that too, wanted a glimmer of hope to hold onto.

**************

“I don’t like this,” Michael says, hooking his teeth into his nonexistent thumb nail. “Was she real even at all?”

“Look, the girls are on it. She was real,” Calum returns. Michael paces in front of him. The sun is high. The afternoon is warm, but not unbearable thankfully. It’s been five days since the last time Michael saw Odette. Calum’s doing his best to keep Michael preoccupied. It’s hard because at every pause, even if it’s between trying on shoes, or while Michael contemplates which headset he should get or while the console countdown for their new match, Michael ponders Odette. If she’s okay, if she was real. The what if’s keep getting grander, more involved, more terrifying in some ways. It reached a point where Calum begged Luke and Ashton’s girls to do some digging, see if any Odette’s matching Michael’s description popped up anywhere.

Granted, their investigations only began fifteen minutes ago. He didn’t have a last name so Calum’s sure it’s a lot of eliminating grandmothers and aunts from Instagram, Twitter, and FaceBook. “You’re going to wear a whole in my concrete. And I really didn’t think that would be possible,” Calum returns, waving for Michael to take a seat. Even if it’s only for three seconds before he pops back up again.

“I’m sorry. I’m probably bugging the shit out of you with this.” The cushion gives enough but the weaved wicker supports Michael’s back as he leans into it.

“You’ve bugged me about way less.”

“Do you think--”

“No,” Calum answers, already knowing the question before it’s finished. “You’re not crazy. You’re just concerned.”

“I mean, like, just a little bit right? For panicking like this. I mean, maybe she’s not even my soulmate. She hasn’t shown up again since then.”

“I hate to break it to ya, mate. But we’ve all got lives. They get a little bonkers. Maybe she’s just tied up right now.”

“I hope they find something. I think I could literally go insane, right about now. If I haven’t gone insane already.”

There’s nothing Calum can say that will make Michael understand that part of his concern is rational. A portion of that concern just shows that Michael cares. Instead Calum offers more distractions. Rounds of Rocket League while they wait for their lunch to arrive and attempt not to look at their phones for any signs of life from the girls about any signs of Odette. It works for the time being but Michael’s worry holds down his shoulders. He curls up on Calum’s couch, an arm wrapped around Duke’s body, the other under his head, and tries not to think about if he fell asleep right now if he’d run into Odette again.

“I’m only allowing the dog cuddles now. But any other time, I’d fight,” Calum teases, lifting his heels to the edge of the coffee table. Their boxes of take out have been trashed already but the bottles and cans still linger on the wood. Their last match didn’t end spectacularly, but they were only down by one goal. Maybe the edge of Rocket League has run its course. “FIFA?”

Michael shrugs, not moving from his fetal position. His feet pressing into the arm of the couch. His head a cushion away from Calum-- it’s how he managed to scope up Duke. Calum says nothing, arms folded in front of his chest. Michael takes his fingers from Duke’s fur and pushes up. His phone rests near his bottle of water. “Don’t you dare,” Calum retorts.

“Just, like not even for Twitter?”

“If you go to Twitter, you’re going to go to the group chat. If you go there and there’s nothing there, you’re gonna be even sadder. I know you.”

Michael doesn’t want to admit that Calum is right but he knows he can’t win in a fight either. So he falls back into the cushion. “I’m just gonna take a nap then. Since I apparently can’t do anything else.”

“Sweet dreams.”

Even though they laugh into the quiet hum of Calum’s house, Calum still worries. It’s the middle of the day. They have no clue what she does for work, so if she's sleeping now or not is really a shot in the dark. His own phone hasn’t chimed with signs of anything from the group chat. He can’t tell Michael to never sleep, to never shut his eyes if he manages to get proper and good rest, knowing how much sleep evades Michael on a normal basis. Maybe it’s irrational to hope for Michael to find her in his dreams right now. It’s really all they have. It’s all Michael has. So even if it’s crazy, Calum watches Michael for a second with the briefest prayer to the universe that Michael finds her on the other side just for peace of mind.

There’s no crowd for Michael this time. He spots the metal gates. He hears the creaks of the backboard, the bounce of basketballs on the concrete and he struts right towards it. He can see his bright pink sneakers in his peripheral vision under his body, carrying him towards the grass and concrete and wooden benches. This is how it’s gone for the last five days. Him walking right up the gates, settling onto the park bench and just...waiting. He waits with knees bouncing, and dragging his hands over his face.

But this time, as he nears, he spies the ringlet curls. The dark brown hair. Her amber skin. “Odette,” he whispers.

There’s no way she should’ve heard it. But her head snaps up and he can see her red eyes. He jogs over, sliding onto the bench next to her, taking her hands into his. “I tried pineapple on pizza,” she confesses. Her voice is hoarse and he wants to ask what happened, where she’s been. But he’s more shocked that she’s right in front of him, that she remembered their first conversation. “I still stand firm that it does not belong on pizza. But it’s good on pizza. There’s a huge difference.”

Besides himself, Michael chuckles. “You can fight me. It does belong on pizza. It has a rightful spot amongst, cheese, veggie and pepperoni pizzas.”

“There’s a reason that speciality pizzas exist.” She unravels his hold of his right hand, but threads her fingers through his left one. “I guess this is a real thing.”

“I absolutely lost my shit not seeing you for five days. Is everything okay?”

There’s a simple headshake, her hair bouncing with the movement. “No.” It’s just one word. But it falls from her lips in a whisper and she doesn’t look up at him. Her broken voice hits Michael in his chest. It almost feels like someone’s reached into his body and snatched his lungs from him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he returns, waiting for his brain to figure out the next step. Does he comfort her? And if he does, how?

“I just want a break,” she says, lifting her head and looking out, where the empty bench is across from them. “I just want a goddamn break.”

“Where are you right now? I could come by, drop you off some food if you want. Or whatever you need.”

“It’s okay. Thanks, though.” She just sits, silently watching out. Her fingers brush over his and Michael tries not to think how perfect her palm feels against his. He tries not to think too much how she kind of slides into him, the way she presses into his side.

“You sure? I wouldn’t mind.” Yeah, and he wouldn’t mind maybe seeing her in person, just so he could lay his real eyes on hers and know without a shadow of any doubt that she was real.

“I appreciate it.” Silence settles around them as they lean into each other, hands and fingers intertwined. Michael’s not sure what to say, what he can do. So he just sits, holding her hand. Maybe it’ll be their thing. Like no matter how bad it gets, no matter what’s going on in the world all they have to do is just reach out and take each other’s hand.

Michael wouldn’t be able to tell anyone one the silence breaks and when he’s left that park bench and finally finds himself face first into Duke’s fur again. When his eyes open, though it’s bleary, he can see the TV flashing, players running across the field. Calum’s up a goal. He hums, before pushing himself up, head falling into the back cushions. “Ah, he lives. I was worried there for a second.”

“Shockingly,” Michael replies with a small tuft of laughter. “I saw Odette.”

Calum glances away from the screen, to see the half smile on Michael’s face but it’s quickly clouded yet again with concern. “How is she?”

“Not good. We just sat there really.” Michael runs a hand over his face, partially to wake himself up. In part to hide and even suppress the hot flash of worry that rises on his cheeks.

“She tell you what’s wrong?”

Michael is quiet. Duke’s paws as he climbs down the sofa and over the hardwood floor to his water and the clicking of the controller under Calum’s thumbs and fingers are the only real sound for a moment. Michael exhales. “No, she didn’t tell me anything.”

Calum knows that tone, the frustration that bleeds into it. “The girls have posted what they found in the groupchat.”

Michael surges forward. His bottle of water, only a fourth full, wobbles at the weight slammed into the table. Michael, holding himself up mostly by his elbows, unlocks his phone and finds the thread. Your girl hides herself pretty well. But here’s what we found. The next few texts are links: one to Instagram and the other to a FaceBook page.

“She is real,” he sighs, after the page loads. Calum pauses his game, taking a gander at Michael’s phone too. The pages are private, but the profile picture is very clearly Odette to Michael. There’s no doubt about it.

***********

I hope you don’t think this is too strange. I just wanted to reach out. Let you know that if you need anything at all, someone just to sit with IRL I’ll be there. Take care.

Odette saw the message the second it came in, while sitting alone in the waiting area on the second floor of the hospital. Her mother’s overnight sitting between her feet. Michael. She wasn’t even shocked that he managed to find her on social media. Anyone with half an hour to kill could do it. But this message makes things even more real. It’s not just some guy that appeared out of nowhere in her dreams. It was a guy in a band. A successful one, she would give him that. But a band, with enough traction that would just cause her more panic than good. If she allowed herself just two seconds, if she let her think about what could be, she knew it would have it’s own challenges. She’d have to navigate the limelight, the prying eyes. She doesn’t like anyone in her business as it is

Timing is terrible, she concludes. Even if she wanted to pursue anything with Michael, she still had her mother’s health in near shambles and that would take precedence over everything else. The message sits behind the locked phone and two swipes and a tap. It’s been six hours now. Her mother now settled into her room. She’s woken up once or twice, mostly with a soft hum, but nothing major to say. Odettee sits curled up in the chair, watching the machines, the TV above their heads plays the news.

I appreciate it Michael. Everything’s kind of crumbled right now. I’m sorry if I’m hard to reach. Thanks again.

Her phone doesn’t even sit face down for longer than a few seconds before it shakes again. Another message. I understand. Just want to help. His icon pops up again with another message beneath it. I know it sounds crazy but I just really care. I’ll do whatever I can.

She closes her eyes, tears stirring behind her eyes. It’s not even Michael’s message. It’s the goddamn hospital. Her father in surgery, her mother in the ER, her mother in surgery. She hates this place. It makes her stomach twist up. She always thinks she’s going to be sick when she catches a whiff of stale sterilization and white walls. She hates it here. She hates her mother having to be here. She hates that her father took his last breaths but they couldn’t be there. They couldn’t comfort him.

And there’s no one else. There’s no one else to take her place. There’s no one else to take this burden from her. “Don’t cry.”

Odette wipes her face with the backs of her wrist. “Rest, Momma. You need it.”

Her mother hums, turning her head into the pillow again and within a few seconds, she can tell sleep has overtaken her. Her mother’s face is not her own. The carbon dioxide is still bloating her mother’s cheeks. It was needed to increase visibility but now Odette’s sure if she were to take a finger and poke a cheek, her face would just deflate. Her mother would just flatten and disappear into the sheets.

She covers her face with her hands. She enjoyed sitting with Michael. He didn’t ask too many questions. He didn’t press her. But she didn’t have time for love. She didn’t want to become her mother. If her father was still alive, her mother wouldn’t have thought twice about going to the doctor’s sooner. Odette didn’t understand. Her mother was stubborn. When things looked like they could get worse, when everyone else was warning to just cut ties, her mother would hunker down and see things all the way through, even if it was to a bitter end. However, when it came to her father, there was hardly a fight. If her father said jump, her mother hardly asked how high before pushing her body up into the air. They were somewhere between individual people and magnets. One of them was never too far without the other.

Now her mother is just running herself down. Taking more and more shifts at work. Hardly sleeping. Hardly paying attention to her health. If Odette didn’t know her mother better, she could’ve almost thought that she was doing it on purpose. Of course, there were easy excuses to cast blame on: they still had expenses from her father to take care of, rent to pay, Odette’s student loans. She hadn’t even gotten the break she thought she would with her art degree.

With one less income coming into the house, her father hadn’t retired yet and while his insurance policy covered most of the funeral expenses, it just seemed to be a sinking ship. And Odette wouldn’t let herself get off one and into another one. She wouldn’t let herself be so dependent on someone. At the end of the day, she still had to be able to take care of herself if something went wrong. She doesn’t want to turn into her mother. It seemed so cliche. Everyone fears turning out like their parents. But to lose oneself, to become so intertwined with one other person that the thought of losing them seemed far worse than death honestly scared Odette.

But there’s Michael. There is Michael, creeping into her thoughts whenever she thinks her boat might actually hit rock bottom. She’ll admit it’s nice. She doesn’t have to worry about anything. She doesn’t have to be her mother’s only provider for those quiet moments. He just wants to help, but there was no way he really wanted to get involved with her and her mess. Not when he could have the pick of the litter. Not when no doubt had his own crazy life to handle, though. Michael would be better off on his own ship. Not with her adding weight to it.

She doesn’t see Michael that night. She hadn’t really expected too with how fitful her sleep is. Every hour or so she wakes, checking that her mother is still there, that she hadn’t slept through any emergency. When the doctor’s come in the morning, it’s all smiles. They clear her mother.

“You look tired,” her mother comments. “Have you been sleeping?”

“No.”

“You need to sleep.”

Odette laughs dryly-one tuft of laughter-, pausing as the traffic clears before crossing the intersection and starting north towards their apartment. “I know.”

“Rest once we get home. I’ll fix us baked ziti.”

“That goes against every instruction the doctors gave you.”

“I’m fine now.”

“You’re getting home and you’re lying down.”

“Who’s the parent here?”

“Right now, it doesn’t matter. You’re still recovering, Momma.” It feels like talking to a toddler. Her mother doesn’t want to give up the control that she has. But if she doesn’t listen, it’ll cause more problems than before.

The first two days go well. Her mother does make light jokes of Odette’s cooking but they both know Odette learned from her. Odette stares at her ceiling, waiting for the alarm to go off, wondering if she should just see how Michael is doing. The mornings are really the only part of the day she has to herself. At night, when her head hits the pillow, she thinks too much about everything going wrong. Sleep’s always kind of evaded her, but now, it feels tenfold.

Take care. Michael sends it with almost every message. They finally exchanged numbers. He must mean it well, must mean it like, don’t forget about yourself. But Odette’s only swimming and swimming and sometimes she is sinking. She’s not sure when she can take care of herself. But she likes to escape from her real life bullshit by drawing. She’s started taking commissions since she’s been out of work for a week and will be out for at least another one. And sometimes, she lets herself daydream about Michael. Not often and not for long. Because there is always food to cook, dishes to clean, bills to hide from her mother.

There’s a clatter. The distinct sound of metal hitting the floor and filling their house with the tinny and high sounds. Odette flies out of her bed, heart racing. Please let her be okay, Odette chants to herself, throwing open her door and not bothering with putting on pants. And there, in the kitchen, is her mother standing at the sink with a pan on the floor. “Momma.” It’s a warning, soft and a small part of the disappointment dripping into the word.

“Don’t Momma me. Just pick it up please.”

“You have to take it easy.” The pan is returned to the sink, awaiting another scrub.

“I just wanted pancakes, that’s all.”

“I can make you as many pancakes as you want, you know.”

“I’m not old! I’m perfectly capable!” The kitchen echoes with the frustrated shouts of her mother.

Odette, still facing the sink, wishes she could just disappear. “Momma, I’m not saying you’re not.”

“Then just let me make myself pancakes!”

“The doctors told you you’d have to take it easy for a few days. Just relax and I’ll make them.”

“Making pancakes is not going to kill me.”

“No, but you hemorrhaging will. You bleeding out at work or making yourself some fucking pancakes in your kitchen will if you don’t just sit down for a second!” Odette pushes off the counter, facing her mother. The tears are blurring her vision and if she weren’t such a goddamn angry crier, she’d be able to seethe. She could show her mother just how fed up she is. “I don’t know what you want. Do you want kill yourself? Is that what you’re trying to do? Do you miss Dad? What is it?”

The two women stare at each other. Odette feels her arms shaking. Her stomach trembles. She doesn’t know what else to do to help her mother. “He’s just gone,” her mother sobs. It’s the first time outside of the funeral that her mother’s cried in front of her. “That morning I was kissing him, telling him to have a great day and that night he was just gone.”

“He is,” she agrees. “It’s not fair. But Momma, I need you.”

“I just don’t know what to do.”

Odette knows this is the moment to attempt to console her mother. But what can she say? What can she do? The only thing Odette knows to do is walk over, wrap her arm around her mother and walk them both to the couch. It’s almost unreal. How both of them are just so lost. Maybe it was naive to think her mother would have all the answers. That her own mother wasn’t grieving just like her.

At the stove, Odette dares not a tear to fall into the batter. As the batter cooks, bubbles appearing all throughout, Odette knows she has to get out. She has to have a break. But God, she can’t go too far. She plates the pancakes, even tops it off with a cup of tea for her mother and then puts it onto a tray. Her mother gives her a soft thanks but she doesn’t respond. Instead, she continues on to her room, finding her phone.

“Hey, what’s up?” Michael answers.

“Shit, sorry,” she returns. It’s barely seven in the morning and it was only the gravel in his voice that reminds her that not everyone has the early morning routine that she does.

“No, no, it’s okay. Is everything okay?”

“I should let you sleep.” What Odette hadn’t anticipated was the relief that settled in her chest at the sound of his voice. Since they’ve started talking more readily, they see each other less in their dreams. But it still happens occasionally, especially if Odette hides for a couple days. As if it’s life’s way of reminding her that she will always be pulled towards this person, she’ll never be able to escape them. And sometimes she didn’t mind that fact, but other times it scared her.

“Did you need something?”

An escape. Ten minutes in another universe to let her know if this really was all worth it. “I just wanted to hear your voice, I guess. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize for that, you know? World’s not going to explode just because you call me early enough to hear the rooster call.” His laughter floats in through the phone a small bit of a squeal, mostly coated in the still gruff grip of hours of not being used during the night.

“It’s not that early. Early, yes. But I didn’t, like, call at five in the morning.”

“There it is,” Michael hums. “The Odie I know.”

“Odie?” Her chest tightens just a little. No one’s called her that since her father. She hadn’t even thought about that nickname since her father’s car accident and death.

“Do you not like it?

“My dad used to call me that. I haven’t heard that nickname in almost two years.” She can hear her own voice cracking. The tears are slipping down her cheeks. “I don’t mind it.”

“Are you sure? Sounds like you’re crying. And I just, I don’t want to make you upset.”

“It’s-it’s okay. Just a lot going on.” Odette works the tears back down, fights to keep her tone even. How many more tears could she cry?

“We can go get breakfast, if you want?”

Her sigh creates a crackle through the receiver. She still hasn’t told him. Still hasn’t let him in fully. She didn’t want to lose herself. But maybe sitting on her bedroom floor, in just a t-shirt and panties, crying her eyes out for who knows how many times in the last two and half weeks, isn’t exactly having herself either. “I can’t go for long. My mom just had surgery and I’m the only one she has.”

“I’ll bring it to you and your mum then. How does that sound?”

She chews on her bottom lip. “I probably don't even live anywhere near you. I don’t want you to go so far out.”

“Hey, it doesn’t matter. Sounds like you’ve had a stressful couple of weeks. Please let me help.”

Odette inhales. “Make it lunch and you’ve got a deal.”

“Just give me your address and I’ll be at your door at 12:30.”

“It’s not, the greatest. Where I’m at. I’m sorry.”

“Just send your address and I’ll see you at 12:30.”

