#commiting things while barely being kiddied

[unspunblog]

Witness: A Contemplation on Gender and Wholeness

My first memory of gender is the sun.

I was four, maybe younger, running wild in my grandma’s backyard with my three cousins--all boys. My grandma had set up a kiddie pool. The boys stripped off their shirts without a thought. I did the same. But before I could make it to the water, my uncle caught me by the arm. “You can’t do that--you’re a girl.”

I didn’t understand. The upper halves of our bodies looked the same. Why did I have to cover mine when they didn’t? 

The irony doesn’t escape me these days: the sun—long a symbol of masculine energy in Greco-Roman myth—was something I wasn’t allowed to fully feel or embody. While the boys danced bare-chested in the warm summer rays, I had to cover myself. This body of mine was already too shameful to expose—not because of what it was, but because of what it would become. 

For the rest of my younger years, I rejected anything remotely “girly.” Pink. Barbie. Baby dolls. Dresses. Brushing my hair. I revolted against my mother when she tried to dress me up as a princess for Halloween. We finally came to a compromise with Princess Leia, who shot blasters, led rebellions, and held her own with scruffy-looking nerf-herders. I wanted to play Pokémon, catch lizards, and fall off my bike doing stunts. I wasn’t a princess to be rescued by some knight in shining armor. I was the knight in shining armor!

Still, I didn’t completely reject all femininity and domesticity.

Mom taught me how to sew and embroider when I was still small—my legs swinging off the edge of a chair as I watched her thread needles, smooth fabric splayed out upon the dining room table. We made shorts and shirts and Halloween costumes--including a ninja costume, then a detective costume--more compromises by my dear mother. Through those experiences, I learned artistic, creative, and useful skills that the boys didn’t, and there was something to that. It was like a secret, a power that we women shared. Still, it was something I felt I had to keep hidden, just like my feminine body.

At family cookouts, the divide was clear. All the men huddled around fire and meat in some weirdly primitive masculine ritual. The women, meanwhile, stayed inside making side dishes, sipping margaritas, and gossipping. I found their talk vapid and boring. So I’d go outside and wedge myself into the men’s conversations, desperate to prove I belonged—rattling off facts about fishing, space movies, whatever they cared about. They tolerated me well enough, especially if I’d fetch beers for them on command. Still, it was quite apparent that I didn’t belong there, but didn’t belong inside either. So I’d go off and play with my dogs until dinner time.

By high school, I’d committed to my role: the “cool girl.” The girl who could hang. I hung out with all the boys, playing video games and talking about heavy metal albums, and soaked in their compliments: “You’re not like the other girls.” Of course I wasn’t--I was better than girls who subscribed to these stupid feminine norms. Being boyish meant having power, having an in, being included by the tougher, cooler, more privileged gender.

In college, things began to shift. Curves arrived without warning, and with them, new types of exclusion. Boys noticed me differently. I wasn’t just the chill girl who could talk about video games or music—I was desirable. Suddenly, I didn’t fit neatly into the “one of the guys” category. Now, they wanted to date me, and I was excluded from “guy talk.” My body made everything complicated.

My curves also brought new types of oppression.

Men started howling and jeering at me on the street. Catcalls, honks, the slow roll of a car as I walked home alone. I began to feel unsafe, even in daylight. I was sexually assaulted for the first time—some man grabbing my ass at a club, then vanishing into the crowd before I could turn around. I had just wanted to be myself and dance. I remembered my uncle’s voice from that day at the pool--“You can’t do that--you’re a girl.” Showing my body--no, just having a woman’s body--wasn’t just inappropriate, it was dangerous. I was learning that my body was a possession, a trophy, a toy. 

Things like that would continue to happen throughout my life. I no longer cry about it. But I’ve never gotten used to it—men choosing how to treat my body regardless of my feelings, male doctors and psychiatrists ignoring my experience about my own body, male colleagues speaking over me in meetings. 

Still, there has been some evolution despite the adversity.

In my late thirties now, I find myself both more at home in my femininity and still bristling against it. I cut off all my hair on a whim a few years ago with the same gusto as Mulan chopping her hair off with a sword. My husband was shocked. I probably should’ve told him beforehand, but sometimes I just get the urge to rebel against men--even the kind ones.

I think of my younger self often—the girl who wasn’t allowed to feel the sun on her bare chest, who hated being a girl because the world seemed to hate girls too. I feel so much tenderness toward her. I want to tell her she was never wrong to want more. That her anger was a kind of wisdom.

At a conference in Oregon not long ago, I attended a lecture on women artists and self-portraiture. Out of the twenty or so people in the room, not a single one was a man. That detail sent off an ancient, burning anger deep inside of me. Why wouldn’t men want to learn how women saw themselves? Why didn’t they care? The lecturer spoke about how, throughout history, women artists painted themselves not for vanity, but to prove their existence. At the end, the lecturer handed out mirrors and asked us to draw ourselves. Despite years as an art hobbyist, I’d never done that before. 

But in that moment, tracing the lines of my own face—my short-cropped hair, my mother’s eyebrows, my father’s chin, the new, soft sag at my cheeks—I felt something deepen. I didn’t just see myself. I witnessed myself as someone free from the gender labels forced upon me throughout my life. I was something else entirely.

The next day, I went to the Redwoods for the first time. I stood alone in the cathedral hush of those towering trees and felt, perhaps for the first time, truly witnessed by a force other than myself—seen by something beautiful and ancient. In that stillness, I sensed a presence, wild and wise, whispering to me: You deserve to be wild, too.

That night, back at my hotel, I stripped off all my clothes. This time, I sketched my entire body—inch for inch—with no attempt to flatter or obscure. Just the truth of it.

That drawing became the foundation for two embroidered pieces I made later: Woven and Witness—expressions of what it felt like to be seen by a Redwood tree.

Embroidery was the only medium that made sense. It was women’s work—an art form dismissed for centuries, one I had once overlooked myself simply because it was associated with the feminine. But cutting and stitching just the way my mother had taught me felt like a return home. Each thread now carried power, defiance--and care.

These days, I do what I love, not to prove my masculinity or femininity. I enjoy a beer and a college football game. I enjoy a margarita and gossip. I paint my nails and make campfires. At cook-outs, I move easily between the men’s and women’s circles. Still, I sometimes find myself blocked—I watch what I wear and worry if I’m presenting myself as “too feminine,” “too boyish,” or “too queer.” I feel flashes of regret, then anger, then rebellion when men describe their preferences for high heels and long hair. I wonder who I am, what I am, and if it matters. I wonder if people take me seriously when they see my feminine face. Perhaps that never ends, not in my lifetime anyway. In an act of quiet rebellion, I’ve hung both pieces of art in a sunlit corner of my condo so that light can spill across my bare chest--for all who enter to see. (Anyone who enters my condo should know me by now.) They remind me that there is something—maybe even someone—that sees me fully in all of my complexity, radiance, and wholeness. They speak of and cultivate a place without shame, judgment, or restriction—a place where my body, born of this earth, made of this universe, loved by ancient trees, is free.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

you are playing ignorant and pretending that men do not misuse these words daily. You are playing ignorant to the fact that both “simp” and “white knight” are words that are overused out of the correct definition. Men nowadays call a man that loves his girlfriend or wife a simp.

Did you read what I said at all? I said you don't want to be called that unironically. Men joke with one another. It's how we communicate. And while it might not make sense to you, it does to the rest of us. Which is often why men dictate their tone to reflect intent. Besides, even if some people use it in an actual improper way that does not change WHAT those things mean. It just means that the words are being used incorrectly.

So when women commit violent acts towards another women it is not documented in most cases? Bc that is big and false claim you are making. Are most violent acts by men towards women document then? Majority of rape of women are committed by Men ! Women on women rape is rare compared to men on rape. Don’t pretend as if women are raping women at the same rate.

Here's the funny thing. You can't know that. And the reason is because in most countries, legally, women can't commit rape. And in the US at the bare minimum, women are prosecuted far less often and for far less time than men. AND it's not uncommon for a a phone call to happen during a domestic dispute, where the woman is actually being violent towards the man (and it's normalized these days because "toughen up men are you really that weak that this dainty little lady can hurt you" is the common idea) and the cops can show up with attack marks on the man and STILL have their knee in his back and arrest him instead of her. Socially and legally women are not treated the same as men. They are treated with kiddy gloves.

I've heard men tear women to shreds both in their faces, and behind their backs. I have seen men use inhuman tactics just so they can drag women’s self worth and self esteem. There are so endless cases of men raping just so that woman can lose “value” and “worth”. Endless cases of Men leaking sex tapes, secretly recorded videos or spreading malicious false rumors just so the woman can be humiliated and degraded. Men throwing acids to cause bodily disfigurement, torment or kill women. The male mindset “If I can't have you, no one shall, in addition being fueled by revenge or jealously has costed countless lives.

Ok you literally sound like you're describing a middle eastern country. Most men that DO rape women do it because they want to feel powerful. Not because they hate them women and want them to lose worth. And psychologically that makes no sense to do unless they are hiding their identity, and doing it because they are obsessed with a woman, and want her to turn to him instead of some other guy. Which I feel is a statistical unlikelihood that happens hardly ever. Also yes, men do tear women down. What's your point? Two things can be true at the same time. Also the rumors and recordings etc do happen yes but again. Two things can be true at once. Hell there are women that make sport of destroying men's lives. Like Mattress girl. Lied about being raped and made a spectacle about it and the guy she claims did it was not even in the same city at the time. His life will more or less never be the same because there will ALWAYS be people who remember the allegation. Because in this society, at least in the west, allegations are forever. Even when they can be PROVEN false.

Also I want you to look at that very last line in that paragraph you typed out.

The male mindset “If I can't have you, no one shall, in addition being fueled by revenge or jealously has costed countless lives.

This is VERY MUCH an obsessive mindset, not a "Standard male mindset". And women have killed men over this same thing.

Endless cases of Women that refuse to marry, or refuse sexual advances being assaulted, thrown acids, beaten or killed by men. Men are very destructive toward women.

Again, sounds like you are talking about a norm in middle eastern culture, not western culture. Because I can promise that western men don't make a habit, even when pissed off and throwing acid on them, or, killing them because they refuse marriage. So yeah no levy that shit against a culture that actually hates women. Stop levying that shit against men as a whole.

A number you pulled from your anal sphincter. Nothing like men and their made up numbers. Again, Men want to create false narratives, that women are each other enemy. Men benefit from creating a division among women. Men are truly kings of evil.

This is just........a sad and pathetic attempt at making a claim that is not remotely true. Contrary to popular belief (And I'm implicitly talking about men in the west as NO ONE on this hell site has the level of control needed to change cultures we are nowhere near.) men patrol one another pretty regularly. Just not in the way "Society" wants us to, and not the way most people would think. Men tend to be particularly to the point with one another most of the time. If your buddy is thinking or saying something fucked up, you go, "Hey bruh that's kinda fucked man." Or something lightly stupid like "Ugh BETA ENERGY!". Because it gets the point across. But from the outside, it does not always appear as such. Also that stat is pulled from my ass yes. However, I grew up around a family with a lot of women in it. I went to a school where the girls outnumbered the boys. Hell most of the women kept me around for fashion advice and treated me like their gay best friend and I'm not even gay. So I saw a lot of the inner workings of some of what was going on and I can very much say, it was not the "Guys on the football team" or anyone else "Pulling magic puppet strings" to pit these girls against one another. They very much did it on their own. And if I ever SAW a case where I thought the opposite was true, if the girl was my friend, I'd confront the guys about it.

Why? I was kinda a non annoying "White Knight™" to the girls around me but I actually knew when to pull back most of the time. >.> like when they'd be at each other's throats (souls who touch that be braver than I). I grew out of it. Now I only defend people in cases where they can't defend themselves. And I do my best to do it across the board not just with women, and as fairly as I can.

Also the "Men are kings of evil", is a crock of shit. There's a post floating around this hell site of well over 100 instances of women ruthlessly killing their own kids. Humans have the capacity for evil. It's not a "Male only" thing.

Those images are not mine, they are created by male tumblr user. Better question would be why are men creating these images of young girls ? Why are men’s perverted nature and depravity endless ?

"I didn't make that, It's not mine" and YET YOU HAVE IT. YOU went out of your way to save it. YOU went out of your way to post it. YOU are likely the one that went through the effort to censor it to further your insane, "MEN EVIL" bullshit. As if NO WOMEN target young boys. OH WAIT they do.

Kindly gtfo with your radfem bullshit. Also, for context, a lot of woman hating that's going on now a days is the result of people like you. Also, even IF your respond, I won't be replying. I've said my peace. And I hate even making posts like this because I'm more of a traditional feminist than most of you radfems are and I'm not even a feminist. You treat women like toddlers and make it out like men existing is the issue. It's not. It's people like you specifically that make it so we can't have civilized discussions about the root causes of things because your final answer is always, "Men". News flash. It's culture, and it's Nurture that are the issues. And fixing those things is a WIP for EVERYONE, not just men.

As a man who late mother and other female relatives who big breasts (I’m autistic so sorry for my wording) I never understood the demonization of large breasts women in the 2010’s and say they only exist in fantasies.

I mean not all women have big boobs, but can anyone explain why there was such a huge attack towards them in the 2010’s? Insecurity or something?

It's classic women attacking women, men weren't the ones demonizing big breasted women, it was and is other women.

And yes, it is due to insecurities and jealousy, women view other women as competition just as men view other men, but instead of women outcompeting women as men do with men, they try to drag their competition down.

They act catty, push their insecurities onto women who are more attractive than them, try to convince them to change their appearance or body in an act of sabotage.

Women are the worst when it comes to other women, even if most won't admit it.

Ladies out there with varying sizes of breasts, men don't care if you have large or small breasts, so don't listen to those other women and the fashion industry that try to convince you that you need to change, you're beautiful.

[panickedforcefield]

Did you ever think about that, the hopping lamp in the Disney Intro is probably Young Whirl commiting his first mur- crime? *Teebs starts the movie again, watching the hopping lamp in interest*

yes.

[deathonyourtongue]

Sanguine Nocturnus | 5

Summary: Even after 2000 years, the world can still surprise you. Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x OFC Word Count: 2.7K Warnings: It’s a vampire fic. Death. Blood. Gore. Sex. Horror. Not for the kiddies or the squeamish. I mean it. A/N : Sorry this took so long. Hope y’all enjoy it!!

The night was cool, despite the sun’s remnants still radiating from the cobblestone roads like a thin blanket, the heat spreading up Henry’s legs as he and Vinicius made their way to a matte black Ashton Martin Vanquish, the car looking as though it had just rolled out of the dealership.

“Spending wisely, I see,” Henry smiled, taking in the car with an appreciation he shared with most mortal men. While it wasn’t a sturdy black stallion, it would certainly do the trick.

“It was a birthday present from Lucy, I had no say in the matter.” Vinicius answered with an equally cheeky grin, unlocking the car with a push of a button, the engine roaring to life simultaneously. It was only once the doors opened that Henry noticed Gregory sitting in the back seat, looking around anxiously, like a junkie looking for a fix.

“I’m afraid he’s still famished. Nearly emptied the vaults of A+, and yet he’s still ready to bite the first thing that moves,” Vinicius explained, nodding towards Gregory, who barely acknowledged him before turning in his seat to look over his shoulder, watching for anything that could pass as food.

“So m’lord, tonight we go hunting for your first real meal!” Vinicius announced as he looked through the rear-view mirror at Gregory.

“I’ve hunted before,” Gregory replied in a defensive, whiny tone, his gaze showing his confusion. In that moment, Henry read the young vampire’s thoughts and had to discreetly move his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. Hunting, for Gregory, had consisted of going to a nightclub and picking up the most self-conscious girl there. Their new elder hadn’t even bothered to try and pose her in a way that would keep the Carabinieri from asking questions. It was amateur at best, and Henry was certain Gregory’s victim hadn’t gone to her death in ecstasy. 

“Not the proper way. Not even close,” Henry smirked, sharing a knowing grin with Vinicius as the Vanquish sprinted out of the city center, heading North towards the vineyards.

Once clear of the light pollution, Vinicius eased his foot off the accelerator, preferring to take the two-lane roads at a more leisurely pace, something which, judging from how fidgety he was being, was pure torture for Gregory. 

“What have you lined up for us tonight, oh Master of Feasts?” Henry joked as Vinicius began to look around, watching as much for buildings as he was for the road. It didn’t take long for him to find the farmhouse, the small amount of light coming from the dwelling's windows confirming that it was a family owned vineyard they would be enjoying. Henry could hardly keep the grin off his face.

“Lesson number one, Gregory. If you are going to feed on a human, do so with discretion. Pick wisely, and choose only the sweetest of bloodlines.” Henry explained as they veered off the road and onto a gravel laneway.

“And never drink them dry. That’s the easiest way of getting ill.” Vinicius added, glaring jokingly at Henry, both having gone through the undead equivalent of the stomach flu when they were newly-turned. 

As Vinicius pressed a button on the dash, Henry heard a sudden whoosh of air spill from the tire in front of him. Briefly shocked, his smile grew into one of awe and mischief as he realized why Vinicius had kept such a present.

“You fiend! What else does this contraption do?” Henry laughed, knowing that they now had a verifiable excuse to ask for aid. Shaking his head, he could only chuckle as the car came to a slow stop and Vinicius cut the engine.

“We have a flat. Come on boys, it looks like there’s help just up the drive,” Vinicius smirked, motioning for the other two vampires to follow him.

Vinicius exhaled deeply, invigorated by the fresh blood he’d just pulled from the now-limp girl in his lap. Looking around, he found their new Elder still suckling from a hearty old man—the owner of the vineyard—and Henry looking down at the seemingly-sleeping form of the wife that he’d just drunk from.

With a sharp look to his oldest friend, Vinicius pointed out Gregory’s quickly-approaching error. Eyes narrowed, Henry waited until the last possible moment before sweeping in and yanking the man’s body out of Gregory’s grip, a move which was met with understandable hostility and a hiss of aggression. 

“I wasn’t finished!” Gregory lamented, standing and wobbling a bit as the blood coursed through his veins, shooting straight up to his head. 

“You would have been if you’d kept drinking any longer,” Henry answered, shaking his head. “If you’re lucky, you’ll get a stomach ache. If you’d kept on and tried to drink her dry, you might very well find yourself in the ground next to her…permanently.” He explained. No vampire to his knowledge had ever tried to drain a meal, but the warning had been there as long as he’d been a creature of the night, and Henry wasn’t about to take the risk of finding out when the vampire in question was the head of the Roman coven. 

“Good stock.” Henry commended Vinicius on his choice of victims, both men ignoring Gregory’s silent thoughts regarding how they could wipe out an entire family so easily. It was natural for a young vampire, especially one thrust into such an important position, to question the nature of how they came about their food. While many newly-turned preferred to stick with the donation system, those born before the 1900’s were accustomed to feeding from the source. It was imperative for Gregory to become accustomed to both, especially since he would be parlaying with the heads of other covens, most of whom expected the luxury of a fresh meal whenever meetings were held or visits were made. Though it was still too early to tell, Henry didn’t foresee Gregory’s initial reaction being any sort of hindrance to his rule. 

“Dessert is back at the house, so if you two don’t mind, we’ll be on our way.” Vinicius announced, getting up and all but throwing the poor girl to the ground, stepping over her as one would step over litter on a sidewalk as he made his way to the front door.

Gregory's fidgeting only increased on the way home, his mind filtering through both Vinicius and Henry at the speed of sound, most of them relating to food or his fear of being prosecuted for murder. The two older vampires smiled, both restraining their laughter at the new vampire's paranoia and hunger.

"Don't worry. We're untouchable." Henry smirked, allowing the thought to filter into Gregory’s mind so subtly that it would seem like his own idea. He watched in the fold-down mirror as their new Elder’s anxiety diminished, allowing him to slump back against the seat and actually relax for a moment.

Almost as soon as they arrived, Gregory was accosted by no less than six coven members, all of them offering their fealty in the form of gifts, all of them desperate to get on their new Elder’s good side, lest they incur his wrath. In a flash, he was being made comfortable; fresh blood, warmed to perfection, a luxuriant housecoat and the finest tobacco. Like any new child in a household, he was being spoiled, something which would only make Henry’s job of teaching him that much harder. It was bad enough he had to walk a newly-formed vampire through the ways of his new life; to do it with one who would be ruling over all of Italy for the next 100 years would be near-torture. 

The older he grew, the less patience he had for new vampires. Though he did his best to stay in tune with society and culture as it progressed at faster and faster speeds, having to put up with the endless questions, insatiable hunger, and now the endless fixation for social media would be trying for even the most saintly person. It was one of the many reasons he could never be convinced to sire his own fledglings. 

Finding the whole scene distasteful and feeling a touch jealous of the boy, Henry turned on his heel and headed back out into the night, his mind venturing back to a time not long after his own immortal birth, when he was still ravenous and wild.

Four years had simultaneously been an eternity and a single moment. Through it all, his hunger had never abated. Romans who dared live in the darker recesses, or outside the city gates knew to fear the creature that came unbidden in the night. The one who left nothing but terror and blood in his wake. Prayers were useless, as were offerings. Even sacrifices to the gods did nothing to keep him at bay. 

The hunger ruled his every waking hour and removed any notion of sanity, allowing him to commit unspeakable atrocities to anyone unfortunate enough to be in the domos he entered. He drank five to seven bodies’ worth a night, sometimes more if any of them were particularly small. Man, woman, child; It made no difference. They were all massacred, left in pieces, ripped limb from limb in his blind need for satiation. 

When the high of drinking his fill wore off--and it wore off quickly--Herminius inevitably found himself sickened by what he’d done. Many tears were shed over the corpses of those he’d sent to Charon, a litany of apologies whispered over bits of hair and skin before the hunger invariably took over once more, the ache in his belly unquellable.

Night after night, he scoured his birthplace, looking for those who were already near death’s door, those too feeble to cause a scene when his teeth sank into their flesh. More often than not, their blood did little to satisfy, and he would be forced to find a family of young, healthy, Romans to feast upon. It was a vicious, never-ending cycle that Herminius thought would be nearly impossible to break. At his most desperate, he attempted to end his existence, but not a single method he attempted did anything other than temporarily open his immortal vessel. 

When it became clear that Rome was no longer a safe haven, Herminius wormed his way into the hull of a ship heading for Alexandria. By the time it reached the Pearl of the Mediterranean, he was the sole inhabitant of the vessel. Though he’d learned some restraint on the voyage, being in a new city seemed only to amplify his need for blood.

Herminius had only been in Alexandria a few nights when Caesar’s men--his former brothers--set the port alight, maligning any chance of him returning to his beloved Rome without further risk to his life. His maker had only taught him one lesson, and it was one which made travel nearly impossible for one such as himself:

The sun is your death. 

Homesick and famished, Herminius watched as the library of the great jewel burned along with the port, the vast knowledge turned to mere ash by the carelessness of men he’d once fought alongside of. He wondered if any of his brothers had given any thought to what they were doing or, if like him, they’d thrown themselves headlong into the task with blind fury. Though they were now two very different animals, seeing the glee on their faces eased his guilt some; at the base level, all people were bloodthirsty creatures.

His hunger eased some that night at hearing the cries of anguish from learned men who were forced to watch as their life’s work disappeared before their eyes. By the time the fire was extinguished, nearly half the library had been engulfed, tiny scraps of papyrus floating through the air like the snow in Gaul that had so marveled some of his brothers.

He drank from only one soul that night, that of a young prostitute. Unlike the madness of meals past, where anger and desire coursed through him in equal measure, this time, Herminius sought only to drink and enjoy the nubile woman beneath him. For the first time, he heard the sweet music of pleasure come from his prey, her body writhing, begging him for more. Piercing her neck with his teeth as he pierced her core with his cock, Herminius made the girl sing. Her slim figure trembled in his arms as he slowly drank, fingers pressing her down until he felt the familiar ripple of delight sprint its way up her back. 

She took no note of the blood streaming down her neck as he moved his lips down to her small breast, nipping gently until he found the perfect place once more. Sinking his teeth in brought another moan from the girl, Herminius smiling as he drank what little there was left of her. Her final breath came as he spilled his impotent seed, unlatching from her breast just as she went limp in his arms. 

Setting the girl down, Herminius covered her and quietly slipped out the window, feeling solace for the first time since he himself was bitten.

A few patrons still lingered at Romulus when he entered, and though it was accidental, Henry couldn’t help but feel some satisfaction when his scowl had them all scampering for their belongings, not one of them making eye contact as they headed for the door. 

“Wow, you sure know how to clear a room,” the bartender smirked as she dried a row of shot glasses, unphased by her other customers’ quick exits. 

“It’s a gift,” Henry murmured, taking a seat in front of her, still feeling the barbs of anger pushing into every fiber of his being. 

“Long night?” She asked, ducking her head a bit to try and catch his gaze. Henry finally looked up, feeling the edge begin to dull on his mood as he was met with a warm, open smile. 

“You could say that. Glass of the old stuff with a splash of bourbon, if you please,” Henry requested, jerking his chin towards the wall behind her, pointing at the bottles of Sanguinem that held a place of high regard among the other booze.

“You and your buddies are real fond of this stuff, huh? I’m not sure I get the appeal,” Carla chuckled, shaking her head as she got everything ready to go. 

“There’s a certain…generation of us that grew up having sips of it. It became an old habit.” Henry explained, giving her a wink, his smile growing as he saw a blush flood Carla’s cheeks.

He fell silent as he watched her prepare the drink, intrigued when Carla took a shot of the sanguinem before looking over her ingredients. Eyes narrowed, she chose carefully. Henry was hooked as he watched her light a few Cloves until they smoked, quickly turning what he assumed would be his glass over the smoldering herb and a sprig of Thyme before allowing the glass to cloud with the white plume. In her shaker, she put the sanguinem and his requested shot of bourbon, sprinkling cinnamon on top before shaking it up, knowing better than to add ice, as she’d yet to see any of the patrons who ordered it ask for it on the rocks. Finally, she turned the glass over, quickly pouring the drink into it and trapping the smoke in amongst the alcohol. 

“I present to you, the Caligula. Get it, ‘cause the sanguinem tastes like blood?” She beamed, taking a joking bow before watching Henry take his first sip. 

Before he could even let the liquid touch his tongue, the scene brought him back to the Rome of old, Henry’s eyes closing of their own volition as he drank. Savoring it, he did his best not to swoon, memories of meals past coming back as though he’d just finished them, the flavor bringing back with it memories that actually made him smile. 

When he finally came to, Henry’s expression had softened into one of wonder and appreciation. Staring into Carla’s eyes, he felt something he had felt in ages; attraction. Without allowing his mind to crawl into the decrepit place it usually went when it came to any sort of relationship outside of friendship, Henry let his mouth and heart do the work. 

“Carla,” he read her name tag, “my name is Henry, and you, bellissima, have just created the only way I’ll take this drink for the rest of my life.”

[plaidbooks]

Everyone Deserves Love chapter 1

A/N: It’s finally here! I really wanted to finish this series before I started posting (mostly because I was afraid I wouldn’t finish it). This is my first time writing for an OC, and for SVU! I promise not every chapter will be this long; I was just trying to establish the character.

The first three chapters are prequels. This chapter takes place during season 5.

Next Chapter

Tags: child prostitution mention, sex trafficking mention, minor character death, child death, guns, blood, normal SVU stuff.

Words: 10k+

          Devon Motely got out of bed and stretched, yawning loudly. She walked over to her window and threw the curtains open, letting the sun stream in. She glanced at the clock, 7:05am. She shook her head; it was later than she was used to, but not really; time zones still made sleep times awkward. The dawn was just peaking over the city buildings. New York, Devon thought, a thrill running through her. She had just moved across the country from California at her boss’s suggestion, transferring in the same department, but a new place; a welcome change from the monotony that was Devon’s life. It was fine by her; she was kind of done with California: the heat, the drama, the constant worry of her childhood coming back to haunt her. New York was a fresh start, a new adventure. Though, as someone who worked in the FBI, an adventure wasn’t always a good thing. But she wouldn’t think about that, instead focusing on the positives. For example, her best friend and fellow special agent, Emma, was reassigned with her. Plus, her old psychiatrist-turned-friend was reassigned to New York years ago, and she was hoping to catch up with him.

Devon was nearing thirty and had been an FBI agent, working with the Hostage Rescue Team, since she was 18—a whole decade ago! Most of the time, she hardly believed it had been that long. Other times, it felt like it had been so much longer; working HRT meant she had to do and look at things that would make others sick. They made her sick, too, but she could deal with it; she had to, it was her job. Sometimes while working undercover, however, she had moments of weakness, moments when she couldn’t commit to her illicit cover story, and she had to isolate herself to get back in the mindset. Only once did she ever have her cover blown; she grimaced when checking out “product”—little girls—and she couldn’t recover. She lost a couple girls that day, and she learned to always put on the correct face after that, no matter what she said or saw. Devon was damn good at her job, though, and she almost never lost another life since. Almost.

  1 year later

Cubicle of Devon Motely

Thursday, October 25th. 12:37am

Devon sighed heavily; she was in the office—a rare occurrence indeed—flipping through pictures and unconsciously clenching her teeth in disgust and anger, slowly giving herself a headache. The Assistant Director, and subsequently her boss, Thomas Jenkins, had personally given her this task. It was a delicate procedure, one that he needed to make sure made it into the right hands. For that, only one name came up, and that was Devon’s. Devon scrolled through the pictures looking, searching for anything that could be useful—a tattoo, a building, a street sign. Anything. Hell, she’d take a moldy food wrapper at this rate; her search has pulled up dead-end after dead-end, and she was getting frustrated. She knew, though, how to relax and refocus her efforts; getting frustrated helped no one, especially not the poor children that were caught in the middle of this chaos. That being said, flipping through hundreds of kiddie porn images wasn’t the way she wanted to spend her day.

           About two weeks ago, another field agent had been able to shine some light on a huge human trafficking ring, one that the FBI had been trying to break into for months. Devon hadn’t really been on the case, besides maybe looking through some facts or pictures in her fleeting free time, but she was now called in. Thomas mostly wanted her to stay caught up on the details because he wanted to send Devon in, hence why she was now stuck at her desk in the middle of the night, obsessively looking for some clue as to the location of where the kids may be. The other field agent, the one that first broke into the ring, was shockingly able to take one of the pimps alive, and even more shockingly, they were able to break through the encryption on the bastard’s laptop. All that he really had on there, however, were private messages with anonymous johns and pimps, something that the FBI’s best computer techs were trying to crack the identities of, and then some very, very disturbing pictures and videos.

