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the-californicationist · 11 months ago

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The Window (6 of 7)

Ch 01 // Ch 02 // Ch 03 // Ch 04 // Ch 05 // Ch 06 // Ch 07

AO3 Link

TW: lactation kink

The house is lonely without your boys, especially when your breasts are so full and achy. If only there was someone home to help you…

You settled into the house almost too quickly. You each had your own space, but the main bedroom was where you all spent most of your time. The bedroom was huge — one of the reasons John had picked this house — and the en suite bathroom could more than accommodate all five of you, if need be. But, when the boys were away, the sprawling, expansive house was… lonely.

They tried to leave you in shifts, but it wasn’t like they were logging hours at a normal job; it was war. War didn’t have a schedule. So, you padded around the house, trying to play some music or keep the television on, but it wasn’t the same. It was just you and… who?

You’d asked the doctor not to tell you the sex of your baby at your ultrasound appointment, and none of the potential fathers had been around to go with you. So, you were in the dark. You’d thought about names, and Johnny had offered a good many family names to keep you busy for a while. But, even though you had plenty to think about and plenty to do – you were still working remote on recon and data tracking – it was just an empty sort of existence.

To make matters worse, you’d hit a bit of a snare. Right at the sixteen week mark, you’d started leaking more than just a little milk. You’d woken up to a wet, messy situation, and you quickly scheduled an appointment. The doctor had taken some time to assure you all was well, but then, not even a week later, you had swollen, painful blockages and you were back in his office, waiting for more news.

“Looks like you just have tiny ducts,” he shrugged, looking at your scans. His hands were dry but chilly as he peeked under your hospital robe to examine your sore nipples, “You may need to express them. I know it may put you at risk of an early labor, but we can monitor you in the meantime. Try to only pump when absolutely necessary.”

So, you’d followed his orders. Once every few days, you pumped out the heavy, engorged globes that used to be B-cups, watching as your nipples filled jar after jar. There was no use in freezing it this early, so down the drain it went.

Now, at week twenty something, you were a walking milk nightmare. You’d never done so many loads of laundry in your life. The embarrassing thing about it though was that you liked it. Just the thought of attaching the plastic suction cup onto your breast was enough to make you slick between your legs, and the act itself was frequently pleasurable enough to send you over a climactic edge. To say that your nipples were sensitive was an understatement. But still, you tried to only do it when need be. You didn’t want to make a mistake.

When the boys came home, you filled them in on all the updates. Johnny was a little sad he’d missed the ultrasound, but it just added fuel to his fire of picking out names. He seemed even more interested in the pain-relieving, pleasure-inducing qualities of your breast pump, though. At dinner, you caught him staring down your shirt more than once when you tried to speak with him, and when you lay together on the couch, his hand was always massaging your swollen flesh, all under the guise of keeping you from getting another painful duct.

But, you knew the truth. His cock had never been so hard as when you started to leak through your top and had to go change, rushing to wash and find your nipple pads. Johnny stalked you into the large bedroom, thumb crooked in the waistband of his pants,

“You alright, bonnie? Need me to help you?”

“No, yeah. I’m okay. Just… dealing with the dairy farm over here,” you said, exasperated.

He sat down next to you on the edge of the bed, watching you pull out the tubes and machine with all of its parts and cords. His hand fell to your thigh, squeezing you gently,

“Think I could do it instead?”

“You…” You turned to face him, hands still tangled in the pump, making sure you heard him correctly, “You want to try it?”

Johnny adjusted himself in his jeans, his eyes pinned to your cleavage, unable to look away even for decorum’s sake,

“Aye, lass. More than anythin’.”

“Um, sure. I think it’s fine. It all gets thrown out anyway. I’ll get you a towel,” you moved to get up, your belly now at a round enough size to be a hindrance, but he stopped you, pulling you back down roughly.

“Hey —” You protested, but he interrupted you.

“Sit down,” his voice was gravelly and heavily accented, almost like when he was drunk, “Let me…”

“Johnny, wait,” you tried to twist away from his grip, but he was too strong, “It’ll be such a mess. They’re so full right now. Just wait for me to—”

His eyes shot up to yours, pinning you in place, his full lips set in a hungry snarl,

“I dinnae need a towel, bonnie. I’m gonna taste you, messy or not.”

He let his vow sink in, and you could feel yourself melting, literally and figuratively, at his words. You didn’t fight him as he began to kiss you, smearing his mouth all over you, doing his best to shove down your tank top, stuffing the neckline under your tits, fumbling around the back to unhook the clasp of your bra.

“Johnny,” you breathed, your voice giving away the wet rush that was flooding straight to your core, “The laundry…”

“Fuck the laundry. I need to drain you fuckin’ dry. Right now.”

Your whole body responded to that comment. Your skin flushed hot and your sore nipples hardened, eager to experience the way his mouth would feel as he drank from you. You weren’t even sure if he’d know how to draw out your milk.

All of your concerns were cast aside as he settled you in his lap, pulling off your clothes like a much-desired present, tossing your clothes aside like wrapping paper to get to the good part. He fumbled with his jeans, freeing his thick, curved cock from his pants, pumping it roughly to spread his precome over the heavy head.

You helped him, angling your body over his dick and lowering yourself down onto him, as carefully as you could, spearing your pussy with his rod, inch by trembling inch, listening to him try to catch his breath. Once you reached the middle, at the deepest part of his curve, you struggled to fit him the rest of the way in, grinding forward and back, looking for that sweet spot.

Then, impatient and hungry, he finished the job, pulling you down by your hips and forcing himself the rest of the way. It made you cry out from the shock of it. It wasn’t necessarily painful, but his roughness was a stark change from how he had been treating you. When he knew about the baby, he spent a lot of time preparing you, using his mouth to lap at your pussy and prying you apart with his fingers. Always gentle and mindful of your comfort. But, not now. Now, he had his sights set on devouring you in the literal sense of the word.

“Johnny…” You gasped, rocking against his shape tentatively.

“C’mere, lass,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice sharp and commanding.

His eyes were fixated on your dark, round nipples, and as you rode him, grinding yourself down onto his lap, he latched onto your left breast, taking the meat of your peak all the way into his mouth. Then, he began to suck.

You thought it would be gentle and sensual, expecting it to be largely for his pleasure and not effective enough to get the thick, creamy milk out of your poor swollen ducts, but you were wrong. Johnny began to suck and swallow, suck and swallow, suck and swallow; a terrifying, rhythmic feeding, drinking from you like his life depended on it. You peered down at him as he delivered this unknown pleasure to you.

Johnny’s eyes were fluttering closed, the whites of them rolling back into his head, and he began to let out these long, deep, guttural moans. You could feel the relief in your breast the moment he began, and with each suck, you could tell that his mouth was filling with squirt after squirt of warm, sweet milk.

Your hips humped against him involuntarily at this point, too horny to think straight, and you realized that your right nipple had begun to let down, full as it was. You tried to catch it from dripping onto him, swiping away the white rivulets with your palm, but he caught you, realizing you were trying to take what was his.

He moved his mouth from your left nipple to your right, letting his score drip down his chin and neck, caring nothing for the mess. Then, he latched onto your right nipple just as he had the left, sucking and swallowing until his cock throbbed inside of you.

You cradled his head as he drank from you, using his neck and shoulders to keep you steady as you rode him, feeling him suckle against you over and over, your hot milk filling his belly.

“Havin’ fun without us, Johnny?” Price’s voice rumbled from the doorway, startling you. You tried to turn around, but Johnny had you in a vice grip, and all you could do was ride and whimper from his fucking and his feeding.

“John…” You moaned, and he stepped around to sit next to his sergeant on the bed, smiling at the two of you, admiring the mess you were making.

“Can I try, love?” Price asked, leaning forward to drink from you without waiting for your permission.

All you could do was moan, high and helpless, your pussy so wet that it was practically gushing over Johnny’s thick cock. As soon as you felt John’s mouth on you, suckling from you just as intently as Soap’s, you started to come. You felt yourself clenching around your hungry lover, flooding him with your orgasm, wrecked by their insistent mouths.

“Tha’s it, bonnie,” Johnny pulled away, white streams of cream falling from his lips, looking like he was drunk, “Come for me.”

Price was greedier than Soap, even though you weren’t sure how that could be possible, and he used his strong hand to knead and squeeze your tits, forcing your body to drop even more milk for him to drink. His mustache tickled your sensitive flesh, and you couldn’t see it but you could hear the twisting, slapping wetness of him jerking his fat cock as he drank from you.

“Fuck, she tastes so good, hm?” Prince crooned.

“Hngh, Johnny… I can’t…” You whined, feeling yourself start to become overstimulated, “I can’t…”

“You can, lass. And you fuckin’ will,” Johnny grabbed your face in his hand, squishing your cheeks, forcing you to kiss him. You could taste your own milk on his tongue. It was warm and a little sugary, like the dregs of a bowl of cereal, thick and creamy.

He released your jaw and went back to work, suckling from you with a relentless vacuum, making your head spin. You didn’t know how you were able to make so much milk, but it seemed endless. You were hypnotized by the way his throat bulged as he swallowed gulp after gulp of your body’s gift, sucking you down.

Price seemed just as hungry, and you saw how, from the corners of his mouth, tiny droplets of milk would escape and wet his beard, the white cream staining his dark hair. He teased you with his hand, leaving his cock to fend for itself as he smeared his precome all over your asshole. Then, as you rode Soap back and forth, thrusting against him with abandon, John put his finger against your puckered hole and let you push yourself onto it. As you canted your hips back, your hole would let your captain’s huge fingertip slide inside it. As you thrust forward, you would pull away, losing the feeling of fullness that he was giving you.

It was agony. You wanted him to fuck you on his hand, or to take you with his cock — as painful as it may be without prep — anything to make you feel filled up. But he didn’t; he kept his finger right where he wanted it, letting you fuck yourself with just the tip until you felt stinging tears in the corners of your eyes.

“Please, John… please…” You barely had any words left, but he knew what you wanted.

He met your eyes with his own as he took a particularly long suck from your sore breast, making you watch as he coaxed your nectar into his mouth. Then, he pulled away with a swift pop, licking across your swollen nipple to soothe the pain he had caused. He smiled at you, patronizingly, teasing you still with his finger,

“Does our girl need me to fuck her tight little arse?”

You nodded, barely able to keep your eyes open, overwhelmed by the pleasure,

“Yes, please… I need it. Need to come again. Please…”

“Fuck, bonnie. If you come again, you’ll take me with you,” Soap murmured, unwilling to take his mouth away from your tits too far, talking with his mouth half-full.

Price bent his head, returning to his rough suckling, filling his cheeks with more of your milk. But, this time, as you thrust yourself against Johnny, you felt two, curled fingers shove themselves deep inside of your asshole. Your whole body convulsed, your pussy clenching and gushing with wetness, twisting its muscles around Soap’s dick, trying to get him to fill you with his load. Your legs shuddered, unable to keep from shaking as you rode him, feeling numb as the tantalizing sensation of your stretched holes washed over you.

John fucked you without mercy, pulling his fingers all the way out and stuffing them all the way back into your ass everytime you thrust forward and back. You were screaming, and your poor, well-used cunt was pumping itself against Soap’s rod, making heinous slick noises as you rode him. Beyond any sort of politeness or gentility, your men were noisy in their feasting as well, slurping and sucking loudly, grunting every time you clenched yourself around them.

When Price added a third finger, you came again, your pussy quickly running out of room to accommodate them both. Soap’s hot seed burst inside of you just as he’d promised, burning your core and painting your walls with his come.

“Oh, fuck! Johnny, fill me up. Fill me…” You slurred, letting your head hang back limply, basking in the feeling of his orgasm.

Price took the opportunity to haul you off of Johnny’s lap and onto his own, replacing the emptiness in your pussy with his fat cock, sliding through his sergeant’s come and keeping his fingers in your ass as you rode him.

Even though he was spent, Johnny didn’t let up on his feeding. He’d ripped a page out of Price’s playbook and was massaging your breast with both hands, squeezing out every last drop from your body. When he finally stopped suckling from your bruised nipple, he licked you, over and over, running the warm flat of his tongue across your nipple to swipe up any stray drops, chasing your peaks as you bounced on your captain’s dick.

Price squeezed your tits in his hands, letting the one that was still full squirt all over his mouth and nose, covering himself in your cream. When he noticed Soap’s desperation, he switched positions. The sergeant fell onto his back, resting against the mattress, and the captain threw you on all fours, letting your tits dangle over Johnny’s open mouth. Then, he climbed up behind you, feeding himself back into your pussy.

As Price fucked himself into you, your breasts swayed back and forth, your nipples rubbing across Soap’s mouth as he moved from one to the other. You felt him latch onto the left one, drinking from you in thirsty slurping gulps, his puckered lips pressing onto your flesh with as much suction as he could muster. Meanwhile, your stretched cunt was being stuffed with Price’s shaft, his head invading your deepest parts, filling up your hole over and over and over.

