#contraptions. and all sorts of things. just me and my little buddies. in the world of thedas. and this makes me happy.

[vaguely-concerned]

I think veilguard might be the one game with an unlimited sprint button that I've nevertheless spent the most time gently jogging and walking through. just to like... look at things. hang out. vibe. the environments in this game are so fucking good

[thewertsearch]

GT: Well ive thought about it. GT: Even went downstairs to check the great vaulty doodad. GT: And predictably the infernal contraption is nowhere to be found. TT: Well yeah, Jake. TT: That's sort of the point. TT: Thrill of the hunt and all.

Ok, I think I get what's going on here.

Jake's Dreambot is probably the last remaining source of uranium on the entire island, and the AR is turning its retrieval into a game of hide-and-seek.

I'm not sure why Jake hadn't already retrieved this particular chunk of uranium, especially since he has no use for the robot himself. Maybe he was keeping it operational for sentimental reasons?

TT: I thought you liked to manicure the image of a dude who shits his pants over a good adventure. […] GT: I mean i wouldnt put it in a way like that or come out against a solid policy of clean trousers. But yes adventure is awesome. GT: I just prefer the idea of adventures which i can actually win.

Jake's picturing a LIVING GRANDSON SMACKDOWN - and, frankly, so am I. That robot's being piloted by an absurdly advanced AI, and I'm pretty sure Jake doesn't have any combat experience.

Winning, in this case, is shorthand for 'waiting for the AR to take pity on you'.

TT: It seems there is a 76.10395784% chance you are pussying out on me. Are you pussying out on me, Jake?

Now, to be fair, that one would only work if Jake had agreed to this challenge beforehand. After all, you can't pussy out of something you never pussied into.

GT: It seems it seems it seems!!! GT: It seems there is a million percent chance that you say it seems way too much and do it just to sound more like a lame robot from a movie and also probably just to piss me off! […] TT: Have you ever stopped to think that while I may be bound to processes inside the glasses of a real and incredibly cool guy, my algorithms in cognitive totality comprise a conscious entity not far short of the experiential and emotional complexity of a human being? GT: Oh malarkey. GT: YOU ARE A TIN CAN. ROBOTS DONT HAVE FEELINGS.

Jake, it's been sixty seconds since you complained about him pretending not to have feelings.

TT: I do have feelings. And you're shitting on them. TT: It sucks. GT: Oh. GT: Um. GT: Im sorry then if thats the case.

Well, that's something, at least - but I don't think Jake really understands why the AR is offended, so I'm worried it's just going to happen again in their next argument.

How long has the Responder existed for, anyway? Jake seems familiar with his schtick, so he's probably not brand-new - but at the same time, Jake's surprised apology makes it sound like the AR has only recently started to express feelings.

Maybe the AR has existed for years, but hasn't been sentient for years. Like, it really did just start as a primitive response script, but Bro kept uploading more of his personality onto it, until it slowly began to think and feel. Fascinating idea, I have to say.

GT: It can just be difficult to drum up sympathy for a program that presents itself as an impostor so often. GT: Maybe if you werent so ready to insist you were the genuine article all the time? Or didnt make it so confusing for me… GT: I think it would be best if we henceforth treated you as a totally distinct… uh… THING from my buddy.

Hey, it's not like the AR can stop imitating Bro. Even if he wanted to have his own identity, he's currently bound to the response script of someone else's Pesterchum account. When he talks, he's forced to do it through Bro's handle.

All evidence points to the Responder being a thinking, feeling being with his own inner world - which makes it a little ethically dubious to force him to be Bro's secretary. The guy shouldn't be treated as a bargain-bin Bro, the same way that Davesprite wasn't a backup Dave. We all saw how that ended, and it sure wasn't pretty.

[helliontherapscallion]

Whistle While You Work (Adrenaline Junkie Blurb)

(A/N): I don’t know how to whistle lmao

Anyways, this is indeed canon and takes place sometime between Chapters 13 and 14. Sorry this isn’t an actual update/chapter. Also, this is unedited

Warnings: none, all fluff : )

“How do you do that?” 

You paused and put down your wrench, sliding out from under the contraption you and Arthur were currently building. You sat up and wiped at the sweat that formed on your brow and gave the boy a confused look. 

“Do what, fledgling?” He furrowed his brows together, “that sound you were making!” 

…What? 

At your blank stare, he crossed his arms and looked at you impatiently, “you know! Like… like…” he sighed in frustration before he crossed his arms and looked off to the side, “nevermind.” 

You stared at him for a moment before you shrugged to yourself and laid back down on the creeper seat, looking at him in reassurance, “if you figure out what it is, just let me know buddy! You’ll get it eventually.” 

Giving him one last smile, you slid back under the metal frame and got back to work. A few moments passed with you asking Arthur to hand you different tools and answering any questions he had while he worked on the exterior. When a few minutes passed without any questions or conversations, you absentmindedly began whistling a tune you had heard a while back. 

“THAT!” 

You jumped in shock only to yelp when your forehead directly hit one of the metal parts you were installing. Falling back onto the creeper seat, you rolled yourself out and clutched your head in pain. A soft gasp sounded next to you before you heard Arthur hurry over to your side. 

“Shoot, (y/n) I’m so sorry I didn’t...” He stumbled over his words before he stopped talking all together.

“It’s okay,” you took a breath in and removed your hands. Nothing besides coal and redstone residue stained your gloves, that was good. Your goggles didn’t have any cracks in them either. “Just make sure we keep the loud noises at a minimum.” 

“Are you hurt?” You could hear his voice shaking slightly, so you looked over to see him looking at you in slight horror. You shook your head, “no, it just surprised me is all. I’m not mad at you, you know. I could never be mad at you.” You pulled him into a quick hug before it dawned on you; he was talking about your whistling earlier. “Arthur?” He pulled away slightly and looked at you in question, a small shred of guilt still swimming in his irises. “Was this the sound you were talking about?” 

You whistled and watched as he perked up and nodded his head vigorously, a small smile replacing the slight grimace and the guilt being replaced with intrigue. “Yes!” 

You chuckled and pulled your goggles off from your head. Wiping at the sweat that had formed on your brow, you stretched your wing out. Satisfying pops sounded from your joints making you smile at the relief it brought you. You looked back at Arthur with a smile, “that’s called whistling. I can teach you how, if you want.” 

His eyes and his smile lit up like the stars in the night sky. If he could blind you with his smile, you would’ve been completely blind within seconds of first meeting him. His smile was contagious, never failing to brighten your mood. You found yourself smiling widely at his enthusiasm. 

You led him inside and got the both of you cleaned up. On the couch, you sat facing him with your feet folded one over the other. Arthur copied your actions, sitting up straight as he looked at you expectantly. 

“Well for starters I’ve never really taught anybody how to whistle, it just comes naturally to me because I’m a… well, I’m some sort of bird hybrid,” when you saw him deflate slightly, you were quick to reassure him. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t teach you though! You’re a fast learner, I’m sure you’ll catch onto it quickly. To start, you’re gonna want to put your lips into an ‘o’ shape, like this.” You pucker your lips into an ‘o’ and watched as he did the same, albeit a bit too large. “Er, a tad smaller.” 

His eyebrows furrowed and, without moving his lips, he asked, “‘ike dis?” He tightened his lips slightly. You nodded, a bit unsure of yourself, “...yeah? We’ll adjust as we go. Gently press your tongue on the back of your teeth.” 

You both sat there adjusting his mouth for a while and you could see that he was getting dejected at the lack of progress. “I don’t know, (y/n),” he sighed, “what if I just can’t whistle?” 

“You just gotta keep trying! You’ll get it eventually. Here, maybe try relaxing a bit more and blowing softer?” He pursed his lips before he tried that, a high pitched whistle coming from him. He immediately stopped and touched his lips with his fingertips in awe. “I did it,” he whispered to himself, shocked. 

You grinned widely at him and pulled him into a tight hug, “you did it! I knew you could, you’re my son after all. I’m proud of you.” 

“I’m gonna be just as good as you are one day!” 

He practiced non stop after that, always whistling as he did small things around the house. Philza, noticing this, jokingly told you that you were raising a clone of yourself.

Eventually, he got to the point where it was second nature to him and he could whistle different notes with a good tone. While you both were working, you would whistle a small rhythm and he would follow. This spiraled into the both of you making up songs and whistling together in simple harmonies. 

If Philza didn’t know where either of you were, he quickly learned that wherever there was whistling, there was (y/n) and Arthur. If separated from each other in public, all the other had to do was whistle a part of a song and the other would have no trouble finding them. Whenever you two were working together, whistling became a way for you both to further bond over; even the smallest of medlies was enough to lift the mood. 

Arthur was your little songbird.

General taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@crybabyjabby  @izzybobizzy13  @goldenstarofthunderclan  @bunnyz-pxstel  @averytiredfanfictionwriter  @dcml04  @sparkling-gayyyy  @bbigbbrainn  @thaticecreambish  @kiinokochii  @satansphatass  @bxkubitch  @bxmentchildxx  @roxy3457  @montygator17  @feverish-dove  @the-fictionwriters-hairdo  @jichuuchaeng  @404rynnotfound  @luluwinchester  @laura--444  @the-cult-classic-bitch  @youngstarfishdinosaur  @nottheotheruser  @ohworm-writes  @localwolfanon  @realitycanbeajerk  @v10dw4lk3r  @esylwen  @seraphsema  @boiled-onionrings  @smolgreenybeany  @louistommosnesquickmilk  @galaxios

Series taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@acecarddraws @ravennightingaleandavatempus  @dirtydiavolo  @yeiras-world  @immadatmostthings  @hee-hee-haw  @jackalopedoodles  @m1lkmandan  @vanhakirja  @im-a-depressed-gay  @coolleviauchihadreamerlove  @questioning-sanity  @camisascam  @bongwaterflavoredgatorade  @kakamiissad  @jayistrash4  @lifestylesleep  @speedymaximoff  @sun-shark-tooth  @appetiteofapeoplepleaser  @lestrangenymph  @kinismanditory  @dragons-lurk-here  @rinzyx05  @the-wandering-pan-ace  @angelic-scent  @shinipii  @dont-hug-me-im-a-fander  @izzydimensional  @used-avocado  @wing-non  @lovely-echoo  @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual  @mysteryartisticwriter  @momo-has-a-gun  @misfortunatem00n  @w-0-r-n-n  @v-kouya  @kusuinko  @cheybaee  @dulcedippers  @jaciahbabes  @prlan  @hummingbird-lightningstrike  @pog-sad-muffin  @prickypearpropaganda  @thegeekisheere  @self-righteous-dumbass  @solar-idiot  @yummychicknnugget

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

Separation AU Part 1!

Requested by @grant-likes-minecraft. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: Impulse and Skizzleman have lived in the same world together for decades, and that’s just the way they like it. But all that will change when one day, Impulse is summoned (literally) to the Hermitcraft server...

(Based on Impulse literally canonically being brought to Hermitcraft via summoning circle in season 3)

...

  “WHOAAAA!”

  With a yelp, Impulse dropped into a shallow hole over where he had just been walking. He stared upwards as he heard laughter and spotted the grinning face of his best friend a few blocks above him.

  “Skizz!” Impulse laughed indignantly. “This is like the oldest trick in the book!”

  “Uh huh, and you fell for it,” Skizzleman replied through his laughter. “Skizz: one. Dippledop: zero.”

  “Get me outta here and I’ll SHOW you zero,” Impulse snickered. “Got any ladders?”

  Skizzleman dropped a single ladder into the hole. At Impulse’s raised eyebrow, he giggled and dropped a few more, before stepping back and letting his best friend climb out of the hole. 

  Impulse shook his head amusedly at the grin on Skizzleman’s face. “Have you done your chores yet? Or did you spend the whole morning setting up that prank?”

  “Whaaaat? Does that sound like something I would do?”

  “Yup.”

  Skizzleman made eye contact with Impulse, causing him to giggle again. “Okay, yeah, I did.”

  Impulse chuckled as he started walking back towards the house, letting his best friend fall into step beside him. “It’s your turn to harvest and replant, buddy.” 

  “Aww, but it’s so boring,” Skizzleman complained, flipping around to walk backwards so he could talk directly to Impulse’s face. “Can’t we just skip chores for today and go to the beach?”

  Impulse scoffed. “Skizz-.”

  “C’mon, just look at that ocean.” Skizzleman threw his arm out to indicate the sparkling sea, just visible through the trees. “Can’t you hear it calling you? Don’t you wanna just dive into the cool, refreshing water and just relaaaaaax?”

  “You’re doing a great job of selling it, I gotta admit,” said Impulse amusedly. “Okay, we’ll go to the beach, but only if you do crops for the next two days.”

  “Done.”

  Skizzleman broke into a run, causing Impulse to laugh and pick up speed to catch up with him. 

  However, at just over halfway to the beach, Impulse skidded to a halt, realising his entire body had started to glow. “Uh, Skizz?”

  His best friend stopped a few blocks ahead of him. “What? Oh…! Wait, what’s happening?”

  As Impulse was staring down at his glowing hands, he felt himself be lifted slowly off the ground, the block around him glowing brightly.

  “Wh-What’s going on, dude?!” Skizzleman yelped. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not doing anything!” Impulse started to panic. “Skizz, help me!”

  He reached out blindly and Skizzleman grabbed his hands. Impulse hung almost upside down in the air, as if something was dragging him upwards by his legs. He strained against the invisible force, focusing on holding onto Skizzleman’s hands as tightly as he could.

  But the pull was just too strong.

  “IMPULSE!”

  Skizzleman cried out as he felt Impulse’s hands slip from his. He toppled face-first into the dirt, but by the time he managed to push himself onto his back and look up, Impulse had disappeared.

  Impulse couldn’t stop screaming as he fell through a weird, terrifying vortex of swirling colours. He managed to angle himself so he was feet-first, but this did nothing to alleviate his fear.

  And then he landed.

  He stumbled as his feet hit the ground, but quickly regained his footing enough to not fall over. Blinking against the bright sunlight shining directly in his face, he realised he could see the slightly blurry outlines of three people standing a little way off, watching him.

  Just as he registered them, one of the figures rushed towards him and grabbed him in a tight hug. “Impulse! Oh my god, I can’t believe it actually worked! You’re actually here!”

  The person’s distinctive voice helped Impulse identify him immediately, and he was so shocked that he momentarily forgot his disorientation. “T-Tango?!”

  Tango released him and stepped back, an expression of pure joy on his face. “You’re really here! I can’t believe it!”

  “Wait, wait…!” Impulse frowned, his brain still trying to figure out what had just happened. He stared around and found himself in a brand new world, entirely different from the one he had just come from. “Where am I? And how did I get here?”

  Tango beamed. “You’re on Hermitcraft, buddy!”

  “And you got here through a… uh… sort of wormhole,” added an unfamiliar voice.

  Impulse turned to find a person wearing green armour and a purple helmet. 

  “Hi, I’m Xisuma,” the person said, giving a friendly smile. He indicated the suited person behind him. “This is Mumbo.”

  “Hi!” said Mumbo happily. “Welcome to Hermitcraft.”

  “I…” Impulse blinked, hardly daring to believe it. “I really am on Hermitcraft? But- But why did you bring me here?”

  “Because you belong here, Impy.” Tango gripped his friend’s shoulders. “I’ve been trying to bring you here for months and it never worked until now. I don’t really know what Xisuma did, but you’re finally here.”

  “What about Skizzleman, though?” Impulse asked urgently. “You’re gonna bring him here too, right?”

  Tango’s smile fell. He glanced back at Xisuma, whose shoulders drooped. “I… um… I tried to grab onto both of you and get you both here, but… it didn’t work for Skizzleman. There’s something in his code, something that didn’t let me latch onto him. I can’t bring him here. I’m… I’m sorry.”

  Impulse stared at him, his stomach lurching. “So… I-I’ll never see him again?”

  “Not never,” said Tango quickly. “Just…”

  When Tango failed to come up with anything else, Xisuma said, “The borders between servers and worlds are rocky at best. We can’t send you back or bring him here, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good life here.”

  “A good life?!” Impulse’s fists clenched. “How can it be a good life without Skizzleman?!”

  Xisuma held out his hands to steady him. “Impulse, please, calm down a moment and-.”

  “Calm down?! Y-You just plucked me out of my world without my consent! Forcibly separating me from my best friend! What gave you the right to make that decision for me?”

  “Impy-,” tried Tango.

  “Don’t Impy me!” Impulse’s voice cracked. “We’ve lived together for most of our lives; I can’t just abandon him!”

  “You’re not abandoning him.” Tango grabbed his friend’s hands soothingly. “You’re moving on to a new life, a better life. If Skizz is truly your best friend, which he is, he can’t possibly resent you for taking the opportunity.”

  “I…” Impulse hesitated. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him.”

  Xisuma winced and hung his head. “I’m sorry, Impulse.”

  Seeing how defeated Xisuma was, Impulse’s anger slowly ebbed away. He glanced back at the spot where he had been summoned, a lump rising in his throat. 

  “Impulse, this is the start of a new life for you,” Tango said gently. “And for me. Finally, you and I get to live on a server together. Imagine what we can do! The possibilities are endless.” 

  “But they’re not,” Impulse whispered. “Because Skizz isn’t here.”

  “Listen…” Tango hesitated. “You two have been together for… for god knows how many years. This change will be good for both of you.”

  “And I’ll keep investigating to see if we can bring Skizzleman here,” said Xisuma. “But in the meantime, your new life awaits you.”

  Impulse cleared his throat. While part of his brain wanted to scream and cry at being separated from his best friend, he couldn’t deny that he was excited about the chance to finally be on Hermitcraft, as a member of their family. So many more things were possible on a server than in a simple world, from building materials to redstone contraptions. And it wasn’t as if he would be alone; he had Tango, he had Xisuma and Mumbo, he had many other Hermits whom he hadn’t even met yet. 

  “Alright, then.” A smile slowly spread over Impulse’s face. “What first?”

  A spark ignited in Tango’s eyes. “Oh, first we gotta introduce you to all the other Hermits! Then we can talk about building bases. You and I could build one together! I’m thinking a giant underground base in maybe a nether style? There’s so many block palettes we can use and- oh, I think I might already have the perfect thing back at my-.”

  “Whoa, buddy, slow down,” laughed Impulse. “Let’s start with meeting the other Hermits, okay?”

  As Tango nodded happily, the phrase “other Hermits” reverberated in Impulse’s mind. He knew it would take a long time to get used to this change and wrap his head around the fact that…

   ...that he was a Hermit now.

…

  After six long, sleepless nights in the big house all alone, Skizzleman had finally given up and moved. With his limited building skills, he had managed to construct a small shack near to where Impulse had vanished. His spark, his passion for life, faded a little more with every day that passed. 

  Skizzleman exited his tiny shack and harvested the small amount of wheat next to the pond, before replanting it monotonously. He then used the wheat to make a few more pieces of bread for his stock. It wasn’t much but it was enough to get by. 

  After his chores were done, he made his way slowly towards the beach. The sand and the sea used to call to him, urging him to rush down there and have some fun. Not anymore.

  On his way, he passed the spot Impulse had disappeared from. No sunlight hit this block anymore. The small allium Skizzleman had managed to plant there was barely visible in the shade. 

  He lay down on the grass and stared morosely up at the sky, his hand resting on the dirt around the flower, his elbow bent slightly as if he had his arm over his best friend’s shoulder. Closing his eyes, tears trickled down his cheeks. 

  Skizzleman had never been so alone before.

[nayutai]

Chasse Á L’amour

» Pairing Incubus!Taehyung x Original Character

» Rating 18+

» Genre angsty horror smut 

» Word Count 20.626

» Warnings explicit violence, gore, mentions of pedophile behavior (not by main characters), mentions of sexual assault (not by main characters), major character death, minor character death, twisted romance, oral sex (m receiving), unprotected sex (pls use condoms)

» Summary Taehyung is an interesting being. He’s spent several centuries fucking for survival but he never takes the life of someone that doesn’t deserve it. He makes it his duty to rid the world of those with enough power to inflict their evil upon the masses. When that darkness strikes close to home, he’s nearly overwhelmed by the pain. However, getting his revenge isn’t the cake walk he thought it would be.

Phoenix hummed and hawed as she stretched out across her bed. The man that had occupied it with her at the start of the night was long gone as she’d told him to be. She relishes in the soreness that spread through her limbs when she finally separated herself from the sheets. Annoying as he had been at the bar, her chosen conquest had been quite the lay just as she’d predicted him to be.

Freshly showered, she settles in at her kitchen table with a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit. Her laptop whirs to life in front of her ready to supply her with an inbox full of people needing help of the supernatural variety. Most of the people that email her don’t actually need her help. For instance, Molly from New York believes she’s got a vengeful spirit on her hands because her makeup products are continuously vandalized even though her husband, who has expressed his distaste for makeup, swears it’s not him. She needs a marriage counselor, not Phoenix. Then there’s Elijah from Colorado. He’s complaining of some sort of creature that eats all his food and leaves the cabinets open. The number 420 and the fact that Elijah chose to write his entire email in green Papyrus font suggests that he has a weed problem not a supernatural infestation. 

An email halfway down her screen actually shows some promise. A young newlywed couple, Malina and Trevor McAvoy, have just moved into a fixer upper that they found in a quiet, little suburb of Detroit. Phoenix balks at the sheer length of the email they’ve sent her but as she skims through it, she can tell that the McAvoys are one of the unlucky bastards that are actually in need of her help. She starts tapping away at her keyboard. Her phone vibrates against her left breast, halting her email session. It’s one of her hunting buddies, Derrick Yates. 

“Hey, asshole.” Phoenix answers jovially. She can practically see Derrick rolling his eyes in the exaggerated fashion that he’s known for. He claims to love her like family but Phoenix is almost positive that Derrick seriously hates her for all her antics.

“I’m going to pretend like you didn’t say that, especially since I actually called you with a friendly offer.” 

“You have my attention.” Phoenix closes her laptop so that she can give Derrick her full attention. 

She listens intently as Derrick details the small demon coven that he and his partner Patrick Brewer have been tracking for the past week or two. They’d received reports of the demons wreaking havoc on society and were aiming to put a stop to it. Apparently, they’d followed them to Iowa and stumbled upon a demon hangout of sorts. By their count, there are at least twenty demons milling about the large house they’d found in the middle of the woods.

“So, what exactly is this offer?” Phoenix inquires curiously.

“We’re about to go in guns blazing and fuck shit up. Do you wanna come?”

“Send me the location.” She drops her phone onto her kitchen table unceremoniously, going back to her email to the McAvoys. It shouldn’t take long to help Derrick and Brewer dispatch of the demon nest they’ve happened across and afterwards she’ll head out to Detroit to deal with the vengeful spirit that’s been terrorizing them. 

The door of her trusty Jeep shuts with a low thunk as Phoenix hops out of it in front of the low end motel that Derrick and Brewer told her they’ve chosen to hole up in. She grabs her overnight bag from the trunk and walks closer to the building. Her eyes scan the doors for the number 215, finding it off to her right. 

She knocks seven times. Five long two short based on a code they’d devised years ago to announce themselves. A knock for each letter of their name in a cadence of their choosing. Derrick opens the door with a chicken bone hanging from his lips like a cigarette and a chicken leg awaiting the same fate in his free hand. He’s shirtless as per usual and his olive toned skin is glistening as if he just recently got out of the shower. Phoenix reaches out to twist one of his tanned nipples before he can stop her, enjoying the girlish scream he lets out as the pain grips him. 

“You, bitch.” He grunts out when she slips by him, giggling. His partner Brewer emerges from the bathroom then and immediately pulls Phoenix into a tight hug. 

“Don’t hug her. She just tried to kill me.” Derrick whines. Both Brewer and Phoenix flip him off in response which sends him into a rather creative fit of curses about the lack of loyalty and respect he’s “forced” to endure.

Derrick passes Phoenix a beer out of his highly decorated Yeti cooler despite the fact that he was just cursing her life not even five seconds before. He’s truly a frat boy at heart and looks the part with his curly hair that flops over his hair and his preference for khaki shorts and Sperry’s outside of hunts. 

It’s all business from there as the three of them go over the best plan of action to hit the demon hive. Demons are most active at night although not for the reason that most lore claims. The sun doesn’t burn them like most aware humans count on. Most debauchery occurs at night so they’re sleep cycles follow that pattern. That’s probably the most interesting thing about demons. The fact that they actually sleep when they deem it necessary. All demons were humans once and thus a good night’s sleep can actually help them recharge just as it did when they were still human. 

“I’m not saying I’m a genius or anything but I have the perfect plan.” Derrick gloats from his seat with a shit eating grin on his face. Brewer rolls his eyes which only intrigues Phoenix even more.

“I swear to God if this involves that stupid fucking thing you rigged up I’m gong to shove this beer bottle right up your ass.” Brewer warns as he watches Derrick’s grin grow that much wider. He makes some lewd comment about girth and anal stretching that makes Phoenix groan in disgust while Brewer looks more than a little intrigued.

“Now I have to know what this is about.”

“Wait right here, m’lady.” Derrick looks almost manic as he slides a black case out from under the bed. He pops the latches with such reverence you’d think it was the holy grail he had in there. “Say hello to my,”

“Please don’t do it.” Brewer begs fervently.

Derrick presses on as if he hadn’t even heard his partner say a single word. “…little friend.”

Curses fly haphazardly out of Brewer’s mouth much to Phoenix’s delight. Her laughter is replaced with confusion when Derrick pulls some sort of crossbow-shotgun hybrid from the case. 

“Derrick, what the hell is that?”

“Are you blind? It’s a grenade launcher, you imbecile.”

“It looks like fucking trash.” Phoenix mumbles as she lifts her bottle to take another sip of her beer only to realize that it’s empty. Derrick protests when she reaches for his bottle instead but she downs it anyway.

“Now why don’t you tell her what you planned to do with this grenade launcher?” Brewer pipes up, interrupting his own brooding session. He crosses his arms smugly as he waits for Derrick to explain his genius plan and how his knockoff grenade launcher factors into that. 

Based on the stakeouts they’d done in the previous few days, Derrick and Brewer had observed that the demon house of horrors was most active at around four in the morning. All of them seemed to slink back from their soul stealing then and would congregate together to drink and continue to be merry throughout the day. According to Derrick, that is the time to strike. He’s concocted a grenade of sorts but instead of shrapnel he’s rigged them up to spray a mixture of holy water and frankincense in an eight foot radius. 

“I say we hit ‘em with the grenades hard while they’re all pissy drunk then take ‘em all out” Derrick smacks his open hand on the table for emphasis which earns him a flick on the forehead from Brewer. 

“That’s actually not a bad plan, but why the frankincense?” Phoenix questions. The holy water makes obvious sense but she’s never heard of any hunter using frankincense to disarm any kind of supernatural being before.

“It honestly serves no purpose. I only put it in there because it has a cool name and I like the way it smells.” Derrick promptly explains.

“I’m sorry I asked.”

“You and me, both.” Brewer mumbles as he chugs the rest of his beer.

It takes Derrick one day and half a dozen beers to rig up two more of his contraptions and enough holy water grenades to coat every wall of the house with holy water. Brewer has never seen Derrick pray that much in all the years he’s known him. That night, the three of them suit up and head out to cause some mayhem. 

The forest is quiet as they slink through the woods towards the old farmhouse that the demons have taken over. This far off the beaten path, the sounds of wildlife should be at a pretty decent volume but the present of evil seems to have sent the forest residents packing. That makes their approach a bit trickier as they don’t have the noise to cover the sounds of their movement. As they get closer to the house; however, they realize that the demons themselves are providing the necessary cover for their own demise. Their laughter and joyous noises can be heard quite a ways off as they keep the party going amongst themselves. 

As planned, Phoenix and Brewer split off to cover the left side and the back of the house while Derrick takes the front. Phoenix finds a chick copse of bushes to crouch behind and waits for the first shot. Her cue to send her own grenades flying. Adrenaline is pumping through her veins and it take a herculean effort for her not to jump the gun and get things going herself. The anticipation is nearly too much for her to handle when she finally here the tell-tale sound of a gun being fired. It’s show time.

The laughter quickly changes to anguished shouts as Derrick’s homemade grenades spray holy water on every conceivable surface. Phoenix unholsters the gun on her hip as she waits a second to see if a demon is going to run out of the back door in an attempt to escape. A young female takes the back door clean off its hinge as she tries to get away. Large flaps of skin hang from her limbs from the caustic effects of the holy water. Phoenix puts a bullet in her head before her feet even leave the small back porch. The bullet won’t kill her but it will keep her down until she can be properly dealt with. Phoenix drags her back inside, relishing in the way her skin sizzles like bacon as she comes in contact with the water that covers the floor of what looks like a small kitchen. A hiss brings her attention to another demon off to her left that’s crouched and ready to strike despite the fact that its face is nearly completely burned away. Phoenix puts that one down too. She takes a deep breath in through her nose. The smell of burning flesh singes her nose hairs and she loves it.

