#but when i heard this audio all i could think about was the spiral potential

[prince-jelli-fish]

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I’m like 90% sure this is what happened in Another Twist

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Unexpected 36

Sequel to Unsolicited

Warnings: non/dubcon, pregnancy, pegging, Lloyd being the worst, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

It's not home. You don't really have one of those anymore, but you're relieved to be back at Lloyd's. He diligently perched you on the couch with a dozen pillows and some blankets before he left. The television keeps you company as you snack on caramel corn. The doctor's orders are that you rest and try not to move too much.

It's difficult as you're restless. You usually go for your walk about now or sit in the garden.. The curtains give a peek of the lush green and the blooming tulips Harlan helped you plant. Sigh. You hate feeling like this, helpless. It's probably why you hate Lloyd so much too.

Your life with Colin wasn't the greatest or the easiest, but you had your own job, your own schedule, and you did stuff. You roll up the top of the bag and toss the caramel corn across the distance to the coffee table. You feel nauseous and you're not so sure it's the baby.

You're sick of this life and the one awaiting you in only a few months. You're unprepared for any of it. You might have the best stroller and the best crib, but none of that matters. You aren't at your best, you're not sure you've ever been.

You heave out a loud sigh. You could scream. With Lloyd out of the house, off on whatever errand he lied about, you could do anything you want but you're stuck. Trapped in your own broken body.

Kid, why'd you have to fuck this up even more? You think as you rub your stomach. Just one more problem to add to the heap. You shake your head and groan as you shift on the couch. This can't be real life. The more you think about everything, it feels like one long nightmare. You have to wake up soon, right?

Your spiral into doom is interrupted by the chirp of the gates. You huff. He's back. Already? That was like half and hour. You were hoping for a bit longer. His constant hovering since the doctor's lecture was almost as grating as your slipped disk.

You recline heavily on the pillows and stare at the TV as the audio fuzzes in your ears. Just a little longer and you'll be back on your feet. You can't be stubborn anymore. Not like that.

You hear a car engine and the subsequent steps that stride up the walk and onto the porch. To your surprise, the lock doesn't beep and signal his entrance. Instead, the doorbell rings, echoing around the foyer as you peer over curiously.

Lloyd wouldn't ring his own doorbell, as dumb as he is. So who would it be? Who would have his gate code? Harlan and Dottie, back already? Well, you can't really answer it, can you?

"Come in," you holler as you cup your hand beside your mouth. The effort of your shout aches in your spine. Shit.

The doorbell chimes again. You don't think they heard you. You wiggle and shift but the pang in your hips makes you think better of getting up. You exhale heavily again and gather your strength to yell again.

The doorhandle jiggles and you hold back your voice. They have the gate code but not the door code? Weird.

You brace the arm of the sofa and grunt as you push yourself to a sitting position. You lower your legs over the edge and lean back, breathless. God. Even if you wanted to drag your ass up to let them in, you can't.

You hear some beeping, but not the six short blips that signal the door code. It's a furious steady beeping, like a meter building up, then finally a loud buzz and the winding of the latch as it slides back. The hinges whisper and you crane to glance over the back of the couch.

"Shit, Lloyd," you hear the mutter of an unfamiliar voice, "always make everything so goddamn hard, don't you?"

Soft steps scuff across the foyer as you angle yourself around to better see the unwelcomed guest. A woman with short sandy blonde hair and dark roots appears in the archway as she zips up a black bag slung from her shoulder. Her eyes widen just as yours do.

"Oh, hello?" She stops short.

"Hello," you echo back in confusion.

"Who are you?" She asks with a curled lip.

"Who are you?" You counter back.

"Uhhhhh."

"Uhhhhh."

You stay in a deadlock as you both drone out cluelessly. You let your voice drift off and grimace. You rub your lower back and do your best to hold back the agony as you drag yourself off the couch. You bite down on your tongue as you face her again.

"Well, if you're going to murder me for something he did," you begin, "better get it over with. I'm kinda impatient to be done with it--"

"What?" She scoffs, "no, I... you're..." she tilts her head, "uh, I didn't know Hansen was... it's his?"

"Christ, unfortunately, yes," you sneer as you waddle around the sofa, "no immaculate conception for me. Maybe if I believed a little harder--"

"Shit, Jesus, god," she rambles in the same fashion as Lloyd, "I didn't think anyone would be here so--"

"You broke in. Yeah, sounds like a friend of his."

"He's not answering my calls."

"Yep, definitely his friend," you roll your eyes, "so, what next? He's not here and I'm not really dressed for guests."

"Fuck, talk about me. You're definitely a good fit," she clucks, "the mouth on you."

"Probably has something to do with it," you cross your arms over your stomach, "well, you got me on my feet so can I get you something? Water? Non-alcoholic wine?"

"Uh, I think you should sit down," she says.

"Bah, I'm tired of being cooped up, just help out to the garden and I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

You give her a sharp look and she raises her hands defensively.

"Got it," she approaches you, "uh, er…"

"Just give me an arm," you reach for her and hobble closer, "there's a chair out there, think it can still hold me."

"Mmm," she hums as you latch onto her.

She keeps her pace even with yours and bring her hand to the small of your back as you puff. You hate how weak you are. Oh well, you can't stay inside any longer.

She helps you down off the porch and over to the garden. She's reticent and awkward as she offers her hands and you cling to her. You drop into the chair and it reclines under your weight, the footrest popping up under your legs. It's not too bad.

"He'll be back," you shade your eyes with your hand, "might as well pull up a chair."

💎

"So," Suzanne, the intruder, giggles, "somehow the dumbass finds his way into a sewer–" she can't help but fall into cackles as you do the same, propping the cold glass of water against your bump, "comes out covered in shit like he went through Willy Wonka's chocolate river."

You're almost sobbing as you laugh. Your back wracks with pain but it's too amusing. You can just imagine how Lloyd lamented whatever designer loafers he had to wear into the underground.

Your mirth is interrupted only by the sudden beep of the gate. You glance over as Lloyd rolls through, rolling his window down as he watches you through dark sunglasses. He pulls up and stops violently, only an inch away from Suzanne's Jeep.

He swings the door open and hops out in a furor. You see his anger in his gait as he stomps over, the round sunglasses giving him a rather douchey look. Suzanne quiets her laughter and sips her toothless chardonnay. You both stare at him calmly as he blusters to the edge of the garden.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Lloyd jabs his finger in her direction.

"Hansen, long time, no see," she answers.

"And you," Lloyd ignores her, "you should be inside. How the fuck did you get out here?"

"I'm not a cat, Lloyd," you rebuff. "I'm fine out here. No moving, got it."

"What is this? What the fuck is going on?"

"Oh, chill out, Hansen, I was just getting to know your… wife? I thought anyone crazy enough to marry you would be just as intolerable but she's actually cool. Dunno how you scored her."

She stands coolly and takes a sip of the wine. He furrows his brow and flips up his sunglasses. He crosses his arms like a bratty child and huffs.

"So what? You just stroll into my house–"

"I didn't touch anything, don't worry. But you were ghosting me and that's not how this works–"

"Tell me how it fucking works. Give me a number and if I like it, I work. That's how it goes. Don't act like you're my fucking boss."

"Well, figure you might need some extra cash with a baby on the way–"

"I got all I need, cupcake," he sneers, "you come into my house again, even look at my wife wrong, and I will–" he nearly chokes on his anger, "and you let her come all the way out here? You made my pregnant wife with a broken fucking back come all the way outside–"

"She didn't make me do anything. And it's not broken, Lloyd–" you argue.

"The doctor said," he hisses and grips his forehead, "Suzanne, fuck off out of here so I can deal with my wife. Go find some other fuckhead to do your dirty work."

"Actually, she's not going anywhere," you interject, "she made dinner so–"

"Peaches, she's leaving. Now."

"Honey," you say sourly, "didn't the doctor say not to stress me out? This is my house too, isn't it? I can have friends over."

"Friend?"

"Oh, yeah," you smirk at him, "we really hit it off. Ta." You flick your fingers at him dismissively, "so, tell me about Paris. You said you were there last month?"

Lloyd's shadow lingers for just a minute before he sighs. He turns and stalks off with a grumble. You smile at Suzanne as she sits back down. The front door slams and you both burst out in laughter.

"I love you," Suzanne says, "I've been dying for years to see someone put him in his place."

[royallyprincesslilly]

Title: Rumor Has It {21}*

Chris Evans x Famous Reader Uriah “Riah” Tyler

Warning: Cursing, ANGST, Plot, Fluff, Mildly NSFW, Violence, Blood, Death, Verbal mention of Rape, Potentially Triggering Discussion

Words: 6.2k

Summary: You and Chris have been married for four years after a whirlwind romance. You are both happy and trying to navigate marriage in the public eye while balancing your successful careers. In the entertainment industry, not everything is as it seems, the flash of a camera lens impairs vision. As scandal and flashing lights put a strain on your once fairytale marriage is it possible your Hollywood marriage can stand the test of the rumor mill?

**Inspired by a video seen of Chris and his co-star Ana De Armas on their press tour for Knives Out at TIFF where she kept touching his chest and face standing about five inches apart.

NOTE: DO NOT COME FOR ME. THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION.

**Loosely Edited/Proofread**

Thank you guys for reading!!!! If you enjoyed this please LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG. 😊❤️❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-Uriah-

You pushed off of him to an upright position, not sure you’d heard him right. “Say what!?”

 Chris sat up as well and leaned on the headboard.

 “Yeah. Abel, the detective, found that the video was doctored. It was spliced together using so many different audio clips dating back to when Knives Out was announced. She had someone doctor it to make it seem like it was me, or recent and current me.”

 You were ready to claw her eyes out. “That bitch!”

 Chris sighed. “That’s not it,” he began. He reached for your hand and brought you closer. You swung your leg over his lap and sat on his thighs, giving him your undivided attention.

 “Remember the picture of her in the sweater?”

 Clenching your jaw, you nodded. “The one from your room?”

 He nodded. “You’re right—it was from my room.”

 You gaped at him, ready to lunge at him, but you stopped yourself.

 “She snuck in, stripped down, and posted it. Abel was able to get security footage from the hotel. She bribed one of the housekeeping staff. They let her in, and it was at the same time I was on call for press. The timestamp shows it. I’m thinking she knew it would set you off and create problems between us.”

 You couldn’t believe what he was saying. This was insane. Why would someone go to these lengths?

 “Wow.” You rubbed your forehead, trying to wrap your head around everything. Not only were you still grappling with everything that happened since the accident, including things with Christiano, but the babies and Chris’s downward spiral, but now this. “Oh my god.”

 “The investigator uncovered a video from the hotel—and so much more.” Chris released a heavy breath then took your hand. “It all points to her, Riah.”

 His fingers traced imaginary patterns on my hand and along the length of my fingers.

 “And the text messages?” You couldn’t help yourself. Chris looked up from your hand and to your waiting eyes. The look on his face was an inquisitive one. “The ones between you and her about us,” you finished.

 There was no look of shock; he just looked resolved, as if he somehow knew that you knew.

 “How do you know about that?”

 “I did something crazy,” you began before pausing to find the right way to explain.

 It only took a few moments to forego any strategic plan and lay it out. So that is what you did. You explained your mission impossible operation with Kizzy and Zora a few weeks ago at Chris’s press junket. You explained being in the elevator to witness Ana’s blatant flirting. You explained, taking her purse and going through her phone to find out how devious she was. By the time you finished, the silence in the room was deafening. Chris hadn’t moved or spoken since you began. The look on his face was so masked and neutral that you couldn’t tell if he was on the brink of an angry outburst or a disappointed one.

 Suddenly Chris snorted loudly then laughed obnoxiously, clapping his free hand across his chest. The laugh went on so long to the same caliber that you couldn’t help but join in. So the two of you sat there laughing together for several long minutes. Once both of you were laughed out, you just stared at each other.

 “I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Chris started first, continuing to rub your hand. “I knew who I married.”

 He sighed and shook his head. That was when you saw the remorse in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have told you about it all, but I didn’t want to hurt you or have you doubt me.”

 Chris clenched his jaw then crinkled his brow. “In hindsight, I know it looked really suspicious. There are so many things I see now that I didn’t then. I shouldn’t have even had those text exchanges. It’s not her place to know anything small or not about our marriage. Jesus.” Chris took his hand away then raked it through his hair before locking his hands behind his neck—one of his frustrated ticks. His eyes were dropped to your thighs, and that’s where they remained.

 “I’m sorry, Riah.”

 His voice sounded clouded, and that was the only indication you needed to know his emotions were getting the better of him.

 “I’ve been so stupid. So stupid,” he choked out.

 “Baby.” You slid closer to him, grabbing his elbows to pull them down to rest on top of your thighs. “Look at me.”

 You raised his chin so he was looking into your eyes. His tears stained his cheeks and welled his eyes. You’d wanted him to see the error of his ways so many times. You’d wished he could see it your way and understand, and now that he did, you should have felt vindicated, but you didn’t. There really were no winners when the family feuds.

 Dropping your face into the crook of his neck, you inhaled his scent.

 “I’m sorry, dragonfly,” Chris whispered, wrapping his arms around you holding you close. “So sorry.”

 “Baby—look at me.”

 He pulled back enough for you to peer into his eyes. As you caressed his cheek, you spoke.

 “It’s okay. I—you--,” you sighed, then traced your thumb across his bottom lip. “I understand. There has been so much—pain, so much sorries and--.” Again you stopped for a few seconds.

 “No more,” you finished.

 Chris slowly nodded his head, grasping your meaning. He then kissed your thumb and nuzzled his bearded jaw into your palm. Though you wanted to move on, there was one more burning question, one more thing you had to know. Nibbling your bottom lip, you found your courage.

 “Were—were you tempted?”

 You couldn't look at him, so you kept your head down.

 “What? Tempted? To do what?”

 Meeting his eyes, you swallowed, then continued.

 “Cheat,” you whispered.

 Chris sat up straight, and he cupped your face within his large hands. His eyebrows were crooked with the intense, take me serious look he always got when he was about to say something important.

 “Look at me. Never.”

 You tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let you.

 “Listen and hear me, Uriah, never, ever. I would never. I told you I married you for a reason. I had a plan. Forever and a day, Uriah. You promised me forever and a day, and I won’t stand for anything less. I’m collecting all of it. Forever and a day.”

Fighting the tears, you scoffed. “You were a jackass. When I tell you a woman wants you, don’t doubt me.”

 Chris smiled and nodded. “I was. Never again. We don’t be here again. I’m going to be Pence from now on. You must be present at all times, or I’m not alone with any women.”

 You busted out laughing, and for the first time, you didn’t feel the heaviness of the last few weeks. It felt almost normal, like the two of you were on your way. Chris kissed you once, then twice before resting his forehead to yours.

 “We have to nail her ass to the wall,” you declared, staring into his eyes.

 “Oh, definitely. What did you have in mind, Mrs. Evans?”

 “You didn’t file the papers?”

 Chris scoffed, then rolled his eyes.

 “I don’t know who you think I am, but you’re gonna have to try harder than divorce papers to get rid of me, Dragonfly.”

 Again you smiled. “So whatever I want, you won’t be the voice of sympathy?”

 “Whatever you want, kitten,” Chris replied, kissing the tip of your nose, making your belly flutter in the process.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m so happy that you’re okay, sweetheart,” your mother said as she pulled you into a group hug with your father.

 “I’ll be okay, mom.”

 Your father cupped your cheek, taking the time to inspect your face. You knew he wasn’t looking for physical harm. He was realizing how close he’d come to losing you, how he’d failed you. You could tell. When Chris had called them to update them, they instantly wanted to hear your voice. When they did, they broke, and that breaking turned to shattered when everything came out.

 You’d spent two hours on the phone with them, listening to them apologize and blame themselves for putting so much trust in Christiano. They felt horrible for never suspecting that he would stoop so low. They begged you not to hate them, begged you to forgive them. It was easy to promise them you weren't angry because you understood. You didn’t blame them or hold a grudge for them not doing more. They had no idea who Christiano really was—you didn’t either. The only one who ever saw him for who he was, was Chris.

 “I’m so sorry, Uriah. As your father, I should have done more to keep you away from him.”

 “Daddy, don’t. There is nothing you could have done. You did the best with what the information you had—you all did,” you assured, looking around at the faces of everyone you loved, both your family and Chris’s.

 Lisa approached and pulled you into another hug. You could feel her tears.

 “I’m okay, I promise.”

 “I am so happy that you are.” Her hand dropped to your bump, and she smiled. “That you all are.”

 Just like that, the waterworks started again, and everyone huddled around you, everyone but Chris, who was standing back most likely watching with a cheesy smile on his face. When they released you, your guess was correct. Chris smiled, then winked at you.

 “So how are we getting those sons of bitches?”

 All eyes snapped to Zora, who looked as if she was ready to rip out a heart and eat it.

 “Down girl—Chris has already laid the groundwork,” you said.

 “And it was easy, just play into that colossal ego of his,” Chris finished, kissing my temple.

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-Chris-

MSG Love Of My Life: Remember, don’t let him goad you. He’s going to try.

 He scoffed; it was an understatement.

 MSG: I’m good. He can’t get me to because I have what he doesn’t, and I know something he doesn’t.

MSG Love Of My Life: You do have me. Forever and a day, my love. <Kiss emoji, heart emoji>

MSG: You should have let me go with you. I don’t like you’re alone.

MSG Love Of My Life: I’m not alone. I have my parents, Kizzy, Zora, your sisters, your mom, our lawyers. I am far from alone.

MSG: You know what I mean.

MSG Love Of My Life: I don’t think I could relive it all with you next to me anyway. It’s better this way. I’ll see you soon. Remember what I said. <Kiss>

 He sighed and tried to push aside the guilt he felt. He wanted to be with you, holding your hand. You’d gone through too much alone, and all he wanted to do now was protect you.

 MSG Scott: Need me to come up?

MSG: Nah, I can handle this.

MSG Scott: Okay.

 He slipped his phone back into his pocket and stared out over the canyons and LA down below. It was a beautiful sight, one he liked a lot but not better than the changing leaves of Autumn in Massachusetts. He would never choose LA over them. It was, however, a good change of pace, but it staled quickly. Standing here, it was easy to forget the chaos of the last few months. Easy to forget that merely days ago, he’d thought his life was over, and it would never be the same.

 “I can’t believe you suggested this. What, you’re a glutton for punishment? That’s cool; I don’t mind helping you with that.”

 The sound of his voice was enough to make him want to turn around swinging, then drag him to the edge and kick him off Sparta style. He didn’t deserve to live, not after what he’d done to you. He clenched his jaw and tightened his fist, and slowly released a breath. Once he was sure he had some sort of control over his reflexes, he turned. Christiano looked as smug as ever. He’d never wanted to take a life, but right now, right here, he thought of at least ten ways in under one minute. They all involved pain.

 “So, what air is there to clear?”

 He clenched his jaw before he spoke.

 “She’s still my wife.”

 “Ah, ah, ah, according to those divorce papers she sent over, even that is limited time. Face it man; you’ve lost. I’ve won. I always win. I always get what I want, no matter what. It’s hilarious to me that you thought swooping into her life like that and marrying her on a whim would have changed things. Uriah has always been mine. She was always meant to be mine.”

 His hatred for the man in front of him was already at toxic levels. He had no idea how it was possible for it to increase. Staring at him and hearing the venom he just spewed did the trick.

 “So, this is just a game to you? This is her life—this is our life. All of this is for what?”

 “To win what’s rightfully mine. I’m Christiano White. I get what I want when I want it, and that includes women. No one takes what’s mine. No one, and she’s mine!”

 The smugness on his face was the most upsetting thing. He didn’t care hearing him profess fake ownership. He didn’t even care that Christiano thought he had so much privilege that he would get away with his insane plane. Even the thought that him being Christiano White meant jack shit. What really got to him was the fact he’d done this to prove some stupid, sick point. He’d played with his life, your life, and the life of his children for the sake of winning. He stepped to Christiano, ready to push his ass off the cliff, but before he touched him, the thought of you and those innocent babies flashed into his mind. There was no way he’d do this to you guys, he thought.

 Gathering some calm, he stepped back. Christiano chuckled.

 “Thay’s right. Recognize when you’ve lost, and oh, have you lost. Let me tell you how bad you’ve lost. She was in my bed, letting me touch her, kiss her, please her. She shouted my name, over and over. Not yours.”

 He scoffed. “You sure? My name’s Chris. Did she say, Christiano?”

 The smirk on Christiano’s face slipped, and rage replaced it. It was a small piece of satisfaction, but it was worth it, especially since he knew for a fact you’d called his name—Chris and not the latter. Though your brain didn’t remember him, your subconscious did, your heart did, your soul did. There was no room for anyone else. He nearly laughed in Christiano’s face because it had taken him this long to grasp that fully. There had only ever been you and him.

 “You only have yourself to blame. Who would dare cheat on Uriah? Who would think to replace a diamond with a pebble? You’re an idiot,” Christiano jabbed before he laughed out. “Don’t worry, once we’re married, things will be better for her.”

 “How do you plan on getting married if we’re still legally married?”

 For the second time, the smile Christiano wore slipped. He looked around as if he expected someone to come out.

 “For now,” Christiano scoffed, rolling his eyes.

 He couldn’t help but smile when he saw you walking up behind Christiano. Catching on, he spun around.

 “Babe, what’re—what’re you doing here? I thought we were meeting tonight.”

 Christiano approached you with his arms out, but you walked past him to his waiting arms instead. Once he wrapped his arm around your waist, you kissed his lips, then turned to Christiano, who looked confused, angry, and a few other emotions he most likely hadn’t put together yet.

 “For always,” you said.

 “What the fuck!”

 “Surprise,” he said, slipping his hand down to your hip. Christiano’s eyes dropped to his hand before he clenched his jaw. The annoyance from minutes ago was worth it.

 “What was the plan, Christiano? It’s bigamy to be married to two people at once. Our marriage would have been null in void. What was the goal!?”

 Christiano took a step to you, making him grip your hip tighter, ready to get in between you.

 “I’m better than him. I’m richer, I look better, and I’m better in bed. Admit it, Riah. I don’t lose to men like him. I wasn’t done with you,” Christiano confessed with bitterness in his voice.

 You pulled from him, taking a step to Christiano. “So you decided to turn me into a pawn! You decided to lie to me, manipulate me and—rape me?!”

 “Shut up, I didn’t--,” he began before you cut him off.

 “Yes, you did! I was not of sound mind. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even know who I was. You knew. You fucking knew, and you used that and stole from me. Admit it!”

 Sensing things were about to go south, he stepped between the two of you, pulling back to a safe distance.

 “That’s right, fuck it! Yes, I did all of that. I’ll admit it. Yes, I manipulated you to get what I wanted. I couldn’t lose to this dick. I couldn’t let you go. I wouldn’t. I did what was necessary. I took what was mine, and I don’t regret it. I’d do it again.”

 That was all he could stomach before he turned and decked him with all the force he possessed. Christiano dropped to the dirt and writhed for a few moments before he slowly stood laughing like a lunatic with the blood dripping from his nose.

 “You’re insane. You tried to kill my children because I ended things and found better?”

 “There is no better than me!”

 He spread his arms out, not caring where the blood that spewed from him went. “Uriah, you know you love me. You loved the feel of a real man between your legs. Just tell him.”

 Glancing at you, he realized you were crying now.

 “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. I can’t believe you’d hurt me this way.”

 He wrapped his arms around you, hoping to comfort you in some way. Looking back at Christiano, he was in time to see him charging toward him. He quickly moved you out of the way and threw a punch that connected with Christiano’s jaw. Instead of going down, Christiano lunged at him, gripping him around his waist, trying to bring him down to the ground. He almost laughed. Sending his knee into his gut, he spun and put Christiano in a chokehold keeping him there.

 It was then a group of police officers came running toward them.

 “Look at that. You lost, not just once, but twice and now—a third.”

 He wanted to snap his neck, and thinking of everything he’d put them through, he almost did. Two officers ran up to him, both of them taking Christiano by his arms.

 “We’ve got it from here.”

 Reluctantly he let Christiano go and allowed the law to take the wheel. Going to you, he cupped your cheeks and wiped your tears.

 “I’m here.”

 You hugged him, and he just held you. There was no need for words.

  -That Night-

“I love you.”

 Those words were like music to his ears. There was a time he didn’t think he’d ever hear them again. Gently pulling your head back, he peered into your eyes while caressing your cheek. He loved seeing you like this with your hair free, hovered over him, with the moon as your backdrop.

 “I love you more,” he whispered.

 “Forever and a day?”

 He smiled, remembering your promises, and pressed his forehead to yours. “Forever and a day, dragonfly.”

 You kissed him softly, taking the time to tease his lips, nibbling his bottom one before burying your face in the crook of his neck as you rocked against him, sending him higher and higher until he felt as if his soul left his body.

 “Uriah!”

 It felt like he was no longer in his body but instead hovering overhead like a fly watching your bodies entangled together. There was no other sight he loved as much. You rolled off of him and found your place beside him, resting your head on his chest, right over his heart. You both sighed.

 “After this is done, let’s go back to Massachusetts full time,” you quietly said after a few minutes.

 “What?” he turned to look at you, needing to see if you meant it.

 “Do you mean that?”

 “Yeah. I never wanted to raise kids in LA, and you know I love Massachusetts. Let’s have these babies in the house you built for us,” you added.

