#Hi tumblr pals a friend told me today that they miss me and those three words did something to me

[insightstaff]

Absolutely fucked up that allowing myself to be seen and to be loved, even if I can't love myself right now, is actually a good choice

[sineala]

The gay Invaders

Hi, internet! Today I'd like to talk about one of the chronologically-first canonically-gay couples in Marvel Comics history: Brian Falsworth (the second Union Jack) and Roger Aubrey (The Destroyer). (I mean "chronological" in terms of in-universe timeline rather than RL publication date; I'm pretty sure Northstar is still the first to publication as far as unambiguously-gay Marvel heroes go.)

If you are a fan of reading or writing about Captain America being queer, you should care about Brian and Roger, because they were two of Steve's fellow Invaders in the 1940s, meaning that they are two of the people on the list of Steve's Old Gay Friends And Teammates, because, yeah, Steve sure had a lot of canonically gay friends during the war. Probably more than you'd think he would have had in the forties! (The other two are Percival Pinkerton, who's part of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, and of course Steve's childhood friend Arnie Roth. Pinky is gay by word of Stan Lee, IIRC; Arnie was as canonically gay as DeMatteis could make him in the early 1980s, so they didn't say the word "gay" but it's really, really not subtle. Steve compares what Arnie feels for his "roommate" Michael to what Steve feels for his girlfriend Bernie. Yeah.)

I previously made a Tumblr post about Brian and Roger, rounding up some of the canonical evidence of their relationship, but that post is six years old now, and in the intervening years, Marvel has thoughtfully put the rest of the 70s Invaders run on Unlimited as well as the two Citizen V miniseries that star Roger and retcon his relationship with Brian as romantic. So I've read them now, and I've got panels.

Okay. I should probably begin by saying that Brian and Roger are not canonically gay in their first significant appearance together, which is in Invaders vol 1 #19 and #20, published in 1977. Roy Thomas does not seem to have intended them to be a couple, and they aren't canonically one in any of the original Invaders run. However, if you enjoy gay subtext, it's very nice.

This whole arc is the one that introduces Roger in modern canon. He's been brainwashed by the Nazis and the Invaders rescue him and get him back to his normal self. But in #19 we get his backstory in flashback, as related by Montgomery, Lord Falsworth (Brian's father; yes, MCU fans, the name should look familiar) and it turns out that Roger and Brian were basically best friends since childhood:

They were the dearest of friends!

Anyway, they both ended up captured by Nazis, they presumably changed their minds about appeasement as a policy, Brian got out and joined the Invaders, then they had to rescue the brainwashed Roger, and it's a fair amount of fun in a two-issue arc.

The subtext is even more prominent in Invaders #34, in which they find out that someone going by the Destroyer (which is Roger's codename) has been doing villainous deeds, and the Invaders worry that Roger's gotten himself brainwashed again. Brian immediately insists that it can't really be Roger because he knows Roger and Roger Would Never:

Unsurprisingly, Brian is right. It's not really Roger; Master Man is impersonating the Destroyer, and the villains have taken Roger captive, and the Invaders break him out and there is an extremely significant moment where it just so happens that Roger has to catch Brian, saving his life for a change, and they stare deeply into each other's eyes and Brian seems to be having difficulty finishing his sentences:

Some people who read this therefore concluded that Brian and Roger were extremely gay for each other. While ordinarily this sort of shipping is mostly confined to fandom, in this particular instance, one of the people who started shipping Brian/Roger was Fabian Nicieza, and Fabian Nicieza, as you probably know, writes comics for Marvel. I think you see where this is going.

However, first I must inform you that, sadly, Brian has been canonically dead for years. Captain America vol 1 #253-254 -- the two-parter about Baron Blood in the Stern/Byrne Cap run in the 80s -- establishes that Brian died in a car accident in 1953. (This is also the run where Joseph Chapman -- a friend of Jacqueline Falsworth's son Kenneth -- becomes the third (and current) Union Jack.)

(Roger then appears in a bunch of T-Bolts issues; I assume there's nothing interesting there on the gay front because I feel like someone would have told me. I should probably read more than three T-Bolts issues someday.)

