#fords hair looks too flat but i am not going to fix it

[godsfavoritescientist]

This makes perfect sense for Ford to say and I will be taking no questions

[typinggently]

AlfieTommy Modern AU x LdR — Off to the Races

The early morning is drenched with the scent of chlorine and rhododendron, promise of another hot day. Tommy takes his time, feeling the resistance, the cool weightlessness of the water. For the time being, he’s lost in this, the blue above and beyond, the sound of the waves, his own laboured breathing.

“What’s this, then?”

The world swirls and comes to a halt. Tommy’s hand finds the slippery-hard edge of the pool, blinks chlorine out of his eyes. Alfie stands beneath the sunshade, between the lounger and the delicate metal table where a tumbler of whiskey glitters in the morning sun, ice melting. The sight of him is so unexpected Tommy almost thinks he’s dreamed him up, yet he’s still there after he smoothed his hair back, slick strands cool against his palm.

“Didn’t think I’d see you before four.”

“You called, didn’t you?”

“And you didn’t answer.” Tommy hadn’t really meant to. Dawn had crept into his bedroom, grey and cool, and panic had made his hands shake. Kühne’s voice had still rung in his ear, tinny yet familiar, sharp accent made sharper still by cool-cruel amusement, hissing victory. The sound had turned his blood to lead, thick and cold in his veins.

So no, Tommy hadn’t meant to call Alfie, but he’d been shaking, heart in his throat, and he’d found himself in his big bed, hand fisted into the sheets pooling around his hips, listening to the dialling tone of his phone. He’d ended the call three rings in, but now he suspects that that’s precisely why Alfie is here now, cigar between his fingertips and eyes on Tommy, calculating.

“Well, here I am. But don’t — no, Love, get back down. Don’t mind me, finish your splashing. I’ll pass the time.” With that, Alfie sits on the lounger, picks up the glass of whiskey to give it a considering sniff. His voice is light, easy, but his eyes never leave Tommy.

And he needn’t have come, but of course he did. Because Tommy called him at dawn and hung up right away. He wouldn’t have to sit around and watch him finish his laps, either, but of course he does. Because he knows Tommy can’t talk about Kühne yet.

(And, of course, because the garden is rich with the warm-sweet scent of rhododendron and the pool is an obscene shade of blue. Because Tommy’s swimming trunks are dark blue and his skin is milk-pale, his hair gleaming and dark.)

So when Tommy gets out, he takes his time with it. Shoulders, arms, chest, knee, thighs, well-defined and adorned with glittering drops of water. The grass is ticklish-cool against the soles of his feet, recently cut and fragrant. Three steps and he’s with him, standing just outside the shade. Showing off, a little. Subconsciously. Hell, not like he can help it with Alfie’s eyes on him. He shifts a little, let’s his knee brush Alfie’s knuckles where his hand rests on the armrest of the lounger. “Kühne called this morning.”

Alfie’s hand is warm, his thumb curled possessively around Tommy’s kneecap. He’s wearing a light linen shirt, dark trousers. A mess of gold around his neck, on his knuckles, catching the light as he reaches for the glass of whiskey with his cigar held between two fingers. The summer approaching Margate has him looking a tad tanner already, his hair interwoven with copper-gold. He hums, looks up at him, the bad eye squinting a bit. Forgot his sunglasses, then, must’ve left in a hurry, and Tommy swallows thickly with how fond it makes him feel, how afraid he was before Alfie came. Another hum. “That’s shit news, Poppet.”

“I know.” Tommy feels the sun on his shoulders and his heartbeat in his chest. He watches as Alfie leans back in his chair, takes a sip from the whiskey.

“When are you two set to meet up?” He licks his lips, squints up at Tommy and holds the glass out for him.

Tommy takes it, fingers brushing, and makes sure to rest his lip where the glass is slick already. The whiskey is cool and sharp-sweet, Alfie-flavoured. “Brunch. Eleven thirty.”

“Brunch? Who the fuck meets up for brunch?” Alfie shakes his head, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Better get ready, then.” Good point.

Alfie follows him inside, of course he does. Marble under his feet, the cool air of the hall fragrant with roses, then his rooms. Carpets on wooden floors, past the bed and into the bathroom. Shell-shaped tiles, dark blue with gold fillings to match the gold of the shower fittings and his pale skin. A mirror like an open fan, sectioned off with hidden doors for razors, combs, lotions and scrubs.

He drops the robe, steps out of his trunks. Leaves Alfie to take his seat on the chair by the towels rack, voice raised a little over the spray of the water. When Tommy gets out, Alfie doesn’t make a move to hand him one of the heavy, monogrammed towels, keeping his eyes on him as he walks over and his stream of consciousness steady. “—two in the car, I say. Not three, you hear me, Tommy? Two, that’s it. Don’t get scared, silly boy, it’s too late for that, and don’t wear a fucking tie, yeah?”

No, Tommy tells him, he’s not going to wear a tie. He lets Alfie put his hand on his leg again, a tad above the knee this time. Warm and dry, giving him a light squeeze while Tommy towels his hair. He doesn’t bother to step back before he’s sufficiently dry, dropping the towel into Alfie’s lap. And Alfie’s right, of course. It’s too late to be scared. But now that Alfie’s here, eyes on him as he shaves, second towel slung low on his hips, his hands are steady.

Because Alfie keeps talking, keeps his eyes on Tommy and follows him into the dressing room, your little boudoir, sweetheart, and put down that fucking shirt — A plush carpet and gleaming cherrywood. Rows of crisp white cotton, of silk and cashmere, gleaming leather. A floor-length mirror, glittering bottles, cufflinks. Ties, handkerchiefs, belts. The smoke of Alfie’s cigar curls and weaves through the leather-fragrant air, warming Tommy with its familiarity. He doesn’t look at Alfie while he’s selecting cotton/silk/leather, but he feels his presence in the plush chair, his eyes warm between his shoulder blades, on the dip of his spine.

It’s only when he’s done, when his outfit is resting on the gleaming table by the mirror, Chanel Égoïste on top, that he turns around to look at him. Not quite hesitating. Still undressed save for black briefs, Tom Ford in bold letters flat against his skin. The carpet under his feet, the scent of Alfie’s cigar in his nose. There are multiple light setting in the room, but he didn’t turn the overhead lights on, didn’t flood the intimate space with white to protect Alfie’s bad eye. So the lights are soft, melting the silhouettes into the dark. Tommy blinks, isn’t wearing his contacts, doesn’t have to to catch the gold and linen and warmth of Alfie, who looks at him through incense-white cigar smoke.

“You don’t wanna fucking rush, now. See, what you’re gonna do is, Poppet, you’re gonna pick up your little phone and call down, let them bring up some tea. Some fucking Russian Caravan, I’d say. You got that?” Of course they do. Tommy bought it himself, spotting the blue tin in the bustling-elegant shop, weighing it in his hand and remembering Alfie’s kitchen in Margate, his bedroom. “Russian Caravan and two scones, croissants, whatever, some light fucking carbs, warm with melting butter and some fucking Marmelade, some honey, whatever rots your teeth.” He waits for Tommy to give a slight nod, to step in.

Warm hand on his hip, his waist, pulling him in, down, curling Tommy up on his lap, cotton skin cigar gold Alfie wrapped around him, holding him, hand in his hair, the tickle-scratch of his beard on freshly shaved skin, his mouth, warm soft on his cheek, his voice soft, soft, soft. “And then we’re going to have breakfast in bed, yeah? Barely half past nine, Sweetheart, you can spare one hour.” Kiss on his cheek, his temple, warm arms and Tommy’s shaking again, pressing close, so relieved, warm, safe. “See? It’s alright, now. Nothing we can’t fix, Tommy.” And Tommy believes him.

My old man is a tough man, but

He got a soul as sweet as blood-red jam

And he shows me, he knows me

Every inch of my tar-black soul

[twilightofthejedi]

fic: barefoot in the kitchen

written for the 2021 chayenzo community fanfic challenge by @the-chayenzo-community !!! 

dialogue prompt: 

“close your eyes, and hold out your hands.” 

read on aoc: here 

“Are you listening to me?” Cha-young asked, her voice loud, and cutting him out of his reverie. They were sitting at the bar of some upscale restaurant, and the long day was beginning to catch up with him. He looked up at her, bewildered. 

“Sorry, Ms. Hong. I must have…” he trailed off awkwardly, because she was pressing the back of her hand to his forehead, frowning in apparent concern. “What are you doing?” 

“Just checking.” She raised her eyebrows comically. “If the great Mr. Mafia lawyer-”

“Stop calling me that-” 

“-is not paying attention at all times, then something is surely wrong with him!” she finished victoriously, and when he said nothing, grinned at him, wide and beaming. Her face was slightly flushed, and her smile was nearly blinding in its intensity, and it had the combined effect of making him want to- 

He shook his head, inwardly cursing at himself. “I’m fine. I was just thinking about next week. We need to figure out what we’re doing about the illegal stock acquisitions.”

She nodded, and turned serious. It was admirable how she could do that, how she could push her drink away and take out her phone to write down their plans. 

And if he moved a little closer to her, and let his hand rest a little longer than usual on her shoulder, well, that was nobody’s business. 

-----

The next day, he barely saw her. When he arrived at the firm in the morning, three cups of coffee in hand, she was pulling on her coat. She took her coffee from him, smiled in thanks, and breezed out the door, leaving him staring after her. 

“I think she said she had some errands to run,” Mr. Nam said, pointedly ignorant as always, taking his cup from him. Vincenzo nodded, and set his briefcase down. He opened his computer, set down his cappuccino, and soon was lost in the case files that he had uploaded the previous day. Mr. Nam periodically asked him for some document from the shelves, but for the most part, they worked in silence. When the quiet got too much, he put in his earphones to listen to Guilio Cesare, one of his favorite operas and one that he had frequently gone to watch in Milan, when he had some free time. When he had tried to show it to Cha-young, she had fallen asleep on his couch, and he had had to put her feet up on the cushions and cover her with a blanket for the night. 

Around noon, there was a memorable incident involving the monks, a runaway cat, and a feline fur allergy, which left poor Monk Chaesin covered in hives (before Ms. Jang stabbed him with an epipen), but other than that, the day passed by relatively uneventfully. 

She didn’t come back to the firm at all, which was highly unusual for her. He had grown used to hearing her move around the room, talking either to them or on the phone about anything and everything, and felt the silence most keenly, especially when Mr. Nam took out his own lunch, leaving Vincenzo to wander on his own to the snack bar for something to eat. Usually he would have gone out with Cha-young, and he couldn’t stop wondering where she was. 

When he casually asked Mr. Nam if he knew, the older man had just fixed him with a knowing stare, and Vincenzo had hurriedly ducked out of the room, willing the blush on his face to disappear. 

As it got dark, however, he was beginning to get worried. What if Jang Han-seok had decided that his lingering fondness for his sunbae didn’t matter anymore, and was having her kidnapped? He didn’t doubt that she could take care of herself (“Seven degrees in martial arts, Mr. Cassano. I’m practically a member of the mafia already”), but it wasn’t like her to go off the grid like this. 

Then he scowled at himself. Remember, you get the gold, ruin Babel, and leave. There’s a beach house in Malta waiting for you. Nothing else. 

But sometimes, he saw Mr. Nam lighting up with an idea, saw Mr. Lee trying to mimic the clicking of his lighter, saw his mother’s eyes soften when he walked in, saw Cha-young (when had he stopped thinking of her as Ms. Hong?) snort with laughter as he broke out sweating after eating too-spicy noodles, and wondered if it couldn’t be something more. Would he be content to live alone in Malta all his life? Or had he grown accustomed to the people and the life around him, to the point where he couldn’t imagine living any way else? To the point where he was beginning to think of the one-bedroom Geumga Plaza apartment with its tacky ceiling stars, as home? 

Could he imagine living without her? 

It was a question that had crossed his mind too many times to count, and each time he had banished the thought, because that led to a dangerous road, and he didn’t need all the feelings associated with it. He needed to stay focused, and think about his next moves, and how to outsmart his enemies. 

But his mind kept going back to her. 

He shook his head at himself as he turned his key in the lock of his apartment door. He got ready for the night, taking off his jacket, making a serving of ramyeon for dinner, and turning the TV on to play music from the classical channel. From the sounds of it, it was some Vivaldi concerto, hallmarked by its minor key and fast paced violin solo. 

He was pouring himself a glass of wine when there was a knock at the door. He frowned, and set the bottle down. Flexing his fingers, he went to the door, and opened it. 

Cha-young stood there, looking unbothered, holding an enormous box like it was nothing. She pushed past him into the apartment and set the box down on the counter. 

As she flopped unceremoniously onto his couch, and picked up his wineglass by the stem, he suddenly felt a hot flush of something. He inhaled shakily, and realized what it was. 

He had been going out of his mind worrying about her. She hadn’t picked up any of his calls, and had been incognito all day, and now she was acting like nothing had happened? He exhaled sharply, and she looked up, sipping from his glass, her eyebrows high on her forehead. 

“Where have you been?” 

“I was shopping. Why, does it matter? Am I not allowed to take a day off?” She stood up, crossing her arms. She stepped forward until she was in his space, and he backed up until his hip hit the kitchen counter. 

“No, it’s not that, I just didn’t know where-” 

“Why does that matter?” 

And isn’t that the crux of it. Why does it matter to him? If she was nothing but his work partner, then he would have no problem with her leaving in the morning to run errands, and not return to work. He might rib her about it the next day, but he wouldn’t have worried this much, wouldn’t have thought up all sorts of horrible scenarios in his head, all of which involved him finding her, broken and dead. 

He cannot think, not with her so close to him, so close that he can smell the wine on her breath that she had just drank, just drank from his glass, her eyes seeming to stare into his soul. He gripped the counter for strength. She tracked the movement with her eyes, and stared back at him. 

“I was worried, all right? I didn’t know where you were and I was worried.” There. He’s said it. He ran his hands through his hair, and she stared at him for a long moment, seeming to come to a realization within herself. Then, she stepped back, and moved to get the enormous box from where she had placed it on the counter. 

He stared at her. 

“What is this?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Just close your eyes and hold out your hands. You’ll see.” She pursed her lips when he did nothing, so he straightened up and closed his eyes, holding his hands palm up and feeling very stupid. He could hear her moving, and the sound of the box opening. She moved closer, and he got a whiff of her perfume. When he had first started working with her, he had hated it, because it had been some American brand. They had had a long debate where he had taken her to a perfume store and tried to get her to appreciate one of the many luxury European brands, but she had been steadfast in her defence of Tom Ford, and that had been that. He had grown to associate that scent with her, and the other day, had caught a whiff of it at the bank and had looked around like a fool, for her. 

Now, it was all he could make out, because she was standing out of reach from him, still doing something with the box. He felt like he had that day he had lost the bet about the bungeoppang, when he had waited, eyes closed, utterly at her mercy, for her to flick him on the head. He felt warm, like the temperature had suddenly increased by several degrees. 

She moved closer to him, finally, and placed something flat in his arms. 

“You can open your eyes now.” 

He did, and looked down, baffled. She had gotten him a record player. On top of it were several records of- 

“Opera?” he asked, looking up at her. She smirked, looking smug. 

“Yes. I got your playlist from Mr. Nam, and bought the records for them, as well as a few that I thought you would like as well. I did so much research for this, you have no idea. It was so boring, so you should be grateful.” He stared at her in shock. 

She had gone out and bought a record player, so he could listen to his favorite genre of music the way that God had intended: via vinyl record. It was nearly identical to the one that he had had back in his apartment in Milan. How did she know? She was smiling at him, waiting for his reaction, and her eyes were on him like he was something marvelous, luminous, and he swallowed a lump in his throat. 

Suddenly, in that moment, he realized that it really didn’t matter if he had his beach house in Malta or not. It didn’t matter if he had to fight Babel forever, because he would do it, he would do it all, as long as she was there right beside him. He could take on a god and he would win, because he would be able to look to his side and see her stare the god down with steel in her veins. 

And before he knew it, he was moving. He set the record player down on the counter, carefully, and surged forward. Her eyes widened slightly, and he cupped his hand around her neck and drew her to him, his lips finding hers. For a second, she was frozen, but she sighed into his mouth and responded, her one arm snaking around his back and the other hand threading through his hair. It felt like every place that she touched him was on fire, and he was floating through the superheated air. 

It could have been minutes, or years, or seconds before she pulled back, and smiled brightly at him. 

She leaned in to kiss him again on the mouth, and said, against his lips, 

“You have no idea how long I have been waiting to do that, Mr. Mafia.” He goggled at her, too shocked at her and himself to complain, and she smiled again, the quirk of her lips teasing. 

“Your ramyeon is burning.” 

He cursed, moving quickly to the stove, trying desperately to salvage the ruined noodles. She came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his body from behind, and laughed, her chin on his shoulders, and it was the most intoxicating sound he’d ever heard. Her perfume drowned out the burned smell of the ramyeon, her hair tickled his jaw, and he couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. 

A warm feeling that had nothing to do with the weather spread through him, and it felt like coming home. 

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter eleven: art whores

After they had had their cups of coffee, and Sam took the honor of checking out of the hotel for herself, she stayed in the passenger seat next to Dan with her shirt off the whole hour long drive up to Boston. He had rolled up his otherwise short sleeves up to his shoulders, and showed off his muscular arms all the while; he also had borrowed a little rubber band from inside of the glove box; his mirrored sunglasses reflected the early morning sunlight the whole entire way up the freeway. Every so often, she took a glimpse behind her to Joey, who had propped his hair over the back of the seat so it would be up off of his neck. He squinted his brown eyes against the amber sunlight and he bowed his head a little bit from the intense glow over the continual skyline of small towns to the right.

“We're gonna swing by another hotel to pick up Frankie,” Dan finally said at one point over the roar of the freeway

“Sounds good!” Sam declared as she gave her dark hair a slight toss back.

They took the next exit off of the freeway into a part of town near the Massachusetts state line: there was in fact a little hotel there and Frank stood under the exposed stone stairwell with his lush dark hair sprawled over his shoulders like the floppy ears of a dog and his mirrored sunglasses upon his face; Sam thought about Joey's old apartment at the very sight of him. He nodded at them and showed her a grin once they rolled up to the parking spot before him.

“Hey, all o' youses,” he greeted them; Joey slid to the seat right behind Dan, and Frank climbed in next to him.

“I like this look, by the way,” he said to Sam.

“I got hot last night,” she explained with a shrug.

Joey muttered something to Frank, which brought a little chuckle out of him.

“What's goin' on back there?” Dan demanded.

“Fuhget about it,” Frank said with a wave of his hand, and he buckled into the other passenger seat.

They rolled out of that spot and doubled back to the freeway for the rest of the way up to Boston.

Sam thought about what Zelda and Belinda had said the night after Cliff died, and she knew she was doing them justice by being in that car with those three men. She was headed for yet another brand new place that she never really knew about before and had only dreamed of in the past. She knew she would have to put her shirt back on at some point, but the feeling the cool coastal breeze on her chest and belly was something she hadn't done before, not even back home in California.

Within time, the skyline emerged under the amber sunlight: Sam spotted a large Cisco sign off in the distance. It seemed like the kind of place that had only cobblestones for streets and had horse carriages all around. When she peered out the window and beyond the freeway, she spotted a few alleyways down below that did in fact have those old earthy faded cobblestones all underneath the lush green oak trees. She wondered if it really was how she believed it to be once Dan took the next exit for the venue, a long low dark building called the Paradise Rock Club, nestled down in the heart of downtown about a block from the freeway: if she didn't know better, Sam swore it was movie theater, especially since the black sign over the front doors read ANTHRAX, TESTAMENT, and special guests THE CHERRY SUICIDES in large white lettering.

“This is also the very first time we're touring here, too,” Dan explained as he rounded the corner to the back alleyway.

“What better way to celebrate than for a couple of dates,” she exclaimed.

“Right?” Joey laughed.

“I guess this place is literally right by the college,” Dan continued, “so we might be seein' a lot of people of your caliber tonight.”

“I hope so,” said Sam. They rolled up to the pale white back door, which hung slightly ajar for them. Once Dan killed the engine, Sam put her top back on and fixed her hair before she climbed out with them. They were alone there, but Frank rounded the back side of the car and joined up with her.

“Can I tell you something?” he started in a soft voice. “This has just been—eating at me for a while now.”

Dan held the door for them, and she and Frank stepped into the cool, dimly lit back hallway first. Joey sauntered past them towards their dressing room, and then Dan followed suit.

“Hey, Joe—wait up—” he called after him, and that left Sam and Frank alone; he took off his sunglasses and tucked them into his shirt collar, and then he ran a hand over his smooth crown of lush dark hair.

“What's up?” she asked him.

“Really hope you don’t get mistaken for a groupie,” he admitted in a soft voice.

She frowned at that. “Why’s that?”

“Because groupies are often seen as whores or just women who sleep around with the band. I don’t want my best friend to be seen like that.”

“They won’t know that, though,” she said, albeit with a nervous feeling in her stomach.

“But that’s always the assumption, though,” Frank insisted. “You can’t stop people from assuming shit about you, even when you know in your heart that it’s not true. Not saying I don’t want you around—not at all. I love the fact you’re going to be with us for most of the summer. But what I am telling you is what you’re about to see when you come along with us more and more. And if you don’t believe me, let me show you what the people have been saying about your girls, the Cherry Suicides. Calling them the ‘n’ word, especially Morgan and Minerva; calling Rosita ‘fake’ because of her nails; calling Zelda a skinny bossy bitch. All kinds of nasty shit. We love and embrace our female fans, but most of our crowds don’t. How have they acted with you and Marla?”

“Like… we’re not even there,” she recalled.

“There you go then. Again, I’m not trying to be ‘that’ guy, but it’s just the truth. If only there was a way I could protect you from it, though.”

“You can always be like, 'hey! Quit pickin' on my friend!' or something like that,” she suggested, but he shrugged his shoulders.

“That's just a worry I've had,” he continued. “Y'know, I see how Joey looks at you, but I just wonder who else out there looks at you and not like that, either. Like you're fresh meat for the taking.” He then lifted his head to the hallway behind her, and she turned and followed his gaze.

“Even when there's duct tape on boots involved,” he said, that time in a louder voice.