           Devon had mentally prepared herself for a couple hours before going to work on watching the videos; she figured that they were probably the worst things there, so she’d deal with them first. Sadly, she was correct; the things that she saw in those videos—mostly violent kiddie porn—made her skin crawl and still haunted her at night. It had been about a week since Devon started this “project,” and she had either gone to or talked to a psychiatrist almost every day afterwards. The pictures were…better isn’t the correct word, but they were less intense than the videos...for the most part. Devon kept a notepad and pen by her as she flipped through file after file. She came upon a particularly horrible picture and turned her screen off for a moment, feeling nauseous. She stood up quickly and took a couple steps from her desk, rubbing her temples, trying to get the image out of her mind with no luck. She needed a moment to recollect herself before she did something she regretted—going into their secure facility to beat that pimp to a bloody pulp would help no one. Though, it may make her feel better.

           She sighed, taking a sip from her long-cold coffee. She picked up her notepad, going over the few—mostly useless, she knew—clues that she could pick up from the files she had already gone through. One kid in a video—a young boy, no older than 10--begged the man to not touch him, calling him by name, Evan. She wrote down the video timestamp; you can see half of Evan’s face for the briefest of moments. That’s been the most helpful thing she had found, though. Everything else she had scribbled down was just a description of the various rooms in the videos and pictures, or one of the children’s names, or the brand of…items used—anything that may be helpful in tracking down where these children could be. There was a grand total of 4 different rooms; she labeled one as “Evan’s room” and had scrawled down a basic description, but no other names of the pedophiles came up.

           Tossing the notepad back onto the desk, Devon took a deep breath before sitting back down. She steeled herself, trying to force herself to feel nothing at all. It was good that she still felt repulsed, she told herself. Once she really did feel nothing, then it would be time to quit…and find a better therapist. Barely containing her groan of discomfort, she turned her computer screen back on, and analyzed the grotesque picture that appeared, looking for something, anything, that could help this child and all the others.

           It took her two more days, and thousands of images that she’d need the strongest alcohol in existence to erase from her mind, until she found something concrete. There was a picture of the same bed that Devon had seen a hundred times now, the bed that she had labeled under “Evan’s room.” But Devon ignored the…scene that the picture was attempting to focus on. Instead, she focused her attention on what looked like a receipt—one that someone would get after they signed for something, a carbon copy of the signature on the bottom—that was on a clipboard on a dresser on the other side of the bed. It looked like the signature said “Evan Thompson” or “Evan Frampton,” but it was hard to tell. She needed another set of eyes, a fresher set that aren’t bloodshot from looking at a screen for days. She called Jenkins on his direct line and waited for him to come over to her desk to inform him about her discovery, see if he could make it out.

           “I was starting to give up on you,” Jenkins joked as he appeared in the office doorway.

           Devon gave a tired smile. “Trust me, I’ve been wanting to give up on this since the first image.” Jenkins came up behind her, looking over her shoulder at the image on the screen. Devon had saved him from seeing the whole image, having it punched in on just the receipt. “What does that signature say to you?”

           Jenkins leaned over her shoulder, putting his face almost against the screen. “Evan Thompson?”

           “That’s what it looks like to me, too. Think the techs can clean it up?”

           Jenkins leaned back, nodding. Devon turned to face him, cautiously hopeful. “I think it’s worth a shot. Good work Motely,” he replied, giving her a pat on her shoulder.

           Grateful for the praise, and for the possible lead, she copied the file into a message and sent it to the techs. It took them only an hour, in which Jenkins had retreated back to his office and  Devon had been engrossed in more pictures, before they sent back the picture, clearer than before. The receipt now clearly read “Evan Thompson.” She could even see a total amount above it now. With how much it came to, she was pretty sure that she knew what he had purchased; more children.

           With a name now confirmed, Devon opened the Bureau’s database, typing in Evan’s name. Thousands of matches pinged in seconds. She narrowed the field down; in New York—the apprehended pimp accidently mentioned that detail--still alive, not incarcerated. Down to a couple hundred. She then pulled up the half-of-a-face picture she had saved and added in a couple things in her search; white, aged 35-50, 160-190lbs. Only a handful of addresses this time. She wrote down all of them, then got up to go to Jenkins’ office, give him the good news. She needed a team of—she looked down at the number of addresses—at least 16 people, if they were to go at all of these Evans at once and in pairs, as per protocol. They were all over the state, but in clusters. The furthest an Evan was from another was 5 miles. Perfect.

The FBI had been desperate to catch this trafficking ring; they had people at their disposal. Getting the field agents to interview the suspects would be the easy part; the hard part was assembling teams to go back them up. Devon wanted to be coordinated in this takedown. If the real perp was to catch wind of the FBI coming down on Evan Thompsons, then he’d be in the wind instantly. They had to be ready to take all eight down at the same time, just in case. They couldn’t let this guy get away. Because of their close proximity, they were also able to place teams in between the suspect’s locations, saving them some manpower. Devon conveyed as much to Jenkins, who agreed; now they just had to pull every agent they could back to base, go through the briefing and saving those children.

FBI Headquarters

Monday, October 28th. 8:05am

           Everyone crowded in the briefing room, standing with their partners or teams, watching Jenkins intently. Jenkins went through the whole operation with everyone, 80 agents in all—16 field agents and 64 SWAT members. Every single person wanted these kids in safe hands; they all wanted to take these bastards down, and they hung on every word Jenkins said. Assignments given, the agents started to prepare. Devon vaguely noticed the field agents that were assigned to interview the suspects pair off and get their equipment.

           “We better get this guy,” she heard one agent mumble to another. Devon pulled on her bulletproof vest, strapping it tight. She strapped on her glock and put her badge on over her head—she had it on a chain necklace for this. Then she grabbed the rifle issued to every SWAT member. She wasn’t normally SWAT, and the metal weapon felt heavy and unfamiliar in her hands. True, she had learned to use it in training, but it was rare that she used it at all. She couldn’t wait for this mission to be over, to be back in the field, alone, with no liabilities. It was easier that way.

           “Hey Dev, don’t sweat. We’ll get those kids out safely,” a familiar voice said. She turned to see Emma next to her, red hair pulled back into a low ponytail, helmet already secured on her head. Devon didn’t have many friends, inside or outside of the FBI, but Emma had always been nice to her, always had her back when Devon had to play nice with others instead of going undercover by herself. While Devon counted Emma as her best friend, they didn’t see much of each other outside of work, only a stray text here or there.

           “God, I hope so,” Devon replied. She didn’t want to imagine the scene that may be awaiting them. She had done this hundreds of times, but it never got any easier; her brain liked to imagine the worst possible scenario. It didn’t help that she had seen that scene in person. Every time she geared up for a siege like this, the dead bodies flashed in her mind. She shuttered.

           “We will. I know we will,” Emma said with such conviction, how could it end any differently? Devon simply nodded back, putting on her helmet. Once fully geared up, Devon, Emma, and the rest of their team—6 other men--made their way to their SWAT van. Devon felt the familiar butterflies in her stomach on the drive to their outpost spot. She tried to calm her nerves; there was only a 1 in 8 chance that she would even see any action today. But she knew her luck. And she knew how much Fate liked to fuck with her. So, she counted the minutes ticking by while her team idly chatted about nothing; getting drinks later, the Knicks game the previous night, the wife and kids wanting to go on vacation with their father for once. Devon had nothing to contribute—she hardly did anything outside of work—so she just listened, replying only when prompted.

           Devon’s phone rang, causing her to jump and the others in the van to go silent, looking towards her. Devon quickly silenced it, looking at the caller ID. She never got phone calls outside of spam or telemarketers; she had completely forgotten to turn it off before this. She was shocked when she saw a name appear; Dr. Huang. Fighting the urge to answer it, Devon let it go to voicemail. Dr. Huang only ever called in case of emergencies, opting to communicate through text. But there was no time to answer as the van’s engine sprang to life, Jenkins informing them through their earpieces that the Evan they were sitting on was their guy. Devon shot a quick text to the psychiatrist—emergency, call you later—before putting her phone away. She fought down the thoughts that had sprung up, wondering why the doctor had called her; she had more important things to worry about. The knot in her stomach had returned and every bump in the road made it feel like she was going to be sick. The van drove for a couple more minutes before cutting the engine. Everyone in the back of the van readied themselves. They laid out a basic plan on the short drive over—Jenkins had told them it was a warehouse. A team of four people were going through the front and the other 4 were going through the back. Devon and Emma would be in the latter group. They had done this a handful of times before; all the team knew each other, trusted each other. Devon gripped her rifle, stifling any lingering nerves. She switched her thoughts off, ready to rely on instinct and training. The van doors were thrown open, and Devon and her team charged out and into the beyond.

Warehouse of Evan Thompson

Monday, October 28th. 12:47pm

Devon and her team stormed the place as quickly and quietly as possible. They found the backdoors quickly, unguarded. One of the men pulled out a crowbar, shoved it into the crease between the doors, and ripped it open. It was loud, and they moved in slowly, listening for any sign of life. Hearing nothing, they started clearing little office rooms before they made it to the big, empty space. Well, empty besides a couple of abandoned cement guardrails, like something that littered parking lots, and a huge chain-link cage. Devon had taken the lead, had been the first to peer around into the expansive place. The cage had caught her attention immediately, not because of its size, but because of its contents. What seemed like at least 30 children, all between what looked like 8- and 12-years-old. Devon felt the nausea come back but shoved it down. She could feel sick later. She motioned for the team to follow her as she led them slowly towards the cage, keeping an eye out for danger.

“What the fuck?” a male’s voice called out from across the warehouse. Devon whipped around to the source of the sound, seeing 4 heavily armed men coming out of a small room. Then, pandemonium. The traffickers open fired, forcing them to take cover behind the cement guardrails, firing back. Devon looked over to the cage; it was far enough out of the line of fire that none of them were injured, though the children were all on the ground now, hands covering their heads and ears. But how long would it take until the traffickers decided to cut their losses?

“Cover me,” Devon said, mentally preparing herself for the short run to the cage—it was at least 10 yards. She felt the familiar churning in her stomach when having to make this tough decision; she knew it was highly unlikely that all the children would survive, but it was better than leaving them stuck like fish in a barrel. Wasn’t it?

Emma saw what she was planning and shook her head. “You’ll be killed before you make it halfway.” A bullet pinged off the cement by their heads, as if to emphasize this point.

“That’s why I said cover me.” Without waiting for a response, she poked her gun out from behind the low wall she was crouched behind, rapid firing in the direction of the traffickers. Their gunfire quieted as they took cover from the barrage, allowing the FBI agents to peek their heads out, taking better aim and giving her the cover she had requested. Devon took her chance and sprinted to the cage, firing at the traffickers as she went. A couple of stray bullets got close to her, but none hit their target. The kids noticed the agent running towards them and scrambled to their feet. They came rushing to the door, reaching for Devon through the chain link wall, voices overlapping, panicking as they begged, pleaded for help.

“Stand back!” she yelled over the ruckus. It wasn’t until she took aim at the lock that the kids backed up. She pulled the trigger, bullet destroying the padlock. Devon turned her back on the cage, firing wildly at the traffickers while the children ripped the door open.

“Run, run! Go go go!” she ordered, raising her voice over the gunfire. She could barely hear the children fleeing across the warehouse towards the waiting agents. Devon chanced a glance to the side, trying to make sure they were making it. She felt a pang in her heart when she saw Emma positioned halfway between the cage and the other agents. It was in that moment, that split-second glance, that Devon realized that she loved Emma.

The traffickers renewed their efforts, obviously pissed that their product was escaping. Bullets flew, but Devon held her ground until the last kid left the cage. Once the cage was empty, Devon started to retreat back to her previous cover. It was a perilous journey; there were a few bodies in the path—Devon glanced to find her footing, but otherwise tried to ignore the small, unmoving corpses and the sudden sadness and anger that they conjured. After what felt like hours, Devon made it back behind the low wall. As she was moving to crouch behind it, however, she was hit in the chest. It hit her vest, but that didn’t stop it from knocking the wind out of her, causing her to fall onto her back. It hurt like hell, and she knew she would have a wicked bruise, and hopefully that was it. She scrambled back to her knees, trying to get a baring on her surroundings again. One of her teammates was covering the escape route from their cover to the hallway leading to the exit; a much closer trek than the cage was. The other agent that stayed behind was giving them cover fire from the hallway. Devon joined in; having no more distractions besides the pain in her chest, she was able to take precise aim, shooting two of the traffickers, their bodies falling like a sack of bricks. The firefight seemed to go on forever, but eventually, the warehouse fell silent. Keeping their guns at the ready, the agents came out from behind the wall, making their way towards where the traffickers had been in cover. Six dead bodies; two more must have joined the original four. Right at that moment, the other half of the team came in from the front, calling out the all clear. Devon let out a heavy sigh, lowering her weapon.

“Thanks for the cover, Emma,” she said, turning to find the spunky redhead. But she wasn’t with Devon’s team. She unstrapped her vest, checking the area that she was shot. It hurt and was already bruised, a bump forming, but no broken skin, and from the feeling, no broken bones. “Emma?” she called out after a couple moments of silence.

“You didn’t see?” one of her teammates asked. Devon felt a stone drop into the pit in her stomach. She shook her head and the man raised his hand slowly, pointing. Devon hesitantly followed his finger and felt the ground drop out from under her. The children who were hit were laid out in almost a line from cage to cover, an indicator of their flight. And among them was a redhead, complete with SWAT vest.

No, Devon thought. A pain completely unrelated to her injury punched her in the heart. She hurried over, knelt down, and turned her friend over, hoping against hope that she was just grazed, that she was still alive. Emma’s  eyes were flat, grey, staring at nothing. A bullet hole was almost perfectly in the middle of her forehead, blood already drying. Devon dropped her as if burned, falling backwards onto her ass. She started hyperventilating, bile rising in her throat. She had to get out of the warehouse, get some fresh air. There was a roaring in her ears, her heart beating frantically. Out of nowhere, a faint whimpering broke through the blood rushing in her head. Devon whipped her head in the direction of the sound. There—a small form was crying, breathing hard. Devon scrambled over to the child, anything to get away from her dead friend, and found a little girl. She was clutching her stomach, blood seeping through her grasp.

“I need medical attention!” Devon yelled, ripping the shirt off a not-so-fortunate body, and using the fabric to try and staunch the bleeding. She held the shirt firmly, but not too hard; pushing too hard on a stomach wound could damage the internal organs. Devon stayed like that with the poor girl until paramedics came. A different set of medics checked Devon’s injury. They tried to convince her to go to the hospital, to make sure nothing was damaged internally, but Devon declined. She was quiet the whole trip back to the FBI HQ, mind completely blank.

FBI Headquarters

Monday, October 28th. 2:26pm

Devon moved on autopilot, making her way to her locker, ignoring the congratulations or condolences sent her way. She opened the locker and started taking off her gear, her hands like machines. She unstrapped the helmet from under her chin, lifting the piece of equipment and placing it on an empty shelf. She then gently took off her vest, wincing in pain, the events from the past hour still fresh in her mind, flashing before her eyes, as if she were still in that warehouse. Devon closed her locker door forcefully, hands still feeling sticky from all the blood, even though she had scrubbed them clean. In all, 7 children laid dead in the warehouse. The little girl, Patsy, was the only one who was found to still be alive in the pile. She was still in surgery, and Devon had asked for updates; she needed one win to come out of all this. The other 25 children survived, and the FBI were now attempting to track down their family members, if they had any. Now out of her SWAT gear, Devon made her way to Jenkins’ office. She was running on autopilot, Emma’s dead stare branded in her mind’s eye. She really rather just go home, drink until she couldn’t see straight. But she had to be debriefed, and she knew Jenkins would force her in to see the Bureau’s shrink before she was allowed to leave—if she didn’t tell Jenkins that she was shot, then he wouldn’t force her to the hospital.

           The debriefing took upwards of an hour, and Jenkins gave her a shot of strong scotch—not Devon’s drink of choice, but she was used to it from past hard cases and highly grateful for the burning liquid, warming her cold, empty shell of a body. As she had predicted, Jenkins all but ordered her to go to the shrink before she left for the day. And to take some time off—she had enough vacation days saved up—and to continue seeing a shrink at least once a week. Devon hid her pain as best she could, but she knew Jenkins saw her little winces. Jenkins, to his credit, ignored it; he knew that she’d make sure she was alright, but he also knew that she needed some time. It wasn’t until Devon was sitting in the waiting room of the company shrink that she remembered that she had a call from a different FBI psychiatrist earlier, before everything went to shit. She pulled out her phone and redialed Dr. Huang’s number.

“Hey George. What’s happened?” she asked when he answered.

           “I need a favor, and it’s very time sensitive.”

SVU Department

Monday, October 28th. 4:30pm

Devon stepped through the doors of NYPD’s 16th precinct after blowing off her appointment with the shrink, claiming she was meeting up with Dr. Huang. The psychiatrist had giving her a hard look, but agree that Huang could counsel her, too. Devon looked around curiously; she had never been in this particular precinct before and had to ask for directions from the deskman, who directed her to the elevator. The elevator dinged and the doors opened to the Special Victims Unit. Officers and detectives were wandering about, doing paperwork, or otherwise working. Devon felt eyes trailing behind her as she made her way through the precinct. She tried to shove that down, along with all her other emotions; there was a time and place for that eventual breakdown, and this wasn’t it. Work was work, and this seemed important as well as stressful, as her work normally was. NYPD already felt like walking on enemy ground, no matter how much people wanted to claim about them being “brothers in arms.”

“May I help you?” a woman asked, breaking through Devon’s thoughts. She was in street clothes—a detective, then—with short cropped hair. She had bags under her eyes, slumped shoulders; she was obviously running on overtime, probably hasn’t slept in a day or two.

“I’m looking for Dr. Huang,” Devon replied. She felt a fresh wave of pain as she subconsciously puffed out her chest. She didn’t try to engage in posturing, but this woman already was giving her a hard glare.

The woman nodded. “Ah, you must be his FBI friend—” Devon didn’t miss the…resentment? Venom? in her voice—“he’s in the Captain’s office.”

“Thanks,” Devon said, pushing past the detective. She was used to NYPD disliking her; the Bureau had no friends. But she rarely had someone using that kind of tone so boldly to her face; it was usually coy smiles, sugar-coated threats, and other politics designed to make them seem like friends to the untrained ear. She may not like the detective, but she respected her bluntness. Devon ignored all the other eyes that she could feel on her as she made her way to the only office in the place. She knocked on the open door, sticking her head in. Before she could say anything, Dr. Huang stood up from his seat, gesturing her in.

“Devon, it’s nice to see you again,” he said, giving her a hug. He released her quickly, giving her a concerned look when he felt Devon tense up, hissing in pain. She subtlety shook her head, promising to explain later.

“Same to you, George.” Devon had met the doctor years ago in California as a patient; they’ve been good friends ever since, even after Huang was reassigned to New York. As much as Devon liked him, though, she had a hard time reading him; it made her slightly uneasy, but not enough to stop being friends with him. They’ve worked on cases together in the past. Huang was a profiler as well as a psychiatrist; he made most of Devon’s aliases when she went undercover in her early years, would spend hours working with her until she became that person.

Dr. Huang gestured to the man, presumably the Captain, sitting behind the desk. “This is Captain Cragen,” he introduced. “Cragen, this is Special Agent Devon Motely.” They shook hands.

“I assume Huang told you why you’re here?” Cragen asked by way of meeting.

Devon let out a breath. “No, actually. Only that it was an emergency.”

Dr. Huang gave her a weird look but said nothing. Devon knew the look, though; she had said something wrong, something weird. She knew he’d ask about it later, when they had more privacy. She wasn’t looking forward to that talk.

Cragen looked between the two before answering, “well, we have a missing kid. Kidnapped 16 hours ago. Believed to be taken by a gang member in retaliation. It’s a…delicate situation, one that I felt the need to call Huang in on. Though, he has convinced me that you specialize in this kind of work, that you could get this kid out with no casualties.”

The familiar knot formed in Devon’s stomach; the dead children from earlier, Emma’s dead face flashed in her mind. She took a sharp breath, trying to ground herself in now. She needed to focus; there was another child in danger, another child that needed her help.

“Do you know where the perp is, where he took the kid?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady, professional.

“No, but I have every available officer on it; we’re closing in on them.”

Devon nodded. “Tell me about the perp.” All business, nothing else. Emotions didn’t belong here.

Cragen led the two FBI agents to where they had a screen and whiteboard, all filled with information on this case. The woman detective from earlier was there, as well as two others; one was a tall white man with glasses and grey hair, the other was a black man, slightly taller than Devon. Another detective was at his desk, on the phone and typing on his computer. Cragen introduced the man as Elliot Stabler, the woman as Olivia Benson, the tall man as John Munch, and the black man as Fin. Devon nodded to them each in turn, but got mostly the cold shoulder or a hard stare in return. As Cragen filled her in, she tried to memorize every detail she could, no matter how small. The perp’s name was Jose Gonzalez, the kid was Eddy Suarez. Eddy’s father was in the same gang as Jose; from what SVU understood, the father had slighted Jose in some way, so Jose took his kid as payback. He was considered armed and dangerous.

“Captain, I may have something,” Stabler called out, slamming his phone on its receiver. His desk was against Benson’s desk—partners, then. The group hurried over to look at his screen. “Got the car and license plate crossing the bridge into Staten Island.”

“Let’s move,” Cragen said, spurring the detectives into action. Devon followed; Huang would stay behind, waiting for the interrogation, to where his skills would be needed.

“We need to talk,” he murmured to Devon as she hurried by him. She simply nodded, then followed the Captain out of the precinct.

540 East Marigold Lane

Monday, October 28th. 5:28pm

They pulled up a couple houses down from where Jose had barricaded himself with the child. ESU was still arriving, scrambling to get into place. It was a normal, suburban house, one story, complete with white picket fence; ESU didn’t need long to surround the place, evacuating the houses nearby. Devon wanted to get in there before they were ready; the most important part was getting the 7-year-old Eddy out, alive and unharmed, not something ESU was trained for. She got out of the car, bulletproof vest on and ready, trying to ignore the pain in her chest and her heart, but failing miserably. The nerves that she normally got in these situations were absent; she was still reeling from the warehouse earlier. She kept glancing around, trying to find Emma, then remembering and grimacing. It was like she couldn’t control her emotions, her mind. Devon was afraid that she’d feel this anytime she put the vest on again.

“You alright there, Agent?” Stabler asked, coming to stand next to her. She nodded absently, not really pay attention to the man. Devon’s mind was far away, her nerves fried. She felt like she was about to scream, cry, explode, all of the above. She shook herself, shoved all of her thoughts and feelings down; all that mattered now was that little boy being held hostage. She conjured up the picture she saw in the precinct; a little boy, laughing, being held by his dad who was also laughing. She focused on that boy, focused on the fact that he was in the house in front of her, scared to death. She took a deep breath, then made her way around the house, away from the NYPD officers. She vaguely heard someone call out to her, asking where she was going, but she ignored them. There was a backdoor in the backyard that had a huge window next to it, blinds open, giving her a clear look inside.

She could see a large living room with couches and a TV mounted on the wall. There was a coffee table and a couple of bookshelves full of a variety of books. Otherwise, the room seemed empty. Looking through it, Devon could see an empty kitchen and a hallway. No sign of the man or child. She tried the doorknob and was stunned that it was unlocked. Why had no one else come back here? she thought. Fearing it was a trap, she unholstered her gun, the familiar steel in her hand. She twisted the knob, opened the door slowly. She stepped back, aiming her glock for anyone who may jump out at her. Nothing. Confused, she slowly went through the open door, checking both ways as if someone could be hiding there against the wall, waiting to kill her. Empty. The house itself seemed empty, but then why was ESU and the NYPD stationed outside? Might as well clear the building, make sure that they were just overreacting rather than blaming them right away for botching the location.

Devon crept through the rooms, listening for any sound, but hearing nothing. She then made her way to the hallway; there were only two doors lining the walls, with a master bedroom at the end. She took one step into the hallway, and her mind flashed. She blinked, and she was back in the warehouse, hard concrete under her boots, Emma’s breath loud in her ears. Devon’s breath caught in her throat as she whipped around. But no one was there; it was an empty living room in a quaint house in a suburb. Trying to calm her racing heart, Devon turned back to the hallway; all the doors were open, almost confirming that there was no one here with her. The first room was an empty child’s bedroom, nothing in it disturbed. The second room was a small bathroom, also empty of human presence.

“Get out of here,” a man’s voice called from the master bedroom, making Devon jump, heart racing painfully against her chest. She heard a soft, metallic sound and looked down, trying to find the source. She was surprised to find that it was coming from her; the hand holding her glock was shaking, hard enough for it to be making noise. Calm down, she told herself. She glared at her own hand until the shaking stopped. Devon took a deep breath, then made it to the doorframe, pressed up against it. She tried to peek in, to see the situation she was about to be in.

“Let the boy go. We can talk about this,” Devon replied, gripping her gun tighter if only to keep in control. She could just barely see the man holding the child, gun to the latter’s head. Eddy let out a choked sob. Another flash in Devon’s mind and she saw Patsy lying in a pool of her own blood. She pulled back, breathing hard. Quit it! she yelled at herself, her own mind.

Jose’s voice wavered slightly as he said, “this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

It took a moment for Jose’s words to make their way into Devon’s mind. “Then stop it from continuing. All you need to do is let the kid go, and we can all walk out of here unharmed.”

She could almost hear him shaking his head. “Naw, that’s not gonna happen. If I let this kid go, you’ll just shoot me. I don’t wanna die, man.”

Emma’s face flashed across her mind. She didn’t want to die, either, Devon almost spat out, but she held her tongue. What was happening to her? It had been a long day, and she needed to get out of there. “I’m going to put my gun down, okay? I’ll be unarmed, and I’m coming into the room.” True to her word, she put the safety on her gun, then gave it a little toss into the room, not close enough for Jose to reach it, but definitely out of Devon’s reach. A little show of trust, so that hopefully he will trust her, even a little bit. She then put her hands up, reaching them around the doorframe before coming in herself. “I don’t want anyone here to get hurt, Jose, I promise. Why don’t you tell me how this happened?” Keep him talking, help him see that there was no winning here, that he’d have to do as she asked.

Jose used the hand holding the gun to rub his shaved head. He was panicking, but Devon was hoping to calm him down, even if she couldn’t keep her own mind calm. “Alonso fucked up for the last time”—Devon recognized the child’s father’s name— “and the boss wanted to make him pay, ya know? So, he had me pick up his kid, but then he wanted me to kill him and I just, I can’t kill a kid, man. But if I don’t, boss will kill me.”

Devon felt a pang of pity for the man; he was in a lose-lose situation. But her fraying nerves and overall exhaustion was making it hard to think straight, making it hard to play the nice cop. “Jose, you’re not leaving this house alive unless you surrender yourself. But, no listen to me, if you give yourself up, you’re only going to jail. You hurt that kid, though? You’re done, you’re in the ground, I guarantee it.” She spat out the last part, a little more violently than she meant to. Normally, she’d use a threat like that just to get a suspect to comply. But right now, she was afraid…afraid that she wasn’t using an empty threat. Afraid that she may actually kill this man if she didn’t end this soon. She had never felt like this before.

Jose let out a pained whine. “I don’t wanna die,” he mumbled. He tightened his grip on Eddy, who was starting to cry louder, as if he understood that the more distressed Jose became, the least likely he was to survive.

Devon took another deep breath, trying to shove all of her personal feelings down, trying to bring that professional side back out. The field agent that she always was. “I won’t let you die, Jose. Trust me, I can get you out of here, but you have to put the gun down. You said it yourself, you don’t want to kill this child. What would that even accomplish? Eddy has done nothing wrong. Think about how terrified he must be, how cruel it would be to end his life before he got to do anything that he’s dreamed of.” Devon glanced at the cross Jose was wearing around his neck. “Do you really believe that God would forgive you for ending this child’s chance at life?” If personalizing Eddy didn’t get through to him, religion probably would.

Jose sniffled, the hand holding the gun starting to shake. “You—you can get me out of here? Alive?”

Devon nodded. “Of course, but you have to put the gun down, let Eddy go. I give you my word.” During this whole exchange, Devon had been making her way slowly through the room, around the bed towards Jose. Jose looked like he was thinking through all of his options, breathing harder and harder. After what felt like forever, he released Eddy, who ran to Devon, wrapping his arms around her legs. She jumped as if shocked by the touch, but played it off, trying not to scare the child. Jose then slowly handed his gun to Devon. She put it in the waistband of her pants at the small of her back.

“I’m so sorry,” Jose said through tears. He turned around, head down, defeated. He put his hands on the back of his head and waited. Devon took her handcuffs out of her back pocket and awkwardly made her way to Jose, Eddy hanging off of her.

“Don’t let me die,” Jose whispered, more to himself than to Devon. Once he was secured, Devon let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. All of her nerves were on fire, as if the slightest touch would set her off. It was taking everything in her to not react to Eddy hanging off of her. As she led the two out of the room, she swooped down to grab her gun, replacing it in her holster. Eddy stayed by her side, never releasing her leg. She was glad he was safe, that she could provide some safety to him, but it was starting to annoy her more and more. He’s a scared child. You just saved his life. Suck it up, she thought to herself. She thought back to Patsy, still in surgery. If Devon had patience for her, she’d have patience for Eddy, too.

“Let me go first,” Devon said, stopping them when they had reached the front door. She pushed Jose gently against the wall by the doorframe, so that none of the awaiting officers could get a clear shot on him. She moved the child behind her legs, effectively becoming a human shield. It’s not that she really distrusted ESU or the NYPD as a whole, but all it took was one overzealous cop to have a twitchy finger, to let this all go to hell.

“Coming out! Suspect is unarmed and apprehended! Don’t shoot!” she yelled out the closed door. Slowly, she unlocked the door, then turned the knob, inching the door open. From the outside, she knew that ESU would only see her standing there, a child behind her. From her point of view, Devon saw guns from every direction aiming at them.

She put her free hand up in surrender, the other hand holding Jose by the cuffs. “Hold your fire!” she called out. She waited until she heard whoever was in charge repeat her order before she moved Jose through the doorframe and out into the open. Eddy took Devon’s free hand when she had lowered it, gripping her tightly. She couldn’t even imagine how terrified this kid must be having this many guns pointed in his direction. She led them out slowly, struggling not to flinch as officers came hurrying up. They all but ripped Jose out from her grip, reading him his rights, and throwing him in the back of a squad car. Devon gave him a sympathetic look as the car pulled away. At least he didn’t die, she thought. More officers came up to take the boy, but Devon refused to release him as Eddy gripped her hand tighter, turning to hide his face against her legs. All of the anger and frustration that had been welling up inside of her finally had a target.

