#flashback to when i went to the imaging center 3 times for a walk in xray that they kept insisting they didnt have a referral for

[attor]

i think its hilarious that people think my barrier for making doctors appointments is anxiety when its literally just that i will call/try to access results/show up physically to the office over and over again for weeks with no progress bc everyone is doing their job wrong

[wasted-headspace-98]

Unforgiven: Part V

Summary: After Order 66, everything was destroyed. The Empire left death and destruction in its wake. But one choice could change everything forever. The question is…is it the right one? Maul x Ahsoka 18+ For Eventual Chapters Warnings: Nonexplicit sexual content, slow burn, PTSD TW, inappropriate use of the force Collab fic with @lordofthenerds97

TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER •Mild Flashbacks

“Are you sure she’s still coming?”

J’has looked to Paxtn, who had his goggles on top of his head. He wore a small frown that was accentuated by the grease on his cheeks. “She said she’s coming. So she’ll be here.” she replied.

Paxtn’s frown deepened slightly as he looked down at the holowatch he wore at all times. “It’s several hours past the time she said she’d be here. Knowing Ahsoka…she’s always punctual.”

That made J’has pause. “It’s fine,” she said. She trusted Ahsoka, and if she gave her word, J’has believed it. But Paxtn was right. Something felt…off. She wasn’t sure what it was, but J’has had a bad feeling about the entire situation.

“Call me when she lands. I need to work on Raider. If I don’t get the turbine fixed, she’s not going anywhere.” J’has looked to her friend and nodded with a small smile. He turned to walk away but paused, glancing back at her. “Don’t forget to call.”

The Mandalorian woman chuckled to herself. It was obvious to her that Paxtn was head over heels for the Grey Jedi. Ahsoka was completely oblivious to the whole thing, which made it that more amusing to J’has.

Paxtn went back to working on J’has’ ship in order to get it functional again. It had taken some heavy damage during the last attack on Ryloth. J’has and her crew had been trying to take relief supplies to a small group of refugees on the planet. But the Empire saw the ship and immediately attacked. Without a lot of backup, the Rebels had taken a heavy loss. The two escort ships were shot down, and J’has lost a couple of her crew members.

She shook her head at the memory as the comm on her wrist began to beep. She looked down and tapped the screen.

Coming in hot.

J’has looked back up at the sky. Her eye’s widened when she saw a ship and a large trail of smoke coming from one of the engines.

“Paxtn,” she called, turning to run towards him. “You said to call you when Ahsoka was landing?”

He poked his head from beneath the ship he was working on. “Yeah?”

“We need a fire and recovery crew immediately. She lost an engine and it looks bad. She’s going to need as much help as she can get.”

Paxtn immediately jumped into action, doing as he was told. J’has turned on her heel and started sprinting towards the landing pad. As she ran, she clicked on the comm. A few seconds later, a shaky image of Ahsoka lit up her wrist.

“I’m not going to make it to the landing pad.” Ahsoka said.

“I figured,” J’has chuckled. “Keep her as steady as you can. What’s your collision coordinates?”

“23 mark 97. Wait, scratch that, mark 92.”

“Paxtn!” J’has shouted. “23 mark 92!”

“Got it boss!”

“It’s going to be a rough ride, J’has.”

“I know. It looks bad from down here.” She turned and started running to the southern side of the camp, where the command center was.

The Togruta snorted. “You should see it from up here. It doesn’t look much better.”

J’has opened the door to the command center and made a beeline for the long range scanner. “What’s been damaged?”

“The main fuel line. There was a leak and the fuel dumped all over my primary engine. The secondary one isn’t doing much better. And I’m pretty sure the compression chamber exploded. That’s going to be a bitch to fix.”

That made J’has chuckle. “Tell me about it. Can you keep her level? My team is 3 minutes out.”

“I can try, but no promises.”

“Copy.” She turned her attention to the channel that had all of her team members. “Paxtn, Nuovis, where are we?”

“90 seconds, boss.” Nuovis said.

“‘Soka? Still with me?”

“Barely. I can’t keep it under control!”

~*~*~*~

Nuovis launched herself out of the small transport, grabbing her bag as she went. The impact of the crashing ship shook through at least 10 klicks of the planet’s surface. Smoke billowed out from the twin engines, and Nuovis thought she could smell fuel. Which wasn’t good.

“Paxtn, Jarel, help me find her. Get her out as quickly as possible!” she called.

The two men with her jumped into action. Nuovis slammed a small sonic device on the glass of the cockpit and detonated it, blowing the shield out of the way so she could crawl inside the craft. “Ahsoka!” she shouted.

There was no answer.

That made Nuovis panic a bit.

“Guys, she’s likely unconscious. She’ll probably be in the small blast chamber if se was able to make it there.”

“Copy.”

She made a quick sweep of the front of the ship, grabbing Ahsoka’s dual sabers and throwing them in her bag. She also grabbed a few small explosive devices in the hopes of keeping the coming explosion to a minimum. Crawling through the debris of the much more damaged bowel of the ship, she made her way down to where the sleeping quarters were. Well, it was more of a hold than actual sleeping quarters, but Ahsoka made it work.

Set on the lower body of the hold was the blast chamber. Ahsoka had built it specifically in the event of a huge crash or explosion. Nuovis carefully made her way towards it and managed to throw the few pieces of debris off the door. When she finally got it cleared, she realized it was unsealed. Which meant Ahsoka wasn’t in there.

“Chamber is negative. She’s somewhere on the ship!”

It wasn’t an overly large vessel, but it was big enough to be a maze when crashed. And it most certainly had done that.

“I’ve got her! Mechanical room.”

“Grab her and get out, Paxtn! There’s a fuel leak and this ship is going to blow any second.”

There was a grunt on the other side of the comm, which was all the confirmation she was going to get. But she didn’t really have time to dwell on it. The Rogue was about to go up in flames.

~*~*~*~

The whole camp had turned to chaos. Ahsoka was back, but her ship had crashed. She had important intel with her that they may or may not get now because of it. Everyone was scrambling to get the Med Center ready for her. Nuovis said she was pretty badly injured, but it was unclear just how bad it actually was.

J’has managed to keep some semblance of calm as she directed people on what to do. To keep the peace, she had to keep everyone else calm. But she had to admit, she was in a slight panic herself. Ahsoka was one of her closest friends. It was gnawing at J’has not knowing the condition she was in. But there wasn’t time to worry about that now.

“J’has!”

She looked up from the tablet in her hands at the sound of her name. It was Nuovis. She had jumped out of the transport and was on the side, trying to help Paxtn and Jarel get Ahsoka out of the shuttle without causing more damage.

“What happened?” she called as she sprinted over to them.

“Not sure. She was towards the rear of the ship, no where near where she should have been,” Nuovis said.

J’has frowned. “What?” What could she have possibly been doing back there? She knew Rogue was going down…what could have been so important she would risk her life for?

“Get her in the med bay. I need to check her injuries.”

J’has watched as Paxtn gently carried Ahsoka, who was still out of it, into the tent that served as their medical center.

“Do you know what this is?” Nuovis asked, getting her attention once again.

J’has frowned and took the garment that Nuovis held out to her. It was well worn, she could tell as much. It was also quite large, and it obviously wasn’t going to fit Ahsoka. She turned it a few times, examining the plain black fabric. She noticed that it was soft, criminally so. It appeared to be a tunic of sorts, but it looked quite complex. “No,” she said. “I don’t recognize it.”

Nuovis hummed. “When Jarel and Paxtn found her, her legs were pinned beneath a large panel from the ship’s wall. She was holding this. Looks like she got knocked on the head before she got pinned.” have dropped control of the ship for?

J’has turned the slightly dirty garment around again, looking for any signs of who it could have belonged to. “Anakin, maybe?” she mumbled to herself. She knew Ahsoka blamed herself for her Master’s death. And she knew the fallen knight had a preference for black robes. It was possible she got her hands on it somehow.

“Whoever it belongs to must’ve been important to her. It almost got her killed.”

~*~*~*~

Ahsoka’s eyes snapped open. She forced herself to lie still, perfectly aware of the pain shooting through her entire body. Her shoulder felt like it was on fire. There was something in her side, maybe a broken rib, that made it hard for her to breathe.

She let out a slow breath and closed her eyes briefly, trying to calm her raging heart.

“Very good, Lady Tano.”

Ahsoka slowly turned her head, looking for the source of his voice. “Maul?”

He hummed quietly, which infuriated her. Ahsoka wasn’t used to feeling so helpless.

“Calm down, Lady Tano. I told you, no harm would come to you while you’re in my care.”

She took as deep of a breath as she dared. “Will you help me sit up?”

A grunt was all the response she got, but she soon found herself moving into a sitting position. Every part of her body burned with pain, but she fought it with gritted teeth. She felt Maul’s hands on her. They were warm and surprisingly gentle on her good arm and back. She was sure she would have injured herself more if she’d attempted it alone.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He looked at her for a moment and nodded once. “You’re welcome.”

For the first time, she realized she wasn’t wearing her armor. The thought alarmed her for a second before she recognized the soft black fabric that gently brushed against her skin.

“Being confined in that blood soaked material wasn’t good for your wounds. I needed to clean them again while you were unconscious. Parts of your armor aren’t salvageable, but I saved what I could.” Ahsoka turned to look at him. He could tell there was still suspicion in her expression. Not that he blamed her. She had plenty of reason to be.

“Lady Tano…I rarely ask anything of anyone. But please, for the love of Force, don’t look at me like I’m going to kill you any second.”

That took her by surprise. “Excuse me?”

He raised his lip slightly. “I offered you my hand for a reason, Ahsoka. I wouldn’t extend the offer with any intent to cause you harm. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll be able to relax and let your body heal.” he growled.

Ahsoka felt a stab of guilt. “I’m-“

“Don’t apologize,” he snapped.

His tone almost made her recoil. But she held her ground, in spite of the shiver he sent down her spine.

Don’t let him intimidate you, she thought to herself.

“I’m in a vulnerable position right now,” she said quietly. Her voice made him look at her, and he was surprised to find she was staring at him with her mouth in a hard line. “We’ve met once, and it consisted of fighting to kill each other. Forgive me if I’m a little bit wary of letting my guard down around someone who’s tried to kill my closest friends on more than one occasion.”

He tilted his head at her, his eyes narrowing as he appraised her. After a moment, he let out a quiet rumble and nodded once.

“I can see how that would be…disconcerting.” he said. “I mean you no harm. And I intend to make sure none comes to you while you are in my care.”

Ahsoka blinked in surprise. That wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting. Curiously, she opened herself to the Force. One thing Anakin had taught her was how to distinguish a person’s intentions by their signature. Even non-force sensitive people carried a signature unique to them. She’d learned how to carefully and quietly manipulate it to tell her the true intent.

His signature was bold and unmistakable. It pulsed with dark energy and hatred. But there was an underlying calm, something that told her immediately that he wasn’t a danger to her.

That revelation made her even more curious.

Honing her focus on his writhing signature, she felt it still.

What are you doing?

His voice was sharp, but she was surprised to find there was no malice. Only curiosity.

Feeling your signature, she responded easily. I haven’t ever felt one like this before.

Have you ever come in contact with the Dark Side like this before?

She paused for a moment. No.

She felt him begin to close himself off, to try and mask his signature. Ahsoka recognized his discomfort and quietly withdrew from the Force, focusing back in on the reality in front of her.

The expression on Maul’s face was conflicted. He looked angry and hurt, but there was something different too.

“Do you make it a habit of invading people’s minds?” he muttered quietly.

Ahsoka cocked her head. “I didn’t realize I was. I’m sorry.”

Maul turned his mouth downwards, frowning at her. “What?”

“I didn’t realize I could be a presence in your mind,” she admitted, looking away. “I’m sorry for the intrusion.”

He scoffed quietly. “For someone who’s supposed to fight the Dark Side in all its forms, you sure seem to use it quite often.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Lady Tano. You are using the Dark Side.”

~*~*~*~

Ahsoka woke quietly. There was no immediate danger. There was no unknown presence. But something sent her heart racing.

“You’re awake.”

She coughed and swung her legs over the edge of the bed she was laying on. “How observant, J’has.” she joked.

J’has snorted at her. “Welcome back. You’ve been out of it for a few hours.”

Ahsoka groaned. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Just calm down, ‘Soka. We’ve got plenty.”

“Not according to Obi Wan.”

J’has frowned and moved to grab Ahsoka’s arm when the Togruta looked as if she were about to fall off the small bed. Nuovis had tended to the major injuries, but there were some that couldn’t be helped. Such as the obvious concussion. “Start from the beginning.” she instructed.

Ahsoka sighed. “When I left Taris, I received a transmission from Master Kenobi. I learned some…interesting information. He’s also been keeping a watchful eye on the forming Rebel bases in the areas. The Empire is dropping some of their dogs as operatives within the rebellion. Four cells have already been taken down by the war dogs.”

That got J’has’ attention. “Does he think there’s one coming here?”

“As of right now, the cell on Dantooine is the largest group of rebels that we know about. Because of certain members, such as you, this particular cell poses a larger threat to the Empire. From the information that Obi Wan gave me, there’s already three war dogs planted.”

J’has’ eyes narrowed. If there were traitors in her crew, she was going to weed them out. “Did he give you names?”

“No, that was part of the intel that got lost when it came to him. All he knows is that they’re already here. And you need to be ready for any kind of attack.”

The Mandalorian raked a hand through her short hair and cursed under her breath. “What do we do?”

Ahsoka sighed. “Right now, there’s not much you can do. Who’s the newest recruits?”

J’has thought for a moment. “Honestly? We’ve been having a hard time getting people here. The newest was almost a year ago.”

The Togruta frowned. “Then they’ve had plenty of information to send to the Empire. What attacks have gone wrong recently?”

“At least half,” J’has said. “We never really thought much of it, though. We were usually outgunned and outmanned. The majority of the time, it was chalked up to half assed planning.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “They we’re ready for you.”

“I’m seeing that now.”

“Is there anyone that you don’t fully trust?”

J’has sighed roughly. “No. Each one of my crew have put their lives on the line. Most of them have saved my ass more than once. I trust every single one of them.”

“That’s going to be a problem.”

“You think?”

“But that’s not the only one.”

“Oh joy. Do tell.”

“There’s been activity on Moraband.”

J’has paled. “What?”

Ahsoka nodded. “There’s something wrong in the Force.”

“I’ve noticed. Something has been wrong for a long time.”

“I can’t say that Moraband is active for a fact. But there’s plenty of evidence telling me it is. My connection with the planet is…rocky…to say the least. The Commerce Guild is still in full swing, so I don’t think it’s detectable to many others.”

But you can feel it, Snips.

Anakin is right, Ahsoka. You’ve strayed far too close to the Dark Side for our liking. ”

She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a sharp breath. She didn’t have the energy to deal with Anakin and Obi Wan now.

Not now, she hissed.

You spent way too much time with Maul, Ahsoka. That Sith clouded your mind.

Oh, like you never did anything questionable, Master.

That’s enough.

“Sidious was there.”

“WHA-“

Ahsoka immediately slapped a hand over her friend’s mouth. “Keep it down,” she said.

“What was he doing there?!” J’has demanded. “If he went there seeking the knowledge those ancient Sith hold…Gods Ahsoka, this is bad!”

“I know,” she said, holding her hands in a placating gesture. “From what I gathered, all he did was enrage the Force. It upset the balance. He left empty handed.”

J’has gave Ahsoka a confused look. “How do you know all of this? I know you’re strong with the Force…but how?”

Ahsoka sighed. “I’ve…made some unlikely allies.” she said. “Including Asajj.”

“Ventress?!”

“She’s been an ally for a long time, J’has. She keeps tabs on places like Moraband for me. Places I can’t go. And people I can’t be around.” Ahsoka shook her head, thinking about how she’d ended up with the night sister. She’d learned a lot from Asajj, and she was grateful for what she did. The Night Sister wasn’t so different from the Zabrak she’d spent so much time with.

“You’ve spent a long time with Dathomirians, Ahsoka.”

The Togruta shot J’has a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know why you’re here, Ahsoka.”

She raised an eyebrow marking and crossed her arms.

“I promised information about Maul.”

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “And I have important information for you. I wasn’t going to let innocents die because of Sidious.”

J’has sighed and shook her head. “You’re on a mission Ahsoka. He’s alive, and you need to find him.” Ahsoka opened her mouth to say something, but J’has cut her off. “Whatever you went through with him changed you, Ahsoka. It’s not just you that needs him.”

“What?”

“We do too.”

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[lordofthenerds97]

Unforgiven: Part V

Summary: After Order 66, everything was destroyed. The Empire left death and destruction in its wake. But one choice could change everything forever. The question is…is it the right one? Maul x Ahsoka 18+ For Eventual Chapters Warnings: Nonexplicit sexual content, slow burn, PTSD TW, inappropriate use of the force Collab fic with @wasted-headspace-98

TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER •Mild flashbacks

“Are you sure she’s still coming?”

J’has looked to Paxtn, who had his goggles on top of his head. He wore a small frown that was accentuated by the grease on his cheeks. “She said she’s coming. So she’ll be here.” she replied.

Paxtn’s frown deepened slightly as he looked down at the holowatch he wore at all times. “It’s several hours past the time she said she’d be here. Knowing Ahsoka…she’s always punctual.”

That made J’has pause. “It’s fine,” she said. She trusted Ahsoka, and if she gave her word, J’has believed it. But Paxtn was right. Something felt…off. She wasn’t sure what it was, but J’has had a bad feeling about the entire situation.

“Call me when she lands. I need to work on Raider. If I don’t get the turbine fixed, she’s not going anywhere.” J’has looked to her friend and nodded with a small smile. He turned to walk away but paused, glancing back at her. “Don’t forget to call.”

The Mandalorian woman chuckled to herself. It was obvious to her that Paxtn was head over heels for the Grey Jedi. Ahsoka was completely oblivious to the whole thing, which made it that more amusing to J’has.

Paxtn went back to working on J’has’ ship in order to get it functional again. It had taken some heavy damage during the last attack on Ryloth. J’has and her crew had been trying to take relief supplies to a small group of refugees on the planet. But the Empire saw the ship and immediately attacked. Without a lot of backup, the Rebels had taken a heavy loss. The two escort ships were shot down, and J’has lost a couple of her crew members.

She shook her head at the memory as the comm on her wrist began to beep. She looked down and tapped the screen.

Coming in hot.

J’has looked back up at the sky. Her eye’s widened when she saw a ship and a large trail of smoke coming from one of the engines.

“Paxtn,” she called, turning to run towards him. “You said to call you when Ahsoka was landing?”

He poked his head from beneath the ship he was working on. “Yeah?”

“We need a fire and recovery crew immediately. She lost an engine and it looks bad. She’s going to need as much help as she can get.”

Paxtn immediately jumped into action, doing as he was told. J’has turned on her heel and started sprinting towards the landing pad. As she ran, she clicked on the comm. A few seconds later, a shaky image of Ahsoka lit up her wrist.

“I’m not going to make it to the landing pad.” Ahsoka said.

“I figured,” J’has chuckled. “Keep her as steady as you can. What’s your collision coordinates?”

“23 mark 97. Wait, scratch that, mark 92.”

“Paxtn!” J’has shouted. “23 mark 92!”

“Got it boss!”

“It’s going to be a rough ride, J’has.”

“I know. It looks bad from down here.” She turned and started running to the southern side of the camp, where the command center was.

The Togruta snorted. “You should see it from up here. It doesn’t look much better.”

J’has opened the door to the command center and made a beeline for the long range scanner. “What’s been damaged?”

“The main fuel line. There was a leak and the fuel dumped all over my primary engine. The secondary one isn’t doing much better. And I’m pretty sure the compression chamber exploded. That’s going to be a bitch to fix.”

That made J’has chuckle. “Tell me about it. Can you keep her level? My team is 3 minutes out.”

“I can try, but no promises.”

“Copy.” She turned her attention to the channel that had all of her team members. “Paxtn, Nuovis, where are we?”

“90 seconds, boss.” Nuovis said.

“‘Soka? Still with me?”

“Barely. I can’t keep it under control!”

~*~*~*~

Nuovis launched herself out of the small transport, grabbing her bag as she went. The impact of the crashing ship shook through at least 10 klicks of the planet’s surface. Smoke billowed out from the twin engines, and Nuovis thought she could smell fuel. Which wasn’t good.

“Paxtn, Jarel, help me find her. Get her out as quickly as possible!” she called.

The two men with her jumped into action. Nuovis slammed a small sonic device on the glass of the cockpit and detonated it, blowing the shield out of the way so she could crawl inside the craft. “Ahsoka!” she shouted.

There was no answer.

That made Nuovis panic a bit.

“Guys, she’s likely unconscious. She’ll probably be in the small blast chamber if se was able to make it there.”

“Copy.”

She made a quick sweep of the front of the ship, grabbing Ahsoka’s dual sabers and throwing them in her bag. She also grabbed a few small explosive devices in the hopes of keeping the coming explosion to a minimum. Crawling through the debris of the much more damaged bowel of the ship, she made her way down to where the sleeping quarters were. Well, it was more of a hold than actual sleeping quarters, but Ahsoka made it work.

Set on the lower body of the hold was the blast chamber. Ahsoka had built it specifically in the event of a huge crash or explosion. Nuovis carefully made her way towards it and managed to throw the few pieces of debris off the door. When she finally got it cleared, she realized it was unsealed. Which meant Ahsoka wasn’t in there.

“Chamber is negative. She’s somewhere on the ship!”

It wasn’t an overly large vessel, but it was big enough to be a maze when crashed. And it most certainly had done that.

“I’ve got her! Mechanical room.”

“Grab her and get out, Paxtn! There’s a fuel leak and this ship is going to blow any second.”

There was a grunt on the other side of the comm, which was all the confirmation she was going to get. But she didn’t really have time to dwell on it. The Rogue was about to go up in flames.

~*~*~*~

The whole camp had turned to chaos. Ahsoka was back, but her ship had crashed. She had important intel with her that they may or may not get now because of it. Everyone was scrambling to get the Med Center ready for her. Nuovis said she was pretty badly injured, but it was unclear just how bad it actually was.

J’has managed to keep some semblance of calm as she directed people on what to do. To keep the peace, she had to keep everyone else calm. But she had to admit, she was in a slight panic herself. Ahsoka was one of her closest friends. It was gnawing at J’has not knowing the condition she was in. But there wasn’t time to worry about that now.

“J’has!”

She looked up from the tablet in her hands at the sound of her name. It was Nuovis. She had jumped out of the transport and was on the side, trying to help Paxtn and Jarel get Ahsoka out of the shuttle without causing more damage.

“What happened?” she called as she sprinted over to them.

“Not sure. She was towards the rear of the ship, no where near where she should have been,” Nuovis said.

J’has frowned. “What?” What could she have possibly been doing back there? She knew Rogue was going down…what could have been so important she would risk her life for?

“Get her in the med bay. I need to check her injuries.”

J’has watched as Paxtn gently carried Ahsoka, who was still out of it, into the tent that served as their medical center.

“Do you know what this is?” Nuovis asked, getting her attention once again.

J’has frowned and took the garment that Nuovis held out to her. It was well worn, she could tell as much. It was also quite large, and it obviously wasn’t going to fit Ahsoka. She turned it a few times, examining the plain black fabric. She noticed that it was soft, criminally so. It appeared to be a tunic of sorts, but it looked quite complex. “No,” she said. “I don’t recognize it.”

Nuovis hummed. “When Jarel and Paxtn found her, her legs were pinned beneath a large panel from the ship’s wall. She was holding this. Looks like she got knocked on the head before she got pinned.” have dropped control of the ship for?

J’has turned the slightly dirty garment around again, looking for any signs of who it could have belonged to. “Anakin, maybe?” she mumbled to herself. She knew Ahsoka blamed herself for her Master’s death. And she knew the fallen knight had a preference for black robes. It was possible she got her hands on it somehow.

“Whoever it belongs to must’ve been important to her. It almost got her killed.”

~*~*~*~

Ahsoka’s eyes snapped open. She forced herself to lie still, perfectly aware of the pain shooting through her entire body. Her shoulder felt like it was on fire. There was something in her side, maybe a broken rib, that made it hard for her to breathe.

She let out a slow breath and closed her eyes briefly, trying to calm her raging heart.

“Very good, Lady Tano.”

Ahsoka slowly turned her head, looking for the source of his voice. “Maul?”

He hummed quietly, which infuriated her. Ahsoka wasn’t used to feeling so helpless.

“Calm down, Lady Tano. I told you, no harm would come to you while you’re in my care.”

She took as deep of a breath as she dared. “Will you help me sit up?”

A grunt was all the response she got, but she soon found herself moving into a sitting position. Every part of her body burned with pain, but she fought it with gritted teeth. She felt Maul’s hands on her. They were warm and surprisingly gentle on her good arm and back. She was sure she would have injured herself more if she’d attempted it alone.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He looked at her for a moment and nodded once. “You’re welcome.”

For the first time, she realized she wasn’t wearing her armor. The thought alarmed her for a second before she recognized the soft black fabric that gently brushed against her skin.

“Being confined in that blood soaked material wasn’t good for your wounds. I needed to clean them again while you were unconscious. Parts of your armor aren’t salvageable, but I saved what I could.” Ahsoka turned to look at him. He could tell there was still suspicion in her expression. Not that he blamed her. She had plenty of reason to be.

“Lady Tano…I rarely ask anything of anyone. But please, for the love of Force, don’t look at me like I’m going to kill you any second.”

That took her by surprise. “Excuse me?”

He raised his lip slightly. “I offered you my hand for a reason, Ahsoka. I wouldn’t extend the offer with any intent to cause you harm. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll be able to relax and let your body heal.” he growled.

Ahsoka felt a stab of guilt. “I’m-“

“Don’t apologize,” he snapped.

His tone almost made her recoil. But she held her ground, in spite of the shiver he sent down her spine.

Don’t let him intimidate you, she thought to herself.

“I’m in a vulnerable position right now,” she said quietly. Her voice made him look at her, and he was surprised to find she was staring at him with her mouth in a hard line. “We’ve met once, and it consisted of fighting to kill each other. Forgive me if I’m a little bit wary of letting my guard down around someone who’s tried to kill my closest friends on more than one occasion.”

He tilted his head at her, his eyes narrowing as he appraised her. After a moment, he let out a quiet rumble and nodded once.

“I can see how that would be…disconcerting.” he said. “I mean you no harm. And I intend to make sure none comes to you while you are in my care.”

Ahsoka blinked in surprise. That wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting. Curiously, she opened herself to the Force. One thing Anakin had taught her was how to distinguish a person’s intentions by their signature. Even non-force sensitive people carried a signature unique to them. She’d learned how to carefully and quietly manipulate it to tell her the true intent.

His signature was bold and unmistakable. It pulsed with dark energy and hatred. But there was an underlying calm, something that told her immediately that he wasn’t a danger to her.

That revelation made her even more curious.

Honing her focus on his writhing signature, she felt it still.

What are you doing?

His voice was sharp, but she was surprised to find there was no malice. Only curiosity.

Feeling your signature, she responded easily. I haven’t ever felt one like this before.

Have you ever come in contact with the Dark Side like this before?

She paused for a moment. No.

She felt him begin to close himself off, to try and mask his signature. Ahsoka recognized his discomfort and quietly withdrew from the Force, focusing back in on the reality in front of her.

The expression on Maul’s face was conflicted. He looked angry and hurt, but there was something different too.

“Do you make it a habit of invading people’s minds?” he muttered quietly.

Ahsoka cocked her head. “I didn’t realize I was. I’m sorry.”

Maul turned his mouth downwards, frowning at her. “What?”

“I didn’t realize I could be a presence in your mind,” she admitted, looking away. “I’m sorry for the intrusion.”

He scoffed quietly. “For someone who’s supposed to fight the Dark Side in all its forms, you sure seem to use it quite often.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Lady Tano. You are using the Dark Side.”

~*~*~*~

Ahsoka woke quietly. There was no immediate danger. There was no unknown presence. But something sent her heart racing.

“You’re awake.”

She coughed and swung her legs over the edge of the bed she was laying on. “How observant, J’has.” she joked.

J’has snorted at her. “Welcome back. You’ve been out of it for a few hours.”

Ahsoka groaned. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Just calm down, ‘Soka. We’ve got plenty.”

“Not according to Obi Wan.”

J’has frowned and moved to grab Ahsoka’s arm when the Togruta looked as if she were about to fall off the small bed. Nuovis had tended to the major injuries, but there were some that couldn’t be helped. Such as the obvious concussion. “Start from the beginning.” she instructed.

Ahsoka sighed. “When I left Taris, I received a transmission from Master Kenobi. I learned some…interesting information. He’s also been keeping a watchful eye on the forming Rebel bases in the areas. The Empire is dropping some of their dogs as operatives within the rebellion. Four cells have already been taken down by the war dogs.”

That got J’has’ attention. “Does he think there’s one coming here?”

“As of right now, the cell on Dantooine is the largest group of rebels that we know about. Because of certain members, such as you, this particular cell poses a larger threat to the Empire. From the information that Obi Wan gave me, there’s already three war dogs planted.”

J’has’ eyes narrowed. If there were traitors in her crew, she was going to weed them out. “Did he give you names?”

“No, that was part of the intel that got lost when it came to him. All he knows is that they’re already here. And you need to be ready for any kind of attack.”

The Mandalorian raked a hand through her short hair and cursed under her breath. “What do we do?”

Ahsoka sighed. “Right now, there’s not much you can do. Who’s the newest recruits?”

J’has thought for a moment. “Honestly? We’ve been having a hard time getting people here. The newest was almost a year ago.”

The Togruta frowned. “Then they’ve had plenty of information to send to the Empire. What attacks have gone wrong recently?”

“At least half,” J’has said. “We never really thought much of it, though. We were usually outgunned and outmanned. The majority of the time, it was chalked up to half assed planning.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “They we’re ready for you.”

“I’m seeing that now.”

“Is there anyone that you don’t fully trust?”

J’has sighed roughly. “No. Each one of my crew have put their lives on the line. Most of them have saved my ass more than once. I trust every single one of them.”

“That’s going to be a problem.”

“You think?”

“But that’s not the only one.”

“Oh joy. Do tell.”

“There’s been activity on Moraband.”

J’has paled. “What?”

Ahsoka nodded. “There’s something wrong in the Force.”

“I’ve noticed. Something has been wrong for a long time.”

“I can’t say that Moraband is active for a fact. But there’s plenty of evidence telling me it is. My connection with the planet is…rocky…to say the least. The Commerce Guild is still in full swing, so I don’t think it’s detectable to many others.”

But you can feel it, Snips.

Anakin is right, Ahsoka. You’ve strayed far too close to the Dark Side for our liking. ”

She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a sharp breath. She didn’t have the energy to deal with Anakin and Obi Wan now.

Not now, she hissed.

You spent way too much time with Maul, Ahsoka. That Sith clouded your mind.

Oh, like you never did anything questionable, Master.

That’s enough.

“Sidious was there.”

“WHA-“

Ahsoka immediately slapped a hand over her friend’s mouth. “Keep it down,” she said.

“What was he doing there?!” J’has demanded. “If he went there seeking the knowledge those ancient Sith hold…Gods Ahsoka, this is bad!”

“I know,” she said, holding her hands in a placating gesture. “From what I gathered, all he did was enrage the Force. It upset the balance. He left empty handed.”