Zelda walked up to the door right behind them with Chuck's boots latched onto her feet: the silver duct tape glistened under the low golden lights on the ceiling, still in place after Greg stuck it on with haste and after a few shows under her belt. She had slicked her black hair back with a handful of gel and wore nothing but a stained dark red sports bra and a pair of pearly white gym shorts. Her flat toned stomach already had a layer of sweat all over.

“If I was hot, I would dress like that, too,” said Sam, which brought a laugh out of both of them.

“Nah, I just put my head and body under a hose,” Zelda assured her; she pushed open the door and Sam realized that was the Cherry Suicides' dressing room. “You guys wanna come in?”

“Sure!” said Sam as she followed her inside.

“I gotta get to our room, but I'll poke my head in in a bit,” Frank promised her, and he kept on going to where Joey and Dan had run off to. Sam stood in the doorway for a second and she took in a whiff of the fresh incense in that little room. A vanity mirror stood on the left wall, as well as a small desk and a pair of accompanying chairs: Rosita's hats stood on a small rack on the wall opposite the door, and a long, shabby lumpy couch and a coffee table with a pitcher of water and a little wooden plate of smoldering incense right near the right wall. Zelda fixed her bra and she glanced down at the stains with a wrinkle to her nose.

“Does this thing make me look like I spilled ketchup all over myself?” she asked Sam.

“Sorta.”

“Damn it. It's supposed to be fake blood—I was gonna put some on my shorts once we get closer to show time, too. We're trying to hone in a more gory image for ourselves. You know, something to make people take us a bit more seriously. We have the songs, we just need the image. You thirsty? I'm dyin' of thirst—”

Zelda then reached for a stack of paper cups on the other side of the table and took two out, one for herself and one for Sam. She poured them both some of that icy water from the pitcher and then she raised it for a toast. They both drank it down in unison.

“Frankie was just telling me about groupies and all the nonsense you girls put up with,” Sam explained as she stepped inside more.

“Oh, yeah, we knew right away that was gonna happen with us,” Zelda pointed out as she poured herself a second cup. “We just demand more from the people who claim to support us.”

“I think it's a little harsh, though,” Sam confessed.

“Absolutely!” Zelda brought the cup to her mouth and guzzled it down. “Like I remember it kinda got to me at first, but I'm a Rhode Island chick who's not a rich snob. I look up to Wendy O. Williams, Lita Ford, and Bessie Smith, and also Peter Murphy, Henry Rollins, and Iggy Pop. I gotta be tougher than toenails, so it's part of the shit sandwich we eat. In fact—you heard this from me—that's a song Rose wrote just the other day. Called 'Shit Sandwich.'”

“Is it gonna be on your new album?” Sam chuckled. “We'll see.” Zelda poured herself a third helping of ice water and then she set the pitcher back down on the coffee table and took her seat on the couch. “We have to talk to Aurora some more, and then hopefully—it's the hope, anyways—we'll be knocking on Jonny Z's door soon.” She took a small sip from the cup and crossed her right leg over her left knee. “That's how Testament did it.”

“Do you guys have a manager at all?”

“Who, us? You're looking at her.” Zelda flashed her a wink, and then she stopped in her tracks, and a grin crossed her face. “Why? You wanna do our dirty deeds for us?”

“I'd have to do it plus school, though,” said Sam, to which Zelda shook her head.

“It's not hard—you just have to pick up the phone and shake hands with people. You gotta have a tough skin to do it, too—I mean, you saw us struggle.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” They fell into silence for a moment, and then Sam spoke again.

“How do you cope with it?”

“What, the struggle?” Zelda asked her once she took another sip.

“Yeah.”

“I usually like to poke fun at it. And the three of them do, too—like I said, Rosita wrote a song a few days ago about it called 'Shit Sandwich.' That's just our sense of humor: to be dark and bleak but not over the top with it. We make fun of the struggle because we're part of it.”

“You know, Aurora and I formed a bit of a duo called the 'art vixens'.”

“The art vixens?” Zelda smirked at that.

“Yeah, 'cause she thinks Joey has his eye on me and now she's married to Emile. We're like the vixens now.”

“It's funny, before the wedding, like back when you guys were shopping for dresses, I actually got to talking to Belinda and she told me she liked our name. And I was like, 'thank you, that's real cool of you.' 'Cause our name is very love it or hate it, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.”

“I told her it's akin to a woman stabbing herself in the chest, or a virgin sacrificing herself. And then she made a joke about cherries after that, and I started callin' her Miss Cherry 'cause of it.”

“So the cherries and the vixens,” Sam said.

“Together, we can be the 'art whores'!” Zelda declared.

“The art whores?” Sam burst out laughing.

“Yeah!” Zelda laughed along with her. “Yeah—you, me, Aurora, and Bel. You and Aurora are the vixens. Bel and I will be the cherries. The four of us collectively are the art whores.”

She drank down the rest from the cup, and then Sam helped herself to some more.

“I gotta get you to hang out with Testament more,” Zelda told her in a low voice.

“I partied with them over New Year's,” Sam recalled.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, when they were preparing to record upstate. I got to join them all the way 'til midnight.”

“You gotta do it more, though. Even though Louie and I are broken up, they are literally the coolest dudes. Chuck and Eric are especially nice to Minerva and Morgan, mainly 'cause they're Hispanic boys and they're a couple of black girls, but they're our neighbors, though. I mean, Chuck lent me his boots for god's sake. And another case in point is Louie is still a really good friend to me. He'll call me once in a while and ask me how things are doing. He called me over Christmas and on my birthday. We just—can't really be a couple is all.” Her face fell a little bit upon saying that but she shrugged it off.

“Even Alex?” Sam asked her as she knitted her eyebrows together and took another sip of water.

“Alex is kinda standoffish—and skittish even—I mean, you saw the way he acted towards me when you ladies were shoppin' for dresses—but it's only because he's still breaking in his shoes. I mean, he graduated high school not even a year ago. Graduated and now he's on a lengthy tour with us and the five dicks from Manhattan—well, four of them are, anyways, unless Joey has another place that we don't know about. But he's a good kid, though, Sam. I promise you.” She paused for a second. “I think he's talked about you a little bit. I think—I haven't heard full conversations, but I have heard him mention you a bit before.”

“Who, Alex?”

“Yeah, he calls you 'Cliff's girl.' You know, 'cause you and Cliff were together. But like I said, I never really paid much attention to it so I only ever hear him mention you by the fact you're Cliff's girl.” And then the smirk returned to her face. “So Joey's been keeping his eye on you?”

“Yeah, but it's—platonic, though.”

Zelda squinted her eyes and she rested her elbow on top of the couch next to her.

“You sure? Because I swore that with Mr. Clemente when we first met, and then next I know, we're moving to a little place outside Narragansett together.”

“Wait a minute, how'd you guys work it out, though?”

“He quit Testament for a little bit, 'bout a year. Back when they were still referred to as Legacy and like right before you came into the picture. That was how we were able to work it out for as long as we did, but then he decided to come back because, you know—I was the one paying the rent.”

“So that explains why when they were about to record in that studio upstate, they had another drummer listed,” Sam recalled.

“Right! Right—Mike, I think was his name?” Zelda snapped her fingers twice. “Mike—Mike—something or other. I can't remember what it was now.”

“Ronchette?”

“Ronchette, yeah! Good pull with that.”

The distorted sounds of a guitar floated in from the hallway behind Sam.

“Speaking of Testament, I think that's them,” Zelda said with a nod of her head. “I hear them jammin' all the time. So I kinda know Eric's tone when I hear it.”

Indeed, Sam leaned back a bit but she couldn't see anything. She stood in the doorway and she spotted Eric, Alex, and Greg right down the hall upon stools.

“Little bit of Mercyful Fate,” Greg was saying as he plucked at his thick bass strings.

Alex leaned his back to the wall with the guitar cradled upon his lap. He kept his head bowed a bit so his bangs hid most of his eyes from view; his arms looked a little more toned and  sinewy than before. His playing at such a quick and hard pace and in such a brief amount of time endowed him with much more strength. Sam tucked her hand into her pocket and she felt Cliff's pick inside of there. Maybe she was too hard on him, especially since that was how he saw her.

He lifted his head and fixed his hair, and then he gazed on at her with a grave look on his face. The corners of his mouth were turned a little bit so it looked as though he was smiling, but simultaneously wasn't, like that of the Mona Lisa. Those deep eyes seemed deeper than before; and the black hair dye was starting to fade off from his head: the plume of white over his forehead was trying to make its return, such that it looked rather ghostly over his head.

She thought about that evening in the Bay Area, where he and Greg dueled on the front porch. If only she could see that side to him again. But she had nothing to say to him. If only she could show Alex the Joey she had seen that morning. If only she could show him the other side to him, but she couldn't.

But then he bowed his head again and returned to the three man jam between him, Eric, and Greg, and she returned to Zelda, who had climbed to her feet and made her way across the room to the small fridge in the corner behind Rosita's hat rack. She took out a little fruit cup and then she gestured to one of the hats on the rack.

“D'you hear about this band called Guns 'N Roses?” she asked Sam.

“Yeah?” She vaguely recalled Eric talking about them in the few months before.

“They're awesome,” Zelda said with a twinkle in her eye. “I saw them last month here in Boston—they opened up for the Stones. Completely blew them off the stage. Their lead guitarist had on this big black top hat and afterwards, he chucked it out to the audience and I caught it.” She pointed at the black top hat on the part of the rack closest to her. “Gonna see if Rose wears it tonight.”

“Rose with a rose from Guns 'N Roses,” Sam joked, and Zelda laughed out loud at that.

The two of them hung out in the dressing room for a little while longer until Aurora bustled into the room in a white camisole and a laminated badge around her neck and a clipboard under her arm.

“I was just thinkin' about you,” Sam told her.

“I was, too,” Zelda joined in with a smirk on her face.

“I have some good news, some not so good news, and some bad news,” Aurora said, out of breath.

“Bad news first so it's out of the way,” Sam quipped, and Zelda nudged her for that.

“Okay, the bad news is the label is getting bought out, and Sam—” She fetched up a sigh. “I think you and I are gonna lose our jobs.”

“Oh, no!” Sam gasped.

“Oh, shit!” Zelda gasped with her, and they looked on at each other.

“I hope Marla finds a place to live in Hell's Kitchen because I don't wanna be stuck in the Bronx forever,” Sam confessed.

“No, you don't,” Zelda assured her. “I like the Bronx, but it's not really a place you wanna get stuck in.”

“What's the not so good news?” Sam asked Aurora.

“The not so good news is Emile is moving to Brooklyn.”

“So landlord's gonna be away from his building—sounds legitimate, though. I mean, it makes sense. You guys are newlyweds.” Sam shrugged.

“Now what's the good news?” Zelda chimed in.

“Good news is if all goes well tonight,” Aurora announced, “we just might see the Cherry Suicides en route to a legitimate record deal.”

“Things just have to go well, anyways,” Zelda said with a little wave of her hand. “So no tech problems, no drama, no nonsense, things like that.”

“Absolutely.”

Zelda glanced over at Sam, who raised an eyebrow at her.

“Think we can do it?” she wondered aloud.

“Hell yeah,” Sam told her with an extended hand, and Zelda gave her a low five. “You got those big boots with you. You can so do it.”

Within time, Minerva, Morgan, and Rosita showed up, and the latter set the black top hat upon her head to go with her black lace crop top and matching short skirt. She tucked the signature rose onto the base to make it distinctly her own. Meanwhile, Sam stayed in her spot on the couch next to Zelda and watched the three of them. Even though she wasn't properly asked to do so, just sitting there alone made her feel like a band manager.

She could hear the audience outside, and she wondered what the rest of the place looked like. She ambled across the floor and she stepped out to the hallway: next door was Charlie and Scott talking to each other about something in soft voices. The former nodded at her and his soft black curls fluttered a bit over the top of his head.

“Hey you,” he said to her.

“Li'l Sam I am,” Scott followed with a raise of those thick dark eyebrows. “What'chu doin'?”

“Oh, just hangin' out—I also wanna check out the rest of this place, too.”

“Not much here,” Charlie explained, “just a little bar and a stretch of floor enough for a thousand people.”

“A thousand?” She was stunned by that.

“That's nuthin',” Joey called from their dressing room.

“Yeah, that's nuthin',” Scott echoed him.

“I think that's something,” Sam pointed out, and that got a laugh out of him.

“It's general admission, too—so everyone's either gonna have a bunch of folding chairs or standing up,” Charlie said. He then gestured for Sam to follow him out of the hallway, and he led her to a stretch of curtain at the very end, past Testament's dressing room. She looked over her shoulder and she spotted Louie perched on a small barren shelf on the wall with his white gloves on and his drum sticks in hand. He gave her a little wave, and she returned the favor.

“Right over here,” Charlie gently coaxed her: he pushed the curtain back a little bit, and she gazed out to the small stretch of black stone floor before her, lit up with some yellow and red lights overhead. Indeed, there were a few folding chairs on the floor but everyone else congregated about the place. On the opposite wall stood a small bar with a small crowd around it to boot.

“Nothing to it,” she remarked.

“Nothing to it at all,” Charlie echoed, and he nodded to the left. “That's where we're gonna playing in a little bit.” She spotted the stage adjacent to them. It looked awfully small, but she trusted the three bands behind her. Once the sun hung low over Boston, one of the people at the bar came backstage to check in on the Cherry Suicides.

“We're opening act, so we were born ready,” Zelda told her as she flicked a little fake blood onto those white shorts.

Sam lingered back on the side of the stage a bit and she watched the four of them take to the center. Zelda mounted herself on the stool while Rosita slung her bass down low: she had written “las putas” over the bridge, and Sam eagerly nodded at that. The lights turned low and she realized how small that room truly was once it erupted in noise.

“Hello, Boston!” Minerva declared into the microphone. “We are the Cherry Suicides, straight outta Rhode Island, and we're here to make all of youses into soup! Hit it!”

They opened with that gory song that Sam recalled from that night in L'Amour. The one she and Cliff danced to. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. She tried not to think of him, but she couldn't help it. She missed him right there.

There was a loud crack! and she jerked back a bit. She looked around a bit and she spotted a guy near the front had put a fire cracker right near Morgan and lit it off there. But another guy pushed him away and one of the stagehands dragged him out of there.

“Fucking hell, dude, did the room clear out!” Morgan shouted, and everyone laughed at that. Sam swayed a little bit and she shook her head as she tried to shake Cliff away. He was gone, there was nothing more she could do or say right then. But the feelings persisted, at least for the next two songs. The fourth one was “Day of the Dead”, where a true mosh pit finally opened up for them.

They were moshing for the girls. Sam nodded her head at them, but then a guy close to her threw a punch to someone next to him. There was another punch, followed by a third, and a fourth, and the next one after that had been inflicted onto a woman. Zelda stopped drumming right there and she stood to her feet as a brawl broke out before them: several men but a handful of women in there as well. Sam gaped at them and she took a step back.

Even from a distance and over the wall of noise, she made out Zelda saying, “this is bullshit.”

Then someone picked up a chair from the floor and chucked it towards the stage.

“Oh, no,” Sam muttered as another guy threw a chair at Rosita. She ducked and held onto the top hat but it tumbled onto the stage behind her.

“Oh, my god!” Sam yelled.

“Jesus!” Zelda shouted as she bowed out from her drum kit: she picked up her sticks and ducked into the darkness. There was nowhere to go right there, and so Sam lunged to help her. But then something pulled her back.

“What the—”

“Get away from there!” She recognized Alex's big voice right behind her. She turned to find him putting his other hand on her shoulder. He yanked on her other arm and then bowed his head a bit before another couple of chairs sailed right past her ear.

He saved her life, but she wanted to save Zelda from the exact same thing.

“Alex!” she shouted over the wall of noise. “ALEX!” He dragged her off stage and back into that corridor. She tried to force herself away from him but he was such a strong boy. He threw open the dressing room door and all but shoved her inside.

“Stay in here!” he commanded. “No—Samantha, stay in here! It's not safe!”

“What're you—”

But before she could say anything more, he shut the door and left. Fuming, she threw open the door and she poked her head out to the corridor. No one there and the whole wing of the theater was silent save for the out of control mosh pit out there.

She let out a low exasperated sigh. But she spotted Louie and Greg at the other end of the hallway, both of them with spooked looks on their faces.

“What the hell!” she cried out as they came within earshot.

“I know, right?” Greg said, out of breath. “Alex just ran outside to get help and Chuck and Eric both just ran across the street to call the cops—Eric told us to stay here.”

“Yeah, Alex got me off the stage—I was trying to help Zelda, but he got me off of there before I almost got hit in the head.”

“But, man, Zelda's gotta be pretty pissed right now,” Louie told her as he ran his fingers through his smooth dark hair. “I saw her runnin' and she looked furious.”

“I bet she is—Aurora said they were supposed to get a record deal after tonight.”

“Hope they can do it tomorrow night,” Greg confessed as he folded his arms over his chest. “Hope there is a tomorrow night. Those girls are tough but—damn, they don't need all that.”

“Zelda told me they make fun of the fact they get called whores, though,” Sam pointed out. “I say 'kudos' to be honest.”

“Right?” Louie chuckled; the noise on the far end of the hall and on other side of the curtain seemed to die down a bit, but it was all noise from a distance to them.

“You know, that's not a bad idea to run with,” Sam continued.

“What, making fun of what they call you?” Greg asked her with a little toss of his black hair.

“Yeah. Like she and I decided to call ourselves art whores because of it.”

“Buncha art whores,” Louie chuckled some more.

“You guys!” Eric called from the doorway down the hall. In the dim light, Sam saw him gesturing for them to come on closer. “Come on! Come on! The cops are coming!”

“Where are the girls?” Sam demanded.

“They're fine—they're right out here, but come on!”

[moonscarsandstars]

“Can’t believe you agreed-”

“Sirius-”

“-it’s our first night off in the flat, Moons, why one earth would-”

“Because it’s being helpful-”

Suddenly, the door in front of them was opened, revealing a very hassled looking Molly Weasley. Her floral dress stuck tightly to her curves, and her hair was tied up in an orange bun. Her scowl melted into a relieved smile as she spotted the two of them, standing awkwardly at the doorway.

“Come in, dears, come on in,” she said breathlessly, waving her hand.

The two glance at each other, before stepping into the Burrow.

The warmth enveloped them, and the Christmas atmosphere was echoing from the walls, filling the house, though it was still a week away. A large Christmas tree that just scraped the roof was standing towards the corner, decorated with ribbons that had been charmed to light up.

Floating tinsel decorated the walls, except for the one that a small, ginger toddler was hanging off, startling Remus who heard a snort turned into a cough from Sirius.

Mrs Weasley just seemed to notice, as she started shouting in a tired voice.

“Charlie, please get off the tinsel! Bill! Bi-ill! Go play with your brother!” 

Remus and Sirius heard a young voice shout “I’m doing something!” from upstairs, followed by a long sigh from Mrs Weasely.

“Well, now you see what you’re getting into,” said Molly, turning to Remus with an apologetic look on her face.

“Of course not, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“That’s what Arthur and I thought, and look where we got.”

Remus gave a small laugh, discretely elbowing Sirius who let out a fake, cheery chuckle too.

“Well, anyway, not much we can do about that now, is there? Arthur! Come on down, they’re here!”

“Are they now?” A pleasantly curious voice came from down the stairs, where Arthur Weasely was hurrying down in a scruffy but smart, brown suit.

“Ahh, they you are, boys! I was wondering when you were going to come-”

“Arthur!”

“-Joking, joking.”

Remus rubbed sheepishly at his neck, while Sirius stepped forward to give Arthur a small hug.

“Is the- uh,” Sirius lowered his voice, so only Arthur could hear. “Is the Ford Anglia getting on well?”

Unfortunately for both of them, Molly happened to hear, lightly slapping Arthur on the head, before picking up her purse and fixing her hair.

“Well, we ought to be going. Just try to remember that Charlie doesn’t eat soup- and- and Percy can only eat the muggle avocado,” said Molly, her voice getting louder as she walked out. “Not the magical one! Bill- also- he won’t-”

Her words were cut off by the slamming of the door, and a relieved whistle from Sirius.

“Oh c’mon Pads, she’s not that bad.”

“She- hey, Moons, is the kid supposed to be climbing the tinsel?”

Remus’s eyes widened, and he ran towards the tinsel, practically jumping onto the sofa to catch Charlie, who simply laughed in his face. He panted breathlessly, before giving a small smile to the child.

“Okay,” Remus breathed. “We can’t do that now, okay little one?”

“Bet you ten galleons it’ll be ten minutes before he goes at it again” drawled Sirius with a grin. “I like him.”

“Jesus, I thought I was the love of your life, pads,” deadpanned Remus.

“Who even is Jesus?”

“Oh god, forget it.”

Remus let down the fiddling toddler, and allowed him to run off to his older brother for another chance at pestering.

“I guess we’re alone now,” said Sirius, taking a step towards Remus, his fingers travelling over Remus’s torso.

“Pads, I am not going to ruin the innocence of three children by having sex with you in the living room of the Burrow.”

“They’ll be spoilt anyway-”

Remus stepped away, and dragged a hand through his now frizzy hair. Suddenly, a piercing cry rang through the house. 

Both Sirius and Remus ran straight towards the room that the sound came from, only to see a screaming Percy, in a basket filled with blankets. Stuffed toys were being thrown at him by an overly excited Charlie.

“Charlie! No- he’s just a baby,” said Remus urgently, his tone getting softer as he approached Charlie. Remus shot a glare at Sirius, who was doing nothing but grinning.

“C’mon,” said Remus, lifting Charlie up and carrying him. “Let’s get you back to the living room with us.”

“Where’s Bill?”

“Shit- I did not say that.”

“Shit!” Giggled Charlie

“No, Charlie, we don’t say that word.”

“Shit! Shit!”

“Charl- please, no, don’t say that.”

“Why?” Charlie whined.

“Because, um, Sirius help me out here!”

“Because,” Sirius interjected in a silly voice. “It’s an adult word! And you’re still a baby!”

“Brilliant. Molly’ll have my skin.”

“Nonsense,” said Sirius enthusiastically, taking Charlie from Remus’s hands. “You won’t tell your mother, will you? You’ll keep it a secret.”

Sirius put on that award winning smile on, and squeezed the giggling Charlie’s nose with a small “bloop,” and laughed with him.

A hand slid down Remus’s face, and he let out a frustrated groan. He stepped out, looking for Bill, leaving Sirius and the small three year old in Percy’s room.

