#fliers and posters and bears

[passivenovember]

purple pink skies.

--

A flier for Hawkin’s High’s Spring Fever dance goes up almost immediately after Steve considers himself out of the woods.

“Should’ve used my bike pump to inflate your balls,” Robin says.

He’s been close with Billy for a few months and in love with him for longer, but Steve couldn’t stick the landing.

It eats at him all week, stomach gaining a new gouge in the lining with each bargain prom-posal he has to bear witness to over lunch and after practice and at the mall on Saturday afternoons.

On Friday, Steve grabs a coke from the vending machine to take the edge off of not having the balls to ask Billy to go with him to the Sweetheart’s Dance. The hallway’s draped in shining pink and red cellophane while the planning committee reminds everyone to pencil their vote for Sweetheart Court, and Billy’s shooting for at least a 1250 on his SATs so he’s not even thinking about it, but.

Steve dropped the ball. 

Robin eventually loses interest in making fun of him and Steve wishes he could forgive himself. He spends the weekend helping Billy shoot for a 1300 on his SAT and it’s nice, all things considered. 

Max shoots daggers at him from the hallway while Billy chews on statistical equations. 

“Kid’s just protective of him,” Robin tells Steve on the phone that night, “She’s gotta intimidate. Besides, Billy’s a brain. And a brain like him would rather study, anyway.”

She’s probably right.

Of course she’s right, Steve doesn’t have the spiritual strength to explore what it might mean if she isn’t.

Valentine’s Saturday comes and goes and then it’s Monday. 

And Steve’s looking down the barrel of Hawkins’ last leg of winter, hopeful that the layer of ice around his heart will thaw with hard oak branches in time for Spring so Billy can finally know how he feels, and then–

Tuesday, Steve’s faced with another opportunity to trip over his words.

Save the Date: Hawkins High’s Spring Fever Dance! February 28th, 1985!

Robin snaps her gum right in Steve’s ear, “Wow. Looks like the planning committee’s getting a jump-start on mating season.”

Steve wants to tear the flier from the vending machine and eat it with a side of ranch dressing.

“Didn’t have to use so many goddamn exclamation points,” Steve mutters, but he’s drowned out by all of Hawkins High emerging from fourth period to survey the royal decree.

No one else gives a shit.

The Activities hallway has become the shitty set of a romance novel. With the jab of those three flowery words and a trillion copied posters pointing toward spring, the soft, warm light from the window is burning red, again. The air smells like the wiz of Cupid’s arrow, and everyone’s a moving target. 

And maybe it’s just Steve’s own cynicism acting as a sounding tower, dialing on everyone’s conversations, but love is all anyone can talk about. Groups of girls speculate who’s going stag. Guys walk a little taller, peacocking for every watchful eye.

Steve yanks his coke can from the vending machine, “I’m going to walk into traffic.”

Robin snaps her gum again, “Okay, crab apple.”

“I’m serious. Don’t you think it’s overkill?”

“I think it’s kind of cute.”

“I’m not talking about the flier.”

“Neither am I,” Robin says. She props herself against the vending machine, studying the flier as if it were a specimen under a microscope, “That wasn’t there this morning, right?”

“Who cares. This is the second dance we’ve had this month, that’s not weird to you?” When Robin shakes her head, Steve wants to grab her shoulders and shake Robin hard enough to get her brain back online.

“Dude,” Steve begins heavily, “We had Homecoming in the fall, the Senior Snowball in December, we’ve got Prom just before summer break–”

“--Didn’t have a date then, either, Harrington–”

“I know, asshole, I’m just saying,” Steve cracks his cola can, swishing the fizz around in his mouth until the sugar burns the sharpness from his tongue. “It’s like all those people who are lucky in love think the change of every season requires a dance.”

Robin nods, chewing her gum so hard it’ll probably transition out of that gooey half-liquid stage and into a solid.

Her eyes scan the hallway, flitting anxiously between traveling backpacks and spring sweaters. 

Robin twists a ring around one finger.

It’s almost like Steve isn’t there, as her eyes scan the hallway. It’s almost like—

“Oh, fuck you,” Steve groans.

Robin deflates. “Look, I get why you’re so angry and I sympathize but we can deal with the Billy stuff at Scoops, I’ve gotta get to Heather before–”

Steve resists the urge to cover his ears. To curl up in the fetal position and scream and scream and never stop screaming. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I want to make sure she doesn’t get pissed and ask someone else.”

“She’d do that?” Steve wonders, knowing full well that she will. She has. 

Robin shrugs, “I’m whipped.”

“You’d better get going.”

“How long has the poster been up?” Robin snaps again, like. With her full chest.

Steve wants to throw his soda at her. “If I knew that do you think I’d be standing here talking to you?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck off, I’d be blowing the door to Billy’s chemistry lab off its hinges,” Steve says, even though they both know it’s not true.

“I’m dead meat,” Robin bounces a little on her feet like she’s gotta hit the bathroom. “Heather’s probably been expecting me to see the fliers all morning and it’s almost lunch and I haven’t even–”

“Go,” Steve says.

Robin freezes, all of a sudden. All at once. “You’re sure?” 

That’s the thing about Buckley. She can poke fun at him all day long and make his life a living hell, but she’ll be there if Steve really needs it.

It’s only right that he returns the favor. “I’m sure, Bucks.”

“Okay,” Robin says, flinching a little toward the end of the hall, “Because I can send myself to heartbreak island and pitch a tent with you–”

“Nah,” Steve shrugs, “One of us should have a shot at getting laid this weekend.”

Robin kisses his cheek, quick as a flash, “God, you’re a lifesaver. And if anyone asks–”

“You and me, Billy and Heather, I got it,” Steve chuckles, “Go, before your cheerleader sends her beard after you.”

Robin sprints off down the hallway. 

Steve sips lightly at the rest of his cola and doesn’t think that it’d be better for him if Billy got sent to sort through Robin’s mess.

Maybe then, with his sun and moon shining right there in the hallway, Steve could open his mouth and speak.

--

At lunch, Billy’s head is buried in his stats book. 

It’s a picture Steve’s been trying to get used to for a couple of weeks now, Billy’s usual loose and easy frame settled with hunched shoulders and furrowed brows. 

The SATs are just around the corner and contrary to the front that Billy puts on for the whole of Hawkins, puffing his chest and bearing his teeth like an angry bull dog at anyone who gets too close, he’s a genius when it comes to school.

Billy when he’s focused is more lethal than anything Steve’s ever experienced. 

He’s quick to throw pens and wadded-up balls of paper at anyone who breaks his concentration, and Steve’s taken a highlighter to the eye more times than he cares to remember. And with the biggest test of Billy’s academic career looming in just forty-eight hours, today it’s that with teeth. 

Statistics always gets Billy stuck in his own head, wandering through maze-like hedges of numbers and graphs. It’s difficult, sitting locked out of Billy’s world when Steve’s usually glued to his hip, but it’s something to behold.

Billy when he’s focused is the closest Steve will ever get to the face of God.

He was painted by all the greatest artists, Steve knows, dreamt up by angels. The curve of Billy’s lips as he reads silently to himself, his thumb resting soft on his plush lower lip, is poetry.  The way he glances up every once in a while, grinning softly, to make sure Steve’s there to quiz him on whatever formula he’s been slaving over, is Heaven on Earth.

It’s perfect.

Today, though, Billy’s lost.

The cafeteria bustles around them with excitement over the Spring Fever dance and Billy hasn’t looked up a single time since Steve sat down. His lunch sits cold and untouched on the tray in front of him.

Robin and Heather are nowhere to be found, it’s just them, and Steve weighs the possibility of taking a pen to the forehead if he interrupts to remind Billy that he won’t score a 1300 on his SAT if he starves to death before Friday.

Steve picks at his french fries and wonders what would happen if he got up and left.

Would Billy notice? Would he eat Steve’s lunch?

Would he stand up and follow?

When Billy explodes, Steve opens his mouth, ready to pay the price of getting those eyes on him.

“I’m not gonna pass,” Billy determines, shoving his notebook into his SAT prep stack with a gnarled sound. 

Steve manages to catch the thing before it careens over the edge of the table, “Woah,” he says, a fry pinched between his teeth, “Hey, that's–”

“I’ve been going over the same page of quantitative data for two days,” Billy snarls, blue eyes pinning Steve to the bench, “Two fucking days, Steve.”

“What can I do to help?” Steve asks automatically.

“It’s the VAR model, the m2, it’s pissing me off.”

“Okay,”

Billy doesn’t hear him, “It keeps saying the t-distribution with degrees of freedom is equal to n-2 and when testing the slope in a simple linear regression model with one parameter–”

“--Right, okay–”

“The test for the slope has df=n-1,” Billy snaps. His eyes well up, frustrated tears clinging to his lashes. 

Steve never thought Billy would be a crier, but he is.

It’s Starfall.

It’s planets colliding.

Steve has the sudden, violent urge to wipe Billy’s tears away. “It’s alright,” He says, but Billy’s shaking his head. 

“I can’t do this,” He gasps, “I can’t. I’ve been working on this same equation for–”

“Two days, I know. You’ve gotta eat something alright?”

Billy’s leg bounces, shaking the whole lunch table. Steve shuffles Billy’s notes in his hands, knowing he’ll eat shit for that, later, but he can’t bring himself to care about that when slowly, frightened as a coiled rattlesnake in a mudhole, Billy reaches past his own lunch tray to get at Steve’s fries. Steve hands them over, watching as Billy nibbles away.

Like a little bunny rabbit.

The cutest, most brilliant creature on earth–

Billy sniffs, “I didn’t sleep last night,” He says, almost like he’s terrified of what Steve will do to him.

Not couldn’t. Didn’t.

Intentional.

Steve holds his breath, waiting for the sky to rip open and for Billy’s frustrated tears to punch holes in Steve’s chest when they finally start to fall. 

But they don’t. Billy scrubs at his cheeks, catching them before they can take root. “I’m sorry I’m going insane.”

“You’re not insane, you’re incredible.”

“And you’re an idiot if you think that.”

“Of course, I’m an idiot. We knew that already,” Steve tells him.

He counts the breaks at the lunch table. He studies Billy’s smooth, spotless hands, his fingers as they curl protectively around a purple highlighter. Steve didn’t even know they made that color, but looking down at Billy’s notes, all the others already serve a purpose. 

Billy’s leg keeps bouncing. “I still owe you an apology. If not for neglecting myself, for ignoring you.”

Steve wants to say that Billy’s never ignored him. 

Not once. Since the Hargrove-Mayfield’s moved to town last fall, since Billy joined the basketball team, since they met at Tina��s Halloween party and Billy dusted his hands off and put the pieces of Steve back together after Hurricane Nancy–

Steve’s had Billy’s deep blue attention on him like a searchlight. “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Steve decides, “You’re Galileo. It’s alright.”

Billy doesn’t crack a smile. “It’s not, though.”

“You’re just exhausted, anyone would be. You’ve been working yourself to death over this.”

“I’ve gotta get the fuck out of here, Harrington.”

“You will,” Steve holds the stack of paper delicately in his lap, worried that if Billy spots another equation he’ll fly off the handle. “You’ve just got to balance studying with things that make you hap–”

“My SAT exam is in two days, Steve,” Billy snaps. He leans forward, lips furrowing with sudden rage, “If I don’t land a score that can get me into any college in the country–”

“I’ll take you somewhere myself,” Steve says. 

He taps Billy’s notes on the table like he’s seen his father do a million times.

It’s final. It’s a promise made of dreams that hold lead in their bellies, falling like anvils in Hawkins but taking root all over the world. In Steve’s mind, it’s honest work. His promises to Billy grow and bloom where neither of them can worry over it. They wave like flags through rain and sun, until they bear fruit ripe for picking. 

Someday, they’ll feed a village from the result of these small promises.

But.

Steve’s gotta say the words, first. Plant the seeds.

I love you my brilliant, brilliant boy.

He slides Billy’s packet over the table face, tucking his fingers under his elbows for safekeeping when his Brainiac snatches it up like a hungry shark. 

“You’re just saying that, Harrington,” Billy determines, avoiding Steve’s eyes.

“I mean it.”

“Yeah, alright,” Billy says, reordering his notes without even thinking about it. When they’re just right, he digs through and hands the most intense one to Steve. “Quiz time, pretty boy.”

Billy’s notes are neat and orderly, the work of someone who’s too good for him in every sense of the word.

Steve tries not to think about it.

When he stumbles over the order of an equation, Billy laughs and for the first time in days, it sounds real.

And then the bell rings.

--

Steve’s not proud of the gut reaction he has when he sees fingers that aren’t his playing with the loose curl that hangs over Billy’s forehead.

And.

He doesn’t own the curl. He’s not liquidating real estate on the island of Billy, he doesn’t own the guy and they aren’t in love, or dating, or fucking, he just. 

Doesn’t like it. 

Hates it, even. 

He wants to wrench those fingers off Billy’s forehead and break all five opposable knuckles before he moves like a storm over the rest of them. But Steve’s gotta wrestle with himself and shine lamp oil on the shadows of who he was with Nancy to figure out if he’s got any right to the way his stomach tries to flip itself like a burnt pancake.

He doesn’t.

Billy’s not leaning into the touch. 

He’s digging through his locker. He’s late for class, probably, because the bell rings again and suddenly he’s smacking that hand away with a snippy little, “Wilson’s gonna have my balls if I’m late again,” and.

And. The owner of the hand that aims to rock Billy props himself against slate gray metal, “You never answered my question,” He mutters, grinning, and Steve knows, like. From down the hall and around the corner that his grin is eating shit.

Billy’s shit.

He’s trying to get Billy’s pants off first, though, if Steve had to put money on it. And if they weren’t in a government building, surrounded by scurrying classmates, Hands would probably be reaching for a pack of smokes right now, or a joint. Something to get Billy loose-limbed and easy to push over.

Steve sympathizes with his masterplan. Almost sends flowers, a little good on you for trying, though I wish you wouldn’t, because the gag is that Billy can’t be swayed. He’s solid and sure as Mount Everest, he’s slow-burning like a field on fire, he’s resolute and strong–

“I don’t owe you shit, not an explanation, not–”

“You could help, anyway.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re a good person,” Hands tries, and it’s only then that Steve recognizes who’s trying to rain on his parade. 

Billy slams his locker door. “You wanna keep that hand, Munson?” 

“You’re cute when you get angry.” Through an awful, laughing smirk, the guy says, “C’mon, you’d be doing me a real favor. I’m trying to get that Carver asshole off my back for flirting with his girlfriend.”

Steve holds his breath. Waits for Billy to serve this guy a knife to the gut, but then– “I’ll think about it,” He says.

And It’s worse than anything Steve’s ever felt. 

At the doctor’s office. On the court. With Nancy. It’s papercuts and the cold, trickling fear of crashing his father’s car into the side of a building. Steve dies a thousand, million, trillion deaths. He doesn’t want Billy to put his beautiful, brilliant mind to anything that isn’t school and his future, and Steve. 

Doesn’t want him to think about Eddie Munson or anyone else.

God, it’s pathetic.

“You’ll think about it?” Eddie wonders, “That’s all.”

“Yep, that’s all.”

“Well, I need to know by Thursday if I’ve gotta borrow my uncle’s suit.”

The dance. 

Steve ducks farther behind Hawkin’s least favorite vending machine and strains to hear Billy’s response. They’ll be alone, once everyone stops scrambling into the doorway of their next class, and Steve wants to determine if he should name Robin as executor of his estate before the weekend.

The warning bell sounds, a million doors slamming in succession until the hallway is silent. Cavernous and peaceful enough that Steve hears the shuffle of footsteps.

“You’re pushy for someone so desperate,” Billy snips, but.

He’s smiling.

Even if Steve was completely off his rocker he’d know the spread of Billy’s lips. 

–

“Read that one again.”

Steve swallows, “According to the passage, the family’s life in the suburbs is described as–”

“Not the question.”

Steve looks up, confused. “If I’m not reading the question–”

“Read the passage again,” Billy determines, chewing on his thumbnail, “The whole thing.”

They’ve been going at it for hours. Steve’s exhausted, and his ass hurts from sitting on the floor of his bedroom since the sun was still high in the sky, and his heart hurts from–

Billy frowns at him, knocking Steve into gear. “The whole thing?” Steve asks dumbly, “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. I’m not understanding the global and command of evidence.”

Steve’s head hurts, too. Aches. He needs a goddamn thesaurus to get through this and it’s not even his SAT exam. He leans against one palm, comforted by the weight of such a thick book in his lap. 

“I’m not understanding it, either.”

“You don’t have to,” Billy says, “You’re not taking the test.”

“Maybe we could have a break?”

“And do what?” Billy shoots back. 

“I dunno,” Steve says, “Wanna make out a little?”

Billy’s cheeks flare bright pink. “You’re an idiot,” He grumbles, not believing it.

And why would he?

In all the months that they’ve been friends, Steve’s never said something like that and meant it. At least not in Billy’s eyes. With Steve, everything’s always one big joke. He never takes anything seriously and that’s probably why Billy’s going to the dance with Eddie fucking Munson, of all people–

Billy slaps his notebook onto the carpet, eyes disappearing so he can scrub at his cheeks and forehead.

He always does that when he’s overwhelmed. 

Steve wishes for better. He imagines all the words and graphs and statistics melting into Billy’s freckles like sunscreen. He pictures peace, exhaling into the dim, warm light of the room when Billy takes a moment to himself.

Steve considers telling the truth for one crazy, desperate moment.

That he wants to kiss Billy. Has wanted to kiss Billy for months, probably a whole year but he was always too afraid–

“I’ll be so happy when this shit is over,” Billy starts lightly. Billy leans against the wall, his curls fanning out around him. Steve gets lost on the slope of his neck, hypnotized by the bob of Billy’s Adam’s Apple when he swallows, “Listen–”

“No. I’m not gonna listen to you talk mean about yourself.”

Billy watches him through thick, heavy eyelashes. “You didn’t even hear what I was gonna say, Harrington.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve says lightly. He doesn’t admit that he’d do anything Billy asked, anything he wanted. “I know you. And if you’re going to tell me it’s pointless to help you study because you’re not going anywhere in life, you’re wrong. You can forget it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve determines. “I’ve heard your shitty self-deprecating pitch before and I don’t buy a word.”

Billy stares at him for a long, tense moment–

And then he smiles. 

And it’s like the sun has burned a hole through the roof and tucked itself on the floor for safekeeping. It’s like fountains of gold have erupted from the floorboards, and angels have taken up their cherub song.

“Got a little fire in you today, Harrington,” Billy says. 

He likes it. He’s impressed. 

“Yeah well. It’s been a shitty day.”

“Oh, sure, the day you helped me study before school and at lunch and–”

“It’s not that.”

Billy smirks, “Then what’s inspired the raging war, pretty boy?”

Steve picks at the carpet, avoiding Billy’s eyes. For months he’s wondered if Billy means it. Pretty boy, rolling like salted waves from his tongue to get Steve’s emotions sticking like hair in his eyes.

He can’t help but imagine that old nickname pinned to someone else, sticking like a nametag to Munson’s suit jacket. Hello my name is…prettier than Steve Harrington. 

Steve can’t even find it within himself to disagree. Eddie Munson’s a cute guy. He’s got that whole bad boy thing, chipped black nails, big brown eyes, and a wallet chain hanging from his back pocket alongside a handkerchief Robin once wrinkled her nose at. When Steve asked her to explain it to him, she said he wouldn’t get it.

That’s probably true.

Steve doesn’t understand most things. Anything, really. But he understands that on paper, Munson’s probably Billy’s type.

If Billy had a type.

If Billy was–

“You’re gonna wear a hole in the carpet,” Billy chuckles.  

Big enough to crawl in, Steve thinks. Big enough to block out the sky, to hold all my thoughts, to live in forever and ever and–

“Where are you?” Billy’s foot knocks against Steve’s thigh, rocking him gently like a boat at sea. 

Steve shrugs. “Lost.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Means I’m thinking.”

“You can do that?” Billy teases. When Steve doesn’t laugh, when he doesn’t smile or do anything other than sit like a bump on a log that’s planning itself a funeral, Billy leans forward. “Tell me what’s wrong, Harrington.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll laugh at me,” Steve says, you’ll hate me. Never speak to me again. You’ll run away with Eddie Munson and marry him and you’ll live a short, happy, vibrant life somewhere I can’t feel you. “You’ll think it’s a joke. Or worse, you’ll–” 

“God, I hate it when you decide shit for me.”

“I’m not–”

“Y’know, back when we first started this thing you kept me out of my head,” Billy admits. “You kept me active. The leash was fuckin’ short. Still is.” 

His fingers twitch against his thigh. Steve knows if it weren’t for Mrs. Harrington and the fact that she loves Billy and expects the best from him, he’d probably be smoking a cigarette even though he’s made a habit of swearing off everything that’s not good for him.

Steve wants to say Eddie isn’t good for him. That he might seem like it at first, but in time–

Billy kicks him again. Harder. “If you don’t tell me what’s wrong I’m gonna kill myself.”

“Jeez, don’t joke about that.”

“You don’t get to decide how I feel about shit, Harrington. You don’t get what i say or how I feel, or–”

“I saw you in the hallway,” Steve blurts, “With what’s his name.”

Billy doesn’t move. He doesn’t even flinch. “Eddie.”

“Eddie,” Steve says, and it tastes like soap on his tongue, bitter and present and the more he swallows the worse it gets. 

He expects a lot of things to happen at once. Billy may not feel the same that Steve does, but he gets embarrassed easily. Red all over. His embarrassment falls just like his anger, sharp and aggressive, pushing and tugging until Steve’s resolve pops like a party balloon.

