#U.S. road trips

[hikercarl]

The Hardest Personal Goal I Set: Visiting All 50 States with Two Left to Go

The journey to visit all 50 U.S. states has been a rewarding challenge, with only Alaska and Hawaii left to complete my goal. Learn about the struggles, adventures, and perseverance required to reach this milestone.

Daily writing promptWhat was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?View all responses As someone who has always been captivated by adventure, I knew early on that I wanted to see all 50 states. My journey started in my early twenties when I first moved to Arizona and fell in love with exploring new places. Over the years, I have crossed off 48 states from my list, and now, only two…

[arkofangels]

~Highways & Headaches~

Pairing: Bob Reynolds x Reader (implied) Cast: Bob, Yelena, John (U.S. Agent), Ava (Ghost), Alexei (Red Guardian)

Summary: When Valentina sends the Thunderbolts on a "simple" mission—lay low at a safehouse upstate and absolutely do not draw attention, she probably shouldn’t have handed them the keys to a barely-functional government van. What follows is fifteen chaotic hours of existential crises, GPS mishaps, emotional support raccoons, pickled egg warfare, and Bob trying (and failing) to bond with an alpaca. 

Word Count: 2.1k

It started with a van.

Specifically, a rust-colored government-issued behemoth that Valentina handed over with a smile that meant “Good luck, idiots.”

“The mission is simple,” she said. “Drive to the safehouse in upstate New York. Lay low. No powers. No attention. Just blend in.”

“Like a family vacation!” Alexei declared, slapping the roof of the van so hard the mirror fell off.

Everyone blinked.

“No,” Yelena said. “Absolutely not.”

But it was too late. The Thunderbolts were hitting the road.

Hour One:

You’d barely left the city when Bob, wearing sunglasses indoors and out, leaned over the front seat and whispered, “Can I drive?”

“No,” John said. “Absolutely not.”

Bob pouted. “I can fly faster than this thing idles.”

“That’s why you’re not driving,” you muttered.

Meanwhile, Ava phased through her seatbelt for the sixth time, causing the van’s warning beep to have a full-blown meltdown.

“Stop doing that,” John snapped.

“I am restrained,” she said, casually floating halfway into the floorboard.

Alexei drove one-handed while balancing a Tupperware container of pickled eggs on his knee, chomping away like the road was his personal picnic. The smell was chemical warfare, and no one in the van could escape it.

Yelena cracked a window and stuck her head out like a golden retriever. “If I jump out now, I’ll only get mild road rash.”

Hour Three:

You stopped at a gas station that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Cold War. Alexei, somehow, got into an argument with a raccoon over a discarded burrito.

Bob returned from the restroom pale and haunted. “I saw something in there,” he whispered. “Something… dark.”

“You looked in the mirror again, didn’t you?” Yelena joked.

“Maybe.”

Ava stole three bags of kettle chips without blinking. Bob paid for seventeen granola bars and a novelty mug that said World’s Okayest Hero.

Back in the van, John tried to input the safehouse coordinates into the GPS. The GPS promptly died, And so did everyone’s patience.

“Let me try,” Bob said, tapping the screen.

The GPS rebooted… in Spanish. And refused to switch back.

“¡Excelente! A la derecha en cien metros,” the robotic voice said with cheer.

“No one touch it,” you warned. “We’re committed now.”

Hour Five:

Yelena had created a playlist titled Murder Pop & Existential Bops. Bob added twenty-seven sad cowboy ballads. Alexei added Soviet war chants. Ava uploaded thirty minutes of white noise because she was “tired of feeling things.”

John tried to assert control and was promptly booed.

“This van is a lawless land,” Bob declared. “We live by vibes now.”

You were too tired to argue. You ate gas station gummy worms while Bob rested his head on your shoulder and muttered, “I think the Void’s in the glovebox.”

“Then close it gently,” you whispered. “We’ll feed it a cheese stick later.”

Hour Eight:

A wrong turn sent you three hours off-course into rural nowhere. The GPS was now offering unsolicited life advice in Spanish. Alexei insisted he remembered the way “by instinct.”

His instinct led you to an alpaca farm.

Yelena made friends with a creature she named “Greg.” Bob tried to telepathically bond with it. John threatened to turn the van around. Ava disappeared for twenty minutes and returned with hot cocoa she refused to explain.

“I’m not even mad,” you said. “I’m just confused.”

Hour Ten:

It started raining. Hard.

The windshield wipers wheezed like asthmatic pigeons. Bob pressed his hand to the window and whispered, “Do you think the rain’s judging us?”

“I hope it is,” Yelena said. “We deserve it.”

The van started making a noise like a blender full of nails. Everyone turned slowly to look at John.

“I didn’t do it,” he said.

The van then made a second noise, worse than the first. Something thudded beneath the floorboards.

“Void?” Ava asked.

“Possum,” said Alexei.

“Definitely one of you left the back door open again,” you sighed.

Bob pulled you closer. “If this is how I die, I want you to know—your playlists are bad, but your heart is good.”

You snorted. “Shut up and help me find the possum.”

Hour Thirteen:

The possum was, in fact, a raccoon stowaway from the gas station. Alexei named it Dmitri. Yelena tried to train it to fetch snacks. Bob offered it a granola bar and said, “We are the same, you and I.”

John tried to enforce order.

“No unauthorized wildlife in the van!”

“Then what do you call Alexei?” Ava asked.

Alexei growled. The raccoon growled back.

You intervened before a full-blown dominance war broke out in the back seat.

Bob handed you a thermos of lukewarm tea and said, “We’ll make it. Probably.”

You smiled, leaned into his side, and said, “This is the worst trip I’ve ever loved.”

Hour Fifteen:

The van broke down half a mile from the safehouse.

Everyone sat in silence as steam poured from the hood. It hissed like the entire vehicle had finally, finally had enough of your nonsense.

Bob patted the dashboard. “You did your best.”

John kicked the tire. “This whole team is cursed.”

Yelena tossed her backpack over her shoulder. “Well. Let’s walk.”

Ava phased through the side of the van to scout ahead.

Alexei insisted on carrying the raccoon.

You and Bob stayed at the back,

“Next time,” he said, “we fly.”

“Next time,” you agreed, “we bring snacks that aren’t war crimes.”

“And I drive.”

“Absolutely not.”

He laughed, softly. “Fine. But I’m choosing the playlist.”

“That might be worse.”

But still, you let your hand slip into his. Even with wet shoes, aching muscles, and a raccoon in the lead, it felt like something close to perfect.

Not because it went smoothly.

But because it went together.

[all-4-wincest]

Welcome Back to

WINCEST Wednesday

Sorry for being MIA, recently. I ran away from my life and responsibilities for a while. I needed it more than I thought I did. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

WINCEST WEDNESDAY

The last photo is used with permission of @awalkonthelightside , check out his blog here and on Instagram under the same name. He’s beautiful and really nice. He told me that if his art inspires me, he was happy and willing to share his art with me. He does all of his own photos and I think that he can pull off the roles of Sam and Dean Winchester both.

Tagging:

@pookeenpie , @durinsbride , @fallenfar , @monsterinthemirror , @flowers-in-your-basement , @whereiscarmensa , @ilikaicalie @myworldj2 , @supernaturalkickparty , @sammywinchester5283 , @ilivewithj

My tag list is open so just let me know in your comments or tags if you wanna be here.

[geek-fashionista]

Me: Dimitri, my love, you know you're my favorite, right? Dimitri: *counts his mental illnesses* Yes. Me: While caffeinated and hyper at work today, I remembered this trip to N.C. I'm sending you on will be your first time leaving Washington. Dimitri: Yeah...? Me: So instead of flying there... *dangles keys in front of his face* Dimitri: Really? Me: *hands him a road map* Go. See why they call it America the Beautiful. Sleep in the Firebird, I don't care. Just be back before classes start. Dimitri: *is already out the door*

[matchavanillalatte]

Mannn instead of being depressed at age 18 I should have just gone on a road trip across the country :(

[wanderlustphotosblog]

Planning an Epic Eastern National Parks Road Trip

Follow along as I show you how to plan an incredible national parks road trip in the Eastern United States. I outline some of the incredible parks, spectacular hikes, and can't miss adventures to have on a road trip of a lifetime.

If you follow my blog closely, you know how much of a national parks enthusiast I am. I believe that preserving the world’s incredible landscapes and national parklands is a great way to do that. In the United States, we are blessed with many outstanding parks. I am planning an Eastern National Parks road trip to explore some Eastern parks I have yet to visit. In this eastern national parks road…

[afloweroutofstone]

Hannah Arendt, who fled Germany in 1933, later wrote that long before Jews, Roma, gays, Communists and others could be herded into death camps, they had to be “denationalized” — excluded from the society that guaranteed their legal rights. Enlightenment thinkers had posited that just by virtue of existing, each person has inalienable rights. Arendt, however, observed that the “right to have rights” could be guaranteed only by a political community. Without a state to claim them as their own, people have no laws, no courts and no political mechanisms for protecting rights.

Arendt once said that “the generally political became a personal fate when one emigrated.” As a stateless person, she experienced that loss of rights — unable to get papers, hiding from the police, interned as an enemy alien in France — before making it to the United States. She was lucky. Her friend Walter Benjamin committed suicide in his eighth year of exile, when the French authorities blocked him from crossing the border ahead of advancing German troops...

A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others. The Trump administration’s barrage of attacks on trans people can seem haphazard, but as elements of a denationalization project, they fall into place...

The message, consistent and unrelenting, is that trans people are a threat to the nation. The subtext is that we are not of this nation...

