#Virginia Hard Drive Shredding

[forever-eternal]

Gunshots

This was not part of the plan!

*Mass disassociates, Gov gets shot*

———————————————————————

“Gus said there’s something under his suit.” Massachusetts leans back in his chair, crossing his arms and glaring at the ceiling, “Said it felt like a sheet of metal, said something similar was under his skin— in his shoulders.”

“He was tense as a board, Mass.” Virginia said, the the concern in their eyes countered their dismissal of the accusation. “Louie probably thought he felt something, with how stiff he was.”

“He winced,” New Jersey practically growled, “From falling on the softest things in the house. Not even a wince of surprise, eitha’.”

“He looked in pain.” New York finishes in a grumble.

Georgia broods in his seat, glowering into the distance, and Maryland keeps a hand on the larger mans’ arm— they know that, at this point, the Southerner would simply break down Gov’s door if they let him (He did the same thing when Congress got hurt and didn’t tell them. Would haul him downstairs and they’d fix him up (if he hadn’t already done so) and scold him for his recklessness. He did that often— no matter what they tried to get him to stop).

They’re not at The Table, but it’s one they have for when the 13 of them want to get together, discuss the Younger States and their kids and grandkids. And now they often discuss Gov, and his similarities to their Congress.

“Not much we can do about it, hun.” Maryland says, patting Georgia’s arm a few times, “He ain’t gonna show us, you saw how hard he tried to hide it.”

“So we just have to deal with knowing somethin’s up!?” New Hampshire throws his hands up to his hair, “What if it gets worse!?”

“It’s all we can do without forcin’ it.” North Carolina mutters, head buried in his hands.

“And forcin’ it will drive ‘im away.” South Carolina finishes.

Grumbles of concern, discontent, and frustration fill the room— with a heavy undertone of reluctant acceptance.

They could only wait, and hope they get a chance to see.

———————————————————————

When they said ‘wait and hope to get a chance’, they specifically didn’t want Gov to get shot!

Mass doesn’t know why someone would have a fully-loaded gun in public— scratch that, they’re in America. He couldn’t claim to expect any less, not even from NYC.

He barely remembers seeing Rhode Island, tiny twat that he is, barreling into the gunman’s back like a rabid dog—- the now empty gun falling several feet away. He didn’t pay attention to it, eyes wide and focused on one thing—- just like the rest of the State’s that had come to the City for the day.

Blood on the ground— continuing to drip drip drip even as he sprinted as fast as he possibly could in the direction of his injured fellow soldier— red red red spraying from their lips—

One of the bullets struck straight through Gov’s throat, barely missing everything important but with enough force to nearly tear his head off— and Mass can faintly see vocal cords beneath shredded skin.

Four struck his chest, around his lungs, though the one that went for his spinal cord didn’t seem to have an exit wound from what he could see.

The final bullet, the first one shot, had skimmed the side of his head, blood pouring down Gov’s face as he held a hand to his throat and chest, dripping from his lips as his lungs tried to stitch themselves back together inside— but it’d be awhile before he’d cough up all the blood. His eyes are half-lidded and dull, as if this is a normal situation as Penn tears off his Eagles jersey and shoos Gov’s hand from his neck, his own taking its place even as the fabric grows soaked with blood in mere minutes.

Mass skids to a stop in front of them, shoving Gov’s hand away from his chest to get a better look, other hand pressed against the side of the man’s head. There’s shouting, people are yelling and there are sirens in the distance. He vaguely hears the Carolina’s hauling Rhode Island off the bastard over the rushing in his own ears. He can hear his voice, barking something at Virginia and Maryland—

“Go get a place ready at the House! He’s losing too much blood!”

And it feels like he’s hearing the news of Congress’ death all over again— but this time, he’s watching it. He’s watching the boy’s eyes go dull by the second as blood spills over his hands.

So when he feels the tug, he goes— dragging the boy and Pennsylvania with him.

They land on a bed, one of the medical cots they usually keep in storage— soft and of the highest quality materials, made for comfort and ease of cleaning.

Gov’s eyes go wide and he lets out a silent pained gasp at the jostling, blood pouring from his mouth, covering his face even more with red red red.

He wonders faintly if this is what Robin, his daughter, had to see as her husband— his nephew, Continental Congress— ripped himself apart.

“Hold still,” he says sharply when Gov jerks in place, shifting to sit over top the man— he needs to see the wounds, needs to get the bullets out.

There’s a knife in his hand, his own pocket-knife, and sees himself cutting through Gov’s sweater, struggling to get the remains of it and his suit jacket off without moving him too much and risking further injury.

He sees a white undershirt, a compression top, sleeveless. It’s a thick fabric, made for support. He cuts through that, too.

He sees a scar, a four-pointed star across Gov’s entire chest.

He sees something black, reaching from his hip bones up to just under his rib cage. It’s thick and solid, with cotton padding. He’s used to such things being elastic, but this one seems solid, similar to the corsets all his daughters once wore. Beneath the fabric, between the padding, is a stiff weight— boning, he thinks. It’s custom-made. He doesn’t touch it.

“When did you get a facking back brace?” He hears himself hiss down at the man, blood roaring in his ears making everything dim. He hears intakes of breath, and hears Virginia trying to shoo away the States crowding at the door— the commotion drawing ears and eyes.

Gov looks too much like Congress for Mass’ grandkids to see him like this, and the man’s own children don’t need to see him like this either.

“Shut the damn door!” Pennsylvania shouts, sounding like he’s underwater as he tugs the cart of medical supplies closer, easier for Mass to reach. “John, JOHNNY! Help me out here!”

Gov was thrashing beneath them, as much as his own body and Mass’ weight would allow— but he was moving too much, eyes too afraid, he’s looking straight through them, at something far off.

Massachusetts hears the door close roughly, notices several of his fellow Original Colonies not in the room, likely keeping the younger States from coming inside.

Georgia presses his weight carefully on Gov’s shoulders, just enough to keep him from moving his upper half— one hand resting on the man’s forehead to keep his head still as well. Maryland’s state merch, specifically the flag he wears and his hat, is thrown across the room as the Old Line State starts to stitch the wound on his head, before moving onto his throat as Penn carefully pulls the ruined jersey away.

Mass can see his hands, steady despite how detached he feels as he pulls out a pair of tweezers to dig for the only bullet that lodged in Gov’s body.

Millimeters from his spine.

He’s careful, but then the tweezers pinch something solid and smooth — not bone — and Gov throws his head back and arches with a warbled, pained — pained cries, pained words, pain pain pain — scream.

“Masshole!” New York snarls,— he’s afraid, Mass can hear it in his voice, he’s lashing out because they’re all terrified of the scene they’re dealing with—climbing up to put pressure on thrashing legs, “Careful!”

“He’s got metal in his spine.” He hears his own voice hiss, finally getting hold of the bullet and pulling it out. It’s practically thrown across the room and he drops the tweezers, hands reaching for something he can’t see, coming back with a needle and thread. Virginia finishes with the disinfectant, each of their movements swift and purposeful.

He starts stitching.

Pennsylvania crouches down next to the bed, close to Gov’s head, and he’s whispering to him, muttering something— Gov looks so much like Congress, Pennsylvania can’t help but comfort the same way he does his kids.

“It’s okay, you’ll be okay. Just hang tight, Mass’ll be done soon, I promise.” There are more words, ones Mass can’t hear, ones Gov can’t seem to hear either.

Grey eyes are wild and flickering from side to side, hazy focus on each of them as they crowd. His lips are moving, like he wants to say something, like he’s repeating himself over and over again— and once Maryland finishes stitching his throat, setting to work on cleaning the remaining blood off his face when raspy words finally leave him—

“You’re killing me— why are you killing me?” The words are nearly silent, Mass can barely hear anything outside his own head, but he feels how they all suddenly tense at the phrases, “Was the War not enough— why’d you have to come here? Wanted to make sure I would die— that’s why— why else—“ Gov still has that far off look in his eyes, but the fear that radiates from him permeates the air like a thousand pound fog, and he continues mumbling.

Mumbling thimgs Congress— Adam— had written in his last few letters to them.

And Mass hears more voices, three joining Pennsylvania’s muttered comforts as Georgia starts running a hand through the mans— the boys— hair, and Gov finally goes limp, eyes sliding shut.

For a few minutes, all that’s left is having them lift the man so he can stitch up the exit wounds.

Once Mass hears himself give the all-clear, Gov is lifted, whisked away into the adjoining bathroom— they’d long claimed this room as their medical facility, and the bathroom reflected that.

He hears the shower start, faintly, realizing Georgia and Virginia had been the ones to take Gov away.

They have to clean him properly before they can bandage him. Maryland reappeared outside the bathroom door— another compression top and other clothes in his arms— they didn’t own any of those, he either found where Gov lives or just swiped them from the store or one of the younger States. He sees the clothes belong to Pennsylvania, the Eagles green that would normally piss him off just another thing his brain struggles to process as he stares down at his hands and the medical cot.

Red red red, so much red, so much blood— is he going to die? Did Mass not do enough?

Hands settle over his wrists, and he looks up.

New York and New Jersey look at him, brows furrowed in the exact same pinched expression.

Mass can only blink.

And he’s out of the cot, standing on two feet and feels two other hands scrubbing at his own under hot water, hears another person cleaning up the medical cot. He can’t tell which is which, but the grumbling from behind him tells him it’s New York cleaning the cot.

Soon, they’re all in new clothes, staring down at the sleeping Gov where he lies still in one of the beds in the room. They hooked him up to a few machines, they need to be able to know if something goes wrong.

Gov’s phone, thrown to the floor but undamaged, starts to ring.

The sound makes them jump, and they all turn to stare at it.

Virginia’s the one to pick it up, going pale at the name on the screen, “It’s Assistant.” They croak, before they click accept and hold the phone to their ear. “Hello.”

Mass doesn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but he sees Virginia speaking, reassuring, but he also sees the defeated look when the Old Dominion knows it’s a lost cause.

The air sizzles and crackles, and suddenly she’s there— eyes wide and near feral as Assistant shoves her phone back in her pocket.

She stares down at Gov, and they see her shoulder start to shake.

Mass can’t move— he hasn’t seen his daughter in over a hundred years, he wants to hold and comfort her because she’s— but New York does it for him.

The Empire State rests a hand on the woman’s— she had been a girl last they saw her— shoulder. She shakes more, and Mass can finally— finally— move.

He turns her, she can still look at Gov resting on the bed but it’s not the focus of her attention, and holds her to his chest. She’s taller than he remembers, but that doesn’t stop him from tucking her close like he had when her birds— her first birds— had died from age. New York and New Jersey are by her shoulders, and it’s just the four of them. They pay no mind to everyone else in the room, just as the rest ignore them.

She’s shaking, but she doesn’t cry. She simply stares down at the man lying in the bed and says, quietly,

“Thank you.”

And his chest erupts with a pain so sharp, he can only hold her tighter.

———————————————————————

Gov and Robin are gone the next day, not a single trace of them anywhere beyond a message from Gov, in the same style he always wrote in.

‘Thank you for the assistance, though unnecessary to burden yourselves. The next Meeting is set for 2 p.m on Monday, list of required attendees attached.’

Mass can hear Penn’s threats to ‘beat that stupid, reckless man’s ass’. He snickers to himself when he hears Georgia’s quiet agreement, and it feels almost like back then when their kids would vanish for hours on end, only to return injured.

Robin was perfectly fine to let Mass properly tend the injuries, but Adam always had to be held down by someone, no matter how small or grievous the injury.

The ache in his chest hasn’t gone away.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/19/2022: THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962)

"PLEASE…LET ME DIE!"

I have a slightly fraught relationship with Mystery Science Theater 3000. For the most part, my feelings are highly positive: Especially in the Joel Hodgson era, the show oozes love, finds pleasure in maligned and forgotten movies, and only veers into negativity when the film is really insulting. In some cases (many, possibly even most!), MST3K renders the unwatchable watchable, opening the viewers' eyes to a whole world of production that they might otherwise consider unthinkable. Occasionally, though, I worry about some of the programming choices. I don't think that the beguiling oddity PHASE IV really deserves to be riffed upon; ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE may be ridiculous, but it knows that and enjoys itself accordingly without anyone's help; and when we get into the territory of a gorgeous work of art like DANGER: DIABOLIK!, it's really like…what the hell are you guys thinking?!

Anyway. Just in case you're worried that I'm about to try to hot take-ify the infamous BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, that's not what's going on here. This is a perfectly absurd, surprisingly gory and sleazy movie with about one page worth of original content couched in enough padding to protect it from a nuclear holocaust. It's the perfect movie for MST3K, and it's a good thing that so many people have seen it that way. Still, I think it has a little more to offer than just being mindbogglingly dumb and incompetent. A little.

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, which crawled so FRANKENHOOKER could run, concerns the exploits of cold-hearted surgeon Bill Cortner (Jason Evers), who is frustrated by the cowardice of colleagues who won't let him randomly experiment on the patients who enter his operating theater. He gets a golden opportunity to dick around in God's domain when his shitty driving decapitates his fiancée Jan (Virginia Leith); he hauls her noggin off to his country estate, where he is fully prepared to preserve her consciousness until a suitable replacement body can be had. While Bill cruises strip clubs and bikini contests for transplant material, Jan discovers that his reanimation techniques have given her psychic powers, and she forms a deadly bond with a Thing (Eddie Carmel) locked in a nearby closet. The two monstrosities plot their bloody revenge amid an avalanche of exciting monologues from Jan about her horrific existence.

In spite of its astounding cheapness and its shred of a plot, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE has a certain amount of chutzpah that makes it endearing, perhaps even uplifting in some perverse way. You think for sure that when Jan wakes up in the pan, it's going to break her heart, but she immediately downshifts to righteous wrath. Virginia Leith reportedly hated this movie, but you wouldn't know it from the gumption she gives her bombastic tirades about how nothing could be more horrifying, and thus more powerful, than herself. Meanwhile, Bill encounters a string of hardboiled adult entertainers who are so streetwise, and so fiercely protective of themselves, that it's actually kind of affecting to watch this seemingly well-heeled doctor slip around their defenses with his veneer of normality in order to do something awful to them.

Adele Lamont in the much shorter, less gory, less nude cut of the movie. Always check your running times!

Of particular interest is poor Doris (Adele Lamont), implied to be a lesbian with the most beautiful body anyone has ever seen, but with a hideously scarred face courtesy of a man who she once "trusted—all the way!" It's painful to watch Bill maneuver relentlessly to gain Doris' hard-won trust, especially since they used to know one another; back in school, Bill defended the disfigured Doris from male mockery after her "accident", and now he's leveraging his heroic track record to fuck up her life even worse. Bill has a Patrick Bateman-like habit of speaking so frankly as to appear to be kidding, escaping all suspicion. He plies Doris with the promise of an experimental makeover, not-joking, "I'm gonna make your face beautiful again. Cut it off and give your body away." Finding this threat impossible to take seriously, Doris relaxes, and heads off to her potentially tragic fate. In this sequence, the padding and repetition almost work to the film's benefit; Doris tries so hard, over and over, to get rid of Bill, that you really wind up feeling like it's not her fault that he eventually bends her to his will. Especially if you've ever been worn down by an ill-intentioned man like this, you gotta feel for Doris.

"A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y." Diane Arbus, 1970

The other cast member you might feel for is the "mass of flesh" made of "broken limbs and amputated arms" that Bill keeps in the closet, played by sideshow performer Eddie Carmel. The "Jewish Giant", made most famous by Diane Arbus, is caked in makeup to make him look optimally freakish, even though "freak" was once an official job title for the actor. Carmel is an interesting guy who also held titles such as mutual funds salesman, standup comedian, and rock singer in the band Frankenstein and the Brain Surgeons. He's worth looking up, even if his presence in this exploitation movie is limited to the finale.

The last thing I'll say about THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE is that it is occasionally stylish, much to my surprise. In between the endless monologues and meandering-around, there are shots that look like cinematographer Stephen Hajnal actually enjoyed setting them up—and there is occasional evidence of some form of humor, like the Grecian-style bust that foregrounds Bill's entrance to the country lab with Jan's severed head under his arm. Just because I noticed this, today I am going to find out if Jennifer Lynch's art house shocker BOXING HELENA would make a good double-bill with THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. I actually feel slightly worse about that movie, since Lynch made it when she was very young, laboring under her own immaturity and her father's towering reputation, which is apt to magnify her youthful mistakes. Somehow that feels just as grim to me as what happens to poor Doris.

Forgive my shitty picture of my TV, I have limited means here!

PS Jennifer Lynch's SURVEILLANCE is one of my absolute favorite recent genre films, in case it sounds like I'm dismissing her outright! It has my highest recommendation.

[theintrepidwoods-blog]

Bit of an eventful morning, Chewie hadn’t been eating and had been unwell, we suspect a corn chip got stuck ( he shall not be getting those anymore) after a trip to Oberon vet (highly recommend lovely vet team!) They suggested we see how he goes with plain cooked chicken, trip to IGA and shredding a chook on the park bench he wolfed it down 🤣

1 hr of walking around and having a run and no return of chicken we were satisfied he wasn’t seriously ill. No on to Meadow Flat to see our gorgeous friends Graeme and Virginia, mum met them years ago when they ran the B’n’B she stayed at in Bathurst and we have been friends ever since.