So, anyway, in 2001, Fabian Nicieza wrote a miniseries called Citizen V and the V-Battalion. Roger, who is still superheroing as the Destroyer despite being pretty old by this point, is part of the titular V-Battalion, and he has a very prominent role in this miniseries. And in #1, we have the usual splash page of character backstory, and there's a very, um, interesting line there:

Regarding Brian and Roger's relationship, the narration informs us: "It sounds much gayer than it probably was."

This is interesting, obviously for a couple of reasons. One is that, up to this point in canon, as far as I can tell, literally nobody thought any of this sounded the slightest bit gay at all. (Other than, I guess, Fabian Nicieza.) The other reason is that, as we soon find out, it actually was as gay as it sounds. Thanks, Fabian!

In 2002, Nicieza wrote a second miniseries, Citizen V and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting. Issue #1 opens with a flashback set in 1953; specifically, we see Brian's funeral:

Roger is extremely sad, and when Lord Falsworth expresses his sympathy about the death of Roger's "friend" and saying that he knows how much this hurts him, Roger mutters under his breath that he doesn't have the slightest clue:

All is revealed on the next page, when one of the other characters tries to ask Roger about superhero business and Roger snaps at him because, as he says, "I just watched my friend die in my arms."

Except "friend" isn't the word he starts to say:

Yep. That would be "lover." So Roger nearly outs himself. So, yes, now it's absolutely canon. Hooray.

Later on in the issue, which is set in the present day, we have a couple pages of Roger staring at pictures of the two of them and continuing to be sad:

Yeah. They were a couple.

So the question you -- being a Captain America fan -- might ask yourself is, okay, did/does Steve know about any of this? (The reason I started looking all this up was because I wanted to know if Steve knew.) I don't know if we have a panel of Roger specifically admitting any of this to Steve (and if we do, I would like to know about it), but I would be comfortable saying that Steve probably knew back then -- because, well, he seems like the kind of guy who would actually have been fine with it in the 40s, what with all his gay friends -- and also that I can't think of a reason why he wouldn't know now. Because he's definitely worked with Roger again in fairly recent comics, and also Roger is very much out, these days.

In fact, New Invaders #4 (2004) opens with Roger attending Pride:

So, yeah, he's out.

(Then he has to fight, as far as I can tell, homophobic Nazi vampires. They're yelling slurs in German. Great.)

In All-New Invaders #10, which is from 2014 (and which is not the same series as New Invaders), Roger shows up to help out the Invaders, and in passing, he just happens to mention to another character (Joseph Chapman, the current Union Jack), that he is in fact gay:

He and Joseph don't really like each other much; as far as I can tell, their acquaintance in New Invaders consists of Joseph being vaguely homophobic and Roger being bitter about him being Union Jack because he actually wanted to be Union Jack himself to honor Brian's memory -- you know, that thing superheroes sometimes like to do to honor their dead superhero significant others, viz. Hank when Jan was dead after Secret Invasion -- and now Union Jack is this annoying kid and not, y'know, the love of his life. This exchange from New Invaders #4 seems pretty representative of their relationship:

Anyway, yeah, he's pretty obviously out.

Steve isn't actually present for this conversation in All-New Invaders, but he mentions in a later issue of this run that he knows what Roger and his pals have been up to, plot-wise, so I feel comfortable assuming that he's talked to Roger at some point in the previous ten years or so, and therefore, since Roger is completely out at this point in canon, there's no reason Steve shouldn't know now.

On an unrelated note, it's also a fun issue if you're a Steve/Tony fan because this is clearly running in parallel with Hickman's Avengers run, which means that he spends half a page telling Namor that he's mad at him and the rest of the Illuminati (but mostly mad at Tony because... he's just obsessed with Tony in this run, I guess?) about the mindwipe:

This is the sum total of my knowledge about Brian and Roger. No, wait, I know one more thing, which is that Brian was a character in the late, lamented mobile game Avengers Academy, in which he was also actually gay; Roger does not seem to have been there. There's a CBR article that you can read about the whole thing, which mentions some of these details from the comics in passing. (I have no idea why it says that their relationship was alluded to in the Stern/Byrne run; unless I missed something big, the only thing those issues do is establish Brian's death. As far as I can tell, no one is gay in them.)

So, yeah, that's Brian Falsworth and Roger Aubrey, the two gay Invaders. Steve sure has a lot of gay friends.

[champagne-bucky]

Prescription For... (Just a Touch)

Summary: Steve learns the basics.