J’has gave Ahsoka a confused look. “How do you know all of this? I know you’re strong with the Force…but how?”

Ahsoka sighed. “I’ve…made some unlikely allies.” she said. “Including Asajj.”

“Ventress?!”

“She’s been an ally for a long time, J’has. She keeps tabs on places like Moraband for me. Places I can’t go. And people I can’t be around.” Ahsoka shook her head, thinking about how she’d ended up with the night sister. She’d learned a lot from Asajj, and she was grateful for what she did. The Night Sister wasn’t so different from the Zabrak she’d spent so much time with.

“You’ve spent a long time with Dathomirians, Ahsoka.”

The Togruta shot J’has a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know why you’re here, Ahsoka.”

She raised an eyebrow marking and crossed her arms.

“I promised information about Maul.”

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “And I have important information for you. I wasn’t going to let innocents die because of Sidious.”

J’has sighed and shook her head. “You’re on a mission Ahsoka. He’s alive, and you need to find him.” Ahsoka opened her mouth to say something, but J’has cut her off. “Whatever you went through with him changed you, Ahsoka. It’s not just you that needs him.”

“What?”

“We do too.”

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[aka-irish]

Apex Legends: The Top Predator Part 3. Voided

Inside of the unknown organization’s Traxler sits alone in the cafeteria, folding a napkin and sliding it across his grey whiskers and lips, cleaning up any crumbs and pieces of the egg salad sandwich he just ate. The hydraulics of large metallic doors can be heard whirring as a set opens and in walks Colonel Braxton with two armed men behind him. “May I?” asks the Colonel as he waves a hand in the direction of the empty seat in front of the sociopathic doctor. “Of course” responds Traxler as he takes a sip of coffee from the paper cup. Braxton takes a seat “get me a cup, will ya?” he nods to one of the soldiers. They nod in return and retreat off to a vending machine for said cup of joe. “You know, doctor, we seem to be doing quite a number on the Legends. In just two missions we have hopefully incapacitated three of them. The big-mouthed brat, the cocky holo-user and that thief of a bitch. All 3 very dangerous and very capable Legends.” The soldier returns with a cup of coffee and hands it to the colonel. “Thank you” as he takes it, gives the steam a blow off the top and proceeds with a small sip. “I believe it is time we start working on the creation of our own legend now. Given the opportunity we always gather more data, but I feel with three of them having undergone the experimentation, the other Legends have caught on to an extent that something is at least...amiss” explains the steely eyed war captain. The doctor nods in agreement. “Very well, Colonel, but I do however expect more research to be done. With more potential Legends being....diminished...in the way they have been, it will make it much harder to stop us when the time arrives, don’t you agree?” asks Traxler. Braxton smiles. “I very much do, Doctor, but time may very well be of the essence sooner rather than later. They are the Legends for a reason” states Braxton as he takes another sip of his coffee.

* Bmp-bmp..bmp-bmp..bmp..bmp........BMP...bmp...BMPBompbmp..bmp* ‘LEMME AT EM’, MATES!! I’m ready to crack some skulls!” yells the spunky Indian girl, almost completely ignoring the fact there is a stethoscope placed firmly against her chest. “Do ya even feel dat?” questions Lifeline, hearing the skipping beats of Rampart’s heart thudding and misfiring inside her ribs. “Of course I feel it! It just makes more angry that someone is trying to kill us!” she states excitedly. Lifeline slides the steth a bit further down the inside of her shirt, partially squishing against the small breasts of her. “Bloody hell, Lifeline, couldn’t ya have warmed it up a bit more first? It’s colder than a polar bear’s nips” she blurts out. “Oh, ya feel dat but you’re heart is literally kickin’ ya ribs” she retorts back. “You get used to the pain” Ramp exclaims as she crosses her arms. Lifeline pulls the stethoscope back and hangs it around her neck. “I’ll tell ya right now, ya at least handling it better than Mirage” (flashback to a scene with Mirage) “OO..AH...IT’S COLD!” Mirage dramatically flails about. “I haven’t even put da steth on ya yet, big baby” Lifeline bluntly states. “Oh..” Mirage stutters in embarrassment *thoom-thmp..thoom..thmp..thoomthoothoom...thmp..thoomthmpthmp...* Lifeline listens to his stuttering yet powerful beats.* (Returns back to P and Lifeline). “Ah, he’s a sissy, but a tough one. He’ll be ok” says Ramp assuredly. “How’s Loba?” she asks. Ajay sighs and puts her arms behind her head. “She’s more worried about us, believe it or not. I don’t think she wants any of us to get hit wit whateva dis is” Lifeline sits down in her chair. Rampart nods. “Welp, I’m off, Doc. Keep in the loop will ya?” She sticks out a fist and Ajay bumps it while giving a slight nod and leaves the room. She opens the door and Loba is out in the hall, waiting. “Loba” greets Rampart. “Rampart” Loba dryly replies, both knowing exactly what the other went through, they dare not push an issue and go on with their day. Loba walks in to the med-room. “How ya feelin, champ?” AJ questions while rocking in her office chair, hands still behind her head. “Better..but some still misfires, I can feel it kick. Like someone is punching me from the inside out, though more of a jab than a haymaker now” she explains. Ajay nods, “Ok, well ya we just gonna do a quick palpation and go on wit cha day. You know da drill” she states to the Brazilian. Loba removes her top and unhooks her porcelain white bra. Her tanned breasts drape down with a hard bounce before settling. AJ presses a hand firmly against her chest, feeling for the beats. *Thoom-thoom..thoom-thoom..thoom..thoom.* She feels the licks and leaps of Loba’s beating organ. “Lay down on your side” Lifeline directs. Loba leans on her left side, chest still poised slightly up. AJ brings her hand down under the heavy left breast, fingers pressing into the Apex. *THOOM* “ach!!” winces Loba from the skip as a large beat thuds against her ribs. AJ feels it kick and wriggle before resetting to a steadier beat, her hand bobbing slightly from the woman’s strong, beating pump. *RRRRR....RRRRR....RRRRR* The room is flooded with a loud wailing sound as an alarm goes off. “Oh no..!” both frantically reply. Loba puts herself back together, drapes the braids behind her while AJ already busts through the door. They, and the other legends meet in the main room of their home as Crypto stands at the center table. “I found something.” The faces of all the Legends slightly tense up. 

Crypto drops a hologram disc on the table, it makes a slight twink sound before flashing up two different screens with various shades of neon green and an almost black. “I went back to the incident with Loba during the Apex Games and compared it with the latest one with Mirage and Rampart” he points to the hologram as it shows a small line of dots coming and going from Mirage’s bar, and the arena of the Apex Games. “Is that...a trail” questions Bangalore, the veteran soldier of the group. Crypto nods. “By using my drone, Hack, and the satellite images of the Syndicate from the games, I was able to slide through different frequencies and discover an energy trail of some sort coming and going from the bar and the arena.My thoughts are...a micro-ship.” “Whoa...whoa..whoa..” interrupts Mirage. “A micro-ship?. As in a teenie-tiny ship?” he questions while pinching his index finger and thumb together. “Do we even have those?” He says puzzling. Caustic leans over the table from his seat, coughs and in his stoic dry voice “We have different planets, a Legend that holds a singularity in a small robot, teleporters, and one that walks between dimensions, but shrinking sizes is questionable?” Mirage is stunned “Uhhhh...my bad, please continue” he directs his hand back towards Crypto. “As I was saying...the trail is on a different frequency, but I was able to locate a similar set of trails between the two as they headed towards one location on Talos.” Crypto waves his hand and flips one of the current screens over to a large mountain like region on a desolate area of the planet.”They both converge on this location. Where this is...I don’t know. There is even a lack of satellite coverage, almost like someone doesn’t want it to be found, but Hack managed to uncover it. By tracing the coordinates and logging in the proper coordinates, we can find shadow base if you will, and perhaps take a look around. But who will go?” He asks the room. Loba speaks up “clearly, I would be the best choice. Breaking and entering is my specialty after all. And besides I have a score to settle with whoever is doing this” she declares while placing a hand to her chest, feeling the beats intensify from the recent revelation. “Absolutely not!” both Bangalore and Lifeline yell together. “You aren’t 100% yet, and we aren’t sending you into a completely unknown location where there are these people that can literally cook us from the inside out. I’ll go” says Bangalore. Wraith leans on the table “I should go. If anyone is going to have the easiest time getting in and out of a place it’s me. Void jumping seems like the most practical solution here. No offense to you, Anita.” Bangalore smirks and shrugs. “Fair I guess” she states reluctantly. “But I don’t want Wraith going this alone. She can infiltrate but we need someone on the outside in case things go south. But I also don’t to risk another one of us getting exposed to whatever is doing this” declares Bangalore. “I’ll go” Crypto interjects. I can send in Hack to obtain early enemy locations and also map a blueprint given the chance. I can wait on the outside and provide cover if necessary” he suggests. “Fine with me. Any complains Wraith?” asks Bangalore. “None at all. Alright you two, gear up. We’ll input the coordinates to the jump pods and send you in. Any time you need to be pulled, we do so at point of entry. Understood?” states Bangalore in her commanding and authoritative tone. Both Crypto and Wraith agree before heading off to the teleportation room. Wraith grabs her trademark kunai, an alternator, and a Mozambique shot gun with hammerpoint rounds. Crypto grabs a sentinel bolt-action sniper rifle and his own trademark weapon in the Wingman revolver. The two gather to the teleporter pods where Bangalore stands front and center with Wattson at the helm of the computer. “You both have 2 hours. If I don’t hear from either of you, we rush in and pull you out, no exceptions” she orders. “Understood” both reply in unison.

 “Portals ready” states Wattson. Both walk through the energy tunnels and are transported to a desolate area of almost nothing but rock and sand, but in their way is a large crater with a mountain like formation having sunk into it, like a meteor crash landed down. The only way out is up and the only way in is down. A large metal hangar door is visible on the outside. Crypto reaches into the sheathe on his back and tosses out Hack, his drone. The drone unfolds and Crypto sets up his link to see what the drone sees. “I’ll remain in position here" states the expert hacker.  “I detect two bodies down there, wait for them to enter and you have your chance” Wraith nods and begins prepping herself to jump down into the hole. She begins her descent and leaps down the edge. Pulling the kunai out, she digs into the side of the  hill-like wall and slides down into cavern. As she gets closer, she leaps off and lands behind a couple blocks of containers just outside the entrance, unknown to the soldiers getting ready to open the doors, their attention clearly lost elsewhere. They proceed in “Void jumping” Wraith states to Crypto over their comm-link. The ninja like warrior disappears, almost as if teleporting, before she runs into the entrance to avoid as much detection. Hack flies into the doors soon to follow. Wraith soon reappears inside of the door, having ducked behind a metallic door some large, opened supply bins. Crypto in his position types away at his wrist board. “I’ve successfully entered the mainframe. I’ll keep Hack inside to re-loop their security feed, but don’t take too much. We don’t know how long before they figure out someone is inside their system” he says. “I didn’t plan on it” replies the raven haired warrior as she dips deeper into the base. She follows the voices in her head that guide her, making sure she uses every bit of stealth she can. She ducks behind door frames, supply bins. She enters further into a large corridor and stands just outside the door way, against the wall as a voice warns her about an incoming enemy. A group of 3 heavily armed soldiers walk through the door, clad in their black tactical armor,  with black masks and red goggles adorning their faces. She void jumps and in a quick burst of teleporting, she lands hard elbows, chops, and knees to the back of the necks of the soldiers before they even realize what happened, knocking them unconscious. She pats down one of them for a security badge or key of some sort before finding a card. “Ok...where to now” she mutters under her breath before heading down another long corridor of this metallic and militaristic maze of a building. The voices speaking to her, she listens to for the ones that are making the right decisions. Back at the pile of bodies she just left, another soldier making his rounds walks through and sees them. “Security to the bridge...we’ve been breached..I repeat, we have an intruder” he yells over his comm-link. The voice booms over the speakers. “Uh oh..” she drops her words while continuing her navigation of the shadow base. “Crypto..where is that detection from Hack?” she chides over her communication, the voices only getting her so far sometimes. “I’ve had to maintain where he is at, the mainframe has almost a constant rotation of code to stay locked in” he explains. “Dammit” she mutters to herself. “An enemy has a lock on you” one of the voices say to her as she looks over her shoulder “OVER THERE!” a soldier yells as he and a group of his companions begin to open fire on Wraith. She ducks behind the nearest wall just as the spray of bullets pass her and splatter against the heavy metal walls. Waiting for a pause, she slides past the opening, unloading her own rapid volley of bullets from her alternator, stricking a few of the soldiers. The shots manage to hit a few of them, downing them. She void jumps between shots, emptying  more of her magazine at the mercenaries. Being able to avoid the lessening bullets, she gets closer to the soldiers. They charge in with knives drawn as the teleporting combatant gets closer in an instant. Wraith almost smiles as she pulls the kunai from her pouch and ducks under the swing of the first good. With his momentum carrying the arm forward, she lands a low snap kick at the side of his knee. A crunching sound is heard as he yelps, stumbling forward and is struck with an elbow to the spine, knocking him down. Two more soldiers come forward and attempt to hit her. She leaps over in a flip, hands on their shoulders as she lands behind them. One turns to throw a punch, she deflects and stabs him in the side with her kunai, pulls out the blade and lands a swift knee to his face, dropping him. The other pulls out his pistol and begins firing shots, she dodges the shots and weaves in closer. She throws a palm at his gun, but he pulls back. He throws a swing with the knife in his other hand and Wraith blocks with her kunai. Sparks clank as the blades clash. He fires another, she ducks. She goes for a leg sweep and he jumps, attempting to land a kick at her face while down there. She raises her kunai hand and impales the man’s leg. He yells in pain as she digs the blade across his achilles. He drops and she throws a punch to his face, knocking him out. The one guard previously whose leg she broke attempts to shoot her, weakly aiming the gun at her, she throws the kunai at the gun of the main, disarming him. She stomps down on his face, KO’ing him as well. Looking at the complete wreckage of downed guards she continues on her way. 

“Wraith, can you hear me?” asks Crypto. “Loud and clear” she replies. “There should be a door coming up on your left down the hall. Hack received a signal of a  large spike in energy there. I suspect that might be the main lab here or some sort of control room.” Crypto explains. “Got it” she turns down and uses the security badge she swiped to enter the room. Upon entering Wraith’s eyes widen. There inside the control room is a large computer with a glass wall, and monitors. Beyond the console is a large, cylindrical glass tank with a man floating inside whatever liquid is in there. As she ventures further into her room, her surprise becomes replaced with disbelief. She makes out more features of the man. He's quite large, having to be 6′6 in height. Broad shoulders, a well developed chest, bulging arms and legs that could fit on a Clydesdale.  Wires attached to his chest monitoring some sort of vitals. An oxygen mask is attached to his face, as numerous needles attached to robotic hands are placed inside the tank, attaching to his back. And Wraith notices something else..and that disbelief becomes once again replaced..this time to a feeling of morbidity. Next to him are 3 more tanks, much smaller, like the sizes of a small aquarium. And inside those jars are beating hearts, attached to their own wires. “THOOM THOOM THOOM* The sounds of the hearts echo from deep inside their tanks, and above them are monitors displaying footage of other hearts beating, but from inside a chest..and named on those monitors read Loba, Mirage, Rampart respectively. “What the hell?” she stares at them, stunned, completely ignoring the voices over inside her head. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” a voices asks from the entrance of the doorway. She turns and there stands half a dozen armed guards and Doctor Traxler himself. “Wraith...isn’t it?” asks the sociopathic scientist, almost in a mocking tone. His smile being shown, happy at the prospect of one of the legends in person is right in front of him. “Did...did you do this?” Wraith stammers..mouth agape. “I did” he says in an almost too proud tone. “What...is..this?” Wraith can barely spill out her words. “Progress, my dear. Simply progress” he says as he takes off his glasses, gives them a quick huff and wipes them with his lab coat. “What does that even mean?” she chokes out. “Oh, come on” he retorts. “I’m not some evil villain that is going to spill his entire plan in some delinquent filled attempt at a monologue” He declares. “Just know..you Legends have been a wonderful help” he says behind a smile. Wraith looks at him, confused. He turns to one of the soldiers and flicks a finger forward. The soldier pulls out a small canister and pulls a pin and throws it at Wraith. Despite her astonishment in this moment, her reflexes kick in and she slices it in half, but nothing seemed to be inside. The two sides of the canister hit the ground with a clank as they roll. The smile never fading from the doctor’s face. “What the hell was that..” *THMP-BOOM* her heart gives a sudden lurch in her chest. “HCK” she staggers forward but keeps her footing, hand reaching to her heart. “The hell”? she raggedly says to herself. *THMPBUMP* another wrenching beat as her heart rattles in her chest. “What..did you do to me”? she demands between her bated breaths. “Oh, that? Think of them as...nano-defibrillator spores. My own design in this current conquest of sorts. They enter the bloodstream and in seconds reach the heart where they are programmed to analyze a heart rhythm and shock accordingly. The ones I gave induce, not fix. Soon...you’ll be in full cardiac arrest and I’m just here to watch” he says with that smile still plastered to his face as he reaches a finger to adjust his glasses. “You bastard!” Wraith screams and void jumps aroundthe room in small bursts to get in front of Traxler. When she appears nearly right in front of him, she is about to stab him with her kunai, but a soldier intercepts her with a fist to the face. The blow sends her reeling and rolling along the floor. “Wraith, can you hear me!” Crypto worriedly asks over the comm-link, having heard the conversation between Wraith and the Doctor. “Tck..don’t come in here..I..can..handle this” she says weakly, pulling herself from the floor. *THMPBOOM* another hard beat rattles her. “GAH!” she yells in pain before falling to her knees, hand clawing at her chest..feeling rapid beats of the organ pulsing inside of her. She pants, sweat dripping from her face as she stands up. She rushes the doctor but the soldier again intercepts and uses the butt of his rifle to her face. She falls to the ground and is punted in the ribs, knocking her further away.

 Crypto hits his own comm-link “Prepare a portal and wait for my signal” he feeds back to the other legends. “Copy” Bangalore says over the speaker. Back inside the base, Wraith steadies herself “Ptoo” she spits blood before putting her hands up ready to fight. “This grows tiresome” sighs Traxler. “finish her off, please” “Yessir!” the lead one replies. Wraith pulls out her SMG and attempts to aim *BMBMBM*, more beats stagger her as she coughs off blood and drops her gun, her chest heaves with her panting. “I...I have only one shot at this..”she says to herself. She focuses...listening to the voices that plague her mind and puts a finger to her neck...she feels the beats. *thmp-thmp-thmp *BOOM** she ignores the pain. *thmpthmpthmp* BOOMBOOM* her breast quakes as she coughs more blood. *One of the voices in her head* “NOW!” Wraith waits for a beat and in between now and the next one, she punches herself in the chest, causing her heart to pause and skip a beat, giving no read for the inverted nano-defib spores..and she hits the jumps into the void.With her heart paused and jumping into the void, she teleports to in front of the lead soldier with her kunai, she stabs him in the neck, disappears and does to the next soldier, the next one and the next. The teleportation blitz is over in an almost instant, as Wraith appears back in the center of the room, the bodies of the soldiers collapse, blood pouring from their necks as their lives fade from them. Traxler looks at the woman before him, coated in her own and the blood of his soldiers as it drips from her face. A feeling of dread for his own life is quickly replaced with a twisted sense of amazement “Incredible..” he whispers. Wraith stands up knowing she needs to leave opens a full portal, she doesn’t have much time. She collapses through and is teleported outside the doors of the shadow base.

 Crypto gets a read and sees her appear. “WRAITH!!” he yells out, but  Hack notices the soldiers coming and the doors opening. “Portal” he yells. No response. “PORTAL!!” nothing. Wraith’s limp body just laying there. The soldiers open the doors and few start to clammer out. *Boom..chk-chk...boom!* Crypto begins firing his sniper at them, downing two of them. A few look up and notice and begin firing. He ducks back behind his high ground and controlls Hack back to him. The portal opens and out come Gibraltar and Revenant. “Throwin some covah for my bruddahs!” yells the jolly giant Samoan, as he throws an energy shield to cover Crypto. The 7 foot assassin  simulacrum in the blink of an eye is down in the cavern. ‘DIE..heheeh!” he yells and laughs at the soldiers, firing 2 of his flaming orbs at them near Wraith to hold them back. Landing, his hands switch to blades and he stabs clean through two of the soldiers, impaling them viscerally. He kicks another, stabs a fourth before launching one more fireball at the door, causing it to be blocked momentarily. He grabs Wraith’s body and hastily scales the cavern, reaching the top in almost frozen gutwrenching moments. “Hurry” he commands as they all rush through the closing portal. Back inside Mirage’s Bar, Rev lays down Wraith’s body. He cuts her bloodstained top, revealing the sizable breasts underneath. Lifeline gets to work and presses her ear to Wraith’s breasts. *thmmppthmmrhhoomp...thmphthmphthmp* the faint muffled beats can be heard and Lifeline gets shocked from the conducting current. “Yeow!” Wat was dat? she questions. “I overheard the man in the building, he said something like nano-defib spores...let me try something” he directs to them. “I’m going to use Hack and cast a small EMP. This way, Wattson doesn’t have to shock her and hurt her, we can just shut down the spores” he explains as he loads up Hack and charges an EMP. The drone glows with a blue current before releasing the charge. The lights and electronics in the bar flicker and shut off. Lifeline puts her ear back to Wraith’s chest and can hear her heart beating steadily. “Oh, tank God” she breathes a sigh of relief. Crypto stands up and looks at the ghostly, glowing yellow eyes of Revenant. “I don’t know why you’re here...but thank you” The simulacrum stares at him before turning and heading towards the exit. He stops at the doorway of the bar “I understand you guys and I don’t like each other...but I can’t have any of you dying. I’ll be around to help..but don’t get used to it...hehehe” he laughs before fading into the darkness of the blacked out night. A few minutes later the lights turn back and Wraith opens her eyes before sitting up and holding her chest. “My heart..” she says kind of confused to herself. “Is fine” Ajay interrupts her. “I know we cut it kinda close, but Rev showing up kinda confused us all” she explains. “I bet..” Wraith says solemnly..”I can’t believe I have to thank that creep” she mutters disgusted. “Well...he did and we owe him one” Wraith nods in response..”Yeah”. Mirage walks into the room with a bucket and a mop. “You know, I’m glad you’re safe now...but PLEASE...PLEASE go take a bath or a shower or something, you’re leaving bad guy gooey stains on my floor.” “Wraith looks at her reflection in the mirror and sees herself coated still in blood”..”I’ll get on” Ajay helps her up and takes her to the bathroom upstairs. Mirage dunks the mop in the bucket and starts wiping down the dried blood stains on the floor. “Stupid bad guys, bleeding up my bar,” he grunts and groans while the rest of the Legends get ready themselves ready for bed. 

[whump-tr0pes]

Honor Bound 4 - 11

This is a series. Start here, continued from here. 

This is a sequel to Honor Bound, Honor Bound 2, Honor Bound 3. 

AO3

Cw: blood, body image issues centered around scars, PTSD, gun violence, flashbacks, past mutual noncon, childhood abuse/manipulation/gaslighting, abandonment, death discussion

~

Isaac groaned as he worked his shirt off over his head. He’d done his best to scrub the blood off at Lucy and Topher’s place, but he could still feel it on his skin, the rough brown flakes in his hair. He shuddered. I can’t believe I slept like this last night.

I can’t believe Gavin wanted me like this.

Isaac finally pulled his shirt off. He kept his eyes down, away from the mirror. He didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to see the evidence of Gavin’s torture all over his body, the scars from the first time, the half-healed wounds of the second. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced out a deep breath. He lifted his eyes to the mirror.

He bit his lip and shivered. His eyes went immediately to an angry bruise in the center of his chest, right over his sternum. He closed his eyes against the sudden flash of memory: turning with his gun in his hand, raising it to aim at the advancing guard. The deafening shot. The spray of blood as it went through Sam’s arm. The punch of the bullet into his vest. The shock, the buzzing terror as he was thrown to the ground with Sam on top of him. Sam, bleeding out, their blood staining the vest, his shirt.

He opened his eyes and forced himself to look at the bruise. It was a deep purple, turning blue near the edges. He ran his hand gently over it and winced. The bruise was slightly raised, and it ached under his fingers. He took a tremulous breath. His ribs ached.

His gaze moved to his old scars, faded now, the crisscrossed lines across his chest and abdomen. Left by Gavin’s knife, nearly a year ago. Isaac shivered to look at the new scars Gavin had left. He held up his arms.

Almost-healed lines from the knife marked Isaac’s arms all the way up and down. The silvery marks from Gavin’s knife heated over a lighter still showed underneath, shot through with thin, pink lines. He trembled and turned to look at his back.

A quick gasp left his lips as his eyes moved over the cane marks on his back. Some hadn’t broken the skin, but close to ten long, pink lines crossed his back. Beneath them were the dozens of whip scars from almost a year ago. They looked so insignificant, next to the marks of the cane. They looked like something that should never have broken him, but did. His left shoulder was marked with the puckered scar from the explosion at Gavin’s safehouse. Isaac licked his lips and dropped his gaze.

He eased his pants and underwear down off his hips. He hissed softly as he did, still sore from what Gavin and Leo did to him.

Not Gavin. That was Leo.

It was Gavin, too.

Isaac couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. He couldn’t look at his own body, seared with scars. He couldn’t look at the evidence of the torture. The memories of what he endured, and couldn’t endure.

He turned and turned on the shower again, making the water hot. When the bathroom began to fill with steam, he stepped in. He gasped and let out a groan as the water landed on his wounds, the marks of the cane, the knife. He screwed his eyes shut and grit his teeth. He waited for the moment to pass.

Slowly, his muscles relaxed. His lips trembled as he opened his eyes. The water moved over his skin, down his body, washing him clean. Washing the torture away, the sweat, the blood. The clean water poured over him, and ran down the drain a faint brown color. Isaac imagined it washing the scars in his mind away, too.

He tilted his head back and let the water rush over his ears, his hair. A few stray drops ran down his face. His stomach clenched, the vague memory of drowning gripping him. A cloth over his face. The suffocation. The water rushing into his nose and throat. The burning in his chest, like he’d inhaled acid, like he’d inhaled fire, as the water slowly made its way down into his lungs. Sam’s screams in his ears as they lay strapped down to the table next to him. His chest ached as he forced down the panic, forced himself to breathe slowly. To breathe air, not water, safe, safe, safe… He leaned forward and braced his hand against the wall.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

His hand curled into a fist. He relaxed it and reached for the shampoo.

The smell washed over him as he soaped his hair. He breathed in deep the smell of cleanliness, of comfort. Safety. He was safe here, in this house. He was safe with his family. He was safe with Gray.

He was safe with Gavin.

He tipped his head back again and let the water wash the shampoo away. I’m safe with Gavin. He felt it with a certainty that made his head spin. No matter what Gavin had done, no matter what his past was… Isaac was safe with him. Isaac was happy with him. And Gavin understood.

Gavin understood the darkness. Gavin understood what it was to be used. He understood what it was to be good. To be useful. Compliant. He knew what it was to raised as a tool, to be cast aside when that tool broke. Isaac was cast out when he failed to kill. Gavin was cast out when he failed to die.

And now, Gavin was here, north, in the room just down the hall. Gavin was here. Gavin was safe. Gavin was… wanted. Isaac wanted him.

He scrubbed his body clean of the sweat, the blood that streaked his skin in layers. The cuts burned under the hot water. Isaac felt his shoulders start to relax for the first time in weeks.

Isaac wanted Gavin, but how could he have him? If one errant thing that Gavin said could push him away, how could they ever be together? The past was real. Isaac’s memories were real. Was there ever a way to be with Gavin where he wouldn’t be frightened sometimes?

Was there a way to be with anyone at all without being frightened?

Gavin had made a sacrifice that turned Isaac’s stomach to think about. Gavin had hurt his family, over and over, the only people he ever loved. Did he know we loved him too, as he did it? Did he know how much we still love him? Gavin tortured the only people who’d cared about him in his life. Gavin had been sure he was going to lose them. And Gavin had gotten them out anyway. He’d gotten them out, even as his mother demanded his death.

Isaac scrubbed his face with his hands. After three weeks of not shaving, his stubble had filled out into the beginnings of a beard. He reached for the razor and the can of shaving cream. Gray thought of everything. He held up his hand to take some shaving cream, and paused. The hot water pounded on his shoulders. He didn’t know why, but he put the shaving cream down. He held his breath and let the water cascade over his face for a moment before he stepped back and wiped the water away. He turned off the shower and stepped out.

Gently, gently, he toweled himself dry. He pressed the towel over the cuts, the cane marks, gritting his teeth at the feeling of the fabric on his wounds. He towel dried his hair and looked in the mirror again. It was too foggy for him to see his reflection.

Slowly, achingly, he pulled on his sleeping clothes. The shirt hung on Isaac’s shoulders, putting the gentlest of pressure on the cuts and cane marks. Isaac’s hands trembled as he hung the towel from the rack. He smoothed his hair back as he opened the door. The cool, dry air washed over him and made him shiver. He walked down the hall, straight to Gavin’s room.

Continued here

@untilthepainstarts, @womping-grounds, @free-2bmee, @quirkykayleetam, @walkingchemicalfire, @inpainandsuffering, @redwingedwhump, @burtlederp, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @insomniacscoprio, @cursedscribbles, @whumpywhumper, @stxck-fxck, @omega-em-z-02, @whumps-the-word, @justwhumpitwhumpitgood, @justplainwhump, @moose-teeth, @slaintetowhump, @finder-of-rings, @inky-whump, @thatsthewhump, @orchidscript, @insanitywishes, @this-mightaswell-happen, @newandfiguringitout, @whumpkitty, @pretty-face-breaker, @cinnamonflavoredhugs, @inaridriscoll, @im-just-here-for-the-whump

[mxrcayong]

avatar 01.14

masterlist.

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chapter fourteen: trust

“Trust me this once.”

Johnny’s words seemed to bounce around her mind like a broken pinball machine, the ball to enter the scoring zone. Her heart felt like it was pounding – falling deeper and deeper into the pit of her stomach. The sound of the door shutting behind him resounded in the room, echoing off each wall as they momentarily sat in silence. Despite being momentary, each second seemed to feel like an hour.

But they had no time to dwell on it. Sukiara ensured it, quickly returning back to the initial subject; the plan and their tasks. “We have to assume they will be heavily guarded or equipped to handle benders, or both.” She seemed unfazed as if she was listing their grocery shopping list, even though she was obviously picturing the dangerous task ahead of them.

Jisung furrowed his eyebrows, confused. “What can handle benders? Other than the cuffs, of course.” At the sound of his voice and the panic in Sukiara’s eyes, Tari’s heart dropped further than before. He’s risking his life…he’s only two years younger than me.

Sukiara pointed to Tari, designating her the task of explaining what she had told Sukiara when she had stayed in Bak Mei for a week. “Uhm…” Her eyes still lingered on the door, praying Johnny and Kilari will burst through the door and return to their seats or praying that by some twisted means of fate, someone would come in and exclaim it’s a prank. However, Sukiara snapped her fingers – semi-breaking her out of the trance. “Uhm… when Kilari and Doyoung were attacked in the…” She trailed off, her words getting lost as she continued to pray Johnny and Kilari returned.