Now, though, he’s calm. Eerie. Poised like he’s trying to watch his step around Steve, who can sometimes be a landmine everyone thought was defective.

Somehow that’s worse.

Somehow the knowledge that Billy’s not as clueless about this whole thing as Steve thought, that he’s picked up on every laugh and hidden stare, that he knows Steve is gone on him and still–

“Why do you care about Eddie,” Billy demands. Like he’s genuinely curious. Like he’s got an inclination, too, and he’s gonna make Steve say it, so.

“You’re not going to prom with Eddie Munson.”

The world might as well stop. If they weren’t sitting on the carpet beaches in Steve’s bedroom, he’d get up and leave.

Billy blinks, chest heaving like he’s just run three hundred miles across a mountain range, but he doesn’t open his mouth. He doesn’t pull his eyes away or speak.

Steve holds onto those eyes. He stands his ground. 

Billy jerks into motion, “He didn’t ask me to prom.”

“Fine,” Steve snaps, irritated by the particular nature of this AP, valedictorian, Ivy-League asshole. It’s Steve’s fault for loving a brain, “Fine, not the prom. The fucking Spring Fever–”

“Why are you so upset?”

Steve can’t believe this is happening. 

Everything about this is so high school, so steeped in endings and triviality and of course he’d have to say it right now. With expectant, carefully guarded blue eyes picking him apart. Toes at the edge of the cliff, with nothing to catch him when he falls. 

“I’m upset, because–” Steve tries. 

Billy watches him with eyes like a raging sea, and he’s so beautiful. He’s smart and driven and kind, when he’s not wading through his own head, and Steve’s been trying to swallow it down forever. 

How he feels.

Steve takes a deep, steadying breath. “I’m pissed off because I wanted to ask you to the dance.”

Billy frowns. His fingers twitch against his thigh and Steve can almost hear the gears working behind Billy’s curls, clicking and rattling into place. “I don’t understand,” He says.

System failure.

Steve saw that coming, too. “Guessed you didn’t. Why would you? I never–”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Billy rubs a hand over his mouth,  “You wanted to go to the dance with me?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why would you want to go to the dance, with. With me?”

“Because I like you,” Steve snaps. “Jesus, Billy. You’re made of a million fucking things to like and I’ve spent so many months counting them, trying to figure out their weight so I can tie my feet to the heaviest one and drown myself,” He runs all ten fingers through his hair, tugging until he feels the sting of it in his toes. “You’re great. You’re the best person I’ve ever known and I just. I love you, okay?”

There, Steve thinks. Asshole.

But the realization of Steve dawns on Billy like the end of the world. He sucks in a sharp, sudden breath, and in a second Steve’s galaxy is on fire.

Billy won’t look at him.

“Billy,” Steve says. Fed up. Mean.

Billy stares at the carpet, lashes clumped with tears, and. He’s gonna cry. Steve’s ruined his last study session before the SATs and Billy’s going to cry–

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Steve slides closer, getting on his knees in front of his shaking, sputtering love, “I didn’t mean to freak you out, I just. I heard that asshole ask you to the dance and I almost lost my mind thinking about what I’d do if you said yes. I didn’t want to blow my last shot at you, Billy–”

“You’re such a dumbass.”

Steve blinks, flinching away. It hurts. He’s bleeding. “I’m sorry,” He says again, like a broken record. “I’m–”

“Munson didn’t ask me to the spring dance either. He wants me to get Heather to take him so Jason Carver stops slashing his van tires.” Billy looks at Steve with water-logged desperation, “I. You love me, Harrington?”

Steve watches a single, heavy tear fall. He nods, chases it with his thumb.

Billy’s breath is warm and sweet against his wrist. “Why’d you think that would be your last shot? You never even took a shot before that, how could it be your last?”

“Because we’ve had, like. A hundred dances this year and I never asked you,” Steve sits, knocking their knees together, “I wanted to ask. Every time, I wanted to run down the hall and kiss–”

Billy eats up whatever was coming next.

He licks into Steve’s mouth. He plants fields of hope, shining bright with the future. 

When he pulls away, his eyes are serious. “I’m going to get a 1350 on this SAT,” Billy says, his fingers gentle on Steve’s jaw, “And then we’re going to the dance.”

Steve kisses him, slow and sweet, and.

It’s a deal. Written in the stars.

--

Harringrove for Turkey commission for the lovely, kind, and talented @keziahrainalso thanks so much for trusting me with your GORGEOUS idea, and I hope what i did with it makes you smile.

All my love,

Jaz

[orbillusion]

Casually SCUs your QSMP

When one Charlie Slimecicle had fled from his home, the cloud in the sky that was forever broken, battered, and bruised like the minds of those who previously inhabited it, he found solace in an advertisement of all things. A poster laying face down on the riverbank, small and partially soaked in the water. The top was ripped, likely from when it was torn from where it was hanged.

He held it in his hands allowing himself to read it. It was an offer for a vacation. An island far away was all that was said. No specific location, or name to said island. "Once in a lifetime opportunity!" was scrawled out in messy writing across the top.

Charlie hummed in thought. He supposed it'd make for a good escape. A hideout from his past mistakes. The poster mentioned that people all over would be there. What he thought of it as was little chance for him to be found. A higher chance at living a normal life.

It mentioned no need to pay or anything of the such. He found it odd but he wouldn't question it.

As he stepped closer to a nearby village he shifted to his mortal form. The one that was vulnerable and very capable of dying. Since he'd been gone from Molympus, he could tell Bizly had calmed the world; making it into something liveable. The bears had disappeared, the ones already dead being left behind to fossilize. He wondered how people in later years would picture them. The chickens no longer multiplied and he hoped they would stay that way. Cows walked on the ground, munching on the grass like the now silent sheep.

He double checked the flier. It said to meet at a specific train station a few towns over by tomorrow at nightfall. In the corner he could just make out the small writing: "We hope you enjoy your ride to the Island!". Below it was what he assumed was the same thing, just in Spanish. Well. This is going to be one hell of a 'vacation'.

[anonymousbeefriendfanfics]

Kata

Full Name: Kataleya

Pronouns: She/Her

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Kataleya was born in Fontaine to a Fontainian mother and an Inazuman father. She was their second child, with an older brother, Cedric. They were a happy family when she was young, but unfortunately, their happiness was not to last. When she was fifteen, her mother died from a severe illness. Heartbroken, her father could no longer bear to live in Fontaine, and moved the three of them to Inazuma to be closer to his family. They then became trapped there after the Sakoku Decree took place.

Kata and her family fought with the Resistance during Inazuma's civil war, defending their ancestral homeland and its people from the Vision Hunt Decree. This, too, would prove disastrous for the little family. Her father lost his life protecting his children, holding off the shogunate army so they could escape. After the loss of their father, her brother Cedric would accept a Delusion from the Fatui in order to protect his little sister, draining his life force in the process. Kata wouldn't find out until it was too late and the damage was already done. She begged him to stop using it, but he lied when he promised her he would - he couldn't risk losing her, too.

She has a cryo vision with the ability to heal. This, too, she gained in a painful way - her brother took a hit for her during a fight, resulting in a mortal wound. As she cradled his bleeding body in the middle of the battlefield, desperately trying to keep him alive, she was bestowed a vision in her hour of need. As a result of the miracle, she not only kept him alive, but healed him as good as new - the wound that should have killed him not so much as leaving a scar. No one else would die fighting for the Resistance as long as she was present.

Unfortunately, there was one thing that she couldn't heal… time itself. They won the war, but she lost the one thing she had left shortly afterwards, as her rapidly-aging brother passed away as a result of using the Delusion.

Distraught and desperate for a way out, she did the very thing her father had done years ago - she buried her family and fled the country as soon as the Sakoku Decree was lifted, returning to Fontaine lost and alone.

She did some odd jobs to keep herself alive for a short time before stumbling across Lyney and Lynette's magic show. She was immediately smitten with the magician, and drew the two of them in her sketchbook during the performance. After the show, she approached Lyney with her art, asking if they needed someone to do marketing for them. He hired her on the spot - much to the displeasure of Lynette, who wasn't consulted. She made art of the magicians, designing posters and fliers advertising for them, and their shows became more popular than ever before. She soon worked her way up, helping with prop design, and eventually she would become their prop manager, working tirelessly from the sidelines to ensure everything runs smoothly and safely.

In the meantime, she slowly won Lynette over with her bright personality and the way she cared for both the magicians and the set - as well as the abundance of tea and snacks she provided. She would also win over Freminet in a similar fashion, often joining him in the audience while the twins practiced their magic.

Several months of ceaseless flirting later, Lyney would finally make a move and ask her out, in part because Lynette talked him into it after growing tired of hearing him talk about Kata all the time. They made the perfect pair, but there was one slight problem… Kataleya didn't know that Lyney was part of the Fatui. The truth came out during the trial after the disastrous performance, shocking her to her core. It took him quite some time (and several comedic attempts at apologizing) to earn her trust back, but eventually, she was convinced that not all of the Fatui were bad people. She's still wary of Arlecchino and the other Harbingers, but she trusts Lyney and his siblings with her life.

She is often the only person that sees Lyney without the cheerful mask he's constantly wearing, as he refuses to show even his siblings the darker side of him, believing he must be strong for them. Now that he's promised to never lie to Kata again, however… all it takes is a little gentle coaxing before the truth comes spilling out, often with tears following. At first, he felt incredibly ashamed by this, but eventually he began accepting her comfort, letting her see him vulnerable because he knew she wouldn't leave or judge him. They have an incredibly deep level of trust for one another.

[twistedgardens]

Mysterious fliers appear all over the NRC campus. They read in beautiful, lurid calligraphy: 'Who is the fairest of them all? To whom shall the greatest prize be won? A kiss upon the lips to only the Fairest One's match. Who shall win?' A competition is set between Vil, Malleus, Leona, Cater, and...Idia (of all people) to see who's "the Fairest of Them All" and get a kiss from their secret "match," whoever that may be. Yuu enjoys watching the chaos from a safe distance.

Scarabia and Octavinelle are oddly left out. Despite Kasim's attempts to throw either himself or Jamil's name into the lot, Jamil diverts all attention away from their dorm. Ever the opportunist to make money, Azul starts a betting pool. No matter who wins in the end, he'll see a pretty profit regardless.

The staff are scratching their heads. Prof. Crewel is chomping at the bit to discover who's playing such a naughty prank (although he's curious to see who takes the blue ribbon). Prof. Trein is tired of these frivolities and just wishes for the students to get back to their studies. Prof. Vargas is supposed to be discouraging anything that involves the ridiculous contest but secretly has money on Leona winning (the strongest survive after all). Azul isn't the only one making profit. Sam is making bank selling merch including cheesy t-shirts with the faces and names of the "contestants" and read: "Team Vil," "Team Malleus," etc. Headmaster Crowley is beside himself...as he hides away from the press who've caught wind of the glorified beauty contest.

Rook is the center of Vil's campaign. He's designing all of the posters, banners, buttons, pins, and balloons, all bearing Vil's name and face. There will be glitter involved. Epel is dragged into Rook's shenanigans. Vil ups the ante with his makeup. He arrives everywhere on time and fashionable. His uniform is as sharp as his cut crease. Oh, but that smile is plastered on nearly 24/7. He keeps his bitchy attitude tapered down to appear more appealing to the widest demographic to secure his position of Fairest of Them All. You could do just about anything to him and he'd smile and accept it, even if behind that placid look he's probably thinking about homicide. Anything to win that title.

Malleus literally has no idea what's going on. This was the first time he's invited to something, and he doesn't have a clue. Sebek takes it upon himself to build a campaign to secure the title for the glory of his future king. Silver tags along only to make sure Sebek doesn't over do it. Lilia is utterly delighted and helps make campaign merch, though he's mostly in it for the chaos.

Leona couldn't give less of a shit about the "dumb beauty contest." Fairest of Them All was something for those prissy little rich kids from Pomefiore to fight about. He, Ruggie, and Jack have a good laugh at the other dorms participating in ridiculous displays of "campaigning" for their champions. Leona puts zero effort into making himself look good, appearance wise and in personality. Granted if over-blotting didn't fix his attitude, nothing would. Leona couldn't stand the fact that his name was on the same list as Malleus, but he wasn't going to make himself look a fool like the overgrown lizard. All that changed when polls started to appear with mysterious figures. Malleus was in the lead with Leona behind even Idia! Well, that's not going to fly, is it?

Heartslaybul shows their full support of Cater. Riddle sets strict rules so that while the dorm, and Cater, can participate in the shenanigans, it cannot disrupt studies. Trey helps with the campaign by baking pastries and sweets and essentially bribing students to pick Cater. Ace wants to pretend all of this is a stupid game, but secretly wants to be the one picked from his dorm instead of Cater. He tends to make a stink about it and his jealousy is quite visible. Deuce, as usual, doesn't really know what's going but is happy to support Cater in any way he can. Cater's use of Magicam explodes. He's taking tasteful selfies any chance he gets, always tagging them as #trulythefairest and #votecater♦️

Idia, on the other hand, is mortified. He spends all his time he normally would have spent gaming trying to find out who's behind this terrible practical joke. Ortho helps rather than hinder the campaign to make his big brother the Fairest of Them All. He somehow managed to snatch good candid pictures of Idia and edits them before posting them to Magicam. #VoteIdia. All of this is done to the chagrin and horror of Idia.

[truedarkhunter]

A little more about Book of Circus

So I was squinting at the opening images of the Circus anime and thought I saw an alicorn or a winged horse, so I went back and paused it. Instead, it was a griffin. My favorite fantasy creature. That, of course, got me thinking about it. Why is it there? Is it a metaphor about the show? A merging of two things that should be impossible. (Well, Yana Toboso certainly has been repeating that theme throughout, hasn't she?) Nearly all the top circus performers in the show have been given prosthetic limbs, a merging of bodies or forms, if you will. (If you've seen the show, it does make that "merging" idea come out in yet another creepy, creative way.) However, near it is an Egyptian-styled statue. Then I realized, Noah's Arc Circus showed curiosities! Yes, we have Snake, but didn't really see his act. The strongman at the opening is doing fire-breathing, another curiosity act, not necessarily his main one.

The third one appeared to be displaying paintings or photographs of some sort. They look like they have figures in them. Unfortunately, as best as I can make out, the first one could be Baron Kelvin, or a person in a bear head and long jacket holding a basket of flowers. So...images of past performers? Art for sale? Previous/current fliers or posters? Whatever the case, these are in the white and purple striped tent set.

When we see Ciel Phantomhive, he is in one that has another juggler or stage magician with a green colored ball in hand, entertaining a pair of children. They appear to be out with a governess or long-suffering mother. The tent appears green, and indeed they have a green lamp outside similar to the one in front of Undertaker's shop. However, instead of being green flame, it is likely that it is green glass causing the color change. (Does anyone else wonder about that green flame at Undertaker's shop that never gets remarked upon?)

On the wall behind the performer are a pair of framed pieces. The one directly above the performer's head appears strongly to be a set of pinned insects on display. There is a large moth or butterfly on the left, a similar shape above, center, but to the right, the shape shifts, so my guess would be a locust or mantis. The far right is very spread out. That looks more like a crayfish/small lobster, fish, or a humming bird. Quite a range, I know. The "tail" is telling. That drooping shape isn't that common. The thicker body and smaller lumps imply fins or claws. Some fancy goldfish can sport such a tail, but the bodies tend to be more rounded. I'd place my bet on the cast shell of a fancy lobster like a blue lobster, or maybe something similarly bright like a mantis shrimp. Hmm, Homarus gammarus "European lobster" would fit the bill, but be rather common. Still, not everyone would have seen them up close. It might be a Florida crayfish since that would be quite "exotic" and the right size in comparison to the possible Atlas Moth also displayed. Catching some more still frames, there is a series of 3-sided tents with open fronts showing paintings, some implements including a guitar and a coal shovel with a cover (to keep the coal dust down). These could have been innovations on everyday objects or some things brought in from Spain or the Americas.

The second booth has a low glass case with some women ooh-ing over it. That could very well be a mummy they are displaying. Having looked at Victorian England history, they were absolutely disrespectful of Egyptian dead! "Mummy brown" was literally a paint made from mummy corpses. People would grind them up and try to treat ailments like it was tiger gall bladder. There is so much story fodder here. Anyway, there is a strong likelihood that they had one they put on their train as they set up in different locals. So they had that on their train...along with a sewn-together griffin. It makes sense that they would create such a creature much as P.T. Barnum did with the Fiji mermaid. Noah's Arc Circus wasn't as small as it seemed.

It makes some sense, clearly their benefactor, Baron Kelvin, had deep pockets. The lion used could even have been from the circus from earlier years or purchased from another circus when it got too old for it to inspire people. Alternatively Kelvin could have hunted it himself in his early years on a game preserve or just had one sent by a trophy hunter. The eagle(s) may have also been show animals.

There are two in the opening.

The first is part of the griffin. You can see the lion's tail in the frame of the red archway as the "camera" moves from Jumbo to Doll and Wendy and Peter. The second is on Dagger's left as he looks over at Beast who lounges across Betty. This one has its full eagle tail spread, so it is a second bird. Why this one? It could symbolize the desire to be free from the dark servitude the circus players are forced to do. It may also be how Dagger's pride is keeping him from being honest with Beast about how he feels. Alternatively, it could be that the Circus once had a falconer as part of their show who flew a pair of eagles. They had them taxidermied as they birds are expensive, rare, and could still draw a crowd/keep people entertained at the curiosities booths before the main performance.

More evidence that this is a larger circus: They have a carousel/merry-go-round (or roundabout in England or "galloper" by showmen) that has wooden horses in place of real ones. It has 4-5 horses only, but carousel horses were rather expensive as they were hand-crafted. By 1889, they were common at fairs, so having one would boost their credibility. (These details are from Wikipedia on Carousels btw, and a little from Greenfield Village.) On a side note: Apparently in the United Kingdom the horses move clockwise (with the animals facing left), while in N. America and Mainland Europe, they go counterclockwise (the animals facing to the right.)

In front of the carousel is a performer in a white top hat, layers of ruffles around the neck, and 4 stripes down the front of a shirt, likely also ruffles or meant to imitate the pleats of a formal shirt. To their right is another performer wearing a pink bow, black mask, and purple and white stripes on the top with a purple skirt below. The edge of the top has a soft material that looks like purple knitting. They have a black mask and a white or pale pink choker on and appear to be selling balloons...with helium or hydrogen in them. The New York Times reported on the balloon's potential for amusement at popular gatherings in 1873 (according to slate.com). So there was time for rubber balloons to be in popular production by 1889 when Circus takes place. However, they were likely still pretty cutting-edge. Tigers started appearing in circuses around 1831 with the French trainer Henri Martin in Germany. (britannica.com)

Then we have the chandeliers. These are being suspended off a hefty wooden frame inside the big tent. The center one ha the most impressive glass or crystal hanging from it. The others in the background seem to serve more for illumination.

However, the stage lights appear to be gas lights. At the very least they are candles and there are many. Even the main tent had a separate, squared-off entrance, if not multiple such entrances. All of this starts to add a lot of time to set-up, tear-down, and transport. When we look at the clothing of the guests, we see quite a few elegant gowns in various styles with bows and bustles. Likewise, the coifs are done up high and many ladies are sporting hats with some form of decoration, from bands to feathers. The 2 children behind Ciel show the girl wearing a fur-trimmed cape with white gloves and the little boy is sporting a bowtie. Thus, the middle and upper classes were definitely drawn to it. So Noah's Arc Circus was well-funded and likely had at least a month or more in a single location in order to make up for the number of days it took to break it down.

There were separate areas for the top tier performers vs. the lower tier ones. We are mostly introduced to the top-tier tents, but can see hints of the other area outside it. While not as large as Barnum and Bailey at it's height of 1, 100 people, it had to have a good sized number of people to make it work. That means lots of interesting side characters and stories to draw from.

Looking at the frames of people practicing, there are between 15-22. (Is that William in a yellow top, shorts, and leggings in the background?) When "Black" shows off, there are 2 scenes, one of people drawn to watch and the other of people gathering around him. Most of the people are not repeats and there is again about 15-22, and that isn't including the 2-3 Italian-style clowns that show up. So Noah's Arc Circus is probably around 100-300 people, I would guess. What's your guess?

For @Shinigami-Mistress (My response to Shinigami-Mistress' lovely art piece was to write a long blog post. Sorry it isn't about Grelle, but hopefully it will give you some new ideas, too.)

[key-lime-soda]

Sumi Lore Professional Question One:

what's the game you've played that's affected you most? i feel like this'll be... inch resting :>

easy. Pokemon

played pokemon leafgreen when i was 5. instantly fell in love. my sister beat the main story cuz i was too young to understand battling, so i just did the post game. I sailed around the Sevii Islands and it was the coolest shit ever. It defined my definition of a good game forever.

Then my interests faded as i got into late elementary school. It was still cool, but not as big in my life. Me and my sister got Pokemon Black and it was definitely really cool (did revive my love a bit). but the post-game was kinda dry. we did everything extra that we could do without internet.

Then i got a phone in 6th grade. I was given the chance to listen to music whenever I wanted. But back then i didnt have a personality music taste, so i didn't know what to listen to. figured i'd try something random.