Graeme and Virginia have setup a beautiful home in the bush, everytime we visit more has been done and it is a joy to survey!

But the real star was Sexy Rexy! Their handsome border collie, he tried long and hard to play with Chew but sadly Chews mind has 1 mode. Tennis balls!

Rexy was the perfect host as were his parents!

After delicious morning tea and Lunch we farewelled our wonderful friends and set our sites for Hill End, directions very reliably provided by Graeme and assisted by Virginia go to the third set of traffic lights and turn right, if you get to Bunnings, you’ve gone to far.

Twilight driving between Sofala and Hill End was a combination of breathtaking scenery and suicidal roos! The last few kilometres I took at max 60km/hr.

Now situated at Hill End Lodge Chewie was asked to play many times by the kelpie pup ‘Ruffnuts’. Poor Ruffnuts🤣

Evening drinks and Dad acted as table for Mum while she completed the days email correspondence.

I am signing off for the evening as I have a Schnitty waiting, I am dining in Room with the canine and they are down at the restaurant with open fire. The things I do for love🤣🐶❤️

[tryc2management]

Are you worried about overwhelming documents and want to get rid of it at your office? Well, old official documents can be sensitive when handed over to vendors for shredding.

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Blind Spot

Spencer Reid x (Gender Neutral) Reader

Word Count: 2640

Warnings: Hair pulling kink! Bucketloads of sexual tension but no actual sex. Gratuitous facts about bird nests. Dorks being oblivious. Lots of fluffy heart-eyed banter. Accusations of intercourse with fictional tree-beasts. 

A/N: I saw a gif that made me want to pull Spencer’s hair. That’s it. I have zero shame. 

For the “friends to lovers” square on my @cmbingo​ card! Proofread by @fangirlxwritesx67​ because she’s the best. 

“You look like you fucked an Ent,” you commented cheerfully, stealing sideways glances at Spencer while you waited for the light to change.  

“Thanks, that’s helpful.” He grimaced, trying to tug another burr out of a snarled curl. 

“Oh my god, you’re just making it worse! I’ll help you when we get back to your place. Leave it, you goober.” 

“Did you just call me a goober?” Spencer asked, trying not to laugh. 

“You’re like the dictionary definition of a goober,” you said fondly. 

“I have three PhDs!”  

“I really wish I’d gotten a video of that tumble, Doctor Goober.” 

Spencer was blushing, grinning down at his lap as he shredded a piece of leaf. It was hard not to stare at him when he smiled like that. 

He’d essentially face-planted into a burr bush earlier, somewhere in the Virginia woods — he’d been so excited about explaining some wonky bit of Star Trek physics theory to you that he just forgot to pay attention to his feet — and he’d floundered out with half a hedge stuck in his hair before picking up exactly where he’d left off. 

In other words, Doctor Spencer Reid was a ridiculous human being. You knew that, objectively. It didn’t stop you from having a massive crush on him. 

Either he was pretending not to notice, to spare your feelings, or he was socially oblivious; you tended to believe the former, considering how well you’d seen him read other people, but you appreciated it. There was a chance you’d make it out of this — if you could just get over it already — with your friendship intact. 

You cleared your throat and told him, “You look like the bastard child of Grandmother Willow and the Wizard of Oz scarecrow.” 

“Even if they were real, the anatomical —” 

“You didn’t mention that when I brought up the Ents. Something you want to tell me about you and Treebeard?” 

“You’re ridiculous,” he huffed, trying to sound exasperated, but he could barely keep a straight face for a second before he was laughing, that scratchy sunny childish giggle that only came out when he was really relaxed and carefree. 

“Close the window before a bird sees you and decides to take up residence.” 

“How about you watch the road?”

“What, no facts about bird nests?” 

“Is that a rhetorical question?” 

“Nope.” 

“Well in that case… gyrfalcon nests are frequently re-used and passed along for generations. The oldest one that’s been discovered was in Greenland, and it was actually estimated to be approximately 2,500 years old.” 

“Seriously?” 

“Yes! In fact…” 

You had to remind yourself, yet again, to stop staring. 

Maybe someday you’d get sick of hearing Spencer talk, but you couldn’t really understand the way most of your teammates reacted to his rambling. Even if you didn’t care about what he was saying, there was something amazing about the way his eyes lit up and his hands fluttered around to illustrate his point.

You parked in front of his building and followed him upstairs. His apartment had become comfortingly familiar — ever since you and Spencer bonded over a shared love of sci-fi, you’d taken to driving him home and, if it wasn’t too late, sticking around for an episode or two of Doctor Who.  

He got his ancient little DVD player up and running, and you settled on the couch, fluffing pillows and shoving aside his nest of colorful crocheted blankets, getting cozy. There was something about Spencer’s space that always felt like home; maybe it was the smell of books, or just the general Spencer-ness of the whole place. 

Just being around him had always kinda felt like home, too. Sometimes you forgot you’d only known him for six months. 

He disappeared into his room for a second and came back with a comb. It was cheap plastic, missing a couple teeth, and looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. You looked from him to the comb and back again. 

“That actually explains a lot,” you said, grinning. Spencer rolled his eyes and sat down on the floor in front of you, leaning back against your shins, and after a dismayed glance at his curls, you commented, “We could always just shave it all off.” 

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer,” he said primly. 

You started with a couple of the less tangled pieces, finger-combing carefully through one soft lock at a time. You half-expected some comment about primates and social grooming, or at least a few facts about the quantum theory behind the TARDIS, but Spencer was uncharacteristically quiet and still, his eyes fixed on the TV. 

You separated out one of the worst knots, and he tilted his head to the side to give you better access. You were being as gentle as possible, but you knew you were hurting him at the first tug — he sucked in a breath, knuckles going white as his fingers clenched on his knees. 

“Sorry, I’m trying,” you sighed. 

With his head tilted like this, you could see the muscle clenching in his jaw and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. 

“S’okay,” he whispered hoarsely. “It’s not — not your fault.” 

He sat there stiffly as you worked. His hair was silky, where it wasn’t hopelessly knotted, and you were close enough that you could smell whatever clean, sweet shampoo he used. Something about it made you want to hold your breath; it felt like you were too close. Spencer rarely let you inside his little bubble of personal space. 

Maybe that was why he seemed uncomfortable. He was usually so fidgety, tapping out a rhythm or twirling a pen between his long fingers, and it was strange to see him motionless like this. 

You ran your fingers through a de-tangled section, slow and careful, and Spencer shivered, his shoulders trembling for a moment before he went unnaturally still again. 

Spencer blurted out, “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

At the same time, you asked, “Are you cold?” 

You paused for a moment, surprised by the reaction, but after hesitating, Spencer just muttered, “Yeah. Cold.” 

You couldn’t shake the feeling that you were missing something. It was too warm, if anything; Spencer had a patchy flush crawling up his neck and over the sharp lines of his jaw and cheekbones. 

“Here you go, goober,” you said, awkwardly cheerful in an attempt to cover your uncertainty as you grabbed an afghan from the couch and draped it around his shoulders. 

“Thanks.” He pulled the blanket down onto his lap without looking at you. “But maybe I should just do this myself.” 

“You’re never gonna get this loose on your own, not without scissors,” you warned, plucking at the knot around the last burr in his hair. “I’ll just, um — I’ll try to be more gentle.” 

“Maybe just go for it,” he said. “Get it over with.” His voice had gone all high-pitched and strained, like he was on the verge of a panic attack. If this was how much he disliked physical contact, no wonder he always avoided hugging you. 

You tried to go quickly, figuring that one quick moment of pain was better than another ten minutes of making Spencer uncomfortable. In your nervousness, you ended up tugging the burr out much more abruptly than you’d intended, and Spencer let out this rough, low, choked-off sound. Before you could apologize, he was jerking away from you, curled in on himself with his shoulders up around his ears like he was worried you were going to hit him, and — 

“Sorry,” he said, voice cracking. 

— what? 

“Spence?” you said tentatively. “What—”

He was still just curled up on the floor in a ball of gangly limbs, but he half-turned to you, twisting around. He wouldn’t make eye contact, though; he was staring intently at the pillow that was on the couch next to you. It felt weird, looking down at him like this, so you slid down onto the floor, hoping it wouldn’t spook him. He shifted back slightly, but at least he didn’t flinch away. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t — this was a bad idea.” 

The profiler in you couldn’t help but notice a few details. He was blushing, for starters. His lower lip was red where he’d been biting it, and — this was the part that surprised you most — his pupils were huge. 

You knew what Spencer looked like when he was panicking, and this wasn’t it. 

“Oh,” you breathed. “Oh.” 

He looked down at his lap, frowning as he played with the loose thread in the cuff of his sweater. 

“Sorry,” he repeated. “I know you don’t feel the same way, I wasn’t trying to — I didn’t realize it would be like that, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, and—”

“Wait, what?” 

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable! I shouldn’t have asked—”

“I don’t feel the same way about what?” 

“I know you’re not attracted to me,” Spencer said, barely audible. 

“You’re… you…what?” 

He looked up, at that, genuinely startled. There was something sweet and vulnerable shining in his eyes, and your heart was racing. You slid a little bit closer, so that your knees were almost touching Spencer’s as you faced each other, cross-legged. 

“I thought you knew.” His hushed, croaky voice broke on the last word. “I thought I was being obvious.” 

You gaped at him for a second before letting out a sharp, hysterical giggle. 

He ducked his head again, hiding behind a curtain of hair, but not before you saw the hurt expression that flashed across his features. 

“No, that’s not—” you blurted out. “Spence. Spencer.” 

“Forget it,” he said sharply, his body going tense like he was about to bolt. “Can we just forget this happened?” 

Before you could think better of it, you reached out and pushed a few curls back behind his ear, and then you grabbed, twisting your fingers in his hair to tug him forward. You cut off the startled noise he made with a clumsy, eager kiss. 

The angle was all wrong, both of you leaning forward awkwardly, but it felt like sparks all down your spine.

You pulled away just far enough to get the words out: “I thought I was being obvious.”  

Then Spencer was surging closer on his hands and knees, crowding into your space, until you had a lapful of rumpled doctor pressing you back against the couch. He cupped your jaw with gentle spidery fingers, gaze locked on your mouth, and leaned in slowly like he was still waiting for you to push him away. 

There was nothing awkward about it this time. If the first kiss was sparks, this was fireworks — it was such a goddamn cliche you wanted to kick yourself for thinking it, but it was true. Your head was spinning. Every pillowy press of his lips and soft slide of his tongue seemed to steal the breath from your lungs. 

By the time you broke apart you were panting, but at least you weren’t the only one. Spencer’s chest heaved as he pulled away. He was still staring at your mouth like he couldn’t help himself. Part of you wanted to kiss him again and maybe never stop, but another part of you was paralyzed, trying to process the fact that this was actually happening. 

You just wanted to put the world on pause so that you could memorize everything: the way he licked his lips, the smell of his laundry detergent, the barely-perceptible movement of his pulse — you’d never seen that before because you’d never been this close to him before. You wanted to hold onto it, even the less-than-perfect details — the soundtrack of buzzy Dalek screeching in the background — the way you were folded together on the floor, all too-long legs and bony elbows, which was going to get uncomfortable fast.  

Spencer seemed to feel the same way. He grazed the pad of his thumb over your lower lip, then followed the curve of your smile out to your temple and traced the shell of your ear with careful fingertips. When he brushed his curled-up fingers along the ridge of your cheekbone, you turned your head and kissed his knuckles.  

His hand came to rest on your shoulder, and you wrapped your fingers around his wrist, holding it in place, feeling the blood and bones shifting under the skin.  

“You really didn’t know?” you whispered. 

He shook his head shyly and gave you one of those incandescent smiles that always made your heart race. “No idea.” 

“I thought you were just ignoring it to spare my feelings,” you confessed. 

“I thought you were doing that.”  

“I thought you were good at your job!” you laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something?” 

“I think I have a blind spot, where you’re concerned.” He was blushing again. “But I was so distracted by you that I walked into a bush! How did you not —” 

“I’m the one who stares at you all the time like a creep.” 

“You thought you were being creepy?” he said sheepishly. “As soon as you started touching my hair — oh my god that’s embarrassing.” 

“That’s not the word I would’ve used.” 

You tangled your fingers in his curls, tugging experimentally. His breath hitched. 

Both of you were utterly still for a moment, watching each other, and the tension between you seemed to fill the air like a living thing. You were excruciatingly aware of all the places your bodies were touching.

You considered all the places you could touch. It would be so easy. You could tug him in, kiss him, melt into each other… there were so many possibilities, suddenly, and there was something incredible about that: the electricity, the excitement, the moment of pure potential in the pause between certainty and action. 

Spencer sighed, long and shaky, and you were so close that you could feel the current of exhaled air. 

“I couldn’t think straight,” he murmured, with a twitch of a smile. “That doesn’t happen to me often.” 

“So you didn’t know…” 

You scritched your fingernails down his scalp, marveling at the way he shivered and swayed closer like he was hypnotized. He curled his hand around the side of your neck, thumb slowly stroking the hinge of your jaw. 

“I knew I liked it,” he confessed. “But — within a certain context? Not out of nowhere like that. I didn’t think it would be... like that.” 

“Like what?”

“Intense.”  

“Yeah?” 

“But I think maybe it’s just you.” His eyes had gone all glassy and heavy-lidded, and you could barely breathe. “Maybe you drive me crazy no matter where you’re touching me.” 

“I can think of a few ways to test that hypothesis.” 

You caught a glimpse of his grin, but then he pressed his forehead to yours and his features went blurry, too close for you to focus.

“Never really thought I’d be into dirty talk, but if you’re going to start quoting the scientific method…” 

“Funny, most of the time you never shut up,” you said, giddy and overwhelmed. 

The tip of his nose brushed yours. There was maybe an inch of space between your mouths, and you wanted to close that gap so badly it felt like a physical ache. 

“I mean, if you want me to start rattling off statistics—” 

“Spencer.” You fisted both hands in his hair, tugging sharply, and he shuddered. “Take a hint.” 

“Blind spot, remember?” he whispered, lips brushing yours as they shaped the words, feather-light and maddening. 

“You know, for a genius—” you started, but he kissed you, hungry and sweet like he was making up for lost time, until you’d completely forgotten what you were going to say. 

.

.

There is now a sexy follow-up here! 

.

If you enjoyed this, please reblog or leave a message! 

[prairiesongserial]

13.2

After the months he and John had spent traveling over desert and abandoned highway, Cody had forgotten what it was like to drive through mountains. He remembered the feeling when the caravan finally passed out of the woods and sped out onto a winding road that seemed to slope up for miles. It curved up the side of one mountain and passed through the valleys between others, dwarfed on every side by great rock structures. The mountains in Oregon had been thick with trees and wildlife, but the mountains of Virginia felt hostile, bare stone unaccompanied by any sort of plant life. The caravan made hairpin turns around unguarded cliffs that promised a sheer drop to a bottom Cody couldn’t see. The absence of muties was a small comfort, but even so, Cody wasn’t sure he wanted to be anywhere that even muties found a difficult place to live.

The sun was only just starting to set, and Cody had been dozing lightly with his head leaned up against John’s leg, when the truck came to a shuddering halt. Cody had originally closed his eyes in an effort to keep himself from looking over the edge of the cliffs, but he opened them now, twisting in the truck bed so he could understand why they had stopped.

The answer was not immediately apparent. The road here was a little wider than it had been earlier, probably because the caravan had stopped in a valley surrounded on either side by tall, sloping walls of reddish rock. Cody could hear Johannes and Ezra snapping at each other somewhere in the distance, but not in English. Their voices bounced off the rock, their echoes talking over each other.

“Why’d we stop?” Cody asked aloud, looking around the truck bed.

“No clue,” Enis said. He’d crammed himself into a corner of the truck bed, sitting on a pile of blankets with a book. Now, he stood up and stretched, planting his hands in the small of his back and bending backwards to crack it. 

“Maybe something happened to one of the trucks farther up,” he suggested. “Wouldn’t be the first time I had to make repairs on the road. Last season, one of the tires shredded -”

“How would you know if something happened?” Val interrupted. Cody glanced at him to find his brow furrowed in concern. Probably worried about Friday, at a guess.

“Someone’ll come back and tell us,” Enis said with a shrug, apparently unconcerned.

Abruptly, Cody felt John’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. He looked up to John, who now sat straight-backed and alert on the milk crate he’d been lounging on just moments before. John tipped his head up towards one of the rock walls.

Cody squinted. The longer he looked at the rock, the more aware he became that there were figures moving across it - and down it, not rappelling but scrambling down the side of the mountain without anything to catch them if they fell. Some of the figures were so high up that they barely registered as humanoid, but the closest ones had made it nearly to the road.

“Muties?” Cody asked. That didn’t seem right, though. These people were human in the way they felt their way down the cliff face, not using the advantage of a mutation. They were scattered, not in a pack, and Cody could see that the ones closest to the caravan were clothed in loose, earth-toned clothing probably meant to camouflage.

