#Wasp House Answers

[jupiterswasphouse]

Most friendly insects?

Obligatory "Every insect is very friendly if you treat it right" but if I were to say what insect I think is the friendliest, as in least aggressive and hardest to spook I'd probably say a good number of firefly species honestly. I mean, if kids can catch them without issue, it's safe to say they're extremely docile.

You could also say caterpillars but they get more anxious as adult moths(/butterflies) and can't exactly do all that much running or flying away when they're babies so it's tougher to say they're just that friendly.

[nevemancer]

wasp literally entered my house through the door today and i never saw it leave.

[lilycoving]

It looks like that nest is right next to the window. You really cool with that?

They’re not causing any structural damage. I have no reason to worry.

[tojisun]

!! it’s very silly and unserious and the only reason it’s long is because it’s so vivid in my head. unedited as hell </3

nosy neighbours tf 141 got me giggling. and it’s not even inherently sexy nor attractive, it’s really just them being in people’s (or a person’s) business.

thinking about how, in retirement, they still bought a house together because it’s so odd to have separate lives. and so they bought one in the suburbs, with five bedrooms and four baths, and a really big backyard. kyle picked up gardening so the backyard was not just a plus but a damn requirement.

so they move in, not giving a damn about that one old WASP couple across the street watching them all with a sneer because apparently moving in with your mates is unusual. well, whatever. fuck them.

then they meet their new neighbour. you’re single—divorced, price would tell them later—whose life is centred around your 9 to 5 job at an office in the city which you wake up at 5am for.

you leave the house at 6:30am and then amble back home when it’s pushing 8pm. it’s a boring life; a boring routine. not even your little front lawn of cared-for wild flowers managed to hold their attention longer than a day.

so with that said, they’d like to go on a record and say that it’s all johnny’s fault.

friday evening, he started the game by saying, “she bought a baguette.” he paused. “and a bottle? it's shaped like lube?”

john blinked, setting his book down. “what.”

mactavish shrugged, still peering from the crack in the curtains. kyle walked in then, his apron all dirtied. “hey, i’m craving a baguette.”

johnny laughed and looked at price like price was supposed to get something from that. of course he didn’t, but johnny’s always been good at carrying the momentum so, to no one’s surprise, he repeats the observation three days after the previous one.

“bag’o coal and lemon bread. what the hell.”

“that’s a disgusting dinner combo,” kyle chirps, switching the channels.

simon throws a pillow at him because he had been watching a documentary about moths when kyle changed the program without asking him.

“it’s just monday,” john finally replies, cementing his participation in the game. “why’s she buying lem—did she not grocery shop?”

johnny looks at him, wide-eyed. “that’s a good question, sir.” then he turns, ignoring them again to peer at their neighbour. john’s sure you’re back in your home so he really doesn’t know what johnny’s watching at that point.

simon was successful at wrestling the remote control back to him, and the program’s returned to the moths.

.

thursday evening, two and a half weeks after monday’s lemon bread and bag of coal, the game picks up again.

“who the hell makes a rug purchase during the weekdays?” kyle asks, his voice teetering between fascination and concern.

“how long’s the rug?” johnny replies, all of them watching as kyle stands in front of that slip of window they now use for ‘bird watching.’

kyle spreads his arms out—2.5 ft.

“huh,” johnny says. “for the toilet, you reckon?”

“probably for the cat, actually,” simon cuts in.

“what cat.” john doesn’t even know who asked that, but really—what cat?

“a round thing,” simon answers. “grey fur.”

“aww,” johnny croons. “that’s cute.”

john sighs and turns back to the morning paper’s crossword puzzle for the day.

.

you don’t join the neighbourhood’s annual summer barbecue party much to their disappointment. although, in all fairness, john understands your decision because they wouldn’t have gone to it anyway had they not found out that the host this year was going to be that WASP couple who still sneered at them every chance they get.

the wife, of course, couldn’t turn them away in front of the other neighbours who particularly loved kyle and, shockingly, simon so there they are, eating what is begrudgingly some good ribs while listening to the neighbourhood gossip.

and while each story was riveting, nothing could honestly hold a candle to their ‘bird’ and your peculiar grocery runs.

.

one evening, you come home with a man. john tells them it’s your ex-husband, admitting to them that yes, he’s now used up their once-a-month pass to accessing ‘special’ resources with regards to finding more about you.

“think they’re fuckin’?” johnny asks, no longer feigning disinterest.

kyle groans because it had been more than a minute now since johnny dropped a card from his stack; they tried their best to be patient as they waited, thinking mactavish needed more time since, apparently, he’s never played cards before—growing up as a catholic boy, he’s always been told that any form of gambling was a gateway to eternal damnation.

john didn’t have the heart to tell him that you didn’t have to make bets to be able to play cards.

“maybe,” simon replies, ignoring kyle’s angry grumbling. “why else would she bring him home? her house ain’t really a wonder.”

“…how do you know that?” kyle asks, his words measured and slowed.

simon blinks, then he sniffs, before looking away.

“hey!” mactavish screams, catching on. “we agreed no tampering with anythin’ of ‘ers!”

“yeah? well tell ‘at to cap’n too—he was already there when i broke in.”

johnny turns to him with a theatrical betrayed look. kyle drops his head on the table because the game’s been fully abandoned now.

“sir,” johnny says, his voice airy like he’s speaking mid-gasp. “you didn’t.”

john licks the back of his teeth, then, “jus’ wanted to see ‘er cat, s’all.”

.

the ex-husband leaves three hours later with a familiar rug tucked to his side.

.

“huh,” simon murmurs, his voice so faint that john almost missed it. “tulips and tuna today.”

johnny and kyle would’ve loved the update but the two are away for the week.

john messages it to the group chat.

suds (19:21)

> holy shit she’s improving.

.

oddly enough, it took them six months since they moved in for them to finally talk to you.

or, well, for you to talk to them.

“i’m havin’ a yard sale tomorrow,” you say after the introductions have passed, your lips tugged up in a shy smile.

john honestly couldn’t even remember how he used to envision you—old age caught up to him and for a whole while, you were nothing but a coloured blob in his eyes since they turned out to be more damaged than expected—but whatever that had been was erased the moment you stood before them.

shy and awkward, your back slouched just a little like you’re trying to curl into yourself in the face of their rapt attention, but even then you’re beautiful.

“yeah?” kyle asks, smiling; the first to break out of the trance you put them into. “and would y’need help, pretty miss?”

“oh, you,” you murmur, strained laughter peeling from your lips. “and yeah, i do. would that be alright? i tried moving my old couch downstairs and my back almost gave out. i swear, i thought i was going to see the lord today.”

johnny laughs, loud and booming. “well we’re glad that you didn’t die today, otherwise who would take care of little truffle, huh?”

john barely stopped himself from heaving out a loud sigh, an attempt made more challenging when he caught the way kyle whirled his head to glare at mactavish, the act not any less subtle since it startled you too. simon grumbles something incoherent—it’s lost amidst johnny’s petering laugh and your swelling horror.

“…how, exactly, do you know my cat’s name?”

[beekeeperspicnic]

Can't believe this blog has existed THIS long, and I've somehow never shared this Sherlock Holmes fanfic by PG Wodehouse. As far as I know it predates Conan Doyle publishing any stories which mention Holmes retiring to keep bees, which presents the delightful possibility that ACD discussed his future plans for Holmes with his young friend Plum, whose first reaction was to go off and write (and publish) a cute parody of it.

The Adventure of the Missing Bee

Sherlock Holmes is to retire from public life after Christmas, and take to bee-farming in the country.

"It is a little hard, my dear Watson," said Holmes, stretching his long form on the sofa, and injecting another half-pint of morphia with the little jewelled syringe which the Prince of Piedmont had insisted on presenting to him as a reward for discovering who had stolen his nice new rattle; "it is just a little hard that an exhausted, overworked private detective, coming down to the country in search of peace and quiet, should be confronted in the first week by a problem so weird, so sinister, that for the moment it seems incapable of solution."

"You refer—?" I said.

"To the singular adventure of the missing bee, as anybody but an ex-army surgeon equipped with a brain of dough would have known without my telling him."

I readily forgave him his irritability, for the loss of his bee had had a terrible effect on his nerves. It was a black business. Immediately after arriving at our cottage, Holmes had purchased from the Army and Navy Stores a fine bee. It was docile, busy, and intelligent, and soon made itself quite a pet with us. Our consternation may, therefore, be imagined when, on going to take it out for its morning run, we found the hive empty. The bee had disappeared, collar and all. A glance at its bed showed that it had not been slept in that night. On the floor of the hive was a portion of the insect's steel chain, snapped. Everything pointed to sinister violence.

Holmes' first move had been to send me into the house while he examined the ground near the hive for footsteps. His search produced no result. Except for the small, neat tracks of the bee, the ground bore no marks. The mystery seemed one of those which are destined to remain unsolved through eternity.

But Holmes was ever a man of action.

"Watson," he said to me, about a week after the incident, "the plot thickens. What does the fact that a Frenchman has taken rooms at Farmer Scroggins' suggest to you?"

"That Farmer Scroggins is anxious to learn French," I hazarded.

"Idiot!" said Holmes, scornfully. "You've got a mind like a railway bun. No. If you wish to know the true significance of that Frenchman's visit, I will tell you. But, in the first place, can you name any eminent Frenchman who is interested in bees?"

I could answer that.

"Maeterlinck," I replied. "Only he is a Belgian."

"It is immaterial. You are quite right. M. Maeterlinck was the man I had in my mind. With him bees are a craze. Watson, that Frenchman is M. Maeterlinck's agent. He and Farmer Scroggins have conspired, and stolen that bee."

"Holmes!" I said, horrified. "But M. Maeterlinck is a man of the most rigid honesty."

"Nobody, my dear Watson, is entirely honest. He may seem so, because he never meets with just that temptation which would break through his honesty. I once knew a bishop who could not keep himself from stealing pins. Every man has his price. M. Maeterlinck's is bees. Pass the morphia."

"But Farmer Scroggins!" I protested. "A bluff, hearty English yeoman of the best type."

"May not his heartiness be all bluff?" said Holmes, keenly. "You may take it from me that there is literally nothing that that man would stick at. Murder? I have seen him kill a wasp with a spade, and he looked as if he enjoyed it. Arson? He has a fire in his kitchen every day. You have only to look at the knuckle of the third finger of his left hand to see him as he is. If he is an honest man, why does he wear a made-up tie on Sundays? If he is an upright man, why does he stoop when he digs potatoes? No, Watson, nothing that you can say can convince me that Farmer Scroggins has not a black heart. The visit of this Frenchman—who, as you can see in an instant if you look at his left shoulder-blade, has not only deserted his wife and a large family, but is at this very moment carrying on a clandestine correspondence with an American widow, who lives in Kalamazoo, Mich. — convinces me that I have arrived at the true solution of the mystery. I have written a short note to Farmer Scroggins, requesting him to send back the bee and explaining that all is discovered. And that," he broke off, "is, if I mistake not, his knock. Come in."

The door opened. There was a scuffling in the passage, and in bounded our missing bee, frisking with delight. Our housekeeper followed, bearing a letter. Holmes opened it.

"Listen to this, Watson," said Holmes, in a voice of triumph.

"'Mr. Giles Scroggins sends his compliments to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, an' it's quite true, I did steal that there bee, though how Mr. Holmes found out, Mr. G. Scroggins bean't able to understand. I am flying the country as requested. Please find enclosed 1 (one) bee, and kindly acknowledge receipt to 'Your obedient servant, 'G. Scroggins.

'Enclosure.'?"

"Holmes," I whispered, awe-struck, "you are one of the most remarkable men I ever met."

He smiled, lit his hookah, seized his violin, and to the slow music of that instrument turned once more to the examination of his test tubes.

Three days later we saw the following announcement in the papers: "M. Maeterlinck, the distinguished Belgian essayist, wishes it to be known that he has given up collecting bees, and has taken instead to picture postcards."

[212thghost]

im still not over Jordan Kennedy.

the exterminator that crawled through endless tunnels smothered in ants forced to become one with them. when exactly did Jordan become part of the colony, truly? was it when he was metamorphosed, when Jon took him and made him something else, or was it when he could not tell where his limbs ended and the rolling tide of insects began? was it when he first arrived at Amherst’s house and followed, of his own conscious volition, the ants inside? there is so little we truly know about Jordan besides what he becomes. 

he asks Jon, “am i still me?” and there is no answer to that. is Jordan still Jordan? is the butterfly still the caterpillar? is the ship of theseus still the same ship if it has been remade? do we, the audience, even know Jordan? what do we know about him beyond the fact he was an exterminator, knew more than the average person about the supernatural, and was kind enough to give Jon peace of mind but not kind enough to resist being an avatar when given the option of going back to innocence. 

as Jordan speaks you can hear an agitated buzzing of what can only be insect wings–he is now the queen ant he has been desperately searching for, the sole being that controls and colony and feeds off the fear they cause. Jordan is remade into the very thing he feared with every part of his soul. he feels sick and wrong and unfathomably different, but he still cannot deny how good it feels to no longer be the scared one. 

when given the choice to go back to being an innocent victim, he vehemently says no. he was in hell and he still is, but no longer the one being tortured. Jon equally saves him and damns him. how could he go back? how could he willingly choose to be relentlessly tortured, drowning in his own fear and so, so, many ants? to think that there are some people who would choose to not be an avatar makes Jordan all the more interesting. he didn’t ask for this, he does not want to be an avatar in any way, but in the end he still cannot fathom being anything else. anything is better than the ants, even if it means inflicting that fear onto countless others. it’s a completely unfair choice but he makes it all the same. 

