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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year

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North To The Future [Chapter 11: I Will Buy You A New Life]

The year is now 2000. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, discussions of sex, sexual content, violence, this chapter has something you’ve been waiting for. 😏💚 (And some things you have definitely not been waiting for.)

Word count: 5.5k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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No one knows what to say to you: not Heather when you return to the Jeep with Sunfyre in tow, not your parents when you walk into the hushed house littered with glass bottles and wayward appetizer crumbs. Sunfyre immediately begins assisting with the cleanup effort, sniffing around the couch and under the dining room table, licking up the delicacies he finds there. Your parents look at the golden retriever, look at you, look at each other.

“Um…I’ll drive Heather home,” your mom offers. She finishes the Earl Grey tea she’d been sipping, sets the cup in the kitchen sink, and grabs her keys. They depart into the night together, Heather giving you one last long, sympathetic glance. But still, she doesn’t know what to say. You haven’t told her what you found in Aegon’s apartment, but all the same she can read the horror of it on your face. And perhaps that is more truthful than mere words anyway, unbound by the restrictions of jagged consonants and the curves of vowels, lexicons, syntax, ink.

In the silence, in the sunless dawn of the new millennium, your dad studies you, red dress and mascara-stained face and shoulders limp. He asks tentatively, like stepping through a minefield: “How long will Sunfyre be staying with us?”

“Forever.”

“Okay.” He nods, understanding. He doesn’t need to know the details. Addiction wears many faces—masks it peels off and discards until it finds the flavor you like best, the one that can knot itself around your throat—but its soul is always the same, grave-cold and grasping. “I’m sorry about Aegon. I’m sorry that you had to find out what this feels like.”

“He’s leaving. It’s over.”

Your dad smiles, profoundly sad, dreadfully patient. “I’ve heard that before.”

You’re so heartbroken and ashamed that you can’t meet his eyes. Jessie died twenty years ago, and now it’s all come back around again. He must feel like he’s seeing ghosts.

Your dad sits down at the dining room table, sighing deeply, rubbing his forehead with his thumbs. And he’s not talking about Aegon anymore. “I’ll never stop living in that man’s shadow. I know it. Your mother knows it. It’s not something we’ve ever discussed, but it’s there. And I can’t even resent her for it, because she would forget him if she could. I fully believe that. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me and the life we’ve built together. But it does mean there’s a part of her that will always be somewhere else. In another room, in another time. And I wonder sometimes…if there is an afterlife, if there is a cosmic Round Two where we all meet up someplace with harps and angels and cities made of clouds…who she will be standing with.”

The terror is overwhelming. Does it never end? This pain, this longing, this irrational hope? You wonder if there’s any cure for what you’re feeling. You wonder if your dad was ever some tedious, try-hard jock that your mom avoided at bars and parties.

“I know it hurts,” your dad says. “I know it hurts like hell. But I think it’s better if you can end things sooner rather than later. Because I imagine that once you start loving someone like that”—someone brilliant, someone broken—“it’s very difficult to stop.”

It’s too late, you know. You smooth the bloodlike satin of your dress, trying not to start sobbing again. It’s too fucking late.

“Jesse used to do things like that.” Remarkably, there is still anger in your dad’s voice: rusty, treacherous, decades-old anger. “He would make plans and make promises, and then your mother would be sitting there waiting with a suitcase and he’d act like it never happened. I don’t know if he really forgot or if he had to pretend he did because he’d blown all the money. And then of course he’d apologize and promise to make it up to her, buy her flowers, pour her tea. He was always saying they’d go to London together. They never did. They never got out of Alaska.”

The tea, you think, dismayed. The Earl Grey tea. Just like Aegon’s hot chocolate. It’s like looking at yourself in a mirror. It’s enough to drive someone insane. “I need to go to bed now,” you say, your words weak and splintering.

“Okay. Okay, ladybug.” He looks sorry, like he knows he’s said too much. He gets up to hug you goodnight. He’s immense and warm and strong, yet careful, yet benign, yet so palpably ordinary.

Why can’t I fall in love with someone like you, Dad? Why can’t I be happy here?

He helps you put out food and water for Sunfyre, and when you volunteer to gather up some of the trash in the living room he adamantly refuses. You climb the staircase in the high heels you hardly ever wear, your skull flooded with unwelcome reminders. Aegon was supposed to be here with me. In my house, in my room, in my bed. Now he’s nowhere. And he’ll never touch me again.

In your bedroom mirror, you stare at your reflection. You can’t explain it, but you don’t look like yourself. The red woman in the silvery glass is not self-possessed or pragmatic or wise. She is a frayed thread, and she is desperately, irrevocably sad. You step out of your heels. You unzip the back of your dress. And before you take it all the way off—Aegon was supposed to do that part—you tear the magazine cutout of the Mustang convertible flying down the Pacific Coast Highway off the mirror. You rip it in half over and over again until it is a flurry of unidentifiable scraps on the floor. You think of how you have never acted selfishly, never acted irresponsibly. You think of how far that dedication has gotten you. Not far enough. Nowhere near far enough.

You are trembling with exhaustion and fury. Your eyes hurt, your ankles hurt, you hurt in places so deep you can’t name them. You think of all the things about Aegon you were willing to overlook and how vanishingly little he could give you in return. You want him here, and because he’s made that impossible you want revenge; you want him to feel as viciously, nauseatingly betrayed as you do. You want to do something he could never forgive. You want to knock his memory out of you like the asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

She’s hoping in time that her memories will fade.

You see it in a sudden, scarlet vision: how enraged Aegon was when he thought you had slept with Trent, how he tensed up every time Trent touched you, how he didn’t want you to be alone with him. You see how Trent has been throwing himself at you—like a skydiver out of an airplane—in a way that is somehow both frightening and shamelessly pitiful. You had once told Aegon that Trent didn’t want you dead. I know, Aegon had replied. He wants you to be his wife.

You pick up the phone on your nightstand, and then you pause. Can I do this? Can I really?

You couldn’t yesterday, and you probably won’t be able to tomorrow. But right now…

You dial the number for Trent’s apartment across town. He answers on the second ring. “Sup?”

“Hi, it’s me. Are you busy?”

“Hey!” There’s a boisterous grin in his voice. “Nah, not at all. You need something? Are your parents rearranging the living room furniture again?”

“I don’t need anything, but I’d like something.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“What you’ve been waiting for.”

Stilted, silent seconds tick by as he puzzles it out. “For real?” He’s ecstatic, yet circumspect.

“For real.”

“Why? I mean, I’m not complaining, maybe I shouldn’t be asking questions, maybe I should just be sprinting for my truck, but I’m…uh…you changed your mind?”

“It’s not a marriage proposal, Trent,” you tell him. “It’s not a date. I just want to start out 2000 the right way.” Without Aegon. Without any threads still connecting me to him.

“Hell, I’ll take that,” he says, chuckling.

“You have to come here though. It has to be at my house.” Where your parents are just a few rooms away. Where Trent will have to be the best possible version of himself.

If he was really the Ice Fisher, why would he have saved Aegon from the channel? Why would he have been so unabashed about his anger, his strength, his size 12 boots? This killer is quiet, strategic, invisible. That’s the only way he’s managed to murder five people without getting caught. Perhaps Trent really does lack the requisite subtlety…the requisite intellect, to be perfectly blunt about it. But then who else could it be? Who the fuck could it be?

“Totally. On my way now.” Trent hangs up.

When he arrives, your parents are still downstairs cleaning up after the New Year’s Eve party. They greet him warmly and (seemingly) without much surprise. He flips his hair and offers to lift the couch so they can get the bottles that have rolled underneath. They gratefully accept. Small talk and festive merriment are exchanged, and you marvel at how seamlessly Trent blends into this family, into this house, into Juneau; he was made for Alaska. It’s in his strapping muscles and lumbering bones. It’s in his claustrophobically small mind. And then you lead him upstairs.

You don’t waste any time talking. Already you’re losing your nerve, already you have a voice surfacing in the choppy waves of your mind like a drowning man: You don’t want to do this, you don’t want to do this, you know you don’t want to do this. You tug off Trent’s blazer, button-up shirt, and khakis and shoo him onto the bed. Then you take off everything that you’d put on for Aegon, back when the Alaska Standard Time Zone was still living in the dark dwindling hours of 1999.

You’re in control the whole time because you don’t trust Trent to be. You don’t want him to be. You don’t even want to think about him. It feels like nothing. There’s no moment to get lost in, because it’s not a moment at all. It’s just logistical adjustments and premeditated reactions and flesh, heavy, crushing, bumping, artless flesh. Your thoughts are far from this room, drastically far. You hope Aegon drives by in the morning and spots Trent’s truck in the driveway, or he hears about it, or he reads it in the straightforward, chiseled lines of Trent’s face next time he sees him. You hope it digs its razored claws into him and never lets go. You hope it fucking destroys him.

As soon as it’s over you get into the shower and scrub off every remnant of what you’ve done. You regret it immediately. Aegon shattered any chance the two of you had and you ended it, so you don’t know why this feels so much like infidelity; perhaps because the reality of it is less like betraying Aegon and more like betraying yourself. In the foggy bathroom mirror, you notice that Trent left a darkening violet bruise on the side of your neck. You don’t even remember him doing it. You were so far away from him: miles away, years away, in the ambiguous future, in the lurking past. You can’t stand the thought of sleeping next to Trent. You suggest he claims the living room couch instead, complete with fresh sheets and several spare pillows. He gamely agrees.

You are optimistic that Trent will be long gone by the time you wake up. But when you venture downstairs at just before noon on New Year’s Day, you find him in the kitchen making breakfast with your parents, flipping pancakes and turning bacon and whistling along to the Red Hot Chili Peppers song that spills from your dad’s record player: not Scar Tissue this time, but Otherside.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Monday, January 10th when the green Nova skates into the vet clinic parking lot and slides to a slippery rest across three different spaces. As the engine dies, the song that was blaring is cut short: I Will Buy You A New Life by Everclear. Aegon steps out under the fading midday sun, almost falls on the ice, traverses slowly and cautiously towards the entrance.

“Oh no, not him!” Jennifer laments. You rush back into the exam room and slam the door.

You haven’t seen Aegon since New Year’s Eve, but you knew he hadn’t left Juneau. You’ve spied the Nova parked outside his apartment building, and Heather has run into him around town: the Foodland, the Gas ‘N Go, Ursa Minor. And then there are the phone calls. He left fifteen messages before your dad picked up and politely asked him to stop calling. Then he started putting notes in the moose-shaped mailbox.

You can hear Jennifer telling Aegon to leave. She must not be very persuasive. He bursts through the exam room door and closes it behind him. He’s wearing all black—parka, turtleneck sweater, jeans, combat boots—and his white-blond hair slicked back from his face. It gives the impression that he has no distractions, no secrets. You are suddenly acutely aware of your own, your skin crawling everywhere Trent touched you. The bruise on your neck has vanished, but the memory of it is still trapped there, heavy and scorching like shame.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” you say coldly.

“Then you should have picked up the phone.” Aegon throws it down on the metal exam table: not a thick, neatly-sealed envelope but a lump of mismatched crumpled cash—ones, fives, tens, twenties—knotted together with several rubber bands.

“What is that?”

“It’s your half of the money for the San Diego trip.”

“How—?”

“I picked up every shift I could and I sold the necklace.”

“You sold it? Permanently? It’s gone?”

“It’s gone,” he agrees. He looks good. He looks more than good: the shadows under his eyes are almost nonexistent, his skin is bright and healthy, he’s even standing taller. He moves so he’s not blocking the door, so you have an escape if you want it. You don’t leave. You wish you wanted to, but you don’t. You just don’t. “It doesn’t matter. It was the last thing I had from home, it was time for me to let go of it anyway. That was my insurance policy for anytime I needed quick cash…I’ve probably pawned it fifty times in the past six years. But this was important.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” you say. “I told you I wanted you to leave Juneau and I meant it.”

He searches your face, his eyes blue and clear and wide. “You didn’t mean it.”

“I did,” you insist, lying.

“Look, I’m…” He presses a palm to his chest. He glances down at your right arm, then comes back to your face. “I am so, so sorry that you had to see me that way. I’m sorry for what happened. But it’s not going to happen again.”

“I don’t believe you. And I’m not interested in making plans and sacrificing so they can be a reality and then waiting around to see if you ever show up.”

“I’ll show up,” he swears. His gaze flicks down to your arm again.

“What are you looking at?”

He doesn’t reach for your forearm. Instead, he points to his own. “I remember grabbing your arm, but I don’t know how rough I was.”

“Oh. No, it’s fine. You didn’t hurt me. I don’t think it even left a mark.”

He exhales, relieved. “Good.”

There is a lull that is quiet and still but not awkward. You can hear the clock ticking on the wall, miserably prophetic. The way I feel about him hasn’t changed, you realize with disbelief. I still want him in a way that is helpless, all-consuming. I still love him.

“What happened was a mistake,” Aegon says, slowly and with great effort. “But it wasn’t random.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“This isn’t going to make any sense to you, it’s going to sound insane. But I don’t like New Year’s Eve.”