So, i opened up youtube and looked up Pokemon

i started by listening to the anime openings. sure they're cheesy but some of them are catchy. memorized all the words. then i branched out into the other songs from the show and eventually discovered a whole world of unknown pokemon lore. did you know that the japanese anime had full fucking albums of original songs for every season??? and they go hard too!

with this, i discovered youtubers. Truegreen7, Bird Keeper Toby, Woopsire, MandJTV, and so many more. This defined my middle school era. I had an art account on a different site and posted a lot of fanart. made a lot of online friends too. it was such a good feeling...

then my mom found out.

she was pissed at my art account for various reasons, and punished me severely. at that point i was so hurt about losing all my online friends that i couldn't bring myself to draw ever again. i ended middle school in a very messy headspace.

then highschool came arounf . still wasn't into it. felt like i didn't have the motivation to do much anymore. i reluctantly went to freshman orientation, and got to the club fair, where all the clubs advertise to the new students. and one club struck my attention:

Pokemon Club

for the first time in a long time, i was exited to do something. I embarrasingly hung around their booth way longer than i needed to. I stole like 6 of their fliers too. it finally felt like a place where i belonged. I attended (almost) every single meeting for my first two years of high school. i met my current best friends there. they were the ones to introduce me to ace attorney and yttd!!

one day, one of the presidents was telling me about how their PR was ditching all the meetings and never did their work. i offered to take over cuz i had experience making club advertisements. it went from simple posters to booth flyers to fundraiser ads. then she asked me if i was willing to design club merch. bear in mind, i rarely drew since the incident 3 years prior. but it was my job as PR so i faced my fears and did it. the merch was perfect, and everyone loved it.

the end of my 2nd year came the dreadful question: who would take over? the staff were all graduating and needed a new president.

they all chose me.... i was so excited (and nervous) but i was determined to do my best.

unfortunately, covid hit that very year. my entire 3rd year was online, and so was club. it went better than i expected. the president reached out to me and asked if i wanted to color for her webcomic. next thing i knew, i was drawing as much as i used to. she really helped me find that part of me again, and i'm so thankful. now i'm a college student majoring in graphic design and minoring in video game studies

and it was all because of pokemon

[hardynwa]

NAF puts up presidential aircraft for sale, calls for bidders

The Nigerian Air Force has put up the Falcon 900B aircraft for sale, calling on interested persons to submit their bids for the purchase of the aircraft, which is a part of the presidential air fleet. Details about the sale was contained in a flyer shared on the X page of the NAF late Monday. According to the flier, the aircraft was put up for sale following the approval of the Federal Government. The announcement partly read, “The Federal Government of Nigeria has approved the sale of Falcon 900B aircraft owned by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF). “In compliance with provisions of the public procurement Act 2007, the NAF hereby invites all interested parties to submit bids for purchase of the aircraft. The bids can be submitted by email or physically. “If submitted by email, the bids are to be password protected and sent to dproc@airforce.mil.ng while the password is to be sent separately to d proc2@ airforce.miI.ng. “For physical submission, the quotations are to be enclosed in an envelope and sealed while the envelope is to bear the name and address of the interested company/entity as well as the description and reference to the request. “It should also bear the statement, ‘DO NOT OPEN BEFORE 24 DECEMBER 2023’. “Please note that the bids would be processed immediately after expiration of the deadline for submission.” See announcement poster below: Read the full article

[itswallstreetpr]

Capitalizing on the Generational Washout in Crypto Markets (RIOT, BLQC, COIN, MARA, HIVE, HUT, SQ, MSTR)

After the past week, the cryptocurrency space is now the poster child for this bear market in global risk assets. It has been perhaps the most dramatic example of riches to rags – transitioning from a speculative darling to a smoking crater of bearish damage in a matter of months. (1) In about 7 months, Bitcoin has fallen from nearly $70k to as low as about $17k, losing nearly 76% in that time. (2) It all comes down to the market cycle. When people have easy access to cheap leverage and momentum to the upside in risky assets, we tend to see herding in the right direction for aggressive speculators. At this point in history, cryptocurrency assets are as speculative as it gets: even if they may one day define the gold standard for how transactions are processed across the global economy, they are still an as-yet unproven bet on the future. And when interest rates rise in rapid fashion, bets on as-yet unproven long-term growth themes tend to suffer, especially if they have become soggy with leveraged bets. (3) During the ensuing bear market after a speculative frenzy, people look for companies and securities able to drive dependable growth in cash over those that promise big returns later in exchange for faith now. But there’s a flip side to this coin – one that might be nearing relevance by the day: during such periods, investors have the potential to gain exposure to some of the most promising long-term growth stories for a fraction of the price they might see when confidence in such bets is high. The current moment appears to offer just such an opportunity, with former high-fliers trading at 10, 20, or 30% of their levels from just a year ago, pounded lower by the risk-off energy inspired by the Fed’s mission to get inflation under control before it becomes endemic in the economy over the long term via a shift in consumer and employer long-term expectations. (4) In such a context, cryptocurrency stocks could represent one of the most important low-hanging-fruit growth investment opportunities of this bear cycle. With that in mind, we take a closer look below at some of the most interesting stocks tied to the space right now.   Riot Blockchain Inc. (Nasdaq:RIOT) focuses on mining Bitcoin, and through Whinstone, its subsidiary, hosting Bitcoin mining equipment for institutional clients. RIOT is expanding and upgrading its mining operations through industrial-scale infrastructure development and latest-generation miner procurement. Through Riot’s subsidiary ESS Metron, the Company engineers and manufacturers electrical equipment solutions for Bitcoin mining and other industries. Riot Blockchain Inc. (Nasdaq:RIOT) recently announced production and operations update for May 2022, including the production of 466 BTC, an increase of approximately 104%, as compared to May 2021 production of 228 BTC. As of May 31, 2022, Riot held approximately 6,536 BTC, all produced by the Company’s self-mining operations. In addition, in May 2022, Riot sold 250 Bitcoin generating net proceeds of approximately $7.5 million. “During May, we continued to make progress on the ongoing expansion of our Whinstone Facility in Rockdale, TX,” said Jason Les, CEO of Riot. “We’re proud to report that our first immersion building, Building F, is filled with approximately 23,000 S19 series miners. Approximately 7,000 of those miners are staged in the immersion-cooling tanks and are anticipated to be deployed pending installation of the final requisite components. Once these miners and other staged miners are fully deployed, our hash rate capacity is expected to increase to 5.4 EH/s.” (5) Even in light of this news, RIOT has had a rough past week of trading action, with shares sinking something like -6% in that time. That said, chart support is nearby, and we may be in the process of constructing a nice setup for some movement back the other way. Over the past month, shares of the stock have suffered from clear selling pressure, dropping by roughly -33%. Riot Blockchain Inc. (Nasdaq:RIOT) managed to rope in revenues totaling $79.8M in overall sales during the company's most recently reported quarterly financial data -- a figure that represents a rate of top line growth of 244%, as compared to year-ago data in comparable terms. In addition, the company has a strong balance sheet, with cash levels exceeding current liabilities ($312.4M against $116.2M). (6)   BlockQuarry Corp. (OTC US:BLQC) is interesting because it has a different model that should make it less connected to oscillations in the price of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin: BLQC has a hybrid model where most of its coming sales growth is linked to established deals with other major miners in hosting agreements. In other words, no matter where Bitcoin trades, BLQC will still rake in cash. This should be buffering the stock during the recent bear in crypto prices. But the market appears to be missing this point so far, which could spell a big opportunity for savvy market participants. BlockQuarry Corp. (OTC US:BLQC) has been rocked over recent weeks as crypto prices have melted into a puddle of blood. The stock is down from over $3/share to about $0.25/share in the past 9 months despite demonstrating continued record growth and continuing to lay its multi-phase hybrid hosting foundation after nailing into place its partnership with Bitmain Technologies, one of the biggest players in the space. This action also follows the company’s announcement of its financial and operational performance highlights for the twelve months ended December 31, 2021, as well as the full launch of the Company’s Phase One 20MW hosting infrastructure at its Southeast U.S. cryptocurrency mining site, which will drive approximately $9.5 million in annual revenues going forward. (7) Revs were up 1,643% on a year-over-year basis, cash increased 540% year over year, total assets increased 5,965% year over year to $10.8 million, and total net income was $3.55M, improving from a loss of ($26M) in 2020 – a rather astounding shift in one year. “2021 was a breakthrough year for the Company, and the investments we made during that period are already starting to pay big dividends as we begin to collect on the implementation of our Phase One hosting infrastructure,” noted Alonzo Pierce, President and Chair of BlockQuarry. “The topline exploded higher last year, and the bottom line is set to swing in our favor sharply as we get past our major fixed costs.” BlockQuarry Corp. (OTC US:BLQC)  has put in place several agreements – in partnership with Bit5ive and Bitmain Technologies – with the potential to create enormous shareholder value over a long-term time horizon, including the Company’s hosting agreements, which guarantee significant steady cash flows irrespective of changes in the price of Bitcoin.   Hut 8 Mining Corp. (Nasdaq:HUT) is a cryptocurrency mining and blockchain infrastructure company, which is focused solely on mining bitcoin. The company provides investors with direct access to bitcoin, without the technical complexity or constraints of purchasing the underlying cryptocurrency. Hut 8 Mining Corp. (Nasdaq:HUT) recently announced the appointment of Aniss Amdiss as the company's Chief Legal Officer, effective July 11, 2022. Based in Toronto, Aniss will lead Hut 8's legal and governance portfolios and serve as Corporate Secretary, reporting to Chief Executive Officer Jaime Leverton. "Aniss is going to be an excellent addition to Hut 8's seasoned, dynamic executive team," said Jaime Leverton, Chief Executive Officer of Hut 8. "Aniss' vast experience and leadership acumen will ensure that Hut 8 continues to operate with integrity and transparency while consistently elevating our governance and compliance processes, which will truly differentiate us in a nascent, rapidly evolving industry." (8) We've witnessed -8% dropped from share values for HUT shareholders during the trailing week. But the stock has a track record that includes a number of dramatic bounces, so it may be worth some attention given the flush in Bitcoin and Ethereum over the weekend. What's more, the company has registered increased average transaction volume recently, with the past month seeing 49% above the average volume levels in play in this stock over the longer term. Hut 8 Mining Corp. (Nasdaq:HUT) has a significant war chest ($332.3M) of cash on the books, which must be weighed relative to about $22.5M in total current liabilities. HUT is pulling in trailing 12-month revenues of $195.1M. In addition, the company is seeing major top-line growth, with y/y quarterly revenues growing at 66.8%. (9)   Other core names in the beaten down crypto space include Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq:COIN), Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq:MARA), Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:HIVE), Block Inc. (NYSE:SQ), and MicroStrategy Inc. (Nasdaq:MSTR).   References: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-21/short-sellers-having-a-field-day-betting-against-crypto-stocks?sref=8OqHAIMJ https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=COINBASEBTCUSD https://www.wsfsbank.com/help-guidance/knowledge-center/long-growth-stocks-equals-increased-interest-rate-risk https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/stock-market-outlook-and-forecast/ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/riot-blockchain-announces-may-2022-203000884.html https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/riot?mod=search_symbol https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/BLQC/news/BlockQuarry-Completes-Phase-One-20MW-Launch-5600-Miners-Now-Online-Driving-95M-Annualized-Revs-2021-Audited-Financials-F?id=353592 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aniss-amdiss-joins-hut-8-103000560.html https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/hut?mod=search_symbol Read the full article

[safarigirlsp]

Ghost Town

Ghost Town

Gunfighter Flip Zimmerman x Reader

Word Count: 14k

AO3 Link

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Alcohol. Graphic Violence. Gun Violence. Lots of Violence. Horror Themes. Possession Themes. Supernatural Themes. Shameless References to The Shining. This is a Darker take on Flip than I usually write, but it’s Halloween!

Authors Note: This is based on a combination of a few requests for something spooky along the lines of The Shining and Se7en!

A light snow fell from the October sky. It was an odd trick out in the west, that snow could be falling even when the blue sky peeked through the clouds and the sun shone brightly in your eyes.

This was the first winter that you and your new husband would spend in your new cabin on your new ranch near the booming town of Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

Your husband thought it would be just the right place for the two of you to marry and settle in to begin your life together. A fresh start from the life he had left behind in Dodge City, Kansas. And a fresh start away from the outlaws he had gunned down and imprisoned during his time as Sheriff. He was now a U.S. Marshal. Higher stakes with higher pay.

It was still hard for you to believe that you were now married to the man of your dreams. That you had captured the heart of the fearsome man who had more stars in his eyes when he looked at you than shimmered in the night sky.

Turning your face up toward the sky, you watched as the large fluffy snowflakes drifted lazily toward the ground. Your parasol shielded your face from the delicate snow.

Holding the hem of your buttercup yellow dress in one hand so as not to become soiled, you hurriedly walked across the dirt street. It was a busy morning, teeming with men on horses and women in bustles.

The Deadliest Hand in the West held yours gently, softly, sweetly, thick fingers interlaced with yours. The hand brought yours up to its owner’s lips to be met with an adoring kiss to the back of your hand as you approached the stagecoach station.

Entering the station, your eyes immediately flew to the walls. Advertisements and fliers were tacked intermittently across the weathered wood, a wallpaper of sketched grimaces. One section of the wall was dedicated to wanted posters. Your eyes paused on one that offered a reward of $5,000 for Jesse or Frank James.

Theirs was the only poster on the wall that still advertised an open bounty. All the others had large red X’s drawn across the posters. Bounty filled.

You knew all too well whose gun had filled the legion of bounties, as did almost every citizen from Colorado to Kansas to Wyoming.

The Deadliest Hand in the West. A nickname well earned, forged from the blood of countless outlaws who met their deaths from the shot of a perfectly aimed bullet or the blow from an iron fist.

The same man who had filled the bounties and countless more looked down at you with a smirk, winking at you rakishly. Shaking your head fondly at him, you reached to his collar, pulling his smart mouth down for a kiss. His goatee tickled you when his lips met yours, soft and passionate.

Your hand moved to his cheek when he deepened your kiss, parting his lips against yours, in a display far too lewd for the public setting. Not that you minded. Your fingers caressed his cheek and jaw, trailing down his neck to tease along the top of his collar.

Pulling back, you admired him. He was a dangerously handsome man with a wicked gleam in his whiskey-toned eyes, a proud arch to his nose, bearing a wolfish grin.

Rumors about Marshal Zimmerman were legion. How he had hunted down murderers and train robbers. How he had gunned down an entire gang of outlaws on a weeks’ long bounty hunt with a beautiful woman in tow. How he had charged men on horseback, outnumbered, and made it out alive and unscathed. Some rumors were too fantastical to be believed. You knew even the most incredible of them to be true.

There was also a rumor that the beastly gunslinger traveled in the company of an exceptionally beautiful women. You especially enjoyed that rumor.

Studying the posters himself brought a sideways grin to Flip’s lips. It was a source of pride to him that he had collected so many bounties, brought so many outlaws to justice, during his long career. Earning the nickname of The Deadliest Hand in the West took many years and many bodies.

Setting down the two large bags of luggage that Flip had been carrying in his free hand, he approached the ticket counter. Smiling down at you fondly, he purchased two tickets to Cody, Wyoming.

Wanting to do something extra special for you, he decided to take you on the stage all the way to Cody for a belated honeymoon in one of the most beautiful locations in the country. Even the stagecoach itself was for you. Flip certainly had no use for being stuck in an enclosed receptacle as he was hauled across the country. And although he knew perfectly well that you could outride most men, he also knew that it would be a treat for you to be able to wear fancy dresses and be pampered.

Walking back to you, Flip almost tripped over a small boy who had run into the station. He was awkwardly handing out pamphlets, no doubt a proxy for an unseen employer.

Shakily, the boy offered one to Flip. He was genuinely trying to be on good behavior for you because Flip took it from the boy with only a moderate scowl.

The boy bounded from Flip to you. Politely accepting the pamphlet, you turned it over in your hands as the boy ran on to other patrons and Flip strode back to your side.

The Seven Deadly Sins and Your Path to Heaven.

Returning to his place beside you, Flip placed his deadly hand at the small of your back, stroking you gently.

Outside, you could see the stagecoach approach. Its driver and the man riding shotgun talked jovially to one another.

When the stage was ready to load, Flip saw to it that the two of you were the first passengers to step inside, securing the best seats.

Flip held your hand as you boarded the coach, ensuring the train of your dress made it safely inside as well. Entering after you, he crammed his huge body into the corner seat. Resting one large arm along the back of the seat, he beckoned you to sidle up next to him.

Leaning against Flip’s side, you watched as the other passengers boarded the stage.

There was one other couple. A slender, nicely dressed brunette man with a mustache, a pale complexion, and conventionally handsome features boarded with a homely brunette woman.

The other couple fixed their eyes on you and Flip. The woman’s attention was fixed on Flip’s broad chest and the man’s gaze traveled from your legs up to your bust. His open interest didn’t go unnoticed by Flip, who cleared his throat in something more like a growl, drawing the man’s attention. Flip fixed him with a murderous glare, tightening his arm around your shoulders, until the man looked away.

Once everyone and their luggage were secured, the driver cracked his reins and drove the stage through town, headed towards Wyoming.

The stagecoach rocked as you pulled away from town, jostling you against Flip pleasantly. You felt a pang of guilt as you appraised him, pressed into the corner of the coach. His immensely broad shoulders were cramped, even with one thick arm draped over your shoulders, buying him a little extra room. His long legs were crossed, unable to straighten in front of him.

Flip had a notoriously rough demeanor, gruff and angry, and violent as hell when he needed to be. You had seen it many times, and you were the only person still living who had seen his temper truly flare. Yet, he had never lost his temper with you, never addressed you in anger or malice.

You wondered now, as he was cramped into the corner of the coach with his head intermittently banging into the window when the coach hit a rut, if he would be able to stomach the journey without chewing a hole through his lip or grinding his teeth down to stubs.

He was certainly giving a valiant effort at maintaining his good humor for you. You smiled warmly at him for it.

Catching your eye, he smirked, reaching into his inner breast pocket to retrieve the folded leaflet he had shoved inside at the station.

“Let’s see how much trouble we’re in for when we get to those pearly gates,” his deep voice was light, poking fun at the laughable idea of deadly sins.

Turning the pamphlet over in his large right hand as it rested on his thigh, Flip pursed his lips as he read the descriptions of the Seven Deadly Sins, his brow furrowed in mock consternation.

His left arm, resting behind you and across the back of the seat, reached to stroke his fingers along your arm, petting you gently to ensure he had your attention.

“I do believe you’ve damned me to Hell, sugar.” Flip’s copper eyes held a playful gleam when they met yours, one eyebrow cocked mischievously.

“Oh, am I the reason for your sinful ways?” You met his gaze with a raised eyebrow of your own and a smirk.

“Yes, ma’am, you surely are.” He smiled down at you, his hand rubbing your arm. “Let’s have a look, hmm?”

You leaned against his shoulder, tracing your left hand over his chest as you leaned in to read the pamphlet he held, enjoying the excuse to press yourself closer against him.

“Let’s start with Pride.” Flip winked at you. “The man isn’t alive who’s ever been more prideful than I am to have you on my arm.” He squeezed your upper arm fondly. “I’m the proudest man in the world to have you as my wife.”

“You damn well better be,” you smiled up at Flip, earning a huffed laugh from him.

“Greed.” Flip pretended to consider his own statement before returning his eyes to you. “I want to take everything you can give me, sugar. You’ve never met a man greedier.”

You smacked his chest lightly as you laughed at his humor.

“Envy?” You inquired, laughter still in your voice. “Who could you possibly envy?”

“Envy eats at me.” Flip shook his head in faux contrition. “I envy every eye that has ever looked at you.” He dropped his voice, “And I envy you, darlin.’” He reached his left hand to stroke a curl of your hair. “I envy how you wield more power in those bright eyes of yours than I do in both my fists or with both my guns.” He bent to kiss you lightly. “I envy how your pretty lips can cause more damage than I could ever hope to. How they have the power to condemn me or redeem me.”

You felt your cheeks heat under his praise, and you felt the deeply envious stares of the other passengers in the coach as they watched you under Flip’s touch.

“You’re hardly guilty of Sloth or Gluttony,” you said coyly, trailing your fingers up his chest to his neck, teasing his skin where it rose above his collar.

“But I am. Terribly so,” Flip purred. “And they go hand in hand.” He pulled you tighter against him as he spoke. “I would never leave my bed so long as you’re in it.” He lowered his deep voice, so only you could hear. “And I will never, never have enough of your sweet little pussy. You’re delicious, darlin.’ I could eat you for hours.”

“You’re ridiculous,” you whispered as your hand rose higher along his neck until you were drawing your fingernails lightly along his sharp jawline.

“Lust?” He eyed you wickedly, leaning down again towards your lips. “You tell me, sugar.”

“Insatiable,” you murmured against his plush lips as they parted for you, his hot tongue caressing along your lower lip and into your mouth. You felt the muscles in his jaw flexing under your fingers as he kissed you ardently, consuming every sigh that you breathed into his mouth. He smiled warmly at you when he pulled back, his adoration for you gleaming in his eyes.

“You didn’t know how thoroughly you’ve corrupted me?” Flip raised his eyebrows at you teasingly.

“Am I somehow accountable for your Wrath, as well?” You asked, stroking his cheek.

Flip turned into your palm, closing his eyes and kissing at your wrist. “Nope. I’m guilty of that one all by myself.” He returned his gaze to hold your eyes. “That’s the only sin you’ve helped mitigate in me, my pretty little darlin.’”

After shoving the pamphlet back into his pocket, Flip hugged you closer to him. With your head leaning on your husband’s shoulder, the motion of the stage gently rocked you against him while he held you. You were quickly coming to enjoy traveling by stage.

*******************************************************************************************

A resounding crack accompanied by a violent lurch roused you. Flip shot bolt upright in his seat, his arm around you clenching you roughly against him. The carriage had stopped with a jolt, held fast in its tracks. It was dark outside and snowing heavily. Looking out the window you couldn’t see more than a few yards.

The sound that tore through the serene snowfall was unlike anything you had ever heard. Something from a nightmare. A high-pitched squealing scream.