Jordan did not want this, but like Jon and the Eye, he chooses it. 

and Jon’s decision here, to make someone into something new completely against their will. time and time again, we see the Eye manifesting as a betrayal of consent. Elias makes Jon into the Archivist against his knowledge and will, Jon cuts the bullet out of Melanie while she’s asleep, Jon and Elias seeing the secrets and pasts of others, and finally Jon turning Jordan into an avatar. the true horror of the Watcher is this betrayal and breach of consent. being perceived and watched is fine if you agree to it, if you share a secret willingly and gladly, and even the most horrific knowledge is best processed when prepared for it. but the Eye does not ask–Jon does not ask. he takes Jordan and remakes him and calls it mercy. not only has Jordan been utterly remade, forced to feed off the very fear he once experienced, it was never a choice he had any real say in. not when it mattered. 

i can’t help but wonder if Jon’s words were true. when Jordan says he doesn’t know how to scare people, Jon says, “you’ll learn,” which holds an almost uncanny resemblance to how Elias answered his own questions. Jon learned how to scare people and most of all, he learned to like it. Jon, like Jordan, didn’t want to be an avatar but he did choose it, in the end.

i can’t help but wonder if over time, Jordan accepted that he was a part of the colony. when the world was reset, i wonder if he missed the ants even as he hated himself for it? did they make him feel loved like how the wasps loved Jane? could he hear their singing? did he finally understand Jane, the being that had haunted his nightmares? did he ever feel whole again, without the trillions upon trillions of ants crawling through his tunnel-like veins? did he have to learn to walk without the weight of wings? 

when the world was set right, what happened to Jordan? did he go back to being the same Jordan before the tunnels, before becoming the leader of the colony, or was he a piece of something that was once whole and never can be again? 

Jon tells Jordan “i helped you,” but did he really? he saved him from his torment but brought upon him one that, all things considered, might be even worse.

[sweetheartsnips]

Random DBZ characters x GN reader first date headcanons

Just dropping some HCs off for some underappreciated DBZ/DBS characters.

This is just some fluff, really. SFW but I am an 18+ blog so minors DNI as per usual. Gender neutral reader.

Enjoy!

Piccolo

Piccolo would take you somewhere peaceful and intimate, where the two of you could have some privacy. Probably to a remote waterfall or pond where he usually meditates–places that are comfortable and familiar to him that are unlikely to overwhelm either of you.

He would approach a first date with quiet intensity, almost as if it were a goal that needed to be overcome. Despite the outward air of seriousness, deep down he would be quite nervous and awkward, purely because he would want to do a good job and impress you. 

Piccolo would show his care in quiet yet practical ways. Ensuring that you’re comfortable outside, making sure you’re warm, or subtly positioning himself between you and anything that has the smallest chance of being a threat (death glaring a wasp).

Never one for small talk, conversation would be minimal at first, with long stretches of comfortable silence. However, do not be surprised if he tries to share some existential wisdom from his training, or try to teach you about the nature around you. There is also a chance he cracks a dry, sarcastic joke. Making you laugh would make his heart skip a beat.

If the date ends well, he might offer an almost hesitant, yet fond nod, or give your head a little pat before parting ways, until you meet again. 

Zamasu 

Zamasu would take you somewhere grand, somewhere he would consider ‘sophisticated’. Perhaps an elegant tea house (with all the flavours and sweet treats), or a floating temple: somewhere where he could flex his knowledge of the universes to you. 

He would have complete confidence in his ability to woo you, prior to your date. He is a divine being, after all. 

Zamasu would initially act polite and composed, displaying impeccable manners, but his arrogance would quickly reveal itself. Throughout your date, he would speak at length about his beliefs, monologing about justice and how transitory mortal life is.

However, he would consider you somebody ‘worthy of his caliber’, and this would be evident in his small gestures. Things like resting a hand on your back, or maybe even linking his arm with yours. All while trying to hide the blush on his cheeks and the glances he was sneaking at you. 

If you challenged or questioned his views, he’d laugh, intrigued yet slightly annoyed. He wouldn’t admit to enjoying his time with you, but he would find you intellectually stimulating, particularly when you point out that life being short can sometimes be a good thing. 

“You are… different from the other mortals.”

Whether that’s a compliment or a warning, time would tell. 

Android 17

17 would offer a date with a casual, adventurous atmosphere. Maybe a hike around the island, or a quiet walk along an empty beach in the stillness of sunset.

He wouldn’t get too carried away planning for the date or getting himself ready, he believes that less can be more, and doesn’t want to make you nervous with an extravagant arrangement. 

17 would not be one for flowery compliments, but he would show his interest through little acts, like letting you hold onto him while walking on uneven ground, or teaching you about all the animals on the island with a confident smile. He would love how your eyes would light up when he showed you an animal or plant you’d never seen before. Or when you’d ask him questions about nature, and he could sate your curiosity with his vast knowledge. 

If you asked him about himself to get to know him better, he would avoid answering directly and with a smirk. But if you were persistent enough, he might share something insightful that would linger in your mind (like hinting at the fact that he is an android!). 

When your date would come to an end, he’d give a short, genuine “This was nice,” before heading off, leaving just enough mystery to make you want to see him again. 

Caulifla 

Caulifla would treat her date more like a fun challenge rather than a traditional romantic outing. No flowers or chocolates here, folks. She would take you somewhere unorthodox like a bustling evening street market, a high-energy race, or maybe even invite you to come watch her beat somebody up. 

Whilst getting ready, Caulifla would act like she had you totally bagged, more so to convince herself so she didn’t have a nervous meltdown and call for Cabba. 

During your date, she wouldn’t openly admit she’s having a great time, but her excited grin and how she would linger close to you would be a dead giveaway. If you really rub off on her, she might give you a playful swat. “You’re not half bad. Don’t get soft on me, though.” 

She would tease you, poking at your cheeks and making fun of your blush. Not enough to actually upset you, of course, but enough to ruffle your feathers and make you swoon. Expect lots of light-hearted physical contact: hand-holding or resting her chin on your shoulder. 

Caulifla is not one for shy or coy goodbyes. If you’re lucky, she might just pull you into a hurried, impulsive kiss before dashing off with a cocky wink and a wave. 

Hit

The stoic assassin would like to keep things cool and minimalistic, choosing a location that is quiet but not too personal. Maybe a chill bar late at night, or a rooftop overlooking the city. Somewhere inconspicuous, where he can enjoy your company. 

Hit would approach your date with his usual calm, ignoring the flicker of nerves in his stomach. He was a successful hitman, but going on a date with you was seemingly enough to make him second guess himself.

He would not partake in a lot of small talk, content for there to be quiet between your conversations. But when he does speak, each word is deliberate and meaningful. He would keep tabs on your surroundings with a watchful eye, making sure that the two of you would not run into any situations that would endanger your safety. 

Hit would observe you closely, noting every small shift in your body language, every reaction and expression on your face. Not to be intrusive, but just calculating and analytical. He would remain respectful, but he would also admire your appearance quietly. If you could keep up with his cryptic, dry humour, he might give you a tiny smile. 

Afterwards, he would say something simple but meaningful. “I don’t usually make time for things like this, but I’m glad I did.” 

Then he would be gone, before you could even say goodbye. Not before he asked you out for a second date, of course.

[onenicebugperday]

I scrolled trying to find if this had been answered, but didn't see it. Is there a non harmful way to keep bees and wasps (we have honey bees, bumble bees, sweat bees, red wasps, yellowjackets, dirt daubers, and I might have seen a bald hornet once? central OK) away from your yard and home? I don't want to kill them, or hurt them, but it was horrifically painful the one time I got stung, and while I don't have anaphylaxis, I was sick for almost two weeks. When I see even dirt daubers I jerk and panic and startle, and sometimes I'm more scared that I'll fall over than that they'll actually sting me, but either way, I just can't handle it. But regular Google searches only turn up "how to kill the evil supervillain [cluster b related slur] that ate your grandma and her little dog, too". I like spending time outside, and we just moved into an older house with lots of trees around, and I'm just dreading it getting warmer. What can I do? Thanks in advance, your blog is so cool.

I'm sorry, there is really no way to keep bees and wasps completely out of your yard. If you want to spend time outside unbothered, I recommend one of those mesh/netting gazebos that keep mosquitoes (and other bugs) out while you're enjoying your yard/patio.

[scary-grace]

still life, with hope - a shigaraki x f!reader fic

You're an art student with a crippling fear of birds and an assignment to create art from life, so when you're assigned to study swans, you're pretty much dead in the water. And there's something strange about the swans you find on a secluded lake, something all too human. As your artwork grows increasingly surreal and your suspicions about the swans continue to build, you can't help but ask yourself the question: Are you losing your mind, or have you walked into the middle of a fairytale gone wrong? Whatever it is, you'd better figure it out fast. Seven lives depend on the answer. (cross-posted to Ao3)

This is for @shigarakislaughter, who requested this prompt from my winter prompt list: hear the fallen and lonely cry out / can you fix me up, can you show me hope. I apologize for how long this took, and the fact that it'll be in multiple chapters, but I really hope you like it! Swan Lake AU, modern setting/no quirks, art student!reader. dividers by @cafekitsune.

Chapter 1

You look down at the piece of paper you’ve drawn from the hat with more than a little dismay. “SWAN?”

“Swan,” your Capstone 1 professor says, smiling warmly. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” you say at first. He raises an eyebrow. “Can’t I pick something else?”

“I didn’t get to pick something else,” one of your classmates says from behind you. His piece of paper reads SLUG. “I’ll trade you.”

You don’t want SLUG either. This is the first year of your MFA program, and in order to advance to the second year, you have to create an exhibition that speaks to both your versatility with multiple mediums and your own signature style. This year’s Capstone 1 exhibition is going to be held in the building that’s going to house the campus’s collection of fine art, and if you or any other student does well enough in it, your pieces will earn a permanent place in the gallery. You and your classmates have been drooling over the prize ever since it was announced.

But it wouldn’t be a grad program without a twist of nonsense involved, and in order to set everyone on an equal playing field, the professor in charge of supervising your work for the exhibition set down rules. You’ll each create an exhibition centered around a subject from the natural world. You must spend at least two of each week’s five workshop periods creating art from life – i.e., observing whatever your subject is in its natural habitat. And the subjects will be assigned by drawing from a hat.

Your classmate who drew SLUG got a short straw for sure, but there are plenty of classmates whose subjects looked pretty bad until the second you unfolded yours. Somebody got WASP, which will be a nightmare to observe from life; your roommate got ANEMONE, which means she’ll be spending a lot of time in tidepools for the foreseeable future. The person who got DANDELION has hay fever, and the person who got SQUIRREL is nearsighted. The only people who are happy are the people who wound up with things like TREE and STONE and FIRE. And you were ready to suck it up and create the best exhibition the school’s ever seen for any subject you got, right up until SWAN.

“There will be no trading,” the professor says. He turns to you. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I don’t like birds,” you say. The guy who got SLUG snorts. “I mean it! When I went on vacation to America, a bunch of Canada geese tried to drown me because I wouldn’t give them my sandwich –”

The classroom erupts in laughter. “It’s fortunate, then, that your assignment is SWAN,” your professor says. “And you are more than welcome to observe them from a safe distance.”

There’s no safe distance from a giant bird that wants to kill you. You wander back to your seat, miserable, while the only classmate who hasn’t drawn yet stands up and pulls SPARROW. So there were two birds in there – a big one, and a small one, and you had to draw the big one. Just your luck.

And your luck gets worse, because your professor assigns the rest of the class period to research your subject and where it might be observed, and you learn a certain fact about SWAN that leaves you absolutely dead in the water. You wait until the rest of the class is filing out, then make your way up to your professor. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I’m supposed to draw swans from life,” you say, and he nods. “Swans migrate.”

“Indeed they do.”

“They’ve migrated,” you say again. “It’s already getting cold out. They’ve all flown away. And I looked at the zoos around here – none of them have swans –”

“I admire your diligence! You certainly used your research period well,” your professor says. He’s happy. That doesn’t help you. “You’re correct. Swans are migratory, and it’s autumn. The vast majority of the wild swans are gone for the winter, and the local zoo is poorly stocked with swans. But that doesn’t mean there are no swans to be found.”

You were hoping he’d agree that you needed a different subject. You’re desperate enough that you’d even take SLUG. “Do you know where I can find some swans?”

“I’m glad you asked. There happens to be a small population of non-migratory swans at a lake not too far from here,” the professor says. “Most people aren’t aware of the lake, as it sits on the old estate. You know the one?”

You can only think of one. “With the signs on the fence about shooting trespassers?”