“Back the fuck off,” she said, venom dripping from her voice. The officers scrambled to get out of her way as she led him over to the awaiting paramedics in the ambulance. She waited by his side as he was checked out for injuries. She looked over and saw the SVU detectives, Cragen in their center, looking over to her, something like respect and astonishment in their eyes. She knew Cragen would want to debrief her, but at this point, she was emotionally exhausted—she had spent all day in this damned vest. So, she stayed with Eddy, giving him silent support while he was poked and prodded, asked questions. It eventually came up that they wanted to take him to the hospital, run more tests to make sure he was physically okay.

“Don’t let them take me,” Eddy cried, grabbing Devon’s hand like a lifeline.

“It’s okay, Eddy. I’ll ride with you,” she replied softly. She climbed into the ambulance before the medics could say anything. If they didn’t want her there, they made no mention of it as they loaded up. The whole way to the hospital, Devon whispered encouragement to Eddy—“everything’s fine, you’re safe, you did so good back there”—until he calmed down. Devon stayed with him until the nurses kicked her out, much to his dismay.

“I’ll be right outside. I promise, I won’t leave you until your parents get here,” Devon said as she was shooed out. She went to the waiting room and was shocked to see two detectives—Stabler and Benson—already there.

“That was good work today,” Stabler commented quietly. Benson nodded in acknowledgement. “Even if you did go a little rogue going in the house.” Benson rolled her eyes at that.

“I’m just glad there were no casualties,” Devon replied before slumping into a chair. She felt so drained, so tired. And yet, today wasn’t quite over; she wanted to be there for the interrogation, to let them know about Jose’s impossible situation. To maybe give him some sort of mercy, and maybe some protection from his boss. This day just got longer and longer. Plus, she should probably get her injury checked, too. She rubbed at it absentmindedly, trying to relieve some of the pain.

Benson sat down next to her. “How’s Eddy?”

“He’s fine…relatively. He’s going to need some counseling. But physically, I think he’s unharmed.”

Benson nodded. “Detective Olivia Benson, by the way. Detective Elliot Stabler,” she said, gesturing to the man. Devon was glad that the animosity from earlier seemed to have disappeared. Rescuing a child had that effect on people.

“Special Agent Devon Motely,” she replied, giving them both a small smile. “Any word on Eddy’s parents?”

“They’re divorced; mother is going for full custody, and after today, I’m sure she’ll get it,” Stabler explained. “She’s on her way now.”

Devon nodded, but was too tired to answer. Hopefully, the mother can better protect her son from her ex’s illicit life. She’d make sure she gave them her business card, let them call her if they were ever in trouble again. Even if Devon was busy, she had connections all over the city.

It took about 20 minutes of the three officers sitting in silence—the detectives seemed to know how tired Devon must be, mumbling to themselves every no and again--before the mom showed up. Devon and the detectives had been barred from seeing Eddy until a parent or guardian gave the okay, but they were informed that the child was indeed unharmed, just shaken up by the ordeal. The mother was shown to his room, and the nurse asked for Devon to follow her about 5 minutes later.

“Not you two,” the nurse said to Benson and Stabler. Stabler looked like he was going to start a fight, but Benson waved him down. Devon followed the nurse to Eddy’s room, his mom standing next to him, grasping his hand in both of hers.

“You’re the one who saved my boy?” the woman asked. Devon nodded and the mother came over, flinging her arms around Devon’s neck and pulling her into a tight hug. Devon grimaced as fresh pain coursed through her, but she did her best to stay quiet, keep her pain undetected by the civilians. She awkwardly patted the woman’s back as she cried, thanking the agent over and over again.

“I’m glad he’s alright. You got to watch him, though. Make sure he doesn’t get wrapped up in this again,” Devon replied after she extracted herself from the mother’s grip. She handed her card to the woman. “You call me, though, if anything does happen, okay?”

“Yes, yes of course,” the woman nodded fervently, taking the card from Devon. “We’re moving out of the city, though. Moving closer to my family in Connecticut.”

Devon felt a weight lift off her; getting Eddy out of New York was probably for the best. “Good, that’s good.”

Feeling like they needed time alone, Devon said her goodbyes to both Eddy and her mom—who never stopped thanking her—and backed out of the room. Both detectives were still in the waiting room, and Devon relayed the information to both of them.

“As long as she brings him back to testify, then it’s fine,” Stabler huffed.

“Do you really need a 7-year-old to testify?” Devon asked, incredulous. Devon hated the courts; such bad memories from her past there, plus the unneeded drama and politics that came with it. Besides, hadn’t Eddy suffered enough?

Stabler gave her a hard look. “If we want to get him on kidnapping, then we need the actual kid that was napped,” he explained in a slow tone, as if Devon was an idiot. This was why she liked her job. She only needed to catch the bastards; she didn’t have to go through the whole façade of lawyers, courts, and the politics involved.

“That’s your problem,” she shot back. She really wanted to just go home, have a nice, relaxing bath, and listen to some orchestra music. But she needed to go back to the precinct, listen in on interrogation. Like hell she’d ride with this asshole, though. She said nothing as she left the hospital, hailing a cab. She was sure that the detectives were staying behind to interview Eddy, anyways.

SVU Department

Monday, October 28th. 8:36pm

She made it back to the precinct quickly. Her mind had wandered on the drive over, and she was having trouble focusing. She vaguely realized she didn’t see a doctor about her gunshot wound while she was at the hospital, but she couldn’t force herself to care. She felt like she was floating through the precinct, weaving around the officers as she made her way to SVU’s floor. Her emotions were so frayed, she didn’t think she’d ever feel anything ever again. One of the officers pointed her towards an observation room, where she found Captain Cragen and Dr. Huang watching Fin and Munch grill Jose.

“Fin and Munch have been able to get the whole story out of Mr. Gonzalez, here. Not that it took much prompting,” Cragen said by way of greeting.

“From what he told me in that house, he was in an unwinnable situation. I do hope that you and your DA will take that into consideration when indicting him,” Devon replied flatly. She didn’t have the strength to put up a polite exterior anymore.

Cragen gave her a wondering look; he didn’t seem mad about her tone, just curious about her, about why an FBI agent, especially someone who works in HRT, would be on the perp’s side. “He kidnapped a 7-year-old and held him hostage at gunpoint. Do you really think we should go easy on him?” It didn’t seem like he was trying to defend this point, simply wondering how Devon would answer. As if he were in charge of the debate team in high school, seeing if she could defend her point.

“He was just following his boss’s orders, the promise of death if he failed. And even then, he didn’t kill Eddy. He made it clear how much he didn’t want to,” Devon explained.

“And what would have happened to Eddy if we didn’t find them? If you never talked to Jose?”

Devon didn’t have an answer for that. She’d like to think that he wouldn’t have shot a child, that he may have even killed himself instead. But she could also see the possibility of Jose doing it, because he could make sure Eddy didn’t suffer in death. It all came down to Jose’s fear of death versus his fear of God’s wrath. She resigned to watch in silence as Jose continued to tell the detectives—Fin and Munch—about the hierarchy of the gang, about his boss, about anything they asked about. She could feel Huang’s gaze on her, but she ignored him, trying to focus on Jose’s words.

All three looked to the door when a redheaded woman walked in. Devon felt a punch to the gut as she recalled Emma’s face for what seemed like the thousandth time that day. No matter how many times her empty eyes flashed across Devon’s mind, the nausea and emptiness hit her hard.

“This is ADA Casey Novak,” Cragen announced. “Novak, this is Special Agent Devon Motely.”

“I didn’t know this was a Federal case,” Casey said, giving Devon the familiar I-don’t-trust-the-FBI look.

“Off the clock,” Devon replied, giving her a small, exhausted smile. Maybe she could still have some pleasantries. Casey gave her another look, this time of disbelief—who the hell wanted to do this kind of work off the clock?--before focusing in on the interrogation. Cragen filled her in on the details, including the fact that Devon was the one who collared him, before Devon interjected.

“I’d like to request that you go a little easy on the man,” she said.

Casey gave her an appraising look. “He kidnapped a child, with a gun.” It was the same conversation over and over again. Devon was getting sick of it.

“Yes, but Jose had a gun to his own head. He was acting under duress. Plus, he’s giving you guys all the information on his boss that you need,” Devon reasoned.

Surprisingly, Casey agreed. “I’ll plead him out, then. Kidnapping is 5 to 25 years; I’ll recommend 7.”

“Thank you,” Devon said before excusing herself from the room. With her work effectively done, Devon just wanted to go lay down somewhere for a couple hours…or days. She heard someone follow her out of the observation room and sensed Dr. Huang’s presence.

“We do still need to talk, Devon,” he commented. Devon’s shoulders slumped and she hung her head in defeat as she followed him to an unoccupied room, full of standard-issued beds. Must be where officers could sleep when they couldn’t make it home. It seemed like a cruel joke to bring her here, with how tired she was, but at least it was private. Devon resisted the urge to sit on any of the mattresses; she was afraid she wouldn’t get back up again.

“What’s going on, Dev? Are you okay?” Huang asked once he shut the door.

“Don’t treat me like a patient, George. I know you know me better than that.”

Huang nodded, dropping the professional tone, and adopting something more personable. Yet still that overall calm that he exuded was present. “You’re right. Something did happen to you today, though. Do you want to talk about it?”

Devon huffed out an unamused laugh. “Not really, no. I would rather just down a bottle of whiskey and sleep for three days uninterrupted.” She knew by admitting that, Huang would just dig in further, at least until she got everything off her chest. But she was too exhausted to come up with some elaborate lie about how she was feeling, too exhausted to really care what anyone thought of her right now. She felt nothing, only the dull ache in her chest that pulsed in pain in time with her heart.

Huang looked concerned but hid it well. It only showed in his eyes. “You need to talk it out,” he said. When Devon didn’t reply, he continued, “first, you missed my call, texting me that you were in an emergency. And second, you told Cragen that I gave you no details. I told you the whole case over the phone.”

That stunned Devon; she thought back to the phone call that felt like days ago—how was it only earlier today?—tried to remember what was said. She didn’t remember a single word, though he must have at least old her to come to the 16th precinct, since she showed up here.

Sighing, Devon recounted the Thompson ring takedown. She was a little shocked that Huang didn’t get the notification—“I’m not a field agent, and I was already assigned here,” he explained. Devon got a little choked up when recounting the 7 dead children, and the 1 dead FBI agent, shocked that she even had emotions left.

“I don’t have many friends—you know that. So, losing Emma hurt more than I thought it would,” Devon finished. She refused to acknowledge the feelings that became apparent shortly before the agent’s death—that would be something to unpack later.

Huang had listened intently to her plight. He gave her a look of sadness as she recounted the dead; no matter how many times someone saw another person killed, it never got easier. “You saved 25 children from hell, though.”

“And lost 8 people in the process.”

Huang weighed his words, then responded, “but don’t the lives saved outweigh those lost?”

Devon’s phone went off right then. She recognized the hospital’s number and answered. She felt the dread build in her core, tears finally springing to her eyes as the final nail of the day was hammered into her. “Correction, 9 people. Patsy didn’t make it.” She let the tears flow freely now; it was the first time she had cried that day, but all of the sadness, anger, and guilt from earlier rushed out of her in a wave. She collapsed onto one of the beds hard, face buried in her hands as she let everything out. She vaguely felt Huang sit down next to her, patting her back in comfort, careful to touch lightly after hearing about her being shot. He let her cry until they became hiccupping sobs. Devon wiped her face with her shirt, trying to regain her composure. She tried to make it a point to not cry in front of people; she didn’t want to appear weak. The fact that Huang had been here to see her fall apart hurt her pride more than anything.

Huang waited until she seemed to be back in control before whispering, “Devon, why do you still do this job?”

The question caught her off guard, and an answer didn’t immediately jump out at her. She thought about it, really thought about it; why she got up in the morning, put on the badge, and went to deal with the worst side of humanity. Why she put her life on the line for strangers. Why she cared enough to help people.

“Because if I don’t, who will?” she sniffled. She wanted to expand on that, but the right words didn’t come up right away. She took a deep breath, tried to pull in her scattered thoughts, then said, “you’re right, you know. The lives saved are more important than the lives lost. This city, this world, can be a terrible, terrible place. But if I can save even one person, one child, then it’s worth it to me.” She sniffled again and blurted out, voice desperate, “I just want to help people.”

Huang nodded. “That’s a good answer. The fact that you even had an answer is a good sign, Devon. You still have your humanity. You’re still a good person.” Huang always knew exactly what Devon was really feeling; inadequate, remorseful, and most of all, guilty.

“Even if those 9 deaths are my fault?”

“Devon listen to me. Emma”—her name still hit Devon in the stomach—“knew what she was doing. It was her choice to cover the children’s escape. Besides, if you didn’t unlock that cage, what do you think would have happened to those kids?”

As much as Devon wanted to argue that the cage was out of the line of fire, she didn’t know what would have happened. Maybe the kids would’ve been safe until the firefight was over. Or maybe the traffickers would have decided that they didn’t want any witnesses.

“Survivor’s guilt takes time to digest, to move forward. I agree with your boss, too; talk to a psychiatrist about this. I can talk to you as a friend, but not as a doctor-patient anymore. The one in your sector is good, and a friend of mine,” Huang said.

Devon nodded, agreeing to go to the company shrink. “You know me, though. I can’t take time off; I’ll go insane.”

“You are a workaholic,” Huang agreed. He was the only one allowed to call her that, no matter how true it was. “How about I arrange Cragen to call you if he can use your help?”

Work for the NYPD? Busting low-level rapists and pedophiles? Trudging through the shit field work, the court systems, and the corrupted politics of the mayor’s office? “Sounds like a deal…as long as I don’t have to work with that Detective Stabler.”

“He can be a little abrasive,” Huang said, smiling. “But he grows on you…eventually.”

“Like a parasite?”

Huang laughed at that. “He is a good detective, and a pretty good person. He gets angry, and he’s headstrong. But at the end of the day, I’m glad SVU has him on their side.”

Conversation coming to an end, they both stood up. Devon didn’t really care what her face looked like after all that crying. All that mattered was that she was tired and hurting but feeling lighter than she had all day.

Huang stopped her as she went to leave. “Do me a favor, though.” When Devon arched an eyebrow, Huang said, “go see a doctor for that gunshot wound.”

[heartofsnark]

This Is Love (Chapter Four): Through The Gates

Notes: We’re inching closer and closer to the Seed’s arrival, I know it’s a slow burn to the game events, but I’m enjoying building up to it and hope it will make the impact of it all just that much more meaningful. 

Word Count:  9098

Chapter Warnings: Cursing, Belligerent Drunk Man, Drug Overdose, Pratt and Dahlia being dumbasses

For chapter one and the warnings about this fics overarching themes, please click here!

For the previous chapter; click here!

A tall bearded man is on her porch; leaning against the railing. The familiar snake tattoos that curl down his forearms give him away; Lonny. The Eden’s Gate member who showed at the station to give her and Whitehorse a hard time. What is he doing at her trailer? There’s no reason for him to be here.

“Can I help you?” She asks, raising an eyebrow as she steps up onto the porch.

“Just figured I’d stop by, make a friendly visit to the new deputy,” he expression is somewhere between a smile and a predator baring its teeth.

“And, how exactly did you figure out where I live?”

“Small place, loose lips, word spreads fast.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, now, if we’re done with this ‘friendly’ visit-”

“Word spreads especially fast within our congregation, when someone starts arresting our members.”

“Maybe, your congregation members shouldn’t commit crimes?”

“The law of man matters little compared to the law of god.”

“Well, I get paid to enforce the law of man, so unless god starts signing my paychecks, I’ll be sticking to that.”

“Greed isn’t a pretty sin.”

Goosebumps prickle and creep up her skin at the word sin, making her throat tight, as the word settles over her. Memories of her stepfather claw at the back of her mind, phantom pain of beatings past making her body ache, the guilt and shame of being a sinner pitting in her stomach. She digs her nails into the palms of her hands and grits her teeth.

“Yes, so greedy, as you can tell, I mean just look around, ” she gestures around the dilapidated trailer park, “the used needles a foot away from the kiddy slide cost me extra, but I think they really bring the place together.”

“Charming.”

“I do try.”

“Look, I’ll make this stupidly simple, for you,” Lonny creeps closer, nearly standing on her, glowering down at her, “don’t step on our toes and we won’t step on yours.”

“Is that so?” She grins and literally steps on Lonny’s toes, crushing her boot down as hard as she can, until he finally grunts in pain and takes a step back.

“Don’t make a problem out of yourself, deputy….” His dark eyes flicker around, until finally landing on the shed behind her trailer, “that where you keep your bike?”

“Maybe, maybe not, whats it to you?”

“You know, a little generosity goes a long way to mending relationships, deputy. That motorcycle of yours would be a nice little gift to the flock and most importantly, me.”

“Get bent.”

“It’s important that we all do our part, deputy. That everyone gives a little, so that we all can flourish. As we inch closer and closer to the brink; that becomes even more important. What’s yours is mine, so,  which is more important, keeping your motorcycle or helping others?”  

He’s in her space again, hand reaching out and squeezing her shoulder in a pseudo-friendly gesture; that not even almost friendly smile on his face again.

“I’d sooner watch the world rot than give up that bike. Now, get the fuck off my property.”

She shoves his hand off her shoulder and marches into her trailer; slamming the door shut behind her. Dahlia could scream, could tear apart her entire trailer in rage. Where the hell does that guy get off? Demanding her bike; the motorcycle she slaved over. Her and Lloyd rebuilt that thing from nearly scratch after his son wrecked it; left it abandoned in their shed, a muddle heap of metal left to gather dust. She helped rebuild it; just a project at the time, something to keep busy while she was waiting to see if she got accepted to the police academy, meant to stave off the anxiety. And when it was done, perfectly functional and shining like it was brand new, Lloyd told her to keep it, she deserved it.

There’s not a lot of things Dahlia’s felt she earned; feeling every success has been a fluke, a mistake, a moment of luck. But, she earned that bike. She nearly fought Lloyd’s son when he visited that holiday season; trying to reclaim the bike now that it was fixed and she refused. Lloyd sided with her; because she earned it. Because she put the work and hours into it. And she’ll be damned if she’s going to let some bearded zealot barge in and demand she give it up.

The more she learns about Eden’s Gate, the less she likes them. Stealing booze, trying to take her bike, trying to scare her. She needs a cigarette; she decides and pulls the pack from her pocket; only to find it empty. Damn it. Dahlia starts digging through tossed aside pairs of pants and jackets; she has to have a half empty pack somewhere. She grabs up her duffle bag, still mostly unpacked other than what she’s worn or used this week, rummaging through the pockets for a pack of cigarettes.

A crumpled piece of something brushes against her hand and she yanks it out; only to find a scrunched up white pamphlet. She straightens it out a bit and groans when she reads the front; Eden’s Gate, We Love You surrounding a cross like symbol. Why is this group all over everything?

Giving up on finding a cigarette somewhere in her mess; Dahlia changes into some comfy clothes and plops herself down on the couch, turning the small tv on as background noise more than anything. She finds herself fiddling with that pamphlet again, placed aside before she changed.

Dahlia opens it; if this damn group is going to haunt all her days here, she might as well read their crap. It seems to be fairly standard religious fare. Casted out? Rejected by society? Try Jesus. Take a leap of faith, wash away your sins, confess, atone, and become stronger by joining their family. There are mentions of how corrupt the world is and how it’s all going to end; nice appeals to fear mongering, always have to appreciate that approach. Every word of the dribble reminds her of darker days, of her step father and his asinine sermons. The type of people who’d probably make a PSA about how Dungeons and Dragons is satanic, Harry Potter should be burned at the stake, and Pokemon is an evil atheist agenda to push evolutionary theory on kids.

The leader; man bun guy, calls himself The Father. Those goosebumps and bad memories come back. She knows assuming that all strongly religious people are like her step-father isn’t the best practice. But mentions of sin and calling himself something regarding father, just… doesn’t help.

He calls his siblings heralds; a sister and two brothers.

Her eyes glaze over as she absorbs the same crap she's had spewed at her for years, thoughts of making a donation to planned parenthood in their name pass through her mind. She doesn’t know for certain if the group is pro-life, but one can assume. The picture on the second page of the little pamphlet catches her eye and she sputters out a laugh.

Who the hell runs the PR for this church?

First the creepy statue, then the serial killer-esque drawing on him to open their book, and now a family portrait so awkward she might cringe herself into a coma. Three men and a woman; siblings according to the text. Man bun is in a chair in the middle; not even making eye contact with the camera. The woman, Faith, the siren she’s seen at the hotel and accidentally grabbed outside the diner is on the floor beside the chair. She looks annoyed, like a teenager being dragged to an awkward family dinner. Behind them are the two brothers. One with slicked back dark hair in a coat that appears to be covered in planes; which is… a look. And the other a mountain of a human compared to his sibling; ginger hair with the sides shaved, in camouflage, holding a red rifle.

It all looks ridiculous, from their expressions to their poses. Whoever thought this was a good way to market them is the epitome of human stupidity. Dahlia crumples the little pamphlet and tosses it into the trash; thankful for a laugh to cap off her night. She spends an hour or so watching tv, drifting off to sleep on the couch as she’s done every night.. Eyelids growing heavier and heavier with each second, until black blankets her mind. 

Her bladder wakes her up during the middle of the night, causing her to turn and flop around, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She stares at the ceiling contemplating if she has to pee bad enough to warrant making herself physically stand up; the effort feeling herculean in the bleary twilight hours of the night.

“What if I told you, you could be free of sin,” a male voice drifts from the tv and she groans; this shit again?

She sits up on the couch, sliding down onto the floor with the clumsiness of her sleep leaden body. On her tv, at four am, amid commercials for sexy single phone lines is an infomercial for Eden’s Gate.

One of the brothers; the one with slicked back hair in the plane coat, John Seed as the text on screen tells her. He dramatically talks about how all you have to do is say Yes, the power of Yes, walking around what looks like a red carpet covered in flowers; terraces laced with them around him, a crowd gathered around as he talks.

Is he the reason for the Hollywood style YES sign in the valley?

The crowd around him starts to chant the word yes; he’s saying ‘yes, I will be saved’, ‘yes, I will confess’, ‘yes, I will atone.’ And he gestures upwards; revealing a lit up sign of the word YES and she bursts out laughing; her stomach aching and her bladder upset with her for it. Once her laughter subsides, she does what any good decent young adult would do. She rewinds  it to the start of the infomercial, grabs her phone from the table, and records the cringefest to post online before finally going to the bathroom.

She goes back to sleep after,  still cracking up about this dumb religion and their dumb advertisement.

Dahlia wakes up around noon or so the next day, checking her phone while still curled up in the couch.  The post of the religious cringe has gotten some traction; someone making a reaction gif out of the guy gesturing to the yes sign. Jokes about how the guy must get off on the word yes, how insane it must have felt to be working on this, ‘imagine having a grown man in a plane coat telling you to chant yes while he dramatically touches his own tit’. The internet truly is a beautiful place sometimes.

She stretches out her muscles and decides to call the clinic, the one she gave  info about to Tweak. Dahlia wants to make sure he actually reached out and didn’t just use her good graces to avoid trouble and call it done.

“Hey, I’m Deputy Hale of the Hope County Sheriff’s department, I referred someone to contact your clinic about rehabilitation. I was calling to see if they contacted you.”

“Of course, could I have their name?”

“Aaron Kirby.”

“Yes, we did receive a call from Aaron Kirby, he’s been placed on our waitlist as our drug counseling services are currently at capacity and we can’t take on any more clients.”

“Understood, thank you.”  

She sighs; she can’t fault him for that. Hopefully, they’ll be able to get him in soon. Dahlia stretches, making her back pop, now what to do with the rest of her day. Maybe it’s Lonny trying to take her bike or maybe it’s the mention of those Clutch Nixon stunts yesterday; but she has an itch to go riding and do some stupid shit.

A quick shower and change of clothes; then she’s grabbing her helmet.

Music reverberating in her skull, the rev of her motorcycle engine beneath her, the wind whipping around her, and she’s healed from everything if only for a moment. Dancing and riding her bike are the only things to do this for her; or maybe it’s the music itself that does. But when her blood is pumping, her ears are ringing, and her throat is raw from screaming along to the songs; nothing else matters.

She’s not lonely as she takes a sharp turn right at the chorus.

She’s not sad or pathetic as she cruises down the road, passing cars.

She’s not a disgusting sinner as she takes one of the paths that goes through the woods.

She’s not rejected, worthless, and tossed aside as she hits one of the many ramps across the county, catching air before hitting the ground again.

Everything is pure chaos and adrenaline in her veins; no room for guilt or doubt or

Deer. Big deer, in the road, it isn’t moving.

She hits the brakes; the sudden jerk of a stop, pushing her body forward, losing her grip and being ejected forward. Dahlia hits the ground in a heap, head rattling but thankfully not split on the road. She forces herself to roll over on her back, body aching in protest. Her eyes close and she takes deep breaths, trying to gather herself.

Something fuzzy pushes against her hand, glancing down to see the large deer sniffing at her. It’s no worse for wear, so that’s good at least. She forces herself to sit up, body protesting,  and she peels her helmet off. The deer shuffles back a little but when she extends a hand it tentatively presses against it. She scratches its nose.

“You’re very lucky you’re cute.” She digs around in her pockets, finding a pack of crackers, she always has food on her if she can help it and she offers the deer a cracker. It eats from her hand. Maybe she’s just trying to avoid moving her bruised body, but she spends a few moments finishing the little pack with the deer before finally forcing herself to stand.

Her motorcycle is in good shape, a little scuff on the side, but nothing she can’t buff out if needed. Dahlia’s baby remains the most stable part of her life. She rides it back to her trailer, a bit more carefully. She’s managed to burn through most of the day with her reckless bullshit.

She calls Lloyd and Caroline that night; telling them about her first week, skirting around details that might sadden them. Going to the F.A.N.G Center is reduced to just going there, nothing of being overwhelmed and leaving. No mentions of Pratt tricking her when she talks about Peaches, just an old lady with a cougar Dahlia got to carry. No mention of being left out everytime Pratt and Hudson go to the Spread Eagle. No mention of Lonny, the threats, the religious group that seems much more involved with the community than she originally thought. Everything is fine, perfect, ideal.

The pain of her little crash has mostly faded by the time she shows up to work the next day; uniform properly on when she comes into the station bullpen.

“What the hell happened to you?” Hudson calls out and Dahlia can’t help the heat crawling up her face at the attention. Her forearms and some of her upper chest that’s exposed are covered in bruises; mottling blues and purples.

“Oh, uh, I had a little bike crash yesterday.” She shrugs.

“Jesus christ,” Pratt grumbles and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Rook, you need a hobby,” Dahlia starts to say something, but Hudson continues, “one that doesn’t injure you.”

She likes to dance, but dancing completely alone isn’t as much fun, not awful but not as fun. And there's not exactly dance clubs in Hope County. Hmmm. Unfortunate. She shrugs, if her hobby kills her, it kills her.

During patrol, Pratt and her don’t talk about the F.A.N.G Center, they don’t talk about him being angry at her. An awkward cloud hanging over them as they patrol. She doesn’t even bother to ask to give tickets when they pull people over; already knowing Pratt won’t let her and not wanting the conversation. An emergency call to what’s called Sergey’s place breaks up the monotony, suspected overdose.

She digs her nails into the leather of her seat as Pratt flips on the sirens; what if it’s Tweak? Doubts of if she did the right thing running through her head. She wanted to help him; but if he ended up just being put on a waitlist and overdosing right after, how much good did she do?

Sergey’s place is a wooded area filled with abandoned train cars where homeless people and drug addicts gather. Dahlia rushes to where she sees a group of them gathered around; screaming and crying coming from the center.

“Clear the way, so we can help,” Pratt tells them, the crowd dispersing, a woman is seizing. Her entire body jerking and drool pooling from her mouth; another woman holding her close, crying over her.

“Did she take anything?” Dahlia asks.

“We were shooting up and then she was on the ground, I, it’s all my fault, I-”

“Understood, we’re gonna do everything we can to save her.”

Dahlia holds the seizing woman as still as she can, getting out the syringe of narcan that's kept in patrol cars. She plunges it into the woman’s arm, forcing the medicine into her system, watching as her seizing slowly starts to lessen. Removing it, she notices the large bruise and cut on the woman’s forehead.

“Dispatch,” Pratt radios in, “we need an ambulance out to Sergey’s place, confirmed overdosed, head trauma, female early twenties. Junior Deputy Hale has administered a dose of Narcan, over.”

Dahlia stays with the woman, to make sure she doesn’t seize again and hurt herself further. Meanwhile, Pratt clears the way and helps get the ambulance into the area when it arrives; the woman being taken away on the stretcher. They find out the one who was holding her was her sister, allowing her to go with her to the emergency room, while Pratt asks some questions of those who were around. Nothing suspicious; just an overdose, no one to blame.  

The younger deputy sighs and a hand clamps down on her shoulder; gently squeezing. Pratt is next to her and she raises an eyebrow at him. 

“We got here quick, she should be fine.” 

“Maybe, lets get going.” 

The conversation is still more than a little stilted as the day goes on; but it isn’t quite the awkward silence of before. Pratt making little comments and saying things, while she nods or hmms along.

Later in the afternoon, when they’ve stopped back at the station, for lunch and paperwork regarding the overdose. She yawns and stretches her arms, standing up from her desk to get coffee. Maybe she needs caffeine or maybe she’s just tired of sitting in one place; but either way she’s up and moving. 

She rubs a hand down her face as she enters the kitchenette where the fridge and coffee machine are. Dahlia grabs her mug; one that was bought for her by Lloyd and Caroline. It’s a little embarrassing, the picture of a black cat with the message, ‘horrible and adorable.’  

Warmth presses in close to her back, looming over her. The smell of Pratt’s cologne hits her just as a large hand plucks her mug off the counter. Pratt holding the mug high above her head. 

“Hey!” She tries to grab it from him but can’t reach, Pratt grinning as she makes the effort to stand on her tiptoes but still can’t quite get it. 

“Something wrong?” he smirks, “you can’t reach your kitty cat mug?” 

“Can you go five seconds without being an ass?”  She turns to face him, glaring at his shit eating grin, the mischief in his eyes as he crowds her and holds the mug just out of reach. 

“Hmmmm, no. Can you go five seconds without pouting?” He reaches up with the hand not holding her mug hostage and cups under her jaw to squish her cheeks together and force her lips to pout out; laughing at her. 

She smacks away his hand, making a grab for her mug, knocking against his chest in the attempt before he jumps back. 

Dahlia whines and he just laughs, dodging her again as she tries to take her mug back. Her fingers can barely reach his face, let alone high above his head where he’s holding her mug hostage. She clambers to grab a hold of his bicep; trying to pull herself up high enough to grab it, laughing at the ridiculousness of trying to essentially climb her coworker to get her mug.