 He couldn’t believe his ears. It wasn’t that you’d ever expressed not wanting to live in Massachusetts full time; it was that he knew how much of your career was still in LA. With him, he was spending less and less time here, but you, it seemed it was more and more.

 “How is that going to work with your career?”

 You rolled slightly onto your side, then trailed your hand across his chest down his stomach to rest nonchalantly atop his manhood. Groaning, he wrapped one of his arms under his head.

 “I’m taking a few years off.”

 The shock had his junk jumping in your hand, making a wide smile spread across your face. “Wow, talk about talent,” you teased.

 He rolled you onto your back and climbed on top of you, nestling himself between your spread thighs.

 “Don’t play with me, Mrs. Evans.”

 You smiled widely as you fondled him with one hand. Not being strong enough to have this conversation while you did that, he grabbed your hand and pressed it over your head, gripping you at your wrist.

 “No fair,” you pouted.

 “Say that again.”

 You smiled, clearly loving that fact he was hanging by a flimsy piece of thread.

 “I said I’m taking a few years off.”

 He couldn’t stop his grin. “Really?”

 “Yeah. What do you think? Would you want that?”

 “You’re kidding. Of course, yes! It would be just the two of us day in, day out. No movie sets, no studio time, no photoshoots.”

 “Eh-em, excuse you. You mean just the five of us,” you corrected.

 It didn’t take him long to get it. You, him, babies, and Dodger.

 “I love you, Mrs. Evans.”

 “I love you, Mr. Evans.”

 You kissed him once, then twice before your hands roamed down his back to grip his ass, making him moan and chuckle at the same time. He’d missed this and you.

 “Hang on, baby; I gotta--,” he began.

 “Ah, that after nut pee calls, huh. Fine. Go ahead. I'll just be here, pregnant and horny.”

 He snorted and rolled off of you before hurrying to the bathroom.

 “Oh, I’m coming back, cause—that sounds like a very pressing situation that needs my undivided attention.”

 You giggled as he dipped into the bathroom. He hurried to the toilet and tried his best to aim properly but an erection and peeing straight made for a tricky situation. Once he’d gotten the hang of it and the common sense to curve his body a little, he was good and groaned long and loud as he relieved himself. The silence in the bathroom gave him the time to fully react to the prospect of moving back to Massachusetts full time for the next few years. He couldn’t wait. Life was about to change for the better.

 Once finished, he flushed and washed his hands before stepping back into the room. He expected you to be lying on the bed, waiting for him, but the bed was empty. Thinking you might have found your way to the kitchen for a snack, he pulled his pajama pants off the floor and pulled them on before he walked out of the bedroom. He’d recently discovered that after sex, you craved something from the fridge. He walked down the hall leading to the staircase, but before he got there, a chill ran down his spine. It was this chill and almost like a psychic feeling that had him stop.

 When he turned, there you stood in your pale pink kimono robe with Christiano behind you. His hand was around your neck, clasping it.

“What the--.” He made a move toward them, but Christiano pulled out a gun and pointed it to your stomach.

 “I wouldn’t,” he began before he cocked the weapon. “Or I will pull this trigger, and there goes Evan Jr.”

 Terror as he’d never felt before gripped his heart. “You wouldn’t risk her life.”

 Christiano shoved the barrel of the gun more forcefully into your stomach, making you whimper loudly.

 “Wouldn’t I? what’s the point of keeping her safe now? For her to end up with you? I think the fuck not!” Again he shoved the gun into you.

 “Okay, hey, hey, stop. Don’t do this. Please.”

 “Please?” Christiano snorted and pulled you more firmly against him. “Are you begging me finally? You’ve always been underneath me. I couldn’t understand why she would choose you over me. I’m better in every category.”

 He nodded, with his hands raised.

 “You’re right. You’re the better man, the better choice,” he agreed, deciding to play along and say whatever he wanted if it meant Uriah had a chance of getting away from him. He quickly tried to formulate a plan while he used his words to buy himself as much time as possible.

 “I know! So why him, Uriah!?”

 You remained quiet, tears streaming down your cheeks.

 “Answer me! You better answer me with the truth, or I swear I’ll pull this trigger.”

 “Answer hi, Dragonfly. It’s okay. Forever and a day.”

 You scrunched your face and watched fresh heartbreak wash over you. “I—I fell in love with him, Tino. My soul recognized his as my home. It could only ever be him,” you replied. He signaled to you using his eyes and slight movements of his head, and he hoped you understood them.

 He watched Christiano squeeze your neck tighter and press the gun more persistently into you, and he said a silent prayer.

 “Fine,” Christiano began. He saw the moment when it all changed for him, and his threats no longer were empty words. “If I can’t have you. No one can.”

 “Now, Riah!”

 You threw your head back, colliding yours with his in a vicious headbutt that sent Christiano staggering backward a few steps and you stumbling before falling to the floor. In the chaos, Christiano dropped the gun allowing him to leap forward for the gun. In seconds Christiano was on him, fighting him for it. He tried to pull it from his clutches while turning it away from him or Uriah, but there was no fury like a man who’d lost everything.

 Christiano managed to wrangle the gun from his grasp and pointed it to Uriah. In the blink of an eye, he knew what had to be done—the only thing he could do. Locking eyes with you, he said the only thing that mattered.

 “I love you.”

 He then dove for Christiano tracking him into the banister railing with enough force that broke it, sending both of them over the edge and down two and a half stories to the hard marble floor beneath. He could hear your piercing scream right before they collided with the floor, but once they made impact, the gun went off, and again Uriah screamed.