“The owner is rather protective,” your professor says. He smiles at you. “He’s allowed the preserve to grow wild, and his predecessor did the same, until it resembles a nature park more than anything else. The signs are to discourage hunters or hikers. You, on the other hand, will be behaving as a naturalist. You are there to observe and document – and given your apparent fear of swans, there’s no risk that you’ll interact with them.”

“No,” you admit. “Still, um – will you let him know that I’ll be there? So he doesn’t shoot me?”

“I already informed him that one of my students would be paying visits to the lake,” the professor says. You can’t decide if that makes you feel better or worse – better about not being shot, worse about getting out of this without spending the next six months on SWAN. “He’s quite enthusiastic about the idea of the birds being documented. And he was kind enough to provide a map.”

You’re doomed. “Thanks.”

When you exit the classroom, you find SLUG guy waiting, face pinched above his surgical mask. “He’s not going to let you out of it,” you say. “He wouldn’t let me out of mine.”

“SLUG is objectively worse than SWAN,” your classmate argues. “Both Western and Eastern traditions feature swans as a symbol of grace and beauty. There’s not a single classical painting that features a slug.”

“We have to draw from life,” you remind him. “Slugs don’t migrate. Swans do.”

Your classmate’s thin eyebrows lift. Does he pluck them? “It seems you’re fucked.”

“Yep,” you say, and sigh. The map folded up in your pocket looks like it was written in the eighteenth century. Even if you can read it, there’s no guarantee it’ll be accurate. “It sure does.”

You’re only mandated to spend two of each week’s workshop periods observing from life, but you figure you might as well bite the bullet. Most of your classmates are doing the same, according to the cohort group chat. Kaoruko, who drew SPARROW, found herself a cute little coffee shop to sit in, with a tree and a bird feeder right outside the window. Your roommate Shoko is headed for the beach in search of tidepools, bundled up for the weather with a determined look on her face. SLUG guy, whose name is apparently Kai, is complaining that he can’t find any, and the group chat is collectively dunking on him.

They were going to find someone to laugh at. You’re glad it’s not you. Still, you feel a little guilty, enough to message him privately. Go up to the arboretum and walk around on the trails. They’re all over the place.

He doesn’t respond. Fine. You tuck your phone into your backpack, hop on your bike, and start the half hour’s ride out to the old estate in search of swans.

You go over your research in your head as you ride along the network of trails through town. Swans are the biggest species of waterfowl in the world, even bigger than geese, which is just your luck. They come in multiple varieties – trumpeter, mute, black-necked, black, tundra, and whooper. Most of Japan is temperate enough that the swans migrate here for the winter, but it’s just your luck – Hokkaido is just far enough to the north and just cold enough to mean that the supposedly non-migratory swans at this lake are the only swans around.

What else did you learn about swans? Classically, they’re symbols of grace and beauty, just like Kai said; colloquially, they’re known for being assholes. They’ll attack people, just like geese will, and unlike geese, they’ve succeeded in murdering an uncomfortable number of people. Sure, those people were usually a little too close to the nest, and you’re not planning to get anywhere near that close, but the possibility is there that your Capstone 1 project could actually kill you. The only fact you learned about swans that wasn’t completely off-putting is the fact that they raise their cygnets together, and they apparently mate for life.

That’s not much for you to go on. By the time you drag your bike through the hole in the fence marked on the map of the old estate, you’re already frustrated with the whole thing, and your mood doesn’t improve as you hike along the world’s faintest trail up into the woods. According to the map, all the trails lead to the lake eventually, but the scenic route doesn’t do much for you except make you wish that you’d gotten TREE or ROCK or FIRE. You’d even have taken MOSS. Or FUNGUS. All of those things are abundant in the woods, and none of them are able to drown you.

The hike up to the lake is supposed to be a mile long, but the trail is so winding that it feels like longer, and you’re beginning to wonder if the professor sent you out here to get lost in the woods when you spot light coming through the trees. You pick up the pace, around the last few curves and over a downed tree covered in moss and mushrooms, and find yourself on the rocky shore of a lake.

It’s not a small lake. You were thinking it would be small, but it’s not. It’s big and crystal clear, so clear that you can see exactly where the lakebed drops away into nothingness, and although the sun’s out and the temperature’s above freezing, you know you’d freeze to death if you fell in the water long before you drowned. When you look across the lake, to the other side, you can see places where the slope to the shore is steep, and low bluffs that would lead to a nasty drop into the icy water. All the trails lead to the lake – sure. Some of them lead right into it. You set down your backpack, dig out an old, crusty highlighter, and mark the trail you took today in bright green.

You don’t see any swans just yet. There’s mist rising off the water and the sun’s still high in the sky, and as you get settled on the shore, you find yourself wishing you could just draw the lake instead. There’s so much to look at here, so many aspects of the landscape you could explore. You could sketch the pebbles on the shore, the broad, flat rocks you’ll probably sit on the next time you come out here. You could get here early, find a good spot, and rip off Monet by painting the water at every hour of the day. If you wanted to get here early, you could paint the sunrise. The mist looks pretty now, but first thing in the morning –

It’s not mist. Sure, there’s mist, but there are shapes drifting through it, and the shapes are creating the shadows that entranced you, leaving faint ripples that travel the length of the lake to brush along your side of the shore. You see long necks, folded wings, narrow beaks. Swans.

Your professor was right. There are swans here – seven of them, all paddling smoothly through the lake, in no hurry to get anywhere, least of all south. You fumble your sketchbook open in a hurry and grab for the first medium you can find. You brought half a dozen in your backpack, unsure of what you’d need, but any of the five others would be better than the chalk pastels you come up with. But you’ll work with what you’ve got. You can’t let this get away.

It’s not the swans that are the focus of your first attempt at observation. It’s the sun and the mist and the water, all bright and bold, washing your page in color. The swans are almost an afterthought – just seven grey-and-white shadows, weaving between the columns of light. Maybe this is how you can get through this project. The landscape is what attracts you, and the swans are part of it. You don’t have to ever deal directly with the swans themselves. They haven’t even noticed you, and as far as you’re concerned, it can stay that way.

When you’ve finished with the rough piece in chalk pastel, your hands and your jeans are smeared with color. You spray fixative over the sketchbook page and set it aside to dry, then take out your phone. You can take a few pictures, maybe get one of the swans in them, and call it good for today.

You discover quickly that you can’t get just one swan in the picture. They travel in a group, and the longer you look at them, the more you observe slight differences in size and plumage. There’s one swan that’s smaller than the other six while still being full-grown. Is that one a female? You’re not going to check. One of them is preening, and two others are helping, while another one pokes along the shoreline. Another one bobs against a stand of rushes, its head tucked beneath its wing.

So they do come up on shore sometimes. You’ll need to keep an eye out, and make sure you know where they are at all times. You do a quick bird count, coming up with six, although you could have sworn you counted seven earlier. There were seven. Where’s the –

You see movement out of the corner of your eye and almost drop your phone in the lake in your haste to get back from the water’s edge. So much for keeping an eye out – the seventh swan was practically on top of you before you realized it was there, and now it’s staring you down with murder in its red eyes. You didn’t think swans had red eyes. This is probably a demon swan, and it’s going to drag you into the lake and kill you. You back away a little further.

The red-eyed swan doesn’t follow you. It just watches. And watches. And keeps watching, until you’ve packed up your things and crept back into the forest. You got one usable sketch, and you’ve also got a demon swan. You need to stop thinking that anything about this project is going to be easy. No matter how good you feel about it, something’s always going to go wrong.

“Can you believe this?” Shoko rolls up her pantleg and pulls down her sock, showing you the mark from the jellyfish tentacle that wrapped around her leg. “I thought it was safe, but apparently they can still sting even if they’re dead.”

“And it was in the tidepool with you?”

“No, it was on the beach while I was walking back. A wave came up and swept it right into me.” Shoko sits down at the studio station next to yours. “Just my luck.”

“Just your luck,” you echo. “Did you get any pieces you’re happy with out of it, at least?”

“I got a few,” Shoko says. She hoists out her sketchbook, followed by a pile of polaroids, then aims a sly look your way. “What about you? How was SWAN?”

“It’s SWANS, actually. Seven of them,” you say, and Shoko nods, looking impressed. You wish she wouldn’t. You barely have anything to show for the week’s check-in. “They’re even scarier than I thought. I –”

“Did you know that some human beings are allergic to slug mucus?” Kai drops his bags at the studio station on Shoko’s other side and slumps down in the chair. “Neither did I. Until yesterday.”

“Oh my God,” you say. Shoko is laughing. “You weren’t supposed to touch them!”

Kai’s broken out in hives, and he’s glaring at you. “You told me where to find them.”

“Where to find them. Not to touch them!”

Shoko wheezes. “What, did you pick it up and give it a kiss? We’re not supposed to interact with the nature unless the nature starts it.”     

“Shut up,” Kai says. His face is turning red. “What happened to your leg? I hope you didn’t choose to urinate on it –”           

“That’s an urban legend. And you’re a moron,” Shoko says. She leans out around Kai to look at you. “Tell me about the swans.”

“Ooh, there was more than one SWAN?” A classmate drops into the seat on your left, carrying a big cardboard box. You can see a row of canvases sticking out of it, and you grit your teeth. “How did you make it out alive?”

“Hi, Keigo,” you say. Keigo ignores you and walks away, only to come back with another cardboard box full of canvases. You try again. “Did you get inspired?”

“You know it,” Keigo says. He sits down with a satisfied sigh and starts paging through his canvases. “I’ve been painting all week. I moved my easel next to my bed so I can paint when I wake up in the middle of the night. How have you guys been doing?”

He looks from you to Kai to Shoko, mild concern crossing his face. Kai glares at him. Shoko raises an eyebrow. “Really, birdbrain?”

“There’s only one birdbrain here,” Keigo says, and he winks at you.

Before you can protest, the professor strides into the room. “Welcome, students! I hope you’re all prepared to share the results of your first week’s efforts.”

You thought it was going to be a basic show and tell, but the professor’s not letting anybody off easy. Everybody gets quizzed about how much time they spent observing their subject, as well as why they chose the mediums they used, and it doesn’t take long for you to realize that you and Shoko and Kai are about to be in trouble. You have the misfortune of following Keigo, who gets glowing reviews on the thirteen canvases he’s done so far of FIRE. Just your luck. When you stand up, you’re braced for the worst.

“I spent about six hours total observing the swans,” you say. That’s about average for the class, and you had to hike to get to yours. “And I have three pieces –”

“Only three?”

“Yeah. There were, um, complications.” You pick up your first piece – the chalk pastel sketch of the swans from the first day. “This is kind of my first impression of it. Them. And then this one –”

Your second piece is a watercolor. You were planning to do something more detailed from the pictures you took, but something was wrong with the photos. They were blurry, almost psychedelic, and you decided to just go with it when it was time to paint. “So these were done from a photo, not from life,” the professor says. You cringe. “Why not?”

“I don’t think the swans liked me very much,” you say. “There was this one – it snuck up on me –”

Your classmates are snickering. Your face heats up. “Tell us about the last piece,” your professor says. “This one has more detail than the others – but it’s missing something. Why is that?”

The third piece is an ink-on-paper sketch of all seven swans, drifting across the water in a line. You thought you’d soft-focused all the swans, but when you look at the piece, you realize that you didn’t. The swan in the middle – the red-eyed one who jumped you the first day – is a shadow, or a blur. “I don’t really know,” you say. Your classmates titter, Keigo the loudest. “It kind of just happened.”

“Mm.” The professor studies the last sketch. “Your technique is clear, but there’s no life to it. You need to observe in more detail.”

“Get closer to them?” you ask. Your professor shakes his head. “I don’t know –”

“Think about it. You have seven potential subjects to work with,” the professor says, “and unlike some of your classmates, you have subjects with complex social structures and behavior patterns. Get to know their personalities a little more. I want to see that in your next set of preliminary works.”

You collect your three pieces and sit back down, while Kai, his four pieces, and his hives make their way up to the front of the room. Your critique wasn’t actually that bad. The professor complimented your technique, and that’s the foundation for everything else, so you’re not starting from nothing. He just wants a little more observation. A little more detail. A little more time out at the lake with the swans.

It’s not the worst thing. As you listen to the professor trying to figure out just how Kai managed to give himself hives while taking photos of a slug, you remind yourself that it could have gone a lot worse.

Your alarm goes off, startling you out of a dream that’s still clear as you get ready to leave. You were at the shores of the lake, and the light was fading, a cold wind skipping across the water. The swans weren’t there, and you were worried. Not because of your project, although you’ve had dreams like that, too. You were worried because it was cold, and it was getting dark, and you couldn’t see a place for them to shelter. You could hear howling in the woods behind you, but you weren’t scared for you. And then something moved in your peripheral vision, something drew up alongside you – and your alarm went off before you could see what it was.

It’s just before dawn as you move through the small apartment you and Shoko share. Shoko’s asleep at the kitchen table, her miniature easel propped up in front of her with a line of acrylic tubes open and waiting beside her palette. You take the time to close them before you head out the door, and take a look at her canvas as you do. Shoko’s the best acrylic painter you’ve ever seen, and she’s painted an anemone with incredible detail. Shoko’s going to get a good critique this week. You’re sure of it.