Finally, when you were out of milk and practically sobbing from the brain-breaking orgasms you’d been given, he pulled out, flipping you onto your back and laying you right beside Soap, aiming his load at your bruised tits. His teeth were clenched as he grunted out his climax, painting long, white ropes of come all over your nipples.

You looked down, unable to tell what was his and what was yours, your breasts messy and covered in cream of all kinds. John’s hands came down and rubbed his spend all over your nipples, smearing it around them like a salve. Johnny leaned over you, licking up Price’s come just as greedily as he had your milk, latching and suckling from you over and over, even if you were empty, like a greedy puppy.

Exhausted, and with a belly full of breast milk, Price crashed to the mattress beside you and Soap.

Standing in the doorway, Gaz and Ghost looked down at you with smug, satisfied expressions, and Garrick chuckled,

“Better recover quick, babes. Got me workin’ up an appetite.”

#call of duty fanfic #captain john price #john price #call of duty #captain price #captain price x you #john soap mactavish #john price smut #soap smut #soap x you #sharing is caring #cod #sharing couple #fun for 3 #poly tf141 #cod mw2 #poly 141 #the window by the californicationist #the window

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archangeldyke-all · 2 years ago

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dairy farmer!Sevika plowing her strawberry farmer wife? 😣

(outside sex maybe 👀)

YESSSS i love them (read part 1 here!)

men and minors dni

sevika moved you into her house about a week into you guys dating.

over the years, you and sevika slowly converted your old house to a little shop, where you sell jams and strawberries and eggs and honey and mead, and sevika sells wool and sweaters and milk and cheese.

you guys got married on your one year anniversary.

sure, it's fast, but you and sevika had been friends for years before dating, and you were both certain that you were soulmates.

it's been paradise ever since.

sure, you still have every day headaches.

the sheep are just as rambunctious as ever, escaping whenever they find a fault in sevika's fencing. you have good and bad harvest seasons, some years, the strawberries are just a little more tart than usual.

but, overall, you're happy.

especially in moments like this.

sevika finds you in your strawberry patch, helping the vines climb up their trellises, sneaking a few berries for yourself as a snack.

you smile the second you see her approaching.

she's got some dirt on her cheek, her overalls muddy, a little puff of wool in her hair. you laugh as she approaches you, reaching up to wipe the dirt from her cheek and brush the wool out of her hair.

"hi, hot stuff." you say. sevika grins, wrapping her arms around your waist.

"hi sweet thing." she replies, swooping in for a kiss. you giggle against her, and she swipes her tongue out to lick your lips.

"you taste like strawberries." she says.

"that's so unusual!" you say. she snorts and rolls her eyes.

"fuck off." she says, not pulling away from you in the slightest. you smirk at her.

"what's up?" you ask. you assume she's tracked you down for some help wrangling the sheep-- it is shearing season, afterall, and it tends to be a two man job. sevika smirks at you.

"i'm all done for the morning." she says. you raise an eyebrow at her. "was wondering if you needed any help over here." she says. you give her a skeptical look.

"you were, huh?" you ask, knowing just how boring sevika finds your strawberry plants. she giggles guiltily.

"well..." she says, grabbing your wrist and bringing your hand to her crotch. you gasp, realizing sevika's strapped up, then grin. "there might've been other reasons i came to see you." she says. you laugh.

"i can see that." you say, slowly palming her bulge. a blush works up her cheeks as you tease her. "'d you put this on this morning or 'd you just slip it on now?" you ask. sevika smirks.

"saw you bendin' over about fifteen minutes and got struck with inspiration." she says.

you burst into laughter, tugging sevika in to kiss her again. she hums, her hands trailing down to palm your ass.

you reach up to undo the straps of her overalls, letting the top fall down, sneaking your hands up her wife pleaser to palm her tits. she hums against you.

"so?" she asks, pulling away with a gasp. you smile.

"not on the strawberries. i'm not crushing any more plants because your horny ass couldn't wait until we got outta the field." you say. sevika just laughs, then ducks down to hoist you over her shoulder.

you squeal as she jogs out of your strawberry patch, setting you down under the willow tree on the edge of your property, pinning you against it, tugging at your jeans.

she gets you naked in a flash, tripping over herself as she tries to pull her overalls off over her boots. you laugh and reach out to steady her, and she smiles shyly up at you.

"thanks, baby." she says. you smile and lean forward to kiss her nose.

"i'm not puttin' my bare ass on the muddy ground, y'know." you say. sevika laughs.

"i figured. princess." she teases. you roll your eyes.

"just 'cause i don't like wrestling in the dirt with the sheep doesn't mean--"

sevika cuts you off with a kiss, pushing you back against the trunk of the tree. you sigh, slinging your arms over her shoulders.

"i love you." sevika mumbles against your lips, nipping you when you open your mouth to respond. you huff and push at her shoudlers and she pulls away with a smile.

"i love you too." you say. sevika melts, her head falling forward to rest her forehead against yours. you push at her shoulders, getting her to kneel, and open your legs. "now get me wet." you command.

sevika grins as she kneels, not caring about the mud dirtying her knees, and hooks one of your legs over her shoulder, wasting no time diving forward to eat you out.

"oh, fuck." you whimper, leaning back against the trunk of the tree as you grab her hair. sevika hums against you, sucking on your clit, before leaning down to work her tongue inside you, her nose grinding against your clit. "you got such a good mouth, baby." you say. sevika smirks up at you and you laugh down at her. "couldn't help yourself, huh?" you ask. "'y had me this morning-- it's only been a few hours." you say. she laughs against you.

"yeah, but that was my fingers. didn't get to taste you. didn't get to get my cock inside you." she says. you shiver, and sevika presses another kiss against your clit. "plus, you know i like fuckin' outside." she says. you laugh.

"i know."

it's something about the thrill-- you're both the only people on your property, and the chance that someone will ever catch you is nearly impossible, but it is invigorating to feel the wind blow against your naked body, to hear the distant bleating of sevika's sheep, the sound of your ducks quaking in the pond.

sevika's got you close-- your thigh shaking against her face, and she grins up at you, before shoving your leg off her shoulder and jumping to her feet.

"you ready?" she asks, her fingers probing your cunt, feeling how wet you are. you nod, desperate to get her inside you.

"yeah." you say. sevika spits in her palm, then holds it out for you to spit on it too. it gives you butterflies, despite how gross it is, and sevika seems to know it, if the sweet little smile she gives you is anything to go by as she jerks her cock off with her wet hand.

"how do you want it?" she asks. you roll your eyes.

sevika knows how you want it-- it's the same way you always want it when she's fucking you outside. she just laughs and waits for you to answer with an eyebrow raised.

"c'mon sev." you pout, tugging her toward you. she doesn't move, waiting to hear the words from your lips. "fucker." you curse her. she laughs.

"i could spin you around, bend you over?" she offers. you huff and flick her forehead. "or maybe you want to ride me while i lay on the ground?" she asks.

"pick me up." you whisper. sevika smirks.

"oh, yeah?" she asks, like this isn't how she does it every time. "want me to pin you to the tree? fuck you against it?" she asks. you gulp and nod.

"yes." you say. sevika grins.

"and why's that?" she asks. you groan.

"sevika!" you cry.

"tell me." she demands. you roll your eyes, and regret ever telling your wife your dirty secrets.

"i like how strong you are." you whisper. sevika licks her upper teeth, a predatory glint in her eye as she gets in your space, pinning you to the trunk.

"yeah?" she asks. "turns you on?" she asks. you huff.

"i'm never telling you anything again." you say.

sevika just laughs as she grabs your thighs, lifting you off the ground and wrapping your legs around her hips. you sigh, clinging to your wife.

"you ready?" she asks, thrusting her strap through your folds. you bite your lip and nod.

"yeah." you whisper. sevika looks up at you to give you a quick kiss, before she looks down between your bodies, slowly guiding her strap inside you.

you sigh, satisfaction flooding your senses as sevika fills you, her body surrounding you, her grip on your thighs bruising. "love you." sevika groans as her hips meet yours. you smile.

"love you too." you whisper.

sevika starts fucking you slowly, timing her thrusts to her deep breaths, intermittently pausing to press a kiss to your lips.

"fuck." you groan. "you're so good." you say. sevika smiles.

"you are too." she says. you snort.

"i'm not really doin' any work." you say. sevika chuckles, ducking down to bite at your tits. you whimper.

"you're doing all the work-- looking good enough to fucking eat-- distracting the shit outta me-- you knew what you were doing wearing those tiny shorts." she says.

"you set my clothes out for me this morning!" you laugh.

sevika just smirks. "i'm fucking brilliant."

she keeps her slow pace-- not wanting to scratch your back up against the bark behind you.

it's a lazy fuck, the day's still young, there's still some dew on the shady parts of your property, and you and sevika have nowhere else to be.

she pauses her thrusting several times just to kiss you.

you scratch at her scalp, loving the way she purrs in your hold.

"fuck." she whispers against you. you hum.

"you close?" you ask. she nods.

"'re you?" she asks. you nod.

"wanna cum with you." you say. her hands on your thighs grip you harder, and she huffs.

"i love you so much." she says. you smile.

"love you too sev." you say, your hand coming down to rub your clit as she continues to fuck you.

sevika starts to whimper the closer she gets, and the sounds drive you fucking crazy, your thighs shaking against her waist.

"oh, shit." you moan. "fuck, i'm gonna--"

"me too." she grunts. "you first." she whispers. you shake your head, focusing on your impending orgasm. "c'mon baby, cum on this cock." she grunts. "fuck-- i can feel you clenchin', i know you're almost there. wanna feel you cum around me." she says.

you gasp and shiver, cumming silently, your nails digging into sevika's shoulders.

"there you go, pretty thing, f-fuck, you look so fuckin' good, shit!" she gasps as she follows you over the edge.

sevika catches her breath against you, and you nuzzle against her shoulder while the world stops spinning.

"fuck, that never gets old." sevika laughs. you snort.

"we should at least do it against a different tree next time." you say. she laughs.

behind her, a suspiciously loud 'baa' sounds out. you lift your gaze to look over her shoulder and groan when you see a few of sevika's sheep wandering over to your field.

"sevika!" you scold, smacking her shoulder. she gently sets you back onto your feet before turning and laughing at the sight of her sheep congregating around your strawberries. "you didn't close the fence?!" you ask. she shrugs.

"was kinda distracted, honey, sorry." she says, pulling her overalls back on. you giggle, helping button her back up, before dressing yourself.

"go get your sheep." you demand. she swoops forward to press a kiss to your lips and you pinch her side.

"you gonna watch?" she asks. you roll your eyes and bite back a smile.

"duh." you whisper as she struts off to wrangle the first sheep, her biceps glistening in the morning sun.

taglist!

@lesbeaniegreenie @fyeahnix @sapphicsgirl @half-of-a-gay @ellabslut @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner @shimtarofstupidity @love-sugarr @chuucanchuucan @222danielaa @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther @gr0ssz0mbi3 @ellsss @sevikaspillowprincess @leomatsuzaki

#sevika #sevika imagine #sevika arcane #sevika x reader #sevika x you #soft sevika #sevika smut

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weaselle · 1 year ago

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being a line cook is insane but people do it anyway

do you want to know the secret to why line cooks stay line cooks?

We're addicted to a certain aspect of the job. A sort of combination of Pride and Power.

See, most of what is going on in that restaurant comes down to you. If the restaurant was a dairy, you'd be the cow, everything is based on what you produce; how much, how fast, and of what quality.

And it's INSANELY hard for most people to do. It requires you to keep mental track of tons of stuff while doing complicated physical creation in a dangerous environment under intense pressure

Any line cooks reading this? let me recreate a moment most of us have had many many times

For the rest of you this will be a nice window into the line cook experience

you have a rail FULL of tickets, and the printer will NOT stop printing more.

You've got a stove FULL of stuff you're cooking, and half of it is for stuff you don't even have a ticket for, because of something on a table that already went out was wrong or missing, or a server forgot to put something on a ticket and needs it in a hurry, or...

the tickets you are working on are for tables that finished their appetizers 45 minutes ago, and it could be an hour before you even get a chance to read whatever the printer is currently printing.

You have a head FULL of stuff you're tracking: how quickly the sauce is thickening in this pan, whether the garlic is about to burn in that pan, how long before you drain the pasta in that pot before it over cooks. As soon as the thing in the oven for table 31 is 5 minutes from done you gotta put the other thing on the flat top to go with it, you're putting together Something on your board and you can't finish it because you need a refill of an ingredient from the walk-in but you can't go get it because if you leave the kitchen you'll burn the thing in the salamander. And you can't plate the thing in salamander yet because the Something you're putting together on your board is taking up all the room you had left in this disaster of a kitchen

Three people have just told you complicated changes to dishes you have to organize and keep in your head. Something like

"24 needs 3 gnocchi not 4, and 2 with no rosemary; 3 needs all 4 gnocchi to have extra rosemary, 2 with no garnish; 22 needs an extra gnocchi extra garnish no rosemary, salads are almost out you can go in 3 or 4 minutes"

The manager, assistant manager, about 8 servers, and a fuckton of people at tables are all waiting on YOU with an impatience bordering on fury.

right? sound familiar? okay that's not the moment, that's just the dinner rush on a night somewhere between bad and average.

