#he'll bring one of his dogs with him to conferences

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

additional work doodles on stolen printer paper ft. Jiang Cheng meeting various dog breeds

cuz I feel like it would be a hoot watching this guy react to the ecclectic variety of pooches the world has to offer

[wxnheart]

𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐳𝐚, 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

part two (nsfw)

What are the odds that you're the object of affection for not one but two masked killing machines?

Well, that's what they would have you believe, that they're deadly. I mean they are and they... aren't. Simon is a giant armored teddy bear and König is a playful Golden Retriever. Your good boys. Your best boys. Your good, best, and chaotic boys.

Well, uh... Ghost will forever call bullshit and protest because he is NOT chaotic. Now that is bullshit because his chaotic nature is more subdued. You can admit that König brings out this part of him more than you do.

Though to be fair, you've gotten in your fair share of shenanigans with König. Ghost swears he rolls his eyes more often than not when it comes to you two.

They also tend to lowkey compete with each other and it's made you laugh more often than not.

You thought you were a worrywart but König and Ghost have you beat. By miles. And König has you both beat by lightyears.

He'll bring you up a lot when he and Ghost are gone. When the three of you are in different places, best believe a conference call will be had. You and König are talking the most and Ghost will interject every so often. And then König and Ghost will talk and sometimes they will... not!bicker like an old married couple.

Their voices (especially the rumble of Simon's) are so soothing to you. You fell asleep on the phone while talking to them once and they got so worried that they were THISCLOSE to sending someone to check on you.

Speaking of being away, König absolutely does not like the fact that you're alone when they're gone. Thinks it makes you susceptible to an attack. Simon disagrees and vouches for you ("Alone doesn't mean weak. You'll be fine.") but in pure König fashion, he surprises you and Simon with the cutest Doberman puppy ("To keep you company and protect you when we're gone, Schatz."). A Doberman puppy who, to date, has no name because you three can't agree to one. König calls her Königin (Queen), Ghost calls her Pup, and you call her Lola.

Speaking of pet names, you're either Schatz or Schatzi to König and Baby or Love to Simon. They're usually handsome or gorgeous to you. You're still working on giving them specific pet names but those two will suffice for now. It's cute watching König glow whenever you call him that.

The dog is more company than she is protection because all she lives for is table food, scritches, and 'stalking' Ghost and/or König. The latter absolutely loves to roughhouse with her, too. She made Ghost her personal couch/bed/thing. Yeah...

You also encourage your four-legged baby to smile, too, and when she first did it in front of Ghost he was almost scared shitless ("What the fu—?").

Ghost is also a little dismayed and turned on that König can pick him up and carry him like a sack of potatoes. Ghost.exe stopped working the first time it happened. When YOU witnessed it for the first time, you, uh... well... let's just say you were deliciously sore the next day. (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)

The same thing usually happens when you watch them spar and it gets a little heated (König gets that little glint of determination in his eyes and like fuck will Simon admit that it gets a little personal when he loses). Goddamn, just look at those physiques.

In the bed: You had to upsize because your lovers are fucking gigantic. König prefers to be rather confined when he sleeps so he's always in the middle. Ghost likes to sleep facing the door and you and the furbaby are... everywhere in the bed. She also gives no fucks and will plop down on the closet body.

Simon is also the resident pillow princess. Yeah, his pillows need to be extra fluffy and he keeps an abundance of them on the bed. So fucking what. You tease him about it endlessly but he couldn't give a shit. Funnily enough, König almost got supplexed once because he called Simon that in public.

Speaking of being in public, they're your protectors when you're out and about. Either they're walking in front of you if there are too many people or they're by your side. You do prefer for them to walk in front of you for... reasons. That involves the view. (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)

And by the way, they can get a little jealous. They will feel some type of way if your attention is on something or rather, someone else. You are theirs and they have no problem letting people know that.

Oh yeah and König, fuck you. Ghost calls bullshit. Your mask does not look better than his.

[riality-check]

tw for mentions of substance abuse (part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7)

ao3

Steve Harrington has been awake for fifty four hours. With luck, he'll be able to eke out another eighteen. Three days seems to be the sweet spot, even if he only makes it there half the time and, of that half, it only works half the time.

It's better than nothing.