In fact, everybody’s critique’s improved, except yours. Your professor still doesn’t think you’re trying hard enough to get to know the swans, and today, you’re taking matters into your own hands. By the time you get to the lake, it’ll be just past dawn, and you won’t leave until you’ve captured something about each of the seven swans on paper. Or until sundown. Whichever’s first. No matter how unworried you were for your own safety in the dream, you don’t want to be caught in the woods after dark.

The ride through town is quiet, and so is the hike through the woods. You’re familiar with this path by now, and you’re getting better at hiking. The air is crisp and cold, and you can see your breath. It’ll be a cold morning until the sun crests the mountains. When you break through the tree line onto the shore, you find the lake completely still and quiet. Only faint shreds of mist. No swans in sight.

Maybe they’re sleeping in. You’d be sleeping in if you had the choice. You lay out your blanket on the flat rocks on the eastern shore of the lake, sit down, and take out your sketchbook to look through what you’ve done already. It might not be coming through in your artwork, but you have gotten to know the swans fairly well. At first you couldn’t tell them apart, except to pick out the one that’s smaller than the rest, but now you know them all by sight and behavior – and sound. The first rays of sunlight brush the lake, and like clockwork, the swans drift out of wherever they spend the night. As they travel across the lake, you look them over. You need one piece for each swan by the end of the day. Which of them should you start with?

You’ve been observing them long enough to have nicknamed them, and to have assigned them genders for no reason other than vibes. The one in the lead this morning is the one you call Silly, because most of the time he’s doing what you can only call clowning around. You know that’s projecting, that you shouldn’t impose human behavior on a bird, but that’s what it looks like he’s doing. Silly might be a good place to start, but then again, Silly’s not great at holding still. Gorgeous might be a better bet.

Swans are pretty. You had to admit that at some point, and while the swan you call Gorgeous is roughly as pretty as the other swans, Gorgeous is the only one who acts like she knows it. Gorgeous isn’t particularly scared of you, but she’s also not aggressive. More than a few times she’s come right up to wherever you’re sitting and frozen in place in the middle of your eyeline. The first time it happened, you thought you were getting into a staring contest. Then it occurred to you that Gorgeous might be posing for you.

It’s a crazy thought. It’s projecting, again, but you will admit that Gorgeous has an uncanny ability to find good light. This morning, Gorgeous is up to her usual tricks, waddling out onto a rocky outcropping in the middle of the lake and freezing in place, her wings folded neatly. In direct sunlight, there’s an undertone to her white feathers – brown, or maybe bronze. That’s going to be hard to capture without metallics, but you’ll give it a shot.

Gorgeous is a whooper swan, you think. Or a trumpeter swan. She has the same strident, sonorous call as the swans in the videos you watched on YouTube as research, and she’s talkative with the others. As you try to capture the metallic sheen of the sunlight on Gorgeous’s feathers, you keep an eye on who’s talking back. Gorgeous reliably gets responses from Silly, who responds to everybody, and from Sooty, whose call sounds like what would happen if a trombone smoked a pack a day for twenty years. It would be nice to get a feather study of Sooty, who earned his nickname thanks to the char-like markings on his plumage, but Sooty doesn’t venture out into full sun very often.

Spinner is almost always in the sun, though. If there’s even a patch of sunlight, Spinner’s in it, even if it means that he’s paddling in place and rotating slowly in a circle. If there’s no sun, like there has been one or two of the days you’ve come to the lake, Spinner huddles up with whichever of the other swans is holding still, feathers puffed out. You’re hoping you can draw Spinner while he’s out of the water. He’s more graceful on land than the others.

You take your time sketching Gorgeous – you’ve got all day – and when Gorgeous gets bored with sunning and sidles off the outcropping into the water, you set down your pencils and pull your watercolors out of your backpack instead. You have a new medium. Now you need a new swan, and as you’re looking around, weighing your options, Needles darts through your peripheral vision and nominates herself. You might as well try to capture her in watercolors. You’re not going to get her to sit still for a serious sketch.

Needles is the smallest, the fastest, the most agile, and the most energetic. She’s also the only swan who’s actually attacked you, when you reached for a feather that had fallen to the rocks and she clamped her beak down on your finger. You almost called her Toothy, but you remembered from your research that swans don’t have teeth, and the sharp points of her beak felt more like needles anyway. You lay out your watercolors, pick up your brush, and wait for her to swim back into view.

But it’s hard to paint Needles just by herself. She’s usually interacting with the others, so you resign yourself to painting Silly, Needles, and Sneaky all at the same time. It’s probably the only time you’re going to get a good look at Sneaky, anyway. Other than Spooky, he’s the swan you lose track of most often.

There was really no name you could give to the red-eyed swan other than Spooky, and although Spooky’s never come close to you again, you haven’t forgotten the look of almost hatred in his eyes. You’re more scared of him than you are of Needles, who actually bit you, or of Sooty, who gets aggressive if he decides you’ve been looking at him for too long. You decide to save drawing him for last. You can half-ass your sketch and use the fading light as an excuse to get back home.

You don’t feel inspired by the swans, necessarily; it’s more that you’re completely absorbed. There’s something captivating about them, and at the same time, something odd. You’ve watched videos of swans on YouTube, and from what you can tell, they travel in mated pairs, with cygnets. You don’t see any cygnets, and none of the swans interact with each other in a way that would make you think they were mates. They act like – friends, maybe. Or like family. Whatever it is, it’s not easy to look away from.

You manage it, though, at least long enough to get something down on paper, and you start to lose track of time. It’s only when you notice how the shadows are lying that you check your phone and find that it’s well into the afternoon. You’ve done a piece for every swan except Spooky, and your stomach is growling. You decide to fortify yourself before you try to deal with Spooky again and go digging in your backpack for snacks.

The first thing you encounter is a package of trail mix, but before you can even open it, a swan’s beak clamps down onto the other end. Sneaky’s lived up to his name; he’s come all the way onto the rocks with you without you noticing, and now he’s doing his level best to yank the trail mix away from you. You’re more affronted than scared. “Hey, give it back –”

It occurs to you vaguely how stupid this must look – you in a tug of war with a swan, which has unfolded its wings and is flapping them to try to gain traction. You know you’re not supposed to feed wildlife, and you don’t think trail mix is good for swans, and you’re worried about them eating plastic by accident. At the same time, Sneaky’s putting in a lot of effort trying to get the package away from you, and he’s attracting a lot of attention. You don’t want to get swarmed by the others. You hesitate for a second, adjust your grip the wrong way, and the package tears open, scattering trail mix across the rocks.

You’re expecting Sneaky to lunge for it and start jamming peanuts and Cheerios into his beak, trying to eat them all before the rest of the swans notice. Instead Sneaky steps back and honks – or hoots – or something. You haven’t heard any of the swans make that sound before, but all across the lake, you see heads pop up and swift shapes moving through the water. They’re all headed your way.

Before you can move, they’re already out of the water – Gorgeous, Spinner, Needles, Sooty, Silly. Silly gets there last and lunges at the trail mix, only for Spinner to hiss at him, at which point Silly turns and hisses at Sooty, who hasn’t moved. You’ve never seen wild birds do anything like this. It looks like they’re waiting for something. You do a bird count out of habit and realize that Spooky’s missing. Sneaky repeats the honk-hoot-thing from before, and this time the others pick it up, so loudly that you clamp your hands over your ears. While you can muffle the noise, you can’t keep out the certainty: They are waiting. They’re waiting for him.

For one insane moment, you think you hear human voices amidst the cacophony, calling for the one friend who’s always dragging their feet. The impatient jostling reminds you of kids at a birthday party, waiting for the birthday kid to take a bite of cake so the rest of them can eat. Spinner half-unfolds a wing in an odd gesture, and your mind summons the image of one person beckoning to another. You’ve been out here too long. You must be losing it. They’re just birds.

Spooky’s arrival should dispel any notion that there’s something human about the swans, but there’s no way to describe Spooky’s demeanor as he waddles up onto the shoreline as anything other than pissed. He keeps rustling his wings and he’s holding his neck at a funny angle, and he hisses at the other swans even though they’re already making room for him in the huddle around the trail mix. Maybe Spooky’s in charge, and the others have to let him eat before they can. That would make sense –

But that’s not what happens. Once Spooky’s in the huddle, all seven swans bow their heads and start eating together.

A chill goes down your spine. You could write off the voices your brain conjured or the gesture your eyes sketched, but this isn’t your imagination. Sneaky stole your trail mix, then called the other swans over to share, and they didn’t touch the food until all of them were there. Swans aren’t supposed to behave like this. Wild animals don’t behave like this. Even domesticated ones – you’re a dog person, and you’ve never had a dog that would wait for another dog to get there before it started eating.

This is – you don’t know what it is, but you know something’s off. And you’ve done enough observing for today. You need to go home and look at actual humans and stop losing your mind. You start packing up your things to leave, hoping to get out before the swans remember you’re there. But with seven swans, your single-serving package of trail mix goes fast. You’re just zipping up your backpack when they raise their heads and turn to you.

“Um, hi,” you say, like an idiot. You should just get up and run. “How’s it going?”

You’ve never tried to get within more than thirty feet of any of the swans before today, working out of a healthy combination of fear and respect, but the swans swarm you with absolutely no shame. You don’t have a prayer of warding them off. Before you can do anything more than haul your backpack and sketchbook out of range, Silly and Needles are right up in your personal space, Silly pulling at the sleeve of your jacket while Needles pokes you with her beak. Gorgeous is bothering you, too – she’s pulling on the hood of your jacket, picking up some of your hair in the bargain.

If you’d even come close to them, they’d have drowned you. “Can I help you?” you ask, exasperated. “I didn’t – hey, get out of there!”

Sneaky’s trying to pull down the zipper on your backpack, probably looking for more snacks. In your quest to not get in trouble for feeding the wildlife, you neglect your sketchbook for a split second, and Sooty snatches it. You let it go out of shock, which probably saves it from tearing, only for Sooty to drop it right away when Spinner bites him and hisses. Sooty hisses in response, flares his wings, and you seize the opportunity provided by their disagreement to rescue your sketchbook. There’s a beak-mark on the cover, but it seems okay.

The sketchbook’s okay, but you aren’t. A shadow falls over you, and when you look up in search of the source, you find Spooky standing directly in front of you, a strange, coughing hiss issuing from his beak.

“Hi,” you say again, even more awkwardly than before. It’s hard to be anything but awkward when you’ve got chills running down your spine. He doesn’t respond, although you don’t know why you thought he would. He’s a swan. You’re not even sure he’s a he. “Sorry to bother you. I’m just going to grab my things and –”

Spooky stretches his neck towards you and pecks your sketchbook, hard. Then he waddles back a few steps and goes back to staring at you. If you activate the part of your imagination that pictured Spinner waving Spooky over, it’s not hard to imagine that Spooky’s giving you a meaningful look. Over what? You move the sketchbook, and Spooky tracks it. His head turns from the sketchbook to you, then back to the sketchbook, and back to you again.

He wants you to draw him. The thought’s absurd, but you don’t know how else to interpret Spooky’s behavior. You’ve been coming here to draw and paint for weeks now, and today you’ve spent time trying to sketch every other swan but him – so now it’s his turn. He’s hissing at you again, rustling his wings in a way you can’t help but read as threatening. He quiets down as soon as you open your sketchbook. “Are you ready for your close-up?” you ask nonsensically, grasping for a drawing implement blindly and coming up with a ballpoint pen. Spooky doesn’t answer. Because he’s a swan. “Okay. Just, um – act natural.”

The other swans have been indifferent to your observations, or if they’ve noticed, like Gorgeous always does, they’ve cooperated for at least a little while. Spooky’s the first one who’s visibly uncomfortable while you draw him. He keeps pacing back and forth and rustling his wings and changing the position of his neck, and when he does hold still, it’s when he’s staring at you straight on, which isn’t a particularly flattering angle on a swan. You can make anything work, but it would be great if he picked something, or at least stuck to the same few behaviors so you can draw one of them. This is a mess.

Someone honks in your ear and you almost have a heart attack. It’s Sooty, who’s been looking over your shoulder at your drawings, which is so what the fuck enough to overpower your fear of swans and push you into frustration. “Hey, no peeking,” you snap. “Go away.”

Sooty backs off, but he’s rustling his wings in a weird way, bobbing his head strangely. If he was a person – which he isn’t – it would almost look like he was laughing. The way Spooky reacts makes you think it’s laughter, too – Spooky starts hissing and flares his wings out, which looks sort of majestic, you guess. You start sketching that, outlining it in quick motions of your stupid ballpoint pen, as Spooky chases Sooty off. It’s a decent sketch. But it’s also not what you want from Spooky. You turn the page and wait to see if he’ll come back.

Spooky wanders back into your field of vision looking sort of downtrodden, and this time, he settles down on the rock a few feet away from you. “That’s perfect,” you say, the same as you’d say to a person whose portrait you were drawing. He glances towards you, then looks away. “No, I mean it. Hold still.”

