#i already knew i would like roy. like come on. my black-haired anime man senses were alight

[thatmightyheart]

recently watched this fresh hot new anime called fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood for the first time and i absolutely loved it! also these two made me deeply unwell (positive)

[amarits]

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

So very many, but rather than go through them I’ll share a scene from Camp Murder. I’ve got a couple chapters of that one written that I keep almost posting. The kiddos are middle-schoolers attending a summer camp, and Roy is having a good ol’ sulk in the woods.

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Roy had been following rabbit tracks for ten minutes when they stopped abruptly at a set of large cat tracks. He crouched beside them, studying the shape of the pads. Were those cougar tracks? This close to camp? He took pictures of the clearer tracks and started following them. Backwards, of course. The last thing he wanted was to actually find a cougar. But maybe if he could get an idea of where it was coming from, he’d know if it was a risk to the campers. Usually, cougars avoided areas with people. 

He followed the tracks on a winding path out of the thinner, friendlier woods that surrounded the camp into the thicker, untamed forest that stretched on for half the state. He and Ollie had hiked for days through this and never gotten close to the other side. 

In a mile, the flat ground would start rising in small hills that eventually became mountains. They usually did a camp trip to one of the smaller hills at the end of the week, and had a cookout at the top to celebrate “conquering the mountain”. He snorted. It was ridiculous. He and Ollie had climbed real mountains and that took days, not a couple of hours of casual walking. 

He lost the tracks at one of the low rock outcrops stretching out from the mountains. That was probably good. The mountains were where the cougar was supposed to be. Far from camp, and unlikely to bother them when they came out as a group. Still raised the question of why it had come so close in the first place, but maybe it was hunting a deer. 

He walked around the outcrop, looking for more tracks. He should probably start heading back towards camp. It was already going to be almost dinner by the time he got back, and Ollie was only gonna get angrier the later he was. 

His eye caught on another cougar track and he turned to inspect it. It was next to what appeared to be… shoe prints? 

“Hello!” a voice exclaimed at the same time that a small figure swung down to dangle upside down from a branch directly in front of him. 

“Jiminy Christmas!” Roy exclaimed, stumbling backwards and raising his hands in… was that supposed to be a martial arts position? Stupid. What was he going to do, karate chop the threat?

“What are you doing out here?” the figure asked. Now that it was still, Roy could see it was a boy about his age with black hair, blue eyes, and deeply tan skin. Mexican, maybe? His bright orange camp shirt hung down around his shoulders and he swung back and forth on the branch by his knees. 

“What am I doing out here?” Roy asked. “What are you doing out here?”

“Talking to the birds.” He had an accent, but it didn’t sound the same as the Mexican kids he’d met. More European.

“Talking to the… What are you, a Disney princess?” 

The boy grinned like that was a compliment instead of the insult it was meant to be. “Maybe.” He swung harder and let go with his legs, flipping to land on his feet in front of Roy. Roy stepped back to avoid being hit, but shouldn’t have bothered. The boy moved like he was born to fly. 

“I’m Dick,” he said.

“Roy,” Roy replied cautiously. “Do you even know where you are?” 

“Sure!” Dick exclaimed, turning his whole body to point. “Camp is that way.” 

Roy silently pointed in the actual direction, about 40 degrees clockwise from where Dick was pointing. He’d made sure to keep track of landmarks and the sun while he walked so he wouldn’t get lost. 

Dick kept his finger raised. “What makes you think you’re more right than me?” 

“I live here,” Roy said, also continuing to point steadily in the correct direction. He could keep this up as long as Dick could.

“In the woods?”

“Basically. My dad’s a counselor. I’ve been here for months.”

“Huh,” Dick said, mulling this over as he lowered his hand. “That sounds awful.”

“I know, right!” Roy exclaimed. It was the first time someone had said “awful” instead of “great” or “fun” and he felt vindicated. “I am so tired of everything. You’re new, though. Why’d you skip out on activities?”

“They were trying to make us sit still and make bracelets and it was sooooo boring.” As if to punctuate his point, Dick flipped backwards into a perfect handstand, and then just stayed on his hands while he talked. “I asked to use the bathroom, and then a bird was singing at me and that seemed way more interesting so I followed it.” He whistled in an actually pretty good imitation of a chickadee. 

Roy felt weird talking to Dick’s feet, so he crouched to look him in the face. “Well, you’re lucky I found you. You’d probably be lost forever and die.”

Dick didn’t seem at all concerned, which probably meant he was stupid, but at least he was interesting.

“What are you doing out here?” Dick asked, swinging his legs back and forth without his upper body moving at all.

“Following cougar tracks.”

“Cougar?” Dick asked. Roy wasn’t sure if he didn’t recognize it because he was used to a different name for them or if English wasn’t his first language.

“Puma,” Roy said. “Mountain lion.”

At ‘lion’, Dick’s face lit up and he flipped back onto his feet. “Where?”

Roy pointed at the ground under him. “You’ve trampled all over that one.” 

Dick lifted a foot and looked down at the muddled track under his hand and shoe prints. “Whoops.”

“I’m sure there’s another one nearby,” Roy said, searching in the direction the cat seemed to be coming from. There were more shoe prints. Big ones. He glanced back at Dick’s feet. Definitely too big to be his. Poachers, maybe? He scowled. That would explain why the cougar left its territory. 

“What?” Dick asked, trailing behind him.

“Nothing. Here.” He pointed at another pawprint. This one also had a shoe print overlapping the edge, but it was cleaner. 

Dick hurried over and stared down at it. His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head. “That’s not a lion track,” he said. “It’s a tiger.”

“It’s not either,” Roy said. “Mountain lion. Lions and tigers live in Africa.”

“Not all of them,” Dick said.

“All the ones that don’t live in zoos.”

“Nuh uh,” Dick insisted. “We have a tiger.” Roy rolled his eyes at the blatant lie. “We used to have a lion too, so I know what the prints look like.”

“Mountain lion,” Roy repeated. “You don’t even know what animal I’m talking about. Mountain lions are smaller and eat deer.” He held a hand at about waist height. He thought that was right. He’d never actually seen one in person, though he and Ollie had turned around a few times when they saw tracks. 

“Then this is definitely a tiger,” Dick said. “Because the prints are tiger-sized.”

Roy gave up on trying to talk sense to him, following the shoe prints instead. It looked like there was more than one style of tread, but it was harder to tell on the dusty slope up the rocky outcrop. They were big, though. Definitely not kids. Could be counselors, but he didn’t think it was likely. Could be a band of poachers. They followed the cougar, not perfectly aligned, but definitely traveling parallel. 

“What are you doing?” Dick asked, following. While Roy tried to walk lightly, separate from the trail he was following, Dick barged through like Godzilla entering Tokyo, destroying the path underfoot. At least we’ll have no problem knowing which way we came from, he thought, annoyed.

“Tracking poachers,” he said. “Probably. I guess they could just be campers.” He didn’t think so, though. Not with how closely they were following the cougar tracks.

Though to be fair, that’s what he and Dick were doing too.

Dick gasped. “They want to kill the tiger?”

Roy felt the last of his patience slipping away. “It’s not a ti—!” His voice didn’t so much trail off as just stop, the rest of his word swallowed by a silence more complete than the end of their voices and steps. There were no bird sounds, he realized. He should have noticed earlier. Prey animals disappeared when predators were around. 

At the top of the outcrop, a man lay much too still, a bleeding gash in his side. Roy knew he was dead before his inhale became an exhale. There was too much blood. His skin was too white. He thought he could see actual guts through the sliced skin, and he was not going to throw up. He was not going to…

Oh, god. He had to at least check. He knew first aid and CPR and pretty much every emergency medical procedure they’d teach a thirteen-year-old. Normally when he was hiking, he had a simple med kit in his pouch, but he didn’t have it, didn’t have any gear at all because he hadn’t planned to be hiking. Stupid, stupid. Ollie had taught him to always be prepared, and the first time his training would have come in handy he was completely useless.

Dick reached the man before him, crouching down and pressing his hands against the open wound. Roy felt like he was pushing through water while Dick ran alongside him on the shore. He finally reached them what felt like minutes later, falling to his knees next to Dick and reaching for the man’s throat. He adjusted his fingers three times.

“There’s no pulse,” he said, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears.

“There must be something we can do!” Dick exclaimed, pushing harder against the wound.

“We can’t save someone who’s dead!” Roy yelled. His eyes lingered on the blood trailing over Dick’s hands. It took his brain a few minutes to register why. The wound was fresh, or it wouldn’t still be bleeding. Recent like the cougar attacked the man, then wandered a couple of miles towards the camp?

Or recent like it came back?

“Dick, we need to go,” Roy said, standing up and backing away, looking into the woods around them for any sign of the big cat. Or anything, really. The birds were still silent. He didn’t hear any rabbits, or squirrels. He didn’t hear anything. 

“We can’t just leave him!” Dick said, turning tear-filled eyes towards him.

“He’s dead!” Roy repeated. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. No signal, of course. It barely even got a signal in the camp. He and Ollie had high-powered walkie talkies and SEND devices for hiking, but he didn’t bring his because he was stupid. 

He turned on the camera instead and started taking pictures. The body with Dick still holding his blood-stained hands to the wound. The surroundings. Anything that might be a landmark.

“What are you doing?” Dick snapped, like he thought Roy was some kind of sick paparazzi. 

“We need to go get someone and bring them back here,” Roy said. “I can get us back to the camp, but I’m not positive I could find our way back here.” He pocketed his phone, still backing up. “Come on, I’m serious. We need to…” 

He stopped. Dick’s head snapped up at the same time, so Roy knew he heard it too. Something that sounded like deep breathing, like a motorcycle revving up, like purring broadcast through a sound speaker. He jerked his head back and forth, trying to find the source and not seeing anything. 

You weren’t supposed to run from a cougar. They’d think you were easy prey. You were supposed to try to look big and intimidating. Fight back if you had to. Grab a stick or a rock. 

But he didn’t see it. It might not see them. It would be a lot simpler to just not encounter it at all than to convince it they weren't easy prey. They were such easy prey. Who was he even trying to kid?

“Run,” he whispered.

Dick didn’t have to be told twice.

[bisexualdaemon]

Closer: All Hallows Eve (Vampire!Shawn)

a/n: hello, my dear friends! I haven’t written in an age and then Halloween happened and I couldn’t help but revisit my friend vampire!Shawn. this was going to be a blurb LOL and then ended up turning into a 5.5k oneshot(?) of this little universe I’ve created. I honestly think Closer is going to be non-linear. a series of oneshots of different periods in Shawn’s vampire life. this is one such period. btw, some of this is based on characterizations found in the show Versailles, so if you’re into that show you might find familiar things in here! enjoy!

The first chapter of Closer, along with the rest of my writing is linked in my masterlist! ❤️

warnings: smut, blood, bisexuality, more blood, aggression, mentions of infant mortality

Two fingers of scotch swirled in the tumbler in front of him. Some tawdry monster song poured from the jukebox to a full crowd on the dance floor, accompanied by hoots and hollers from the humans. Halloween was always an event at The Trinity. Old and young, sire and fledgling, all of them flocked to the city for the festivities, for the time when the wall between paranormal and normal was but a translucent curtain, easily passed through or, in the case of The Trinity, ripped down. It was this one night a year that vampires could feed openly and no one batted an eyelash. Humans came dressed in costume and paid a pricey cover fee to get in. Liquor flowed freely from John Somerset’s bar and The Trinity vibrated with energy from sundown to sun up.

“It’s not what it used to be, is it?” John walked over with Shawn’s favorite scotch to top off his glass. Shawn hummed his assent, remembering a time when humans knew nothing of vampires, and their feeding habits weren’t such a spectacle. He missed the old days. Missed the thrill of the chase.

Tonight, he’d put forth minimal effort to keep up with the expectation, just painted black fingernails and a touch of eyeliner. Humans didn’t need much convincing once they looked at him. He had always been beautiful, even when he was a human in the 14th century, but when he became a vampire, that beauty was eternalized, frozen forever. Neither women nor men could resist him and he knew it.

“Remember 1685?” Shawn sat back and tilted his head at John.

“Ah, yes. You were in France then, oui?” John winked, clearing the wine bottle that had stacked up behind the bar.

“I was,” Shawn hummed and swilled his glass, tipping it up and letting the brown liquor burn his throat all the way down to his empty and aching stomach. His eyes shut, lulled by the warmth of his drink. Hazy memories burst into color behind his eyes.

+

His heeled shoes clicked against the parquet floor, the burgundy brocade bows adorning his toes kept in place by antique silver buckles. It was 1685, and Louis, le Roi Soleil, was King of France. The chandeliers above the king’s new mirrored walkway were lit with dripping candles, makeshift skeletons hanging from them. A macabre scene set for the masquerade happening at the palace. The noise rose to deafening as he crept toward the ballroom, filled with courtiers and royal family members, all of them ready to lay down at Louis’ feet. He entered quietly, like he usually did, not wanting to draw attention to himself in a room full of humans.

“RAUL!” The Duke of Orléans shouted Shawn’s French name over the crowd. The King’s brother came rushing over, his advancing age finally beginning to show in his face, “how long have you been here?!”