Flip surged up from beneath you, flung the carriage door open and jumped outside, moving fast on his long legs. Heart beating wildly, you followed immediately behind him, stepping out into several inches of fresh snow and a gust of chilled wind.

The screaming continued, piercing through the night. One of the four horses lay on the ground, thrashing and kicking violently in the mud and snow, its neck arched in pain, wrenched backward inside its thick harness collar by tangled reins as it scraped along the ground. It’s pained whinny shot through to your bones.

The horse had stumbled in a rut, hidden by snow, and collapsed. The canted angle of the fallen animal broke the tongue and axle of the stagecoach, pinning the horse underneath the weight of the front of the carriage as it tipped forward.

The driver and his partner were already off the coach, struggling to unbuckle the animal’s harness. Flip dropped to his knees in the snow beside them and the struggling horse. Pulling a large bowie knife from his pocket, he roughly shoved the other men out of his way so he could cut the horse free as it thrashed and kicked.

Rushing back to the stagecoach door, you shouted at the other passengers to get out of the coach to lessen the weight. Begrudgingly, they too stepped out into the blustery night air. You ran back to Flip who had cut the horse free where he could, but it was still pinned by the broken tongue pressing down against the horse’s collar. The drivers both tried fruitlessly to lift the tongue where it pinned the animal, using their combined strength to no avail.

Pushing back up to his feet, Flip hurried to the front of the coach. Bending enough to get his broad shoulder under the tongue where it connected to the coach, he heaved up with a growl. He didn’t need to lift the coach, just to move it a few inches so the horse could wiggle free. You could see the muscles in Flip’s huge back and thick thighs straining with effort as he shrugged the tongue up in his white knuckled grip.

Helping as much as you could, you ran to the horse, grabbing its reins and helping it move in the right direction. Flip was able to create just enough slack for the horse to scramble to its feet before Flip dropped the weight of the coach down off his shoulder with a loud grunt.

The horse stood beside you, shivers of shock raking its body. He was scraped up and favoring a leg, but it wasn’t broken.

Dusting the snow from his knees, Flip straightened back to his full height. He exchanged a concerned look with you as steaming breath huffed from his lips.

With a damaged coach and one injured horse, no one was going to travel any further tonight. There would be another stage coming down the line tomorrow. Or the next day. If the snow didn’t hold them up, which was a big if.

The dark-haired driver approached Flip with a handsome smile, hand extended.

“I’m Poe,” he introduced himself. “And that’s Finn,” he indicated the other man who had been riding shotgun before turning back to Flip. “You’re a good man to have around in a bind.”

Flip gave his full name as he shook Poe’s hand and exchanged a nodded greeting to Finn. Poe seemed to stare at Flip a moment too long, his eyes settling on Flip’s six twin guns, before his friendly smile returned.

“This is my wife,” Flip introduced you as he extended his arm, beckoning you to walk to his side and press yourself against his perpetually warm body.

“Ma’am,” Poe responded, tipping his hat, his attention still primarily on Flip. “I guess the bad news is that we’re stuck here for now.”

“Where abouts are we?” Flip asked amid a flurry of snow. The snowfall was a full-blown blizzard now, and too dense to see your surroundings for more than a few yards away in any direction.

The other couple, the brunette man and homely woman, walked to the front of the coach, each hugging themselves and shivering.

“Well, that’s the worse news.” Poe scratched the back of his neck as he spoke. “We’re just about as close to the middle of nowhere as we can get. Nothin’ for miles.”

“Miles?” The man intoned with annoyance.

“We can’t stay here in this cold overnight! We’ll freeze,” the woman beside him joined in pointlessly.

Flip smirked down at you, lowering his voice, “Don’t you worry about freezin,’ sugar. I know just how to keep you nice n’ warm.”

“What makes you think I’m worried?” You raised your eyebrow at him. “This is hardly a dangerous situation. By our standards.”

Something out of the corner of his eye drew Flip’s attention. Raising his head, he looked easily over the top of your head. A strong gust of frigid wind cleared the snow ahead, offering a brief window through the blizzard. He was just barely able to see the outline of a large building about half a mile ahead.

“What town is that up ahead?” Flip directed at Poe.

“What?” Poe squinted to see through the snow. “There’s no town out here.”

“There’s something,’” Flip huffed as he buttoned up his jacket.

Returning his attention to you, Flip rubbed your back with his warm hand and spoke softly, “Sit back in the coach for a minute, darlin.’ Warm yourself up.” He looked from you back toward the building he had seen through the snow. “I’m gonna see to it that the horses are unhitched and then we have a bit of a walk in store for us.”

The other woman looked appalled, looking from her man to Flip as she whined, “I’m not walking in this.”

“What you do hardly concerns me, miss,” Flip clipped brusquely.

Returning to the coach, you fished out a heavy wool coat from your luggage and pulled it on. By the time you had retrieved yours and Flip’s bags, Flip was nearly done helping Poe with the horses.

As you placed the two bags back inside the coach, you wondered if you should dig your gun out of your bag, a beautiful .357 Colt six-shooter with pearl a grip and luxurious engraving along the barrel and cylinder. Flip had given it to you as a wedding present. You decided against it, for now. Flip had at least three guns on him at all times; his two trusted .45 Colt revolvers on his hips and a small four-barreled derringer hidden in his pocket.

Leading two horses as he approached you, Flip handed the reins of one horse to you. He had picked the two fittest looking animals. You knew what he was thinking. If worse came to lousy, at least you would each have a horse to ride out on.

Flip grabbed both your bags in his right hand, leading his horse with his left, and started out down the snowy trail. You walked beside him, leading your own horse. Snow had now risen above your ankles and the wind swirled around you as the temperature dropped by the minute. You were glad to be moving.

Poe and Finn followed behind you, naturally influenced by Flip’s commanding presence. Each of them also led a horse, Poe taking care to guide the injured animal. Further behind you, the whining tones of the bickering couple could be heard on the wind, whose names you had learned were Walter and Hannah. They had also decided to reluctantly trudge toward the building Flip had spotted.

It seemed like miles that you walked in the shivering cold as snowy wind stung your cheeks and numbed your ears, but in reality it could not have been much further than half a mile. Soon, the outline of a huge building came into view through the blizzard. As you walked closer, you realized it was actually a large hotel. Strange that Poe was unaware of it as many times as he had driven this line. It appeared to be abandoned. No lights or sounds greeted you as you approached.

Virgil’s Overlook was printed in boldly festooned lettering on the front of the hotel, welcoming its guests.

“I’ll be damned that I never noticed this before.” Poe shook his head at the sight of the large abandoned hotel. When you reached the steps, Finn and Poe took the reins of the horses you and Flip led. They took all four horses to a stable you could see off to the side of the hotel.

Flip roughly kicked open the locked double doors, gaining you entrance into the hotel. It was warm inside, welcoming. A huge lobby sprawled in front of a wide staircase. Although the hotel had looked dark from the outside, the lobby was dimly lit well enough for you to make out its features plainly. You wondered briefly who was around to tend to the lighting, but you were pulled from your thoughts by Flip wrapping his free arm around your shoulders and pulling you close against him.

“It won’t be too bad for us bein’ hold up in here,” he said as he smirked down at you. “Time will fly right by, so long as we have a decent mattress.”

You let out a shivering laugh in response, smacking his chest playfully.

Taking your freezing hand in his huge warm one, he led you up the large staircase in search of a room.

The second floor had a large saloon complete with a parlor. It was also lit with a healthy glow. The bar itself was long enough to seat twelve men comfortably. Behind the bar was a large mirror above fully stocked shelves of liquor. Tables were set up for dining or playing cards, and you couldn’t help but feel excitement at the prospect of shooting a few rounds of pool with your husband on the green-topped pool table.

Hanging on the wall next to the bar was a framed layout of the hotel. After studying it for a moment, Flip brought a thick finger up to sketch, tapping on a room.

“Guess we’re headed up to the third floor, sugar,” he told you with a wink.

Looking where he pointed, you saw the room labeled ‘Honeymoon Suite.’

“Fingers crossed that we’ll be snowed in a while,” you said as you winked right back.

Grabbing a flickering oil lamp off the wall, Flip held it ahead as you both walked through the parlor to ascend another flight of stairs.

When you reached the top of the stairs, Flip grabbed your arm, spinning you to face him. He swiftly ducked under your arm and shoved his shoulder into your waist, lifting you up over his shoulder with a laugh. Giggling yourself, you pounded your fists playfully against his back while he carried you over his shoulder and your two bags and the lamp in his free hand as he walked down the long hallway to the honeymoon suite.

The doors lining the hallway were all closed as you were carried past them. Not that it would be a hindrance. Flip could kick one of these doors in without missing a stride. Fortunately, however, when you reached the door at the end of the hallway, it was already ajar. Welcoming you inside.

The room was beautiful, large and ornate, with vaulted ceilings and intricate crown molding. A large four poster bed with a luxurious duvet sat in the center. Flip kicked the door shut behind him and dropped your bags in a heap before placing the lamp on the dresser, its golden glow filling the bedroom.

Walking to the bed, he flipped you back over his shoulder, tossing you playfully onto your back on the mattress. Crawling over you as you were still bouncing, Flip wasted no time in attacking your neck with playful bites. You were still laughing from his antics when his bites turned to slow kisses, rising up your neck toward your jaw.

Settling more of his heavy weight on you as he reached your lips, he kissed you deeply as your arms wrapped around his neck. With his added weight pressing you down into the mattress, it wasn’t long before something hard was digging painfully into your thigh.

“Flip,” you laughed against his lips. “You have to at least take your guns off long enough to fuck me.”

“I don’t know, darlin,’” he growled, lifting his weight back off of you as he looked down at you, grinning. “You’re just about the most dangerous creature I’ve ever encountered.”

“It’s a good thing that I’m on your side, then.” You reached to untie the bandanna at his throat, throwing it aside.

Flip stepped back off the bed, smirking down at you as he stood to remove his gun belt. You held a hand up to him from where you lay on your back. Taking your hand, Flip yanked you up with playful roughness, pulling you up off the bed and against his chest.

Turning your back to him, his hands instantly reached to begin the lengthy process of unlacing your dress. His thick fingers were ill-suited to the delicate task, but he was always careful to avoid ripping the fabric of your dress. Unless you told him otherwise.

Leaning his head down behind you, Flip brought his lips to your shoulder, kissing you as he undid the laces at your back. Sighing at the feeling of his lips, you leaned in toward his mouth. It was one of your favorite things when he kissed your neck and shoulders. He could render you damp and shivering from that alone.

Working the laces apart down to the top of your ass, Flip’s kisses turned to sucking bites along your exposed back. After pushing your dress off your shoulders, his hands moved around you to your tits where they spilled over the top of your still laced corset.

Stepping out of your yellow dress, you turned to face him. Your hands smoothed over his massive chest before working to undo the buttons on his cream-colored shirt. You pushed him backward as you did, away from the bed. Backing him up until the backs of his knees collided with a large armchair and he fell back into it with a huffed laugh.

Following him down into the chair, you climbed into his lap, planting your knees on either side of his thighs and straddling him. You finished unbuttoning his shirt as he ran his hands up your thighs.

“You want to ride my cock, darlin’?” Flip huffed, squeezing your thighs.

“As long as you’re ready to buck nice and hard for me,” you replied with a smirk as you pulled his unbuttoned shirt free from where it was tucked into his pants.

Grinning up at you wolfishly, Flip playfully bucked his hips roughly under you, knocking you forward against his chest. He used the opportunity to press his lips to your neck, littering your skin with kisses and nips. His hands traveled up your thighs and around to grip your ass, pulling you more firmly into his lap over his cock straining beneath his pants.

With a head sigh, you tilted your head back, granting him better access to your neck as you ground over his cock. The feeling of his lips, hot and soft on your delicate skin, sent a rush of warmth through your belly.

Stroking your hands down his bare chest, you pushed his open shirt away from his beautiful muscles. Leaning back on his thighs, you took a moment to admire the powerful man beneath you as your hand travelled lower down his body. Flip lifted your skirt, bringing one hand to your pussy and rubbing your clit with his thumb. Looking from your pussy up to your eyes, he smiled at the amount of slick that already coated his thumb.

“You’re already drippin’ for my cock, sugar,” he said as he swirled his thumb around your clit for emphasis.

After undoing his pants, you pushed them open enough to free his cock. Massive and throbbing, his perfect cock was already painfully hard and eager to push into your pussy. You watched a pearl of precum drip from his tip when you wrapped one of your hands as far around him as you could, your fingers unable to meet around his girth. Your pussy grew wetter just at the magnificent sight of him. Flip felt your reaction, his smile widening.

Placing your hands on his broad shoulders, you used him to balance as you raised yourself high enough off his lap to position yourself above his cock. Steadying your hips with one of his hands, Flip ran his tip through your folds, slicking himself in your arousal. A pungent moan escaped your lips when you sank down onto his massive cock, matching the growl that rumbled through Flip’s chest at the feeling of filling you.

“Your little pussy always feels so fuckin’ good around my cock, darlin,’” Flip praised you. “The perfect fit for me.”

Reaching one of his hands behind your neck, he brought you down into a deep kiss. His lips caressed yours lovingly as you rocked your hips, adjusting to the size of his cock. As your rocking turned to grinding, Flip’s mouth traveled from your lips down to your neck, returning his lips to adorn your skin with wet kisses and soft bites. His hands both skimmed down your body to grip around your corseted waist.

Quickly, the near painful stretch of his cock turned to pleasure as you ground on him and his mouth raised goosebumps along your neck and shoulders. You wanted more. Planting your hands on his chest, you began to bounce, chasing the feeling of his cock slamming into you. Flip’s head fell back against the chair, watching you with eyes glazed with lust. He loved watching you like this. You looked so gorgeous riding his cock, wearing a pleasured smile, hair falling wildly around your face and cascading down around your bouncing tits.

“You sure look fuckin’ good up there, sugar,” Flip purred. “I love watchin’ you ride my cock. And I love buckin’ nice and hard for my little filly.”

“Oh, yes! Fuck me harder, handsome,” you moaned, arching your back. “Give me a good ride on your cock.”

Your corset held your breasts perfectly in place for Flip’s mouth to attach to one of your nipples. The feel of his tongue swirling around it made your back arch even more, pushing your tits further into his face as they bounced above the top of your corset. His hands moved to grab your hips roughly, helping you bounce and grind even harder on his cock. Matching your pace, he bucked his hips up beneath you, shoving his cock in as far as he could reach.

Tightness that coiled in your abdomen trickled down to your pussy, causing you to clench around Flip’s cock as you rode him. Feeling you getting tighter, he started fucking up into you harder, jolting your body with every rough thrust and buck of his hips. Riding him like this, his cock hit the perfect spots inside you with every bounce and thrust. Your head fell back in ecstasy as you felt yourself on the verge of erupting.

“Eyes on me, darlin.’ I want to see you when you cum on my cock,” Flip commanded as he bucked up extra forcibly, getting your attention amid your pleasured haze.

Holding Flip’s vibrant whiskey gaze, your thighs started to quiver, your pussy tensing as you teetered on the edge.

Knowing just what you needed, Flip fucked up into you as hard as he could. After only a few more hard thrusts, you were cumming in intense pulses of euphoria. Your jaw fell open with pleasure as Flip fucked you through all the aftershocks of your orgasm, his own jaw clenched tight with the effort of keeping himself from cumming as your pussy spasmed around his cock.

“I’m gonna fill you up, beautiful,” he groaned. “I love knowin’ your pussy’s pumped full of my cum.”

Flip growled with effort as he fucked you until your body went limp and pliant, his hands now supporting you. His cock throbbed with his final thrusts before he buried it as deeply as he could in your pussy, his hot cum shooting into you in thick ropes.

Once his hips stilled, you collapsed forward onto his chest. His hands smoothed and caressed your back as you rested your head on his shoulder.

“I love you so fuckin’ much, sugar,” Flip’s voice rumbled near your ear as he turned in to kiss your neck.

“I love you more,” you whispered against him.

“That’s not possible, darlin,’” he assured you between kisses.

Flip held you against him as he gently kissed your neck and shoulders. You sat on his lap until you could feel his cum leaking out of you around his cock, still buried inside of you.

Wrapping his arms tighter around you, Flip pushed himself up from the chair, easily lifting you with him as he stood. Taking a few steps with you, he deposited you back on the bed, leaning over you to kiss your lips again.

When he pulled away from you, he tucked himself back into his pants and buttoned his shirt, grinning down at you as he did. From your place on the bed, you raised a questioning eyebrow at him as he re-dressed.

By way of answering, Flip moved to the dresser, picking up an empty pitcher that sat atop it inside a large bowl.

“I’ll go find us some water,” Flip said as he turned back to you, holding the large porcelain pitcher. “I won’t be long, sugar.”

“Don’t be,” you warned, smiling up at him. “This bed’s awfully cold and lonely without you in it.”

Flip set the pitcher down long enough to buckle his gun belt back into place around his hips, earning an amused grin from you, before retrieving it and heading out of the door. He turned to smile back at you as he closed the door behind him. You could hear his footfalls, heavy with his boots, as he walked away down the hallway.

*******************************************************************************************

Greed & Pride

Flip walked quickly down the hallway, pitcher in hand, and descended the stairs two at a time. Making his way back to the saloon, he found it occupied by the other passengers from the stage. It appeared as though you and Flip had been the only two who had been eager to find a room, the other passengers content to pass the time by drinking and talking amongst themselves.

Seated at a small round table was the other couple, Walter and Hannah, the man trying valiantly to creep his hand up under the woman’s dress. Hannah turned her attention immediately to Flip when he made his entrance, eyeing him hungrily. Poe and Finn were seated at the bar facing the mirrored backdrop. A mostly empty whiskey bottle sat on the bar between them, their glasses substantially empty in front of them.

Approaching the bar from the side, Flip eyed Poe and Finn cautiously, always warry of men after they’d downed a bottle of whiskey due to his extensive experience getting in barfights and shootouts. Poe was closer to Flip with Finn seated further down the bar. They also appeared to be talking animatedly to someone behind the bar, where a bartender would regularly stand.

There was no one there, of course. The hotel was abandoned other than the passengers from the stage. Although, as Flip walked toward the bar, he could almost swear he saw something like a faint mirage of a man behind the bar, as though he were looking through a haze of fog. As quickly as Flip registered the figure, it evaporated away entirely.

It’s been a long fuckin’ day, Flip thought as he brought his free hand up to rub his eyes. Maybe a drink wouldn’t do him any harm either. He knew you didn’t like it when he drank. When he really drank, anyway. You were right not to like it, even Flip agreed. He had a tendency to lose his notoriously violent temper with the help of a few too many drinks. But you never minded if he indulged in only a drink or two.

Flip placed the pitcher on the counter and walked toward the two other men. He watched them closely, a habit that had saved his life more times than he could remember. For some reason, just the sight of the other men had his temper rising. He felt inexplicably irritable and angry, especially misplaced given the rush of endorphins he had just gotten from fucking you.

“So, you’re that bigtime marshal, huh?” Poe directed at Flip, sliding a shot glass full of whiskey down the bar toward him. “The one who made a name out of bringing down the baddest of the bad guys?”

“That’s the rumor,” Flip agreed in a clipped, irritated tone, catching the shot glass in his hand and pushing it aside.

“The Deadliest Hand in the West,” Finn intoned, leaning back from his seat at the bar to take a look at Flip. “But I think that you were the Deadliest Hand. When you were younger. Now, you’re over the hill. Old. Slow.”

“I wouldn’t go bettin’ your life on that, slick,” Flip gritted, reaching into his breast pocket to retrieve his pack of cigarette makings. Rolling a cigarette with his dexterous fingers, he kept the other men fixed in his gaze as he raised the paper to lick along its edge and place the rolled cigarette between his teeth. Striking a match on the side of the bar, he raised the flame to its tip, inhaling deeply.

“I’m a bounty hunter, you know,” Finn said more aggressively, pushing himself away from the bar to stand. “But it’s slim pickin’ out there now, thanks to you. It’s hard for me to make a buck tryin’ to pick off your scraps.”

“Well, you’re in luck.” Flip grinned sarcastically around his cigarette, smoke pluming from his nose. “I’m newly retired from chasin’ down outlaws. My new wife asked me to settle down in lots of ways, and I’m happy to oblige her.”

“I can’t figure how much money you’ve cost me over the years,” Finn continued, shaking his head angrily.

Poe stood from the bar himself, infected with Finn’s indignancy. Poe nodded at nothing across the bar from him, as though he was again talking to the unseen bartender. Poe and Finn were now very different men from the jovial pair who embarked on the coach ride early that morning.

“You’ve made it hard for me too, Zimmerman,” Poe said, narrowing his eyes at Flip. “I was a lawman, too. And I’m fast. But I never got any name for myself because everyone only ever talked about the Deadliest Hand in the West. You.”

“Plenty of room for you now.” Flip glared at the two men, chewing his cigarette, his temper growing hotter by the second. “Go out there and shoot the hell outta everyone. Have fun.”

“The more I think about it,” Poe said as he took a step closer to Flip. “What better way to make a name for myself, I mean a real name for myself, than by gunning down the great Marshal Zimmerman.”

“I’d like a cut of that pot, myself,” Finn added, stepping forward too until he stood beside Poe. “You think outlaws are the only ones with bounties on their heads? I know a lot of people who’d pay good cash money to see you dead.”

“I’d be the fastest gun in the west once you’re dead, Zimmerman,” Poe said with a spiteful smile, his hand lingering above the butt of his revolver. “I’d be a hero.”

“I’d be a rich man,” Finn declared, the fingers of his right hand twitching in anticipation.

