#and it’s at a point where she had to ask some violent campers to leave and the police advised that she needed a more ‘legal sounding’

[rachealsaccount]

if my mom is gonna force/guilt trip me into being her work assistant could I at least get paid for it

[total-drama-takes-takes-2]

tti episode 15

“Last time on Total Takes Island: The remaining competitors finally made the merge and competed in an ultimate test of endurance. Patrick and Ass were brought back to the island, stirring up some old trouble. In the end, Courtney won immunity, and Scruffy took the walk of shame, leaving their friend Julia with some peculiar parting words. Will the remaining campers survive to see another challenge? Will Bonnie and Courtney stay safe in the game? Find out now- on Total! Takes! Island!”

According to previous weather forecasts, this particular morning is bound to be sunny, with a mild breeze and a warm but not-too-hot temperature- the perfect challenge conditions. According to Chris McLean’s brand new automated weather machine, it’s snowing. 

“What is this?” Julia asks upon opening the curtains on one of the small windows in the former Anon’s cabin (where all the girls and such had recently been moved post-merge). 

“What’s what?” Bonnie groans, not even lifting their head from their pillow. 

Michael murmurs something indistinct in the bunk above them and rolls over. Ass lifts up their sleeping mask to see what the commotion is, and then pulls it back on, putting in a pair of earbuds playing an audiobook retelling of the Peloponnesian war. 

“It’s snowing,” Julia remarks dryly, stepping away from the window to show everyone. 

Kelly raises an eyebrow. “How can it be snowing? It’s June?”

“You know, my second aunt Tracey is a top meteorologist, or um… yeah, that’s right!” Staci says, hopping out of bed to look outside. “I bet I could figure this out!”

“It’s probably just Chris,” Michael sighs, turning back over. “Can we go back to bed?”

“What if we get snowed in and miss the challenge?” Kelly asks. 

Bonnie grumbles. “You mean what if you get snowed in and miss the challenge. It’s all for one, remember?” 

“Whatever. This is lame, I’m getting breakfast,” Julia sighs, putting on the warmest clothing she brought (which admittedly isn’t much) and beaming brightly. “Wanna come, Mikey?”

Michael lifts her head and raises an eyebrow. “Um… yeah, I guess. And don’t call me that,”

---

MICHAEL: “Funny how as soon as Scruffy is gone Julia wants to be friends again, isn’t it?”

---

The boy’s and such cabin is deathly quiet this morning as the only remaining male campers don’t exactly have anything nice to say to each other. They’ve already staked out on opposite corners of the room, Max taking the middle right bunk, McLovin taking the top left and Patrick taking the bottom left. None speak to each other until McLovin walks outside without looking and lands face-first in the thick blanket of snow beneath the porch roof. 

“Snow?” Patrick asks plainly. “Not possible. It’s June.”

Max rolls his eyes. “Nice deduction, Sherlock,” before layering another blazer on and walking out into the cold. 

Chris’ voice blares over the speakers. “Good morning, campers! Lovely weather we’re having! Meet me in the amphitheater for today’s challenge in an hour!”

McLovin shivers violently as he stands, just for Patrick to shove him again while passing by. 

---

Ass files their nails in the communal bathrooms, turning them into pointed claws while casually listening to their audiobook and chewing gum. The doors open and Kelly walks in, dragging a snow-covered portable tanning bed behind them. Ass doesn’t offer to help. 

“Morning! What’re you listening to?”

They ignore them at first. 

“What’re you listening to?” Kelly repeats, assuming Ass simply didn’t hear them. 

They sigh, and take out the earbuds. “One Direction,”

“Oh, I love One Direction! I love everyone, honestly, there are no bad genres,” Kelly remarks with a huff as they drag their tanning bed to the right spot. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“Whatever,”

Ass turns and watches as Kelly plugs in the machine. It fizzles to life with short bursts of electricity around the already-blackened outlet. They sigh. 

“You want some advice?”

“Ooh, sure!”

“You may have had that airheaded doofus for the easy part of the competition, but this is serious stuff now. Compared to who’s left, you’re not exactly the sharpest knife in Chef’s kitchen, you know? And I’m trying to etch out the strongest first, so you staying in the game is a mutually beneficial arrangement, wouldn’t you agree?”

Kelly thinks for a moment, eyebrow raised. “Um… sure,”

“Then let me give you some pointers. Just between us girl friends, right?”

---

Michael looks relatively unbothered in her parka as the rest of the campers shiver around her, hugging themselves and curling their knees up to their chests. McLovin’s teeth chatter. Chris stands in the center of the stage, dressed in mountaineering gear and holding a pair of skis. 

“Now, normally this challenge calls for a pirate theme- however, someone lost our costume bin,” he glares at Chef, who’s on a snowmobile some feet away. He rolls his eyes. “So today, we’re going full-on mountain expedition!” Chris steps out of the way, revealing a lumpy mass covered by a tarp, which he promptly pulls off. Under it are a few locked coolers. “You’ll be exploring around the frozen island to find the keys to open these chests- one of which holding the key to your invincibility!”

The crowd murmurs in relative excitement, though almost everyone is still shivering. Chef distributes a few flimsy parkas (for legal reasons) before handing everyone a clue card for their keys. 

Julia stares down at hers. Chef’s fridge. “Aren’t these supposed to be winter themed, or something?”

“They are,” Chris grins. Chef walks out in a santa costume, holding a butcher’s knife with a mistletoe taped on it. Julia swallows a lump in her throat and turns to Michael. 

“Hey, bestie! Tradesies?”

“Um… no, thanks. I’ll take my chances with the frozen pond by the cabins,”

“Awww, come on, please?” Julia pouts. “Isn’t this what friends are for?”

A flash of annoyance crosses Michael’s face. “Fine,” she nabs Julia’s clue and replaces it with hers, then storms off. 

Patrick rolls his eyes at the commotion, nudging Ass with his elbow. “Heh. Women, right?”

"Tell me about it. Those two are getting on my nerves,"

Max gives Ass and Patrick an annoyed glance and takes a long step away before looking at his clue. “This is just a pine tree. There are thousands of them on this island!”

“Better start looking then, dude,” Chris chuckles. 

“Oh, I can help!” Kelly beams, running over and placing a hand on Max’s shoulder. He gives her an odd look. 

“Fine,”

“Yay!”

---

KELLY: “Since Austin is gone now, I have to start taking things more seriously- that’s what Ass says, anyway. I don’t think I trust them fully, yet, but some of the things they say make sense. I need allies, and smart ones!”

---

“Hey, I thought we were gonna team?” Staci asks, a dejected tone in her voice. 

Kelly winks. “I have a master plan. I’ll tell you later!”

Staci watches Kelly walk off with Max and frowns, then turns to the remaining competitors. She steps up to a still-shivering McLovin and peers over his shoulder at his clue. “What’s that supposed to be?” 

He sighs. “It’s a polar bear,”

“There are polar bears on the island?”

Chris shouts. “Specially imported!”

“Hm,” Staci thinks for a moment. “How about this? I’ll help you with yours, if you help me with mine.”

“What’s yours?”

Staci holds up their clue, an embellished image of an ice block. “Can’t be any harder than a polar bear, right?”

---

Courtney walks through the barely-cleared off path in the woods alone, humming to themselves while holding their clue in their pocket. A hike up the mountain- how hard could it be? Just a few hours walk and they’d be back at the amphitheater in time for lunch. 

They approach a fork in the woods, looking to the path diverging right before suddenly bumping into something hard. “Ow!”

“Hey!” Someone yells. Courtney regains their composure and looks over, seeing Bonnie arrive from the opposite direction. “Oh. Hey.”

“Hi. Not with anyone?”

“Nope. I’m flying solo now,”

“Oh. Me, too,” 

Bonnie nods. “Mhm,”

Courtney nods back. “Uh-huh,”

And with that they awkwardly wave goodbye and start on their separate ways. 

---

COURTNEY: “In a way I’m grateful Bonnie also wants to go their own way now. I never had to break the news to them that we couldn’t be friends anymore. But on the other hand… Is it wrong to be disappointed that they never made a big deal about it?”

---

Kelly and Max walk along a beaten down backwoods trail that’s only been marked by a set of Chef’s boot prints the two have been following for what feels like hours. Kelly is humming a soft tune to themselves, braiding a strand of hair and trailing behind Max. 

He’s been continuously stopping and looking back and slowing down to accommodate them, and it’s beginning to get on his nerves. “Can you go any faster? We have a challenge to win,”

“We do?” Kelly asks sweetly, untying her hair to braid it again. 

“Don’t you want to find your key?”

They reach into their pocket and pull out a yellow metallic key. “This?”

Max’s jaw drops and he stares. “Where did you…?”

“Oh, somewhere back there,” Kelly shrugs, walking past Max as he looks at the ground, completely perplexed. 

---

KELLY: "Rule number 2: stay quiet and keep out of people's way!"

---

Ass watches from behind the snowy brush as Courtney passes, waiting until the coast is clear. Once they’re sure they’re alone, they slip their headphones back in and keep walking, arriving at the mess hall within minutes. 

The inside is dim, lit by candles and filled with the scent of pine. “Corny,” Ass remarks before taking a seat at one of the tables, which is covered in the fanciful feast from their clue card. A massive turkey, a ham, cranberry sauce, beans, casserole, mashed potatoes, three different puddings, and a fruit cake. 

Chef stands at the kitchen door, smiling wickedly. “Dig in,”

Ass smiles at the array before picking up a nearby candle holder, snuffing out the flame and using the silver stand to smash into the food. 

---

ASS: “I figured that Chris must’ve done something with the meal- laxatives or sleeping pills or something gross like that. I’m not taking my chances- the last thing I need right now is Chris walking out from behind a curtain and telling me all the food I just ate was actually made from cockroach parts and styrofoam.”

---

The ham- mush. The turkey- shredded. The cake- crumbled. The sides are reduced to shrapnel as Ass smashes through them. Chef shakes his head, then his eyes widen as they reach the green bean casserole. “Wait-”

A mini-landmine hidden in the dish goes off, sending Ass flying out the window and Chef into the kitchen. Michael opens the mess hall door, eyebrow raised at the charred and blackened interior and the bits of meat and beans everywhere. She walks into the kitchen, stepping over Chef’s unconscious body and opening the fridge to grab her key and walk out with a smile. 

Key in hand, Michael walks over to her original destination- the frozen pond between the cabins- and smiles slightly as she watches Julia scream and slide around on it, taking a seat to enjoy the spectacle. 

---

Kelly continues to drift behind Max as he scans the pine trees around the trail for any sign of his key. They’re rambling on about some asinine story Austin had told them, which is of no significance to Max, thus he tunes them out as he studies the treeline. 

A vague rumbling in the distance catches both of their attentions as they turn just in time to see a massive avalanche coming down the mountain side. 

Bonnie comes running in their direction. “MOVE!”

Max and Kelly comply, following them as a massive wave of snow crashes behind them. Bonnie gets far enough ahead to scale a tree to the top, their two runner-ups following shortly behind. The snow shakes the base of the pine, forcing everyone to cling on. Max watches in horror as a key falls from the canopy and gets lost in the river of snow. 

“NOOO!” he shouts. 

The avalanche eventually settles down, slowing to a grinding halt just as Courtney slides down on a makeshift sled made of tree bark. They groan. 

“Did you find your key?” Bonnie asks, panting. 

They shake their head. “You?”

They hold up a key from their pocket and sigh before falling from the tree to the snow, exhausted. Max grumbles something to himself and growls at Kelly when they attempt to comfort him. 

---

KELLY: “He’s not much like Austin, I don’t think, but it’s like Ass says! Rule number 3: don’t give up until you’ve exhausted every last resource!”

---

Kelly leans over and in one split-second, fatal swoop, they kiss him. Courtney winces and Bonnie, barely awake, makes a gagging sound. Max turns red and immediately tenses, his completely stiff body falling backwards from the tree branch into the snow. 

---

KELLY: “I, um... I may have gone a little overboard, ahah,”

---

COURTNEY: “Okay… gross. And wasn’t blondie dating that weird British guy?”

---

Bonnie sits in the confessional, pointing at their throat and gagging again. 

---

Ass walks over on snowshoes, sooty and blackened with their eyebrows burnt off but holding a key nonetheless. “What happened to him?”

Courtney makes a weak “Ummm” sound before Ass rolls their eyes and declares they don’t care while walking off. 

---

“Okay, on my count, I’ll run in with the fish and you’ll sneak behind the bear,” Staci says, on her elbows and knees in an army crawl. McLovin, sitting beside her with a hastily-knitted hat covering his stubbly head, nods. 

“One- two- three!” she yells, confidently popping up and running into the cave with a handful of fish. The resting polar bear inside wakes up and roars. 

---

STACI: “No, I wasn’t afraid. My great-great-great uncle Flavius was a bear trainer in the Russian circus,” they pause for a moment. “At least, I’m pretty sure. I’ve been a little scrambled since yesterday, I’m trying to keep the pieces together. But... I’m still Staci, aren’t I?”

---

A flash of fear crosses Staci’s face and they scream, running out of the cave with the bear in pursuit. McLovin follows, shouting and waving his arms. 

---

Patrick casually walks down a path in the woods, in no certain rush. He reads his clue again- a simple image of a snowman. 

He smirks as he catches a flash of orange and red from behind the brush, and steps into a clearing to see not one- but dozens of snowmen. His face drops. 

---

Courtney and Bonnie carry a half-conscious Max back to camp, looking at each other nervously while he deliriously mumbles to himself. Kelly lags far behind, a guilty expression on their face. 

A scratched up and tired looking Staci arrives at the cabins with beat-up looking McLovin, who’s holding a snapped-in-half and hastily taped-back-together key. Michael- still sitting by the pond and watching Julia slide around, looks back as the two different groups arrive. “What happened?” she, Bonnie, and Staci ask in unison. 

“Bears,” McLovin sighs. “S-so many bears.”

“Well, just one, but it was like, really mad,” Staci continues. “What’s going on here?”

Courtney rolls their eyes. “Kelly kissed him,”

“Kelly did WHAT?” Michael and Staci shout in unison. 

---

STACI: “That was this big plan they couldn’t let me in on!? Seriously?! I would’ve kissed him… wait, no. I wouldn’t have. But Kelly could’ve kissed me! Why can’t I be a pawn?!”

---

MICHAEL: “I’m not mad! I’m not! I mean, it’s just insane! Kelly has to have some kind of mental disorder to do that. Who’d want to kiss Max? Not me! NOT me!”

---

“Oh, you are so out of here!” Michael shouts, pointing an accusing finger at Kelly. 

“What about Austin?! What about me?!” Staci sniffles. McLovin pats her shoulder to comfort her before collapsing backwards, his skin tinted blue. 

“What’s going on over here?” Julia pants, sliding onto shore with her key finally in hand. 

“NOTHING!” Kelly, Michael, and Staci yell in unison. Julia blinks. 

“Attention, campers! You have five minutes of hunting left- after that, report to the amphitheater for your prizes!”

The collective groans, and the camera zooms out to reveal Ass listening from behind the cabins. 

---

ASS: “Okay, that was beautiful. And I didn’t even intend for that to happen! This is too damn easy,”

---

“Alrighty, explorers, it’s time to claim your prizes! Everyone with a key, come forward,”

The crowd grumbles- Bonnie, Kelly, McLovin, Ass, Michael, Julia, and Scary approach. Julia turns to Scary, and then looks around. “Um… where have you been?”

“Playing the challenge, duh!” she snaps back. Julia raises an eyebrow. 

---

JULIA: “You know… maybe Scruffy was right. Maybe there really is something weirder happening on this island,”

---

Patrick walks in last, covered in scratches, dirt, and wet from the snow. Chris chuckles. “Woah, dude, what happened to you? You got the easiest card!”

He shrugs. “Bears,”

---

Brief flashback to the snowman clearing, where Patrick is sitting in the fetal position in the snow and sobbing. 

---

“Ooookay. Bonnie, go ahead,”

Bonnie tries their key on a cooler, which opens and reveals a shiny toaster. “Seriously?”

Michael tries hers next- nothing. Dud key. Ass and Scary have similar results, though only one of them goes on a monologue about what they had to go through to get it. 

McLovin gets a leg lamp. Kelly gets a bag of chips and a can of soda, which they offer to Michael and Staci as peace offerings. Michael crushes the bag and gives it to Julia (who’s other hand is occupied with an accordion) and Staci just whimpers and sobs. 

“Cute,” Patrick says, hoisting up a gift basket. “Tasteful. Very nice. And oh- lookie here,” he holds up an invincibility pass. Ass rolls their eyes. 

“Looks like Patrick is safe. The rest of you, I’ll see you all tonight at the campfire ceremony,” Chris chuckles. 

---

Julia walks up ahead of the group, watching Scary as they somersault to the campfire pit. Most of the snow had already melted by mid-afternoon, leaving only the cold wind chills and brief patches of ice to worry about. 

Michael jogs up to her. “Hey, I need to count on your vote for tonight. Bonnie and Courtney and I already chose someone,”

“Who?”

Michael whispers in Julia’s ear. She thinks for a moment. “Yeah, no. That’s not who Ass is voting for,”

“Seriously?” Michael snaps. She suddenly steps in front of Julia, blocking her path and lowering her voice. “You listen to me, and actually listen. I am done being your pawn. You’re only still in this because I have been carrying your sorry fake-blonde ass since the beginning. If you want to count on my allyship for the rest of the game, you’re voting with us. Otherwise, you’re next.”

Julia frowns deeply, seeming slightly intimidated for a second. 

---

JULIA: “Me? Scared of Michael? Can you imagine? But I… played along anyway, you know? I need the manpower and she’s been stepping out of line lately. Plus, I need to secure my place on the island until I figure out what's going on with Scary.”

---

“Fine. But tomorrow’s vote is my choice,”

“Fine!” and with that, Michael speeds up ahead. 

---

“Fun challenge today, huh?” Chris chuckles. The campers glare at each other. “Patrick won invincibility today, so he’s safe!” 

Patrick smirks from across the fire. 

“McLovin… Staci… Max… Ass… Scary… Bonnie… Courtney,”

“Julia… you’re safe,” Chris looks between the two remaining competitors. Michael glares at Kelly, who smiles nervously and gives a slight wave. “And the final marshmallow… goes to…”

The campers watch in anticipation- Ass rolling their eyes besides them. 

“Michael! You’re safe. Sorry, Kelly, you got played.” he chuckles.

Kelly sulks as they walk to the boat, head and shoulders hanging. Staci follows, running up the dock as they board. “I’m sorry, Kelly! But I couldn’t go on like this!” 

Kelly frowns. “I was a fool, I never should've listened to them. Can you ever forgive me?”

"Wait- who's them?"

"Ass... it's complicated..." Kelly sighs. "Can you forgive me?"

“Of course. I don’t blame you!” Staci says, tears in their eyes. “And I know Austin won’t either!”

“We’ll see!” Kelly yells as the boat takes off. “You’re my best friend!”

“You’re my best friend!” Staci shouts back before frowning deeply, a tear running down their cheek. 

---

STACI: “Okay, no more of this. No more fun, no more games, no more moping. The original Staci didn’t win, but you know what? I don’t have to follow canon. I can make my own rules. And this Staci says Ass is going down.”

---

[lokilickedme]

Somebody help me chill, this is insane.

(under the cut because long and also pretty traumatic, for me at least)

Crazy neighbor, remember her?  Her son destroyed a piece of equipment we had attached to one of our trees at the fenceline last week, she denied it and called us insane liars - that’s the most recent craziness in the ongoing saga of the neighbor from hell.  I was sitting here reading my dash tonight and happened to glance over at the monitor for the surveillance camera husband got me the other day to watch that exact spot (where the equipment was smashed) and guess who I see bent over looking through the fence peering very closely at that exact spot?  Neighbor’s equally insane son, who we know did the actual dirty work.  And I, stupid like I am, took a screenshot of him and then immediately jumped up and ran outside in the dark in my pajamas (nearly 9pm, pitch black, their porch light is off because obviously they’re doing something they don’t want to be seen doing) and I ask “Excuse me, what are you doing?”

This lunatic immediately starts SCREAMING at me - I mean top of his lungs SCREAMING abusive threats, calling me a stupid psycho whore bitch, yelling at me to get my ass back in my house and generally just acting completely off his rocker unhinged nuts - and then his mother comes out and comes over to the fence and gets in my face while I’m just standing there and tells me to mind my own business.  I say I am minding my business, I saw him looking through the fence at my property right where we had vandalism happen last week so I came out to find out why he’s interested in my property.  She laughed in my face and said “No he wasn’t, he was standing right here looking at his phone like this” and she does this little pantomine of someone looking at their phone, which is funny because she wasn’t out there when he was doing it and there are no windows on that side of her house at all.  I ignored her and asked “What are you looking for?”  He kept screaming incoherent animal noises and insults from behind her so I asked again, “What are you looking for?”  And that crazy woman grinned at me and said “We’re just looking to see what kind of new devices you’ve installed!”

OMG.  She didn’t even take a breath in between lying and then contradicting her own lie.  And she’s grinning smugly at me the entire time, gesturing around pointing at our property cams and mosquito light (it flashes and apparently she thinks it’s watching her) and my bedroom window - which means she’s been snooping.  There is a cam sitting in my windowsill, aimed at the spot where the device was smashed.  Every bit of this equipment is on our property, some of it behind a privacy fence.  I tell her it’s none of her business what kind of devices we’ve got on our property, but she just yammers over me, and of course numbskull is still ranting like a psycho behind her, screaming at me to mind my own business and get back in my house and leave them alone.  At this point he’s pulled out his phone and shoved it over her shoulder toward my face and is recording me, which is just...fucking hilarious...because I’m literally doing nothing but standing there in shock and awe at how nuts these people are, and he’s still screaming abusive curses and names at me while he’s recording.

Anyway, for about 4.5 minutes we stood there with them shouting over me (I know the exact time because it was later discovered that our doorbell cam recorded audio of the entire event) and a little ways into it he screams “I WILL TEAR YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!”

At this point psycho woman finally turns around and says “Addison Case!” and pushes him back.  He lunges at me and she tells him to go call the police (??what??  I mean...I wish he had...my phone was in my hand frozen solid, locked up because of the glitchy surveillance app I had to install to see the camera, or else I would have called them myself - but my god they really thought I was the one the cops needed to come for??).  Meanwhile I’m just standing there on my own property in the dark in my pajamas, all 5 feet and 120 lbs of me, while this rabid animal - he’s a 21 year old college boy - is lunging at me and screaming nonstop, calling me a fucking whore bitch loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear it while his phone’s camera light is in my face blinding me.  Crazy lady smiles that smug shit eating grin of hers and tells me to get back in my house, leave her alone, and move the hell away so she can live in peace.

Wow.  Just...holy shit.

This is the person who has allowed her dog to attack my very small 8 year old son on our property and send him to the hospital with injuries last year, then attempt to attack him again 2 weeks ago (he is now 9 at the time of the second attack) - again on our own property (in our back yard this time, in our front yard the first time), has allowed her dogs (multiple) to bark all night long and keep us awake (she leaves them outside and then goes away for the weekend and they bark the entire time she’s gone), then she had her crazy violent son destroy the BarkBox we put in our tree on our side of the fence last week (we put it up as a humane way to get the barking to stop without having to listen to her call us insane liars every time we complain about it).  Yet...she kept repeating over and over and over for us to leave her alone and stop harassing her.

All I could even do was stand there shaking my head.  It was surreal.  And frustrating, because they wouldn’t even let me get a word out without screaming over me, and she was doing that infuriating Karen thing where they shove their hand at your face and grin smugly while they’re telling you what you better do or they’ll call someone to make you.

I actually started laughing, it was so ludicrous.  She’s committed all those vile offenses against us and we’re the ones that need to leave her alone.  We’ve had to file four police reports against her and we’re the ones that are making her life miserable.  I just can’t stop thinking about that Liar Liar movie where the repeat offender keeps calling his lawyer to complain that the cops won’t stop arresting him and the lawyer finally yells THEN STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE!!

It’s just like that.  My god.

SO -

She tells him to call the police again, and this limp dick shoves that phone light right up to my face and says “You think she’s worth calling the cops over?  Look at her, she don’t look worth it to me.”  And bitch starts laughing.  My god, these people are subhuman, I swear.  I’ve never seen anyone act like this in my life, over a person doing literally nothing to them.

So she finally orders her rabid son (who is just about foaming at the mouth, I swear he’s making these barking animal noises at me, it’s weird as hell) into the house and they walk away, with him still ranting like a madman until the door closes behind them.  I immediately go inside my own house and call my husband, who was way out at the back of our property in our camper (he self quarantines each day after work out there to protect us because there have been a lot of covid cases at his workplace) and he didn’t know anything was happening.  He immediately runs up to the house and I tell him I caught neighbor’s thug son messing around at our fence and that when I went out he threatened to kill me.

Tom grabs something - I don’t even know what it was, I think it was this piece of board that was sitting by the door, we’ve done a shelving project recently and a couple of leftover pieces have been there for a few days - and he stalks outside toward neighbor’s house.  I hear him yell COME OUT HERE BOY!!! and I stg you guys, if I wasn’t on the phone calling 911 I might have thought about getting naked right there and then because damn.

So anyway, let’s not go there.  This is serious by god lol (look for this to show up in a fic soon though because material like this doesn’t get handed to you for free every day).

I call 911 and say the neighbor’s son just threatened my life and for them to come quick because he’s still over there but I know he’s going to leave any second (this is his mom’s M.O, the two times the police have tried to go talk to her she gets in her car and leaves before they can get from my house to hers, and I know he’ll do the same because COWARDS).  Tom comes back and says the little pussywillow wouldn’t come out of the house.  He’s breathing fire, you guys.  Pure fucking fire.  I tell 911 to get somebody out quick before the kid leaves, and just about 2 minutes after I hang up he does just that - we see him blast past our house in his truck and he’s gone, and then the police arrive about 3 minutes after.  I’m so mad I can’t see straight.  If they’d been able to see him in the state he was in, they’d have arrested him on sight.

Two squad cars (big SUV’s) pull up and block her driveway with full lights flashing, which makes me laugh because suddenly we’ve got neighbors coming outside to see what’s going on.  I meet the officers outside, and the crazy bitch next door does the same, yelling “Hello Officer!” and waving to them as they’re coming up to my porch.