“Philippe, you just saw me walk in the door. Don’t be coy.” Shawn drew him in for a kiss on each side of his face. Philippe reached up and tousled Shawn’s cropped, curly brown hair.

“You know if you just wore your hair long people wouldn’t ask so many questions.” Philippe knew Shawn’s dark secret, knew what others whispered about him. Shawn could look around the room and pick out the handful of courtiers he’d fed on, courtiers he’d taken to his rooms in Philippe’s wing of the palace. Though Philippe had never shared his bed, he’d been Shawn’s friend for years, since his brother welcomed Shawn to the palace in the wake of the English Civil War thirty-five years ago. The duke had been ten then. The forty-five year old man in front of him was starting to gray.

“What makes you think I don’t want them to ask questions?” Shawn smiled wide enough to show his already lengthening fangs responding to the adrenaline and blood present in the room. There was no better place to feed than at a party in the presence of the king.

“Monsieur!” The Chevalier de Lorraine came up behind Philippe, tickling his sides. Ever since he’d returned from his second exile, the Chevalier and Philippe had been more and more open about their continued affair, despite Philippe’s wife dancing not ten yards from them in the ballroom. In fact, Philippe was wearing one of her heavy brocatelle gowns, much to his brother’s chagrin, and a golden mask that hid his whole face.

Shawn’s own mask was black with burgundy texture, a demon in plain sight. His jacket and culottes were black, embroidered with burgundy bats and stars. The leather sewn sleeves allowed his deep red shirt to show beneath. He was every bit a vampire, but the fools in the ballroom were too blind to see it. Especially tonight of all nights, All Hallows’ Eve.

He could see a few others here. His kind stuck out like blinding beacon amongst this crowd of flushed and greedy humans. Some were regulars in this crowd. He spotted Reynald de Chatillon, an old foe, in the corner with his ruddy beard and thirst for young ladies-in-waiting. He regarded him, nodding, receiving little more than a sneer in return. But others were new. A delicate shoulder brushed against his and a brilliant jewel caught his eye. She was cold as ice with a matching frozen glare. Her perfectly coiffed and powdered gray wig bespoke her fledgling age. The older the vampire, the more out of fashion they tended to be, and she was the epitome of fashion. Down to the smooth yellow sapphire delicately tied around her neck. He’d never seen her before, not quite a rarity, but he would be sure to ask Philippe about her later.

“Gentlemen!” Shawn clapped one hand on Philippe’s shoulder and one hand on Chevalier’s, “we feast tonight!” The two men led Shawn to the front of the room, giggling at his double entendre. Before any feasting though, the three of them had to acknowledge the king. Shawn bowed.

“Raul. So good of you to come,” the king’s lip curved up in the corner somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. Louis had never been able to stomach the truth about Shawn, even though Shawn’s money had helped make him the so-called Sun King. His disgust relegated Shawn to his brother’s company, which caused no complaint. Philippe was pleased to keep Shawn close, an addition to his band of privileged misfits.

“You know, you might be the only person my brother is more disappointed to see at these functions than me,” Philippe bumped Shawn’s shoulder as they walked away.

“Disappointed and yet he keeps you here,” Shawn reminded Philippe.

“That’s the real humor in it. To trap me under his thumb, he must gaze upon my face every day.” The duke smiled wide and curtsied, fanning out his overskirt and sticking his tongue straight out when he stood up again.

The party had been going for hours before Shawn had walked in. Generic golden masks littered the tables, some soggy from tipped champagne flutes. Chevalier seized one, licking up some stray champagne from its edge. He’d come unprepared for the occasion as he usually did, unbothered by party themes especially those hosted at Versailles. Affixing the mask to his face, he grabbed at Philippe’s hand.

“Darling! Let us dance!”

Shawn let them skitter into the center of the dance floor without him. The crowd parted  to the center as it always did. Philippe was still the king’s brother and that afforded him privileges no matter what others thought of his choice of lovers. The two of them were so caught up in each other that the opinion of others didn’t matter.

Shawn kept to the perimeter, preferring to stalk the room. He caught eyes here and there. He could smell their responses to him before he saw them. A girl no more than eighteen flushed immediately when his eyes met hers, her giggle betraying her girlish immaturity. He turned from her, hearing her little sigh of disappointment, before his eyes stopped and lingered at someone else.

He was feeling aggressive tonight. Though his body was devoid of blood, the chemicals that had once made him human still coursed through his muscles. They made him strong and virile and, more than anything, an animal. He needed to chase tonight, to delight in the thrill of catching his prey.

He turned his nose toward the breeze in the room and let it guide him, taking quick sniffs, trying to cut through the smell of champagne and red wine. Closing his eyes to strengthen his other senses, he caught a whiff of cinnamon and turned his head. He honed in on the spice of it, the touch of bergamot that thickened the blood. When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t stop himself from gasping.

It was a man. A young man dressed in uniform with a navy blue mask, peacock feathers sprouting from the temples. The gold of his buttons glimmered in the candlelight, his jacket settled against a defined chest untouched by war. His turquoise and gold eyes contrasted starkly with the black eye kohl that ringed them, eyes that kept darting to and from Shawn’s face. Shawn stared, moving toward him slowly. Even though the room was filled with music and dancing and the dim hum of a thousand voices, he knew that his feet made no noise.  

The hunt had begun.

“Do you know,” Shawn reached out his hand and fingered the delicate feathers, “that these are the same color as your eyes?”

“Enchanté to you too, Monsieur Mendès. Or should I call you Shawn?” He emphasized the name with a curl in his lip.

“You know me?” Shawn’s eyes widened in surprise. In this court he’d only ever been known as Raul Mendès, the French rendering of one of his Christian names.

“If by know you, you mean do I know the truth of what people say about you?” he bowed low, his outstretched hand brushing Shawn’s shoes. “Then yes, I know you quite well.” When he reached his full height again, he had removed his mask and revealed his flushed pink cheeks. Shawn could see the blood rushing wildly with his quickly beating heart just under the skin. His mouth watered despite the panic rising in his throat.

“Well, well, and who are you, monsieur?” Shawn dipped his head, filled with nerves he’d never show. If he had a pulse right now, if would be racing. Thank God he hadn’t fed in over a month. A vampire’s name was a closely guarded secret, known only to familiars, especially a former name.

“I am Lucien de Foix, a captain in the king’s army,” he stuck out his hand for Shawn to shake. Shawn took it hesitantly, a creeping unsteadiness overtaking him. How does he know my name? He kept a grip on Lucien’s hand, squeezing a little harder than he normally would, squeezing until he could see the sweat forming on the young captain’s head. Lucien’s brow creased, his mouth opening as if he might cry out, but as he looked past Shawn something caught his eye and to Shawn’s horror, he smiled.

“There, there, Shawn,” a cold hand, accompanied by a female voice, ran down his back and caused him to shiver. “Fear not, we are the only ones here who know your secret.”

It was the young fledgling vampire with the powdered wig. Her skin, unlike the white painted faces in the room, was naturally pale as blank china, marred only by a pair of starkly painted black eyebrows and two round circles of blush. She pursed her lips, tinted crimson as if she’d recently fed and left the stain. She circled Shawn, stopping in front of him and linking her arm with Lucien’s. Shawn turned his hand, exposing Lucien’s wrist and the livid, purple pinpoint marks left by repeated feedings. He should have fucking known.

“So,” he squeezed his hand again, enough to feel the bones grind together, “you’re a blood slave.” The fledgling hissed at him, whether it was at sensing her toy’s pain or at his implication, he didn’t know. If he hadn’t been in a ballroom full of people, he might have snapped both their necks without consequence or remorse. As it was, he had to play nice.

“He is my husband,” she cooed into Lucien’s neck, her tongue darting out to trace the bulging vein running from his collar to his well-defined jaw.

“A tasty one at that, I presume,” Shawn smirked at her. He knew this game. Vampires developed a taste for certain humans, enthralling them, keeping them as pets. She may have convinced him that he meant something to her, something more permanent, but one day she would move on. He would not. He would likely descend into madness, looking for her or for his next pleasure fix, but no vampire would touch him after that. He would be persona non grata, tainted and tossed aside.

“Very,” she purred, “can I interest you in a taste?”

“That depends,” Shawn hated that his mouth was still watering, still craving the spice that his blood promised, “who are you and what do you want from me?”

“I,” she held her hand out for him to kiss in a deep curtsy, “am Madame de Montpensier, enchanté.” Her wig was fixed with several small doves, matching the embroidery on her silver and white gown. Even at her most bowed, the wig still reached clear over Shawn’s head. This vampire wanted to be seen.

“And I would like you to introduce me to your friends.” She nodded toward the two men still at the center of attention on the dance floor.

“To Philippe?” Shawn tipped his head and laughed, “Philippe has little time or regard for women. I doubt you’d gain any ground on that front.”

“Oh, it is not pour moi,” she nodded at Lucien and he advanced toward Shawn, his heart kicking up speed. Shawn’s fangs grew to full length. They ached to sink into his beautiful tan skin. God, it was as if she knew he hadn’t been feeding, knew his habits and preferences. His weakness for young men with ambition and a false sense of power. It was as if this Lucien had been groomed for this.

The pieces finally clicked. His eyes darkened and his voice lowered to a whisper through his teeth.

“Tell me, Madame, has Reynald fallen so far out of favor that he sends his young fledgling to do his bidding?” Fucking Reynald. This was low, even for a leech like Reynald. His claws were always in some king’s coattails. It was the only way to keep up with his ravenous appetite for blood and power.

“Reynald does not need you! He is just as powerful as he always was!” She seethed, tilting her head toward Lucien again. He draped himself in front of Shawn, practically offering himself for the taking. Shawn could feel his body stirring. He wanted this man, wanted to rip into his veins and drink until he couldn’t anymore, until his whole body was hot and flushed with the young captain’s blood. Until his heart beat again and the memories surged behind his eyelids.

“Reynald needs me plenty or you wouldn’t be here,” Shawn spat, locking eyes with Lucien, a hair’s breadth away from taking him right then and there. He dipped his head to Lucien’s ear, licking the outer shell and relishing the feel of his body shivering beneath him.

He could see his ministrations were having an effect on her. Her fangs were lengthening. Shawn could smell her arousal, the blood and adrenaline a trap for one so young as she was. She couldn’t have been more than fifty years dead, frozen forever in her twenty-year-old body. She was thirsty. All the time. That feeling, the clawing beast inside her skin that could never be sated, the endless need for blood in the first century of her new life would be almost unbearable.

He took Lucien’s earlobe between his teeth, grazing, but not breaking the skin before he whispered.

“Run.”

Lucien shot from Shawn’s arms, past his mistress and toward the enormous French doors that led to the outdoor terrace. Shawn was so attuned to him now, so caught up in the chase that he could hear Lucien’s booted footfalls on the delicately manicured grass over the din of the crowded room. He stood in front of Madame de Montpensier and waited.

“Thank you for the gift, you’re more than welcome to join me,” he heard his prey stumble on the gravel path near the great fountain in the garden, “but you can tell Reynald that it will take more than a beautiful boy and a game of blackmail to get me to do his bidding.” He brushed past her, too concentrated on the blood waiting for him in the garden to hear her cry of indignance.

Exiting the ballroom to the terrace, he crouched down and laid his palm against the chilly stone. He could hear Lucien breathing hard. He was running. His footfalls vibrated against the stone from the treeline, slower and slower until he stopped to catch his breath. Shawn smiled, finding his opportunity.

He sprinted, almost faster than a human eye could track, his vampire speed in the dark rendering him practically invisible. His feet barely touched the ground, silently making his way closer and closer toward Lucien’s gasping breaths. He stopped behind a tree, looking past it. Lucien was doubled over, his cheeks flushed with exhilaration, sucking cold air into his lungs and huffing out little clouds with every exhale. Shawn snapped a fallen twig under his heel on purpose.

“Who’s there?!” Lucien’s head snapped up.

“There, there, monsieur,” Shawn cooed, using his softest voice to soothe, “you knew it was me.” He smiled wide, his fangs extending past his lower lip, as if they might cut into his own skin. Stalking silently, he moved closer, taking measured, slow steps to put Lucien at ease. The blood tasted so much sweeter when it wasn’t tainted with fear.

“You won’t hurt me? Madame never makes it hurt.”

“I make no promises.” Shawn stopped just in front of him, dragging a cold finger down in his pink cheek. His skin was on fire despite the chill in the air. The warmth of his blood sang a rich melody that only Shawn could hear. It was intoxicating. He bent down to Lucien’s mouth, where the smell of him was strongest.

“Can I kiss you?” Shawn asked, an honest question. He prefered intimacy with his prey. He wanted them to feel the truth of his desire, wanted them to know that without them, he was nothing. As powerful as he was as a vampire, he was nothing without their blood. He wanted them to want it.

Lucien nodded his head, a crease between his eyes as if he was surprised he felt agreeable to it. Shawn grinned. Men were always surprised at how far they were willing to go to gain Shawn’s approval.