He doesn’t move, so you swap out your ballpoint pen for charcoal at high speed and get to work. At this range, you can see details you couldn’t capture on the other swans. The texture of his feathers, not just the color. The way the weak late-autumn light reflects dully off his beak, and the smoothness with which it fades into the feathers on his head and neck. When he’s not hissing at you, when he’s calm, you can appreciate how striking Spooky’s red eyes are, and an idea for a much larger piece pops into your head. You can take the sketches you’re doing now and paint from them, a full canvas in shades of black and white and tan and grey – except for the crimson you’d use to paint Spooky’s eyes.

If you do that, you’ll give people nightmares. Spooky’s already been in some of yours. But it’ll be striking. Hard to look away from. And if it’s in people’s nightmares, it means that they’ll have taken some part of it with them, and while you’ve always wanted your art to stick with people in the positive sense, you’ll take haunting them in a pinch. Between you and Spooky, you can get it done.

Spooky slowly unfolds one wing, and you turn the page in a hurry. One wing folded, one partially extended, the elegant curve of his neck and the angle of his head – talk about striking. Gorgeous might be consistently easier to draw, but when Spooky cooperates, he’s compelling on a different level. But still awkward about it. You can tell, and you find yourself talking again. “This looks amazing. I’ll show you when I’m done if you want. Or if you – wow –”

Spooky’s unfolded his wing all the way, and although your research gave you the dimensions of a swan’s wingspan, seeing five feet of flight feathers stretched out in the sun is really something else. You sketch fast, wishing you could linger on the details but worried that you’ll miss something when he lowers his wing again. Spooky keeps it extended as you sketch from the base of his wing to the tip – and then you see what Spooky’s really been trying to show you. The last few feathers at his wingtip aren’t smooth and full like the others; they’re skeletal. Someone’s clipped his wing.

You think of how Sneaky always keeps his wings folded, how Sooty will try to take off from the water only to fall back down after gaining barely a few feet in height. You’ve been wondering on and off why the swans don’t migrate, and now you understand. “You can’t fly,” you say, and Spooky lowers his wing at last.

Only part of the way, though – he turns his head and starts yanking at his remaining flight feathers. “Don’t,” you protest, reaching out – but Needles snaps at your fingers, warning you to pull your hand back, and the other swans close in around you. Unless you feel like punching a swan, you’re not getting out of here until they let you. “I’m not going to hurt him. I just want to help.”

Help with what? You can’t regrow Spooky’s flight feathers, or any of the others’. Maybe you can find out what swans eat and bring them some food, because now that you know they’re stuck here, you can’t imagine them doing anything but spending the winter on the edge of starvation. But they’re birds. They must want to fly. And you can’t fix that. “If I could help, I would,” you say uselessly. “But I don’t know how.”

The swans part from in front of you, suddenly, revealing Spooky. His wings are folded again, and there’s something clenched in his beak. He comes right up close to you and drops whatever it is on your sketchbook, and when he lifts his head, the two of you are face to face. You don’t understand what you’re looking at. A bird, obviously. You’re looking at a bird, but you’re paralyzed all at once by the thought that it’s not just a bird you’re looking at. You’re looking at something else, too.

Before you can think any harder about it, Spooky turns away and heads for the water at high speed. The other swans follow him, Sneaky taking one last shot at your backpack before he plunges into the lake, and vanish around a curve in the shoreline. They’re so fast in the water. It’s hard to believe they can’t fly. Hard to believe that anyone would take that away from them.

Your eyes start to burn, and you look away from the water in a hurry, down at your sketchbook. A jolt of adrenaline runs through you. The swans don’t leave feathers lying around. Needles bit you for even reaching for a dropped feather before. But lying across your page of sketches is one of Spooky’s flight feathers, freshly pulled from his wing.

taglist: @shigarakislaughter @deadhands69 @f3r4lfr0gg3r @minniessskii @cryptidfuckerofficial @lvtuss @issaortiz @evilcookie5 @aslutforfictionalmen @lacrimae-lotos @xeveryxstarfallx @stardustdreamersisi @koohiii @cheeseonatower @shikiblessed @warxhammer @agente707 @handumb @boogiemansbitch @baking-ghoul @atspiss

[aloysiavirgata]

Ahead Into Gallilee

Summary:  For the anon prompt “Five Times A Character Didn’t Die”

Title: Ahead Into Galilee

By: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: M

Category: MSR

Timeline: Pilot - Requiem

Notes: Thanks to @slippinmickeys for the read-through!

***

For the anon prompt “Five Times A Character Didn’t Die”

I.

She isn’t an innocent like Scully’s mother. His mother knows about clones and viruses and labs where horrors are created. He bets she knows about Emily but by god Emily’s name will not pass his lips in front of her.

Scully has apologized for her older brother, but Bill is a tyro’s practice next to Elizabeth Kuiper Mulder.

“A baby,” she sniffs. “With your…partner. It’s a bit déclassé, Fox. And an Irish Catholic girl, really.”

He doesn’t bother acting offended. “Sorry, I don’t have a blonde WASP secretary and the nice Jewish mothers won’t let their daughters talk to me since Jenny Silverberg’s Sweet Sixteen. Biological clock was ticking and Scully is the best I could do. You’ve a grandchild on the way. Mazel tov.”

Teena regards her son for a long moment. “You had your first marriage annulled. I suppose the Vatican will let her marry you, Diana aside. You can have the wedding at the Vineyard if you want, my expense of course. I’ll give you the house as a wedding present, though heaven knows your father’s estate left you a bundle. Not that you act like it, Fox. Still in that awful apartment; have you even sold his house? The lawyers say 2.2 at least.”

Mulder coughs out a mouthful of lemonade. He imagines Scully in some silk taffeta meringue gown, his mother’s garden club friends trying to shame her for knowing mid-century military aircraft.

“Mom, really, we hav-“

She holds up a veined, beautiful hand. “Fox, it’s time you stopped running around with a gun.”

Mulder gapes. “You and Dad are literally the reason I run around with a gun, are you fucking kidding me with this shit?”

Teena purses her lips. “Watch your language, Fox William. I’m still your mother.”

He sighs. He sighs and he understands that he has a child coming and that his mother loves him in the terrible, unconscionable, best way that she knows how. He understands his own inamorata is a very new sort of woman.

“Sorry, Mom,” Mulder says. Refills both their cups of lemonade and leans back in his Adirondack rocker.

“How was Bellefleur?” his mother asks at length.

He stares. “What?”

“I’m trying to make conversation. Nothing too eventful, I hope? Not for Agent Scully, with a baby coming?”

Mulder narrows his eyes. “No more than usual. Made contact with a few old…connections. Why?”

She smiles, just a little. Just a softening at the edge of her upper lip. A curl of a patrician nostril. “I made contact with a few old connections too, Fox. Remember this conversation sometime down the road. Your sister was a dandelion clock, no matter what I tried back then.”

He asks for answers. Begs.

She dismisses him as ever.

“Mom, please, this baby, Scully and I need to know things.”

Teena says no more and he drives home, furious.

***

II.

Fellig disappears into some new alias and it’s not worth tracking him down.

Ritter is put on leave and Mulder finds him in a parking garage. He beats the living shit out of him and it doesn’t fix anything, but it feels pretty good. He cries for a while after that, in the darkest corner of a terrible bar on M Street.

Ritter, with three broken ribs and his jaw wired, has the good sense to say he was mugged by two unidentifiable assailants.

Mulder resigns, effective immediately. He throws his phone into the Potomac. He doesn’t go to her funeral. He doesn’t go to Margaret Scully or his apartment or his office ever again.

*

He goes to his father, with two vials of genetic material. “You owe us both,” he says, in a voice like granite.

*

He calls his newborn daughter Sylvia Charlotte for no reason other than finding it pretty. The names have no intrinsic meaning, no history to him. She has a dense thatch of black hair and her mother’s eyes. She has plump, dimpled hands and feet like Parker House rolls. She has impeccable government documents.

Mulder is smitten immediately. He holds her to his bare chest. He dances with her at 2 AM, he reads to her, he buys preposterous baby gear and tiny clothes far more stylish than his own. He is certain that she is, at minimum, the most exceptional baby of all time.

Sylvie toddles behind him along Lake Tashmoo, dragging lobster pots. Sylvie does his makeup and puts his hair in barrettes. Sylvie has both her first piano recital and her first tee-ball game at five.

*

“How come you don’t have a mom?” Kate asks her while they build a sand castle together.

“I’m adopted,” Sylvie says, sticking little pebbles onto the top of the castle. “My dad picked me out himself, so it’s just us.”

“Cool,” Kate says. “That’s lucky to get picked out. I was just borned.”

“Yep.”

They return to their work, Sylvie’s dog Queequeg keeping watch.

***

III.

“Fucking Christ. Sit still if you don’t want me to screw up your remaining hair.”

She sits still, a baby sister always. “Don’t make it too brassy, Miss. You know I can pay you, right?”

Cancer thin and white and brittle as Bernadette of Lourdes. But even Bernadette said she’d seen ghosts and Scully could never, could not ever -

Missy scoffs, offended. “Hey, Danes, are you fucking your partner? Charlie says yes and Bill says you wouldn’t. I’ve got $250 on this, so be honest with your only sister.”

Scully (she’s always Scully now, but she’d never tell Missy) jerks back, aghast.

Missy lightly slaps her hollow face. “Be still.”

“Then don’t ask me questions like that!” Scully knows her cheeks are hot. “Do you guys actually have a pool?”

Missy, lushly tressed and curvaceous and cinnamon-sugar alive, laughs. “Dana Katherine Scully, are you engaged in unconsecrated sexual congress with your FBI partner? Please note, for the court records, that I know about your cardiology professor and your FBI instructor so like…?”

Looking-glass Scully watches her sister do something complicated with a clip, with foils and a tiny brush. Watches her own Lenten-rose face, a Jabbereock, with eyes of flame.

Scully is quiet for several more seconds. She wishes she could explain the hot verging energy of the basement. The way science and conjecture and cryptozoology entangle in unholy alchemy along the margins of her education into… them.

The way it feels to have the emperor of all maladies raise a scepter in her sinus; the king of terrors claim a throne in her heart.

I’m dying, Missy, I’m dying, the oncogenes, they….p53, I … dead already, Missy, please…

“Dana? Bear in mind I’ve seen him and smelled him and I would fuck him silly myself.” Missy, fresh as a peach, clips back another section of hair.

Scully sucks in air like an Everest climber at the Death Zone. 500 more feet and she’ll make it. 100. Top of the world, the ice and the oxygen forgotten, she-

She can win, she can be the best, she can summit, she -

(Green Boots, still desiccated and unidentified up there.)

“Yes,” she breathes. Someone should know the truth at her grave.

“Good girl,” Missy says. Kisses her sister’s concave temple. “And no, we didn’t have a pool, little sister.”

***

IV.

The endless halls are painted a washed-out sea green that is somehow the opposite of color. A suffocating silence that is more than the absence of sound.

She flashes her badge to the sentry who squints, then nods, then lets her in.

Roche propped up in the narrow bed. He’s even thinner than he was when Mulder shot him, even grayer.

“Agent Scully,” he says, affable as ever. “I thought those were your footsteps. Forgive me for not getting up.”

He grins at his own joke. His face looks like an animated skull.

Scully settles into the hard vinyl chair. She sees that Roche is handcuffed to the hospital bed, which seems a very pointed kind of gesture.

“Mr. Roche,” Scully says. “You’re looking well, considering.”

“Turns out your partner is a shit marksman, who knew? Where is Agent Mulder, by the way? Didn’t he want to come see his handiwork?”

“No,” Scully replies. “He’s not like you.”

“Mmmm, I wonder. You know, they say it’s a miracle I can breathe on my own with this kind of C4 damage. Plus I can move three fingers on my left hand.” Roche waggles them slightly.

Scully pulls a yellow legal pad and a good pen from her bag. “I guess basketball is out for a while.”

“I guess. Other than the breathing and half the left hand, I’m completely paralyzed below the armpits. My lawyers are going to have a field day.”

She smiles politely. “I don’t think so.”

Roche laughs. “No? You don’t think the ACLU will be all over this?”

“No. I really don’t. You were shot because you abducted a little girl after escaping federal custody. And Agent Mulder was able to preserve your life. No one cares about you, Mr. Roche.”

She draws out a little curlicue in the pad, so it looks like she’s writing.

Roche’s face hardens. “And the sucker punch from your partner?”

“It was reported. Disciplinary action was taken.” She doodles a series of cubes.

He scoffs. “I doubt it was even the proverbial slap on the wrist. Why are you here, really?”

Scully looks up, eyebrows raised. “I’m a doctor and an FBI agent. My partner shot you. I thought a follow-up was only appropriate.”

“Cut the bullshit,” Roche snaps. “God, it must gnaw at you that he missed.”

“Why is that?”

Moves those three fingers again, Roche does. “You were a nice little Catholic girl once, weren’t you? Little kilt, little blouse. You haven’t changed much, though you’re rather too old for my tastes now.”

Roche leers and she knows, knows, that she is right. But she’s not ready to end this. Not yet.

“I was.” It takes so much to keep her voice conversational when she longs to give him what she is certain that he wants.

Roche tilts his head. “I don’t believe in god. I believe that before we are born is nothing and after we are dead is nothing. I’m not afraid of dying. But you? You believe I’ll pay for all of this again and again. You believe there is retribution after this…mortal coil. Don’t you want me there now?”

