#i either ride my bike and/or walk much farther than i should be or i spend a gazillion dollars on ubers everywhere

[mymarifae]

i've been a little quieter than normal just because i've really gotten into

lately

[drabbles-mc]

Whatever It Takes

Juice Ortiz x Reader

Shoutout to @bishopslosawife​ for this idea! I am...passionate about Juan Carlos Ortiz:  What if a up-and-coming MC from another state stops in town for a night to discuss business but when they don't get want they want they take something/someone important to a SONs member as a leverage against the guys? I could see Juice going all overprotective of his s/o. 😍

Warnings: blood, language, murder, kidnapping, angst

Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: Honestly I would kill a man for Juice and I believe that he would do the same for me haha. Enjoy! xo

Taglist?? I realize that I don’t write a whole lot for SOA and when I do it’s always been Juice lol. That being said! If you’re interested in getting tagged in any future SOA or Juice fics please let me know!

The doors to the chapel flew open and a stream of very angry-looking men came storming out. You sat back at the bar, trying to make yourself as small as possible as most of them left the clubhouse. Once the Sons started filing out, you could see that none of them were looking overly excited about whatever had gone down during church either. Clay, Jax, and Tig were still in the chapel and you caught brief glimpses of their faces as they shut the doors once again, making it so it was just the three of them.

“Hey,” Juice appeared in front of you, leaning down to place a kiss on your forehead, “it’s late, what are you still doing here?”

You smiled and shrugged, “Waiting for you. Didn’t think it was going to take so long.”

“Yea, it was a fuckin’ shitshow in there.”

“I figured. Those guys didn’t look happy.”

He chuckled, but you could see the exhaustion on his face, “They weren’t.”

You cupped his face, thumb tracing along his cheekbone for a moment, “Ready to go home?”

He nodded, leaning into your touch, “Absolutely.”

You hopped down off the barstool and pulled him with you towards the door of the clubhouse. He trailed behind you, and you let out a small yelp followed by a laugh when you felt him playfully smack your ass as you walked through the doors.

“Juan Carlos,” you feigned offence as you turned around, placing your hands on his chest, “there’s a time and a place for that.”

He laughed, wrapping his arms around your waist, “What’s wrong with here and now?”

You smiled, shaking your head as you leaned in and kissed him. His arms wrapped tighter around you, keeping you pressed flush up against him. Your hands slid up from his chest, fingers trailing lightly and quickly over his mohawk until they came to rest on the back of his neck. You could’ve stood there like that with him forever if it was possible.

He pulled his lips away from yours to catch his breath, but you could see a playful smile starting to spread across his face as he rested his forehead against yours, “I love you.”

You smiled, humming in approval, “I love you too. We gonna make it home tonight or are we crashing in your dorm?”

He laughed, nudging you towards his bike, “We’ll make it home, c’mon we can even take the bike. I’ll bring you back for your car in the morning.”

As the two of you made your way over, you heard someone call out for Juice from the opposite side of the parking lot. You both turned around, and you felt Juice’s body tense up a little bit as he stood directly in front of you, completely blocking you from whoever was talking to him.

“This ain’t over, you know,” the young man walked up to Juice, blowing out a billow of smoke as he spoke, “Better let your Pres know that.”

“Pretty sure you’re the one who should be letting him know,” Juice’s tone was even, but he kept one hand behind him, rested on your hip, “He’s still in church. Go talk to someone who actually has some sway.”

The man laughed, dropping what little was left of his cigarette on the ground between his feet and Juice’s, “Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” he looked over Juice’s shoulder and shot you a smile that was too much to be sincere, “You two have a good night.”

After the man walked off, getting onto his own bike and leaving the compound, you and Juice both let out sighs of relief. His body was still rigid as he turned back to face you, trying to search your expression to see if you were alright. You knew that things got dicey with the club—you’d had to clean Juice up on more than one occasion because of it, but it was different when you were experiencing the tension first-hand.

“You alright?” he gently cupped your face in both of his hands.

You nodded, “Yea. That was just…weird.”

“I know,” he sighed, “I’m sorry, baby, I just feel like I should probably go talk to Clay and them. You okay to drive home and I’ll meet you there in a little bit?”

“Yea, of course,” you kissed him softly on the lips, “I’ll text you when I get home. I love you.”

He smiled, “I love you too.”

He waited until you were off the lot before heading inside to talk to Jax and Clay about the brief little interaction he’d had out in the parking lot. More likely than not it was all talk, but there was never a guarantee of that.

You pulled into the gas station, mentally kicking yourself for putting off getting gas for so long. You wanted to be home but you wouldn’t have made it with what little was left in the tank. You went inside and prepaid, coming back out to the pump. You looked around as you filled your car, and everything seemed quiet.

You turned to put the nozzle back on the pump when you felt an arm wrap around your neck, a gloved hand coming to rest tightly over your mouth. Your entire body froze, and you wouldn’t have been able to try to fight or run if someone tried to pay you. The person pushed you up against your car, speaking to you in a low, harsh whisper.

“When I take my hand away, you’re not gonna scream. You’re going to get into this car and you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to, got it?”

You nodded, eyes wide with fear. When he took his hand away, though, something came over you and you let out a blood-chilling scream. The last thing you remembered was the man cursing and your head being slammed hard against the side of your car. Everything went black after that.

Juice was heading back out to his bike after talking with Jax and Clay. He hadn’t gotten any messages from you, which was a little worrying but it wouldn’t have been the first time you forgot. He dialed your number and called, figuring that if you were home and just forgot you’d pick up and the first words out of your mouth would be, “I forgot again, I’m sorry! I love you,” the way that they always were.

But there was no answer

He tried two more times and it was more of the same. Even if you had fallen asleep right away when you got home, the second or third call would’ve woken you up. He turned to head back inside when he saw Jax walking out of the clubhouse. He flagged him down.

“What’s up, brother?” Jax could see the worry on Juice’s face.

“It’s Y/N. I haven’t heard from her since she left. Tried calling and she didn’t pick up. You mind just riding with me out to her place to make sure she’s all good? It’s probably nothing but it’s not sitting right with me.”

He nodded as he clipped his helmet on, “Yea, sure thing.”

The two of them rode out to your house, and came to an empty driveway and no lights on inside. The knot in Juice’s stomach was growing as he parked his bike and hopped off of it. He yanked off his helmet, running his hand over his head as he turned back to Jax with worry all over his face.

“This isn’t right, Jax. She was coming straight home. Something must’ve happened to her.”

“Alright. Let’s think for a second here before we get too crazy.”

“What if it was that guy?” he saw the confusion on Jax’s face and elaborated, “Adam, or Aaron, or whatever the fuck his name was. The one who came up to us in the parking lot.”

He shook his head, “No way. Those guys are too green to be doing shit like that.”

“You sure about that? Gave you and Clay a run for your money during church tonight.”

The comment stung Jax’s ego a bit, but he had to admit that Juice raised a somewhat valid point. He sighed, “Alright. Call the guys, get ‘em all back to church. Let’s find this asshole and get your girl back.”

Juice immediately started calling everyone. Luckily it hadn’t been very long and everyone was more than willing to turn back around and head back to the clubhouse. Juice looked at your house as he dialed number after number, the darkness in the windows sending shots of fear up and down his spine.

Once everyone was back at the chapel, they started strategizing. They were trying to figure out where the most logical places would be for the men to have taken you, what they were going to ask for to secure your safe return. Throughout the whole thing, Juice’s eyes were glued to his phone, hoping to see your name light up the small screen of his phone.

“We can’t cave to all of their demands, though,” Clay said with a strong sense of finality.

Juice turned to look at the man sitting at the head of the table, “We’ll do whatever we fucking have to, to get her home.”

It wasn’t like him to speak that way to anyone, let alone Clay. The man shook his head, “Juice, I know that this is hitting you close to home but—”

“But nothing!” he stood up, “Not getting her back isn’t an option, Clay,” tears stung at his eyes but his anger was still apparent.

Before the argument could continue any farther, Juice’s phone buzzed on the surface of the table. His eyes went wide as he picked it up, seeing your name on the screen. He held his breath as he brought it up to his ear, “Hello?”

“Go glad you picked up, Juan Carlos,” the man chuckled.

“What the fuck did you do to—”

“She’s fine…for now. But I’m going to need you and the president of your club to agree to some things if you want to make sure she stays that way.”

“Prove it,” he snapped.

“Prove what?”

“Prove that she’s alright. How do I know that you didn’t already do something to her?”

The man chuckled but he complied. Juice heard your pained tone coming through from the other end of the line, “Juan?! Juan what the fuck is going on?”

He felt a sob locked in his throat, “Y/N, baby, we’re coming to get you, alright? You’re gonna be fine I promise.”

Neither of you got the chance to say anything more before you heard the man’s voice on the other end of the line again. “There’s your proof. Your president knows what needs to happen if you’re going to see her again. You have two hours to meet our terms or you’re never going to see your girlfriend ever again.”

“I swear to god if you fucking hurt her—” he didn’t get to finish the sentence before the man hung up on him. He shook his head, slamming his fist against the table, “Fuck!”

He stormed out of the chapel and came flying back in a minute later, laptop tucked under his arm. He sat down heavily in his chair before opening the computer and pulling up numerous windows. The guys looked on in silence, knowing that they had nothing to offer him at this point.

Jax looked over his shoulder, “What’re you doing?”

“Getting a trace on her phone’s GPS.”

“She doesn’t use the burners?”

Juice shook his head, like it was the most obvious answer in the world, “No, she doesn’t have to because she’s not a fucking criminal,” he sighed as his fingers flew across the keyboard, “I’m willing to bet that these guys were too stupid to think about that, though.”

The couple of minutes of silence while the computer programs tracked her phone seemed to stretch on for an eternity. They all looked back and forth among themselves, hoping they were going to get the answers that they wanted. After what felt like hours, they were rewarded with a quick beeping sound.

Juice immediately started rattling off the address to the entire room. He was already walking towards the chapel doors as the rest of them tried to piece together where exactly they were going.

“Abandoned warehouses out off the main drag behind the old logging place,” Juice said as he continued to leave.

They nodded, impressed that he knew it off the top of his head like that. His brain was working overtime, though. Anything to keep you safe. The guys followed him, grabbing their guns as they went. They had no idea what they were walking into but they were going to be prepared.

Juice didn’t bother waiting for the rest of the club. He was fully prepared to go into this entire situation alone despite the fact that he knew he wouldn’t have to. He sped out of the lot, forcing the rest of them to play catchup. His mind was reeling and all he knew was that he couldn’t lose you. you were the one thing that he got right and he wasn’t going to let anything happen to you. No matter what it took, you were getting home safely.

He rolled into the lot, followed shortly by the rest of the MC. They all got off their bikes, getting their weapons ready. There were a few buildings to choose from, and Juice was looking to see if any of them had any signs of life in them.

“Middle one, top window,” Opie broke the silence, nodding towards the building he was talking about.

Juice looked, and he was a mixture of relieved and anxious when he saw that Opie was right. At least it meant that you were there. He just hoped that they weren’t too late.

“Hey,” Jax’s voice was quiet, but firm, “you shouldn’t be the first one in on this.”

“Fuck that,” he shook his head, refusing to be benched for this.

“You’re angry. Angry makes you stupid and stupid gets you killed. You can’t be lead on this.”

Juice stood toe-to-toe with the VP, “You can’t fucking stop me.”

He wasn’t yelling, but he didn’t need to raise his voice. His tone and the look in his eyes communicated everything. Jax sighed, nodding in defeat. If the roles were reversed, he knew he would be doing the same thing. Juice pushed past him and went towards the building, a few of the guys trailing close behind while a few more waited back in case anyone tried to leave.

They were silent as they entered the building, straining their ears to pick up on any noise. There was a mild clamoring coming from up the stairs. Juice turned to see Jax and Opie behind him, nodding for him to continue onward, that they had his back. With as little noise as possible they made their way up the stairs.

The door at the top was slightly ajar, light streaming through the crack. They could hear the laughter of the men who had you, but they couldn’t hear you. Juice’s heart was pounding inside his chest. He glanced back, using his fingers to count down before kicking the door completely open and storming in with Jax and Opie right on his heels.

The sight of you bound to a chair and gagged was enough to make Juice see red for a few moments. Tears were streaming down your face and he could see the fear in your eyes, the cut on your forehead caked in dried blood.

They all had guns pointed at each other, but your kidnappers were outnumbered two to three. And judging by the look in Juice’s eyes, he had enough rage in him for a few people.

Still, your captors forged onward like they were going to win this, “We told you this wasn’t over.”

Juice scoffed, cocking his gun, “You don’t let her go, the bullshit you have going on with Clay is going to be the least of your fucking problems. Believe me.” He could see you shaking your head, trying to urge him to stop and not make the situation worse, but he was too angry, “Let her go. She has nothing to do with this shit."

The man pressed his gun against your temple and you cried against the gag in your mouth, shutting your eyes tight. He laughed, “I’d lower that gun now if I were you.”

He shook his head, “You think you’re going to best the three of us?”

“You willing to bet her life on the fact that we won’t?”

The seconds of silence that followed felt never-ending. You still had your eyes shut tight, unable to force yourself to open them and take in the scene in front of you. If it ended badly, you didn’t want the last thing you saw to be something horrid.

The man pushed the gun harder against your temple and you winced as he spoke, “What’s it gonna be, then?”

There was another brief moment of silence but it was short-lived as the sound of gunshots filled the room. You cried, trying to make yourself as small as possible in the chair that you were in. You still couldn’t force yourself to open your eyes, knowing that the warm substance that just splattered across your face was blood and you didn’t want to know who it belonged to.

You felt someone pull at the gag in your mouth, and quickly cutting through the binds around your arms and legs. There was a hand softly put to your cheek, and the only thing that got you to open your eyes was the sound of Juice’s voice saying your name.

He was crouched in front of you, hand resting gently on your cheek as he waited for you to say or do something to indicate whether or not you were hurt. You couldn’t force any words out, so instead you leaned forward into him, head burying in the crook of his neck as you sobbed. He wrapped his arms around you, squeezing you tight to him.

He cradled the back of your head in his hand, “It’s okay, you’re okay.” He turned back to Jax and Opie, “Go let the guys know what went down,” he paused, waiting for Jax to meet his eyes, “And tell Clay that he solves this shit tonight or I fucking will.”

You heard the sounds of their footsteps retreating out of the room. Juice pulled back from you so he could get a better look at you. You saw that you had smeared blood all over his neck and shirt. He saw the way your eyes went wide at the sight of it and instantly tilted your chin up so you were forced to look him in the eyes.

“Don’t even worry about that, alright?” his voice was soft, tears in his eyes as he looked at you, “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

You shook your head, finally making yourself speak, “No, nothing aside from my head.”

He let out a sigh of relief, “Thank god. I’m so sorry, Y/N. You never should have gotten caught up in this shit.”

“What’s gonna happen with…” your voice trailed off as you looked around the room, the carnage made your stomach turn.

Juice shook his head, “Don’t worry about that. It’ll all be taken care of,” he kissed you softly on the lips, “Let’s get you home and cleaned up. You able to ride?”

You nodded, “Yea, yea I’ll be okay.”

He scooped you up and carried you down the stairs of the warehouse. You clung tightly to him, you gripped his shirt harder than necessary, just needing the sensation of knowing that he was really there holding you. You buried your face against him, tears leaking out of your eyes and onto his neck and shirt. You heard the murmuring of the rest of the club as the two of you walked out of the warehouse, but you didn’t have the mental wherewithal to lift your head to look at or talk to any of them. In reality, you hardly heard what Juice was saying to them as he carried you over to his bike.

He gently placed his helmet onto your head and buckled it for you. He traced his thumb along your cheekbone, eyes filled with tears and love, and you wondered how he could still look at you like that when you had blood splattered across your face.

“I love you,” his voice was hardly a whisper.

“I love you too,” you practically melted into his touch.

He hopped on the bike in front of you and started to pull away. You wrapped your arms around his waist and settled against his back, shutting your eyes as you did. The only things you wanted to concentrate were the sound of his bike, the feeling of his body heat seeping from his back into your chest, and the thought of taking a shower and lying down in bed with him once you both got home. You let out a shaky breath as you squeezed your arms around him tighter for a moment, more thankful than ever that it was something that you were able to do.

[beautiful-and-terrible]

dazed ’n’ confused (part 2)

A/N: omg this part was so much longer than i ancitipated sorry T__T and i promise in part 3 we will get some fun stuff ;)

Ship: Rodrick Heffley x OFC

Warnings: none (for this chapter)

---

The whole day, Nicole was distracted. She sat in her lifeguard chair, biting her nails, eyes concealed by her sunglasses and gazing at nothing. The pool manager ended up telling her off because she let multiple people dive off the board at the same time. She was a mess on the way home, too. She stopped at her favorite gas station to get slushy and almost left her bike behind, aimlessly wandering toward her house before she remembered she hadn’t walked there in the first place.

She got home and hopped in the shower, rinsing off the sunscreen and sweat, trying to forget how warm Rodrick’s hands felt under her own, how she had been close enough to smell laundry detergent and cinnamon gum. His dark eyes and full lips. 

She almost slipped getting out of the shower.

She tried to write music and get him off her mind, but all of her songs ended up sounding sad and sappy or slow and sultry. It was maddening.

The next day, Saturday, Nicole woke up more irritated than usual. She normally wasn’t a morning person, but this was next level. She did her makeup quickly and threw her hair into a pair of messy french braids. She decided to treat herself to an ice coffee, so she grabbed her wallet and headed outside to her bike.