 “Chris!”

~~~~~~~~~

-Uriah-

It all had happened in such a way that it was in slow motion but sped up. You couldn’t register anything until it was all said and done. You scurried to the banister and looked down. Neither of them moved, and your heart stopped. Gasping, you tried to remind your brain to send the signal for you to breathe. After a few seconds, you coughed while trying to hurry down the stairs. The tears in your eyes made it difficult to see what was in front of you, so you stumbled down the stairs. If it weren’t for your gripping the railing as you descended, you were sure you would have tumbled.

 Once down to them, you dropped to your knees beside them and pulled at Chris’s body. He wasn’t moving.

 “Oh god, Chris!”

 He didn’t respond, and his body felt like dead weight. Your tears flowed more freely as you managed to roll him off. Once you had, you were able to see that it was Christiano who was shot and not Chris. Relief filled you, and you shook him more forcefully.

 “Chris! Wake up, please. Please don’t leave me. Chris!”

 Suddenly he erupted into a fit of choughs before they died down.

 “Why are you always shouting at me, woman!?”

 You gasped again. “Oh my god! You scared the shit out of me.”

 “I’m okay. I think,” he informed while trying to sit up. He then began examining you.

 “Are you okay?”

 “Yes.”

 He then gripped his head as he groaned out, but it wasn’t long before he was moving toward you to pull you into his arms, not caring that he was covered in blood.

 “Is he—is he dead?”

 Chris leaned back to check Christiano’s pulse, then lowered his head. “Very dead.”

 You clasped your hands over your mouth. “Oh my god. He—he tried--.”

 Chris pulled you into him and hugged you tightly. “Come here. It’s okay.”

 Somehow he managed to slide both of you from the body on the floor toward the wall. He held you tightly, then spoke.

 “I don’t think I’ll call you crazy again after this.”

 It was probably inappropriate, but you snorted then laughed, a laugh he joined in on. As suddenly as the laughter began, it ended.  

 “They’re crazy.”

 “Bat shit,” Chris replied.

 Any humor to be found in the situation was gone, and it turned into you crying in his shoulder, going through all the emotions from the entire night. There had been so much pain, so much destruction. You’d come close to losing everything more than once, and the culprit was lying dead on the floor before you. It was overwhelming, but somehow, you felt steeled to the fact that you’d just watched someone die.

 You glanced over to Chris at the same moment he looked at you. He wiped the tears from your cheeks then spoke.

 “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” He then lowered his lips to your forehead and held you close.

 Ten minutes later, the sirens of the police, ambulance, and fire trucks could be heard as they surrounded your property. The officers instantly took yours and Chris’s statements and any evidence lying around to prove what the two of you were professing, including the security footage. The EMS workers quickly covered Christiano’s body with a sheet as they rolled him into a body bag then pushed the gurney out of the house. You barely registered anything. Chris did most of the talking, not leaving one thing out. When they asked you about the events of the night, you stuttered and quickly became frazzled as everything finally caught up to you. That was when the detective Chris hired suggested meeting at the police station to continue, which would allow him to reveal his findings in his investigation.

After a quick change, you were sitting in the passenger side of Chris’s car as he drove you to the precinct. Your mind raced a mile a minute, but your lips remained zipped. The feel of Chris’s hand on your thigh was your tangible evidence that this was reality and not some soap opera plot. When you arrived at the precinct, the detective in charge of the case questioned you from the very beginning to the night's events. You did your best to remain calm and emotionless and were surprised that you didn’t feel the shame you’d felt about the entire situation prior to this night.

When the detective revealed new information divulged to him, from the detective Chris hired, about Christiano and what he’d truly been up to and how deep his plans really went, you could hardly stomach it. He’d secured another property in Russia and planned to bring you there. The way the information was revealed, it seemed like he planned on keeping you captive there. Hearing that, you almost passed out. Chris, on the other hand, looked like he was ready to kill Christiano again.

 The questioning took a full hour, and at the end of it, you were exhausted and ready to put this entire thing behind you after dealing with Ana. With Chris’s arm around your waist, you walked out of the detective’s office onto the precinct's open floor. A loud scream brought your attention to several officers pulling Ana through with her hands cuffed behind her back.

 “I demand you let me go. Do you know who I am!? I swear to god, I will have your badge, and you’ll never be a fucking cop again!”

 “Wow, the mouth on her,” one of the officers teased.

 “To think we found her hot in that Bond movie,” another piped up.

 “Fuck you!”

 You and Chris approached, curious as to what was going on. You hadn’t expected to see her until tomorrow when you and Chris executed the second part of your plan of confronting her while recording it to release it to the world, showing everyone who and what she really was. It would have been a one-two hit that she wouldn’t recover from. Her career would have been over.

 “It’s been a big night,” the detective who’d just interviewed you said, standing beside you.

 “I don’t understand. What’s going on? Why’s she here?”

 “Your detective gave us plenty of information. By the way, impressive man, you should think about keeping him on your payroll. Anyway, we followed his leads, and it led right to her and her assistant, specifically her assistant’s car. This one took her assistant’s car and was the one behind the wheel when she ran into you. The traffic cams show it was an intentional hit.”

 You saw red.

 “What!”

 “She tried to kill you,” Abel, the private detective, added, coming up beside Chris.

 “What’s more, there were messages between her and Christiano White.”

 Both yours and Chris’s heads spun to him to the police detective this time to find him nodding with a look on his face that said even he hadn’t encountered anything this bizarre before.

 “They concocted this whole scheme together, beginning with the pictures of her in that eat shit sweater. This was set up with them. there is even evidence Christiano was poisoning you, Mrs. Evans.”

 “Jesus,” Chris hissed.

 You remained utterly silent and still letting Abel’s words fully process. It was a lot of information, but it was also vindication that you were in no shape or form crazy.

 “Wh—what does all this mean?”

 “It means she’s going to face a judge on a slew of charges that are quite serious. I can assure you both; there is no easy way of her getting out of any of this. No amount of money or connections will fix it. Her career is over,” the detective finished.

 You both were speechless, and looking at Chris, he was too. You and Chris were led to somewhere you could sit for a few minutes to receive the paperwork for the night’s incident and the new information. While sitting, you used the time to catch your breath and wrap your head around everything. Neither of you could believe all you’d gone through. The more you thought about it, the more your confusion increased. One burning questioned remained. Why?

 About ten minutes later, you and Chris were led toward the exit, but you caught sight of Ana to your right. You would have walked on, but the way she glared at you had you changing your mind in seconds. You let go of Chris’s hand and walked over to her.

 “I have to know. Why? What was the point!?”

 Ana bolted to her feet as if she planned to do something, but the officer behind her grabbed her arm, holding her to ensure she didn’t try anything. You weren’t worried.

“You don’t deserve anything you have. The fame, the popularity, and opportunities you don’t deserve any of it, especially Chris. He was supposed to be mine. That baby was supposed to be mine!”

 You could hear the poison in her voice and see the sheer hatred for you shining brightly in her eyes. She truly meant this though she didn’t know one thing about you.

 “You’re crazy as fuck. I hope it was worth it.” You reached back for Chris’s hand, knowing he was behind you. Lacing your fingers with his, you showed her all that her efforts had produced, then turned and began walking away.

 “You low-grade black bitch!

In your head, you heard blaring sirens. The sound became so loud in a matter of seconds it had somewhat of a mind-altering effect. Chris released your hand as if he knew what was going to happen. You turned back to her and saw red.

 “Oh I’ll show you how low grade this black bitch is!”

 You ran to her, then tackled her to the floor. Once on top of her, you swung punch after punch, each slamming into her face. You didn’t care where they landed, didn’t care how hard you were hitting her either. There was a lesson she needed to learn, and the only way to learn it was getting her ass beat the right way—the black way. You felt hands trying to pull you off of her, but you were not having it. You held on to her hair, so when they tried to move you, they really helped you bald the bitch.

 “See, I never learned to share when I was young! I’m—an—only—child!” With each enunciated word, you emphasized it with a punch. Ana’s screams were loud, but they weren’t louder than those alarms still sounding off in your head. Though she tried to fight back, it was futile, though.

 “Learn this bitch! Don’t,” you dropped a punch to her nose. “Touch,” you slapped her with your open hand. “What,” you slapped her again, this time with the back of your hand. “is mine!”

 From then, no one else tried to pull you off of her. You suspected it was Chris warning them. You managed to get off a few more punches when you were finally pulled off.

 “Let me go!”

 “Okay, calm down, Adonis Creed, that’s enough,” Chris shouted, trying to break through to you. You still struggled trying to get back to her, but Chris refused to let you go until you calmed down. You looked at Ana on the floor. She was barely moving, and her face was a bloody mess with several patches of her dark hair sprinkled around her. Satisfaction filled you. Raising your hand, you assured Chris you were good. Slowly he let you go, and you stooped down to her.

 “Look at me.”

 You waited for her writhing to stop and for her bloody, swollen eyes to land on you.

 “Remember my name for the rest of your pathetic life. Remember that I’m that bitch!”

 You grabbed her hair and held her head. “Try this shit again; you gonna lose your life.”

 With that, you punched her one more time, knocking her clear out. Everyone around the precinct shouted out a collective “ooh.” You stood and walked away as they all cleared your path, most likely thinking you were crazy. Chris came beside you, took your hand, and walked back to the car with you. Once inside, you both sat there, silently processing everything. Five minutes passed in silence until you spoke.

 “She did all this over dick, Chris. Dick,” you said in disbelief as you shook your head.

 “I mean—my dick is A1.”

 Your head spun to him. “Christopher!”

 He laughed out loud while holding his hands up in defeat.

 “Hey, don’t beat my ass too, I don’t want none,” Chris joked, making you laugh a little.

 “Wow, remind me not to piss you off again. I don’t want any of what she got.”

 You fake lunged at him with your still bloodied fists. “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”

 Both of you erupted with laughter before you embraced, relishing in the feeling of togetherness and your love. It was finally over; you thought as Chris pressed a soft kiss to your neck.

 “Let’s get the fuck out of this town,” Chris suggested. You snorted and nodded.

 “Let’s go home.”

 Knowing where you meant, Chris smiled and kissed you once, then twice.

 “Let’s,” he whispered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[p1harmonyofficial]

[📰] K-Pop Rookies P1Harmony Are Writing Their Own Coming of Age Story

By Crystal Bell

K-pop group P1Harmony debuted three months ago with their audacious single "Siren," and member Jiung is already dreaming of the perfect solo vacation. The 19-year-old singer wants to emphasize that this is a trip he'd like to — no, needs to — do alone, when he can safely do so. ("You need to bold the word 'alone,'" leader Keeho adds in English, a knowing glint of mirth in his eyes. "Put it in italics too.") So, more about this excursion: "If possible, I want to go to a foreign country," Jiung tells Teen Vogue from an office in Seoul, South Korea. He doesn't have a specific place in mind, just somewhere new and exciting and, most importantly, a place where he can be alone to freely organize his thoughts without any other responsibilities.

It sounds like a lyric ripped from the pages of his notebook, or the plot of a coming-of-age movie his 17-year-old groupmate Intak would enjoy: a young man on a voyage of self-discovery, chasing a feeling to a faraway land to escape his adolescent ennui. For now, however, it's just a lofty resolution for the new year.

"I also want to travel alone because I've never done it before," youngest member Jongseob, who recently turned 15, enthusiastically offers in Korean. Jiung, always one to help the younger sort out his feelings, is quick to quash the teenage rapper's theoretical plans. "That's not very realistic," he says. "You're too young to travel alone." Undeterred, Jongseob carries on: "Then my goal this year is to drink more milk."

"He wants to grow taller, but I don't think milk helps that much," Keeho comments, shaking his head while his teal quiff stays firmly in place. "I heard that's a myth."

Technically, they're not wrong. Unaccompanied minors can't travel internationally without a parent's formal consent in South Korea, and there's no proven scientific correlation between dairy and height. But spoken aloud, this interaction sounds more like playful goading among good friends. It's a testament to Keeho, Theo, Jiung, Intak, Soul, and Jongseob's comfortable dynamic as a group that the copper-haired youngest just earnestly smiles through the minor sting of his hopes being swiftly dashed.

For all of the training that goes into a K-pop artist's career, perhaps the most vital lesson is learning how to symbiotically coexist in close quarters with someone who is unfamiliar to you. Like most things, it is a process. Harmony isn't achieved overnight, especially among six teenage boys who have differing definitions of the word "clean." Cultural differences present unique challenges, too. When Keeho left his home in Canada to pursue his musical dreams as a trainee at FNC Entertainment in Seoul, he didn't have much trouble fitting in. Or so he thought. "He was funny," Jiung says in retrospect. "But I don't think we were able to communicate well." It wasn't that they couldn't understand what Keeho was saying — the soulful singer grew up speaking Korean with his family — but rather they couldn't understand him.

"Everyone would be stressed out, and I would be like, 'Guys, relax. Why are you stressing out over this?'" Keeho says animatedly with his hands. "They couldn't understand why I was so relaxed. How could I not care about anything? And I couldn't understand why they were always so stressed about things. It took a while to get on the same page."

That's where communication comes in. "The key is being honest," Jiung explains. "We have a lot of talks." These regular conversations allow the members to resolve potential issues before they spiral into larger, more disharmonious problems. Keeho is refreshingly open about this. "We're always stuck together," he adds. "We live together. We see each other 24 hours a day. Seeing anyone 24 hours a day, you'll eventually be, like, ugh, get away from me, but because we communicate so much, that [feeling] is reduced." Establishing rules and boundaries also helps. "We have a basic rule that you clean up the mess you've made," Jongseob says from where he's perched behind Jiung. (This rule is especially important to methodical Jiung.) And then there's vocalist Theo, the eldest member who also takes on the role of the group's even-keeled mediator because he's a good listener, and he likes giving advice.

"I'm not very opinionated," the blonde says. At 19, he's a few months older than Keeho but harder to read. He's both lighthearted and enigmatic. "I'm not good at expressing my feelings," Theo explains. "But the members are really good at expressing themselves and their emotions, so I'm learning how to open up because of them." According to Keeho, Theo is "bad at being serious," adding, "We'll have to have a serious talk, and he won't be able to take it. He's always trying to lighten the mood. He's the comedic relief."

Keeho makes a habit of describing the members' various idiosyncrasies in fervent detail. It's a very leaderly thing to do, to make sure that everyone feels understood. Occasionally, he also jumps in to help interpret their answers into English, or to encourage others to speak. Soul, who is half-Korean but was raised in Japan, could be described as a quiet person: an introvert who wears a lot of black, listens to metal, and has a particular obsession with massive skull rings and accessories. But he's also acutely perceptive. He'd rather listen and observe than be an active participant in the conversation. "I like when the rest of the members are discussing an idea," he says quietly in Korean (he's still learning the language). "I like watching them talk." It's not that he's not involved, but as Keeho puts it, "He's always supporting us silently and observing us." For Soul, it's more fun to sit and watch.

You can get a sense of these dynamics as they unfold on the last track of the group's debut EP, Disharmony: Stand Out. It's a skit, or audio recording of the members — then, just trainees — as they talk candidly about their dreams to perform and contemplate the implications of such aspirations. "I work hard here for the debut, but when I go to school, I wonder, 'What am I doing here?'" Intak says on tape, recalling how strange it feels to not have the same priorities as his classmates who are all preparing for their college admissions. Theo quells his concerns, telling him how lucky he is to already be working toward his dream. "That's a cool thing," Keeho adds, as Soul silently listens in the background.

While his peers prepared for their academic futures, Intak was spending his evenings dancing, rapping, singing, and writing lyrics, while also stunt training alongside his groupmates and preparing to become a… movie star. A few weeks before the release of their album, P1H: A New World Begins hit theaters across South Korea in early October. The first K-pop origin story to hit the big screen, the feature film introduced P1Harmony and their sci-fi lore to the masses. Long story short: After a deadly virus spreads chaos and violence around the globe, six boys with extraordinary gifts are humanity's only hope for survival. The filming experience was invaluable for the artists, who until that point had only ever studied music and performance. "Acting training really helped with my facial expressions," Intak says. "I learned how to portray my emotions on stage." Keeho agrees, adding, "We got very friendly with the camera."

Singers who rap, rappers who sing, dancers who act — the boys of P1Harmony forgo clearly defined roles in favor of being versatile and, well, good at everything.

As for their music, Disharmony: Stand Out is a snapshot of Gen Z unrest, simmering with angst ("Siren") and bucking wildly, vibrantly against convention ("Nemonade"). Teenage turmoil has been fueling the K-pop industry since the very beginning, and there's a certain nostalgia to P1Harmony's no-holds-barred approach. Members Soul and Jongseob both credit B.A.P and their hard-hitting style with inspiring them to become artists, with Zelo influencing Jongseob to pursue rap in elementary school. You can hear those more aggressive, hip-hop-tinged influences on Disharmony, as well as softer, more lyrical R&B flourishes ("Butterfly").

"We wanted to convey feelings and situations that are not harmonious," Jongseob says. "We want to say don't be afraid to stand out and to say what you want to say — speak your truth, and do it with courage and confidence." Despite his age, the young rapper carries himself like a veteran. By all accounts, he's earned the title, having won the competition series K-pop Star 6 at age 12 in 2017 and competed in YG Treasure Box less than two years later. These experiences, he says, helped him feel more comfortable performing. By the time he came to FNC, he was already a prodigy with the confidence and flow of a performer twice his age.

"There are so many people, our age especially, who aren't always able to speak courageously and confidently," Keeho adds. "So we wanted to encourage everyone, especially ourselves, to never be afraid to say what you want to say."

And they practice what they preach. All of the members are credited lyricists on the album, with all six collaborating on the roaring hip-hop track "That's It." Part cypher, part vibes, "That's It" is teeming with boyish swagger and possibility. "Even though it was the first time all six of us worked on a song together, surprisingly we were all on the same page from the very first meeting, and it came together quickly," Jiung recounts, adding that each member wrote their own verse. "It was fun," Keeho chirps.

That creative energy is also channeled into their performances. "Because we do take part in a lot of the songwriting, we also want to convey that in our dance," Intak explains. Though he's part of the group's rap line, his first love was dance. He started taking lessons as a child. "My mom is a dancer, so she's where I got my love of dancing," he says. As such, he's well-versed in conveying emotion through motion. "We always have an idea of how we want to portray these emotions with our bodies," he says. The members choreograph their own center gestures. These movements are a small but significant part of any performance, because this is where their charisma and individuality shine brightest.

"I wanted to become a singer because I wanted to perform onstage," Theo says. "So being able to be on music programs performing on real stages, surrounded by bright LED lights and visual backdrops, I feel like a main character. When all of the lights are on me, I feel like a star."

Unsurprisingly, even when he's offstage, he's still singing. He even likes to call his friends and take song requests. "I like to sing to my friends through the phone," he says. "I'll sing anything they want. I play piano for them, too. They're very open to listening to me." Next to him, Keeho adds, "My friends would not want me to sing to them." (The internet respectfully disagrees.) Meanwhile, Jongseob turns to making music and writing lyrics in his downtime. It's a great way to relieve stress, he says. These days, Intak turns to animated films to ease his mind. He's a fan of Studio Ghibli films, and he really likes the Japanese manga characters Doraemon and Shin Chan.

"I watch a lot of coming-of-age stories about these innocent kids who are in the process of becoming adults," he explains. "I get inspired by watching them. I don't want to lose that innocence, so watching those animations make me feel youthful." It's hard to imagine Intak without his boyish sensibility. It's seeped into every social media post and YouTube vlog (or, #PLOG). Yet, as an artist, as a teenager, it's an unusual phenomenon to be perceived by thousands of fans before having the clarity to perceive yourself. It's something no amount of Miyazaki or training prepares you for.

Initially, Theo had a hard time opening up on camera. The mere thought of it made him nervous, but the more he did it, the easier it was for him to parse his own feelings. "I'm not very good at expressing emotions like thank you and I love you," he says. "But it's a lot easier to express those feelings now because I feel them so sincerely. I can say thank you for loving me [to fans] because I truly mean it."

"There are people from all around the world who leave me messages, and that makes me so happy," Intak says. "It drives me to do more and to give more to them."

And there will be more to give. Disharmony: Stand Out was just the beginning, and Keeho already has some very big goals for 2021. At the top of the list? "Rookie of the Year, come on!" he says spiritedly of the K-pop industry's coveted award. "It's definitely possible. I'm manifesting it right now." He also wants to make more music, maybe release more covers. "We want to come back a lot," he smiles. "I'm thinking [of] at least three releases next year."

Then there are more personal goals, like Jiung's solo travels. "I want to take better care of my mental health," he adds, noting that it starts with a more positive mindset. "I want to be a better person overall." Intak wants to, for the first time in his young life, maintain a consistent routine for a healthier lifestyle. That includes getting enough sleep when there aren't any schedules. ("He could sleep, but he chooses not to," Keeho jokes.) After monitoring his fancams, Theo has decided that he wants to build more muscle. And Soul hopes to go home to Japan to see his dog, a Frenchie named Mochi.

As for Keeho, in true Libra fashion, he wants to maintain a sense of balance: "I want to stay true to myself," he says. "I don't want to be like, oh, the fame is getting to me. I don't want to change. I want to stay grounded and stay thankful and be grateful, always. I also want to make some more money." He laughs, then adds, "I can't lie!"

No, he can't. Honesty is the key to harmony, after all.

[bloominghope]

FOR TONIGHT ( x )

Inside a Mercedes GLC Coupé, late night — or, potentially, early hours of the morning —, late September: the slow exhalations falling through parted lips. Lips that had been permanently curled upwards all Sunday long; soft smiles when eyes met and the recollections of hazy days, filled with elation, with the utmost joy, were silently shared. Crinkly-eyed grins, displaying tenderness for what once was. Slight, fleeting smirks, accompanied by the silent nudge to a leg underneath the table, so casually that it almost felt normal. 

Lips that now taste the salt, the wetness that he would have mistaken by a droplet of rain, hadn’t he been cozied up under the glimmering stars of the SUV’s roof. Refusing to acknowledge the single, oval-shaped tear making its path down his cheek, leaving a trail ( of the remnants of the past, of a heartache, of what could have been ) as it descends, won’t do anything for him. It won’t ease the heavy feeling on his head or erase how his heart plummeted down to his stomach as soon as he signaled to the right and brought the car to a halt on a, frankly appalling manner, parking spot. 

His brown eyes are shut tight, hands disappearing into the sleeves of his favorite jumper like a child’s would and he’s unspeaking. Is he aware, in the intensity of the moment, that life scurries by in all its ordinariness and vulgarity, imposing itself all around him — in the dark corner of the street where a couple is far too enthralled by the kisses they share or the late workers, speeding by the empty, well-lit streets, caring little about traffic rules and regulations. Is he aware or is he unscathed, unaffected while he glances at something deeper… His own version of life in all its glorious ugliness or maybe… glancing at something concealed, hidden underneath the layers he spent years developing, creating with his own imagination and bringing to life with a lot of hard work. 

Soft strands of brown hair stand in an unruly fashion - one going left and the other right, one swiveling up and a few others resting idly on his forehead - as a consequence of all the tugging and combing, the numerous times he ran his long fingers through it in the previous hours. Simultaneously, his backs moves, ever so unhurriedly, to gently rest against the comfort of seat and a gentle sigh bubbles out, cutting through the silence established in the car. A second, two, three… a long minute, he remains motionless. Stagnant like his life seems to be, he thinks. And then… then he’s reaching for the phone, unlocking it, staring to a background that should have been changed a year and a half away when the future became the past and the plans became memories. 3.27, he whispers, but in an act of courage ( or desperation ), he dials a number. The number that remained engraved into his memory like it was ink to the skin. No answer. He did not expect one. The green icon of the messaging app calls for his attention and without any thought he clicks it, beginning a new chat but words fail. There’s a mess of thoughts, racing and clashing, spiraling in and out his brain, and he laughs. No use for this literature degree sometimes, rushes to the forefront of his mind. He touches and holds the recording button, instead.

“Rylee—“ his voice comes out huskier than he expected, carrying out the exhaustion he hadn’t felt until now, honeyed and low like anything would break if he would raise it an octave, like he would wake her up. It throws him off. He releases the button with a frown, groaning once he equates he also sent the audio message. No point turning back now, he reasons. You might be gone in the morning anyway, the remembrance sends a shiver down his spine and the frown grows deeper. Shaking off the thoughts, he begins again, thankful she hadn’t seen - or heard - the nonsensical first message. 

“I think we’ve been done long before everything begun between us — harsh, maybe. I just mean that… in hindsight, it’s as though it was always the destiny playing a twisted joke on us. Your father has always been your father— bless him— what I mean is, you were always predestinated to be in the spotlight, the public eye, one way or another and by the time we met, I already knew I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle the fame. I know you have always been honest with me— you never hid the fame was unwanted but that it would be there, regardless. Yet…” He laughs, humorlessly, the sound melodious but brimming with all the hurt, the emotion. When he proceeds, his voice grows softer. “Honesty is just a game, isn’t it? Life is just a game. I knew we were done before it all begun, yet I lead us on, I continue to let it happen, because I still can’t give it up. Yesterday I couldn’t sleep until some ungodly hour, and I had to fight myself not to go and lie with you… because I knew you’d leave in the morning - or later that day - and even though I know it’s what we both wanted, I know it’s wrong to lie with you. Even if it’s all I wanna do. Even if we’re safe behind close doors and the world can’t see us or touch us. Sometimes I want to shut down the rational part of my brain and throw away every single point that proves we shouldn’t be together, that it wouldn’t stay secret or private for long. But I know it’s a Russian roulette. Did we become insensitive to what is wrong, after we saw each other at that supermarket? My mind went empty, you know? All I wanted to do was hold you and kiss you and mend everything. All I wanted to do was keep you in my arms for as long as I could. All I wanted, all I really wanted to do, was travel back in time and be so close to you that I could tell what scent you were wearing that day and it would forever be engraved in my memory, alongside every little detail of yours. Like how you relax whenever I draw my fingers up and down your arm or how you smile, no matter how pissed off you are, whenever you see me smile at you. Then, you spoke and I broke through the haze because if seeing you was enough to bring it all back, I didn’t want the rest. No longer wanted to hold you because I know the feelings would eat me up alive. Then there was this weekend and… shit…” A sniff ends the audio, the screen of the iphone lighting his face and collecting tears he hadn’t processed were falling. For now, he ignores them and holds the recording button one last time, “I love you. More than I ever realized, and to a point where the whole loving someone until it hurts quote is starting to make sense. I love you in the purest, most ridiculous of the ways, in a manner that doesn’t compare to anything else, to any other feeling. I love you to the point where just seeing you has my heart racing and hearing your name brings a smile to my lips. I love you to the point where I would happily lie with you and hold you in my arms, for the rest of my life. And I don’t think anyone or anything will ever compare. I don’t think I will ever get over you or us, I don’t think I will ever be able to take someone else to the places we used to go. Did I tell you a few months ago, I was entirely convinced I had gotten over our breakup and then, I was driving and our song— can I still call it that?— started playing and it was all it took to erase my beliefs. It’s all it takes to remind me you aren’t out of mind and to make me smile in the most stupid of the ways. I have no idea why I’m telling you this. I’ve been parked in the same spot for a while now and… just… nights are hard. Heartbreak is harder at night. And… And I’m evidently avoiding the fact there are two suitcases in the car’s boot and I have a flight to France in a few hours — and the imminent, looming issue that if I don’t take it, I’m about to be fired. Funny huh? Got a nice job overseas and I’m wallowing in self-pity over how much I love you. Is life ever this laughable? Is it always this comical… Anyway… I’ll go now, I hope I didn’t wake you up. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the job thing, I didn’t want to see your reaction because then I might just actually throw every fucking reservation away and stay with you. I know you… I know you told me you would never move on — and its rich of me to ask when I just said myself that I wouldn’t move on either — but I want you to try and be happy without me, okay? I’ll always be yours. The past eleven years of my life will always be yours. You’ll always be everything I want but I think I should really leave… I— yeah, I should leave now. I’m gonna miss my flight. I love you. Always, always, always.”