Michael texted her at 11, asking what they wanted and ever since then, Odette’s been sitting at the kitchen table. Her mother’s watches TV but Odette will always be able to tell when her mother’s eyes flick from the Netflix playing some romantic comedy to her. They’ve yet to have words outside of discussing lunch. “You look like you’re about to be in trouble,” her mother calls. The neighbors above them stomp about.

It’s then, as Odette finally casts her glance at her mother, that she wonders if she should share the truth about Michael. Would that hurt her mother more? Would her mother think that she’s leaving her too? “It’s nothing,” Odette says, looking down at her phone. It’s just after 12:10, so Odette stands. “I’m just gonna be outside.”

She takes the stairs down to the door and then settles on the curb. The concrete is warm against her thighs. Her old volleyball shorts do nothing to protect her legs from the loose gravel and dirt. Her slides are loose on her feet and she sits, watching the parking lot as cars she knows all too well slide in and out. While Odette truly wished to get the hell out, she didn’t want her mother to think she would up and abandon her.

But she couldn’t stay here forever. She has to go at some point. She has her entire life to live still.

It’s Michael. It has to be because she doesn’t know anyone else to roll up in the white Tesla. Suddenly her hands are a little shaky. As she stands, she quickly wipes her hands on her thighs, crossing the parking lot to him pulling into the visitor spot. Odette only gets as far as the trunk before the door opens and Michael steps out. She can’t lie about it now. She can’t pretend when her heart nearly stops at the sight of him. Real. In front of her. She half jogs the few feet between them.

His arms open, to let her in, a grin on his face. “Hey.”

Odette tucks herself into his chest. “Hi.”

She smells like honey and flowers. Michael would’ve never guessed that combo. But it feels right. It crawls up his nostrils and settles into his chest. He feels almost like he’s at home. Michael fully encases her body into his arms. “Nice to finally meet you. In person,” he laughs gently into her ear.

Odette can’t say anything. She didn’t think Michael was real for a second. But now he’s here and he drove from god knows where to her. “Thanks,” she exhales, her voice shaky. “It means a lot.”

“Of course, Odette. I’d do anything.”

Odette leads Michael up the stairs, the sounds of their shoes mixing in with the thumping music bleeding out from a number of apartment doors and with the laughter that swells from behind closed doors. At her front door, she stops and turns to Michael. “I apologize now for whatever my mom says.”

Michael nods. She works her bottom lip underneath her teeth. “It’s okay.”

Nodding, Odette cracks open the door and her mother is not on the couch. “Fuck,” she whispers, rushing to set the bag in her hand on the table. “Momma!”

Her panic tone pierces Michael’s ear. “In here!” The response comes from deep in the house and Odette scurries deeper into the apartment, pausing at a door right near the start of the hallway.

She hovers outside the door. “Everything okay?”

“Girl, I’m not dead.”

Michael watches from the edge of the open living room space, drink tray still in his hand. “The food’s here,” Odette relays. Her voice is softer and she’s slow to push away from the door. The weight settles on her face and when she walks back to the kitchen table, Michael sees it all. All the nights she probably hasn’t slept.

“What else do you need?” he asks. “And please don’t bullshit me.”

Odette scrubs over her face, collapsing into the chair. “We’ll be okay.”

“What do I have to do?” Michael finally places the drinks down. “I just want to help.” He takes her hand, kneeling in front of her. “Just want to help.”

“Odette hasn’t mentioned you before.”

Michael looks up and for a moment, he wants to laugh. Say that they’re playing a cruel joke on him. But when he looks back to Odette and then to her mother, he knows it’s no trick. They are practically twins. He ought to be used to it, with the way Calum and his mother look so much alike. But it’s always a shock, it appears.

“Michael, this is my mom. Mom, this is Michael.”

Michael stands, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Brown.”

Odette watches, praying to the high heavens her mother doesn’t say anything slick about the lack of Odette’s warning. Instead, her mother shakes his hand. “Thanks for getting us lunch. It’s very sweet of you.”

“You’re welcome. And please, if you need anything else, don’t hesitate to reach out. Odette has my number.” He bows, a quick dip of his head. “I hope you have a speedy recovery, Mrs. Brown.”

Odette walks him to the door. Michael takes a quick hold of her waist, for one last hug. “Please call me, okay? If you need anything, want anything. Doesn’t matter, call me.”

She nods. “I will.” The door shuts after Michael slips through it and as the bag crinkles to her mother’s hands, Odette rests her head into the wooden door. Michael is actually real and more handsome in person than she ever thought. And why had she been so scared before? Why had she kept Michael at arm’s length? He was sweet. He listened. He cared.

“So, who’s the guy? A friend?” Her mother’s tone drips with the playful tease.

Fixing to keep the smile of her face, Odette spins, back pressed into the door. “Yeah, um, just a friend. My-” It happens. Even if her mother tries to deny it, Odette still sees the slight falter to her smile. There it is. Her mother being in the way. And Odette wonders for just a split second, if it was on purpose. “Just a good friend,” Odette corrects.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, sweetheart.”

“Momma--”

“Eat. The food’s no good cold.” They eat with only the sounds of the TV playing in the background as their only source of conversation happening.

**********

I’m sorry. The last line in Odette’s text. An apology about missing their facetime call, after saying that she picked up a double at work. Michael gets it. Though her mother’s been able to return to work, Odette’s been carrying the brunt of pulling in the bulk of income. They’re not terribly behind, but they are just scraping by. The tensions are rising. The last time Michael called before Odette could even get out a word to him, her mother was shouting in the back.

Michael stares down at his phone. I’m coming to get you on your next day off. We can just go to a cafe or something and talk. Anything you want. Just want you to take care of yourself too. He waits. He shouldn’t expect a response so soon but then he sees the bubbles pop up.

Okay.

What no fight? Not gonna make me wrestle you out of your apartment, throw clothes and walk you out the door?

No fight, it seems when the text message sits for five minutes. And then ten without a response.

Odette’s already standing outside of the apartment complex when Michael pulls in. Her shoulders are covered in a tattered denim jacket. He can’t tell if it’s age or purpose that’s caused the holes. She’s quick to jump off the curb. There’s barely enough time for the car to stop completely before she’s opening the passenger side door. She sniffles, just once, wiping at her cheeks and secures the belt. “I don’t care where we go, just away from here, please.”

Michael suspects a fight with her mother. They seem to be happening more frequently. Michael tries to think of a place nearby, though he doesn’t know the area at all, and is interrupted by the guttural scream from Odette. One moment she’s quiet and the next her sweltering scream fills the car and probably can be heard from anyone on the outside too. Michael doesn’t say anything, just makes sure there’s no traffic and after about a minute she falls into the seat.

“Sorry.”

“You gotta let it out somehow.” Putting the car into gear, Michael continues forward until he’s able to find a spot to pull in, then back out off and then heads for the road. “My place is an hour out and maybe we can just hang out in my backyard. Just get you away from everything for a little bit.”

“I’d like that.” She’s silent for the first part of the drive, minus the few times she unsticks her thighs from the leather of his seats. “Thick thighs save fries but right now they’re not doing me many favors,” she laughs, mostly to herself pulling her thighs up again and readjusting.

“Sorry.”

“No need. I didn’t think these shorts would ride up this much.”

“The plus: easy to clean,” Michael jokes, glancing out of the corner of his eye to her. She smiles for a second, mostly a smirk and shakes her head.

“With this white leather, I don’t think anyone would dare think to make a spill.” They fall silent again. Much less tense than before. Odette, against all better judgement, turns to face Michael. She watches the earrings that dangle and catch the sunlight. His bottom lip is slightly bigger than the top lip. His head bops ever so slightly to the song playing over the radio. She knows about the band. Michael has talked her through countless hours in the morning about crazy touring stories. But yet, she hasn’t really shared much about herself.

“Sometimes I wonder if my dad was still alive if I could’ve left by now. If I could’ve found my break with designing.”

Michael, braking at a red light, takes her hand. “I’m sorry. That has to be rough.”

Odette nods, eyes tearing up. Traffic threads through before them. People turning, people continuing straight down the road to their left. “I hate working retail. But it’s the only thing around that I know I can get steady hours. I was going to try and move out by now. But then Momma got sick. She hardly takes care of herself since Dad died. She’s only got me and if I live, I fear she’d just let herself crumble. I don’t want her to think there’s nothing left for her.”

A couple cars honk. Michael looks up to the green light and sighs before continuing on. He keeps his hand locked around Odette’s. As tires glide, Odette squeezes at Michael’s hand. “I’m scared. I don’t want to break her heart. And if I let you in more, what happens? Do I lose myself?”

“Or maybe you find yourself. Maybe this is your story and if you fuck up, you just fuck up. In the end, if you stay, you’re probably breaking your own heart more.”

Odette sniffles, taking her free and clearing the tears. More well, more tears fall behind them. “Maybe, maybe I am.”

Michael pulls into the driveway of his house. Bringing the back of her hand to his lips, he grins. “How are you at video games?”

“I’m terrible at them,” she answers, voice wavering.

“Perfect.”

“Get back here, Michael!” Odette shoves him, still spinning out from the red shell that was thrown. He can only laugh, still holding onto the gas as his character crosses the finish line. Odette yelps as she’s hit with the flame from an NPC’s fire plant. “This is so unfair!”

She crosses the finish line in eighth. From the coffee table, her phone buzzes again. Another call, they both can tell by the way the shaking is consistent and long. It’s the sixth call since they got to his house. Who knows how many times she ignored the calls while she was in the car?

“You gonna answer that?”

“When I get first place, I will.” When she glances over to Michael, she can see the slight concern in his eyes. “I thought we were getting better, my mom and I. I thought that we would make progress. But she knows. I never said you were my soulmate and I didn’t have to. She knew.”

“We can do Moo Moo Meadows. It’s a chill map.”

“Oh, the cow is so cute! Please don’t utterly destroy me on this map again.” She looks up from underneath her lashes, a pout on her pinky and pouty lips. Michael’s not breathing. It all left him in a blink. “What’s that look for?”

Shaking his head, Michael turns back to the TV. Now’s not the time to be wondering how she’d taste on his tongue. “Nothing, nothing.”

Her fingers are soft on his chin, nails scratching just a little at his beard. Michael falls into the touch and turns to her. “No, what was that look for?”

“It’s not appropriate right now.” He doesn’t miss the drop of her gaze to his lips. Maybe it is appropriate. Now seems as a good tune as any.

“Try me.”

He leans in, slowly, centimeters at a time until their noses brush. Odette tilts her head and their lips brush. Just for a moment and Michael pushes in for a deeper kiss. Inhales that are sharp and lips that are almost bruising for something more. Odette pushes up into Michael, hand resting on his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat.

“I still have to kick your ass in MarioKart,” she teases, pulling back just enough to speak.

Michael, hands now kneading at her waist, his remote fallen to the coffee table. He can only smell her hair, her lotion, only Odette. “If you think that you can beat me, you’re insane.”

“Then call me insane.” Her exhale is shaky and her fingers still clutch the soft black t-shirt.

“Okay, Miss Insane,” Michael laughs before they share one more kiss.

Perched on the kitchen island, Odette watches as Michael slides the omelette onto the plate. They placed a bet, the loser had to cook. With the winning combination of a Bullet Bill and three red shells, she managed to overtake Michael in fourth to finish third in the last race. He still placed higher than her overall in the tournament. With her breakfast for dinner handed over, she grins. “Thanks.”

“Bets are bets. I’m just still so shocked that you beat me!”

“It was only the one lap though.”

“Hey, no,” Michael interrupts her bite, lifting her chin. “None of that. One lap is still pretty crazy considering I am the King of video games.”

Odette snickers. “Yeah, okay, King.” Michael takes the fork, cutting a piece off. “Hey! That’s my victory omelette!”

“It was my hard work!”

Feeding Michael another piece, she smirks. “All you had to do was ask, you know?”

Michael grins around his bite, standing between her legs. He could get used to it. If he let his mind wander and he didn’t think too hard about the challenges of her home life. He could get used to her just being around, playing video games with him. Hanging out late at night, watching the stars maybe if they couldn’t sleep. “Stay the night with me?”

Odette sighs, setting the plate down next to her. She can’t stay the night. That’s too much too fast. But she can tell Michael is gone, hook, line and sinker. She couldn’t give in fully. Not right now. Sure that could be a thing that would ruin her and this, but for right now, until she figured out what to do with her mother, she can’t give in just yet. “I have work in the morning. And I doubt you want to be up at 5 in the morning trying to get me back across town.” It’s not a lie either. She does have work in the morning, but she has mid shift not the opening shift. Either way she should get home tonight.

“Of course, of course, yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be. There’s still the rest of today. We can hangout. Do whatever. Do nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

********

“It doesn’t matter, okay, Michael. It’s okay.” Odette reaches in the dark for her jacket. Her keys are in the pocket. She knows because she remembers leaving them in the pocket, thinking she’d retrieve them in the morning. Sleep is still trying to shut her eyes but the panic in Michael’s voice shoots adrenaline through her veins. His sentences barely come out coherent, attempting to apologize for waking her in the middle of the night. “It’s okay. I’m on my way, okay? I’m on my way. Stay on the line with me. Can you do that? Can you stay on the line with me?”

“Ye-yeah.”

“Good.” Finally with her jacket in her grasps and the slides on, she tiptoes down the hallway. The front door creaks open. Of course everything is louder in the night and it sounds like she could wake the whole neighborhood. But even if she did, she doesn’t care. Not if it means getting to Michael. In her car, she fumbles to get her keys straight. “Do you need me to pick up anything?” Her phone rests on the popsocket holder attached to her air vent.

“No.”

“Okay. Just stay on the line with me, baby.” The entire ride Odette keeps a tight knuckled grip, trying to think of everything under the moonlight to keep Michael’s thoughts occupied. She tells about her failed adventures in dancing, at least with classical ballet. She talks about trying to convince her parents into letting her have a dog. But that never flew. Pets were just too expensive. They were like having children and her parents couldn’t afford that. “If I could have a dog,” she continues, “I just would never stop adopting. Or fostering. I would just constantly need a new dog in the house. I could never be the crazy cat lady. I’m allergic.”

Her rant continues as she listens for Michael’s soft exhales or hums to let her know he was still listening. Was this letting Michael in? Or had she already let him in and this was just hte first time she was noticing it? Because her heart would never be at rest until she laid eyes on Michael and saw that he was okay, or as okay as he could be for the anxiety that was wreaking havoc on his brain. Maybe that was the thing about soulmates, maybe you didn’t really have to let them in. They had the key already.

At his house, she scurries up to the front door. Phone still carrying the time of the entire 45 minute drive. “I’m outside.” In the dark, she’s not sure she could find the spare key and return in without leaving it obvious. So she waits, praying and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

By the time Michael gets the door, he all but falls into her arms. She pushes to get into the door, closing it behind them. They only make it as far as the couch. Michael curls up into her chest, body still shaking and the tears still hot as they fall onto her chest. She didn’t even change out of the camisole, merely threw on leggings and the jacket before climbing into her car. “What’s going on? What do you need?” Odette asks. Her nails trail over his scalp.

“It’s just...hard,” Michael sighs. “I can’t shut off my brain right now. Some days it’s easier. But now it’s just hard. It’s like I can’t trust myself. I don’t trust myself.”

She hums. “I’m sorry, Michael.” They stay on the couch. Michael curls up in her side, and she keeps her hands trailing, up and down his back, humming. She’s never considered herself a singer, having only sang in the church choir as a young child. But that’s all and it only lasted for a few years. But she keeps humming, keeps filling the air until she knows Michael has fallen asleep.

Michael wakes first. His limbs feel like they’ve almost been detached in a couple places. But when he cranes his neck and sees Odette, he gasps. Her hair is wrapped in a scarf, the brown curls pooling at the top of her head. He can’t even imagine the time of day it is. It’s bright from the windows though. “Odie,” he starts softly. His voice is hoarse. His chest aches just a little. He remembers when the thoughts first started racing, all he could think to do was call her. “Odie,” he tries again.

She hums, arms tightening for a moment. “Yeah?”

“Let’s go to the bed. It’s probably more comfy.”

She nods, slowly pushing up. Her jacket is still on. She didn’t have a thought about it once she saw Michael. Now, it falls to the arm of the couch before she follows him down the hallway. In his bed, she pulls him back into her, kissing his forehead. “I’m always here, you know?”

He nods. “Thank you.”

When he wakes again, he can hear a hushed voice. Odette’s not in bed with him. “He needed me, Momma.” It goes silent and Michael shuffles down the hallway. “I’m not--I’m--Listen to me! He needed me. And that’s final. I did what I had to do. I can’t bring Dad back, okay? I can’t bring him back. I can’t make things better. But if Michael needs me, I would fly over the fucking moon. It doesn’t matter what he needed or what I would have to do, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But frankly, I’m 24, Momma. I’m an adult. I have to live my own life.”

Michael can see her, pinching her nose. He knows he shouldn’t feel guilty. He just needed someone to talk to, to help him calm down. Odette spins, her jaw dropping when she spies Michael. She hangs up the phone, striding from the living room. “No, no, I know that look.” She runs her hand up his chest, bare without a shirt.

“I don’t like you fighting with your mom.”

“Mom and I are always going to fight. But if you need me, it doesn’t matter. You call me. Dead of the night, middle of the evening, crack of fucking dawn. You call me, okay?” Michael can only nod, taking her hands into his. “I can cook if you want. Or we can order in. I’ll let you win in Mario Kart, yeah?”

“Oh, you will not let me win in anything. It’s I who let you win.”

“You sure about that? Sounds like a lot of talk but I don’t see nothing backing that up.”

Michael glances across the way, to the clock. It’s nearly ten. Too early to call in for lunch just yet. “Two tournaments before we get food. We’ll see who comes out on top.”

It’s no question as Odette settles down that Michael will win both. But she’s happy to see him like his old self for the most part. He still settles in super close to her and when they wait, with the TV just playing for the food to arrive, he curls up in her side again. She knows the storm hasn’t left completely but they’ve caught the eye of it. They’re settled for the moment being and she’s happy for it.

Odette returns, only after making Michael promise to call her for literally even the smallest thing, to her mother sitting at their kitchen table. Hanging up on her mother wasn’t the smartest choice. But Michael didn’t need to hear her arguing not when he had his own anxiety and issues causing him turmoil.

“Don��t you ever hang up on me like that again,” her mother seethes, finger tapping on the wooden table to emphasize her point. “You let me know where you’re going!”

“Michael needed me. I’m sorry.”

“Just leaving out in the middle of the night. What if something happened? What if you got in a car accident? I would’ve never known. I can’t-” the emotion chokes her mother for a moment. “I can’t lose you too.”

“Don’t make this my responsibility. Don’t become the saint now when you literally almost took my head off because you didn’t want to follow doctor’s orders after your surgery. Momma, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been at each other’s throats for the last six months. Every time we turn around, you’re on me. You’re ranting about bills and keeping afloat. I am sick of being your punching bag. You’re really going to lose me. I can’t bring Dad back and I can’t stay under your wing forever.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Her mother stands, crosses their living room. “If you go, there’s no one else.”