Despite it being 9:30 in the morning, Rodrick was already outside… mowing grass? Nicole had never once seen him do that before. Giving him a short wave, she coasted down her driveway and headed into town toward the Starbucks. 

As she stopped at the sign at the end of their street, she looked back. Rodrick was looking in her direction, but Nicole shook away the thought that he could’ve been staring. She looked both ways quickly before pedaling quicker than she had before.

The Starbucks was about a 20 minute bike ride from her house, and Nicole usually took this time to listen to a podcast or her favorite album. This morning, she chose “Dr. Feelgood” by 

Motley Crue - she was a sap, sue her. She liked to remember the little things about people. She definitely recognized the chord progressions and drum patterns replicated in Loded Diper’s songs - at least, the songs that she had heard muffled through the garage door as she hung her head out her window to listen.

A short time later, Nicole hopped off her bike and locked it in place, skipping with anticipation for the sweetest, creamiest ice coffee she could get her little hands on. She walked up to the cashier, browsing the menu quickly.

“Hi, Welcome to Starbucks - what can I get started for you?”

“I’ll do a iced caramel macchiato with almond milk and light ice, please.”

“For sure, anything else?”

“No, thanks,” Nicole said, pulling out a five dollar bill and some ones.

“Hey, aren’t you new in town? You came into school at the end of the semester.”

Nicole looked up at the cashier, just now noticing what she looked like. She was cute in a pixie, petite kind of way, with short brown hair and big green eyes. If Nicole hadn’t been so enamored with Rodrick, she probably would’ve developed a big whopping crush on this girl, too.

“Yeah, I’m Nicole. You go to PVH, too?”

“I’m Caitlin - we were in bio together, I think.” Nicole wracked her brains, thinking back to the last bit of school she could remember.

“Oh, right, we partnered up a couple times.” Nicole said, smiling.

“Hey, if you want, a couple of friends and I are having a party tonight. You should come,” Caitlin said, flashing a dimpled smile. Nicole felt her tummy flip - mostly from excitement, and the elation of feeling included by her peers.

“For sure, just text me the number.” Nicole wrote down her number on a hot beverage sleeve and slid it towards Caitlin.

“Cool, see you then. Oh, and your drink will be right over there.”

“Thanks.”

Biting her lip to keep from grinning like a crazy person, Nicole moved down the divided counter to wait for her drink. The whole bike ride home she couldn’t help thinking that maybe moving to this town wasn’t such a bad thing after all. The day ended up not being as horrifically hot as yesterday, and Nicole’s mood had improved significantly after a heavy dose of caffeine.

But, when she rounded the corner back onto her street, Rodrick was still outside, mowing the lawn. And lord have mercy, for such a skinny looking boy, he had some seriously toned arms. Nicole almost crashed her bike into the curb, narrowly avoiding spilling her drink all over herself. She rode past him up her own driveway without acknowledging him, even though this time he was the one who waved to her. Payback for flaunting his ridiculous arms in front of her at 10:30 in the morning.

She went inside to change into her bathing suit and the usual denim shorts she wore over them. She didn’t need to leave for work for another hour, so she plugged her electric guitar into the amp in her room and fiddled around with learning some Motley Crue riffs that she remembered from her morning bike ride. Nicole wasn’t a prodigy by any means, but she had been playing guitar for long enough that she knew the basic chord structure of most of their popular songs. 

As she stood up to slip on her black converse, she saw her phone had lit up with a text. Unknown number.

“Hey, its Caitlin :) the address is 460 Norfolk Drive. Party starts @ 10!”

Nicole did a little dance. “Cool, I’ll be there :)” she texted back, and ran down the stairs back to the garage to get her bike again. She was so excited by the idea of hanging out with people her age that she almost didn’t see Rodrick leaning against his own bike at the end of her driveway.

“Your lawn looks good,” Nicole teased as she rode by. If Rodrick had any snarky reply, she was gone before she heard it. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw him standing with his mouth agape. She laughed to herself before starting her regular route to the city pool.

Not long after she started her shift, perched in her lifeguard chair with the umbrella angled to deflect the worst of the sun, Rodrick showed up with his two friends. They seemed to be attached at the hip. One was shorter than Rodrick, with long, surfer-style blonde hair, and one was about Rodrick’s height, with short dark hair and a cool slit in his eyebrow. 

Nicole was glad her sunglasses were dark enough to not see her eyes, because she definitely would’ve been caught staring by now. Rodrick wasn’t muscular by any means, or athletic, but there was still something cute and boyish about his gangly frame, and the way his shoulder muscles flexed when he took his shirt off was… for lack of a better word, distracting.

The first couple of hours passed uneventfully, and Nicole started to doze in her chair, chin propped up on her hand. The combination of warm sun and cool breeze lull her into a half-awake state. It was adult swim, so there weren’t any kids to worry about. She could close her eyes for a few minutes and…

She heard him before she saw him. The signature sound of the diving board being bounced once, twice, and then…

Nicole was doused in freezing cold water.

The huge splash covered both sides of the pool, high enough to reach her in her life guard chair. Moaning with displeasure, Nicole wrenched her sunglasses off her face and pointed an accusing finger at the grinning boy in the water. Fucking Rodrick.

“You’re dead, you little shit.” Nicole growled, and left her sunglasses on the seat of her lifeguard chair before diving in the pool.

The cool water enfolded her, silky and calm, before she came up under Rodrick and unleashed all hell. Still under water, she grabbed his ankles to pull him down. She heard his shout of alarm before it transformed into bubbles.

Underwater, her vision was blurred, but Nicole could still see Rodrick laughing and the dark outline of his eyes. She found herself laughing too as they briefly wrestled and tried to drag the other farther underwater before they both broke the surface, gasping for air.

“Okay, okay mercy,” Rodrick gasped as Nicole wound her arms around his neck in a headlock.

“Stay off the diving board, or I’ll make you drink the kiddy pool water.”

“Oh my god, kids pee in there!”

“Exactly,” Nicole laughed before shoving him away, though it wasn’t very aggressive considering the water softened the blow. Rodrick was still laughing behind her.

“Damn, if I get that kind of a reaction every time I jump in the pool, maybe I’ll do it for a living,” he called after her.

Nicole dunked her head under water once more to adjust her hair before climbing out of the deep end on the latter, electing to ignore that last comment. Now that she was back in her life guard chair, she couldn’t believe how impulsive she had been. Some kind of instinct took over and before she knew it, she had been flying out of her chair to give Rodrick a taste of his own medicine.

And now that she was thinking about it even more, the more embarrassed she became. Oh God, had she been super obvious? And more than that, had she been unprofessional?

She looked around the pool to see if her manager was watching - luckily, no sign of him. Most of the other pool guests weren’t paying that much attention either, except Rodrick’s friends, who were still laughing hysterically as Rodrick dried himself off by shaking his hair like a wet dog.

Nicole had touched more of Rodrick than she had the other day when they accidentally touched hands. Way more of him. Not that she exactly remembered the feeling of every limb, but the contact still made her feel more than a little weak in the knees.

They didn’t even know each other that well! What was she thinking!

Nicole spent the rest of her shift biting her nails anxiously, and when her co-worker came to switch chairs she ran to hide in the employee lounge next to the girls bathrooms.

By the time five o’clock came, she had calmed down a little bit, but was still embarrassed by her frankly juvenile behavior. She helped clean up the pool area by hosing it down and picked up some left over trash before heading to her bike.

And, because Nicole had maybe the worst (or best, it was hard to say) luck in the world, Rodrick was waiting for her.

“Figured I could ride home with you, since you like being near me so much,” Rodrick called as she approached. Nicole groaned, rolling her eyes.

“I wouldn’t have to get near you if you didn’t a) act like a child, and b) violate pool rules.”

“I’m pretty sure “almost drawing a patron” counts as violating pool rules, Nikky.”

“Don’t call me that,” Nicole spat with no real heat behind it.

“If you’re gonna ride home with me, you’re gonna pay for my slushy,” Nicole called over her shoulder as she started pedaling away.

“Ooo, is this a date?” Rodrick laughed, and Nicole flipped him off without looking. “C’mon, I thought we were getting along since I fixed your tire?”

Nicole, tired of the banter and not able to think of a better response, decided to take mercy on him.

“No… no. We’re cool. I’d rather have my dumb neighbor as a friend than no one at all.”

Rodrick pulled up next to her on his bike, tongue peeking between his teeth as he tried to suppress a grin. “Yeah, you seem cool. At least, your music taste isn’t completely horrible.”

“Oh, and yours is perfect, I’m assuming?” 

“Naturally,” Rodrick said, pedaling faster to pull a wheelie in front of her, obviously trying to show off. In all honesty, it was a pretty cool trick - but Nicole would never tell him that. The evening was cooling down, but the sun was still a couple hours from setting, so everything had a deep golden glow - the trees seemed greener, and the grass softer, and random birds would occasionally chirp from deep within the woods. The world felt alive and wonderful and terribly, terribly exciting.

“So, why the hell did you move to Plainview?” Rodrick asked. 

“Wasn’t like it was my choice. My Dad got a new job, and my Mom works from home so she can take care of us - so me and my two little sisters just got the short end of the straw.”

“You have sisters?” 

“Yeah, Caroline and Georgia. Do you have siblings?”

Rodrick rolled his eyes, “Yeah, two shit head little brothers, Greg and Manny. Well, Manny isn’t really a shit head, ‘cause he’s like three, but I know he will be once he hits four.”

Nicole laughed. They were nearing the gas station she liked to get slushies from, so she suddenly started pedaling faster and yelled behind her, “First one there buys!”

She narrowly made it there before him, laughing at his red face and shaking legs as he dismounted his bike.

“No one should be that fast,” he panted, but smiled as he opened the door for her. 

The blast of air conditioning felt good on Nicole’s heated skin, and she made a B-line for the slushy machine.

“Blue raspberry is the obvious best choice,” Nicole said, filling her cup up to the brim.

“No way, cherry is the only valid flavor,” Rodrick said, already munching on a bag of sour gummy worms. She raised an eyebrow at him and he simply winked in response, causing Nicole to turn her head away when she felt the heat rise to her cheeks.

Rodrick paid for their stuff and they spent the rest of the bike ride home trying to throw gummy worms at each other and catch them in their mouths.

“So.. there's a van. Outside your house. With your band name on it,” Nicole said, pointedly looking at him. Rodrick looked straight ahead.

“Yeah.” 

“And yet, you’re out here riding your bike. With me.”

“Yeah.”

“So what's the hold up? You don’t have your license yet or something?”

“I can drive!” Rodrick said indignantly, his voice cracking slightly, causing you to throw your head back in laughter.

“I’m saving up money to get it fixed,” he grumbled, pulling another wheelie.

“Doing tricks won’t distract me from this, Rodrick.

“Fine. Once its fixed, I’ll take you for a ride, deal?”

“Deal,” Nicole said primly, taking a sip of her slushy. 

Sooner than she thought, they ended up in front of their respective homes. The time had flown by - she hadn’t even noticed they were close.

She was about to wave goodbye and turn to go up her driveway when Rodrick cleared his throat.

“Hey, um… my band and I - we’re having practice tonight. Again. We have a gig later this week so we wanna practice as much as possible. Uhm. Would you wanna stop by? You can bring your guitar or whatever,” he said, looking down at his shoes that he was currently scuffing against the sidewalk.

“How do you know I play guitar?”

Somehow, Rodrick looked even more sheepish. “Uh, you left your window open, earlier. When you were practicing.”

This time, Nicole was the one to blush. Fuck. She hadn’t even thought about any one being able to hear her. And after Rodrick told her Loded Diper was originally a Motley Crue cover band.... Oh, he definitely knew she was whipped. Fuck!

“Haha, oh, yeah… uh, sure. I can come over.”

Rodrick grinned - a genuinely excited smile, not his usual impish smirk. It made Nicole’s heart stutter in her chest.

“Come over in an hour - I’ll get snacks.”

Nicole turned away without another word, deciding they would have plenty more to say to each other very soon. But fucking hell, what was she going to wear?

[bobathirstaccount]

Stars Above

GN person, Boba x reader, slight use of Y/N, slight angst, slow burn to eventual dirty, diry smut

TW: drug use, unprotected sex

Note: Timeline wise, this fits into directly before Boba Fett’s appearance in The Mandolorian 2.

CHAPTER ONE

You don’t even notice when you push your glasses up your nose. It’s such an automatic motion and you are deep into your work. Someone else notices though. Someone else is noticing more than that.

Boba is not sure when he started to settle into your presence, but he felt overly familiar, almost awkward. You had opened up to him like a flower, blooming bright and colorful. He on the other hand had remained as acerbic as ever. Living through the Sarlacc had changed him slightly; softened his edges, if not hardening his exterior even more. The crucible of the Sarlacc had forged him into a new man, and left its kisses on his skin as proof.

He ran his hand over his head and sighed quietly, looking out the cargo bay door of the Slave 1. The stark landscape grew grey and muddy as the suns finally set on Tatooine. He pushed those thoughts from his head and closed the bay door for the evening. Turning, he walked briskly past you to the cockpit. He had some maintenance to do, surely it would help him put you and your strangeness out of his mind.

***

You barely register Boba as he walks past you. You are still working diligently, soldering away. You were in your zone and lost to the world. Finally, you realize your eyes are grainy and tired, and look up. The ship is dimly lit, in night mode. Boba was nowhere to be seen and the cargo bay door was closed. You shake your head at yourself, wondering how long it’s been and what time it even is. You glance out the window into near total darkness. The moon has waned and the stars twinkle dimly.

You sigh and set your work down, leaving it as is to finish up tomorrow. Making your way to the single, cramped crew sleeping space you idly wonder where Boba is. Probably sleeping, if the ship and the night sky are any indication. And you should be too. Tomorrow you would head out to scavenge, and out in the sands one had to be on their toes. Tusken Raiders were no joke, and even though Boba was on good terms with them it wasn’t wise to strain the relationship. You were excited to get out of the ship, having been couped up for several days now. The ship could stand a lot of improvements, so you certainly weren’t bored. But you did enjoy some fresh air, even if it was acrid desert air. Your thoughts slide back to Boba again.

What would have happened had you not been in that bar that afternoon? And what would’ve happened if you’d never struck up a conversation with a mysterious scarred man? Once you had learned he was in search of a mechanic, you had immediately offered your services. You had been eager to leave behind your current employer, and had uncharacteristically thrown caution to the wind. Why ask for a job from a man you hardly knew? But it felt like the right thing to do, and so you had done it. Surprisingly, he had accepted, nearly seeming grateful before his serious expression returned. You had been hired on the spot on a temporary basis, taking payment in room and board and a small fee upon completion.

The excitement you had felt as you raced back to your apartment was unreal. You mentally planned out what you would be taking with you. The rest of your meager possessions were unimportant. You hated your current employer, a slimly creature who had problems keeping his appendages to himself and, almost worse, was incompetent as a mechanic and businessman. The business - and you - scraped by.

You arrived at your apartment and packed your belongings swiftly, thinking only of the future and the dark man. Both were waiting at the bar down the street.

Your eyelids grew heavy, and you sleepily blinked and turned your thoughts from the past to the future. What was going to happen when you were finished with his ship? You had been on the Slave 1 for nearly 3 weeks, and the end was in sight. You were looking forward to completing the job, but then what? Dread started to seep in at the edges of your consciousness. More than the worry of where you would go and how you would survive was the worry that you wouldn’t see Boba again. Why did that matter? Your throat suddenly felt dry, and you felt apprehensive. And something else that you wouldn’t name. You battled yourself on this for a moment, but sleep drew your eyelids down.

***

The cargo bay door opened its maw into the morning light. Boba stepped out into the already harsh environment, and you followed. He gracefully spun on his heal, casually closing the door behind the two of you. You wandered over to the single speeder as Boba fidgeted with his bag. When he was ready, he fluidly mounted the bike. Turning, he patted the seat behind him with a raised eyebrow and half smile. You return the smile, and get on the back of the speeder.

As you settle into place, you grin at the first time you had gotten on the speeder with him. It was directly after meeting him and agreeing to live with him on his ship. You had been dismayed immediately. Of course he would only have one speeder, but you had felt incredibly clumsy and foolish. Due to dealing with your former boss - thank the Maker you could say Former - you didn’t like anyone being in your personal space. But you wanted the job, so you got on the speeder behind him.


He half turned to speak to you, ”You really should hold on to me.”

You had snorted angrily, but had begrudgingly wrapped your arms around his torso. He squeezed your hands with one of his larger hands, adjusting your arms slightly. Without further warning, he had taken off like a ___ out of hell. You had screamed (hopefully lost to the wind), and crushed yourself into him so as to properly hold on. He hadn’t been kidding. He seemed to not react, and so you had held on for dear life, gritting your teeth as you pressed your body into a complete stranger.

This time, you knew better. You gripped him tightly, scooting yourself up to be flush against him. The way he drove this thing it was best to hold on with every fiber of your being. Again he half turned, “Ready?”

You nodded, “Mhm.”

Without any further ado, you were off into the desert. The speeder skimmed over the dunes in the hot morning air. It whipped past you, almost suffocating you when you dare to peer over one of Boba’s shoulders. You smiled, enjoying the ride.

***

Boba felt you shifting your weight behind him as he piloted the speeder. He kept his thoughts on the work ahead and not crashing the speeder as you careened on.