Maybe four days is the sweet spot. Ninety six is close to one hundred, and that seems like a good omen.

Omens don't really matter though. What matters is staying awake.

So, Steve chugs his coffee and walks into the conference room. Coffee isn't enough, not nearly, but it'll do until he gets desperate enough to take something.

He really does try to only take them when he's desperate. It's easier that way, to just do it when he feels like he needs to rather than measuring dosages and remembering times. Hours start to blur around hour forty of being awake.

He walks in, sits down in the chair closest to the door, and is met with a withering glare from Eddie Munson.

Listen. Steve isn't happy about this either, but at least he doesn't look like he stepped in dog shit on the way here. Then again, Steve doesn't have the luxury of ever looking truly unhappy.

Eddie is a rock star. Mean is part of his brand, while mean is the antithesis to Steve's.

Whatever.

"Are you kidding me?" Eddie says, still staring at him, but Steve knows he's not who he's asking.

"He's the best person for the job," Chrissy, Eddie's manager, says.

"We don't need him."

Someone taps Steve's left shoulder. He turns to see Jeff, the lead singer of Corroded Coffin, give him a warm smile.

"Nice to meet you, Steve," he says, and Steve shakes his proffered hand.

"Happy to help," he says, and it's only half a lie.

The drummer and the bassist - Steve would probably be able to remember their names if he wasn't so exhausted - wave their hellos from a few seats away.

"Hi, Steve," Chrissy says.

He takes another swig of his coffee and gives her a little wave in response.

"We don't need a pop singer to write lyrics for us," Eddie says, still not letting this go.

"Yes, you do," Steve says. He sets his coffee cup down on the table and opens the folder he brought with him. "I read through the lyrics of every one of your songs."

"You didn't even listen to them?"

"Would have taken too much time."

That's a lie. Listening, even with the lengthy guitar solos, probably would have taken less time. But Steve needs something to fill the hours when he's supposed to be asleep, and reading, that slow process with its ample, awakening frustration, is the perfect thing.

"You became so much less interesting after your first album," he says. "Every one of your songs talks about the same thing. Conquering evil, killing demons, blah blah blah."

"That's what's in right now," Eddie snaps.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve catches the drummer and Chrissy make the same motion. They pinch the bridges of their noses, clearly frustrated.

Steve sees why Chrissy wanted to talk to him.

"It is," he concedes. "But I also read the lyrics of every song by the bands with top ten hits. They don't talk about it nearly as much. They sing about other stuff. And they don't use an F major chord in every one of their songs."

"We don't-"

"We kinda do, Eddie," the bassist pipes up. "I'm a little sick of playing F."

Eddie takes a breath. Steve takes the opportunity to take a pill.

He found a way to make it less obvious for people who have something to say about it. Steve will take one from his pocket, yawn, cover his mouth, and swallow it dry. Easy peasy. They don't notice, he doesn't have to deal with people who don't get it making comments.

Except when he does, this time, Eddie narrows his eyes. Like he knows what he's doing.

Steve doesn't like that look.

"Have you read my stuff?" He won't ask if Eddie has listened to any of it. He knows the answer is no, if he keeps bringing up genre like that really means anything.

Eddie doesn't respond. He keeps those narrowed eyes trained on Steve and stays silent.

"Didn't think so," he says, and he slides over the thick stack of papers Robin stapled together for him last night. "Here's everything. Read it. Tell me if you like it. I'm only helping you if you give a shit. This goes two ways, and I don't want to waste my time if you think I'm wasting yours."

Eddie doesn't take the stack, but the drummer, sitting next to him, tugs them closer. "Thanks."

"Let me know tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Jeff says, eyebrows raised.

Steve forgets that most people don't actually take advantage of their twenty four hours.

"End of the week," he says instead, and he relaxes when Jeff does.

The drummer starts flipping through the pages while the bassist looks over his shoulder.

"Need anything else from me?" Steve asks Chrissy.

"I don't think so," she says. "I'll call you back to set up a time for Saturday."

He's amazed by the fact that someone as sweet as her works with someone as pretentious as Eddie.

"Sounds good," he says, and he walks out, trying to ignore the feeling of Eddie's eyes on him as he goes through the door.

It only halfway works.