“Bill?” 

Remus peered around Bill’s bedroom. Sharp memories of the time Sirius couldn’t heal a large laceration filled his mind. Sirius had panicked after the transformation, which had left a large gash on his ribs, and directly apparated to the Burrow. Molly had treated him for a week in this bedroom.

The same one that was now covered with red posters of quidditch teams, and a smaller bed than before, with wooden frames. A small table and a chair lay on one side, occupied by Bill.

“Bill?” 

Remus slowly stepped in, waving his wand to straighten the crinkled carpet.

“Bill? Are you in here?”

Remus heard a confirming hum, and saw Bill sitting, trying to trace out letters onto a piece of parchment, next to a small, colourful book.

His face was screwed up in concentration, and as Remus drew nearer, he could see letters being traced out on the clear parchment, and something warm rose in his stomach.

“Hi Bill, what are you doing?”

“I’m writing. Mum says I’m really good at it. She said I’ll be able to write the entire voc- vocabu- bulary by next year!”

“You reckon?” Remus asked with a grin.

“Yes! I know I will. I’m not like Charlie, I’m big now.”

“Really, are you? You still look a little young to me,” said Remus, lightly touching his cheeks.

“I’m not young! I’m a big child now! Mum said she’d send me to muggle school now!”

“Wow, you really are a big boy, huh? Well let’s see what you’ve done here, shall we?”

Bill excitedly held his parchment, and rolled it out straight, displaying it for Remus to see. And Remus was quite impressed; the child had managed to write small, three letter words by himself. 

“Wow, that’s so amazing! I bet it’s even better than my spelling,” said Remus encouraging, and giving Bill a large, proud smile.  

Somewhere behind the swell of pride, though, a little nostalgia lingered. Something about Bill almost reminded him of himself. Before he was bitten of course.

But all that was waved aside when he saw the innocent grin that Bill had on when he sat on Remus’s lap.

“Tell me a story!”

“Oh, okay. Um, let me see...” trailed off Remus. “What type of story d’you want?”

Bill seemed thoughtful for a second, before shouting excitedly “Hogwarts!”

“Hmm, okay.” He picked up when an idea struck him. “Once upon a time, there were four students who’d just arrived at Hogwarts. Their names were Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, and they solemnly swore they were up to no good...”

[alpaca-writes]

Mystics, Chapter 6

When Arch becomes hired on at Mystics, by Lyrem, everything seems to be going well- their life nearly becomes perfection. Soon enough, however, Arch realizes that perhaps not everything is as good as it seems…. 

 Directory: [chapter one] [chapter two] [chapter three] [chapter four] [chapter five]

 Tag list: @myst-in-the-mirror 

 CW: aggressive religiosity, deadname use, police questioning, hospital setting,

CHAPTER SIX: THUNDER AND PRAYER

       Arch awoke upside down in the passenger’s seat of the blue truck. The midnight storm was still sweeping through the ranches and into the city and they were alone there. The man who had thrown them against a brick wall and threatened them into their vehicle had disappeared. 

       The seatbelt dug into the side of their neck and injured shoulder. The moment it was released, Arch would fall headfirst into the top of the cab. They tried the clip as best they could with their left arm. It tingled, threatening to combust in a fury of pain if it weren’t for the rush of adrenaline fighting the broken glass and seatbelt. It was stuck. The clip wouldn’t release. They could be here for hours, for ages... all alone.

        Flashing lights came from above them- or was it ahead of them? And the shouts of a man and a woman could be heard overhead. Some kids were also talking and yelling.  

        “Call 911, Janey!” The man shouted. The passenger-side door was forced open with a crow-bar.

        Arch cried with relief as he pulled them out, supporting their head as they dropped down. The wife was speaking to someone over the phone as she helped Arch lay down flat on their back in the over-grown wet grass. A blanket was placed rolled up under their head. The comforting cloth mixed with a strong sense of relief. If they had the energy, Arch might have started crying, but doing something even that simple was just too exhausting. Raindrops splattered against their face until the recognizable sound of an opening umbrella prevented any more from dropping down. The family spoke amongst themselves but the words were jumbled now and nearly incoherent for Arch to pay attention too. A little boy was holding the umbrella. He couldn’t have been more than eight. Arch managed the tiniest smile for him as they floated in and out of consciousness.

       “You’ll be okay,” he said. “My mom’s a nurse. She’ll fix you up.”

       His raincoat was dotted with little red and blue dinosaurs. Arch counted them. There were six red tyrannosauruses, eight blue triceratops’ and then-

       There was a beep... And another... And another. Their throat was dry as a brick. Arch opened their eyes first. Glowing light of day from a veiled window to their right drowned everything around them in white. They blinked, becoming accustomed to the brightness.

        In the corner of the small room was a chair reserved for visitors. Alarm bells sounded in their mind as Arch narrowed their gaze and spied on the person sitting there, still yet unaware that they had awoken.

         He was reading a book; a used and reused copy of Meditations. Lyrem licked his thumb, and turned the page. The alarm bells calmed. Arch chalked it up to being beaten to a pulp and then waking up in a strange new place; a hospital bed.

        “Save some for me, will you?” Arch spoke dryly, literally, as well as figuratively. They managed a crooked smile as Lyrem looked up from his book of yellowed pages and kindly smiled back.

        In a fit of dry coughs, Arch tried and failed to lean up. They found the tubes leading to an IV out their arm and a blood-oxygen measure clipped onto one of their index fingers. Lyrem put his book down on a small side table and stood. He pressed a button on the side of the bed, and Arch was lifted to a more comfortable sitting position. He brought them a clear cup of water with a straw. Arch tried lifting their arm to accept it, but Lyrem shook his head at them and pushed it back down gently. He brought the straw up to their lips. Arch nearly drained the cup before finally nodding it away.

        Lyrem leaned against the windowsill and watched them carefully. Their whole body had been battered. Whether it was entirely from the crash or something else, he couldn’t be sure.

        Arch looked back at them curiously, and puzzled. Then they looked around the rest of the small room. The door to the hall was open and filtered through white noise from doctors and nurses all around.

        “What are you doing here?” They asked, “where’s my mom?”

        “She… was here. She called the store. She left to run a couple errands and said that she would return soon.” Lyrem grimaced as he answered. “I’m not sure what could have been more important than being by your side, but alas, I remain. I closed the store for the day.”

        “What? Why?” Arch coughed lightly. “You make the most dough on Saturdays. You should keep it open.”

        “I’d much rather not.”

        Lyrem left his response hanging there. Without more to say on the matter Arch shifted in their bed uncomfortably. Relieved, they were, they were also troubled. Angry, even, but for what reason, Arch couldn’t say.  

        “There were officers waiting by the door for you to wake. Should I let them in for you? Tell them it’s an alright time?”

        “Officers?”

        “Well, nobody knows what happened to you or how you ended up on a rural highway flipped over in a truck”- Lyrem stopped himself. Becoming too passionate, he sensed.

        “Huh. Right.” Arch nodded. Thinking back to the night before was causing a pain in the back of their eyes- like they were being pulled into the back of their head.

        “What if you told me what happened first, then I’ll let the officers in and you can repeat it back to them. It might be easier for you,” Lyrem helpfully suggested.

        “No, no, I can speak to them now.” Arch insisted. “I’d rather speak to them now.”

        Lyrem nodded, and then stepped to the door, finding the two officers chatting down the hall. One blue uniformed woman with a tight, blonde pony-tail glanced in his direction over a steaming Styrofoam cup. He motioned for them to come in with a wave of his hand. The other, a tall, younger man with a thin chin pulled out a small notebook as he entered. Their name tags read Parsons and Grenn, respectively.

        Detective Parsons began by explaining that the police were unable to find the driver of the blue Ford. The truck was both unregistered, and uninsured, so there was no trail to follow to know who it had belonged to. The last known owner died in 2003 and afterwards there was no trace of it anywhere in the system. The plates on the vehicle had been stolen, and if the driver was careful enough, its stolen plates would have gone unnoticed for as long as the registration would last on it.

        “At the moment, we have no leads on finding this individual”-

        “My attacker, you mean. They attacked me.” Arch spit out. “Labels are important, you know.”

        “I know it can’t be a comforting thought. And I am sorry, but you must understand that we are doing everything we can to find the person who attacked you.” Parsons implored. Never once had her professional demeanor faltered under the scrutiny of the rightfully furious teenager.

        “He was a man.” Arch started. “He was quite a bit taller than me too. Probably six feet at least… White. It was dark but I could tell he- he had dark hair. Kind of shaggy-like”-

         Grenn had written it all down, and Lyrem stared at Arch in interest as they described the man. Parsons stopped Arch from continuing to describe him as she placed her cup down on the side table beside Lyrem.

        “We’ll send this to the sketch artist. They will be flying in over the next couple days. With the disappearances of your classmates as well, we are pulling out everything in our arsenal to get a detailed picture of who attacked you. We will be calling you in a couple days and you’ll be coming into the police station to speak with them.” Parsons explained emphatically. “For now, we need a timeline- where did they find you? What time was it when they attacked?”

        “Oh…” Arch felt rather silly for some reason. “I… I was pulled into the alley by the flower-shop...”

        “Which flower shop?”

        “Bloom Treasury, downtown. Half a block from Mystics.”

        Lyrem looked concerned, or possibly angry… with the thickness of his brows and the wrinkle in his forehead, Arch couldn’t be quite sure what he was thinking.

        “Mystics?”

        “It’s just a store, where I work.”

        “Were you working last night?”

        Their heartrate started to increase. Arch carefully measured their breaths by seconds.

        “No... No, I wasn’t, I was just walking.”

        “What time were you walking?”

        “I..” Arch had the strangest sensation of being back in the passenger’s seat of the blue Ford. The voice of the man rang in their head in an echo of a memory. Missing time? He had said. “I.. I think I’m confused.” Arch finished.

        “It’s understandable. I know its very hard to think back to the incident, but for the sake of finding this man and bringing him to justice, we have to know what time it was when it happened.”

        “It was after sundown.”

        “Can you be more specific?”

        It wasn’t long after dinner that Arch had left, and sundown wouldn’t have been until after ten. It only took a half hour to reach the downtown core from their house so where was the missing time? There was an hour, maybe even longer that was completely unaccounted for.

        “I think it was just after ten,” they said finally.

        Grenn made his notes again.

        “What kinds of things did he say to you?” Parsons inquired. “Anything you can remember will be helpful.”

        Lyrem gazed across the room steadily at Arch who met his eyes. It was hypnotically comforting to know he was still there, watching over them and keeping them safe.

        “He was… kind of strange.” Arch said, almost in a mutter. “Though, he mentioned the other kids. He knew that the others were taken: Jess, Kyle, and … Marcus.”

        “Did he tell you they were still alive?”

        Arch shook their head slightly and winced.

“He said he killed one of them already. He couldn’t be sure when the other two would die- if they already were… y’know, dead.”

        Parsons paused and turned to Lyrem who was laid back in the armchair deep in thought. She had noticed an odd connection. Arch had been darting their eyes to the corner each time they responded. Seeking approval, she surmised quietly.

        “How did you escape?” Parsons asked turning back to them again.

        Arch thought for a moment.

        “I stabbed him… in the leg... with his own knife. That’s when he lost control of the truck.”

        Grenn looked up from his notes briefly, with brown eyebrows raised.

        “What kind of knife?”

        Parsons looked at officer Grenn; surprised by the question.

        Arch switched their gaze to them. “A hunting knife… the big kind with a dip at the end.”

        “How does a guy walk away from a car crash with a Bowie knife in his leg?” Grenn asked allowed.

        The question caused Arch a visible discomfort. They turned away from everyone and remained quiet.

        “I believe that is everything for now.” Parsons gathered herself and straightened her uniform, “Thank you for your time, -----. We may have more questions for you when you come into the station for the sketch artist. You’ll soon be contacted with a date and time.”

        Parsons handed over her card to the bedridden teen who was unable to lift an arm, much less retrieve it from the detective’s hand. Parsons placed in on the table beside Arch instead and then followed Grenn out the door, leaving her Styrofoam cup behind.

        Arch took a long breath of relief as they left. For the first time, they stared down at themselves. Fresh cuts littered up and down their left arm, while their right was also cut up, but supported by a sling. Beneath the blankets, Arch could feel the light stinging of several more wounds against their legs. Their neck ached with every miniscule turn of their head and their back…

        They wiggled their toes, thankful for the movement, but regretted it all as they tried mightily to bend one of their knees. The middle of their back screamed of pulled muscles and bruises that were carved into them. Arch seethed as they let their leg down gently.

        “Don’t try to move.” Lyrem advised, picking up his copy of Meditations once again. “You can press the button next to you if you want more pain medication.”

        “I don’t want more medication; I want to go home.”

        “And you’ll get to your house of horrors again soon, but for now, just close your eyes, and get some sleep.”

        “I can’t sleep. He knew my name, Lyrem. How am I supposed to rest if he’s still out there?”

        Lyrem looked up from his book, becoming impatient, but in his eyes, it was clear that he tried to be supportive. He steeled his gaze on Arch and opened his mouth to speak. He was interrupted by Arch’s mother, who peered in with a bouquet of pink lilies in one hand.

        “Is she awake? Oh, thank the Lord.” She crossed herself as she entered and put herself directly next to the bedside. Letting the flowers down, she planted a hard kiss on Arch’s forehead that was too close to the rest of the injuries already planted there.

        Lyrem rolled his eyes to the ceiling and stood up.

        “Well, now that your mother is here, I suppose I should get going; leave you both in peace”-

        “Oh no, you should stay,” Arch’s mother turned on her heels to Lyrem and ushered someone else through the door: a short balding man, recognizable to Arch as a family friend with a plain white collar around his neck. “I invited Father Ferley to lead us in prayer. Won’t you stay, Lyrem? The more hands we have lifting to the Lord, the better.”

        So that was the errand, Arch realized.

Lyrem stared at the woman and managed a facetious grin. There was a bit of levity to the situation after all. Arch nearly burst out in laughter as he stood there, unsure of himself or what to say to the invitation.

The presence of the priest in the room was clearly putting him off. It wasn’t that Lyrem was nervous or humbled by the man, as much as it was like he had just drank a glass of spoiled milk and was desperate to get the lingering vile taste off his tongue.

        “I’d prefer not to,” he stated simply.

        “Ah, you read Aurelius?”

        The priest lifted his thinly rimmed glasses, pushing them higher up the bridge of his nose. He inquired Lyrem innocently and continued.

        “Quite possibly one of the wisest Emperors of Rome. ‘Live a good life,’ he said. ‘for if the gods are just, then they will not care for your devotion, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by,” the priest smiled to him warmly.

        Lyrem regarded him with suspicion, but played along.

        “You quote his Meditations like Corinthians,” Lyrem observed. The annoyance slowly drained from his face and he stood taller, squaring himself. “Tell me then, the next line of that heavenly wisdom. Do you recall what it is?”

        Lyrem waited for a beat and met Father Ferley’s gaze with a coldness he usually reserved for the most wretched of people. He finished the verse himself.

        “If the gods are unjust, then you should not want to worship them.”

        “What the hell are you weirdos talking about?” Arch spouted rudely. “Can we please just pray and get it over with, if that’s what we want to do?”

        “Yes, lets.” Arch’s mother pulled the two men by their elbows into a half circle around the bed. Lyrem stood at the foot of it, unhappily supporting himself on the bars of plastic and metal.

        Father Ferley led the small group in prayer. The details of the prayer itself were unimportant, except for the fact that Arch heard their name being correctly used. That was a nice change. The other detail that was noticed by Arch before the ‘amens’ commenced, was Lyrem, white-knuckling the edge of the bed as he suffered through the words spoken.    

        The man didn’t offer an ‘amen’. He turned around as it ended, and picked up the Styrofoam cup that was mistakenly left behind by Detective Parsons. He bid the three farewell, and finally escaped them.

                                   --------------------

        “I see it too,” Father Ferley fiddled with the edge of his glasses, as Arch’s mother breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s not uncommon for many older gentlemen to be wary of the promises of God. But I sense that there is a negative energy towards the Lord, and that Arch may be picking up on that.”

        “Her name isn’t Arch- It’s”-

        “Their name is Arch, Charlotte,” Father Ferley continued. “Your child has spent many years honouring you. Perhaps it is time that you also honour them. It may be this very thing that is driving Arch away from you and towards figures of authority that respect them. People like Lyrem. It is what drives them out of their home and onto the streets where they encounter devils like the one from last night.”

        Charlotte buried her face into her hands although there was little energy to stop the tears from flowing. The hospital halls were still bustling with activity though they had left Arch in their room to continue resting for the night. She sniffed, and finally lifted her head. Then she nodded. Clutching the small gold crucifix around her neck, she lifted it to her lips and breathed a deep sigh- thankful that her child was safe from harm.

“What happened was not your fault, but if you want to repair this relationship with your child, you must accept them for who they are. If I were you, I would try to get to know this ‘Arch’. You might even like them better than who they were before.” Father Ferley smiled lightly.

With her spirits lifted, Charlotte followed Father Ferley out of the hospital. She was already planning her words carefully to her child for the next time they’d meet.

[kingofthecon]

@flynnfletchr​ Stanford was doing that thing where he tried to pace a hole into the floor of their hotel room and it had become aggravating thirty minutes ago. "Ford." The slightly older twin didn't seem to hear his younger brother and continued pacing in the same spot - arms behind his back as he mumbled about whether or not he still had time to come up with a different project for the science fair. The answer? No. Not unless he could come up with something in less than twelve hours. "Ford. Please. I don't wanna knock you unconscious but so help me I will if it means we both get some sleep. It'll be fine." Stanford Pines looked towards his twin who was laying flat on his stomach at the edge of the bed with his arms beneath his head. The scowl he wore read as 'try me', and caused Stanford to slow to a stop. He looked bent out of shape, almost miserable and Stanley Pines didn't understand why. They went to several science fairs and Ford was always a shoe-in for first or second place. Maybe that was the reason why? The teenagers from Danville were competing in this particular contest of dorks and though Ford appreciated the friendly competition and the challenge that came with trying to one up the boys each year, it was clear that Ford didn't like it when he lost to them. He wasn't exactly a sore loser, but he wasn't a gracious loser either. He would put on a front, accept whatever place he'd taken, and then go back to the drawing board to hopefully come up with something even better to showcase his intelligence all while grumbling under his breath and talking like an actual super villain. Who uses the words RUE THE DAY in a legitimate conversation? "For one, you literally don't have time to come up with something else for this thing unless you decide to make a Mentos and Cola volcano using a Styrofoam cup cause that's what I have on me, and I don't think that'll even win a first grade science fair project. Secondly, you're a genius in a room full of geniuses. If you're that desperate then I can probably steal or sabotage someone's project for you which--don't look at me like that, I just wanted to make sure you weren't too far gone which brings me to bulletin three. Everyone knows that you have a high IQ. The highest IQs. The tallest mountain in the world of IQs. You don't really have to prove yourself so just relax." "Stanley, you don't understand. Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher have an extensive history with their creations. I'm just a kid from Jersey who came out of nowhere." "Sixer, everyone loves the underdog. Besides, you three practically share the limelight at these things. You guys are top brass. Nothin' wrong with a little friendly competition to keep the blood flowin'." "Stanley, you're supposed to be on my side!" "I am on your side. One hundred percent. Otherwise I would have shoved you into the hallway so I could get some semblance of sleep. Instead I'm trying to talk you out of coming up with a list of junk you could make in the next like, eleven hours. You created a functioning robot girl complete with artificial intelligence and everything. You've skipped like, a hundred of these fairs to perfect Stannabelle." "She's an android and that is not her name." "The point is that you'll probably have even Tony friggin' Stark or Bruce Wayne lookin' your way. I mean, that's part of the reason why you chose this particular science fair, right? Who knows. Maybe once you're outta West Coast Tech you'll get picked up by Stark Industries or Wayne Enterprises? Oh, what about Star Labs?" "That's why this has to be perfect!" With a whine, Stanley rolled over and allowed himself to fall out of the bed. He wasn't on the floor long; rising to his feet he made his way towards the closet where the robot girl was sitting in her charging station. If anyone looked at the bot they would believe it to be a human with Stan and Ford as her big brothers. Stanley crossed his arms and presented to Ford his own creation. "Earth to nerd. The kid's perfect." "She sounds like I installed a Speak & Spell as her voice modulator." "Okay, so you missed something when you programmed her. Just, I dunno, take apart the TV if ya gotta do somethin'. Just...you need to relax. It'll be fine." He pat the android on top of her head and closed the closet door before flopping back down on the bed. "Just...you know, do it quietly? Some of us wanna walk around the Expo and sneak into places they shouldn't." "You're going to get us kicked out." "Probably yeah, so make the most of it. I'm goin' ta bed. Try not to stay up too late. Night, nerd." "Night, pain in my side brother who occasionally makes sense when it's convenient for him." "Too long. Try again." With that Stanley pulled back the covers and spread out for sleep leaving Ford to figure out what to do. He'd brought extra parts and equipment in case something went wrong so...like Stanley had suggested, he began to work on fixing the voice modulator with parts around their hotel room. ____________________________

Morning arrived way too fast and was thus slept through meaning that Stanley woke around noon. His awakening was accompanied by a terrified scream as a face way too close to his for comfort came into focus as he opened his eyes. He rolled off the bed in his attempt to get away and orient himself with his surroundings. His fall came with a one man laugh track which caused Stanley to zero in on the culprit. "Are you alright, Uncle Stan?" a little girl with the too expressive for what should have been a robot's face asked him. Stanley, a little unnerved with the realistically human sounding voice looked passed her and towards his twin who was far too proud of himself. "Peachy," he answered as his twin tried to hide his laughter behind a six fingered hand. Stanley pulled himself up so that he was kneeling against the side of the bed. More awake and aware now he realized what this meant. He turned to Ford and he grinned at him while patting his "niece" on top of her head. "This is great! So ya managed to fix the voice issue. Good job, and nice to finally meet you, kiddo." "My designation is not "Kiddo". I am Alpha 001 - SP." Stanford had such a proud look on his face while Stanley just slow blinked at the two of them before he began moving around the room to change into his clothes for the day. "Okay, but I'm calling you Allie for short. "But my designation--" "--Is a mouthful. No one is gonna call ya that except for the uppity geeks who want to sound professional and use big words all the time. 'sides, when someone has a long name like that people usually give'em nicknames. For example, Stanford over there tends to go by Ford while I, Stanley, go by Stan or Lee." The little android was silent for a moment, most likely computing the information she'd received or something before she finally nodded her head in understanding. "Very well. I will accept this as a secondary form of address. "Excellent! You've really outdone yourself, Sixer. Allie's perfect! Though I hope you slept. Anyway, I'mma go walk around the place and get breakfast." A look to the clock had him groaning. "Or brunch, apparently. You two should get ready for later this afternoon. I'll meet you at your booth or whatever." Once completely dressed with his hair and teeth brushed, the younger twin made his way from the hotel room and sighed as he headed towards his destination. Though he was happy to be here to support his brother, he didn't really feel as though he belonged. There'd been a few times in the past where he'd gotten mistaken for his brother, but once they realized the mix-up and asked him questions pertaining to his brother's project Stanley had only succeeded in making a fool of himself. He wasn't smart. He was barely above average and in a turn of crazy events he ended up being made fun of. It reminded him of the bullies back home in Glass Shard Beach, specifically Crampelter and his cronies, but back then it was never this...bad? This humiliating? Though it didn't happen often, it did happen enough that he hated coming to these things. He'd never tell his brother though. Stanford had been teased all his life for his Polydactyly and for being the smartest person in any room. Stanley could bite the bullet of being the odd one out for a change, especially when it only happened once every year or every other year. Stanley hummed to himself as he entered the elevator which went from hotel to convention center. He rocked back and forth on the heels of his feet the balls of his toes as he mentally counted the floors as they lit up. Once the doors opened and he stepped out he found himself tripping over something. He blinked as he stumbled out of the elevator. A part of him wondered if he'd tripped over some nerds project garnering the reaction of, 'oh shit!' and 'at least that'll knock out one of Ford's competitors. When he actually looked at what he'd tripped over, however... "What the heck are you s'posed to be?" He crouched in front of the teal duck bill beaver tailed...thing, and poked at it to make sure that he hadn't hurt it. "You lost and tryin' to catch the elevator, little guy? Or are you a girl? whatevenareyou?" He moved to pick up the creature just to make sure with no regards for safety (the creature could absolutely bite him after all), but his love of animals outweighed his need to be careful.