The rights the Trump administration is taking away from trans people are relatively new. Only in the past few decades, for example, have clear legal procedures existed for changing the gender marker on identity documents, and only in the past few years have federal and some state authorities made the process fairly easy. But before transgender, gender-nonconforming and intersex people were recognized as a group — or groups — of people who had rights, many could blend in, fly below the radar. Now, in their new rightlessness, they are exposed...

Living with documents that are inconsistent or at odds with your public identity is no small thing. It can keep you from opening a bank account, applying for financial aid, securing a loan, obtaining a driver’s license and traveling freely and safely inside a country or across borders. I was once detained in Russia after a routine road check because an officer thought I was a teenage boy using his mother’s driver’s license.

It’s not just American identity documents that are being scrambled. Like all things American, Trump’s denationalization campaign affects people far beyond the United States. In late February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued visa guidelines, ostensibly designed to keep foreign trans athletes from competing in the United States, that seem to direct consular officers to deny entry to anyone whose gender markers appear different from their sex assigned at birth.

The new regulations require visitors, when filling out the paperwork to cross the border into the United States, to indicate the sex they were assigned at birth. Lucien Lambertz, a German curator who is trans and was planning a professional trip to the United States, told me they worried that they would be denied entry if they complied, indicating a birth sex different from the gender marker in their passport, but also if they didn’t comply.

Lambertz emailed the Foreign Ministry in their country to ask for guidance. “The issue is the subject of tense discussions here at the ministry, and your concerns are absolutely understandable,” the response read, in part. Ordinarily, the Foreign Ministry would suggest asking the U.S. Embassy, but by doing so, as the letter noted, Lambertz “would then ‘out’ yourself to them.”

Trans and nonbinary Germans fear that their country’s incoming conservative government may take its cues from the Trump administration. Far-right parties, ascendant in Germany and other European countries, have made the specter of “gender ideology” a centerpiece of their politics.

“Something has changed,” Heinrich Horwitz, a German choreographer, told me. Horwitz, who is nonbinary, was recently assaulted at the main train station in Vienna. The attacker was demanding to know whether Horwitz was “a girl or a boy.” Before they could make out what the attacker was saying, Horwitz instinctively tucked the Star of David they wear around their neck inside their shirt. “I thought that would be safer.” Horwitz, who was born in Munich in 1984, is the child of a Holocaust survivor. “I grew up with this idea that I could always go to the U.S. if the Nazis came back,” they told me. That no longer seems like an option.

You know how this column is supposed to end. I rehearse all the similarities between Jews in Germany in 1933 and trans people in the United States in 2025: the tiny fraction of the population, the barrage of bureaucratic measures that strip away rights, the vilifying rhetoric. The silence on the part of ostensible allies. (Trump spent about five minutes of his recent address to Congress specifically attacking trans people and 10 minutes attacking immigrants; the Democratic rebuttal mentioned immigrants once and trans people not at all.) Then I finish with the standard exhortation: The attacks won’t stop here. If you don’t stand up for trans people or immigrants, there won’t be anyone left when they come for you.

But I find that line of argument both distasteful and disingenuous. It is undoubtedly true that the Trump administration won’t stop at denationalizing trans people, but it is also true that a majority of Americans are safe from these kinds of attacks, just as a majority of Germans were. The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others. It is happening to people who, we claim, have rights just because we are human. It is happening to me, personally.

[shinyspandex]

The Cutest Town in Every U.S. State

Ready for a road trip? Discover the most picturesque towns in every U.S. state that will make you want to pack your bags and hit the open road.

[ravensuperr]

DPx DC Prompt-Alternate Dimension Shenanigans

So instead of the usual Casper High field trip trope in the Danny Phantom fandom, imagine this time it’s Damian Wayne’s class that ends up stuck in the Infinite Realms.

Here’s how it plays out:

Damian’s class is on the way back from an overnight field trip to Washington, D.C. Everything's fine—until they stop at a rest area. The bus driver goes off to handle his business, comes back, and they get back on the road.

Then… a portal opens out of nowhere.

They don’t even have time to react. The bus gets pulled in. When they try to turn around, the portal’s already gone.

Enter: Danny Phantom.

He’s just gotten back from visiting either Pandora (weekly chat) or Frostbite (med checkup) when he stumbles on a confused group of teens, their teacher, and a parked bus in the middle of the Infinite Realms.

He blinks.

Mr. Carter (the teacher): “Our driver stopped at a rest stop—standard procedure. Then this portal opened up out of nowhere. We couldn’t stop in time. It just… sucked us in. When we tried to turn around, it was gone.”

Danny: “Ah. Natural portal. Those usually happen to planes, not buses… though, now that I think about it, ground traffic’s not unheard of. Shouldn’t have said that out loud.”

Damian (irritated): “Where exactly are we?”

Danny: “You’re in the Infinite Realm.”

Camila (raising an eyebrow): “So… another dimension?”

Zane (grinning): “Wait, does this count for my bingo card? ‘Accidentally ending up in another dimension’ was my free square.”

Priya: “Are we in space? Or some alien planet?”

Danny: “Nope. Think bigger.”

He gestures to the eerie green sky swirling above them.

Danny: “The Infinite Realm is like... glue. The glue that holds everything together. Every timeline, every dimension, every kind of power—magic, science, tech—they all touch the Infinite Realm. This place connects them all.”

Emily (deadpan): “Freaky. Multiversal glue vibes.”

Suddenly, one of the students blurts out:

Mason: “How did you die?”

The whole class turns to stare.

Mason (shrugging): “Come on—tell me you’re not curious too.”

Danny (calmly): “Okay, so, it’s super rude to ask a ghost how they died unless you’re family or really close. It’s kinda taboo.”

Leo: “Fine, then… who’s your favorite Justice League member?”

Danny (without missing a beat): “Martian Manhunter.”

Zane: “Why?”

Danny: “Because I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up… and I love space.”

Damian (pinching the bridge of his nose): “Does anyone have a question that’ll help us get home?”

Nina (class rep): “Yeah—how are you getting us back?”

Danny: “There’s a powerful artifact that can return you to your dimension. I just need to make sure none of you wander off or tick off any local ghosts. Not all of them are thrilled to see humans here.”

Camila: “So you can take us back to Gotham?”

Danny: “Sure. Where exactly is that in the U.S.?”

Class (in unison): “…Are you serious?”

Danny: “I know it’s where Batman and his birds live. I just don’t know where it is on a map. Also, I failed geography. And I’m dead.”

Emily: “New Jersey. Gotham’s in New Jersey.”

Danny: “Cool. Everyone back on the bus. First stop: Pandora.”

Priya: “Wait—Pandora? As in Pandora’s Box?”

Danny: “Yep. She’s real. She’s super protective of it. Someone stole it once—I helped her get it back. She’s chill now. I’m going to ask her if you can hang out in her realm while I talk to two people: Frostbite and Clockwork. I need to make sure I don’t accidentally drop you off in the wrong Gotham.”

Zane: “There’s a wrong Gotham?!”

Danny: “This place touches every timeline. You don’t think there’s a version of Gotham where Batman is a vampire or something? Multiverse roulette isn’t fun.”

Class (collectively): “Yeah. No more questions.”

Camila (genuinely): “Wait—we don’t even know your name. We feel kinda rude calling you Ghost Boy.”

Danny (blinks): “Oh. Right. Just call me Phantom.”

Damian (dryly): “Just Phantom? Not your real name?”

Danny: “Not telling you that. That’s basically the same as asking how I died. Still rude.”

Mason: “If I die, can I change my name?”

Danny: “Yeah. You can go by whatever name you want. You’re dead. There are no rules.”

Leo: “What if someone’s, like, gay or bi or trans? Does that matter?”

Danny: “Dude, we’re dead. We’ve got Pride flags engraved into dimension gates. Trans? Cool. Bi? Great. Ace? Valid. Nobody cares. You’re free to be whoever you are.”

Priya: “Okay but… what if someone was transitioning when they died?”

Danny: “Then the gender they identified as is the one they get. Period. No exceptions.”

Zane: “...So it’s like actual equality?”

Danny: “Yeah. Ghost society’s not perfect, but nobody here’s getting judged for who they are. You’ll probably see two ghost guys kissing before lunchtime.”

Mason: “Wait. Have you met Death?”

Danny: “Twice.”

Class: “…What?”

Danny: “Yeah. They go by Jeff.”

Class (blinking): “Jeff?”

Danny: “Says it sounds like Death. Duh.”

Damian (deadpan, to himself): “I need a week off school. Maybe two.”

Damian (out loud): “What about things like Time? Dreams? Are they ghosts, too?”

Danny (nodding): “They’re called never-born ghosts. They weren’t alive and then dead—they exist because of human concepts. Like Time? His name’s Clockwork. Depending on your religion, you’ve probably heard of him under a different name. Same ghost. Different culture.”

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 1: Welcome To A New Kind Of Tension]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “American Idiot” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

“What do you think, should we kill ourselves now or later?” Rio is spinning his Beretta M9 around on his index finger. This is not advisable. He doesn’t care.

Your hands are gripping the skeletal latticework of the transmission tower, steel hot enough to burn you; no electricity hums in the power lines suspended above your heads. Your eyes are on the horizon, golden June sunlight over fields no one has planted. Weeds are growing up through the earth, feral and defiantly useless, reclaiming their land just like the deer are, and the rabbits and the opossums and the turtles and the squirrels and the doves. The reign of humanity is over. Now you’re prey animals too. “Let’s wait.”

“For what?”

“Maybe someone will save us.”

“Ain’t nobody coming, Chips!” Rio says. “We’re a hundred feet off the ground in the middle of nowhere, motherfucking Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and we haven’t run into anyone since that Amish family back in Lightstreet, and I wouldn’t count on them driving by in their horse and buggy to pick us up.”

“We’re about sixty feet off the ground.”