Shawn pressed his lips to Lucien’s and gasped into his mouth. It was simple, two lips pressed together, but it was heady with that natural spice that men always seemed to have. The power they sacrificed to be fed upon, the beautiful surrender of delicate ego. It was everything that he loved about being a vampire captured in a moment of pure submission. He pulled away light-headed, his eyes black with hunger.

Shawn’s cold fingers found Lucien’s neck, tipping it to the side, exposing that deep, pulsing vein that he could see beating a quick rhythm full of blood, even in the low light. He cradled his head and ran his tongue along the sinews, the muscles that would become his chalice. Lucien shivered, gasping a hot breath against Shawn’s cold skin, filling Shawn’s nose with that warm spice that he’d smelled on the air inside.

His fangs broke skin.

Lucien cried out. In pleasure or pain, Shawn didn’t know. He didn’t care. All he knew was the taste of the warm, viscous liquid pouring from Lucien’s neck. Cinnamon, citrus, smoke. Each note bloomed behind his closed eyes in brilliant jewel tones. Rubies, emeralds, and amethysts swirled like a kaleidoscope.

Shawn felt Lucien’s fingers curl into his hair and push his neck farther into Shawn’s mouth, forcing Shawn to pull even more of his precious blood. It overflowed, dripping in rivulets from Shawn’s mouth. There would be stains, evidence of what had happened, but Shawn didn’t care. He was lost in this man. For a split second, he understood why Montpensier had taken him as a slave. Regular encounters with these veins would surely drive him mad.

The kaleidoscope swam as it always did into images, the moments from his past that he hid from between feedings. The list he kept of the humans he’d fed on turned into faces, one by one swimming into his mind. Memories of blood, of battle, of humanity. His heart was coming alive again, beating strong with Lucien’s blood, stronger than Lucien’s own heart.

He pulled away panting. Lucien’s head lulled, still alive but incoherent. Shawn laid him gently on the cold ground and backed away, controlling the temptation to take all that Lucien would give him, all that he had to give. Leaning heavily on a massive old oak, Shawn’s mind swam. His old life, his old humanity was coming back to him on a tidal wave, slamming him over and over into the bark against his back. Poitiers, Agincourt, Bosworth, Paris, Bologne. So much death and blood and iron, battles between kings and men, all dead and buried, turned to dust.

The final wave of memories was always the same hazy image. A fire burning in the hearth of the home he’d built with his own hands, a woman and child in a chair before it. He walks up behind her, touching her shoulder, and she looks back smiling. The child suckling at her breast, warm and pink, fixes him with a blue-eyed stare. It was everything he’d ever wanted.

And it was taken from him.

His chest rose and fell. The compelling need to breathe to keep up with his newly beating heart overwhelmed him. He always felt most human in the seconds just after the feed. Though blood coated his chin and ran down to his now ruined shirt, his senses were dulled to that of a living thing. He couldn’t hear past the beating of his own heart, couldn’t taste past the life he’d consumed. He was vulnerable and she knew it.

Madame de Montpensier had been watching. She came out from behind the tree where she’d been hiding, smiling wide, fangs grown to their full length. Closing the gap between them quickly, she planted her hands above Shawn’s shoulders, her fingers playing with the loose curls at his neck.

“Isn’t he lovely?” She cooed, looking back at her pet lying on the ground.

“He is,” Shawn licked his lips, turning her head with his fingers to look him in the eye, “‘tis a dangerous game you play with Reynald. You would do well to not cross me again.”

“Reynald is gone,” she whispered, “and besides, I’m not sure he interests me anymore.” She set him with a look, a look that shouted his needs and greatest desires into existence. If he wanted her, he only needed to reach out and take.

“Oh, does he not? Madame, I know you are young,” he rested his forehead against hers, his earlier anger eroding by the second, “but you will find disavowing your sire more difficult than you think.”

“That may be,” she lifted up onto her tip-toes, reaching her tongue out to lap up some of Lucien’s still warm blood from Shawn’s chin, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while I try.” She ran her hand down his chest to where the blood he’d taken from Lucien was rapidly pooling in his groin.

He growled, taking her hand and moving to drag her off to the nearest bedroom. She dug in her heels to stop him, looking back at Lucien still passed out.

“Leave him,” Shawn barked, “perhaps it will teach him not to dally with vampires.”

In a moment, they were back in Shawn’s rooms, a trail of shredded clothing on the floor from the door to the bed. She moved to remove her choker but he stopped her.

“Leave it on,” he snarled, rolling his hose down and removing the last of his ripped and bloody shirt. She moved her hands away from her throat and sat back on the bed, leaning back on her hands. She spread her legs in an open invitation.

She was fucking beautiful. Her skin glowed in the half-burned candles sitting on every surface, smooth and unmarred by age or sickness. He couldn’t stop himself from groaning. It had been some time since he’d been with a woman. Too long. He approached her slowly, bending down to crawl on his knees to her.

He covered her body with his, taking in her clean scent suffused with Lucien’s. They were both warm, hearts beating together with the same blood. She curled her legs around his thighs.

“I want you inside me.” She purred in his ear.

All he’d needed was permission. He drove his hips into hers, pumping deep into her warm cunt. She cried out, arching her back and clamping her arms into his wrists. Her nails dug into his skin, drawing blood. Hissing, he pulled back and lifted onto his knees. She laughed, licking each of her crimson stained fingers.

“Come on, Shawn. Give me everything you’ve got.”

He roared. Grabbing her hips, he pulled almost all the way out of her warmth and then tugged her back onto him. Their skin met in a deliciously wet slap and echoed off the ornate walls. It was intense. He felt her clench around him, deep inside, all the way through his repeated strokes. He rowed into her over and over and over again until the delicate doves placed in her wig flew off the bed, cracking loudly against the floor. She held tight to the bedpost behind her, her strength creating resistance for him to fuck harder into.

He wasn’t going to last much longer like this, but he needed her there with him. To fall off the cliff and into the ocean of Lucien’s blood that they shared. He wrapped his arm around her middle, hauling her up to his chest and slamming them both backward against the headboard, still fucking his hips up into hers.

Her eyes were black, her mouth open in silent pleasure. He wanted to hear her scream.

Shawn ducked his head to her chest, placing open mouthed kisses along her breast bone. Her red-flushed nipples called to him, grazing his chest with every thrust.

“Come with me.”

He sank his fangs into her breast, suckling on her perfect diamond-hard peaks. Blood rushed again into his mouth, filling him with that spicy, citrusy blood he’d lost himself in earlier. It mixed with florals, oleander and magnolia, inside her body and he came hard with the mix of masculine and feminine.

“Shawn!” she cried, bearing down on him harder than ever, riding her own orgasm into the wall behind her. They rocked back and forth together. Shawn fucked his hips up into hers as she held his head to her chest. Her memories came to him, blooming in front of him as strong as her shaking body in his arms.

There were not many of them; as he had suspected, she was not old. He saw her as a young woman, a human, hand in hand with a child, a daughter, with bouncy, loose blond curls. He saw her dressed all in black, saw Reynald finding her on her knees beside a child’s mausoleum. He promised he could take her pain away.

Reynald lied.

He let go of her breast, breathless for the second time that night. She heaved against him, clawing at his face, pulling him to her lips. Blood poured into her mouth and they both moaned, her memories and his mixing. New and old, predator and prey, lovers.

They collapsed onto the blood stained sheets. Shawn held his arms open and she crawled into them quietly, fingering the bit of chest hair that had grown before he had left his humanity behind. She knew what he’d seen. When vampires fed from each other, the memories flashed in both their minds.

“Reynald made false promises because he wanted you,” he whispered, tracing patterns on her bare skin, “he is nothing but a liar.”

“Will I ever forget her?” she asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it from someone she knew would tell her the truth.

“No,” he kissed her forehead, “she will come to you every time you feed, just like I see my wife and child even now more than three hundred years since their passing.”

“Teach me,” she pleaded, the hazel of her human eyes bright after feeding, “teach me how to live with the pain.”

“Shhhh,” he smoothed her hair, “let us sleep.” He draped the heavy blankets over them and she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Nothing could dare hurt you here.”

+

“Shawn?” John clinked his glass with an empty beer bottle, “I think someone is watching you.” He nodded to a far corner, beyond the sea of human and vampire heads now dancing idiotically to “Monster Mash.” The figure moved with inhuman speed through the crowd.

He blinked to make sure he wasn’t seeing a ghost.

How in the —

“Oh, don’t look so shocked to see me, Shawn,” she lifted her black leather covered leg over his, “All Hallows Eve always was our time.” Her lips, always painted red, lifted back over her cartoonishly long fake fangs.

“Hélène, what are you doing here?”

“Don’t you mean, Hélène, how did you escape when I left you for dead?” She narrowed her eyes to slits, her long chandelier earrings tinkling under her blunt-cut black bob haircut.

“It was 1792, Ellie. You wouldn’t leave France. You made your choice.”

“It was my home!”

John made a clicking noise, “vampire disputes go outside.”

“There’s no need, John. She was just going,” Shawn glared at her. “We have no dealings. If you are only interested in blaming me for what I could not change, then we have nothing to discuss.”

She slammed her hand down on the bar, leaving a wax-sealed envelope in front of him. An ornate, crimson R was pressed into the black wax.

“Reynald requests your presence.”

“You went back to him?” Shawn shook his head, a humorless grin pulling at the corner of his mouth, “after all that time?”

“Yeah, well he didn’t abandon me.” She picked up her leg and turned to leave, giving his curls a tug at the last second. He caught her hand and pulled it to his lips. She was warm, recently fed. He had always loved her skin in the days after a feeding, curling into her warmth every night in bed. They fed and fucked and drank and danced for a century and she still went back to him.

“I never meant for that to happen.” He wasn’t sure what he had meant to happen all those years ago when he left her, the peasants breaking windows and setting fires a few blocks from their Paris apartment, but he sure as hell didn’t mean for her to go to him.

“We never mean for bad things to happen, but it’s like you said that first night. I don’t know why I ever thought I could disavow him.” She wiped at the corner of her eye, ripping her hand from his and hurrying away from the bar.

Shawn ripped open the note she’d left.

Dear Shawn Peter Raul Mendes,

Did I get all of your names in? I do love knowing them all.

Isn’t she lovely? Thank you for taking her in all those years ago. She was too headstrong, too willing to leave. I love her now. My beautiful broken pony. She begged for my forgiveness. I gave it to her. It took awhile. Fifty years in an abandoned well. That was how long it took to get your stink off of her.

I do hope you’ll come see us. I’m sure you remember where to find me.

Best wishes,

  Reynald

Shawn crumpled up the old piece of paper and lobbed it into the fire near the stairs to the street. White, hot anger courses through him. He needed to leave before he took and fed on the first thing that fell into his arms, unsure if he could feed without draining. He needed to find Hélène. He needed to find Reynald.

I’m going to kill that bastard once and for all.

taglist: @justanotherfangurl272​ @siennarossi​ @trustfundshawn​ @alone-in-madness​ @harryandmolly​ @mendesromano​ @fromthicctosticc​ @esoltis280​ @softmendesss​ @sinplisticshawn​ @nedthegay​ @september-lace​ @itrocksmysocks​ @disaster-rose​ @mendesoft​ @luvluvxx​ @i-play-video-games​ @ihearthemcallingforyou​ @hi-my-name-is-sid​ @gentleshawn​ @kitykatnumber​ @enchantingbrowneyedgirl​ @ijustreallylikeshawnokay​ @shhhawnmendes​ @shawnsblue​ 

[thefightingbull]

Well... That Was Unexpected (Teaser)

Thanksgiving. It didn’t seem like much, but since Jason had made amends with the family, it had become the single most important holiday of the year. Spending time at the manor and eating a home cooked meal that Steph and Alfred would likely spend hours working on the day before and the day after was a requirement. Or maybe they’d just cater it this year… He thought he’d heard something about that.

The only problem Jason foresaw with the upcoming event was that he was without a date. The year prior only Tim had a date in Steph. Bruce, Dick, Alfred, and Barbara were all single. Unfortunately for him, Barbara and Roy were dating, Bruce insisted that Selina show up, Alfred and Dr. Thompkins were an item and Dick was officially official with Kori again. Hell, even Damian was “dating” some girl from school and of course all of them would be at the dinner.

He scrolled through his contact list and sighed. He did not want to be the only solo act in the manor. It was hard enough being the undead Robin. Harder being the only one who’d been an enemy to his family at one point. The one who’d nearly killed some of them… He shook off the thought.

He was over the past. So was his family. He just didn’t want to be reminded of yet another way he didn’t fit in. He had to find someone, anyone to date. But who?

With a sigh he pocketed his phone and walked into the diner. He needed to get his head in the game. Some asshat was running around casting spells and causing all sorts of havoc. He’d gotten an alert from Deathstroke earlier that morning asking that they meet up. Apparently, the magician was one of the assassin’s contracts.

He really, really didn’t want to be bait. Magicians, wizards, witches? They all sucked. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d been royally screwed playing bait for a magician. He’d been turned into animals, de-aged, shrunk, aged, and once he’d even been turned into a freaking action figure. Yeah, magic wasn’t anything he liked messing with.

