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somedayonbroadway · 1 year

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Criminal Minds AU? Just wanted to know if you'll ever actually do it

Criminal Minds AU

Welcome back to another Criminal Minds episode called “Amplification”

TW: deadly desease

Race hissed as he brushed past a rose bush and cut his hand. He shook it a bit as Jack walked on past him. This was no easy case and the young agent refused to slow it down with a minor cut. People were dying. A new strain of Anthrax was being passed around by someone deliberately trying to terrorize the public. And they might just be standing outside that person’s house.

When Jack’s phone rang, he stopped to answer it, not realizing his partner continued walking. “Spottie, we’re here now,” he assured, listening intently to the man on the other end of the phone. The sprinkler turning on behind him made him jump a bit and grab for his gun. He sighed as he made himself continue to listen. “What d’you mean the lab is clean?” he asked. “You’re sure?” He turned back to the house. “Hey, Race, Spot says— Race?” he squinted. “Racer?” Now he was beginning to get concerned. So he rushed inside only to have a sliding door to his left slammed shut. “What the hell are you doing, kid?! Open the damn door!”

But Race was shaking his head. “No! You have to get out of here! Don’t break the glass! Get out!” the genius boy yelled at him.

That’s when Jack saw it. A broken vile of white powder on the ground. “Shit, boy…” he breathed. “Race—“

“Get out of here, Jack,” Race insisted. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

All Jack could do was leave him there and rush out of the house, calling for the rest of his team.

—

“How’s Tony doing?” Denton asked, walking hastily up to Jack.

“He won’t tell me. The air is blasting and there’s white powder all over the floor,” Jack responded, walking back to the house with his boss. “I shoulda been right there with him—“

“I won’t waste time second guessing,” Denton ordered. “What do we know?”

Clenching his jaw a bit, Jack nodded. “Nicols is dead. Blunt first trauma to the head. Race thinks he’s been dead for two or three days. He can’t be our perp. But he took the vaccine. So he’s gonna be okay, right?”

Denton sighed. “We have an ambulance on the way, Kelly. I know you’re worried for Tony, but don’t let that cloud your judgment or ability to solve this case,” he insisted.

“That’s not an answer,” Jack insisted. “Will he be okay?”

Denton looked over at the young man. “I don’t know.”

Jack swallowed hard. He pulled out his phone and called his best friend, putting his phone on sound. “Jack… I really messed up this time,” Race answered.

Looking through the window and spotting the boy, Jack shook his head. “No. We’re gonna get you out and to the hospital, okay? I just need you to listen to me and trust me.”

“I’m staying right here, Jackie,” Race said without any hesitation. “I’m already exposed. The best thing I can do is try to figure out if there’s a cure. All the evidence is in here.”

“No, no, you’re going to the hospital, kid, because that’s what we do when we’re exposed to a major illness that can kill us overnight—“ Jack began as though he was speaking to a child.

Denton cut him off before he could finish. “Kelly, he’s right,” he argued. “If he’s already exposed, there isn’t much we can do for him. His best bet is to stay there and try to figure out who killed our doctor.”

Jack’s eyebrows raised in shock. “Are you actually serious right now?” he demanded. “That kid is small and he hasn’t eaten in a day, he’ll get sick too fast—“

“I can hear you, Jack…” Race sighed into the phone. “I messed up. But I’ll find a cure, okay?”

Jack held the phone close to his lips. “You better find a goddamn cure.”

Race smiled sadly before hanging up the phone and waving at Jack, trying to tell him in silence that he’d be alright. Jack did not appreciate that at all. But he bit his lip and waved back, not about to leave his partner behind.

—

Walking around the room wasn’t all that exciting, but it kept Race distracted. That’s what he needed. A distraction. He saw a dead body, some bleeding out of its head, two desks, one tidy and one a bit messier. Notebooks that had two sets of handwriting in them were scattered around the room. The dead animals locked in cages nearly broke Race’s heart.

Maybe if he ever got out of this room, he’d go vegan. Those animals didn’t deserve to die like that. But he looked over at the glass dividing him from the outside world and sniffled; it might just be how he leaves this world too.

He shook his head, trying to focus. Two sets of handwriting. A partner. A protege. The murderer and the victim had worked closely together. Race dug around, trying to find any trace of a name, something that would give this person away. He paused when he saw the books stacked beside the desk. He sniffled and shook his head. “Don’t be stupid, Higgins,” he whispered to himself. “She’ll be okay…” He shakily took out his phone and dialed a familiar number.

“Race?” David answered quickly.

Race sniffled, rubbing at his nose. “Hey, Davey,” he smiled sadly.

“Hey…” David looked down. “How you holdin’ up?”

Race opened his mouth like he was about to reassure the other man. In reality, he’d already begun to sweat. His curls were sticking down to his head and his eyes were growing a bit weary. He was sure they'd be red if he could look into a mirror. “Uhm…”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Anthony,” David assured. “Just tell me what you need, okay?”

The young agent sucked in a breath. “I need ta leave a message for my mom,” Race whimpered. “I… I can’t call her hospital because the staff will be alerted but— but if something happens to me, I wanna say goodbye ta her—“

“Tony, everything’s gonna be okay—“

“Can you please just let me do this?” Race whispered, hugging an arm around his middle.

It was too hard to answer for a long moment. David wished he could hang up and have the day start over again, but he couldn’t. So he nodded. “Okay… go ahead, kiddo.”

Race sniffled. “H-hey, mama…” he said, trying to plaster on a smile. She was always good at knowing when he was smiling or not, just by how he spoke. “It’s me… Tonio…” He steadied himself and nodded. “I just wanna tell you that I love you so much, yeah? And… how… how proud I am ta be raised by such a strong person,” he whimpered, trying to clear his throat to be okay. If he sounded okay. Maybe he would be. “I think about you everyday and I want you to know that… nothing that happened was ever your fault. I love you,” he whispered. “Bye…”

David sniffled. “Race—“

“I gotta go,” Race rushed out before quickly hanging up the phone.

The door opened and Race jumped, standing up straighter and wiping at the sweat on his forehead. “Jack,” he breathed. “Lookin’ like a million bucks,” he tried to joke.

Jack was dressed in a hazmat suit and helmet. “Yeah, I'm thinkin’ a’ changin’ careers. I’d be a badass astronaut,” he smiled, allowing another person to come in with him as Race laughed weakly. “Kid, this is Dr. Kim.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Higgins,” the doctor smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Race insisted.

“I can give you something for any pain you might be feeling,” Dr. Kim offered.

Race backed away. “I feel fine, thank you.”

“Well, they can also help get you more comfortable—“

“I don’t want any narcotics, okay?” Race insisted brashly.

Jack stepped closer to him so Race backed into one of the desks. “Get back, Jack, you shouldn’t be in here!”

“Kid…” Jack breathed. “You’re fine. You’re gonna be fine.”

“Just ask me about the case, okay?” Race pleaded.

So Jack nodded. “They don’t think the partner was something Nicols worked with. Any ideas of who he might be?” he asked. Race almost answered, but was cut off by a severe coughing fit that made Jack flinch. He wanted to rush to the younger man, but the doctor put her arm out to stop him. “Race?” he called.

Race sunk down to the floor. “I don’t know,” he rasped. “I didn’t find nothin’… m-my head hurts.”

“I know, but I need you to think okay?”

Race wheezed a bit to catch his breath as he lazily looked up at Jack before crawling over to the other side of the room. “I s-saw something before… syllabi… and what looked like a thesis paper. No author on it, thought it was his. A study of Anthrax.”

Jack nodded. “Okay?”

“A student… this thesis ain’t his, he was helping a student,” Race decided, coughing again. “Jackie—“ his voice broke, so he cut himself off.

Jack pushed away from the doctor and kneeled at the boy’s side. The kid was shaking. “It’s alright. It’s okay, just breathe, you’re doin’ real good, buddy.”

Race shook his head. “He ain’t a science major,” he insisted. “Check social studies, s-somethin’ like that. He wants to save the world, not destroy it—“ He hunched over, coughing even harder. Blood dropped onto the floor.

Jack’s eyes widened. “Okay, come on, I’m getting you out of here,” he insisted.

“We’ll hose him down and get him to a hospital,” Kim insisted.

Jack rushed him into a small tent and began undressing him. Race shoved his hands away. “Go help Denton—“

“No, I’m staying with you,” Jack insisted.

“You really wanna see me get hosed down, completely naked?” Race grumbled.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Stop… I’m staying with you, okay?”

Race nodded and let himself be undressed. “Davey better take good care of you,” he whimpered. Jack scoffed.

“Stop talkin’ like that. Stand up, come on, you can do it…” Race did. But when the water hit his body, he gasped and felt his face head up when he realized how many people were there. “You’re fine, kid,” Jack insisted.

For a moment, Race believed him. Until he began convulsing again, coughing and spitting B up blood. Jack shook his head, catching the kid before he could fall. “I’m fine, Jack. I fleel fim…” Race blinked harshly. “I flin fn…” he shook his head, tightening a hand in Jack’s suit. “I flul… J…” His breathing picked up. He couldn’t make the words come out of his mouth.

Jack shook his head. “You’re okay, we’re taking you to a hospital,” he insisted, trying not to panic. “Get him into an ambulance!” he cried, gathering Race up in his arms as the boy began to fade, getting more and more confused by the second, his breaths becoming heavier and heavier. “You’re alright, I got you, pretty boy, just breathe…”

Race whimpered in his arms and by the time he got into that ambulance, he was unable to understand a single thing that came next.

—

Jack sat idly by his friend, eating a Jell-O cup and kicking his legs up on the bed. He breathed as steadily as Race did. It had only been a few hours. Thanks to Race’s big brain and Davey’s skills, they had found the cure and Jack would be here until Race recovered.

“Are there any more Jell-O cups?” a voice spoke from the bed.

Jack looked down at the boy and smiled. “Welcome back, Racer,” he whispered, handing Race the Jell-O he’d been eating. “How’re you feeling?”

Race slowly sat up and took a deep breath, coughing a little which made Jack’s eyebrow furrow the tiniest bit. “I’m fine,” he smiled. “Really, this time. How are you?”

Jack leaned forward. “Don’t scare me like that again, okay?” he asked. Race sniffled, nodding as a tear poked at his eye. Jack just sat on the bed and hugged the boy tightly. “You’re good, okay? I got you. Promise.”

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josiebelladonna · 2 years

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Chapters: 87/126 Fandom: Anthrax (US Band), Testament (Band), Type O Negative (Band), Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Bandom, Possessed (Band) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Alex Skolnick & Krista Belladonna, Alex Skolnick & Eric Peterson Characters: Joey Belladonna, Krista Belladonna, John Bush, Scott Ian, Frank Bello, Charlie Benante, Alex Skolnick, Chuck Billy, Eric Peterson, John Tempesta, Peter Steele, Josh Silver, Paul O'Neill, Original Female Character(s), Original Child Character(s), Original Male Character(s), Johnny Kelly, Kenny Hickey, Louie Clemente, Jeff Becerra Additional Tags: Angst and Tragedy, Comfort/Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst and Romance, Tragic Romance, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Dark Comedy, White Collar Crime, Mystery Stories, Past Drug Addiction, Male-Female Friendship, Families of Choice, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Canon Crossover, Literary References & Allusions, California, New York, Native American/First Nations Culture, Jewish Holidays, Healing, Kid Fic, Growing Up Together, Non-Sexual Intimacy, POV Alternating, Art, no beta we die like men, Card Games, Supernatural Elements, Gothic, Sneaking Around, The Author Regrets Nothing, Portuguese, no beta we die like titans of creation, Europe Summary:

“You can’t kill me—I’m already dead.” the year is 1993, one of two years of upheaval for heavy metal following the rise of grunge and alternative rock, all of which is summed up by Joey’s death. Krista is left to pick up the pieces with the help of a few unlikely neighbors, that is if her landlord Peter is willing to tolerate it. (colloquially referred to as blackjack)

***edit 1/24/22: now includes more drawings!

*******************************************

i gotta catch up on the tan drawings (might do a bunch for the one-year anniversary coming up on the 20th) but. got 38 chapters left and my mom quit her job yesterday and so now it’s really looking like we might be moving house here at some point. nothing is concrete and i do my best writing when i feel like i’m under the gun, too 🩸🌹💃🏻

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nuagederose · 2 years

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a tale of two joeys 🌙🩸

(now it’s dark/sci-fi joey + like blood from a stone/rags to riches joey)

#joey belladonna #anthrax #anthrax band #drawings #watercolor art #watercolor and ink #ink drawing #like blood from a stone #now it’s dark #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic art #artists on tumblr #badgalnirvhannahart

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reiderwriter · 1 month

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reiderwriter 5k writing challenge

hello, my lovelies, and thank you so much for 5k followers~♡ it's been just under a year since I started writing on here, and it's been so fun interacting with everyone and writing for Spencer and the other members of the BAU team! I was a bit unprepared for some of my other milestones and threw some stuff together last minute for them, but I've been thinking about a writing challenge for a while and I finally decided to do it!

Please note: This is a writing challenge! All the prompts below are meant to inspire you to write your own fics and not as prompt requests for me. I hope you can use them as a starting point to write~♡

The theme for the challenge is:

daydreams and shooting stars`☆

There are two sets of prompts to choose from! The daydreams' prompts are based on classic fanfiction tropes that we know and live, and the shooting stars prompts are based on the zodiac signs. There are 12 prompts in each list, and you're welcome to mix and match prompts as you like! Maybe you'd like to combine your star sign with your favourite trope, or two particularly match well, or if you like a single prompt, you can just write for that. I don't mind if the fic is only very loosely based on the prompt, too, do whatever you'd like!

The writing challenge will run up until my 1 year writing anniversary, July 27th, so you have plenty of time to get your fics in! I'll be reblogging all the entries, and at the end, I'll add them to a recommendation list! Be sure to tag @reiderwriter in your fic, or use the hashtag #reidersdaydreams or #reidersshootingstars in your tags! I'll be tracking both~♡ You can submit as many entries as you like!

Rules for submissions will be at the end. Please read them before submitting~♡

without further ado, here are the prompt lists~☆

DAYDREAMS

ONLY ONE BED - a true classic in the sense that I will be reading only one bed fics down to the second I take my last breath. Feel free to invert this to "too many beds," or even "no beds at all, but somehow we're still cuddling," either way, I will read it and likely enjoy it greatly.

GRUMPY X SUNSHINE - which character is grumpy, which character is sunshine? my favourite grumpy x sunshine dynamics are the gloomy character trying their best to become more sunny after a tough life 🫡

FAKE DATING - we, in the criminal minds fandom, have written possibly every undercover mission possible to make our characters make out, but I'm coming in as a simple woman to ask - please do it again 🫶

OH. OH. - the plot revelations! Give me them! The sudden moments of clarity! I'm a fan, goddammit.

IDIOTS IN LOVE - there is nothing better than two huge dumbasses falling head over heels in love with each other in an "aw shucks" kind of way. Also, I'm an idiot, representation matters.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE - coffee shop AU? Soulmate AU? HANAHAKI AU? If someone could please un- or re- traumatise my favourite characters I will be eternally grateful

SECRET IDENTITY - give the character their Emily Prentiss Lauren Reynolds moment, or just make them dress like a clown for like 30 minutes. Both count.

MUTUAL PINING - This harkens back to idiots in love, but it's about the LONGING, it's about the PITIFUL STARES, it's about the BURNING PASSION.

SECRET RELATIONSHIP - my love of gossip makes me a sucker for secret relationship stories because I truly want to be in everyone's business. Character A and B are dating? Brilliant. It's a secret? BRILLIANT.