They talk to me and Tom for a long time, I tell them everything that happened, they interview Big (he and Little were inside the open door and heard it all), we fill out our statements and talk with them more until one officer goes next door to talk to neighbor.  We can hear her dripping her fake sugar and spice while they’re talking on her porch and my husband loses his shit - he heads toward her house and yells “We got the entire thing on recording, don’t even try to lie!  Your kid, threatening to kill my wife?!?”  (he’s referring to the camera in my bedroom window, which actually only recorded about 2 minutes because I don’t have it set up correctly yet, but they don’t know that). The officer yells at him to get back, which, yeah - he shouldn’t have done that, but for god’s sake the woman’s peckerhead son just literally threatened murder on a member of his family, this is the final fucking straw and he’s mad.  And as he’s coming back across the yard the officer that stayed with me points at our new doorbell camera, just freshly installed as of about two weeks ago, and asks if it’s on.  We haven’t even really figured out how to use it yet, but yes, as far as we know it’s on.  The incident happened around the side of the house, but the doorbell records audio.

God bless technology.

I invite the officer inside the house and Tom gets his phone, pulls up the app for the doorbell, and starts skipping through the recording looking for the right timestamp.  Up till this point all they have is me saying the guy screamed a lot of abusive profanities at me and threatened to tear my head off, and they’re taking me serious but probably not that serious, you know?  Neighbors fight all the time, wars start over barking dogs, things get exaggerated, we’ve all seen the TV dramas.

Until Tom finds the segment on the footage and starts playing it to them on his phone.  It’s kind of quiet because we were a good distance away, but you can hear the guy screaming just like I said he was.  The officer asks if we have a speaker we can play it through so he can hear the words more clearly, because he needs proof of threat and that’s entirely in the words.

You guys, I’m tellin’ ya, sometimes you get a chance to fucking SHINE.  My husband is a musician and this cop is asking him if he’s got a good speaker.  So within minutes Tom’s got this huge venue-style amplifier designed for broadcasting music to the back wall of a freaking stadium pulled out into the livingroom and he’s hooking his phone up to it, and then he hits play and the other officer comes back from next door to join us and I can tell by the annoyed look on his face that neighbor bitch has likely charmed him and shed a plethora of persecuted tears and spewed her lies about how we’ve been harassing her forEVER and I think for a second that it’s a total loss now, he’s made his mind up in her favor.

And then...away we go.  Tom cranks the volume on the speaker and they both lean in to listen closely.

Just about a minute into the recording they have their proof - thugnuts screaming I WILL TEAR YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!!

Both officers nod, close their notebooks, and the second officer makes a phonecall while the first one turns to me and says “That’s terroristic threatening and it’s a class C felony.  You’re going to need to go to the PA’s office with all the reports you’ve filed against them so far and all your evidence from tonight including that recording and hand it all to them.  They’re likely going to issue a no-contact so that he can’t interact with you ever again.”

This is a victory, but it’s just the first step, and I feel sickeningly disheartened that it’s all in my lap to do everything.  I want them to go demand his whereabouts from his mother and just go get his ass and haul him in.  But no, I have a ton of legwork to do now because these horrible people won’t fucking stop.

After several more minutes of me asking questions about what exactly we need to do and where we need to go, etc etc (I’m competent but I’m also fucking rattled, someone threatened to kill me tonight and I’m blanking hard on the instructions he’s giving me) they finally wrap it up and leave.  They’ve been in my house for a half hour waiting for me to finish filling out the report (I had to ask for more paper because honey I’m getting ALL the details in there) and I can just imagine how freaked out neighbor is when she sees what time they finally move their cars from in front of her driveway.

And now I’m coming down from the weird calm that I had through the entire event, and my heart feels like it’s going to EXPLODE.  I had heart surgery two months ago, do I need this??  The pathetic part is that I know now just how stupid those people are, and I know this won’t be the end from their side by any means.  We’ll start finding more stuff broken, or he’ll start climbing over the fence back at the back of the property to steal stuff from husband’s tool shed, or my tires will get slashed.  These people are that dumb and hateful, they proved it tonight.  He said if we had animals he would kill them, and then he made the same threat against me.  How stupid does a person have to be to stand there with his phone out recording himself ranting and making threats against a woman standing in her own yard in her pajamas?  Big tough man there.  And his mama grinning at me the whole time, telling me I’m crazy and she’s concerned for her own safety because of me, while her son is standing right behind her threatening my life.

I’m just...my god, I don’t even know what to think.  I thought people only acted like this in TV dramas, seriously.  I’ve seen some shit in my life but this particular brand of stupid has up till now evaded me, but now it’s been in my face and I’m sort of in shock.

I don’t like guns.  At ALL.  Tom has always had at least one hidden carefully away, safely locked up away from the house, but now there are two inside my house in immediate grabbing range.  He insisted that I let him show me how to use them.  Rules were laid down for the boys - never touch, never, don’t even get close to them - and now there is a box of shotgun shells on my fireplace mantel and a singleshot rifle by the door.  I hate this so damn much.

Don’t pick it up unless you’re ready to use it, he told me.  Without even thinking, I said back, “If I touch it it’s getting used.”

I HATE THIS SO FUCKING MUCH

My god.  I told the cops that the drug lord that lived over there four years ago was a better neighbor than this woman.  They didn’t even laugh.

I guess they’re right, now that I think about it...it isn’t funny.

[limenysnocket]

Special Moves

Summary: Taika struggles to show you how he feels, worried he might freak you out. He's usually quite the charmer and has lots of moves that could easily make you swoon, but he decides to bring out only the special one.

Warnings: Light swearing

A/N: Thank you @olyvoyl for the lovely request. It’s super late for me. I’m super tired, and I have a lot more requests to fill, but I’m still grateful! Hope this is okay. Didn’t really get to much editing this time.

“Lord, are you seriously that nervous about talking to her? I’ve seen you walk up to women and make them swoon faster than ever in bars before. What difference does a movie set make?” Hemsworth yawned while he got his makeup done by another woman. She seemed to be enjoying her job.

“The difference is,” Taika mumbled, “is that she works with me. I can’t just walk right up to her and kiss her like I want to.”

“I bet she’d let you. You’re just too much of a chicken to try.” Hemsworth heckled his work friend while he closed his eyes. His makeup artist had to stifle a laugh. Even she knew about Taika’s crush on his co-director. Everyone on set knew. All except for you. People could mistake you for the most oblivious person on earth sometimes, and you wouldn’t blame them. It was to Taika’s luck that you were such a way. Otherwise, his secret would have been exposed to the one person he was trying to keep it from.

All he wanted to do was just hold you, and kiss you. He wanted to brush your hair out of your face and greet you each morning with a warm, tender kiss and a nice, warm breakfast to fill your belly and keep you energized for the day. God knows he was going to ware you out at the end of the day.

These were the first innocent thoughts he’s had about any woman he’s thought about hitting on in a very long time. Usually, when he thought about getting someone in bed, it wasn’t too bad, since he had learned how to control himself. But, when he thought about doing certain things to you... Oh, he didn’t know. It just felt too wild. He felt like he had to romance his way into your heart before he could even think about deserving you. Even thinking about holding your hand got his face all flushed and he would become bashful.

“Ah, Taika, Taika, Taika. When are you going to man up and tell her? I will, if you don’t want to, but I think that would just be a waste. Heard from some ladies that you have quite the special moves,” Chris wrapped his arm around Taika’s shoulder and mess with a curl on his head. Taika was quick to swat Chris’s hand away and go back to his loathsome pouting.

“My special moves are useless around her,” Taika started mumbling to himself, rubbing at his cheeks, while he stressed.

“What special moves?” a mellow voice quipped through the open, makeup trailer doorway. Taika whirled around, cheeks ablaze.

“Taika’s talking about how he thinks he can beat me in a fight,” Chris grinned, nudging Taika with his elbow. “I told him he didn’t stand a chance. Then he started bringing up fighting techniques and all this weird Japanese fighting styles.” Taika opened his mouth to protest, prepared to stick a finger right in the bigger man’s face, but that’s when you giggled.

“He has a point, Taik,” you grinned. “We’ve both admitted at one point or another that the man is built like a God. He could kick anyone’s ass if he wanted to. I bet you will too, one day, if you keep on training. Might have to level up a few times though, unless your trainer really thinks staying in motion all the time really helps.” You giggle again. You’ve rendered him speechless, and Chris is on the verge of laughing his ass off. 

“How do you... know about...?” Taika asks through a parched throat.

“Your personal trainer posts videos of you all the time. Some of them are kinda funny, Taika. I find them very entertaining,” you give him that big, adorable smile that he can’t get out of his head for half of the day. “Anyway, Hemsworth, they need you on set. Just a quick briefing before we get started for the day. Taika, you should head inside too. You’re the director after all--. Excuse me-- ‘Visionary Director’.” You laugh again, and turn the poor man into a mush. You leave with the makeup artist after that, and leave Taika and Chris alone again.

“I told you once,” Chris hums, rubbing at his chin for a moment while Taika still stares at the door, “and I’ll tell you again. She’s totally into you.” Chris comes out of the camper like a giddy little kid and starts heading towards the main building, where more people started pouring in with their cups of coffee. The sun had finally turned the sky orange with color. Dawn had broken, fucking finally, and Taika was very much awake now. There was only one way to find out if what the damn God of Thunder was saying was true. He had to hold your hand.

The man was on a mission. If he could somehow finesse his way over to you and hold your hand... How did he think this was going to work again?

He kept staring at your hands while you helped get the actors and extras around set and into position. He watched when you talked, how you seemed so confident when you would use your hands while you talked. Did you pick that up off of him, or was that just a perk that came with everything else amazing like you? No, it just had to be something that came with you. He was near certain of it. Maybe his enamored mind got to him.

He stood next to you with every chance he had. He thought about trying to hold your hand. He really did. But, every chance he had slipped away as you got so deep and intense with your directing skills. He felt almost useless. You were so passionate. He wanted to let you do all the work, but his mind would never let him do such a thing.

It was literal fucking days. Chance after chance flew by, and Chris’s teasing and threats to tell you only got worse and more real. He was biting his nails, the tension for him was awful. It wasn’t until he had to dress in his little suit covered in small balls did things started getting much more real for him.

He was standing in the middle of the set, joking with Hemsworth while his Korg mascot bobbled around on his head. People were yelling at him, off to the side, to not be so violent with it. Yeah right. Like he was going to listen to people he didn’t have to listen to.

“Taika, you’re in the wrong spot!” you holler from the side, and get down from your chair. Okay... so maybe he would listen to you.

“Then where am I supposed to be standing?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders. You roll your eyes and start heading towards him. He freezes up. He’ll listen to you from a distance, but when you were up close, he felt like he was about to break down. 

“I’ll forgive you once, since you probably shouldn’t look down unless you want to get yelled at again,” you said, inspecting the large, foam structure on his head. If you thought Taika was frozen then, you should have seen how rigid he was once you had taken his hand into yours. You took him across the lime green floor of the set. Everyone was watching, and had gotten a bit quieter. Hemsworth was giving him a big thumbs up from the side. Taika was flipping the fuck out internally, and Chris was trying to keep Taika cool with awkward hand motions. They obviously weren’t working. Taika was still speechless, and losing his mind at the same time.

You placed him on the X made out of tape on the floor. “There,” you say proudly, putting your hands on your hips when he was finally put in his correct place. You finally look up to his face and see him completely bashful. His hand was still extended out where you had been holding it. “You okay, buddy?” you hum, your oblivious manner making everyone’s day so much better and worse at the same time. They just wanted you two to kiss already.

“I’m fantastic,” Taika whispers through strain. You give him another once over and just shake your head before leaving him again. Chris is gawking at Taika. He feels the urge to leave his spot and practically shove the kiwi into your arms to finally make you realize that you’ve been driving the man crazy for the past month. Ever since he met you and your kind heart.

But no. The day goes on as normal. Well, almost normal. You still don’t notice how much he looks at your hands. He’s even gotten to the point where he wondered how small they would look against his own. He’s driving himself crazy over you. All he wants to do is hold your hand! How hard can that possibly be?

Harder than it looks.

He was in his office, looking through some paperwork after a phone call with a producer who just flew in. He needed to have everything ready for the morning tomorrow. Everyone else had either left for their trailers, or they had all sauntered off to find a pub somewhere.

There had been a lack of powernaps in Taika’s day today, and it left him stupidly tired. He was rubbing his eyes at his desk, and he was fully prepared to fall asleep.

He started to droop. The words on his computer screen turned into blurred lines of unreadable filth. He let his head dangle, but it shot up, as soon as he heard his door handle jiggling. He scooped up papers as fast as he could and he stood up fast. He nearly fell over and he hugged many folders to his chest. “I was just leaving--” And there you were. That bright, oblivious smile on your face. You had come to check in one him... and he was making a fool of himself again.

“I hope this means you’ll get some sleep soon,” you smiled at him, picking up a spry piece of paper that had left his grip by accident. Taika was once again bashful and set his papers down on his desk.

“Hopefully,” Taika murmured to you. You tilted your head to the side while you inspected him.

“I wanted to talk to you about something Hemsworth said to me today, just before he went out with Tessa for a few drinks and bed,” you whisper, and this caught Taika’s attention fast.

“What did he say?” Taika was worried now.

“Well,” you start, your cheeks now gaining quite the color to them. “He said something about you wanting to hold my hand earlier. He said it was your ultimate move.”

Taika sat back on top of his desk. Oh, he was going to kill Chris when he came back. That, or vandalize his trailer beyond recognition. Taika was starting to fume to himself, brewing up a truly nasty scheme to get back at Chris.

He felt your warm hand on his, and he froze up again. Your warm laugh brought him back to life again. “You know, you really scared me with that today! I thought you hated me, at first! If Chris hadn’t said something, I think I may have come in earlier and asked what was wrong myself.” You let go of his hand again and you sit down next to him on his desk. “If you’re really that flustered by holding my hand, it makes me wonder how you’d react if I were to kiss your cheek.”

“I believe I’ll keel over and die,” Taika put simply, a smile on his face, but still a very bashful one at that. It makes you laugh again, and you set your hand on top of his. Now, you are all the more eager to try. You lean over and breathe along his cheek. He nearly jumps right out of his skin at the feeling.

“You’re so fidgety,” you murmur right in his ear. He’s melting again. Before he can make a puddle on the desk, you press your lips against his stubbled cheek. And there he goes. Still as a statue. “But I think it’s cute.”

You slowly got up, grinning. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?” you turn to him, still smiling so bright. His smile got wider on its own.

…

FINALLY!!!!!!

[kookie-doughs]

Y/N L/N AND THE HALFBLOODS

Percy Jackson X Reader -Y/N L/N met Percy Jackson and everything was now ruined.

CHAPTER 7: FIRST DAY OF CAMP

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever we went, campers pointed at us and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet. She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough. Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins. "I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall." "Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets." "Whatever." "It wasn't my fault." She looked at us skeptically, and I realized it might've been my fault. I may have made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures and made the ground shake. I didn't understand how. "You need to talk to the Oracle, both of you." Annabeth said. "Who?" "Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron." Percy stared into the lake, I rested my head on his shoulder wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once. I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend. I didn't know what else to do. I waved back. "Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts." "Naiads," Percy repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now." Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us." "You mean, mentally disturbed kids?" "I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human." "Half-human and half-what?" "I think you know." "God," I said. "Half-god." Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. And one of your parent isn't your parent, Y/N. You are both a child of one of the Olympians. " "That's... crazy." "Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?" "But those are just— But if all the kids here are half-gods—" "Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods." "Then who's your dad?" Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling we'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject. "My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history." "He's human." "What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?" "Who's your mom, then?" "Cabin six." "Meaning?" Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle." Okay, I thought. Why not? "And who's mine?" "You grew up with both a mother and a father. So only your Olympian parent knows." "And my dad?" "Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows." "Except my mother. She knew." "Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities." "My dad would have. He loved her." Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens." "You mean sometimes it doesn't?" Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us." I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. But gods should behave better. Whoever my Olympian parent better suck up and claim me or I will show him. "So I'm stuck here," Percy said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?" "It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that." "So monsters can't get in here?" Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside." "Why would anybody want to summon a monster?" "Practice fights. Practical jokes." "Practical jokes?" "The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm." "So... you're a year-rounder?" Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring. "I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college." "Why did you come so young?" She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business." "Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?" "It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission." "I've never had anything weird going on. I had a perfectly normal life." "It's because you don't give much of a half-blood scent. Even Grover didn't knew you were one of us until you came here. Even now they still don't smell you." "I just... want to go somewhere... else." I could see that Percy was guilty. "They wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless..." "Unless?" "You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time..."

Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well. "Back in the sick room," Percy said, "when you were feeding me that stuff—" "Ambrosia." "Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice." Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?" "Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?" She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal." "You've been to Olympus?" "Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council." "But... how did you get there?" "The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at us like she was sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?" "Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out. "Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping... I mean— Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something." I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions. "I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem..." I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan. Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to us as we walked in. Percy left me to settle at his spot while I sat at mine. Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact. "I hope you settle in just fine," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store." He had a very friendly and welcoming aura around him, I couldn't help but giggle, "Thanks." "No prob." Luke sat next to me. "Tough first day?" "I don't belong here," I said. "From what I've heard about other campers. I had a perfectly normal life. Nothing weird... I-I don't even believe in Gods..." "Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier." The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything. "So your dad is Hermes?" I asked. He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes." "The wing-footed messenger guy." "That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors." I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind. "You ever meet your dad?" I asked. "Once." I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar. Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Y/N. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other." He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day keeping Percy's works. I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me and Percy being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?" Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies." "What do you mean?" His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... somebody special came to the camp." "Somebody special?" "Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for." I didn't know why... but I grabbed his hand, he turned to me surprised. "I-I... Uhm, I want to get to know you better... I... I'm here if you want to talk. A-As a thank you for helping me since I got here! I-I..." He gave a warm smile and ruffled my hair. "Thank you. Now, come on, it's dinnertime." The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!" The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last with Percy. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down. "Percy," "Hmm?" "Are you okay?" I was about to grip his sleeve when he moved away. "I'm sorry... I'll tell you after dinner." I looked at him sadly while he thought to himself. We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods— and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill. In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads. At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off. I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur. Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair. Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends. Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!" Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!" Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! Percy sat beside other kids of the Hermes cabin. My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want—nonalcoholic, of course." I said, "(Favorite Drink; F/D)." The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid. Then I had an idea. "F/C F/D." The drink turned a violent shade of F/C. I took a cautious sip. Perfect.. . . . . I drank a toast to my loved ones. They're not gone, I told myself. I felt like I was forgetting something. Like I know I will get too them all soon. "Here you go," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket. I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something. "Come on," Luke told me. As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll. Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell." "You're kidding." His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food. Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes." I was next. I wished I knew what god's name to say. Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you better claim me, or I will come for you and you won't like what I'll do. I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames. When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag. It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke. When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention. Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels." A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table. "Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new campers today. Peter Johnson and (Wrong Name)." Chiron murmured something. "Er, Percy Jackson and Y/N L/N," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on." Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I went up to Percy. "What's wrong?" He sighed. "I... I feel like everything... All of this," He signaled at everything, "happened because you met me. When you told Annabeth about your life and how nothing had been going wrong, while I had trouble following me every step... I couldn't help but feel guilty." I knew it... He felt at fault. Taking his hand I looked at him, "I chose to be with you at the beach. I wanted to follow you. I wanted to stay with you. Yeah, troubles came and I lost everything... I would rather have you with me through that. Please?" He rested his head on my shoulder, "Yeah..." Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. It was late at night some were asleep, while some were screaming around. I stayed up looking out the window since Luke had warned me about going out. "Long day, how was it?" Luke greeted taking the spot beside me. "Almost had my face flushed down on smelly toilets, so real fun I guess." Luke rested his back against the window and looked at the two boys wrestling each other few feet away. "You know how you told me you wanted to get to know me more?" "Yeah... I mean it. You're the first person I met here. From what I heard you helped me after getting here." "So you feel obligated to get closer to me?" He raised a brow at me with a smirk. "No, I think you're interesting. I want us to be friends. I want to be a person you can trust." "Why?" "I... don't know. I guess I just want to. I mean yeah I also low-key kinda have a crush on you but oh well." I joked. Hearing his laugh I was relieved he was a cool guy. "I'll keep you in mind." "Really now? Okay dream of me I guess." "For a 12 year old you're a flirt." He shook his head with a smile. "It's my mom, she told me the best way to make friends is by flirting. If they're cool with you flirting they're perfect candidate for a friend, if they aren't, you'll have an awkward friendship." "I don't know about that." "I know right? Imagine teaching a 5 year old how to flirt." We laughed. We continued to chat about little things until it got quiet in the cabin. Most of them were now asleep. Percy slept as soon as he lied down, after all. "Good night." Luke smiled. "Yeah, good night." I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on the bed. When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly. That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood. I already felt like I belong. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all...

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I am in love with Luke I'm sorry Here's another chapter Another horirble caphetr UwU -kookie-doughs

Taglist?

@gayer-than-the-gayest-gay @the-natureofme @booknerd-3000

[fandom-sheep]

Eret 11 MAY 21

Cat and DSMP Part 1/1

Cat! Goose!

Goose my beloved.

Eret’s streaming very late for me again. So I’m not staying the whole time.

Hello Elaina. Enjoy Goose.

Fundy! Kinda...

Fundy hearing the donations. LOL.

Fundy enters a stream and it starts to scuffed. Scuffed just follows Fundy wherever he goes.

A wild my beloved on the cube.

The Drista stairs.

Wait what. Why is the tower gone?

I have missed some lore.

Ah... it’s part of the nightmare thing.

Eret offering Fundy housing like a good almost adoptive parent.

Sneeze? OH WOW SNEEZE.

Sounds like Fundy about lost a lung. Good gracious.

The bargaining between these two.

Cat, Handsome, said cube was massive

You know what that works.

It’s hard to keep the audio right for Eret’s stream for my headphones. It’s either too quiet or the loudest my headphones can go and my family can hear it.

On stream explosions. Noice.

Wow youtooz. Not super cool. Permission is usually a good thing.

Eret keeps on sizzling.

Getting dirt for scaffolding. Going old fashioned Minecraft for this.

“Why is the Cube kinda hot” cue Eret losing faith in her chats sanity.

Cube go poof.

Oh. Red stone. That’s dangerous.

I like this song. Oh klahoma. Gorgeous song.

Love joy is such a fun band. I want to make a plushy of the cat.

It’s kinda sad that Eret can’t see themselves the way chat and their little fandom sees them. Most all of us think they look fabulous.

Not Arson. Just bombing. A bit of anarchy by the king.

Demolition. Now there’s the word.

Controlled ish demolition.

Ah I’ve almost saved enough channel points for water. Nice. I’m not going to redeem it I’m just going to keep hoarding the points.

Flame Arrow. Nice.

Eret cleaning up the SMP eye sours.

Watch me attempt to sleep to Eret here in an hour or so, but keep getting distracted.

Explosion time.

Someone get ready to clip it.

Bye Bye Cube. Let’s go.

Gotta get a song that fits the vibe.

Hayloft. Time to go poof.

Turning up my brightness just to watch this explosion in the best way possible.

Still wearing the red dress I see.

I hope the music isn’t too loud to get this part muted.

Drum roll...

Drum roll continues...

Drum roll still going...

THERE GOES THE CUBE!

That was so smooth and good looking!

Overall a very good explosion.

Just a little bit of a hole in the other building.

Twitch Pr-

Poor being’s so confused with his hair. Someone help them.

Twitch bleep.

Everyone attempting to give hair styling advice. Everyone’s trying to help the being.

That bird is majestic. I remember seeing that tiktok.

Animals just decided Eret was the animal whisperer.

Yes! Disney Princess Eret fanart! Someone make it, I shall reblog all of it.

Likes to hug cute animals and cute animals like being hugged by her. Nice.

It’s alright. Names are difficult. I have to like put name tags on people to learn who they are. That or name tags on their space (like on campers bunks and door decs on dorms)

It does feel very February. But I’m very ready for summer because that means I get to do my favorite job.

Hooray. I hit 15k points.

Eret trying to prove to us a ponytail won’t work. Like we aren’t going to hype them up no matter what.

Gotta heart in the chat. All Eret’s chat does is hearts and encourage. It’s a lovely place.

Oh Eret forgot his cat ear sub goal. It’s alright I know I forgot.

Pride is next month. Nice.

Oh. We’re almost halfway already. Why does the world spin so quickly?

We forgot a dirt tower. Whoops.

I would wear Eret merch. I like it when people release merch around Christmas. Then I can ask for it as a gift.

Oh it wasn’t a dirt tower.

Just looking at Elaina’s stream in the stream selection screen it like very cozy.

All the way up the Drista stairs.

Look it’s the museum!

Eret’s got most of the builds around there. The museum. The fortress. Nice.

Some things are too historical to remove. Somethings are historical because they are being removed.

Oh no. L’sandburg.

It’s taking over the summer home.

Ah the lore is coming. It just seemed to be too early.

Hello unofficial ranboo Raiders.

Foolish making the awesome tall thingy!

Foolish’s builds are so neat. I want to watch Foolish’s streams more. Maybe just in the background but I start wanting to delayed liveblog and that requires attention.

Oh the giant portal turned out well. Sorry that was the lady’s foolish stream I watched.

Shulkers. The forbidden mob.

Eret with just a pit in the desert filled with llamas. Bones. And discus.

The mansion has been finished?

Alright is better than bad. It’s alright to be alright.

Lucky being not getting tired. I got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and I was so so tired. I also had just no appetite.

Eret doing an smp tour. And looking at foolish’s builds.

Flickering the switch on the rainbow beacons.

Eret just knowing where everything is.

Kinoko is super pretty. Just for the aesthetic value of the kingdom I appreciate it.

Yeet. Just defenestrated himself out the window.

Oh? Spectator fly over the smp?

That would be really neat to like. Watch in VR. I think I’ve only used VR maybe twice.

Pretty Rainbow beacons.