“The initial attacks?” Yuta finished for her and Tari smiled at him gratefully. His hand went to her knee, his thumb stroking up and down comfortingly. Hearing his voice successfully broke her out of her hypnosis on the door. She noticed Sonan and Doyoung leaning in, intrigued about what Tari had to say. They didn’t hear anything about this before, even if they were there and they felt guilty to how they didn’t notice her struggle.

“I had a hard time healing them and it felt like the wounds were…” She scrambled through her mind for the right words, “fighting back or needed extra effort to actually heal.” Tari said, still somewhat despondent. Doyoung’s eyes went wide, before his eyes quickly jumped to where Tari had healed him.

Sonan stared at Tari in shock. How did she not notice? She tried to search back in her memories for that moment, but she was a bit drunk by then. The memory was faded with missing pieces. They had drank to forget the aftermath of the attacks, and never has she hated drinking more.  

“It’s safe to assume they’ll be armed with similar materials or similar techniques.” Sukiara took over the room once more. “They might’ve been inspired by Ty Lee’s fighting style.”

At the mention of the familiar name, a flashback to a memory Tari has never personally experienced overtook her senses. This is the first time in a while that a memory from her past life succumbed her involuntarily, taking over her senses as if she was reliving the moment.

Suddenly she was in an emerald room, something she recognized not only from her memories but the textbooks on the old legendary nation of Ba Sing Se. It was dark, the emerald seeming to reflect the shadows around the room. Tari could smell the scent of tea from the throne to the perfume of the Kyoshi Warriors in front of her.

An undeniable rage grumbled in her stomach, but she wasn’t in her own body. She had no control about what she would do about this rage - Avatar Aang was in control, and always the best at suppressing his negative emotions.

She could recognize, using Aang’s hindsight, the three Kyoshi warriors as Ty Lee, Mei, and Azula. Despite the rage seeming to pump through their blood, Tari also felt pity for Azula and a sense of missing Ty Lee and Mei (probably a result of Aang’s later friendship with the two).

The pity for Azula was overwhelming now as she lived through the memory, unable to act. Azula was only fourteen and was taught to be a war machine. She was born in the same life as Zuko, and Zuko was neglected and mentally abused – even physically. In the back of Tari’s mind, another mental image of Azula being dragged away by the mental institution and jail reminded Tari of her fate.

Katara approached, starting to water bend from the small capsule of water she brought with her. But Ty Lee cartwheeled towards Katara and flipped over her. Almost in slow motion, she pressed a point on Katara’s neck – causing Katara to groan in pain before falling to her side and the same water she was bending pooling out of her body.

“A combination of pressure points and acrobatics…” Tari commented. “But do you think the materials have something to do it?”

Instead of responding directly to the question, Sukiara deflected. She let out a sigh that Tari swore was the most disappointed sigh she has heard from her in her life. “I know you don’t like fighting, but I think…” She emphasized the word Tari had used in her questions, “you have to train and be ready to fight.”

Tari’s heart dropped. How about the other benders? Can they get stuck in the crossfire?

Before Tari could object, Sukiara shouted out demands and instructions. “I will finalise the plan by tomorrow night. You have 4 days and 3 nights to prepare. Tari and everyone, please go get dressed in training attire. Yuta and Jisung, fire and earth are Tari’s least mastered elements. Please train her with it. Especially fire, so please start on that today. I will send down our bending moderator to discuss with you Tari’s progress.” She turned to the only non-bender left in the room. “Sonan, feel free to help me strategize or practice with our weapons expert.”

With that, Sukiara marched out of the room with no reaction – as if she was a robot. These were the times Tari remembers that Sukiara wasn’t her parent or her legal caretaker, but a guardian and a manager. Her priority is not her wellbeing, but her ability to do the Avatar’s purpose; to keep balance in the world.  

Tari was still shell-shocked, but she had an idea she believed Sukiara must hear. Jumping to her feet, she ran to the door frame and leaned out. From hanging out the room, she watched Sukiara walking down the empty corridor..

“Can you contact Lin?” Tari shouted down the hall, her words echoing throughout the corridor.

Sukiara turned around briefly, giving her a thumbs up, and disappeared down the hallway.

As soon as she turned around to enter the room once more, Yuta, Jisung, and Doyoung were already heading out. “Let’s train.”

99% of Tari’s childhood and her adolescence was training or doing homeschooling. Homeschooling, however, was a mere 20% as she took accelerated courses of study. She practically finished K-12 by age 12. It helped that the whole entire history being taught in classes was in her memories – she has technically lived them before. She merely had to learn other basic skills, from math to grammar. Despite that, school was always second priority compared to bending training. Consequently, training was a hefty majority of her childhood.

With that in mind, Tari can flawlessly braid her hair out of the way blindfolded. She can navigate the training centers in the island and the temples she trained at (given they haven’t changed) in a complete blackout under a night sky.

It didn’t take long before she was in the training center, biting anxiously at her nails while waiting for her ‘trainers’ Jisung, Yuta, and Doyoung. She didn’t know where to start. Should she stretch? Most likely, but she can’t seem to concentrate. She can’t seem to stop wondering where Johnny and Kilari ran off to, what Sukiara plans, or if her friends will be safe tomorrow.

In all her life of training; of knowing the procedures, of knowing every single stretch that could possibly be known to man – this is the first time in year Tari is standing in the middle of the courtyard, uncertain of what to do. As much as she dreaded training, she just wanted it to happen already so she can stop imagining how it’ll go (which, by the way, in her head – hasn’t gone well).

Within minutes, she sees Yuta, Doyoung, and Jisung walk down the steps with her bending guide. Yes, she had Sukiara as her guardian – but she had Lia Kim as her bending guide. In that sense, Lia Kim has theoretically mastered all the elements – however she’s purely a Water Bender. Resultingly, Lia monitors Tari’s growth with bending – she keeps track of what she has obviously mastered and what she has to continue in mastering.

She has many good memories with Lia. Lia always managed to make training somewhat fun – turning training sessions into obstacle courses, games of hide and seek, challenges, and just general fun. She was the only one of her ‘three main mentors’ who turned things into games; Sukiara was always in charge of acting like a parental figure while Choi Youngjun always had to be strict due to the accelerated course of education she was required to take.

Despite the group of them gracing kind smiles on their faces, Tari was still anxiously predicting any way training could go wrong – from her burning someone to them giving up on her. Tari found that her leg started shaking without her control.

Doyoung took one glance at her and noticed this; noticed her widened eyes, her lips between her teeth, her feet anxiously tapping at the ground. He didn’t know all about her past, but he knew about her now – so well, that they can communicate purely through their eyes. That’s all he needed to know, he decided.

So, he did what he did when Tari seems panicked in public; distract her.

“Honestly, I’m glad you’re practically forced to be training with me.” Doyoung smiled. “Like, if you went to the gym, I’m about 10000% certain you’d choose anyone but me to be your trainer.”

Tari felt a weight off her shoulders at Doyoung’s teasing smirk. She stood to her feet and playfully pushed his shoulder, “Yeah, because obviously you’ll somehow end up making me do something dumb. May I remind you of the fork stabbing incident?”

“THAT WAS ONE TIME!”

The sun had set, and everyone was exhausted.

Hours and hours of training only brought them to a point of giving up, but Tari refused. Jisung has distracted himself with Doyoung once more, the two playing around with a small game they created that Tari and Yuta cannot understand at all. All they know is that when Jisung manages to balance on the airball and knock Doyoung off his feet, Jisung screams in celebration while Doyoung falls to his knees – cursing any higher being out there. Vice versa can be said when Jisung is sprawled on the floor.

They saw their work as over. Doyoung, from the very beginning, just had to remind Tari of the offensive and defensive moves of Air Bending rather than the daily tasks. Jisung had a bit more on his plate, but Yuta reminded them of Sukiara’s suggestion to tackle her biggest weakness first; fire. It wasn’t a surprise when everyone agreed.

Tari and Yuta were still in the middle of the courtyard, repeating the last move Tari couldn’t seem to master. Yuta was impressed – she was quick learner. He was surprised she didn’t master it sooner, however, he noticed she was mostly good at theory. She can describe a move perfectly, but when she actually tries to do it? Something goes wrong.

He notices how she hesitates, how her foot moves out of place, how she loses concentration on the actual move as she focuses on how she could mess up.

Her head was hurting. I swear I’m doing this right. She checked everything more than a million times; her foot placement for the millionth time, the positioning of her fingers, the angle of her arms – but all she could let out was a measly fire ball while Yuta seemed to call upon the burning core of the world itself.

Yuta could sense the frustration boiling Tari’s blood and placed his hand on her back. He’s been demonstrating from a distance initially, as requested by Tari to ‘avoid getting hurt’. But he’s been in her position before – and he often feels much more relaxed with the touch of a fellow human being.

A bell chime ran through the island, alerting every one of dinner now ready in the canteen.

“Thank God!” Doyoung praised, “I’m starving!”

Jisung following behind, “I wonder what food they’re serving today.” He commented, as if to himself.  “As long as it’s not fire nation food, I’m good.” Jisung’s face turned into a painful wince as if he just ate into the spicy dish again.

The two stopped in their positions, noticing Tari not following behind. Doyoung sighed, “Tari, you need to eat.” Tari refused to answer, Yuta still hovering over her as he tried to analyse her face. It was stern – focused on the fake target placed in front of her. “Tari-“

“I’ll eat later.” She said coldly, almost as if her words were ice.

Of course, it’s not mandatory to go to dinner at the time. Mealtimes at Bak Mei last for five hours, so often, people go when they please. But Tari even missed lunch.

“Tari,”

“I’LL EAT LATER, DO!” Doyoung jumped at the change of tone. This is the first time she properly ever yelled at him, and that means a lot considering they have been roommates for approximately two years.

Yuta, himself, even flinched. Jisung’s eyes went wide. From his position as the closest to her, Yuta signalled to Doyoung and Jisung to go ahead and eat. “Go ahead.” He insisted, “We’ll catch up.” He winked at them, letting them know he’ll try his best to get her to eat.

“Go ahead, Yuta.” Tari stated, “You don’t have to wait for me, I’ll probably never get it anyway.”

“You can’t fire bend on an empty stomach, though!” He smiled, trying to charm into the canteen. She can’t say it wasn’t working; his smile was so bright, like he was radiating happiness. “Isn’t it fire nation night tonight? The food will definitely help, think of all the spice.” He made tingly-motions with his hands, making Tari’s guard fall down and letting himself chuckle.

Tari dropped her arms from the position. “Fire nation night was last night. It’s air nation food tonight.” Her voice was suddenly small.

“Even better!” Yuta clapped his hands, “My dad used to make the best dumplings. He was born in Air Temple Island actually, he actually was living with Aang.” At the mention of his name, especially while training – her heart hurt.

Was this how Aang was feeling? About fighting the fire lord? Conflicted, loss, unwilling to do it? How did he do it? Why can’t I be more like him?

The half-fire nation and half-air nation citizen smiled sadly, noticing – even under the courtyard’s dim lights – how Tari’s gaze fell to her feet with a darkened glaze. “Okay, how about this. I help you master this move. We go to dinner. And if you really want to, we do another training session after dinner. You don’t have to meditate tonight.” Yuta sighed.

Tari looked up at him; his sparkling brown eyes full of concern, his small smile. How could I say no? When she begrudgingly nodded, his small smile was replaced with a large one that showed all his teeth – his face immediately becoming brighter. She swore she wouldn’t need the courtyard to be lit up when he’s there, smiling. It reminded her of the candle fountain in the earth nation, something Lin snuck her out after curfew to show her. It was a beautiful sight.

“Okay, then, let’s get a move on because we need to get some food in you.” He teased, his hands immediately being put on Tari’s waist. At the skin ship, Tari shivered. She normally never shivers – it’s the beauty of air bending helping adjust to the temperature around her, but his touch seemed to shoot electricity throughout her. She regrets not wearing a longer T-Shirt, but she normally wears crop tops to train, especially when bending fire.

He was strong, but the way he helped Tari fix up her stance was gentle – as if she was a fragile doll. No one treated her as gentle when training as he is now, other than before she found out she was the Avatar. They always pushed her, continuously challenged her. She can’t recall every bad bruise and injury she got from training – it’s probably over a thousand. But he was treating her like she was made of glass. Her heart fluttered.

“You have to remain loose,” He nudged her feet to be wider apart, “you have to be ready to move fast so keep your heels off the ground.”

“But earth bending, your heels have to be down right?” Tari clarified.

“Yeah, but this is fire bending, babes.” Tari swears this man must know how to do lightning bending, because everything that comes out of his mouth sends electricity down her spine. He inched closer, his chest pressed against her back as he fixes her posture. His hot breath brushed behind her ear. “Keep your arms shoulder level.” His hands trailed upwards, tickling her sides, as it went to help her position her arms. “From,” His hand trailed towards her hand which is outstretched in front of her. “Bring this in with your fingers tight together as if they were glued on the sides,” Holding the back of her hand, he guided it close to her chest – as if pointing to her heart. “Turn your palm over as it faces you,” As he instructs her verbally, he’s helping guide her movements with his right hand while his left hand is still holding her hip loosely. “…and then slice the air and shoot it out.”

It all felt intimate; his lips behind her ear, his hot breath hitting it with very word, his hand against her hip. “Now, that’s the hand movements. Do you know what to do with your feet?”

Tari launched her right foot up, keeping the bottom of her foot flat towards the hypothetical opponent. “No, no, you need to point it towards the target. Pointing it makes your kick sharper and helps you move more efficiently.”

She nodded as she amended to his feedback. “Okay, perfect. Now do it without me. Remember, focus on fire. Focus on what you want. Focus on the energy you feel, the electricity within you.” He stepped back to watch her perform the move basically perfect, except for one thing. “You have to stay off your heels.”

“Ugh!” Tari could do this easily with air bending, which also emphasizes getting off your heels. “It’s just like air bending, but why is this harder?”

“Exactly,” Yuta grinned, his eyes looking down at her lips. “It’s harder because air bending is about peace, patience, liberty, and balance. That seems to be like you, from what I’ve seen. Fire?” He started leaning in, “it’s all about passion,” His voice became huskier and more hushed as he leaned even closer. His eyes glanced down to her lips, before back at her eyes.

Tari was surprised; as she found herself leaning in too. Soon, they were millimeters apart. “It’s about performance, but mostly - inner fire.” And his lips pressed onto hers.

It was as if the kiss could help them learn everything about each other, as if their lips were books about their whole lives and they just wanted to know everything. His lips were soft and moist, breathing into her lips gently as they kissed.

Tari pulled away, the heat in her cheeks not going to disappear any time soon. She felt awkward, but immediately wanted to cool the tension. “Passion, huh?” She chuckled, biting her lip and trying to hide her blushing cheeks from the cocky Yuta. “I thought fire bending was also about providing a source of life.”

The master bender chuckled. “Technically, yes. But I wanted an excuse to kiss you.”

She scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. “Uh, yeah, dinner, shall we?”

Let’s just say, Doyoung knew something was up inside the canteen when she refused to mention training and when Yuta’s leg was leaning against Tari’s under the table.

request anything for future parts / penny for your thoughts here

[bigboxofbees]

Quicksand / Störst av allt

This is a swedish Netflix original series (the first one!) about a school shooting, so the following analysis/review will include discussions around that topic. There will also be some smaller spoilers (if you don't want those, you can stop reading after the second image. The show sets out to explore the main character's involvement in the shooting. A thing that makes this show interesting is the fact that Sweden has no history of this type of crime. It jumps between flashbacks to the present, the present being when she was found all the way to when the verdict was being read. I would like to mention that I would not recommend this show to anyone who feels like the topics of gun violence, suicide and sexual assault might be too much for you. They do show the shooting, there's mention of suicide and it has a rape scene.

In short terms, the show can be described as a Romeo and Juliet story. It's a whirlwind "love story" that ends in death. It's about two 17-yearold (later 18-yearold) teens, Maja and Sebastian (fun fact: the actor is a singer, he almost made it to eurovision), who've known eachother since they were children. Sebastian has been away for a year, he and Maja meet again on a night outside a night club. It's been made clear that Sebastian is the kind of guy who "can get any girl". He's rich and popular, yet suddenly only has eyes for Maja. She is your average girl, according to herself. Her family has money, but cannot afford the lavish lifestyle of Sebastian's family. It's the classic rich and troubled guy falls for the girl who doesn't see herself as special. Right after they met, Maja is going on a 3-week vacation to France with her family. Sebastian (and his father) meets up with Maja in France as a surprise, and this is where their love story begins.

Maja and Sebastian falls "in love" fast, it's unclear how long their "romance" lasted, but the timeline of the show seem to only stretch about a year. Although it is important to note, this timeperiod was very intense. They spent days (or possibly a week or two) alone on a luxury yacht the same week they met, Sebastian threw a huge party (drugs and alcohol included), she learned details about him and his family, they were in an accident and they went hunting with her grandfather (fun fact: my mother was in one of his movies in the 80s!).

A side character who's also of importance is Samir (fun fact: played by a former Youtube vlogger, whom I've seen live and he's fucking awesome, just putting it out there). Samir does not come from a family like Sebastian's. He does not understand what Maja sees in Sebastian, because to him Sebastian is nothing but a spoiled rich drug addict. However, he does seem to care about Maja, so perhaps his words come from a place of concern with a touch of jealousy. Sebastian seem to have made Samir his enemy, and there are definitely some racist remarks towards his parents who are immigrants from the middle east. Cheap shots indeed, but this shows that Sebastian is afraid of losing Maja to Samir; the intelligent son of immigrants who does well for himself, unlike Sebastian. He probably sees Samir as both above and below himself in a sense.

Another noteworthy character is Maja's best friend Amanda. Maja describes her as someone who "pities everyone, but equally pities herself", as "self-centered, but cares so much about everything". When Maja confesses that she may no longer be in love, Amanda (who's at least fairly aware about Sebastian's issues) says that "some people would've left him, but you aren't leaving him". She appears to be rather loyal to Sebastian, despite being friends with Maja first. Perhaps because she likes the perks of being that close to Sebastian and his way of life? However, when she learns more about what's going on the tone changes somewhat, she realizes things are bad.

Fast forward, Maja finally decides to break up with Sebastian. This is around the time when things are starting to really spiral out of control. Sebastian's father is not a great parent (I'm being generous here), an example of this would be when Sebastian is in the hospital and neither his father nor his brother comes to visit, they are on vacation. His mother is no longer in the picture, what happened to her is unknown, but there was a disturbing comment about her and his father clearly does not like her. This all becomes a lot for Sebastian, the disappointment, the drugs, the jealousy; his only escape was Maja, and she broke up with him. Maja feels even more responsibility over Sebastian, so she kind of stays with him. Maja can't bring herself to leave him, not even after he assaults her. In court she mentions that she "wishes he had hit her harder" so that she wouldn't feel so guilty about leaving him.

Maja is being detained for being suspected of murder, attempted murder and assisted murder. She is not completely innocent, that much is clear from the start, the question is what her involvement actually was. Maja doesn't seem to be able to picture herself a life after the shooting. When her legal team says "we all want you out of here" she responds with "out to where?". Perhaps she didn't plan that far, perhaps she doesn't feel like she has anything left or perhaps she didn't plan on making it out alive. What actually happened I won't spoil.

The scenes in the courtroom brings up a couple of interesting aspects of the trial. First we have witness tampering. The police didn't handle the main witness properly and therefor the witness' memories weren't clear. What this teaches us is that even if someone is not telling the truth, they may not be lying. Because by talking to other people, your memories can be altered, especially in situations like this. Another thing is the media, which played a role in the trial. As Maja's lawyer puts it: "She was already found guilty before we started". The media had been running stories about how horrible she was, which affected everyone in the courtroom. The last thing I wanted to bring up was victim blaming, we see the classics of "Did you say no? Did you report it?" and "Why didn't you leave?".

The show certainly sets out to humanize the people of the shooting, however, it does not try to romanticize the events nor their relationship. It starts out as this fantastical love story, but turns into a very toxic relationship and a downward spiral. If anything, it serves as a cautionary tale, because sometimes we can't save those we care about. Sometimes it's best to walk away.

As a final note, it does not however explain why it happened, we never got a clear motive. All we know is that the teacher had called for a meeting about Maja and Sebastian, and this is where it happened. But, perhaps, the lack of a motive is intended as a message. People do horrible things, maybe they don't always have a clear reasoning behind it; perhaps it was irratic and impulsive with no clear motive. But I would say that the shooting isn't the most central part of the show; it's their relationship. It's not a show about a school shooting, it's a show about how a relationship can turn toxic and spiral out of control.

I absolutely would recommend the show. It keeps you glued to the screen and you can easily watch it in a day (I did). It explores interesting topics and you're never quite sure whether or not you should be rooting for Maja until the very end.

[halloweenvalentine1997]

A short story I made out of short stories I’ve written under other names.

When she died, I felt a series of perforations, hollows and bruises

about my skull. I saw her die behind static.

By the stone wall adjacent to the office supplies store, I

bewailed her, screaming,

burning myself later with the tip of a lit cigarette.

I put ash and poison on my wrist for the ones who died.

I wanted to pick a strawberry off the plant in my parents’ backyard

and once more taste its succulence. I wanted to impale my head with the

iron tip of a weathervane. Slice open my vibrant red aorta.

Seeing them all in a hole

through the light emitting

through the asylum blinds.

I myself am a corpse in a bed

in the forensics ward,

green moths on my blanket,

rotting silently in a pastel grave,

killed by medicine,

wasted by time.

If you come close enough to hear my thoughts

(like a chemically-enhanced ghost)

distort and clamor

amongst the traffic, the television,

the noise a death in a family brings,

I will let loose my hatred

like a ribbon from hair,

unraveling red Medusa strands.

I will draw more ribbons on your flesh

if you touch me,

bleed you into the wood,

hammer a nail into your heartline,

devour your fear like a shot of amphetamine

to my malevolent blood.

2013

Stacey

1.

Some of us are the river’s current, floating through life swiftly or slowly, as if in a trance of somnambulism. Some of us are a human shell at its edge, refusing to follow its pattern and be a part of it. Why follow them when you can live on the fringes of society, away from its stigmas and scrutinizing scorn?

2.

When Ellie married Samuel Barnes, the world was a rose-gold utopia. Three years later, at the age of twenty-nine, Ellie no longer felt that the chemistry they had once remained. On a windy September afternoon, when she returned to the red-brick bungalow she shared with Samuel on Hillsam Avenue, Ellie heard moans and sounds of sexual ecstasy emitting from their bedroom. Another woman was there. Ellie’s eyes instantly began to burn like hot coals in a campground grill. She examined her wedding portrait on the wall of the hallway as she moved in slow motion through it. They had been photographed in front of the church’s stained glass windows, a spectrum of color radiating behind the couple adorned in black and white.

She ran her fingers through her long brown hair, blinking through the lake of sorrow in her dark eyes, and suppressing a sob, pushed open the bedroom door at the end of the hall. Another dark-haired woman Ellie didn’t recognize was riding Samuel, and when she registered the door slamming open, she turned around wide-eyed with a cry of alarm, her brown nipples in full view.

“I knew it,” Ellie told Samuel bitterly. “I knew for at least a year that there was someone else!”

Samuel looked at his wife blankly and didn’t reply, his face almost smug.

“Who are you?” Ellie shrieked at the strange woman.

“Lila Stern,” the woman replied. “And clearly, Sam doesn’t love you anymore. He loves me. He has for the entire year you suspected something was going on. We would both like you to leave.”

“Don’t dictate what I will do in my own house, you fucking homewrecker!” Ellie shouted. Lila, remembering her nudity, covered herself with the indigo comforter.

“I agree with Lila,” Samuel said. “Just pack your things and go, Ellie. You’ve been a nagging, paranoid pain in my ass for too long. You’re in need of a psychiatrist, but you won’t pay heed to my advice. All you are lately is a cold fish who’s no fun. A fucking schoolmarm. Find an apartment somewhere. Leave.”

“Now,” Lila said.

Ellie slammed the door shut and bolted down the hall and into the kitchen. She opened the cutlery drawer and grabbed the sharpest knife she could find. Tested its point with the tip of her index finger. A small blood-drop formed in the small pad of flesh. Although Ellie’s tears rained down like heated glass, she felt no physical pain.

I won’t pack my things, she thought. I have a better idea.

She glanced at the neon green digital clock above the oven. It read 1:11 p.m. It was September 24th. As she placed the knife into the pocket of her navy blue peacoat, grabbed her smartphone, scrawled a quick note and left the house, Ellie knew what to do. No more morning to afternoon shifts as a psychiatric nurse at St. Mary Medical Center’s psych unit. No more wondering when Samuel would be home from his nightly excursions. As she walked towards the river, passing the other houses, the Texaco, the railroad tracks, the boarded-up, shutdown factories, memories flashed before her. She remembered her lonely childhood, her even more tumultuous adolescence where she slept with a crowbar in her pillowcase and read The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird at the edge of the schoolyard grass away from everyone.

“I wish you’d never been born,” Ellie’s mother told her, swilling red wine from a tall, dark bottle.

“I second that,” her father said, puffing on a fat cigar. Once she made it to the river, Ellie collapsed like a house of cards to the white sand, and howled the loss of her love into the godless sky. She glanced from side to side to make sure no one was watching. She couldn’t be sure if someone was for all the foliage and bushes. But she didn’t care. She sat there for the longest time, her breathing a series of hyperventilation. Samuel’s face was all she could see, then Lila’s, the two of them like a rotating holographic image. She wanted her cremated ashes bequeathed to the river. She wanted no tomb in the town cemetery. No funeral. The note she wrote with these directions was in her left pocket of her coat. Such a heavy coat for the nice weather, but Ellie was always cold. Her body, feather-boned and catatonic, slumped over a large rock and she let the tears wet it like a water nymph mourning the loss of a handsome sailor on a receding boat.

Ellie turned on her cell phone and listened to Paula Cole’s “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” one last time. It sounded faint above the river’s churning. Just like the woman in the song, she too had an non-devoted, careless husband. She wept hardest at the chorus:

Where is my John Wayne?


Where is my prairie song?


Where is my happy ending?


Where have all the cowboys gone?

“To greener pastures,” Ellie said to herself. “To rose-gold utopias I’ll never see.“

3.

The clock on the wall of Mrs. Sykes’s math class ticked in time to my heartbeat. The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that I get when I crave marijuana was there, screaming like a lacuna asking to be filled. The time for more recalcitrance (in this case, truancy and drug use by the river) was near. While Mrs. Sykes droned on like a monotonous honeybee about the Pythagorean theorem, I got up from my desk and slung my backpack over my shoulders. Her gunmetal grey eyes followed me to the door with the poster of the Power Rangers on it, all teamed up together. Always use the buddy system, the poster said.

“Where are you going, Stacey?” Mrs. Sykes asked.

“Skipping class,” I told her. “And dropping out when I turn eighteen in February. This is non-negotiable. You can’t stop me.”

Before my teacher could retaliate, I flounced out of the room, leaving the scoffing and titters of my peers behind me. I left my textbooks in my locker to lessen the load in my backpack. I unzipped a small pocket and grinned at the verdant green pot in its glass pipe.

Jimmy Stirling is the one who introduced me to pot when I was a junior a year before. He was a senior, and one of Lewis and Clark High School’s few homeless students. His dad was a cantankerous drunk and gambler who threw him out. Jimmy spent time singing songs on the sidewalk for spare change, or sleeping at the homeless shelter for adolescents. For someone who was homeless, Jimmy frequently had a remarkably full tin can of bills and change. His singing voice was a rich alto tearing pleasantly through the downtown breeze. On October of last year, he found me crying under the highway after school let out. I recognized him from my creative writing class.

"What’s wrong, Stacey?” he asked.

“My brother’s locked in the loony bin. He’s possessed. He killed Alvin, my guinea pig. Everything is falling apart, and to top it all off, Liam broke up with me this morning.”

"Man, I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. “You every try marijuana? It might make you forget all that stuff.”

“I don’t have any money,” I said, knowing that anyone with marijuana downtown expected payment in return for it.

“That’s alright. I have some I’ll share for free. Let’s sit in my favorite place to do it.”

I followed him, listening to him sing as we walked the few blocks to an alleyway with a set of cement stairs against a condemned apartment, leading to a bolted door. He sang Skid Row’s “18 and Life” and Black Sabbath’s “Killing Yourself To Live.” We sat on the bottom step . He loaded the pot into a glass bowl and taught me how to light it, how to inhale the hit of smoke without exhaling it too soon. I caught the gist of it. Suddenly, within a few minutes, everything was funny. My mind was suddenly devoid of all negativity. I was giggly, light as a tumbleweed blown by a gale of fierce wind. I felt energetic, talkative, and happier that I’d been a long time. Shortly after my day with Jimmy, I learned he went to jail for getting caught with Ecstasy tablets in his lockers. He was also rumored to be selling cocaine and heroin downtown. He wasn’t allowed back at school. I never saw him again. The flashbacks vanished when I approached the river and saw her. She was a woman with long brown hair. She was wearing a peacoat, jeans and pair of black loafers. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what she was doing. The woman older than me by at least a decade, was holding a kitchen knife to the veins in her right wrist. She made no sound when she punctured them, her hand dangling over the water. I watched her bloodletting turn part of the emerald river red. It was spouting out like the slashed throat of a sacrificed farm animal. She turned and saw me when i stepped on a twig by accident and snapped it in two.

“Go away,” the woman told. “Believe me, you should be letting this happen.”

She took in my red ringlets, my sharp green eyes, my pink hoodie, my Converse sneakers. Then she went for her throat with her knife and slit it open with perfect finesse. There was a vibe coming off of this woman that insinuated I should just let her die. I could sense that her life had been miserable and mean. I sat on a rock out of sight of the dying woman and got high, thinking of her spirit rising, transcendental and free, into the sun and clouds. I thought of how the first settlers of the city I live in came here 10,000 to 30,000 years ago. Before there were cemeteries, they buried their dead in unmarked graves. I thought of all the skeletons that must be under the grass of the lawns and parks, the sidewalks, the urban streets. I thought of the days of religious fanaticism, and how had I been born then, I would have been buried in unconsecrated ground for my heathen ways. I didn’t believe in god, but I did believe in Satan.

2019

Stacey

I am not sure exactly when my family died. Before they died, I was a genuinely innocent soul whose conscience burned to a crisp. I couldn’t blame myself for it, but I didn’t know who to blame because the ones responsible for my family’s death never came out of their disguises, synthetic human skin and features made to look exactly like my family members would look if they were really there amongst you. I still hear them call to me over highway noise and wind, while I’m taking hits off a meth pipe or smoking a cigarette on an overpass with dead eyes and no ache. I’ve already ached so much. Without them I am a branch breaking off of a tree. It’s hard to explain what I mean by disguises; they look so much like my family but aren’t. They could look like anyone and they’re wearing synthetic skin designed to look like my mom and dad.

I am Stacey Galloway. I was born to a family that never loved me but that I tried to love fiercely. I may have turned into a drug-addled street kid but I still wanted them to love me, anyway. I remember when I first suspected them to be dead. I was sitting in my old apartment in the living room with a scream in my ears that sounded like my mother’s emanating from my laptop and whirling through the dusty air like a trap I would remained enveloped in. I heard a chainsaw start up and then the sound stopped. It was like an audio recording that just stayed there screaming and sawing in my computer speakers. The voices told me my parents were dead and replaced by “skin masks.”