SICK FIC - your poor little meow meow has a cold. Or your poor little meow meow has been poisoned with anthrax. Or your poor little meow meow is dealing with possible symptoms of schizophrenia. Or your poor little meow meow has been shot-

PSYCHO X PSYCHO - reidams fans, this one's for you 🥰

ENEMIES TO LOVERS - half of my requests are enemies to lovers requests! Feel free to include rivals to lovers, lovers to enemies, friends to enemies to lovers, enemies to friends to lovers, or any such dynamic that your heart desires.

SHOOTING STARS:

Aries - "I burn for you. I can't sleep at night for wanting you. It's the most maddening, beguiling, damnable thing, but there it is."

Taurus - "There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."

Gemini - "There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne, it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting."

Cancer - "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."

Leo - "There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion."

Virgo - "They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered."

Libra - "Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are."

Scorpio - "She didn't understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived."

Sagittarius - "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

Capricorn - "There's a low-level, specific pain and having to accept that putting up with you requires a certain generosity of spirit in your loved ones."

Aquarius - "An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs, and then you had the urge to pass it on."

Pisces - "I think it's perfectly acceptable and rather admirable to be moderately delusional."

Rules:

I'm accepting reader insert, an Original Character, a character/character ship, a platonic ship, or a Gen fics for this challenge. It can feature any Criminal Minds character or any character from any fandom you write for. I assume a lot of people will stick with CM, but feel free to write for whoever you choose!

Please tag me in your entries or send the link to me in a DM. It can be already written, or you can write it for the challenge. Again, the tags I'm tracking are #reidersdaydreams and #reidersshootingstars ♡

The fic can be any genre, but ONLY send me smut if your bio states you are 18+. I will not endorse, nor do I want to read smut written by minors. I will check the ages of accounts posting smut.

For smut or angst fics that could include triggers, please include a content warning above the fic so we can be aware before reading!!

Enjoy!!

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summercourtship · 10 months

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stay to burn (only to drown instead): chapter six: karma [part II]

masterpost | ao3 link

jonathan crane x reader; bruce wayne x reader; edward nashton x reader | warnings: canon typical violence, sexual content | word count: 6355 words

DISCLAIMER: these chapters are not meant to be read alone. not every chapter has content for one of the three pairings listed. this is an ongoing fanfiction that I am cross-posting here on tumblr, not a series of one-shots.

chapter one |previous part

“Aren’t scarecrows supposed to be like… nice? Getting rid of birds, helping crops, you know?”

You were sitting in the hallway of a university building you were rarely in, waiting for the door to open to your next class which had been relocated for the day, when a conversation a few feet away from you drifted down to you.

“Maybe it’s ironic? I dunno, he might’ve not come up with it himself. I mean, the mask, sure, but maybe the newspapers came up with his name.”

“Well, I was reading this thread-”

“On Twitter? Or Reddit?”

The silence that followed the girl's question apparently said it all, if the other girl’s disgusted scoff was anything to go off of. Of course, Twitter should be the only source of reliable information.

You rolled your eyes, but kept them trained at your notebook, your hand paused above the paper, any thoughts of writing dashed as you focused on your eavesdropping. You doubted either of them had any information you didn’t already have, especially if the only two sources they could think of were social media sites. But you wished they would just talk about it so you could know if they were even worth eavesdropping on!

“Anyway, I was reading this thread and it pointed out that all of the places he has targeted are Gotham’s largest suppliers of dopamine. He’s even been able to get shipments as they’ve arrived in the harbor, before they’ve gotten to the warehouses.”

No, I know that. Give me something new, something concrete, something else I can look into.

“Maybe he’s just really sad.” Her friend sounded incredibly disinterested. You held back another scoff, because while you hadn’t exactly done the best in your high school chemistry class, you had done enough research now to know that dopamine by itself wasn’t used to increase happiness, even though it was known as the happiness chemical.

“It scares me, though. Anyone stealing chemicals…” Her voice drifted away from you, the girls obviously packed up and started to move away to sit somewhere else in the building, though you’re sure she was going on about Sarin gas attacks or anthrax. The usual examples when people talked about biological weapons and terrorism.

But something she said set off an alarm bell in your brain, the offhand comment she had made about the situation scaring her, something in it reminding you of something else. Only for the thought to be dashed by the loud clang of the door banging against the wall, a stream of students filing out as their class had ended. Quickly, you wrote what she said down on a scrap of paper before ripping it out of the notebook and slipping it into your pocket.

You stood up, putting your notebook back into your bag. You went through your normal classes like you were in a trance, turning in your assignments on time and getting your usual decent grades but never rising above it. No, you were well aware that you were saving your energy and good work ethic for Dr. Crane’s class, even though you didn’t have much to do anymore. It wasn’t like you were doing the assignments and he’d stopped having you grade them two weeks ago.

Well, at least I’ll have Arkham to focus on soon.

It wasn’t necessarily a happy thought, but it was something. The approach of another new chapter in your life was nerve-wracking, especially one that you had no parameters for what to expect. You had no expectations for what the job would be like, due to Jonathan still not giving you much information besides “it’s a secretarial job”. Which would be fine, if you had any outside experience for what that entailed, but your knowledge of receptionist/secretary jobs came purely from film and television, and that’s not saying much.

When you returned home that night, you put the scrap of paper from your pocket on the wall of your living room on the few previously blank feet of space beside the balcony door. You’d felt a bit like a mad woman when you’d started it, but stepping back and looking at the clippings from the newspaper and printed articles, pictures and your handwritten notes gave you a sense of satisfaction you hadn’t felt in a very long time.

In the center of it all, pinned to the wall with a clear thumb tack, was the wrinkled list you’d made the morning after your first encounter with the Scarecrow.

Yes, you’d told Jonathan that you wouldn't look into the Scarecrow. But once the idea had planted itself in your brain, it was impossible to uproot it. At least you hadn’t moved on to the next stage of your research, which you’d been toying around with. You were, admittedly, tired of just scouring the internet and newspapers for information. You wanted to go and find it yourself.

But you held off, having enough self-preservation to keep you safe in your apartment. For now, at least. After all, it was the same urge to find the information yourself and not second-hand that led you to the mayor’s funeral and the election night party at Gotham Square.

You were examining the collage when you noticed out of the window the familiar warm light of the Bat Signal, bright against the dark sky. There was no moon tonight, something you noted passively. They say that the full moon makes people behave weird. But in your experience, it was the new moon that made them bold.

Pulling the thin curtain over the door shut, your mind couldn’t stop itself from wandering to thoughts of the Batman. Mainly, you wondered what he was doing, who he was fighting. Because if the signal was lit, he was surely out there fighting and trying to make Gotham safer, even if it was ultimately a futile effort. If it was lowly criminals like robbers or vandals, or if he was going after a real villain, the kind that would haunt your nightmares. You wondered if he had any encounters with the Scarecrow, what he thought about it all. Surely, he must’ve at least looked into it, stealing chemicals was a big deal, right?

Tugging at the sleeve of your cardigan, you tried to ignore the pit in your stomach as you thought about whether you’d ever see him again.

“I’m applying for an internship at Wayne Enterprises.”

Jonathan’s pen stopped scratching against his paper for a moment before continuing as if it never stopped.

“Why there?” Jonathan didn’t look up from his desk. You were splayed out on one of the leather chairs in front of his desk, your knees hooked over the arm and your head hanging over the other side. You held a book over your face, which wasn’t even one you needed to read for a class. It was a familiar title, one you’d read a few times before and had come to think of as a comfort book.

Jonathan was working on something that he hadn’t felt the need to tell you about, but he hadn’t given you anything else to grade or look over. But since you’d begun to see each other more often outside of a professional context, it felt weird to not attend your office hours with him, even if you had nothing to do.

Hence, your book.

“They had one.” You shrugged, still not looking at him but from the corner of your eye. “And there was one as a records assistant. Personally, I think they’re still scrambling after the Renewal money-laundering shit was blown wide open. I know there’s been a few statements from Bruce Wayne saying that he’s starting from the ground up with that whole project, but who knows how long that’ll take. But the internship would be a good experience, even if my hands aren’t actually getting dirty in the files.”

While you were speaking, Jonathan had put his pen down and shut the folio he was working in with an air of finality before getting out of his chair and crossing around the desk to stand by you.

You rested your book down on your chest, looking up at him.

“Hi.” You smiled. “Are you sure there’s nothing for me to do?”

“I can think of something.”

You swung your legs down from the arm, sitting up properly in the seat. Your book fell to your lap, and you’re not even sure you remembered to mark your place. But, ultimately, it didn’t matter. Because he was right in front of you, looking like a carved statue of a man. Picturesque, unreal.

He plucked the book off of your lap, examining the back.

“I didn’t take you as someone who’d like this kind of book.”

“Well, I’m full of surprises.”

“That you are.” He handed the book back, leaning over you to place it on your lap before bracing himself on the arm of the chair, his face right in front of yours. “So, have you put in your application for this internship?”

“It was due two days ago, so yes.” You looked at his lips but didn’t make any moves.

“I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t ask me to look over it.” He returned the favor.

“You’ve seemed so busy lately, and I didn’t want to add to it.” You shrugged, your voice barely above a whisper. “Besides, it was pretty basic.”

“I see.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear back from them, don’t worry.” You didn’t add that you didn’t think you would hear back, that internships at Wayne Enterprises were highly coveted amongst upperclassmen and recent graduates alike. An internship there could give you powerful connections for the rest of your professional and personal life.

He seemed to sense your resignation about the position, frowning slowly. Whatever bubble that’d been building between you popped, and you were brought back to the reality of the moment- you were in a stuffy office and posed awkwardly in an uncomfortable chair.

“They would be lucky to have you.” He straightened up, moving away from your chair again. “But don’t overload yourself with work.”

“Do you expect Arkham to increase my workload?”

“Not at all. But it is stressful, at times.”

“I’ve been working retail for the past year. I think I can handle it.”

He only smiled, which was a relief because you had meant it as a joke and weren’t sure you could handle a lecture from him right now about how retail was actually nothing like working in an asylum. Not at all.

Because you were just going to be Jonathan’s assistant, the hiring process had been simple. So simple it didn’t quite seem legitimate. But you filled out the same tax forms as all the other jobs you worked, so at least you were employed in the eyes of the IRS. And that was legitimate enough for you.

Scanning over the contract for employment with Arkham, you didn’t miss how it was for one full year of employment. When you’d pointed it out to Jonathan, he simply shrugged and said the asylum was understaffed and needed to ensure they’d have enough people for at least a little while. When you asked if you needed to sign the contract that held you in that job for a year, he said it was non-negotiable. You knew that signing it didn’t mean they would force you to stay at the asylum if you wanted to quit, but it was enough to give you pause.

It meant that you had no easy way out if things should go south, that you couldn’t just up and leave like you had your last job. It would mean actually discussing leaving with Jonathan before you left, the prospect of which was slightly terrifying.

But with Jonathan standing over your shoulder, you quickly got over it and signed.

Taking your papers, Jonathan entered his office, leaving the door open behind him, an obvious invitation to follow. You entered, ignoring the ridiculous feeling that you had just signed over your soul and were now in the Devil's Den.

“I’ll get these returned to the hiring manager later. Today won’t be your first official day here but I’ll give you a more in depth tour of the building than the one you received last time.”

“Right.” You bit your lip. “And when will my first official day be…?”

“We can discuss scheduling when we get back to my office.”

With that, you left his office, passing by the sad desk that would become your new workspace. You already had some vague ideas of what you wanted to do with your area, items and decor to make it seem more home-y.

“Most of the places I will show you are necessary for you to know, at least their locations. If I need you to run papers around the building, it will be important for you to know where exactly you’re going and the most effective way to get there. And Arkham can be a bit… labyrinthine.”

An SAT word, nice. You think it to yourself jokingly, but he was right. The hallway layout of the hospital made no sense, especially not when you considered that these buildings had been renovated so many times in their history which should have made it more accessible rather than less.

“And paperwork will be the main part of your job.”

You walked quickly through the halls, down a single flight of stairs to the main atrium. He brought you through the hall into a large room that was separated into smaller blocks of space by half-walls and windows. On one of the exterior walls were a series of signs, too small and dusty for you to make out from your spot by the entrance of the room. Above all of them, painted on the wall, was the word INTAKE. One of the smaller areas was filled with boxes and clothes hanging on racks. When you passed it, the musty scent of clothes that have been sitting undisturbed for a very long time wafted into the walkway.

“It’s rare but sometimes we do release our patients back into society.”

Staring into the small area, you noticed that a lot of the boxes had undisturbed cobwebs connecting them to each other, that the clothes were full of holes from moths. From the looks of it, no one had been released in a long time.

You continued wordlessly through to the end of the room, not venturing into the interior of the room further. Jonathan simply pointed out where the guard working intake sat, the one currently on duty obviously fighting the urge to fall asleep at his desk.

Jonathan took you to the rec room, which was empty, and the cafeteria, also empty. Both rooms were large and dreary, much what you expected from them, with no lights except for the emergency lights that always stayed on. Both had the lingering smell of mold and something gone sour, whether it was body odor or food. Again, he pointed out where the guards and aides would be stationed when inmates were in the rooms.

You hoped, for your sake, that you would rarely have to step foot into either of the rooms.

As you walked on from the cafeteria, Jonathan wordlessly opened a nondescript door. Inside was a narrow cement stairwell, the metal railing rusting underneath chipped black paint. You turned to go upwards before you realized that Jonathan was already making his way down into the bowels of the asylum. Groaning internally and unable to stop yourself from wondering what exactly you had gotten yourself into, you began to follow him down.

But you couldn’t stop your small groan when he opened the door to the first level of the basement (the rest of the staircase down was blocked off with a metal gate, and when you peered over the edge you only saw the stairs slowly descending into darkness).

The basement of Arkham was initially like the rest of the building. In desperate need for some TLC but still presentable. But as you walked further into its depths, the less maintained it was. The floor became dull with questionable stains while the tiles on the wall were chipped in more places than not. The lights turned from a sterile fluorescent white to a dim yellow, the light bulbs buzzing above your heads as you walked past mysterious metal door after mysterious metal door. A majority of the door’s tiny windows were blocked out, rendering the interior of the room safe from your prying gaze.

“Where exactly are we going?”

“You’ll see.” He turned to look back over his shoulder at you. “Don’t worry.”

Finally, Jonathan stopped in front of a door that was identical to the others you’d passed on your way down here. The metal door creaked as he opened it, revealing a modestly sized office space.

“Here is my second office, the one I take most of my appointments in.”

You walked in, slowly taking in the space.

Oh, this is awful.

It was certainly different from his office upstairs or even his office at the university. This office was smaller, with black file cabinets along one wall, thick binders lined up along the tops. It obviously was a space with a purpose, the chairs in front of the desk worn with barely noticeable grooves from fingernails in the wooden arm-rests.

Looking down, you frowned. On the floor were small scratches, clearly from furniture being moved around and scraping against the tile. Something about them made you uneasy. His entire second office made you uneasy, but maybe it was just the claustrophobia from being below the surface of the island and in a tiny dark room.

Luckily, he also wasn’t eager to linger in the room, allowing you to peer around for a few minutes before opening the door again- it automatically shut behind the two of you- and leading you back into the dim hallway.

“Further down the hallway are Arkham’s records.” Jonathan pointed down the other side of the hallway, which was lit by a singular yellow light that flickered every few seconds. Somewhere in the distance, the ceiling was leaking, an audible drip-drip-drip that gave the entire hallway the smell of stagnant water in addition to the dank, earthy fragrance of mold.