[kindredsoulsoftimesofold]

Incoming TROS rant

yes, there will be spoilers as I will be breaking down everything I saw tonight. If I manage to type choking on my tears well after the movie finished.

----

FINAL WARNING IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS

Let’s start with a few opening words, this rant will indeed be a long one.

ALL THE LEAKS ARE TRUE. And I mean ALL of them. To a T. As soon as I saw the first half was exactly as I’d read, I was crushed. As I knew what was coming. On that note, i was probably the only person in the theatre who was crying like 15-20 minutes before we were supposed to, I’ll get to that in a bit. I’m saving the WORST for last. Let’s break this shit down.

1. The plot is a mess. An actual mess. I feel like every five minutes I was shaking my head and mumbling ‘what kind of nonsense is this’. The breaking of lore or COMMON SENSE really is substantial. But that is definitely not what I cared about, as I already KNEW this even without the leaks. When you can’t get your two directors to FUCKING WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE A COHESIVE STORYLINE it is bound to grasp for straws and make shit up. IT AIN’T NOTHING NEW.

2. Here’s the kicker. THE DIALOGUE WAS SO BAD, it makes Anakin’s AOTC speech seem like a hymn, or poetry or whatever. They CONSTANTLY say what they’re doing, they’re literally reciting the exposition to each other and it comes off as extremely annoying and makes you feel like a toddler. No hate against toddlers, but I’d rather not be one right now. It feels unnatural, forced and STUPID to the point where I would start WISHING for 3PO to come back on screen because Anthony Daniels somehow managed to snag some actually decent lines for once? I love the man, but the droid usually really annoys the crap outta me. He was literally the highlight of the film. Don’t get me started on the stupidity of all of Lando’s lines, poor Billy. Daisy has to stare angrily most of the time so I don’t really care to recall her lines. Adam, my dear Adam, he tries SO HARD to make do with what he was given but even his lines 90% of the time come off as stupid and out of place. Or the worst type in this movie, EXPOSITIONYY. Don’t get me started on Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. Boys looked like they didn’t sign up for this shit and were literally force choked to be there. I feel you guys, I feel you. ALSO FOR THE LOVE OF THE FORCE THE TIMES THEY REPEATED WORD FOR WORD LINES FROM OTHER MOVIES I WANTED TO SCREAM. Once is too much, THIS MANY TIMES IT IS A FELONY. And it needs to be punished somehow.

3. Let’s get the positives out of the way because there were FEW. The two scenes I actually REALLY enjoyed watching, for different reasons were:

Ben and Palps meeting. The scene was much longer than the clip and SUPER badass. Sheev’s voice echoes, Ben looks fucking cool and the whole scene is GORGEOUS.

The other is when Ben fights as a Jedi in the end. I’ll get to Ben later BELIEVE ME but without overexplaining, he fights with Anakin’s lightsabre, he’s really speedy and is doing all the Jedi spins and whatnot. I fucking ATE THAT UP. Replay that scene forever please CAUSE I LOVED IT. But I was already crying here so we’ll touch more on that later.

To conclude this segment, the visuals were SUPERB, the sound was AMAZING and (some) of the fights were jaw droppingly cool. But that about concludes the positives!

4. I will comment, as I know a lot of people will care even if I don’t particularily. Finn, Poe, Rose and the merry gang aside from our Jedi are reduced to EH this movie. If you thought you’d never miss Rose boy were you wrong. They introduce new characters and expect you to care about them when they SIDELINED the ones they’d hoped you’d care about BEFORE. And it made me care about NO ONE. Not to mention that, sadly, they are ALWAYS reduced to the boring side plot that really isn’t interested or key to much of ANYTHING. Sure they roused the people and all but would’ve been TOAST if Rey didn’t go all Jesus on the fleet. So at the end of the day, you MAY find some enjoyment with the side characters but their lines were some of the worst, you WILL be force fed new people and you might not really enjoy your previous faves here because even I found myself being completely indifferent this time. (I actually really ENJOYED Finn since TFA. He had a compelling storyline and John Boyega was alright. Couldn’t give two wits about him in this movie. Not a single one. But again, I may not be the perfect person to ask if you really,really like any of these characters.

5. Finally, we have arrived to the main event. THE REYLO.

The backbone of this clusterfuck of a new trilogy. The last Skywalker and Palpatine, coming together instead of apart. The arguably BEST actors (legacies aside) Disney managed to get. Now, I will start this off that I didn’t HATE Rey before this movie. I loved her in TFA, enjoyed her less in TLJ but the novelization fixed that. I was BACK ON BOARD to be her number one stan. In this movie, I couldn’t STAND her. Her lines are basically the director walking you through things, her plotline was obviously made last minute so almost none of it makes sense,  I literally wanted to curl up and DIE from cringing so hard every time someone said ‘you’re a Palpatine’. I thought I was looking at a very expensive rendition of terrible fan fiction. (Not to diss fan fiction in any way, you guys will be my heroes after this catastrophe.) ‘Empress Palpatine’, COME THE FUCK ON AND GET OUT WITH THIS SHIT. Bring back crusty old Snoke for crying out loud! Or even HUX! Who got killed off in a second and had three lines of dialogue, not important I guess? Like a great many things I guess, JJ. But, EVEN Palpatine aside, it was great seeing him again and every scene he was in I got chills, who cares that it makes zero sense at this point. Back to reylo.

Ben. Ben Solo Organa Skywalker. The last hope. The final remnant of something I have loved FOREVER. I grew up with Star Wars, like many others just in a different, post prequel era and they are still my favourites. This might sound ridiculous but Star Wars was part of my heart, my happiness. It brought me joy to watch it, read it, fantasize about it and have it in my life when times were dark or miserable. It MEANT something to me, as I am sure many of you will agree. And Ben was part of that. He was part of something that MEANT something to all of us. He was the last line of the characters we all grew up with and loved. The GRANDSON of Anakin, my favourite character of all time. This was their chance to stop the trend that Loki’s death in IW and Daenerys’ death and turn and many others started and STOP killing people who did wrongs. PEOPLE can change, they can grow and they can learn. Hell, to not stray to far from this franchise REY has killed A LOT of people in this movie alone. She DECIMATES the room full of Palpatine’s followers and never blinks an eye. SHE NEARLY KILLS CHEWIE, DOES KILL BEN (for a minute) and SHE DOESN’T NEED TO DIE. Of course she doesn’t but BEN DOESN’T EITHER. After all that YOU JJ, YES YOU, show me that the LAST SKYWALKER has gone through, suffered, alone and frightened. I would’ve ENDED you if you’d suggested killing him off to me, EVER. He was your chance to do a reverse Vader, AS YOU CLAIMED YOU WOULD. To show a character can come back to the light and be worthy of it WITHOUT DYING. You even set it up as such, which is my next and CRUCIAL POINT.

I’ve been a reylo since 2015. Their dynamic has always been fascinating to me and beautiful. I LOVED all the moments in TLJ, LOVED THEM. In this one, every time they force bond (terrible dialogue aside, again) I was happy. I had a hope that she would bring him back from the darkness and he will keep her balanced. WELL, JJ, guess fuck me huh? And anyone with common sense and human decency. JUST WHEN you shove Ben’s turn in my face, you make him talk to Han, you make him strut in to fight alongside Rey in full Ben Solo Jedi mode, hair blown and casually dressed. It was when he runs onto Exegol that I started weeping. Because knowing that he dies as I did, it broke my heart how it was done. You give me the scene where he fights and you give me hope of what his future could’ve been if only you’d listened to reason and done what was supposed to be done. He is chucked into the pit, WHICH MIGHT I ADD WOULD’VE MADE ME MAD IF THAT WAS HIS END BUT WOULD’VE BEEN SOOOO MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT WE GOT, comes back. And now comes the scene that cemented this as the ABSOLUTE WORST insult to me as a fan, possible. Ben is heartbroken that Rey is dead, the moment is sad and he cradles her dead body and hugs her desperately. Which would’ve been a beautiful and GOOD DIFFERENT type of ending. Or rather not having her die at all and being NEAR her death and him saving her and both living happily ever after BUT NO. JJ AFTER THAT has her come back, smile happily when she sees it’s him, her love her hope and the other half of her SOUL literally (the diad or whatever it’s called is so rare that Palpatine was thrilled they’d formed such a bond, basically space soulmates), he has them kiss, then hold each other and smile at each other with genuine feeling of joy and belonging both of them had sought all their life AND THEN YANKS IT FROM UNDER YOU. The scene where Ben falls flat onto his back is quite comical and I couldn’t help but laugh in my misery and sobbing. Rey doesn’t even cry, we don’t even LINGER on his body or mourn him afterwards or even mention it or EVEN SEE her, THE PERSON WHO LITERALLY FOUND HER SOULMATE AND WAS SO HAPPY WHEN SHE KISSED HIM AND WAS LITERALLY SAVED BY HIM, but no guess that doesn’t require a scene, sure, fuck it LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE. The cheery music that plays up until the moment of his fall, YES THE FALL OF SKYWALKER MIND YOU NOT A FUCKING RISE, was an insult to every fan everyhwere, lifelong or recent or otherwise, it was a punch to the gut, a slap in the face and after this happened I no longer paid attention to the movie. I’d been crying for some time leading up to the moment, I knew what was coming and the execution only made it worse and a more desperate cry rather than only sad, I was hoping it wouldn’t happen somehow. I choked back tears until I finally got home and cried. One of the things which MEANT so much to me, was dead. I no longer have any doubts, that this was intentional. Look at Game of thrones, that was this year. It seemed intentional to make series stop, right? Everyone agrees. They wanted to finally bury the Skywalkers so they could make something unrelated? They kill off all the Skywalkers. Well guess what disney? YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO BRING THEM BACK IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU MONEY HUNGRY PIECE OF SHIT. No one would have minded a new trilogy, with new characters doing NEW things. Why even drag the Skywalkers and the leagies into this if YOU DON’T WANT THEM HERE? All you got was millions of lifelong fans of the old movies who have already felt or are only now beginning to feel BETRAYED. I swear it disney, I don’t want to feel this misery again. You won’t take Star Wars away from me and the joy it brought me. I will without a care in the world dismiss this new trilogy as something completely separate from canon. You’ve killed your own fanbase. You could’ve had us but you LOST us. You dangled something we wanted in front of us for our money and then you ripped it apart.

If you are anything like me, anything like me at all and have loved SW for however long. if it MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU, I beg you not to see this movie or at the very least, pay for it. You WILL feel betrayed, insulted, heartbroken, devastated and miserable, as I am feeling right now. I was supposed to go see this movie another two times but i cannot and will not spend another CENT on a company that chooses to alienate me. Fine, have it your way. I’m done.

This concludes my rant as I am tired and upset. If I missed out on anything and you are interested in anything else, please do DM me or leave a comment :) We’re all in this together now, the reylos the antis the new fans and the old. We’re all in the same heartbreaking boat, I love you all. And I will love Star Wars. The REAL Star Wars forever. I wasn’t even sad the ‘FRANCHISE’ was ending because it wasn’t. It had ended a long, long time ago.

[fredheads]

me? trying to shake off the cobwebs by writing pool smut? ending up with different smut instead? its more likely than you think. 

pool smut is coming. i swear. 

don’t click the read more if you don’t want to see exactly what i just described. @fredsythe 

When Fred's seemingly endless search for a summer job had led him to lifeguarding at the town pool, FP had assumed that he would be out of a job again within the month.

It wasn't that he didn't have faith in his best friend’s ability to perform rescues and remove splinters and keep little kids from wiping out on the deck. It was more the question of whether Fred, already mopey because all the lifeguarding slots at the public beach had been full, had the patience to go through with the training once he learned how few babes (his self-professed reason for coveting the position) frequented the small outdoor pool in the centre of town.

Surprisingly, FP couldn't have been more wrong. Fred adored being outside for hours in the sun, and his firm-but-friendly way with the kids meant the denizens of the public pool were happier and more well behaved than FP had seen it in years. He'd also accumulated a gaggle of adoring preteen admirers who served as a kind of miniature pool patrol, snapping at kids to walk, not run, and ensuring Fred had very little to do at work but wave at eight-year-olds and soak up the season.

Not that he didn't take it seriously. It was astonishing - and adorable - to watch Fred treat the position with reverence, wearing his plastic red whistle as seriously as a lieutenant and even snapping at FP for littering once while he was visiting Fred at work. That Fred had once been the most obnoxious, rule-breaking nine-year-old at this exact pool was completely forgotten.

“Man, they love you,” FP comments from the base of the lifeguard tower as he watches a girl of about twelve rush back to her mother's waiting minivan. She'd just presented Fred with a homemade friendship bracelet that he was laboriously tying on his wrist, as importantly as one might perform surgery.

“Who, Stacy?” Fred replies, admiring his wrist. “She's the sweetest kid.” He drops his voice to a whisper, leaning down a bit from his chair toward FP. “And her older sister's a total bombshell.”

Ah, there they were. The babes. FP scowls and stares at the lapping turquoise water. Fred Andrews could find a girl to hit on in the middle of the desert. And she'd want him back. And have an annoying friend for FP, so he couldn't complain.

“When are you off?” He asks, shielding his eyes from the sun and taking the excuse to gaze up at his friend. He never got tired of seeing Fred in uniform - if a tiny pair of red swim trunks that clutched his thighs for dear life could be considered a uniform. There was a matching tank top, but Fred never wore it. His red whistle was nestled snugly against his blond chest hair.

“Right now.” Another lifeguard is approaching them from the changerooms, and FP raises his hand to wave at Sierra. His classmate had no reason to resent her job at the public pool - she and Tom Keller were secretly going steady, and were completely infatuated with one another. That was a load off FP’s mind too - no worries about Fred and Sierra picking up a summer romance while supervising the kiddy pool.

“Get lost, Andrews,” Sierra teases Fred, rattling the base of the lifeguard stand. “My turn up there.” She turns her gaze to FP. “Hi, FP.”

“Hi.”

“Hold your horses.” Fred jumps down as Sierra pops on a pair of huge sleek sunglasses, smoothing her hair down with her free hand. “Bye, Sierra. See you tomorrow!”

She waves from the tower as they head out, Fred stopping at his locker to retrieve his bag and car keys. He tosses his towel around his neck and hops into the beat-up red convertible he and Artie had restored back in June. Fred, rather than being tired of water and sun, was now intending to tear off to the beach to spend the last of the day on the sand. FP eases himself into the passenger seat, along for the ride, and they speed off.

Fred’s talking as they drive, taking the scenic route down the coast, but FP isn’t hearing a word of it. Instead, his gaze is fixed with nuclear intensity on the thin blonde hairs that run along the inside of Fred’s very exposed thighs.

Fred, who would be naked if it wasn’t for those tiny shorts.

His tan is as even and as smooth as butterscotch - his flat stomach against the waistband of his shorts is the same gold as his gangly arms. But it’s the crotch that FP’s zeroed in on - and below that, the tiny crescent moon of pale skin that’s just visible where the leg of his shorts had ridden up an imperceptible millimetre. The shorts were so short that the crescent was almost in line with his -

“FP?” Fred must have realized he’d lost him, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at his friend. “Earth to FP? You okay?”

“Pull over,” FP says, before he can think too much about it, his heart thumping in his throat. He can feel the same pulse beating in the front of his shorts, and his hands are going damp. He unbuckles his seatbelt.

“What? Why?” Fred asks, brow furrowing, but obediently eases the car to a stop at the side of the empty road. “Why?” he asks again, more urgently, probably because the last time FP had asked him to pull over he’d vomited all over the inside of the car.

But that’s not his motive today. FP wastes no time in climbing over the centre console into the drivers’ seat, letting both of his warm hands land on and squeeze the thighs that had been torturing him since they’d sat down.

“Because,” he grunts, feeling his back hit the steering wheel as he maneuvers himself to straddle Fred’s lap, already eyeing the place where the pulse throbs in Fred’s neck, longing to put his mouth there-  “you look fucking scrumptious right now, that’s why.”

“FP!” Fred yelps, surprised, as FP moves his hand to the front of Fred’s swim trunks, grabbing him through the thin fabric. There’s a pop as Fred reaches for the door handle behind him in a panic, the door flying open and Fred tumbling backward out of the car.

FP sits up worriedly, momentarily anxious that he’d gone too far. Fred’s standing tanned and barefoot on the side of the road, clutching his towel in front of him, looking all the more naked for it. His hair is mussed from the fall, and FP barely keeps the urge in check to lunge for his friend and sink his teeth into Fred’s lip.

“Are you serious?” Fred asks, gesturing wildly to the car, and then to the surrounding pavement. He drops the towel, which puddles at his feet. “Right here?! By the side of the road?!”

“Why not?” asks FP plaintively. All the blood is rushing away from his head, and he can’t come up with anything better to say. His tone is insistent, not aggressive. “What the fuck am I supposed to do? You’re sitting there practically naked next to me, you have no idea how good you look-”

“You’re a fucking freak,” Fred replies, and FP’s stomach runs abruptly cold. A thousand apologies bubble up to his lips in the space of a millisecond, but before he can even get one of them out Fred’s climbing back into the car and slamming the door behind him, diving into FP’s lap and wrapping his legs around the back of FP’s knees like a needy octopus.

“Fred?” FP gasps, but that’s all he gets out because then Fred’s kissing him, his mouth and tongue as hot as his sun-warmed skin, one of his hot little hands sneaking down to yank FP’s shirt out of his waistband.

“Backseat,” he whispers against FP’s lips, grinning like a jack-o-lantern on Halloween. “At least we can lie down and no one can see us if they drive past.”

FP doesn’t have to be told twice. He pulls Fred into the backseat with him, laying his friend down on the second-hand upholstery and straddling him again. Fred reaches out and grabs another towel off the floor - in the summer his car became a reservoir for beach equipment - and lifts his hips to lay it out under him.

“New car,” he says, and grins. The Ford may have been new to Fred, but it had probably had about fifty owners before it ended up the heap that he and Artie had pulled from the junkyard. FP laughs and kisses him again.

He knows it’s risky. But he also has a feeling it won’t take long, and that anyone speeding along this road on a day like today is probably in an awful hurry to get to the beach. Besides, they’ll be able to hear approaching cars. Theoretically. One of them would probably notice.

“Tell me again how fucking scrumptious I look,” says Fred urgently, hooking his bare legs around FP’s waist.

“You jerk, I thought you were really mad at me,” FP complains, squeezing one of Fred’s thighs in his hand. Fred had little thighs but they were all muscle - lithe and firm under his palm. His hands are sweating, but his mouth is as dry as the Sahara. With Fred laying down under him like this, he can see the trail of hairs leading down from his navel to below his waistband.

“You’re so stupid,” says Fred teasingly, reaching out and tangling a hand through FP’s hair. His voice drops an octave. “Tell me what you wanna do to me.” It’s a command, not a plea.

“Take those fucking shorts off,” FP replies instantly, bending down to press his hot mouth against Fred’s neck. His hand slides up slowly until he’s fingering the hem of Fred’s swim trunks, torturing himself. With his free hand, he scoops it under Fred and squeezes his ass. “Wanna put my fingers in your ass.” His voice is low and breathy, warm air against Fred’s jugular. He whispers the next one. “Wanna put my tongue in your ass.”

Fred moans, a red flush climbing over his cheeks that has nothing to do with the sun. FP gently slides Fred’s thighs apart, pushing them open with his hand and pulling himself higher against the other boy so that his crotch drags over Fred’s.

“Go on-” Fred pleads, thighs shaking just a little against FP’s hips.

“Wanna taste you,” FP growls, kissing his neck, one hand trailing down to slip under the waistband of Fred’s shorts. “Wanna eat you up.”

Fred moans and lifts his hips up off the backseat, his hands coming to the sides of his swimsuit and helping FP drag them down. The hair on his chest is bleached blonde from the sun, but his pubic hair is darker, brown like his head. There’s a patch of white around his groin where his skin has never seen the sun. Fred gets his swimsuit all the way down to his ankles before he reaches out and grabs FP’s head again, pushing him down toward his crotch. FP wets his lips.