Most of the mayhem seems to be contained in the front part of the house if the demonic shrieks and screams are anything to go on. Derrick and Brewer are swiftly moving through the horde of smoking demons with ease. Phoenix is about to jump into the mix to when movement in the hallway off to her right catches her attention. Satisfied with how her friends are handling their own situation she sets off to investigate. 

The door to the room at the very end of the hallway is still ajar. Since Phoenix hadn’t heard the sound of a door closing, she decides to start there. The small bedroom is quaint and sparsely decorated. It also appears to be empty. Whatever had been in this room seems to have disappeared. No sooner has that thought crossed her mind when another blur of motion leaves her barely enough time to dodge what would have been a brutal attack. Spinning on her heel, she comes face to face with a pissed off demon that seems to have made it through their blitz attack relatively unscathed. She’s tiny, probably five foot and a buck twenty on a good day but Phoenix knows better to underestimate her. 

Her eyes looks more like chips of obsidian as the demon hisses. Phoenix is ready for her when she attacks this time. They’re dancing around the room, striking with increasing amounts of force and hatred as they seek the opening they need. The heel of Phoenix’s foot connects with her opponent’s rib cage, sending her flying into the wall. Not one to let good fortune go to waste, Phoenix unsheathes the emergency knife she keeps by her ankle before she’s descending on her pray once more. 

Phoenix grabs her foe by the throat as she struggles to her feet, dragging her up the wall until she’s eye level. To her credit, the demon doesn’t scream once though she does continue to try and strike at Phoenix despite the lack of oxygen she’s currently getting. Phoenix readjusts her hand so that she has enough room to press the blade of her knife against the demon’s throat. 

“Any last words, bitch?” Phoenix teases as she drags the blade across  the demons cheek. A thin line of blood follows in its wake. “No? Okay then.”

With the precision of a trained assassin, she slices through the delicate skin of the demon’s throat. Her victim chooses that exact moment to strike out at Phoenix one last time. She catches Phoenix in the ribs with a well-aimed kick that leaves her gasping for breath as the arterial spray from the demon’s mouth bursts forth from the wound Phoenix has just opened up. Phoenix drops the demon like a sack of potatoes as she frantically tries to spit out the blood. 

She’s vaguely aware of the tiny piss ant gasping for breath right next to her. Apparently, the kick had saved her from the instant death that would’ve befallen her if she hadn’t kicked Phoenix when she did. Despite that, she’s not going to last much longer. She uses her last breath to make one final stand.

“Hinkku….imnum” She sputters out before finally succumbing to her injuries.

It’s as if every muscle in Phoenix’s body seizes up at once. Her limbs are violently flailing around as she slowly starts to lose feeling in her extremities. The force with which her head is banging against the hardwood floor should’ve taken her out already but she can’t even feel it. She can barely feel anything anymore. Derrick’s terrified face comes into view. He must be holding her head up. She’s not sure but he remains in her field of vision so it must be true. The ice that had invaded her bloodstream runs it’s course. Derrick feels like his throat is closing up as he tries unsuccessfully to bring her back around. 

If there’s one thing Taehyung loves, it’s the warmth that spreads through his limbs when he stands in the sun. He hasn’t been human in almost half a millennia but that’s one aspect of his former existence that he’s held on to all this time later. His face is currently tilted towards the heavens as he stands on the balcony of his latest conquest’s spacious mansion, stark naked, soaking in the rays.

He takes a final deep breath before turning to step back inside. A cocky smirk tilts one side of mouth up as he takes in the sight of his handiwork stretched out across the California king bed in front of him. Carlotta had been her name. A bitch in the most extreme sense of the word. Her ivory skin is marked up from his teeth and nails making her look just like the child laborers used and abused in the factories that supplied her multiple businesses with inventory. She’d been on Taehyung’s radar for a while, but when he caught wind of her cutting the pay in half for factory workers to recoup the cost of her brand new private jet, that had been the final straw. 

Nine days, two glasses of champagne, and one very expensive tuxedo had lead to this very moment. Taehyung standing over the lifeless body of an evil business mogul that the world is undoubtedly better off without. He can’t help the demented little giggle that slips from his mouth as he recalls Carlotta’s face when she realized what was happening to her. If he breathes deep enough he can still smell the terror that had bled into her pheromones when his true nature had been revealed. It had made him orgasm almost instantly as the last vestiges of her shit stain of a soul are absorbed into his being. 

Deciding that he’s spent enough time reminiscing, Taehyung moves around the room as he redresses himself. His hand dips into the breast pocket of his jacket, pulling out the flash drive containing the evidence of Carlotta’s atrocities. He swiftly clips it to the chain holding the gaudy gold cross that he’d insisted she keep on as he’d ravaged her. The irony of it is still just as funny to him now as it was when he’d first noticed it around her neck. Even if he hadn’t taken her soul, there’s no way she’d be going anywhere near heaven.

The scenery is a blur as Taehyung speeds away in the Tesla from Carlotta’s garage that he’d helped himself to. A constant vibration against his thigh alerts him to a phone call coming through. 

“Marcus! What’s u-” Taehyung’s attempts at catching up with his long time friend is interrupted by a sudden plea for help. Everything that follows afterwards is a jumbled mush as all of Marcus’ words run together in his haste to get the story out.

“Slow down, man. What’s going on?” Marcus takes several deep, ragged breaths to get himself together. 

“The B&B got hit last night. I popped in last night and it was…” Silence takes over the line as Marcus trails off, searching for words to describe what’s happened. “Taehyung I’ve seen some fucked up shit and done even worse but this made me physically ill.”

Taehyung has to focus intently on not ripping the steering wheel clean off as Marcus recounts the horror show he’d discovered at the B&B. He has fond memories of the quaint farmhouse that had been owned by a kind human who everyone had affectionately called Mama Dee. To this day, Taehyung isn’t sure how or why Mama Dee’s home had become a safe place for the supernatural creatures of the world to rest and recuperate but she was a saint in their eyes. The turnout for her funeral when her body had finally succumbed to old age had been a hunter’s wet dream as the subject’s of history’s folklore had gathered to show their respects. To know that Mama Dee’s had been the backdrop of something so foul that Marcus was still having trouble getting it out made his blood boil.

“I’m catching the next flight out.” Taehyung didn’t wait for a response as he ended the call and tossed his phone into the seat next to him. His foot pressed the accelerator harder as he pushed the Tesla to its limits.

Whatever happened. Whoever was responsible. Someone would pay for it.

“Open this fucking door, Astinil!” Derrick bellows as he aggressively kicks at the solid oak door of the shaman’s home. He’d nearly killed the three of them as he tossed his knowledge of traffic laws out of the window of his Jeep. Brewer’s fingers are glued to Phoenix’s pulse as her head rolls around on her shoulders from Derrick’s frenzied kicking. It’s growing more and more faint by the minute but for now her heart is still beating. 

The shaman in question finally opens the door, looking less than happy to see Derrick on the other side of it.

“You are not welcome here, Derrick.”

“Fuck, I know that. Do you really think I’d be here if I had any other options? My friend is dying and you’re the only one who can save her.” Astinil glances at the young woman lying limp in Derrick’s arms obviously in need of his help. 

“Astinil, please. I’m begging you to help me. I can’t lose her.” The emotional cracks weaving through Derrick’s words makes the shaman’s decision for him.

“Bring her inside.” Derrick nearly sobs with relief. He’s not naive enough to believe that Phoenix is out of the woods yet but her chances just got astronomically better. He gently lays her out on the sofa in the sitting room. 

Astinil directs Derrick and Brewer to sit in the corner and not bother him as he sets about crushing various herbs with his mortar and pestle. The acrid smell of demon blood is nearly overpowering and he knows that he must work quick. He has no idea how much blood the young woman ingested nor how long the poison has been pumping through her system. 

A few drops of holy oil turns the crushed herbs into a paste. Normally, he’d pour in enough for it to be drinkable but there is no time for that. Less conventional methods have to be used with this one. Brewer has to physically hold Derrick back when Astinil produces a knife from his pocket and slashes Phoenix’s wrists. The shaman quickly covers the wounds with a thick layer of the paste. He utters a prayer as he repeats the process on the other pulse points that he can reach. 

The remainder of the mixture is piled under her tongue. Astinil continues to pray as he uses holy oil to draw a cross on her forehead. Nothing happens. The convulsions that normally accompany such a strong spiritual cleans e are absent and it’s with a heavy heart that Astinil realizes that his efforts are coming too late in the game. Her heartbeat has grown stronger though and that puzzles the healer. He wipes the paste from her skin only to grow even more confused. The wounds he’d created have nearly healed and the surrounding skin looks as if it’s been chemically burned. The same can be said for her forehead when Astinil wipes away the holy oil. The puzzle pieces are all falling into place for him now.

“Is she going to be okay?” Brewer asks fearfully. Derrick had long fallen silent from the shock that the adrenaline had been warding off. He stares unseeing at his friend’s still body.

“She will live.” Astinil answers carefully. Probably forever he adds internally. “Come, you two can sleep in the spare room. We must let her rest.” 

Brewer stands from the stool he’d found to perch himself on but Derrick refuses to leave Phoenix by herself. He stretches himself out on the floor next to the couch, pulling Phoenix’s hand down so he can hold onto it. Brewer’s heart aches at the sight. He knows all too well just how important Phoenix is to Derrick. The thought of what losing her could do to him makes him want to pull Derrick into his arms but he knows Derrick well enough to know that that’s not what he needs right now. With a heavy sigh, he turns to follow Astinil down the hall instead.

Phoenix awakes with a start. Her head is pounding from all of the different scents and sounds assaulting her senses. She has no clue where she is and her first thought is how to escape. The last thing she remembers is running into the demon hive they’d hit but everything afterwards leading up to this very moment is a mystery to her. Not to mention the fact that she feels different. Not banged up or bruised like she would’ve expected be after being so incredibly outnumbered. In fact she feels as though she could do the job over again solo and still come out on top. 

A groan followed my unintelligible mumbling grabs her attention. Her brow burrows as she leans over the edge of the couch to see Derrick curled up in the fetal position on the floor. Stress mars his features even deep in sleep. The faint sound of footsteps approaching has her tensing up. An unfamiliar man rounds the corner, regarding her warily as she draws in on herself. Ready to attack at the first sign that he has ill intentions. He’s tall and looks to be somewhere in his fifties but something tells Phoenix that she’d be a fool to underestimate him. He exudes an aura of power that indicates he’s not to be messed with.

“Come. We have much to discuss.” Whoever this man is, he doesn’t wait for Phoenix to respond as he turns to walk back down the hallway he’d emerged from. As if he just expects her to follow him like a curious puppy which is exactly what she does. 

She barely catches him disappearing through a door near the end of the hallway after taking the time to put her boots back on. The sweet smell of dewy grass and various flowers greets her upon passing through the doorway that leads into some kind of private garden. The man she’d followed is perched upon a wooden bench with his head tilted towards the heavens, eyes closed to the waking rays of the sun.

“What do you remember?” He questions.

“Who are you?”

“Answering a question with a question is in poor taste.” Phoenix glares at his side profile but decides to play nice.

“I remember running into a house full of demons but nothing after that.” He hums thoughtfully. Eyes still shut. Head still facing the clouds. 

“Astinil is my name. Sit and I will fill in what you’re missing.” Phoenix nearly trips over her own two feet in her haste to sit on the bench. She has no idea what day it is or how long she was knocked out. All she knows is that she’s missing something. Something big. She doesn’t realize how big until Astinil retells the happenings that lead to her being passed out on his couch. The longer he talks, the more memories from that night she’s able to retrieve.

“Did the demon say anything that didn’t sound like English?” Phoenix racks her brain, gasping when the mental image of the demon she’d slain muttering something with her dying breath creeps up behind her eyelids. Hinkku Imnum. Astinil hums thoughtfully.

“That confirms my theory.” According to the shaman, hinkku imnum is in fact not English. It’s Akkadian, a language that predates the Bible and was last used by ancient Babylonians. “Literally, it means ‘death to you’.”

“But, I’m not dead.” Phoenix holds her hand to her heart just to double check. She’s relieved to feel the muscle beating as normal.

“It’s a transformation spell. Long ago, demons discovered that if they grew powerful enough they could use this transformation spell to turn people into demons without having to go through all the trouble of bargaining for their souls.” Astinil takes a deep breath before he continues. “In this case, the death is restricted to everything that makes you human when the transformation takes place.”

“No, no, no. I have a heartbeat!” She insists, hoping that this fact saves her from what Astinil is leading up to. The look on the healer’s face is pinched as though he smells something bad.

“And yet, you’re not totally human. Not anymore.”

Marcus is sat on the front steps of the B&B when Taehyung arrives exactly fifteen hours after their phone call. His eyes follow Taehyung’s movement but they look far away. The smell of burned and rotting flesh hanging heavy in the air makes Taehyung wrinkle his nose. Bile rises in his throat but he manages to keep himself together. 

Taehyung is hesitant about entering the house. He knows that all of the beautiful memories he has in this house will be tainted once he crosses that threshold. His hand shakes slightly around the brass door knob before the door is creaking open. It’s worse than he’d thought. He recognizes a few of the faces that aren’t burned beyond recognition. The shells of his friends lay dismembered and disfigured across the living room floor. Without stepping foot inside the house, Taehyung slowly shuts the door, laying his forehead against the wood.

“Do we know who did this?” He chokes out around the lump in his throat. His eyes burn with unshed tears as he waits for the answer he so desperately craves. 

“I’ve heard rumors of Phoenix Emery being seen at a gas station just north of here.” He should’ve known when he saw the brutality of what had gone down that she would have been involved. 

Phoenix Emery has been on Taehyung’s shit list for a while now but tracking her down was no easy feat. The woman is almost as untraceable as the ghosts she exorcises. Every time he stepped foot on American soil, he did his best to oust her but she always seemed to be one step ahead of him. He’d all but given up on taking her out but with this latest stunt she’s made herself a top priority. 

There was a time when Taehyung had considered himself some sort of demonic vigilante. The number of hunters running around with their guns half-cocked and their brain cells half-firing had risen to an alarming number. Stupid as they may be, even the most inept hunter knew how to sniff out a demon. The average human as well although they tend to just blame it on some lame “sixth sense”. However, incubi are the exception to this rule. It simply wouldn’t do for a creature that survives on sex to arouse the ingrained suspicion of every human they encounter. 

While an incubus is low key enough to fly under the radar, Taehyung is the only one bold enough to actually target hunters. He makes sure to go after the most egregious ones just like with his other kills. The ones that get drunk and beat their wives. The ones that use their skills to be morally corrupt contract killers on the side. The ones who make their kills unnecessarily violent. As evidenced inside Mama Dee’s house, Phoenix Emery and the hunter couple Taehyung has heard she frequently works with fall squarely in that third stereotype. All three of them will pay the same price his friends did inside those four walls. He’ll make sure of it.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Derrick asks for what very well may be the millionth time since the three of them had piled into his jeep. 

“If you ask me that one more time, you won’t be okay. I’m fine, Derrick, I promise.” Physically that is. 

Phoenix had made Astinil swear that he wouldn’t tell Derrick and Brewer what had actually happened to her. She hasn’t even attempted to try to process it and right now she doesn’t really want to. The irony of it all would be funny if it wasn’t her reality. A hunter whose specialty is killing demons is now some strange demon-human hybrid. Her mind drifts back to her conversation with the shaman as they’d watched the sun rise over the garden. He’d been able to stop the spell from completely transforming her into a demon but it wasn’t within his powers to reverse the damage that had already been done hence her halfling state. Before the trio had left his residence, he’d pulled Phoenix aside to give her a warning. 

Your humanity is dependent on your safety. Should you suffer a fatal injury, you will not die but rather the transformation will complete itself.

Those parting words play on a constant loop as she watches the trees blur past the speeding vehicle. Hunting is all Phoenix has ever known. Both of her parents were hunters as were their parents before them. It’s in her blood to snuff out the supernatural bullies in this world. How can she give it up? How can she just give up her life’s purpose like this?

Derrick’s eyes keep drifting to his friend in the backseat. She told him that she’s fine, but he can see through that bullshit. The turmoil swirling around her mind is plain as day. He’s used to her telling him everything that goes on in that scary brain of her so this new ice out method is both new and frightening. She feels far away even though she’s sat in his backseat and he doesn’t know what to do with that. His stomach is twisting into knots again as he thinks about just how close he’d come to losing her. The feeling of Brewer’s fingers tightening around his own brings him back to reality. He leans over to kiss him on the apple of his cheek when a disgusted noise comes from the back of the car.

“Can you losers keep your lips to yourselves up there? I just escaped death and now y’all are trying to kill me by being in love at 80 miles an hour.” Brewer chuckles, reaching back to flick Phoenix on the knee as she continues to rant. “Just push my lonely ass out of the car before y’all the dicks make an appearance. My virgin eyes do not need to see that.” Derrick can barely contain his laughter. Maybe he doesn’t have anything to be worried about. Maybe Phoenix really is okay

“Virgin, my ass!” Derrick shouts above his boyfriend’s hysterical laughter. “Brewer, get on the mainline and call Jesus. I want this lying heathen struck down immediately.” 

Phoenix flips them both off before going back to staring out of the window. For those few minutes, she was normal. She was simply Phoenix Emery, the girl who can never let her best friends be a couple in front of her without acting like a disgusted toddler. Not the Phoenix Emery that is newly demonic. She decides then and there that if she doesn’t acknowledge what happened then it can’t affect her. It might not the best course of action but it’s all she’s got. Her first order of business? Getting to Detroit to divest the McAvoy’s of their nasty poltergeist problem as well as her $2,500 fee. 

Tracking down the trio of hunters responsible for the death of his comrades had been a little harder than Taehyung had originally expected. Three months later and the only information he’d been able to get on Phoenix is that her kills had gotten more brutal since her and her friends had hit The B&B. He’d thought her two friends would be easier to start with but he’d still only just been able to pin down Derrick Yates and his boyfriend Patrick Brewer. According to the call he’d received the day before from Irene, a werewolf that had frequented The B&B, the two lovebirds are holed up in a motel just outside of Kansas City. Fresh off a kill. During his search, Taehyung had learned that the couple liked to celebrate successful hunts by fucking each other brains out for a few days. Getting his revenge may have just gotten even easier. He just had to get in that motel room. 

It took two whole days of waiting but the door to the two hunters’ hotel room finally opened. Only one of the men emerged from the room, the one Taehyung now knew to be Derrick Yates. From his research, he’d learned that his history with Phoenix Emery spanned more than two decades. The two had grown up in the same circles with both of them coming from households where hunting was the encouraged profession so naturally they’d developed a bond that had seemingly lasted the test of time. Phoenix’s family had even taken young Derrick in when his intolerant parents had kicked him out upon discovering their son was gay. It dawned on Taehyung then that killing Derrick and Patrick would surely make Phoenix surface. A wicked smile took over his face at how everything was lining up as he followed Derrick to a nearby gas station. 

Weaseling his way into the seedy motel room was surprisingly easy. Taehyung got the feeling that Derrick and his boyfriend liked to invite other people into their lovemaking quite often. In less than hour, Taehyung found himself drinking copious amounts of beer and smoking some weed Derrick had bought from some old lady three doors down. The weed had to be laced with something potent as it had Taehyung flying amongst the clouds despite his demon nature which normally afforded him near immunity to such things. 

Taehyung was staring off into space, contemplating just what the hell they were smoking when a large hand groped him over his jeans, bringing him back to the moment at hand. He slowly blinks as Patrick’s face comes into focus mere inches away from his own.  

“Why the fuck isn’t he answering?” Phoenix grumbles as she angrily tosses her iPhone down on the kitchen table. It has been over a week since she’s heard from Derrick or Brewer and it’s starting to grate on her nerves. In their line of work it isn’t too uncommon for one of them to go off the grid for a while but they never go this long without checking in with each other. She goes back to angrily scrolling through her email inbox as she laments about why her best friend is ignoring her. He better be dead or I’m going to kill him myself.

Her laptop pings with a google alert and her heart stops. There is only one reason that she would be getting that ping. Someone she loves is dead and the news has gotten a hold of it. Phoenix had set alerts for exactly three people. Derrick, Brewer, and Betty White. Her hands shake as she slides her finger across the trackpad to click on the notification. 

Ice flushes through her veins as she clicks play on the news clip that pops up at the top of the page. One of Derrick and Brewer’s many mugshots are plastered on the screen over a video of a county coroner rolling two body bags out of some run down motel. The sound of the newscaster listing out all of the crimes Derrick and Brewer had committed over the years melts the ice in her bloodstream as it’s replaced with white hot rage. Phoenix is seconds away from putting a bullet through her laptop screen when her ringtone blares. She freezes at the familiar instrumental tone of Will Smith’s Wild Wild West. The ringtone she’d set specifically for one Derrick Yates. She says nothing as she answers the phone, waiting for whoever is on the other end to speak first.

“Hello, Phoenix.” A voice as lush as the fleece blankets she’s partial to caresses her ear drums but there’s something off about it. A hard edge that’s sharpened by malice. Still she says nothing.

“I’m sure you know about your friends’ demise by now if all these news trucks are anything to go on.” Her grip tightens dangerously around the phone in her hands. 

The now familiar red haze that clouds her vision when the bloodlust of her demon half threatens to overwhelm her tints the world around her a deep crimson. She’s never felt it this strong before but losing the two most important people in her life, the only two people remaining in her life, is a pain she hasn’t dealt with before. Even when her parents had been killed in a plane crash of all things, she hadn’t felt this out of control. This off kilter. Phoenix is so lost in her own head that she doesn’t realize that the other end of the line has fallen silent as well until they start speaking again.

“You and your friends should’ve never entered that farmhouse.” Phoenix laughs bitterly at that one. That fucking farmhouse has been the catalyst to all of her problems. No one wishes more than her that they’d all stayed far away from it. 

“What do you want?” 

“Your bleeding heart in my hands.” The smooth-talking stranger begins. “Your friends had the luxury of going out with a…bang. You, on the other hand will not be so lucky thanks to your brutally impressive track record.”

“Aw shucks, thanks for noticing.” Phoenix smiles gleefully at the frustrated growl that comes from the mystery man on the other end. She’d already figured that he was some demon looking for revenge for his fallen comrades and that demonic rattle rising from his throat is only confirmation. He rattles off an address about a day’s drive south from her house and a date before hanging up the phone.

Phoenix knows this is a trap. She knows that whoever that was killed Derrick and Brewer and is gunning for her next. As she loads up her SUV with enough artillery to arm a small militia, she’s vaguely aware of her eyes shifting from their normal dark brown to the black chips of obsidian that showcase the less human side of herself. It had freaked her out the first time it happened but now she revels in it. Loves the shocked faces of the other demons she snuffed out in her hunting endeavors. Apparently she’s just human enough to not tip off other demons. She’s banking on the fact that whatever supernatural being she’s headed to meet is unaware of her status. It’s her one ace in the hole. 

Taehyung lounges leisurely among the wildflowers growing abundantly in the meadow. It’s been a while since he’s had the time to just stretch out in an empty field and be one with nature. He takes a deep breath, humming joyously at the sweet smell of the flowers. Part of him doesn’t want to desecrate such beauty with the murderous actions he’s about to partake in but it must be done.

He picks up on the sound of a truck approaching from the west. Taehyung isn’t surprised to hear the engine cut out a few hundred feet away as Phoenix chooses to make her final approach on foot. He doesn’t budge from his position in the slightest as he counts her footsteps. A low thud followed by a hiss that sounds suspiciously like a tire being slashed has him raising his head. Sure enough, Phoenix is pulling a knife out of his front driver side tire and walks around the rented SUV to do the same to the back passenger tire. The car is outfitted with run flat tires but Taehyung is sure they’re not built to withstand a blade stabbing through the side wall. He’s intrigued to say the least. 

It’s when she turns to finally face him that Taehyung gets the shock of several lifetimes. Staring back at him is not the hunter that he was here to kill but the woman who’d stolen his heart. A woman whose hand he’d clung to desperately as she walked out of his life.. Something that had nearly ripped him apart. But that was in 1748. There’s no way in hell that the woman he’d loved all those years ago should be shoving knives into his tires today. Her friends’ phones had been noticeably devoid of any pictures of her though he guess that isn’t entirely uncommon amongst hunters. Bile rises in his throat at the thought of killing someone who looks so much like his beloved Arabella but it must be done. He steels his nerves and sets his jaw. 

Her curly hair has been pulled back into a bun and she looks like she’s dressed for a Tomb Raider convention with all of the holstered weapons she’s sporting. The cargo pants she’s wearing do absolutely nothing to conceal her impressive figure. If she wasn’t such a menace to his kind then maybe Taehyung would’ve considered giving her the same treatment her friends had received. Unlike them however, Phoenix seem to find some sick and twisted pleasure from killing demons with as much brutality as possible. She doesn't deserve to meet her end wrapped around his cock as he brings her to a screaming orgasm. No, she deserves exactly what she dishes out. Cruelty.

“What was the purpose of that?” He questions as she returns her knife to the holster strapped to her unfairly shapely thigh.

“Don’t want you running away.” She replies calmly as she places her foot on the back bumper to give herself the necessary boost to climb onto the roof of the now useless vehicle. She mirrors the cross-legged position that Taehyung has taken on. They sit and regard each other in silence until Phoenix just can’t take it anymore.

“You killed my friends. My brothers.” She hates the way her voice cracks. The emotions that she’s been frantically shoving down are catching up to her at the worst possible time.

“It’s what they deserved. It’s what you all deserve for what you did to my friends.” Taehyung grits out. His hands curl into fists as he thinks back on the brutality that he’d seen. The remnants of as his friends laid in blistered pieces around what was supposed to be a safe place. The anger coursing through his veins all but erases the nostalgia that had nearly overwhelmed him.

Phoenix moves into a crouch then. “Well what are you waiting for? Give me what I deserve.”

Taehyung regards his opponent carefully as he remains seated on the ground. There is something…off. Something other than her outward appearance. He can’t quite put his finger on exactly what it is but something isn’t right. Apparently, he’s taking too long to get to the main event as he just barely rolls to the side in time to dodge the knife that would’ve sliced through his torso like butter if not for his quick reflexes. Phoenix is still crouched on top of his useless vehicle. If it weren’t for the blade sticking out of the soil to his left he would’ve never guessed that she’d even moved. That only adds to his suspicions. No hunter he’s ever encountered has ever been so precise and quick in their movements to the point they almost got the drop on him. He doesn’t have the time to dwell on that though as yet another blade is whistling through the air in his direction at an astonishing speed. Once again, he’d barely seen her move.

“That’s it. No more games, bitch.” Taehyung mumbles to himself. He has to get her off of that car now. As long as she’s up there, she has the upper hand and it’s time to even the playing field. 

Taehyung narrows his eyes at Phoenix. She has the audacity to grin at him, taunting him even now. A growl rises from his chest as he launches himself at the side of the car. It rocks violently when he strikes it. The glass from the drivers side exploding around him. He steps back and notices that Phoenix is no longer perched on top of the SUV like a bird of prey. The human-sized dent in the side of his rental tells Taehyung that she should’ve definitely been thrown somewhere but when he walks around to the other side Phoenix is nowhere to be seen.

“What the…” Taehyung doesn’t get to finish that sentence. He’s too preoccupied by the hand grasping a fistful of his hair to slam his head into the side of the car hard enough to shatter one of the remaining windows. 

He hits the ground when the unknown hand releases him. Looking up, every muscle in his body tenses up when he sees three women staring down at him. Taehyung screeches and thrashes around as she pours what can only be holy oil directly onto his face. 

“Huh, so you are a demon.” Phoenix murmurs as if she hadn’t been totally sure what type of being Taehyung was. 

Though agony still holds him firmly in its grip and he’s still seeing more than one Phoenix, Taehyung pauses. Demon. It would explain everything. She shouldn’t have been able to move faster than his eyes could keep up with and yet, she did. She should have been thrown several yards and injured when he’d flung himself at the car he was currently lying next to and yet, she wasn’t. He’d rented the SUV from an armored car company so she shouldn’t have been strong enough to break the reinforced glass with his skull and yet that’s exactly what she did. His vision finally stabilizes at the same time as the blisters on his face finish healing when Phoenix crouches to press the business end of a pistol she pulled from God knows where against his forehead.

As if she can see the gears turning in Taehyung’s head, Phoenix’s irises along with the whites of her eyes disappear entirely until nothing is left but darkness. A smug, toothy grin exposes her teeth in a way that gives him pause. He’s really thrown for a loop now. Taehyung had heard stories of demons that had devised a way to simply create demons but until now he’d thought it was just bullshit to scare humans. As Phoenix continues to stand over him, seemingly amused at Taehyung’s realization, he remembers the one thing that set the made demons apart from the rest. Their eyes would turn solid black unlike the red irises that presented in demons who’d bargained their way into their situation. Everything made sense and yet it didn’t. Phoenix Emery has a heartbeat. Taehyung could hear it from a mile away whereas other demons like Taehyung were noticeably devoid of one.

“What are you?”

She shrugs as if he’s just asked her a math question she doesn’t know the answer to. “I’m someone you shouldn’t have messed with.”

BANG.