“Worse,” Johannes said cheerfully from just next to the truck bed, so sudden and so close that it made Cody jump.

Cody narrowed his eyes. “So a gang, then.”

“Call themselves the Good Guys,” Johannes said. He leaned up against the side of the truck, apparently content to let the gang members come to him, rather than step away from the caravan to meet them. “Parts of these mountains are their turf.”

“You knew they were coming,” John said from behind Cody. A quick glance backwards revealed that he was frowning - not angry, but reproachful.

“Sure, sure,” Johannes said, waving John off. “We always run into them. They charge a toll from everyone who wants to cut through the mountains; it’s the only way to make money out here.”

“But they aren’t usually here,” Ezra said, coming up on Johannes’s heels. He was frowning, same as John, though he looked much more annoyed.

“We usually don’t run into them until nightfall,” Enis chimed in. He was still standing in the truck bed, and had wandered over to join the conversation, looking thoughtful. “I remember you being pissed off last time that it was so late, because you wanted to stop and get the camp set up.”

“Well, clearly they’re expanding their territory,” Johannes said. He had slipped right back into a cheerful, almost playful cadence, and Cody wondered if it wasn’t covering up some hidden annoyance or anxiety. It was hard to tell where the genuine obnoxiousness ended, and the performance began, with Johannes.

“So,” Johannes continued, “we’ll just pay the toll now and be on our way, and won’t have to waste the time at night when we’re already tired. Everyone wins.”

There was a growing unease in the pit of Cody’s stomach that told him this was not going to be as simple as paying a toll. Glancing around, he could tell that most of the people in the truck bed - and Ezra - felt the same. John looked tense, like a dog who had been alerted by a noise he couldn’t identify, and Val’s eyebrows were still drawn together, his forehead creased with worry. Cody reached up to touch the hand John had placed on his shoulder, not sure which one of them he was trying to comfort.

The Good Guys held back, lingering at the edge of the road until the last of them had come down from the side of the mountain. When they approached the caravan, they did so as a group, and Cody was able to get a better look at them. Their clothes looked rough and handmade, and some had bandannas or scarves pulled up around their mouths in a way that reminded Cody of the ones the Dead-Eyes had worn to ride. Their skin was stained with dirt. Some were barefoot. Others wore animal skulls on chains around their necks, or had darkly inked tattoos on their hands and fingers.

The Good Guy who walked at the head of the group was as short as Friday, Cody thought, but carried themself with the gait of someone who refused to make themself small. They were broad, their build easy to guess even in their loose-fitting camouflage, and what seemed like every visible inch of their skin was covered in freckles. A pair of goggles was perched on their forehead, tufts of unruly red hair curling around and over the straps.

“Madsen and Graves,” they said, looking from Johannes to Ezra in turn. Their eyes were a strikingly pale shade of green.

“Good Guys,” Johannes said, with a slight tilt of his head in acknowledgement. He was still leaning against the side of the truck, arms folded over his chest. “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten your name.”

“And you won’t,” the redheaded Good Guy said. They flashed him a crooked grin. “Need to do a head count, if you don’t mind.”

“What?” Ezra asked. The alarm in his voice spoke volumes about how irregular the request was. “For the toll?”

“New policy,” the Good Guy said, in a tone that left little room for argument. They were still grinning. “We’re charging per head.”

The unease in Cody’s stomach was growing. He squeezed John’s hand, still on his shoulder, and coached himself to keep his breathing even. There was always a chance, he tried to assure himself, that the Good Guys really had changed their policy since the circus had last been here, and that they really were expanding their territory. But there was also a chance that the Good Guys had gotten wind that the circus was traveling north with four expensive Hemisphere bounties in tow, and had decided to intercept them before dark.

“Right,” Johannes said, brusquely. He banged his knuckles against the side of the truck. “Everyone out, let’s get this over with.”

He was already leaving before anyone in Cody’s truck could protest, headed towards the next truck down the line in the caravan. Cody watched Johannes stop to talk to the carnies in the truck bed, then move on, apparently determined to get the word out as quickly as possible.

John let go of Cody and got to his feet. His cane had been laid flat in the truck bed behind the milk crate to secure it in place, and he picked it up now, leaning on it. Cody watched him survey the crowd of Good Guys, and saw his eyes narrow.

“You’re supposed to be protecting us,” John said pointedly, to Ezra.

Ezra looked up at John. There was something strained in his expression that Cody couldn’t place.

“We are,” he said. Cody could tell Ezra was struggling to keep his tone even, but a tenseness undercut the words even so.

Cody braced himself against the milk crate and got to his feet beside John. He could see now what John had meant. John’s statement had been controlled, compared to what Cody felt looking across the dusty mass of gang members. He saw yellowed pieces of paper held in the hands of several of the Good Guys. Portraits underscored by names and bounties. Hemisphere wanted posters.

“Well, you’re doing a shitty job,” Cody said, darkly. 

He was remembering the feeling he’d had during the parley at Old Problem, now, the feeling that if he wanted to get out of this alive, he could only trust himself to make it so. He met John’s eyes, and knew John felt the same. He needed a plan.

13.1 || 13.3

[phantoms-lair]

Freaking Out Part 4 (Just giving it it’s name now)

From now on Serious Freakazoid thing is just going to be referred to as Freaking Out

~~

Roddy awoke in pain. His ribs were definitely rebroken and the poor suspension in whatever he was traveling in wasn’t helping. It was far too dark to see, but it was cramped and there was definitely someone in there with him.

“Lad?” he asked as loudly as he dared.

“Mr. McStewart, you’re alive!” Dexter sounded relieved. 

Dear lord, on top of everything else the poor kid probably thought he was locked in the dark with a dead body. “What happened? All I remember is a lot of pain.”

Dexter gulped. “These guys just came through the door and attacked you. I surrendered and they handcuffed me and led me out of the house and dumped up in the trunk of a car. I know it was cowardly but-”

“Lad, it kept ya alive, which fightin back would nae have done.” Roddy’s accent began to thicken, he no longer had the energy to try and speak ‘proper’. “An yer family?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see them on the way out. I think they must have been taken first. Mr. McStewart what’s going on?” Dexter pleaded. Nothing today had made sense.

“How well can ye lie?” Roddy asked. “If Gutierrez even suspects ya know, he’ll not let ya go.”

“With all due respect sir, I’ve been kidnapped and thrown in the back of a trunk. I don’t think letting me go is in the plan.” He could feel the madness bubbling inside his head, but forced it down. He needed to hold himself together as much as possible.

As much as he hated it, the kid was right. Gutierrez obviously didn’t plan on leaving either of them alive. “I used ta work fer Apex as a programmer and engineer. Helped ta develop the Pinnacle chip. But right before it was set ta release I found a bug, a flaw. I tried to get Gutierrez to recall the chip. And he tried ta have me killed. Twice. Ah hid out somewhere he could nae find me, but I created a program to track the flaw should it activate. Which it did today.”

“What’s this flaw? Why is it such a big deal?” A faulty product couldn’t be worth all this.

“It would cause tha chip to download the entire internet on tha computer at an ever increasing speed, causing a catastrophic failure that would inevitably lead to tha hard drive shattering, possibly with enough force ta tear open the tower casing and hit tha user with a barrage a’ shrapnel.”

“But my computer didn’t explode. How did he find me? How did you find me?”

“I imagine he found ya tha same way I did. I made a program to track that sort of mass download the Pinnacle chip would cause. I wanted to give an answer to any potential victims. Gutierrez wants to silence them.”

“That doesn’t explain why my computer didn’t explode.” It was probably the least important part of this, but focusing on the madman who wanted him dead would shred his little remaining sanity.

“I’ve been hiding out in a bunker not far from Luray.” Roddy seemed to ignore the question. “Do you know how to get from Washington to there?”

Dexter was about to say of course he didn’t when the images started flashing in his mind again. Maps detailing directions to Luray, Virginia and information on the caves systems and tourist attractions in the area. “How do I know this? I swear I didn’t before.”

“The reason your computer was saved was the Pinnacle chip routed the download to an external device.” Roddy explained. “One that could handle far more data.”

“What external device? The only other thing touching the computer was...me?” Dexter’s voice went up several octaves. “Are you saying I have the internet in my brain!?”

“I can’t explain it, but it’s tha only thing that makes sense.”

“Except it doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense!” The panic was building faster and faster. He almost felt his mind slip when the vehicle they were in squealed to a stop. The truck opened and one of the kidnappers looked down at them.

“Up and at’em you two. Mr. Gutierrez wants to have a few words with you.”

[langdxn]

sanctum | pre-outpost!michael x fem!reader

SUMMARY: What happened in the 18 months before Michael arrived at Outpost 3. I’m driven by filling in plotholes and this one intrigued me the most. This is my first fic so constructive criticism is more than welcome!

WARNINGS: More fluff than Build-a-Bear, pregnancy and mentions of children, trauma.

WORD COUNT: 1.8k - it’s pretty short for a first attempt but I was cautious about rambling for too long.

“I’m just going to Outposts 1 and 3 to check on their security, my little dove. I’ll return as soon as I can,” Michael breathed into the shell of her ear, scooping his arms around her waist from behind. Protectively placing her hands atop his statement rings and dipping into her shoulder, she clung to his touch as if it were the first time they met.

“I’ll miss you,” she sighed, tracing gentle, reassuring circles over his rings with her fingertips, “we all will.”

Her eyes darted across the room to the dark wooden crib, elaborately carved by her husband’s delicate hands as they waited in Outpost 2 for the right time to execute the next phase of his father’s repopulation plan. She recalled all the days and nights she passed his office expecting to find him nose-deep in important Cooperative paperwork, but instead her eyes fell upon him hunched over a carving knife and a mahogany branch. Stepping towards his desk and deftly sweeping up the discarded shreds of bark that littered the office floor, she examined the intricate flames he was crafting into the wood, her heart igniting with love to the point of implosion.

Sixteen months had passed since they first met in Outpost 2, nestled in a bunker in Beckley, his cerulean eyes meeting hers across the radiation decontamination chamber. She was the grey assigned to spray down his clothing as he entered the hideout, he was the mysterious Mr Langdon everybody immediately feared without really knowing why - everybody except her. She was assigned to the outpost after years of faithful service to the Satanic Church despite her kind nature, after all, nobody was perfect. She hadn’t remained a grey for long as she fell pregnant immediately after her first romantic meeting with Michael on his office desk, scaling the ranks from a mere servant to the outpost’s first lady due to the unplanned yet nonetheless welcome development in their new underground world. Out of the darkness above ground came the new life between the Antichrist and his angel.

“I promise I’ll come home to you and the boys.” He gently lowered his palms to meet her burgeoning bump, reminding himself of how much her womb had provided for him, one heir and another on the way in a matter of weeks. Not long after the arrival of their firstborn son, Damien, Michael and Y/N celebrated their status as new parents in the only way they knew how — between the sheets. The next morning, as they lay basking in the afterglow of an intense night of pure intimacy and love, Michael placed his hand on her abdomen and felt a new life once again.

If she had met the incarnation of Michael that chaired Cooperative meetings months earlier, she would never have stayed. The dictatorial, power-drunk Antichrist with his show-stopping red leather gloves and ominous black coat mellowed immeasurably at the mere suggestion of a family of his own. After the disastrous upbringing he endured, Michael refused to allow such a future for his own children, insisting on catering to Y/N’s every whim at any time of day or night. She gave him purpose, a reason to fight, a family to defend from the wasteland above ground. That said, if he had met her and her calming demeanour a month earlier, he would never have initiated the Apocalypse in the first place.

“Travel safe, please baby? We’ll be right here waiting,” she clasped her hands over his on her abdomen, willing herself not to shed a tear in front of him. The journey ahead of her husband would be treacherous, relying on a solitary pair of horses to carry him between the two outposts and back home again. He had only made this same voyage once since they first met, she had dreaded this day ever since but had remained strong for Michael and their growing family.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered solemnly, snaking his arms around her waist and turning her to face him. As he planted his hands back on her bump, he dropped gracefully to his velvet-clad knees in front of her to level with his new life.

“Daddy’s going to be right back, little one. Don’t go making an appearance before I get back, you hear me in there?” He leant his forehead against the bump and closed his eyes, focusing on the strong heartbeat booming inside. He turned his head to face the crib where the blissfully sleeping Damien lay behind its bars, silently deciding not to wake him before he left so Y/N didn’t face another three hours to attempt to calm his cries.

“Let’s renew our vows when you come home,” she suggested as he rose to his feet. Michael beamed from ear to ear and nodded in agreement, while his eyes flashed with her thoughts of their wedding in the outpost just before Damien arrived. A dark affair of course, his bride wore black, an endlessly elegant gown cascading into a deep blood red as the taffeta reached the floor. Michael was always dressed for a wedding so he donned his favourite matching velour dress suit, with a single black rose threaded through his lapel. Fellow Outpost 2 residents Jeff Pfister and Mutt Nutter served as best man and maid of honour respectively. Y/N mercifully allowed her maid to attend without the embarrassment of a dress, Mutt’s unusually groomed beard offsetting his velvet suit in a most uncomfortable display for the typically slothful office-dwelling creature.

Silently acknowledging the urgency of his timely departure, Michael placed a deep, haunting kiss on Y/N’s lips as he ran his fingers through her raven black hair for one last time. Without the strength to say a proper goodbye, he closed his eyes and turned on his heels to charge out of their bedroom door. He wanted so desperately to look back, but then he might never leave.

The cold breeze grazing her bump signalled his departure and as she watched his angelic curls and velour coat tails make their way to the exit, she whispered to herself.

“Please don’t go."

———

Michael spent an arduous, mind-numbing fortnight examining the security procedures at Outpost 1 in New York. There was to be no unofficial communication with the ominous blonde Cooperative representative for the duration of his stay. Agents and informants flitted in and out of his makeshift office during the day, while the night would be spent alone in his quarters catching up on sleep or waiting to communicate with his wife after she finished her official duties in his absence. Tonight, a knock on the bedroom door broke the aching silence.

“Mr. Langdon,” a stern voice called from beyond the door. Michael could barely contain his rage at being disturbed when he had important emails to write, particularly one to his wife to let her know he was thinking of her and would be home soon. “A message has arrived for you, sir.”

She’s sent me a carrier pigeon? Michael thought, wracking his brains as to why his wife would require the archaic communication format over a simple email. Had the power gone down at the outpost? Was there something wrong with the baby? Had their son arrived too early? He slammed his laptop shut, rushing to swing open the door and nearly bumped into the grey behind it, holding a small copper tube in his hand.

“Give that here,” he hissed as he grabbed it impatiently from the grey's clutches, his hands shaking as he fumbled to find the end of the scroll inside, yanking it completely out of its casing. As Michael’s eyes laid upon the Cooperative’s signature obnoxious font filling the small sheet, his heart sank.

OUTPOST 2 HAS BEEN OVERRUN. CANNIBALS HAVE RAVAGED THE COMPOUND. MR. JEFF PFISTER AND MR. MUTT NUTTER ARE HEADING FOR THE SANCTUARY. INITIATE SANCTUARY RELOCATION IMMEDIATELY.

No word of his wife and children.

Michael's mind was already halfway to West Virginia before he shoved the grey out of his path and barrelled towards the exit. Throwing on a radiation suit as fast as he could on the way, he unchained his black horses from the Outpost gates and hurriedly connected them to the front of his bleak carriage. Bundling himself into the back, he cracked the driving whip furiously in a blind rage. 

——— A month later ———

The foreboding gates to the Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men bowed to the presence of Michael’s carriage through the toxic mist, issuing a welcome to the last remaining sanctum, Outpost 3. Two figures in dark radiation suits paced towards his vehicle wielding archaic weapons, Michael exited the vehicle and aimed his Cooperative identification card in their view. 

“Tend to the animals,” He dismissed in the direction of the figure he assumed to be Ms Mead, pacing towards the familiar school entrance. He would not be needing their assistance anymore.

His initial day of formalities and informing the outpost’s population of the developments outside of the confines of the former academic institution culminated in a meeting with the outpost’s leader, Ms Wilhemina Venable. Ushering the lavender-clad woman into the gloom of his office beside a roaring fire he conjured minutes earlier, Michael swallowed hard as he prepared to inform her of his journey that lead to Outpost 3. The length and trauma of the journey had hardened his resolve, returning to the arrogant facade shown only to the esteemed members of the Cooperative.

“You’re the leader in here. You need to understand what’s at stake, what’s really going on out there.” He slumped into a leather chair beside the ferocious flames, gesturing to the stern female to join him in an adjacent seat.

“On the way here, I came across a woman. A young mother with two children. They were some of the unlucky ones who were far enough from the blast radius to survive the fireball but not the radiation.” Michael raised an arm in demonstration, a chink emerging in his assertive facade as he detailed a vision more painful than he could bear.

“They were covered in tumours, sores, their lungs were burnt from the toxic air.” Molten tears coursed from both eyes, tracking multiple scorching routes down his countenance as he choked on his thoughts. His fists clenched and his throat constricted, memories searing before they reached his tongue, his steely demeanour long since departed.