Warnings: pre-serum Steve x reader, crude language, masturbation (male and female), dirty thoughts

Notes: Soooo this is kinda late (by like a month or two) but this is kinda my thank you for 1,000 on Tumblr!!! Thank you all so so so much for your support and love towards me and my writings!! Enjoy!!

After Bucky’s interesting visit with Old Man Rogers, he had to go back for more. He honestly did not believe a word his older best friend spoke to him. Was he going senile? Maybe he was lying? Or, maybe he was telling the truth…

“Back for more?” The older gentleman chuckled at the impromptu visit from his childhood friend.

“I just gotta know, are you pulling my leg? Because if you are that was a pretty fucking good gag, Steve,” no matter how many times Steve told Bucky about her, Bucky really thought the old captain was lying to him.

“I assure you, it was all real,” Steve smirked at Bucky and Bucky was a little squeamish at that.

“So, then what else happened between you and her? Did you visit her while you returned the stone? Did you ever keep in touch with her like you did with Peggy? C’mon Steve don’t leave me hanging,” Steve chuckled at his friend.

“All in due time, Buck. Head home now, I’ve gotta take my meds and head to bed,” Bucky gave Steve a hug and pat on the back.

“I’ll be back,” Bucky called out.

“You always do,” Steve responded.

—

Later that night, Steve laid in his bed and dreamed of his woman. The woman before the shield, before the title, before his name. He dreamed of her.

*flashback*

“So, Rogers, them boys been giving you trouble for a while now, huh?” She sat across from the nervous young man while sipping on her drink.

“Just the usual stuff. This always happens to me, ya know,” he responds as he plays with the collar of his shirt.

“You don’t listen to those boys. All they are is scared little boys who got no business picking on a guy like you,” Steve scoffed at that.

“Then why do they always come after me?”

“Depends, your pal Bucky out of town or something?” It did dawn on Steve that whenever Bucky wasn’t around he did get picked on a lot more.

“I don’t like the way they spoke to you today. Sayin’ that you and your momma are,” she shuddered in disgust, “are like that. I find it charming that a man can be that close with his momma,” Steve blushed at that. All his life people would tease and taunt him for being a momma’s boy. Bucky was the same with his mother. However, when there’s a guy as big and buff as he is the guys don’t pick on you as much.

“They’re probably just jealous cause they can’t find any lady around her to screw around with. Probably touch their you know what’s to a peach and imagine a lady attached,” Steve choked on his drink. He never heard a woman speak such vulgarity.

“What?” She looked at him curiously.

“Ya know,” she started doing the motion of a closed fist going up and down.

Steve furrowed his brows in confusion. What was she doing?

“Oh, Oh my gosh! You’ve never…” she trailed off as she looked at Steve’s expression. Poor Steve started to blush out of embarrassment.

“No, no, it’s nothing to be ashamed about. Didn’t you ever learn what that was,” she tried her best to not be crude, but she knew it wasn’t gonna work.

“I’m not following,” poor boy.

“Steve,” she let out a little chuckle, “I’m talking about masterbating. You’ve never heard about that before?” Steve choked back his shocked expression as she whispered the last part.

Of courses he’s heard of that word before. He remembers how his momma sat him down one day and told him that good boys don’t do dirty things like touch their privates. She scarred poor Steve at such a young age about the evils of self pleasure.

“I-I have, I just thought I w-wasn’t supposed to d-do it,” Steve was entirely red at this point.

“Oh, Stevie. My poor poor boy you’re mistaken’,” she shook her head and placed a hand over his. “There’s nothing wrong with touching yourself,” she had confidence that Steve had never seen before, not even in Bucky. “It’s a good thing, a really good thing. It’ll prepare you for later,” she winked as Steve’s eyes blew as wide as the moon.

He forgot about the offer she had made. Oh god, just knowing that made him feel ashamed of himself, he didn’t know anything about masterbating let alone sex. He’s a fraud!

“H-How do I-I do it,” he was looking everywhere except her face.

She smirked and began to tell him the rundown. Steve was baffled by how all this worked. He didn’t know how his mother would feel about this if she ever caught him. Oh god, what if she caught him, Steve thought.

“Listen, just try it, there’s no need to rush or overthink it. However in the event that you do do it,” she smirked and played with the hair at the nape of his neck, “let me know every little detail,” she winked and gave Steve a kiss on the cheek as she left the little diner they were in.