But.

His body reacted in ways he was surprised by, and his breath hitched as he tried to keep his breathing steady. A spark ignited and ran its way down to his belly, and then lower. He did not even try to process this, instead opting to compartmentalize it. Luckily the wreckage was not too much farther.

***

Boba slowed the speeder, coming to a spot not far from the crashed ship. Jawas had already picked it to nearly its bones, but there still might be a few scraps that would be useful in upgrading Slave 1.

“You take the back half; I will do the front,” Boba curtly stated, his lilting accent making you temporarily weak. You nod absentmindedly and start to the back of the ship.

The two of you worked swiftly, knowing that it was better to beat the suns before the first of them made its way directly above. You found a few good pieces of scrap metal that you could use on the Slave 1, as well as some wiring. As you worked, you debated with yourself.

Boba. Why were your thoughts on him right now? Why were they ever on him, aside from a passing thought? You had remembered your conversation with yourself from last night. Best to get it over with so you could stop hounding yourself over it. Boba. You were attracted to him. It had been so long since you had had feelings of this sort, it was suspicious. Why now? Why him?

You bite your lip, annoyed. Your hands moved carefully through the wreckage. You couldn’t put your finger on the reason. Like all things related to love, the reason was indefinable. Love. “We’ve just taken a turn here,” you thought to yourself, alarmed. Yes, you were intrigued by and attracted to Boba, but you hardly knew him. In all the time you had been on the ship, you had only really had a handful of real conversations. And even then, you had done most of the talking. Although he spoke little, you could feel his dark eyes watching you as you spoke and worked, or lounged, or ate, all the while chattering on. He seemed to at least not mind.

The suns grew closer to 12 noon. You decided you had searched thoroughly enough, and headed back to the speeder. You pulled your hood up to shield your skin from the sun. You saw Boba walking toward the speeder as well; it looked like either he had the same idea or had seen you heading towards it. Either way, you were happy to see him and to get going. A small pang hit your heart; you did not want to be so happy to see him. After another week or so, you wouldn’t be seeing him at all. You pondered this on the ride back, holding yourself tightly to him.

***

The Slave 1’s bay slowly opened as the first of the suns was directly overhead. Boba followed you inside. You both dropped your bags, and looked at each other. For a moment there was something in the air, shimmering, almost real. But like all mirages it faded away, and you simply said, “I’ll sort this out and then we can see what we can do with it.”

Boba nodded before heading further into the ship, without a glance back.

***

You felt a nudge on your shoulder, and looked up, bewildered. Boba’s amused face looked down at you. He indicated for you to look down. In his hand was a meal packet.

“It’s been hours, Y/N. Eat something so you can keep the strength to work on my ship.”

You smiled broadly, laughing and taking the packet. “Thank you.”

He nodded, stiffening suddenly, his eyes becoming serious.


You looked down at the packet, and then at what you had sorted. Suddenly, you brightened and looked up at him again, “We have some great materials here. With the wiring and the scrap metal I should have all the supplies I need for the Slave 1.

Boba nodded, “Good. How is the work coming?”

He rarely checked in, so you were a bit taken aback, “Um, maybe another week, week and a half.”

Boba leaned against the wall of his ship. “What will you do then?” He asked idly.

”I... I don’t know,” you stutter, embarrassed.

“You are a talented mechanic, you will be able to find work,” he seemed almost comforting with this statement.


You do not turn around to look at him. Instead, you look out of the ship, into the scenery. You blink back something. Not right now, you think. You change the subject abruptly, turning the spotlight to him.

”What will you do?” You turn around, looking up in genuine curiosity.

He squinted then, looking as if he were scanning the horizon.

“Survive.”

You took this as being shut down, and so turned around to face your meal packet. You tore it open, realizing that you were hungry.

As you ate, you heard Boba retreat further into the ship. You shivered and tried not to think about what you’d admitted to yourself earlier.

***

Later on the suns set and Boba again closed the ship up for the evening. As he headed past you, he stopped.


“You work all the time. Take some time for yourself tonight.”

You looked up at him, bewildered. His voice had shaken you out of your reverie. You blushed then, unable to fully push down the ideas you’d been entertaining. Let’s just say they would have made your previous employer happy.

“Okay, thanks!” You tried to act normal but inwardly winced at the tone your words tumbled out in.

He regarded you for a moment before nodding and continuing on.

You sat back and thought. Some mandated free time. You knew what you were going to do. You got up and walked to your room.

***

You sat back and looked at your accomplishment. It was a pretty decent blunt if you didn’t say so yourself. You lit it immediately, happy to have some time to relax with no responsibilities. As you inhaled, you thought about your future. There was no way to ask to stay. Once the work was done, it was done. He would have no use for a mechanic, and didn’t seem the type to entertain a crew. You scratched your eyebrow and made a tentative plan. You’d head to Mos Eisly, hopefully finding work at a larger mechanic. Then you could work on forgetting Boba. He could fade into the desert like that mirage from earlier.

You finished half the blunt and took a nap.

***

You wake up, parched and absolutely starving. You stumble out of bed, still high. You make it out the door, noting the ship is in night mode. Perfect, you can sneak to the kitchenette for a snack without being found out. You turned the corner and ran smack into Boba.

He grunted, but his solid body didn’t sway.

“Sorry, kriff! Sorry!”

You apologized a little too profusely.

Boba raised an eyebrow and regarded you, “You’re stoned.”

“No I’m.. yes,” you pathetically garble out.

Boba laughed then, a hoarse, soft sound. Your knees grew weak and you felt a small fire ignite in your belly. KRIFF, you think desperately.

“Do you want some?” You blurt out.

He now raised both eyebrows momentarily, then, “Are you serious?”

You nod, realizing that you are.

“I was going for a snack, but that can wait. Let’s go to my quarters,” you are weirdly excited about this.

Boba tsks and follows you, “Calling that quarters is generous.”

You laugh, uninhibited.

You turn the corner into your room and grab the blunt and lighter. You turn to see Boba standing in the doorway, looking unsure.

“Come in and sit down,” you pat your mattress as invitingly as you can.

He reluctantly enters the room fully, and sinks onto the mattress. You pass the lit blunt to him and he takes a hit, nearly closing his eyes. He passes it back and you foolishly take another hit, to do it with him. You two do this for a few minutes, until the blunt is spent. Your state has now progressed to being so stoned you are not hungry. Not for food anyway.

You licked your lips and looked over at Boba. To your surprise, he is already watching you intently. Before you can stop yourself, you have slide over to his side. You grab his upper arm and press yourself into his body, looking at him as innocently as you can. His eyes widen and his lips part slightly. You are both breathing hard.

You half close your eyes and lean forward, seeking out lips -

“No, little one,” Boba whispered, gently grabbing your chin with his thumb and forefinger. “You are in no condition to make decisions like this.”

”Yes I am,” you retorted.

He grinned at this, “Feisty. I like that.”

He was still holding your chin. He looked from your lips to your eyes. You could see a struggle in him.

He looked away, standing up and gently pushing you down on the bed into a prone position.

“Get some sleep.” He pulled the blanket over you while you laid there, confused and increasingly humiliated.

With that he was gone and you were left with your thoughts and the ghost of the feeling of his warm body pressed against yours. You burst into tears, rejected and delirious with big feelings. He was objectively right, but what he didn’t know was that you had already thought about that -

You shook your head as you cried. It didn’t matter. In a couple weeks you would never see him again. You were happy you were high. Sleep came easily.

***


Boba fled your room a mess. He had wanted, wanted so badly - but no. You were not of right mind. If you were, surely that would not have happened. A young thing like you, untarnished by the galaxy. What would an old bounty hunter have to offer? He ached in his heart and his cock. He palmed himself, alone in his captain’s quarters. What was he going to do? Masterbate over this? A near miss of a night with you. He shuddered at the thought. He knew the ache in his body would last after he had found his release, but it would help him feel less alone in this moment.

***

You woke still high. At first you smiled pleasantly, enjoying the feeling. Then you sat bolt upright in bed.

Oh, no. The corner. The invitation. The weed. The rejection. Your breath hitched and you felt tears fall down your face. At least this would make it easier to leave, when the time came.

You changed clothes and slunk out of your room, hoping to quickly grab a meal pack and then immerse yourself in your work. You - slowly - turned the corner. So far, so good. You kept going, the kitchenette was only a short distance away.

There he was. Holding a cup of something hot and steaming. You immediately accidentally made eye contact. You kicked yourself internally. There was a pregnant pause.

“About last night...” you began weakly.

“There is no need to discuss it.”

Your eyes dropped to his feet, ashamed.

He paused for a moment longer, and then brushed past you. His smell lingered in the air for a second. You closed your eyes to hold back tears as you grabbed your breakfast. You couldn’t wait to get to work.

***

As you sat in the cargo bay working away Boba strode past you. You looked up, surprised. He started down the gangway.

“Going somewhere?” You started out confidently but ended the question weakly.

He turned to look at you.

“Out,” he said wryly.

You didn’t know how to take it and your face must have shown it.

He softened, “I’m going to ____ for some supplies. I’ll be back before nightfall.”

You smiled, encouraged by his sharing. “Stay safe” you said.

He nodded, smiling strangely.

You watched the speeder as it disappeared into the horizon. You were alone. You exhaled deeply, and settled back to your work. A peaceful day was ahead.

***

The speeder appeared out of the desert. You smile, happy to receive him back despite last night’s unfortunate events.

You notice a body draped over Boba’s lap. As he came abruptly to a stop, you run out, yelling, “Boba, what happened?”

“I found her in the desert on my way back. She’s badly injured.”

“Kriff! I’ll get the med pack.” He nodded, and directed his attention to the unconscious woman.

The two of you brought her inside the ship and laid her down. Boba carefully cut away her clothing to determine the extent of the damage. It was bad.

“She’s not going to make it,” you breathed to Boba.

He looked up at you.


“There is a way to keep her alive.”

You stare at him blankly as he explained,”We can replace these parts with mechanical workings. You’re a good mechanic; we can do this.”

You stared at him in disbelief. “But we don’t have the medical equipment or-“

Boba raised a hand, covered in blood, “We will do this.”

You gulped and settled down on the opposite side of her, ready to follow his lead.

***

You had worked long into the night, replacing blood and guts with wires and mesh. She seemed to remain in a stable, if unconscious, state. When you were finished, you and Boba stepped back to take stock of your collective work.

“Let’s put her in my bed to rest,” you said in a hushed tone. You didn’t want to disturb her.

Boba nodded, then bent to gently lift her from the floor. He carried her off to your room. You sighed loudly and put your hands on your head. You looked around at the huge mess on the floor. Blood and widgets and little pieces of organ were strewn around. You were not dealing with this now. You sighed again, and opened the Slave 1’s cargo door. You needed some fresh air.

The night air hit your face, slightly cooler than the daytime. You inhaled it and held it briefly, then exhaled. It was a little shaky. You walked down the ramp and stopped in the sand at the bottom, all the while reveling at the fact that you and Boba had just saved a woman’s life. The stress of the situation, forgotten in the moment, started to seep into your being. You tried to focus on your feet and the feeling of the warm sand under them. You dug one foot into the sand a bit, and were surprised to feel a tear fall from your cheek.

It was all too much. You had never seen such carnage before. Even though you had groused at the time he said it, Boba was right. You were very young and very naive. You certainly felt like both of those things right now. You wrapped your arms around yourself and tried not to cry. It wouldn’t do. Especially if you were to survive on your own in a couple weeks.

You heard Boba walking down the ramp, and sniffled quietly, desperate to appear in control of your emotions. You turned your gaze up to the night sky.

***

Boba had carefully laid the mysterious woman down in your cot. Looking down at her, he was fairly certain this was the famous Fennec Shand. How had she ended up on Tatooine in the desert, mortally wounded? He tsked once, then dismissed the thought. He had a mess to clean up as well as a crew member who was likely feeling a mess. He thought about that for a moment. That was not his problem, but he didn’t like the idea regardless.

The door to Slave 1 was open, welcoming him into the quiet of the nighttime dunes. He furrowed his brow, somewhat concerned. Standing at the top of the ramp, he saw you hugging yourself and sniffling. Damn. You needed the experience if only to toughen you up to face the galaxy. But yet, he didn’t like to see you in pain.

There it was again. The weird sensations he had about you returned. He stood silently, still. Thinking. He could turn around and retreat into the ship.

Or.

[selfless1978]

<previous

next>

THERE SHE GOES. WITH INSANITY AND WOES

The blue and black Hayabusa bike sped over the highway. It’s rider crouched low as she reached speeds well over 100mph. Deep brown eyes hidden under the blue helmet intent on the road. Her leather clad body had left her long coat behind, not wanting to rip it in the winds. But her katana was securely strapped to her back and her pistol belt was firmly wrapped around her waist.

She was on a personal mission, one that had held close meaning to her. Vicky was going to start her vengeance with the man who had stolen her innocence. She snarled under her helmet, once she had thought this was justice enough. Now she understood it wasn’t. 

On a long and lonesome highway East of Omaha You can listen to the engines moanin' Out this one-note song You'd think about the woman Or the girl you knew the night before

Gone now was the innocent child that had held so much hope for the world. And snuffed out had been another should who never even made it past her twelfth birthday. Vicky had spent years wondering what her friend would have grown into. Would she have been successful in life? Would she have had children of her own? 

She would never know. And only now was she able to revenge her innocence lost and that life taken. And Vicky had ever intention of doing just that.

The justice system was a joke, letting him live while that child was buried in the ground and others still mourned her loss. The bike sped on through the night, it’s rider anxious to reach her destination.

But your thoughts will soon be wanderin' The way they always do When you're ridin' 16 hours There's nothin' much to do And you don't feel much like ridin' We just wish the trip was through

The night was long and dark. Weariness was nothing to her. Stiff muscles from the long ride were ignored as she weaved through the sparse night time traffic. Vicky was tuned into her bike, both moving as one as she guided it towards her destination. Her thoughts nothing but a vicious cycle of memories best left in the deep dark of her past but bursting forth the closer she got to her destination. The pleas of a little, defenseless girl echoing in her mind, over and over as they were ignored.

The engine revved as she sped it along even faster. Closer to her destination. 

Here I am, on the road again There I am, up on the stage There I go playin' the star again There I go, turn the page

Vicky still needed to eat. 

The truck stop ahead came into view and Vicky slowed the bike and guided it onto the off ramp and then into the parking lot. She easily dismounted, placing her helmet down onto the seat. Not even bothering to disarm, she stepped into the building. Her hard, cold features and her garb immediately caught the attention of the few souls still awake at this late hour. Startlement at her complete disregard of the no weapons sign clearly plastered on the door.

“Hey!”

Vicky’s eyes snapped to the large man behind the counter where a few pies were set out.

“You can’t bring those in here lady.”

She just sneered at him as she continued to make her way further inside.

The man made his way around the counter and moved in to cut her off. “I said you can’t bring them in here!” He stood infant of her now, blocking her path. “Leave them outside or get out!”

Vicky moved quicker than anyone in there could even blink. She yanked the man towards her, her arm reaching up to grab his hair on the back of his head before slamming his face viscously onto one of the tables. Blood splattered all over the clean surface as there were a few shouts and everyone scrambled to their feet while the restaurant worker fell to the floor.

So you walk into this restaurant All strung out from the road And you feel the eyes upon you As you're shakin' off the cold You pretend it doesn't bother you But you just want to explode

She continued farther in, ignoring the scared eyes that now followed her every move. The only waitress scrambled to get out of her way as she went behind the counter and grabbed a couple plates of apple pie. Vicky could hear the terrified whispers around her, but she didn’t care. None of them knew, none of them would understand. And none of them mattered.

Vicky ate her prize before moving over to the soda fountain and helped herself to a drink to wash down her meal. When she finally finished she turned and saw the scared faces huddled in different booths. One fool actually got up. A big, burly looking fellow. Vicky just eyed him cooly as she made her way to the door, her intent now to leave.

He made the same mistake, trying to block her way. She just gave him an icy glare. She didn’t even each for her weapons, her expression alone the only warning he would get to get out of her way.

“Lady, you ain’t going anywhere.” He pulled his own concealed pistol out, but that was as far as he got before she sped in. Grabbing him by belt and arm, she easily hoisted him up and over and he flew, arms waving frantically before he crashed into a set of table and chairs. 

Vicky left him a groaning mess on the floor and walked out. A few moments later the bike roared back to life and was once more speeding on it’s way.

Yeah, most times you can't hear 'em talk Other times you can All the same old clichés Is it woman? Is it man? And you always seem outnumbered You don't dare make a stand Make your stand

After a few more hours her destination finally came into view. The prison where he was locked up. Once more the bike was guided to a stop and she dismounted. Her eyes hardened and her face determined as she made the rest of her way on foot.

Getting in unseen was ridiculously easy. And the first thing she did was find the power core for the facility. A small grenade was tossed and as she turned around it exploded, plunging the compound into darkness a moment before the emergency generators kicked in. 

Those were the next to be taken out, Vicky easily maneuvering around the chaos she had just started. Now looking for her target.

Here I am, on the road again There I am, up on the stage Here I go playin' the star again There I go, turn the page

The halls were filled with screaming and yelling as the inmates either tried to figure out what was going on, or to try and use it toothier advantage. There were even a few excited bought of laughter at the incompetence of the guards to get the situation under control. 

When the black clad individual made her way down those halls, easily taking down any guards she came across, the jeers rose even more. 