“After a few moments, I realised that the child she was carrying in her arms was already dead. She was begging for us to murder her other child out of pity. Mercy. She didn’t have the strength to do it herself so she prayed for someone to come along and do it for her.”

“Did you?” Ms Venable queried. 

A single tear rolled down his pale cheek.

“No.”

---- read part ii here ----

[amelia-pinches]

some of the HOA characters’ personal playlists PT 1

Patricia: Fine, Great by Modern Baseball, Brave as a Noun by AJJ, Your Graduation by Modern Baseball, Rock Bottom by Neck Deep, Monsters by Slaughter Beach Dog, Garden (Say it like dat) by SZA, I’m My Own Doctor by Remo Drive, Laughing Makes It Worse by Michael Cera Palin, Seashore by The Regrettes, Ladylike/WHATTA BITCH by Regrettes

Eddie: Death Cup by Mom Jeans, Better Than Me by Brobecks, Father by The Front Bottoms, Shred Cruz by Mom Jeans, Sober by FIDLAR, Edward 40Hands by Mom Jeans, Girl Scout Cookies by Mom Jeans, Talk Too Much by COIN, Southern Comfort by Michael Cera, West Virginia by The Front Bottoms

Fabian: Move Along by All-American Rejects, Camouflage by The Front Bottoms, Tears Over Beers by Modern Baseball, Learning to Dance by Whitehall, Ready To Let Go by Cage The Elephant, Say it Ain’t So by Weezer, The Cult of Dionysus by The Orion Experience, This Feeling by Alabama Shakes,, You Are Going To Hate This by The Frights, Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles

Jerome: If You Know That I’m Lonely by FUR, Be Nice to Me by The Front Bottoms, Cannibal Queen by Miniature Tigers, Beverly Hills by Weezer, How Do You Love by The Regrettes (also fits Patricia really well), Colorblind by Movements, Scrawny by Wallows, Beachboy by McCafferty, Fill in the Blank by Car Seat Headrest, Joyriding by Frank lero, 

Joy: Bill Collectors Theme Song by Apes of the State, Electric Love by BORNS, Hey Now by The Regrettes, Lonely People by Orla Gartland, Hard Times by Paramore, Fake Happy by Paramore, Let’s Dance to Joy Division by The Wombats, Lonely Eyes by The Front Bottoms, Preoccupied by Slow Pulp , First by Cold War Kids

Alfie:  Take a Walk by Passion Pit, Short Skirt/Long Jacket by Cake, Boys Will Be Bugs by Cavetown, Valentine by Atlas, Hazel by Roy Blair, Dennis by Roy Blair, Grow Up by Roy Blair,  Jane by Roy Blair, Redbone by Childish Gambino, I.V. Sweatpants by Childish Gambino

Amber: Rules by Doja Cat, Seventeen by Peach Pit, Dancing Queen by Abba,  Flaming Hot Cheetos by Clairo, Wait a Minute! by Willow, Pull Up by Nicotine, Televised by HUNNY, Dumb Blonde by Dolly Parton (Nina showed her this song), Dead to Me by Kali Uchis, Go To Town by Doja Cat

Nina: Two Doors Down by Dolly Parton, Baby I’m Burning by Dolly Parton,  We Didn’t Start The Fire by Billy Joel. Jolene by Dolly Parton, All-American Girl by Carrie Underwood, Our Song by Taylor Swift, Picture to Burn by Taylor Swift, When It Rains It Pours by Luke Combs, I Got the Boy by Jana Kramer, Sunday Morning Coming Down by Johnny Cash

Mara: Boys by Beach Bunny, Forgiveness by Paramore, Sports by Beach Bunny, Pretty Girl by Clairo, Monopoly by Ariana Grande, Thank u, Next by Ariana Grande,  4EVER by Clairo, Turn by The Wombats, Don’t Start Now by Dua Lipa

Willow: Scorpio Rising by Soccer Mommy, My Jinji by Sunset Rollercoaster,  In The Middle by Dodie, In My Dreams by Kali Uchis, Boredom by Tyler, The Creater ft Rex Orange County & Anna of the North,  Cyber Stockholm Syndrome by Rina Sawayama, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Dream Acadamy, Song For Guilty Sadist by Crywank, 

K.T: Shut Up Kiss Me by Angel Oslen, Kids In America by Kim Wilde, Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House (I feel like K.T really likes 80′s music.), Take Me by Aly & AJ, See You Again by Tyler, The Creator ft Kali Uchis,, American Boyfriend by Kevin Abstract,  Miserable America by Kevin Abstract, Girls by Beastie Boys, 

[austennerdita2533]

A/N: This is my contribution to the final Klaroline Vaycay Exchange for the lovely @3tinkgemini. Thanks for a fantastic exchange everyone!

Summary: Klaus and Caroline were young, impetuous, and deeply in love when they married. But now, six years later, they're estranged for reasons that've caused her to flee from the first home they built together and him to retreat into his art and his grumpy, reclusive ways. What happens when she turns up back in Virginia on a whim? Can he convince her to stay? 

(All Human + Sweet Home Alabama AU + Humor + Light Angst)

(FF.net)(A03)

Enjoy!

xx Ashlee Bree

Klausabama Peaches

The crunch of car tires filled the air.

Blue eyes widened in uncertainty then narrowed in anticipation from where a man stood, rigid, behind the screen door of a large enclosed porch. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, expression teetering somewhere between fraught and restless as he watched a fancy car jostle down the bumpy lane toward his home slower than a snail. Jagger bushes and low-drooping branches scuffing its sides all the way.

The weedy drive was tricky to maneuver by vehicle. Divots and overgrown foliage cluttered all sides, all angles, making steering both slow and laborious. Worse, it was a purposeful landscape he’d pruned in a buck wild fashion a few years back so that the locals gave him privacy. Or better yet, stayed away.

Most people had interpreted this want of seclusion as artistic in nature, or as a part of his “creative process” for the renown commissions he earned in cultural hubs all over the world, so they let him fester there, crankily, on his own much of the time. Refraining from bothering him for anything besides town improvement donations or Halloween. The latter inconvenience, in particular, was a consequence of the town kids glorifying him into a snarling spectre-like legend who only the “daring” or “brave” visited for candy to see if they could survive his wrath before he sliced their ding-dong-ditch feet at the tendon. A Disturb Me and Die sign flapping from his gate in warning all 365 days. 

It’s how the property had acquired the name Klausabama in the first place: for both its southern outskirt location and its sequestered, testy owner who disliked company, concern, or cute and curious new faces.

But a select few - his siblings, mostly - knew that this place was so much more to him than a private island of artistic virtuoso. It was where his mind replayed every memory, every moment. It was where his heart lived and ached…

Still toiling over the lovely life he’d nearly had, then lost all the same.

His happiness had tipped over an edge just out of reach for reasons that’d seemed ludicrous and unjust to him then; and, now, felt like a punishment that would never end. That is, until Rebekah called him yesterday.

“You what?” Klaus had growled into the phone, smeared in an array of colors from fingers to bicep. “When? Why now?”

“How the bloody hell should I know!? It’s not like there’s a low-jack stamped to her ass, Nik. But soon. Probably within the next day or so,” she said.

“Never low-jack a gal’s bum without permission or else she’ll grow sore with you,” Kol piped in from somewhere in the background.“I’m afraid I learned that one the hard way myself.”

“You don’t say,” Klaus replied drily. He rubbed at his pounding temples. Then blinked to appease the burning in his eyes, which were bloodshot from lack of sleep and too much bourbon.“Please tell me our brother’s infantile charms weren’t wasted on her today at least, Rebekah? May God grant me that one reprieve.”

“Thankfully, no,” his sister replied.

“Oi! That’s judgmental, you prats!”

“Not if it’s true, idiot,” Rebekah hissed.

“Careful,” Kol said in a mischievous lilt, the crinkling laughter around his mouth almost audible from half a world away. “Those are fighting words.”

“Oh, don’t you dare! Stay away from me with that! Do something, Enzo,“ she begged, “stop him, stop him!”

There was some banging commotion on the other end of the line then—a slap or two followed by some whispering, a shriek, dropped silverware, scudding chairs, and a threat of castration if he “pinched her there again.” All of which was punctuated by Kol and Enzo’s uproarious chuckling.

After a few more moments of this, the three of them now more than a little short of breath, Rebekah shushed them so she could resume her conversation with Klaus, who was growing more and more impatient the longer he waited for an explanation.

“Continue, please,” he said at last. “I haven’t got idle time to waste.”

“Too busy thinking the day away, are you, mate?” Enzo said tauntingly.

“Talk, sister,” he demanded.

“The gist of it is this: I bumped into her at Fashion Week in Paris. We chatted about her new I Fancy You clothing label then went to a late lunch at that café off the Seine you love so much…where I may or may not have mentioned that you’d turned into the most peevish, miserable, hopeless recluse alive since The Event. Which you have,” she added honestly, also a little guiltily.

“Then, before I knew it, something seemed to click in her head because she was throwing plastic at the bill, intent as a bloody hawk on catching the next flight there. Straight away.”

“So, essentially that means—”

“It means I’d buckle up if I were you, Klausy,” Enzo had warned seconds before the call went dead, “because the ball and chain is on her way…”

The red convertible rolled to a stop in the gravel drive at the same moment Klaus stepped out onto the back porch landing and into the pale sunshine of a late September morning. Scratching at his day five stubble with a paint-splotched hand, he leaned his left hip against the stair post, rested an elbow against the white railing, then watched as a pair of long bare legs footed in Monolo Blahninks climbed out of the driver’s seat.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my long lost Mystic peach herself back from the City of Lights! Howdy there,” Klaus said in squinted greeting, a hand over his brow like a visor. “And to what do I owe this overdue pleasure, peaches?”

Scowling up at him, Caroline threw her purse over her shoulder. The car door slammed behind her. “You know I hate it when you call me that.”

“Oh? Since when?” he said.

“Since always. I’m not from Georgia.”

“My apologies then,” Klaus said with a bow of his head, lingering over the last word in the provoking drawl she once knew like a second language, “peaches.”

“God, and to think I haven’t had to deal with infuriating nicknames for years now.”

“Is that so?” A smirk slid across Klaus’s lips, and although it was meant to appear complacent and unbothered, it came out feeling rather stiff. “How many, I wonder? Shall we count them out loud together?”

“Let’s not.”

They were no longer talking about nicknames, and Caroline knew it. Still, he raised a hand and rattled them off his fingers, anyway.

“One year…two years…three, four, five…six.”

“Look—”

“What? Do you want the days, months, and hours, too?” he asked.

Frustrated, Caroline’s hand curled harder around her purse straps.

“Listen—” She ran her tongue across her bottom row of teeth, grunting out a tight smile as she tramped through the backyard grass toward a cobblestone sidewalk. “How about we cut the rustic charm and cluelessness, okay? It’ll make this whole process a lot easier on the both of us,” she said.

“Sorry, darlin’, but I reckon I don’t know what ‘this process’ is supposed to mean. Care to elaborate?”

“No. Not when we both know it’s pointless and unnecessary.”

“Well, shucks, you got me there, dumplin’,” he said with a rap of his knuckles against the railing as she approached.

“Oh my God, would you knock it off with the lame southern endearments and dropped consonants already!?” Caroline asked with a barely repressed huff.

“Naw. What for, sweetheart?”

“I mean, seriously, Klaus. Stop pretending like you don’t know why I’m here. Katherine and Bonnie already told me Rebekah phoned ahead.”

“You quite liked those endearments once upon a time, if I’m not mistaken, love,” Klaus said, redirecting the conversation to avoid the brunt of this reunion a little while longer. His bravado mask slipped a little with the clench of his jaw, however; and with the slight downturn of his mouth. Voice rawing slightly, “What’s changed?”

Caroline paused on the sidewalk. Her brow arched, but her head was heavy with some emotion hidden behind her designer sunglasses as she tilted it up to look at him.

“Nothing,” she said. Sighing, her arms rose then fell back against her sides with a hollow laugh. “Everything.”

“How contradictory.”

Klaus peered down with crossed arms as she approached the stairs, his gaze roving over the little Parisian dress she wore and how it clung to her hips in all the right places. The fabric was made out of a sheer icy blue, sharp seams, and was as daring as a glacier in v-neck plunge. Sleeveless and tapered just above the knee, it was striking and bright yet elegant in a way that almost seemed to refract the light as she moved toward him. Prickly beams of watery gold cascaded down her legs, dancing across her tiny waist to shine the ground near her feet. Shimmering in aura around her.

The fitted skirt rippled slightly higher and higher up her thighs with each step forward, making him nostalgic for those old college days when their love was young and still untested enough for his fingers to graze her skin through the holes of her worn-out patchwork jeans in stolen moments in the art studio, during Black and White night at the dilapidated drive-in theater down the road, after particularly violent arguments about the future with his stepfather, Mikael; then later, in quiet moments before dawn when she was bent over their kitchen table covered in yards and yards of vibrant fabric because she was too inspired to sleep. It made him hungry for the opportunity to lift these new ritzy designs off her body with his thumbs, then shred the brands into no-name buttons with the gentle nipping of his teeth. He wanted to zip his way down and across Caroline’s body so she’d remember it all. Everything.

But especially…he especially wanted her to remember how well they’d always fit together. And how they still would.

Klaus would feel more at ease right now if he knew he could keep her stilettos from puncturing his gut if she decided to resist what lay between them again. If he only knew she wouldn’t kick him and run off with his heart today.

“First off, you’re British,” Caroline continued, her heels clicking up step after step until she reached the landing where he waited, “so your fake accent is disorienting. Second, you and I both know southern slang isn’t part of your pretentious Cambridge vocabulary. And third, you know damn well why I’m here so cut. the. freaking. crap.”

“I beg your pardon, love, but this is how simple, settled, country boys talk,” Klaus countered as he ushered her through the screen door. It swung shut like an old chapter behind them: with a well-worn creak. “Or perhaps you’ve been gone too long to remember, hm?”

“Last I checked, so-called simple country boys didn’t live on sprawling multimillion dollar plantations in Virginia, either. But, hey, what do I know?” she said with a trite laugh, gesturing at the main house across the way.

“You’re the one who wanted a spacious vacation home in your hometown, if I recall.”

“Point being?”

“No point. Just relaying a fact.”

“Smart ass,” she muttered under her breath.

With his mouth bent near her golden head Klaus pressed a hand against the small of her back and drank in her familiarly strange scent as they crossed through the kitchen. Then into a sunroom which sat facing a quaint dock and a silvery green lake.

“I’m afraid six years away would smog even the most fashionable of brains, truth be told. It’s simply surprising to me you remembered our old address is all,” Klaus remarked pointedly.

“Yes, well, you look no hungrier than when I last saw you,” Caroline said glazing over his last comment. “Though you’re in desperate need of a good shave.”

“You mean before you left that ‘gone grocery shopping’ post-it, hopped on a plane to New York, then phoned to say you were never coming home?”

“Maybe.” She appraised him cooly from head-to-foot, running her hand through his scraggly beard before she thought better of it and realized touching him was no good. Not when she couldn’t disguise the hitch of her breath, anyway. “By the way, when is the last time you took a razor to your face?” she asked.

“Not all artists must starve or shave, Caroline, but I assure you most of us suffer all the same,” Klaus replied as he leaned into her touch. He’d quite missed the warmth of her palm, the softness of her skin, so he wasn’t eager for it to melt away so soon.  

“Meaning you?”

“Me more than most, I’d wager.”

She scoffed, but it didn’t match the flicker of woe on her face.

“So you say, Mikaelson.”

“Look around if you don’t believe me,” he said with a wave.

Clonking against his shoulder then, rolling her eyes (albeit a little distractedly), she veered away to circle a coffee table that was cluttered with canvases, paint brushes, and sculpture clay. She ran her fingers across his half-finished creations, sifted through a few balled-up sketches of her face and dark-themed paintings pocked in loneliness with a creased forehead and a contrite smile, clearing her throat before he could dissect the plaintiveness of her movements. Then she plopped down into an old rocker, her purse on her lap.

“You always were dramatic, weren’t you?”

A manila folder appeared in her hand. Clearing a space, Caroline set it on the surface between them. Sliding it toward him with her index finger.

“Stubborn, too,” she added as she flipped to the signature page.

“Ah, yes. Says the woman - my darling estranged wife—” Klaus said while he dragged a chair across the floor, slamming it, and himself, down into it in a backward straddle with a growl, “who’s decided to blow through my door like a tumbleweed after over half a decade away. But go on. Continue to call me stubborn and dramatic, by all means.”

“You knew where I was, Klaus. Why I had to—”

“Why you had to go, yes,” he finished for her gruffly, compressing his lips.

Nodding, refusing to look up, Caroline tucked a curl roughly behind her ear while she tore through the pockets of her handbag in search of a pen. “Good. I’m glad you understand.”

“Perhaps I do, perhaps I don’t. It doesn’t matter since I cannot sign these today. I just—” Sighing, his two front teeth scraped over his bottom lip. He lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug as he stood to grab and tuck the divorce papers under his armpit. “I won’t do it. I’m sorry.”

