#colors look weird and the edges are too sharp in the photos :/// looks better in person

[artstantpansies]

when the silly goofy lawyer game has silly goofy fatally entwined lawyers!!!

closeups under cut <3

[nicklloydnow]

“The transfer of True Lies has a truly vile quality to it, a feeling like someone clandestinely dosed you with LSD just a hair below the threshold. At times it can look passable in motion, but then you notice something out of the corner of your eye: a thick fold of skin, a framed photo of a child, folders that are too thick at the margins, cheeks that look rendered. It’s that familiar dread at the pit of your gut when you spot AI generated imagery, a combination of edges not looking quite right and surfaces that are simultaneously too smooth and too sharp. A crime was committed here, and you can tell.

The transfers of Aliens and The Abyss are markedly less bad than True Lies, but I still have difficulty watching them. The skin looks sterile and waxy with too much film grain removed. Everything looks like it has raytracing on. Both transfers are, however, within acceptable parameters for most normal people.

The recent transfer of Titanic got a similar treatment, with similarly mixed reactions online.

“Why would you do this?” is a logical question. It’s worth contextualizing who handled these “restorations” – namely Park Road Post, a subsidiary of Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films. They have worked on multiple films in the past, but the two that are most germane here are Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old and the 3-part Disney+ documentary The Beatles: Get Back. Both movies recontextualize pre-existing footage and, importantly, do so with an aggressive use of machine learning. They Shall Not Grow Old upscales and colorizes old World War I imagery in an attempt to set the bloodshed in a more modern context, while Get Back recycled footage shot for Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be, including moments never before seen by the public, to elucidate the process behind the creation of some of The Beatles’ most iconic songs.

(…)

I wish we had stopped Jackson then and there. As my good friend Danielle joked, this was a trial balloon. People praised Jackson for doing this to Lindsay-Hogg’s footage in the name of restoration, and it emboldened him to do worse things. Before the True Lies debacle, the most recent example of this was the aggressively saccharine and confusing Now & Then, a long unfinished demo now finished by Ringo and Paul, edited together with archival footage of younger John and George composited in an a fashion that can be charitably described as tremendously weird.

Lest I am accused of being a luddite, I firmly believe there are many use cases for this technology. Nvidia’s DLSS and competing variants generally work very well on the games they are trained on. I regularly use Flowframes in the rare case that I need interpolation. I have often used waifu2x and now chainner if I need to photoshop a still and my source is bad, and there are databases of countless AI upscaling models. But the flip side to this is that these technologies are often used in place of proper ingest. “Crap in, crap out” is a truism for a reason. I spend a lot of time regularly capturing VHS and Laserdisc at the highest possible quality for fun, and when I see people who should know better say “Just use Topaz” (a commercial AI upscaler) instead of learning how to correctly ingest footage and deinterlace it, it makes me want to pull out my hair, because it almost uniformly looks bad to anyone who works with video professionally.

When you finally do see a piece of footage transferred well, it can be breathtaking. Good archival practices require a lot of institutional knowledge and labor. It’s an art when done well, and the people who do it care so much about what they do. But the modern application of much of AI is precisely about taking labor out of the equation. Why transfer a tape correctly when we can just have a computer guess badly instead? What if crap goes in, and it doesn’t come out?

What makes all of this worse is that True Lies, as I understand it, did not need to be shoved through the AI wringer. According to The Digital Bits, Park Road Post had a recent 4k scan of True Lies from the original camera negative. Park Road Post’s own website claims they have a Lasergraphics Director 10K film scanner on the premises. So what is the purpose of adding AI to this mix? Why do that to a perfectly fine-looking film? What is gained here, other than to slightly yassify an Arnold film? At this point, maybe they are simply doing it just to say that they did, because the technology is lying around, like a loaded gun with the safety off.

Nerds who post on blu-ray forums as a rule often need to calm down, and the forum threads I have read about this are no exception, but there are certain cases where a filmmaker is just wrong about how their films should look. Lucas is the infamous notable example, but Cameron is not innocent here in his treatment of his own films. Wong Kar-wai is another notable example, as what he did to Ashes of Time is criminal as was his recent “remasters” of his movies like In The Mood For Love. In certain rare conditions like this, it’s healthy to question if directors have the best interests of their own films in mind, as Cameron himself personally approved of these remasters.

What actually chills my blood more than anything is the thought that a lot of people think this all looks pretty good. You see this mindset at work whenever an AI fetishist posts a stable diffusion image of a woman with 13 fingers, 40 incisors and comically huge breasts. There’s an entire portion of the population that takes overt pleasure in the over-smoothed, perverts that prefer all media to be fast, high frame rate, and scrubbed squeaky clean. The cameras on our phones don’t simply capture images anymore, they compute them and ‘optimize’ them. It’s Italian Futurism in 4k, a noise reduction death drive. It’s not simply enough for much of digital cinema to look crystal clear and lifeless; the past should be denoised, grain managed and cleaned to conform to that standard. It is expedient and profitable if people don’t remember what film is supposed to look like.

I don’t think anyone gets into preservation to destroy film. I believe that everyone involved with this process worked hard and had the best interests of the film in mind, but the exact nature of restoration itself can vary wildly. I believe that some companies get blinded by new tech, get high on their own supply, and that can result in work that is destructive instead of restorative. I don’t know what the solution to this is in the world we live in, outside of decoupling film preservation from the profit motive whenever possible.

But I am certain about one thing. For a while, much of gaming tried looking like Aliens. Now, Aliens looks like a video game. And that doesn’t sit right with me.”

[percival-c-mcleach]

Haunted Not By Ghosts- a McLeach fic.

The atmosphere was as heavy and thick as smog, stuck in time. The house, the barn and the ramshackle sheds were worn down from years of neglect, the barn having been particularly hard hit by time, half of its body rotted and given way to mushrooms.

The house's exterior had once been blue, now stripped almost completely to its wood and brick, with speckles of paint the only indication of what it might had been. The windows were cracked, rusted with dust. Weeds had forced themselves up between the boards of the porch, nearly obscuring the wood. Hidden among the vegetation was a dog bowl, a bright firetruck red that had now faded to a dull pink in the blistering sun, the faintest of childish block writing had faded too much to be read.

Taking a shaky breath, McLeach surveyed his childhood home. For forty years, it had laid abandoned, but it felt just as forboding now as it did back then, if not worse. Anxiety roiled in the man's stomach as he forced himself up the sunken steps, feeling the wood groan beneath him.

Joanna followed her master's footsteps almost exactly, not trusting the structural integrity of the building. She watched as McLeach hesitated with the doorknob, as if it would suddenly come to life and bite him. He gave a gentle twist of the knob- no luck.

"Aw hell.." McLeach huffed, twisting the knob harder. He jiggled the door, but the ancient wood refused to give. He crouched to examine the old doggie door-one he used as his personal entrance to the house-but he was now too old and too round for such an endeavor. Joanna looked between him and the door, noticing his pointed look. She shook her head hurriedly-no way would she be able to fit through there, and she was not looking to get splinters in her sides. Letting loose a curse, McLeach kicked the door-and it popped open nearly effortlessly. Quickly shaking off his surprise, he shouldered the heavy oak the rest of the way open, coughing as a wave of musty air washed over them both.

Once natural sunlight fell over the place, McLeach felt his breath catch in his throat- sans a thick coating of dust, the hallway looked almost exactly as he remembered it being. It was as if the other three McLeaches hadn't left the house; most of the decor still hung in place, with the addition of cobwebs. The coat rack still held his father's old bag, four pairs of slippers lined up beneath the side table, waiting for owners who would never return.

The house felt haunted. Not in the way most people came to think of haunted houses, brimming with ghosts; haunted in the sense that you could feel everything that had happened in this place. The anxiety only grew stronger, the further the pair ventured in. The carpet had faded from direct sunlight, but the patches in the shade of the furniture still remained its dark green color. Dust rose in clouds as man and lizard ventured carefully down the hall, with Joanna trying her best to hold in her coughing.

The family portrait was still there, hanging above a boarded-up fireplace. McLeach didn't blame anyone for leaving it, it wasn't something you'd want to have in your house. The sepia-colored photograph was dust-covered, but the man could still feel the cold, hard glare of his father through it. He raised his hand to wipe away the dust. The first to emerge was his mother. Thin-faced and tired, with her dark hair pulled up in an untidy bun. In one arm she cradled the newly-born Casey in his thick wool blanket, the other dangled down, gently squeezing the hand of a seven-year-old Percival. He had been small back then, missing two of his front teeth and a head full of hair like his mother's, dark and messy. Rubbing away the rest of the dust, Mr. McLeach soon followed. Towering over his wife and children, not even the shadow from the brim of his hat could have hid the starkness of his unnaturally light eyes. His large hand had a rough grip on Percival's shoulder then, the man grimaced at the memory. He couldn't bring himself to look longer at his father than was necessary. Even in photographs, he seemed to be glaring directly at his eldest.

Feeling claws on his leg, McLeach glanced down to see Joanna attempting to raise herself higher, she wanted a view too. He scooped her up as one would a toddler, though with some difficulty given her hefty weight. "Ay, you know who that is?" McLeach smiled, pointing to his mother. Joanna tilted her head quizzically- the human woman looked very distinctively familiar, even though she knew they had never met. "That's your namesake," McLeach continued, "My mama, Joanna. I promised that I'd name my firstborn daughter after her...and well, you count, I guess." Joanna wasn't able to understand just how important that was, but she felt it was very, very important. She waggled her tail happily, inching her snout closer to the frame. She clearly recognized the young Percival, and let out a rasp that sounded much like a wheezing laugh. "Go ahead, you looked weird when you were a kid too." McLeach rolled his eyes. His arms had started to ache, and he set her back down. He continued down the hall, and froze for a brief moment when he came to the wall opposite the sitting room's entrance. Beneath a framed picture of Casey with his model airplane, a round hole was at shoulder-height, the impact having shredded and burnt the faded yellow wallpaper. "..Damn idiot didn't bother to get it fixed after I left, eh?" He scoffed, "You see this, Joanna? You can tell I didn't get my marksmanship from Pops. He couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn." A slightly alarmed chirrup arose from Joanna's throat as she realized what that hole was, but McLeach didn't seem bothered by it. He breezed past the bullet-hole and past the sitting room, after taking a quick glance inside and finding that the armchair and couch were overrun with a brackish mold.

The kitchen was small, and had once been cozy. The kitchen window had broken, and one of his mother's prized climbing rosebushes had wormed its way in, leaving a layer of generations of rotting petals over the linoleum. Nevertheless, the rosebush itself was thriving, its creamy white petals shining in the golden sunlight. Reaching out to touch, McLeach couldn't help but to pluck one of the roses off, holding it in his palm. He had forgotten how silky-soft the petals felt, and how sweet it smelled; he closed his eyes and inhaled, feeling a sharp pang in his middle. A sharp pang of an emotion he couldn't quite describe. It was happiness and sadness rolled into one, and it left an ache. The smell reminded him of sitting outside with his mother, tending to the rosebushes together; if a blossom had just fallen, his mother would pluck apart the petals and keep them in a jar, preserved in the icebox until she got around to making soap and hand-cream. McLeach opened his eyes. The strange emotion only grew. He dropped the rose onto the floor, to join the rest of the fallen flowers.

Joanna had gotten braver, and went ahead of the poacher. She still felt intimidated by the house; she seen that her owner was as well. It was odd, to see him so on edge in a place that was so familiar to him. Maybe if she showed she was brave, he'd feel better. Crawling up a set of stairs, she gazed down the dim hallway. Four doors, only one of them was left ajar. Curiosity got the better of her, and the goanna went to take a peek.

The bedroom looked as if its occupant had left in a hurry. She could still see old toys and picture books on the shelves, a small, rickety wooden bed with moth-eaten blankets neatly made, with a shapeless lump that at one point had been a teddy bear sitting atop the covers. The walls were wallpapered, though it was difficult to tell what color they had been, for it was now all a dull grey. The posters on the walls were faded yellow, with vague shapes of rubberhose cartoon characters etched onto them.

Hearing McLeach wheeze his way to the top of the stairs, Joanna looked over her shoulder, and sat outside the door until McLeach could join her. He leant in the doorway of his old bedroom, soaking in the scene. After what seemed like minutes, he finally walked into the room, slow and quiet.

The thing of interest for McLeach were the picture albums on one of his shelves. The ones left exposed to the sun were faded-but maybe these were saved. He grabbed on and flipped it open, feeling a large lump rise in his throat when he seen that they were untouched. Smelled a little mildewy, but were still visible. He choked down the lump, flipping through each page slowly, wanting to savor every picture. His baby brother in his bassinet, wearing a goofy-looking baby bonnet. Flip. Their old dog, Blueberry, sleeping on the rug in the sitting room, a chewbone lolling out of his mouth. Flip. A photo of his parents on their wedding day, both looking much younger and happier than he had ever remembered them seeing; Mr. McLeach had looked kinder then, gazing at his bride with all the love and adoration that a husband was supposed to have for his life partner. Flip. His childhood friend, Ruby, sitting with the nine-year-old Percy on the river's rocks, holding baby ducklings. Flip. Flip. Flip.

These were happy memories; why did his heart ache so much looking at them? He shouldn't feel like this, looking back on what were the happier years of his life. Flip. Flip.

Percival's heart sank to the bottom of his stomach.

Of course there had to be pictures of Mr. Wells in here; back then, the McLeaches considered him as good as family. A tall, scrawny, unassuming man with shoulder-length brown hair, who had kindly and selflessly looked after Joanna and the boys while Mr. McLeach was away in the army- a second father figure, the reliant one, one who wouldn't yell and scream at the smallest of slights. After spending the summer with Mr. Wells as a boy, Percival wished he had stayed home. At least his father didn't play mind games with him, and when he hurt him, it was out of rage, and not premeditated. Not passed off as accidents that were all Percival's own fault. Not passed off as something he deserved, for something he couldn't even recall doing. The picture seemed so innocent. Just a kindly man with the boy he called his honorary son, on the back of a old mule at the fair. Percival knew better; he knew that under his child self's sweater was a nasty deep bruise, a bruise that hurt for weeks. Mr. Wells had claimed it had been an accident, that he hadn't meant to swing the shovel so hard into him. It was Percival's fault, for sneaking up on him like that.

'You'll be hurting for a while, Percy..' He could still hear that soft voice, too soft to note any real remorse, 'You frightened me something awful...I guess we learned our lesson on sneaking up on people, didn't we?'

We. As if it was a lesson they both learnt. As if it wasn't just one of the many thinly-veiled excuses used to hurt him. As if he didn't do worse, as if he did not permanently scar him physically and mentally. As if he didn't one day stop giving his excuses, once Percival had gotten too old to fall for them. As if it was the both of them having a knife held to the soft skin of their throat. As if it were the both of them who had to endure a full day and night in the skinning shed, surrounded by the dead, staring eyes of hogs. As if it were the both of them who had to endure nightmares, long after the torment had stopped.

It had always been 'We'. Never a 'I'm sorry.' It was always 'You.'

He had been brave only once. Brave enough to go to his father for help. How foolish of Percival to believe that his father would have stood up for his son. He never did such a thing before. The entire ordeal had been Percival's fault-his fault for being too stubborn, too much of a brat. If he had behaved better, Wells wouldn't have resorted to harsher punishments-it had been his fault he was treated so poorly.

For once, Percival stood up for himself.

Mrs. McLeach had tried to deescalate the fight. Mr. McLeach found himself with a broken nose, as Percival helped Joanna off the floor and out of the room. He only heard the safety click off before he had dove down the hall, sprinting from the door and into the night. "DON'T YOU EVER COME HOME!" For forty years he stayed away.

The strangled scream had terrified Joanna spitless. The goanna had been nosing around underneath McLeach's old bed, when her master emitted a sound so animalistic, that for a moment she feared that a big-cat had been hiding somewhere in the room. She immediately balled herself against the corner as the photo album was flung into the desk hard enough to shatter the frail wooden handle. The lump was back in McLeach's throat again, tighter and more painful than before, forcing tears to swell and blur his vision. His breathing came in ragged gasps, trying to keep the deep pain in his middle from winning. He crouched where he had stood, clenching his hands so tight that he felt as though they may break. He shouldn't be getting upset over this. He shouldn't be getting this upset over a goddamn picture.

It had been forty years. Why does it still hurt so bad? Why does it still feel so fresh?

The sudden warm weight crawling onto his lap tore him back into the present. Joanna scrambled as far up on him as she could. Percival hugged her as tight as he could, until his heart rate slowed back to normal, until he could breathe without choking. "Thanks." His voice was barely more than a croak. He took his bandana to dry his eyes with, "I'm sorry..I just.." he couldn't explain what had happened. Joanna understood though. She gently headbutted his shoulder, before slithering off of him and towards the photo album, picking it up in her jaws. McLeach took it from her, holding it in his lap. He'd tear out the pictures he wanted to keep, and leave the rest to rot in this forsaken house. The sun had just started to set as they made their way back to the truck, parked in the barren field next to the rotting barn. McLeach didn't even bother to give the house one last look before they drove off. Maybe now hadn't been the right time to come back. Maybe there never would be a 'right time.' Eventually, something had to be done about the place. Maybe he'd torch that haunted house to the ground. A house haunted, not by ghosts.

[preciousthingsareprecious]

Hearts Pounding and Blood Coursing

I am back with yet another D&d week fic! Is everything I write going to be set in Dick as Batman times? Maybe. Maybe. This one certainly is. 

Dami Calls Dick “Baba” / First “I love you” / “You’re not my father!” “I am well aware.”

Summary: When Batman goes missing on patrol, it's up to Robin and Batgirl to track him down. Will they fall into the same trap he did, or make it out in one piece?

AO3 Link

~

The old warehouse looked ready to collapse in on itself any second. Damian wondered why Gotham was so littered with them. He’d told Grayson a hundred times that they needed to do something about them. Wayne Enterprises could surely step in and repair them or rebuild them or do anything to prevent them from becoming hives of villainy as they were wont to do in Gotham. 

Grayson. Damian’s chest tightened. Grayson would not be able to talk Lucius into anything if they did not rescue him soon. The stupid man had gone on patrol alone and had not returned. Thus it was up to Batgirl and Robin to rescue him. 

“You ready, Baby Bat?” 

“Call me that again and I will paint that horrible motorbike of yours a garish shade of orange.” Damian snapped, less focused on coming up with proper revenge threats and more on finding his lost partner. 

“Alright, remember the plan, you’ve got the window on the second floor and I’ve got the one on the first. We meet in the middle or wherever we find Batman.” 

“I would not forget such a simple plan so soon after making it.” Damian replied, already pressing a gloved hand against the window in question to test it, “Now may we begin? Or would you like to chatter until whoever is inside parades Batman’s dead body out of the front door?”

“No, let’s go.” Brown replied. 

Damian nodded, the glass was firm under his palm, not quite as ramshackle as the rest of the building. He slipped a laser cutter out of his belt and ran it across the edges of the window, and let it fall backwards into his palm. 

“And Robin?” Brown added, as Damian was setting the glass aside, “Batman’s going to be just fine, okay?”

“Tt.” Damian responded, then added a quick, “I know. He will.” as if to convince himself of the fact as well. 

He climbed in the window and dropped quietly into the building. Damian found himself in what looked like an office. An old desk stood off balance, titled down on a broken leg. Papers and overturned file cabinets took up most of the rest of the room, with huge windows that looked out over onto the warehouse floor below.  

Damian slipped out of the door and into the hallway beyond it. He flicked a flashlight on to illuminate the dark interior and crept through, ears perked up for any sounds. 

The whole building smelled of dust and mildew, and something else that was sharp and sour. Around him, the walls were covered in ancient cracked paint that might have once been white, but now looked more yellow than anything under the beam of the flashlight. Cracked and broken picture frames featuring staff, products, and some construction site Damian couldn’t recognize decorated the walls, and floor where some had fallen. 

An eerie unsettled feeling crept it’s way into Damian’s head, tingling from the back to the front like cobwebs. He spun on his heel, the flashlight swinging wildly first behind him, then up to the ceiling to check for the source of the feeling. 

Nothing. He was alone. 

Slightly abashed, but still feeling odd, Damian turned again to continue down the hall. The feeling only seemed to increase as he walked. No doors presented themselves at first, which was strange. This building should have a number of offices in it. 

Damian thought back to the blueprints he and Brown had analyzed a few hours earlier. Grayson had left them open on the Batcomputer. Their one big clue to where he’d gone. 

There was one section of the building with a longer hall than others, but Damian had thought he hadn’t come in that way. Had he already gotten turned around? That quite simply wasn’t possible. He’d only been moving for a few minutes. 

He slowed his pace, flashlight swinging from wall to wall as he carefully examined each one. No doors still. So he must have come in the other way. Perhaps his fretting over Grayson had caused the error. Mother had not been entirely incorrect in her assumption that feelings for another caused problems. 

Still, Damian had decided that he was willing to fail a little more if it meant keeping Grayson in his life. 

The further into the building Damian moved the worse it smelled. The sour, acrid, scent that had been mostly hidden under mold and disuse gradually became the prevailing one. Damian scrunched his nose at it, and tried to figure out where he knew it from. It tickled his memory, like something he should know and made the hair on his arms raise. 

So far, he had heard nothing from Batgirl. Though, that was a good sign. They had decided to keep the comms silent until they found something or needed immediate assistance. They had no idea what Batman had run into in this warehouse, nor how he had been taken down. It was best not to draw too much attention to ones self, and wasting time with pointless updates or incessant chatter would be just that. 

He could have sworn he’d seen the same picture of the construction site three times now. But, no he was probably just seeing things. Mistaking the weird old building and land for something else in the dim light.

With every step that unsettling feeling grew stronger, until at last, he came across a door. 

Damian should have been relieved seeing it, but the anxious feeling only grew as he reached out to turn the knob. 

Slowly he eased the door open, and peered into the room, listening for any sounds of occupation. When no lights flared on or voices sounded he took a step into the room. 

The smell here was far worse than it had been in the hallway, as if something inside were the source of it. Damian gulped back bile and stepped further inside, his flashlight held ahead of him like a shield. 

As he did so, the world swayed sideways. Damian blinked, trying to clear his vision, but the room still seemed skewed to the side. 

He took another step forward and all at once the memory of the smell hit him. Fear toxin. Not as strong or as tick as he was used to, and still masked with unknown notes but Crane’s toxin all the same. 

He reached up to alert Brown of the situation and tapped the comm unit in his ear, comforted by the fact that the usual hum of connection reached his ear. 

Before he could say a word though, something cracked against the back of his skull and his world went black. 

When Damian came to, it was slow and plagued by shadows cast over everything from the back of his eyelids to the ceiling above him. He blinked at the ancient popcorned paint and yelped as all at once it seemed to morph into staves, razor sharp and now raining down on him. 

Damian shot up from where he lay, and found himself not impaled by a hundred sharpened stalactites of paint but simply faced with a throbbing headache and hands bound in front of him. 

He sat, just breathing for a few moments and staring down at the cuffs and his gloves. After a moment the nightmare faded, but left that same lingering uncomfortable feeling he’d gotten on entering the hallway. Fear, he now recognized it as, not the overwhelming fear Crane’s toxins were best known for, but something more subtle. Like waiting on the jump scare in a movie. 

The room didn’t smell of the toxin, and Damian assumed what he was feeling was lingering effects from what he’d breathed in earlier, and not a new dose. 

The lighting in the room was provided by a dim bulb hanging from the ceiling which Damian glared at. Of course Crane would be so predictable as to make the room he’d been placed in creepy in the most cliched of ways. 

His gaze travelled down from it and across the mostly bare room. More yellowed walls, cracked with age, and decorated with dreary photos resided here. And then there was—

“Batman.” Damian breathed. 

Grayson lay in a crumpled heap in the center of the room. Damian had been dropped in at the back, either before his brother had been returned or Crane had purposely carried him over the unconscious body of his partner. And Grayson had better only be unconscious or Crane would feel Damian’s wrath unleashed fully against him without hesitation. 

Damian scoffed at the flimsy cuffs Crane had put on him and picked the lock quickly. The villain had not even bothered to attempt to remove Damian’s belt or other gear. 

Soon he was up on unsteady legs, much to his displeasure, and then taking the few strides needed to reach his Batman. 

He crouched beside him and began his examination of his partner. The first thing he noticed was the rise and fall of Grayson’s chest. Then his eyes caught sight of the variety of bruises coloring his chin, how his lips were split and swollen, and the various rips and tears littering the Batsuit. One lense of his cowl was broken out and Damian could see another ugly black bruise over his closed eye. 

Crane had not wasted a moment with Batman it seemed. Something he would pay for if Damian had the opportunity to avenge Grayson. But first, he needed to get his brother out of here and inform Brown of the true danger lurking in the warehouse. 

This time when he activated his comms no one bashed him over the head. 

“Batgirl.” He said, keeping his voice low, “Scarecrow is here. He has incapacitated Batman and locked us in a room together. I will do my best to get him out, but I would do better with your assistance.”

As much as he despised asking for help, Damian was not a fool. He could not both carry Grayson and defend him if Crane returned. Batgirl’s backup would be key in them all getting out of there alive, and in potentially apprehending Crane. 

“I will be right back.” Damian promised Grayson, then stood. 

There was only one door in the room, and Damian moved towards it. He was careful in his examination, wary both of traps and his mind playing tricks on him. He was far too lucid for the earlier gas to have been pure fear toxin, but he could not discount it having lingering effects beyond what he had experienced waking up. 

He tried not to wonder if any of this was real or fake. He was sure now he’d imagined the hallway being longer than it was. If that was false, what else might he be seeing that was a lie? What if he was hallucinating his Batman being there, beaten and bruised? What if something worse lingering outside the door? 

What made it worse, was the fact that with Crane lurking it was highly likely a nightmare was waiting for them, real or imagined. 

It didn’t matter. Damian couldn’t be frozen by what ifs. His Batman was hurt and needed him. Grayson needed him to act like this was real and keep moving. 

The door was not locked. Of course it wasn’t. This trap was turning into an even deeper trap with every minute longer they stayed. It made the fear in his chest twist into dread. A cold sharp worry right between his ribs. 

Damian swung the door open right into more darkness. He growled, this was getting ridiculous. The one thing he no longer had on him was his flashlight, dropped when he’d been foolish enough to get knocked out. 

Fine, he had other light sources he could work with. And if he had to walk in the dark he would. Brown was surely on her way, even if she had not responded to him yet. 

He turned back to Grayson to crouch beside his brother. 

“Batman?” Damian prompted, shaking Grayson’s shoulder gently, “I would much prefer it if you were mildly conscious and were not complete dead weight.” 

He prayed that the Grayson who woke up was both sensible and toxin free. It was a hope he thought might be in vain, but based on his own experience with Crane’s toxin tonight the man seemed to be testing a new strain. It seemed less all encompassing and more designed to disorient and instill a quiet, constant, fear of a more general nature. 

His brother groaned. 

“That’s it.” 

Damian’s encouragement seemed to help drag Grayson back to the surface. So much that he watched a bleary blue eye blink open through the shattered cowl lense. Grayson’s eye was bloodshot, but his iris looked normal. Well, normal enough for a possibly concussed, probably drugged, and definitely beaten, Batman.  

“Come on Batman, we need to go.” Damian said, tugging at one of Grayson’s arms. 

His brother mumbled something incoherent, but allowed himself to be dragged up from where he’d been curled. It took some effort, but eventually Damian had Grayson awkwardly positioned over his back like some kind of kevlar covered sloth. One arm draped over Damian’s shoulder, fingers brushing against his uniform, with the other was held tightly in Damian’s hand. 

He tapped his R insignia to light it up. The beam was pathetic compared to his flashlight, but it was all he had right now unless he wanted to waste time searching Batman’s belt for a flashlight that might or might not be there. 

On Damian’s first step forward, Grayson seemed to be putting in some effort to push himself with his feet. By the time they made it out the door, and took a random left down the hallway, he was already flagging. 

Damian grit his teeth and bit back a complaint. Even this situation was better than the alternative. Damian would drag Grayson for miles over dealing with him under the influence of fear toxin the way it normally worked. 

He hefted Grayson a little higher against his back from where he’d slipped. His brother’s chin rested on his shoulder, and Damian could feel his breath against his neck. He felt Grayson’s breath pick up, as he stirred back to wakefulness. 

“What’re we doing?” he asked, voice thick with exhaustion. 

“We are escaping a trap you fell into.” Damian explained. 

Grayson tried to pull away, “S’not safe. You have to go.” 

He was thrashing now, so much so Damian had to stop moving forward just to keep him held up.

“Stop fighting me and we will! If we do not keep moving we will be in even more danger--idiot!” 

Grayson had thrown himself off Damian’s back, and thumped against the floor with an oof. After a moment he flipped over to look up at Damian, a deep frown on his lips. 

“Batman!” Damian snapped, then realized, that perhaps he had been wrong in his assumption that Grayson was not dealing with toxin effects. 

He was a fool. He should have given Grayson a shot of the anti-toxin the moment he found him. 

“Calm down.” Damian said, lowering his voice to something soothing, “You are injured and drugged, and if you do not listen you may hurt yourself worse.” 

Grayson pushed himself up on his palms, wincing, “You need to leave, Scarecrow is here and he’s after Batman.” 

He nodded, kneeling beside Grayson, “I know. You need to let me give you a dose of the anti-toxin, and then we are leaving.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” 

Damian blinked at him, surprised by the sudden petulance in Grayson’s voice. It sounded a bit like Drake when he was disagreeing with Grayson. 

Careful, Damian slipped a vial of anti-toxin out of his belt, and popped off the lid. He held it out so Grayson could see it. 

“Okay. I am not telling you what to do, simply asking. Will you let me give you this? It will help you feel better.” 

Grayson shook his head, lips going from a frown into a pucker. Is this how everyone felt when Damian was being difficult? He would have to keep that in mind in the future. Grayson was a saint for putting up with his antics longer than the ten seconds Damian had been dealing with Grayson’s. 

“Listen. We need to get moving. If we stay here much longer we’re going to get caught. You need to let me do this.” 

Damian reached out to take Grayson’s arm. He was just about to press the syringe between a tear in the uniform when Grayson yanked his arm back.  

“You’re not my father!” He shouted, sounding almost just like Damian had heard himself sound a  hundred times when he’d still been wary of his brother. 

“I am well aware.” Damian frowned, furrowing his brow. 

It felt very strange to him to imagine Grayson seeing Father in Damian. It was a complicated feeling that made his chest feel tight like he was about to cry. It was also something he could not linger on for long. Grayson was not in his right mind, and every moment they sat there on the floor was another moment Crane could find them in. 

More than that, it was frightening. A word Damian did not use often or lightly. Seeing Grayson like this was...wrong. Grayson should not be childish. He should not be so confused he saw Father in Damian. For one they were nowhere near the same height. For the other, well, Damian did not think himself worthy of being compared that closely with his Father yet. Perhaps ever. 

But it was more unsettling to see Grayson so helpless. So disarmed by this drug in his system. Damian did not like it, and he wished to right this wrong as soon as possible. He resolved himself to get the anti-toxin into Grayson’s veins now, no matter how the man fought him. 

Of course, that’s when he heard it. The creek of a footstep on the wood paneling in front of him. 

“Stay down.” Damian said, standing, then added, “Please.” 

He didn’t wait for Grayson to respond. Instead he spun on his heel, trading the syringe in his hand for a batarang. 

A few feet before him, Crane stopped in his tracks. Even illuminated by Damian's dim light he could see the man wore his typical scarecrow mask, and carried a scythe in between his palms. 

“Hello, Little Bird.” Crane sang, “I see you found your bat.” 

“Tt. He was not hard to miss.” Damian said, bracing himself. 

Crane hefted the scythe, pointing it towards them, “Of course. I was hoping you’d be a little more impacted by the sight and not run off so quickly. You’re a hard bird to frighten. Do you know how much toxin I pumped into that hallway earlier?” 

Damian shrugged, “I don’t care. In fact, I’ve had enough of your blabbering.” 

He threw one then two batarangs at Crane watching the man deflect one with the scythe, and dodge the other. 

Crane tsked him, stalking forward. “Not so fast, Bird Boy. I have a bone to pick with your mentor first.” 

“No.” Damian growled, brandishing a third batarang in his hands, “Keep moving and I will end you.” 

“Doubtful.” Crane said, his mask pulling up into a smirk, “Bats don’t kill.” 

“Batman doesn’t kill.” Damian corrected him, “You touch him again and I will not hesitate to take you down.” 

Crane chuckled, and took a step forward, only to yelp, then jerk as if he were being shocked. When he collapsed forward, Damian saw the source of his sudden strangeness. Batgirl stood, taser held forward, a blinding grin on her face. 

“I had it covered!” Damian protested. 

“You’re welcome.” she said, already moving to zip tie Scarecrow. 

“Tt.” Damian said, and opened his mouth to argue further, but was stopped by a hand on his ankle. 

“Damian?” 

He turned, and found Grayson leaned forward just enough he could grab Damian. He was looking confused, and concerned mouth turned down and eye worried. Damian’s heart skipped a beat. Grayson had heard him say he’d kill Crane. Damian would not break his promise, not with Grayson safely behind him, but he’d also been furious with Crane and ready to defend his Batman however he needed to. 

Dread pooled in his stomach. What if Grayson thought Damian serious? What if he--He did not have time to worry about that right now. They needed to get him home and taken care of. Batman’s health was his priority, not how he viewed Damian. 

“It’s alright.” Damian said, voice dropping back to a careful softness he hoped would soothe an toxin induced reactions, “We are leaving.” 

Damian knelt again by Grayson’s side, and began the process of trying to help him up. Thankfully, Brown was here. Once she’d finished with Crane, she added her own strength to Grayson’s other side, and together they carried him out of there. 

The exit was surprisingly close, and soon Damian was settled in the back of the Batmobile beside his Batman. While Brown drove, Damian held Grayson's hand and did his best to explain the rescue to his brother. At some point, however, Grayson passed out again, tilted over, and against Damian. It was not an unpleasant feeling being the one Grayson trusted enough to fall asleep against. 

Pennyworth took over when they got home, and Grayson was, mercifully, mostly fine. Bruised, battered, and unconscious, but he’d be fine. That knowledge eased some of the tension in Damian’s chest.

Both Grayson and Damian received doses of anti-toxin. The way it almost immediately started to make Damian feel better hinted that he'd been more effected than he'd first assumed. Damian would never voice it, but he was grateful for Brown's save. He wasn't sure how well he would have done in a true fight against Crane in that cramped hallway.

He showered quickly then planted himself at Grayson’s side, ignoring Pennyworth’s suggestion that he should lay down and rest his own bruised head while he waited for the anti-toxin to completely remove the lingering feelings of fear in his system. Sitting was just as good as laying, and this way he could keep an eye on his brother. Brown offered to stay, but Damian waved her upstairs along with Pennyworth. He’d be fine keeping an eye on Grayson, while they moved for a cup of victory cocoa, or tea in Pennyworth’s case. 

There was no victory for Damian tonight. Not until his brother woke up and he knew he was fine. 

Even being home, and not in the middle of some wild trap, Damian still couldn’t get over Grayson being so vulnerable. It was wrong. His Batman could be an idiot, but he was also competent and strong and worthy of respect. He was not helpless or so confused he viewed a child as Batman. 

So Damian held vigil. 

He played on his phone, opening up a mindless game he could pass the time with while still being able to keep one eye on his brother. Unfortunately, Damian ended up getting kind of wrapped up in a particularly hard level. It took a solid ten minutes for him to clear it, and when he looked up again it was into bright blue eyes, totally aware of where they were and who they were watching. Damian’s cheeks flushed. 

“Grayson.” he said, dropping his phone into his lap and straightening. 

As he did, his phone slipped off his thigh and smacked onto the floor with a loud thump. Damian stared down at it for a moment, briefly considering leaning down to pick it up. Instead he planted his fists in his lap and looked back up at Grayson.

“I am glad to see you have awoken.” 

His brother’s lips quirked into a wry smile, “You would have seen a bit earlier if you hadn’t been so focused on, Candy Crush?”

“Angry Birds.” Damian muttered, cheeks still hot. 

He leaned forward to examine his brother. He couldn’t say Grayson looked too much better, but the split skin on his forehead was cleaned and closed with a butterfly bandage, and his lips were looking less swollen. His expression, happy and open is what was truly improved. 

“You are looking better.” he said, “I’m glad.” 