The pill should kick in soon, within a half hour, maybe shorter because of the coffee. Maybe he'll write something. Maybe he'll work on the piano melody he's been tinkering with for the past week. Maybe he'll read the latest book Robin picked up from the library, something interesting enough to be worth the frustration of the moving letters, something that will still fill the time.

He'll make it to seventy two hours. Then he'll crash because his body is a worthless piece of shit, and he hopes this is the half of the time when he doesn't have any goddamn nightmares.

Maybe he should pop another pill, just in case.

[ilyasorokinn]

misc. masterlist, part 2 (western conference)

this masterlist is basically just blurbs, and maybe some fics, that i'm not proud of (but don't want to delete) or players i no longer write for. just because they are on this list doesn't mean i don't write for them. this list will probably grow as time goes on, i don't know.

key: name = do write for currently name = no longer write for *= from a prompt list

arizona coyotes,

✷ 3+1 (travis dermott) - y/n tells travis some very exciting news.

colorado avalanche,

✷ cute babies (bowen byram) - y/n tells bowen they make cute babies and wants to have another one.

✷ post-roadie cuddles (ross colton) - ross comes home after a roadie and all he wants is to cuddle. *

✷ hair transformations (cale makar) - y/n and cale have a youtube channel together, and y/n surprises scale with a hair transformation.

chicago blackhawks,

✷ make it better (anthony beauvillier) - Anthony had caught word that y/n has a bad day, so being the good boyfriend he is, he takes care of her and helps turn her bad day into a semi-good one. *

dallas stars,

✷ bubs the pup (roope hintz) - y/n finds a dog and brings it home with her.

✷ beach braids (roope hintz) - y/n and roope braid each other's hair on the beach. *

✷ wired autocomplete interview (tyler seguin) - y/n and tyler do a wired autocomplete interview.

✷ couples account (tyler seguin) - y/n and tyler pull tiktok pranks on each other (and the dogs).

✷ slow swayin' in the kitchen (tyler seguin) - the only rosie can fall asleep is if someone is holding her and swaying. *

edmonton oilers,

✷ an old married couple (dylan halloway) - y/n and dylan are kind of like the old married couple of their friend group, so everyone always goes to them for advice. *

los angeles kings,

✷ cuddle (erik portillo) - movie nights are erik's favorite. why? cuddling.

✷ there for him (erik portillo) - y/n's there for erik after the loss.

✷ safe in these arms (alex turcotte) - alex had a pretty bad day, but knows the second you wrap your arms around him, he'll be okay. *

✷ proud of you (alex turcotte) - y/n and alex are talking about their future, and talking about how proud they are of each other. *

minnesota wild,

✷ hat trick (matt boldy) - y/n's with matt when he scores his first hat trick.

✷ matt boldy's imfamous cheese quesadillas (matt boldy) - y/n has a bad day, so matt makes her his world-famous dish. *

✷ sweet dreams (matt boldy) - matt wakes up after a bad dream. luckily y/n's there to help him fall back asleep.

✷ kirill night (kirill kaprizov) - after. aloss, y/n spends the night comforting kirill. *

nashville predators,

✷ new job - (juuse saros) y/n works with kids, so she gets sick at least once a year, but luckily juuse’s always there to take care of her. *

st. louis blues,

✷ time to go (colton parayko) - colton drags y/ out after a long day of work where they fall alseep, mid party. *

vancouver canucks,

✷ job opportunities (brock boeser) - y/n gets a call, while hanging out with family, that she got the job she wanted. *

✷ daddy's girl (conor garland) - stella garland is a daddy's girl, especially when she gets hurt.

vegas golden knights,

✷ red, taylor's version (brendan brisson) - y/n finds out brendan is (secretly) a swiftie.

✷ post college anxiety (brendaon brisson) - y/n's been getting lots of job opportunities for after school, and brendan's getting stressed.

misc. players,

✷ britney and the astronaut (ethan edwards) - y/n and ethan's halloween costume is iconic.

✷ proud of you (ethan edwards) - y/n is there for than after the loss.

✷ sore (mark estapa) - after a hard game, mark's sore everywhere, so y/n gives him a massage.

✷ looking a little low (mark estapa) - mark comes back from the bathroom to see a guy getting a little too close.