“Heroes die young around me,” Flip growled menacingly at Poe before turning his deadly gaze to Finn, straightening and squaring his shoulders toward the other men. “All that money won’t do you much good from the inside of a pine box.”

“There’s another rumor about you these days, Zimmerman.” Poe grew bolder with every word he spoke. “Rumor is that you’ve gone soft. That your wife has you on too tight of a leash. That any balls you used to have are now in her purse.”

“Well, you’d be right in that my wife can do whatever the hell she pleases with my balls,” Flip replied with a dangerous sideways grin.

“Have you always been this much of a fucking coward, Zimmerman?” Finn hissed, his hand inching closer to his gun.

“I reckon I’m about the same amount of coward I’ve always been,” Flip growled, his amber eyes gleaming murderously, his hands icily still where they hovered above his six-shooters. “In my experience, there’s only two kinds of men in this world.”

“Let me guess,” Poe scoffed. “Brave and cowardly?”

“Nope,” Flip replied, feeling the familiar itch in his trigger finger. “Alive and dead.”

Finn yanked his gun with a jolt, telegraphing his tepid movement, in his attempt to gun Flip down.

Faster than greased lightening, Flip drew his gun. Eyes never leaving his target, Flip squeezed the trigger when his sights covered Finn’s forehead. As soon as the hammer dropped, sending a bullet into Finn’s head, Flip’s left hand fanned the hammer, drawing it back with the wedge of his palm to cock it again, as he trained his pistol on Poe.

Two gunshots rang out in immediate succession, overlapping each other. Twin holes bored into Poe’s head. One right in the center of his forehead erupted in a scarlet blossom. The other in his left eye, exploded in a burst of milky white splattering from the ruptured eye.

Flip’s head jerked sharply to look behind him toward the source of the other gunshot, his hand swinging in unison, following his gaze with the barrel of his gun, as Poe’s body dropped to the floor beside Finn’s. An impulse inside of him, as if from a disembodied voice inside his head, told him to shoot on sight.

Flip halted his turn with a jolt when his eyes landed on you, still aiming your pistol at Poe’s lifeless body, smoke rising from its barrel. Poe, for all his bluster, hadn’t managed to squeeze off a shot. Neither had Finn.

You knew Flip could take care of himself. He didn’t need your help. He could easily take down half a dozen armed men, let alone two. You had seen him do it before. But, by God, any man who dared to come after your husband would not only have to deal with his wrath, but yours too.

Smirking around his cigarette, sucking his teeth, Flip’s smile widened as he looked at you.

“The bed got cold,” you said with a nonchalant shrug. “So, I came to find you and tell you to get your ass back in it next to me.”

Grinning broadly at you, Flip returned his gun to its holster before opening his arms wide to catch you when you rushed into them. You reached to his cigarette, plucking it from his lips and tossing it onto the floor so he was free to kiss you.

“Do you just go around looking for trouble?” you asked with a laugh against his lips.

“It sure seems to know where I am most of the damn time,” he agreed as he pulled back from your lips.

“It’s a good thing you have me to look out for you, then.” You smoothed your hands up his chest, smiling fondly.

“I hear there’s a rumor goin’ around that I’ve gone soft because of you,” Flip told you, his eyes shining with adoration as he looked down at you. “What do you think about that, sugar?”

“Soft? You?” You feigned shock, bringing a hand to your chest in surprise. “Why, you’re always so hard around me, Marshal.”

Huffing a laugh at your words, Flip leaned down to kiss you again. Parting your lips with his tongue, he deepened his kiss until you were whimpering into his mouth, your hands fisting his lapels to pull him down even closer to you.

From their round table across the saloon, the other couple watched you both. Hannah rubbed her thighs together, her breath coming short as she watched Flip kiss you, wanting to have a man kiss her with such ardor. Her companion ground his teeth together, digging his nails into his palms as he balled his fists. Looking at you, Walter wanted his hands to be on you the way Flip’s were, to have you in his bed the way Flip did. A murmur throughout the saloon for their ears only whispered to them each that they deserved exactly that.

Impervious to the onlookers, Flip took your hand. Raising it to his lips, he kissed your skin gently before leading you out of the saloon.

“Who taught you how to shoot like that, sugar?” he teased, lacing his fingers through yours as he walked beside you.

“You should be careful,” you answered back coyly. “I learned from the Deadliest Hand in the West himself.”

“He better make damn sure he keeps you happy then, huh? So he doesn’t go gettin’ his ass shot by that dead aim of yours.” Flip squeezed your hand with his words, smirking down at you.

“He’s doing a pretty good job of keeping me happy so far,” you assured him, bumping him playfully with your shoulder as you walked.

“Yeah? You should hear the rumor about what you keep in your purse,” Flip continued with a laugh.

“You’ll have to enlighten me,” you said before you recalled something out of place. “Who was that bartender? I didn’t remember seeing him on the stage with us.”

Flip stopped in his tracks at your words, yanking you to a stop beside him like a mule sitting back in his harness.

“You saw a bartender?” Flip asked, his brow furrowing as he looked down at you sternly.

“Of course, I did. Didn’t you?” you answered, baffled by his confusion. “He was standing right behind the bar the whole time watching you. He was smiling, too. He seemed to like watching you kick ass almost as much as I do.”

“You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me, sugar.” Flip shook his head incredulously, as if trying to clear away an unpleasant thought. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, handsome,” you confirmed, unused to being pressed by your husband. “I wondered at first if I’d have to shoot him too if he tried to pull a gun on you from behind.”

Baffled by your words, Flip rubbed his eyes before smoothing his hand down his face.

“Let’s get back to bed and get some shut eye,” he said hoarsely, pulling you beside him as he continued back toward your room. “I think you wore me out today, darlin.’”

Ascending the stairs, Flip could feel the weariness of the day settle deeper into his bones with every step. He felt at once both dead tired and restless, as though his body wanted to collapse on his feet, but pinpricks of agitation prodded his mind, keeping him on edge.

The feeling of your hand in his and your body next to him as you both walked down the hallway leading to the honeymoon suite were the only things that kept him calm. Your presence had always grounded him. You were the only balm that had ever been able to silence his demons and tame the beast that lived inside his skin.

Back inside your room, you both remained clothed when you fell together onto the bed. After the events in the saloon, it seemed too lackadaisical to get too comfortable for the remainder of the night.

Lying on his back, Flip pulled you into his arms across his chest, stroking your hair and breathing in the scent of you until you were both lulled into sleep.

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Lust & Envy

A harrowing scream echoed through the hallways of the hotel, reaching Flip’s ears as he dozed. Shooting bolt upright from a deep sleep at the sound, Flip wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow, ignoring the sweat beading on his chest. Straining his ears for more, he wondered if the sound had been real or something from the confines of his dreams. You still slept soundly beside him, your features serenely beautiful.

I can’t remember ever wantin’ a drink this fuckin’ bad, Flip thought to himself, his mouth parched and nerves alight with a creeping anger. Outside the window, snow flurried in a curtain of white and a frigid breeze howled against the glass. Even the sight itself making Flip think of the warm comfort that a shot of whiskey could offer.

Looking down at you again, Flip took a deep breath, calmed by the sight of you, and pushing the thought of a drink out of his mind. As he was laying back down, another sound drew his attention.

“Help me, Flip,” the voice of an unfamiliar woman resounded in his head. It sounded at once faraway and so close that it rang in his ears.

Shaking his head, Flip turned to kick his legs off the bed and sit up fully. You still slept peacefully. How the hell was that? Your hearing was much better than his after decades of gunfire damaging his ears.

“Pleassssseeee…” The voice came again, beginning in a feminine lilt and trailing off into something like an unnatural snarl.

Flip jumped to his feet, his blood pounding in his ears.

He watched as you turned over in your sleep, reaching your hand to seek his warmth that lingered on the mattress. There was no need to wake you. He could go see what was going on and be back without you knowing anything was wrong.

Adjusting his gun belt around his hips, Flip strode to the door. He silently slipped out of it and closed it fast behind him, careful not to wake you.

The hallway was silent. But Flip knew where the voice had come from as though he had been in this hotel, hearing the same voice many times before, a distant memory he had all but forgotten.

Taking the stairs up to the next level, Flip saw the door to room 237 sat ajar, waiting for him. The warm glow from a flickering oil lamp drawing him in like a moth to its flame.

Pushing the door the rest of the way open with the square toe of his boot, Flip leaned in the doorway, surveying the inside of the room.

A clawfoot bathtub sat in the middle of the room. A beautiful naked woman reclined calmly in its basin, relaxing in steaming soapy water. Unconcerned when the door opened, she languorously turned her head to Flip.

“Were you callin’ for help, ma’am?” Flip asked, refusing to allow his eyes to fall below hers. Even as she stood from the tub in response to his question.

“Not calling for help,” her voice sounded in his ears, although her lips didn’t move. Her eyes shone black as ebony, an inescapable void. “Calling for you.”

Stepping from the tub, she didn’t reach for a towel or move to cover herself as she stalked toward Flip.

“Look lady, I’m flattered but I’m not interested,” Flip told her firmly from his place in the doorway. “I’m taken.”

“Taken? By your wife?” The voice echoed in his head, playing his nerve endings like a harp. “She doesn’t deserve you.”

“She’s the only woman I lust after.” Flip scowled as he moved to step backwards, but he found himself rooted in place, almost hypnotized by the voice.

“You don’t make her happy. Who wants a retired gunslinger? A man who used to be great?” The woman asked inside Flip’s mind, closing the distance between her body and Flip’s. “She’ll find someone else. Someone younger. Someone better.”

The woman seemed to grow more beautiful with every step. Raising her arms, she moved to loop them around Flip’s neck and press her body to his. Flip stopped her short, pushing her back with his huge hand on the base of her throat at her collarbone, solidly above her breasts.

“I said I’m taken,” Flip growled, feeling hot under the collar and angry. “Back the fuck off.”

“I could be yours forever,” the woman tried again, knocking Flip’s hand aside and rushing toward him.

Flip shoved the woman roughly backward as she tried to crash her lips to his, sending her stumbling back away from him. When she regained her balance and straightened, her visage had changed. Instead of the beautiful young woman, now it was her rotting corpse, standing before him. Her skin was a jaundiced yellow with patches of necrotic green and black, chunks of her flesh gone from the extent of her purification.

Sucking in a shocked breath at the sight, Flip jumped backward on reflex, reaching for his gun, as the corpse lunged at him.

*******************************************************************************************

The blast of a gunshot ringing through the halls on the floor above you woke you from a restful sleep. You sat upright, instantly alert from years of being attune to gunplay in the company of your husband, as your eyes adjusted to the darkness of the bedroom.

A thin line of light entered your room from the bedroom door where it was cracked open, admitting the faint light from the hallway.

Backlit by the light from the doorway, you saw the figure of a man standing near it.

“Christ, Flip, what’s going on?” you asked the man, rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

“You can call me Walter,” the man answered, sending a chill down your spine, just as the weight of another body roughly collided with you, tackling you back down onto the mattress.

Hannah jumped on you with all her weight, catching you off guard and pinning you down on the mattress. She held a large bowie knife in her hand. A knife that she raised to your face when you struggled beneath her, pricking the skin of your cheek with its razored tip.

“All my life, I’ve wanted to be beautiful like you,” she hissed down at you, tracing the knife over the skin of your cheek. Behind her, Walter snaked his hand down his pants, rubbing his insignificant little dick as he watched. “All my life I’ve wanted a man to look at me the way your husband looks at you.”

Not responding to her, you tried to steady your breath as you surreptitiously slid your hand upward, underneath your pillow.

“I wonder if he’ll still want you after I cut your pretty face up,” the woman said with a maniacal laugh, trailing the blade over your lips. Pressing the tip into your lower lip, she drew a drop of blood, as she cast a look over her shoulder toward her companion. “But don’t worry. Walter wants you next after I’m done with you.”

Using the opening her momentary distraction provided, you yanked your revolver out from underneath your pillow where you had hidden it on habit before sleep overtook you.

Hannah had just enough time to register the gun, her eyes going wide in terror, when you pulled the trigger, sending a bullet right through her forehead as you grinned wickedly. A spray of hot blood rained down upon you as her body collapsed on top of yours.

Shoving her off of you, you rose to your knees and leveled your gun on Walter in the same swift movement.

Before you could squeeze the trigger, the bedroom door exploded inward in a burst of light, accompanied by a murderous growl. Kicking the door open, Flip charged into the room.

Walter was just quick enough to turn and see death barreling down upon him.

Flip’s right hand struck Walter in the throat with all of his remarkable strength behind it. The blow alone crushed the voyeur’s larynx, but Flip wasn’t satisfied. Clenching his powerful fist around the man’s throat, Flip wrenched his hand to the side with a growl, ripping his enemy’s throat completely apart.

Kicking Walter’s body aside as it slumped to the floor, Flip rushed to you. Before you could rise yourself, he pulled you bodily up into his arms, holding you tight in his powerful embrace.

“Where were you, Flip?” you asked into his neck where you buried your face as you squeezed him tight. “What the hell is happening here?”

“I had to shoot a broad upstairs, but I’m pretty sure she was already dead to begin with,” Flip told you, swaying with you gently in his arms. “Are you alright, sugar?”

“I am now,” you said as you breathed in the comforting scent of him, feeling surrounded by his warmth and strength. “Do you think we can ride out yet? There’s something wrong with this hotel, Flip. I don’t know if a blizzard can be worse than being stuck in here.”

“It can sure be a helluva lot worse if we freeze to death out in it,” Flip replied, chewing his lip in frustration as he looked out of the window to see a haze of snow swirling thickly outside. “But I should go check on the horses. If they run off or die, we die.”

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Sloth & Gluttony

A blast of deathly cold air hit you and Flip like a slap in the face when he pulled open the entrance door in the hotel lobby. The sheer frigidity of the wind stopped your breath in your throat like jumping into a pool of ice water. Outside, snow blustered in stinging sheets. Visibility extended only a few feet ahead of you into the churning blizzard, the snow obscuring everything from view behind its white veil. You wondered if the oil lamp that Flip held would do you any good at all in such a blizzard.

Merely from standing in the open doorway, your ears and nose were already going numb and your fingers were not far behind. Beside you, even Flip shivered from the cold, bunching his shoulders and huffing a fogged breath. It was a rare sight that your furnace of a man balked against the cold.

“You have to stay here, sugar,” he said gruffly, tightening his dark, duster-length jacket around his body.

“I can handle it,” you assured him, taking a confident breath.

“No fuckin’ way. It has to be twenty-five below out there,” Flip said firmly, shaking his head. “It’ll be a sonofabitch for me, but you have no business goin’ out in this.”

“Well then, neither do you,” you said with equal hardheadedness.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll go fast. Keep movin,’” he assured you, bending to place a hot kiss to your cheek. “And you’ll be safe in here. We’ve already killed everythin’ that could give you any trouble.”

Walking through the doors with his usual proud swagger, Flip only strode a few steps out into the blizzard before hunching down against the biting cold and wrapping his arms around himself. As you watched, his broad frame was entirely consumed by the snow in seconds.

The frozen air burned through Flip’s nose with every inhale, stinging his lungs, chilling him from the inside out. He couldn’t remember the last time he was out in weather this dangerously cold. He was used to the harsh Colorado winters, but he usually had more sense than to wander out into a fuckin’ blizzard in the middle of the night.

Blinded by snowy darkness and by the sleet that stung his eyes, Flip could only hope that he lumbered in the right direction of the stable, hugging the side of the hotel as he trudged through the ever-deepening snow that already rose to his knees.

The snow seemed to get thicker by the minute, wanting to trap him in its frigid embrace forever. Flip couldn’t see the stable wall until he shouldered blindly into it, colliding with its wooden exterior with a frustrated grunt.

Feeling along the wall of the stable, Flip fumbled for the iron handle with numb hands to yank the door open. Rushing inside, he pulled the door roughly closed behind him, a gust of snow blowing inside behind him.

All four horses greeted Flip inside the stable. Standing clustered together for warmth, they all raised their heads hopefully when he entered, no doubt hoping their human visitor came bearing grain. The inside of the stable was barely warmer than the outside, but it was dry and devoid of the extra chill carried by the wind. Flip sat the oil lamp down near the center of the stable, it’s warm light filling the small enclosure.

Flip felt pained himself at the sight of the shivering animals, starving for both feed and warmth. Approaching them, he reached a hand to pat the neck of the injured animal, feeling a shiver run through his own body. Resting both his palms on the horse’s neck, he tried to absorb some of its body heat back into his frozen hands. He couldn’t stay out in this cold much longer himself without risking more than he was willing to gamble.

Running his hand from the horse’s neck down over its shoulder, he continued down its injured leg, dropping to a knee beside it to examine its wound more closely. The horse would be fine, but he wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of a rider. The other three, however, looked sound.

The animals could endure the cold from the shelter of the stable through the night. Provided the temperature didn’t drop much further. Flip made a point of locating the bridles and saddles, in case he needed to find them quickly in the darkness. Satisfied that he could saddle two horses quickly if needed, he moved back toward the stable door.

In unison, the four horses all jerked their heads bolt upright, turning to face the stable door over Flip’s head, their ears all pricked forward with interest.

Flip couldn’t hear a damn thing above the wind that howled outside and rattled the wooden stable walls, but he knew enough to trust horses and their superior senses.

Moving into the darkest corner of the stable to the side of its door, Flip waited, watching the horses as they watched the stable door with interest. Rubbing his hands together, Flip blew a breath of heat into them, trying to regain feeling in his numbed fingers. He knew that he couldn’t shoot worth a damn with numb fingers, if he could even manage to draw his guns without dropping them.

The doors to the stables burst inward, kicked in roughly. And stupidly. Allowing a fresh rush of blistering cold inside that brought with it a tangible drop in temperature.

Flip watched as two men he never thought he’d ever see again stepped inside.

Felix Kendrickson and Andy Landers. Pinkerton agents.

If there was one thing Flip hated more than anything else, second only to someone who tried to lay hands on his girl, it was a rat. Rats, moles, snitches, double agents. Pinkertons. He wasn’t alone in that sentiment. Most gunfighters and lawmen alike could agree on one thing. They can’t abide a two-faced Pinkerton.

And two of the slimiest Pinkertons Flip had ever had the displeasure of knowing now stood before him, shaking and patting snow from their clothing. Flip’s blood boiled at the sight of them, his malice surging hot through his veins.  

Flip knew all too well of the men’s crimes and trespasses, most of which were done while hiding behind a badge. He knew about their many sins.

Felix was a nobody, a petty criminal who always lusted for more. More power. More control. More leadership. He found that power when he enlisted as a Pinkerton, along with the authority to beat and kill to gain more and more. His hunger for power was never satisfied. Felix resented men like Flip who never had to ask for power. Men who commanded power and respect by their sheer force of will and imposing presence.

Landers began his career as a deputy under Flip back during his days as the Sheriff of Dodge City. Landers’ career was short-lived. The man was so slovenly that he never cared enough to investigate a case. He could never be bothered to do enough work to learn what was right and what was just. It was always easier for Landers to find a quick, easy fall-guy to pin a case on, upping his arrest numbers to rise through the ranks.

Not surprising, the two loathsome men had teamed up together.

“I knew we’d find some horses in here,” Felix said in his rasping tone, clapping his hands together and startling the animals with the harsh sound. “Can’t have a hotel without horses.”

“We’re damn lucky we did,” Landers agreed in a voice that shook from cold. “I thought we were goners for sure when your horse broke his leg in the snow-covered gully and mine bucked me off at the sight.”

Flip scanned the dim stable around him. A wicked grin turned his lips when he saw the light from the lamp glinting off the metal of some farm tools. The handle of a pitchfork rose up from the bale of hay in which it was impaled, only feet away from where Flip stood, between himself and the other men. On the side of the stable wall was tacked an assortment of other implements. The tool that caught Flip’s eye was a long-handled scythe.

Clenching and unclenching his fists both in an attempt to bring some warmth back into them and from the sheer rage he felt rising within him, Flip pondered whether or not his hands were frozen enough to be clumsy and slow, a deadly condition in this game.

“You boys know that horse thievin’ is a killin’ offense,” Flip said with a darkly menacing glare, stepping forward from the shadows toward the two men. And toward the farm tools. “And I’m more than happy to oblige the two of you if killin’ is what you’re lookin’ for.”

“We ain’t guilty of nothing, Marshal,” Felix hissed sarcastically. “You have to play by the rules behind that badge.”

“Yeah, and the Pinkertons don’t care as much about the rules,” Landers intoned beside him.

Both men turned to face Flip, leering at him with their greasy smiles.

“I know you’re both plenty guilty of a lot of things that deserve killin,” Flip snarled at the men, feeling a rush of excited anticipation at the thought of ripping them apart. “And I’m thinkin’ that I’m just the man for the job.”

“You can’t do nothin’ to us,” Felix sneered. “Besides, there’s two of us and only one of you.”

“Your odds ain’t so great, Zimmerman,” Landers agreed, cracking an obscene smile.

“I like these odds just fine,” Flip gritted, grinding his teeth, taking an aggressive step toward the men.

Flip stood within an arm’s length of the pitchfork at the end of the stable near its door. The other two men stood near the horses, closer to the far end of the stable.

Felix watched Flip calmly. Like Flip, he too was a killer, hardened and cool under pressure. Landers was nervous, twitchy.

Landers moved first. He jerked his gun from its holster with a shaking hand. Flip lunged forward, wrenching the pitchfork free from the bale.

Raising the pitchfork like a striking snake, Flip threw it like a javelin as Landers squeezed off an errant shot. Landers’ bullet sizzled past Flip’s ear as the pitchfork buried itself in Landers’ chest, knocking him backward with the force of Flip’s throw.