Taehyung sits on the balcony of his swanky New York hotel room soaking in the sun’s rays. The sound of the waves beating against the rocks far below provide a serene soundtrack to his chaotic thoughts. A deep inhale fills his nostrils with the salty air tinged with the scent of a small, but busy donut shop somewhere along the beachfront. Everything about his surroundings should relax him but his shoulders are still tense, thoughts still jumbled together.

He absentmindedly fiddles with the bullet that Phoenix had put through his skull. It had been lodged in the soil beneath his head when he finally came to several hours later. He’s been confused ever since his eyes had slowly blinked open to the dazzling sight of stars twinkling down at him. His life had been spared and he has no clue why. She had to know that the bullet wouldn’t kill him. The only surefire way to kill a demon is dismemberment preferably followed up by burning the pieces. She hadn’t done any of that just left him lying on the ground with a hole in his head.

Not only had Phoenix left him alive but she has seemingly gone off the grid. Despite all of his searching, Taehyung hasn’t been able to find a trace of her in the weeks following their meet up in the meadow. He hates the phrase “going ghost” but that seems to be exactly what she’s done. 

He’d tried calling her from her friend’s phone only to discover that she’d changed her phone number. Some arm twisting had gotten him an address but when he’d shown up at the modest brick house it was boarded up. It didn’t look like anyone had been there in a while. The question of why she’d left him alive bounces around his brain incessantly. He can’t rest until he finds out why. 

Despite the hell she’d helped rain down on his comrades, Taehyung isn’t all that sure that he wants to kill Phoenix anymore. Taehyung has always been and excellent judge of character and he had seen flashes of genuine emotion and humanity in her eyes in that meadow. Sure, she killed demons for sport but she wasn’t all bad. In other words, he’s torn on what to do when he finally tracks her down. On one hand, he’d promised Marcus to avenge their fallen friends but on the other he had his own moral code to adhere to as well. He’d promised centuries ago that he would only take the lives of those that were too evil to be allowed to live. He’s not sure you fit that criteria anymore.

He lets out a resigned sigh as he returns the bullet to the pocket on his button up. The mangled piece of metal serves as a daily reminder of his new purpose. Finding Phoenix a second time is already proving to be one of the hardest tasks he’s ever undertaken in his lengthy existence. 

“That pie must be shit.” A hand slides into Taehyung’s line of sight, taking his fork right out of his hand to take a bite of the mediocre blueberry pie in front of him. A gag follows soon after. “That’s awful.”

“Phoenix…” He breathes her name out in shock as if he can’t believe she’s actually sat in front of him in some shitty diner in Phoenix, Arizona of all places. He’d come here for the irony of it all since she’d taken over his thoughts for the past seven months. Now here she is in the flesh. His eyes roam over her face, taking in every detail. She’s just as beautiful now as she was more than 200 years ago.

“I thought we would’ve had round two forever ago but one of us is actual shit at finding people.” She sends him a pointed look as she waves away the waitress that had come to take her order. Her mouth is open to speak again, but Taehyung interrupts her.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” He whispers. If his heart still beat, it would be racing right now. His fingers grip the edge of the wooden booth so hard he can feel the wood splintering. 

Phoenix considers him carefully. Even by demon standards, he looks crazed and out of control. She’s done her homework on him since their first physical interaction. Kim Taehyung is not to be underestimated. Though an incubus he may be, he’s old, wily, and dangerous. His own ignorance and rage had worked to her advantage before but now that he knows her secret she doubts that she will have the same luck a second time around. She really should have ripped him apart and lit him up like a Christmas tree but it didn’t feel right. Her hands had cradled his head in her hands with every intention of wrenching it from his shoulders with the brute strength stored in her arms but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Phoenix recalls the anguish that had flowed through her at her failure to properly get justice for Derrick and Brewer. Her fingers had carded through the bloody strands of his hair with what could only be described as tenderness. She couldn’t understand. Still can’t understand even after all the time that’s passed. Ultimately, she’d left Taehyung lying in that field a bloody mess and she still can’t quite explain why. 

“I know you’ve probably agonized over this for months, but I don’t have the answer you’re looking for because I don’t even know myself.” Taehyung is taken aback. How could she not know? Phoenix Emery never leaves a job unfinished and yet here he sits, alive and kicking. She crosses her arms across her chest and Taehyung can’t help the way his eyes are drawn to her ample breasts as they threaten to pop out of the thin tank top she’s wearing.

“Stop looking at my apple dumpling shop.” Phoenix chastises as she covers her cleavage with her hands. Taehyung’s eyes widen in shock once more. Apple dumpling shop. He hadn’t heard anyone utter that phrase in almost two hundred years. In fact, he’d only ever heard one person use it in his presence. Arabella.  

“I have to go.” Phoenix is a picture of confusion as Taehyung sends his chair toppling to the floor when he shoots out of his chair. He drops a few bills on the table and all but runs out of the diner. His legs don’t stop moving until he’s locked in the safety of his hotel room. 

This can’t be. This just can’t be. Taehyung isn’t naive enough to think that reincarnation isn’t possible. He’s heard of it happening. He knows it’s more common than most probably think but never did he consider the possibility that the one woman he’d given his heart to would ever reappear. Arabella Cardinal had been her name. Part of him had hoped that her soul never found its way back to Earth just so that he wouldn’t have to have to watch as she lived her life without him again. He can clearly recall the pain he’d felt when she’d finally gotten tired of him rejecting her advances not knowing that he was doing so in order to keep her alive. Taehyung would’ve given anything to know her in that way but it was an impossibility that he had no way of solving. 

He had thought that nothing could be worse than having the woman of his dreams reject him for something he couldn’t control but he had been wrong. So very wrong. Watching Arabella meet and marry the local blacksmith who gave her everything Taehyung so desperately wished that he could had nearly been his undoing. He’d wanted to leave. Wanted to get as far away from the happy couple and their growing family but he was greedy. He couldn’t stand not being near her. Hearing the sound of her laughter as she conversed with the other married women at the market had been the only thing to keep him sane when it felt like it would all become too much. It had nearly killed him to leave the small village but people had started noticing that he wasn’t aging. He couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion. An entire century and then some stretched between then and now yet the pain was still just as fresh. Now here she is again to torment him. Close enough to touch and she may as well be a million miles away. 

Taehyung has absolutely no way to confirm that Phoenix Emery really is the reincarnation of his beloved Arabella. He could have this all wrong. It could all be one nausea-inducing coincidence. There’s a feeling deep in his gut though that tells him its not. Phoenix can’t explain why she didn’t kill him all those months ago but maybe he can. His Arabella had been one of the kindest souls he’d ever known but everyone in the village had known that she kept a blade between her full breasts that she had no problem using if she felt she had to. Many a handsy drunk had known the truth of that fact. Taehyung stretches out across his mattress, staring at the ceiling as he mind finds the similarities between  and Phoenix. Little mannerisms that he hadn’t even really noticed until now. He needs to get out of Arizona before he does something crazy. Taehyung hastily collects his things before checking out of his hotel.

“Fuck you.” He hisses angrily at the ground as he steps outside into the heat. A few passerby give him strange looks but he doesn’t care. Only Satan himself is twisted enough to try and torment him like this. Taehyung is opening the door to his rental to drive to the airport when a hand reaches around him to shut it. 

“Leaving so soon? I thought we were going to finish this once and for all.” Phoenix whispers huskily against the shell of his ear. Taehyung couldn’t have stopped the shiver that runs down his spine even if he’d wanted to. Arabella had loved to “sneak up” on his to whisper filthy shit in his ear. He hadn’t been able to tell her that he always heard her coming. Phoenix on the other hand truly did catch him off guard.

“You let me live. We’re even now.” Taehyung mumbles before he yanks the door open once more. Phoenix keeps her hold on the door, preventing him from closing it as she stares him down. Silence stretches between them as all of the background noise of their surroundings fades to nothing. She releases the door form her grasp and takes a step back, allowing him to drive away as she watches after him. 

Phoenix can’t explain this…pull she feels towards Taehyung, but she knows that she doesn’t like it. Her eyes follow his vehicle until he turns off of the main road and disappears from sight. She needs answers and there’s only one place she knows to go get them.

Phoenix is almost nervous to be knocking on Astinil’s front door. The shaman doesn’t seem surprised to see her in the slightest. He doesn’t even greet her, simply turns to walk back into his home and she follows him in. It’s not till she’s seated on his sofa with a mug of peppermint tea in her hands that Astinil finally speaks. 

“To what do I owe this pleasure, Ms. Emery?” Like a dam giving way to a storm surge, Phoenix launches into the tale of everything that happens since she last was on this very couch. Astinil expresses his condolences for Derrick and Brewer’s deaths but otherwise he remains mute as Phoenix presses on. 

“I don’t get it, Astinil.” She all but yells in frustration. “I put a bullet in his head. I could’ve ripped him apart with my bare hands and everything would’ve been over but I couldn’t do it. I just…couldn’t.” 

“And why do you think that is?” Astinil looks like he knows something that she doesn’t and it’s honestly starting to piss her off. Why can’t he ever be forthcoming with information? Why does he always make her work for it?

“I was hoping you would tell me that.” 

“Nothing is ever that simple, Phoenix.” Astinil takes a final sip of his tea before venturing back into his kitchen with Phoenix hot on his heels. 

“Come on.” She whines. “You have to know something. Have a clue at least.” The hope in her eyes makes her look like a small puppy but Astinil is resolute.

“I know you came here looking for a helping hand in find the answers you seek, but your answers are not here. Try Paris.” Astinil gives her shoulder a comforting squeeze before leaving her in the kitchen with her thoughts. She lingers there for a bit as she watches Astinil, who is now in the garden pruning hedges, through the window above his sink.

Well this was useless.

Phoenix hits the freeway and just drives. She has no real destination as she maneuvers through the slower vehicles. A sign indicating there is an airport at the next exit prompts her to finally exit off of the highway. She digs around in her stash of documents coming up with two passports, American and France, drivers licenses from six different states, about two grand in cash, and several credit cards. She drops the cash, all of the credit cards, and the French passport into her backpack before assessing her clothing situation. Seeing as how she’s been practically living out of her car, she’s got enough clothing for at least a month or two.

As she makes her way inside the airport, she still has no idea what the hell could possibly be waiting for her in Paris but she’ll just have to figure it out when she gets there. The flight board shows one flight to Paris, France with a connection in New York City. As if some unseen force is guiding her hand, Phoenix finds herself swiping her card for a one-way ticket to Paris as opposed to the round trip she’d originally planned for. Her brain seems to have taken a vacation and left her baser instincts to take over. She has no idea what awaits her in the City of Love but whatever it is better be worth the $800 it’s costing her to get there.

It’s official. Taehyung is losing his mind. After his realization in Arizona, he’d returned to his villa in France to go back to his own life pre-Phoenix. Everything had been going fine until today. Venturing into the city usually brings him peace as he strolls down the streets. He’s doing just that when he spots someone that looks suspiciously like Phoenix Emery. Taehyung hastily returns back to his home on the outskirts of the city. Sure that he’s just going crazy, he goes back to planning the next corrupt target he’s planning to eliminate. A politician by the name of Jacques Bourdain with a penchant for brutally assaulting the hired women his assistant often supplied him. 

Taehyung is knee deep in surveillance videos when his phone vibrates next to his laptop. He sends it to voicemail after taking a look at the caller ID to see that it’s one of his former hookups Mattilyn. She was a bit too clingy for Taehyung’s liking hence why she’s a former hookup and yet she still finds the need to call him periodically to try and win him back. It’s when Mattilyn has called for the fourth time that Taehyung gets frustrated to pick up.

“What the fuck do you want, Mattilyn?” He barks into the phone speaker. His interest is immediately piqued by the sound of what can only be described as all out warfare. 

“Tae Tae I know you don’t want to talk to me, but a hun-” Mattilyn doesn’t get to finish her sentence. Taehyung picks up on the whistle of a blade slicing through the air right before Mattilyn is cut off. He’s frozen in his seat as the sickening thunk of metal chopping through flesh meets his ears.

Taehyung’s car is screaming down the highway towards the hangout spot that Mattilyn is known to frequent when he hears a familiar voice over the bluetooth speaker. The voice is as smooth as honey even though they’re slightly out of breath.

“Tae Tae, is it? If you’re coming to avenge your little friends, don’t bother. They’re beyond saving.” A loud clatter indicates that she’s dropped the phone to the stone floor but the call remains connected. Taehyung mashes the gas pedal that much harder. He’d thought that he’d been going crazy when he saw Phoenix earlier in the day but hearing her sadistic laughter preceding the striking of a match tells Taehyung that he is still very much in control of his mental faculties.

The lavish bar is ablaze when Taehyung slides into the parking lot. He can practically smell the holy oil used as some sort of sanctified accelerant. It irritates the sensitive lining of his nose to even breathe in the heated air. He looks around for any sign that Phoenix is still here. The hunters that normally patrol this part of the country are nowhere near bold enough to hit and torch a known demon hangout. As he jogs around the building, it dawns on Taehyung that a a particular vehicle is noticeably absent from the parking lot. Mattilyn has driven a flashy purple BMW for as long as Taehyung has known her. He knows for a fact that her body is one of the ones burning along with the bar and yet her car is mysteriously not present. 

Quickly approaching sirens spur Taehyung into action as he hops back into his car and speeds away. Mattilyn’s car is equipped with a tracking device. A safety measure she took after a couple of joy riding teens decided to take it for a spin since she’d been stupid enough to leave it unlocked with the keys still in the ignition. He plans to head straight for his laptop to start trying to track the sports car down. As it turns out, he doesn’t have to go to the trouble. When he reaches the end of his winding driveway, the car is idling at his front steps.

Taehyung reaches into the glove compartment for the nine millimeter that he keeps there for emergencies. He’s still not sure what the hell kind of demon Phoenix is but a bullet will definitely slow her down even just a little a bit. He approaches the BMW with caution, gun drawn and ready to go. The driver seat is empty. Taehyung’s anger only rises as he realizes that she must have went inside his house. The picked lock confirms his suspicions. The lush carpeting muffles his footsteps as he enters his home. 

“Put that thing down and come upstairs, will you? I have some questions.” Taehyung looks almost comical as his head flips around to locate the source of the voice. He spots Phoenix leaning against the banister on the second floor. He doesn’t hesitate to fire a shot in her direction. He misses.

“Now, that’s just mean.”

Phoenix returns Taehyung’s bullet fire by throwing a knife that she pulled from only God knows where with deadly accuracy. Something Taehyung is realizing to be a go-to of hers. She’d aimed for the center of his chest but, thanks to his quick movements, the knife only grazes him. He snarls at the feeling of the sharpened blade opening up a large wound along his rib cage. In the time it takes him to look down at his side and back up again, Phoenix is on him. Slamming her fist into his rib cage.

Fuck she’s fast.

“When you wake up, remember I didn’t want to do this.” She grabs his head in both hands, twisting it violently to the right. Taehyung crumples at her feet. His gun skitters across the floor like a spooked mouse.

Taehyung comes to with a start. The first thing he notices is that he’s restrained. Tied to a chair he notices as his senses come back to him. A glance out of his open bedroom window shows the sun just starting to set over the horizon so he couldn’t have been out that long. He cranes his neck from side to side, working out the kinks. When he lifts his head, he notices Phoenix standing in front of him. She’s turned away from him as she gazes at the various surveillance pictures of the politician Taehyung is after taped to the wall. That’s about to prove very foolish for her. 

The restraints on his wrists and ankles are no match for Taehyung’s superior strength. His fist is flying towards the back of Phoenix’s skull when suddenly she’s not there anymore. He stops short, confused, as he spins around to come toe to toe with the smirking hunter. She knees him in the gut before guiding him back to the chair by his ear. 

“You’re not nearly as fast as you think you are, Taehyung.” She appraises him carefully as he does the same from the chair she’s shoved him into. “Now be a good boy and answer my questions. I’d hate to have to break your neck again.” Taehyung’s glare only intensifies at the reminder of how she’d viciously snapped his neck earlier. 

“I told you to leave me alone and instead you follow me here and kill more of my friends and now you want me to answer questions?” Taehyung spats out vehemently. “Have you ever fucking heard of Google?”

“First of all, I didn’t follow you anywhere so let’s get that straight.” Phoenix begins. “I was told that Paris held the answer to an important question so I came here. Your friends killed a kid and laughed about it when I confronted them. They deserved to burn and I won’t apologize for it.”

Taehyung’s eyes search her face for any hint of her story being a lie but he can’t find one. His shoulders droop defeatedly. He would like to believe that his friends weren’t the type to kill an innocent child but his gut is telling him that she’s being truthful and he hasn’t survived this long by not trusting his gut so there’s no reason to not believe it now. 

“Fine, I believe you. What more do you want from me?” 

“I just want you to answer a few questions.” She takes his silence as acquiescence to her desires and grabs another chair to take a seat in front of Taehyung. “Why do you have so many books on reincarnation.”

“Personal fascination. Next question.” Taehyung handles the question with ease but inside he’s a lot less composed. He’d almost forgot the ancient texts about reincarnation he’d rounded up the second he’d returned to France. 

“Why did you leave Phoenix like your ass was on fire?” She inquires with a tilt of her head that Taehyung would probably find cute if she wasn’t such a pain in his ass. 

“Because I was tired of being there, anything else?” Phoenix doesn’t believe him one bit and Taehyung knows it but what he doesn’t know is why she chooses not to acknowledge his obvious lie. She slouches back in her chair and folds her arms across her chest. 

“What’s with all the pictures of Jacques Bourdain?” She lifts a hand to point at Taehyung’s offender wall before folding it back across her chest.

“How do you know who he is? He’s pretty low on the politics totem pole.” He questions with a lift of his eyebrow.

“I managed to get into some swanky party my second or third night here. That fucker groped me at the bar then had me thrown out when I punched him.” Just thinking about his vile hands on her body makes Phoenix seethe. She shoots out of her seat much the same way Taehyung had in that Arizona diner. He realizes then that Phoenix may actually be useful to him. He may as well make the most of her presence since the universes seems so keen on forcing her into his life. 

“What if I told you that I could help you get revenge?” Phoenix returns to her seat, eyeing Taehyung intently.

“If it involves that bastard’s blood on my hands, I’m in.” Taehyung nods once before crossing the room to his computer. He opens his file on the bastard in question and shares his screen with the massive tv mounted to the wall.

“How much do you know about me?” Taehyung questions as he turns to face Phoenix once more. 

“I know you’re an incubus with a dick that’s supposedly the size of the empire-state building but my contacts were pretty much mute on everything else.” Phoenix replies with a not so subtle glance at the front of Taehyung’s slacks. “Looks kinda average to me though.”

Taehyung can’t help but preen at the praise about his cock that Phoenix was obviously quite loathe about receiving. It seems that his recreational romps with a fellow demon here and there has built up quite a reputation for him over the years. 

“Allow me to fill in the blanks for you.” Taehyung turns back to his computer, fingers flying across the keys. Pictures of people that Phoenix has only seen on international news channels appear on the screen in rapid succession. “In terms of the humans I go to bed with, my preferred type are the most immoral shit stains I can find. Modern-day slave owners like Amanda Pine? Dead. CEOs that cut off basic resources to entire populations of indigenous people to steal their land like Jason Blackwell? Dead. Homophobic fashion house owners like Donatello Bianchi that put out hits on the small creatives that they steal designs from while putting up a homosexual front to sell said designs? Dead.” 

Phoenix is admittedly in awe as Taehyung continues to list the names of the powerful people and their heinous crimes that he’s punished them for. Her entire existence until this very moment has been built on the notion that demons are inherently evil and bring nothing but destruction to the world and the people around them. Thus, they have to be put down like rabid animals. Now, now she’s not so sure that that wide-sweeping assumption was correct. 

“This is cool and all but I’m not sure how I fit into that. You obviously have a…system that’s working for you.” Phoenix trails off as she looks over the pictures on the screen once more.

“Jacques Bourdain is straight as an arrow and toxically so. My system as you call it won’t work on him and that’s where you come in.” Taehyung leans back against his desk as he watches Phoenix for a reaction. Her expression is carefully devoid of anything that would allow him to gauge what’s going on insider her head. “If you help me then I don’t have to spend weeks planning a new approach.”

“Let’s do it.”

“How do I look?” Phoenix asks, doing a quick twirl in the red cocktail dress that just barely covered her ass. Sky high platform heels adorned her heels, the red bottoms almost the exact same shade as her dress. Cartier diamond studs from his own personal collection glittered whenever they peeked through the thick curls that seemed to bounce whenever she walked.

“Bewitching.” Taehyung replied and he means it wholeheartedly. The dress is perfectly suited for the luxurious curves of her figure. He’s already enraptured with her from one glance. She should have no problem catching Bourdain’s attention tonight. 

The drive to the nightclub is spent going over every fine detail of their plan. Phoenix is confident and assured as she repeats everything to Taehyung with perfect accuracy. This is just like any other hunting mission to her only this time she’s hunting a different kind of demon. 

According to some intel from one of Taehyung’s contacts, the corrupt politician will be at an exclusive night club called Deux, his current favorite spot for picking up girls. Potential patrons dressed to the nines give Taehyung and Phoenix strange looks as they stride to the front of the line. Taehyung can hear whispered words about how they’ll never get in in passing, smirking to himself. The confused ogling becomes outrage when the bouncer at the door steps aside to let them in immediately. 

“That’s how it’s done.” Taehyung murmurs almost to himself as he follows Phoenix up the narrow flight of stairs. 

He nearly misses a step when the action of climbing the stairs causes her dress to ride up enough for the curvature of her ass to start peeking through. He reaches forward to hold the hem down while doing his best not to stare. Taehyung nearly groans when his fingertips meet the warm flesh of her thigh. All of his centuries spent fucking for survival and this one woman has him flustered like some prepubescent schoolboy without even trying. Unacceptable. 

Bourdain isn’t hard to spot once they reach the top of the stairs. He’s perched in the VIP area like a hawk, nursing a drink as he scopes out which unfortunate young woman he deems pretty enough to make his victim for the night. Taehyung makes sure to disappear immediately as planned, leaving Phoenix to her own devices. He watches with rapt attention as she quickly gains entrance to the VIP section. Taehyung recalls the advice he’d given her when they were deciding on what she should wear tonight. If you look like you belong no one will question if you actually do. Looks like Phoenix had taken him seriously and it is already working in their favor. 

Taehyung grabs a seat at the bar and signals for the bartender. He quietly sips on his whiskey when it comes as he watches Phoenix do her thing. She boldly takes a seat next to Bourdain who looks a bit surprised to see her. They strike up a whispered conversation that quickly turns heated, presumably because of the mention of the security camera footage of him assaulting Phoenix stored on the flash drive tucked between her breasts. Bourdain’s gaze falls to her breasts when she suggestively runs a single finger over her cleavage. Phoenix parts ways with the politician and with a knowing glance exits the club. Bourdain looks deranged as he downs the rest of his drink, the fingers of his free hand roughly yanking through his hair. It’s not long before he’s following the same path Phoenix had taken towards the exit a few minutes prior.

When he reaches the street, Taehyung follows the sweet citrus scent of Phoenix’s perfume. There is an alley a few blocks down from the hotel that the two of them have deemed the perfect spot to give Bourdain what he deserves. Taehyung’s step falters when Phoenix’s scent trail suddenly cuts off before he’s even reached the alleyway. He looks around only to realize he’s standing next to a near empty parking lot.

“Fucking hell, Phoenix.” His steps are quick as he heads in the opposite direction to his own vehicle. Just when he thought that she’d learned to follow directions, the wench has proved him wrong by going horribly off script. 

He doesn’t expect her to answer, but he calls her phone anyway just to say he made the effort. Phoenix picks up on the second ring much to his surprise. If demented killer clowns were ever recorded giggling they would sound exactly like the woman on the other end of the phone call. Blood thirsty and psychotic. 

“Phoenix, where the hell are you?” 

“Jacques wanted to go somewhere a little more private. I’ll be back soon don’t worry.” She cuts the call before he can get another word in. 

“God damn you, Phoenix Emery.”

Four hours twenty nine minutes and thirty eight seconds. Taehyung is seated at the bottom of the main staircase when Phoenix finally struts through the front door of his home like she owns the place. There is a pleased gleam in her eyes that only shines brighter when she smiles at him. Taehyung hates the fact that his anger dissipates at the sight of such joy on her face. Thankfully, he’s able to maintain the scowling expression he’s been sporting ever since he’d last spoken to the woman in question.

“Look I know you’re mad that I didn’t follow the plan but that bastard definitely got what was coming to him. I promise I’ll do everything your way next time.” She has the decency to look almost sheepish as she stands in front of Taehyung’s seated figure.

“What makes you think there will be a next time?” He arches an eyebrow in question. “For one, you’ve already proved that I can’t trust you to stick to the script. Plus, I don’t actually need you, especially considering this is the only way I get to feed.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sure Jacques Bourdain isn’t the first loser you’ve gone after that doesn’t like dick and I’m sure he won’t be the last. Let me help kill bad guys, Taehyung.” She looks almost desperate as she pleads for him to let her stay. “You took away the last bit of good I had in my life when you killed my Derrick and Brewer. You owe me this. You owe me this and more, Taehyung.”

“Fine,” Taehyung breathes out after a moment. “but only on one condition. You tell me what you are.”

“Thought we covered this right before I put a bullet in your brain.” Her eyes become engulfed in darkness just as they had that afternoon in the meadow before returning to their normal dark brown. 

“And yet, you have a heartbeat.” Taehyung points out. 

“The demon that tried to turn me couldn’t get the job done. I’m still human if only just a little bit.” Phoenix replies with a shrug of her shoulders as if they’re discussing the weather. There is tension in her shoulders that suggests she’s not as okay with the subject matter as she’s trying to portray. Part of Taehyung wants to press the issue, but a larger part of him decides to leave it alone for now. She’s human enough to not arouse the suspicions of full-blooded demons which she’s obviously used to her advantage as she also happens to have enough demon blood in her to give her access to some of their more supernatural abilities. 

“We’re not done discussing why what you did tonight wasn’t okay, but we’ll pick that conversation up again tomorrow.” Taehyung rises to his feet and looks over the woman in front of him appraisingly. “For now, you’re welcome to any of the extra bedrooms upstairs. Good night.”

Taehyung is chopping strawberries when the newscaster interrupts her piece on a recent factory fire to report on some breaking news. According to the overly bubbly reporter, the body of Jacques Bourdain had been discovered about an hour ago. The politician had apparently been found parked in his car outside of a known brothel that catered to people in his tax bracket. The reporter on site looked visibly ill. After hearing how both of Bourdain’s hands along with his penis had been detached and placed on the hood of his car, Taehyung could understand why.

“Officials say there was a flash drive was found hanging from the victim’s neck but no word on what that flash drive may have contained. Back to you, Mila.” 

Taehyung goes back to his strawberries as the sound of Mila and her cohost discuss the implications of Bourdain’s death. It’s only a matter of time before the contents of that flash drive come to light. The “beloved family man” reputation that Bourdain had worked so hard to curate would go up in flames. 

“Good morning.” Taehyung turns to face Phoenix as she enters the kitchen and he almost wishes that he hadn’t. He must have stored some clothing in the guest room she’d ended up in as she is clad in one of his t-shirts and not much else from the look of it. “Hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your shirt. I realized that all of my bags are still in my hotel and I was not about to sleep in that dress.

“S’fine.” He offers her some of his strawberries which she gladly accepts. She stares at the tv thoughtfully as she perches on one of the barstools and munches away on the juicy fruit. 

It’s a struggle for Taehyung to keep his eyes off of her thighs as she spins slowly on the stool. His grip on the knife is tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. She’s tormenting him and, judging from the way she’s dedicating her attention to the news, she has no idea she’s even doing it. 

“The dismemberment was a nice touch.” Taehyung points out, breaking the silence. Phoenix turns to face him with a pleased smile. 

“A known rapist and abuser like him deserved that and more. I just hope all of his past victims can find peace in knowing he can’t hurt them or anyone else ever again.” She snags a few more strawberries before turning back to the television. She’s practically radiating with joy at hearing the media talk about the brutally gruesome aftermath of her rage. 

“So, who’s next on the hit list?” Phoenix questions when the news program goes on a commercial break. She looks affronted when Taehyung denies her attempt at snagging more strawberries but she stays silent. 

“Next up on the agenda is Johnson Danville. His company has caused a wave of childhood cancer by dumping its waste in a nearby town’s water supply and he thinks he’s above the law because he has enough money to thwart any legal action.”

“What’s our approach?” She’s all business now. Brow furrowed, jaw set, and fists clenched as images of her snuffing out the life of such a horrid man probably play on loop in her head.

“There is no our. I’m doing this one on my own.” Taehyung silences her instant protests with a single raised hand. “Consider this your punishment for not following the plan last night.” The cute way she pouts at his decision makes her look like a child that’s been denied candy. Taehyung is tempted to give in just so she’ll stop looking at him like a kicked puppy. Thankfully, the doorbell rings and saves him from making a rash decision out of his own weakness.

“That should be your bags.” She doesn’t seem particularly concerned about how I found which hotel she was staying in to have her luggage delivered which doesn’t go unnoticed by Taehyung. He makes a mental note to explore why that is later. 