Still, if Deathstroke asked, he would do it. Mostly because he owed the cyclops a massive favor. Nextly, because he actually liked working with him. If Dick had half the brain he claimed to have, he would have watched, listened and learned. He would have come out of the engagements stronger, smarter, and more capable.

Jason was seated in the back of the restaurant in a corner booth, his back to the wall so that he could see the men and women coming inside. He ordered himself a coffee, black. Ever since he’d watched Dick dump diabetes type 2 inducing amounts of sugar in his, Jason had avoided the sweet substance. He didn’t even let people put fake sweeteners in his caffeine.

His eyes glanced upward as a few people came into the restaurant. A few guys and a girl. He looked back down at his coffee and took a sip as a very attractive man approached him. He was taller than most with blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes he’d seen in a long time. His shaggy blond hair and grimace did look a touch familiar but it was the way the man moved that really caught Jason’s attention. He approached with purpose and took a seat at his booth.

“Uh, beach is that way, dude,” he snarked as he pointed toward the coast.

“Shut up, Jason,” the man hissed.

He blinked in surprise as he scowled at the blond before him. “Who…?” He shook his head as he looked over the stranger. Blond hair, like platinum blond hair. The guy had stood at least six foot four and he was built like a fucking terminator, or rather, built like The Terminator. “Holy shit!”

“Took care of a witch a few days ago,” he snapped. “Seems he had a few allies that took offense.”

Jason couldn’t do anything but stare at the man. Did Slade realize how gorgeous he was? Truth be told he’d always had a crush on the older man, but he’d seemed untouchable before. Now, all Jason wanted to do was touch. He tried to refocus on the conversation, but it was difficult.

“What’s your problem?” Slade snapped at him.

“Nothing,” he answered immediately. “Just a little taken back, that’s all.”

Slade sneered. “Yeah, that’s why I need your help.”

“Gotta kiss a real boy to turn back into an old frog?” He couldn’t help but tease the old man.

Those sky-blue eyes rolled as Jason was grabbed roughly by the collar. The speed and the skill warned that despite being a good two or three decades younger than he should be and forced to see out of two eyes, Slade was still very much a dangerous man who didn’t always appreciate the lip.

“Your fairy tales are crossed,” Slade growled low. “I don’t know what the fuck I need, but I do believe the spell will resolve itself eventually.”

As soon as Jason was released, he nodded. “How soon?”

“Couple weeks at least, couple months at the most.” Slade frowned.

“So… What did you need me for?”

“I need to lie low,” he answered quietly. “You’re one of the few capes that owes me a favor and one that won’t drag me to Arkham or Blackgate.”

Jason nodded, but then paused. Wait, did that mean? “Slade,” he whispered as he leaned forward to make sure no one else could hear. “Are your enhancements… you know?”

“Gone?” Slade huffed. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so terrifying. “It’s not something I’m willing to explain.”

“But it leaves you vulnerable,” he reasoned and when he saw the glare added quickly; “Or well, as vulnerable as someone like you can be.”

Slade nodded. “You gonna help me or not?”

He leaned back and nodded. “I’ve got a few places you can hide out, not all of them are dumps,” he explained softly. He noticed a few women were staring at Slade as they passed by, especially the waitress who looked like she was trying to hype herself up. “Do you see the effect you are having on people?”

To Jason’s further surprise, Slade blushed! Like actually blushed. His cheeks turned red and he didn’t even scowl or growl at Jason. Yeah, he was a master of self-control with his enhancements, but it seemed he didn’t have the molecular level of control over his body at the moment.  He wondered if Slade was even aware of the way his cheeks turned red.

He was about to ask when the waitress finally sidled over. “Anything I can get you, handsome?” She grinned.

Slade jaw ticked as his fists clenched on the table. “He’ll have coffee, black and a Denver omelet. I’ll have the biscuits and gravy.”

The woman pouted a little, but made off to get their order put in. “Thanks,” Slade grumbled.

“This is really throwing you off your game, isn’t it?” Jason didn’t smile. He absolutely bit back the temptation to continue pestering the man about his predicament and be an adult about it.

Slade didn’t answer, obviously working on trying to control himself. Whatever he tried; it didn’t work. If looks could kill, Jason would be a dead man. The narrowed eyes, the unholy sneer on his lips? It was intense and not something Slade had been prone to in the past unless he wanted to strike fear into the hearts of any surrounding him.

“Jason,” Slade started, but was interrupted by the shout of another.

“Jay!”

Slade turned and Jason looked toward the front where Dick and his partner Devon Peterson had just entered. His brother was all smiles as he and the other cop approached them. He looked down at Slade and Jason almost wondered if Slade’s non-existent cover had already been blown. To be fair, Dick had the most familiarity with the assassin. They’d been enemies, reluctant allies, and had briefly shared a partnership in which Slade had tried to be something of a mentor.

If anyone had known what Slade looked like as a young man, Dick would make the most sense.

“Who is this?” Dick smiled as he looked down at the younger version of his former antagonist.

Slade looked like he was going to tease Dick as he was so used to doing, so Jason kicked him beneath the table. “Hey Dick, this is,” he glanced at Slade to be sure there would be no retaliation and to try and think. “This is uh… Well, he’s…” Shit. Maybe he should have allowed Slade to speak.

The only problem was that Jason had never trusted Devon. He’d been Dick’s partner for a year and seemed shifty as fuck. He frowned and looked to Slade, trying to impress upon him the knowledge or paranoia he had about the other cop. Not that Slade was a fan of cops anyhow. They usually made his life a touch more difficult than necessary.

“Fuck, you know what,” he stalled as he formed a really half-assed plan. “This is my boyfriend.”

Devon’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re gay?”

“Wow, Jay, really?” Dick smiled. “How long?”

“C-couple of months. I just… you know how I am with relationships… I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. You know what vultures the media can be.”

Dick nodded; the poor guy knew better than most, he really did. Jason almost felt bad for the oldest of Bruce’s kids. He’d been under a microscope the moment he turned eighteen. Tabloids ran a story on anyone they thought he might be dating and definitely anytime he’d broken up with them. Hell, there’d even been an article devoted to all of Dick’s one-nightstands a few months back.

“You gonna introduce me to your boyfriend?” Dick smiled, he and his partner still standing beside their table. Devon looked bored and a little irritated, but Dick was practically glowing.

“This is… Lance,” He almost cringed but frowned when he saw the furious expression on Slade’s face.

He couldn’t help it though. Slade looked like some kind of New Kid on the Backstreet or something. He was absolutely gorgeous and the first name that popped into his head was Lance. He was so fucking dead. Slade Wilson, who already had a porn star’s name, was now Lance.

“Hi, Lance, I’m Jason’s brother, Dick,” he offered his hand to Slade.  

Lance hid the rage from his eyes as he looked up at and took the offered hand. “That’s not my name. Your asshole brother just insists on calling me that because he thinks I look like a boyband loser,” Slade sneered. “My name is Liam, Liam Kelly.”

Dick laughed and nodded. “Yeah, Jason’s always been a bit of an ass,” he nudged Jason’s shoulder as he spoke. “Well, we’re just grabbing our breakfast to go, but it was a pleasure meeting you, Liam. I hope we see you at dinner this Sunday.”

“I doubt I’ll be in town,” Slade started.

“He’ll be there,” Jason insisted. “Now get outta here before your partner strangles you or something.”

Devon rolled his eyes before turning from them and walked back to the front of the diner without Dick. Jason really, really hated the guy. He wondered how corrupt the officer was. If he was just an asshole or if he was dirty, or maybe even a mole for someone.

“Sounds great!” Dick grinned to Liam. “Catch you later, Jay!”

As soon as he was out of range, Slade had him by the collar again. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing, Jason?”  

“Protecting you and doing myself a favor at the same time,” Jason explained. “Look, the family is always on me about not taking anything seriously. If they think I have a real boyfriend instead of some throwaway lover, they’ll stay off my ass for a bit. You dump me in front of them, like at Thanksgiving dinner at the end of the month? Dude, they’ll leave me alone for the rest of the season at the very least!”

“So, this will be your payment for allowing me to lie low? Putting my new persona in danger just so that you can have a date to some holiday functions coming up over the next four weeks?” Slade definitely looked against it. Still, Jason could only nod. “Fine, but you embarrass me or fuck me over in any way, and I swear I’ll gut you.”

[writing-royza]

Tainted Blood, Tainted Soul - Chapter Two: Bared Teeth

A/N: Happy Sunday, everyone, and welcome back to Tainted Blood, Tainted Soul. I’ve just come off a crazy busy weekend, so I won’t make this long, but thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy. As a warning, this story is rated M for language, violence, sexual content and blood.

I do not own FMA.

Chapter Two - Bared Teeth

CENTRAL MILITARY HOSPITAL

2343 HOURS, APRIL 8

She had fallen asleep an hour earlier, drifting off peacefully and, he knew, looking entirely unlike the well-put-together Lieutenant Hawkeye that was a familiar sight in the halls of Central and East City. Gone would be the perfectly calm expression, the perfectly contained clipped-up hair, the unerring efficiency and professional drive, and in their place would be a woman who was still half-exhausted from the events of the Promised Day.

From the way her breathing sounded, he could tell her mouth was open; he gave it maybe half an hour before she started snoring like she denied she did. His mouth twitched in a smile at that thought. He had, in an effort to make her smile on their first night here, reserved the right to reach across the space between their beds and poke her in the ribs if her snoring got too bad.

He let his imagination draw the rest of her now, from previous experience. Lying on her side or stomach, one arm tucked beneath that lithe body and the other beneath the pillow. One leg curled up, the other stretched out and tangled in the blankets that invariably ended up around her hips no matter how she wrapped them around her shoulders when she first lay down.

No, wait…. With her injuries, sleeping on her side or stomach had been expressly forbidden by the doctors. She would be sleeping on her back — meaning she was more liable to snore tonight — and when she did that, one arm was always draped loosely across her ribs, the other thrown up so that her face, turned to the side, almost touched her fingers. Yes, that was how it would be tonight.

Settling himself back in his own bed with a smile, he let his sightless eyes fall closed. Sleep did not come easily now, being able to hear, feel, smell, and taste on a greater scale. It had only been a few days and already his other senses were ramping up in receptiveness, at times making him rather antsy.

Like tonight, there was a strange smell he hadn't yet encountered in the hospital, one that seemed oddly out of place. Something that smelled like… he couldn't quite tell. It was dirt, and age, and dank stone that hadn't seen sunlight in decades. In one way, it reminded him of the room under Central he had never seen, the room where the Homonculi's Father had used him as part of his national transmutation circle. Roy supposed, in some corner of his mind, that he should feel fear, feel anxiety associated with that smell creeping up on him.

But tonight…. Roy yawned, nestling back farther into the clean sheets, listening to the way they rustled. He sighed contentedly, then listened as the sound swelled in his ears. The long haaaa of exhale, the fading sshhhhffft sshhhhffft as his shoulders found a comfortable position on the starched white linen, and finally the soft sound of Riza's voice as she murmured to herself in her sleep.

He tried to rouse himself out of deepening lethargy at this last, thinking that if she was talking in her sleep, she was dreaming and that dreams were a dangerous thing this soon after a major event like the Promised Day…. But the fatigue was quickly overtaking him and he felt himself sinking underneath its influence. The sounds swelled in his ears again, like an image in a fisheye lens, distorted and odd… but he could hear Riza's breathing resume its normal, unhurried pace as the murmuring subsided. Feeling every muscle relax, one by one, he drifted into deep, dreamless sleep with a final thought….

Damn, I love her….

The smell of him was unmistakable, even among all the myriad other scents. The man supposed that he had always known Roy Mustang smelled like that, smelled of ink and paper from his endless hours of research, of smoke and fire from the results of that research, of the fabric and metal that comprised the Amestrian military uniform and its various adornments. There was another, fainter scent that was mixed in with these, though, something like vanilla, brown sugar, soft white soap… and blood.

Lots of blood.

He clung to the wall just outside the hospital room window, black eyes peering over the edge at the two sleeping soldiers. The source of the smell of blood was evident: bandages wrapped around each of Mustang's hands, and in the farther bed, bandaging around the neck and left shoulder of Riza Hawkeye.

Mustang wasn't asleep, he knew; he still sat upright, staring at nothing as though lost in thought… or maybe…. The man stared hard at him and realized with something of a jolt that the normally dark eyes were greyed out to literally a shadow of their former selves.

The normally sharp-eyed Colonel had somehow lost his vision. How very interesting….

The man's tongue darted out, moistening dry, papery lips and running over his teeth. He could feel the saliva gathering, pooling in the hollow of his lower jaw behind his teeth, and he knew on some instinctive level what that saliva would do to either of them. With Mustang's eyes out of commission, it was one less hazard to worry about, and getting close would be even easier.

His sharp hearing picked up murmuring from the other windows looking out over the hospital grounds, and his head abruptly whipped around. A young voice, male, answered by a similar one that sounded infinitely tired. Both were familiar, but more so the first.

Slipping fully beneath the level of the windowsill, the man crept along the smooth stone of the wall toward a window some twenty metres away where the voices came from. It hadn't been so long since he last saw Edward Elric, but there again was another sore spot. Mustang, Hawkeye, Elrics… all of them were so far beneath him now, farther than they ever had been before.