“Okay, Bob the Builder, why don’t you whip up a helicopter or something to get us out of here?” Rio’s M9 has one bullet left in it, yours has three, nowhere near enough. At the bottom of the tower is a swarm of fifty-four zombies; you’ve counted them twice. There are no cute euphemisms: walkers, biters, the infected. They were once people and now they’re not. They wear the vestiges of their former lives, like how those who believe in reincarnation see meaning in birthmarks: here you were stabbed, there you were kissed by your true love. They lurch and snarl and hiss in their professional attire, college t-shirts, Vans and Jordans, septum piercings, wedding rings. They decompose in a miasma of metallic blood and spoiled meat. Parker had been the last one to the transmission tower, and they grabbed him by the legs. Now they’re chewing the gristle off his bones: disconnected ligaments that swing like strands of cobwebs, scarlet threads of muscle. “Oh shit,” Rio says, looking down. “We’ve got a smart one.”

Most zombies don’t have the fine motor skills to climb, swim, or open doors, but every once in a while—just like out of every 5,000 or 10,000 or however many ordinary humans you’ll pull the lever on the genetic slot machine and get a Picasso or a kid who can score a 1600 on the SATs—you run into an overachiever. This zombie, a teenage boy with red hair and a blue plaid shirt, is slowly scaling the tower. He’s already ten feet off the ground.

Rio aims his M9, semiautomatic, packs a punch but won’t break your arm with the recoil. “Fuck off, Ed Sheeran!” He fires and misses; the bullet grazes the boy’s shoulder. He groans dramatically and asks you in defeat: “Will you take care of that, please?”

You pull your pistol out of your holster and lean away from the tower to get a better angle, holding onto the scaffolding with one hand. You feel Rio’s large fingers close around your wrist, ready to yank you back if you slip. You click off the safety with your thumb, peer through the front sight, aim and wait until you’re sure. It’s a headshot: shards of skull ricochet off steel beams, half-rotten brains spray out in a mist. The carcass plummets to the earth.

“All this horror, all this catastrophe.” Rio’s eyes, dark like a mineshaft, drift mischievously back to you. “We could…distract each other.”

He’s not serious; this is a game you play. “No thanks.”

“You don’t want to die a virgin.”

“I do if you’re the only other person up here.”

“You deny a condemned man his final wish?”

“We’re not dying,” you insist. “What about Sophie?”

“Sophie would understand given the circumstances. She would want me to be happy.”

“What if we have sex and then immediately thereafter get rescued? You’d be a cheater. You’d be consumed by guilt. You’d never be able to take me back to your parents’ doomsday prepper cult commune in bumblefuck Oregon to wait out the apocalypse in peace.”

“You’re going to appreciate those doomsday preppers when you’re eating Chef Boyardee out of a can instead of shuffling around as a reanimated corpse.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” you muse. “So you agree we’re going to get off this tower somehow.”

Rio sighs and whistles a morose tune: what a shame. “You should have gone out with that Marine at Corpus Christi.”

You frown, repentant, wistful. There’s nothing on the horizon except fields and trees and black storm clouds of crows taking flight. “I was afraid of making a mistake.”

“And now look at you. About to die as pure as Pope Francis.”

“How did this happen?! We’re not idiots, we’re goddamn professionals!” You re-holster your M9. You’re still wearing your uniforms from when you went AWOL, stealing away from Saratoga Springs like rats from a sinking ship.

“I’ll tell you exactly how this happened. You let that loser Parker come with us even though I knew it was a bad idea—”

“I couldn’t just leave him there! He started crying!”

“And he had one job, which was to check the oil in the Humvee, and clearly he failed because…” Rio glances at his watch. “Approximately four hours ago, the engine started smoking and the whole thing died on us, so we had to get out and walk, like we’re pioneers or some shit, and then that hoard down there came out of nowhere, and the only place left to go was up. Freaking Parker. I could murder that guy.” An awkward pause. “I mean, the zombies beat me to it. But still.”

“He had two jobs. He was also carrying the extra ammo.”

“Don’t remind me.” Rio isn’t messing around with his M9 anymore. He’s contemplating it as the sun hovers just past noon, hot and shadowless. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Two.”

“Good. Don’t use them.”

You look at him, this man you’ve known for over four years, this man you’ve traveled the world with. You’ve already gone so much farther than Oregon together. How is it possible that what was once a six hour flight is now a month-long journey that might kill you? “It’s not over yet, Rio.”

“Remember what you promised me.”

His hushed voice in the moonlit indigo of the Humvee the night you left Saratoga Springs: Don’t let me die alone. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to make it to Oregon.” Then you grin, sweltering summer air breathing over you, humid, heavy, the screeching of insects in the trees. “But if it comes to that, I’d be happy to shoot you first.”

Rio smiles as the zombies below growl and claw at the steel framework of the transmission tower. Flesh peels off their fingers until you can see the gore-stained white of their bones. “Don’t miss.”

“I rarely do.”

“Do you have any more packs of Cheddar Whales in your pockets or—?” He cuts off as he spots something in the distance. His eyes go wide, his jaw drops open. “What…what is that?!”

It’s an SUV, massive, dark blue, rumbling across the field in a dust storm of displaced earth. It’s headed straight towards you. There is someone standing up through the sunroof, short dark hair that whips wildly in the wind, binoculars. You can hear the engine revving and, faintly, Kanye West’s Gold Digger. As the SUV nears the tower, Sunroof Kid ducks inside and closes the hatch.

Rio explodes into hysterical, rapturous laughter. “Oh my God, we’re saved! We’re not going to die up here! Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you. I’m never going to jack off on Sundays again.”

The SUV, still accelerating, plows through the mob of zombies. Severed limbs go flying; bones crunch and snap. There’s a woman driving, you can see now through the slightly tinted windows. She puts the monstrous vehicle and reverse and does another pass. Zombies paw futilely at the sides of the SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, as it turns out. They smack their open, soggy palms on the windows; they gnaw and lick at the bumpers and the wheel wells. The Tahoe circles to regain speed, the engine growling, a bear, a dragon, and barrels into the remaining ambulatory zombies. The hoard is now largely incapacitated. Rio is cheering and clapping his hands.

The Tahoe’s doors open, and your rescuers appear. There are two men wielding baseball bats: one with long dark curly hair, the other tall and blonde, and there’s something wrong with his face, the left side, though you are too far away to see clearly. They move rapidly through the battlefield of felled, moaning bodies, swinging their bats and crushing skulls. There’s another blonde guy, shorter, softer, pink with sunburn, wearing plastic sunglasses and a teal polo with a popped collar. He’s spinning a golf club in his right hand. He is followed out of the Tahoe by one last blonde, spindly and swift, stalking the perimeter with a compound bow, a quiver of arrows secured to his belt. Rio is singing along to Gold Digger, drumming his fists on the steel beams.

“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you a gold digger, you got needs

You don’t want a dude to smoke, but he can’t buy weed

You go out to eat, he can’t pay, y’all can’t leave

There’s dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves…”

The driver wriggles out of the Tahoe with some difficulty; she is seven or eight months pregnant. “Stay in the car,” Madame Driver tells someone inside as she slams the door shut. She’s holding a hammer and sets about euthanizing the zombies still squirming on the ground and gnashing their cracked teeth at her.

Golf Club says: “Jace, bro, that’s so embarrassing. You’re gonna let her do that?”

Curly—or, rather, Jace—shrugs. “Exercise is good for the baby.”

All three blondes respond at once in a chorus of appalled disapproval. Interestingly, your rescuers have British accents. From within the Tahoe, someone turns off the CD player. This is wise; noise tends to attract more zombies. Madame Driver, unaffected, puts her hammer through the eye socket of a former Arby’s employee.

Jace flings back: “She likes helping! It would be sexist to tell her she’s not allowed to!”

The Scarred Man looks up at you and Rio and salutes, two fingers glanced off his forehead. You begin climbing down the scalding rungs of the transmission tower to meet them.

“Oh fuck, Aemond, you gotta deal with this,” Golf Club says. He is holding a yowling zombie at arm’s length by the straps of its overalls. It’s tiny, maybe a kindergartener. “You know I can’t kill the little kid ones.”

The Scarred Man, Aemond, turns to him. He’s wearing a maroon Harvard University t-shirt. “You have to learn how to do things yourself. I might not always be around.”

Golf Club scoffs. “As if I’d outlive you.”

“Go on. You can do it,” Aemond says. Behind him, more people are emerging from the Chevy Tahoe: Binoculars Buddy, a slight girl with shifting, watchful eyes, a blonde woman in a billowing sundress and with a burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

Golf Club is still struggling. “Aw, Aemond, man, he’s got light-up sneakers!”

Jace strides over irritably. “Aegon, you’re so fucking useless…” He kicks the miniature zombie to the dirt, raises his bloodied baseball bat, and brings it down on a skull that disintegrates like an overripe Halloween pumpkin. “You’re welcome.”

“Get bit, you poodle.”

Rio hits the ground first, his boots thumping against untamed earth. Aemond sets his baseball bat aside and reaches out to offer assistance as you dangle from a white-hot steel beam. “No,” Rio tells him roughly. “Back up.”

Aemond shows his palms and complies, retreating several paces. Rio helps you down. Now you can see Aemond’s face perfectly. There’s a relatively fresh wound running down the left half of his face, the violent red of burgeoning scar tissue, clear stitches; his eye has been sutured shut. But that’s not why you’re staring at him. His other eye is a focused, hypnotic blue, his short blonde hair disheveled. He keeps touching his chin, a nervous tick. Immediately, there’s something you like about him. He gives you the impression of someone who has gotten very good at hiding how afraid he is. Aemond looks away from your gaze, thinking you’re horrified by his injury. Then, reluctantly, he comes back. There’s forbidden temptation the lines of his ravaged face, a curiosity, a hesitation.