“Momma, I’m always gonna be there. But I can’t. I can’t stay here. Michael was right. It may break your heart to see me go, but can I keep breaking mine? I love you, Momma. I do. But I’m suffocating.”

Odette doesn’t know when her mother will accept that. Doesn’t know when that will finally make sense to her mother. But at this moment, it’s a relief to get it off her chest. To finally stop tiptoeing this subject. This apartment is just too small for the both of them. Odette can’t fix her mother and herself at the same time. She is not a miracle worker.

But after leaving her mother standing in that living room that Odette knows she has got to change her life around. She has to move out. Find her own place. Start somewhere fresh and new. She’s started to get more commission work, mostly help with logos. Occasionally, she gets asked to help build the work for a website. Odette knows with everything that’s been going on, she hasn’t necessarily given as much time as was needed for this craft. But maybe now, maybe now things can start looking up.

*********

Micheal glances over his shoulder, fingers still working over the frets, not fully playing anything. Mostly just going over the progression before they lay down the track. Odette’s snickering, attempting to keep her laughter from bubbling. But it’s always going to fail. She’s always going to give into the life of her laugh. Calum’s phone is tilted towards her and not before long, she’s giving in. Her head falls back into the cushion, hands clapping together. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she wheezes, singling Calum out.

Michael only watches as Calum joins in, attempting to cover up his laughter with his own hands. “I-I had to,” Calum huffs out.

“Send that to me, please.”

“What are the hyenas on about?” Ashton jokes entering the room again. Calum only lifts the phone in return and now Michael can see it’s a picture of him and Calum, in their school uniforms attempting to act cool. It’s grainy now, upon comparison of the cameras on phones in this time compared then when it was taken. How Calum still had it, Michael’s not sure.

Rolling his chair closer, Michael attempts to take Calum’s phone. “You’re giving her trade secrets, mates!”

Calum’s quicker, ducking the phone back. “Nah, she’s allowed to get dirt on you, man.”

“It’s not that bad,” Odette attempts to recover. Tears are still pouring from her eyes. But she wipes at them and stands up from the couch.

Michael pouts as she walks over. “I’m sure you have plenty of shitty and uncool selfies too.”

“Yeah, and pictures my parents took of me buttass naked in the tub too.”

Michael snorts. Odette stands behind him, arms wrapped close around his upper chest. “What were our parents thinking?”

“They weren’t.” She punctuates the sentence with a kiss to his cheek. “But you’re still cute. Even in the dorky selfie. And Calum did kind of incriminate himself too.”

“Hey! I was adorable then!” Calum calls out.

“Sure, sure,” Odette says, directing her attention to Calum, “But that pose. The emo fringe that wasn’t fully a fringe.”

“Look, I didn’t become a fashion icon overnight. It’s hard work,” he retorts.

“Keep working,” Odette returns, snickering as the room explodes into a chorus of ‘oh’s.

Michael looks up at her, the disbelief but admiration dripping from his fromgaze. “I still have to work with him you know.”

“Alright, alright. That’s okay. I like your spunk though. Keep her around, Michael.”

It’s later than they anticipated by the time they leave the studio, which isn’t too off course for them. But Odette seemed ready to pass out nearly eight in the evening. Michael finds it endearing when he offers to end the night early but she refuses, saying that she didn’t want to interrupt their work. But now she’s curled up on the sofa, under Michael’s jacket to keep warm. Having not brought a heavy enough jacket to withstand the air conditioning of the studio.

“Baby, c’mon. Let’s go home.”

She snaps awake, even at the gentle touch of Michael’s hand. “Hmm?”

“I’m taking us home, so we can cuddle and sleep.”

“I want a milkshake.”

Michael laughs at the sleepy confession but nods. “We’ll get some tomorrow, yeah?”

Odette nods, keeping herself awake enough to follow behind Michael. Taking the week off feels nice. She doesn’t have to worry about anything else. She’s still working on commissions and has managed to pull some more steady weight income wise that way. She’s yet to move out. But she takes more time to hang out with Michael. Mostly at his house. Occasionally they go out, catch movies. It feels normal now for them.

As they slide under the sheets, Michael pulls her in close, arm slung over her waist. “Coming in tomorrow with me?”

“Need to work,” she returns, nose and exhales brushing over his chest. Michael kisses her forehead, allowing the steady rise and fall of her chest to guide him. But he doesn’t fall asleep, not immediately. He lays there.

“We should adopt a dog. Maybe two. And it’s gonna be awesome.”

“I vote two,” Odette returns after a long moment.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“So are you!”

**********

“You know what’s lame?” Michael asks, flinging his arms around Odette’s shoulder. Her screen is zoomed in on the corner of something. The edge is rounded and he can’t see the preview of the full image. He assumes it’s new work for a client. Work has come more steadily for her after working with an up-and-coming band. Michael happened to run into them on Instagram and they made a post about needing some help on the team. He forwarded the information to Odette and things took off from there.

“What’s lame?”

“I don’t see you in my dreams anymore.”

“You see me practically every day now!” Odette counters, setting her pen down and cranking her neck up. She moved in three months ago. It’s been interesting to say the least. But they have a good routine. Odette works part time at one of the local boutiques and still does work for design.

“Yeah, and like that’s definitely a dream in and of itself. But I don’t know, I miss talking to you in my subconscious.”

“You’re so weird,” Odette chuckles. Soulmates only communicated via dreams when real world communication hadn’t occurred for an extended period of time after they first met in person. When Michael leaves for tour, she expects he’ll crop back up. He’ll find her again at that park bench.

“That’s just a fact. But still, there was something about them. Maybe it’s because I thought you were the best thing since sliced bread, but they were kind of amazing.”

“That was the cusp of my life falling into the sewer.”

“But you found me there, so it wasn’t all that bad.”

She laughs, nodding her head and nudges his hold to slacken. She spins the barstool around. “I thought people who talked about their soulmates were fools. Like no one falls in love like that. Not through a dream and certainly not all at once. I mean, it just sounded so unrealistic.”

“Certainly not you, of course. But I’ll admit to being in the camp for falling in love all at once.” Odette rolls her eyes. “What can I say? You’re drop dead gorgeous. You know how to dish it out just as hot as anyone gives you hot shit. It was a recipe for love.”

“No, certainly not me. But I’m glad it was you in my dreams. No one else would’ve gotten me to eat pineapple on pizza that’s for damn sure.”

Michael laughs. “Maybe that’s what we get for dinner, yeah? To reminisce?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“That won’t spoil your appetite for your dinner with your mom tomorrow will it?”Michael knows about the long standing pizza dates. They were hard to get started. Odette unsure if her mother was going to attempt to guilt her into coming back home. But after the first couple, things smoothed out. Odette wonders if her mother still felt haunted, even in sleep.

If no matter what her mother did or believed, she would always know that her husband was gone and not her subconscious would always try to bring him back. But it would never work. Her mother would never have peace. That scared Odette, if she was honest. Though she figured, there had to be something. There had to be some safeguard if that one of the soulmates died the dreams would stop, that her mother would stop reaching out for her father. And maybe there was, but there’s no safeguard on those memories. There would be nothing to stop her mother from dreaming for her husband, of all the times they shared before he died.

She hadn’t asked her mother yet those questions. But just imagining that allowed her to understand her mother better. She still hurts, still looks at her mother and feels that same uneasiness, like at any turn she could set her mother off. But she imagines it cannot be easy for her mother either.

Odette, finally blinks, staring back at Michael. Finally reconnecting back to their conversation from before. “Pizza is a food group. It must be had at least twice a week.”

He giggles, fingers tapping away at the screen for their order. “You know I think I might have to run that by the FDA before fully subscribing to it.”

“No need.”

“And why not?”

“Because I am the FDA and I just said it.”

“I take back what I said about not seeing you in dreams being lame. I’m glad to get at least 6 hours break from you.” Micheal scurries down the hallway once her gaze narrows. The dogs chase down after him, unsure of what’s happening but wanting in on the action.

“Just for that,” she hollers, “I’m not saving you the last slice of pizza!”

“You wouldn’t dare?”

“Try me.”

28 notes · View notes

css1992 · 5 years

Text

Domestic!Starker

[REPOST]

Guys, I’m soo sorry, I’m reposting this because Tumblr made my post from earlier disappear from the Starker tag :´(((

An Anon sent this request:

“Tony's feet are killing him and sweet bf, peter messages him.”

Look at me, sloowly filling prompts. This was supposed to be ready last week, but I wasn’t feeling well, some things happened and I couldn’t write, but now I’m back on track!

Anon, I hope you don’t mind that I took your prompt a little too far, I’m not sure that’s what you had in mind, but I promise there’s a foot massage there. Haha! I hope you like it.

I still have other prompts in my inbox, remember to have patience with little ol’ me.

Domestic!Starker, established relationship, fluff.

Word count: 4k+

Warnings: I believe there’s nothing triggering here, but if you spot anything that might be triggering to anyone, please let me know!

-*-

Peter was eighteen when he joined the Avengers. Tony had been after him ever since he got his powers, at sixteen, and started posting videos of himself on YouTube. He always came to him as Iron Man, though, on top of buildings late at night; in dark alleys, when Spider-man was overwhelmed and outnumbered; during world-ending wars against purple skinned aliens. Tony was always there when Peter needed him – or, Iron Man was always there when Spider-man needed him. The press loved it, they portrayed him as Iron Man’s sidekick, his apprentice. Peter didn’t mind, he liked it, wished it was true, but they only ever met in highly stressful situations. It was like Tony was watching over him or something, like he knew where to find him if he was ever in danger.

Which – yeah. Of course he did.

Peter thought his secret identity was safe, that no one knew who he was, but, who was he kidding, it was Tony Stark, he knew everything. He had been helping him keep his identity a secret from day one, had FRIDAY monitoring the internet for pictures or videos of him changing into the costume. He erased all security cameras’ videos of him changing carelessly in alleys – there were hundreds of those, according to him.

“A little dumb for such a smart kid, but who am I to judge, I’ve done my fair share of dumb in the past,” he’d said, shrugging, sitting on his aunt May’s couch one night, when she was away at work. It was Peter’s eighteenth birthday, and Tony Stark had just rung the bell, invited himself in and asked Peter to join the Avengers. Just like that.

“I’m – uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir, and I don’t know what use I could have for the Avengers, I’m just – I’m just some kid.“ Peter laughed nervously, wringing his hands, but Tony was barely listening to him, he was searching for something on his phone.

“So this isn’t you?” He asked when a 3D hologram video of Peter undressing popped up from the phone. Peter spent exactly fifteen seconds thinking about how cool that was before he started freaking out. “Your secret is safe with me, kid. I told you, I’ve known since the first time you ever put on that awful onesie and started punching bad guys.”

“Why – you’ve never said anything. All those times we met.” The older man put his phone back in his pocket, then shrugged.

“You were just a kid, you had enough on your plate just being our friendly neighborhood Spider-man, I didn’t want to overwhelm you with superhero drama. But you’re all grown up now and we could really use your help, so what do you say?” He looked at him expectantly and the young man blinked owlishly.

Peter learned that day that he couldn’t say no to Tony. Not that he wanted to, but he was used to being a lone wolf, he didn’t know how he would fit into a group of superheroes who had so much history together, but he said yes, anyway. Even if he was moving to Boston in just a few weeks, even if he was starting college – and not just any college, MIT –, even if it would be almost impossible to keep his identity a secret for long after that, even though he knew he’d have to finally tell May everything – he looked into the older man’s eyes and said yes.

That was when Peter Parker’s relationship with Tony Stark officially started, without the suits, and it was so very different from what Iron Man and Spider-man had. When Peter was in the mask, everything was so much easier, he was sassy, smart-mouthed and sarcastic, there was safety in anonymity. With the mask off, though, it was so hard to interact with Tony – the man was a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist, Peter was just – Peter.

Tony noticed, too, he always looked amused when Peter stuttered and stumbled around him, like the first time the billionaire showed up in his dorm room one night and told him to “suit up, we’re going to Wakanda”, and Peter blushed bright red as he tried to cover his naked thighs by pulling down the hem of the old t-shirt he wore to bed instead of pajamas.

“You’re nothing like I thought you’d be, kid,” he told him on the Quinjet, when they were on their way to Africa to deal with some alien threat. He sat right next to Tony in his only clean T-shirt and not-so-clean sweatpants and he blushed furiously as he looked at the impeccable tracksuit that the billionaire usually wore under the Iron Man armor if he had time to change.

“I-I’m sorry.” He dropped his gaze, biting his lower lip, but Tony placed a hand on his knee, patting it gently.

“Don’t apologize, I like it. Spider-man is kind of a brat, anyway. I like you better.” He winked, and Peter’s eyes widened in awe.

During his freshman year, they didn’t meet that often, at least not in person, but they texted a lot and sometimes even talked on the phone. It usually started with a good excuse, like the time Peter asked about getting a suit upgrade, but they always ended up talking for hours; at first, it was always about Peter’s classes, Tony’s projects, Avengers’ missions, that sort of thing, but slowly their conversations became more personal, intimate. One night, Tony told him his relationship with Pepper was over – had been for a few months at the time, but the press didn’t know about it yet.

Peter didn’t know what to feel when he heard that – on one hand, Tony sounded broken. He wasn’t drunk, thankfully, he’d been sober a few years, but he was clearly devastated, even if all that ever came out of his lips was “It’s okay, I just want her to be happy”. On the other hand, Peter had fallen in love with him over all those months, and he knew he was just a kid and he shouldn’t really know what love was, and people would assume it was just a crush, hero worship, but he just knew deep in his bones that he loved that man. With all his scars and all his flaws, his crazy ideas and his acid jokes, his genius inventions and his big heart.

He didn’t say anything, though, he was just an eighteen year old kid, and even though Tony never really treated him like a child, he knew he didn’t stand any chance. Tony was forty-eight at the time, the richest man in the world, he was fucking Iron Man, the man who saved the whole universe with a snap of his fingers and lived to tell the tale – he was way, way out of Peter’s league and he was okay with it. The fact that the man was willing to talk to him, be his friend, his mentor, whatever, was good enough for Peter. He’d take anything he could get.

He was nineteen when he got back for his first summer break. They all agreed that it would be best for him to stay with the Avengers at the compound, for training exercises and meetings, and he could go home to stay with May during the weekends. Tony didn’t live in the compound at the time, he lived in his penthouse in the city, but he was there almost everyday during Peter’s summer break. His very first night there, actually, Tony invited him to dinner in his private living quarters and then they headed down to the lab and started a bit of a routine. They would spend hours together down there, Tony helped him with his projects and with his school work and Peter helped him with S.I.’s new products and with suits upgrades for all the Avengers. It was already perfect, already so much more than he could hope for.

But it got better. One night, when they were both exhausted after almost 33 hours working non-stop, Peter was babbling about his sparring match with Natasha and how he got his ass handed to him when Tony kissed him. Peter figured he did it because he wasn’t even thinking straight anymore, blind from exhaustion, maybe he just wanted him to shut up, so he took the chance and kissed him back, trying to commit every detail to memory, every single taste and texture, the feel of his strong arms wrapped around his waist, his beard brushing against his soft skin, the smell of grease and sweat, and the taste of coffee and too much chocolate to keep them going for so many hours. He thought he’d never get to experience that again, but he was wrong.

Tony didn’t pretend like nothing happened the next day, he greeted him with a kiss good morning when he walked into the kitchen. The other Avengers present stared, but didn’t say anything. The younger man’s insides were in knots, he was so happy, excited, anxious, and so fucking in love with that man. They only had The Talk that night at dinner, in Tony’s quarters.

“I know you’ve probably heard a lot of shit about me, kid, and I need you to know it’s all true, okay?” Peter stared at him with big, round eyes, cheeks full of spaghetti – that Tony had cooked with his own hands, which somehow made it tastier –, surprised by his words because they had been talking shop and pretending that that wasn’t a date until that moment. “I was a bit of a player –“ Peter actually choked on his spaghetti at that. “Wh – are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sorry, go on.” Peter took a huge sip of water and prepared himself for the blow. That was Tony’s way of dumping him gently, apparently. It involved pasta, candlelit dinner and stories about his playboy years. Great.

“So, I was a bit of a player, I’m sure you’ve heard that, and it’s all true, but – I’m too old for that shit now. I don’t – I’m not like that anymore. I’m saying this because you’re young, you’re in college, and I’m sure you’re not looking for anything serious, you’re just having fun, and I should have thought of that before – before I kissed you. I don’t do ‘just fun’ anymore, kid. So I understand if you wanna stop this right now, I just wanna let you know there’s no hard feelings if you do, it changes nothing, we’ll still be friends, and lab buddies, and sidekicks or whatever. Ok? It doesn’t have to change anything.” It took a while for Peter to piece the words together in a way that made sense, but when he did, his eyes rounded and he choked – again – on his water. “Pete –“

“I want things to change,” Peter blurted, face red with embarrassment and lack of oxygen – either or. The older man seemed a little surprised, but his expression remained neutral. “I-I don’t do ‘just fun’ either, Tony. It’s not me. I want this – us – to mean something. If you’re willing to try.”

And try they did. They learned as they went, one day at a time. As mature as Peter liked to think he was, he was nineteen, and very inexperienced when it came to relationships, so he let Tony take the lead. The older man didn’t mind to take it slow – way too slow, even for Peter. They went on dates that ended with chaste kisses in front of Peter’s bedroom door, Tony never offered to come in. Those dates escalated to movie marathons in Tony’s quarters, where hands and lips were finally allowed to wander, but always above the waist.

Peter wasn’t a virgin and he told Tony that, but still the older man wouldn’t even try to go any further then a little kissing, so, on his last week home, Peter took matters into his own hands and straddled him, blushing furiously, and kissed him hard, pressing his hard-on against Tony’s. He wished he had done that sooner, apparently it was all the green light Tony needed to get things going. Waking up beside the older man the next day was arguably the best thing that had happened all summer and they barely left the room for those last seven days. But when they finally did, Tony had to drive him to the airport with the promise to visit in a month.

They made it work around their tight schedules, between Peter’s classes, Tony running S.I. and they both saving the world on occasion, they had candlelit dinners, quiet movie nights and slow love-making in the shower. If they had enough time for a short trip, Tony would take Peter out of the country, somewhere secluded and safe, where they could spend an entire day lying on the beach or cuddled up in front of a fireplace.

That was Peter’s first relationship, and it seemed to make Tony feel insecure and – guilty. Most of the time, the older man just let it happen, just rolled with it; some other times, though, he’d freak out and rant about how Peter should be out there living his life, meeting people, kissing other mouths. Not even once did Peter feel tempted to do any of that, so as Tony freaked out, he just looked at him and smiled softly, waiting for him to finish to tell him that “It’s okay, we’ll be okay”.