I asked, “What is a skin mask?” “Synthetic skin made to look like your parents. Exactly like your parents. And your younger brother,” a man replied out of thin air. “Someone else is wearing skin that looks like them now. Every feature of your family has been replicated, special contact lenses have been made, someone with the same height as them is wearing skin masks.”

I couldn’t see him but maybe he could see me. I hoped not. What he was saying was too horrible to want to comprehend. It’s humanly possible to do this, with the aid of a lot of fake skin and ways of knowing how the victim worked, how they spoke, where they lived, whom they spoke to. I will never know that world and don’t want to. It’s insidious enough just to live in the city I live in, gone and waking up with ice in my chest in a house that is now unfamiliar and rearranged. All I want to do is get high to forget about it, and it’s worked after awhile.

I know the police will do nothing because I don’t know how to explain it without dying or not making sense. I never wanted this.

I never wanted to lose the only lifeline I had.

So after the voices came from my laptop and told me these things, I left my apartment, locked it and went to the stone wall by the office supplies store about a mile away. I sat there in the gravel and lit a cigarette, the parking lot blurring through my wet eyes. I didn’t know why I believed what I was hearing, but I was anorexic and schizophrenic, and didn’t know how to not believe something that seemed so real. Before all this, I heard voices talk to me in my room that really were there. No one was physically present around me, but their voices reverberated throughout my walls, my silent television, my closed laptop.

“We’re going to kill your family,” said the voices.

I didn’t believe them. I didn’t reply. I thought they were full of shit.

Now I know they’re not, because although the identity thieves of my family are never in prison, the handwriting of my parents has changed, and so have the cadence of their voices. They speak in European accents now when they think they’re alone and that I’m out of earshot. But I can hear them. It’s hard to understand what they’re saying. It’s plain English, but indecipherable at the same time.  My brother’s identity was never actually stolen. He is eighteen and currently going to college. I am twenty-three and never doing anything with my life again. I’m in the loony bin.

I stare through the green and blue in the slit in the blinds and think about the house I grew up in, a green bungalow in the middle of a golden field of grass, a porch swing, wind chimes and an attic window that never lit up. My father always told me our attic was full of asbestos and that it could cause mesothelioma to inhale it after years of exposure to it.

“But,” he said, “there is no asbestos in the rest of the house. You’re safe.”

In the backyard, my mother grew strawberries and tomatoes. There was a one-car garage and a deck, a wooden fence and a glass picnic table with chairs surrounding it. I remember days, years of smoking marijuana in my room and listening to music. Grey smoke filling the room with the scent of weed, filling my lungs with blackness and my heart with euphoria. I will do that later on, in another place, when this institution is tired of me and forces me out the door like I want.

When I went home after my tantrum by the stone wall, I noticed that my parents were still there, or they just appeared to be. I saw no blemishes, no redness, nothing but them with a synthetic look to their skin, it appeared to be fake. But there was my mother’s hair, my father’s hair, my father’s eyes, their faces. Over the next several years that I lived in the house with them, I noticed that while they copied the handwriting of my parents well, it was slightly altered. They could do their signatures perfectly, but their notes to me and their grocery lists were different looking than a note would be were it from my parents. I was distressed by the way my father’s eyes were either a dark blue or a light blue. They looked like two different sets of eyes. He tried to hit me three times, but never went any further than that. I could tell he was an angry man all of a sudden, and though he looked like my father, I knew he wasn’t. He was wearing a synthetic skin mask. It looked like my father, but it wasn’t. Its skin is fake. It wasn’t real. Same with my mother. Whoever these people were, I know I need to chop them up and leave their remains to dissolve in a landfill somewhere. I want to leave my brother, Steffan, out of it. I know there’s a way to make them expose themselves. Purchase a gun, aim through the summer air at the targets, themselves and tell them, “Take off your skin masks! You’re not my parents! You killed them.”

They wouldn’t be able to reply, and if they were somehow compelled to reply and tell me what they did with my parents, I would happily kill whoever is underneath that fake human surface and tell the cops that they were serial killers who spied on my parents for years and stole their identities. Something I never wanted to happen to them or to myself. I hardly ever talk to “my parents” anymore and Steffan stays the hell away as well. I know I have to have them buried but for now, I think I’ll drown myself in writing. I haven’t explained what is going on to the psych ward, which is going to let me out anyway soon. I know how to handle it myself after hearing one of the directors of the facility tell me, “Your family is skin masks.” The sick fuck laughed to himself and I knew I had to flee and get those people who thought they could ever replace my parents, who were unkind to me but were all I had. I hated everyone else or lost the ones who mattered. I’m going back into their house and I’m going to dig up my gun and aim it, loaded with silver bullets, at their brains. I know they’ll unmask. I’m not born yesterday. I know I should do this. I would never duplicate a mask made to look like real skin and identity of someone else, and wear it over myself as though I could become that person. I’d rather swallow a bottle of pills and go to sleep forever. Fall asleep in a meadow of bluebells and Vicodin.

Before here, I hung out under a train bridge where I always wanted to follow the mysterious Mathilde, a girl whose surname I didn’t know to this day, anywhere and everywhere. She came there to buy meth and was always hanging out with older men, smoking a meth pipe and blowing the smoke up into the lights under the train bridge on the cement walls, watching it float, a white demon mask, in the illumination. I joined her once. She asked me, “Why are you doing meth, Stacey?”

“Because I’m miserable without it. It makes me feel like I could walk for miles and it feels like it’s only seconds until you’re at your destination. I feel like I can die alone on the autumn breeze and die happy.”

“Don’t die, Stacey. You’re the last one of them that should be killed.”

“Some of these bitches really should die. Last night, someone threatened me with a lead pipe after I threatened his friend with a lit cigarette after that cunt tried to beat me up. The both of them should burn up in a chamber underground.”

Mathilde smiled. “How did you know I love that sort of thing?”

“Because I can see through you. I’ve seen you in fights under here, too. Try to keep a low radar. I know you haven’t initiated any of those fights, but try to see there are real dangers here in town and don’t let anyone know where you live. I heard you lost your ID recently and had to get it replaced. It was stolen. I’m only saying this because I care about you, Mathilde. I don’t think they’ve done anything with your ID except disposed of it, by now. I think we should stick together.”

“I don’t have any friends except you,” said Mathilde.

And a few days later, I was shoved away into the psych ward, the loony bin, the human menagerie. I felt like a psychiatric science experiment, doped up with meds and lost in the dull, utilitarian rec room, playing ping pong, watching an episode of Intervention in drug  therapy, browsing the bookshelves, learning different coping skills, watching the bus park and then leave through the glass cage of windows, learning about different behavioral therapies, making collages with magazine pictures, standing in line for more meds, staring at the ceiling light reflecting from their TV, craving drugs and wanting to cast off all purity. I couldn’t stand it here any longer. I still can’t. I’m crazier and know I won’t pay for what I’m about to do, considering how horrible what these people did to my parents is. I can’t let them live any longer and everyone is buying into their disguises except and another lady whose name I don’t know. Their old friends won’t speak to them. A lady who lives me nearby told me my mom isn’t herself anymore.

“She’s not Autumn,” the lady told me. Autumn is my mother’s name.

She said nothing about my dad, but all the voices ever reiterated to me was that my dad, Roger, was killed and that I would never know where or what had been done with him. I’ll forever remember that scream and chainsaw sound on my laptop, playing through the speakers out of dead silence. What was I supposed to do with that information. Say I heard it out of thin air? I’d sound psychotic to law enforcement, mental health services and anyone listening. I can’t just ramble about this to random drug addicts, either. I can’t tell them why I’m purchasing the gun, what its purpose is, or where I’m going to kill those thieves. I am haunted by days of sleeping and screaming and all I can do is bleed Ativan and never want to wake up. But still want to avenge my parents’ murder as well. I’m getting out soon. I will sleep under the stars for a night out on the deck, and wait until the daylight breaks to kill them when they emerge from behind their locked door and into the interior of the basement.

You’ll see. They have masks that are so fake-looking they betray themselves, they give themselves away. I can find a way to move on and I know I shouldn’t blame myself, because this destruction of the family foundation was never my doing. It was theirs, whomever is living in those disguises. I’ve told no one. I can’t allow myself to be labelled as psychotic or severely mentally ill, but I have been. I can hear the voices to this day, and four psychiatrists told me that schizophrenia is incurable. The voices can only be tapered down with medications. There is no cure alive for hearing voices, for visual and auditory hallucinations. I’ve seen things too. I’ve seen people that look ghostly and transparent appear by the river, or sitting on curbs, and they vanish into thin air just as quickly as they appeared. A cop by the river, a man in a grey hoodie on the street curb. I see black shadows above me, or white or golden flashbulbs emanating in the ceiling like there’s a camera taking my picture. The voices still talk through speakers, walls and televisions. Car radios. Computers. A speaker will transmit a voice faster than anything. All they’re telling me is that my family was bad and that they deserved it. I know most people wouldn’t agree with this or think this is okay. Nothing is okay. I will never feel like I’m wholly human again.

2016

Mathilde

1.

In the woods there whispered a secret I felt compelled to follow, just to discern its meaning. It could’ve been a blessing or a curse, and still I was brave enough to leave my repressive household for those screams that normally would frighten someone, but I’ve been reduced to a frozen-hearted Banshee on the floor of a seclusion room more than once. I remember the fog of those moments and feeling more broken than even the most dismantled women could get. Screaming because it was expected of me.  

I left home when I was eighteen, dropped straight out of high school, a nightmare I never hope to relive. Age eighteen was the last time I saw a psychiatric facility. My family and me lived in a Tudor mansion in the city’s most affluent neighborhood. It was my parents and my sister Sinead, who was always the opposite of me, the black sheep.

“Mathilde, no one is screaming in the woods,” she’d tell me when I first heard the shrill, ear-scorching girl’s shriek echo from the trees bordering the park.

I ignored her and ran knocking a stone statue over, and sought out the source of feminine distress.

“Hello? Are you alright?”

“No matter where you go, I’ll find you,” was the whisper that fervently replied from somewhere in the foliage. As though the angel or apparition (whatever she was) could read my mind. I was thirteen.

Pale and whey-skinned compared to my sister, who perpetually blushed and took better care with her pretty countenance. She snagged Dale Tierney before I could get to know him; naturally someone like him would gravitate towards an extroverted floozy like my sister Sinead. He greeted me politely but tersely upon visiting our house, as I was not the subject of his interest. My sister was seventeen, and a senior in high school, while I was in ninth grade, a razor-freak and antisocial, maladjusted misfit. Sinead pretended not to notice. My cuts bled on tiles to industrial rock music. No one could stop me.

*

“Mathilde-”

“Don’t speak, or I’ll excavate your heart from your chest and incinerate it while I smoke a coffin nail,” I replied. He was chasing Dale with a bat, and I remembered a brief feeling just like getting fucked with a knife. Some bat-wielding perverts had jumped me several years ago and shoved the handle in.

“Mathilde!”

“I’ll eat your heart before I burn it over the pyre,” I snapped.

In the abandoned grain elevator building made of cement, a place I pretended was a mental institution, I executed him. Lobotomized, Never anesthetized, because I wanted him to feel like hell. I always knew there was no inferno underground where bad people like myself and this man who is dying beneath a series of rope knots. I have bound him in a length of chain as well. Years ago, long after the screaming in the foliage to the cacophonous magpies had ceased, I heard a woman or young girl wail in agony above the ceiling. The attic I never went up in because it was asbestos-ridden, and I wondered how schizophrenic I had become.

I told my father (a man who once told me “try harder” while I pretended to asphyxiate myself with a shoelace adorning the knob of my bedroom door) that I heard a scream erupt from the attic.

“Well, your intake with mental health is tomorrow,” my dad replied. “We’ll get you on the right meds.”

I hoped and prayed there was no reality behind the scream.

The house was over 100 years old; it could’ve been a benevolent or malevolent apparition.

He’s dead.

I’ll splash him with acid and dissolve him into the floor.

I see Dale watching me from the doorway all of a sudden.

“I am Hell itself,” I tell him. He seems to know the guy I offed was scum.

We laugh.

*

I wake up from my zoning out on the couch at 3 a.m., content, knowing I had no part in it. None of it was my fault. Tori Amos’s To Venus and Back album has played on repeat all night. I could’ve retained my innocence if the city’s pathetic excuse for a population cut me a little slack, but now all I have time for is complete, indisputable indifference. And euphoria over everything, hedonistic amusement showing at all times. So happy I could die in outer space. I wouldn’t even care. I used to put methamphetamine mixed with angel dust, or PCP into my bloodstream and it was then that I discovered a drug that could take away the fear of death itself. A man said, “Get the fuck out of here or face my gun.” I saw no gun to speak of and felt numb with nothing but mania in my head under the freight train bridge. I moved myself as far away from him as I could go. I was full of amphetamines under the bridge. A place downtown full of drama and drugs. I saw a man hold a knife to the throat of a man in his late teens or early twenties. I told the older man with the knife, “Don’t cut him. Just don’t. I don’t want police under here. I’m not calling them. Just…don’t,” I told him lifelessly. This was before the gun threat with the possibly non-existent gun in one of his pockets. The man withdrew his silver blade and backed off the guy, who was the only one allowing me to use a meth pipe. I felt no affection for him considering I don’t know him to this day, but I wonder how I’m not afraid to waltz out into the insidious Spokane night. A hellhole in the central eastern part of Washington state. I never liked this city, famous for its underground whoredom and criminal activity since the early nineteenth century. I intend to haunt it just like the screaming ghosts.

But I won’t scream. I’ll just make them their own worst enemies. I don’t feel I will ever really die, even when my body does.

“I hate you and I love myself, you pathetic fucking city,” I whispered to the mirror. I would place them in an underground chamber. Baths of acid dissolving useless DNA. When people like me are crossed, the night can scream and sleep will reveal what Hell can be. I’ve dreamt of being in a kennel on a plane. Jail cells on a bus with cages lining the aisle that remind me of a jail on wheels. It deserts me by the side of a road aligning a river. Sometimes I dream of treading deep water and drifting along in its waves like a damned soul. I dream of people glaring at me in dark alleys, houses where there’s nothing to watch but a woman in a peach-colored dress entertaining some businessman, drinking something out of a wineglass while she does it. An abandoned asylum being haunted by myself and others. It’s like I’m haunting somewhere that is judging me as I judge it.

I made a carbon copy of him. A clone. I drifted away on dissociative hallucinogens to the sound of his voice in my ear. I don’t care that he’s not really here.

Whenever anyone badmouths him, I feel like they should meet the Windex I pretend to pour in their coffee.

I’ll do what I please for the rest of my life.

2.

Colored balloons and iridescent papier-mâché dotted the walls on the summer evening of my sister, Sinead’s, suicide. I staggered home to Stevie Nicks’s “Stand Back” blaring from her room above the stairwell on repeat, a bottle of Robitussin lingering in my bloodstream. I felt high as a kite. I stared into the rainbow vortex, the littered warps of tinsel on the floor, and remembered hours earlier an argument ricocheting off the walls between Dale Tierney and Sinead. I couldn’t understand them through their slurred drunkenness. I remember a wineglass breaking against his car as it was tossed aside by Sinead.

I had never known her to fall apart.

I would have never done this to him, but I chose to keep out of his way and never tell him how I felt. I was like winter without him, cold as silver and bracing as the winds of the east. I could sustain the fantasy of him more than the reality.

He was somewhere in the house, probably, drunk in the kitchen and avoiding the drama of prior hours.

When the song played one more time, I ascended the stairs and traipsed down the corridor to Sinead’s room.

Do not turn away, my friend

Like a willow I can bend

No man calls my name

No man came

So I walked on down away from you

Maybe your attention was more

Than you could do

One man did not call

He asked me for my love

And that was all

The lines from the song tore through the air and were like bells of 80s euphoria in my ears. I saw Sinead dead with a jagged red line across her throat, torn open from a self-inflicted wound. Blood spattered the mirror of her vanity table. I never thought she had the guts to even prick her finger. I watched her white face for a moment, its waxen marble idiocy, its vacant, grey-eyed death. In extremis, she looked more at peace than I’d ever been in life.

Dale was nowhere to be found on the property. A white sheet covered my sister’s face and they wheeled her to the morgue. I would soon adorn her grave with clematises and dahlias. I would miss her soliloquies on the balcony before he entered our lives. She was so melancholic sometimes, but nowhere near as much as I.

The day after her funeral procession, a blur of black hearses and silver cemeteries, mounds of dirt cascading over her coffin, I smoked angel dust and watched the rain fall outside as I blared heavy metal from the stereo. Tears only burned once and I allowed them to fall for two minutes. Nothing could bring her back, and when Dale rang the doorbell I only told him, “She’s gone,” and closed the door in his face. His double stood behind the closed door ready to embrace me and disappear with me into the bed.

“No one should be allowed to even reach me, touch me or talk to me,” I said. I told the silent thin air. I didn’t want a reply, and I awoke the following day to a touch on my shoulder. When I turned, I saw nothing. Not a person. Not even a trail of vapor. I’d deny anyone from knowing the monster that is me.

Something in me still laughs, despite the grief.

I can see her in dreams. I can see Dale in dreams.

I’d rather daydream on drugs and live in the ruins of my old house than deal with the heinous society around me.

Broken doorknobs and glass I can’t shatter. I swallow pills and wrap myself in blankets, dreaming of a boundless, lazy sea that carries me in its midst. When I reach land, it is steep and treacherous.

I awaken in my mirage’s arms. I am an endless realm of sadism when someone poses as a threat. I once pointed a silver crescent of a knife to the skin of one of his would-be attackers. I won’t ever let go of the image Dale embellished in my mind.

I am as dead as the man in the cement left in a puddle. I am as dead as Sinead, wallowing away in a hallucinogenic reality.

I find nothing damaging although my health is rotting like the grass in the heat waves. Rotting like the relics in every yard, made of metal and plastic. I hate everyone in the world and all I wanted was to end the city.

All I wanted was to end time.

To corrupt and corrode.

To slide right out of life older than anyone had ever been.

3.

I’m only twenty-five years old, and it took me that long to finally kill someone. It was in defense of Dale while we wandered for a couple minutes when I ran into him, discovering he also had an affinity for the abandoned grain elevator where I killed whatever his obtuse name was. I knew somehow he would grace my presence that day. The would-be attacker was quite the opposite of a graceful presence; he was a storm. A storm boiled in my blood, too, and instantaneously, I made the baseball bat fly out of his brandishing arm and struck him several times. Dale Tierney grinned as he watched me debase the humanity right out of the man’s veins. I left him there to rot by some old filing cabinets.

Months after all of that happened, I no longer cry tears or cling to a crucifix on my pillow in the shade. There is nothing more to make of myself; no one will expect anything of me for a long time. Maybe never. Isolative by both night and day, I crave no presence to sustain me through the day. My parents flit about the house and are mostly not in it.

Yesterday I met a girl in a white dress with glittery, crimson-bleeding eyes in the foyer. She bid me follow her to the mirror beneath a chandelier and told me my beauty would wane.  Then she vanished into the air like an exploding star. I didn’t care and I told her to hush and leave me be. I gazed into the mirror, not as dissatisfied as I used to be. Sinead was always prettier, but I no longer envied her for it. If anything, I missed her. I never knew, in my cough syrup-induced state, what Dale had told Sinead that pushed her over the edge enough to slit her throat. She took her own life right off the planet. I will forever imagine her ricocheting into the stars, an astral angel leaving her own body and becoming a new being in the form of a spirit. The girl with blood rivers in her eyes was nowhere near as beautiful as my sister.

Whenever I think of the glow of emergency vehicles outside the limits of the mansion, I pacify myself and push away the thought as fast as it came. I know there were no witnesses besides Dale and me. There was no one to see us all meet there, not knowing one another would gather there to explore the grain elevator. Barbed wire, rusted beer cans and rejected heroin needles littered the ground at the base of the cement building. It had been shut down since the 1970s, and not a soul usually stirred in or around it premises by the railroad tracks. There was nothing to do at the place besides fuck or get stoned. In this case, I killed someone and left him for dead in the place’s basement. The bat was disposed of. Everything wiped clean. No information regarding me can be salvaged because I am a lightning bolt full of speed running as fast as I can away from everyone.

4.

I am sitting by the 7-Eleven high on acid. Halos and wings bleed out of the sky and litter the parking lot in a debris of feathers and gilded circles. I cannot scream in my house, so I went downtown to swallow an LSD-laced sugar cube and careen in the opposite direction from rational thinking. There was nothing to do but melt away along with everything else around me. I wanted the patterns of the strip mall across the street to keep melting, the neon of the bar on Dante Avenue to keep illuminating the girl beneath its sign with the darkest eyeliner I’d ever seen. She kept moving from side to side erratically, as if she were high on speed. I just can’t sustain my lifeform without drugs. I become other selves. I talk to ghosts of humans, both living and dead. She is talking to the empty air that always has answers. Her cigarette smoke forms a crown. I get bored and walk down the street, the church on its corner alit with hallucinatory flames. I think I see Sinead staring at me beneath the wainscoting in someone’s house through their window. I hate everyone except her and Dale, but whatever he said to her caused her to slice her own throat open. I can’t trust him to not make me capsize. I can’t let my iron guard down when it comes to my walls.

Do not touch me, I command every living human.

There is a star I stare at to the south that shines its light upon my shoulder blades ripping open, my veins bluer than before in my wrists. I caress them. The most important love is self-love, I tell myself. That is how I will flourish.

2019

Mathilde

1.

They found the remains of the body that I left behind in a fit of post-traumatic rage. It was a puddle of lye and hydrochloric acid, and gone was the baseball bat-wielding storm of a man after he tried to assault my sister Sinead’s lover, Dale Tierney. A few years ago, my sister committed suicide over an incident with him in which the circumstances are still unknown to me. Since then, I’ve been laying on my bed with voices compressing my head, telling me they’ll sell me and kill me. I am too strong, too fortified with indifference to care. My parents are rarely at home and I’ll never tell them. My dad would just advocate for changing the medication combination I’m currently not taking.

My twenty-eighth birthday is just around the corner. A brand new gun I purchased from one of my meth dealers shines in my hand in the starlight, full of a fresh supply of bullets. My red-lipsticked smile could enchant the devil. On top of the hill where I stand are two high school enemies, Jamie Frances and Stormy Hale. The last place I saw them was under the freight train bridge. They were sharing a pot pipe. They called me an ugly dog. That time, I let it slide off like snow from a gabled roof. Now, I’ve got the two of them right where I want them and I’m still not bothered by their comment. Underneath of them the grass blades look like ebony knife blades and my hand is on my cheap but efficient gun. It’s a silencer so there won’t be much sound when I snuff their lives out. I know how reckless this is considering anyone could have seen me out their window at 2 a.m., but I’m willing to risk it anyway. Jamie and Stormy don’t see me watching from the top of the metal stairs.

2.

I approach with quiet steps across the hilltop. Their backs are turned. My hand grips the gun more firmly than a snake’s coiling hold on a victim. Closer. They turn around. Closer still. Jamie yelps like a mouse before the gun’s bullet catches her in the head, embedded in the wisps of her brown hair. She collapses like a darted, tranquilized animal to the grass. Next, I point the gun at blond, self-righteous Stormy. I see nothing. The fear in her face screams a novel’s length of words. I fire at her forehead and she, too, is done for. It’s my lucky night that they chose this hilltop to smoke weed. I was coming here to smoke meth. I embellish each bitch with another bullet hole and calmly leave them there, the swishing sound of the gunfire replaying in my mind.

The hill. The black grass blades. An abbatoir for two girls who crossed a thin line.

3.

I go home, hide the gun and decide I’m already too high to take another hit. I open an antiquated copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel and nearly read the whole thing, satisfied that the voices in the wall have been silenced. I’ll read the end tomorrow. Before I close my red-tinted eyes at 8 a.m., I think I see Sinead standing at the edge of my bed.

“Good job, Mathilde,” she tells me. “You snuffed those cunts out just like a hurricane takes out a wooden house in southern floods.”

I love her.

I miss her.

I almost cry, but my emotions are in a graveyard somewhere. My eyes are only ice instead of liquid tears. My heart isn’t broken. I know she’ll always be with me. I know that the mirage I made of Dale will always love and caress me, even when I’m no longer young and dangerous. He’s not really here but it’s like I can see him anyway.

4.

I imagine the bones of Stormy and Jamie decomposing under the cold earth. And if they are cremated, their ash is undisturbed in urns for centuries. I think of crimson bullet holes on the hilltop of a feminine warzone. It’s the last thing I see before I fall into a pleasant slumber.

2019

Stacey

They released me from the psych ward. I have a gun in my hand. I’m veering towards the bungalow with meth reeling in my veins, my hands on a fifteen dollar loaded gun. I purchased it from a man in a trench coat in an alleyway. I open the door.

“Where were you?” asks my non-mother. She looks and sounds like my mother, but she isn’t my mother.

“It’s late.”

“Take off your skin mask,” I tell her, withdrawing the gun and pointing it at her head. “Stand up and unmask! You’re not my mother! Take that damn thing off!”

She starts to hyperventilate, and stands up. She fumbles with the layers of skin parts that originated in some clandestine building. They come off and underneath is another pale woman. I don’t study her face but I don’t recognize it. The moment I realize I’m right and that this is a malevolent identity thief, I blow her brains to pieces. I shoot her full of three holes. I only wish this were a smoking gun. I steal away into dad’s TV room and he does the same thing. He’s just an ordinary guy underneath. These two strangers are people that have lived the lives of someone stepping into a stranger’s skin. Stealing their house, their job, their lives. I’ll never sleep again. Once they’re both dead, I call 9-1-1.

“I just killed my parents’ identity thieves. Come and pick up their remains,” I tell the operator once asked what my emergency is. I tell them my address and they wheel them away. They’re covered in white sheets.  A bunch of cops tell me, “You’re not going to pay for this. They were dangerous. They were unpredictable. They could have killed you, too. You haven’t assaulted us, and we thank you for that and understand how hard this is to talk about for you. So we’re going to just let you stay in the house for awhile. Keep the gun with you.”

They leave.

I’m considered a murderer in self-defense. I’m not even going back to the psych ward because I haven’t told them my history of hospitalization.

I scribble a murderous vignette in a composition notebook that night called “Cornfield Rot.”

It reads:

1.

“Some of us are wraiths gliding through your world, blissfully unaware of your cryptic eyes staring past us, of your mouths that eject inanities. All we’ve heard is noise for years.

We’re used to it.”

2.

This is the paragraph I hear spoken aloud to me in a phantom whisper at 3 a.m., my alarm clock bathing my stoned self in a neon green glow. It’s a feminine voice, half-familiar and as faint as the illumination from the clock. My pillow is like a wreath of thorns. I eat pills, caffeine, switchblades and shards of broken teacups. There is a prevalence of apathy that spreads me in me, but what I lack is fear. What they say I lack is self-respect. I suck down another joint, draining the grass until it glows like the motel fire I will see in a few days. Lighting up the firmament with incandescent flames, fiery orange mingled with slate grey. I always wanted to rip open the sky like paper and end the world. When the Days Inn burned down from one of my lit cigarettes, I fled the scene as the firetrucks skyrocketed past me. Black flames filled the town with poison. The colors blurred through the water in my eyes. I hated everything around me since I could think, since I could speak.

Something explodes behinds me as I propel myself further away from the scene of my infantile crime. No more late-night TV, no more waking up to the same sailboat prints on the walls. No more panhandling at the hamburger restaurant next door to the Days Inn.   I’m as thin and intangible as a wisp of smoke floating through the adrenaline-suffused air. I’ll disappear into the fields and search for rotting bodies under the pines.

I imagine swallowing a handful of pills next to the concrete platform by the abandoned bowling alley, the one with the crimson anarchy sign spray-painted on it. I see a haze of red Victorian wallpaper and a knife aimed at many skulls. A flash of fire will light up in other places someday. I won’t kill myself while they recline in the brambled ruin and laugh.

3.

Sometimes I can hear the dead in the dirt beneath me say,  “I am under here.” I’ve heard them come from underneath the bus stops I wait at, the sidewalks, the swimming pool, the abandoned drive-in theater at the edge of town.

I can’t see them, but I can hear them with ears that hear nothing but bells, voices, or chaos. I can feel my pain get carried off with the breeze at such times. They give me the hope that death is an opening to a portal of the soul’s immortality.

4.

My makeup is burning off. I’m a limp, ragged doll in the corn maze getting eaten by ants. I got lost looking for the exit. I am rot given back to the earth.

2015

Janine

Amanda Warwick, age twenty-two, lay submerged in a halfway-house, painted yellow walls, dirt yard, a place to be jettisoned to. She had overdosed on methamphetamine in the heated, sunlit parking lot of multiple storage garages, her head in a hole in the cement next to an empty Halloween candy basket shaped like a Jack O Lantern. After the sharp inhalation of crystallized smoke found her brain, she was set off balance with the cathedral’s clamoring bells, the beauty of the wind’s white noise. She drenched herself in the calm black water of the lake, washing asunder the sins of Janine Crellin. Janine, with her green eyes and reddish-blond hair, a contrast to Amanda’s coarse black curls and hazel orbs, was in an infamous fixture in Amanda’s past. She had bled Amanda in the alleyway, bedazzled by the trails of blood flow, scarlet stars, mesmerizing to Janine. They were both sixteen and lived next door to each other. A red brick house with a picket fence (Janine’s) set beside a white house with green shutters (Amanda’s).

Janine was belligerent. Amanda was polite. They weren’t friends and Janine’s problem with her originated from a source unknown to her. In wild, vociferous rage, Janine left cigarette burns, several of them, that felt like surface tumors after they swelled with ash and pain.

What could I have done to you? Amanda thought.

Amanda was never wholly perceptive of what she was doing to Janine. If the evidence of Amanda’s taunts and provocations had been recorded, her remarks would have been proven to have been said aloud. On that day in the alleyway, Janine couldn’t refrain from assaulting Amanda because of Amanda stealing a plastic bag of marijuana. All they both wanted to do was get high. Janine withdrew a knife, the steel blade glinting, sawing gashes formed like lightning bolts. Gashes made while Janine sat on Amanda’s neck to choke and carve across her stomach, the spaces between her ribs where Janine slightly poked Amanda’s ligament, tearing it. When Amanda passed out from lack of oxygen, Janine began to carve some more. The thighs. The calves. A turning over of the deprecated body. More blood pools against the jutting bones of the shoulderblades.

What a passage to destitution, what a decline of descent into the laconic state of shades pulled down, the swallowing of Vicodin. Amanda was in for it. After the cutting and the burning done unto her flesh was concluded, Janine took off into the night where she was always most comfortable.

Amanda never would have been revived if not for a lone transient who discovered her with a faint pulse and numerous raw wounds, blood cold, veins a transparent blue beneath the skin on her crooked arm. He called an ambulance at a pay phone and Amanda was swept to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a concussion, loss of blood, five broken ribs and amnesia. It took Amanda one week to recall Janine’s attack and even longer to recover her memory; her head had been hit so hard on concrete. She chose to press charges and Janine was confined to jail for eight months and later on to psychiatric care on and off for three more years. She was very troubled. Her anger seemed baseless. Amanda wondered, withdrawing from meth in her bed, if she had died that evening in rigor mortis in the snowfall, if some silver angel of death, one of grace and storms, would have absolved her of fear and taken her to another side. One separate from life where we all may go, anointed. Amanda wasn’t sacred anymore. She had survived but now she wanted to expire.  Amanda thought of Janine in a devious city, weapons hidden away, only to come out again for the dismemberment of corpses, dragged in burlap thorough a secluded forest, placed in a ditch by the railroad tracks under a pine tree, branches hanging low with needles. Amanda’s thoughts were decay, wasp stings, rotten fruit, sour wines, aspiring homicide. The residents of the group home generally ignored Amanda, but as of recently, they wanted her dismissed as a resident because of her conflict with them over trivial matters of ones full of more depth than would have been suspected.