The moment happens when, during this insanity, you reach an internal place where you become completely overwhelmed. Panic and frustration and over stimulus all rise up and wipe your brain completely clean. You can't think, you have no idea what to do, you want to run away, you want to quit, you can barely think of your own name, everything feels completely impossible.

And then. The Moment

You pull it back together.

You stop being overwhelmed, you stop panicking, you insist that it IS possible, and that you are going to do it. You decide what has to happen and you start. You clear all the clutter you can from your kitchen. You pull all your tickets as far down the rail as possible and scan through the tickets on the printer so you have an idea of how things are going to go. You write down a couple of times on tickets that you would usually keep in your head but you need the brain space. You group the tickets according to not only time but what dishes they have in common so you can do batches of things. You decide if you can just get these two things out of your way you'll be in a much better position and so you concentrate on getting those two things cooked and plated. You beg the dishwasher to grab you the thing you need from the walk-in. You call your assistant manager or manager into the kitchen and you tell them you need them to start you 8 gnocchis: 3 no rosemary one extra garnish, 4 extra rosemary two no garnish, and one normal.

Right? Okay so first of all, as you can see... The job is INSANE

and second of all. Not everybody is capable of that Moment. The moment you stare already-existing catastrophic failure in the face and tell it No. That moment.

and you have to be capable of that moment if you want to be a line cook.

Which means pretty close to zero other people in that restaurant can do what you can do.

So now let me tell you a story.

I was 19 years old. I was a line cook at an italian joint. We're slammed off our ass one night, and the manager is in the little galley kitchen with me, and he's just standing there because he isn't good enough to not be in the way if he tries to help

and he's over my should about everything, telling me to drain that more or turn the heat down on this etc.

Finally, I stop completely, look him dead in the eye, and say "Tony, i'm not cooking another thing until you leave this kitchen."

I'm 19. Ive worked here six months. Tony is twice my age and married to the owner's daughter. There is a heavy pause.

Then Tony turns around and walks out of the kitchen.

What's he going to do, send me home? Zero other people in this restaurant can do the thing that makes it a restaurant. If i go home the customers are going home too.

And that's the real reason most line cooks stay line cooks even though the job feels like a war you never win.

It's that interplay of Pride and Power. For those few hours, the restaurant is happening because of you.

That's the power.

For the other part, try pulling a cook off the line during the rush. You can't. Even if they are in the weeds. Maybe even especially if they are in the weeds.

Once i was working with a cook who, in the middle of the dinner rush, sliced is hand open - a cut both deep and wide, pouring blood. No bandage we had was going to be a solution for it.

So he popped a latex glove on that hand, triple wrapped a rubber band around his wrist to keep the blood in, washed with soap, and went right back to cooking.

Because it was the dinner rush and no one else could do the job, and he wasn't coming off that line.

30 minutes in he had to swap gloves because it had filled with blood like a water balloon and was making it hard to cook. Leaving the line was never even a question.

that's the pride

#He went to the emergency room after his shift and came in to work two days later all stitched up and ready to kick more ass in the kitchen #same cook use to pop out back during a rush and power hit an american spirit #if you don't know american spirits are notoriously long lasting cigarets #and power hitting means smoking the whole cig in one long breath #that was my first restaurant job washing dishes there #wild experiences in restaurants absolutely wild

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labvet · 6 months ago

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THIS IS A LONG POST BUT BEAR WITH ME IT’S IMPORTANT!!!!

I want to talk about something, and I’m going to start with something one of my professors shared on Facebook.

“The Silent Crisis That Could Shatter U.S. Public Health & Food Security

What if your grocery store suddenly ran out of meat, eggs and milk? What if a mysterious, untreatable infectionstarted spreading through hospitals? What if a deadly virus jumped from animals to humans, triggering a pandemic even worse than COVID-19—and no one saw it coming?

This isn't fear-mongering. It's what could happen if federal veterinarians start leaving their jobs in droves due to political instability and workforce cuts.

Veterinarians working for agencies like the @usdagov, @fda , and @cdcgov are the first line of defense against foodborne illnesses, zoonotic diseases, and agricultural disasters. They keep our meat and dairy safe, stop outbreaks of rabies, mad cow disease, and avian flu, and ensure that deadly viruses like African swine fever (ASF) don’t wipe out entire industries.

But if federal hiring freezes, layoffs, and policy shifts force them out, who will protect us?

- African Swine Fever could collapse the $20B pork industry, causing mass food shortages. Don't believe it? Ask Heather Fowler

- Bird flu could mutate and spark a pandemic like the Spanish Flu of 1918

- Rabies, brucellosis, and Q fever could spread unchecked, infecting thousands

Food Shortages, Economic Collapse, and National Security Risks

- The loss of federal veterinarians wouldn’t just lead to disease outbreaks—it would trigger a nationwide food crisis.

- Meat, dairy, and eggs could become dangerous to consume without proper safety inspections.

- Grocery prices would skyrocket, putting nutritious food out of reach for millions.

- International trade could shut down, as other countries refuse to buy U.S. meat and animal products.

- Even the U.S. military relies on veterinarians to keep food safe for deployed troops and care for army animals. Without them, soldiers could get sick from contaminated food, and security dogs could be left untreated.

The loss of these veterinarians wouldn't just be an inconvenience—it would be catastrophic for public health, food security, and the economy.

#Repost @myvetcandy”

These are aspects of vet med that a lot of people don’t think about, and we already have shortages of veterinarians in these departments. I can’t tell you the number of times I (and my peers) had military recruiters reach out to us during school offering to pay for us to finish our degrees if we agreed to join the military for so long afterward. (I even had a classmate actually go through with it who wasn’t already military). Also, the number of USDA vets I have seen begging people to join them. These people play critical roles in keeping us safe.

With the current avian influenza spreading through not only wild and captive bird populations, but cats and cattle and even jumping into humans from cattle, this is more critical to have these people now than ever before! This past year showed the first cattle to human transmission, something we never even thought was possible. Virus can be found in eggs and milk. These are the people in charge of making sure these products are safe to continue on for sale. If the Trump/Musk administration keeps cutting and firing people left and right, it’s only a matter of time before something happens (milk not getting properly pasteurized, sick animals accidentally ending up in line for slaughter, E. coli or Salmonella outbreaks not getting tracked, our troops overseas affected by severe food-borne illnesses, etc.).

So please, contact your senators and representatives. Beg them to stop this madness. Last week, it was a commercial airliner crashing into a Blackhawk helicopter, next month it could be an outbreak of Avian Influenza.

#us politics #vet med #federal veterinarians #federal employees #federal employee layoffs

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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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Charlie Duncan could very well be the oldest man in Georgia. “I’ll be one hundred and six in May,” he said the other day at Benton House, a senior-living facility in the town of Woodstock. With that much mileage, he’s survived a few things, one of them being the stock-market crash of 1929.

Duncan, who still has his hair and his wits, and tooled around behind the wheel of a PT Cruiser until a fender bender last year, was ten years old when the market crashed. At the time, his family had a farm in nearby Hickory Flat. “Cotton, corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes,” he recalled, leaning back in his recliner, beneath a framed certificate from the United Square Dancers of America and a proclamation from the county, which recently designated a Charlie Duncan Day.

“We did O.K. for a while,” he went on. “Daddy got up at four-thirty in the morning seven days a week. When he got up, everybody got up.” He spat in a cup. “I’ve used it since I was eight years old,” he said, referring to his snuff. “My grandmother lived with us, and these two old women told her, ‘That boy’s wormy.’ So she started me on tobacco and I passed those tapeworms. I thought my guts was coming out.”

In October of 1929, Duncan recalled, his world changed: “I didn’t know what a stock was until somebody told me the whole thing crashed or smashed or whatever it was.” He thinks he heard the news from his father—“That’s how we heard most things,” he said. “All of a sudden you couldn’t sell your crops for nothing,” he added. “You couldn’t make fifty cents in a day on a farm, if you could find somebody to hire you, which you couldn’t.”

Duncan had hoped to grow up to be a country doctor. “There wasn’t enough of them around,” he said. “If you had a toothache, he pulled your tooth. A cut? He sewed it up.”

The crash scuttled that dream, and the family moved to a new farm. “Me and my brother drove a team of mules hitched to a two-horse wagon,” Duncan said. They paid for eighty-nine arable acres with cotton: “Two bales was the down payment.” The poor economy had stunted schools, too. “You couldn’t get schoolbooks,” he said. “Then our school burned down. You had to walk several miles to another district.” When he was fifteen, his father pulled him out to work full time. In 1931, the family could only get a penny and a half for a bale of cotton. “You had to pile up so many bales after the Depression hit,” he said. At nineteen, he left home to work on a dairy farm, but the owner accused him of being lazy. “I told him to take the job and shove it up his ass,” Duncan said. The phone rang in his room. He ignored it. “I got forty-five calls one Friday,” he said. “All scams. I got one this morning. It was a woman. I said, ‘What do you want? If you gonna want sex, you got the wrong person. That quit working twenty-five years ago.’ ”

The events of 1929 left Duncan with a sixth-grade education and a life of mostly physical labor. After serving in the Second World War, he worked at mills and as a craftsman who specialized in bannisters for spiral staircases. He married twice: around forty years to each woman. He flipped a few houses and eventually made a little money, which he did not invest in the stock market. “I can’t afford to lose it, because I can’t make no more,” he said. “So I go the safe way: C.D.s.” Asked whether he had any other general life advice, he listed, in no particular order, good sex, fresh vegetables, the occasional Coors Light, and water aerobics, which he did three times a week until his hips gave out last year.

A friend arrived to take him to lunch at a biker bar, whose wall holds a framed photo of Duncan with Rudolph Giuliani, who tracked him down for a preëlection photo op in 2024. (“He said hello, he smiled, then he left,” Duncan recalled, with a shrug.)

Back at Benton House, Mariam Bailey, who is a hundred and six, sat down to lunch. She was born near Pittsburgh, the daughter of a minister. The Depression hit the congregation hard. “We just took the fall as it came and did the best we could do,” she said.

What was her advice if the market kept dropping, as in 1929?

“Just hold on,” she said. “Life is full of ups and downs.” The soup arrived. Bailey narrowed her eyes and took a look. “Cream of something,” she said. ♦

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alaskan-wallflower · 1 year ago

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darry headcanons

h...please.....

Of course!!

tw for suicide mention at the very end)

He’s a really good woodworker. He used to make tiny wooden figures for his brothers and parents

He was kinda the golden child for a bit-not exactly in a bad way, but he was smart and athletic and he would be the one his parents would brag about

He almost lost it when he heard from Soda that a teacher had been comparing Soda to him. He was livid.

His second job is a daycare worker and a lot of people judge him for it because he’s a man (he has a soft spot for kids

Sometimes when Soda and Pony are arguing he’ll just clunk their heads together

He’s lactose intolerant (Darry can’t have dairy 😞)

He didn’t lay a hand on Pony for a good few months after the book and kinda flinched whenever Pony went to hug him because he was terrified of hurting him

He actively makes an effort to listen more to Pony after the book

The reason Darry and Paul fell off was because after their parents died Paul thought it would be funny to prank Darry by waiting at the train tracks with flashlights with a few other people and they held flashlights up to look like train lights (Pont and Soda were with him) and Darry nearly cracked into a ditch.

Hes a dog person and lowkey kinda wants a german shepherd or something

The reason he started going to the gym was because he kinda had a rebellious teenage phase and he realized he was just kinda angry and he wanted to work it out

Darry was actually really popular in school and he keeps his Bou of the Year award (and was honestly probably voted prom king too)

He’s REALLY good at singing country songs (Brent Comer I see you!

When he read Pony’s recollection of him he nearly had a breakdown because he realized how stoic and hard he seemed

He hates being called Darrel because that was his father and hearing it reminds him of his father and it upsets him to no end

He takes the longest showers, like half the time he just stands there and thinks

When he first got into working out he had extreme body dysmorphia and constantly tracked what he ate. Pony and Soda had to help him out of it after their parents died

He has a kinda hefty accent especially when he’s upset

He often thinks Pony and Soda would be better without him and this led to very…bad thoughts.

The only way to really break him is by giving him a big hug and he’ll just break down.

Hell subconsciously clutch his brothers’ hands when he feels like they’re in danger because he’s scared he’s gonna lose them

He often skipped meals in favor of Pony and Soda and only stopped when he passed out on the roof he was working on and broke his arm

His dad taught him to play guitar and he could play it really well actually. He stopped when their parents died because it hurt too much.

He cries himself to sleep a lot tbh-his brothers only found out because they were cuddle piling him and he just started crying because he thought they were asleep. They don’t let him be alone at night after that.