“God,” Fred moans when FP takes him in his mouth, all the way down his throat. FP makes the most of his tongue- he’s talented with it after years of chewing gum in class - lapping at the underside of Fred’s cock, playing with the head. Finally, he readjusts himself, taking Fred further into his mouth, and the stuttered moan that escapes Fred’s lips makes the hairs rise all the way along the back of his spine.

Fred’s ankle scrapes along the back of his hips, his legs crossed above FP’s ass, the two of them pressed so tightly together that FP’s sweating from Fred’s body heat. Fred’s yanking his hair hard enough to hurt, but FP focuses on the task at hand, rolling his tongue around Fred’s cock, hitting all the places he knows from practice Fred likes best.

“FP-” Fred whimpers finally, and FP grabs the hand that’s not holding his hair, squeezes tight. Fred’s ankles dig into the backseat and he arches his back as he comes, straight down FP’s throat. FP swallows, closing his eyes after and trying to commit every detail to memory - the sun on his skin, Fred’s thighs around his hips, Fred’s slick chest underneath him, the heat of the car, the way he tasted, the ache from kneeling, the chlorine on his skin.

Fred’s gone limp beneath him on the backseat, gasping for breath. FP buries his nose into Fred’s neck and breathes in the chlorine smell, sneaking his arms underneath him and helping him sit up. Fred leans against the door and gestures to the bulge at the front of FP’s shorts. “Let me-”

“It’s okay,” says FP, reaching down into his underwear and beginning to stroke himself off, building a rhythm. “Just keep looking at me.”

Fred nods, holding his eye contact with a smirk. The hickey FP had left on his neck is swelling into a red bruise, and something about the thought of Fred going home with a reminder of FP’s mouth on him sends him over the edge in record time.

“Fred,” FP chokes out as he comes into his hand, the name sweet in his mouth, his eyes never straying from his lover’s long eyelashes, the golden skin on his face.

Fred surges forward and kisses him before FP’s even withdrawn his hand, still completely naked in the backseat. He grabs the towel from underneath them and pushes it into FP’s lap, moving his hands to either side of FP’s face so he can kiss him properly.

FP cleans off his hand while Fred holds his shoulders and kisses him over and over on the mouth. When he’s done he sets the towel aside and presses back into the kisses, running his tongue along Fred’s teeth and bumping their foreheads together.

“Let’s go home,” says Fred between kisses, reaching for his abandoned swimsuit, which had fallen under the seat. His arm is too short and he just lets his hand hover, focused more on swapping kisses than getting dressed. His voice is breathy and hoarse. “Get you all cleaned up.”

“You mean shower together?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Love you,” FP murmurs, savouring the taste of Fred’s lips against his. His heart pulses the way it always does when he admits those two words, as though waiting for another shoe to drop.

“Love you.” Fred smiles and their teeth bump. He turns his head away as he finally grabs his swimsuit off the floor, sliding lower in the seat to pull it up over his hips. Cracking another grin, Fred climbs back into the front.

“I’ll drive.”

“Okay,” FP echoes, watching dazedly as Fred slides back into his vacated seat, readjusting the rearview mirror. He moves slowly as he climbs back up into the passenger side, eyes glued to Fred like he’s drinking him in.

Fred steers the convertible casually back on the road, and FP closes his eyes for a moment, letting the clean summer air whip through his hair as they pick up speed.

[vagabondanon]

Ira Gamagori, a man and his car

Disclaimer: I am not an automotive historian, this is simply what I can find through light research and loose prior knowledge. In episode eight after the scooter runs out of gas the girls end up getting help from Gamagori who rolls up in his own car. On the surface it's a pink Cadillac, an easily spied reference to Elvis's pink Cadillac convertible. From what I can find people got it, called it an Eldorado inserted by a “westaboo” studio, and called it a day. But maybe it's a bit more then that. Here are a few facts that you might be interested to know. 1. Elvis's pink Cadillac was a 1955 Cadillac 60 special that was repainted from factory blue to an aftermarket pink in 1956. 2. The famous “Cadillac pink” as we know it from Elvis was in the factory options list as Code 46 “Mountain Laurel” (DAL-70663-DQE). But it was only offered in 1956 because of Elvis's popularity and association for the brand. Ford was on their heels for the luxury market and GM wanted youth popularity. 3. Ira drives a 1959 Series-62 Sixth generation Cadillac Convertible. Unknown trim level or package. (Top comparison pic. That is as specific as I can figure due to a small number of shot inconsistencies not fixed in the BD release, but it's more then good enough for this. Note the dash comparison shot is with a 1960 model interior but it was built off the same-ish “gen” and parts so only slightly different.) 4. Japan is a very culturally homogeneous society that in some places still views anyone that isn't Japanese as “tourists”, even if they live there. And an in-universe theory put forth by the characters in official extra materials. 5. Ira Gamagori dyes his hair blonde. 6. It is believed that Ira's father was an American marine only briefly stationed in Japan. Why is this all important? During the show's run time Ira mentions his uncle owns a metalwork's where he goes to get his belly armor. Due to the time frame he was gone it is most likely in Japan, so his mother's side of the family who also likely raised him. Throughout the show, and it is hinted that it also was his life, Ira goes on constantly to try and live by traditional Japanese rules of personal conduct to the point he almost committed ritual suicide for failing an order. This rigor is possibly to make up for the fact that he was only half-Japanese. What some Japanese xenophobes, or assholes like the student council at Rinne-Do he was opposing, would attack and put down for being biracial. So Ira goes to long lengths to live, eat, and breath Japanese. He was given purpose by Satsuki which he takes to be his master/traditional feudal lord. But when he gets an old luxury car to be Lady Satsuki's chauffeur it is not a Datsun, nor Toyota, but an American Cadillac. In fact he has the “American nostalgia special”. A pink Cadillac that features the most flamboyant tail-fins ever put on a Cadillac with twin mid-fin jet engine signal lights, twin pointed grills (front is real back is fake) to point in both directions, Piller-less window design, GM executive mandated Buick standard doors, and rear fender removable wheel access panels cut flat on top like the old 55 model. Then makes his hair the stereotypical from Japanese perspective American blonde. Getting back to the facts above there are two more facts you need to know. First; what most people don't know is that “Mountain Laural pink” was discontinued in 1957, replaced with much darker shades into 58, and practically speaking gone in 59. Second; the single most popular car used to recreate what pop-culture views as “Elvis's pink Cadillac”, that “nostalgia special”, is the 1959 Series-62 Sixth generation Cadillac Convertible. Now what's in Ira's car specifically? That Elvis inspired styling, the “King” considered in his day to be a rebel destroying the morals of America's youth with his “lascivious hip swinging” that was so powerful after a show in 57 Los Angeles police warned him not to do it on stage again. Gold plating instead of American space age dream chrome plating, where Gold in Asia is considered the traditional image of stable wealth/prosperity. The pointed shield of green and yellow which is Japan's equivalent of a “I'm a new driver” bumper sticker, which is usually only a smaller decal, is emblazoned across the entire massive hood. Aftermarket period looking steering-wheel with an airbag bubble in the center which saved mako's life. (Cadillac mounting points for seat-belts did start being pressed into their car bodies in mid to late 59, came as a factory option starting in 62, but only for the front seats until it was officially federal law in 68. Incidentally Ryuko maybe should have questioned how she survived that and not had a complete meltdown realization later, but that's for another day.) So mister rules and regulations living the part of Kiryuin's loyal retainer drives a car that is decorated in the livery of an American cultural Rebel, with added Asian style elements that range from modern to traditional. It's a kind of paradoxical fusion of the two that might be showing the viewer that Gamagori is embracing his heritage, and maybe even proclaiming something more then that. This “fake” real-Cadillac made to the nostalgia tinted view of what such a car should be even when the “real” ones never lived up that ideal, driven by a “fake” real-Japanese man also living up to an impossible ideal of what a Japanese man should be, which have both been changed in small ways to adhere to other. Going even further maybe he could be proclaiming in a small hidden way that he was going to stand with a rebellion, not against Japan or America, but to defend the weak whomever they may be ala stereotypical American way in the coming war against Life Fibers. And clothes. But mostly Fibers. Maybe I've read too much into it. Maybe I've rambled too much. But it's something to think about.

[fereality-indy]

Wendip Week Day Seven - Bedtime Story

June 21, 2024

Pines Residence

Dipper is seated on a folding chair he brought into his daughters room so he could tell a tale to his children and their twin cousins. “And then King Mermando of the ocean kingdom, Costa del Pacifico, sent a missive…”

Lil Debbie piped up, “That means itsa imporant letter.”

“Ohh,” the three younger boys say in almost unison.

“That’s right Debbiekins,” Dipper said as he ruffled his daughters hair “I guess being around Grunkle Ford has helped your vocabulary.”

“Yeppers, and he helped me wif my butterflies.”  Debbie said as she was trying to fix what her dad did to her hair.

“Story!” Terry started chanting from his sleeping bag.

“Story!” His two cousins added.

“Alright guys, I get it.” Dipper said as he raised his hands up in defeat, “now where was I, oh yeah the letter. Well in it King Mermando spoke of the fact that a group of his subjects were out on an excursion to a land in the north and had come into trouble. And so he asked that Lady Gwendolyn of the Woods and her companion Stoneworker travel to their last known location and to see if they would be able to help them.”

“Course dey will, Lady Gwennie and Worker are the best.” Ricky called out.

“An de in luv,” Ed added.

“Aw, you always talk luv. Deyre fighters, not luvers.” Ricky said as he shoved his brother.

“Richard, you be nice!” Debbie called from her bed as that one shove became a shoving match between her cousins.  

"Do you two want me to continue?” Dipper said in a ‘and I mean it ‘ voice.

Both boys quickly settled back into their sleeping bags, while Debbie had a smug ‘I Told You So’ look. Seeing they quit Dipper continued the story.

++

“M’lady this shall be a long trek, do you want me to prepare my wagon for the trip.” Stoneworker asked as they went about gathering supplies for the trip.

“It would be best to take my carriage so we will have sleeping quarters if needed.” The redheaded warrior said as she finished packing.

After a quick trip to see Stoneworker’s uncle, the Inventor. He had some gadgets that may come in handy, though Lady Gwendolyn felt that the their own skills would be more than enough to handle whatever they come across.

They head out across the countryside towards the destination they were given in the missive. Their trek took three days and they spent the three nights in each other’s company. On the fourth day they arrived at the location and began their search. It was a beach, but the weather was so cold  neither of them wished to take a swim.    

“Stoneworker, my trusted companion, it appears they were here recently.” Lady Gwendolyn said as she was studying the tracks they discovered. “A day or two at the most. But they weren’t alone. There are other tracks here. Heavy and larger than normal.”

“From the looks of things the others are definitely bipedal and either they all are dragging a pack of some type, or they have a large tail.” Stoneworker added as they continued their tracking. About a half hour into their tracking they happened upon the start on an inlet.

“There was a scuffle of some sort here. The water has taken most of the evidence, but there are some surefire marks in the cliff wall there.” Gwendolyn said as she pointed out three large gouges the stone. Getting a closer look at them she added, “And these are fresh.”

She pulled out her trusty ax that Stoneworker had endowed with runes of protection. Seeing this Stoneworker activated the enchantments in his own gloves. He still preferred to outwit his opponents, but was perfectly willing to fight his foes and these enchantments gave his punches an added jolt. And from what they found he may need it. There in front of a cavern they were too large to enter and despite there being snow on the ground, stood 4 crocodile Men.

++

"Wait a minute, Daddy. Great Grunkle Ford says that crocdiles are poikiro, poilikilo, coldblooded.” Debbie said, breaking into the story. Then she asked, “How are they able to be moving if there’s snow on the ground. They should be hypermating.”

Dipper chuckled a little at his daughter’s faux pas before responding, “Well, honey. First off I think you mean Hibernating, and secondly I was getting to that.”

++

Stoneworker and Gwendolyn moved closer as watched the Croc-Men attempt to reach whatever had hidden in the small cave. They were dressed rather warmly, but even then the cold should have made them too lethargic to be moving. The cold northwestern, winter weather was no where near that of the warm southern swampland these critters usually call home. Then one turned to speak to it’s fellows and we saw it. On his chest there was a glowing stone that seemed to radiate heat.

“They are too well entrenched. Martok take Merlok and find some fire wood. We’ll either smoke them out or have smoked jerky when we get to them. Hahaha.”  The one who appeared to be in charge said to the one closest to him.

Gwendolyn signaled to Stoneworker to back out of the inlet. They quickly backed out and found a hiding place, once the Croc-men had passed Gwendolyn signaled to follow them. They stopped around another twenty yards or so and that was when our heroes struck. Gwendolyn tapped the taller of the two on it’s shoulder and when it turned she hit it in the stomach with the flat of her ax. As it bent over she brought her knee up under it’s jaw rocking it’s head up and backwards. While this was happening the other Croc-Man turned to see what happened and was met by Stoneworker. Before he could react Stoneworker reached up and pulled the glowing stone off the Croc-Man. Though it glowed as if it was burning hot, Stoneworker found that he now felt as if he was standing in a warm summer day. The Croc-Man immediately felt the cold and dropped to his knees before falling in a deep sleep.

“That’s what I thought would happen,” Stoneworker said after the Croc-Man fell. Seeing a slightly confused look on Gwendolyn’s beautiful face he added, “They’re reptiles, they essentially hibernate in the cold weather.”  

They took time to bound their foes together with their hands tied behind the other’s back so that they could share the stone.  They also bound their feet and snouts separately.  When they were certain these Croc-Men would not a hassle, they began heading back towards the inlet.    

“Alright when we get there I will go for the leader, you take the smaller…” Gwendolyn was saying as they heard a scream.

“No, Somebody help me!” a young voice called from inside the inlet. As they turned the corner they saw The two Croc-Men holding a young bull seal between them. And the voice was coming from the seal.  “I just want to get my sister some food, you guys have kept us in there for two days. Do what you want to me but first let me get her some fish. She is young and needs to eat.”

“Tough luck, chiot. We’re hungry enough dat it won’t mattah ta us if she’s skin n bones or not.” The lead Croc-Man said.

"Yes, we be hungry too.” The other Croc-Man added.

“No!” A smaller seal pup called as it rushed out of the cave.

“I knew grabin’ one draw out da others. Grab her.” The lead Croc-Man said as he pulled the seal he was holding out of his partner’s grip.

Gwendolyn rushed towards the two Croc-Men intent on putting a stop to the scene before her, only to be outpaced by her younger partner.

“You need to pick on someone your own size!” Stoneworker said as he jumped and delivered a double closed fist to the top of the Croc-Man chasing the smaller seal. The force of his blow combined with the jolt of electricity his gloves held sent the cryptid to the ground. He then turns to the small pup, “It’ll be ok. We here on the request of King Mermando.”

Gwendolyn continued her rush and quickly brought her ax down across the wrist of the lead Croc-Man causing him to drop the seal pup. She then dropped low and swept his feet out from under him. Before he had a chance to try and rise up she was there with the blade of her ax blade at his throat.

“Give me a reason!” she said as she looked into his eyes.

“Brother!” the smaller seal pup called as it moved towards where the leader had dropped her brother.

“I am fine.” The larger pup said as his sister made it to him, “Father, it is safe. We have envoys from King Mermando. They saved us.”

At that there was a glow coming from the entrance to the cavern and it began to open further. When it was large enough that Stoneworker could walk into it, albeit crouched, out came a large bull seal and a medium sized seal cow.

"Greetings. Thank you for saving my family.” The bull said as he moved towards his children. “I am Jestin, Canciller of my lord King Mermando, and this is my wife Lynneth. We were on a mission to open trade negotiations with the Artic Court when we encountered these brutes. I sent an attendant back to the capital and we hid ourselves in this cave.”

“I am Lady Gwendolyn of the Woods and this is my consort Stoneworker.” Gwendolyn said as Stoneworker was tying  up the lead Croc-Man. When he was done she removed her ax from where it was sitting on it’s neck. “We left the other two around the bend. We shall leave their fate up to you.”  

++

“And once the miscreants were gathered Jestin shrunk them down with the same magic he had used on the cave passageway and placed them and a small fish in a jar for transportation. They then bid our heroes adieu and returned to the sea and to their kindom.” Dipper said as he finished up the story.

In a sleepy voice Terry asked, “But Daddy what happen to the bad guys.”

“Well when Gwendolyn and Stoneworker were next invited to the court of King Mermando, they were granted knighthood and they found out that the Croc-Men were released on a small, secluded, swampy island as a prison.” Dipper replied as he turned off the desk lamp, leaving a night light as the only illumination in the room.

As he went out into the hall he was met by his wife who gave him a quick kiss.

“So what story did tell them tonight? How Paz and Mabel took over Northwest Industries by becoming the majority stockholders or maybe Gwendolyn and Stoneworker at the haunted grocers?” Wendy asked as they headed towards their bedroom.

“Nah, I told them about the family of seals we, I mean, Lady Gwendolyn and Stoneworker saved for Mermando a couple of years ago.” Dipper said as he entered their bedroom.

Well better late than never. I decided to finish up the final prompt and post it today as a gift to my fans on my birthday.

[anistarrose]

I Get It (Maybel 2018 Week 2: Comfort)

Word count: ~2300

Summary: Weirdmageddon is over, but that doesn’t mean everything is happy and perfect. Hurt/Comfort, more or less.

Warnings: Brief mention of suicidal intentions (everyone ends up okay at the end), brief canon-typical violence

This is my fic for @themonthofmaybel Week 2! I was so sure I was going to finish this one on time, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I finished the actual writing a few days ago, but the editing didn’t go as quickly as I’d hoped. (Apologies for the bare-bones summary, but I don’t it to be too spoilery.)

“There’s gotta be something we can do to jog his memory!” Mabel cries.

“There isn’t,” replies Grunkle Ford. He turns toward her, and she can see his eyes are just as wet as hers. “I’m sorry. Stan’s gone.”

No. Stan can’t be gone. He can’t be! I thought – I thought everything was going to be okay…

“I know my Grunkle is in there somewhere! There’s gotta be something around here that can help bring him back!” She notices her scrapbook lying on the floor and grabs it, jumping on to Stan’s chair and opening it up in her lap. “This’ll work! This has to work!”

“Here’s the first day we came to Gravity Falls, Grunkle Stan! And here’s a macaroni interpretation of my emotions!”

She flips through more pages, afraid to look at Stan’s face to see if he found anything familiar or if he was just becoming more confused.

“That time we went fishing? That Summerween we spent together?” Dipper adds.

“The time – the time we all fell into the bottomless pit?” stammers Soos. “The days we all hung out at the pool and you showed me the perfect lawn chair? Mister Pines?”

“The time you let Mabel run the Mystery Shack for a bet?”

This is wrong. This is all wrong. Why is this happening?

“Stanley, do you remember the portal? Do you remember all… all the work you did to save me?” Ford has his hand on his brother’s shoulder, but he isn’t making eye contact.

“I…” Stan shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I’m trying, but… I just don’t…”

“No!” Mabel cries, clapping her hands over her ears. “No, no, no! This isn’t how it’s supposed to go! Grunkle Stan, you’re supposed to remember! I know you are!”

“Oh no, kiddo, don’t… I’m okay, really…”

“You’re not okay! None of this is okay!” Mabel shrieks with more volume than she’d intended, jumping down from the chair. She rushes over to where Waddles is sniffing at the wreckage from the Shack-O-Tron battle and picks him up, setting him back down on Stan’s lap.

“What about Waddles?” she pleads. “You’ve gotta remember Waddles!”

Stan just blinks. “Uh, right, Waddles. Yeah, that’s a… real cute pig you got there, huh?”

“Grunkle Stan, you – you saved him from a pterodactyl! There’s no way you forgot that! Right?”

“I… what?”

Mabel bursts into tears.

No, no, no, this isn’t right, Waddles was supposed to work, if Waddles didn’t work than what will...

“Oh no, sweetie, don’t cry… I’m so sorry, I’m really trying to remember…”

Waddles jumps down from Stan’s lap and makes his way to Mabel’s side, bumping his nose against her shin. Mabel just curls up into a ball. She can’t bear to see her grunkle’s confused face any more.

After some amount of time – it could have been a minute or an hour, she feels Dipper put a hand on her shoulder.

“Please, just leave me be!”

“Yeesh, drama queen, relax! I’m just trying to comfort my favorite sister!”

No. Not him. No no no no no this isn’t right this isn’t happening no no no no no –

“You’ve been saying that word a lot recently, Shooting Star! Why don’t you give yes a shot? It works pretty well alongside some maniacal laughter – here, I’ll demonstrate!”

Mabel will not look up and see those slit yellow eyes and psychotic smile on her brother’s face. She refuses.

“What are you doing in my brother’s body?” she asks, face still buried against her knees. “My grunkles killed you!” This is wrong this can’t be happening what is wrong with me –

“Did they? I can’t say I remember anything like that – oh, too soon? Sorry, I forgot I was supposed to be comforting you, like the fantastic brother I am!” Stifling a laugh, he squeezes her shoulder much harder.

On instinct, Mabel jerks away. “Let go of me, you triangular –” She slams into a railing that collapses beneath her, and nearly topples over the edge – where is she? – before Bipper grabs her by the arm.

“Woah there, Shooting Star, don’t want to fall to Earth just yet, do we?”

“I said let go of me!”

Bipper’s grin grows even wider. “Are you sure you want that?” He gestures to the spray-painted wooden cylinder behind him. “Haven’t you even noticed where we are? I mean, falling now would be a pretty exhilarating experience – that’s why I’m here in the first place! – but for you it would kinda be a one-time thing, you know?”

They’re on the water tower. Mabel is leaning over more than a hundred feet of thin air. How are they on the water tower?

“Here’s the deal, Shooting Star. I’m going to give you two options. I could pull you to safety right now, but if I do that, I’m going to go for a little skydive myself. Or, I let go of you right now, but your brother’s body gets to go down on the ladder and have him inhabit it again. Got it?”

“I – why would you make me make a choice like that?”

“Just for the heck of it!” Bipper replies gleefully. “What other reason is there to do anything?”

“I –” It’s raining now, her hair is blowing in the wind, she needs more time to think of a way out –

Mabel, can you hear me?

“Dipper?”

“Your brother can’t help you now, Shooting Star!” Bipper cackles.

Mabel, are you okay? It’s unmistakably Dipper’s voice.

“Dipper, help me!” Mabel cries.

Mabel, it’s just a nightmare! Whatever is happening, you’re safe, I promise!