“I’m feeling better.” Grayson responded, “Wanna give me a run down of what happened? My memory is spotty at best.” 

Damian kicked his feet up onto the bar on the bottom of his chair, “When you did not return by morning Brown and I began to make a plan for your rescue.” 

Grayson nodded, “You found me?” 

If his cheeks were not already red they would have blushed again, he shook his head, “Crane got the drop on me. I am not sure what he was planning, however it seems my intent on getting you out upset his plans.” 

“We were moving down a hallway--” Grayson stopped, his eyes widening, “Oh, Dames I’m sorry. I was the worst wasn’t I?” 

Damian tilted his head, “What do you mean?” 

“I kept seeing Bruce, and for some reason I was mad at him.” Grayson ran his hand through his hair, “That was you, right?” 

“You were not too much trouble.” Damian shrugged, “In fact you may have helped prevent Crane successfully sneaking up on us again. In the end, Brown saved us both.” 

He wanted to ask if Grayson remembered the actual confrontation, but at the same time Damian was not sure he wanted to know. He almost squirmed, but held back. Robin did not squirm. 

“Thanks for coming after me.” Grayson said, reaching a hand out to Damian. 

After a moment, Damian took it. 

“I am glad you are okay.” he said, “I--did not like seeing you injured.” 

“I bet. You sounded pretty angry.” 

Damian wasn’t sure how to respond. He tapped his heel on the wood under his foot. 

Grayson squeezed his hand, “It was sweet, you threatening him.” 

“You--” Damian spoke before he thought about it. 

“I?”  

He swallowed, “You did not think I was serious, right?” 

“You promised me you wouldn’t kill, right? I believed you then, and now.” 

Damian nodded, “Of course. He should not have hurt you.” he added, again losing the words before he thought about them. 

Grayson slipped his hand out of Damian’s to reach up and brush it through Damian’s hair. 

“You either.” 

“Tt, do not be so sentimental. It is foolish.” 

There was that smile again, “I think I have the right to be sentimental. My baby brother and basically little sister came running to my rescue.” 

Grayson reached for Damian’s hands with both of his, “In fact, I’ll be a little more sentimental.” he pulled Damian forward, “Join me? I’m tired and I don’t want to be alone. Plus I doubt Alfred’s going to let me trek upstairs until at least tomorrow.” 

Damian rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be tugged forward, “Fine.” he relented, “but only because Robin must make sure Batman rests properly.” 

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep13: How to Get Away With Cheating in the Card Olympics

It’s been a little while since Pegasus made a card that screwed us years after it was developed...and so it’s time for it to happen again. Good ol Pegasus, screwing us all and not even knowing he’s doing it.

First off, it took me until this episode to realize that Leon and Zigfried are German and Leon is playing a Grimm Brother’s deck. I guess I didn’t notice before now because Leon was hiding his identity. But now that I know his deck is because he’s just German it’s like...well OK. That’s kind of cute. Better than that time they had the American play a deck filled with guns.

And that actually...fully explains why they are all dressed old timey. I didn’t pick up on it until just now...they’re referencing old ass fairy tales. But wtv, I still like my reaching theories of why Zigfried dresses like...that.

PS, my twitter just notified me that lots of people are getting a ‘Hime Haircut’, which is exactly the doo that Zigfried wears this season with the cropped side bangs. And like...are we sure? I see Kpop wearing it and Tik Tok kids wearing wigs but...I have yet to see a Hime in the wild. Course I haven’t gone outside in like a year so...maybe tens of thousands of people really did do a Hime Haircut during the Quarantine.

But, damn it, I decided to look at some photos, and a bunch of them looked pretty bad, but a couple looked pretty dope, and now I’m a little bit tempted to get a Hime...but I feel like it took a decade to get out of my bangs phase and like...Do I need two layers of bangs? I have naturally straight hair, I could do this, this haircut was made for me, but...

I just don’t know if I should get a haircut that looks like I’m an anime cosplayer when I can’t back it up. Nope. Cannot get this haircut. I know this haircut was made for teenagers or artists in their 30′s, and literally no one else, but no, this will be a mistake just like the side bangs I gave myself in 2006.

(looks over at scissors)

(read more under the cut)

(get it? Cut?)

Leon recalls that his brother very nicely gave him a card, and he’s so excited to finally do any activity involving his crazy ass family, that he just blindly does it.

This entire episode is about Yami not doing a hellscape when he witnesses cheating, and like...it is S5...it’s been a little while since anyone’s done a real good cheat on him, and he opened the door to darkness, and they got devoured by their own Tamagachi. It’s been a while.

And like the curse of Episode 13 was just a theory I had--but this particular Episode 13 is probably the most tame of all the 13′s (and yet, the most un-tame of this arc, which is a pretty chill arc, overall)

Yet...while this episode still fits in with their universe because the Kaiba’s are very proud so they can’t admit their duel disk has a flaw and therefore can’t forfeit the game, it kind of stretches the imagination a bit for the sake of the plot. Straight up we have a LOT of characters in this arc and they all just stood there and watched it happened.

It could have been also because this is like...televised...that no one wants to start throwing this little boy off the nearest blimp. I just wish that was addressed in the episode, other than “listen...Kaiba must allow this card to be played...or all his Duel Disks are lies.”

His Duel Disk almost caused the end of planet Earth a few weeks back, so I think it’s fine. I think this is a negligible problem to have when your disk shoots projectiles out of each end and has sharp folding edges in the shape of a blade--almost attempting to slice your face off every time you wave that thing around.

Yes, he’s trying to restore his reputation after the whole Dartz thing...but this is like...not that bad in the scale of things that have happened in the past several seasons. Maybe it’s just the last straw that broke the camels back here? One thing too far--’your disk played a broke card, Kaiba, I am pulling my investments and I refuse to go to your theme parks. I was here when you blew up that island. I was here when your company was literally bought out by the illluminati...but if that duel disk can’t play cards correctly--we’re done here.’ And TBH...that’s a very Yugioh mentality to have.

Like remember that time that Elon musk threw a brick at one of his new weird looking cars and the windshield cracked? But he was like “Oh...that was just a...listen the windshields don’t shatter, you saw nothing.” and still released the car anyway? Was kind of reminded of that.

Now...he didn’t actually go into the Dev room, we’ll go into how the hell he got this card, but first, a visit to the Kaiba Dev room.

OOOOOOooooooooh

That’s so bright!

It reminds me of how in the 90′s, the only real thing I knew to do on my computer was change the colors of the UI, so I just used the ugliest ass UI known to man for my family’s computers. I hope these computers have a mouse that leaves a tail behind and I hope that mouse is in the shape of a flying sparkling dragon.

Anyway, Duke speaks what’s on our minds:

Meanwhile, Pegasus, watching this happen over a glass of wine from inside his bathtub at Castle Pegasus, takes one very long sip while sinking into a pile of bubbles.

Seto at first is like “I literally own this tournament so thanks for losing? I don’t know why you threw it out into the trash but thanks?” But Zigfried pressured him so hard that everyone on Earth would judge his ass, and tried so hard to change the definition of what cheating even is, that Seto relented almost as if to shut Zigfried the hell up.

Zigfried explained that, technically, it’s still reads as a legal card on the disk and isn’t reaaally against the rules. Even though the rules say it’s against the rules--what are rules anyway?

Thankfully we have the King of “I dictate what the rules are AKA the rules of the universe, which I would show you, I just don’t feel like it right now, and I’m a little worried about opening that Pandora’s box, but I clearly know the rules of this card game, as stated on this Home Depot plaque that Seto gave me after I won the last tourney.”

Leon gets pretty upset about this--not so much screwing Seto Kaiba, but over the fact his brother stole his only chance at trying to beat Yugi Muto fair and square. So, trying to retain what little card honor he has left, Leon tries to self sabotage so everyone can just go the hell home.

OK so...do you think he put a floppy disk into the paper card? Like straight up how did he do that? Feel free to post your theories because like...how do you hack a paper card? Like do we even have a canon explanation of what these cards are or what they are made out of and how they theoretically work?

Anyway, now that they’ve spent a good portion of this episode discussing if this card should or should not be played, and the ethics and philosophy surrounding that, we find out that none of this matters because Zigfried was actually just stalling.

(He hacked the card so it had a virus like straight up how did he DO that without making a new card?)

Huh.

Y’all, what if I could just delete Google?

Can you imagine?

Like I know this is a kid’s show so it follows kid’s show logic and I will absolutely allow this ridiculous master plan and I will not question it, but think with me for a sec:

What if you could just delete Disney?

Damn. That’s some Y2K scare tactics propaganda right there. That’s some good YA dystopian fiction stuff.

Yo is Zigfried the good guy? He’s not, but if this were a YA novel he would be, right? Good on him.

I...do not know how the logic in Zigfried’s brain works, but if someone deleted all the files in my collaborators company and showed up at my front door and was like “I heard you were looking for a new collaborator?” I’d stick him face first into a blank paper card.

Which is, logically, the next step to Zigfried’s plan that no one has bothered to tell him yet. You just don’t mess with Pegasus, especially after all the stuff he went though with getting murdered by Mai, and Dartz showing up, he’d be so pissed right now. He might not be technically magical anymore--but it’s clear after last season that he’s still magical enough. This is a man who’s let out into the wild maybe a couple of scary cards--but hell knows how many are buried in his huge ass castle just waiting to do a murder.

This is just Zigfried hassling a hornet and the hornets nest is like...right there.

And so next episode we are going to...destroy the card? Hell, next episode might be entirely a card game and I might only have 2 caps.

Anyway, just letting you know that I typed this last night, and then had dreams that I got a Hime Haircut and hella loved it, woke up at 5:30 AM thinking about that haircut, and have since been just...

...I mean I shouldn’t do it...I cannot give myself unironic Von Schroeder hair...

...

...but what if it’s dope though?

(and here’s the link to read these from the beginning in chrono order from S1. Wish I categorized in seasons but alas I did not have that forsight back when I thought there were only 3 seasons of Yugioh total. I have since learned.)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[waveypedia]

My good fellow could I possibly request some *ahem* fenro?

you totally can my dude! tysm!

(Can’t Get You) Outta My Head

Three forty-two AM.

It is three forty-two AM and Gyro’s brain is completely blank.

He lowers his head slowly into his awaiting palms. Blueprints swim behind his eyes. Even in his imagination, they make no sense.

He bangs his head gently on the desk through his hands. He has no ideas. No ideas. No ideas. No ide….

“Dr. Gearloose?”

Gyro jerks awake. He fumbles with his glasses and smooths down the wrinkles of his shirt in vain in an attempt to appear somewhat functional. To pretend he hadn’t just been sleeping at his desk on the job.

Oh, who was he kidding. This is Cabrera, the duck who had seen him chug six consecutive Redbulls and two pots of coffee in an attempt to stay awake for a week during crunch time on a project. There was no point in pretending.

Still, Gyro’s pride demanded that he not fall asleep during the conversation, so he slowly spun around in his desk chair to face his former intern and did his best to not drop his head in his hands. “Cabrera.”

The aforementioned duck stands in front of him, hands clasped behind his back, nervous energy radiating off of him. “Dr. Gearloose, you look…”

“Horrible?” Gyro supplies dryly. “Like death himself?”

“Eh, Mrs. Beakley showed me a picture of Death after training one day. He doesn’t look too bad,” Fenton says, offhandedly. Gyro is too tired to fully process what that means.

Gyro is losing his internal battle. His eyelids are drooping. He props up his hand up on the arm of his chair, and his internal battle only rages for a few seconds before his head falls into it. (It feels like utter hours.)

Fenton pauses from whatever tirade he’s about to launch into and reexamines Gyro with a new fervor. “Dr. Gearloose?”

“Mmph?” Gyro replies, too tired to come up with a coherent response. It’s hard enough to form his thoughts into strings of words and sentences that make sense to everyone else on a good day. Today, he’s too tired to come up with words in the first place.

“Are you sure you’re alright to keep working?” Fenton questions, a little bit hesitantly, but he knows his boss well by now. “I can get out the cot. O-or drive you home?”

Gyro blinks hazily up at Fenton. “You can drive?”

It’s not really what he intended to say, but it gets the focus off him and his energy level. Besides, Gyro can’t drive, so he tends to assume no one can until proven otherwise. It’s not his best trait; it’s just how his brain works.

Gyro realizes while he’s been processing his thoughts to himself, Fenton replied, and he has no idea what Fenton said.

Maybe that’s for the best. It’s not like he would be able to form an eloquent reply anyway.

“Dr. Gearloose,” Fenton says, a little more firmly this time. Maybe whatever Fenton said was important. “Gyro.”

“Hmm?” Gyro replies. His eyelids are slipping closed. They can’t close, he has to stay awake, he has to stay awake-!

“Ooohkay,” Fenton mutters, more to himself than to Gyro. Gyro doesn’t reply. At the silence, Fenton steps closer, closer, too close-! and kneels next to Gyro’s desk chair. He slips an arm around Gyro’s middle and starts to help him up.

Fenton, pressed against him, is soft and warm, and Gyro might fall asleep right then and there if not for the spurt of internal panic and adrenaline that comes with Fenton’s proximity. His figurative internal processor restarts panickedly, but it sputters and won’t function. Gyro is left with panic coursing through his body but unable to do anything about it. He just stares at the hazy, soft figure of Fenton. It takes every ounce of strength in his body to not lean his head on Fenton’s shoulder, no matter how soft and warm Fenton is, and how inviting his shoulder looks.

Gyro somehow lets Fenton haul him to his feet, and they take slow, wavering steps over to the cot at the end of the lab. At some point during all of this, Lil’ Bulb had hopped off of his charging station, grabbed a pair of snap glowsticks (where the hell did he get those?), and is leading them over like a traffic conductor.

As they reach their destination, Gyro’s brain suddenly kicks into high gear as he realizes what Fenton’s intentions are. “Wait! Waitwaitwaitwaitwait! I can’t sleep, Cabrera, I have a job to do-”

“You and I both know Mr. McDuck hates that we stay in here off the clock,” Fenton reprimands him, not shaken at all, and Gyro feels heat rushing to his cheeks. Cabrera is significantly less bumbling than he remembers, and when the hell did his awkward little intern become so comfortable with him?! 

Akita never would’ve-

Wait.

I will not be like Akita. I will not be like Akita. Akita was horrible to me, and Boyd. He is not a good role model. I will be a better mentor for my not-intern. I will not be like Akita.

It is with that thought in mind that Gyro refrains himself from struggling as Fenton eases him onto the chaise, and ohhh the chaise is so soft, nothing like his uncomfortable desk chair, and suddenly Gyro’s not regretting this as much as he thought he would.

The one thing he misses is Fenton’s warmth as his coworker eases away. Gyro resists the urge to shiver as he slides his glasses off his nose and puts them down next to his head. He’s pretty sure Fenton picks them up and puts them in a more secure place (good thinking), but his eyelids are already slipping closed and the fight to stay awake is long, long lost. 

The relationship that Akita and I had is nothing like the relationship Fenton and I have, anyway.

Gyro freezes. Panic shoots through his body. All thoughts of sleeping are now gone.

Where the hell did that thought come from?!

It’s true. Gyro won’t contest that. But it’s… it’s weird to think about his relationship with Fenton that way.

But he does miss Fenton’s body heat. Yes, that’s it. He’s cold. The lab is underwater, and the sterile lights are blinding. Not a good environment for sleep. Not homey and cozy. Fenton is.

“Fenton?” Gyro mumbles. Without his usual sharp precision, it comes out more like Fen-uhn, the way Huey says it.

Between Gyro’s fatigue and lack of glasses, Fenton is simply a mere brown blur. Gyro almost misses how the blur stiffens and startles at the sound of his voice. “Yes, Dr. Gearloose?”

Gyro suddenly realizes he doesn’t have the energy to translate the abstract idea of what he wants into words. He doesn’t even know what he wants. Just… Fenton. Fenton’s presence.

When Gyro doesn’t reply, Fenton comes over, worried. “Dr. Gearloose? Gyro? Oh what am I doing, he probably fell asleep.”

Gyro grumbles indignantly at that, making Fenton chuckle. The scientist hovers awkwardly at the edge of the cot, unsure. Gyro isn’t sure either, but he’s too damn tired to doubt himself.

Fenton starts and yelps with surprise when an arm shoots out from beneath Gyro’s lump of body mass (that’s exactly what he feels like right now) and wraps ungracefully around his waist, like a petulant cat. “Umm… Dr. Gearloose?”

Gyro mumbles again and tugs the lump of soft and warm in his arms closer.

“O-okay… um… I guess we’re doing this,” Fenton mumbles, more to himself than to Gyro. He sits down delicately on the chaise, on the very edge as to not disturb Gyro. No longer pulling Fenton towards him, Gyro’s arms sag and flop into Fenton’s lap. He no longer has the energy to pull Fenton in, but his arms still rest around Fenton all the same.

For a couple minutes, they sit like that. Fenton perched on the very edge of the cot, ready to jump off at any minute, but as the time passes he slowly relaxes into Gyro’s arms. 

It’s not enough for Gyro’s sleep-addled sense, and slowly, oh so slowly, he tugs Fenton just a little closer.

He doesn’t want to disturb Fenton, but also he’s tired, so so tired, too tired to be polite. Fenton is warm and soft, and that’s what Gyro wants.

So when Fenton doesn’t respond to his too-subtle tugging, he sighs and yanks Fenton into his arms.

Fenton squeaks with shock, but Gyro’s too tired to notice the social faux pas he’s just made. With Fenton close in his arms, he promptly falls asleep, Fenton still entangled in his unbreakable embrace.

Fenton slowly twists his head as far as it can go, trying to gauge Gyro’s level of wakefulness. After successfully deciphering that he probably can’t get up without disturbing Gyro, he lets out a soft sigh and relaxes into Gyro’s embrace.  

It’s… surprisingly comfortable. Not surprisingly. Fenton doesn’t know why he would be surprised. It makes sense. It’s almost four in the morning and he’s curled up on a chaise lounge with someone cuddling him.

But that someone is Dr. Gyro Gearloose, and that’s panic-inducing enough for Fenton on its own.

Fenton’s eyelids are drooping closed, and as he’s slipping into sleep’s waiting arms he recognizes the irony of him trying to get Gyro to go to sleep and falling asleep himself as well.

Manny comes into the lab promptly at seven AM, takes in the picture before him, and promptly leaves. But not before phoning Mr. McDuck and taking Lil’ Bulb out for a boys’ night on the town.

As for Mr. McDuck, he borrows Launchpad’s phone to snap a couple blackmail photos (which inexplicably get sent to Della, no she has no idea how that happened) before banging his cane against the wall.

“Oi! Wake UP!!! I’m paying you to work, not cuddle!! Bless me bagpipes…”

Scrooge leaves to do his own job and gets back to haggling with the Board, leaving the two very flustered scientists to sort themselves out.

Gyro buys time by fumbling around for his glasses, trying to hide the bright blush that colors his feathers. Luckily for Fenton, he can’t see the matching one on Fenton’s face.

“Here,” Fenton mumbles, passing the glasses to Gyro. “I put them on your desk.”

“Thanks,” Gyro replies, stilted. “That was… nice of you.”

They both know he’s not only thinking about the glasses.

“Should we… I don’t know, talk about this?” Fenton guesses, rubbing a hand awkwardly along the side of his arm. His usually meticulously ironed tie is wrinkled and rumpled like he just got out of a fight or an experiment, but the day has barely started.

Gyro rubs at his eyes under his glasses, still blinking sleep away. “I don’t know… I barely remember what happened. I was at my desk, and… an’ you helped me to the chaise, I think…?”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Fenton replies. After a beat, he continues, hesitantly and warily. “And then… you, you, um, hugged me. And wouldn’t let go.”

Gyro’s head snaps up, panic sparking in his gut. “I- Huh?”

“Yeah.” Fenton rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. He won’t meet Gyro’s gaze. “You’ve, um, got an awful tight grip when you’re sleeping.”

“I… um… thanks?” Gyro hedges. The cards did not cover this. 

He takes a deep breath.

“Listen, Cabrera,” he begins. “I… it’s not always easy to fall asleep here. Especially on that couch. It always feels so… exposed.”

Silence hangs heavy in the air for a few moments before Gyro continues.

“I guess… you made me feel safe enough to fall asleep. So… thank you.”

Fenton’s been working for and with Gyro far long enough to know that thank-yous, second only to apologies, are not easy for the scientist to get out. So it means even more. He ducks his head awkwardly, hiding his blush. “Um, you’re welcome. It was actually really nice.”

“Yeah,” Gyro echoes softly, fondly, then freezes, wishing he could take the words back. But when he chances a slow glance up at Fenton’s face, the duck doesn’t look all too bothered by the sentiment. 

“So… what now?” Fenton wonders, half to himself. None of his M’ma’s telenovas or his superhero comics from boyhood ever taught him what to do in these kinds of moments.

“Get back to work, I suppose,” Gyro shrugs, although he’s not very enthusiastic. Truthfully, he’d much rather spend his day cuddling with Fenton - which is saying something, since Gyro’s one true passion is inventing. “We don’t want Mr. McDuck to come down here and yell at us again.”

“Yeah,” Fenton replies, disappointed. He slowly turns away, gathering up his blueprints from where he scattered them a few hours ago. 

One of his blueprints is currently residing on Gyro’s desk. Fenton saves that one for last, not wanting to face more awkward moments. But once all the rest of his blueprints are safely piled on his desk in the former bathroom, he has to face the music.

Fenton takes a deep breath and strides up to Gyro’s desk.

Gyro had been massaging his temples, trying to fend off a headache, but he glances up at Fenton. He’s not annoyed like he usually is when Fenton interrupts him, but doesn’t look happy, either.

“Cabrera,” Gyro breathes. Maybe he is annoyed. “What do you need?”

To Fenton’s credit, he has every intention to simply grab his blueprint and go. Today would become a moment he’d tuck away in his brain, trying to forget it and cherishing it at the same time. 

But instead, some other desire takes over. 

When it’s done, he can’t explain his actions, but he doesn’t regret them, either.

Fenton reaches for his blueprint, which is right by Gyro’s hands. Then he stops. 

His hands turn to Gyro’s instead, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s pulled Gyro into a kiss.

It’s already happening when Fenton finally processes exactly what is going on. Gyro’s eyes are blown wide behind his glasses, but neither of them pull away. At least, not right away.

When they do, Fenton’s hair is ruffled and Gyro is gaping like a fish. His mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out.

Fenton doesn’t say anything either. Neither of them know what to say. They just keep staring at each other.

Gyro was never too comfortable with silence, though, not like this. At long last, the inventor clears his throat. “Um. So.”

Fenton’s brain kickstarts at the sound of Gyro’s voice, hesitant and shocked, and immediately a million apologies fly to the tip of his tongue. But they never get a chance to see the light of day.

“I could get used to that,” Gyro mumbles, then immediately snaps his hands over his bill, slamming it shut. But the damage is done.

If the two scientists weren’t blushing before, they definitely are now.

“Me too,” Fenton replies before he can stop himself. The corners of Gyro’s bill quirk up in the faintest of smiles, just for a moment.

This time Gyro’s the one to grab Fenton by the tie and pull him close for a second round.

~

okay this is all over the place haha but i just kinda wanted to get it done! it was supposed to be for fenro week, but that’s over now, so oh well. i might try to do something for weblena week since that’s happening now but idk.

definitely projecting a lil on gyro here with the bit about not being able to directly translate your thoughts into words that other people understand all the time, and how it gets worse when you’re tired. gyro definitely reads as neurodivergent to me, and i hc him as autistic (projecting lol), so that’s how i write him! i had a conversation today with some friends about kins and hcs today and one of my friends reads him as adhd, which is totally valid too. he’s definitely neurodivergent coded.

idk where i was going with that lol but enjoy!

title is from outta my head by somi. it’s not really all that relevant to the fic itself but it just kinda stuck with me while i started the fic. anyway i hope you like it! @fenro-week

[nei-ning]

I’ve been having weird dreams lately. Like being chased by 2 small T-Rex which I managed to kill, only to ending up being chased by bigger T-Rex etc. There’s also many dreams which I don’t remember anymore, but I knew they had a message for me. However, last night’s dream I do remember - somehow - and here it is.

I was in some building / room, following Rise Raphael. I followed him in small yellow fitting room. It was some sort of secret room with a mirror and few “knobs” where you could hang clothes. I don’t remember saying anything to him, but he instantly agreed to help me since I wanted to surprise his brothers.

Later I ended up in this same yellow fitting room, placing something on one of the knobs, making it fall and disappear from my view. I was holding a DVD set box. It was blue in color. Raphael had went through a lot to help me to get and still he kept helping me. He escorted me to his brothers as I handed the box over to Leonardo. He stood on my left.

He looked at it and then laughed in a mocking way, keeping his voice in sarcastic level as he turned the DVD box around, slamming it against his thigh.

“Look guys! We got some cartoons! Oh, how sweet!”

I felt so hurt. So pissed. That DVD box set had 3 different cartoons, full, from my own childhood from channel Yle 2. I was becoming teary and Raphael noticed this, becoming angry at Leonardo. But he didn’t get to say anything because I opened my mouth. I told Leonardo I thought they would had appreciated that gift, see something from my childhood but mostly that he would had appreciated all the trouble what I went through to get it, how much Raphael helped me to get it.

As I left the scene I heard Raphael lecturing his little brother behind me. I walked through old wooden door, heavy, ending up in old - like really old - railway station as one very very old train (looking round like a capsule) was coming right next to me. As the train stopped, I noticed light blue color on top of the side of it. It was clearly my “commercial” painted on it about light blue liquid drink. I think it was soda, actually. Tho I have no idea how or why I would had been making light blue soda! I had no any knowledge of that and yet I knew it was mine!

Locomotive driver, dressed in old fashioned way, came next to me smiling. He was tall middle aged man. He looked at me, saying; “Your debt now is... 14 800.” My eyes widened with his smile as he added; “You have been earning well.” So I had overcome my debt, earning 14 800 euros! It felt unreal but I was so happy and stunned still! And he was happy for me too!

Next I was sitting in a car, front seat next to driver. Rise Raphael was driving as he was taking me home. There’s small electric power plant near by, right next to a road, and as we slowly drove past it, I noticed full moon on the sky. But it didn’t look normal at all so we stopped.

The moon had many colors in metal shine / metallic way, you know what I’m saying? All colors were thin stripes (from up to down) side by side and there was this huge dark yellowish eye in the middle, staring down. The eye / moon was covered in this metal sphere, having sharp hook like edges around the eye.

I had never seen anything like it before! It was weird, but not scary or bad omen to me. I then noticed younger boy, maybe 10-12 years old, standing there beneath the moon with a camera. I didn’t get to warn him in time since he took the photo of the moon, the eye instantly “squinting” in surprise, metal ball - which protected it - felling off. The eye / moon started to shrink and change its form as it kept coming down from the sky (note that the moon was HUGE since it was VERY close to the Earth).

It started to look like a flower bud being made of cookie dough. It was still big as it landed in this boy’s waiting hands - and he ate it! He ate the cookie flower bud in one go even that it was as big and round as his head! But right after he ate it, second version of him jumped out of the boy, standing happily next to him. I got this positive feeling from the second form (first form wasn’t bad or negative tho!) and... I’m not sure how to express the feeling but it also felt like this second form was a second chance for the better in life or something like that.

And some flashes of the dream, what I remember, are me being up at snowy mountain inside of horse tables which were in very bad condition. Roof was collapsing, snow was inside the stable, there was old burned wood pieces etc. And in the same dream I actually was traveling with my sis somewhere and we had issues of finding / getting into our flight since the place was, well, so freaking weird!

I also remember seeing 2 centaurs mating at one point, but I have no idea what that’s suppose to mean :’D Tho I do like centaurs in a way. (26.5.2021)

[fanfoolishness]

a world for the birds (1/10)

Andy DeMayo took up birding years ago, but his favorite hobby takes on new meaning when shared with his nephew Steven.

A series of looks at Andy and Steven’s growing family relationship.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

***

Chapter 1: learning how to see

Andy breathed in the salt air.  Another visit back to Beach City in Delmarva; a good place.  He’d forgotten how good, somehow, years of flying on his own and watching folks move away.  But there were new reasons to come back here, Greg and his kid, their weird space family.  He liked having a home base again, even if still he only visited once a month or so.  Some habits died hard.

Andy and Steven sat on the porch, watching the waves as they waited for Greg to come on over. They had dinner plans at the crab place down the street.  Andy was looking forward to it. He’d seen Greg last month, but it’d been a while since he’d gotten a chat with the kid, who’d apparently been spending an awful lot of time in space lately.  It was still hard to wrap his mind around sometimes, though Steven seemed to take it in stride.

Andy let out a sigh, watching the laughing gulls on the beach fighting over a crab.  He found himself asking a simple question.

“Hey Steven, you ever been birdwatching?”

Greg’s kid wasn’t quite as open and excitable as he used to be.  Typical teenager, Andy supposed, especially since the kid had finally started growing.  He’d been weirdly tiny when he met him the first time.  Maybe now that he’d hit that growth spurt, he’d figured out how to get moody, too.  Or maybe it was all the space stuff.  Andy wasn’t sure.

Steven shrugged.  “Uh, I mean, I’ve seen birds…”

“Nah, I mean, you ever actually watched ‘em?  Like those laughing gulls out there?”  Andy rummaged through the knapsack at his feet, pulling out a battered copy of Sibley’s Guide to Birds of Eastern North America.   He waved the book at Steven.  “I see a lot of birds when I fly, and after a while I got tired of not knowing their names.  If, uh, you ever want to give it a try, it’s pretty fun….”

Steven’s face lit up.  Oh, there was that excitable kid again.  “Sure!”

***

Andy mulled over the destination for their first birding foray for a few weeks.  The weather had been crummy for the rest of his stay last time, so they made tentative plans to bird the woods around Beach City and the local marsh nearby.  Andy sorted through some of his old books.  Was Sibley better for a beginner?  Peterson?  Maybe he’d throw in the National Geographic guide.  He went back and forth about it for longer than he would have liked to admit.

He knocked on Steven’s door bright and early, having landed the plane well above the high tide mark.  “You ready, kid?”

Steven opened the door, strapped to high heaven with binoculars, a camera, and a bulging messenger bag.  He was also wearing a bright pink jacket over a blue shirt. Not exactly nature colors, but it would be fine.  “Oh, I’m ready, Uncle Andy.  I was born ready.”

“I… admire your enthusiasm,” said Andy gruffly.  “Here ya go.  Take your pick.”  He held out two different guides.  Steven grabbed the Sibley’s, leaving Andy with the Nat Geo.

“So I just look up the bird I think it is?”

“Yeah, but you gotta have an idea of what type of bird is, or you can get confused real easy.  There’s like seven hundred birds in that book.”  Andy nodded to a pair of terns flying over the water.  “Any idea what those are?”

“Uh, seagulls?”

Andy tried not to grimace.  “Ain’t no such thing as a seagull.  Just gulls.  There’s lots of different species.”  He showed Steven the right section of the book, and the kid’s eyes widened.

“Whoa.  I had no idea!  I just thought they were all seagulls, and that they like to steal my food.”

“Well, yeah, that they do.  But those there are terns.  Caspian terns, you can tell by the size of ‘em.  And that bright red bill.”

Steven raised his binoculars, struggling with adjusting them for a moment.  Then he grinned, lowering them.  “I see the red!  That’s awesome, Uncle Andy.  I can’t believe I never noticed those before.  Are they rare?”

“Not really, no.  Now that you’ve got an idea of ‘em, you’ll see ‘em all over.  See the thing about birding is, it teaches you how to see birds instead of just looking at ‘em.  It’s not the same thing.”  

“What do you mean?”

Andy thought about the kid’s question.  They walked along the sand to the plane, Andy pointing out a few willets and a lone killdeer as they went.  As they neared the plane, he came up with something, huffing and puffing as they hiked up the hill.

“I mean… so many people see a bird, and they don’t even think about it.  Or if they do, they think, ‘oh, it’s just a bird.’  But there’s more to it than that, ain’t there?  You look a little deeper and you start to see it.  A red beak on a bird you thought was just a gull.  Or the flashy colors of a hummingbird or a painted bunting.  Or a little peep, just digging and digging away until it comes out with a huge clam in its bill.  And it just makes you think, you know?  Like what else am I missing?”

“You mean about birds?” asked Steven as they reached the plane, not the slightest out of breath.

Andy wiped the sweat from his brow.  “Well, yeah.”

***

The birding went great.  Andy found a smooth field to set the plane down in on the edge of the Beach City woods.  It was no Magic Hedge out there -- not that he’d expected that level of activity-- but he was pleased with the different types of environments the little wood and field had.  The field itself, full of horned larks; the deep part of the wood, where a woodpecker lurked frustratingly out of sight; the edge of the wood, where the flycatchers perched and watched for passing bugs.  Steven almost looked like he was gonna cry when Andy showed him the pages of Empidonax flycatchers, all of them almost exactly alike.“You don’t have to get those right away,” said Andy gruffly.  “I’ve been doing this twenty years, I still mix ‘em up if they don’t sing.  People just call them Empids a lot in their notes because you can’t tell ‘em apart.   But I’d guess that one’s a least flycatcher, sitting here on the edge like it is, and that sharp little call.”  

Steven wrote the bird’s name down in a brand-new waterproof notebook in pencil, tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth.  “So now I have… twelve birds for my life list?  How many do you have, Uncle Andy?”

Andy laughed.  “I don’t know off the top of my head.  I have a list back in the plane, though.  I think last time I checked I hit somewhere ‘round eight hundred?  Flying takes me all over, you see.  Picked up some great birds when I flew you and your dad to Korea.”

Steven gaped at him with eyes like dinner plates.  “How many species are there?  Now I wish I’d been paying attention when Dad and I went on that trip.”  He frowned.  “I guess I was thinking about other stuff, though…”

Andy looked curiously at the kid.  Pensive was an odd look on him.  “Uh, there’s a ton of species, almost ten grand.  A damn lot of them.  Always new ones to find,” said Andy.  “Ooh!  Look there!  Tufted titmouse.”

They ended the day with forty species, not bad at all considering it was the beginning of summer and migration was over.  Andy had managed to start impressing upon Steven the importance of birding by ear, especially for warblers, and Steven had immediately downloaded something on his phone that did bird calls, promising to study.  

Andy left him with the Sibley’s, Steven giving him a bonecrushing hug.  He’d hugged him back, awkwardly.  He still wasn’t sure what to do with his nephew’s affections, but he thought it was a good problem to have.

*** Bird photos: Cornell Ornithology Lab, Caspian tern; Empidonax flycatchers, Peterson’s field guide (was too lazy to take a good picture of my Sibley lol).

[connorspiracy]

Not The Kind of Snacc I Had In Mind || Connor & Luis

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @connorspiracy and @ontheluis  CONTENT: Recreational drug use, NSFW SUMMARY: Connor and Luis decide to meet up after chatting on a dating app and absolutely nothing goes wrong. 

Grindr dates were weird. Connor was far from opposed to a simple shag, but he usually felt like he was supposed to not be so blatant about it, to try and be a gentleman. Was it customary to clean the house before a Grindr hookup came over? He wasn’t sure, but he did what he could to make the place presentable; ran the roomba, made the bed that he was sure would be messed up again pretty soon, lit some Yankee Candles. He’d showered, changed his clothes, brushed his teeth, and was debating starting on a beer when the buzz of the doorbell stirred him from the couch, indicating his date’s arrival. Connor answered, giving the other man a smile in greeting. He’d had no clue this was wolfbane-dude when he’d proverbially swiped right, but seeing the young man in front of him, he put it together. Not that it mattered. He was still certainly curious, but seeing the profile pics come to life before his eyes gave him little desire to revisit that conversation anytime soon. “Hey, Luis, right? Come on in, I was just about to grab a drink if you want one?” 

The cold freshness of the Whye River single lingered in Luis’ nostrils even after the water had dried off his skin and hair. Bathing in the river outside his date’s upscale neighborhood might not exactly be classy, but the brutal pragmatism of Luis’ new life had weaned him off feeling embarrassed about trivial things. Piers’ place reminded Luis of the houses along Boca Chica, eliciting a sharp prick of unwanted remembrance amidst the more arduous thoughts in his head. 

Connor turned out to be just as gorgeous as his profile picture, and Luis had another pang of guilt for placing yet another innocent person in danger of being eaten just for the sake libido and company. But the less human part of Luis brain, the aspect of himself that was all primal instinct and cold pragmatism, didn’t see why that danger should get in the way of shelter, sex, and free food?