“Well I don’t like having a heroin addict boyfriend.”

“I’m not a heroin addict.” His voice is sharp and forceful, but not cruel. “It was a momentary relapse, I detoxed on my couch, I’m fine now.”

“Why don’t you like New Year’s Eve?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

You scoff bitterly. “More lies?”

“Not lies,” Aegon says. “Secrets. I haven’t lied to you.”

“Yes, you have. You said you’d be there.”

He shows you the palms of his hands, empty. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I want this,” Aegon says determinedly. “I’m not ready to give up on this. I want you back.”

“Why can’t you leave me alone? Why can’t you just jet off to some new city and resume sleeping your way through the eligible bachelorettes of the world and then maybe I could try to move on, maybe I could—”

“Because you ruined me!” he shouts. “Because I used to be that guy who didn’t care, I used to be able to be content with meaningless replaceable flings and now I’m this idiot who doesn’t even see other women. I tried to replace you. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even invite a girl to come home with me, it was all too goddamn sad. I’ve been with one other person since I met you, and that’s Kimmie, and it’s been over for weeks, and you knew about it the entire time, and that was nothing like it is with you. I don’t want anyone else. I’ve forgotten how to want anyone else. I don’t know how you managed that. I don’t understand what kind of black magic you have swimming around in your blood, but whatever it is worked on me. I’m hooked, baby. I’m fucking hooked. I’ll do whatever you want to make this work, just name it. Please just name it. I’m giving you the money back to show you that I’m sorry and that I know I messed up. But I still want to go to San Diego with you. Hell, I’d go anywhere with you. I’d go to Omaha fucking Nebraska if that was the place you’d dreamed of, the place you hung pictures of on your bedroom mirror. I want you back.”

You don’t have to say that you want him too. Aegon can read it on your face, can see the fight bleeding out of you like the sea at low tide. He’s going to find out about Trent, you think with ice-cold dread. Sooner or later, he’s going to find out and he’s going to lose his goddamn mind. Since he left your house on New Year’s Day, you’ve avoided Trent. What Heather said must have made quite the impression, because he hasn’t tried to pressure you into inviting him over again; he has given you a wide berth of space, passing waves and smiles but no demands. Still, he has this glow. He thinks that night was a stepping stone to something more. He thinks he’s got a real shot now, and he’s basking in the gilded potential of it. I made such a mistake. It feels like everything I do now is a mistake.

“And besides, even if I was willing to go, I can’t leave yet,” Aegon says. In explanation, he looks to the flier on the wall, the one with the shadowy red-eyed specter in a trench coat. Report suspicious activity immediately! Beware of strangers! Help keep Juneau safe! The sixth and seventh victims were pulled out of Crystal Lake three days ago: a couple this time, newly engaged, mid-thirties, snatched while they were hiking in the Tongass National Forest. No one died while Aegon was in the hospital, you think randomly, vaguely. Is that a coincidence? Or is that a clue?

“Aegon, how could you possibly protect me from the Ice Fisher when you’re passed out drunk at night? Or when you’re working on a boat out in the channel, or when you’re singing rock songs at Ursa Minor? You can’t follow me around all the time. And honestly, I think if the killer really wanted me, he could probably get rid of you too.”

“If I leave and I find out later that something happened to you…that maybe, somehow, things might not have gone that way if I’d stayed, that the dominoes could have fallen in a different pattern…I’ll feel responsible. And I’d never recover from that.”

His tattoo flashes in your mind like high-beams: I’m a killer. It’s a strange thing to get inked just above your heart, even if it is a Johnny Cash lyric. It’s a little too dark. It’s a little too real. “Okay,” you hear yourself tell Aegon. “You can stay, I guess.”

“Great. Also, I need my dog back.”

“He’s happy where he is.”

“I don’t doubt that. But he’s mine, and I need him.” And when you hesitate, he adds: “If you’re so worried about Sunfyre, I would encourage you to stop by any time you’d like to check on him. And me too, obviously.” He takes his keyring out of his pocket and slips off the spare key for his apartment. Then he holds it out to you, a sliver of gold in his palm. You consider the key for a long time before you take it.

“Fine. I’ll bring him over in a few days if you’re still sober. Well…your version of sober.”

“Deal,” Aegon says. “You haven’t been at Ursa Minor recently.”

“Yes. Because I didn’t want to see you.”

Aegon shrugs, his hands in the pockets of the black parka you gave him. “Maybe you’ve changed your mind about that. Maybe you’ll show up tonight. I hope you will.”

You can’t decide how to reply. Aegon leaves while you’re still mulling it over, a vast silence stretching out between you like the void between stars.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your parents don’t want you driving alone at night. They convince you to carpool with Heather, a prospect which elates her. “You’re finally leaving the house?!” she exclaims when you call, the vibrations of her voice shrill in the phone receiver. “You’re finally going to be kind of fun again?! Hold on, hold on. I’m just sending a quick mental thank you to sweet baby Jesus. And Buddha, and Allah, and Brahma, and Thor.”

“Odin’s the king of the Norse gods.”

“Bitch,” Heather says gleefully, and hangs up.

When her Chevy Suburban rolls into Ursa Minor’s parking lot—the night indigo and starless, the ochre streetlights dim—Heather kills the engine and opens the driver-side door. Frigid wind gusts into the cabin. She glances back, realizes you haven’t even unbuckled your seatbelt, and pulls her door shut again.

“What?” she asks.

You look at her, miserable and mortified. “I made a mistake.”

“Yeah, you wore that ugly fucking grandma sweater instead of something hot.”

“No, Heather,” you whisper, tears brimming in your eyes. “I really made a mistake.”

She is concerned, mystified. “What did you do?”

“I slept with Trent.”

“You what?” She blinks. “You what?!”

“I called him after the New Year’s Eve party.” You speak quickly, like tearing a bandage from a weeping, still-inflamed wound. “I was upset and I wasn’t thinking clearly and I asked him to come over. It was horrible. He doesn’t seem to know it was horrible, but it was for me. I mean, he wasn’t aggressive or anything, he didn’t do anything wrong, he just…he wasn’t who I really wanted.”

“He wasn’t Aegon,” Heather says quietly.

“Right.” You swipe away the tears that escape down your cheeks. “And now Aegon’s going to find out. I know he is. At first I wanted him to because I wanted to hurt him, I wanted to hurt him as badly as possible. But I don’t feel that way anymore. And I can’t take it back. Trent thinks I like him and Aegon is going to hate me and I’m…I’m just…” You break down sobbing, covering your face with your hands. “I’m just so fucking stupid. My entire life I had meticulous plans and I checked every box and now I’m this fragile, illogical, aimless, stupid loser who can’t manage to hold on to anything she wants. I can’t fix myself and I can’t fix anyone else either.”

“So you fucked up,” Heather says casually. She’s not really casual, but she’s doing a good job of making it seem like she is. “So you slept with the wrong person or said the wrong thing or made a wrong choice, or two wrong choices, or ten, or a hundred, or a thousand. Who hasn’t fucked up? I have, Joyce has, Kimmie definitely has. So what? It’s not like you killed somebody. You learned from it. You’ll be a better person in the future. Regret is a useless, poisonous emotion. It’s something evolution should have bred out of us eons ago. You don’t have to carry this weight around forever. You can let yourself bury it.”

Under the dim, yellowish streetlight luminescence like a sepia photograph, you give her a weak smile. “Really?”

“Really.”

“I love you.” And then you add, so she knows you’re okay: “Bitch.”

Heather laughs. “Let’s go get you drunk. Bitch.”

You hurry together to the front door, braced in hats and parkas against the wind. Inside, it is odd to see Ursa Minor stripped of all its Christmas decorations. The multicolored lights have been taken down, the ornaments removed from the taxidermy deer heads. From Dale’s stereo soars Shania Twain’s You’re Still The One. You hear Heather’s boots squeal on the hardwood floor as she stops dead, and then you see him too: jet black suit, spidery limbs, long silvery hair that is not unruly or tangled but pin-straight. He’s sitting at the bar with his back to you. The fingers of his right hand—elegant, willowy, uncalloused—are closed around a frosty Caipirinha.

“Oh my god,” Heather breathes. “There’s two of them. The Greek boys.”

If Aegon knows he’s been found, he’ll leave. And only now can you feel the true, unmitigated devastation of it. Had you really told him to leave Juneau just ten days ago? Had that really been you? No no no no no no. He can’t leave. He can’t leave.

“Don’t talk to him,” you order Heather in a whisper, then bolt to the usual booth. Kimmie, Brad, Joyce, and Rob are already there, eyes startled and darting from you to the stranger at the bar. “Kimmie, do you still remember Aegon’s phone number?”

“Huh? Yeah, um, I think so.”

“Here.” You root around in your purse for loose change and press several quarters into her palm. “Take this. Find a payphone outside. Call him and tell him not to come to Ursa Minor tonight.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t understand, but she’s obedient. Brad goes with her. When they open the front door, the stranger at the bar glances over to make sure no one new has arrived. That Aegon hasn’t. Because this is exactly where he’d be.

Another wave of horror crashes through you. He knows Aegon so well. We’re in such fucking trouble here.

As Dale finishes serving locals at the other end of the bar and returns to his section, the stranger begins asking him something. You have to shut it down; you have to stop Dale from telling the stranger that Aegon lives in an apartment building just down the street. You can see it from Ursa Minor’s parking lot. It’s a distance that could be closed in ten minutes.

You go to the bar and sit immediately beside the stranger. Dale—seemingly relieved—excuses himself, but not before raising his eyebrows at you. Crazy world, right ladybug? that look says. He sets an apple Bacardi Breezer on the counter and is gone. The stranger turns to you, and your jaw falls open before you can stop yourself; the gasp hisses free.

The stranger smiles, like he’s caught you in a lie. The right side of his face is pristine: angular, regal, beautiful in a way that is gem-rare. The left is bisected by a scar, gnarled and old. His left eye is gone. The scraps of his lids are ragged. In the useless, gutted socket is a gleaming sapphire stone, like what the ocean looks like in the pictures you’ve seen of California. “You must know my brother.”

I have to distract him. I have to get rid of him. “Oh yeah. Totally. He talked about you and Helaena all the time.”

The stranger’s lips curl into a sly smile. “Even he forgets about Daeron.”

Aegon, Helaena, Daeron…and at least one more sibling. This one. The determined one, the capable one. You don’t know what to say; you give him a vague smirk in return. The bells on the door jingle as Kimmie and Brad scurry back inside, cold wind chasing them and clawing at their hair. Kimmie shakes her head at you. No luck, she means. Aegon didn’t answer. Probably because he’s already on his way here. The stranger notices this exchange. He notices just about everything. And there’s no way for you to tell Kimmie or Heather what you need from them without him knowing. To stop Aegon from coming here. To stop him from being caught.

The stranger offers you his hand. “Aemond Targaryen,” he introduces himself. “Targaryen Enterprises.” His voice is unlike anything you’ve ever heard: low but soft, effortlessly dignified, beckoning you to lean in closer. Aside from the shade of his hair, he is very little like Aegon. He is tall and precise, every movement purposeful. Aegon slouches and flops and makes dramatic, unrestrained gestures; this man is a sculpture of marble and blue. This man is a work of art.

You shake his hand—cool and smooth—and tell him your name. “But Aegon always called me Appletini.”

“Appletini? Like the drink?”

“Exactly.”

“Yes, that sounds like him.” His eye sweeps over you. What he asks next doesn’t sound like a question at all. It sounds like a command. “Where is he.”

“Gone,” you say, perhaps too quickly. “He left last week. He’s in Chicago now. You’re a little too late.”

Again, Aemond smiles. He sips his Caipirinha. “Hm.”

The front door opens. You and Aemond both whirl towards the clanging metal bells. Aegon shuffles inside; he’s beaming, he’s humming brightly. He drags his boots on the doormat, kicking off most of the snow. And then he looks up. His face goes entirely blank; his eyes are mindless and panicked like a trapped animal’s, iron jaws snapping shut with such force they crack bone. A second passes, two, three. Then Aegon spins around and sprints out of the bar.

“Aegon!” you shout.

Aemond knocks his Caipirinha off the counter as he leaps to his feet and races after him; glass and lime slices spew across the floor. You follow Aemond as closely as you can, running out into the frigid darkness, your boots slipping on ice and crunching through mounds of snow. Aegon makes it a hundred yards up the street before his brother catches him. Aemond grabs the hood of Aegon’s parka, yanks him backwards, slams him face-first into a green Dodge Ram that is parked on the shoulder. Blood gushes from Aegon’s nose and splatters against the truck’s icy window. His lower lip is split; his eyes will blacken. He struggles futilely.

“Let me go—!”

“Six years!” Aemond seethes, pinning Aegon to the truck by his throat. “Six Christmases, six birthdays, six Januarys since you left and not a single phone call, no letters, no postcards, no emails, nothing, and who had to be there to comfort our mother? Who had to be there trying to convince her that you weren’t an unclaimed body on a slab in a morgue somewhere?!”

“You’re all better off without me,” Aegon moans, his skin stained red. Aemond smashes his face against the truck again.