Meanwhile, Janine was exactly where Amanda supposed, in the position of a merciless killer. She let the bodies sink into remote lakes with heavy stones tied to them, not a trace of her DNA left on their remains because she wore hair nets and was careful. She often got high and was free of institutionalization. No more secluded cages or millstones of grim prophecy. Amanda was only an attempted murder. When Janine left town at eighteen, she acquired a car to transport the bodies. In her new town, a population of nearly 30,000, she knew the civilians to target. She knew who they were.

Fanatics.

Chaos itself.

Dysfunctional child-abusers.

Every house with a shrine dedicated to only the pristine. Their gilded monuments.

So far, Janine had killed seven people.

Her victims:

1. Jay Motley, 36, convicted child rapist and wino

2. Alyssa Sparrow, 14, student, frequent bully

3. Martha Wilde, 45, child killer and teacher

4. Karen Wilder, 21, employee of Burger King

5. Kevin Fielding, 7, was terminally ill

6. Tess Moriarty, 22, bartender

7. Matthew White, 29, pawnshop owner

*

When Janine Crellin was four, she saw in her parents’ living room, a black halogen lamp with white flames flickering at the top. Either it had been left on too long, or her mother had set the fire herself, Janine decided.

“Look what you did,” said Mrs. Crellin, blaming the fire on her. She would grow up to relish those flames, pyromania impending. First, Janine burned her journals, then people.

In remote plains tied to wooden stakes with twine, gazed at by onlookers, the only ones who could hear the screams.

Amanda Warwick, in her reverie of Janine, planned to kill her. A new resident told her where she was living. Not far away.

“Here’s her address. I’ve smoked weed at Janine’s house. After what she did to you, Amanda, I would undo her.”

Seven people were dead so far and Janine still slept, tranquil at night. Never would she allow grief or guilt to disturb her. She had made to list of victims, having met them all, knowing their crimes. They had moved to the town for its quaintness and scenery as well as to carry on their traditions of immorality. Only one victim was innocent. Kevin Fielding, who was only seven years old with severe cancer. Just a needle in his vein put him to sleep and sent him, Janine supposed, to celestial firmaments.

How far could she get by being a killer? In the distance, Amanda tried to peer into the room of Janine and sacrifice her dead.

 

                               Amanda

I was born in the middle of nowhere in a Gothic castle with saints and gargoyles guarding the doorway. My father had painted blood coming from their eyes as they knelt in prayer, keeping watch over our mercenary riches. He was blond with brilliant green eyes. When I lived on the grounds of his castle, I had to be his farm slave doing yard work and keeping the flowers by the moat neat and alluring. He made me kill the animals I admired more than the humans. I will forever remember what he did to my eyes. A complicated surgery that lifted up my skin and transformed my eyes from squinty and listless to bulbous and beautiful. I was staring into an antiquated mirror surrounded by four girls prettier than  myself preparing me for eye surgery. My father grabbed me aggressively by the wrists, placed me on a cot and put me to sleep momentarily to perform plastic surgery. An eyelift, he called it. The girls giggled in their pinafores, playing dress up at girls from the nineteenth century. I will kill Janine. They looked just like her. I will kill her. We are sisters. We have the same father and I killed him when he came to my adopted parents’ house to kill me. Shot him point blank in the head. His ghost will never be able to speak to me from the dead. 

I am ready to kill this girl Janine who fucked me up when we were teenagers. People tell me to stop being so high school and grow up, but I’m not in high school or hanging out with high school kids. Just people that keep the mentality around too much and I’m bored of them. Where will I find her and how will I get past her gang of people that I know is protecting her, driving her around in cars to burn people and sink them into rivers. Nobody can find her but I know she’s the type to kill and I heard a woman discuss her and use the term “murder” and “rope.” I don’t know how to take a person down and a part of me tells me to stay away from her. But a part of her wants Janine to kill me again and send me on my way to a better place. The government wants to control my health and not allow me to smoke meth. It houses me in group homes that are unkind to me and compare my surgery to drivel compared to what their daughters with a lot of money paid to get. They got way better facelifts. I have weird eyes. Currently, I’m on the road looking for a way to find out what Janine’s doing, spy on her a little. She lives in a plain wooden house and I can see her in the window, staring out at me knowing it’s me; I am easily recognized by my eyes, even at a far distance. I’ve changed my mind. I want Janine to kill me. I can take a lot of pain. I know I won’t survive her and I can’t help but throw myself at the mercilessness of this sadistic girl.


 

*

Nobody saw Janine drag Amanda’s lifeless corpse up the three cement stairs and into her house to dispose of her with acid. She shot Amanda with a silencer the moment she saw her face loom large and moon-like at the window, open and paneless. The neighborhood Janine lived in was full of gang bangers and drug addicts that shot up and shot people driving by them at night in the street. I must be in the right place, Janine reassured herself. She planned to dispose of Amanda in a nearby landfill, to never be figured out.

2019

Mathilde

My old friend, Janine from summer camp, was just arrested. She told the news she assisted in the suicide of Amanda Warwick, a girl who Janine claimed wanted to kill her. A girl I once met under the train bridge, Stacey Galloway, is not being prosecuted for the murders of Brian Harlow and Jane Seymour, her parents’ identity thieves. It’s really sick shit. Brian and Jane wore skin masks that were completely like real human skin and the features of Stacey’s parents had been duplicated. She didn’t really know what to do about it for many years until she just went crazy. She told me about the recording from her laptop, and I didn’t know how to explain it. I had heard the voices, too. If you don’t want to hear voices, I recommend that you don’t do drugs. You will become a schizophrenic satellite. You’ll hear the world speak to you, and the people in public will say what you’ve heard your voices say when you think you’re alone at home. They can hear you breathe, they can hear you sing, talk, even think. I don’t know how to put Stacey at ease. I’m never really on edge anymore, but I can tell she is. I always wanted to make her my partner in crime. Even Janine would have done well, but I’m against her opinion that Kevin Fielding needed to die. He was just a kid, and I’m against killing kids. Apparently something leaked out and someone turned her in. She is now in prison forever.

I know the same thing won’t happen to me because I plan to stop after three killings. I wish I could free her and I wish I could ease Stacey’s pain. What’ s happened to her is horrible.

Like my old friends, June and Marcelle. Their group home has been shut down and I don’t know where they are, now. Both girls were beautiful and crazy. They had been raped by strange men who met them at the house of their legal guardians and they killed their guardians in self-defense. Marcelle didn’t pay for her crimes, but June had killed the neighbors as well as her guardian and got locked up in the criminal forensics ward for seven years. Just as I’m thinking of them, I decide to write. It’s about a girl who’s always being watched.

It runs on like this:

It was my sophomore year of college. I had just completed the first day and everything depressed me, especially the shadows of the maple leaves dancing on the wall in my dorm room.

“I’m going out for awhile,” said my roommate, Naomi Carver. I assumed she would be gone for a long while. My homely reflection stared back at me from the rectangular razorblade I held in my hand. I took in the zit on my chin, my black curls, my lackadaisical brown eyes. I turned the blade away from me and reflected the white, utilitarian walls covered in posters of new wave bands, the fake plastic red flowers in a vase on the nightstand, the Russian dolls next to it. The bottom of the blade was still covered in cocaine powder from a night Naomi spent partying at a friend’s apartment. My eyes stung. I moved in slow motion to the bathroom and ran water on my wrist in the sink. The key is not to think, I silently told myself. The key is to gash the vein and not fear what’s beyond. With the past, present and future forgotten, I made a vertical red line on my wrists, tearing into the blue creek of vein beneath my porcelain flesh. It brought forth a mild sting, like a bee’s. Blood spurted like a fountain into the sink, onto the mirror.

When I began to feel weak, I allowed myself to fall to the linoleum and wait for a bright light, a celestial set of golden gates. Before I faded out entirely, I felt a pair of arms pull me up and heard Naomi’s distorted shouting.

“Mildred!”

I blacked out, thinking it was only a hallucination when I saw a girl who looked like me staring at the scene from the entrance to the dorm room. I would see her later, in new circumstances. It turned out that Naomi forgot her phone, which is how she found me attempting to end my dismal life.

They sent me to a local hospital, where they staunched the bloodfloow and where I eventually came to. The first thing I remembered was how I used to be such a sweet little girl. I think the most soulless day I had was when I was in junior high and I burned Elena Miller with a lit cigarette, all the world curdling behind my eyes with anger.

“Where do you want it?” I asked Elena, wielding the cigarette like a knife against her arm. “Your skin, or your clothes?” I pointed the tip at the polyester of her blue blouse. At the finality of my outburst, I chose her pale wrist as the target. Elena gasped instead of screaming. I spent two weeks in juvenile detention, was expelled and transferred to another school. As I was recalling this savory memory, a psychiatrist came to evaluate me and she concluded I needed inpatient treatment in the psych ward on the upper level of the hospital. Once I was up there, I frequently threw thermonuclear fits in the blinding flourscence of the ceiling lights. The leather restraints they placed on my bed burned like fire. They were too tight. A whole week later, they sent me to a place of higher security, a building as old as the 1950s called Astria State Hospital. Located in Astria, Washington, a small country town full of orchards and horses.

Over the course of the next two weeks, I covered my bedroom window with collages and childish colored pencil drawings, once of which was a depiction of me rising above three pastel-colored buildings and into the sky. I wore a black dress and had no legs. Often, I stared up at the sky during cigarette breaks and felt like falling to one of the hollow black holes in outer space, but I was bound by the limitations of earth. My heart felt like hellfire.

“Mildred Swain should burn with fire,” said a patient with wild hair, pointing at me and taking a puff of his cigarette. I could only wonder how he knew my last name, let alone was he was saying this. I had been as friendly as possible since I was admitted into the hospital. As I lay in bed one night, a litany of insults came from both patients and staff passing by the door. They called me ugly, weak and deserving of death. I pulled the blanket over my head and refused to fight back. When I felt they were gone, I emerged from under the blanket, and saw her come in. The girl who looked exactly like me loomed, pale and spectral over my bed. She moved as though she were walking on water.

“Who are you?” I asked her.

“An extension of you,” she said. “You are doomed to be hated until you die. Humans are forever to be your plight. When you go home, they’ll talk about you on the sidewalk, in the park, in the classroom. All you can do is be strong and persevere.”

She went on talking until I fell asleep. When morning came, I felt groggy. The sunshine evaporated me. I felt like a puddle of snow melting beneath my blanket. Slowly, in the midst of the empty room, I willed myself to rise to the ceiling and become united with the camera I felt to be hidden in the light above. I watched myself from the top and there was my strange twin in the branches of the cherry tree outside my window, snapping my picture with a polaroid, the black eye of the lens like the eye of an observant spider.

2019

Stacey

In the dream, I am small enough to fit into a crawlspace. I cannot hide from my mother’s red wine in our barren living room that is as black as a power outage, as black as my rotten innocence. My mother picks me up and takes me to the car, says it’s time to go, I need help. She parks outside a stone clinic and leaves me inside. I cry out and am told to be silent by a stern receptionist. Two white coats hold me down and drag me to a white room with a thirty-something redhead in it. She has painted the word “borderline” on the wall next to an immaculate, gold-framed mirror. When we face it to see our reflections (mine child-like, hers much older), we are propelled from its shattering glass by a defiance of gravity. We coil up and writhe, possessed by demons. Satan lets us die together, which is a blessing compared to living in the hospital. I close my eyes one last time without seeing my mother. I only see the broken glass, the blood on the wall (bright as an ambulance light), the linoleum beneath my cheekbone. I am a dead husk of a human determined to haunt the city I was born in. Life grows black again. I don’t scream.

Marcelle

2012

Marcelle Trahern was raised by two cunts with Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a term derived from the original Munchausen syndrome itself. If one has Munchausen syndrome by proxy, it means a caregiver (in this case, the godmother of Marcelle), chooses to refrain from giving their charges the right health, supplements and nutrients to keep them alive. In fact, they make them worsen with sickness and degradation. Subtly, so the good doctor won’t notice they’re causing the illness for their charges. The first bitch had decided to poison her subtly instead. Marcelle’s godmother favored ipecac. In their small village, church was a mandatory service where all girls had to see the Lord Jesus Christ be praised or crucified on film. A montage of filmy sunlight and a golden cross shone from an array of manipulative Christian imagery, perceived on an overhead projector.

Marcelle went every Wednesday and Sunday in a grey stone building with elaborate brick arcs painted black outlining the stained glass windows. The broadcast room was like an insidious revelation opening up a nightmare to the eyes of sensitive Marcelle, without the abrasive steel to pry a pair of eyes open. Especially when the topic was eternal damnation or the crucifixion of Jesus. It was like a metaphorical film lobotomy. They just stayed peeled open, unable to shut or fall asleep for any reason. Nanny Cravat insisted she stay awake. She favored those antiquated neckbands.

The girls sat around her in stiff, ungraceful lines, backs upright or slouching depending on the girls’ preference to posture. Ms. Winifred Scarlet, who had been killing off children in her home for three years, took Marcelle in at eleven years old the year her mother died and Marcelle was never able to know the woman by heart in a way her memory could rely upon. Winifred was a registered foster mother and she was ailing. Marcelle killed her foster mother (and made the police and medical examiner rule the death as a suicide). She sang “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in her choir voice while spoon-feeding Winifred “sugar in a spoon bowl, so the medicine goes down.” She gagged on the Drano and no longer said the words Marcelle needed to hear: “You should be ashamed of yourself,” “You should be grateful,” “Why didn’t you try harder?” Winifred was involved in a canned television broadcast again for that last comment, a boring, banal comedy Winifred needed to have Marcelle watch with her before bed in 2011.

On March 24, a clear, shiny spring morning, Marcelle knew that she had no one to rely upon any better by the time the next foster mother came around to raise her. She was a distant harridan of a woman with a thin, pert mouth shut tight at church and open like a wrathful shrew to chastise Marcelle at home.

“See that window?” said Nanny Cravat, her second godmother: a malevolent, Puritan woman with brown hair in a frizz and vacant eyes.

“You’ll be lucky if God saves you when you fall out of it. It’s all shit. God’s for nothing. But I fear hell just as much as you do. All we can do is try to believe and see if God listens.“

In her dress made for church, the stiff lace a cascade of black and white. A knee-length skirt and pilgrim collar. Church uniform. The telepathy Marcelle heard: “devout truths”, “deep breaths,” “if you need to console yourself, use these coping skills.”

All the things Marcelle picked up on by reading minds that she could never express piled up in her head and she was crazy.

“Marcelle may be crazy,” said a soft-voiced man about to make an assumption based on what he saw in elaborate artwork in a journal: a drawing in Bic pen, of a realistic-looking Nanny Cravat swallowing a spoonful of something, reminding him of milk poisoning and a scary story his mom sometimes read to him at night in his portentous childhood. Marcelle’s self-portrait was accurate. She overheard the bell ringing in the distance beyond her thoughts of his voice by the cathedral  bells that rang with worship, clanging vehemently. When Marcelle got home after spring choir ended, she planned the Drano death. It was under the kitchen sink, meant to mingle with Nanny Cravat’s cup of milk.

“Nanny, I  hope you enjoy your milk,”

“Come, have a sit-down,” said Nanny to Marcelle. She set the glass of milk  in front of Nanny Cravat, who was wearing her red velvet blouse and white cravat.

“Put that milk on the table carefully. Don’t spill it.”

Time to die, Marcelle wished. Down the throat went that blue liquid permeating Nanny Cravat’s esophagus as she choked. The only number Marcelle knew to call wasn’t an option, and she had to make her own way in the world feeling like humans weren’t worth anything and we’re all just partially alien. Meretricious, cheap people.

Marcelle wanted to die in outer space. She left the raw death and agony of Nanny Cravat  slumped over on the table after she choked. Marcelle became the third eye, the third shrew, the ultimate survivor of destiny and doom.

June

2014

My lucidity died in the house I grew up in. I was raised in an arcane Hitchcock mansion with a cupola. There were no servants due to my guardian, Scarlett Freeland’s, illicit exploitation, and her fear of it being discovered. Therefore, she let everything collect dust. Her mansion was tall and monumental. It reminded me of a Halloween sticker decoration one puts on a windowpane. On our street, Cupola Avenue, named for the cupolas on each house, I suffered many seasons of violent turmoil at the hands of Scarlett. She owned a video camera that she balanced on top of a tripod and told me it was my “surveillance.”

On several occasions, at the age of thirteen, I was raped by a multitude of strange men that Scarlett invited inside. She would put 80’s hair metal on the stereo while they raped me and she sat in a red armchair, smoking numerous cigarettes. Sometimes, I wouldn’t get raped and instead it would be my deed, according to every person in the room, to kill a person in front of me. I’ve killed 37 people in Scarlett’s house, each one dissolved with acid in the cupola on film, and killed on film as well, before being doused with acid. Each time this event happened, it was recorded and burned onto a disc to be viewed on Scarlett’s TV.

There were only two other houses on Cupola Avenue: the Tarringtons’ house and the Miltons’ house. Clyde Tarrington lived in a two-story house painted white with black shutters. He lived there with his daughter, Blithe. On their front door was a poster of a symbol that held a cryptic enchantment for me: a cross with an hourglass in the center of it. It always reminded me of their time running out. I had wanted to kill Blithe for so many years. I felt her to be prettier than me with her lustrous black hair and piercing green eyes. She always loved to remind me of how I would have been killed by my twin sister, Adele, had she lived. In the womb, she was the alpha and I was the omega. On a rainy day when lightning split the sky into slices, Adele and me were playing dress-up with red velvet gowns and silver high heels. We were twelve. I convinced her into a “baptism,” holding her head underwater. Despite my carrying the title of the omega twin, my newfound strength prevailed and she soon ceased to breathe.

When Scarlett found out, she didn’t seem to care. Neither did the rest of the neighborhood; they were always killing people. We melted her body into the floor of the cupola with acid.

My name used to be Lillian Freeland, but once my twin was dead, I uncontrollably became someone named June. She came to me, like a doppelganger, looking exactly like me, but bearing no evil intentions.

“I am here, and I am not leaving you,” June told me. I regret killing Adele despite her greater knowledge of schoolwork. We were both homeschooled and Scarlett never told us what she did for a living. I learned later on that she worked for the federal government.

My liberation from Scarlett’s persistent and unyielding abuse came on the day of my eighteenth birthday, April 17. After she made me read Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot” to two men, who raped me when I was done, and when they had left, I waited for Scarlett to go upstairs and watch one of her movies. I sauntered to the garage and snatched an axe, the same one Scarlett used in satanic rituals when she was young. I made the predatory ascent up the stairs and into her bedroom. Then, as though she were a chopping block and as though her sanguine bloodflow was sacred, I swung the axe down upon her skull. Hard. She was watching The Caretakers, a black and white movie about women in group therapy. She fell to the side, writhing in pain. I went to the front of the chair and brought the axe down upon her back until her spinal cord was severed and her tenebrous heart gave out. I left her there and ran back downstairs, screaming the whole way.

Next, I opened Scarlett’s freezer and grabbed a carton of Marlboro 100’s, lit one, and burned the subtle swastikas hidden in the patterns of an Oriental rug. I gazed around me, took in the contents of the living room: the Kit-Kat clock shaped like a black cat with bulging eyes, the white topaz chandelier, the gutted hearth, the period furniture. I decided it was time to leave my home behind forever. I grabbed a pink backpack and shoved the carton of cigarettes inside, along with a drawer full of working Bic lighters. I threw in three shirts, six pairs of socks, six pairs of underwear, two pairs of pants, a journal, a pen, and a gun. I topped off the luggage with some rubber vampire teeth I endeavored to save for a malevolent purpose: murdering Blithe Tarrington.

I put my hand on the gun as I walked outside, holding it securely within the large pocket of my forest green trench coat. To my knowledge, the Miltons across the street were always killing people (Scarlett always said so.), but I didn’t know how they felt about Blithe. I didn’t care. I rang the doorbell, staring down the cross and hourglass on the door’s poster. Luckily, Blithe answered the door. I pulled out the gun, and her face became as stricken as one being lashed with a switch.

“Get inside,” I gnashed, pushing her onto the floor  and slamming the door behind me. “And don’t get up. Don’t even talk.”

She talked anyway. “Lillian, please don’t kill me. You don’t have to - “

“But I want to, and I can, and I will kill you and nothing will ever be able to resurrect you!”

“What’s going on with that Freeland bitch? Why is she in my house?” screamed Clyde, who had just descended the stairs. I shot him in the head, and he slumped over, instantaneously dead.

“You’ve been killing people in this house for years, and it’s time to go!” I vociferated over her harrowed wailing. “Now, put these in.” I unzipped my backpack and handed her the rubber vampire teeth.

She stared at me, wide-eyed with feral fear. She did nothing. She said nothing.

“Your mouth, dummy. Put them in your mouth.”

I handed her the teeth, and she took them from me and placed them over her own toothpaste commercial-white teeth.

“You look the very caricature of Halloween,” I said, laughing as I blew out her brains. The remains flew against the wall and painted an inkblot test of blood smears everywhere. I walked into Blithe’s bedroom after I was sure she was dead, and saw a purple canopied bed, a bookshelf filled with many classic and contemporary novels, among them: the Brontes, Oscar Wilde, Theodore Dreiser, Jane Austen, Anais Nin, D.H. Lawrence. I grabbed Nin’s House of Incest, Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, and left the house.

I didn’t make it very far. I was down the road not very far when I was arrested.  I always feared them coming for me. I fell onto the asphalt, scabbing my knees and not feeling it. I denied what was happening. I muttered to myself incoherently.

“We know you killed some people, Lillian.”

“My name is June,” was all that I said before my mind shut off and I suddenly woke up vegetative in a jail cell.

*

Eventually, I was labelled not guilty by reason of insanity. The police found Scarlett’s recordings and the recordings that the Miltons and the Tarringtons made of their own killings when I told them about the neighborhood, and what Scarlett had done to me. One day, I will get out of the forensics services ward, where the criminally insane are housed. I have spent many nights here, remembering the death and ravagings, my hair coiling like Medusa’s on the pillow of the restraint bed, the leather straps leaving black bruises on my wrists. Every night, I pray to God and Jesus and all the saints that ever were that I’ll be forgiven for my killings, and be accepted into a realm I can call heaven.

My lucidity will live again, resurged.

2017

June and Marcelle

Cathleen Carter

She led me to the house with the cupola

Where she stabbed me in the backyard

Blood flowed glowing red from my pale skin

Staining my white blouse

And my throat ached

I haunt the halls

And my voice resides within the walls

I’m a phantom floating through the inmates

Living in my killer’s group home

Eyes stare from the cupola

I don’t know who saw me die

I’m buried under a thorny bush

Bones hidden by woods and tiny baby teeth

She scattered

Covering my grave with evidence from her recent infanticides

She stabbed my baby

And cut me for giving birth

In her bed

My lover carved our initials in a tree

And we’ll always be in touch

I eat strawberries off a plate in his room

We hung a dreamcatcher to capture his nightmares

Of me being tortured by her ringed hands

Bag placed over my head

Cathleen Carter, the snuff film queen

(I have killed many)

Choking on film reel

Always having to be polite

In the morning light drinking tea

Deirdre, the killer, laced it with GHB

Putting me to sleep

Separated from my lover

Pillow soaked in warm tears

His tears and mine

We drink them in vials and kiss under stars

Soon he too will be a ghost

Swallowing pills on a blanket in the cemetery

Deirdre will find us and take our picture

Maybe she’ll capture my phantom on camera

*

With curiosity, Marcelle Trahern saw from the window Deirdre Carter and her niece, Cathleen, arguing. The infant was dead, that much Marcelle knew. Cathleen Carter had given birth to a baby girl now with stab wounds, lying in red and white rigor mortis in her crib with blood on the teddy bear, in the dolls’ hair and on the lampshade on the side table. Most of the inmates, as they were known due to the group home’s strict rules, were gone for the day at an event and June Freeland was downstairs Deirdre Carter quickly took over June’s life after leaving her post as nurse at the asylum where June was housed. June was incompetent to stand trial, declared insane and sent away for seven years. She had returned to Scarlett Freeland, her former guardian’s, mansion to live. It had been converted into a group home for women with trauma issues.

All thoughts of June vanished from Deirdre’s mind when the knife blade shone in the sun, an ominous metal glint that suddenly penetrated the naked pearl throat of Cathleen. She collapsed to the grass in the fenced-in backyard and as the earth was fresh from the rain, Deirdre found a shovel leaning against the toolshed and dug a fresh grave. Marcelle had never liked Cathleen much because she was always harping on the girls to follow the rules: don’t smoke dope, don’t invite boys over without permission, etc. She had gotten herself knocked up by Miles Sutherland, and Deirdre highly disapproved of him with his leather jacket and cigarettes. Marcelle only saw him once when he drove to pick up Cathleen for a date, his handsome face a silhouette in the dark window. Marcelle decided to keep quiet about the death. She watched Cathleen be tossed into the grave liked a broken doll. Deirdre had tied a plastic bag over her face and stabbed her in the chest. For ten minutes, Marcelle watched Deirdre extract Cathleen’s heart from her chest cavity, holding the dead, lifeless muscle in her palm, her calm blue eyes narrowed and focused on it like a witch in a black magic ritual. June suddenly appeared beside Marcelle.

“The bitch is finally dead,” Marcelle said, breaking her vow not to tell anyone. “What is she going to do with the heart?”

“I don’t know,” said June.

The girls, both in their twenties and too old for Cathleen’s trashy immaturity, watched with morbid fascination as Deirdre snapped a polaroid   (after turning off the video camera)

of Cathleen’s corpse before throwing dirt back over her and packing it in. She laid stones over it and from her pocket, she took something white and scattered it over the grave. When she went back inside the house, Marcelle and June left the cupola to inspect what Deirdre had spilled. Six tiny teeth in the front yard, taken from a toddler’s mouth. A previous killing. When the cops led Deirdre away after June called them, June put on a nun habit and took over the house.

They heard Cathleen’s whispers of love for Miles and reassurances that Deirdre was gone. They buried her baby in an infant cemetery labeled merely “Infant Cemetery” in iron above a fancy gate bearing an entrance to the graveyard. June called the cops by her own policy, knowing hiding a murder is wrong.

“Marcelle, she’s a psycho, bats-in-the-head bitch and she could have come after us, too. It’s better that she’s gone.”

“I guess so,” said Marcelle. her  mind on Nanny Cravat choking on her milk laced with Drano. Marcelle had fled the world of Christian broadcast rooms and the sex trade. Nanny Cravat had invited several men over to force themselves on her, and she was glad she couldn’t remember it in great detail. Dissociating was so divine. Girls wore meretricious makeup to school and church and their naked limbs stuck out from cheap, mall-bought

miniskirts. Marcelle would have given them all Drano in a cup, too, if she knew how not to get caught.

But she was far from their bratty voices now, with June Freeland, Anika White and Marilyn Sanders to keep her company. In the meantime, the house became less of a group home and June began paying the monthly bills with Deirdre’s leftover income found stashed in a safe in her room. Marijuana smoke soon filled the rooms and the girls giggled at the enhanced cartoons on the television, making funny faces at the ceiling. Then, Cathleen appeared in the mirror behind them in her prom finery, staring sternly with her stab wound, The blood withdrawing and disappearing into the gash. Anika screamed. When the others asked what was wrong, Anika revealed what she saw.

“You’re too high,” Marilyn said, running a hand through her rainbow hair. But Cathleen stood behind them, strawberry juice the color of blood on her mouth, back from Miles who contacted her spirit and she came when summoned and manifested herself in the flesh.

Cathleen

My baby is gone

In an infant coffin underground

I wear black to mourn her

And place flowers on her grave

Miles embraces me in the cemetery

Where we have sandwiches and milk

He marvels as the food disappears from the plate

And the milk drains from the thermos

He can see me fresh as daylight

A rose haloed in gold

I am fragile dust and fairy winds and gilded blond hair

They find him dead the next day

By the gravesite of his daughter

His lips blue from the pills

His hair plastered to his head

In the spring rain

His indolent heart gave out and from her prison, Dierdre laughed at the television giving news of Mile’s suicide and the note he’d left:

I’ve gone to be with Cathleen, who drew me into hear heart forever, and our daughter Melanie’s, too. Dierdre couldn’t kill my love, though she tried very hard.

I saw Deirdre from the corner where I stood, staring at ladies dressed in orange watch the television and play cards. Now that I’m dead, I can go anywhere I want to in the world. I’ve explored the moors of England and I’ve been to Alaska, the northern lights illuminating the night sky and I didn’t feel the cold nor the heat of Death Valley, California. I flew and touched the top of the Eiffel Tower.

“Anything can be done in death, it’s like magic is yours after you die,” I told Miles.

Down he went with me and they buried us side by side. We go into earth, then Summerland, then back again. When I haunt the group home, I conjour nightmares for the girls who tormented me, especially June Freeland who told me I looked dressed as gaudily as she had for one of the snuff films her guardian she murdered made her do. I know many murderers: the worst of them being June and Marcelle. I read the evidence of Marcelle’s Drano murders in her journal and her revelations of sex with strange men who came when called by Nanny Cravat, Marcelle’s godmother. But something told me not to be a hypocrite and tell on her. I never had a mother like these girls. She abandoned me on the doorstop of St. Xavier’s Orphanage and Dierdre, the nun (she was a devout Catholic before she moved on to work for the hospital) who knew her sister’s face and knowing I was her niece, took me in and after years of her impossible violence and nagging, I am finally set free and better off, even if by her hand.

The Ouija Board

“Miles committed suicide,” said Marilyn to Marcelle. “It’s on the news.”

“Oh,” said Marcelle. “I bet Cathleen’s ghost dragged him down with her. Anika keeps seeing her everywhere and is freaking out.”

Anika was fast asleep in her room, having taken a dose of Haldol to help the hallucinations.

“But you aren’t hallucinating,” Cathleen had insisted when she came to Anika late at night. Sometimes she wore a nun habit like June, who had taken to smearing on red lipstick and blaring Courtney Love from the stereo. Sometimes, she sang opera with a crucifix dangling around her neck, and quite good. The girls loved listening to her sing her songs of lovers who lost their loved ones like Miles and Greek tragedies where Persephone became trapped for six months in Hades with the Lord of the Underworld and six months on earth. Gods and monsters fighting their battles to the death. The Ouija board they used to summon Cathleen worked. Anika revealed the messages to them of their conversation she heard in her head. Anika directed the board marker’s movement in their hands.

“Cathleen, where are you?” Anika asked, finally facing her fear of the unknown.

“In Summerland, with Miles,” was the reply.

Anika spelled it on the board and all were shocked.

“I knew it was real, like heaven but better than clouds and angels playing harps, waiting at the gates to judge you,” Anika said. “In Summerland there is no judgment, or pain or violence. Just love, laughter and magic. I learned all about the theory of the afterlife in Summerland from a Wiccan book I found in the used bookstore downtown.”

“Are you sure it isn’t fake, Anika?” Asked June, who doubted the paranormal.