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #31)

(cw: drugs, themes of death/overdose) ----------

01/19/88   1:34 PM

Hey.

So. I know it’s been a little while.

Writing the last entry was just… a lot. It gave me more to think about than I anticipated. I’m… still kind of sorting out those thoughts. But ‘writing to you’ has become such an outlet now that I was starting to get antsy by putting it off. 

So the story continues.

Terror came over me when the darkness fell. At least for a little while. You can hardly blame me, though, given what I’d just seen. Your face was broken, and then we blew up, and then you were gone, and I was lost in nothingness. It was just a punch in the face with a fist made of horrible, terrible things.

But luckily enough, awareness soon returned to me, and I remembered that I was high, and none of it was real. And I was just high enough, thankfully, that I could not quite process the gravity of what I'd seen in the memory yet. That would come. But for the time being, I was blissfully unaware. I was almost peaceful, under the impression that all there was left to do was ride out the last of the numbness. I felt myself lie down against some kind of surface in the darkness, and for some time, I seemed to hover just above sleep. 

Then I started to see things.

Against the black, I saw buzzing lines of binary start to glaze the ghostly contours of a group of figures a short distance away. Then, as if the world were loading, the shapes took on vague, pixely color. The darkness cut out as the environment formed, looking like no more than a smeared painting. It was then that I noticed one figure had no binary at all, but just crackled a bright, humming blue that solidified into… Surge.

That flipped a switch in my brain that set the image straight. I was in a game's cord station, presumably lying down on one of the couches. Surge was there, and he was talking to Fix-it, who was very animated and distressed in whatever he was saying. Believe it or not, he had a few Nicelanders with him -- I think Mary was there, but I'm not sure about the others. I was too distracted by Wreck-it standing apprehensively behind the group, anxiously staring at me.

That's when the audio 'loaded', although a bit distorted, and I heard Surge speaking.

"--incredibly lucky no one was in that bathroom. If things went differently, there could've been loss of life, potentially loss of game. I can't risk a repeat incident where we're not so lucky."

"Yes," Fix-it insisted desperately, "yes, I know, but this isn't her, this was never her. Please, try to understand, it's not her, it's the buffs. It's all been the buffs. She didn't mean it. She didn't even know. I've seen it. She's not even aware of what she's doing. She's not malicious. She's scared, and she's in pain."

"Yes, Felix, but even so--"

"Root Beer Tapper means so much to her, you know that. She would never knowingly hurt that game. Never. She's going to be so horrified when she hears what happened."

I had no idea what they were talking about, but the more they went on, the more I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. It sounded like I'd blacked out and done something horrible. I wanted to be mad at Fix-it for making me sound so pathetic, but deep down, part of me knew he was right.

I was sort of scared to know just what I'd done… especially if it had been in Tapper's. But I could not lie there listening anymore. 

"Hey," I called, my voice raspy, "I'm awake. You can quit talkin' about me like I'm not here."

They didn't respond. Not even a little bit. They just kept talking.

"I know," Surge said, tiredly lifting a hand in an attempt to calm Fix-it. "But that just makes it all the worse. If she's out of  control, attacking games that she supposedly loves, then she's totally unpredictable. I can't very well call myself a protector of this place if I let someone like that run around free."

"But you can't lock her up!" Fix-it nearly shouted, his voice breaking. "You don't understand -- she needs freedom! If you cage her up, you'll break her! You’ll kill her!"

"And if she goes free, she could kill someone else!"

My heart nearly stopped. Surge was going to lock me up in my game for good. That would be it for me. Fix-it was right -- it would be a death sentence. Even if I couldn't actually die in my game, I'd die a different way. It would be worse than dying. Worse than corrupting.

"Hey," I called again, "hey, hold up just a minute! Don't I get any say in this?"

No one noticed me.

"But she's not dangerous!" Fix-it insisted. "She's not! She has an addiction! She's sick! She needs help, not punishment!"

“Then what would you suggest we do?” Surge sighed, almost sounding irritated.

“Well--” Fix-it stammered, “I-- I… think…”

“Hey!” I shouted, but no one reacted. I tried to get up, but I felt paralyzed, like a weight was pinning me down against the couch. Just as I started to panic, the scene around me froze, and with a blue flash, it cut into darkness like a screen turning off. I felt static crackling over the surface of my body. All was dark, deathly quiet, and freezing cold, save for my heart burning and pounding. 

But after a few minutes, just like that, the cord station appeared around me again. Only, this time, there was only Fix-it. He had dragged one of the other couches over to sit directly across from me. He looked absolutely exhausted and miserable, hugging himself as he watched me. 

I figured that I must have lost time again. How much time, I had no way of knowing.

“Fix-it,” I said uncertainly. “Fix-it, what’s happening? Am I gonna be locked up?”

He did not respond. He just continued staring, looking too depressed to keep his eyes open. He must have been there a while.

“What did I do?” I asked. “Did I hurt anybody? Is Tapper okay?”

No reaction.

“Can you even hear me?”

No reaction.

My stomach twisted a bit. I may not have been locked up yet, but I was trapped anyway, in my own body. I knew it was the GC screwing with me. But still, I didn’t know what was happening to me. I wasn’t in pain. I wasn’t hallucinating, as far as I could tell. I was just… stuck.

I blacked out a few more times, just short, minute-long windows between reality and darkness. In each moment of consciousness, I saw Fix-it in a different position on the couch across from me. He was usually watching me. Sometimes, he was asleep. A couple times, he was reading. In a longer stretch of consciousness, Mary actually appeared from the cord train with a mug of coffee for the barely-awake Good Guy. He startled, but smiled and took it anyway. It must have been just about time for the arcade to open, and still, he was there, watching me. Even Mary took pause to look, her eyes moving up and down my body. There was even a sort of dreariness in her gaze. 

Reality cut out again. For a little while this time. But when it formed again, I nearly yelled.

It was Tapper. He left his game to come see me -- the man barely leaves his game. Not to mention, I had apparently done something awful in his bar. But he stood there next to the other couch, those huge blue eyes drooping in… what I read as disappointment, for the most part. But there was still a heavy sadness in there, and worry, if the mug in his hands had any indication. He was cleaning a mug that was already clean, which I’m pretty sure is an anxious habit for him. I wished I could have told him I was gonna be fine, but at that point, even I was starting to get nervous.

Even weirder than Tapper’s presence was the guy behind him. Mario. Yeah. Now that I’m fully conscious, it makes more sense that he was there. The guy always wants to know what’s going on, all the time. You’d think he wanted to be a Surge Protector. 

Besides that, I guess we’d played around together enough for him to have an interest in my, uh, ultimate well-being. He's a pretty fun guy, even with his heroic heart. He's surprisingly agile and acrobatic for his stocky frame, I'll give him that. But we’ve never been friends. I hadn’t seen him since he sat for the portrait I drew of him. I guess it was technically nice of him to visit, but if he had really cared all that much, he could have tried to help me at any point through my spiral. But, no, it seemed he only cared just enough to feel an obligation to visit me while I was deathly ill. Bastard.

Anyway, he was watching me with his moustache pulled into a frown, and his eyes seemed to say that it was all an awful shame. 

“Take your pity and get outta here,” I told him, even though I knew he couldn’t hear.

It was then that Tapper took a couple steps towards me, but Mario touched his shoulder and pulled him back a bit. He gestured to the floor, and I noticed that a line had been drawn in a semi-circle a little ways out from me. 

“Code-bleeding hazard,” Mario told him in that distinct accent of his. “Could kill both of you.”

“Ah,” Tapper sighed, frustrated in the saddest way. He paused for a moment, looking at me with contemplative, pained eyes, and then he looked at the mug in his hands. Carefully, he placed it on the floor just outside of the hazard line, and with a gentle nudge of his foot, he sent it sliding over to me.

It was a really nice gesture. But I didn’t want it. It freaked me out. It made me realize he thought he was never gonna see me again, but that couldn’t be true. I couldn’t let it. Nothing can kill me.

Still, Tapper started to turn away, shaking his head sadly and touching his forehead. Mario pat him on the back as he turned to leave as well, but he paused for a moment while Tapper carried on. He gave me one last, long look, before reaching up into his hat and pulling out one golden coin that audibly shimmered, the way they do. He tossed it over, and it landed right in the mug like a carnival game.

I didn’t want that either. But that was just out of spite.

I lost time again.

When I came to, I saw nobody. The arcade must have been open. What I did see on the ground next to me was that others seemed to have had the same idea as Tapper and Mario. Someone had been bringing me gifts (more than likely just Fix-it). My guitar was there. There were knick-knacks, the sort that I’d been notorious for stealing. It all just freaked me out more. But the worst was the flowers, as if they had been laid on my grave. They were already beginning to wilt, making me wonder just how long I had really been lying there.

I lost time.

I would have jumped if I could have moved my body at all. When I regained consciousness, Surge was standing close to me, within the hazard zone. But I guess it would have been perfectly safe for him, since he has no code.

He was gingerly stepping over the gifts, gently pushing them back with his foot as he walked around me. It took me a moment to see what he was doing, and when I did, I still didn’t fully understand it. He had some kind of device in his hand with a few metal prongs, and at first I thought he was gonna mercy kill me with a taser. But all he did was slowly walk back and forth, pointing this thing over the length of my body. It beeped and clicked erratically, which was not a good thing, apparently. When he was done, he stopped and looked closer at the device, and shook his head with a tired sigh.

I know now that it was a code stability reader. I was not lookin’ pretty.

I lost time again.

This time, when I came to, I groaned out loud. Well. ‘Out loud.’

For some Dev-damned reason, Gene was there. And only Gene. He sat on the couch opposite from me, still, somehow, holding a martini and swirling it idly. There was almost a solemnity to his face, but for the most part, he just looked disapproving. As ever. I figured that he just came to frown at me, and I was kind of right. He certainly didn’t bring me a gift, which is kind of a shame, because I would have loved to mash it into his face after I recovered.

“Get outta here, Cashmere,” I said. “Go watch someone you like die.”

It took a few minutes for him to say anything. When he did, he humphed in that snooty way.

“Well, well,” he said, his nasally voice low for once. “Who could have predicted this?”

“Go clip yourself,” I grumbled, wanting nothing more than to go for his throat.

He continued, “You’ve only yourself to blame for this, you know. Fraternizing with that barbaric racer…” he took a sip, and I wished it was poisoned. “Should have known he would break your heart eventually. I don’t believe a creature like that is capable of real love.”

“That’s rich,” I snapped.

Obviously unable to hear me, he carried on, “But, still, it is a shame. You’d have been an asset to the game if you had just kept in line and done your job. Not every game gets such an interesting Easter Egg dynamic. And Felix… Well, Felix will hardly be the same after this, I suspect. He really does love you, despite it all. But now you’ve gone and paid it forward, and broken his heart. If only you’d listened to him. Maybe he could have actually fixed you.”

Being so painfully angry and unable to move was torture. But, still, it was Gene. It’s hard to be sincerely hurt and offended by the words of a sprite you don’t respect in the slightest. He’s never not a slime ball. He’s just so unspeakably annoying, like a mosquito that only drinks martinis.

After another short sip, he said, “If you care to know, I’ll be there for him through his mourning process. But I won’t be getting teary over you. I just had to come see you for myself, to see if this really is the end. And I got my answer.”

He hopped from the couch and straightened his cardigan. “And with that, I bid you goodbye, Make-it Mavis.”

I glared daggers as he turned away. “As if you’d be so lucky.”

I lost time once again.

This time around, the first thing I sensed was the sound of the creaky cord train. I looked, and I could see Wreck-it prying his massive body out of the seat. Slowly, carefully, he walked over to the couch across from me, making sure not to step on any of the gifts with his meaty feet. When he sat, I noticed that he himself was awkwardly holding something to his chest. He looked down at all the gifts uncertainly.

“Uh… geez,” he whispered, before placing his gift outside the circle. It was a little stack of bricks. Maybe that was weird, but what the hell else did he have to give? He must have known that, too, but apparently he just really, really wanted to give me something. As gently as he could, he nudged the bricks into the circle with his toes, but he still managed to knock over a little vase of flowers that spilled a small puddle of dirty water and dead plants. “Gah-- darn it--!”

Unable to do anything for the flowers, he just scooted back properly into the couch and leaned his elbows on his knees, slowly and anxiously twisting his giant hands as he looked at me intently. I was sort of surprised to see him, and wondered what he could possibly have to say. After all, we did not exactly leave off on a good note. He sort of sounded like he hated my guts the last time we spoke. He even tried to hit me. I tried to hit him. It was a hideous scene.

I said wearily, “Hi.”

Wreck-it obviously did not answer. Not for a while. But eventually, he averted his gaze from me awkwardly, and looked everywhere I wasn’t. When he spoke, his voice was very slow, clumsy, and… miserable.

“...H-hey, Ma-- Mavis. Uh… I don’t… really know where to start. I’m no good at this stuff. I mean, I don’t think I am. I’ve never had to-- uh… Nothing like this… has ever happened. Not to anyone I know. But, uh… I need-- need to say some stuff… to you. I was hopin’ to just put it off ‘til you got better, but then everyone started talkin’ like, well--” he paused to look at me with a grave expression, the sort I’d never seen on him before. He looked me over, his face pinched as if it hurt just to look.

“Well… we’re all still rootin’ for ya and everything, but… man… lookin’ at you right now, I… I mean, I can see right through you. I-- I don’t wanna believe it, but… realistically, I think… if I got somethin’ to say to you, I better say it now. Even if you, uh… can’t hear it. Maybe you can. I dunno…”

So, I was translucent. Teetering on the edge of corruption. That was great to hear. 

“Spit it out, man,” I grumbled uselessly.

Wreck-it took another minute to stare at his folded hands and collect his thoughts. His gaze remained on them when he finally spoke up again.

“Mavis… about… the, uh, other day… I’m--... I’m sorry. For a lot of stuff. Uh… first, I guess I’m sorry for dragging you out here before you were ready. I don’t think I, uh… quite got how bad things were. And, I mean, yeah, you could’ve told me more about your situation, but… maybe you shouldn’t have had to. Maybe if I’d let you go out on your own time, what Tapper said wouldn’t have made you so upset, and then you wouldn’t have wanted to--... Maybe. I guess the maybes don’t matter anymore. Point is, I’m sorry I didn’t just mind my business. I was wrong.”

We were both quiet. I never really expected him to blame himself for anything. I didn’t exactly blame him, either. He shouldn’t have done what he did. But I would have spiraled either way, I think. He just sped up the process.

“And…” he continued softly, “listen… you… were right. Kind of. Sometimes, it does help to go to Tapper’s. To drink. ‘Cause, uh… all that stuff you said about… being lonely… feeling trapped… like you want impossible things… I, uh… I do get that way… sometimes. And it is easier to just try to forget about it. But, I mean, like I said… it only bothers me sometimes. But from the way you made it sound… I think… Do you really feel that way all the time?”

I’m not sure if I would have had an answer, even if he could have heard me.

“‘Cause, man… if I really did feel that way all the time,” he muttered, “I think--... I think I’d be even worse off than you. I can’t believe you still smile and laugh and play games through all of that. Well-- I mean… you did. Before all this. But… listen, I don’t blame you for-- for taking buffs anymore. I’m… sorry. I’m sorry for freaking out. You might be a slimy lil’ goblin, but you don’t deserve… this.”

That was nice of him… I think. I don’t know. I wanted to reject the pity, but it was getting harder and harder to deny what a massive downer my whole situation was. And, like, I don’t just mean my spiral. I mean my life. The way things have played out. But, the thing is, I sort of felt less pathetic about it. Especially after what Wreck-it said, honestly. Like anyone else in my situation would have crumbled already. I thought I already believed that. But hearing it from someone else really put it into perspective.

Maybe I wasn’t pathetic for struggling, for crying, for trying to escape it all. Maybe anyone would have done what I did. I just never want to do what anyone would have done. I want to be exceptional. I want to be the strongest sprite in the arcade.

Honestly? When it comes down to it, I’m pretty sure that I am.

After all, despite everything… I wasn’t dead yet.

Wreck-it spoke again after a while, his voice more fragile and quiet than I’d ever heard it.

“Don’t die, Mavis. Hang in there just a little bit longer. I know you can make it.”

I knew it, too. 

I said firmly, “I always make it.”

Wreck-it screamed, and I jumped. I jumped! My body was back online. I was finally coming around! 

And I scared the absolute crit outta Wreck-it! Bonus points!

He leapt to his feet, knocking over more flowers, but he didn’t care. He just stared at me like his eyes were going to pop out of his skull, and his body shook with adrenaline that didn’t know what it wanted. He kept looking like he was gonna run, but he couldn’t take his eyes off me.

“MAVIS!” he shouted, his voice high and broken. “MAVIS! HOLY CRIT, YOU’RE AWAKE!”

“No kidding,” I said, suddenly realizing how rough my voice was, how dry my throat was. How dry my eyes were. I wondered if I had been blinking at all.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Wreck-it shook, fumbling with his own thoughts. “I gotta-- I gotta tell somebody-- I--”

He whirled around and immediately tripped over the couch with a loud oof, knocking it completely over. I snickered dryly as he pushed to his feet again. Before he moved any further, he pointed to me and said, “Don’t move. Don’t-- gahh!” And like that, he made a lumbering run for Game Central, frantically calling for Surge.

Right around then was when I started getting crazy sharp pins and needles… everywhere. My whole body really was waking up, and it did not feel good. My head started throbbing. The sound of my blood whooshing nearly drowned everything else out.

With an electric crackle, Surge appeared in front of me, and this time, I did yelp a bit, mostly for the freedom of it. He looked frazzled, confused, and, frankly, amazed. Even though he practically teleported, he looked winded, as if he ran over. 

Adjusting his glasses, he huffed, “Mavis?!”

“No,” I said flatly, “Pac-man.”

“Good grief, I thought you were a goner,” he said as he started pulling more tools off his belt than I remember ever seeing. Behind him, I saw Wreck-it finally catch up, but he made a dive for the cord train instead, struggling to set himself right-side up as it rolled off into the tunnel.

“Love the vote of confidence,” I told Surge. Suddenly, I felt a bit lighter, like that weight holding me down had lifted. And it had, quite literally. I managed to look back over my shoulder and see that there had been a very heavy blanket over my back. I asked what it was for, and Surge said it was to help keep pressure on my pixels and discourage them from separating. Should’ve figured. Pretty neat.

Once I tried moving, I discovered that even without the blanket, I was extremely weak. To my dismay, Surge had to help me roll onto my back. He told me not to sit up, but I insisted on trying. So I pushed up with his help, and got some intense headrush that made my vision blue and cloudy. I wanted to put my feet on the floor, but Surge was adamant that I make it as easy as possible to lie back down. So I just leaned sideways into the back of the couch, way too winded for having just sat up.

I took a look at my body while Surge took a reading of my code stability again. It was pretty eerie. My pixels still had a ghostly blue twinge to them, and if I squinted, I could see right through them. I might have been awake, but I was still in rough shape. It sure confused the hell out of Surge. He took multiple readings and kept smacking the side of his device.

“What’s the deal?” I asked.

“Mmm,” he grunted incredulously. “By all logic, you should not be moving and talking right now. It’s good that you are, of course, but it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Your code is still too unstable for any of that.”

That sort of made me smile. I could have said a cheesy line about being used to instability, but I saved it. I was a bluish, slightly translucent miracle already.

Surge started doing some more examinations. He took my pulse, which was low. He shined a light in my eyes, and wanted to do the same for my mouth, but I bit his finger. He wasn’t thrilled with that, but said that it was a good sign for my reflexes. Then he started poking and prodding me everywhere, asking if I could feel it or if it hurt at all. I hated it. A lot. But as I told him, I could barely feel it. I was still fizzling with pins and needles.

Around then was when I heard the cord train creaking in the tunnel, and I immediately knew what was coming. Before the train was even visible, Fix-it leapt out onto the platform and saw me.

“MAVY!!”

“‘Eyyy,” I nodded.

“MAVY, OH MAVY!!” he bound over, but Surge warned him to stay out of the hazard zone until he was done with his examination. Fix-it barely seemed to care. He could not contain himself. His eyes were already watering as he kept squealing, “YOU’RE AWAKE!! OH, THANK THE DEVS, YOU’RE ALIVE!!”

I laughed triumphantly. “YEAH,” I declared, “SUCK IT, GENE!”

“YEAH, GENE!” Fix-it yelled, and I’m not sure if he was just too overjoyed to object, or if he, too, enjoyed my triumph over Gene’s belief that I was going to die. Probably a combination.

Once Surge was done poking and prodding, he figured it was safe for me to very carefully start moving, and helped me stretch as gently as possible to give my muscles a fighting chance. I’d been motionless long enough that they’d almost stopped working. I eventually got to my feet, but had to rely heavily on Surge’s support as we went back into my game where I could more comfortably and privately recuperate.

Fix-it asked a whole slew of questions, both to me and to Surge. I hardly had any answers, which seemed fair for someone right out of a coma. Honestly, I had way more questions of my own, but I didn’t want to ask in front of Surge. The dramatic irony here, of course, being that Surge was the one with the answers I needed. 

Certainly not the ones I wanted, though.

[skia-oura]

Closing Costs

A/N: Just a fun lil fic about the Ben Trio going house hunting :)

ao3

___________________________________________________

CORDALINE GABLES

Senior Sales Associate

hello@cordgab.org

Phone  HomeStar Inc. Messaging

 Originally from Fairfax, Old Jersey, Cordaline Gables made her home in Norfolk over a decade ago, and has worked in real estate for nineteen years. She double-majored in Business and Transcendence-Age Architecture at the prestigious University of San Antonio. Her expertise is in finding gems hidden in the crooks and corners of suburban Norfolk, but she is additionally skilled at scouting lovely apartments and homes further away from the city center. When she isn’t matching clients to their dream homes, Cordelia enjoys playing recreational badminton with her partner and taking long walks together with their beloved dog, Sniffles. Please place your trust in Cordelia!

Audio Version             Non-English Versions             Font Adjustment

 -

 New Automated Message: New Customer Application Form

NAME: Torako Lam

PARTNER: Yes [2] ; NAME: Bentley Farkas ; NAME: Tyrone Pines

CHILDREN: No

AGE: 27 ; DOB: June 17 3016

PHONE  EMAIL

PRICE RANGE: Up to $350,000  flexible inflexible

LOCATION: Within [75]km from [Niklakka Labs]

SIZE: 450—600 m2

BD: [3+]        

BTH: [1.5+]    

K: [Yes]          

LR: [No]

GRG: [No]

BY/GDN: [Yes]          

à SIZE: 125—175 m2

ADDITIONAL REQUESTS HERE:

--No dimensional subspaces

--Away from magically-charged hotspots

--Customizable Security Systems

--Garden Shed on premises, please

--Large Windows a Plus

Thank you for accommodating us! We look forward to hearing back about the properties under your purview and making our viewing appointments!

 -

 To: tora@lam.com

From: hello@cordgab.org

SUBJECT: Hello from Homestar Realtors!!

RECEIVED: July 19th, 3042

 Dear Torako Lam,

           It’s a pleasure to make your virtual acquaintance! My name is Cordelia Gables, and I’m your HomeStar Inc. appointed estate agent. I look forward to working with you and fulfilling your needs in this new chapter of your life. I have attached a list of five properties that I think may fit your needs. Please view them with your partners and let me know if there are any that don’t fit your specifications so that we may get them out of the way before viewing the homes in person. I await your reply at your earliest convenience!

 Sincerely,

Cordelia Gables

HomeStar Inc. Realtors

 House Profile 1/5:

1345 16th Avenue

Norfolk, VA 68C 22980

4 Beds  | 2 Bath  |  529 m2  | $298,000

[49 img]

 A lovely four-bedroom family home, this property includes high-quality faux-wood flooring, recently renovated wallboard, and a lovely spiral staircase straight out of a 2500’s property magazine. The kitchen boasts a brand-new stove and oven set as well as a state of the art StayFridge™ made from the finest recycled materials from North Africa. The front garden is already blooming with the loveliest daphnes, and the entire property is fenced in by rosebushes. The backyard is perfect for the smallest feet, whether those be of children or beloved pets. Don’t forget the stylish and practical EverExpanding Cabinetry installed in every part of the house—you will never run out of storage space! Each bathroom boasts a shower-tub combo, and the upper floor bathroom comes with gorgeous hand-tiled floors.

House Profile 2/5:

195 St. Phillip’s Crtwy.

Norfolk, VA 68C 22980

3 Beds  | 3 Bath  |  501 m2  |  $311,000

[12 img]

 This three-bedroom, three-story property sits in the center of the city, a mere five-minute’s walk from two elementary schools and ten minutes from the nearest junior high school. While the original structure dates back all the way to 2258, its most recent renovation was completed less than five years ago in 3039. You are certain to love the open kitchen-dining-living room setup that comprises the bottom floor, leaving the remaining three beds and two baths on the upper two floors. Each bedroom has a Magical View Window, with settings that include worldwide destinations as well as the default ‘Real’ setting for those who prefer to stay close to home. Comes with a Laundry Room in an AltBasement. Gardening space and shed included.

 House Profile 3/5:

98 Summer Estates 29¾ th St.

Norfolk, VA 68C 22981

5 Beds  | 2.5 Bath  |  598 m2  | $253,000

[28 img]

             Don’t let this house’s exterior fool you! This customizable and generous home is sure to make you feel a sense of belonging inside with its cozy ethically-sourced carpets, warm ReelWoodTM paneled walls, and burnished staircase leading to a second floor. This home includes a basement for any storage needs as well as an attic! An antique kitchen with a real non-stasis fridge are sure to fill you with longing for older, simpler times away from the busy heyday of modern life and modern worries. While the garden needs some tender love in the front (perfect for those who love a project!), the back hosts two sheds and plenty of space to grow your own produce!

 House Profile 4/5:

637 S. Felicity Dr.

Norfolk, VA 68C 22982

4 Beds  | 2 Bath  |  645 m2  | $290,000

[118 img]

             Comfortably situated in the hilly outskirts of Norfolk, this property will let you live out all your rural life fantasies without sacrificing the conveniences of urban living. Located close to a municipal transport station and within a ten minute’s bike ride of a small neighborhood shopping center, this two-story house boasts an expansive front porch and a balcony off the master bedroom. Each bedroom is larger than average, and each bathroom has a shower/tub room separate from the toilet and wash sink. The kitchen is recently renovated with state of the art appliances included in the price of purchase. The grounds around the property are large enough for both a garden and for outdoor activities such as badminton or good old fashioned tag. A basement provides adequate storage space without the hassle of dimensional subspace installment or upkeep.

 House Profile 5/5:

12841 NE 112th Pl.

Norfolk, VA 68C 22981

3 Beds  | 1.5 Bath  |  398 m2  |  $215,000

[56 img]

             Boasting a reasonably large garden, this cozy home is at the southern end of the city, within convenient distance of a major hospital, a police station, and several schools. Public transportation is not an issue! And neither will be cooking in the quaint kitchenette, set directly across a furnished dining room. One bedroom and half bathroom are on the bottom floor, and the remaining rooms are located on the second floor. Please see the attached images for more information!

 -

 July 19th

KoraTora

I’ve forwarded you the message the realtors sent me. Objections to any of these before I comb through them for my own preferences?

 DipTipTyrone

i still vote we just shack up with the sheep

 KoraTora

Oh my stars dips that’s

we agreed that’s not a possibility

we would literally go insane

 Bentley:

No, we would go mad almost immediately

Yes what Tora said

Um, looking at them, House 1 is out for sure. You sure you specified no extra-dimensional subspaces?

 KoraTora

You know I did

 DipTipTyrone

i got a perfectly good house up there. antique. ud love it. historians dream. excellent neighbors too. dont pry. no drama.

also protip house3 has some srs bad vibes. I think I actually recognize the basement wallpaper, on second thought.

 KoraTora

????

 DipTipTyrone

Yeah, that striping—oh, that was a pretty good one. Didn’t need to answer a call for the following five years.

 Bentley

In that case, I think we’re not going to do house 3, Tora.

 KoraTora

Ohshit

Whaddya mean, Ben?? Don’t want to live there?? It could???? Be fun!!!!

 Bentley

Yeah no

 KoraTora

Roger that, no worries.

So no to 1 and 3, any others problematic?