Caroline’s hands ceased their jittery rummaging for a moment when he uttered these words. Her eyes flicked to his face like a dart in exacting scrutiny and curiosity, her handbag slipping from her lap to the floor with a resounding thud.

“You have no choice. It’s…it’s why I came back here,” she said.

“Is it?” Quizzical, Klaus tilted his head to fix her with a look. “Is it truly?”

“Of course it is! It’s not like I wanted to do this in person or anything, okay? I mailed and re-mailed those documents to you a good two dozen times,” Caroline exclaimed a little too forcefully, her voice cracking. Emotion climbing so high between them she sprang to her feet in front of him. “But as usual, like the selfish stubborn bastard you know you are sometimes, you gave me no choice but to come back here to face you, didn’t you? No choice at all.”

“No need to lie, sweetheart.”

“Excuse me!?”

“You wanted to see me again. I see it in your eyes,” he said, “I hear it in the way your pulse thumps when you think I’m about to touch you.”

“Don’t,” Caroline responded hoarsely. Shaking her head, pain stinging the corners of her eyes now, she raised a hand between them almost in barrier. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what, peaches? Be honest?” Stepping forward, Klaus reached out a hand to brush a fallen curl off her cheek to which she reacted with a sniff. With a leaning-in sigh. “I can feel how much you miss me.”

“I said don’t,” she pleaded.

There was so much hollow frustration and anger tied up in tenderness when Caroline looked at him here that it was difficult to tell what she wanted more: to kiss him or to kill him? Which, oddly enough, made Klaus breathe a little easier (it made him want to chuckle, frankly) because this felt familiar somehow. It was much closer to the-tempestuous-girl-in-denial meets the-persistent-yet-emotionally-damaged boy they’d both been when they first met as teenagers at George Mason University. He, a sophomore exchange student from Cambridge studying art and business; she, a small-town freshman on scholarship for business and marketing with minors in communications and design.

This, right now, was how their relationship had always functioned in the past. Teetering on the edge somewhere between passion, pain, and promises yet to be made. In a weird way, it was comforting to know that hadn’t changed. Except, today, they’d finally reached an impasse she wouldn’t be able to navigate around.

(Not for much longer, at any rate.)

“Mikael might have poisoned your mind with lies about me, about us and our impetuous marriage at ages 20 and 21 respectively,” Klaus continued, “but I never wanted anything he offered. Not my trust fund…not a job at his corrupt company…nothing. Don’t you understand I would’ve slain the whole bloody world to make you happy, to bolster the fashion dreams you were determined to pursue regardless of what that damned man plotted against me? Don't you know I’d follow you anywhere? That I’d fight forever to give you everything you want?”

Standing and retreating toward the window, Caroline’s tears pooled against her lashes as she lifted her wobbling chin to say, “I don’t—I don’t understand what you…”

Without hesitation, Klaus slid the divorce papers out from under his arm and ripped them in halves, then in quarters, then in eighths last to show her how much he meant this. It wasn’t a crime to need her then, and it sure as hell wasn’t a crime to need her now, so he let the vulnerability he hated so much sprinkle onto the hardwood with those unsigned documents like snow. Crunching them beneath the tread of his shoes while he lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m saying I meant my vows. All I wanted was you back then, peaches,” he explained, heart in his throat, “I’m saying I still do. Isn’t it obvious by now that this is the kind of truth that won’t change no matter what? Can’t you see, can’t you feel how much I still adore you?”

Caroline couldn’t bring herself to answer him; she couldn’t speak. But when she next moved, her tears mixed with the crushing rush of her arms around his middle made the words ‘I do’ superfluous, anyway.

[aion-rsa]

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 8 Review: The Door

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This Fear the Walking Dead review contains spoilers. 

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 8

Well, damn. This is a real heartbreaker of an episode, isn’t it? If you haven’t heeded the spoiler warning above, here’s another one for you: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD for this episode. If for some reason you jumped straight to this review without first watching “The Door,” I strongly recommend that you rectify that right now. 

In a show that so often trucks in death, this one hurts a lot. Yes, John Dorie is dead. 

Unlike Morgan’s somewhat ambiguous fate in last season’s “End of the Line,” there’s absolutely no shred of doubt here. And unlike Madison and Nick, there are no hinky time jumps, no red herrings. By hour’s end, John isn’t just dead, he’s undead—and we all know there’s no amount of plot armor that can bring someone back from that. 

After almost three seasons, John Dorie receives a proper final episode to send him off to that great beyond. Over the course of the hour, Fear the Walking Dead tries and succeeds in tugging at our collective heartstrings. After all, John was the show’s one and only hopeless romantic, a sensitive gunslinger who eschewed killing. He will be missed, and so will Garret Dillahunt. 

As far as last days go, John’s was emblematic of his good-natured persona. In his final hours, he sought to help those closest to him, namely Morgan and Dakota. This is part of this episode’s brilliance, keeping things focused on this trio. The result produces an unlikely Venn diagram with Virginia’s sister in the center. Because as we learn, Dakota is the canny yet jaded arbiter of who lives and who dies. 

While it was fairly obvious a few episodes back that Dakota murdered Cameron to cover her tracks, it was less obvious that she was Morgan’s mysterious savior. “The Door,” penned by showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss, is brimming with great dialogue. One bit that stands out is Dakota’s chilling assessment of the status quo: “It’s just how life is now. People kill, people die,” she says matter-of-factly. 

Of course, this doesn’t sit well with John. To him, every life and every death carries a lot of weight. Otherwise, what’s the point? Like Morgan, John has had his fill of killing. Both men are pacifists in a world defined by constant death and destruction. In another great line, Morgan remarks to Dorie, “These times, John. They make us men we tried so hard not to be.” 

Read more

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Will Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 Bring Back Madison Clark?

By Joseph Baxter

It must be said that Dillahunt, Lennie James, and Zoe Colletti all hit it out of the park, immersing themselves in their characters’ pathos and desperation. As we know, in this godforsaken world, no one can outrun their past mistakes for very long. Thanks to Dillahunt, James, and Colletti, we see how the daily act of survival is a heavy burden to bear.  This has always been baked into Fear the Walking Dead, though, this inescapable notion that regret and redemption drive characters forward in hopes of becoming better versions of themselves. Even John, one of the show’s purest characters, is consumed by doubt and self-recrimination. 

If anyone can understand the darkness clouding John’s mind, it’s Morgan. In trying to recruit John to his cause, Morgan’s comment, “I found Grace” can be read two ways. Yes, he found someone he cares deeply about, but he’s also found renewed purpose by creating a new settlement. Whether this dual meaning is intentional or not isn’t important. The fact that any subtext might exist speaks a lot to Morgan’s larger character arc. 

The same can be said for John’s explanation that a new door for his cabin isn’t meant for keeping people out. “It’s to keep the passed from getting at me, after I do what I need to do.” This can be read two ways, too. John is haunted by past mistakes, but everyone is haunted by the passed (John’s term for the undead). To me, this episode merits high marks for these lines of dialogue alone. There is an inherent logic and believability to these characters and their motivations in “The Door” that was sorely lacking in some of this season’s earlier episodes—most notably in “Damage from the Inside.”

“The Door” is careful to balance out the human drama with moments of intense zombie action. The bridge-clearing scene in particular is especially gruesome and violent. All three are committed to getting through that horde, working in tandem to forge ahead, earning every bit of ground along the way. It’s an interesting bit of symbolism that the cabin doors are literally keeping the passed at bay. Minutes later, after John finds himself in the river with a bullet in his chest, it’s the yellow door that bears him downriver. 

In the end, John washes up at his lonely little cabin, now one of the passed himself. Of course, it’s a stunned June (Jenna Elfman) who finds John. The camera lingers a long time on his vacant expression as he crawls toward her through the mud. It’s fitting that their union would end in the very place where it began back in season 4’s beautiful “Laura.” June, nee Laura, deals the killing blow with a knife to John’s head. It’s not a good death, but his was a life well lived. 

We do check in with Dwight and company just long enough to set the stage for an inevitable showdown. John’s death will likely shape the remainder of season 6, too. Surely Morgan runs the risk of losing himself again, now that his best friend is gone. As for Dakota, it’s anyone’s guess if she’ll make it to the end of the season. If Charlie can find redemption for her actions as a former Vulture, I suppose Dakota might find salvation, too. 

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I’d like to think it’s what John Dorie himself would have wanted, this chance for Dakota to discover a better version of herself. 

The post Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 8 Review: The Door appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[livinginlandmarketing]

The mother of one of the two shooters in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack was sentenced to six months of home confinement and three years of probation on Thursday, Feb. 11, for shredding a document that her son had drawn up as a roadmap for the siege that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others.

Rafia Sultana Shareef, 67, of Corona, also known as Rafia Farook, pleaded guilty in March to one count of destroying evidence, a felony that could have left her serving up to 20 years in federal prison.

But under a plea agreement, she faced at most 18 months in custody when sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Jesus G. Bernal in Riverside.

Before she was sentenced, Shareef apologized to the handful of victims and survivors of the attack by her son and daughter-in-law who were in attendance.

“I pray for each of your family members,” she said, looking directly at the gallery.

Shareef, reading from a statement, then pivoted and apologized to the judge for her crime: “I am sorry for what I did.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Julius Nam had asked for nine months in prison and three years of probation.

“The defendant chose to deliberately destroy a document that was central to the understanding of the planning,” Nam said.

Bernal struggled with his sentencing decision right up to announcing it, saying it was “borderline” whether Shareef should be locked up. Ultimately, he chose house arrest, citing Shareef’s age, health and the physical and mental abuse she had suffered in an apparent arranged marriage.

“We must keep in mind that it was her son, and maybe she acted instinctively to protect him,” Bernal said.

Some family members of the victims were livid. Gregory Clayborn, whose daughter Sierra was killed, cursed as he left the courtroom.

Rosa Ortiz, whose nephew Kevin Ortiz survived several gunshot wounds, said she was disappointed that Shareef didn’t receive prison time. Ortiz then confronted Shareef as Shareef waited for an elevator after the hearing.

“I hope you live with your guilt the rest of your life. You’re a terrible mother!” Ortiz shouted.

Outside court, attorney Charles D. Swift acknowledged that the community at large also would likely be disappointed with his client’s sentence:  “They are looking for a vessel for that grief. But Mrs. Shareef isn’t a vessel for that grief.”

Related links

FBI reassembles shredded plan for 2015 San Bernardino terrorist shooting

FBI reassembles shredded plan for 2015 San Bernardino terrorist shooting

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20 years for man who supplied guns in San Bernardino mass shooting

The FBI became aware of what prosecutors call “the attack plan” a few years after the shooting while interviewing family members. It was largely reassembled from thin paper strips into a readable form.

The plan listed tasks to be completed in the week before the shooting, such as destroying electronics that authorities could use to track the killers, and buying parts to help make IEDs. Many of the tasks were completed.

Rafia Sultana Shareef, also known as Rafia Farook, mother of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, leaves the U.S. District courthouse with her attorney Charles Swift following her sentencing hearing in downtown Riverside on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. Farook, who was found guilty of destroying evidence, was sentenced to three years probation and six months home confinement. Syed Rizwan Farook along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the terrorist attack in San Bernardino on Dec. 2, 2015. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Rafia Sultana Shareef, also known as Rafia Farook, mother of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, leaves the U.S. District courthouse following her sentencing hearing in downtown Riverside on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

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Rafia Sultana Shareef, also known as Rafia Farook, mother of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, leaves the U.S. District courthouse with her attorney Charles Swift following her sentencing hearing in downtown Riverside on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. Farook, who was found guilty of destroying evidence, was sentenced to three years probation and six months home confinement. Syed Rizwan Farook along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the terrorist attack in San Bernardino on Dec. 2, 2015. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Rafia Sultana Shareef, also known as Rafia Farook, mother of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, leaves the U.S. District courthouse with her attorney Charles Swift following her sentencing hearing in downtown Riverside on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Rafia Sultana Shareef, also known as Rafia Farook, mother of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, leaves the U.S. District courthouse with her attorney Charles Swift following her sentencing hearing in downtown Riverside on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

A television news crew sets up outside of the U.S. District courthouse in downtown Riverside as it prepares for Rafia Sultana Shareef, also known as Rafia Farook, to be sentenced on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

A shredded document reassembled by the FBI shows plans by the shooters in the week leading up to the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino, authorities say. The checklist, which was included in a sentencing proposal for Rafia Sultana Shareef that was filed by the government, included practicing at a shooting range, destroying hard drives and transferring money to Shareef’s bank account, the officials say. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Justice)

A shredded document reassembled by the FBI shows plans by the shooters in the week leading up to the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino. The checklist, which was included in a sentencing proposal for Rafia Sultana Shareef that was filed by the government, included practicing at a shooting range, destroying hard drives and transferring money to Shareef’s bank account. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Justice)

A shredded document reassembled by the FBI shows plans by the shooters in the week leading up to the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino, federal officials say. The checklist, which was included in a sentencing proposal for Rafia Sultana Shareef that was filed by the government, included practicing at a shooting range, destroying hard drives and transferring money to Shareef’s bank account, authorities say. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Justice)

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The document also included a diagram of the conference room and a suggested path for the shooters through the tables; it is unclear whether that route was used.

Shareef is the only person prosecuted for committing a crime directly related to the Dec. 2, 2015, attack on a gathering of about 80 people at a San Bernardino Division of Environmental Health holiday party and training session at the Inland Regional Center. Her crime came afterward.

Hours after the attack, her youngest son, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27, both radicalized Muslims, died in a gun battle with law enforcement.

Rizwan Farook’s longtime friend Enrique Marquez Jr. was sentenced to 20 years in prison for supplying the automatic weapons the couple used. But Marquez had purchased the firearms for an aborted attack years earlier, prosecutors have said, and he had drifted apart from Farook.

Prosecutors have not accused Shareef of knowing about the attack in advance, even though she shared the couple’s Redlands townhome.

They said Shareef, after the massacre, shredded what she believed was a map showing an escape route to Big Bear. Investigators did not seize the shredder when they searched the home. Her son Syed Raheel Farook took it with him to his Corona home and kept the contents.

Outside court Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Grigg for the first time explained how the plan was reassembled. The FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, matched some strips by hand and used a computer and scanner to match other ripped, jagged edges like a jigsaw puzzle.

But he said a mystery still remains: Exactly why Farook and Malik committed the massacre.

“We’ll never know,” Grigg said.

  A shredded document reassembled by the FBI shows plans by the shooters in the week leading up to the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino, authorities say. The checklist, which was included in a sentencing proposal for Rafia Sultana Shareef that was filed by the government, included practicing at a shooting range, destroying hard drives and transferring money to Shareef’s bank account, the officials say. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Justice)After the 

  .

      A television news crew sets up outside of the U.S. District courthouse in downtown Riverside as it prepares for Rafia Sultana Shareef, also known as Rafia Farook, to be sentenced on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

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Sister-in-law of San Bernardino terrorist gets 3 years probation in immigration fraud case

-on February 11, 2021 at 03:02AM by Brian Rokos

[crushing83]

Okay, guys... I’m sick with some sort of flu-like plague (working in an animation studio is worse than preschool, germs-wise, I swear!) and I want to write but I just can’t stop coughing long enough to even think about writing. I’m going to go curl up with a movie or two, and hopefully pass out in a cough-syrup-induced snooze... and in the meantime, if anyone seeing this feels like reading the little snippets I’ve pasted below and weighing in on what you feel like I should tackle first, when I’m feeling better, I would appreciate it!

(There’s SPN (slash, gen, char/ofc, char/reader) and AB/BtVS (Willow/Asher) and SPN/Criminal Minds (Spencer/Gabriel) and Tolkien/FF (Owen Shaw/Thranduil) under the cut...) 

1. “Bring it on Home,” the current MOL AU story...

"What if it *was* my fault?" Sam interrupted.  

The words were out of Sam's mouth before his brain---and all its worries---could hold them back and keep them in Sam's mental vault of secrets. He saw Dean's eyes widen and then he looked down at his feet; he didn't want to see Dean's face when the truth was between them.  

"Sammy... no, it... if you'd seen traces of sulphur or anything weird, you would've protected her."  

Sam sighed and moved away from Dean, taking a position against a couple of crates that seemed to be doubling as a table. "I'd been having dreams of how she died," he admitted, still looking down at his feet. "For weeks, before. Not after. I mean, after, too, but those were dreams. These were... they felt different. But, I shrugged them off, because we don't have psychics in our families... because if you found out and thought I was a witch or something---"  

"Hey, no," Dean said, softly but quickly. "Never. Sammy. You are my brother and nothing else matters."  

When Dean came closer, Sam wanted to move away but Dean tapped his chin and forced him to raise his eyes. He wasn't scowling, he wasn't frowning. He wasn't smiling, either, but he looked more pleasant than upset.  

"Do you really think any psychic on either side of our family would've 'fessed up?" Dean asked.  

2. “Six Months,” the current vape shop AU (Sam/Gabriel) story...