“I heard her voice, just the way it was when she was alive!” Anika stormed out of the room, offended by June’s remark. The Ouija board remained still. Out of all of the girls, Cathleen found Anika most vulnerable to her presence. Cathleen enjoyed scaring them a little. But she never spoke to June, who ascended the staircase with a boy from the nearby prep school, holding a candlelabra and smoking a Marlboro cigarette. Marilyn played 20 Questions with Anika in their room and listened to her account of what she read in Marcelle’s journal.

“I saw too,” said Cathleen. “She sent people to their death same as insane June. I wonder what sort of terrorism Dierdre endured at a young age.”

“Probably witnessed something violent, or had no parents like you. I didn’t,” said Marcelle, who stood behind them listening and hearing Cathleen’s voice just like Anika.

Deirdre

High on a precious hill stands my home for abandoned, unstable girls

I can’t return to it

I’m in prison garb in the women’s prison surrounded by barbed wire and a river runs past, saturated in pollutants spilled by the nearby plants and factories.

I used to be a nun, then a nurse, mercy-killing the elderly, smothering infants and pretending they died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), immune to the wails of inconsolable parents informed by the doctor in the corridor.

I spent my early childhood in a ramshackle farmhouse in Louisiana, smothered by my mother and her hot back coffee thrown in my face. How her knives danced before my eyes. When my baby brother died when I was fourteen, they thought it was SIDS. I hated babies. My mother told me to kill it, it was a sickly, weak little boy and wouldn’t last the year. I fed him to a hungry feral cat and watched the skin ribbon over her bones from the cat’s carnivorous snacking. My mother, a widow always in grey with shadows under her eyes the color of her sweater, watched the baby’s decomposition.

I felt an affinity for June the most out of all the girls in my home. We had killed and had bad mothers who abused our bodies and sucked our souls out through crazy straws, leaving us bereft and insane. I couldn’t plead insanity the way June could, though.

I wish I were out of this stale air and away from these women, with their murderous stairs and rancid shouting, their fights that lead them to solitary. I won’t put a hand on these women. I won’t go to solitary.

June

I murdered this whole neighborhood besides Clinton and Mary Milton and their twin son and daughter. The parents went to prison for murder, and the kids live somewhere else now. The house is vacant.  I never enjoyed what Scarlett made me do. They housed me in an asylum, where I spent the majority of my time in restraints staring at the ceiling with vacant eyes and Medusa coils in my hair that snarled on the pillow.

I dreamt of black widows biting me and in my dreams, Deirdre, who worked there at the time as a psychiatric nurse, didn’t tend to my bites that reddened on my hand. When I wasn’t dreaming, Deirdre liked me. Now she’s in prison where she belongs. I no longer handle nitric acid or kill people or endure stiff baseball bats tearing open my cunt.

Scarlett watched my defiling from behind the camera, recording the rapes in the dark room. I was smothered in her cellar and remembered it, screaming, spitting out the pills, refusing to take them. Deirdre heard my whole story, decided to move into the old Freeland estate and take over as group home director. I moved out of my trailer to stay there. Weird I should live here after killing someone here. I used to hallucinate Blithe, who I shot and killed, but I don’t see her lately. I dismiss Anika despite my own experience. Sometimes, the ghost of Cathleen gets old as a topic and I think all should  remember the living and forget the dead that can’t reach us, gone to nether realms.

But what if she was there? What if she can reach us?

I’ll never know. One day I’ll be a ghost myself. I have faith that there is something prettier to see than this insidious earth after our bodies run out of time and our souls transcend.

There must be something better than what I had, what Marcelle had, what Cathleen had, what all of us had.

I think I just heard a voice. Is it the still, small voice of God, or is it a spirit coming from some divine region, holy or unholy?

I am a combined angel and demon. I want to drink absinthe and sleep with that voice.

Mathilde

2019

I stood in the calm, obsidian woods and gained my frail balance against a ramshackle cabin. Wolves dashed out of the shadows, ignoring me and veering towards a carcass in a wildflower-bordered clearing. I was pretty certain it was human. Then I saw a ski-masked perpetrator, blood channeling from his disguise. He offered me a bouquet of purple irises in his scathed left hand. In the shunning woods, feeling like the ghost of someone gone, I tore my lavender dress on a nail in the cabin’s wood. I declined the masked monster’s offer. Suddenly, I was pulled inside by someone behind the front door. I cried out, closed my eyes and could hear the door shut and bolt. Once the lightbulb on the ceiling flickered on, I saw my rescuer’s face like a sanctified revelation. The kindest pair of dark eyes I had ever seen. My speech failed me but his did not.

He told me, “Nothing will kill your equilibrium while I’m here. You no longer have to claw at wooden walls are cry into a pillowcase. Notice that soon the sun will come up and figuratively, I’ll give you a pair of rose-colored glasses to view the world through. A better world than this.”

“I-“ I began.

“I love you,” he said.

Of course, he was handsome and I coveted him highly.  He pressed his perfect mouth on mine and carried me to bed. After the sex and the sun-glow, he told me he’d be my dreamcatcher, and if not the destroyer of my enemies, the bane of them. The unidentified mask never showed up again. We soon left the cabin to live in a castle. He taught me to love instead of maim, to be tender instead of destructive. I learned to give myself away to a man created by the sparks of imagination itself.

*

I ease myself out of bed after this dream and take another hit of glass. Something to make the world glitter with white ice and a way to make the hell inside freeze over. I see him blur on every bridge, every riverbed, every highway. There is no hallucination more powerful than him. Nothing will perforate me and make me stop haunting this city. Nothing will make me bleed out onto the sidewalk because I am too fast for the blade, the bullet. The smoke flows through the open room and hits the sun. I wake to sirens piercing the quiet. I’m the cause of them but I know their glow won’t alight on me and swallow me up.

[cole-winchester]

I Won’t Run Away

Lethal Weapon Fic 

Clayne Crawford - Seasons One and Two based ONLY!  Don’t even get me started...

Summary:

A girl from Riggs' past surfaces and they discover they’re both as screwed up as the other.  Alcohol, depression, PTSD...You name it, they’ve got it.  When feelings develop, will their past trauma stand in the way of healing one another...or will it be their downfall?

Song inspiration for Title and Pic Quote:  I Won’t Run Away

Original Characters:

Aiden Gallagher - Main character opposite Martin Riggs  (pictured her as me in my head while writing - picture her as you wish with the descriptions given in story)

Robby Anderson - Main character’s ex (Pictured as Stephen Amell)

Mike Callahan - Main character’s friend/co-worker (Pictured as Dominic Purcell)

Warnings:

This is a whump fic.  There will be characters beaten to hell and back.  Some depression and PTSD flashbacks and suicidal dialog.  Read at your own caution.

Tag List:  Tags are always open, hit me up if you want on it!

@adorkabletiff91 @garcywinchester @t-rexprincess

Part One

"You good to close up, Mike?"  I sighed lightly as I leaned on the doorway to the bar’s office, running my hand absently through my dark brown hair.  The metal door frame was cool against my bare arm as I gazed down at the man.

"Yeah I got it."  He smiled as he closed the safe and stood, turning to me.  His tall broad frame making the office look much smaller than it was.  "I'll walk you out."  

I nod, grabbing my flannel and small cross-body bag off of the hook and met him at the front doors.

"You know you don't have to walk me out each night."  I smirked as I stepped up behind him. 

"Oh don't even start, Aiden."  Mike chuckled as he opened the door for me.  "There's too many psychos around this part of town at night." 

"Yeah, but I'm a big girl."  I joked and lightly bumped his heavily muscled arm with my shoulder.

He barked out a laugh.  "Not as big as me, sweetheart.  You're what?  All of 130 soaking wet?"

I giggled as my boots scuffed the sidewalk.  As much as I wanted to be tough, Mike was right.  Any creep on the street would have to think twice with him walking beside me.  He was tall, built to the nines with his wide jaw and shaved head...he was intimidating. 

Mike had taken me under his wing when I came to LA a while back looking for a job.  His bar needed the help and plus, he didn't want me getting caught up in a shitty situation that most pretty girls end up in out here.  He was a sweetheart and with two daughters of his own, he couldn't turn away the option of helping a girl like me out.

We headed around the corner to the small parking area next to the bar.  The cool air snaking around my legs.  Mike's gaze scanned the surrounding streets for any movement in the shadows. 

I turned to him as we reached my jeep and smiled.  "Thanks, Mike." I embraced him, wrapping my arms around his waist.  "You're a good friend."

Mike chuckled and pulled back, ruffling my hair with his large hand.  "See ya Sunday, kiddo.  Have fun at the barbeque tomorrow."

I smiled as he back stepped, shoving his hands in his pockets.  "G'night, Mike."

"Night."  He waited until I was safely in my jeep and pulling out of the lot onto the street before he made his way back to the bar. 

* * * *

I walked into the house, closing and deadbolting the door behind me.  I dropped my bag on the hook in the entry way and tossed my keys onto the small table.  I stepped down the hall towards the bedroom when the kitchen light flicked on, stopping me in my tracks.  My gaze snapped to the right and landed on the figure in the middle of the kitchen, my heart pounding.  

"I missed you, Aiden."

Robby...

"No!"  I screamed as I took off down the hallway.  How could he be here?!  He's in jail!  This isn't happening!

I reached for my cell in my shorts, but found nothing.  It was gone...as if it disappeared out of my pocket.

Shit!

I neared the corner of the hallway desperately trying to get to the landline in the dining room before he could.  A force slammed into my legs, knocking them out from under me as he came around the corner.  I crashed to the floor and quickly scrambled to get to my feet when his boot collided with my head, sending me backwards against the wall.

Wake up, Aiden!  Wake the fuck up!  This isn't happening!  My thoughts screamed as my vision spun.

"You should've never opened your mouth!"  Robby's hand dug into my hair, pulling me up from the floor and slamming my back against the wall.  "You stupid fucking whore!"

"This isn't happening.  This isn't happening.  Wake up!"  I whimpered as his face came into focus.  His ice blue eyes glaring at me with pure hatred as an evil grin spread across his face.

"Oh, it's fuckin' happening, sweetheart!"  He spat at me and lunged his right hand towards my stomach.

A white hot pain pierced my midsection sending fire throughout my body.  My eyes widened in shock as his face was inches from mine.  He eased back and I looked down as he pulled a crimson knife from my body.

"I told you I'd kill you for what you did to me.  You can't hide from me."  

My knees weakened and my body went numb as he lunged forward with the knife again.

* * * *

"No!"  I screamed and flailed as I woke from the nightmare, tumbling off the bed in a tangled heap of sweat soaked sheets.  I panted frantically as I clutched my stomach where the knife had been in the dream.  The dull phantom ache of it still lingering.

I've had the same nightmare at least once a week since I'd testified against Robby, resulting in him being locked up for the next twenty years.  My shrink said it's perfectly normal in these type of circumstances...but for three years?  

He's locked up in max.  He's 3 states away.  He can't get to you.  You're safe. 

I repeat in my head, trying to calm the shaking in my hands.  I absently reach up and trace the jagged scar running from my temple down to my jaw in front of my ear.  It seems to burn at my touch, bringing back memories I've tried to put behind me.  I shake my head, willing the images away.  Untangling myself I look over to my alarm clock...the bright red letters blazing back at me...530am.  I sigh and flop back against the side of the bed.  I'd only had a couple hours of sleep since my shift at the bar.  Deciding that it was useless to try and get any more sleep, I hauled myself to my feet.  

Well... time for whiskey and some paint therapy.

I head over to the spare bedroom that I'd turned into my art studio.  The floors covered with old flat sheets, stacks of fresh canvases tipped against one wall, finished pieces tucked in protective boxes ready to be sold against another and my large easel in the center with a fresh canvas.  Aside from the bar, I had a part time afternoon shift at a local coffee shop and in my spare time, I created and sold paintings.  Some were hung in the coffee shop advertised for sale, and every few months I did a small showing downtown.  That's where I'd first met Trish Murtaugh.  Her daughter, Riana, was a regular at the coffee shop in the afternoons when she got out of school.  She'd eyed my paintings and had brought her mother to one of my showings.  Trish had fallen in love with my art immediately.  I was more of an abstract emotional artist.  Most of it consisted of blacked out female silhouettes, some profiles, some full body, with bright colors splattered, slashed or dripped down around them.  I also dabbled in realistic portraits and some custom commissioned work.

Today?  Today called for some paint throwing.  

I grabbed my bottle of whiskey and downed a shot, slamming it down on the table.  I popped a can of paint open without looking at the color and reached my fingers in, coating them in the bright purple liquid.   I stepped about five feet in front of the canvas....and flung my hand toward it like I was throwing a baseball.  

I got lost.  My mind blank with whiskey buzz and zoned in on the task at hand.  Grabbing random colors and splattering them against the sheer white background of the canvas.  The paint slightly dripping and mixing together to form its own shade.  I was in my element.  Lost in my own universe as the world around me ceased to exist. 

After a while I stepped back a moment, gazing at the splattered canvas in front of me.  The contrasting splotches of neon colors scattered across the face of it.  It needed something.  I set the can of paint down and stomped the few feet to the canvas.  I drug my fingers through the wet paint, creating swirls and spirals in strategic order around the piece.  I eyed it for another moment, gauging its story.  Satisfied with my work, I wiped my hands clean on a rag and downed another shot of whiskey, plopping down in the corner of the room.  I sighed and leaned my head back against the wall and gazed out the side window at the rising sun.  A new day had begun.

* * * *

I had managed to catch a few more hours of shut eye thanks to Mr. Daniels, when I was awoken from a text alert.  

Shit, what time was it?! 

I fumbled for my phone on the nightstand as I sat up against the headboard. 

1130AM  

Oops, guess I got more than just a few hours..

I rubbed my eyes as I opened my Messages.

Trish: You're still coming today right?

Yes.  Wouldn't miss it.  You need me to bring anything?

Trish:  Just yourself! :)  I can't wait for you to meet everyone.

Awesome.  I'll see you then!

I locked my phone and tossed it on the bed as I stretched my stiff muscles.  I had two hours before I had to be at the Murtaugh's.  Thank god Trish had texted me.

* * * *

I eased my Wrangler at the curb across from the Murtaugh residence.  I felt weird not bringing anything to the barbecue but Trish insisted, and from what I'd gathered so far in our friendship, you don't argue with her.  I glanced around at the few cars in the driveway and along the street as I stepped out onto the pavement.  At least I wasn't the first one here...that's always a little awkward.  I made my way across the street as I heard laughter coming from the backyard.�� Assuming everyone was outside, I let myself in the side gate.  As I rounded the side of the house I was greeting by a decent sized group.  Some teenagers Riana's age but majority were adults that most likely worked with Trish or her husband, Roger.  

"Hey!  You made it!"  Riana bounded off of the deck to me, embracing me in an excited hug.  I laughed and hugged her back.  "Mom's inside grabbing some more wine.  Come on!"  She grabbed my hand with a big smile on her face as she led me over to the grill.  "Dad!"  

A man looked up from the grill at her call and he smiled as he stepped to us.  "Ah, this must be the famous Aiden I've heard so much about.  Roger."  He held out his hand to me.  I took his hand and smiled, laughing off his comment.   His eyes darted to my scar and quickly back to my gaze, his smile only faltering slightly before he recovered. 

"Nice to meet you."  I said as I released his hand.

"Likewise.  Trish has shown me some of your work.  You're really talented."  

"Thank you."  I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.  I was never one that accepted praise very well.

"Oh!"  Trish's voice sounded from the deck behind us.  "I'm so glad you could make it!"  She stepped down and handed Roger a plate of burgers before embracing me.  "You want something to drink?"

"Sure."  I glanced around at the coolers lining the deck.  

"There's beer in the coolers and wine inside."  She smiled and turned slightly to Roger, dropping her voice to a heated whisper.  "Is he coming?  Where is he?"

"I don't know he said he'd be here."  Roger wasn't as quiet as his wife so I was still able to catch the conversation...and then it hit me.

"Oh, god, Trish.  Tell me you're not trying to set me up with someone?"  I smirked and crossed my arms over my chest.

Both her and Roger snapped their attention back to me.  Roger looked guilty as hell and Trish plastered on a mischievous smile.  "I-I wouldn't call it 'setting you up.'  More of ... just a friendly introduction."

"Ugh."  I sighed and dropped my head back chuckling.  "While I appreciate the offer...I'm not looking to date anyone right now."  I gave her a small smile.

I hadn't opened up to her yet about my past.  This was the first time aside from my art gallery shows that we'd actually hung out.  We'd become friends but not to the point yet of sharing our deep secrets.  I'd caught her and Riana eyeing my scar each time we'd seen each other, but they both had the respect to not ask about it.  I just wasn't ready to share that dark part of my history yet with anyone.

"I'm not asking that you read anything into it.  He's a great guy.  A little rough around the edges but-"

Trish was cut off by a commotion from the side yard at the corner of the deck.

"Aw, you guys didn't have to wait for me to get here!  Let's get this party started!"  A loud male voice echoed through the yard.

"Speak of the devil."  Roger muttered as Trish threw me a smile before moving behind me towards the man.  

"Martin!  I'm glad you came!  Come here, I'd like you to meet someone."  I turned as Trish laced her arm through the man’s and guided him over toward me.

I froze.  

Martin stopped abruptly when I’d turned to face them.  Trish didn't seem concerned and stopped with him, smiling as she motioned for me to come forward.  Martin removed his sunglasses and his shocked amber gaze bore into me.  Everything around me seemed to stop as my pulse pounded in my ears as our eyes remained locked with each other.

"Martin, this is my friend-"  Trish began.

Martin breathed out in disbelief, cutting her off.  “Aiden..?”

[mx-requests-forum]

[Fulfilled] Seriously (Un)Interested

Prompt: Changki + hate to love high school au with Christmas theme. They hate each other, IM is a good student while KH is a "bad boy", they fight every day and fight even more when their class go to the mountains 3 days and they end up sharing room + they have sex (bottom KH)

Fulfilled by Moderator M~

Words: 17,106 (no typo!), 6 chapters, lots of plot and a chapter of smut! Complete!

AO3 Link

(Chapter 1)

Kihyun had known about this trip for weeks now; it was a special Christmastime treat for their graduating class to go on a short vacation up in the mountains to experience, what the flyers described as being, a ‘picturesque image of Korea during Christmas’ during the first few days of their winter break. He’d shrugged it off as being some lame normie shit, and certainly wasn’t planning on going until Minhyuk had casually approached him about it a few days before the sign-up deadline.

“Hey kid,” Minhyuk casually said, plopping down onto the curb outside of one of the wings of their school beside Kihyun. It was just after classes ended for the day, and Kihyun had grabbed a quick snack at the vending machine before he took off. Minhyuk leaned across Kihyun’s body, roughly grabbing the bag of chips out of Kihyun’s hands, taking several handfuls and shoving them down his throat. Kihyun side-eyed the boy, adjusting his ripped-to-hell pants before lurching towards Minhyuk, snatching the chips back with an annoyed yelp.

“The fuck do you want?” Kihyun asked, already peeved at the boy he called his best-friend, and he’d only arrived a few seconds ago. Minhyuk laughed, happy to see Kihyun was in high spirits today. He grabbed the rumpled flyer from his back pocket, unfurling it and passing it to Kihyun.

“Let’s go on this trip,” Minhyuk said, and Kihyun immediately began grumbling, shaking his head while he passed the paper back to Minhyuk.

“Nah, I’ve seen it around school. I’m not interested, what’s there for us?” Kihyun asked, flashing his black rimmed eyes to Minhyuk, his implications clear. Minhyuk hummed in acknowledgment, but clearly had a reply prepared for this argument.

“What else are you gonna do? Besides, this is the last shindig before the break- let’s get blackout drunk and do stupid shit in log cabins in the mountains! C’mon, man,” Minhyuk said, waggling his eyebrows in some attempt to convince Kihyun of his plans. “We just turned 19- we can easily bring booze with us, it’s gonna be fun. Hoseok-hyung and Jooheony are coming too, along with a few other cool dudes willing to have fun,” Minhyuk continued, and Kihyun nodded his head, starting to warm up to the idea.

“Hm,” Kihyun said, humming. At the sight of Minhyuk wiggling around in some attempt to be cute, Kihyun shook his head, shoving Minhyuk with enough force to topple him over. “Okay, okay, I’ll go. Just cut that aegyo shit,” Kihyun said, laughing despite his harsh words. Minhyuk giggled, and then jumped up, getting excited.

“YES! I’ll go let the others know, make sure you fill out the sign-up sheet! It’s in room A108, please, please, please make sure you do it!” Minhyuk said, immediately running off, as if all he came there to do was convince Kihyun to go on this trip, not even sparing a ‘hello, how’s it going’. Kihyun rolled his eyes, not even giving the slightly-older boy a wave as Minhyuk ran off into the distance, his thick titanium steel chains rattling off as he ran. Kihyun put his chin in his hands, but didn’t otherwise question anything, taking another bite of his chips before going to room A108 and filling out that form. I mean, what better did he have to do?

Despite having said that he was going to tell the others, Minhyuk was actually going to tell somebody that Kihyun liked a whole lot less: Changkyun. Kihyun and Changkyun were practically sworn enemies at this point, and it seemed like their resentment had no end. There was something else too… Minhyuk had broken up with Changkyun only a few days ago, and while the feeling was mutual, it was still weird to talk to him normally. Despite how weird it would be talking to him, Minhyuk knew something about Changkyun and Kihyun’s true feelings for each other, something that led him to finding Changkyun at the tutoring center and showing him the same flyer he’d shown to Kihyun.

Walking into the familiar room, Minhyuk glanced around, getting flashbacks to when him and Changkyun were still dating, and Minhyuk would pick up Changkyun after he finished his tutoring lessons here. Changkyun would greet him with the cutest little pure smile, it made Minhyuk almost feel guilty for exclusively being interested in what was below his belt.

“Changkyunnie,” Minhyuk called out, startling Changkyun as he was about to enter his tutoring room, holding a stack of papers to teach some underclassman what appeared to be Physics. Turning around and recognizing who was calling him, Changkyun blanched, looking clearly uncomfortable with the situation. He smiled nervously, stopping in his tracks to walk over to Minhyuk, his steps short and nervous.

“What’s up?” Changkyun asked, trying to look casual despite the awkwardness obvious on his face. Minhyuk licked his lip, his tongue piercing visible and making a tinge of pink rise in Changkyun’s cheeks. They weren’t dating, for a good reason, but Changkyun could still remember what that tongue was capable of—

“You going on the senior trip?” Minhyuk asked, interrupting Changkyun’s guilty thoughts. Changkyun raised his eyebrows, curious as to why Minhyuk came all this way just to ask him a seemingly random question.

“Uh, yeah, actually. I am,” Changkyun answered, adjusting his papers and giving Minhyuk a curious look. Grinning, Minhyuk nodded, already stepping away to leave the building. Not trusting this, Changkyun stopped him, suddenly getting a bad feeling in his gut.

“Wait, is Kihyun going on the trip?” Changkyun asked, thinking that maybe the two of them were planning some criminal shit on the mountain. He wouldn’t put it past them, especially since Kihyun had been especially dickish to him lately. Minhyuk turned around, an interesting light sparkling in his eyes.

“What do you want? Do you want him to be there?” Minhyuk asked mysteriously, his lips curled in a small, amused smirk. Changkyun flushed, jolting back in surprise.

“Of course I don’t, why would I want that asshole there to ruin my trip?” Changkyun asked, but his heart started pounding, racing at the mere thought of Kihyun’s confident smirk, and hot gaze peeking from his wavy, gray hair. He turned his head, cheeks darkening the more he thought about him. “I hate him,” he added, almost as if he was trying to convince himself. Minhyuk nodded, clearly not buying it as he continued his journey out of the room.

“Whatever you say, hun,” Minhyuk breezily remarked, the glass door of the tutoring center slamming closed as he left. Changkyun pursed his lips, staring down at the floor as he processed that whirlwind. What did his ex even mean…? Seeing the time on his watch, Changkyun’s eyes widened, and he quickly bustled into the tutoring room, realizing that he was a minute late to his appointment now. Whatever this encounter meant, he could figure it out later. Right now, he had other things to attend to.

A few days later, their winter break officially began, which meant getting up and attending the bus for the senior trip at 5 AM. Kihyun and Minhyuk rode together, arriving at the meet-up spot a few minutes late, neither really caring about punctuality for this trip. Walking into the bus and noticing only a few empty seats in the front, and none in the back, Kihyun chuckled, thinking these kids were already trying to test him and this trip hadn’t even officially started yet.

Eyes flickering around the interior of the bus, Kihyun’s eyes widened, noticing that the person he least wanted to see was here on this bus with them. Clenching his jaw, Kihyun walked down the slim aisle, approaching Changkyun’s seat in the middle of the bus. Spotting his shitty, pretentious stare, something broke in Kihyun, and he ‘accidentally’ kicked the side of Changkyun’s seat, reveling in the way Changkyun lurched to avoid him.

“Oops,” Kihyun half-heartedly muttered, continuing to walk down the aisle and feeling significantly better now. He should’ve probably guessed that good-boy Changkyun would be attending such a wholesome school trip, but it still put a damper on his good mood. Deciding to just let it go, Kihyun arrived at the back of the bus, lighting up as he sees his friends there. At the row beside them, Kihyun leans down, looming over the two kids that had the gall to sit in HIS seat.

“Get up,” Kihyun said, voice cruel and unrelenting. Aware of Kihyun’s reputation, the two kids scrambled up, running over to the front of the bus to avoid Kihyun’s wrath. Clapping Kihyun on the shoulder, Minhyuk started laughing, amused with his feisty friend’s antics. Jooheon and Hoseok smiled at the two boys, used to Kihyun’s temper by now.

“Glad you could join us,” Jooheon said, extending a fist for Minhyuk to bump, smiling casually at the two boys. Hoseok nodded, his cute, sweet expression tingeing with concern.

“Yeah, you two were late!” Hoseok said, and Jooheon chuckled, wrapping his arm around Hoseok’s shoulders.

“He was worried you two had decided not to come,” Jooheon explained, the brim of his cap nuzzling against Hoseok’s hair, eyes dark in the shadow of his cap. Minhyuk giggled, and then went into a dramatic regaling of how Kihyun had overslept and forgot to pack which, according to Kihyun, was actually the complete other way around. The other two bust out into a fit of laughter, finding their bickering amusing and a welcome source of entertainment.

Soon, the bus took off, headed towards the mountains to the north of the city. The ride was pretty boring, as one would expect being cooped up in a bus with the majority of your graduating class around you. As they reached the mountains and began their upwards ascent to the cabins they would be staying at, Changkyun stared out of the window, gazing absently at the snow that was gently falling down onto the edge of the mountain. As they rounded the corner, however, his eyes widened, and he gasped, now able to see the entire surrounding land that was covered in a beautiful sheet of pure white. It was a picturesque, dreamlike winter-scape, and Changkyun felt all of his negative feelings drip away at the sight, utterly enamored with the natural beauty.

Just as he was starting to really appreciate the serenity and peace, one of the teachers at the head of the bus stands up, clearing his throat loudly enough to startle Changkyun out of his daze.

“Alright guys, I know you’ve all been waiting on this. I’m announcing the rooming assignments for the next three days. Now, pay attention so we can make this easier when we get out,” he said, voice pleading as he said the last line. The entire bus looked up with interest as he began listing the names, the majority sounding like pretty standard pairings. Changkyun glanced over at Hyunwoo to his left, smiling gently over at the tan boy and wondering if he would get the assignment that he most wanted.

“Im Chankgyun and Yoo Kihyun,” the teacher said, his own voice faltering slightly at the odd pairing. Changkyun’s eyes widened and he turned around in his seat, glaring over at Kihyun. The entire class stared over at the two, hushed voices whispering as they tried to figure out why two boys that clearly hated each other would want to be roomed together. Meeting Changkyun’s gaze, Kihyun frowned, clenching his jaw as he slowly shook his head. He knew he shouldn’t try to pick a fight in a moving bus, so he held himself back, saving his anger for later.

Watching the two boys boil over in rage, Minhyuk chuckled, glad that his plan worked. He smoothed down the front of his shirt, eyes flickering to look out the window.

“I think a lot of things are about to change on this mountain. If nothing else, this is going to be an interesting trip~”

Chapters 2-6 can be read here! (link)

[highbuttonsports]

Calgary vs Ottawa (2021) flames senators - Bing images

Resilience

Like a bad Vietnam flashback, the Calgary Flames must have been sitting in the dressing room with pools of sweat on floor wondering what just happened after Thursday nights game against the Ottawa Senators. Things couldn’t have gone much worse on a night where optimism was trending up coming into it. After taking 3 of a possible 4 points to the division leading Maple Leafs the previous 2 games in Toronto, the Flames were feeling good about the direction their game was heading. Sure, it wasn’t a perfect couple games by any means but given what transpired Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers it was a huge improvement. The Oilers took it to the Flames to a tune of 7-1 and handed them, what at the time was thought to be, their worst loss of the season. That loss left everyone frustrated and wondering how to move forward. Well, they answered that by going into Toronto and shutting out the high-powered Leafs 3-0 behind the stellar goaltending of David Rittich. Big Save Dave was pressed into action after starter Jacob Markstrom couldn’t play due to an upper body injury. That remained the case the following game against Toronto, as Rittich and the Flames would try to carry that momentum into it.

Like the previous game, Calgary’s game plan appeared to be focussed on using tight defence to manufacture offence in transition. It was just as successful as they minimized scoring chances even while having to kill too many penalties. A problem they had all season as they have been short handed the 3rd most times in the league. Thanks to a PK that is operating at 80% (13th in the NHL), they were able to kill all 4 Toronto powerplays. That made for 11 straight successful PK’s against them which usually isn’t a good recipe for success especially when facing the 4th best PP. Of course, to have a good PK it usually comes down to the goaltending. Rittich once again closed the door on everything the Leafs threw at him. The Maple Leafs fired 39 shots and he was up to the task on all of them...almost. David was a minute and a half away from his 2nd consecutive shut out versus them when it all fell apart. With a 1-0 lead on a late period Mangiapane goal, Toronto pulled their goalie for an extra attacker. It almost backfired, but half a puck width is what stood between them and a 2-goal victory. The puck hit the post of an empty net and stayed out giving the Leafs hope. That unfortunate event turned into a game tying goal by William Nylander and forced overtime. It was Willy who scored again and won it in the extra frame for Toronto. That was such a disappointing way to end what was a successful 2 games to build off of. Sometimes those losses hurt more than the blowouts because the team was so close to winning. It can truly feel like something was taken from them or they let it slip away. The key is to not dwell on that missed opportunity and instead focus on all the positives that lead to being so close to victory.