He made it to the window without incident and immediately saw why it had been so easy for him to hear quiet voices at such a distance: the glass pane had been slid open, only the screen barring access to the interior.

"It'd be really nice to surprise Winry when we get back," the younger boy was saying, his voice full of fatigue… and a smile. "Just walk up to the front door like I've had my real body this whole time."

"All I told her when I called is that we were both okay, just taking time to recover in hospital," the older one - Fullmetal, the man thought hatefully - replied, obviously grinning. "She might glean from that that you've gotten your body back, but if not, it would make a good surprise. If she cries, maybe she'll at least be smiling."

"Wouldn't she be anyway?" Teasing had crept into the younger's tone now. "I thought you promised that the next time you made her cry, it'd be tears of -"

There was a quiet whump sound; a pillow striking a body, followed by the younger brother's laughter. "You're lucky you're still so scrawny," Fullmetal grumbled darkly, though the man's sharp ears picked out the faint fond undertone. "Otherwise I would've tried to knock you out of bed."

The man's lips widened in a sinister smile. Winry… the girl, yes…. Personally, the thought of Elric blood did not sing as sweetly to him than that of Mustang or even Hawkeye, but the girl's…. He supposed that was a trait he had gleaned from the before; a weakness for females. Perhaps, should he need the Elrics for any sort of reason, the girl could be used to ensure their cooperation….

He licked his lips again, listening as the boys' conversation continued and eventually trailed away. The younger brother fell asleep first, his breathing becoming slow, deep, and even. Fullmetal was obviously still awake and, from the sound of it, working on something. Pages turned, then the scribble of a pen, more pages, more scribbling. Thoughtful muttering about this alchemical precept or that… high-level precepts that a boy of fifteen or sixteen really had no business knowing.

At last, the books closed with the soft slap of collìding piles of paper and there came the sound of Fullmetal settling into his bed before his breathing matched his brother's.

The man had no idea how long he had been hanging about outside this window, but he had long since come to the conclusion that sneaking in here would be far easier than trying to slip through the window of such a notorious light sleeper as Roy Mustang.

Raising himself so that his eyes peeped over the edge of the sill, he confirmed that both Elric boys were asleep before he allowed his body to stretch out, watching it filter through the fine mesh of the window screen. He coalesced again on the other side, his gleaming eyes watching the boys.

The younger - strange; the man had never seen him as anything than a supernaturally animated suit of armour - was emaciated and pallid, his long hair lying limp on the pillow around his face. A gaunt hand rested on the sheets over the wasted midriff in a position that mirrored his brother's in the opposite bed. Both boys had unconsciously turned their face toward the other, as though they had fallen asleep looking at each other.

The man slid soundlessly up between the beds, his tongue darting out once again to moisten dry lips. Not much left to the younger boy's body now, nothing worth the man's time. But the elder….

The scent of blood already lay heavily on Fullmetal: in his hair, on the bandages wrapped around his forehead and left bicep, and the clothes stored in a cardboard box beside the bed. The coat draped over the box drew the man's attention; it was long, black, covered in touch-transfer bloodstains and the scent of the younger Elric… as well as Mustang.

Ah, of course. The Flame Colonel's ever-present black coat.

Smiling slyly, the man took up the garment and held it to his sensitive nose. The smell of the blood called him… and he was somewhat surprised to discover that not all if it smelled of Mustang. A hefty percent of it - on the sleeves and left hip-height area was distinctly Hawkeye. How very interesting….

Folding the coat over his arm, the man turned toward the door and the light spilling under it. When he opened it, though he stood framed in the lights from the hallway, he cast no shadow on the floor of the room.

The halls of the hospital were deserted this late at night. He slipped along the passage, past a few closed doors and some open ones. He could hear the nurses and doctors at their duty station, chatting idly. They were out of sight farther down the hall in the opposite direction, but their voices echoed softly from the off-white walls.

He didn't bother to count doors or measure distance to find his destination. He simply followed his over-sharp nose along the scent trail of smoke, vanilla, and the coppery tang of blood.

Their door was closed, but unlocked, and it opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges. The man took a silent step inside… and promptly froze at the sight of Mustang's open, blindly staring eyes. He was still sitting upright as he had been before, arms draped loosely over partially drawn-up knees. His face was turned toward the bed beside him, his expression that of someone listening intently.

Yet he was not listening to the man. The clouded eyes were fixed on the sleeping form of Hawkeye, lying comfortably on her back. She lay with one arm draped with effortless grace over the ribs on her left side, the other thrown up so that her face, turned slightly to the right, nearly rested on her loosely curled fingers.

A noiseless smile spread across the man's mouth, his teeth baring as an idea occurred. The taste for girl — no, woman — flesh was in his mouth, and better yet, within his reach. And oh… what it would do to Roy Mustang, if….

He glided deeper into the room, his eyes glittering as they remained fixed on the Colonel. Sleep, he thought. Lie back, relax, sleep…. She is safe, she is strong. Safe strong safe safe…. He kept a tether on the next thought, not allowing it to transfer.

She is delicious.

Mustang's eyelids began to drop low, and he lay back in his bed, a faint smile playing around his lips. Contentment settled around him like a light fog, and he breathed a soft sigh. Sleep was closing around him, masking his attentiveness as the man slid close beside the nearer bed.

If he had cast a shadow, it would have fallen on the sleeping woman's face. The man bent, bracing one knee on the mattress, eyes going to the white bandaging around that graceful neck. On some subconscious level, she must have sensed his presence; she frowned slightly, unintelligible murmurs spilling from her lips as she began to slip toward waking. He could feel Mustang begin to fight the influence, alerted by the soft sounds.

The man's fingers gripped her chin lightly, and he renewed the assertion to sleep, both on her and the man in the next bed. Hawkeye's furrowed forehead smoothed, and the last mumble diffused into the silence. Mustang settled back, heavy eyelids falling shut as he gave in and his mind sank into the oblivion of sleep.

A thought, crystalline clear and distinct even through the fog of fatigue, rose to the forefront of the alchemist's fading consciousness and brought the strange man's head snapping up.

Damn, I love her…. it said, no louder than a whisper, but seeming to scream in the stillness.

A wide grin split the man's mouth, his teeth glinting in the light from the window. He had known Mustang certainly cared deeply for his subordinates, but love…. Now, that was interesting indeed. What kind of love, he wondered. Platonic? Fraternal? No, he could already tell it was neither of those, simply from the inflection of that one thread of thought. It was nothing short of romantic love, no question there.

Which meant, while he had fully intended to use the Lieutenant to hurt her superior, he now had the power to wound Mustang more deeply than he might ever have hoped.

He leaned low over her, nose sniffing delicately at the bandaging around her neck. Antiseptic, adhesive, cotton… blood. His heightened sense of smell picked out the angry red line, no longer than an inch, over the vein where her lifeblood flowed. The steady beat of her heart shuttled it from valve to valve, from heart to brain and back again. He felt heat gather in the front of his trousers at this closeness, at the momentousness… and on an impulse, he trailed a long, lascivious lick along the gently curving line of Hawkeye's jaw.

She frowned slightly, a small sound escaping her throat, but she did not slip from under the shroud of sleep. The man seemed to remember hearing that she had always been a rather deep sleeper; probably something that had worked in her favour in the battle camps of Ishval.

Smiling, letting his jaw drop open wide, he leaned forward and sank wet, gleaming fangs through the stiff bandaging and into her throat, on either side of that thin, healing slit in the otherwise flawless skin.

She inhaled sharply, aware even through slumber that something was happening. The man pressed heavy hands to her shoulders, holding her down against a writhe that was more instinct than intention. If she moved too strongly, the sharp fangs would rip through the flesh and leave her bleeding out, rather than the trickle he intended. To her credit, she still tried to fight, but to no avail.

In the next bed, Mustang remained fully asleep, completely motionless, and totally unaware.

The blood began to seep into the bandaging, and the man's tongue swiped across the rough fabric. The taste of it was coloured with the alcoholic fumes of antiseptic and the tang of adhesive from the medical tape holding the bandage fast, but he ignored it. The blood taste was prevalent.

His lips closed around the slowly reddening splotch in an experimental suck, and Hawkeye attempted to squirm again. This time, the sound that she made was nearly a pleasured half-moan, her mind translating the man's actions as something done in darkened bedrooms out of passion.

He felt the heat in his trousers again, more beginning pool in his hips.

As he took more of the blood, he began to realize another aftertaste. Not like the other two that were layered over top of it… this one was imbued within the blood. The actual flavour was unidentifiable - certainly not the copper-iron taste of blood nor any kind of food or drink. It simply was.

It wasn't strong; the man would have called it 'faded,' as though with age. A patina of dust on a bottle of fine wine. The first impression he was struck with, lapping thoughtfully at the blood-stained bandages, was pens. Pens soaked in ink and used to doodle idly on skin in schoolrooms by bored children. The second feeling was of heat, the sensation so vivid that the blood seemed to, absurdly, turn to hot sauce on his tongue. This was followed quickly by an aftertaste that caused the man to pull away, his nose wrinkling. It was faint, even fainter than the other two, but the taste of smoke was definite. Not cigarette smoke; wood smoke, as though the blood had stood beside a blazing bonfire.

Licking red smears from his lips, the man stared down thoughtfully at her, then turned his gaze toward the bed across the room. The saying went that where there was smoke, there was fire… and Mustang certainly had that in spades. But how that would have transferred to the Lieutenant…?

The hunger coiled in his stomach, reminding him that there was a meal to finish…. He bent back to her, though now he pulled the bandaging aside; he couldn't take the aftertaste it afforded anymore. Hawkeye didn't struggle near so much this time, but something held him back from taking too much more.

He could feel the life in her at a dimmer glow than what it should have been. She had been wounded already, and lost blood… and this was certainly not helping. While he wanted Mustang to hurt… to bleed her dry would make it far too easy. He pulled back, smiling in satisfaction to himself, and tossed the black overcoat he still held onto the bedside visitors' chair.

When he left, ten minutes after he entered, he left her alive.

MEADOW STREET, CENTRAL CITY

1007 HOURS, APRIL 9

He wasn't entirely sure of the last time he had felt this banged up and ill-used, but Alex Louis Armstrong supposed it must have been when he went toe-to-toe with the bull-man: the human chimera Loa, in Dublith.

Checking over the clipboard in his hands, he rolled his left shoulder experimentally; the muscles and tendons creaked, protesting the dislocation they had suffered, but the loosening feeling in the taut tissue was gratifying. Another day or two and the worst of the aches would begin to recede.

The paperwork in his hand, detailing the crime that had been committed at this otherwise picturesque house, saddened him, caused a sentimental ache just left of centre in his barrel chest… but as the car pulled up to the curb ten feet away, Armstrong breathed deep and carefully set his emotions aside. Some could do that much easier than he could; Mustang, certainly, and Hawkeye the easiest of all, with her perfect poker face. For him, it was a conscious effort that was necessary perhaps a little too often.

He stepped up just shy of the curb as two men exited the car. "Second Lieutenant Breda; Master Sergeant Fuery. I'm glad you could join me."

Breda smiled slyly as he slipped his hands into his pockets. "Like I told the Colonel; we're considered deserters," he said. "At least until West and South Cities 'find' our paperwork that 'got lost.' Until then, neither of us have an official rank."

"But I suppose you could consider us civilian consultants," Fuery put in. At his feet, Black Hayate gave two short yaps as if in confirmation; to his credit, Breda only twitched a little.

Smiling down at the dog, Armstrong closed his file folder. "Am I to take it that you're dogsitting while Lieutenant Hawkeye is in hospital, Fuery?"

"Yes, sir. Someone had to look after him, since the doctor won't allow him to stay with the Lieutenant while she recovers." Fuery's smile was a proud one. "I was helping teach him how to track before Führer Bradley split the team up. I thought I'd bring him along in case we needed a good nose here."

"Good thinking." Turning toward the doorway, he ducked through it into the house's entryway. "Come; I'll show you what we've got."

They followed, but Breda's smile had slipped into a look of concern. Armstrong could tell he had noticed his stiff and careful movements; when he had bent to avoid the doorframe, he had dipped at the knees rather than bend at the waist or bow his head more than an inch. "Major… pardon my asking, but should you really be at work? Last I'd heard, you took a pretty hard beating. You should be —"

He stopped as the big man paused, one foot on the first stair. Blue eyes held him in serious regard for a long moment… and then crinkled at the corners in his familiar smile. "I'm a little sore, but it's to be expected and it's nothing that will prevent me from merely touring a crime scene. I'll be fine." He started up the stairs. "I've sustained worse injuries in spirited boxing matches… and besides, I'm one of the few people the Investigations Office had to spare, given the circumstances."

"What exactly happened here?" Fuery asked, tone indicating that he didn't quite want to know. Black Hayate climbed the steps ahead of him, his nose already sniffing busily.