Oh wait Ben, u might want to take another look at 2 if u haven’t already.

 Bentley

?

What do you mean, it looked fine?

3 stories are good by me

Sure the counters in the kitchen are ugly in the photos but?

 DipTipTyrone

AltBasement and Magic Windows

u wont like them

 Bentley

Oh

Okay, then 1-3 are all out. You good with 4 and 5, Tora? Dip?

 KoraTora

Yeah I hated 2’s counters too

So I’m good with checking 4 and 5 out for now.

We can always see others after this too!!

 DipTipTyrone

youre the ones actually living there

 KoraTora

Don’t u start on that mister

ur living with us, even if you’re not always around

 Bentley

It’s gonna be your home too, you know

Anyways, I can make time for an appointment next week, Tora, so don’t worry about timing on my end too much

They keep trying to send me home early anyways. Keep talking about PTSD and resting and whatever.

 KoraTora

What happened??

I will drag you home

And lay on you

And make you rest

 Bentley

Nothing happened!! They’re just worried

All the time

…Dipper you did not show up at the front desk.

This is not a good place for you

Dipper

 KoraTorako

Dipper yes!!

But also no!!!!!!

 DipTipTyrone

We’ll be home soon.

Love you.

 KoraTorako

<3

But also that was dumb shit you just pulled

 -

Appointment Notice

7/21/42

SSA: Gables, ID 980039385

CLIENT: Torako Lam +2, ID 64239

PROPERTIES: House #4428, House #6609

START TIME: 10:30, from HomeStar Inc. HQ

END TIME: 12:30, SPECIAL ALLOWANCE Late Lunch Hour, Gables, ID 980039385

NOTES:

Will initially view House #4428 before venturing out to the outskirts of Norfolk to view House #6609. Hopefully one suffices; if not, consider suggesting Houses #1103, #4345, and #3327.

Potentially choosy clients.

 -

 Shari Ndadia, 11:28 AM

Cords, I heard you’re back early?

What happened?

 Cordelia Gables, 11:29 AM

My intuition was right, they are uncannily choosy clients

We didn’t even make it into 4428 before one of them stopped still and said ‘No.’

 Shari Ndadia, 11:29 AM

Holy shit

What??

What was it?? It couldn’t have been the exterior. It was so nice in the pics I’ve seen.

You always snatch up the nice ones.

 Cordelia Gables, 11:30 AM

Apparently

The InvisiFence was too magical

 Shari Ndadia, 11:30 AM

What the?

But, like, almost all the houses in Norfolk proper have InvisiFences?

 Cordelia Gables, 11:30 AM

Exactly

Which is why I thought ‘oh thank God we’ve got 6609, no InvisiFence’

And it went well at first, but then I told them about the security system

And the tall one was like ‘oh no’

And I was also like ‘oh no’

 Shari Ndadia, 11:32 AM

Wait

Wait

You’re still at square one with these clients?

 Cordelia Gables, 11:32 AM

Yes.

 Shari Ndadia, 11:32 AM

You? Queen of Sales?

She Who Strikes Yes On At Least One Initial Property?

 Cordelia Gables, 11:33 AM

Like I said: choosy.

 Shari Ndadia, 11:33 AM

What was wrong with the security system?

 Cordelia Gables, 11:33 AM

Not customizable

Though to be fair

They probably were only going to give that house a maybe

They weren’t too thrilled about the stasis fridge

 Shari Ndadia, 11:35 AM

…choosy.

I wish you luck with them. You going to go through our backlog of communal properties yet?

 Cordelia Gables, 11:36 AM

I’m not that desperate yet.

 -

To: olpink@homstar.com

From: cogable@homestar.com

SUBJECT: Issue with Client Lam [64239]

RECEIVED: July 30th, 3042

Mx. Pinkflax

           I regret to inform you that I have truly exhausted all of our listed properties for Client Lam and her partners. They have refused everything I have offered; I wonder myself if the property they want even exists within Norfolk. Between their confusing and adamant disdain for any kind of dimensional subspace (including things as mundane as storage spaces) and their insistence on customizable security systems, as well as their avoidance and hesitance around any kind of technology that involves stasis in any way, shape, or form, it has been impossible to fulfil their needs with the properties available to us.

           My suggestion moving forward is to either assign them to another Realtor within HomeStar, or to transfer their entire application to another company. If I recall correctly, you are on friendly terms with Lindquist Realtors. Perhaps something in their directory will suffice.

 Sincerely

Cordelia Gables

 To: cogable@homestar.com

From: olpink@homestar.com

SUBJECT: RE: Issue with Client Lam [64239]

RECEIVED: July 30th, 3042

Cordelia,

           Are you sure there’s nothing? You’ve gone through the communal backlog? I’ve looked over the application and I have some thoughts. What about House #7421? Or #8577? They’re a bit above price range, but I believe they could work.

 Olive Pinkflax

 To: olpink@homstar.com

From: cogable@homestar.com

SUBJECT: RE: Issue with Client Lam [64239]

RECEIVED: July 30th, 3042

Mx. Pinkflax,

           With all due respect, I have met with this trio every day for the last week. I dug into the backlog. I have recommended over 50 properties and shown them about a third of those. I was close with #4443, but the damn pet flap and subspace pet room killed it. If I don’t get a break from dealing with these very nice, very terrible clients, I will explode. The brown haired one has taken to very poorly concealed laughter whenever the hoodie-mask one refuses to set foot on the property. I cannot.

           If you have ideas of properties that would suffice, please be my guest. It would be nice to get back into the practical side if things, wouldn’t it?

 Sincerely,

Cordelia Gables

 -                              

 OLIVE PINKFLAX

Senior Realtor

hello@pinkoliv.org

Phone  HomeStar Inc. Messaging

 Born and raised in Norfolk, Olive Pinkflax hasn’t always wanted to be in the real estate business. They studied History of Architecture and Design in Georgia at the University of Savannah with the intent of pursuing a career in either graphic design or interior decorating. They then went abroad to work at non-profit agencies for a total of five years—in which the job market back home changed, largely at the fault of the Recession of 2978. Due to a lack of job openings, however, they eventually took a secretarial position at UniqNorfolq, a small real-estate business. There, they learned the tools of the trade due to insufficient staffing. By 2995, UniqNorfolq had become HomeStar under Pinkflax’s capable hand. While still small, they have grown the company into a name synonymous with quality, perseverance, and dedication to their clients. When not busy at their company, Pinkflax enjoys painting at home and doting on their pet rat, Squeakums.  

Audio Version             Non-English Versions             Font Adjustment

 -

 Client Transfer Notice, HomeStar Inc. Realtors

7/30/42

CLIENT: Torako Lam +2, ID 64239

ORG SSA: Gables, ID 980039385

NEW SSA: Pinkflax, ID 980012114

REASONING:

Client Lam and her partners have proven to be challenging cases. As this is the case, I have decided that the current best course of action would be to handle their properties personally. Attached to their case file are a list of all the properties that they have been recommended and shown, as well as notes describing their reasons for discontinuing interest. I am open to collaboration and ideas.

Pinkflax

 -

 July 31st

KoraTorako

We’ve been transferred to another Realtor at HomeStar, guys. Apparently it’s the owner of the company.

Bentley

I was afraid this would happen.

We’re being so picky.

DipTipTyrone

Better to be picky now and end up with what we want later!

A quickly made deal is always worse for the receiving party. Better to bide our time.

KoraTorako

Yeah, what Dip said

Also, of course we’re picky??? We’re traumatized.

We’re allowed to be picky, even if they don’t know why.

Bentley

I mean…I could live with a subspace we’d never use, I guess

KoraTorako

No

DipTipTyrone

No

Bentley

Why??

It’s my hangup

KoraTorako

You’re already compromising on stasisware

Bentley

We can always replace that!!

KoraTorako

So?? It still makes you super uncomfortable for completely valid reasons.

I still think we shouldn’t compromise on that.

Bentley

If we didn’t compromise on that

There would be nothing in Norfolk

I’m starting to think there is nothing with our current demands

The house on Clement was cute, wasn’t it? It was nice!

DipTipTyrone

It had the subspace pet flap

Bentley

That we’d never use!!

KoraTorako

You looked ready to start sparking

Or glittering

And also you had that ‘I’m on the edge of reexperiencing all of my recent traumas’ face on

Bentley

If I can deal with everything in daily life

I can deal with a pet flap

KoraTorako

But it’s our home

You shouldn’t have to deal with it at home

This is supposed to be a safe space.

DipTipTyrone

Home isn’t daily—ok Torako got me.

Bentley

It’d be better than the apartment we’re living in right now

Which

If you remember

Is where I got kidnapped from

DipTipTyrone

I do keep mentioning we can live with the Sheep

KoraTorako

You make a fair point, Bentley But also, this is a house we’re going to be in for a long while

Let’s make it worth it, ok?

Bentley

I

Fine, whatever

KoraTorako

I don’t want us to live here either

If we need to we can, I don’t know, AirDrop an apartment for a couple months

Keep our stuff in the apartment so that we don’t have to move it all immediately

We can make this work, Ben. We can have our steak and eat it too.

…

Bentley?

 -

Appointment Notice

8/03/42

SSA: Pinkflax, ID 980012114

CLIENT: Torako Lam +2

PROPERTIES: House #7421, House #8577, House #2468, House #1697

START TIME: 12:30, departure from HomeStar Inc. HQ

END TIME: 15:30, departure either from House #1697 or from HomeStar Inc. HQ in best case scenario

Starting with Houses #8577 and #7421 on the very outskirts of Norfolk, we will work our way into the center of town where both House #2468 and #1697 are located. None of the properties have any listed subspace technology integrated into the premises, none of them have magically-powered fences or windows, and only one comes equipped with a stasis fridge. Will make offer to replace fridge with an older but still highly functional device free of charge if the property is accepted.

 -

Client Profile Update

DATE:8/03/42

CLIENT: Torako Lam +2 [Bentley Farkas, Tyrone Pines]

CLIENT ID: 64239

CLASSIFICATION: Buyer

SPECIFICATIONS: Listed below

…

PROPERTY RECORD:

SSA: Gables, ID 980039385

 House #1212: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Extra-dimensional installations and heavy reliance on Magitech Appliances. [detail: Kitchen Appliances, Cabinetry]

 House #3958: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Extra-dimensional installations and heavy reliance on Magitech Appliances. [detail: Alternative Basement, Windows]

 House # 2249: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Basement wallpaper and house history. [detail: 2950’s owners were heavily involved with the Cult of Futures Past, Decorative Preferences]

 House #4428: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Heavy reliance on Magitech Appliances [detail: InvisiFence surrounding property. Client Farkas refused to cross the boundary, saying “No” nearly immediately. Apparently sensitive to magical energy. Caution moving onwards is advised.]

 House #6609: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Security System installed in the property is incapable of being customized. [detail: Client Lam has expressed that a non-customizable security system is out of the question. Furthermore, Client Farkas expressed discomfort with the Stasis Fridge. Caution moving onwards is advised.]

 House #1033: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Interior did not align with Client Decorative Preferences. [detail: shag carpeting, loud wallpaper, windows too small]

 House #3290: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Security System installed in the property is incapable of being customized.

[detail: Client Lam somehow pieced together the security code engraved around all the doors and windows, researched it, and discovered that the code is unalterable without starting over completely from scratch. IE, a warding expert carefully sanding down the inscribed code and then re-installing it to customer specifications. The House Profile has since been updated. Client Lam has since expressed that she would be open to having an initially insecure home to make secure herself. Uncertain if actually qualified to do such work.]

 House #5533: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Household Electrical Wiring is too reliant on MagiTech. [detail: Client Farkas, again, expressed his distaste with the whole affair immediately upon entering the house by saying, “No,” and walking out again. How he noticed the wiring through solid wall is a mystery for the ages. Sensitivity to magic alone cannot explain it.]

 House #7567: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Interior did not align with Client Decorative Preferences. [detail: Upon seeing the decoratively engraved floorboards up close, Client Pines recoiled and uttered, verbatim, “The day I spend any significant amount of time in this accursed home is the day I lay waste to the whole of humanity.” Apparently the script contains excerpts from the original Twin Souls literature. Housing detail has been accordingly updated.]

 House #2675: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Interior did not align with Client Decorative Preferences. [detail: Apparently, Clients Lam, Farkas, and Pines are not fans of rooster-themed kitchen décor.]

 House #1181: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Basement too reliant on MagiTech and extra-dimensional subspace technology. [detail: The basement was a secret basement. Client Pines stared at the living room floor for an uncomfortably long time before raising his head and telling the SSA, “You might want to be careful opening that.” Property Owner has since been alerted and advised to proceed with caution.]

[UPDATE 7/29: Property has been pulled from the market while police reopen a case and conduct an investigation.]

 House #4482: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Interior did not align with Client Preferences. [detail: 3 bedrooms minimum is non-negotiable and the bathrooms were too cramped]

 House #5319: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Interior did not align with Client Decorative Preferences. [detail: They don’t like the color of the walls. Note to stay away from overly bright greens and yellows in the future.]

 …

[scrolling]

…

 House #5497: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: House Address. [detail: like many other clients before them, the prospects of living at 6969 Dickinson Straightway appear to have caused the clients to decline this particular property.]

 House #9569: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Building Materials not up to Client Standards. [detail: After showing the clients around the property for fifteen minutes, Client Lam hummed, squinted her eyes at the nearest window, and said, “Does that window look like somebody could break through it to you two?” The next five minutes were spent by Clients Lam and Pines discussing the fragility of triple-reinforced glass against various potential weapons, tools, etc {not limited to but including demonic powers, a bazooka, and a thumbtack} while Client Farkas sat down on the floor, put his gloved hands over his face, and muttered a nearly unintelligible “I’m sorry” to presumably the SSA. These clients are hopeless.]

 House #4443: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Pet Flap and Pet Room are too reliant on extra-dimensional subspaces. [detail: Client Farkas stared at the pet flap, turned around, and put his hand on the SSA’s shoulder before saying, “No,” and walking out. Housing information has since been updated to include the unlisted Pet Room.]

 House #3944: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: Unclear. [detail: Client Lam, in the emailed response, simply said, “Look, we’re all tired and this house is too square(?) for {Client Pines}, so we’re just gonna give it a couple days before trying again.”]

[SSA is going to file for a transfer of client.]

 SSA: Pinkflax, ID 980012114

 House #7421: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Distance.

Detail: Too far from nearest transporter station.

SSA Comments: Clients appeared pleased with most aspects of the house. As per SSA Gable’s consultation, Client Lam appears most concerned with matters of household security. Client Farkas is harder to read, due to constantly wearing sunglasses, a hoodie, and a surgical mask despite the weather, but does not hesitate to make his opinions clear. Client Pines is…a mystery.

 House #8577: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Décor, House Layout, Location.

Detail: Housing does not come with security, but the spackled walls and ceiling are apparently difficult to do the variety of warding Client Lam is used to. Layout is, according to Client Pines, confusing. House 8577 is also apparently on the edge of a minor magical hotspot, as Client Farkas has confirmed.

SSA Comments: The difficulty in getting the clients a suitable home is evident. Client Farkas appears to be the biggest wildcard, despite his consistency in what he refuses. There simply does not seem to be a reliable way to ensure that the properties will not set him against them and are simultaneously up to other standards shared by all three clients.

 House #2468: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: House Size, presence of Extra-Dimensional Subspace, Décor.

Detail: At 780m2, the premises were too large for upkeep. While Client Pines seemed to disagree, offering to do more cleaning in exchange for snacks and ice cream, both Client Lam and Client Farkas weren’t convinced enough to ignore the décor (the elaborate crown molding is too “ostentatious” and “creepy,”) and certainly not when the non-disclosed extra-dimensional subspace was discovered in a false wardrobe.

SSA Comments: After the clients left, I investigated. Inside the subspace, kept pristine likely only by the fact that time does not pass quickly within those places, was an additional bed and a luxurious bathroom. The style of bedsheets and drapes indicates that the subspace was installed nearly a century ago, which seems odd seeing as subspaces in those days were unstable and tended to disintegrate. On a different note, this time it was both Clients Pines and Farkas who balked at the presence of the subspace. Take note to pay more attention to reactions in the future, and to survey properties properly before visitations.

 House #1697: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Security System.

Detail: Client Lam disagreed with the validity and effectiveness of the existing security system, and upon a close study of it (25 minutes), declared that it would be too difficult to properly alter and that removal would only be slightly easier.

SSA Comments: I would pay for the removal myself if it made these clients buy the house. There were no other issues with it. Upon my making the offer out loud, Client Lam laughed and said, “No, no, that’s all right! I’d rather find something a little more ready first!”

 House #2292: Declined w/o viewing.

Reasoning: House Layout.

Detail: House is built like a townhome, with a main room and bathroom on each of its 5 levels; Clients professed concern regarding the kitchen being on a separate floor from the living and dining room.

SSA Comments: Unfortunate. The building fit all of their specifications—the security system installed is simple to both customize and remove, there are miraculously no extra dimensional spaces on premises, and the only significant presence of magical technology in the entire property is the mailbox, which can be replaced at a very low cost. We investigated ourselves. Client Lam, their partnership’s point of contact, did say that it was a close call, but that ultimately they would only purchase when completely satisfied.

 House #1357: Viewed, but declined.

Reasoning: Décor.

Detail: Client Pines felt the colors were too ‘smorple’ and ‘floreen’ and several other descriptors that do not appear in any dictionary. When asked if he had noticed the issues when viewing the profile sent to them, he confessed that the colors simply ‘were different in person.’ Client Lam agreed that she didn’t appreciate the tile flooring in the kitchen. Client Farkas was quiet.  

SSA Comments: I hate to admit it, but I know a lost cause when I see one. Do they even want a house?

 -

 To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

From: olpink@homestar.com

Attached: ClientRecord64239.qbf

SUBJECT: A Professional Request

RECEIVED: August 7th, 3042

Dearest Qilar,

             I hope that this message finds you well. How is your family doing? I (and Squeakums, for that matter) look forward to our bi-weekly dinner and movie. I know you’ve discussed that the last full moon has left you feeling worn out, and I look forward to relaxing with you for a night.

           I write this message in the hopes that you would be amenable to taking on a client of ours. Unfortunately, we have been incapable of finding a property that would completely satisfy their desires. We have exhausted our listings. I know that you have several properties in Norfolk, and even those close to major terminals outside of Norfolk. I also know that you like a challenge.

           Attached is the client file for your information. Names and personal information have, of course, been redacted. They will be readable upon your agreement to take these clients on. The clients have of course been notified about this possible course of action. Should you decline this case, I would be more than understanding.

 Well wishes to you and yours,

Olive Pinkflax

 -

 To: tora@lam.com

From: hello@qilarlind.org

SUBJECT: Welcome to your experience at Lindquist Realtors!

RECEIVED: August 10th, 3042

 Dear Ms. Lam,

           Hello. My name is Qilar Lindquist. You and I have not had the pleasure of meeting, but I am sure that when we do, it will be wonderful. As you may know, my good friend Mx. Pinkflax conveyed to me their concerns that they didn’t have the property best suited to you in their register. However, with access to a larger company such as Lindquist Realtors, they hoped that you would have more success. If you are still obliging, I am more than happy to take you and your partners on as clients of Lindquist Realtors. It would be thrilling to find you the house you and your partners have been dreaming of. Please respond to this message as soon as you are capable, so that we may begin the process.

 Sincerely,

Qilar Lindquist

Lindquist Realtors

 -

 QILAR LINDQUIST

Senior Realtor

hello@qilarlind.org

Phone  Lindquist Realtors Homepage

Alternative Display Options

             While not born and raised in Norfolk, Qilar Lindquist has been settled in this fine city for the past 20 years. A born werewolf, Qilar has always wanted to follow his parents’ footsteps. He succeeded as well, opening up a new branch of Lindquist Realtors in Norfolk at the tender age of 28. He studied business, architecture, and chemistry at the University of Des Moines. Intelligent, quick-witted, and charming, Qilar Lindquist is dedicated to serving his clients in any way he can. Outside of work, he is involved with the local community theater and can be found volunteering at various non-profit goodwill organizations around the city. His husband often joins him in these endeavors.  

 Back to Realtor Biographies Homepage

 -

 August 13th, 3042

Chat with Saint Akuapem

6:36 PM

Thank you for the scones the other day. Hepsa enjoyed them.

So did I.

How is house-hunting going?

6:59 PM

Sorry, still working that Thompson case.

Thanks for working with me on it.

And the house hunting’s not going so great.

7:12 PM

Of course. You’re bright. I like hearing your input.

Just not situated to be a public officer of the law.

What with your friend.

7:13 PM

I know.

7:13 PM

I’m sorry to hear it is not going as well as hoped.

Would you like to talk about it?

7:14 PM

The realtor company you recommended couldn’t find anything for us

So we’ve been transferred to another realtor.

7:15 PM

Nothing? Really?

What realtor?

7:15 PM

Yeah, nothing. Lindquist Realtors.

7:16 PM

Hepsa says they are good. You are in good hands.

7:16 PM

Yeah, we had our first house hunting today.

I’m just worried it’s going to go nowhere here as well.

7:18 PM

Sorry for saying but. I find that hard to believe.

You will find a house.

What are your specifications?

7:19 PM

Ummm 3 BR 2 BTH Defs LDK

450-600 SQM

Garden with like 100-200 SQM?

No Magitech if possible, no exdim subspaces at all

Security system gotta be customizable or not there at all

We can be a little picky with décor sometimes

And house gotta be sturdy

There’s probably something else

7:26 PM

I see.

That would be difficult.

Are you willing to compromise on anything?

7:27 PM

Price. I put down 350k but if it gets me the house I want

Then I’ll pay more.

7:27 PM

Understood.

Where are you staying now?

7:27 PM

Still in the apartment

Got the lease to finish

Hate it but until we have somewhere else

7:29 PM

…how is Bentley?

7:29 PM

He’s stressed.

With the house, and being here

He’s always having nightmares

So tired all the time

Insists on going to work though and I cant talk him out of it

I want to get a house for him

But I don’t want him to have to deal with all the shit he is in the apartment

He doesn’t see himself as important enough to take care of, sometimes

So I have to take that into account

7:32 PM

What exactly is going on, Torako?

How is Bentley not taking care of himself?

7:32 PM

Like, it’s not that I don’t understand where hes coming from

I get that I might be being a bit unreasonable

But he keeps saying ‘oh I can just DEAL with having an exdim subspace in the house’

‘never mind that it’s a huge trigger for all my trauma’

‘and that I sometimes cant stop looking at it just to make sure its still there and im still on the reality side of things’

‘ill just wear my magic-cancelling glasses all the time’

‘and be unable to sleep from the headache’

‘it’s not that big of a deal, torako, let’s have the magitech here that hurts to look at too much’

‘who cares, it’s just a fridge torako!! Not like it was used to TRANSPORT ME to a FOREIGN COUNTRY so that a MADMAN could CONDUCT EXPERIMENTS ON ME to the point that I almost took FATALLY DRASTIC ACTION’

He keeps saying he’ll just put up with his trauma like it’s a minor inconvenience!!

And he shouldn’t have to do that.

Not in a house that’s our own.

7:36 PM

Bentley was what now.

7:36 PM

Oh right

You didn’t know that part

7:36 PM

You went to get him.

7:36 PM

of course

I love him

7:36 PM

Therapy?

7:36 PM

Bentley? Yeah.

Hell of an NDA.

7:37 PM

No, you.

7:37 PM

She’s the only other person who knows everything.

Like, everything everything.

wait what?

7:37 PM

Torako.

I think you’re not doing as well as you think you are.

7:37 PM

Bentley was tortured

I wasnt

7:38 PM

I’ll believe you on that.

But you still devoted yourself to finding him.

And he was tortured, and you have to deal with the consequences of that too.

7:38 PM

???

7:39 PM

You sound stressed, Torako.

And scared.

7:39 PM

Maybe a little

But Bentleys more important rn

7:40 PM

I would say you’re both equally important.

Sorry, Torako, Hepsa is calling me; we’re going to a late night movie.

I’ll keep my eye out for you.

7:40 PM

OK

Thank you

I really appreciate it

 -

 Client Profile Update

DATE:8/15/42

CLIENT: Torako Lam +2 [Bentley Farkas, Tyrone Pines]

CLIENT ID: IMP64239

CLASSIFICATION: Buyer

CAUTION: PICKY, SPECIFIC, UNCOMPROMISING

SPECIFICATIONS: Listed below

…

LINDQUIST REALTORS PROPERTY RECORD:

SSA: Lindquist, ID 109A854D

…

…

NEW UPDATES 8/15/42

 HOUSE ID: 798A 209X

ADDRESS: 389 West Hampton Drive

SELLER: Mx. Adelaide Hanson

STATUS: DECLINED

NOTES: Unfortunately, despite attempts to the contrary, the clients were not impressed with the security system. We discussed it at length at Lindquist Realtors and felt it sufficient, but Client Lam insisted quite sternly that she needed to have full control over the system. RapierSolutions is a top of the line system. I tried to convey that to Client Lam, but she refused to hear sense. “I need to be able to alter it,” she said. “If I can’t alter it, it’s a no-go—especially with those weak windows and the shallow hinges on the entryways.” Mx. Pinkflax was not kidding around when they said Client Lam was a bit controlling over safety specifications. Possible paranoia?

 HOUSE ID: 665D 187L

ADDRESS: 9821 NW 4736 PL

SELLER: Mr. and Ms. Nakatani

STATUS: DECLINED, INACTIVE

NOTES: We combed the premises for subspaces personally. Nevertheless, Client Farkas quietly pointed out that there was a secret bunker hidden under the premises, and that it spanned the entire property. While he hastened to assure us that it wouldn’t be that much of an issue, Client Lam overheard and insisted that they wouldn’t buy any property with extradimensional subspaces. When Client Farkas attempted to tell his partner that they weren’t going to use that garden gate anyways, Client Lam shut him down. Client Pines also wandered over from where he was inspecting the brick wall of the garden, said “This place might be cursed,” and waved his partners cheerily off of the premises.

Upon notifying the authorities as required by law that there may or may not be a curse on the premises, the police shut down the premises. Any attempt to contact Mr. and Mrs. Nakatani beyond alerting them to the existence of the subspace has been unsuccessful.

UPDATE: the extradimensional basement is now the scene of a crime. 665D 187L is now under government jurisdiction.

 HOUSE ID: 278K 396V

ADDRESS: 421 Wildstar Avenue

SELLER: Mr. Fegelhorn and Mr. Gil

STATUS: DECLINED

NOTES: Client Lam, predictably, criticized the ‘astounding lack of security’ in the warding system, the ‘structural instability’ of a perfectly good cellar window, and the presence of a stasis fridge on the premises. Client Farkas was silent. Client Pines said that he ‘liked the staircase’ but that the upstairs bathroom tub was ‘too small for his preferences.’ Naturally, the clients declined the home.

 HOUSE ID: 525P 792S

ADDRESS: 98 Maplefarm S. Street

SELLER: Mrs. Polinski

STATUS: DECLINED, INACTIVE

NOTES: Surprisingly, it was not Client Lam or Client Farkas who had reason to decline the property. This is probably because Client Pines, five steps past the garden gate, hissed and bodily hauled his partners away from the grounds. When asked what the matter was, he snarled out in the most terrifying voice something about unquestionable evil and the screams of the undead. As required by Law, we have notified the authorities.

UPDATE: Property is now under police jurisdiction. Norfolk Government Demonologists and Exorcists evacuated the entire block for a full 48 hours. It seems Mrs. Polinski was being possessed by a terribly old demon, Hyutgen the Voracious and had been for an undetermined amount of time.

What is up with these Clients and finding horrific crime scenes?

-

August 15th, 3042

Chat with Handsome <3 <3 <3

5:28 PM

Darling, what’s up?

You seem to be staying late at the agency today

As of late, really.

Is it The Clients?

5:57 PM

I’m so sorry.

Yes, it is.

This is much more difficult than anticipated.

Olive called it a challenge and I was foolish enough to think I had it in the bag.

The Clients are insatiable.

There’s always something wrong with the properties. Always.

And they keep uncovering properties as crime scenes??

6:03 PM

I’m so sorry darling.

6:03 PM

I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Bayani.

I’m so tired.

I’ve shown them over 30 properties, personally.

6:04 PM

Do you want to talk it out?

I can get your favorite dinner together

We can curl up on the couch

Put on some Strandson

6:05 PM

You know what?

Yeah.

Yeah, that sounds nice.

I’ll be home in 10 minutes.

6:06 PM

See you soon <3

6:06 PM

<3 <3

 -

 To: tora@lam.com

From: hello@qilarlind.org

SUBKECT: Realtor Change Notification

RECEIVED: August 16th, 3042

 Dear Ms. Lam,

           My apologies in advance for the contents of this email, though I hope it finds you well. Unfortunately, due to my position as head of company, I am unable to continue being your Realtor. I have transferred you to the care of one of my very capable senior agents. Mx. Ya-en. I hope that you understand, and that Mx. Ya-en can see to your needs better than I have.

 Sincerely,

Qilar Lindquist

Lindquist Realtors

 -

 HARLEY YA-EN

Senior Realtor

hello@harleyyaen.org

Phone  Lindquist Realtors Homepage

Alternative Display Options

             Harley Ya-en, despite xir elderly age of 84, is one of Lindquist Realtor’s most capable senior Realtors. A psychic who can read auras, Harley Ya-en is capable of anticipating the client’s needs and emotions. This allows Mx. Ya-en practical insight into which properties will suit a buying client’s needs. Xe also has a wealth of knowledge regarding the Norfolk area due to living here for the past 50 years, and is a font of trivia sure to satisfy the most curious of souls. Xe lives with xir husband and wife, and enjoys taking road trips—

 -

 To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

From: harleyyaen@lindquistrealtors.com

SUBJECT: LOL NO

RECEIVED: August 17th, 3042

 Qilar,