-

Steve had been nervous all throughout the night when he returned home. Every time his mother asked him a question he would start to get nervous. Thinking that he was starting to come down with something, she abruptly sent him to bed, alone with his thoughts.

Now flash forward to Steve in his room, laid out on his bed, stripped down to nothing but a pair of boxers and his pale little chest heaving up and down in the moonlight. He stared up at the ceiling as he thought. What should turn him on? He laid there for what felt like hours, only it was mere minutes, before his mind wandered back to her.

Did she do this too? Did she lay down in her bed every night and do dirty things to make her feel better? Did she tug her nightgown up to her hips and play down there until she felt euphoric? Would she not wear her undergarments to bed, maybe discard them so they wouldn't feel so dirty?

Oh, so this is how you start, huh? Steve felt himself get harder at the thought of her doing that. Her sweet little nightgown resting above her belly button, undergarments taken neatly off her heating body as her sweet little center starts to slick. She’s featherlight with her touches, she hisses when she applies pressure to her sweet and sensitive breasts.

Quiet moans escape past her beautiful lips as she rubs her thighs together for some relief. That’s not enough to quench the increasingly burning fire. Her one hand leaves its place, pulling and pinching the dusty pink nipple that is way past its usual sensitivity limit.

It’s wet down there, so wet. She feels a light sheen of sweat gloss over her perfect skin. Her fingers make hasty work as she plays, pulls, and rubs the sensitive little nub. Her moans start to get too loud, she has to put her other hand over her mouth to silence them. She fails quickly as she slips a finger in her center, then two. It’s mind blowing, the sweet and slick core pulsing at every rapid movement. No room for teasing tonight, she has to be quick before anyone hears her.

Three fingers, she’s never done this before. It feels so good. Her back arches off the bed ever so slightly out of pleasure. She’s going faster now, so fast she hears little noises coming from down there. It’s so hot. So hot that she can’t take the amount of pleasure anymore. She lets go and it's an amazing feeling. Her bed sheets are soaked as well as her thighs. She’s heavy breathing now as she scrambles to get up.

Her legs are shaking with every movement as she strips her sheets and wipes herself down. The air feels nice and cool against her burning skin. She needed this tonight and she’s glad it happened.

Finally, she changes her sheet and lays back in bed. All cool and rested thinking about the skinny boy who visits her father's pharmacy every day.

-

Steve is sitting up now, hand around his painfully aching cock. He’s pumping up and down so fast. The precum spilling out the top was enough to coat his big shaft. He’s holding back his grunts with clenched teeth.

It feels good, it’s so good that he needs to stop himself a few times so the pleasure doesn’t end early. He’s starting to make sweet sounds on his glistening member too. His other hand is making a tight grip on the edge of his mattress. He can’t hold on for long, he’s gotta do it.

He lets go. The mess ends up on his chest and dribbles down his abdomen. He’s coated in his own sheen of sweat and he is breathless.

Steve couldn't believe what had just happened. He feels a mix of shame, but not as much as he feels the missing fulfillment of pleasure. This sweet delicacy should’ve been a part of his life way earlier. Screw it, he wants to do it a second time, third time, so many times, but he knows he can’t. He needs some sleep since this activity drained him of all his energy.

He sleeps like a baby for the first time in years. He’s cooled down and feels less stressed. Steve can’t wait to do it again.

-

Her phone rings a numerous number of times. Her mother yells for her to come near as she says a young gentleman is asking for her. She trudges towards the phone and smirks as she hears her soon to be lover's voice telling her that the deed has been done.

“So you ready to learn more, Rogers?”

[w-k-smith]

Once again, tumblr has hidden the version of this post that has links. (Clearly, weird fan fic where ghosts eat candy bars is just *too radical* for this website.) This story is also available on AO3, under the username w_k_smith.

Chapter Two is here of “Don’t Go to the Netherworld!”

In this chapter, Beetlejuice and Lydia make their way through Saturn, but are waylaid by Zagnuts, a boy band, and all the obstacles the desert otherworld has to offer.

Chapter One: “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife” (6/19/20) Chapter Two: “Worm Welcome” (07/03/20) Chapter Three: “Ghost to Ghost” (upcoming) Chapter Four: “To Beetle or not to Beetle?” (upcoming)

Warning:  This story contains depictions of, references to, and discussion of  topics like suicide, untimely death, abuse, and body horror - you know,  like the musical does (though this probably has more). Know your  boundaries, and stay safe.