The corners of Luis' mouth drew up into a knowing smirk as he closed the door behind him, enjoying the randy tension in the coy game these types of meetups often started. “Sure.” Luis placed his backpack against the wall by the door. “Hey uh....are you the ghostuber dude by the way?” 

If it hadn't already been obvious from the risque Grindr conversation, then the grin tugging at the edges of Luis' lips confirmed to Connor that this lad was well up for it. He doubted it would take them too long to get down to business. "Right, we've got got beer, shots, cider, whatever you want, mate." He helped himself to a White Claw, handing Luis whatever he'd chosen. "Heh, Ghostuber dude," he chuckled. This was why he didn't send dick pics with his face in them. He didn't want it to end up on twitter or reddit once someone realised who he was. "Y'know what? I like that. Might nick it for my instagram bio.” He gave him a little grin. “I wanna ask what you do for work but I don’t even know how much you wanna talk and stuff. I never know how personal folks wanna get.”

“I mean there’s part of me that just wants to jump your bones,” Luis confessed as he leaned forward to accept a White Claw with a wink, the werewolf perhaps being a bit more literal then the words necessarily implied. But Luis didn’t necessarily want to give that primal part of more leeway over his life then it already had.

“But I don’t mind talking,” Luis admitted helping himself to a seat on one end of the couch. “I’m hiking cross country,” was a rather selective version of the truth. “So I’m just taking whatever work I can find along the way here y’know?”

In spite of being in media and in the public eye just enough to receive decently regular flirtation, Connor wasn't always the smoothest at this. He gave a kind chuckle, toasting their White Claws together. "That's very flattering, but yeah, we can talk. Come on." He gestured for Luis to follow him, heading onto the deck and lighting up the fire pit and sitting on the outdoor bench. "Figured this'd be a bit better than watching telly," he snickered. "So are you in White Crest for long then? Just passing through?" 

Luis had been an easygoing and social person before his life had become a runway train of carnage. Connor definitely had the sexy British angle for him, and a sinewy muscularity to go with the baby face, but perhaps was a bit blunt for coy games. Though Luis couldn’t (or didn’t want to) explain why, his sense of hearing and smell had sharpened to the point of being painful at times. He caught the fragrance of the soaps that Connor had used in the shower as his host passed by and listened to the steady background noise of his heartbeat. 

As they went out on the deck Luis looked out over the East End evening. The sun was sinking like a golden torch in the Whye River's horizon, staining the tufty lines of Stratocumulus clouds ablaze with bright magenta against the deeper blues and violets of the upper atmosphere. East End’s upscale houses and shops trailed off at the harbor where ships slept on a liquid mirror of the sky, seeming to bob up and down on cloudy stained glass. Boat masts and pier poles stood out stark like thin black columns against the prismatic sunset.  

But though Luis’ couldn’t see most of those colors anymore, the shadows of the sunset city strangely didn’t impede his sight at all. Luis glanced to smile playful at Connor, the fading light briefly reflecting off the tapetum lucidum blue in his eyes in a flare of electric blue. 

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Luis admitted as he leaned his elbows on the deck rail, breathing in the faint scents of fish and smoke on the chilly autumn air. “Got this gig at a fighting ring, doing Cutman work and whatnot for the fighters,” he mused. “Guess we’ll see how well that pays huh?”

"Bit of an amateur boxer or something, are you? That's pretty hot," Connor said with a smile. Most people's Grindr photos didn't leave that much to the imagination. There was usually at the very least a topless selfie in there, maybe a post-workout pic, complete with sweatpants bulge. Luis had a casually athletic build, more compact and slightly bulkier than Connor's slimmer frame. He imagined Luis being able to hold his own. "I... couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag. Have to talk my way out, hope they fall for the accent. This is all for show." He looked at Luis' bright blue eyes with a self-deprecating smile. 

"Well, this place is fuckin' weird, which is why I'm here, but it's not for everyone." In the back of his mind, he was still kind of suspect about the eating wolfsbane thing, but Connor left that alone. He actually wanted to get off with the bloke tonight, not scare him away by interrogating him. "Smoke?" he asked, pulling out a pack of tobacco and everything else he needed for a good joint. 

“Luis shook his head with an aimable wrinkle of the nose at the notion. Learning to fight hadn’t been something he’d willingly picked up or enjoyed, but it came naturally to the less human part of him, way too much so honestly. “A cutman is just the dude who makes sure the fighters don’t bleed out too much,” he explained, finding it wiser to not going into detail what sort of illicit fights would just hire some rando off the street who knew his way around an enswell. “I try not to get into fights if I can help it,” said the fellow whose rap sheet contained a bit too many charges of manslaughter for that claim to be entirely plausible. “You’re better off avoiding it honestly dude. Like...I dig some macho dom vibes much as the next guy, but that aggro life isn’t worth it,” confessed Luis, having woken up too often amongst grotesque carnage to glorify violence.

“It is weird,” Luis admitted with another look out at White Crest’s innocently picturesque panorama stretching out beyond them. “Guess that works for a ghostuber though?” Luis didn’t believe in spirits or magic, but a metaphysics argument wasn’t he wan’t to get up to with Connor tonight, so he just let that be. 

Then it turned out Connor knew the way to heart: weed. “Duuude, you must be into some weird shit if you’re buttering me up this much,” he teased with an assenting nod.

“Oh,” Connor said with a chuckle, feeling just a little bit stupid. “I guess that makes sense. It’s in the name.” Hearing that Luis avoided fights if he could help it only made Connor more attracted to him. He had no patience for that toxic masculinity bullshit. Knowing someone could defend themselves was one thing, being good at a sport was another, but seeking violence for violence’s made someone the type of person best avoided, even for a one night stand. “Yeah, couldn’t agree more. Save the macho dom vibes for the bedroom,” he teased, rolling them each a joint with a grin. 

“The views are fucking gorgeous too, I mean, look at this ocean.” He gestured to the sand and sea that spread out before them, glistening under the moon and stars. “And I never run out of stuff to film.” Even if sometimes, the thing he happened to film was someone being murdered in the woods. That’d be a mood killer, though. His grin only widened when Luos accepted his offer of some light recreational drug use. “What can I say? I like being a good host.” And once he handed Luis the rolled joint, he leaned in for a brief kiss, lips brushing against Luis’ and lingering for barely a moment before he sat back to light up, handing Luis the lighter too. 

The lighter’s flame was a momentary spark against the oceanic sunset as Luis breathed deep. Substances had come to be Luis’ escape from the train of violence his life had become, and the unwilling werewolf closed his eyes and breathed smoke into the night for a time, letting it soak into his blood and cloud out unwelcome thoughts. “Definitely gorgeous,” he affirmed, before turning away from the sea. 

Luis gently lowered himself down to straddle Connor’s lap. He looked down into Connor’s eyes for a moment with a questioning raise of tawny brows, silently asking if this was ok. “So what made you want to do youtubing stuff,” Luis asked with an unconvincingly innocent smirk as he ran both hands up the front of Connor’s shirt. Luis played it slow, his splayed fingers consciously tracing the lines of Connor’s body beneath the fabric, traveling up until he caressed the bare skin of the Brit’s neck. He leaned forward from his perch on Connor’s lap to meet his host’s lips in a long kiss, taking time to just savor the take and smell of him before parting with a breath chuckle. “So were you legit born in England,” he asked in a murmur, pulling down the front of Connor’s shirt slightly to press his lips to the firm skin of Connor’s pectorals. “Or are you actually some Cali-boy whose doing the Brit thing for sex appeal.” Luis continued to lay exploring kisses up the curves Connor’s upper chest and neck as he glanced up. “Won’t mind either way,” he assured with a grin. 

Connor closed his eyes for a moment as he inhaled the joint and blew out the smoke, watching it dissipate into the night. He took another sip of his beer, not expecting the next events that unfolded, but certainly appreciating them. His breath hitched in anticipation as he felt the warm weight of the other man's body on top of him. He lifted his hands to wander over Luis' upper legs and waist. "Started to video journal for myself," he answered, closing his eyes again and sighing as Luis' hands and lips caressed his skin. He curled his own fingers into Luis' sides, sliding them just beneath his shirt. "Ran out of space on my hard drive, started uploading them to YouTube," he snickered. "And the rest is history." 

Thankfully the neighbours' houses weren't right on top of them and there was a bit of space between the houses along the beach, so he didn't feel too self-conscious about the display they were putting on. At least for now. "I'm a born and raised South West London boy, darling," he whispered, playfully exaggerating his own accent. "What about you?" he asked, fingertips tracing tiny lines along Luis' abs. "Hispanic?" 

“Chicano,” Luis confirmed with a nod, closing his eyes for a moment and just letting Connor touch bring on a trembling flex of his abdomen that brought a hitch to his breathing. “South Texas chico my dude,” he elaborated in a teasing imitation of Conner’s phrasing, as if the Coastal Bend was somehow on the same cultural tier as an ancient city of eight point nine million. Luis shrugged off his white cotton shirt onto the deck, ignoring the chilled autumn air as it brought goosebumps along his bare skin. Luis’ shoulders and chest rose and fell with deepened breaths as drank in the scent of Connor and the taste of his lips with a hungry insistence.  

A voice in the part of Luis' brain warned that he needed restraint. He needed to not lose control here.

“So why ghosts,” Luis asked as he reluctantly parted from Connor. He kept running one hand affectionately though his date’s hair while leaning back to take another drag from the joint he’d left on the railing. “You could easily get internet-famous with other stuff,” he pointed with, exhaling smoke at one end of a smile that left the ‘other stuff’ ambiguous. 

Connor’s stomach tightened and he felt himself becoming more and more aroused, especially as Luis pulled off his shirt. His own was unbuttoned all the way down to the navel, so he unfastened the rest of it, letting it hang open to reveal his chest and stomach. For a moment, he thought they were going to shag right there on the decking, but thankfully (at least for the neighbour’s sake), Luis pulled away to take another drag, smoking from his position straddling Connor’s lap. “Right, you’re one to talk about sexy accents then. You can get anyone to drop their trousers by saying romantic shit in Spanish,” Connor teased, continuing his own beer and joint. 

“Why ghosts?” He repeated. It felt like he was about to open a can of worms, so he did his best to put the pushy, opinionated part of him aside, at least for the sake of getting his dick wet tonight. “Ah, well, suppose you’re either a believer or you’re not. Hard to believe in ghosts when you can’t see them. I just happen to be someone who can.” His fingers absentmindedly continued drawing shapes on Luis’ forearm as he spoke. 

The claim about his ability to make people drop drow with Spanish elicited a snorting laugh from Luis, who’d endured less complimentary claims about his background in the past. He pressed his lips to the skin about the hem of Connor’s pants, laying teasing kisses along the muscled v-shape below the Brit’s abdominals, toying with his tongue down the very edge of the curve before relenting. 

“Te voy a joder los sesos guey,” Luis promsied with a soft murmmer in Connor’s ear. 

Connor’s answer clearly brought Luis up short, confusion mixing with the more straightforward lust on his features. Luis wasn’t particularly good at it, but could pick up sometimes when people lied sometimes. The beat of their heart changed. Even though they were skin to skin Luis hadn’t heart any falter in Connor’s aroused pulse. Maybe Luis wasn’t really in any headspace beyond screwing this guy, but it sounded like he thought he was telling the truth.  

Luis sat up on Connor’s lap for a moment and looked at him with reflective blue eyes that grew brighter at the darkness deepened, lips in cast in a half frown of vexation and both hands lifted behind his head. 

“Shit, don’t even know what to fucking make of you Con,” Conner mumbled after a while, the frown broadening in a toothy smile. Luis stood up and reached down for Conner’s hand with a come-hither look that made clear Luis’ personal suggestion to resolve this quandary. 

“Oh, bloody hell,” Connor murmured under his breath, jeans tightening as he got hard when Luis kissed and licked along his pelvic bone. He’d had a few flings in town, and it hadn’t exactly been that long since his rendezvous with Nell, but there was something incredibly alluring about Luis, the way he took what he wanted, unapologetic and confident, just a little filthy, behind a blue-eyed cherubic face you could take home to your mum. “You’re the kind of lad I could take home to family dinner and give you a blowjob in the bathroom after,” he chuckled. 

Connor ran his fingers through Luis’ light brown hair, tugging it gently as his fist clenched with arousal. “I have no clue what you just said, but it was sexy as hell,” he snickered, practically pulling Luis back to his lips so he could kiss him more firmly, more deeply, more desperately. When their lips parted, his breath caught in his throat, and he twisted the joint out in the ashtray. “Why don’t we go inside and you can make whatever you want of me?” 

Luis let himself be led back to Connor’s bedroom, putting up coy resistance at times, pretending to look around the house with wide innocent eyes but wearing a cruelly teasing smirk. One hand in Connor’s and the other tracing the lined of the cool-colored walls, Luis let the adrenaline of anintipation buoy him up like a chemical tidal wave. For a little while he was just a normal guy horny out of his mind and climbing into a hot brit’s bed. 

There came a cracking sound from somewhere outside the room, like a piledriver being used as a nutcracker. 

Luis jerked up instinctively as it hit his lupine hearing like a gunshot, looking around. “Did you...”  But the sound had stopped or maybe hadn’t existed. Fuck it. “Nevermind,” he murmured, busying him with trying to make out with Connor and get unzip his pants at the same time. 

Connor headed inside, kicking off his shoes and leaving them deserted somewhere in the hall. He threw his shirt on top of the laundry basket, climbing on top of the bed with Luis. He heard nothing, ears not as keen as the werewolf, and let himself be in ignorant bliss for a while. They continued to kiss, leaving him with tousled hair and pants half-unfastened, blood rushing between his legs as they got hotter and heavier. “What?” he whispered against a jawline that could cut glass, but whatever Luis had heard, he’d quickly forgotten. 

He whispered compliments, sighs and groans against Luis’ skin, hands wandering his torso. Their bodies were warm against one another as Connor pressed into him, haphazardly reaching to unfasten his belt before he heard it, an obnoxious sound, miniature saw blades gnawing away beneath him. “What the..” he mumbled, narrowing his eyes and looking at Luis as if to question if he was losing his bloody mind. He rolled over, begrudgingly separating himself to look under the bed. “Oh, FUCK.” Connor scrambled back on the bed, scrambling for the closest object to throw on top of the creature. He was trying to get his rocks off, and there was a fucking demon rat under his bed. 

“Dude…please...” Luis moaned, breathing fast and craving release with all this built up tension. He tried to pull Connor back down to him, skin flush and burning with the raw need that turned every nerve into a livewire. 

But before either batter or pitcher could make the final run towards home base, one corner of the bed vanished in a cloud of sawdust. There was the sound of claws scaping up wood, and Luis choked on another flurry of dry sawdust in his mouth, dust clinging to the sweat on his skin 

Luis found himself face to face with an obese beaver-shrew the size of a dog at the ruined end of the bed, and wondered for a surreal second if he’d gone insane from sheer Blue-Balls. 

“What….holy shit….whu…”

Connor really, truly would have preferred to just stay in bed and take the rest of Luis’ clothes off, doing unspeakable things to one another for the next several hours before having another cigarette and maybe sneak in some cuddling. White Crest, however, had other plans. “Bro! What the fuck--” He scrambled to fasten his pants, willing his boner to go down, which thankfully wasn’t too difficult “You little bugger, I rent this house!” He didn’t know if it was dangerous or not, so he instinctively grabbed for Luis to pull him away, then scrambled for the nearest pair of flip flops. “We gotta go, dude. I have no idea what that thing is.” 

Why...how did this rat have horns? Even while gagging on sawdust and woodchips Luis could smell that this thing wasn’t a dog, rat, squirrel, shrew, or beaver. His rational mind recognized it was impossible that a person could smell that well, but his instincts just sorta knew on a gut level that this wasn’t any animal he’d ever seen before. There was a moment of confusion as his brain and gut disagreed on what was going on. But as usual when shit went down, guts won out. 

Luis let Connor pull him away and he rolled off the side of the bed not occupied by a giant woodchipper on legs. Stumbling into the shoes he’d shed at the bedroom door, he sprinted with Connor through the house and out the front door, the frigid outside air extinguishing the amorous fire in his skin. 

Great. This was just great. He’d found a nice, handsome, and incredibly seductive boy to take to bed, and now he had an infestation of God-Knows-What chewing on his furniture. Connor shook his head, more annoyed than panicked. “I’m so sorry. This is--not what I planned for tonight. I have to call an exterminator.” Or a hunter. “But… this was nice, before it got ruined. I’ll call you, okay?” And with that, he pulled out his phone. 

[driedletters]

The Cruel Prince • Holly Black     ★★★★★

•  Quotes

Jude ran at the man, slamming her fists against his chest, kicking at his legs. She wasn’t even scared. She wasn’t sure she felt anything at all.

•

As for dancing, once begun, you mortals will dance yourselves to death if we don’t prevent it.

•

Three is an odd configuration of sisters. There’s always one on the outside.

•

“Dirt. It’s what you came from, mortal. It’s what you’ll return to soon enough. Take a big bite.” “Make me,” I say before I can stop myself.

•

Nicasia’s wrong about me. I don’t desire to do as well in the tournament as one of the fey. I want to win. I do not yearn to be their equal. In my heart, I yearn to best them.

•

Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest, with black hair as iridescent as a raven’s wing and cheekbones sharp enough to cut out a girl’s heart. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

•

You mean because of Cardan and his Court of Jerks?

•

The pictures are taken one right after the other, the kind you have to sit in a booth for. Vivi is in the photos, her arm draped over the shoulders of a grinning, pink-haired mortal girl.

Having stepped off the edge, what I want to do is fall.

•

Liking both girls and boys is the only thing in this scenario Madoc wouldn’t be upset with Vivi about.

•

I delight in the chemicals that would doubtless sicken all the lords and ladies at the Court.

•

We’ve gone three rounds like this already. I keep thinking of the lazy blink of Cardan’s lashes over his coal-bright eyes. He looked gleeful, gloating, as though my fist tightening on his shirt was exactly what he would have wished. As though, if I struck him, it would be because he had made me do it.

•

Beg. Make it pretty. Flowery. Worthy of me.

•

You think because you can humiliate me, you can control me? Well, I think you’re an idiot. Since we started being tutored together, you’ve gone out of your way to make me feel like I’m less than you. And to coddle your ego, I have made myself less. I have made myself small, I have kept my head down. But it wasn’t enough to make you leave Taryn and me alone, so I’m not going to do that anymore.

• 

As I make my way back to the tournament and my sisters, I can’t stop thinking of Cardan’s shocked face, nor can I stop considering Locke’s smile. I am not altogether sure which is more thrilling and which more dangerous.

•

Not that I’d be the first to green gown her. Faeries

•

It feels a little bit like expecting a proposal of marriage, only to get offered the role of mistress.

•

“Now no one will be able to control you,” he says, and then pauses for a moment. “Except for me.”

•

Truly, he has come by his cruelty honestly in Balekin’s care. He has been raised up in it, instructed in its nuances, honed through its application. However horrible Cardan might be, I now see what he might become and am truly afraid.

•

Welcome,” says the Roach, “to the Court of Shadows.”

•

Not totally Cardan’s puppet like the rest of them.

•

Hard enough to dig through the page, maybe to scar the desk beneath. If that’s what he did to the paper, I shudder to think what he wants to do to me.

•

I have been trying to feel nothing about what happened. I am afraid that if I begin to feel, I won’t be able to bear it. I am afraid that the emotion will be like a wave sucking me under.

It’s not the first awful thing I have endured and pushed into the back of my brain. That’s how I’ve been coping, and if there’s another, better way, I do not know it.

•

He’s kind of a weird kid, maybe because he’s a faerie or maybe because all kids, human or inhuman, are equally weird.

•

Why don’t you ever trust me with him?” I shout, and Oriana wheels around, shocked that I said a thing we don’t say.

•

Mithridatism, it’s called. Isn’t that a funny name? The process of eating poison to build up immunity. So long as I don’t die from it, I’ll be harder to kill.

•

I do not understand why he likes me, but it is exciting to be liked.

•

We are children of tragedy.” He shakes his head and then smiles. “This is not how I meant to begin. I meant to give you wine and fruit and cheese. I meant to tell you how your hair is as beautiful as curling woodsmoke, your eyes the exact color of walnuts. I thought I could compose an ode about it, but I am not very good at odes.”

•

He watches me as the girl kisses his mouth, watches me as she slides her hand beneath the hem of his silly, ruffly shirt.

•

Do not reveal your skill with a blade. Do not reveal your mastery over glamour. Do not reveal all that you can do. Little did Prince Dain know that my real skill lies in pissing people off.

•

I think of Cardan’s mouth, flaked with gold

•

I love my parents’ murderer; I suppose I could love anyone. I’d like to love him.

•

Time to change partners,” a voice says, and I look to see that it’s the worst person possible: Cardan. “Oh,” he says to Locke. “Did I steal your line?”

•

Dark silver paint streaks over his cheekbones, and black lines run along his lashes. The left one is smeared, as though he forgot about it and wiped his eye.

•

With a sigh, I take down my braids, rubbing my hands through my hair until it hangs wild in my face. “You look…” he says, and then trails off, blinking a few times, not seeming able to finish. I am guessing the hair thing worked better than he had expected.

•

Jude?” he asks, up against the wall, pronouncing my name carefully, as though to avoid slurring. I am not sure I have ever heard him use my actual name before. “Surprised?” I ask, a fierce grin starting on my face. The most important boy in Faerie and my enemy, finally in my power. It feels even better than I thought it would. “You shouldn’t be.”

•

The High King Balekin is a friend to my lady’s Court,” Cardan says, silver-tongued in his silver fox mask.

•

Tell me anyway,” he says, and yawns. I really want to slap him.

•

I hate how I feel around him, the irrational panic when I touch his skin.

•

Cardan’s clothes are disarranged, from crawling under tables or being captured and tied, and his infamous tail is showing under the white lawn of his shirt. It is slim, nearly hairless, with a tuft of black fur at the tip. As I watch, the tail forms one wavering curve after another, snaking back and forth, betraying his cool face, telling its own story of uncertainty and fear.

•

Only in my dreams has Cardan ever been like this. Begging. Miserable. Powerless

•

...a love mark on my brow so all who looked upon me would be sick with desire, ...

•

Let’s talk about your behavior tonight,” says Madoc, leaning forward. “Let’s talk about your behavior tonight,” I return.

•

So he proposed to you,” I say. “While the royal family got butchered. That’s so romantic.

•

I think of Cardan tied to a chair to cheer myself.

•

Then I think of the way he looked up at me through the curtain of his crow-black hair, of the curling edges of his drunken smile, and I don’t feel in the least bit comforted.

•

... ‘mortal feelings are so volatile that it’s impossible to help toying with them a little’.

•

He smiles down at me, as if the reason I’m on my knees is because I am curtsying.

•

I’m nervous,” he says. “I smile a lot when I’m nervous. I can’t help it

•

Very well.” He fixes me with a spiteful look. “I hate you because your father loves you even though you’re a human brat born to his unfaithful wife, while mine never cared for me, though I am a prince of Faerie. I hate you because you don’t have a brother who beats you. And I hate you because Locke used you and your sister to make Nicasia cry after he stole her from me. Besides which, after the tournament, Balekin never failed to throw you in my face as the mortal who could best me.

•

Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It’s disgusting, and I can’t stop.”

•

Just looking at him makes me feel hot with shame. “You sure you brought me here just to talk.

•

Jude Duarte, daughter of clay, I swear myself into your service. I will act as your hand. I will act as your shield. I will act in accordance with your will. Let it be so for one year and one day…and not for one minute more.

•

I fix him with a look. “I can be charming. I charmed you, didn’t I?” He rolls his eyes. “Do not expect others to share my depraved tastes.”

•

Oh, really?” The human surprises me by speaking first. “Yes, mortal,” I say, like the hypocrite I am. 

•

We go over the plans again, and Cardan helps us map out Hollow Hall. I try not to be too conscious of his long fingers tracing over the paper, of the sick thrill I get when he looks at me.

•

By this point, I have told this story enough that it’s easy to hit only the necessary parts, to run through the information quickly and convincingly

•

With Vivi, I feel forever doomed to be the little sister, foolish and about to topple over onto my face.

•

I do not have endless patience,” Balekin growls. “Cultivate it,” Cardan says, and with a small bow, he navigates us away from Balekin and Madoc.

•

Jude?” I may never be used to the sound of my name on his lips.

•

The Ghost tosses the crown to my identical twin. It falls at Taryn’s feet.

•

Of Nicasia giving Cardan a lingering kiss on his royal cheek.

•

He rises from the throne. “Come, have a seat.” His voice is replete with danger, lush with menace. The flowering branches have sprouted thorns so thickly that petals are barely visible. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks. “What you sacrificed everything for. Go on. It’s all yours.”

•  Black, Holly. “The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air Book 1)”. 2018.

[somekindoftuber]

vld youtuber AU (klance, part 6)

Note: The city where Shiro and Keith live is called Springdale. I’d pictured both of these towns being in the Carolinas. Again, there are tense changes everywhere (sorry) but I plan to fix them later.

Thank you for all the great feedback!!

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

.

Lance woke up surprisingly early on Saturday. Today they were headed to the fair. He brewed coffee and made a tentative battle plan for the day: walk around, see stalls, a few rides, some games, lunch, maybe renting a scooter to drive up to lookout hill to watch the sunset. It was the perfect opportunity for Lance to stop dancing around the issue and just tell Keith he’s in to him already.

Pidge pokes fun at him through breakfast as Lance makes a group text thread with everyone. They agree to meet up at the south entrance of the fairgrounds at 10:30.

Lance ends up making them late by spending too much time picking out his clothes. Keith and Shiro are both sporting a little pink on their noses and cheekbones from the sun on the beach the day before, but they’re all smiles as they pay for their wrist bands and head into the fair. It’s a typical American county fair ordeal, with rickety rented rides, badly rigged carnival games, and endless booths of cheap nick-nacks and fried foods. But there was always something about the Harborville fair that set it apart. There was an energy here, like the last bang of summer before cool autumn weather swept down the coast.

They buy tokens and move as a group at first, taking a lap around the fair before splitting up. Pidge and Hunk stick together as always, Allura drags Shiro off at a rather brisk pace, and that left Lance and Keith.

“Anything you wanna do?” Lance asks him.

Keith shrugs and smiles. “Anything’s good.”

They walk around for a while, stopping at booths here and there. They run into other members of their group from time to time, and Lance uses his phone to film bits of a vlog for later editing, catching Shiro and Keith in a few bits (“I’m here with my good friends Shiro and Keith! Say hi guys!”). Lance buys an inaugural funnel cake to split with Keith before hitting the prize games. Keith rolls his eyes as Lance goes for the ring toss, a game he swears up and down he’s mastered despite it being horribly rigged.

“Just you watch,” Lance tells Keith as he lines up a ring. “I’m gonna win you the biggest stuffed animal they have, and then you’ll understand my prowess.”

He swears Keith’s cheeks go red as he smiles. “Well, have fun. I’m gonna grab a soda.”

Lance is half disappointed and half relieved that Keith is no longer watching. So of course, when the guy he’s trying to impress leaves, Lance lands all three rings on a pole. He’s carefully eyeing the selection of stuffed prizes when Shiro appears at his left, seemingly out of thin air.

“You know,” he leans in a speaks close to Lance’s ear. “Hippos are Keith’s favorite animal.”

Lance turns to look up at him, confused, before Shiro gives him a knowing smile and walks away. Hippos? Okay, weird, but also kind of cute. When Lance re-examines the prizes, he spots a large pastel blue hippo near the back, with big button eyes, exaggerated stitching, and a white bow around its neck.

“That one,” he tells the game attendant, pointing.

Keith comes trotting back with a soda in each hand a few minutes later. He stops short when Lance comes up to him with the prize hippo in his arms, easily the size of a dog. Keith’s eyes go wide.

“Told you I’d win,” Lance beams, then holds out the stuffed animal. “Here you go.”

There’s an awkward shuffle as Lance takes the sodas so Keith can take the hippo, and Lance absolutely notices how Keith hugs it to his chest.

“Thanks,” Keith tells him, and his cheeks are pink in a way that has nothing to do with his sunburn.

Keith keeps holding the stuffed animal as they walk around, earning him a few stares. Lance has to admit he looks adorable - all sharp and intense, holding a giant fluffy toy like it’s precious treasure. They find the Racho Alegre food truck and Lance buys enough food for five people, setting the trays of empanadas, pork tamales, fried yucca fruit, papas rellenas and fried green plantains. He films a little, too, Keith protesting with a “don’t film me eating!” Lance passes Keith a mate soda and instructs him on how to properly enjoy Cuban food, and is pleased when Keith seems to enjoy all of it.

He might like the guy, a lot, but if Keith had ended up hating the food he grew up with? It might have been a deal breaker.

They chat at the picnic table for a good half hour as they digested, then walk around some more, Lance filming on his phone here and there. He spots the scooter rental place nearby, and eagerly points at it. But when they get closer, he frowns.

“Aw man,” Lance bemoans. “I was thinking it’d be cool to drive up to the hill to watch the air show, but all the scooters are rented out.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. “They’re not? There’s a whole bunch lined up.”

Lance shrugs. “Yeah, but those are the 50cc engine ones. You need a motorcycle license for those.”

“Yeah?” Keith looks unruffled. “I have one.”

Lance hears a record scratch in his brain. “You do?”

With a chuckle, Keith motions him towards the rental desk. “Who do you think test drives the bikes when Shiro’s done with them?”

Lance held the hippo, which he’d dubbed Blue, while Keith filled out paperwork, showing his motorcycle ID and insurance card. Lance caught a glimpse of it, and cooed.

“Aww, short hair!” He smiled at the photo of a younger Keith, scowling at the camera, and noticed two things: first, Keith didn’t have a middle name, and second, there were little tufts of what might be considered a mullet sticking out from behind his neck.

Keith shoved his ID back into his wallet. “Is your photo any better?”

“Actually,” Lance pulled his wallet from his back pocket and produced his driver’s license. “It is.”

Lance was proud of that picture - he was one of the only people he knew that actually took good ID photos. It was like a superpower. Keith was staring at his ID, his eyebrows raised.

“Leandro Sebastian McClain?” He asked.

“Uh.” Lance’s face flushed hot. “Old family name. Lance is kind of a nickname.”

Keith’s smile as he handed the ID back was magical. “Cool.”

Helmets secured, Lance climbed on the back of the dinged-up rental bike behind Keith as he started up the engine, giving him quick directions to the hill that overlooked the bay. Then, with Blue shoved between them, Lance wrapped his arms around Keith’s middle. They took off, and Lance felt a surge of adrenaline as they rode. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been on a real motorcycle, and it was as scary as it was exhilarating. It was also cold, even the warmth of the sun unable compete with the wind that whipped past them. Lance hugged Keith tighter, wishing there wasn’t a stuffed animal between them.

It took a good ten minutes to drive up to the hill, and by the time they arrived, the wind had all but chilled Lance to the bone. The weather was beautiful that day, but it was a different story when you were going 45 miles an hour. His t-shirt and loose button up had done nothing to protect him, and as they reached the hill and stepped off the bike and took off their helmets, Lance set Blue on the bike seat and rubbed at his frozen, goosebump covered arms.

“You okay?” Keith asked.

“Yeah,” Lance laughed a little. “Just kinda cold. Wind’s kinda brutal at that speed.”

Keith blinked at him. “Oh.” Then, like they were in a movie, he removed his leather jacket and deftly swung it around Lance’s shoulders, patting it against his arms. “There, that better?”

Lance willed himself not to melt, because holy shit. That was the most suave thing he’d ever seen. Keith was one seriously smooth bastard. He caught of whiff of the scent coming off the warm leather and blushed hard. It smelled so good.

“Y-yeah,” he stuttered, letting his fingers grip the edge of the jacket and pull it close.

They sat on a patch of grass nearby just as the air show was beginning. Keith watched with rapt attention as the jets performed aerial acrobatics, leaving bright trails of colored smoke that twisted through the sky. When it was over, Keith sighed beside him.

“I wanted to be a pilot,” he said, his gaze fixed on the sky where the sun was beginning to dip towards the horizon.

Lance bumped his shoulder. “You still can be,” he said. “A pilot’s license can’t be that hard to get.”

Keith looked at the ground, shaking his head with a wry smile. “No, I mean… I wanted to be a fighter pilot. In the navy, or the air force.” He picked at a blade of grass. “But I wasn’t exactly cut out for it.”

“What do you mean?” Lance asked carefully.

Keith shrugged and leaned back on his hands. “I’m a high school dropout with a juvenile record,” he explained. “I’ve gotten my shit straightened out since then, but… that stuff sticks.”

Lance frowned. He was starting to realize just how little he knew about Keith - they talked a lot, but it was all superficial information. He didn’t know anything about Keith’s past, or his ambitions.

“It’s fine,” Keith said, interrupting Lance’s train of thought. “I can’t really complain about my life. I’ve got Shiro, I like working on bikes, and I enjoy my job. I’ve got it pretty good.”

Lance was glad to hear that, but it made him frown for a different reason. “Sounds like you’ve got it figured out. I have no idea what I’m gonna do.”

Keith hummed in questioning, and Lance let go of where he was clutching the jacket to wave his hand. “I’ve just been sort of… coasting for the last two years. I have no idea what I’m doing.” he chewed his lip. “YouTube is fun and all, but my dad keeps asking me what my career plans are, and I have no clue. I can’t just work cafe jobs forever, and Pidge is probably leaving after she graduates in a few months. I don’t even know where I’m gonna end up living.” He rubbed at his eyes.

Keith was quiet for a long time. “What about music?” he offered. Lance shrugged.

“Dunno if I want to go down that road,” he answered. “Being a musician is really unpredictable, unreliable. I doubt I could swing it.”

If Lance wasn’t spiraling into a pity-party, he would have appreciated how adorable Keith’s little pout was. “Well,” Keith offered. “What about teaching music?”

Lance blinked owlishly at him. “Say what?”

“I mean,” Keith started fidgeting. “You’ve said before that you like working with kids, and you play like four instruments, and you can read music…” He looked at Lance. “Why not combine them?”

Lance heard a record scratch for the second time that day. Holy crap. Holy crap. He’d never even considered it, but a career as a music teacher? That sounded… okay. That sounded good.

“I’d--” he swallowed, feeling his pulse quicken with excitement. “I’d probably need to get a degree in music education. But it’s doable.”

Keith beamed at him. “Yeah! Plus…” His face went pink as he looked to the side. “I was thinking, um. Since Pidge will be leaving and all, and there’s a good school in Springdale, you could..” Keith bit at his lower lip. “You could move there. With m-- with us.”

Lance inhaled softly as he looked at Keith. The sun had turned golden, lighting his face and making him glow, and it took Lance’s breath away.

“Also,” Keith put his hand over Lance’s where it rested on the grass. His fingers were shaking. “I, uh.” His voice dropped, so quiet Lance could barely hear. “I really like you.”

Lance gasped. Keith’s confession was so sincere and scared and it made his heart thump against his ribs, a wide smile cracking his face. Oh god, it was happening. He’d fantasized about this moment more times than he could count and it was happening, up on the hill overlooking the bay, with the beautiful sunset and Keith’s jacket around his shoulders. He had to be dreaming.

“I really like you,” Lance told him, turning his hand to thread their fingers together. “A lot.”

Keith huffed a little laugh and oh, he was so gorgeous, his hold on Lance’s hand tightening. Lance wants so badly to kiss him.

“Go out with me?” Lance asked.

Keith’s face fell, shock replacing the gentle smile he’d been wearing. “Oh. Um.”

It was like a bucket of cold water was dumped on Lance’s head as Keith pulled his hand away. Had he misread everything anyway? Was that too forward?

“I was thinking,” Keith began, his voice shaking a little. “That we could just… get to know each other more first?” He began clasping and unclasping his hands. “I’ve never really been in a relationship, plus we live five hours apart, and…” He pouted. “I mean, I didn’t even know your name wasn’t Lance until twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh.” Oh. Keith… had a point. Lance didn’t even know he had a motorcycle license until today. It was probably a good idea to get to know Keith better before attempting to dive headfirst into romance. Lance felt the relief like a physical weight. “You... wanna take it slow?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Lance could barely believe this was real. He leaned forward until his forehead rested against Keith’s and laughed softly.

“Sounds good to me.”