You turned back to Jonathan, eyes lingering on every crack in the cinder-block and the cobwebs on the low ceiling. You’re honestly surprised anyone is allowed down here in the first place, let alone patients. For what it was worth, his office at least didn’t smell as bad as the hallway.

“Do you spend a lot of time down here?”

Jonathan smiled. “Not if I can help it.”

“Good. It’s horrifying.” You truly meant it, even if you smiled as you said it.

“I know.” He smiled back.

He led you back through the hallway, opening the same door into the stairwell. From the other side, it was also identical to every other door.

God I hope I’m never down here alone.

“I have one last thing to show you for today.”

You nodded, before affirming vocally after realizing that he couldn’t see you as you walked up the stairs. You continued past the first floor landing onto the second floor, where his office and your new workspace were located. But when he opened the door, he did not take you in the direction of his office but rather the opposite, into a part of the asylum you hadn’t been yet.

Finally, after a few minutes of silent walking as you took in every inch of your surroundings (even though most of the hallways in Arkham started to blend together, they were all so similar- you didn’t even think you had a good mental map of the layout, it was so confusing at times) he stopped by another metal door.

“You’ll rarely come back here, don’t worry. But there may be the occasional errand that sends you down this way, though I try to do those ones myself.”

Jonathan slid his card into the small keypad by the door, the heavy click of the lock unlatching following as his card exited the slot. Turning the handle, Jonathan pushed the rusted door open to reveal a long line of cells.

“Shit.” You didn’t realize the word escaped your mouth until you saw the quirk of Jonathan’s lip. If he wasn’t about to guide you into one of Arkham’s cell blocks, you might’ve delivered a swift slap to his arm at his blithe reaction to your distress. Might’ve.

As you entered the cellblock, you looked up at the second floor of cells. Large skylights let in the dim natural light of Gotham, though it was lost somewhere in the sterile lighting of the hospital. A thin staircase led up to the catwalks that served as walkways for the upper-level, their grates rusty and in need of a good dusting. But Jonathan walked right past the stairs, so you lowered your gaze and examined the first floor.

The corridor of cells was wide, the walkway separated by a railing. Arrows on the floor indicated which direction you were supposed to walk on each side. At both ends of the block were offices for the guards, their glass windows smudged with fingerprints. The cell doors themselves were made of metal and glass, with thin holes in the door allowing the inmate to speak out into the empty space for no one to hear.

And speak they did. The hallway was filled with the cacophony of voices, some more intelligible than others.

As you looked down the cell block, you saw him.

Edward was waiting by his window, his face pressed against the glass as he watched your slow approach, like he had been expecting you. It would be funny if you weren’t terrified. Not just because of him, but all the other inmates were free to leer at you as you were escorted down their hall, their first entertainment in a long time.

Is this how Clarice felt as she came up on Hannibal’s cage?

You didn’t realize that you had stopped in front of the cell until Jonathan started walking back to you, apparently only just noticing that he was alone. The inmate a few doors down from Edward made a low comment to Jonathan, which he ignored, with the only indication that he had heard him was a quick flick of his piercing eyes to the side.

Edward had taken a step away from the door, no longer pressed against it but still close, staring at you with the same expression as two weeks prior. Like he was smug, though you had no idea what he had to be smug about, especially not when it came to you.

Then he spoke.

“I know you.” His voice was light, conversational. Like his mind was stuck somewhere else and he wasn’t all the way with you. But his words still shocked you, even if you weren’t sure he knew exactly what he was saying.

“What?” You take a step backwards like he’d broken through the glass and slapped you in the face. He wasn’t talking about… “No, I was here a couple of weeks ago, you might’ve seen me then and-”

“No.” His voice was firm, startling you with the sudden change in his demeanor from airy to almost domineering. From disoriented to completely in control of his surroundings. “You were there in City Hall.”

As the words left his mouth, you remembered him, where you’d seen his face before, plain and unassuming as it was. Why hadn’t you placed his face when you’d seen his picture on the news, why had it taken until this moment to remember that you’d seen him before?

“It is karma, really.”

Marie was leaning on the railing, looking down at city hall’s ostentatious interior. You whipped your head around from where you’d also been looking down, but the movement caused you to stumble backwards into the person behind you. You mumbled an apology without even looking back at them, eyes focused on Marie.

“You really shouldn’t be saying things like that at a funeral.”

“You agree with me, you said the exact same thing the other day! You know I don’t care about this shit, you’re the one who’s been talking about it nonstop!”

You inhale sharply, trying to avoid the embarrassment of being around someone so shameless at a funeral, the shame of being ousted like this in public. Though you're sure no one was actually listening to your conversation.

“But you shouldn’t talk about it like that at the funeral of the guy!”

“You didn't have to drag me here.”

You furrowed your brows, suddenly more annoyed than you wanted to admit. You asked her to come because you were nervous. Nervous about the direction your paper was taking, about how it seemed to be morphing into a project based around the criminal and not the victim.

“It's for my project! Besides, I didn’t want to come al-”

Someone cleared their throat behind you, the same person who you’d knocked into. You looked back at them, realizing it was just an ordinary guy, a tense but polite smile on his face. There was no other way to describe him. Taller than you, but not in a way that was intimidating. The kind of man your eyes would slide right over on the street. Background noise.

“Am I in your way?” Why did you ask that? It was a general attendance, standing room only event for the public. You arrived three hours ago to get to this spot. He should have planned better if he wanted a better view. But still, you moved to the side, giving him space to look at the memorial.

“Thanks.” He muttered, shuffling past you to the railing. Marie gave you a wide eyed look, as if to say that you were a fool for moving from your spot, or at least that the guy was a weirdo. You returned with your own exasperated stare, tired of her judging someone she’d never met.

“You’re too nice to people.” She muttered, a bit too loud if the turn of the man’s head was anything to go off of. You shushed her, resisting the urge to apologize to the man. Maybe he just liked the mayor and wanted to pay his respects (doubtful, but you never know).

And then you completely forgot about the entire encounter moments after you found another spot to squeeze yourself along the railing. If other things hadn’t happened that day, maybe you would’ve thought back on it as a missed meet cute, but you were quickly distracted by the DA’s appearance in a collar bomb and the chaos that followed as you were escorted out of the building and told to go home.

No, you didn’t even remember the man when his face was on the news, his photo plastered on the screen with the headline RIDDLER APPREHENDED AND IN CUSTODY.

“Oh my god.”

“Karma, right?” He cocked his head to the side and a shiver ran down your spine at the thought of him listening to the conversation that you’d had- about him, no less, when he’d been at the scene of the funeral to watch the chaos that he’d planned unfold.... “How’d that project go?”

“I never-“ you stopped yourself, remembering that he didn’t need to know you never turned it in, that the anarchy that he caused at Gotham Square Garden put you in such a state you didn’t want to leave your apartment for fear of being shot at, targeted by faceless monsters in the night. That the only reason you passed the class was because you were lucky enough your professor was understanding and pulled some strings with the weight of other assignments. Besides, even if you had finished it and were able to turn it in, it would’ve been insensitive considering that it was about the terrorist who'd just attacked the city. “It’s really none of your business.”

Edward stared at you for a moment, unblinking, before the smile slid off of his face, his attention diverted somewhere down the corridor. You’re too busy watching him to realize what he was looking at, but his eyes slowly return to you, his eyebrows raised.

“What has a long neck, a name of a bird, feeds on ships' cargo, but is not alive?”

For a moment, his words didn’t sink in. When they did, you groaned internally. A riddle? You were well aware that it was his thing but you didn’t expect to actually be given one. Really, you never expected to be having a conversation with him like this.

Still, you wracked your brain for the answer, watching Edward watch you figure it out while looking at whatever caught his attention down the cell block. You realized the answer just as Jonathan returned to your side, his arrival obviously what Edward was watching.

A crane.

“Edward.” Jonathan placed his hand on the small of your back, a movement that Edward obviously noticed. His eyes dragged from where they’d been switching between you and Jonathan to where his hand was hidden behind your back. You could feel the chill of Jonathan’s palm through your thin shirt and cardigan. Jonathan gave Edward your name, and you could hear the smirk in his voice. “This is my new assistant.”

You whipped your head around, giving Jonathan a wide eyed look. Why the hell would he introduce you?

Edward repeated your name. Slowly. Drawn out. Like he was testing how the individual sounds formed on his tongue before he put them together to create your name.

“We’ve met before.”

Jonathan was quiet. You could feel his eyes on you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look away from Edward’s cell.

“I wouldn’t call that meeting.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t.” He was smug again, and you knew that there was something else he wasn’t telling you, that you were missing a piece of the puzzle. And then you had a sinking, suffocating, drowning feeling that you did, actually, know what it was (though it was more of an embarrassment than anything but it could certainly cause more of a stink in your life than you’d like if it was revealed).

The man in the cell beside Edward laughed, high and reedy, cutting through the cacophony of noise the other inmates created.

You finally turned to Jonathan.

“Can we leave now?”

Jonathan gave you a quick nod, not looking at Edward or any of the other inmates as he turned and began to lead you back down to the other exit of the cell block.

As you left, before you could stop yourself, you looked back at him. He was watching you leave, his hand raised in what might’ve been a goodbye wave. You didn’t return it, content to simply turn back around and ignore him.

“He remembered me.” You whispered as you left the cell block, more to yourself than to Jonathan, your eyebrows furrowed as you tried to figure out why.

“He remembers everything. It stops being impressive when you realize how much of it is useless.” Jonathan responded as if you had been having a decent conversation and he hadn’t just overheard what you whispered to yourself.

Despite yourself, you bristled at his tone. Both at the implication that Edward was wasting his time remembering everything (like he could help it) and that once again, Jonathan was reminding you that you were unimportant in the grand scheme of Gotham.

“I’m sure it was important to him.”

“You shouldn’t feel bad for him.” He turned to look at you, stopping in the middle of the hallway. A nurse scoffed and rolled her eyes as she had to reroute herself around the two of you, her clogs smacking against the floor. “Do I need to remind you that everyone here is a criminal? These aren’t just people with mental illness. These are rapists and murderers, sadistic pieces of work that don’t deserve your pity. Don’t try to humanize them.”

“I’m not-“ You took a deep breath, forcing yourself to remember what he’d done. That Jonathan was right and you shouldn’t feel bad about how Jonathan spoke to or about him. It stung, but you pushed your apprehension down. “Will I have to see the patients often?”

“Rarely.” But as he said it, he looked away from you, turning and continuing to walk down the hallway, and you didn’t find yourself too confident in his response. Still, you began walking with him again.

Realistically, you shouldn’t see the inmates ever. You shouldn’t have even been allowed in the cell block today. But you, and everyone else with a brain in Gotham, were well aware that Arkham Asylum was severely underfunded, even with charitable donations from people like Bruce Wayne. Portions of the Renewal fund were supposedly allotted for the hospital, but obviously that was no longer the case now that Bruce Wayne was overhauling that whole system.

You wondered, briefly, who or what the money was funneled to instead.

Either way, with the hospital not having enough funds to ensure there was enough staff in the hospital at any given time, you’re sure that you would end up being shoved somewhere you weren’t qualified for just so the ratio of patients to supervisors was intact. And, despite yourself, underneath the fear you had about the prospect was excitement.

Jonathan stopped at his office again.

“How did you meet him before?”

“Oh.” You winced, embarrassed that Edward had felt the need to mention it again. “I guess we ran into one another at the mayor’s funeral. I’d forgotten all about it until he mentioned it. It wasn’t the sort of encounter that sticks with you.”

“I’d assumed as much.”

“But I also-“ You stopped yourself, unsure if you wanted to continue. But Jonathan had been moving as you’d spoken, and appeared to not have heard you. Taking it as a sign, you kept your confession inside, though it was burning in your mind.

But I also found my way into one of his streams and I think he knows it.

“I’ll have to come back up here but I can take you to your apartment.”

Your bag was slung over one shoulder, your phone clutched in the opposite hand. You had no notifications, which wasn’t too unusual, but you did note the lack of reliable service in the asylum, even as you were walking out of the doors. You’d expected to be required to lock your phone away but if there was a requirement, Jonathan hadn’t told you about it. Still, you had kept it in your bag the entire day, which in turn was locked in Jonathan’s office while you were out touring the building.

“Are you sure?”

“How else would you get home?”

Briefly, you reflected on the fact that you had accepted a job on an island when you didn’t currently own a car. Jonathan had, of course, been seemingly happy to offer to be your ride every day and yet it had you feeling… trapped. But you shook it off, reminding yourself that this job was a good opportunity and having a car in Gotham was more trouble than it was worth.

“You’re right.” Though your question had been meant to see if he really had to come back after taking you home. But you also were well aware that Jonathan had more work at the asylum and it wasn’t the kind you could just shirk off if you weren’t feeling like doing it.

Outside, the day was bright even though the clouds covered the sun. You could tell that it was going to rain later from the ominous clouds in the distance but it was blessedly dry as you walked through the employee parking lot to Jonathan’s car.

As you sat in the passenger seat of Jonathan's car, you looked at his slender neck, thinking back to the riddle Edward had given you earlier.

What has a long neck, the name of a bird, feeds on ships' cargo, but is not alive?

Obviously, it meant the machines, which were littered around Gotham as beacons for abandoned projects and attempts at bettering the city, not Jonathan himself. But two out of the four applying to him was a bit humorous, though you’d never tell Jonathan that.

You leaned over the railing of your balcony/glorified fire escape, your phone pressed against your face as you listened to one…two…three rings. Even worse, the person you were calling picked up and you scrambled mentally, trying to remember what you had wanted to say.

“Hi, Marie?” You couldn’t stop tapping the fingers of your unoccupied hand against the railing. “It’s me. Yeah…. Me.” You sighed, a bit lamely. Exactly how should you come back into someone’s life after over a year of radio silence?

“It’s nice to hear from you but… why?” She sounded wary, and you didn’t blame her. After Gotham Square Garden, you had shut her and your other friends out, trying to cope with the sudden increase of your anxiety without involving them. It had seemed noble at the time, but by the time you realized the damage that isolating yourself from your support system had done, it felt like it was too late.

You faltered for a moment in your resolve to tell her about your discovery, that the two of you had met the Riddler and not realized it, afraid that it would seem the past year of your life was only defined by him and that night.

Which it had been, at least until it became defined by Dr. Jonathan Crane.

“I hope it‘s not too late to fix some burned bridges.”

Marie chuckled, though there wasn’t much humor in it. But it wasn’t mean, and that’s all that mattered.

“It’s never too late.” She said. Even though she could be brash and horribly unsentimental, you were glad you called her first.

“Do you want to get coffee sometime?”

next part

#jonathan crane x reader #edward nashton x reader #scarecrow x reader #the riddler x reader #stbotdi #my fanfiction #my writing #my fic #the batman #batman fanfiction

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attentionthisisarobbery · 2 years

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Eddie Munson's Music Taste

So for anyone that isn't well versed in metal, I thought it might be helpful to take a look at Eddie's taste in music for anyone wanting to write fanfiction or make fan content of any kind.

First off, let's look at the bands we know Eddie listens to from costume design, set design, and the script.