“Time’s up! Given how selfish you’ve been all summer, I’ll just assume you chose to save yourself and pull you up now before I –”

“NO! I won’t let you!” Mabel lunges forward as Bipper began to pull, knocking him flat and pinning him to the platform. “You’re staying right here until you give my brother his body back!”

“Oof! Mabel, it’s me! Everything’s okay, I promise!”

Mabel opens her eyes. She has Dipper pinned to the floor of the attic. His expression is very startled, but it’s his. One of her sheets is still tangled around her leg.

“Oh, no! Dipper, are you okay? I thought – I didn’t realize I was –”

“Hey, it’s okay. It was just a bad dream, I tried to help but I guess I made it worse, I’ll know better next time – not that I hope there’s going to be a next time, I – uh, do you want to talk about it, or am I just making things worse?”

Holding back tears, Mabel runs from the room.

“Oh no, Mabel, I’m sorry!”

I could have hurt him – how am I supposed to explain why – he wouldn’t get it – the dream was right I’m self-centered and horrible and I make everything worse for everyone –

She bursts out the door and barely stops herself before slamming into Stan, who’s sitting on the porch.

“Whoa there, pumpkin, what’s going on?” He turns around and frowns as he notices her expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Grunkle Stan, you remember me, right? Please say you remember me! You’ve gotta –”

Stan hugs her. “Of course I do, Mabel. Some of my memories might still be settling into place, but you and that pig of yours were two of the first things to come back, remember?”

In that moment of relief, Mabel gives up on trying not to cry. “I know, Grunkle Stan,” she sobs, “or at least I should have known, I just – I needed –”

Stan pats her head. “It’s okay. I get it.”

He’s quiet for a moment as Mabel slowly gets her tears under control.

“You had a nightmare about me forgetting, didn’t you?”

“How’d you know?”

Stan sighs. “I get those kinds of dreams too, sweetie – well, for different reasons, but I know what waking up is like sometimes. The night I finally remembered the portal… incident, I woke up convinced Stanford was still stuck on the other side. Couldn’t understand how I got upstairs and why I wasn’t down in the basement trying to fix the thing. Didn’t snap out of it until Ford heard me trip in the hallway and I saw him in the flesh.”

“Oh no!” Mabel gasps. “Grunkle Stan, that’s – that’s really – I’m so sorry!”

Stan steps back, frowning. “Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I just wanted you to know that you weren’t –”

“What? No! Why would you say that?” Mabel asks him.

“Why… what?”

“Shouldn’t have told me? You’ve got it all wrong! Why didn’t you tell us you were going though that?! We could have helped you feel better!”

“I…” Stan looks genuinely surprised. “I didn’t want you and Dipper to worry about me. And, I guess, I didn’t think you’d get why I was so convinced that Ford was still��� well, that sounds stupid now, huh. Of course you’d understand, that’s why I’m telling you in the first –”

“Oink!”

“Oh, Waddles!” Mabel scoops up her pig as he waddled onto the porch. “I didn’t make you worry, did I?”

Dipper follows Waddles out. “Mabel, I’m so sorry that I just made you feel worse…”

“Dipper, I’m the one that should be apologizing to you!” Mabel blurts out. “I knocked you down and ran away without telling you what was wrong because I thought you wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t forgive me! But I was being stupid, wasn’t I?”

“Mabel, I don’t understand…”

Stan puts a hand on Mabel’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m not going to pretend I know exactly what happened, but don’t go blaming yourself, okay? That goes for you too, Dipper.”

“Grunkle Stan?” Dipper sounds concerned. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just talking to Mabel about nightmares, and I guess about being stubborn and not telling other people what’s goin' on.”

Dipper smiles sadly. “I might be a little guilty of that myself…”

Mabel had wondered about that. The two previous nights, she’d heard some noise from Dipper’s side of the room and woken up, only for him to assure her that everything was fine and apologize for waking her. “Hey, Dipper. Promise me that next time something like that happens, you’ll let us all know so we can help you, right? And that goes for you too, Grunkle Stan!”

Before Stan can reply, Ford appears in the doorway behind Dipper. 

"Is everything alright?” he asks.

“Oh no, Grunkle Ford, did we wake you up?”

Ford shakes his head. “No. Well, kind of, but I’m a naturally light sleeper. You could have accidentally rolled out of your bed in your sleep and it would have woken me.”

“Ha, Dipper used to do that all the time! They had to put a fence thing on his bed so he didn’t fall out every night!”

Dipper gently punches his sister’s arm, red with embarrassment but not upset. “Hey, you needed it on your bed for almost as long!”

Ford chuckles. “I suppose everything is more or less alright, then, if you’re making fun of each other.”

“It wasn’t alright a few minutes ago,” Mabel explains. “But it’s getting better. Talking to people helps. I know that now.”

“Good to hear.” He sits down on the couch. “It’s difficult to readjust to… well, simply to no one being in danger.”

“Yeah,” Mabel agrees, “but we’ve got each other…” Her voice trails off.

“Something wrong, pumpkin?” Stan asks as he gets up to join Ford on the couch.

“It’s just… what will we do when Dipper and I leave Gravity Falls? I mean, I’ll have him and you guys will have each other, but…”

Ford’s eyes light up. “Mabel, I assure you that you won’t have to worry about that. Dipper showed me how to set up a webcam on my new laptop, so we can call you two and talk face-to-face when you’re in California and we’re on –” He shoots a quick glance at Stan, “Well, when we’re in Gravity Falls or anywhere else we might end up.”

“We were going to tell you all about it with a cool demonstration tomorrow morning,” Dipper explains.

“We could do it right now, if you want!” Ford adds, and the battle in his mind between enthusiasm and exhaustion is visible on his face. Exhaustion wins, narrowly. “Though it might be better to wait until morning. I’m pretty comfortable here.”

“Join us on the couch, kids,” says Stan. “I know you’re younger than we are, but if we stay here talkin' out our issues for much longer your butts are gonna hurt in the morning.”

“Good plan,” agrees Mabel. She goes to sit in Stan’s lap, but Waddles gets there first, and Stan fakes a look of disgust but lets him stay.

“If you ever need to talk about something – anything, nightmares or otherwise – please, just call us,” Ford assures the kids.

Mabel nods. “We will. But you better do the same, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford!”

“Of course, pumpkin,” Stan tells her.

"We will,” Ford adds, and then follows it with something under his breath that sounds like Timezones be damned. Stan gives him a suspicious – though not angry – look, but doesn’t say anything.

They all stay on the couch, four Pines and one pig, until Soos comes to work in the morning and accidentally wakes them up. Even with the bugs flying through the air and creatures roaring in the woods, it’s the best night of sleep any of them have had in weeks.

Thanks for reading! I don’t have that much experience writing in present tense, and almost ended up writing this one in the past tense, but I think I’m satisfied with how it turned out.

(IRUG ZDVQ’W DFWXDOOB DVOHHS. KH ZDV ELQJH-ZDWFKLQJ GXFNWHFWLYH.)

[strangedreamings]

And here’s the next one. I might add that I wrote these chapters long before Intertwined.

Sherrinford to the Rescue ch 2.

Carrying his two suitcases, Ford climbed the stairs to 221B and knocked on the door. After a moment, the door was opened by an old lady he knew from her file to be Mrs. Martha Hudson. She took in his dingy white trainers, faded blue jeans, grey t-shirt, navy hoodie, and black leather jacket without question, but it was his ginger curls that threw her.

“Sherlock?” she asked, confused. “I thought you were upstairs. I must say, this disguise…”

He smiled a bit, gently. “It’s Sherrinford, actually. I’m the Holmes brother no one talks about.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re Sherlock and Mycroft’s brother?”

He nodded. “I’m Sherlock’s twin, just back from six months in South Korea.”

Mrs. Hudson finally noticed the suitcases he was carrying and let him in. “Is Sherlock expecting you?”

“Uh, no, I’m something of a surprise.”

“He could use some cheering up, after everything that’s happened. Has anyone told you…” She trailed off, her eyes sad.

“Mycroft told me about Mary Watson,” he said gently. “It’s why I’m here. Mrs. Hudson, could I trouble you for some tea later? I need a nap but after that I could really use a cuppa and Sherlock probably needs one too. I’d make some but Mycroft said anyone entering Sherlock’s kitchen needs a hazmat suit.”

She smiled weakly. “Oh, of course, I’ll make a pot.”

He gave her his best boyish grin. “Got any Penguins?”

She laughed softly. “For you, I just might.”

“You’re a peach, Mrs. Hudson.” He gave her a salute then carried his bags upstairs to Sherlock’s flat. He set them down in the hallway then poked his head in the sitting room. Sherlock was sitting in the leather chair by the currently unused fireplace, his fingers steepled in front of his face.

The Mind Palace look, Ford thought. He’ll be unreachable for a while. He carried his bags up the stairs to what Mycroft had told him was John Watson’s old room. Taking the time to fully unpack, he then went back downstairs and walked into his brother’s sitting room, plopping down onto the sofa and promptly falling asleep.

“What the bloody HELL are you doing here?!”

Ford woke up from his nap with a start and looked up at the source of his disturbance. Sherlock was standing over him in black bespoke trousers, a white dress shirt, and the blue silk dressing gown Ford remembered his twin owning during their uni days. As if the cursing wasn’t enough, Sherlock’s ice-cold glare told Ford exactly what his twin was feeling.

Ford groaned quietly. “Do you mind, Lock? You know I can’t sleep on airplanes and I’ve been up since 5 AM Seoul time, thanks to Mike.”

“I don’t care about your sleep schedule,” Sherlock said, every word dripping in annoyance. “I want to know why you are suddenly in my flat now after not seeing you for fourteen years.”

“Mike told me what happened with the Watsons,” Ford said as he stood up and stretched. “He ordered me to keep an eye on you. Since he signs my paychecks, I thought I should obey.” At his brother’s wary look, he took a deep breath then held out his hand. “Lock … Sherlock, I want to apologize again for what I did at uni. Trying to pass off your papers as mine was beyond low and I’m sorry.”

Sherlock eyed his twin’s outstretched hand for a moment, his expression neutral, then he finally shook it. “Ancient history.”

Ford grinned. “Great! Now that that’s over, I’ll ask Mrs. Hudson if she can make us some tea.”

“I’ve already texted her. She’ll be up soon.”

“Got anything to eat around here?” Ford wandered into the kitchen and immediately started to gag from the smell. “Christ, I thought Mike was exaggerating! What died in here?” He looked around at the moldy, decomposing … things. “Maybe an easier question to answer is, what didn’t die in here?”

“They’re experiments,” Sherlock said from the doorway, his tone decidedly put-upon.

“Well, I’d say they’ve all definitely gone off,” Ford said, delicately poking one experiment with the handle of a spatula. “I’d willingly pay professional cleaners to come in and sterilize this place.”

“You can afford professional cleaners?” Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow as he took in his twin’s old and worn clothes.

“When someone actually works for Mycroft, instead of doing volunteer work like you, they get hazard pay,” Sherrinford replied, smirking. “I’ve got a healthy bank account after all the crap I’ve been through for him. I only dress like I’m homeless.”

“Speaking of which, where are you staying?” Sherlock examined a few of the experiments closely then binned some of them, much to Ford’s surprise.

“In John’s old room, for now. I’ll chip in for rent, though considering all your clothes are designer, I doubt you need help there.” Ford opened the fridge and regretted that decision as soon as he saw the bag of eyeballs on the top shelf. “This can’t be sanitary.”

“Don’t you have a flat somewhere?” Sherlock asked, decidedly annoyed.

“I didn’t see the point after I started working for Mike. I’m away from London most of the time, in one shite hotel room or another. The life of a spy isn’t nearly as glamorous as the Bond movies would have people believe.”

“You’re welcome to stay in John’s room for as long as you’re in town.” Both men heard a knock on the door downstairs. Sherlock moved to the window and looked out then quickly turned to his twin, his expression a bit anxious. “In fact, why don’t you go up there now?”

“If you need me out of the way while you talk to a client, just say so.”

“Not a client,” Sherlock said quickly, “still want you out of the way. Shoo!” He was practically pushing Ford out the door then froze as voices were heard coming up the stairs.

“Sherlock has a twin?” asked a female voice Ford didn’t recognize. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” Mrs. Hudson replied, amused. “I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. Same eyes, same cheekbones.”

“Same black curls?” the first voice asked.

The women had reached the landing, giving Ford a clear view of them. Mrs. Hudson held the promised tea tray, including an entire plate of Penguins. The other woman was younger, her reddish-brown hair in a ponytail, a white cardigan with embroidered cherries covering a pink blouse, and slightly-wrinkled khakis completing her attire. Both women looked up at the twins, the younger woman’s brown eyes widening. Ford realized the second woman had to Molly Hooper, one of Sherlock’s “goldfish,” according to Mycroft.

While they were coming up the remaining steps, Sherlock took the opportunity to none-too-gently shove Ford towards the stairs to the upper bedroom. “Molly, my twin brother, Sherrinford. Sherrinford, Molly Hooper, my pathologist. Sherrinford was just going to take a nap.”

Ford planted his feet, grinning from ear to ear. “Actually, I just woke up from a nap.” He held out his hand to Molly, who still looked amazed. “Please, call me Ford.”

“Alright,” she said, smiling a bit. “Sherlock never told me he had a twin. You’re fraternal?”

Ford smirked. “Identical, actually.” At Molly and Mrs. Hudson’s confused looks, he continued. “Lock dyes his hair, has since uni.”

“I was tired of everyone confusing the two of us,” Sherlock muttered, his cheeks slightly pink.

Sherrinford turned to Mrs. Hudson, smiling appreciatively at the Penguins. “Mrs. Hudson, you’re a saint.” He relieved her of the tea tray. “Will you be joining us?”

“I would but I’m going to the hospital to see Mary,” she said. “Molly was just there and said she’s currently awake.”

“Give her my love,” Sherlock said quietly then walked into the sitting room, Molly following him.

Ford looked at Mrs. Hudson worriedly. “He can’t even talk to her?”

“John confiscated her mobile,” Mrs. Hudson replied, wringing her now empty hands. “He’s treating her like a child he’s grounded, it’s terrible.”

“Try to talk John ‘round, Mrs. Hudson,” he said gently. “I’ll see what I can do from this end. We can’t let Sherlock’s family split apart.”

She nodded, her eyes sad. “I’m so glad you’re here, Ford. Sherlock needs someone to keep an eye on him.”

“I promise I’ll do my best.”

Back inside the sitting room, Ford found Molly seated on the sofa and Sherlock pacing the floor in front of the coffee table. He set the tray on the table then sat down on the sofa, keeping a respectful distance from Molly.

“I’ll be Mum,” Molly said as she started fixing the tea. “How do you take it, Ford?”

“No milk, two sugars,” Ford replied. At her curious look, he added, “I can’t always get milk when I’m abroad, so I learned to like my tea without it.”

“What is it that you do, exactly?”

Sherrinford glanced at Sherlock, who shook his head slightly. He turned back to Molly. “I work for Mycroft.”

She smiled a bit. “Say no more. Something tells me I’m going to want plausible deniability.”

Ford chuckled. “Smart move.”

Molly handed Ford his tea then held out a cup to Sherlock, who had finally stopped his pacing. Sherlock took it and raised an eyebrow at his twin. Ford took the hint and moved to the chair next to the sofa. Sherlock sat next to Molly, who just smiled over the wordless exchange between the brothers.

“How is Mary?” Sherlock asked.

Molly opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by the sound of Sherlock’s mobile ringing from its place on the coffee table. The number wasn’t one he or Molly recognized.

“You should take it,” she said. “It’s probably a client.”

Sherlock pushed the button, leaving the phone on the coffee table. “This is Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock, it’s Mary. Is Molly with you?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, relief evident on his face. “My brother Sherrinford is here too.”

“You have another brother?”

“My twin. Unimportant right now.” He ignored Ford’s eyeroll. “How do you feel?”

“I can definitely sympathize with how you felt when you were shot,” Mary said. They heard her laugh weakly then gasp. “Bloody hell, that hurt. Don’t make me do that again.”

“Noted. You’re calling from the room phone?”

“Yes, John took my mobile. I told him he was being ridiculous but he didn’t care. I convinced him to take a walk to stretch his legs, I don’t know how much time I have. Sherlock, I’m giving you a case.”

“What case?” Sherlock asked, immediately intrigued.

“I need you to save John. All of this is tearing him up inside. He needs you, Sherlock. To make him realize it, I need you to put yourself in extreme danger. Find a bad guy, a really bad guy. Go after him publicly. Fall into his clutches. John will save you.”

“You can depend on me, Mary,” Sherlock said firmly.

“He’s coming back, I’ll talk to you when I can.” The line disconnected.

Ford and Molly looked at Sherlock, who was already going into his Mind Palace. Ford reached out and grabbed a couple of Penguins from the plate.

“I suggest you get comfortable, Molly,” he said. “We may be in for a long wait.”

[abenteuerinwestberlin]

Adjustments.

January 1989. Steglitz.

-

Klaus and Amalia had been living together for a few months, and, well, Klaus had to admit that it had been very easy to adjust to. Of course, certain things had changed. He really hadn’t anticipated that their living together would be so much like, well, living with a girlfriend. Not that Klaus had ever lived with a girlfriend before - he hadn’t - but he and Amalia had begun to do everything together. They’d begun having sex with a much higher frequency, so that they often woke up next to each other. And well, Klaus wasn’t complaining about that. He wasn’t about to complain when she occasionally jumped into the shower with him, either. She’d continued to visit him at work during lunch, too, and what had started as her venting about her mother had become deep philosophical and political discussions. And neither of them were sick of each other, which, well, Klaus didn’t think was usually the case with friends who became roommates. In fact, she seemed to love living with him as much as he loved living with her. On Friday nights, they’d developed a tradition of cuddling up together on the couch to watch a movie starring Harrison Ford. And Klaus loved it.

The thing he loved the most, though, was how little Amalia had really changed through the years. They’d known each other since they’d started school, and he remembered when her father had had to pay her off to wear a dress for Easter, and she’d promptly dragged him along to the bookstore to help her decide which books on her list to buy (because Amalia always had a list - Klaus vaguely remembered that his library had been pretty sparse when he’d moved in, but now… well, now he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d be able to go without buying more shelves).

Amalia was just as brilliant, just as witty, just as gorgeous, and just as headstrong as she’d been when they’d met.

And unexpectedly, he found himself loving Saturdays and Sundays with Amalia the best. Not because they slept in together, or sometimes went out to dinner together on Saturdays. Not because she was more than content to stay in bed until she couldn’t possibly sleep anymore on Sundays, rather than rushing to church, but for a pretty unexpected reason: if Amalia wasn’t going out anywhere, she didn’t wear makeup.

It wasn’t just that she didn’t wear makeup. She didn’t do any of the normal level of dressing up that she normally did. She wore sweatpants and a big t-shirt, braided her hair to keep it out of the way, and curled up with a good book.

And, well, Amalia often seemed so effortlessly perfect that it was reassuring to know that she didn’t always put on a front - and even more reassuring to know that she didn’t do it around him. It was nice to realise that, well, even though Amalia was high maintenance in many ways, caring about her looks was still very low on the list.

So one day, after just over three months of living together, Klaus brought out her normal mug of tea after he’d brewed himself some coffee, and asked her why she didn’t wear makeup on the weekends. “Not that I mind,” he clarified. “It’s actually really nice to know that… despite everything, you’re still… you.”

“I’m still me?” Amalia repeated, taking the mug of tea from him. “Who else am I supposed to be - Lilli?”

Klaus shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. I mean… that your whole… getting dressed up thing, it’s not… something you do no matter what, that you don’t really… care that much what you look like. A-and that you trust me enough to… let me see you like this.”

Amalia rolled her eyes. “You’ve seen me in far worse shape than this.”

“I-I know, but I just…”

“Klaus, if I had my way - if I could bend society to my will - well, I might still wear dresses, because they’re surprisingly low effort for the turnout, but I wouldn’t wear makeup or heels, and I certainly wouldn’t shave, ever.” She took a sip of tea. “It doesn’t matter how beautiful I am naturally - I need to look exactly like society wants a wealthy woman to look in order for anyone to take me seriously. If I went and defended my thesis wearing a pantsuit and flats - and without any makeup… well, the result wouldn’t be the same as it would defending my thesis wearing a designer dress and heels, with immaculate makeup fresh off of this month’s cover of Cosmo.”

“Well that’s… kind of shitty. I mean, I know you explained this to me when… when you first started wearing dresses and stuff willingly, but it’s just… you’ve always seemed to do it really well.”

“Thanks,” Amalia said. “Frankly, I’d probably get taken even more seriously if I dyed my hair brown, but I’m a bit too attached to my natural color to do that. A breast reduction would probably also help, but I’m not about to get a major surgery just to be taken more seriously.”

“A breast reduction?” Klaus asked. “Isn’t that, like, usually the opposite of what women want?”

“Usually, yes, but it’s difficult to be taken seriously when you have the body of a pinup. But men are disgusting and sexualise women without our consent no matter what, and I’m happy with my body, so I’m not about to change it.”

“But that’s bullshit.”

Amalia rolled her eyes. “I know it is. And if I’d been born a man, I’d probably already have job offers by now, even though I haven’t even finished my thesis.”

“Ama,” Klaus said. “You know that I… I don’t love you because you’re fashionable, or anything like that. I’d still love you just as much if your parents still had to pay you two hundred marks to get you to wear a dress.”

Amalia settled into the sofa and took a sip of her tea. “I know.”

“Because… I… when I fell in love with you, it was before all of that. And obviously you’re still the same person, and any changes you’ve gone through aren’t because you started dressing differently when you were sixteen…”

“Klaus, we had sex before I accepted that I needed to perform femininity in order to even have a chance at being taken seriously, and you were already head over heels by then. I know.” She took another sip of her tea.

“What, um… what changed? To make you… dress the way you do?”

“It’s called ‘performing femininity’, and I realised that people listened to Lilli more than they listened to me, and that wearing t-shirts and jeans wasn’t stopping guys from leering at me and trying to picture me naked. I looked around and I saw that every woman in a position of authority, every woman who is taken seriously, dresses a certain way, and wears makeup. And I knew that I was going to end up doing something where my looks would certainly matter - even though they shouldn’t - so I was forced to accept the fact that I needed to perform femininity to be taken seriously by society at large. Of course, you and Lilli have always taken me seriously… but most people didn’t, before.” She took another sip of her tea and rolled her eyes. “Of course, I’m not anticipating becoming the first female president or chancellor - although that was in the running, still, when I was sixteen - but any job that I would have would require some level of performing femininity. And I’d rather do that flawlessly than resist it as much as possible until it was too late.”