"Good boy," Gabriel murmured. Sam felt his face heating up in reaction to Gabriel's compliment. "Now. What do you need to do?"  

"Wash up. Find sweatpants? And call Donna. Oh, and text you before I leave."  

Gabriel made a soft, pleased sound before he spoke again. "Good," he said, his voice still soft. "If I don't hear from you in an hour, I am going to come looking for you."  

Before he could curb the reaction, Sam was smiling into his phone. Gabriel cared enough to worry, enough to come for him if he took too long. Maybe he and Gabriel were becoming real friends. The idea was enough to dissolve the guilt in his head. He knew he'd do the same thing for Gabriel, if he ever came to Sam for help, and... it felt *good* to let himself believe that they were more than customer-and-proprietor.  

"Thank you, Gabriel," Sam whispered.  

"You're welcome. I'm happy I can be here for you," Gabriel said. "Just... get here, okay? I'll handle the rest for a little while."  

Sam nodded, even though Gabriel couldn't see the gesture, and he ended the call with another few grateful words. When he pocketed his phone, he looked around the room and decided to wash his face and change his shirts before calling Donna. He could do the rest while they talked.  

3. “Untitled,” an ace-spec!Sam/pan-Gabriel story I’ve been messing with...

"You're kidding me, right? The whole point of this is to mingle---and probably hook-up---and you want to invite the celibate kids to put a damper on things?"  

"They're not celibate!"  

Sam sighed and closed his eyes. He liked Charlie and he knew his brother considered her practically family, but studying was pointless when she was in their apartment. Dean had come out a year ago, and Charlie had basically gotten him on every committee she could after that; he was on a Safe Spaces board, something that worked with local businesses to create a directory of services and resting places for <I>everyone</i>, and he'd also been roped into doing volunteer work with kids, giving them older role models who weren't heterosexual, and he was on the Pride committee, too. Sam was impressed with Charlie's tenacity in getting Dean to commit to so many activities, but the fact that she was in each group, too, probably helped. The only problem was when they were organizing an event they were in the apartment; that did nothing to help his academic focus.  

He was in another room and they were still interrupting him. Though, to be fair, he could usually ignore their arguments about who the hotter porn star was because he didn't care *at all* about who won.  

"Oh, c'mon," Dean groaned. "Everyone has sex. It's a neurochemical drive or imperative or whatever. Just because they haven't met the right people yet, or just because they're choosy or saving themselves for 'the one,' that doesn't give them special status. No one discriminates against them."  

"I can't believe you just said that," Charlie replied. "After everything you've been through, after everyone you've met, you can't imagine that attraction is a sliding scale just like gender or orientation? You can't imagine that it's hard for them to meet people and connect with them in a positive way?"

Dean's grunt might as well have been a punch to the gut. Sam felt... abandoned. Any shred of hope he had tucked away, after the incident with Andy, seemed to shrink inside of his heart.  

Sam couldn't tell him. He couldn't have those words directed at him---not from Dean. Hearing them directed at a nameless, faceless group was hard enough.  

4. “Falling is the Easy Part,” my Criminal Minds/SPN crossover...  

"Where is Sam, Dean?" Spencer asked.  

"Out," Dean replied. He sighed again. "Cas told me Ezekiel was an okay guy, for an angel, and at first, I thought... I thought it'd work out. Even if I had to trick Sam into it. But..."  

"It's not going the way you expected?" Spencer asked.  

"Not really, no," Dean said. "I shouldn't be telling you this."  

"I don't mind," Spencer replied. "I know you two go through a lot, and right now, things are difficult. It's Sam I have history with, sure, but you're the most important person in his life, and even if it were only for that reason, I'd be more than willing to listen to you."  

"You're not gonna confess your undying love for me, are you?" Dean asked.  

Spencer snorted. "No," he said. "Your virtue's safe."  

"Don't have much of that left, Doc," Dean said after barking out a brief laugh. "But, ah... well, thanks. For listening."  

"It's no problem," Spencer said. "We're in Virginia. I don't know what sort of trouble we might encounter on the road, but we'll do our best to get there in a couple of days."  

Dean sniffed once. It didn't sound like a crying sniff, but Spencer wasn't well-versed in Dean's sounds. He waited, trying to listen to see what Loki was doing; Loki's silence was unsettling and it pressed upon the parts of his mind that was trying to piece together the mystery Loki wouldn't share.  

"That sounds good. Gives me time to try to put Kevin somewhere safe and figure out what the fuck to do," Dean said. "Be careful. If anything looks angelic, just hightail it out of there."  

5. “Out of the Box,” a SPN fic with an OFC where I’m not sure if there will be a pairing yet...

His footsteps come closer and I inch back a bit more, trying to make myself as small as I can in the darkest part of my cage. I must have whimpered because he makes low, crooning noises so unlike anything I've ever heard before that I'm peeking out at him before I remember how wretched I am.  

"Hey there," he murmurs. "I'm Sam. The other guy's my brother, Dean. We're not here to hurt you."  

"Someone's in there?"  

"Looks like a woman," Sam says, without taking his eyes away from mine. "Dean, start looking for the keys or a way to open this."  

"Do a silver check," Dean replies.  

It makes sense. I know enough about the devil's other hobbies. If they're like him, even a little, they are aware of everything that can bite and kill.  

"Hey," Sam says. His attention is on me again. "Can you give me your hand? I have a knife. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to put it on your skin. Just to make sure it won't burn you."  

I shouldn't but I know what happens when I disobey orders---even when they're disguised as suggestions. To avoid more pain, I force myself to move my hand towards Sam. He slides his through the bars and presses his palm against the back of my fingers. He's so warm.  

The devil is always cold.  

"Easy," Sam murmurs. He has the knife in his other hand. When he presses it to my hand, nothing happens. He smiles at me. "There. See? You're okay. We're gonna get you out of here."  

"If Ketch had the place rigged to explode, it could've been to keep people out, but it also could've been to keep people in," Dean says. "Might not be the only trap."  

6. “The Pitch,” the first story in a (maybe) series with an ace spec OFC and Sam, Dean, and Cas...

"Dean!" she called out.  

"Uh... no," I said, quietly. "Charlie, no."  

"Charlie, yes," Charlie countered. "Dean! Get your fuzzy butt over here!"  

Dean was the one that made me blush earlier when he threw a wink and a couple flirty questions my way. He seemed like a good person; a lot of the community seemed to turn to him and two others if there were problems or if someone needed help. But, he and his friends were too handsome to ever put me at ease around them.  

Before I could slip off of my stool, Dean appeared over Charlie's shoulder. After he kissed her temple and wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind, he said, "I got waxed yesterday, Charlie. I am as smooth as a baby's bottom. *Everywhere.*"  

"Ugh, gross, TMI, Winchester!" Charlie hissed.  

The use of a last name surprised me. A lot of people used nicknames. If anyone used their first name, they never gave out their surnames. It wasn't like fetishes were completely taboo anymore, but some of the club-goers didn't want to be outed to their bosses or families. I was included in that group; I worked in a casual environment and I knew no one would care but I wanted to keep my private life separate from my work life for as long as I could. Sometimes, I forgot that other people didn't have that need for separation or compartmentalization.  

Dean chuckled and peeked at me before turning his attention back to Charlie. "You love it," he insisted.  

"Dude."  

He kissed her temple. "Sorry, Queen of Moons," he teased, using the name she used during The Strap's infamous Dungeons and Dragons weekend event. "How may I be of service?"  

"Are you still looking for a live-in sub?" Charlie asked.  

Not bothering to be discrete, I aimed a kick at Charlie's shins. She winced, swatted her hand against my knee, and turned her attention back to Dean.  

"Well?" she asked him.  

"Charlie, may I have a word with you *in private*?” I hissed.  

"Nope."  

Dean rolled his eyes. "Charlie, you didn't even give her a clue?"  

"Kitten takes too long to make a decision," she huffed. "And, when bad things are happening, she gets bummed out and can't see the awesome happening around her! I'm doing my toppy duty and taking over."  

7. “Untitled 2,” a Sam/Gabriel/OFC fic from nearly two years ago that I’ve never gotten very far along...

I woke up with a scream in my throat and a distant wail in my ears. That was hardly unusual, given my current predicament. Since being grabbed off of the street over a year ago, nightmares were a regular thing no matter if I were awake or asleep. I'm in Hell---though my cellmate assures me Hell is something altogether different---and there is too much horror for my mind to process.  

As I brought my left hand up to rub my eyes, I felt fingers curl around my right hand. They were gentle fingers. I knew that touch. I turned towards my cellmate and managed a small smile.  

"Hey," I whispered.  

He smiled back at me and held up a bottle of water.  

"Thanks, Lo," I whispered.  

I pushed myself into a sitting position and took the bottle from him. He stood up before sitting down on my cot, being careful to keep a little space between us. Across those inches, I could feel his energy. It was different from other people and other monsters; he said he was the real Loki, and I found that hard to believe, but I couldn't deny that he felt *different* than everyone else I'd ever encountered. That different feeling---his presence in my life---was the only good thing about where we were.  

"It's all right," I said.  

Loki sighed. "Nothing is all right," he said. "If I were up to full strength, I'd have a shot at getting us past the warding, but..."  

"Sure you could," I murmured.  

"One of these days I'll do something to convince you I'm the real deal," Loki said.  

8. “Alive at Last,” my Buffy/Anita Blake crossover...

She didn't know much about the ardeur. Any time it was talked about in her presence, it was likened to a hunger. But what she'd felt crash into her wasn't hunger. It wasn't an attack. It was... something else.  

With a bit of daring and a lot of curiosity, Willow lowered her shields. She only relaxed them a fraction, only the same amount she'd done to light candles when she practiced elemental magic, and she hoped it would be enough to give her more information.  

Something lapped at her---not at her skin, but at her magic. Asher's grip tightened on her as if he could feel it. It didn't feel... directed. If anything, Willow would have said it felt curious.  

Was the ardeur sentient? Was it possible to have a self-aware power that fed through others on sexual and emotional energy?  

Willow shuddered.  

9. “I have to run; I’ll find you when it’s safe,” the latest instalment in Bullets & Blades (Owen Shaw/Thranduil)

After slipping into the humid room, Thranduil hopped onto the countertop. Leaning against the wall and drawing up his legs, he focused his gaze on the shower, on the man underneath the stream of water and behind the glass doors. When Owen opened his eyes and saw him watching his performance, he grinned before belting out another (much more cheerful) song. Thranduil grinned and waved; Owen waved back.  

When Owen finished his song and dance routine, he emerged from the shower stall and wrapped a fluffy green towel around his hips.  

"I tried waking you," he said, bending slightly to kiss Thranduil's knee, "but you seemed to be very cross with Elrond."  

Thranduil snorted as he realised he'd been talking in his sleep. "Understatement," he muttered. "We were having quite the argument."  

"I picked up on that," Owen said. He leaned over and kissed Thranduil's cheek. "What were you two fighting about?"  

"He thinks I should gather the others like me and leave for a secret location," Thranduil replied. Seeing Owen's frown, he reached out and threaded their fingers together. "It does not matter. It was only a dream," he added, before smiling a little. "Elrond was an old friend, of sorts."  

"Of sorts?"  

"We mostly frustrated each other," Thranduil said, smiling more. "I haven't dreamed of him in a long time. It's fine."  

10. “The Winchester Gospel,” which is a ridiculous collection of ficlets I’ve been writing that span 2017-2081, approximately

"You really think I was born, and then able to help Leto birth Apollo?" Artemis asked as she sat down at the table in the war room. She smirked when Dean shrugged and Sam leaned forward in interest. "There's a reason some still consider me the goddess of the hunt---of hunters.

"The world has always needed balance. It doesn't always get it," she said, crossing one leather-clad leg over the other. "I was born in a time when Eve had all the power. It was like Purgatory. Dangerous. Vicious. Wild. I almost died again, this time protecting a family from my village. And the Light brought me back. Or, his Messenger did---on His orders."

She closed her eyes and shook her head. The mask of a confident deity slipped away to reveal a nearly-human expression. "I don't remember what the creature was. It's been a very long time," she said, smiling at them a little, no edge to her expression. "Gabriel taught me what I'd need to know. And when he was done---"

”Gabriel?" Both Sam and Dean asked at the same time.

Artemis snorted. "It's a small world, isn't it?" she asked. "But, yes. Gabriel. He didn't stay long. But he taught me enough. And after, the Light returned and asked me if I would help them spread the word. The lore. What kills what. What can be used for protection.”

”Eve," Sam said. "She... couldn't have been happy.”

”Understatement. But for... about a century, I was able to avoid her. I was able to get information to people, I was able to protect communities. I hunted," Artemis said. "When she caught up to me, I was able to put her where her creatures' souls went. It nearly killed me. But, I did it. And I thought the Light would abandon me. I was on the ground, at the foot of a great mountain, barely breathing. I thought the Light had abandoned me. But before I could die, Leto and I found each other. She was in labour, but she healed me---and then I helped her. I became her daughter that day, Apollo's sister because I helped care for him, and when Zeus arrived to see his son, he adopted me in thanks and imbued me with more power.”

Sam nodded. "You became his daughter from his decision to take you in. You were already smart. And fierce. And he liked that.”

”He really liked that," Artemis agreed. "He protected me, supported me... I thought he loved me. And maybe he did in the beginning. But, time changes everyone, as you two will learn.”  

[easyfoodnetwork]

Fast-Food Buffets Are a Thing of the Past. Some Doubt They Ever Even Existed.

A McDonald’s breakfast buffet. An all-you-can-eat Taco Bell. This isn’t the stuff dreams are made of, but a real yet short-lived phenomenon.

When we think of buffets, we tend to think of their 1980s and early ’90s heyday, when commercial jingles for Sizzler might have been confused with our national anthem. We think of Homer Simpson getting dragged out of the Frying Dutchman, “a beast more stomach than man.” I think of my parents going on buffet benders resembling something out of Hunter S. Thompson’s life, determined to get their money’s worth with two picky kids.

What we don’t typically think about, however, is the fast-food buffet, a blip so small on America’s food radar that it’s hard to prove it even existed. But it did. People swear that all-you-can-eat buffets could be found at Taco Bell, KFC, and even under the golden arches of McDonald’s.

That it could have existed isn’t surprising. The fast-food buffet was inevitable, the culmination of an arms race in maximizing caloric intake. It was the physical manifestation of the American id: endless biscuits, popcorn chicken, vats of nacho cheese and sketchy pudding — so much sketchy pudding. Why, then, have so many of us failed to remember it? How did it become a footnote, relegated to the backwoods of myths and legends? There are whispers of McDonald’s locations that have breakfast buffets. Was there, in fact, a Taco Bell buffet, or is it a figment of our collective imaginations? Yes, someone tells me — an all-you-can-eat Taco Bell existed in her dorm cafeteria. Another person suggests maybe we were just remembering the nachos section of the Wendy’s Superbar.

The fast-food buffet was inevitable, the culmination of an arms race in maximizing caloric intake.

The fast-food buffet lives in a strange sort of ether. You can’t get to it through the traditional path of remembering. Was there actually a Pizza Hut buffet in your hometown? Search your subconscious, sifting past the red cups that make the soda taste better, past the spiffy new CD jukebox, which has Garth Brooks’s Ropin’ the Wind and Paul McCartney’s All the Best under the neon lamps. Search deeper, and you might find your father going up for a third plate and something remaining of the “dessert pizzas” lodged in your subconscious. This is where the fast-food buffet exists.

The history of the buffet in America is a story of ingenuity and evolution. Sure, it originated in Europe, where it was a classy affair with artfully arranged salted fish, eggs, breads, and butter. The Swedish dazzled us with their smorgasbords at the 1939 World Fair. We can then trace the evolution of the buffet through Las Vegas, where the one-dollar Buckaroo Buffet kept gamblers in the casino. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese immigrant families found loopholes in racist immigration laws by establishing restaurants. They brought Chinese cooking catered to American tastes in endless plates of beef chow fun and egg rolls. By the 1980s, buffets ruled the landscape like family dynasties, with sister chains the Ponderosa and the Bonanza spreading the gospel of sneeze guards and steaks, sundae stations and salad bars along the interstates. From Shoney’s to Sizzler, from sea to shining sea, the buffet was a feast fit for kings, or a family of four.

And of course, fast-food restaurants wanted in on the action. As fast-food historian and author of Drive-Thru Dreams Adam Chandler put it, “every fast food place flirted with buffets at some point or another. McDonald’s absolutely did, as did most of the pizza chains with dine-in service. KFC still has a few stray buffets, as well as an illicit one called Claudia Sanders Dinner House, which was opened by Colonel Sanders’ wife after he was forbidden from opening a competing fried chicken business after selling the company. Wendy’s Super Bar was short-lived, but the salad bar lived on for decades.”

How something can be both gross and glorious is a particular duality of fast food, like the duality of man or something, only with nacho cheese and pasta sauce.

In a 1988 commercial for the Superbar, Dave Thomas says, “I’m an old-fashioned guy. I like it when families eat together.” A Wendy’s executive described the new business model as “taking us out of the fast-food business.” Everyone agrees the Wendy’s Supernar was glorious. And gross, everyone also agrees. How something can be both gross and glorious is a particular duality of fast food, like the duality of man or something, only with nacho cheese and pasta sauce.