The nurse who gave me my vaccine hid the needle from me because I mentioned to her that I was afraid of needles. It wasn’t a big deal at all.

30 minutes till I attempt sleep. Woo.

Goose my beloved. Someone make the gif because I’m not quite sure how to make it.

Oh yeah. Goose in Marvel. I hear MCU and think Minecraft cinematic universe. Not marvel.

Ghibli is so nice. It really romanticize small moments of life.

Yeah the characters are all really supportive in Ghibli movies.

Someone subbed for nine months “that’s enough to make a child” -Eret

That mansion is like a maze. I’m so lost already.

Everyone encouraging Eret and telling her she looks pretty. Good.

Eret needs all the hype and encouragement.

Antarctic empties flag. Yeah it does have a similar color pallet.

Michelle! Hello!

Fortress work. Nice.

Do it. I’ll listen the Eret play other games.

I don’t usually watch game play for non Minecraft games. But I’ll listen to it all.

Hbomb and Eret living in the same city feels like two worlds that shouldn’t meet. But it’s awesome that they have.

TOS means against twitches terms of service. Nice. Glad to finally have an explanation of what that means.

Look at our handsome and pretty streamer. All the hype.

I keep turning down the stream to hear the show my mama has on because I’m curious about what happens.

Yeah. Backseat gaming can be annoying. That’s part of why I share my thoughts here just in case I do start backseat gaming.

Almost to the sub goal. Hooray!

Ooo food.

No no. I see where they are coming from. Eret does give a bit of cat bus vibes. I can’t explain it but the vibes are there.

Creeper causing issues at the fortress.

Ed Sheepran my beloved.

I should draw more ferrets. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll draw us doing stuffs.

Actually I kinda want to make a little animatic of some heels walking across the screen followed by a hoard of ferrets. I think it’ll look cool. But I need the artistic ability and the ability to not scream making that.

Woop. Ad time. Off to the void of where ever the ads game me.

OH THE NEW VOID LOOKS COOL!

Bread. Flowers. Ted. Crown. And of course Eret.

We V O I D and get our streamer bits.

Hush the chat is V O I D and the occasional emoji or emote.

The void being centered looks good. Maybe that’s just the symmetry speaking but it’s good.

Oh. We hear the being. The being in void mode. And spooky mode.

Chat just starts yelling corpse.

Hydration. I try to stay hydrated. But I fail often if I’m not doing something active.

Tree!

Casually makes and snags tree.

Eret does read chat often. It’s strange. And it is weird how often it ends up being you.

You can tell I’m a tumblr peep. I may say stuff in chat but I’m fully not expecting or wanting to be noticed by the streamer.

Others hitting darkness o’clock and saying goodnight.

It’s sleep to the stream hours y’all. Whoop.

I need to visit the parks out west. I’ve only really seen the eastern US ones. But I have been to the Great Smokey Mountain park which is gorgeous.

Eret thinking of his friends triggers when naming his cat.

Eret’s builds are so casually pretty. Not like Foolish’s which are intricately pretty. Not like Phil’s or Sam’s which are complicated pretty. All pretty. Just different breeds of pretty.

Alrighty. It’s sleepy hours for me. As much as I love Eret I want to read some fanfiction and daydream a bit before I head to sleep.

Have a good rest everyone and may all your coming meals be delicious.

Wait no is it our turn with goose?

OUR TURN WITH GOOSE!

Eret honey that’s the ceiling.

Cat stream. Cat stream.

Sleepy kitty. A cat cam would be good.

Yeah. That happens with cats. Especially strays.

Goose captured the computer mouse.

Goose straight up chose Eret and Elaina.

Goose really just chose not to leave.

Oh my stream connection is acting sad. But I want Goose content.

I want to draw Goose now.

Maybe I’ll do water color for Goose. I know I tried to do that with Boots (Fundy’s cat)

Hopefully there will be some Goose face screenshots I can see. Maybe I can see him well in the Tiktok.

Artists just violently refusing payment. Sounds about right. The MCYT artists just kinda go “yeah give credit and we cool”

Cowboy cat. Nice.

I want to paint Goose in the cowboy hat.

Hype train! That we are zooming.

Bucket sponge?

WATER BUCKET FROM WET SPONGE! Tiktok people giving all the cool info.

Go Goose. Catch the computer mouse and the screen mouse.

Just sitting here at 11:30 at night getting screen shots of Goose for painting purposes.

Goose please. Look at the camera babe.

My phone is dying. And I can’t charge it and type.

Alright the camera is off the cat. The cat is also blocking the screen.

But no cat on camera means I’m getting some sleep. If I do any of the projects I’ve mentioned I’ll let y’all know.

Have a good rest everyone.

[myhauntedsalem]

13 Creepy Camping Encounters That Will Put You off the Great Outdoors

1. The Crying Girl

“When I was younger probably like 10 or 11, I went camping with my family. I’ll just get right into it. It was about 1 or 2 in the morning, and I couldn’t really sleep. The tent me and my brother were in was really hot, and very uncomfortable. Anyway, while I was trying to go to bed I heard a very faint whimper. I tried to ignore it because I figured I was just tired. Our campsite was along a road with many other camps nearby. The whimper started to get louder, and then turned into crying. I heard footsteps outside of our tent, and a girl crying.

Now let me tell you, it didn’t go faint, it got louder and louder. It remained in the same spot the entire time. That’s so important because, it indicates that she was looking at our tent site, crying. It gets worse, then it turned into a full on scream for a few seconds, then cuts out. When she started screaming by brother woke up. We both look at each other and just get all the pillows and stuff our head under them.

I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I’m just glad we left the next morning.” – Keithic

2. The Shaking

“This happened to an acquaintance of mine and his son. This took place back in the early ’90s.

He had taken his young son for a father and son type hike out of Skagway. If any of you are familiar with Skagpatch, there is quite a network of trails above town at lower Dewey lakes.

So, it’s evening, dinner done, tent up, bed time. Sometime later, around midnight, he’s woken up by the tent shaking violently, then silence. Then again. Keep in mind its late August, and pitch black, I mean as pitch black as you can get under the heavy coastal rain forest with no moon.

This shaking kept up for over an hour. He had no idea what it was. He went out with his headlamp, yelled, and heard nothing. Would go back in the tent, then it would start up again. He could here footsteps whenever it happened.

He was pretty shaken up by the next morning as you could imagine.

He reported it to the troopers, and the only thing they could come up with was someone with a night vision set up messing around. Or something else…” – Yukoner

3. The Middle of the Woods

“This happened to me when I was little. I went camping with my older brother and my mom. I was about 7 or 8 and I went to bed around 10 in a sleeping bag inside my tent with both my mom and brother. Some time during the night, I don’t know when, I woke up somewhere in the middle of the woods still in my sleeping bag. I had no idea where I was or where my tent was. I screamed for my mom and I heard her calling back for me in panic but she was easily 100 yards away or so. To this day I have no idea how I ended up in the middle of the woods still inside my sleeping bag. Gives me the chills.” – cckaufmann

4. The Hanging Man

“Hiking the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania for a week in…2006 and my brother and I came across a young man who had hung himself. We sprinted up to the bluff where he was strung up. I wrapped my arms around his waist to take weight off his neck while my brother cut him down with his Leatherman. He had thrown the rope up over a tall branch and lashed it off with a clove hitch at the trunk like you’d hang a bear-bag. Must’ve climbed the branches and dropped once laced in. We probably shouldn’t have even tried, he was dead for sometime before we happened across him. Fortunately no critters had come to tear him apart before we found him, it would’ve only gotten grislier from there. Called 911. Ended our trip pretty damn quick.

I don’t know why we tried, it was very obvious he had been dead for some time. Don’t know how long, he was very cold and smelled pretty bad. Intuition to help someone and adrenaline that clouds your judgement I guess? It was kind of a fucked up day so I don’t really remember my thought process.” – Anonymous

5. Scratches

“About one month ago, we are riding a favorite trail up near Camp Verde. Oldest son is leading, youngest is following him, a friend behind him and I am sucking up rear. Come over a hill and I see my youngest son with all of his gear off and his jersey. I came up asking what was wrong, thinking that he crashed, He said his back was burning. I looked and there were three scratches across his back. Looked like claw marks. No blood, but very distinct. He had a chest/back protector on so there is no way a tree branch or anything got him. We finally got him geared back up and headed out. About 30 minutes later, we reached a spot where we always stop for a break. I asked him to take the jersey off so that I could see the scratches again. They were completely gone.” – THB

6. Music in the Night

“A couple of years ago my brother bought a large piece of land out in the middle of nowhere, about thirty miles or so from cell phone reception. It’s quiet, there is no light pollution, no paved roads, and not a lot of people around.

Shortly after he bought the place, two of my brothers (the land owner and another), me, and our families spent a weekend camping on the land and doing our best to clean it up; people had used it as a dump, there were many downed trees, etc. On the second night we camped there, I woke up in the middle of the night to take a leak. As I was walking to the bushes in the dark, I realized that I could faintly hear music. This didn’t strike me as odd because I knew my brother had a radio in his camper. I finished up and went back to sleep with no further thought on the matter.

The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned the radio and music. Several other people recalled waking in the night and hearing music, but no two people heard the same music. Finally, the brother who brought the radio woke up. I asked him about the music and he seemed a bit freaked out. He woke up sometime during the night and went outside to smoke. He heard music as well and had assumed it was someone else. I should mention that he was the only one with a generator and a radio. It wasn’t his radio we heard, it wasn’t anyone else’s either.

I’ve been back several times, but I’m a bit freaked out by that place at night. I have fun while I’m there, but I’m almost always armed and I don’t sleep in a tent anymore, I sleep in my SUV with the doors locked. It may seem kinda dumb, but realizing that everyone heard different music when there are no people, no functional radios, and no electricity is quite creepy.” – goat-of-mendes

7. The Light

“We were in a river-side cabin one night in Northern Michigan. I had just stretched out when a huge crack erupted from the woods. Both of us thought it was a branch or old tree that had fallen.

After he turned off the living room light, we noticed that the light coming from the windows was abnormally strong. This sent our nerves to a new high. The light seemed to pulse several times and got so bright at one point you could have read a book by it. It couldn’t have been a car as we were almost a mile off the road on a dirt trail. Plus, the light came in from all the windows equally.

Every so often we would hear a strange humming noise that penetrated that cabin. This lasted almost half an hour. We talked about just running out to the car and leaving but neither one of us wanted to go outside.

After the light went out, we sat on the couch, occasionally putting forth theories on what it could have been. Around four o’clock in the morning, there was another loud crack. We worried that the light might come back but nothing happened.” – R. Bassil

8. Blue Spectre

“My friend and I were walking just outside of the circle of cabins. It was a bright night with all the stars shining and the moon was well lit. There was a campfire going, and in one of the big cabins there was a party going on with music and so on. We were walking, and we both got a really weird feeling, as if we were being watched. We both turned toward the sea… we saw a blue figure, very tall – about 7 feet – walking through the trees. It made no sound at all. It was a bright blue and glowing figure walking through the forest. It was emitting a shimmery aura, and my friend and I both became very frightened. We shouted at whatever that thing was and we were asking it what it was. We got no reply, of course, but we expected one. We stared as it walked away and out of our vision; we didn’t dare follow it.

We then ran back to the group of people at the camp fire, screaming and describing what we saw. Another friend of mine claimed he was watching it from a distance not far from were we were and was just as frightened as I was.” – Devin

9. Footsteps Upstairs

“Not something I experienced, but my sister and her husband did.

My family used to have a cabin on a lake in the Northwoods. It’s a lake with no public access. On the other side is/was an old Girl’s Camp that the state was letting fall apart. The camp had a large, two-story main house that was mostly intact at the time.

My sister and her husband decided to check out the camp one day. They canoe’d over and started to walk around. They went into the Main House first. They walked around for a bit. And then they heard heavy footsteps upstairs. These footsteps turned into someone running heavily towards the stairs.

My sister and her husband booked it out of the house, but they could hear the steps coming down the stairs and on the main level as they ran out. They opted to run around the house instead of heading back to the shore.

They never saw who it was, but they heard them enter back into the house. And then they heard them storm back outside again. They went into the woods this time and heard someone running in the woods after them.

They took the long way around the lake back to the cabin.

My dad and I had to go back later that day to get the canoe. We never heard or saw anything.” – joftheinternet

10. Geocaching

“I’ve been geocaching in the woods many times, and occasionally one runs into caches with weird things in them. The creepiest was an ammo box with only a handful of finds that contained broken doll parts and a handwritten note that said “Look behind you”. I definitely had the heebie-jeebies and double-timed it back to my car despite it being the middle of the day. It’s crossed my mind before that geocaching would be a great way for a serial killer to lure people out to remote locations.” – Anonymous

11. Who Followed Us?

“This happened in 81 or 82. Not sure anymore.

I had made friends with a fellow I worked with and offered to take him gigging for frogs. He was from the city and had never spent any time in the woods at night. The farm I had permission to do it on was only about a mile from my place. My friend showed up at 10:30 or so and I gave him a gig and a flashlight. We decided to walk to the other farm. We didn’t get far before we both heard something walking in the dark to the side of us. I’ve been in the woods all my life and I’ve had plenty of deer follow me but I wasn’t going to tell him that. It was clear he was getting spooked. We climbed a fence and continued on. Then we heard something else climb the fence.

Deer don’t climb fences. I tried looking around with the flashlight but he wanted none of it. We could see the house lights of the place we were going to and he ran off on me and beat on the guy’s door until they let him in. By the time I got there Mr. Barber, (the land owner), and his wife was out on the porch and wanted to know what was going on. Mr. Barber and I went back and had a look around but found nothing. My friend refused to walk back and Mr. Barber gave us a ride back to my place. We never did find out what or who it was that was following us.

My friend decided that frogging wasn’t for him. He has also refused to go on several fishing trips I have invited him to. I can’t say I was too comfortable with what happened but I haven’t let it stop me from frogging.” – Smoker

12. The Circle

“I was backpacking in New Hampshire and camped out for the night after a day hike. I wondered off from our fire to go take a piss and stumbled upon a circle etched into the ground with tuning forks surrounding the circle standing up straight…It looked like a creepy ritual circle and it bugged me out so I booked it back to the group.” – ITS_A_BADTIME_BOB

13. The Gator

“Few years ago I was camping in the Everglades in Florida with a few friends. We all had gone into our separate tents and were starting to fall asleep. The area was pretty noisy with bugs, crickets, birds, etc. I heard this very low vibration, sounding almost like a low roar. it was powerful enough to vibrate in my chest. Suddenly everything in the forest shut up. no bugs, no birds, nothing. about thirty seconds later my phone vibrates and its my friend in the other tent texting me asking if i heard the same thing. the four of us kept texting each other, wondering what it was. about ten minutes later all the animals slowly started making noise again. I slept that night with my machete at arms reach.

A lot of people are saying it might have been a gator. We were in an elevated area that was far from any streams or ponds. Its possible there might have been a pond with a gator that we missed, but the very big ones tend to hang out in lakes.” – Biggs180

[seavoice]

We’ll Dream Of A Longer Summer

A stairwell, some chocolates and the last summer.

[beckendorf/silena]

this is so...random! and unedited. but, it’s here anyway, so just some beckendorf and silena stuff set before tlo, because there’s not enough with the two of them. you can scroll down to keep reading, or click on the title to read on ao3.

Spring bled into summer, and his eighteenth year bled into his nineteenth. Suddenly it was the approaching winds of August that filled the sweet scent of New York breeze, and if the Fates could be counted upon, soon would follow the end of the war.

That’s what Beckendorf had told his mother at least, as he had packed the bags to camp for the last time under her watchful gaze. August was near, and so was the war’s end. This was his last summer at camp—next year he would be off to NYU, and Camp Half-Blood would be a chapter of his life closed for the most part, only to be pried gently open now and again to check in on his siblings through Iris Messages, or to drop by to teach a quick lesson on metalworking for the newbies. But, for the most part, Beckendorf had told her, this would be the last time. This would be the last time his mom had to swallow down her fear and wave goodbye from her car as Beckendorf trudged slowly up Half Blood Hill, to train and craft for the summer.

He was no longer the uncertain eleven year old his mom had dropped off all those years ago after a particularly nasty monster attack. His mom no longer had to drive him to Camp, and she certainly never needed to pick him up. She did so anyway, because Ada Beckendorf always claimed that the summer was too long without him, like an extra hour in the car could fill in the months away from each other, the months worth of uncertainty and fear and missing missing missing .

Some years, Beckendorf had to stay more or less year round, because the monster attacks had got too violent, too frequent. His mother agreed to drop him off during winter break too, sometimes, just to celebrate the holidays with his siblings and friends. But for some reason, summer had always been the hardest. Hardest to say goodbye.

“You miss the entire summer holidays with me,” his mom had told him once, when he was thirteen and greener, and could fit so much more easily in his mother’s embrace. She had been crying the days leading up to the beginning of summer, and Beckendorf had eventually just decided to ask her what the problem was, because he had been getting prickly about her constant tearing up. “I don’t get to see you even for a day.” She had pressed a kiss to the top of his shaved head. “I understand of course, with the monsters and all, and it’s not your fault, baby. But I just—I just wish. It would be nice to spend a day in the city together, when we both are free.”

“When the monster attacks get less frequent,” Beckendorf had promised, feeling that prickliness melt into fondness. A week of summer, when his mom didn’t have to teach college classes for her architecture students, and when he wasn’t getting stalked by dracanae, Beckendorf had promised they’d binge a sitcom, catch a movie, design some fancy building. The promise had been forgotten, like many promises inevitably were when made as a throwaway consolation when you’re thirteen and running late for the Greyhound.

But. He had made it to the other side of his eighteenth birthday, and his mother had a break from her teaching, and he wasn’t getting stalked by dracanae. He had retrieved that promise from its abandonment, taken a cab from Long Island Sound to Manhattan, and he had made it to his mother’s front door. One summer , he had promised, thirteen and tired, and now it was that summer.

That throwaway promise had been fulfilled.

If only he could bring himself to knock. Beckendorf had never hesitated with his mom; he had never felt anything other than at ease with her, but for some reason, he couldn’t help but hesitate now. A line of nerves drooled down his back, and he found he couldn’t make himself knock on the bright candy pink apartment door.

“It’s just your mom,” Silena said, nudging him slightly so that he snapped out of his reverie. She’d accompanied him to the city, and they’d even made a pit stop at her dad’s chocolate shop to pick a box for his mother. “She’s the sweetest lady in all of Manhattan. What are you staring at the door like that for?”

Beckendorf swallowed. “She could be busy.”

“She’s not. You checked her schedule, Charlie.”

Beckendorf tightened his grip on the bag of chocolates he was carrying. “She could have gone out.”

Silena frowned at him. He couldn’t blame her; he wasn’t exactly explaining himself. He didn’t think he could explain himself to her, though. “Well,” Silena said finally, after a few minutes of  confused silence. “Only one way to find out.”

Silena lifted the knocker and let it fall against the door. There was no sound from within. Beckendorf pressed a ear against the door and rapped his knuckles thrice against it, quickly. No sound.

“She’s out,” Beckendorf said, stepping back. “Aw, man, I think she’s out for groceries. She usually goes to pick them up around this time.”

“We can wait,” Silena offered. “She won’t be too long, will she?”

Beckendorf shook his head. “Not too long. But no point waiting for her either. We can…” He cast around for some way to finish his sentence. “We can come back...later?”

Silena crossed her arms, the charm bracelet Beckendorf had made for her glinting at her wrist. “Are you asking or telling me?”

“We can come back later,” Beckendorf said. Outside, the sky was streaked pink and orange, tourists and evening commuters zipping through the streets. “Uh, you can call Blackjack, maybe? Take a spin around this city, drop back in a half hour?”

Silena shrugged. “Look, I don’t mind, Charlie, at all. That sounds lovely. But if your mom’s gonna be back soon anyway...I don’t see a point in  leaving. The chocolates are gonna melt if we take too long.”

Beckendorf kept his eyes on the cotton candy clouds drifting slowly against the vast expanse of sky. They were bathed golden in the fading rays of the setting sun. Eyes still on the clouds, he said, “You’ve got a point there.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t turn around to look at her, but from the slight staying hitch in her voice, he could make out that Silena was a little confused. “Yeah. I do.”

He didn’t say anything. Silena waited for a minute, and then she slipped her hand in his, and they were taking the stairs two at a time. By the time Beckendorf could open his mouth, Silena had whirled him around so that they were face to face in the stairwell.

“Hey,” Silena asked. “Is everything alright?” She smiled—half comforting, half concerned. “You—you aren’t making a lot of sense right now.”

“I’m sorry—“

“No, no, it’s fine.” Silena shook her head. “It’s cool. I just...you were so excited all week to meet your mom, for me to meet your mom, and then you kind of, uh, froze up at the door? And it’s fine, you know. I get it. I totally get it if you’re nervous about bringing me home as your girlfriend to meet your mom, but are you okay? Is something up?”

“It’s not you,” Beckendorf said. “It’s not the girlfriend thing...my mom already loves you. She knows you. You’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m not worried about that. It’s not even my mom . It’s just…” he trailed off. He sat down jerkily on the bottom step of the staircase.

Silena waited a few beats before she prodded. She joined him on the last step. “It’s just what?”

“It’s gonna sound kind of dumb.”

“Try me.”

Beckendorf sighed. “I was just...on the way here, I kept thinking about how I finally get to spend like, considerable free time with my mom for one summer. It’s been years of summer vacations where I kept promising her that I’d take a break form Camp and visit, and we’d just...hang out I guess. And I kept thinking about how I’d managed to push it to the last possible year I could, and that was you know, it was fine! It wasn’t like we never got to spend time together. She calls. I drop by over winter break. We send letters. It’s cool. And it was fine, it was all fine, and then suddenly it hit me that this isn’t the last summer I get to just hang out with her.”

“Okay,” Silena said. She paused. “And that’s a bad thing because…?”

“It’s not.” Beckendorf grinned. “It’s not, it’s really not. But I kept psyching myself out by going “it’s the last summer” over and over again...but it’s not. It’s not my last summer that I spend with her. But it is the last summer when I’m head counsellor of my cabin. The last summer I can drop by Camp Half Blood as a regular camper, and not an instructor. For a minute, I just forgot what I was here for, and what that promise I made to her actually meant. When the monster attacks became less frequent, I promised. When it’s not as dangerous.”

“So you got all weird and staticky at the door because you...remembered you’re gonna be missing camp?”

Beckendorf spread his arms. “I don’t know. I remembered the first time I told my Mom that I’d visit her for a week in summer—I told her I’d take a break from camp. And I was just saying stuff because I was getting late for the Greyhound. I did get late for the Greyhound, actually, and Mom had to drop me. I can’t believe that…”

He turned to look at Silena. “I mean just…college? Did you imagine? That we’d make it to eighteen?”

For the first time that day, Silena looked just as uncertain as he felt. “Well, I’ve always…” She sighed. “No, I guess. My dad always talked about me going off to college. He didn’t ever have a doubt that I’d...make it to eighteen. He’s always making plans for the future. A Europe trip together, he always says. I’m saving up for a European holiday. He’s always wanted to go. He’s always said that we’ll go together when I’m eighteen.” Silena pulled up her knees to her chest and put her chin on them. “I didn’t really start believing that till I cut that birthday cake this Jan.”

Beckendorf could understand that. The day of his eighteenth birthday he had woken up to his siblings singing the most ear splitting rendition of the birthday song, and that was when it had sunk in for the first time— they would be getting to the other side. Just till the end of the war. Just till the end of the summer. And there had been so many summers before.

Beckendorf reached into his bag and retrieved the box of chocolates they’d picked out for his mom. He cracked open the seal and offered one to Silena.

“Hey, we bought that for your mom--”

“She won’t miss a couple,” Beckendorf assured her. “Take it as an apology for making you sad when this was supposed to be a fun date in the city.”

“You didn’t make me sad,” Silena said, choosing a truffle with a caramel filling. “This isn’t--sad. This is happy. Eighteen. Who would have thought?”

Beckendorf picked out a chocolate for himself and knocked it against Silena’s like a cheers . “Not me,” he admitted. “Not after the battle at camp last summer. Not after everybody left or died…”

“You were actually right,” Silena said, taking another truffle. “I need another one of these before we start talking about it all.”

"We still will visit, won't we? You're the best pegasus riding instructor in camp. I can't possibly leave my siblings all alone when it comes to forging. Like the demand for the whole of camp is so huge--"

"Of course we'll come back some time," Silena said. "We won't just disappear. They'll tear each other apart. Once Drew and Mitchell get going, I'm the only one who can tear them apart. And you have your brilliant new automaton dragon...it won't be the same, of course, but we'll come back. It won't...this is not goodbye forever."

"It won't be the same."

"It'll be good, though. Different, but good."

"You sure?"

"As I can be." Silena slit the wrapper with her forenail. The chocolate immediately flopped to the ground. Silena groaned. "Anyway, like I said. This isn't goodbye forever. This is just...a change. A lucky change."

They sat in silence for a moment, Silena casting periodic mournful glances at the candy on the floor. A childhood of helping her father with the candy shop had left her with a deep distaste for wasteful chocolate practices.

“I prefer the bon-bons,” Beckendorf said. He offered one to her.

Silena made a face. “My dad loves those. They taste like cardboard.”

“Never really had cardboard,” Beckendorf said. “But if it tastes anything like this, I wouldn’t mind chomping down on a couple of boxcrates myself.”

Silena rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Alright. Next time I get something in the mail…”

“Postal is dead,” Beckendorf said. “Don’t make empty promises, Silena. Take it from me. Never know when you’ll be staring at some random door having a breakdown about the end of an era.”

Silena laughed, just once, a bright sparkle, and then she was leaning forward and kissing him. Beckendorf allowed himself to melt into the kiss, and by the time they were pulling away, his lips smelled faintly of caramel.

“You put on a new charm,” Beckendorf observed. He nodded towards the miniature curved sword on her bracelet, between hearts and fish and tiny doves. “It’s cute.”

Silena’s eyes dropped suddenly to her wrist, like she was seeing the charm for the first time. “Oh.” She grabbed the charm between her thumb and forefinger. “Oh. I forgot that I--ah, shit, I can’t believe I forgot to take this charm off--”

“It looks nice,” Beckendorf said. “Why would you want to--”

“Charlie?” His mom had come through the front door, lugging with her two armfuls of grocery bags. “Silena! Oh, did I keep you dears waiting?”