Metallica and Black Sabbath are the ones we know about from the script itself. Looking at Eddie's battle jacket, we can add W.A.S.P., Mercyful Fate, Judas Priest, and Accept (from the pins), Motörhead, Iron Maiden, and Megadeth (from the patches), and Dio from the back patch. Then, if we look closely at Eddie's room in the trailer, we can see that he also likes Anthrax and Liege Lord. Now, a lot of these bands would be considered heavy metal:

Motörhead

Iron Maiden

Judas Priest

Mercyful Fate

Dio

Liege Lord

Black Sabbath

A couple would be considered Thrash Metal:

Metallica

Megadeth

Anthrax

But one straddles the line between shock rock, heavy metal, and glam metal (or as Eddie would have called it in the 80s, hair metal):

W.A.S.P.

So, Eddie likes heavy metal, thrash metal, and hair metal - in that order, right? Well, not necessarily. Anthrax actually prompted the creation of the term "thrash metal," after their 1984 song Metal Thrashing Mad, and as such, there weren't a ton of thrash bands on the scene in 1986. So, it may not be that Eddie prefers heavy metal to thrash; it may just be that heavy metal is a well established genre that he's been exposed to for a longer period of time.

Then there's W.A.S.P. - our little hair metal outlier. Hair metal, or as it's usually referred to today, glam metal, is actually a source of tension in the metal community to this day. The entire culture around metal as a musical genre is heavily based in nonconformity, with popular metal bands creating music that would be seen as less accessible to the general public, because they refuse to fall in line with the mainstream.

Metal is a form of protest on top of being a great musical genre. A part of what classifies different types of metal (thrash, black, death, etc.) is what the lyrics are protesting against. For instance, black metal tends to be very anti-Christian, and thrash metal, emerging in the 80s, tends to be anti-conservative, anti-establishment, anti-war, and anti-environmental destruction. Check out Disposable Heroes by Metallica for strong example of this.

Hair metal came onto the scene at about the same time as thrash metal, and boy did metalheads have a lot to say about it. Hair/glam metal is still metal, but it's more accessible, more pop-influenced, and as a rule, doesn't really protest much through lyrics. Instead, the songs were designed to be just mainstream enough that they could top the charts and make more money as a result. Think Mötley Crüe, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Dokken, Twisted Sister, and Bon Jovi. But for metalheads, this was a departure from everything they stood for. Metal couldn't conform to the mainstream's expectations and still be metal.

Now, W.A.S.P. is kind of a special case, because although their sound is very much based in hair metal - pop hooks and guitar riffs combined with a blend of heavy metal, hard, and punk rock, with songs starting off slow and building in tempo with the occasional shred guitar solo thrown in - nothing else about them was palatable for the mainstream.

Their lyrics were considered highly offensive, so much so that their first single, Animal (Fuck Like A Beast), was removed completely from their first album release in the US, so it could be sold in chain stores. Their live performances were equally shocking: this is why they are classified as "shock rock." They became known for cutting up meat with chainsaws on stage, and then throwing said meat into the audience, as well as very raunchy displays of partial nudity, S&M, and simulated sex acts. W.A.S.P. actually became quite controversial in later years for their misogynic lyrics, being accused of promoting abuse and sexual assault.

But forget the politics for now. What does this mean for Eddie? Well, by virtue of also being shock rock, W.A.S.P. gets a bit of a pass when it comes to the conformity of hair metal, since they were still completely unpalatable for a mainstream audience. But the thing I want to point out is that Eddie doesn't hate W.A.S.P.'s sound. He might actually enjoy other hair metal bands as well, but wouldn't feel comfortable advertising it.

This is all just food for thought. You can use this information however you like in your fanworks. Maybe Eddie's trying to keep up an image and secretly loves ABBA, who the hell knows? I just thought I'd share this for anyone who wanted a little extra insight in the character and his music taste. It also might be cool to note that throwing horns (see Eddie in the picture below) originated with Ronnie James Dio back when he joined Black Sabbath in 1979. He said that his grandmother had used the gesture to ward off evil.

ALSO, I have to add this last part because the vocabulary used by metalheads can be confusing to the uninitiated. So, 'metal' is an umbrella term for all kinds of metal music. 'Heavy metal' is ALSO an umbrella term for all kinds of metal music, but it can also refer to the specific musical style established by the bands listed above under 'heavy metal': Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Iron Maiden. So someone might refer to thrash metal as a subgenre of heavy metal, and then turn around and say that they prefer thrash metal to heavy metal. You just kind of have to use context clues to figure out how the words are being used.

ALSO ALSO, please stop calling Eddie a punk, goth, etc. Those are different things. If in your fanwork Eddie is actually a goth, then by all means, but as he exists in canon, he would consider himself a metalhead. (could be funny to see how he reacts to other characters mixing it up tho)

#stranger things #eddie munson #metal #metalhead #heavy metal #thrash metal #80's thrash #glam metal #hair metal #shock rock #I'm not gonna say how I feel about the whole W.A.S.P. thing #but I didn't link the song in case someone might be upset by it

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positive-peduncle · 4 months

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Bad Ideas to implement into your fanfictions

I've had some awful ideas to implement into a Merlin fanfiction or something. Please know this is so unserious. I decided sending this to just my friend wasn't enough, so enjoy.

Gaius is going around bloodletting people.

The cattle is dying. Uther is blaming the sorcerers. You know it's probably anthrax.

You explain to Uther that it is anthrax. There was miscommunication and there is now a bounty for the evil warlock by the name of Anthrax because Uther doesn't comprehend that it's a disease.

In this self insert you are a modern american trying to get help and escape this fictional world. They all make fun of your accent.

You cannot escape this universe because no one communicates and for whatever reason they keep going on side quests or getting kidnapped.

The end. This was mostly just something stupid so that my blog wasn't empty, and frankly, a lot of this is funnier in my head. (I was learning about diseases in one of my classes around the time I came up with these, hence the mentions of bloodletting and anthrax.)

#Merlin #anthrax #gaius #bbc merlin #self insert #parody #AU

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bleachersgirl · 2 years

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why is there still no fanfiction or art about cool guy vampire mikey way who listens to anthrax and wears leather jackets and his weird brother vampire gerard who still dresses like dracula. hello???????

#mcr

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askeletonintheclosetfic · 4 years

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The one with flaming hair and painted roses

November 24, 1986.

Wow, what a DAY!

First of all, we met Jason over breakfast. He's this tall, long haired boy with a big beaming smile on his face. He was so nice to the three of us, and to Clara in particular. He, like Frankie and Charlie, called her an inspiration from her blindness and her willingness to make art in spite of it all.

He and Ceecee got to talking about guitars and bass, and he mentioned about the previous band he played in called Flotsam and Jetsam.

“Came down to Phoenix and everything,” he noted as he picked at his scrambled eggs. “They just so happened to be there and needed a bassist by the time my other band broke up.”

“Wow!” she declared. “So you too got quite the lucky break.”

“Yup, played my last show with them on Halloween and came on board with Metallica on the eighth. Cheers—” He lifted his coffee mug for a toast to her.

Next, we were at rehearsal afterwards, and we set up our acoustic guitars for our tiny set within this large auditorium. It's not that large—Scott told me it houses two thousand at the most—but it's the most Ceecee and I have performed in front of. We're going to be sitting on a pair of stools with microphones in front of our mouths and propped upon our guitars. It's the most people I'm going to be singing in front of. All I can think of is how Joey and James do it every night. I just need to think of them the whole time. Charlie painted us a little black crescent moon next to a bright red heart on a stretched white square canvas to act as our temporary moniker. I propped it up against a black vase holding three violets on a narrow table between us. Clara suggested we buy some incense while we're on the road to add a little more nuance to our set.

As we congregated there in the middle of our small stage with our guitars resting in our lap, Lars strode on over to us with his arm around a tall gentleman, much taller than him.

He towered over us in fact, with his long wavy fiery red hair, snug leather jacket, and fitted skinny jeans with holes in the knees.

He introduced himself as Dave. Dave Mustaine.

The front man of his own band Megadeth after he was fired from Metallica.

Apparently he's living in a ramshackle shanty town of sorts near Central Park, but he hitched a ride over here to Rhode Island because he heard Black Moon is touring with his old band mates Metallica. He also overheard some acoustic guitars playing while walking by the back door so he couldn't help but poke his head in.

He's another one with bit of an odd twinkle in his eye, kind of Joey. But Joey's more boyish and a total kid at heart whereas Dave looks like he wants to protect the both of us.

He sat there next to us as we performed Heart's “Straight On” for him and it coaxed a nodding of the head out of him.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“You girls definitely have somethin' going,” he told us. He pointed at me. “What'd you say your name was again? Charlotte?”

(Charlotte's note: HA!)

“Chris,” I corrected him.

“Chris! Yeah, I like how you have this kinda—melancholic lounge singer quality to you. The chanteuse, I wanna call it. Like if you didn't have a guitar on you, you could probably be in a night club with a nice slinky dress on. Very retro. Like Lars told me your influences, but it makes me think of the Great Depression era in a vage sort of way. Those early, early folk singers.”

I didn't dare tell him about the King of Hearts and the possibility of Ceecee and me getting our bodies sliced up from the chest outward. Maybe that explained it.

And then the third thing was our dinner together with the guys from Overkill and Nuclear Assault. It was an awful lot of people crowded into that tiny buffet room, especially since we all were hungry after a long day of rehearsal and technical set up for Black Moon's intimate set to play before Anthrax's rambunctious one.

Joey, Frankie, Ceecee, Clara, and I all sat on the edge of the room next to Bob from Overkill, who's basically Joey with light skin and blond hair, and Danny from Nuclear Assault, who gave up his seat for Clara when he saw the cane in her hand.

Joey turned to me for a second and told me to watch over his plate with my life for a second. He wove through the crowd and disappeared into the hallway. I craned his neck to see where he went.

“Where'd Joe Mama go?” Danny asked me in a joking manner as he stood before us with his plate resting in his one hand.

“Dunno,” I confessed to him with a laugh and a shrug of my shoulders, “he just said to look over his food for a minute—”

“Here he comes!” he declared right before he took another bite of quiche Lorraine. “I recognize his standard poodle hair.”

Joey emerged from behind two guys from Overkill—I forget their names. I'll learn everyone's names come Christmas.

But he emerged from behind them cradling a bouquet of white roses with speckles of crimson red on the petals.

“Okay, these were supposed to be white roses—but there's some red on them, though?” he told me as he handed it to me.

“Aw, Chris, you lucky girl!” Ceecee declared. I set the plates aside so I could stand to my feet and take the roses. I put my free arm around his slender body. I didn't know what to say to him other than the breathy “thank you—you are so sweet” into his ear.

“You're a gentleman, Joe,” said Frankie once he let go of me to give him and Bob a couple of high-fives.

It took me to return to the room a little bit ago for me to realize the red speckles are blood. I smelled them and picked up that faint ferric smell over the fresh one.

My boy gave me roses, albeit deadly painted ones.

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feverinfeveroutfic · 1 month

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”have a cigar”

(drawing by me)

I had found it in the back of the closet of my new bedroom. Sure, Alex brought out the pizza peel and the roasting buds for a good time and a half, but I knew when to snoop and take my time out with the back of the closet. I knew that he and I could get down with it, but I had an ace up my sleeve that he never saw coming before, even if he never really had the chance to see it for himself.

On that particular morning, I found myself alone in the house as the two of them had headed out for another neighborhood wedding. At that point, I could let myself into any part of their house as I liked: I saved their asses and thus, I could let myself into any part of the house, barring that I cleaned up after myself. They had plenty to worry about as is, and they needn’t worry about someone like me leaving something behind in my wake.

I could go into their bedroom and take my spot on the edge of Chuck’s bed, all just to feel the shape of him there on the side of the mattress. It was moments like that in which I wished for some way to break through the royalty because I knew none of them and none of us wanted to be hitched up like this.

There was a point in which I lay down flat on my back, right in the spot on the mattress, the one I knew Chuck lay in for the night, and I closed my eyes. I yearned to feel him, to feel my soulmate, even more than I had known from before, and more so when I folded my hands over my chest. It was as if I could feel his heart just by laying there in his spot.

I could sense a brief moment coming up for the both of us: when they walked in through that door downstairs, Chuck would find his way back up to the bedroom for a moment alone, and Alex would go off into a room of his own as well. The two of them lived one another, but they both relished their alone time.

And yet, I knew that if I lay there in the bed, there was no way that I could naturally lead myself into a moment with Chuck. At least not with Alex there with him.

I opened my eyes and gazed up at the ceiling over me.

Something to surprise him.

There had to be something in order to surprise him when they returned home. There had to be something in order to bring him closer to me. I was a simple boy but I was alone, and I had the markings on me to prove it to him as well.

I climbed off the bed and padded back into the hallway: the house still remained silent even as I wandered on back over to my room. To reach down within me to find the right answer for it all.

I ran my hands down the seat of my pants: I wore nothing but blue jeans for the day, blue jeans and bare feet. I had to do more than mere blue jeans and bare feet.

I kept the door open as I delved through the closet for something, anything, anything that caught my eye. I looked on at my raincoat, a long black coat that extended down to my knees, even though it wasn’t as cold that day. Something bright shimmered behind one of the long-sleeved shirts that Chuck had gotten for me.

It was consisted of black and red stretchy nylon, complete with a stripe of fishnet mesh down the sides of the hips.

It was such a dumb idea, but I chuckled to myself when I thought about it.

I changed out of my clothes and put it on. It fit me so well, like such a glove.

I wanted to parade around the house with it on, but not with Alex around. And I heard the door open and close right then so I had to think in a haste.

Careful not to let it bunch up around my crotch and my ass, I put my pants on followed by my shirt. By my surprise, it stayed fitted to my body even with my clothes on over it.

I made my way down the stairs right as Alex breezed into the kitchen for something. Chuck turned his attention to me, and all the while, he showed me a little smile: those eyes as bright and luminous as the twilight sky, and his skin as rich and brown as the darkest chocolate I could ever possibly dream of.

“What’s all this?” he asked me.

“What’s all what?” I shook my head and tucked my hands into my pockets.

“Coming up to me like you have something to tell me,” he answered as he ran his fingers through his rich dark molasses-colored waves.

“I just wanna be with you for a second,” I confessed to him. He hooded his eyes at me. My heart pounded in my chest.

“You wanna go and chill in the next room?”

“What about Alex?” I asked him in a hushed whisper.

“Don’t worry about him—he’s got plans of his own.” He flashed me a wink, and he set a hand on my shoulder to guide me away from the front door and the entrance to the kitchen. We strode on over to the hallway under the stairs, but before we could head on to the back of the house, he showed me the cupboard door under the steps. He reached past me for the rim of the door, and I was shown a small cupboard about the size of a broom closet under the steps. Chuck then reached into his back pocket for something, and he showed me his black ball cap with a silken red interior.

Before he could come inside himself, I reached up and tugged on the chain that dangled down from the ceiling. Pale yellow light washed over us, and I pressed myself against the wall opposite from the door. He sealed us in there, complete with another run of his fingers through his hair. Nothing in there but a trio of shelves and a table with a pair of accompanying stools.

“Have a seat,” he coaxed me, and I was quick to sink onto the stool closest to me. The stocking rode up in my crotch and up my ass, but no way could I let him see me like that, however.

“Care for a glass of wine?” he offered me.

“Chuck, please. You know I don’t drink.”

“Oh, come on. You know you want some wine, Joey.”

I pursed my lips at that. The stocking had lodged itself between my crotch and my thigh, and it was stuck in my ass as well. He cocked his head to the side at the sight of me.

“You okay?” he asked me, slightly puzzled.

“Never better,” I promised him.

“You look like you have ants in your pants, though. You’re sitting like it.”

I let my eyes wander to the door itself: he had closed it all the way, meaning Alex was oblivious to us.