“That’s… really depressing.”

“That’s part of being a woman with any kind of hopes or aspirations outside of running a household.”

Klaus frowned. “...I’m aware that this is… maybe not the best time to ask this, but…”

Amalia heaved a sigh. “Wanting a career doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t want a family,” she said. “But that depends on the man I end up marrying - if I end up marrying. But you and I both know, either way, my ambitions certainly don’t end at the socially accepted traditional role of mother and housewife.”

“Well, yeah, and it’d be a shame for someone as brilliant and capable as you to be stuck doing that when you could be doing something much better. Any guy worth his shit will realise that if he wants a family with you, he’s either going to have to stay home, or you’ll get a nanny. And… you know, there are more guys besides me who are worth their shit.”

“I know,” Amalia said. “Honestly, I’m not at all focused on romance right now, anyway. I want to get this thesis done, and I want to get my doctor title. Any romance would just be a distraction from that at this point.”

A distraction. Of course it would be. She was too brilliant and too ambitious to risk losing momentum. And even if it wouldn’t be… he was her best friend, and he knew, really, that they’d never be anything more than that.

“I mean,” she said, “and this is just between us, I mean it…”

“Okay,” he said, curious about what she wanted to say.

“Well,” she started again, “I mean… sometimes I do get concerned that… that I wasted my prime dating years. I mean, sure, I dated Daniel, but I knew… way earlier than I wanted to admit that it wasn’t going to work out with him. And if it didn’t work out with Daniel… he was perfect, at least on paper.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Klaus said without thinking. Amalia fixed him with a glare, so he continued. “It’s not that I’m jealous of him - I mean, okay, sure, I was jealous of him - but he wasn’t perfect. Not for you. You need someone who can keep up with you, intellectually, and… and I really don’t think looks matter as much to you as you let on. I mean, you can’t stand Werner.”

Amalia swirled her tea around in her mug before responding. “You, and Daniel, and Werner are the only men who ever treat me like I’m a person, though. What if I can’t find someone else?”

“Then you’ll have me.” Fuck, why did he say that.

Amalia met his gaze again, and he couldn’t quite read her expression, which was never not terrifying after so many years.

“If you want me,” he said. “If you’re… really concerned about being alone. And if you don’t want me, then I’m more than happy to be your best friend, and nothing more than that. But…”

“Klaus, I don’t want you to be my backup plan,” she said. “You’re a person, too, and you’re my best friend in the whole world, and you don’t deserve that.”

“Ama…”

“I’m serious!” she said. “I love you so much it’s crazy and I would hate to be in a relationship with you without actually being in love with you. It wouldn’t feel right. It’d feel like… like I’d be taking advantage of you, and your feelings for me. And we’d both be miserable! Because you’d want me to be in love with you, and I’d feel horrible for not being in love with you!”

Klaus sighed. “Look, I know… I know we’ve dropped this topic, but… do you really think it’s so impossible for you to fall in love with me?” After all, it certainly felt like they were in a relationship as it was. He didn’t think she was in love with him, of course, not yet, but he was sure that she could fall for him, someday.

“So… what, you want me to use you as a backup plan, and then you think it wouldn’t be terrible because if I just tried to fall in love with you, it’d work, and we’d live happily ever after?”

“Well… when you put it like that, it sounds stupid.”

She fixed him with the look he hated most in the world from her. That strange cross of pity and love that she felt for his feelings for her. She was convinced, after all, that his feelings for her would always be unrequited. Klaus, on the other hand… he was convinced that they wouldn’t be, if she’d just give him a chance. But then, he understood why she didn’t. Really.

“Klaus…” she said slowly, in that tone that he hated so much.

“It’s not as if what we’re doing is going to make me fall out of love with you,” he said.

She sighed. “I know.”

“I know it’s not going to happen,” he said. “But… as long as we keep sleeping together and spending as much time together as we do… there’s no chance that I’d fall out of love with you. And I know you know that, too.”

Amalia bit her lip. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”

“So I could do without the pity, all right? I mean… how’d you like it if I pitied you for not having fallen in love yet? You can’t help it, and pity doesn’t change anything - and you’re happy with the way things are, right? It’s the same thing.”

And it was, as far as he was concerned. And he didn’t pity her. He loved her, sure, but he didn’t pity her.

“Do you sometimes think,” Amalia said, “we should have never slept together in the first place?”

Klaus shook his head. “Lilli says it all the time, but I think she’s wrong. It was mutually beneficial - we both had our first time with someone we trusted completely - and our best friend, and mine was with my first love. It isn’t like… I wasn’t in love with you before. I was. I’d have still been in love with you for years, regardless. Might still be today, even, even if we’d never had sex.”

“You think?”

“If we were still friends, sure. You’re brilliant and witty and headstrong and ambitious, and you take charge, and I mean, of course you’re gorgeous, too. You’re you.”

Amalia rested her head on his shoulder, although she seemed a bit hesitant about it. He wrapped his free arm around her.

“Do you think we never should have…?” he ventured.

He felt her shake her head. “No. I think we made the right choice. Probably should have continued to use condoms every time, but… I’m glad my first time was with you.” She took a sip of her tea. “Although… I could have done without having sex under a Star Wars duvet cover.”

“Hey, the sheets were Star Wars, too,” he said, pulling her closer. “How dare you forget that?”

Amalia laughed. “I think I blocked it out of my memory,” she said.

Klaus gasped in mock offense. “Amalia!”

She sighed and cuddled up closer to him. “You really do deserve someone who’s madly in love with you,” she said. “And I just think… I mean, even assuming it wouldn’t ruin our friendship… I don’t think that’s me.”

“I know,” he said. He also knew that if she’d just give him a chance, she’d see that they were perfect for each other, and she’d fall madly in love with him herself. But she would never.

She was the most brilliant person he knew, and she couldn’t see that they’d be perfect together, and he knew that she never would. And it never stopped hurting.

But on days like today, with her curled up close to him, laughing and joking, it was a little easier to bear.

[dunmerofskyrim]

4

Bodram is also where this story begins, and where it ends, and begins again. Make of that what you will —  you’ll make better sense of my riddling as you read, I’m sure. But before I go on, and start to push the puzzle-pieces together, there are customs to be tended. And at the very least I owe them lip-service.

It’s customary, in some books, for the one speaking to introduce themselves. Or else to introduce their story. The author lays out their sources. The prime actor is put forward. The essayist empties out their gatherbag of parts and pieces, looks to the reader, and points to a theme that unites them.

For my part, I’m a little of all the above. Author, character, record-keeper. Opiner of opinions. My own unauthorised biographer. And perhaps for how I’m tugged and shared between these things, I come out as nothing at all. No one thing in whole and total, but many when taken for the sum of my parts. A whole and actual person, with a life leading breadcrumb-trail back to my birth — a future, I hope, leading forth.

That’s a lengthy way to say something keen and steely-simple. That I’m a common enough person much like you. Except in the ways that there is no-one like me, or ever was, or will be.

My name is Simra Hishkari.

My father was Zainab, of the Mabudani clan. My mother too was Zainab, though of what clan I’ve never been told. I use ‘was’ not because they have since joined their ancestors. Both my parents are yet alive but have since stopped being Velothi. A little they lost by choice; a little in time was taken. Like so many others in the wake of the Red Year, fate flocked them westward, and they settled in Windhelm’s Grey Quarter. There stone and snow leeched their homeland from them, until they sold what made them ashlanders to buy what shreds of tolerance the Nords would stoop to sell them. In the Quarter they birthed my sister and I, and raised us as Dunmer of Skyrim.

They named my sister Soraya. ‘The Triumph That Comes After Long Trial.’ She was their victory, prised from the Grey Quarter’s greedy jaws. Victory after a long and trying labour. After sorrow, starvation, a stillbirth, and all in a strange city, and all in a strange cold land. They gave her a name that meant endurance and overcoming, adversity be damned.

My name is only sounds. No meaning in my mothertongue, or in any of its cousins I know of. But the curse-blessing of inheriting an emptiness is to choose the way you fill it. I’ve gone by other names. I’ve had my reasons. They broke my history into pieces and scattered them like seed-grain in fallow places, forgotten. This book will bring them together. I aim to see how much, in time, my true name can contain.

So — I am a patchwork of pieces. A person. More fragmented than even the worst kind of fiction, but still kept whole by the truth. For everything this book contains is fact, excepting the parts that aren’t. Rumour and legend and things I can’t know will all in all have their own say. But know in the main that I am a liar, writing this book to tell out the truth.

There. You have your pieces, and a picture of who I am. Keep it like a bookmark as you go from page to page. Cling to it as I change from this first custom and onto another: choosing for my beginning another matter’s middle.

In Winter we forded the river.

Guar for the saddle and pack both paddling, heavy-buoyant heads above the water. The riders on their shoulders stood up high in their stirrups. Plainsfolk past their flesh and through to bone, there are few swimmers amongst the Vereansu, but plenty among their herds. With the breath from their lungs they filled bladders and bags of leather, puffing them up like bull-netch to float over what couldn’t be carried.

The pilgrims and settlers fared worse. Their way had been roads and trails in the main, cart-wheels trundling on in the ruts of those that went before.

The layfolk fought on the backmost bank in view of their carts, arguing what they ought to take and what they could never leave behind.

One family wolfed what supplies they couldn’t bring. Tried for a layer of fat at least, rather than lose their goods wholesale. Clever as they hurried down bowls of saltrice porridge, and yams kept dry in casks of salted sandclay, and hunks from their haunches of salt-cured meat. Foolish as one among them cramped in the swimming and lost out to the current, sweeping downriver to their parents’ cries.

All among them left more than they’d have wished, but some lost more than others.

Waste, I thought, staring back at their wagons from the far bank. Full, well stocked and wasted now. I shivered, mood-foul. Called flickers of fuel-starved fire to keep awake and warm against the chill.

I’d hitched all my bags and jacket to my swordbelt, bound and tied and buckled secure. Gripped the scabbard at its tip as I waded and struggle-splashed across. Raising my bags like a standard, I held my world above the waters. The bank’s black mud was soft underfoot. Lead-heavy, spent with cold, so much of me longed to bed down there. Lie down, sleep, before my body remembered the cold. But waking up would be hard. Instead I paced, cursing, stamping my feet, swinging my arms. Strode my baggage up the bank and onto dry ground, then walked circles in the long and grey-green grass. Agony as my blood unfroze. A gushing headrushing heat as I refused the cold and the wet.

And calling splashes and snarls of flame, scorching steam from my sodden clothes, I looked back on the bank we’d left. I looked back the way towards Bodram, and looked back at the things lost for leaving, and thought: Waste.

A fording’s a chancy thing any time it’s undertaken, but in Evening Star it’s as good as dicing with illness and death when every player at the table has loaded bones but you. Damplung, Chills, Deadbone, Gravedigger’s Song — perhaps they hide in water, or crowd in to crawl on cold skin, but they stalk river fords in Winter, and flock down to feast like crows. We would be no different. Were no different. Four we lost to illness in the week that followed. I wonder if we crossed what waters came after for any cause but spite.

Spite can only take so much credit for spurring me on through the days yet to come. Most among us were driven by fear. Of what we’d left behind us, or of what would become of them if they were left behind. And in my way I was little different. But for Tammunei and the ones they’d shaped to fanatics, they sailed on in a strange and kenless calm.

They followed Tammunei’s example in taking it on. Faces masked flat in faceless cold. Speech saved til work emerged that only words could do — or saved and saved and never spent at all. Carrying next to nothing. Eating and sleeping in a short repeating ritual of absent joyless need. But Tammunei had worn it long before them. The wisewoman Tammunei who’d saved us at Bodram — it hung in their red hair like perfume, subtle sometimes, but always there.

With Tammunei, I thought at first it was necessity. Inevitability. Duty. It made them focused and fearless. And seeing that, it was fear that made me follow. Fearing for Tammunei, who seemed of a sudden not to fear death. I feared for them. Someone had to.

When our caravan was trapped and shattered in Bodram. When Vereansu arrows tore our guards and charges to tatters as they came, springing the trap they’d set in Bodram. When we fled through Bodram, Tammunei and I, and then they stopped me running, and said we would run no longer.

“Safe,” I said.

And they shook their head. “No. We’re not. I can hear, can’t you? We’re dying. Still dying.”

“No. Not us, only them. Not you and not me — not if we wait. Not if we run.”

“To wait like waiting for a storm to be over, then running in the calm from the wreckage? No. Could you live with yourself, knowing? After that?”

I’d lived with as much and could live with worse. I knew it. Screams and butchery above our heads as we hid beneath the streets, in the city’s stormtunnels. And I could still leave it behind. Living with guilt is still living, and sometimes surviving is all you can do. But we’d both bound each other up – teeth sink and grip tight – and neither would let go. I wouldn’t let Tammunei die, so instead I let them save us all.

I know now Tammunei was scared as I was. I know now that death was exactly what they feared. But where I feared dying, and the hungry nothing that waited for me after, Tammunei feared the dead. The sobbing restless ghosts that died that day, and would hound after Tammunei, mad to be heard, forever if we ran. The rat-king knot and mess of rage and pain that Bodram would continue to be if we ran. The chain of ancestors that, slow, would crush their soul for shame. Fear.

There was duty, yes, but duty’s only words and meaning well where failure has no fear in it — no rod, no whip, no scourge. Duty is only another kind of fear, or else it’s nothing at all. But when what followed spat on that duty to the dead for the sake of the living, who’s to say what Tammunei did was not just pure compassion? Bravery? And all done in spite of duty.

Bravery, then. Kindness, then. Sacrilege, sin, and all-but-all-spending effort, for the sake of others.  You’ll hear no counterclaim from me. Martyrdom might be the right word, in all ways save that Tammunei survived. But only in pieces. The spell they wove was more than ever I’d seen anyone cast, and more than I ever have since. And it burnt them down, leaf and branch and stem, down to the root.

No speech, no hearing, no feeling. A sleepwalker with memories in tatters. The others – the saved – looked on it like some glowing glamour. All the grave strange worldlessness you’d expect from a storybook prophet. Some resolute new Veloth, come to guide them again to Vvardenfell. They followed that. Whereas once again, I followed for fear. Tammunei had broken themself. I carried on after, picking up what fragments fell, and hoping in time they’d be fixed.

So when Tammunei forded that first river of our journey, they did it without feeling the cold. A strong swimmer, sleek as an otter.

But it was me had to warm them, rubbing life back into their waxen limbs, and setting fires to sweat out the sickness that would otherwise creep in.

And it was me had to feed them as they forgot to eat.

And it was me had to speak for them, as their tongue lay still and stolen.

“We stop here!” I called out above the wailing valley wind. “Now! No going on til we can all go on. Rest up, get dry, get warm, or I swear the cold will claim you.”

What I meant was to wait for Tammunei, who had no way of knowing their body could not go on. As in Bodram, so beyond it — I would’ve left the others and lived on feeling nothing, but could not leave Tammu behind. Not yet. 

[marypsue]

Any Misery You Choose 5 / 6

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Epilogue

on AO3

...

This road trip would be better with toffee peanuts, Stan decides. 

It would also be better if he had literally anyone for company other than Robbie.

Thankfully, they hadn't talked much at first, but Robbie had insisted on flipping through the radio stations until he'd found one playing the whiniest, shittiest rock music Stan's ever heard. He's pretty sure that if he has to hear the words 'broken' and 'soul' used together one more time, he's gonna rip the radio right out of the dash.

Stan's just considering whether to suggest turning off at the little town they just passed a big road sign for, grab some snacks and take a piss before they keep going, when the song Robbie'd been yelling and banging the dash along to ends and the DJ comes on instead with the news.

"Ugh, booooring," Robbie groans, and moves to spin the dial, but Stan slaps his hand away. "Hey, what gives?"

"Shut up," Stan says, listening to the DJ's voice. It's hard to hear over the obnoxious background music, but Stan can make out just enough of the words to follow along.

“- following a raid...Xavier’s School for...Direc-...-pher of the FBI stated that...evidence, but still no sign of Pacifica Northwest...”

“Dammit,” Stan mutters. Beside him, Robbie’s thankfully shut his mouth and stopped rolling his eyes, instead leaning closer to the radio like it’s some kind of magnet for skinny jerks with badly-dyed black hair. “Why don’t they give these guys microphones that actually work?”

He fixes Robbie with a glare when Robbie reaches for the dial, and Robbie scowls. “I’m gonna tune it to a news station, jeez.”

“Oh. Right.” Stan considers. “Good idea.”

He stomps down on the gas, anyway.

The radio buzzes and crackles through a few stations before Robbie finally settles on one. The announcer’s saying something about a bridge collapse, but the longer she talks the more Stan’s sure it’s nowhere near them, nothing they need to worry about. 

“Come on, give us the scoop on Northwest’s brat,” Stan mutters. A tanker truck tears past them, its horn blaring as it blows by the Valentinos’ station wagon. The news announcer switches to some story about politics in the Philippines. Stan thumps a hand on the steering wheel, and curses when a cheery jingle tootles out instead of the horn. 

“Hey, careful with that!” Robbie glares at Stan’s hand, still resting on the horn. “My dad’ll kill me if you bust anything in this van.”

The announcer’s still talking about the Philippines. Stan can only sit listening to it for so long.

“Okay, what’s he gonna do?” he blurts, at last. “Frown at you? Tell you how disappointed he is? Dock your allowance?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re hilarious,” Robbie mutters, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching down in the passenger seat, turning to glare out the window instead of at Stan. 

“Look, I’m serious. What’s the giant fuckin’ deal? Your parents are - honestly, they’re so good I’m not sure they’re real.” 

Robbie half-shrugs one shoulder. He doesn’t turn back to look at Stan. “You wouldn’t say that if you had to live with them.”

“What, do they knock you around when nobody else’s watching? Tell you what a piece of shit you are every night before bed? Make you eat your own turds?”

“What? No!” That finally gets Robbie looking back at Stan, if only to fix him with a stare of disbelief. “No, they’re not total assholes. It’s just -” He huffs out a breath, slouching even more, until his chin vanishes into the folds of his hoodie. “Nevermind. You wouldn’t understand.”

Stan bangs his hand on the steering wheel again, taking care this time to avoid the horn. “Then explain it to me, okay? Make me understand why having a roof over your head and two people who love the shit outta you cramming cookies down your throat is such an awful fuckin’ thing.”

Robbie is silent for a little while longer after that, and Stan wonders if he’s thinking about the night he and Wendy found Stan in that alleyway, if he remembers what the inside of the Stanleymobile had looked like, if he remembers how Stan had gone after the pizza like a starving man. Stan kind of really, really hopes so.

“You heard what my mom calls me,” Robbie says, at last, into his chest so that the words come out muffled and Stan’s not even sure he’s heard anything at first. “It’s always like that. Always. I tell her every single time that it’s Nighthawk and every single time -”

“Oh boo fuckin’ hoo. Your mom can’t remember your stupid nickname, big deal. Shit, my dad didn’t remember our names half the time, that’s why he named us both -” Too late, Stan realises what’s coming out of his mouth and shuts it tight. Robbie’s giving him this awful, weird look, and Stan shrugs, like he can just shrug it off. 

“It’s not a nickname,” Robbie says, quietly, and Stan breathes a silent sigh of relief that he doesn’t seem to have noticed Stan’s slip-up. “And it’s not stupid. It’s a mutant name and it’s a symbol of everything that I am, everything that makes me - different. And it’s not like they just forget it. I literally remind them every single time -” He bites back the rest of his sentence, giving another shrug and a toss of his head that sweeps his bangs into his eyes, forcing him to huff and puff until he blows them away again. “Oh, sure, they act like they don’t care and they just love and accept me no matter what but - they wouldn’t send me to the school. They change the subject every time I try to talk about it. They won’t use my real name. They think the whole thing’s just a big phase and -”

He stops, abruptly, and turns with a jerk to look out the window. 

When Robbie doesn’t seem to have anything more to say, Stan turns his attention back to the news report. They’re talking about an economic downturn in Cairo. If anything about the Northwest kid had hit the news, it must’ve been at the top of the hour. Stan turns the radio off.

The station wagon hums and rattles along in silence for a few minutes before Robbie says something, small but clear in the quiet. It takes Stan a moment to process, to be sure that his ears have really picked up what his brain thinks they have.

“I’m scared what they’re gonna do when they realise it’s not.”

Stan doesn’t say anything in response. Robbie doesn’t turn to look at him, so he doesn’t see Stan nod, slowly.

“What a fuckin’ world,” Stan says, finally, unable to think of anything else to say. 

R- Nighthawk nods agreement, once, spins around and reaches over to turn the radio back on.

...

The tunnel emerges in the airplane hangar under the basketball court. Grenda, Candy, and Pacifica all look around in obvious amazement, Candy sidling over to the nearest control panel on the wall nearest the door and giving it a cautious poke before throwing herself into a flurry of curious investigation. Grenda just looks around, hands on her hips, with an expression of impressed satisfaction. “I knew there was something fishy going on!” she booms, and Pacifica and Candy both shush her. She lowers her voice some, but it still causes echoes to rattle around the vast expanse of the empty hangar. “Nobody’s got basketball nets that can fold down flat.”

“Great,” Pacifica mutters. “Good going, Nancy Drew. How do we get out of here?”

Ford’s really only been down here once, with Fidds, and the only way back out he knows of is up through the school. Obviously that’s not going to work. They have to find another way out.

He scans the huge, empty hangar. The jet is gone, with the Professor and the X-Men to Washington or wherever they’ve really gone, and without it to dominate the space, the hangar seems impossibly vast.

It doesn’t take long to spot the door against the far wall. Ford notices it at the same time as Candy does, judging by the way they both move towards it. Pacifica, though, takes a step backwards, and it takes Ford a moment to realise they've left her behind.

"Wait. What about Mabel?" She crosses her arms over her chest. “We can’t just leave her up there alone.”

“Mabel can become invisible,” Candy points out. “And Dipper cannot be outrun.”

“Yeah.” Grenda’s face is worried, but her words are reassuring. “If they really needed your help, Mabel wouldn’t’ve sent you away, right?”