✷ root beer floats (jimmy lambert) - y/n has a tradition of whenever she watches harry potter, she makes root beer floats. jimmy knows this, and ditches the guys to join her.

[cleoselene]

had a meeting with my neurologist today, the 3 month long talk meeting we have, and lmao. he just got back from vacation in Italy and I was like, "did you have a nice trip?" and he was like "ehhhhhh! I was on a plane for 23 hours to look at some old church! I would have rather stayed home with my dog." and I was like looool. I feel this. Then he started saying how it was depressing to look at the old medieval church shit, saying "some guy 500 years ago spent his whole life making this one part of the church. and that was his WHOLE LIFE!" and I was all "well... I suppose it's better than toiling in the fields for your lord?"

I think he really enjoys my visits because we spend most of it having bullshit conversation. the nurses have told me that they enjoy younger patients like me because a lot of the older patients have bad dementia and can't really hold a conversation. after Italy bashing, we had a discussion about the Great Depression Midwestern Casseroles we were raised on in our childhoods. His mom was a cream of chicken soup lady, though, whereas my household was always on the cream of mushroom side. Horrible fucking food, lol. Just the worst.

anyway, another reason I love him is because he is EQUALLY as over the bullshit the state of Florida makes us go through to secure my 120 pain pills every month. He HATES that he can't put in refills anymore, lol, and today I asked him to refill it like I do every month, and CVS sent me a text later in the day saying I needed to contact them because the prescription was "on hold." And I'm like bzuh? and then I notice my doc submitted the script three times when I went online, and called and hahaha. He submitted three SEPARATE scripts for the next three months to get around the "no refills" thing and this is something that CVS is very 50/50 about handling lol. In the past they have let him do it but they have also been like "lol NO" when he's tried it before too. Tonight the pharmacist got utterly confused by it and did not understand what the doctor was doing and said that insurance tried to process it three times, which lol. All because he doesn't feel like having to send an electronic script every month. I FEEL U, DOC. THE HOOPS THEY PUT SICK PEOPLE THROUGH TO GET MEDS ARE SO FUCKED.

but like, bless him? he NEVER gives me shit about maintaining my script, never tells me maybe I should wean myself off, never whines about the state putting pressure on him. He just fills it and lets me have what I need. I hate hate hate Florida but I am seriously worried that when I move my next neurologist will not be as totally awesome as mine. It wasn't like I got lucky with him, either, I cycled through three other neurologists (none of whom were MS specialists and weren't even capable of properly diagnosing me let alone treating me) before I found my guy! And he's just about the sweetest person you could meet and brings his aforementioned dog he'd rather hang out with than visit the Vatican to work with him sometimes. The good news is he networks like crazy and probably will be able to refer me to someone great. His referrals are always awesome, too. He does a lot of travel and speaking at conferences because he's a clinical researcher so he knows people, and I'm hoping he'll know the right person to refer me to when the time comes to escape this hellscape state

[spynorth]

Random Headcanons pt 2

Indiana Jones and the last crusade was the last movie he saw before being caught in russia. He would absolutely watch it again if anyone ever asked him but sometimes he thinks of the theme song and gets a blend of feeling even he isn't quite sure he understands. There's dread and some small bits of a panic twinge because of the time it represents for him, but there's also a bit of grief and mourning for that man who laid in a hotel room with it playing in the background, only half watching.

at one point he's taught how to play uno by tariq and jo. they're sitting in the conference/meeting room/area/thing having a bit of silent companionship when tariq brings out a pack of the cards. It's a moment of reprieve in an otherwise stressful job and for a good half an hour the tension seems to seep out of everyone. Lucas is a bit cautious in the way he plays at the beginning but once a watching ros asks if he's afraid he's going to kill someone with cards, he sticks his neck out a bit more. Fairly soon he's relentless and his favorite thing to do is slam down a reverse or a pick up four. Some people kickbox to relieve stress, Lucas North falls to Uno. Pick up four, bitch.

in the clone verse with Guy, he picks up his tattoos both before guy's escape and during his journey with him and killian. as a clone, it's impossible to base his identity on any sort of belief or foundation that he understands. as such, his tattoos mark a journey of trying to figure out just who he is. while he's never sure that they help him understand, they do set him apart.. and when he finds himself in his clone's company, he is incredibly thankful for the marked difference.