She does, she does.

Scully shrugs. “You’ll get there in time. I won’t see what happens, it makes no difference to me.”

He laughs, a genuine laugh, and it’s horrible in his cadaverous face. “Keep lying like that and we’ll end up in Hell together.”

“That’s for God to decide.”

Here it comes, she knows. Here it comes. She stays steady.

Roche’s face suddenly sly. “Perhaps you are His instrument, Agent Scully.”

She feigns confusion. “Mr. Roche, I-“

“Kill me,” he says. “You can finish what Mulder couldn’t finish himself, though I bet you do that for him all the time.” Roche winks lewdly as he goads her.

“Primum non nocere,” Scully replies, prim.

“A doctor, as you say. You’d get away with it, Scully. Come on, a little air bubble between the toes. For old times’ sake.”

He’s trying to sound light and chatty, but she hears the panic in his voice. She’s his only chance to escape mindless years in soiled diapers, parked in front of a flickering television. A blank wall. Night.

Scully fixes him with a long, cool stare. The one even Skinner doesn’t like. “I should think our prior interactions made it clear that I would never harm a prisoner duri-“

“Ahhh, but you want to,” he cajoles. “Come on, Scully. All those pretty hearts. The little girl you saved is going to be fucked up forever. One more kiddy-diddler off the taxpayers’ dime, Dana.”

She shakes her head, chuckles a bit in spite of herself. “They were cheering outside Bundy's execution. The taxpayers will love knowing you’re suffering. We’re savages at heart, I’m afraid.”

“You knew I’d ask,” Roche hisses, dropping the act. “You’re eating this up, you fucking bitch. You fucking cunt. You’re nothing to Fox Mulder, you realize that, you’re a piece of ass to him so you might as well do one real thing in your worthless life.”

She prays her voice will be steady. “I’ve already had you put on extended suicide watch; told them to check the staff. I told them you’d ask.” She holds up a mini tape recorder.

His eyes go black. She sees now what those little girls saw in their last moments, the genial salesman mask removed.

“I swear to your fucking coward god that I will walk again just to rip your fucking heart out of your fucking whore throat,” Roche spits, face contorted.

She rises. “Thank you, will there be anything else?”

A choked howl of rage that follows her out into the hall.

“Fucking BITCH!” Roche roars after her. “I swear to-“

The door closes.

Her heart soars.

***

V.

A storm outside and mosquito bites on her back and shame still fuchsia on her face. She’s wearing the best robe she could afford, the color of poison apples. She bought it at a Macy’s sale with her first credit card.

The scent of hot wax in the cheap, oatmeal-colored room. The overlay of the scents Mulder favors.

“Tore the family apart. No one would talk about it. There were no facts to confront, nothing to offer any hope.”

She thinks of her three siblings, her rowdy cousins, and her chest clenches. What would she be without her sprawling, tumultuous family?

“What did you do?” she breathes. The dark is so tender and velvet-soft. Frames her partner’s long lashes and good cheekbones like a Rembrandt. Chiaroscuros

(Dana no. Dana, didn’t you learn anything after Jack?)

“Eventually I went off to school in England, I came back and got recruited by the Bureau. Seems I had a natural aptitude for applying behavioral models to criminal cases.”

Scully gazes down at Mulder with a tenderness she hadn’t expected in this impossible assignment. In this unfair humanistic trial.

“You’ll find him, Samantha,” she says. She strokes her partner’s fall of inky hair. She feels so alive.

[jupiterswasphouse]

Im not sure if you can clear this up for me, but I've always been confused about wasps' diets... I've heard that they're obligate carnivores, but also that they eat fruit and nectar. Some sources say only their larvae eat meat. Others say the adults can't eat solid food at all. It's confusing and contradictory, e. g. if you google 'are yellow jackets carnivores' sources will say yes, but if you google 'what do yellow jackets eat' it says fruit. What's the deal? If you can recommend any papers or books I would also appreciate it.

Hey howdy! Yeah, this topic can be somewhat confusing to search for, but basically, adult Hymenopterans, with some exceptions (Such as certain Sawflies), generally do not consume solid foods. This is because the mouthparts of the majority of adult hymenopterans have been specialized to feed on fluids and thus have a structure in their mouths that's tongue-like, or even straw-like, called a "glossa"! This allows them to feed off of nectar and fruit juices or the broken down fruit itself.

[Image Sources: photomacrography.net, rjlittlefield, and ResearchGate | Image IDs: A photo showing the "tongue" or glossa of a yellowjacket, followed by a diagram and two photos under a microscope of the mouthparts of a honeybee /End IDs.]

Their larvae, meanwhile, aren't as specialized, so may be given solid materials, oftentimes meat or plant materials like pollen! When it comes to their prey, parasitoid wasps will lay eggs on/near or inside another arthropod (some paralyzed, others not) so that their larvae can feed directly off of live prey, while the social wasps that feed their young meat (like eusocial Vespids) often hunt down and kill or paralyze other arthropods or scavenge for bits of carrion for a more hands-on feeding after the larvae have already hatched!

For more information on wasps in general, I'd like to recommend "Wasps Of The World: A Guide To Every Family" by Gavin Broad and Simon Van Noort :]

[lexyeevee]

Haven’t seen you around in a while. You been ok or have I just completely missed seeing you

huh i just recently posted about how there are wasps in my car

and now i'm going to take the opportunity to update everyone on the wasps in my car

they're paper wasps and they managed to find out that if they crawl in through the tiny crack between the driver's door and the front side panel, they can access a little secret cave that's on the side of the door. like the nest is visible when the door is open, but only if you're looking for it, and as i'm getting into the car it's within inches of my shin. but with the door close it's completely cut off from the interior of the car

i was actually wondering for like a month why it seemed like every time i pulled into my driveway a wasp would come over and inspect, like, my side mirror. turns out i drove away with its house

but in all that time they never bothered me. they don't even seem to care too much that i take their whole little village away sometimes. just "oh, there it is" when i get back. i read up on paper wasps some and i guess they have a couple stages of escalation when they think their nest is threatened, starting with raising their wings, and they've never even done that. sometimes i open the door to check on them and they're just standing there on their tiny nest. they're weirdly chill. and i guess they like communally raise their young which i didn't really know before

i originally thought i'd need to dislodge them but now i'm not sure. they haven't bothered us at all. maybe i'll just let them vibe

anyway i hope that answers your question

[chaos-chloe]

Drunk Clooless Moments - Pezzy x f!Reader

Summary: Pezzy's Girlfriend hangs out in his room, while streaming drunk

TW: Alcohol, cursing, drunkness, use of "vagina"

It was another Friday night, I was sitting with my legs criss-cross on my boyfriend's bed while using the wall as my back rest. I was scrolling through chat on my laptop, banning and timing out kids being ridiculously stupid. He was streaming Sons of the Forest while drinking, but now they all are just on call talking to each other. Droid just kills his stream, telling his viewers that he was joining us in Pezzy’s room. I closed off his stream, I had tabbed on another desktop screen, as I heard his heavy footsteps getting closer to Pezzy’s room. Droid does a polite, light knock to tell us that he was coming in, but I had the door lock. I discarded my laptop on the bed, leaning over to unlock and open the door for him. 

“Oh, hey, what's up ___?” “I didn't know you were over tonight.” Droid greeted me with our “secret” special handshake. 

“Yeah, this one needed an extra mod tonight. Also, I wasn't leaving the bedroom, I'm being lazy tonight. I parked my happy ass right here.” I explained while pointing to Pezzy

“What? Guys whatcha mean that ___ is cheating on me? Huh?” Pezzy read out chat with slurred speech.

“Chat, you do realize that I know Pezzy because I’m Droid’s best friend out of their group, right?” I snipped at chat for making stupid acquisitions.

“Just for you to know, that you’re getting ban, for being a stupid.” I said while scrolling for that idiotic chatter.

As I was hunting for more people to ban who were looking for attention the boys fell into a smooth rhythm of conversation, keeping me out of it. Once I got rid of that one chatter, I opened another tab for some online shopping. While scrolling on Hot Topic, Shein, and Etsy for specialized custom gifts, my attention was caught by Pezzy’s phone ringing.

“Why is Grizzy facetiming me?” Pezzy spoke into his microphone, clicking the answer button.

“Hello Grizzy.” Pezzy answered

“Hey I'm walking over.” Grizzy cut right to the chase

“You're walking over?” Pezzy gasped in laughter

“Yes. Number 1, save the liquor. Number 2, save the door.” Grizzy rattled off

“M’kay” Pezzy agreed while looking at me.

“Wha happen?” Grizzy asked

“Doors unlocked” Droid replied while Pezzy was staring off to space

“Why did you leave the door unlocked? Wait, I thought I locked it when I came in.” I ponder

“I unlocked it before I came in here.” Droid explains 

“Okay I'll walk right on in.” Grizzy said

“Okay have fun.” Pezzy added 

“Okay don't think you're gonna get robbed.” Grizzy warned

“Why the hell would we think we were getting robbed?” I asked to droid who was looking at me 

“Man, I don't know” Droid Shrugged as he sat on the end of the bed

“Here talk to chat, sit here and talk. Sit here.” Pezzy told Droid as he was taking his headphones off.

“Wait is-?” 

“What's up you stupid fucks?!” Puffer barged into the room

“Aaahhh” Pezzy screamed while clutching his heart. I froze up like a deer in headlights, holding my laptop with both hands.

“Hi Puff” I greeted back

“Oh shit! My bad ___” Puffer felt slightly bad and gave me a weird hug.

Droid sat back on bed, since Pezzy got cornered back into his chair as Puffer walked into the room. I put my laptop to the side and sat right next to Droid, leaning my head on his shoulder. 

Droid was sipping on his drink chiming in and there with Pezzy and Puffer talking to chat about random ass shit. I heard a slight shuffle outside the door, reminding myself it was either Sly or Grizzy. The door opened to wild Grizzy who finally showed up.

“Bro there's a big ass wasp in front of your house.” grizzy informed us

“A wasp?!” Pezzy yelled

“Yeah I ran inside once I realized it was following me.” I said to Grizzy, giving him a high five.

“Why you outta breath?” Puffer investigated Grizzy

“The wasp.” grizzy replied, sounding offended that Puffer would ask him that. We all laughed at his tone.

“Now where’s the liquor?” Grizzy asked, I gave him a red solo cup I had put to the side.

“L-Look Here take a shot. We all took one, well expect __” Droid said pouring Grizzy a “shot”

“Okay” Grizzy quickly agreed

“Oh. hold up a sec.” Droid said while looking into Grizzy’s cup. Droid took the cup and brought it up to his lips to take a drink, since it was not a shot

“That's a lot.” Droid said laughing at his stupidity.

“That shit smells like nail polish.” Grizzy replied after taking a sniff of the cup

“No it smells nice” Pezzy added

“Noo it smells like hand sanitizer and nail polish” Droid countered “It will do you wrong but do you right” Droid

“It got me drunk before a glass, ask __” Pezzy said, trhowing his head to my direction.“It did, it was pretty funny and entertaining.” I said with a small smile

After that the whole gang was here so I tuned them out, opened my laptop again to a split screen of the stream chat and google. I was having multiple casual conversations with regular chatters and other mods. Letting time pass us by until I got a notification that “ElasticDroid” is live on the top right of my screen, but Droid was sitting right in front of me in Pezzys’ chair. I was most definitely not getting in the middle of this, I got up from Pezzy’s bed and walked out to the hallway couch. I was going to hide here until they were not chasing after each other.  After like 10 - 15 minutes of the back-and-forth funny shit, they all came back into Pezzy’s room. Pezzy peaked his head out, motioning for me to join back in his room.

I walked back in, sat on the corner of the bed right behind Droid. I shoved my turned off laptop underneath his bed so it wouldn't get stepped on or ruined. When I get right back up, I see Pezzy putting his arms around Grizzy’s and Droid's shoulder. Grizzy stretched his arms out to carry Pezzy, in doing so Pezzy lifted his own legs up and placed them in Grizzy’s arms. I started giggling and shaking my head, scooting back in the bed so the guys have room.  Grizzy started laughing with me, Droid was watching the camera playback video, and Puffer was looking back at them being stupid. 

“He is, He is crazy light, what the fuck.” Droid says confused

“I’m 130 pounds.” Pezzy informs them

“Really?!? I could bench this fool. What the fuck?” Droid says shocked at this revelation, pezzy started laughing and tripping over his junk lying on the floor.

“I think anyone can, but not me.” I said slyly, hiding my smirk behind Pezzy’s cup as I took a sip.

 “He’s my warm up.” Grizzy continued

“That is true, that is true.” Droid repeated looking at Puffer, Pezzy gathered himself and was standing right between Grizzy and i.

“You wanna, You wanna?” Pezzy asked, doing the curl up motion and I started shaking my head in disbelief of how drunk he is right now.