He thought this would be a good time to kiss, but they didn’t, eventually pulling apart to drive the bike back to the rental shop by the fairgrounds. Lance kept Keith’s jacket, slipping his arms through the sleeves and pressing his chest as close to Keith’s back as he could for the ride.

.

They made a trip to Lance’s car to stash Blue in the trunk for safe keeping, and as the sun was setting, grabbed a couple of beers and headed to the meeting point they’d arranged with everyone to watch the fireworks. Allura and Shiro had already spread a blanket out on the grass and were chatting. Keith and Lance took a seat near them, sitting close together.

Allura laughed, then Lance remembered his promise to Romelle. He whipped out his phone.

(+328) hey ‘melle you wanna come watch the fireworks at the fair??

(+396) Lance I just finished a 10 hour shift, that’s a hell no

He frowned, then discreetly aimed his camera at Allura and snapped a photo just as she was laughing, then sent it.

(+328) but cute girl looks lonely

There’s a long pause.

(+396) BE THERE IN 15

Pidge and Hunk eventually joined them, just as the grassy field was becoming crammed with people wanting the best seat for the fireworks. Beside Lance, Shiro looked a little odd, swaying slightly, his eyes dilated.

“Shiro?” Lance asked, keeping his voice down. “Are… are you high?”

Then Shiro laughed loud, threw his head back and really laughed. “Nah, no. Well, okay, yeah. Kinda.” He shrugs. “Fireworks kinda freak me out, after - y’know. So I took a xanax. They make me loopy as fuck, but I didn’t want to miss this.”

Lance blinked. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Shiro cuss before.

Romelle arrived twenty minutes later, just before the fireworks were scheduled to start. Lance did introductions and was pleased to see Romelle take a seat next to Allura, the two of them immediately striking up a conversation about coffee. Mission accomplished.

When the fireworks started, Lance leaned into Keith, feeling Keith return the motion. It was nice to not have to hide his affection anymore, or stay on guard. And if Lance watched the fireworks from the reflection in Keith’s eyes? Well, that was no one’s business but his.

After the fair, they retreat to Lance’s apartment to hang out and chat. Shiro is coming off his xanax and is having trouble staying awake, perking up only when Keith hands him a glass of water. Romelle and Allura trade social media handles and Lance feels a little smug about getting to play matchmaker for them. But mostly, he’s happy about Keith, who sits so close to him, who let Lance keep wearing his jacket.

It’s late and Allura decides they need to go, so everyone piles out of Lance’s apartment at once. Keith is the last one out, and Lance shyly lets the jacket slip off his shoulders and hands it back.

“Thanks,” He says. Keith grins.

“Anytime. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Once the door closes, Lance leans his head against it, grinning wide. He gets about sixty seconds of peace before Pidge and Hunk lay into him.

“Please,” Pidge groans, “Please tell me you two are dating now.”

“Nope,” Lance grins wolfishly at her as Pidge flings her body backwards onto the sofa with a howl of frustration. Hunk just smiles knowingly at him.

“But you’re going to. Right?”

Lance toes off his shoes and goes for his room. “Eventually.” From the couch, Pidge yells that she hates him.

.

The next morning they have an early brunch at Lance’s favorite diner on the marina, trading stories of their adventures at the fair. Pidge and Hunk show videos on their phones of the rides and games they played. Lance films again, and takes a group photo of all of them with their mimosas and fancy biscuits.

When Lance sees them off for their drive back to Springdale, Keith pulls him into hug. It’s soft and nice and Keith is so warm, Lance taking a deep breath and inhaling his smell. When they pull apart, Keith’s eyes are glittering.

Lance waves at the car as his three friends drive off, feeling happy and light.

.

Continued in part seven!

[twilightttv-a]

what vibes do you have?

aaron, bryce, nilo

heartache and hellscape You’re sharp edges and razor-smiles and jacket patches and stereos. You don’t care about the damage you cause because you refuse to believe that you’re destroying yourself. You don’t care as long as you make sure that you’re in some way making sure that someone else gets something better out of it. You hate the government and you hate everything you’ve ever been told in school, and you like the graffiti in bathrooms but you’re too afraid to add any yourself. You think there’s nothing about you that’s memorable and that’s not true, but you have an odd, fluctuating relationship with how you view yourself. Sometimes you completely devolve into reading 100,000 words in a nighit and destroying your sleep schedule because you think the bags under your eyes are cool and there’s nothing about you that you think people will notice. You don’t like talking to the cashier at the grocery store and you think McDonald’s fries are way better than Burger King’s. You have an odd relationship with everything you read because you don’t want to do two hours of research but you don’t like to take things for surface value. You’re watching the world crumble and you have no one to hold and it hurts so much that you want to burn it all down yourself. You watch too many nature documentaries and like vampires more than werewolves but hate bringing up how much you know about lore. You read the Percy Jackson series when you were a pre-teen and now it comes up every so often like a ghost from the past. You never watch new shows and you hate using other streaming services because you’re so used to Netflix’s layout. The fridge is always half empty and you’re numb to your parents arguing. You’re numb to the world in the same way an Instagram photo has heart filters.

Andy, Cir, Rickey

chapstick and firecrackers Everything about you is GO GO GO. You wake up and you don’t know what you’re doing, and most of the time you can drag yourself out of bed enough to figure it out. You hate being at home and you hate being alone, but you don’t quite feel at home in crowds and you don’t trust many people with your secrets. Your calendar is chock full of events and reminders and you never remember any of them, and you’re always texting, but never with an actual messenger app. You don’t take enough time to sit down and eat a proper breakfast and you don’t mind running so long as it’s away from whatever you don’t like. You tend to distract yourself from the things happening in your life and people notice, and they worry, but you’re loud and you smile too much and they assume everything is okay. You don’t know what burn out is but it’s that feeling you get when everything seems like too much, and you’re not immune to being human. You like everywhere that you were told not to go when you were a kid and you like to hang out with people that your parents would never approve of. You’ve got a knack for finding little trinkets and people like to make fun of you for collecting them but they feel like little pieces of your heart. You keep your room clean so you can’t experience any of that dead feeling you get in midday when it’s messy but you never put your laundry away. With you, it’s always music and colors and you don’t savor the food you taste.

Dave, TJ

dandelions and paintings Everything about you is made to make you appear soft and cute to anyone looking in, through the glass. You have a thing for alt rock but if anyone asks you listen to Taylor Swift exclusively and have no idea who Corey Taylor is - and you like Stone Sour more than Slipknot. You used to pick dandelions to give to your parent as a kid and always got sad when they were thrown away for being weeds. You don’t know why people are so cruel and to you specifically, and everyone seems to want something from you no matter what you do. It’s just that simple. It’s never “Thank you!” It’s “Thank you for doing this for me!” You don’t know how to trust people and you don’t realize it, but you prefer making flower crowns over anything else. You’re enamoured with your favorite color and you love the aesthetic of the 2000’s because you hate looking at current events. You have the current tragedies in the making as you call them blacklisted on all social media and half of your former friends have you blocked. You say you don’t do discourse but you crave an argument no matter how bad it makes you feel. You have a thing for dangerous animals and you don’t know what the whole deal with romance is. You crave a best friend more than that. You never realize what you have before it’s gone and you always remember the aftertaste of cough medicine.

Mal, Roxanne

polaroids and memories Everything you do is something that you wish you could capture in a photo, a polaroid, maybe with shitty lens flares and red eyes but something to remember you by. You know so much but you don’t know how to talk about it and you don’t like your friends. You think that you just need better friends, need to be able to talk to people, but that isn’t your fault. You don’t get along with your parents and you spend way too much giggling over stupid shit to make you feel better about yourself. You’re shit at naming things and you never like trying new things out before you automatically expect to be good at it. You were always the gifted child in elementary school and you never learned how to cry silently. You don’t get social hierarchies and you don’t understand politics but you understand that people deserve to be people. You feel like nothing you do matters but it matters to you and that keeps you from the brink at your worst moments. Your room has the worst lighting and you hate your city and you have a weird relationship with Blink 182. You can never remember to clean anything and you get along with animals so well because they like to play with you and you like that you don’t have to take care of them. You don’t trust yourself and you don’t realize it, but you crave anything to make sure that you don’t realize that. You chip your nail polish any time you wear any and you forget to brush your teeth and sometimes the world crashes down on your shoulders. You like to tell yourself current events in your life like you’re telling it as a story in the future of “that one time”.

Trevor, Tyrus 

netflix and dreams You're tired, you've been tired for weeks and you don't know why. Everything was going well but then you crashed and you can't figure out why. You've had the same thing in the same layout in your room for years and you don't like turning on your light. You have a new favorite word every day because you're self-conscious about using the same word too much and you don't really fit in anywhere. You have your stuffed animals and your tech and you tell yourself that that's all you need. You don't eat breakfast with your family and they're worried about you. You don't answer your phone - you used to, but now you rarely take it off silent. You re-watch old cartoons because you can never watch anything in the background unless you've seen it a million times and you feel bad about throwing your stuffies across the bed. You think you're all alone but you're not, not really, and people want to help you, but it's hard to see when you're only texting. You like to use your laptop more than your phone. You've got strong opinions about everything but feel like expressing them won't matter. You like to tell yourself that you'll remember the little notes you stick everywhere. They never help.

[styledeepdive]

The Body Types of Men

Hi there! Welcome to my Men’s Style Guide. Settle in, because we are about to take a long, hard look at the different body types of men, and what looks best on different types of guys. I do style reports primarily based on a system of body typing invented by a dude named David Kibbe so we call it the Kibbe system. The idea is that there are 5 main body types that are based on bone structure. The types are Dramatic (tall and narrow), Natural (tall and broad), Classic (a symmetrical blending of all the types), Romantic (small, rounded, and slightly wide), and Gamin (a chaotic mixture primarily of dramatic and romantic, typically quite small).    In this system we also talk about yin (rounded, soft, “feminine” features) and yang (prominent, sharp features, steep angles, and vertical lines).  Clothing recommendations are based on how much yin/yang mixture you have in your own body. No type is “better” than any other type, and your type does not change with age or weight. The following is MY INTERPRETATION of the body types. Some of these men are verified types by David Kibbe, some are simply my best guesses. My styling tips are based off of my own observations as well as information gleaned off of chatrooms and forums that discuss Kibbe body typing. This is not, in any way, an official Kibbe typing, just my opinions. There is not a lot of verified information on the body types of men, so I’m doing my best with what I got.   (From left to right, Dramatic, Natural, Classic, Romantic, and Gamin)

So, let’s explore the main types a little further.

DRAMATICS   Dramatic men are tall and long, with an extremely sharp bone structure, and very straight, narrow, facial features. They have an overall combination of strong, sharp physicality, a cool reserve, and a charismatic power. They are the most sharp + angular of all the types. As actors, dramatic men are often cast as the evil genius or the aloof, brooding hero.  Sometimes both!  Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Walken, Daniel Craig, and Mads Mikkelsen are Dramatics.   

  The thing that most people first notice about dramatics is how visually striking they are. They can appear almost “brutal” to the eye. They have long vertical lines, with long arms and legs, and long faces, often with narrow eyes, prominent noses, and/or thin lips. They faces can appear quite chiseled to the eye, as their bone structure is sharp and protruding. They often have chiseled features, high prominent cheekbones, and overall read as lean, even when they gain some fat or put on some muscle. They are usually quite tall, at least 6 feet.  Dramatic men look their best in stiff fabrics with clean, long lines of color.  Large lapels and high, stiff necklines look great on them.  Often these lines are used to further highlight their prominent cheekbones.  Their hair looks good slicked back and bold, or sculpted in geometrically in some way. Monochromatic outfits look incredibly chic on them.  Long stiff coats look amazing on them. Minimalist outfits look best on them.  Go for bold, clean, and sleek lines.  This includes the face: seems like clean shaven is more flattering than facial hair, generally.

When they are photographed, they are typically posed in a stern manner, not smiling. Usually their cheekbones are highlighted by a steep, straight angle near the face.  Often they are shot in black and white to maximize their contrast and natural contours. On other body types this severe style can look a little silly, but on dramatics it looks just right. 

Dramatic men look a little weird in overly soft looks, drapey looks, beachy looks, boho looks, or any fabric that isn’t stiff enough to compliment their structured body. Avoid bisecting the body in half with a color block. Avoid sloppy untucked looks. Avoid colorful, contrasting details near the face.  Avoid overly colorful prints and busy patterns in general. Avoid also overly slim, hipster-cut looks, you need a little room in your clothes to look your best.

 To look your most memorable, create long, unbroken lines of color as much as possible.  

A boxy wool trench coat with a stiff collar would also look amazing on any Dramatic, and could be your signature piece. Go for it.

 Soft Dramatics Soft Dramatics are exactly what they sound like: a person who has a tall, angular dramatic skeleton but with more flesh on their bones, so giving an overall softer appearance to the body. They can be a bit wider than true Dramatics, as well.  Matthew McConaughey, RuPaul, John Travolta, Christian Bale, Nicholas Cage, Alan Rickman, and MTT are Soft Dramatics.

Because they by definition they are a tall or tall-appearing type, they look great in monochromatic looks as well, but with a softer, more luscious, shinier fabric in the sleeves, neckline, or otherwise accenting the look to soften it.  Here you can really see the long vertical line still present in the bodies, but you can also see an overall softer appearance to the body, especially in the face - fleshier cheeks, larger eyes, fuller lips - and typically styling themselves with a softer, more rounded outline.

In this photo I hope you can see how much softer and fleshier the face appears to us than it does on pure Dramatics, whose skin is much tighter over the bones.  This is not a weight thing, all of these men are quite lean - this is just a way that the flesh forms over the bones.   Still, at the end of these day these men have dramatic skeletons, with prominent noses, jaws, and brows, and long arms and legs - and that’s important to remember when trying to identify them.

Soft Dramatics can dress in Dramatic lines, but also want to acknowledge their extra yin (rounded, soft features) by adding in some softer, rounder lines to their clothes and hair.    One way to do this is by using fun rounded accessories, like oversized glasses or big bow ties, scarfs or even ascots. Now - I’m not entirely sure if Ru Paul is soft dramatic or dramatic, but this picture of him, where he’s posing with himself in drag, is one of my favorites, because you can see how Kibbe’s soft dramatic style suggestions work regardless of gender presentation - Here Ru is showcasing long lines of color but with added, rounded elements (hair, glasses, scarves, neckline, even the curve of his bald head) in both outfits.

One thing I noticed about soft dramatics is that they can really pull off the sweater-underneath-a-jacket look.  This makes sense: stiff and structured shape of the blazer plus the softer, more rounded shape of the hoodie around the face is a nice compliment to the yin/yang balance.  

I also found that cowboy hats looked pretty good on Soft Dramatic actors, as it’s stiff and bold enough for them but also rounded.  I thought that was interesting.

Yup, it checks out for Ru too! Not his most memorable look for sure, but wouldn’t you agree he pulls it off surprisingly well?

And in conclusion, here’s a few more of MTT looking dramatic and soft at the same time, perfectly illustrating this body type (check out those glasses!). Thanks, buddy.

NATURALS Naturals are characterized  by broad shoulders and a muscular body type, with an angular but broad bone structure, and wide facial features that tend to be blunt edged. They are a naturally athletic body type that often looks pretty strong, muscular and slightly wide, even when overweight.  They have a casual physicality, and a fresh and open essence. They can be moderate in height to very tall.  

  Natural Men look good in natural fabrics, casual outlines, matte sheens, and need a bit of space around the neckline. A typical uniform for a natural man is a v-neck t-shirt and tapered jeans.  Denim + suede jackets look great on them.    Button down shirts should have one or two buttons undone (at least) to look best.   

Naturals are split into two groups - Flamboyant Naturals and Soft Naturals. Flamboyant Naturals Flamboyant Naturals are usually on the taller side, with a bit more angularity than soft naturals. They may have a sharp nose or chiseled jaw, or longer arms and legs. They are very wide through the chest the torso; they are what we often refer to as “barrel-chested.” Because of their extra yang, Flamboyant Naturals can pull off more dramatic lines than soft naturals, but they both still look their best in a more relaxed, casual style.  Flamboyant Naturals are typically quite athletic, and it doesn’t take much for them to gain quite a bit of mass.  Even though Flamboyant Naturals can look great in suits, they just look the most themselves, their most charismatic when they’re a little bit scruffy. Here’s Harrison Ford in various states of unzipped-ness, for your consideration.  Give the people what they want, Harrison! These men, when actors, are cast as superheros. Chris Hemsworth,  Winston Duke, and Hugh Jackman are all Flamboyant Naturals (although only one, Hugh Jackman, is verified by David Kibbe).  Here they are in their “natural” state (har har).

And here they are doing that whole adventurer thing that looks so good on them:

And here they are a bit more cleaned up:

Even though Flamboyant Naturals can look great in suits, they just look the most themselves, their most charismatic when they’re a little bit scruffy. Here’s Harrison Ford in various states of unzipped-ness, for your consideration.  Give the people what they want, Harrison! 

  Because of their extra yang, Flamboyant Naturals can pull off come crisp, tapered lines.  Matte finishes are still best. A slim-fitting, tapered silhouette on Harrison Ford looks really nice here.

Soft Naturals Soft Naturals are a little softer in flesh, a little smaller in build, and a little “cuter” than Flamboyant Naturals. They really look their best in matte fabrics and with a significant amount of room at the neckline. Loosely tucked in shirts look nice. Fabrics like suede and cotton look great. These men, when actors, are often cast as the rough-and-tumble, lovable but slightly scruffy hero. Brad Pitt, Naveen Andrews, Tom Cruise, and George Clooney are all Soft Naturals.  

Soft naturals look so good with loose, rounded draping that photographers will literally pose them in bathrobes, or with water splashed on them. They’re the only type i found with professional photos like these! I think you can see even here that the more relaxed, the more tousled the look is, the more correct it looks and feels.  A little bit of drape goes a long way.   Always give your head and neck a little room to breathe. Rounded collars or soft v-necks with a little bit an undone feel to them look fantastic on you.  

Matte fabrics like suede look better than shiny, reflective fabrics like smooth leather on all Natural types.  

I think that’s because Soft Naturals read as “earthy,” and we want to see them in down to earth fabrics and colors.  Tom Cruise and Naveen Andrews both demonstrate great soft natural looks here. 

Another consistent trait of soft natural is that loose and draped looks better than high and stiff around the face and neck.  If this is consistently true for you, then that’s a decent clue that you may be a soft natural.  Or if you like to take your shirt off as often as possible.  That’s also a clue.

All Natural men look great with some pigment in their skin (a tan), some facial hair,  and a scruffy, undone look to the hair.  Anything too sculpted will seem stuffy on them. They are most often posed in motion, or in a way that looks candid, because otherwise they can look a bit stiff. CLASSICS Classics are balanced between the extremes of Yin and Yang. They are characterized by a symmetrical body type, with a tapered, even bone structure, and very regular, evenly spaced facial features. They are often photographed highlighting their cool, reserved essence. Pure Classics are pretty rare, they usually still have a slight undercurrent of either yin or yang.  John Slattery (below, left) is a Soft Classic. He is primarily balanced but with a yin undercurrent. You can see he is slightly softer, more tapered, more rounded, and more delicate than John Hamm (below, right) who is a Dramatic Classic, and has a bolder, more yang undercurrent.  Overall, however, both men read as moderate and symmetrical overall. 

Mad men is a fun show to watch for men’s fashion because they cast a bunch of classic actors and then put them in a bunch of classic suits, at least in the beginning.  John Hamm and John Slattery wore the classic suits in Mad Men so well that they literally revived the grey suit in the mid 2010s (the sale of suits doubled between 1998 - 2014, in part due to the show).  I love Mad Men for many reasons, but one of my favorite things they did was show, not tell, how Roger Sterling and Don Draper fit into their era (and then were subsequently left behind) simply through the lines of their clothes.

Classics are easily overwhelmed by bold colors and patterns, or asymmetrical details.  We can see here how unnatural John Slattery looks in this outfit on the right, and how balanced he looks in clean, simple lines on the left.  It’s clear simply through the lines of his clothes that  by the end of the show Roger Sterling (John Slattery) no longer dominates the world around him, and feels unnatural and awkward in it.

In real life John Hamm often tries to experiment with a more whimsical style than what his dramatic classic lines suggest he should wear.   I think the effect is that his specialness is lost, and he looks pretty unremarkable/overwhelmed in many of his chosen looks.  You can really see here that it is so easy to overwhelm his face and body unless he is in the simplest, crispiest of designs!!

I’d venture a guess that Daniel Dae Kim is a Dramatic Classic as well. He definitely has some Drama to his face, but I’d argue his whole body reads as overall moderate.  He is dignified and stoic looking in a similar manner as John Ham, and he looks fantastic in simple, clean designs. 

Idris Elba is another strongly Classic man, possibly a Pure Classic.  I believe Idris Elba was voted “sexiest man alive” at some point, and it’s not hard to see why. This is a man who looks equally at home on the red carpet or in jeans and a t-shirt.

I mean, my God.  So elegant.  So stylish.  So chic! 

But something funny happens if we try to mess with Idris Elba’s timeless look.  First of all, any attempt to overtly sexualize him backfires spectacularly.  The photos below look awkward and even a little vulgar. I mean, what even is this? 

Here Idris is actually demonstrating a reverse-Harrison Ford:  Even though Idris is beautifully sculpted by the gym and by God, he really looks his personal best when he’s buttoned back up and in simple, clean clothes. 

Similarly, an overly soft or whimsical look on Idris is certainly not his most memorable look, and I’d argue looks a little awkward on him.

The lesson here is that to look their best, Classics need to stick to simple cuts, minimal detail, clean lines, and one or two colors per outfit.  When they do that, they will come off as being effortlessly elegant and chic, and all eyes in the room will be on them.  If you’re a classic: stick to basics! ROMANTICS Ah! Romantic Men.  A misunderstood type, with many stereotypes that we will work to dispel. Romantic men are moderate to small, with a soft physicality and a magnetic essence.  Their bone structure is delicate and smallish with a tendency towards wideness. Their facial bones are small and delicate, and their facial features can be lush, full, and sensual.  I think, because of our gender-normative culture, that some men might resist being typed as a romantic. But they shouldn’t!! Romantic men are absolutely glorious.

Romantic men look best when they wrap themselves in softer, lush, fuzzy fabrics.  They look amazing in scarves, sweaters, lightweight to medium weight jackets, and with longer, rounded hair cuts.  Despite what many might assume, this is what highlights their male energy the most!   Kit Harrington is a really great example of this.  He looks best wrapped in furs and with long curly hair, and every time he or his stylist try to “man-up” his look (pictured below), it can get a little awkward.

To me, these looks end up accomplishing the opposite of what is intended: Kit looks alternately a bit stuffed, a bit gawky, and a bit tiny all at the same time.  However, as soon as we put him in his lines, his male energy becomes absolutely breathtaking: 

One quick way to help identify a romantic man is to see how good he looks in a scarf.  Not many men look good with soft draping next to their face, but Romantics always do, the more plush the better.  

Steven Yuen is not a verified Romantic by Kibbe but I really think he fits the bill.  He has a short veritcal line, is slightly wide, with rounded eyes, a wider nose, a soft mouth, a tapered jaw, and looks best in big sweaters and wooly fabrics.  

Leonardo DiCaprio is the quintessential Romantic man who battles against his nature. In his quest to be taken more seriously as an actor he tried his best to shed his “pretty-boy” image and look as sleek and sculpted and brutal as possible.  Ironically, he looks his most dynamic doing exactly the opposite.

Leo so hates wearing anything even suggesting Romantic these days it was a struggle to find a picture of him wearing a scarf when i did the collage of romantics in scarves. However, I found this incredible photograph that Annie Liebowitz took of Leo where she knew to drape him in something soft to actually help bring out his male energy.  The combination of soft and brutal in this photo is absolutely breathtaking, and so, so memorable.  Leo has not looked “memorable” for about 25 years, in my opinion, because he has refused to allow himself to be photographed or filmed in a vulnerable, soft way for decades. Ok… that’s not entirely fair. The closest he has came to nailing his lines in any movie since Titanic was actually the Revenant, because at least he had long hair and they draped him in fur.  Mere coincidence that he was finally memorable enough in the judge’s minds to win the Oscar?? :P

Theatrical Romantic If a Romantic has some dramatic influence to them and has some sharper bones and a thinner silhouette, then they are called Theatrical Romantic. They are primarily soft, like Romantics, but with a narrower silhouette and some sharper bones.  They can wear sharper lines to go with their dramatic influence, but should remember to keep fabrics loose and soft. Orlando Bloom, Prince, Kurt Cobain and Johnny Depp are Theatrical Romantics.

Theatrical Romantic men can wear all manner of ornamentation and look great. Rings, necklaces, hats, boas, big round sunglasses, flowers, polka-dots, etc. Hair looks great when it’s long and maybe a bit straighter than Romantics would style it (but still reading as flowy). They can really have fun with eclectic looks, bo-ho looks, or glam looks.  And they really do look their personal best when they do this. 

Casual looks are elevated by adding jewelry, tattoos, bandanas, and by using lightweight t-shirts that have some cling but also some drape.

Johnny Depp really knows how to pull off posing with a rug. Imagine Idris Elba or Harrison Ford trying to do that.

Here’s an idea: learn to play guitar just so you can use it as an aesthetic accessory! Just kidding.  

But it does seem like an awful lot of iconic musicians are theatrical romantics. Prince sure figured out how to make it work for him.

And Kurt Cobain!  People forget, but Kurt Cobain was of moderate height and had a very delicate, soft bone structure.  Look at his face. Look at how beautiful, how feminine, and how soft the facial features are.  Notice also, though, how sharp some of the facial bones are: like the chin, the thin nose, and the jaw line. 

Kurt Cobain was the anti-fashion style icon whose signature look shaped an entire generation’s aesthetic. The Kurt Cobain look still haunts all manner of musician to this day! And no one was more freaked-out by this than Kurt himself, who would tell reporters over and over again that this was just how he dressed. He would tell people his jeans had holes in them because buying new ones seemed like a waist of money.  He got his sweaters from thrift stores with rips in them because he didn’t give a fuck.  His hair was long because he was too lazy to cut it.  WHY THE FUCK WAS EVERYONE TRYING TO COPY HIM? 

Who knows how true this really is, but I will say that by around 1994 it does seem like Kurt Cobain was deliberately trying to troll the fashion editors who wrote about him by slapping on the most aggressively ugly, often feminine clothes he could find and daring people to copy him.

The ironic thing is that by adding mix and match soft eclectic accessories all over his body, Kurt was actually just making himself look better and better. That’s the weird magic of the theatrical romantic body type.  And when that accidental ornateness was met with a bit more openness and vulnerability in his face, the effect was that he looked incredibly himself, incredibly memorable, and frankly timeless.

Gamin We come now to Gamin men, who are characterized by their combination of opposites. Their yin is in their size and facial features, and they can read as small and boyish. Their yang is in their body type and bone structure. They are an overall combination of opposites on the yin and yang scale; sharply delicate physicality along with a fresh and zesty essence.  

For some people it can be a little hard to tell gamins and theatrical romantics apart at first just by the body typing. But the lines don’t lie: if you look best in high necklines, crisp patterns, contrasted colors, and extremely precision fitted silhouettes then you are a gamin!   Gamins really do have a youthful, playful energy that translates into photographs. It’s best if they are photographed in motion, but if not in motion then at least laughing or glaring or doing something energetic.   When there is a mischevious look in their eyes their whole face lights up and feels correct. There are two sub categories of gamins: soft gamins and flamboyant gamins. 

Soft Gamins

Soft Gamins read as small, thin, boyish, and yet still with an undercurrent of soft and rounded. They can have softer facial features, softer flesh, shorter arms and legs, rounder eyes, softer lips.  Fred Astaire is Kibbe’s only verified soft gamin but I think Bruno Mars and maybe Daniel Radcliffe fit the bill.

If you are a soft gamin, precision fitted clothing with high necklines and colorful, contrasting patterns is the name of the game.  Skinny, cropped pants look fantastic. Tight fitting polo shirts look fantastic.  Thin ties with fun patterns look fantastic. Pocket squares and other fun accessories look great as long as it looks crisp and fresh. Hair looks best when it’s slightly tousled and playful looking. 

Gamins run into trouble when they try to be too rugged, oversized, or casually dressed. It’s simply not their best look, and baggy clothes will actually highlight their smallness, creating the opposite of what i imagine would be the intended effect.

When dressing for events, go for as precision fitted as possible. This is not an exaggeration.  This is the silhouette that will allow you to shine in a room full of other people.  It will look crisp and correct on you, and everything else will dull your shine.

Flamboyant Gamin

Flamboyant Gamins are similar to Soft Gamins but with a slightly more angular build. They can have longer arms and legs, more squarish jaw, more prominent noses.   They still need crisp, sharp outlines to look fresh, but have a little more wiggle room to play with bolder shapes and different fabrics.  Bold prints look amazing on them, high contrast looks are incredibly chic on them. Rami Malek, Frank Sinatra, and Neil Patrick Harris are flamboyant gamines. 

Things like zebra print, pointy shoes, and super high crisp collars look amazing on Flamboyant Gamins. They get into trouble again when they try to go for a sporty or overly casual look.  

Like soft gamins, keep event-wear fitted, but also go for bold, crisp geometrics when possible.  Stiff bow ties and long thin ties look equally wonderful.

Conclusion + Sources + Resources Whether you’re a dude who’s trying to figure out your style, a partner of a dude who’s trying to help, or someone who’s just starting to experiment with menswear for any reason, I hope you’ve found this post helpful.  Please let me know what type you think you are in the comments!   When researching for this post I found the following websites + youtube videos to be incredibly helpful:

Aly Art’s video “Do Men Have Body Types?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yHTkciJGLg The Sacred in the Secular: Men’s Kibbe Types https://charitysplace.wordpress.com/2019/06/26/male-kibbe-types/ Truth is Beauty: Some Thoughts on the Style Types of Male Celebs https://www.truth-is-beauty.com/blog/some-thoughts-on-the-style-types-of-male-celebs On the Enduring Influence of Mad Men Style: https://therake.com/stories/style/enduring-influence-mad-men-style/ -

[gottaread13]

13

ELEVEN

WAITING ON DOC’S DOORSILL AT WORK WAS A POSTCARD FROM some island he had never heard of out in the Pacific Ocean, with a lot of vowels in it’s name. The cancellation was in French and initialed by a local postmaster, along with the notation courier par lance-coco which as close as he could figure from the Petit Larousse must mean some kind of catapult mail delivery involving coconut shells, maybe as a way of dealing with an unapproachable reef. The message on the card was unsigned, but he knew it was from Shasta. “I wish you could see these waves. Its one more of these places a voice from somewhere else tells you you have to be. Remember that day with the Ouija board? I miss those days and I miss you. I wish so many things could be different… Nothing was supposed to happen this way, Doc, I’m so sorry.” Maybe she was, then again, maybe not. But what about this Ouija board? Doc went stumbling through his city dump of a memory. Oh …oh, sure, dimly… it had been during one  of those prolonged times of no dope, nobody had any, everybody was desperate and suffering lapses of judgment. People were opening up cold capsules and laboriously sorting the thousands of tiny beads inside by color, in the belief that each color stood for a different belladonna alkaloid, which taken in big enough doses would get them loaded. They were snorting nutmeg, drinking cocktails of Visine and inexpensive wine, eating packets of morning-glory seeds despite rumors that the seed companies were coating them with some chemical that would make you throw up. Anything. One day when Doc and Shasta were over at Sortilege’s house, she mentioned this Ouija board she had. Doc had a brainflash. “Hey! You think it knows where we can score?” Sortilege raised her eyebrows and shrugged, but waved a go- ahead hand at the board. The usual suspicions then arose, like how could you be sure the other person wasn’t deliberately moving the planchette to make it look like some message from beyond, and so on. “Easy as pie,” Sortilege said, “just do it all by yourself.” Following her instructions, Doc breathed himself deeply and carefully into a receptive state, letting the tips of his fingers rest as lightly as possible on the planchette. “Now, make your request, and see what happens.” “Groovy,” said Doc. “Hey—where can I find some dope, man? a-and, you know, good shit?” The planchette took off like a jackrabbit, spelling out almost faster than Shasta could copy an address down Sunset somewhat east of Vermont, and even throwing in a phone number, which Doc promptly dialed. “Howdy, dopers,” cooed a female voice, “we’ve got whatever you need, and remember—the sooner you get over here, the more there’ll be left for you.” “Yeah like whom I talking to? Hello? Hey!” Doc looked at the receiver, puzzled. “She just hung up.” “Could’ve been a recording,” said Sortilege. “Did you hear what she was screaming at you? ‘Stay away! I am a police trap!’” “You want to come along, keep us out of trouble?” She looked doubtful. “I have to advise you at this point that it might not be anything. See, the problem about Ouija boards—” But Doc and Shasta were already out the door and soon rattling up the chuckholed obstacle course known as Rosecrans Boulevard under a cloudless sky, in the sort of perfect daylight you always saw on TV cop shows, unshaded even by the eucalyptus trees that had recently all been chopped down. KHJ was playing a Tommy James & the Shondells marathon. Commercial-free in fact. What could be more auspicious? Even before they reached the airport, something about the light had begun to go weird. The sun vanished behind clouds which grew thicker by the minute. Up in the hills among the oil pumps, the first raindrops began to fall, and by the time Doc and Shasta got to La Brea they were in the middle of a sustained cloudburst. This was way too unnatural. Ahead, someplace over Pasadena, black clouds had gathered, not just dark gray but midnight black, tar-pit black, hitherto- unreported-circle-of-Hell black. Lightning bolts had begun to descend across the L.A. Basin singly and in groups, followed by deep, apocalyptic peals of thunder. Everybody had turned their headlights on, though it was midday. Water came rushing down the hillsides of Hollywood, sweeping mud, trees, bushes, and many of the lighter types of vehicle on down into the flatlands. After hours of detouring for landslides and traffic jams and accidents, Doc and Shasta finally located the mystically revealed dope dealers address, which turned out to be an empty lot with a gigantic excavation in it, between a laundromat and an Orange Julius-plus-car wash, all of them closed. In the thick mist and lashing rain, you couldn’t even see to the other side of the hole. “Hey. I thought there was supposed to be a lot of dope around here.” What Sortilege had tried to point out about Ouija boards, as Doc learned later back at the beach, while wringing out his socks and looking for a hair dryer, was that concentrated around us are always mischievous spirit forces, just past the threshold of human perception, occupying both worlds, and that these critters enjoy nothing better than to mess with those of us still attached to the thick and sorrowful catalogs of human desire. “Sure!” was their attitude, “you want dope? Here’s your dope, you fucking idiot.” Doc and Shasta sat parked by the edge of the empty swamped rectangle and watched it’s edges now and then slide in, and then after a while things rotated ninety degrees, and it began to look, to Doc at least, like a doorway, a great wet temple entrance, into someplace else. The rain beat down on the car roof, lightning and thunder from time to time interrupting thoughts of the old namesake river that had once run through this town, long canalized and tapped dry, and crippled into a public and anonymous confession of the deadly sin of greed…. He imagined it filling again, up to it’s concrete rim, and then over, all the water that had not been allowed to flow here for all these years now in unrelenting return, soon beginning to occupy the arroyos and cover the flats, all the swimming pools in the backyards filling up and overflowing and flooding the lots and streets, all this karmic waterscape connecting together, as the rain went on falling and the land vanished, into a sizable inland sea that would presently become an extension of the Pacific. It was funny that of all things to mention in the limited space of a coconut-launched postcard Shasta should have picked that day in the rain. It had stuck with Doc somehow too, even though it came at a point late in their time together, when she was already halfway out the door and Doc saw it happening but was letting it happen, and despite it there they were, presently making out frantically, like kids at the drive-in, steaming up the windows and getting the seat covers wet. Forgetting for a few minutes how it was all going to develop anyway. Back at the beach, the rain continued, and every day up in the hills, another fragment of real estate came sliding down. Insurance salesmen had Brylcreem running down into their collars, and stewardii found it impossible even with half- gallon cans of hair spray purchased in duty-free zones far away to maintain their hairdos in anything close to a stylish flip. The termitic houses of Gordita Beach had all turned to the consistency of wet sponge, emergency plumbers reached in to squeeze the beams and joists, thinking of their own winter homes in Palm Springs. People began to go crazy even while on the natch. Some enthusiast, claiming to be George Harrison of the Beatles, tried to hijack the Goodyear Blimp, moored at it’s winter quarters at the intersection of the Harbor and San Diego Freeways, and make it fly him to Aspen, Colorado, in the rain. The rain had a peculiar effect on Sortilege, who was just around then beginning to get obsessed by Lemuria and it’s tragic final days. “You were there in a former life,” Doc theorized. “I dream about it, Doc. I wake up so sure sometimes. Spike feels that way, too. Maybe it’s all this rain, but we’re starting to have the same dreams. We can’t find a way  to return to Lemuria, so it’s returning to us. Rising up out of the ocean—‘hi Leej, hi Spike, long time ain’t it…’” “It talked to you guys?” “I don’t know. It isn’t just a place.”