“It’s fine.” Beckendorf jumped up to his feet and kissed his mother’s cheek, coaxing a bag from her hold. “Hey, Ma.”

“Well, come on in! It’s going to get chilly.” Nevermind they were in the middle of one of the hottest summers New York had ever seen. “This is such a pleasant surprise, Charlie!I wasn’t expecting the both of you till the evening at…” Her voice grew progressively fainter as she trailed into the apartment. Beckendorf smiled at his mother’s enthusiasm, before turning to look at Silena, who was still standing at the bottom of the staircase. Her fist was curled around something. Her wrist was bare.

“Silena,” he said.”You alright?”

Silena shook her head. “Yeah, I’m...uh, this bracelet doesn’t really...I forgot. I had something else in mind. To wear today.”

“It looks really good, I’m not kidding.”

Silena inhaled deeply and then stuffed her curled fist deep into her pocket. “Thanks.”

Beckendorf nodded towards the ajar door. “You coming inside?”

“Yeah,” Silena said. “Charlie, you know I love you, right?”

“I love you too.”

“I know,” Silena said. “I know you do. But all that talk about eighteen, about reaching years you didn't think you’d reach...you know I love you, don’t you? Whatever happens. I love you.”

Beckendorf was half tempted to blurt out I love you too again. But he knew that wasn’t what Silena was asking. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. Of course.”

Silena nodded. “We say it a lot,” she said. “But we don’t--of course we mean it, but sometimes it gets lost doesn’t it? What that means? In between the small things, it doesn’t--it doesn’t seem big enough sometimes.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Beckendorf said. “I get it.”

Silena bit her lip. “I don’t know if I love you is big enough. I don't know if the fact that I love you is enough. Will be enough.”

For what ? For him? For them?

“It will be,” Beckendorf told her, because it was the only thing he knew for certain. “I promise.”

“It seems so now, but if--when something happens -- ” Silena stopped suddenly and closed her eyes. Her breath was uneven. “Really? You think it’ll be enough?”

“It’ll be enough,” Beckendorf said.

[poisonedlxve]

Control

Camp Janus

Eastvale, Michigan

December 10th, 2002

7:30 A.M.

( ᵗʳⁱᵍᵍᵉʳ ʷᵃʳⁿⁱⁿᵍˢ: ᵍᵒʳᵉ, ᶜʰⁱˡᵈ ᵐᵘʳᵈᵉʳ, ᵇˡᵒᵒᵈ, ᵛᵒⁱᶜᵉˢ, ˢˡᵉᵉᵖ ᵈᵉᵖʳⁱᵛᵃᵗⁱᵒⁿ, ᵛⁱᵒˡᵉⁿᶜᵉ. )

Jason woke up to his cabin that was both cold and dark. He had gotten exteemely little sleep for the fourteenth day in a row. Two weeks. He could hear the ringing of the breakfast bell from the messhall, they would begin rollcall after breakfast. Jason rolled out of bed and fell to the floor with a thud, looking around he saw his book open on the desk still emitting that obnoxious green glow that it had been for the past two weeks. And, still, he heard her voice… the voice that never went away. That never left him alone.

Jason had been a chaos magician going on 5 years now, he wasn’t supposed to give into her voice, but it was driving him mad. Every night for hours and hours she woupd try and coax him into giving in, into letting her take over, letting her show him the power he truly held. With two weeks worth of restless nights he was finally giving in. His will to resist her diminished. He curled up on the cold cabin floor while the wind howled outside, black veins crawling up his legs and arms. The 8 o'clock bell rang.

Roll call.

Jason’s coworkers stood outside with the ‘troubled children’ attending Camp Janus for roll call. Jamison, a teenage girl, waved to Jason when she saw him. The two had grown quite a bond since he started working here and she really had improvednfrom her delinquent ways, but the closer Jason approached the more she could see something wasn’t quite right.

His skin was as pale as the snow on the geound, he looked disheveled, she could even see black veins up the side if his neck. He walked slowly, and sluggishly, like a zombie. His gaze distant, his eyes green instead of their usual gray. The other counselors took notice as well when he joined them.

“…Jason is everything okay..?” Jamison asked worriedly, afraid he might be ill. Jason stepped back and shook his head, laughing. Laughing maniacally. He had to hold his sides. The book he was holding falling out and landing open on the ground. He couldn’t stop laughing, not once, even though he felt like he was suffocating, like his jaw muscles were burning. Tears fell from his eyes as Lady Chaos took him over.

Everything was a blur…

The last thing he heard before the entity took over was Jamison’s cries.

Everything went to hell. The power unleashed was terrifying, trauma inducing.

Jason’s body levitated and so did the spell book. Suddenly the sky darkened with storm clouds, the wind picking up even more so, to the point it felt like standing in a hurrican. Snow blew everywhere, no one could see no matter where they ran, children and staff trampled over one another. The clouds continued to swirl and geow above. Lighting flashing in it. The ground shook violently as giant arms erupted from the earth, grabbing the helpless campers and staff.

Crushing them.

Tearing them apart.

Maiming them all.

What once was a soft , pure white, snow covered grown became blood red. Remains scattered all along the camp ground.

Except where Jason ended up standing when it was all over. The one patch of white. He came too. He saw what she had done.

There was not one single survivor, none, the cabins and other facilities were completely obliterated, trees had fallen and splintered. Jason fell to his knees. The storm he created still raging.

“GODDAMMIT!”

He slammed his fist into the ground as he screamed and cried. He really had given in…and this was not something he could reverse. He felt weak, like the life had been drained out of him.

That spot was where Jason lay, in the middle of the despair and destruction he caused, for a day and a half before he had the strength to leave and NEVER look back. Though that very day still hainted him, and would until the day he died. He grabbed his stomach and hunched over, coughing uo a thick black substance onto the ground.

It wasn’t until the day the camp ended and kids were supposed to go home that families realized something was wrong. Police units were sent to invesitate and were met with the grizzly sight. Some bodies were far from identifiable. And animals had gotten to others…

The never did find out what was responsible.

[justkending]

Unexpected Guest Final.

Series Summary: Dean walks into the bunkers kitchen to a surprise that leads to quite the adventure. Is it good or bad? We’ll have to find out.

Main Characters: Dean, Sam, Reader

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Warnings: Cussing, Threats, Angst.

Word Count: 5600+

A/N: This is my 100 followers mini series celebration! Thank you for the love and support! Let me know what you think! <333

Part 2: Final

Once she was in the room, she surveyed the area and let out a huff.

“Home sweet home,” she muttered to herself, but the men still heard her and shared a look.

Although she was a pain in the ass so far, Dean knew what it felt like to travel from motel to motel and not have a sense of home. He hated it back then and he hated seeing others go through it. Sure it was a way of the hunters life, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

“So!” She blurted causing the brothers to look back to her. “I say we get situated and then make our way to Hecate’s hideout,” she said throwing the duffle bag onto the bed that Sam had claimed.

“Hecate?” Dean questioned, throwing his bag down while raising an eyebrow at Y/N.

“Yes. The Goddess we’re hunting,” she sassed grabbing the book and opening it. “Did Sam not tell you anything while we were driving here?”

“Right, right. I know. I-I just-”

“You just weren’t listening,” Sam sighed sitting next to Y/N.

Y/N chuckled softly at the brothers.

“I was listening! I just- I zoned out every once in a while,” he rolled his eyes before plopping on his bed and turning his body toward the two resting his elbows on his knees. “Just to be safe though brief me on who she is again,” he fake smiled.

Y/N gave him a glare before throwing the book at him and standing up.

“I’m sure Sam can fill you in. I’m going to go make a phone call before we head out,” she grabbed her phone and started her walk to the door. “Sam make sure he knows enough not to get himself killed before we leave. We’re leaving as soon as I’m done.”

With that she walked out. The boys watching until the door latched.

“She’s bossy,” Dean stated, still looking at the door while his brother scoffed at him.

“She’s good. I haven’t seen her mess up on many hunts and she knows what she’s doing. She just wants you to be smart going in. You should too if you don’t want to die. Again,” Sam said going to the table after grabbing the book from Dean. “Seriously man, did you not hear anything I told you on the ride here?”

“I did, but it got boring after a while.” Dean huffed falling back on the bed throwing his hands over his face. “Just give me the cliff notes.”

Sam rolled his eyes as he scanned the book to find the main points they needed.

“Basically Hecate is the Goddess associated with witchcraft, magic, and ghosts.”

“Ugh, I hate witches,” Dean said disgusted.

“Then you’ll love ganking her.”

“Will it end all witchcraft from ever happening again?” Dean said slowly sitting up and running a hand through his hair.

“Doubt it, but at least we will be getting rid of the mother of it all.”

“I guess that’s something.”

“Anyway, she can be seen with three distinct selves, and can be shown in triple form.”

“What does that even mean?” Dean said raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe something like multiplying herself. I mean she is the goddess of witchcraft, so I’m sure she’ll have a spell up her sleeve at some point. Hence why I didn’t want Y/N doing this on her own.”

Dean nodded in agreement, and Sam continued to brief him on what they were dealing with.

__

Y/N came in about 10 minutes later and looked to be more frustrated than before.

“Hey, everything ok?” Sam asked concerned.

“Huh?” Y/N said snapping out of her thoughts. “What? Oh, yeah. Fine. Peachy.” she lied. “You catch Dean up on what’s going on?”

Instead of pushing, Sam decided to move from the topic that was clearly messing with her.

“Uh, yeah. We should be good to go in about 5 minutes. I just need to check the trunk to make sure we have what we need,” he said patting her shoulder.

“Cool. I’ll start packing up too,” she said moving to her extra duffle that must have had some of her weapons.

Sam looked over at his brother who was giving Y/N a look that showed he was trying to study her and see where she was in her mind. When he finally caught Dean’s attention he gave him a look of, be nice. Dean waved him off and Sam went outside.

“Hey,” Dean said breaking the silence after about 30 seconds. Y/N didn’t stop what she was doing and didn’t look Dean’s way. “So… Goddess of witches. Sounds like an interesting hunt. How did you come across it?”

“Found a consistent pattern in the papers and media. Just like any other hunt,” she said monotone.

“Cool, cool…” Dean said nodding his head. “So where exactly-”

“Dean,” she said, sternly cutting him off and turning to him with a hand on her hip while the other stayed in the bag. “Don’t really want to talk. Just want to get this hunt over with so I can get drunk off my ass and maybe find a quick lay to relieve some of this stress,” she said giving a fake smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab one last thing from my car and we can head out.” She threw whatever was in her hand in the bag aggressively and stomped outside.

Sam was right outside the door coming back in and peaked the corner from where she had walked out of the door and rushed to her car with hands in fist at her side. He watched her angrily open the trunk and start to dig around before turning to his brother.

“What the hell did you do?” he asked walking in and leaving the door cracked just enough to see her dig through her arsenal. “I was gone for not even 2 minutes-”

“I have no idea man! It had to have do with the phone call. One second she’s all sassy and joking, and the next, she looks like she wants to send a knife through my chest,” Dean defended standing and throwing his hands up.

“You had to have said something.”

“Nothing. Just asked how she came across the hunt, and talked about the Goddess we’re hunting. That’s it I swear.”

“And what did she say?”

“Told me she wanted to finish the hunt and get plastered after so she could find a guy to sleep with,” Dean explained feeling a small twinge of jealousy in his chest.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.” They paused to think for a second. “I’m not sure who was on the other end of that phone call, but whoever it was didn’t make her a happy camper.”

“Yeah, well I hope it doesn’t affect her concentration when we get out in the field. After researching this Goddess more, she doesn’t seem like the easiest person to take down.”

“Great. When is it ever easy?” Dean said grabbing his jacket and tucking his gun in the waistband of his pants before walking out to the car.

__

Sure enough, it wasn’t easy at all. Like Sam had stated earlier Hecate had quite a few spells and tricks up her sleeve.

When they got there things seemed a bit too easy in finding the place. After some searching through the hideout she was supposedly living in, it came up empty.

Against the Winchesters better judgement, Y/N split up and started to search by herself after feeling a pull from the house. She wasn’t quite ready to call it quits, so she went to investigate further when the Winchester boys turned their back.

Not really having her head in the game was a disadvantage at the time because as soon as she passed the threshold of a new room, the doors slammed trapping Y/N in. A figure spoke up in the corner of the room.

“My, my… and here I thought you would leave without even checking all the rooms,” the figure said from the corner still not illuminated from the dim lighting, but Y/N could hear her smug grin with the words.

__

She woke up to bumps on the road, and the comfort of being laid in someone's lap. Of course that comfort only last seconds as she started to feel the radiating pain that was in her ribs.

“Hey, stay with me sweetheart!” Y/N heard Dean’s mumbled voice. “We’re almost to the motel, and we called Cas.”

“I really think we need to take her to the hospital Dean. We don’t know if Cas will make it in time,” Sam said turning around in the driver's seat to check on them every few glances he could spare from the road.

“No! Cas will be there!” He shouted looking at his brother for a split second before turning to Y/N.

She started coughing and cringing at the extra pain that it brought her.

“Shit,” she muttered.

“Hey, you’re going to be fine,” Dean said calmly. “Just try to stay awake for me.” Y/N grunted half in pain and half in annoyance at the situation. “Hey, you got to stay alive so you can tell me why you hate me so much,” he said with a sad smile as he moved her curly Y/H/C hair out of her face.

A weak smile grew on her face and she turned more to see his face.

“I don’t hate you Dean,” she whispered before violently coughing again. This time blood coming up with it leaving specks of crimson on her lips.

“Whoa, whoa. As happy as I am to hear that news, try to save some of your energy,” Dean said rubbing a thumb over her cheek.

“I’m fine,” she retorted, trying to shift to a more comfortable position but failing.

“That’s what they all say,” Dean said helping her.

“I-I’m tired,” she barely spoke as she snuggled more into his chest.

“No, no! You keep your eyes open, ok? No sleeping!” He said gently shaking her. “We’re a mile out from the motel, and we have a friend coming to help.”

She hummed weakly, but went against his command, and slowly started to flutter her eyes shut.

“Sammy! Go faster! We’re losing her!” He shouted in a panic as he continued to try and tousle her awake again. The amount of blood that was seeping from her wound was getting worse. “Come on sweetheart.”

Sam floored the gas even more, even though he was already going almost 90 in a 50 on the back roads of the country.

_

“I could feel a power radiating from here. Thought I would check it out,” Y/N came back with a sassy tone. Her stake dipped in lamb's blood and cursed with some other hoodo in hand ready to fight. “Now, we going to small talk or can we just skip to the fight scene. I personally hate the small talk portion with these things.”

“Hmm…” Hecate hummed standing and gracefully striding into the light showing her long flowing dress that was very greek like, her jet black hair in tight curls fell out of her updo just enough to frame her face. “You know you remind me a lot of me when I was younger,” she said starting to circle Y/N, but Y/N never put her guard down as she turned with her and watched her every move.

“Y/N!” Sam started yelling through the door, and soon Dean doing the same as they banged against it without any change in it budging. “Y/N!”

In the split second that Y/N shifted her sites to the door, Hecate transported right in front of her, and grabbed her cheeks in her hands as she stared right in her eyes.

Immediately, Y/n struggled to get loose, but Hecate placed a finger on her forehead.

“Still.” she said. Instantly, Y/N was frozen. The only thing she could move was her eyes and dropping the stake at her feet. Everything else was stuck in place. “Now, let me study you.” Hecate let go of her face and stepped back to get a full look of her. “Impressive. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a decent looking human on this earth. Now those men out there…” she let out a short chuckle as she went to circle Y/N again. “Definitely easy on the eyes. You have a nice little group here.”

Y/N wanted to spit something back at her, but her mouth wouldn’t open. She could still hear Dean and Sam banging on the other end of the door.

“Not surprised that you remind me of me though,” Hecate continued. “Beautiful. Has a thing for ghosts. Understands magic. A fire in your eyes,” she said playing with the tight curls in Y/N’s hair before coming face to face with her again. “Now, the only thing I can’t understand is why you want me dead. If anything you should want to be on my side. I’m only in town to get rid of some annoying little witches that broke some rules,” she said pushing Y/N down roughly in a chair that appeared from the shadows.

Her arms were thrown on the arm rest and feet straighten in front of her without control of her own motions.

“You can speak now,” Hecate said waving at her.

Y/N took in a deep breath not realizing that she was holding it in.

“It would be different if you weren’t killing off whole families. Instead of just the witch who’s at fault, you’re killing innocents who have nothing to do with it!” Y/N said getting worked up as she spoke.

“Eh, not too worried about a few extra lives here and there. Plus, once there’s a witch in the family, there tends to be a few more generations of them too. Can’t have any rogue witches, now can we?” she slowly turned to Y/N at the last comment. “But you knew that didn’t you.”

“Go to hell bitch,” Y/N said through gritted teeth leaning forward as much as she could in the frozen position.

“Been there, live there, kinda one of my homes,” Hecate said going to move around her. “Now, what brought you into this whole supernatural world? Wait, don’t tell me? Dead Mommy issues, or is it Dead Daddy issues?” Hecate said placing her hands on Y/N’s shoulders as she stood behind her. “I’m just kidding. I know,” she leaned down to whisper in Y/N’s ear. “Mommy was a bad bad witch, wasn’t she?”

“You know nothing about me,” Y/N said sternly.

“Sure. You know? You’re mom was a pretty powerful witch from what I collected. I dropped in on her a few times to see for myself. Pretty impressed might I say. I’m sure you have some power in you too.”

“Power gets to people's heads. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be-” she cut herself off and chuckled bitterly realizing what Hecate was doing. “Shut the fuck up and stop stalling Hecate. What do you want? Bargain? Try to find a way out of this? It isn’t going to happen doll-face.”

“Me? Bargain? You think I can’t take care of myself?” Hecate said acting offended. “Oh honey, I’m not trying to save myself. I just wanted to have a little chat before I killed you. And…” She twisted her wrist and an polished metal knife that looked almost like a torch appeared in her clutch. “Thought I would offer you something and give ‘you’ the chance of survival. After all, you do come from a long line of powerful witches and beings,” she smirked. “Maybe you should consider my offer before deciding on death.”

“I don’t think you really pitched your sale too well. Why don’t you go ahead and follow through with your threat? I would love to see if you are a woman of her word,” Y/N smirked showing no sign of fear.

“Such a pity. I really like your spunk, but I guess if you ask for it...”

She lifted the knife in the air and instantly it flew toward Y/N. Out of reflex she went to flinch away but the only thing that moved was her head turning to the side. When she didn’t feel the sharp pain of the blade going in her chest she opened her eye to see it mere inches away from cutting into her.

“Actually?” Hecate said making Y/N snap her head to her. “This would be more fun if your hunter buddies got to witness this.” she snapped her fingers and the door flew open showing two disgruntled men out of breath with different weapons that they had used to try to break down the door.

“Sam! Dean!” Y/N shouted seeing them gasping for air from working so hard to save her.

“Y/N!” Sam yelled gearing up and going to step in, but being stopped immediately by an invisible force over the threshold.

Sam was pushed back and stumbled at the force looking down and around for some form of barrier. Dean doing the same after watching his brother fall back.

“Y/N!” Dean yelled as he started to punch at the invisible screen separating them. “Don’t worry! We’re going to get you out!” he said looking at her as he beat into the force. “Let her go you bitch!” he said switching his attention to Hecate and immediately changing his tone to a threatening one dripping with venom.

“Awe, now isn’t that cute. The shorter one has a crush on you,” Hecate said tilting her head. “Too bad he’s gotta see you go,” she shrugged turning back to you. “Listen, you have two choices. One, become a powerful asset with me by my side. Two… death. I feel like that’s a pretty decent choice. Life and death and all.”

“Why the hell do you want me on your side? I don’t do witchcraft. Never wanted to, never will,” Y/N said glaring at her still trying to pull from the invisible pressure on her hands and legs.

The knife was still inches from her heart and staying in place as it levitated.

“Because darling. Let me explain again. Witches birth more witches. Your mom was a witch, a powerful one at that, gave birth to you. Whether you practice it or not, you still have a gift. We just need to unwrap it a little.”

“Not happening Catey,” Y/N sneered.

“Fine. I gave you the option. You made your choice. Sad to see such a gift wasted.”

She lifted her hand once again and the knife started twisting before going to move into Y/N.

“NO!” Dean and Sam started yelling as they threw themselves at the doorway that wasn’t changing in power of keeping them out. “Stop!”

Hecate stopped and turned to the boys.

“You know… I could kill you quickly or I could…” she paused combing through her thoughts. “Yeah, let's do the second one.” She turned and started walking to Y/N grabbing the knife from its spot. She leaned over placing a hand on the armrest, and the other on the knife lowering it to her rib cage. “Now this may hurt, and may take a little longer than I planned, but really? I’m all for a slow and painful death.”

With her eyes trained on Y/N she slowly started to enter the knife into her right ribs.

Y/N didn’t hear the boys screaming after her because she was too focused on not giving her the satisfaction of screaming. She was staying strong till Hecate went to twist the knife in the most painful and time consuming way. And to add to the pain, the knife felt like it was on fire.

That’s when she couldn’t hold it anymore and let out a blood curdling scream. So loud and strong that the walls shook, and Hecate’s eyes went from evil to concerned.

“What the?-” Hecate said looking around.

In an instant, a blast went off and Hecate was thrown against the wall, and whatever barriers she had over that room were broken.

Dean and Sam ran in immediately after Y/N. The knife had been pulled out with Hecate being thrown, and Y/N was now slumped over in the chair gushing blood from the wound.

Dean ran over to her to help her sit up. Both hands were on her shoulders shaking her and begging her to stay awake and focus on him. She was fading though. Whatever power she just released from that scream had drained her along with the blood loss.

“T-The stake-” she managed to get out motioning her head to Sam who was on the other side of the room with Hecate continuing the fight. Not that the Goddess could fight that well from the blast, but she was still putting up some decent defense. “Go. Go help Sam. I-I’ll be ok,” she whispered grabbing at the pain and pushing Dean away.

“Y/N-”

“Go!” she yelled at him with the little energy she had.

He nodded grabbing the stake she had dropped earlier and running to aid his brother.

The last thing she saw before it went black was the boys running back at her screaming to hold on.

__

Quickly they made it to the motel and started moving her to the bedroom. Dean silently praying to Cas and anyone who was willing to help in this time of desperation.

“Her pulse is barely anything Sam,” He said as Sam opened the door and motioned them to the bed.

“I know, I know. Hurry just get her in. We can slow the bleeding until Cas gets here,” Sam said taking charge as the calm presence in the room.

“Dean?” a solemn voice said after a slight whoosh sound was made in the room.

Both the brothers turned to see Cas slowly making his way to the unknown girl in Dean’s arms.

“Cas, where the hell have you been?” Dean shouted as he went to place Y/N on the bed as gently as possible.

As Cas went to answer, he was cut off by Sam interrupting.

“Never mind that! Save her Cas!”

Cas nodded and walked over to the basically dead girl and placed two fingers on her forehead. A soft glow coursing through her body while the boys stood back and watched the color regain in her face.

She let out a soft sigh as her body lifted with the grace and slowly went back to the position before.

“She was on the edge of death. A second later, and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything,” Cas explained. “Her body is still weak from some other force, probably something Hecate did, but she should be stable now. I suggest just letting her rest until she has her strength back.”

“Good,” Dean sighed with the tension easing in his body. In a split second it returned though. “Cas, what the hell? Why weren’t you answering? We called, prayed, everything!” He said getting dangerously close to his friend.

“I can’t be at your beck and call every second of the day Dean. I was handling something in heaven. You know things aren’t stable yet up there,” Cas said getting defensive as he stood his ground.

“But you heard how urgent it was! She could’ve died!” Dean said getting in his face.

“Hey!” Sam said breaking up the soon to be fight. “Cut it out. Both of you. Y/N’s fine. Cas came. Everything is ok now,” He said putting a hand on his brothers shoulder. “Calm down.”

Dean stared his angel friend in the eye one last time before backing away.

“Fine. Whatever,” He huffed moving to the opposite bed of Y/N and leaning on his knees to watch her closely as he focused on her breathing. One to calm him down, and two to make sure that it didn’t fade out like it had in the car.

Sam watched his brother turn back to his protective self and sighed running a hand through his hair.

“Cas, can I talk to you outside?” He asked turning to him.

“Yes,” Cas answered watching Dean’s change in body language as he turned to the girl in the bed.

The men walked outside and Dean never broke his sights from Y/N. After a few moments, he finally spoke up.

“I knew you were a strong one Y/N,” he whispered. “I could tell you would be too stubborn to die. Especially with me around,” he chuckled lightly.

Dean threw his head in his hands as he allowed himself a second to calm down.

“Couldn’t let you see my weak side now could I Winchester?”

Dean sprung his head up at the voice. Y/N had was trying to sit up more, but was going slowly at the hard motion.

“Whoa, slow down there princess,” Dean said rushing to her side and putting a hand on her forearm to help slow her down. “You just came back from the brink of death. I don’t think you should be pushing yourself too much.”

Y/N chuckled lightly at his protective side, and got to a comfortable spot before laying back against the headboard.

“Must have some pretty impressive mojo to be bringing me back from the dead.”

“Yeah, well. When you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you find some things.”

“Do ‘some things’ include angels named Cas?” Y/N asked catching Dean off guard.

“How did you-”

“Remember, I’ve known Sam for a while. I know pretty much everything about you two since soulless Sam was surprisingly a talker.”

“Right,” Dean said chuckling lightly as he looked down at his hands. “Listen-”

“Thank you,” she said cutting him off, and making him instantly snap his head her way.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Don’t make me repeat it Winchester,” she said raising a teasing eyebrow at him. He smiled at her realizing the change in mood in the room. “I’ve been an ass to you this past 24 hours, and I honestly had no right to,” she explained, looking down at anything but him. “I-I just had this thought of who you were in my head, and-” she sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know why I was such a jackass.”

“It’s fine Y/N. You don’t have to-”

“No, I do cause it wasn’t fair to you for me to treat you the way I did.”