Grizzy agreed and started curling him very easily twice before Droid wanted to try. Pezzy was unbalanced in Grizzy’s arm before trying to transfer him into Droid’s arms. Grizzy moved quickly and Droid tried to save Pezzy but they both moved to where I was in his bed, Pezzy somehow ended up right in between my legs, Pezzy’s face got smashed right into my vagina. Grizzy held him right there laughing, while Droid picked him up out of the predicament, Puffer was drinking straight out of the bottle. I was laughing so hard from embarrassment and happiness that I was turning into a batch of freshly picked cherries. 

“What were you doing down there Pezzy?” Droid asked bluntly with joy, I ended up on the floor in front of the mirror laughing and wheezing

“Hello world, I was definitely not in between my girlfriend's legs just now.” Pezzy slurred as Droid had him in the princess carry.

“Isn't that where you're supposed to be Pezzy, you know like every night?” Puffered popped off

“Okay, okay, I’m leaving this room to bake or cook something.” I get up out of breath, my face still red not wanting to deal with this anymore.

“Chat say bye to ____” Puffer says

“Bye___” “Bye love” “Bye Bitch” the guys say as I'm leaving the room with my sleepover bag in hand. 

[stars-on-the-water]

When I first started working with deities, I felt drawn to them. And I think that’s how most people choose their deities. But my favorite things is how they change us.

Before Lady Athena, I was quiet in class, sat in corners, and wouldn’t speak up for myself. Now, I raise my hand to answer questions, not afraid to be wrong, I prefer the front of classrooms, and boy do people wish I would keep my thoughts to myself. But it’s not just that. I grew drawn to pottery and sculpting. I enjoy strategy and I’m good at it. Specifically battle. (Thanks Fire Emblem Three Houses) I absolutely adore owls now and it brings me great joy to see them. Heck- I want to learn to use a spear.

Prior to Lord Hermes, I was mortified to drive, not much of a gambler, and hated running. Now, I want a sports car, drive whenever I can, love my scratch off tickets, and training myself to be able to run. However, I feel more love for my penpals and each letter I get makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I look forward to road trips and want nothing else than to fly. And above all- I want to learn all the languages I possibly can.

And Lady Artemis, she’s been around far longer than I thought she had been. But, there was always the childish fear of large animals and bugs that kept me inside often, I was not confident, and my interest in the wildness was close to nothing. Now I’m older. I appreciate all walks of life, animal and human. (Expect spiders and wasp- fuck them.) I feel safe in the woods and walk barefoot through clearings in them. I talk to the moon. I know who I am. And my gosh, the amount of money I spend on arrows.

And I feel them. When I’m trying not to cry as I mold clay, I feel a comforting hand on my shoulder and I know Athena is proud. As I laugh with the window down, music blaring, I know Hermes is in the passenger seat laughing with me. As I let my arrow fly, Artemis is doing the same right next to me. And I love them. And I think they love me back.

Everyone’s practice is different and that is so beautiful to me. We all love our gods one way or another and that’s what brings us together. And that’s enough for me. Knowing I’m not alone, even though most of us are solitary.

[penumbra-mayhem]

And All That Follows (ch. 2)

aka: Put Your Ear Up to My Wall, Mistake My Heart for A Drumbeat

David fights to keep everything quiet, Asher takes on a new role, and Milo finds Tank (for better or worse).

Ch. 1 // Ch. 3 // ao3 // 4.6k words

(TW: death, car accident, grief, implied/referenced self-harm, vomiting, gore/blood, violence)

EDIT: new title (formerly known as The Fall of an Alpha, but i hated that name so i chose a new one)

————————————————

Sept 3. 2017, 11:52 pm

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David’s phone started vibrating as soon as he pulled away from the morgue. He’d placed it in his backseat—a habit Gabe had instilled in him years ago so he’d never be tempted to text and drive.

He ignored the buzzing, willing the rain battering against his car to drown out the sound. It worked; his phone eventually went silent, and David’s full attention was brought back to the barely visible road he was traversing.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

Another call. He contemplated pulling over, but Gabe’s voice hummed in his head: Patience. Not everything needs an answer right away. He decided against it. Whoever was calling would realize he wasn’t available and leave a message. 

The call ended.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

It started again. And again. And again. And again. As soon as a call ended, another began. He could feel them in his skull, like the buzzing was coming from his brain. Like his head was a freshly shaken wasp nest.

The wasps traveled down into his gut, twisting and tightening his intestines. They kept traveling, moving to his extremities. His hands went numb. Then his feet. He couldn’t feel the steering wheel. Or the gas pedal. Or the brakes. His vision began to tunnel.

No. He didn’t have time for this. He had a job to do. He needed to focus. He needed to get back to his apartment safely. He needed to get the key. He needed to go to his dad’s house. He needed to get into his study. He needed to throw up.

David found himself pulled off on the side of the road, doubled over in the rain, emptying his stomach into a bush. How embarrassing, throwing up like a little kid. That’s enough, he thought to himself, get it together. He stood up straight, but the movement was too quick and he found himself doubled over again.

Everything in him burned as it came up. It stung. 

Retreating back to his car, David quickly checked his phone. Missed calls, voice messages, and texts from various pack members flooded his screen. Someone must have found out what happened. None of them seemed urgent—nor from Asher or Milo—so he put his phone on ‘do not disturb’ and returned it to its place in the back seat.

When he sat down behind the wheel, the wasps were gone. David started the car again and continued back home.

————————————————

Asher cradled his phone, rocking gently in an effort to appease his bawling body. He told himself he had until Milo texted with an update. Then he would pull himself together. His abdomen ached as wave after wave of mourning slammed into him.

He mourned for Gabe. The officer had said he’d died at the scene, but had it been instant? Had he suffered? Did he know he was dying? Did he try to move his legs only to realize he was paralyzed from the waist down? The neck down? Did he frantically gasp for breath as his lungs slowly, agonizingly filled with blood? Had he tried desperately to pry his arm from where it was pinned to reach his phone and call his son just one more time?

He mourned for his pack. Gabe was the founder. They’d never been without him. Would they survive? Would they break into dissension? Crumble apart without leadership? Asher had heard of the devastation past packs had gone through following the death of an alpha or a founder. Gabe had been both. And the pack didn’t even know he was gone. David had said he’d tell them tomorrow at the meeting, but was that the best way?

He mourned for David. David, whose family was already so small. Who already struggled to feel and show his emotions. Asher had seen the initial impacts of this loss. Cold. Detached. Devoid. Would David recover? Was this a wound he could ever heal from? Was he in pain? Asher assumed so, but if David was, he hadn’t shown it. Was he putting on a front, a wall he wouldn’t let anyone see behind? Or was he numb? Was that worrying David? Did he feel guilty he wasn’t feeling anything for his dad’s dea—

buzz buzz

Asher jumped at the vibration in his hands. He rose from the floor and stumbled over to the couch, wiping his face with his shirt. Milo had texted:

At Tank’s place, door was left open

Asher’s stomach dropped. His fingers were a messy flurry as he texted back:

shit

txt updts

or call

davids not bakc

He waited for a reply.

————————————————

Milo pulled into the parking lot of Tank’s apartment complex. He’d past the site of Gabe’s crash on the way, scanning for a glimpse of Tank or their bike. Thankfully, he’d found neither.

But he saw Gabe’s car, and that alone almost sent him into a spiral. No wonder Tank had sounded so wrecked; the driver’s side had crumpled like paper.

As he raced through the parking lot, Milo caught a glimpse of Tank’s motorcycle parked in a large puddle to his right. He’d been right; they’d come back here. Thank god.

Once at the entrance to Tank’s building, he pressed the buzzer for their door and waited. Nothing. He pressed it again. When he was met with the same result, he started pressing every button, hoping someone would let him in. Eventually the door unlocked, and he pushed through.

Milo bounded up the stairwell to Tank’s apartment, slipping and catching himself several times on the rain-slick steps. His throat tightened when he turned a corner and spotted their door at the end of the hall, slightly ajar.

As he walked towards it, he texted Asher:

At Tank’s place, door was left open

After a few moments, his phone buzzed with a series of replies:

shit

txt updts

or call

davids not bakc

When he reached their door, Milo pushed it open further and crept into the apartment. The curtains were all drawn and the lights were off, but Milo could slightly make out a series of objects on the floor. He felt around for a switch and flicked on a light.

All the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen were open and empty, silverware and broken dishes littering the floor of Tank’s tiny studio. Milo could practically track Tank’s movements, following the dents along the wall where they had hurled each cup and plate and fork and knife.

Then his eyes landed on blood—a piece of broken glass on the floor, glistening crimson along its sharp edge. Milo trailed the fat red drops to the closed bathroom door. The sight and faint smell of Tank’s blood made his head spin.

“Tank?” he called out.

A smear of blood glinted on the door handle. He gave two soft knocks. “Tank, please,” he tried again, “I know you’re in there.”

A wretched voice answered from the other side of the door, “Go away.”

He ignored them and tried the handle, grimacing at the slick feeling of fresh blood on his hand. Luckily, they’d left it unlocked.

Pushing the door open, Milo peered inside the dark bathroom. Tank was a huddled mass in the corner of their shower, head buried in their arms.

“I said go away, Miles!” they shouted, raising their head just enough to glare at him over their arms, eyes glinting with fury.

Milo flinched but didn’t leave. Crouching down, he spoke in as calm of a tone as he could muster, “Where’re you hurt, Tank?”

“Get. Out.”

“I’m not gonna do that,” Milo replied, “Can I turn on the light?”

“No,” they snapped.

“Okay." Milo took out his phone and turned on his flashlight instead. He tried to ignore the trail of blood leading to Tank as he opened up their mirror cabinet, then the one under their sink.

“What’re you doing?”

“Looking for your first aid kit.”

“I don’t have a first aid kit,” they sneered.

Milo shined his light at Tank, who shrunk against it, burying their head again in their arms. They were soaking wet from the rain and shaking terribly. He cast the light away from them.

“Just leave!” they moaned.

“No. You’re injured, and since you have nothing to treat it with, I’m taking you back to Ash and David’s,” he retorted.

A snarl gurgled up from deep in Tank’s chest as Milo approached.

“You can growl at me all you want, I don’t give a damn.”

The snarl grew louder the closer he got. But once he kneeled down in front of them, it began to change, breaking up and losing its bite.

“I know,” he whispered, tears welling in his eyes as Tank began to cry, “I know, Tank.”

He placed a tentative hand on their arm. They trembled under his touch, but didn’t pull away. 

“Just come with me, please. You don’t have to talk about it. You can be as angry as you want. I don’t care. I just want to make sure you’re safe,” Milo said as he set his phone down, flashlight to the floor.

“I-I am,” they lied, their sobs warping their words. 

“You’re bleeding from somewhere, I saw the blood in the kitchen and in here. So no, you’re not,” Milo countered. 

“…it’s n-n-not b-bad,” Tank lied again. 

“Can I see?”

Tank hesitated, then raised their head. Milo couldn’t make much out. He flipped his phone around, so the light pointed up at the ceiling.

He choked down a gasp at the sight of Tank’s face. The gash just under their left eye was deep, blood still pumping out slowly, drenching their cheek and dripping down their neck. It was in their hair, on their clothes, on their hands.

“Not that bad, my ass,” Milo muttered, “Tank, this needs a healer.”

“No. No healers,” they choked out, tears leaving trails in their blood.

Milo knew accepting any sort of medical help was difficult for Tank. They never talked about it, but he assumed there was some sort of trauma or pride or fear stopping them. He was trying to be understanding, he really was, but it was all too much. It was late, he was spent, Tank was bleeding, and Gabe was dead.

“Fine,” Milo spat, “You either go back to Ash and David’s and let me sew it up, cause it’s going to need stitches, or I stay here and call a damn healer. Your fucking choice.”

That shut them up. Their sobs subsided and they glared with all the fury left in their trembling body before muttering, “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

————————————————

At the sound of the front door opening, Asher sprang up and raced to the hall. "Tank?"

David stood in the doorway, rainwater dripping like tears from his lashes. He looked as stoic as before, but now a sickly tinge covered his features. 

"David," Asher breathed, "Was it...was it him?"

"Yes," he muttered, walking inside and shutting the door, "What happened?"

"What d'you mean?"

"You thought I was Tank." David stopped in front of him. 

"I just uh...hoped..."

“What happened?” David repeated, his voice low and tense. He didn’t have the time nor energy for hesitation. His stare bored into Asher, demanding an answer.

"T-Tank saw Gabe's car," Asher spluttered. David's eyes widened. "They called Milo when they saw it. He had to tell them what happened, he—we couldn’t lie to them. Milo went to their place. He texted me when he got there but he hasn’t updated since.”

Of course. Of course they couldn’t have just waited to tell anyone until David got back. Or until tomorrow, like he told them. David pulled out his phone, turning off ‘do not disturb’. There were more missed calls and texts, but none from Milo or Tank. He pulled up Milo’s contact and called him. 

“Hello?” Milo’s voice oozed with trepidation. 

David’s was dry and sharp. “Is Tank ok?”

“…yes. We’re heading to my car now, we’ll meet you back at your place.”

“Are they hurt?”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David started getting another call. He ignored it. 

“Um…” David could tell Milo was choosing his words carefully, but for David’s sake or Tank’s he didn’t know. “Yes, but it’ll be ok.”