"I won't lie and and say it's a run-of-the-mill crime," Armstrong answered soberly. He stopped on the second floor, waiting for the other men to join him on the landing. "What I'm about to show you is both gruesome and disturbing… but I want a second opinion and with the investigations you've assisted in out East, you're the most qualified I could think of on short notice."

Fuery swallowed hard at the word 'disturbing,' but Breda's serious face merely turned grim. "And what exactly is it you're planning to show us?"

"Homicide, gentlemen." Armstrong clenched one hand into a fist, barely aware he was doing it. "Triple homicide."

So saying, he led them to the first door on the right and stepped inside. Hayate would go no further, crouching low with his ears pinned back; a sound halfway between a whine and a growl slipped from between partially bared teeth. Breda and Fuery stepped warily around the dog and followed Armstrong in… and stared. Fuery clapped a hand over his mouth, and Armstrong found himself hoping it was merely shock and that the young man wasn't about to contaminate the crime scene. Breda grimaced in distaste before swallowing hard and forcing himself to speak.

"That's… a lot of blood." His gaze turned to Armstrong. "Who were they?"

He consulted the clipboard. "A Mr. and Mrs. Titus Jameson. He worked for a branch of First Bank of Amestria, and she was a schoolteacher. When neither of them appeared for work, people began making calls. A pair of MPs sent to do a welfare check found them…." He hesitated. "Them, as well as their four-year-old son, in the next room down the hall. All of them in the same condition."

He watched the horror grow on their faces, knowing it had looked much the same on his own. Breda breathed out a curse. "The kid, too…." he muttered. His eyes went back to the bed, where the dead man and woman lay. "And the same was done to him?"

Armstrong nodded, a feeling creeping over him - not for the first time that morning - that he hadn't felt in seven or eight years. Not since Ishval. Small bodies, horribly wounded…. He cleared his throat gruffly and forced himself to speak. "Ahhhrrmm! Yes, and we believe there was only one intruder. A towel was used in the kitchen to clean himself up, but so far, we haven't found any other evidence. Our next step will be to determine if Mr. Jameson or his wife had any enemies, but I suspect we won't find much."

Fuery stirred, one hand still over his mouth as he spoke. "I can help with that," he said softly. He kept his gaze firmly away from the bed.

"As I'd hoped you would " Armstrong said gently. He turned his attention to the red-haired man still staring grimly at the bodies. "Second Lieu -" He stopped, remembering that use of rank was not exactly mandatory in the current situation. "Breda, if you could get in touch with Second Lieutenant Falman and explain the case to him? He left on an overnight train back to the North last night, but he should have arrived by now."

"Sure. I think he could use something to take his mind off having to go back to that frozen wasteland." He hesitated a moment, visibly plucking up his courage, and then took several careful steps up to the bedside. Armstrong watched as the normally laid-back man's face drained of colour.

"...Breda?" Fuery ventured warily. "What's -"

Moving faster than Armstrong would have thought he could, Breda took two backward steps away from the bodies, then turned and bolted from the room. Forgetting his own fear, Fuery rushed after him, Armstrong trailing at a more sedate pace as their footsteps pounded down the stairs and out the front door. As he himself descended, he could hear Fuery speaking indistinctly as the sounds of Breda losing his last meal came from outside.

He found them on the front steps, Breda still hanging over the wrought-iron handrail, face-to-foliage with the Jameson's hedge. Fuery was patting him awkwardly on the back, looking unnerved.

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Breda straightened part of the way, grimacing. "Sorry, sir, I just — I've never seen anything that bad before. And if it was done to a little kid, too…." He looked up at Armstrong. "I'll tell you right now, I don't think you're looking for anyone that might've had a beef with the Jamesons. You're looking for a full-fledged psychopath who probably isn't going to stop here."

Armstrong felt his stomach sink, and wondered for an instant if he might not join Breda in leaning over the railing. "Somehow, I was hoping you wouldn't say that, but I knew you would." He sighed heavily, looking back through the open doorway to the stairs to the second floor. "We'll need to look into the records and see if this same sort of attack has occurred anywhere else, but I suspect it hasn't. We would have heard about it by now."

Standing straight, one hand still on the railing for balance, Breda nodded grimly. "Forget the background check, Major. Fuery and I'll skip straight to combing through records: similar incidents, recent prison escapes or releases, that sort of thing."

"Yes, I suppose you're right." Armstrong paused a moment, then added. "If you don't mind, I have one more minor favour to ask. If you can, don't inform Colonel Mustang of this just yet. He has enough concerns at the moment without adding this to the mix. Once he and Lieutenant Hawkeye are released from hospital, we'll see about bringing them into it."

"Just a minute, sir," Fuery said. "What exactly was done to these people? I noticed you haven't said anything about a cause of death."

Breda shuddered, and Armstrong's face paled just noticeably. "That will have to be one of the things we investigate," he rumbled quietly. "You couldn't see it from the doorway, except for all the blood.

"Their throats were, quite literally, ripped out."

[ageeksnerdyworld]

Death After Death

Characters: Jason Todd, Roy Harper, Oliver Queen

Word Count: 4,800

Trigger Warning: Ghosts. Haunting. Ghost Possession. Drugs. Heroin. Drug Use. Heroin Use. Needles. Withdrawal Symptoms. Description of Heroin High. Death. Swearing.

A/N: Parts--X X X Third installment of my Ghost!Jason AU. Kinda don’t like the end of this. I feel like it’s too rushed. But whatever. Ollie doesn’t make an actual appearance but I felt like I needed to put him there... Title is meh. They’re not my strong suit. Also kinda annoyed now that I made Jason's eyes green in the first one but back then I didn't plan on having Roy in this so... And to anybody who looked forward to this I’m sorry it took so long.

Summary: Jason Todd leaves Gotham City with the intent to start his after-life somewhere else. Hopping on a bus he just wants to leave as soon as possible. Meanwhile Roy Harper wanders through the streets of Star City. Suffering through withdrawal symptoms he’s desperate for a hit. Click that read more if you want to...

XXXXX

He walked day and night non-stop; letting his feet carry him further and further away from Wayne Manor. Further away from the past that flowed through the city’s lit streets and darkened alleyways. He didn’t have a specific place in mind when he began walking; and neither did he when he took the first available Greyhound out of town. He just wanted to leave and get as far away as possible.

He never once paid attention to where the bus was headed.

Normally, traveling by car and going the fastest way, the journey would take about five hours and four minutes. By bus it would take five and a half hours with no traffic. But if traffic was horrific it would take around seven or eight hours. And that was only if you were travelling by car; which he was. Well, he was for a short while. He snuck onto the bus, through the rear entrance, walked through the door and sat in the last seat in the back.

He was on the bus for not even five minutes before things started to go downhill.

Jason sat in the back in the hope that he wouldn’t be noticed by any people or pets. In the weeks immediately following his ghostly resurrection he had come to realize the age-old myth that animals could sense the dead was completely true. As he walked through the streets of Gotham, after the semi-successful séance, a large black male Doberman saw him. The dog began to bark at him, which startled Jason but, the animal didn’t stop there. It actually broke free of the grip its owner had on the chain leash and bolted after him.

During those first few weeks he had also kept on accidently possessing the living. His first victim was none other than Dick Grayson; the first Boy Wonder. Jason bumped into the man and the next thing he knew he was controlling the man’s words and movements. After he had left Wayne Manor he walked alone with nowhere to go and no purpose in mind. So he wandered far into the heart of the city and floated in between the people who dared to walk the streets at night.

At first everything was going rather smoothly.

No animals tried to attack him unlike during his long walk from his grave to Wayne Manor. He didn’t walk through any unsuspecting passersby or make any babies cry. Jason just walked around and listened to the everyday conversations of the random people. A group of friends excitedly talked about the movie they saw. A young couple walked arm in arm with happy smiles on their faces. He bumped in to the younger looking man and tried so hard to get back out that it made the possessed man have a seizure. The man almost died.

And so he learned his lesson and did his best to keep his distance from the living.

Jason tried. He really did. Sitting in the back of the bus he was completely alone. He thought that it would be fine and he could ride the bus. But then the driver began to notice that the vehicle began to malfunction. He turned to the passengers with a sad look on his face and told them all the bad news. It didn’t look good, the driver told them, something was wrong and he had to call somebody. Jason knew that the malfunction had something to do with his presence so he got up and walked out of the bus. And he didn’t stop.

Jason Todd allowed his feet to carry him all the way to Star City.

XXXXX

Roy Harper, teenage-sidekick and adoptive son of Green Arrow, was having a very bad night. In recent weeks he was having one bad night after another. A good day hadn’t crossed paths with the eighteen-year-old in a very long time. Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, had recently discovered Roy’s deepest and darkest secret. But instead of helping his son get clean the billionaire superhero kicked the boy out of the only home he had ever known.

And now he drifted through the streets of Star City having the worst night of his life.

The young man’s hair had grown longer than it had ever been in the few weeks he had been out on his own. In recent days it had become oily from lack of a good shampooing; or any for that matter. Slight stubble of a ginger beard had begun to grow as well-- he couldn’t grow a full one if he wanted to-- as if he needed to add onto the hobo vagrant look. Roy’s outfit consisted of an old pair of dark blue jeans, stylishly ripped at the knee like every other aspiring punk, a black t-shirt that had grown too large for his thinning frame and a dark olive green, very thin, army jacket. They were the only clothes that his adoptive father allowed him to take with him and the entire outfit was already dirty, tattered, and stained.

I’m fitting the hobo-drug-addict stereotype to a T aren’t I?

He had sold most of his belongings a long time ago, back when Ollie first threw him out, because Roy didn’t have a dollar to his name. But he kept his bow, some arrows, and his costume; among a few other things.

Originally he used that money to get a bite to eat and a place to stay for the night. When that bit of money ran out he began stealing whatever electronics that were small enough, and easy enough to carry, and selling those. Sometimes he bought food, and he even bought a blanket once, but mostly?

He bought smack and fed his addiction.

But tonight he was flat broke and completely out of heroin. He was alone, hungry, cold, helpless and afraid, but none of that really fazed him. The only thing on the teen’s mind was getting his next fix. Roy couldn’t handle the shaking, the high fever, and the bouts of vomiting that increased with each off day. Getting high would make him forget about everything and he really wanted to shoot up. No, he didn’t want another shot, that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He wanted his last.

He needed it to be his last.

And no-one is going to stop me.

His withdrawal symptoms were worsening and he began to have severe muscle spasms. Wrapping his thin sad excuse for a jacket around his chest he tries his best to hide it. Knowing that he was close to having a seizure, having had suffered through one from withdrawal once before, Roy quickens his pace to a half-jog. Finally he finds the place he was looking for; Peter’s Pilfered Pawns. The small, dirty and dingy corner shop is the only place where he could sell what he wanted without any questions asked.

Roy pushes the glass door open with a shaking hand. He had been inside the pawn shop only once before. And it was during an armed robbery that he and Ollie came to stop. So you couldn’t actually say that he ever shopped around or anything like that. Tonight was, if everything went as planned, going to be the very first, and very last time, he sold anything here.

Re-adjusting the bag on his shoulder he walks up to the counter that sits at back of the store.

Once at the counter he takes the large bag off his shoulder and carefully sets it on the counter. His right hand begins to shake uncontrollably as he takes his water bottle out of his bag. Hoping the man didn’t see it he shoves his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. Smiling kindly to the tall, beefy, bearded man who stood behind the counter Roy asked the man if he could get at least two-hundred dollars for what he was selling.

“Depends on what you’re wanting to sell me, kid,” he said with a scoff.

He gives the man a playful smirk and reaches into his bag with shaking hands. Feeling the man’s eyes on him he quickly stops.

“Get all kinds in here, kid. I don’t judge nobody.”

Roy nods and goes back to taking the items out of his bag. Once the bow, quiver, and arrows all lay on the counter he shoots the man a look; Well what do you think? He lets the man behind the counter touch the bow, his bow, with wide eyes. The man picks the bow up in a way that makes Roy cringe and almost makes him want to take it back and leave the shop. Almost.

“Laminated wood composite. Kevlar string. 80 pound draw weight. Made it myself. Arrows too.”

The man continues to inspect Roy’s items but the teenager could tell that the man knew nothing about archery. So he knew absolutely nothing about how price this kind of stuff. He didn’t know that the leather-lined interior, Kevlar-exterior, custom made quiver would go for six-hundred easy with the right buyer. In fact with the right buyer, and in the right place, he was looking at an easy three thou for the whole lot.

“I’ll give you six,” he says as he lays the bow back on the counter. “Hundred.”

“For just the bow or…” Roy starts to ask but the man cuts him off with a hand.

“For the entire thing.”

“Ok, I get it you don’t know the first thing about archery, but, trust me I can get at least three thousand for all this somewhere else.”

“Why don’t you go somewhere else then, kid?” the man says as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“Look, I really need everything penny I can get out these, okay? Let’s come to a compromise. You give me two thou and I throw in the bag for free. It’s leather-interior, Kevlar-exterior; just like the quiver. Worth a shitload.”

As he spoke Roy laid his hand on the table, propping himself up to keep standing for just a little while longer, and his arms started to shake. The man behind the counter obviously notices. He stares at Roy’s shaking left arm and then looks at the teen’s face. He smiles a wide smile; all teeth. Leaning across the counter he whispers to Roy.