“I mean I wasn’t really the nicest person at the beginning either,” Dean brought up.

“True, but maybe if I had approached the situation better than-”

“How about we say we were both at fault, and move on from there?” Dean said offering a sincere smile to her.

She looked up and meet his eyes. A small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“I’d like that.”

“Me too.”

There was a pause as they collected their thoughts.

“So… You and Sam probably have a lot of questions for me,” she said with pursed lips.

“Yeah actually. Want to let me in on what Hecate was talking about and that blast that went of?” Dean said moving to the end of the bed as she tucked her legs under her.

“Long story short, I got into the life cause my mom was a witch. A bad one at that,” she said with a forced laugh before going to look Dean in the eyes. He was fully invested in her story. “She started getting into the bad mojo stuff when I was around 10. To the point she was hurting others all because of greed and being power hungry. I decided I had had enough of seeing all the pain and tragedy around me, and at 14 took matters into my own hands.”

“14? That’s so- so young,” Dean said shocked.

“Well, I had a older brother. He sided with my mom most of the time because he was training to be powerful like her. He didn’t really like me.”

“Why?”

Y/N sighed debating telling the whole story, but eventually giving in.

“Did you hear Hecate say something about me holding a certain power thanks to my mom being a witch?”

Dean thought back, but eventually nodded remembering the conversation.

“I had the natural gift of magic at a young age. Where as my brother… he had to actually work for it. He was jealous of me, and he let me know every chance he had. Of course, he was still my older brother, so I looked up to him. Anything he wanted me to do, I did to try and impress him in hopes of making him like me more.”

“But why?”

“Because. How would you feel if Sam just started hating you for something you couldn’t control? I only wanted someone else who understood our life to be close with, and once my mom started showing favoritism to me… he flipped a switch.”

“He never hurt you did he? Cause if he did-”

“No Dean, he never hurt me. Not physically at least. Emotionally? Eh, I definitely didn’t have the best mental health growing up.” She let out a long sigh as she readjusted in the bed. “That’s why I was kinda outta my game when we went in. He was the one who called before we left. He bitched me out basically for something I couldn’t control, like always, and got in my head. He tends to do that when I least need it.”

“Then why even answer his calls? If his whole purpose is to only tell you the negatives, why let him?” Dean said getting defensive for her.

“As much as I want to hate him.... He’s family. We had a sit down a couple of years ago and talked everything out. We are on each others side for the most part, but just like any other pair of siblings, we get in fights,” she shrugged wincing at the movement.

“You ok?” Dean said stepping forward a little.

“Yeah, just sore. Whatever magic you did on me only worked so much I guess,” Y/N said stretching her shoulder.

“Yeah, Cas said he healed most of it, but there was a few things he couldn’t heal fully,” Dean explained.

“Hey, anything beats bleeding out,” she joked with a small laugh. Dean chuckling a little at her lightening the mood. “Listen, don’t get me wrong, love getting all sentimental and all with you, but I could really use a shower,” she said going to move her legs over the bed with a grunt.

“Whoa, you sure you’re ok to do that on your own? I mean you did just come back from the edge of death.”

“Very true, but once you get stabbed in the ribs in a very tortuous manner, you kinda want to wash the memories of it off no matter how big of a struggle it can be.” She let out a painful groan as she stood up, and Dean immediately ran to her side to help her.

He grabbed her elbow and positions his arm around her waist for support.

“You sure you got it?” he said wanting to help her as much as possible, but knowing she wouldn’t let him.

“I got it. I got it,” she sighed patting him, and being more gently than he expected.

Dean helped her to the end of the bed, then let her go the rest of the way. Once she had opened the bathroom door and took one step in, she turned back to the green eyed man who was watching her every move.

“You can do one thing to help me out though.”

Dean corked and eyebrow expecting her to say something about the shower.

“What’s that sweetheart?”

“You can buy me a drink after this long day,” she said smirked.

He laughed and looked down putting his hands in his pockets before turning back up to her.

“I think I can do that,” he smiled.

“Good,” she winked before turning around and going to shut the door.

“What about that whole getting laid situation?” Dean said quickly before she completely shut herself in the bathroom. “Need any help with that?” he said in a cocky manner.

She laughed a short laugh at that.

“Let me guess? You can help me out with that too?” she said popping a hip. He gave her a look with the same smug smile written all over his face. “I figured. How about we get the drink first, and we’ll see how I feel from there?” With that, she shut the door leaving Dean a little tight in the pants.

Sam walked in seconds later making Dean snap from his gaze.

“Hey. Where’s Y/N?” he said walking in with Cas close behind.

“She, uh, she went to take a shower,” Dean answered quickly moving to lay on the bed so that the other men in the room wouldn’t notice his discomfort.

“You ok there Dean? Please don’t tell me you two are still fighting every two seconds,” Sam huffed sitting in a chair by the table in the kitchenette. “I mean she just almost died and-”

“Dude, we’re fine!” Dean said getting comfortable. “We made up. We’re all good now.”

“Really?” Sam said surprised tilting his head.

“Yep,” he said popping the p. “Really good,” he said to himself closing his eyes, and taking a second to finally feel the calm that had resided over the storm.

Tags:

@shamelesslydean @sleepless-sin @unabashedsoul97 @sandlee44@gripmetight-raisemefromperdition @cabbagewithissues @supersleepygoat@anotherwaywardsister @spnwoman@ravengirl94@carryonmywaywardcaptain@ezilyamuzed@thosekidswhohuntmonsters@purpleskiesandcherrypies @anise-d-castle6 @adoptdontshoppets @casper57x @tailsoflightning@spookycowz@eve05glee @snffbeebee @angelessquirrel@mirandaaustin93@natura1phenomenon @tftumblin @gh0stgurl@screechingartisancashbailiff @kersumgen @herscrunchiehairtie @dreaminemz  @staradorned

[clown-bait]

Monster Family (Monster Roommate AU) CH5

Getting this part moving along before IT CH2 comes out. Leech is not a happy camper right now and Pennywise is in huge trouble. Protip: Don’t let the clown drink.

Pennywise stumbled back and howled in pain as leech stomped forward grabbing the other woman with a horrible shriek that could shatter glass. “Get you face off my clown bitch!” she hissed rearing a clawed hand behind her in striking position. The woman in question threw a pouch that burst into black smoke against the vampires face and trotted off leaving the couple to sort out the mistake.

"Who hit me?!" The eldritch snarled and swayed.

"I did you idiot!"

The clown groaned "Too many Peachies foul poison playing tricks."

"There's just one of me here jackass." The vampire spat and grabbed her mate by the ruff causing him to stumble.

"Hey Fangs when you get a minute we have good news and bad news!" Freddy called out to his friends and the vampires skeletal face hissed at him in warning.

"Oopssss?" The eldritch choked out trying to smile despite the claws now digging into his neck ruff.

"Yeah fucking oops! This is a big fuckin oops Pen!"

"L-love y-you?"

Leech's eye twitched before releasing him. The clown was still very cross faded and beating the deadlights out of him wouldn't really accomplish much at this point.

"I'm not happy." She huffed as she dragged him to a booth and away from the staring eyes of her fellow fiends.

"Mistkate." He snarled and fixed his ruff. "I made a mistake."

"You also owe me a crockpot." Leech mumbled as she carefully sat down hand on their trilling offspring who enjoyed the thrum of the bass from the speakers around them.

"Actually I won that back for ya! You lost the first round though." Freddy called to her holding up the coveted cookware. "You owe me big Fangs this thing is nice!"

“And now I owe the devil a favor fantastic.”

Pennywise's eyes went wide as he stared at her bump. "Peachy you're pregnant?!"

The vampire turned to her two companions "You let him drink more while I was playing didn't you."

"Hey he was just grabbing any colorful drink he saw! You try controlling a 6 foot murder machine like that"

"Did I...did I do this?" The clown chittered leaning over her stomach and poking it.

"Congrats again baby daddy." The vampire sighed and slumped back in her booth.

Pennywise swayed and stumbled a bit the room swam when he remembered all the events from the past few months. Then he stopped and turned to throw up into an ice bucket containing a very nice champagne bottle.

"JINGLES!" Chucky and Freddy shouted at once.

The clown made a face of disgust his long black tongue rolling out of his mouth. Before anyone could stop him he grabbed the bottle and chugged it down wiping his chin. The trio stared in disbelief.

"So did everyone believe that time?" Leech asked quietly. To which she got two nods. "Fuck."

"IS THIS A JOKE?" Someone shouted upon receiving the bucket of clown sick.

"Shit give me him." Leech hissed.

The vampire grabbed her dizzy mate and searched for his pantaloons for his pockets the clown made a husky growl groping at her rear.

"Oh! Well look at you tasty little treat what cha lookin for in ol Pennywise's pants hmm?"

"That wallet you perv, we need to pay off that champagne before I get banned from here….again."

"Suree it's not something else?" The drunk eldritch growled and groped her breast causing it to leak a bit. Leech snarled and swatted his hand causing the clown to actually yelp in pain.

"Uhh Fangs your tit is bleeding." Chucky winced at the dark patch of red on her shirt.

"Yeah it does that now." She growled and tossed her friends her boss' wallet.

"That’s….not normal?"

The vampire rolled her eyes and grabbed her clown's cheeks causing a spittle of drool to fall from his mouth as she turned his head. "Yeah dont expect normal when this is the father."

"Meee?" The clown giggled and grinned from ear to ear then hiccuped violently giggling some more.

It was hard to be furious with him when he genuinely didn't even know where he was and was a bouncing mess. Leech sighed to herself wishing she could be giggling with him. At least it would help her block out the image of the love of her life kissing some random witch out of her mind. Leech slumped back and rested her wrist on her forehead.

"Krueger move we're gonna take care of that ruined bottle service." Chucky nodded at his undead companion

"I just sat down I'm not movin for shit."

The doll growled and slapped the back of his head. "Move you idiot." He mumbled out through gritted teeth gesturing to their emotionally drained friend.

"What?"

"My god you're clueless give the chick and her moron some space." The doll kicked his companion till they were out of the booth "You get ten minutes Jingles. Fix it."

The clown blinked in confusion then turned to his mate noticing the very uncomfortable gap between them. "Peachy? Are you still mad?"

"What do you think?"

Pennywise giggled and slowly leaned past the gap letting gravity pull his massive head down till it bumped with hers. He then chuckled wildly with his big buck teeth sticking out over his lips. It was frankly adorable but Leech could still smell the woman he'd mistaken for her on his skin and she scowled instead.

"You're verry pretty! Pretty eyes, pretty skin, big pretty ears hehe!"

"That's not gonna work"

The clown slumped to the side dramatically and leech shifted her glare to the side refusing to look at him. Pennywise was relentless in his pursuit ever the hunter he was not giving up. His finger slowly inched toward her poking her nose and making a honking sound when he did. His vampire hissed and snapped at him in response. He snarled back at her and limply swatted in her direction falling forward over the table and growling in frustration. Leech finally found herself smiling at that. Her mate is a complete mess when drunk but he was definitely her mess. "Mmph" he groaned and twisted his spine so he was now facing the ceiling.

"Pen what are you doing?"

"Trying to get to you." He growled continuing to tie himself in knots until he felt a cool hand on his cheek. The clown stopped his fighting and melted to her touch that soothed his skin that was warm with drink.

"You're a full on disaster." Leech sighed and kissed his forehead. The clown instantly unfolded and shook then stared at her with a wide victorious grin on his face.

"You still have to make it up to me." The vampire crossed her arms over her chest but was quickly grabbed by her mate and hastily pulled from her seat.

"Pennywise where the hell are you taking-" Leech began to scold him but his grip was strong and the crowd of people on the dance floor was large. Somewhere in the mess of lumbering masked killers she no longer felt the warm soft glove on her wrist. Great she had lost her idiot again. The small vampire shoved her way through the other towering members of the crowd looking for a tuft of fiery hair that rose above the sea of gray and rot. A warm gentle hand touched her shoulder and a strangers raspy deep voice calmly asked her "You alright little lady? Not the best place to be lost." She turned to the unfamiliar person he reminded her a bit of a middle aged Johnny Cash with peppered gray hair and crystal blue eyes. "Well that's quite a cargo you're carrying miss why don't you come sit down."

"Im actually looking for my uh baby daddy. He had a bit too much and tried to dance with me until we got separated." Leech sighed and eyed the stranger wearily as he sat down. "I haven’t seen you here before who are you? Demon? Witch?"

The man chuckled and sipped a half full beer. "Just an old blues man here to visit a very old friend."

"..I...I should find my idiot."

"Sweetheart you put too much stress on that bun in your oven have a seat an' tell me what that boy looks like. I'll drag him back here by his ear."

Leech narrowed her eyes "You sure about that? He's the boogie man of Derry."

"You don’t say? So the critter has a heart after all! Who knew!" The man laughed "How did a pretty thing like you end up with a nasty bug like that?"

“He can be charming if he wants to.” The vampire chided as she cautiously sat down. It did feel better to be off her feet. Her body was strong but carrying eldritch half breeds take a lot out of a girl even an undead one. "Alright this is a bit better. Gotta love my shitty friends for ditching me."

"Don't expect the company here to look out for you." The man chuckled "I take it a little lady like you ain't that type either."

"Yeah I'm post deceased." Leech smiled removed her wig and pointed to her ears "Nosferatu. You?"

"Like I said just an old sinner passin through."

"Fair enough." Leech sighed and glanced to her left at the beaten guitar case "There a guitar in here?"

"What kinda blues man would I be if there weren't?"

"I just started playing again myself." She smiled "Not any good yet but I can do a bit of Zeppelin."

The man smiled and took another sip of his beer "So tell me darlin bout that nasty bug of your’s."

"Well truth be told I’m mad at him...he accidentally kissed another woman with the same hairstyle as me."

"Haha! Can't say I haven't been there myself! Has he ever drank? I admit I don't know much about him other than the whispers."

"It’s mostly my fault. I’d say we’re even now anyway." Leech smiled "I broke his nose."

They both laughed at that.

"FANGS!"

Leech's ears perked up at the sound of Chucky's voice then turned to the stranger. "That’s uh my friend I think I need to go."

"Go on darlin set things right with your nasty bug, he'll come around. I gotta set up cross the street soon anyway." The stranger patted his guitar case and raised his beer. "You take good care of yourself and them little ones."

Leech slowly got up and began to walk into the crowd looking back to wave but the man was gone. A sudden hand on her wrist startled her and Freddy found his throat in Leech's claws.

"JESUS FANGS ITS ME! Also who the fuck was that? Never mind, we uh probably should get out of here Jingles stole a designer lamp."

".....Why?"

"No idea.Think he's proposed to it three times now."

"I'm not getting banned from here again. Where is he?" She sighed and the dream demon pulled her along through the gathered crowd. Sure enough there he was the Monster of Derry himself declaring his undying love to a lampshade.

"Peachy, darling, my queen! Eternally mine! The deadlights hum only for you!" the clown twirled dangerously while trying to dance with the fancy appliance. He was clearly black-out drunk at this point and Leech was genuinely surprised that he hadn't fallen over.

"Hey Fred, please tell me you've recorded this."

"You kiddin?! I've already sent it to you."

"This is why we're friends." She smiled and patted his shoulder. Leech strode forward and pushed the appliance out of her mate's hands "That was a lamp Pen."

The clown blinked clearly blitzed out of his mind then fell back giggling and drooling.

"Oh." He chuckled. "Hi Peachy."

“Do you want to say something to me?”

“S-sorry.” he stuttered still grinning like an idiot.

"I think you've humiliated yourself enough tonight Ruffles." She sighed and pet his fluffy orange hair "I'll forgive you if you forgive me tomorrow when you inevitably try to kill me for the hangover." The clown nodded vigorously shaking his bells as he did. Her lips touched his softly and Pennywise sighed in ecstasy deepening the kiss. He was all teeth and drool but Leech didn't mind his sloppy drool filled kisses were her favorite anyway. "Wanna get out of here?" she breathed quietly as the crowd of people quickly began to leave in mild disgust.

Her clown smiled wide and grabbed his mate vanishing in a jingle of bells before anyone could protest. Leaving their two companions without a ride and a very heavy crockpot.

[mattiemoose]

Oops dropped your heart (7)

hey ya’ll! Sorry it’s been awhile! warnings: gore and swearing.

One two three four five six (seven)

You don't recall walking up the creaky stairs, you don't recall setting your sleeping bag up on the empty bed...you don't recall the deep friendly voice the kissed your head and said good night while his giant fury fingers ran through your hair hoping to coax you to sleep, while telling you stories of his time, told you stories about how maybe the future will be. His golden beard thick on his snout, his eyes bright and friendly, full of love too while he graced you with a smile much to kind. How ever, 

You don't recall his name. But he was friendly and almost familiar, you almost preferred this man over Tori, though oddly enough this man looked like her...only the large horns that he bore on his head and large beard was a large difference between the two. All you knew he was not a threat...

"Good night As-"

"It will be better"

"Your dreams endless and not so bitter"

"I'll be here kid...."

"Don't go"

                   "Don't go"

                                             "Don't go, please"

        "(y/n)?"

Your body jeered while you woke with a violent jerk, looking around to see nothing but the dark shapes in the room..the moon peering down through the window. Covering your face with your hands you inhaled deeply exhaled slowly. Another odd dream for the books, just this time it felt more safe.. more familiar than the screaming voices you've damned for the last few years. Slowly you rose to your feet your weight caused the floor boards to creek and groan. You haven't eaten since you showed up and it's been a long trip, grabbing your Bag you ripped it right open. Snacks and a container of what looked like to have a slice of snail pie... Mother really did spoil you, she made these pies and ate them but yet they could not nourish her, well expect snail pie..their tiny once living bodies gave some to her but never enough, she tried giving it to the boys but that did nothing for them expect put something into their mouth. You better find someone soon, it's fall now meaning there would be less large groups and more couples looking at the different trees that are falling asleep and their leaves turning colours, the moon would be a lot easier to see but the nights a little more chilly so they have more of a reason to smother together while they slept in a tent. But you never physically killed someone, alright sure ya shoved them down the hole and most of the time survived leaving the main slaughter to Sans or Toriel and some times Papyrus though all he really does is greet the fallen and have them go through the puzzles he created in the ruins a long side the ruins originals. But all in all if a human makes it through Paps puzzles or manage not to trigger any of the ruins old ones (though honestly they're not to hard to go through but some have been rigged to spring back up if stepped on just right and impale the poor fuck) 

Sans is always at the end waiting. No one leaves the ruins alive these days. Children...however if they manage to find their way down and if you're there traveling through the ruins and find them you always turn them around telling them about the "bad" monsters down the path that will eat them. Some go with you Others risk their ends. If scared enough they'll leave with you once they meet one of the monsters, some will want to live like you do but that's not how it works, Tori fears she'd lose herself with you, she didn't want to eat a child, Sans just won't have it. He already struggled with trusting you and trying not to eat you, struggled with the idea that you were on their side but proved yourself to be trust worthy now you two were peas in a pod sharing bad jokes or stories or even just laying in the same bed talking about all kinds of things enjoying the others company.. Hell you guys slept in the same bed pressed to each other for some sort of comfort... With adults and those who decide to jump or just fall down cause they're not paying attention well...usually you don't stick around while they're being torn apart, most likely by Sans. It a messy and dirty job but it had to be done, not by you or Papyrus try as he may Sans keeps Paps away from the scene even though at some point Papyrus might of had to do it a few times they've lived like this for so long, maybe you can break that barrier? No, it wouldn't go very well- sure a few bodies going missing here and there wasn't alright but having hundreds of hungry monsters free into the world would just not only damn the humans but damn your current family. They would die and be put down like dogs with out question.. Maybe if Asgore was ali-

"Who?" You asked yourself setting down the pie.

You've never met an Asgore but the name rang distant bells, he was the king? Maybe Tori said something about him once? Perhaps Papyrus? He loved telling you everything you needed (and didn't need) too know and sometimes you would zone out, you're there of course but yet not so much, just words coming together jumbled up.

"He said it was this way"

Your head perked up hearing voices, walking to the window you saw three beams of light trailing down towards and down the pathway. Just your luck! They were heading towards the pit and it's night time, someone out there is looking out for you but alas not for them, another beam of light came sprinting down the path joining the other two... three people possibly four but with how dark it is you could easily maneuver around them. Quickly getting ready you killed whatever lights in the cabin and lit a candle before climbing out of the window of the first floor bathroom being as careful and as quiet you could be. You would of used the front door and went down the stairs but the creek of the old wood would of echoed through out the forest and gave you away if the lights to the house didn't already. Though you did only have the hallway light on and that didn't have any windows near it unless they managed to glare through one of the window curtains in the living room,  you headed down the drive way, onto the path and into the darkening woods following the voices and their lights. You kept distance walking slowly quietly the small flame your only way of light (easy to snuff out too if need be). Four people, the night and you.. you hoped you could move fast enough to get them. A rush of anxiety flowed through you, two people sure but three? Maybe four? Would be a little harder to handle what if they catch onto you? What if they realize you are there and played along until you got close enough and end up catching you instead of you catching them? What if they trailed off away from the pit? Then where would they be going? They went past the main trails where the usual hiker would go these people kept going towards the pit, through a small path in the thickening trees. "It's not to far now" One commented to something the other said, you were getting closer.

"Are you sure this was a good idea? People go MISSING when they head this way"

The other sounded quiet, fear obviously laced in his voice. "It has to be do-" You couldn't catch anything else from their conversation, falling back ever so slightly your hand covered the heated flame you did have the upper hand in this, knowing these woods like the back of your hand, easily finding your way around even if you took a wrong turn here or there, always leaving something behind on a tree, a ribbon of different colours usually something simple and easy for you to spot. You kept your pace, wondering you could grab one in the darkness and then.. And then what? You never actually killed someone and the others would notice one going missing and a light going out. Fuck, they really made this a little hard with there being more than two.... not like you haven't done this before of course, you got five people once.....but then again they were drunk campers willing to go. Stopping in your tracks to close your eyes tightly you let in a sharp intake of air holding it tight in your lungs. You make it sound like it's a score check, like you aren't TAKING these people and taking them to their grave with out a marker. Their families? Never to see them again with out knowing anything. But that was months ago, never the less it's the same shit just because you dug another hole for the next body to stumble into doesn't change the fact that they are missing from their families and friends who will grieve and never know what happened to little Timmie and his sister goldy fucking locks! You're getting angry at these thoughts and realities, a shiver rushed through you as crisp fall nights cool hands started to reach for you, the good thing for tonight is there are three, or so you keep thinking, and with winter around the corner these bodies will last your family, your priorities your loved ones for the next four months. You didn't have time to worry about what other families were thinking or who they're missing. Opening your eyes you blew out the candle and started rushing through the dark thick woods towards the beams of lights that got closer toward the hole to hell, as you got closer you realized they already reached their goal and entered the small cave, ducking behind a tree you watched them easily seeing them but they wouldn't even know your existence. Well, you weren't wrong about there being three... plus one but by the looks of things these two have been here for a little while...lifting up your rope that lead downward. Sans must of untied it from the pillar so you could come down when ever you returned. One shook, he may be with others but he felt unsafe, did he feel your eyes on him? How the hell were you going to do this? The usual people you pushed down weren't out and about at night like they were on a mission or some shit like that the ones you pushed or managed to trick were just campers or people trying to find their way back to the trails...some managed to escape and took off but it meant nothing they are the ones willing to get lost in the dense woods because they didn't trust you. Not that you blamed them really, your eyes turned back to the few circling the hole hissing at each other to keep their heads. Did they...know about the monsters? Sure people went missing in these woods every few months (and people go missing all the time) but it was mostly because of you! You were the monster.... .... You Were... You are the monster in these woods! No one else, so perhaps tales have been told and shared among many but then why did they still come so late at night? To prove something? Deep down you felt like maybe they knew what was down there and are going to check to see if it was still trapped down there...well something is down there and you never brought anyone at night..or at least not this late...you wanted to avoid it for a few reasons. One you could get lost yourself trying to lead anyone through the dark and if they manage to find a path leading away from the drop then it gets hard to bring them up or..down and no one really follows you at night either say for a few who really needed out.Other reasons was because your family are usually asleep and if you took someone down and they live what if they get sneaky and find mother instead of being found and taken down? You'd never forgive yourself for that big of a fuck up! Sure there were the easy meals that wanted to explore- You shook your head at the one that found your rope way down it shook the tiny rope ladder under them..maybe they'll be stupid enough to take the cut off ladder and just fall after realizing it didn't go all the way down? But they already figured it out before you even arrived.

"Do ya think it belongs to someone missing? " one asked giving the rope a good look over "looks new and taken care of" "Looks it" the third gave it a quick look shining his lights down into the darkness "looks endless- wait no I think I saw some movement" The others brought their lights down there they could see the flowers if they strain their eyes enough, down there but nothing more.. Throwing the rope back down one started to descend down below, they saw something move? is Sans down there? Or did they see a Froggit? Those little shits kinda hopped in and out of your life. Ha..hopped.

"HeLppPP ME! " something shrieked from the darkness. ..whatever it was it fooled you once too. It sounded like it was scared and in pain..so much pain. It was probably hungry and needed to eat right away. Sounded like a small monster, they were almost like rodents at this point. Scurrying around taking scraps and fleeing away again to avoid who ever they took from even though they HAD their share but for some it's never ever enough. One by one the five made their way down, your heart dropping with them when you realized they had big ass knives on them... It was a bit of a blur while you made your way down panic spreading through your whole body making everything move faster then it should.. You remember hearing high pitched screaming of those little monsters trying to fight but failed and turned to dust.. You remember going down after the other humans the cries of the small monsters unable to reach the inner ruins. Now usually the ruins are lit with torches but tonight the halls were bare and felt so cold and now you stood there with the flowers listening to the noises, if you screamed right there and even Tori would not hear you. So what are you going to do? There are four outcomes to this. One they spot you and drag your ass up top and into town trying to get as much as they can from you...family name where you came from all those joys and stop you from ever returning. Two they find your family and some how manage to kill them with their weapons (you wanted to doubt this but something told you it could...specially to Papyrus if he comes on to friendly as he usually does) and yet there was always something there that fooled even you, Papyrus is able to kill. SO maybe. Perhaps it will be fine? It had to be fine. Sans is quick.....Mother is strong!