“Thank you for saving us,” you say to your rescuers, tearing your attention from Aemond. It’s not easy. “That was really, really cool of you, and we know you didn’t have to do it. So thanks.”

“Yeah,” Rio adds. “Sorry your Tahoe is covered in guts now.”

Aemond turns to confer silently with his companions, then asks you: “Where are you headed?”

“Odessa, Oregon.”

He nods. “We’re going to California.”

“NorCal,” Jace says, holding his baseball bat across his shoulders. “Bay Area.”

“Are you two together?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah,” Rio says, misunderstanding the question.

“Not like that,” you clarify. “He has a wife and baby, that’s what’s in Oregon.”

“So you’re single,” Aegon says, grinning toothily. His fellow travelers—family? friends? classmates? a combination thereof?—grumble and roll their eyes.

“Um, I mean, yeah, technically…?”

“Aemond’s also single,” Madame Driver informs you, relishing the chaos.

“He’s single but deformed and traumatized,” Aegon says. “I am mentally uninjured.”

You chuckle awkwardly. Your eyes, by their own volition, flick back to Aemond. He peers down at the ground then up at you again, smiling, a little sheepish, a little wicked.

Aegon groans, swinging his golf club around. “Man, come on.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Aemond replies.

“No, it’s just right there, all over your fucked up face.”

Madame Driver feigns a sympathetic frown at Aegon. “How sad. Guess you won’t have anyone to give your syphilis to.”

“I don’t have syphilis,” Aegon tells you. Then, to the others: “I can’t be the only single guy! It’s pathetic!”

“I’m single,” Archery Team says brightly.

“You’re like twelve. You don’t count.”

“I’m seventeen!”

“Are you Army?” Aemond asks you and Rio.

“Navy,” Rio replies. “We were stationed at Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.”

Aemond is fascinated. “You’re deserters?”

“What are you gonna do about it, Brit Boy?” Rio says. Aemond blinks at him. Aegon cackles, drawing huge circles in the air with his golf club.

“Everyone’s deserting,” you explain diplomatically.

“They were going to evacuate the base and send everyone left into New York City,” Rio says. “Fuck that, we’d heard things, we weren’t about to go on some suicide mission. We weren’t even in a combat unit for Christ’s sake, we’re Seabees.”

“You’re what?” Aemond asks, puzzled.

“We do construction. That’s why we were still at the base. If they’re putting us on the front lines, the situation is desperate. I’m not going in the meatgrinder. I’m not gonna be like those Hitler Youth kids sent to Russia.”

Aegon is squinting behind his sunglasses, truly lost. “Huh?”

“We should go west together,” Aemond suggests. He’s attempting to sound casual.

“I thought we didn’t want to travel with strangers, Aemond,” Jace says pointedly, mocking him. “I thought they couldn’t be trusted, Aemond. I thought they might slit our throats and steal our Tahoe in the dead of night, Aemond.”

“We’re useful!” Rio bargains. “We can shoot things!”

Aegon is very confused. “I thought you did construction.”

“Everyone has to go through basic training,” Aemond tells him impatiently, watching you.

“She got the Marksmanship Medal,” Rio says, grinning, proud.

“A lot of people get that,” you demur immediately.

“We can give you guys weapons training,” Rio continues. “You seem…like you probably don’t know about guns. Like you read a lot of books.” He gestures to Aegon. “Except that one.”

Aegon snickers, unoffended, still swinging his golf club around. “I don’t read books. I read maps.”

“Okay, lets do it,” Aemond says. “We’ll stick together across the Midwest and split up before we get to the Pacific. That puts us at ten people, and there’s safety in numbers.”

“Why do you get to make all the decisions?!” Jace demands. “Who signed that fucking contract? I didn’t consent to those terms.”

“Because that’s what Criston told us the last time the phones worked,” Aegon replies smugly. “He said Aemond’s in charge. So he is. If you want to find your way to California on your own, you’re welcome to try.”

“Who’s Criston?” you ask.

“Our fake dad,” Aegon says.

“Oh, your stepdad?”

“No, our mom is still married to our dad, he just sucks.”

“He does suck,” Archery Team confirms.

Rio tells you: “Hey, Chips, you’re standing in a torso.”

“Am I?” You look down. Your boots are buried to the ankles in the rotting gore of a bare midsection with only one limp arm still attached. You step out of it and shake off the bits of decomposing organs. “Gnarly. Thanks.” You spot Parker’s backpack containing the extra ammunition, pick it up out of the dirt, and throw it over your shoulders.

“Chips?” Aemond says. “Like…chocolate chips?”

“No, like woodchips. I’m a carpenter. I mean, I was a carpenter, I guess. That’s what I did in the Navy. Some people call the carpenters Chips.”

“I was an electrician,” Rio says. “So clearly, now that all the power is down, that turned out to be a fantastic career path.” Then he formally introduces himself. “Hi everyone, I’m Rio.”

Aegon perks up. “Oh, like the Rio Grande.”

Rio pretends to be scandalized. “Wow, racist.”

“So racist,” you agree.

Aegon’s chubby pink face fills with horror. “No, wait, I didn’t…um…”

Rio laughs and taps the nametag on his chest, black letters stitched over green camouflage: Osorio.

“His first name’s Bryan,” you say. “But no one calls him that.”

“My mom calls me Bryan. Sophie calls me Bryan.”

Aemond points at his companions, one after the other. “That’s my brother Aegon and my sister Helaena. Jace and Luke are our cousins. Then Baela and Rhaena are their girlfriends. Well, Baela…she’s kind of a fiancée. But there’s no official ring yet.”

Jace says: “Unfortunately, all the jewelry stores were looted on account of the apocalypse.”

“And I’m Daeron,” Archery Team says buoyantly, waving. Then he shields his eyes as he notices something at the edge of the field. “Oh, guys…?”

There are zombies approaching with clumsy, staggering strides, only a few now, but more will follow. That’s the thing; they are in seemingly endless supply. It’s easy to get too comfortable with them, to think of them as slow and mindless, even comical, even pitiful. But they can surprise you. And it only takes one bite to become just like them.

“Time to return to the Tahoe,” Baela announces, waddling towards the driver’s seat. Rhaena climbs in the passenger’s side. The rest of you pile into the back. The SUV has nine seats; Aegon crouches on the floor without being asked to. He’s unfolding a map he pulled from the pocket of his salmon-colored shorts and laying it flat across Rio’s knees so everyone can see. Baela turns the key in the ignition and the Tahoe rumbles to life. You spot a few red gas cans under the seats. If you can’t find more when that runs out—siphoning it out of other vehicles, stumbling across a gas station that is miraculously not drained dry—you’ll be walking, biking, or skateboarding to the West Coast. Or embracing the Amish lifestyle with a horse and buggy.

“We were planning to swing by Fort Indiantown Gap,” you tell Aemond. He twists around in his seat to look at you, that absorbed crystalline blue gaze. “That’s where we were headed before our Humvee broke down. It’s a National Guard Training Center. It’s probably cleaned out like everywhere else, but if it’s not…we might be able to find some guns and ammo there.”

“Where is it?”

“An hour south of here, just outside of Harrisburg.”

Baela is watching Aemond in the rearview mirror. He gives her a nod. “How do I get there?” Baela asks you.

“South on Route 42. Did you see the signs on your way in…?”

“Yup. Got it.” Baela steers the Tahoe across the field, kicking up a vortex of parched soil. She intentionally runs down four zombies before swerving left onto a two-lane road. Then she turns up the volume on the CD player: War Pigs by Black Sabbath. “It’s a mixtape,” she informs you.

Aegon points to southcentral Pennsylvania on a map of the United States of America, highway arteries and local route veins. “We’re here,” he says, sliding around on the floor of the Tahoe as Baela drives. His index finger traces the path; it’s a precarious balance between avoiding the most heavily populated areas and still having access to the necessary trappings of civilization: supplies to scavenge, roads to follow, buildings to take shelter in. “We’ll stop by Fort Indiantown Gap and then head northwest, thread the needle between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, stay south of Detroit and Chicago, cut across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, that top part of Utah, then go our separate ways in Nevada. Oh my God, it’s just like the Oregon Trail! Do you guys remember that game?! Fording rivers, getting dysentery, hunting bison to extinction?” He starts humming the theme song.

Jace smirks, chomping on a Twizzler. “Hope you don’t die of a snakebite or something. That’d be awful.”

Aegon ignores him and refolds the map. “Rio! Fuck, marry, kill. The last three first ladies before Biden.”

Rhaena says, exasperated: “Aegon, you have to stop asking people that. It’s inappropriate.”

“Oh, easy,” Rio replies. “I’m fucking Laura Bush.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Aegon gives him a high five.

“And then I have to marry Michelle.”

“You gotta.”

“Which means Melania gets the grape Flavor Aid.”

“It’s the only logical answer.”

“I’d fuck Melania,” Jace says.

“Of course you would, you sick, sick man,” Aegon mutters, rolling down a window and sticking his head out like a golden retriever, his sunglasses still on, his blonde hair flapping in the wind. There’s a tattoo in black ink on his forearm, you notice for the first time: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fort Indiantown Gap is a ghost town like a gold seam emptied, an oil well run dry, a collapsed coal mine. There’s no central armory but instead a series of arms rooms, one for each unit. Every single scrap of lethal metal is gone: no pistols, no rifles, no grenade launchers or machine guns, no ammo, not even pocketknives, although you do find clean PT uniforms for you and Rio to change into, t-shirts and running shorts and sneakers. Clothes are surprisingly difficult to acquire now. Most stores have either been looted or overrun by zombies, and Amazon is tragically no longer delivering. You can break into houses that seem abandoned, but then you have to hope the people who lived there just so happened to be your size and also aren’t waiting inside to eat you. It’s not usually a wise gamble.