“Jesus christ, you fuckin’ spider monkey!” He nearly falls over, but catches himself and switches the mug to his other hand, placing it on top on the cupboards.

She glares for a beat, still hanging off of Pratt’s arm before letting go. Dahlia can’t even reach the top shelf in the cupboards.

“I’m actually going to strangle you.”

“Something wrong, Thumbelina?” He taunts and ruffles a hand through her hair, the gesture far more rough and teasing than when Whitehorse does it to comfort her.

“Yeah, my coworker is an ass.”

“Not my fault you’re short.”

“If I get dirt on the counter, you’re cleaning it.”

“What do you-” he bursts into laughter when she box jumps up onto the counter, grabbing her mug. The deep rumble of it makes her smile, it’s ridiculous, but he’s left her no choice.

“The hell are you doing, Rook?!” Whitehorses’ voice cuts through Pratt’s cackling and she jumps down with a yelp.

“Pratt did it.”

The older deputy straightens up, after nearly bending over doubled from his laughing fit. Whitehorse pinches the bridge of his nose, Dahlia swears she can see the migraine forming in his head.

“I didn’t do anything,” Pratt defends himself,  “she managed that all on her own.”

“I, I just...no feet on the counter, that's where food goes, for fucks sake, ” Whitehorse looks from Dahlia to Pratt, “and no whatever you did.”

With that the sheriff leaves; weary of their bullshit. Dahlia jabs her fist into Pratt’s ribs, hard enough to jostle him but not enough to truly hurt.

“You got me in trouble!” She yells, sounding every bit a kid who just got ratted out to the teacher, and Pratt only snickers.

By the time Dahlia manages to get her coffee, her face hurts from smiling. The ache of happiness followed throughout the day, until Hudson and Pratt cap off the night with another day of chatting at the Spread Eagle, Dahlia left to go home alone. 

The next day a call comes in from Adelaide Drubman, Hurk Sr’s ex wife who owns the marina as Dahlia’s been told. She’s seen advertisements around for the older woman’s real estate business, telling people to call Addie. The woman pictured on the signs of those advertisements is a fair representation, albeit maybe a little more airbrushed, of the woman standing before them when they arrive. Older with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, a red bandana tied in her hair. She’s all sly smiles and winks when she sees the two deputies walking towards her.

“Well, hey there, hon’,” she greets them, the southern Montana accent one of the strongest Dahlia’s heard since she’s arrived here.

“Hey, Addie,” Pratt replies in kind and Dahlia gives an awkward wave, “what’s wrong?”

What’s right, Dahlia can’t help but wonder as she looks at the property, clearly abandoned and dilapidated.

“Well, I think some squatters might have moved in on me, sweetheart. And, apparently threatening them with my gun is illegal, but having y’all run ‘em off with yours is fine. Go figure.”

“Yeah, the law is pretty picky about that kind of thing,” Pratt says with a laugh.

“I mean, I’m not complaining , at least I get a  chance to see some young pieces of ass in uniform.”

Dahlia chokes and coughs; heat flooding up to the apples of her cheek. That was blunt. Really blunt. Pratt doesn’t seem the least bit bothered, maybe he’s just used to this. Despite her embarrassment, she’s smiling. Something about Adelaide is comforting, warm and friendly, the kind of person who doesn’t know a stranger. Dahlia remembers the gross curmudgeon of an old man that use to be her husband.

“Speaking of which,” Adelaide continues, looking at Dahlia, “I don’t think I’ve seen you before, honey.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m new at the station.”

“Our probie junior deputy.”

“Adelaide Drubman, pleased to meet ya.”  

“Uh, this might be impolite,” she pauses, rethinking for a moment, but she needs answers, “but were you seriously married to Hurk Sr?”

“Un-fucking-fortunately.”

“Did you lose a bet?”

Adelaide starts laughing and Dahlia can’t help but smile, the sound absolutely heartwarming.

“I’m serious; lose a bet, piss off a witch and get cursed, broke a mirror and had seven years bad luck… It’s gotta be something, ‘cause that just don’t add up.”

“Well, aren’t you just the cutest thing,” the older woman tells her, “word of advice, don’t let anyone tell you you gotta stay with a man just ‘cause he knocks you up.”

“I’d rather die.”

“Good, keep that mentality, save you years of suffering.”

“Okay, enough chat, let’s go check out the place,” Pratt says, nudging Dahlia to get a move on. She sticks her tongue out at him as they walk into the rundown house.

There’s trash strewn around, thankfully no needles or sign of drug users here. Adelaide must have a lot of trust in whoever she has cleaning these places up for resell. They pass through rooms, looking for anyone who’s not meant to be there, knocking on doors and calling out. Most of the house is cleared through and the two of them head to the attic, a good place for any squatters to hide.

The stairs creak under her feet as she takes them two at a time, moving ahead of Pratt in minutes. She hears him grumble, he tells her to slow down, but she doesn’t.

It’s dimly lit, some abandoned furniture and old antique crap littering the area; blocking the window that might have let in even a glimmer of sunlight. She flicks on her flashlight. The light illuminates the dust that hangs heavy in the air, drifting across her vision. Something rustles, a box shuffling across the floor.

“What was that?” Pratt asks as he finally joins her in the attic.

“I don’t know, yet.”

Scratchy noises echo through the room and she walks towards where she saw the box move. She crouches down and shifts the boxes out of the way, finding nothing but a dusty floor beneath them. Then something presses against her leg, a soft sniffing noise. 

“Oh my god!” She gasps as she looks down at the cute opossum staring up at her; baby pink nose sniffing at her jeans. A white face, tawny gray almost black body, with big soft dark brown eyes, its wiry whiskers curling at odd angles. 

“Is something wrong?!” Pratt yells out and comes rushing over, feet stomping across the floor; the heavy thuds making the opossum hiss and creep backwards. 

“You scared it, jackass.” 

“I,” he looks down at the hissing opossum, “I thought something happened.” 

“Shhhhhh…”

Dahlia reaches out; tentatively brushing her fingers against its narrow snout, feeling the short slightly rough fur. The hissing stops and it sniffs at her hand, letting her scratch up its face to the top of its head. It relaxes into her touch and she scratches behind its ear. 

“You can’t pet every animal, you meet, Rook.” 

“Watch me,” she says before scooping the opossum up in her arms, holding it close to her chest. A tongue licks over her cheek, the marsupial content in Dahlia’s arms. 

Pratt shakes his head and leaves the attic; Dahlia following him down the stairs. Adelaide is waiting outside the home when the two deputies exit. 

“Good news, Addie-” 

“I acquired a baby.” 

“Jesus fuck,” Pratt rubs a hand down his face at her interruption, “there’s no squatters.” 

“’Preciate ya coming out to check and taking care of the opossum problem.” 

“I fail to see the problem.” Dahlia’s new friend is trying to climb up her head, licking her scalp. 

“You really gonna try to sale this mess?” Pratt asks, rolling his eyes and ignoring the younger deputy’s new pet. 

“It’s my best chance of making any profit anymore; those fuckin’ Seeds are buying up any place thats actually worth a damn thing.  Flipping run down places is the only way to even hope of making money anymore. You know those bastards even tried to by the Marina.” 

“They’re gonna own the entire county before we know it.” 

Deputy Pratt shrugs his shoulders and Dahlia chews her lip; unsure if she likes how casually they talk about the local religious nutjob owning the county. The older deputy doesn’t even seem bothered by the thought; the idea of them buying everything just thrown out as blasé as one would say the time of day. 

“I swear to god, I can’t figure out what I wanna do more; punch John Seed’s face or ride it.” 

Dahlia raises an eyebrow at the older woman; she’s unsure what that means…but it sounds vaguely inappropriate… Her nose scrunches, brows furrowing as she tries to reason through this. Riding…like sitting on someone’s face? So, oh… Heat flares up Dahlia’s cheeks as the meaning hits her; definitely inappropriate. Very inappropriate. She covers the opossum’s ears, as if to protect the innocent being from the filth, meanwhile her own ears are burning. 

“Addie…” 

“I know, I know,” Adelaide waves her hand dismissively, “but you know what they say, the pussy wants what it wants.” 

“Not sure that’s the saying.” Pratt laughs

Dahlia raises an eyebrow before looking down at the opossum in her arms as if the little critter could answer her unasked question. Instead, its doe eyes just stare up at her. What cats have to do with Adelaide wanting to fuck John Seed is beyond Dahlia’s comprehension.

“You alright over there, hun?” 

“Don’t worry about her,” Pratt dismisses Adelaide’s concern, “she’s probably just wondering what cats have to do with anything.” 

“Oh lord.”

“How did you know?” Dahlia whispers, wide-eyed at Pratt, only getting a throaty laugh in response. 

“How old are you again, sweetie? Pussy, vagina, cunt; what’s between your legs. Well, maybe not yours, I ain’t got a chance to check y-” 

“I would like to change the subject!” Dahlia blurts out; face feeling like it’s been set on fire and no doubt a vivid flush a red. Adelaide’s little grin and Pratt’s laughter only serving to make her face more crimson. 

“Well…if we’re on the subject of faces I wanna ride, the Ryes are having their barbecue next Saturday, you and Hudson gonna make it out?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” 

“I’ll be seeing you then, Pratt, and hopefully you too, junior deputy. I gotta call my remodeling guys.”

They say goodbyes and wave off Adelaide, going back to the patrol car. Dahlia cuddling her new opossum friend as she goes. This is her baby now and will comfort her through humiliation at the hands of Hope County’s sex perverts. 

“What are you doing?” Pratt asks, when Dahlia opens the car door. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Fuckin’, put the opossum down!”

“No.” 

“You’re not bringing that thing into the car.” 

“I’m not abandoning my child.” 

“It’s literally a wild animal.” 

“It’s a opossum, not a bear, calm your tits,” Dahlia tells him firmly, opening the door and plopping down with her critter in her lap. Pratt groans and jumps in the driver side. 

“So, what, you’re gonna take it home and make it a pet?” 

“No.” 

“Then what?” 

“You know how some stations have like animals and stuff?” 

“You mean K-9 units, trained dogs? You wanna train a fuckin’ opossum?” 

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” she rolls her hand flippantly, “I’m not gonna train her, she’s perfect the way she is.” 

“Have fun getting the sheriff on board with this, that thing could be rabid for all you know.” 

“Opossums don’t carry rabies; like they physically can’t have rabies.” 

“Okay, fuckin’, opossum expert.” 

Dahlia spends a mile or two, just watching out the window at the world passing by as she scratches at her new friend’s ears. Passing by a sign for Rye and Son’s Aviation, she remembers the conversation with Adelaide. 

“Who’re the Rye’s?”  She turns her head towards Pratt, head cocking to the side in curiously. 

“Huh? Oh, they’re a couple who live not too far from Falls End. They have these big barbecues that basically the entire county shows up to; everyone brings some food, it’s a whole thing.” 

“That’s nice.” 

“You should come.” 

“I don’t know them.” 

“It’s open invitation, you live in Hope County, cook some food, show up. It’ll be fun.” 

“Just like the F.A.N.G Center?”  She raises an eyebrow 

“Well, if you don’t freak out and run off halfway through, yeah, things can be fun.” 

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” She rolls her eyes and sticks her tongue out at Pratt. 

Side eyes and double takes are taken at Dahlia as she walks into the station carrying a opossum. Dahlia just nuzzles her face against the top of the opossum’s head as they reach the office, plopping down in her chair and propping her feet up on her desk. Pratt walks past with his lunch and Dahlia grabs a handful of apple slice off his plate; making the older deputy stop and glare at her.

“Can I help you?”

“I gotta feed her.” Dahlia shrugs, letting the opossum munch on one of the slices of fruit.

“Feed her your lunch.”

“My lunch is an energy drink and a twinkie.” She ate the last of the lunches Caroline sent with her; an empty fridge and a sink full of Tupperware waiting for her at home. 

“How the hell are you still alive?”

“The world’s too cruel to end my misery.”

“Jesus fuck,” he rolls his eyes, “calm it down, Hot Topic.”

“What are you doing, Rook?” Heat zings up Dahlia’s cheeks when she hears Hudson’s voice and sudden fear that being the weird opossum girl might not be what she wants.

“Is that a fuckin’ rat?” A guy next to her, dressed in the standard officer uniform asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Feeding...opossum…Who are you?”

“Rook, this is Brennan, he’s one of our officers, Brennan this is-”

“The rookie deputy, I know, I’m officer Beau Brennan, nice to meet ya,” he says, extending a hand and she moves the opossum to properly shake it.  Beau Brennan, possibly the most southern sounding name she’s ever heard, especially this far up North.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“But, uh, Rook,” Hudson looks at Dahlia, “should you really be bringing a wild animal into the station?”

“Maybe not...she’s friendly, though.”

“So, Joey questions you and she has a point,” Pratt swings his hand in an angry gesture, “but I do it and I get mocked?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why don’t you tell Joey, how you want the opossum to be the station pet?”

“Do you?” Joey raises an eyebrow at Dahlia, the younger deputy’s face turning a deeper shade of scarlett.

“...yes..”

“If you want the thing so bad, why not just take it home as your own pet?”

“That’s what I was asking!” Pratt butts in.

“Five seconds ago, you were asking how the hell I kept myself alive, you want me in charge of keeping something else alive?”

“She’s got you there,” Hudson looks back to Dahlia, mirth lighting up those olive green eyes, “what's her name gonna be?”

Dahlia suddenly has no coherent thought in her head. Just cricket noises as she realizes she’s never actually named an animal in her life. Every time she’s ever had a pet or something close to one, she just refers to it by species or someone else names it. The cat’s name is cat, dog’s name is dog.

“....Opossum…?”

“Not how names work,” Hudson pets behind the opossum’s ear, “Petunia?”

“Petunia, it is,” Dahlia flusters to say grinning, she’s actually okay with this, Hudson doesn’t mind the weird opossum girl.  

“Why are you encouraging her!?”

“‘Cause it’s annoying you.”

“I think the girls have you outnumbered, Staci.”

“Staci?” Dahlia looks over at Pratt, is that his first name? She’s never actually heard it before. His face completely falls, hazel eyes harsh and angry.

“Shut up.”

“Your name is Staci, oh my god.”

“Spelled with an ‘i’,” Beau adds, grinning as Dahlia starts cackling.

“Oh my god, you have a sorority girl name!”

“Laugh it up, you know when Whitehorse comes back, you’re gonna have to say goodbye to your new friend.”

“Eh, it’s Rook, so he won’t mind much,” Joey says, shrugging her shoulders.

“Huh?”

“You don’t know?” Brennan raises an eyebrow at her, “everyone knows that the sheriff is soft on you. Been hardly a week and it’s like he’s adopted you.”

Her cheeks hurt from grinning, Whitehorse sees her like his own child? She knows she’s lucky to even have gotten the job; let alone the way he’s been going the extra mile to make her feel at place here. But knowing he may see her like family lights up her heart. The sheriff already reminded her of Lloyd before, but hearing that cements the comparison.

“Dear god, if you were a dog, your tail would be wagging,” Pratt-Staci, grumbles as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“It's cute,” Brennan defends her, “we don’t even need a canine unit with her around. Ow!”

Brennan jumps when Dahlia kicks him in the shin, hard enough to bruise she’s hoping. Hudson and Pratt laugh. Petunia is content and nuzzling into Dahlia’s neck as the four shoot the shit, the topic of the Rye barbecue coming up. Hudson and Brennan both plan on being there as well.  Dahlia finds herself sinking deeper into her chair, holding Petunia closer. Taking her phone from her pocket and checking the notifications on John’s little video. Other than someone claiming he looks familiar and another person saying he’s hot; it’s mostly more taunts. 

“What’s going on here?” Whitehorse’s voice cuts through the chatter, the sheriff coming through and spotting the gathered deputies and officer. His eyes landing on Petunia within a second, “Rook?”

“Yeah?” She scrolls past someone using a gif of John’s light up yes sign as a reaction gif. 

“Why are you holding a opossum?”

“She likes being held.” She doesn’t bother looking up from the phone. 

“She?”

“Her name’s Petunia.”

“You can’t have a opossum.”

“She’s the station opossum.”

“Rook,” Whitehorse sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, “just go put her outside.”

“So, she’s an outside station pet?”

“I don’t care as long as she’s outside.”

“I’m taking that as a yes,” Dahlia says, finally looking up and grinning ear to ear. Whitehorse shakes his head and just waves her off before going into his office, no doubt looking for some Tylenol or Aspirin at this point.

“That’s it,” Pratt lets out a heavy exhale, shaking his head at Dahlia.

“Told ya, soft on Rook.”

“I’m gonna take Petunia outside, to her new home.”

“Do you think she’ll stay around?” Hudson asks, as her and Pratt follow after Dahlia, towards the little lot of land behind the department.

“If I keep feeding her, she should, right?”

“I’m gonna have to start bringing two lunches, aren’t I?”

“Nah, you don’t wanna overfeed her.”

“Hilarious.”

The wind is blowing just a bit; breezing by and shifting the grass around them. The sun starting to set as the evening arrives. Petunia licks her cheek and then runs up on Dahlia’s shoulder, little hands grabbing at her skin as she clambers up onto her head; curling up like she belongs there.

“Pffft,” Hudson sputters out a laugh, “look this way, Rook.”

Dahlia faces Joey, grinning with the apples of her cheeks flushing red. The older deputy has her phone out and snaps a photo of Dahlia with Petunia perched on her head. She’s not sure why the moment is worth catching, but she’s glad it was.

“Send that to me, if you don’t mind…” Dahlia asks as she puts Petunia down in the grass.

“No problem,” she taps away and Dahlia feels her phone buzz, “and don’t worry I’ll send it to you, too, Pratt.”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“Didn’t have to.”

Dahlia sits down on the ground, petting Petunia as the sun sets. As always Hudson and Pratt leave that evening for the Spread Eagle, she catches Brennan talking about going to the Hollyhock Saloon with some fellow officers before she leaves. Everyone has their friend group, their routine. And it’s time for her own; going home to an empty trailer. 

And an empty fridge, she remembers. Oh god, she has to go shopping doesn’t she? It’s a break in the monotony but she’s not sure it’s a welcomed one. She also has to do dishes at some point…and laundry…  Adulting sucks. 

There’s a little family owned market in the Henbane River region; just a bit more to it than the general store in Falls End. The fluorescent lights irritate her eyes as she pulls off her helmet to look around. Never the cooking type; Dahlia’s hoard comprises of things that don’t require more than a microwave to prep. Frozen meals, snacks, and absolute garbage pile high in her cart as she scours the shelves for more. This might get her through for a week. 

Her phone buzzes, another Twitter notification, she’s sure someone else reacting to the Eden’s Gate commercial. She tugs her phone from her pocket; just like she thought a Twitter notification, but the message beneath it catches her eye. A text from Hudson, where she sent the photo of Dahlia and Petunia. The young deputy hasn’t gotten around to opening it; mind preoccupied. She opens the message. 

Dahlia doesn’t take pictures of herself and has never been particularly enthralled with her own appearance. But, she likes this photo of her. Petunia is perched on her head, dark eyes warm and soft. The evening sun setting behind Dahlia illuminates her in golden light; dark hair mussed, brown eyes lighting up amber where the light hits, and a wide grin on her face. 

Beneath the photo is a message from Hudson captioning it; 

‘cant tell who looks better here’ 

 Heat makes it way up to her hairline. Is…did Hudson call her cute? She’s comparing Dahlia to Petunia, a opossum, both Petunia specifically and opossums in general are cute. So if Hudson’s saying Dahlia’s looks are on par with a opossum; does Hudson mean she’s cute? But, not everyone thinks opossums are cute… Some people think they’re gross little trashy goblins, does Hudson think she looks like a trash goblin? She seemed to like Petunia, but just cause she was nice to the animal doesn’t mean she thinks opossums are cute. Dahlia leans her forehead against the freezer section for a moment; letting a turkey meal cool her flushed face as she forces herself to not agonize over this. 

A few deep breathes and a concerned passerby make Dahlia straighten back up, getting her bearings before heading to self-check-out. She quickly rings up her items and bags them, leaving the market with her grocery bags in tow. 

“Leave me alone…please…”  A soft demure voice whispers, a woman about Dahlia’s age stands beside the road a man towering over her with a beet red face. The smell of liquor coming off him on the wind. His hand is wrapped tightly around her wrist, her skin indenting under his grasp as she tries to fold in on herself to avoid his touch. 

“Wh-what, you scared daddy Joe’ll call you a sinner for spending some time with me?”

The stench of alcohol wafts off his breath with every drunken slur; even at a distance, the smell churns her stomach.  She drops her bags on the cement and makes a beeline towards them, she needs to keep this from escalating, or someone will get hurt. 

“Leave me alone!” The girl’s voice shakes as she tries to pry herself from the man’s grasp. 

“Fuckin’ peggie whore!”  

“Hey!” Dahlia yells out and runs as his other hand starts to raise and pull back. 

She gets between them just in time to feel the crack of his hand striking her face. An ache and echo of pain rings through her jaw; a metallic taste where her cheek scraped the inside of her jaw.  Glassy eyes widen, the man shocked at the interruption. 

“Wh-who-”

“I’m a deputy with the Sheriff’s Department, and unless you want some jail time for assault, I recommend you get the fuck out of here.” 

“Pssh,” he scoff, whiskey scented spittle spraying into the air, “li-”

“I’m giving you to the count of three to get out of my sight, sir. One,” she leans into his space, glaring him down and sneering as she counts, “two, th-“ 

“F-fine, fine, fuckin’ bitch.”

He makes a dismissive hand gesture as he grumbles a curse, but he stumbles away, leaving the two girls alone. Dahlia rubs absent mindedly at her cheek before turning towards the girl; a peggie, he called her. One of the followers of Eden’s Gate. She’s beautiful, five or so inches taller than Dahlia, with long black hair falling in waves down her shoulders. Delicate fine facial features, the deputy can’t help but feel the girl’s face might have shattered has it been struck.  Like the handful of peggies she’s seen, traces of tattoos and markings are on her. ENVY etched across her chest and a delicate tattoo of vines with blue flowers curling up her forearm.  

“Are you okay?” Dahlia asks her. 

“Oh yes, yes, I’m fine, but are you?”

The girl reaches out, fingers nearly brushing over Dahlia’s cheek. She instinctively ducks back, avoiding the touch. Strangers touching her is never something she’s been fond of, though she can’t imagine many people are. 

“I’ve taken worse from better; I’ll be fine.  You be careful and have a safe night, ma’am.” Dahlia nods at her and makes the quick walk to her abandoned groceries and bike. 

She stoops down and begins to collect the food that fell from her bags. A pair of slender hands join in, helping gather up a bag of microwave meals for her, the girl offering it to Dahlia once it’s secure. 

“Thanks,” Dahlia murmurs, taking it from the stranger, stashing her groceries in the little storage space under her motorcycle’s seat. 

“It’s the least I can do…I’ve never seen you before.” 

“I started here about a week ago.” 

“Really, that’s incredible…The Lord placed you here at the exact right time.” 

“Nah, I just needed groceries,” Dahlia shrugs, “well, hope you have a nice night.”

“Wait,” she knots a hand in the deputy’s shirt, “I’m Layla…” 

“Nice to meet you,” Dahlia offers, Layla’s dark brown eyes are darting around, avoiding eye contact. 

“I…was on my way to a sermon at Father Joseph’s church and-”

“Look, Layla, if you need my help just say the word. But, if this is the beginning of a conversion spiel; save your breath and my time, ‘cause it ain’t happening.” 

“I don’t feel safe, going there alone, right now. What if he comes back?” Her arms cross over herself, the thin cardigan not doing much to protect her from the night chill. 

“Oh, uh, you don’t have anyone who can go with you? Aren’t religions like, community things?”

“I was gonna walk there by myself, but…” 

“Fuckin’ hell, where is it?”

“Up the north bridge, one of the island’s in the middle of the county, it isn’t far.” 

“Here,” Dahlia shoves her helmet at Layla, “I got one helmet and if anyone’s brains are splattering on the road, I’d rather they be mine.”

Layla pulls the helmet on over her head, body still shivering. Dahlia shies and shrugs off her leather jacket; it’s only going to get colder on the ride there with wind whipping around. She hands it to Layla who smiles and takes it, pulling the worn black leather jacket on. Oversized on Dahlia and still marginally so on Layla. 

“Thank you,” Layla murmurs as Dahlia straddles her bike, then climbs on the back. Dahlia takes in a deep breathe when arms wrap around her midsection, Layla pressing in close to the deputy’s back as she starts the engine. The familiar nature of the touch contrasting with the fact they’re strangers. 

As Dahlia makes her way up to the bridge, Layla lifts the visor just a smidge so that she can whisper directions in the deputy’s ear. Once she’s past the bridge coming from the Henbane, the roads have fencing and barbwire, making it nearly impossible to go from the road into the woods on the island. She rides down the winding road, taking a left turn off the paved road onto a beaten path, rounding the corner she sees it. 

A cold sweat builds on the back of her neck, heart dropping into her stomach. It’s a collection of small white buildings, dark roofs, with Latin scrawled across some of the buildings; Luxuria, Acedia, and more she’s sure. All of it on a large piece of land, within she can see picnic tables, bundles of white flowers, where they might gather for picnics or barbecues. She pulls her bike to a stop just a distance from the white gate; Church of Eden’s Gate etched in the upper arches. 

People are all around, getting out of white trucks and cars, greeting each other with hugs and waves; throwing side eye glances at Dahlia when they notice her. Dogs are barking somewhere; she doesn’t know where from. Layla clambers off the back of Dahlia’s bicycle, pulling off her helmet and handing it back to her. 

“Sister Layla,” a deep masculine voice rumbles out, a familiar man standing by the white gates. Tall with a thick dark beard, his deep dark eyes are focused on Dahlia as he speaks to Layla. Theodore is what the other man called him that day when Dahlia caught them stealing from The Spread Eagle. He looks a moment away from ripping the deputy’s head off her shoulders; his shirt dipping in a way that exposes the way PRIDE etches across his chest, crossed out as are all sins the church members wear. 

“Brother Theodore, this is-”

“The new deputy, we’ve met, why is she here?” 

“I was just getting ready to leave, don’t worry.” 

“What,” Layla’s eyes widen and she grasps Dahlia’s arm, “you can’t.” 

“I can’t…?” Dahlia raises an eyebrow and shoots a pointed look where Layla’s grabbing her, making the girl let go. Layla’s trying to rope her into this shit, isn’t she?

“You came all this way Deputy, why not just come in, listen to the sermon.” 

“Not happening, I already told you, not my scene. Just give me back my jacket, so I can leave, okay?” 

“But,” Layla chews her lip, gears in her head turning, “how am I suppose to get home?” 

“I saw at least thirty people go in that church, I’m sure someone will be willing to give you a ride home.” 

“Oh, uh, I-” 

“Brother Theodore, Sister Layla, service will be starting soon!” Someone calls out from within the compound. 

“I have to go, I’ll be right back, Deputy!” Layla rushes to say and then runs off towards the church, Dahlia’s jacket still on her shoulders. 

“Hey, wait!” Dahlia jogs after Layla, hurrying through the little compound, but the woman vanishes into the steepled church ordained in cross symbols. 

She stops, just before entering the door and takes a step back. The crush of boots in dirt echoes beside her before coming to a stop, the looming of someone nearby. Body heat lingering near her side as she looks up at the cross on the topmost steeple of the church. 

“You going in?” 

“No.” 

“Have fun out here,” Theodore tells her, moving to press a heavy hand against the church door. 

“Those dogs,” she starts, listening to the barks ringing out around her, “they friendly?” 

“Why don’t you go find out?” He leaves her with a smirk, walking into that church. 

Dahlia lets out a harsh breath and pushes her hand back through her hair. A breeze pushes through, her t-shirt and thin uniform shirt does nothing to keep out the chill. She’s not leaving without her jacket; her wallet and phone all in the pockets.  Music echoes from inside the church as she plops down onto the ground outside it, balancing her helmet on her knees and resting her chin on it. 

If your soul has grown weary, and your heart feels tired… 

She fidgets with her helmet, chewing her lip. Please let this Joseph guy be short winded, she just wants to leave. The entire place sets her on edge, makes her skin crawl and she wants to hide away. 

Let the water wash away your sins…

A cool breeze passes by, a soft whipping sound mingling with the singing. She scans the night sky, searching for her favorite and only known constellation, she has a feeling she’s going to be here a while… 

[dutten-does-the-fanfic]

telling you means losing you (but what if what if what if)

Title: telling you means losing you (but what if what if what if) Pairing: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington Warnings: Language, implied sexual content, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced recreational drug use, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) Word Count: 3.758

Notes: Set right before season 3 - slight spoilers

AO3

Summary: ”You talk in your sleep, you know.”

"Oh?"

Billy hums from behind him. Steve doesn’t have to turn around to know how he looks; lounged in his bed, suntanned, and with the sheets pooling artfully around him even if it’s too fucking hot to even be partly under the covers.

“Can’t even get you to shut up when you’re asleep.”

He should tell him, he thinks. Feels like a hypocrite, feels like bullshit, because that’s what Nancy had wanted to do, had wanted to tell Barb’s parents there was no reason to hope when they should be grieving.

He should tell him, he thinks again. What if it’ll end up being what saves his life?

”You talk in your sleep, you know.”

The blinds are rolled down and the white, completely see-through curtains are closed too. Steve can’t see that the sun is already high in the sky and burning everything in its wake, but he can feel it because the room is positively sweltering.

It doesn’t help that they close the door, too.

There’s no actual need, because they’re alone. No one is ever in Steve’s house, but it makes them feel safer having the visual of the door fully shut.

“Oh?” He hadn’t been aware, actually. No one’s ever been around to tell him. Nancy definitely never said anything.

Billy hums from behind him. Steve doesn’t have to turn around to know how he looks; lounged in his bed, suntanned, and with the sheets pooling artfully around him even if it’s too fucking hot to even be partly under the covers.

Instead Steve keeps staring at the door, keeps sitting on the side of his bed. The floor isn’t even cold against his bare feet.

“Can’t even get you to shut up when you’re asleep.” Billy’s tone is sharp and his words are harsh, but Steve doesn’t flinch at either. He wants to laugh.

Because he knows Billy – or, he can read Billy. He doesn’t think anyone actually ‘knows Billy’, maybe not Billy himself. And while Billy sure sounds it, he isn’t being mean right now. Not like he can be, when his words bite the worst and make Steve flinch away even though he knows Billy won’t physically hurt him ever again.

So Steve’s grinning even as Billy can’t see it and says, “You wouldn’t want me to, anyway.”

Billy doesn’t reply, so Steve doesn’t know if he’s grinning too, or scowling, or has that sappy look on his face he always refuses exists when Steve brings it up and that he hides away if Steve’s able to see it.