           Holy fucking shit you do not pay me enough for this. You have to transfer them. I cannot work with these clients.

Sincerely,

Harley

 -

 To: harleyyaen@lindquistrealtors.com

From: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

SUBJECT: RE: LOL NO

RECEIVED: August 17th, 3042

 Harley,

           What happened?? What did they do??

 Qilar

 -

 To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

From: harleyyaen@lindquistrealtors.com

SUBJECT: RE: LOL NO

RECEIVED: August 17th, 3042

 Qilar,

           They didn’t do anything in particular. They’re just impossible clients—I’m thinking it’s not even their fault, entirely—and I have read their file. Even with that, I was hesitantly down for the challenge until I saw their auras and interacted with them today. I am Not Doing It. I am too old for this. Give me another assignment.

 Sincerely,

Harley

 -

 To: harleyyaen@lindquistrealtors.com

From: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

SUBJECT: RE: LOL NO

RECEIVED: August 17th, 3042

 Harley,

           I’m sorry, I need more explanation than this to take you off immediately. I handled a week. So can you. You can’t use your age as an excuse all the time.

 Qilar

 -

 To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

From: harleyyaen@lindquistrealtors.com

SUBJECT: RE: LOL NO

RECEIVED: August 17th, 3042

 Qilar,

           Fine: here it is.

           I only got the two Clients. Client Pines was, as they said, out on important business, who knows when he’ll be back. Something was fishy about that but okay, I won’t pry, and these two are setting me off on edge a little as is so maybe it’s just that.

           Then the more I interact with them, the more I realize that Client Farkas’s aura is just fucking weird. Bananapants, CocoNutPuffs, whatever you want to call it. It’s all muddled and patchy and a headache and a half to read. It’s like somebody took his aura, threw out most of it, and stuffed a bunch of excess aura in to fill the gaps. There’s no way he was born like that, and there’s no way whatever happened was pretty (or probably even painless). He’s definitely trying, though, so I figured aight, we’ll see if we can’t compromise with this whippersnapper.

           The problem is Client Lam.

           Client Lam doesn’t want to be pleased. Client Lam, for whatever reason, is terrified. And overprotective of Client Farkas. And she’s absolutely looking for reasons to be disappointed, or she’s at least seeing shadows where there are none. We could present Client Lam with a fortress and she wouldn’t be satisfied. My bet is that whatever happened to Farkas’s aura was traumatizing, and Lam was impacted by that trauma. I showed her two viable properties at excellent prices with wonderful locations and an astounding lack of extradimensional pockets or Magitech gadgets, and she found fault with them. Neither were crime scenes, thankfully.

           You may want to assign them with somebody who has experience—but you could also use this opportunity to show some junior realtors how tough clients can be. Also, the junior realtors might not be so entrenched in the practice, and they could have some excellent ideas.

           Or you could just…send these clients to somebody else. Your choice. I’m just not dealing with it. They’ll drive me into an early grave if I take this too seriously, and you know how I get.

 Sincerely,

Harley

 -

 To: tora@lam.com

From: hello@amarshir.org

SUBJECT: Realtor Change Notification

RECEIVED: August 18th, 3042

 Dear Ms. Lam,

           Hello! What a pleasure it is to meet you. I’m writing to inform you that unfortunately, Mx. Ya-en is unable to continue handling your case. The upside is that I am able to do so in xir stead! My name is Amar Shirvani, and I’m going to be handling your case from now on. I’m excited to work with you and your partners, and hope that you are as excited to work with me! I promise I will do my best to help you achieve your housing dreams!

 Yours,

Amar Shirvani

Lindquist Realtors

 -

 AMAR SHIRVANI

Junior Realtor

hello@amarshir.org

Phone  Lindquist Realtors Homepage

Alternative Display Options

             Native to Norfolk, Amar Shirvani is the youngest member of Lindquist Realtors at 22 years old. He recently graduated from the Offet University of Business with honors. While not the most experienced, Amar brings exuberance and creative thinking to the team at Lindquist Realtors. He has been involved with volunteer work from early childhood due to his parents—

 -

 TweetyFlaps Trending

#clientwoes

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself

@Silverforks

So I’ve got a kind of sort of customer service job, right. And so far it’s been fine! I’ve had ok clients. And then Bossman slides me a paunchy one cross the table and I start to understand #clientwoes for the first awful real time. 1/ 10:48 AM        23 AUG 3042

______________________________________________________________________

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

2/ i know from the start its gonna be a Ride. Like, chalk and candles intensity. Client file is thicc w/rejected properties (im in housing). But I’m game!! Im always game, you know me haha. Unfortunately… 10:50 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

3/ these are clients from hell. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were actually demons in disguise. Here to torture me. For something. I aint actually ever summoned nothing. But like, it’s unreal how BAD this exp has been. 10:51 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

4/ for 1, they all look normal expt one of them. Head to toe, covered. Would think was vampire, but that’s usu specified in reports. Nobody’s seen his skin other than flashes. Aight, tho, I aint prejudiced, i’ll roll with it. 10:53 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

5/ so they super picky clients, right. I thought nah, they cant be that bad!! Just haven’t hooked the right worm yet. So I pick out a coupla worms (houses) that I think they might enjoy and hoo boy was that a chore, but im satisfied! Spoiler: they aint. 10:56 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

6/ they aint never gon be satisfied. #1, not-vampire client mentions v v quietly to me that sorry, theres a thing he cant deal with on premises, but mb they can still keep it in mind?? But (super good hearing???) another client hears and squawks about it. he aint having it, apparently.   10:58 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

7/ and then third client (Harpy) hears bc squawk, and she SUPER aint having it, so we just go to the next house. And the next one. And—u get it already.   10:59 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

8/ and like, im patient. Im pretty lowkey. But today’s house was—perfect?? There was nothing wrong with it. Client Hoodie didn’t say nothing bad. Liked the rooms. Client EllieEars don’t complain bout no weird curses or dead bodies or bad décor. But Client Harpy?? Client Harpy is impossible. 11:02 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

9/ u kno what she said?? She said, and I repeat: the front door is too thin.

The front door. Which is a solid 5 cm of wood (real!! Wood!!). is too thin. It’s “Insecure”. 11:03 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

10/11 I didn’t say it bc im a good worker, but I really wanted to go off on her. She’s impossible. This is the worst assignment ever. Ive worked so hard my soul’s gonna feel it 5 carnations down.   11:05 AM        23 AUG 3042

 world aint gonna end til I end it myself                            

Replying to @Silverforks

11/11 srsly. 5 cm of solid wood!! Insecure. Unbelievable. #clientwoes 11:05 AM        23 AUG 3042

 -

 August 23rd  

Bentley

Sally Mihn at work sent me this.

You might want to take a look.

https://tweetyflap.com/silverforks/status/1199679934986810752

 DipTipTyrone

oh boy

that’s about us alright

 Bentley

Yeah

It is

Torako

We need to have a fucking talk

 KoraTorako

We do need to have a talk with the realtors

That’s unacceptable

 Bentley

What we need to do with the realtors is apologize

What we three need to do is discuss what the fuck we’re doing

 KoraTorako

No, that was completely unprofessional

And what do you mean, what are we doing?? We’re looking for a house.

 DipTipTyrone

I’ll take care of the tweets for a pack of gummies

 Bentley

No, Dipper

Torako

We have been house-hunting for a month

We have looked at over 200 houses by this point

 KoraTorako

Thanks dip but probs not

 Bentley

And you have said no

To all

Of them

We need to fucking compromise

 KoraTorako

Compromise on what?? Our safety?? Our comfort?

 Bentley

No, on your unachievable standards

 DipTipTyrone

Oh

Oh no

 KoraTorako

Who says they unachievable??

 Bentley

The 200+ houses we’ve looked at to dismiss out of hand!

 DipTipTyrone

This is a fight, isn’t it

 KoraTorako

I’m just making sure that whatever we get will be safe!

 Bentley

Most of them HAVE been safe!

You’re just being STUPIDLY overprotective!

 DipTipTyrone

oh no im the

im the middle party aren’t i

 KoraTorako

I am not!

 Bentley

Yes you are! You need to trust me to make choices for myself!!

 KoraTorako

Well, I would if you weren’t so insistent on ignoring your own wellbeing!

 DipTipTyrone

How does one mediate

 Bentley

I’m just trying to find a fucking house! I’m trying to meet them in the middle!

 KoraTorako

Not on that you shouldn’t!

 Bentley

It’s MY choice!

 KoraTorako

And it’s MINE TOO!

You shouldn’t be in an environment that causes you to have so many fucking nightmares!

Like you are NOW

 DipTipTyrone

Uuuhhh shit shit shit um

You’re both right and both wrong?

 Bentley

Love you, but Shut up dip

And maybe I’m having nightmares because we’re still in this fucking apartment

 KoraTorako

I told you we could stay at another Rental until we found a house!

And shut up dip, im the right one here

 Bentley

You’re the right one???

We can’t solve everything with money, Torako!! And at the pace we’re going, we’d be in that rental place until our current lease is up Next January

 DipTipTyrone

…maybe this is an in-person convo?

 KoraTorako

I just want our house to be safe!! What if something happens again?

 Bentley

It won’t fucking happen again! Fantino was a one-off. I haven’t pissed off any other researchers overly invested in their research lately!

 DipTipTyrone

What about that one guy at work?

Wait no ignore that

 KoraTorako

But it MIGHT! We! Don’t! Know for sure!!

 Bentley

We don’t know that it WILL happen, Torako!

You need to just let this stupid fucking paranoia go

 DipTipTyrone

Uh

 KoraTorako

Stupid?? Fucking paranoia??

 DipTipTyrone

Bentley that was not uh

Not good

 KoraTorako

It’s not paranoia if it could happen again. It happened once.

I can’t forget that, Bentley. I can’t forget going to open that door and finding it unlocked. I can’t forget opening the apartment to you being gone, and to the wards being destroyed, and to everything I thought was keeping us safe not actually keeping us safe.

I’m not doing that, Ben.

The house we’re getting?? Is going to be fucking safe, and I am going to make it that way.

 DipTipTyrone

Torako…

 Bentley

Look, I get that

But there were ways of making the houses we looked at safe that you weren’t willing to entertain.

That one, with the green roof and the cute staircase?? That was totally viable. We absolutely could have torn the security system out with no trouble.

We literally have Dipper to do that for us.

But you said no! Like you said no to the one with the nice garden, and the one with the really big open windows.

I just want a house, Torako.

It’s not even like we’re necessarily going to live here forever? So if it’s not perfect, I’m ok. I just want somewhere to live that’s not the apartment.

 KoraTorako

And I just want us to be safe, Bentley.

I cant do this right now.

I have to go.

 DipTipTyrone

Is it over?

…fuck it isn’t, is it.

Fuck.

 -

To: hello@qilarlind.org

From: tora@lam.com

SUBJECT: Important

RECEIVED: August 23rd 3042

 Dear Mr. Lindquist,

           Hello. I’m writing to inform you that one of your employees—I’m assuming our current agent, Mr. Amar Shirvani—vented about my partners and I on a public forum. Here is the link: https://tweetyflap.com/silverforks/status/1199679934986810752

           While I understand that we have not been very accommodating clients—myself particularly—I don’t believe that this appropriate behavior. Venting is important, but the place where Mr. Shirvani chose to express his frustrations wasn’t the right one. Please convey this to him for me.

           I don’t want him to lose his job. He’s young and hasn’t learned this particular lesson yet. But I also find myself hesitant to keep working with Mr. Shirvani. Would you be willing to either transfer us to another realtor, or recommend us to another company like Mx. Pinkflax did? I would really appreciate it.

 Sincerely,

Torako Lam

Private Investigator

.

-

 To: tora@lam.com

From: hello@qilarlind.org

SUBJECT: RE: Important

RECEIVED: August 24th 3042

 Dear Ms. Lam,

           I’m very sorry to hear about what Mr. Shirvani did. We’ve discussed the incident and he understands the impropriety of his actions. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

           While I believe that we have exhausted our properties here at Lindquist Realtors, I am happy to recommend you to a few other businesses in the Norfolk Area. They’re smaller, but perhaps they have the specific kind of property that you are looking for. I will do my best to put in a good word for you. Should that fail, I will personally endeavor to find you the house you need.

 Sincerely,

Qilar Lindquist

Lindquist Realtors

 -

 August 24th

Chat with Reynash Pines

11:01 AM

Hey Reynash

Can I ask you a question?

11:02 AM

What a surprise to hear from you via text!

Usually you just pop in and scare my soul out of my chest.

But for your question-- please ask

There’s nothing to do at work at the moment.

11:02 AM

Wouldn’t you usually leave?

Or have things changed again without me realizing it?

11:03 AM

Oh no, normally I would

But I have an appointment at 11:45 that I have to stick around for.

What’s your question?

11:04 AM

Torako and Bentley are fighting over housing.

We’ve told you about the house-hunting, right?

11:04 AM

Oh dear. Yes, I know.

Why are they fighting?

11:05 AM

Trauma. I think. They didn’t say themselves.

But I think it’s trauma.

Anyways, that’s not the important part.

What’s important is how do I help them?

11:06 AM

From the incident back around May?

Oh dear.

Are you sure that’s not the important part?

11:06 AM

Mostly.

Anyway. I just need to know how to mediate.

I haven’t mediated in…

In forever?

I can’t remember.

11:07 AM

…why are you even asking me?

11:07 AM

Because not many people know me as me

And you’re one of the only people who has known me as me for a significant amount of time and are also NOT ben or tora

And also you’re pretty calm mostly except when I show up and scare you

11:09 AM

Well

In my defense, I think most people would be scared if you showed up out of thin air and yelled strange things like WHAT YOU CRAVIN or whatever.

11:10 AM

Are you…sassy?

11:10 AM

Possibly

Back to your predicament: mediating

Have Bentley and Torako been able to talk to each other in person about this?

11:11 AM

No :(

They’ve been very quiet around each other at home.

And Bentley’s going on a trip soon.

So they won’t have a chance for a while.

Do they have to??

11:12 AM

It’s just easier to mediate when you’re all there.

Basically

They have to have the conversation, right?

Your job as mediator is to make sure they stay on task

And that no thoughtlessly cruel words are said.

11:12 AM

So they can say mean things

But they can’t mean the mean things?

11:13 AM

Okay, let me rephrase:

They’re mad at each other. They might say mean things that just hurt each other. Words that are meant to hurt each other.

They should not do that.

That does not help the conversation.

11:13 AM

Oh

Hm

So if one says the other is being stupidly paranoid

That’s where I say no, stop?

11:13 AM

Right.

11:14 AM

And if the other says one is being needlessly reckless with his own mental health

That’s where I say no, stop?

11:14 AM

Er

Maybe not, depending

Is he being needlessly reckless with his own mental health?

11:14 AM

I don’t know? Maybe? How do I tell?

11:15 AM

I can’t believe I’m saying this but

We might need to have this conversation face to face.

Please come he0-awekjhwel

11:39 AM

And remember what we discussed

And the pamphlets I sent you

And also please remind Torako and Bentley that Lata would like to see them sometime next month if they’re able to.

11:39 AM

Thanks Ray!

I really appreciate everything

Sorry for making you scream!

 -

 To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

From: simonkhoo@khoohootrealtors.com

SUBJECT: RE: Professional Request

RECEIVED: August 25th, 3042

 Dear Qilar Lindquist

           Thank you very much for the request. I’m honored that you would consider sending us clients that you yourself could not satisfy. It honestly instills an incredible, renewed sense of capability in us here at Khoohoo Realtors.

           Upon viewing the file you sent, however, one of my junior realtors raised concerns that these particular clients may be too difficult for a firm of our moderate size to adequately deal with. Between yourselves and HomeStar Realtors, these three clients weren’t satisfied. That, to us, is a bit of a red flag. We reviewed their specifications in comparison to our own catalogue, but don’t believe we have anything that they would be interested in actually buying. Therefore, in the interest of saving everybody a great deal of time and energy, I must admit that we cannot at this time take on your clients.

 Have an excellent day,

Simon Khoo

Head of Khoohoo Realtors

 -

 To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

From: lancefraiser@dreamhomerealtors.com

SUBJECT: RE: Professional Request

RECEIVED: August 25th, 3042

 Dear Qilar Lindquist

             Thank you very much for this request.

           Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or patience for clients that would require a great deal of energy. From the looks of the file you attached, that seems to be the case with these clients. Therefore, in short, no.

 Yours,

Lance Fraiser

Senior Realtor

DreamHome Realtors

 -

 To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

From: naitafellen@redfinrealtors.com

Attachment: 2042-PoliceRecoverKidnappedManwithHelpFromCivillian.qbf

SUBJECT: RE: Professional Request

RECEIVED: August 27th, 3042

 Qilar,

           Long time no talk, friend!! Wow it’s been a while, I guess we’ve both been busy. I know this is a professional request and all, but we should get drinks or something!! I hear there’s a great alfree bar that’s just opened up downtown. Apparently it has killer drinks, and it of course it doesn’t have alcoholic stuff so you’re good to drink whatever.

           I took a look at the client rec you sent me, and hoo boy they’ve sure got a record! RedFin usually takes whatever, and you know that, but I don’t actually think we can get them anything?? I’d feel bad chucking properties at them that I know they won’t like. I think they’ve already checked out like three quarters of Norfolk lol. Talk about trying to summon with a broom and a lighter!

           Also, they really remind me of this one tweety I read recently? Oof, if that was one of your kiddos who posted it, you should really tell them that’s a bad call—both for them and the clients. These clients aren’t going to get anything in Norfolk, not with that popular tweety paired with that record. And if it gets out that your kiddo was the one that posted that??? Aint nobody gonna hire them, not with all this client confidentiality and all at stake. Gotta be careful what you post online, even when it is venting.

           Yo, but hey, hope you find somebody for these clients! They seem like they got some scary baggage. The one who nopes around magitec and exdims reminds me of something I read in the news a while ago—it was an article that was hushed down p quickly out of respect for the victim, but I still got the doc. I’ve attached it if you want to read! It might even help you figure stuff out with your clients, even if they aren’t the same.

 Let’s meet up for drinks sometime!

Naita Fellen

Owner of RedFin Realtors, Norfolk

Senior Realtor

 -

 August 27th

KoraTorako

I just received an email from Qilar that he’s going to continue to handle our case, but that it may take a while to comb through what properties they have left.

I said it was fine because Bentley’s off on a trip.

 DipTipTyrone

Great!!

This seems like a good time to have a heart to heart, don’t you think?

 KoraTorako

I, uh, what?

 DipTipTyrone

Bentley’s doing nothing right now! Bentley, talk

Bentley, talk or I’ll make you talk.

Bentley I know you’re at your hotel.

 Bentley

Oh my stars dip

What??

 DipTipTyrone

You guys argued a lot last time we really had a discussion

And you’re angry

And you need to talk about why you’re angry

So that you have a healthy conclusion to your argument

And so that you understand each other’s viewpoints better.

It’s important!

 KoraTorako

But why…now?

 DipTipTyrone

Because you sent that message

And I’m sure Bentley’s feeling vicious about it

 Bentley

No I’m not!

 DipTipTyrone

Yes you are

I can see your aura, and while it’s difficult to read, you’re very dlskajlkwjelkjewnsd;nlab

Aslkdjgwaelkl;kwa;ljk

Dlkjaw-000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 KoraTorako

What the fuck

 DipTipTyrone

You can’t take my phone away from me!! Ha! I win!

 Bentley

You can’t just half slide through the wall so that I can’t tell you’ve blipped in!

What the hell??

 KoraTorako

Okay okay so youre serious about this

Fine

What do you want us to talk about

 DipTipTyrone

Your feelings, I guess?

Like, Bentley. Tell us how you feel about Torako’s latest message.

 Bentley

You’re not my therapist

 DipTipTyrone

No, but we’re family

Which means communication

So tell us.

 Bentley

Uuuuuggghhh

Fine

Torako, that email proves why it was stupid to just dismiss all the properties as soon as we saw them and I feel vindicated but also tired

 DipTipTyrone

Hey, um, you gotta cut all the negativity against the other person out of your message

Try again!

 Bentley

…

The email proves that it was wrong to dismiss the properties without really thinking further about them. I feel vindicated. I feel tired.

Happy?

 DipTipTyrone

Better!

Torako, your turn!

 KoraTorako

Oh my stars are we really doing this

This is so stupid

 DipTipTyrone

Do it

 Bentley

Yeah tora, do it

If I have to, so do you

 KoraTorako

Fine

I’m just tired, ok?? This has taken so much longer than I thought it would. And I know I’m at fault for some of it!!

But I’m sick of Bentley falling to the pressure of ‘picking’ because it’s what’s expected of us. I don’t want him to feel scared or uncertain or uncomfortable in whatever house we pick, even if we’re only there for a couple years until we can pay off the place.

 DipTipTyrone

Thank you Torako! I don’t see any unnecessarily hostile language in there, so that’s A-OK, you pass. Bentley?

 Bentley

I just feel bad because everybody’s trying so hard

And we’re being so hard on them

And sometimes I just don’t understand why you reject the houses? So what that the security system isn’t perfect. I don’t mind going to the effort of pulling it out and starting it again. Heck, I would pay Dip to do it easy!

 KoraTorako

But that’s not your problem

That’s a me problem

I just…I want it to be good from the beginning. I want it to work from the start so that we don’t have to worry about it.

 Bentley

But that’s not going to happen

Sometimes you have to work to make something work for you

And if we gotta do that

I’m fine with it

 KoraTorako

I…I guess

I’m still not completely comfortable with that

 Bentley

We can work on it together

And hey

If I promise to not say yes to houses that make me uncomfortable will you promise to give things like security systems and house integrity a chance?

Like, not dismiss them immediately?

 KoraTorako

…yeah. I can do that, I think.

 DipTipTyrone

Good!! I’m glad we had this discussion

You know, I’m a pretty great mediator!

 Bentley

Dipper I watched you leaf through those pamphlets during the discussion

But yeah

Thank you, dipper

 KoraTorako

Thank you, dipper <3

 Bentley

He’s blushing!!

Compliment him more

 DipTipTyrone

No!

Stop ganging up on me!

 KoraTorako

You’re so cute, Dips!!

 Bentley

The cutest

Aw, he’s glowing

 DipTipTyrone

I should have let you keep fighting

 -

 August 29th, 3042

Chat with Saint Akuapem

4:12 PM

Torako, how are you?

Hepsa says hello

Are you still looking for houses?

4:15 PM

Yeah, we are

Say hello back for me

I’m ok, but a bit tired.

4:15 PM

Excellent

A parent of one of Hepsa’s students mentioned that their mother passed away recently

And that they were willing to sell the property

It seems the mother was afflicted with a curse that prevented her from using most Magitech

And she didn’t trust extra-dimensional spaces

It was a family home, so there are 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a nice garden.

Would you be interested in looking at it?

4:17 PM

Are you fucking serious.

Yes please, a thousand times yes

When can we look?

4:18 PM

Let me ask Hepsa to ask for me.

4:49 PM

Would you be available tomorrow afternoon?

3:30 PM.

 4:51 PM

Oh gosh oh yes

What’s the address?

4:51 PM

Just meet me at our apartment.

We will walk you over.

4:51 PM

Officer you really are a saint

I could kiss you

4:52 PM

Bring some more of those brownies. It’ll be even then.

 -

 “So? What do you think?”

           Torako trailed her fingers across the mantle for the fireplace. It was a real one; apparently, pure electric fireplaces were hell to install and more hell to maintain. There were no runes carved into the rough brick, no faint thrum of magic that Torako could now pick up if she closed her eyes and concentrated really, really hard.

           The whole house had very little by the way of magic.

           “It’s…” Torako looked down at the fireplace proper. It had been cleaned, recently, shiny in the way that old things gleam when properly taken care of. The house had been loved, she was sure of it. “It’s not bad.”

           A touch to her elbow. She looked over at Bentley, whose eyebrows were quirked. “Torako. Please. Be honest.”

           She hummed, turned to lean against the mantle and look out the big windows that provided a view of the garden space. Unmaintained, a little wild. They could put a vegetable patch there, she thought. Maybe a couple fruit trees.

           “I’m not a fan of the front porch steps,” she said, “or the ramp. It’s a bit rickety.”

           “We can fix it up,” Bentley said. He paused, tilted his head, then gave her a sly little grin. “Or at least, we know somebody who works cheap for that kind of thing.”

           “Hey, you can’t let me hear that,” Dipper said from the other room, where he was laying flat on the ground with his ear to the floorboards. “My prices might go up.”

           “Is it all good over there?” Bentley asked in lieu of answering. Torako looked up at the ceiling, where runes or wards or protective magics would be. Magics that would be hers, so they would hurt less to Bentley’s sensitive eye.

           “No creepy basements filled with cadavers or slaughtered cultmembers, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dipper said. Thankfully, Illya had left them to look over her dead mother’s home one last time, so there were no surprised gasps or queer glances. “Though we may want a couple rugs. I think this floor gets cold in the wintertime.”

           “Windowpanes are a little thin,” she muttered to herself. Her fingers tapped against her leg. “Could stand to be a bit more reinforced—though the French doors are probably okay, they seem sturdy enough—”

           “Torako.”

           Bentley’s warm hand slid over the one on her leg. Torako looked at him again. He peered at her over the rims of his oversized sunglasses, golden eye shimmering just a little. “Is there anything seriously wrong with this place? Anything that can’t be fixed?”

           Torako pressed her lips together. The aching anxiety in her chest pressed against her sternum. She tried to ignore it, and the thoughts of shadowy figures cutting through the glass panes, burning through the front door, squeezing through the cracks in the floorboards to steal Bentley away from—

           “Hey,” Bentley said, soft.

           “Hey,” Dipper said, a little brighter and brasher. He took her hand in his human hand. “We’re here, okay?”

           Torako turned her head to Dipper, brown eyes crinkled at the edges (and when had he put wrinkles on?) and grin still just a little too wide for human mouths to stand. She took a deep breath, and exhaled.

           “No,” she said. Bentley inhaled, sharp. “No, not no no! I just meant, ugh, there’s nothing I don’t like about this house that can’t be fixed. That no. Not the ‘let’s not do this’ no.”

           Both of her boys relaxed on either side of her. “Yeah,” Bentley said. “Yeah, I thought this was a good one, too.”

           She twisted her hand in theirs so that she could hold them.

           “Plus, it’s like, dirt cheap,” Dipper said. “Who knew that buying a house without a Realtor handling fee would result in such a bargain?”

           “Okay,” Torako said, a grin starting to pull at the corners of her mouth. The sunlight from the window was warm against her feet, reaching up to soothe the phantom pains in her shins from all those months ago. “Let’s tell Ilya.”

           It would be a good home.

 -

To: olpink@homestar.com

From: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

SUBJECT: FWD: Thank you for your help

RECEIVED: August 31st, 3042

I don’t know whether to be furious or relieved. Mostly I’m just tired.

You up for dinner tonight?

Qilar

 >>To: hello@qilarlind.org

>>From: tora@lam.com

>>Attached: NewHouse+US.png

>>SUBJECT: Thank you for your help

>>RECEIVED: August 31st, 3042

>> 

>>Dear Mr. Lindquist,

           >> I email you to thank you so much for all your assistance. I don’t think we would have gotten as far as we did without you. Due to this journey, my partners and I realized some very important things.

           >>As you might have realized based on the name of the attachment, my partners and I have found a house through one of our acquaintances! It was lovely and off-market, and I probably wouldn’t have said no if it weren’t for our experiences with everybody at Lindquist Realtors and HomeStar Realtors. Thank you so much for your time and effort and energy, and I hope that you have a chance to relax now that we’re out of your hair.

>> 

>>Thank you again,

>>Torako Lam

>>Private Investigator

 -

 From: olpink@homestar.com

To: qilarlindquist@lindquistrealtors.com

 Qilar,

           What the fuck, even. Truly. What the fuck.

           I’ll bring the sparkling apple cider.

Olive

[moonlightxarcher]

Selene’s Log, Day One

Update, 7:40 pm. 

“The flight from Sinnoh to Alola took over twelve hours. It was supposed to take eight. Given the shaking in my legs, the unconscious balling of my hands into fists, and the sheer degree of negative thoughts entering my mind, it appears that I may have been more frustrated by the delays than it appears. Further research may be needed to examine the extent of this effect.” Nonetheless, she continues.

“It was past sunset when I touched down in Alola, leaving the bureau on Melemele Island in the middle of the night. Normally at these hours, I would want to take a long bath, enjoy a warm mug of tea and read a good book. However, this flight has left me... now what was that word. Ah yes, restless. Relaxation is not what I need this moment. As such, I have found it wise to begin my studies.”

There is a muffled sound of items being shuffled through a bag and the tell-tale zing of the edge of a spiral notebook rubbing against something hard. “Professor Kukui has recorded data on these nocturnal Ratatta that call this region their home, and I should like to observe them for myself.”    

---

Update, 8:30 pm. 

“Though it may seem odd, I feel a need to apologize to this audio log for not adding to it earlier. It would seem that Alola is as active at night as the city dwellers in Unova. It was not an Alolan Ratatta that I discovered on Route 1, but a Yungoose. These tan and yellow furred mongoose Pokemon are diurnal, so one of them appearing active at night was surely indicative of something gravely wrong. The look in its beady eyes- it seemed frantic, scared. Something capable of scaring even a Yungoos would be trouble. And that something I learned rather soon after was a flock of Spearow. While nature’s course would normally have led to the consumption of this Loitering Pokemon, I fear I could not let it perish, not when I had interfered already in the chase.” 

“As luck would have it, my bow was within easy reach, Drawing its sleek wooden form from its case, I took aim at the lead Spearow, hoping to knock it out of the sky and scare off the others, but I need not have. A determined squawk cut the tension like an Air Slash. A small, screeching, ball of owl careened into the lead Spearow, kicking it in the beak.”