As the years passed after Thanos, things finally started to settle down, the world was as peaceful as it could possibly get, at least Peter thought so. The Avengers weren’t needed as often, so slowly people started leaving the compound, some even moving away from the city or the country – Wanda and Vision were the first to leave for Europe. By Peter’s third summer home, there wasn’t anyone at the compound, so he stayed with Tony at the penthouse.

The older man seemed surprised when Peter showed up, he probably had just assumed that he’d stay with May, but he was so happy he couldn’t stop smiling all day long. It was a new experience for them, “living together”. At the compound, even if Tony had his own living quarters and they mostly stayed there, there were other people involved in their daily routine, way too many people.

At the penthouse, it was just them – they shared house chores, Tony complained about doing the dishes, Peter chastised him about wet towels on the bed, they cooked together and Peter tried not to ruin whatever they were making. Tony worked most of the day a few floors down and Peter stayed in the workshop, working on his personal projects or studying. He’d put together an easy, healthy lunch and he’d head down to Tony’s office so they could eat together everyday. Sometimes they only had fifteen minutes before the older man had to get back to work, some other times they even had enough time for some fun before eating.

They started going out together publicly and the press went wild, but they didn’t really mind. They went to functions together, helped at May’s charity events, had dinner at fancy restaurants or at Burger King, whatever felt right at the moment. Tony took it upon himself to dress Peter up, declaring himself the most stylish out of the two of them, he always picked the (matching) outfits they’d wear to go out in public, which was why Peter’s last day home before summer was over was so ironic.

He had just finished doing laundry when Tony walked through the door, limping slightly and wincing. Peter dropped the basket of clean clothes he was carrying to their room and rushed to his side.

“What happened? Are you okay?” He asked worriedly, looking Tony all over. He seemed fine, didn’t smell of blood or anything, but Peter hadn’t turned on the TV or checked his phone all day, he could have gotten in trouble as Iron Man and he wouldn’t know – although, FRIDAY would probably tell him.

“Nah, I’m fine, it’s just these new shoes, they’ve been killing me all day long.” He winced as he leaned on the wall to take them off and Peter stared at the expensive leather shoes with a frown.

“I told you they weren’t comfortable enough for work, these are obviously party shoes, you’re not supposed to spend a whole day on your feet in them,” he chastised, as Tony sighed in relief, slumped against the wall with his eyes closed when his feet were free.

“And I told you there’s no such thing as party shoes and work shoes.” Tony opened his eyes to narrow them at Peter when the younger man crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well, I guess I was right, then, huh?” He smirked, raising an eyebrow, and Tony laughed.

“Yes, I guess you were. As usual.” He rolled his eyes and opened his arms. “Be a good boy and come kiss it better.”

“I really shouldn’t, you stubborn ass. You’re lucky you look so hot in that suit.” He dragged his eyes over Tony’s body and felt the blood rush south. Tony was 51, and just like fine wine, he only seemed to get better over time. He approached the older man and let him hold him, burying his face in his neck, where he placed a soft kiss.

“You smell like fabric softener, were you doing laundry?” Tony muttered against the top of his head and Peter nodded, feeling the older man’s arms tighten around him. “Are you packed yet?”

“Not yet, I’ll do it later, maybe after dinner. Are you hungry?” He snuggled closer to the other man and felt him nod against his head. “FRI, our Saturday usual.” The AI didn’t even answer, sensing the quietness of them room, and they stayed there by the door for a few more minutes. “Are you stalling because you don’t think you can walk to the couch, old man?” Peter whispered after he almost fell asleep with his nose buried in the other’s neck.

“Shut up, brat,” Tony grunted, pushing the younger man away softly, eliciting giggles from him. “No, but seriously, don’t you ever let me walk out of the house wearing those again.” He huffed, pushing away from the wall to start limping towards the couch. “Actually, remind me to burn them or something.”

“Well, I did try to stop you this morning, you big baby, you never listen to me.” Peter rolled his eyes, watching with amusement as Tony tried to make his way to the living room. He picked up Tony’s shoes then went back to get the basket he’d dropped earlier and headed to their bedroom. “Stay put, I’m just gonna put these away, then I can give you a massage.”

“I love you forever!” Tony shouted from the living room as Peter disappeared down the hallway.

“I know!”

When Peter got back to the living room, Tony was lying on the couch, no suit jacket, no tie and with pretty much all of his shirt’s buttons undone. He had and arm thrown over his eyes and was snoring softly. Peter smiled with fondness and decided to make some tea as they waited for dinner – Tony used to hate tea, but they were trying to cut down on caffeine, mostly because the older man’s doctors thought it might help with his insomnia and maybe even with the nightmares.

He made chamomile tea and grabbed a bottle of massage oil from the bathroom, when he got back to the living room, he watched Tony sleeping peacefully for a while, it was such a rare occurrence, Peter was always asleep before him – he was afraid to ask Friday how many hours of sleep the man got each night. It was nice to see him so calm and relaxed, he was always on top of everything, trying to fix anything he thought was wrong with the world, even when it wasn’t needed.

He sat on the opposite end of the couch and put Tony’s legs on his lap; he stirred slightly but didn’t wake up. Peter took off his socks and dripped some of the oil on his hands, rubbing them together to warm it up. As soon his applied pressure to the sole of his right foot, Tony startled awake, moaning.

“Oh, fuck, right there, baby.” He arched his back, clearly in pain, but the good kind of pain. “Ooh, I really needed this.”

“Good thing we don’t have neighbors.” Peter smirked, letting his thumbs slide all the way down to the arch of his foot, then up to his sole again. Tony grunted, but said nothing smart back, truly enthralled by the massage. “You look tired, did something happen? Besides the bad shoes.”

“Nah, just the usual bullshit. There was a board meeting today, but it was short. Then I had a meeting with a few investors, that was long as fuck, even Pepper was pissed by the end of it. Then I headed back to R&D to see if I could get some work done, but not really. So just basically a lot of walking around with pain, both physical and psychological, ‘cause I couldn’t stop thinking that you’re gonna leave tomorrow and I should be spending your last day here with you.” He pouted slightly and reached one of his hands to rub Peter’s arm. “I’m really sorry, love, I really wish I could have stayed.”

“It’s just one day, Tones, we had a great summer.” Peter grinned, lifting his foot to place a kiss on the bridge, then made circular motions on Tony’s sole and the ball of his foot, where it seemed to hurt the most by the sounds he made. “Drink your tea.” When Tony started complaining, he pressured his arch a bit harder, making him yelp. “None of that, mister, we agreed we’d try this, didn’t we? When I’m gone, you have to promise me you’ll keep it up. And only one cup of coffee a day, okay? No more than that, I mean it.”

“Yes, mom.” The older man smirked, poking Peter’s ribs with his foot, but the young man grabbed it before he could tickle him. He glared at him sternly, resuming the massage, moving his fingers up to his heel and ankle.

“If you act like a baby, I’ve gotta act like your mom.” Peter rolled his eyes, hearing the other man chuckle.

“Is it weird that I find it hot when you mother-hen me? Does that mean I have a mommy kink? Since you call me daddy in bed, should I call you mommy?” He pretended to wonder out loud and Peter burst out laughing, shaking his head in exasperation.

“You’re impossible, Tony Stark.” He smiled fondly at his older boyfriend, finishing the massage by rubbing his toes one by one, before moving to the other foot.

“You like it.” He wiggled his eyebrows with a smirk, but Peter just kept smiling at him.

“I love it.”

They fell silent as Peter moved his hands over Tony’s left foot. It was established early in their relationship that Peter gave great massages, his super-strength and super-soft hands were the perfect combination for a good kneading. Whenever they came home from battle battered and bruised, Peter would rub Tony’s back, his feet, his calves – not many people knew that, but operating the Iron Man suit actually required a lot of strength and it often put a strain on Tony’s body.

“Come here, baby,” Tony called him quietly once he was done with his left foot and Peter went willingly, snuggling to his chest and trying to make himself as small as possible in order to fit against the older man. “I’m really gonna miss you, love.”

“I know, I’m gonna miss you, too, Tony, so much. You have no idea,” Peter whispered back, nosing the other’s throat, smelling what was left of his cologne and aftershave, a smell he grew so used to it made him calm and relaxed.

“I think I do.” He felt Tony smile against the crown of his had and he sighed.

“Just one more year, okay?” He raised his head so he could look at the older man’s face. He looked back at him, smiling softly. Tony held his chin and kissed his lips gently as he nodded.

“Just one more year,” he agreed, and they fell silent again, Peter’s head back to resting on his chest. “Next summer, when you come back for good – will you – where are you staying?“

“Are you preemptively kicking me out?” He asked, amused, moving again to look at the older man, who frowned at him.

“Of course not!” He sighed, closing his eyes for a few seconds, before focusing on his face again “Peter, I really want you to move in with me, but are you sure you wanna do this? Baby, you’re so young, you could –“

“Don’t ruin this, Tony.” He placed a finger on his lips, beaming. “I wanna remember today as the day you asked me to move in. Don’t taint it with one your speeches about how I should be sleeping around with college boys.”

“That’s not what –“ The older man started indignantly and Peter laughed, covering his mouth with his hand.

“Shh, just shut up and kiss me, that’s all I wanna remember.” He didn’t give Tony time to answer as he leaned in and crushed their lips together. For a few seconds, the older man still tried to protest, but soon melted into the kiss, hands sliding down Peter’s back to hold him close. When they parted, Tony had a slightly confused look.

“So, what just happened is I asked you to move in and you said yes?” Peter grinned, nodding excitedly, and the older man chuckled, petting his curls fondly. “You do realize that your future involves a lot of foot rubs and back massages, right? You’re basically marrying an old man.”

“I think I can handle that, I have strong, steady hands, so we’re good.” He closed the distance between them again, tasting Tony’s laugh on his lips as he closed his eyes, thinking that was a very small price to pay.

#starker #peter parker x tony stark #ironspider

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mitchsmarners · 5 years

Text

burn, crash, romance (i’ll take what i can get from you)

pairing: eddie kaspbrak/richie tozier [reddie] w/ side mike hanlon/stanley uris/patty blum [stanpatlon] word count: chapter count: 1 of 8 of the fratboy eddie project w/ @reddietrashclub, chapter written by me! summary: Richie didn’t know Eddie very well, not that he would want to, and even just looking at him now, he knew that Eddie Kaspbrak was exactly all the things that Richie had tried to tell Stanley that frat boys were. His brown hair flopped into his brown eyes, pressed down by some red snapback worn backwards and beige khaki jeans that looked glued to his legs. He was hot and the smirk on his face showed that he knew it. warnings: intoxication, sexual flirting

frateddie!taglist: @aizeninlefox, @appoloos, @mrs-vh, @playwiththeflowersofmysoul, @tyrror, @alonelystarfish, @blueskies-and-fucking-sly-smiles, @captainbartholomew, @edneedspie, @im-therosaline-tohisromeo, @invitedtoapityparty, @it-crack, @kasp-brakz, @merriebaby, @proton-disaster-blaster, @purpleposionedgem, @ra-ra-rasputine, @richietoaster, @stanielthemaniel, @tenderlydeliciousstrawberry, @trshmth-richie, @wheezyeds, @wintersember, @youll-kill-me-if-you-stop (let us know if you want to be added!)

perma tags: @jwilliambyers, @eddiecare, @thorn-harvester-ven, @wonderfuleds, @kasbprak

read on ao3.

Richie turned around in his desk seat when his roommate, Stanley, came barging in. Now, Richie had been sharing a room with Stanley Uris for nearly a full three years and he wasn’t much of a barger. Admittedly, Richie was sure he’d gotten to become a bad influence on his friend over their time together- because Richie could be a good student and still have fun, thank you very much- but Richie was still able to recognize out of character behaviour in his best friend.

Stan moved quickly towards his bed, grabbing at the clothes he’d yet to unpack from his trip back home for Passover. He started tossing clothes over his shoulders in search of something, and Richie startled. “Whoa, buddy!” Richie cried, forcing a laugh. “Where’s the fire?”

Stan turned towards Richie and glared at his clothes. Richie had already settled in for the night, wearing nothing but a slightly larger band T-shirt and his boxers. His contact were out, glasses settled on his nose and hair pulled up into a messy bun on top of his head.

Stan let out a disgusted noise. “Get dressed,” Stan said, shaking his head. “We’re going to a party.”

“What the fuck, it’s Wednesday!” Richie cried, tossing his hands up into the air. “Who the fuck throws a party on a Wednesday? This isn’t fucking Frosh week anymore.”

Stan started jumping into what Richie had loving dubbed his “My girlfriend pegs me” jeans, and rolled his eyes. “Mike’s fraternity is having a party, and he invited us. All of us. So we’re going.”

Richie groaned. He liked Mike Hanlon, he really did, but ever since his best friend had started growing close to farmer boy-turned- frat boy, Richie had found himself being forced into a lot more social interactions then he cared for. “That frat boy has the hots for you.”

Stan’s cheeks flushed and he flipped Richie off. “I have a girlfriend, in case you’d forgotten.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Just because you have a girlfriend, doesn’t mean that somebody else can’t think you’re a hot piece of ass.”

Stan chucked the first pair of Richie’s jeans he could find on the floor towards him. Richie squawked as it hit him in the face, then fell into his lap. “Shut up about Mike like that. We’re just friends!”

“So, you’re going to introduce him to Patty then?” Richie challenge, looking around for a shirt to shrug on. He settled on his simple grey UCLA sweater, over top of his acid wash skinny jeans that were ripped from wear rather than style. He paused, debating for a moment doing something with his hair and putting in his contacts, but ended up shrugging it off.

Stan was glaring at him. “Why are you saying that as though I’ve purposely been keeping them apart? Their paths just haven’t crossed yet, it isn’t anything serious. But yes, Patty is coming tonight. So you can let go of this weird idea you’ve thought up that Mike likes me.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Alright, whatever. Let’s go.”

Stan frowned at Richie, looking him up and down. “You’re actually wearing that? Richie, put in an effort.”

Richie scowled. “Why? You’re one going out to a party on a date with your girlfriend and the hot frat dude who wants to fuck you, not me.”

Stan grabbed hold of the hem of Richie’s sweater and tugged on it. “You could use to be laid! You haven’t been serious with anybody since Sandy back in freshman year- and this is your longest dry spell in ages. Mike and I were talking today and-”

“You and Mike were talking about my sex life?” Richie squawked, yanking away from Mike and tugging his sweater back into place. “What the kind of fuck-”

“We were talking about your lack of sex life!” Stan replied. “Richie you used to be kind of a slut-” Richie made an offended noise but Stan barrelled on over him. “And that was an issue, but now you’re sort of the opposite side of that. You gotta find a good medium, Rich, and there’s gonna be tons of chicks and... frat dudes-”

“And you’re telling me that the frat dudes won’t be wearing UCLA sweaters?” Richie challenged, crossing his arms over his chest. Stan’s mouth dropped open and he raised his brows, but he merely stared at Richie gap mouthed. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”

Eddie Kaspbrak dodged the fourth overly-muscled guy of the night, taking the solo cup he offered him and swerving away. He moved towards the sink in the kitchen and dumped the cup down the drain. His best friend and fellow frat brother grinned at him, reaching out to adjust the hat backwards on Eddie’s head. “Dodging all the m-m-en is starting to make you look m-m-messy.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “I need to start bringing a bat to these things. Can’t get them away.“

Bill chuckled, handing Eddie a drink he could actually trust. “It’s because you’re the hottest gay on campus. They can’t h-uhh-help it if you’re out of their league. Aim high. That’s my motto.”

“Don’t I know it,” Eddie said with an eye roll. Bill Denbrough had the highest kill count of anybody in their fraternity, but he no doubt that the highest count of strike outs as well. Denbrough had never shied away from a challenge, and Eddie had been by his side through countless successes and failures. Sometimes so many successes that Eddie was a little disgusted, and so many failures he couldn’t help but laugh. You could only be so supportive of bro. z

“Looks like Mike brought his little nerd boy tonight,” Bill said, leaning back on his elbows against counter in front of the sink. Eddie followed Bill’s gaze towards the front door of their frat house, watching Mike Hanlon ducking into the doorway with prim looking dark haired boy and another two friends, one female, one male. “How long do you think it’ll be b-be-before he gets some of that?”

“Mike Hanlon?” Eddie asked, sighing a little wistfully. He shook his head, smilingly fondly. “Personally I’m surprised he hasn’t locked in already. Not like people to take the long road when getting some of him.”

Bill suddenly let out a low whistle. “Might have something to do with that.”

Eddie looked back over, wincing at the sight of Mike’s crush- Stanley?- with his hand suddenly entangled with the girl who’d come in with them. “Ah, fuck, a Straightie. Nothing worse than that.”

Bill let out an annoyed noise and sucker punched Eddie in the shoulder. Eddie burst out laughing and punched him back, the two of them socking each other in the chest and shoulders for several moments. Eddie turned slightly away from Bill, still laughing a little breathlessly, when the man who had come in with Mike and Stanley caught his eye.

His hair looked black from so far away, but Eddie supposed it must be brown, and it was piled up on top of his head in a messy bun. He had rimmed glasses sitting on his nose, with a pair of old looking jeans and a regular gray UCLA sweater on. He wore a bored expression, like he wanted to be anywhere else.

Eddie’s stomach flared up hot just at the sight of him. “Who’s that? The other guy?”

Bill looked over his shoulder, frowning. “The dude who looks like he just rolled out of bed? I don’t know, some scholarship nerd, I think. He was in my Intro to Psychology class last year, but I think he took it because he was actually interested. Weirdo... why?”

“I want him.” Eddie said, licking his lips before tossing back the rest of his drink.

Bill looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “What... him? Kaspbrak, look at him.”

Eddie smirked. “I am.” He skipped in place for a second and then quickly moved towards the other man.

Richie shifted awkwardly through the uncomfortable tension within his friends. The second Stan had made it apparent that he and Patty were in a relationship, Mike had seemed to grow quiet and disconnected. They’d been laughing and joking together one moment, and now Richie could see how Mike seemed to glancing around for a source to escape.

Stan was holding Patty’s hand awkwardly like protected him from the world and Patty was... well if Patty was openly drooling over Mike’s muscles then that wasn’t any of Richie’s business. Stan had told him so.

“Want to give us a tour, Mike?” Patty asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger like Richie hadn’t seen her do since she and Stan were just starting out. Stan’s gaze followed the movement and frowned.

“Sure.” Mike said lightly, shrugging and gesturing further into the house. Patty dropped Stan’s hand and moved to quickly follow him. As Richie moved to go as well, Stan pressed a hand to Richie’s chest and pushed him back. He shook his head and mouthed “no” before taking off after Patty and Mike.

“What the fuck!” Richie cried, tossing his hands into the air.

“Hey, there.”

Just as Richie was getting ready to dwell on how his friends had abandoned him, yet again, a voice whispered into his ear. Richie spun around, fight or flight reflexes turned on, but his shackled quickly lowered when he took sight of the person behind him. Eddie Kaspbrak.