He figures Billy would look really good with a cigarette right now. Would look good bathed in sunlight too, but Steve never draws the curtains, so they’ll have to make do with the light coming off his bedside table.

He’s provided Billy the perfect opportunity to say some gross shit like, know something else I’d rather have your mouth be doing, but Billy doesn’t take the bait.

Ironically, it’s the quiet that makes Steve anxious, not the words. You talk in your sleep.

Steve isn’t good with sleep. He isn’t good with a lot of things, but sleep in particular doesn’t come easy to him anymore.

Sometimes it’s falling asleep that’s the problem, mostly it’s staying asleep. Sometimes it’s impossible to not wake up in the middle of the night screaming, or on the worse night where he doesn’t have enough air to even do that, when the darkness is oppressive and fucking terrifying. Or, not the darkness, but what hides there.

Billy knows about the screaming. And the not screaming. He’s been there for both, has jolted up from the bed to seek out the threat, to fight off whatever’s made Steve so afraid he’s shaking apart in his bed, until he seems to realize there’s nothing there, it’s just the two of them and there’s seemingly no reason for Steve to be as scared as he is.

Yet he can’t stop shaking. Not until long after Billy’s curled himself around him, warm and solid and breathing and alive and safe, they both are, do his limbs fall heavy and the sobbing threatens to take over instead.

It’s not as bad now as it used to be. Isn’t as bad when Billy stays over. Steve’s even started sleeping through the night again, on those nights only.

Steve dreams. Or more accurately, he remembers, with added on events of just how wrong things could’ve gone, nearly did go. Dreams filled with darkness and screams and too many teeth and danger, danger, danger until the anxiety makes him want to tear off his skin and hide away forever.

It’s gnawing at him now, not knowing what Billy may or may not know right this second.

“What’d I say, then?” he asks, going for casual, but his skin is too tight and the line of his shoulders too rigid that Billy will know just by looking at him.

“Loads of things,” Billy says. His voice is deep and a bit gravely, the way it always goes when he’s just woken up.

The lie-in had been accidental. At least they both have the closing shift today. Billy has to stay late to teach the kiddies in the late afternoon and Steve has to lock up the ice cream shop and ask Robin if she wants a ride somewhere, even if she always declines.

“You talked about the ocean,” Billy finally tells him. Tensely, which tells Steve it’s not the entire story. “Kept going on about waves and sunshine and driving down long, deserted roads.”

Oh. Steve feels his mouth go slack as all his muscles relax. It happens so quickly, too quickly. He nearly slumps down so much he slides right off the bed. His skin is too sweaty to glide anywhere, though, which is probably the only thing that saves him and his dignity.

Because what Billy’s leaving out isn’t the part about too many teeth and growls and a bat with nails and keep them safe. It’s that Steve thinks about the ocean and waves and sunshine and driving down long, deserted roads with Billy.

Steve can’t help the smile the breaks out on his face. He can still feel the anxiety swirling around inside him, now there for a different reason because Billy doesn’t really do… this. Feelings or commitments or whatever you might want to call it. He gets scared and makes stupid, impulsive decisions, or he wants to test someone, push them to their limits to see if they’ll really follow through on what he’s pushing for them to do.

Steve talking about not only going to California, but going with Billy is definitely something that’ll make Billy scared enough to do something stupid before he shows up at Steve’s front door again. Tired and worst case bloody and just so fucking sad and filled with anger that only slowly starts to ebb out when he’s got his face pressed into Steve’s hair and Steve’s got his face pressed into Billy’s neck.

“Did I bore you with my travel plans?” Steve lilts. He’d meant to tease, because Billy likes it when he pushes back and Steve loves to push back, but he doesn’t end up doing that.

Billy snorts from behind him and it makes Steve grin wider. Duck his head down even as he knows Billy can’t see how his mouth is stretched out in a smile.

He notices he’s got a set of teeth marks indented in his skin, right on the bone of his wrist. It’s red and a bit sore when he moves his hand around. It’s just deep enough to still be there as a remnant from last night, but not deep enough to have drawn blood that have scabbed over.

He likes it. He always does, and Billy knows that which is why he keeps giving him little marks and bruises he’ll get to run his fingers over during the day when he can’t remember what is a dream and what is reality.

He’ll have to wear a watch to work, though. Robin would give him looks, probably thinking he did it himself while jerking off to keep quiet. And it’s a bit of an awkward place when he has to hand ice cream over to sweaty, tired parents and too hyper children all day. No need to cause a scandal.

“Always yapping away,” Billy groans, but he sounds less tense, has less anger looming right underneath the surface.

Steve hums. “Could stop listening, then, if I’m so annoying.”

And he should sound like he is annoyed, but he really isn’t. This is just how they are, this give and take, push and shove.

Billy’s physically unable to stop listening. Is always paying attention to the point where it’ll go from being a nuisance to too much and the anger will boil over and Billy will snap for whoever’s talking to shut up.

He never does that with Steve. Even with how Steve admittedly does have a way of yammering on and on, words just falling out on top of each other in a mess until he isn’t sure what the point he’d been trying to make was.

Billy’s always sweet when Steve talks. He’s sweet too when the words refuse to come to Steve, when all he can do is gasp for air that’s evading him, Billy’s still listening patiently then too.

He should tell him, he thinks. Feels like a hypocrite, feels like bullshit, because that’s what Nancy had wanted to do, had wanted to tell Barb’s parents there was no reason to hope when they should be grieving.

He keeps seeing too many teeth, and too many teeth and Billy, and it fucking terrifies him.

And he shouldn’t be thinking like this, because they closed the gate. It’s over. All the demodogs had been taken care of the following couple of weeks; the first one because Steve, Hopper, El and Mrs. Byers had gone out and taken care of them, but after that first week they’d just started to drop dead. They couldn’t handle being cut off, weren’t strong enough to survive without that something tethering them to their own world. They’d only had to dispose the bodies after that.

Billy moves around. Steve hears the sheets being shuffled, feels the dip in the bed as Billy’s probably moved to face him better.

“How would I ever know what you’re thinking, then?” Billy asks, voice light but so heavy with teasing.

Steve should get up and go take that shower he desperately needs. They both have work in an hour or two, and they both need to shower and eat before that, and they won’t have time for either if Steve turns around and takes a look at Billy.

Because he knows what he’ll see and he knows what he’ll want to do instead of all the things he needs to. Knows he’ll want to crawl back onto the bed and down Billy’s body until he can press his nose into the v of his legs, or maybe just settle on top of him until he can sink down, down, down.

“No one ever really wants to know,” Steve tells him a bit distantly. Eyes fixed on the two sets of yesterday’s clothes tossed on the floor right by the door. “The truth can be inconvenient, and people hate being inconvenienced.”

He’s thinking of rows upon rows of teeth and screaming, wishes he could just be thinking of beaches and the ocean and sunshine and worrying if Billy will or won’t want to go with him.

Billy shuffles from behind him again. Steve feels the heat of his hand hovering over the bare skin of his lower back, but Billy never closes the distance.

He’s always been weird about that, careful not to initiate touches if Steve isn’t looking at him.

“You still high, baby?” Billy asks, and Steve wants to laugh. Wants the knots in his stomach and chest to go away until he can finally be content.

He never comes closer to that feeling than in moments like this one. Moments where it’s easy to breathe even with everything he’s trying to leave behind.

Their work uniforms are lying in a tangled heap on Steve’s bedroom floor where they’d dropped them last night. The red of Billy’s swimming trunks shines brighter than the rest of the clothes. They’ll be all creased and messy by now, and Steve will have to iron the sailor suit before he goes to work, which Billy will make fun of him for, but he can’t just not do it. He really needs to get started on his day if he wants to have time for everything.

Instead he turns around. Slides back fully on the bed, settles between Billy’s legs, and holds himself over him, perched up on his elbows by Billy’s head. He’s careful not to press down on Billy’s hair, to not accidentally squash any of the golden curls.

Billy’s a fucking vision underneath him, is a vision in general.

“High on life,” he drawls exaggeratedly. Takes a risk and presses a kiss to Billy’s chest.

“High on love.” Doesn’t look further up than Billy’s mouth, can’t take the risk of looking him in the eyes. He’s still smiling, soft and sweet, and his body hasn’t grown tense underneath him.

“High on you.”

Chances a look. Billy rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling and relaxed and letting Steve do whatever.

Billy raises his hand, runs his fingers along Steve’s jaw, up his cheek, down his nose, over his cupid’s bow, over his lips and settles on his chin. The pad of his thumb presses down until Steve gets the hint and lets his mouth fall open easily underneath Billy’s administrations.

His thumb moves up, traces over the line of Steve’s bottom lip, holds down until the wet, shiny bit of Steve’s mouth starts to show.

“Jesus, you’re pretty,” Billy mutters. His pupils are blown and his gaze is fixed on Steve.

And Steve loves it.

“Got to be, don’t I?” Steve asks when Billy isn’t holding his mouth open anymore. Drops down from his elbows until he’s lying fully on top of Billy. “To keep your attention.”

Billy snorts. “Oh, yeah. You’ve got so much competition, pretty boy.”

Steve beams. Likes it when Billy breaks out the sweet names that are only slightly mocking. Likes it when Billy unintentionally reveals just how much moments like these mean to him too, that it’s not just Steve who feels it.

Steve hums. “Bathing suits have never sold this well before, you know.”

That startles a laugh out of Billy. He’s shaking with it, and in turn shaking Steve.

He’s got laughter lines around his eyes and his mouth, Steve realizes. He likes the look of them, likes knowing he was the one who brought them out this time. Made Billy laugh hard enough that they couldn’t keep hidden in smooth, tanned skin.

“Saw Mrs. Wheeler get a new one the other day,” Steve continues before Billy’s managed to settle down.

“That so?” Billy’s still giggling. His hand smoothes over the line of Steve’s torso, tickling along his ribs until he wants to squirm with it, but he keeps still. He’s being good. “Think you’d look prettier in it, baby.”

Steve can’t help the pleased smile that shows on his face. “Not quite my colors.” Finally squirms when it becomes too much.

Billy’s grinning, looking like a predator with sharp teeth and clever eyes. Like someone who’s just caught their prey, and it makes Steve want to squirm until he can burrow his way into Billy’s chest and just stay there.

A hand runs through his hair, tugs a bit until his mouth falls open reflexively.

“Every color is your color,” Billy drawls. Steve can tell he doesn’t really care about that though, isn’t thinking about which colors are complementary to Steve’s skin tone. “If you can rock the sailor outfit anything works.”

Steve scowls at him. “I look fucking cute in that sailor outfit, asshole.” It’s not his fault there’s a stupid hat.

Billy tugs a bit harder around his handful of hair, sending a deliciously sharp pain sparking down the line of his spine, makes him shiver with it.

“Said so, didn’t I?” Billy reminds him.

He had, Steve has to concede in the end. Doesn’t do it verbally, because he doesn’t want Billy to gloat for, like, a week, which Steve knows he’ll do. He’s an infuriating asshole like that.

He still presses another kiss to the sleep-warm skin right near his mouth. Makes it a bit wet, licks with just the tip of his tongue until Billy’s eyes darken and Steve can feel his pulse picking up.

He tastes of salt and sweat and Billy, and it’s so good. He moves along his skin until he ends up at Billy’s right shoulder, just over the top of his bicep, right at the tattoo.

He’d gotten it on the night of his 18th birthday, back in April. Had had a bloody nose the day after and a proper shiner.

Steve had laughed when he first saw the tattoo, because it’s so Billy it’s slightly hilarious. It’s so fucking dramatic, but it’s also so fucking sad or some shit, so it was either laughing or crying and Steve does enough crying in front of Billy during the night.

Because maybe it’s for bragging rights, like Billy claims. Some kind of street cred about having a skull tattooed onto your body that Steve will never fully understand, but Steve sees.

The cigarette dangling out of the skull’s mouth, the smoke curling up towards his shoulder, reminds him a little too much of the way Billy likes to leave a cigarette in his mouth, likes to feel the way his lips will curl around it, the way he can hold it still between his teeth.

If the skull didn’t say enough by itself, the dead look in his eyes that Billy sometimes gets should be the final nail in the coffin. At least it’s summer and Billy’s lack of a uniform, so to speak, means there’s nowhere to hide away the bruises. Steve’s also fairly certain Billy’s and Max’s mom and dad are out of town, because he’s seen Max run around the mall with the boys at all sorts of hours that he knows she never would’ve been allowed out at if Billy wasn’t the one in charge.

He should tell him, Steve thinks again. Tries to dismiss the thought, because, no.

Not only will Billy laugh and call him a nutcase, Billy will leave. He’ll leave and he’ll never come back.

And Steve is selfish. He’s selfish and he’s bullshit and he falls in love with all the wrong kinds of people. And he doesn’t want to be left alone again. He can’t.

“Can’t believe you went out and bought new shoes just so you could color coordinate.” Billy says the word like it actually pains him to acknowledge he has that term in his vocabulary, even though Steve’s fairly certain he knew about it before Steve ever told him.

Steve frowns. “But they’re literally the perfect match? How could you honestly expect me not to –“

He umph’s when Billy suddenly drags his body up along his own. They’re both too sweaty and it burns when their skins stick together, but then Steve’s close enough that Billy can kiss him quiet.

He should tell him, he thinks again. What if it’ll end up being what saves his life?

It’s a nagging little thought that never fully goes away. Is there every single time Steve looks at Billy or thinks of Billy or worries about Billy when he wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and Billy isn’t there.

And he shouldn’t even be thinking about it, because the gate is closed. No more monsters, no more weird labs, no more getting beat up, no more weird mysteries, no more deaths. It’s done and over with, and telling Billy would put him in danger along with Steve, if it’s any indication the way the government officials had hunted him down afterwards and made him sign wads of paper after paper.

But what if, a voice in his head traitorously whispers. Then Billy licks over the seam of Steve’s lips and it’s easier to not think about any of it.

Billy would leave, but before that he’d call him stupid, an idiot, crazy, exactly what everyone else calls him, and what Steve hates being called, and what Billy never calls him because he knows Steve hates it.

He’ll tell him, he decides when Billy rolls them over so he’s on top, situated between Steve’s legs, hands wrapped around his wrists and holding them up over his head, and kissing him lazily like they have all the time in the world, if it ever comes down to it. If it’ll ever be necessary. He’ll tell him.

If it ever comes back, if it ever seems like ignorance isn’t bliss anymore, like knowing might just end up being what’ll save Billy’s life, Steve will tell him. About everything. About monsters and too many teeth and screaming and all the deaths and constantly being so fucking scared. He’ll tell him.

And he’ll let him laugh at him and he’ll let him call him bad names that’ll haunt him for a long, long time, and it’ll all be worth it because it means Billy’s alive to do it.

He’ll tell him, and then forgets about everything else and just focuses on kissing Billy.

Four days later, he’s trapped in a Russian elevator. Dustin and Erica are asleep while he and Robin try to figure out something that could help them break out of here, but it’s difficult when all Steve can think about is how he should’ve told Billy when he had the chance.

Mind you, he never would’ve thought Russians were what they had to be afraid of. And they have no reason to think any of this is connected to the Upside Down, but Steve still feels the regret festering in the back of his mind.

He hasn’t seen Billy since Friday morning-noon-ish. Since Billy had pressed him up against the inside of his front door, trailing biting kisses along his skin until they’d both nearly been late for work.

Steve hopes it hasn’t made a difference not telling Billy. Billy, who, theoretically, should be safe, because he spends most of the day at the pool, which is so public no monster is going to be charging through there all willy-nilly, and Cherry Lane is far enough away from the woods that it should be secure. Safer than Steve’s house, apparently, maybe even ironically, considering the other type of monster that lurks around Cherry Lane.

He’ll tell him when they get out of here, he decides. First thing, doesn’t matter if this is only the Red Army infiltrating or if there’s some Upside Down business involved as well, Steve’s going to tell him. Just hopes he won’t be too late to do so.

Because, what if, the voice keeps tormenting.

[momo-de-avis]

So I read your big personal post and I'm furious. It makes me see red that adults can watch children be treated like ants and feel ok to ignore it. I wanna say I'm truly sorry that you had to go through all of that, and I hope you can grow free-er and free-er from it in the future 💕 A question, though: how can you still keep in touch with them? I'm trying my hardest to leave home and run away from these demons or else I'll never be happy, how and why do you do it? If you wanna answer, of course

Thank anon, your words mean a lot to me and rest assured I may not have the strength every single day to do it, but at least I’m conscious about my effort and just... keep going the best I can. And I do believe one day I’ll manage to look back and say ‘boy, did I grow up’. There are days when I do already and it feels revigorating, to say the least.

And I don’t mind at all answering. I share these things about my life because where I stand I have at least learned a few things (I do have my therapist to thank for that) and by sharing that it might help others.

There’s a lesson I learned with her that became super important in balancing out who I am and who I am with my family. It has to do with that feeling of guilt that comes with the whole experience. Because one thing I did hear a lot was how ungrateful I was, a kid who didn’t care about her family, who wasn’t there for them, etc etc. And because my experience as a kid within the foundation of family can be translated with ‘left to my own, trying to find my own way of surviving and growing’ what that resulted in was forcing me to try and change others.

Which is a lost battle. And that’s what I had to learn the hard way.

To quote my therapist: it’s a dangerous thing to believe you can change others, but it’s important to learn that you can change the environment around you by changing your attitude.

A few weeks back, I was talking about Christmas with her, because she knows Christmas is that time of the year when crippling depression strikes like a goddamn lover, although it’s been getting better with every year. Mostly because ever since I started spending Christmas with my bf’s family (who are the prime example of just... how a family should be, so much it fucking threw me off my balance the first time I met them like---holy shit this is a real fucking family), I finally got the perspective of the two opposites. And I was telling my therapist that there was one thing I learned, given my current situation, that made christmas with my family a lot more bearable.

I can just... leave. Like, if they piss me off, I can just get up and say goodnight and off I go. This isn’t something most people can do, because they’re not given that liberty. But what was new here was that I actually allowed myself to say and believe that. Because my whole life I was dragged back and forth between family shit where I guilt-tripped into taking part of these celebrations and it ruined the experience for me, and it forced me to withstand all of it against my will. So to tell myself ‘you don’t have to put up with this shit, actually, you can just leave’ was a turning point for me.

And this came out of a VERY long process of accepting who those people are. I remember the appointment I had right after Christmas, I told her: I remember sitting at the table with my family and thinking: wow.. I genuinely don’t like these people. I don’t see myself in them at all, and they have nothing to do with me, and I want nothing but distance and the bare minimum of contact. I just don’t fit in.

To learn about who you are in this scenario, you have to learn about who the people around you are. You have to accept that trying to change them will only lead you to more frustration. The best you can do is learn to adapt enough that it doesn’t corrupt you but it doesn’t expose you to danger (it’s basically why there’s an encouragement to let LGBTQ people remain closeted if they choose to out of self-perseverance, even if they have already come out to their friends---because you act a different way with your family, and sometimes that means survival). Now, granted, that’s a hell of a learning process---at best, a trial and error kind. But it’s one of the ways to preserve yourself.

I really had to accept that these people, the way they are, is more than something that is susceptible to change. There’s a whole ritual to the way they exist. My mom is stuck in the past, and she projects that onto both of us---she treats my brother like he’s still a 14 year old in private school, and me like I’m still a teenager, to the point where she refuses to memorize the things that changed about us past that age, like how she doesn’t understand how I don’t like that band I used to listen to at 15. My brother comes up with fucked up rituals that were never there, but exist to paint a picture of ‘how-it-should-be’, of good manners and eloquence, to the point where he literally comes up with memories that never existed (he still believes that we used to eat Fatias Douradas on Christmas, when the entire family has reiterated that my grandmother never even cooked them---and that's is why every single Christmas he buys them, only to throw them in the garbage because no one ate them). That puts me in the position of the old portuguese saying: in the land of the blind, the one who sees is a king. And the moment it snapped in my mind that these people were living a fantasy to cover up for the atrocities they committed against each other, for the fucked up things they’re stuffing in the back of their minds in pure denial, I sort of became at peace with that. Because it gave me more confidence in myself.

When I told my therapist recently about how witnessing my nephew’s behaviour was like watching a script I had written, because I predicted every single thing about it, she asked me why did that matter to me. And I told her ‘because I was validated by none other than myself. It means I understand their dynamic, it means I know now how they work a little better. And I know now there is very little I can do, so I chose to step aside.’

So, to answer your question, in all honesty, there are a series of external factors that came into play. Without them, I certainly wouldn’t have made it as well as I did. The fact that I was so quickly and easily embraced by my bf’s family was a breath of fresh air, and it was the one thing I never got as a kid and what I am so thankful for. It gave me perspective and it’s still teaching me a sense of belonging. That sort of puts my mind to ease, so that when I face my family, I’m more relaxed because I understand my place a lot better, and I understand that the place they want me to fulfil isn’t normal, not for me and I don’t have to fulfil it if I don’t want to.

The fact that I can just get up and leave whenever I want helps a lot. I have accepted that my family is like a retail job. I can only stand that shit for no longer than 8 hours a day, and 8h to me is too damn much. I would say 5h. When I’m with them, it’s never for any longer than that because otherwise I’ll go crazy.

And then there’s bit... In all honesty, I see my mom a lot more than I see my brother (I must see him like, some 5 times a year), and I can tolerate and accept her presence a lot more. I guess I do have the ability to forgive, and that’s what allows me to move forward, because the fact remains that, when you grew up with an alienated mother and no maternal figure to rely on, and as a grown woman you finally see those attitudes your kiddie self wanted so much, you sort of succumb to it. You embrace it because you’ve craved it for so long, even if your inner goblin is screaming ‘IT’S TOO LATE NOW’. Most of the times, my mind is at conflict, thinking: this isn’t right, she doesn’t deserve this. But a part of me just really wants to move past that, forgive and accept that she has her own fucked up way of changing and showing support. There have been moments even when I thought ‘she acknowledged her faults, even if she will never say them allowed or ask for forgiveness’ and that sort of eased me (although I’m a leo... I forgive, but damn I don’t forget).

I think the main ingredient here is that I always felt left out and shunned by my family. But now, I feel like I’m the one leaving them out and shunning them. They don’t know what’s going on with my life, and although they don’t really ask, you can tell at times they try to pry. And I don’t tell them shit.

It’s funny, last session I told my therapist the one thing I would never share with my family was my writing because they never acknowledged it the way I needed it to be acknowledged, and that ruins the experience of writing for me. And that’s a bit how I balance tolerating them while being me. The things that are important to me, they’re locked away and they’re not touching them. All they get to live with is a cut-out version of myself that they think is the person they know, but someone completely different. I let them believe their own conceptions of myself while preserving my own achievements and the things I treasure to myself. 

It’s basically creating the persona they believe I am when I’m with them versus the person I really am everywhere else (trust me when I tell you they get completely baffled when they hear my friends say the most basic shit about myself---like how my mom got dumbfounded when she learned through my godmother that I actually did know a lot of drug addicts and dealers but stood away from using while not being the sort of person my brother is and dehumanize them. She really couldn’t conceive that I was that person because all her life she believed everything I did was because someone else did it and I followed. She is so keen on refusing to accept I do things out of my own free will she’s thrown off her balance when she learns that like, the pink hair thing in 2006 was actually sort of a trend setted in my school lmfao)

(oh shit this got WAY TOO LONG)

[pellicano-sanguino]

Random thoughts while watching...  OSK Revue?

I finally saw my first OSK Revue show (Dracula, 2017), so thought I'd write about it. This is not a proper review, just a bunch of random thoughts. I will be making a lot of comparisons to Takarazuka in this, and please understand that I do not mean to imply that OSK is just a zuka copycat, I simply wanted to compare the two and see what they have in common and what not (also, all opinions are about this production and these actresses only, I'd need to see more shows to form a proper, better educated opinion on OSK's style as a whole.).

First impression was a surprise at how small the production is. I knew OSK isn't as big as zuka, but still, the theater's stage was very small and there were only about ten actresses, many of them pulling several roles, I think. I felt like I was watching a Bow Hall show cut in half both by stage length and actress numbers. Having a small number of actresses causes there to be some slower, quieter scenes, where a character monologues for a while so that everyone else has time to do the costume change.

Even so, it still felt very similar to zuka. Despite the small stage, they do dance, including a post-show minirevue that includes the main otokoyakus dancing in pretty, sparkly tailcoats and a duet dance with the main leads. The makeup is similar but there's some small differences that I'm not expert enough to point out (don't know anything about makeup). There are some stylistic differences in zuka makeup too, so it felt like I was watching a sixth zuka troupe and this was their troupe's personal style.

Minirevue dancing (and look, some parade feathers. Small feathers but feathers none the less.)

Otokoyaku still sing like otokoyaku and musumeyakus sound just like zuka musumes. I liked the leading otokoyaku's voice, it was pleasant to listen. Though she has to do a lot of angry angsting throughtout the musical, which is occasionally bad for her voice, making it sound like she has a bit of a sore throat. The songs were ok, nothing particularly memorable or catchy. A lot of the music is rather simple, like piano music and such.

I admit, when I was putting the disk in the DVD player, I was chanting in my head ”Please follow the book at least barely, please don't be weird and rewrite the story wildly.” Well, no such luck, this isn't a book faithful adaptation. Which unfortunately leads to me not having a clue what the hell is going on most of Act 1. But I am happy that it's not a comedy or a super weird adaptation.

I have to say that seeing a completely serious take on a vampire musical is a breath of fresh air and something I wish zuka could do. Don't get me wrong, I love the lighthearted vampire shows like Seal of Roses (which maybe didn't aim for lighthearted but kinda accidentally became one). Zuka always makes the vampire stories, well...  kinda weird (I've already ranted about the randomness, plot holes and inconsistent vampire lore in my Random Thoughts While Watching Zuka #4). I appreciate them thinking outside the box and surprising me instead of recycling the most generic vampire story plots and tropes, but as a vampire lover I would die for vampire show that actually takes itself seriously. I suppose the Poe Family show is a serious take on the subject (no comedic parts or weird story elements), but that is probably thanks to the source material. Zuka can do cool&dark, they've done Elisabeth, so if they wanted they could make truly awesome vampire shows.

While I said that this is a serious take on a vampire story, there's still a short comedic song number in the beginning of Act 1, where a bunch of reporters try to interview Dracula after his arrival at London, only to have him scream NO COMMENTS at them.

This show uses sound and screen effects a lot. Most of the time they make sense (like hearing the sound of a train in the station) but there are moments where I hear a random noise or see strange images projected on the screens and go ”What the hell was that?”

There are only three big roles in this show: Dracula, Mina and Jonathan Harker. There's also this one lady in black who I suspect to be the spirit of Dracula's dead wife, who he grieves and longs for all the time. So yeah, the beginning of Act 2 reveals to us that this show has taken inspiration from Coppola's Dracula and lifts the vampire's origin from the movie. He was a warlord in medieval times (which means he's dressed in armor and has a sword YES me likey) and somehow a false letter was brought to his wife claiming that he had fallen in battle, which led to her committing suicide. When human Drac got home to discover his wife dead, he was devastated and broken, that is, until he hears that the church refuses to bury his wife because suiciders are sinners who go to hell. There's a literal DUN DUN DUUUUN sound effect as the count builds up rage, then curses God and allows the forces of evil to corrupt his body in order to revenge. He then proceeds to kill all of the priests/monks/whatever the church folks were supposed to be.

This slaughter of innocent unarmed humans would be brutal and super dramatic, but the fight choreography leaves...  much to improve. Yeah, zuka battle choreos can look like they're from the 60's Batman too, with punches that miss by a mile, but here...  the stabs are so lazy it looks like the poor victims are literally walking into his sword.

If Heaven won't accept

my suicided wife

I'll follow her to Hell!

(...and lick her knife.)

Not gonna lie, this is something I haven't seen zuka do. Sure, they've implied licking things, but it's always done quite swiftly and * elegantly * and not, well, like this. Tongue out and all, literally licking the knife prop.

I was curious to see if the kisses are still fake or not, since OSK is free to have their own traditions and don't have to follow rules set by Hankyu. Also, I keep hearing rumors that OSK is supposedly more daring than zuka when it comes to love scenes. Not in this show, at least. The romantic scenes are very chaste and more cute than sexy (also, the blood drinking scene, while definitely romanticized and very nice&dramatic, not any hotter than the blood drinking scenes in zuka). And the kisses are very much fake. Oh well, the actresses are spared of messing up their lipstick.

Speaking of messing up lipstick, I know that stain is supposed to be blood but it looks like a group of amorous ladies gave the count several sloppy kisses.

So, my guess for the plot is that Dracula comes to London in search for the woman who is the reincarnation of his wife. To lure women for him to see, he puts up...   a fashion show or something? Dresses are on display, including dead wife's wedding dress. Which Mina gets to wear, and Dracula is immediately convinced she's the incarnation and for the rest of the musical never calls Mina by her real name, just by the wife's name. Which is...  Elisabeth. I don't remember what the wife's name was in Coppola's movie, but still, the dramatic way Dracula pronounces this name does make it sound like it was lifted from another musical.

In Act 2 Jonathan, on his way to rescue his girlfriend from the vampire's castle, meets an annoying little kid. And yeah, just like in zuka, there are no child actors in OSK, children are played by adult women using cutesy kiddie voice and being super genki. But then the kid finds the knife that Elisabeth used to suicide herself and turns to face the audience while holding it, and I was like ”Great. The annoying kid has turned into a creepy kid.” If the child had turned out to be a vampire and in team Drac all along, that would have been an awesome plot twist. But instead he's actually an angel or something like that, providing Jonathan with the weapon that can kill the vampire.

Dracula has a bunch of vampiric minions at his castle, not just the three brides. I have to ask, what is it with vampire shows having one main vampire who behaves normally and then having a bunch of background vampires/minions who speak/sing like they're high as a kite and lumber around dancing artsy inteeeerpretive dances? It's...   weird. Why are some vampires normal and some complete fruitbats?

This Dracula must be the angstiest version of the character I've ever seen. There's occasionally great moments where he's charismatic, seductive or in rage mode, but the majority of time he is either silently depressed or actively whining (even many of his angry scenes come out as more whiny than aggressive). It's a very dialogue heavy show and because of the language barrier and free adapting of the story, I have no idea what his angsty dialogues are about. But whatever he says, he actually manages to win Mina's sympathy and they dance together. Even if they kiss, I still think Mina's feelings are more pity and less sincere romantic interest. Also, I should point out that I have nothing against depressed, angsty, reluctant vampires in general, it's just that I don't usually associate that kind of behavior with Dracula (depression and angst is more sir Francis Varney's thing.). Dracula is cold, ruthless, cunning and irredeemably evil, not some emotional lovelorn wreck.