“Between that owl’s attack and the warning arrow I loosed, it sent the flock packing. Though the Yungoos appeared to be scared off as well.”

“Professor Kukui then found me, a bit embarrassed that the surprise had been ruined prematurely. See, he had been intending on giving this owl- Rowlet, to me as a gift for my help in the last paper we wrote together on Grass Type Moves.” A few taps and beeps are heard as an image flashes up on her recording device’s screen.

Name: Strix

Gender: Female

Nature: Bashful

Characteristic: Quick tempered

There is a muted sound of hooting in the background and a dull thud of something weighted landing on a shoulder. “I am sure Strix and I will work well together. She seems to line up well with my sense of justice, what with how she handled the Spearow.” The owl hoots in agreement.

“On Professor Kukui’s advice, we are heading up to Iki Town to talk to the Kahuna-” Her words are briefly interrupted by the dulled sound of an excitable male, happily calling out to the girl and her Rowlet. It would seem that he and the blue sea lion Pokemon walking with her know this owl. Their conversation is muted, but a few small remarks are caught, namely the mention of a battle and a rivalry between the Rowlet and Popplio.

“Leafage, Strix-” comes Selene’s voice clam and clear, just as the recording cuts out.  

---

Update, 9:00 pm.

“Once again, it seems I must apologize. I must admit I accidentally bumped my thumb against the end recording button. I will take measures to ensure that this does not happen again, moving forward.” She pauses a moment to clear her throat. “Having listened back, it appears the recording cut off during my battle with the boy and his Popplio. Hau is...” There is almost a sense of hesitation in the feminine voice, as if trying to find the word that best applies. “...excitable. Perhaps too excitable. But he seems to be a good-hearted kid.” Says the girl only two years his senior. “His attacks left many openings and were poorly planned, but he did pack a punch. The kid has potential, I will give him that.”

“Professor Kukui ran into us not long after our battle ran to its natural completion. Entering the town together, it became quite clear to the locals that the Kahuna was not here. In the meantime, Professor Kukui suggested I head along Mahalo Trail to the shrine of Tapu Koko, to introduce myself to the Island Guardian. It is a custom I am unfortunately not familiar with, but one that he had educated me on prior to my arrival. It seemed more than reasonable, and the walk has given me time to recount the previous-”

The audio recording stutters, the device clacks as it hits the ground. Two different feminine voices mutter apologies to each other, their words unintelligible at first until the device is picked up and handed back to Selene. Both girls suggest that it was her own fault for not paying attention to where she was walking. The distant, tinkling cry of something small, a Pokemon perhaps, is also audible. 

As is the increasingly loud screech of a flock of Spearow.  

“Nebby! Please, can you-” That second feminine voice is heard once more before it is interrupted by the rough squawking, which is in turn interrupted by the hoot of a Rowlet smashing into the side of the smaller bird. Sounds of battle ring out, the device shaking as it is roughly stowed away in a pocket. The clattering sounds of sandal-covered feet clacking against wood can be heard, as well as the telltale flutter of leaves released like darts from the wings of her partner. From amidst the clashing sounds, a whining cry cuts in, and the deep thrum of a shockwave rocks recording, staggering multiple times. 

A shattering snap, like that of splintering wood, and a sudden shriek of fear are all that can be heard... until the ethereal hum of another creature cuts in, sounds of sparking lightning quite nearly cutting off the recording then and there. 

“T-Tapu.. Koko?” Selene’s voice comes in clearer now, though it seems that the damage the device had suffered was making it sound more mechanized. She is left panting, out of breath at the sight of such a lovely creature. If only her device could record video, then she’d really be able to keep a perfect record of sheer beauty of this legend in the flesh.

The device fizzles out.

---

Update, 10:45 pm.

“...And there we go, all fixed up. The device should be picking up my speech clearly enough now.” Selene’s voice seems tired and slightly crackly, but she isn’t wrong; it was far better than the mechanized voice from earlier. “Our encounter on the bridge left the recording device damaged. With the spare parts I had on hand I was able to repair most of the damage, but it may not hold for long. Further investigation into another option to record my experiments or find more parts may be needed.” She clears her throat a moment, seemingly distracted by the onset of sleep.

“Right. An explanation. According to Professor Kukui and Kahuna Hala, it was in fact Tapu Koko that has saved me and that strange space cloud Pokémon Nebby. But before I could say a word to it, much less thank it for saving my life, the legend was gone. But it did leave a gift of sorts. Kahuna Hala refered to it as a Sparkling Stone, and with its smooth black and intricate colored markings, I can see how it would sparkle when held at the right angle in the right light. I have given the stone to the Kahuna, as he has stated that he can make something for me out of it.”

“But I digress. The other girl accidentally recorded on this device is Lillie, she works for the Professor as his assistant. I have spoken with her once or twice, but she had not known that I was coming to Alola in person. It was...” She stops a moment, seemingly thinking better of it, but continues anyway. “She thought it was ‘cute’ that I was making an audio diary. I tried to explain to her that it was to record my research, but she did not listen...” A short pause, the ruffling off hair can be heard. “But I suppose she is not wrong. Alola is a region rich with culture, mythology, and variant Pokemon. Perhaps recording even my daily life could reveal something interesting with further study.”

Now, where was she? Lillie’s words had thrown her off a bit. “Ah, yes. The Spearow that attacked were without a doubt the same ones as before, so I tried to explain to Lillie the fact they all very nearly got hurt was my fault, but... Lillie refuses to let me take the blame. She really is a kind soul. I am not sure I would have been able to say the same. When we returned, Lillie explained what had happened to Kahuna Hala, and that was when I showed him the stone. I am not sure what he could be doing with it, but the thought intrigued me enough.”

“It was rather late by then, so the Kahuna sent us all off. Professor Kukui had prepared a bed for me in the basement of his lab, so I walked with him and Lillie. I had asked why they had not already converted the basement into a larger room for Lillie, but it seemed like the girl actually enjoyed her little loft area. It personally seemed too small in the video footage I had seen, but if it worked for her, I cannot argue.”

“Back at the lab, the Professor was happy to present me with another gift. He would have given it to me earlier, but it had not been ready yet: A Rotom Pokedex. I had read about them in a recent tech magazine, but I have to say they are far more impressive in person. The Professor went all-out in this, I will give him that. He had modified the Pokedex to include a proper camera for taking pictures and video, and the Rotom placed inside it to act as the AI was very well trained. I was able to speak with it briefly before it had to enter a shutdown mode to properly update and install all the programs.” She pauses, the light sound of fingers tapping as she mentally trails off a bit.

“I wonder... Maybe once he is up, I will ask the Rotom if he would help me with my logs...” A longer pause, for a moment it seems like the recording has died, but then she picks it up again. “Fatigue appears to be setting in. I ought to sleep, there is a long day of science and research planned for tomorrow.”

End Day One.

[lindoig5]

Wednesday to Saturday – Days 20 to 23    At sea with a bonus island visit

Wednesday      The temperature rocketed up to zero degrees early in the morning, but it was soon back to minus eight.  The forecast had predicted gale force winds after midnight, but it was late morning before they really hit us – and then with a vengeance.  When the 50-plus knot winds hit, it became very wild and the ship bucked and rolled ferociously.  In Australia, we have seen many big dust willy-willies, but this was the first time I have seen water willy-willies - furious whirling columns of water whipped up out of the waves, spiralling hundreds of feet high and roaring across the sea.  Very impressive if a little awe-inspiring.  It became foggy and we had a few hours of quite heavy snow with all the storm-doors closed and nobody venturing outside even for a quick photo.

We whiled away a few hours on the way north whale watching.  There were plenty of humpbacks, a single blue whale, and numerous others that were a bit too distant to make a conclusive identification, but there were certainly quite a few around.  We saw more birds braving the wind than further south, but it was pretty uncomfortable for everyone on the ship, including me - trying to keep my balance in the Bridge whilst looking for/at, and photographing, the birds.

Having reversed the direction of the whole expedition due to the Macquarie Island coronavirus quarantine, the ship had completed its advertised route and potential Ross Sea landings with close to a day to spare, so the team decided to take in something not on the itinerary.  It was an unexpected bonus.

We visited the very remote Balleny Island group.  Few of us had ever heard of these big rocks and they are so incredibly steep and rugged, there was no possible way anyone could ever set foot on them other than by helicopter.  But we sat in the lee of the southernmost (Sturge Island) while we ate lunch then cruised the length of that island, probably 50km or more, and by the time we emerged into open water again, the conditions had improved somewhat, making for a slightly more comfortable passage.  There are about a dozen islands in the group so we had quite a bit of cover as we continued further north.  Even so, we rocked and rolled along the western side of the islands (an impressively rugged sight at every point) before peeling off to port and heading to our intended destination, Australia’s Macquarie Island (but that was tomorrow).

We saw a lot of seabirds on and near Sturge Island, mainly hundreds of beautiful white Greater Snow Petrels, but with at least a thousand Southern Fulmars forming a massive raft on the sea that all took off as we sailed passed, perhaps a tad too close for comfort for them.  After seeing so few birds in the Ross Sea, it was notable that for the rest of the entire trip, we were rarely out of sight of at least the occasional bird or two for more than a few minutes.

There was a historical lecture about Amundsen, and another excellent one about whale identification that day, but with the weather as it was, a good few people chose sea-sickness pills and bed ahead of the lectures!!!  At least, they could lay supine even if the noise and juddering of the ship crunching through patches of ice prevented much chance of sleep.

We had had one happy hour in the bar a few days earlier when a couple celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary shouted everyone to a glass or three of bubbles and today, another couple invited us to help celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary by letting us buy our own drinks - the previous couple had exhausted the ship’s supply of bubbly.

Thursday      We spent a very uncomfortable bouncy night at anchor along the Ballenys before breaking cover and heading to Macquarie Island in 10-metre swells.  At least the temperature was now positive and remained at 2 or 3 degrees for the next several days.  We crossed out of the Antarctic Treaty Zone during the day and saw a lot more whales, mainly humpbacks, as we went north. I didn’t feel that the whales appreciated the benefit of the protective Treaty Zone. Their behaviour seemed equally as carefree on both sides of the line.

It was a fairly unpleasant day for us all and most of us (albeit not the whales) spent it in bed reading or sleeping (I read six library books whilst on the ship, well in excess of my normal year’s quota), only venturing out for meals - and quite a few didn’t even do that.

Friday      Today, we crossed the Antarctic Circle for the second time but I can’t say that being in the Temperate Zone again seemed all that temperate - it was not much different from the Antarctic Zone.  I tried to write a bit for my blog, but it was just too rough.  Chasing my PC around the table whenever the ship lurched this way and that (all the time) was just too hard so I soon gave up and went back to reading.

There were a couple of lectures during the day: a really good one on Sea Ice and another on the NZ Hut Restoration Project (that we didn’t attend).  David’s lectures were full of information and personal anecdotes, but the subject matter was not as compelling for us as most of the other lectures.

The Ship Shop was open again for a while and we perused the wares but purchased nothing.  It had been open earlier in the voyage and we had upgraded our Bunnings waterproof gloves but I think that was pretty much the limit of our custom.

Late in the day, there was an auction of Antarctic-themed pictures, artworks, books, memorabilia and so on and people went a bit crazy with their bids.  We didn’t try to buy anything, but the auction raised more than $3000 that was donated to the Antarctic Restoration Trust.

Saturday      Today we celebrated Leap Year and another day when there was a fair bit of leaping around as the ship shuddered into big waves most of the day. It was really too rough to do much so we spent most of another day reading in bed with only occasional forays to the Bridge to watch for birds.

Everything on board creaks like the stereotypical old-fashioned sailing ship depicted by Hollywood but despite the discomfort, there was some undeniable romance in the rhythmic creaks and groans as the ship rode the storm and the wind whistled frantically through the rigging.  It was notable that although we slowed down quite a bit to make things fractionally less uncomfortable, there were times when we came to what seemed like an instant full stop.  There were also many big bangs and crashes that I think had their origin in similar events - when big waves slammed into the bow broadside on.  At times, we were down to 3 knots and surfing down the face of the waves – exhilarating, even if a bit terrifying.

They played all seven episodes of a mini-series telling the story of Scott’s Antarctic expeditions over several days, but we only went to the first one.  I was so confused by who was supposed to be who, and the inconsistencies between the film and the audio-book we had recently listened to, that I decided it was all too hard and spent most of the time in the Bridge while others were being ‘educated’.

[thisbookisaboutmonsters]

Sigi, pt 3

introducing.... ROBERT~ he’s a decent guy and all but his choice of occupation is going to provide a few headaches for sigi and i can’t wait. c:

if you enjoy, please leave me feedback! feel free to share as well!

Horrible. It’s the only word Sigi can think of right now. He turns it over in his mind as though he’s never really studied it before: horrible. Horrible. Horrible. It starts to sound less and less like a real word, but the feeling of dread in his stomach is no less powerful.

“Sigi?” Johannes has been watching him for the past minute or so, trying to get his attention. “Sigi…” He turns away from Sigi to face their professor standing just inside the doorway to his home. “He’s just as shocked as I am, sir. We all are. Poor little Jan…”

Sigi’s stomach churns as they’re invited inside, both from horror and— even more upsetting— from hunger. The bloodless body of the small child he’d chewed on two days prior is lying on a table, there for people to mourn and pay their respects. The woman seated on the chair in the corner, sobbing softly by herself, must be the mother.

Sigi steps closer with Johannes. Their professor is speaking, mentioning where they found the body, but Sigi already knows exactly where they found it.

While Johannes offers his condolences to the distraught family Sigi leans around the table to get a glimpse of the mess he left of the child’s neck. It’s very clear what killed him, he realizes, and he feels his stomach clench again with that horrible mix of guilt and overwhelming hunger. He didn’t expect to have to look at this child again.

He’s brought out of his stupor when he hears the professor say it: a hunting dog. They were going to look for the sick animal and kill it before it could attack anyone else.

“By the look of the mess, it could be any one of the lord’s dogs. We haven’t had wolves here for years.”

Sigi steps outside quickly, muttering condolences as he leaves, eager to get out of that house before his guilt stops being mistaken for sympathetic shock. He’s shaking out on the streets when Johannes finds him, leaning against a wall and ignoring the people who look at him.

“That poor boy,” Johannes whispers, “He just left the market and…”

Sigi has to bite his lip to distract himself from the smell of the boy, still very present inside that house. It doesn’t smell at all like decomposition to Sigi; it only reminds him of how good his blood tasted.

“Sigi? Are you still unwell?” Johannes reaches up to hold his friend’s shoulder. “You’ve been pale lately.”

Johannes’s hand feels hot through Sigi’s clothing. Sigi doesn’t feel cold, but he notices how warm Johannes is now. He can't stop noticing it, like how he can taste Johannes’s breath whenever he speaks. “I’m hungry. That’s all.”

Johannes is visibly taken aback. “Hungry? After… that?”

Sigi pushes off the wall and walks away. “I’ll see you later.”

“Where are you going? We’ve food at home!”

Sigi ignores him, walks faster when he hears Johannes trying to follow. He’d always had longer legs, and he loses Johannes as soon as his friend gives up. He can’t let Johannes know where he’s going.

He spends the rest of the day traveling as far out of town as he can get before he’s in pain from hunger. He doesn’t come home until hours past midnight, sated, filthy, wide-awake and distraught. When he slides into bed Johannes sleepily rolls over to hold him, and Sigi curls into his warmth and does not sleep.

*

Robert hadn’t gone into hunting because he liked it. There wasn’t much to enjoy about a job like this, and the only hunting experience he had prior to this very particular game was hunting deer in his childhood. No, this was dangerous (some would even argue unnecessary) compared to hunting in order to put food on the table, or even for sport.

This was hunting to keep people safe.

He hated hunting the old ones, but you couldn’t really put it off when you found another one; the longer you waited, the more people you were endangering. At least the old ones tried to be subtle, and smart, and could wait between victims. The young ones were the most needlessly violent.

Both young and old were terrible when they were cornered. It wasn’t really a matter of which was easier to get rid of.

But oh, he hated hunting the old ones. The best approach, or at least the approach Robert vastly preferred, was an ambush. A sneak attack. Sniper shot.

A stake in the heart would work, if you knew where to aim, but that was tough. You had to get in close, and that was probably the stupidest thing you could do. You also needed a lot of upper body strength and fucking ridiculous reflexes. Robert stayed in shape mostly for being able to get away when he mucked things up, and he knew from experience that a stake through the heart was impractical. Pushing forty, he was no Olympian.

Robert had some compromises, to spare himself some grief, extend his lifespan. After all, food chains were food chains, and everything deserved a shot at existing— he tried to do a background check before finalizing the next target. He’d found a few who lived in rural areas and stuck to farm animals; some even raised their own cattle and left people alone. Others still made a point to work in morgues; fresh blood was apparently not mandatory.

He was wary when Sigi was first brought to his attention. He didn’t really care for pop culture so he was behind the times with most celebrities; it was his thirteen-year-old niece who showed him who Sigi was. After he’d dared commit the crime of confessing he had no idea who that was, and after she’d gasped and demanded how he couldn’t know, she showed him some magazine articles and bragged about the lipstick she owned. Apparently this Sigi was… well. Famous, for some reason. Robert just assumed Sigi was a makeup brand, but Sigi was a person.

The photos weren’t that alarming because, being in a fashion magazine, Robert assumed airbrushing and lighting did all the work. He didn’t think about Sigi until a week later, when he heard that name again in a documentary playing on television while he cooked dinner. Struck by hearing the same name so soon, after never hearing it before, he leaned into the living room to watch. This Sigi was narrating a documentary on the history of modern scientific thought, talking about the standardization of the meter and other things Robert had never really wondered about. Curious, Robert used his phone to look up the documentary, to find the narrator’s name, and then was interested to see it was the same Sigi responsible for his niece’s lipstick collection.

That led to a brief internet spiral while he finished cooking, in which he checked Wikipedia and news stories, and pictures— candid as well as professionally done— and before he knew it he felt like he couldn’t even think of food. He found himself leaning on the countertop beside the stove, deep in his phone, staring intently at every picture of this Sigi person and unable to look away.

This was not something common to vampires, at least not in static photos. It struck Robert however that any Youtube results for Sigi brought absolutely no moving images over five seconds long. Sigi visibly disliked being filmed, although he had no trouble offering his voice to— Robert checked Wikipedia again— documentaries, movies, video games, audio books, or interviews.

He’d write it off as eccentricity if he didn’t feel the need to stare at every picture he could find of Sigi, including those short video clips. Sigi… didn’t seem to look right in videos. Which was odd.

Robert tried to go back to his meal, now getting cold on the stove, but he’d lost his appetite. Sigi had ruined his appetite somehow.

It came to him about an hour later, while he was avoiding his phone and ignoring the television, trying to clean his gear before he sat down to do a little editing for his day job. A feeling of dread had settled over him since he’d looked Sigi up online, and he still couldn’t fully explain why looking at Sigi in pictures was somehow horrifying, but he watched the video clips again and came to the decision that he had another background he should check soon.

This would be the first time he’d had to figure out a celebrity target. It would take longer to get the information he needed to make his final decision. Maybe Sigi was just weird. Maybe he was a weird but perfectly normal human. Or maybe he wasn’t a perfectly normal human but he stuck to a strictly small-vermin-and-cattle diet. Either way, Robert had to be extra careful and extra sure if he was going to even consider hunting someone in the public eye like this.

He sort of hated his job.

He worked around his daytime-job-as-editor schedule to make trips to the city Sigi usually lived in. At least as an editor he could get into publishing shindigs if he pulled a few strings, and Sigi worked with a lot of magazines. After getting a temporary spot in a hotel, Robert spent his days trying to figure out some part of Sigi’s schedule and his nights trying to sneak ever closer for a glimpse. He’d make a decent stalker if he were any less morally strict.

Part of his hunting, once he got close enough, involved having to hide his face and hide his scent. There were ways to cover enough of his scent that a potential predator wouldn’t recognize him if he was always around, and then suddenly, inexplicably nearby on a dark night in an abandoned street. Robert wore essential oils, a different one every day he knew he’d be near enough for Sigi to possibly spot him, and on some days he covered his torso with unsavoury things like old blood from a butcher’s shop or, on the worst days, cooled bacon grease. He hated being near potential vampires smelling like a BLT but they didn’t care as much for meat as they did fresh, hot blood.

He tried to stick to essential oils for the most part, but they got costly.

He didn’t have to start coating himself in a different stink for a little while, able to observe from a greater distance, but once he started trying to keep track of everyone Sigi went on a date with he started to worry and move in closer. They didn’t seem to all… go home. Most did. It was hard to spot at first. But nearly one in twelve people didn’t leave Sigi’s house after they followed him home from a party. Every twelve dates, somebody vanished.

The longer Robert waited, the more people would mysteriously disappear.

He was careful to make sure, of course, but after he watched twenty-eight different people go home with Sigi and two didn’t leave the house again with Robert watching well into the next day, until Sigi left by himself… Robert had to resign himself to the fact that he was going to get much closer to Sigi now.

A few more strings pulled and suddenly Robert was editing for magazines that liked to cover Sigi’s body of work, whether it was makeup or fashion or art curation or scientific studies. (How on Earth did anyone have so many fingers in so many different fields? Robert had maybe one half of a hobby and Sigi was the Renaissance.) Eventually, someday soon, Robert was going to have to meet the guy face-to-face.

His chance finally came when he got to attend an open lecture at a university, with Sigi as the guest specialist. Sigi was giving a lecture to grad students and Robert was left stupefied just listening to the whole thing. With the documentary narration and audio books, Sigi was likely to have a script; during the lecture he did not hold any notes at all. He instructed everyone present on a very specific period in early modern military history and even answered questions at the end, no script, no notes, nothing. Robert even learned some things about military history that he didn’t have much use for.

Since he was going to edit the brief article about Sigi’s lecture today, Robert was able to get close enough to thank Sigi for the opportunity. Close up, Sigi was the single most alarming being Robert had ever had to address.

He was courteous. He was well-spoken. He was a gracious guest and delighted to meet anyone who’d enjoyed the lecture. He shook Robert’s hand. Robert was petrified the entire time, unable to string two words together without feeling his innards all clench up.

Looking at Sigi in person, having him look at you and speak directly to you, was… horrifying. Robert had survived vampire attacks, had hunted and killed some pretty vicious predators, and he had never been as unsettled as he had when getting to meet Sigi. He couldn’t explain how, exactly; his voice was very soothing, as inviting as a voice could be, and if Robert could look away at all without seeming entirely rude he could probably even relax.

Sigi smiled, interrupting himself, and instead said to Robert, “You seem overwhelmed. Is there anything I can do?”

Oh, God, when he smiled it was even worse. Robert nearly vomited, so shocked by the sight of it that he almost didn’t know how to speak for a moment. He wasn’t starstruck. He didn’t care for celebrities at all— once he’d met his favourite author and was able to have a perfectly civil, levelheaded conversation with her. He wasn’t even interested in Sigi’s work, he wasn’t a fan… This wasn’t jitters, this was raw animal terror and unspeakable, indescribable horror given a pretty face and a handsome voice.

“Sorry, you…” Robert decided he couldn’t hide it at all even if Sigi hadn’t made note of it. Might as well play along. “I wasn’t ready to meet you in person. And you gave such a wonderful lecture.”

“Thank you. I’m very lucky the university will have me. You have an interest in the subject?”

Sigi wasn’t dressed the way he was in the fashion spreads or on the red carpet, just a tie and dress shirt under a simple sweater, brown leather Oxfords— he was dressed more like an academic today, and he was still somehow radiant. Robert had always been mystified by makeup that didn’t intend to look halfway natural and Sigi’s red lips were no exception.

Sigi smiled again, making Robert feel more ill. “You’re staring at my mouth,” Sigi noted calmly, no quieter than before.

Robert jolted with alarm. “Sorry. My… my niece wears your lipstick. She’s a fan; she actually had to tell me who you were.”

Sigi’s smile broadened. “Ooh. You must live in the woods,” he remarked, as though he envied Robert.

Robert was trying very hard to remind himself that he couldn’t start to like Sigi even the tiniest bit if he was going to have to kill him. “Not anymore, I’m just hopeless.” He tried to duck out courteously, gesturing around the room at the bustling faculty and students. “I won’t take up any more of your time, but thanks so much. It was a pleasure.”

Sigi shook his hand again. “Likewise. You should attend the lecture next month.”

Robert nodded, made his way outside, and promptly dry-heaved over a bush behind the lecture hall.

He didn’t hate Sigi, and that was probably the most alarming part of all. He was scary as all hell but he wasn’t trying to be; Robert had met plenty of people through his day job and few had even tried to be as warm as Sigi had been.

It was his face, Robert realized, thinking about it on the way back to his hotel room; Sigi’s face was so perfect, so astoundingly beautiful, that it totally fucked with your eyes. It threw off your balance and made you almost motion sick. This wasn’t a thing Robert had noticed with other vampires; this seemed to be particular only to Sigi. He’d heard of the uncanny valley— this was an uncanny deep sea trench. People weren’t meant to see faces that perfect.

Upon further reflection, Robert couldn’t figure out why he thought of Sigi’s face that way. He wasn’t even what Robert found most attractive, superficially. But something about him forced Robert to know, beyond a doubt, that Sigi was so beautiful, so utterly perfect, that he was beyond description. It wasn’t Robert’s personal preference; it was a fact. It was awful to look at.

Once Robert felt well enough to take the bus back to his hotel, he spent the next hour or so trying to get more background information on Sigi. He should have guessed he’d come up with very little; ten minutes into his research he was digging through blogs that seemed devoted to guessing things about Sigi. All people knew for sure was that he was ‘probably from Germany’, but even that was contested in the comment sections on Youtube. Apparent linguists online would get angry enough to remark on how Sigi’s accent was not the typical German accent from any part of the country, so he had to be faking it. Native German speakers would be a bit more optimistic, but still confused.

Sigi did not give people concrete information about himself, it would seem. Nobody really knew how old he was or when his birthday might be, people couldn’t confirm where he was from, and although it was clear that Sigi was well-educated it was hard to find a full list of which schools he had attended. People online argued about that, too.

Just looking at the list of documentaries Sigi had narrated on Wikipedia, Robert felt intimidated. Did Sigi have any level of expertise in all of these subjects? Robert didn’t even care about all these subjects and yet he felt woefully inadequate for about half an hour, before he decided he was just tired and shaken up from having to meet Sigi in person. He went to bed early that night.

A lack of background information at this point was getting more and more suspicious. Robert started trying to dig up anything he could get on Stefan, Sigi’s personal assistant. The guy didn’t hold interviews or anything, but he was usually at Sigi’s side during public appearances. Throughout the entire lecture Robert could see him standing by the door, holding Sigi’s phone and looking vaguely unhappy.

Stefan didn’t seem to do much for Sigi apart from hold his phone and his coat. He had no history with other secretarial positions, didn’t seem comfortable with half of the events Sigi went to, and if there wasn’t proof of Sigi flat-out refusing the idea that Stefan was actually his boyfriend Robert would have to assume that was the only reason Sigi had given him that job. Although… thinking back on it, Sigi had visibly ignored Stefan the whole time Robert was at the lecture hall, before and after the lecture itself; Sigi also never seemed to speak to Stefan in public. He kept the guy close but he ignored him. Stefan didn’t try to talk to him, either. They just seemed to barely put up with one another.