Vicky ignored the commotion in the cell block. Her eyes searching for only one that was worthy of her attention.

She found the cell she was looking for and ripped the door off. She stepped into the cell. Those brown eyes looking over the two cell mates inside. One was starting wide eyed at her while the other cringed in his cot.

Vicky knew which one she wanted.

“Get out.” She growled lowly at the cowerer. Her eyes boring into the now older man she knew. Still sporting the mustache she remembered from her childhood.

The inmate ran.

Out there in the spotlight You're a million miles away Every ounce of energy You try and give away As the sweat pours out your body Like the music that you play

“Vicky?”

She sneered back at her tormenter, the murderer of her friend. So, he did remember her too. Good. Then she wouldn’t have to tell him who was about to end him.

“Vicky-”

She lifted him up and threw him against the wall hard enough to break bones. She didn’t care which ones they were as she stalked in again. 

“Shut up.” She snarled at him. “You, don’t get to put my name in your filthy mouth.”

How pathetic he looked to her now. Huddled on the floor, groaning in pain. One time, he had terrified her. Not anymore. 

Vicky pulled out something she had brought, just for him. Even through his pain his eyes widened at what she held.

A hammer...

Vicky spun it once in her hands as she glared down at him. “An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth and a hammer for a hammer. Enjoy your time in hell, you son of a bitch.”

Then, just as he did so many years ago to an innocent little girl, Vicky slammed the hammer into his head. She watched cooly as his body spasmed in the last moments of life before she turned and walked out. Her job now done.

Later in the evenin' As you lie awake in bed With the echoes of the amplifiers Ringin' in your head You smoke the day's last cigarette Rememberin' what she said What she said

The spent cigarette was flicked into the air before she calmly mounted her bike. It fired up and the flames left behind illuminated her form before she drove off back into the early morning hours. 

A hammer for a hammer. A death had finally been avenged. But her innocence would never be regained.

Yeah, and here I am, on the road again There I am, up on the stage Here I go playin' the star again There I go, turn the page

A wheelie was popped as she picked up speed, when the front wheel hit the road again it sped off again at high speeds. It’s rider cold and hardened to the devastation left behind. A rider who had just begun her hunt. 

And there I go Turn that page There I go, yeah, yeah There I go, yeah, yeah

There were more who had torn her life apart. And the preparations had already been made to find them.

Here I go, yeah

And she would find them.

Here I go, yeah There I go There I go

The dust rode high behind her. The tail light the only thing to see as the bike disappeared off into the distance. Then, it too was not to be seen. It’s next destination unknown, for now.

And I'm gone

[agentbarton12]

cause wherever you are is home

summary: basically what happened when max and lucas went home together in suzie, do you copy?

a/n: there is a criminally low amount of fics with lumax as the main ship so here is my minor contribution to rectify this. title from ‘home’ by catie turner. also posted on ao3

warnings: fluff

word count: 1.7k

masterlist

This is not how Max wanted to be spending her Saturday afternoon.

Sheʼd rather be getting ice cream with Lucas, playing video games with Lucas, doing anything else with Lucas. Yet, here she was, at the top of this hill, assembling a dumb machine to contact a girl that probably doesnʼt exist.

But, Lucas is with her so it’s not all bad. (Which she never said if he asks, okay?)

Itʼs not all boring, sheʼll admit. Despite him annoying her, Lucas does make the entire ordeal more enjoyable for her and Will is actually fun to hang around with when heʼs not whining about playing D&D.

At one point, they get Dustin to forget about his walkie-talkie and teach them all the dumb war cries he learnt at Camp Know Where.

She doesnʼt bother to hide her accusatory look when Will asks where the water was.

By the time the sun had gone down, Max started to get more than a little cranky. They had moved to lie down, with Lucas and her both using his backpack as a headrest. “Dustin, come on!” she snaps exasperatedly, after the boy in question continued to try and reach Suzie. “She’s not there.”

Lucas, who seems to be as fed up as she is, exclaims, “Suzie doesn’t exist! No girl is that perfect.”

Max sits up at that and turns to Lucas with a raised eyebrow. “Is that so?” She watches as he sputters nonsense trying to backpedal and correct his blunder. It amuses her, and Max won’t deny that she enjoys making Lucas squirm. “Relax I’m just teasing. I’m obviously perfect, and Dustin is obviously lying.”

She stands up and dusts herself off. The redhead holds her hand out for Lucas, which he grabs and pulls himself up. As they’re walking down the hill, she hears Will call out after them. “Where are you going?”

“Home!” Max yells back without missing a beat. There’s a small, lazy smile on Lucas’ face that she doesn’t notice. She feels a tug on her arm and slows down to find that Lucas has stopped walking.

He has a mischievous grin on his face. “Race you the rest of the way?”

A smirk works its way onto Max’s face. “You’re on.”

She doesn’t give him time to react, just releases his hand and sprints down the hill. She can vaguely hear his indignant cries about how she’s cheating as he tries to catch up to her. Max lets out a hearty laugh, feels it in her belly as Lucas whoops and hollers behind her. The wind is beating against her face, blowing her hair back.

Thereʼs an unmistakable grin on her face when she makes it to the bottom. It only takes Lucas another five seconds to join her at the bottom of the hill, and when he does, he’s a heaving mess. He’s crouched over, hands on his knees, as he tries to catch his breath.

“I win,” Max gloats, beaming at him brightly.

He waves her off. “Yeah, yeah, I let you win,” Lucas reveals once his breathing has gone down to normal.

Max crosses her arms across her chest in an intimidating stance. “Oh, you let me?”

Lucas lasts a good three seconds before he cracks under the intensity of her glare. “Okay, okay, I surrender.” He raises his arms defensively. “You won.”

“That’s what I thought.” She turns on her heel to walk in the direction of where they left their bikes and her skateboard, and Lucas wastes no time in grabbing hold of her hand again.

They walk in silence for a while until Lucas pipes up and asks, “Hey, do you really think Dustin is lying?”

Max shrugs, still studying their joined hands. “I don’t know. It’s fun to tease him either way, though,” she adds, looking up to give her boyfriend a cheeky grin. He laughs and nods, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand. “But I must say, aside from you drinking all the water by yourself—”

“I offered you some!”

“—It was kinda nice. Watching the stars, I mean. With you.” Her voice trails off at the end in embarrassment, ducking her head so Lucas can’t see her blush.

When he doesn’t say anything for a while, she musters up all the courage she can to peak up at him and finds that he’s already looking at her. The smile on his face is bright enough to rival that of the streetlight they’ve stopped under, and it causes something to flutter in her chest.

“We should do that sometime. Stargaze. Together.”

Max nods along, unable to fight the grin that works its way on her face. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

When they reach their things, Lucas lets go of her hand and rushes forward to what she assumes is his bike. She can’t help but feel a little disappointed at the loss of contact. Max finds him clutching her skateboard to his chest, bottom lip stuck out childishly.

“What are you doing?” she asks incredulously. She moves to pick his bike up from the ground for him, and watches him with her head tilted.

“Can I ride it?”

Max’s face blanks. “You’re kidding.” “I’d like for us both to get there in one piece, thank you.”

Lucas puffs his chest out indignantly. “I’ve been practicing!”

“With what?”

Max looks at him expectantly waiting for an answer, to which he supplies after a moment’s hesitation. “Okay, so I taped a couple cans to the bottom of a piece of wood I found outside—”

“Oh my god.”

“—but it’s practically the same thing!”

“In what universe!”

Lucas is still looking at her pouting with pleading eyes and she knows her resolve is going to crumble. “You’ll fall,” she worries, in a final attempt to change his mind.

“You’ll catch me,” he says shrugging easily. As though he’s never been more sure about anything.

Sighing heavily, Max gives in. She knows there’s no way she can say no to him, not when he’s looking at her like that. “Fine.” Lucas punches the air in excitement and runs into the middle of the road. He places the board down and tentatively steps onto it.

“Just push yourself forward,” she instructs, standing off to the side on the sidewalk. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

“I’m pushing, I’m pushing,” Lucas grunts as he pushes himself off the road. When he gets the hang of it, he cheers loudly. “Whoo, I’ve got it!” he yells loudly and Max chuckles despite herself, smiling wide for no one in particular. The cool night air nips at her exposed skin, but she can’t help but feel impossibly warm being here with Lucas right now.

The dark skinned boy skates farther down the street and Max rolls his bike alongside her as she jogs to keep up with him.

In his excitement, Lucas forgets that this is his first time skating and turns his head to look back at her. “Look, Iʼm Tony Hawk!”

He leans a little too much to the left and veers in the direction of the sidewalk. “Watch out!” Max warns and Lucasʼ eyes widen as he looks out in front of him.

“Aah!” he screams as he goes flying into a pile of trash bags sitting on the sidewalk.

“Lucas!” Max drops the bike and rushes to his side. “Are you okay?”

He grunts as he rolls over to lie on his back. “My knee,” he croaks out. A little dramatically, Max thinks, considering he landed on a relatively soft surface. “Can you kiss it better?”

The redhead rolls her eyes and pushes herself off the ground. Lucas laughs loudly, evidently proud of himself. “You smell like garbage,” Max deadpans as she dusts herself off. He lets out an affronted “hey!” and picks himself up. “I told you youʼd fall.”

Lucas pouts. “You didnʼt catch me.”

“You canʼt skate,” she fires back.

“Youʼll teach me,” he says, again as though he was absolutely sure about it. Max supposes he has every right to be.

“Yeah, maybe,” she says, going to fetch her skateboard from where it was lying on the edge of the street. “Cʼmon, letʼs go home.”

This time, as Lucas is picking his bike up holding both the handlebars so he can pull it along with him, Max can see the soft smile playing on his lips.

“What are you smiling about, stalker?” Sheʼs teasing

“You said ‘home’.”

“Yeah?”

He sighs a little when he notices that she doesnʼt understand what heʼs getting at. “No, I mean, like, you didnʼt say my house. You just said home.” Then, quieter, “Do you think of it as your home?”

The thing is, Max doesnʼt have the best reference material for what ʼhomeʼ should be. But Lucas is good, and safe, and the best thing sheʼs had in a long time.

And she supposes thatʼs pretty similar.

“Maybe,” is what she says. Nervously, head ducked and eyes trained on the road in front of her. “Just… with you, I guess.” She can feel her face flush and though she canʼt see it, she knows sheʼs blushing furiously.

“Aww,” her boyfriend croons, “youʼre almost as red as your hair.”

“Shut up,” Max mumbles without any real bite.

Lucas shakes his head, smile stretched across his face. “No I wonʼt, because Max Mayfield likes me!”

Her face burns. “Oh my god.”

“I donʼt blame you. Iʼm kind of irresistible.”

Max rolls her eyes at that. “Oh, really?”

Lucas nods enthusiastically, and Max just shakes her head in disbelief, a fond smile on her lips. “I like you too, by the way.”

“I figured,” the redhead jokes, trying to add some levity to the heavy atmosphere around them.

“And youʼre my home, too.” Lucasʼ smile is so bright, she swears it blinds her momentarily.

Maxʼs heart swells with something sheʼs pretty sure is love and she nudges him with her shoulder. “I never said that.”

Lucas waves her off. “Technicalities.”

“Race you home?” she challenges, more comfortable with the prospect and watches as Lucasʼ smile grows impossibly wider.

“Prepare to lose, Madmax!”

That night, when sheʼs staring up at the ceiling on the spare mattress in Ericaʼs room, Max decides to create a home for herself.

It’s when Lucas and her reach the garage, arguing over who made it there first; Mrs Sinclair greeting them both with a hug and a kiss on the cheek; Lucas holding her hand under the table as they all take turns recounting what they did that day.

She doesnʼt have that much knowledge to go off of when it comes to home. But what she does know is that whatever it is, Lucas is pretty damn close. (Donʼt tell him she said that.)

[ya-like-space]

Oranges, A Warm Summer’s Breeze, and Home

Souji didn’t want to leave. In the short year he was there, Inaba had become his home. The only place he’d ever felt like he truly belonged. As he watched his friends and family grow farther and farther away from the train window, tears slowly started to run down his cheeks. He’s leaving behind the best thing that’s ever happened to him. When the platform was no more than a speck in the distance, Souji sat back in his seat. Closing his eyes, he drifts off to sleep.

 He wakes up hours later to a station announcement. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he grabs his bag from the overhead. Stepping off the train, a rush of emotion hits him. It hadn’t been long since he’d been in Tokyo, but it felt like forever. It all felt wrong. A sense of unfamiliarity flowed throughout him as he walked through the busy streets. Compared to Inaba, everything was so much bigger. 

 Dreading walking into his parent’s apartment again, Souji stood outside the door, counting. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ...10.  Upon reaching 10, he flung open the door. Duffel bag in hand, he raced quickly and quietly to his bedroom. His parents weren’t home, and wouldn’t be for another two days. Couldn’t even make it home to greet their own son. Setting his bag down, he flopped onto his bed. He didn’t want to unpack, knowing if he did, the reality of the situation would set in. Instead, he settled for glaring at all the boxes already in his room. They had arrived days prior. 

 He can still remember how hard it was for him to pack. A part of him wanted to leave everything there, exactly how it was, so when he came back it would all be the same. But the rational part of him had won out, and he called Yosuke over to help him. Though it probably hadn’t been necessary, Souji had wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. They had gotten all of the things he was taking with him packed in only an hour. Leaving them the rest of the day to spend with each other. Not wanting to be in his empty room anymore, Yosuke had suggested they take a walk to the Samegawa. Or at least, that’s what Souji thought was going to happen.

 Yosuke had confessed to him. Down by the riverbank, in the same place they had their fight. He had broken down when they got there, spilling his heart to Souji. Yosuke kissed him that day, arms looped around Souji’s back, hands in his hair. They walked home together hand in hand, tear tracks still visible on Yosuke’s cheeks.

 Souji already misses Inaba, and he’s barely been in Tokyo an hour. It wasn’t fair that he had to leave. That he had to go back to an empty apartment, to parents who were never home, to parents who used him, and a new school of people who don’t know what he’s been through. 

 That night, Souji dreamt of a warm embrace and a rushing river.

 Even though he really didn’t want to, Souji began unpacking his stuff. He started with the duffel bag, which was mostly empty. Other than a few changes of clothes, and his toiletries. 

 But when he opened the first box, instead of the muted black of the old t-shirt that Souji had thought would be on top, there was a rumpled lump of orange fabric on top, which was revealed to be a very familiar hoodie when he pulled it out of the box by one sleeve. It was one of Yosuke’s hoodies, the one he’d been wearing when he’d helped Souji pack up his room, in fact. Tears begin streaming down his face. Souji lifts the hoodie out of the box, burying his face in it. It smells like oranges, a warm summer's breeze, and home. He stays like this for a while, before attempting to compose himself. Flipping over the hoodie, he sees something that was previously hidden. A little pink sticky note, stuck to the underside of the cloth. 

  I’ll miss u partner <3

 That breaks him. Souji crumples into a ball on the floor, unable to stop sobbing. A good 10 minutes go by before he can even think again. When he finally manages to collect himself, he gets an idea. His parents arrive tomorrow, so he’ll have to leave early in the morning. He buys a one way ticket to Inaba, and repacks all of his things. This has to work. Before he goes to bed, he sends a text to Dojima, telling him about the plan. Dojima immediately agrees, telling Souji he’ll pick him up from the station tomorrow.

 Souji gets up the next morning, and writes a note to his parents. Placing it on the dining room table, it feels like a weight has been lifted from him. He walks back to the train station. On the ride back to Inaba, Souji wonders if he did the right thing. But then he looks down at the hoodie he slipped on that morning, before leaving. All doubts leave his mind at the first sight of orange. He rests his head against the window as the gentle rumbling of the train lulls him into a peaceful sleep.

 When he wakes, the conductor is announcing Yasoinaba Station is only minutes away. Souji grabs his duffel bag and moves to the other side of the train. It’s almost like coming here the first time, with the empty compartment and empty station. He meets Dojima outside, getting into the passenger seat of the car.

 “Hi.”

 Dojima turns his head to look at him. Ruffling Souji’s hair he smiles, “Hey there kiddo. It’s good to see you.”

 Souji smiles back at him.

 “It’s only been a day,” he pauses, his expression softening slightly, “but I missed you too, Uncle.”

 The drive back to the house is silent. But it’s the good kind of silence. The kind that calms you, and steadies your nerves. Souji’s half expecting to be bombarded by Nanako when they get inside, but instead, the house is dark. 

 “Nanako went to play at a friend’s house today. She should be home soon.”

 “Oh. Okay.”

 Souji had been excited to see his cousin, but he was fine with waiting. It would give him and his Uncle time to sort some things out.

 “Now. Souji. Are you sure you want to do this? Because if you are, 

I’m willing to do whatever needs to be done.”

 Dojima wasn’t an idiot. He had seen the signs of abuse in his nephew when he had first arrived in Inaba,  and as much as he would like to believe his sister wouldn’t do something like that, he knew it was true. And when Souji had sent him a message asking about  this, well, he couldn’t deny it anymore. He cared about Souji, and wanted him to be safe.

 “Yes. I’m sure. I don’t want to be a part of that family anymore, I don’t want to be treated like a doll, like I’m just there for their entertainment. I want to be here, with my real family.”

 “That’s all I needed to know. Now let’s get this paperwork filled out.”

 “Alright.”

 Nanako arrived home hours after they had finished filing everything out. Her face had lit up upon seeing Souji.