New chapter under keep reading!

“I don’t understand,” Lydia said, as they crossed from the midnight  of the administrative area, toward the hot afternoon of Saturn, through  the twilight in between. “What’s Saturn? Are we going to the  planet…somehow?”

“Nope. Totally unrelated, and don’t ask me who  named it. Saturn is the part of the Netherworld that acts as a trap for  ghosts who get out of line, like if you try to leave the house you’re  haunting, or jump the line in processing like someone I could mention.  Going through processing would only take a couple steps, but Saturn is  an anti-shortcut from the feverish nightmares of M.C. Escher. It’s a  giant desert, and it’s full of sandworms. Those are snake monsters that  eat ghosts. Foreshadowing?” he muttered to himself.

“This is so weird,” Lydia muttered. “I love it.”

She didn’t seem like she was being sarcastic. Maybe hanging around her wasn’t going to be too terrible.

Unfortunately, he saw trouble ahead.

“Keep your head down,” he whispered to Lydia. “Look dead. Deader than that. And don’t sneeze! Dead people never sneeze!”

“What?”

“Hello, Beetlejuice,”  said five tenor voices in unison. A cluster of expressionless young  white men was drifting through the shadows toward him and Lydia. The  boys had died in their late teens and very early twenties, long enough  ago that two of them sported frosted tips. They were dressed just  differently enough to be distinguishable from one another, in dated  pants and t-shirts with no personality.

“Hey, Boy Inferno,” he grunted.

“What are you doing out here?” they asked. They all floated six inches off the ground, in a formation reminiscent of migrating ducks.

He rolled his eyes. “Just running an errand for Juno. Miss Argentina find that living intruder yet?”

“Not that we’ve heard. Who’s your friend?”

“New  hire. Juno wants her on border patrol. Her name’s Lydia, and she’s  boring. Kids these days, you know, they think eyeliner and TikTok counts  as personality. But them’s the rules: if you add to the work, you have  to help out.”

“Do you want to hear the introduction song, Lydia?”

Geez, they didn’t back off easy. “Save that for people who’ve committed genocide or worse.”

“We were talking to Lydia.”

At his elbow, Lydia scratched the end of her nose. Boy Inferno caught the gesture, and as one, cocked their heads.

“What did you die of…?” they asked her.

“Um,  I don’t want to talk about it,” Lydia said, which was the wrong thing.  All newlydeads ever wanted to do was blather on about how they’d bitten  it.

“OK, you got me!” He stepped between Lydia and the boys. “This  isn’t an approved mission to Saturn. We were actually trying to, ah,  hide out from Juno for a while. She is in a mood today, I tell ya. Just  impossible. She wants me to take a statement from all the recently  deceased who were in line when the alarm went off, and then pinch each  of them really, really hard to see if they still have nerve endings. I’d  rather swallow my own toenails. Remember that time Juno made me swallow  my own toenails? You were there for that, weren’t you? So be a  hive-minded pal and help me stay on the DL. This one already threatened to tattle if I didn’t show her my good hiding spot.” He jerked his head at Lydia.

Boy Inferno blinked.

“Alright, then,” they said, and each voice sounded suspicious. But they drifted back toward the administrative area.

Lydia stared as they went. “Who are those guys?”

“Boy  Inferno is a dead boy band. They didn’t have enough brains or  personality to be individuals when they were a living boy band, and when  their tour bus crashed, the situation got worse.”

“Yikes. And speaking of yikes, what were you saying about sandworms? Are they going to eat us?”

He  waggled one hand back and forth, and started walking. “Eh. It’s  probably OK. You’re alive, so they’ll leave you alone. I’m half-ghost,  half-demon, which confuses them more than anything. We’ll be fine if we  don’t run into a sandworm that’s pissed off or starving.” They were  crossing into Saturn proper. The terrain changed from dark gravel to  rolling sand dunes dotted with twisted rock formations. Wooden doors  hovered here and there, from three feet off the ground to 20 stories  high. There was the light and warmth of a yellow sun, but if you turned  in every direction, you would never see a sun or any other stars in the  royal blue sky.

“Huh. Now I kind of want to meet a sandworm...” Lydia said, looking around like one was going to pop out from behind a dune.

“Yup. That’s definitely foreshadowing.”