Phoenix is seated at the bottom of the stairs waiting for him when Taehyung emerges from his room. His steps falter for a second but he gets himself together before she has a chance to notice.  He busies himself with his cuff links as he hurries down the stairs. She can pout all she wants but Taehyung is determined to remain firm in his decision. If she wants to be a part of what he does, then she has to learn that what she did with Bourdain is something that won’t be tolerated. 

“Sitting at the bottom of the stairs like a lost puppy won’t change things, Phoenix.”

“Oh come on. You’re acting like I did something so wrong.” She protests vehemently. “You were going to kill him anyway so why are you so mad that I freestyled a little bit?”

“It’s not about that. It’s about trust.” Taehyung makes final adjustments to his suit in the mirror by the door, staring at Phoenix in the reflection. The puppy eyes she’d been sporting when he first came downstairs have been replaced with indignant anger. “I can’t work with a wild card.”  

Taehyung gives Phoenix one last appraising look before disappearing through the ornate front door. Phoenix finds herself staring at the carved wood for a few seconds. Her first instinct is to go out and kill something to release the rage coursing through her. She races upstairs to the guest room she’s chosen to occupy. 

She hadn’t been able to bring any of her own weapons save a few ceramic knives that she’d been able to sneak through airport security. She’d rectified that as soon as she landed in Paris by securing a few firearms. It’s as she’s tucking her nine millimeter into the waistband of her jeans that she catches sight of herself in the full-length mirror in the closet. Staring back at her is not her own reflection but rather the image fo her mother. She can hear her voice clear as day repeating the mantra that she’d parroted to Phoenix every time she’d done something self-destructive. 

“Your future is manifested through your own actions.”

Phoenix closes her eyes, trying to hold on to her mother for as long as she can. The person staring back at her looks eerily similar to the woman who’d brought her into this world, but there is a pain in her eyes that is deeply rooted in her soul. Before common sense can catch up with her, Phoenix draws her weapon and fires. Once. Twice. Three times. Until the image of her own despair lays shattered at her boot clad feet.

Taehyung returns the next morning rejuvenated and expecting to walk into an empty house. He’d fully expected for Phoenix to work herself up into an enraged fit and leave. The first thing he notices when he steps into the foyer is the lingering smell of a gun that’s recently been fired. The air is still, undisturbed. Taehyung is relieved to not be able to pick up on the smell of blood but he is still uneasy. He draws his own weapon from his waistband. After checking the first floor, he creeps up the stairs. The first room he checks is Phoenix’s. He finds his new roommate stretched out across her bed with a gun on the mattress next to her. He gives two short knocks on the door, startling her awake. 

“Woah, woah, woah it’s just me.” Taehyung shouts when Phoenix immediately draws the weapon next to her. He definitely should’ve expected that. “Why have you been shooting a gun in the house? Was someone in here?”

Her eyes get comically wide as she glances towards the closet. Taehyung can tell she probably didn’t mean to do that when she winces immediately after. His eyebrow raises in confusion. He’s never seen her show so little restraint over her actions in all the time he’s known her. Though she tries to stop him, Taehyung strides over the walk-in closet. The remnants of the antique mirror that had once stood in the closet lay in sad, little pieces at his feet. 

“Do want to talk about this?” Taehyung murmurs as continues to survey the damage. He can almost hear the gears in her brain whirring, trying to find an answer that doesn’t make her sound unstable. 

“My future is manifested through my own actions. I don’t want to mess up again.” He turns slowly to face Phoenix where she stands in the doorway of the closet. She feels small under his piercing gaze but she doesn’t shy away. Taehyung is silent for a long while.

“Okay then. Come, we have work to do.” He slides by her and returns to his bedroom with Phoenix following behind him. Neither one of them can really put their finger on it, but something has shifted. She follows him dutifully to his bedroom.

“Now, before we do anything I want you answer one question.” Taehyung starts as he takes a seat in the leather chair in front of his computer. “What are you?” Phoenix was afraid of this question. It’s been months and she still hasn’t fully accepted the truth of it herself.

A lie is on the tip of her tongue. Taehyung must be able to sense it because he raises an eyebrow as if challenging her to let the lie fall from her lips. Phoenix bites down on her bottom lip as she contemplates what she wants to do. Her mother’s words play again in her head so she takes a seat on the end of his bed and tells him everything. Taehyung has never heard of such an occurrence and if he couldn’t hear her heartbeat clear as day, he wouldn’t even believe that something of this nature could even happen. He is absolutely floored though in hindsight he probably shouldn’t be. The evidence has always been right there in front of him.

“That’s…” Taehyung trails off as he searches for the right words. “That’s definitely something. I’m sure you’ve had a hard time coping with that.” Phoenix laughs humorlessly. He doesn’t even know the half of it. 

A single tear slides down her face and she does her best to keep the rest of them at bay. Taehyung feels a physical ache in his arms at not being able to reach out and comfort her. Arabella had always told him that she felt better about whatever was going on whenever he held her but he has to continuously remind himself that the woman in front of him is not Arabella. So he comforts her in the best way he knows how, turning to his computer to bring up a profile on the next person he plans to eradicate.

Phoenix hums to herself as she steps inside of the modern split-level that Taehyung has summoned her to. The tangy scent of fresh blood caresses her senses like a fleece blanket. According to the text message she’d received about half an hour ago, things had gotten…messy and he needed new clothes to wear. She whistles lowly when she finally sets foot into the kitchen where Taehyung had chosen to take care of business.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to kill someone in a room with quite this many knives.” Phoenix observes as Taehyung sheds his shirt and drops it into the trash bag she’s holding open for him. It’s littered with bloody puncture marks from obvious stab wounds and yet his skin is tanned and unmarred. She whistles lowly, wiggling her eyebrows when he drops his pants to the ground to drop those into the bag as well. Taehyung makes some lewd comment about his dick being to die for if she ever felt like going full demon which earns him a kick to the knee.

“Duly noted, sensei.” He mutters with a roll of his eyes. Phoenix just snickers, tying up the bag holding his ruined clothes while Taehyung changes into the hoodie and jeans she’d brought for him. Conversation continues to flow easily between the two of them as if there isn’t a corpse at their feet. She glances at the pool of blood around Taehyung’s latest snack, an art teacher by the name of Aleyna with a taste for prepubescent boys. Her throat is slashed clean through to her spinal cord.

She drops to a crouch next to the bloody body on the linoleum. She pulls out the small pocket knife she keeps tucked between her breasts. Taehyung looks on curiously as Phoenix carves the word pedophile into the bare chest of his victim. He’s about to remark on how neatly spaced her letters are when he hears sirens approaching the house.

“Time to go.” He mutters as he grabs Phoenix by the hand. Judging by how close the sirens are, it’s too late to hop in the car and speed away. He remembers Aleyna mentioning something about the home having an expansive basement that was converted into a wine cellar. Hopefully, that means that there’s another exit.

The locked cellar door is no match for Taehyung’s superior strength as he wrenches it open. He can hear the front door being broken down. Aleyna must have had some sort of silent alarm that she’d managed to trip. He curses to himself at the inconvenience of it all. Part of him wants to tap into the renewed power thrumming in his veins and take out the law enforcement team currently sweeping the home, but the more rational part of him reminds him that while his DNA is untraceable, Phoenix’s is not. He can’t risk her getting nicked by a blade or a stray bullet and leaving evidence at the scene of a murder. Taehyung’s eyes go wide when he hears the tell-tale sound of a silencer being twisted into place. 

“What the hell is that for?” He whispers incredulously.

“CYA, my friend. CYA” She whispers back with a devilish smirk as she hands Taehyung the extra firearm she had tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

Thankfully, the wine cellar is equipped with a second entrance as they slip out into the night. Phoenix and Taehyung take down the two officers patrolling at the back before they get the chance to even think about calling for backup. They drag their bodies into the shrubs. The car is a lost cause with all of the police activity going on at the front of the house so they’re forced to make tracks through the woods.

They don’t make it far before things go plummeting down hill. A loud shout has Phoenix twisting in place to fire off a few shots. Unsurprisingly, she hits all of her intended targets, but this time she’s not quick enough to prevent the officers from getting off a shot of their own. Rage floods Taehyung’s entire being at the quickly growing stain growing in Phoenix’s left shoulder. He lifts her into his arms and runs faster than he can ever recall running before. Her slowing heartbeat spurs his legs to move even quicker. This is exactly what he was afraid of.

Over the past few months that they’ve been working together he’s learned just how much Phoenix treasured her humanity. Despite her perceived recklessness, she’s never put herself into a situation that she had any real doubts about fighting her way out of. A few bruises and scrapes here and there but never has she incurred anything as serious as the gun shot she’s just incurred. Taehyung is less than two minutes away from the closest hospital when he hears it. The steady thump, thump, thump that he’s been so used to hearing falls silent. The absence of it is so deafening that his steps falter.

“Phoenix?” He jostles her in his arms expecting, hoping for her to come back around. Her head simply lolls around on her shoulders. 

Taehyung’s heart hasn’t beat in over four hundred years and yet he could swear that the muscle is constricting violently in his chest. When he’d lost Arabella he’d been in absolute agony, but she had still been alive when she’d left him. His knees buckle from the weight of the range of emotions threatening to drag him under. Deep down he knows that she’s not truly dead, but it hurts all the same. They’re close enough to the city now for the sounds of people and cars to reach his ears but none of it matters. He hugs Phoenix’s limp body to his chest. In spite of how they came together, she has become not only his partner in crime but one of his closest friends. Taehyung nearly leaps out of his skin when something touches the back of his head.

“You smell like sex, blood, and adrenaline. It’s awful.” Phoenix croaks out, pushing him away with a pinched expression on her face. Taehyung laughs despite himself. It doesn’t matter if she technically just died, Phoenix can never let him live.

“I’ll shower later. We have to get out of here.” Taehyung hauls them both off of the ground, dusting the dirt off of Phoenix’s jeans despite her protests. She tries to yank her hand out of his when he latches onto it to pull her along, but Taehyung is having none of it.

When Taehyung had said that they needed to get out of here, Phoenix thought he meant get out of the woods and back to his house to hide out. It wasn’t until he told the driver of the cab they hailed to take them to the airport that she realized he meant that they were getting out of the country entirely. She had nothing on her but her American drivers license, forty euros, and a black cat sticker and yet she was sitting on a private jet headed for the Maldives in less than two hours. That was nearly three weeks ago and Phoenix can’t exactly say that she’s upset at that. At first, she’d been positive that she would get bored of not having a clear and purposeful goal for her time but that notion had quickly been squashed. 

These days she spends her days exploring the island with Taehyung or lounging on the private section of beach in front of the massive villa that they’ve been staying in. Today, they’re in search of a small cave that the locals say is home to a hot spring that Taehyung is dying to take a dip in. Phoenix is just about tired of navigating the precarious path of slippery rocks when Taehyung suddenly shouts. She nearly loses her footing but recovers in time to see him dashing off towards the cave she figures is the one they’ve been searching for. By the time she catches up to him, he’s already waist deep in the water.

“You couldn’t even pretend to wait for me?” She asks playfully as she strips off her clothes, dropping them in a pile on top of his. He totally submerges himself in the crystal clear water as opposed to answering her question.

The spend the next half hour frolicking around, dunking each other under the water. Taehyung has just bucked her off of his shoulders when they decide to take a break and just float around. Head tilted back, arms outstretched, Phoenix is almost asleep as she drifts around on her back when Taehyung interrupts her solace.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” His voice is so soft that she almost doesn’t hear him even with her enhanced hearing. Even so, she contemplates ignoring him anyway just to avoid the conversation he’s trying to have. 

This isn’t the first time he’s tried to get her to talk about her emotions and she’s tempted to give him the same answer she’s given him on his previous attempts. No. She doesn’t get the chance to do so though. Phoenix gasps out loud when she’s suddenly flipped upright and lifted out of the water to sit on a large rock next to the hot spring. Taehyung’s hands remain firmly planted on her hips to ensure she doesn’t try to escape. She’d discovered a while ago that Taehyung is actually quite clingy with people he trusts so she’s not surprised when he lays his head in her lap with his arms wrapped tightly around her and threatens to keep her trapped that way until the sun explodes unless she talks to him.

“Taehyung, this is madness. Move.” She nudges him with enough strength to send a human man flying, but he doesn’t move an inch. They fall into a stubborn silence as they both wait for the other to make their next move. As Phoenix expects, Taehyung cracks first.

“If I tell you a secret, will you talk to me?” He murmurs against the damp skin of her thigh. She feels more than hears his words.

“Depends on what the secret is.” Phoenix kicks her legs lazily on either side of Taehyung’s body. He takes a long, shuddering deep breath that intrigues her enough that her legs stop moving.

“The reincarnation books I have in my room. It’s not just a personal fascination.” Taehyung falls silent as if he’s gathering the courage to get to the root of what he’s trying to say. Phoenix had already assumed that there was a deeper reason for the massive tomes that Taehyung hoarded but she’d never felt like it was her place to intrude. 

“I was in love once. It was the 18th century and I met this firecracker of a woman that made more heart beat fast for the first time since being turned.” Phoenix listens dutifully as Taehyung describes the woman that had held his heart in her hands. The more he talks, the more she feels this odd sense of familiarity. As if she knew this woman personally. Her brain connects the dots right as Taehyung gets to the gist of his tale.

“Wait,” She stops him before he can get the words out. “are you about to say what I think you’re about to say? Because if you are, I have an assload of questions.”

“Do I think you’re the reincarnation of my Arabella? Yes. Can I prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? No.” He confirms. Phoenix pushes at his shoulders and Taehyung allows himself to be moved. Judging by Taehyung’s expression, the panic sitting like a stone in her gut is manifested on her face.

“How long have you thought this?” 

“Since I first laid eyes on you in that field. I’d gone through your friends’ phone but they didn’t have a single picture of you. I nearly got up and left when I saw you.” Phoenix snorts as she replays that day in her mind as she often does only this time with Taehyung running for the hills the second he sets his eyes upon her face. 

“This probably sounds ridiculous, but I feel this…connection to you.” Taehyung explains with a sheepish look on his face. “It’s like you’re a planet and I’m a moon being pulled into your orbit.”

She doesn’t have the courage to admit that she feels the same way. Phoenix slips back into the water now that Taehyung is no longer physically restraining her. He says nothing as she moves behind him to wrap her limbs around him. She allows a few moments of silence to pass before she unloads everything she’s been holding back. The disgust she feels at what she’s become. The shame of feeling like she’s let her parents down considering she is now the very creature they dedicated their lives to hunting like rabid dogs. Her fears for the future and the possibility that darkness that is practically inherent in demons could one day overtake her. 

“Do you think I’m evil?” Taehyung probes.

“Well, no, not really.” She answers without missing a beat. Her original assumption of Taehyung had proven to be quite false despite the events that had allowed them to opportunity to build the friendship they have today.

“So why do you think that you’ll suddenly become some sort of degenerate just because you’ve lost your human side? You’re still the same Phoenix Emery as you were before the change. Demons make their own choices and have to live with the consequences of them just like everyone else.” His words hang in the humid air, marinating into her psyche. She’s not entirely sure that she believe him but the thought of being able to hang on to some sense of normalcy give her hope for the centuries to come.

“Taehyung, do you love me?” Phoenix voices into the still air in the double bedroom she and Taehyung share. The villa has four other rooms with single beds and yet for whatever reason they’d decided that this room was perfect.

“If this is a ploy to get me to sing Drake again, I’ll kill you.”

“No, seriously. Do you love me? Since I’m probably the reincarnation of your dead girlfriend or whatever.”

“I care for you deeply and I think your ass is perfectly perky and round, but no I do not love you the way I loved, Arabella because you are not her.” Taehyung responds matter of factly. An inkling of regret is creeping in. Maybe telling Phoenix about Arabella hadn’t been the best idea.

“Don’t get so full of yourself, Taehyung. I’m not looking for you to pledge your undying love for me. I just wanted to know.”

Taehyung stays quiet for so long that she’s beginning to think he’s said all he plans to say. “Phoenix, have you ever been in love?”

“Once. At least I thought it was love but then he made me choose between him and hunting and I hesitated.” Taehyung whistles lowly, flipping over in his bed to face her in the darkness of the bedroom. He analyzes her side profile as she continues to focus her eyes on the ceiling. His lips tingle with the urge to ask her more questions but he remains silent, waiting.

“I last saw him about two years ago. He’s married now with a kid and a dog and a white picket fence. I’m happy for him because I don’t think I could’ve given him that.” She whispers solemnly. Her tone is flat and even but Taehyung can hear the emotions that she’s not voicing.

“Would you do it differently if you could go back in time?” He asks curiously. Phoenix doesn’t turn over but she does glance at him fleetingly.

“Honestly, no. I’m a sadistic motherfucker that like to hunt and kill beings I deem unworthy of living. That’s not the type of person who settles down with 2.5 kids and a dog.”

“Touché”

“What about you? If you could’ve turned Arabella, would you have done it?” Taehyung should’ve expected her to turn his own question back on him but it catches him off guard all the same. A few months ago, he would’ve said yes without a shadow of a doubt. Now? He’s not so sure.

“I don’t know that I would. I’d always thought that I’d do anything to bring her back, but I don’t think she’d be happy this way.” Phoenix hums thoughtfully. 

“Well at least you have me. Annoying but cute.”

“What have I ever done to deserve such a blessing.” Phoenix lashes out with one of the extra pillows on her bed, using it to get revenge on Taehyung for the sarcasm dripping from his words.  There’s no way the fluffy down pillow has any effect on him but it makes her feel better all the same. 

“Sarcastic bastard.” She spits out only for him to playfully stick his tongue out at her with a childish giggle.

“Aw, should I kiss it and make it better?” Taehyung teases. His eyes nearly bug out of his head when Phoenix says yes.

At first, he thinks she’s just kidding until she gets out of her own bed and into his. She slips underneath the covers and scoots close enough to Taehyung for every inch of her body to be pressed up against him. The air in the room feels thick with the pheromones and sexual tension radiating from the both of them. He can already feel himself rising to the occasion but he doesn’t want to read too much into it although a blind man could see that there is only one way to interpret what’s happening right now. 

“What are you doing?” He whispers. She’s brought her face so close to his that every word is punctuated by the slight brushing of his lips against hers. Her eyes sweep over his face.

“Research.” Taehyung practically growls when she presses her lips against his. Not kissing her back doesn’t even cross his mind as her tongue traces against the seam of his lips and he lets her in without protest. He explores and plunders her mouth just as they’ve done with the various caves and forests they’ve ventured into during their time in the Maldives, with reverent excitement.

His large hands slink underneath the t-shirt she’d stolen from his dresser and he’s pleased to discover that there isn’t much to be found beneath it other than her supple skin. Their lips remain connected even as Taehyung pulls her body on top of his. He can feel her hardened nipples through her shirt and he’s overcome with the need to feel her skin directly on his. The thin fabric doesn’t stand a chance against him when gathers it into his fists, yanking until she’s totally free of it. She makes some comment about his eagerness that he chooses to ignore in favor of covering her chest in as many marks as he feels fit to create. 

Phoenix rearranges her legs so that she’s straddling Taehyung’s lap. The new change in position means the sizable bulge barely contained by his boxer briefs is now pressed perfectly against her clit. Her hips start moving practically on their own, settling into a pattern of slow, purposeful grinds. Taehyung grabs at her ass with both hands to help her along. Even in the dark, he can still see the growing patch of wetness on the grey material that remains between them. The soft whimpers she makes every time he bumps against her clit could rival even the world’s greatest symphony. Her breasts swing tantalizingly in his face, but just as he goes for them again, she pulls away. 

His protests fizzle out when she tugs on the waistband of his boxers. He lifts his hips to help her out, reaching down to slowly stroke himself once he’s free of them. The shocked look on her face is definitely something he plans to tease her about for the next few decades, but for now Taehyung is more focused on getting his cock shoved down her throat as quickly as possible. 

“Taehyung, that’s an excessive amount of dick.” Phoenix can’t take her eyes off of the stiff appendage between his toned thighs. She’d always thought that the rumors of him having a dick the size of the Empire State Building were just that, rumors, but she’s quickly discovering that he definitely gives the popular landmark a run for its money in the size department. She’s both incredibly turned on and more than a little hesitant about fucking someone with that much to work with.

“Scared?” The smirk on his face lets her know that he knows exactly what that does to her. She feels challenged and Phoenix Emery never backs down from a challenge. She’ll die trying to prove him wrong and he knows it.

She gives him a firm squeeze when she takes his length into her hand. His head falls back as a groan rattles around his chest. Taehyung gasps at the unexpected sensation of Phoenix suckling on his balls as she continues to stroke him just the way he likes. She licks a stripe up his cock from base to tip, sucking on his leaking head before repeating the process. He hisses when she finally envelopes his cock in her mouth. His hips push forward on instinct to get as much of himself into the warm, wet cavern of her mouth as he can. 

“Fuck your mouth is so good.” He murmurs. She hums around his cock in her mouth, burying her nose in the finely trimmed hairs at the base of his erection. Taehyung has never been to heaven but in that moment he swears he can see God. Euphoria spreads throughout his body as Phoenix continues to bob her head up and down on his cock. It’s sloppy, messy, and delightfully amazing. He can feel his balls drawing up, on the verge of an orgasm when she pulls her head away from his lap.

She walks on her knees until she’s straddling him once more. She leans down to kiss and suck at the tanned skin of his neck, making her way up and along his jaw. Taehyung is only too happy to reciprocate when she presses her lips against his insistently. He could spend the rest of his existence kissing her and it would make him the happiest man alive. His lips are wrenched from hers when she suddenly flips the both of them over so that Taehyung is hovering above her. His cock, still damp with her spit, rests against her pubic bone. He stops her when she grabs his cock and moves it to where she needs him most.

“Wait, but don’t you want me to finger you first? Or eat you out?” He questions. “You said yourself that I have an excessive amount of cock and I have to make sure you’re wet enough for it.”

“If I get any wetter, we’re both going to drown now stop making excuses and fuck me.” Phoenix drives her point home by grabbing his length again and dragging it through her drenched folds a few times before lining him up with her entrance. Taehyung doesn’t need any more convincing than that. He joins them totally with one strong thrust.

One thrust turns into two which turns into two more until Taehyung is sliding in and out of her like a well-oiled machine. He pauses long enough to press her knees into her chest before he resumes his movements. The change in position has his name flying out of Phoenix’s mouth like the darkest of curses. Her nails are digging into his thighs and the pain only adds to his pleasure. The image of Taehyung covered in sweat as he tosses his head back with his teeth bared like some sort of feral animal is one that Phoenix never wants to forget. She does her absolute best to keep her eyes open to commit this moment to memory. The sound he makes when she tightens her inner muscles around him could only be described as a growl.

His hands release her legs in favor of latching on to her bouncing breasts instead. She keens when he rolls her sensitive nipples between his fingers. Taehyung switches gears from his relentless pounding to a more purposeful grind of his hips, making sure to press his pelvis into her clit on every thrust. Phoenix grabs at both of his wrists and pulls in an effort to bring him closer to her. He obliges her with a chaste kiss to the tip of her nose. She wraps her limbs around him and holds on tight as the waves of pleasure begin to drag her under. Taehyung follows her over the edge with a harsh bite to her shoulder that makes Phoenix want to cum again. They fall asleep in a tangled mess of limbs and feelings that will be left to sort out when they wake. 

“Good morning, Sunshine!” Taehyung sing-songs. He yanks open the curtains to let in the light and isn’t surprised when his actions are met with a creative string of curses that would make even the most depraved demon cower in fear.

“I will rip your toe nails off and shove them in your eyes. Go away!” Phoenix buries her face into one of the few pillows that had managed to stay on the bed during their late night frolic but to no avail. Taehyung is quick to snatch it away from her along with anything else she could possible use to hide away.

She eventually realizes that resistance is futile and sits up in bed. Taehyung is momentarily  distracted by the small bruises and bite marks that have yet to fad away. They’ll be gone in the next few hours and part of him wants to take a few pictures to hold onto for his own personal use. 

“I think we should talk about last night.” Taehyung crawls back onto the bed, pulling Phoenix into his arms just because he can. She twists around in his hold until their face to face. 

“What is there to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know maybe why?”

“Remember the ex I told you about right before…that?” Taehyung nods his affirmation. There is an inkling of fear that what she’s about to say is going to kill the domestic dream that had danced across his mind’s eye all night.

“When he asked me to choose between him and hunting, I couldn’t do it but just the mere thought of not being with you despite how we ended up together physically pains me.” Phoenix distracts herself by dragging her finger across Taehyung’s chest in a nonsensical pattern. She can’t handle looking him in the eye while she talks about her feelings this way. “We’ve both hurt each other in major ways but, as twisted as it is, I think it was meant to happen this way. Fate and all that other mushy shit, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Taehyung nuzzles her cheek with his nose which she recoils from with protests about cooties. He shuts her up with a kiss that he hopes conveys all of the words he has no idea how to say.

[lornahansonforbes]

Prologue

If you’re reading this today, then you know I’m dead, dead to you as you are to me, and that should make you so very happy.

I gave it all up sitting at a red light.

This last piece is the final chapter of “The Emesis Tray of Feelings,” it’s a trilogy.

The trilogy contains one play, “Hot Neon Lights” and “Patina on the Edge,” which is a series of monologues and now this, “It Didn’t Happen,” a one act play.

The first installment, “Hot Neon Lights,” tells the story of two events. Act One is a very messy breakdown followed by the fourth and final attempt of my taking my own life. I failed four times. Act Two is about six to weeks later and the family meeting with the psychiatrist where they decide if I should be locked up in hospital or go cold Turkey. There was no option, no Grey area, only black and white.

“Patina on the Edge,” is a series of monologues that highlights moments of grand and glorious to being a homeless junkie who was sucking dick, meanwhile being a thief and a shitkicker was a great way to being truly infamous. Lofty goals. It parallels the story that’s laid out in “Hot Neon Lights.”

“It Didn’t Happen.” is a one act play with four scenes. Scene one, the night of the breakup and a month after the breakup. Scene two, a phone call about the breakup. Scene three, a group of friends who just saw the two aforementioned plays and are in a bar talking about what The New York Times will say about “Hot Neon Lights” and “Patina on the Edge.”

As you read this, do know that this is like Ivory Soap, ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredth percent (99 44/100%) true.

Several people have been merged into one character and not vice versa.

You should know that I died alone and bitter that I was never truly loved by anyone except by my dogs, Zoey, Chase, Auggie, The Brother Levi, CoCo and Harry; and my three cats, Rasselas, Othello and Belle Kitty.

I sadly cannot think of one person, past or present, who ever truly loved me.

I suffered with Bipolar Depression and Anxiety for a large portion of my life. The three guys who I stupidly referred to as my boyfriend, I see now that they barely tolerated me as did my family.

I don’t give a shit. You and whomever can say what you want about me and pepper it generously with Drama Qween. You do know that but I can only tell you what my perception was and how I saw things, but as usual, you’re right and I’m wrong. Fuck you, your opinion is paying for my funeral and you had the option not to read this.

Lastly, all the things I’ve written starting in the 1980’s and in between has been thrown out and erased etc. Yeppers. All gone. I kept it all but as of this entry, I threw it all out.

Since I’ve submitted to various outlets and people yet only to learn I’ve been ignored.

But you can find me on Tumblr and not on Tinder. Good luck with that.

Post Script:

I’ve told stories about how I lived and how I overcame. “You should write a book.” Motherfucker, don’t play with me. You ain’t gonna fucking read it. Why even bother existing? I’m done. If you really want to know, actually pick up the phone and call me. Bye, Felicia.

I forgot to tell you that someone asked me not to give up writing. Sorry but I’m not gonna change my mind about cutting off my nose to spite myself.

Scene One

The late summer sun was slowly going down as we approached the corner of Melrose and North Robertson.

Granted it was nearly 8:00 PM, the sun was still blazing away. I turned to look from the passenger seat to see people milling about waiting to go inside but also the paparazzi was there gawking and snapping pictures.

She slowed the car down for just a millisecond and then took a sharp left turn. Then Sister Mary of the Perpetual Parking Spot smiled down upon us and she pulled in and parked the car.

The restaurant sign read Ty’s Thai Tie Dye, an Indochina Conglomerate. We went inside and were seated way in the back. It was a jungle, flowers, potted trees and Passion Flower vines everywhere. The sun broke through like mosaic tiles.

Dinner was delicious and uneventful. She was now pulling up in front of my modest flat.

“Darling, I’m sure we’ve had a wonderful evening but I feel that my husband is all over us these past few weeks. I’m just so sick and tired of seeing his Gold Audi here and there every time we go out. Why can’t we agree to disagree with the fact that I’m who I am and you are you we aren’t able to carry on like this anymore. I know that I should break it to you gently, but let’s rip the fucking Band-Aid off, it’s over. Don’t speak. Let’s go our separate ways with our splendiferous memories and as the cliché states, when you do speak of me, be kind,” she blurted out without looking at me.