Richie didn’t know Eddie very well, not that he would want to. Even just looking at him now, he knew that Eddie Kaspbrak was exactly all the things that Richie had tried to tell Stanley that frat boys were. His brown hair flopped into his brown eyes, pressed down by some red snapback wore backwards, pair with a oversized red muscle shirt that showed off a ridiculous amount of sides and stomach and beige khaki jeans that looked glued to his legs. He was hot, and the smirk on his face showed that he knew it.

“Hi.” Richie said coldly.

Eddie leaned in closer, pressing against Richie’s side. “You know, I sort of run this shit. I’m in charge around here.” Eddie dragged his fingers down Richie’s bare arm, Richie trying to pretend that he didn’t get goosebumps. Eddie pressed completely against him to whisper in his ear. “That means I get my own room. The bed is a king sized. You wanna see it?”

Richie let out a bitter laugh. “You’re kidding, right? You’ve gotta do better than that.”

Eddie pulled back, blinking as the persona left his face completely.

“What?” Richie snickered, less bitter and much more amused this time. “Not used to being rejected?”

“Not really, no.” Eddie said slowly, shaking his head as though the last moments were imagined and he’d be able to knock them out.

Richie hummed. “Poor, poor, King Kaspbrak. Are you at risk of losing your crown?”

Eddie startled, looking Richie up and down quickly. “You know who I am?”

Richie gave him a disgusted look. “Don’t act all humble now, aren’t you the one who just waltzed up here talking about how you run this shit as though it’s some sort of achievement.”

“What’s your name?” Eddie asked, tucking his hands into his back pockets and nodded at Richie.

Richie checked Eddie out quickly then scoffed. “You want it?”

Eddie shrugged as though he couldn’t care less, but Richie saw how he flushed in the dim light of the house.

“Then earn it.”

Eddie let out a disgusted noise, scowling at Richie. “You’re not that hot, you know? Who shows up at a party wearing some school sweater?”

Richie scoffed. “You’re wearing the exact same sweater, dude.”

Eddie looked down at himself and flushed when he realized that, yes, he was wearing the same UCLA hoodie, right down to the style and colour. “Well! I’m a party of campus life, I have school spirit! What do you do?”

“Hurt the little fragile feelings of some Bambi-eyed frat boy, apparently.” Richie grinned cheekily down at Eddie, whose face flushed deeply. “There’s probably a hundred guys around here who would let you into their pants. Go find one of them.”

“Bold of you to assume there’s a hundred gay guys at this frat party.” Eddie said in a low voice.

“So go turn somebody,” Richie said with a waggle of his brow. “You’ve got gateway gay written all over you.”

“Gateway gay is so offensive, oh my God-” Eddie said, voice hitting up a pitch as though maybe it was supposed to sound like that. Richie jerked towards him, furrowing his brow while Eddie bit his bottom lip. “Whatever. Fuck you. No! I don’t want to fuck you.”

“You did 30 seconds ago.” Richie rolled his eyes. “And I think you still do.”

“Only because I think it’ll be hard for you to talk with your mouth stuffed full.” Eddie was standing at his full height, which was still about three inches shorter than Richie, and was openly glaring at him now. Richie couldn’t deny the burning that was starting in his gut, but from hatred or something else he wasn’t sure yet.

“Kaspbrak, that’s dirty.” Richie challenged with a wink. “Do you kiss your frat brothers goodnight with that mouth?”

Eddie pursed his lips, turning on his hip and storming off back towards the large groups of people. Richie laughed to himself, giving himself the chance to check Eddie Kaspbrak out as he walked away. He almost regretted turning him down- almost. It had just been too fun to resist.

Moving quickly through the crowd of drunken classmates, Richie finally laid eyes on Patty and sprinted towards her. Her face light up when she caught sight of him, though there was a delay between her smile and her eyes that implied she was more than a few drinks in. “Richie...” She cooed, reaching up and poking his cheeks with the tips of her fingers. “I love you! Where have you been?”

Richie chuckled. “Your boyfriend banished me so the two of you could ogle at Mike without be dragging you down.”

Patty’s eyes opened wide and leaned in close, despite only coming up to Richie’s shoulder at full height. “He’s like a God.”

Richie laughed, wrapping Patty up into a huge bear hug and swaying them around to the music. Patty let out a high pitched giggle into his chest, squeezing her arms around his waist.

“Stop stealing my love, Tozier!” Stan called through the crowd. Richie looked up to Stan and Mike coming towards them, walking a little too closely together, and Richie pressed Patty closer into his chest.

“Sorry, you can’t have her.” Richie sang, rocking softly on the spot with Patty. She giggled against his chest while kicking at his shins, and Stanley’s smile was all too fond to actually be annoyed. “She’s had enough of you and we’re running away together.”

“Richie!” Patty laughed against his chest, pulling away just to turn to face Stan and Mike, while resting backwards against Richie and allowing his arms to stay around her.

Stan rolled his eyes, smiling, then his gaze seemed to settle on something over something over Richie’s shoulder. He frowned. “Tozier, why is Eddie Kaspbrak glaring at you like you said something real offensive about this mother?”

Richie glanced over his shoulder, finding Eddie in the crowd quickly. The second their eyes met, Eddie gave him the dirtiest of looks. Richie purposely licked at his bottom lip and he swore he could see Eddie inhale.

Turning back to his friends, Richie caught sight of the look on Mike’s face. “Oh my god, whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.”

Mike grinned, reaching out to grab Richie’s hand away from Patty and pulling him towards Eddie and his floppy haired frat brother. Patty and Stan followed quickly behind, Stan’s hand falling into Patty’s to keep her from stumbling and falling.

“Hey!” Mike called happily to his brothers, draping an arm around Richie’s shoulders and forcibly dragging Richie to stand in front of them. “Haaaave you met Richie?”

Oh fuck.

“Noo.....“ Richie groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see the look of victory on Eddie’s face, though he felt it all the same.

“Richie, huh?” Eddie asked, voice dripping with smugness. “So that’s your name?”

Richie opened one eye, frowning. “Yeah. Congrats somebody gave you the answer. It’s not the same as winning.”

Eddie smirked, shrugging one shoulder. “I kind of think it is. So..” He stepped closer to Richie, slowly dragging his eyes over his torso. “Since I know your name now, does that mean I get to make you scream mine?”

Richie made overly loud vomiting noises, watching the awkward expression settling over Eddie’s face as his frat brothers began to laugh behind them. “Get better fucking material.”

Richie turned away, biting back his own grin, and walked off. Patty broke out into a fit of giggles, needing Stan to wrap an arm around her to lead her away from the boys. Mike turned to Eddie, an apologetic look on his face but Bill couldn’t contain his laughter.

“Looks like Kuh-Kaspbrak fuh-finally met his muh-match!”

“I know where you sleep, Denbrough.”

#reddie #reddie fic #my writing #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #frateddie au

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jflashandclash · 4 years

Text

Tales from Mount Othrys

Ajax: Fidget Spinners IX

Pax assumed, “Are we there yet?” would earn him a hard enough slap to the head to kill him. At least, Pax reasoned, he wouldn’t have far to go if he died.

“Hey, Lou Ellen?” Pax huffed. “If we die in Tartarus, where do we go? The current court of the dead probably isn’t handing Paradise Passes to Kronos supporters, but—like—are we just here, undead, wandering in Tartarus and trying to find out way back to the Underworld, so they can pass judgment and send us back here?”

The thought made him tremble. This was definitely a place that had never been on his bucket list and, he would burn the bucket list of any friends that suggested it.

They hadn’t gone far, or Pax didn’t think they had gone far. The landscape was monotonous in its I’m-evil-and-depressing way and time didn’t feel right. He didn’t know how to explain it beyond that. The deprivation of sun and sky was making his head loopy. He was from the Caribbean; this cavernous, sunless nowhere felt like it violated nature, even if he had enjoyed swimming in the occasional cenote.

Apparently this question was worse than, “Are we there yet?” Axel, despite his seeming exhaustion, wound up a hand to slap Pax across the back of the head.

Lou Ellen weakly grabbed at Axel’s elbow before he could strike.

With no fight, he lowered his fist.

Everyone was exhausted. Lou Ellen looked sickly in this burnt orange haze. By now, they could see the giant rock that she was leading them to. It should have only been a mile away, max, but Pax had no idea what that would mean on this terrain.

“Let’s just not die,” she suggested. There was no giggle. She sounded too tired for that. Her hand stump was tucked firmly under her opposing armpit. She wouldn’t let either of them see it. Pax had a creeping feeling that something was wrong with it.

Axel had offered to turn around, to look for a way to scale the buffs behind them. Neither Pax nor Lou Ellen—especially not Lou Ellen with her missing hand—would be able to make that climb. Judging by the occasional stagger to Axel’s step, helping the two little ones was wearing him down.

He had offered this after they passed some humanoid bones. Monsters, unfriendly ones, monsters that earned the name monsters, had been feasting there. Axel hid them, commanding they not make a sound.

He was afraid of getting overwhelmed down here. Since he was afraid, Pax knew to be afraid.

But, Lou Ellen said their destination wasn’t far. And, Pax suspected, she knew going back would mean failing to climb that buff, and—in the unlikelihood that they succeeded—going back into the clutches of Hades’ army. Which, again, might have just meant a one-way ticket back here. Might as well get acquainted with their neighbors if this was the inevitable end.

“Wow,” Pax said, “I think the gloominess, acidity, and potential demise is ruining my mood. You know what we all need? A Matthias prank. Like, a good, old hack job. Remember that time Matthias ‘accidentally’ shot Luke in the butt with a bow?”

That earned him a slight smile from Lou Ellen and a choked laugh from Axel.

The stupid rock ahead of them seemed a lot closer. Pax could make out the glint of chains against its blackened surface.

“It was a mini-toilet plunger with enhanced super glue on the tip. Luke had to cut it out of his clothing,” Lou Ellen said. She even giggled. “He never did figure out who did it.”

Axel sighed, but the sound thinly covered his amusement. “Luke didn’t know who did it and no one would rat Matthias out, not even Morpheus. He said he was sleeping… we had to do an extra mile of running every morning for a month as punishment.”

“Totally worth it,” Pax and Lou Ellen agreed.

The massive rock didn’t protrude as high into the air of Tartarus as Pax was expecting.

Pax squinted and felt his spirits almost splinter again; something withered up there. They knew it would be on the rock, but seeing the humanoid thrashing, likely in anticipation, was different than hearing Lou Ellen and Axel discuss the myth.

He wondered if the others saw it. Axel must have. Despite his exhaustion, his pace had picked up, bringing them ever closer to some smaller rocks at the base of the big one.

“I’ve never met someone whose name is so many words. Like, how do we nickname him? Pro? Me? The? Us?”

“The ‘e’ in ‘the’ isn’t the same,” Lou Ellen muttered, like she knew Pax needed Alabaster here to criticize Pax’s absurdism.

“It’s too long a name to call him,” Pax decided. “Do you think ‘Rocky’ would be offensive?”

“Yes,” Axel said.

By then, the sight was disturbing.

Like in the myths, there was a titan chained, semi-upright, to the rock, full spread-eagle. Though, Pax suspected he wouldn’t like the description, “spread-eagle.” From what Pax could see, the guy was huge—at least ten feet tall. He wore a tattered piece of material might have once been a Greek chiton. The torso piece was so ripped to shreds, it was impossible to tell for sure.

They made it to the smaller rocks at the base before anyone spotted the second part of the myth.

Axel, of course, saw it first. He grabbed Pax and Lou Ellen and dragged them behind the lower lying rocks. At the same time, a piercing screech echoed around Tartarus.

Pax could hear the titan release a soft, despondent wail. Bits of sand and rock clattered down off the massive one as the titan renewed his struggles.

Pax bit his lip. He was pretty sure this guy was crying. He could hear a soft, weeping noise.

When Pax looked up, he could see why.

The attacker moved too fast for his eyes to follow it in the sky. One moment, he thought he saw a wingspan larger than a minivan and talons the length of two Pax arms. The next moment, there was a blur diving at the rock above them.

Axel stood up and drew his sword.

“Axel, what are you doing?” Pax hissed. “Massive bird of prey. In diving formation.”

The talons must have dug into the rock above them. The whole thing shifted eerily. The titan released a despairing howl.

“The eagle will leave once it’s done feeding!” Lou Ellen reminded Axel.

Axel unsheathed a knife from his belt, digging it into the side of the rock like a climbing pick. “It’s the principle of the matter.”

Axel’s golden eyes glinted with fury. Although Pax knew there was no way to dissuade him, he clutched at his brother’s arm, then foot as Axel dragged himself up the rock’s façade. Axel’s muscles bulged with strain. Considering how much extra weight he’d taken to make sure Pax and Lou Ellen’s journeys were easier, Pax figured—and kind of hoped—Axel would overexert himself and flop back onto the ground.

He did not.

“’Axel’s principles’ is not what I want to write on your obituary! It does not have a ring to it and I cannot write it into a jingle,” Pax pleaded. A jingle was already forming in his head, but he tried to banish the morbid tune.

Axel had already shaken Pax off and was half-way up the rock.

Prometheus screamed.

Something leaked over the ledge above them.

Lou Ellen and Pax jumped away from each other. Blood. They’d been splashed with the Titan’s golden blood.

“Come on!” Lou Ellen said, “We have to do something.”

She scrambled around the base, picking up smaller stones that had chipped off the big one in this eon long struggle. Pax went to help her. As they gathered, he could see the stump of her missing hand. The skin around the edges looked blackened, as though with gangrene. She had been hiding how quickly the magic was failing.

They took a few stumbled steps away from the rock, so they could see over the ledge.

Even from this distance, Pax felt his mouth go dry.

The eagle looked nothing like the one plastered all over American logos. Its feathers were black, except the hint of some brown towards the head. The only colorful thing on it was its golden beak, now speckled with red. One black clawed foot had anchored into Prometheus’ hand, a talon puncturing him right in the wrist, crucifixion style. The other dug into the rock.

Golden blood leaked from a gash in Prometheus’ stomach. A coiling rope appeared to hang out and Pax nauseously thought about how convincing Alabaster’s fake intestines were. He doubted the things spilling from Prometheus’ gut were just sausages. If they were, he had a lot of questions about Titan biology.

Lou Ellen grew flustered, seeming to realize her throwing arm was half-missing.

“Need a hand?” Pax offered, his voice trembling.

“You have better aim anyway. I would probably hit Axel,” Lou Ellen said, looking relieved.

Axel had made it to the ledge. Soon, the eagle would notice him.

Pax dumped his extra stones at their feet.

Other than darts, Pax didn’t have great aim with projectiles and he definitely didn’t have the strength to throw such a distance. However, he did have specialty knowledge and equipment: any good prankster needed a slingshot.

He grabbed a stone the size of his palm and slipped a slingshot out of his back pocket, the one Matthias had made for him for special occasions.

In a blink, he’d aimed, fired, and bapped the bird in the head.

The stone smacked into feathers then flopped onto the tortured Titan’s stomach. Pax would feel bad (and a little grossed out) about hitting the Titan’s exposed wound after they were done saving him.

“Hey birdie!” Lou Ellen shouted. “Over here!”

They hadn’t done much damage, but they had caught its attention. The eagle released another piercing scream. Its head snapped in their direction.

That was all they needed. In the moment of distraction, Axel had scrambled up to his feet beside the bird.

Before Axel could slice into the bird’s back, its entire body blurred. One moment, it was about to be cat food. The next, the bird’s body had quarter turned. Its beak snapped backwards. Axel’s sword barely deflected that deadly point—sharp enough to cut apart a Titan’s stomach.

At the force of the attack, Axel almost fell backwards off the rocky plateau.

“Keep firing!” Lou Ellen shouted, shoving another rock into Pax’s palm.

Pax fumbled with the ammo, shoved it into the sling, and took aim. In the test of strength, Axel was losing this battle (which felt backwards. In the world of avian vs. feline, Pax generally voted on the one with more teeth.) The glint of Axel’s sword turned into a smear as he and the bird parried talon, beak, and blade blows. Axel kept nearly losing his balance, twisting to avoid the occasional, cartoony pinwheel.

Pax became very happy that Axel had trained for trapeze before they were taken from their Uncles carnival troop.

With Lou Ellen’s cheering, Pax released his rock. The projectile caught the eagle’s wings as they extended, looking like a black tidal wave of death.

The eagle was not happy to have its dinner interrupted. To be fair, Pax supposed it would be super rude to have someone attack you when you’re trying to enjoy some raw spleen.

At the ammo strike, the wing fluttered violently. Ignoring the strike like it had the average velocity of a beach ball, the eagle arched its body—it was getting ready for take off. As Lou Ellen handed another rock up to Pax and he took aim, he knew take off would be bad. Even with Axel’s cool Mayan features, Pax boys were not born for aerial combat, trapeze training or not.

“We need to get closer!” Lou Ellen shouted. She must have realized they weren’t doing enough damage from this distance. However, if they got too close to the bluff, Pax wouldn’t be able to shoot over the ledge. Still, they had to try and get a sweet middle spot. He took a careful step closer, already loading the next projectile that Lou Ellen had shoved his way.

The eagle arched back onto one talon to strike down with the other.

Axel went down.

Lou Ellen and Pax screamed—

The eagle clawed at Pax’s downed brother, pecking violently. Even with their attacks—Pax now unloading rock after rock, shrieking for Lou Ellen to load him up with the largest ammo they could fire, this wouldn’t be enough. Some tiny voice in Pax’s head whispered that this was just like the time he’d seen Julian almost kill Axel in the arena. He was about to lose his brother, and there was nothing he could—

Axel rose back to his feet on the other side of Prometheus. The bird continued to claw and peck at the spot Axel had been.

Pax’s jaw dropped when he realized what had happened.

The eagle was pecking where Axel had pinned one of its wings with his sword.

Lou Ellen’s and Pax’s screams went from horror to cheers.

He couldn’t tell if Axel had used a trick of the Mist, was actually that fast, or if Prometheus had somehow distracted the bird and helped Axel. Honestly, Pax didn’t care.

All Pax cared about was how awesome his older brother looked when Axel lunged onto the bird’s back and plunged his dagger into the back of the bird’s head.

***

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed and are staying safe! Stay tuned next week to meet our Titan of the hour—Rocky—I mean Prometheus.

#Tales from Mount Othrys #TFMO #PJO #HOO #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #fanfiction #writing #Axel #Pax #Lou Ellen #Axel amps up his cattiness to combat a flighty foe #I know I'm an introvert--but I'm definitely starting to lose my mind here ^.^

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alphabees-writes · 4 years

Text

Glee - S1 E6 (Vitamin D)

They call it vitamin D for the whole thing but wasn’t it just a component for some really hard drug??? We love the bullshit

The millionth step ball change... And we’re only 6 episodes in

Mr Schue just said “Maybe so” and now all I can think of is the gif meme thing

heheheheheheh.......Sorry. Funny youtube.