DOC TURNED OVER Shasta’s postcard now and stared at the picture on the front. It was a photo taken underwater of the ruins of some ancient city—broken columns and arches and collapsed retaining walls. The water was supernaturally clear and seemed to emit a vivid blue-green light. Fish, what Doc guessed you’d call tropical, were swimming back and forth. It all seemed familiar. He looked for a photo credit, a copyright date, a place of origin. Blank. He rolled a joint and lit up and considered. This had to be a message from someplace besides a Pacific island whose name he couldn’t pronounce. He decided to go back and visit the Ouija-board address, which, being the site of a classic dope misadventure, had remained permanently entered in his memory. Denis came along for muscle. The hole in the ground was gone, and in it’s place rose a strangely futuristic building. From the front it might have been taken at first for some kind of religious structure, smoothly narrow and conical, like a church spire only different. Whoever put it up must have had a pretty comfortable budget to work with, too, because the whole outside had been covered in gold leaf. Then Doc noticed how this tall pointed shape was also curved away from the street. He went down the block a little way and looked back to get a side view, and when he saw how dramatic the curve was and how sharp the point at the top, he finally tumbled. Aha! In the old L.A. tradition of architectural whimsy, this structure was supposed to be a six- story-high golden fang. “Denis, I’m gonna look around for a while, you want to wait in the car or come in and cover my back or something?” “I was gonna go try and find a pizza,” Denis said. Doc handed him the car keys. “And… they did have driver ed at Leuzinger High.” bure. “And you remember this is a stick, not automatic and so forth.” “I’m cool, Doc.” And Denis sped off.

THE FRONT DOOR was nearly invisible, more of a big  access panel that fit snugly into the curving façade. In the lobby beneath a tasteful sign in sans-serif face reading GOLDEN FANG ENTERPRISES, INC. \ CORPORATE HQ and behind a nameplate of her own that said “Xandra, hi!” sat an Asian receptionist wearing a black vinyl jumpsuit and a distant expression, who asked him in a semi-Brit accent whether he was sure he had the right place. “This is the address they told me at the Club Asiatique in San Pedro? Just here to pick up a package for the management?” Xandra reached for a telephone, punched a button, murmured into it, listened, gave Doc another doubtful once- over, stood, and led him across the reception area to a brushed- metallic door. It took only a step or two for him to dig that she’d logged more dojo hours in the year previous than he’d spent in front of the tube in his whole life—not the sort of young lady whose displeasure you’d go looking to provoke. “Second office on the left. Dr. Blatnoyd will see you in a moment.” Doc found the office and looked around for something to check out his hair in but saw only a small yellow-framed feng shui mirror by the door. The face looking back did not seem to be his own. “This is not promising,” he muttered. Behind a titanium desk, the window revealed a stretch of lower Sunset—taquerías, low-rent hotels, pawn shops. There were beanbag chairs and a range of magazines—Foreign  Affairs,  Sinsemilla Tips, Modern Psychopath, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists— that gave Doc no handle on the clientele here. He started paging through 2000 Hairdos and was just getting into “That Five-Point Scissor Cut—What Your Stylist Isn’t Telling You,” when Dr. Blatnoyd came in wearing a suit in a deep, nearly ultraviolet shade of velvet, with very wide jacket lapels and bell-bottom trousers and accented with a raspberry-colored bow tie and display handkerchief. He seated himself behind the desk, reached for a weighty loose-leaf manual of some kind and began consulting it, squinting over at Doc from time to time. Finally, “So…you have some ID, I imagine.” Doc went looking through his wallet till he found a business card from a Chinese head shop on North Spring Street he thought would do the trick. “I can’t read this, it’s in some … Oriental… what is this, Chinese?” “Well, I figured that you, being Chinese—” “What? what are you talking about?”  “‘The … the Golden Fang …’?” “It’s a syndicate, most of us happen to be dentists, we set it up years ago for tax purposes, all legit— Wait,” peering at Doc you’d have to say diagnostically, “where’d you tell Xandra you were from again?” “Uh…” “Why, you’re another one of those hippie dopefiends, aren’t you. My goodness. Here for a little perking up, I’ll bet—” In a jiffy he was out with a tall cylinder of brown glass sealed elaborately with globs of some bright red plastic—“Dig it! just in from Darmstadt, lab quality, maybe I’ll even have some with you...” And before Doc knew it the hectic D.D.S. had a quantity of fluffy white cocaine crystals all chopped up into snortable format and arranged in lines on a nearby copy of Guns &Ammo. Doc shrugged in apology. “I try not to do dope I can’t pay for, ‘s what it is.” “Whoo!” Dr. Blatnoyd had a soda straw and was busy snorting away. “No worries, it’s on the house, as the TV antenna man always sez…Hmm, missed a little...” He took it on his finger and rubbed it enthusiastically into his gums. Doc did half a line in either nostril, just to be sociable, but somehow could not shake the impression that all was not as innocent here as it looked. He had been in a dentist’s office or two, and there was a distinctive smell and a set of vibes that were as absent here as room echoes, which he’d also been wondering about. Like something else was going on— something… not groovy. There was a quiet but no-nonsense knock at the door, and Xandra the receptionist looked in. She had unzipped the top of the jumpsuit, and Doc could now make out this exquisite pair of no-bra tits, their nipples noticeably erect. “Oh, Doctor,” she breathed, half singing it. “Yes, Xandra,” replied Dr. Blatnoyd, moist-nosed and beaming. Xandra nodded and slid away back on out the door again, smiling over her shoulder. “And don’t forget to bring that bottle” “Be right back,” Blatnoyd assured Doc, speeding out after her, eyes frenziedly focused on where her ass had just been, his echoless footsteps soon vanishing into unknown regions of the Golden Fang Building. Doc went over and had a look at the manual on the desk. Titled Golden Fang Procedures Handbook, it was open to a chapter titled “Interpersonal Situations.” “Section Eight— Hippies. Dealing with the Hippie is generally straightforward. His childlike nature will usually respond positively to drugs, sex, and/or rock and roll, although in which order these are to be deployed must depend on conditions specific to the moment.” From the doorway came a loud, violent chirp. Doc looked up and saw a smiling young woman, blond, Californian, presentable, wearing a striped minidress of many different “psychedelic” colors and waving at him vigorously, causing enormous earrings, shaped like pagodas of some kind, to swing back and forth and actually jingle. “Here for my Smile Maintenance appointment with Dr. Rudy!” A blast from the past. “Hey! that’s at Japonica, ain’t it. Japonica Fenway! Imagine meeting you here!” This was not a moment he’d been either dreading or hoping for, though now and then somebody would remind him of the ancient American Indian belief that if you save somebody’s life, you are responsible for them from then on, forever, and he would wonder if any of that applied to his history with Japonica. It had been his first paying gig as a licensed private eye, and pay it did, for sure. The Fenways were heavy-duty South Bay money, living on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in a gated enclave located inside the already gated high-rent community of Rolling Hills. “How am I supposed to come see you,” Doc wondered when Crocker Fenway, Japonica’s dad, called him at the office. “Guess it’ll have to be outside the gates and down in the flats,” said Crocker, “like Lomita?” It was a pretty open-and-shut runaway-daughter case, hardly worth daily scale, let alone the extravagant bonus Crocker insisted on paying when Doc finally brought Japonica back, one lens missing from her wire-rim shades and vomit in her hair, making the handoff in the same parking lot where he and Crocker had met originally. It wasn’t clear if she’d ever clearly registered Doc then, or remembered him now. “So! Japonica! what’ve you been up to?” “Oh, escaping, mostly? There’s this, like, place? that my parents keep sending me to?” Which turned out to be Chryskylodon, the same nut plantation in Ojai that Doc remembered his Aunt Reet mentioning and which Sloane and Mickey had donated a wing to. Though Doc once may have rescued Japonica from a life of dark and unspecified hippie horror, apparently restoration to the bosom of her family had been enough to really drive her around the bend. Against the neutral surface of the wall opposite, Doc had a moment’s visual of an American Indian in full Indian gear, perhaps one of those warriors who wipe out Henry Fonda’s regiment in Fort Apache (1948), approaching with a menacing frown. “Doc responsible for crazy white chick now. What Doc planning to do about that? If anything.” “Excuse me, short man with strange hair? Are you all right?” And on she went without waiting for an answer, twinkling like a roomful of speed freaks hanging Christmas tinsel, about her different escapes. It was beginning to give Doc a headache. Owing to Governor Reagan’s shutdown of most of the state mental facilities, the private sector had been trying in it’s way to pick up some of the slack, soon in fact becoming a standard California child-rearing resource. The Fenways had had Japonica in and out of Chryskylodon on a sort of maintenance-contract basis, depending as always on how they themselves were feeling day to day, for both led emotional lives of unusually high density, and often incoherence. “Some days all I had to do was play the wrong kind of music, and there’s my bags already packed, down in the front hall waiting for the driver.” Soon Chryskylodon had found itself attracting a type of silent benefactor—middle-aged, male, though occasionally female, more focused than usual on the young and mentally disturbed. Freaky chicks and fun-loving dopers! Why do they call it the Love Generation? Come on up to Chryskylodon for a rockin weekend and find out! Absolute discretion guaranteed! Circa 1970, “adult” was no longer quite being defined as in times previous. Among those who could afford to, a strenuous mass denial of the passage of time itself was under way. All across a city long devoted to illusory product, clairvoyant Japonica had seen them, these travelers invisible to others, poised, gazing from smogswept mesa-tops above the boulevards, acknowledging one another across miles and years, summit to summit, in the dusk, under an obscurely enforced silence. Wingfeathers trembled along their naked backs. They knew they could fly. A moment more, an eyeblink in eternity, and they would ascend… So, Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd, out on a first blind date with Japonica at the Sound Mind Caff, a secluded eatery with a patio in back and a menu designed by a resident three-star organic chef, was not only enchanted, he was wondering if somebody hadn’t slipped some new psychedelic into his pomegranate martini. This girl was delightful! Being a little ESP-deficient, of course Rudy failed to appreciate that behind her wide sparkling gaze Japonica was not only thinking about but at this point actually visiting other worlds. The Japonica sitting with the older man in the funny velour suit was actually a Cybernetic Organism, or cyborg, programmed to eat and drink, converse and socialize, while Real Japonica tended to important business elsewhere, because she was the Kozmic Traveler, deep issues Out There awaited, galaxies wheeled, empires collapsed, karma would not be denied, and Real Japonica must always be present at some exact point in five- dimensional space, or chaos would resume it’s dominion. She returned to the Sound Mind to find that Cyborg Japonica had somehow malfunctioned and gone skipping into the kitchen and done something gross to the Soup of the Day, and now they would have to pour it all down the sink. Actually, it was the Soup of the Night, a sinister indigo liquid which probably didn’t deserve much respect, but still, Cyborg Japonica could have showed some self-control. Naughty, impulsive Cyborg Japonica. Perhaps Real Japonica should not let her have those special high-voltage batteries she had been asking for. That would show her. Dr. Blatnoyd, escorting her out through a roomful of disapproving faces, only grew more bedazzled. So this was a free-spirited hippie chick! He saw these girls on the streets of Hollywood, on the TV screen, but this was his first up-close encounter. No wonder Japonica’s parents didn’t know what to do with her—his assumption here, which he didn’t examine too closely, being that he did. “And actually, I wasn’t too sure about who he was till I came in for my first Smile Evaluation…” At which point in Japonica’s reminiscing, in popped the lecherous toothyanker himself, zipping up his fly. “Japonica? I thought we’d agreed never to—” Catching sight of Doc—”oh, you’re still here?” “I escaped again, Rudy,” she twinkled. Denis also now came lurching in. “Hey man, your ride’s in a body shop.” “It signed itself in, Denis?” “I sort of mashed the front end. I was looking at these chicks out on Little Santa Monica—” “You went to Beverly Hills for a pizza, and rear-ended somebody there.” “Needs a new … what do they call that, with the hoses, where the steam comes out—” “Radiator—Denis, you said you took driver ed in high school.” “No, no, Doc, you said did they have Driver Ed, and I said yes cause they did, this dude Eddie Ochoa, that there wasn’t a cop south of Salinas could get near him, and that’s what everybody called him—” “So, like, you … never actually… learned …” “All that stuff they wanted you to remember, man?” Xandra, visibly disheveled, now came running in after Denis, yelling, “I told you you couldn’t come up here,” then spotted Japonica and screeched to a halt. “Oh. Smile Maintenance Chick. How lovely,” while scaling tiny glares Dr. Blatnoyd’s way like the star-shaped blades in kung fu movies. “Miss Fenway,” the doctor began to explain, “may seem a little psychotic today….” “Groovy!” cried Denis. “What?” Blatnoyd blinking. “Being insane, man? it’s groovy, where are you at, man?” “Denis …” Doc murmured. “It is not ‘groovy’ to be insane. Japonica here has been institutionalized for it.” “Yep,” beamed Japonica. “Like, in the place? Psychedelic! They put those volts in your head, man?” “Volts ‘n’ volts,” twinkled Japonica. “Whoa. Bad for la cabeza, man.” “C’mon, Denis,” said Doc, “we’re gonna have to figure out how to catch a bus back to the beach.” “If you need a ride, I’m heading that way,” offered Japonica. Running a fast eyeball diagnostic, Doc could see nothing too alarming—right at the moment she was being as sane as anybody here, not too many useful remarks Doc could pass, so he settled for, “Everything cool with your brakes and lights, Japonica? license-plate lights and so forth?” “A-OK? Just had Wolfgang in for periodic maintenance?” “That’s…” “My car?” Yes, another warning buzzer, but Doc was now on to obsessing over the vast numbers of law enforcement likely to be deployed between here and the beach. “Excuse me,” wondered Xandra, who’d been staring at Denis, “is that a slice of pizza on your hat?” “Oh wow, thanks, man, I’ve been lookin all over for that…” “Mind if I tag along with you people?” asked Dr. Blatnoyd. “Contingencies of the road and so forth.” Wolfgang turned out to be a ten-year-old Mercedes sedan with a roof panel passengers could slide back, allowing them, like dogs in pickups, to stick their heads out in the wind if they wanted. Doc rode shotgun, widebrim fedora down over his eyes, trying to ignore a deep foreboding. Dr. Blatnoyd climbed in the back with Denis and then spent some time trying to push a #66 market bag full of something under the front seat on Doc’s side. “Hey,” exclaimed Denis, “what’s in that bag you’re stuffing under Doc’s seat?” “Pay no attention to that bag,” advised Dr. Blatnoyd. “It will only make everybody paranoid.” Which it did, except for Japonica, who was maneuvering them smoothly up Sunset through the late rush-hour traffic. Denis had his head out the roof. “Drive slower,” he called down after a while, “I want to dig this.” They were crossing Vine and about to go past Wallach’s Music City, where each of a long row of audition booths inside had it’s own lighted window facing the street. In every window, one by one as Japonica crept by, appeared a hippie freak or small party of hippie freaks, each listening on headphones to a different rock ‘n’ roll album and moving around at a different rhythm. Like Denis, Doc was used to outdoor concerts where thousands of people congregated to listen to music for free, and where it all got sort of blended together into a single public self, because everybody was having the same experience. But here, each person was listening in solitude, confinement and mutual silence, and some of them later at the register would actually be spending money to hear rock ‘n’ roll. It seemed to Doc like some strange kind of dues or payback. More and more lately he’d been brooding about this great collective dream that everybody was being encouraged to stay tripping around in. Only now and then would you get an unplanned glimpse at the other side. Denis waved, yelled and flashed peace signs, but nobody in any of the booths noticed. At last he slid back down into the Mercedes. “Far out. Maybe they’re all stoned. Hey! That must be why they call those things headphones!” He put his face closer to Dr. Blatnoyds than the dentist was really comfortable with. “Think about that, man! Like, headphones, right?” Japonica was driving so skillfully that it wasn’t till they were out of the white dazzle of Hollywood and across Doheny that Doc noticed (a) it was now dark and (b) the headlights weren’t on. “Ah, Japonica, like, your lights?” She was humming to herself, a tune Doc recognized, with dawning concern, as the theme from Dark Shadows. After four more bars, he tried again. “Like, it would be so groovy, Japonica, really, to have some lights working is all, seeing ‘s how Beverly Hills cops are known to lurk uphill on these different cross streets? just waiting for minor violations, like lights, to pop folks on?” Her humming was way too intense. Doc made the mistake of looking over, only to find her staring at him and not the road, eyes glittering ferally through a blond curtain of California-chick hair. No, this was not reassuring. Though hardly a connoisseur of the freakout, he did recognize a wraparound hallucination when he saw one and understood immediately that while she likely didn’t see Doc at all, whatever she was seeing was indeed physically out there, in the gathering fog, and just about to— “Everything all right, baby?” Rudy Blatnoyd rang in. “Oo-oooo” warbled Japonica, putting some vibrato onto  it and stepping on the gas, “Ooo-ooo woo-oo, woo-ooo…” Cross traffic, neighborhood machinery such as Excaliburs and Ferraris, came blurring by at high speed, missing them by small clearances. Dr. Blatnoyd, as if wishing to start a therapeutic discussion, was glaring at Denis. “There. That’s just what I’ve been talking about.” “You didn’t say nothing about it happening while she’s driving, man.” Japonica had meantime decided that she must run every red light she could find, even speeding up to catch  some before they could turn green. “Urn, Japonica, my dear? That was a red light?” Blatnoyd pointed out helpfully. “Ooh, I don’t think so!” she explained blithely. “I think that was one of Its eyes!” “Oh. Well, yes,n Doc soothed. “We can sure dig that, Japonica, but then again—” “No, no, there’s no It’ watching you!” Blatnoyd now in some agitation. “Those are not eyes,’ those are warnings to come to a full stop and wait till the light turns green, don’t you remember learning that in school?” “That’s what those colors are for, man?” Denis said. Suddenly, like a UFO rising over the ridgeline, the flashing lights of a police car appeared uphill and came swooping down on them, the siren screaming. “Like, shit,” Denis heading for the hatch in the roof again, “I’m outta here, man,” overlooking for the moment the streetscape rushing past. Feeling no sign of deceleration, Doc, trying not to think about the paper bag under the seat, kept reaching with his foot for the brake pedal, meantime trying gently to steer the car over to the shoulder. If he’d been in his own ride and by himself, he might have chosen to make a run for it, at least open a door an inch or two and get rid of the bag, but by the time he could bring himself to try even that, the Man was on top of them. “License and registration, miss?” The cop seemed to be focused on Japonica’s tits. She smiled back at him in high- intensity silence, occasionally glancing at the Smith & Wesson on his hip. His partner, a rookie even blonder than he was, came and leaned on the passenger side, content for the moment to watch Denis, who had paused in his effort to climb through the roof to gaze at the strobing array of colored lights on top of the cruiser, and now and then go, “Oh wow, man.” “Are you the Great Beast?” inquired rattling-mad Japonica in her sub-jailbait lilt. “No no no,” Blatnoyd droning desperately, “that’s a policeman, Japonica, who only wants to make sure you’re all right…” “Just the license and registration if you wouldn’t mind,” said the cop. “You know you were driving without your headlights, miss.” “But I can see in the dark,” Japonica nodding emphatically, “I can see real good\n “Her sister went into labor about an hour ago,” Blatnoyd imagining he was charming their way out of a ticket, “and Miss Fenway promised she’d be there in time to see the baby born, so she might’ve been a little inattentive back there?” “That case,” said the cop, “maybe somebody else ought to be driving.” Japonica promptly jumped in the back seat with Blatnoyd, while Doc slid over behind the wheel and Denis moved up front to ride shotgun. The cops looked on beaming, like instructors at an etiquette class. “Oh and we’ll need everybody’s ID, too,” the rookie announced. “Sure thing,” Doc bringing out his PI license. “What’s it about, Officer?” “New program,” shrugged the other cop, “you know how it is, another excuse for paperwork, they’re calling it Cultwatch, every gathering of three or more civilians is now defined as a potential cult.” The rookie was making checkmarks on a list attached to a clipboard. “Criteria,” the other cop continued, “include references to the book of Revelation, males with shoulder-length or longer hair, endangerment through automotive absentmindedness, all of which you folks have been exhibiting.” “Yeah man,” Denis put in, “but we’re in a Mercedes, and it’s only painted one color, beige—don’t we get points for that?” Doc noticed for the first time that both cops were... well, not trembling, the police wouldn’t tremble, but vibrating for sure, with the post-Mansonical nerves that currently ruled the area. “We’ll hand this all in, Mr. Sportello, it’ll go in some master data bank here and in Sacramento, and unless there’s wants or warrants we don’t know about, you won’t hear any more on this.” FOLLOWING DR. BLATNOYD’S directions, Doc turned off Sunset, braking almost immediately for a guard gate staffed by private heat of some kind. “Evening, Heinrich,” boomed Rudy Blatnoyd. “Nice to see you, Dr. B.,” replied the sentry, waving him through. They went winding through Bel Air, up hillsides and canyons, arriving at a mansion with another gate, low and nearly invisible inside it’s landscape gardening, seeming so much constructed of night itself that at sunrise it might all disappear. Behind the gate glimmered a pale slash through the dark, which Doc finally figured out was a moat, with a drawbridge over it. “Won’t be a minute,” Dr. Blatnoyd climbing out, grabbing the bag from under the front seat and getting into a cryptic discussion over the gate intercom with a voice Doc guessed to be female, before the gate opened and the drawbridge came down, rumbling and creaking. Then the night was very quiet again—not even the distant freeway traffic could be heard, or the footpads of coyotes, or the slither of snakes… “Way too quiet,” said Denis, “it’s freaking me out, man.” “I think we’ll wait here on this side of the moat,” Doc said. “Okay?” Denis rolled an enormous joint and lit up, and soon the interior of the Mercedes was full of smoke. After a while there was shrieking on the gate intercom. “Hey man,” said Denis, “you don’t have to yell, man.” “Dr. Blatnoyd wishes us to inform you,” announced the woman at the other end, “that he will be remaining as our guest, and there is thus no further need for you to wait.” “Yeah, and you talk like a robot, man.” It took them a while to find their way back to Sunset. “I guess I’ll crash with some friends in Pacific Palisades,” Japonica announced. “Mind letting us off at the Greyhound in Santa Monica? We can grab the midnight local.” “By the way, aren’t you the man who found me and brought me back to my dad that time?” “Just doing my job,” Doc immediately defensive. “Did he really want me back?” “I’ve worked gigs like that a couple of times since,” Doc said carefully, in case she had to drive much more tonight, “and he seemed like your standard worried parent.” “He’s an asshole,” Japonica assured him. “Here, this is my office number. I don’t have regular hours, so you may not always find me in.” She shrugged and managed a smile. “If it’s meant to be.”

THINGS WERE WEIRD for a few days with the Dart over in  Beverly Hills, though Doc imagined it was having itself a nice time in the company of all those Jaguars and Porsches and so forth. When he finally went over to pick up his ride, at Resurrection of the Body, a collision emporium somewhat south of Olympic, he ran into his friend Tito Stavrou having a lively argument with Manuel the owner. Tito ran a limo service, though there was only one unit in his fleet, unfortunately not one of those limos able to Glide from the Curb, much less Insert Itself Effortlessly into Traffic—no, this one lurched from the curb percussively into traffic, being in fact garaged for at least half of any given premium period (as Tito’s latest insurance carrier had just discovered, much to it’s own, and you can imagine how much to Tito’s, dismay) or being attended to by various sand-and-fill crews around the Greater L.A. Area. One calendar year it got repainted six times. “You sure you mean limo and not limón?” suggested Manuel, as part of the recreational abuse he liked to lay on Tito whenever the vehicle showed up with a new set of dings. They stood out in the main shed, assembled from a Quonset hut first cut in half lengthwise and the two pieces then rearranged so that they met in a point high overhead to make a sort of churchlike vault. “It would be cheaper if you just pay me in front, small fee, anytime you want it painted, just bring it by, day or night, any color in stock includin the metallics, in and out in a couple hours.” “What worries me,” said Tito, “is that ‘in and out,’ you know, all these high-risk elements of the auto-parts community you deal with?” “This is Resurrection, ése! Were in the miracle business! If Jesus turned water into wine in front of your face? would you be goin, ‘What’s this I’m drinkin, I wannit Dom Perignon,’ or some shit? If I was that picky about what comes in here for a paint job? ask for what? their license and registration? Then they’re really pissed off, they go someplace else, plus I get put on a shit list I might not want to be on?” Manuel noticed Doc for the first time. “You the Bentley?” “The’64 Dodge Dart?” Manuel looked back and forth between Doc and Tito for a while. “You guys know each other?” “That would really depend,” Doc was about to say, but Manuel went on. “I was gonna charge you more, but guys like Tito here, they’re sub-sidizin guys like you.” The amount on the invoice was nevertheless a Beverly Hills type of number, and half Doc’s day got blown setting up a payment schedule. “Come on,” said Tito, “I’ll buy you lunch. I need your advice on something.” They went down to Pico and headed toward Rancho Park. This street was a chowhound’s delight. Back when Doc was still new in town, one day around sunset—the daily event, not the boulevard—he was in Santa Monica near the western end of Pico, the light over all deep L.A. softening to purple with some darker gold to it, and from this angle and hour of the day it seemed to him he could see all the way down Pico for miles into the heart of the great Megalopolis itself, having yet to discover that if he wanted to, he could also eat his way down Pico night after night for a long while before repeating an ethnic category. This did not always turn out to be good news for the indecisive doper who might know he was hungry but not necessarily how to deal with it in terms of specific food. Many was the night Doc ran out of gas, and his munchies- afflicted companions out of patience, long before settling on where to go eat. Today they ended up at a Greek restaurant called Teké, which according to Tito meant an old-time hashish parlor in Greek. “I hope this won’t be a problem,” said Tito, “but word is around you’ve been working on this Mickey Wolfmann case?” “Not how I’d put it. Nobody’s paying me. Sometimes I think all it is is guilt. Wolfmann’s girlfriend is my ex-old lady, she said she needed help, so I’ve been trying to help.” Tito, who had made a point of facing the front entrance, lowered his voice till Doc could hardly hear him. ‘“I’m taking a chance that you ain’t bent, Doc. You ain’t bent, are you?” “Not so far, but I could always use a nice envelope full of cash.” “These guys,” an unhappy look crossing Tito’s face, “don’t hand you envelopes, it’s more like, do what they want, maybe they don’t fuck you up too bad.” “You’re sayin this is mob-related—” “I only wish. I mean, I know some Family badasses who scare most people, they sure scare me, but I wouldn’t ever go to them with this, they’d just take a look at who it is and go, like, ‘Pasadena, man.’” “Not to mention you owe them money.” “No more, I kicked all that.” “What. No horses, no pan parlors? No Li’l T-Rex? No Salvatore ‘Paper Cut’ Gazzoni? No Adrian Prussia?” “Nope, even Adrian’s off my ass anymore, all paid off, the vig, everything.” “Good news cause sooner or later that fucker’d be reachin for his baseball bat, going to town on your head or somethin. Man gives loan-sharkin a bad name.” “They’re all in my sorry past now, I been twelve-steppin it, Doc. Meetings, everythin.” “Well, Inez must be happy. How long’s it been?” “Comin up on six months next weekend. We’re gonna go celebrate it in style, too, we’re takin the limo to Vegas, stayin at Caesar’s—” “Excuse me, Tito, am I confusing Las Vegas with someplace else where all they do is fucking gamble nonstop? How do you expect to—” “Avoid temptation? Hey that’s just it, how’m I ever gonna know? Thing is to jump in, see what happens.” “Oboy. This is all cool with Inez?” “Her idea.” Mike the owner and cook appeared with a huge plate of dolmadhes, Kalamata olives, and midget spanakopitas it looked like it would take a week to polish off. “You’re sure you want to eat here,” he greeted Tito. “This is Doc, he saved my life once.” “And this is how you thank him?” Mike shaking his head in reproof. “Think long and hard, my friends,” muttering back to the kitchen. “I saved your life?” Tito shrugged. “That time up on Mulholland.” “You saved mine, man, you’re the one knew where it was,” this particular “it” being a car-napped 1934 Hispano- Suiza J12 whose return Doc had been negotiating with a Lithuanian thyroid case who showed up carrying a modified AK-47 with a banana clip so oversize that he kept tripping over it, which looking back was what had saved everybody’s lives, probably. “I was doin that all for myself, man, you happened to be there when we brought it back and all that money started flyin around.” “Whatever, Doc—there’s somethin now that you’re the only one I can tell it to.” A quick look around. “Doc, I was one of the last people to talk to Mickey Wolfmann before he dropped off the screen.” “Shit,” replied Doc, encouragingly. “And no, I haven’t been near the heat with this. It would get back to these guys before I was out the door, and I’d end up a shark hors oeuvre. “D and D, Tito.” “What happened, Mickey got to where he didn’t always trust his drivers. They were most of ’em ex-cons, which meant they had their own IOUs to pay off that sometimes he didn’t know about. So once in a while he calls me on the unlisted line, and I pick him up someplace we decide on at the last minute.” “You used that limo? Not exactly a low profile.” “Nah, we’d use Falcons or Novas, I can always score one on short notice, even a VDub if it ain’t painted too funny.” “So the day Mickey disappeared… he called you? you took him someplace?” “He wanted me to pick him up. He called in the middle of the night, it sounded like a pay phone, he was talking real quiet, he was scared, like somebody was after him. He gave me an address out of town, I drove up there and waited, but he never showed. After a couple hours I was getting too much attention so I split.” “Where was this?” “Ojai, near someplace called Chryskylodon.” “I’ve been hearing about it,” Doc said, “some nuthouse for the upper brackets. Old Indian word that means ‘serenity.’” “Ha!” Tito shook his head. “Who told you that?” “It’s in their brochure?” “It ain’t Indian, it’s Greek, trust me, they talked Greek around the house all the time I was coming up.” “What’s it mean in Greek?” “Well, it’s squashed together a little, but it means like a gold tooth, this one here—” He tapped at a canine. “Oh, shit. Tang’? Could it be that?” “Yeah, close enough. Gold fang.”