“Stop it!” you shriek.

“You don’t get to leave,” Aemond growls at his brother. “You don’t get to abandon your responsibilities.”

“I won’t go back,” Aegon wheezes. “You can break every bone I’ve got, but I won’t go back. If you kill me, you can take me home in a box, I guess. But that’s the only way I’m going.”

Aemond shoves him away, disgusted. His brother sinks down into the snow, groaning, feeling his face with trembling hands to assess the damage. “I saved you,” Aemond says with cold, black fury. “I saved your life and you’re just throwing it away.”

“She doesn’t know,” Aegon rasps, his voice choked with blood. “Let me tell her. It should be me. Please don’t say anything. Please let me be the one to tell her.”

Now Aemond turns to you, as if suddenly remembering you’re there. His remaining eye narrows. He is deeply, genuinely perplexed; you’re a brand new species, you’re a comet that hasn’t clipped by Earth in a millennium. He says to Aegon, still looking at you: “Your type must have changed.”

“No, my type is still groupies and strippers,” Aegon replies, and spits a mouthful of blood into the snow. “I just fell in love with this girl.”

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon ii #aegon x you #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon targaryen x you #aegon x y/n #aegon x reader #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x reader #aegon ii x y/n #aegon targaryen ii #aegon targaryen ii x reader

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pinkalmondcake · 8 months

Text

See you again

Young!oot Link x reader (oneshot, platonic)

masterlist

╔════ ⭒ ‧͙⁺-ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ˚⁺‧͙ ⭒ ════╗

I'm just posting an old work of my wattpad that I haven't posted here yet! I was kind of afraid to post this one seeing I'm still insecure about the writing of it but I hope you enjoy it!! ^.^

Thank you for choosing to read this!

╚════ ⭒ ‧͙⁺-ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ˚⁺‧͙ ⭒ ════╝

warnings: fluff, comfort, touch of angst

‧͙⁺-ˋˏ See you againˎˊ˚⁺‧͙

2.8k+ words

Soft splatter could be heard through the warmth of your house as you knitted in front of the twirling flames of your hearth, weaving the pink through the blue in a lyrical rhythm that echoed the sizzling fire - the wood beneath crackling under its intense heat that kissed your cozy skin.

The rain plummeted down to the earth while the grey clouds slowly drifted by, signalling that it soon shall pass- unfortunately, you thought. With a sigh, you reached down into the woven basket that obediently laid beside you, only to feel nothing but the sharpness of the aged grass that it was made of.

Your eyebrows rose, causing you to quickly glance down and see nothing there besides the nearly finished pink ball of wool and some strands of random colours spread out in different corners. A pout now laced your lips before casting your eyes to the window where droplets of water drooled down the misted glass, 'As much as I love the rain, I really need more of the blue to finish off my scarf...' And with that, you stood up, neatly placing the incomplete scarf upon the chair and dusting off your waist-tied apron while a content smile spread across your face, '...maybe it won't be so bad once I go outside.'

You glanced up at the cloudy sky, squinting your eyes from the drops that dared to fall upon them. You sighed, pulling your hood further down towards your eyes, the thought of there not being too many people in Castle Town - meaning that buying the wool would only take a few seconds - made a proudful grin sneak its way across your lips as you treaded your way down the cobblestone of the alleyways, seeking somewhat of a shelter along the extending roofs of the stone houses and buildings.

You came to a stop in front of an aged house where golden, curved writing lay engraved above upon a wooden beam, 'Wool of Hyrule', while the catch of the day laid beside the door, painted in white, says, 'Feeling a bit sheepish? Then you better get inside and buy some more wool to thicken your coat!' A bit daft, but a little funny, causing a silent chuckle to edge its way through your mind before you pulled down the golden hand - the coldness icy against your fingertips as the bell above your head rang away in sign of your arrival. "And who dare comes in such weather to my humble abode!", a voice called from within the warmth while you slid off your hood, "It's always a pleasure to see you, Hassan."

You smiled at the young man dressed in a purple cloak and a fine tunic as he leans against the wooden counter of his little shop stacked with wool of every colour and a few antiques here and there. Hassan gave you a playful scoff, rolling his eyes before he leaned back against the wall which contains a shelf filled with some aged technological items, "I should've known it was you and your little vixen fingers." You laughed, strolling towards your destined shelf containing the colour you need, "Well, what can I say, if I am a vixen then you must be a minx, dear Hassan."

He folded his arms across his chest, studying the way you picked up the wool and twirled it around your fingers, "Perhaps. But it is good to see you - even though you were in here just the other day. Still working on that scarf I suppose?" You hummed in answer, turning your head to glance at him with a smile, "I am, I don't have a reason to make it but I've been enjoying doing so, especially during weathers like this." You placed the wool upon the counter and reached into the pouch strapped to your belt, grabbing out a red ruppee, "it's rather calming." Hassan hummed, strands of his long, lucious hazel hair now drooling in front his darkened irises, "I very much agree with you, though I prefer to find myself in an inn and drinking all the ale I can get - it warms you up quite a bit you know."

You gave him a playful huff, "Oh, I know alright but you should've known better than to drag me with you that time. You're a loud man you know, scaring off all the customers." He scoffed, a daring grin spreading across his lips, "Like you're any better." And with that, you slid the rupee towards him and bid him goodbye, only for him to yell afterwards that both of you must go to the inn sometime again - to which you half-heartedly agreed to. The ringing bell now following behind you as you treaded along through the street, hiding the wool beneath your dampened cloak.

With a sigh, your buried yourself deeper into the warmth, wrapping your arms around yourself, but only for you to come to a stop at the sound of a sniffle and whimper. Your ears twitched, causing your head to glance to your left and into the shadows of an alley. Concern and curiosity filled your eyes, only to hear another sniff and groan, '...A child?'

Quickly and without hesitation, you treaded along the puddles that filled the cracks of the stone floor as your voice echoed along the walls, "Hello? Are you alright?" Silence. You sighed, frowning in worry before picking up your pace, but only to spot a blotch of green curled up on the floor - your heart clenching at the sight in front of you.

You lowered yourself down onto your haunches, watching the shivering boy covered in mud whimper, his eyes opening to glance up at you - confusion and fear lacing them. Slowly, you reached your hand outward towards him, urging him to take it in his own, "It's alright, you're going to be okay." His cerulean eyes stared into your own, searching for any sign of deceit, only to find none.

Quietly, he placed his small hands into your own, firmly holding onto your palm as you brought him up to his legs - noticing how they shook beneath his weight. "Are you alright? Can you walk?", your questions struck confusion to slither across his face, his golden hair brushing against his lashes while he side glanced you in question, his voice hoarse from crying, "Yes. I just needed somewhere to be...on my own."

The way his words were well pronounced and rounded for someone deemed to be either nine or ten struck you for a second, because unlike your younger brother, his words were calculated. 'He must have been through a lot to make him so...timid', you quickly shook away the thought in order to bring your attention back to the current situation, "You'll get sick out here you know, and by the looks of it - you've been out here for a while." He slightly winced at that, his fingers sliding off your palm before you brought yourself up to your height, staring down at him with a soft smile as he turned to face you, awkwardly rubbing his elbow, "...I didn't feel like heading to the castle." Your brow rose, "The castle? But-" "I shouldn't have said that, will you please excuse me miss", his eyes sharp and calculated, quickly walking past you.

"Wait", you called, turning around to face him in concern, "Do you have a place to stay? And your parents?" The child could only glance down into the puddle in front of him, staring at his reflection - strands of hair falling before his shadowy eyes, "No. I don't have parents." You smile wavered and placed a hand upon his shoulder in a form of comfort, "Then you're welcome to stay at my place for a bit, until you're ready to go to the...castle. Your clothes will need a wash too, I don't think the Royals would appreciate you stumbling upon their fancy jeweled halls all clad in mud, now would they?"

He frowned, his lips turning downwards at the mentions of the royals - which didn't go unnoticed by you. But what brought a grin to your lips was the words he said, "Fine...but I cannot stay long." You hummed, your other hand tightly wrapped around the wool beneath your cloak, "That's fine, just until I clean the mud off your wear and for you to clean yourself up. My hearth should still be lit when we get there. Now come along." And with that, you grabbed his small hand into your own and dragged him along, his eyes wide at the sudden action, but he could only softly smile at your back, appreciating the kindness you spared him.

"Alright, this is it", you pushed open the door, allowing the swirling warmth to envelope you as you stood aside for him to enter, watching the young child carefully tread along your creaking, wooden floor. You closed the door, shivering at the coolness that escaped inside before you shed your coat from your shoulders and placed the wool into the basket beside your chair in a satisfied hum, feeling the eyes of your guest watch you in curiosity. You turned around on the heel of your foot, bringing your attention to the side door, "The bath is there, you can leave your clothes within the basket. But before you go, I'll hand you my brother's clothes that I always keep a spare of in case he and mother visits - he looks around your age and size." He softly nodded before stroking the softness of the scarf that awaits you on your chair.

You returned from scratching through the clothes filled wardrobe of the guest room, returning with something similar in colour to the brightened green he wears. He quickly sat up from the dining table, wincing at the sound of the chair that scraped against the wood from his hastiness, "...Sorry." You dismissed him with a wave of a hand, placing the clothes onto the table, "There's a bucket on the side of the tub that I filled, it should be warm by now." The young boy gave a soft smile, glancing down at the wooden floor before bringing them back to stare into your own, "I never got the chance to say thank you...especially for not treating me like a child...like almost everyone does."

You frowned, rubbing away some dried mud from his cheeks, '..but he is a child?' You shook your head, giving him a reassuring smile, "Don't worry about it. By the way you talk, you sound like you've seen a few things for a child your age. But hurry along and bathe, I'll be here if you need anything." He grinned, swatting away your hand that messed with his locks after he removed his cap and placed it onto the table before gathering the clothes you handed him.

Soon you found yourself upon the chair again, twirling the needle through the blue of the wool with your tongue slithering over your bottom lip in concentration - a frown edging its way across your features. But only for a soft voice to break you from your silent mind, causing you to look up at the young boy, a smile breaking away the downturn of your lips, "I'm finished. Thank you madam." You grinned, waving your hand to dismiss the word madam, "Please, I am no madam. In fact, that makes me feel way older than I am. My name is y/n." You proudly and playfully extended your hand towards him, waiting for him to shake it - but instead, he wrapped his fingers around your palm and lowered himself, placing his lips against the back of your hand in curtsy, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance...y/n."

You chuckled, playfully rolling your eyes as you slipped your hand out of his grasp, "You have more manners than the men my age, it's quite disturbing." You notice him frown from the corner of your eyes while you glanced down to your work, grabbing the wooden needle between your fingers. "I'm...nevermind", he sighed, running a hand through his wet locks in frustration. Your eyes widened in realisation, "Oh my goodness! Why didn't you say anything! You must be hungry!" His eyes widened at your sudden outburst from the misinterpretation of his forming words, watching the way you frantically scurried about, the clanging of pots following after you while he watched you with amusement adorning his childlike features.

Eventually you both had plates filled to the brim, eating and discussing the matters that would only concern a child, but often he'd bring up the matters of politics and places you've never been to, your curiosity only edging him as your questions flew past your lips in excitement - as though you were the child and he the young adult in the situation.

But not much later, he found himself drained from todays events, causing you to lead him through the small corridors to the guest room. And once he was in, you placed the covers over him like a mother would a child, your candle placed on the small bedside table as stroked his hair, his smile was soft and warm, filled with admiration for you while you kissed his cheek, the words goodnight slipping past your smile. His cheeks could only burn at the action before his cheeky grin spread across his face.

You could only playfully roll your eyes at him, ruffling his locks before taking your candle and walking out of the room, waving to him before slipping into the darkness of your corridors. The silence comfortable as you washed his clothes in the bucket before the hearth, leaving them there in front of the heat in hopes for them to dry before morning - sleep following you, the memory of your motherly exchange you just had replaying through your mind, 'The scarf...I'll give it to him, to remind him that he'll always have a place here to stay...heh, is this what it's look to be a mother?' Those being the last thoughts you had before succumbing to your dreams.

Sadly, morning came too soon for you both, and luckily for him, you had been awake a few hours prior to him - working your way through the scarf in hopes to finish it before dawn falls upon the nightened sky.

And with a sad smile, you wrapped the scarf around his neck - sticking out like a sore thumb against his freshly cleaned green and white, his smile slightely wavering at the thought of saying goodbye to you - his heart clenching at the thought of never seeing you again, even though you may view him as a child, he'd slightly hope that one day you would maybe change your views on that.

And so he said, with a glint of happiness shinning through his crystalline eyes, "This isn't a goodbye, I'll visit you again soon! Sooner than you know it!" He gave you a close eyed smile, causing one to spread across your lips, your fingers wrapped around themselves. But only for you to frown, shaking your head before lowering yourself and wrapping your arms around his shoulders - pressing him tight against your chest, "You bet. Even though you actually never told me your name, you'd always be welcome back."