David gripped his phone tighter, but kept his rising worry out of his tone. He needed to stay level, anything less would just be detrimental to everyone’s safety.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Take them to a healer.”

David heard Asher mutter ‘fuck’ behind him. There was a long pause on Milo’s end, filled only with the sound of rain and Milo’s breathing as he walked. 

“Milo.”

Finally, he replied, “We’ll be at your place soon.” And with that, Milo hung up.

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

The buzzing in David’s head started again, echoing those from his phone. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket as he stormed past a bewildered Asher and into his bedroom. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“David? David, what did Milo say? Is Tank ok?” Asher called out as he followed, making the wasps in David’s head angrier. He watched David tear through the drawers of his desk, searching for what, Asher didn’t know. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

Asher called his name several more times before David seemed to hear him. He whipped his head around.

“Is Tank hurt?”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Yes,” David replied before continuing his search, “But Milo says it’s fine, so I’m hoping it’s not too bad. They won’t go to a healer, no surprise there, so they’re coming back here.”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… 

“Who is calling you?”

David finally found what he was looking for; he pulled out the key and clipped it onto his key ring. “The pack. Someone must have found out. Maybe the wreck was on the news or someone saw it like Tank did. They’ve been calling since I left the morgue.”

David pushed past Asher again and started heading towards the front door. He fought back the wasps in his head. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… 

“Are you going to answer?” Asher asked as he followed. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“No.”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Why not?”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

He opened the front door. “I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… “At the pack meeting.”

“David they can’t wait that long,” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… “They already know. Or they’ve at least heard rumors. You need to talk to them.”

“Well, I don’t have the time!” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz… “I’ve got to get to my dad’s house and figure all this shit out,” David growled. The wasps were winning; he was starting to lose focus. He turned to leave. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“Then let me do it.”

David paused. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

“What?” he asked over his shoulder. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

Asher’s voice took on an edge David had never heard from him before, “Let me go with you and answer the calls,” buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…“I’ll still be near, so you can get to your phone if you need to. But this way, you won’t be distracted, and the pack won’t be left in the dark all night.”

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David wanted to say no. Having Asher near right now felt like a liability. But he was right. buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…The pack already knew, and keeping them in the dark was only going to incite panic. That and David needed the buzzing to stop, both from his phone and his head. 

buzz buzz buzz…buzz buzz buzz…

David unlocked his phone and handed it to Asher. 

————————————————

“Hey, can you see who just texted me?” Milo asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. 

Tank wiped their hands as well as they could on their jeans before picking up Milo’s phone. 

goin w david 2 gabes

key undr mat

b back l8r

“It’s Ash,” they reported, “He’s going to Gabe’s place with David? He said the key is under the mat and they’ll be back later.”

“Why’re they—nevermind. Can you text him back and let him know we’re almost to his place and also ask if David has a suturing kit? Password’s 0209.”

Almost to ur place, u got a suture kit?

tank???

The one and only, how’d u know?

u txt dif

y do u hav milos phone

He’s driving

oh rite

r u ok

Im fine, suture kit?

david says in bthrm

Gotcha

y do u need it

Dont worry bout it

————————————————

“…yeah Kelsey, it’s true…I know…we don’t know that yet…yes, tomorrow morning at 11…okay…hey, you text me if you need anything…okay…okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, try and get some rest…I will…bye K.” 

Asher ended the call and trotted after David, who was already unlocking Gabe’s front door. He rubbed his eyes in the brief moment of silence before David’s phone started buzzing again. 

“Hey, Mika…yeah, it was a car crash…”

David was stuck in the doorway. The foyer loomed before him, both nauseatingly familiar and eerily alien. His childhood home was now as much a husk as his father was. It made the wasps in David’s stomach writhe. 

Asher was staring at him, David could feel it. So, he took a step inside. Then another. And another. It almost felt like trespassing. 

There was a David who used to live here. Who at seven years old had learned the virtue of honesty when he admitted to breaking the kitchen window. Whose first loose tooth was yanked out by a string attached to the front door. Who used to visit every week after he moved out. Who mended the roof and repainted the baseboards. Who spent countless hours listening to his father’s stories by the fireplace.  

That was not this David, the David treading across the floorboards like a thief. 

He reached his father’s study and unlocked it with the key he’d retrieved earlier. Asher ended his call and said, “I’ll be in the living room. Let me know if you need anything.”

David nodded and walked into the study, closing the door behind him. 

It smelled like him: rosemary, leather, and something distinctly Gabe. The scent should’ve been comforting, but it just stirred the wasps up, making him lightheaded as they whirled.

David switched on the desk lamp. Everything was just as he remembered:

Books lined the walls, organized alphabetically by last name. Stacks of paper sat neatly on the outskirts of the desk’s surface, leaving the middle open for work. A lumpy mug David had made in high school held a collection of pens and pencils. 

David walked around the desk. Three picture frames adorned the polished oak. The first held a pack photo from the previous year’s Solstice. The second held a candid of David’s mother, sticking her tongue out at the camera as she ran through a yard sprinkler. The third held a picture of Gabe and David on their most recent camping trip, their faces wild and beaming. 

On the back of Gabe’s chair hung his jacket. David felt the black leather—soft with use and dedicated upkeep. 

The wasps were stinging his eyes; David pressed his fingers into them, seeing sparks as he crushed the bugs behind his eyelids. He collapsed into the seat and focused on his breathing, forcing the wasps in his chest to move in an orderly fashion. Not here. Not yet. He had a job to do. 

David opened the largest drawer of the desk and began to gather what he needed. 

————————————————

"Shit, Tank, this looks really bad.”

Milo sat back on his heels; the cold of the tile seeped through his pants and into his skin. Tank stayed still in their position on the bathroom floor as Milo leaned in again, holding the needle tight in his hand.

After a moment, he leaned back again, exclaiming, "Fuck, I don't know how to sew stitches! I mean, my mom taught me to sew but skin is so fucking different than fabric. It moves and bleeds and-and, for fuck's sake, it's your face, can we please get a healer?"

Tank scowled but didn't reply, biting the inside of their cheek to keep from snapping.

"Alright, fine. Okay. But I'm gonna have to go slow. I don't know what I'm doing and, again, this is your face," Milo warned them.

"Just let me do it, then," Tank muttered. 

He dismissed the offer, "No, you've got your shaky hand."

"I can use the other."

"No, cause that's not your dominant hand. You've got to do this with your dominant hand, and that's your shaky hand. You're gonna scar real bad if you—”

"I don't care about scars."

"You'll care about this one."

"I have other scars on my face, I really don't care."

"You'll care about this one."

Tank looked away, the weight of the night and how they got there in the first place pulling them back down into silence. Seeing he’d won, for now, Milo breathed deep and tilted Tank’s head up slightly with one hand. He held the needle close to their cheek, whispering, "Okay. I'm gonna start."

Tank winced as the needle pierced their skin, and Milo almost called the whole thing off. But he kept going, and they quickly stopped wincing.

Milo was laser focused, doing his best to keep the stitches small and tidy. But when he was about halfway done, a tear rolled down into the gash, stirring Milo from his concentrated state. He used a gentle thumb to brush away the tears on Tank's cheeks.

"I'm not crying cause it hurts," Tank whispered, "It doesn't hurt."

"I know," Milo murmured, "...almost done."

Despite the circumstances, a sort of morbid satisfaction stirred in Milo at the sight of the bloody rift closing under his hand. It felt good, felt right, to be pulling something back together when everything was falling apart. 

When he finished the last stitch, Milo placed a large bandaid over the gash. Tank stared down at their hands while Milo put away the suturing kit. 

As he began scrubbing the dried blood off his hands in the sink, Tank explained:

“I didn’t mean to do this, you know.”

Milo stayed quiet, giving Tank the space to talk more if they wanted. But the silence just made them feel more pressured to defend themself.

“Well, I did mean to throw that glass, I just, I didn’t mean for it to throw itself back at me,” they clarified.”

“Okay,” Milo said. His tone came out of his mouth light, but fell heavy on Tank’s ears. 

“I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself,” Tank asserted, their anxiety rising.

“Okay,” Milo repeated. The discussion didn’t need to go any further. He didn’t even know why it was happening in the first place. 

Tank blinked tears from their eyes. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t purposely pull everyone’s attention from Gabe.”

Milo turned around and leaned against the sink, trying to defuse them, “I believe you, Tank. I know you. You would’ve let yourself bleed out in that shower before ever coming to me or anyone else for help. Especially tonight.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Of course it’s a bad thing, Tank!” Milo threw his hands up, gripping tightly onto his braids.

“How is that a bad thing?!?”

“Because you can’t—I just—ugh, I can’t have this conversation right now. I need…I don’t know what I need, but it’s not any more of this,” Milo shot. 

Tank’s face twitched from the blow. They staggered to their feet. “Fine. Then I’ll leave.”

“What? Tank, no—”

“You stitched me up. Thanks. Now I’m leaving.” They threw open the bathroom door. 

Milo followed them down the hall, grumbling, “Tank, you don’t even have a ride.”

“I’ll walk.”

He rolled his eyes. They were being ridiculous.  “That’ll take you forever, especially in this weather.”

Tank whipped around, hissing, “I don’t give a fuck. You don’t need me here, you said it yourself.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Well it sure did fucking sound like it.”

They stormed towards the door, but Milo slipped in front of them and blocked their path. 

“I just meant I don’t need to talk about that anymore!” he exclaimed, gesturing to Tank’s cheek, “We can talk about Gabe. We can talk about how we feel. We can talk about the future and the pack and what this all means going forward. Or we could not talk at all! But I don’t want to talk about shit that’s already happened. I don’t want to talk about shit that didn’t even happen in the first place. That’s not productive.”

“I don’t care about being productive,” they spat. 

“But you care about David, right? If you won’t stay for yourself or for me, stay for him.”

“He’s not even here.”

“But he’ll be back. And you know how he gets; he’s going to need us.”

“He doesn’t need me.”

“Yes, he does,” he groaned. 

Milo’s phone began to vibrate. 

Tank cried out, “No, he doesn’t! He doesn’t need my mess on top of everything else going on.”

As Milo dug his phone out of his pocket, Tank shoved past him and raced out the front door. 

Milo’s heart stuttered at the name on his screen. He rushed to the open door, yelling into the storm, “Tank, stop! Tank, please come back! Tank!”

Tears welling in his eyes, he leaned his weight against the door frame and answered the call. 

“Mom?….yeah, it’s true. Gabe’s dead.”

Wails erupted through his phone, scraping Milo hollow. 

————————————————

David found everything in under ten minutes—unsurprisingly, given how organized Gabe was and how pressed David was to leave. 

When he’d gathered the last of what he needed, he locked the study and walked into the living room. Asher was pacing, on another call of what seemed an endless barrage. He glanced at David and was summoned by a jerk of the latter’s head. 

The two left the house and drove back home, Asher answering calls and texts the whole way back. When they reentered their apartment, they heard Milo’s voice trickling down the hallway:

“Yeah, I know…no, but I’m sure we’ll find out more tomorrow…Oh, David and Ash are back. I’m gonna talk to them and then head over…no the rain has died down, I’ll be fine…yeah…okay, I will, I promise…okay, see you soon…I love you too, ma.”

He looked up at David and Asher. 

“Is Tank okay?” Asher asked. 

“Huh?” Milo replied in a daze. 

“They had to get stitches?”

“Oh right…um, yeah they fell on their way to their apartment after they saw the crash. The rain made their stairwell slippery and they busted their face open. But I stitched them up, best I could,” Milo lied. 

Asher nodded before getting another call. He answered, walking away into the kitchen. 

“Where are they now?” David asked, clutching a  handful of manila folders, a briefcase, and a familiar jacket. 

“They uh,” Milo looked away, “They left.”

The buzzing picked back up in David’s head. “Left?”

“…we got into a fight.”

David breathed out slowly, muttering under his breath, “Tank.”

“No, no, it’s my fault! I was distracted, I wasn’t careful with my words, I wasn’t listening to them. They left, I don’t know where, and I was gonna chase after them but then my mom called and…” Milo wiped the back of his hand across his face. 

The sight of Milo’s tear-streaked cheeks turned the hum in David’s head into a cacophony. 

“I think I’m gonna stay at hers tonight,” Milo croaked as he gathered his things, “She’s really upset.”

“Of course,” David replied, internally cursing that he couldn’t bring himself to say more. 

“I um, I’ll be at the meeting tomorrow. I’ll text Ash for the details,” Milo babbled. He stopped by the front door. “David. If you need anything, you text me. Or call me. You hear?”

“I hear,” David lied, the buzzing in his head drowning everything out.

[regexkind]

Once when I was busy fornicating in my bedroom there was a loud adamant rap at the door, and over the protestations of my lover I quit that which I was doing to answer. It was an odious little man with a pencil moustache and tiny eyes and eyebrows, who was insistent that because he was "in the neighborhood" and "had been clearing pests from my neighbors' houses" that he had the right to solicit these same services to me. In ringing tones that made the heavens glitter with the light of sacrificial knives, I told him that the hours he had stolen from various wasps, spiders, roaches, and rats would be given back to them, and that they would be given the lease of his dreams. He chuckled somewhat nervously and left. I feel pretty good about this