Well, maybe the Flames took the sting of that loss with them to Ottawa the following night. In what can only be described as the worst loss of the season, the whole team decided not to show up for the game. At least that’s what it looked like. They seemed to get beat to every loose puck, lose every puck battle, and couldn’t generate any offence whatsoever. Every time they entered the offensive zone they were pressed to boards and unable to get any separation for a meaningful shot. Even David Rittich couldn’t bail them out as he was forced into playing back-to-back games with Markstrom missing another game. On top of that, all the same issues that plagued Calgary before popped up again. They started slow in finding themselves down 2-0 less than 10 minutes into the game as the Sens scored goals in 1:42. The Flames were yet again playing catch up facing a 1st intermission deficit. The shots on goal heavily favoured the Sens too as they held a 13-5 advantage. It was an awful start against what was suppose to be an inferior opponent that struggles to score. Ottawa is 24th in the NHL in goals for per game at 2.59 while they are the worst at giving up goals at 3.86/game. Calgary is actually worse at scoring coming in at 2.44 goals/game. Yet in the views of the hockey world, they are supposed to be the team more poised for success right now. There they were playing comeback hockey though. The Flames came out better to start the 2nd period, with Lucic scoring 1:41 into the period. It was his 1st goal in 9 games as he continues to drag that $5.25 million cap hit around with him. That put them back in the game, but it was short lived. 3 minutes later Lucic got stripped of the puck by Connor Brown to make it a 2-goal hole again. In fact, Lucic was responsible for giving the puck away on all 3 Ottawa goals. That doesn’t take any blame away from the listless effort of the whole team though. At the halfway mark of the game, they had only 6 SOG! It doesn’t matter how many goals the other team scores if you aren’t going to put any pressure on the opposing goalie. Things went from bad to worse from that moment on. The Sens took a 4-1 lead on what appeared to be a shoot in from just over center ice by Erik Brannstrom. At least that’s what Rittich thought. He tried cheating behind the net to intercept it, only to be fooled with a direct shot on net that he was unable to scramble back into position to stop. That was an ugly was the end an ugly night for him. After a coach’s timeout and then a t.v. timeout, Coach Ward mercifully pulled the frustrated tender. After 2 stellar performances Rittich was unable to make up for all the short comings of the team on this night. It was obvious he didn’t take that lightly either, as he could be seen walking down the tunnel towards the dressing room and smashing his stick. That about summed up the mood of the team and any fan watching this debacle. The only positive from this game is back up goalie Artyom Zagidulin got to see his 1st career NHL action. It’s not how he wanted to see it I am sure, but a nice moment for him regardless. He did give up a couple more goals to make it a 6-1 final, but by that point the game was out of hand anyways. Yes, the goaltending was bad giving up 6 goals on 31 shots but there was enough blame to go around. From the goaltending to the D to the forwards, there just wasn’t enough compete all around. There wasn’t any intensity either in what was billed as the meeting of the Tkachuk brothers. The game featured no penalties, which is a rarity in the modern NHL where penalties are assessed for the simple placing of a stick against the arm of the puck carrier. Maybe that’s exactly how Ottawa wanted to play it. Maybe it was the result of the Flames playing their 3rd game in 4 nights. Maybe they took the Senators for granted. Maybe it was just one of those games. Regardless, how they would answer that performance the next game would show what this team really is all about. If they came out flat once again and lost, the vultures would start circling.

It’s odd to say that after 21 games the Flames were at a point where the next game could decide how the next 35 would go, but here they were. Coming off their worst loss of the season, it was about character and resilience. It was about showing the fight the team had left in it. It would be easy to roll over and feel sorry for themselves. It would be easy to look at the standings and see the gap between them and the top as insurmountable. That’s not what a team with the leadership of captain Mark Giordano and Matthew Tkachuk does though. With 3 of the next 4 against the same Sens an opportunity still presented itself to pile up some points and jump back into a playoff spot. The team ahead of them, in the Montreal Canadiens, was having their own set of problems. There was still plenty of time to turn things around and cause havoc in the divisional hierarchy. However, that had to start the next game.

In Ottawa and without top netminder Jacob Markstrom for a 4th straight game, that would be a challenge. They brought him in for situations just like this. To be the guy to stop the bleeding and right a struggling team. With him out, it’s a lot to ask of backup Rittich to be that guy for long stretches. Even though he had shown back in Toronto he could do it, the team needed to come together. As well, Coach Ward decided to shake the lines up to give the players a fresh look and feel. He moved Lindholm from center to the right side of Monahan and Gaudreau. Backlund moved up to the second line between Tkachuk and Mangiapane. And Same Bennett was moved back to his more natural center position with Lucic and Dube. Those moves paid quick dividends as less than 5 mins into the game it was 2-0. They scored those 2 goals in a span of 37 seconds on the backs of goals from Valamaki (1st of the season) and Backlund. That was just the start they needed to gain confidence and quickly put the doubts seeded from last game behind them. They didn’t let up either, extending their lead to 3-1 after 1 period and a 6-2 lead after 2 periods. The newly formed Tkachuk-Backlund-Mangiapane seen this biggest boost in accounting for half of the goals and 7 points between them. With that type of offensive explosion, I expect these lines will carry forward to the next few games at least. The game was never in doubt from the drop of the puck, but even so Rittich was good when he had to be in stopping 31 of 34 shots. There is hope that Markstrom will be back for Mondays rematch the Ottawa, but if not Rittich will certainly be back between the pipes for a fifth straight start.

So, at .500 and 1 point behind the struggling Canadiens, Calgary would love nothing more than to end their 5-game eastern road trip with another win. That would give them a 7 of a possible 10 points on the trip, turning what was a low mark 6-1 loss during it into a success. Such is the highs and lows of an NHL season. The key is not to get too high on the highs and too low on the lows. It is critical for a team to remain even keeled. If they don’t it can unravel pretty quick and a couple losses can turn into a half dozen. Those types of losing streaks must be avoided in a season where the standings can swing dramatically one way or the other. Much like the way the outlook of this Flames team swung from Thursday to Sunday. Where in the former all seemed lost, now in the latter resilience and hope spring forward.

*all stats provided by NHL.com

By: Jaymee Kitchenham

[deztinywarriors]

ES Spectre 2.0 Chapter 11-3

[nightblink]

Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 33-38

Part Two – New Beginnings Sing

That title alone has me really hyped for this Part, you guys.

Also, Bridge Four as a POV? The entirety of Bridge Four? Sanderson you have given us a gift.

Chapter Thirty-Three – A Lecture

“Dearest Cephandrius” OH OH WE'RE GETTING LETTERS BACK FROM THE DRAGON NOW

That is a great sketch of Urithiru too. We need a person or chull or something down at the bottom for scale, though.

Jasnaaaaaaaaaahhhh

“All she'd done was grope an eldritch spren.” Yeah, and opened yourself in order to beat it back – no matter that the others did the physical fighting, that fact that you didn't pass out on the spot after that is, frankly, amazing.

Shallan, you already know that stormlight can make a Radiant extremely resistant to dying, and you're still this surprised that Jasnah sauntered back into your life?

Like the branch clan, Jasnah is Kholin Extra™

That crystal pillar sounds like a work of art, and symbolic of all ten orders of the Radiants that once lived there. Please please please let us see it infused at some point!

Shallan, your crush is showing again.

A lecture, hah! You are still technically her ward, and its entirely like Jasnah to just slide right back into that pre-established relationship as if nothing had happened.

[hums] The difference from what I can tell is that fabrials aren't powered by sentient spren, but ones that are the nature-forces, with no mind of their own.

Ooo, you're used to being the one giving the orders rather than ordered around now, and the change grates on you. Someone comes back who's always had authority over you and you realize how much you liked the power.

So. About those Ghostbloods, Jasnah…

You've been trying to impersonate an Elsecaller while not even knowing about Transportation, Shallan? That's a glaring oversight.

Ooo, speaking of which, apparently Transport – or at least Transport when the body passes into the Cognitive Realm entirely – isn't so simple as a Teleport spell.

Jasnah has a lot of catching up to do. (And not only with the current state of events, but also the fact that pretty much all of her family save her mother are mentally fraying apart.)

Chapter Thirty-Four – Resistance

YES YES YES TIME FOR DALINAR TO KICK DOWN SOME MENTAL DOORS

Mmm, good choice of vision. It'll let her see monsters and Radiants both, and throw an emotional weight behind the vision that some of the others don't have.

That's. Huh. I wasn't expecting that sort of philosophy from the Stormfather either. That's an entirely new side to him than we've ever seen before.

Heights – or sudden flying – aren't your thing, I see. Then again, after being tossed into the sky to fall and die by Szeth… understandable.

Tell us more about Plate, I need more information on Plate-

Oooo, yes, Navani and Jasnah are used to analysis, picking things apart piece by piece and extracting all the relevant detail. They'd both be the best picks for this – although Shallan with her eye for art would be a good counterpoint in observation.

“You will know or you will not.” That's so very helpful, Stormfather.

Yeah, it's not going the same as before – her involvement will change it differently than yours did.

The Midnight Essence isn't a true creature, but a monster, and you now know that the Midnight Mother is behind these things and the mirror-murders both.

Fling-and-stick! Like an al dente ramen noodle

There's the Queen! Where Dalinar fought his way through this vision, she organized a resistance – and in so little time! Wow, if I didn't already like her before, this would seal the deal.

Yes, best not to mention your little God-is-dead heresy. People haven't been taking kindly to that so far, no reason to assume that Queen Fen will either.

Okay, good, we're getting to the meat of the matter. Fen has very good reason not to trust you, Dalinar, and while these visions are convincing, you need to convince her now. Time is not on your side.

“Am I? Oh, let me storming reconsider, then.” Finally, the honesty straight to his face. And that's the breaking point.

This is another point I'd like so see animated. Passion indeed – Dalinar here is all snapping fire.

Oh my god Dalinar, you are the center of all the hot gossip on the networks. Never mind that it's all blown out of proportion, you did say and do some pretty radical things. Hearing about it from an outside perspective, it really does sound like you went off the deep end – with an enthusiastic leap, at that.

At least Fen might listen now. It's a much better chance than you had before.

Chapter Thirty-Five – First Into the Sky

Bridge Fooooouuuurrrrrr

Sigzil! We're getting Sigzil POV!

The mental image of B4 scrambling up for breakfast from Rock is absurdly heartwarming and just the sort of thing we need to lift the tone around all the other coming-of-the-apocalypse chapters.

Shhhh, you'd look good with an afro, Sigzil.

I keep snickering every time they refer to breathing stormlight as 'eating' the sphere. But oh, that'sa nice detail – the B4 tattos remain, but underneath them the slave brands are healed. Bridge Four is a part of him, but he doesn't consider the slave brands as part of himself, or he's somehow overcome them.

LOPEN PLZ

Lopen is forever a gift to this world.

Awww, poor Sig, annoyed at his height amongst all these 'what-is-under-six-feet' Alethi.

“the other thing”? What other thing. Sigzil. What's up with Teft.

Everyone's dream: to walk in on Kaladin doing morning push-ups, probably with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow

You just need more staff to help handle things, Sigzil, you're just getting pushed to the limits of what you can do with what you have.

Bridge Four getting families yesssss. These people deserve all the happiness they can find.

[snorts] Of course Sigzil's reaction to learning Drehy is gay is “b-but the paperwork!” And Sig, it's not that there aren't forms for that in Alethkar, it's that the Alethi just don't do things the same way as the Azish.

Sigzil trying to emulate Hoid and tell a story! That's actually a really great way to get through to Kaladin. That “Hush” though, hah. The drawback is that you're… not quite as good at this as Hoid is. Then again. Hoid.

What has Teft gotten into.

Oooo, shit, Kaladin, that was harsh.

That's a good point about recruitment, and if some of them actually start becoming full Windrunners like Kaladin as well. I can't imagine they'd want to split off, but remaining integrated with the rest of the bridge crew would be its own set of challenges.

Oh. Oh, Kal, that's not…. That's the same mistake Shallan made, I think.

LET HER(?) FIGHT

Thank you for that echo, Sigzil.

Sigzil does seem the type to want a “proper” hierarchy in place, with clearly set positions. It makes sense to him and gives him a sense of security. Kaladin being referred to as a lighteyes by one of his own bridgemen, though, ooof.

Everstorm Count: 3

Thank the Almighty we have you around to ask these questions, Sigzil. They don't know yet that Dalinar plans to split from Alethkar, but all of those questions still need to be considered, and on a larger scale than just Alethkar.

First into the air, oh, Sigzil

….the royal emerald reserve. The royal emerald reserve. Hooooooly shitto da. Kaladin, you're lucky that Elhokar's got a massive crush on you. Dalinar probably just had to say “for Bridge Four's practice” and Elhokar was already chucking the bags at him.

Chapter Thirty-Six – Hero

YESSSS, FLASHBACK CHAPTER

Wait, twenty-four years? Wasn't the last one something like twenty-eight or twenty-nine? Are… are we not getting Dalinar's early years with Evi? The courtship, even a tiny scene of the marriage? Nothing. Goddamn it, Sanderson, this is a crime. I'm disappointed in you.

Evi liked needlework! Ahh, that's good to know~

Once again she proves herself a snuggler, I love it. And instead of shying away from it like last time, Dalinar's fine with it-

She's pregnant with Adolin she's pregnant with Adolin-! And she calls Dalinar 'beloved'! Asdajfdhjgdhadhjd Sanderson why did you deprive us of their relationship developmeeeeent

So he's still continually itching for a fight, he's just not as bloodthirstily lusting for it anymore. Or he's repressing it. That's… hmmm. I don't think as much of the fight's gone out of him as we're seeing.

'He'd never had a high opinion of dueling.' Oh shit, so how did that colour your early opinion of your elder son's Calling…?

...okay so one, now we know where Adolin gets his perceptiveness from; two, that's a disturbing train of thought. Only alive when he's tasting death on the air. That also explains why he's so relatively subdued at the moment. The fact that she says “like a blackness from the old stories” actually makes me wonder if he is under the influence of something more at this point – perhaps even one of the Unmade.

!!! okay so Rirans have blond hair but still possibly canonically the metallic golden skin tint. I'm still clutching to the subtle!metallics but we'll see how far this takes us

He still doesn't feel any actual love for her at this point. Uuugh, Dalinar, you don't deserve Evi.

Ooo, I can see why Navani dismissed Evi so easily back in TWoK. That sort of attitude on curiosity and discovery is something she'd automatically recoil from.

And Gavilar paid no attention to Navani while she spoke of her passions. That's not a positive indication of the kind of husband he was.

They share enough tenets that the friction between the two religions can pop up almost out of nowhere – they think the other is following their train of thought, and then nope.

Now Gavilar comes in with news of the Rift – they did go there a second time. But why-

You didn't kill the kid. You didn't kill the kid.

Gavilar's not happy, but it's at least giving him a chance to solve things via politics. Which is not going to happen in the end, not if something so terrible happened at the rift that it caused one of Dalinar's own elites to turn to the ardentia.

But in this moment, Dalinar's heart flared for Evi.

Chapter Thirty-Seven – The Last Time We March

….that dragon does not seem at all concerned enough about Odium, and he's just brushing Devotion and Dominion's loss aside as if it were an inevitability, and not even a regrettable one. But how did they “violate [the] pact”, and what did that agreement entail?

MORE BRIDGE FOOOUUUURR

I'll admit that I spent a good few minutes staring at the page and sounding out Rock's name until I got it right.

They're back on the Shattered Plains for a night? I wonder why...

I like the softer feel of contemplation we're getting here. There's less momentum to the writing, but it needed this slow-down. Like the stew, it's a comfort.

Oh ho, this is where they've come to practice! YESSSS. The wind across the plains, whipping through the chasms, the open sky and the high drop of the sheer sides – this is where they practiced before, it's just a new kind now.

Five women! Yesssssss, thank you Kaladin for shoving aside Alethi cultural boundaries on fighting being restricted to men.

Lopen, you are a gem

Rock – Lunamor – should absolutely take credit for that. A good breakfast can set the tone for the entire morning.

“Peet, don't think I haven't seen you glowing.” PFFFFFFT

….Teft is still absent. That's not encouraging.

“their true shapes beyond the streamers” Wait, what? A larger body to the spren? Can Rock see a shadow or echo of the spren as they are in the Cognitive Realm?

[cackles] Introducing Rock to new flavor combinations will save your skin. Messing with his dishes otherwise? You've earned that death sentence.

Lopen oh my god you are the brightest ray of sunshine on the Plains, you crazy, amazing, reckless idiot

Ohhhh, Hobber

Kaladin is a bundle of emotion held together by love and promises and Syl and covered in a stone shell. A thin one.

R o c k you are also a gift unto this world. First you make Kaladin happy then you give us 'airsick lowlander, second class'.

Lopen. I. I don't even. How.

Kaladin, you're going to lose people. I know you refuse to accept it, to save them all, to grieve with acute pain at every loss, but… Rock's right. You being you, though, you'll never accept that. And that's as it should be.

Please take your giant dysfunctional, crazy-ass family to visit the Peaks, Rock. By the point when you actually get the time to do so, they and you will all probably be able to fly up there anyway.

Elhokar! And here I thought you'd have a golden circlet rather than a silver one in order to match your glyphpair.

A few weeks as a timeline before they send in their Strike Team to Kholinar. Mmmm. On one hand, I don't like them leaving the city and its Oathgate under riot and/or occupation for that long, but on the other, they have a much better chance of retaking it if they have a Radiant or few more, or at least a few more squires practiced in their power.

!!! Their old bridge! The actual bridge of Bridge Four! Tough wood indeed.

Of course they brought the cauldrons along. There's more to Bridge Four than just the fighting. There's more to their heart than just courage in battle. Bridge Four was forged around Rock's cooking fire, and that remains part of the core of them.

“a beat he could almost, barely, just faintly hear.” That's as good as confirmed that the Listener blood can run strong enough in some lines that they can sense the Rhythms. Rock, we still need clarification on what those “particular heritage and blessings” are.

Renarin! Speaking of more members of Bridge Four~ Your place isn't with your cousin right now, 'Rin; it's with your Bridge.

Oh my god. Please. We've already had Elhokar psuedo-adoped by a Herdazian matriarch, so can we please get a scene of Rock absconding with Dalinar to have him help make bread.

Why is Glys still hiding? And where? I assume he's in the fidget-box, but that's just an assumption.

Thank the Heralds for Rock knowing how to treat and talk with Renarin. He needs friends who aren't his brother. And Rock… Rock's honest and knows how to state things in a way that Renarin can absorb well.

Ohhh, 'Rin you're thinking that you're not… No. Fix that perception, Rock. He's Bridge Four, he'll always be Bridge Four.

Almost not bitter. But being bitter is an inescapable part of Renarin Kholin. Burning bitterness, biting his tongue, pride, and a wish to be himself but not knowing what that means.

[hums] You want to fight because your father wants it, true, but it's what you yourself want as well, isn't it. And the other things… you eschew them because you don't want to be an ardent, and others assumed, forced those assumptions on you and expected you to follow them, then were confused when you didn't – but did it pain you to abandon things you were naturally good at and maybe even liked?

(You are a light in your own right, Renarin, who you are and who you want to be. Some people already see it. Rock. Adolin. Other people can come to see it too.)

Can we get some Renarin+Rlain interaction now, BrandoSando. Please. What do I have to pay you for it.

Does anyone else think Rock would make a great fellow Truthwatcher? He already sees things that others do not, and has a tendency to see straight to the heart of a matter. Not that those are prerequisites or anything, but. Just saying.

Lunamor please do share that story about your great-great-great grandfather later though please, because some of us want very much to hear it.

Ahhhhh! Are there actual honorspren watching the squires? Perhaps debating making a bond? Yessssssss, come on, do the thing-! (Or at least consider!)

How much interaction do the Unkalaki have with spren, I wonder, with Rock's way of showing reverence so different from almost all the other cultures we've encountered on Roshar?

Not so much animated, but I'd like to see a picture of this scene, Rock heading out with his offerings and bowing deep before the gathered Honorspren, the greatest of them acknowleging him with an outstretched hand and receiving his offering. Lovely.

Oh, oh, is Hobber going to-

HE DID IT

aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh Bridge Four

...smoke on the Plains? Trouble?

This bridge run though – resplendent with stormlight, singing their marching beat – what once was a source of terror and despair is a vision of glory now.

Shit, it was an attack by fliers. Without the Alethi armies that once assaulted them, they'll take every chance to pick off what stragglers they can.

Alert, alert – someone on Roshar called a bird something other than a chicken

Yes! Yes! FINALLY WE MEET ROCK'S FAMILY

A wife and six lovely children – six! - but the youngest is too young to even truly remember him, oh my heart breaks for him… And even he thinks of the cracks in his soul that have changed him further from the man they knew than a simple year's passage could.

Oh no, something is wrong on the Peaks, but… isn't that where it's theorized that the Shardpool is located?

The last run of the bridge. It's sad… but a good kind of melancholy.

Chapter Thirty-Eight – Broken People

Time for the next vision-conversation! And this is a vision segment that we haven't seen before, excellent, though so fair it's just a straight-up battle.

“Dalinar smiled to hear a fragment of God cursing.” We all are, Dalinar. It's immensely satisfying to see you surprise this millenia-old Sliver.

Oh, shit, humans fighting for the Voidbringers as well? That's kind of important information, Dal!

Wait. There was no Everstorm in Desolations past? Wh a t

Okay, okay, so amber shardplate belongs to Stonewards (not Bondsmiths, that must be a more golden-ish colour) and that stone-ripple Surge was Tension. Huh. Huh. We need more information on how Tension works, because that was not at all what I was expecting.

“Welcome to my madness, ladies.” DALINAR PL E A S E

'Devices' that provide healing – way back when they somehow managed to create healing fabrials, and that's what the lady Stoneward of his 'midnight essence vision' used the first time he experienced it. That's definitely a piece of equipment that Navani needs to start working on as soon as possible.

Your uncle has a point, Jasnah. He out-stubborned the Stormfather.

Speaking of stubbornness, of course Navani managed to gently bully her way into getting a look at the fabrial

Interesting. I'd expected a conversation about religion considering how they started, but this… this is something that Dalinar would indeed have far more trouble dealing with. He knows his own faith, but all these external lies and accusations keep building up and no one is taking his own word. Of all people, Jasnah understands this the most.

Renarin just got much the same speech from Lunamor, in an entirely different manner.

They've been viewing the old fabrials wrong. Huh. But in what way?

Aharietiam.

Will they see the Heralds here? Or the circle of Honorblades struck into the stone? Could Dalinar have missed the true point of the vision in his first time through, so long ago?

Honor was yet unShattered when the Heralds broke their vow

But. The Stormfather was still a Bondsmith!spren back during the previous Desolations. He's noted as “one of three spren who can bond with humans to create a Bondsmith” in The Pocket Companion to The Stormlight Archive. So. He wasn't a true Splinter back during those days. He's become more powerful since that time.

Oh shit I was right. The circle of Honorblades. They now have enough information to recognise what it means. The Heralds lied.

Navani's world suddenly turned upside down. It's one thing to hear Dalinar claim that 'God is dead', but to see these blades and hear the Heralds lied confirmed by the Stormfather himself? It's earth-shattering.

That's what the Voidspren with Venli meant when it said that their ancestors led them – yet were not alive. They're stuck in a cycle of never-ending torturous rebirth. Fuck.

Each time, the Heralds could withstand less torture. The time between Desolations started to decrease exponentially. Hundreds of years, to tens, and finally less than a year between Desolations? No wonder society could never rebuild itself! No wonder they decided to break the Oathpact!

Looks like even the Stormfather can change, if even a little. As the Nahel bond alters the ones like honorspren and cryptics, even one as great as the Stormfather can feel its effect.

Taln never broke before. All those Desolations, and it was never him. It took him by himself, bearing the entire horror of Damnation for four and a half thousand years to break him.

Damn.

Damn.

And now because the Oathpact is so weak, Odium was able to create the Everstorm. And the spren of the dead do not return to Damnation.

“Were you to know it, you would abandon your oaths as the ancient Radiants did.” W h a t

What secret was even more terrible than this one. What secret was so damning that the Radiants would kill their spren and leave their own souls split open and unraveling.

[engekihaikyuu]

My thoughts on the new Engeki Haikyuu, Winners and Losers!!! Details under the Read More to avoid spoiling anyone who would rather wait until the DVD release.

With a 3+ hour play, it’s hard to do a detailed summary that goes scene by scene because I know I’ll forget about something or mix up order of events, so I mostly want to go over the major themes and particular scenes and characters that stuck out to me. If you have questions for any other character or how a specific scene played out, please feel free to ask! One of the main bits of thematic imagery used this time around was wind as well as the obvious one of music, which we’ve seen in dress rehearsal footage. They went with something of a wind theme for Aoba Johsai, with projections that show gusts of wind flowing across the stage with leaves flying on it, sometimes the breeze animation will shift into twisting, curling vines. Hinata has a couple of dream sequences in the play where he’s buffeted by those winds, and he repeats: “There’s a wind blowing. Sometimes it’s with you, sometimes it’s against you.” Kenma is in the dreams as well (sometimes with a cat head), warning Hinata to not get caught up in that wind, but also implicitly reminding him that he needs that wind to fly.  No seriously, the dream sequences were meant to be surreal and weird. This results in a line that Hinata says to Kageyama that is unique to the stage play. “Kageyama, let’s ride the wind!” And to go along with that theme and those images, there are several moments throughout the play where Kenta is strapped into a bungee that hangs down from the ceiling (once, Kageyama is strapped into a bungee of his own) and them he will literally go flying around the stage, taking massive leaps as they run around. Sometimes he’s hooked into a lifting harness and it’ll pull him just straight up into the air where he’ll even just flip around on them like an aerial acrobat to show how high he can “fly.” I personally really enjoyed this added thematic element to this match. I always enjoy when a new version of an existing work interprets the source material in creative ways to work specifically with the new medium, and Engeki Haikyuu is always excellent about fully utilizing THEATER-SPECIFIC effects and humor. It does things with the story you’ll never see in the anime, things that don’t read right in illustrations, and I’ve always held a deep appreciation for the creative collaboration this show has been. When it comes to the music theme, it’s there for both teams, but much less so for Karasuno, since Aoba Johsai is meant to be the image of a smooth orchestra, and Karasuno is still a little haphazard as a team. Every single piece of Seijoh’s choreography and music reflects the orchestra theme. Their movements are always elegant and smooth, and now they feature a lot of ballet movements. Aoba Johsai is meant to be classical music, Karasuno is a rock band trying to figure itself out lol. And of course that ties into the setters because Oikawa is that model orchestra conductor. When Suga is on the court, it’s like he’s directing a jazz band. Fun and upbeat, mostly in sync, but not Seijoh’s elegance. For Kageyama, it’s difficult to get the hang of the conducting, he doesn’t quite know how to lead the team in a distinct choreography line Suga can, but that also highlights how hard the team is working around Kageyama to try to follow the pace he’s setting. So following that I want to talk about Kageyama because I must have cried for about three of his scenes at least. They feature a lot of flashbacks for him, including the middle school mid-match rejection we’ve seen before, as well as the scene from middle school where he asks Oikawa to teach him and nearly got punched instead. These flashback scenes are done a few times each, with the narration and POV switching between characters, and when it’s Kageyama’s POV, he is unbelievably hurt when Oikawa rejects him the way he did. He gets so caught up in that memory, remembering that he then decided he would simply have to become better than Oikawa, and this is when his conducting gets super erratic and his plays start getting sloppy. Sometimes the King of the Court will appear on stage (a secondary actor wearing the crown and the cloak) and Kageyama will see him and turn away in fear. Just before he’s benched and Suga takes the court, he grabs the King by the shoulders screaming at him, “NOT YOU! NO! GO AWAY!” They show him physically rejecting this haunting memory of the setter he used to be, and honestly, it’s super heartbreakinggggg. Heart-wrenching moments also go to Suga of course, but I always found them most GUHHH when his own insecurities are directly tied to still being a good senpai to Kageyama. And I feel like the stage play acknowledges this much more than the manga and the anime, because they give Suga and Kageyama so many moments together. The stage play better shows Kageyama’s admiration of Suga and also his appreciation of him, as the setter senpai who doesn’t reject him the way Oikawa did. Over and over the two of them share this one line of dialogue where Suga gently reminds Kageyama that their team is strong and he’s not alone. He can depend on them. Suga: What do we say about our team? Kageyama: Everyone is very strong. Whenever Suga is on the court they give a LOT of attention to third years and how overjoyed the three of them are to play together. Daichi and Asahi are extra animated and take center stage with Suga as they play, and it’s sooooo sweeeet!!! They do also include flashbacks to the third years when they first joined Karasuno, and this is done by the three seconds years wearing face masks of the older three. Kazuma/Ennoshita plays younger Suga, Kouhei/Tanaka plays younger Asahi, and Shouhei/Noya plays younger Daichi. Hilariously, Shouhei has like a cushion or something stuffed up his shirt to give him Daichi’s broad chest and then he also just sticks that chest out constantly and I could not stop laughing. THE TOBIUO. A scene where I laughed WAY longer than I should have was when Tsukishima and Tanaka make the flying fish joke with Kageyama’s name. What you don’t see is everyone else covering Kageyama from view as he puts on AN ACTUAL RIDICULOUS BLUE FISH OUTFIT and then he awkwardly hops forward screaming that he’s not a fish. And just when I thought to myself, wow, I can’t believe they made him a fish outfit for this 2 second joke, HE THEN KEPT IT ON FOR THE ENTIRE NEXT BIT OF CONDUCTING CHOREOGRAPHY, FLAPPING HIS FINS TO LEAD THE TEAM IN A ROUTINE FOR A SOLID 3 MINUTES??? BEFORE HE WADDLED OFF-STAGE TO CHANGE. I cried at that. Another sequence of scenes that I found super emotional was everything leading up to Yamaguchi’s failed serve. They show him asking Shimada, training with him, etc… but they also tied in Tsukishima more closely. They show Yamaguchi telling Tsukki he has something else to do and running off, and Tsukishima acting very rejected. During the Seijoh match, during a timeout, he and Tsukki share this dialogue. Yamaguchi: It looks rough out there. Tsukishima: Well obviously. Standing on the court for a while is tiring. Yamaguchi: But… I’m still envious. Of everyone. I want to stand on the court too! And as Yamaguchi stands there, his back to Tsukki as he admires the team, Tsukishima reaches out and says Yamaguchi’s name to tell him something BUT THEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS and they have to resume play. I have never been more frustrated omg because that extra “Yamaguchi!” is not in the manga or anime and my heart was just screaming WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO SAY?!?!?? As for adorable cute, time to talk about Kuroo and Kenma. Because oh my god. I know a lot of you know by now that Takato and Shouri cross dress to play Oikawa fangirls during the match, but they have about FIVE MILLION costume changes???? They’re CONSTANTLY running off the stage to change into Kuroo and Kenma and coming out on stage for flashbacks or Hinata dream sequences or to serve as visual reminders for Kageyama and Hinata as they remember playing with them. They’re constantly implying that the setters always have that one spiker that they trust and always toss to. For Kenma, that’s Kuroo. For Kageyama, it’s Hinata. For Oikawa, it’s Iwaizumi. For Suga, it’s Asahi. Kuroo frequently circles Hinata as Kenma circles Kageyama to play up that parallel. And then they run off stage to put the skirts and the extra hair pieces back on… I mean, I lost count of the costume changes after ten. As girls, they did a personality switch so Takato is the friendly, outgoing girl who is always pulling Shouri along and engages in conversation with Shimada about the game and the plays they make. Shouri is the shy one who trails behind or is scared of talking to Shimada and the one who gets super flustered and squealy. These two are the source of the humor most of the time because the players have a lot of drama going on obviously. When they first get on stage as girls, Takato asks, “Did you get taller again?” Shouri, super chipper, and with his voice pitched up, goes, “Now I’m 187cm tall!” They also show up at the end of the first intermission to open the second Act as Kuroo and Kenma. Kuroo STRUTS onto the stage and dramatically gestures for everyone to clap, and then he SNAPS to make everyone stop and just goes, “That’s goood~” Then he tries to do the Nekoma chant but gets to the brain line and goes, “Wait! The brain isn’t here! Kenma!!!” Then Kenma walks onto the stage playing a game and Kuroo tells him to switch it off, so Kenma turns to the audience. “Since I have to turn off my game, if everyone else in the audience could also please turn off your cell phones and refrain from—“ Kuroo: “Who are you talking to?” And Kenma keeps giving general viewing instructions and Kuroo keeps being weirded out because obviously “There’s nobody there.” But then Kenma keeps trying to break the fourth wall and keeps asking Kuroo taboo questions. Kenma: Say, Kuroo… why are we the only Nekoma members— Kuroo: That’s taboo!!! Kenma: What about those girls— Kuroo: ALSO TABOO; DON’T SAY IT!!!! Obviously these are supposed to be the girls that originally came to cheer on Oikawa but as they continued to watch the match, they started rooting for Karasuno too. Towards the end of the third set, Takato shouts, “Aoba Johsai, Karasuno… Both of you do your best!!!” And then Shouri starts PULLING UP HIS SKIRT to show his Nekoma uniform underneath and shrieks, “NEKOMA, DO YOUR BEST TOO!” and Takato has to pull his skirt back down while screaming that that was especially taboo!!! Shouri spends the rest of their scene there with his pink skirt pulled up awkwardly around his chest because of the way he pulled on it, and it was SUPER DISTRACTING. And um… uhhh…. I’m leaving out so much, there was so much going on, but this is so long and… I woke up at 4am because of jetlag and instead of going back to sleep I started writing this so... I’ll make other posts as I remember more and feel free to ask!!!