§ § §

TYRION

A horse whickered impatiently behind him, from amidst the ranks of gold cloaks drawn up across the road. Tyrion could hear Lord Gyles coughing as well. He had not asked for Gyles, no more than he'd asked for Ser Addam. or Jalabhar Xho or any of the rest, but his lord father felt Doran Martell might take it ill if only a dwarf came out to escort him across the Blackwater. Joffrey should have met the Dornishmen himself, he reflected as he sat waiting, but he would have mucked it up, no doubt. Of late the king had been repeating little jests about the Dornish that he'd picked up from Mace Tyrell's men-atarms. How many Dornishmen does it take to shoe a horse? Nine. One to do the shoeing, and eight to lift the horse up. Somehow Tyrion did not think Doran Martell would find that amusing. He could see their banners flying as the riders emerged from the green of the living wood in a long dusty column. From here to the river, only bare black trees remained, a legacy of his battle. Too many banners, he thought sourly, as he watched the ashes kick up under the hooves of the approaching horses, as they had beneath the hooves of the Tyrell van as it smashed Stannis in the flank. Martell's brought half the lords of Dorne, by the look of it. He tried to think of some good that might come of that, and failed. "How many banners do you count?" he asked Brorm. The sellsword knight shaded his eyes. "Eight ... no, nine." Tyrion turned in his saddle. "Pod, come up here. Describe the arms you see, and tell me which houses they represent." Podrick Payne edged his gelding closer. He was carrying the royal standard, Joffrey's great stag-and-lion, and struggling with its weight. Bronn bore Tyrion's own banner, the lion of Lannister gold on crimson. He's getting taller, Tyrion realized as Pod stood in his stirrups for a better look. He'll soon tower over me like all the rest. The lad had been making a diligent study of Domish heraldry, at Tyrion's command, but as ever he was nervous. "I can't see. The wind is flapping them." "Bronn, tell the boy what you see." Bronn looked very much the knight today, in his new doublet and cloak, the flaming chain across his chest. "A red sun on orange," he called, "with a spear through its back." "Martell," Podrick Payne said at once, visibly relieved. "House Martell of Sunspear, my lord. The Prince of Dome." "My horse would have known that one," said Tyrion dryly. "Give him another, Bronn." "There's a purple flag with yellow balls. "Lemons?" Pod said hopefully. "A purple fleld strewn with lemons? For House Dalt? Of, of Lemonwood." "Might be. Next's a big black bird on yellow. Something pink or white in its claws, hard to say with the banner flapping." "The vulture of Blackmont grasps a baby in its talons," said Pod. "House Blackmont of Blackmont, ser." Bronn laughed. "Reading books again? Books will ruin your sword eye, boy. I see a skull too. A black banner." "The crowned skull of House Manwoody, bone and gold on black." Pod sounded more confident with every correct answer. "The Manwoodys of Kingsgrave." "Three black spiders?" "They're scorpions, ser. House Qorgyle of Sandstone, three scorpions black on red." "Red and yellow, a jagged line between." "The flames of Hellholt. House Uller." Tyrion was impressed. The boy's not half stupid, once he gets his tongue untied. "Go on, Pod," he urged. "If you get them all, I'll make you a gift." "A pie with red and black slices," said Bronn. "There's a gold hand in the middle." "House Allyrion of Godsgrace." "A red chicken eating a snake, looks like." "The Gargalens of Salt Shore. A cockatrice. Ser. Pardon. Not a chicken. Red, with a black snake in its beak." "Very good!" exclaimed Tyrion. "One more, lad." Bronn scanned the ranks of the approaching Domishmen. "The last's a golden feather on green checks." "A golden quill, ser. Jordayne of the Tor." Tyrion laughed. "Nine, and well done. I could not have named them all myself." That was a lie, but it would give the boy some pride, and that he badly needed. Martell brings some formidable companions, it would seem. Not one of the houses Pod had named was small or insignificant. Nine of the greatest lords of Dorne were coming up the kingsroad, them or their heirs, and somehow Tyrion did not think they had come all this way just to see the dancing bear. There was a message here. And not one I like. He wondered if it had been a mistake to ship Myrcella down to Sunspear. "My lord," Pod said, a little timidly, "there's no litter." Tyrion turned his head sharply. The boy was right. "Doran Martell always travels in a litter," the boy said. "A carved litter with silk hangings, and suns on the drapes." Tyrion had heard the same talk. Prince Doran was past fifty, and gouty. He may have wanted to make faster time, he told himself. He may have feared his litter would make too tempting a target for brigands, or that it would prove too cumbersome in the high passes of the Boneway. Perhaps his gout is better. So why did he have such a bad feeling about this? This waiting was intolerable. "Banners forward," he snapped. "We'll meet them." He kicked his horse. Bronn and Pod followed, one to either side. When the Dornishmen saw them coming, they spurred their own mounts, banners rippling as they rode. From their ornate saddles were slung the round metal shields they favored, and many carried bundles of short throwing spears, or the double-curved Dornish bows they used so well from horseback. There were three sorts of Dornishmen, the first King Daeron had observed. There were the salty Dornishmen who lived along the coasts, the sandy Dornishmen of the deserts and long river valleys, and the stony Dornishmen who made their fastnesses in the passes and heights of the Red Mountains. The salty Domishmen had the most Rhoynish blood, the stony Dornishmen the least. All three sorts seemed well represented in Doran's retinue. The salty Dornishmen were lithe and dark, with smooth olive skin and long black hair streaming in the wind. The sandy Dornishmen were even darker, their faces burned brown by the hot Dornish sun. They wound long bright scarfs around their helms to ward off sunstroke. The stony Dornishmen were biggest and fairest, sons of the Andals and the First Men, brownhaired or blond, with faces that freckled or burned in the sun instead of browning. The lords wore silk and satin robes with jeweled belts and flowing sleeves. Their armor was heavily enameled and inlaid with burnished copper, shining silver, and soft red gold. They came astride red horses and golden ones and a few as pale as snow, all slim and swift, with long necks and narrow beautiful heads. The fabled sand steeds of Dome were smaller than proper warhorses and could not bear such weight of armor, but it was said that they could run for a day and night and another day, and never tire. The Domish leader forked a stallion black as sin with a mane and tail the color of fire. He sat his saddle as if he'd been born there, tall, slim, graceful. A cloak of pale red silk fluttered from his shoulders, and his shirt was armored with overlapping rows of copper disks that glittered like a thousand bright new pennies as he rode. His high gilded helm displayed a copper sun on its brow, and the round shield slung behind him bore the sun- and-spear of House Martell on its polished metal surface. A Martell sun, but ten years too young, Tyrion thought as he reined up, too fit as well, and far too fierce. He knew what he must deal with by then. How many Dornishmen does it take to start a war? he asked himself. Only one. Yet he had no choice but to smile. "Well met, my lords. We had word of your approach, and His Grace King Joffrey bid me ride out to welcome you in his name. My lord father the King's Hand sends his greetings as well." He feigned an amiable confusion. "Which of you is Prince Doran?" "My brother's health requires he remain at Sunspear." The princeling removed his helm. Beneath, his face was lined and saturnine, with thin arched brows above large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil. Only a few streaks of silver marred the lustrous black hair that receded from his brow in a widow's peak as sharply pointed as his nose. A salty Dornishmen for certain. "Prince Doran has sent me to join King Joffrey's council in his stead, as it please His Grace." "His Grace will be most honored to have the counsel of a warrior as renowned as Prince Oberyn of Dome," said Tyrion, thinking, This will mean blood in the gutters. "And your noble companions are most welcome as well." "Permit me to acquaint you with them, my lord of Lannister. Ser Deziel Dalt, of Lemonwood. Lord Tremond Gargalen. Lord Harmen Uller and his brother Ser Ulwyck. Ser Ryon Allyrion and his natural son Ser Daemon Sand, the Bastard of Godsgrace. Lord Dagos Manwoody, his brother Ser Myles, his sons Mors and Dickon. Ser Arron Qorgyle. And never let it be thought that I would neglect the ladies. Myria Jordayne, heir to the Tor. Lady Larra Blackmont, her daughter Jynessa, her son Perros." He raised a slender hand toward a black- haired woman to the rear, beckoning her forward. "And this is Ellaria Sand, mine own paramour." Tyrion swallowed a groan. His paramour, and bastard-born, Cersei will pitch a holy fit if he wants her at the wedding. If she consigned the woman to some dark comer below the salt, his sister would risk the Red Viper's wrath. Seat her beside him at the high table, and every other lady on the dais was like to take offense. Did Prince Doran mean to provoke a quarrel? Prince Oberyn wheeled his horse about to face his fellow Domishmen. "Ellaria, lords and ladies, sers, see how well King Joffrey loves us. His Grace has been so kind as to send his own Uncle Imp to bring us to his court. " Bronn snorted back laughter, and Tyrion perforce must feign amusement as well. "Not alone, my lords. That would be too enormous a task for a little man like me." His own party had come up on them, so it was his turn to name the names. "Let me present Ser Flement Brax, heir to Homvale. Lord Gyles of Rosby. Ser Addam Marbrand, Lord Commander of the City Watch. jalabhar Xho, Prince of the Red Flower Vale. Ser Harys Swyft, my uncle Kevan's good father by marriage. Ser Merlon Crakehall. Ser Philip Foote and Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, two heroes of our recent battle against the rebel Stannis Baratheon. And mine own squire, young Podrick of House Payne." The names had a nice ringing sound as Tyrion reeled them off, but the bearers were nowise near as distinguished nor formidable a company as those who accompanied Prince Oberyn, as both of them knew full well. "My lord of Lannister," said Lady Blackmont, "we have come a long dusty way, and rest and refreshment would be most welcome. Might we continue on to the city?" "At once, my lady." Tyrion turned his horse's head, and called to Ser Addam Marbrand. The mounted gold cloaks who formed the greatest part of his honor guard turned their horses crisply at Ser Addam's command, and the column set off for the river and King's Landing beyond. Oberyn Nymeros Martell, Tyrion muttered under his breath as he fell in beside the man. The Red Viper of Dorne. And what in the seven hells am I supposed to do with him? He knew the man only by reputation, to be sure ... but the reputation was fearsome. When he was no more than sixteen, Prince Oberyn had been found abed with the paramour of old Lord Yronwood, a huge man of fierce repute and short temper. A duel ensued, though in view of the prince's youth and high birth, it was only to first blood. Both men took cuts, and honor was satisfied. Yet Prince Oberyn soon recovered, while Lord Yronwood's wounds festered and killed him. Afterward men whispered that Oberyn had fought with a poisoned sword, and ever thereafter friends and foes alike called him the Red Viper. That was many years ago, to be sure. The boy of sixteen was a man past forty now, and his legend had grown a deal darker. He had traveled in the Free Cities, leaming the poisoner's trade and perhaps arts darker still, if rumors could be believed. He had studied at the Citadel, going so far as to forge six links of a maester's chain before he grew bored. He had soldiered in the Disputed Lands across the narrow sea, riding with the Second Sons for a time before forming his own company. His tourneys, his battles, his duels, his horses, his carnality ... it was said that he bedded men and women both, and had begotten bastard girls all over Dome. The sand snakes, men called his daughters. So far as Tyrion had heard, Prince Oberyn had never fathered a son. And of course, he had crippled the heir to Highgarden. There is no man in the Seven Kingdoms who will be less welcome at a 7)7rell wedding, thought Tyrion. To send Prince Oberyn to King's Landing while the city still hosted Lord Mace Tyrell, two of his sons, and thousands of their men-at-arms was a provocation as dangerous as Prince Oberyn himself. A wrong word, an ill-timed jest, a look, that's all it will take, and our noble allies will be at one another's throats. "We have met before," the Domish prince said lightly to Tyrion as they rode side by side along the kingsroad, past ashen fields and the skeletons of trees. "I would not expect you to remember, though. You were even smaller than you are now." There was a mocking edge to his voice that Tyrion misliked, but he was not about to let the Dornishman provoke him. "When was this, my lord?" he asked in tones of polite interest. "Oh, many and many a year ago, when my mother ruled in Dome and your lord father was Hand to a different king." Not so different as you might think, reflected Tyrion. "It was when I visited Casterly Rock with my mother, her consort, and my sister Elia. I was, oh, fourteen, fifteen, thereabouts, Elia a year older. Your brother and sister were eight or nine, as I recall, and you had just been bom." A queer time to come visiting. His mother had died giving him birth, so the Martells would have found the Rock deep in mouming. His father especially. Lord Tywin seldom spoke of his wife, but Tyrion had heard his uncles talk of the love between them. In those days, his father had been Aerys's Hand, and many people said that Lord Tywin Lannister ruled the Seven Kingdoms, but Lady Joanna ruled Lord Tywin. "He was not the same man after she died, imp," his Uncle Gery told him once. "The best part of him died with her." Gerion had been the youngest of Lord Tytos Lannister's four sons, and the uncle Tyrion liked best. But he was gone now, lost beyond the seas, and Tyrion himself had put Lady Joanna in her grave. "Did you find Casterly Rock to your liking, my lord?" "Scarcely. Your father ignored us the whole time we were there, after commanding Ser Kevan to see to our entertainment. The cell they gave me had a featherbed to sleep in and Myrish carpets on the floor, but it was dark and windowless, much like a dungeon when you come down to it, as I told Elia at the time. Your skies were too grey, your wines too sweet, your women too chaste, your food too bland ... and you yourself were the greatest disappointment of all." "I had just been born. What did you expect of me?" "Enormity," the black-haired prince replied. "You were small, but far-famed. We were in Oldtown at your birth, and all the city talked of was the monster that had been born to the King's Hand, and what such an omen might foretell for the realm." "Famine, plague, and war, no doubt." Tyrion gave a sour smile. "It's always famine, plague, and war. Oh, and winter, and the long night that never ends." "All that," said Prince Oberyn, "and your father's fall as well. Lord Tywin had made himself greater than King Aerys, I heard one begging brother preach, but only a god is meant to stand above a king. You were his curse, a punishment sent by the gods to teach him that he was no better than any other man." "I try, but he refuses to learn." Tyrion gave a sigh. "But do go on, I pray you. I love a good tale." "And well you might, since you were said to have one, a stiff curly tail like a swine's. Your head was monstrous huge, we heard, half again the size of your body, and you had been born with thick black hair and a beard besides, an evil eye, and lion's claws. Your teeth were so long you could not close your mouth, and between your legs were a girl's privates as well as a boy's." "Life would be much simpler if men could fuck themselves, don't you agree? And I can think of a few times when claws and teeth might have proved useful. Even so, I begin to see the nature of your complaint." Brorm gave out with a chuckle, but Oberyn only smiled. "We might never have seen you at all but for your sweet sister. You were never seen at table or hall, though sometimes at night we could hear a baby howling down in the depths of the Rock. You did have a monstrous great voice, I must grant you that. You would wail for hours, and nothing would quiet you but a woman's teat." "Still true, as it happens." This time Prince Oberyn did laugh. "A taste we share. Lord Gargalen once told me he hoped to die with a sword in his hand, to which I replied that I would sooner go with a breast in mine." Tyrion had to grin. "You were speaking of my sister?" "Cersei promised Elia to show you to us. The day before we were to sail, whilst my mother and your father were closeted together, she and Jaime took us down to your nursery. Your wet nurse tried to send us off, but your sister was having none of that. 'He's mine/ she said, 'and you're just a milk cow, you can't tell me what to do. Be quiet or I'll have my father cut your tongue out. A cow doesn't need a tongue, only udders."' "Her Grace learned charm at an early age," said Tyrion, amused by the notion of his sister claiming him as hers. She's never been in any rush to claim me since, the gods know. "Cersei even undid your swaddling clothes to give us a better look," the Dornish prince continued. "You did have one evil eye, and some black fuzz on your scalp. Perhaps your head was larger than most ... but there was no tail, no beard, neither teeth nor claws, and nothing between your legs but a tiny pink cock. After all the wonderful whispers, Lord Tywin's Doom turned out to be just a hideous red infant with stunted legs. Elia even made the noise that young girls make at the sight of infants, I'm sure you've heard it. The same noise they make over cute kittens and playful puppies. I believe she wanted to nurse you herself, ugly as you were. When I commented that you seemed a poor sort of monster, your sister said, 'He killed my mother/ and twisted your little cock so hard I thought she was like to pull it off. You shrieked, but it was only when your brother Jaime said, 'Leave him be, you're hurting him/ that Cersei let go of you. 'It doesn't matter/ she told us. 'Everyone says he's like to die soon. He shouldn't even have lived this long."' The sun was shining bright above them, and the day was pleasantly warm for autumn, but Tyrion Lannister went cold all over when he heard that. My sweet sister. He scratched at the scar of his nose and gave the Dornishman a taste of his "evil eye." Now why would he tell such a tale? Is he testing me, or simply twisting my cock as Cersei did, so he can hear me scream? "Be sure and tell that story to my father. It will delight him as much as it did me. The part about my tail, especially. I did have one, but he had it lopped off." Prince Oberyn had a chuckle. "You've grown more amusing since last we met." "Yes, but I meant to grow taller." "While we are speaking of amusement, I heard a curious tale from Lord Buckler's steward. He claimed that you had put a tax on women's privy purses." "It is a tax on whoring," said Tyrion, irritated all over again. And it was my bloody father's notion. "Only a penny for each, ah ... act. The King's Hand felt it might help improve the morals of the city." And pay for Joffrey's wedding besides. Needless to say, as master of coin, Tyrion had gotten all the blame for it. Brorm said they were calling it the dwarf's penny inthestreets. "Spread your legs for the Halfman, now," they were shouting in the brothels and wine sinks, if the sellsword could be believed. "I will make certain to keep my pouch full of pennies. Even a prince must pay his taxes." "Why should you need to go whoring?" He glanced back to where Ellaria Sand rode among the other women. "Did you tire of your paramour on the road?" "Never. We share too much." Prince Oberyn shrugged. "We have never shared a beautiful blonde woman, however, and Ellaria is curious. Do you know of such a creature?" "I am a man wedded." Though not yet bedded. "I no longer frequent whores." Unless I want to see them hanged. Oberyn abruptly changed the subject. "It's said there are to be seventyseven dishes served at the king's wedding feast." "Are you hungry, my prince?" "I have hungered for a long time. Though not for food. Pray tell me, when will the iustice be served?" "Justice." Yes, that is why he's here, I should have seen that at once. "You were close to your sister?" "As children Elia and I were inseparable, much like your own brother and sister." Gods, I hope not. "Wars and weddings have kept us well occupied, Prince Oberyn. I fear no one has yet had the time to look into murders sixteen years stale, dreadful as they were. We shall, of course, just as soon as we may. Any help that Dome might be able to provide to restore the king's peace would only hasten the beginning of my lord father's inquiry - " "Dwarf," said the Red Viper, in a tone grown markedly less cordial, "spare me your Lannister lies. Is it sheep you take us for, or fools? My brother is not a bloodthirsty man, but neither has he been asleep for sixteen years. Jon Arryn came to Sunspear the year after Robert took the throne, and you can be sure that he was questioned closely. Him, and a hundred more. I did not come for some mummer's show of an inquiry. I came for justice for Elia and her children, and I will have it. Starting with this lummox Gregor Clegane ... but not, I think, ending there. Before he dies, the Enormity That Rides will tell me whence came his orders, please assure your lord father of that." He smiled. "An old septon once claimed I was living proof of the goodness of the gods. Do you know why that is, Imp?" "No," Tyrion admitted warily. "Why, if the gods were cruel, they would have made me my mother's firstborn, and Doran her third. I am a bloodthirsty man, you see. And it is me you must contend with now, not my patient, prudent, and gouty brother." Tyrion could see the sun shining on the Blackwater Rush half a mile ahead, and on the walls and towers and hills of King's Landing beyond. He glanced over his shoulder, at the glittering column following them up the kingsroad. "You speak like a man with a great host at his back," he said, "yet all I see are three hundred. Do you spy that city there, north of the river?" "The midden heap you call King's Landing?" "That's the very one." "Not only do I see it, I believe I smell it now." "Then take a good sniff, my lord. Fill up your nose. Half a million people stink more than three hundred, you'll find. Do you smell the gold cloaks? There are near five thousand of them. My father's own swom swords must account for another twenty thousand. And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don't they? Especially when there are so many of them. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses, in the city or camped outside it, I can't really say how many are left, but there's more than I care to count, anyway." Martell gave a shrug. "In Dome of old before we married Dacron, it was said that all flowers bow before the sun. Should the roses seek to hinder me I'll gladly trample them underfoot." "As you trampled Willas Tyrell?" The Domishman did not react as expected. "I had a letter from Willas not half a year past. We share an interest in fine horseflesh. He has never bome me any ill will for what happened in the lists. I struck his breastplate clean, but his foot caught in a stirrup as he fell and his horse came down on top of him. I sent a maester to him afterward, but it was all he could do to save the boy's leg. The knee was far past mending. If any were to blame, it was his fool of a father. Willas Tyrell was green as his surcoat and had no business riding in such company. The Fat Flower thrust him into tourneys at too tender an age, just as he did with the other two. He wanted another Leo Longthom, and made himself a cripple." "There are those who say Ser Loras is better than Leo Longthom. ever was," said Tyrion. "Renly's little rose? I doubt that." "Doubt it all you wish," said Tyrion, "but Ser Loras has defeated many good knights, including my brother Jaime." "By defeated, you mean unhorsed, in tourney. Tell me who he's slain in battle if you mean to frighten me." "Ser Robar Royce and Ser Emmon Cuy, for two. And men say he performed prodigious feats of valor on the Blackwater, fighting beside Lord Renly's ghost." "So these same men who saw the prodigious feats saw the ghost as well, yes?" The Domishman laughed lightly. Tyrion gave him a long look. "Chataya's on the Street of Silk has several girls who might suit your needs. Dancy has hair the color of honey. Marei's is pale white-gold. I would advise you to keep one or the other by your side at all times, my lord." "At all times?" Prince Oberyn lifted a thin black eyebrow. "And why is that, my good imp?" "You want to die with a breast in hand, you said." Tyrion cantered on ahead to where the ferry barges waited on the south bank of the Blackwater. He had suffered all he meant to suffer of what passed for Dornish wit. Father should have sent Joffrey after all. He could have asked Prince Oberyn if he knew how a Dornishman differed from a cowflop. That made him grin despite himself. He would have to make a point of being on hand when the Red Viper was presented to the king.

§ § §

BRAN

The tower stood upon an island, its twin reflected on the still blue waters. When the wind blew, ripples moved across the surface of the lake, chasing one another like boys at play. Oak trees grew thick along the lakeshore, a dense stand of them with a litter of fallen acorns on the ground beneath. Beyond them was the village, or what remained of it. It was the first village they had seen since leaving the foothills. Meera had scouted ahead to make certain there was no one lurking amongst the ruins. Sliding in and amongst oaks and apple trees with her net and spear in hand, she startled three red deer and sent them bounding away through?the ?rush. Summer saw the flash of motion and was after them at once. Bran watched the direwolf lope off, and for a moment wanted nothing so much as to slip his skin and run with him, but Meera was waving for them to come ahead. Reluctantly, he turned away from Summer and urged Hodor on, into the village. Jojen walked with them. The ground from here to the Wall was grasslands, Bran knew; fallow fields and low rolling hills, high meadows and lowland bogs. It would be much easier going than the mountains behind, but so much open space made Meera uneasy. "I feel naked," she confessed. "There's no place to hide." "Who holds this land?" Jojen asked Bran. "The Night's Watch," he answered. "This is the Gift. The New Gift, and north of that Brandon's Gift." Maester Luwin had taught him the history. "Brandon the Builder gave all the land south of the Wall to the black brothers, to a distance of twenty-five leagues. For their ... for their sustenance and support." He was proud that he still remembered that part. "Some maesters say it was some other Brandon, not the Builder, but it's still Brandon's Gift. Thousands of years later, Good Queen Alysanne visited the Wall on her dragon Silverwing, and she thought the Night's Watch was so brave that she had the Old King double the size of their lands, to fifty leagues. So that was the New Gift." He waved a hand. "Here. All this." No one had lived in the village for long years, Bran could see. All the houses were falling down. Even the inn. It had never been much of an inn, to look at it, but now all that remained was a stone chimney and two cracked walls, set amongst a dozen apple trees. One was growing up through the common room, where a layer of wet brown leaves and rotting apples carpeted the floor. The air was thick with the smell of them, a cloying cidery scent that was almost overwhelming. Meera stabbed a few apples with her frog spear, trying to find some still good enough to eat, but they were all too brown and wormy. It was a peaceful spot, still and tranquil and lovely to behold, but Bran thought there was something sad about an empty inn, and Hodor seemed to feel it too. "Hodor? " he said in a confused sort of way. "Hodor? Hodor? " "This is good land." Jojen picked up a handful of dirt, rubbing it between his fingers. "A village, an inn, a stout holdfast in the lake, all these apple trees ... but where are the people, Bran? Why would they leave such a place?" "They were afraid of the wildlings," said Bran. "Wildlings come over the Wall or through the mountains, to raid and steal and carry off women. If they catch you, they make your skull into a cup to drink blood, Old Nan used to say. The Night's Watch isn't so strong as it was in Brandon's day or Queen Alysanne's, so more get through. The places nearest the Wall got raided so much the smallfolk moved south, into the mountains or onto the Umber lands east of the kingsroad. The Greatjon's people get raided too, but not so much as the people who used to live in the Gift." Jojen Reed turned his head slowly, listening to music only he could hear. "We need to shelter here. There's a storm coming. A bad one." Bran looked up at the sky. It had been a beautiful crisp clear autumn day, sunny and almost warm, but there were dark clouds off to the west now, that was true, and the wind seemed to be picking up. "There's no roof on the inn and only the two walls," he pointed out. "We should go out to the holdfast." "Hodor," said Hodor. Maybe he agreed. "We have no boat, Bran." Meera poked through the leaves idly with her frog spear. "There's a causeway. A stone causeway, hidden under the water. We could walk out." They could, anyway; he would have to ride on Hodor's back, but at least he'd stay dry that way. The Reeds exchanged a look. "How do you know that?" asked Jojen. "Have you been here before, my prince?" "No. Old Nan told me. The holdfast has a golden crown, see?" He pointed across the lake. You could see patches of flaking gold paint up around the crenellations. "Queen Alysanne slept there, so they painted the merlons gold in her honor." "A causeway?" Joien studied the lake. "You are certain?" "Certain," said Bran. Meera found the foot of it easily enough, once she knew to look; a stone pathway three feet wide, leading right out into the lake. She took them out step by careful step, probing ahead with her frog spear. They could see where the path emerged again, climbing from the water onto the island and turning into a short flight of stone steps that led to the holdfast door. Path, steps, and door were in a straight line, which made you think the causeway ran straight, but that wasn't so. Under the lake it zigged and zagged, going a third of a way around the island before jagging back. The turns were treacherous, and the long path meant that anyone approaching would be exposed to arrow fire from the tower for a long time. The hidden stones were slimy and slippery too; twice Hodor almost lost his footing and shouted "HODOR!" in alarm before regaining his balance. The second time scared Bran badly. If Hodor fell into the lake with him in his basket, he could well drown, especially if the huge stableboy panicked and forgot that Bran was there, the way he did sometimes. Maybe we should have stayed at the inn, under the apple tree, he thought, but by then it was too late. Thankfully there was no third time, and the water never got up past Hodor's waist, though the Reeds were in it up to their chests. And before long they were on the island, climbing the steps to the holdfast. The door was still stout, though its heavy oak planks had warped over the years and it could no longer be closed completely. Meera shoved it open all the way, the rusted iron hinges screaming. The lintel was low. "Duck down, Hodor," Bran said, and he did, but not enough to keep Bran from hitting his head. "That hurt," he complained. "Hodor," said Hodor, straightening. They found themselves in a gloomy strongroom, barely large enough to hold the four of them. Steps built into the inner wall of the tower curved away upward to their left, downward to their right, behind iron grates. Bran looked up and saw another grate just above his head. A murder hole. He was glad there was no one up there now to pour boiling oil down on them. The grates were locked, but the iron bars were red with rust. Hodor grabbed hold of the lefthand door and gave it a pull, grunting with effort. Nothing happened. He tried pushing with no more success. He shook the bars, kicked, shoved against them and rattled them and punched the hinges with a huge hand until the air was filled with flakes of rust, but the iron door would not budge. The one down to the undervault was no more accommodating. "No way in," said Meera, shrugging. The murder hole was just above Bran's head, as he sat in his basket on Hodor's back. He reached up and grabbed the bars to give them a try. When he pulled down the grating came out of the ceiling in a cascade of rust and crumbling stone. "HODOR!" Hodor shouted. The heavy iron grate gave Bran another bang in the head, and crashed down near Jojen's feet when he shoved it off of him. Meera laughed. "Look at that, my prince," she said, "you're stronger than Hodor." Bran blushed. With the grate gone, Hodor was able to boost Meera and Jojen up through the gaping murder hole. The crannogmen took Bran by the arms and drew him up after them. Getting Hodor inside was the hard part. He was too heavy for the Reeds to lift the way they'd lifted Bran. Finally Bran told him to go look for some big rocks. The island had no lack of those, and Hodor was able to pile them high enough to grab the crumbling edges of the hole and climb through. "Hodor, " he panted happily, grinning at all of them. They found themselves in a maze of small cells, dark and empty, but Meera explored until she found the way back to the steps. The higher they climbed, the better the light; on the third story the thick outer wall was pierced by arrow slits, the fourth had actual windows, and the fifth and highest was one big round chamber with arched doors on three sides opening onto small stone balconies. On the fourth side was a privy chamber perched above a sewer chute that dropped straight down into the lake. By the time they reached the roof the sky was completely overcast, and the clouds to the west were black. The wind was blowing so strong it lifted up Bran's cloak and made it flap and snap. "Hodor," Hodor said at the noise. Meera spun in a circle. "I feel almost a giant, standing high above the world." "There are trees in the Neck that stand twice as tall as this," her brother reminded her. "Aye, but they have other trees around them just as high," said Meera. "The world presses close in the Neck, and the sky is so much smaller. Here ... feel that wind, Brother? And look how large the world has grown." It was true, you could see a long ways from up here. To the south the foothills rose, with the mountains grey and green beyond them. The rolling plains of the New Gift stretched away to all the other directions, as far as the eye could see. "I was hoping we could see the Wall from here," said Bran, disappointed. "That was stupid, we must still be fifty leagues away." just speaking of it made him feel tired, and cold as well. "Jojen, what will we do when we reach the Wall? My uncle always said how big it was. Seven hundred feet high, and so thick at the base that the gates are more like tunnels through the ice. How are we going to get past to find the three-eyed crow?" "There are abandoned castles along the Wall, I've heard," Jojen answered. "Fortresses built by the Night's Watch but now left empty. One of them may give us our way through." The ghost castles, Old Nan had called them. Maester Luwin had once made Bran learn the names of every one of the forts along the Wall. That had been hard; there were nineteen of them all told, though no more than seventeen had ever been manned at any one time. At the feast in honor of King Robert's visit to Winterfell, Bran had recited the names for his uncle Benjen, east to west and then west to east. Benjen Stark had laughed and said, "You know them better than I do, Bran. Perhaps you should be First Ranger. I'll stay here in your place." That was before Bran fell, though. Before he was broken. By the time he'd woken crippled from his sleep, his uncle had gone back to Castle Black. "My uncle said the gates were sealed with ice and stone whenever a castle had to be abandoned," said Bran. "Then we'll have to open them again," said Meera. That made him uneasy. "We shouldn't do that. Bad things might come through from the other side. We should just go to Castle Black and tell the Lord Commander to let us pass." "Your Grace," said Jojen, "we must avoid Castle Black, just as we avoided the kingsroad. There are hundreds of men there." "Men of the Night's Watch," said Bran. "They say vows, to take no part in wars and stuff." "Aye," said Jojen, "but one man willing to forswear himself would be enough to sell your secret to the ironmen or the Bastard of Bolton. And we cannot be certain that the Watch would agree to let us pass. They might decide to hold us or send us back." "But my father was a friend of the Night's Watch, and my uncle is First Ranger. He might know where the three-eyed crow lives. And Jon's at Castle Black too." Bran had been hoping to see Jon again, and their uncle too. The last black brothers to visit Winterfell said that Benjen Stark had vanished on a ranging, but surely he would have made his way back by now. "I bet the Watch would even give us horses," he went on. "Quiet." Jojen shaded his eyes with a hand and gazed off toward the setting sun. "Look. There's something ... a rider, I think. Do you see him?" Bran shaded his eyes as well, and even so he had to squint. He saw nothing at first, till some movement made him turn. At first he thought it might be Summer, but no. A man on a horse. He was too far away to see much else. "Hodor?" Hodor had put a hand over his eyes as well, only he was looking the wrong way. "Hodor?" "He is in no haste," said Meera, "but he's making for this village, it seems to me." "We had best go inside, before we're seen," said Jojen. "Summer's near the village," Bran objected. "Summer will be fine," Meera promised. "It's only one man on a tired horse." A few fat wet drops began to patter against the stone as they retreated to the floor below. That was well timed; the rain began to fall in earnest a short time later. Even through the thick walls they could hear it lashing against the surface of the lake. They sat on the floor in the round empty room, amidst gathering gloom. The north-facing balcony looked out toward the abandoned village. Meera crept out on her belly to peer across the lake and see what had become of the horseman. "He's taken shelter in the ruins of the inn," she told them when she came back. "it looks as though he's making a fire in the hearth." "I wish we could have a fire," Bran said. "I'm cold. There's broken furniture down the stairs, I saw it. We could have Hodor chop it up and get warm." Hodor liked that idea. "Hodor," he said hopefully. Jojen shook his head. "Fire means smoke. Smoke from this tower could be seen a long way off." "If there were anyone to see," his sister argued. "There's a man in the village." "One man." "One man would be enough to betray Bran to his enemies, if he's the wrong man. We still have half a duck from yesterday. We should eat and rest. Come morning the man will go on his way, and we will do the same." Jojen had his way; he always did. Meera divided the duck between the four of them. She'd caught it in her net the day before, as it tried to rise from the marsh where she'd surprised it. It wasn't as tasty cold as it had been hot and crisp from the spit, but at least they did not go hungry. Bran and Meera shared the breast while Jojen ate the thigh. Hodor devoured the wing and leg, muttering "Hodor" and licking the grease off his fingers after every bite. It was Bran's turn to tell a story, so he told them about another Brandon Stark, the one called Brandon the Shipwright, who had sailed off beyond the Sunset Sea. Dusk was settling by the time duck and tale were done, and the rain still fell. Bran wondered how far Summer had roamed and whether he had caught one of the deer. Grey gloom filled the tower, and slowly changed to darkness. Hodor grew restless and walked awhile, striding round and round the walls and stopping to peer into the privy on every circuit, as if he had forgotten what was in there. Jojen stood by the north balcony, hidden by the shadows, looking out at the night and the rain. Somewhere to the north a lightning bolt crackled across the sky, brightening the inside of the tower for an instant. Hodor jumped and made a frightened noise. Bran counted to eight, waiting for the thunder. When it came, Hodor shouted, "Hodor!" I hope Summer isn't scared too, Bran thought. The dogs in Winterfell's kennels had always been spooked by thunderstorms, just like Hodor. I should go see, to calm him ... The lightning flashed again, and this time the thunder came at six. "Hodor!" Hodor yelled again. "HODOR! HODOR!" He snatched up his sword, as if to fight the storm. Jojen said, "Be quiet, Hodor. Bran, tell him not to shout. Can you get the sword away from him, Meera?" "I can try." "Hodor, hush," said Bran. "Be quiet now. No more stupid hodoring. Sit down." "Hodor?" He gave the longsword to Meera meekly enough, but his face was a mask of confusion. Jojen turned back to the darkness, and they all heard him suck in his breath. "What is it?" Meera asked. "Men in the village." "The man we saw before?" "Other men. Armed. I saw an axe, and spears as well." Joien had never sounded so much like the boy he was. "I saw them when the lightning flashed, moving under the trees." "How many?" "Many and more. Too many to count." "Mounted? "No." "Hodor." Hodor sounded frightened. "Hodor. Hodor." Bran felt a little scared himself, though he didn't want to say so in front of Meera. "What if they come out here?" "They won't." She sat down beside him. "Why should they?" "For shelter." Jojen's voice was grim. "Unless the storm lets up. Meera, could you go down and bar the door?" "I couldn't even close it. The wood's too warped. They won't get past those iron gates, though." "They might. They could break the lock, or the hinges. Or climb up through the murder hole as we did." Lightning slashed the sky, and Hodor whimpered. Then a clap of thunder rolled across the lake. "HODOR!" he roared, clapping his hands over his ears and stumbling in a circle through the darkness. "HODOR! HODOR! HODOR!" "NO!" Bran shouted back. "NO HODORING!" It did no good. "HOOOODOR!" moaned Hodor. Meera tried to catch him and calm him, but he was too strong. He flung her aside with no more than a shrug. "HOOOOOODOOOOOOOR!" the stableboy screamed as lightning filled the sky again, and even Jojen was shouting now, shouting at Bran and Meera to shut him up. "Be quiet!" Bran said in a shrill scared voice, reaching up uselessly for Hodor's leg as he crashed past, reaching, reaching. Hodor staggered, and closed his mouth. He shook his head slowly from side to side, sank back to the floor, and sat crosslegged. When the thunder boomed, he scarcely seemed to hear it. The four of them sat in the dark tower, scarce daring to breathe. "Bran, what did you do?" Meera whispered. "Nothing." Bran shook his head. "I don't know." But he did. I reached for him, the way I reach for Summer. He had been Hodor for half a heartbeat. It scared him. "Something is happening across the lake," said Jojen. "I thought I saw a man pointing at the tower." I won't be afraid. He was the Prince of Winterfell, Eddard Stark's son, almost a man grown and a warg too, not some little baby boy like Rickon. Summer would not be afraid. "Most like they're just some Umbers," he said. "Or they could be Knotts or Norreys or Flints come down from the mountains, or even brothers from the Night's Watch. Were they wearing black cloaks, Jojen?" "By night all cloaks are black, Your Grace. And the flash came and went too fast for me to tell what they were wearing." Meera was wary. "If they were black brothers, they'd be mounted, wouldn't they?" Bran had thought of something else. "It doesn't matter," he said confidently. "They couldn't get out to us even if they wanted. Not unless they had a boat, or knew about the causeway." "The causeway!" Meera mussed Bran's hair and kissed him on the forehead. "Our sweet prince! He's right, Jojen, they won't know about the causeway. Even if they did they could never find the way across at night in the rain." "The night will end, though. If they stay till morning..." Jojen left the rest unsaid. After a few moments he said, "They are feeding the fire the first man started." Lightning crashed through the sky, and light filled the tower and etched them all in shadow. Hodor rocked back and forth, humming. Bran could feel Summer's fear in that bright instant. He closed two eyes and opened a third, and his boy's skin slipped off him like a cloak as he left the tower behind ... ... and found himself out in the rain, his belly full of deer, cringing in the brush as the sky broke and boomed above him. The smell of rotten apples and wet leaves almost drowned the scent of man, but it was there. He heard the clink and slither of hardskin, saw men moving under the trees. A man with a stick blundered by, a skin pulled up over his head to make him blind and deaf. The wolf went wide around him, behind a dripping thornbush and beneath the bare branches of an apple tree. He could hear them talking, and there beneath the scents of rain and leaves and horse came the sharp red stench of fear ...