“I kind of want to live in a ’90s Wendy’s,” Amy Barnes, a Tennessee-based writer, tells me in between preparing for virtual learning with her teenagers. The Superbar sat in the lobby, with stations lined up like train carts. First, there was the Garden Spot, which “no one cared about,” a traditional salad bar with a tub of chocolate pudding at its helm, “which always had streams of salad dressing and shredded cheese floating on top.” Next up was the Pasta Pasta section, with “noodles, alfredo and tomato sauce…[as well as] garlic bread made from the repurposed hamburger buns with butter and garlic smeared on them.” Obviously, the crown jewel of the Superbar was the Mexican Fiesta, with its “vats of ground beef, nacho cheese, sour cream.” The Fiesta shared custody of additional toppings with the salad bar. It was $2.99 for the dining experience.

Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. The McDonald’s Breakfast Buffet.

The marriage of Wendy’s and the Superbar lasted about a decade before it was phased out in all locations by 1998. Like a jilted ex-lover, the official Wendy’s Story on the website makes zero mention of Superbar, despite the countless blogs, YouTube videos, and podcasts devoted to remembering it. At least they kept the salad bar together until the mid-2000s for the sake of the children.

Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. The McDonald’s Breakfast Buffet. Googling the existence of such a thing only returns results of people questioning the existence of this McMuffin Mecca on subforums and Reddit. Somebody knows somebody who passed one once on the highway. A stray Yelp review of the Kiss My Grits food truck in Seattle offers a lead: “I have to say, I recall the first time I ever saw grits, they were at a McDonald’s breakfast buffet in Alexandria, Virginia, and they looked as unappetizing as could be.” However, the lead is dead on arrival. Further googling of the McDonald’s buffet with terrible grits in Alexandria turns up nothing.

I ask friends on Facebook. I ask Twitter. I get a lone response. Eden Robins messages me “It was in Decatur, IL,” as though she’s describing the site where aliens abducted her. “I’m a little relieved that I didn’t imagine the breakfast buffet since no one ever knows what the fuck I’m talking about when I bring it up.”

“We had traveled down there for a high school drama competition,” she goes on to say. “And one morning before the competition, we ate at a McDonald’s breakfast buffet. I had never seen anything like it before or since.”

I ask what was in the buffet, although I know the details alone will not sustain me. I want video to pore over so I can pause at specific frames, like a fast-food version of the Patterson–Gimlin Bigfoot footage. Robins says they served “scrambled eggs and pancakes and those hash brown tiles. I was a vegetarian at the time so no sausage or bacon, but those were there, too.”

McDonald’s isn’t the only chain with a buffet whose existence is hazy. Yum Brands, the overlord of fast-food holy trinity Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Pizza Hut, is said to have had buffets at all three restaurants. I confirm nothing, however, when I reach out to the corporate authorities. On the KFC side, a spokesperson offers to look into “some historical information,” but doesn’t get back to me. My contact at Taco Bell tells me, “I’ll look into it. Certainly, nothing in existence today. I’ve never heard of it. Looks like there are a couple threads on Reddit.”

Reddit, of course, speculates a possible Mandela Effect — the phenomenon of a group of unrelated people remembering a different event than what actually occurred — in the existence of Taco Bell buffets. But I have a firmer lead in Payel Patel, a doctor who studied at Johns Hopkins, who tells me there was a Taco Bell Express in her dorm that was included in an all-you-can-eat meal plan option, though it only lasted one fleeting year. “You could order anything, like 15 nachos and 11 bean burritos,” she says, “and they would make it and give it to you, and you walked off without paying a cent.” A Johns Hopkins student newsletter published in 2001 corroborates the existence of the utopian all-you-can-eat Taco Bell, saying, “you can also gorge yourself on some good old Taco Bell tacos and burritos. Don’t forget, it’s all-you-can-eat. Just don’t eat too much; you don’t want to overload the John.”

There are some concrete examples of fast-food buffets that still exist today. When a Krystal Buffet opened in Alabama in 2019, it was met with “excitement and disbelief,” according to the press release. Former New Orleans resident Wilson Koewing told me of a Popeye’s buffet that locals “speak of as if it is a myth.” When I dig deeper, I come across a local paper, NOLA Weekend, which covers “New Orleans Food, things to do, culture, and lifestyle.” It touts the Popeye’s buffet like a carnival barker, as though it is simply too incredible to believe: “The Only Popeye’s Buffet in the World! It’s right next door in Lafayette! Yes, that’s right: a Popeyes buffet. HERE.”

Somehow, the KFC buffet is the most enduring of the fast-food buffets still in existence. And yet everyone I speak with feels compelled to walk me through the paths and roads leading to such an oasis, as if, again, it were the stuff of legends. There are landmarks and there are mirages, and the mirages need maps most of all.

To get to the KFC buffet in Key Largo, Tiffany Aleman must first take us through “a small island town with one traffic light and one major highway that runs through it. There are the seafood buffets and bait shops, which give way to newfangled Starbucks.”

The buffet adds the feel of a hospital cafeteria, the people dining look close to death or knowingly waiting to die.

New Jerseyan D.F. Jester leads us past the local seafood place “that looks like the midnight buffet on a cruise ship has been transported 50 miles inland and plunked inside the dining area of a 1980s Ramada outside of Newark.”

Descriptions of the food are about what I would expect of a KFC buffet. Laura Camerer remembers the food in her college town in Morehead, Kentucky, as “all fried solid as rocks sitting under heat lamps, kind of gray and gristly.” Jester adds, “for all intents and purposes, this is a KFC. It looks like one, but sadder, more clinical. The buffet adds the feel of a hospital cafeteria, the people dining look close to death or knowingly waiting to die.”

Then Jessie Lovett Allen messages me. “There is [a] KFC in my hometown, and it is magical without a hint of sketch.” I must know more. First, she takes me down the winding path: “the closest larger city is Kearney, which is 100 miles away and only has 35K people, and Kearney is where you’ll find the closest Target, Panera, or Taco Bell. But to the North, South, or West, you have to drive hundreds of miles before you find a larger city. I tell you all of this because the extreme isolation is what gives our restaurants, even fast-food ones, an outsized psychological importance to daily life.”

The KFC Jessie mentions is in North Platte, Nebraska, and has nearly five stars on Yelp, an accomplishment worthy of a monument for any fast-food restaurant. On the non-corporate Facebook page for KFC North Platte, one of the hundreds of followers of the page comments, “BEST KFC IN THE COUNTRY.”

Allen describes the place as though she is recounting a corner of heaven. “They have fried apple pies that seem to come through a wormhole from a 1987 McDonalds. Pudding: Hot. Good. Layered cold pudding desserts. This one rotates. It might be chocolate, banana, cookies and cream. It has a graham cracker base, pudding, and whipped topping. Standard Cold Salad bar: Lettuce, salad veggies, macaroni salads, JELL-O salads. Other meats: chicken fried steak patties. Fried chicken gizzards. White Gravy, Chicken Noodle Casserole, Green Bean Casserole, Cornbread, Corn on the Cob, Chicken Pot Pie Casserole. AND most all the standard stuff on the normal KFC menu, which is nice because you can pick out a variety of chicken types or just have a few tablespoons of a side dish.”

In the end, the all-you-can-eat dream didn’t last, if it ever even existed.

Then she adds that the buffet “is also available TO GO, but there are rules. You get a large Styrofoam clamshell, a small Styrofoam clamshell, and a cup. You have to be able to close the Styrofoam. You are instructed that only beverages can go in cups, and when I asked about this, an employee tells me that customers have tried to shove chicken into the drink cups in the past.”

In the end, the all-you-can-eat dream didn’t last, if it ever even existed. The chains folded. The senior citizens keeping Ponderosa in business have died. My own parents reversed course after their buffet bender, trading in sundae stations for cans of SlimFast. Fast-food buffets retreated into an ethereal space. McDonald’s grew up with adult sandwiches like the Arch Deluxe. Wendy’s went on a wild rebound with the Baconator. Pizza Hut ripped out its jukeboxes, changed its logo, went off to the fast-food wars, and ain’t been the same since. Taco Bell is undergoing some kind of midlife crisis, hemorrhaging its entire menu of potatoes, among other beloved items. At least the KFC in North Platte has done good, though the novel coronavirus could change things.

In the age of COVID-19, the fast-food buffet feels like more of a dream than ever. How positively whimsical it would be to stand shoulder to shoulder, hovering over sneeze guards, sharing soup ladles to scoop an odd assortment of pudding, three grapes, a heap of rotini pasta, and a drumstick onto a plate. Maybe we can reach this place again. But to find it, we must follow the landmarks, searching our memory as the map.

MM Carrigan is a Baltimore-area writer and weirdo who enjoys staring directly into the sun. Their work has appeared in Lit Hub, The Rumpus, and PopMatters. They are the editor of Taco Bell Quarterly. Tweets @thesurfingpizza.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/33e4Z8k https://ift.tt/30jEUmf

A McDonald’s breakfast buffet. An all-you-can-eat Taco Bell. This isn’t the stuff dreams are made of, but a real yet short-lived phenomenon.

When we think of buffets, we tend to think of their 1980s and early ’90s heyday, when commercial jingles for Sizzler might have been confused with our national anthem. We think of Homer Simpson getting dragged out of the Frying Dutchman, “a beast more stomach than man.” I think of my parents going on buffet benders resembling something out of Hunter S. Thompson’s life, determined to get their money’s worth with two picky kids.

What we don’t typically think about, however, is the fast-food buffet, a blip so small on America’s food radar that it’s hard to prove it even existed. But it did. People swear that all-you-can-eat buffets could be found at Taco Bell, KFC, and even under the golden arches of McDonald’s.

That it could have existed isn’t surprising. The fast-food buffet was inevitable, the culmination of an arms race in maximizing caloric intake. It was the physical manifestation of the American id: endless biscuits, popcorn chicken, vats of nacho cheese and sketchy pudding — so much sketchy pudding. Why, then, have so many of us failed to remember it? How did it become a footnote, relegated to the backwoods of myths and legends? There are whispers of McDonald’s locations that have breakfast buffets. Was there, in fact, a Taco Bell buffet, or is it a figment of our collective imaginations? Yes, someone tells me — an all-you-can-eat Taco Bell existed in her dorm cafeteria. Another person suggests maybe we were just remembering the nachos section of the Wendy’s Superbar.

The fast-food buffet was inevitable, the culmination of an arms race in maximizing caloric intake.

The fast-food buffet lives in a strange sort of ether. You can’t get to it through the traditional path of remembering. Was there actually a Pizza Hut buffet in your hometown? Search your subconscious, sifting past the red cups that make the soda taste better, past the spiffy new CD jukebox, which has Garth Brooks’s Ropin’ the Wind and Paul McCartney’s All the Best under the neon lamps. Search deeper, and you might find your father going up for a third plate and something remaining of the “dessert pizzas” lodged in your subconscious. This is where the fast-food buffet exists.

The history of the buffet in America is a story of ingenuity and evolution. Sure, it originated in Europe, where it was a classy affair with artfully arranged salted fish, eggs, breads, and butter. The Swedish dazzled us with their smorgasbords at the 1939 World Fair. We can then trace the evolution of the buffet through Las Vegas, where the one-dollar Buckaroo Buffet kept gamblers in the casino. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese immigrant families found loopholes in racist immigration laws by establishing restaurants. They brought Chinese cooking catered to American tastes in endless plates of beef chow fun and egg rolls. By the 1980s, buffets ruled the landscape like family dynasties, with sister chains the Ponderosa and the Bonanza spreading the gospel of sneeze guards and steaks, sundae stations and salad bars along the interstates. From Shoney’s to Sizzler, from sea to shining sea, the buffet was a feast fit for kings, or a family of four.

And of course, fast-food restaurants wanted in on the action. As fast-food historian and author of Drive-Thru Dreams Adam Chandler put it, “every fast food place flirted with buffets at some point or another. McDonald’s absolutely did, as did most of the pizza chains with dine-in service. KFC still has a few stray buffets, as well as an illicit one called Claudia Sanders Dinner House, which was opened by Colonel Sanders’ wife after he was forbidden from opening a competing fried chicken business after selling the company. Wendy’s Super Bar was short-lived, but the salad bar lived on for decades.”

How something can be both gross and glorious is a particular duality of fast food, like the duality of man or something, only with nacho cheese and pasta sauce.

In a 1988 commercial for the Superbar, Dave Thomas says, “I’m an old-fashioned guy. I like it when families eat together.” A Wendy’s executive described the new business model as “taking us out of the fast-food business.” Everyone agrees the Wendy’s Supernar was glorious. And gross, everyone also agrees. How something can be both gross and glorious is a particular duality of fast food, like the duality of man or something, only with nacho cheese and pasta sauce.

“I kind of want to live in a ’90s Wendy’s,” Amy Barnes, a Tennessee-based writer, tells me in between preparing for virtual learning with her teenagers. The Superbar sat in the lobby, with stations lined up like train carts. First, there was the Garden Spot, which “no one cared about,” a traditional salad bar with a tub of chocolate pudding at its helm, “which always had streams of salad dressing and shredded cheese floating on top.” Next up was the Pasta Pasta section, with “noodles, alfredo and tomato sauce…[as well as] garlic bread made from the repurposed hamburger buns with butter and garlic smeared on them.” Obviously, the crown jewel of the Superbar was the Mexican Fiesta, with its “vats of ground beef, nacho cheese, sour cream.” The Fiesta shared custody of additional toppings with the salad bar. It was $2.99 for the dining experience.

Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. The McDonald’s Breakfast Buffet.

The marriage of Wendy’s and the Superbar lasted about a decade before it was phased out in all locations by 1998. Like a jilted ex-lover, the official Wendy’s Story on the website makes zero mention of Superbar, despite the countless blogs, YouTube videos, and podcasts devoted to remembering it. At least they kept the salad bar together until the mid-2000s for the sake of the children.

Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. The McDonald’s Breakfast Buffet. Googling the existence of such a thing only returns results of people questioning the existence of this McMuffin Mecca on subforums and Reddit. Somebody knows somebody who passed one once on the highway. A stray Yelp review of the Kiss My Grits food truck in Seattle offers a lead: “I have to say, I recall the first time I ever saw grits, they were at a McDonald’s breakfast buffet in Alexandria, Virginia, and they looked as unappetizing as could be.” However, the lead is dead on arrival. Further googling of the McDonald’s buffet with terrible grits in Alexandria turns up nothing.

I ask friends on Facebook. I ask Twitter. I get a lone response. Eden Robins messages me “It was in Decatur, IL,” as though she’s describing the site where aliens abducted her. “I’m a little relieved that I didn’t imagine the breakfast buffet since no one ever knows what the fuck I’m talking about when I bring it up.”

“We had traveled down there for a high school drama competition,” she goes on to say. “And one morning before the competition, we ate at a McDonald’s breakfast buffet. I had never seen anything like it before or since.”

I ask what was in the buffet, although I know the details alone will not sustain me. I want video to pore over so I can pause at specific frames, like a fast-food version of the Patterson–Gimlin Bigfoot footage. Robins says they served “scrambled eggs and pancakes and those hash brown tiles. I was a vegetarian at the time so no sausage or bacon, but those were there, too.”

McDonald’s isn’t the only chain with a buffet whose existence is hazy. Yum Brands, the overlord of fast-food holy trinity Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Pizza Hut, is said to have had buffets at all three restaurants. I confirm nothing, however, when I reach out to the corporate authorities. On the KFC side, a spokesperson offers to look into “some historical information,” but doesn’t get back to me. My contact at Taco Bell tells me, “I’ll look into it. Certainly, nothing in existence today. I’ve never heard of it. Looks like there are a couple threads on Reddit.”

Reddit, of course, speculates a possible Mandela Effect — the phenomenon of a group of unrelated people remembering a different event than what actually occurred — in the existence of Taco Bell buffets. But I have a firmer lead in Payel Patel, a doctor who studied at Johns Hopkins, who tells me there was a Taco Bell Express in her dorm that was included in an all-you-can-eat meal plan option, though it only lasted one fleeting year. “You could order anything, like 15 nachos and 11 bean burritos,” she says, “and they would make it and give it to you, and you walked off without paying a cent.” A Johns Hopkins student newsletter published in 2001 corroborates the existence of the utopian all-you-can-eat Taco Bell, saying, “you can also gorge yourself on some good old Taco Bell tacos and burritos. Don’t forget, it’s all-you-can-eat. Just don’t eat too much; you don’t want to overload the John.”

There are some concrete examples of fast-food buffets that still exist today. When a Krystal Buffet opened in Alabama in 2019, it was met with “excitement and disbelief,” according to the press release. Former New Orleans resident Wilson Koewing told me of a Popeye’s buffet that locals “speak of as if it is a myth.” When I dig deeper, I come across a local paper, NOLA Weekend, which covers “New Orleans Food, things to do, culture, and lifestyle.” It touts the Popeye’s buffet like a carnival barker, as though it is simply too incredible to believe: “The Only Popeye’s Buffet in the World! It’s right next door in Lafayette! Yes, that’s right: a Popeyes buffet. HERE.”