You study Aemond and his companions as you move through the base clearing buildings, you and Rio with loaded M9s in your holsters and clutching borrowed baseball bats; gunshots are best avoided if possible so as not to attract unwanted attention. Aemond and Jace take point, almost always; Aegon hovers on Aemond’s blind left side, wagging his golf club around, occasionally slapping Aemond’s shoulder to remind him he’s there. Daeron prowls at the back and on the periphery. Baela pretends she isn’t struggling to keep up. Luke and Rhaena are the lookouts. Helaena fills her burlap messenger bag with small treasures you don’t even notice her accumulating: bottles of Advil, batteries, lighters, pens, tweezers, Band-Aids, Uno cards. You encounter only three zombies, easily decommissioned. Fort Indiantown Gap must have been evacuated weeks ago. You wonder what pointless battles her soldiers died in. Everyone knows the dead have won.

What the abandoned base lacks in weaponry it makes up for in food. You find a chow hall with an untouched kitchen, a wealth of shelf-stable delicacies: chili, saltine crackers, applesauce, fruit cocktail with bright red gems of cherries, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, green beans, carrots, peas, beets, tuna fish, chicken noodle soup. You feast—a Thanksgiving, a Last Supper—then settle into the barracks next door as the sun begins to set. There are plenty of bunkbeds and a closet full of pillows and sheets. Someone always has to be up to keep watch; Daeron and Jace immediately go to sleep so they can get some rest before they are shaken awake sometime around 2 or 3 a.m. Baela says she’s going to lie down for a minute and almost immediately begins snoring. Helaena makes silent amendments in her notebook; she keeps an inventory of everything the group has, needs, or wants.

Outside, Rio and Aegon are engaged in a spirited game of Uno. Luke is sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Tahoe with his binoculars. Rhaena is beside him softly reading a book out loud: The Hunger Games. Aemond is on a wooden bench on the front porch of the barracks, watching the sun sink into the west. When he notices you, he seems pleased. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m sorry we wasted your gas to come here.”

“No, it was a good idea. It was worth a shot. And now we have a safe place to sleep tonight.” His eye drops lower, his scarred brow crinkles in concern. “What happened to your hands?”

“My hands?” In the haze of the adrenaline, you didn’t even notice. Your palms are blistered, swollen and stinging. “Oh. It was the transmission tower. The steel beams got really hot while we were up there. I’ll be okay.”

“Let me bandage them. You don’t want to get an infection.”

“Really, I’m fine, I shouldn’t inconvenience—”

“Sit down,” Aemond insists. You take a seat on the bench while he goes to the Tahoe to fetch a black nylon bag about the size of a briefcase. Rio casts you a furtive, crafty grin. It’s nothing, you mouth back, more to convince yourself than him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears; your cheeks are warm. You haven’t felt like this since you almost agreed to go on a date with that Marine you met at Corpus Christi, where your battalion had been dispatched to build a series of new airplane hangars. Aemond returns to the bench and begins wiping down your palms with antiseptic. “Sorry if this stings.”

It does, but you’re grateful for the distraction. “It isn’t too bad.”

“You’re not from Oregon.” He’s noticed your accent.

“Kentucky,” you confess.

“You aren’t making a stop at home before traveling west?”

“Why would I want to go back there?”

Aemond looks at you uncertainly; he can’t tell if you’re joking. You like the way his voice goes quiet when it’s just the two of you. You like the way he barely shows his teeth when he talks, like he’s keeping secrets.

After a moment, as the sky begins to turn to orange and pink and lilac, you continue. “People join the Army for a paycheck and a place to sleep, free college, health insurance. People join the Marines to prove they’re the best. People join the Air Force because they want to be in the military but think they’re too smart for grunt work. And people join the Navy to get away from home. I wanted to get far, far, far away.”

Aemond smiles. “Are you far enough yet?” He doesn’t mean by miles. He means the fact that the world will never be the same. Now he’s coating your hands in a thick white ointment, cool and blissful.

“I was afraid of so many things, and now none of them matter.”

“We all have brand new things to be afraid of.” He gets a roll of gauze and begins to wrap your palms, careful to keep your fingers and thumbs unencumbered.

“Aemond?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to your face?”

He shrugs. He’s trying not to be resentful about it; he can’t change it anyway. “We were scavenging supplies from a Home Depot. We had to board up the house and wait until things…got quieter and it was safe to travel out of Boston.” And by got quieter, he means that the initial wave passed, the zombies began to wander out of the cities and disperse, the survivors were hunkered down and not participating in gunfights or Vikings-style pillaging in the streets. “A piece of sheet metal fell on me from the top shelf. Aegon and Jace dragged me home, they thought I was dying.”

“I’m glad you weren’t. Who treated it?”

“I did.”

You can’t disguise your shock. “You…you stitched up your own face?”

He smirks, finishing the bandages on your hands. “I was in medical school before all this.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“I was an intern. So definitely not a doctor, but the closest thing to one I had access to. And I had taken some things from the hospital when everything went to hell. So I got a little mirror, and I lidocained myself very generously, and I started suturing.”

You don’t know what to say. His eye?? He stitched his eye shut?? “I mean…you did a great job.”

“I’m aware I look like Frankenstein, but I guess it’s better than not being here at all.”

“No, seriously. You look amazing, Aemond.”

He stares at you, bewildered. You realize how bizarre it must sound. You both start laughing as Aemond packs his supplies back into his medical kit. He touches his fingertips to his chin a few times—restless, meditative—then stands to return inside the barracks. “I’m…going to go check on Helaena.”

“Yeah. Cool. See ya.” You don’t watch him leave. This takes intentional effort.

Seconds pass anonymously: no time you need to be anywhere, nothing late, nothing early, no television premiers, no football games, no State Of The Unions, no time zones to do mental math over. You aren’t even sure what day it is. The earth has erased your invisible prisons. Now all that remain are the real ones: weather, terrain, disease, predators.

There is the creaking of weight on the porch steps. You warn him: “I’m not interested in your commentary.”

Rio winks as he says: “Maybe you won’t die a virgin after all.”

[saywhat-politics]

By  JULIE WATSON Updated 6:49 AM MST, March 21, 2025

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Lennon Tyler and her German fiancé often took road trips to Mexico when he vacationed in the United States since it was only a day’s drive from her home in Las Vegas, one of the perks of their long-distance relationship.

But things went terribly wrong when they drove back from Tijuana last month.

U.S. border agents handcuffed Tyler, a U.S. citizen, and chained her to a bench, while her fiancé, Lucas Sielaff, was accused of violating the rules of his 90-day U.S. tourist permit, the couple said. Authorities later handcuffed and shackled Sielaff and sent him to a crowded U.S. immigration detention center. He spent 16 days locked up before being allowed to fly home to Germany.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/canadians-making-fewer-road-trips-to-the-us-as-trade-war-escalates/

[so-much-for-subtlety]

I’m not joking but this was one reason why I wanted to move to nyc

Driving is so anxiety inducing unless u do it all the time i cant wait to see the new levels of driving anxiety 20 years from now when most cars drive themselves

[ominousvibez]

Okay I'm still thinking about the Amity Park in Ohio thing so here's my proposal for this idea:

Reasons That Amity Park Should Be in Ohio (By Someone Who's Lived In Ohio For 2+ Years)

#1 It's Definitely A Great Lake State

Amity Park has never been stated to be officially in one specific state, just vaguely central United States, possibly somewhere around the Great Lakes area. That specific area is often referenced by other characters in the show. Urban Jungle shows Undergrowth's roots stretching out from this general area, and the Lake Eerie mentioned in the show might just literally be Lake Erie.

Of course it's kinda cartoony and I honestly have no idea if those mountains in the bottom right corner are meant to be the Appalachia area or not but it vaugely looks like the Great Lakes area

Because of this screenshot, I think most of the fandom headcanons Amity Park to be somewhere in Illinois, possibly close to Chicago, but we can basically point at any Great Lakes state and say "yeah that fits".

For my non-American friends, it's this general area of America (specifically Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio)

But I'd also like to say that cartoons do have a tendency to fudge some details about geography (or completely change the states a la Steven Universe) so the map might not be 100% accurate. But with the map, it could technically be any Great Lakes State, so why not OHIO?

Which btw I'm going to be counting as a Midwest state for this analysis. Some people can argue it isn't, but from my experience living here in Ohio there are a lot of Midwestern tendencies. It's more like Ohio is the border state between the Eastern states and the Midwest, so it gets a mix of both.

B*tch H*rtman (as much as we don't like to talk about him) was also born in Michigan, which is a state in the Midwest, so some of Amity Park could be based (consciously or not) on the towns he grew up in there. But because of him I'm ruling out Michigan the state as a whole and Wisconsin for states Amity Park could be in.

#2 It Takes Four Days To Get To Wisconsin, Apparently?

In Season 1, Episode 7, when they travel to Vlad's mansion in Wisconsin, Jazz says it will take "four days" to get from Amity Park to Vlad's Mansion (Somewhere in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, basically). The geography is a little off for every midwestern/Great Lakes state except maybe New York if you're gonna count that but Amity Park does not feel like it'd be in New York state.

Ohio is the furthest Midwest Great Lakes state from Wisconsin. Case closed there. Of course, it doesn't take four days to get from Ohio to Wisconsin. It can roughly vary from 10 to 15 hours, depending on route options (such as avoiding highways and stuff), but still.

It's a road trip, so it makes more sense that they'd take longer to get there-- plus realistically people don't tend to drive 10 hours on a road trip, they probably stopped through the trip and spent the night in their RV.

#3 They Got Beaches?