[cooperjones2020]

What’s Past is Prologue, What to Come, pt. 3

I’m having a hard time with this fic where I dislike the language of the childhood flashback scenes but I have no problem coming up with the plot, while the plot of the high school scenes is giving me headaches but the language flows more easily. Boo.

TWs for stalking, violence, voyeurism, underage

(ao3-->http://archiveofourown.org/works/11394858/chapters/25519734)

(parts one and two)

The night before he was to be sent to the Riverdale Juvenile Delinquent Center, Jughead Jones had a mission to accomplish. He laid in his bed, with his back to the door, and waited for the sounds of his parents settling in for the night. He watched Jellybean turn over through the mesh of her bed rails. A while later, past the hum of the TV in his parents’ bedroom, he heard his father’s truck start up. When he was sure it was safe, he sat up, pulled his beanie back on, and hopped off the bed to crouch on the floor.

From under his bed, in the farthest corner, behind books, toys, shoes, and a tub of hand-me-down clothing even Jellybean had already outgrown, he pulled out a cardboard box.

The contents of the box had migrated over the years. At first, he’d slipped the flatter pieces between his mattress and bed frame or tucked them behind the headboard. Bigger pieces went into a drawer, covered with a layer of papers, reject toy parts, and gum wrappers. Eventually, though, his souvenirs had grown too many to disperse effectively, so he’d snagged a box from the trailer park’s dumpster. He had kept it in the closet for a while, but one day he’d found his mother rifling through the clothes above it and panic had squeezed his heart at the risk of discovery. It had been safe under the bed for the past few months.

From the box, he lifted a large blonde doll in a pink sweater. He ran his fingers over her skin before setting her on the bed next to him and sifting through the remaining contents. A worn copy of The Hobbit. Two drawings of Smaug, one by Jughead and one by Betty. Hers had a scribble on the back from Archie, from where he’d tried to use it to play tic tac toe. A Pokemon trading card—Ninetales—Betty’s favorite. A recipe for the chocolate-reese’s-pretzel cookies, written in pink gel pen and cursive with hearts over the i’s. Betty’s third grade school picture. The scarf she’d given him for Christmas that year. A picture of the three of them from last summer, Betty in the middle with her arms around their necks, her toothy smile showing braces and the quickly closing gap between her two front teeth. He’d folded it so Archie couldn’t be seen.

Outsiders may think Archie was the link between them, that Betty’s light and Jughead’s darkness could never otherwise touch. But she was the beating heart of their triad. She was Jughead’s beating heart, held outside his body.

He added the lighter he’d snuck back out of his father’s pocket when FP had left him in the car at the Whyte Worm. He slipped the photo in his pocket before replacing the doll and the box’s lid. On his way to the front door, he stopped in the kitchen to snag two plastic bags, a flashlight, and the garden spade that had lived there since his mother’s aborted attempted at raising tomatoes.

In the woods beyond Sunnyside, he wrapped the box in the plastic bags and buried it in as deep a hole as he could dig. He did not cry, though the black thing inside him raged and screamed and rattled the bars of its cage.

Three years later, when they were 13, Mary Andrews moved to Chicago, Archie Andrews asked out Ginger Lopez, and Jughead Jones saw Betty Cooper naked.

Archie asked Ginger out at Field Day, during the last week of school, after the egg toss. When Betty had looked ready to bolt, unsteady on her giraffe legs, Jughead slid his hand down her arm to grip her wrist, leaned in, and said, “Do you think Archie knows that means he’ll have to talk to her for more than five minutes at a time? I didn’t think minions normally got subplots of their own. I wonder if Cheryl will have to write a script for her.”

She responded with one short, semi-hysterical-sounding giggle. He could feel the delicate bones of her hand flutter when she flexed her fingers. Warmth spread through his chest and curled around the muscles of his arms and legs.

Betty agreed to be his partner for the next four events. He kept up a running commentary for her on his head canons for their classmates, his analysis of their athletic prowess, his skepticism with regard to their intelligence.

“Plebeians, the lot of them.” That earned him a fraction of a smile. Not good enough.

By the end of the day, he had her laughing and the haunted look had left her eyes. She only spared Ginger and Archie one long, lingering look before slipping his arm through his and letting him walk her home.

His own walk back to the trailer park later that afternoon echoed with the sounds in his head. He loved to hear her laugh. Almost as much as he loved to hear her cry.

One month later and Archie and Ginger had been on exactly one date. Jughead had a sneaking suspicion interesting conversation and shared interests were not the foundation of their relationship. While Fred Andrews was at work and Archie was at football day camp, Jughead had been letting himself into the house with the copy he’d had made of the spare key he found in the junk drawer. Usually, Betty spent the mornings volunteering at the library, and Jughead sat in front of the window air conditioner in the living room and tried to write. But that day Alice’s station wagon had been in the driveway, so Jughead vaulted up the stairs to see if Betty was in her room. If she couldn’t come out, maybe they could talk about their summer reading across the air between their windows.

He never got a chance to ask her, though. When he walked into Archie’s room, he saw Betty Cooper standing in front of her bed, surveying three bras displayed on the comforter. They still had their tags. She was topless.

His first thought was that she did not look like the girls in his father’s Playboy magazines. His second thought was that he ought to leave immediately.

He didn’t.

He set his backpack on the ground in front of him and slowly crouched down to remove the disposable camera he’d found the week before.

When he’d used up all the available film, when Betty disappeared through the doorway to her bathroom, he bolted. Even though he knew neither of the Andrews men would be home for at least two hours, he locked himself in the guest bath.

He ripped open his pants and masturbated until it hurt. He could not get the image of Betty, topless, wandering around her room, out of his head—the light, downy hair that caught the sunlight on her tanned back, the triangular swell of her tits.

His mind spun with images of Betty — Betty stretched on her floral bedspread, Betty on her knees, Betty’s face, her whole body, red and marked. Bruised. Scratched. Bitten.

Jughead met the eyes of his own reflection in the fractured mirror above the sink. His hand was bleeding. His beanie had fallen off. Hair covered one side of his face.

He looked like his father.

A dull whirring noise filled his ears.

A window faced the open bathroom door. He walked up to it, punched a hole in the corner pane with the hand that was already bleeding, then went to Archie’s room to look for a baseball, which he left rolling in the sink.

He calmly closed and locked the back door behind him and walked away. He did not come back for two days.

When he did, Betty cooed over his battered hand. She insisted on cleaning and rewrapping it for him. She held his wrist under the running water of the Andrews’ kitchen sink, but after minute she began to squeeze.

The tendons in her hands bulged and Jughead felt the bones of his arm compress. He called her name, but when she turned her face to him, her eyes were shining and unfocused. Her lips, wet and parted.

He pulled his hand to break her grip. She blinked, then turned behind her to grab the first aid kit. She proceeded as if nothing had happened. Later, four, thin, finger-shaped bruises joined the chaos.

Archie did not make the connection between his broken skin of Jughead’s hand and the broken glass upstairs.

The first time Jughead lost control of the monster inside of him, he saw Betty Cooper kissing Reggie Mantle on the cheek. In Reggie’s hands, a pink and white kite with leaves stuck to the cross bar. He had been tall, even then. Jughead watched them from behind a tree as Betty kissed him, thanked him, fluttered her big eyes at him.

Jughead felt dark, acrid smoke roil through his ribcage, filling him from the inside out. He had to get away. But Betty was at the park. Archie and Mr. Andrews were at home.

He tried to go to his own home but his mother had the neighbor ladies over and had shooed him out.

His feet took him to the only place his mind could be free of his body, the Riverdale Elementary School library. The lights had already been shut off for the day, but that was okay. Emergency lamps cast small pools of blue light onto the floor every few feet. It smelled of air conditioning and paper. He walked to the farthest corner and brushed his fingertips against the spines of the books as he began to wind his way through the labyrinth of shelves.

Betty knew she belonged to Archie. She knew she and Archie belonged to him. Archie may not get it, but she knew the rules. Betty was friends with everyone but she spent all her time with them. She had to know.

Watching Betty and Archie’s friendship made Jughead feel a way his own friendships with the two didn’t. When he stood next to Betty or Archie on his own, the wrinkles on his clothes or the bags under his eyes were always more pronounced by contrast. But together, they illuminated everything around them.  Together, they shone so brightly that Jughead could, at least for a while, ignore his own darkness.

He needed to hurt something. He could not hurt Betty Cooper. He could not reach her to punish her for betraying him. Every day, at precisely 5:30, she returned to her ivory tower. She did not have the key.

His fingertips began to numb as they traversed hundreds of spines. He came to a row of small yellow books with rough covers and stopped.

His face was wet. Someone was shouting.

He ripped the books from the shelves as quickly as he could, flinging them with all his strength. They crashed against the opposite bookshelf and landed on the floor—covers open—pages bent—like limbs, splayed and indecent.

He dropped to his knees, piled them into a pyramid, and lit them on fire.

The dusty pages caught quickly. He watched until the flames grew high enough to lap at the second row of shelves, then slipped out the gym door unseen.

But elementary schools have security cameras.

She promised to write him letters every day. But even then, with a cynicism he could not remember ever being without, Jughead knew her mother would never allow it.

And she hadn’t. Betty had written the letters anyway. When he came home, they sat together while he read them. She held his hand while he cried. She knew he’d set the fire. She did not know he burned Nancy Drew.

[fandomlife-giver]

The Job of a High School Chef!: 1

Summary: It’s your first day at Ouran, and although your head is held high, everything you expect to go good turns sour when you are forced to do as they say, or it could mean the end of your career.

Pairings: Eventual Kyoya x Reader

@animallover1089

Warnings: None

Word Count: 4455

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Oh. My. God. Ugh, please, no!

With horrific disgust, you stared at the dress you were holding up.

"It's worse up close!"

She sighed as she placed a hand on your shoulder. "I know, Sweet pea. But it is the school uniform. You need to wear it."

You instantly shook your head. "Please don't make me wear this. I'm not...I'm not a dress kind of girl, you know? Can I please just wear pants and a shirt?"

She placed her hands on her hips as she looked at you thoughtfully.

"What exactly was in the deal you made?"

You looked back at the dress.

Flashback...

"I will make you another offer. You will attend Ouran for one purpose - to work for our host club."

You perked up as an idea formed. "That's right..."

You glanced at her over your shoulder and smiled. "He had said that I am only being here to cook. That means I don't have to wear a uniform!"

In excitement, you tossed the dress over your shoulder and ran to your closet.

She sighed as she watched you throw article after article of clothing around the room and she rubbed her forehead. "Come on, I just cleaned your room!"

"Aha! This will be perfect!"

You ran back out of the closet and twirled around. "Eh? What do you think?"

She only have you a bored look. "You're wearing a yellow shirt and white shorts, am I supposed to be impressed?"

You huffed. "I just don't want to wear a dress, it feels too formal."

A small smile graced her lips as she shook her head and walked over to the closet. "Fine. But at least wear something more appropriate."

She grabbed a hanger and turned around. You looked at the white mini skirt thoughtfully.

"Well...yeah...I guess I can work with that..."

"Good" She tossed it at your head and you snatched it before it got the ground. "Now get dressed. You don't wanna be late to work, do you?"

♡♡♡ For the third time, you were walking down the halls of Ouran Academy. And, apparently, it wasn't gonna be the last. Nope. Not even close. But it was weird, because before nobody could care less that you were there. And now...though it was really early, with what little amount of students there were, everyone was staring at you, and by glancing at each and every one, even when you passed by them, the girls had just plain envy, jealousy and hatred. You had to walk a bit further away from them. And then there were the guys. Yeah, nothing had changed with them. They glanced, grew a bit curious as to why all the girls had their panties in a twist, shook their heads in amusement, then went back to whatever they were doing. But there were those who were interested in you. Your looks, your casual walk of confidence, your blank look...usual stuff. When you actually got to where the dreaded music room was, you had to stop and take a deep breath to keep away any nerves that came. What am I so worried for? It's not like anyone is here yet. It's way too early. Sighing and laughing to yourself, you twisted the door knob and opened the door. You did not expect what you were greeted with at all. Wide eyes and furrowed brows, you stepped inside and looked around at what you remembered was a room. The towering trees slanted over the land. The artificial sun passed through any miniature hole it could reach and illuminated the green background. The sweet jungle fragrance was almost cloying. Moving between the dense vegetation was nothing like walking the forests back home. From every direction came the hums and chirps of insects, the song of birds and the calls of mammals. It only confused you even more. Stepping over a fallen branch, you pushed aside the leaves belonging to one of the many palm trees and when you did, what you saw made you stop in your tracks. "Make sure the mist will spray all over the room, we need our guests to experience the real thing." The worker nodded and walked off. Your jaw dropped as you stared at him as if he had gone crazy. "Uh...Kyoya?" His head looked up by the sound of his name and he turned around. "Ah. Y/N. You're early. Everyone else usually comes around the time first class ends." Stepping through the plants in front of you, you slightly stumbled as you shrugged your shoulders. "Well, sorry, but unlike everyone else, I am kinda used to getting up early and I don't have class to attend." He hummed as he scribbled something on his clipboard. "Don't apologize. Maybe, for once, someone around here will take this job seriously-" "Sir, the tropical outfits have arrived."

You looked at the worker who ran up to Kyoya. He smiled. "Yes, thank you. Please leave them inside the changing room."

He nodded and ran off in the same direction. Once he left, Kyoya pushed up his glasses and looked back at you.

"You know, standing around won't do anything. You work for us now, right?"

He tossed an apron at you that fell on to your head. "Get to work, chef." You pulled the apron off you to see him walk away, yelling more directions at the men.

"No, don't put the chairs by the river! Keep them in the center near the kitchen, come on, everyone." You shook your head at him as you tied the apron around your waist. And you looked back, seeing a white door with the words 'Ouran Host kitchen' and without wasting another second, you practically ran to it. As soon as you pushed the door open, your eyes lit up and a huge grin took over your face. You were giggling like a school girl as you ran down the long aisle and ran your hand across every little detail of the kitchen. The white tile floors, the marble kitchen counters, the large cabinets, the humongous fridge!

You could barely contain your excitement and overwhelming happiness. It was all too much that you began twirling around like the happiest little chef in the world. But once you saw a blurry image of something on the counter, you had to stop your celebration.

There was what looked to be a neatly folded outfit with a card on top. You picked up the card and made out what the sharp, bold letters said.

'Y/N. If you're reading this, that means you managed to find the kitchen. Congratulations. I'm sure you've noticed the newly decorated music room. Every host club member, including myself, will be wearing a tropical paradise outfit to fit the theme. This is also a requirement that applies to you. Please hurry up and change into your costume after you have finished preparing today's menu items and come outside to be introduced to our guests.

P.S. Don't waste any time. Since it's your first day, you will be judged on how well you perform.

                                                                 And if you haven't figured it out yet,

                                                                               Sincerely Kyoya Ootori.'

You cracked a smile at the end. "Really? As if it wasn't obvious. No one's as straight to the point as you are, boss."

You dropped the card in the trash can and then unfolded the clothes. Once you did, a blush came on your face. "W-What the...?"

♡♡♡

They were both grinning from ear to ear. "So Y/N is our personal chef now, huh? This is gonna be great."

Kaoru looked at the kitchen door in anxiousness. "Yeah. Hikaru, this means we’re finally getting out our sister back!"

They both high fived. "Yes!"

Tamaki shook his head at them. "You are both so selfish. We are all lucky to have such a talented princess to cook for us. Like our little Cinderella."

"No."

They all looked over at Kyoya as he dropped the clipboard by his side and looked at them. "She is not our chef. I made the deal with her, I am paying for everything, and out of all of us, I have given far more beneficial hospitality."

His glasses shimmered under the artificial light. "So, more frankly, she works for me."

The twins scoffed. "Yeah, yeah. We've known her longer, so it's us she'll listen to more."

"That's what you believe."

They glared at him, but their attention was then focused on the kitchen door as it slowly opened up

You had to peek through the crack in the door and you sighed in relief when you saw they were in a heated discussion. Maybe if I'm quiet, they won't notice me.

Holding on to this thought, you pushed the door open. But as soon as you stepped outside, you stopped and regretted leaving the safety of the kitchen.

Everyone was staring at you. Tamaki had wide eyes, the twins had matching dropped jaws, Kyoya was only staring with all his emotions hidden, Mori had the same look, but you swore you saw the ghost of a smile. And Honey was beaming with his cheeks red.

Meanwhile, you stood awkwardly, feeling uncomfortable by their eyes on you. "Um..."

From what they saw, it was a girl wearing a purple strapless crop top and a short white skirt that was really a white sheet that had been twisted around your waist, and a golden arm band.

Your face was beginning to heat up. "Can I change?"

All at once, the twins ran up to you and started saying 'No' on a continuous loop while Honey also ran up, tackled you into a hug and wouldn't stop saying how pretty you were.

Tamaki rubbed his forehead. "Men, that's enough!"

Honey had stopped talking and looked up at Tamaki as he walked over and pushed the twins to the ground in annoyance.

He then looked down at Honey. "Honey-Senpai, this is Y/N' s first day, lets give her a little space, all right?"

Pouting, Honey reluctantly let go of you and walked back over to Mori.

Tamaki looked up at you and smiled. "Your beauty takes my breath away, princess. There is no other who could compare to such beauty." He announced this as he bowed his head and got down on one knee.

You rose an eyebrow at him. "Right. And how many 'princesses' have you actually said that to?"

His smile fell as he looked back up at you with wide eyes of embarrassment. Well...um, I actually-"

"Tamaki, I think we should move on before you embarrass yourself even further."

Tamaki looked back at Kyoya who had a hand on his hip and cleared his throat as he stood up. "Uh...right."

Kyoya adjusted his glasses and fixated his gaze on you. "Now, Y/N. Is everything ready?"

Your flushed state began to fade as you smiled. "Oh, yeah." You leaned back and pushed the door in. They all peered inside the kitchen. Everyone's mouths watered in surprise at the amount of delicious looking food that covered the counters.

Kyoya smiled in satisfaction. "Hm. Not bad."

♡♡♡ "What heartlessness." He slid his hand up his body. "Even with my lustrous skin shining like brilliant ivory, exposed by my Balinese king outfit, I'm no more than a slave before my goddess." He delicately took her chin and raised her face up to his. "I kneel before you and swear my loyalty." She blushed as she got lost in his eyes. "Tamaki..." You awkwardly poked your head in between them. "I hate to interrupt, but here's the glass of champagne you ordered." Realizing that she was surrounded by people, she shrunk back with her cheeks redder than before as you placed the beverage on the table. "O-Oh, thank you..." You nodded as Tamaki straightened up and placed a hand on your shoulder. "Oh, yes. Ladies, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the host club. This is Y/N, she will be the chef here that handles all food and beverage needs." You smiled at them as you bowed your head. "A pleasure. Please, feel free to ask me for anything you may crave at the moment." Tamaki rubbed his chin in thought. "Ah, that reminds me. I almost forgot to tell you ladies. Next week, the Ouran host club is sponsoring a party." He wrapped an arm around your shoulders. "And Y/N here will be the chef and baker on site. If there is any way you can assist her, I sure would love it." The girl off to the left immediately rose her hand. "I-I'd like to help!" Seeing her do it, the other girl did the same. "Me too!" The third girl actually stood from her seat. "I'm a great helper!" You honestly wanted to laugh at how eager they were simply to please Tamaki. "Oh, well, in that case, any food suggestions and requests would be great. You can write some down and leave them on the kitchen door." You bowed your head one last time, before moving on to the next table. "In the meantime, please, enjoy." You had to watch as the first girl eagerly stood up. "Y-Yeah! I'll do that right now!" And she ran in the direction of the kitchen. Laughing to yourself, you paused walking when Haruhi was looking at Tamaki in curiosity, then looked at you. "We're throwing a party?" Your happy smile instantly fell. "Yep." You sighed tiredly. "I don't know where to even begin with this menu. I think I'll be dead before I can actually serve anything." And with a pat on the shoulder, you continued on to the table across. The girl who sat in front of the twins rested her chin in her palm. "What kind of party is it? Is it formal?" Hikaru smiled at her. "Yes, in fact we've rented the school's largest hall." Kaoru nodded in confirmation. "It's the perfect place for dancing." In a swift motion, Hikaru had suddenly stood and grabbed Kaoru's chin with his fingers, inching his face close. "But I really wanted to spend some alone time with you, Kaoru." Kaoru's eyes glazed over. "Don't be upset, Hikaru. I know exactly how you feel." The sounds of the two girls screaming in excitement over their little act rang out in the air. Once Hikaru caught sight of you walking by, he shot out his hand and grabbed your wrist. "There you are, butterfly. Would you care to introduce yourself to these lovely ladies?" You sighed as you flicked his forehead. He yelped as he rubbed it. "Come on, I told you not to call me that. I have a name, you know." As Kaoru held in his laughter, you turned to the girls and bowed your head. "Hello, my name is Y/N Kitahara, I am the new chef here at the host club. If there is anything you would like, please, don't hesitate to ask." "Waah! Sissy hit me!" Kaoru grabbed Hikaru's face and placed a kiss on his forehead. "It's okay, Hikaru. I'll make you feel better." You rolled your eyes at them and moved on. Honey ran up to one of the tables and smiled widely at the two girls that sat there, displaying his outfit. "Ta-da!" The two girls beamed at him, awed by his cuteness. "Oh, you're so cute, honey!" He continued grinning. "Hi, ladies! I love these Balinese flowers, we had them flown in!" He turned his attention over to Mori when he walked by. "Takashi!" He ran over and climbed up his body to place a lei similar to his around his neck. "There, we match!" Okay, there you could see why the girls went crazy. He made you smile at how cute he was with Mori. Your gaze went over to Haruhi, who now sat at a table with three girls, but her attention seemed to also be on Honey and Mori. And once she saw you, she called out. "Hey Y/N, can I get a water refill?" You smiled at her, before walking over to the bar to grab a water pitcher. Once you did reach the bar, you quickly noticed that it wasn't there.

"Looking for this?"

Turning around, you were faced with the pitcher. You grabbed it and saw the person who had been holding it. He pushed up his glasses and have you a once over.

"I personally chose each outfit for each member. I will admit that yours didn't end up looking all bad."

For some reason, you blushed a bit at that. Did he just compliment me?

And with that, he walked off, leaving you to state at his back. Snapping out of your daze, you remembered why you needed the pitcher and hurried back over to the table. "Um, Haruhi."

She looked over at one of the girls sitting in front of her. "Aren't you going to wear a tropical outfit like the other boys?" She glanced at you as you filled Haruhi's glass with water. "Even Y/N is wearing one." You smiled at her as you began filling up her cup as well. The second girl at the table laughed. "I'd love to see that." You watched as Haruhi grew flustered and stumbled over her words. "Uh, no, I-I...I just think it's only appropriate to wear early spring attire in early spring, you know?" Tamaki suddenly popped up beside her, holding up a picture of the tropical outfit. "But we have one ready for you, Haruhi. I think you'll like it. You and I are a pair." She groaned in disapproval. "No thanks." And you saw his heart shatter by those words. One of the girls blushed. "Wow, Haruhi. You're really faithful to the different seasons." The girl beside her sighed dreamily. "I think that's great, I hope we're lucky enough that the cherry blossoms are in full bloom on the night of the party." The last girl closed her eyes in happiness as she daydreamed. "The two of us dancing among the cherry blossoms. It's so dreamy." "You really think so?" Haruhi smiled as she tilted her head at them. "Ya know ladies, I think it's so cute when you dream like that." Just by that look she was giving them, all three girls turned red and stared at her in dreamy awe. As you were about to walk off, you leaned down and whispered to her. "Show off." Her smile only widened. "Excuse me." You both turned and saw another girl with short brown hair standing by the table, looking directly at Haruhi. "I hate to disturb, but I think it's time for the hosts to switch clients." Haruhi's smile faded. "Oh, I'm sorry. You must be my next appointment, miss...uh.." She gave a smile. "My name's Kanako. Kanako Kasakazaki." As Haruhi looked down at her planner, Kanako lifted her chin back up so her eyes would meet hers. "You're even cuter than I expected. I've decided. From now on, you're going to be my new favorite host, Haruhi." You rose your eyebrows, but when you looked a the person who was staring in horror right by the table, you furrowed them. "Tamaki?" ♡♡♡ With the kitchen door slamming behind you, you walked out into the official 'Jungle-Free' room, glad that everything was the way it was before. Well, everything, except Tamaki. While everyone was huddled up around a table, planning for the upcoming party, he was slouching at a small table in a darkness by a closed window. You made a beeline for him and you were looking at him in confusion. "Tamaki, are you sure you want...this?" He didn't even look at you as he nodded. "Really? You put Haruhi and I down for all our 'commoner' living choices, yet you wanna eat this?" "Just give it to me." His arm shot out as he took the bowl of ramen noodles from you. Your eyes widened when he did, especially when he started the slurp it. You shook your head at him as you placed a pair of chopsticks beside him. "Enjoy." And you crossed the room over to the more lively group of people. Once you did take a seat next to Haruhi, the twins looked back at him, and Hikaru sighed. "Hey, boss! Why don't you stop eating that commoner's ramen and come over here to help us with the party planning?" Kaoru rose an eyebrow in curiosity. "Does it really bother you that princess Kanako has taking a liking to Haruhi?" Kyoya pushed his glasses up as he typed away on his laptop. "He shouldn't be surprised. She's had the illness for a while now, hasn't she?" "Illness?" You leaned forward. "What illness is that?" Hikaru slid beside you and shrugged. "She's got the host hopping disease." Kaoru copied his motions. "A.K.A. the never the same boy twice disease." Kyoya paused his typing to look up at you. "Usually, our customers choose a favorite host and see them regularly, however, princess Kanako tends to change her favorites. On a regular basis." Honey popped up in between you and Haruhi, sucking on a lollipop. "That's right!" You picked him up and let him sit on your lap as he looked at Haruhi. "'Cause before she was with you, she was with Tama-Chan!" Haruhi, who was resting her chin on her fist, spoke in a bored tone. "Oh...so he's upset because I took her from him?" You jumped when Tamaki shot up and ran lightening fast to scream at Haruhi. "Shut up! I couldn't care less!" She stared at him, completely unaffected by his outburst, while he stepped away from her with determination in his eyes. "I'm running out of patience." He pointed directly at her. "Haruhi, it's time you started dressing like a girl." She blinked. "Huh?" You all watched as he paced around the empty space. "I don't understand how you can be so popular with the ladies when you yourself are a lady!" You crossed your arms. "Actually, I think that's probably why. We kind of know our own gender better than any boy." He ran up to you and slammed his hands down on the table in frustration. "But that doesn't make any sense! No one else in the school knows the truth except for those of us here!" Hikaru appeared beside him. "Yeah, she opted out of taking gym classes." Kaoru also appeared on the opposite side. "And the attendance numbers are all mixed together so no one can tell." Tamaki then ran out of sight and came back in by pushing a trunk out to the middle of the room. "That's enough Haruhi." He opened it up and began searching for something inside. "Now you listen to daddy." He pulled out a giant framed picture of Haruhi's class photo that showed her with long hair, wearing a girls' uniform. Tears actually streamed from his eyes as he pointed at the picture. "Daddy wants you to go back to the way you were!" Haruhi stood up, anger clear in her face. "Don't go blowing my photos up without asking me first!" You also stood beside her, placing your hands on your hips. "Come on, that's kind of stalker-ish, don't you think? Creepy enough that you would have a photo of her." You didn't notice that behind you, the twins were trying to conceal a giant photo of you that was hanging on the wall the entire time. Instead, you looked over at Tamaki as he hung up the picture of Haruhi. Sneaking back over to the group, the twins casually leaned on your shoulders, and Hikaru shook his head in disbelief. "The more I look a this, the more amazed I am." He, along with everyone else, looked back at Haruhi. "How does someone like that become this?" She shrugged. "The day before school started, one of the kids in my neighborhood stuck some gum in my hair. It's a real pain to get gum out of hair, so I decided to cut it all off, I didn't care if I looked like a dude." Tamaki sneered in anger as he yelled in her face. "Girls should never refer to themselves as a 'dude'!" He looked over at the members as tears began to run from his eyes again. "Mama! Haruhi's using those dirty boy words again!" You stared at him weirdly, then looked at Kyoya. "Okay, 'mama'? 'Sissy'? Is playing house like a thing in this club? If so, who is 'mama'?" He crossed his arms and looked back at him as he bawled out on the floor. "Based on club position, I assume it's me." You held back a laugh as the mental image of Kyoya dressed up wearing an apron and heels came to mind. Haruhi sighed and held her hand up in defense. "Look, I don't see what you're crying about. Working as a host, I can pay back more of my debt. It'll never happen if I'm just an errand boy." Kaoru leaned forward and pointed a her. "Hate to bring this up now, but do you have formal dancing experience? You'll need it for the party." You closed your eyes at that thought. "The thought of dancing again...it's such a bore at parties." Haruhi gave a nervous smile. "Uh...no. Nut the party doesn't have anything to do with my quota, right? I'm not interested in going to events, so if I could be excused-" From behind her, Tamaki rose back up and stared at her, and even glanced at you, then smirked and rubbed his chin. "Definitely not. A refined gentlemen must know how to dance." He looked at Haruhi and rose a finger. "If you want to live the life of a host that badly, you are going to have to show us how far you are willing to go, Haruhi." He outstretched his arms. "I order you to master dancing the waltz in one week. And you will demonstrate it for us at the party..." He spun around, then menacingly pointed at her, "Or I tell the entire school that you're a girl! And knock you back down to errand boy!" Her entire form shivered in nervousness and fear. You crossed your arms, already feeling bad for her. "Don't worry, it'll be fi-" When he turned and pointed at you, you froze. "And you, Y/N, will be the one to teach her! Or, we will cut your expenses for allowing to attend Ouran and you will not be allowed to attend the party without making a contribution!" Your face fell. "...What?"