At the age of seven John started a rock collection (more pebbles really). It's not that he had a certain fondness for them, or even had a certain type that he looked for ... their neighbor/family friend had gone on holiday and brought back little trinkets for him and his parents. His was a small rock. The tone of surprise and the emotion that flavored the adults' voices, that oh look at that john! isn't that neat? made him think something of value was there, and he started collecting ones he came across that seemed different from the rest. He quickly grew bored and didn't give two fucks about the collection as a whole, but even years down the road as Lucas North, he still finds himself pocketing the odd rock. It gets tossed aside later, but for a brief few hours he gets to walk around with the press of something that almost feels like the life he can never go back to.

He had a childhood dog that was black and white and resembled a sausage. Her name was Penny. She had been a gift to John's mother Christine from his father, Paul, for one of their wedding anniversaries. She was two years old when John was born and passed away when he was 11. It was his first experience with losing someone he loved.

While he wears a lot of dark colors such as blues and greys, his favorite color is actually a muted orange. He doesn't have many (if any) orange things around his home or in his daily life, but he has a soft spot for paintings etc that have it within them.

If he eats an ice cream cone he'll lick at it until the ice cream is level with the top edge of the cone and then he turns it on his side and starts taking bites out of the bottom and sucks the rest of the ice cream out that way. he also chews ice cream.

[fanwarriorfictions]

One-

A Stranger Things 2 Fanfic

Chapter Six- Part Three

   Steve, Dustin, and Phina stand at the edge of the old junkyard, finally arriving after about a few miles of walking. They were planning to trap Dart, luring it here with the meat that they had trailed over the railroad. 

   "Oh, yeah," Steve nods, "yeah, this will do. This will do just fine. Good call dude."

   He walks forward leaving a grinning Dustin behind him. Phina shakes her head, following Steve as he throws more meat on the ground. The kid was already starting to look up to Steve and Phina could see that Steve was warming up to Dustin as well.

   The boys lead the trail of meat into the center of junkyard and Phina tests her perimeter, sensing two people quickly moving towards the yard. The boys pour the rest of their buckets as soon as Phina realizes who was coming towards them.

   "I said medium-well," Lucas yells from the edge of the junkyard, Max standing next to him.

   The boys jump looking towards the two of them and Steve points at Max, "who's that?"

   When Dustin doesn't answer him, Steve looks over at the boy who is staring at Max. Phina sighs at the boy and Steve looks up at her with a questioning look. She nods her head, answering the unspoken question.

   "Let's get to work," Phina says.

-

   Steve and Phina move the larger stuff, making the old, broken bus into their hideout. Max started to help by moving sheets of metal by the bus for Steve and to make into a barricade. Whatever Dart was, they were assuming he wasn't going to be friendly and they needed to make the bus strong enough to hold him out. 

   "Does this feel surreal to you," Phina suddenly asks Steve as they lift a heavy piece of metal.

   "Hm?" He grunts as they turn it to stand it up against a car. "What do you mean?"

   She gestures around them and then between them, "last year before everything went down... we hated each other, a lot. You were king Steve, the player of the school and now here you are, helping a bunch of tweens and the freak of Hawkins trap a supernatural creature in a junkyard."

   Steve chuckles, "yeah, I guess it is really weird. Speaking of the tweens, where are the other two."

   Phina turns around only seeing Max until she sees them behind a rust red car, "looks like they're having a conference."

   Steve rolls his eyes, "well, we don't have time for a conference."

   He picks up a chair off the ground and walks over to the kids, hitting the car with the chair, "Hey! Dickheads! How come the only ones helping me out is this random girl and a girl with a head injury? We lose light in forty minutes, Let's go... Let's go!"

   "Alright, asshole," Dustin yells, "god!"

   "Okay, stupid," Lucas grumbles.

   Steve walks back over to a grinning Phina, "well at least some things don't change, Harrington."

   "And what would that be," he asks.

   She smirks, "you're still an ass."

   He laughs, "you love me for it."

   She tilts her head, her lips twitching into a full smile, "unfortunately."

 -

   With all hands helping now, the group was quickly making progress. They gathered all the metal they could, piling it in front of the bus for them to use. Inside, Lucas and Dustin were using the metal Max brought them to cover the glass windows. They were setting up the trap for Dart as well, where they would corner him to kill the thing.