Sign #27 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: He’s eating that sandwich in the GROSSEST WAY POSSIBLE. He’s chewing with his mouth open, breathing really loud, talking with his mouthful, and he’s clearly being messy about it because there’s mustard all over his chin!!! How is Emma crushing on this dweeb

Sign #28 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: When Emma says he’s got a “cute Kirk Douglas chin dimple” (barf) he doesn’t say, hey! Maybe don’t flirt with me, I’m married!

I’m genuinely starting to feel ill whenever I have to just look at Mr Schue...

Everybody trying to learn their choreo and they’re just.... Spinning. Kurt’s about to fall over, Matt and Mike are bumping into each other, and Brittany’s just Tasmanian Devil-ing her way across the room. Love em

Brittany completely ignoring Artie’s high-five and him being like “oh-- okay...” is underrated

Matt Morrison just delivered “simply stopped trying” really weirdly. I don’t know what’s throwing me off about it, but it is

You’re right, Sue. Bones won’t grow properly without fear. AND EMMA’S BLOUSE IS INSANE

“I don’t understand how lightning is in competition with an above-ground swimming pool” You’re RIGHT KURT and you SHOULD SAY IT! Bears and sharks aren’t in competition either! Call out post for Mr Schue: The man knows NOTHING of the most basic ecology!

The look Quinn gives Finn when he yawns... Let my mans nap!!!

Kurt did his best to get to the girl’s side. Can you fucking blame him? Puck’s still an asshole to him as far as we all know!

Santana and Brittany just casually linking arms... Be still my beating heart

Kurt just walking along with Finn to football practice... Look at those brothers go!!! I am ignoring Puck

Ohh Sue’s journal... A wonderful character

You’re right, Sue, Will Schuester IS to blame for the world’s problems. Please do destroy the man

“I’ve always thought the desire to procreate showed deep personal weakness” Got ‘em

And thus begins the saga of Sue pushing problem people down the stairs. I’m not saying she should do that to Mr Schue... I’m just saying, why doesn’t she?

If Will wasn’t flirting with Emma, he wouldn’t get all nervous and upset when his wife turns up. Them’s the facts.

Does Terri know about Emma’s germophobia...? Because if so, it’s probably not cool for Will to have told her that. Unless Sue did, but I wouldn’t put it past him

As if they could get away with hiring a random unqualified woman as a school nurse?

Is “route” really pronounced like that......? Huh

Finn getting Biofreeze in his eye will forever be hilarious.

LEVEL 2!!!

I hate hats. I don’t know why, but I do. And I want Kurt to live his best life, but man, I hate that hat

Cory Monteith really got paid to drool. Goals

“Puck, with respect, you’re more helpful when you don’t contribute” Tell him, Artie!!!

Everybody making fun of Quinn :C Britt, you’re better than this!!

People (I’m people) can hate on Rachel all they want but this scenario is one example of her actually working harder than anybody else in the group. Yes, the solos should be shared more equally, but it’s hard to be mad at her when the others are claiming her ideas as their own and sitting around when they should be rehearsing. Except Brittany! She’s stretching, at least, love her

Terri let him NAP. WITHOUT DRUGS.

Finn’s having some serious mental health concerns but he’s not getting what he needs and I hate it. Help him!!!

Why does Terri care if Finn’s not faithful? Like, yeah, he should be, but it’s not going to affect the baby!

Surely if she took those pills for ALL of high school, they would’ve lost their effect after a while?

God I love high Finn. He just CHUCKED Matt outta that chair.

Puck knows what’s up. Kurt thinks it’s vitamin C, because Vogue said so, and Iove him. He also looks SO weirded out

Terri gave him a whole BOX huh?

Time for season 1′s best mash-up. I love this so much. They’re all going so HARD and Finn looks like his eyes are about to pop right out. The way he’s rubbing the mic... How could they not tell he was off his face???

MIKE’S SINGING. MIKE’S SINGING BACK UP AND NOBODY’S WINCING. Glee has no continuity confirmed

I feel like I shouldn’t find this performance cute because they’re all meant to be high as shit BUT THEY’RE JUST SO EXCITED???

Kevin McHale bumps every song features in up by at least 2 letter grades and that’s just a fact

LET MIKE CHANG DANCE!!!! LET HIM DANCE FOREVER HE DESERVES SO MUCH

I would say the same for Matt but then I’ll get sad about him being dumped into the void in like 16 episodes time

Oh Rachel worrying about Quinn... Be still my gay heart

Rachel just cuts right through her bullshit without hesitating for a second. She knows what it’s like to feel like the odd one out and she’s doing the absolute most to make sure Quinn doesn’t feel that way and I love her for it

The way Quinn slowly turns to face her... And Rachel says they don’t have to be enemies and Quinn can’t understand why Rachel would offer her a second chance...

Quinn legit draws porn of Rachel it’s canon. I mean it’s fucked up but there are only so many reasons a person would do that

“I would’ve tortured you if the roles were reversed you know” “I know” And then the way she watches Rachel walk away... My HEART

Ken and Terri, the power duo of awful

“Laughing... Talking... All the stuff she never does with me” I hate it. They suck. Emma is a dumbass for agreeing to date a guy who she just genuinely doesn’t like and Ken’s just an ASSHOLE for bullying her into it

And now Ken’s about to propose because he’s being bullied into it. Why the fuck does this happen?

I don’t buy that Rachel took this long to berate all the girls for not prepping their mash-up harder after the boys killed theirs. She’d be right on that

Kurt I love the waistcoat and the bowtie but WHAT is happening on your ELBOWS.

You really wanted those guys in cornrows, Kurt? None of them have the length for it. ALSO I love that the exotic bird feathers thing comes back next season 10/10

F-ROD!!! GO OFF RACHEL!!! Even if Finn doesn’t know what half these words mean!

Rachel really wakes up with flawless hair, huh! And then she just... Does all that. She never stops being extra...

Did they just start walking in the opposite direction?

I feel like it’s dumb that Rachel doesn’t just tell Mr Schue that they all took pills, but it’s more in character for her to not waste an opportunity to perform anyway

Howard Bamboo,totally unqualified man who absolutely isn’t staff, is just allowed on campus to deliver DRUGS? HELLO???

Quinn only gets folic acid... And yet I’m pretty sure she manages to keep up with everybody else. HOW?

“What’s up with Ken?” [FRANTIC PAPER SHREDDING]

I don’t care how married you are, no person should lick another person’s face

I can physically feel the awkwardness between Will and Terri. JUST DIVORCE ALREADY

Don’t like ya Will but you’re right, shit’s not healthy if there’s no space!

Imagine proposing in the staff room at work just because a random woman told you to

“Emma Pilsbury, this is not an engagement ring” “Oh thank god--” “No, I mean, it is” Just take the L, Ken

AND ALSO ANGELS!!!

Quinn’s so fucking concerned. I love this

I usually don’t like yellow clothes but these girls make it look so dang CUTE. More pastels plz

Again, I have no idea how pregnant Quinn is keeping up at all...

HALOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Kurt’s wearing those blocky shades so the boys can’t see his betrayal

Where the hell did this mock-stage set up come from

“We came up with the idea together!” No... Will, that was Sue. Sue gave you the idea

Emma’s pretty much explicitly told Will she’s only marrying Ken because Will won’t be with her. EVERYBODY SUCKS

This argument between Terri and Emma is a nightmare. The most confrontational person VS the least... I’d fucking evaporate if Terri came at me like that

The way Emma’s voice shakes when she tells Terri that Will deserves better... Ouchie

Quinn is just adorable. Diana made this character, and she did such an amazing job... She’s more empathetic than she lets anybody realise

The fact that Terri won’t even help this TEENAGE GIRL pay for the baby that she’ll eventually adopt is a nightmare. Where do you expect her to get the cash from?

Wanting to get married without being married is kind of a mood... Secret marriage

BEING A PUSHOVER WHEN IT COMES TO YOU DOESN’T MAKE HIM A GOOD MAN

Finn and Rachel both realising they screwed up is perfect.

Finn continuing to not know what any words mean is also perfect

This is a cute Rachel moment actually... Yes girl compete WITH your friends!!! You’re a team!!!!

Ahh, methamphetamines! That’s what it was. Yeah, fuck Terri

I’m still looking at Matt Morrison’s lips and trying to figure out if he’s had fillers. They just curl too far!!!

Mr Schue being called out for making things too competitive - fine, I guess. Bringing in SUE to rectify that...??? Hello? Figgins?

Those white jeans are a LOOK Kurt. He’s like a twink Steve Jobs rn

Britt and Santana’s little smiles at each other when Sue’s announced as co-captain... Hell yeah future wives

I’d like to think Will’s upset about Emma marrying Ken for the right reasons (i.e. Ken’s an asshole) but we been knew he’s not. He’s looking at her like he’s just been shot

AIN’T NOTHIN GONNA BREAK MY STRIDE! NOBODY GONNA SLOW ME DOWN! OH NO, I’VE GOT TO KEEP ON MOVIN!

I really just love how stupid this show is! It makes no god damn sense and I fall for it every time!

#Glee #Glee Season 1 #Rosie watches things and then says things about the thing

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seaquestions · 5 years

Text

fulcrum makes candy

i havent be able to work on any of my fics bcos i’ve been busy (and terribly unmotivated lately) but! i thought i’d post a wip since it reads as mostly finished so far.

(artistic licence for science stuff btw. i’m basically writing what should be chemistry as confectionery lmao.)

It all started when Crankcase told him about meeting up with CONS4EVA again.

Or Symbols, rather. The dimension-hopping Dire Wraith figured that a Cybertronian translation of his name would be a smidge less awkward than using his TBC handle or a mispronounced, synthesized version of his actual name. It sounded about the same to him with the universal translator, so no big deal. Crankcase still tried to say his real name right anyway.

Regardless. The point was--Fulcrum needed to make more energon goodies. The last batch had unfortunately been thrown in Symbols' face when the Dire Wraith was disguised as Thunderwing, so it was imperative to try again. He also ate all the good ones last time, which, note to self: don't do that, Fulcrum.

He almost forgot to ask, actually, if Symbols was even capable of eating the sweets. The answer had been yes, maybe. The Dire Wraith could \consume/ energon, but whether or not it'd taste any good or if it would all end up regurgitated on the floor was a mystery. Still! Fulcrum needed any excuse he could get to make goodies.

The pressure of being around so many Autobots was starting to get to him, a little. His proximity alerts kept popping up, all the time, because none of these people had any sense of personal space. Plus, do you have any idea how many times he had to frantically re-label someone from [enemy] to [ally]? It was a lot! His drop on Clemency might not have killed him, but it certainly didn't do him any good. He had to do all that manually, now. It was stressful, okay?

And Fulcrum liked to stress-bake. When he \could/, anyway. It was certainly better than some of his \other/ coping methods. But there usually wasn't enough energon on the WAP to go around making candy, so it had been saved for the particularly bad nervous breakdowns or for special occasions, like successfully escaping mortal danger or Crankcase going on a date.

Thankfully, the Lost Light seemed to have plenty of fuel for both itself and its passengers, which was beyond nice. Fulcrum had reluctantly gotten used to the whole siphoning and cannibalising thing while living as a Scavenger, but boy was it good to be back to consuming real energon. He might actually be able to make more than just plain gelled energon cubes! But since he didn't \actually/ know if Symbols could enjoy the treats, he'd keep it simple... This time.

The hard part was getting the equipment to make candy in the first place. He didn't know if there was a kitchen area on the Lost Light, but even if there was, he didn't really want to make candy around other people. He knew, from experience, that it was a bad idea. But the anxiety of asking someone for materials left him paralysed, and he almost gave up on the goodies entirely if it wasn't for Krok.

The mech, Primus bless his spark, had gone to ask the command staff in his stead, and surely enough, Krok arrived in Fulcrum's room arms full of everything the K-Con needed and more, in both equipment and ingredients.

"The captain got real excited when he heard that someone was thinking of making sweets," he said, with smiling optics, "A lot of these weren't even on your list."

And so, Fulcrum got started.

Cooking might seem a little daunting for the average Cybertronian. Energon had a reputation of being volatile, to an almost comical level. Heat it up a bit too much, and it just might explode. Every element had their own distinct flavour that changed wildly based on their interactions with other substances, and it was impossible to memorise them all! Or so it seemed. But in reality, it wasn't so difficult. At least to him it wasn't.

For a mech with absolutely no background in chemistry or metallurgy, Fulcrum took to the culinary arts very well. While he might not fully understand the hows and the whys of chemical reactions, he definitely knew what was delicious and what wasn't.

The first step was making the flavouring. Energon itself, in its processed liquid form, was virtually tasteless, so this was important. Adding simple ingredients like copper shavings, which had a tangy, sour taste to it and chromium flakes, which was just plain sweet, was the most basic form of food preparation.

Just dumping metal into energon felt a bit amateurish to Fulcrum, though. He wanted the goodies to have a consistent look and taste to them, like they were professionally made.

So, the little metal flakes--he went with copper, cobalt (tart, with a subtle sweetness), iron (bittersweet and kinda savoury) and cadmium (mildly sweet and rich, his personal favourite)--were finely ground into a powder alongside pigments to add variety to the colour palette. He didn't want everything to be bright neon pink. One had to differentiate between the flavours somehow. Plus, the pigments themselves could also add to the taste, depending on what you chose. Unless you bought those tasteless food dyes, but those are for cowards, and in the kitchen, Fulcrum was not one.

Cadmium sulfide, for example, worked as a yellow dye, but gave the energon a certain acidic sharpness that wasn't there before, thanks to the sulfur. Cadmium \selenide/, on the other hand, was a deep red pigment that went beyond sharp and turned it into full-blown spicy. But Fulcrum was supposed to be making sweet treats here. So instead, he paired the cadmium shavings with chrome yellow, or lead chromate, to enhance the sweetness of the pure cadmium.

The cobalt and iron powders were simple, matched with cobalt aluminate (blue) and iron oxide (red). Classic choices, though he had to be careful with the latter, because it could very easily start tasting like actual rust, which was simply disgusting. He \could/ use the mercury-based vermillion instead, which was also savoury, but again, Fulcrum was not a coward. In candy-making, anyway.

The last one, however, he always had to have a whole internal debate over. Copper-based pigments tended towards greens and blues, but that wasn't really what people thought of, now was it? He could use gold ochre, but the iron-based pigment didn't really mesh well with copper, in \his/ opinion. He could mix a cadmium orange, but, again, he didn't want his candy to be spicy.

In the end, he just went with the basic green copper carbonate.

Alright! With that done, it was time to work on the energon itself.

In a large pot, Fulcrum gently heated the liquid fuel up, slowly pouring in a gelling agent that he had warmed up earlier. Under normal circumstances, regular processed energon did not solidify. To do so, you'd have to freeze it or leave it out for \way/ too long, letting it congeal, which was gross. (Looking at you, Misfire.) The gelling agent would let the fuel cool into a nice firm slab of jelly.

He then added one and a half cups of crushed lead acetate, stirring constantly to dissolve the sweetener in the energon until no particles were left in the semi-opaque pink liquid. It had also gotten lighter, light enough that the dyes wouldn't end up mixing into really ugly colours.

When the mixture started to bubble the tiniest little bit, Fulcrum took the pot off the heat, pouring the fuel into four bowls, one for each flavour, that he then mixed with the corresponding pigment. Red iron, blue cobalt, green copper and yellow cadmium.

The jelly would need a flat plane to cool on, of course. When Fulcrum went to grab a tray though, he noticed that he'd also been provided with plastic molds. Someone else must've been into cooking, then. He wondered who it could be, maybe they could share tips or something.

The molds were pretty basic shapes, like stars and circles, but it was nice of them to have given him this, whoever it was. He should use them then. If he poured the blue cobalt into the circle ones, it could look like little sparks... which was a really cute idea.

...He did it. Of course he did.

Blue sparks, yellow stars, red cyberkittens and green raindrops. It was almost unbearably adorable.

The leftover fuel was poured onto the same tray, creating some neat rainbow gradients. They were pretty to look at but to be honest, he had no idea how those parts would taste. Welp! Who cares!

Fulcrum stretched.

That was the hard part done. He put all of the filled up casts inside his room's mini-fridge. A few hours and they'll be solid. At that point, he'd have to take them out of the molds and cut the leftover ones into little cubes. Then after \that/, he'd have to leave them out to dry overnight so the goodies could form their crisp exterior, while also exercising enough self-restraint to not surreptitiously pop one into his mouth.

Oof. Forget what he said, the hard part hasn't been done yet, actually.

Still. This meant that he had time to take a break.

#transformers #maccadam #fulcrum #fanfiction #long post #i thought i might pull up one of my fics and work on it but. i have Zero motivation today ha ha..#this has been sitting on my laptop for a while #maybe if i ever finish it i'll post it to ao3

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talix18 · 5 years

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November 4

If I could go back in time and tell myself anything useful, #1 would be for gods sake please keep up with guitar lessons. #2 would be something about considering carefully the fact that you're going to live out a few more decades; continuing to blow up relationships will have you living them out mostly alone. #3 would be Absolutely Fill Out the Rhodes Scholarship application, idiot. I know you don't know yet that you want to travel but I promise that the experience you would have going to school overseas would be more than worth putting up with the weather. It's a problem that opportunity arises for some people when they're too young to appreciate it – at least it was a problem for me. So play guitar, sing, write, do all those things in front of people because it can just be fun, you know. Go to school far away. Sit still and let someone love you.

Because there is a distinct possibility that you will never meet someone who you know is The One. I'm pretty sure I thought I'd met The One two or three times. Nobody is going to fit all of your edges without rubbing uncomfortably in a few areas, whether it's their tendency to cut their hair too short or their inability to take on housekeeping duties when you're laid up or their families not being people you'd choose to hang out with. It's nice to have someone to hang out in sweatpants with; it's nice to have someone around who makes you laugh. Love is just as much about action as it is about emotion. It's not just something that happens to you; it's also something that you do.

But the reality is that I did meet someone I had those heart-flips over. We had that connection I'd always hoped to find. And life got in the way. He wasn't willing to make the changes he needed to in order to be with me and I wasn't willing to wait anymore. And I had the one that I was crazy about who just wasn't as crazy about me, and the one that I thought was the Universe actually working in my favor until the long-distance of it all got too much. Maybe I've had my chances.

I just want a life where I can honestly say “I wouldn't change a single second because it got me here.” Is that so much to ask?

Is it terrible if I don't eat anything except cauliflower crust veggie pizza? I mean, if I'm not overdoing the cheese and the veggies are fresh and the sauce doesn't have sugar in it – there's no reason that it's a “bad” idea, is there?