 “Big Bro!”

 She jumped into him, squeezing her arms around his middle.

“What are you doing here?”

 He smiles down at her.

 “I decided I’m not going back to the city.”

 “Yay!”

 The three of them spent that night redoing Souji’s room, and eating take-away. Souji had decided he was gonna surprise Yosuke tomorrow. His shift at Junes ended at 3, so all he had to do was show up after it was over.

 When Souji woke the next morning, Dojima was arguing with someone on the phone. Souji’s parents, most likely. He listened for a while, barely able to make out any of the words. They sounded angry, and he was glad that he didn’t have to deal with them. Dojima hung up the phone, finally noticing Souji.

 “Hm? Oh, good morning Souji.”

 “Are my parents angry?”

 Dojima nodded, motioning for Souji to sit.

 “They seem to think they own you, and that they reserve the right to control your every move.”

 His expression darkened.

 “Souji. You should’ve said something sooner.”

 “I know. But I was afraid too.”

 “Well, as long as you’re safe now.”

 Souji smiled softly, “Yeah. I am.”

 After speaking with his Uncle for a bit longer, and getting the last of the adoption papers filled, he headed to the Samegawa to kill time. It was a little hard getting there, since he nearly ran into Yukiko on the way. Souji wasn’t quite ready to tell the rest of the team he was in Inaba again, in case something went wrong. The only exception being Yosuke. He really wanted to see Yosuke again, but he had to wait. Souji spent the next few hours down by the riverbank, listening to the rushing water.

 Before he knew it, it was almost 3, and Souji made his way to Junes. His plan was to wait near the back entrance, where Yosuke parks his bike. That way, if someone he knew was in Junes, they wouldn’t see him.

  One minute. 30 seconds. 15 seconds. Now!  Yosuke walked through the door, right on time. At first, he didn’t notice Souji was there. But then he saw him standing, right next to his bike. Yosuke barreled into him, laughing happily.

 “Souji! What are you doing here?”

But then Souji said the best thing Yosuke had heard all day.

 "I'm not going," suddenly Souji had him pushed up against a wall, and was kissing him. It wasn't a gentle kiss either, it was hard and demanding and so full of need that Yosuke started to feel a little dizzy.

 "W-what?" he managed to stutter, utterly bewildered by the turn of events.

 "Tell me you love me," Souji requested.

 Now Yosuke definitely wasn’t expecting that, his face flushing a deep red. Souji was looking at him, but the look in his eyes was something Yosuke had never seen before. Something like panic, or desperation. For some reason Souji had come all the way back to Inaba, and the least Yosuke could do was grant this small request.

 "I love you, Souji.”

 Souji practically squeezed him to death in a hug, burying his face in the side of Yosuke's neck with a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

 "Say it again," he repeated, voice muffled by Yosuke's shirt. Yosuke grinned, feeling warmth flow throughout him.

 "I love you," he sighed, wrapping his arms around Souji in return.

  There’s that smell again. Souji breathed in deeply. Oranges, a warm summer's breeze, and home.

Home.

He’s finally home.

@souyoweek2020​ Day 6 | scent

One more day! I've had the idea for this fic in my head, ever since I finished the game for the first time. I always thought there should've been an ending where Souji got to stay in Inaba. This ended up being a tad bit heavier then i wanted, but it kind’ve took on a life of its own while I was writing it. 

[susiron]

I’m honestly so frustrated that he put those fucking cycling pedals on the bike machine cause it means that if I ever want to use it I’ll have to ask him to remove the pedals, which means I can’t just quietly use the machine without him ever seeing me use it

Cause while I desperately want to exercise more, I shrivel inside whenever my dad sees me exercising because he feels the need to comment on it. He’ll start praising me with “good for you” comments and asking me how long I’ve been exercising for and how far I went (on my bike), and give little speeches about how GOOD IT IS FOR ME. It’s never just “Oh you went out for a bike ride? That’s nice, did you have fun?” It’s always a whole Thing with questions and comments and unwanted, awkward praise.

And I’ve tried MULTIPLE TIMES to explain to him that I don’t want to talk about exercising with him-- that I just want to be able to go out for a bike ride and come home without him prying into how far I went, or how long I was out. I know he means well, but it is so fucking upsetting to me when I can’t just mind my own business and bike around the neighborhood without him wanting to weigh in on it. It makes me NOT want to exercise, and I hate it.

It doesn’t help that he also bikes and he’s always comparing how far he bikes (much farther) to me, and I can just feel the silent judgement from him when he talks about biking 50+ miles, and then pries about how much I biked and I just dismissively say “around the neighborhood”. 

Nevermind that biking was my hobby long before it was his, and I never used to feel inferior about it and loved pushing myself to go farther before he made it his own fucking thing.

God I just... I have so much dysphoria about my body and weight and I know he wants me to lose weight and fucking jumps at the chance to try and encourage me to keep exercise-- but it doesn’t help. It never fucking helps. And no amount of TELLING him it doesn’t help does anything because he’ll often get mad at me and tell me he’s “just making conversation”, ignoring that the conversation is unwanted and upsetting.

There’s a world of other things he could ask me about in my life, but no he Has to converse about the thing that makes me upsettingly insecure, and if I don’t want that I’m the bad guy.

This is the same man that literally can’t walk at my pace when we go downtown though, so I don’t know what I should expect. He always walks as fast as he can and I can either match his pace (and destroy my calf muscles and be miserable the entire time), or have him walk far ahead of me like I’m a lazy dog trailing behind. If I match his pace he won’t stop commenting about how good I’m doing-- and if I don’t, he keeps looking back at me and asking if I’m okay. It makes me hate going on walks with him because he treats every walk like a workout, rather than a relaxing jaunt. 

God I hate how upset I am over this. I wish I didn’t care about any of this, rather than caring enough that it makes me actually upset to the point of tears.

Please don’t reblog this.

EDIT: the pedals seem to be more easy to take off than I assumed, so I’ve potentially blown this way out of proportion. But I’m still frustrated cause the odds of him noticing I’ve changed out the pedals (even if I put them back) are pretty high. Watch me fuck up putting his clip-on pedals back the first time I try it and then I’ll have to listen to him give a little speech about how happy he is that I’m using the bike and how good it is for me

Please still don’t reblog this.

[eleventhdoctorsangel]

You can’t wake up this is not a dream

Summary: The Winchester siblings have always relied on each others for years. But has the years passed they made a small family. Years and years of fighting monster have brought them to the town of Derry. With fight a creature that is not of this world have to the Winchester finally met their match?

A/n: A part of this chapter was inspired by a scene from a nightmare on elm street

The ride to Richie’s house took about ten minutes. Once we all arrived at his house I got off Bill’s bike as he parked his bike. “Richie did you tell your parents I was coming?” I asked. “Yeah of course hot legs.” Richie said. “Don’t call me that Richie unless you have a death wish.” I said. “Please you don’t look like you will harm a fly.” Richie said. I glared at him. “Come on guys let’s get inside.” Stan said. I followed them inside Richie’s house. I was the last one to go inside but Stan stayed by the door holding it open for me. “Thanks Stan.” I said smiling as I walked inside. “You’re welcome y/n.” Stan said smiling back at me following me inside. “Oh come on please don’t make out in my house. Mom we’re home!” Richie said. “In the kitchen dear.” Richie’s mom said. We all followed him to the kitchen. “Hello boys. Oh and who are you dear?” Richie’s mom said. “Y/n Winchester ma’ma. I guess Richie didn’t mention I was coming. My brothers are working late tonight and they didn’t want me to be home alone.” I said. “Oh that’s quite alright dear. Please call me Maggie. I hope pizza’s ok for dinner.” Maggie said. “Pizza fine mom we’ll be in my room. Come on guys.” Richie said walking out of the kitchen. “Keep your door open Richie.” Maggie said as we followed Richie upstairs to his room. “So what was that again Richie about letting your parents know I was coming?” I asked. “Oh fuck off y/n.” Richie said. “Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?” I asked. “I hate you.” Richie said. “Awe you love me.” I said. “So y/n where exactly did your brothers go?” Stan asked. “Just out of town. They really didn’t tell me anything else really.” I said. “Do they do this often?” Eddie asked. “What? Get called in for their input on cases and having to go quickly without telling a lot?” I asked. Eddie nodded. “Yeah all of the time.” I said. “Doesn’t that bother you?” Richie asked. “No not really. I just gotten used to it.” I said. “I’m sorry that you have to go through that y/n it must be very lonely.” Stan said. “It can be but I’ve learn to live with.” I said. We spent an hour talking until Richie’s mom yelled that Richie’s dad was home with the pizza. Richie, Bill, and Richie raced each other down the stairs while Stan and I walked down the stairs. “I’m guessing they like pizza.” I said laughing a little. “Yeah they do.” Stan said. Stan and I walked into the kitchen and the boys were already eating. “There you two are. Wentworth this is Richie’s new friend y/n.” Maggie said. “Good evening sir thank you for letting me stay after figuring out Richie said nothing about me coming over.” I said. “Well Maggie and I didn’t want you to be by yourself with all of the children that have gone missing.” Wentworth said. “Do you have a safe way to get home sweetie?” Maggie asked. “Yes Mrs. Tozier my mom said that she will take Y/n home.” Stan said. “Oh that’s good. We didn’t want you to have to walk back home alone in the dark.” Maggie said. Stan and I grabbed some pizza and we joined the boys at the table and ate together. After we ate we handed back to Richie’s room and played some video games. Well mostly Bill, Richie, and Eddie did Stan and I watched. It was close to nine when everyone else’s parents started to picked them up. “Y/n come on my mom is here.” Stan said. I nodded getting up and grabbed my bag. “See ya Richie.” I said.  “Bye hot legs.” Richie said. “Are you ever going to call me something other than that?” I asked. “Why do you hate it?” Richie asked. “Yes I do.” I said. “Then no I’m going to keep calling you that.” Richie said. I just rolled my eyes and left Richie’s room with Stan. 

When we walked down stairs we saw that his mom was talking to Richie’s parents. “Oh there you kids are come on let’s get home.” Stan mom’s said. We followed his mom out of Richie’s house and into the car. “Thank you so much for driving me home Mrs. Uris.” I said as I bucked up. “Oh don’t mention it sweetie. Now where do you live sweetie?” Stan mom’s asked. I gave her the address of where we were staying and she started to make the drive there and about ten minutes later she pulled into the driveway. I noticed that Sam and Dean weren’t back yet. “It does look that anyone is home yet. Are you sure that you will be ok sweetie.” Stan mom’s said. “Yes Mrs. Uris I’ll be fine. My brothers are probably on their way home and they forgot to let me know.” I said. “Ok sweetie. Stan why don’t you walk with her to the door.” Mrs. Uris said. “Yes mom.” Stan said. We both unbuckled. I grabbed my bag form the floor and I pulled out a mini flashlight. “Of course you would have a flashlight in your bag.” Stan said. “Hey always got to be prepared.” I said. We both got out of the car and I turned on my flashlight. We walked to the front door together and I handed Stan the flashlight so I could get the keys from out of my bag. I unlocked the door and Stan handed me back my flashlight. “Thanks for walking me to the door Stan.” I said. “You’re welcome y/n.” Stan said. “Are you sure that your brothers are on their way?” Stan asked. “Well they haven’t texted or call me yet saying that they were on their way home yet but please don’t tell your mom that. She would probably take me to your house and make me spend the night.” I said. “Yeah she would. Don’t worry I won’t tell her. Well I should get back in the car before she suspects anything.” Stan said. “Yeah that would be a good thing.” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow y/n.” Stan said. “See you tomorrow Stan.” I said and walked into the house. I turned on a few lights so I wouldn’t be in the dark. I pulled out my phone to call Sam and asked them if they were on the way back yet. But he didn’t pick up. That when I decided to call Cas and ask him if heard anything from them. “Y/n what’s wrong are you hurt?” Cas asked as he answered. “I’m ok Cas. Have you heard from Sam or Dean today?” I asked. “No I haven’t. Is something wrong?” Cas asked. “Well they went to Ludlow to look into a wendigo case and they told me that they should be home around nine and they are not home yet. I’m just kinda worried.” I said. “Would you like me to go check on them?” Cas asked. “Would you Cas please?” I asked. “Of course y/n.” Cas said. “Thank you Cas.” I said. “You’re welcome y/n. Once I check on them I’ll make sure that one of us calls you back.” Cas said. “Ok I’ll be waiting by the phone.” I said. “Good bye y/n I love you.” Cas said. “I love you two Cas.” I said and hung up. I went to my room and sat on my bed waiting on someone to call me back. I waited about thirty minutes and I saw my phone light up with Dean’s name. I quickly picked it up answering it. “Dean.” I said as I answered it. “Hey kiddo Sam and I are on our way.” Dean said. “Are you guys ok?” I asked. “Yeah we’re ok. The case went a little south but we’re ok.” Dean said. “And the Creed family?” I asked. “We still need to handle them. They all seem to be under the wendigo spell.” Dean said. “Even the little boy?” I asked. “We don’t know for sure yet. We might call in some more back up.” Dean said. “Ok. Have you guys ate anything yet?” I asked. “We’re going to pick something up on the way back. What about you kiddo have you ate yet?” Dean asked. “Yeah I have. I went over to Richie’s after school and his parents got us pizza and then Stan’s mom brought me home.” I said. “Alright we’ll be home in about forty five minutes.” Dean said. “Alight I’ll see you guys soon.” I said. “See you soon kiddo.” Dean said then hung up.

After waiting thirty minutes I decided to go take a bath. I grabbed a change of clothes then headed to my bathroom. I put my clothes on the counter and I decided to out my towel on the toilet. After getting the water in the bathtub I got I and started to relax in the hot water. I was in the bathtub for ten minutes then I heard Dean yelling that he and Sam were back. As I yelled back at him saying I was in the bathtub I felt something brush against my leg. I found it odd since there was nothing in the water. Then I felt something tug my leg. I let out a shocked gasp as I grabbed on to the side of the bathtub. Then I was pulled completely under the water. But it seems like now that the bathtub was never ending. I struggled to get back to the surface as I felt myself get pulled farther down. I managed to grabbed ahold of the side of the bathtub pulling me up enough to scream. “SAM!! DEAN!! HELP!!” I screamed before I was again pulled under the water. I finally came face to face with whatever pulled me under the water and it was the clown that I saw outside my window last night. I screamed and struggled to get out of its grip. I kicked it and it let me go and I quickly made my way back to the surface. I could hear that either Sam or Dean was trying to break down the door. I quickly grabbed my towel wrapped it around me as they finally got the door open. “What happened kiddo?” Dean asked as he came over to me. “Something pulled me under the water. The tub it changed. It was like in was never ending.” I said as I started to cry. “It’s ok kiddo.” Dean said pulling me into his chest. “Y/n what happened to your ankle?” Sam asked. I looked down and saw my ankle was bleeding. “That must have happened during the struggle.” I said. “Ok. Get dress real quick and I’ll patch you up.” Dean said. I nodded and he and Sam left so I could get. I quickly got dress making sure not to get any blood on my underwear or shorts. I heard a knock on the door. “You dressed kiddo?” Dean asked. “Yeah dean I’m dress come in.” I said as I hopped on the bathroom counter that was closes the toilet. Dean opened the door coming in the bathroom carrying a first aid kit. “What exactly happened kiddo?” Dean asked as he sat down on the toilet. “Well when I was taking my bath I felt something brush against my leg. I found it weird because there was nothing was in the water. Then I felt something pull my leg then I was pulled under the water.  That when I noticed that the bathtub was never ending. I struggled against to get back to the surface. I managed to break free long enough to call for you and Sam before I was pulled back under. That when I noticed that the clown that I saw last night outside was the one that pulled me under the water.” I said as Dean started to clean the wound on my ankle. “What do you mean it was the clown?” Dean asked. “I know what I saw dean. It was the clown. I don’t know how to explain how it all happened.” I said. That when Dean and I both saw what looked like claw marks on my ankle. I let of a gasp. “Looks like the clown got you good kiddo.” Dean said. “Do you think it needs stitches?” I asked. “Afraid so kiddo. Sam come help!” Dean said. Sam rushed in. “She needs stitches Sammy and I just need you to help her keep clam.” Dean said. “It’s that bad?” Sam asked. Dean nodded. “Why don’t you just call cas to heal her. “ Sam said. “Just stitch me up please. I love you all but three grown men all in the bathroom is too much.” I said. Dean nodded and got put a needle. Sam grabbed my hand and I got ready for Dean to stitch me up. “You know the drill kiddo.” Dean said. “Yeah I know.” I said. Dean started to stitch up my wound and I squeezed Sam hand when it really hurt. Seventeen stitches later the wound on my ankle was stitched up completely. Then Dean wrapped up my ankle with gauze. “There you go kiddo. You’re fixed up.” Dean said as he started to put the rest of the stuff back in the first aid kit. “Thanks Dean.” I said. Dean smiled and kissed my head as he got up. Sam picked me up from the bathroom counter and carried me back to my room laying me on my bed. “I could have walked Sammy.” I said. “I know. I just didn’t really want you to just yet.” Sam said. I nodded. “Get some rest it’s the last day of school tomorrow.” Sam said kissing my head and left my room. I got up from my bed and went to turn off my lights. I went back to my bed getting under the covers and fell fast asleep. 