His eyes widened as he stood back, still leaning on your haunches to match his eye level, "I never told you my name?" You laughed, shaking your head with a grin, "It slipped my mind to ask as well." He smiled, placing a small hand upon your cheek before giving it a soft kiss, whispering his name, "Link. My name is Link."

And with that, you watched him run through the busy streets of Castle Town, the golden rays of the sun reflecting upon the left over puddles as you watched him cheekily turn back with a grin, waving at you before dashing off again...leaving you with yourself again, your house empty of the sounds of his childish laughter. Empty of the true happiness you finally felt - a bitterness lacing through your heart as you watched the crowd with a smile.

'Don't worry, y/n, I'll see you again', he thought.

The end.

#link x reader #link x you #almondwrites #young link x reader platonic #young hero of time x reader platonic #PLATONIC #enjoy sweetlings!#link x y/n

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angry-trashcan · 9 months

Text

Lavender

Chapter two of Braiding Lilac

Warnings: Mentions of past abuse

1K WC

(First) (Read on AO3) (Hair Holds Memories)

Dear Ravio,

I hope this is actually the correct address that Lege Link gave me. It should reach you one way or another. Things are going well with us so there is no need to worry.

The portal from you led us to my era. We are staying with my family and it has been nice to catch up. I will admit I was a bit fearful when we first landed, but it has gone well. There is a festival later this week that we may attend. My brother and Wild are getting along a little too well. If only he would teach me to shoot like he is him.

Link is doing well. He seems a bit on edge with being here, though I think it is just with being trapped in a small house with the whole group and my mother and brother. I’m sure he will be fine soon enough. I can almost guarantee the festival will bring his spirits up.

Write when you can.

Your friend,

Y/N

Dear Y/N,

The post man seemed a bit… confused to say the least when I had an extra letter today. He double checked it said my name a few times before handing it over. I still do not understand how he gets them between the eras and portals, but the man seems to have his ways.

I hope the festival goes well! It seems that you are happy to be home. I know I miss Lorule if I am away for too long, so I am sure it’s a similar feeling. Nothing feels quite the same as your own home’s magic. I hope you continue to enjoy your time there.

Things have been very well here! The business is getting a bit busier since it’s the summer. Though the heat is starting to take me out, I may even have to lose the scarf.

Please keep an eye on Link for me. His letters have been rather short. Nearly only a few words. Though I’m sure he just has a lot on his mind.

Don’t let The Hero of the Wilds steal your brother from you!

Your favorite merchant

Ravio of Lorule

Dear Ravio,

The festival itself was lovely. There were flowers all along the streets, lanterns were lit. It was beautiful. I even convinced the boys to let me braid flowers into their hair and wear flower crowns! And you know how much I love flowers.

However, there was an… incident late in the night. Thankfully everyone was there and so things were taken care of quickly. A portal has opened and we are going to be leaving later today. As much as I have missed my mot brother, I am glad to be leaving after last night. I can’t stand to stay another moment here knowing that he is so close by.

On a much lighter note, I’m glad business is going well for you! Please try to stay out of trouble and not get yourself stabbed in an alleyway or something while we are gone. Link would find a way to bring you back just to kill you again.

Stay away from that one butcher!

Your favorite problem causer

Y/N

My Dearest Problem Causer,

I’m sorry that you had some issues during your visit home. I can imagine that that wasn’t the best thing to have to deal with. I can’t, however, imagine The Hero of Time with a flower crown. That must have been a sight to be had.

Link did send me a letter about the incident. It seems like it was a rough thing to have to go through. I’m glad that it was dealt with though. Link seems to be relieved.

I am, in fact, staying away from the butcher. He wants to buy a knew set of hooks and knives from me, but after our last interaction I am far too afraid to do business with him. He is a butcher after all.

The lavender fields are in bloom now. They are beautiful this time of year, hopefully you will get to see them. I know you would like them. They remind me of you Link. I’m going to put a few small stocks of lavender into the envelope with this. I hope they find you well.

Keep me updated on where that portal sends you this time. I’m always anxious to hear.

Your friend in trouble making,

Ravio of Lorule

My Dearest Trouble Making Friend,

I may not even have time for the ink to dry before I send this off, so I apologize if it is short. The post man is waiting for me to finish so he can be on his way.

We have landed in Wild’s era, but things are… off. For example, there are islands floating in the sky? We haven’t figured out what’s going on quite yet, but my biggest fear is Wild will have to go on another adventure. At least we will all be with him if he does.

Thank you for the lavender! It was very thoughtful of you. I have some laid out to dry near camp and have a small amount in my hair. I plan to try to make a desert with it.

The post man is growing impatient so I will have to cut this short. I hope to hear from you soon. I’m going to include a magnolia pedal in the envelope. I brought it with me from my home, it’s my favorite flower and I thought you should have it.

Your flower lovering friend

Y/N

(NEXT)

Just a short little exchange between friends

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mdhwrites · 5 months

Note

Is Belos the only Owl House villain with a fandom that's giving him more depth than the show?

Edit: I just noticed that you said TOH villain specifically. *smacks self* But also Kikimora exists... Or literally any fanfic about the S1 villains probably. TOH has a lot of dry puddle villains when it comes to depth. As someone who literally ever did King Sombra fiction for the My Little Pony, no. No it is not. In fact, I actually highly doubt that it's really that uncommon. A lot of pure evil villains will be warped and shifted as they hit a fandom so that they are more useful for shipping or can be more complex in their villainy than what was shown in the show. After all, when you start from rock bottom, it's hard to really not go up.

I think the big thing about Belos that makes him bizarre is that where as a lot of other fandoms will just agree that the villain was shallow, the fandom is split on him. There are those like me who believes he's incredibly bland and doesn't care about his backstory elements because, you know, backstory is not a personality. A boring character with an interesting backstory is still a boring character.

There is a side of the fandom though who are REALLY upset about Belos' treatment in the finale because of all those crumbs of backstory that they see as what could have been. Hell, because people linked me a recent review of TOH, I saw people in the comments effectively being split on the reviewers main complaint about the show being that Belos is just bluntly, boringly evil. Some thought he was right on the money, others talked about the shortening and some argued that he was actually complex, you just had to dig for it. (No I won't link the review because of issues surrounding the person who made it. It's also pretty bare bones anyways and what you'd expect from a 12 minute, positive review of TOH.)

This is demonstrative of the issue with Belos though, isn't it? Compelling concepts that are all in service for someone who can be boiled down to "Narcissistic, genocidal, racist moron." Someone betrayed by family who abandoned him and his loneliness and pain lashed out upon the world? A ruler who believes that the oppression of his own people is for their own sake due to religious fervor? A human who believes the other world to be a hell that he must crusade against? Each of these is actually not a bad concept on its own but they're not all compatible together. Maybe any two can do it but these are only three of the like half a dozen concepts you could read into Belos through his backstory and actions, minimum, and pretty much all demand that he actually have more than two braincells together because he is really rock stupid. Remember: He never planned for how to murder the children of the Isles, only the adults. In fact, he made sure to ADD protections on the children rather than making it more dangerous for them which could have led to an actual decline in population.

I will always prefer how Belos presented himself in S1's finale, a portrayal that does NOT work with his actual goals. His statement of "I do not seek conquest, only unity," is just bullshit. Murdering an entire race isn't unity after all. Also why bother lying to the human here? Why not try to get her on your side? Be honest with her? Or trap her so as to make sure not to allow her to backstab you like your brother? I know people say time loop stuff but he is still trying to convince her to work with him and is disappointed when she refuses, while also MURDERING LILITH which is a bit of a big deal if he actually remembers them after so long, so I don't buy it.

That portrayal has always been my favorite though because it makes Luz and Belos have similar goals but differing ideologies for reaching those goals. Belos believes that unity can be found through order and control, even if it restricts expression, while Luz promotes radical expressionism and the idea that it is our differences that make us stronger. It's great theming and makes it so that anytime Luz doesn't make a friend because they're simply too different, she has to question if he's potentially correct.

But then the show does the weird decision that each characters individuality, besides one or traits, is slowly eroded away over the course of the show. Everyone is just a nice person. You get a jock added eventually with Willow but that's about it. You don't have anyone overly serious, minus when Hunter is putting up a front and defaulting to trained behavior, you have no goths, punks, pure balls of sunshine who are annoying, etc. like that. Not amongst those that the show doesn't frame as mostly a joke, like how Lilith's hyperfixations are treated.

It's an awkward element of the main cast that makes Belos as the grand villain really awkward. You can't have a villain who is still seeking unity like that without him potentially being able to point out how those around Luz have lost their personal desires and goals, their interests, besides Willow (and kind of Gus with his human interest that is still... awkward to put it mildly), and so genuinely how different are their methods when she isn't as inclusive as she claims to be?

Even Kikimora, perhaps the most alternative person when compared to Luz's comfort zone, is only brought into Luz's range when she presents herself as capable of being a strawman for Luz and Luz gets an in to say "Look! She's a person! At least in my eyes." Before, you know, she ditches Luz to continue to be ambitious and care about her own goals, evil as they may be.

I've gotten kind of off topic but I guess my main point is to also discuss how you get a villain like Belos to some extent. I can absolutely like a pure evil villain btw. I don't think Ozai is a detriment to Avatar as his pure evil nature matches the fact that the war he is committing is just as much a force of nature, destroying the land, as it is some asshole's desire to conquer, capstoned not with his fight against Aang but his literal attempt to annihilate a CONTINENT. At that point, your goal isn't conquest, it's total destruction. A literal scorched Earth.

But Belos? Every attempt to pretend Belos was nuanced or the like just brought him lower and lower.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#emperor belos #toh #The Owl House #the owl house criticism #toh critical

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wlwcatalogue · 5 months

Text

Screening Announcement! (Dec 10th & 17th, 2023)

Update as of 6 Dec 2023: There are still decent seats left for the 6pm & 9pm showings on Dec 10th, and for all four screenings on Dec 17th!

If anyone here will be in Hong Kong this December 10th or 17th (both Sundays), and has even a passing interest in Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin (see my post on them here), queerness in East Asia and/or the 1950’s, or Chinese opera, I strongly urge you to go to one of the eight screenings of the restored version of Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記)!

Not only is it a great romantic comedy (yes, really), it’s also a very rare opportunity to see a classic Cantonese opera movie – or indeed any black and white Hong Kong movie – with English subtitles and in 4K resolution. For a taster, check out this excellent dance scene (not 4K) and this video from the Hong Kong Film Archive about their restoration efforts!

On top of that, it’ll be showing in the cinema of the storied Sunbeam Theatre (新光戲院), which opened in 1972 and is Hong Kong’s last commercial Cantonese opera theatre. (It must be added that being able to go there will soon become an even rarer opportunity; the venue will sadly be closing in 2025 as heritage is apparently a joke in Hong Kong.)

Here's a quick outline of the story for those who need a bit more convincing:

Penned by the Shakespeare of Cantonese opera, Tong Tik Sang (唐滌生), this retelling of Yuan-dynasty opera Tale of Red Pear Flower (謝金蓮詩酒紅梨花) starts off fairly sober - courtesan So-chau (Pak Suet Sin) and scholar Chiu Yu-chau (Yam Kim Fai) are long-distance lovers, but before they are able to meet in person for the first time, So-chau is forced to fake her death to avoid being sent off to a barbarian warlord. But then it morphs into an unexpected romantic comedy: in her escape, So-chau ends up at a relative’s house… only to find that Chiu will be moving in as a guest there that very night. Unfortunately for her, she’s been forbidden by her uncle from disclosing her identity for fear of disrupting Chiu’s studies, and Chiu is extraordinarily – albeit adorably – dumb. Apart from the two leads being played by women, it’s really easy to read queer themes into how So-chau is desperate with longing and yet unable to directly articulate her desires and identity, permitted only to hint and nudge. (As is the movie as a whole in some ways, since Hong Kong movies of that era were very prudish; even heterosexual kisses weren’t allowed onscreen.) Chiu, kind-hearted but oblivious, echoes the familiar figure of the queer crush. Also, Pak plays So-chau with the thirstiness of a marathon runner who hasn’t had a drop of water since the start of the race, so there’s that to enjoy too :)

Tickets are available on the Cityline website for HK$70 each (linked here – change the language to English by clicking “Eng” in the menu); note that you’ll need to make an account to make a purchase. Dec 10th and Dec 17th will both have four screenings each (12pm, 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm), but seating is very limited so you should definitely buy your ticket sooner rather than later!

#wlw recommendations #asian lgbtq #hong kong #cantonese opera #chinese opera #yam kim fai #pak suet sin #hong kong queer icons #yampak #yambak #pak sheut sin #bak sheut sin #theatre

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oswanily · 2 months

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Rival Matriarchs Challenge Rules

Note: I call this “Rival Matriarchs”, and talk about each matriarch as “she” in the rules. Your matriarchs don’t need to have she/her pronouns. They can be of any gender as long as they can be impregnated.

Yes another new challenge! Basically, this is a rotational 100 baby challenge. Except depending on how many matriarchs you have you might want to go over – or even under, why not – 100 babies. I wanted to do a new 100 baby challenge with infants, but this challenge can get repetitive, so I came up with a solution. This is also meant to be harder than the 100 baby challenge, money-wise especially. Credit to SnarkyWitch for the 100 Baby Challenge rules!