I have said this before and will say again: Dracula does not aishiteiru.

Jonathan makes an attempt to save Mina but doesn't get to kill the count. Which is good because while the Jonathan of the book would definitely want and be able to fight the count, this musical portrayed the character as a cute and awkward softie nerd (I approve, not all male heroes need to be tough guys) and avoiding getting his hands wet with blood was a good move. Poor guy would be traumatized for life, even if it would be to save his girlfriend, he's just not a killer. Instead, Dracula decides to let the lovers go free and suicides himself, like he usually does in adaptations where they make him have a romance with Mina.

You know how in zuka there's the tradition that in the end the dead characters make an appearance dressed in white, to sing and prance around in an afterlife epilogue. Well, not in this show, but there is something kinda similar. In the ending scene the spirit of Elisabeth appears behind the dying count and poses dramatically with him, spreading her cape like white bat wings, taking him with her to afterlife. I think it looks cool.

To end this, let's talk about the blood drinking scene. In all vampire stories, these are the most important scenes, in my opinion. Blood drinking is what vampires do, it's their trademark thing, and if you chicken out of showing it or handle it lazily, then why the hell are you making a vampire story in the first place. You don't make Phantom of the Opera adaptation and fail to have the unmasking scene be the most dramatic and memorable scene, and similarly, you don't make a vampire story and fail to deliver the blood drinking scenes properly. Yes, I have weirdly strong opinions about this, deal with it.

Very early in Act 1 we see Dracula suffer from malnutrition, his hair turning gray and his knees failing, making him slump to the ground, very visibly suffering. For emergency he empties a small vial of blood that doesn't seem to make him get any better. And it is this moment when Jonathan decides to visit him for the first time for work-related reasons (no idea what his profession is in this story. In the fashion industry?). So, we have a thirsty vampire and a nice, cute bloodbag in the same room all alone.

Me: Drink him!

Dracula: Nope. I'd rather suffer. :)

What the hell? In the book he totally noms Jonathan. Is this because he's a male? This Dracula afraid to drink from someone who has icky boy blood? Oh well, he gets better later anyway, so I assume he gets some blood off-stage. But still, it was very confusing to see a starving vampire not take advantage of an opportunity of some easy blood.

Well, later Dracula is introduced to Mina and immediately decides ”This is the One.” And I cheer him on.

Me: Drink her!

Dracula: No. Now is not a good time. :)

Me: Damnit! DRINK SOMEBODY!!!

We have to wait all the way to the end of Act 1, but finally, we get a genuine on-screen blood drinking scene. Just as important as the moment of blood drinking itself is what leads up to it. In this musical it's Jonathan piecing together all the clues and finally getting Dracula's real identity (in a rather nerdy monologue of stuff like ”...Dracul means Dragon, and the A at the end makes it Son of the Dragon...   wasn't there a warlord named like that in Romania hundreds of years ago...”).

Nerdsplaining time!

Terrified with his discovery he tries to save Mina, who Dracula has just kidnapped, spilling the beans for her as well. The revelation of Dracula's vampiric nature scares the two humans and there's plenty of dialogue that goes over my horizon, but I do get that the thing that makes Dracula snap is when Mina confesses to loving Jonathan.

The jealous vampire then starts to torture Jonathan by...   some kind of Darth Vader mind-choking magic. Well, I suppose it's choking, because Jonathan holds his hands around his throat as if struggling against invisible fingers, but the sound effect doesn't suggest choking at all. It actually sounds much more gruesome and painful, a nasty ripping sound, as if the count is telekineticly tearing the poor man limb from limb and simultaneously flaying him alive. Eww, it's a gross sound effect.

Mina obviously can't idly just watch as her boyfriend is painfully tortured to death while she has the power to put an end to it. To save Jonathan, she loudly exclaims that she doesn't love him. And the count, being a little bit of an idiot here, buys it. Strangely, Jonathan seems to buy it too, crying Mina's name in disbelief. The torture ends (thank goodness), and to make sure no harm comes to Jonathan, Mina tells Dracula that if you're really a vampire and if it's blood you want, you can have mine!

Just let me gather this bothersome veil...

...and Behold! Vampire bait.

She dramaticly pulls the veil of the wedding dress on one shoulder and reveals her neck. I love this. And so does Dracula. This is the one moment where his eyes actually light up with passion and while he attempts to stay cool, you can see his chest rise as his breathing gets faster with excitement. Darn right, count. Blood offered by free will is the best stuff there is. And it was about time you finally drank someone.

It's always interesting when humans offer their blood to the vampire out of free will, because there's usually good and complex reasons behind it, and this is no exception. Mina doesn't offer her blood out of sympathy or under the influence of vampiric hypnosis or even being seduced by the pretty blood drinker. It's offered by free will but it's very much not concensual. The offer of blood is the only way she can distract the vampire long enough to let Jonathan escape and get help. By playing along with the count's delusions about Mina being the reincarnation of his wife, she is cleverly buying time, manipulating him. Only, unfortunate for these two, there is no van Helsing or any other member of the book's league of merry vampirehunting men in this show for Jonathan to run to, so all he can do is to follow them to the castle and attempt a lone rescue mission (which fails).

Frankly, the one who eventually defeats Dracula (kinda) is Mina, who manages to win the count's sympathy (making him learn the good old ”if you really love someone, you'll want what's best for them and let them go instead of selfishly trying to force them to stay with you”). And this blood drinking scene is the first time we see that she is aware of the power she has over the vampire. Maybe in the end she didn't exactly intend to make him commit suicide, just trying to make him let them go, but old Drac was living a horribly depressed and angsty unlife anyway, so it doesn't surprise me that he decided to end it. That's why the (kinda). Mina has great influence over Dracula but I do think his decision to die a final death seems to be not a result of manipulation but a genuine decision. Though he still technically makes her do it, by forcibly placing the knife in her hands and then grabbing her wrists, stabbing himself, making her involuntarily deal the killing blow. Kinda dick move (Mina is quite horrified of this, understandably), but at least I'm happy Mina doesn't kill herself too in this one (yes, I'm still angry at that ending in 2011 Wao Youka's Dracula. The count kills himself so Mina can go back to being human and back to Jonathan. And then the dumb woman makes the count's sacrifice completely pointless by throwing away the life he attempted to save.) Dracula ends his unlife but Mina and Jonathan return to the world of the living, where they belong.

Final random thought: Knightly warlord Dracula looks a bit like Lancelot’s long lost, dangerously unhinged brother. (it’s the wig and the silver armor with blue details. The actresses are very different.)

[mischiefmanagedrp-blog1]

James Potter

james potter. gryffindor. sixth year. quidditch captain. chaser. pureblood.

out of character info

Name/Alias: Samantha Pronouns: she/her Age: 25 Timezone: est Activity:  5-8 Triggers: no kiddie shit or stuff with animals >:( Password: always Character that you’re applying for:  James Potter Faceclaim:  Mikey Murphy Favourite ships for your character: Jily, but until that, James is free for the flirting and the smooching

in character info

Full name: James Potter Birthday:  March 17th Sexuality, gender, pronouns:  bisexual, heteroromantic, not that James knows what any of that is Age: 16

Wizarding World Info

House: Gryffindor Year: Sixth Wand: Mahogany, 11″, thunderbird tail feather Boggart: dead family and friends Patronus: Stag Quidditch Team: Captain & chaser Classes: transfiguration. charms. potions. history of magic. defence against the dark arts. herbology. muggle studies. arithmancy. Clubs: Potions Club, Dueling Club

Detailed Info

Appearance: James is a scruffy looking character, despite his wealth and his pureblood status. He’s spoiled by nature and nurture, so while his robes and other clothes come from fine designers who are eager to dress the Potter family, he often wears them not properly put together. His uniform tie is usually undone, his dress shirt untucked from his trousers. The lone Potter son has mastered the art of how to look like you don’t care, simply because he doesn’t. His hair is already uncontrollable, after all, no matter how much Sleekeazy his parents had used on his head as a child. So James matches that with his fashion sense, aiming to look effortlessly cool while putting in minimal effort. 

It often works in his favour, though perhaps it’s less about his rough and tough (so he thinks) exterior and more the charming grin that’s often on his face. It reaches to his eyes, and James can nearly always be seen with a smile on his face. While his attitude is arrogant and pompous, many overlook it due to his carefree body language and charming smile. 

Fashion sense and mannerism aside, James is fairly tall, just barely brushing past the six foot mark. He intends to keep growing, of course. He’s only sixteen, he’s got his whole life ahead of him. As well, James is slender, built well for his position as a seeker on the Gryffindor quidditch team. Because of practice, doing laps and other exercises to keep his arms, core and legs strong to stay on the broom, he’s a pretty fit lad. He’s not ripped, by any means. There’s not much sense when you’re not a beater, after all. But he’s toned, enough to admire himself in the mirrors when he’s feeling particularly full of himself. In such mirrors, James also likes to fluff up the unruly brown hair atop his head. It’s a mess of waves, and on occasion will fade lighter if his summers are spent on holidays or out in the sun. 

Overall, James considers himself to be an attractive bloke. One of the better ones as far as he’s concerned. But, as Lily’s told him, taste is subjective. (And, she says, she has some, and James isn’t it.)

Personality: Arrogant, pompous, bullheaded. There are many a things about James Potter that could be negative. However, James likes to think of himself not as any of those things. Confident. Proud. Committed. Whatever negative thing about James you have to say, he has a way of turning it to see the positives, even if what you think may be negative. Where an outsider who doesn’t know James may think that he’s boisterous or spoiled, James will turn around and explain that he’s not those things. He’s... energetic. He’s privileged. A lot of this comes from his parents, both Fleamont “Monty” Potter and his wife, Euphemia (or Effie for short) spending all of his upbringing coddling him.

James was a welcomed surprise, after all. His well to due parents didn’t discipline him much, simply falling prey to the charm James had when he came from the womb. He’s bright eyed and full of life, after all. It’s hard to discipline a child who not only has been told he can do no wrong, but who he himself can’t see if he’s done wrong either. 

This leads to complications, of course. James is completely and utterly hopeless when it comes to learning lessons. Detentions offer nothing to him, nor do they really for any of his friends. 

Aside from his overall spoild brat-ness, James can be quite the sweetheart. He’s full of love, and is capable of giving it to almost everyone. A foulweather friend to strangers, James will appear when you’re down in the dumps and go to great lengths to cheer you up, especially if you’ve got a pretty face and a good laugh. While some don’t get this treatment(i.e. Severus, of course), most anyone can experience it. 

As well, James is a bright young man, especially when he uses his energy to apply himself. He’s capable of being a great wizard, as evidenced by various pranks and duels that have landed him and his friends in trouble on many occasion. The problem, his professors say, is that he rarely uses that energy and passion on his school work. 

While James is more than capable of showering those in love and affection, as he was as a child, he’s also a vicious boy. When you’ve wronged him, he’ll never forget it. It explains why his feud with Severus is destined to be lifelong. That, and he’s a bit of a jealous boy. He’s used to getting what he wants, and in the event of, for example, taking a person he wants close to him? Well, James won’t take too kindly and you’ll likely be the butt of much teasing, if not worse. 

Very few people can successfully scold him. Both his mother and father are incapable of doing so, they see no wrong, only their perfect boy. Some who can? Remus Lupin, one of his closest friends who may as well be family. Lily Evans, the love of his life since he had first seen her firey red hair on the boats to the castle in first year. Another being Albus Dumbledore, who has never failed to make James truly think about his actions when he’s being reprimanded by the headmaster. 

History:  Born to Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, James is an only child, and a spoiled one at that. Due to conception at such an age, Euphemia and Fleamont both never had the energy nor care to spend James’ childhood disciplining him. He was a very welcomed, and very loved surprise and both his parents never felt the need to give him any negative parenting. As far as both Potters were concerned, James was an angel, albeit a fireball. 

He amused them with his wild, childhood antics, and overall was a good child for the first eleven years of his life. His closest relationship was with his parents, respecting and adoring them above all else. 

It wasn’t until Hogwarts when James started to develop into the arrogant young man he currently is. He enjoyed the attention that he got, and had little to no trouble quickly becoming popular amongst his peers. Attached at the hip with Sirius Black from day one, the two quickly became some of the favourite students at Hogwarts. Adding in Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew to their social circle only improved their social standing, along with the antics and pranks they started to pull. 

Class clowns, they were called, and James fed off the approval and laughter. Ego growing more and more every day as the attention on him grew. As far as social ranking went, James climbed quickly with his friends, who were quickly called the Marauders. 

As the years went on, James developed more into a young man that everyone wanted to be, be with, or befriend. A quidditch star, a student who challenged his professors and the authorties, who had no problem putting some of the naff students in their place. James had money, blood purity, a good family, an excellent group of friends. With good grades, a charming smile, and a personality that could get anyone (with the exception of a select few), it was no wonder. 

In fifth year is when his ego reached its peak. He and his friends had finally become animagi (a stag, for himself), and his and his friends pull with the other students had him in an ongoing, showoffy feud with Severus Snape and several of the other Slytherins. He had little qualms in teasing, using Snapes own spells against him, humiliating the greasy little git. 

As anything that comes to a peak, his ego has currently been on the downward. Between dragging Snape from the willow to make sure the gobshite didn’t kick the bucket, and Lily putting him in his place despite Snivellus calling her a mudblood, James’ personality has begun to mature. He intends to do better on his NEWTs than he had on his owls, and has made a pact to study a bit more, and fool around a bit less.

But with friends like Sirius, Remus and Peter, and the constant need to impress those around him, whose to say it’ll stay that way?

Sample paragraph:  "She’ll say yes this year, mate. I’ll put a wager on it, even,” James grinned, fluffing up the bouquet of roses he held in his hands. He had a reservation at the tea shop in Hogsmede, like he had made every year since his first. On the table lay a large, heart shaped box of chocolates and a charmed card to sing a love ballad preformed by himself and Sirius. Every year, James offered flowers and chocolates to Lily Evans, asking her to accompany him on a date to town and to be his Valentine.

Every year, Lily said no.

But this year? This was going to be different. He could feel it. Lily had been less hostile the last few months, even so much as cracking a smile at a joke he had made in their charms class when they’d been partnered together last week. “She’s into me, mate. She’s just trying to play it cool.” James insisted, looking down the table in the great hall to see the girl chatting happily to Marlene. 

“Good luck, you big twit,” Sirius said, a look of fondness on his face as he reached over to fluff James’ hair up. James stood after, gathering the chocolates and tables in hand before giving a playful bow. “Gentlemen, a lady awaits my proposal,” he nodded, tipping an invisible hat on his head and getting an eyeroll from Remus on the otherside of the table. 

As he turned, he could hear the three of his mates placing various bets. Ten galleons if Lily kicked or hexed him, apparently. 

Good to know they believed in him. But James would show them. 

Other Information

Headcanons: 

• James has been infatuated with Lily since the first time he saw her. • He’s got a lovely barn owl named Rapier  • Loves muggle disco music Anything of importance: Nope

[hiphopandtheirishquestion]

The Birth of Def Road

It all started sometime around 1985. As a music journalist and chancer, my brother Johnny rarely paid for anything. I grew accustomed over the years to standing by the entrance while he negotiated free passage into whatever gig we were at.

- ‘I’m on the guest list  

- You’re name’s not down

- I rang ahead. I spoke to the manager. I’m doing a write up for Hot Press.

- No one told me’

... and so the drama would unfold, me standing there like a lemon (the +1) thinking ‘can we not just pay the fiver in?’ But inevitably they crumbled and in we went, journalist +1.

The experience would stand him in good stead as he set about liberating the music companies of New York of their choicest cuts. Zip, Buck, Artie and the boys were no match and he returned with a veritable treasure chest of records, none of which he'd paid for. The vast majority belonged to a genre called hip hop, or sometimes rap. Wasn’t that just talking?

By 1985, the Irish Republic had been in existence for nearly 50 years. The Brits, may God’s curses, shit, piss and jizz rain down on them, had long since been kicked out. Ireland was now, finally, in the hands of the Gaels - who immediately palmed it off to the church.

And New York was in my hands. The city, it seemed, consisted mainly of black lads in tracksuits and gold chains. Their ‘music’ involved a DJ stealing the best parts from other people’s records while a rapper bragged in rhyming couplets about, amongst other things, how great he was. The other things could be anything from the size of his cock to how much weed he smoked and on to race, crime, politics, cars, shopping malls, guns, hookers, snot, STDs, cars, watches...the list is long.  

Introspective it wasn’t. Feelings and inadequacies rarely entered the lexicon of that first wave of MCs. They spoke with absolute certainty and iron resolve. Self-doubt was an ailment the rapper didn’t appear to suffer from. It was all fierce confusing.

‘No one understands me’, went the lament of angsty teenagers like me. ‘I’m gonna lock myself in my room and listen to The Smiths. Girls are so pretty – if only I could talk to them. Who am I? What’s it all about?’

‘Yo! Everyone look at me, screamed his black NY counterpart. ‘I got the best clothes, I even got jewellery. Girls? Fuck, man. Dime a dozen. Life is so damn straightforward. I’m the coolest, smartest best looking bastard going’.

At first glance, Tramore, Co Waterford seems quite different to the ghettos of New York. People from our neighbouring estates did not spend their time ‘dissing’ each other. Sweetbriar residents did not wish to ‘take out’ motherfuckers from Moon Laun. And gunshots were almost never heard at the Friday night GAA Discos. This could not stand. The ‘boroughs’ of Waterford would have to be re-classified, starting with my hometown.

What is Tramore? Upwardly mobile Gardaí and Secondary School teachers were by now colonizing it's burgeoning estates. A beautiful beach, amusements for the kiddies, pubs, pissed up jackeens in the summer, and now lots and lots of new homes, from where people set off for the bright lights of Waterford City every day if they were fortunate enough to have jobs in 80s Ireland.

We were a bit wussy – just didn’t have that hard edge that came so naturally to people from the barrios of places like Lisduggan and Ballybeg. We weren’t the Bronx. Long Island was seen as being a bit ‘soft and country ’ by New Yorkers. Culchieville, or at least suburban. But it was also where Public Enemy came from, along with De La Soul, EPMD, and Eric B & Rakim to name a handful. They didn't like the name, so they changed it. Long Island became Strong Island.

Tramore, or Tra Mhor as Gaeilge, meaning 'big beach', would now be Strong Beach. Kinda shit, but still better than Tramore. My home address of Cliff Road was renamed  Def Road – considerably better. The newly-drawn boroughs of  Waterford began to take shape.

It was an era that came to be known as hip hop’s Golden Age. Ireland had once had a golden age of it's own. The Island of Saints and Scholars we had been called, as the Christian Brothers were quick to remind us. Alas that time had long since passed. When darkness prevailed in Medieval Europe, Ireland had been a beacon of light, home to the dopest lyricists and flyest artwork. And as recessionary 80s Ireland trundled on hopelessly, we could at least pat ourselves on the back in the knowledge of our glorious past.

Through the lyrics of the likes of Chuck D and Krs-One I discovered black America was prone to leaning on a similar crutch. The extremist Nation of Islam claimed that the great kingdoms of Africa had thrived when we Europeans, or cave dwellers as they called us, were still running around on all fours. Take that whitey!

Ireland’s time as the foremost creator and preserver of the written word ran from about the sixth to ninth centuries. Missionaries from Christian monastic schools went forth from the motherland into the wild lands of Western Europe; writing, learning and being generally noble as they went. The Roman Empire was falling and the barbarians were ransacking the once civilized and ordered cities of Europe. It was left to a previously unheralded wee island to preserve the written word. Which, miraculously, it did. But no one outside Ireland seemed to care.

It’s a state of affairs that many pan-African movements would empathise with. They often claim history is written by the white man, cynically removing their own people’s contributions from the record books. We break it down a step further. White Anglo-Saxons and Protestants decree what is history – the achievements of the paddy man and the black man just don’t make the cut. And so we glory in our past deeds, with a healthy balance of chips on either shoulder.

The pinnacle of Ireland’s Golden Age would come to be seen as The Book Of Kells, a kind of Three Feet High And Rising of its time. There for all to see in Trinity College - proof of our glorious past. Suck it up, ye bastards!

Hip hop travelled a fair old road to reach its Golden Age, if not quite as far back as the Vikings. But just like the Irish scholars of medieval Ireland, in that second Dark Age of the mid-eighties, hip hop was a beacon of light. As mediocrity thrived all around them, the ghettoes of New York became the ultimate seat of motherfucking learning.

The New York we saw on our 80s TV screens pre-Giuliani and zero tolerance seems barely believable now. Apolcalytic, Mad Max style urban wastelands. Anything went, or so the schoolyards of Tramore CBS would have it. There was never any graffiti on the Tramore-Waterford bus route, aside from the odd ‘Paul is gay’ or ‘Sharon Loves Browner’, but New York?

-‘Sure the whole feckin’ subway is full of it! Can’t even see out de windows.  Me uncle works there and he says there do be gay lads stalling the heads off each other on the street. Full of black lads too but they love the Irish so you’re alright there’.

Mental, like. And it was into this environment that one Clive Campbell, soon to be better known as Kool Herc, rocked up on the streets of the Bronx in the early 70s with his quare Jamaican ways.

Quare Jamaican ways that included sound systems – very, very big sound systems – which he used to rock parties all over the neighbourhood. He occasionally employed a rapper, but more importantly began cutting up records.  He played the funky, instrumental bit of the tune and then played it again, and again and again if the vibe was right. The break. The two turntables were now an instrument.  This was the cue for the b (for break) - boys to do their thing on the dance floor. Or breakdance. The big eejit from the Caribbean had only gone and invented hip hop.

A boyo called Patricius had a gameplan of his own when he rocked up in Ireland with his big Welsh head on him around 432 AD. This was his second trip. First time round he had come as a slave, and spent his days working his hole off high in the mountains, tending sheep and the like. Fuck this for a lark, he thought. And like so many convicts down the years, he turned to God for help.

And he was rewarded with a vision, enabling his escape. Six years swotting up in a French monastery, a brief trip home to check in with the folks, and back to Ireland. ‘ Right. I’m gonna Christianize these chumps’, he vowed to the man above as he returned and set to work.

Patricius was a good egg, albeit one with a bit of ‘previous’. As a former slave, he empathised with their plight, a borderline pinko stance unheard of in those brutal days. The Black Panthers had MLK and Malcolm X, we had Saint Patrick.  And he was a hard bastard. Slavery, the monastery and then 30-odd years trundling across the wild lands of Eireann spreading the word. No choirboy either. Some unexplained sin, committed at the age of 15 and later confessed to, racked him with guilt. At least one historian hints at murder. Ireland, denied the ‘civilizing’ influence of the Roman Empire, was no place for the faint-hearted.

The original Paddy may not have driven any snakes out, but if he’d wanted to those slimy fucks wouldn’t have stood a chance. And neither did the pagans. With the bold Patricius at its helm Christianity stomped all over them. Like Ray Houghton a couple of centuries later he had earned his spurs. He was now one of us – an Irishman, and a proud one

Kool Herc was good, but he was no Saint Patrick. He needed help. And two others would rise from the East (Coast) to create a glorious triumvirate. Hip hop now set about crushing the faggoty, silk-shirt and gold-medallioned world of disco.

Afrika Bambaata (or Kevin Donovan as he was then) hadn’t required enslavement to have his eyes opened. He won a motherfucking essay writing contest, motherfucker, first prize being a trip to Africa. Bam’s eyes were opened and he returned with a new vision. No more gang banging – it was peace, love, unity and having fun from here on in.

St. Patrick may have passed on the ‘having fun’ aspect of Bambaata’s message. There was already far too much of that in early 5th century pagan Ireland. But otherwise he surely would have concurred with the mission statement. Patrick had come to enlighten and Christianize, Bam enlighten and Africanize. Peas in a pod. Kind of. Patrick wanted less of that kind of thing, Bambaata probably a bit more. He formed The Universal Zulu Nation, a broad church of hip hop, spirituality and all things Africa.  

Joseph Sadler was a wiry little bollocks. Like Herc, he was originally from Jamaica, and was good with his hands. Not only could he spin records, he was a qualified electrician. So it should come as no surprise that it was he who first succeeded in wiring two turntables to a mixer.

-‘Janey Mac’, he said to the waitress at his local cafe , ‘I’ve only gone and opened the door to sampling, changing the face of contemporary popular music, perhaps forever. Not bad for a wiry little bollox from de Bronx, wha’?’

-‘Fuck you on about? she replied.

And he was no mere DJ, either. Herc played his records, Bambaata enlightened, but Grandmaster Flash was a showman. He span the records with his feet, pirouetted, spliced, diced and generally acted like a prize chimp in the DJ’s booth.

- ‘Tell ye what, dat’s savage’, noted Walter ‘the bomb’ MacKenzie to his fellow Bronxian Rashid Washington Jr at one of Flash’s jams.

- ‘Ye not wrong there, so you’re not’, replied his pal. ‘Dem Jamaican lads are at it again. Must be something in the air out there – or maybe the grass, if ye know what I mean. Ay? Ay?

- ‘Ha ha. Ah will ye stop. Tell ye what, though. I predict this will change the face of music as we know it. It won’t be long before it’s threatening the higher echelons of the charts. DJs will now be limited only by their imaginations and the size of their record collections’.

- ‘It will and its bollocks’, replied the less-effusive Washington Jr.

But history shows Mr McKenzie's statement wasn’t a ‘will and its bollocks’ at all. Far from it. Flash, Bam and Herc – the holy trinity, as hip hop lore would have it. The disaffected youth of New York now had a voice, and its name was hip hop.

There would be others. Run DMC duetted with Aerosmith and got heavy rotation on MTV. They even played Live Aid, not that you were likely to see it.

- ‘Run DMC? You fuckin’ kiddin’ me’? We’re trying to raise money for staving Ethiopians. Last thing we need is people ringing in kicking up shit about two black lads in Adidas tops grabbing their balls’. They were the only Live Aid act not shown live on TV, the risk of bollock-grabbing too high.

But it couldn’t stop the juggernaut. And it would culminate in a spotty teenager in the arse end of Ireland being beholden to the sound of black men in sportswear and gold chains rhyming over pre-programmed beats.Watching The Sunday Game one summer’s evening in the late 80s, he realized why.

-Michael, I’ll tell ye now why hurling is the greatest sport in the world. Are ye listening now? I’ve watched some desperate games over the years. Brutal, only brutal. But I’ll tell ye this. No matter how bad it got, there’d always be something. Some lad would crack over a point from 65 metres, or cut one over the bar. Something to have you saying, ‘Holy God, that was savage good.

‘Compare that now to foreign rubbish like soccer. No goals at all in some games. Sure they all have long hair and they wear shinpads. Bunch of Nancy boys. I’ll tell ye know, if I got my hands on....

-‘Thanks Ger/Ogie/Denis/Micheal/Mossie (can't remember who), the point is well made though. Hurling is clearly the world’s greatest game because even the most boring game can be enlivened by a bit of trickery or magic. Ireland and the Irish are great!’

- ‘That’s exactly it Michael’.

This got me thinking. Krs One had a track called ‘Part-time Suckers’.  It consisted mainly of a serious of dictionary definitions, intended presumably to illustrate the superiority of his vocabulary over that of his less educated contemporaries. It sounded a bit like the speak-and-spell gizmo that Elliot gave ET to help him phone home. It was pretty shit, in all fairness.

But the last minute or so made it all worthwhile – a DJ workout, scratching the bejaysus out of a line from an old Smokey Robinson song. The half-way line cut over the bar, the point from the impossibly tight angle – the otherwise ‘brutal, only brutal’ track enlivened by a bit of DJ tomfoolery. It all made sense!

Hip hop was the hurling of the ghetto – the black man and the paddy man once more inextricably linked. Def Road would bear witness.

[nomorelonelydays]

Patater Week - Day 6

Feb. 11 - Cuddling/Snuggling – Marty finds Alexei shopping for condoms at 1 AM with Kent. It kind of goes from there, 1.2K “For water balloons,” Tater says dumbly, looking like he wants to put the pack of Magnums back but can’t because he’s lost all motion in his arm. “Prank on Poots.” “Hm. Alright,” Marty says, still holding the Little Colds Multi-symptom Cold Formula meant for his son, who’d started sniffling at 8 PM and have not stopped since. “Why not just use real balloons?” he asks, pointing at the balloon packs hanging not far behind Tater. Tater seems to be strangled by an unseen force. “Penis is more funny,” he says very slowly, then he visibly winces, like he wants to pitch himself into a ditch. (Marty’s no fool. Everyone on the team knows that Tater has a boyfriend whom he has yet to refer to by name, which is peculiar especially when the latter refuses to shut up about him. At this point, between the two of them, Marty and Thirdy can probably recite the Boyfriend’s failed recipe for chicken salad by heart and how exactly he managed to conduct a mini-explosion in Tater’s kitchen. He just hadn’t expected the nameless significant other to be visiting Providence this week, or that he’d catch Tater buying…supplies.) 