I woke up by myself in the morning. Usually Sam or Dean had to come and wake me up. I got up from my bed and went to get clothes to wear for the day. I wore a tank top and shorts. I decided to wear Vans instead of my boots so it wouldn’t tub against my stitches. I left my room and headed to my bathroom to brush my teeth and brush my hair. Once I was done I went back to my room to grab my bag and my phone. I headed to the kitchen where I was meet with a shocked Sam and Dean. “What?” I asked. “Well you woke on your own. Usually Sam or I have to come to wake you up.” Dean said as I sat down at the table. “Well looks like you didn’t have to today.” I said. “Well it’s the last day of school how do you feel about that y/n?” Sam asked. “Well it’s not like I went to school here for the entire school year. I was only in school for three days.” I said. “Well let’s eat breakfast then get to the school.” Dean said. We ate breakfast then Sam and Dean finished getting ready. We they were done we left the house getting in the Impala and headed to the school. “So are you going to hang out with your friends after school?” Dean asked as we pulled into the school parking lot. “I don’t know. I might want to go back to the house after school.” I said. “Just let us know what you decide to do.” Sam said. I nodded. That’s when I saw a few Derry police cars pull up. I watched as the officers got out of the cars and I saw officers Bowers get out of one of the cars. “Why don’t you go ahead and get inside kiddo.” Dean said never taking his eyes off of officers Bowers. “Ok.” I said grabbing my bag and left the impala and headed inside of the school. 

Supernatural taglist: @darkqueennox

Overall taglist: @the-broken-halo-writer​​

[planetsam]

Malex please! Based on Alex saying “You do run hot Guerin” :) thank you!

“When you said you sent your father off to the coldest, farthest corner of the world, I didn’t think you meant that literally!”

Alex ignores the snark and focuses instead on what’s in front of him. His father hates the cold and Alex thinks this is a much, much better place for him than anywhere near Roswell. Of course it’s not without it’s hold ups. Namely the below freezing temperatures and the crippling isolation. They’re on foot because apparently his father is already laying traps out and this was the alternative to huddling in the car and waiting. Of course he didn’t expect Michael to bitch loudly the entire way. Alex is already painfully aware of the fact that all of this is his fault. He doesn’t need Michael Guerin’s patented snark.

“Oymyakon.”

“What?”

“Oymyakon, Russia. That’s the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth.”

Michael looks at him like he’s gonna kill him. It’s hard to take that seriously when he’s bundled in so many layers and a beanie is covering his hair. But Alex does his best not to laugh. Their trudge through the snow leads them eventually to a bank. Alex pauses and Michael nearly topples against him, but he manages to steady them both.

“What?” Michael asks.

“It’s a lake,” Alex explains, “frozen over.”

“Great,” Michael says sarcastically.

“Would you hold on?” Alex grabs him back, “we don’t know if it’s frozen over—“

“Seriously?” Michael rolls his eyes, “obviously it is.”

“Would you wait?!” Alex demands, loudly as he dares to but Michael has gone full stubborn and is already on the ice. Alex tells himself it’s cold as hell and probably fine. When Michael turns to make sure he’s being followed, Alex glares at him, “would you slow down?” He demands.

And that’s when the ice gives way.

Michael goes down. One moment he’s there and the next he’s gone. It’s dumb luck that he grabs the lip of the ice and holds on as tightly as he can. That he’s got anything to hold onto at all. Alex races towards the place where he was, getting as close as he can. Thankfully the ice is firm enough and he can slide right over to where Michael is, grabbing the back of his coat. He says thankfully because Michael is gripping at the ledge and kicking frantically, but the pure terror in his eyes makes Alex realize why he was so determined to just get across the ice.

Michael can’t swim.

“I got you,” Alex says, “hey, hey! Look at me!” Michael turns panic frozen eyes to him, “I need you to open your legs like you’re going to stomp and bring them together. On the count of three. One, two, three.”

Michael kicks and Alex hauls him up onto the ice. He wastes no time in getting them back, an action helped by Michael frantically scrambling away. It’s impossible to see anything this close. Alex really hopes he doesn’t have to beg Michael to use his powers. Thankfully the ice holds. He gets them back to the bank and hauls towards the cabin he saw earlier. He doesn’t let Michael pause or rest, he’s going to take advantage of every second of this adrenaline burst he can. He gets them to the cabin and pounds the door but no-one’s there. Thanking God for small favors he gets Michael inside and follows, bringing them over to the fireplace.

“Take off your clothes,” he orders.

It’s a testament to how cold he is that Michael does it with no snark. Alex strips to his base layer as well and wraps his coat around Michael’s back before wrapping his arms around his front. He’s fractionally taller but Michael burrows against him as best he can. He’s shivering which is a good sign but Alex still holds him.

“F-fuck that was cold,” Michael gets out.

“You’re lucky you run so hot,” Alex says.

“I don’t feel it right now,” Michael tells him.

Alex tightens his arms. He needs to go start a fire.

“I’m going to find wood,” he says.

“Hey! That water was really cold,” Michael starts and Alex rolls his eyes.

“I meant for the fire,” he says, “zip the coat up. Hopefully there’s some around here.”

Their luck holds and he finds some just outside, covered in a tarp. He grabs two armfuls and goes back for a third. Michael is shivering by the fireplace and Alex can feel the chill settling in his bones from just a little while outdoors. Still this is more important than the warmth Michael seems to always radiate and he quickly gets a fire going. Michael is immediately next to him, letting the warmth wash over him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more attracted you than I am right now,” he says.

“Let’s finish getting you warmed up,” Alex says, unzipping the coat and wrapping his arms around Michael. Michael yelps the moment Alex makes contact and he remembers that he was outside, “shit, sorry—“

“Keep your hands there,” Michael orders, “but Jesus. Take gloves next time.”

Alex keeps his hands pressed to Michael’s hot skin. It’s been a while since they touched without clothes on—or with one of them without clothes on. He’s almost forgotten just how hot Michael feels. It’s odd how now that he knows what Michael is, a million little things he’s made excuses for immediately have an explanation.

“I thought you were sick the first time we hooked up,” he admits, “your body temperature was so high.”

“Best I can tell it’s just part of our physiology,” Michael says and then stops, “is that why I found DayQuil in my truck?”

“I thought you were sick!” Alex protests, “I didn’t want you to get worse.”

Michael shakes his head but his lips are curving into a smile that seems to warm Alex in a different way. Michael deserves more kindness than the world has given him. Alex is glad to make up even just a fraction of the difference. It’s oddly intimate to be confessing this kind of thing when neither of them can run away or back off or do any of the physical stuff they so often do in these moments. He doesn’t have a choice but to hold Michael and he doesn’t hate having the excuse of survival. Except for the lingering threat of hypothermia.

“Can you not swim at all?” He asks finally. Michael tenses, “I get why but—“

“We live in the desert,” Michael says under his breath.

“I’ll teach you,” Alex offers. Michael looks at him with narrowed eyes, “I just had to re-learn. Trust me, it’s all still fresh.”

Vulnerability isn’t either of their strong suits but maybe the warped mutual destruction of them both being in that position is luring enough to get Michael to shrug.

“If you wanna waste your time with that, sure,” he says.

“Great,” Alex replies, not rising to the bait, “but lets get through this first, yeah?”

“I mean it wasn’t a big deal, you know?” Michael continues, not taking the offer of a subject change, “when I was growing up. Riding a bike, sure. But it’s not like anyone had a pool—“ he trails off with an angry, embarrassed shrug. Alex knows he never seems to say the right things in these situation, “it’s not a big deal.”

“You know I had to learn how to walk?” He says, “and swim. And I still don’t know how to ride a bike,” Michael looks up at him, “you want to play this game I’ll pull the cripple card.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Michael mutters and presses back against him, but the tension in him does somewhat lessen, “and fucking cold. Were you always this cold?”

“Compared to you I was,” Alex says, “am,” he corrects, “you run so hot—“ he feels Michael grin against him. And something else, “you just almost drowned, you can’t be serious.”

“It’s a bodily reaction!” Michael objects, “you want me to—“

“Do not move,” Alex orders.

“Aye Aye Captain,” Michael says.

“Do not call me that,” Alex snaps. This close, Michael can definitely tell why. There’s something wicked in his eyes when he looks at him but Alex gives him a pleading look. The last thing they need is for whoever’s cabin this is to walk in on them like that, “we don’t even know whose cabin this is.”

“It’s fine,” Michael says, “doors are locked.”

“Michael—“ Alex warns.

“Say no,” Michael challenges, “and I’ll stop.”

Alex digs his teeth into his lower lip. He should. Not because he doesn’t want to but because this is not the time or the place. But Michael’s fucking warm and when that warmth is pressed against him, it’s really really difficult to think practically. This is an unsanctioned operation and his clothes still have to dry out anyway. Michael gets to his belt buckle but doesn’t go any farther, giving him another chance to back out.

“This has to be quick,” he says.

“Aye A—“

“I am not that kind of Captain!”

[stusbunker]

Known: And the Ass’s Jaw

A Supernatural Dark Fan-fiction

Featuring: Dean Winchester x Demon!Reader, x Female Vessel OC, Sam, Crowley and some other demon minions

Summary: CC can’t come to the phone right now... Crowley gets our reader out in the open. Dean acquires the First Blade. This turns into an episode rewrite, I hope you enjoy how our reader fits into canon! xoxo Stu

Warnings: Self harm, mental health, possession, blood, “drug” use, violence, murder, sexual harassment, body disposal and a gentle reminder that our reader is a demon.

Series Masterlist

*^*

February 25, 2014

Green Valley, Arizona

Chloe sat in the bed of her truck, knife held firmly in her hand as she let it hover over her thigh. Her cut off shorts accenting the opportunity as a constant taunt. There, beneath six inches of magically strengthened iron, was her answer. She just needed to slide the edge of the blade over her skin, if she was possessed, she would injure or jolt the demon from her body. If she wasn’t, all she would do is leave a simple cut behind. If her hand would just move closer to piercing her flesh, this could all be over.

With a simple flip of her wrist you began. The soft silver edge split her thigh open like a burst seam. The blood blossoming up and out in a swell of heat and a dull sting, she watched you, paralyzed as another gash opened from her cherished blade. You smirked as the letters merged into the simple word, the surrounding skin reddening with each fresh stroke. The mesmerizing power of inflicting damage inside out causing your eyes to blacken, your mouth pulled into a snarl as you jammed the tip of the knife straight on and into the meat, ending the statement. The mixing of metals at the tip was a punch to the gut, the iron carving away at the latches of your control; you slipped back satisfied but laughing at yourself.

Her consciousness rushed forward to feel each throb of her pulse as she read your message.

HI.

*^*

March 5, 2014

Another Penthouse Suite

 Crowley didn’t even feel the needle as it left his arm, the rush of human emotions quelled the lust for pain and morphed his perspective. He really didn’t want to break up Dean’s little tryst, it would be so much more satisfying to out the bitch to his face. But these were desperate times and he needed a few more ringers on his side. If he could just figure out what department she had escaped from, perhaps he could exploit her talents as well. If she had any, with demons the odds were less than a crap shoot.

He was going to track her down once he found the First Blade, which he would do after this high ran off. Can’t be doing business with the stink of humanity coursing through your veins. He was a professional, after all. No, he closed his eyes and drifted away in a day dream of smug zingers and disarticulated Abaddon.

March 18, 2014

The Bunker

Blade Runners (s9,e16)

 “What do you know about the Men of Letters Massacre of 1958?” Sam stared back at Crowley, who was chained, once again in their dungeon.

“We know Abaddon missed our grandfather and Larry Ganem, was there anybody else?” Dean continued.

“Let me get this straight,” Crowley balked. “You keep me locked up in this closet, ignore my suffering, and then come barging in here and demand my help?”

“More or less, yeah,” Dean agreed.

Crowley looked at Dean and then gaped at Moose. “Did I or did I not keep up my end of the bargain the other night? Quite brilliantly, I might add. We ARE partners and you OWE me!”

After little concession on either part, the brothers caved to the dramatic demon.

“What do you want?” Dean decided it was easier to play along than to argue with Crowley any longer.

Crowley paused a tick, “I wouldn’t turn down more comfortable seating arrangements, a few nips of Scotch, and—” His eyes glinted as he drew out his final request. Dean and Sam raised their eyebrows, fueling his theatrics. “This is paramount. I want Dean’s, how should I put it? Lady friend? To accompany us.”

“Not happening,” Dean interjected flatly.

“Wait, Dean, CC would be there as backup. If Abaddon’s closing in, we could use all the help we could get, especially from someone we can depend on,” Sam grimaced at Crowley’s smug face, he felt dirty agreeing with the crumbling King of Hell.

“Moose is making sense, Dean,” Crowley purred. “Come now, let me meet your pet.”

“No!” Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, “Look, she booked it last time she knew you were here. She was working with Kevin and the moment you started your belly-aching she was out the door. No, Cease doesn’t deal with this level of crap. Not like us.”

“Shame, really,” Crowley leaned his head back and nestled into the creaky old chair. “I’d thought we had a lot in common, both always getting screwed by the mistakes that are the Winchesters and all.”

Dean stomped forward, just to have Sam pull him back from punching Crowley. When they were out of what they estimated to be earshot, Sam continued, “Look, man, I don’t like it either, but CC’s tough. Just call her, she can always say no.”

Dean returned ten minutes later with a calculated glint in his eye, Sam hadn’t moved from his perch outside of the Devil’s Trap.

“So?”

“She’s about four hours out,” Dean gave Crowley a cold curl of his lip. “If you so as much as look at her wrong, I’m going to let her take it out of your hide herself, you hear me?”

“You give all your mates the possessive alpha male monologue or do I threaten your manhood, Squirrel?” Crowley tutted. “Honestly! I think you underestimate just how charming I can be.”

Sam pursed his lips and spun on his heel while Dean sauntered forward. “Now what was that you were saying about seating arrangements?”

Crowley swallowed at the menace in Dean’s voice, careful to keep his thoughts to himself as the boys set up a suitable Queen Anne’s Wing-back for him in the Library, among the other amenities. After an hour of digging through records, they managed to get real intel out of Crowley. Dean naively hoped that their progress would keep CC out of the hunt for the First Blade, but a demon never forgets.

“Call your little huntress, tell her to meet us there,” Crowley’s dark eyes mocked Dean as he watched Dean as he shoved Crowley’s head into the backseat of the Impala.

*^*

Chloe walked in a hazy forest, the underbrush crunching beneath her boots. She didn’t know if she was tracking or hiding, she just knew she had to keep moving. The sky above was a muted gray with streaks of purple, twilight was approaching, and she needed to find cover. Slowly she realized she had lost her lead with the snapping of twigs somewhere behind her. The farther she journeyed, the more certain she knew what was chasing her and the panic grew. She could keep running, she could stop and fight or she could go quietly. Just when she had made her choice the woods parted before her, revealing her grandfather’s cabin and her old bike topped with a shiny new helmet waiting for her. It didn’t matter, the thing that was chasing her didn’t need transportation, but the sight of home had made her pause long enough to end the game once and for all.

*^*

You flew down the highway with the windows open, letting the winter air bite against your bare arms. Chloe was gone, hiding in some memory and you had been buzzing on the power of absolute control. The phone hummed from underneath her leather jacket beside you and you slid the call open before turning down the radio.

There was no way out of this invitation. In fact, it may have been easier to avoid a summoning spell than Dean telling you that Crowley wanted to meet CC. The King, however incapacitated, requested your presence. It was a death sentence, really, either now or later. The loyalty to the throne may not have been your motivation, but its illusion may be your salvation. That with Dean and Sam on your side, gave you enough confidence to answer it readily. Or maybe you were still a masochist this side of the Pit. Go big or go home. You gathered what little belongings you had back at your motel and climbed back into the truck. You hadn’t quite been able to keep Lebanon far enough away.

*^*

“Well, well, well,” Crowley stood alone beside the Impala. “Didn’t think you’d show.”

You remained in the driver’s seat and peered from the window. “Sir,” you nodded, looking around for either Winchester.

“Your boy toy and his oversized sidekick are fine, Y/N. They’re just chasing down an acquisition for me, sporting lads that they are” Crowley oversold. “Come now, let me look at you, Love.”

You hadn’t heard your name in what seemed like forever, an Earth year at least, it was jarring to be addressed by someone so important so intimately. Your overconfidence in your safety was shaken by the sudden solitude. The glint of spelled handcuffs at his wrists gave the final push which brought you out to stand in a seemingly vacant field, two feet from the King of Hell.

“So, Y/N, Darling, what are you doing topside and riding a hunter of all things?” Crowley tutted, thinking your vessel below demon-kind, sending your defenses back up. You looked down at CC’s legs and arms, flexing the muscles beneath her gentle curves before meeting his eye again.

“It was convenient and proved knowledgeable in the long run,” you shrugged, a thousand words passing between your eyes and Crowley’s.

“What of the state of things these days, hmmm? Abaddon and her scare tactics, a demon really needs to keep their friends close,” Crowley was getting to his point.

You knew there were darker reasons Crowley had coaxed you off the road, but there was no good response to a turf battle you had been avoiding. His dark eyes watched knowingly as you tried to conceal your uneasiness. But before you could satisfactorily reply, Sam stumbled out of the nearby trees.

“Magnus has Dean,” he bellowed before realizing you were there. “CC, hi, uh, Magnus is a collector, I think he wants Dean for his zoo.”