Saturday night I was at a meeting where a friend was celebrating nine years clean. She is hilarious and outgoing and incredibly smart, and she honestly believes that all Muslims are taught to throw acid in the faces of their women. This baffles me. I have this other friend – she's Jewish and also incredibly smart, and helped vote in the current administration because she's anti-reproductive rights. The administration that normalized being a Nazi in the 21st century. I just don't get it. And this is always going to limit the extent to which I'm going to trust someone – if you fundamentally believe that some humans are less deserving of compassion and dignity and self-determination, then I have to wonder what's going to happen if I fall into one of your less deserving categories.

Anyway, what I'm learning is that my mental health depends on being around people – on being part of a community – and I need to tell the truth about myself in safe places. So I'm at a meeting Saturday sharing about how my depression manifests, the specific example being that for most of the almost 15 years I've lived in this house, there has been a dresser drawer on my bedroom floor. It hasn't always been the same drawer – I've fixed at least two or three rails in the time I've owned these IKEA dressers. And it is entirely likely that I wouldn't have this problem if I didn't stuff the drawers beyond their recommended capacity. The point is that this is how I live: walking around the drawer on the floor. I am not going to consider my shit together until there are no drawers on the bedroom floor.

After the meeting, the woman next to me, who is a successful married adult with grown children, leaned over and said “I've never felt so close to you.” And that's what it's about, gang. Those moments when we tell the truth about how we live and other people recognize themselves in it. It's scary sometimes but, for me, it's necessary. And when I have more than one broken dresser drawer, I can ask for help getting rid of the things I don't need and taking the broken things to the dump. Then I can buy a new piece of clothing storage furniture, probably from IKEA, because I'm not made of money, and this one doesn't have drawers.

Last night I drove two hours to Philadelphia to see Fleetwood('s Heartbreakers House) Mac. You have to understand what Stevie Nicks means to me. Yes, I loved “Dreams” when I heard it the first time in someone's apartment in fifth grade where I was playing some version on Spin the Bottle for the first time. (Billy Schoonmaker, where are you now?) I loved the White Winged Dove song that I didn't know the name of until I saw a song I'd never heard of by Stevie on a jukebox and played it. And I remember a cartoon of someone literally dragging a heart behind them that was in the junior high newspaper. But The Moment I got it was when my mother's second husband, who played bass in an actual, playing out band, brought home Stevie's first solo album. I remember seeing her on the cover with white roses and gauzy clothes and a crystal ball and a tambourine and thinking “you mean life can look like that all the time?” My experience of gauzy clothes and crystal balls was limited to the Renaissance Festival that came to town every summer. I don't know why I took that album cover so literally – she could have been dressed that way specifically for those pictures – but in that moment I had permission to make my life look any way I wanted it to.

So Stevie, and by association Fleetwood Mac, have been part of my soul for most of my life, and I've been lucky enough to have seen her solo and with them several times. (Not on the Wild Heart tour, though! Not when Joe Walsh was her opener and Mom refused to sit through him and I was too young to go by myself. [Learning later that Stevie considers Joe the lost love of her life just makes it easier to carry that grudge.]) I've seen them minus Lindsay plus Billy Burnette & Rick Vito, with Lindsay Buckingham but minus Christine McVie (sorry I'm not sorry this is my preferred line-up), and now minus Lindsay plus Mike Campbell and Neil Finn.

I saw them in April and had All The Emotions. All of them. There were the general Stevie emotions, of course. Then there were the Tom Petty emotions, because I'd seen Campbell with Petty and the Heartbreakers the previous summer, on that last tour. Thank god. I don't even know what made me decide to go – I didn't take pictures or buy a shirt like I almost always do – but I was there, and then Tom died. And now Stevie, who adored him, and Mike, who was his musical partner, were on stage together without him.

Then there's Neil Finn, who was? Is? The frontman for Crowded House, who I also love. But more importantly, he was one of the favorites of my friend Andrea, who died of cancer far too young, who lived in Seattle and I made it a point to fly out for her 40th birthday. Who I flew out to sit in the hospital with in the last weeks of her life. Who I met on the Internet of all the ridiculousness, along with an entire group of Webpeeps who I've been lucky enough to ride roller coasters, celebrate weddings, and baptize babies with. Andrea loved Split Enz and Crowded House and made me listen to their catalog beyond “Something So Strong” and “Better Be Home Soon” and find the pop perfection there. There he was, sounding like he was doing Fleetwood Mac karaoke but also sounding like someone I love who is gone.

Not to mention the whole Stevie and Lindsay and will he ever be able to sing again after his throat was injured after his heart surgery and what the hell happened that Stevie decided this was finally a bridge too far to cross with him after everything else they've worked through. I love Stevie but not blindly, and I see Fleetwood Mac touring without two of their three main songwriters but not without her.

All. The. Emotions.

And I went with my grown adopted niece and Stevie sang about children getting older and I was weeping, as I do.

I had decided against buying a shirt, figuring I could make a more rational decision about what I wanted the next day and get it online. And learned to my horror that no, I couldn't, and then the crazy started. The crazy that said “Look! They're going to be in Philly Friday. Get a ticket to that show and buy what you want there. And if you go alone, you can get a more expensive single seat on Mike Campbell's side of the stage and be In It.” I don't remember how long I thought about it. I do know I ran it past my sister, who said she'd done equally as outrageous things, which gave me permission. My sister is one of the sanest people I know and is one of the lines I can never color outside of.

So I bought that Mike Campbell section ticket and reserved a place on the parking lot and vibrated through half a day at work looking forward to it. Until I happened to see something about them canceling the Boston show the night before and looked further and saw that the Philly show had to be postponed due a band member's illness. I was disproportionately devastated. Which is a thing with both addiction and depression – responding to things out of proportion with their actual importance. That disappointment led to a pretty steep downward spiral during which I actually called my sponsor and allowed her to talk me through the insanity maze.

It is recommended that one have a sponsor one trusts and get in the habit of talking to them regularly so that muscle will be exercised when you're feeling crazy or like using or whatever it may be. This is not my way. My traditional way of being a sponsee was crawling through whatever on my own and calling my sponsor to tell her about it afterward, and getting together with her just long enough to work whatever my next step was before my anniversary. Then my very smart Buddhist sponsor with 20 years clean relapsed, and everything changed.

#nanowrimo #f**k fifty

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thisdiscontentedwinter · 6 years

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Baby Daddy - Chapter 7

You can find it on AO3 here, or check out the Tumblr Chapter Index here.

“Firstly,” Peter says when Laura turns up at his front door with a shopping bag full of baby supplies, “congratulations. Secondly, I am not and will never be called anyone’s great-uncle, understood? I’m far too young and pretty.”

“If you say so.” Laura sweeps inside, dumps her bag on the floor, and finds herself wrapped in his embrace.

“Congratulations,” he says again, more quietly this time, his voice cracking. He releases her again, composing himself. “You can use my apartment to store your shopping for two weeks, Laura, no more.”

“Peter…”

“No,” he says firmly. “You need to tell him. And you need to do it before he figures out that your scent is changing. He’ll notice eventually. This was your idea, remember? This is right for the pack. If you believe that, then what’s stopping you from telling him?”

“I just need to wait until the time is right and—”

“When with that be?” Peter cuts in. “When you’re starting to show? When you’re in labor? When the baby’s enrolled in kindergarten?”

“Don’t get all…” She waves her hand at him. “Snippy. I’ll tell him!” She sighs. “I’d hoped he’d feel more settled once we came back here, but if anything it’s made him worse.”

Peter narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Because…” She groans.

“Why?” Peter asks again, folding his arms over his chest. He fixes his gaze on her, and leaves her nowhere to hide.

“Because there are things that you don’t know about the fire, Peter!”

Peter’s expression shutters. “Explain.”

Fuck.

Laura could really use a drink right now, but she guesses she’ll have to settle for whatever herbal teas Peter has stashed away in his kitchen. She drags a finger through her hair, and fights the urge to growl at her uncle.

“Because he thinks the fire is his fault,” she says at last. “Because he thinks I don’t know it was Argent!”

“Of course it was Argent,” Peter says, his brow furrowing. “Who else could it be? Your mother tried to broker a peace, and Gerard killed Deucalion’s pack. And then he killed ours.”

“No,” Laura says, her throat aching. “It wasn’t Gerard. Well, the order probably came from him. But it was Kate who did it. Kate Argent.”

***

In those fraught, panicked days after the fire, they were both unanchored, grieving, verging from hysteria to near-catatonia and back again. The alpha spark had felt more like poison than a source of strength to Laura. It had burned in her blood like acid. She’d fought against it because she didn’t want it. It represented everything, everyone, she had lost.

And Derek…

They’d clung together and cried and howled and then—it must have been four days after the fire—Laura had been trudging back to their hotel room, gas station sandwiches swinging from a plastic bag on her wrist—when she’d heard Derek saying a name from inside the room:

“K-Kate?”

By the time Laura made it inside he had locked himself in the bathroom. He didn’t come out for a long time. And when he did, he was quiet.

Laura feels like he’s been quiet ever since.

She found his phone later, smashed, with the SIM card torn out and crushed.

Kate.

She’d known there was a girlfriend, or at least someone he was crushing on. He was her little brother, and while she didn’t really care to know the details, there was no hiding the way his face pinked up when he heard his text message alert, or how he’d started to come home later from school in the afternoons, and sometimes even sneak out at night.

She’d known, but she hadn’t got around to teasing him about it yet.

And then the fire happened.

And then that phone call happened.

And then his nightmares did. If he was silent during the day, he wasn’t at night. And Laura heard the name Kate more in the weeks and months that followed. It wasn’t hard to draw a picture. His dreams, uncomfortably hot and heavy for his sister sharing the same room, never failed to turn into nightmares.

No, Kate! No, please, don’t!

And Laura didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to ask him, when he would barely look her in the eye every day. She didn’t know how to ask him without making it worse.

And the nightmares stopped, after a while, and Laura doesn’t know what she thought. That he was getting better? That if he didn’t want to talk about it, then that was the right thing to do? It was probably more selfishness than ignorance, in the end. She should have talked to him, but Derek was all she had left, and she didn’t want to drive him away. She was so afraid of being left alone.

It was the wrong choice, she knows that now, because it hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s festered between them, and it hurts, but if she tells him now that she’s known for years… God. She’s terrified of how he’ll react. Terrified that he’ll run from her, that he’ll turn into an omega, that some hunter will find him feral and take him down, and that she’ll lose him now in a more tangible way than she already has.

She’d told herself for so long that she wasn’t sure, that it was all supposition, and the worst thing she could do was to accuse him of something he hadn’t done. It had been a convenient excuse for the most part.

But then, four years after the fire, she’d logged back into her long-abandoned Facebook account. It was New Year’s Eve, and she’d been a little tipsy, and a lot maudlin. And that’s when she saw it: a group she’d been added to without her permission. A high school reunion group. Five years, coming up! Who’s coming back to BH to celebrate next year? Go, Cyclones! Lots of bullshit about husbands and babies and careers. Lots of photographs too.

And then, as she was scrolling down, she’d seen one of Derek, in his basketball uniform, smiling bashfully at a woman with a BHHS lanyard around her neck.

Someone had written: Hands up who else had a crush on Ms. Jones! And below that: Shit, yeah! Kate was hot. I hope she’s not on here, lol!

She wasn’t, because there was no such person as Kate Jones.

But Laura already knew that, because she knew that face. She remembered her from when she’d rolled into town at her father’s side, to talk peace with Deucalion—except it hadn’t been peace talks after all, it’d had been an ambush.

The woman was Kate Argent.

And just like that, all the pieces had fallen into place, and Laura knew without a shadow of a doubt what had happened to Derek.

***

Peter’s eyes flash blue, and his lip curls, his fangs appearing. He stalks toward Laura. “You know this for sure? You know that Kate Argent was screwing your brother?”

Laura refuses to take a step back, even though her heart is pounding. For a moment she feels like she did in the Preserve, months ago, when she faced down the feral omega who wanted to tear her throat out. When, horrified, she realised it was the uncle she’d left behind.

“I think so!” Is it a lie? She can’t even tell. Worse than that, she doesn’t know if it’s Peter she’s lying to, or herself. “It fits—someone had to have told them about the tunnels! But I haven’t asked him!”

“Why the fuck not?” Peter asks, his voice wavering on a low, angry growl.

Her eyes sting with tears. “Because I left it too late, and if I tell him now that I’ve known all along, he’ll think I was punishing him!”

Peter tilts his head, his eyes gleaming brighter for a moment before his half-shift recedes. “And were you?” he asks mildly. “Were you punishing him?”

“I… I don’t know!” She scrubs at her tears. “I don’t know!”

“Laura,” he says, and then exhales heavily and starts again. “Lulu, he needs to know. You’re not protecting his feelings by not asking him about this. You’re protecting your own. And that’s not what an alpha does.”

“I’m scared it will drive him away.” She swallows. “For years I thought he was all I had left!”

Peter mouth turns up in a short, bitter smile, and Laura is remind of her other great failure as an alpha. Then he draws a deep breath, and shrugs his shoulders. “But isn’t that what’s already happened? Hasn’t this already driven him away?” His stare is intense. “You’re his alpha, Lulu. It’s your job to bring him home.”

***

The drive back to the loft is made in silence. Peter, sitting in the passenger seat, taps his fingers on his knee over and over again, as though he’s beating out a faint rhythm only he can hear. Laura recognises the action from back when Peter sat beside her mother at pack meetings: he’s deep in thought, although the expression on his face is bland.

“Never play poker with your uncle!” her dad used to tell her, winking.

Peter is impossible to read.

It’s early evening when they pull up in the street outside the loft, and climb the steps to the door.

Laura pulls the door open and steps inside. There’s no sign of movement. There aren’t even any dirty dishes in the sink, and Laura wonders if Derek has even left his room all day.

God. How did she ever think this was okay? How did this ever become their new normal? It happened so gradually and Laura hadn’t noticed how drastic the shift was until Peter, who only came back into their lives a few months ago, began to poke and prod at the pair of them.

How could she let her little brother slip so far away?

“Derek!” Peter calls. “Pack meeting, now!”

It takes a few moments before Derek appears, moving silently down the steps. He looks as expressionless as Peter did in the car, but his shoulders are a little hunched, his posture defensive, and Laura wonders why she’s never before noticed that he always looks like he’s waiting to be attacked.

“Sit,” Peter says, pointing the couch. Then he turns to face Laura. “Both of you.”

Laura sits. So does Derek, keeping as much space between them as he can.

Peter stands in front of them and looks from one to the other. “We need to clear the air, children.”

Derek’s throat clicks as he swallows.

“Firstly,” Peter says. “The fire. Kate Argent.”

He’s barely got the words out before Derek’s moving, limbs flailing as he tries to push himself off the couch. But Peter is faster, a hand wrapped around Derek’s throat, pushing him back down.

“Sit,” he says, his voice firm. “Stay.”

There are no claws out yet, but Laura can feel Derek’s distress, and she wants to tell Peter to stop, to leave him alone, to make it all go away. She feels a whine building in the back of her throat.

“Stay,” Peter repeats, and slowly releases Derek. He crouches down in front of him. “I’m here as your uncle, not as your alpha’s left hand. You can tell me what happened, pup. It’s okay.”

Derek opens his mouth, his breath hitching. He blinks and tears slide down his cheeks.

“It was Kate, yes?” Peter asks. “You told her about the tunnels?”

Derek jerks his head in a nod, and closes his eyes. Braces himself as though he’s waiting for the left hand’s killing blow.

Peter puts a hand on his knee. “It’s okay, pup. It’s not your fault.”

And Derek crumples forward into his uncle’s embrace.

Laura sobs, pressing her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound.

“H-how did you find out?” Derek whispers, his voice breaking with his tears.

Peter rubs his back gently, and doesn’t answer. He looks at Laura.

“I knew,” Laura says, her voice small. “I heard you on the phone that time, when we were in the hotel.”

Derek turns his face to her. He’s pale, broken, betrayal written all over his expression. “You knew?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the small word seems so inadequate for the years of heartbreak and distance that have passed between them.

“You were children,” Peter says. “Both of you. It’s not your fault.”

And Laura wonders if he really believes that, of if he’s only saying it because this is what they need to move forward, as a pack. She wonders if, maybe, he says if often enough that she and Derek will believe it one day too.

“Mistakes were made,” Peter says, easing Derek back. “Not just by you, pup. I’m the one who swore to protect the pack, hmm?” His smile falters. “But this is our fresh start. We’re Hales, and Beacon Hills is our territory. It’s our home. Mine, and yours, and the next generation’s too.”

Derek’s brow creases.

“Yeah,” Laura whispers, her voice rough with tears. She reaches out for Derek’s hand, and tugs it over. Presses it against her abdomen.

His eyes widen in shock.

“Beacon Hills is our home,” Peter says. “We don’t run. We rebuild, and we stand our fucking ground. Together.”

From uncle to left hand, in the space of a heartbeat.

His eyes flash brilliant blue.

***

It’s no magic fix. Derek is still quiet, still awkward around her, still half-afraid she’s going to throw him out of the pack or order Peter to kill him. But in the days and weeks that follow, they’re slowly getting better.

“You smell good,” Derek tells her one night, and then flushes. “Like Mom did when she was pregnant. You smell like pack again.”

Laura pauses for a moment in the middle of chopping vegetables. “Did I not smell like pack before?”

Derek looks away and shrugs. “It’s different. New.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Laura figures they could use a little different, and a little new.

Derek glances at her, and looks away again, but not before she sees the quick quirk of his mouth that’s almost a smile. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That’s good.”

#sterek #my fics #discontentedwinter #baby daddy

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jasecomplex · 6 years

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Death By Astonishment

The following is a real story about psychedelic drug use, if the subject matter bothers you please refrain from continuing. It’s important that the reader be at least somewhat familiar with what DMT is in order for any of this to make any kind of sense, I realize that in order to have found this report you're likely well acquainted with the subject, but I want for everyone to be able to appreciate this. Dimethyltryptamine, (DMT) is the most powerful class of psychadelics we are currently aware of. It also happens to be endogenously produced, meaning our bodies actually produce the compound, so from the moment you’re born to the moment you die you have the most powerful psychedelic drug in your brain, so do all mammals as far as I know. It is thought to be the cause of dreams, near death experiences and some alien abduction stories. The typical "smoked" freebase DMT trip is very fast in onset and very short lasting, usually around 15 minutes in total. The molecule is destroyed by the monoamine oxidase in your stomach before it's able to pass your blood brain barrier and have the desired effect. Combining DMT with an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) allows it to be ingested orally, this is known as ayahuasca, which I'm led to believe has become quite popular among the yuppie class who like to travel to South America to exploit the last remaining vestages of an ancient land, ritual and people before they're all bulldozed over for that sweet sweet palm oil. (I kid, I kid.) My only experience is with DMT freebase. The MAOI in ayahuasca typically leads to severe gastrointestinal distress, pain, diarrhea, and vomiting are typical of the experience, and I'm not all that interested in shitting and puking my brains out as they are simultaneously sucked into the interstellar vacuum. There are multiple “levels” of the DMT trip, the most intense being what’s known as a “breakthough” dose, which is said to be the most powerful experience a person can have, after having been through it, I’m inclined to agree.