Papyrus is amazing, rubbing your back as you sobbed into your bloodied hands and red soaked clothes. He cooed and hushed you bringing you close for a tight embrace while bodies covered the floors. Your wails echoed the halls your arms around the lanky skeleton monster, he held you off the floor feet off the ground like a mother cradling their weeping infant. His long gnarly teeth connecting to your head in an attempt to kiss your worries away.

[xfilesnews]

Recap and Review: ‘The X-Files: Stolen Lives’

Another audiobook has joined The X-Files library shelf. "The X-Files: Stolen Lives" was released by Audible on October 3rd. Based on the Season 10 comics from IDW, this continues the adventures of Mulder and Scully from "Cold Cases." The stories are written by Joe Harris, executive produced by Chris Carter, and produced for audible by Dirk Maggs. Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and Mitch Pileggi return to their roles, and other fan favorites lend their voices as well. As with the first audiobook, you don't need to be familiar with the comics to enjoy this audio version, but it does help. If you haven't yet listened to "Cold Cases" I'd suggest trying that first. The audio series does not follow the timeline established in the TV version of Season 10 so there are events and characters that would seem out of place to new listeners. "Stolen Lives" has some solid scares so if you're a monster of the week fan you're in luck. But it also dives into some mythology, though not quite as heavily as "Cold Cases."

Does "Stolen Lives" pass the bar set by "Cold Cases?"  Hit the jump for our recap and review.

We again start with Chapter 2, as Chapter 1 is opening credits. Chapter 2 is called "Immaculate" and follows Season 10 issues 16 and 17. The story begins outside an abortion clinic in North Carolina. A young woman is hassled by protesters and makes her way inside. As she approaches the woman is also hearing a voice in her head. She seems familiar to the clinic staff but before they recognize her she detonates a bomb she smuggled inside. The girl survives and convinces the protesters to follow her.

When looking over the evidence, the girl whose name is Joni Cartwright, apparently has a halo and that's how Mulder and Scully end up on the case. After interviewing a nurse who was burned in the explosion, Mulder and Scully decide to split up and investigate more of Joni's backstory. Joni's family is religious and Scully finds Joni's mother along with a creepy pastor. Being sensitive to cases involving religion has never been Mulder's strong suit, and we see that again when Mulder questions his first suspect. The mystery of the case leads us from victims who look like they died of fright, to a cliff in the woods where the possessed townspeople meet a tragic end. The good pastor is not exactly who he seems and we learn who Joni's baby-daddy really was through Scully's investigative tactics. And as usual, it's Mulder who sees the monster for what it really is. “Stolen Lives” starts with a much more "monster of the week" tone than "Cold Cases" did, but there's no lack of controversy here. The X-Files has never shied away from religion or difficult subject matter and this is no different. "Cold Cases" featured a school shooting so tackling an abortion clinic bombing seems on par with the tone set there. The chapter reminds me a bit of Season 7's "Signs and Wonders" in that we're dealing with a pastor who is not what he seems. But "Immaculate" is much more violent than I remember that episode being. Listening to Scully dress down the pastor was one of my favorite parts of the chapter, with Mulder's interaction with a scared Sarabeth a close second. I appreciated the Frank Black joke, as I'm sure other "Millennium" fans did. I was also glad to hear them reference the missing Agents Doggett and Reyes at the beginning. We haven't heard much about them since the beginning of "Cold Cases" so it was a good reminder that part of the team is still missing. Mulder's sarcasm was about what you'd expect for any faith-based episode and I cracked up at the "moderately godless heathen requesting permission to enter." I wasn't crazy about the fact that once again, Scully being a mother and how that might affect her was brought up at the beginning of the case. This story was written in 2014, and William would be 13 by then. He's been away from Mulder and Scully for a long time now and it just seemed weird to me to have Morales say "I hope this doesn't affect you." You notice no one ever asks Mulder that same question?

Chapter 3, called "Chitter" follows Issue 9 of the comics. This was Joe Harris' first original monster-of-the-week. And if you don't like bugs, I'm sorry. At the start, we're introduced to the "Chittering God" and a gross sounding swarm. Mulder and Scully are soon on the scene in Pennsylvania but the investigation doesn't start well for Scully. After some joking with Mulder and comments about a funny smell, she passes out. But Scully being Scully, when she recovers she insists on investigating the house anyway. They find a switch that leads them to the killing room.

As always with the X-Files, things are not what the seem and the initial suspect, Mr. Keansey, isn't the only guilty party. Once again Mulder and Scully's investigations take different directions with Mulder interrogating the suspect and Scully out in the field. The first suspect, and his bug friends, indicate the Chittering God is after Scully. Scully cases the neighborhood and visits with an old woman named Mrs. Hoynes who reads her tea leaves. Mrs. Hoynes tells Scully she knows she lost a child "recently." And that the chittering god feeds on that sorrow and "both grow stronger." As Scully tries to escape it seems the woman, or the god, is trying to get her to hurt herself. Mulder arrives in the nick of time and keeps any more violence from happening.

The chapter gets points for the gross-out factor. The roaches in "War of the Coprophages" were bad enough but hearing the scratching on the headphones left me wanting to take a shower. The thought of being able to sic bugs on someone and call on a swarm makes me shiver. The story is definitely creepy and it's interesting that Keansey was just as much a victim of this crazy old lady and her "god" as Scully almost was. That Mulder and Scully were sharing a hotel room and discussing the case warmed my little shipper heart.

While I liked the story, I was again frustrated with the "Scully Mom Pain" angle. In the comics chronology, this issue is further removed from "Immaculate" so it might not have seemed as repetitive. I'd also like to point out that Scully has technically lost two children. Emily seems to be forgotten a lot. I do think it's fair that Scully is a person who has faced a lot of despair, but Mulder has too, so why wasn't he a target as well? Perhaps in the off years, he's had a little more therapy? I thought Mulder seemed like a bigger jerk than usual in this episode too. We know he can be a jerk and love that about him at times, but he's usually not mean. And there was something about the way Mulder said "you think this is all about you?" that rubbed me the wrong way.

We return to our missing federal agents in Chapter 4, aptly titled "Monica and John." This mirrors Season 10 Issue 18. Our first glimpse of Monica Reyes shows she's been in captivity for a year. Held in a tiny cell, she describes the events that lead to her abduction. She was in Wyoming paying a visit to William's adoptive parents when she was taken. She believes she's being held by John Doggett, who leaves to go to a post office. That trip triggers the FBI and Skinner and Scully get involved. Mulder is apparently off testifying to keep Monty Props locked up so he misses the action.

Of course, the Doggett holding Monica captive isn't really Doggett all. The real Doggett is also being held captive. He manages to escape from his cell and goes to free Monica. Their captor returns and seems to be one of the Acolytes we met in "Cold Cases." In a twist, he asks Monica and John to kill him. Doggett resists because he wants evidence of what has happened to them, but Monica stabs him with the stiletto anyway because she believes the FBI has forgotten them. Just as the alien melts away Skinner and Scully arrive.

This was the shortest chapter of the book and one I'd like to have seen in more detail. I was so glad to see Doggett and Reyes again and the refresher on the "new" mythology was helpful. I can't imagine what it was like to have been held like that for so long. I would have liked to have heard more of their story. And we're left hanging about what's next for the two. Do they get to go back to the FBI? Does Monica quit and record her own best selling whale song album? I found this a good chapter, just too short! I also really missed Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish voicing their characters. The woman doing Reyes was close at points, but Doggett's actor wasn't even close to Robert Patrick's memorable style.

Get ready for a little time travel in Chapter 5. G-23 follows comics issues 19 and 20. We dig up a few ghosts and Mulder gets sent on a wild trip that doesn't involve line dancing. The story begins in 1966 in Nevada at a military installation. Two young adults are smoking a cigarette laced with something called G-23 and they're getting progressively more freaked out. The young woman starts thinking she sees aliens. Shadowy men are observing the teens, none other than a young CGB Spender and Bill Mulder. In the present day, Mulder is waiting in D.C. to meet Scully for lunch but before she arrives the CSM crashes his party. After a round of 'who is my real dad?' with Mulder, the CSM presents him with a poster of the Nevada desert and a camper van with a G-23 plate. After a meeting with Scully and later the Lone Gunmen, this sends Mulder off on a wild goose chase into the desert.

Langly follows Mulder to what starts as a party in the desert but turns into a bad G-23-induced trip. In his hallucination, there’s a vamped up version of Scully in fishnets, heels, and Spender's trench coat. This vision calls herself "Red" and sounds more Spender than Scully.  She leads Mulder through the remains of the old G-23 complex and on a trip down memory lane. They talk about what was the G-23 substance was really made of and of Bill Mulder's work fighting the alien colonists. In the end, the real Scully rescues Mulder but whatever proof he thought he had of the incident is gone.

I wasn't sure what to think of this chapter on first listen, and may give it another try. Anything that involves the Lone Gunmen makes me happy, and the actors always sound really in character. I laughed at Langly calling Frohike 'Jump Street' because Tom Braidwood was a first assistant director on that show back in the day. One has to feel for Mulder at the beginning that he keeps getting haunted by this zombie ghost from his past. And I thought it was interesting to dive more into Bill Mulder's background. It makes him out to be a slightly more sympathetic character that he was in the TV series. I felt like they were trying to redeem him a bit. Whether that succeeded, I'm not sure.

I also wasn't particularly thrilled with the "Scully as vixen" bit. If Scully herself makes the choice to don that outfit and say "sweet dreams baby" I'm all for it if it's her idea. But for that to be a fantasy and not her personal choice gets old. In this version, at least, it's insinuated at the very end that CSM was dressed that way himself all along, but that's not the case in the comic. There's no doubt Scully is a beautiful woman but we love her for her intelligence and what her brains bring to the case. This struck me as more of an excuse for the guys to write her as sexy than as something meaningful to the plot. It also strikes me as funny that once again Mulder gets himself into trouble because he runs off on his own.

It's back to the mytharc in Chapter 6 with 'Elders." This is the longest of the chapters and covers issues and ground from New York to D.C. to Cuba and finds Mulder in a whole new mess of trouble. We start with Prime Elder talking to the CSM about the ability to read minds and the scars on his head. If that doesn't tip you off to who he is, it should have. He meets with the Syndicate group who are all clones like the CSM. Elsewhere in Virginia, Scully and Mulder are playing hooky at a county fair that turns tragic. A woman claiming to be someone from Mulder's past shoots three people and turns the gun on herself. This launches an investigation of Mulder that digs deep into his past involving something called the Chilmark Project.

As part of the Chilmark project, Mulder spoke with a woman named Caroline Ross who looked oddly similar to the woman who attacked him at the fair. But it's not possible because Ross hanged herself in 1991. As they leave the FBI Mulder is hounded by reporters. Scully stays behind to defend him but as soon as Mulder clears the pack he's abducted by another group of men.

Mulder ends up a prisoner in a cloning facility hidden in the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba where Prime Elder reveals himself as Gibson. While he's at the facility Scully is working with the CSM who hints to her that Gibson is the one who has taken Mulder. But he's not the only CSM in this episode. Another version is helping Mulder at the base in Cuba. Skinner also finds himself in the crosshairs of the Syndicate, who kidnap him and torch his apartment.

Back in Cuba, the CSM helps Mulder escape and gives him a memory stick with evidence of Gibson's treachery. Not only has Gibson created this facility but he's been working to frame Mulder as well. No sooner does Mulder escape than Scully ends up in Gibson's clutches herself. With some help from the Lone Gunmen, we learn more about what exactly Gibson was up to and how he plans to move his creepy clone creating operation back to the U.S. Yet another CSM clone this time helps Scully escape. A quick meeting between her and Mulder sends Mulder looking for a way to escape and Scully heading back to deal with Gibson once and for all.

Gibson claims he was only protecting Mulder and that he will only be hunted further even after the allegations are cleared. Scully fears Gibson continued to do to himself what the Syndicate had in the past. While they argue Gibson tries to lead a ship into port using telekinesis. That's the ship he will use to move his cloning operation and continue the project. Scully dispatches the threat and races off to find Mulder.

Mulder and Scully reunite just as he's about to board a smuggling ship. Scully is rattled by her encounter with Gibson but Mulder reminds her they will get through whatever Gibson did together. Scully encourages Mulder to leave with the smugglers and that she'll go back to the FBI to clear things up. And just when Scully thinks she can get a drink to clear her head, she realizes she's surrounded by multiples of the person she thought she killed just moments ago. And there, we end. This also marks the end of the Season 10 comics series.

I love mytharc eps and was glad to see it back in this new form again. And poor Gibson Praise makes for a great villain. It was interesting to see how they expanded on what was done to him, and the flashbacks of the time he and Mulder spent together back in 2001. I also loved how often we got to see Scully fiercely defending Mulder. After all this time she knows him like no one else does. I got a particular thrill watching her tell off A.D. Morales at the beginning. I would have loved to see Skinner more in on the action instead of being pushed around by the Syndicate or Morales. But I'm glad he was included in a smaller way at least.  

A few overall thoughts now that we've finished the series:  I feel like Mulder and Scully spend way too much time apart in this series. I know they split up a lot in the TV show but it felt like they were working without each other most of the time. I did enjoy that Scully got to be more of an active investigator than in "Cold Cases." She wasn’t stuck doing autopsies as much. And clearly, Mulder has never learned that when he runs off on his own bad things are going to happen. Mulder’s dry humor is captured well and the banter when Mulder and Scully are together is pretty funny in parts. As far as the stories themselves, if you find them hard to follow at times, paging through the comics again can help with that. The audio version does work to flesh them out a little more but they're close to what we saw on the page. I made the comment after finishing "Cold Cases" that the acting can come across as a little wooden at times and that's also the case here. Though I do think it was a bit better this time.

Overall, I do think the series is worth your time and an interesting listen. There's no perfect substitute for the TV show but these audio adventures are entertaining and make the wait for a new season a little easier. While we've now made our way through the Season 10 comics, we don't yet know if they'll continue the audiobooks with the Season 11 series from IDW, which is also different from the upcoming TV series. We'll keep you posted as soon as we hear something!

[wannabeagrunklefan]

Fic: Fire and Freedom

Pairing: Stancest Rating: PG-13 for language and some implied sexy times, I guess ^^; Author’s Notes: Circus AU! This was written for the Stancest Discord server’s  scavenger hunt. I just wanted to say a quick shout out to my very talented teammates for making this event so fun and for being so kind! You’re all brilliant and I was so inspired by your lovely writing and art! :D And a hearty thank you to my beta team @yehvaru and @reinstotheworld, who made this legible! I know you’re both really busy, so it really touched me that you made time to look over my story and give me some feedback and encouragement. You two are the absolute best and I adore you both to the moon and back! :D <3

The link to this fic on AO3 can be found here.

                “Little shit!”

                Carla sighed heavily, eyes rolled up to the ceiling as if seeking divine patience. “Stanley, don’t start-”

                “‘He’s cheating! He’s behind a curtain! ANYONE could have got him out! You think that’s a good trick?’” Her companion continued on with his tirade in a squeaky, off-key parody of what she assumed was meant to be a child, if the child in question sounded like a leaky bike tire.

                 A leaky bike tire with a serious chain smoking problem.

                “Seriously, kid?” He continued arguing with his imaginary, tiny antagonist, weaving haphazardly through the throng of performers backstage preparing for their acts to start. Carla heaved a frustrated breath as she attempted to keep up, neatly dodging some acrobats and coming dangerously close to Ms. Petunia’s prized, trained poodle, Rex, earning her a vicious glare from the older woman. “Anyone could have gotten me outta handcuffs and a locked tank of water in the middle of a giant, empty stage?? The entire point is that I escape on my own!”

                “To be fair, the tank’s not really sealed as tightly as it looks, though,” Carla couldn’t help but point out, trying to take the wind out of his sails before he made it clear across the Atlantic Ocean fueled on spite alone.

                It seemed to work slightly, as far as distractions went, as Stanley’s steps did slow somewhat. “I know that, and you know that, but that’s not the point,” he growled, punctuating the end of his sentence with a few vicious stabs in the air with a pointer finger. “My job is to create an illusion that inspires ‘wonder’ and ‘the inner child’, and that real child is being a real asshole!”

                “Yeah, I see what you mean,” Carla replied dryly. “What child wouldn’t experience a sense of wonder watching a happy-go-lucky guy like you answer their innocent question with a ‘Bite me, kid!’?”

                Her companion narrowed his eyes in a mockingly fierce glare and put indignant hands on his hips as his body relaxed into a more playful posture. Bull-headed as Stan was, at least he could concede the point when he was being ridiculous. In his own, silent way, of course. “Yanno what? You can bite me too, Carla.”

                “Been there, done that, sugar,” she replied, patting him lightly on the shoulder as he grinned. She wrinkled her nose for effect as she added, “never again.”

                He burst into laughter, resting a hand over his heart. “You break my heart, McCorkle! Just like you did that night when you left me fer some clown!”

                She immediately shoved him in frustration, forcing more laughter out of him. “NO! It wasn’t funny the first fifty-thousand times you made that joke, and it isn’t funny now! Ugh, I can’t deal with you when you’re like this. Where’s your brother? Why isn’t he suffering you like the rest of us? FORD!” She yelled at a nearby camper, their original destination (Stanley’s destination was always Stanford), and relished the violent tremor that ran through it as she had no doubt startled Ford out of a deep focus.

                One chair scrape and several heavy, booted steps later, and the door to the RV swung open, revealing Ford’s perplexed face and emitting a faint scent of chemicals. He quirked a brow in Carla’s direction. “You bellowed?”

                She frowned at his word choice and crossed her arms defiantly, pointedly ignoring the sniggering coming from the manchild behind her. “You’re a fire tamer, right?”

                His brows scrunched together in a mild frown as he thought the question over. “I suppose you could call it that. But I prefer to say I work with fire-”

                “Deal with this,” she interrupted, grabbing a handful of Stan’s sleeve and dragging him over to his brother. “There was a rowdy kid and now he’s all riled up, and if you don’t take him now I’ll throw a knife at him and I can’t guarantee I’ll miss.”

                Stanford rolled his eyes as he stepped back to allow Stanley entry. “I’ll deal with it, but I can’t promise it’ll stay dealt with,” he countered, leaping back as Stanley laid a comically exaggerated and loud kiss to his cheek. “AGH! Stanley, what the hell?” he yelped, rubbing a hand up and down his cheek, face flushed and lips twisted into a grimace when his hand passed over saliva.

                “Thanks, bro,” Stanley said as he made his way cheerfully into their shared space. “I feel so loved!”

                Ford turned back to Carla, his expression deadpan. “Run, while you still can.”

                She laughed and punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

                “Oh, and Carla?” Stanley popped up over Ford’s shoulder, and that’s when Carla realized she had to leave now.

                “Gotta go, Stan! Talk to you later, ok?” she called over her shoulder as she swiftly turned around and began making her escape.

                “Oh! Ok. Could you just thank Thistle for me when you see ‘im?”

                …Damn him and damn her curiosity straight to hell. She turned around with what she hoped was an effective warning look. “Thank him for what?”

               Stan quickly held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Whoa! Hey! No need fer that! I just genuinely wanted to thank him for helpin’ me put away all my props ‘n stuff yesterday.”

               Carla could feel her shoulders returning to their more relaxed positions. That was actually… “…Thanks, Stan. I’ll tell him you said that.”

               He smiled. “No problem, Carla. I just wanted to make sure he knew I appreciated his kind jester.”

               There’s no way of knowing for sure, but it was generally accepted by everyone at the circus that day that the ensuing, aggrieved shriek could be heard the next city over.

               “We’re going to need hearing aids soon if you keep winding her up like that.”

               Stanley grinned mischievously from his place against the wall as he watched his twin fiddle around with his latest fuel-concoction. “That was a good one, wasn’t it? Even better than I hoped for!”

               Ford shook his head in exasperation as he continued with his work. “I honestly don’t know what you hope to achieve by bothering that poor girl. Didn’t she suffer enough as your girlfriend?”

              Stan barked out a laugh and pushed off the wall, coming over to Ford to wrap a hand around one shoulder as he leaned over the other to observe his twin’s progress. “Yanno, I’d clock you a good one fer that remark if it wasn’t dripping with jealousy.” He glanced to the side to look for Ford’s reaction and – there! A quick spasm of fingers around the beaker he was holding, a slight quiver of a pipette in a suddenly unsteady hand and a jaunty bounce of an Adam’s apple were all Stan’s to cherish; small pieces of evidence of his twin’s affection that he could collect like an emotional magpie, decorating his life with pieces of love and hoarding the warmth they brought him.

              “Who’s jealous?” Ford asked, in the most chalant-nonchalant sort of way. Stanley hoped he wasn’t sincerely trying to sound unaffected, because that would mean his brother was the worst liar in history and bullshit was basically their trade, so…not a good combination. “I just meant that perhaps you should…ease up a little. No person should be screaming that much, that regularly.”

               “No?” Stan asked casually, plucking the beaker and pipette out of Ford’s hands and setting them down safely out of harm’s way, as Ford avidly stared at the side of his head. “You couldn’t see any advantages to screaming loudly on a regular basis?” He continued his line of questioning, pulling out the chair Ford is sitting in and sitting down in the newly created space of his twin’s lap. He looped his arms around Ford’s neck, grinning in triumph as he felt strong hands grip his hips, some stray fingers slipping under his shirt and coming to a stop to lightly caress the skin underneath. He licked his lips as he gazed into brilliant, warm brown eyes, so much more vibrant and arresting than his own. “No fringe benefits, at all?”

               He watched Ford’s eyes shift from side to side - searching for something, it looked like. The inner workings of Ford’s mind often eluded him. Whatever it was, he must’ve found it, because the firm, stiff line of his mouth softened and melted into a charmingly lazy grin and the feather-light caresses began to move downward with intent. “Well, Carla was certainly right about one thing. You are riled up, aren’t you?”

               Stan grinned devilishly, bringing one hand up to run through Ford’s curly locks, pausing every so often to deliver light, teasing scratches to his scalp. “You bet. She seemed to think that you should deal with me.” Here he grabbed a mass of hair, pulling Ford’s head back. Ford went willingly, offering his throat in its entirety to his brother. “What do you think about that?”

               “I’m not sure,” Ford admitted, looking up at the ceiling. “I’ve never really done well trying to force fire to bend to my will, as I’m sure you remember.” Stan responded with a non-committal hum and a light caress to a pale, pink patch of skin on his brother’s throat. “As I mentioned earlier, my best work seems to come when I treat the fire with respect. Like a partner.” He flicked his eyes down in an attempt to meet Stan’s despite the awkward angle.

               Stan considered him briefly, laid out and submissive beneath him, before throwing aside the façade and finally giving into temptation, bending forward to kiss, lick and suck at every inch of skin he could reach. His twin came alive immediately, hands coming up and grasping at Stan’s shoulders for purchase as he gasped and moaned his pleasure, completely losing himself in the moment.

               It was times like these, here in this narrow world where he and Ford were the only things in existence, that Stanley felt like everything slotted into place. Where he could slowly, carefully free his brother from all the invisible trappings of the world outside and celebrate his freedom, celebrate Ford. It was always his most thrilling escape, and when he succeeded it brought him more pride and joy than hundreds of locked tank performances could ever touch.

               Every soft gasp was like the rattle of a loosening chain, every moan the click of a lock springing open under his hands. Every desperate plea was like the awed gasps of an enthralled crowd and every call of his name the thunderous applause of a phantom audience. With Ford he reached new heights and it was with Ford that he achieved some of his greatest accomplishments.

               When they were together, he received some of Ford’s magic too. Every light caress trailed fire along his nerve-endings, and every kiss seared into him like a brand. Ford’s intense gaze lit a fire in his gut and his fierce embrace was scalding enough to melt away the outside fears and anxieties that plagued him while leaving his heart and soul feeling blissfully warm.

              Together they were two fires that burned brightly, twining and melting into one another to become an intimidating force of nature. Together, they broke locks and rent chains asunder, lifting each other to previously unattainable heights where they could soar in their freedom.

              Together, the future was bright.

              Together, they made the impossible possible.

[korumburra]

Tim Tran  Story Excerpt Images by Anne - @mozzzartrella

Storytelling

Introduction:

In this world, the timeline is set somewhere in the Middle Ages, where humans are forced to co-exist with other species such as Dragons, Wizards, Ogre, Giants, and other monstrous beings like Demons which comes in various figure, Vampires, etc. Because of the war always happen, whether it's between humans or wizard and the giants. But without doubt, humans are down looked by many as the inferior being, they are born with no possession of magical ability, cannot cast any spell, are not blessed with a physical ​physique like the ogre or giant and​ cannot heal or regenerate as fast as a demon or vampire. Humans survive thanks to the discovery of more technology and smart mind to devise a strategy to bit against those powerful beings. That is until a monk came and create a power that lies within the human body through breathing meditation, this power is called Qi (pronounce “Chi"), which is a half spiritual half physical energy that came from inside the person, it's also a form of life energy. With Qi, it will amplify your senses, giving you better reflects, hearing, seeing, and strengthen your body. After that, the monk began to teach people the way of using Qi, and they also find out that Qi can melt and vaporize demon and vampires if in close contact since it's life energy and those are undead being, it also helps defeating ogres, sorcerer more easier. From then on the Martial Artists was born, they can fight with their own unique style infused with Qi, many legends are born people such as Zhang SanFeng, Huang Yaoshi, Miyamoto Musashi,... Many martial art sect are created with each own master and multiple followers. Thus, many human kingdoms need help from their own arsenal. And of course, something like that means the numbers of war increase but humans will have a better chance to survive more.

Dragons without a doubt are the most powerful being, they can use magic, high with destructive power, and intelligent.

Human have affiliation with Sorcerers and wizard

Black Wood Island: Shadow Sect headquarter (all women in there are beautiful) 

Mount Hua: Famous Martial arts gathering

Main Character introduction

Shadow Sect:

Jing Chen: head of the shadow Sect, father of Zing Chen, and his other three adoptive Daughter. One of the four most powerful martial artists in the world feared and admired by many

Scarent Gray: Jing Chen’s Wife, former knight, famously known as “Red Lady Tyrant". Kill more people then she could remember. One of the four most powerful martial artists in the world.