“So…what’s it like? Being half-demon? How does that, um, happen?”

He  waved his hands to turn them into sock puppets – one red and bearing a  vague resemblance to Juno, the other a grey blob and as good a  representation as he’d ever had of his father. “Hello, children!” he  said in a screechy voice. “Let’s talk about the occult birds and bees.  When a demon woman tolerates a living human male very much…”

She shoved him. “I know that, gross! I’m ace, but not completely ignorant. I just wondered if you were ever alive.”

He  put his hands back to normal. “Uh-huh. I was alive. Looooong time ago,  though. Long enough that we didn’t pay much attention to what year it  was, and only bathed twice a lifetime, and drank beer instead of water.  Hm. Or maybe that was all just me. Anyway, Juno only had me to see what  would happen if you mixed demon magic with ghost abilities. Turns out,  you get yours truly. She hated the result, and I never got any little  siblings to chase around. But it’s fine with the just the two of us; my  mom has this sweet thing she says to me every day: ‘I wish you had never  been born.’ I think it’s a Swedish pet name.”

“How did you die?” Lydia asked.

“I asked a bunch of annoying questions that weren’t any of my business and someone stabbed me.”

“Ha ha,” she deadpanned. “How far is it, anyway?” she asked, shading her eyes. “I don’t see anything…”

“Distance doesn’t really work like that here, and we could move way, way faster if we were both dead. But it’s pretty damn far.”

She sighed.

*

He  had to give Lydia Deetz this: she was a trooper. She was wearing a  dress, and boots that were very much not made for walking, but she kept  moving, eyes forward, not a single complaint. When her stomach growled  like an angry guard dog, she held her head high and acted like she  didn’t notice.

“OK, time for a break!” he said.

“No!” she said. “We have to keep going.”

“If  you keep going like this, you’re going to collapse, and then you’ll  die, and a sandworm will eat you, and that’s my whole day gone. Sit  down.”

“I don’t need to.”

She was going to give him grey  hairs, she really was. He shook one hand like he was shooing a fly, and  she stumbled backwards until she sat on the closest rock.

Lydia’s eyes bugged. “What am I – what are you –?”

“You’ve never been possessed before?”

She stood back up. He waved his hand again, and she sat.

“No, keep it up,” he said. “This is fun.”

He flicked his fingers, and her expression brightened.

“Beetlejuice, you’re my role model!” she said, in a tone much more chipper than any that had ever come out of her mouth, he was sure. He released her.

Lydia’s face soured like old milk mixed with lemon juice, and she made the fingers-down-the-throat gesture. “I’ll sit for five minutes. Don’t do that again.”

“I  always knew I’d make a great babysitter!” He settled on the other side  of the rock. He folded his hands over his stomach, figuring he’d take a  nap if she stayed quiet.

She didn’t. “My mom would love all this,”  Lydia said. “Her favorite holiday was Halloween. We’d make our own  haunted houses in the garage – but in the summer, when no one in the  neighborhood was expecting it. She liked the weird stuff in the world.  Or – she likes the weird stuff in the world. She doesn’t just avoid it, like most people do. Like my dad does. I think she’ll like you, even.”

He  wanted to make a face at the idea of a well-adjusted person liking him  (though it was a nice feeling, deep in his black heart), but Lydia  couldn’t see him, so it would be wasted effort.

She was quiet for a while, and he thought he was free to drift off to sleep.

“Um…do you have any food?” she asked.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a handful of Zagnuts. He tossed the kid two. “Here ya go.”

“Why so many Zagnuts?” Lydia asked. “They’re good, but I didn’t think people ate these anymore.”

“It’s the only candy in the vending machines in the Netherworld.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because everything around here is at a baseline of low-grade crappiness. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Are  you really supposed to spend eternity here when you die?” she asked, in  a muffled way that told him she’d bitten off half a candy bar at once.  “It seems like it should either be a whole lot better or a whole lot  worse.”

“You aren’t supposed to spend eternity here; that’s the  point,” he said. He popped a Zagnut into his mouth, and swallowed it  wrapper and all. “You have to move on, eventually.”

“To what?”

“Do I look like a priest? Or a philosopher? Or a TV psychic?”

“The  last one, a little. A bad one. The kind who gets tricked by reporters  to help contact their dead kid, but it turns out the kid is really alive  and just in the next booth over in the Denny’s.”