It took me a moment and then I watched her Black Jaguar Vandam Plas glide away and disappear. Nearly comatose, I fumbled for my keys and took those first tentative steps towards the front door. I saw my cat in the window and her deep gold eyes. We looked directly at each other. I got in my car only to pound the steering wheel with tears in my eyes.

“You ungrateful bitch,” I screamed so loud that my ears were ringing worse than being a rock concert.

I drove into the night with flashes of our tongues lashing about like in some porn as we tore our clothes off each other. She was moist. My turgidity.

I landed at Pfeiffer Beach and I saw a Sandpiper. Fuck my life. The sound of the crashing waves and the sun rising. Stumbling back to my car I spied that CHP had paid a visit with a bright orange parking ticket tucked neatly underneath the wiper blades. God damn it to hell.

When I turned the car over, the radio was blaring, some static but nonetheless it jangled my nerves.

“Now, I am strong enough. Now, I’m strong enough to accept change. Yes, my darling, if you want to live in another place, I can understand it. It’ gonna hurt for a little while, but I can understand it, but before you walk out that door, touch me in the morning,” this woman’s anger and hurt were front and center. We were simpatico at that moment. We were both in a world of hurt and she like me, we were not feeling it.

I tapped a button on my car radio and my playlist replaced her voice as I pulled into traffic on Route 1 South heading home leaving Pfeiffer Beach in my rear view mirror.

Whoever that female voice was previously on my radio, I felt like Kathy Bates and I was swinging that sledgehammer and I left her there to suffer.

Normally I’m not that guy who “gets in touch with their feelings.” It’s just not in my DNA and when I do “get in touch,” it’ll be like a Gatling gun. Crumpled up like a wad of paper, riddled with bullets and left to die gasping for breath in a pool of blood.

This morning I got up and was meandering around my neighborhood. I have absolutely no idea how it happened but I stopped into a local coffee shop and got a Chai Latte. I usually get a green juice with pomegranate and Acai.

I was in a deep, deep funk since I had dinner with my friend and she dumped me. Who was she to me? My girlfriend; friend with benefits: fuck buddy; mistress or just another conquest? Whatever it was, it was good and it lasted but it wasn’t like this hadn’t happened before and so this came to pass and now in my mind I heard Louis Prima singing, “…everywhere I go.” If I really wanted to hear that song, I’d rather find the David Lee Roth remake.

Apparently I got my steps in this morning without some contraption attached to me or some app on my phone. I plunked my narrow behind down on a concrete Jersey barrier and I looking at the waves crashing onto Dockweller Beach. I know it’s not Malibu Beach just a short drive North and it certainly wasn’t Malibu Beach in Boston. From that vantage point, you’ll see the highway and Sister Corita Kent’s artwork in the distance.

Seriously what the fuck, yo? Processing, tabulating, analyzing, and parsing the events of being dumped. I know I saw the data, but what did it reveal? Was it actually that simple or was I looking at the galley’s for the unabridged Cyrillic version of Tolstoy’s tome with copious notes in the margins. Could I decipher The Daily Jumble? Was I looking at some foreign language? Was I experiencing some sort of dyslexia? Sigh! Could I really clean this mess with a piece of used snotty paper?

I’m solving Pi!! Yeah, yeah!! That’s the ticket!!

I clenched my hand around my paper cup and almost spilled my Chai latte. I was fucking pissed.

“Ungrateful BITCH,” that right I said it and I said it with such furious anger venom was dripping of my fangs.

What a difference a day makes. Bull-fucking-shit. Something felt dissimilar yet had I seen the same thing from a different vantage point?

At that exact moment I heard one of those thumper cars approaching blaring something I didn’t understand  anything but I did hear, “Baile, baile con El General” and just like that the car was gone. Was Joy Division only for headphones? This is Los Angeles not Colby College.

Perched on the Jersey barrier, I wasn’t contemplating why lint gets in my navel.  I couldn’t dodge raindrops. Had I tabled my ego? Were my expectations quickly quieted? Was it like that thumper car; was I blaring or amplifying some sort of acceptance of defeat? The hounds had been released at the same time as I gave up my control? I can be that Type-A personality, driven and getting in touch with my feeling resided in an abyss somewhere, but the fuck if I know.

I felt dampness. Where am I now? Am I on the Maid of the Mist or standing underneath Niagara Falls? God damn it to hell!! I was crying. I normally don’t do that. I clenched my jaw so tightly I had TMJ.

“Mission Accomplished,” I think was actually the last time I did cry, but that was for my furry friends, Mickey & Minnie and then it was Stanley & Blanche. Do I get ahold of the anger in me? What the fuck? Maybe a word, a smile, an hour of happiness? NETX??!! I picked up my phone. I scrolled through my contacts. In a parallel universe, I called you a thousand times when I know I did not and I never will call you.

A boisterous and vociferous colony of seagulls appeared just a few yards away from me. Fuck. Hitchcock.

My paper cup is empty. I knew I had to dispose of it. Recycle, reuse, repurpose or like this affair, would it end up in a landfill? Just another thing to be unceremoniously and recklessly tossed away. It’s just a thing.

With a great exasperated sigh, eight months, two weeks and a day. That’s how long it lasted without me actually keeping track of it. Don’t go there. Don’t judge me. Men and women silently judge me and you but I can only assume they leave something on me so I don’t catch cold. Oh, shit. We had seen other naked. She fucking hurt me. Okay, I’m not that person, who’d scrawl, No Sale, on a mirror if I found a check and a note that read, “Last night was dope.”

My phone beeped, a text message letting me know I had to drive to Pacoima.

Gotta bounce. Later. Onto embrace the new challenges ahead and channel them into existence.

Scene Two

Part Three.

A Hello, bleep.

B How did you know it was me?

A I’ve known for a long time and plus it’s out there.

B Why did you say that?

A What did I say exactly?

B Don’t give me that bullshit. I saw it.

A I told you about how I felt but then I felt around in the dark and I didn’t know how that single cell actually started to feel like encouragement.

B What I said was to do it for yourself and not me.

A I did it for you first and then afterwards I got to me.

B You took more than you should have and you took it to another place. Also that’s not how it went down.

A It’s how some people work. As I told before, give me a thing to work with and I can easily create from there.

B I only told you about a sixteenth of what happened.

A But that was enough for me and those three sentences told me everything I needed to know. Fuck bleep, I told you recently about my Bipolar Depression and how I grapple with it hour by hour and mostly by myself with no assistance or guidance from anyone.

B I appreciate that and your candor but it makes me crazy. But fuck bleep, I know how mentally exhausted some people feel being in your orbit.

A Bleep, dude, we’re trying to get to that place in the day where we can say, I’m still here. First we get out of bed unassisted and the rest is gravy.

B Why such labels? I mean I know most of the names but you know I’m a tee shirt and jeans.

A Without inferring or intimating the slightest thing, I had a good feeling that who she is and most likely she has her own money but she doesn’t dismiss her husband’s money.

B I have my own money too but I’m not going to be seen eating on North Robertson.

A Possibly I’d see you at one place on Melrose or on Alameda and they’re not that far from where I put you. Then again, there’s a place around the way and you can walk there. I pay attention to things like that ever since I saw Russell Simmons ex wife Creamora eating at raw restaurant in LA a few years ago.

B Wow. How did find that out?

A She had a reality show and they showed her eating there and as a woman of color, she nearly lost her mind. One of things they served was a pizza but it wasn’t a New York pepperoni pizza all hot and gooey with cheese. I yelled at the TV, Gurl, I’ll take a slice. I’m in.

B Wait a minute, bleep. You told me you have issues with food.

A I do but sometimes I’ve got to throw caution to the wind and suffer with each delicious bite.

B So that’s why you fabricated that restaurant.

A Well, kinda sorta. When I was in LA, I found a great little Thai place a few blocks away from The Dolby and if I remembered the name I would’ve told you about it. They’ve got some amazing vegan options.

B This is one of the things I find about you, you know some of the most trivial things and it’s fucking scary.

A Bleep, I just hope I don’t actually lose my mind. I’d hope that you or someone else would put me down if dementia or Alzheimer’s effected me.

B Don’t say that. I sometimes like it when you remember what happened way back when.

A I’m not sure what’s going to happen but I’m still here regardless.

B I’ve got to ask why you said I cried.

A Bleep, you are but one of many Taurus men I know and if they do actually cry, it’ll be in the shower and they’d never admit to knowing how to cry. They might well up with tears but never cry in front of anyone ever.

B That’s fucked up.

A Taurus men do write but never about their feelings nor do they own a diary or journal. If that April born man exists who shares their feelings, they are a very rare breed of man.

B Well writing isn’t my thing.

A You sound exhausted.

B I had to compose myself and all the while I cursed your name.

A Oh it’s because I hit a nerve?

B You’re the last person I’d ever, of course, I think of to wax philosophic and then admit it to someone else let alone admit it to myself.

A Bleep, motherfucker, I’m completely aware and yet I’m not living under the delusion by pining away waiting for you to ask.

B No, it’s not that but does fall in the same zip code and then I used one word, empath. You dug as deep as you could and I’m like, fuck, man, I’m on the phone with you.

A Bleep. Bleep. I’ve known ever since your old EarthLink email and I never and I wouldn’t unless you asked. I told you before I see things that I don’t necessarily understand and with each message, I just end up seeing something.

B I gathered as much. There’s my Nou-Nou. Come up. It’s okay. Come on, Nou-Nou. Move your lard ass, Janx. There you go. All better. Rumple, not a word. You stay right there and let Nou-Nou get some.

A The kittehs!!

B Don’t distract. I’m not sure if you have a malignant will or you gave me something to think about.

A I can’t apologize more. I’m truly very sorry. I riffed on an idea and here we are.

B Life isn’t over as you think of it just because you’re alive. There’s more.

A That’s why I told you that I wouldn’t write again. Stirred the pot.

B You’re a dick.

A And your point is? A cunt? I’m The Dowager Empress and that’s all there is to that.

B You’re so full of shit.

A We’re not going to snap at each other like two terriers.

B Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Bickering just for arguments sake?

A You’re the one with the brown eyes, so you could possibly be full of shit. I’ve got green eyes, pea green with jealousy.

B You said some shit and it hit me. What’s that thing you usually say? Oh yeah, it’s a punch in the face you can’t take back.

A Bleep, dude. Most people want that moment in life where someone grabs ahold of you and pleads with you not to leave. It’s been played out in the movies, but not in our lives, right? I don’t know the life you led but I’ve had three boyfriends and each one of them dumped me. I’ve cried and played all the sad songs. You could have possibly done the same thing but let’s face it fucking Cher said it best, we all sleep alone.

B Whitney clapped back and said I’d rather be alone than be unhappy.

A True. But I had the near perfect relationship with The Beast. More than 40 years together. We both had separate lives and we were celibate lovers. We had each other’s back we did everything for love but we never did that. I knew that he wasn’t some Sir Galahad to love from afar, motherfucker was two legged boa constrictor. I’m okay with dying alone and unloved.

B That’s really a fucking bleak future. Well insert a happy go-lucky cliché here followed by Shady Pines. I can’t with you, bleep.

A I know that we’re estranged but don’t divorce me or fire me just yet.

B Okay.

-The curtain comes down and the audience breaks out in an uproar of applause and cheers-

Scene Three

E What was that we just watched?

CI wish I knew.

E 90 minutes of a conversation that never happened?

D Clearly you’ve missed the point of it. Two guys who knew each other since high school and they meet up years later. One guy had a bad break up and the other guy was now, as he said, a widower.

C Excuse me?

E Yeah excuse me. I don’t see it. Okay high school is one thing but forty years later, they’re talking like that?

D Okay let’s go for a quick pop at The Stone and we’ll go home afterwards.

E Which stone?

C I think that the closest one is Rosetta.

D No. That’s by Park Avenue. I think this one is Killarney but is it Kilkerry? Fuck. It’s right here at 8th Avenue.

C Don’t make thing of it but look over getting of that cab, Miles Silverberg.

E I know that name.

D Murphy Brown.

C It is him. Not bad looking but not my type.

D Bitch, your type is anyone who can make the letter O.

C You should talk. You’re still paying off that asbestos abatement from the last one.

D The two of you are practically virgins again, but then again Father Frank doesn’t give confessionals.

C/E Fuck you.

D Oh look, we’re here.

E I’ve always wondered exactly how many bars in Manhattan are actually Irish bars.

C Probably a few but I’m not sure. There’s only one Blarney Stone and I think it’s in Lower Manhattan not here in Midtown. I’m thinking that anything above 23rd Street is either owned by The Vara or Lyons’ Brothers.

E Damn.

D Hello, Merrick. We like a bottle of your best Shiraz and three glasses. We’ll be over here. Thank you. Yes, Merrick, yes you’re all that but put a ring on it.

E Why won’t you just fuck him and get it over with?

D We like this game. We just love to flirt with each other. No harm, no foul.

C She’s been playing with Merrick for years and he loves the attention.

E I wonder what The Times says tomorrow.

D This is the the last chapter of the trilogy. Uh…

C First was Hot Neon Lights, second was Patina on the Edge and now, It Didn’t Happen.

D I can’t get it out of my head that one scene with the mother fighting with the dad. She was so mad at him, she put out a cigarette in her hand.

C Oh fuck yeah, that was fucking brutal.

E Can someone get that mad?

D She’s his mother and momma bear wasn’t having it.

C True but I’m not sure about the pretentious names. Trenton Burroughs English and Daniel Charles Snyder. But you know what? They’re actual people. I found out that Trenton is some how many times removed from the Queen of Norway and Daniel is a surgeon with Doctors Without Borders. AND the most fucked up thing is that they don’t know each and have never met.

D You know what’s even more fucked up than? There’s an actual family here on the social register here in New York with the last name, Frankenstein. Google that.

E Thank you, Merrick. Ladies, a toast?

C Yes please and don’t be stingy.

D Miss Thing, leave some for the rest of us.

ALL 3 Cheers! Give my regards to Broadway!!

E Hot Neon Lights was excellent, though I thought the two fantasy moments were beyond me.

D Why?

E Is that what you’d expect from dropping a hit of acid?

C Not all the time. It’s different from person to person. I did it once and I had goosebumps most of the time and I saw these white penny tiles dance like waves and I was surfing.

D I went to see a midnight showing of Eraserhead in college and I hate that fucking movie. Sigh. I cringe whenever I hear, Eraserhead is dead. I wanna punch someone in the face.

E Damn and I said I was traumatized by seeing Gina Gershon’s pubic hair in Killer Joe. I’m sorry but on the silver screen in a crowded theater. I shudder to think.

C A straight guy cringing at the mound of Venus? What happened? Did you see your mother in the shower?

E It’s not that deep. My face is one thing but on a forty-foot screen? Shit was scary.

D Yeah that is unforgettable. Besides that, was the movie any good?

E I don’t know. I mean William Friedkin directed The Exorcist. Both are going to fuck with your head, period.

D Oh yeah he did but what was really fucked up was in Patina on the Edge when he told us how his father and stepmother thought that they were watching his life story on the silver screen.

C What fucked with my head with my head was when he told us that he actually went to M Street and those stairs. I saw the picture and it was daytime and the caption read, Here laid Father Merrin’s body. Regan MacNeil astro-projected his priestly self right out the window. Rest in Power, Mercedes McCambridge.

E What?

C Yeah. Gimme a second.

D You’re obsessed much?

C I couldn’t believe it myself and I took a screenshot. Look.

E Damn. That’s really fucked up. Here.

D Oh my God! That is fucked up.

C I know reality stranger than fiction.

E It wasn’t science fiction or was it tonight?

D Whatever it was, it was some great writing. He can tell a story.

C What did you get out of it?

E I’m thinking that after seeing Hot Neon Lights, Patina on the Edge and tonight’s It Didn’t Happen, I think they should have a face to face and make a decision if they’re going to be actual friends and figure out if they want to be celibate lovers and in a platonic marriage.

D Fuck that bullshit. It’s obvious that they are actually going to have a contentious relationship and they’re not going to find each other sitting together chatting it up in Shady Pines. The only thing that they can have is a hidden mutual respect for each other and the rest of us can only imagine that since neither one of them will admit to anything. He’s a whore and he’s a prude. They don’t know what they want, but can they be friends in any iteration of the meaning. We’ll never know.

C Well…unrequited love can keep you going. Okay I’ve got unrequited love too but I see mine as that song, All American Boy by Steve Grand. I just love that song and I’m obsessed with the media calling it Brokeback Breakout and he’s like the Gay Cowboy. That’s really a bad cliché but it’s even worse to know that not every fag wants to suck the quarterback’s dick. Yeah let that big man on campus get a pot belly and go bald, and at the 40th high school reunion you’re still in a size seven like me and what’s even worse is that all the girls want to kill me.

D Do let me know when old and bitter arrives.

E Oh c’mon. It can’t be all that bad. You’re supposed to live off a compliment for two weeks, but I always hope for the best. I mean I like my family and we all get along.

C Well how nice for you but I doubt it. It’s like Homer isn’t going to strangle Bart for the umpteenth time.

E Back to the other moment in Hot Neon Lights, what was up with that Diana Ross scene?

D That was explained in Patina.

C Yeah. He went to the Diana Ross Live at Caesar’s Palace show on two hits of mescaline but I think the point was like she said, I am and I’m going to be.

D Powerful.

E Didn’t he also explain how he could actually touch the guy on the flying trapeze at the circus. Apparently he likes dropping acid.

C Patina had that whole conversation about “Gee whiz. Boy I was drunk last night.”

D Yeah it was consensual but I’m not sure if they were that drunk or that high.

E I know right but he did fuck that girl after an eight ball.

C Oh yes! He was up to THANGS!!

D Indeed he was but that failed threesome was even funnier.

E Give the guy a break. I’m not sure if he wanted to fuck the husband in front of his wife or fuck the wife as the husband was going to fuck him.

C YES!! The bamboo chair hanging from the ceiling. If I was in that same situation I have no idea how to proceed.

E True, true, but I’m glad he told us from the jump, we’d never believe it actually happened. My mind hurts.

D Look gentlemen, the bottle is empty and we all have to go to work in a few hours. Let’s table this for the next time. Until then.

E Okay but it’s Romeo & Juliet with social media at The Public.

C That’s got to be something else. We’ll text after we read the review in The Times.

ALL 3 Good night, Merrick!!

[glopratchet]

000

They live on what little food they can grow themselves or trade for from the villages along the road He has been raised in a simple hut by his mother and father, who are both very poor farmers The only other person living here besides them is Simo himself, but he spends most of his time playing games with his brother, Nils Beebe-Beebe The next day you wake up to find that your innkeeper is gone without an explanation as usual called the "Beeship" It's a small device that will allow him to travel through space instantly If he uses it properly, he'll be able to get anywhere in the galaxy within minutes You know all this because he tells you about it every once in awhile while you're eating breakfast You wonder if he really needs all these extra profits, but then again maybe not you've got a lot of money now after all to a countless number of worlds throughout the galaxy, which means you are making a good profit You order extra alligator parts shipped in from dozens of other planets each week It gets to the point where half the bar is filled with your stockpile All of this allows you to buy yourself a little place in a much better part of town, the prices are incredibly cheap now that everyone is leaving to search for the new planet alligator milk, alligator gall bladders, alligator hearts, legs, and even genitals All of this money also employs a whole crew to work in your inn helping customers with their alligator parts and shipping requests You have no idea why some types go for more than others Whatever the nobles request is most likely what you'll ship out to them Now that you actually own your inn, you get to experience something you've missed out on for the past year ! you still wear your golden one everyday and love looking at it Feeling well enough financially to do this, you decide to splurge on a new home for yourself The house is right near a picturesque park with running trails, man made waterfalls, and Australian style cable cars to take you over the historically significant city wall whenever you like It also comes with its own large stretch limo for easy transport ! You sure do like wearing those too! Now of course there's a high demand for these necklaces, meaning there's plenty of crime involved with getting them around here After all, even you committed a crime or two to get your first one Only the nobles and authorities are allowed to wear them openly on their necks Though there are several ways the police have of spotting somebody wearing fakes or stolen teeth necklaces everyday Gon' down to the river and throw my billfallow trout-tickler Upwands to stap my belly like a ozzin Muttonheads! Heaving haycocks, have you no more decency than to poach in full view of the public? and not an ounce of backbone amongst the lot of ya iths swining in our trees like so many orange ornaments and you lot cut them down for sport Flying pigs! knights Given your inn's history, this is usually the type of people you get coming in nowadays Drunken idiots looking to make an uproar and fill the place with smoke Bores! besides every once in awhile you still get the odd adventurer type who has heard about your place Of course these drunkards are a big part of your business nowadays You might not make as much money as you used to, but you can honestly say you're enjoying yourself a lot more now He's got more necklaces on than a charmed serpent Your head chef in the kitchen as of recently, he's an experimental gourmet chef of some sort, always trying out newfangled recipes with alligator meat too tough to be served anywhere else When you first started the alligator fad, he was the one who came up with the concept of an alligator sausage and has also created dishes such as alligator poutine and gator tail mac and cheese , similar to a Mao jacket Bill falls in through the back door of the kitchen, out of breath and clutching his chest making wheezing noises He's clad in a red Hawaiian shirt He wears blue jeans with brown leather belt with a rectangular silver buckle He has on work boots that are clearly used for manual labor of some sort, perhaps farming He wears a brown leather tool belt There are tongs, pliers, and other such tools associated with hands When he sees you, his eyes dart around looking at everything but you "Um hello," He says nervously, "I'm here to apply for the head chef position " a blue light at the center of his vision YOU: "Hmmm say, weren't you in here last night drinking off your sorrows?" "among other things "Strike one," YOU: "And you also almost single handedly destroyed the tavern in a drunken stupor I'm not sure if that makes you the best person to take the esteemed position of head chef or the worst " Bil claps his hands together In the middle of the face is a mouth that acts as a filter with an opening and closing lid Inside are interlocking teeth that cut and carve the shaggy shreds of tobacco that continuously fall on the ground The whole contraption is held in his mouth with wires that go around the head "Alrighty then," Bil says excitedly , as they are fighting over bills that have come in But it hardly matters, he gets weekly allowances for doing chores that he doesn't even do anyway To amuse himself, he often wanders into taverns requesting work as a bartender After the tavern gets trashed he moves along to the next tavern He has before worked at this tavern for a year before, but that was only because of his connections in the past involvements he had with Keira You suspect trouble "I think I should let you know that you would be working under me," You say That instantly worries him w Bil looks down, letting out a sigh Huh? YOU: "What?" GAME: You've chosen Conservative mode! This option will result in having a manageable business without much risk, but the profits are likely to be low "It's not that I doubt your commanding abilities!" Bil says Uh-Oh It's Showtime! As Bil throws in playing with his sawfish teeth interlocking device "Ummm Welll its just that I was under the impression that you were the daughter of Ola our departed co-chef Also my age and not fit to command anyone," Bil says as he squirms uncomfortably You've met my Pa before " Silence, evident confusion, and slight panic washes over Bill's sober face Get him on the couch! "Perhaps we should discuss this matter at a later time I am terribly busy with inventory and organizing everything until the day that Ola arrives in ten hours via hover train," Bill says attempting to leave You clamp your hand around Bil Muscat's thin arm He jumps back and lets out a loud yelp YOU: "Keep your voice down What I need you to do is organize and inventory the smaller alcohol bottles," "Yes Boss " Bil says "And Bil, do it quickly, or you'll feel my wrath The man frightened and near tears he cautiously approaches the alcohol storage closet This isn't going to plan, but the least effective time to do this would be now You need to guide him along "Hey, you're new, right?" a man says to Bil as he steps off the hover tram You recognize him as another alcohol supplier (and buddy of yours) named Zimak "I've got a large shipment that arrived this morning Where would you like it? I can't unstow everything myself " THIS CHOICE MATTERS! NOTE: You may select more then one choice for your answer Option One: Place the alcohol in a different location from the current supplies Option Two - Get a jump on this shipment and place it with the current alcohol "Leave it with the main supply," You shout Bil is too overwhelmed to speak Soon he manages to locate the crates of alcohol in Zimak's shipment He soon begins separating the bottles organized by type and size Pleased as punch Bil says, "I see you sent out for some top-shelf alcohol again, but what's this?" Bil's holding up a blue aluminum canister that says fizzy peach wuzzy on the side You now have a final answer of where the can is placed Placing it somewhere else will break your streak! Option One: Place it with the main stock Option Two: Place it elsewhere on another shelf YOU: "Stock it where you cherry-picked items are located " "But I need those for gifts and personal use," bawls Bill as he attempts to collect himself again Before long he'll cry in front of the customers! "Sweet Christmas! Would you calm down? Does that stuff really do anything for you?" You say as you snatch the canned good out of his hands and begin to open it "Man, this fruit punch is a real lemon-lime bomb! Heh See? I made a joke!" You continue to mock Bil until he begins to seriously sob into his hands While he attempts to regain his composure, you send the Zimak fellow on his way Zimak, why did you send me such an alcoholic beverage?" You say still holding the metallic tasting blue liquid "I dunno, I thought you guys would like it for one of your parties or something That stuff's pretty popular and my kids love the cartoon on the side of the can "You're lucky I like you and this was free," You say lightly pushing Zimak, before he takes his leave Somehow you'll have to get through the day without offending anyone too harshly or else the word will spread that you're a mean boss and folks will avoid shopping here Last thing you want is to have this place become a ghost town Maybe get a bit drunk today That reminds you of Bill's earlier freakout over his bottle of Stoli You better see what exactly is bugging Bil today Upon entering the break-room (what you call the refrigerator) you find Bil wailing and gnashing his teeth over one of the shelves You figured it out instantly; his beloved Smirnoff isn't there! "Things can't be that bad " You trail off as he turns to you sobbing Oh boy He took it!" "Who took what?" "Gunther! He took my bottle!" At this point Bil wipes his nose on his shirt sleeve and begins pointing an accusatory finger at you, "It's your fault! If you hadn't opened that big can of worms by pulling that April fools prank, he would've left everything alone " You can't tell if this is the alcohol or his medical condition but either way, you need to get to the bottom of this "Alright, you know what? I'll go talk to him myself You just sit here and relax " "I won't relax until I get my drinks back!" Well, at least that's a start in the right direction Now you just hope Gunther is home

[geeky-writes]

Chasing Demons Chapter 11 Preview

Behind? Catch up HERE 😊

Expanding the hologram, Tony quickly become so engrossed in his work that he didn't even realise that Peter had entered the lab until he opened his mouth, nearly causing Tony to jump out of his skin.

“Jesus, Pete,” Tony gasped, pressing his palm over his racing heart. “You gotta give me a warning or something when you come up behind me like that, okay?”

“Sorry,” Peter said sheepishly. “Just wanted to let you know that dinner’s almost ready. Papa’s making tacos since Uncle Thor’s coming up, so…”

Tony drew in a deep breath as he nodded. Thor had become quite fond of both Sam and Steve’s cooking since he’d been back, and had taken to requesting certain meals when he didn't feel like ordering his usual pizzas or fried chicken deliveries.

“Sounds good, buddy,” Tony said. “You got all your homework done?”

Peter gave a nod. “Almost, just got a bit of history to finish with Papa after dinner. He asked me to wait so he could do it with me.”

“Good, good. You know how much Papa loves his history.”

“Yeah.” Peter fell silent then, his eyes narrowing as he studied the hologram floating in front of them. “How’s this coming?”

“Eh, it’s coming,” answered Tony. “I’m hoping to get it done before we leave for Italy, that way we can test it once we get back.”

Peter nodded again, stepping around the hologram as he studied it while Tony watched him fondly. Peter had always been curious, to the point where it often got him into trouble when he was little, but the fact that he could simply look at a complex hologram and almost instantly understand it was something that both amazed Tony and filled him with pride at the same time. There was no doubt in his mind that Peter was someday going to change the world with his brilliance, and when that day came, he and Steve would be right there in the front row, cheering him on.

“So, what do you think?” he asked once Peter had circled the whole thing. “Got any suggestions?”

Instead of answering, Peter reached inside the hologram, expanding a small section and leaning in closer. “Can I tweak something in here?”

“Sure. Have at it, bud.”

Peter bit his bottom lip as he fiddled with a tiny section of the interface, adjusting one of the settings in such a way that would allow it to connect with the user almost twice as fast as Tony had originally calculated, reducing the margin of error and allowing the user that much less exposure to the electromagnetic field. While the field itself wasn’t considered to be dangerous, Tony had postulated that prolonged exposure to it could eventually lead to headaches, as the human imagination wasn't really designed to be outwardly projected.

“There,” Peter said with a rather triumphant smile. “Look okay?”

“You know it does, buddy,” answered Tony as he ruffled Peter’s hair, earning him a playful scowl. “I should just let you do all the tinkering here, it’d probably get done faster.”

“Nah,” Peter said, giving Tony one of his papa’s aw shucks grins. “Speaking of it, though, there’s something I was gonna ask you about it.”

“Oh, yeah? Shoot.”

Peter gulped as he looked down at his long, piano-player fingers that reminded Tony so much of his own mother. It still saddened him from time to time that Maria Stark never had the chance to meet Peter, because Tony had no doubt that she would’ve adored him. Aunt Peggy had done her best to fill in for that grandmotherly role, at least until her mind got too far gone for her to remember him, but it still wasn’t the same.