Robert didn’t immediately think Stefan might be a thrall, but he looked through all the candid pictures online where Stefan was visible off to the side until he found three in which a neck injury or a bruise were in evidence. Stefan might be a thrall. That might be the only thing keeping him near Sigi. But thralls were usually completely brain-dead until they got near people, which was when they started acting like rabid dogs, no matter how loyal they were to their vampires. Stefan was always in public with Sigi and seemed to be mostly normal, if a little anxious.

Robert pulled some strings again; he was going to attend two more magazine shindigs soon, one to give him one last chance to meet Sigi in person, and one to make his move. If Sigi proved a lost cause at the first event, then Robert didn’t have to attend the second one. He hoped he was wrong about all this and Sigi was just a weird European celebrity and Stefan was just a terrible secretary.

He dreaded being caught. Not because of getting arrested, but because… Sigi had a lot of fans.

A lot of fans.

If Robert had to kill Sigi he was going to disappoint quite a lot of people. Possibly ruin a few jobs, given how busy the guy was.

But Robert didn’t do this for the glory or the gratitude or the fun. There was no glory, rarely any gratitude, and he definitely didn’t have any fun doing it. He did this because he couldn’t sleep at night just ignoring them. He kept thinking about the people who didn’t ever walk back out of Sigi’s home.

The first shindig was a pretty fancy one. Robert had to rent a tuxedo, although he resisted the brief impulse to get a haircut. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone; he just didn’t want to stand out. And he was on a budget— he was running low on peppermint oil.

Robert was tempted to get drunk at the bar before he talked to Sigi again. He approached, ready to order two of the most potent drinks and knock them back immediately, then paused when he noticed Stefan wandering closer to the bar. He slowed down to let Stefan grab the bartender’s attention first. Stefan ordered something for himself, nothing for Sigi, and drank it right there.

It would probably be too obvious if he tried to talk to Stefan. Robert wasn’t real good at socializing, he hated parties, and he’d always be the guy to leave early. He watched as Stefan walked away, looking sullen as ever, completely ignoring Sigi and apparently only there to hold Sigi’s phone.

Robert waited just long enough to swallow two glasses of fruity, sweet cocktails before the liquid courage kicked in. Then he mingled.

It was never hard to find Sigi at these events. People flocked to him, and although his behaviour was always subdued, downright demure, he didn’t really have to work to grab anyone’s attention, either. Robert found him because he just looked for where the crowd was thickest.

Sigi was sitting on a love seat along the far wall, facing somebody seated in the adjacent armchair, holding conversation with a small group. Robert was surprised to see he was holding a glass of something— red, yes, but not that particular shade. He was about to suspect the glass was a bluff, a prop, until Sigi actually lifted it to his beautiful red mouth and drank.

Out of nowhere, Robert had the sudden thought: Please, God, don’t let him actually be a serial killer. Not that the alternative was very attractive, either.

Robert made small talk with someone nearby and worked his way slowly closer to the seating arrangements. He felt like he was trying to sneak closer to a python and desperately hoping it wouldn’t notice.

“Robert, was it?”

It was just his luck that the small group around Sigi had mostly dispersed when he finally got close enough, so Sigi noticed him immediately. Robert prepared himself for the sick feeling to kick in as he moved to make eye contact.

He had just enough time to register that Sigi was dressed significantly less like an academic tonight before Sigi unfolded himself gracefully from the love seat and stood.

“Yeh— hesss,” Robert’s reply came out in a feeble hiss like the air being let out of a punctured tire. Sigi wore heels tonight. He was already taller than Robert; because of the heels he had to crane his neck to avoid staring directly into Sigi’s chest, and Robert was a big guy. “Sigi, right?” he cracked pitifully, taking the manicured hand Sigi offered and finding himself shocked at the strength of the guy’s grip.

Sigi smiled— a faint one, but no less alarming to watch. “I’m flattered you recognized me. You’re a long way from the university.”

“Oh, I freelance for magazines. I was in town for family and I got roped into covering the event.”

“Your magazine pool sounds very diverse.”

Instead of addressing that, Robert said, letting his genuine surprise show, “I can’t believe you remembered me.”

“Public relations is what I do. Where would I be without that?” Sigi asked, before sipping his drink again.

That’s right. Robert glanced briefly at the glass to confirm that it wasn’t thick enough to be… damn it, that looked like pink champagne. “Well, isn’t that what you have your… guy for?”

Although Sigi had been pointedly spending time with anyone but Stefan so far, his eyes went directly over to the corner in which his assistant currently sulked. “In theory,” he said, as he returned swiftly to ignoring Stefan.

Robert didn’t feel like he was boring Sigi, but he wouldn’t be shocked if he was. “Well… I need to go find my date…”

Sigi’s smile widened. Robert noticed for the first time that his eyelashes were nearly white. “You’re lying to me, you fiendish thing.”

Robert felt his heart stop beating. His entire body reacted. “Sorry?” he wheezed, trying to laugh but finding he’d forgotten how.

Sigi coyly finished his drink. “I saw, you came here alone. No shame in that, of course.”

Robert tried not to seem as relieved as he was. He could force out that laugh now, although it troubled him to think Sigi might be flirting with him. Even more disturbing was the idea that Sigi had noticed him upon arrival. He’d known Robert was here this whole time. “Ah, you caught me. I was feeling awkward after Franklin over there introduced me to his date. I think she’s a model,” he added. He’d overheard Franklin’s friend tell him earlier, exasperated, that nobody cared what his date did, and could he please stop bragging?

Sigi chuckled. “Oh yes, Franklin. Great photographer, terrible braggart.”

Robert was starting to get dizzy looking up at Sigi and watching the red sequins of his outfit flash in the dim light of the room. Somehow he made a dignified escape and mingled a bit more.

Somehow he wound up near Sigi again later, despite his best efforts not to look like he was here to spy on the guy. Sigi didn’t seem to find it odd that Robert kept bumping into him, and by the time Robert was finally able to leave he’d almost gotten Robert to feel comfortable near him, if only by sheer force of courtesy.

Mysterious drinks aside, Sigi wasn’t the only person avoiding the hors d’oeuvres, so that couldn’t be taken too seriously. But after a little while Robert noticed that people seemed to actually stop talking when Sigi spoke up— not entirely, but the general volume consistently dropped every time Sigi said anything. Anything. And Robert found himself eager to seek out Sigi by the end of the night, after talking to him thrice, feeling as if he’d found something interesting he wanted to tell Sigi—

That was what made up his mind. He was going to have to move in fast at the next event.

He still felt that eager-excited puppy-love as he drove back to his hotel in his rented car. Sigi had done nothing, really, to justify Robert feeling like he’d just asked the most popular girl in school to the dance and she’d said yes. Sigi was polite, casually flirtatious at times, but he had done nothing to single Robert out. It had still taken Robert four real attempts before he could actually leave.

Old vampires were very, very good at enthralling a roomful of people. True, Sigi had the added advantage of his shocking beauty, but Robert was almost too afraid to look at him head-on and he was still feeling that feeling two hours after he’d left the party.

And it wasn’t as though he looked forward to having to snipe someone, so that wasn’t it.

He had one week to stock up on the right oils and clean his gear. He got started immediately, as soon as he stripped out of his tuxedo and got into a housecoat, to help get rid of that puppy-love feeling a little bit faster. Harder to feel smitten when you were planning an assassination.

Despite his dread for the upcoming event, the week flew by. Robert suddenly found himself re-packing his hunting gear, checking over the necessities, checking the essential oils, double- and triple-checking the cleanliness of his weapon. He wasn’t going to get in close; that was a rookie mistake and usually impractical. If he could snipe his target from a distance, that would be best. Fewer people would suffer. Robert stood less chance of being arrested, too.

In Robert’s varied experience, the only things that really killed a vampire were decapitation and a well-aimed hole in the heart. Sometimes decapitation wasn’t fully reliable; a vampire already in panic mode could manage headless long enough to cause some real damage. But getting the heart always worked.

A wooden stake would do it, sure, and Robert had figured out a while ago that the denser the wood the better the attack. Metal piercing the heart didn’t work as reliably as, say, ebony, which was something Robert knew from harrowing experience but couldn’t explain. So he had his bullets made custom out of ebony.

The gun was technically a custom job, too; after a lot of help from the one weird redneck cousin Robert had in his extended family, Robert had made a gun that worked at medium range and wouldn’t totally destroy dense wood bullets upon firing them. It was technically a sniper rifle, but he couldn’t shoot from too far off. Tragically, this meant he’d have to get relatively close to his target if he wanted this to work. No distant rooftops tonight.

And so there he was, lurking in the underground parking lot underneath the event taking place upstairs, having doused himself in way too much peppermint oil, kind of burning from the oil and the adrenaline. It took him forty-six minutes to locate Sigi’s car; it was another party for wealthy guests, people in entertainment. Everyone had an expensive car. Sigi’s car didn’t stand out here, unlike its owner.

He waited between a support pillar and a raised curb on the corner, between the floors in the lot, and watched Sigi’s car intently. Anyone who walked past his hiding spot didn’t notice him, hidden as he was beneath a dusty grey tarp; he looked like a pile of construction junk. He smelled ridiculous, too; the peppermint was so strong that he might actually pass for real trash, too much for anyone to really want to investigate.

His heart was pounding in his ears for the first twenty minutes of his vigil. The party was well underway; he saw very few people leave the doors at the far end of the lot, and hardly anyone came halfway to his hiding spot. Most of the people he spotted were obviously drunk, or else high on something, or just too preoccupied to even care if Robert were to stand up, wave his rifle over his head, and yawn real loud. He wanted to, so badly, but instead of standing he worked on methodically flexing the muscles in his legs to keep them from falling asleep.

He didn’t expect to see Sigi until the event was over, but fifty-seven minutes after he found his hiding place, still slowly flexing muscles one at a time to keep himself from getting stuck in position, he got his chance. Sigi himself stepped out of the door to the parking garage, alone. As always, even from a distance it was easy to tell it was him. Much taller than average, long near-white hair tumbling over his shoulders to bounce with every step, heels clicking on the pavement.

Robert was suddenly calm, at peace. All his nerves were forgotten as he focused entirely on the rhythm of Sigi’s step as he approached, aiming carefully for the chest, watching him as he came within range.

Robert watched Sigi’s face through the gun’s scope and was intrigued by the utter lack of any kind of expression. Sigi didn’t even look as if he was deep in thought; he was only walking, doing nothing else. He was just as startling staring blankly at the air in front of his face as he was when addressing someone. For an instant, Robert felt that unwelcome almost-adoration nudge its way into his brain again.

He exhaled slowly, soundlessly, as Sigi reached his car. Sigi lifted a hand to the front door, about to use the key.

Robert pulled the trigger. The gun was muffled, quiet. His aim was good.

At the same time, Sigi twisted to the right.

The bullet pierced a hole in the driver’s side window. Robert noticed this exactly when he realized Sigi was staring in his direction.

Gone was the calm non-expression he’d worn as he entered the garage. Sigi was not afraid— he was undoubtedly furious.

Quite a good distance away, Robert recoiled as Sigi took a few steps forward, now aimed in his direction. As if he’d forgotten Sigi was too far away to strike at him.

Time stretched out. Five seconds felt like five years. In the moments it took for Robert to realize he was still hidden, still far enough away that he could escape with a head start, he saw the way Sigi moved and he was utterly terrified for his life.

He knew now. He knew he’d chosen the right target.

The door to the parking garage swung open as somebody shouted, “Sigi!”

Sigi stopped immediately, turned casually to glance over at the door. He was moving normally again, just a pretty man at a party in expensive clothing. With one last glance over at Robert’s hiding place, leaving no doubt in Robert’s mind that he knew precisely where that bullet had come from, Sigi turned to step calmly back toward the door.

“You weren’t going to leave us so soon, were you?” called the old woman at the door, dressed in a glittering cocktail dress.

“I thought I’d brought my glasses,” Sigi replied gently, his voice carrying well in the quiet garage, “I realize I’ve forgotten them at home.”

“Oh, dear. I’ll lend you some of mine.”

Robert barely heard Sigi’s chuckled response (“Thank you, I doubt your prescription is sufficient. I’ll manage.”) because he’d figured out that he’d been given the greatest gift of his life: a chance to get out and regroup without bloodshed. He dismantled his gun quicker than ever before, moving too fast for his hands to shake, and before he understood how he’d gotten out of his hiding place he was sprinting for dear life, faster than he’d ever covered ground in all his years of hunting, knowing he’d never be so lucky again. He did not turn around to look for Sigi, knowing in sight of the old woman he would let Robert flee.

He’d parked his car at the outer edge of the property. He leapt behind the wheel and started the engine as he pulled the door shut, screamed out of there burning rubber. He turned so fast he nearly lost control of the car, pulled away from the event, quivering as the adrenaline started to drain slowly out of him.

As he passed the main entrance, seconds away from driving through the front gate, something shattered on the passenger side and hit him hard in the ribs. He yelped but was smart enough not to stop. It took him ten seconds to understand there was a hole in his passenger window.

His phone was ringing.

He couldn’t stop here. He kept driving until he was several blocks away, then slowed down and backtracked a little, before he pulled into the lot of a pizzeria. His car smelled like peppermint.

The phone started ringing again. He shook his hands out and looked for the phone while he massaged the new bruise in his side. “…Hello?”

“When do you plan on arriving, Robert? Did you find the venue yet?”

Oh, Christ. “Miriam, hi! You’re attending tonight?”

“Of course I am, don’t be silly. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet Sigi myself! Were you driving up or is your taxi lost?”

“Oh, no… no, I’m driving up. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were waiting for me. Traffic was brutal leaving my neighbourhood, I got turned around once or twice trying to find a creative route…” Robert squeezed his eyes shut. How hadn’t he known the lead editor and magazine founder would be there tonight? Oh god, he had to change his clothes and wipe off this stupid peppermint…

After reassuring Miriam that he was going to be there shortly and he’d find her, he hung up and rubbed his face with both hands. He had a change of clothes in the trunk. Always did. He had baby wipes to get rid of the worst of the oils, and some cologne to take care of the adrenaline sweat. He could be ready in twenty minutes, there in twenty-five. He needed to calm down.

At least this would be a good alibi, he reasoned. People would place him there. He was showing up right after the failed snipe, true, but he lived too far away for it to make sense that he could have gone home, freshened up, and come back. He hoped.

He changed inside the car in the dark, wiping every inch of his skin clean of the peppermint oil, carefully applying just the right amount of cologne not to be too pungent again, and left his tie for last. Before he stepped out of the car to adjust the fit of his shirt and jacket, he looked at the passenger window and decided to look for the projectile. It wasn’t a bullet, that was for sure…

He found it on the floor, having tumbled beneath the driver’s seat. It was a rock, just big enough to sit in his palm, not round but polished smooth. It hadn’t come from somebody’s driveway, it was part of an interior decor. The side against his palm was rough, so he tipped his hand to turn it over.

TRY THAT AGAIN.

Scratched into the stone.

Robert stepped outside to vomit onto the pavement, then put the stone inside the dashboard and got his toothbrush from his bag.

He drove halfway back toward the venue and parked in an underground lot that would cost him more than it would at the venue, then walked the rest of the way. He couldn’t explain a hole in the window very well tonight. At least he was cleaned up, dressed appropriately, and wearing cologne with no trace of peppermint. He’d stopped shaking and sweating. The walk would help to further calm him.

Miriam found him almost as soon as he walked past the coat room. As she grasped his arm and led him deeper through the crowd of people sipping wine and chatting he spotted a bowl of polished stones like the one that had punctured his window.

He didn’t see Sigi anywhere. He wondered whether he’d left after Robert’s escape. Miriam would have said something, though, since he was there to cover the party and Sigi was a major feature. It made Robert nervous not to know where Sigi was.

Considering how intent he was upon Sigi’s possible whereabouts, it was shameful to Robert that he didn’t notice the man approach until Sigi had a hand on his shoulder, pressing gently, as one would greet an old friend. Robert took in Miriam’s look of surprise and delight, a complete reverse of the way Robert felt at the moment, before he turned to look.

He expected Sigi to be angry. Of course that didn’t make sense. They were back inside, surrounded by guests, being civil, and Sigi didn’t know Robert had just sprinted away from him in the parking garage, coated in peppermint oil with a gun case tucked under his arm. Sigi’s smile didn’t quite seem to reach his eyes— or maybe that was Robert’s imagination at work.

Sigi had spoken. Miriam was demanding an explanation as to how he and Robert knew each other. Robert stammered, lost already, ashamed he’d missed the start of the conversation because it made him look somewhat more like a guilty party. Sigi’s grip on his shoulder didn’t quite tighten, really, but his fingers squeezed briefly, one at a time, as if to playfully tease Robert before his hand slid gently along his upper arm.

It was more distracting than the possibility of Sigi being angry with him. Robert tried not to look like he was reacting to a shockwave of goosebumps all along both arms.

“Robert attended a lecture of mine recently. We keep running into each other,” Sigi explained, when Robert’s stunned silence lasted a millisecond too long. “Divine coincidence, hm?”

Miriam voiced dismay that Robert had somehow forgotten to mention this to her earlier, while Sigi kept the hand loosely around Robert’s tricep. Somehow making it feel less like Robert was being restrained, more like an affectionate touch. Robert glanced hesitantly up at Sigi’s perfect pale face for any sign that he was going to die tonight and realized with a sinking feeling that Sigi was being affectionate with him. At least in front of Miriam. It might change as soon as they had room. Robert felt his jangled nerves waking up again, leaving him ready to bolt and, for the moment, clear-headed. It wouldn’t last.

Somehow the conversation between Sigi and Miriam was a quick one. Miriam got Sigi to promise an interview, they arranged a date, and somehow, somehow, Miriam was off with a wink for Robert.

Robert had the ridiculous, terrible urge to beg her not to leave him alone with Sigi, but he reeled in the urge at the last second.

Sigi’s grip didn’t tighten up the way Robert expected it to. Rather, Sigi merely lowered his voice, dropped the hand from his arm after a lingering touch, and leaned in.

“Apparently someone here is hiding a crush.”

The tone was soft, discreet, and the words were entirely not what Robert was expecting. Robert felt his face go hot and he looked up at Sigi’s face before he remembered how the sight upset him. “I’m— sorry?”

Sigi’s deep red lips pulled apart in a smile as he glanced across the room. “You aren’t very good at it, mind you, which leads me to believe you’re actually just terrified of me.” He looked sideways at Robert and the smile turned briefly into a cheeky grin. “Although, being freelance, you have plenty of control over the work you take on, don’t you?”

Robert swallowed twice to get the creaking out of his throat. “Your date must have stood you up tonight,” he attempted weakly.

It shouldn’t have pleased him that Sigi seemed to enjoy his joke, but it did. Sigi smiled down at him and the sound of his soft chuckle was the warmest, most inviting sound Robert had ever heard. “Were you always afraid to talk to your crushes or am I special?” he asked sweetly. As if he had never noticed the effect he had on people. As if Robert were the first person to feel uncomfortable near him.

“…I was always crap at it,” Robert admitted, feeling some of the extreme fear drain out of him the longer they spoke. There was still a chance this could go badly. One in twelve, Robert reminded himself grimly— if the danger wasn’t immediate, there was still that unsettling ratio to keep in mind. “I always thought the girls I liked were out of my league.” Not a lie; he could talk about high school, no problem.

Sigi tilted his head. His long hair slid forward off his shoulder, bounced and swayed. He smelled so nice. “Given how anxious you are right now, am I correct in assuming I’m not your usual type, on top of that?”

Robert, feeling helpless, nodded.

Sigi’s gaze flicked down, studying Robert from head to toe. “A shame,” he hummed, “You’re definitely my type.”

Robert was going to die of a heart attack before Sigi could sink his teeth into him. He knew it. “R-really?” God, he was terrible with flirting. Even if Sigi was just toying with him. It made him nervous coming from anyone and this was Sigi, intimidating enough on his own without the added threat of being a violent predator. This guy had a Wikipedia page so long it took Robert four hours to read it— four hours to get the summary of Sigi’s achievements— and a face that hurt to look at in unexpected ways and here he was flirting quite openly at Robert. Fans and non-fans tended to agree Sigi was one of the most gorgeous people alive and he was flirting with Robert.

He wondered, stupidly, what his niece would say if she heard of this.

Sigi didn’t seem perturbed by Robert’s very obvious terror. He nodded, still studying Robert thoughtfully as one would take in a landscape painting. “I like the beard.”

It occurred to Robert that it would be polite to say something. “Thank you,” was all he could come up with.

Sigi seemed utterly charmed with him nonetheless. He rested the hand on Robert’s shoulder again, this time with no doubt that the touch was affectionate, nothing sinister. Thumb stroking the fabric of Robert’s suit. “I would love to continue this discussion in a more intimate setting.” That smile widened imperceptibly again. “I’d like to see more of how you talk to your crushes.”

The rest of the night passed in a haze. Robert found himself back in his car, stupefied and afraid, and utterly confused. He’d started the night prepared to snipe a vampire.

How had he wound up with a dinner date?

[notbrianeno]

#290: Mew - Frengers

There’s a chicken-and-egg situation with Scandinavian music (yeah, sorry, get ready for some terrible and terribly broad regional generalisations, if not outright stereotypes), or at least that portion of it that reaches the English-speaking world. Or, well, the primarily- and often-only-English-speaking world. Most Scandinavians speak English very well; the difference being that most countries that speak English as a primary or official language are reluctant to make a significant effort to teach their young any other languages with any consistency or proficiency. Je m’appelle Tom, et j’habite dans Chicago. 

It’s frustrating; I can’t imagine, say, Built To Spill or Tame Impala writing a song as powerful and rich in imagery as Her Voice Is Beyond Her Years in Danish, yet we insist that our breakthrough Scandi-Nordic bands have either perfect English diction, or else blast us with glossolalic gibberish or impenetrable death growls...

I’m drifting; this wasn’t going to be about language, but about atmosphere. Here’s the chicken: Anglophone expectations of Nordic/North-eastern-Atlantic music to be deeply atmospheric, reflecting dark, misty mornings, endless dusk, and either absolute shitloads of trees or an unsettling, utter absence of any foliage larger than a few hardy colonies of moss. Here’s the egg: a lot of that music is, well, a good reflection of absolutely that environment. Of course, it feels like a stretch to lump Sigur Rós, Dimmu Borgir, and Of Monsters And Men into any kind of shared bucket (also vaguely ironic, potentially insensitive to harp on Icelandic music in a piece about a Danish band) BUT the common atmospheric thread prevails. My argument for extreme metal as a member of the ambient family of genres will wait for another time, but don’t deny that it makes sense. Drop the playback volume down a little, and black metal becomes a textural experience rather than a purely visceral one.

There’s a crack in the egg, of course, it is filled with all the pop, angular indie (like, say, Mew’s later work when they started hanging out with J Mascis), jazz, folk, hip hop and other genres that are brewing in those frosty locales just as much as anywhere else because we have the internet, we’re human, we love music, we love a variety of music, and it’s reductive and arrogant to assume a region (of several distinct countries with intertwined but independent histories, cultures, hopes and fears and shames) will produce a single kind of music for global consumption. 

In summary, I wonder how much we assume Scandinavian music to be atmospheric and moody is to do with our expectations, and just how dominant that sound is in the region’s music scenes as a whole. I sometimes need to remind myself to stay on track because I get excited about the opportunity to explore my thoughts about music and drift off onto other tracks; it’s like trying to clean out an attic or a storage locker, you get distracted by something shiny that you loved for many years, many years ago, and you lose hours to the re-examination of the Thing, and the Person that you were when the Thing was in your life, and the Person you are now, and how the Thing relates to this newer version of the Person, and before you know it, the sun is creeping down past the skylight and you’ve only made the mess worse, and you clamber back down the ladder with a lot of complicated thoughts that are in no way conducive to getting shit done, so you spend the rest of the night sitting on a chair from your childhood, turning the Thing over and over in your hands and thinking about what it means, if it means anything, and whether it’s OK for it to mean nothing at all any more.

Frengers is not like that at all; it’s no relic to be revisited but a living part of my cultural psyche. This is an album that I’ve been playing consistently for, Jesus, almost seventeen years. June 2003, me and Paul Harvey (my teenage friend, not the radio guy) took a train to Nottingham to see OK Go. Mew were opening, which was an utterly bizarre pairing, but one I was glad to see. I knew nothing about them, and I have never seen an opener so truly mind-blowing and powerful before or since. Just listen to the damn album. OK Go were also great, but a different kind of thing. They covered Toto’s Hold The Line, which was great. The show was at The Rescue Rooms, where I also saw Death Cab For Cutie that same year. We missed the last train and had to get a bus back to Loughborough that took twice as long. I had a nice night with a good friend who I haven’t  spoken to in too long. I should send Paul a message.

But Mew. I haunted The Left-Legged Pineapple* for weeks until they got in a copy of the Mew album, and it has been a fixture in my ears ever since then, almost exclusively between November and March. It will always be my going-for-a-walk-in-the-first-snow-of-the-season album, which if I’m being honest probably means it’s as close to my favourite album as I could ever settle on. It’s atmospheric, but it’s dynamic, there’s a good variety of tempos to keep it interesting, but not enough to be tiring or feel inconsistent or like more of a collage than a fine oil on canvas. There is loneliness and empathy in the lyrics. There is a Christmas song that feels OK to play before December. And it is bookended by what I believe to be both the best opening and best closing songs of any album, Born To Run included. It’s frankly unfair to every other band that they monopolise both ends of the bookshelf with such classics. I am a person who believes that the album, being a collection of interrelated songs no longer than 74 minutes in total (sorry, I’m a child of the CD age) but ideally as close to exactly 45 minutes as possible (i.e. to fit on one side of a standard audio cassette tape, so you can pair it with another thematically-appropriate album on side 2), is the absolute ideal art form. I will defend it from every angle against your Picassos, your Swan Lakes, your Hamiltons, your Lascaux cave paintings, your Moby Dicks, your Whitman anthologies and all the damn Shakespeare you can cram into a paper brick. A flat lump of plastic with minute grooves carved into a spiral, or a hand-span mirror digitally encoded with microscopic pips, or a magnetically-charged ribbon on a fragile, transparent spool, or nothing with any physical presence at all, a packet of data sent from a server through the air to a slab in your pocket and thence to an artificial vibrating membrane adjacent to the natural vibrating membrane of your inner ear... that’s the good shit, my friends. 

Where was I? oh, right. Mew. Albums. I’ve been lucky enough to see a few of my favourite albums performed in full. Without shame, and in total disrespect of an artists’ recent output, I love the anniversary album tour gimmick. The best format for a live show is the “an evening with...” format. You play an album in full, then you play a greatest hits set from the rest of your catalog. Perfect. A couple of these full album shows stand out to me. Okkervil River on the 10th anniversary of Black Sheep Boy - pure catharsis to hear the songs of an album I loved, I lived by for many months, and which at the time I no longer needed in my life. It felt like closure, victory, escape, somehow. That same year, I saw the Manic Street Preachers doing The Holy Bible in full (the twentieth anniversary tour bleeding into the twenty-first anniversary). This was a different kind of feeling; just as with Black Sheep Boy, this was an album I needed and spent years walking to its tempos, but it felt so far away, so deep in the past that I felt nothing hearing the songs live. I was an entirely different person back then, whereas I guess during the period where Black Sheep Boy was my beacon, I was just a worse version of who I am now, so there was something relatable.

In 2018, I got to see Mew performing Frengers in full for its fifteen anniversary. They opened with a mix of songs from other albums, then took a break and came back for Frengers, which was the perfect move because how could you possibly come back to the stage after the final notes of Comforting Sounds have died out? Unlike Okkervil River, unlike the Manics, this show was as thrilling, relevant and epochal as the first time I heard these songs in a red-lit Nottingham dive.

*at the time, one of two great independent record shops in Loughborough, the other being Castle Records, both long gone, sadly; I’ll have to write about them both sometime. Expect a story about Castle when I get into some other R.E.M. albums, and Left Legged when the randomiser turns up some of my Manic Street Preachers singles