“Looks to me like you need whatever you can get, kid. Pretty sure I’d see some nice track marks if I rolled that sleeve of yours. But like I said; I don’t judge nobody. Even then I think it would be better if you took what I offered.”

Roy bows his head, his long ginger hair falling in front of his face, and sighs.

The man slides a small stack of crisp, new, green hundred dollar bills over the glass counter. He smiles as the teen swipes the cash and shoves it into his back pocket. Roy walks through the pawn shop, to the exit, as the man calls after him; thanking him for his business. And for his really good advice on pricing for the archery gear. Roy doesn’t respond as he pushes the door open and walks out.

XXXXX

He didn’t have to go far to find a dealer.

A few good things hide in the city’s darkness sometimes.

Walking about a block, maybe two, down the street going eastward walking in the opposite direction from the way he came he found exactly what he needed.

A man stood at the corner between a crappy apartment building and an alleyway. He looked to be in his mid twenties and wore a pair of black skinny jeans with a thin chain at the side. Shirt’s the same black but his thick, faux fur lined, hoodie is a dark, blood-like, red. His skin’s pale and his hair is dark brown and his eyes match them. The look in his eyes and the scowl on his face give the man a mean stare.

“Whaddya need, kid?”

Why does everyone call me kid? I’m not a fucking kid!

“As much white china I can get with this,” he says pulling the stack of bills from his pocket.

“Where didja get that kinda cash, kid?”

“None of your damn business. Just give me what I asked for.”

The dealer laughs heartily; titling his head back. His face oddly lights up with laughter. On someone like this man the whole things looks out of place and completely wrong. Sighing deeply, as his laughter dies out; the man wipes a small tear from his eye. Eyes that line up perfectly with Roy’s he looks at the pale, freckled, face of the teen.

“You got some sass, kid.”

Stop calling me kid, you fucker.

The exchange was as quick as possible. But as Roy left the dealer tried to get recruit him into his little operation. Said that he could definitely use a kid like him. Roy promptly gave the man the finger; obviously declining his bullshit offer.

There was nowhere else to go and he needed to get high so he ducked into the nearby alleyway. Looking over his shoulder he made sure that no hobos, or ladies and men of the night, were in the immediate vicinity. Letting out a sigh of relief Roy sat down on the ground near the end of the alleyway. Digging his hand into the front pockets of his jeans he pulled out the tools that he needed with shaking hands. It took him a few extra seconds than normal but soon he produced a metal spoon, which he stole from a hotel a couple weeks ago, one of those long party balloons, a small clean cotton ball, and a syringe. Lastly he took out his lucky lighter. It was small, square, made of a silver metal and had the word Poison painted in a bright green, on both sides, and a skull underneath; in that same green color.

Once those were laid out in front of him he reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out the small bag of the purest china white his money could buy.

The thing that made Roy the angriest about Oliver finding out wasn’t that his adoptive father hit him in his anger. It wasn’t that he berated Roy for a good hour; screaming at the top of his lungs. It wasn’t that Roy was disowned by the man who was supposed to love and care for him no matter what he did. It wasn’t even that Ollie kicked him out of the house and said he never wanted to see him again. No; it was none of those things.

You’re not a hero; you’re not even a sidekick. You’re nothing but a junkie.

Those words hurt Roy more than anything. They stung more than the physical pain of Oliver’s fist against his face. Ached more than any of the withdrawal symptoms. It hurt more than the guilt that rushed over him after each comedown. Nothing in the world would ever hurt more than his father, a man he looked up to for so long and wanted to be like so much, saying those words. And the worst part?

They haunted him in every waking moment and haunted him in his sleep.

And of course the words ran through his head every time he prepared a shot.

Running out of veins to shoot up, the track marks that ran up and down his arms prove that many of his veins had fell victim to his addiction, Roy had to settle for one in his left thigh. He stands up and removes his thin belt before unzipping his jeans. Dropping his jeans he sits back down on the freezing concrete with his pants around his ankles. He palms the lighter tightly; only needing it because his water isn’t very clean. Normally he would just mix the powder with a bit of the water, put in the filter, fill the syringe, and shoot up. But tonight he mixes it with the plunger of the syringe and then heats the back of the metal spoon with the small orange flame from his lighter. Roy plops the small cotton ball in the spoon; to act as a filter. Then he picks up the syringe and fills it as much as he could with what was in his spoon; he didn’t care to measure anything. The 10ml syringe fills about half way and he decides to cook up a little bit more. He ends up filling the syringe all the way. After he fills the syringe, he sets it aside to cool; his teeth shake with the cold of his fever as he wraps the balloon around the meat of his thigh. Biting down on the end of the belt, his long ginger hair covering his face as he faces the concrete, Roy pulls it tight forcing the veins to pop. With the belt between his teeth he picks up the syringe again and inserts the needle into the raised vein. As he pushes down on the plunger he opens his mouth and releases the tourniquet. He leans his head back against the cool brick of the wall behind him.

The euphoric relief rushes over him like a crashing wave.

As his high slowly grows, as the more the drug flows through his veins, his senses lessen. The loud, busy, city streets become muffled. The snippets of conversation that seep into the alley from the sidewalk didn’t even reach his ears. Roy’s thoughts slow down to almost a snail’s pace but it isn’t just his thoughts; everything slows down.

This. This is why I shoot smack.

Roy could never get Oliver to understand that; no matter how many times he tried. Ollie thought he was instantly addicted from his first hit. In truth Roy didn’t start with the needle; he started by But the addiction was slow and he didn’t get withdrawal symptoms for weeks; it snuck up on him. He just woke up junk sick one day and it took him hours to realize that he was going through withdrawal. Oliver also thought that Roy shot up because he just made the wrong choice once; thinking that the teen could just give it up because he wanted him to.

It takes away all the demons that run wild in my life. The ones that constantly run around in my head. Demons I could never run from without it. It takes them away and I finally feel in control. That’s what you never got, Ollie. I tried to tell you so many times.

XXXXX

Jason finally makes it to Star City, a day or two after he left Gotham, sometime after midnight. The sky is inky black and starless; foreboding some kind of message that he can’t even hope to understand. Unlike Gotham the city is as alive at night as it is during the day. The citizens of Star City have their fair share of villains but not a single one of them was as terrifying and vicious as Gotham’s least formidable. It was no wonder that they felt safe at night.

He flits through the people; safely keeping his distance. His ghostly hearing picks up every conversation within a small radius despite the loud, busy, night traffic. But all these noises fall on deaf ears because he’s heavily focused somewhere else. Something pulls him somewhere deeper into the heart of the city. He doesn’t know what it is but it could feel it. It feels the same as the invisible force that made him crawl out of his grave.

The boy lets himself be guided.

Arriving at an alleyway, a couple minutes later, he looks around in confusion. He doesn’t see anyone outside the alley. The inside of it is too dark for him to see unless he walks down it. But Jason wishes that he could know what he was supposed to do instead of all this guessing.

What the fuck do you want? he angrily asks the mysterious force. It says nothing in response.

He sighs and walks down the alleyway.

Stopping when he made it to the very end of the alley he sees a boy, about a year or two older than himself with long ginger hair and freckles, sitting on the ground with his pants around his ankles. His eyes quickly catch sight of the blue balloon wrapped tightly around the boy’s thigh and the needle that sticks out of a vein. Taking a mental step back from the situation he now sees the lighter, spoon and the bag of powder. Suddenly overcome with worry Jason moves to take the balloon, and the needle, off the teen’s body.

But he’s already too late.

Roy Harper didn’t die instantly. Jason was just too late to save him so that by the time he got there the boy’s pale skin was a light bluish color. The teenage addict’s death was slow and, if he was conscious enough it was, most likely painful. His senses slowed when he was high but so did his breathing and his heartbeat. He was always so far down that he just never noticed. Then his body went fully limp when his both his heartbeat and breathing stopped.

Jason watched with sad eyes as the boy’s spirit lifted out of his body.

The faded, see-through, mist-like form of the dead boy’s spirit formed directly on top of his slumped body. It looked like someone laid a thin sheet over the dead teen. But then the spirit form slowly raised itself from its host. As it detached itself from the somewhat warm body the spirit flicked off in almost every direction; like smoke from a fire. When the spirit floated a good foot above the dead body the smoking effect stopped. Then the boy’s spirit stretched out, as one does when they wake in the morning, and floated down to the ground.

Once his ghost feet touched the ground the spirit opened his eyes.

“Where am I? What’s going on? AAAAAHHHH! A ghost!” he screamed seeing Jason standing less than a foot away from him.

“Shut the fuck up, dude. You’re a ghost too.”

The ginger boy’s faded green eyes, Jason could tell that they were bright and lively once, widened in shock. Then he shook his head in disbelief and let out a laugh that matched it. But instead of stopping there the teen kept on laughing until he held in sides in pain.

“Look at yourself,” Jason says as he points to the spot where Roy’s body lay on the ground.

“My mom OD’d from heroin too,” he adds solemnly.

Roy looks down at his body. Parts of the scene before him jump out at him like brightly lit neon motel signs. The needle in his thigh is the first thing he looks at. Then he meets the glazed-over look in his fading green eyes. Staring at the tell-tale bluish color of his dead skin he bites his lip. Unable to look at his dead, life-less, body he stares at the brick wall behind it. But he can’t even look at that so he turns back to the other ghost boy and bitterly says; “You don’t overdose from heroin. You die from it.”

The other ghost nods.

“So, kid, you’re dead too. You know why we’re still here and not wherever the hell people are supposed to go?”

Jason folds his arms across his chest; “Name’s Jason. Not kid. But no I don’t.”

“Thought you’d know, seeing as how you died first, but guess not.” Roy says with a smirk.

“Thought you’d be smarter seeing as how you’re older than I am.”

Roy looks around worriedly and starts to leave the alley. Jason follows after him and asks him what’s wrong. Harper shrugs and says he just didn’t feel right staying there. Jason nods understandingly and the two fall into perfect step with one another. Walking in silence the two enjoy the sight of Star City at night. After a while Roy breaks the silence.

“Who were you before you died?”

A hand flies to cover his mouth in embarrassment. He should know that it was probably the worst thing you could ask a ghost. Especially seeing as how he just became one and he didn’t want to talk about his old life at all. He rapidly apologizes but Jason waves it off with a hand.

“Jason Todd. Robin. Well the second one, but, I still was Boy Wonder. Sidekick to the Bat and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t love every single second of it. Anything before that, I can’t remember anymore; ‘cept Mom dying that is. And I obviously shuffled off the mortal coil, but it wasn’t as normal as you’d think.”

“What does that mean?” Roy asks staring at, but also through, the ghost boy who walked next to him.

“Joker beat me close to death and left me in a building that was rigged to blow. One explosion and a couple months later here I am. Ghost Boy Wonder.”

Jason says it like it meant nothing but there was a slight edge to his voice; as if he was trying his hardest to convince himself that the manner of his death didn’t matter.

“Who were you?”

When the ghost boy, ex-Boy Wonder, looked over at Roy he froze. He didn’t want to admit, or he couldn’t, who he was. It was too embarrassing and too pitiful. And pity was the last thing he wanted right now. But Jason kept giving him this I’m waiting look and so he relented. Sighing deeply he thought of what would be the lightest way to put it. Unable to find one he gave up and opted for the cold, hard, truth.

“I was Roy Harper; Speedy. Green Arrow’s sidekick, you know? We had our ups and downs and sometimes I never understood why he adopted me. It made no sense. A bad sidekick, and an even worse son, I was just a failure.”

“Don’t ever fucking say that about yourself ever again.” Jason says sternly; interrupting.

Nodding shortly Roy continues; “I felt like a failure anyway. I had all these demons in my head telling me I was so I believed them. Then I found heroin, how exactly I don’t remember, or maybe it found me. But it chased the demons away and I was happy.”

Jason bites his lip; unsure of what to say.

Roy remains silent as well.

After a minute or two he speaks again. “I needed to chase those demons away. They would’ve fucking killed me so I had to do something. It’s not my fault that heroin was what I turned to. Oliver blamed me when he found out but it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not my damn fault.”

Jason wraps his arm around the boy’s shoulder as a tear falls from Roy’s eye. He pats Roy’s shoulder in a calming and reassuring gesture.

“I know it’s not. But hey...”

He stops and turns around so that he faces Roy. He rests his hands on both of Roy’s shoulders but then changes his position. Moving one hand so that it rests behind the boy’s neck he grips the boy’s left hand tightly. It was exactly what Bruce would do when something bad happened to him or when Jason was greatly upset. And it always worked so he decided to steal it; just for a moment. Jason stands a few inches shorter than the older boy but he makes a point to stare into the Roy’s eyes.

“It doesn’t matter if Oliver fucking Queen, biggest goddamn asshole and the literal worst father of the year, couldn’t see the good in you. Fuck him. You don't need him. You’re a good person, Roy Harper. I see it. And you need to see it too. That’s all that matters.”

Roy smiles, thanks Jason, and wipes a tear from his eye.