“Touché. The  point is, nobody around here knows. You hang around the administrative  area until you’re ready to go into the miserable nothingness of the  Abyss, and then you swirl around in the Abyss until…I dunno, something  else happens. Maybe you just stay in the Abyss forever. I don’t plan on  finding out anytime soon.”

“Is that where my mom is?”

“Yup.  If she didn’t come running when you first came through the door, she’s  definitely gone through security. Don’t worry, though. You poke your  head into the Abyss and shout her name a few times, and she’ll come  right out.”

He lied easily. He always had.

“I’m just  surprised she hasn’t tried to contact us,” Lydia said. “I guess she must  be confused, because we moved and everything. My dad dragged me out to  Connecticut, away from New York and all our friends and family, to work  on this stupid gated community project he has in mind. And he took my  annoying life coach with us. She’s friendly and positive,  and keeps trying to make me fill out a star chart. I don’t know why he  thinks she’s helping me. It’s not like there aren’t actual therapists in  Connecticut. I don’t get it.”

He chewed another Zagnut for a  beat, waiting to see if she was making a joke. Then he broke the news.  “Your dad is boinking the life coach.”

“What?!” she said. She whirled around the rock to sit right next to him. “How can you know that?”

“Um, because I’m an adult with a brain.” He grabbed the top of his head and lifted his skull to show his grey matter.

“He isn’t…Dad’s not…” She slumped. “He’s totally sleeping with her.”

“Totally,” he agreed.

“How could he do that? Mom’s only been dead a few months. Well…when he sees Mom – if he just talks to her again – he’ll understand what an ass he’s been.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, non-committedly.

“How much farther do we have?” she asked.

“Long enough to aaaaaaalmost make you give up and collapse in despair.”

She groaned.

For  a second, he thought her groan was superhumanly long and loud, and he  prepared to be impressed. Then he noticed the ground was shaking.

“Looks like it’s our unlucky day!” he said. “Run!”

They  both got to their feet, and made it about five steps before the sand  exploded to their left. A sandworm rose from the earth, its  black-and-white stripes blurring into grey. At the peak of its jump, its  inner head came out of its mouth, eyes glaring, jaw snapping.

It dove back down toward them.

He  dodged one way, and Lydia dodged the other. The spray of sand blocked  out everything, and when it all cleared, the sandworm had risen from the  ground again, undulating in and out of the dunes. Lydia stood in place,  looking all around. But it was hard to know where to run when you were  being attacked by a sandworm.

The sandworm’s chomping heads came out of the ground an arm’s length from Lydia. She yelled, and punched it in the closest eye.

The  heads hissed and thrashed, knocking Lydia down. The sandworm dove down,  and the sand around them whirled and roiled, until he felt like he was  standing in boiling dirt.

When the sandworm rose again, it  accidentally scooped up Lydia. She showed a little more survival  instinct than she had before, and clung to the sandworm’s back.

“Knock it off!”  he heard her say. She nudged the sandworm with her left boot, and the  sandworm turned to the right. But it had had enough of its passenger,  and whipped its body to throw Lydia like a beanbag.

She shrieked as she fell through the air. He stretched his legs, about 20 feet, and caught her.

As  he dragged her back to the ground, he braced himself for another attack  by the sandworm. Maybe if he transformed into something big and scary,  showed some lionfish spines or extra limbs, the worm would leave them  alone. Getting swallowed would be no good. Not only did he usually try  to avoid getting eaten, but sandworms’ digested prey just wound up back in processing…after a wait of at least a decade or so.

The  sandworm jumped over their heads, dove into the ground, and kept going.  Its writhing body upset every dune it plowed through, but it didn’t  double back.

He wasn’t going to look a gift worm in the mouth.

“And don’t come back!” he yelled. “G’on, git! Git!”

Lydia jumped out of his arms. “That was awesome! I thought I was going to die, but it was awesome.”

He  was more tired than he’d been in a while. He was tired like Juno had  been screaming at him for hours. Also, there was a lot of sand in his  shoes. “You did OK But why the hell did you try to punch it in the  face?”

She didn’t look ashamed in the slightest. “I thought it  would be like avoiding a shark attack. That’s what the Discovery guy  said during Shark Week: punch the shark hard in the eye so it leaves you alone.”

“Since when has punching something made it leave you alone?” he asked. “That has never worked when I’ve tried it with people.”