If something hasn’t been mentioned here, the 100 baby challenge rules (linked above) apply.

Starting Out

- You can start this challenge with as many matriarchs as you wish. You will need to decide how many babies you will have in total based on your numbers of matriarchs and how long you want the challenge to last (or you can just keep going until you get tired of the challenge, your call – only thing is you have to end the challenge at the end of a rotation of course).

- Your matriarchs can have any trait or aspirations, but I advise you try to make them different, as the point of this is having a more interesting and varied 100 baby challenge. Your matriarchs can be related, or not. They can be friends, enemies, or not even know each other, the storyline is up to you. The only things are, they must all be the same age, and they cannot be immortal.

- Each matriarch starts alone in her own household with 20 000§ funds.

- Each matriarch needs to buy a furnished starter home (you can use an EA one, get one from the gallery, or if you want to go the easy route, build one that suits your needs). Once the sims are each in their starter homes, set their funds to 0§.

- Your matriarch is not allowed to move lots. You can expand the house when you get money though.

- For lot traits and challenges, they have to be set before the matriarch moves in (whether it’s one of the first matriarchs or a daughter taking over). You cannot add or remove any after.

- You will need the mod MCCC to turn off pregnancy progression when unplayed for the matriarchs. You also need to turn off aging when unplayed for the played households in your game settings (you can leave aging on for your NPC’s). I also recommend turning on aging for pregnant sims with MCCC.

- Each matriarch will be played one sim week in a rotation. The goal is to have 100 (or whichever number you set) babies in total. The matriarchs are competing to see which line will have the most babies out of the 100!

- If you have seasons, you can set the season length as you wish, and start in any season.

Impregnation Rules and RPO Rules

- Each donor (or “baby daddy”) can only impregnate one of the matriarchs once.

- The child of another matriarch can’t become a donor (they are rival lines, the sons of the family are supporting their mothers and sisters!).

- If you have the RPO mod, which I recommend for even more challenge, you cannot make an infertile sim fertile. The only exceptions to this rule are 1. your starting matriarchs (there is no point in you remaking the exact same sim in CAS just to have her be fertile this time) and 2. if you have a collab with someone else, like if a follower or a friend makes you a sim to use as a baby daddy and they turn out infertile, then you are allowed to bump up their fertility to 1.

- If you have the RPO mod, and one or several of your matriarchs have fertility under 33 when she becomes a young adult, you are allowed to bump it up to 33. We want this challenge to be hard, but having to try for a baby over 15 times before it works isn’t hard, it just kills all the fun. If you don’t want to bump up the fertility though, feel free not to, it’s your game after all.

- However, still with RPO, if a matriarch’s fertility lowers due to a miscarriage or simply due to becoming older, you are not allowed to bump it back up. If your matriarch becomes infertile due to a miscarriage, she retires and her youngest daughter takes over. Fertility potions are only allowed when the matriarch or the baby daddy have low fertility (that means they’ve had their fertility checked and it says it’s low).

Money Making Rules

- Each living matriarch needs to earn money a different way. Basically, you can’t have two matriarchs doing painting for money at the same time, however if your matriarch that did painting dies, you can have another doing painting in the future.

- Digging around (going into the world to find plants and fossils and such to sell) does not count in the previous rule, as when starting with 0 simoleons, there isn’t really a way to avoid doing that at some point. However, dumpster diving does count.

-Also, you can try out an activity for a few days then decide it isn’t for your sim, but you aren’t allowed to come back to it after deciding that. This is mostly in case your sim decides she dislikes the activity from the get-go.

Succession Rules

- When a matriarch ages to an elder, one of her daughters still in the household takes over, you get to choose which one. The daughter only takes over when she becomes a young adult, no teen pregnancy here.

- If a matriarch gets a child taken away from her, she failed at her duty. Then the taken child doesn’t not count towards the 100 babies, and your matriarch retires. She doesn’t get to have any more children, and her youngest daughter needs to take on the role of matriarch (you don’t get a choice here).

- When a daughter becomes the next matriarch, she needs to use the household funds to buy a new furnished house. She must sell all of the previous house’s furniture – except things that can’t be replaced like photos, tombstones, birth certificates... Then you have to set the funds back to 0§. These matriarch changes are the only times you’re allowed to move lots, so choose wisely.

That’s it! Use the tag “Rival Matriarchs Challenge” if you do this, you can also tag me on tumblr (OswaNily)! If you have any questions, you can send me an ask.

#sims 4 challenge #new sims 4 challenge #Rival Matriarchs Challenge #sims 4 challenge rules

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neopronouns-in-action · 8 months

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Before we begin, I highly recommend reading

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott Abbott

(Project Gutenberg link, where you can read and download the book for free. You can also find many audiobook versions on youtube and the web archive)

(BTW, the word "romance" here is not referring to romantic love, it's the older version of the word that means a story with adventures and amazing quests.)

and

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul, by Leslie Feinberg

(Web archive link where you can read and listen to the book for free)

to best appreciate this short story.

___

Neopronouns in Action #062: Flatland Warriors: Ponder the Meaning of the Words, or, The Breaking Point.

The audiobook version of this story can be listened to here on the web archive: "https://archive.org/details/neopronouns-in-action/Neopronouns+in+Action+062+00+The+Breaking+Point+-+Context.mp3"

Neopronouns:

da/dar/darl/darkling

phi/phim/phis/phirself,

tuo/tuak/tuar/tuaresi,

Which all follow the same rules as he/him/his/himself:

Replace he with da, phi, or tuo

Replace him with dar, phim, or tuak

Replace his with darl, phis, or tuar

Replace himself with darkling, phirself, or tuaresi

EX:

"He is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as he gets a fence set up around his yard so the puppy can go outside without him having to walk it. His uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting him use, since he lost his. He's going to buy toys and train the puppy himself.”

Becomes:

"Da is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as da gets a fence set up around darl yard so the puppy can go outside without dar having to walk it. Darl uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting dar use, since da lost darl. Da's going to buy toys and train the puppy darkling.”

"Phi is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as phi gets a fence set up around phis yard so the puppy can go outside without phim having to walk it. Phis uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting phim use, since phi lost phis. Phi's going to buy toys and train the puppy phimself.”

"Tuo is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as tuo gets a fence set up around tuar yard so the puppy can go outside without tuak having to walk it. Tuar uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting tuak use, since tuo lost tuar. Tuo's going to buy toys and train the puppy tuaresi.”

= = =

Flyssa sighed as da rested in darl room, trying, unsuccessfully, to tune out the conversation da could hear from the doorway to the parlour.

Dearg had been forced to “invite” Lieutenant Kellite over for dinner after the lieutenant let slip several overt implications that Dearg could going to be accused, within the General's range of hearing, of impropriety if phi didn't prove that “He kept north a good, respectable house”, by spending the night plying phis superior officer with the best wines, meats, and deserts phis meager salary could afford.

Flyssa, of course, had no salary. Lines were not allowed to hold jobs, or own any property of their own. Da couldn't even go out to the market to buy groceries without an escort from either Dearg or one of phis polygon siblings or close cousins, or da would be arrested, most likely executed on the spot, and Dearg, having taken responsability for dar from darl father when they were married, would be charged with criminal negligence and attempted manslaughter.

Lines must be kept under the strictest control, you see, because they were dangerous and unpredictable. Being a line, they had only two faces, and two points, both sharper than the sharpest of trigons. Having no angles, they had no capacity for thought. They were barely even human.

All this was, of course, the reality mandated into law by the higher polygons. Started by those who proclaimed themselves cirles, and passed south, by force, through the descending ranks of the people forcibly labeled the lower classes.

Things had been like this longer than Flyssa had been alive, but not longer than darl grandna had been alive. When Flyssa had still been a child, and not old enough yet to be allowed to leave the house even with an escort, Grandna Tuokeli had told dar endless stories of what life was like before the Configurationists had come.

When tuo had been a child, when their country was still called by its true name of Ib-Wa, there had been no laws segregating people based on their numbers of sides, and lines had been allowed to do any job they wanted, they could go where they wanted, do anything anyone else could do. There were some tasks that only lines and the thinnest of triagonals could do, due to their thinner size allowing them to fit into smaller spaces than other shapes, but that was just how physical reality worked, it wasn't made north one day by a bigot and then mandated into law that pretended it had to be true by pure virtue of being a law.

And now Flyssa was an adult, darl grandna had had to flee the country several years past, and lines weren't even considered to be shapes at all, let alone shapes of equal value and ability as any other.

Dearg, mandated as a trigon of the lowest class, was regarded as only a single, miniscule step above Flyssa as far as the ruling powers were concerned. Phis angle, and thus, according to the Configurationists, brain, was so acute as to hardly exist. But it was an angle, and it did exist in its meagerness, and that was more than Flyssa had.

So Dearg was given the "honor" and "privilege" of serving in the Configurationist's army as a common foot soldier. The hours were long, the work gruelling, and those who did the work were regarded with complete disdain. The "equillateral" trigons who oversaw the "isoseles" were cruel, and viewed torture and execution for the smallest of infractions as "good old Circleday entertainment".

Bribes, such as the dinner Dearg was currently being forced to play host to, were a constant demand of the officers, further stripping the soldier caste of resources and putting them in constant debt. And if you refused to cave to the demands of your superior officer, or failed to supply them with the favors they demanded, it was inevitable that you would be the next one put in the torture block or publicly executed, with real mistakes blown out of proportion, or fabricated entirely out of thin air.

Most of the food and drink laid in front of Lt. Kellite had been snuck in in the middle of the night by their neighbors, all of them soldiers or families of soldiers stationed either in Dearg's regiment, or the other patrol whose territory overlapped with theirs in this corner of the city.

The officers had to know their demands were impossible for a single soldier's salary to supply, given that they were the ones who set the ration limits and pay rates, but anyone who dared to point out these facts to them was executed before they could finish getting the words out. If you wanted to survive as a member of the soldier caste, you had to jump when the officers said jump, and don't let things like basic math or logic or the price of fruit this time of year get in the way.

It had taken the pooled resources of twelve other households to supply the extravagent dinner Lt. Kellite was currently loudly enjoying in darl parlour, with Dearg eating phis portion with much quieter, carefully forced cheer and politeness, trying to hide phis hatred behind the proper demeanor of a host.

Flyssa could see through the charade like it wasn't there, and could only hope that Lt. Kellite was either less perceptive, or at least wouldn't care that the pleasantry was false. His every spoken breath, after all, was insult on insult, hidden behind a thin facade of complimentary-sounding words.

There were many among the soldier caste who'd given into their rage from the constant insults and lashed out at the offendor, only for all the other officers to proclaim them mad out of their minds, or so genetically barbaric that they didn't even understand the idea of a compliment. The "victim" (the officer), after all, never said an unkind word against them, and this was how the brutal, out of control soldiers repayed his kindness?

Clearly, these unprovoked attacks on innocent men of good standing was more proof that the "isosceles" were good only for the most dangerous, taxing manual labor as soldiers, or to be confined as exhibits in schools for the children of the higher ranking polygons to learn the art of recognition by feeling.

It took all of Fylssa's willpower to remain in darl room instead of rushing out to give the Lieutenant a peice of darl mind as the least drastic of all the options da had been considering since Lt. Kellite strode through the front door like he owned it.

In truth, he did. His family controlled this arm of the military, and they owned the land this house was built on. As part of the soldier caste, Flyssa and Dearg were only allowed to live on land controlled by the military. The salary Dearg was given for phis service was immediately returned in the form of rent and payment for food, and for any fees phi was charged as punishment for misconduct, either real or imagined.

Flyssa was trying to focus on darl part of the internal ledger of supplies available to dar and darl neighbors, purposefully trying to drown out the sounds from the parlour by immersing darkling in the task of mentally retallying the stores, so, horribly, dar missed it the first three times Dearg tried to call dar into the parlour.

Phi actually had to come into darl room to get dar, followed by the scornful laughter of the Lieutenant that was so raucus it finally knocked dar out of darl reverie to see darl husband's terrified eye looking in at dar through the thin doorway.

"Flyssa," Phi whispered desperately, "He wants to see you, he insists you must join us for desert. We can't keep him waiting, I already called three times."

Quietly horrified, Flyssa whispered back, "I'm sorry!"

Dearg winked at dar in the pattern for reassurance, while out loud phi raised phis voice to say, loudly enough that Lt. Kellite could hear with anger that wasn't faked, though its target was false, "When I tell you to come and greet our guest, Woman, you come! Don't you dare make me come and fetch you again and make our illustrious guest wait on you like a commoner! Attend to your configuration!"

This last statement was met with a very loud, very drunk repetition from Lt. Kelllite, and followed by another burst of laughter.

As part of the show they had to put on together, Flyssa said nothing, and followed Dearg back into the parlour in the silent, meek subservience befitting the lowly wife of a lowly soldier.