Beside Landers, Felix was unfazed when he drew his own gun. The sort of relaxed resolve that the elite killers possessed and others admired. Flip had it himself and he was seasoned enough to know when he faced a real adversary. When he looked death down the barrel of its gun as he did now.

Dodging to the side, Flip reached the scythe, yanking it off the wall. Felix already had his gun trained on Flip’s head when Flip leveled his swing.

With a grin, Felix pulled the trigger. At least, he tried to. His finger fumbled inside the trigger guard, just as numb and unresponsive as Flip had feared his own would be, failing to respond when Felix commanded his body to squeeze off a shot. Flip brought the scythe down across Felix’s extended gun arm, severing the limb cleanly from his body in a plume of blood, and removing the threat of the gun.

The very embodiment of the grim reaper, of death himself, Flip stood in his long dark coat, breath steaming from his mouth, wielding a sharpened scythe. Flip’s murderous glare and growling lips were the last thing Felix saw as Flip sliced the scythe through his neck, cleaving his head from his shoulders. Blood erupted from the stump of Felix’s neck, misting in the cold air, as his head hit the ground with a dull thud, rolling away into the darkness. With a rough kick to its chest, Flip sent what remained of Felix’s body flying backward to collapse in a heap on the ground.

Behind the two bodies, the horses snorted nervously, watching Flip now with wide white-rimmed eyes, worried of what he might do to them next. They could feel the malicious fury emanating off of him in fearsome waves.

“Easy, boys,” Flip said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. Throwing the scythe aside, he walked again to the horses with an outstretched hand.

After ensuring he rubbed each animal enough to calm them, Flip steeled himself with a deep breath and stepped back out into the biting cold of the blizzard. It was a struggle for him to close the stable door behind him against the force of the wind.

Adrenaline coursed through Flip’s veins. He felt invigorated. Hell, he felt fuckin’ incredible, riding a murder high like he’d never experienced before. He had always gotten a bit of a rush from the excitement of it all, but never from the killin’ itself. But tonight, he sure fuckin’ did. The thrill consumed him like the fumes in an opium den or the taste of the Green Fairy, leaving him wanting more. More death. More carnage. More blood on his hands.

Staggering back through the cold to the welcoming warmth of the hotel, Flip stumbled through its entry doors, slamming them closed behind him. A shuddering sigh left his lungs at the feeling of finally being surrounded by a modicum of heat again.

Flip had expected to find you waiting right inside for him, ready to rush to him and throw your loving arms around him the way you always greeted him when he came home through the front door. With a pang of annoyance, he couldn’t see hide nor hair of you. His jaw clenched as tight as his fists at your absence.

I need a fuckin’ drink anyway, Flip thought, grumbling to himself and sour at the knowledge that he’d already killed everyone who needed killin’ inside the hotel, wishing he had more adversaries to gun down. I need somethin’ to warm me up if nothin’ else.

*******************************************************************************************

Wrath

Sitting at the bar, Flip could still feel his anger mounting. Burning him from the inside out with the rage that simmered just below the surface of his consciousness, Flip felt his body heating despite his chill and his pulse pounding.

Grinding his teeth, he wondered where the fuck you had run off too. The thought served to stoke his temper like a red-hot poker. Flip couldn’t remember being this furious in years, and he had never before been angered by the thought of you. Now, it consumed him like a red fog swirling inside his mind.

A friendly bartender with a curled waxed mustache, who must have been hiding somewhere during all the commotion, poured Flip a double shot of whiskey.

“Rough night, sir?” The bartender asked pleasantly.

“It started out pretty damn good,” Flip said before slamming his shot. “But it’s been a helluva ride downhill from there.”

“Yes,” the bartender said knowingly. “Many problems begin with women.”

Flip’s eyes shot to him, narrowed in a deadly glare.

“Not my woman,” Flip snarled, pushing his shot glass forward for a refill.

“Am I mistaken, sir? Or would you not be here at all, but for your woman?” The bartender refilled his shot. “You would be back in your cabin on your ranch in Colorado, relaxing by a fire, if she had not enticed you to take the stage to Wyoming.”

“You’d best leave her outta your conversation with me.” Flip glowered at him as he downed the second shot, feeling the whiskey burn down his throat. “None of this was her fault.”

“Oh, I’m sure not.” The bartender shrugged as he poured a third shot. “I’m sure she had nothing to do about tempting the other couple into insanity.” He paused, looking pointedly at Flip. “A woman who looks like your wife, possessing of her sinful beauty… I suppose you can’t blame her for wanting to incite other men. For wanting the attention of other men.”

Throwing back the third shot with a jerk of his head, Flip slammed the glass down roughly onto the bar. “I’ve had about enough-“

“The thing about some women, sir,” the bartender said brusquely, cutting Flip off. “Is that they need to be reminded who they belong to. Sometimes they forget, you see, if they’re not reminded. And if they forget, then sometimes…”

Flip glared at the bartender over the rim of his empty shot glass, still holding it near his lips, weighing the benefit of killing the man versus the hassle of having to pour his own drinks if he did so.

“Sometimes, they need to be punished. Sir.” The bartender reached for Flip’s glass, filling it to the brim and setting it down in front of him in an almost challenging gesture.

Despite himself, Flip felt the bartender’s words creep into his mind like rot spreading through a carcass. As he threw back the shot, the familiar grip of wrath’s fist began to tighten inside his chest.

“Doesn’t it make you angry, sir?” The bartender continued calmly, refilling Flip’s glass from a bottomless bottle. “Don’t you get mad enough to kill when you see other men looking at your wife? Trying to touch her? Do you really think it’s all their fault? Or perhaps, she encourages them.”

“My wife’s a pretty girl. The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,” Flip gritted with a scowl instead of the usual smile that curled his lips at the thought of you. “Men are gonna look at her. She can’t help it when they’re assholes on top of lookin.’”

Taking another shot, Flip slammed the glass down hard enough to shatter on the bar top at the thought of men looking at you, leering at you, wanting to see you in the way that only he was allowed. Shards of glass bounced across the bar, glistening like diamonds in the dim light. Far from being upset at Flip’s outburst, the bartender smiled and placed a full fresh glass down in front of Flip.

You had been watching from the entrance to the saloon for a few minutes. Watching him from behind, you saw Flip’s broad shoulders hunch aggressively over the bar as he gritted in a hoarse tone to a spectral bartender. The bartender looked past Flip’s shoulder, fixing you with an evil smile, as he wiped the bar clean of broken glass.

“Flip?” you asked hesitantly, taking a few steps into the saloon.

Slowly, almost ominously, Flip swiveled in his barstool to face you. Resting his left arm on the bar, he brought his right hand to his hip, sucking his teeth as he appraised you.

“Hey, sugar,” he greeted you roughly, devoid of any of his usual warm affection, his eyes harsh as they regarded you. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I was waiting by the door when you came back inside,” you told him, keeping your voice calm and soothing, as you took a few steps closer. “You walked right past me like you couldn’t see or hear me at all.”

“Are you going to let a woman tell you such lies?” the bartender asked, leaning across the bar closer to Flip.

Flip’s eyes darkened at the man’s comments, his glare deepening and jaw clenching. You had seen Flip when he was seeing red, when he had been pushed over the edge into a rage by an outlaw or man who got too friendly with you. You were one of the few people who had seen him in that state who was still alive to reminisce about it.

“Don’t you see what’s happening here, Flip?” you asked, a pleading edge to your voice. Walking closer to Flip, you reached an arm out toward him, beckoning him into your touch. “That’s the bartender I saw talking to Poe and Finn earlier. The man you couldn’t see then. Now, he’s talking to you. Trying to push you over the edge too.”

“Over the edge into what, exactly?” Flip’s trigger finger traced the grip of his revolver from where his hand rested on his hip above it. A gesture that up until this moment you had always found interminably sexy.

“Wrath,” you said firmly, hazarding a brush of your fingers across his cheek. “He’s trying to push you into becoming the embodiment of wrath. To keep us here forever, imprisoned just like the other ghosts in this town.”

“I told you she was pretty,” Flip addressed the bartender while he kept his gaze fixed on you. “She’s smart as hell too.”

Finally leaning into your touch, Flip nuzzled into your palm like a great cat wanting to be petted, his throat rumbling with a purr in likewise fashion.

“I’ve been the embodiment of wrath for most of my fuckin’ life,” Flip growled dangerously at the bartender, casting him a sideways glare, while he still savored your touch. “But never with my girl.”

Skinning his pistol from its leather holster, Flip turned on his barstool to level the barrel at the bartender’s forehead.

“I guess you want to see that firsthand,” Flip gritted wickedly as he squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet through the bartender’s skull.

The bartender remained unfazed, looking at Flip with disappointment, as the bullet passed through his ghostly form and exploded into the mirrored wall behind him, shattering the mirrored glass. With a final defeated grimace, the man dissolved back into the abyss from which he came.

“You can’t kill him, Flip!” you exclaimed, clasping your hands over your ringing ears from the painful sound of the gunshot so close.

“I guess not, but it made me feel better.” Flip grinned at you with a dash of his normal sarcastic self.

“Get me the fuck out of here,” you commanded. “Now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Flip agreed, returning his gun to its holster.

Rising from the barstool, Flip walked to Poe’s body where it lay on the floor. He knelt beside it to peel off his jacket. He then did the same to Finn. Returning to you, he held one jacket out for you to shrug on and then the other, helping you button the two jackets around your figure. He again knelt to fish the men’s gloves out from their pockets, seeing to it that you donned both pair.

“You need warmer clothes, too.” You shook your head with concern, knowing how cold Flip had gotten from only a few minutes outside while dressed in his long coat.

“Nothin’ here’s big enough for me, darlin.’” Flip huffed sardonically. “I’ll be fine. I didn’t just survive six murderers and a haunted hotel for a little snow to do me in.”

Taking your hand, Flip led you back through the hotel to its front entrance.

You expected to be hit with another glacial gust of air when Flip pushed the doors open. You almost choked on a sigh of relief when instead you were met with only a light snow, the blizzard having blown through. Outside, the pinks of dawn were just beginning to peak through the gray clouds above. Snow still fell from the sky, but only a flurry. The blizzard had passed over you and soon the lingering clouds would blow away themselves, leaving only a bright golden dawn and its warming sunlight.

Beside you, Flip smiled broadly down at you, as he came to the same realization.

Excitedly pulling you to the stables, Flip saddled two horses and bridled all four. Picking the two fittest horses, Flip helped you up into the saddle of the first before climbing onto the second himself. You would each lead another horse behind you, a contingency in case of more bad luck.

After only a few miles of riding out in the crisp light of dawn back toward civilization, the temperature had risen to a manageable chill. Looking back over your shoulder, the Virgil’s Overlook Hotel was nowhere to be seen, having vanished back into Purgatory with its newly acquired guests.

Riding beside you, Flip smiled down at you, knowing just as you did that you both would be just fine. And that in its own macabre way, this was a great start to your lives together as husband and wife, proving that nothing could come between you.

Flip Zimmerman was a notoriously ruthless and violent man. His temper was infamous and his rage the stuff of deadly legend. His reputation had been written over decades in the blood of the men who had crossed him. He had killed men, women, just about everything that lived and breathed at one time or another when duty called or when they came to gun him down. His wrath and skill had become tantamount to folklore. No one who had ever looked into his maliciously cold amber glare had ever lived much longer after that.

But when Flip looked at you, all he could see was the future he wanted reflected back in your eyes. All he could feel was just how much he fuckin’ loved you.

You were his salvation. You always had been.

*******************************************************************************************

© safarigirlsp 2021

Tagging some buddies: @babbushka​ @in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather @mrs-gucci​ @mrs-zimmerman @iamburdened @candycanes19 @caillea @queeniebee @mythrielofsolitude​ @ghoulian13 @icarusinthesea​ @darkhairedmenrule​ @reyloaddict55 @lumberjack00fantasies​ @fizzywoohoo​ @heartlight-starlight​ @eagerforhoney​ @clydesfavoritegirl​ @bensolodyad @danidanisara​​ @rynwritesstuff​ @gabesprincess​ @thepalaceofmelanie​ @finn-ray-nal-beads @hopelovepinkglitter

[forbidding-souda]

How about some dating hc for Byakuya and/or Kirumi? ✨💙

Relationship headcanons with Byakuya Togami

i have a party tonight woot woot my friend might sleep at my place tonight because we both got a 8am class tomorrow.

currently listening: boohooze by grey bush

-Mod Souda

❤ After arguments, he's going to buy you stuff. He's a bit too stubborn for an apology so he'll resort to give giving. He'll get you designer clothes (some actually fit for your body) and sometimes stupid shit like a new blender.

❤ Sleeping in the same bed as him is rather interesting. He's not too in love with physical contact. At least, not for awhile into your relationship. He's fine with you sleeping next to him but if your body is too much pressed against him he's going to feel very uncomfortable.

❤ He's not very talkative in the morning either. He's focused on getting himself ready. He'll listen to you if you talk, but he most likely won't even respond.

❤ I can imagine he'll give you a small section of the room for you to put posters or pictures of your friends. If you're an artist, and you give him some of your work, he's going to pin it on 'his side' of the room.

❤ Whatever your favorite breakfast food is: he doesn't like it. You're going to have to try some of his rich people foods. Even if you want to have the chef cook something like chicken tenders, it's still gonna end up bougie for no reason.

❤ Playing your music on a speaker? No. Nice try. He's shutting that shit down real quick.

❤ Wait until he gets into your car and you got the aux. He's going to lose his shit, grumpy as all hell.

❤ Pull him into kisses by his tie. It will fluster him as all hell, but god does he find it attractive. If you do that, he won't hesitate to push you against a wall with his knee between your legs and his hands at your jaw.

❤ Rewinding the conversation, he's definitely going to wake you up in the mornings. If he's getting up, you have to now too. It's the rules.

❤ This is very niche but if you're into poetry (or specifically slam poetry) he'll actually be willing to hear it out and participate. Not writing his own shit but supporting other people.

❤ He takes awhile in the bathroom after showers. You should feel happy his house has five bathrooms. The one attached to ya'll's room is his, practically.

❤ He wants to meet your friends. Like, all of them. He wants to invite them over to the house and have dinner with all of them - he might be annoyed by them, but he finds a genuine interest in your personal life. Before the two of you even dated, he still found himself wanting to get to know you and your interests and the people you surrounded yourself with. This comes off as creepy at first.

❤ For one of your anniversaries he's going to be cheesy and gift you a very cute bear plushie with a ribbon around its neck and flowers. I can imagine him being very good at flower-gifting.

❤ If you're the type of person that have a hard time brushing your teeth or showering, he's going to do it with you. He'll force you, and this can be very embarrassing, as sometimes he'll bring the servants in to monitor you, but if you're willing then it's a cute moment.

❤ Apart of any clubs? Like a choir, band, environmental studies, or a coven? He'll hire a professional photographer to take photos of you and your community. He'll also print them, or make fliers, or even just photos to frame in his little 'you' collection.

❤ This is also niche but if you're a metalhead this bullet point is for you. He cannot stand nu metal. He hates it. I think he'd be chill with black metal or doom metal. Just not things with much tempo changes.

❤ For mitski fans, I don't think he'd mind much of mitski. Maybe some songs he'll just turn them off. But some, like the calmer ones, he might actually be moved by.

❤ Okay, last one, but this one is just funny to me. When you force him to get social media, the two of you will have matching profile pictures. (like grimes and elon musk JAKWNDJSBJSDKJHBSFKJHB)

[the-last-kenobi]

I adore your qui gon and obi wan stuff so can we get a number 8 on the prompt list with obi wan and qui gon?

Absolutely!! I’m so glad you chose that one; I’ve loved every single prompt I’ve gotten but this one breaks the mold a little.

I hope this lives up to your expectations!

From this various prompts list.

_

When Qui-Gon Jinn set foot on the planet of Melida/Daan for the second time, he had a fixed set of expectations.

He expected to find the same war-torn, shattered homes and abused soil, the same decimated populations, the same stench of death. He expected to find the underground hideouts where the children hid from the wrath of their parents, and where the Melida plotted against the Daan and the Daan against the Melida. He expected to find a bruised and shame-faced former Jedi Padawan, ready to humble himself before the Council.

He expected to have to offer both comfort and stern reprimand to this child who, as much of a delight as he had once been, no longer deserved to be his apprentice.

And he did find some of that.

He also found fields of green grass, and abandoned fields of half-plucked vegetation and fruits.

A memorial garden.

A row of corpses covered neatly in cloths, lining the road, respectfully untouched.

Faded posters announcing committees and treaties and open elections, speeches and remembrance services.

A mural on a stone wall, somewhere between impressionist and abstract, of a line of children and adults, the children in the center. Towards the very middle, almost exactly so, was the image of a young boy with pale russet locks hanging an inch loose, and Qui-Gon paused, observing warily as if the image might come to life and attack him.

But it was only an image, and Obi-Wan Kenobi was only a wayward child.

And none of this is was going as anticipated.

The Jedi Master tried to recall what Yoda had told him before chivvying him out the door, but in truth he had not processed much of it aside from Obi-Wan’s name and the understanding that he had asked to be retrieved from Melida/Daan.

Why?

Clearly things had changed, immensely — and yet, in the background, the continued sound of bombs going off and weapons firing, and not a living being in sight.

Qui-Gon continued deeper into the core of the civilization, skirting the worst of the ruins but avoiding the main road in a passing effort to go unnoticed.

It did not last long.

“Master Jedi!” a voice hissed out suddenly, and Qui-Gon turned sharply to see a young man — maybe nineteen, at most — peering at him around the corner of the nearest building, pressed close to the wall. He gestured shortly and vanished.

Qui-Gon took a moment to cast out his senses. The Force bore no distinct warning, so he crossed the road quickly and ducked around the corner.

The young man was waiting for him. Up close it was clear that he was younger than he had appeared, perhaps seventeen, just emerging from the gangly limbs stage, and he was coated in dirt and grime — some of it oddly strategic, smeared across his cheekbones and the crown of his forehead, darkening and muting them. Dark hazel eyes considered Qui-Gon suspiciously.

“You were expecting me,” Qui-Gon stated.

The boy nodded. “I was. Obi-Wan said you would be arriving today, maybe tomorrow.”

A strange jolt ran through Qui-Gon. He had not said Obi-Wan’s name aloud himself, not since that day almost eight months before, and while he had heard other Jedi mention it, it was off-putting to hear this total stranger use it. So familiarly. Like he knew Kenobi well. Qui-Gon brushed the thoughts aside like so many cobwebs and spoke again: “Well, here I am. Where next?”

He did not say, ‘Where is Obi-Wan?’

For some reason, it would have felt like a confession.

The boy pressed his lips into a flat line, as if the Jedi had failed some sort of test. “…I’ll show you. Stick close to me and don’t do anything reckless. Stealth is our best ally right now. Only ally, really.”

Qui-Gon wondered what he was, then, since he was certainly not included in this mysterious “we.”

It was slightly insulting, and sharply painful, to be lectured on strategic maneuvers by what amounted to a child soldier.

Nevertheless, Qui-Gon followed him.

They wound their way through the settlement, bypassing craters where homes had stood and also far more intact buildings, still crisp and clean and bearing that unmistakable scent of newness.

These, more than any of the others, were painted with images of children and adults standing together, plastered with announcements, and more than one — many — almost all — featuring that flame-haired youth. More often than not he was framed closely by two others. Another boy, this one slightly taller and leaner with dark hair. And a girl, a little smaller, with bold waves and startling green eyes.

The boy with the dirty face turned his head to look at each of them, though he did not slow.

After what felt like a very long time, Qui-Gon found himself entering what seemed to be a cellar. It was dark and musty, but before he could question it, his guide went to a section of the wall and pushed, popping open a panel that sank away and slid to one side.

“This way,” he said unnecessarily.

In they went. It was a tunnel, low and long, and Qui-Gon had to stoop halfway just to move. The boy, several inches shorter, had less trouble.

A few minutes of breathless, blind stumbling later, and they reached a reinforced door.

The boy knocked slowly, then quickly; stopped, and then knocked rapidly again. “It’s me!” he called through the crevice. “He’s here.”

There was a grinding sound, and then the door swung open to reveal bright light. The boy slipped through without hesitation, but the Jedi Master was more wary, blinking and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light before slowly entering the room, still bowed low from the tunnel.

When he rose, he was looking directly into the eyes of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The boy had changed, and yet was exactly the same.

There was no other way to describe it.

He had certainly shot up an inch or so in height. His Jedi tunics were gone; he was wearing a stained white tunic of much poorer cloth and simpler cut, over a pair of patched brown trousers and sturdy boots. His robe was still the one he had worn when he had first arrived all those months ago, but he had sewn the sleeves so that they did not dangle over his wrists or hang wide and loose; instead they were drawn closer, but not so tight that they impeded his movement.

His hair seemed more coppery red than before as it hung loose and untidy, coming to slightly ragged ends halfway between his jawline and his shoulders. Some of the baby fat had melted away, driven off no doubt by stress and hunger and emotion, and his cheekbones stood out a little too much.

But it was his eyes that struck Qui-Gon.

They seemed exactly the same.

Pale blue-green, wide and friendly and innocent, sweet as they had been on the day they met.

Unbearably naive.

Those eyes flickered with shock for a moment, and then the boy stepped forward and offered out his hand. “Master Jinn,” he said.

Qui-Gon blinked. Perhaps if he waited a moment, Obi-Wan would remember that Jedi bowed? But the boy merely stared at him with his hand extended, and so Qui-Gon grasped it and shook briefly before letting go.

The boy did not seem particularly bothered. He turned to the rest of the room. “You’re all ready?”

“Yes,” came a chorus of voices.