Pony was valedictorian and he was so incredibly happy for him and cried at his speech because he mentioned how much he needed to thank Darry for his success (Pony also got a buttload of scholarships and Darry was beyond the moon)

Hes really good at fishing because he went with his dad a lot

He kills them with his bare hands though. He literally punches its skull in.

He had a high school sweetheart actually but they broke up when his parents died (it was a clean one though)

He sleeps on his back and then wonders why it hurts so bad

He loves getting his back rubbed honestly. Someone should take him to a chiropractor

He cracks his knuckles a lot

His eyes are fucking scary like catch him in the sunlight and it’s like when a cat is in the dark and gets a flashlight in their eyes

He started drinking beer after his parents died. Then he kinda turned to harder stuff. He was quick to shut it down honestly.

He gets hangry. Like he will snap at just about anyone and anything

Hes tried to off himself once. Long and Soda caught him evacsue he was drunk off his ass and missed and they were absolutely horrified

Thanks for the ask!! Hope you like the angsty ones!

#darry curtis #the outsiders

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gentlebilady · 1 year ago

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I Heard That There's a Special Place (Harringrove Pink Pony fic part 4)

Steve smiled tightly at the manager of the Dairy Queen, nodding his head, before ducking out the front door. Rejection number four. Rejection number four today. He’d lost track of the amount of No’s he’d received, not to mention that number of applications he’d submitted and hadn’t heard back on. He didn’t understand. He had work experience, he had a high school degree, he was a personable and friendly guy! He sighed, dejected, tired, hungry. It was Wednesday – the next day would make it a week he’d been in California. He had only paid at the motel for a week. He decided to take a break for the day – it was 3:00 pm. He’d head back to the motel, maybe talk to Sherri for a bit if she was free, pay for another week, and rethink his strategy.

He parked in his parking spot on the back of the building, grabbed the bag of day old pastries he’d picked up from his new favorite bakery (he’d applied there Monday, and during his impromptu interview the manager had offered him a Danish – Steve was a new life-long devotee), and headed to the lobby. It was empty, strains of the Beach Boys coming from a hidden radio.

“Sherri?”

“Just a sec!”

A moment later she wandered out from the back.

“Hello, Steven! How was it?” He grimaced. “Well, damn.”

He held up the bag of mixed pastries.

“Coffee?”

“Just started a pot. Only be a few minutes.”

Steve nodded, placed the bag on the counter.

“Be right back.”

He headed to his room, quickly changing out of his Job Search Suit and into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved polo, before heading back up front. Sherri was already sitting in one of the chairs, two mugs on the table, and the pastries arranged on a plate.

He sat down, taking his mug with a sigh and a smile, grabbing the apple strudel from the plate.

“Am I too old?” Sherri laughed outright. “I’m serious!”

She looked at him, really seemed to analyze him, a smile in her eyes.

“Well, hon, are you applying for jobs too young for you?”

Steve wasn’t sure he understood the question; apparently, Sherri could tell.

“You’re not too old, Steven. But a lot of these places are specifically looking for college students.”

“What?! Why? Don’t they want someone with experience?”

“I don’t know, hon.” Her lips screwed up ruefully. That took the wind out of his indignation. He blew air through his lips.

“So, how do I know what jobs will hire me?”

“If I figure that out, I’ll let you know.” She took a bite of a guava pastry. “Maybe just start by looking at jobs you might not normally consider.”

Steve didn’t know what that would be, but he nodded his head, lost in thought. The Mama’s and the Papa’s came on, and Sherri hummed along, her eyes closed, mug in her hand.

While I’m far away from you, my baby

Whisper a little, prayer for me, my baby

Steve stood up to grab the pile of papers from the counter – he hadn’t checked today’s yet, having gotten straight on the road after getting up this morning, a list of businesses from the day before he was still working on. He brought them back to the chair, drinking his coffee as he checked the Wanted Ads. He looked for something different, jobs he wouldn’t give a second glance. Most of them required certifications or degrees he didn’t have. Many of them he’d already applied to. He started again, going back to the beginning of the page, and tried to look at each listing with a fresh eye.

Comics/Records/Books.

Steve had initially skipped over it for a few reasons: he wasn’t really a reader, he didn’t have a record player, and his dad had always said reading comics “crafted an inferior mind”. Well, his dad wasn’t here now, and Steve was getting worried he was unhirable. So he jotted down the name and address. He found a few other possibilities – a veterinary clinic looking for a receptionist and a bakery asking for an opener. He looked through everything a third time, just to be sure he wasn’t missing any potentials, but nothing else seemed remotely possible. He set the paper down, leaning back in the chair and taking a deep drink of his coffee – it was losing heat and he did not want to be drinking hot coffee gone cold.

“What’d you find?” Sherri peered at him, a second pastry in her hand, coffee mug empty on the table.

“Book store, veterinary clinic, bakery.”

“You sound disappointed.”

Steve sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair, pulling on it slightly – he was getting a headache.

“That’s only three.”

“Well, that’s three more than you had 20 minutes ago. That’ll keep you busy for a few hours tomorrow, and by then another paper will have come out with new ads.” She nudged the plate toward him, one pastry left on it. Steve smiled and shook his head.

“I think I need some real food.”

“Well, we’re having spaghetti tonight, would you like to join?”

Steve blanked – he hadn’t expected that. Sherri had been kind to him this past week (exceedingly kind), but he’d started thinking of her as a land lady, and, yes, he had no experience with that sort of relationship, but he had assumed there would be a certain amount of distance (coffee and pastry aside). His brain caught on spaghetti. Damn, that sounded good. He’d been eating mostly fast food, supplementing with whatever could fit in the tiny fridge in his motel room.

“Thank you. I would like that.”

Sherri smiled and said she’d come get him at the end of her shift. She produced the bag that the pastries has been in and slid the remaining bear claw back into it, handing that to Steve. Then she headed to the back, plate and mugs in hand.

Steve sat a few moments after she’d disappeared, feeling a little at a loss. He had about an hour to kill and wasn’t sure what he should be doing. Pastry in hand, he headed to his room, wondering if he needed to bring anything to dinner tonight. Beer? Wine? He wasn’t sure if Sherri drank. He got into his room, mind on dinner, and tripped over a pair of jeans. Were those dirty? He stared at them, unable to remember when he’d worn them. He looked around, startled by how messy the room was. It made the room feel small and close (well, smaller than it already was). He had never been a neat freak but he appreciated a tidy living space. He picked up the clothes strewn around the room, thinking he’d need to wash them soon. Then he had a moment of panic, wondering how he was supposed to wash them. Where would he find a washer and dryer? He’d have to ask Sherri. He looked around for something to put the pile of dirty clothes in and came up with nothing, so he dropped them in the chair by the window. Then he went to the counter and sink outside the bathroom and straightened up the few items there – hair products, mostly, some underwear and socks he’d missed on the floor.

Steve surveyed the room, hands on hips, feeling a little pleasure well up in him, then glanced at the clock. All that cleaning had taken ten whole minutes. His smile melted off his face.

“What the hell?” he whispered to himself.

He decided to take a shower. He took his time, leisurely washing his hair, letting the conditioner sit a little longer than usual, trying to relax and unwind; then he panicked that maybe he’d taken too long, and that Sherri was knocking on the door and he couldn’t hear her and she was gonna leave without him.

Steve stuck his head out of the shower, trying to listen for distant knocks; he even opened the bathroom door (the room was very small), focusing closely, but he didn’t hear anything. That didn’t mean she hadn’t already left. He hurriedly rinsed his hair, washed his face and body quickly (and less than thoroughly), and tripped out of the tub, pulling the curtain off a few rungs. He ran out of the bathroom wrapping a towel around his waist, eyes shooting to the clock-radio on the bed side table. 4:30. He hadn’t even been in the shower for ten minutes, Sherri wouldn’t been showing up for another half an hour.

“Harrington, seriously, get a god damn grip, man.” Steve shook his head out, then went to the drawers to find some clean clothes. Oh. Damn. He did need to do some laundry. He put on his last pair of clean boxers (guess he’d be skipping the shower in the morning), the jeans he’d been wearing earlier, and a (different) long-sleeved polo. He reapplied antiperspirant and spritzed some cologne before styling his hair.

A knock came at the door. The clock said 5:05. Steve’s brow scrunched.

“What?!” It did not take him over half an hour to get ready. Did it? The knock came again.

“Coming!” He grabbed his wallet and keys and opened the door, Sherri waiting on the other side with a tote bag, a colorful, nubby looking cardigan on he hadn’t noticed earlier. He smiled at her.

“Come on then, Steven. I’m starving.”

He checked that he had the room key before closing the door behind him and following her out into the evening.

#I LEARNED HOW TO ADD A READ MORE LINK #HAHAHA #UNSTOPPABLE #harringrove #steve harrington #my fic #stranger things #i heard that there's a special place

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thatzenithnerd · 3 months ago

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Zoom: The Second Coming

Chapter 1: Casting Call

Dylan West

Dylan was typecast from a young age. Even as a young boy, he was nonchalant and as cool as a cucumber. But not in the way that made boys popular. In the way that told everyone he wasn’t going anywhere with his life.

As an adolescent, Dylan liked to do just about anything but prepare for his future. He didn’t have many friends because everyone who met him eventually realized he was as cool and mysterious as he seemed from afar. He didn’t date – girls didn’t typically go for guys who had no drive. He didn’t enjoy school, hardly enjoyed his job, didn’t even really have many hobbies.

He skateboarded, he played video games, he didn’t party, wasn’t keen on much of any kind of sport. His parents resented him for all of it. His mother was nice enough but couldn’t be bothered to stick around when some wealthy man showed her some attention and whisked her away. To this day, Dylan wasn’t sure if his parents were even divorced or not. But she certainly wasn’t around.

His father wasn’t abusive, he wasn’t violent, he didn’t even have a temper. But he was not kind. And he was at his wits end with a son that he couldn’t relate to. Dylan’s father owned his own blue-collar company and had worked damn hard his entire life. He was under the impression that Dylan should be following in his footsteps and getting his hands dirty or at least working towards some kind of apprenticeship, but the boy had never been very good with that kind of labour.

So, he wasn’t violent, he never raised a hand, hardly even yelled, but he did drink. He drank every day after work to the point of oblivion. And Dylan may have looked twenty-two, but he was still a kid. There were a few instances when he wound up in foster care over it. Never for longer than a weekend, but it still made growing up rather difficult.

And by the time his son turned seventeen, Dylan’s father was at his wits end. He hadn’t applied for any colleges, was barely on track to graduate, and did nothing in terms of work other than deliver pizzas for a little joint on the corner by their house. At this rate, the kid would never leave and go get his life together.

So, his father told him that as soon as he graduated high school, he was out. Gone. On his own. Dylan was never sure if that threat was actually going to be held to him or not, but it was enough to scare him. He spent every day of his life scared, but never did anything about it. He was waiting for something, he supposed.

Wasn’t there more out there for someone like him? Someone who could literally turn himself invisible at his own whim – much to the displeasure of his father and teachers. Surely there was a life out there waiting for him, Dylan just didn’t know where to find it. So, he kicked his feet back, struggled through the last bit of his adolescence, and waited for it.

Summer Jones

Summer was beautiful. She had long auburn hair, big brown eyes, features that didn’t require a lick of makeup, she was gorgeous. But she was a farm girl. Born in one of the smallest towns that Oklahoma has to offer, the poor girl didn’t stand a chance. Mainly because there was no high school in her town, so she had to commute to the city when she entered her freshman year.

And before, she had been happy being the girl who felt things. The girl who could move things with her mind. The girl who worked on her parents dairy farm and out in the wheat fields. The girl who could drive tractors and combines and freckled out in the hot sun in a pair of her favourite overalls.

In the city, she was the weird girl. The one who smelled like hay and always had a bit of mud on her clothes. Her astute sixth sense did not make her cool or in tune with nature, it made her a freak. She was always looking at people too long, waiting for some kind of aha moment to hit her. And it outcasted her almost instantly when the cheerleaders got ahold of her. They hated her. Probably just jealous that despite coming from nowhere and being nothing but a weird farmgirl, she still managed to turn all the boys’ heads with her undeniable looks.

Summer was itching to leave that life behind. She couldn’t wait for graduate. She had a plan. Somewhere semi-Ivy League was calling her name, and she had the grades to back herself up. She’d always been interested in psychology, especially when her special abilities started to really progress. She wanted to know why she was the way that she was.

More importantly, her powers gave her an instinct about certain things and people, they didn’t tell her everything. Psychology could. Her parents were urging her towards a degree in agricultural engineering so that one day she could take over the farm, but she had plenty of younger siblings who could do that instead.

Every time they pushed her, she held firm to the fact that she wanted to study the mind. To figure out why she was born the way that she was. Eventually, this caused a rift between her and them.

The rest of her family was perfectly normal. Kids who did what they were told, parents who wanted things to be a certain way, and Summer. The eldest. The one who could not be tamed, the one who could not be corralled. The one that scared them.