Dearg entered the room first, as propriety demanded, and Flyssa stood next to phir to greet Lt. Kellite in the formal, "Greetings, my Lord trigon, Lieutenant Kellite. I greet you as a humble line, and swear my presence will not sting you."

The line had been first spoken by the wife of one of the higher-ranking self-proclaimed circles, and was now considered a requirement for any line greeting an unrelated polygon.

Lt. Kellite, who was at this point very drunk, laughed again, and called, "You have her very well trained, soldier! That was most dignified and proper...for a line of her lineage!"

Dearg was expected to laugh, so phi did, trying to cover north how angry phi was. Flyssa was expected to say nothing, so da remained silent. Lt. Kellite heard neither response over the sound of his own uncontrolled laughter.

When Lt. Kellite was done laughing, there was a tear in his eye, which he wiped away with one cilia, then blinked at the two of them as though seeing them for the first time.

He began to chuckle again. Why he'd demanded such a large bottle of wine when he clearly couldn't handle even a fraction of it, they would never know.

"Did you know that from this angle--" And he laughed on the word angle,"--you look exactly the same? All I can see are the glows of your eyes, like there's not an angle between you!"

Neither of them said anything, because there was no good response available to them. There was nothing wrong with Dearg's shape any more than there was Flyssa's, but that's not how the Configurationists saw it.

For a Configurationist to say that Dearg was indistinguishable from Flyssa -- a trigon from a line -- it was intended as the gravest insult imagineable. Lines were not considered shapes, they weren't considered human. They were regarded as unthinking creatures of pure emotion when even that much was granted to them, incapable of logic or real thought or self-conception.

The rules of Configurationist society demanded that Dearg be humiliated and infuriated by the claim that phi could not be told apart from a line. And those very same rules also demanded that phi be obedient and subservient, never contradicting phis "betters" or implying they were anything but perfect. Phi was an isosceles trigon whose angle was so acute phi was almost indistinguishable from a line.

There was no way to respond to Lt. Kellite's insult without losing, so phi chose the option least likely to get phirself killed, and remained silent.

Lt. Kellite eventually got over his own hilarity and calmed south enough to demand that Dearg return to the table, and that Flyssa serve them desert.

They acquiesced to his demands, Dearg returning to phis spot at the table opposite Lt. Kellite, and Flyssa moving to the cool room to fetch the pudding that had been hastily thrown together from ingredients from all the neighbor's stores.

Da gently probed the surface with a cilia, and was relieved to see that it had set properly, the surface jiggling firmly at darl touch rather than moving like the liquid it had started out as.

Moving carefully so as not to break the still-fragile texture, Flyssa carried the tray back into the parlour, careful this time to make sure da was paying attention to the conversation incase da was called on again.

But the conversation had drifted to the almost-harmless topic (No topic of conversation was ever truly safe with an officer, who could take any word as an insult worthy of capital punishment) of the weather lately, with Lt. Kellite forcing Dearg to agree with him that all the rain they'd been getting was making the lower classes lazier, letting them think they could get away with doing half the work at slower the pace.

Dearg was not allowed to point out that it was just a fact of reality that you physically couldn't move as fast in the rain as you could dry, so phi could only nod along and give agreeing-sounded noises whenever Lt. Kellite demanded, "Don't you agree?".

Flyssa was not allowed to say anything at all besides the required, "My Lord trigon, I serve you" as da deposited the the pudding dish on the table and backed away at a respectful speed to wait against the northern wall, careful to keep darl eye turned towards Lt. Kellite so he could see dar at all times.

This also had the affect of making sure da could hear his every word loud and clear, despite how much da wished da could shut them out.

"So, Private," Lt. Kellite boomed when he was halfway through the bowl of pudding, absentmindedly throwing the peices of the expensive dried fruit he didn't like over his shoulder so they fell to the southern wall, "How long have you been married to this fine young line here?"

The words themselves seemed positive, but the way in which they were said dripped with derision and barely-contained disgust.

"It will be five years this New Year's Eve, my Lord trigon." Dearg replied, not letting any reaction show in phis voice, and careful to use the Configurationist term for the holy night rather than its real name.

"She's got Irregularity in her line, doesn't she? Her grandmother was mentally unsound, wasn't she? Destroyed after dozens of failed attempts to treat her in the state sanitorium, if I remember right. That was her grandmother, wasn't it?"

Dearg did not let any emotion enter phis voice as phi replied, "Yes, my Lord."

"And it hasn't been passed south to this generation, has it?"

"No, my Lord." Dearg lied while Flyssa held darl breath in sudden aphrension.

"And five years, really?" Lt. Kellite continued as though he hadn't noticed their reactions. A dangerous note had entered his tone, though he still kept north the pretence of merriness. "Five whole years sheltered under my roof, and fed at my table, protected by my wall, and you've yet to produce any new isosceles to fill my ranks in repayment, nor any new lines to marry to your fellow soldiers."

He tapped one cilia against the table as if in deep thought. "Why is that, I wonder? Is she too ugly for you? Or perhaps she did inherit her grandmother's Irregularity."

He rolled his eye to look directly at Flyssa as he continued, "Some Irregularities are invisible on the surface, you know. The doctors only find them after an autopsy is performed. Perhaps I should have her destroyed and we can find out, and find you a new wife. Or perhaps--!" His voice rose higher to cut off Dearg's instantaneous, helpless protest, snapping his eye back to regard Dearg with all the force of a javelin, "Perhaps your vertex, being so acute, has rendered you immune to the wiles of the feminine persuasian. After all..."

His voice dropped to a confidential stage whisper. "You're so thin, you can hardly be told from a line yourself. It'd be only natural for your brain, so acute it's barely there, to be scrambled about which sex to be attracted to. I'll bet you're not even attracted to lines, are you? You can't help it. You don't have any children because you've only got eyes for proper shapes, don't you?"

Flyssa and Dearg held the same terrified breath, frozen in their places, too afraid to move or speak.

Lt. Kellite enjoyed their fear, and gloatingly let the silence hang over the room like a pall for almost a full minute, savoring every panicked heartbeat that made their eyes flicker in distress they couldn't conceal. From his angle, he could see both their eyes, and they could see his.

Finally, just as Flyssa was beginning to think that da would have no choice but to kill Lt. Kellite where he sat, and make a desperate attempt to flee to the north for asylum, just as darl grandna had so many years ago, the officer began to laugh, the sound like freezing ice in the veins of his unwilling audience.

Flyssa forced darkling to unobtrusively relax the tense stance da'd adopted, tried to slow darl racing heart. He was drunk, he'd had almost the entire bottle of wine by himself, he probably didn't even know what he was saying, and wouldn't remember it in the morning to accuse--

"I think your wife should return to her room, don't you, private? Let the two of us talk alone, man to man."

The words themelve were simple, neutral in their literal interpretation. The way they were said...

The room went silent again, the kind of silence that only death can carry.

Dearg was in shock, too horrified to react. Phi just sat there helplessly at the table, staring across at the Lieutenant, unable to speak.

"Leave us, line." Lt. Kellite said, in the off-hand tone of one accustomed to being obeyed without question.

There were many injustices that Flyssa had endured since da'd been born. Too many to count, too many to remember. Too many that da didn't want to remember.

Too many times, da had been the one shocked and helpless, unable to defend darkling. Outnumbered, overpowered, too beaten south and bruised to struggle. When da had been young, after darl mother had died, darl grandna had protected dar.

But darl grandna had had to leave the country to avoid execution, and tuo couldn't bring dar with tuok.

Many abuses da'd been forced to accept as da grew older, many da had learned, by the pain of necessity, to brace darkling against in the only hope of survival.

"I said leave us!" Lt. Kellite snapped, spinning to face dar, enraged by darl disobedience. "Are you irregular? Did you not hear me? Get out of here, woman! Go back to your room!"

Darl heart was beating so fast it was like a single drawn out tone instead of a drum. Rage was boiling in darl heart so powerful da couldn't believe it was only in darl mind.

It felt like the air itself was shaking with darl wrath, like the house should shatter around dar.

The rage was twisting and squirming in darl insides like snakes, and da could no longer hear darl own heartbeat over the roaring sound filling darl ears.

"What are you--?!" Lt. Kellite's terrified shout was just barely loud enough to reach darl conciousness, almost enough to break through the tsunami of rage sweeping over dar, but by then it was too late.

The transformation was on dar.

Flyssa couldn't see it happening, because darl eye was gone, but da could feel it. Darl once almost pefectly straight line shattered, but the fragments did not fall south, and darl mind did not break with them. New lines were forming in the cracks, shooting out and filling in darl sense of the space around dar as new cilia erupted from the surfaces, twisting and twitching to map dar surroundings.

Da had broken through the wall behind dar like it wasn't there, bringing the cold north wind to spiral and eddy in darl new angles.

Da could sense Lt. Kellite's terrified retreat in front of dar, every time he moved, darl new cilia caught the movement in the air like ripples in water, and Lt. Kellite was a struggling fish.

He was screaming, crying out for help, for reinforcements, for his soldiers to save him.

The fury, momentarily abated by the shock of the transformation, swept over dar again, and with a shriek of rage, da leapt in pursuit, slashing through the frame of the Men's door like it was paper, and out into the cold night and the honeycomb of houses that surrounded theirs.

Darl vision was gone, but darl hearing had been enhanced, and da could hear the families in the houses around dar shouting and whispering fervently in confusion and fear.

Da spun, trying to locate Lt. Keller through the wake of his movement, but the wind was strong and confused.

Then -- "He went west! North of Asi and Saber's house!"

Dearg's voice, behind dar, out of reach at a safe distance, guiding dar to darl target.

Trusting phim implicitly, Flyssa leapt towards the alley phi'd indicated, and tore off after Lt. Kellite, pealing out, in a sudden burst of inspiration, darl peace-cry, and discovering only as da began to sing that each of darl new stinging points contained a new mouth, too, each with a different voice.

Twelve voices rose above the wind, above Lt. Kellite's cry of fear, harmonizing in wordless emotion, filled with all the unspeakable rage that had finally burst free from darl heart.

Da was able to move faster now than da had ever been before, and unlike Lt. Kellite, da was familiar with their surroundings, knew intimately the map of hexagonal houses that belonged to darl friends and family and neighbors.

The only thing preventing dar from immediately catching north with him and tearing him to peices was darl unwillingness to injur any of darl neighbors by crashing into their houses or hitting anyone unawares. Lt. Kellite had no such worries, and charged ahead with reckless abandon. But he was hopelessly lost, unable to tell the houses and their inhabitants apart. They were just lowly Isosceles, barely more than lines, barely human. He'd never needed to know their names, or where they lived, who their neighbors were, before.

Even without darl sight, Flyssa knew where da was in relation to the rest of the town, and darl confidance only grew the further dar went, because as soon as da began to sing darl peace-cry, those watching the chase from the relative safety of homes began to gleefully join in.

Da recognized each of their voices, and used their identities to further cement darl location in darl mind even as Dearg continued to call directions behind dar.

Those in front of dar, where Lt. Kellite was fleeing, modulated their voices, raising the pitch whenever he got closer to them, and lowering it when he passed them, always with equal parts rage and laughter in their voices, his screams for help, of rage, of terror, drowned out as, every time he tried to force his way into a house, he was immediately thrown back into the street and forced to keep fleeing or be destroyed right there by the shapes who had emerged to defend their households.

His last mistake was trying to shove his way desperately through the Women's door on the Excal-Dagger house, only to be caught fast in the too-narrow gap, and unable to move to defend himself as the shapes within the house turned in a frenzy and began to assault his front side without mercy.

He managed to back out, blinded and bleeding, and turned to flee again --

And was struck straight through by darl longest point, cleaving his brain from the rest of his body in a single strike.

His blood was purple, the color of death, the color of life, the color of rebirth.

It tasted sweet, and the war-howls as darl friends, family, and neighbors painted themselves with his spilled blood and began to undergo the transformation themselves, baying for the blood of the sudden, unplanned revolution, tasted sweeter still.

#long post #very long post #very very long post #neopronouns #neopronouns in action #short story #short stories #original fiction #fiction #writing prompts #story ideas #Flatland #Flatland OCs #Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions #Fascist Shapes in Space #werewolves #werestars #yes #I'm stealing that

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carriedreamerxx · 9 months

Text

-Sleep-

****

The house was humble and not at all worthy but…

He needed to get her warm and so this would just have to do. Her ceremonial garb was in tatters, his own tunic was torn beyond repair, but by the Gods he was going to try.

He could see their eyes on him, his friends, his colleagues, were they at last at peace? Did they see Link struggling to get up a mere flight of stairs holding their own beloved Princess by the waist with every ounce of his remaining strength.

"Link…" her voice was weak, and exhausted and propriety be damned -!

He swept her into his arms fully and crossed the last few steps towards the bed, under the watchful eye of Lady Urbosa who had likely already cursed Link's ill mannered handling of her precious little bird.

…. A fitting name really, especially at this moment, she shivered on Link's worn sheets, as he knelt at her side.

"Princess." He murmured. "We need to get you warm, will you accept my cloak?"

"Link…" was her only answer.

I will take that as a yes.