“Okay, fine.” I stood to my feet and unzipped my jeans. I was commando underneath, all for him. Chuck nudged the bill of his cap up for a better look at me: those luminous eyes lit up as if we were entrenched in total darkness and he bestowed me with the only way out of there.

“Goddamn, where’d you find that?” he asked me in a hushed voice.

“I found it in your closet,” I confessed to him as I took off my shirt and slung it over my shoulder as if I was stripping for him. Somewhere in the house was that stripper pole. But I had my own ass and my long hair. I turned around for him to see the shape of my body from behind.

“You really trying to get yourself killed, aren’t you?” he teased me, and he reached out and squeezed my ass with both hands. I pressed myself against the wall, to which he followed suit right behind me. I could feel him right inside of my ass, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself. He raked his fingers through my hair, and he dropped his hands down to my hips as if he was feeling the stocking as well as the shape of my body. It sent a chill up my spine, and I gasped as a result.

He kissed my neck, and I showed him my tongue as if to further tease him. He brought his hand down in front of my belly to my belt and then over to my left hip as if to hold me close to him.

I held onto his wrist to steady him, to which he gasped in my ear.

We held still there before the wall.

I guided his hand down to my crotch. His fingers spread over the fabric, and I could feel him on me. I wanted him to touch me through the fabric, through the stocking.

Chuck treated me to a gentle whimper right into my ear, and more so when I guided the palm of his hand right down onto my tip. I could already feel myself firming up by the mere thought alone. I closed my eyes when he curled his fingers over me.

“There’s a hell, I have seen it,” he whispered right into my ear.

“There is a heaven, let’s keep it a secret,” I whispered back to him, and he tightened his grip on me. I never wanted to lose this feeling, and I never wanted to leave that cupboard, either.

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nowitsdarkfic · 5 years

Text

chapter nineteen (down by the river)

“My name is Matt Foley. I am a motivational speaker, I am thrice divorced, and I live in a VAN down by the RIVER!” -Chris Farley

October 17, 1988. University District of Seattle, Washington.

Lars had told Kim that I had to stay at his place for another day, which is fine because Kim takes good care of me here in his apartment, but the only issue is that leaves me with nothing to do other than whack off some more and entertain myself--if I wanted to do any of that, I could’ve stayed home with my Mike n Ikes and not come clear across the country. But on the other hand, as long as Mrs. Snow doesn't make an appearance to dance with me I think I'll be fine. But I can't help but feel bored by the time the afternoon rolls around.

Kim had gone off with Chris, Matt, and Hiro back to their studio to some final touches on their album, and I have no means of getting a hold of Spence to see how Brick's doing in the hospital. I do, however, have a pencil and a pad of lined paper that I found on the coffee table next to the couch, which means I can write down everything that's happened the past few days, from the night Jonny told me I was done leading up to this point. It's all I can do at the moment while I'm by myself. Indeed, I fill out about five pages of paper, front and back.

At about two in the afternoon, I open the drapes on the window to peer out to the smooth black apartment buildings before me. They all look so plain in the daylight, even with the dense overflowing green gardens nestled upon the rooftops surrounded by the chrome, but I know in a few hours, it all will light up to pure neon.

And then I remember I don't have to stay here if it's going to be all day, which it will be.

I return to the couch for my jacket and my pants, and lace up on my shoes. As I'm putting my coat on, I feel the arrowhead pendant in the pocket.

I pick it out of there as I walk out of the apartment to the hallway. I don't know if this is going to get me into a lot of trouble or not, but I'm doing it anyway. I raise the pendant once I reach the hallway and open up a new wormhole. I clutch it in my hand before climbing inside. I keep my focus on the other end once the soles of my feet leave the ground.

I fall onto my shoulder upon a stretch of soft grass.

I open my eyes to the gray overcast sky stretching over a row of oak trees. I recognize the cold snow capped point of Mount Hood off in the distance through the trees.

But then again, where exactly in Portland did I bring myself to?

I pick myself up off the ground to take a better look around. Before I do so, I tie the arrowhead pendant around my neck so I don't worry about losing it.

Behind me is that line of tall scraggly trees; to the right of me stands a bridge leading into a part of town. Meanwhile, to the left is a stretch of river, cold black waters that are moving very slowly. I shiver at the very sight of the water, and I think there's a breeze blowing, but there isn't. It's as still as it was the other day when I first came here. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something big and black looming towards me on the grass. I recognize her skull head underneath the black hood. My stomach turns at the very sight of her.

“Death,” I whisper. “Death—no. I'm still not ready yet.”

Her black cloak floats over the grass in the form of a bunch of tatters. I swallow at the sight of her.

“Please—I swear to you. I'm not dead.”

She raises her skeleton hand and gestures for me to move in closer. But I don't know if she wants to harvest me or if she wants to do something else with me. But all I know is the sight of her is making me feel cold again.

“Follow me,” she coaxes me in a delicate whisper. I peer behind me to the river to make sure no one else is here. Nope—just us here on the shore of this river somewhere around Portland. She drifts back from me, along the grass towards the tree line, and I clutch at the collar of my jacket before following her. The blade of her scythe glimmers behind her head as we approach a bend in the shore which happens to have a thick bush in the way. Death floats around it in a thick black effervescent cloud but I duck into the trees, where I almost fall ass over teakettle into a pile of mulch surrounded by a few of those wooden surveyor stakes.

I stop myself once I make out the shape of a pile of black boxes, all of which stacked on top of each other. There's no tools, just pitch black boxes and a pile of white wires, some that resemble a lot like the ones back in Seattle.

“What the hell is all of this?” I wonder aloud. Death floats up next to me, with her meager hands out before her and tatters of her cloak streaking out before her even though there still isn't any wind.

“What is this?” I ask her again, and she doesn't reply. But rather she floats forward to the boxes, and I step around the mulch and the survey stakes for a better look myself. All of this odd machinery here in the trees. I approach the stacks of boxes to examine the dark silver lettering imprinted on the top edges.

“'Maxwell Industries,'” I read aloud. “Maxwell, as in my friend Brick?”

Death once again doesn't answer me but rather floats closer to the ground: the large black holes making up her eye sockets gape back at me.

“You... look like you want to tell me something,” I admit to her.

“The young lady you found—Maya,” she begins, “what do you think happened to her?”

I swallow again as I recall my epiphany from the night before. The very thought of it makes my stomach turn.

“I think—I think someone tried to torture her,” I sputter out. She floats closer to me with her fingers extended as if she's about to touch me with her caress.

“Are you sure?” she asks me.

“Am I sure—? Um, yes.”

She drifts past me towards the pile of boxes. I watch her float in silence around them to something behind them. She's back there for a little bit before I decide to follow her there.

She's looming around what looks like a bird bath, a smooth stone basin held up by a concrete base. There's a little bit of water in there.

I move in closer and when I do, I catch a whiff of alcohol.

The clouds break open right then and gray sunlight filters in through the trees. A bit of sunlight shines over the inside of the basin and I can see some writing inscribed on the inside.

“Burrow deep into the earth, and you will find water,” it says. I think back to what Maya said in her zine: “If I burrow deep into the earth, my hope is I don't find any water because I could drown.”

I turn my head to face Death right as she sinks down to the ground as if she's about to disappear.

“Not torture,” I mutter aloud. “Not torture? Not torture!”

Her scythe returns to form in her hand.

“Back to New York, Joseph,” she whispers to me. “Back to New York,” I repeat, “you want me to go back to New York? What for?”

Once again, she doesn't reply but rather dissipates out into the trees. I fetch up a sigh.

“Back to New York it is—” I repeat, taking out the arrowhead from underneath my shirt collar.

#after the watershed #now it's dark #chapter 19 #new chapter #fanfic #fanfiction #heavy metal fanfiction #anthrax fanfiction #joey belladonna #anthrax #noir au #cyberpunk #gothic horror #thrash metal #amwriting #text

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josiebelladonna · 1 year

Text

paraselenae | repoussoir

pairing: alex skolnick x chuck billy/alex skolnick x joey belladonna/chuck billy x joey belladonna (like blood from a stone)

genre: royalty au/modern royalty

fandoms: testament and anthrax

*18+ only; minors dni*

Warnings: phone sex

*Please note that you are responsible for your own media consumption. I came here to write and relax, not police you.*

Summary: just a regular little ol' phone conversation between three boyos. nothing to see here~ 😉

Word Count: 3347

It wasn’t often that I had a whole day to myself there at the house, and more so when Joey was in there with me, and yet the very few times in which we were alone together, I relished every moment of it. Those afternoons remained few and far between where it was merely me and him in that house, and yet every single time, whenever I found the opportunity to have an actual moment with him, something came up and it would steal away our time together.

On this particular day, the phone rang, and Joey himself was down in the basement with all the leftover clothes that Chuck wanted to sell off to Goodwill at some point that following week. I had just climbed out of the shower, and thus, I still my towel wrapped around my hips and my hair dangled over my shoulder, and all the while, it dripped down my chest and my back. At least it wasn’t cold in the house, but I still felt a chill in my back, however. A chill in my back and a pain in my head, as if I couldn’t exactly find the thing that I needed to scratch.

The phone rang, and I hurried to the phone port itself, right on the nightstand next to Chuck’s side of the bed, and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“There’s my prince,” he greeted me in that low voice.

“Oh, hi. Where’d you go?”

“Oh, I just went into town and I wanted to call you from the car and ask if we need anything from the grocery store—you know, anything specific.”

“Uh, nothing I can think of off-hand,” I confessed as I rested my hand on my bare chest.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

I could hear him smack his lips on the other end, a sign that he wanted something from me, be it a nice thing or something that he so desperately could not live without at that very moment. The butterflies danced about my stomach at the sound, and more so when he cleared his throat as if he was about to say something else right then.

It was right at that moment I caught a click on the other end.

“Hang on, hang on, hang on, there’s someone on the other line,” I told him, and I pressed the button on the phone. “Hello?”

“Alex?” That upstate accent caught my ear.

“Joey?”

“What’re you doing?” he asked me.

“I’m on the phone with Chuck, and—” I stopped right in my tracks. “Wait a minute, where’d you find another phone?”

“Down in the basement,” he flatly replied, to which I raised an eyebrow.

“Where’d you find another phone down in the basement?” I asked him, slightly puzzled.

“It’s right by the furnace,” he continued, still in a flat tone of voice.

“What is it doing by the furnace?” I had to stifle a chuckle at that.

“I dunno. What am I doing by the furnace? Why am I not as hot as you on a summer day?”

“Get off the phone, I'm talking to Chuck,” I scoffed.

“Ooh! Can I talk to him?”

“No.”

I pressed the button again for Chuck’s line.

“Hey, you still there?” I asked him.

“You know I can hear you on the other line,” he told me.

“Are you serious?” I raised my eyebrows at that.

“Dead serious.”

“Okay, hang on, let me see if I can get Joey again—” I pressed the button again.

“Joey?”

“I’m here.”

“Hang on, let me see if I can get Chuck again,” I told him, and I pressed the button.

“Hang on, let me see if I can get Chuck again,” Chuck himself reiterated.

“So, you heard him say where he found the phone?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I thought you knew we still had it,” he told me point-blank.

“No! I didn’t see anything down there the last time I went down there.”

“You sure?”

“Positive!”

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“You are hotter than the furnace on a summer day, Alex,” Chuck told me in a low voice.

“Is that—what you wanted to tell me?” I asked him with a clearing of my throat.

“Yes!” he declared. “Now, do we need anything from the market?”

“Um... eggs? Eggs.”

“Okay.”

“And... cake?”

“Cake? What kind of cake?”

“Carrot?”

“Carrot cake?” He sounded genuinely taken aback by that.

“Yes. I'm really hankering for it right now.”

“Mmm-kay. What about for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Chocolate muffins?”

“Sounds good by me.” He puckered his lips on the other end, and then, when he hung up the phone, I pressed the button again for Joey, but he had gone at that point. I sighed through my nose as I hung up the receiver. I was about to stand up and hang up the towels when I caught the sound of Joey laughing downstairs. I held still as I tried to hang onto every single word, and yet, it was beyond me.

I lingered over by the door panel, and I opened the door ever so slightly; he was talking to someone downstairs. But then again, I only heard his voice down there.

I ran a hand down my bare chest, onto my bare belly, and nothing could deny the nervous fluttery feeling within me. Careful not to make the floor underneath me creak under my weight, I crept back to the phone receiver and picked it up, and I held it close to my ear.

“We all should wave our dicks around willy-nilly,” Joey suggested.

“Why would we wave our dicks around?” Chuck asked, and I gaped at that. It was strange given I never heard the phone ring once I had hung up, but then again, Chuck did mention that he could hear me on the other line. To me, it sounded like I could get away with it complete without it even so much as indicating someone else was on the other line. I held my lips open a bit as I listened in on the two of them.

“’Cause it’s fun,” Joey was saying. “We’ll be out in the open with our pants down and our cocks out in the open air, and we could spin ‘em around like windmills.”

I clasped a hand to my mouth to keep myself from laughing my ass off at that.

“Well, what about Alex, though?” Chuck asked him in a low, whispery voice.

“What about Alex? He could join in if he wants. You know how he is, Chuck.”

“I do know how he is. He's a nasty, dirty boy even though he’ll never admit it.”

I squinted my eyes at that.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Joey began again.

“Go right ahead. I won’t tell Alex, and I sure as shit won’t tell Cliff, either.”

“Cliff?” I mouthed.

“I’m feeling a little bit attracted to Alex,” Joey confessed.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I dunno, I can’t explain it. He's so—hypnotic and sensual—and he seems to let it all out so effortlessly, like remember the other day, he was wearing that white silk shirt with the collar undone?”

“Oh, yeah, and it showed off his chest? I picked that out for him.”

“Oh my god,” Joey breathed into the phone. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Chuck—I love his chest hair.”

“I do, too,” Chuck quipped; it was right then I looked down at my chest and the little sprigs of dark hair all in between my nipples. Not a lot of chest hair but my guess was that Joey had seen me at the absolute right light, because I had worn that shirt in question and when I stood in shadow, it looked as though I had a lot more there. I ran my tongue along my bottom lip as I listened on.

“You should feel it, too, Joey,” Chuck continued. “It’s soft and plush, almost downy. The first night we lay down together, I reached out and touched him there, and I thought I was going to cum for him right then and there.” The mere sound of his voice made me want to sit down on the carpet with my back to the edge of the bed and my shoulder up against the leg of the nightstand.

“How easy do you cum, by the way?”

“Pretty easily. Like, the first time I jerked off, I was surprised how quickly it came out.” He fell silent for a moment. “Why? You wanna dance around with my cum?”

“Nah. Now the question is—do you wanna dance around with me and make me cum?”

“I could dance around and slap you in the ass,” Chuck joked, and I pursed my lips at that.

“If you slap me in the ass, could I kiss Alex?” Joey offered.

“I slap you in the ass, we both kiss Alex, and you both get to tag team over me,” he concluded.

“Deal. And then the three of us run away together?”

“If you want,” Chuck said. “I gotta go—the line at the bakery’s starting to thin up. Alex and his muffins, I swear.”

“I like muffins, too,” Joey scoffed. “Anyways, let’s talk more later?”

“Yeah, absolutely! Barring Alex isn’t eavesdropping on us and everything.” He chuckled at that, and I shook my head with a little smirk on my face.

“Talk to you later, big boy,” Joey chirped, and no sooner had Chuck hung up when Joey cleared his throat.

“I know you’re there, Alex,” he said in a low tone of voice, almost to the tone of a growl.

I swallowed and let out a low whistle.

“How long have you been listening in?” he asked me.