Amity Park does exist near a body of water. It isn't clear if it's a lake, river, or ocean in the show. It could be a lake. There's also the area in Frightmare, where Nocturne literally takes up space in some sort of port building/factory that gives the audience the assumption that it's on a pier/port. So they're really next to a body of water.

There is also the summer camp that Danny and his friends attend in Claw of the Wild which is said to be on Lake "Eerie". Which could easily just be Lake Erie, the lake that Ohio is on.

Also Camp Skull and Crossbones?? What an iconic camp name. You could say the name is pretty,,,,,, camp (ba dum tss).

#4 Ohio's Just Like... Very Haunted

Ohio has kinda become a meme recently. Not just one specific part of Ohio, but the entire state. The memes are mostly good fun-- like how the state is mostly just corn -- but I think some of the ~vibes~ of Ohio just fit right.

Like, there's no definite way to say which U.S. State is the most haunted (I think either the New England area or maybe Louisiana could take the #1 spot) but Ohio is definitely something else. Of course, we have the baby bridges and the haunted penitentiaries like Ohio State Penitentiary, but there are some interesting places that could be played with, too.

For one, there's an entire abandoned town called Helltown, Ohio, where rumors are cultists perform Satantic rituals, mutant creatures roaming the city created by an oil spill, and even a giant snake? There's also a place literally called the Gateway to Hell, too, which is right behind a Tim Horton's (oddly fitting).

Bobby Mackey's is also in Ohio! If you've ever seen Buzzfeed Unsolved, you know what I'm talking about.

There are also less hell-related spooky things in Ohio. Like, Lake Erie has its own Monster! We call her Bessie. Danny could definitely befriend Bessie!!!

#5 It'd Be Funny

It'd be funny for Amity Park to be in Ohio. The Most Haunted Place in America to be in Ohio is just kinda funny. With how "cursed" of a reputation Ohio seems to have in a larger cultural context, doesn't it kinda just fit?

TLDR:

Ohio is a very cursed state, has a lot of supernatural lore to it, and I think Amity Park would fit in both thematically and almost geographically. Of course, other Midwestern States like Illinois do fit the bill, too, in this argument. But I am a firm "Amity Park is in Ohio" supporter.

[b4mpyre-k1zz3s]

I loved your medic reader fic! Would you ever consider doing a follow up to that? It could be whatever you want! You write the guys with so much character and personality! ^_^

“Hello Nurse!” (Pt. 2)

Y/N’s contract is renewed, and as filming wraps in California and continues in Miami, she’s brought along on a whirlwind journey across the U.S. and discovers there’s more than meets the eye to this ragtag group of misfits.

Johnny Knoxville X Fem!Reader, Bam Margera X Fem!Reader, Steve-O X Fem!Reader, Ryan Dunn X Fem!Reader, Chris Pontius X Fem!Reader

(Fluff)

5.4k Words

Warnings: Highly suggestive content, anal (Dunn and the toy car), crude language, light bullying, drug use, weed, opioids, alcohol, nudity, slut shaming, unsafe driving, injury, blood kink, medical settings, wound description, hazing, premature ejaculation, snakes, humping, threesomes

An: Thank you so much for this request!! I really love Medic!Y/N and I thought I’d take this story in a new and interesting direction ;) I would totally be open for writing more for her in the future, so feel free to drop a request if there’s something in particular you would like to see! Tagging: @sweetest-catha

Being a set medic means that, oftentimes, you end up wearing many hats. For example, if you told someone you were being forced via contract to watch a grown man rectally insert a matchbox car, they wouldn’t believe you- but yet, here you are. “Do- do I really need to be in the room for this…?” Bam stood at Ryan’s bedside clad in black pseudo-scrubs, playing the nurse to your doctor. That’s a nightmare in and of itself. He scoffed, pressing a stethoscope to Dunn’s chest, “Yeah- legal said so!” Ah yes, your old friend: the legal department. The reason you were still around to witness this wonder of nature.

Not even a month ago, you got your very first job as a set medic. According to Knoxville (which is what you had begun calling him, no longer Johnny or his least favorite, Mr. Knoxville), the crew decided to renew your contract because you were a joy to have on set! No other reason- no way… There was a lot more work to do for the movie anyways, and the production would be taking a trip to Miami, Florida to film some stunts in the sunshine state and maybe get some material on the road, and it’s not like they could just abandon their favorite nurse! So, in a dingy hotel room somewhere in California, you were standing by as Ryan laid back on the sheets with his legs up in a mock Lithotomy position and squirted some clear goo out of a tube plainly labeled ANAL LUBE, presenting you with two sticky fingers, “Y/N- y’think this is enough lube?” The cameraman standing in the doorway seemed to find your nervous reaction pure comedy gold, making sure to capture your stammering, “Ah- how am I supposed to know?! I mean, just- just try with that…”

Nurse Bam snickered at the shocked blush on your cheeks, getting this malicious little look in his eye as he whispered in Dunn’s ear, “Dude, you gotta get a little louder with this next one- Just watch ‘er…” Clinging to the wall with your eyes squeezed shut to block out what was happening, all you could hear were snickers and these squelchy noises that you really wished you didn’t know the origins of, before Ryan let out a low, provocative groan. When Bam asked him, “Is it in?” something in you snapped. Ry didn’t have time to respond before you, unable to stand the tension for a second longer, lunged across the room and simultaneously pulled Ryan to his feet with one hand and yanked up his shorts with your other.

While Dunn was getting whatever needed to be done over with in the bargain X-ray place, you slumped in the van with your head in your hands alongside the guys who were busy recording B-roll, “God, I feel bad for Y/N- she’s gonna have’t fish that thing outta him…” The implications here made you jolt awake, “Wait- I’m not gonna do it? I-I thought the x-ray guy was gonna take care of that!” This is a Jackass set for crying out loud! Shouldn’t they have a specialized ass doctor around here? Stifling his own laughter, Steve made a flimsy effort to calm your nerves by reaching around Knoxville to pat you on the back, “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, y’could’ve been in my ass if Dunn didn’t step up like that!” Johnny laughed, turning to address the camera, “Yeah, lesser’a two evils…”

Ryan declined any assistance with the removal process in spite of the constant goading from the rest of the crew, instead opting to yank the thing out himself in the bathroom. And after that, you hit the road. Since the cast and crew would be split up in two vans, Johnny thought it was only fitting to wish them off like a mom sending her sons off to college, “Alright, now don't you boys do anything I wouldn’t do! Have fun, take your medicine, and-“ Honking the horn, Bam yelled from the driver’s side window, “Get in, dipshit!” You were already in the van, squished between Steve and Chris, so close that you could feel the heat radiating off of their bodies.

It was around Barstow where you were staring out through a fogged up window which you were lucky enough to score a seat next to, when you spotted a sign on the roadside reading, ‘Don’t gamble with marajuana. In Nevada: Possession- 20 years! Sale- Life!’ Part of you found this really ironic, considering that, right next to you, Steve-O was getting fired like an over cooked McNugget, passing the joking right in front of you to Pontius. You didn't have an excuse to sit up front like Knoxville’s asthma or Bam’s bitching about how much he hates the smell of pot. How often do cops patrol this area? Maybe you weren't hiding your nerves as well as you thought because Chris held out the joint to you between two fingers. Were you really about to do this?

“Oh! I’m, uh- I’m alright…” Nope, you weren't going to do that. Pontius shrugged, opting to pass it back to Ryan in exchange for a can out of the six pack he bought in order to presumably drink his shame away. You tried to focus on the fact that you were a professional; you were here to do a job, and that job was to take care of these young men, whatever it is they put themselves through. Letting Knoxville’s prattling about gonzo journalism and Hunter S. Thompson wash away your thoughts, you looked ahead with apprehension towards the strip-hotel skyline rising up through the haze of the desert.

The plan was to stop at a hotel so the guys could film some stunt and be on your way. Neither cast nor crew would spill the beans but whatever it was, there was no medical liability, so you hung back in the room. So you walked in, laid down the bed, and exhaled all the stress that weighed on your bones. Little did you know that chaos was slowly encroaching in on your little slice of peace. No more than ten feet away, clustered in the hallway outside, there was this childish truth or dare energy that buzzed among the guys. Bam gave Ryan a playful shove, “You go first, since y’got it so bad for her…” Scoffing, Dunn shot a glare his way, “Listen- I took the car up my ass! That gets me off the hook for, like- a week, at least.” Ever the arbitrator, Johnny knew that he could illicit the best reaction out of you, so he shoved the two apart with diplomatic grace, “Boys, listen- I’ll take care’a this.”

Right as you laid down, someone knocked at the door. Assuming it was Jeff or someone else on the crew, you got up to answer it only to be greeted by something entirely unexpected: Johnny, naked. In fact, they were all naked! Practically letting out a squeak at the sight, your face burnt red and you couldn’t meet his gaze even with those shades that never seemed to leave his face. Keeping your eyes down, you realized that may have been the worst place for you to look at considering the only thing you had to focus on was a strip of lean, muscular, Hollywood tan flesh. Speaking to you through the one inch gap allotted by the still in place door chain, Knoxville sounded so casual, as if he was making fully clothed conversation, “Hey, Y/N! Me ‘an the fellas were just wonderin’ if you’d wanna go get somethin’ t’eat tonight!” You couldn’t help but silently wonder about what you weren't seeing, but quickly shook the image from your mind, you had a more pressing matter: the five entirely nude men waiting outside your room. “W-why are you all naked?!”

Vegas- the original adult playground, where big girls and boys go to behave poorly. Given the statute here for things you can get away with before you get arrested, there wouldn't be a better place in the U.S. to film “Nudist Hotel Crawl”. According to Steve-O, who was more than happy to explain, the premise of the stunt was to go about your business in a hotel like taking the elevator or walking through hallways- all while totally naked. They got some sweet footage, but the real fun would arise when their favorite evil mastermind (who came up with the whole ‘taunt the cute medic girl’ idea in the first place) suggested they pay you a visit. Of course, he left that last part out.