Her parents didn’t understand what her parents meant or just how dangerous it made her, and that prevented them from getting too close. They wished that there was some kind of daycare for kids with superpowers. That would really take the weight off their shoulders.

As much as she loved the farm, Summer couldn’t wait to never have to see it again.

Tucker Williams

By all means, Tucker should have had a fantastic childhood. He was born to a very wealth family. They had a big house in Pennsylvania with a boat and all sorts of toys and anything they wanted, really.

When he turned ten, his parents separated. It wasn’t an easy separation by no means. There was a big legal fight, the kids got pulled into it, they were forced to choose between their parents and take the stand to testify. Divorce was never pretty when that much money was involved. Tucker might have fared better if the only sibling he had wasn’t a brother three years his senior who was living in Germany as an exchange student and never home to deal with any of it.

Tucker no longer saw his father, who he had been coerced into testifying against. And his mother was never home. With more money than she knew what to do with, she went out almost every night spending it all with her friends. Jetting off on luxury vacations, spending the nights in random hotels, endless shopping trips.

The poor kid was left alone with a credit card and nothing else. He started using that credit card to order in just about every one of his meals and eat away every one of his feelings. Tucker was filled with rage. Sadness. Infuriation as he mourned the childhood and the family that had been ripped way from him.

Before long, he was the biggest kid in his school. His close friends never said anything about it, but the class bullies sure did. Every taunting nickname in the book had been thrown at him by the end of fifth grade, and Tucker could no longer recognize himself in the mirror.

He was young, he had always been athletic, he loved sports, enjoyed the outdoors, and now all he did was sit at home, play video games, eat, and try not to think about the way that he was feeling. If his physical state wasn’t already worrisome enough, his mental state would have been enough to raise the eyebrows of even the most inexperienced of psychiatrists.

Of course, when it was already all compounding is when Tucker started to realize he could do some pretty incredible things. It started by accident. He sneezed one day his left hand blew up when he went to cover her mouth. Not blew up as in exploded, but blew up as in inflated to at least three times the size that it should have been.

He started to experiment. Sometimes it was his hands, other times his feet, an elbow, sometimes he could even get his entire head to do it. But it was always at fate’s whim. He couldn’t control any of it, especially not when his emotions were running rampant. This made for some pretty embarrassing situations that he could not explain away for the life of him.

By the time he entered seventh grade, Tucker Williams accepted that he would always be the freaky fat kid with no friends whose body sometimes randomly inflated without any warning.

Cindy Collins

Cindy couldn’t remember her father. He left when she was hardly a toddler. She remembers that he used to call her princess and that he always spoiled her with gifts, but that was all. Couldn’t even place his face. She hadn’t seen him since the day that he left.

Her mother, being the sole provider for herself and Cindy, got down to business as soon as she realized she had to. She worked as an administrative assistant for some fancy law office in Spokane and hardly had time to think for herself, let alone be an attentive mother.

Her and Cindy loved each other, but there was never enough time. It got better when she married Cindy’s stepdad, who quickly began to cultivate a father-daughter relationship with the girl, but he worked too. Everything changed when Cindy began exhibiting her powers. Nobody knew what to do.

It would be one thing if she was capable of doing harmlessly unmentionable things, but Cindy’s abilities were dangerous. She was just a young girl. She was still learning right from wrong and how to control her temper. And when she could quite literally rip a telephone pole out of the ground, there was little anyone could to do “babyproof” the world.

Her mother grew exhausted quickly, and started snapping at Cindy whenever she used any of her powers. Her stepdad tried to help, but was at a substantial loss. To anyone else, Cindy was a treat. She was a sweet little girl with a head of beautiful blonde curls who loved to dress up in costumes that were always pink. She carried around a teddy bear and tried her best to be polite, but hadn’t been taught the best of manners.

She said whatever she thought, and at times, she did whatever she wanted. And to her mother, she was a terror. A terror whom she loved with all her heart.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 – 3:30pm

Dr. Grant was left with little choice. There was a situation unfolding before his very eyes. One that neither him nor his team at Area 52 in the Special Projects department could look away from. The kind of problem that required a solution, no matter who wound up kicking and screaming.

They needed a hero.

And in reality, it hadn’t been an easy idea to bring to the table.

The Zenith Program was supposed to be a long-term reinstatement. In the years to come, there were plans to renovate the facility into a more livable space before a team could be brought in, and they would be based entirely out of the installation as a residency. There was still much work to be done, but they had officially run out of time.

“I told you not to call me unless the world was going to end,” General Larraby grumbled once he reached the classified tech lab earlier that day, unimpressed.

“I don’t know about the world ending,” Dr. Grant explained, leading him towards a screen that highlighted certain facts. “But we tracked a pan-dimensional anomaly that seems to be moving towards our time-space continuum.”

“Dr. Grant,” Larraby clenched his jaw together, all he wanted was facts. “I speak Greek, not geek,” he was demanding some laymen’s terms.

“Let me put it this way,” Grant continued. “Concussion is still alive, and he’s coming back.”

All at once, Larraby was shocked and yet not surprised at all. It had been a shot in the dark, way back when, as Concussion was banished by Zoom’s vortex. They didn’t know if that meant Concussion was dead or just trapped between universes. They didn’t know if that meant he would be stuck in limbo infinitely, or if one day he’d be spat back out into their world.

“He was destroyed,” Larraby insisted, hoping that there had been a mistake made in whatever calculations had led to this conclusion.

Grant began to nod his head. He could remember it clear as day, watching that vortex close in on what was once a sweet, promising, gentle young man.

“Nope,” he said oxymoronically.

“We were there, we both saw it,” Larraby insisted, and Grant once again began to nod, used to agreeing with the general.

“Nope.”

The screen showed that they had twelve days and counting until the portal opened, and as of now it was set to do so in Long Beach, California. If there was one thing they knew about that city, it was who exactly resided there. They’d always attempted to keep close tabs on that man.

They couldn’t have a pan-dimensional portal open up in the middle of a busy city. They’d have to alter it’s course somewhere more manageable – like the middle of nowhere, Death Valley. Then of course, once it opened, they’d need the proper team of individuals to deal with whatever it spat out.

Larraby knew what had to be done, and he was almost confident giving the order. He knew that Grant and Holloway had been perfecting the program for the last decade or so, they should have been perfectly qualified to make this work, even if it was a little out of the blue.

“The time has come,” he nodded certainly, confident that there was but one last option for them. “I’m reactivating the Zenith Program once and for all.”

Grant’s eyes widened upon hearing such a notion. He would admit, it had crossed his own mind when he realized that Concussion was on his way back, and likely with a vengeance, after he realized that the only people that could possibly save Concussion was another Zenith Team.

“Find me some kids,” Larraby began to explain, calling back to the late seventies when they were scouting around for members for the original team. “Misfits, outcasts, weirdos,” he rambled on, but Grant knew the drill.

He’d created a specialized team hired solely for the purpose of monitoring civilians in this county who were showing risk factors for possessing abilities beyond normal standards. He was certain that him and his team of professionals could get the job done.

Of course, there was one last variable to account for. One that had always been rather uncontrollable. The two gentlemen passed a file between them that contained the information of the only superhero left in America. Captain Zoom, also known as Jack Shepard.

“Zoom’s the only one who can train them,” Larraby stated firmly, knowing that no matter how good the team of specialists was here on base, their teaching would pale in comparison to what someone who not only possessed powers, but was once on a Zenith Team himself, could teach them. “Get to Long Beach, find him, evaluate his condition, and bring him back here.”

Grant shook his head knowing exactly how that would go. They’d been monitoring Jack since the army. They watched him go through Naval training, become a captain, and return back to life in California. They watched him try to forget it all. Grant knew the man well enough to understand that he would not be coming back willingly.

“You know he won’t cooperate,” Grant reminded Larraby that Jack had been a rebel with authority issues all his life, and that hadn’t seemed to fade over the years.

If anything, it’s likely only increased tenfold since the incident. Jack had always been the kind of person who bit the hand that feeds.

Even on the Navy, it was reported that Jack was an irreplaceable asset – quick on his feet, willing to do whatever it took – but he did not operate well under any authority figure. It got to the point where they were forced to promote him to Captain. While they should not have rewarded his rebellious, unyielding behaviour, they did not want to lose someone like him.

Larraby put his peaked cap back on, nobody had the luxury of refusal in the here and now.

“You won a Nobel Prize, doctor,” he reminded the tall scientist beside him, who had indeed taken home the prize for his work in biomolecular research back in 1982. “You’ll think of something.”

4:00pm

Dr. Grant was still busy thinking of something when he decided to pass the file along to his second in command. It was more of an honorary title as the woman was far more than just a member of the Special Projects team around here, but she was the first person that Grant would naturally turn to.

She was the kind of woman who was always busy. She had patients here at the facility – being the in-house shrink – as well as a plethora of research, lab reports, analysis, and filing that came with being the head of psychology and a research scientist. But when Dr. Grant showed up with that file, she may as well have swept everything else off her desk. It was all that mattered to her.

Marsha Holloway had plenty of lifelong dreams. She wanted to leave South Carolina, she wanted to win a Nobel Prize, she wanted to find true love and get married, she wanted to meet her hero Captain Zoom, she wanted to have children, she wanted to become renowned in her field. Plenty more, if she was being honest.

Now with forty breathing down her back from two and a half years away, Marsha often went over that list in her mind. She left South Carolina and rarely looked back twenty years ago now. She won her Nobel Prize back in 2000. She had found true love a few times and got close to a wedding but never close enough – still waiting on that one. She may not have met Captain Zoom, but she still had all his comic books – her collection now even bigger than it was when she was a kid.

About ten years ago her doctor informed her that biological children were out of the picture, but Marsha hadn’t given up hope yet. Maybe there would be a miracle. When she was thirty-five, she looked into adoption, but was told that she wouldn’t be a suitable candidate due to her work. For the time begin, she settled for being her nieces and nephews favourite – if not a little flighty and absent – aunt.

But she certainly was renowned. Universities across the country quoted her research, begged her for guest lectures, offered her jobs. With a background in the school district and the Pentagon under her belt, she would always be in high demand. But Area 52 and the Zenith Project had her heart. Her life’s work. Well, hers and Dr. Grant’s, of course.

And of all the dreams that she held so firmly in her head, she always figured that the most out of reach would be ever getting to meet Captain Zoom. His identity was confidential, his alias protected, he lived completely retired and uncontacted. She wouldn’t even know it was him if she ran right into him on the streets one day. Marsha had been told time and time again that he would never return to Area 52 on his own accord, and she had to take them all at their word.

But today on this the twelfth of April, that dream of hers took a tentative step closer to her reach.

She and Dr. Grant had been working on the Zenith Program for nine years now, ever since she’d been recruited to Area 52. Initially, she’d just been brought on as a research advisor for the program, but it quickly became apparent that she was going to be an asset in many areas, and by now, she was not only the leading metahuman psychophysiology research scientist, she was the head psychologist, the base psychiatrist, and second in command to all things Special Projects.

She’d been a fan of the Captain Zoom comics since she was a kid, she’d always loved the idea of the Zenith Program and Area 52 providing a safe place where gifted children could foster their abilities. She was fascinated by the concept and had devoted her life to the study of metahuman motor functions as well as their psychological effects. When she found out that a reinstatement of the Zenith Program was in the making and that she would get to be a part of it, she was ecstatic. It was everything she wanted her whole life. Everything she worked towards. Everything her parents told her she should not bother pursuing.

And despite her heart living with psychology in any of its realms, the Zenith Program was her real passion. And up until now, they were working rather leisurely, so that they could perfect the project before ever daring to actually put things in motion. Sometimes she wondered if she would even see the actualization of the program in her lifetime, but she was just glad to be involved at all.

The plan was always to reinstate the program. Ever since the original team fell apart so disastrously, they were planning on trying again. Projections always said the same thing – sometime around 2010 is when they would finally be equipped to bring in another team. Marsha had no plans on leaving, and she worked towards that day sometimes forgetting to live in her current life.

It came out of nowhere, when Dr. Grant showed up in her office with that file and told her that they had set a date for the official reinstallation. Four days from now. Four.

Marsha felt a little bit underprepared, only because she hadn’t been expecting the news, but more excited than anything. So much so that she failed to consider just how suspicious it was that suddenly they were ready to begin a new era of the Zenith Program when previously they projected that it would take at least four more years.

Perhaps her mind would have taken over and she would have begun to question this had Dr. Grant not then revealed that they would be bringing in Captain Zoom himself as head trainer to the team. Then, Marsha nearly fainted.

That had always been out of the question. Any time that she’d even dared to mention his name, Dr. Grant had shut down the notion before she could build up any high hopes. She figured that he’d done his time, and retirement was his only option. However, Marsha tended to bring him into question because the last psychological evaluation of Captain Zoom had never sat well with her, and she was quite certain that with the right rehabilitation, his powers might return. In fact, he might be out there right now living with these powers and doing nothing with them.