“O…kay,” Marty says, starting to take a step back, as if moving away from a provoked bear, which Tater may as well be. Marty swears he sees a sweat drop. “I should get going, Gabby wants me to—” Of all the people that Marty could have imagined to see at that moment, Kent Parson decides to comes in from behind Tater, holding two bottles of rosé wine and a pack of Jell-O. “Babe, please don’t get flavored lube this time,” Kent is saying, his face buried in his phone as he makes his way over. “All of them taste like cough medi—” Kent finally looks up and registers Tater’s frozen frame and Marty standing there awkwardly with his kiddy medicine and juice. “Oh.” Marty clears his throat. Kent looks like he wants to shove a cactus in his throat, while Tater just looks like a man ready to commit a hit and run—the hit being clubbing Marty with the force of his embarrassment, perhaps. “Parson,” Marty says, just to be polite. Because he is. “Saint-Martin,” Parson says, mostly because he looks like he doesn’t know what else to say. “Ehm,” Tater says, but it comes out like the sound of a dying moose. Marty has literally never seen Tater this speechless, and it’s terrible. He decides to save them all the embarrassment by taking one for the team and sighing, “You know, my wife and I use—” “Holy shit, shut the fuck up,” Kent yells, waving his hands. “Alexei, just fucking throw the condoms in.” Tater does so, almost comically, as he launches the Magnums into the basket without even looking away from Marty with a quick backhand toss. He completely misses, which means Marty gets to watch Kent Parson juggle the pack of condoms with one hand, have it fall to the floor with a resounding flop, then scramble to pick it up again with absolutely zero dignity left. “Okay, it’s nice to meet you off the ice, but I think I’m speaking for all of us when I say that we’re all going to collectively wipe this from our memories forever. This never happened. We never saw you. I don’t even know who you are.” “I think that’s going a little too far—” “I never saw you,” Kent insists, dragging Tater away determinedly. “Good night.” “Good night,” Marty calls out. “Have fun.” (He hears Tater make another choking noise before Kent pulls him sharply around the corner.) He doesn’t feel too bad when he nudges Tater the next day and whispers, “You forgot to buy lube,” as he tosses Tater the tube he bought yesterday on a whim into the man’s lap. It’s absolutely worth it: he watches Tater turn a worrying shade of red, bury his face in his hands, then refuse to make eye contact with Marty for the entirety of practice, which he counts as a victory for that time Mashkov filled his entire locker with shaving cream and videotaped his reaction. Poots and Jack actually get concerned and ask Tater if he’s coming down with something. “I won’t tell anyone,” Marty tells him at the end of practice, patting him on the back when he manages to catch up to Tater. Actually, he barely knows anything about the Aces Captain, but he’s observant enough to know that Kent has really toned down the whole ‘dirty, typical Aces hockey’ thing recently. He wonders if Tater has anything to do with it. “You two should come over for dinner.” Tater actually cracks a smile. Well, a grimace, but Marty will interpret it as a smile. “Thank you, but I’m thinking Kenny is try to repress memories. Forever.” “Wow. Well, let him know he’s welcome anytime.” He’ll see Kent Parson again, he thinks. He just hadn’t known he’d get another chance the following month, when he bumps into the pair again in the same supermarket at around 2 AM, no less, now hunting for cough medicine for himself because apparently germs contracted from kindergarteners are more lethal than regular bugs. Really, Providence isn’t that small; why do they all shop at the same place? Thankfully, Tater is looking at much more PG-rated items, squinting at jars of spaghetti sauce as he holds a blanketed (Batman blanket, Marty notices. His son would love it) Kent in his arms. Both are in their pajamas and looking very sleep-rumpled. “You use my shampoo?” Tater asks, his nose buried in Kent’s cowlick. “Maybe. Probably.” Kent’s holding a jar of sauce and studying it. “I just kind of reach out for whatever.” “Kenny,” Tater whines, like he’s a toddler. A 6’4 toddler. “You say you don’t like my shampoo.” “Yeah, smells like you’re overcompensating for something,” Kent says. “Should we get ‘flavored with meat’ or ‘extra mushroom and garlic’?” “Flavored with meat,” Tater says at the same time Kent says, “Extra mushroom and garlic.” Tater pulls a face as Kent puts the latter in the basket. “Then why you ask me?” “I dunno, I thought you had good taste,” Kent says flippantly. “I was wrong. Hey, put me down—” Tater’s peppering kisses up and down Kent’s neck, and it’s one of those over the top PDA things that Marty had always expected from someone like Tater. However, actually seeing it in action is a totally different thing, and it’s so embarrassing that Marty’s tooth is starting to hurt. Or maybe that’s just his swollen sinuses pushing at his gums, who knows. Kent’s face is red from trying to keep his giggling at bay. “We’re gonna get kicked out,” Kent protests. “No one else in store,” Tater says happily, nipping at Kent’s collar and blowing raspberries. “Tell me I have good taste and I let you go.” Marty leaves them be. He wonders if they plan their late night shopping trips on purpose, because then Kent can slip his hands in the back of Tater’s jean pockets without worrying, and Tater can kiss Kent on his freckles down to his lips in front of rows and rows of pasta sauce and keep Kent to himself for a little while longer. With a quiet sniffle, Marty heads to the self-check out lane. Kent Parson is a good kid, he knows. They’ll be alright. 

[haley2017-scstudyabroad]

Some Final Notes from Home

Well, I’ve been back for almost a week now and already everything’s about the same. Well, I’m still constantly excited for all the foods I’ve missed and on the other side of things I’m terribly, terribly out of shape, but even those things will be back to normal soon, hopefully.

Being back is great. It was so nice to spend Christmas with my family and I’m excited to move back to college soon with my friends. Since I only got back on the 23rd, winter break is a lot shorter this year, but there’s still enough time to relax and get my life back in order. So far there is no “reverse culture shock,” except for, of course, missing Russia and Russian culture and missing all my people. But I missed America too and falling back into place here has been easy. I was never really even jet lagged. That being said, it’s barely been a week, and maybe some things will hit later, but I doubt it.

Flying home was a doozy. To be honest, flying by myself in general kind of freaks me out. Customs and security are always intimidating. The airports in every country have their own rules and systems. The woman at Frankfurt security dumped out my whole cosmetics bag into a bin because for Germany I needed to put my liquids in a plastic bag, which was fairly annoying. But, per usual, it wasn’t terrible, just long and a lot. I left St. Petersburg at 6 in the morning, had about a three hour flight to Frankfurt, about a three hour layover, eight hour flight to Toronto, about a three hour layover, and then another short flight later on the tiniest plane in the world and I was with my parents at the airport in Charlotte, finally able to relax. I definitely recommend having sizeable layovers when flying so you don’t have to be stressed out going through customs and security and finding your terminal in time to board your flight. My layovers could be kind of annoying, but I was never worried I wasn’t going to make it onto the next flight toward home, which is really the most important thing. In the end, I’m happy to say both my baggage and I made it safely back to South Carolina.

Now that I’m back, I think I have two goals for the future related to my time abroad, both of which I need to get on top of. 1) I want to go ahead and start planning my next trip to Russia. Probably that trip will happen at minimum two years from now, but I want to go ahead and start planning and start saving. I’m going to go see Lake Baikal in Irkutsk, and hopefully take the Trans-Siberian Railway there. Maybe only the railway if a friend comes along. I’m not sure I could be on a train for a few days with only strangers, but we’ll see how planning goes. Lake Baikal is the only place I really really wanted to go during my time abroad that I couldn’t make work, so now it’s my main goal in going back. Maybe I’ll go with a program again that arranges some kind of study there. Maybe I’ll go by myself. But I’m going to start planning and saving money now to make sure I go and that dream doesn’t just fade into the background. My other goal is to please please please keep up my Russian. Sure, I’ll start back with classes once the new semester begins, but compared to living in Russia, having to often have full conversations in Russian, that’s not gonna cut it. Thankfully, the Russian department at USC usually has some good opportunities to practice speaking Russian. Meanwhile, my plan is to convert all the notes I took while abroad into something legible and study-able. There was lots of grammar I was made aware of, but didn’t fully figure out how to use. I’m going to better study all of that. I’m going to practice reading the texts we went over. We were given a lot of material in Russian class in St. Petersburg and we moved fast and there wasn’t really testing so a lot of times it was hard to fully understand or commit things to memory. But I have all the materials and a better chance to do that now. Of course, this is all just a goal. Once classes start I’ll be totally swamped, but maybe if I start these studying practices over break I’ll be able to keep going. Losing your language skills by not practicing is ridiculously easy and for someone who still doesn’t know a ton, I’ve gained so much. I really don’t want to let it go.

Maybe it’s just the new year talking, but I’m really excited about the future right now. I feel fresh. I’m excited about most of my classes. I’m excited to see my friends. I have my full wardrobe and hair styling capabilities back and I don’t have to wear a hat and a giant parka all the time anymore. The sun is out and I feel happy and relaxed and confident about starting my next semester because the world is a cool, interesting place to enjoy yourself and have experiences and I can handle it. To be clear, I am not saying I feel any of these feelings unaccompanied by large doses of doubt and fear that something is going to go wrong or about my daunting and imminent future graduating from college and entering the “real world.” But at the same time, I am excited. I’m gonna try and have fun with it. Everyday abroad is so cool and exciting, but I live in a beautiful place with lots of great people and lots of cool things to see, so why can’t it be that way at home too? Yeah I’m scared that in a month everything will revert to being just like it was when I left, but I have control over that and right now I’m excited.

So have a good time abroad, kiddies. Enjoy yourself and don’t wait until the day before your flight home to buy souvenirs for all your friends and family and back up all the pictures on your phone!!! It’s a beautiful world out there and there’s a beautiful one back here waiting for you, too.

C любовью from me and St. P,

Haley

[dukessahouston]

Dukessa Houston

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[deruste]

chapter 5 mira

I wouldn’t trade this sleep for anything in the world right now. It’s what I’m wishing I could be saying right now. No matter how many times I close my eyes the only thing I see is the giant wave swallowing New York and all those people dying right in front of me, the screams echoing in my ears. I was not complaining though because Amber began to talk my ear off about what she saw since we were saved.

“So after we went through that portal Kulen, that green guy had you rushed to this place.” As Amber was talking I started toward the door, seeing the faint outline of two figures with two sets of arms and the different skin between them. Least I know this place keeps its surprise even after the first time its hosts them on you. “You alright?” she sat at the left side of the hospice bed as I was lying down with the feeling that we shouldn’t be here.

“Just a little discombobulated that’s all, I mean with every that’s happened I surprised I’m not insane at this point.” She turned her head towards the single window the empty room had. The room was nice enough very make sure the patient is calm at all times kind of feeling but still, it could be worse for something described as a military complex, besides hard to complain about getting the room with a window facing the ocean. The moon was blocked out by some clouds but there was still some light billowing out of it. “Amber?”

“Yes.” she jerked her head to face me again, It looked like her hair color was slowly washing away losing the red coloring revealing some brown patches.

“Why do you care about me? I mean nothing about it, your company is welcomed but still, we only know each other for four days and I barely know anything about you.” She took exception to that and faced me dead in the eyes.

“Well, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t worry about someone well-being besides you are going through a lot right now and it would be a dick move to go away right now. You talked with a god and made a deal with it, we are caught in the middle of a war against an empire that I never even heard about. It best if we stay together especially since….” She goes silent for a few second and then tries to reinforce a smile.

  “Hm Hm.” We turned to face the door and saw that Damien and Alex had returned with as many bags they can carry of assorted items. Alex picked out a something wrapped in warm clothes and tossed it to Amber. “We found a deli that sells meat that we can eat and some vegetables they had in a farmers market.” Amber unwrap the cloth and inside was a ham sandwich in-between two pieces of bread that I felt was warm even if it wasn’t near me. Alex tossed one to me and Damien and put his hand in the bag again. “I have some spread here if anyone wants some.”

“No thanks, I’m not getting near any of your spreads again after the last time.” Damien shifted uncomfortably and started to move a large bag overflowing with cloth, fabric, wool. He was not exactly what you called very strong and one of the guys at the door actually turned around to pick it up for him. “I had it.” He grumbled.

“What’s with the bags filled with random crap. Why are there books with weird ass symbols in this one?” Amber started too looked into a red bag filled with old antiques pulling out more old items.

“Those are mine actually; I had the lads gather some material for a project.” An echoed voice came from behind Alex who immediately moved out of the way for him or it; I can’t really tell Duran’s voice sounds very neutral. The statue person called Duran walked past Alex and grabbed the items Amber picked out. “I would appreciate it if you do not damage these artifacts. Most of them are very old and more importantly very potent, break them and you might risk us being consumed in arcane fire.” Amber nearly dropped the books in her hand and packed them back into the red bag. “I also have some news on that I would like to share with all with all of you. Alone preferably.” Duran turned to the figures behind him with his (just going to give him that moniker to keep things simple) blank expression but neither moved from position. I think one even stuck his tongue at him. He ignored them though and proceeded to tell about his arrangement with his old comrade I guess, from the way he talked about them they sounded like old friends that scorned him. “They agreed to be you’re…. Indentured servants.” There was a second of pause till it seemed to sink in what the term meant.

“Wait who told you we wanted them as slaves, we don’t want any more part of this.” Amber was the first to react and understandably very angrily.

“Why even slaves, what they committed was a war crime right? Spying for the enemy. Shouldn’t they be in some kind of court?” I pause to think of Damien words, maybe Kulen pulled some strings but still it does seem ridicules. What even passed through Duran head that gave him the idea we want them, servants, the crazed bastards tried to kill us why would we want them serving tea for us.

“The Kollestian court won’t intervene because they believe this to be human matter. The legion is only keeping them locked up because it was their job to hide magic from humans but recent events have left things up in the air for awhile for them. It’s also an old law, a thousand years old to be exact and the legion deemed them to valuable to kill but have need of the prison so this… was arranged.” He kept himself in some kind of motion as he talked; swaying back and forth, swing his arms, and messing with his sharp fingers. He waddled to the window and stared out into the night sky. “You also have to leave soon.”

“Wait for what now?” Damien walked up to him and tried to get on his tiptoe to match the stone Bluto’s 7ft stature. “First you tell us that you are giving us dangerous monster as “servants” now you’re telling us that were about to be booted out of this city for no good reason.” Duran turned and put his blank face a few inches away from Damien’s face. He started to falter on his stance, sinking into own clothes like a turtle retracting its head.

“First little human I’m being evicted as well so don’t aggravate you new traveling companion. Second I’m pretty sure if they're left alone they’ll find a way to get out and knowing them personally, they would have a track you all down for cold blood. Third I want them under constant watch, My Watch and by extension yours, so they can’t do anything harmful. I’m not trying to get you killed; I’m here to help just let me do that.” Damien started to settle down after getting calmer.

“So when are they evicting us?” Damien does not know to quit while he is ahead.

“In two weeks if everything goes smoothly but they don’t know where to send all the refugees?”

“Hey, Duran quick pro queue Where are we exactly South America, Asia, Europe,” Alex interjected.

“We are not on earth.” Duran went back to the window and put both hands on the frame of it, leaning intently on it. Then a slow clap was heard as rhythmic as gears of a clock with the sound of a fancy loafer on a wooden floor.

“Aw fan-friggin-tastic, What’s next Amber a goddess, Alex is the king of France, Mira given birth to Satan mixed with Tim curry and Ian McClellan is the father.” Oh god, I think he snapped “It seems everything I think we reached the pinnacle of madness it turns out it grows fifteen feet tall every time we get close to it.”

“If he’s done melting down into a mush of insanity, the world we currently on is called Vanaheim a world inhabited by gods worshiped by the people you call Vikings.” The name rang several bells in my head. When I was younger (and to a smaller extent now) I read a lot of kiddy versions of old myths and remember being in my mother’s old library reading the old stories. I think I remember there are many stories of different cultures saying their other worlds outside of the normal one and I’m on one right now arguing with a statue. Damien is right this is near the pinnacle.    

“Oh, that puts the icing on the cake. This is a home for Norse gods in another plane of existence. Is there anything else you want to drop on us before I say screw it and jump out that window!?” Damien just needs a cuckoo-clock to complete his act. I only knew Damien for less than a week but from what I have seen of him so far he is very quick to jump the gun even on a living statue.    

“I’m going to save that for tomorrow seeing as you are so agitated right now. Tal-no, the warrior in the golden armor will show you three to your rooms.” A shiny figure was standing in the door in heavy armor waiting for them.

“See you tomorrow I guess, Good night Mira,” Alex said dragging Damien by the arm as he was staring down Duran.

“Hope you sleep well, I’m going to sleep like a dead log.” Amber followed them down out of the room and there was no else but me and Duran. Well, this will be a healthy dose of awkward.

“Soooo um, how long have you know them.” I see he’s the one asking questions now.

“Four days, five if you count today.”

“And yet they want to stay by your side trough all this. Don’t squander that loyalty like that is extremely rare for all People, not just humans.” He paused himself abruptly looking down from the window. “You seemed not to be very surprised or confused when I said where we were.”

“I know a little bit of mythology, I know it was the home to some wisdom and fertility gods.”

“Is, you mean to say is.”

“Riiiiight is, sorry still adjusting to the whole gods are a real thing.” He picked out a chair and took a seat right next to the bed.

“You’re not alone on that front, For most of my life, I had believed that the gods of my homeland had a plan for all creatures under the empire. That has been smashed like fine china by the actions of the empire of late. I will not believe this war of extinction was not what they wanted for your kind.” He had his hands buried in his hands as he spoke but his voice retained its strange unnaturally calm sound, guess it kept it demeanor even when its owner falters instance. “But you don’t want to just to listen to my problems of faith; we need to discuss some things in the morning I will be here taking guard for tonight.”

“Uhh, not to ungrateful but why do you need to watch me as I sleep?” He pulled his head from his hands and shifted uncomfortably for a little bit.

“I rather not take chances that there are any deserters on this side of the war especially with all the rumors I’ve been hearing.”

“What rumors?”

“There are talks about some groups that think it would be better for the humans to be wiped out and others that believe that can make deal with Shinnu-yah to be allies. There have been sightings of anti-human groups circling the places they set up refugees. Gods know what they plan to do with them.”

“So every magical creature hates humanity, great just great. Guess those myths were based on more fact than I realized. So your people were what staying underground, another dimension all this time and chose the time we have weapons that wipe out cities to attack.”

“He he he that’s the council, in a nutshell, they won’t deal with something till they believe it poses a threat of wiping else out or if it ruffles the puffy coats of the Augers. I couldn’t tell you the reason why we never interacted with your kind but to be frank we did know about you in a vague sense. We have myths about ancient humans being easily mystified by our ancestors, tricked into giving valuable items or resources. When I was undercover I found the only closet thing was a place called Atlantis or something to that same structure.”

“Wait you guys are Atlantians, Damien right there is just too much of this shit to deal with.” He turned his head in an inquisitive manner towards the end of my words.

“Why would anyone deal with excrement, this is a serious manner Mira and you might be the only thing that stands between your friends and death. If I know my countrymen they won’t stop till every land that could challenge them is no longer exists and trust me when I say they could succeed in this.” Duran everybody a ray of the sunshine for any occasion available for parties and stand ups for all kinds. I think Duran might exaggerate a bit here and there, I mean it’s not like they actually think they can take over the world. Besides, if I in another world even if I can’t stay in Kollesta maybe it would be better to go with other refugees.  “You don’t have to plan everything out now and you need your rest. Just go to bed and I’ll see you in the morning.” I am pretty tired, some rest isn’t going to kill me but I have reserves for having a statue look over me while I sleep.

“Fine ill go to sleep.” I pull the sheets over to my neck and close my eyes read too slowly to fall to sleep. “So I’m going to take a guess that you don’t need to sleep, eat or drink right.”

“Wanted to add something else to the “shit that I have to deal with” list?”

“Just wanted to sure you’re not some guys in a suit waiting?” He got up from the chair.

“Waiting for what?”

“Well for aaa aaa, to aaa aaa to, you know with the birds and the bees.” He crossed his arms while lying against a corner of the room.

“Do human thought always go towards sex, I thought it was only the male of the gender that do that.”

“Shut up and let me go to bed.” I actually got some sleep this time around; guess maybe Duran staying guard comes with some security. Anyway, it was a strange dream, to say the least, me going to my old school in with everyone fawning over me. I was wearing the most beautiful dress made from rare silk and heel that made a foot taller, I don’t even like this crap but everyone want was screaming where she got that dress and those shoes. Every girl wishing they could be me or trying to find a single flaw while trying to apply to achieve the beauty I had with no makeup with dumping it into their very eye sockets. every guy going slacked gnaw or swooning over me. I got to my first class and when I sat down everyone wanted was asking to their heart content how I was so beautiful and smart but then the teacher came in. I never had this kind of dream before, I usually just have a dream that I’m at my old home in Chicago. Hardy har har I’m boring in that way all right.  

“Hello students, Mrs. Munoz had to stay home since her home fell on her during the conflict on the east coast.” The teacher was exactly like one of those guys that me and my friends at our throats. He or she (like Duran it had a gender neutral voice like a Macintosh) was wearing a frumpy old styled suit like on pictures of the great depression that seemed to fit it like a second skin if it had skin, to begin with. It had a hood that was inscribed with different symbol wrapping around the head with its only feature blank blue eyes glowing brighter than the rest of the body. In Its hands there were strange items; in one there was what looked like a golden cylinder with both ends with three throngs crafted to be dragons of Asian origin. The other hand had what looked like a strange staff with a curved edge made out of red metal while the rest looked ivory bathed in transparent metal that was given away with its sheen. “She tried to carry out her baby out of her burning home but was pinned under a support beam and only ending up crushing the life out of it as she was by the beam. My, how life likes to play out, isn’t that right Ms. Atherton. One minute you thought you were safe but then wham you get backhanded by something you shouldn’t interfere with or should I say Zelnam. Betrayer of the pantheon and renowned rabble rouser, I know who you really are. You think I wouldn’t kill a human whelp to get to you, you primordial coward.” The frumpy suit became a metal suit and the genderless being of light became like that dragon guy that had Alex at sword point with horns pointed up like a bull, straight forward with tremendous girth but when I looked at the newly appeared breastplate and noticed two things that were not there before.

“You’re a she.” She (I guess should be saying) was wearing the armor of the love child of a Greek soldier and a Mongol with the plumage helmet somehow accompanying the horns and greaves on her clawed feet but the shoulder pads, breastplate, gauntlets seemed to have been ripped off a medieval Asian warrior maybe a samurai. To top it off though there was a flag pole coming off her back, kind of ridiculous but yet bad-ass in the yeah I know you see it but it just a warning before I rip out your freaking throat and eat it in front of your comrades. The classroom started to twisted and malformed itself into a lost circle of hell, the circle of endless high school extra satanic edition. The classmates who were fawning me were now being contorted into a horrible monster, one boy sitting right next to me was turned into a crazed werewolf with his jaw and right arm fallen off. A girl on the other side began decaying and her flesh slowly fell off as her bones became more and more visible. A shorter boy behind on was falling apart like pottery with bright light coming out of the holes in his falling skin as he screamed in pain.

“You act the fool Zelnam? You don’t recognize your fellow god, Fornet. The patron of glory won in war and expansion of the empire.” She looked like a dragon had sex with an Amazon. She was taller than Duran whose freaking 7ft tall. Her head looked like it like it was a part of her helmet and her armor while looking like it was a part of her skin. Her eyes looked like that of cobra steadily her cowering prey. Most of the people in the room who were contorted are now lying on the floor twisted beyond repair all screaming in unison in pain for some to put them out of their misery. The girl with the decaying flesh grabbed my leg looking dead at me with her sunken in eyes slowly rotting into her skull. Not pretty.    

“I’m not him; I’m Mira I don’t even know who you are. Please, I didn’t do anything to deserve this.” The room started to change, dissolving into a particle of light going upwards into a starry night sky. The people around me were then highlighted by pillars of light and ghostly images of what they came out of them dissolving into the beautiful cosmos above my then I saw that I was on a spiraling tower above the earth.

“I knew it; this is his home the tower of Azira, the home of that bastard. You’re nothing more than one of his tricks.” A swirling mass of light came in between as she drew the staff to strike me slowly compacting into a humanoid figure.  

“And you’re nothing more than the brat of my bloodthirsty brother who’s only brought out of his waste of a realm to be one to take the blame when something’s goes wrong. Oh, and you're still milking what little savagery is still left in the Draconic’s.” He was not in the last form I saw him in he was if strip the flesh of a human and a there was just light in the shape of a person. He stood in front of the dragon Amazon thing and her spear which fun fact was burning with green fire that had the faces of people screaming inside it, so yah glad I’m not in front of that.

“You still kicking around you the excuse of divine blood. How is your pet project doing oh that’s right, there being slowly killed off by everything that has the sense to rid themselves of these parasites? And what is she suppose to be, leader of your human cult, toke a page out of the perverse Olympians and it’s your half-blood child or is it your incubator for them? You never help anyone unless you get something out of it. Call the pantheon conquest what you like we are continuing the reason exists, to spread stability if the world wants it or not. You once believed that you help us build it from scratch.”

“And you are pulling it to the ground and destroying what was going to be a promising society. You and the rest of the pantheon are destroying millennia of my work and are going to cause a war where no one will come out alive.” She was trying to circle around him to reach me but he raised his hand and she was push back by a small explosion. “You can’t stand against a primordial being, no matter how much of your own grandeur you believe. Be gone from my lands unless you want to face the full extent of my ability’s.”

“The pantheon will not stop its plans, it will bring give Albadon the golden age it deserves with or without your help.” The demented goddess turned into fiery smoke that had endless screaming coming out of it swirling towards a hole in the sky.

“So how was the dream I had sent to you.” I started to pinch my nose. Is he serious about this?

“Well, I don't think like a girl from the fifty's for one." He turned to face the earth and he seemed to change? I don't know how to explain it but he seemed to be to be multiple people at once fade ding into one another.

"Well, the last mortal I talked to was a time when Rome had just absorbed Greece then just blank for...?" He started to trail off and I start to try and guess how long ago that would be.

"Wait, when Rome absorbed Greece? Those are ancient civilizations. Just How old are you?" He turned to face me with the kind of look that I would associate with the look you would give someone for being unbelievably stupid.

"I thought that the Natum would tell you what I am at this point or you would be as intuitive as that friend of yours.”

“Wait what’s a Natum?”

“The stone one you call Duran and more importantly I’m one of his gods.”

“Whoa I’ve been forced to swallow a lot of things in the last two day but you being a god is something I’m going to lie down and believe.” His eyes swirling place began to glow bright purple and he began exerting a certain pressure like how you feel when being dropped by rollercoaster or any other state of freefall. He then began dissolving into a dark blue smoke that enveloped me within second in a small typhoon.

“YOU DEINE ME, THE ONE WHO STOP YOUR SOUL FROM GOING INTO THE ABYSS, THE ONE WITH ONLY WAY TO FIND WHAT LITTLE FAMILLY YOU HAVE!” The Typhoons wind was very powerful, nearly lifted me up into the air and forcing my eyes to close shut. “I, WHO STOP MY OWN PANTHEON FROM ENSLAVING YOUR RACE IN ITS INFANCY. I, WHO GAVE MAGIC TO MAN, HOW DARE YOU BRING DOUBT TO MY DIVINITY.” As the winds rushed all around me getting more intense by the minute I remember the first thing he shouted.

“You know where my mom is, tell me now or I won’t agree to your deal.”The winds only got more intense, my guess is that he didn’t like that retort.

“YOU DARE SPIT IN THE FACE OF MY GENEROUS OFFER; YOU NEED ME GIRL MORE THAN I NEED YOU. MY PANTHEON WILL HUNT DOWN ALL THOSE ASSOCIATED WITH ME WILLING OR NONE. YOU WANT TO LIVE, YOU WILL HAVE NEED OF MY POWER WHETHER I FULLY GIVE YOU IT OR NOT.” Strangely though the winds start to get calmer and the smoke gathered away from me. I open my eyes and see that he became a glowing woman, oooh kay. Let the madness proceed “But I am gracious you will keep my gift and to answer your question.” We seemed to move without moving. Now hang on I’ll explain. The setting around us was shifting like a power point slide. I wipe my eyes to help them recover from the wind barrage they took but when I manage to open them up again I saw a familiar sight.

“Bar the windows and put those desks in front of the main the door!” Here was a perplexing sight, a large group locking themselves into a library.

“Huh, this is both hysterical and demented to see.” I saw that I was in that translucent form again and was further shown with how the people saw right through me. Zelnam was still a woman but still had that shifting image appearance again but with the hard image of a woman this time around. We were in the middle of the old library in Celestine, wait if I’m here.

“Get behind me.”  A woman with red-rimmed glass, black business attire, hoop earrings, and flat shoes came in front of every else with an iron staff.  The staff was very ornate with a large red crystal at the top end of it growing brighter and brighter. Mom? Why is my mom holding a staff and telling everyone to get behind her?

“Ahhh one of Hecate’s brood. You are lucky to have her as a parent. Oh yes, this will make a good first lesson.”

“Wait what lesson, help them you demented bastard.” He turned his toward me and gave me the same “you’re such an imbecile” look.

“One I don’t have a gender; the arcane is a force that does not ask for species or gender or status in life, it merely asks for your nurture to blossom it. If I intervene my pantheon will know where I am and I don’t believe that I can defeat them all. You must also learn to use that gift I gave you, A gift wasted is worse than a gift used for ill.” He started to look around the library while phasing trough the scared crowd. “Tell me, why I can’t hear the sound of the spirits singing of dance and shamans but now of regret? What is…?” He stopped in front of a bookshelf labeled American history and he picked out a book in the middle of the shelf and stared at the cover of it. The cover had a picture of a group of Native American being slaughtered by American soldiers. “Sometimes you humans make it hard to praise your nature when damning evidence like this is in the fold.” He just stared at it and it began to burst into purple flame. “I want you to go to that group and raise your hand towards the barred door.”

“Why?” he turned to me again but… he had a glare that was so intense his female body burned around his eyes slowly peeling away to reveal the skeleton of light again burning this time around with more of that purple flame.

“You’re questioning me?”

“Nope I’m just going to stand over by this group but please put that fire away please didn’t you say something about them finding a minute ago.” I tried to keep my composure but the look of his eyes had seemed empty save for two dots of purple light. I obliged as the scary demon stared me down with precision and I passed through all the people body’s to get to the door. I’m kind of used to the cold feeling I get when I walk through someone which scared me more than the fact I had such a gift.

“Get away from the barricade. The monsters are breaking through.”

“They got Charlie!” I was standing right next to mom who didn’t even seem to notice me. Zelnam had come closer, still stripped of his flesh and burning on top a bookcase. The mass of people was in a small pit that was for story time for the kindergarten kids filled with cowering adults and some small children. It looked like we were in the main hall since I saw the main desk and that the door that was barricaded was the main entrance. The entrance was blocked with several of the books shelves.

“I want you to focus, take a breath and calm yourself, clear your mind of nothing but the door. Focus on the energy you feel around you.” I take a breath and try to calm myself as I hear a pounding on the door getting louder and louder as the crowd tries to huddle for safety but I felt something more when I had only thoughts on the problem on hand. I felt strings around me being pulled in different directions by her very breath a lot them gather near my mother and Zelnam. “Good, you see the string of arcane power. Now constrict them to cause tension. Clench your fist and think of wool being crushed in your fist. Don’t release until I say so.” I oblige and try to imagination such a thing. I felt energy gather at my clenching fist and heat building within it; I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of glee as the energy gathered around my fist. “Now wait till you see the silver of their coats.”

“Wait for silver coats?”

“ARRRROOOOOOWWW!” The door began to break down further and further and the howling became more intense.

“Looks like the lands demand recompense for what has been committed on these grounds. It’s the only reason they’re around.”

“Who are they?” He ignored me and kept his eye on the door and my hand started to burn with … what was it? he said. Arcane power!  Whatever it was it felt like a grenade that was ready to burst at my command.

“THEY’RE THROUGH.”The bookcases that were blocking the door were blown apart as horrible monsters were now revealed.

“WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS?” The monsters the people were running from looked like a mutated coyote on steroids. They walked on their hind legs and had exposed patches of skin where its bones are visible.

“ Wendigo, this continent's equivalent of the werewolf. They are created when a tribesman eats one of his own where there is a lot of magic of a negative persuasion. Don’t worry they burn like dried sticks. Now repeat what I say. Ku sai!” He pointed to the middle of the wendigos coming right toward my mother with his ribcage exposed rib.