“Well, there are worse mugs to put on display,” Crowley muttered as Sam replied in an exasperated face. Sam stormed over to the trunk of the Impala and began digging while Crowley began working him over. You hadn’t spent much time alone with Sam since the whole Angel fiasco, but you knew when he was annoyed. Crowley was playing dumb, yet was still able to hit all his buttons, it was hard not to laugh at them both.

“You’re gonna need another set of hands when you get in there, unless you think Dean’s gonna want little miss priss over here breaking a nail.”

“Thanks, pass,” Sam snapped.

“Hey, at least he knows where I stand,” you interrupted, the low blow stomping out your amusement in less than two breaths.

“Does he?” Crowley grinned over the trunk lid at you.

“Yeah, I do,” Sam countered. “But he’s got a point. Dean wouldn’t want me dragging you into this, CC, this guy has got a spell for everything.”

“He’s human, right?”

“I think so, a witch-like un-aging human, but yeah I guess,” Sam continued rifling through his files.

“Well, if he’s human, he can die,” you surmised. What you didn’t say was that you wanted to be the one to do it, after snatching Dean for his own sick entertainment.

“I’ll remind you, both, that I am the one who flushed the lout Gadreel out of Sam’s noggin. So! Lately, Big Boy, I’ve seen more playing time than you.”

“Crowley, will you please, shut, the hell, up?”

Crowley shoved his tongue in his cheek and sauntered over to your side of the Impala, he nodded to the woods. You didn’t want to do this, not here or now, especially since you knew it would do little to help Dean. But you followed the King about thirty paces until Sam was out of earshot.

“You care about him, is that it?”

You didn’t respond, crossing your arms over your chest, listening in mild annoyance.

“Fine, be stubborn, but you’re still just a bottom dwelling demon in a mediocre meat suit. I have the juice to stop the sorcerer, now, are you going to help me convince the not-so-Jolly Green over there or are you going to stomp your feet and prove yourself a petulant human?”

You didn’t have to convince Sam in the end. Necessity was the mother of invention and the need of the hour was ingredients.

“I did good, eh, Moose?” Crowley pandered once Sam had prepared the spell, “everything on the list. You’re welcome.”

“Remember, stay close, do what I say, and shut the hell up.”

“I’m growing on you, aren’t I?” Crowley stood between you and Sam as Sam started the chant. Crowley’s voice was pathetic and needy. You knew he was off his game, but the fishing for approval was almost painful to watch, and especially suspicious. As the entryway blazed to life before you, Crowley turned and waved, blasting you backwards ten yards.

“Be a dear and wait in the car?” His voice taunted as they disappeared in the night.

*^*

Dean knew he needed to hold out for Sammy and CC to come through with the prison break. Crowley, well, Crowley was a long shot, but he could be tapped if Sam got desperate. What had they gotten into with this guy, the Men of Letters really gave this nutjob too much knowledge for their own good, didn’t they?

Dishonored and forgotten wasn’t enough of a punishment for Cuthbert “Magnus” Sinclair. This guy needed to be put down, once and for all. So, Dean played along, giving him the illusion of control until Dean had his back up squad on the board.

*^*

You could smell them before you heard them, demons. You spun CC’s knife in your hand and sunk into the cover of some nearby bushes. If you smelled them in a pack, one or more of them would be able to sniff out you and Crowley before long. You circled the invisible fortress, spreading your trail and gaining eyes on them. Over a five-minute wait, three stooges barged into the clearing, glaring at the abandoned vehicles.

“Look-e here, the Douche-chester mobile,” a lanky one drawled.

“Christ, she has us tailing after those two for this blade?”

“We woulda been here first, if you hadn’ta stopped to beat them cops, Morris,” the lanky one was apparently in charge.

They continued on, arguing and muttering about their boss, but they never said her name. It wasn’t like they were being cautious to mask their identities. They must have truly feared her if they didn’t utter her name aloud. Once they started in on the Impala, your eyes blazed black, the rage simmering like water beneath the lid of your skin. Eventually they spread out. Which sped up the chances of them finding and following your trail. Slowly you climbed into a low tree, letting their stomping feet cover the sounds of your efforts.

“So, what’s Crowley doin’ wit the Winchesters?”

“Do I look like his secretary, man, I don’t know. But it can’t be good. They are always getting into Hell’s business. You’d think if they wanted the job Sam would have demon-ed up and not put Lucifer back in the Cage.”

“Righteous little Ken Dolls would be real nice to play with though,” a voice like cracked ice spoke for the first time. The third demon was female, and she was much more torture-oriented than the mission required.

“Tommy, there aint no way of gettin’ in ta this vault,” Morris was now ten feet from the trunk of your tree, all any of them had to do was turn and look up and you were screwed.

Fighting against the compulsive breathing of your vessel, you waited. You slid to the farthest weight-bearing spot of the branch, aiming to get within dropping distance. With a calculated toss, you lobbed your knife holster towards the cars, the sound forced the three demon’s heads to snap to attention. In an instant they took off allowing you to leap from your perch and crash onto Tommy, the leader and the last of the pack. With your knife handle firmly in your mouth, you worked to cover his mouth.

The iron and silver blade sunk into his vessel with a satisfying slice, he spasmed against your hold. Once you knew he was weak enough, you removed your hand, letting him smoke out from the decimated corpse. The woman’s and Morris’s voices called back, both confused and cowardly. You wiped the dead man’s blood on the thigh of your jeans and stalked back to the entrance of Magnus’s hiding place.

Amazingly, your gun was still tight against the small of your back, but its weight left little comfort when you were dealing with your own kind. You threw your voice channeling Tommy’s voice, taunting them as you crouched beside your truck, “Morris, get your ass over here and help me already.”

“What’s he want now,” the tall man muttered, stomping back to where you’d left the body.

“Don’t know, don’t care, but you have fun with that,” she snipped, walking backwards with a mocking wave. Once she was alone in the clearing you made your move.

“Hey,” you greeted her, pulling her away from her mutilation of the Impala’s paint job.

“Who the hell are you?!”

“No one of consequence,” you sighed, whipping your knife into her chest, it was two inches up and to the left from where you hoped, but it still froze her in place before her face was forced into a mask of rage.

“Fucking bitch!” She screamed, cutting your window of opportunity down. You charged her, the vessel was tiny compared to CC, your arms and legs reaching her before she could swing back. You threw her to the ground, her boot catching your stomach as she tried to will you off of her. Then you smiled down and twisted the knife, dragging the iron face across her chest in blistering strokes. The skin split bloodless, falling open like a burst bag of flour, the body that housed her was long dead. Muscles, fat and ribs exposed and ragged as she finally escaped through the yellowing lips.

Morris’s strong hands found you before you could enjoy your handy work, one clamped fiercely on your neck while the other hoisted you up by your thigh. Your knife fell from your hand as he had pinned your arm at an awful angle by way of the throat-crushing.

“One of Crowley’s bitches, eh?” He inhaled the scent of your hair. “Didn’t know the ol’ dog liked the chubby’uns. Can’t blame him, really.”

His hand roamed lower and you pushed back against him, trying to wrestle free. “Yeah, that’s it, Baby. Let me feel that fat ass.” You wanted to vomit, but the fingers bruising your throat would have stopped you, if you got that far. You started to panic, it was the middle of the night and you were completely alone; Chloe wasn’t even helping fight this sick fuck off of her. “Could do wit out that pistol ‘tween us though.”

“Why?” You struggled to speak, “my gun make you, insec-c-c—c.” He tightened his hold, crushing Chloe’s windpipe. As his spindly fingers started to undo your pants, you bent forward, lifting his feet out from behind him and slammed his face against the truck’s side view mirror, breaking his grasp of your throat. You coughed and drew sweet air back into her lungs, she was going to be banged up and your antics weren’t exactly helping that fact. You stomped on his foot and shoved him back against the truck, breaking his last hold on you. You stumbled forward, snatching the knife and quickly spinning to face him. His stance was wide, hoping from foot to foot as you inched closer, he grinned suddenly, the barrel of CC’s gun pointed square at your chest.

“Nice vessel you’ve got, sister, be a shame to muddy it up,” Morris taunted. You didn’t know how it came to mind, but suddenly you smoked out of Chloe’s mouth and straight down his shocked jaw. You hadn’t had a different vessel in months and never an already possessed one. But you found him quickly, blanketing his senses and twisting his essence into thin useless strands, like putty. When you felt him trying to leave you shoved him further back, bringing him inside the dead brain of his vessel and wallowing in the emptiness. Just when you thought he was too tired to keep fighting, you raised his hand and put a bullet in his temple.

“So much for this vessel,” you taunted before leaving him in the un-camouflageable husk.

Sure, he could have tried the same thing with CC, but you had scared him shitless. He shot off after his useless friends, like dogs with their tales between their legs. Unfortunately, those bitches would undoubtedly head home to Abaddon, with your treachery bursting from their lips. There was no hiding from Hell after this.

Once you were back inside Chloe, having righted her weapons and fixed her pants, you started hauling bodies. It was dawn before you had them all salted and stacked on a pyre two hundred yards north from the trail to the old Man of Letter’s safe house. The smell of burning flesh coated your nose and sunk into your clothes. It reminded you of home, a wistful smile came to your lips as you watched the bodies with a filling satisfaction.

*^*

Dean was doing his best to ignore Crowley’s verbal masturbation as they stomped out of the woods from Magnus’s place. He was terrified of the power the First Blade put in his hand and absolutely impressed with the taste the murder left in his veins. There was no high like it and so he tried to bury it. When they reached the clearing in which he had parked Baby, the sight was enough of a distraction as his stomach dropped.

“No, no. Come on!” Dean strode forward. “What the hell?!”

“That’s sulfur, demons,” Sam hurried to the other side of the car, checking their cargo.

“Uh, Abaddons’,” Dean groaned. “Well, she’s just one jump behind us. Guess she couldn’t find Magnus’s joint either. What about the trunk?”

“Safe,” Sam sighed in satisfaction. “The warding kept them out.”

Crowley finally reached the distraught hunters, confusion or concern heavy on his face.

“Demon mitts all over my Baby,” Dean stewed. “Oh, come on! What, now, they’re keying cars?!”

“Gents?” Crowley broke Sam’s focus, but Dean was too far gone, desperately trying to right the wrongs done to the beloved Impala. “Notice anyone missing?”

“Chloe,” Sam’s face fell to the empty spot of the missing truck.

“CC was here?”

“Yeah, Dean, you were inside overnight.”

“Wait, what?! It was like an hour, hour and a half tops,” Dean groaned.

“Must have been a temporal pocket, like Hell, only opposite,” Sam explained, scanning the horizon. He froze when he saw the pillar of gray smoke, “that’s not a good sign.”

“Maybe your bird cleaned up the mess,” Crowley mused.

“God, I hope so,” Dean clenched his eyes shut against the deep gashes in the car doors and slid inside. Whispering to the car the entire way over to the pyre. He parked beside CC’s battered pick up and he crawled out of the driver’s seat. Only to be knocked back against the steel frame as CC ran into his chest, breath ragged, and face covered in tears.

“Dean, thank fuck,” she croaked as he pulled her close. “I don’t know what happened, suddenly I was lighting a pyre with three strangers on it. I, I thought I was dreaming.”

Dean stared over her head to Sam and Crowley, concern of varying degrees on both of their faces. Dean kicked himself for leaving her alone, she reeked of sulfur, gasoline and burning flesh. He held her at arm’s length and examined every inch of exposed skin, they really worked her over, fucking bastards.

“D’you have anything to do with this,” Dean looked Crowley square in the eye.

“I might have left her behind, for her own protection,” Crowley raised his hands in surrender. “I had no idea Abaddon’s goons were right behind us.”

“Who are you?” CC asked.

“Name’s Crowley, Y/N was it?” The Englishman leaned forward with a doughy palm.

“Shut up, Crowley. You know this is Chloe, Chloe Collins. You met her yesterday,” Sam eyed the demon contemptuously.

“Right, Ms. Collins, pleasure,” Crowley smiled smugly.

“He’s sort of the King of Hell,” Dean whispered as she unwrapped herself from his arms to take the demon’s handshake.

“I remember, Kevin told me all about you,” you returned his menacing stare as Crowley broke the handshake.

*^*

@mogaruke @dontshootmespence  @mrswhozeewhatsis @smi727 @sassykayla255 @supernaturalboi @dumbthotticus @eve05glee @veroinnumera @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @fanfictionrecommendations-com @soullesscollection-world

Next Chapter: Case of the Weak Part A

[to-write-ornah]

Not So Happy Birthday part 2

A/n: hey guys, happy new year! So, this part has been rewritten wayyyyy to many times but it's finally done!! I'm actually rly excited, and this will probably be a series until it's done-done. ALSO! This is part two, technically, but I'm making the next part 2.5 because Tumblr has this great thing called '100 paragraph limit' (I will be salty about this till the day I die) so hopefully I'll get that up today or tomorrow. Also, next part is gonna sum up what the deal is with her parents and her brother (I've put off saying her brothers name for the weirdest reason so don't judge but it'll be in the next part okay) I also apologize bc (to me at least) my writing seems a bit off. Oh well. alright I'm done rambling ENJOY

Warnings: minor character death, blood and bruising, maybe fluff if you squint

________________

You'd been riding with Sweet Pea for over two hours now. The train tracks had been on your left up until about twenty minutes ago, when they split away from the road making way for the forest. You passed a red painted post on the side of the road several miles back, officially marking the end of Ghoulie territory. The road you were on was public, but nobody in their right mind would take it unless it was necessary. The only reason you were on it now was because this was the road your dad had been on with your little brother two days ago. He'd been so excited to go on a supply run with your dad, you hadn't been able to tell him no. And now they had both disappeared. Dropped off the radar the day befor. You tried to keep your thoughts calm as you and Sweet Pea simultaneously slowed down to round a sharp curve in the road. You grimaced as your jean clad knee grazed the pavement before your bike righted. Ahead of you, Sweet Pea glanced back to make sure you were okay before suddenly slowing and turning his bike sharply. You slowed almost to a stop.

'See something,' he signed, prompting you to turn your bike around as well. You followed him to just before the curve where a patch of bushes had been run flat and tire marks scorched a small portion of the road. You hadn't seen it at all coming from the other direction, and it would have been easy to miss entirely. You stopped your bike beside Sweet Pea's, dismounting and removing your helmet as he did the same. You started down into the foliage, flipping your hearing aids on in time to catch the last bit of Pea's sentence.

"..should really wait and call someone." He was saying. You rolled your eyes.

"It took us over two hours to get here, Pea. By the time the others get here it might be too late or there's nothing here, and we would've wasted everyone's time. We're gonna at least go check it out." You heard him sigh heavily behind you before following you off the road and into the shrubs. The undergrowth was flattened out, almost like a path, about twenty feet ahead. At the end, it split in two directions. The path to the left was narrower and more overgrown, and the right path was wide, flat, and seemed to go farther. Sweet Pea spoke first.

"I got right, you go left. If you don't find anything, meet back here in ten. Got it?" You made a small noise of agreement as you headed down your desegnated path.

'Of course Sweet Pea took the easy path,' you thought in slight annoyance.

Ten minutes of weaving around trees and almost falling over multiple times brought you back to the fork in the bushes as you waited for Sweet Pea. Not even a minute later he came up the path, his face set in a hard scowl.

"Hey, what happened, what did you fi-"

"Lets go," he cut you off, grabbing your arm and pulling you back toward the road.

"Sweet Pea! Stop! What did you find? Let go of me!" You struggled against his grip, but couldn't get out of it. He was a lot stronger than you, and he was dead set on getting you to the road. You twisted suddenly and managed to slip your arm through his hold. You turned and darted back down the path.

"Y/n!" You heard Sweet Pea chasing after you, encouraging you to run faster. The path suddenly dropped off to a shallow cliff with a ravine at the bottom.

You froze as you took in the scene below you. On the floor below you was your dads jacket, three bloody holes through the back. And that was your dad.

Sweet Pea caught up to you just as you hit your knees. He knelt down beside you and pulled you against him. You gripped his jacket as sobs racked your body. You were never close to your dad, but you'd just seen his body, literally dead in a ditch. You were in shock.

"Hey, sweetheart, this is why I didn't want you to see this." Pea soothed. "And I'm sorry you did. We should call the others, get back home." You shook your head, wiping the tears from your face and standing up.

"No. We need to find him." Sweet Pea gave you a sad look, which you ignored. "His body isn't here, he might be hiding, or maybe he tried walking back, or-"

"Y/n," Pea tried, but you ignored him. You had already started down the shallow cliff, and he knew you weren't gonna drop this. If your brother wasn't alive, then like hell you were gonna stop looking.

"I'm gonna call Toni and Fangs, okay? Hopefully they're gonna bring some people to come get your dad." You gave an absent 'okay' as you started searching for your brother, keeping well away from your dads body.

Once Sweet Pea was done calling your friends he joined you, albeit halfheartedly. He knew you were desperate to find him, but he also knew that you weren't going to. Whoever had killed your dad had either killed your brother too, or taken him. But he knew he wouldn't be able to get you to stop, so he joined you. Fangs and Toni were stuck in some meeting set up by the mayor in an attempt to fix the relationship between the Southside and the Northside, so they wouldn't be able to get there for a while. So for the next four hours, you and Sweet Pea looked for your brother. You had probably covered almost a miles worth of forest around your dads body, even hitting the train tracks at one point.