Whatever the case may be, she always assumed that up until now, Captain Zoom’s role and presence at Area 52 was solely in the past. To hear that they would be bringing him in to work with her on the project of her dreams was music to her ears. Her eyes widened and she began to rattle off a million questions before Grant could shut her down and promise that they’d reconvene in the morning with the entire Special Projects team to get the facts straight.

He was her hero. He always had been. In a literal sense, he was her favourite superhero. The main inspiration of her childhood, the role model that she looked up to when she was growing up alone and weird, the only superhero she managed to relate to. Not to mention, the only one that actually existed. Those comics were based on true events.

She was beyond excited to even meet him let alone get to work alongside such a hero. Marsha could hardly contain herself as the anticipation filled her body. He was a great man, such a great, great man. This could only mean good things. With his expert help, the team they would form had no choice but to be unstoppable. And she was going to be his partner in the whole thing. Co-trainer. It was like something out of her wildest adolescent dreams.

In fact, it made everything feel okay. Every loss, every bout of grief, every time her life took a running leap backwards or served up heartbreak on a silver platter, it was all in order to get to this moment. This place in time. It was all for something. She may still be an orphan, she may still have to hide her own powers, she may have struggled through abuse and poverty and loss of too many loved ones, but she was about to live a dream come true. Suddenly, she wouldn’t change a thing.

Before parting ways, Grant left Captain Zoom’s file with Marsha so that she could be sated in some way, knowing that she would want to approach this new endeavour as researched as could be. And in no time at all Marsha was holed up in her office, scouring the entire file for any kind of useful information. His stats, scans, tests, essays, evaluations, anything, and everything. She’d read through his entrance recommendation from a Dr. Gordon Webb, and picked it apart.

“Jack Shepard,” it began. “I recently began a psychiatric evaluation of potential Zenith Program candidate Shepard. His case is of great concern to me. He appears to have extraordinary abilities of speed. These abilities would be of great use to the program.”

Marsha nodded her head. It was a little on the nose, but she read on.

“The ability of speed translates into all areas of Mr. Shepard’s life. He possesses a great fondness for all things fast – fast cars, fast service, fast food, etc.” And fast women, from what Marsha had been told, but tried not to dwell on it. “After numerous tests, Mr. Shepard has proven to be able to control his ability to within mere nanoseconds. With further testing and training, Mr. Shepard’s abilities could be enhanced, and he may be able to reach speeds up to that of light.”

She scribbled that down on a notepad, but didn’t think too much of it. They’d said such a thing for years, but Zoom had never managed to break any laws of physics. However, if somebody could break the speed of light here on earth, it would mean wondrous things for those interested in the concept of time travel.

“However, the fact remains that Mr. Shepard tends to be a little more rebellious than the other candidates, and the fact that he and his sibling would become team members together might help to reduce his rebellious nature.”

Marsha raised an eyebrow and thought of Concussion. The world did not know that him and Jack were brothers, but everyone at Area 52 did. Marsha could relate to the tragic former hero forever struck down in his prime. She had always been the polite, good-natured little girl that got sat with the troublemakers in class by the teachers hoping she could be a good influence on the rebels. She wishes that she’d gotten the opportunity to meet Concussion, she thought that they would have gotten on well. One dream at a time, Marsha reminded herself.

“It is my recommendation that this candidate be entered into the Zenith Program. His abilities are exemplary and will be of great use for our cause. Yours faithfully, Dr. Webb.”

For the rest of the night, Marsha went back through that file dozens of times. She wanted to know everything possible about the man that she was about to meet and work with, she didn’t want any surprises. Frankly, she thought it was a genius idea to get him involved, and she was surprised that it hadn’t been mentioned sooner.

The vast majority of information on Captain Zoom was gathered in the past. He had spent 8 years at Area 52 on the Zenith Team working with Dr. Grant and the former General Baird and his second Lieutenant Kristoff. Even Larraby was up and coming at the time, though a mere Major.

But Marsha had already done her own research on those days. It was all part of her first project at Area 52 when she worked tooth and nail to appeal that radiation be outlawed from the Zenith Program. With her research proving that latent abilities can be enhanced better through natural and psychological training, General Larraby reluctantly promised that no Gamma-13 would be worked with ever again. She was naïve enough to think that he was telling the truth without any caveat.

What she really wanted to know was what Captain Zoom was like now. Jack Shepard, his name was. That’s who he had been for the last two decades, anyways. Marsha wanted to know who the man behind the hero was, because that’s who she was going to be working with. But the file did not say much. The man was elusive, or so it seemed.

After the Zenith Program, Jack enlisted in the military and went on to serve in the navy. He made captain and lead fleets for a few years before retiring to Long Beach where he opened up and operated an autobody shop. He participated in a classic car show downtown every year. Still cashed in royalties from the comic books.

Jack did not have a large family. His father passed in Reno, Nevada while Jack was busy out on the ocean. The file mentioned that there had been no contact between him and his father for years before his death. His mother owned a large vineyard in Sacramento and his sister lived with her family in San Fransico. There was no mention of extended family.

Marsha really did not have much to go off of, which worried her. She liked to be as prepared as possible, and she really wanted to impress this particular man with her preparation. She desperately wanted him to like her, to respect her, to enjoy working alongside her. Not only because their professional chemistry and cohesion would be vital to the success of the new team, but because he was her hero. If he didn’t like her, it might be the final straw that snapped and drove her to madness.

Sunday, April 16, 2006 – 8:15pm

Dr. Ed Grant had been thinking of something for the past four days now.

The Special Projects team had spent the last five days scouting candidates, preparing their labs, amalgamating their research, bringing in training material, setting up living quarters, getting everything ready for the implementation of a new and improved Zenith Team. Dr. Grant and Miss Holloway were overseeing everything, of course, and with everything that needed to be done, Grant hadn’t much time to waste on planning how they would recruit Zoom.

They couldn’t just barge in, who knows what would happen. The man might spend every second of every day armed, just waiting to fend off the government when they inevitably came knocking. Dr. Grant wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Knowing Jack and his paranoia, he had been expecting them for the past twenty years.

They were going to have to catch him off guard, render him unprepared, give him the opportunity to join them willingly, or take him back using whatever means necessary. Grant and Jack were old friends, he certainly didn’t want to burn any bridges in doing so, but he would do what needed to be done. If Jack was going to be brought back to Area 52, he was going to need to trust somebody. He never liked Larraby, refused to respect anyone with authority, Grant could only imagine what he might think of somebody like Marsha, so it was going to have to be him.

But their time had run out. Tomorrow morning was the first day of the reinstallation. In a perfect world, Jack would already be here by now so that he could contribute to the preparation process. But Grant knew it would be that easy. They were going to have to strike like snakes in tall grass. He simply couldn’t think of a rouse good enough.

What did he remember about Jack? He liked cars. He could come in pretending to be interested in buying a car. That wouldn’t work – it was an autobody, not a dealership. He liked sports. What, Grant was just going to show up to ask if he wanted to go to some game after twenty years? He would see right through that.

Grant had been brainstorming to no avail that night as he interrupted Marsha, who had been trying to enjoy a hot tea. They stood together at the back kitchenette in one of the smaller staff rooms after a long day of overtime work. With the news about the reinstallation coming on Wednesday, the two of them – and the vast majority of the Special Projects team – decided to keep their noses to the grindstone and work through the weekend in order to prepare for tomorrow morning.

Yet, Grant still did not have a suitable plan. Marsha, in her typical fashion, didn’t see the need in plotting. While Grant appeared nervous all weekend, she was excited. Yes, there were nerves that came with the great expectations of meeting your lifelong hero, but she was confident that they were getting the best of the best. The cake with the cream, as her mother would have said.

She smiled into her tea, leaning back against the counter and wishing she could put Dr. Grant’s mind at ease. Unlike the mat sitting worriedly before her, Marsha felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa Clause. Positive that he was going to bring her exactly what she wanted tomorrow morning.

“He’s a hero, Grant,” Marsha was saying to him. “If we tell him that a team needs him, I doubt there’ll be too much of a fight.”

Grant gave Marsha an interesting look as he watched her take a sip of her tea, her face never wavering. He wondered how she managed to put so much hope and faith into a man that she’d never even met before, and realized exactly what his late nephew had seen in her all those years ago. There was nothing more irresistible to a man than a woman who believed in him.

The man nearly chuckled to himself as he wondered if he should just send Marsha into Jack’s shop with a comic book to ask for an autograph and then swoop in and take over from there while Jack was too busy basking in the spotlight. But he wasn’t sure if Jack had any interest in being famous anymore – likely not – and he would probably suspect the setup.

“You don’t know him like I do, Marsha,” Grant took a sip of his own beverage – a coffee with two shots of espresso just to keep him going – and the steam fogged up his glasses. “He’s stubborn. He’s arrogant and he doesn’t want anything to do with any of us here.”

They both noticed a bit of loud chatter coming from a nearby table – the only one that was actually occupied at this time of night – and noticed a group of male scientists talking amongst themselves. They must have worked in a different department, neither Grant nor Marsha recognized them.

Grant’s words should have discouraged Marsha, or at least urged her to lower her expectations. But she only smiled instead. She was the kind of person who had to learn everything the hard way.

“You once put so much faith in him that you made him the commander of the most powerful team of people in this county,” she reminded him, refusing to let her optimism waver. “I’m sure he’ll come through when we need him to.”

Marsha reached behind herself for another packet of sugar to add to her tea, it was a little too bitter for her liking. She preferred things to be as pleasant as possible, and that included her tea. While she was doing so, the chatter from the nearby table grew louder. Grant looked again towards the gentlemen who now seemed to be glancing in their direction every now and again.

“We just need the perfect plan,” Grant sighed and leaned against the counter, mimicking the position that Marsha now returned to having gotten her sugar and stirred it into her tea. “We have to catch him off guard, or none of it will work.”

Grant looked sidelong at Marsha and caught another bout of glances from the men at the table, who were somewhere behind her. At first, Grant thought they were looking at him. Now, he knew it had nothing to do with him at all. It became clear as day that they were ogling Marsha.

She had officially clocked out for the night, meaning that she’d discarded the oversized lab coat that drowned out her entire figure earlier, her glasses were sitting on the top of her head rather than covering her pretty face, her hair was loose from the tight bun it had been in while she was working, her allure was on full display. Marsha was a beautiful woman whose attractive physicality was renowned across the facility. Most men were deterred by her personality, but nobody would deny that she was the most beautiful among them. Tonight, she stood slender and graceful under the blueish lights of the staff room with a tight lavender pencil dress showing off her curves and assets.

Initially, Grant grimaced and moved to inconspicuously lead Marsha towards the door so that they could leave the room before she realized she was being gawked at, but the minute that they reached the hallway, he had another idea. It wasn’t one he was proud of, it wasn’t his best work, it was a little degrading, but he remembered one more thing that was irresistible to Jack Shepard. A beautiful woman. Specifically, ones with a pretty face and endless legs.

From what Grant could remember, Jack had always liked blondes, and with Marsha’s long dark brunette hair, she might not originally grab his attention. He hoped that if he put her in an attention-worthy enough dress, her other features might do the heavy lifting. Dr. Grant shook his head, already disgusted with himself. The woman beside him was like a daughter to him.

Looking over at him, Marsha saw the look in the old man’s eyes and stopped whatever casual babbling she was doing as they made their way in the direction of the living sector.

“What?” She interrupted herself, and Grant brought himself to a stop somewhere near the entrance to her room.

“Do you mind if I take a look in your closet?” Grant deadpanned, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.

Marsha lowered her eyebrows in confusion, wondering what on earth he had just come up with that had anything to do with her wardrobe.

“I may have a plan.”

Monday, April 17, 2006 – 8:30am

On a hot, dry, spring day on the West Coast, our true story begins. For some a prologue, for some an epilogue, as Bulgakov would have said.

Jack Shepard’s fight was over. He’d lived through a great war, he’d suffered his pain, he was left with his scars, his story over, his book was closed. That is what he assumed up until today. Call it a new chapter, call it a sequel, call it a second season after a very long hiatus, call it what you will, but it was upon him. Because at forty years old and bitter beyond repair, Jack was about to head back into the fray.

Luckily for him, those twenty years that had passed allowed him to develop a type of resilience against life’s threats, such as a corrupt military installation coming to kidnap him back to his worst nightmare. He had been expecting it for some time now. But Jack knew the government, and he knew that there was no arguing with them. If they came knocking, there wasn’t much he could physically do to stop them. So, he prepared. He made himself numb, cold, and unreachable. That way, if he was ever forced back into an unwanted position, nothing could sneak its way past his defenses and rendered him weak.

Though Jack’s charming and sarcastically quick personality gave him many acquaintances. At any given time, he could find someone to go out with or spend a night in with, but he kept all his relationships shallow and without real meaning. It was smore about convenience than anything. Jack never let a friend get close enough to learn the first real thing about him.