The two fall back into their walk; pacing quickly matching up. But then a loud boom from across the street startles them. Looking in the direction of the noise the boys see a gang of robbers rushing into the Star City National Bank. From their vantage point it looks like there’s five, maybe six, large burly men.

“Hey, Robin Hood? You wanna go stop some criminals?”

“How are we gonna do that, Jaybird?”

Ah, nicknames already, we're moving fast aren't we.

Jason gives his new friend, the newly-minted ghost boy, the kind of smile that could only hide a delicious secret. Despite the dead, gray-tinged, faded pick color of his lips the smile looked as if it belonged there. His faded eyes glinted slightly with some semblance of mischief.

“C’mon, Red. I’ll show you.”

[jasonmcgathey]

DiMarco’s

Concerned the draft reserves in our keg might not hold through morning, we start marching, up Bethel and across a deserted bank parking lot to the nearby neighborhood watering hole, DiMarco’s. A divided, four lane concourse of revving engines and weekend mad revelers, strip mall facades on both sides lit up indexing, variously, every known shade of the rainbow, this stretch of Bethel still sizzles with a heat only unexplored turf can sustain. Not only this stretch but the wealth of Upper Arlington beyond where, having conquered campus in our peculiar slipshod way, which is to say incompletely, but the best we’re ever likely to, may very well stand my next great project. Cataloging this terrain, or any fraction of the buffer separating their world and ours, or another series of blocks entirely. We cavort in myriad clusters like zoo animals gone AWOL, and I’m suddenly reminded of those January nights scouting out High Street for the very first time. The feeling that anything can happen and you’re on the edge of some tremendous discovery, a sensation you can never explain, nor one you’re ever capable of replicating on command.

DiMarco’s is a simple dive bar with a pair of real dartboards along the back wall, one pool table near the front picture window and not much else. Booths around the rim, and wobbly mismatched tables in the middle, square and shoved together in blocks of two or three. Jukebox topheavy with 1980s hair metal the clientele has never stopped listening to, one large screen television between the pool table and the entrance. This place might not have much of that elusive element, class, but enough that nobody’s cracking someone else over the head with a pool cue. Everyone here’s a friend, including the squat blonde middle aged barmaid Jan, quick to smile, her slightly pudgy right hand man Zerby, wiry black curls distributed sparsely across his prematurely balding pate, large black eyeglasses lending him the appearance of an owl. They are always here, I’m told. A schedule as religious as the price slashes they apply each trip to the bar, just because we know Doug and the Yanik sisters.

DiMarco’s has at no point ever been my favorite bar in town, but I sure have spent a ton of time here, nonetheless. Enough friends who lived up this way did consider it their top spot, to where the rest of us wound up here constantly by default. There’s so many random memories swirling around my head about this place, as is often the case, that it’s difficult to determine what episodes or details to share.

I know I’ve spent at least two Halloweens here, in part, of which that photo up top documents one. This would be the year that a really sharp looking brunette flashed her tits at the entire room, and Miles – though dressed like a doctor – raised both of his arms like a football referee and announced, “that’s a field goal!” This makes the highlight reel, to be sure, and is also a great example of the classic Miles comment, memorable despite or because of not making 100% perfect sense…even though you basically know what he means anyway. Otherwise, on this particular outing, I’m going with the self-explanatory bathrobe and pipe look, while Lisa, though she’s removed it by this point, had earlier adopted some sort of slutty kitten mask.

As far as other memories are concerned…Roy, Doug Fogle and I once caught a ride here in a pizza delivery girl’s pickup, in an absolute downpour. A bunch of us had been at Polo’s and virtually everyone else in our crew already left on foot for DiMarco’s. By virtue of hanging around just a smidgen two long, the three of us are caught up in this rain, though we don’t know it until stepping out the front door.

“Hey,” Roy says, spotting a pizza joint next door, “let’s wait in there until this lets up.” 

We walk over and begin rattling the locked glass door. The lights are still on, there are two girls working behind the counter, and an Asian couple is milling around in the lobby. So what gives? Finally, the Asian lady strides over and unlocks the door, to the visible consternation of both employees. 

“We’re closed,” one of the girls calls out as our motley trio staggers in. Apparently, the two ladies were making up one last order for this couple, and that was to be the end of their night.  

“Here,” the other, nicer girl offers, a modest looking brown haired chick, “we’ve got two whole pizzas left over – you guys can have them.”  

We thank her in an appropriately profuse fashion, and Roy hands a pie each to Fogle and me. Then he lays three dollar bills on the counter before we leave just as abruptly as we came, and in no better shape. The rain hasn’t abated any yet here the three of us are standing beneath the same awning, except encumbered now with the additional weight of two pizzas.  

The nice girl bursts through the glass door, jogging to a nearby truck, expertly toting a piping hot pizza bag in one hand which bears the well known company logo. One last delivery, it seems, before her night is through, before she can wash her hands of fools like us – that is, until her next shift in hell comes calling. 

“Hey, can you give us a ride up to DiMarco’s?” Roy shouts across the parking lot, long after she’s passed us. She’s standing beside her truck now, fishing for keys, and offers no immediate reaction to the question, or whether she’s even heard it. 

“I’m not supposed to,” she shouts back to us, “but okay. Come on!” 

Sprinting over to join this chick before she changes her mind, Roy jumps into the shotgun seat while Fogle and I are left sitting like a pair of rain drenched idiots in the bed. She tears out of the parking lot and only then do I realize we’re still holding the pizzas, also, too moronic to keep them inside the truck with Roy. Still, weighing the pros and cons of this arrangement stacks up well for us, better than walking, and the cardboard boxes somehow fare better in the rain than we do.  

Two minutes later, we arrive at DiMarco’s. Roy and Fogle sprint inside, while I stop to have a few kind words with our driver. Inviting her to either come in for a drink or else swing by Doug’s apartment later, though she laughs off each suggestion before driving away. I have no choice but to join the others, now, and meet them inside. 

II.

I happen to remember the night Damon first met the Yanik sisters, too, for whatever reason, even though nothing about it is all that remarkable. I think this is because we’d been in town for almost a year, and Alan and I both had already enjoyed some scattered bedroom adventures with Lisa, not to mention partied with these people an unholy amount for months on end. Yet here our third roommate had somehow not even made their acquaintance, not only the sisters but this entire crew.

Then again, our lives are often more compartmentalized than we think. Coworkers we’ve worked beside for years upon years, though they’ve never met our families, to give one example. Or, like how this particular gang never really ventured down to campus or Grandview much, just as my campus and Grandview friends were almost never up here.

Bored on some random winter weeknight, I decide to call them up, having not seen these folks for a number of weeks myself. Since Doug moved away and I left Kroger, that outrageous era had ended and I hadn’t been on this northwest end of town much. Learning now that a bunch of them are heading to DiMarco’s, Damon and I decide to ride up there ourselves.

Their younger brother Tommy now occupies Doug’s old couch, and Dane, who’s gotten into one bad situation after another over the course of a few weeks, has wound up getting fired from his most recent job, at a department store, for not showing up and dicking around when he did make it in. Then he busts out the windshield of Maria’s car during a nasty fight, and Mike Nelson drops him to the ground with a haymaker and he’s kicked out of their pad as well, exiled from the charmed circle of friends.  

I introduce Damon to everyone – seated at one table in the dimly lit other half of DiMarco’s, the half away from the bar, is the cool but somewhat spacey Charlie, a part-time drummer, his stringy black musician’s hair now almost as long as Damon’s; the ever talkative and impossibly busty redhead, Jen McBride; Lisa with her admittedly comparable breasts, dark blonde locks currently worn straight and halfway down her back; and her sister Maria, a brunette, whom we are fortunate to catch in a really vocal mood this time around. The two of us squeeze in beside them and brace ourselves for this conversation. 

Junior, Tommy, and their preppy jock friend Cooper, who I remember from one other party back in the spring, are playing pool nearby, while the girls relate to us the latest adventures and trending gossip concerning everyone else. Meanwhile, Damon sits looking bored and sipping on a beer, or else trying to strike up a conversation with Lisa and Jen, even though they didn’t know what to make of this longhair character in horn rims. 

Although, it is possible he’s having a better time than it appears. “I knew I’d be in trouble meeting these fat girls with pretty faces,” he whispers to me at one point, after downing a couple brews. Even if Lisa’s ruining the good cheer by bitching incessantly about her roommates. Finally, the clock reaches two thirty and house lights are coming on, as we pay the ever present bartending duo and head for the doors.

“Jesus Christ, Dude!” Damon exclaims with a sigh as we steps outside, “they seem like nice girls and all, but man, that one was getting on my nerves.”

“She’s usually not that bad,” I explain, which is true.

“And what about that other one, the redhead, what was her name, Lisa?” 

“No, Lisa was the blonde,” I correct.

“Well, whatever, she was the one sitting on the outside, right? I couldn’t believe she was bitching about everyone not cleaning their rooms! Maaaaaaan, I’d tell that bitch to fuck off!“

“Well, they’re usually not that bad,” I tell him, “especially after you get a couple beers in them. They throw good parties though, and they do have some nice looking friends.” 

III.

They used to keep decks of cards behind the bar here and DiMarco’s, and possibly still do, as we’ve played many a game of euchre here. There was a long running tradition, and may still be, of pool tournaments played blatantly for cash in this bar, and nobody batted an eyelash. Then again, I don’t remember ever seeing law enforcement around these parts, and the help situation was always remarkably consistent, with Jan and Zerby here just about every night. So you weren’t going to catch any heat from them, either.

That TouchTunes jukebox at the very least had an REO Speedwagon album on it. This I know because Lisa, who I constantly berated for her somewhat horrible tastes in music, was particularly fond of that one, would play it here often. At some point along the line, though sleeping together off and on for about a decade, we did try actually dating for approximately an eight month stretch there in the middle. One night she was at this juke and that infernal Speedwagon disc was blasting Time For Me To Fly, while Lisa and Jen F stood there still picking out further tunes, and Jen told her, speaking of me, “Lisa, this song is for you. It’s time for you to fly.”

Despite this period (or maybe because of it, as the more Lisa would yell at me, the more inclined I was to laugh in her face), I always was and continue to be thought of as somewhat of a zany, hopeless goofball with this crew. It’s funny how you get off on a certain foot with various scenes, be it socially, or with work, or with family, and nothing much can ever really change this. You begin to realize it’s a combination of elements contributing to this phenomenon: a little bit of people only seeing what they expect to see, a little bit maybe of you falling into your familiar role with each circle, but then also, I half suspect sometimes, it almost seems like life is throwing events in everyone’s lap to bolster these impressions. Even one night here in DiMarco’s where Lisa’s been screaming again and Tommy’s threatening me with, “don’t do anything stupid!” won’t change the dynamic, is pretty much forgotten about five minutes later.

“She doesn’t listen to anything, dude,” I tell him.

“It’s my fuckin sister – you think I don’t know that?” he retorts.

Perhaps riding around with pizzas in the rain isn’t the best idea, if you’re trying to dispel some image. Even so, in the late 90s I was dating this perfectly fine looking brunette named Stacy, however briefly. I’m pretty sure that the first time I ever came out with her around this group, we were at DiMarco’s. At any rate, it was one of the few occasions I was ever with her, around this bunch. We’ve been here a while and she says something about wanting to dip over to Polo’s. So the two of us say goodbye to everyone, climb in my car and drive over there. Stacy and I sit at the bar and order one beer…and then she completely disappears. She saw somebody she knew across the bar and was going over to say a quick hello, and this was the last I saw of her that night.

I was more than a little embarrassed at the time about my pathetic glasses, thus would never wear them. So my eyesight wasn’t the greatest to begin with. Nonetheless, I did sit there for quite a while, nursing my beer, and even made a cursory lap or two of the place. May have possibly ordered a second brew, even. In this pre-cell-phone era, this basically represented the extent of your options. Therefore, despite not exactly rushing into this decision, I eventually shrugged it off, hopped back in my car…and returned to DiMarco’s alone.

“Where’s Stacy?” everyone asks, baffled by this turn of events.

“I have no idea,” I tell them.

Of course the entire mob – which, now that I think about it, was fanned around one of those larger central tables, itself a rarity, instead of spread like normal all over the bar – is howling, clapping their hands together, pretty much on the verge of spewing beer out through their noses. I was unwittingly playing the same old part as always. I guess it’s somewhat amazing that Stacy and I actually went out some more after this. But I never quite lived this one down. Nor did I ever bring her to DiMarco’s again.

IV.

Though pretty much everyone else has moved on, we do still swing by here from time to time, of course. It was here one night that it became obvious Damon was really hitting it off with this Maryland chick, who worked with Tommy, and the two of them soon turned into a serious couple. At some point, a window was installed connecting DiMarco’s with the Ange’s Pizza next door, and there became even less of a need to leave your barstool than before. Fluke reunions across the years have almost always meant a pit stop in this place is required, if it involves any of this old gang. Like for instance, the last I’ve seen of such disparate characters as Miles or Jen McBride, these occasions have transpired right here. I seem to remember hearing something about Jan and Zerby buying the place, even, though I’ll have to research that – but either way, I like to think that the two of them are still behind the bar, every night, just like always.

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