Freed from the strangeness of Obi-Wan and his gaze, Qui-Gon looked around. There were several others present — all humans, all young, all grimy. Maybe a dozen or so in number. The room he was in was spacious, a little low-ceilinged and plain. It had the air of a bunker, with bright lights that aggravated the eyes and dull walls and functional furniture. Most notably, the enormous table in the center.

It was spread with maps, fliers, announcement posters, detailed blueprints for buildings and machinery, tidy sketches outlining strategies and countermeasures. Qui-Gon’s keen eyes caught words like ‘anti-terrorism,’ ‘knowledge is courage,’ ‘long-range missile launcher,’ and ‘riot activity.’ And, half-concealed under a map of Melida/Daan’s entire surface, a flat holo of three people. Obi-Wan. The dark-haired boy. The girl with green eyes.

“Master Jinn,” Obi-Wan’s voice broke into his observations.

They were all watching him with various degrees of mistrust.

Qui-Gon straightened his spine, and then forced himself to relax a little, trying to radiate comfort and honesty. Even without force sensitivity, they would be eased somewhat.

“Yes, I’m listening,” he assured them.

Kenobi exchanged a quick look with the boy who had guided him here, and the youth shrugged. “He was quick enough and he listened to what I said, but he’s like most adults. Thinking more in his head than paying attention, didn’t even ask my name.”

Qui-Gon started. He hadn’t, had he?

“I—” he began, but the youth cut him off with a dismissive gesture.

“You didn’t ask,” he said. “I’m not sharing now. I’m sure you’ll hear it eventually.”

Obi-Wan nodded as if this were perfectly reasonable. “Master Jinn, are you prepared to take all thirteen of us back to Coruscant?”

“What?” Qui-Gon demanded. He glanced around at the others, who looked even less impressed than before. He felt so unexpectedly out of his depth. What was this place? “I — no, I’m returning you to the Jedi, to the care of the High Council.”

“No,” Obi-Wan said placidly. “You’re not. I’m sure Master Yoda had his reasons for sending you—” the slightest emphasis on the word ‘you’—“but you are here to escort myself and the other twelve to the Core to appear before the Senate. That’s why you were assigned such a large ship. We’re going to make an appeal on behalf of Meldan.”

“Meldan?” Qui-Gon echoed.

“Our planet,” one of the others, a curly-haired, fierce-eyed woman of about twenty-two said. “Obi, are you sure about this? This isn’t at all what you said we could expect.”

“Master Jinn is an exception to many rules,” Obi-Wan told her; as he turned his head to look in her direction, he briefly seemed to change, the tension in his shoulders easing and his face alight with mischief. Then it was gone. He turned back to Qui-Gon, and beneath the veneer of professionalism could be glimpsed a strange aura of… something Qui-Gon couldn’t determine or define.

Their eyes met again, and silence fell for a moment.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan decided. “Yes, this will work. If any Jedi will help ensure you catch the attention of the Senate, it would be Master Jinn. Master Yoda also told me that Master Adi Gallia will be your official patron, which is good; she spends most of her time handling the political side of Jedi affairs.”

“Then we should go now,” said a small boy of no more than nine. “Let’s go!”

“Not just yet, Jocco,” Obi-Wan said soothingly, turning a gentle smile on the child. “We’re not quite ready. We’ll leave in about an hour.”

“Right,” Jocco said, nodding. “Okay.”

Obi-Wan smiled again. “All right, everyone. We have meals to eat and supplies to pack, so let’s keep together and keep organized. Sarai,” he nodded at the curly-haired woman, “and my friend,” a nod to the bitter-eyed nameless guide, “please bring Master Jinn up to speed. Master Jinn,” he added, glancing up from where the smallest children were flocking to his side and clinging to his hands, “I will see you in an hour.”

He left, surrounded by children both far younger and several years older than him, like adoring chicks following their mother, or maybe more like an honor guard. The contrast was both ludicrous and oddly touching.

“You listen to him,” Qui-Gon commented to his tight-lipped companions. “Even though he no longer carries the authority of a Jedi.”

“I haven’t seen any Jedi authority yet,” snapped back his unnamed guide. “Just three Jedi who came, two who left, and one who stayed.”

“It was not our mission to stay,” Qui-Gon replied calmly, tucking his hands inside his sleeves. “Though I can see what compelled him to.”

“Oh, can you?” said Sarai. She folded her arms tightly and assessed him, her lip curling. “I don’t think you see much past the end of your own nose.”

“Petty insults will get us nowhere,” he replied, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of said nose. “And it won’t help you when you speak for your people before the Senate.”

“Me?” an amused smile curled her lips. She looked as if all her suspicions had just been confirmed. “I won’t be speaking, not primarily anyways. I don’t have any governmental authority behind me, I’m just a secondary representative.”

“Same here,” said the young man.

“Governmental authority…? Then who is your speaker?” Qui-Gon asked, slightly bewildered.

“Are you blind?” said the young man. “Obi-Wan is the leader. Since the other two were assassinated, Obi-Wan is our only head of government.”

_

The next time Qui-Gon laid eyes on his former apprentice, it was mere minutes before their agreed departure time.

The children — Melida, Daan, none of them older than sixteen, aside from former Melida Sarai and former Daan who still refused to share his name — were all gathered next to a large reinforced bay door next to a small fleet of speeders.

Obi-Wan had one arm draped around the shoulders of a ten-year-old boy, murmuring instructions to him, and carrying the little toddler girl on his hip. She was playing with his hair contentedly, unbothered by the preparations going on around her.

If it had been strange to see Obi-Wan before, with his air of sameness-yet-differentness, it was doubly so now.

Knowing what he now knew.

Knowing that Obi-Wan Kenobi had accomplished what he had set out to do and reunited the Melida and the Daan with the help of a few middle-aged adults from both sides and the constant aid of his two companions, Cerasi and Nield. Knowing that he had been fairly elected alongside Cerasi and Nield as the Triumvers — the three Heads of State — of the newly named Meldan.

Knowing that they had been in the midst of Reconstruction both physical and emotional when a radical had betrayed them, murdering innocents gathered for discussions. How Cerasi had been murdered in her bed. How Nield had begun drumming up a military force, only to be assassinated — by a friend of the peace or a foe, who could say? How Obi-Wan had seen all his allies either killed or turn away, and had gathered all he could and retreated below ground, holding tight to his ideals and the legislative power that now backed him.

Knowing how he had continued to sow the seeds of freedom and diplomacy even as the people left above ground resorted again to violence. How he had nurtured genuine friendships among his people, even after having been betrayed.

And here he stood, not even fifteen, making children laugh and reassuring people older than him as he attempted to carry them to freedom and hope.

A government of war-veteran children, led by a former Jedi Padawan.

Qui-Gon watched as everyone was paired up, older teens with younger children, two to a speeder, until at last there was only one vehicle left and only himself and Kenobi still standing.

“I’m afraid I’ll be piloting,” the boy told him. “I’m familiar with the route.”

Qui-Gon swallowed away a bitter taste and merely nodded.

Obi-Wan swung himself up behind the controls, and Qui-Gon moved to sit behind him, and despite everything, despite knowing Obi-Wan’s history over the past eight months, despite being determined not to regard him as his Padawan ever again, it still felt wrong to sit behind. To let the child lead. To let the child sit behind the controls where any decent sniper would aim.

“Stick close and keep low!” Obi-Wan called out.

“Love you Obi!” the same tiny girl cried out from somewhere behind them on another speeder.

Qui-Gon didn’t know what he expected, if he expected anything at all in this strange parallel universe he had wandered into. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan turning his head to grin at the girl and calling back, “Love you too, Cler!” still surprised him.

And then they were off.

The children were clearly well trained, experienced. They seemed to know this back route by heart, undeterred by the semi-light of dusk, and keeping behind outcroppings of rock and trees as much as possible.

Obi-Wan glanced around periodically to check on the others, and every so often one of the others from the back of the parade would speed up to match his pace and give him the all-clear before falling back again.

The breathlessness of the moment settled somewhere in Qui-Gon’s chest. If he could put aside the emotional toll it was taking to sit behind his former student and see him not as a Jedi but as a war-tried planetary ruler, it was easier to be caught up in the rush. The fate of thousands depended on this race for freedom.

The former Jedi Master and Padawan maintained their lead, a slight gap between them and the others.

This served them all well when a blaster bolt came out of nowhere and struck Obi-Wan in his right shoulder, missing his chest only because he sensed it at the last second and twisted away.

There were screams from the smaller children; the older children reacted immediately, scattering their small fleet and engaging their weapons.

“There!” Qui-Gon cried, pointing to a ridge on their right where glimpses of people moving could be seen. His other hand was holding Obi-Wan upright.

“Are you all right to keep piloting?” he shouted.

“For a little while! Hold on, I have a plan!” Obi-Wan shouted back.

“Is it a good plan?”

“Hard to tell until I’ve done it!”

For a second it felt like it had been a year ago, or even better, both of them on the edge of adrenaline and serenity, grinning.

Qui-Gon ignited his lightsaber and deflected two more blaster shots, calling out warnings to the others within earshot.

A speeder went down.

A girl and boy were thrown several meters, crushing in the dust, clinging to one another as they rolled to a stop. On another speeder, Sarai yelled “Here!” and pulled up alongside Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, while Jocco stood up from behind her and leapt.

Qui-Gon’s heart shot to his throat.

But as he extended a hand and caught the child with the Force, Obi-Wan was already doing the same thing, drawing Jocco safely onto their speeder. Sarai, meanwhile, swung her speeder back around and parked it in front of the fallen one, shielding the injured two from view. She stood up on the seat and raised a blaster in each hand, lips twisted in a snarl. “Over here you bastards!” she screamed. “Like shooting at children? Give it your best shot!”

“She’s insane,” said Qui-Gon.

“She’s my second in command!” Obi-Wan laughed. “Now get ready! You’re taking the wheel!”

“What?”

Qui-Gon turned his head just in time to see Obi-Wan launch himself off of the moving speeder with reckless grace, executing a Force-augmented leap to land neatly on the ridge. “Kenobi! What are you doing?” Qui-Gon bellowed.

The boy didn’t respond. He had a blaster in his good hand and dropped out of view, directly onto the heads of the people concealed behind the rocks. There were yells; red light flared as weapons went off in rapid succession. Sarai took advantage of the distraction and urged the other two onto her speeder. “Go!” she said.

As soon as they were off, one of the other speeders erupted from the tree-line and swooped in front of her, slowing down enough to allow her to jump aboard behind two smaller children. “Good job kiddos,” Qui-Gon heard her say. Then she looked up at him. “Come on, we have to go!”

“But—Obi-Wan—” he said helplessly.

As he did, Obi-Wan reappeared at the crest of the ridge, a smoking hole in his trouser leg and a bloody furrow over one eye. He looked directly at Qui-Gon and mouthed, ‘Go! Take the others and run, now!’

Then he was gone again.

A pained look crossed Sarai’s face, but she glanced at Jocco sitting on his lap and smoothed it away at once. “He knows what he’s doing,” she said. “Now come on!”

They sped off, trailing dust and a broken wreck, following in the wake of the other speeders far ahead of them.

In the distance, the ship gleamed in the low light, a beacon for them to follow.

The others were waiting for them when they arrived, arranged defensively around the ship, protecting their only mode of transportation. The nameless boy was standing front and center, an adapted blaster rifle in his arms, looking ready to kill anyone who got too near. Jocco ran straight to him.

Sarai helped the other two down and began loading everyone onto the ship, which opened at Qui-Gon’s command.

He and the boy with the rifle waited.

And waited.

The sun set in earnest, and darkness fell.

And still they waited.

“Can you make your appeal to the Senate without him?” Qui-Gon said suddenly.

The young man whipped his head around to look at him. “What?”

“Can you make your appeal without Obi-Wan?”

He sneered. “In his absence, legal responsibility falls to Sarai and me. But it’s not the same.”

“No, it’s not.” Qui-Gon agreed.

There was a brief silence.

“Can you pilot this starship?”

“What?”

Qui-Gon did not repeat himself this time, and the young man’s eyes widened, his grip on his rifle slackening. “You… you want to stay. You want to stay and search for him.”

“You need to leave,” said Qui-Gon quietly. “Can you pilot this starship?”

“My name’s Radan,” the young man said brusquely, extending a grimy hand. “And yeah, between me and Kieln we can figure it out pretty quickly.”

“Good,” said Qui-Gon shaking his hand firmly. “As soon as you exit your first hyperspace jump, contact Master Yoda, it’s all programmed into the system. Tell him what happened.”

He looked again to the shadowed horizon, to the dark smudge several kilometers distant that was the stone ridge where he had last seen Obi-Wan.

“Tell him,” he paused. “…Tell him I am going to stay with my Padawan.”

Radan paused halfway up the ramp, turning to look back, a look of concern crossing his young face. “Even if he’s never going back to the Jedi?” he asked.

Qui-Gon hesitated.

“I suppose we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? Obi-Wan is capable of making his own decisions.”

Qui-Gon turned back towards the horizon, towards Obi-Wan.

“But I will not leave him again.”

_

[bill-ernest-bill]

Gary Panter

Notes from Interview: Band Zines, fliers and design for Slash. Everyman character Jimbo. His visceral and ratty line changed views of the role of mark in comics. Set design in Peewee's playhouse, defined by his 'mash up' aesthetic. Studied contemporary art. Inspired by late 60s hippie comics. Formed the performance art group APEWEEK with Ric Heitzman and Jay Cotton.

Emerged into the LA punk movement, threw paint on his car. Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Byron Werner, and I all started independently making photocopy and quick-print comics.

Inspirations: the Hairy Who, Peter Saul, Eduardo Paolozzi, Rosenquist, Kitaj, the English pop artists, the American Pop and proto-Pop artists like Richard Lindner, poster artists like Tadanoori Yokoo, Heinz Edelman, Bob Zoell and Barbara Nessim. More inpired by painters than cartoonists.

In Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise, he was able to participate in culture, using a range of styles and 'putting style at the service of ideas rather than the opposite'.

All the comics take place on a Texan-Japanese Mars settlement- the premise.

'Comics typically try to hypnotize you, as prose and other forms do, into believing the story for a moment. Experimental comics take those conventions apart and reveal them formally. I do both.'

'Crashpad is a meditation on the optimism of the cultural explosion of the ’60s, in which things were tried out by idealistic kids'

I wanted to do a comic book in the form that comics took in the early ’70s, but people don’t really make comics like that anymore. The market for these art comic books is a fetish market, so making a fancy book with a lowly book inside was a way to address that time period and those topics that got traction in the ’60s and early ’70s. -sexual equality, gender choices, casual attire, crafts, organic farming, soil enrichment instead of depletion, ecological concerns, feeding communities, experimental music and art, the value of artistic expression. The hippie movement believed in a type of futurism (not the turn-of-the-twentieth-century kind), and so did punk. They are both youth movements. One bearing flowers. One bearing a dustbin.

[pvccblog]

Making an Impact

We’re all in agreement that God has called us to this place.  He is putting people in our paths consistently and giving us opportunities for meaningful conversations.  He’s also giving this team the confidence to go out of our comfort zone, even when doing things that might seem kinda wacky.  More on that later...........

We had kids out on the field at the church as early as 8:15 this morning - sports camp doesn’t even start until 10!  They actually woke some of us up playing right outside our windows.  These kids are constantly full of energy and it’s contagious!

Dom shared our Bible lesson today and did a great job.  The campers are relating well to him.  He’s consistently having little ones run over to him.  They love him!

Now for the wacky stuff.  Between sports camp and BARF we decided to go a few miles away into Myrtle Point to do some canvassing.  Myrtle Point is the biggest of the small towns in this area.  They actually have stop lights!  

We walked around town passing out fliers for our events.  We also made some posters with some jokes on it and held them up for cars as they drove by.  It was pretty cool to see that no one on our team was embarrassed to do any of these activities.  We got several honks, smiles, and waves.  We only got one middle finger!

The canvassing paid off!  When we returned to the church Pastor Noble had already received a call from a mom who got a flier for sports camp.  She said she will be bringing her two kids tomorrow!

Another unique thing - Pastor Noble and Megan treated us to a huge dinner featuring bear and elk!  I’ve never had either of these meats before but they were smoked perfectly and tasted great!

BARF Night was super legit!  All the games were competitive but yet super fun, even for the young ones.  We played Ultimate Frisbee then Morgan headed up some Rabbit Sticks.  Big shout out to Morgan for doing this because it allowed to me to get involved in a volleyball game with some of the locals.  

We served nachos - thanks to Kylie, Ruth, and Ariel for serving!  Our team headed music tonight - Meghan, Megan, Morgan, and............DOM!  It was discovered yesterday that Dom can sing, so they put him on the team!  The music was beautiful and impacting.  Dom and Kiana shared their stories and did outstanding jobs.  

We had our family time tonight and talked about some specific conversations we got in that were pretty deep.  We’re looking for more opportunities like this.  Please pray for God to continue to open doors.  We feel so loved and appreciated here!

[jcarlhenders]

Short Takes and Offensive Opinions

Or Ten Reasons to Tell Me I’m a Bad Person

1. #blacklivesmatter was right; the police and criminal justice system in the US are pretty damn racist. And of the two, prosecutors are by far the worst. Bad cops may make the news by shooting innocent people. When it happens, it is frightening and rightfully sparks outrage.

But prosecutors routinely and quietly undercut justice in many ways. Some pile on multiple charges for the same act in an attempt to force people accused of crimes to plea bargain down to a “win” for the prosecutor. Some withhold exculpatory evidence. Some go to trial with witnesses they know are lying. Some use asset forfeiture laws to confiscate any funds an accused person may have to pay for their own defense. The system is full of perverse incentives that encourage a win-at-all-costs mentality, and cloaks bad prosecutors in a shield of Qualified Immunity.

2. I am skeptical of significant anthropogenic climate change. Science remains our best method of learning about the universe, but when it meets politics is subject to corruption. See the history of Eugenics in the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th century.

3. The differences between Communism and Nazism were pretty much down to the Nazi's having designer uniforms, and the Communists retaining power long enough to kill more people.

4. The government is not your friend, no matter what party is in charge. A state with the power to restrict the speech of your enemies, no matter how vile you may find them, also has the power to restrict the speech of your friends. Or you.

5. Much of the American political right are as huge a group of control freaks as the leftist Social Justice Warrior types. Americans wisely vote in divided governments most of the time.

6. The 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms is a civil right, and the NRA is the nation's largest civil liberties group.

7. The "It's okay to be white" fliers are one of the most brilliant acts of political satire I've ever seen. It is a simple statement that should be utterly noncontroversial in an egalitarian society. But in practice, it drives various officials and (especially) university administrators to public paroxysms of anger so extreme that they threaten to expel or even imprison people who post the fliers.

4Chan's /pol/ once again demonstrates that they understands how to manipulate the media and politicians better than any public relations agency or campaign consultant out there. I'm also fond of their sequel poster campaign: "Islam is right about women", an equally elegant mindfuck aimed at performative wokeness.

8. Opinion polls are very often rigged (by selection of percentage of demographic groups surveyed and wording of questions) to say what the commissioning entities want them to say.

9. All drugs, from marijuana to heroin, should be decriminalized—except for antibiotics. Antibiotics should be more closely regulated, and never used for agricultural purposes. Antibiotics when overused breed drug resistance in bacteria putting everyone at risk of a horrible death from an untreatable infection. Yet, people can go to any feed store and buy antibiotics by the pound.

10. I propose an "Equal ID" compromise between the left and right on the issues of voting rights and gun control. Voting and buying a gun should have identical ID requirements and restrictions placed on them. If you have to show two forms of ID to buy a gun; you have to show the same two forms of ID to vote. If you have to register to vote three weeks in advance, then you can require a three week waiting period for gun purchases. If you can vote by mail, you can buy a gun by mail. And etc.

People may argue that the two are not comparable. That you can kill people with a firearm, but not with a vote. They are wrong; enough votes for the wrong person can kill far more people than any mass shooter.

[reckoningss]

Home

Summary: Before he was Killmonger he was Erik Stevens, and he was yours.

Pairing: Erik Stevens (Killmonger) x Reader

Warnings: Language, Angst

Wordcount: 4.5k

A/N: I’m finally posting this for @allisonbaelfire  ‘s 6k writing challenge. I had prompt 25.

You haven’t realized that you’re dozing off on the couch, the low, humming drawl of the evening news underscoring your hazy dreams. The buzzing of a cell phone wakes you, pulling you gradually from sleep just in time to reach over and answer the call, numb fingers fumbling clumsily against the screen. You hold the thing to your ear as you blink away unconciousness, not even bothering to say anything. You can hear air rushing on the other end. Then the even click of a turn signal.

“Babe?”

His voice is like a bolt of lighting directly to your head. A shot of caffeine directly into your veins. You’re wide awake, the phone cradled to your ear like something precious. There’s apprehension in his tone, just like there always is - uneasiness to begin with as though he’s not sure you’ll pick up the phone. Like he can’t be sure it’s you until he hears your voice. Like he’s afraid you’ll say something he can’t bear to hear. You put him at ease.

“Yes.” You clear your raw throat. Breathe a laugh. “I was napping.”

There’s a smile in his voice on the other end of the line. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

You shake your head even though he can’t see you. “No it’s fine, I need to get off the couch anyway. Where are you?”

“I’m on my way home.”

You close your eyes, warmth coursing through you at the word. He doesn’t mean the single bedroom apartment when he says home, doesn’t mean the four walls he shares with you when he’s not away. He means you. He’s coming home to you.