Zing Chen: son of Jing and Scarent, the youngest in the four children, the fourth disciple of the shadow sect.

Mei Ling: Jing and Scarent’s first adoptive daughters, the oldest of the four children, shadow sect's first disciple. (nickname “Ling Ling"). She’s mostly cold and unfriendly but always respects and admires her adoptive parents, regularly force Zing to spar with her to improve his fighting technique. Ann Fung's rival.

Ann Fung: Jing and Scarent’s second adoptive daughters, as old as Mei Ling. Kind-hearted person, always a loving and caring daughter and sister in the family 

Chapter 43?

Black Wood island, on a normal day, the waves are calm, not a single heavy wind blows around the beach. The Island is not that far away from the mainland, only an hour of boat sailing. Throughout the beach, around the big island, are covered in thick trees and forest, to the point where you cannot see 5 meters into it, the trees are high with many layers of leaves hovering above, no sun will shine down to the ground as it shadowed by the leaves, only a small amount of light shine through. For any attempt to venture into this forest will only wind up exhausting themself for lack of any direction, dehydration, lack of any food ‘cause no large animal would be able to live in such conditions. If any camper happens to be in the forest at night they’ll be fully submerged in the darkness, no light will be seen inside the forest, hence the given name “Black Wood". To successfully pass through the forest, one must know the “70 Shadow Runs", a ​Qinggong/fighting technique develops by Jing Chen, the host of this island.

Right in the middle of the island lies the home of Shadow sect, unlike the forest, the middle is a large open space with a huge lake. In the open field, a tall girl with short but messy black hair training shadow fighting by herself, the girl is Mei Ling (18), she's practicing her new develop Fu Jow Pai technique (claw striking), a technique where you train all 10 of your fingertips to be like steel, form your hand into an arc, then strikeout, giving the user more option to attack while remaining as effective, there is a bit of steam on her head and she's sweating bullets, proves that she's training for quite a while, her movement is aggressive but still sharp, she seems angry at something.

In the shades, there's a young boy with long hair that has been tied to a bun sitting on the ground, whose head looking down while fidgeting his finger, looks like he did something bad and now is regretting over it. Ripped clothes with just a small splat of dried blood on his should, his name is Zing Chen (12). Mei Ling finish her training and head towards Zing, her body is covered in steam, quite unusual for any martial artist to do this but she had already developed her own way of manipulating the Qi. With less tension in her eye then she was before, she asks Zing. “Have your wound heal yet?"

“I already stop the bleed since high noon” Zing timidly said “Good” A hard row of “Smack" sound could be heard, Mei just slaps Zing in the face 4 times, it was so fast that he couldn’t react. Zing grunted painfully “Why did you have to do that? I'm already injured, you know” “I have to beat you to a pulp to make sure you learn your lesson" Mei Ling said as she gives him a cold stare.

Zing is terrified inside but quickly wipes his tears and gets into his fighting stance because he knows that she's gonna spar with him to release all of her anger on him, and she will not care about the damage he sustained after. Mei Ling throws a straight punch, it's pretty slow, not as fast as those slaps, but slow usually means more power. Zing dodge that attack and tried to create distance between him and Mei, he doesn't even want to think what would happen if the punch connects. Mei doesn’t care and advance forward, but still give no opening for him, she launches her legs up high hit him in the head. The gap had already closened up, no time to think for Zing, 70 Shadow Runs also got a technique for you to evade opponents attack, he forms his hand into the Wu shape, raises his hand up, resulting in her kick to change its directions. Mei Ling smashes it down to the ground, creating a crater with a 3-meter radius, despite Zing dodge it, his hands are tremble because the force of her kick is too powerful, with kicks like that anyone could die.

“Always quick when running away. No wonder you survive fighting with that mother dragon” Mei sarcastically said while swapping hands with him.

“I said I'm sorry. But it wasn't my fault in the beginning. Some of the villagers try capturing the dragon's cub and I save all of them" Zing explained as her screams.

“The don’t but your head in something that doesn't involve you. You run away on your own and fight a dragon. Something that’s not even father allowed me to do yet!”.

Zing kept swapping hands with Mei, with one moment of spacing out will lead to unforgettable injury.

“But I did manage to save all of them. No one was seriously hurt. and the Dragon...". as Zing desperately trying to convince Mei Ling, but he uses too much breath and couldn't take in more air, causing his injury to ache more. He tripped and fell to his back, Mei Ling doesn't let a second go to waste and press her Palm down to his chest. The ground cracked, needless to say, Zing is in incredible pain, but he bites his teeth hard and he didn't scream, still have the focus look on his face despite knowing that this is an unmovable position, when Mei Ling throws her punches in the other hand, Zing��s body suddenly got pulled out quickly by a shadow, save him from that punch. Mei Ling still delivers the punch to the ground angrily, knowing that someone had interfered with her business, this time the ground shook a bit cause of that punch. Mei Ling looked over and sees Ann Fung (18) carrying Zing on her hand. She sternly shouted at Ann “What do you think you are doing". “Saving our brother from you," Ann said “I'm teaching him a lesson". “Lessons that involve killing my adorable little brother then I’m gonna stop you right there” Mei stared at Ann angrily “he broke the rules to have a fight with a mother Dragon!”. Mei said “I'm well aware of that. But his act remains noble as he didn’t let any villager died. Despite he could sit and watch them get slaughtered by the mother Dragon". 

Ann calmly explain to Mei Mei still furiously looking at Zing. Ann Fung smiles gently and said

“Let's leave this to mother and father to decide. For We can only agree to it afterwards”

Ann knows her place as the 2nd disciple and should always have respect towards the 1st one, but Mei’s violent outburst is so too much to be tolerant so their parents allow Ann to interrupts the situation. Mei Ling knows that can't be helped, so she angrily turns away and went to her room, Ann put Zing down, checking his face and brush the dust of his clothes.

“Poor thing. You’re not fully healed yet, aren't you? Your movement was sluggish and you didn't even try to attack her. But your reaction timing is still sharp”. Ann was watching from far, but she still able to tell his mistakes from the spar. “I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have run to save those people without telling you so sister Mei wouldn't be so mad about it" Zing said “Don't worry about that, I would have done the same and save those people too. Mei just being overprotective. She worries about you a lot, you know”

Zing has his head down, he still thinks of taking the blame. Ann smiles, pat his head and confidently said

“Why didn't you use that Qi breathing technique I taught you. If you use it then maybe spar would have gone better without you getting more injured" “But if I use it, then she might be hurt. Besides, I didn’t master it fully yet"

Ann was shocked at his response and laugh “Gee, and here I thought I'm the kindest member of the family. Come on, let's get you patched up"

Ann is the second daughter as well as the second disciples of the Shadow sect, she's a beautiful tall girl with long hair. She’s really caring and especially loves to take care of and spoil her little brother.

In the quiet evening, where the sky has already turned dark, a blue shadow flashes across the lake and into the house, standing in the main hall is a tall woman wearing a dark blue Hanfu, she got short bright red hair and she only has one left arm, this person is Scarent Gray (33), one of the two masters of Shadow sect. Ann saw her mother appear visibly out of nowhere, but bare no surprises as she knows Scarent’s Quinggong technique has reached a level where movement seems ghostly that it’s unnatural and it can't be match, unless it’s father.

“Welcome home, mother. Is father not with you?” Ann greets her.

“Jing was invited by the Emporer to attend the exam test as a judge of the new ​graduate’s martial artist. I don't think they favor me enough for me to stay there, despite the presence of your father"

As Ann informs Scarent about Zing, Scarent start with a smirk then she laughs loudly and said

“Little brat got all of that from his Father. Tell him he was really lucky this time and got off alive. Dragons are not animals and he’s only allowed to act if your father and I are nearby”

“Yes, mother"

“But He manages to hold off the dragon and save villagers. I can not be angry at my boy for his improvement. Wait until his all of his wound heal and I got a mission for both of you”

“Yes, mother” A week pass, Zing’s internal had already healed fully and he back to training, Scarent summons both Zing and Ann and tell them

“in a week’s time, there will be a giant gathering of people, in the outskirts of the Hua Mountain. They’ll have a spar fighting one on one session to see who should the next grandmaster of the Hua Mountain sect. Without a doubt, something will come and disturb them whether it's an ogre or wizard. I need two of you to keep the tournament going and try to keep everything under control”

Zing is a bit confused about why Scarent wouldn't just go there herself, but he didn't question it. Ann immediately understood that despite her mother’s reputation now, people still aren't comfortable having her around, plus if other beings come to disturb, a dragon might show up and she'll take care of that from far. Both of them obey the order and start prepping to go there. They bring some money, Ann specializes in sword so she brought two swords along, Zing prepares shuriken and darts for range fight. He went to Mei Ling’s room to say goodbye to her, ever since the last spar he hadn't seen her for the whole week, she greets him with a cold stare like usual.

“I'm sorry making you worried about last time. I'm going off to mother’s order now" Jing said Mei looks at him for a bit then she sighs, her eye becomes more gentle and pats his head. “Be safe for the trip. You’re with Ann now so I'm not that worried anymore. But make the mistakes again and I'll make sure the last week spar session repeats” Mei said as she pinches his cheeks.

It stings a bit but at least it's filled with love and care, unlike last time, Zing smile and took off. They say goodbye to Scarent as they start their small journey. The got out of the forest using the 70 Shadow Runs, use a small boat on the shore to sail to the mainland, It only takes an hour to get to the mainland on boat. As they were sailing, a blue shadows flash over them from far, towards the mainland, only Ann notice it and Zing didn't, Ann knows that Scarent's doesn’t want waste time on the boat so she forces the Qi down to her foot and uses Qinggong to run on water, only a handful of great martial artist can do this, but to run fast enough that normal eyes couldn't perceive on water is truly what only the 4 strongest martial artists can do. They arrive on land and start travel to the upper north, they stay in a hostel through the night sharing the same bed cause Ann couldn't embrace her cute little brother enough. A couple of days pass, just a half a day of travel more and they’ll be arriving at the Hua Mountain, along the way Ann taught him more about the special Breathing technique. Our human body naturally has Yin and Yang Qi, different people specialize in different ones, only on rare occasions where someone can develop both of them at the same time because Yin and Yang are polar opposites like oil and fire, one will revoke if seen the other, the risk of using Qi is that it'll the user their life and mental health. Until recently, Jing Chen manages by divide the Yin and Yang Qi to each side of the body, then layer it onto each other creating a spiral of Qi inside the body, and can nullify any attack the connect physically to the body, just in case when the opponent is also a Qi user. He quickly shows it to Ann, and Ann teaches it to Zing, to help him protect himself more. Zing ask Ann why would they held such a big fight tournament on the Hua Mountain, Ann explains

“Hundreds of years ago, many great fighting events were held there, like the battle to define the Five great in the martial art community, General Guo Jing, the Condor heroes Yang Guo, the Dragon lady, all very powerful martial artists at the time made their name there”

“They're even stronger than mother and father?”

“Who knows. I once heard that the Condor hero had a foot of a mountain. That means if he steps on you, it's no different from you being crush by a mountain. Rumors said he was 18 when he did that" Ann chuckles as she said.

“But mother said the people gathering are nothing compare to the great, they do all of this is just for shows to the world, but father insists to keep the event going as it's a yearly thing for martial artists"

As their getting closer to Mount Hua, more seller and merchant could be found everywhere. More people can be seen

“It seems that the tournament already started" Ann said

They have arrived at the fighting place, it's a huge field, with about 500 hundred to 700 hundred people there. Some of the people are doing warm-ups with their fighting form, some of the normal people are just spectator that just wanted to see the fighting. The sparing Ring is in the middle of the field, any senior in the sect will be sparring one on one with each other and their master will decide their successor as the new master of the Sect.

When Ann walks into the fields, she grabs the attention of other martial artists, not only for her look, but she’s carrying two sword means she a swordswoman and unless it's the senior of the Hua Mount Sect, not a lot of female martial artist came here to watch the fight. Ann and Zing sit under the shades of the tree in the rear of the field. Zing watches closely, it's a spar, not a training session so you’re allowed to watch them.

“Their movements are quite stiff, and they lack any intensity. Their master doesn't look like he pleases with it either. I doubt that any of the people here could compare Ling Ling or even you sis” Zing said, growing up Zing has always been an honest boy, he doesn't know how to lie and he doesn't afraid to show his true opinion.

Ann looks over to her little brother, pinch his cheeks and said

“Don’t say it like that now. Take away my sword and I can’t be much help. Everyone got their advantage and weak point too, you know”

Zing winced because of the pinch, though it didn't hurt as much when sister Ling pinch him. “So what do you think gonna come first? I betting that an Ogre gonna barged in and ruins the fight. But all of them can probably take it down tho. We might sit through the whole without doing anything" Zing said

Ann didn't respond and still quite observing the surrounding area. Ann thought to herself that if what Zing said is true then Mother doesn't need to send us here, which means another bigger threat will emerge, and we have to be prepared for the worst. It's strange that there are no signs of Ogres, demons, and other kinds of monsters when they’re arriving close to Mountain Hua.

“Could it be that the other being bares a human form thus making it hard for other martial artists to notice?" Ann thought to herself.

Demon, monster, vampires that look humanoid means they are stronger because they have better control of their power, thus they could re-shape their body to resemble a human to fit in with the crowds of people, if it comes in direct contact for martial artists then they might figure it out, if not, then it's impossible to spot a real one. Zing and Ann sit and wait until the sky slowly turns dark blue, about hundreds of people had left, but the tournaments still continue. Ann sigh, because she knows she has to deal with the vampires and demons now if they appear, they're only active during the night, the sun would give them burns that they couldn't regenerate. Zing yawned for the fifth time.

“Maybe we should just take a nap. If anything happens they are gonna scream, we'll know either way”

“No. Stay focus on all causes. Mother would not be please if we let any of these people died” Ann said as she glared at Zing.

The tournament is still going, most of the people seem a bit more tired than the other, some are sweating bullet, lying on the ground, and some even pass out from the fight, for those after the fight who still got calm and stable breathing is more likely to be candidates for the headmaster sit. After another half an hour, Ann suddenly senses something in the area, it's filled with killing intent, strange because after half a sitting there she didn't feel anything. Killing intent aura is only purposely let out by very powerful being, that only proficient Qi user who had successfully enhance all their senses feel.

“It's here!" Ann stood up and told Zold

Zing feels the exact same thing Ann felt he understood and follow his sister to help spot the hidden monster. But the people in the tournament still haven’t felt anything, Zing sees that there are only a few people in the crowd notice the strange aura, but can't pinpoint what is it like big sister. Ann stood in the crowd then infuse her Qi and press it down to her stomach for it to reach the heart, making it beat faster, increase in blood flow, thus making enhance her hearing, she could sense about 500-meter radius in the area around her, Ann focuses on the whole field and start to mumble

“512 humans, most are resting so they no one should emit such killing intent, but I sense that cover more than just this field, it mean that there are at least two of them"

“There are only two of them, one in the corner of the crowd and one hidden in the side of the field. Don't worry sis, I can tell that it's two different aura” Zing said to Ann, as he’s naturally gifted with the ability to quickly improve his senses enhancement

Ann turns over to Zing, she smirks and pats his head. “I lost to you again. Mother was right when she wants you to come along with me" But there’s no time for compliment, she ordered Zing to go to where the hidden one is, cover everyone who is in its range of attack and she'll take care of the one in the crowd. Ann rush toward the monster that's hidden in the crowd with incredible speed, she moves across all the people with them only saw a fading shadow moving. The Shadow sect specializes in speed, to train one’s movement to be so fast is like a shadow to other people, thus making it hard to sense the presence of that a Shadow sect member. Her eyes scan through the people as she held her sword tight, she’s getting closer and closer to it. She can see it, far behind the fighting ring, the presence is huge, it’s a tall man standing in the open, wears normal clothing, it has a deformed face as it tries to hide its real face, and very rough skin, the people around can't see it clearly as it’s night time, but the Shadow sect are trained to see in the dark. It’s a demon, Ann knows that to get rid of the demon, you have to destroy the brain

“I should finish this quickly without having the other people sees me"

She held her sword high, charge full speed at the demon, uses one of her forms, and slash the demon's head into 40 pieces, it was so fast that the demon only manages to turn its head halfway toward the attack, the demon drops down to the ground as Ann rushes into the crowd again. And scream could be heard, the people are panicking on why a man suddenly got his head dice, everyone moves away from the man, now the attention is on the dead body lying on the ground, no one could see what Ann did. As she retracting her swords, she stops and turns to look at its body, she can still feel a very abnormal life energy from it.

“don't tell me this thing has...”

Knowing her job is not done yet, she pulls her sword out again and continues to charge at the demon’s body. Suddenly tentacles coming from the body’s belly sprung out towards Ann and many other people there, the tip of each one is dripping out acid, that's also a poison, extremely lethal to any human if comes in contact with it. As of now, the demon is well aware that it has been spotted and is more than prepared to fight, making it more difficult to break through its defend. The acid will melt through iron, so Ann infused her Qi in this time to her arm and from the arm spread out to the sword, the blade turns a bright yellow color just like sunlight, the sword is now coated fully with Qi, which both protects and increases the power of the weapon. help the sword handle in the middle in increase her ranged attack, she jumps high over the tentacles, she uses the Shadow sect sword technique, slashing her sword in the form of the word Wu, creating several spirals and cut most of the tentacles, that both deflect the attack coming towards her and protect all the people around, everyone starts to panic, even though their also martial artist, not everyone is mentally prepared when it comes to fighting with such supernatural being. Despite the tentacles that have been cut doesn't regenerate because of her Qi infused sword, Ann still has to keep on cutting down the tentacles as they keep coming out of the body. after cutting down a dozen of them, she notices that the head that she cut into pieces is slowly regenerating.

“you're really annoying when you have more than one brain, you know” Ann said

This demon is not only strong since it can regenerate fast, with a normal blade cutting it, but it has two brain cores, and you have to cut all of them at the same time to kill it fully. But just one touch from the bright yellow blade, it will ​disintegrate. Ann is angry because she thought she was being careless for not using the Yellow Blade in the beginning. She has to finish this quickly since it's already a handful dealing one of the brain core, now the first one is almost done regenerating, and with all these people around she can't push her attack range more. It's difficult for any human to take down a monster, but getting hit once by their attack mean instant death Ann still continues fighting with the tentacles as she also protecting the surrounding people, she’s slowly moving her position to where the two brain and her stands form a straight line. Suddenly a man one her opposite side someone got hit with the acid on the fingers, the men scream in pain, as he's about to fall down, Ann waste no time, holding her sword high, she swings her sword upwards from the ground, the slash cuts two of the brain in half, then it goes on to cut the man’s finger off. The slash is powerful with range but also condense as the man felt no pain after having his finger cut off, the two brains have been destroyed as it has been sliced with Qi, the tentacles drop down to the ground, now the demon is completely dead (the event of Ann killing this demon happens in 8.66 seconds). Everyone around was so shocked about the there’s a demon in the crowd, and the girl fighting the demon, everything just flashes over their eyes and the screaming from before caught the attention of a lot more people. After finishing the one there's still one more monster on the other end, so Ann rush over there with full speed, she's worried about Zing, not sure if the opponent over there is stronger than this one, or did he got injured. As she got over to the other side, Zing is out in the field fighting bare-handed to the other demons, this one still got its humanoid form, Zing manages to lure it out since fighting in the forest would restrict his and the demon's range. To the other resing martial artists at the tournament, Zing and the demon's movement are out of this world, they can react fast enough for either one’s attack or to help Zing. This demon’s face has already melted and slowly disintegrating, shows that he had already injured the demon, Zing still didn't have a scratch on him. Zing notice Ann, and he shouted

“Please let me finish this by myself, sis!”

Ann didn't see any sign of other monsters and it looks like he’s also trying to perfecting the Yin Yang breathing technique.

“Alright. Finish it in 10 more seconds or else I’ll do it my self. And be careful, these types of demons got more than one brain core inside them” Ann said

“10 seconds is plenty!” Zing confidently said

The demon sees Zing talking back to Ann and took its chance to launch its full attack with its giant arm at him. Little does it know, Zing already suppressed his Yin Yang Qi inside his belly with his breathing throughout the fight. He pushes the Qi to his arm, held his fist toward the attack, prepared to counter it. The other people there see it and thought he might lose his whole arm, but when the punch of the demons comes in contact with his hand, the demon's hand just crumbles to piece. Ann looked at it and smiles as her little brother just successfully mastered the father’s Yin Yang breathing technique, as when in contact with other objects infuse with normal Qi or demons, it crumbles instead of melt. The demon panics and pulls its arm back, but Zing is quicker, he grabs on to the demon's arm, thus pulled him with it, this time he pushes normal Qi out to two of his arm, raise it to the demon's head, he punches the demon, making its head melt, then he quickly launch his other arm into the Abdomen melting its belly to destroy the other brain. The demon squeals in pain, Zing press his fist deeper, the demon slowly stops moving as it starts to disintegrate more, the demon is dead, Zing has defeated it on his own. Ann gives a bright smile on her face, she's happy to see her brother improve this much, she gives him 10 seconds but he finished it in 6.34 second. Zing went over to Ann, she pats his head

“You did a really good job this time, mother and father would definitely be proud’

“Thanks, sis. But I can't keep it up for long though" Zing smile and take in his head petting rewards.

But now they caught the attention of everyone in the field, all the seniors, the elders had the tournament stop because of the screaming. But to Zing and Ann, everything happens so fast that everyone is still speechless, can't believe they just witness a fight between humans and demon.

“I already scan the rest of the area. I don't think that there are any more demons though" Zing said

Since the other monsters, vampires and demons don’t hang well with each other. If there's already a demon here the other being wouldn't come. Ann and Zing don’t want to answer any question, so they looked at each other and nod their heads. They use their Quinggong to run off the field and visually disappear out of thin in front of everyone. Leaving the crowd and the Hua Sect tumultuous calling for them to come back.

Now their job is finished and they’re returning to the Black Wood Island. “I wonder how’s mother doing on her side?” Ann said “Huh?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

2 days ago, in the further north of the land, where you can start to see the ocean from far, a Dragon is flying across the sky, the trees, rocks and everything under it are blown away as it flaps its wings, it's length is nearly 100 meters long and it's eye scans through the area with a fearless look. It knows that there is no other creature dares to challenge it, the dragon flew with pride in the sky. It's heading south, which means it'll fly through the human's territory, but it doesn't care as the dragon think that every other being is inferior to it.

“Lady Tyrant" Scarent Gray is on the ground, looking up to the sky and sees the dragon approaching her direction.

“So this is the cute little lizard huh”

As it's getting closer, Scarent jumps up high, higher than the height the dragon is flying. The dragon notices the sound but didn' care about it. Scarent is now above the dragon, she spins her body dozens of time than uses the long right arm sleeves (Scarent only has one left arm, her right side is a long sleeve that her can use to whip) whip it straight down to the dragon’s head. A loud bang could be heard even from far, the whip that hits the dragon’s head, pins it down to the ground, despite it was flying high up, the whip was so hard that a wide area of ground shatters as the dragon drops down, it couldn't react with any magic power before got beaten to the unconscious. Scarent landed on the back of the dragon, she just effortlessly defeat a flying dragon.

“That should be enough. I should head back before the kids so there's still time to make dinner"

End of chapter

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Intoxication (Chapter 1)

Everyone else at the camp goes on a hike, leaving Gwen and Daniel alone. Perhaps she can teach the cultist asshole how to have some real, non-murdery fun. [Read on Ao3]

"Good morning, Daniel!"

"Go die."

David let out a familiar laugh as Daniel pulled the blanket further over his head in the hopes it would keep the other at bay. But much like every other morning, he was no so lucky and soon found himself staring up at David with a venomous expression while David held his blanket in one hand. "Come on now, sleepyhead, the kids are waiting for us!"

"They wouldn't be if you'd just let them sleep in," Daniel pointed out, as he sat up. "Or just...let them sleep forever. Underground. In tiny, little coffins. I could make it happen, it'd be quick and mostly painless-"

"For once, I'm going to ignore that," David said, and set the blanket down on the end of the bed. "Because I am just that excited for today's activity!"

Daniel groaned as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Oh, so you weren't excited about the camp activities up until this point? I'm so glad I was here to witness such a rare and unusual reaction from you."

"Very funny," David said, his hands now on his hips. "But I will admit that while I do love most camp activities the same amount, there are a few that I happen to favor a tiny bit more than the others. And the one I have planned for today is one of my top three favorites! Right behind music and just before arts and crafts!"

Daniel made a face. "I know I'm going to regret asking, but what is today's activity?"

David's smile widened as he pulled something out of his pocket and began to carefully unfurl it across the top of the desk near his bed. "We're going on a hike!"

"...Wonderful."

"We'll head out after lunch," David said, letting his finger gently trace over the line he had marked out in pen. "I already have the perfect trail mapped out for us! One that covers as many of the best viewing spots as possible, but also allows us to remain mostly shaded by the forest throughout the day. We don't want another sunburn incident, do we?"

Daniel fell back down against the bed again and squeezed his eyes shut. "Well, great, I hope you and the brats enjoy yourselves. And I hope none of them fall off a cliff. Actually, who am I kidding? That'd be a dream come true for me."

"Don't be such a downer," David said. "You're coming, too!"

Without opening his eyes, Daniel raised his right leg up a few inches from the mattress and gestured to the ankle bracelet near his foot. "Oh, so you've received permission from the judge to let me leave the campgrounds for a short while? Because that will only go so well if you haven't."

He waited for David to make some kind of enthusiastic comment about how he did, in fact, receive permission from the judge to temporarily lift the house arrest, or how they modified it so that he only needed to remain a certain number of feet from David at all times until they returned to the campgrounds. But when David remained silent, Daniel opened an eye out of curiosity and noticed that David's excited expression had been replaced with a look of guilt. "...You completely forgot about my house arrest, didn't you?"

David shifted uncomfortably. "I was so busy planning the hike-"

"-that you completely forgot the only reason I'm not snapping everyone's neck within a five-mile radius?" Daniel interrupted, and sat up again. "Tsk tsk, David. What a sloppy, unprofessional mistake to make."