He distanced himself from his family, maintained no close friends, he went out of his way to avoid ever having a relationship that went past physical, and he never had any interest in kids. Himself was the only thing at stake, and lord knows that his self-loathing could overshadow his superiority complex any day. Jack had nothing to lose, he made sure of that after he lost it all. This time would be different. So long as he had nothing that they could use against him, he was untouchable.

It was Monday morning, he was preparing for a long work week, the old Ford in the back of his shop and its debeaded front tire were his biggest worry. He’d had a decent weekend, doing the usual. Friday night he went to the bar with his casual buddies, met a suitable target in a strappy black dress whose name he could no longer remember, went back to her place, and snuck out before the sun came up on Saturday morning. He went back home to the little ranch-style one bedroom house he owned behind his autobody shop, chased away his hangover with a couple coffees and an Aspirin, and welcomed a couple friends later in the day to watch the NBA game over some beers. Sunday, he nursed yet another hangover and made sure everything in the shop was set up for a successful week, and took it easy.

And right now, he was taking a break. It was hot, the shop only had fans and no real air conditioning, they were gearing up for a slow day. He only opened up a half hour ago and his staff was already bored back in the garage as they waited for emergencies to fill up the rest of their day. But more than Jack wanted an emergency to bring in some business, he wanted a milkshake to cool himself down. It was as good a breakfast as any.

Knowing what he knew fifteen minutes later, he might not have ever dared to casually throw a glance out the window to his left. That part is still up for debate.

At first glance, all he’d seen was the colour green. Jack went back to his milkshake. When he realized that it had been a green dress, and that there was in fact more to that dress than just coloured fabric, he jerked his head back towards the window to take a better look.

A beautiful woman stood across the street, looking rather lost. She had long dark chocolate brown hair, sunglasses on her face, black high-heeled shoes, and was wearing a lovely green sundress that did wonders for her figure.

Jack arched an eyebrow. He was a man known to have a type and she wasn’t really it. But this particular streetcorner beauty was undeniable. Blonde or not. Maybe this was the emergency he had been looking for. A beautiful woman with a broken-down car a street over that he could swoop in and save the day for. While his tire jockeys were busy working on the car, she could choose to repay him for his kindness in the storage closet. Then, he could send her on her way and enjoy his milkshake.

Every Monday morning could use an element of pleasure, which is why Jack quickly and instinctually made his way out one of the garage doors, where he leaned in the threshold and watched the green dress walk towards him. He had not seen her up close, but he did see one of the most attractive women in the entire world out there on the street. It didn’t take much further inspection to know that.

What he did not see, was Marsha Holloway take in the scene, mumble a directive into an earpiece, straighten her posture, and put on her game face. Instead, Jack cocked his head and appreciated the way that she walked. With confidence and grace, a subtle sway of the hips that told him she knew exactly what it did for her figure.

It was when Jack thought about how he hoped she walked right up to him so that he could tell if her face was as angelic as her body, that he realized she was about to die.

A nice blue Chevrolet Lumina turned the corner sharply and came speeding right at her, but the woman was already crossing the street and took no notice of the fact that her jaywalking combined with this driver’s recklessness was about to amalgamate to the death of her. Jack maintained his casual lean and pointed in the direction of the vehicle. Surely, she would see it and jump out of the way.

“There’s a car coming, lady,” he shouted easily, expecting to see her flinch backwards so that the car could pass. Instead, she ignored him and kept walking. Maybe she was deaf. Or blind. Or just incredibly stupid.

“Hey, look out!” He shouted a bit louder this time, as the car sped right in front of her, missing her against all odds, but giving her enough of a fright to send her falling to the pavement as the car drove off, the woman crumpled to the ground.

Jack sighed and rolled his eyes, pushing himself off the doorway so that he could jog over to her and get her out of the street. As he approached where her beautiful form lay on the pavement, propped up by her forearms, he felt something growing in the pit of his stomach.

Dread, that’s what it was. His instincts were telling him that something was off. Nonetheless, the woman lying in the street needed his help, and he needed something easy on the eyes. It was a win-win. Maybe they could still take a trip to that storage closet after all. She would need to repay his kindness somehow, wouldn’t she?

The woman appeared to be a bit disoriented, and the sunglasses that were once on her face were now lying on the ground about a foot away. Jack knelt down, handed them back to her, and touched her on the arm.

It was in this moment that Marsha knew they should have hired an actor to play this role.

She’d never been a good liar, let alone a good actor. She had no idea what Grant was thinking by sending her out on her own to lure Jack back into his shop and get his guard down. Grant promised she wouldn’t have to do any talking, now here she was staring at Captain Zoom.

Not only was she face to face with her hero, the man was gently touching her arm. It sent shivers all the way up her body as she felt her heart racing and her breath stopping, all at once. She couldn’t possibly say anything whether Dr. Grant wanted her to or not.

All Marsha could do was stare at him with her wide doe eyes and take it all in, urging herself to say something, anything to avoid blowing her cover. He was handsome, just as she had expected. Didn’t look much like a superhero – a retired one, at that – though. He was handsome in a rugged, blue-collar kind of way. The kind that had never been her type.

She had always been more drawn to quiet intellectuals. Sensitive men. She liked glasses and suits and a clean shave. The man she now stared at had rough, dirty hands from working in the shop, his hair was messy, and he had a tattoo on his bicep. Not that she was looking at his bicep, of course. But despite this being the kind of man that wouldn’t usually turn her head, Marsha could not stop staring into those deep ocean blue eyes.

“Hey, are you okay?” He said with genuine concern, searching the woman’s face for any signs of injury.

He found nothing but a pair of tantalizing pink lips, perfect skin that was dotted with a few freckles likely thanks to the sunny day, and the most beautiful electric blue eyes he’d ever seen.

Her saying nothing reinforced the deaf theory, but Jack chalked her silence up to shock rather than disability. Yes, she was shocked, but not by the car. She was shocked by the man before her. The man whose face she had only ever seen drawn by an illustrator. The man who came with a scent of pine and faint cologne, which was nicer than she would have expected from somebody with grease stains on their pants.

Jack raised his eyebrows, and she realized that he must have spoken. What did he say?

“Yeah,” Marsha whispered, and she could hear her voice trembling as she tried to memorize his face. He looked like the boy from the comic books, all grown up and in the flesh. “Yeah,” she said again, after clearing her throat and fixing her demeanor. She still had a job to do, after all. “I’m fine.”

It was as Jack was helping her back up to her feet that he realized she smelled incredibly nice. In fact, he’d never smelled anything so exquisite. Of course, he knew nothing of women’s perfume scents, so he’d never be able to describe the aroma itself, but he knew that it was positively intoxicating. If she hadn’t just been in a life-threatening situation and was obviously in shock, he really might’ve taken her inside and put the moves on her just to experience the chance to bury his face in her neck and let the scent suffocate him.

Instead, Jack guided her off the street and around the corner into the garage, where she could get out of the sun, and he could fetch her a glass of water or something until she’d shaken off the shock. But he wished that she wasn’t wearing that perfume, it was threatening to prevent him from being a gentleman.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” He asked again once they entered the garage.

The woman seemed dazed. But Jack had seen shock before, and this wasn’t it. She was walking normally, breathing normally, not acting erratic, she was responding to him just fine, the only abnormality in her behaviour was the way in which she was looking at him.

Back on the street, she stared as if she knew him. Like she’d recognized him, or as if she was star struck in some way. Maybe it was love at first sight. He considered this as he held her at arm’s length and walked her into the shock. Maybe it was like a Hallmark movie where time stopped and all that mattered was staring at this person who had just fallen into your life.

That wasn’t it. She was beautiful. Even more beautiful up close than he had imagined when he first saw her from across the road. Hell, Jack had to admit it, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He accepted this with a nod as he continued to ponder his circumstances. Sure, he felt something when he first looked at her. But the alarm bells and warning sirens that were blasting in his head currently drowned out any feeling besides that of suspicion. And that feeling in his stomach remained. Jack was starting to wonder if some foul play was at hand.

“Well,” the woman spoke, and it sounded like she was either reading from a script or doing a very bad improv job. “The guy almost killed me.” It was almost like she was a robot doing its best to convince him that it was human.

When he realized how much noise the sound of her ridiculously high heels was making on the floor, Jack began to wonder what a woman like her was doing here looking like that. No purse, no car, no keys, no real reason for being there. He spotted the little puddle of oil a millisecond too late.

“Watch out for the–” He tried to warn her, but the brunette slipped in the grease spot and back down to the ground she went. “Grease.”

When he knelt back down to the floor, impressed by the fact that he’d known this woman on the ground longer than he had standing up, he was intrigued to see that same look in her eyes. Wide and expressive. It wasn’t difficult to decide that this woman knew who he was. If this was some kind of elaborate ruse, the leading lady was doing a shoddy job at playing her part believably.

Jack wasn’t surprised to hear the motor of a car pulling up. He wasn’t expecting any arrivals right now, but he was expecting an explanation.

Suddenly, he had no more sympathy for this woman, as alluring as she was to him. “Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet with a little less excitement than before. “Get up.”

It was the same car that had been on the street earlier, and it was now parked unceremoniously blocking off his garage entrance. Jack narrowed his eyes, and was flooded with a sense of morbid realization when he watched Dr. Edwin Grant step out of the vehicle, followed by three Secret Service bodyguards.

He should have known. Whatever this was, it had “Area 52” written all over it, in big greasy letters.

“Grant?” Jack demanded, before the scientist could attempt to fumble his way through an opener.

Grant and his bodyguards walked into the garage, and Jack shoved his hands in his pockets as he glanced sidelong at the woman in the green dress fixing her neckline. He pretended he hadn’t been looking.

“Hello, Zoom!” Grant said with a smile, as if they were running into each other by chance.

“It’s Jack.”

“Okay, Jack,” Grant nodded, impressed by how little the man had changed. “It’s good to see you!”

“Wow,” Jack narrowed his eyes and remained composed. He figured that he was in for some kind of proposal, and wasn’t about to let himself be dragged into anything that had to do with the hellscape that was Area 52. “You got old.”

Grant raised his eyebrows in shock and began tapping at the fat that had accumulated beneath his chin.

“Well, it’s been, what, thirty years?” He chuckled awkwardly at the exaggeration, biting his tongue before he commented on the fact that Jack was no longer any spring chicken either.

“What are you doing here, Grant?” Jack was instantly defensive; anyone could see that. And the man had every right to be. There were about a thousand red flags waving all around him.

They all formed a suspicious circle in his little garage. Jack couldn’t help but notice that all his employees seemed to have conveniently vanished. To his left stood a dangerous looking bodyguard, straight across from him stood Dr. Grant, with the green dress to his left, and the circle was then completed by the two more bodyguards standing to Jack’s right. He didn’t like the fact that he was suddenly outnumbered on his own territory.

“We’re starting up a new team,” Grant explained, cutting right to the chase. There was no way of easing him into it carefully, nor dancing around the topic. It was better to just rip the band-aid right off and let Jack turn the idea down here and now.

“Men’s slow-pitch softball?” Jack joked, but already knew precisely what Grant had meant. Frankly, he hoped that he had misheard him.

From across the circle, Grant began to chuckle impatiently, and even the woman in the green dress let out a little silent giggle. Jack watched as her nose crinkled and her eyes sparkled while she laughed, and he felt a pang within him that told him he’d fallen in love then and there. It was that damned nose crinkle. Or maybe it was the eyes. Regardless, he told himself that it was nothing more than the dress.

“No,” Grant deadpanned now, immediately dropping his laugher. “A new Zenith Team.”

Surely it couldn’t be true. Jack quickly realized that such a statement wouldn’t stand based on the fact that if he knew the American government to be good at one thing, it was repeating the same mistakes wherever there was an opportunity for profit of some kind. Still, there was no need for a new team, the world had been just fine for the last two decades. Besides, there couldn’t have been that much improvement in radiation technology in all this time.

“You can’t be serious,” Jack stared him down, hoping against hope that this was all some kind of prank or a bad dream.

“Oh, we are serious, Mr. Shepard!” A new voice piped up, and Jack soon realized that the brunette was speaking. Of course, she was a part of this, he’d gotten an unsettling feeling from her the minute that their eyes had met. Something about her told him to run for the hills. “Too good to be true,” were the words now bouncing around inside his head.

“Why is the green dress talking?” Jack said sarcastically, apparently going out of his way to offend everyone who dared to be a part of this little fiasco.

Marsha narrowed her eyes, and her instincts told her that Jack’s comment had stung a little bit, but he was likely only lashing out in defense as he felt uncomfortable.

“I’m a psychologist,” she began to explain, before Grant could intervene.

“I’m sorry, this is Miss Holloway,” Grant explained, and Miss Holloway gave a sweet smile. Something told Jack that she could pull the wool over the eyes of just about anybody with that smile. “She works with me.”

Jack cast his arms out slightly with a sigh, he wasn’t surprised.

“Yes, and despite the theatrics – which were not my idea, by the way–” he paused her fiddling with her sunglasses momentarily to gesture towards Grant, “you’re the only one who can help us. You’re the only superhero left.”