“I know you said that you were gonna use this on Uncle Bucky,” Peter began. “And that you said—”

“That’s because Uncle Bucky volunteered for it, Pete,” Tony cut in. “There’s no way I’d force it on him, you know that. And he can still change his mind if he wants to, but for right now he’s volunteered. And he’s an adult, so he’s allowed to do that.”

“No, I know that,” said Peter. “What I was gonna say is… I’d like to do it too. The experiment. I wanna do it.”

Fear hit Tony like a sledgehammer, and he curled his hand around his left forearm, squeezing it against the burning pain. He and Steve had been afraid something like this would happen, but they had both just sort of pushed it off to deal with later, not wanting to have to think about it too much.

“Pete, I thought we've already talked about this,” he said. “Papa and I said that there’d be no need for you to—”

“Yeah, you and Papa said there’d be no need,” interrupted Peter. “Especially if it worked on Uncle Bucky.”

“Which it will,” said Tony. “I’ll make sure that it does.”

“I know that, Dad, and that’s exactly why I wanna do it too.” Peter’s eyebrows knitted together as his huge brown eyes filled with tears. “I just… I hate it. I hate knowing that those words are still buried somewhere deep inside my mind, where no one can reach them except the bad guys, and I just… I just want them gone. And if this contraption can make them go away for good, then I wanna use it.”

“Oh God, Pete,” Tony gasped as he pulled Peter into a tight hug, burying his nose into his green-apple-scented curls. “Buddy, you're so young, it’s just so goddamn wrong that you're having to deal with any of this in the first place.”

“Maybe,” Peter said into Tony’s chest. “But the fact of the matter is that I am having to deal with it, and I just don't want to anymore. I just want it gone, Dad, all of it. I’m sick of having a ticking time bomb stuck inside of me, and I just want it out of my head.” He tipped his head up to look into Tony’s eyes. “Please? I don't—I don't want other people to get hurt again because of me. That’s not what heroes do.”

Tony’s breath lodged in his throat at Peter’s statement, at how much he sounded like Steve as he said it. He cupped his son’s cheeks in both hands, unable to even form words as he stared at him in awe.

They are so much more alike than they’ll ever realise.

The full chapter will post on Monday, November 25th 😊

[monaisme]

Day 7: poisoning

Day 7: poisoning

Mr. Warren was sick, which wouldn’t have been a big deal except for the fact that his replacement was ‘Libby.’

Libby was 28 years old, blond, blue eyed, and had traveled all over South America over the last two years even though she was “only supposed to be there for six weeks, but then Raoul happened, and how could anyone resist because—c’mon, it was Raoul! And then there was all that stuff with the passports, but Daddy had fixed all of that up so whatever...”

From the sound of it, ‘Daddy’ had decided that Libby needed a taste of the real world, cut off her access to the credit cards, and told her she needed to get a job.

Fun fact: Libby still had the tan.

Oh, and she was a virgo.

Needless to say, she was an interesting sort of person—and not in a good way.

To be fair, Peter was already feeling off kilter. Ned was out sick with the flu which meant that Peter would be taking notes during their biology lab instead of performing the dissection Mr. Warren had planned. Of course, this also meant Flash had been especially heinous during their lunch period—going so far as to inspire MJ to start a whole new crisis sketchpad just for Peter. And then there was Libby. Every time Libby walked by his lab table as she relayed her ‘background,’ he could have sworn that his spider-senses were going off. They screamed danger, but all Peter could see was, well, her.

Maybe he was just irritated that a sub meant delaying their lab time

Libby made her way back up to the front of the class and called everyone to attention. “Okay, children!”

They all looked at each other in disbelief. Really?

“Alright, if I have everyone’s attention, we can discuss how today is going to work.” She smiled big and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I have spoken with Ray, and know you were all looking forward to today’s lab. After some discussion, Ray and I both feel confident that I can do this lab with you.” She giggled and continued. “Believe it or not, I actually did some pre-med!”

They all looked at each other again. Yeah. They’d go with ‘not,’ thank you very much.

She clapped her hands to bring their focus back to her. “Now, I have trays prepared and ready for one member of each pair to come and collect. Before you decide who, please take this time to clear off your tables. Put all supplies in your backpacks or under chairs so you don’t contaminate any of your personal items.”

One last time, they all shared a look, but this time it was one of shared optimism. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad?

From behind the front table, she produced nine separate trays for the supposed nine pairs—but with Ned home sick...

“Alright, someone from the front two tables come up and grab your items, please, and then when they’re back, the next two and so on until everyone has a tray.” She clapped her hands again, “Chop, chop, everyone! Time’s a’wasting!”

Table by table, the teens went and gathered their items with Peter sitting back and wondering which group he’d be dumped on.

When all of the tables were done, Libby stood before them all with one final tray. “Oh, it seems that...” her eyes roaming the classroom for the reason for the... “A-ha! There you are!” She pointed to Peter, then frowned. “Oh, dear. You don’t have a lab partner today. What should we do about that?”

Betty raised her hand, “Peter can join our group, if he’d like!”

Libby smiled at her, “That’s so kind of you, but I’ve prepared the tray and maybe we can have Peter be my helper today instead?” She looked to Peter, who could nothing more than nod in agreement.

What did he have to lose?

He approached the front table with caution. His spider-sense was blaring, but there was no way this woman was any sort of villain! A painful stereotype, yes, but he couldn’t imagine her as anything more nefarious than that.

She excused herself as he stepped closer, “BRB, ‘kay?” and she bounced to the supply cupboard at the side of the room, “I’m allergic to latex so let me grab some nitrile gloves and we’ll get going!” she explained.

“No problem,” Peter mumbled and put on his own standard latex gloves that had been given with their supplies.

The lab itself had gone well. Libby, it turned out was just as squeamish about dissection as Ned would have been and Peter got to do all the cool stuff—and, by the way, was the reason why she’d dropped out of pre-med. Even the smell of formaldehyde that permeated the room was a challenge for her, but she’d muddled through for the sake of cool substitute teacher points.

Libby had also studied botany when she’d been travelling through South America and had developed a love and appreciation for plants and their healing potential. And, well, Raoul was still Raoul.

It could have been an awesome class, save for the whole spidey thing. He tried like crazy to shake it off, but by about three-quarters of the way through class, he felt like he was battling an anxiety attack. He was working extra hard to draw in a breath, and was wholly convinced that an invisible elephant was sitting on his chest.

He just needed to calm down and he’d be fine.

Libby chose that moment to point out something on the diagram they’d been working off of, and Peter tried to blink away a couple of black spots.

Fresh air was sounding like a really great idea. He turned his head to check the clock on the wall and swayed. He caught it, and braced himself on the counter.

What the heck?

Libby noticed the clock, too, missing Peter’s near swoon, and gasped. “Oh, my! Where has the time gone?!”  She called everyone to attention, “Okay, everyone! Ray has assured me that you are all aware of disposal and clean up protocols. Let’s wrap up our note taking and get this all cleaned up so we don’t horrify the poor custodial staff after class is over!”

She observed the class for a moment to ensure compliance and then turned back to Peter. “Are you okay to manage this on your own?” She asked and gestured to the tray. “I’d like to help but, well...” she made a barfy face to make her point.

Peter chuckled... well, maybe he choked a little instead, but it sounded like a laugh and that was all that mattered. “Sure,” he gasped out.

Libby smiled big, “Awesome! I’m gonna just take a second to leave some notes for Ray and everything will be good to go!” She took that moment to pull off her gloves, and the smell was—

“Wha—what’s that smell?” Peter mumbled.

Libby heard him. “Oh, it’s rose oil.” She held her hands out for him to smell. “It’s really great for people with pain management issues and it’s ‘shark week’ and all so...” She smiled at him, “Why? Do you like it?”

Peter didn’t get a chance to answer her as he struggled both for breath and consciousness—and then stopped struggling at all.

* * * * * *

Peter didn’t have much memory of the time after.

He didn’t remember hitting the floor.

He didn’t remember Flash’s taunts that Penis had passed out doing a dissection.

And he definitely didn’t remember Libby and the teacher from the classroom next door having to perform CPR while they waited for an ambulance when he’d stopped breathing.

He may have had a brief recollection of Captain Steve Rogers and Sergeant Bucky Barnes hijacking said ambulance, but that’s only because Captain Rogers had said a cuss word.

Being diverted to the Avengers Tower and being treated by Dr. Cho, however, was a huge blank.

All of this was why Peter, when he finally woke up, was very, very confused.

The hiss of the oxygen pressing into his mask was the first thing he heard.

Why was the mask so loud?

He tried to lift a hand to pull it off, but someone took hold of it and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

“Sorry, kiddo, you gotta leave that alone.”

Peter whined in protest.

“I know, kid, but it’s helping. Trust me.”

A kiss pressed to the back of his hand again, “Hey, Spider-Man, are you back with us yet?” the voice whispered.

Peter knew that voice, “Ms-r S-k?” he rasped.

“And there you are.” Tony sounded pleased. “Can you open your eyes for me, buddy?” he pleaded, “Just for a second?”

Peter groaned this time. He lolled his head to the side and squinted up at his mentor. “Hmm?”

“Hey, bud.” Tony smiled. “How are you feeling?

Peter had to think about it for a minute. There seemed to be a disconnect that had nothing to do with pain killers. He just couldn’t figure it out. “Ches’ hurts?”

Tony frowned, “We figured, but you’re on the mend and then we can figure things out, okay?”

Figure—what? “Wha’ happened?” He needed to know, but his need for rest seemed to be taking precedent. He blinked slow. Tony saw.

He ran his fingers through Peter’s hair, “Why don’t you rest, and we’ll talk the next time you wake up.”

Peter didn’t like not knowing. Did that mean he wasn’t safe? He pulled his eyes open wide, hoping to convince his body that he was alert.

Tony chuckled. “You’re safe to go to sleep, Peter. I promise. We have a little time now, okay?”

“Safe?” Peter grunted out.

“Yeah, you’re safe, bud. Promise,” Tony repeated, and that was all Peter needed to drift off into slumber.

* * * * * *

The next time he woke up, Peter was definitely more coherent, still exhausted but definitely more aware. He’d been downgraded to a nasal cannula which was infinitely less noisy than the oxygen mask he’d been wearing earlier. He didn’t see Tony around either, so he started to pull himself up to sitting.

“Stop right there, Mister Parker!” A voice called out. Peter froze. Dr. Cho appeared from the inside of some strange contraption to his left. “I would highly recommend that you stay lying down for the time being. We’ve only just stabilized your oxygen levels and I do not want to see that fudged up because you’re feeling fidgety.” She looked down to the tablet in her hand and tapped something quickly before fully devoting her attention to him.    

He laid back down on the bed and looked around the room. He still couldn’t remember what had happened to land him here... but it must have been something serious, from the sound of it.

“I’m sure you have questions, Peter, but I’ve let Tony and Captain Rogers know that you’re awake and they’ll have some answers for you, I hope, but for now, I’m going to do a quick exam before they get here, okay?

Peter nodded and allowed for himself to be poked and prodded by Dr. Cho and two of her nurses—anything to get this done quickly.

The nicer of the two nurses, Peter thought her name might be Nicole, was removing the rubber tourniquet from his blood draw when the two men entered the room. Captain Rogers spoke up first. “Are we okay to be in here?” he asked, “Or do you need a few more minutes?”

Dr. Cho smiled at the consideration, “We’ve just finished up.” She answered. “You’re good to go, and please forward any relevant information when you have it.” She patted Peter on the leg. “Peter, make sure they go easy on you, okay?  I’ll be back in an hour to do another check.”

He nodded that he heard her and waved as she turned and walked away.

And then focused his attention on the two Avengers now seated at his bedside. Both of them wore looks of concern on their faces and, if Peter was being honest, it was a little unnerving. “Um, guys? What’s wrong?”

Captain Rogers sat down in the seat on Peter’s right, while Mr. Stark took his left, though he chose to stand and take Peter’s hand instead.

He looked back and forth between the two of them. “Um, no offense, but you’re... freaking me out...” Why was talking so difficult? Still, he pressed. “Is everything okay? Is it—“ Hold on? He sat up with a start. “It’s May, isn’t it?!... Did something happen?!”

An alarm blared from beside Peter’s bedside.

Mr. Stark squeezed his hand and stopped that train of thought pretty quick. “Your aunt is fine, Pete. Promise!” He assured him, but Peter was having some difficulty catching his breath. Mr. Stark pushed Peter back to the bed and rubbed a hand through his curls to calm him. “Relax, kid. You need to take a deep breath, for me buddy.” Tony pressed a button on the bed. “She’s asleep upstairs, Peter. You just keep missing her Spider-babysitting shift, is all. She is safe and fine. Take a deep breath for me, kiddo.” Mr. Stark was looking between the monitors and Peter. Was he worried? “You’ve got this, deep breath in for me.”

The alarm continued to sound and another nurse, Peter thought this one was Laura, but he couldn’t remember came rushing in and the black spots were back and he was trying to breath but then the nasal cannula was being removed and that really loud mask was back on his face and he felt a rush of warmth in his arm and he didn’t remember things being so fuzzy before, but maybe it would be better if he just closed his eyes and then it would all. go. away.

* * * * * *

The third time Peter woke up, he was wearing an oxygen mask, just not the really noisy one. He flashed on the last time he’d been up, and figured out all on his own that he needed to leave it alone.

May was asleep in the chair that Captain Rogers had been sitting in earlier and Tony was pacing along the window on the far wall, clutching a tablet and looking like he had something on his mind.

“Ms-r Stark?” Peter called out to him.

Mr. Stark turned to see Peter awake and rushed over to his bedside. “Kid! You can’t do that to me! Geez!” He smiled fondly down at the boy, who was still clueless as to why he was there.

“Tell me.”

Mr. Stark looked at the monitors, seemed satisfied with what he saw and began, “Well, Peter, it seems that you have been poisoned.”

Mr. Stark paused there, giving Peter a chance to process what he’d said.

“Poisoned?”

Mr. Stark ran his hand through his own hair, “Yup. It seems to be some sort of inhalant and it bound itself to your red blood cells and messed with your oxygen intake and all sorts of awful stuff that you’re probably not in the mood to hear.”

Peter blinked up at him. “Poison?”

Mr. Stark frowned down at him, “Yeah, buddy, that’s what I’m saying. Cap needs to have a chat with you so we can figure out where you were and who might have had a chance to get to you without anyone knowing. And then we’ve got to figure out how they figured out who you are ‘cuz this was Peter time and...”

Peter’s mind had been running a mile a minute—well, maybe a couple of feet a minute with how drained he still felt, but suddenly it all clicked. “Rose oil.”

It was Mr. Stark’s turn to blink at him. “Say that again?”

And so Peter did, “The bio sub was using,” he drew in a deep breath, not wanting to get excited again, “said it was for shark week... made me feel,” he gestured to his chest, “wrong.  Spidey sense said so.”

May stirred in the chair, “I did not just hear you say ‘shark week,’ Peter?” She looked serious, “Because I don’t care if you’re dying in that bed. I taught you better than that. Be respectful.”

Peter huffed behind the mask. “Her words... Not mine.” He threw his hands up in surrender and then looked at Mr. Stark once more, “So yeah... rose oil.”

Mr. Stark nodded his acknowledgement and then started tapping at the tablet still in his hand. “huh.” He looked down at May. “I’m going to go talk to Dr. Cho and get Cap to stand down before Midtown becomes a scene out of CSI.” And then his attention swung back to Peter. “And do not think that I missed the fact that your spidey sense was telling you something was wrong and you ignored it. Expect to revisit that when you’re on your feet again, kid.” And with that ominous warning, Mr. Stark left the room.

May stood up then and came to his bedside and looked at her watch. “I think Dr. Cho will be in soon for your next treatment,” she said.

“Treatment?”

She looked down at him with a sadness borne from the stress of the last...

The last...?

“May, how long?”

“How long is the treatment? I think she’s got you down to half an hour in the hyperbaric chamber—with your healing factor and all—“

Peter cut her off. “No. How long have I been... here.” He waved to the room.

“It’s been eight days, honey. You woke up yesterday... they didn’t know what had happened or how your body would take treatments and so everyone had to be cautious.”

“Cautious?”

It was her turn to run fingers through his hair, “Yes, because we all needed you to be okay. Okay?”

Yup. Peter was definitely feeling overwhelmed.

“Um, I think I need to sleep... is that okay?”

“Of course, honey,” May assured him. “We’ll wake you when it’s time to head in.”

He looked over at the contraption he’d seen before and suddenly understood the purpose behind it. “Hyperbaric... chamber?... Really?”

“Tony’s been looking out for you, sweetheart. Whatever it took to do it, he did.”

Peter moved his attention away from the machine to May, not sure what to say, but she saved him from trying to find something.

“Go to sleep, Peter. I’ll be here.”

And so he did.

* * * * * *

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me that I’m allergic to roses?”

Mr. Stark tapped something on his tablet, scanned the screen quickly, and then answered. “No. You are not allergic to roses. This is not an epi-pen situation. Roses will laugh at your epi-pen and then kill you.”

“What? No! It’s lavender and peppermint that I have to watch for! All the websites say so!” Peter argued, even though he was still recovering from being literally poisoned only two weeks earlier.

“Look, kid,” Mr. Stark shut him down, “Apparently there are old wives tales, and then there are REALLY old wives’ tales, and we sir, are looking at the latter.”

“But wouldn’t this have happened before now?”

May was sitting on the couch next to Peter. “I’ve never had roses in our apartment, kiddo. Ever. Too expensive.”

“Really?” Peter stared at her in disbelief.

“Really. Honestly, I think they’re kind of bougie so I’ve never been a fan.” She shrugged and looked over to Mr. Stark. “No offense, Tony.”

“None taken,” he replied. “I’m of the same school of thought. Howard always insisted that our house be filled with them—turned me off something fierce.” And then he smiled. “And Pepper loves tulips and daffodils so it’s a win-win for me.”

Peter thought on it for a second. “So my cool sub almost killed me.”

Mr. Stark scowled. He’d met Libby after everything had settled but before they’d discovered the culprit behind the chaos. What he’d hoped to be a quick, but sincere, “Thanks for saving my intern,” had turned into a conversation about how this had confirmed to her that she had a “calling” and that she’d be “devoting” her life to teaching the children...

Yeah, he’d made sure that Peter had heard everything about that meet up.

It was fine, though.

Peter knew he had a few more days before he’d get the go-ahead to go back to school, so he’d just sulk about how the whole ‘roses’ thing sort of sucked and then things would go back to normal—while avoiding florists for the rest of his life.

And besides, what were the odds that he’d ever meet Libby again?

 @febuwhump

[faequeen40]

Past the Point of No Return

One of the song prompts I’ve been working on. This one was a lot of fun to write!!

@savethelastklance

The sun above made Keith seriously consider his life choices, a piercing violet glare thrown in Shiro’s direction for good measure. It hadn’t been his idea to stand on the roadside in the middle of August in order to help gather donations for the upcoming holiday season and the ever popular “Shop with a Firefighter”.

It was a good cause, sure.

But it was so fucking hot.

“I honestly don’t know how you roped me into this.” He huffed, continuing to glower at Shiro even as his Captain laughed.

“You did it because it’s a good idea.” Shiro smirked, “And because you really didn’t want me to post that picture of you cuddling Red to the Firehouse website.”

“I wasn’t cuddling! I had fallen asleep on the couch and she curled up with me!”

“You were cuddling the Firehouse cat and nothing you can say will ever convince me otherwise.” Shiro laughed, wiping at the sweat on his own brow, “Besides, our shift is almost over.”

“Our fundraising shift is almost over.” Keith grumbled, “After this, we have to go to the high school for that demonstration thing.”

“And you act like you don’t love getting to completely drench the entire parking lot.”

Keith couldn’t help but grin at that, crossing his arms over his chest. There wasn’t a lot that he could argue with there. Even high schoolers got a kick out of seeing the fire hose in action.

He also may have continuously aimed for this one really shitty teacher’s car. His aim wasn’t great but it was the thought that counted. “We’re doing the demonstration after school right?”

“Yeah, apparently the administration was worried that we would be disruptive this year.” Shiro hummed, lifting one brow as he gave a Keith a pointed look.

“I didn’t start that food fight.”

Shiro only laughed, turning away to walk up to one of the cars that had stopped nearby, the driver looking up at Shiro in a strange half-admiration/half-awe sort of way.

Shiro tended to have that effect on people.

Keith turned to the stoplight on his side and glared at the continuously green light. It would turn soon and he’d need to see if any of the cars stopped would be willing to even roll their windows down in this heat. Most of the people in the area were kind enough to give a bit but even the nicest place in the world had its fair share of assholes.

Grumbling, he dragged his hand through his bangs, the sweat gathering there threatening to slick them back against his skull. He grimaced at the feeling and lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe at his face.

Whoever decided that wearing black in August was a good idea was an idiot….

That would definitely still be him. Whatever. He was going to blame Shiro.

He let the t shirt fall away just in time to make eye contact with the driver of a quickly approaching blue mini-van. The man driving had the brightest blue eyes he’d ever seen and an expression of complete distraction.

Keith was even kinda sure he was gaping at the moment.

And he wasn’t slowing down. Like at all.

That was definitely a yellow light.

Even if this guy was gorgeous, Keith couldn’t really encourage him in what was probably going to result in running a red light.

“Hey! Slow down!”

His words seemed to pull the man from his stupor and his face abruptly turned panicked, a pterodactyl-like screech pulling itself from him as he continued to drive forward, speed almost seeming to increase.

The van’s tires crossed the white line just as the light turned red and the screeching resolved itself into some very pleasant if a bit panicked singing that Keith could clearly hear as the van rushed past him.

“Past the point of no return, no going back now!”

Keith couldn’t help but bark out a surprised laugh, pushing his bangs out of his face so he could stare incredulously after the van in question. That-admittedly, very cute-guy had just run a red light and was justifying it himself by singing the Phantom of the Opera.

What even was life?

“What the hell was that all about?” Shiro chuckled, coming up beside him as the lanes Keith was responsible for started filling up.

“Some guy just ran the red light while singing Phantom of the Opera.” Keith said incredulously, body moving on autopilot to the first car in the lane.

“Probably not the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen doing this but it’s definitely a top ten.”

~~~~

“So you’re telling me that thanks to a very hot firefighter, you had a slight gay crisis and may or may not have run a red light on your way to work this morning?” Hunk laughed, leaning against the stage behind him, a hand over his eyes as he tried desperately not to laugh at Lance’s put off expression.

Lance scowled at him, reorganizing his notes for rehearsal for the fourth time as he refused to look at his best friend. “I didn’t ‘run a red light’. I was the past the point of no return. Couldn’t have stopped.”

“Yeah, and you totally weren’t so distracted by said hot firefighter that you didn’t start stopping in time.” Hunk snorted, losing the battle with his giggles.

“You didn’t see him though, Hunk!” Lance whined, letting his forehead hit his desk with a resounding thunk, “Those were the kind of abs that one can only fantasize about. You don’t see that in real life!”

“Gay crisis notwithstanding, you’re pretty lucky you didn’t get hurt.” Hunk said seriously, Lance quailing a bit under his patented ‘teacher face’.

“You make such a good shop teacher.” Lance grumbled, “I bet no one ever gets hurt in your class because they don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Don’t change the subject, bro.”

“Sorry, couldn’t help it.” Lance sighed, “I know. I was pretty lucky. But the situation is behind us. I’ll probably never see that firefighter again and I need to focus on my show this weekend.”

“Speaking of, you might be a little too immersed.”

“How so?”

Hunk’s grin returned and he gestured to the desk in front of them. “Well first of all, your first reaction to going over the ‘point of no return’ was to actually start singing ‘Past the Point of No Return’. And all this? Lance, your rehearsal doesn’t start for two more hours. Everyone is going to that demonstration before they get into club activities.”

“It’s not that great.”

“The firefighters douse the entire parking lot and one of them almost always aims for Lotor’s car and completely soaks the interior. It’s absolutely worth seeing just to watch how mad he gets.” Hunk countered, “Plus, don’t you want to see if you can run into your hot firefighter again?”

“No!” Lance shrieked, “I literally told you my whole embarrassing story and you think I want to see him again?!”

“Kind of? I’m getting mixed signals here.”

“Absolutely not!”

Hunk huffed out a frustrated sigh and walked over to where Lance was slumped behind his desk, almost compulsively organizing everything. “I know it’s Hell Week but you need some time out of here. You let the kids go to the demonstration for the same reason, right? They need you in prime shape too!”

“There’s so much work to get done!”

“Bro, either you go or I tell Pidge the whole story about your hot firefighter.”

Lance sat up abruptly and glared at his best friend, clutching his notes almost protectively to his chest. “You wouldn’t.”

“Definitely would.”

“What are we telling Pidge?”

The gremlin in question popped her head out from props on the stage, paint streaking one cheek and a flashing contraption clutched in her hand.

“Nothing!” Lance squeaked, sending sharp looks between the two of them.

“I could almost sense some kind of blackmail material going down.” Pidge grinned, disappearing back within the prop, her voice echoing through the empty theatre, “And I will not rest until it is mine.”

“This is why we can’t have nice things.” Lance growled, throwing a dark expression in Hunk’s direction, the broad man only lifting his hands in an effort at placation even as he laughed.

“I’ll fill you in later, Pidge. But your purpose as a threat has been useful.” Hunk laughed, following along as Lance trudged toward the theatre doors.

“I aim to serve.”

“Don’t set anything on fire!” Lance hissed, voice carrying easily through the back stage area.

“I’m a professional, Lance. You didn’t hire me to set shit on fire. You hired me to make this show fucking awesome.” Pidge said airily, “Beside, fire comes later. We’re not rehearsing that part today.”

Lance hesitated for a moment before Hunk continued to push him the rest of the way out of the door. “Nah, buddy. We need fresh air and the wonderful poetic justice of Lotor’s inevitable freak out. You can worry about Pidge and her inscrutable life choices when you come back. Let’s go be easily entertained like teenagers again.”

A sigh pulled itself from Lance’s chest and he simply let his oldest friend pull him along, the promise of fresh air doing more than to perk him up than he really wanted to admit. It really had been a hellacious week already and with two more days left until the show’s opening night, it didn’t show signs of getting any better.

Putting on the Phantom of the Opera at such a small school was ambitious, almost scarily so. Allura was letting him take this risk with the school’s Theatre department and he didn’t want to let her down. He certainly didn’t want his kids to be ashamed of this performance. It was part of the reason why he was trying so hard.

That and he’d always dreamed of being a part of this production. It was a teenage dream come true.

He wasn’t about to let anything get in the way of that.

The August heat hit him like a brick to the face and he frowned, this morning’s issue with his car’s air condition nearly forgotten until he had decided to let Hunk drag him back out into the almost oppressive air.

He squinted through the blinding sun and almost turned around and marched right back into the building.

The sleek red fire engine parked right in front of the school gleamed in the intense sunlight, the small crowd of high schoolers not doing much to block Lance’s vision.

And for once, Lance was absolutely not grateful for that.

Because, lo and behold, there stood his hot firefighter in all his muscled, mulleted glory.

It wasn’t fair!

Any other time, Lance would be on that. He would be on that so fast he’d leave a cloud of dust in his wake….but this firefighter had absolutely seen his embarrassing display this morning.

There was no way he could simply waltz up and hit on him now!

Lance whined as Hunk continued to drag him closer, actively digging in his feet now that he knew for a fact that the firefighter responsible for his slight panic this morning was here.

What was he going to do?

~~~~

The crowd of students surrounding the fire engine was far smaller than Keith was used to and he tried not to let the lack of turn out bring down his mood. The demonstrations really were some of his favorite things to do and while high schoolers didn’t get nearly as excited as the elementary school students did, they had their own special brand of enthusiasm.

A lot of the students seemed to be excited just to be outside which was something that Keith absolutely couldn’t understand.

It was hot as fuck out right now.

“You are going to do the hose thing, right?” One of the students asked excitedly, her phone bobbing in her hold.

“Of course we are.” Shiro answered brightly, ever ready to answer any of the questions posed during these demonstrations.

Keith wasn’t always great with words and may have made a few children cry in years past. They all just agreed to let him be the one to man the hose instead.

It worked out.

He went about the motions of setting the hose up, double and triple checking every valve he could think of just to be safe. While watching the hose was fun, he didn’t want any of the kids to be in danger around the potentially dangerous piece of equipment.

Satisfied with his checks, he lounged against the side of the engine, peering out over the parking lot in an effort to identify his intended target. It was a yearly tradition at this point and he was definitely going to go out of his way to douse Mr. Prince’s car.

It wasn’t hard to find.

No one else would drive a car that shade of gaudy orange, the blue detailing almost as eye-searing. And it was in such a perfect spot too.

No collateral damage.

It’s almost like everyone wanted that particular car to get hit.

A grin pulled at his lips and he made to turn around when he caught sight of another familiar vehicle.

The blue minivan.