Pacifica bites her lower lip, glancing back over her shoulder at the closed door behind them. 

“I really don’t think we should leave,” she says, rubbing her upper arms. 

“Too bad, it’s three to one,” Grenda booms, and then, as something slams against the door, grabs Pacifica around the waist despite her yelps of protest, slinging her over one shoulder. “You’ve just been outvoted!”

The four of them - well, three, with Pacifica in tow - run across the hangar, Ford bringing up the rear and keeping an eye on the door behind them as it shudders and shakes. Candy is the one who cautiously opens the door that Ford hopes leads out onto the grounds, peers around it and gives the all-clear. 

Ford isn’t sure about the others, but he knows that he at least is holding his breath as they emerge into the cool early-morning air. The staircase they found lets out behind what he’d believed was a storage shed, on the edge of the woods encircling the school. Behind them, around the school, Ford can see the helicopters, the black figures swarming the grounds, the - the convoy of military-looking trucks pulled into the drive -

“You. Freeze.”

Ford, stupidly, turns around. 

“I said freeze!” the figure in heavy black tactical gear barks, jerking the muzzle of his gun in Ford’s direction. Ford slowly raises both hands, palms out, looks to make sure that the girls are all right. 

He’s not sure what happens, it’s all too fast, but when Ford looks back up, the figure in tactical gear is on the ground, his own gunbelt wrapped around his wrists, tying them behind his back. Dipper’s standing over him, with the man’s gun in his hands and one foot on the soldier’s back. 

“Don’t try to move,” he says, shortly, as the soldier groans and shifts. “No matter how fast you think you are, I promise I’m faster.”

“Dipper,” Ford says, and finds himself unable to manage any more words. His knees threaten to give out underneath him, and he asks, quickly, “Where’s Mabel?”

Dipper’s face falls. “She’s not with you?”

“She went looking for you - you mean to say that she didn’t find you?”

Both Dipper and Ford turn to look back towards the school and the black-clad figures carrying - carrying limp figures down the stairs and into the trucks lined up around the drive.

“What...?” Ford asks, out loud, but even as he does, he catches a glimpse of Carla’s pink pyjamas and the pieces fall into place. “No.”

“What’s going on?” Grenda asks, in what probably passes for a whisper for Grenda, and Candy shushes her before repeating the question in an actual whisper.

Dipper turns to the one person who hasn’t spoken, a glare crossing his face. “Why don’t you tell them, Pacifica?”

The other three turn. Pacifica takes a step back - another step back, judging by how far she’s already backed away. Her expression shifts from frightened to defiant at Dipper’s words, and she tosses her hair, crossing her arms. “I - I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You lied to us!”

Pacifica takes another shrinking step back. 

“I - I didn’t want to!” she blurts. “They made me! If I didn’t -”

“What, they’d lock you up and treat you like an animal? Well, congratulations, you dodged that bullet by selling all our friends out so they can do it to them instead!”

Pacifica’s gaze darts from one face to another, finds no sympathy. 

“I didn’t know!” she protests, her hands curling into fists. “I had no idea they were going to do this. All they told me was that they needed a reason to shut the school down. If I vanished and then turned up here -”

“So you admit it. You were going to let all of us take the fall, just to save your own skin,” Dipper says. He’s practically glowing with anger, and Ford can hardly blame him. “I wish I could say that I can’t believe it.”

“Wait, you set us up?” Grenda says, and Candy shakes her head, narrowing her eyes. Ford’s pretty sure the warning rattle he can hear is coming from her, somehow, but he’s not certain this is the time to ask - or investigate - how she’s making it.

“I was right about you all along,” Dipper says, his hands curling into fists. “You’re exactly like your parents.”

Pacifica looks down at her feet, wringing her hands.

“All right. This is not helping us. We need a plan,” Candy says, glaring at Pacifica when she ventures to take a step to rejoin the group. “How do we undo what the Northwests have done?”

"Punching everybody is a plan!" Grenda thunders, slamming a fist into the palm of her opposite hand. Pacifica flinches at the sound.

“Whatever it is, it’d better be fast,” Dipper says, watching as the last of the black-clad figures piling into the final truck, the first truck slowly starting to move.

"Helloo, punching everybody! Fast, efficient, gets the job done!"

"I have been working on a robot..." Candy muses.

Ford clears his throat, and all eyes turn towards him. He thinks, briefly, of Stanley, who had always taken the lead in their more reckless adventures and who would just die laughing if he knew what Ford's planning Fiddleford, and how much he wishes his friend were here to bounce ideas off of, to tell Ford whether what he's thinking of is wise or even possible - but then again, Ford's only ever discovered the limits of possibility by testing them.

"I have a plan," he says.

...

"So why Nighthawk, anyway?"

The kid Stan is really, honestly trying to start thinking of as Nighthawk crosses and uncrosses his feet where they're propped against the dashboard, stares out the windshield. "Well, it's kind of in reference to how I can fly, and kind of in reference to, like, darkness -"

"Yeah, yeah, kinda figured that part out on my own," Stan grumbles. "I mean why give yourself a different name in the first place?" He thinks he deserves a medal for not adding 'and why pick such a stupid-sounding one'.

"Wh- come on, you can't actually not know about mutant names," R- Nighthawk sneers, and Stan reconsiders holding back on letting him know how dumb it sounds. "What, did you think, like, Magneto's parents named him that?"

"I can and will leave you on the side of the road."

"No you won't, you need a navigator." Nighthawk leans back in the passenger seat, tucking both hands behind his head. "It's all about, like, self-determination. Like who your shitty parents thought you'd be isn't who you are, y'know? Only for us, it's more than, like, growing up to be an artist when they wanted you to go to law school."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Stan mutters, twisting his hands on the steering wheel.

"Nobody except mutants expects their kid to turn out to be a mutant, right? So your parents give you a name based on their shitty expectations of what you'll be like, saddle you with all their baggage, stick you with this idea of this nice, normal human kid they expect you to be but you can't ever be - and like, who wants to identify themselves with that for the rest of their life? So it's just about, like, claiming your own life for yourself. Like, fuck you, mom and dad! This isn’t the dead guy you named me after, this isn’t the nice normal kid you wanted - this is me." The look of self-satisfied pride fades off of Nighthawk's face, and he says, "Hey, we're gonna fill this up with gas before we head back, right? My dad'll be so pissed if we bring it back with an empty tank."

"Sure," Stan says, unable to keep a small smile off his face.

He's pretty sure 90% of what Nighthawk's just said is a load of bullshit, or at least not what the original idea behind 'mutant names' or whatever was, but it's still something to mull over as he drives, instead of how worried he is about Ford and the fact that he hadn't been able to hear that full news story how much he hates the radio stations Nighthawk chooses. It'd be...kind of nice not to have to drag his dad's name around with him anymore. Hell, it'd be nice not to have to be reminded every time he hears his own damn name that he wasn't even supposed to be born...

"Whoa whoa whoa wait, we got news,” Nighthawk says, kicking his feet down from the dashboard and leaning over to turn up the radio. The announcer’s voice on this channel is thankfully much clearer and sharper than the first station they’d tried, uninterrupted by static. 

“Breaking news at the top of this hour: missing heiress Pacifica Northwest has been found.”

Stan glances over, meets Nighthawk’s eyes.

“Thanks to the tireless diligence and cooperation of the FBI and local law enforcement, the missing girl, who is the only daughter of prominent senator Preston Northwest and former Miss Roadkill County, Priscilla Northwest, has been located after a day and a half of searching. Miss Northwest was first reported missing yesterday evening, the victim of a suspected kidnapping by mutant extremists opposed to Senator Northwest’s proposed Mutant Control Act. Several suspects have been taken into custody, and Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is currently under lockdown pending further investigation.”

“Wait, what?” Stan says, but the newsanchor carries on into the next story, the bridge collapse he’s already heard about. “No, hang on, who are these ‘suspects’? Why would the school -”

“Northwest,” Nighthawk spits. “Give me half an hour alone with that guy and I promise I’d pound him into a pulp.”

“How? You just got your ass handed to you this morning because you didn’t realise punching somebody on solid bone would hurt your scrawny noodle hands,” Stan says. 

Nighthawk scowls.

“This is some kind of trick of his,” he says. “I’m telling you, this has ‘Northwest’ written all over it. Betcha five bucks he let his kid get kidnapped just to make us look bad. No, wait - had her kidnapped himself.”

“You sound way too excited about that,” Stan says, and Nighthawk shrugs.

“Don’t trust the media, man. It’s all lies and propoganda.”

“What, and your magical unbiased source is...?”

This seems to be the thing that finally stumps Nighthawk. He turns and slouches against the door, staring out the window. 

Stan turns his attention back to the road, and it isn’t long before he slips back into the near-trance that driving long distances can put a guy into. Vague suggestions of scenarios unspool themselves across the back of his mind, different ways he might see Ford again for the first time in nearly a year, different things he might say, different ways Ford might react. Not all of them are good, and the thought sends a little chill down Stan’s spine. 

He tunes back in at the sight of something odd, just in time to see a second huge, military-looking, gunmetal-grey truck tear past in the opposite direction of their station wagon at a ridiculous speed. 

"This isn't anywhere near a base or anything, right?" Stan asks, as a third truck sails past.

"No, and it's not on any major routes for military transport. Is it just me, or was that -" Nighthawk stops mid-sentence, gripping his seat with both hands as Stan checks the rearview mirror for anyone coming up behind them, then stomps on the brake and spins the wheel as hard as he can. "Holy shit - don't wreck my parents' car!"

Stan doesn't listen, just flooring the gas and spinning the station wagon around in a U-turn to follow after the little convoy. 

It's not just Nighthawk. Stan's also sure he caught a glimpse, through the window of the cab of the second truck, of Pacifica Northwest.

...

Ford is still half in disbelief that his plan has actually worked so far. Even with Pacifica...smoothing things over, he'd thought for sure something would give them away, his nervousness or how loosely the bulletproof vest fits him or his total lack of knowledge of military jargon. But here he is, sitting in the cab of one of the trucks, masquerading as the soldier who'd accosted them on the grounds, with Pacifica sandwiched between him and the driver. Somewhere in the box of the truck behind them, Grenda, Candy, and Dipper are lying low, pretending to be just as tranquilized as the other students, waiting for the sign to start causing havoc. 

Pacifica elbows Ford in the side, and he glances down to see her glaring up at her. Right. She’d given him a scolding once already about getting too nervous and letting it bleed over to her. Ford takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself down. It’s working fine so far. There’s no reason to believe that the rest of the plan won’t go just as well. 

Ford leans forward, holding his gloved hands over the hot-air vents on the dash like he’s trying to warm them up. His sixth fingers are starting to cramp, pinched into one finger of his gloves along with his fifth fingers, but he doesn’t dare take the gloves off and risk the driver seeing his hands.

He concentrates.

It isn't easy, trying to reverse the 'push' that Ford now realises he'd given his perpetual motion machine, to pull energy back from the moving engine and let it disperse into the air. It takes a few minutes to take hold, minutes Ford spends sweating through his borrowed uniform. He's certain every second that he's about to be caught, that it's all going to be over. He doesn't even have any real proof of his theory that one's powers can be...repurposed, trained to work in ways that don't come instinctually, and even if he had, he's never tried it himself. He's working entirely on guesswork and hope. This was impossibly foolish, and there's no way it's going to -

Ford catches himself, reminds himself again of all the people relying on him to keep his head. He can do this. He can do anything. He just needs to control his fear.

The engine sputters, coughs, and, as the driver exclaims in surprise and wrenches at the wheel, chugs to a halt. A plume of black smoke starts to eke out from under the hood, and in seconds, it's pouring out, thick and foul-smelling and ugly. The back of the first truck, growing farther and farther ahead as the truck starts its long, slow drift to a stop, is nearly completely obscured.

"What the -" the driver mutters, cutting himself off with a curse as he hammers the heel of his hand against the array of buttons on the dash beside him. 

"Engine trouble?" Ford asks, with a glance in the rearview mirror. Behind him, he can see the third truck starting to slow as well. The radio crackles with hails from the other two-thirds of the transport convoy. Ford ignores them.

"Damn thing's gone right out," the driver growls, as he reluctantly spins the wheel to take the truck over into the shoulder. "Better not be one of those muties messing around, the lot of 'em were supposed to be sedated -"

He stops, with his foot on the brake and his hand on the four-way flashers, as Ford pushes up his visor and tugs off his helmet. "Hey, you're not -"

"You missed one," Ford says, calm and flat as a snow-covered field.

The driver's look of shock is frozen at the exact moment it starts to turn to rage.

Ford shucks his gloves, wincing slightly as blood rushes back into his cramped fingers. He gives them an experimental wiggle, making sure that all twelve are still functional.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Pacifica says, after a moment's silence. "Not at all traumatised by having just seen a man die right beside me."

Ford spares the driver the briefest of glances. "He'll most likely be fine. In fact, if properly thawed, this may actually add a few minutes to his lifespan, considering the experiments that have been done with cryogenics -"

"Whatever," Pacifica says, as the third truck pulls to a slow halt behind them.

The radio in the dash crackles to life again, another truck hailing them. "Come in, Delta Charlie Tango. Delta Charlie Tango, what is your status?"

Ford glances over at Pacifica, who gives an exaggerated shrug. "You just froze the only guy who knows how we're supposed to respond to that."

Ford looks up through the smoke still streaming from under the hood, to the first truck in the convoy, finally, finally starting to pull to a halt - too far ahead. But it can't be helped. He leans over, grabs the radio receiver, and answers, in his best authoritative voice, "This is Delta Charlie Tango. We're experiencing engine failure. Don't think it's because of the cargo, but you can't be too careful around these freaks." He considers adding 'over' to the end of his transmission, decides against it. It's just like playing spies with Stan a pair of walkie talkies when he was little. He just has to be careful not to overdo it.

The radio crackles back to life, and Ford lets go of a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "Roger that, Delta Charlie Tango. Backup is coming your way."

Ford smiles to himself, and then sees the look Pacifica's giving him.

"I hope you're not having second thoughts," he says, trying to make the words sound jocular and light. Pacifica quirks an eyebrow in his direction.

"No, I - Do you really think that's how we talk about you?"

Ford raises a hand, waggles his fingers. "I've been on the receiving end of it often enough, I believe I've captured the gist." He watches Pacifica's expression turn thoughtful, asks, "Did you think people didn't talk about us like that?"

Pacifica shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest. "Most people I know don't bother talking about you at all."

Ford glances back in the rearview mirror.

"I notice you're still putting yourself on the 'human' side of the equation," he observes, to no one in particular.

Pacifica doesn't respond.

Ford sighs, reaching over to push open the door. He pulls his stolen gloves back on before he jumps out of the truck, waiting by the door to help Pacifica down after him. The third truck is pulling up behind them, just shuddering to a halt. It’s time to go.

“Signal the others,” he says to Pacifica, who squeezes her eyes shut in apparent concentration. Ford walks around behind the truck, the unfamiliar heavy boots slowing his steps as he approaches the bolted doors holding the children in the back. He reaches up, to unlock or to break the bolt.

And that’s when everything goes wrong.

...

One minute, Stan’s pulling up alongside the convoy stopped on the side of the road, slowing down so he and Nighthawk can both look out and maybe see what’s going on with the convoy and the plume of rising smoke coming from under the hood of the middle truck. The next, he’s slamming on the brakes and killing the engine, ignoring Nighthawk’s protests as he flings the door open and nearly flies out of the station wagon. Nighthawk keeps yelling, but Stan can barely hear him over the pounding of his own pulse in his ears, can barely feel his own feet slapping against the scrabbly gravel of the shoulder.

Nothing feels real or solid until his palm lands on the shoulder of his brother’s Ford’s thick black body armour and spins him around, until the knuckles of Stan’s other hand connect sharply with Ford’s face.

The sting brings Stan abruptly back down to earth. It’s as though a bubble full of cotton that had been surrounding him, insulating him, has suddenly popped, and Stan’s abruptly aware of how loud and sharp the world around him is. There’s a stitch blazing up his side, his legs are burning, his knuckles are split, and the sharp, acrid smell of smoke fills his nose, makes him want to cough. The shouts from the men running towards him are piercing, falling on Stan’s ears as meaningless noise.

“You sunovabitch,” Stan snarls down at Ford, who’s lying on the side of the road, staring up at Stan like he’s just seen a ghost. “You - you -”

Ford’s voice is breathy, choked, as though Stan’s wrapped a hand around his throat and squeezed instead of cracking his knuckles against Ford’s cheekbone. “Stanley? How -”

Up until now, Stan’s been kind of on the fence about this whole Brotherhood thing. Sure, he knows what the jerks on TV have to say, he remembers Crampelter and how the kids at school treated Ford, he knows Wendy’s had to run away, he knows how his dad reacted - but his dad’s always wanted him gone, one excuse less or more wouldn’t have changed that. The jerks on TV are the same old jerks on TV, picking on anybody and everybody they can get a rise out of, just looking for attention, everybody knows you can’t believe a word they say. Kids were bullies - Stan himself had been on the receiving end just as often as Ford had, and for similarly nonexistent reasons. And people’d treated him like shit the whole time he was living in the Stanleymobile without even knowing what he was - without him even knowing what he was. You didn’t have to be a mutant for the world to kick you in the teeth, over and over and over again. And no matter what guys like Nighthawk had to say, Stan couldn’t buy that there was anything - anyone - who was so particularly out to get them that it was worse than what life just naturally dealt to anybody with the gall not to be rich and famous.

In the dark inside the back of the truck that’s just come speeding away from the school, the truck that Ford’s just thrown open, kids - kids - are piled on each other like parcels, little unconscious bundles of bright pastel pyjamas stacked up like little corpses.

Up until now, Stan hadn’t understood.

A little boy’s delicate, iridescent insect wing twitches, and Stan sees red.

Ford’s pushed himself up on his elbows when Stan rounds on him again, the look of stunned disbelief slowly ebbing into an all-too-familiar irritation. This time, though, Stan doesn’t give him a chance to say whatever he’s lining up on his tongue.

“What,” he asks, before Ford can open his mouth, taking in the sight of Ford’s stupid outfit, the stupid eagle insignia on his arm, the same as the one on the sides of all three trucks, “you got sick of taking it and decided it was time you got a chance to dish it out instead?”

Ford’s voice is exasperated, exhausted. “Would you let me explain? This isn’t what it looks like -”

“Oh, what,” Stan forces out, around the huge, hot thing that seems to have lodged itself in his chest. “This was an accident?”

He feels a little surge of vicious pride at the flinch Ford tries to hide, but it’s quickly swallowed up and swept away by the tide of fury.

“That’s different -” Ford starts, and Stan squeezes his fists tight.

“Yeah? You wanna explain to me how?”

“Stanley, you’re being ridiculous -”

“I’m being ridiculous?”

“You’re both ridiculous!” a high, unfamiliar voice shouts, and Stan is abruptly reminded that there’s a world beyond him and his brother this asshole he unfortunately shares his DNA with. Pacifica Northwest is glaring daggers at both Stan and Ford, her hands balled into tiny fists at her sides and her feet planted in a pretty passable boxing stance. “This is not the time or place for your...” She glances from Ford to Stan, studying his face for a long moment. “Your sibling squabbles!”

Ford shoots one more dirty look in Stan’s direction, before pushing himself to his feet and turning to face Pacifica, away from Stan. “Of course. There are far more important things to worry about right now than petty grudges that would have been resolved long ago if someone could only admit their wrongdoing and apologise -”

Stan hits him again.

It’s a dirty move, the kind that got him kicked out of boxing. His left fist collides with Ford’s ear, and Ford is stumbling back, trying to catch his balance. Before he can, Stan lashes out to punch him again - or, at least, he tries to, but Ford steps shortly back out of Stan’s reach and, when Stan starts to overbalance, grabs Stan by the wrist of his leading arm and they both tumble to the ground in a tangle of flailing limbs.

Stan's not sure exactly what happens next, or in what order. Dimly, he’s aware there are shouts, rattles and pops of gunfire, screams, from around him, but all Stan can really hear is the rush of his own blood in his ears. Ford stubbornly refuses to stay down as Stan wrestles with him, trying to keep him from getting up while trying to get to his own feet, narrowly missing taking Pacifica down with them. Ford tries to elbow Stan in the stomach, but it’s a shallow, glancing blow, since Ford’s pinned face-down with little room to gain leverage. It’s enough to wind Stan for a moment, though, enough for him to loosen his grip.

“And here - I was - worried - about you,” Stan coughs out, as Ford scrambles away, pushing himself up to his knees.

“I’m very sorry about this,” Ford says, shortly. “Nothing personal.”

Before Stan can ask what the hell that’s supposed to mean, cold sinks its teeth into him. He tries to get up, but finds himself stuck - his arms and legs glued to the ground, encased in ice.

There are helicopter blades whupping somewhere overhead, too low, too close. A voice, alarmingly deep, rises over the other shouts, growing and growing in volume until it drowns all other sounds, sets Stan's eardrums buzzing, lances pain through his head - until it's abruptly cut off. The ice is taking forever to melt, it keeps smothering the flames he manages to briefly summon up, and no matter how Stan strains against it, refuses to break.

He turns to glare at Ford and finds Ford staring, as still as though he's the one who's frozen in place, not Stan. "Take a picture, it'll last longer," Stan snarls, and Ford gives a little shudder, like he's just waking up. The look on his face is - indescribable. If Stan didn't know better he'd almost call it pity.

"Stanley," he breathes, "you...?"

"We're twins, poindexter," Stan sighs.

"You! On the ground! Now!"

Ford turns at the shout, and Stan gives an aborted yelp as the butt of the gun held by the soldier who'd shouted slams into the side of his brother's Ford's face. Ford crumples, his glasses skittering across the ground towards Stan, who doubles his efforts to break out of Ford's stupid ice prison.

The ice holding down Stan's right arm finally gives, with a crackle and a wrench that makes him feel like his shoulder's about to come out of its socket. It burns as he reaches over and slings fire at the squad of guys in black flak jackets and cargo pants coming running towards them with heavy artillery trained on them. It burns as he focuses the flame on his other arm, trying to melt his way free. It burns as he wrenches his other arm free as well, too late to stop the couple of commandos who scoop Ford's limp body up like a sack of cement. Too late to stop the one who takes careful aim at the centre of Stan's own forehead.

Too late.