   Steve made a trail of gasoline while Phina and Max picked up a ladder. They bring it into the bus and put it through the emergency exit on top of the bus so they could get on top. Then, Phina stood on top while the boys passed up tires for her to stack up to hide behind.

    When they were finally done with the bus, it looked like something from an apocalypse movie. One by one they go inside, the light fading outside. Phina is the last one in, nodding to Steve as she steps up the stairs, he closes the door behind her.

   All they had to do now, was wait. For how long? They weren't sure. It was already dark out, the sun having disappeared almost half an hour ago. The cold was setting in and the old bus was not good at keeping it out. With her mind not hazed over by the injury to her head, Phina was able to use her powers to keep her warm, heat radiated off of her and Steve subconsciously moved closer to her.

   His mind was still on the conversation they had about an hour earlier as he fiddles with his lighter. He had jokingly said she loved him, the thing was, she hadn't denied it. It shouldn't mean anything to him, but it did, it did and he didn't know why. She drove him crazy and he couldn't help it, couldn't help but think about her even in situations like this where they were all in danger. 

   "So you really fought one of these things before," Max suddenly says, looking at Steve and Phina.

   "Yeah," Phina says while Steve nods, "and I have the scars to prove it."

   Max continues, "and you're, like, totally, 100% sure it wasn't a bear?"

   "Shit, don't be an idiot," Dustin interrupts, "okay? It wasn't a bear. Why are you even here if you don't believe us? Just go home."

   Max stands up with her arms crossed, "geesh. Someone's cranky. Past your bedtime?"

   She climbs up the ladder and Steve smirks, "that's good. Just show her you don't care."

   Dustin stops pacing for a second to look at him, "I don't."

   Steve turns to look at the kid and winks, "why are you winking, Steve? Stop."

   Dustin walks to the other side of the bus, to get as far from Steve as possible. 

   Phina snorts, "that is the worst advice I have ever heard."

   Steve looks at her, "what do you mean?"

   "Act like you don't care?" Phina turns to face him. "That's so stupid."

   "No it's not," Steve chuckles.

   "Yes it is," she smirks.

   "It's one of the best pieces of advice that I've got," he argues.

   She glances down at his lips, "and how well has it been working for you, Harrington?"

   He returns the favor, glancing at her lips as well. How well had it been working? Had it worked at all with who he wanted it to?

   "Not that well," he sighs, looking back into her gorgeous eyes, "not at all."

   A loud shrieking howl makes them jump apart. They quickly scramble up from their seats and turn to look through the small space of the window. Phina hadn't been focusing and she hadn't felt when the thing was closing in on them.

   "You see him," Dustin asks, running to look through the window next to them.

   "No," Steve answers

   "Lucas," Dustin yells, "what's going on?"

   "Hold on!"

   Phina frantically searches the area with her affinities, even using the fog to try and find it.

   "I've got eyes," Lucas yells down to them, "ten o'clock! Ten o'clock!"

   Phina hones in on the area, pushing away some of the fog so that they could see the creature a bit better. When she does, Steve points him out to Dustin.

   "What's he doing," Dustin asks.

   "I don't know," Steve whispers.

   They watch it as it creeps closer to their trap, but it doesn't enter it. 

   "He's not taking the bait," Steve says, "why is he not taking the bait?"

   "Maybe he's not hungry," Dustin says.

   "Maybe he's sick of cow," Steve whispers, leaning away from the window.

   Phina watches the thing closely, waiting for it to pounce, not noticing the movement behind her.

   "Steve? Steve, what are you doing?"

   Phina pushes away from the window to find Steve with his bat slung over his shoulder. She instantly knew what he was about to do and she did not like it one bit.

   She points a threatening finger at him, "you are not going out there."

   He shakes his head, "I'll just draw him in, you need to stay here and protect the kids."

   "What about you," she snaps, "who's going to protect you?"

   He sighs, "just watch my back, I know you'll get me before it can."

   Everything in her screamed not to let him go, but she knew better than anyone that she worked better if she could see everything.

   "Fine," she groans, "but if you get hurt, I'll kill you."

   He smiles, "I know you will."