They had parts planned out, like when Chris popped up on his toes and used his buddy’s shoulder for stability, smiling at you with that goofy grin, “It’s pretty cold out here! Can we use the shower’t warm up a bit?” If there was something worse than someone seeing you with a group of naked men outside your door, it would be someone seeing said men be invited in. “Where the hell are your clothes!?” It was only after that left your mouth that you realized that their clothes were still in the room. God, it was like this was some demented Abbott and Costello routine…

“In here? All of you naked- with me?” Bam smirked at how suggestive that sounded, replying with quick thinking, “How else are we gonna get dressed?” You conceded with a sigh, fiddling with the lock, “Okay, fine- just…no weird stuff!” You didnt have enough time to peep your head out the doorway to check for onlookers before they all flooded in, laughing and whooping. At the back of the pack was Johnny, who seemed to linger by you for a moment while everyone else ran to the showers or started miming sex acts with each other’s naked bodies. The air between the two of you hung thick as he leaned down to murmur sweetly in your ear, “I’m serious about that dinner thing.” “You are gonna put on some clothes, right…?”

An upside to family restaurants is that they’re usually pretty loud, muffling any crude conversation enabled by the surprisingly free flowing alcohol. “See, that’s the problem-“ Bam slurred, gesturing over to Steve and Chris before taking a swig of whatever was in his glass, “you two’re attracted t’these, like- fake titty bitches with thongs hangin’ outta their ass an’ DSL, like- dick suckin’ lips.” The fact that you were hanging out with the talent in the first place while the rest of the crew- the semi responsible adults such as yourself- were asleep back at the hotel completely eluded you. Eluding you more was the fact you got roped into whatver conversation they were having, “Speaking of, Y/N- you gotta boyfriend?”

You felt like you were back in high school again…Well, you didn’t have a boyfriend, but why in the world would Knoxville be asking you that? Is this just another ploy to make you squirm? He seemed as if he didn’t care how his words made your heart jump into your mouth, languidly chewing as he stared across the table at you. Stammering, you swallowed your nerves, “U-uh…No, actually.” There was a beat everybody just stared at each other before Bam broke the silence by elbowing Dunn, giving him a very obvious eyebrow raise, “Ah! She’s single!” Chris gave you a smolder and Ryan rolled his eyes at Bam’s drunken antics, elbowing him back a little harder, speaking through grit teeth, “Thanks, dude.” And then there was Johnny, the ringmaster to this operation. He just reached over to you and playfully ruffled your hair, grinning in that cute, crooked way, “I was just curious, that’s all…”

After dinner that night, you were off to New Mexico, and it was Knoxville’s turn to drive. Nerves already frayed from the trip so far, you couldn’t sleep if you wanted to, much less with how Bam was sprawled out on both your and Dunn’s laps. Knowing you wouldn’t, Johnny spoke first, “Y’know, I gotta terrible habit’a fallin’ asleep while drivin’…” Well that assured you a lot. He gestured to you with one hand, “D’ya think you could grab me a couple’a those red pills from Steve-O’s backpack?” Steve’s backpack was the Baskin-Robbins of indulgence- yes, the Jansport slumped against your leg was more of a mobile police narcotic’s lab than anything.

Typical medic stuff, doling out pills, even if they weren't exactly yours…you’d put up more resistance, but you didn’t have much of an argument due to the fact that the cast shared pretty much everything else, ranging from clothes to women, so you just handed them over like the nice little pushover you were. “We’re lucky’t have you, Y/N. I mean it…” Johnny thanked you before throwing them back dry, “Y’know, you’ve got this…thing about you. Y’seem like you really care about us idiots.” Barely above the hum of the engine, Knoxville’s words were low and genuine. The way he was talking about you as if you were some set angel lit some fire inside you, steaming up your cheeks and making you avoid meeting his gaze in the rear view mirror. You replied simply, “Well, I do. It's what I do.” Oh, if you kept this up, Johnny might start feeling a little bad about tormenting you so much…Well, clearly he didn’t feel bad enough, the weight of his true feelings carrying over to something he let slip to plant some funny seeds in your head. “Yeah Dunn was right about you…”

Blood trickled down his limbs from angry, red flesh speckled by cacti spines, but Steve didn’t seem to be too bothered by it at all- you hardly noticed that lovesick grin plastered on his face as you diligently worked at removing the prickles lodged in his skin. It seemed the longer you were on set, the more real the injuries got…They were stuck everywhere- from his chicken scratch tattooed arms to his pale, narrow thighs that felt so nice with your hands rubbing against them to smooth the soreness…It didn’t help Steve had to strip down to his boxers as you crouched in front of him, sweat sparkling on your forehead under the New Mexico sun. Steve found the whole nurse/patient dynamic really sexy, but after that previous embarrassing, sticky incident, he’d been trying to keep his cool around you, which was doing a bang up job with, as evident from the way he absolutely botched that last attempt at that “Cactus Jump” stunt. Maybe it was a little more intentional than he’d care to admit, just a bid to get in this position again; It was all soft breathing and these warm touches too tender to stay platonic.

“Hey, uh-“ Clearing his throat to cover up the way his voice cracked, Steve looked at you with these glossy, semi dazed eyes, “Y’got any pain pills over there?” Ah, yes- memories of Ed the Medic and his assortment of multicolored opioids. Distracted by trying to grip a spine lodged particularly deeply in his thigh, you sort of dismissed him given how familiar you were with his righteous, clean living indignation towards painkillers, “Don’t you have some in your bag?” Before he could question you about knowing about his stash, you suddenly had more pressing matters to take care of: this primal, I’m talking primal, life or death shriek of terror you hurt maybe twenty feet away. Assuming something went horribly wrong, you lept to your feet to investigate. This is what you went to med school for- saving lives!

Well, not exactly. It was Bam, cowering in the face of a desert kingsnake. Well, it was more of a stand-off, but it was obvious who was losing. You called out to one of the cameramen nearby and started to walk the talent away to one side, “Hey, can we get a chair or something for Bam here?“ It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to snake bites, so you gently sat him down and started the now routine line of questioning that follows a snake bite while inspecting high risk points: the wrists, the neck, etc. He didn’t seem like he was bleeding, and when you tried to ask if he knew if the snake was nevemos or not, you didn’t get much of an answer. Bam talked with his hands as he prattled on in this little-boy-lost-at-the-zoo voice, “It- it didn’t bite me- but that fuckin’ thing’s lookin’ at me, like-!” The snake was still sitting a few feet away when it suddenly lunged towards the two of you. It was pretty obvious it couldn’t do anything from this distance, but that didn’t stop Bam from flying backward and nearly topping out of his chair.

This was a side of him you hadn’t seen before. Previously, Bam was a schoolyard bully who’d shank you like a jailhouse snitch at his earliest convenience- or at the very least, try his damndest to make you squeal and cry by any means short of tugging on your pigtails. But are those tears you see? Initially, part of you thought he was playing some cruel joke to tug at your heartstrings, but the longer you looked at Bam- and Bam looked at you, with those big, baby blue doe eyes that just beg to be comforted- you saw another side of him: a weaker, more vulnerable side. And it sounds weird to say, but you really liked this side of him. Broken. Pretty…

As you knelt down in the hot sand next to him, Bam suddenly lurched towards you, clinging to you in maybe the most awkward yet strangely sweet hug you’ve ever received. Not having been trained on what to do in this scenario, you just sort of did what felt right, reaching out and rubbing his back, “You’re okay, you’re fine…” Your stiff but soothing platitudes seemed to ease the shaking in Bam’s shoulders as the guys all stood around and watched, snickering at how you were reluctantly mothering him, “The snake’s gone, you’re alright- you’re fine…you’re sure you didn’t get bit?”

If the broken air conditioner wasn’t an issue driving to New Mexico, it was certainly an issue driving through New Mexico. The guys were still giving Bam a hard time about the snake freak out by the time you were halfway to Texarkana, and Dunn was happy to finally get some leverage on him after all that shit he gave him about bein’ sweet on you, “Look at it this way- now that we’ve gotta lady who can kiss your boo-boos, maybe you don’t need’t live with your mom anymore!” You were amazed at the way these men could just be so mean and awful to each other and still stay friends, but hell- if that isn’t a testament to friendship. Still a little shaken judging by the look in his eyes, Bam whipped around in his seat to snap back, “First off, Ape lives with me, asshole- not vice versa. Second of all-“

Reaching into the center council, he grabbed a styrofoam fast food cup of soda and tossed it back at Dunn, inadvertently getting about half of it on you. This earned him a good shove, sending his cackling, half clothed body against the dashboard because of course these men don’t wear seatbelts. As the chaos unfolded, all you could do was sit there, dripping with soda, frozen while you bore witness to how quickly they all turned into animals. Well, all of them except Ryan, who noticed the dark, sticky mess on the front of your shirt and doubled over to scrounge around on the floor of the van, “Here- y’can wear this if you want,” Dunn sat up and smiled softly as you unfurled the wad of fabric he handed you- his shirt. “Sorry about Bam, he’s…well, he is normally like this, but he’s still an ass. Our ass.”

At the rodeo arena where they were supposed to film some bull stunt, you still wore Ryan’s shirt underneath your navy blue medic jacket, and you thought nothing of it. You’d been called in because Knoxville took a particularly nasty hit and wasn’t getting up, and if you had a nickel for every time that happened you’d be able to retire. The first thing you noticed when you walked in was the glassy, nine mile stare that Kossick was sporting- the growing uncertainty that he’s going straight to filming Milfbusters 7 after this movie gets shelved on account of their main star biting it. Kneeling down by Johnny’s side, you took care not to move him too much on the chance he suffered some degree of head trauma as you gently peeled the shattered remains of his glasses off of his face.