“About a couple of minutes, give or take,” I told him with a clearing of my throat. “I came in when you were talking about—your dicks out in the wind.”

“I really, really, really want to kiss you,” Joey told me.

“Why would you want to kiss me?” I asked him with a knitting of my eyebrows together.

“Because your lips are so soft and so sexy,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. “You have the cutest little belly, too, how it’s got the slightest little round curve to it. It's like a puppy belly. I love your body.”

“Well, Joey, if you must pry—I think you have a beautiful body,” I said with a clearing of my throat; I could feel the warmth blooming in my face.

“You know what, just for that—I want you to do me a favor.”

I swallowed again. I was dying of thirst right then and there.

“Go ahead,” I encouraged him.

“I want you—to get off for me.”

“Why would I get off for you when you could do that for me?”

“Because I asked you to,” he insisted, still with his voice down low. “But when you’re done, I'll do it for you, though, if you’d like.”

“Sounds fair.” I opened up the towel around my waist and let the ends fall on either side of me. I sat there naked on the carpet between the bed and the nightstand. I looked down at my waist, and I did notice a little extra fullness there, especially around my belly button.

“Okay. You got your dick ready?” He cleared his throat as well.

“Of course.” My fingers caressed down to the soft skin there: I swore that I had silk there, especially between my genitals and my belly button. “The question is... do you have your dick ready?”

“My dick was born ready,” he quipped, and I tried not to laugh at that.

“Okay, I want you to... stick your finger into the hole, and run it around in the rim.” I brought my knees up and reached into the head of my dick: my pinky finger right into the hole, which in turn sent a chill up my spine. “Let me ask you, Alex, does it tickle?”

“Does it tickle?” I asked him. “Does it ever!”

“Ooh, yeah. Now, I want you to get down to the floor—just lay down on the floor—flat on your back—and I want you to spread your legs and hold onto the head of your dick. This is what I did with a guy named Peter once: we took a ribbed metal brace which had these rings all along the spine, and we put it on his dick—he had a gigantic dick, too, like really big, you should’ve seen this thing, Alex.”

“Was it a huge schlong?” I looked down at my own dick of normal, narrow size. Not that big but not very small, though, and yet, the thought of a guy having a huge one, and the guy before Joey no less, made me grimace at the size of it.

“It was bigger than a schlong. It was like a schlad schmagoogal!” I burst out laughing at that, and then he cleared his throat again. “Anyway, I put this thing on him and whenever it looked like he was about to cum for me, I snapped one ring on.”

“Good god, that sounds painful.”

“Well, it was a bondage thing.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I want you to look around the room for something, Alex.”

“Something? Like what?”

“Something hard and metallic to rub up against your dick and the head—unless you have a better idea.”

I craned my neck to the nightstand and, right next to the base of the phone, was a little silver pen with a black clicking lid.

“I found a little metal pen here. This is a nice pen; I don’t remember Chuck bringing this home.”

“Shove it up the hole,” Joey commanded without a moment’s hesitation.

“What!” I snapped.

“Just run it around the rim of the hole and then shove it up there.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I want you to pleasure yourself with something more than your fingers, Alex.”

I gazed on at the pen. The silvery metal tip shared my own reflection, albeit in small, warped form, and I pursed my lips at the sight of myself staring back at myself. If nothing else, I could at the very least work myself to that point.

To my own point.

I glanced down at my own dick, and I held the silvery part of the pen right next to the base of the shaft. It felt cold to the touch, and more so as I brought it along the edge of the shaft towards the head. It was right there when the cool sensation of the pen brought a chill to my spine. I held still there on the floor, and I tried my damnedest to keep my hips in place on the towel lest I buck around like a horse.

I held the head of the pen right over the hole, and I knew there was no way that it would be able to fit.

“Shove it in nice and easy,” Joey continued, complete with his voice down to a near whisper. “Nice and slow.”

“I’m going as slow as I can,” I grunted out. It felt so weird and yet, I could feel my spine straighten out from the sensation. The cold metal rubbed up against my skin to the point that it tickled me like crazy: I parted my lips and breathed to better ease in the feeling on my skin. My skin was soft and sensitive to the touch, especially there: there was no way that I could handle this on my own. I needed someone else there with me.

“Are you in yet?” he asked me.

Breathing hard, I stuck the head of the pen into the hole all the way, and I closed my eyes and gasped from the feeling. I began to breathe harder as the cold metal made its way up inside there, and I could hardly stand to take the feeling itself. I could feel myself coming right away, and more so as I moved the pen around the heart of the hole like he had told me to do.

“Alex?” Joey’s voice sliced through my sense of concentration, such that my eyes popped open and I could feel myself drooling on myself.

“Alex? Are you in?”

“Yes...” I groaned out from the feeling.

“Okay. Now, I want you—with your free hand, if you can—to squeeze the shaft.”

“Squeeze it?” I echoed him, and I could feel my voice wavering from the feeling. I couldn’t hardly breathe, I couldn’t hardly move: if I went in any further, I could cum without even trying, and I could do it without Joey even so much as looking at me.

I held the phone between my ear and my shoulder, and with my free hand, I gave the shaft a gentle squeeze with my fingertips. Carefully, I followed up the gentle squeeze with a stroke of my fingers. The pen in one hand and my own pen in my other hand.

“You got it?” Joey asked me.

“I do, yes,” I squeaked out.

“Okay. Now—what would you like me to do?”

“The same thing,” was all I could think of. He laughed at that.

“Gladly—” There was a brief pause on his end, and it was on the third stroke of my thumb when I couldn’t take it anymore, and I moved the pen out of the hole. A small clear pearl of precum trickled out of there, and I let out a low whistle.

Before I could do anything else, Joey then let out a soft groan through the mouthpiece.

“Whoa,” I blurted out.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Oh, yeah, I found a coupl’a rings and just put ‘em on my dick, and they fit like a glove. Now, I'm using my finger—right into my dickhole.”

“Use both hands,” I told him in a low grunt of a voice.

“Both hands?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Both hands on my dick—two pinky fingers deep into my hole—five rings on the dick—” He gasped, and then he let out another low groan. “Oh, god—”

“Is there a sixth?” I asked him in a broken voice, and I could feel my dick hardening at the sound of his moans and groans.

“There is!”

“Put it on.”

“Ah!”

“Put it on!”

I could hear him barring his teeth, and I nodded my head at that.

“That’s it. That's it!”

“Phew! Ha! Oh, shit!”

“Both pinkies, Joey! Both pinkies!”

“AH!”

“Oh—!”

I was glad that I took the pen out of the hole because the clear precum turned white and I jizzed out onto the towel. Nothing a quick wash wouldn’t fix.

Meanwhile, Joey huffed and puffed, panted and let out soft moans. I could envision him down there in the basement, completely naked and drenched in sweat, complete with his long black curls matted at the sides of his neck as if he had just taken a dunk into cold water.

“Oh, god—oh, god—phewww. Damn.”

“You got a lot?” I teased him with another clearing of my throat.

“You bastard. I'm still shooting it out.”

“I had no idea you were filled with such—sexuality, Joey,” I confessed.

“And I had no idea you were as well, Alex,” he quipped back to me. “You really are a dirty dog of a boy. I gotta clean up.”

“Yeah, I do, too,” I told him, and he hung up before I could say anything else.

“Alex,” Chuck began on the other end, much to my surprise.

“Yes?” I cleared my throat again.

“Who were you talking to?”

“You, of course. Now, the question is—who were you talking to?”

“You, of course,” he retorted back. “My crown prince and my husband, whom I haven’t seen in so long it feels like.”

“You’re still in the car, aren’t you?” I asked him.

“Of course,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation.

But there was no way in hell on Earth I was going to tell him the truth about my overhearing him and Joey. No way.

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nuagederose · 2 years

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kinktober 2022 // day thirty-one: dust in the wind prompt: a free day, from @the-purity-pen pairing: alex/joey (like blood from a stone) also on ao3 💋

happy halloween! oh my god, i had fun writing these. blessed samhain, i’ll see all of youses for slowvember and kinkmas 🎃

Joey took his seat on the edge of the front step with one of the few pumpkins we had on deck nestled in between his thighs. It was slightly warm that day there in the Bay Area, an unusually warm morning for late October and so soon before Halloween no less; he insisted on sitting outside in the sun with the pumpkins and the spindly little ghosts and papier-mâché witches which Chuck and I had already pinned up along the awning over the front step. The one pumpkin he had insisted on carving first was one of those small gourds about the length of his thigh and was about the color of the cream that he had had in his cup of coffee that morning: but he seemed adamant, and I was unwilling to carve out a pumpkin for the next few nights to put up on display given I wanted to look good for the twin parties that we were about to host for those majestic two nights, All Hallows Eve followed by Halloween.

I was eager to eat to my heart’s desire: I had been good this whole entire month, and thus, I figured that I would treat myself and indulge, as if I needed an excuse to indulge, anyway. But I also wanted to look good for our two days of partying, the second night of which would carry along the backs of the trick-or-treaters. Joey insisted on tying his hair back behind his head and possibly busting out a can of body paint for himself, all to be the proper Indian chief, but I wielded more towards the line of skinny jeans and a little leather jacket for myself. With my long black curls and an old shirt that didn’t fit me anymore, I could easily pass off as a rent boy in the gutters of Hollywood.

If only I had a bit of body glitter embedded in a small vat of gel so as to run right through my curls, then I could possibly pass off as either Michael Hutchence or George Michael. But Michael meant I would have to put on a totally blond wig, and George meant I would have to highlight the crown of my head a pure bleach blond, and it was already tough enough with the gray sliver over my forehead.

But I tried on the jeans that Chuck had lain out for me and, while they were rather snug around my hips and thighs, and fitted along the slender shape of my lower legs, they buttoned up without any problems to speak of. The waist accentuated the shape of my belly, and even more so once I put on that little black and white striped shirt with the high hem: as it stood, I was basically evil Roger Daltrey. But then I put on the jacket, and I held onto the lapels as if I partook in a fashion show of some sort.

I stood before the full-length mirror, and spread my legs, and swayed my hips a bit like Elvis.

I tugged down the hem of the shirt just a bit: I lacked the toned stomach but I had this soft tender shape to my belly, however, especially right around my belly button. I couldn’t resist the look in the least.

Given it was a warm day, I went on downstairs to the kitchen where I was met with that warm, sweet aroma of freshly baked apple pie courtesy of our chef. I reached the counter’s edge and I spotted the pie right there next to the sink basin, complete with the crumbly topping. Next to it was a small handwritten note:

I accidentally burned the crust on this pie, and I’m out a ginger and cinnamon. Help yourselves to this one, though!

-Chuck

Something like that always gave me a tickling sensation in the pit of my stomach. I could indulge and let loose for once, even if the crust had burned a little bit on the top as well as the bottom, which I noticed upon taking a big slice of that apple pie out of the tin. A big slice of warm, fresh pie with the crumble on top accompanied a small scoop of smooth, beany vanilla ice cream straight out of that big tub in the freezer as well.

With the plate in one hand, a fork in the other, and a fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach, I strolled on out of the kitchen and towards the door and the front step.

When I opened the door, Joey turned around and squinted his eyes up at me.

“Hey,” he greeted me.

“Hey,” I returned the favor: I sank my fork into the pie as well as the ice cream and stuck it in at the same time. Such bliss! The warmth of the pie fused with the cold kiss of the ice cream, the dance of the cinnamon and the ginger with the vanilla, and I knew I would have a very happy tummy for a while. I cracked a smile at the taste, such that Joey glanced back at me with an unsure smile on his own part.

“What’cha eating?” he asked me.

“Apple pie with ice cream,” I replied. “God, so good—“ I picked up another bite of pie with some ice cream, and that time I closed my eyes to better take in the taste of it.

“Enjoying that just a bit too much, eh?” he teased me.

“I can’t help it, it’s good for me…” I raised my gaze to the narrow gourd in between his knees: he had taken out the seeds and the inner pulp and rested both on the bare step next to him.

“You ought to save those seeds,” I suggested. “They could be good on a cake for Thanksgiving or something.”

“Not these ones, man,” he told me as he scraped out some more insides from the gourd before he put the top back on to ensure his oblong Jack-o’-lantern. He then turned his attention to me, a full body glimpse from my feet all the way up to my chest and the plate nestled upon my hand.

“This is a new look for you,” he confessed. “It’s pretty cute, actually.”

“I’m gonna be a Hollywood rent boy,” I told him once I swallowed down the bite. “Not sure what Chuck’s gonna be.”

“Your pimp?” he teased me, and I laughed out loud at that.

“He wants to wear a mask, though,” I told him as I ran my fingers through my hair and returned to my pie and ice cream for some more luscious bites.

“What kind of mask?” he asked.

“Like a Frankenstein mask, if I recall correctly,” I explained once I swallowed down another bite. “He never completely told me the full scoop, other than he wants to something along those lines.”

“Could be some kind of monster, maybe?”

“I don’t know…” I shook my head. “But how about you? You still want to be the Indian chief?”

“The Indian summer, actually,” he corrected me.

“What’s that?”

“I figure that since it’s going to be warm, I may as well go shirtless. I’ll be shirtless with the can of body paint and the headdress upon my head.”

“Why ‘summer’, though?” I asked him as I took a big bite of pie and ice cream that time around.

“I’m going to be almost naked,” he admitted in a low voice, and I raised my eyebrows at that.

“Joey—you know we’re going to hand out candy to kids on the second night, right?”

“Relax, I’m going to have those little shorts on. You know the ones.”

“Those are barely shorts, though, Joey,” I pointed out, complete with a wag of my fork at him. “You may as well just put on a codpiece.”

“It’s still shorts, though,” he insisted. “At least I won’t be walking around with my potbelly hanging out.” He gestured to me.

“I don’t have a potbelly,” I said, annoyed. “At least, not according to anyone who’s normal.”

“Oh ho!” he jeered. “So, you don’t think I’m normal?”

“Joey, if you’re normal, I’m a Martian,” I chided: with that, I finished the pie first and I had a bit of difficulty in picking up the ice cream given it had melted a bit from the warmth of the day.

I rested a hand on my stomach, which felt barely comfortable from the pie and the ice cream. Because of that bare minimum, I thought of more on that plate.

“I’m going to get another slice of pie—would you like a piece?”

“Please,” Joey replied, and then he turned to me, bewildered. “Wait, another one?”

“Yeah. Why, is that a crime?”

“Careful,” he warned me with a little wag of his knife. “You eat too many of those and you might not fit into those jeans ever again.”

“Oh, come on, I’ve been a good boy,” I retorted as I took a final lick of ice cream from the side of my fork.

“I’ll just have the pie, not the ice cream,” he answered with a sly smile on his face.

“You sure? It kind of needs the ice cream.”

“I’ll just take the pie, Alejandro,” Joey insisted. “It’ll save ya some time, too.”

“True. Time, and scooping more ice cream out of the tub, too.”

“More ice cream from the tub, my dear tub,” he jeered, and he extended a hand to my bare belly for a little pat but I bowed away from him. He snickered at me while I squinted my eyes at him. I then doubled back into the house for more pie and ice cream as well as a plate full for him. It seemed a little odd to see his slice of pie without that decadent lush ice cream next to it, but it was what he wanted, however. When I rinsed off the ice cream scoop, and my stomach begged for more, I knew I had made a good decision in taking a second helping for myself. I made a good decision even if it meant I could only wear those pants for only one time.

I returned outside right as Joey set the gourd off to the side and made room for me there on the step. I handed him his plate of pie and his fork and I then took my seat next to him.

“Chuck—our chef—said that he had burned the crust on this pie,” I explained to him. “But you can’t even taste it, though.”