   Steve turns away from her as quickly as he can. He knows if he looks into her eyes a second longer he'll change his mind. 

   He steps down the stairs, slowly opening the loud, rusty door. Phina closes it behind him and rushes to the window to watch. She presses her face against the glass, ready to bolt out the door as soon as something goes wrong.

   Steve slowly creeps out, his bat raised and ready to swing. Dart growls off into the distance and Steve starts to whistle as if he were a dog.

   "Come on, buddy," Steve says, whistling again, swinging his bat back and forth.

   Max climbs down the ladder and looks through the window by Dustin, "what's he doing?"

   "Expanding the menu," Dustin explains.

   "Why'd you have to say it like that," Phina groans, anxiously watching Steve.

   "Come on, buddy," he says again, standing next to the pile of meat now, "come on, buddy. Come on, dinner time. Human tasted better than cat, I promise."

   "He's insane," Max shakes her head.

   "He's awesome," Dustin grins.

   Phina shakes her head, "he's an idiot."

   Dart slowly stalks towards Steve and Phina's heart starts to race in her chest. This is bad, she shouldn't have let him go out there. 

   "Steve, watch out," Lucas suddenly yells.

   "I'm a little busy here," Steve yells back, not taking his eyes off Dart.

   "Three o'clock!" Phina feels them then. "Three o'clock!"

   "Oh, my god," Phina screams.

   She's running before she can even think about what she's doing. There are so many of them, so many and they're all circling Steve. She runs towards the door, throwing them open in time to see Steve dive across a car as a creature lunges towards him. He swings his bat, hitting one in the face, hard. Phina runs out of the bus, throwing out a thick green vine to grab one of the creatures as it lunges at Steve's exposed back. The vine shoots from her hand, wrapping around the thing and throwing it across the yard and into a car.

   She picks up Steve off the ground as she gets to him, hearing the kids screaming at them to run. More creatures run at them as they sprint back to the bus. Phina throws a wave a fire back at them, trying to at least push them back until she could get Steve inside. She pushes Steve into the bus first, throwing another hand out to shoot vines out to throw away the nearest creatures. Arms wrap around her and she's pulled into the bus as the door shuts, one of the creatures slamming into it. The creatures attack the door, trying to get in.

   "Are they rabid or something," Max yells.

   Steve grabs a piece of metal and puts it in front of the door. He and Phina push on it with their legs.

   "They can't get in," Lucas screams, "They can't!"

   The entire bus shifts and they all scream. One of the creatures arms shoots through the metal and everyone screams, running away. Steve grabs his bat and starts to beat at it. Phina lights her hands, ready to burn the creature if Steve couldn't fight it off. The arm retracts and then a loud bang hits the roof, hitting again and again, closer to the ladder. 

��  Phina and Steve bolt towards the kids when Max screams, the creature roaring above her. 

   "Out of the way," Steve yells, "out of the way! You want some? Come get this!"

   Phina grabs the girls and shoves her behind her and Steve, a protective arm holding back the kids as they watch the creature. It screeches at Steve, readying itself to pounce on Steve. Phina grabs Steve's shoulder, ready to throw him back to protect him.

   Just when she thinks it's about to happen, it goes silent, closing its hellish mouth and turning away from them. It pushes away from the ladder, letting a loud howl as if calling something. It leaps out of their view, shaking the bus as it goes. Steve lets go of the bat with one hand and grabs Phina's. She squeezes it in reassurance as if to tell him that she was still there, that she was alright. 

   All around them the creatures howl back and forth, growing fainter as they ran away. Steve slowly pulls Phina towards the front of the bus, the kids trailing behind them. Their hand's grip on the others, the adrenaline, and fear keeping them there. Steve nods at Dustin and the kid opens the doors slowly. Steve steps through first, holding out his bat in front of him. Phina calls to every plant around her and they shift, ready to protect them.

   "What happened," Lucas asks as he steps out after the two teenagers.

   "I don't know," Max answers for all of them.

   "Steve scared 'em off," Dustin asks.

   "No." Steve shakes his head. "No way. They're going somewhere."

   "Where," Dustin asks.

   Phina groans, squeezing Steve's hand, "that's what we gotta find out."

-2276 words-

   And we're getting to the good stuff, are Y'all ready for this?

-Morgan