“Howdy, ma’am!” Knoxville grinned at you from the ground, surprisingly with all of his teeth intact, “I’m just a little concussed- I’m alright. Y’ain’t gotta worry ‘bout me…” Dismissing you the way men tend to do when they’re injured, he tried to pull himself up on his elbows but you gently guided him to lay back down, “I really don’t think you are…” Concern weighed heavy in your voice as you cupped his cheeks in your hands to get a better look at his face, “Only one of your eyes is looking at me right now, Johnny.” He swatted at the dust filled air dismissively, shaking his head, “Ah, that’s no problem- I wear glasses anyways.” Yep- par for the course in terms of head injuries. Slowly, you went about examining him, starting at gingerly running your fingers over his scalp to check for blood or lacerations and moving down to his neck and shoulders, “Tell me if you start feeling tired, okay?” Continuing the exam, you pulled up his shirt to assess for broken or bruised ribs and your eyes perversely wandered down to the hem of his shirt that was riding up, showing off his askew belt buckle and the dusting of hair that led below his waistband. Johnny let out an amused chuckle, his accent seemingly stronger post concussion, “Well, that ain’t gonna be happenin’ with the way y’keep touchin’ me, sweetheart…”

Off in the peanut gallery, you could hear Bam and Ryan jeering him from the stands in faux southern accents, “Ain't that the fella on TV?” “Seems like ‘Hollawood isn’t cut out for bein’a cowboy!” “Y’reckon we’ll git on ‘is show?” Completely uncharactic of you, the thought occurred to you to turn around and tell them off for acting like such children in this situation, but before you had a chance to open your mouth, guess who came bounding down the stairs to plop down by his buddy’s side and make sure everything was alright? Steve wiggled in right next to you, “Knoxville, dude! You there?” Johnny blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus on the weird tan blur above him, “Did- was it funny?” Steve grinned in that cute, boyish way he always did, “It was hilarious!” Holding his hand out for a high five, Johnny missed Steve’s hand by a good couple inches before he grabbed his wrist, pressing them together.

Knoxville was chewing Vicodin like Twizzlers to stay upright- and even then he could only barely stagger around, usually having to sling an arm around the shoulders of whoever was closest to him. That isn’t to say the other guys didn’t have their fair share of injuries: for one, Ryan hadn’t been able to sit right since the toy car incident, and for some reason you felt bad for him- a little more than you usually did with set injuries. Maybe it was due to the fact that the guys found it absolutely riveting, especially Bam, “Cmon, aren’t you used’t takin’ it up the ass by now, Dunn?” Turning around in his seat, Chris gave his two cents, “I’m not saying I would’ve gotten the footage you did, but if I was the one who took the car up the ass, I would’ve done it with a little more poise.“ While Steve, who sat curled up against the door sleeping off the antibiotics you gave him for those infected cacti wounds (surprise, surprise!), swatted at Pontius and murmured something about shutting up and letting him sleep. “Aww, Sleep-O’s gettin’ fussy ‘cause he didn’t get his nap?” You could handle this: banter, joking around- this was nice,

Since the usual instigators were out cold, things got pretty quiet in the van for a while until Bam, who was sitting on one side of you, leaned conspiratorially close to your ear, “Hey. Y’know Dunn’s got the hots for you?” Blinking in surprise, you tried to keep your voice low and only managed to stammer out a, “Huh?” All this time you thought he was just being nice to you! However, you had to admit, the idea did cross your mind once or twice…Still, Bam was fucking with you- he had to be. But now that you really thought about it, he really doesn’t seem like the type to make the first move. Gesturing to you and Ry with a black painted nail, his voice dropped to a teasing coo, “I mean, if you’d be up for it, maybe the three of us could-“ Cutting him off before he could finish whatever poorly thought out plan he whipped up to pass the time in the back of the van, Dunn reached behind you and swiftly whacked the back of Bam’s head, cutting him off, “Don’t listen to that idiot.” It took you accidentally sliding against Ryan’s side, practically snuggling in under his arm to realize what Bam had in mind, your cheeks going pink at the images your mind conjured. “Ah! I think she likes that idea!” All you could do was sit there and stew on what the hell just happened.

The cast and crew made a pit stop at his Knoxville’s folk’s place because his cousin Rodge’ had a pretty genius idea for this stunt that made great use outta some old paintball guns he found in the garage. It also helped that the little gang of hellions that were Johnny’s nieces, nephews, and unspecified cousins were more than happy to join in on the fun, taking up arms and firing away at our rowdy gang of misfits, which you had to admit was really fun to watch- especially when Party Boy ‘crashed’ the family reunion, dancing in the back gate wearing that shiny little mankini to be greeted by a barrage of neon splatters of paint. There was just something so endearing about the way Chris could laugh as he got pelted with paintballs while all the other guys were yelping or groaning in pain.

“What in the world’s wrong with that boy?” Rodge shook his head, putting down his gun as the guys hobbled off, resembling fucked up Jackson Pollock style preformance art. Limping over to where you were sat on a lawn chair, Chris still had that smile on his face as he spun around and bent down in front of you at a ninety degree angle, “Hey, Y/N- I think I got shot he-“ Having seen this trick before from Bam, you initially flinched away and your hands flew to cover up your eyes, “Oh!” But the thought occurred to you that Pontius didn’t really have any pants to drop and couldn’t flash his ass if everyone else could already see it, so you slowly peeled your fingers away to find him presenting you with a legitimate injury: one of those trademark C-shaped paintball wounds. Apprehension turned to curiosity as you cocked your head, examining it, “How’d they even get you there…” I mean, it was in his ass crack, which made it a definite infection risk, but this was something you could help with- now, at least, after a month or so doing this shit.

Walking him off to the side of the yard away from any prying eyes, you instructed Chris to pull his Mankini down as far as he can without exposing himself and chuckled that cute, dumb laugh that you’d come to associate with him, “Well, you don’t have to ask me twice!” As you gingerly dabbed a soaked cotton ball against the swelling, purple and red injury, he shivered at the feeling of the cold alcohol, “Ooh!” Not having extensive expereince dealing with asses, you assumed you might’ve done something wrong, “Did that hurt?” “No, ma’am! I think I got another one on my-“ Before Chris could finish turning, you whipped around, simultaneously flustered and shocked. Yeah, this was exactly the kind of thing he was good at: throwing people off just a little. Still, when Pontius was recruited to mess with you, he never got that serious with it, “I’m kidding! But I may have to call you later for some extra medical attention…” Stumbling to your feet, you walked away to where the rest of the guys were getting hosed off, face still bright pink with your voice about three octaves higher, “Anybody got any other injuries? Anybody!”

After what felt like an eternity but was really a little under a week, you arrived in Miami: tired, unshowered, and on the verge of putting in your two week’s notice. Sure, it was fun and all but a part of you knew you might not be cut out for this. You had half a mind to tell everybody to have fun before catching a flight home because you'd really had enough, but for a reason you couldn't really place, you decided to stick around. Maybe it was how nice the sun felt on your skin or the excitement that all of this was finally over with and you could finally take a breather.

Well, not quite. See, the whole reason they were going to Miami in the first place was to film a few water stunts. You’d spent a good chunk of the car ride listening to Bam prattle off about all these stunt ideas they had, namely, “Waterskiing D-Style” stunt- the one where Ryan was bent over and Bam was behind him in a faux humping position, with the two of them wearing waterskis and being pulled by a speedboat across the water- a pretty funny sight gag, sure. But naively assuming nobody could get too injured from relatively safe aquatic sports, you decided to hang back with some of the cameramen and PAs. “Y/N!” Putting an end to social hour, Jeff poked his head in the crew van and waved you over, pointing off into the distance, “Dunn just took a ski to the head- think y’could check on him?”

Rushing across the sand with med kit in tow to where Ryan’s pale, waterlogged body had been dragged inland, you dropped to your knees to peel a few wet, blond strands of hair away from his face to examine the fresh, candy apple red gash on his forehead. Blinking his eyes open, Dunn looked up at you with adoration behind his thankfully equally sized pupils. It wasn’t as serious as some of the other injuries you tended to, but it would need stitches- and soon, so in the meantime you started on cleaning up the affected area with an alcohol wipe. “Wow…You really know how t’take care of us.” Ever since that thing in the car you had been thinking about Ryan more, how unlike the other guys, he was never too awful when he got put up to fuck with you- always a little apprehensive to go too far. Clearing his throat, Dunn glanced up at you, “Hey, y’know when Bam said I kinda had the hots fr’you?” It was around then that he realized that, given the fact he had suffered a head injury, he kind of had a pass to say whatever he wanted with minimal repercussions, “Yeah- he was tellin’ the truth…”

Wait, what? Here- now?! Was this the heat playing games with you? Before you could slap yourself for not considering this sooner, Ryan reached up and gently wrapped his fingers around your wrist, tenderness slipping into his voice that let it slip he wasn't joking, “How about you and I go grab dinner sometime?” From further down the beach, far out of earshot, Dunn’s hump buddy from earlier yelled out to you, “Hey, Y/N! S’he gonna be alright?” Swallowing thickly, you tried to stabilize your voice as you shouted to Bam, “Yeah, he’ll be just fine!”

“Alright! Get the beers!”

[lothlorienlover]

U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It spans 2,400 miles (3,940 km), crosses eight states and three time zones, and enlists you for at least three weeks. The epitome of American driving holidays, Route 66 takes you east to west, from Chicago to Santa Monica, Los Angeles, tracing the development of the pioneering country. The original road no longer exists unbroken, but as a road trip the route holds strong. It will take you through small-town America and past some of the most obscure attractions in the country.