Joey took a large first bite and nodded his head as he chewed away at it.

“Yeah, you can’t,” he declared once he swallowed it down. “It’s delicious, actually.”

“It’s even yummier with ice cream,” I told him with a raise of my eyebrows, to which he tilted his head towards me.

“I won’t have ice cream with this,” he persisted.

“Whatever floats your boat, Joseph,” I said in a singsong voice. We took bites in unison and he peered up to the blue sky overhead. Not a single cloud one, and the leaves on the trees had only changed colors just a couple of weeks before then. One of us was going to have to start raking up the leaves sooner or later before the first rain entered the area, and yet, it felt like an Indian summer right at that moment.

“So weird it’s so warm here this time of year,” he proclaimed once he swallowed down his bite of pie. “It’s pouring rain back home in upstate New York right now.”

“Usually when it gets really warm like this, it signifies the start of a Diablo wind event,” I exclaimed. “Happens all too often this time of year, and usually like right before the first rain comes in, too. I think last year was one of the few years we didn’t get the Diablo winds.”

“You mean the Santa Ana winds,” he corrected me with a glimpse over at me.

“They’re the Santa Ana’s down in SoCal—up here, they’re Diablo winds. It’s pretty much the same thing, just a regional thing. Like in New York.”

“Just like in New York—man, this is delicious pie!”

“I know, right?” I took a bigger bite of pie with the ice cream. “It’s so weird to think that Chuck flat out said he had burned the crust. It’s absolutely indulgent and decadent!”

Once I had finished that slice of pie, Chuck himself pulled into the driveway next to us. He climbed out and took a brown paper sack out of the backseat: he shut the door with his hip and then showed us that dimpled little smile, accentuated by the diamond shape of his face and the kiss of brown to his skin. I treated him to a little wave before he walked in through the garage door and into the kitchen once again.

Though Chuck and I had married, I would always feel a bit of something for that Chuck, Chuck from Florida and with the scar on his own head.

Once Joey had finished his slice of apple pie, he returned to the Jack-o’-lanterns, and I offered to take his plate into the kitchen. Chuck meanwhile, did not hesitate to make up a brand-new apple pie for us, and I knew that the house was going to smell delicious and warm once again.

It was arguably the one thing that I wouldn’t complain about to him, and the one thing that I couldn’t complain about, either. It was a smell that I simply could never resist for a second.

Along with the pie, he began on dinner for that evening, and I put up some more papier-mâché witches and ghosts in the windows until my Chuck returned home with a black satin sack slung over his shoulder.

Joey stepped inside with his Jack-o’-lanterns, with the white gourd as well as two small pale orange pumpkins and a couple of regular-sized pumpkins.

“Wow,” my Chuck declared.

“Did all of this in a single afternoon!” Joey declared, proud. “I finally had to stop because my wrists were starting to shake.”

“We have those little candles on hand, right, Alex?” Chuck asked me.

“I think we do? Those little fake candles that you just flip the little switch at the bottom…”

Given I had eaten a great deal of pie and ice cream, and I had just hung up little decorations in the windowsills in the kitchen and our living room, I wanted to sit down and rest the full feeling in my stomach for a little bit. But Joey had made up the pumpkins and I was the only one who knew where we kept those little fake candles.

I rubbed my hands down my belly and I made my way out of the kitchen and into the hallway for the linen closet, just prior to the downstairs bathroom. I opened the door and there was that little white box with the candles inside, right above my head. When I reached for the box, I could feel a little something around my waist. I took a glimpse down and I caught the pair of hands around my waist.

“Guess who,” he whispered into my ear. Someone who was tall enough to put his hands around my waist and whisper in my ear. But I turned my head and there was Chuck from Florida right there behind me.

“Oh, hi,” I greeted him, slightly taken aback but also slightly pleased.

“I just came back here to check on you,” he told me, and then he showed me a playful little smirk. “I also came back here to see if there was anything in the closet to give Joey a better fright for the party tomorrow night.”

“A better fright?” I chuckled.

“Yeah, he said something about the pumpkins and the decorations not doing it for him in the scare department. And you enjoyed that pie, didn’t you?”

“Had two slices,” I told him as I took the box off of the shelf. His fingers gently caressed over the exposed skin on my stomach. “I never would’ve guessed you burned the crust.”

He shrugged his shoulders and he pressed his lips to the crux of my neck. The plush feel of his lips on my own skin beckoned a curling out of my toes and a furious fluttering sensation in my full stomach. I would always love the feel of his body against my own, even when no one looked upon us for a fleeting glimpse. I gently stroked my stomach again before he gave me another kiss on the neck.

I showed him another smile before he let go of me: I followed him back to the kitchen with the box in hand, to which I gave it over to Joey for the pumpkins.

Once he had hooked up the candles inside of the Jack-o’-lanterns and placed them out on the front step, we engaged in a pleasant dinner of homemade quiche Lorraine and more pie. By the time it was ready to go to bed, my jeans fit my body like a snug glove made specifically for the shape of my legs and my body. I took off my shirt and my jeans, and I crawled into the bed and awaited Chuck with my hands tucked under my head and my bare stomach comfortable and full.

I was cozy and comfy, and yet I missed something.

When I had that second slice of pie, it left me feeling very full, and yet I expected a little something more after that third helping as well as the quiche. I expected a little bellyache or something, a kiss of pain.

When I thought about the warmth of the day earlier that day, I thought about the words that Joey had thrown at me. The warmth of the day before an intense wind event fused with the barbs of an Indian summer.

I liked to be comfortable and yet there was a strange beauty in a minute kiss of pain, especially on the particularly delicate part of my skin. When I thought about Chuck from Florida, with his hands pressed on my waist, in retrospect, I wished that he had dug his fingers into my flesh a bit, all to better feel me and for me to better relish in the full feeling inside of me.

A strange, peculiar beauty in a small caress and lace of pain and poison.

I rested my hands on my waist and I gently pressed my fingers into my flesh. My soft tender flesh on my belly.

I was too soft there. I couldn’t bring it to myself right there, on the soft part of my waist. I gave myself a gentle stroke and I pictured a kiss of pain on another part of my body like the inside of my thighs. I rolled over onto my side and I let my hip cock out from the feeling. I kept my hand pressed onto my waist, the soft coziness of my own tender stomach.

I was about to fall asleep when Chuck stepped into the room and slid into bed next to me. He turned out the light and put his arms around my waist as if I was his own personal teddy bear. I was his own personal teddy bear through the tenderness of my belly, and yet I yearned for something more, something to get me off in the meantime.

I woke up the next morning to an empty right side of the bed and the howling of the Diablo winds outside of the house. That night was the first round of the party, as well. I hoped that they would subside for the next day, for the real Halloween party as well as the candy for the trick-or-treaters.

Though it was warm the day before, the house remained cool enough for me to pull the blankets up to my ears.

I snuggled further down into the top of the pillow to better take in the warmth of the bed. But then I caught the aroma of fresh coffee from the slight gap between the door and the frame, as well as the human noises from outside. The door slamming and Joey blathering nonsense.

I also had to take a leak to top it all off. Perhaps I could take a nap later that day before the party started, all so I could be in bed for a little while longer.

I sighed through my nose and I rolled out of bed, right out from under the blankets. I was quick to make the bed and I ran my fingers through my hair: that fresh aroma of coffee tickled me to no end. But I had to check up on what was happening downstairs, however.

I wore nothing more than my pajama bottoms as I made my way downstairs to the front door. One of the witches, a bust of her head with a singular spidery hand of green skin and long bright pink nails, had fallen off of the side of the house and Joey appeared to struggle to fix her with nothing more than a bit of glue, and the howling cold winds billowed his curls all around his head and the papier-mâché off of her head and shoulders.

I opened the door so as to help him and the wind hit me like a brick wall. I had no idea if it was because of me or not, but Joey dropped the glue, followed by the witch, right onto the walkway between his legs.

“Shit—shit!” He scooped up the witch and held her close to his chest. I glanced up at the other witches and the pumpkins, and they all remained intact on the side of the house despite the intense winds.

No way this would damper our Halloween, not after all of the work that we had put in for the party.

“Come inside, man,” I told him over the roar of the winds. Joey never let go of that witch as we hurried back into the house. I shut the door behind us and I leaned my back against the door panels.

Joey let out a low whistle and he held the witch out before him. Such delicate papier-mâché, and yet not a crack one to be seen in the shoulder or her black pointed hat.

“Okay, what happened?” I asked him, concerned.

“I woke up and she fell clean off of the outside wall here,” he told me with a warble to his voice. “I heard something break when she hit the ground, too. I grabbed the glue and ran out there as fast as I could.”

He held up the witch and he examined the head and shoulders: though it was obvious that nothing terrible had happened to the witch, I had my worries about more things falling down from the side of the house. I would have to tell Chuck about it before long, and I grimaced at the mere thought of it, but I had my concerns, however.

“We might have to have just the party tomorrow night,” I told him with a shrug.

“What! No!” He gasped at me.

“Well, it’s windier than hell outside right now, Joe,” I explained with a straight face. “It’s a miracle all of the other witches and pumpkins are still out there still intact right now: it’s so windy right now that I don’t think anyone will want to come along, especially when the day progresses.” I padded over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, though—these wind events out here in California only last about a day,” I assured him. “I have a feeling it’ll be a lovely day for Halloween tomorrow.”

He bowed his head and fetched up a sigh.

“Could you help me with this witch here, though?” he asked me in a small voice.

“Of course! Let me put some pants on and I’ll come back down here for you and some coffee, too.”

“You sure those pants are gonna go with your costume well?” he asked me, slightly concerned.

“What, those tight pants?”

“Yeah. They almost look like they should be part of a whole other ensemble altogether.”

I was taken aback. “You sure?”

“Put them on, let me see you,” he commanded with a little nod of his head. I cracked him a smile and I headed on back to the room for those skinny jeans: I took one final glimpse back at him, albeit over my shoulder and he kept up the little smile on his face.

I made my way upstairs for those skinny jeans and I put them on, the only thing I put on no less.

I returned downstairs and I found him seated at the dining room table with the little knife that he had used the day before lain out before him on the table’s surface and his hands folded in his lap.

“Where’s the witch?” I asked him with a patting of my hips: the snug fabric made a slight popping noise at the strike of my hands.

“Kitchen counter,” he flatly replied. I stepped on closer to him with my hands pressed onto the full shape of my hips.

“What’s going on?” I asked him in a lower tone of voice, albeit a tone loud enough for him to hear over the roar of the winds outside.

He dropped his gaze to my legs, from my thighs down to my knees and my shins, and then back up to my hips and my bare waist.

“Cute,” he remarked.

“It’s gonna look even better when I wear the shirt and the jacket,” I told him as I lingered before him, still with my hands pressed upon my hips.

“Makes me curious about your legs, to be honest,” he confessed to me.

“You wanna see?” I offered him, and I undid them right there with two fingers. I let the button hang out for him for a moment, and then I pushed them down my legs. He showed me a little smile once again.

“Let me see some more,” he suggested.

“More skin?”

“If it’s not too much to ask,” he beseeched.

I glanced down at my little white shorts and I slipped my thumbs into the waistband, right by my hipbones, and I let the shorts slide down. He showed me the tip of his tongue and a slight raise of his eyebrow.

“Gorgeous body,” he told me in a near whisper, and he shivered.

“I give you chills, Joseph?” I teased him with a slight gyration of my hips.

“Yes, and it’s also getting a bit chilly in here, too,” he admitted.

“It’s the winds,” I told him. “Dry as a bone and they make everything cold as a result. I’m used to it.”

“Apparently not,” he retorted with a slight point to my nipples.

I dropped my shorts all the way and I let them collect around my ankles. He picked up the knife right then, much to my surprise.

I held out a hand to him to stop him, and I put my other hand over my crotch.

“I see your little body and I feel the need to give you a beautiful little marking to ensure of the special bond that you and I have,” he explained in a single breath.

“With the same knife you used to carve a bunch of pumpkins with?” I demanded, slightly mortified.

“It’s clean,” he insisted, and he bowed his head and brought the knife closer to his own body. “It’s clean, Captain Howdy.”

“No, no, Joey, I can’t take any more blood oaths,” I pleaded with a shake of my head.

“No, I’m not gonna do that,” he assured me.

“Well, what’re you doing?” I demanded.

“Watch—“ He slowly ran the face of the blade down the skin on his chest: the edge of the blade itself brushed against the rim of his nipple and that in turn brought a chill to my own spine.

“See?” he pointed out as he raised the blade off of his chest. “A little playing with the sharpness.”

“The rim of the blade down my skin,” I muttered with my hand slid up my stomach a bit. I sighed and I held my hands back away from my crotch. “Cut me and my first kick is going right through your teeth, though.”

“I’m not going to cut you,” he promised me. “I’ll cut myself before I cut you.”

Joey held the blade up to my skin. I held as still as I could right in front of him.

“Cut it good,” I encouraged him.

He ran the blade down the side of my shaft. I held still lest he cut me there. Something so dangerous about it and yet, the thrill of it sent a chill down my spine. I parted my lips and I let out a soft moan from the cold metal against the taut skin. For a second, I swore that he was about to cut me with that damn blade. And yet, he kept it upright: the blade glided along my shaft, all the way down the head, and when he reached the head, I gasped from the feeling. That dangerous feeling that he was about to get me.

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows. I took a glimpse down at my body, at the fact that my shaft was erect and fully taut all for him.

Another stroke of the blade and a little pearl of translucent precum dribbled out.

A hard gust of wind picked up right then and the house shuddered in response. Joey held still with that smooth cold blade pressed against my skin until it faded away and then he continued. Another hard gust followed right after that.

“Maybe when it isn’t so windy?” I asked him with a tremble to my voice.

“Yeah, good idea,” he conceded as he lifted the blade from my skin. “I’m really worried about cutting you. Although if it’s still windy tomorrow, I’m gonna get you good.”

“Deal.”

Indeed, the winds persisted all throughout the day, and we no doubt had to cancel the party for that night; and indeed, the winds continued even as the sun went down and the big bright moon rose up over the hills on the eastern side of the valley. I still had high hopes for the party on Halloween itself, especially when the Chucks returned home that night with more decorations and strawberry jam for more treats.

Given those dry winds made everything so cold, I put on an otherwise thin leather jacket over the little shirt and I found myself feeling warm in spite of the thin fabrics. I could be warm and look good in my little costume. I could be warm, even as I made my down to the basement to ensure that the heater was working, and I kept those racks of clothes away from the furnace itself.

And all the while, I kept my attention pinned to Joey and the fact that he insisted on going shirtless for the whole day, especially since it was growing colder by the time the sun went down. I offered him a change of clothes from the basement but he was adamant on going commando and wearing those little shorts as well.

I knew he wanted to cut me, hence why he kept the blade up to my dick during those incredibly hard gusts of wind.

Chuck and I talked about it before we went to sleep that night, about the fact that Joey seemed a touch more intense than usual. I figured that it was the fact that he had transplanted out here to California and he expected on returning home, but I had no clue, however.

I did, however, offer Joey to come with me to get breakfast and a cup of coffee the next morning. I wore my costume of the little shirt with my jeans and my leather jacket while he had put on a plain shirt over his shorts and a few feathers embedded in those black curls at the crown of his head.

“You should’ve worn the full headdress,” I suggested to him over the howls of the winds around us.

“Maybe later on,” he replied as he tucked his hands into his shorts pockets. He looked cold: even though I wore that cozy warm leather jacket, I had a sliver of skin exposed from underneath the high shirt hem. But I relished in the cool air against my bare hungry belly every step of the way. My hair drifted behind my head in a blanket of black curls: the plume of gray at the top of my head had this rather wispy quality to it all the while.