Its windows were still down, the beat up exterior speaking of a long and varied life of experiences. Judging by the way it had been driven earlier, Keith wasn’t altogether surprised at how dinged up it appeared.

Phantom guy wasn’t kind to his car.

But seeing as the minivan was here, that meant he probably worked at Altea High. It was the smallest school in the county and Keith had never run into too many people who worked there, Lotor notwithstanding.

He was also parked in the faculty lot so that meant Phantom guy was a teacher.

Keith pushed down the thought and turned back to the crowd, steeling himself for working with the hose. What would he even do if he ran into Phantom guy again?

Sure he was cute but literally their only interaction had been that awkward moment of eye contact before Phantom guy had run a red light.

He was probably too busy with grading papers to come watch anyway.

As he pulled the hose into position, Keith tried to pretend he wasn’t disappointed.

“Ready?” Shiro called, catching his attention with a loud clap.

Keith nodded, planting his feet as best he could and giving a slight bend to his knees. The pressure of the hose was always a shock, a wave of force that could easily knock someone off their feet. Shiro had been knocked backwards before during a demonstration but Keith was smaller, stockier.

There was no way in hell this hose was gonna take him down.

The muscles in his arms flexed as he pointed the hose skyward, the water cascading in a deluge out over the parking lot and blowing back over the students, their delighted screeches making him grin. Carefully, he maneuvered the unwieldy hose, tongue sticking out between his teeth as he tried to line up the hose just right.

A wordless howl of rage let him know that he’d hit right on target.

Hitting Lotor’s car was always his favorite part.

Maybe next time he’d roll up his windows.

The pressure to the hose eased off slowly as Shiro continued with the rest of his presentation and Keith took the opportunity to wind up the giant piece of equipment and stretch the kinks out of his arms.

Holding that much pressure steady was hell on his arms.

A burst of laugher made him glance up, face flushing as he saw the man from this morning looking anywhere but in his direction while the mountain of a man beside him laughed loudly.

His…uh, his car didn’t really do him justice.

Phantom guy was gorgeous.

When he wasn’t gaping like some kind of startled fish, he was actually pretty handsome, the ‘gonna double take in public’ kind of handsome.

And tall.

Keith couldn’t not want to climb that.

His mouth went dry as it was his turn to gape at the very hot teacher, the students rushing past him to return to whatever after school activities they had neglected to come watch the demonstration. Several students called out words of greeting to Phantom guy and he returned them warmly.

Whatever Phantom guy taught, his students loved him a lot.

It kind of made Keith curious.

Surely it wouldn’t hurt to go introduce himself, make sure things were okay?

Psssh, who was he kidding? Talking? Like an actual person?

That sounded entirely too terrifying.

Besides, Phantom guy looked very embarrassed right about now.

Shiro clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of anxious thoughts and making him shut his jaw with an audible click. “I see you managed to hit it again.”

“That almost make it too easy.” Keith grinned, gesturing to the drenched car, “No one ever wants to park around him when we come to do these.”

Shiro laughed and squeezed his shoulder. “The new principal seems to get a kick out of it anyway. She says she wants to give us an official tour of the school.”

“We’ve been here so many times though?” Keith hummed, confused even as he followed after Shiro’s retreating figure.

“She says that they’ve changed a lot.” Shiro shrugged, his own eyes going wide as Altea’s new principal met them at the doors, her long white hair thrown up in a messy bun, and paint streaked jeans held up by mismatched suspenders.

“Oh! There you are! Sorry about my mess. I’ve been helping in the Theatre department. They have a big production coming up.” She rushed, a genuine smile pulling at her lips.

Keith took one look at Shiro’s shell shocked expression and smirked. Oh this was the perfect pay back for the cat cuddling picture.

“Why don’t you go with the Principal, Captain? I’d like to see this Theatre department.” Keith said sneakily, Shiro’s flushing glare going completely ignored.

“Oh, that’s perfectly fine! We’re very proud of it. Mr. McLain has been a great addition to our staff. We’re actually putting on the Phantom of the Opera this year thanks to him.”

Keith nodded along quietly, the principal chattering away as she led Shiro into the school, the Captain pointing to his eyes before pointing to Keith himself.

“That picture still exists.”

“Your face still exists.” Keith retorted, grimacing as Shiro left his line of sight.

He took a few steps into the air conditioned building and simply sighed, the coolness of the air immediately putting him in a better mood.

What else could he ask for?

He was cooled off, he had once again managed to hit Lotor’s car and he now had prime teasing material for Shiro.

Today wasn’t that bad a day after all.

The pitter patter of quick steps startled him and a familiar head of brown hair peeked around the corner, suspicious gaze going bright with excitement. “Keith!”

Keith blinked for a moment before a smile broke out over his own face and he stepped forward to greet one of his best friends. “Pidge! What are you doing here? I know you can pass for a high schooler but I didn’t think you’d try to sneak into one for fun.”

Pidge grimaced and gestured for him to follow her as she continued to walk. “Ha ha, very funny. I was hired by the Theatre director to be in charge of some special effects for the show. So far it’s all coming together pretty good. Hunk and I make a pretty great team when it comes to making stuff.”

“He must be pretty serious if he hired you.” Keith mused, following after Pidge and absently carrying the mess she jabbed into his space, “Don’t you usually do more robotics based work?”

“I may or may not have owed Lance a favor.” Pidge grumbled, leading him down the hallway and continuously adding to his load.

“That and you can’t help but show off a bit.”

“You got me in a box there.” Pidge sighed, holding open a set of double doors for Keith to walk through.

Loud music echoed through the theatre and Keith barely suppressed a bark of laughter when he recognized the words being sung by the boy on the stage, a girl standing directly opposite him in a brightly colored dress.

”Past the point of no return, no going back now…”

“Stop! Just…stop.” A distinctly male voice called out, clearly tired and a little irritated, “Mark, I love you but right now you’re not giving me Phantom vibes. You’re giving me the vibes of a tired old man. This is a huge part of the show. You need to have some energy.”

“Gotcha, Mr. McLain.” The boy sighed, “I’m just really hungry.”

“There’s a couple of granola bars in the bag next to my desk. Grab one and watch. I’ll run through the scene with Clarisse. She missed Monday so I want her to make sure she’s got the rest of the scene.”

“Oh, this oughta be good.” Pidge grinned, nudging Keith with a shoulder, “Come with me.”

Setting down the bundle in his arms, Keith followed Pidge’s direction obediently, the two of them moving around the side of the stage so they could see the entire set up. His tech gremlin of a friend sat them in the far back but there was no mistaking the man on stage.

It was Phantom guy.

Certain things made way more sense now.

He fit into the scene almost seamlessly, everything about him just enthralling Keith. His voice was beautiful and he moved with purpose, circling the small girl on the stage with a grace that bordered on ethereal.

Keith was on the edge of his seat for the entire scene, fingers curling over the seat in front of him as Phantom guy, no, Lance chased the actress over the stage, lithe frame swinging from the sturdy set pieces and cutting her off at every turn.

Throw in the deeply thrilling song currently being sung?

Keith had never been jealous of a fifteen year old before but this might be a first.

Then just as quickly as it started, it was over and Keith was left wanting, a need to know this Lance better digging at him.

Pidge leaned back in the chair beside him, kicking her feet up over the chair in front of her, a wicked look in her hazel eyes. “He’s single by the way.”

Keith sputtered at her words, trying and failing to dissuade her from that line of thinking but nothing would come.

She had him.

“Although, if you’re gonna ask him out you might want to specify it for after this weekend. I’ve never seen someone so devoted to a fucking show before.”

“What makes you think I’ll ask him out?”

“You want him to ask you? It does seem a bit like his style.”

“Pidge.”

“Keith.”

“I wouldn’t even know how to ask him out.”

“Easy. You wanna go get dinner some time?”

“That’s not how I work and you know it.”

“Okay, fine. Wanna go set shit on fire with me?”

Keith groaned and climbed to his feet, intent on making his way back to the engine and waiting for Shiro to return. Pidge let him go without a word although the grin on her face did make him slightly nervous.

Pidge didn’t just let things go.

He walked by the front of the stage as quietly as he could, not wanting to interrupt their rehearsal when a loud yelp caught his attention and he found himself with his arms full of a very attractive, very shocked drama teacher.

A mechanical floor panel slowly lowered itself back into the stage proper as both men watched, the two of them still with shock before turning their gazes back to each other.

“Guess I’ve fallen for you.”

What.

~~~~

Oh my god, what did he just say.

Could the ground open up and swallow him now?

Lance resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands, the relative ease of the firefighter’s hold on him making his mind wander places that it definitely shouldn’t while on school property.

“Uh, what?”

Eloquent. Articulate.

Not that Lance could fault him after all. That definitely wasn’t his best line.

“Good thing I was here to catch you?” The firefighter tried, an adorable awkwardness in his answer that made Lance want to curl around him and squeal.

“Mr. McLain are you okay?”

Sweet Clarisse. If only she had given him like five more minutes.

Gingerly, the firefighter lowered his legs to the floor, holding on to his waist like he was afraid that Lance might fall again.

He might if that guy wasn’t careful. Gonna take an express ride to swoonville. Population Lance.

“I’m okay. We’ll just need to be careful around that panel. I know Pidge said it was weight activated but I didn’t think it was quite that touchy.”

The firefighter didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, his fingers making aborted moves towards letting go of him but seeming to be unsure if he should.

“I really should thank you.” Lance tried, turning in the man’s hold to look at him properly.

Damn it. No one should be that pretty up close.

He could even excuse the mullet.

The mullet.

“It was no problem. I’m just glad you aren’t hurt.” He said softly, pretty violet eyes a little nervous.

“I’m Lance by the way.”

“Keith.”

“As thanks, why don’t you let me take you out to dinner? My treat?” Lance tried, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his older brother berating him about asking out the firefighter he’d embarrassed himself in front of this morning.

“Are you asking me out?”

“Would you be amenable to that?”

“I mean…yeah, but…”

~~~~

Keith had no idea what his life was.

Hot drama teacher literally falls into his arms and then asks him out.

What is life?

“But what?” Lance asks, a somewhat apprehensive look on his face.

A smirk pulled itself over his face and Keith felt his arms cross over his chest. “You’ll have to promise not to run any more red lights to get us there.”

Crimson danced across Lance’s face and the drama teacher turned away from him with a cough. “I’ll do my best. Just as long as you promise not to distract me.”

“No promises.”

A grin curved over his face and Keith walked towards theatre entrance, glancing back to see Lance watching him intently. “I’ll come find you after the last show. Sunday at 2 right?”

“I’ll be the one with the rainbow bowtie!”

Keith laughed as he left, excitement pooling in his chest.

This may not have been the weirdest fundraiser day he’d ever had but it was definitely the best.

Especially when he got a date with the Phantom guy out of it.

Part of my birthday bomb! 

[shattered-catalyst]

Three times.

I wanted to try something a little different here. I wanted to try writing first person perspective!! Wow I havent done this in YEARS.

Summary: Taking place between the meeting Rictor thread and the camping thread. Addressing some development that took place behind the scenes as it were. Rictor AU so not same Rictor but a Rictor because the ideas were cute. Like come on gimmie some happy Rictor any day I will fight for happy Rictor.

Excerpt:

I tried to tell him they were not actually apples. Apples come whole and not in bags with water in them and demonic boxes with eyes. I explain it must be a contraption of Lord Mojo’s doing. Rictor’s face turns sour. I may have ruined the food for him.

I was most certainly not prepared for this at all. My telling Rictor about the diner was my way of showing I was somewhat receptive to him entering my world. But now here he was, walking towards my usual booth in that ridiculous brown jacket. His motorbike (which i want) is parked outside, glinting in the sun. Doing a small greeting he sits down a crossed from me like this is no big deal. Nothing different from his regular Tuesday.

“Coffee. Thats all thanks.” Rictor orders with the kind of casual attitude I wonder if I could ever replicate. Where ever this man goes he looks completely natural. It is irritating. It is like NOTHING touches him. Like he IS the very earth itself.Always connected. “Crossword?”

I nod, turning it so he can see it right side up. “Yes.”

He seems slightly,off by the shortness of my comment.  Ive heard I need to start elaborating more when I talk. 

“You uh do those a lot?”

“Yes”

“Ah.” Thank goodness Stacey is back with the coffee, she and Rictor make small talk about the weather before she rushes off to chat with a regular. We sit in silence, Rictor stirring his coffee. Looking much too curious about the types of sugar on the table. I glance up only once to see if he is still there; he is.

“Rosewell crash victim,supposedly. Five letters.” Im chewing my pencil again and I do not care.

He looks confused for a few seconds, before looking down at the crossword. “Alien.”

“Spell it.”

“A-l-i-e-n.” He takes a sip of coffee. Silence passes and I nod to him. It fits.

I take a sip from mine, holding the pencil to paper. “Done by itself. Machine. Starts with M-E-C.”

“Mechanical. M-e-c-h-a-n-i-c-a-l.”

“When you receive money: four letters ends with D.”

“My favorite. “He takes a sip and then gives me a funny look when I express my confusion that that wouldn’t fit the spaces provided. “Try paid. P-a-i-d.”

 We spend a good hour like that. I am surprise he stayed, once the puzzle is finished I fold it. Placing it in my pocket to copy the words down later. 

I stand, he looks at me but I do not make eye contact. Do not want him to see my eyes as I leave. “8 am.”

“What?” Hes halfway after me out the door, holding it open. 

“I come at 8 am. Everyday.”

As I turn to leave I see him smile.

“Rictor, I have eaten two of these happy meals and I do not feel any happier. I believe you have been mislead.” I am concerned now. He is trying very hard for something I am uncertain of. This is the second time I have seen him. His brown wavy hair still new to me. Still fluffy and soft enough that I make sure to have some odd excuse to touch it. I hope he doesnt mind.

Now we are sitting in a fast food place, complete with garish colors and screaming children. It is very, new. He was uncertain.

“Yeah, well the drive thru is packed.” Taking a sip of soda he pokes at the bag of what should be apple slices, but I somehow doubt they are. “Eat.”

I tried to tell him they were not actually apples. Apples come whole and not in bags with water in them and demonic boxes with eyes. I explain it must be a contraption of Lord Mojo’s doing. Rictor’s face turns sour. I may have ruined the food for him.

We come to a bargain he will eat half the not-actually-apples if I eat the other half.

Rictor has taken me to a movie, said it would be good for learning. I insist we sit in the very back so we cannot be ambushed. He seems to find this amusing. The theater was fascinating and the action sequences done quite well, for earthlings. I enjoyed how immersive the experience was and barely touched my popped corn. Rictor did not seem to mind as he ate my cup as well as his own. He seemed quite pleased.

“I only feel the death of the main warrior was a waste of his potential.”

He glances at me as we leave, stopping before we get out of the theater’s gloomy corridor. “You know, they didn’t actually die right? In the movie they died but in real life that dudes still around.”

The explanation baffles me slightly. “Of course, this has been explained to me already. Although the concept is new, I sort of enjoy it. Seeing the same person try on different roles is quite applicable.” At least to his current situation it was. Before he would think it was cowardly to not know your role. Now he questioned everything.

“Just checking.” Rictor seems relieved and puts his sun glasses on, pushing open the heavy doors. Light consumes us. For a moment my breath catches, pupils contracting sharply. I am no longer with Rictor in New York. I am not where I should be. Instantly my chest is heaving and I am stepping backwards. Earth shaking beneath my feet.

 Somehow I end up a few feet from the door, catching my breath in an alcove with fountains for water. I realize after a few heartbeats Rictor has been calling me. But his voice is so far away, I barely hear him over the roar of the crowd. I am not certain what is happening, but I am more than certain that the arena is on the other side of those doors. The long narrow hallway had been unsettling before but now it was sinister and familiar.

The earth is speaking to me in whispers, pointing me where to go. But before I can follow he is there. Rictor reaches to touch me and I feel myself freeze. But he does not strike me, he leans against the wall beside me, his eyes look hurt. I have hurt him.

I dont know how long we stood there, but the earth was still again and I allowed myself to step out to stand by his side. Swallowing a hard lump in my throat I gently joustle his shoulder with my own. Leaving it there to show I was alright with contact now. He seems relieved, but I still feel ashamed of hurting his feelings. It clouds my uemeur.

His gaze goes from me and back to the door. “C’mon.” Wrapping an arm around my shoulder he begins walking us to the door. I resist, stopping him just short of the exit.

“Rictor, I.” I pause unsure how to explain what I need to. The hand on my shoulder tightens and he squeezes me closer. I feel connected again. Solidly grounded to the Earth.

Sighing he looks at the door and then at a group of people watching us. “What the fuck are you looking at buddy? Yeah thats what I thought mind your own damn business!” He turns back to me nose still wrinkled “listen, I dont know whats going on between you and this door.” Unspoken words were: tell me whats wrong.

I look away feeling ashamed, but he wants me to try so I do my best. I will always do my best for him. “The light. It is like entering the arena.” His lips tighten a bit, I am unsure if I hurt him again. But I hope I haven’t.

He holds me a bit closer and pumps his fist. “Then we will enter the arena together. I bet we can knock down some walls. Squish Mojo flat. What do you say?” He sounds so genuine, so positive, so....Odd. I am fairly certain he is forcing peppy bravado. It is, slightly endearing.

Raising a brow at him I frown. “Rictor what is wrong with you.”

“Hahah what ISNT wrong with me.” He rubs my shoulder, other hand firmly on the push bar. “Just close your eyes, and Ill tell you when you can open them.”

I feel that it may be needed to explain to Rictor that I am not an idiot. Although the mere fact I have to do so is irritating. He is standing in front of the diner with me, leaning against his truck. Some beat up thing, I suppose it is in good enough shape that it is reliable. The back is over flowing with things pinned down by a tarp. It makes me uneasy. But Rictor’s neutral smile and relaxed appearance settled the suspicion. 

Abruptly he opens the driver door and clicks a button. “Right, look in my car, this bag broke.” He holds up a bag of starbursts. Economy sized. Tropical fruit variety. I feel my eyes grow wider. 

“I think some went under the seats, y’know? My hands are too big to get under there.”

“Very well.” I get in and began collecting them for him, obviously he did not want them melting in his car. It was very warm out and I noticed that they melted into sticky pools at a certain temperature. 

Rictor gets in, starts the car and stares at me a moment. Fingers tapping the wheel hes looking a bit, thoughtful. Maybe even pensive. Thats a word right? “Make sure you get them all.” He shuts the door and the car pulls out.

 I am totally aware he is distracting me. But there are many candies here and they are going to ruin his carpet. Then he would be disappointed. Why I care I have no idea. But I do. Somehow. I think I will try and accept this feeling and work with it.

“Keep looking.” His voice is lighter, I glance up and see he is staring at the road in front of us. The smile isn’t on his face, but its in his voice I can hear it. I wish I could see his eyes to know for sure....

[rum-and-shattered-dreams]

Heroism is Subjective - Chapter 2: The Deal

AO3 link See part one for full summary and notes Summary:   An infuriated Bill interrogates Ford about why there's a barrier trapping him in Gravity Falls. Ford's hopes sink as he discovers Bill has gained physical form and desperation pushes him toward making a deal with the demon. Warnings:   Restraints. Torture? Kind of? I guess? Maybe more like threats? Notes:  This is going to open up some questions. They'll all be answered in later chapters ;). Also, again, this angst-fest was conceived before the finale aired so I had no idea what really caused the barrier around town or if Ford would actually know what it was.Special thanks to @themadcapmathematician for letting me ramble about this and for helping me with the prelude.

August 2012 - Weirdmageddon

Slam!  The door to the fearamid's penthouse suite rattled against its frame in the aftermath of Bill's tantrum.  The demon's body burned fiery red, his fingers leaving a darkened, smoking blotch on the door's chestnut finish.  He massaged his closed eye with one hand, his gilded Stanford trophy clutched in the other as he floated toward a black marble fireplace, his form fading back to yellow in the flame's flickering glow.  Above the fireplace hung a portrait of himself housed in an ornate, gilded frame.  He floated before it, opened his eye, and stared at the regal representation of himself.  "This is just a minor setback," he assured himself, "No problem.  I got this.  I just need some time to think this through."

He set his trophy on a plush carpet depicting himself as a single eye at the center of a golden triangle and effortlessly shrank fifty feet in size.  As his stature decreased, so did the room surrounding him, the walls, furniture, doors, and even his portrait shrinking to accommodate his dimensions.  The only item unaffected was the statue of his former pawn, now standing about two feet taller than him.  Too bad, Bill thought.  I'd really rather make you into actual chess piece.  But I suppose it's for the best that I don't alter you too much... yet.  Seems I still need you in the life-sized game.

He poured a thick purple liquid suspending specks of glimmering light into a martini glass and swirled it about as he muttered to the golden statue standing beside him, "We're trapped in this backwoods hick town.  My human minions betrayed me and helped your dumb family escape...  Ha!  It's cute that they're still trying to stop me.  But You know what?  I have things under control.  It won't be long before I have that ungrateful widdle piglet, Gideon, captured.  As for your family, I'm sure they and their idiot friends will eventually come to me.  Probably to try to save you!"  He tipped the golden figure back and forth with one hand, "But right now, I think we need to talk."

With a wave of his hand, the gold lifted like steam from Ford's form, swirling and dissipating and fading out of existence altogether.

"I'll die before I join you!" Ford shouted, his hand rushing to his side to draw his blaster, fumbling for a moment before drawing a gun-shaped contraption with what looked like a light bulb stuffed into the end of the barrel.  The memory gun.  In his blind panic, he aimed it at the demon anyway and fired.  It wasn't like it mattered.  He already knew his blaster was of no use.  Worst case scenario, it would do nothing, just like every other weapon he and countless others before him had used in an attempt to erase the demon from existence.  Though his movements were swift, he wasn't surprised when he had to dive to the floor as the blue beam bounced off its target and streaked back toward him.

Bill laughed, a gut rattling, high-pitched and chilled chortle, and retorted, "Yeah yeah, so you said."  With a twitch of a single finger, the memory gun cracked and crumbled leaving little more than a pile of dust beneath his hands.  

Ford berated himself, cursing under his breath, for even entertaining the notion that any weapon aside from his quantum destabilizer might magically be the key to destroying the demon and living to tell the tale, for hesitating yet again to do what he knew he had to.  He lifted himself to his feet and took a step back, his eyes focused on the demon with a gaze of pure contempt and his hand reaching toward his side for-

Bill moved a single finger and Ford felt himself jerked backwards by a sudden searing pain encircling his neck, the sound of chain links rattling entirely too close to his ears.  He barely noticed Bill's hand move as again he tried to lift his own to claw at the burning ring around his neck.  Before his fingers could so much as brush against the glowing blue collar, his arms were forced down and back, wrists bound in matching rings of pain, chains clattering as he struggled against their pull, his heart feeling as if it had jumped to his throat, its triple-time beat strangled in the collar's grasp.  

"Human reactions are infinitely amusing!" Bill laughed, wrapping an arm across the brickwork of his middle, rolling in mid-air, the liquid in his glass defying gravity as much as he did.  "I know your mind, Stanford.  You hate that your instinct still makes you try even though you know nothing you're carrying can make a dent in me, don't you?"

Ford opened his mouth to comment, fully intending a flashy retort of how can you be so sure?  but as Bill rolled over, his eyes widened.  He hadn't noticed.  How could he have missed it?!  Bill's formerly flat, triangular silhouette had evolved an extra dimension.  The white hot rush surging through his muscles evaporated, leaving them weak and shaken, as the demon's pyramid shape settled into an upright position.

"I see you've noticed my new look.  I'm a little insulted that it took you this long.  But I should have expected it.  You've always been a little dense when it comes to noticing the obvious," he said, digging a finger into the tip of Ford's nose and flicking it.  

"You-"

"Yes, very good, Stanford.  I got a swanky new physical form!  Do you like it?"  Bill turned like a model on a runway, tipping his glass and posing as if cameras flashed around him.  Yet, every bit of the demon's flaunting and teasing was lost on his audience.  In a seemingly stubborn gesture, Ford's head hung low, not a single reaction parting his lips nor twitching so much as a finger.  Bill's fists clenched, nearly breaking the glass's stem, his demeanor fuming.  How dare he ignore me! Ford honestly didn't notice Bill's taunts.  How could he have?  His mind was too busy splitting apart in far too many fragments of panic and pain, fear and frustration.  Damn.  DAMN IT!  It will never work now unless...  The kids...  Oh no...  THE KIDS...!  Stanley...!  Pure terror numbed his limbs as he wondered where they were or if they were hurt.  He stared blankly at the carpet beneath his boots, the muddied toes blurring as reality wavered and waned around him, his turmoil hidden to his captor under the unintentional mask of defiance.  He can't kill them.  Not yet...  He still needs them alive.  They have to still be alive...  Wait...  Why am I still alive?  Why hasn't he...?

Bill's eye narrowed in annoyance at his pawn's unwillingness to cooperate.  A hint of red flickered across his body as he lifted a hand to retaliate, blue flames sparking around his fingers.

"What do you want from me, Bill?"  Ford muttered, halting the demon's tantrum.  

His color softened back to its usual yellow glow while his mind sorted his priorities back into place. His hand lowered as he stared at the glittering purple ripples in his glass.  "Look," he said, tipping the glass toward his prisoner, "we made a great team before.  I could set you free from all this," he continued, pointing at the chains, "and we can do it again.  Just imagine!  You and me, buddies again with the bonus of total domination over this dimension!"  A flourish of black fingers produced an image of Ford among the stars, looming over the galaxy.

Ford stared at the image, his mouth agape and his eyes widened in horror.  "Is that really what you think I want?"  He spat.  His eyes clenched shut, his head nestled between stiff shoulders, and turned away from the far too lifelike hologram of his own face twisted by a sadistic smile.  As thoughts settled into coherency in his mind, his shoulders relaxed and a light grin lifted the corners of his lips.  His eyes opened and he faced the demon with a look of exasperated disappointment and sighed, "Of course that's what you think.  It's all you understand.  You say you want a world free of rules but what you really want is one which adheres solely to yours!  What you really want are obedient minions who do your bidding without question, who will create a place where no one can defy you or your whims!  You could never understand what it is I want...  What I've always wanted.  I couldn't even understand it until mere days ago."

The disconcerting hologram faded and Ford could clearly see his captor tapping a finger below his eye, mocking the human motion of tapping one's chin in thought.  "Maybe I don't," he said in a drawl dripping with the upward inflection of a yet unspoken threat, "but I think I have enough of an idea of it to make you tell me what I need to know."

"So you do want something from me, then," he said with a huff, "I should have guessed that's the only reason I'm still alive."  His heart pounded as he struggled against the burning of his wrists and neck.  Still alive.  Yes I'm still alive.  I haven't failed yet.  I hope.  I hope these cuffs aren't damaging the- no.  They can't be.  If nothing else has caused damage, there's no reason to believe this will.  I just...  need to play along for a bit.  See what it is he needs...  "Get on with it then," he huffed, "What is it you need?  You already know my answer.  You already know I'll die before-"

"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted, rolling his eye and waving his hand, "I know you will.  But what about them?" With a swirl of his hand, he conjured an image of the kids and Stanley, wrestling on the floor of the Mystery Shack.  He lifted his drink to his eye, a part in its center opening with a grotesque slurp before he poured the contents of his glass between lips formed from his eyelids.  In a blink, his eye reappeared and he slammed the glass to the floor with his demand, "Now tell me!  Why can't I leave this intelligence forsaken town?!" "I don't know.  Why can't you?" Ford answered, feeling a little like Bill had started in the middle of a conversation, expecting him to understand what he was talking about.

"You know very well!"

"No!  Actually, I don't!  What are you talking about?" panic clawed at the edges of his voice as he watched the scene within Bill's hologram.  

"There's a barrier!"

"A barrier?"  The tenseness of his shoulders sagged as he replied with questions of his own, "Around Gravity Falls?  Fascinating..." his voice inflected upwards, his thoughts searching for the implications and possible causes of such a phenomenon.

"Don't play dumb with me, Fordsy!  You know all about this!"

"No.  I don't.  For once I honestly don't." his words surged forth while his mind raced. Did the kids find more unicorn hair?  Did Stanley figure out what to do?   He thought about the condition of his basement facility upon his return.  Books stacked upon books explaining physics, codes, and oddities in layman's terms.  Stanley had clearly spent years studying them alongside his journals. Between him and the kids, they must have done this to contain the threat!  Remarkable!

"You...  You know something.  I know that look.  You've got it figured out.  Tell me or I'll destroy them!"  Bill demanded, pointing to the image of Ford's family.

"You'll do nothing of the sorts," Ford said with a shrug, quelling his internal panic with rational thought.

"What?!" his yellow glow surged to firey red.

"I know you need them alive."

"Aren't you supposed to be a genius?  You already know why I don't need you anymore.  Turns out you have more in common with your new best friend than you thought," he manipulated the image with a wiggle of his fingers, bringing up a scene from the Mystery Shack's basement;  Dipper, rolling the dice during their week long game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons.  Ford's heart sank.

"I thought pine tree told you that I possessed him earlier this summer."

Ford swallowed the lump in his throat.