He swept his cloak off and covered in mud as it was, it was at least of thicker material than the thin silk of her gown.

…he hated this gown. Was it wrong he hoped it would be deemed unsalvageable and that they would have no choice but to throw the wretched thing in the fire.

A gown to honor the living goddess…

More like a damned funeral shroud.

Her skin was cold when he removed her sandals, the leather thongs so tight and frayed, they were cutting into her flesh, he bit back a curse.

These he threw down to the bottom floor, these he swore would be repurposed. He'd buy instead the softest leather boots he could afford and once word arrived from Impa and the Sheikah escort came to collect the Princess…

She was still shivering, she'd barely gotten that last whispered plea out before she'd collapsed into his arms, and…

I didn't answer.

There hadn't been time. Gods forgive him she'd gone down so fast and what had his first instinct been but to trust in his steed to get them to safety-!

Safety as in Kakariko not…

A mountain homestead was not the right place for a princess to recover from a twisted ankle let alone a one hundred years constant vigil-!

I didn't even sweep the damn floor!

Again those eyes bore down on him, he could almost feel the piercing gaze of Revali especially -

Fool.

She was asleep at least. Her breathing was steady, he wondered when she'd wake up, the days after the blights despite his best efforts almost always he'd been swept into town and Link had slept like a lazy dullard for hours he'd never get back!

Hours….the princess could never get back.

Fool.

"Aye, I'm a fool Master Revali, I admit."

Don't be so hard on yourself.

His lip curled wanly, "You say that Princess Mipha but you're a wee bit biased it seems." He shifted his gaze to the other tattered silver and blue Zora armor hanging in the makeshift closet. The chainmail was in pieces from a silver Lizalfos bite and tear, that's what he gets for playing cuckoo with a damned mean lizard with a pointy stick in your face.

That wasn't that smart little guy.

"Aye, I know Daruk." Link sighed and crossed his arms. "I know."

The floor was dusty. His clothes were everywhere. The flower on the table was droopy. By Hylia's mercy was Link a grown man or a wee child!

This is not a place for a Princess to wake up in.

At the very least he'd dust a bit in here. So what his own limbs ached, he had slept but last night when was the last time his-....the Princess had slept?

What had even happened to her - how was it she looked yet the same?

Link…Link was no scholar, aye truth be told Link could barely spell but…these were mysteries far too advanced for even the most brilliant of castle theologians let alone…a simple young man from Hateno.

Her wisdom, what he could remember of it at least, transcended time and spirit. She knew both the old and the new, what once was all the way to what must be-... She'd sacrificed…so much.

…so much.

The least she could have is a nice clean house to wake in.

"Link…"

He froze in mid step.

"...princess?" He murmured. Her voice was small…thin with fatigue, her eyes were still closed, was she even aware? "Please rest." He whispered back.

"...Link." Another whisper.

"Aye, I'm right here Princess."

"....Link." it sounded yet so... Sad. He frowned.

"...what can I do? She sleeps so fitfully I don't want to see her in any more pain, how can I make her see she's... She's free?"

"Stay with her. " The voice in his ear was low. Maternal. "You have done already what must be done, now stay with her Link."

".... Link."

He took a step closer. "Princess, you must rest. Please, it is over now and you have had a long trial now please milady…rest."

".... Remember…me."

"... I do. I do Princess. I remember not much… if anything… but I do remember you."

"....Link. Don't…don't leave."

He drew the blankets further over her before dragging a chair over.

"I won't. Never again. I swear it. Now please, just rest. I'll be right here when you wake up. I promise."

Her hand was soft, and so….so damned small yet he knew within dwelled a power so profound it had saved them all…kept them safe for one hundred long…long years.

She had kept the beast at bay…Link had merely come in with a sword and swung it at the right time.

"The hero of Hyrule…" he murmured. "Aye Zelda… you are indeed."

****

Word count: 950 words

Fandom: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild .

Notes: I'm a sucker for these two - at this point I'm going to do drabbles and one shots for them every time I have writers block lol

...which is a lot. Lol ah well.

#my writing #legend of zelda #legend of zelda fanfiction #botw zelink #drabbles #zelink

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shuxiii · 11 months

Text

Everyday pt. 8

Hanni Pham x reader pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4, pt5, pt6, pt7, pt8, pt9, pt10, pt11, pt12, pt13

a/n i am dying, credits ''every day'' david levithan

TW: homophobia

a/n me messing i saw hanni in edits today and pictures I had to make chapter 8, still credits all to ''every day'' by David levithan, edit: I'm losing my sanity

Day 6006

The phone rings.

I reach for it, thinking it’s Hanni.

Even though it can’t be.

I look at the name on the screen. Austin.

My boyfriend.

“Hello?” I answer.

“Hugo! This is your nine a.m. wake-up call. I will be there in an hour. Go make yourself purdy.”

“Whatever you say,” I mumble.

There’s a lot I have to do in an hour.

First, there’s the usual getting up, getting showered, and getting dressed. In the kitchen, I can hear my parents talking loudly in a language I don’t know. It sounds like Spanish but isn’t Spanish, so I’m guessing it’s Portuguese. Foreign languages throw me—I have a beginner’s grasp of a few of them, but I can’t really access a person’s memory fast enough to pretend to be fluent in any of them. I access and find that Hugo’s parents are from Brazil. But that’s not going to help me understand them better. So I steer clear of the kitchen.

Austin is picking Hugo up to go to a gay pride parade in Annapolis. Two of their friends, William and Nicolas, will be coming along. It’s marked on Hugo’s calendar as well as his mind.

Luckily, Hugo has a laptop in his room—since it’s the weekend and a school computer isn’t an option, I am going to risk checking in. I quickly open my email and find something that Hanni sent only ten minutes ago.

Yn,

I hope it went well yesterday. I called her house just now and no one was home—do you think they’re getting help? I’m trying to take it as a good sign.

Meanwhile, here’s a link you need to see. It’s out of control.

Where are you today?

I click on the link beneath her initial and am taken to the home page of a big Baltimore tabloid website. The headline blares:

THE DEVIL AMONG US!

It’s Haruto’s story, but it’s not only Haruto’s story. This time there are five or six other people from the area claiming to have been possessed by the devil. Much to my relief, none of them besides Haruto are familiar to me. All of them are older than I am. Most claim to have been possessed for a time much longer than a single day.

I would think the reporter would have been more skeptical, but she buys the stories uncritically. She even links to other stories of demonic possession—death-row criminals who claimed they were under the influence of satanic forces, politicians and preachers who were caught in compromising positions and said that something very uncharacteristic had come over them. It all sounds very convenient.

I quickly run Haruto through a search engine and find more coverage. The story, it seems, is going wide.

In article after article, there is one person quoted. Essentially, he says the same thing every time:

“I have no doubt that these are cases of demonic possession,” says Rev. Anderson Poole, who has been counseling Watanabe. “These are textbook examples. The devil is nothing if not predictable.”

“These possessions should come as no surprise,” says Poole. “We as a society have been leaving the door wide open. Why wouldn’t the devil walk right in?”

People are believing this. The articles and posts in the comments sections are legion—all from people who see the devil’s work in everything.

Even though I should know better, I shoot off a quick email to Haruto.

I am not the devil.

I hit send, but I don’t feel any better.

I email Hanni, telling her how it went with Jiwon's father. I also let her know that I’m going to be in Annapolis for the day, and tell her what T-shirt I’m wearing and what I look like.

There’s a honk outside, and I see a car that must be Austin’s. I race through the kitchen and say a hurried goodbye to Hugo’s parents. Then I pile into the car—the boy in the passenger seat (William) moves into the back with the other boy (Nicolas) so I can sit next to my boyfriend. For his part, Austin takes one look at my outfit and tsk-tsks, “You’re wearing that to Pride?” But he’s joking. I think.

There is conversation around me the whole car ride, but I’m not really a part of it. My mind is completely elsewhere.

I shouldn’t have sent Haruto that email.

One simple line, but it admits too much.

From the moment we hit Annapolis, Austin is in his element.

“Isn’t this fun?” he keeps asking.

William, Nicolas, and I nod, agree. In truth, the Annapolis Pride events aren’t that elaborate—in many ways it feels like the navy has turned gay and lesbian for the day, and a ragtag assortment of people have come along to cheer it on. The weather is sunny and cool, and that seems to cheer everyone further. Austin likes to hold my hand and swing it like we’re walking down the yellow brick road. Ordinarily, I’d be charmed. He has every right to be proud, to enjoy this day. It’s not his fault I’m so distracted.

I’m looking for Hanni in the crowd. I can’t help it. Every now and then, Austin catches me.

“See someone you know?” he asks.

“No,” I say truthfully.

She’s not here. She hasn’t made it. And I feel foolish for expecting her to. She can’t just drop her life every time I’m available. Her day is no less important than mine.

We come to a corner where there are a few people protesting the festivities. I don’t understand this at all. It’s like protesting the fact that some people are red-haired.

In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals. I know this is hard for people to do, but I don’t understand why it’s so hard, when it’s so obvious.

One of the protestor’s signs catches my eye. HOMOSEXUALITY IS THE DEVIL’S WORK, it says. And once again I think about how people use the devil as an alias for the things they fear. The cause and effect is backward. The devil doesn’t make anyone do anything. People just do things and blame the devil after.

Predictably, Austin stops to kiss me in front of the protestors. I try to oblige. Philosophically, I am with him. But I’m not inside the kiss. I cannot manufacture the intensity.

He notices. He doesn’t say anything, but he notices.

I want to check my email on Hugo’s phone, but Austin isn’t letting me out of his sight. When William and Nicolas make a move to get some lunch, Austin says he and I are going to go our own way for a little while.

I assume we’re going to get lunch, too, but instead he pulls me into a hip clothing store and spends the next hour trying things on, with me giving my outside-the-changing-room opinion. At one point, he pulls me into the changing room to steal some kisses, and I oblige. But at the same time, I’m thinking that if we’re inside, there’s no way Hanni is going to find me.

While Austin debates whether the skinny jeans are skinny enough, I find myself wondering what Jiwon is doing at this moment. Is she unburdening herself, going along with it, or is she defiant, denying that she ever wanted help in the first place? I picture Beomgyu and Soobin in their rec room, playing video games, not having any sense that their week was disrupted. I think of Keeho later tonight, preparing his clothes for church tomorrow morning.

“What do you think?” Austin asks.

“They’re great,” I say.

“You didn’t even look.”

I can’t argue this. He’s right. I didn’t.

I look at him now. I need to pay more attention.

“I like them,” I tell him.

“Well, I don’t,” he says. Then he storms back into the changing room.

I haven’t been a good guest in Hugo’s life. I access his memories and discover that he and Austin first became boyfriends at this very celebration, a year ago this weekend. They’d been friends for a little while, but they’d never talked about how they felt. They were each afraid of ruining the friendship, and instead of making it better, their caution made everything awkward. So finally, as a pair of twentysomething men passed by holding hands, Austin said, “Hey, that could be us in ten years.”

And Hugo said, “Or ten months.”

And Austin said, “Or ten days.”

And Hugo said, “Or ten minutes.”

And Austin said, “Or ten seconds.”

Then they each counted to ten, and held hands for the rest of the day.

The start of it.

Hugo would have remembered this.

But I didn’t.

Austin senses something has changed. He comes back from the dressing room without any clothes in his arms, looks at me, and makes a decision.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says. “I don’t want to have this particular conversation in this particular store.”

He leads me down to the water, away from the celebration, away from the crowds. He finds a somewhat secluded bench and I follow him there. Once we sit down, it all comes out.

“You haven’t been with me once this whole day,” he says. “You aren’t listening to a word I say. You keep looking around for someone else. And kissing you is like kissing a block of wood. And today, of all days. I thought you said you were going to give it a chance. I thought you said you were snapping out of whatever it is that’s been afflicting you the past couple of weeks. I am sure I recall you saying there wasn’t anyone else. But maybe I’m mistaken. I was willing to bend over backward, Hugo. But I can’t bend over backward and walk around at the same time. I can’t bend over backward and have a conversation. I guess when it all comes down to it, I’m just not that damn flexible.”

“Austin, I’m sorry,” I say.

“Do you even love me?”

I have no idea if Hugo loves him or not. If I tried, I’m sure I could access moments when he loved him and moments when he didn’t. But I can’t answer the question and be sure I’m being truthful. I’m caught.

“My feelings haven’t changed,” I say. “I’m just a little off today. It has nothing to do with you.”

Austin laughs. “Our anniversary has nothing to do with me?”

“That’s not what I said. I mean my mood.”

Now Austin is shaking his head.

“I can’t do this, Hugo. You know I can’t do this.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, genuine fear in my voice. I can’t believe I’m doing this to both of them.

Austin hears the fear, looks at me and maybe sees something worth keeping.

“This isn’t the way I want today to go,” he says. “But I have to believe that it isn’t the way you want it to go, either.”

I can’t imagine that Hugo was planning to break up with Austin today. And if he was, he can always do it tomorrow.

“Come here,” I say. Austin moves in to me and I lean into his shoulder. We sit like that for a moment, looking at the ships on the bay. I take his hand. When I turn to look at him, he’s blinking back tears.