We reached the restaurant and we both pitched in with the waffles and our coffee. All the while, he was still silent. I wondered what was going through his mind as I dug into the lush waffles and drank down the coffee.

“You know, sometimes I wonder about that knife you used in me,” I told him at one point. “Like—ever since you pushed it against me, I wonder if it’s still there.”

“Mm-hm,” he hummed. I fell back into silence myself, all up to the point in which we headed on out of there and into the blustery morning. I thought about taking him to the bay waters for a little walk, but as we stepped out of there, he stopped me right in my tracks.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

“Creepy gardener guy,” he pointed out down the street before us. Indeed, there was a guy at the far end of the street with a rainbow clown wig on his head and a white latex mask over his face. He wore heavy burlap coveralls that looked to be falling off of his body.

“It’s like a spin on the killer clown,” he muttered with a shake of his hair and a readjustment of the feathers on his head.

“Oh, yeah. It’s like—Pennywise but far worse.”

“Are those hedge clippers?” He gestured to the thing in the gardener’s left hand: from a distance, I could see it. Long, thin, and sharp. In his other hand was something even longer and thinner.

“Hedge sheers and a plunger,” I said. “Two things you don’t ever want to see a clown holding.”

I brought my gaze up to the guy’s face: the man had no features, aside from the pale white skin, the pushed-in tip of his otherwise hooked nose, and the slight slit that was his mouth: he looked like one of those kabuki masks brought to life. I swallowed at the sight of him.

The blades on the sheers looked razor-sharp, ready to slice through us.

“Hello?” Joey called out to him. He never moved a muscle, only stared at us from down the street.

“Let’s go,” I told him, and I led him away from there and back up the street, back to the house. I walked alongside him with my hands tucked into my pants pockets. My waist did in fact feel a bit fuller, but there was no way I could bring it up to him, not when he was on edge like this.

“He’s following us,” he told me at one point.

“Okay—this way—“ I led him down the next alleyway between the neighbor’s houses. There on the blacktop lay a low lump of dark clothes and what appeared to be an apron. Joey gasped at the sight of it.

I recognized Louie down there on the ground with a white plate full of what appeared to be reddish liquid and chunks of stuff.

“Oh, my god,” he breathed out.

Louie turned his attention to us, and he lifted his hand for us: a Jack-o’-lantern face had been carved onto his wrist and his face had all but lost its color.

“Is that—“ Joey clasped his hands to his face.

“Act on the bloodlust,” he said as he picked up the fork again. “The last thing that Evil Chuck had told me, Captain Howdy.” He then took a bite of Chuck’s head.

Joey shook his head and ran away from there. I chased after him, all the way back to house. A gust of Diablo wind billowed up as we reached the front step together. He all but dove into the foyer, and I closed the door behind us and I locked it.

“Louie—“ Joey could hardly speak. “Louie!”

He stopped and clasped his hands over his mouth once again at the sight of me.

“What?” I asked him.

“Where’s the knife,” he blubbered.

“In the kitchen,” I replied without a second thought. He bowed into the kitchen and immediately rummaged through the drawers in there. I padded in there and watched him from the doorway. He delved through all of the drawers and the cupboards, and he shook his head.

He let out a low whistle and took his seat there at the table.

I turned to the refrigerator door and I looked on in the reflection of the shiny metal for a moment.

“I didn’t cut you, though,” he recalled.

“No, you didn’t,” I assured him with a shake of my head. “I’m sure it’ll turn up.” I then frowned. “May I ask why you’re looking for it?”

“To do a little more playing with you,” he confessed. “I also feel like that was just—a bad move.”

“Yeah, Louie mentioned something like ‘Captain Howdy’ or some shit,” I recalled with a shake of my head. “I heard you use that name before you pressed the blade against me.”

“I nicknamed the knife that,” Joey clarified. “I’m starting to feel like I made a horrible mistake.” He swallowed and looked down at my hips again. “You mentioned about feeling it against you still.”

“Yeah, I said that to rouse you a bit,” I explained to him. I then cleared my throat. “Okay. Trace back your steps. Where’d you last put it down?”

“Here in the kitchen,” he flatly replied. “And then I went downstairs to the basement, and then I went to sleep and then I came back to you so we could have the late breakfast.”

“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll look in the basement, you take the living room.”

“Can we do it later, though?” he asked me. “After that creepy guy followed us, I’m a little wary of doing anything at the moment.”

“Of course!” I assured him. I sauntered over to him and pressed my lips to his forehead. I showed him a smile, and he returned the favor to me.

Indeed, every so often until the middle of the afternoon, he peered outside of the kitchen window to ensure no one else was out there. I thought of telling him to prepare himself for the party later on come sundown but he seemed far too keen on watching the premises for the creepy gardener and the cannibalistic Louie Clemente out there.

By three-thirty, I decided to look down in the basement myself for the knife on my own part.

The wooden stairs creaked under my weight, though I gripped onto the banister next to me. I never told Joey about it because I knew he wouldn’t pay attention to me anyway. But I kept on going until I reached the bottom.

Perhaps it was my own blood and pain fetish speaking but when I saw the blood and the chunks there in the table closest to me, I couldn’t help myself. The first feelings of possession through my body.

I picked up the fork and I picked up a bite.

Bite after bite. So fresh and so delicious, and so good!

“Alex?”

I glanced up to the top of the stairs, and Joey shone a flashlight over me. I licked the fork right as he swept the light over the stain of blood on the table. I stifled a burp and I patted my bare stomach.

“Was that—“ He raised his eyebrows at the sight of my full belly.

“Delicious human flesh—if you know what I mean,” I told him, and he swallowed at the sight of me. His gaze fell down to my waist: I looked on at the crotch of his pants. Not only was he scared but therein lay something else in there.

He scrambled away from there and I chased after him, even with as heavy and full as the feeling was within my belly.

Meanwhile, the winds outside of the house continued to howl. Chuck was nowhere to be found. There was no one out there on the porch. Joey was alone with me.

I strode up to him with a lick of red on the corner of my mouth and a hand pressed onto my overly full belly.

“Is the party canceled?” Joey demanded, and he staggered back to the kitchen drawer, the one with the silverware.

“Um…” I hiccuped at the feeling within.

“The party’s canceled for real? And—and—you just—” He gaped at that. I held back at the sight of him, and he took out the little carving knife from the drawer and turned towards me.

“C’mere, you bad boy,” he growled at me.

“Joey, please—I’m absolutely stuffed right now.”

“No, Alex. You promised that this wind would only last for a day, and here it is, almost five o’clock, no one here, and it’s still fucking windy!”

“I said ‘usually’!” I recalled.

He sauntered up to me and I brought my hand up to my mouth. He held the knife blade up to my neck.

“We’re bonded in blood,” he whispered to me. I knocked his hand away from me and I ran to the back door. I hesitated there as my gut hung out from under the little shirt.

Joey skidded up to me and I ran past the little table on the back step to the trees. The sun was already setting behind the western hills not too far from that house. Even with my belly aching from the massive feeling within, I managed to run through the trees and the low minute shrubs on the ground. I was ready to collapse right onto the ground when I reached a clearing in the trees. I rested my hands on my belly and let out a low pained moan.

“Alex!” Joey called after me.

I hunched my shoulders and I buried my face in my hands. I could feel the cold wind from the ocean over me. The cold wind combined with the setting sun and the fact that I had eaten so much human flesh just then.

The bushes rustled behind me, and I turned around to see him.

He stopped right in his tracks at the sight of my bowed head and my hair swept down on the side of my head. He had the blade in his hand, but I could see the fear in his eyes at the sight of me, at the sight of my possession.

The sun dipped behind the hills and the trees and I stood up and faced him straight on. I lunged for him and yanked the knife right out of his hand. I showed him my red stained teeth.

He shook his head and bolted away from there.

I chased after him, all the way back to the backyard. I was right behind him as he broke through the trees and darted over the grass. He skidded to a stop before the bush on the far side of the yard: I noticed the amber lights embedded inside of the branches. Little ghost lights within the shrub there; through the gathering shadows, the gardener emerged with those sheers raised up before his flat pure white face, complete with the sheen over his skin.

Joey hooked around and fell down onto the grass right as I emerged from the trees myself. I ran over to the gardener, who ducked back into the shadows for the plunger behind him. I began to run back to Joey, especially when I caught a full view of his ass.

He turned back to me, with those brown eyes wide with fear.

“Come here!” I exclaimed as I brandished that possessed knife towards him.

I froze under those amber ghost lights from through the tree. I clutched at myself and I struggled to breathe. I was full of human flesh, and apparently, he did cut me after all as I felt the blood trickle through my underwear.

“Alex?” He cowered back right in front of me. I fell to my knees and I dropped the knife. I opened up my pants and I let them fall off of me. The blood came pooling out from the side of my dick, right where he had kept the blade on me before then. I gasped for air as my body curled forward.

“The knife—“ I choked out for him. “The knife—possessed—“

Joey staggered away from me. He lost his balance and fell onto the seat of his pants. I clasped my hands to my face to where I could see the phosphenes in the backs of my eyelids. I then stood up onto one foot, all while I was seeing rich blood red all around me. I reached out for him.

The gardener emerged from behind me and we both lunged for him.

I tackled him and pushed him down to the grass. The gardener loomed over his face with the plunger in hand.

“Oh, god!” Joey yelped out. “Oh, god! Alex, get off!”

“THERE IS NO ALEX,” I growled into his ear. Joey pinched his eyes closed and buried his face into the grass. I held the blade to his ear. He gasped for air underneath the weight of my body, my possessed body.

I could feel it.

He couldn’t scream. But he screamed anyway, louder than I had ever heard him on an Anthrax record.

That was when I lost it.

I bowed my head and burst out into a fit of hearty laughter.

Breathing hard, Joey raised his head and glanced back at me.

I raised myself up onto my hands, right over his body. The blood dribbled down from the crotch of my jeans onto the grass underneath us, and I climbed off of him and I slid onto the back step. Joey raised his head and turned his attention to me: his entire body shuddered and shook with utmost fear, sheer terror.

I tapped my fingertips into my eyes and I took the colored lenses out and I showed them to him with a hearty chuckle.

“What the—“ He could hardly speak.

“Oh my god, the joke is so on you,” I said.

“Why?”

I reached in between my legs and I took out the little pack of strawberry jam strapped to my crotch. I kept on chuckling at the fact that he fell for it. Out of breath, he rolled over onto his back and then sat upright: even through his dark complexion, I could see the lack of color in his face.

“Wait,” he blurted out. “The blood was fake?”

“Yup. I really meant it when I told you I was full—I ate a whole apple pie this time around, and I put a little jam on the corner of my mouth when I heard you coming to the basement doors. Louie was also just eating a piece of the burnt pie slathered in strawberry jam, too. And those clothes from down in the basement were a good call from the other Chuck. Good on him to be hiding out down there this whole time, too.”

“And—and the creepy clown guy—?” He gestured over to the gardener, who took off his wig, followed by an unlatching of the little knots at the back of his head.

“Need some help?” I offered him, but then the latex peeled clean off and revealed that squarish, brown face with the luminous eyes.

“Ta-da,” Chuck declared with his hands out. He gave his head a shake and his hair spilled out from the back of his head.

“We got him good, Chuck,” I declared as I stood to my feet and stepped towards the little table right by the back door. “Look at how pale he is.”

Joey let out a low groan and lay his head back down on the grass.

“Hey, man, you said it yourself,” Chuck recalled with a wag of his finger. “You wanted to be scared better.”

“True,” Joey softly replied. He lay back down on the grass, right up against the edge of the front step. I glanced over at the jug of apple cider on the table there and I figured it would be best to pour myself one before things heated up again. I picked up the cup and screwed off the lid. I poured in that sparkling cider, and I raised it to Chuck.

“Maybe later,” he told me, and I sipped it at first. I gazed on past him to that big phantom of the black bedsheet and the fake candles in the tree right behind him. That was quite the last-minute decoration courtesy of Chuck from Florida, such that it scared me at first.

“Anyway,” Chuck declared as he rubbed his hands together. “I’m gonna call Eric, Lou, Greg, and Steve, and Chuck and I are going to start handing out candy. Let’s get this party started.”

“Wait, we’re going through with the party?” Joey demanded as he raised his head from the grass.

“Of course!” Chuck declared. “After all that planning earlier this month, we ain’t missing this shit for the world, my man.”

He put the wig back on over the crown of his head, that time without a tuck of his locks underneath the rim, even in the face of the persistent Diablo winds around us, and he doubled back around the corner of the house for that bowl of candy as well as the phone. Joey meanwhile lay down on the grass next to the front step as the darkness of the night swept over us. I took my seat in the chair there and crossed my left leg over the right, and I held onto my glass of cider. My belly full of pie and all I wanted was some cider to help me burp. Joey peered up to the sky, and through the trees on the edge of the property.

I almost felt bad that we had scared Joey like that, but then again, he brought it onto himself. He was the one acting all tough, and the Chucks and I wanted to give him his just desserts. I drank down the cider in a couple of gulps and I caught the sound of a couple of trick-or-treaters at the front of the house. The Chucks greeted them in the most jovial way possible.

Oh, the memories. I once again felt like a young boy sitting there on the step, and more so as the bubbles caressed over my lips for another hearty sip.

“Happy Halloween!” Chuck from Florida declared. I turned my head for a view of the rising full moon through the trees behind us, in all of its big bold full-bellied glory, albeit with a slight dark spot on one edge of it.

“By the way, where’d you learn to growl like that?” Joey asked me.

“The Chucks, of course,” I told him. “The one I’m married to has been experimenting with that technique and the one from Florida whom I’m soulmates with has made it into an art form.”

He closed his eyes and let out a low moan.

“I can’t believe I didn’t shit my pants,” he said as Chuck from Florida gave more candy out at the front of the house.

“I can,” I told him as I finished up my cup of cider. “You barely ate anything today, because—“

“Because I had been scared stiff and straight,” he finished for me. He rolled his head right over the grass and I thought about helping out with the candy out front.

“It’s a full moon, Alex,” Joey told me as he wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. “Full moon that also appears to be a bit of an eclipse?”

“Oh, yeah, it is! It’s partial, but I do see the shadow, though.”

He let out a low whistle and propped himself up onto his elbows. Though my stomach was full, I still had my hunger, especially with the sight of his brown skin down there before me in the leaves. I poured myself a second glass of sparkling apple cider as a couple more trick-or-treaters sauntered up to our front step not too far from there. I knew that we would have a great deal of candy left over, especially with the ferocious winds all around us: I knew I wouldn’t want to go out trick-or-treating when it was this windy or cold outside. Indeed, I was amazed that we had very little wind back here at the back of the house to begin with.

I leaned back in the seat to let every muscle in my stomach and in my thighs relax and relish in the calm there. Joey remained there in the reclined position down by the edge of the step with the golden glow of the back porch light swept over his dark round face.

“Where’d I put the knife?” I asked him, and he lifted it up from the shadow on his right side.

“A little rendezvous and then we devour some candy until our bellies are bulging and very warm?” he suggested.

“Yes! And, very good, too, bravo!”

A gust of wind swept over the tops of the ponderosas there at the far side of the backyard again, and that time Joey shivered from the dry cold.

“Looks like I’m not in upstate New York anymore,” he confessed.

“Full moon complete with Diablo winds,” I proclaimed as I raised my glass of sparkling cider to him. “Welcome to Halloween in California, Joseph.”

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