Somehow, the KFC buffet is the most enduring of the fast-food buffets still in existence. And yet everyone I speak with feels compelled to walk me through the paths and roads leading to such an oasis, as if, again, it were the stuff of legends. There are landmarks and there are mirages, and the mirages need maps most of all.

To get to the KFC buffet in Key Largo, Tiffany Aleman must first take us through “a small island town with one traffic light and one major highway that runs through it. There are the seafood buffets and bait shops, which give way to newfangled Starbucks.”

The buffet adds the feel of a hospital cafeteria, the people dining look close to death or knowingly waiting to die.

New Jerseyan D.F. Jester leads us past the local seafood place “that looks like the midnight buffet on a cruise ship has been transported 50 miles inland and plunked inside the dining area of a 1980s Ramada outside of Newark.”

Descriptions of the food are about what I would expect of a KFC buffet. Laura Camerer remembers the food in her college town in Morehead, Kentucky, as “all fried solid as rocks sitting under heat lamps, kind of gray and gristly.” Jester adds, “for all intents and purposes, this is a KFC. It looks like one, but sadder, more clinical. The buffet adds the feel of a hospital cafeteria, the people dining look close to death or knowingly waiting to die.”

Then Jessie Lovett Allen messages me. “There is [a] KFC in my hometown, and it is magical without a hint of sketch.” I must know more. First, she takes me down the winding path: “the closest larger city is Kearney, which is 100 miles away and only has 35K people, and Kearney is where you’ll find the closest Target, Panera, or Taco Bell. But to the North, South, or West, you have to drive hundreds of miles before you find a larger city. I tell you all of this because the extreme isolation is what gives our restaurants, even fast-food ones, an outsized psychological importance to daily life.”

The KFC Jessie mentions is in North Platte, Nebraska, and has nearly five stars on Yelp, an accomplishment worthy of a monument for any fast-food restaurant. On the non-corporate Facebook page for KFC North Platte, one of the hundreds of followers of the page comments, “BEST KFC IN THE COUNTRY.”

Allen describes the place as though she is recounting a corner of heaven. “They have fried apple pies that seem to come through a wormhole from a 1987 McDonalds. Pudding: Hot. Good. Layered cold pudding desserts. This one rotates. It might be chocolate, banana, cookies and cream. It has a graham cracker base, pudding, and whipped topping. Standard Cold Salad bar: Lettuce, salad veggies, macaroni salads, JELL-O salads. Other meats: chicken fried steak patties. Fried chicken gizzards. White Gravy, Chicken Noodle Casserole, Green Bean Casserole, Cornbread, Corn on the Cob, Chicken Pot Pie Casserole. AND most all the standard stuff on the normal KFC menu, which is nice because you can pick out a variety of chicken types or just have a few tablespoons of a side dish.”

In the end, the all-you-can-eat dream didn’t last, if it ever even existed.

Then she adds that the buffet “is also available TO GO, but there are rules. You get a large Styrofoam clamshell, a small Styrofoam clamshell, and a cup. You have to be able to close the Styrofoam. You are instructed that only beverages can go in cups, and when I asked about this, an employee tells me that customers have tried to shove chicken into the drink cups in the past.”

In the end, the all-you-can-eat dream didn’t last, if it ever even existed. The chains folded. The senior citizens keeping Ponderosa in business have died. My own parents reversed course after their buffet bender, trading in sundae stations for cans of SlimFast. Fast-food buffets retreated into an ethereal space. McDonald’s grew up with adult sandwiches like the Arch Deluxe. Wendy’s went on a wild rebound with the Baconator. Pizza Hut ripped out its jukeboxes, changed its logo, went off to the fast-food wars, and ain’t been the same since. Taco Bell is undergoing some kind of midlife crisis, hemorrhaging its entire menu of potatoes, among other beloved items. At least the KFC in North Platte has done good, though the novel coronavirus could change things.

In the age of COVID-19, the fast-food buffet feels like more of a dream than ever. How positively whimsical it would be to stand shoulder to shoulder, hovering over sneeze guards, sharing soup ladles to scoop an odd assortment of pudding, three grapes, a heap of rotini pasta, and a drumstick onto a plate. Maybe we can reach this place again. But to find it, we must follow the landmarks, searching our memory as the map.

MM Carrigan is a Baltimore-area writer and weirdo who enjoys staring directly into the sun. Their work has appeared in Lit Hub, The Rumpus, and PopMatters. They are the editor of Taco Bell Quarterly. Tweets @thesurfingpizza.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/33e4Z8k via Blogger https://ift.tt/36lO2KT

[emma-christine-spoole]

“Should we pull over?”

A pile-up accident on the interstate had forced them into a detour on one of the less-traveled state roads. The drive back to Maryland from Effie’s away hockey game was going to take another hour, winding through the thick backwoods of Virginia. It was more annoying to the FBI agent than anything else, but it still beat sitting in gridlock traffic. They hadn’t seen another car in 20 minutes, and the pitch darkness forced her to turn on the Mustang’s high beams. If Emma hadn’t, they would’ve missed the crouched figure at the tree line. This wasn’t a hitchhiker; he (?) was too far back from the road and hunched over on his haunches, facing away from them.

“What the hell?” Her foot eased off the gas pedal. This was giving her a bad vibe, but she was bound by that inner sense of duty. “Get me my weapon. In the glove box.” After stopping the car on the soft shoulder, Em took the semi-automatic from her daughter and slammed in the magazine. “I’m just gonna see if he needs help, looks like he might be injured. Be right back.” She left the engine running and driver’s side door open and took half a dozen steps, her eyes squinting to get a better look at the figure. The headlights revealed he was very tall and gaunt-looking with long sinewy arms and legs. He was also bald and not wearing a stitch of clothing.

Great. Some fucker sky-high on meth, bath salts, or god knows what. Probably got kicked out or jumped out of a moving vehicle.

“Hello?” she called out, “Law enforcement and I’m armed!” Emma switched the safety off, pointing the gun barrel at the ground, “Are you injured? Do you need paramedics?”

The humanoid thing snapped its head around, its eyes glowing white. It gave a nails-on-the-blackboard screech and sprang at her.

“Oh shit!!” she sprinted back to the car and lunged back in, “Lock your door!” Emma grabbed hers and nearly pulled it closed, but too late. The creature slammed into the outside of the door, knocking her backwards across the gear shift. One hand somehow managed to hold on to the inside door handle, barely. It wedged its head and one arm through the gap in the door, trying to pry it open further. Razor-sharp claws sunk into her right leg as it started trying to pull her out. Emma fought like a hellion, twisting and kicking at it, slamming the heel of her left boot against its misshapen head. Between that thing’s unearthly screeches and the screams from inside the car, they had to be heard for miles. If there’d been anyone around to hear.

Sharp teeth clamped onto her right calf. The pain was unlike anything this side of hell, and until that moment she hadn’t thought there was anything worse than being shot years ago. Blood was soaking her jeans leg that was shredding the more she fought. Emma struggled with to get back ahold of the gun, one finger hooked around the trigger guard. She felt Eff push the weapon back into her hand. Emma slammed her boot heel hard as possible into that abomination’s eye socket, feeling bone crack. It gave a scream of pain that would leave their ears ringing. That also made the creature loosen its jaws around her leg. She jammed the gun barrel past its blood-dripping teeth. “EAT THIS!!” And fired. The back of the creature’s head blew apart. It slumped to the ground, dead. Their last glimpse of it, a shred of her own skin was hanging from between its needle-like teeth.

Her leg was bleeding fast, dripping on to the floor and seat. Emma could also feel dreaded arterial spurts coming out. “I’ve gotta get to the hospital. Now. Or I’m gonna bleed out.” Adrenaline was pumping, cutting off the worst of the pain for now. She threw the car in reverse and peeled it back out onto the road. The nearest town was another 15 minutes away, but they made it in five. The small rural town had a 24-emergency clinic, so there was a chance she might be transferred after they got the bleeding under control. “Go! Get the doctor! Run!” Her vision was going blurry as she struggled to get out of the parked car; the fuck if she was going to pass out.

[cc-kouga-blog]

These Are The Days 2/9

For @quietrook

Adam had thought long and hard about where he was going for college. Adam had set his sight at Harvard Law School, but that was still a Bachelor’s degree away. In the meantime, he needed to think about his undergraduate. Adam was also realistic about his financial situation. It was easier to apply to universities which offer full-ride scholarship, but Adam was never one to choose easy. He sent out application to all the Ivy League schools. The practical side of him insisted for a fallback plan, so he applied to Duke as well.

The first acceptance letter that came was from Princeton. The next were Brown. Dartmouth and Cornell both waitlisted him. Yale and Columbia accepted. University of Pennsylvania waitlisted him too. Duke’s acceptance came with a full ride scholarship and Adam felt like he was on top of the world. He couldn’t stop grinning and Ronan couldn’t stop kissing him.

“I’m so fucking proud of you man.” He murmured against Adam’s lips.

Then on a Friday, the letter from Harvard came.

Adam’s hands were trembling as he opened it. He read the first paragraph.

‘Dear Mr. Parrish.

I am delighted to inform you….’

He got in. He was accepted to Harvard. And in that moment, Adam Parrish the student was on the verge of another dream come true. He was so overwhelmed he actually had to wipe a stray tear from his cheek. He couldn’t bring himself to read the rest of the letter.

Upon seeing Adam’s tear, Ronan had assumed the worst. He cursed and snatched the letter from Adam’s hand, intent of ripping it to shred after he read why the assholes at Harvard rejected Adam. But then his eyes widen and he whooped in joy.

“You got in! You fucking got in!” He laughed and peppered Adam’s face with kisses.

Adam could only nod and broke out in laughter as Ronan pulled him into an impromptu dance around the living room.

All in all, six of the nine universities he applied to had accepted him while the other three put him on the waitlist. It was pretty damn impressive for a poor boy who grew up in a trailer park in rural Virginia. His efforts had finally paid of. All the nights he went to sleep hungry and tired from working shift after shift, all the hours he put into studying, studying and more studying. All of that had culminated into this. Despite all the odds stacked against him, Adam Parrish came out the victor. And what a sweet victory it was.

***

Near the end of August, Ronan helped Adam load his stuff into the BMW’s trunk. After dropping Opal at 300 Fox Way, Ronan and Adam began their 11 hours journey to Massachusetts. Adam had downloaded the map onto his new phone, the cheapest one he could find. He also made note of rest stops along the way and reserved a room at a small bed and breakfast several miles from campus.

Ronan drove the first leg of the journey, his terrible music blaring out of the speaker. Adam put up with it for an hour before the pounding bass gave him a headache. He jabbed at the button and sighed in relief as the blessed silence fell over the cabin.

“What the fuck Parrish?”

“Your music is giving me a headache.”

“How do you expect me to drive then? You know I can’t fucking drive without my music.”

“With your eyes on the road, hands on the wheel and feet on the pedals?” Adam shrugged.

Ronan threw him a dirty glare and reached to turn the music back on. Adam caught his hand before he succeeded and brought it to his lips.

“Play something else.” He kissed Ronan knuckles and let go.

Ronan had to take a moment to compose himself. It was ridiculous how a simple touch from Adam always made him weak in the knees. Even before getting together, they touched a lot. There were elbows jabbing, knees knocking and shoulders bumping.

After their first kiss, those remained, but there were also the soft touches. Fingers running through hair, a caress on the cheek, lingering touch that trailed down naked ribs, and a firm but gentle grip around the waist. Even so, on the cherished occasions where they make out, Adam seldom kissed Ronan’s hand. Hands were Ronan thing. He could spend hours just worshipping Adam’s hands. So Adam kissing Ronan’s knuckles was a rare and wondrous thing. It filled Ronan’s chest with warmth and want.

“Fine. You pick the music. But none of those pop shit!” Ronan said after clearing his throat.

Adam had driven Ronan’s BMW often enough, he had his own mix CDs inside the glove box. He took the CD case out and flipped through the sleeves. He chose one and played it. A soothing new age music came on.

“Fuck Parrish! Are you trying to put me to sleep?” Ronan snapped.

Adam rolled his eyes but swapped it with another one. Ronan muttered a string of curses as the Irish jigs filled the cabin.

“I swear Parrish if you don’t change that fucking CD….”

Adam laughed and swapped it with yet another one. A lively folk song came on and Adam waited for Ronan’s protest, but the other boy stayed silent. Adam smiled and relaxed back to his seat. He turned to face Ronan and a sudden surge of fondness swept through him.

He raised his hand and ran his fingertips over Ronan’s jaw. Ronan leaned a bit into his hand but said nothing. Adam let his hand trailed along the side of Ronan’s neck, along his shoulder, the length of his arm. Ronan turned his palm and Adam slotted their fingers together. Adam hummed along to the music and a small smile graced the corners of Ronan’s lips.

***

They stopped halfway at a small rest area. There was a small burger joint with picnic tables scattered around it. Adam bought lunch while Ronan filled the tank. They sat side by side, thighs pressed together. Their shoulders kept brushing against each other, although they managed to keep their elbows to themselves.

Adam drove the last leg well within speed limit, much to Ronan’s frustration, but Ronan’s earlier speed had shaved 2 hours from the supposed 11 hours journey. They checked in at the b&b around afternoon then took turns in the shower, washing off the travel sweat.

“Do you wanna go out for dinner or just order something in?” Adam asked.

“Let’s go out and see the town,” Ronan answered.

“Okay. But let’s rest for a bit. I need to stretch out.” Adam fell back on the queen-sized bed and groaned in satisfaction as his back hit the soft mattress.

Ronan climbed in beside him.

“I can’t believe I’m here,” Adam whispered out of the blue.

Ronan knocked their elbows together. “Dreams do come true. I should know.” He had a smirk firmly etched on his handsome face.

Adam faced him and smiled. “Yeah. They really do.”

Something in his eyes made Ronan understand that Adam didn’t just mean Harvard. Then Adam’s expression suddenly shuttered and he turned to face the ceiling.

“What’s wrong?” Ronan asked, concerned.

Adam sighed but didn’t reply. He took Ronan’s hand in his and squeezed it tightly.

“Hey, come on now Parrish. Tell me.” Ronan insisted.

Adam stayed silent for a few minutes and Ronan was weighing whether he should push or just wait Adam out.

“I’m scared.” Adam finally answered.

Ronan scooted closer.

“The last few months have been great. We saved Gansey, graduated, I moved in with you and now I’m at Harvard.” Adam paused to gather his thoughts.

“Seems like everything is going well for me, and in my experience, good things don’t last long. I know I should just be content, that I should be happy, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Adam took a deep breath.

“I feel like I’m being ungrateful or something. It’s awful because I feel like there’s an expiration date to this.” He made a gesture that encompassed everything.

Ronan kissed his shoulder. “You’re not the only one who’s scared.”

Adam made to turn but Ronan pressed his face into Adam’s shoulder. It’s easier to talk about his feeling if he didn’t see Adam’s face. That way he could pretend he was talking to himself.

“Back in Henrietta, I could convince myself that I’m good for you, that I’m enough for you. But now you’re in fucking Harvard and you’ll meet lots of smart people. And I keep thinking, ‘what if he meets someone’s better?’ ‘What if he realizes he can do so much better than a high school drop out with attitude problems and a whole lot of baggage?’ ‘What if?’” Ronan shuddered and Adam felt something caught in the back of his throat.

“Ronan, no!” Adam choked out.

He rolled over so he could grasp Ronan’s face and leaned forward until their foreheads touched.

“Don’t you get it? There’s no one better for me other than you.” And even as he said it, Adam knew it to be the absolute truth. “We’ve been through a lot together. And there are parts of me I can’t share with other people. It’s not like I can say ‘yeah, I can do magic, and I got it because I sacrificed my hand and eye to a sentient forest, which my boyfriend dreamt up, have I mentioned that he could also pull things out from his dreams? And oh, I was possessed by a demon once. Also my best friend was dead, twice, but we resurrected him and now he’s traipsing all over the world with his girlfriend. And Henry’.” Adam added lamely.

It elicited an amused and pleased grin from Ronan.

“I don’t care if I’ll meet more people. I don’t care about them. And I don’t want anyone else, Lynch. I just want you.” Adam whispered fervently.

“Ditto Parrish.” Ronan said before he surged forward and took Adam’s lips between his.

It started hard and rough, both needed to convey all the desperation building up inside at the thought of leaving and being left behind. Then Ronan caressed Adam’s jaw and Adam gripped Ronan’s shoulder and just like that their kiss turned softer.

‘I’ll come back.’ Adam’s kiss said.

‘I’ll wait.’ Ronan’s replied.

Then Adam’s stomach let out a big rumble and they broke apart laughing. Ronan pecked Adam’s lips one more time before standing up and offered his hands to Adam.

“Come on Parrish. Let’s get some food into you.”

Adam took Ronan’s hand and they left their room still holding hands.

Later that night, Adam trailed kisses down Ronan’s back, leaving blooming red marks over his tattoo.

Ronan left his own fingerprints on Adam’s hips.