This time when I kiss him, I know there’s something in it. When he feels it, it may come across as love. It is my thanks to him for not ending it. It is my thanks to him for giving it at least one day more.

We stay out until late, and I am a good boyfriend the whole time. Eventually I lose myself a little in his life, dancing along with Austin, William, Nicolas, and a few hundred other gays and lesbians when the parade organizers blast the Village People’s “In the Navy.”

bsp; I keep looking for Hanni, but only when Austin is distracted. And, at a certain point, I give up.

When I get home, there’s an email from her:

Yn,

Sorry I couldn’t make it to Annapolis—there were some things I had to do.

Maybe tomorrow?

I wonder what the “things I had to do” were. I have to assume they involve Minji, because otherwise, wouldn’t she have told me what they were?

I’m pondering this when Austin texts me to say he ended up having a great day. I text him back and say I had a great day, too. I can only hope that’s the way Hugo remembers it, because now Austin has proof if he denies it.

Hugo’s mother comes in and says something to me in Portuguese. I only get about half of it.

“I’m tired,” I tell her in English. “I think it’s time for bed.”

I don’t think I’ve addressed her questions, but she just shakes her head—I am a typical, unforthcoming teenager—and heads back to her room.

Before I go to sleep, I decide to see if Haruto has written me back.

He has.

Two words.

Prove it.

#Hanni x reader #Hanni Pham #Pham Hanni #Hanni Pham x reader #newjeans #newjeans fanfic #hanni pham #new jeans #nwjns #NewJeans Imagines #Newjeans imagine #Newjean Fanfic #NewJeans Fanfic #newjeans fic #newjeans imagine #Newjeans x reader

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cuubism · 1 year

Note

So here's the link for one of @banjosandmoonlight's drabble: https://www.tumblr.com/tharkuun/707549340312502272

If the link isn't working here's the text:

"Hob never talks about it but on that fateful night Robyn died he was not the only dead man in the alley behind that tavern.

"By gods wounds I saw him twitch!"

"Shut up!" Tam hissed over his shoulder, panting with exertion. He wiped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, then, satisfied, he stabbed the shovel into the ground.

"Isn't that too shallow?" asked his lackey again, watching concerned as Tam climbed out of the hole.

"What if the river floods again and washes them to the surface-"

"We won't be anywhere near by then," Tam said. "Come now, Ichabod, make yourself useful."

They dragged the younger in there first, into that pit of distinct shape in the middle of old Walter's wheatfields. Robyn Gadlen was a fair man even in death: his skin not bearing as much as a single scar, his hair black as night and soft with spicy oils - many said he did not bear much resemblance to his parents, that he was a changeling, mayhap some fairy with his sweet voice and sweeter words, his odd way with all animals, especially ravens.

'I have a fairy godfather,' Robyn said jokingly, whenever someone brought it up, not minding the odd looks he got.

For a strange creature he bled all too human and died like any man, Tam thought with grim satisfaction once Robyn fell with a dull thud onto the bottom of the pit, his neck, bent at an unnatural angle. It was almost too easy to hold him down, to snap his delicate, bird-like bones.

His father though, the old codger put up a decent fight for a fancy lordling: it took the five of them, Tam and four other boys to hold him down. Even when Ichabod ran him through his sword he fought like a wounded stag, his mean left hook more fit for a highwayman than some fancy ship merchant. When Tam grabbed his ankle to drag him to the grave he still felt the ghost of a pulse throbbing there.

"The fuck," he muttered.

He must have imagined it though for when he looked up Robert Gadlen was still carved up in the belly like a suckling pig in the autumn fair, his head hanging limp as Ichabod held him under his arms. Gadlen dropped into the pit with a heavy thud, landing on the top of his son's corpse. His eyes were wide open, the whites blood-shot around his iris. It must have been rigor mortis but he looked like he was smiling.

"Don't just stare, give me that bloody shovel!" Tam scoffed at Ichabod and, eventually, when he did not move, Tam grabbed it himself. He couldn't get a shovel's worth of soil back when lightning flashed across the sky and it started to rain.

"Tam," whispered Ichabod. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"You don't say, mate," Tam scoffed. "Hold my coat."

Oddly it took him more time to cover up the grave than to dig it. The soil felt unyielding like pure iron, the shovel heavy like a stone in his hand. Funny thing is, Tam almost felt relieved once it was all covered up. Just when he was about to turn to Ichabod, tell him to go home a caw stopped him. There, in the pouring rain a raven perched on top of the freshly turned ground.

"The bird of the devil!" Ichabod cried as the raven cawed once more then took off to disappear as quickly as it came.

"Come on, mate, let's go," Tam said, tense, spying the misty horizon. Suddenly, a fear in all children of things unknown in the dark was gnawing at him despite being a man of four-and-thirty.

By the time he made it to his house on the outskirts of the village Tam had almost forgotten about all that though, his thoughts too preoccupied with warm stew, women and all the fine things he would buy from old Gadlen's gold pouch ("It's ill fortune to take money from a dead man," Ichabod warned him. "Well, he doesn't need it anymore does he?" Tam shrugged, pocketing it away.)

Tam lit a candle in the small hut he called home. There were muddy footprints across the wooden floors, leading to the old armchair Tam got from his ol' pa, a highwayman himself. Maybe it was a trick of light, but it looked almost as if someone sat there, hunched in the dark corner.

"Dear boy," a voice rasped - ancient and full of gravel. "You really should have dug deeper.""

awesome thank you! i know at least one person was looking for it

I made this unrebloggable b/c I feel a little weird about being the root post for someone else's fic, esp when they deactivated, but hopefully people can bookmark if the readmore in the original post isn't working

#ask #anonymous

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madaboutmunson · 1 year

Text

The Drive-In - Part 4

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 5 | Links to all Parts | AO3 Link

Taglist: @2btheanswertothequestion

The speed at which Eddie moved back in his seat almost rivaled Steve's recoil from earlier.

"Shit, sorry, man. Guess I was just playing up the character" Eddie realizes he's making his voice sound a lot deeper than usual. He looks at Steve, expecting the worst. A slur, a look of disgust, an act of violence, maybe, but nothing happens. Steve simply nods at him and turns back to the movie.

Eddie honestly hadn't even realized he had put his arms around Steve. But he had definitely noticed how Steve's arms had felt around him.

That firm embrace of safety teamed with the verbal destruction of Jason Carver. Damn, if that hadn't made Eddie feel protected as fuck.

Nope. Eddie tells himself. No way. We are not going down this road again. Absolutely not! That was a phase, and that phase was over. Over!

Eddie gathers up his lunchbox quickly and takes down his hair, "So...um...yeah...thanks for saving my ass there, dude. Appreciate it."

Steve is still looking at the movie. Gods, Eddie's insides were in knots. Why wasn't he saying anything?

Eddie continues, "Look, erm, I was just scared of getting my head kicked in, dude, that's all. Here, look." Eddie grabs a small bag of weed out of his lunchbox and throws it at Steve, finally getting Steve to look at him. "On the house. You know, as a thank you," Eddie tries to give him that salesman smile and shrug.

Steve gives Eddie a sobering look of pity before picking up the baggy and tossing it back gently, "You don't need to buy my silence, Munson. I won't tell anyone."

"I wasn't...that's not..." Eddie huffs at his inability to form a sentence.

Steve dips his head to look at Eddie's face. "It's ok. I know...I mean... a few years ago, I met someone who was...you know...um...homosexual, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I promise I won't breathe a word of this to anyone"

Eddie's eyes search Steve's for a moment. Searches for a sign this was some kind of locker room joke between guys or something. But the laugh doesn't appear. He was serious. Steve thought that Eddie was...

Eddie clenches his fists and feels the anger rise in him. "I'm not fucking gay, alright?! I like girls! I was just terrified, alright?!" He gestures violently into the night, "That's why they were chasing me in the first place because I was hitting on a fucking woman, alright?" Eddie looks around frantically, "There...that one there," he points at the girl from earlier. Eddie pokes the glass so hard he's amazed his finger doesn't just go through it.

Steve gives him another pitying look.

Eddie wrinkles his nose in anger. "You know what, Harrington, if anyone in this car is fucking gay, it's you! All those years slapping other guys' asses are probably a major factor in why you didn't even notice how broad my shoulders were when you tried to ram your tongue in my ear!!"

Oh, that was it. Eddie had found it. Steve's eyes flare with annoyance, "Yeah, well, in my defense, you've got long hair, and your shoulders...your shoulders are not as broad as you think they are...could have been shoulder pads, alright?!"

"Shoulder pads?! That's fucking rich coming from the guy who must use more products in his hair than the entire cheer squad!!" Eddie barks back sharply, "Also, it's clearly not having the same effect on the girlies it did in high school. We all saw you flunk out with that group of girls at the food stalls, King Steeeeve! Post-high-school not treating you so well, is it?" Eddie mocks spitefully but almost instantly realizes it's a step too far when he looks at Steve's expression is one of pure hurt as his eyes cast down to the floor.

Why did he always take it too far?

"Get out, Munson," Steve says quietly, without even a hint of anger. Only sadness.

Eddie takes a few breaths to calm down, and his anger is quickly doused by remorse. He wants to apologize, but it might be best to leave. Then he remembers his van won't start. Maybe he could figure it out, now he didn't have to run for his life.

"Look, I'm gonna go. For what it's worth, dude, I'm sorry. What I said...that was too far. I just lost it. I don't like being called that, ok?" Eddie says genuinely, takes a last look at Steve from under his hair, and exits the car.

The walk back to his van is an almost shameful one. He regrets what he said, obviously, that look on Steve's face was stomach plummeting. Eddie didn't even envision any success for himself after high school either, not that he had any while he was in it, but more than anything, he couldn't stop thinking about his Dad.

Eddie remembers him storming into Eddie's room, grabbing him by his t-shirt collar, and lifting him off the floor. His dad's face was bright red with anger, raging at him, spittle flying out of his mouth, droplets occasionally hitting Eddie's face while he accused Eddie of a list of things.

Eddie can still hear that Click-click of the shotgun in his mind now, as clearly as the first time he heard it. His Mama pointing at his Dad.

Then as cool as ice, she'd said, "Put my son down. He didn't know no better. He's gonna go to that there Jesus summer camp, and we'll hear no more of this. Right, Eddie-bear?"

Eddie managed to swallow hard and reply, "Right, Mama. I promise it won't happen again, Dad."

"You're no son of mine," his Dad had seethed as he released him, dropping him to the floor.

His Mom did not rush to help him. She kept the barrels trained on his Dad until he closed the front door behind him.

Eddie physically shakes the memory from himself in a shudder as he opens the hood of his van to assess the damage. It didn't look like anything had been tampered with. Maybe she was just having a moment. He grabs his toolbox from the van, takes off his jackets, and begins the painstaking process of elimination.

He didn't like guys. It was just a phase. You know what? Not even a phase. It was one guy, just one! A few fumblings and kisses here and there, nothing sordid. They were just kids. They didn't know any better.

It was just...how did that counselor put it...an experiment.

When asked, Eddie had answered truthfully. He liked girls, he wanted to marry a girl and have kids, but he liked his friend too. The counselor explained that puberty could complicate your feelings and cloud your vision. The way he explained it to Eddie seemed like it made perfect sense. He was extremely close with his best friend. They had both been too shy to approach girls, but we're curious about things, so they practiced with one another. It was nothing to dwell on, a common mistake. Just forget all about it. Move on. It meant nothing.

That was so long ago, but the words might as well be embossed on Eddie's brain. He gets back to solving the problem at hand, getting this old girl up and running so he can get home.

When Eddie got in the zone, time flew past so quickly. Before he knows it, the movie ends, and soon the cars around him start to peel away. He's only got a few more things he can think of to try. He wipes his grease-covered hands on his jeans and takes out a cigarette for a well-earned break.

Eddie sits on the edge of the engine area, his feet resting on the bumper as he looks up into the night sky. At least it was a warm night. If he had to walk all the way back to the trailer park, at least he wouldn't freeze to death.

He feels his eyes pull down the now sparse line of cars. Steve's car is still here, but it doesn't look like he's in it.

Shit, what if his words had pushed Steve over the edge or something. He should probably go check on him, right?

No, definitely not. That would be a really fucking bad idea. Eddie tries his hardest to look at anything but Steve's car, but his eyes keep getting drawn back there as the guilt weighs down on him.

He rolls his eyes and groans, hopping down from the van and flicking his cigarette butt into the darkness. A quick look around couldn't hurt, and it would put his mind at ease.

As he rounds the corner to clean his hands properly and get his jackets, he nearly accidentally charges full-speed walk into someone and stumbles backward just before impact, raising his hands without looking up. "Shit, sorry. I Didn't see you there".

Eddie half hoped it might be Steve, but he wasn't that lucky.

"Damn right, you didn't! I knew you'd come back for this heap of shit," he hears Jason's voice, but before he can talk his way out of it, Jason's fist comes reeling towards his cheek. The impact sends Eddie crashing into the side of his van head first, making him drop to the floor unconscious.

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