“Ku sai!” An orb of purple energy went out of my hand and tore the monster to pieces. My mom had a look of confusion as the wendigos started to inch away from their fallen pack member. She looked around her trying to find the translucent source of the magic.

“The hell? You all told me none of you knew magic.” The crowd looked to my mother with horror. “Alright take this. Throw it into the air and say wocha and go through it, I’ll hold them off.” A man with something metallic in his hand was rushing to the front of the rest of them. He had short hair and a beard that went to his ear. He was wearing a cop uniform with what I now saw was a pistol in his hand.

“I’m not leaving you here alone against those monsters, I swore to serve and protect the people and you know what going on. They will need you more than a cop who doesn’t what kind of shit is currently hitting the fan.” My mom seemed to pause a moment and looked at the monster who seemed to regained their instincts and were belly crawling to their prey.

“Your son is on the other side of that portal and those bullets won’t do any to them. Just go Ramon.” The man took a look at the monster and seemed to relent.

“Fine, give me the crystal and I promise to try to get people to rescue you later.” My mother started to laugh.

“Trust me, Ramon, if they cared to interfere we would be ass-deep in globins trying to rounded how much money to extort out of you.” He gave confused look and held out his hand and my mom tossed a symmetrical stone engraved in pentagrams.

“Come on you heard the woman go to the far end and stay away from the windows.” Everyone started to go the other way of the windigos.

“You can’t do anything to help them?”

“Unless you want to draw her attention again, no. but I’ll give your mother my blessing for the time being and watch her movements from afar. I’ll tell you if anything”

“Can’t I help her in some way or at least talk to her?” He looked at my mother for a bit and nodded.

“Instead of causing tension to the strings now mold into a wall. It will probably drain you dry but it will give you a minute to speak to your mother. Oh yeah if you pass out I'll send your soul pack to your body again. Hope their healers are good.”

“Tal vina!” I ignored his warning and refocus the string clenched in my hand forming a strong fence around the monsters. A barricade of see trough pillars surrounded them reaching up to the ceiling as I felt weak around my legs and I caught myself before I hit the ground. I saw my mother raise her staff and energy gather around the top tip of it. It glowed dark blue like a starry sky.

“Ridan, reveal yourself you … Mira!” She stared at me as I clenched my side in pain, the spell she used ripped through me like if the pins and needles feeling was replaced with a chainsaw kind of feeling. “Mira! Why is your spirit here, how did you do that? No just tell where are you, I’ll find a way to get there as soon as I can, you hear me, sweetie.” My mother was over my spirit with near tears in her eyes for me. I try to put my hand on her shoulder but it just went through her as did she attempts to hug and hold me.

“Creeeerrrakkk.” A crackling of sounded of teeth breaking against stone was audible behind mom. The barrier I set in place was falling apart as the monsters clawed their way out of it.

“Gods of ages, dear the spell nearly killed you. You must get back to your body or your spirit will fade.”

“*cough* Mom I’m at Kollesta, I can get people to get you or run over to those people you gave that stone, just get out of there, please. Theirs these monsters called Shinnu-yah coming this way; just make a way out or something like you always does.” She looked towards the crumbling barrier, stood firm and slammed her staff on the ground where a ring of fire began writing runes around her.

“Windogos don’t spread like this if I don’t do anything it will go out from this city to the others like a virus. I get there sweetie and trust me, I eluded magical disasters for most of my life. Just stay safe Mira you know that I love you.” She raised her hand and I tried to pick myself up to put it opposite to hers. “To sono.” A light was surrounding me and I saw that from my bottom half that I was disappearing.

“No please you’ll die here.” She just stood there with a smirk on her face as the barrier complete broke and her ring of fire shot ball after ball of fire at the wendigos.

“Have more faith in your mother; just stay safe so I can get to you soon. I promise.” Dad also promised that as he choked on smog, please don’t die. I felt the familiar sense of drowning as my vision was blackened and the power I felt faded away to nothing. I was an adrift ounce more in an abyss of darkness.

“Mira!Mira!” Duran?

[deruste]

Mira 2 chapter 5

I wouldn’t trade this sleep for anything in the world right now. It’s what I’m wishing I could be saying right now. No matter how many times I close my eyes the only thing I see is the giant wave swallowing New York and all those people dying right in front of me, the screams echoing in my ears. I was not complaining though because Amber began to talk my ear off about what she saw since we were saved.

“So after we went through that portal Kulen, that green guy had you rushed to this place.” As Amber was talking I started toward the door, seeing the faint outline of two figures with two sets of arms and the different skin between them. Least I know this place keeps its surprise even after the first time its hosts them on you. “You alright?” she sat at the left side of the hospice bed as I was lying down with the feeling that we shouldn’t be here.

“Just a little discombobulated that’s all, I mean with every that’s happened I surprised I’m not insane at this point.” She turned her head towards the single window the empty room had. The room was nice enough very make sure the patient is calm at all times kind of feeling but still it could be worse for something described as a military complex, besides hard to complain about getting the room with a window facing the ocean. The moon was blocked out by some clouds but there was still some light billowing out of it. “Amber?”

“Yes.” she jerked her head to face me again, It looked like her hair color was slowly washing away losing the red coloring revealing some brown patches.

“Why do you care about me? I mean nothing about it, your company is welcomed but still we only know each other for four days and I barely know anything about you.” She took exception to that and faced me dead in the eyes.

“Well, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t worry about someone well-being besides you are going through a lot right now and it would be a dick move to go away right now. You talked with a god and made a deal with it, we are caught in the middle of a war against an empire that I never even heard about. It best if we stay together especially since….” She goes silent for a few second and then tries to reinforce a smile.

  “Hm Hm.” We turned to face the door and saw that Damien and Alex had returned with as many bags they can carry of assorted items. Alex picked out a something wrapped in warm clothes and tossed it to Amber. “We found a deli that sells meat that we can eat and some vegetables they had in a farmers market.” Amber unwrap the cloth and inside was a ham sandwich in-between two pieces of bread that I felt was warm even if it wasn’t near me. Alex tossed one to me and Damien and put his hand in the bag again. “I have some spread here if anyone wants some.”

“No thanks, I’m not getting near any of your spreads again after the last time.” Damien shifted uncomfortably and started to move a large bag overflowing with cloth, fabric, wool. He was not exactly what you called very strong and one of the guys at the door actually turned around to pick it up for him. “I had it.” He grumbled.

“What’s with the bags filled with random crap. Why are there books with weird ass symbols in this one?” Amber started too looked into a red bag filled with old antiques pulling out more old items.

“Those are mine actually; I had the lads gather some material for a project.” An echoed voice came from behind Alex who immediately moved out of the way for him or it; I can’t really tell Duran’s voice sounds very neutral. The statue person called Duran walked past Alex and grabbed the items Amber picked out. “I would appreciate it if you do not damage these artifacts. Most of them are very old and more importantly very potent, break them and you might risk us being consumed in arcane fire.” Amber nearly dropped the books in her hand and packed them back into the red bag. “I also have some news on that I would like to share with all with all of you. Alone preferably.” Duran turned to the figures behind him with his (just going to give him that moniker to keep things simple) blank expression but neither moved from position. I think one even stuck his tongue at him. He ignored them though and proceeded to tell about his arrangement with his old comrade I guess, from the way he talked about them they sounded like old friends that scorned him. “They agreed to be you’re…. Indentured servants.” There was a second of pause till it seemed to sink in what the term meant.

“Wait who told you we wanted them as slaves, we don’t want any more part of this.” Amber was the first to react and understandably very angrily.

“Why even slaves, what they committed was a war crime right? Spying for the enemy. Shouldn’t they be in some kind of court?” I pause to think of Damien words, maybe Kulen pulled some strings but still it does seem ridicules. What even passed through Duran head that gave him the idea we want them servants, the crazed bastards tried to kill us why would we want them serving tea for us.

“The Kollestian court won’t intervene because they believe this to be human matter. The legion is only keeping them locked up because it was their job to hide magic from humans but recent events have left things up in the air for awhile for them. It’s also an old law, a thousand years old to be exact and the legion deemed them to valuable to kill but have need of the prison so this… was arranged.” He kept himself in some kind of motion as he talked; swaying back and forth, swing his arms, and messing with his sharp fingers. He waddled to the window and stared out into the night sky. “You also have to leave soon.”

“Wait what now?” Damien walked up to him and tried to get on his tiptoe to match the stone Bluto’s 7ft stature. “First you tell us that you are giving us dangerous monster as “servants” now you’re telling us that were about to be booted out of this city for no good reason.” Duran turned and put his blank face a few inches away from Damien’s face. He started to falter on his stance, sinking into own clothes like a turtle retracting its head.

“First little human I’m being evicted as well so don’t aggravate you new traveling companion. Second I’m pretty sure if they're left alone they’ll find a way to get out and knowing them personally, they would have a track you all down for cold blood. Third I want them under constant watch, My Watch and by extension yours so they can’t do anything harmful. I’m not trying to get you killed; I’m here to help just let me do that.” Damien started to settle down after getting calmer.

“So when are they evicting us?” Damien does not know to quit while he is ahead.

“In two weeks if everything goes smoothly but they don’t know where to send all the refugees?”

“Hey, Duran quick pro queue Where are we exactly South America, Asia, Europe,” Alex interjected.

“We are not on earth.” Duran went back to the window and put both hands on the frame of it, leaning intently on it. Then a slow clap was heard as rhythmic as gears of a clock with the sound of a fancy loafer on a wooden floor.

“Aw fan-friggin-tastic, What’s next Amber a goddess, Alex is the king of France, Mira given birth to Satan mixed with Tim curry and Ian McClellan is the father.” Oh god, I think he snapped “It seems everything I think we reached the pinnacle of madness it turns out it grows fifteen feet tall every time we get close to it.”

“If he’s done melting down into a mush of insanity, the world we currently on is called Vanaheim a world inhabited by gods worshiped by the people you call Vikings.” The name rang several bells in my head. When I was younger (and to a smaller extent now) I read a lot of kiddy versions of old myths and remember being in my mother’s old library reading the old stories. I think I remember there are many stories of different cultures saying their other worlds outside of the normal one and I’m on one right now arguing with a statue. Damien is right this is near the pinnacle.    

“Oh, that puts the icing on the cake. This is a home for Norse gods in another plane of existence. Is there anything else you want to drop on us before I say screw it and jump out that window!?” Damien just needs a cuckoo-clock to complete his act. I only knew Damien for less than a week but from what I have seen of him so far he is very quick to jump the gun even on a living statue.    

“I’m going to save that for tomorrow seeing as you are so agitated right now. Tal-no, the warrior in the golden armor will show you three to your rooms.” A shiny figure was standing in the door in heavy armor waiting for them.

“See you tomorrow I guess, Good night Mira,” Alex said dragging Damien by the arm as he was staring down Duran.

“Hope you sleep well, I’m going to sleep like a dead log.” Amber followed them down out of the room and there was no else but me and Duran. Well, this will be a healthy dose of awkward.

“Soooo um, how long have you know them.” I see he’s the one asking questions now.

“Four days, five if you count today.”

“And yet they want to stay by your side trough all this. Don’t squander that loyalty like that is extremely rare for all People, not just humans.” He paused himself abruptly looking down from the window. “You seemed not to be very surprised or confused when I said where we were.”

“I know a little bit of mythology, I know it was the home to some wisdom and fertility gods.”

“Is, you mean to say is.”

“Riiiiight is, sorry still adjusting to the whole gods are a real thing.” He picked out a chair and took a seat right next to the bed.

“You’re not alone on that front, For most of my life, I had believed that the gods of my homeland had a plan for all creatures under the empire. That has been smashed like fine china by the actions of the empire of late. I will not believe this war of extinction was not what they wanted for your kind.” He had his hands buried in his hands as he spoke but his voice retained its strange unnaturally calm sound, guess it kept it demeanor even when its owner falters instance. “But you don’t want to just to listen to my problems of faith; we need to discuss some things in the morning I will be here taking guard for tonight.”

“Uhh not to ungrateful but why do you need to watch me as I sleep?” He pulled his head from his hands and shifted uncomfortably for a little bit.

“I rather not take chances that there are any deserters on this side of the war especially with all the rumors I’ve been hearing.”

“What rumors?”

“There are talks about some groups that think it would be better for the humans to be wiped out and others that believe that can make deal with Shinnu-yah to be allies. There have been sightings of anti-human groups circling the places they set up refugees. Gods know what they plan to do with them.”

“So every magical creature hates humanity, great just great. Guess those myths were based on more fact than I realized. So your people were what staying underground, another dimension all this time and chose the time we have weapons that wipe out cities to attack.”

“He he he that’s the council, in a nutshell, they won’t deal with something till they believe it poses a threat of wiping else out or if it ruffles the puffy coats of the Augers. I couldn’t tell you the reason why we never interacted with your kind but to be frank we did know about you in a vague sense. We have myths about ancient humans being easily mystified by our ancestors, tricked into giving valuable items or resources. When I was undercover I found the only closet thing was a place called Atlantis or something to that same structure.”

“Wait you guys are Atlantians, Damien right there is just too much of this shit to deal with.” He turned his head in an inquisitive manner towards the end of my words.

“Why would anyone deal with excrement, this is a serious manner Mira and you might be the only thing that stands between your friends and death. If I know my countrymen they won’t stop till every land that could challenge them is no longer exists and trust me when I say they could succeed in this.” Duran everybody a ray of sunshine for any occasion available for parties and stand ups for all kinds. I think Duran might exaggerate a bit here and there, I mean it’s not like they actually think they can take over the world. Besides, if I in another world even if I can’t stay in Kollesta maybe it would be better to go with other refugees.  “You don’t have to plan everything out now and you need your rest. Just go to bed and I’ll see you in the morning.” I am pretty tired, some rest isn’t going to kill me but I have reserves for having a statue look over me while I sleep.

“Fine ill go to sleep.” I pull the sheets over to my neck and close my eyes read too slowly to fall to sleep. “So I’m going to take a guess that you don’t need to sleep, eat or drink right.”

“Wanted to add something else to the “shit that I have to deal with” list?”

“Just wanted to sure you’re not some guys in a suit waiting?” He got up from the chair.

“Waiting for what?”

“Well for aaaaaa, to aaaaaa to, you know with the birds and the bees.” He crossed his arms while lying against a corner of the room.

“Do human thought always go towards sex, I thought it was only the male of the gender that do that.”

“Shut up and let me go to bed.” I actually got some sleep this time around; guess maybe Duran staying guard comes with some security. Anyway, it was a strange dream, to say the least, me going to my old school in with everyone fawning over me. I was wearing the most beautiful dress made from rare silk and heel that made a foot taller, I don’t even like this crap but everyone want was screaming where she got that dress and those shoes. Every girl wishing they could be me or trying to find a single flaw while trying to apply to achieve the beauty I had with no makeup with dumping it into their very eye sockets. every guy going slacked gnaw or swooning over me. I got to my first class and when I sat down everyone wanted was asking to their heart content how I was so beautiful and smart but then the teacher came in. I never had this kind of dream before, I usually just have a dream that I’m at my old home in Chicago. Hardy har har I’m boring in that way all right.  

“Hello students, Mrs. Munoz had to stay home since her home fell on her during the conflict on the east coast.” The teacher was exactly like one of those guys that me and my friends at our throats. He or she (like Duran it had a gender neutral voice like a Macintosh) was wearing a frumpy old styled suit like on pictures of the great depression that seemed to fit it like a second skin if it had skin, to begin with. It had a hood that was inscribed with different symbol wrapping around the head with its only feature blank blue eyes glowing brighter than the rest of the body. In Its hands there were strange items; in one there was what looked like a golden cylinder with both ends with three throngs crafted to be dragons of Asian origin. The other hand had what looked like a strange staff with a curved edge made out of red metal while the rest looked ivory bathed in transparent metal that was given away with its sheen. “She tried to carry out her baby out of her burning home but was pinned under a support beam and only ending up crushing the life out of it as she was by the beam. My, how life likes to play out, isn’t that right Ms. Atherton. One minute you thought you were safe but then wham you get backhanded by something you shouldn’t interfere with or should I say Zelnam. Betrayer of the pantheon and renowned rabble rouser, I know who you really are. You think I wouldn’t kill a human whelp to get to you, you primordial coward.” The frumpy suit became a metal suit and the genderless being of light became like that dragon guy that had Alex at sword point with horns pointed up like a bull, straight forward with tremendous girth but when I looked at the newly appeared breastplate and noticed two things that were not there before.

“You’re a she.” She (I guess should be saying) was wearing the armor of the love child of a Greek soldier and a Mongol with the plumage helmet somehow accompanying the horns and greaves on her clawed feet but the shoulder pads, breastplate, gauntlets seemed to have been ripped off a medieval Asian warrior maybe a samurai. To top it off though there was a flag pole coming off her back, kind of ridiculous but yet bad-ass in the yeah I know you see it but it just a warning before I rip out your freaking throat and eat it in front of your comrades. The classroom started to twisted and malformed itself into a lost circle of hell, the circle of endless high school extra satanic edition. The classmates who were fawning me were now being contorted into a horrible monster, one boy sitting right next to me was turned into a crazed werewolf with his jaw and right arm fallen off. A girl on the other side began decaying and her flesh slowly fell off as her bones became more and more visible. A shorter boy behind on was falling apart like pottery with bright light coming out of the holes in his falling skin as he screamed in pain.

“You act the fool Zelnam? You don’t recognize your fellow god, Fornet. The patron of glory won in war and expansion of the empire.” She looked like a dragon had sex with an Amazon. She was taller than Duran whose freaking 7ft tall. Her head looked like it like it was a part of her helmet and her armor while looking like it was a part of her skin. Her eyes looked like that of cobra steadily her cowering prey. Most of the people in the room who were contorted are now lying on the floor twisted beyond repair all screaming in unison in pain for some to put them out of their misery. The girl with the decaying flesh grabbed my leg looking dead at me with her sunken in eyes slowly rotting into her skull. Not pretty.    

“I’m not him; I’m Mira I don’t even know who you are. Please, I didn’t do anything to deserve this.” The room started to change, dissolving into a particle of light going upwards into a starry night sky. The people around me were then highlighted by pillars of light and ghostly images of what they came out of them dissolving into the beautiful cosmos above my then I saw that I was on a spiraling tower above the earth.

“I knew it; this is his home the tower of Azira, the home of that bastard. You’re nothing more than one of his tricks.” A swirling mass of light came in between as she drew the staff to strike me slowly compacting into a humanoid figure.  

“And you’re nothing more than the brat of my bloodthirsty brother who’s only brought out of his waste of a realm to be one to take the blame when something’s goes wrong. Oh and your still milking what little savagery is still left in the Draconic’s.” He was not in the last form I saw him in he was if strip the flesh of a human and a there was just light in the shape of a person. He stood in front of the dragon Amazon thing and her spear which fun fact was burning with green fire that had the faces of people screaming inside it, so yah glad I’m not in front of that.

“You still kicking around you the excuse of divine blood. How is your pet project doing oh that’s right, there being slowly killed off by everything that has the sense to rid themselves of these parasites? And what is she suppose to be, leader of your human cult, toke a page out of the perverse Olympians and it’s your half-blood child or is it your incubator for them? You never help anyone unless you get something out of it. Call the pantheon conquest what you like we are continuing the reason exists, to spread stability if the world wants it or not. You once believed that you help us build it from scratch.”

“And you are pulling it to the ground and destroying what was going to be a promising society. You and the rest of the pantheon are destroying millennia of my work and are going to cause a war where no one will come out alive.” She was trying to circle around him to reach me but he raised his hand and she was push back by a small explosion. “You can’t stand against a primordial being, no matter how much of your own grandeur you believe. Be gone from my lands unless you want to face the full extent of my ability’s.”

“The pantheon will not stop its plans, it will bring give Albadon the golden age it deserves with or without your help.” The demented goddess turned into fiery smoke that had endless screaming coming out of it swirling towards a hole in the sky.

“So how was the dream I had sent to you.” I started to pinch my nose. Is he serious about this?

“Well, I don't think like a girl from the fifty's for one." He turned to face the earth and he seemed to change? I don't know how to explain it but he seemed to be to be multiple people at once fade ding into one another.

"Well, the last mortal I talked to was a time when Rome had just absorbed Greece then just blank for...?" He started to trail off and I start to try and guess how long ago that would be.

"Wait, when Rome absorbed Greece? Those are ancient civilizations. Just How old are you?" He turned to face me with the kind of look that I would associate with the look you would give someone for being unbelievably stupid.

"I thought that the Natum would tell you what I am at this point or you would be as intuitive as that friend of yours.”

“Wait what’s a Natum?”

“The stone one you call Duran and more importantly I’m one of his gods.”

“Whoa I’ve been forced to swallow a lot of things in the last two day but you being a god is something I’m going to lie down and believe.” His eyes swirling place began to glow bright purple and he began exerting a certain pressure like how you feel when being dropped by rollercoaster or any other state of freefall. He then began dissolving into a dark blue smoke that enveloped me within second in a small typhoon.

“YOU DEINE ME, THE ONE WHO STOP YOUR SOUL FROM GOING INTO THE ABYSS, THE ONE WITH ONLY WAY TO FIND WHAT LITTLE FAMILLY YOU HAVE!” The Typhoons wind was very powerful, nearly lifted me up into the air and forcing my eyes to close shut. “I, WHO STOP MY OWN PANTHEON FROM ENSLAVING YOUR RACE IN ITS INFANCY. I, WHO GAVE MAGIC TO MAN, HOW DARE YOU BRING DOUBT TO MY DIVINITY.” As the winds rushed all around me getting more intense by the minute I remember the first thing he shouted.

“You know where my mom is, tell me now or I won’t agree to your deal.”The winds only got more intense, my guess is that he didn’t like that retort.

“YOU DARE SPIT IN THE FACE OF MY GENEROUS OFFER; YOU NEED ME GIRL MORE THAN I NEED YOU. MY PANTHEON WILL HUNT DOWN ALL THOSE ASSOCIATED WITH ME WILLING OR NONE. YOU WANT TO LIVE, YOU WILL HAVE NEED OF MY POWER WHETHER I FULLY GIVE YOU IT OR NOT.” Strangely though the winds start to get calmer and the smoke gathered away from me. I open my eyes and see that he became a glowing woman, oooh kay. Let the madness proceed “But I am gracious you will keep my gift and to answer your question.” We seemed to move without moving. Now hang on I’ll explain. The setting around us was shifting like a power point slide. I wipe my eyes to help them recover from the wind barrage they took but when I manage to open them up again I saw a familiar sight.

“Bar the windows and put those desks in front of the main the door!” Here was a perplexing sight, a large group locking themselves into a library.

“Huh, this is both hysterical and demented to see.” I saw that I was in that translucent form again and was further shown with how the people saw right through me. Zelnam was still a woman but still had that shifting image appearance again but with the hard image of a woman this time around. We were in the middle of the old library in Celestine, wait if I’m here.

“Get behind me.”  A woman with red-rimmed glass, black business attire, hoop earrings and stilettos came in front of every else with an iron staff.  The staff was very ornate with a large red crystal at the top end of it growing brighter and brighter. Mom? Why is my mom holding a staff and telling everyone to get behind her?

“Ahhh one of Hecate’s brood. You are lucky to have her as a parent. Oh yes, this will make a good first lesson.”

“Wait what lesson, help them you demented bastard.” He turned his toward me and gave me the same “you’re such an imbecile” look.

“One I don’t have a gender; the arcane is a force that does not ask for species or gender or status in life, it merely asks for your nurture to blossom it. If I intervene my pantheon will know where I am and I don’t believe that I can defeat them all. You must also learn to use that gift I gave you, A gift wasted is worse than a gift used for ill.” He started to look around the library while phasing trough the scared crowd. “Tell me, why I can’t hear the sound of the spirits singing of dance and shamans but now of regret? What is…?” He stopped in front of a bookshelf labeled American history and he picked out a book in the middle of the shelf and stared at the cover of it. The cover had a picture of a group of Native American being slaughtered by American soldiers. “Sometimes you humans make it hard to praise your nature when damning evidence like this is in the fold.” He just stared at it and it began to burst into purple flame. “I want you to go to that group and raise your hand towards the barred door.”

“Why?” he turned to me again but… he had a glare that was so intense his female body burned around his eyes slowly peeling away to reveal the skeleton of light again burning this time around with more of that purple flame.

“You’re questioning me?”

“Nope I’m just going to stand over by this group but please put that fire away please didn’t you say something about them finding a minute ago.” I tried to keep my composure but the look of his eyes had seemed empty save for two dots of purple light. I obliged as the scary demon stared me down with precision and I passed through all the people body’s to get to the door. I’m kind of used to the cold feeling I get when I walk through someone which scared me more than the fact I had such a gift.

“Get away from the barricade. The monsters are breaking through.”

“They got Charlie!” I was standing right next to mom who didn’t even seem to notice me. Zelnam had come closer, still stripped of his flesh and burning on top a bookcase. The mass of people was in a small pit that was for story time for the kindergarten kids filled with cowering adults and some small children. It looked like we were in the main hall since I saw the main desk and that the door that was barricaded was the main entrance. The entrance was blocked with several of the books shelves.

“I want you to focus, take a breath and calm yourself, clear your mind of nothing but the door. Focus on the energy you feel around you.” I take a breath and try to calm myself as I hear a pounding on the door getting louder and louder as the crowd tries to huddle for safety but I felt something more when I had only thoughts on the problem on hand. I felt strings around me being pulled in different directions by her very breath a lot them gather near my mother and Zelnam. “Good, you see the string of arcane power. Now constrict them to cause tension. Clench your fist and think of wool being crushed in your fist. Don’t release until I say so.” I oblige and try to imagination such a thing. I felt energy gather at my clenching fist and heat building within it; I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of glee as the energy gathered around my fist. “Now wait till you see the silver of their coats.”

“Wait silver coats?”

“ARRRROOOOOOWWW!” The door began to break down further and further and the howling became more intense.

“Looks like the lands demand recompense for what has been committed on these grounds. It’s the only reason they’re around.”

“Who are they?” He ignored me and kept his eye on the door and my hand started to burn with … what was it? he said. Arcane power!  Whatever it was it felt like a grenade that was ready to burst at my command.

“THEY’RE THROUGH.”The bookcases that were blocking the door were blown apart as horrible monsters were now revealed.

“WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS?” The monsters the people were running from looked like a mutated coyote on steroids. They walked on their hind legs and had exposed patches of skin where its bones are visible.

“ Wendigo, this continent's equivalent of the werewolf. They are created when a tribesman eats one of his own where there is a lot of magic of a negative persuasion. Don’t worry they burn like dried sticks. Now repeat what I say. Ku sai!” He pointed to the middle of the wendigos coming right toward my mother with his ribcage exposed rib.

“Ku sai!” An orb of purple energy went out of my hand and tore the monster to pieces. My mom had a look of confusion as the wendigos started to inch away from their fallen pack member. She looked around her trying to find the translucent source of the magic.

“The hell? You all told me none of you knew magic.” The crowd looked to my mother with horror. “Alright take this. Throw it into the air and say wocha and go through it, I’ll hold them off.” A man with something metallic in his hand was rushing to the front of the rest of them. He had short hair and a beard that went to his ear. He was wearing a cop uniform with what I now saw was a pistol in his hand.

“I’m not leaving you here alone against those monsters, I swore to serve and protect the people and you know what going on. They will need you more than a cop who doesn’t what kind of shit is currently hitting the fan.” My mom seemed to pause a moment and looked at the monster who seemed to regained their instincts and were belly crawling to their prey.

“Your son is on the other side of that portal and those bullets won’t do any to them. Just go Ramon.” The man took a look at the monster and seemed to relent.

“Fine, give me the crystal and I promise to try to get people to rescue you later.” My mother started to laugh.

“Trust me, Ramon, if they cared to interfere we would be ass-deep in globins trying to rounded how much money to extort out of you.” He gave confused look and held out his hand and my mom tossed a symmetrical stone engraved in pentagrams.

“Come on you heard the woman go to the far end and stay away from the windows.” Everyone started to go the other way of the windigos.

“You can’t do anything to help them?”

“Unless you want to draw her attention again, no. but I’ll give your mother my blessing for the time being and watch her movements from afar. I’ll tell you if anything”

“Can’t I help her in some way or at least talk to her?” He looked at my mother for a bit and nodded.

“Instead of causing tension to the strings now mold into a wall. It will probably drain you dry but it will give you a minute to speak to your mother. Oh yeah if you pass out I'll send your soul pack to your body again. Hope their healers are good.”

“Tal vina!” I ignored his warning and refocus the string clenched in my hand forming a strong fence around the monsters. A barricade of see trough pillars surrounded them reaching up to the ceiling as I felt weak around my legs and I caught myself before I hit the ground. I saw my mother raise her staff and energy gather around the top tip of it. It glowed dark blue like a starry sky.

“Ridan, reveal yourself you … Mira!” She stared at me as I clenched my side in pain, the spell she used ripped through me like if the pins and needles feeling was replaced with a chainsaw kind of feeling. “Mira! Why is your spirit here, how did you do that. No just tell where are you, I’ll find a way to get there as soon as I can, you hear me, sweetie.” My mother was over my spirit with near tears in her eyes for me. I try to put my hand on her shoulder but it just went through her as did she attempts to hug and hold me.

“Creeeerrrakkk.” A crackling of sounded of teeth breaking against stone was audible behind mom. The barrier I set in place was falling apart as the monsters clawed their way out of it.

“Gods of ages, dear the spell nearly killed you. You must get back to your body or your spirit will fade.”

“*cough* Mom I’m at Kollesta, I can get people to get you or run over to those people you gave that stone, just get out of there, please. Theirs these monsters called Shinnu-yah coming this way; just make a way out or something like you always does.” She looked towards the crumbling barrier, stood firm and slammed her staff on the ground where a ring of fire began writing runes around her.

“Windogos don’t spread like this if I don’t do anything it will go out from this city to the others like a virus. I get there sweetie and trust me, I eluded magical disasters for most of my life. Just stay safe Mira you know that I love you.” She raised her hand and I tried to pick myself up put it opposite to hers. “To sono.” A light was surrounding me and I saw that from my bottom half that I was disappearing.

“No please you’ll die here.” She just stood there with a smirk on her face as the barrier complete broke and her ring of fire shot ball after ball of fire at the wendigos.

“Have more faith in your mother; just stay safe so I can get to you soon. I promise.” Dad also promised that as he choked on smog, please don’t die. I felt the familiar sense of drowning as my vision was blackened and the power I felt faded away to nothing. I was an adrift ounce more in an abyss of darkness.

“Mira!Mira!” Duran?