A plume of steam washes over your face when you lift the lid of the stock pot to stir the coconut rice, thick translucent liquid bubbling lazily around the handle of your wooden spoon like bog water. You don’t hear the key throwing the deadbolt or the stubborn door opening, sleep still clouding your head as much as it is. But you feel it - Erik’s large hands gliding over the swell of your hips hungrily, sharp teeth nipping at the tender skin of your neck. The contact is sudden. Harsh. And you shy away from his searching touch. There’s no warmth there. You’ve spent months apart - hours upon hours - hundreds of miles from each other, but instead of coming to you with hands upturned in humble supplication, he’s come to you take from you.

It’s always like this when he goes away when he comes back. He’s always colder. Always more distant. It’s as though he’s leaving pieces of himself across the ocean and bringing home the dwindling remainders to you. And you’re selfish; you don’t want the shell of him, you want him entirely.

At first, he would come home shaking, his hands balled into quaking fists to hold the hurt inside. You thought it was hurt. But as he disappeared and cycled back around to you like the moon, you realized that it was nervous energy, it was inexperience, but it got easier. The leaving got easier. The killing got easier. He slept more soundly every time, took shorter showers, came back with more scars, and you could feel the blood soaking into the mattress. Could feel it seeping onto your skin when he touched you.

“Babe?”

You replace the lid on the stock pot and turn to him with an unsure smile. “Welcome home.”

When you’ve plated the food - tikka masala - and set the table you sit across from him with some meaningless gameshow droning on the TV from the other room. It’s been months since you’ve seen him last, months since you last kissed him and held him close, but you can feel yourself deflating - all of your previous excitement at his homecoming fleeing your body. You search his face for a sign that he’s happy to be back with you, but he’s staring down into his plate, already digging in while your food sits untouched. It’s always like this. Always more lackluster than you had imagined it. Always the inexplicable disappointment.

His elbow rests on the table and beneath the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt, you see a bandage - a waxing moon of browning blood stark against the otherwise pristine whiteness. Your stomach churns at the sight of it, all thoughts of food gone, a new scar occupying the empty pit of your once hungry stomach.

Before the scars there were baths. There were shared showers and hands forever snaking beneath the hems of shirts. Hands running along smooth skin - skin whispering against skin. Calling out, like a promise. Then the first scars came and your practiced hands found them, obstacles cropped up in formerly familiar terrain. Then came more, but you still couldn’t keep your hands off each other, palms running over skin only to meet new outcroppings of convex tissue and you would pause before continuing. The scars grew in number, annexing the smooth surface area of his chest until you couldn’t touch him without relearning the topography of his skin each time - the map of his body ever-shifting and you a cartographer unexperienced with change. Your probing fingers would run over scars like brail, seeking to read meaning where there could be none - only blood. Only demons writhing beneath golden-brown flesh. Only the growing cacophonic scream of slain souls begging to be free. You could no longer press an eager hand to the space above his heart and feel it thrum with your nearness, not without feeling the lumps of flesh flex and resettle and crawl across his body, peeking out at you from beneath the hems of shirts you once invaded. Gone were the showers and baths.

A soupy red concoction lazily circles the drain with your declining mood beneath the hot running water. It’s all so wrong - so distorted - the crooked pieces of the nearly familiar feeling uncomfortable in your hopeful hands. You want this to be like it used to be - a celebration. A long-awaited homecoming. The way it should be.

You squeeze a soapy sponge and cut a clean white streak through the red sauce thinning on the surface of the plate. When Erik is gone, you dream about him. Your heart calls to him from across miles of ocean and earth and his answers. You sleep in his shirts, try not to wash the sheets for weeks and weeks, cocooning yourself in his smell - his essence cold and mechanical, far different from the scent you’ve grown so accustomed to on his warm skin. You lie on your side, wrap your sleeping body in layers of sheets and blankets in an attempt to feel some warmth, cup your own cheek with your hand - too small and smooth to even mimic the feel of his - and you hope upon hope that he’ll come back to you soon.

Then he comes home and your heart swells before it falls. His eyes are darker, his outlook grimmer, his skin more covered in scars and you pull away from him. Always the silence. Always the distance. Always the slow, quiet wilting.

Erik is one room over while you wash the dishes. When he offered to help you waved him off, telling him to rest his feet, sending him away when he so recently came home to you. You can feel his presence chafing against you; you’re hyper-aware of him, as though he sucks all of the air from the room and leaves none for you to breathe. When did it become like this? Where between the months of dreams and minute-long fuzzy satellite phone calls did he morph so as not to fit in the life you live anymore? He feels like a stranger stopping by your home, rather than the man that lives there.

Before there was Wakanda, there was home. There were the four walls you inhabited and how you filled them with laughter and warmth. It had been something of a fixer-upper but you fit perfectly inside - you and he - and you both knew that it would take work to make a home out of a collection of rooms.

You littered the floors with newspapers and fliers and any throwaway papers that either of you could get your hands on. Erik arrived home early on a Thursday cradling a sheaf of posters plastered with the face of the latest corporate big-shot running for city council at the time - his smug capitalist grin crinkling and tearing underfoot as the two of you painted to Tupac. You’d decided on a pewter for the walls - one that you could dress up in the summer with cool shades of blue and green and warm in the winter and fall with taupe and sienna. Painting the whole apartment took time - a process made even longer between smudged kisses and dance breaks, tracking paint-stained footprints across the floor then taking hours more to scrape and scrub them up while arguing about whose fault it really was in the first place. It was tedious and tiring but when all was said and done, you were home.

Then came the assignments and the months on end spent away. It didn’t feel like home without Erik and, eventually, it stopped feeling like home with him too. Every time he came back, he stepped over the threshold more slowly, filled your bed less completely. He walked through the halls more cautiously like he didn’t belong there. And he didn’t. Home became the memory of a time and a person you once knew and ceased to be the place where the two of you came together. No more were the cool summers and the warm falls. 

You can hear the hum of the TV and the all too familiar sound of channels flipping, eventually landing on the news, pundits already jabbering uselessly about topics that could never touch them. Erik curses at the screen.

He’s standing in the center of the living room when you enter, a telling, angry tension in the way he holds himself. From bad to worse. You try not to watch the news; you don’t need to be up to date on every horrifying turn of events to be thoroughly disenchanted by the state of things. But Erik… He feeds off of the anger that he derives from it.

“Please don’t do this.” You keep your voice low, not even attempting to vie for dominance over the latest video of another black boy beaten within an inch of his life.  Inside your tightening chest, your heart aches.

“You see this shit?” His tone is confrontational, much like always. He wants to argue, to proselytize as if you’re not already on his side. You suddenly feel so tired - too tired to convince him otherwise.

“I see it every day, Erik, always the same thing.”

He rounds on you like he’s a tiger and you’re the prey instead of the woman he loves.  “And what are you doing about it?”

“My part!” you say defensively, knowing that it sounds just as weak as it feels leaving your lips. “I’m still knocking doors and volunteeri-”

“Nah.” He shakes his head like that’s not good enough - maybe it’s not. “I’m past all that. I’m taking it out at the source.”

You’ve heard this before and it always alarms you. You hug yourself to ward off a chill you can’t shake because you know that he’s not going to.

“What? By killing them?” The cruel defiance in his expression says it all. “That doesn’t make us any better than them.”

Erik steps toward you so he’s only inches from your face, heat and anger radiating off of him in waves. He bares his teeth.

“But it makes us free.”

This argument isn’t new to you; you’ve had it with Erik too many times to count. Tears well in your eyes anyway. When did you become an adversary to him, someone to indoctrinate or cast aside as he sees fit?

“That’s not the kind of freedom I want.” Your voice quavers pitifully.

Erik sneers at your tears, seeing them as some desperate attempt at manipulation instead of what they are - a cry for the man you love to return to you. He takes your face firmly in one hand, roughened fingers sinking into the roundness of your cheeks. “I’m not going to apologize for this.” His breath fans across your face and you wince away. What you wouldn’t give for him to look at you with adoration, for his grasp to soften into a loving caress. “Not anymore.”

You wrench yourself away from the hands that used to coat your hot skin. Whose fingertips you used to kiss. The hands you once held to your frantically beating heart.

Before there were fights there were conversations. There were nights spent up talking and days spent canvassing. There were marches and town halls and hours spent dreaming and hoping. You and Erik didn’t see eye to eye on some things - a lot of things - but the hope was always the same. No more broken brown boys and girls raising themselves on mean streets. No more fathers and mothers rotting in prisons. No more funerals. There were disagreements - rocks and hard places - but there was always unity in the goal. Always his arms.

Then came the summer and with it the heat and the raining of bullets and black boys’ bodies piling up in the streets like so much garbage. While you grew silent with pain, he grew deafening in his anger. You span your wheels and Erik demanded change by any means necessary and by then the middle ground had turned to quicksand. The two of you couldn’t agree on anything; you wouldn’t avenge bodies with more bodies. You just couldn’t, and the thought terrified you.

The conversations were long since forgotten - replaced by shouting and then, deafening silence. 

When you finally will yourself into the bedroom you share with Erik,  he’s in the shower. You lower yourself onto the edge of the bed and listen to the muffled patter of water, thanking God for small miracles. At least now you can drift off to sleep without more confrontation and try again in the morning.

If only it were that easy.

Sleep won’t come, especially after Erik cuts the water and fumbles around in the bathroom for 15 minutes. All the while you lie awake in bed - tense, hoping that he won’t see that you’re still awake. Knowing that he’ll just know anyway. You keep your back to the door when he finally comes out but you can feel his eyes on you, his dark gaze trailing over your form beneath the covers. He says nothing. You count his plodding steps out of the room. Somehow, the bed feels colder when he’s gone.

Before there was distance between you and Erik, there were butterfly kisses. There was true, deep intimacy and Erik, the boy who folded like dough beneath your gentle hands. Childhood had taught him that to be soft meant being vulnerable but the time he’d made it to you he was tired of being strong and with you, he didn’t have to be. Inside the walls of your home, he let his walls down and thawed for you and you only.

But only so much; old habits die hard. At his most vulnerable - on the cusp of sleep - he would peel away the thick sooty layers of the man he was outside these walls and expose his soft underbelly to you, revealing the things that had wounded him before. All of the lessons that no longer bled but still hurt. The scabs he still picked. That’s how you learned of his mother imprisoned and his father found murdered. That’s how you discovered Wakanda and the history of his lineage. And there were tears - tears shed into the soft folds of your nightshirts. You felt them, heard them, but never saw them. The feeling was enough.

But then there was a master plan and he had secrets again - so many secrets. Before your eyes, he reverted back to the man he’d been before you and then evolved into something entirely new. Worse. It’s hard to hurt others when you let yourself be soft, and he planned to hurt a lot of people. More nights were spent with him staying up two rooms over and you lying awake in a cold, half-empty bed. The plan became more important to him - holding him together like you used to, giving him purpose, pushing you out. It was increasingly difficult to reach him. The tears had dried up. Before you’d known N’Jadaka, you were in love with Erik Stevens and after a while, there was only Killmonger.

You toss and turn beneath the covers long enough to wonder whether not you’d feel better in Erik’s arms. Your pride says no but your bruised feelings say it’s worth a shot, and you did miss him - probably more than you previously realized. He’s in the “study,” countless lonely nights having firmly established that as absolute fact. It’s his space - nevermind that it used to be your space. Together. Somewhere during the intervening years, he annexed so much of it that you find it difficult to go in there even when he’s gone. But now? You can’t allow invisible boundaries to hold you back - away from him - not when the very ground on which you’ve built your life crumbles into nothingness.

Your feet are silent against the familiar hardwood floor as you steal down the hallway toward him, closing the gap. Every step feels like another mile crossed in your journey to bring him home to you. You peek into the study as if you have no right to be there - Ariadne peering into the darkness of the labyrinth. Erik doesn’t even bother to look up when you enter, stepping tentatively over the threshold. The disrespect stings, but you press through it, desperate to reach him.

“Erik?” His name comes out hushed. You know he hears you, but he ignores you still. There’s a large map spread out on the desk before him, the familiar name of the African nation bolded at the top. The document’s face is replete with x’s and notes and routes drawn to nowhere in particular. His battle-warn laptop is open on the desk beside it as he scrolls and jots down notes in a little black book. You try not to look too closely, shuttering your curiosity. You’re not interested in all of that, you just want him.

Lowering yourself onto the desk you tentatively vie for Erik’s attention, your thigh obliterating a corner of Wakanda. He doesn’t have to say anything; there’s no missing the way his eyes sweep over the skin of your leg, following the muscle up until it disappears beneath a pair of cotton shorts. You place a hand on his, all of the scrolling and jotting coming to a halt. It would seem he missed you too - in one sense at least.

“Come to Bed.”

Erik tears his eyes away from you and tries to resume his work - deliberate concentration in the stubborn set of his jaw. “I got work to do.”

“Erik.” You take his hand in both of yours and draw it to your knee. “It’s cold. I missed you. Come to bed.” Two deep brown eyes flicker to you; strong fingers tightening on your flesh involuntarily and your heart skips. There’s no hiding how he wants you and you want him too. Just maybe not in the same way. His hand stays on your knee but the puttering continues.

You feel an unfamiliar sensation rising in the back of your throat - frustration. You’ve never wanted to hit Erik before, but right now you want nothing more. You want to scream and throw his shitty little laptop across the room, flip the desk on its side, and demand his undivided attention. For a man who loves to argue with you, Erik refuses to fight for your relationship; you wish you could bend him. Wish that he would soften for you again like he used to. But he’s hard - so solid and immovable and you want to melt and make him fit where you need him to. But some things don’t melt under high heat. Some things don’t hold a liquid form, they just vaporize altogether and slip through your fingers.

You inch over, another swath of the motherland disappearing beneath the brown skin of your thigh as you take Erik’s face in your hands and lower your forehead to his and breathe and don’t say a word until he looks up into your searching eyes. “Come back to me.”

Erik knows that you don’t mean the bedroom. He knows you don’t mean the bed, beneath the covers, wrapped in your waiting arms, but you can see in his eyes that that’s all he’s willing to give you. You take it anyway.

Later, in the dark, you cry quietly to the sound of his steady breathing. Cry because you know that you can’t keep sleeping beside a stranger. Cry because you don’t know how to do anything else. You’ve already made up your mind before your feet touch the cold floorboards and long before you make your way around your home in the dark, gathering the things you’ll need to start over. There’s a deliberateness to your movements - something animalistic and instinctual in the set of your shoulders and the tilt of your head. You can’t stop to think of what this will do to him, can’t think of the years spent building a life in this home because if you do, you’ll talk yourself right back into bed.

So you don’t think at all.

Don’t think of  Erik’s deft fingers undoing your reservations, plucking at your heart, his hands reverently following the slope of your thighs - palms hot like coals against your wanting skin.  Don’t think of the belly laughter, the wide, toothy grins, the paint smudged kisses. Don’t think of the near vulnerability and the way that his eyes sometimes glint like obsidian with unrealized emotion. Don’t think of the unending battle to be “strong” or the countless tears hidden in the fabric of shirts, each lost to the soft swell of your abdomen.  Don’t think of how close you once were - to wholeness - to fixing him, because Erik isn’t a car or a door with a creaky hinge.

Erik is a miracle wrapped in keloid covered skin and losing him is going to feel like losing everything.

It takes a year. A year for you start sleeping peacefully without hearing his voice in your dreams. A year for you to learn to walk again without the expectation of his return holding you up. A year to stop making enough for two and sitting across from his empty placemat and talking to his memory. It’s a year before you stop expecting him to creep up behind you, slip a hand into the back pocket of your jeans, and press a kiss to the soft curve of your neck. It takes a year to start over completely.  

Your “new” apartment isn’t exactly new; you’ve been here for nine months but you’re only just beginning to feel at home. The transplant was difficult, but you’re beginning to grow into your little space for one - putting down roots. The maqluba is cooking down nicely, although you’re not entirely sure how much longer it’ll be. The TV drones on from the living room - CNN your background noise of choice.

“And now,” the familiar voice of Chris Cuomo says evenly, “We’re live in New York where T’Challa Udaku - king of Wakanda - addresses the United Nations.”

There’s no fighting the curiosity that licks up your spine. There hasn’t been much news out of Wakanda since you left him, but you’ve clung to every shred of information about the seemingly poor, secluded African country you know only from Erik’s drowsy stories, desperate to know anything. “That’s where I’m going,” you remember him saying, his words slurred between sleep-heavy lips before he would tumble over into oblivion, his head cradled in your lap. “I’m going home.”

You peek tentatively around the corner as though you’re not the only one in the apartment. You’ve always wondered about the Wakandan royal family, Erik’s long-lost aunts and uncles - the cousins he dreamed about while growing up alone in Oakland. This man - T’Challa - doesn’t look like Erik, but there’s something of the man you used to love there. A pride in the tilt of his neck and the set of his shoulders. You don’t realize that your hands are shaking.

“My name is King T’Challa - Son of King T’Chakka - I am the sovereign ruler of the nation of Wakanda,” he begins and you’re riveted, unable to tear your eyes away. You can’t tell why your chest feels so tight, why suddenly, it’s so hard to breathe.

He continues his speech, outlining his plans for Wakanda to integrate into the modern world and the realization hits you that you don’t just see Erik in the way he stands, you hear him. Pouring out of this stranger’s mouth are Erik’s words, his ideas, and convictions. You listen through the questions and T’Challa’s dignified answers, through the doubt and skepticism and attempts at enlightenment - absolutely rapt. It’s not until the king finally leaves the podium followed by a volley of shouted questions and flashing cameras that the spell is broken.

And just like that, Erik is gone.

The pot lid in your hand hits the floor first, landing on the rug with a dull thunk and rolling away beneath the low, grey couch. In all of your months of separation and feigned strength, in all of your dreaming and wondering, you’d always imagined that Erik made it to Wakanda. You’d never fathomed that he met his end there. But you can feel it now - the rending - the slow, painful tearing of the connection you’d once shared with him.

All of your pretended willpower is gone now. You deflate. Your knees hit the floor next but you feel nothing, not until the realization breaks over you like a tidal wave of ice and drags you under. You resurface on your hands and knees, gasping, messy sobs shaking your shoulders, tears smearing the patterned rug across your vision. You’ve never known pain like this - loss like this - as if your throbbing chest will split and spill your bleeding heart onto the floor. Useless now. Empty now. You’ll never see his smiling face again. Never hear his barking laughter. Never lie beside him and listen to him breathe. Because he’s miles and miles away from you, God knows where, buried beneath feet of red earth, cradled by his oldest, fondest dream.

Finally home.

[lauralot89]

OKAY SO LET ME EXPLAIN MY LIFE FOR THE PAST SEVERAL DAYS

It’s Thursday, I go to see my therapist, I stop by Whole Foods on the way home because I know the Thanksgiving stuff will be out and I’m getting myself some stuffed Gardein cutlets because I can, and I go home and preheat the oven and prepare myself for a lovely lunch.

But then.

Those of you who follow my blog know of the adventures of Not Milo and Not Milo 2: Electric Boogaloo, the doppelgangers of my cat Milo who insist on showing up outside my house, but I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about Not Loki, so let me remedy that now.

Not Loki is a doppelganger of my cat, Loki, whom I had never seen up close before Thursday because he avoids my house.  I can only assume he senses Milo there and knows to steer clear.

But today, he was all up on my porch, accompanied by Not Milo 2: Electric Boogaloo.  So I opened the door to take a look and holy shit.

My first up close look at Not Loki was a mostly adorable tabby cat with one green eye and one eye that was a portal to hell itself.  That is, red, inflamed, and oozing.  It was so infected I was amazed he even had an eye at all.

Unlike the Not Milos, Not Loki did not have a collar.  I didn’t have time to waste searching for an owner, so instead I grabbed Milo’s cat carrier, forced Not Loki into it, and took him to the vet’s office nearest to my neighborhood so I could have him treated and checked for a microchip, and maybe the vet would recognize him.

Except that office is closed on Thursdays for some reason, so instead I had to take him to a different vet.

That vet’s office was like “I don’t know if we can save his eye” but they gave me medicine for it.  Not Loki did not have a chip, but he’s neutered and declawed on his front paws.  Plus his fur was nice and sleek and he wasn’t emaciated, so presumably someone was caring for him.

I took him home and put him in my garage, where the litter box is, and locked the cat door from the house into the garage so that Milo couldn’t get in and terrorize him.  Then I went door to door down my street ringing doorbells and trying to find Not Loki’s owner, but no one was answering because it was 2:30 in the afternoon and they were all at work and also it was raining very hard so I went back home.

Whereupon I found that somehow Milo had gotten through the locked cat door and was terrorizing Not Loki like the dick he is.

On Friday I got about 200 copies made of a FOUND CAT poster and went around putting them in mailboxes on my street and the surrounding subdivisions, and then going to various businesses and putting them up there too.  I got one call that day from someone who was sure that Not Loki is her neighbor’s cat, but the neighbor had moved and there’s no forwarding information.  Then on Saturday I had someone stop by the house to see if Not Loki was her daughter’s missing cat, but the lady decided he wasn’t.

Also on Saturday Not Loki had a checkup with the vet and they said at the start of the visit that they still weren’t sure if his eye could be saved but once they took him back to examine him further they said he was really improved but then they told me to put a towel under the door of the room I’m keeping him in because they didn’t even want me to risk Milo breathing his air, so I have no idea where he’s at health wise.

Anyway, I can’t keep Not Loki because the entire saga of Loki and Milo cohabiting has proved that Milo is a violent dick even to cats that he likes, and Not Loki has no front claws to defend himself, and also I can’t afford him, having just bought a house.  So I guess I’ll start putting the word out about a free cat, and if that doesn’t bear fruit, there are a lot of no kill shelters near me.

Oh, and while I was distributing fliers in mailboxes, Not Milo 2: Electric Boogaloo decided to tag along.