“Because then the shark – or the sandworm – thinks you’re too much of a threat and it ignores you. I made it go away, didn’t I?’

“I  seriously doubt you’re what made it leave, Karate Kid. If a sandworm  had its multiple hearts set on eating us, it would take more than your  mechanical bull riding skills to dissuade it. I don’t know – I’m not so  sure it was all that interested in us.”

“If it wasn’t going for us, why did it come over here?”

“I said I don’t know! I’m not a sandworm scientist.”

“Your hair is changing color,” she said, pointing at his head.

“Can you blame me? I’m pretty pissed off right now.”

She brightened. “It changes color with your mood?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I touch it?”

He  grunted, and tilted his head. She patted some strands on the right side  of his head, which were dark green at the tips, but probably working  their way to red. The cocoon the caterpillar had made behind his ear  popped open, and a death’s-head hawkmoth shot into the air and planted  itself on Lydia’s nose.

“Augh!” she yelped, and fell right on her ass. He doubled over laughing while she tried to get back up with dignity.

“You’ve taken things too far this time, Beetlejuice!”

Once, just once, he’d like to go 48 hours without hearing those words shouted at him.

He turned to see Miss Argentina stomping up a sand dune, clipboard in hand, sash askew, which meant she was really really really upset.

“What have I done this time?” he asked, resigned.

“What have you done this  time?” Miss Argentina pointed at Lydia. “Let’s start with child  endangerment! And the fact that your disappearance has about given Juno  apoplexy.”

“Ah, she loves me.”

“No! She just knows  that if she hasn’t heard from you in twelve hours, it means you’re up to  something! And that means the rest of us suffer! I’m just glad she gave  me clearance to go to Saturn to look for your sorry, sagging ass, so at  least I was able shoo a sandworm away from some newlydeads. I have a  sneaking suspicion you bear some responsibility for that, too?”

“OK,  that is both not fair and completely true,” he said. “And I’ll have you  know I’m doing a good deed. I’m guiding this one around the  Netherworld.” He jerked his head at Lydia.

“And why, in the name of all that is sacred, would you consider that a good idea?”

“Um…”  He faltered. He may have been able to fudge a few details with Lydia,  but Miss Argentina had been around long enough to know how the Abyss  worked.

“Newlydeads…” Lydia said. “That must have been what attracted the sandworm. It wasn’t coming for us after all.”

“Why  did you drag newlydeads with you?” he asked, happy to change the  subject. “What, did you need help shouting at me? Anger backup singers?”

“Of  course not.” Miss Argentina frowned. “But – that’s a good idea.” She  clicked her pen, and scribbled on her clipboard. “I am actually writing  that down. If Boy Inferno is free…”

“Excuse me!” came a woman’s voice from the bottom on the dune. “I’m so sorry – could you wait just a minute?”

“It’s very hard to walk on sand!” came a sexy, nasal male voice from the same direction.

“These  newlydeads have a problem, you see,” said Miss Argentina, her voice  icy. But something was wrong – she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was  fixed on Lydia. “Apparently, a living person used their Handbook without  permission.”

Lydia became interested in the horizon. “Huh. That’s weird.”

Miss Argentina jabbed a finger in Lydia’s face. “Oh, don’t even try that on me, living girl. I am not in the mood today.”

“Whoof! We made it.” The newlydead couple crested the dune…and he was smitten.

The  woman was white, a pretty blonde, in a green wrap dress and  suburban-mom-at-the-nice-grocery-store boots. Her companion was a  beautiful Desi man, with light brown skin and a lock of black hair  hanging over his forehead that he immediately wanted to run his fingers through.

“Oooooh…” he said. “Hello, sexy…”

Lydia looked at him with a scientific expression. “Which one?”

“The  Trader Joe’s guardian angels over here. Not that Miss A isn’t pretty  easy on the eyes herself, but she’s a friend of Ellen, know what I mean?  A patron of U-Haul. An adopter of shelter cats. Wrong tree, is what I’m  saying. But she loves me platonically.”

“She doesn’t,” Miss Argentina said.

The couple pushed past him and bent over Lydia.

“Oh, thank goodness!” the woman said.

“Lydia!” said the man. “I’m so glad we found you. We were worried sick!”

“Adam, Barbara?” Lydia said. “What…what are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to go to the Netherworld.”