God, Jack thought to himself with a disgusted roll of his eyes. She really did sound like something straight out of the cheesy Hallmark movie he had been living for a solid two minutes.

“Somebody’s been giving you the wrong information,” Jack stated certainly, looking at them all as if they were insane.

In that moment, Marsha’s face fell, and she instantly looked towards Grant with a confused look in her eyes. Like a child who had just been told that Santa Claus wasn’t real. Something about this situation was triggering her fight or flight response, and Marsha was beginning to wonder if perhaps Captain Zoom was not at all what she had expected.

It was clear what they were asking. They wanted Captain Zoom to return and be the face of a new team. They wanted him to train whatever freaks they planned on dragging in out of the woodwork. They wanted him back on base. Not going to happen. He wasn’t the kind of person to willingly join the circus.

Besides, they weren’t selling this endeavor very well. They’d formulated this elaborate ruse, but casted the worst possible actress to lure him in. Now that they’d gotten his attention, neither of them was doing even a halfway decent job of pitching the idea to him. And they were forgetting about the chip on his shoulder than gave Jack a predictive upper hand. Grant was a nice enough guy and a genius in the lab, but Jack didn’t trust his judgement for a second. If this was such a big deal, General Larraby himself would have to barge into his shop.

“So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do,” Jack continued sarcastically and began to turn away.

As empty and bitter as it was, he liked his life. He liked the emptiness. He had absolutely nothing to lose, and he had every intention of keeping it that way. Unfortunately, this lot had other plans.

“We’re here to take you back, not invite you back,” Grant explained, and the bodyguards began to close in. Immediately, Jack raised his hands up near his shoulders and figured that this was all part of the plan. “And we’re authorized to use whatever means necessary.”

When Grant pulled out what looked like a revolver of some kind, Jack knew he was in for it. A weapon of any caliber in the hands of that bumbling oaf was a recipe for disaster. In keeping with the rest of this fiasco, it soon became clear that this particular scene had not been rehearsed nor even discussed with the woman in the green dress whose name Jack had already forgotten, because her eyes suddenly widened, and she moved to shove the gun away.

“You can’t shoot him!” She said, and just like that, the force of her attempting to move the gun had encouraged Grant to pull the trigger. The tranquilizing dart shot out of the gun, hit the ceiling, and managed to rebound down and bury itself in Jack’s chest.

That was the last thing he saw before his vision grew fuzzy and he hit the ground. And as he spent the next hour and a half in a tranquilized coma, visions of comic books and green dresses danced around his head. Blue cars and bluer eyes. The visions soon turned to lab coats and needles and weapons. Uniforms, dog tags, people that he once knew. Until it all faded to black.

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monster-rinds · 5 months ago

Text

Chapter 19: Synthesis

As I stepped out onto the very poorly lit floor of Hayward grocery, where the use of infrared cameras at night was leaned upon, to make it clear the store was closed, I thought about what my recent existence had become.

In my experience, what you focus on tends to alter your perception of time, unless you have something neurological going on.

So, for instance, while amongst humans, if I spent my time focusing on the broader political strokes and developments of their civilizations to be better aware of what they might have in store for me, time would pass much more quickly than when I focused on interpersonal relationships, which I much preferred to do lately.

And, here, I’m talking about decades or centuries feeling like days, v.s. days feeling like years. Whereas, prior to mixing with humanity, there were tracts of my past where it felt like millennia had passed by like seconds.

Those were the times I had a fairly safe perch somewhere, with healthy and deeply honed personal habits, and was focused on the march of evolution itself.

So today had been a very long day for me and it wasn’t even over yet. I wasn’t letting go of it.

In part, I found myself afraid of what the next day might bring.

I stopped and listened to the store.

I’d left one of Felicity’s eyes on the last two sets of doors I’d passed through. There weren’t many places out here I could do it where it would have much impact before being cleaned up. Of course, the person cleaning would become a potential host, but they’d already have seen the one on the manager’s door.

So I put a pseudodomain down where I was standing as I scanned my surroundings.

I was pretty sure we were alone in the building. No security guard.

Spooky. It wasn’t a 24/7 store, but there was always a shift of workers in it. We usually used closed hours to restock. So, this was an unusual state for the place.

I moved to the butchery department, and found that all the meat had been discarded or put away. Good. That was normal.

In dairy, the fridges and freezers were still working, partially lit.

The frozen aisles were still in order. The ice cream, peas, and french fries would keep for a bit.

I left psuedodomains in each of those places.

And then I made my way to the produce section, passing by my favorite front counter on the way.

Before I got to my final destination, I decided to log into my till just to check something else. Which I tried to do.

And couldn’t.

Not without a special conversation with the computer again.

Shit.

I put a pseudodomain and one of Felicity’s eyes down in my cashier’s stand, the eye right on the keyboard, below the security keyhole. And then I left and quickly made my way back to the manager’s office by way of the produce aisle.

Which was delightfully, and weirdly infuriatingly, empty.

Back at the manager’s computer, I scoured the whole system, as I’d done when I’d first weedled my way into this business.

There were no traces of me.

None at all.

None of the changes I’d made to the system were left.

Someone had spent all day expertly hunting down and scrubbing all evidence that I’d entered this building, ever. Well. I’d have to check security footage for that, which I couldn’t do from there. But all numerical and malware evidence that I’d ever been there was gone.

A job that very, very few humans could do in that short of a period of time.

I’d left a kind of a string I could pull to do the same job in a matter of seconds, to cover my tracks, actually. But it hadn’t been the kind of thing that could be activated with a command or an executable file or anything like that.

You had to be a monster to pull it.

It’s possible a monster had pulled it.

But, if so, why?

And who?

“Felicity, did you do this?” I asked.

She was still grumpy, “Do what?”

“Pull my ripcord and erase my evidence of being here,” I indicated the computer system.

“No.”

I had no way of knowing if she was lying or not. Well, not a way that I considered ethical or desirable, anyway.

I could try to eat her and get her memories. But then she’d no longer be there to be my partner in crime and, well, whatever she was now.

If she could cheer up and become cooperative and maybe even enthusiastic about her position, she could become quite the force. She had me to protect and feed her, when she couldn’t do her own feeding, and she could still wander the world via her eyes and her hosts. And I’d have a possessive teratovore who could do my spying and my dirty work, while I lumbered about and soaked up humanity’s excess energy.

But I didn’t feel like trying to convince her that that was fair. It would be coercive on my part, considering I seemed to have all the power in our relationship now.

It occurred to me that maybe she could try to get at my vitals again by possessing a host and looking into my eyes once more. And I’d have to be careful of that. But I didn’t think that’s the kind of thing she’d go for, really. When we’d met, she was motivated by her hunger, as we all are, and that’s taken care of now. And her second motivation was her own safety. She preferred the ambush to stalking her prey and chasing it down like Sharky, Felix, and Croc-face had been doing. And what better place to ambush from than the center of an affectivore.

“Felicity,” I suggested, “do you think my own eyes would work for jumping to your next prey?”

“Yes,” she admitted, sullen. “But I don’t need to do that anymore. I’m already eating you. And you can kill anything that bites you.”

“Mm,” I protested. “Not necessarily anything. There’s always something bigger than you.”

“Really.”

“It’s always safe to assume so.”

“So, what happens when I try to eat something bigger than you and I get stuck in it as well? Do I let go of you?”

“Ah. Good question.”

“Anyway,” she said. “This isn’t helping you figure out what happened to your login.”

“Just considering eventualities,” I told her, frowning at the computer monitor.

“What are you gonna do next?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

I turned the computer off and pushed myself away from the desk to get up.

Then I paused to message my friends, “I think I’ve been fired. Keep in touch. Let me know when your next shift starts so I know how you’re doing. Something weird is going on. I’ll see you at Shady’s, maybe.”

“That’s not your usual modus operandi, is it?” Felicity observed.

“No,” I said. “Usually, I leave town immediately when something like this happens.”

It was possible a human had scrubbed the machine. Possible, but extremely unlikely. It would take a lot of skill and experience, and an unusual amount of cooperation from the aging computer system. And it also required a human who had been directed to do that instead of preserving the evidence until it was properly recorded and catalogued, and handed over to the authorities, which would have taken longer, usually.

Either way, though, human or monster, whoever had done this had my number, my literal phone number, and either my pirate account would be next, or they’d come after me somehow. Or, well, they’d come after me somehow regardless.

And that always meant leaving town.

Not this time.

---

I had walked several blocks before I realized that I was not only not avoiding storm drains, but going out of my way to step over them.

I already knew where I was headed.

It wasn’t so late that there weren’t copious cars and the odd pedestrian, but nothing was unfamiliar or out of place to me as I walked, and I no longer watched with the hyper alertness that had been my habit of survival.

I might have been angry.

“You’re hunting for Croc-face,” Felicity observed.

“I don’t suppose I can interrogate it,” I growled. “Do you think it’s the type that talks?”

“There are all sorts of ways it could talk,” she reminded me.

I was hyperfocused on its mouth and what I wanted to do with it. I was having flashbacks of it eating that poor goth in the theater and chasing Felicity and scaring the shit out of Josephine. But I also had some kind of hunch that it was related to my erasure from Hayward’s computer systems.

She was right.

Language isn’t typically the purview of most monsters. But that’s like saying the same thing about lifeforms. Most bacteria don’t talk.

But most monsters that mix things up with talking animals end up learning their languages after a while. If they exist long enough to do so. Some few monsters are manifested with language already, because sometimes lifeforms, and especially humanity for some reason, are a force that creates monsters.

“You haven’t adopted my language,” Felicity said. “Even though you like it.”

I stopped walking and turned my head to the side, looking up in the air.

“‘Emanant’?” I asked.

“You’ve been using ‘monster’,” she specified.

I thought back over our recent conversation. When did I say ‘monster’ to her?

She took the initiative and tipped her cards, “You’ve been thinking it to yourself since you left the store.”

“You can read my thoughts?”

“Yes,” she said.

That was unfair and unnerving, because I couldn’t read hers.

“You need to learn to do the same,” she added. “You can read mine if you try. We’ll work more closely, with more trust, but still stay separate, if you do.”

I blinked, “How?”

“I don’t know, you just fucking do it,” she said.

I grunted and started walking again.

“You’ve already made a lot of progress,” she continued. “That you’ve figured out how to hear my projected thoughts means that you have the connection to go deeper. And you’ve already done shit in front of me I couldn’t dream of doing before. Frankly, I’m terrified of you.”

We’d reiterated a lot of our first big conversation back in the Ranch Room the night before, so she once again knew just how old I was. And so did Greg, if he believed me. I’d also divulged what I’d done to survive that long, again, changing my mode of feeding so that I could survive off of other emanants without actually eating them, during lean times on Earth.

But, if she’d been reading my thoughts, she knew more by now.

“I think I want you to be the one to eat Croc-face,” I said. “Hopefully, I can teach you how to absorb memories before you do that, too.”

“You care.”

“You know I do,” I snarked back.

We were now standing before my old wooded lot. The one I’d just abandoned the night before.

“Why do you care?” she prodded.

“Why are you asking?” I slapped back.

I felt her shifting her position within me, then she said “Because I want to see if you can dredge up more reasons than you’ve already been thinking about. I want to know everything I’m dealing with.”

“I guess I’ll say them out loud, then,” I replied.

“Go for it.”

So, as I walked into the lot, adjusting to compensate for the darkness, I spoke, “I still don’t trust you, but that’s momentarily irrelevant. I have power over you until you can find a way that I don’t. So, I feel responsible. I might not have trapped you intentionally, just as you probably didn’t attack me on purpose. But the fact remains that I’ve got you trapped. And if I want to maintain the best possible relationship with you, I need to make sure your needs are met. And one of your needs is to be whole, to have your memories back. And there’s only one way to do that.”

It didn’t take long to get to where I used to have my clearing, my last domain. By the time we were done with my speech, we were there.

“I’m going to put my domain right back here,” I declared. “I’m tired of things being taken away from me.”

“Is that why I can’t escape you?” Felicity asked.

“You know damn well it isn’t,” I barked.

“I do not.”

“You can read my thoughts,” I reminded her.

“But not your innermost motives,” she said.

“I demonstrated to you why I couldn’t expel you. You saw what I saw.”

“I saw what you wanted to show me,” she retorted. “Or what you thought you saw, which is functionally the same thing. Try it again now that I can read more of your thoughts.”

“You really want to escape from me? To be separate again?” I furrowed my brow. I wasn’t incredulous, really, even if my phrasing and tone implied that. I mostly just wanted to have a confirmation of her consent to try again. But maybe I really didn’t want to give her up.

I had to think about that some more.

She remained silent for a few seconds.

I let her think while I recreated my old domain and tore down the one I’d put up in the other greenway. I left up the pseudodomains that were in Hayward grocery, though. They were serving a purpose.

“Maybe I don’t,” Felicity finally mumbled in my mind.

“Why not?” I asked.

She waited a moment and then suggested, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?”

---

#original fiction #teratovore #web serial #writeblr

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