I want to note that I did not undertake this experience as a rank amateur. At this point in my psychedelic journey I was smoking DMT at least once a week and had well over dozen trips under my belt, as well as several acid trips, mushroom trips, mdma, and 2cb. You could say I fancied myself a psychonaut who could handle his shit. I have since been humbled.

Like many people who have tried getting into DMT, I was having no luck actually breaking through, I would get close, but never actually to the point of a full breakthrough experience. I thought that maybe I had broken through a couple of times, but one thing I’ve since come to realize is that there is no “maybe” to a breakthrough experience, if you have to ask upon exiting a DMT trip, “Did I break through?” the answer is no. You did not.

One thing that I feel obligated to get out of the way now is that this effort of mine, to describe my experience will be a colossal failure. I will do my best, but I will fall short, language is simply insufficient to convey a breakthrough experience to someone who hasn’t had the experience. I like to think of describing a breakthrough as trying to describe a 3 dimensional object you’ve never seen by a memory of its shadow. That being said, there will be no hyperbole in the following paragraphs, everything will be described to the best of my abilities. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated, this is an experience that changed me at my core, an experience that shattered my perceptions of the universe and scattered the powdered remnants into the cosmic wind. The report will be split into two parts, the first will entail the experience as I remember it, not necessarily in the exact chronological order in which they occurred, time is a bit strange in the DMT world, and I've pieced what I can remember into a series of events that to me makes sense. The second part will be about how I have processed this experience over the past couple of years (yes, it has taken me that long to finally feel comfortable writing up a report), and how it has changed my core beliefs involving religion, consciousness, and indeed existence itself.

Part One: The Experience

It was a hot summer Saturday, my wife was at work and I was home alone with nothing to do, so I decided dropping some acid would be a good way to spend the day. I had recently gotten some 120μg tabs and I decided 2 would be a good dose, as one never seems to do all that much to me. One thing I love doing while on acid is listening to Terence McKenna, his way of speaking, the lateral thinking he displays and the novel ideas he puts forth are always more entertaining and inspiring to me while on acid. On this fateful day I happened to come across a video in which he describes smoking DMT while peaking on acid, and it seemed to make breaking through much easier, and I happened to have a stash of DMT and was nearing the 4 hour mark of my trip. In hindsight the hubris that follows is almost comical. I nonchalantly got my bong out, spread a layer of cannabis in the bowl, measured out 50mg of DMT, and put another layer of cannabis over the DMT. For any not in the know, the purpose of the cannabis was less to add to the high and more to protect and absorb the DMT, DMT is destroyed by open flames and becomes liquid when heated, so the bottom layer absorbs the liquid and stops it from just running into the water while the top layer keeps the flame from directly contacting your expensive DMT. When you "smoke" DMT you're actually vaporizing it, combustion destroys it.

I looked at the clock on my stove, which I can see from the living room, 4:32. I flicked my bic, placed the flame to the bowl and inhaled as deeply as I could. One hit. One hit is all I was ABLE to do, as before I even remember exhaling I was gone, I don't know if I coughed, I don't know how long I was able to hold it in. Fast is an entirely insufficient adjective to describe how fast freebase DMT hits you, especially when you're already peaking on LSD. It doesn't seem physically possible how fast it hits you, it's as if your brain starts dumping it endogenously in preparation for the freebase that's about to hit it, it's the closest thing to an instantaneous effect I've ever felt. I just messed up, bad. This is something entirely different from the experiences I've known to this point, this was somehow REAL, this combination had done something to alter the very fabric of reality, and I knew immediately that I had made a huge mistake. I remember looking at the purple and orange, sun and moon tie-dye tapestry we have hanging on our wall (yes we're hippies, get over it) and having the colors and spiral shape spread across the entire room, with every piece of furniture taking on orange and purple colors, and then distorting and spiraling upwards as if I were about to receive a visit from the Cat in the Hat. The visitor I actually received was far less pedestrian than a talking cat from a Dr. Seuss story. This orange and purple spiraling was the only open eye visual I managed to see, as immediately after taking the hit I fell back on our old futon and was no longer able to hold my eyes open. Eyes closed, mind opened.

Everything was black and eerily silent at first as I felt myself begin to be pulled/pushed upwards, away from my body. Looking up I saw blackness, with a pinprick of white, this white was what I was floating towards, slowly, and inexorably. I looked down, I could see… myself, my body, the crappy futon that had long outstayed its welcome, there was a hole in my ceiling through which I could see myself getting smaller as I moved upwards towards the waiting unknown. That’s when the real terror began. I knew I was never coming back, that my wife was going to come home and find me comatose, and that old futon that I hated so much would be where I died. I was going to leave my wife alone, forcing her to find me in that condition, scarring her for life because I had thought myself capable of concomitant psychedelic use when nothing was further from the truth. I felt powerless, stupid, selfish, I hated myself in that moment. This was terrifying, because I knew it was real, there was no doubt in my mind. As I continued being pulled from above and pushed from below, getting further and further from my body the layers of myself began peeling away. Slowly, every aspect of me that I could call “me” was being discarded, the last part of myself that I desperately clung to was my wife, the memories of her, both of loving tenderness and bitter arguments, I didn’t want to lose her, she had to be forcibly torn from my grasp, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. This was ego death, this was me dying, and from this point on I didn’t really consider myself to be myself, there was no ego attached to me with which perceive the event. I will continue to use “I” and “my" but that’s only because that’s how our memory works, I wasn’t me anymore, I understand the confusing, and unintuitive nature of this perspective, of being conscious, of witnessing, participating, thinking, reacting, and feeling without an "I" to be. With the fading of my ego came the fading of my resolve to cling to myself, and with much fear and trepidation of what was to follow, I finally let go of myself completely, I allowed myself to die. Once I let go, and accepted my dying, an overwhelming calm swept across me and the pervasive blackness all around began teeming with activity, light, and voices. These voices, singular in tone and pitch and yet innumerable in repetition and seeming sources were feminine in energy, maternal, and loving. The love I felt from those voices, the care, the worry for me, I’ll forever hold onto that feeling, there was a genuine, unabashedly accepting quality that left no doubt in my mind that the amount of love they felt for me was complete. The voices kept repeating the same mantras “We just don’t know, we don’t know, we just don’t know.” And though the words were vague, the meaning was crystal clear and unambiguous to me. They didn’t know what was on the other side, and they were sending me to find out, they were worried about me, they loved me and didn’t want any harm to befall me, but they were grateful that I was going to find out, that I had volunteered. For some reason I have always attached the name "Gaia" to these voices, they seemed to belong to the earth itself somehow.

As I looked down again I could no longer see myself, instead what presented was ethereal, green, verdant energy in wafting tendrils like a kelp forest composed of light, swaying gently in calm sea. There were spots of light in all colors, photons slowed to crawl so that I could examine them, appreciate them, name them individually. I then turned my attention upwards and the pinprick of white light had grown exponentially and was now a shimmering white wall, pulling me towards it, beckoning me to enter it and behold the majesty within. There was a voice on the other side, masculine, less kind and loving than the one that had ushered me to this point, but far from malicious.

As I came to the wall the light that had surrounded me again faded to blackness and the loving voices stopped. What I could hear now from the wall was a continuous, low humming sound that didn’t grow louder as I neared it, but somehow fuller, more complete, as if it were a frequency that had begun resonating inside of my mind. As I neared the wall I began to feel a tingling sensation from being near it, as if it were composed of a static electric charge. I entered the wall, it didn't open for me, but I was able to pass through with no resistance. As I did there was a crinkling, crackling noise, reminiscent of a potato chip bag crumpling. My vision was entirely white, I passed through it.

The sight I was confronted with directly on the other side should have left me mortified, but it didn’t. There, suspended in space was my own decapitated head, but it wasn’t macabre or gruesome in any sense. My head was being used as a projector, images beaming out of my eyes showing my life playing out, the stresses, pains, and pleasures I’ve enjoyed and endured. Then the voice spoke up, there was no body to this voice, it was a calm, masculine, objective sounding voice, no love, but no malice either, it said to me “This is what it took” and a set of images played out that he seemed to control. These images were my own memories, of times I’ve displayed curiosity in the face of adversity, how I’ve shown courage, made sacrifices and refused to believe what I was told, choosing to find out for myself. Simply in getting here I had to make myself an enemy of the culture in which I live, a criminal, ostracized and having to keep who I truly am under wraps from family and coworkers. I am brave, perhaps a bit foolhardy at times, but I have shown a sense of courage that most are unwilling to match. It should be known that I have severe depression, and don’t often think positively about myself. I considered myself a coward, weak, and deserving of the ostracism I fear. Being shown all of these things that are undeniably true, and also positive, filled me with a heretofore unknown sense of satisfaction with myself, who I am, who I am becoming, how I think, and how I think about my thoughts. I’ve never had myself shown to me in such an objective light. He wasn’t trying to make me feel good, he was simply showing me who I am, who I was in life. Indeed if I were a different person, with a different set of experiences, if I were an abusive, Machiavellian, greedy, and all around shitty person, being shown my life’s actions without the filter of my ego would have been hell. Bad people aren’t bad in their minds, they have justifications for their actions that allows them to hold onto the myth that they are decent people. This entity’s purpose seemed to be to show those who come to him who they are, objectively, without emotion, without justification.

When he was finished there was a loud, echoing snap noise, someone snapping their fingers in a cave. At this sound, I dissolved. Each and every molecule and atom of my being separated and dispersed throughout the universe, I was nothing, I was everything. “I am God.” Just like that, with three tiny, prodigious words, everything I knew as a devout secular atheist vanished. How can I say there is no God when I AM God? What is God? God is existence, God is consciousness, and I am God. Before my eyes was laid infinity, the scope, the scale, the grandeur of the universe, it was too much to handle but I had no choice, it was there and so was I. This is the part of the trip that sadly has lost the most detail, I’m left with more of an absolute impression than the individual details. I recall traveling vast distances, visiting distant worlds and observing alien life. I saw the Mandelbrot of existence in its entirety all at once, viewing every individual fractal spire in intimate, individual detail while simultaneously marveling at the beauty and immensity of the image as a whole. I was pervasive throughout the Universe and could travel wherever I wanted at a whim, instantly. I knew everything, I watched stars go from disparate gas clouds to supernovae, seeing every second of their lives in an instant. This was pure happiness, knowledge on a scale impossible to contain in a human mind. I then began falling, slowly at first, accelerating constantly.

I didn’t pass through any of the “levels” I had crossed when coming, instead I fell into blackness, but I was falling from every direction, the atoms composing my being returning from their cosmic diaspora, coalescing back into myself, and as I fell I became myself again. Piece by piece I began to remember who and what I was, I looked down and I was falling towards the Earth, I could again see my body through a hole in my roof, I was falling towards it with the acceleration of gravity. I passed through my roof, then my ceiling, I landed back inside of myself and immediately opened my eyes and inhaled deeply, awake, aware. I looked around the room, everything was tinted green, the walls were covered in impossible constantly transforming opalescent geometric patterns, I looked at one of my dogs, Spicy, a short, squat bulldog/pitbull mix, someone had clearly been having fun in photoshop with her, colors and contrast altered unnaturally, her brindle pattern fuzzing into the air itself, she was a spectrum of matter fading into nothing at the edges, and I said out loud “Thank God, everything is back to normal.” Compared to where I just was this was normal, this was the reality I know, just altered somewhat. I looked at the clock, 4:37. 5 minutes. All of that happened in the course of 5 minutes, coming out it felt like literal weeks, while I was there time seemed not to exist at all, or at least not in the linear way we know it. But I was back, after knowing for sure that I wouldn’t be, and I was happy, I couldn’t wait for my wife to get home, to hug her, to know for sure that I came back and everything was the same. But nothing has been the same, how could it be after what I’ve experienced? I truly see the world differently, my core beliefs, altered irreparably by a 5 minute experience. This was by far the most terrifying event in my life, I died, that’s not hyperbole, I lost who I was and thought I would never get it back. Scary though it may have been, it was also by far and away the most powerful experience I’ve ever had, this is an experience that redefined the words “power” and “awe” for me, I didn’t know what those words meant, the true definitions aren’t to be found in a dictionary, they must be experienced to be comprehended. Do I regret my irresponsible actions, putting myself into a situation I wasn’t ready for? Absolutely not, I can’t say this experience was one I necessarily enjoyed in the moment, but I haven’t regretted doing it for even one second. Would I have done it if I had known what I was in for? Absolutely not, I haven’t repeated this combination because every time I think about doing it I’m viciously aware of what I’m likely to go through, that kills the desire outright, it’s scary as hell now that I know. Do I recommend anyone else combine LSD and DMT? Absolutely not, I only say this because of how immensely terrifying the experience was, I’m not going to stop anyone from going down the road I went down. but I cannot in good conscience recommend someone else repeat my actions, this is a decision to be made by mature adults, for themselves, you are the master of your own destiny and will reap what you sow. Will I do it again? I’d like to think yes, but not anytime soon I’m honestly scared of DMT now, it was my favorite drug from the moment I got my first good hit (despite the taste) I’ve now done it 3 times in the past two years, despite it being right there, beckoning. Was this an overall positive experience? Absolutely, no single experience has changed my thought processes and opened my mind more than this one, I really think I learned more about this universe in that single trip than in all my years of school.

If you are thinking of trying this combination, it’s imperative that you have ample experience with both LSD and DMT separately, and remember that it’s not LSD *plus* DMT, it’s LSD *times* DMT. One piece of advice for anyone embarking on this journey, just let go, you will come back, don’t cling to yourself, your loved ones, or anything in this world that you deem important, you’re leaving all of that behind when you agree to take these molecules into your body, it’s not a decision to make lightly.

Part 2: Processing

It’s now been 2 full years since this experience, and I’m not sure if I’ve gone 8 full hours without thinking about it at least once. This was a legitimate religious experience. I didn’t think religious experiences were actually possible until I had one. The term had the same significance to me as the term “fairy tale”. Now it carries more significance than I'm sure it does to 90% of devout Christians, a truly religious experience is far more profound to the individual than anything that can be found in the Bible.

Now, on being God. This whole “I am God” thing really threw me for a loop and I had to think a long, long time about what that meant. Do I think I’m the Christian God? No, I don’t believe in the Christian God, I don’t believe I’m anymore God than anyone else, but I think everyone else is also God. God is existence, consciousness. It’s not some separate entity to be worshipped, because everything is God. I believe Our brains do not generate consciousness, rather consciousness is a dimension and our brains tune into it like radios of sorts. All matter is conscious on some level, everything that exists knows on some level that it exists, what it is, and how it should behave. That "level" is dependent on the level of complexity, a giant boulder is far less complex than the inch worm crawling across its surface, and as a result the inch worm, despite being far smaller, and containing far fewer atoms is on a higher level of consciousness. The reason we are “more” conscious than other animals is that we are more complex than other animals, specifically in our brains. Were we to create a machine or program (or more likely a combination) that is as complex as the human body, with the complexity of our neural network it would be as conscious as we are.

This experience, coupled with the knowledge that DMT is endogenously produced, and there can indeed be endogenous DMT trips, has led me to a rather left field theory concerning religion in general. All religions have their base in endogenous DMT trips. At least all religions concerning religious experiences. Essentially my charge is that religions are just perverse, high stakes versions of the telephone game we played as children. One person had an endogenous DMT trip, told people about it as best they were able, those people then relayed the experience to others, minus or plus certain details, and thus a belief is born and subsequently spread. Then some people gathered many different experiences and beliefs and wove them into a single story, a religion. This of course would require the original stories to be extensively bastardized and warped to fit a specific intent. However genuine the origin, religion seems to draw the very worst type of people to lead them, and within a few generations the true story is lost to a strict set of rules and limitations. I’m not a fan of religion. So many people killed, tortured, persecuted, immolated, exiled and all other manners of brutality and humiliation, for nothing. Since this experience I’ve done more open minded research on religion than I had in my life up to this point, and I’ve come to a pretty unsurprising conclusion; all religions are wrong. Some are less wrong than others, Buddhism, in my opinion (and at my current knowledge level) is the closest to being correct, and much can be learned from the teachings of Buddha, specifically on the psychological implications of his beliefs on happiness and suffering. Regardless of your personal religious beliefs you would benefit from studying Buddhism and incorporating many of the philosophies into your own personal grand unified theory. In fact, based on the reading I've done, I 8think that there are more truths to be found in general with religions based on philosophy moreso than religious experience, wonder why? Now I could be entirely wrong here, and I go through life knowing that at any moment a piece of information could come along that would require a complete rethinking, beliefs should be transient and subject to information. Base the beliefs you accept on the information you have, don’t base the information you accept on the beliefs you have.

One thing that I cannot shake is the similarity between my experience and some stories I’ve heard in some religions. Most notably the entity who showed me my life, if other people have met this entity before, I could very well see him being the origin of the “Peter at the gates of Heaven” story (and every other similar myth, of which there are several) judging your life, determining whether you get into Heaven or Hell. Like I said, if I had been an awful person, this experience would have been hell, and were I the most virtuous, least flawed person on the planet it would have been Heaven. As it is I’m a decent person, I’ve done things I regret, but overall I am a good, kind, just, and honest person, and while I wouldn’t exactly call it Heaven, it was closer to Heaven than Hell.

Could this have just been a drug induced hallucination with no significance beyond that? Certainly, and I never allow myself to forget that possibility. However, anyone who thinks there is no significance to these experiences beyond interesting, purely chemical alterations of brain chemistry and neural pathways is someone I can almost guarantee hasn't had an experience on this level. You can’t see what I’ve seen and felt what I’ve felt and say it’s just the drugs, you can’t have traveled distances and beheld scales which dwarf everything you thought possible and think “I was just high.” I had no idea that a person could endure an experience so powerful, but I have, I know they exist, and I’m somewhat saddened by how few ever get to see and experience an event so intense so utterly astonishing. Falling in love, marriage, the birth of a child, losing the one most cherished to you, these are are all experiences that are bound to be powerful and have profound effects on a person, none of these hold a candle to a breakthrough. I’m not trying to offend any parents or people who have lost loved ones in saying this, but I’m convinced that there is nothing that can happen in a normal human life that’s as intense, strange, and indescribable as a breakthrough. If there is an experience more powerful, I don’t think I’m interested in having it.

I no longer fear death. Before this experience, being a secular, naturalist atheist, my biggest fear was death, but now that I’ve been on the other side, seen what there is, I no longer fear it. I do think there is more to this universe than we can see before us, and I don’t think oblivion follows this life. If you’re reading this, congratulations, you’re alive, try to enjoy it, and don’t reduce the joy of others. Just try not to live in fear of the end, you’ll be amazed at what’s on the other side, it’s more than you could ever imagine.

@JaseComplex

#1 #trip report #dmt #lsd #psychadelic #writing #ego death

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