§ § §

DAVOS

Lord Alester looked up sharply. "Voices," he said. "Do you hear, Davos? Someone is coming for us." "Lamprey," said Davos. "It's time for our supper, or near enough." Last night Lamprey had brought them half a beef-and-bacon pie, and a flagon of mead as well. Just the thought of it made his belly start to rumble. "No, there's more than one." He's right. Davos heard two voices at least, and footsteps, growing louder. He got to his feet and moved to the bars. Lord Alester brushed the straw from his clothes. "The king has sent for me. Or the queen, yes, Selyse would never let me rot here, her own blood." Outside the cell, Lamprey appeared with a ring of keys in hand. Ser Axell Florent and four guardsmen followed close behind him. They waited beneath the torch while Lamprey searched for the correct key. "Axell," Lord Alester said. "Gods be good. Is it the king who sends for me, or the queen?" "No one has sent for you, traitor," Ser Axell said. Lord Alester recoiled as if he'd been slapped. "No, I swear to you, I committed no treason. Why won't you listen? If His Grace would only let me explain-" Lamprey thrust a great iron key into the lock, turned it, and pulled open the cell. The rusted hinges screamed in protest. "You," he said to Davos. "Come." "Where?" Davos looked to Ser Axell. "Tell me true, ser, do you mean to burn me?" "You are sent for. Can you walk?" "I can walk." Davos stepped from the cell. Lord Alester gave a cry of dismay as Lamprey slammed the door shut once more. "Take the torch," Ser Axell commanded the gaoler. "Leave the traitor to the darkness." "No," his brother said. "Axell, please, don't take the light . . . gods have mercy . . . " "Gods? There is only R'hllor, and the Other." Ser Axell gestured sharply, and one of his guardsmen pulled the torch from its sconce and led the way to the stair. "Are you taking me to Melisandre?" Davos asked. "She will be there," Ser Axell said. "She is never far from the king. But it is His Grace himself who asked for you." Davos lifted his hand to his chest, where once his luck had hung in a leather bag on a thong. Gone now, he remembered, and the ends of four fingers as well. But his hands were still long enough to wrap about a woman's throat, he thought, especially a slender throat like hers. Up they went, climbing the turnpike stair in single file. The walls were rough dark stone, cool to the touch. The light of the torches went before them, and their shadows marched beside them on the walls. At the third turn they passed an iron gate that opened on blackness, and another at the fifth turn. Davos guessed that they were near the surface by then, perhaps even above it. The next door they came to was made of wood, but still they climbed. Now the walls were broken by arrow slits, but no shafts of sunlight pried their way through the thickness of the stone. It was night outside. His legs were aching by the time Ser Axell thrust open a heavy door and gestured him through. Beyond, a high stone bridge arched over emptiness to the massive central tower called the Stone Drum. A sea wind blew restlessly through the arches that supported the roof, and Davos could smell the salt water as they crossed. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the clean cold air. Wind and water, give me strength, he prayed. A huge nightfire burned in the yard below, to keep the terrors of the dark at bay, and the queen's men were gathered around it, singing praises to their new red god. They were in the center of the bridge when Ser Axell stopped suddenly. He made a brusque gesture with his hand, and his men moved out of earshot. "Were it my choice, I would burn you with my brother Alester," he told Davos. "You are both traitors." "Say what you will. I would never betray King Stannis." "You would. You will. I see it in your face. And I have seen it in the flames as well. R'hllor has blessed me with that gift. Like Lady Melisandre, he shows me the future in the fire. Stannis Baratheon will sit the Iron Throne. I have seen it. And I know what must be done. His Grace must make me his Hand, in place of my traitor brother. And you will tell him so." Will I? Davos said nothing. "The queen has urged my appointment," Ser Axell went on. "Even your old friend from Lys, the pirate Saan, he says the same. We have made a plan together, him and me. Yet His Grace does not act. The defeat gnaws inside him, a black worm in his soul. It is up to us who love him to show him what to do. If you are as devoted to his cause as you claim, smuggler, you will join your voice to ours. Tell him that I am the only Hand he needs. Tell him, and when we sail I shall see that you have a new ship." A ship. Davos studied the other man's face. Ser Axell had big Florent ears, much like the queen's. Coarse hair grew from them, as from his nostrils; more sprouted in tufts and patches beneath his double chin. His nose was broad, his brow beetled, his eyes close-set and hostile. He would sooner give me a pyre than a ship, he said as much, but if I do him this favor . . . "if you think to betray me," Ser Axell said, "pray remember that I have been castellan of Dragonstone a good long time. The garrison is mine. Perhaps I cannot burn you without the king's consent, but who is to say you might not suffer a fall." He laid a meaty hand on the back of Davos's neck and shoved him bodily against the waist-high side of the bridge, then shoved a little harder to force his face out over the yard. "Do you hear me?" "I hear," said Davos. And you dare name me traitor? Ser Axell released him. "Good." He smiled. "His Grace awaits. Best we do not keep him." At the very top of Stone Drum, within the great round room called the Chamber of the Painted Table, they found Stannis Baratheon standing behind the artifact that gave the hall its name, a massive slab of wood carved and painted in the shape of Westeros as it had been in the time of Aegon the Conqueror. An iron brazier stood beside the king, its coals glowing a ruddy orange. Four tall pointed windows looked out to north, south, east, and west. Beyond was the night and the starry sky. Davos could hear the wind moving, and fainter, the sounds of the sea. "Your Grace," Ser Axell said, "as it please you, I have brought the onion knight." "So I see." Stannis wore a grey wool tunic, a dark red mantle, and a plain black leather belt from which his sword and dagger hung. A red-gold crown with flame-shaped points encircled his brows. The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm's End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king's close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face. Yet when he saw Davos, a faint smile brushed his lips. "So the sea has returned me my knight of the fish and onions." "It did, Your Grace." Does he know that he had me in his dungeon? Davos went to one knee. "Rise, Ser Davos," Stannis commanded. "I have missed you, ser. I have need of good counsel, and you never gave me less. So tell me true-what is the penalty for treason?" The word hung in the air. A frightful word, thought Davos. Was he being asked to condemn his cellmate? Or himself, perchance? Kings know the penalty for treason better than any man. "Treason?" he finally managed, weakly. "What else would you call it, to deny your king and seek to steal his rightful throne. I ask you again-what is the penalty for treason under the law?" Davos had no choice but to answer. "Death," he said. "The penalty is death, Your Grace." "It has always been so. I am not . . . I am not a cruel man, Ser Davos. You know me. Have known me long. This is not my decree. It has always been so, since Aegon's day and before. Daemon Blackfyre, the brothers Toyne, the Vulture King, Grand Maester Hareth . . . traitors have always paid with their lives . . . even Rhaenyra Targaryen. She was daughter to one king and mother to two more, yet she died a traitor's death for trying to usurp her brother's crown. It is law. Law, Davos. Not cruelty." "Yes, Your Grace." He does not speak of me. Davos felt a moment's pity for his cellmate down in the dark. He knew he should keep silent, but he was tired and sick of heart, and he heard himself say, "Sire, Lord Florent meant no treason." "Do smugglers have another name for it? I made him Hand, and he would have sold my rights for a bowl of pease porridge. He would even have given them Shireen. Mine only child, he would have wed to a bastard born of incest." The king's voice was thick with anger. "My brother had a gift for inspiring loyalty. Even in his foes. At Summerhall he won three battles in a single day, and brought Lords Grandison and Cafferen back to Storm's End as prisoners. He hung their banners in the hall as trophies. Cafferen's white fawns were spotted with blood and Grandison's sleeping lion was torn near in two. Yet they would sit beneath those banners of a night, drinking and feasting with Robert. He even took them hunting. 'These men meant to deliver you to Aerys to be burned' I told him after I saw them throwing axes in the yard. 'You should not be putting axes in their hands.' Robert only laughed. I would have thrown Grandison and Cafferen into a dungeon, but he turned them into friends. Lord Cafferen died at Ashford Castle, cut down by Randyll Tarly whilst fighting for Robert. Lord Grandison was wounded on the Trident and died of it a year after. My brother made them love him, but it would seem that I inspire only betrayal. Even in mine own blood and kin. Brother, grandfather, cousins, good uncle . . . " "Your Grace," said Ser Axell, "I beg you, give me the chance to prove to you that not all Florents are so feeble." "Ser Axell would have me resume the war," King Stannis told Davos. "The Lannisters think I am done and beaten, and my sworn lords have forsaken me, near every one. Even Lord Estermont, my own mother's father, has bent his knee to Joffrey. The few loyal men who remain to me are losing heart. They waste their days drinking and gambling, and lick their wounds like beaten curs." "Battle will set their hearts ablaze once more, Your Grace," Ser Axell said. "Defeat is a disease, and victory is the cure." "Victory." The king's mouth twisted. "There are victories and victories, ser. But tell your plan to Ser Davos. I would hear his views on what you propose." Ser Axell turned to Davos, with a look on his face much like the look that proud Lord Belgrave must have worn, the day King Baelor the Blessed had commanded him to wash the beggar's ulcerous feet. Nonetheless, he obeyed. The plan Ser Axell had devised with Salladhor Saan was simple. A few hours' sail from Dragonstone lay Claw Isle, ancient sea-girt seat of House Celtigar. Lord Ardrian Celtigar had fought beneath the flery heart on the Blackwater, but once taken, he had wasted no time in going over to Joffrey. He remained in King's Landing even now. "Too frightened of His Grace's wrath to come near Dragonstone, no doubt," Ser Axell declared. "And wisely so. The man has betrayed his rightful king." Ser Axell proposed to use Salladhor Saan's fleet and the men who had escaped the Blackwater-Stannis still had some fifteen hundred on Dragonstone, more than half of them Florents-to exact retribution for Lord Celtigar's defection. Claw Isle was but lightly garrisoned, its castle reputedly stuffed with Myrish carpets, Volantene glass, gold and silver plate, jeweled cups, magnificent hawks, an axe of Valyrian steel, a horn that could summon monsters from the deep, chests of rubies, and more wines than a man could drink in a hundred years. Though Celtigar had shown the world a niggardly face, he had never stinted on his own comforts. "Put his castle to the torch and his people to the sword, I say," Ser Axell concluded. "Leave Claw Isle a desolation of ash and bone, fit only for carrion crows, so the realm might see the fate of those who bed with Lannisters." Stannis listened to Ser Axell's recitation in silence, grinding his jaw slowly from side to side. When it was done, he said, "It could be done, I believe. The risk is small. Joffrey has no strength at sea until Lord Redwyne sets sail from the Arbor. The plunder might serve to keep that Lysene pirate Salladhor Saan loyal for a time. By itself Claw Isle is worthless, but its fall would serve notice to Lord Tywin that my cause is not yet done." The king turned back to Davos. "Speak truly, ser. What do you make of Ser Axell's proposal?" Speak truly, ser. Davos remembered the dark cell he had shared with Lord Alester, remembered Lamprey and Porridge. He thought of the promises that Ser Axell had made on the bridge above the yard. A ship or a shove, what shall it be? But this was Stannis asking. "Your Grace," he said slowly, "I make it folly . . . aye, and cowardice." "Cowardice?" Ser Axell all but shouted. "No man calls me craven before my king!" "Silence," Stannis commanded. "Ser Davos, speak on, I would hear your reasons." Davos turned to face Ser Axell. "You say we ought show the realm we are not done. Strike a blow. Make war, aye . . . but on what enemy? You will find no Lannisters on Claw Isle." "We will find traitors," said Ser Axell, "though it may be I could find some closer to home. Even in this very room." Davos ignored the jibe. "I don't doubt Lord Celtigar bent the knee to the boy Joffrey. He is an old done man, who wants no more than to end his days in his castle, drinking his fine wine out of his jeweled cups." He turned back to Stannis. "Yet he came when you called, sire. Came, with his ships and swords. He stood by you at Storm's End when Lord Renly came down on us, and his ships sailed up the Blackwater. His men fought for you, killed for you, burned for you. Claw Isle is weakly held, yes. Held by women and children and old men. And why is that? Because their husbands and sons and fathers died on the Blackwater, that's why. Died at their oars, or with swords in their hands, fighting beneath our banners. Yet Ser Axell proposes we swoop down on the homes they left behind, to rape their widows and put their children to the sword. These smallfolk are no traitors . . . " "They are," insisted Ser Axell. "Not all of Celtigar's men were slain on the Blackwater. Hundreds were taken with their lord, and bent the knee when he did." "When he did," Davos repeated. "They were his men. His sworn men. What choice were they given?" "Every man has choices. They might have refused to kneel. Some did, and died for it. Yet they died true men, and loyal." "Some men are stronger than others." It was a feeble answer, and Davos knew it. Stannis Baratheon was a man of iron will who neither understood nor forgave weakness in others . I am losing, he thought, despairing. "It is every man's duty to remain loyal to his rightful king, even if the lord he serves proves false," Stannis declared in a tone that brooked no argument. A desperate folly took hold of Davos, a recklessness akin to madness. "As you remained loyal to King Aerys when your brother raised his banners?" he blurted. Shocked silence followed, until Ser Axell cried, "Treason!" and snatched his dagger from its sheath. "Your Grace, he speaks his infamy to your face!" Davos could hear Stannis grinding his teeth. A vein bulged, blue and swollen, in the king's brow. Their eyes met. "Put up your knife, Ser Axell. And leave us." "As it please Your Grace-" "It would please me for you to leave," said Stannis. "Take yourself from my presence, and send me Melisandre." "As you command." Ser Axell slid the knife away, bowed, and hurried toward the door. His boots rang against the floor, angry. "You have always presumed on my forbearance," Stannis warned Davos when they were alone. "I can shorten your tongue as easy as I did your fingers, smuggler." "I am your man, Your Grace. So it is your tongue, to do with as you please." "It is," he said, calmer. "And I would have it speak the truth. Though the truth is a bitter draught at times. Aerys? If you only knew . . . that was a hard choosing. My blood or my liege. My brother or my king." He grimaced. "Have you ever seen the Iron Throne? The barbs along the back, the ribbons of twisted steel, the jagged ends of swords and knives all tangled up and melted? It is not a comfortable seat, ser. Aerys cut himself so often men took to calling him King Scab, and Maegor the Cruel was murdered in that chair. By that chair, to hear some tell it. It is not a seat where a man can rest at ease. Ofttimes I wonder why my brothers wanted it so desperately." "Why would you want it, then?" Davos asked him. "It is not a question of wanting. The throne is mine, as Robert's heir. That is law. After me, it must pass to my daughter, unless Selyse should finally give me a son." He ran three fingers lightly down the table, over the layers of smooth hard varnish, dark with age. "I am king. Wants do not enter into it. I have a duty to my daughter. To the realm. Even to Robert. He loved me but little, I know, yet he was my brother. The Lannister woman gave him horns and made a motley fool of him. She may have murdered him as well, as she murdered Jon Arryn and Ned Stark. For such crimes there must be justice. Starting with Cersei and her abominations. But only starting. I mean to scour that court clean. As Robert should have done, after the Trident. Ser Barristan once told me that the rot in King Aerys's reign began with Varys. The eunuch should never have been pardoned. No more than the Kingslayer. At the least, Robert should have stripped the white cloak from Jaime and sent him to the Wall, as Lord Stark urged. He listened to Jon Arryn instead. I was still at Storm's End, under siege and unconsulted." He turned abruptly, to give Davos a hard shrewd look. "The truth, now. Why did you wish to murder Lady Melisandre?" So he does know. Davos could not lie to him. "Four of my sons burned on the Blackwater. She gave them to the flames." "You wrong her. Those fires were no work of hers. Curse the Imp, curse the pyromancers, curse that fool of Florent who sailed my fleet into the jaws of a trap. Or curse me for my stubborn pride, for sending her away when I needed her most. But not Melisandre. She remains my faithful servant." "Maester Cressen was your faithful servant. She slew him, as she killed Ser Cortnay Penrose and your brother Renly." "Now you sound a fool," the king complained. "She saw Renly's end in the flames, yes, but she had no more part in it than I did. The priestess was with me. Your Devan would tell you so. Ask him, if you doubt me. She would have spared Renly if she could. It was Melisandre who urged me to meet with him, and give him one last chance to amend his treason. And it was Melisandre who told me to send for you when Ser Axell wished to give you to R'hllor." He smiled thinly. "Does that surprise you?" "Yes. She knows I am no friend to her or her red god." "But you are a friend to me. She knows that as well." He beckoned Davos closer. "The boy is sick. Maester Pylos has been leeching him." "The boy?" His thoughts went to his Devan, the king's squire. "My son, sire?" "Devan? A good boy. He has much of you in him. It is Robert's bastard who is sick, the boy we took at Storm's End." Edric Storm. "I spoke with him in Aegon's Garden." "As she wished. As she saw." Stannis sighed. "Did the boy charm you? He has that gift. He got it from his father, with the blood. He knows he is a king's son, but chooses to forget that he is bastard-born. And he worships Robert, as Renly did when he was young. My royal brother played the fond father on his visits to Storm's End, and there were gifts . . . swords and ponies and fur-trimmed cloaks. The eunuch's work, every one. The boy would write the Red Keep full of thanks, and Robert would laugh and ask Varys what he'd sent this year. Renly was no better. He left the boy's upbringing to castellans and maesters, and every one fell victim to his charm. Penrose chose to die rather than give him up." The king ground his teeth together. "It still angers me. How could he think I would hurt the boy? I chose Robert, did I not? When that hard day came. I chose blood over honor." He does not use the boy's name. That made Davos very uneasy. "I hope young Edric will recover soon." Stannis waved a hand, dismissing his concern. "It is a chill, no more. He coughs, he shivers, he has a fever. Maester Pylos will soon set him right. By himself the boy is nought, you understand, but in his veins flows my brother's blood. There is power in a king's blood, she says." Davos did not have to ask who she was. Stannis touched the Painted Table. "Look at it, onion knight. My realm, by rights. My Westeros." He swept a hand across it. "This talk of Seven Kingdoms is a folly. Aegon saw that three hundred years ago when he stood where we are standing. They painted this table at his command. Rivers and bays they painted, hills and mountains, castles and cities and market towns, lakes and swamps and forests . . . but no borders. It is all one. One realm, for one king to rule alone." "One king," agreed Davos. "One king means peace." "I shall bring justice to Westeros. A thing Ser Axell understands as little as he does war. Claw Isle would gain me naught . . . and it was evil, just as you said. Celtigar must pay the traitor's price himself, in his own person. And when I come into my kingdom, he shall. Every man shall reap what he has sown, from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat. And some will lose more than the tips off their fingers, I promise you. They have made my kingdom bleed, and I do not forget that." King Stannis turned from the table. "On your knees, Onion Knight." "Your Grace?" "For your onions and fish, I made you a knight once. For this, I am of a mind to raise you to lord." This? Davos was lost. "I am content to be your knight, Your Grace. I would not know how to begin being lordly." "Good. To be lordly is to be false. I have learned that lesson hard. Now, kneel. Your king commands." Davos knelt, and Stannis drew his longsword. Lightbringer, Melisandre had named it; the red sword of heroes, drawn from the fires where the seven gods were consumed. The room seemed to grow brighter as the blade slid from its scabbard. The steel had a glow to it; now orange, now yellow, now red. The air shimmered around it, and no jewel had ever sparkled so brilliantly. But when Stannis touched it to Davos's shoulder, it felt no different than any other longsword. "Ser Davos of House Seaworth," the king said, "are you my true and honest liege man, now and forever?" "I am, Your Grace." "And do you swear to serve me loyally all your days, to give me honest counsel and swift obedience, to defend my rights and my realm against all foes in battles great and small, to protect my people and punish my enemies?" "I do, Your Grace." "Then rise again, Davos Seaworth, and rise as Lord of the Rainwood, Admiral of the Narrow Sea, and Hand of the King." For a moment Davos was too stunned to move. I woke this morning in his dungeon. "Your Grace, you cannot . . . I am no fit man to be a King's Hand." "There is no man fitter." Stannis sheathed Lightbringer, gave Davos his hand, and pulled him to his feet. "I am lowborn," Davos reminded him. "An upjumped smuggler. Your lords will never obey me." "Then we will make new lords." "But . . . I cannot read . . . nor write . . . " "Maester Pylos can read for you. As to writing, my last Hand wrote the head off his shoulders. All I ask of you are the things you've always given me. Honesty. Loyalty. Service." "Surely there is someone better . . . some great lord . . . " Stannis snorted. "Bar Emmon, that boy? My faithless grandfather? Celtigar has abandoned me, the new Velaryon is six years old, and the new Sunglass sailed for Volantis after I burned his brother." He made an angry gesture. "A few good men remain, it's true. Ser Gilbert Farring holds Storm's End for me still, with two hundred loyal men. Lord Morrigen, the Bastard of Nightsong, young Chyttering, my cousin Andrew . . . but I trust none of them as I trust you, my lord of Rainwood. You will be my Hand. It is you I want beside me for the battle." Another battle will be the end of all of us, thought Davos. Lord Alester saw that much true enough. "Your Grace asked for honest counsel. In honesty then . . . we lack the strength for another battle against the Lannisters." "It is the great battle His Grace is speaking of," said a woman's voice, rich with the accents of the east. Melisandre stood at the door in her red silks and shimmering satins, holding a covered silver dish in her hands. "These little wars are no more than a scuffle of children before what is to come. The one whose name may not be spoken is marshaling his power, Davos Seaworth, a power fell and evil and strong beyond measure. Soon comes the cold, and the night that never ends." She placed the silver dish on the Painted Table. "Unless true men find the courage to fight it. Men whose hearts are fire." Stannis stared at the silver dish. "She has shown it to me, Lord Davos. In the flames." "You saw it, sire?" It was not like Stannis Baratheon to lie about such a thing. "With mine own eyes. After the battle, when I was lost to despair, the Lady Melisandre bid me gaze into the hearthfire. The chimney was drawing strongly, and bits of ash were rising from the fire. I stared at them, feeling half a fool, but she bid me look deeper, and . . . the ashes were white, rising in the updraft, yet all at once it seemed as if they were falling. Snow, I thought. Then the sparks in the air seemed to circle, to become a ring of torches, and I was looking through the fire down on some high hill in a forest. The cinders had become men in black behind the torches, and there were shapes moving through the snow. For all the heat of the fire, I felt a cold so terrible I shivered, and when I did the sight was gone, the fire but a fire once again. But what I saw was real, I'd stake my kingdom on it." "And have," said Melisandre. The conviction in the king's voice frightened Davos to the core. "A hill in a forest . . . shapes in the snow . . . I don't . . . " "It means that the battle is begun," said Melisandre. "The sand is running through the glass more quickly now, and man's hour on earth is almost done. We must act boldly, or all hope is lost. Westeros must unite beneath her one true king, the prince that was promised, Lord of Dragonstone and chosen of R'hllor." "R'hllor chooses queerly, then." The king grimaced, as if he'd tasted something foul. "Why me, and not my brothers? Renly and his peach. In my dreams I see the juice running from his mouth, the blood from his throat. If he had done his duty by his brother, we would have smashed Lord Tywin. A victory even Robert could be proud of. Robert . . . " His teeth ground side to side. "He is in my dreams as well. Laughing. Drinking. Boasting. Those were the things he was best at. Those, and fighting. I never bested him at anything. The Lord of Light should have made Robert his champion. Why me?" "Because you are a righteous man," said Melisandre. "A righteous man." Stannis touched the covered silver platter with a finger. "With leeches." "Yes," said Melisandre, "but I must tell you once more, this is not the way." "You swore it would work." The king looked angry. "It will . . . and it will not." "Which?" "Both." "Speak sense to me, woman." "When the fires speak more plainly, so shall I. There is truth in the flames, but it is not always easy to see." The great ruby at her throat drank fire from the glow of the brazier. "Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon." "I have told you, no." "He is only one baseborn boy, against all the boys of Westeros, and all the girls as well. Against all the children that might ever be born, in all the kingdoms of the world." "The boy is innocent." "The boy defiled your marriage bed, else you would surely have sons of your own. He shamed you." "Robert did that. Not the boy. My daughter has grown fond of him. And he is mine own blood." "Your brother's blood," Melisandre said. "A king's blood. Only a king's blood can wake the stone dragon." Stannis ground his teeth. "I'll hear no more of this. The dragons are done. The Targaryens tried to bring them back half a dozen times. And made fools of themselves, or corpses. Patchface is the only fool we need on this godsforsaken rock. You have the leeches. Do your work." Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, "As my king commands." Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy's blood, Davos knew. A king's blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches. "Say the name," Melisandre commanded. The leech was twisting in the king's grip, trying to attach itself to one of his fingers. "The usurper," he said. "Joffrey Baratheon." When he tossed the leech into the fire, it curled up like an autumn leaf amidst the coals, and burned. Stannis grasped the second. "The usurper," he declared, louder this time. "Balon Greyjoy." He flipped it lightly onto the brazier, and its flesh split and cracked. The blood burst from it, hissing and smoking. The last was in the king's hand. This one he studied a moment as it writhed between his fingers. "The usurper," he said at last. "Robb Stark." And he threw it on the flames.

[pipesflowforeverandever]

The Ink Demonth, Day 15: Time Travel

I borrowed @aceofintuition‘s Joey Drew, “Snowy”, again for this alongside my own, “Gingie”. This drabble is based on an RP we did together some months ago. You can tell by the length how much I enjoyed writing it.

Summary: An old man with blue eyes steps into the page of someone much younger with dreams ahead he still can’t see.

Word Count: 2942

The aging man heard the ring of the café door as he stepped in, the gentle sting of coffee immediate underneath his nose and its faint taste on the edge of his lips. His eyes glanced around at a world seemingly tinged brown like a yellowing photo, the soft, warm hues evident everywhere on this sunny autumn evening. There was a record playing somewhere as the sweeping of a broom scuffed next to the counter that caught the silver fox’s attention, but his light wrinkles crinkled a bit more as interest in the cleaning was brief; he was here for something else.

Someone else, he found as a shade of reddish-orange caught his gaze, and he felt lured closer just like a curious fish in the sea.

The young man had his back to him, a briefcase shadowed by his side as it leaned against the leg of a chair. He was the brightest thing in the room, like he lit it up the same way a candle does the spare, dusty bedroom; everything around him just seemed to follow suit to his cream sleeves and tan-brown pants. His cup of gold-tinted tea rippled as he bumped the table, reaching down for a hardcover book with pages sticking out in much the same way the case did.

The newcomer, still standing, allowed his ice blue stare to cling as he walked past the busy, seemingly ditzy boy. Or…well, “boy” as an accurate term is determinate on how old one is when perceiving it. The redhead certainly wouldn’t consider himself a boy at the ripe old age of 22, but someone without a line of color left in their grey hair would, and the mysterious person letting his black cloak rub past the seats as he made his way to the window was such a someone. It wasn’t until he sat down that the distracted kid had finished lugging up his notebook and felt his expression still at the appearance of someone he didn’t expect to see again.

After all, Joey had lived here for years, and most unusual folks he spied on in the park didn’t show up again somewhere else. Not in the same day.

The stranger was beautiful, with hair styled almost impossibly in a large swoop from the left to the right side of his head; the end of it had a distinct wave, and it all looked dyed as if steeped in moonlight for nights on end. His brown skin shone with the glow from the window, leaves falling from the tree just outside it past a pair of irises that would put the finest crystal glass to shame.

The aspiring artist with already pinkish skin felt it become pinker, heat nibbling at the top of his cheeks and the tips of his fingers and knuckles. The pages laid across his desk were undoubtfully familiar; what were the chances that he had seen them as he strolled past to the booth? In his panic, he calculated it to be high; even if the old man refused to look back at him, he must have known.

He’d find out many, many years later he didn’t, but the wrong assumption made the right thing to do. It was inevitable anyway, in a certain sense, as sketching strangers in the park without them noticing was a practice that can’t eventually go undefeated.

And Joey, even when he was young, was a man proactive in his introductions. Perhaps a bit more on the shy side than he would be running a studio, but still someone that would rather talk than let silence rule the day.

And so he did.

“G-good ev- afternoon! Sir!”

The silver-haired man lazily blinked and glanced to the side at the youngster who was hardly taller than him even when the former was sitting and the latter bouncing to the tips of his scuffed shoes. A grown man, perhaps, but Joey would always be teased for never growing an inch more. The blue-eyed man evaluated him, another set of honey eyes flickering slightly but constantly with nerves that had a shaky smile to match at the corners of his mouth. He noted there was no mustache above his lips, but still sideburns and glasses to accessorize his head.

He played dumb. “Hey.” The newcomer’s voice was deep with two accents coming together, one a southern drawl and the other the unmistakable hint of someone accustomed to speaking Spanish. “…What can I do for ya?”

Yes, of course, he had noticed the ginger staring at him from afar some hours ago. Yes, of course, he was going to enjoy seeing him squirm for a reason to cover it anyway. Truth be told, he was surprised that the kid came up to him in the first place; he figured it would be up to him to initiate a conversation, if one was going to happen.

But that had always just been Gin, it turned out. The old man tried not to smile at the idea of it, so there was just a twitch on the left side of his mouth.

“I- I was just!” Joey held his hands in front of his chest, chin turned down to restless, fiddling fingers. What could he even say?! ‘Oh, I’m so sorry for sketching you without even talking to you first’? No! He wasn’t even sorry! …Just sorry he got caught.

It was only then he supposed maybe he hadn’t been caught, as he assumed. The realization it was far too late to back out felt like a push on his back to keep spitting out words and hope they make sense.

“I…I hope this doesn’t come off in the wrong way, my good man!”

Said good man raised a brow as the other squeaked his way around the situation.

“But- but you made for a lovely inspiration!” Joey kept grinning until it hurt his face, as he looked at the stranger for any sort of reaction.

“…Beg your pardon?”

Oh.

“I! I simply!” Come on now, confidence! Only thing left to save him now! “I’m an artist! And I do life studies! And you simply are just FAR too interesting to ignore!”

And in both excitement and fear, the old man felt himself involuntarily tilting his head back as a book was shoved into his personal space, pages flicking until it fell to the last ones before the rest of the book seemed orderly. And there, indeed, was his own face.

In awkward silence, his wide eyes flicked back to look at the others’, just to see the ginger in the same sort of anxiety inducing panic that he was before- perhaps amplified. He blinked again. Somehow, he still wasn’t used to this kind of attention, even if he knew he should have known better.

Gin was a weird kid.

With the young man waiting, seemingly, for him to react first, the stranger gently gripped the book and pulled it away so it was at a better angle for his eyes.

And although he knew he was avoiding the growing need for a pair of glasses, the old man also understood at a glance this was something special.

“How about…” the older man drawled with as much patience he could muster, trying to begin a proper conversation, “…’Y pull your stuff over here? ‘Magine your back hurts from standing up so straight.”

With that, he had to try not to chuckle as he saw the kid realize his stance and overcorrect, abruptly adjusting where his limbs were in relation to his body before scrambling to bring his things spread across the table in an armful. They were spread once more before the other next to the window, and it didn’t take long for him to try to forget at least a bit of the horrible introduction that just happened.

It almost felt like he was evaluating his portfolio, with a bright-eyed new artist waiting with a bounce in his seat for commentary on the accumulation of his work and skills.

So he was the kind of guy to pour himself out without even knowing if the other person was an artist or not- just someone he…wanted to approval of. The old man supposed there was something there he was supposed to think about in relation to his friend, but didn’t have the attention to word exactly what as he plucked up a random sketch- a seemingly candid one of a rabbit tucked behind a thin bundle of flowers.

“These are nice,” the old man commented with a sharp but approving glance over. “Y’ got a real eye for detail, here, kiddo.”

It still didn’t cross the youngster’s mind that the whole ‘I’ve been drawing you’ thing was pushed aside so easily for a reason. He had been watching him back for even longer; no explanation was needed, and he couldn’t improvise a realistic response anyway as if he was surprised.

“I’m…an artist, sir,” Joey repeated again, somehow steadier this time but calmer. “I just draw what I see. And I quite enjoy it! I just-“

Joey interrupted himself with a hum that trailed off, in some way not wanting to finish that thought. The other man pursed his lips.

“Just what, kid?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“…Can’t really drop all these drawings on my lap and call whatever you want to say about them nothing, you know.” His tone was dry but the meaning was sincere, a tinge of softness in his voice, a kind of understanding a bit too familiar to put aside.

As such, after a few more seconds of fumbling, the shy young man simply nodded in agreement.

“Now…” the older continued, setting the held page down to pick up another, “…What do y’ wanna do?” The question was taken with a bit of shock, but he continued as easygoing as before. “What do you…wanna make with all this? What’s the dream, kid?”

It did feel like a dream, Joey inwardly agreed. He plopped himself onto a total stranger and found himself without hesitation being probed about what it meant to him. And usually Joey had answers! He could go on and on and on without taking a single breath about what it meant to him to create things, about wanting to do things for others to see. But he always said so unprompted; now that it was actually asked of him aloud, he found himself floundering on what to say.

“I…”

The old man tried to pretend he wasn’t staring at him, wasn’t so invested in the answer that he couldn’t hear anything else.

Joey exhaled and folded his hands on the table, thumb smoothing over his own skin in restless ponderance- a good emotion for a matching time in his life.

“I would…love if I could, somehow, use my art to…make people happy.”

Now that was something he had never considered, but there it was- spoken by none other than himself. He briefly bit his lower lip and looked out the window, perhaps avoiding making himself look at his art and the man that was now- unbeknownst to him- clearly staring with intent.

“I…want to do what my mother always believed I could do. You see- see, she told me I had a special kind of magic that matters to other people. That I’m so bright that…I can make others bright too, just by making them smile.”

It was so, so hard for the stranger to withhold his smile for just a second longer.

“But I…don’t quite know how that can be done!”

Joey’s eyes flickered back, and the nervous smile had returned; in spite of his optimism, it was like putting a blanket over the unsure, tumultuous waves of the sea.

“Then you try something out.”

The response, as quiet as it was spoken, was still strong and unexpected, and so Joey felt himself gasp. His honey eyes widened, and his whole head turned to attention.

And now- now he was letting himself smile. The man opposite of Joey knew that he was looking this time, and that it was when it mattered.

“You keep tryin’, no matter what. And piece by piece, something will come together. Just like when you figured out how to draw, right? Assumin’ you were normal and learned things as you went instead of being perfect on the first go.”

With his lips lightly parted, the young man in awe of someone who could- for all he knew- been spouting motivational nonsense without knowing a lick about art…was entirely believable.

It was the right thing at the right time, regardless.

Those brown irises had eyelids fall over one second more, returning to his own creations with a new perspective. The lines seemed more purposeful, the shapes more unique. It was something flawed and yet flawless, just as he had always seen anyone else’s art.

The old man was quickly becoming satisfied with the rare feat of making Gin stunned enough to shut up. He thought about leaving right then and there, as if this was all he had come to see and do, but he was once again the person between them surprised when the redhead stood up first, scooping up the papers in his arms. The young man forced his eyes away but towards the end of the collecting finally met his again, a twinkle there that made the silver haired wanderer feel more at home than he had been this whole time.

“Thank you,” he muttered, words slick and airy with what could only be relief. “Thank you.”

He stood up straight, adjusting his hold on his things until they were more orderly and less likely to fall away. “I…do hope to see you in town again.” His grin was fading in and out with each phrase, but the feeling was so pure, so freed, that an excuse wasn’t needed. “Apologies for…not…asking first!” he chuckled, buckling at the knees briefly.

The other man chuckled back, the sun setting behind the glass. “No problem.”

A wonderful, awkward pause filled the space between them, the conversation ending as it started with one sitting down and the other standing up. Joey didn’t know that the other person would have as much a reason to try to treasure this moment as he did. Eventually, he took a step backward and slowly turned around through the now near empty café, towards the front door and the streetlights beginning to be lit.

“Oh!”

And he spun right back around, much to someone else’s bemusement.

“What…-” the redheaded scamp asked with hesitation, “-Is your name?”

Looking him up and down, having forgotten to introduce himself too, the fellow with moonlit hair and a black coat leaned his arm around the edge of the booth and took a moment till he smirked.

“Mr. Flores.”

The man with sideburns and glasses nodded, mouthing a ‘right’ before abruptly turning back and leaving the room. Mr. Flores watched the brightest splash of color in this world stained like aged paper walk out his life, looking forward when he would walk back in. With he himself looking like he was out of place and dyed with blues- with an indigo tint in his clothes and the cyan like glittering water under his eyelids- decided it was his time to leave, too.

The suitcase Gingie had forgotten was reverently taken by the handle before disappearing in a portal, the rim of which shimmered blue, too.

The old man ducked out and into the room of another person, someone who he had grown old with. Nighttime had fallen and the shadows of unlit halls looks like ink thin and seeping into the wallpaper. What he surely knew was yellow now seemed a bit on the cooler side, and someone he had just seen looking like the fire of the sun in daytime now seemed like wax of a candle extinguished, in his cream shirt in the dark and top hat hung up on the coat rack. Gingie, his red hair looking paler as strands of it turned white, glanced up from a paper held between his fingers. His gaze was soft, mischievous, and made Snowy feel at home.

“Mr. Flores,” the other Joey smirked.

A hand came to hold his back, the two old men together with more winkles and greyer hair than when they first met- for either the first time or the second time. Snowy scoffed, grinning wide.

“You weren’t supposed to remember till I brought it up to ya!” he lamented humorously. “Wasn’t supposed to be that I just…show up after accidentally running into you in the past, then you suddenly know too. More dramatic than that!”

Gingie scoffed right back. “It seems like you and I have exchanged some…traits over the years. And here you were always teasing me for being the one to portal into your life first.”

Snowy sighed through his nose as a rosy hand cupped the side of his face, tilting into it with hooded eyes.

“…Nah.” Then the toothy grin came back, devilish. “You were as much of a chicken with its head cut off as ever.”

And to that, the other pursed his lips, still holding his cheek. “And you were as subtle as ever.”

Basking in the moonlight of the time Snowy was really from, Gingie pulled him closer, their silhouettes seen through the window if one was looking- their faces becoming one shape and the outline of their bodies shining like the glass under the stars, frost around them like a picture frame as snow began to fall. The lost suitcase was set down and very likely forgotten for yet another several decades.

[littlemonstersau-blog]

The Feels Awaken Part 1: Return of the Memori

Written by @jkl-fff, illustrated by me

PART I (you are here)  - PART II

———————————————————————————————–

The lone wolf sat and watched, and that was an excellent development; the creature was learning to wait patiently, even though it was a wild, apex predator and doubtlessly could have ripped the dead squirrel from the hands of a teenage boy with ease (under normal circumstances, at least). Of course, since Bill was only wearing the clone of a teenage boy, he probably had an advantage in training the lone wolf. It could sense him—the real him—inside the clonesuit, and therefore was wary of making any aggressive moves … Animals always were around Demons, unlike most humans. Another instance when instinct trumped intellect …

So, instead, the lone wolf sat and watched patiently while Bill swung the dead squirrel around by its tail. Sat and waited for Bill’s conversational monologue to end.