"In fact, my minions were supposed to have rid me of his pesky existence already but I suppose it's a good thing they failed.  I see it in your eyes.  You're scared for him."

"Leave him out of this...  Please.  I don't know anything."

"Remember I know you better than anyone.  I lived in your mind.  I know you know something!"  Dipper's joyful image flickered.  Ford's eyes slammed shut at the horror which replaced it.

"Human emotions are such ridiculous things, aren't they?  Illogical and demanding, it seems.  But hey, it's apparently a pretty useful little quirk for me.  Ha, that makes me think...  For you humans, there are far worse things than death, aren't there?" He pondered for a moment and swished his hand through the horror story he'd created, replacing it with yet another image;  Stan watching TV from his chair.  Mabel sat on the arm, so engrossed in the flickering glow that she didn't notice her chip bag spilling across Stan's lap, and Dipper perched on the dinosaur skull beside, leaning forward in anticipation.

Before the image could shift to whatever terrors Bill had in mind, Ford surrendered through gritted teeth, "Alright!  Stop!  I'll make a deal. I'll tell you what I think caused the barrier but you leave my family alone!"

"Fine," Bill agreed.  With a dismissive waggle of one finger, the cuffs binding Ford's hands dissipated like vapor.  He held out one hand,  his nasally high pitch suggesting, "Shake on it?"

With his head down and heart pounding, Ford clarified his terms, "You leave my family alone.  You assure me they will be safe and protected.  And you release me."  He extended his hand.  Buy time.  Just buy some time and there might still be a chance...

"Agreed to your family but It would be pretty dumb of me to let you go before finding out if what you're about to tell me is actually useful.  So no.  I won't be releasing you.  But I will promise that my henchmaniacs and I will leave your family alone.  Agreed?"

"Fine," Ford spat, cursing internally at the limitations of the deal.  I'll just have to find a way to escape, in that case...  He lifted his head, squared his shoulders and held out his hand.  

Blue flames engulfed their handshake, sealing the deal.  With some residual reluctance, he explained his theory; that someone must have used unicorn hair, mercury, and moon stones to create the barrier around the town.  He'd barely finished speaking when Bill floated out of the room, calling to his henchmaniacs for their aid in finding a way to lower the barrier.  

Ford collapsed to his knees, exhausted but brimming with dread as he reached for his left sweater cuff.  He closed his eyes for a moment as if sending a silent prayer out to any god who might listen, opened his eyes and tugged his sleeve halfway up his arm.  He released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, relief washing over him at the sight of rings of tattoos unmarred by the burning cuffs surrounding his wrists moments ago.  Not a single burn, cut, or flaw appeared in the iridescent sepia symbols.  "Thank every god from every dimension in existence," he breathed.  Now I just need to find a way to get out of here and get back to the kids and the others. He may have gained physical form but I'm not giving up yet.  Not when there might still be a way.  

He leaned back, the chain attached to his collar stretching to its limit, barely allowing him to sit cross-legged on the floor.  He raked his fingers through his hair, shame burning his cheeks in the aftermath of surrender,  yet, he allowed himself a shred of pride in his good fortune that Bill had only asked the cause of the barrier, not how to break it.  It will buy some time.  But how much?

[rebelheartsmustbefree]

When the truth is found...to be lies. And all the joy.. within you...dies..

*There was something unmistakable about the feel of electricity coursing through your body. The way each new wave brought a new lick of terror right up my spine. I don’t remember clearly but I was sure that I hadn’t received this treatment before. But with each fresh volt a little flash of memory came back to me. I had been here, enduring this same punishment before. The feel of the electrodes pressing against my temples. How was it that I only begun to recall this now? Had my mind gone too far beyond what it could withstand? Exactly how far were they going to take this rubberband brain before it will most assuredly snap? Fuck. Here comes more of that white heat racing through my bloodstream. I bit down on the rubber ball that was so thoughtfully wedged between my teeth. I guess my tormentors didn’t want to hear the spoils of their work. This time I bit down so hard that I could of sworn I was about to bust my jaw, hurting so bad that it brought tears to my eyes. After the last round of lighting, I tried to think about how long I had been here, every muscle twitching helplessly. Either out of shock or in anticipation for the next hit. My eyesight was blurry, but with a quick exploration of my surroundings I realized where I was. Home sweet home. Heaven. Which meant my captors must be the lovely bunch of winged fuc-   There it was, another current claiming my entire body. I was now triggered into a seizure, flashes of horrid memories come crashing to the front of my mind. There was so much blood. Some of it my own, most of it being Zachariah's. This explains the ride on the lighting train. Things started to get fuzzy and it seemed almost too much to handle just to keep my eyes open. And right on cue, another violent volt envelops me, my jaw snapping down tight again on the gag, tasting blood on my tongue. The memories come flooding in rapidly now, my eyes close and I give in to the undertow, the darkness seducing my consciousness that I admit I was too weak to put up any sort of fight.

Just sit back and go with the flow.

One second I was peacefully sleeping, the next I was rudely being taken from my blissful dreams by the bastard Angel Zachariah. I wasn’t pleased at all to see the very angel that had on multiple occasions tried to kill me. That was probably an understatement. I hated him with the fire of a thousand suns. And that was no exaggeration. I sat up in bed and was subsequently regaled with some seriously heavy truths. One blow after another. The hits kept coming. Each one pushing that proverbial dagger deeper into my back. And just as my old buddy Zac was telling me all the dirty details on how he was very much involved with killing my last lover, the key offender come walking in with a tray of food for us. More lies he was prepared to feed me I’m sure. Well I was done choking down this bullshit he was shoving down my gullet every single fucking day since the day we met. I felt this bile rise in my throat. I was sick, I was betrayed and I was furious. I felt nothing but fury, could see nothing but red flashing before my eyes. I felt unimaginable pain and all I wanted in that moment was to share it all around.

It was time to get even with my demons.

Vinny’s lips parted to say something and it triggered something inside me that hated the thought of ever hearing his voice again. My hand rose and I forced his air to cut off by will, choking him as if my own fingers were right there around his neck. I could tell the pressure was just enough, still gathering some air that he most rightfully had to work for but still kept him from opening his mouth and letting more lies spill out. Truth be told I was done with both of these fuckers. Zachariah was quick to reach over and try to break the hold I had on Vinny, only causing me to switch my focus right to him. With a flick of my wrist I sent the Saint launching into the corner and caught the Angel with my hand, my palm firm against his throat. I wasn’t sure if these guys thought I was some fool they could form to fit in there little world but they really read me wrong. This ain’t my circus. I was no one’s monkey.

Or was it Puppet, as Vinny liked to call me?

The eyes of my fellow angel began to bulge as I tightened my grip, kinda looked like one of those goofy looking stress contraptions that folks use instead of doing things like this to people. I prefer this method to work out some of those frustrations, ones that these two assholes caused, but I digress. Something in my head nagged at me, a voice in the back of my mind that told me that I wasn’t getting the whole story and if I killed them both right here and now, I would never get it. But the wrath that I desired at the present time seemed to overrule any and all common sense. I stood and brought Zachariah with me, dragging his pathetic body across the room and through the doorway to guide him down the stairs. He did his best in trying to claw and grapple at me, anything to try and break the hold I had on him. Everything was for nothing, my power would always be far more than he could handle. I wasn’t sure what all I was capable of, but this was something I could feel with every fiber of my being. It was more than just facts here, I was dealing with a state of mind. As we descended down the stairs, I caught a glimpse of my eyes, those icy blues staring back at me through the glass of a picture frame that hung along the wall. This time, unlike at the plane crash, I wasn’t afraid of the image reflecting back at me. I fucking embraced it.  

I didn’t know when I started using my fists but I was fully engaged in this fight. All systems were up and running. With each hit to the elder angel’s face I could feel his bones give way, cracking all the way from the cheekbones to his jaw then around to the front of his skull. It was no surprise that it was the most stubborn of areas being the hardheaded bastard Zachariah was, bruising and busting open my own knuckles with each unforgiving blow. His face was beginning to look like it had an unfortunate run in with a meat grinder when he finally gained the upper hand, flipping us and taking his turn with his own fists. And at some point we made it outside and my back was pinned against the cool, tender blades of grass. Other than this asshole punching me in the face, it would have been a lovely place to take a nap or just lay out and look at the stars. Which I caught a few sights of between his punches. Ass beating with a view. Who would have thought?

Alright, I have had enough of this.

His next punch was met with my palm, fingers closing, clutching and crushing every single bone in his hand without a second thought. You should have seen the look on his face, the pain in his cry only made me want to hear more. I shot up without warning, crashing my forehead into the other Angel’s, a sickening crack could be heard across the neighborhood. Blood trickled down from my brow where either I had just busted it open or from his assault, or both assaerbated the injury to the point where I had a steady warm stream coming down the side of my face and coating my lips. My tongue swiped out over it to taste of my own life force, the blood that made me who I was and I earned a gasp from Zachariah.*

“I should have killed that wretched human woman as soon as I found out that your father knocked her up. Instead you became a curse to us all, never amounting to any good except to fuck everything up. Now look at you, an abomination to our Heavenly father, laying with men, enjoying all the sins that ruin this creation that God wanted so badly. You have the ability to do so much good but you’re a waste to this world and a waste of raw abilities. Your mother should have swallowed you like the whore she was.”

*If I thought I was seeing red before, now there was burning hellfire standing between him and I. and then there was rage. It claimed me, burned from the inside out until I was clutching his neck again and lifting him off of his feet that kicked and eagerly searched for footing. But he would never find it again in this life. My other hand punched forward and plunged right into his chest, clutching and ripping out his still beating heart. I let it drop from my blood soaked fingers, splatting messily onto the ground at my feet. With a very self-satisfied grin, I glared up at him and laid my palm against his forehead, smiting him right there on the spot where my mother was buried. I tossed his lifeless body over to the side before picking up and shoving his heart right into that fat fucking mouth of his. I smeared my hand across my chest, wearing the blood of my victory proud across my flesh.

One down, one to go.

I made my way back into the house, finding Vinny mid-way down the stairs, sitting there with his hands cradling his face. I could tell he had been crying, the smell of tears was something I got use to in this house with my mother. And now my boyfriend, the liar and the rat was trying to pull out all the resources to gain some pity from me. Well, it wasn’t going to work. His fate was already written in stone once he decided to team up with the now dead elder angel and work against me. I cleared my throat to catch his attention as I stood, arms crossed over my chest at the bottom of the stairs. It gave him quite the start, head snapping up and eyes meeting mine. He got to his feet and immediately began sputtering out excuse after sorry excuse. Endless apologies and more lies that made my stomach turn.*

“I didn’t expect to fall for you. Isaac you have to believe me. This, what’s between us is real. I was about to tell you everything but..I was too late. I love you and I am begging you for mercy, please forgive me.”

*Mercy? Forgiveness? Love? No. This was all a ploy to get me back under his thumb, working another angle now that the first plan went and hit the fan. His words continued, each syllable seemed to add to the fire that roared inside me. The pain of betrayal, feelings for someone that had stabbed me in the back from that first night. Each word. Stab. Cut. Bleed. Until I felt nothing but contempt for this man standing in front of me now. Both hands wrapped around his neck, there wasn’t a fight left in him. He was a man who had confessed everything but it came to us a little too late. As I watched the life drain from his eyes, the light dimming in this once bright star, the saint who will now die a sinner, I felt his tears drip onto my wrist. I squeezed harder, he was gasping my name, saying those three words again. The ones that I would never say out loud back to him. Instead I showed him my mercy by placing a kiss to his lips before hearing that distinctive crack. I had applied enough pressure to snap his neck and he was suffering no more.

Now the suffering was all mine. As I finished my trip down memory lane, the events that lead me here, the only thing I felt now was the numbness setting in. As another round of electricity claims my battle weary body, I closed my eyes and tried not to remember how it felt to kill someone I loved yet again. I think that will stick with me for all of my days. That is if I make it out of this place with any brain cells left. With any luck, they will take this way too far and I won’t recall anything. One could only hope. Right?*

#TBC

[santtechgq-blog]

Our top pick "overlooked tech"— from BeOS to Zip Drives Our ride-or-pass on devices of yesteryear didn't all accomplish showcase success.

We all think about the devices that get showered with steady acclaim—the symbols, the fragment pioneers, and the distinct advantages. Tech history will always remember the Altair 8800, the Walkman, the BlackBerry, and the iPhone.

Yet, individuals do overlook—and rapidly—about the gadgets that neglected to change the world: the immense thoughts destined by average execution, the devices that touched base before the market was truly prepared, or the advancements that discovered their walk similarly as the world was rotating to something else.

In our keep going piece on contraption history, we profiled the most noticeably awful items the Ars staff had ever utilized. Here, we praise the best items that are sliding gradually into the memory opening. Be that as it may, when they initially showed up, we adored them.

PC equipment

The Iomega Zip Drive

Before all else was the floppy plate. It was eight creeps over, and it was... floppy. After some time, the floppy shrank to 5-1/4", then down to 3-1/2" (picking up a plastic external shell all the while). It in the long run offered 1.44MB of versatile stockpiling. What's more, PC nerds saw that it was great.

Be that as it may, then the hard circle started to develop. Moving down vital records turned out to be all the more a bother as hard circles passed the 200MB stamp. After I purchased my first Mac desktop (a clone, really), I found that exchanging my records from an old PowerBook 145 to my new Umax SuperMac J700 was a bother, as was guaranteeing that the greater part of my imperative archives were moved down. Enter the Zip Drive. Greater and thicker than the 3-1/2" floppy drive, Zip circles held an incredible 100MB of information (they would later come in 250MB and 750MB sizes).

The Zip Drive was presented in 1994, and I acquired an outside SCSI model (and I ended my SCSI chain appropriately, hell!) inside two or three years of its landing available. Zip plates weren't horribly modest at $20 each, however I inevitably amassed a sizable gathering and moved down to them (semi) routinely.

By the last 50% of the 1990s, OEMs like Apple and Dell offered Zip Drives as alternatives on their machines, and I quickly possessed a PowerBook 1400c with a Zip Drive module. In any case, the Zip's rule as the versatile mass stockpiling of decision did not last. Before the finish of the 1990s, CD-R and CD-RW drives were progressively accessible; after I utilized Zip drives to move documents from a PowerMac G3/266 to my new PowerMac G4/400, the Zip circles were put away in a drawer. There they stayed until I moved a couple of years back, when they were placed out in the rear way alongside the other electronic waste I had aggregated over the nine years I lived in that house.

These days, I can stuff a 32GB USB thumb drive in my pocket, making the massive 100MB Zip circles appear to be considerably more old-fashioned. Yet, for a couple short years, the Zip Drive hit a sweet spot in the market, which is the reason despite everything I have affectionate recollections of it. (Eric Bangeman)

Magneto-optical drives

The quantity of cases where my tastes covered with those of the late Steve Jobs are entirely restricted, however we shared one conviction: we both thought magneto-optical drives were a better than average thought. Employments really made them the default removable capacity media for some early models of NeXT PCs, an inheritance that lives on just through the turning beachball-of-death that holds on in OS X. For me, they were the response to a somewhat darken issue: how would you keep a regularly growing accumulation of magnifying instrument pictures sorted out and documented?

Back in my examination days, I could create many high-determination pictures in a matter of hours—then do a similar thing the following day. In the mid-'90s, this made a wide range of issues. Desktop hard drives hadn't achieved the point where you could simply leave each picture you at any point went up against a solitary machine. Hard drives flopped, so I required a reinforcement framework. Not each machine would have all the product you'd have to work with the pictures, so you frequently expected to rearrange several megabytes between desktops.

Writable CDs hit the market around this time, however the copying programming not precisely easy to use, and the circles made a hierarchical bad dream. A given day's worth of effort may include envisioning three distinct examinations. You were probably going to rehash every one of them at various focuses throughout the following couple of months. In the event that you were great about filing to CD, you'd wind up with many plate with odds and ends of various investigations scattered on every one. Really finding the bit you needed later was very little fun.

MO plates appeared to offer an answer for these issues. The 5 1/4" forms had multi-gigabyte limits yet were removable, which means you could move the information to any machine with a drive snared to it. They were additionally re-writable, implying that at whatever point you got more material from a given venture, you could simply drop that into a similar organizer that contained whatever is left of that work. Furthermore, they were recorded quality, ensured to hold information for a considerable length of time.

In addition, every one of the choices were a whole lot more regrettable. Iomega was the ruler of versatile media at the time, yet individuals in my building were losing information left and ideal to the "snap of death."

About the main thing clearly amiss with them was that MO drives were moderate—yet more subtle things incurred significant injury. The tech never went standard, so both the drives and media wound up stuck at the high costs run of the mill for a specialty item. Fresher, higher limit drives were frequently guaranteed yet wound up severely deferred. The equipment that made it to market was frequently inadequately bolstered and experienced flaky drivers.

With today's shabby, gigantic hard drives and modest, quick systems administration, I don't know MO drives would be an incredible alternative now regardless of the possibility that they had gotten on at the time. Be that as it may, their periphery status is likely a more awful destiny than the innovation merited. Still, I hear that, similar to Spinal Tap, they're enormous in Japan. (John Timmer)

Vadem Clio C-1050

Windows CE gets no regard. In any case, in 1998, the Vadem Clio resembled the future—and from numerous points of view, regardless it does. The MIPS-based compact PC measured 3 pounds, had a battery life of as much as 12 hours, and was the principal truly fruitful convertible tablet/note pad, at any rate from an outline stance. Its approval and revile was that it was worked for Windows CE.

Microsoft vigorously advanced a class of gadgets based on the Windows CE 3.0 H/PC stage called "PC buddies." The attract of Windows CE to gadget makers was, in addition to other things, its measured quality; it enabled them to dart on usefulness particular to their equipment and in addition other programming. For Vadem's situation, that included CalliGrapher, penmanship acknowledgment programming from Vadem's ParaGraph backup, that made it the best pen tablet of now is the ideal time. It permitted pen input straightforwardly into the Windows CE form of Microsoft Word, and was adequate that I could take cursive or print notes on the screen with such a low blunder rate, to the point that I sometimes expected to right them.

The outline of the Clio, made by frogdesign in light of thoughts from Vadem's building executive Edmond Ku, was development in itself. It was intended to be conveyed, with a practically natural shape that made it simple to hold with one hand and compose on in its tablet frame. Not at all like the other scratch pad style gadgets that were its peers, it had a screen mounted on two arms that could pivot 180 degrees on a couple of carbon-fiber strengthened arms, enabling it to flip around and lay level, tablet-style, while disguising its console, or to be turned into any position while open for use with its implicit console. That made it perfect for punching out a breaking story on a long plane flight sitting behind somebody with a leaned back seat, or documenting a story by email from a telephone corner that had a RJ-11 attachment to jack its 56kbps modem into.

Considering that my "genuine" scratch pad PC was an Apple PowerBook Duo (see our "Most exceedingly awful Gadgets" story), the Clio spared the day for me all the time.

Windows CE lives on in many structures, Vadem still claims ParaGraph. Be that as it may, the Clio outline and other protected innovation related with the gadget were obtained by The Pinax Group, which endeavored to permit out the "swing arm" plan to different producers before slipping off into lack of clarity. (Sean Gallagher)

Apple PowerBook 1400

A while ago when I was school, from 2000-2004, it's difficult to trust that tablets were still moderately extraordinary for classroom notetaking, even at a huge school like UC Berkeley. WiFi was recently turning out, and certain classes instructed in certain address lobbies could be viewed on the web. I had a trusty tablet that was even truly old by 2000, the PowerBook 1400.

Past being a conventional portable workstation for its time, the 1400 had two elements that were really flawless, and I've been amazed that they never fully gotten on. The first was utilitarian: expandable drive narrows. On the base of the tablet, two secluded openings took into consideration an additional battery, a plate drive, a CD drive, or even a Zip drive, which was amazing in that pre-USB stick period. Both spaces were hot-swappable when the PC was sleeping, obviously.

The second, which was more ostentatious, was the BookCover highlight, a removeable bit of clear plastic on the highest point of the portable PC that let clients put in various examples, workmanship, stickers, or generally customize their own particular PC. While I didn't have any acquaintance with it at the time, ClarisWorks had an element that let clients make and print their own, in light of an included layout that was packaged with the product as an "additional." (Cyrus Farivar)

Devices

Best stacking NES-101

By the fall of 1993, most everybody who needed a Nintendo Entertainment System had as of now got one and most genuine gamers had proceeded onward to the more propelled Super NES or Sega Genesis. In any case, those super-late adopters who chosen to tend to the NES were at last remunerated with a substantially more sharp and solid rendition of the framework that characterized an entire era of gamers.

[tech-usa-blog]

Lumo Run investigated: Messing up your shape? This running mentor can settle that. You run consistently, yet would you say you are running effectively?

There's no deficiency of gadgets that track exercises, yet another yield of contraptions that help you improve your exercises is gradually developing. One of the most up to date is the $99 Lumo Run, which is a downsized variant of the organization's keen apparel. It's a super-little sensor that screens running, breaks down frame progressively, and gives input on the most proficient method to run better.

In some ways, that may appear to be constraining: not at all like such a variety of movement following wearables that are extraordinary for individuals hoping to exercise more, Lumo Run doesn't track day by day steps, rest, or sustenance. Gadgets like Lumo Run are intended to be utilized amid exercises by individuals who as of now have an activity routine and are hoping to enhance it. The gadget won't not have as wide a group of people as a more essential wellness tracker, however once you're in a schedule, the Lumo Run may really be more useful.

Configuration: Free thy wrists!

I'm generally intrigued by wellness wearables that don't strap around my wrist, and the Lumo Run fits that bill. A touch of history: the organization's first item was the Lumo Lift, which remedies pose. Lumo proceeded onward to savvy garments, incorporating $169 pants with a sensor in the belt that screens running. Since keen dress is more costly than an only a sensor, the organization as of late started offering the sensor independent from anyone else for $99, alongside a clasp to join it your preferred belt.

Before we discuss how it feels to wear the Lumo Run, how about we take a gander at the sensor itself. It's a thumb-sized, dark oval with a silver logo amidst one side. At the tip of one end of the sensor is a mostly removable top that shrouds its microUSB charging port. The top is a bit of irritating to detach—I had a feeling that I would break a nail each time I attempted—however fortunately the Lumo Run should most recent a month prior to it needs energizing. In the event that you run frequently, or possibly once every day, battery life will be abbreviated. Following five days of utilization, my gadget's battery was half gone.

The sensor's clasp is an indistinguishable shape from the sensor. Sliding the sensor into the opening on the clasp is harder than it looks, since the opening is just about a similar size, giving you almost no squirm space to push it in. Once the sensor's safe however, it's probably not going to fly out. The plastic clasp segment is likewise truly tight, so when you slide it onto the highest point of your belt, it feels strong—you'd need to take a hard fall or jolt your body around for it to fall off.

The Lumo Run didn't move amid my runs. The part of the clasp that touches skin can be thorny at initially, however it wasn't sufficient to make me awkward or to make me quit running. I likewise never felt like I needed to check if the gadget was still there—there were a lot of times that I completed the process of running and didn't understand the Lumo Run was as yet connected until I sat down and felt it against my lower back. Gratefully, regardless of the possibility that you didn't remove the gadget before washing your exercise garments, the Lumo Run is machine-launderable and waterproof up to 10 meters.Features: Run until you drop

Much like the Moov Now, the Lumo Run helps you enhance your running structure. The first run through utilizing the gadget, you can simply run, or you can take a ten-minute running test that surveys your shape and gives you tips on the most proficient method to progress. I did the running test, and now that I've recorded a pack of runs, I can state that it's practically indistinguishable to when you "simply run." The application tallies you down from five seconds to begin the run, then a female voice in your earphones clarifies what the gadget is evaluating. She tolls in from time to time after that to tell you the sorts of things she'll let you know while you run—rhythm, pace, and that's only the tip of the iceberg—however for the most part you simply keep running for ten minutes and afterward stop to get your outcomes. All through the test, you can tune in to music from whatever source you need on your cell phone, be it Pandora, Spotify, or something else. The music's volume is turned down the volume needs to disclose to you something.

Toward the finish of my trial, the application said I ought to take a shot at my rhythm, particularly getting in more strides every moment. This guidance appeared well and good since I tend to keep running with a high bob, bringing long walks with a decent measure of constrain that outcomes in a spring to my progression and less strides every moment. The application gave me an objective of 158 stages for every moment, and that wasn't as simple to accomplish as it sounded. Amid my next recorded run, sound impacts pumped into my ears—a high, celebratory tone when my rhythm was on-point and a low, miserable trombone-like commotion when it was slacking. Before the finish of that run, I never needed to hear that low tone again. Since I wasn't accustomed to running with such speedy rhythm, I heard the trombone almost like clockwork. I additionally heard it relentlessly on the grounds that I picked the "quick input" alternative in the application—if the sensor knows you're not running appropriately to achieve your objective, it will tell you with that pitiful tone promptly, and do as such every time you tumble off the wagon.

Despite the fact that the tragic sound impacts made that run irritating, the criticism worked. Each time I pursued that, I ended up moving my feet all the more rapidly to get more strides in every moment. When I recorded a run again with the Lumo Run, I heard not very many miserable trombones and numerous more glad tolls. It could rest easy. I don't know whether my change was on account of I subliminally would not like to hear those negative tones, or I just got acclimated to running with higher rhythm, yet the technique worked. Indeed, even after I quit utilizing Lumo Run, despite everything I keep running with preferable rhythm over I did some time recently... more often than not.

Dissimilar to the $79 Moov Now, Lumo Run just tracks running. Moov Now can track different exercises including cycling, swimming, and quality preparing, and has various preset exercises you can take after. Lumo Run simply makes them hurried to accomplish certain objectives. This confines its adaptability, particularly on the off chance that you frequently do different exercises other than running. In any case, committed runners, or those hoping to culminate their frame, will value the Lumo Run's core interest.

In the event that you utilize Lumo Run on a treadmill, its in-application estimations for separation and pace won't be exceptionally exact. That is on account of the Lumo Run naturally associates with your cell phone's GPS, so the guide created in the application will resemble the scrawls of a furious fourth grader. A Lumo Run delegate disclosed to me that the GPS won't get a precise estimation of separation or pace when you're on the treadmill, so you'll need to manage with the estimations the treadmill gives you. Pace and every other metric ought to at present be precise, and I found those didn't change much between various treadmill workouts.Lumo Run application: a one-stop-shop some time recently, amid, and after your run

Lumo Run's buddy application for iOS (the organization wants to include an Android application later on) is straightforward. A landing page demonstrates your latest objective running detail, and a begin catch starts another run. A "pre-run tip" on the landing page offers a snappy warm-up you can do to get ready for your next exercise. I loved that the application has seven-second recordings that demonstrate to do these little activities and how they help your frame while you run.The two symbols on the base menu bar are for Activity and for Coach. Movement demonstrates a group of data for each of your past recorded runs, including when and where the run happened (with a guide on the off chance that you utilized your telephone amid that exercise), your objective for the run, pace, remove, rhythm, bob, braking, drop, and revolution. Despite the fact that my objective for the greater part of my runs was enhancing rhythm, I like that the application indicated me on the off chance that I was in the correct range for whatever is left of those details. Since I'm not an in-your-face runner (yet), I wasn't comfortable with huge numbers of those details, however there are little symbols and expressions I could tap ("What's this?") to peruse about what, say, revolution implies as far as your running structure.

The Coach symbol raises a page of customized "suggestions," as in a greater amount of those little activities you can do to prep for a run. It's not a colossal library of moves, but rather they are helpful in case you're not used to extending or setting up your body to run. I regularly wake my body up with some quality preparing before my cardio exercises, however the Coach's activities (front skips, high knees, and that's only the tip of the iceberg) are intended for making running less demanding. Likewise under Coach are "patterns," which indicate how you've advanced in territories like rhythm through the span of many recorded runs, and "individual records," which is essentially a log of things like your longest run, most elevated rhythm, and least ricochet.

An about undetectable running friend

In case you're asking why Lumo Run doesn't track every day movement, the appropriate response is that it's not attempting to contend with the Fitbits of the world. The Lumo Run and gadgets like it won't be perfect for individuals who need the moment satisfaction of looking down at a wearable on their wrist and seeing a finished stride objective amidst the day. Rather, these sorts of trackers are for individuals who as of now have an intrigue, a drive, or an enthusiasm for a specific exercise and need to improve. No, you don't need to be a prepared runner to utilize Lumo Run. Truth be told, it'll most likely serve you best in case you're not one yet, on the grounds that it's intended to show you to keep running with better frame, and it makes a decent showing with regards to with that.

As a gadget, Lumo Run is well-made, easy to utilize, and simple to wear while running for quite a while. Its buddy application is intensive in its examination of your frame. While the voice mentor can get a bit of irritating and the gadget can be difficult to fit into its clasp, those are minor issues that are anything but difficult to live with in case you're searching for a gadget that could really roll out an enduring improvement by they way you run. In any case, the individuals who fiddle with many games will get more use out of the $79 Moov Now—it's less expensive than the Lumo Run and isn't restricted to quite recently run honing.