David stared at him with a scolding frown. "I wouldn't point out my mistakes if I were you, Daniel. Unless we'd also like to discuss yours as well?"

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "I'd love to, actually!" he said, counting on his fingers. "Mistake number one: Not smacking you upside the head with my fiddle when I had the chance. Mistake number two: not smacking you upside the head with your own stupid guitar when I had the chance. Mistake number three: not smacking you upside the head with-"

"Uh, should I intervene?"

Both men looked towards the door to their side of the cabin, where Gwen now stood with a confused expression on her face. "No, Gwen, everything's fine!" David assured her, as he refolded the map. "Daniel and I were just discussing today's hike-"

"-that he forgot I couldn't go on," Daniel added, arms crossed. "Because I'm not allowed to leave the campgrounds."

"It was an honest mistake to make!" David said defensively. "I'm just...not quite used to him being back at camp or the fact that he can't leave the campgrounds yet."

"Because you're an idiot," Daniel said.

"Once again, I really don't think you of all people can pull the 'idiot' card on him, Kool-Aid Man," Gwen said.

"Must you keep bringing that up?" Daniel asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I'll stop when you do," Gwen said.

"I just can't believe I forgot something so important!" David said sadly. "I mean, we can't just leave Daniel at the camp by himself while the rest of us go on the hike!"

"I'm not a child, David," Daniel said. "What on Earth do you think I'm going to do while the rest of you are gone?"

"Sneak into the Mess Hall and put nails in tomorrow's applesauce?" David suggested. "Poke holes in the life vests to drown anyone who tries to use them?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Juvenile. Bits of glass would be a lot harder to spot in applesauce and therefore easier to swallow by accident, and the life vests already have plenty of holes in them. Seriously, this entire camp is one big health hazard. I'm surprised these kids weren't dead before I got here."

Gwen stared at him silently for a moment, before she turned her attention to David. "You know, I think I have an idea. You take the kids on the hike, and I'll stay here with Daniel."

"Aw, Gwen, I couldn't ask you to do that," David said. "You'll miss out on the hike!"

"And I don't need a babysitter," Daniel added, his arms crossed. "Because I'm not going to do anything while you're gone."

"You've spent the entire time you've been back at camp threatening to kill people," Gwen pointed out. "Also, when being accused of putting nails into applesauce, most people would respond with something like 'that's awful, killing and hurting people is wrong!', not 'glass shards would obviously be more effective.'"

"Well, they would," Daniel said defensively. "Again, nails would be too easy to spot in applesauce. There's just no point in using them."

"I rest my cause," Gwen said, with a look to David. "We can't leave him here by himself."

"I don't know, Gwen," David said uncertainly. "Will you be safe, staying with him all day without any help?"

"I'll be about as safe as you are when you're alone with him," Gwen pointed out. "I mean, you two share a room and he hasn't killed you yet, right?"

"But he wants to," David pointed out in return.

"Aww, so you are smarter than you look," Daniel said sarcastically. "Good for you, David!"

"He looks exactly like you, Jim Jones," Gwen said.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Oh, that's real original."

"So's the way you tried to kill our campers with Kool-Aid," Gwen shot back.

Daniel glared daggers at her, but remained silent as she turned her attention back to David. "See? He's a cinch to handle. He's more like a bratty camper than anything. Think of him as an older, whiter...more sacrifice-y version of Max."

David couldn't help but smile at her comment, and made an attempt to cover it with his mouth. "Well, I guess if you're sure about this, then I could always ask the Quartermaster to assist me on the hike today." His expression softened. "Still...stay safe today, alright? I'm not normally one for the violent approach, but if he so much as lays a finger on you, don't be afraid to...well, you know, rough him up a bit!"

"You have never threatened a person in your life, have you?" Daniel asked, once again rolling his eyes.

"I'll be fine, David," Gwen said assuringly, ignoring Daniel's comment as she placed a hand on David's shoulder. "If anything, I feel like you'll have a harder time with your babysitting duties today then I will with mine. I mean, the kids are probably going to hate you after you make them trek through the forest for hours on end."

"Or, they'll come to realize that hiking is both a fun activity and a wonderful way to keep in shape!" David said cheerfully.

Gwen shook her head with an amused smile. "Whatever you want to tell yourself, pal. Now hurry up and go get breakfast before it gets cold. Besides, you need to tell the campers about today's hike, right?"

"Oh, my gosh, you're right, Gwen!" David said. "I'd better get to the Mess Hall! Won't they be surprised to hear about how much fun we're going to have today?"

"Surprised, annoyed, annoying," Daniel said. "All good words to describe them, really."

David shot him an annoyed look before he hurried out of the cabin, and Gwen followed suit after shooting Daniel a look of her own. Shaking his head, Daniel pulled the blanket up from its spot by his feet to over his head and let himself fall against the mattress again.

While he hadn't gotten a chance to properly interact with Gwen alone neither before nor after his sentence, she had made it more than clear that her opinion of him was on par with everyone else's at the camp. Even ignoring her constant barrage of nicknames he couldn't understand, she had adamently refused to share a side of the cabin with him upon his return (with a sincere apology that was clearly only directed at David as she tranferred her belongings to the side that had gone unused up until that point) and she had made no attempts to hide her amusement whenever one of the campers decided to use him as their punching bag (sometimes literally in Nurf's case). And while it was so easy for Daniel to get under David's skin, Gwen seemed to have a talent in getting under his skin in return.

So as far as Daniel could tell, she hated his guts about as much as everyone else at the camp and, unlike David, had no qualms about making it common knowledge as opposed to hiding it or expressing it in a passive-aggressive fashion. And he would be stuck with her for Lord-knows-how-long while David and the demon pack were on their hike.

With a groan, he buried his face into the pillow as he attempted to fall back asleep for just a little longer before the other counselors returned. He was going to need all the energy he could get today.

----------------

"Alright, is everybody ready to go?" David asked the group cheerfully.

"Hell no." With a scowl, Max pointed at Daniel. "Why the fuck do we have to go on this stupid hike while dickhead over there gets to stay at camp and not suffer like the rest of us?"

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "I mean, if you'd like to suffer, Max, I'm sure I could arrange that. No, I know I could arrange that-"

"That's enough, Daniel," David said, before turning back to the kids. "He and Gwen are going to stay here, while the Quartermaster accompanies us on our hike."

A bitter grumble was the Quartermaster's response. "Damn two-bit cultist...getting himself sent here. Can't even make a decent batch of poison... Ruining my plans to go get new hooks today..."

"...Uh, did you say hooks, as in plural?" Neil asked nervously. "Why do you need more than one?"

"One for business, one for none of your business!" the Quartermaster said fiercely.

"...Noted."

"Aww, Daniel can't come on the hike with us?" Space Kid asked with a sad expression.

Daniel smiled and knelt down in front of Space Kid so they were at eye level. "I'm afraid I have to stay here. But you go have fun without me, okay?" He lowered his voice after a quick glance over at Max. "And if you see Max too close to the edge of a cliff, don't be afraid to give him a little...push."

"But isn't that mean?" Space Kid asked. "Won't he get hurt if I do that?"

"...I'm sure he'll be fine," Daniel lied through his teeth. "Plus, isn't he mean to you all the time? It would only be fair to be a little mean back, right?"

"Daniel!" David said sharply. "You keep telling Space Kid to do bad things and you won't be allowed to spend time with him anymore!"

"What?" Daniel asked innocently. "I was just telling him...not to push Max off a cliff."

Space Kid looked up at him, confused. "But you said-"

"I know what I said," Daniel said, his voice low again. "Go ahead and push him if you get a chance-OW, OW, THAT'S MY EAR!"

Daniel hissed in pain as Gwen dragged him away from Space Kid with a tight grip on his ear. "Have fun on the hike, everyone!" she said. "And good luck, David."

"Same to you, Gwen," David said cheerfully. "We should be back around dinner time, but I'll have my phone on me and I can be back here like *that*-" He snapped for emphasis. "-if you need me to be."

"Like I said this morning, I'll be fine," she assured David, and tightened her grip on Daniel's ear, an action that earned her another unhappy sound from him. "See? He's easy to handle."

"Gwen, that's mean," David said.

"You're smiling."

"...I'm just excited for the hike," David fibbed.

"I'm not," Max said. "Can we hurry up and get this over with already?"

"Right, of course," David said, and gestured for the kids to follow him as he began to walk towards the direction of the trail. "Come on, campers. The day waits for no man, or camper!"

"Pretty sure that's not a saying," Max said irritably, as he shuffled after David.

"It is now~!" David said matter-of-factly. "Because I'm saying it!"

Max rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay..."

"Bye, Daniel!" Space Kid said with a wave. "I'll bring you back a souviener if I can find one!"

Daniel's ear was momentarily forgotten as he waved back at Space Kid. "Have fun, Space Kid! Remember what I told you 'not' to do-OW, you're still holding my ear, Gwen!"

"I know," Gwen said, and finally let go of him as the group disappeared among the trees.

Daniel glared at her while he rubbed his sore earlobe. "Why did you do that?"

"Hey, I could have just called the judge instead," Gwen pointed out. "But honestly, you not only said your plans out loud but also probably confused Space Kid in the process, so I doubt David's going to let Max leave his side during the hike. Way to go, Isaac."

Daniel gave her a perplexed look. "Isaac? Did you...forget my name?"

"Holy shit, you need to read some Stephen King," Gwen said, shaking her head. "But not right now. I have other plans for the two of us anyway."

"Us?" Daniel asked. "I'm not doing anything with you. I'm going back to the cabin and I'm going to enjoy the lack of other people for as long as I can."

Gwen crossed her arms with a smirk. "Oh? Doing what exactly?"

"Sleeping, preferably," Daniel said. "Having a morning person for a roommate usually leads to me rising earlier than I'd prefer."

Gwen shook her head amusedly. "Alright, I can't pretend I haven't been there. But in my experience, trying to take a nap in an air-conditoning-less cabin in the middle of summer isn't the easiest task in the world. You're just going to be miserable, tired, and bored."

Daniel scowled. "Well, what did you have in mind, then?"

The question had barely escaped his mouth before Gwen took hold of his wrist and pulled him along towards her side of the cabin in an almost-eager sort of manner. Her grip was a lot less painful than it had been on his ear, but Daniel still yanked his hand back as if she had hurt him once they came to a stop outside her door. "Is this how you treat all your co-workers?"

"Only the cultists," she said as she pushed the door open. "Follow me."

Rolling his eyes, Daniel obeyed and stepped into the cabin behind her. Unlike his and David's side (which was mostly decorated with either the tacky camp memerobilia or the occasional poster from a movie Daniel had not seen), Gwen's side of the cabin contained a shelf of magazines and books, with titles that Daniel could only assume were disturbingly sexual in nature, several drawers with labels to define which article of clothing lay inside, and an old radio that resided on the windowsill. In the far corner lay a TV, the two arm chairs that Gwen had brought to her side when they divided up the furniture in the cabin, and a minifridge that seemed awfully new and pricy compared to the rest of the furniture.

"I really hope we didn't drink all of them last time..." Gwen muttered to herself as she headed for the minifridge and began to rummage around inside it. "Here we go. Heads up!"

Before Daniel could process her warning, she tossed a bottle of something in his direction. He managed to catch the glass bottle without letting it shatter on the wooden floor, and peered down at the label curiously. "Smirnoff?"

"It's vodka," Gwen explained, and slammed the fridge shut. "Well, about five-percent vodka. But it still manages to get David tipsy after a few bottles, so I can only imagine what it'd do to you, Veggietales."

Once again, Daniel frowned at her. "Okay, I realize that you probably hate me for obvious reasons, but if you only brought me over here to call me more names I don't understand, then I'm not-"

"Calm down, dude," Gwen said, her expression serious. "Look, I'm going to be honest, I didn't invite you to my side of the cabin to give you a hard time. I did it so we could hang out."

Daniel's scowl disappeared. "Wait...what?"

"I mean, I'm not saying I want to be best friends or anything like that," Gwen said. "Honestly, you're kind of an asshole, and I'm not entirely fond of how you've treated David and the kids."

"I think they treat me worse than I treat them," Daniel said.

"Hey, you did try and kill them," Gwen pointed out. "I know I wasn't here for whatever happened during your first visit, but from what I heard, they have every right to be pissed at you."

"A fair, yet annoying, point." Daniel narrowed his eyes at her. "Is there a 'but' anywhere in your sentence?"

"But..." Gwen continued, "knowing David, it'll be ages before he and the others get back from their hike. Last time, we got lost and it took us half a day to find the path back to camp. And since we're the only two still stuck at camp, I figured we could kick back, have a few drinks, watch a bad movie or two..."

Daniel's suspicious glare melted into a look of confusion. "You...really want me to hang out with you? This isn't a joke?"

Gwen shrugged. "I mean, you're the reason I get to stay here instead of trekking through the woods all day, so I owe you for that at least."

Daniel his gaze fall to the bottle in his hands again. "Well, the offer is tempting, but...I don't really drink or...watch movies."

"Really?" Gwen asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, the movie thing I can understand, you know nothing about pop culture. But don't cults usually, like, throw wild parties just so they can drink or have wild orgies or whatever?"

"That's stereotyping," Daniel said, making a face. "Extremely offensive stereotyping. Besides, my religion-"

"Cult," Gwen corrected him.

"My religion-" Daniel said stubbornly, "-was more on the...conservative side of things. The consumption of alcohol or the use of electronics like computers or television was usually frowned upon if they were being used outside of religious purposes. Even procreation before marriage was considered a sin. Impure, toxic behaviors that would cause us to stray from the path towards ascension and down the path towards Xemug."

"And yet, child killing wasn't on that list of impure, toxic things that would lead you towards your cult's bootleg version of Xenu?" Gwen asked.

Daniel glared at her and turned back to face the door. "You know, I don't have to take all this teasing from you. I could just return to the other side of the cabin and attempt to sleep. It'd be a lot better than listening to you call me names and insult my previous religion-"

"Wait, hold on."

Daniel fell silent, his annoyance towards Gwen forgotten for a moment as he felt her grab his wrist with a surprising gentleness. He looked back at her, his surprise blooming further at the serious look on her face.

"Look..." she said, pulling her hand back. "You're a prick and I'm not sorry for insulting you."

Daniel frowned again. "Oh, well, thank you so much."

"Let me finish," she said. "You're a prick and I'm not sorry. However...clearly the religion thing is a sore subject for you. Especially since you keep calling it your previous religion or previous beliefs. And in my experience, when someone often cuts ties with a previous religion, they struggle with adapting to life without those beliefs, and even cling to some of their old ways as a means to cope."

Daniel felt his shoulders tense at her words. "Oh, so you're a therapist now?"

"Psycologist, actually," Gwen corrected him. "Duel-majored."

"Well, aren't you special?" Daniel asked sarcastically. "Do you have a point?"

"My point is," Gwen continued. "If the reason you're afraid to drink or watch movies is because of your religion, well...you said yourself that you weren't a part of it anymore. I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do, but drinking alcohol or watching a movie isn't going to make you, like...go to Hell or...Xemug or...whatever when you die."

"Just Xemug, but I appreciate the attempt to be religiously appropriate after that orgy comment," Daniel said.

"And I mean, even if it did, you kinda already screwed up with the child-killing thing, so you're probably already going somewhere shitty when you die anyway," Gwen said. "You might as well go all the way with breaking from the path and have as much fun as you can."

"...You really aren't great at giving pep-talks, are you?" Daniel asked.

"I mean, am I wrong?"

Daniel's grip tightened on the bottle in his hand as he looked down at it again. As much as he hated to admit it, Gwen did have somewhat of a point in all her annoying and mostly-unhelpful ramblings. While he'd long since accepted the fact that everything he had once believed in was based on lies and false hopes, he had still made somewhat of an attempt to keep to as many of his previous ideals as he could.

No alcohol or drugs to poison his system. No television or internet to corrupt him. And while he had not been able completely to stick to his previous detoxification diet during his house arrest, he had still turned down a number of offers for, in the camp's case, literal junk food and chose only to consume the limited number of actually-healthy options that the camp had to legally provide for the campers.

Perhaps it was as Gwen suggested, an attempt to cope. Perhaps he simply had a hard time accepting the fact (ugh, facts again) that everything he had believed in was false. Perhaps he was clinging to some small hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd been wrong about the things he'd seen during his moment of death. That it had been some sort of test of faith as a result of his mistakes and the Ancient Ones were still watching him, waiting to see if he dared to stray further.

Either way, he had done his best to keep true to the way he had lived his life before the events of Camp Campbell. And while it was impossible to stick to all of his previous ideals, he had still managed to stick to the basics as best he could. To hold onto that slim hope that...maybe, he could still reach ascension one day.

But...

They weren't real.

He'd never be pure in their eyes, even if he wanted to be. Because they weren't real.

And even if they were, even if all of this was really some kind of test to measure the strength of his faith, it was too late. He had fallen from grace the moment the poisoned Kool-Aid passed his lips and not the lips of the campers. He had doubted the existence of his Gods, doubted his beliefs...

Gwen was right; If he had already lost his chance at ascension, then...where was the harm in falling further?

"When you say fun...what exactly did you have in mind?"

------------

"The broken seatbeat's foreshadowing," Gwen said, pointing at the screen. "That's a drink!"

"Don't spoil it for me!"

"It's not a spoiler if you know death's coming for him! Now take a drink!"

Falling from grace had tasted like a mix of strawberries and the scent of a permanent marker, with a burning aftertaste that reminded him strongly of the sensation he had felt after ingesting the poisoned Kool-Aid. However, the reminder only lingered for a moment and was replaced with a warm, tingling feeling after a few more sips of the drink.

They had been about halfway through their first bottles when Gwen had approached the TV and began to dig around inside a cardboard box that lay at its left, packed with DvD cases that looked pretty wear and tear from old age. After a few minutes of shuffling the contents around, she held up one of the covers with a triumphant look and a smug reassurance that he, of all people, would enjoy the HELL out of this movie.

And, despite his skepticism at first, he had to admit that, once again, Gwen seemed to know what she was talking about. Not that he'd ever admit to her that she was right about anything, but a movie where people did nothing but try and escape the hand of death, only to meet it in the most horrible and gruesome fashions possible was definitely keeping his attention in the best way. Or perhaps the two bottles of Smirnoff he had ingested since they had first started drinking was finally beginning to take effect on his system.

Either way, the sight of a girl being hit by a bus in the most ironic and over-the-top way possible, followed by the house of one of the remaining characters bursting into flames after her painful and bloody death via knives and glass to many vital areas had been the funniest thing he'd seen in a long time. Granted he would have preferred it to happen in real life to real people, but fictional deaths were a surprisingly decent substitute in a pinch.

"So, remind me again why we need to drink whenever there's either a death or foreshadowing to a death?" Daniel asked as he raised the bottle to his lips.

"I explained the rules already," Gwen said and took a drink of her own. "When you watch a movie with a ton of repeating elements, especially a bador stupid movie, you make a drinking game out of it and get shitfaced with other people."

"Yes, I'm aware," Daniel said. "But why?"

"...Because it's fun?" Gwen said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Now, shh, this is one of my favorite scenes in the movie."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said the movie was stupid?"

"It is," Gwen said. "I've watched it fifteen times."

Daniel opened his mouth to question this, but the sounds of a train hitting metal tore his attention back to the movie. "Oh, come on, he survived that?! How did he survive that?! I thought you said he was gonna die!"

"Just wait for it," Gwen said, her mouth curling into a knowing smile and her eyes still on the screen.

Daniel followed suit, just moments before a piece of metal flew from the previous trainwreck and decapitated one of the remaining characters onscreen. Daniel let out an amused cackle and raised his bottle. "Okay, that was worth the extra wait time for another death."

"Too bad we've got more waiting to do now," Gwen said, and took a sip of her own drink. "There's not going to be one for a while."

"Oh, come on, really?!" Daniel asked. "I thought you said this movie was full of gore and death?"

"Well, it is, but unfortunately a lot of it is in the first half," Gwen said. "The sequels really amp up the gore factor and the deaths are even more gruesome."

"So why can't we watch those?" Daniel asked.

"Because Campbell probably stole the DvDs we already have and won't shell out any money to let us buy more," Gwen pointed out.

Daniel flicked his thumb towards the minifridge. "And yet you could afford that?"

"Oh, I got the money for that by selling the parts to your 'purification sauna' after you were whisked off to the hospital," Gwen said with a smirk. "There's a scrap yard on the outskirts of Sleepy Peak, and they pay pretty handsomely for good metal."

Daniel glared at her. "So that's what happened to it..."

"Hey, I wasn't about to leave that shit lying around here," Gwen said. "It made the kids uneasy, and I'm sure Campbell would have had the same idea if he returned and found it before I did anything."

"And you didn't offer David any of the money?" Daniel asked.

"Who says I didn't?" Gwen asked. "He used his half to buy new supplies for as many of the camps as he could. Unfortunately by the time he got to swimming camp, there wasn't enough to buy new lifejackets. Go figure."

"Of course he did," Daniel said, rolling his eyes. "Wait, so he bought supplies for the camp and you bought a mini fridge? Seems a bit selfish, don't you think?"

"I know, but I wanted something nice for myself, damn it!" Gwen said. "Lord knows I can't buy anything with the salary Campbell gives us. The guy's an even bigger asshole than you are!"

"Ooh, not so fond of the boss, are we?" Daniel asked, an eyebrow raised.

"You've worked here long enough to know the answer to that," Gwen said. "I mean, when you said this camp was a walking health hazard, you weren't lying. Campbell doesn't give a shit if we don't have enough running water or healthy food or safe camp equipment, and I'm positive he's only keeping this camp open because it's a good place to hide when the government's hot on his tail."

"You're certainly quick to loosen your tongue when it comes to gossiping about him," Daniel pointed out. "And yet, you've been silent about David and the campers. Surely they must push your buttons, too?"

"Nice try, pal," Gwen said with a smirk. "I'm fine with dragging Campbell through the mud, but I'm not about to talk shit about David or the kids in front of you. When I complain about them, I do it out of love. When you do it, it's because you want to hurt them."

"You're not wrong there," Daniel said, taking another sip of his drink.

"What about you?" Gwen asked. "Got any boss horror stories? Or...cult...leader...horror stories? Yeah, maybe you're right about me not knowing how your cult works."

Daniel shrugged. "Not much to tell there. I have no ill memories towards the leader that my group followed when I was younger."

"So how'd you originally get involved in all of that anyway?" Gwen asked. "Were you born in it or-"

Daniel shook his head. "I was about five when one of the members of the group picked me up off the streets and convinced me to join them with promises of a better life."

"Five?!" Gwen asked in disbelief. "Jesus Christ...And they didn't, like, try to sacrifice you or anything?"

"The group didn't sacrifice every child they came across," Daniel explained. "Sometimes when the number of followers were low, they'd look for those who had next to nothing left. Those who needed guidance, a better life... Those who could grow and learn the ways of the Ancient Ones, and go on to spread their word to others. And as a homeless kid, that sounded a lot more appealing than dying of starvation in some random alleyway."

"...Well, was it?" Gwen asked.

Daniel looked down at the bottle in his hands. "You know...I'm not so sure anymore. I dedicated my life to following the teachings of our group, and did everything I could to keep myself on the path towards ascension. And for what? Gods that turned out to be fake? To be back where I am before everything happened, with nothing to guide me in life? Perhaps it would have been better if they had left me to die."

He shook his head. "I think I might have had too much to drink. I'm normally not so talkative about these sort of things with anyone."

"You've had about two bottles of a drink with five-percent vodka," Gwen pointed out. "But it's like I said earlier, sometimes people have a hard time coping when they cut ties with a religion they once dedicated their entire life to, especially if it's because of something that was out of their control. You may be a massive prick in everything else you do, but you're not a prick for feeling lost and confused about that. It happens, dude."

Daniel bit his lip. "Well...thank you for that, at least. I mean, other than the insult."

"Hey, you still want to kill kids," Gwen pointed out. "My sympathy towards you can only go so far before I remember that."

"Speaking of that," Daniel said. "May I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"You don't like me," Daniel said. "You've made that clear ever since I returned to camp. So...why did you want to hang out with me while the others were off on the hike? I mean, not that I'm complaining, but you could have taken this chance to make my life miserable. I guess I'd just like to know why, for the most part, you didn't take advantage of that opportunity?"

Gwen sighed. "Alright, look, you're right about me not liking you. You're a royal pain in the ass, you complain about being stuck at this camp when it's your own fault you're stuck here, and again...kid-killing. That's pretty shitty."

"So I've been told," Daniel said.

"But," Gwen continued, "if I were to hold a constant grudge towards everyone who tried to kill kids at this camp, the only ones I wouldn't be mad at would be myself and David. Hell, even Max has had a few failed attempts here and there. This camp is...not a place for people with good morals. Aside from, like, David, but he's...David."

"I'd argue that even his morals are not as pure as he'd like to believe," Daniel said.

"In any case," Gwen said, "since the kids you keep threatening are outside the campgrounds and you can't really do anything to them, I figured I could cut you a break today. And as I mentioned earlier, you being stuck here means I don't have to waste my day hiking through the woods. So I owe it to you to be at least a little civil for now."

"Well, I do appreciate it," Daniel said. "And I...do appreciate you helping me feel more comfortable with things like...well, all of this. I'll...admit that it is somewhat helpful. In an annoying, insulting, kind of way."

Gwen let out a snicker and offered her glass to him. "And I'll admit, it is kind of nice having a co-worker who isn't just another David."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said you weren't going to drag him around me? I mean, if you've changed your mind about that, then I'm all for it-"

"I'm not dragging him," Gwen clarified. "I love the guy. He's the sweetest person I've ever met, and he makes this shit camp a little less shitty just by existing."

Daniel let out a scoff as Gwen continued: "But sometimes, I don't need sweet, you know? I need someone who wants to complain with me. Someone who can just...watch a stupid movie and drink with me, and we can laugh at dumb things together. I mean, as long as the dumb things aren't people I care about."

Daniel chuckled, and raised his bottle. "Complaining? Now that I can do."

Gwen smiled and clinked hers against it. "Good, because some more bullshit is about to come up that you're really going to enjoy bitching about."