“You’re prob’ly wondering why I haven’t eaten your soul like I did Chatterface McBurymynuts right here. And why I’ve taken to feeding you the soulless carcasses of my victims in person instead of just leaving them out for you. Well, I got three reasons. One: I like your aesthetic; you’re nearly all triangles in shape—really angular all over your body—and I really dig that. You’re relatably triangular, and I wanna see more of that in the world. Two: you’re endangered; if I let you live, there will be more wolves (so more angular creatures) in the world … and also more werewolves, which would be weird and awesome. And three …” Here, with a grin, Bill tossed the dead squirrel high and watched as the lone wolf snatched it out of the air. “Yeah, that’s right, wolf it down—heh heh! The third reason is, I’m gonna partially domesticate you and train you to pull me around in a sweet-ass chariot! Doesn’t that sound rad?!”

Having swallowed the last of the squirrel, the lone wolf turned and padded away into the woods.

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk more about how awesome my idea is later!” Bill called after him. “Just think a bit about what a fair exchange it would be! Actually, it’s a great deal for you! Tasty treats just for letting me occasionally ride you into battle like a chaotic, Norse deity! We can workshop ideas about the chariot’s design next time!”

On a nearby branch, a bird chirped.

“No, I think the wolf’s gonna seriously consider my offer,” Bill replied optimistically. “This is all just part of the deal-making game, which you’d understand if you weren’t a dumbass robin.”

The bird chirped again, then flew away.

“… Welp, that killed some time. Guess I’d better go back to the Shack and find some other activity to pass away the seemingly endless seconds until I get to skyelp with my Dipper …”

While he was tromping back through the woods, however, Bill was distracted by an unusual, yet strangely familiar sound. Juddering and throaty, then sharp and quick, then juddering and throaty again. Repetitive, too, though intermingled with a soft noise almost like keening or … no, exactly like whimpering. Then it clicked for Bill, even though he hadn’t heard that sound in over thirty years. It was the sound of a grown man sobbing. And not just any man, either, but Ford.

Softly, Bill crept towards him, eventually looking through bushes to the stump of a felled tree. Ford sat on it, hunched over and alone, crying as though he couldn’t hold back his own tears … as though he were too weary to hold them back anymore … That was probably why he’d come all the way out here in the woods, Bill suspected, where no one could see his moment of emotional vulnerability. Or so he had believed, at any rate, not knowing Bill was out here …

On Ford’s lap was an open book with brightly—even garishly—colored pages. One of the many scrapbooks Mabel had made. In between bouts of sobs, he slowly turned the pages and murmured things like, “Can’t believe she came b-back with a whole handful of it … So t-tough, even though always so sweet …” and “Terrified, but he f-faced it down anyway … for me … And I was s-so … so proud …” and “Heh! That f-fashion show she put together for Pacifica, made us all t-take part in … Can’t remember when I laughed so h-hard …” and “Oh, here’s that Jack o’Mellon he carved like the Gremloblin … from m-memory … So t-talented … And then they went trick-or-treating together both as the protagonist from that one game series—Myth of Hilda, or something like that?—Moses, it was adorable …” to himself. With each turn of a page, he was reminiscing about something different from the past summers: family game nights, hikes and fishing, short roadtrips, and on and on and on … Ford himself summed it up succinctly when he finally closed the scrapbook, buried his face in his hands, and whimpered, “Damn, I m-miss those kids!”

For a moment, a spark of bitter satisfaction flared up in Bill (“Good. Let that asshole suffer.”). And yet, it was soon doused by empathetic pity and sorrow (“I feel the same, though—we all feel the same … We all miss those kids …”). Then came a splash of feeling surprised, because of all the pity and sorrow; they were still such strange emotions for him as to be almost foreign. Following that, a bit of meta-emotional introspection at realizing he was feeling about feelings. Fortunately, before Bill could become too confused and horrified by the idea that he had become so human as to have feelings about having feelings, Ford stood and slowly trudged back home. After a safe amount of time had elapsed, Bill did the same.

Inside the Shack, sitting on the card table in the living room, was the scrapbook (no doubt left there by Ford on his way down to his lab). Along with several more of them. Picking up the most recent one, Bill began to flip slowly through its colorful pages filled with photos, stickers, notes, and miscellaneous memorabilia.

And as he did, he began to flip slowly through his own memories …

****

Terrified screams as he burst forth from his prison of a stone statue, rose up over them out of his shell (“Did you miss me? Admit it, you missed me!”), and tried to … tried to …

Bill shuddered to think of what he had almost done—what he surely would have done, if he had had enough power at the time. “Thank all the Gods that ever were or will be that that failed …” he muttered to himself.

Making little overtures of friendship—or at least not-malice—to Mabel until he got her to listen to his spiel about wanting to understand how he lost to them and to change and blah blah blah. Ford’s utter disbelief that the others could be so easily suckered. Entering a clone that first time and devouring that delicious little bit of soul in it (“Yum! Tastes just like mangoes and fear!”).

“They shouldn’t have. Ford was right that I was plotting their doom back then … Not anymore, but they all took a huge and stupid gamble, and just happened to get lucky … We all did …”

Steel slicing through paper and ink, dumping the scraps of bodies left, right, and center and relishing the screams of surprise (“Hehehehehe! What, you didn’t like my joke? You wanna … piece of me? Hahaha! Well, take your pick, there are plenty of pieces of me there on the floor!”). Sharpening his teeth to fine points to chomp at people. Gouging out his own eye. So much edge and shock at play, cold and hot at the same time, hilarious ticklings of pain.

“Such a waste of clonesuits,” Bill sighed. “And … all for the sake of just shocking them? Taking advantage of their love of Dipper? Stupid—can’t believe I thought that was funny at the time … So much time wasted during those first few weeks of the summer. Don’t wanna remember that, not anymore … wanna remember something else, something happier …”

Jokes so bad they made everyone groan, which made everyone laugh. Fireworks made of lasers. Taking part in an impromptu fashion show for the newest line of summer sweaters. Watermelons carved into jolly grotesqueries, lit with candles, and eventually tossed from the roof to splat. Making muffins with apple and cinnamon. Uncontrollable laughter at a rock shaped like a dong and after arcs of water accidentally melted another clonesuit. Wonderous eyes aglow with uncontainable excitement and the soft light of an everadiant crystal. Warmth of a shared blanket and the fun betrayal of an ambush of tickling underneath them. Kisses snuck around corners, behind doors, within shadows, inside the safety of a Nice Place.

“Heh …” Bill couldn’t help but smile to himself. “Even when I start out with all the others, too, it always comes back to him … But maybe I should focus more, not just look at the flashes and snapshots of memory? Delve in deeper to some memories? After all, what’s the point of perfect recall if I hardly ever use it? But, um …” Looking around the currently empty (though perhaps not for long) living room, he closed the scrapbooks and stood up. “Maybe up in the attic, where there’s a little more privacy …”

****

It was one specific memory that detoured his chain of thoughts, as memories tend to do.

Dipper. Sitting on a couch with Ford standing behind him, reaching over the couch to him. Flushed with simple happiness as Ford tousled his hair and praised his monster hunting work from that day. “Good boy, m’work! Er, I mean, good work, m’boy!” he had said, making Dipper smile so big and bright that the room had practically glowed with it. Bill’s insides certainly had.

Déjà vu, though, he had felt it then, too, remembering it. Almost exactly déjà vu … So Bill decided to follow the tangential thread of it now.

A young Ford, seventeen or eighteen, maybe—not yet out of high school. Sitting on the couch of his childhood home. A young Stan standing behind him, reaching over the couch to him.

“Oh, yeah … That’s why it’s so familiar; I watched it in Sixer’s memory and then more or less reenacted it for him. With him. Whatever, twice. Back when we were still working together, back when we were still friends …”

A young Ford flushed with simple happiness as Stan tousled his hair and praised his shipbuilding from that day. “You’re such a good cabin boy! Good work, me ol’ cabin boy!” he had said, making Ford smile so big and bright that—here the déjà vu ended and became simple memory— (“Pff! Why am I the cabin boy?” “Duh. ‘cause I’m the captain!” “Why do you get to be captain?” “Heh. ‘cause I can do this!”) Stan had swung over the top of the couch to drape himself across Ford. Pinning Ford down, while both brothers trashtalked and giggled and squirmed … and then gradually began to kiss …

“Was this the first time Sixer and me …? Ha! Yeah, it totally was! The very first time I set Sixer’s mindscape stage and played a part for him to work out some of his many, many issues. First of many … How’d it go, anyway? How’d we even get to this point? Need to rewind …”

Bill blinked, and the scene formed. Ford’s mindscape as it once had been: an endless field of strange but beautiful flower blossoms stretched to the horizon in every direction, with gleaming structures like the lovechildren of marble-cut temples and glass-and-steel skyscrapers rising in the distance-yet-closeness-of-thought like the aspirations of some new deity of science-fiction-becoming-science-fact, bold and untainted by the conformist conventions of old; swirling slowly overhead, so close one could have climbed up and touched, was a vault of stars, galaxies, quasars far larger than they appeared from earth and blazing so brightly that the field below them was as illuminated as a comfortable reading room; stairways made of books and journals ascended high to viewing platforms made of solid theories, equations, and blueprints all like shining neon signs.

Bill blinked again, and he saw himself chattering away about whatever had been their project. There was Ford, a late-twenties man and cutting-edge weirdologist in a weatherworn trenchcoat. Unusually subdued that day, though … Normally nigh manic with energy and enthusiasm, overflowing with ideas and theories and observations and cornball jokes to contribute to or even to drive the conversation … but not that day … No, that day, he barely listened to Bill or looked at the images and organizing visual aids Bill had mentally conjured for their brainstorm together. And when Bill turned to see why, he found Ford’s back was to him as he gazed away out across a sentimentally altered portion of the mindscape: salty sand strewn with bits of trash at the edge of a turbulent sea, all under clouds that were dusky and dusty from reflecting the dying daylight, and a sailboat at the center of Ford’s attention and therefore of his mind … listing and sinking into dark waters, the name on the prow all but lost to the waves—“Stan o’ War” now just “Stan”.

Bill watched the rest of what had happened as one might watch oneself on camera.

“Oh boy … I smell emotional issues …” he muttered before floating up beside Ford’s shoulder. “Got something on your mind, Fordsy ol’ buddy? Besides me, that is.”

“S-sorry, I just, um, got distracted,” Ford stammered apologetically. “I’ll try harder to focus. Won’t happen aga—”

“Because of your brother? It’s the anniversary of the day he got kicked out of the family, right?”

Ford gaped in shock for a moment. “… You … You know about that? But how?”

“For one thing, all the trash ‘round here is crumpled or torn up calendar pages for the same date. For another, I’m your Muse,” Bill replied, as though it should have been obvious. “I’m literally inside your head with all your memories at my fingertips, looking for anything I can use to help inspire your success.”

Blanching white, Ford asked, “All of them? You can s-see … all my memories?”

“Yep times a thousand! So I know you and your brother were—heh—close before that incident.”

Ford blushed.

“So no wonder you get distracted thinking about him today. Wasn’t that the last time you ever saw him?” Bill continued conversationally.

“Um, I … Maybe I m-might’ve seen him once after that. During my college graduation, but … Don’t know, honestly,” Ford admitted sadly. “Might’ve just imagined him being in the crowd.”

“Wishful thinking? ‘cause you got some stuff to get out of your system with him?” Bill waggled his eyebrow, making Ford blush a second time. Before he could respond, though, Bill suggested, “Y’know, I could help you unpack some of that emotional baggage you’re lugging around. Which’d help us get back to productive work sooner—get you from distracted back to tracted.”

“First of all, that’s not a word—”

“It is now that I’ve used it! Tracted, adjective, the state of being that comes after one has been distracted but is focusing once again.”

“Second of all … How could you help with that?”

“Why, with a little bit of roleplay. I know how much you love to roleplay, Fordsy ol’ pal.”

“I don’t know …” Ford said uncertainly. “This isn’t exactly a D&D&MoreD campaign. Besides, this is hardly an appropriate setting, and … well, no offense, but your voice and mannerisms aren’t exactly reminiscent of Stan (or most humans, for that matter). I doubt I could get into it.”

“Heh. You’re just saying that ‘cause you ain’t never seen what a good actor I can be. Goes with the territory of being a MASTER OF THE MIND! Watch this!” Bill clapped once, then suddenly multiplied into a dozen more Bills.

“Whoa! What the—”

From nowhere, the original Bill pulled a megaphone, a chair with the words “Director” and “Leading … Well, Not ‘Man’ Per Se, But Close Enough” on its back, and a thick script. “OKAY, YOU SUPER SNAZZY STAGECREW,” he projected through the megaphone. “LET’S GET THIS STAGE CLEARED AND READY FOR A NEW SCENE! LET’S MOVE! AND SOMEONE GET ME A TWO-CREAMS-ONE-SUGAR COFFEE AND A MAPLE LOG! What about you, Fordsy? You want anything? Same thing, yeah? DOUBLE THAT ORDER! ONE FOR ME, ONE FOR MY COSTAR!”

Slack jawed at all the activity flurrying around him—one Bill pulled a rope from nowhere, causing the seascape (while waves continued to toss, clouds continued to billow, and the ship continued to sink) to part down the middle like a theater curtain and swish away; another Bill pulled a massive pushbroom from nowhere and cleared away all of the beach (sand, trash, and salty odor) to leave a hardwood platform beneath; several other Bills were now wheeling away the endless fields of flowers that stretched to the horizon (plus the phantasmagorical buildings standing among them) like scenery backdrops painted on squeaky canvas frames—Ford could only mumble, “Costar?”

“Well, duh, Fordsy ol’ chum. We’ll be centerstage, you and me, and in the spotlight together—me as Stanly, you as yourself. If that doesn’t make us costars, I don’t know what does!”

“BOOOOOO!” another Bill shouted from behind them, seated in a newly revealed spectator section with boxes of popcorn. “Directors shouldn’t play parts in their own productions! That’s a crass and masturbatory act of egotism that invariably cheapens the production! BOOOOOO!”

“Just ignore heckling critic me,” the original Bill told Ford. “Now, speaking of the spotlight … LET’S GET THE LIGHTING AND SOUNDCHECKS DONE, MES! TIME IS MONEY! AND WHERE’S OUR COFFEE AND DONUTS ALREADY?! WHAT AM I PAING YOU FOR?!”

Yet another Bill came trundling up with a long rack of costumes that looked exactly like the contents of Ford and Stan’s old bedroom closet. While going through them, he pointed out, “You’re not paying us for anything, babygorgeous, because we don’t actually exist. We’re just visual constructs you conjured to represent the complex yet entirely abstract process of manipulating a mindscape into a specific scenario Stanford can experience (or reexperience in the case of actual memories) so it feels to him as if it was entirely real. This whole setting is, too. Also because you’re extremely melodramatic, overly theatrical, and crave being the center of someone’s awed attention, sugardumpling.”

“One more smart-alecky remark like that, and you’re fired!” the original Bill snapped.

“No! Please, angelpie, I need this job! I need the money, or they’re gonna break my legs!”

“Fine. Just go get the makeup equipment already. AND WHERE ARE WE ON THE LIGHTS?!”

Ford looked up to see a span of catwalks and electrical equipment overhead. The Bill up there gave a thumbs up. “Good to go, boss! Same with sound, too!”

A new Bill came running up with a platter. “Here’s your coffee and donuts, sir!”

“Freakin’ finally!” the original Bill exclaimed, passing over one of each to Ford before snatching the others for himself. “I’d have you dragged into the alley behind this soundstage and shot for taking so long, except we’re not actually in a soundstage and you’re just too darn cute to kill.”

“Oh, sir, you’re gonna make me blush!”

Taking a bite out of his maple log with his eyelid, the original Bill snapped, “Stop being so cute and go find something useful to do.” Then, turning back to Ford, he continued lightly, “Yep, costars, you and me! Collaborators! Partners in … What? There something on my face?”

With a gulp, Ford asked, “Is … Is that how you eat? With your eye?”

Bill smiled despite not having a mouth. “Only when I’m in polite company.” Then he took a sip of his coffee—a long, slow sip while looking right at his weirdologist friend (who spazzed reflexively at the sight of coffee washing into sclera). “But now that mes have cleared the stage, we should really pick the scene we’re gonna roleplay. So what you wanna do, Fordsy ol’ mate? Relive a memory, act out a hypothetical conversation/argument to get some words off your chest, or experience a fantasy in real-body-stimulating intensity? Whatever you want, I can do for ya.”

“I, um …” Shaking his head, Ford admitted, “There’s just … so much. When I think about him. About everything that happened then. And before. And after. And I … I just … can’t process it enough to … y’know, make sense of how I feel about it all? Gah! Can you understand that, Bill? The only thing I know for sure right now is … is I miss him … even if I don’t know what I’d do if I saw him right now …”

Bill blinked a bite off his maple log, then chewed thoughtfully, ignoring the other Bills (“Hey, guys, wanna see something funny? MacBeth!” “Don’t say that! It’s bad lu—” A sandbag smashed into that Bill from above. “Hehehehehehe! I got more!” Then he whistled sharply. “Argh! You can’t do that either, it’s also bad lu—” A light fixture exploded, blasting the Bill on the catwalk off so that he kersplatted onto the platform. “Hahahahaha! How about this one? Good luck during the performance!” “No, you fool, you’ll kill us all if you say—” “Guys, you think this pyrotechnic equipment still works?” a different, oblivious Bill asked right before pushing a button. The bad luck would’ve been spectacular had anyone paid attention.) now milling about the visual construct of an empty stage which represented a mindscape ready for shaping. Eventually, he suggested, “Tell you what, Fordsy ol’ comrade, let me choose for you this time. I think I know what you need right now to feel better, and it’ll be an actual memory of a good time you two had together. Something … positive and fun and a little whacky to help you get out of this slump. Whaddya say? Trust me enough to follow my lead in the roleplay?”

A glum shrug. A passive affirmation. “Sure, why not?”

And then original Bill was broadcasting through his loudspeaker, “OKAY, LOOK ALIVE, TRIANGULAR TROOP! LET’S GET THE STAGE SET FOR SCENE #618: ‘CABIN BOY AND CAPTAIN NOBEARD, THE COUCH PIRATE’!”

Ford blinked. “Wait, what?”

“I WANT IT READY TO PERFORM IN—”

“BOOOOOO!” the spectating Bill suddenly shouted, spraying popcorn everywhere. “That choice is a cliché and uninspired piece of saccharine hackery! Also, it’s practically meta-theater, which always sucks because only self-inflating, pomposity-spewing fartbags think it’s clever to make plays that are ham-fistedly obvious metaphors for making plays! BOOOOOO!”

“So it’s perfect for our director,” one of the Bills stage whispered, making the others giggle.

“I HEARD THAT!” the original Bill snapped. “DON’T YOU HAVE PROPS TO SET UP?! ACTION IN FIVE, MES! AND WHERE’S THE ME FOR COSTUME AND MAKEUP?!”

“Right here, angeldoll! And ready to get Starford suited up!” That Bill wheeled a vanity piled high with brushes, pencils, and cosmetics right to them. He then pulled an outfit off the rack, scrutinized it, put it back, pulled out another, nodded his approval, and zoomed over to slap it onto Stanford’s body. Right before assaulting his face with a blur of all the cosmetic products—powder, rouge, eyeliner, etc. All of it happened so fast Stanford didn’t even have time to protest, and when the air cleared and he stopped coughing, that particular Bill was adjusting a mirror before his face. “What do you think, honeydear? Don’t you just look divine?”

Breathless with astonishment, Ford touched first the mirror’s surface … then his own face … “Incredible!” he breathed. “I look seventeen!”

“If I did my job right, teddypearl, you don’t just look seventeen. Your whole body (or astral form dream body, technically, sweetiedumpling) should be seventeen down to the smallest of details. Now, if you want, I could also do your nails and hair so you look even more divine than you did at seventeen, darlingpeaches.”

“Nope, we want his ratio of divineness to undivineness to be exactly as it was then, thank you,” the original Bill dictated abruptly. “Now let’s get me suited up for—oh, Azathoth’samygdala!” Snatching up the megaphone, he bawled, “TVS GO IN FRONT OF COUCHES, NOT BEHIND, YOU IDIOTS! AND YOU’VE GOT THE BACKDROPS MIXED UP! C’MON, YOU MES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE MORE PROFESSIONAL THAN THIS!”

Ford tore his eyes from the mirror and looked onstage. The living room of his parents’ house was being formed by a bunch of Bills pushing frames of painted canvas (reproductions of the walls) and setting up prop after prop (a couch, a rabbit-eared TV, old chairs, side tables with doilies, framed photos, knickknacks, bric-a-brac, that hideous lamp with the more hideous curtain shade he had always wanted to smash to bits, etc.); it looked exactly as he remembered … No, it looked more accurate than he remembered … He could even smell the dusty, musty carpeting and hear the tacky windchimes outside the window …

“There, treasurebear, you look ready for your big part. And divine, too! Simply divine!”

“Thanks, me. Looks like you won’t be fired today,” the original Bill decided.

“I can’t believe you could recreate the old place. Every little detail—” Ford turned to Bill, then felt his knees buckled beneath him; he had to grab onto a corner of the vanity not to fall over. Standing before him in a dissipating cloud of face powder was the seventeen-year-old version of his twin brother. “… St-Stan?”

Bill grinned with Stanly’s cocky, crooked grin. “Or close enough. Oh, sorry.” Clearing his throat, he then repeated in Stanly’s husky voice, “Or close enough. Right, Sixer?”

Stepping forward, Ford laid his hands on the shoulders of the boy in front of him. They felt real. Solid and strong through the t-shirt, with the kind of ropey muscles regular boxing gave a person. Same for the arms and the chest, although there was a little pudge on top of the muscles there (just like Stan had … or had had the last time Ford had seen him for certain) thanks to a nervous tendency to overeat … It all felt so real … so achingly real …

“Done feelin’ up the merchandise yet, Sixer?” Bill-Stan teased. “I could flex for ya, if ya want.”

“How … How are you doing this?” Ford whispered, his voice almost trembling.

As one, all of the Bills dropped what they were doing and turned to face him, then clapped and spread their hands. A rainbow spread between every set of palms. “THROUGH THE POWER OF IMAGINATION, FORDSY OL’ COMPADRE! AFTER ALL, I AM YOUR MUSE!”

Fingers clenching into the fabric of the t-shirt, throat constricting, Ford said, “Stan, I … I …”

“You’re not gonna start blubberin’ on me, are ya, Sixer?” Bill-Stan asked coaxingly. “Not before all the fun even starts?”

“N-no … No, I’m in c-control. Ahem! Of myself.” Ford composed himself, feigned brushing some dust off his clothes, then resumed, “So, um, you said something about following your lead in a roleplay?”

Grinning more widely than before, Bill-Stan took him by the hand (sending a jolt of long ignored and even half-forgotten emotions through the weirdologist) and led him onstage …

The thing about a person’s mindscape (or about a person’s dreams, since they’re the same thing, essentially) is they’re completely immersive. To the brain, they’re almost as real as reality itself; every ganglia involved in processing sensory input for the one is equally involved with the other. Which explains why dreams usually feel real enough that a person can forget they’re dreaming. Which explains why a true master of the mind can manipulate a person’s mindscape enough that, with just the right triggering image (such as walking through a conjured doorway or stepping onto a conjured theater stage), the person can believe what they’re experiencing is real, and even actually find traces of the mental experience on their physical body afterwards.

Especially if the person really wants to dream, to believe, to be manipulated by the master …

That was why Ford knew with certainty that he was sweaty and dirty after hours of working on the Stan o’ War, knew with certainty he was trudging into the living room of his family home, and collapsed onto what he knew with certainty was a sagging couch likely as old as he was (seventeen years). He also knew with certainty that he heard the jangling of the house phone in the hallway, and then the voice of who he knew with certainty was his twin brother answering it. That knowing certainty was manifest in every gesture he made; it even shone in his eyes.

A moment later, Stan was leaning over the top of the couch. Sweaty and dirty, too, since he’d been working on the Stan o’ War, too. “Heh. You look beat, Sixer. But if anyone’s got the right, it’s you. I mean, after all that hard work today? And figuring out the waterproofin’ stuff, too?” Then Stan reached over the couch and tousled his brother’s hair. “I guess what I’m saying is … You’re such a good cabin boy! Good work, me ol’ cabin boy!”

Ford beamed with pleasure at the praise and the loving gesture, yet still retorted (because having a brother means living in a perpetual argument, at the very least as a matter of principle), “Pff! Why am I the cabin boy?”

“Duh. ‘cause I’m the captain!”

“Why do you get to be captain?”

“Heh. ‘cause I can do this!” And then Stan swung himself over the top of the couch and dropped down onto his brother, draping himself over his brother like a heavy, sweaty, noogying blanket. “How do you like it, cabin boy? Huh? I said how do you like it, nerd? No, wait, cabin nerd!”

“Ghaha! Get off me—haha!—you’re gross from the beach!” Ford half-spewed and half-laughed beneath his twin. He was pinned against the cushions now, squirming but unable to get free.

“Heh heh! You don’t get to give the captain orders, cabin nerd! That’s not how it works aboard this ship!”

“W-we’re—hehehe!—not even on a ship!”

“Sure we are! The S.S. Couch, and I just boarded it! And you!”

“You did not have permission to come aboard!” Ford giggled, still squirming, now trying to push his twin back with his hands.

But Stan caught them both at the wrists and pinned them against the armrest, too, bearing down with his whole body. “That’s ‘cause I’m a pirate captain! Arrrrr, me matey!”

“Pff! W-what do they call you?! Nobeard?!”

“That’s ‘Captain Nobeard’ to you, cabin nerd! And I’m gonna be lootin’ yer booty!”

Ford threw his head back and laughed at so corny a line. But the laugh turned to a surprised gasp when he suddenly felt his brother (on an impulse) press his lips against Ford’s throat. It was like being hit by a single raindrop right before a spark of lightning—a single spot of warm, wet skin, then an electric jolt through his brain and body that left him rigid. Or perhaps made him realize he had been rigid already? And that his brother’s counter-squirming had taken on a decidedly grinding motion … Or had it been a grinding motion already? Ford moaned, “Aaah, St-Stan …”

“I told you, that’s ‘Captain’ to you, me ol’ cabin nerd,” Stan countered into his twin’s neck. “And I’m gonna shiver yer timber.” With that, he gave an extra hard grind, groin against groin.

“Mmmmoses! Oh … B-but, wait … What if … Dad and Mom walk in on us … like this?” 

“Heh. You can be pretty dumb for a nerd, sometimes,” Stan teased. “They went to Grandma’s today, remember? And that was them on the phone just now, callin’ to say they made it there. Even if they head home right now, it’ll be at least two hours afore they get back. So relax, okay? Just … follow my lead …”

“Y-yeah, I can … Wait.” All at once, Ford stopped, because that phrase … He suddenly didn’t know with certainty what was really going on here, nor where he really was, nor even how old he really was. Intently, he peered at the face of the boy on top of him. Was there a golden gleam in his irises, where there should only have been brown? A twinkle in the eyes, but different than the twinkle normally there. He thought he could remember who this boy actually was. “… Bill?”

Stan grinned. “Only if you’d prefer havin’ a triangle in a tophat grind against you instead of your brother.”

Ford looked around, and remembered he was on a stage. A stage that had been set by multiple copies of Bill, and that he was now pinned beneath the original Bill who was mimicking his twin down to his cornball double-entendres, the smell of his sweat … and the exact length and girth of his hardon, currently pressing down on Ford’s own hardon (the thought of which made him blush a shade deeper than he already had been—did he really remember his twin’s member that well?). In the spectators’ seating, there was another Bill now distantly shouting, “Boooooo! You ruined the flow and the affect of the whole scene! The momentum’s gone and can never be gotten back! Boooooo!” and Ford found he desperately hoped that was not the case.

“You okay, Sixer?” Stan asked. No, not Stan. Bill. Bill mimicking Stan’s voice and manerisms. Bill mimicking Stan’s body so they could …

Ford cleared his throat. “Y-yes, I am. But, er, I just want to… to make sure that you are. This, uh, scenario doesn’t … doesn’t bother you? At all?”

“What? Why would … Oh!” Stan-Bill exclaimed suddenly. “You mean ‘cause we’re not just crossin’ a bunch of taboo lines in your meatbag culture, but went a mile past ‘em and are now buildin’ a small but charmingly perverted, summer cabin we can visit at our leisure?”

“I, um … suppose that’s one way of putting it …”

“Heh heh! It’s funny how awkward you are about this!” But before Ford could get defensive, Stan-Bill continued, “Sixer, I’m not human. I’m a Muse, here to inspire you to break through arbitrary human conventions (like the restrictive barriers they are) to something higher, purer, and truer. So all the arbitrary moral codes you meatbags make for yourselves, especially where sex is concerned? Don’t apply to me, don’t affect me. Whatever you desire, whoever you desire, however you desire (no matter how weird, complex, or how many parts it needs performed) I can play out for you here in your mindscape so well it will feel real. I can give you the psychological or sexual release you need to get tracted again on our oh so important work!”

Though overwhelmed by the possibilities, Ford still maintained, “That’s not a real word …”

“Like I said before, Sixer, if you wanna relive a memory, act out a hypothetical conversation or an argument with someone (like your brother or your parents or an ex or that one bald professor you loathed), or experience a completely new fantasy altogether … I’m down. Let’s do ‘em all.”

Ford gulped. “Y-you’re sure … it doesn’t bother you? At all? I mean, this is … er …”

Stan-Bill sighed in almost-exasperation. “Look, Fordsy ol’ friend, my true form doesn’t even have sex organs. Not that you’ll be able to tell when I change shape in your mindscape and go to town with pleasurin’ you, ‘cause I’m just that good an actor—can act like I’ve always had ‘em and got tons of experience usin’ ‘em to turn people specifically named Stanford Filbrick Pines into puddles of contented, post-coital bliss—and always happy to put on a show for a friend.”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on he was having a hard time breathing regularly.

“Plus, I come from a species that has roughly millions of genders, so homosexuality doesn’t bother me in the least. If anything, it radically simplifies things. You wanna get it on with a guy? I can do that. Two guys? Ditto. A guy and a gal at the same time? No prob. An entire roomful of different people? Sure, it’ll be a nice stretch of my talents. Something or somethings that aren’t remotely human? Well, if either of us can imagine it, I can make it in here for you to fuck.”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on that he was practically vibrating with excitement.

“And as for what you meatbags call ‘incest’, well,” Bill-Stan shrugged. “Far from the weirdest kink floatin’ around in the collective unconsciousness of humanity. But it is just weird enough, luckily, to keep me invested in any—heh heh—boldly transgressive or unapologetically perverse theatrical performances you might want to try here on the mindscape stage. So c’mon, brother,” he added emphatically, positively dripping Stanness now. “Just follow my lead … We got hours ‘til Dad and Mom get home …”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on that he was sorta surprised the couch hadn’t caught fire around the two of them. Another low moan escaped his lips as he felt Stan-Bill’s lips press against his throat again … as he felt Stan-Bill grind against his bulge again … as he felt Stan-Bill carry him back into a more fulfilling moment than the present reality could ever hope to offer …

“You like that, cabin nerd? Huh? You like when I do that to ya? Go on, say ‘Aye-aye, Captain’.”

Though his hands were still pinned against the armrest of the couch and his body born down into the cushions, Ford arched his hips into the grind.

“C’mon, cabin nerd, go ahead and say it … Become a part of my couch pirate crew …”

Giggling, Ford turned and offered himself up for a kiss. It was long and warm and wet and deep, and so very, very sweet. It left him breathlessly whimpering, “Mmm, Stan … Bill …”

“Who’s this Bill?” Stan-Bill asked teasingly. Then, as if to punctuate every following sentence, he humped slow and hard at the end of it. “Someone I otta be jealous of? Someone I gotta go beat up? Someone who’s gotta learn that you’re mine … my brother … my lover … and no one else gets to touch ya but me?”

“Ah! Yes!” Ford cried out.

And, distantly, the Bill in the seats shouted, “Boooooo! Going off script like this is for amateurs! Improv in an established piece is for hacks who can’t remember their lines! Boooooo!”

That was when Bill (not the original Bill playing Stan, nor any of the copies playing stagehands, but the real Bill in a clonesuit stretched out on the bed in the attic) snapped out of his fascination and decided it was time to stop reviewing memories for a while. Especially this one in particular. Not because it wasn’t nostalgic or entertaining or sexually titillating for him (it was very much), not because he couldn’t remember what had happened next (his recall was still just as perfect as the rest of him—heh heh!), but because …

Because it just wasn’t worth watching the rest. Both in Ford’s memory of the actual event with his brother, and in the slightly altered reenactment Bill had performed with Ford, it hadn’t been more than another minute or two of cornball dialogue, couch grinding, and rough kissing before they climaxed. And why not? Ford and Stan had been horny, pent up teenagers way back then … and Ford had been a horny, pent up adult back then (what with his tons of emotional baggage and sexual frustration) …

“Not worth getting wound up over,” Bill muttered to the cabin ceiling. “Not when jerking off won’t be enough to take the edge off the horniness I’ll feel afterwards … And besides, if I want to feel wound up and horny, there are much wilder memories I could perfectly recall than that. With Dipper or with Sixer …”

His hand came up wearing a sock puppet Mabel had made to look like his true form—or, at least, as much like his true form as a sock with a hand shoved in it could, (though, honestly, it looked less like a dapper triangle and more like the bastard lovechild that would result from a wild night of passion between him and Kermit the Frog)—and said, “Funny how you didn’t even realize how good a thing you had with ol’ Fordsy, isn’t it?”

“How do you figure that?” Bill asked his sock puppet. “Working and hanging with him was a ton of fun, and I missed the 79 Hells outta it after he sided with this mudball … Still do, actually …”

“I mean all that wild, limitationless, mindscape sex you had with him. Back then, for you, it was just the fun of weird playacting (and manipulating a gullible meatbag); you didn’t appreciate any of the physical side of it.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Of course, y’know, I kinda couldn’t appreciate it back then.”

“The beginning of the summer was a lot like that, too, with Dipper and Mabel and all the others,” the sock puppet continued matter-of-factly. “You didn’t appreciate any of the emotional side of spending time with them, what with how full of hate and plans for vengeance you were.”

“… No, I didn’t,” Bill admitted.

“All that time spent with them, and you didn’t even realize how good a thing you had.”

“… I kinda couldn’t appreciate all that back then, either, in my defense.”

“You could now, y’know.”

“What, you mean … relive the memories? Actually, that could be a fun way to pass the time,” Bill mused to himself. “Might not feel quite so bored or lone … Cthulhu’s cartilaginous cranium, I could go through all my memories with Ford! Maybe there’s something I filed away in there—something I didn’t think was important at the time, something that could spark another thought—that could help get me past the bubble!” he exclaimed, bolting upright. “And back to my Dipper!”

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant …” the sock puppet pointed out.

But it was rather futile; Bill was on a role now. “The bumblr crowd could even help with this … Them asking the right questions might give me some direction, instead of just prospecting—”

“HEY! LISTEN!” the sock puppet shrilled. “I meant you could be having a good thing right now with all the people here at the Shack. Emotionally and such. Enjoying it fully. But you’re not. Even though you want to.”

Looking away from the reproachful, googly-eyed gaze, Bill muttered, “Kinda hard to with Ford setting such a grim mood for everyone here any time he walks in on me and someone else.”

“You’re wasting time,” the sock puppet stated irrefutably. “Like at the beginning of the summer, when you were too busy being … being not nice—being mean—to everyone, especially Dipper. Now you’re wasting time being bitter at Ford.”

“He’s wasting time being just as bitter at me!” Bill countered defensively.

“And when was the last time you really tried to do anything about that? Huh? When you bought everybody gifts, maybe, a few months ago?”

“… Honestly? I guess so, yeah.”

“Go try again. You wanted to, anyway, since you saw him in the woods crying ‘bout how much he misses the Twins, too,” the sock puppet affirmed. “It’s the reason you turned away from remembering that time on the couch before the climax, too; you’re not in the mood for sexiness, not deep down, but for sappiness. You can appreciate that emotional side of things now, so stop wasting time not enjoying ‘em.”

“What if … What if he doesn’t want to stop being bitter? What if he doesn’t want to move on?”

“Then at least you’ll have tried. You won’t be wasting time being bitter. And you get to spend more time perfectly recalling individual memories to see if you can find something helpful to escape, so win-win for you.”

Bill sighed. “I’d argue with you, but you are me, so I know I won’t win … Well, let’s go …”