It was starting to get dark by the time reality hit you. Your brother was gone. Your dad was dead. You couldn't protect anyone anymore. You stared blankly at the tree in front of you before tears started rolling down your cheeks. Emotions bubbled up inside you. Anger, frustration, sadness, rage. You let out a scream as your fists hit the rough bark of the tree. You hit it over and over again. Scream, hit, breath, scream, hit, breath. You felt warm blood run down your fingers, felt the bones in your hands shift uncomfortably, but you didnt feel any real pain, so you continued. A pair of strong arms suddenly wrapped around you, pulling you away from the now bloody tree, and holding you as you thrashed against him.

"Let me go!" You demanded, voice slightly warped by tears. "Sweet Pea I swear, let me go right now!"

"Shhh, it's okay. It's gonna be okay," Sweet Pea held you as you slowly lowered your arms, and he felt your body relax. Your angry breathing was replaced by soft crying.

"It's my fault, Pea. I let him go. It's my fault." He shook his head.

"No, it's not. Come on, let's go get you cleaned up. The others should be here soon."

He held onto you the entire way up to your bikes. Making you sit on yours, he rummaged through your saddlebag until he found a water bottle and some bandannas.

"Can I use these?" He held up the old cloth and you nodded. He gently grabbed your right hand and you hissed. You hadn't realized how badly you'd hurt yourself until now. He tried to be careful as he rinsed off your injuries and wrapped the makeshift bandages around your hands. He finished just as a group of motorcycles and a few cars came around the bend in the road, stopping near you. Sweet Pea went to talk to them, leaving you to sit on your bike.

You felt numb. Your little brother was gone, your dad was dead. That officially made you an orphan. You grimaced at the thought. You were almost seventeen, so at least you'd be able to take care of your brother. If you ever found him. You were snapped out of your train of negative thoughts by Sweet Pea gently placing his hand on your shoulder.

"Wanna go home?" You nodded quickly, reaching for your helmet but stopping as you realized you couldn't pick it up, much less put it on. Sweet Pea offered you a soft smile, picking up your helmet and securing it to your head. He nodded toward his bike, and you understood. Following him over to it, you sat down behind him and gingerly placed your hands around his torso as he started the bike. A few minutes later and you were headed back to the Southside of Riverdale.

______________

The ride home was quite. Sweet Pea stopped at the first gas station he found to fuel up and grab some food. He persuaded you to eat a small granola bar and drink some water, then got back on the road. It was dark by the time you got back to the trailer park. The first thing Sweet Pea did was get the emergency kit from under the sink and clean out your hands. With the light from the trailer, you could actually see how bad it was. The skin along your knuckles was split open, and the surrounding skin was mottled with blood. Once Sweet Pea had washed the blood away, you could see dark bruises beginning to form around the cuts. He held your wrists as he poured hydrogen peroxide over your hands, which made you hiss and try to pull away.

"Almost done." He murmured quietly. It only took him a few more minutes to wrap up your hands and help you get out of your dirty clothes. Once you were washed up and ready, Sweet Pea helped you to bed. He adjusted the heat in your trailer before he pulled the covers up around your shoulders. He started toward the door, but you called out to him.

"Sweets?"

"Yeah babydoll?" He turned back.

"I don't wanna be alone."

He smiled softly and you couldn't quite understand his expression. He gently shut the door to your room and walked toward the bed. He sat on the edge of it and took off his boots before standing and removing his jacket. He stripped down to his tee shirt and boxers, then crawled into bed next to you. Weapping his arm around your waist, he gently pulled you into him. You let out a small sigh as you began to drift off. Your last conscious thought was how good Sweet Pea smelled. You must have said that out loud, because you fell asleep to the sound of him chuckling.

____________

Sweet Pea helped you get ready the next morning. Shower, brushing your hair, getting dressed. You felt completely overwhelmed not knowing what to do or how to find your brother, and you voiced your concerns to Sweet Pea during breakfast.

"Well, what can you do?" He asked, pouring milk into your bowl of cereal.

"Tell Jughead I'm a Serpent," you responded immediately. "I feel so bad that I haven't told him. He's my best friend, and he still has no idea. If I can't help find my brother, telling Jug about that is something I can do."

Sweet Pea nodded, finishing his cereal and taking his bowl to the sink.

"I'll take you if you wanna go see him. But we've also gotta go by the Wyrm later. They wanna know if you've got any idea who killed your dad." You laughed humorlessly.

"Of course I do. You do too; everyone does. The question is, are they gonna do something about it." Sweet Pea nodded, drying his dishes then coming back for yours.

"Whenever you're ready to go."

______

You texted Jughead, and he said he could meet at Pops at noon. At eleven forty five, Sweets drove you across the tracks to the diner.

You dismounted the bike, turning to Sweet Pea for help with your helmet. He unfastened it and secured it to his bike before laughing at your messed up hair.

"Just fix it please," you rolled your eyes but your tone betrayed your humor. He ran his hands through your hair, smoothing it out.

"Good luck." He said seriously. "I'm gonna be at the Wyrm. Just call me when you're done and I'll come get you, okay?" You nodded.

"Okay."

He leaned up and pressed a kiss to your cheek, making you blush slightly. He grinned.

"See you later, babydoll."

You shook your head as he started his bike and drove off. Turning toward the front door of Pops, you took a deep breath. You gently shoved your hands into the pockets of your oversized jacket and stepped inside.

____

Tag List:

@chipster-21 @wishingforahome

[cruciatuscurse]

Cocoa Butter Kisses

Rating: All

Warnings: None

Pairing: Sweet Pea/OC

Summary: When Toni’s cousin moves to Riverdale, Sweet Pea takes a liking to her.

“Stay outta trouble,” her grandfather was instructing her. “These days..well, Riverdale isn’t quite what it used to be. A smart girl like you needs to be focused on getting an education and not boys or drugs-”

“Grandpa,” she protested, brows knitting together. “I am focused on my education. And I’ve never done drugs before, ever.”

“Well,” he sighed. “You know how your mother struggled. You look so much like her.”

She smiled painfully, her heart aching for a moment. “I know.”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “If you ever want to talk..”

She shook her head. “I’m fine, Grandpa. Where’s Toni?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I told her what time you’d be here, but you know how she gets.”

“Maybe I should go look for her?” She suggested, and he gave her a stern look.

“If you do, you better be careful,” he warned, sitting down in his rocking chair.

“I’ll be fine, Grandpa,” she insisted, crossing her arms. “Where does she usually hang out?”

“Well, she could be at the Wyrm, or Pop’s,” he looked thoughtful before adding, “young girls don’t belong at the Wyrm. If you go, be discreet. In and out, you hear?”

She tried not to roll her eyes. “Yes, Grandpa.” She put her camouflage jacket on over her black tank top, heading for the front door. “I’ll be back soon!”

“Kids these days,” he muttered to himself, cracking open a beer.

She could’ve texted Toni, but she figured it’d be more fun to surprise her. She kept what her grandfather said in her mind, but she decided to check out the Wyrm first. Besides being on the opposite side of town, she just had a good feeling about it.

When she arrived in front of the establishment, she hesitated for a moment. She could see the rough faces lingering around and she wondered just what her cousin was getting mixed up into these days.

Pushing open the door, she realized eyes were quickly falling on her. In and out, she thought. Looking around, she was able to locate her cousin playing pool with a few boys. Rolling her eyes, she silently made her way over to them.

“Ha! Pay up, Fogarty,” Toni cheered as Fangs begrudgingly pulled money out of his pocket.

“Lucky shot,” he replied.

Sneaking up behind her, Toni’s eyes were quickly covered. The boys looked in surprise at the girl, approximately their age, covering Toni’s eyes.

“Guess who?” She said playfully and Toni squealed.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” She turned around, giving her cousin a hug. “I was planning on stopping by Grandpa’s, but I lost track of time.”

“Hey, we’re still here,” Sweet Pea waved his hand around. “Who’s this?”

“This is my cousin,” Toni said pointedly. “Treat her nicely.”

“Oh, I definitely will.” Sweet Pea smirked. “I’m Sweet Pea and this is Fangs.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” she said, her eyes flickering between both before she put her arm around Toni.

She dragged Toni away from the boys, Sweet Pea’s eyes following her hips shamelessly, and she said quietly, “you never told me how cute your friends are.”

“They’re not cute, they’re Sweet Pea and Fangs,” Toni protested, her nose wrinkling. “Besides, you just moved here. Are you really looking for a relationship?”

“My mom just died and I had to completely relocate,” she pointed out. “A distraction, some fun? Yeah, I’m looking for either of those things.”

Toni bit her lip. “Sorry, I know it’s a touchy subject. What were you thinking?”

She shrugged. “How about..a party?”

Toni looked amused. “A party?”

“Yeah, a party.” The idea sounded better the longer she thought about it. “Invite your cute friends, and others if you have them.”

Ignoring her words, Toni grabbed her hand and dragged her back to where the boys were. They stopped talking, looking at the two girls expectantly, before Toni grinned. “In honor of my cousin coming home to me, we’re going to throw a party tonight.”

“A party?” Fangs and Sweet Pea exchanged a look.

“It would mean a lot to me,” she said sweetly and Sweet Pea pulled out his phone.

“Say no more, babygirl.”

She looked at Toni smugly, who simply rolled her eyes, grabbing her pool stick.

“Let’s play.”

That night she fixed her braids, putting gold beads in them. She pulled out a pair of shorts and a yellow off the shoulder top from her closet, dressing herself quickly. She was humming along to the music playing from her phone, bobbing her head as she did her makeup. When she heard the revving of an engine from outside, she perked up.

She hurried outside, greeted by the sight of Toni on her motorcycle. She grinned at her cousin, hugging her before she took a seat behind her.

“Hey girl,” she greeted her as Toni began to drive. “Let’s ride.”

They made their way through the winding roads, taking the backways until they got to the forest. Driving farther, they made their way past the clearing to where the other motorcycles and cars were piled.

Everyone was drinking and huddled around the edge of the river. A steady fire was going and someone was playing music from the back of their truck. Sweet Pea and Fangs approached the girls as they dismounted from the bike, each holding a beer in their hand.

“Ladies,” Sweet Pea greeted them, holding out the beer.

Toni passed one to her cousin and kept the one Fangs had for herself, the four beginning to walk toward the group of Southsiders. Looking them over, Toni raised an eyebrow. “Jughead couldn’t make it?”

Sweet Pea shrugged. “You know how he is.”

She sighed, nodding, and her cousin raised an eyebrow. “Jughead? Isn’t he the one that you-“

“You can meet him when we go to school,” Toni cut her off, giving her a look, and she slowly nodded. “He’s one of us too.”

“Speaking of, what exactly does that make you?” Fangs asked, and she shrugged.

“Who knows.”

“Well, you’re the guest of honor tonight,” Sweet Pea pointed out, before he yelled her name for all to hear.

She was met back with cheers and hollers, giggling at the warm welcome from the drunken teenagers. She raised her beer as a salute before tipping it back, slowly chugging its contents.

“Another?” Sweet Pea asked, and she shrugged.

“Sure.”

While he wandered off to get it, she turned to Toni. Fangs had wandered off to talk with some guys he knew, leaving them alone again.

“Fun, right?” Toni reminded her, and she nodded.

“Fun.”

“Sweet Pea’s a good guy,” Toni said suddenly, fidgeting with her hair.

“Look, I’m not some Northside slut or whatever you guys are protesting these days,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “He’s old enough to make his own choices.”

“I know, but-“

“You’re loyal to the gang and your friends, I got it.” She put a hand on Toni’s shoulder. “I’m not going to get between that.”

“I’m being weird, aren’t I?” Toni asked lightheartedly, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, but that’s normal for you.”

The girls shared a laugh before Sweet Pea returned, holding out a beer. “Premium for you, princess.”

The girls exchanged a look before Toni excused herself, the pair watching her walk before looking at each other.

“Come on.” Sweet Pea led her to the back of a truck and he helped her into the bed of it, sitting side by side. In this position, their knees touched. “So, Topaz was telling us about you..”

“I’m sure,” she muttered, cracking open her beer.

“I just wanted to pay my respects,” he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “If there’s anything I can do..we can do..”

She held up a hand. “If we’re going to talk about this right now, I need more than just beer.”

Sweet Pea grinned.

“And so here I am, sixteen and parentless, living off my grandpa until the government deems me too much of a burden to deal with,” she was ranting.

“That’s rough.”

They were both looking up at the starry night’s sky, on their backs. She had a faint glow to her cheeks, beyond her highlighter, and a hazy look in her eye. Sweet Pea was watching her intently, a boyish smile on his face.

“You’re telling me.” She took a sip from her cup, only to turn it upside down. “It’s empty.”

“Yeah, you drank it all,” he told her, a smirk forming on his face. “And the one before that, after the beer.”

“Right.” She sulked for a moment. “Thanks for listening to me whine, Pea.”

“Anytime.”

“That’s a funny name. Pea.” She was snickering and he raised an eyebrow.

“You making fun of me? After I’ve been trying to be so nice.” He put a hand to his heart, feigning offense, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

“Don’t blame me, blame your parents for naming you.” She started to laugh, loudly, and he grinned. She had a great laugh. Suddenly, she sat up. “I wanna do something.”

Sweet Pea raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

She shrugged, drumming her fingers impatiently on her thighs. “Something..”

Before he could further question her, she hopped off the truck, slightly wobbling. He sat up, amused, until she quickly began undressing.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He jumped off the truck bed, alarmed, only slightly relieved when he saw the bikini she wore underneath her clothes. Thank God Topaz had mentioned they’d be at a river.

“Catch me if you can,” she taunted him as she ran for the water.

“Shit,” he swore, taking off his jacket and tossing it with her clothes before he chased her. Toni was going to kill him. “Get back here!”

“Never!”

Everyone was cheering for her as a loud splash was heard, her body disappearing into the water. When she didn’t immediately emerge from the water, an image of Jason Blossom’s body popped into his head and he jumped into the water without hesitation.

He saw her slow motions as she paddled with the water, and just for a moment, she didn’t seem to be struggling. When he grabbed her, she clung to him, and he carried her onto shore. She was sputtering for air and he continued to whisper comfortingly to her, “I’ve got you. Don’t worry, I’m right here.”

“Sweet Pea!” Toni was standing with Fangs at the shore, looking alarmed. “What the hell happened?”

“The princess here decided to go for a swim,” he explained, glancing at the girl in his arms. Her eyes were red rimmed, and her full lips were pouty. Despite her wet hair and slightly running makeup, she seemed okay physically.

“Let’s get you changed,” Toni said to her gently, urging the boys to follow her.

They obliged, holding their jackets around her shaking body as they looked away, making sure no one came to their corner while she stripped her wet bikini off. She clumsily put her top and shorts back on, squeezing the water from her braid before she affirmed that she was decent again. Toni took her wet clothes to put in her bag, and Sweet Pea held out his jacket.

“Here. Cover up before you get a cold,” he said, and she smiled at him.

“Thanks Pea,” she said quietly, leaning against his chest. He stiffened for a moment as her head rested on his chest before his arm came around her.

“No problem. Just be careful, okay? I don’t get wet for just anyone,” he teased and she smiled at him.

“Neither do I.”

“Okay, gross,” Fangs said, scrunching up his nose. “I’m still here, guys.”

They laughed at his expense before Toni appeared, looking between her cousin and her friends. She told her, “I should probably take you home.”

“No!” She hid behind Sweet Pea, pouting at the other girl while they laughed.

“I can take her,” Sweet Pea offered, holding up his hands at Toni’s pointed look. “I’ll take her straight home. It’s really no trouble. I’m not really in the party mood anymore.”

“Alright, if you’re sure,” Toni caved, and her cousin cheered.

“Yay!” She kissed Toni’s cheek before leaning on Pea’s side, holding onto him for balance. “See you tomorrow!”

Toni shook her head, watching with Fangs as Sweet Pea guided her cousin to his bike. “He’s going to have his hands full with that one.”

Fangs nodded. “Oh, definitely.”

Sweet Pea helped her onto his bike, admiring the way his jacket swallowed up her body, before he got on. “Hold on tight, okay?” He instructed and she nodded, leaning against him.

“Kay.”

As they began to drive she closed her eyes, her body and mind swaying. While Sweet Pea guided her home, she thought about a lot of things. Her mind seemed to be a continuous blur, until she found herself speaking. “How come you’re not drunk?”

He chuckled. “Besides that first beer, I’ve only been drinking water.”

“What? Badass Sweet Pea doesn’t drink?” She mocked him and he grinned.

“Nah, I do sometimes. I just wasn’t in the mood for it.” He shrugged. “I’m glad I didn’t, considering that little stunt you pulled.”

She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Right.”

The Southside was quickly coming into view and she found herself stumbling over her words. “Is there anywhere we can go besides my house? I’m not ready to go yet.”

Sweet Pea glanced at her. “I’m not sure, unless..do you want to go back to my trailer?”

She felt her heart flutter a smile graced her lips. She nodded eagerly. Chuckling, he nodded in agreement.

“Trailer it is.”

When they got to Sunnyside, he parked his bike before helping her off it. She wobbled on two legs and he held her hand, guiding her to his trailer. Her movements were clumsy, and she couldn’t stop giggling, and he warned her to be quiet.

“Just until we’re in my room, okay?”

Her brown eyes were big, and she nodded in agreement.

Once inside, they silently made their way to Sweet Pea’s room. She copied his movements, allowing him to guide her by the hand, until they were inside his room. Once the door was shut, and locked, she let out a cheer and flopped back onto his bed.

“You’re something else,” he told her, shaking his head as he admired her once again in his jacket.

“Something good?” She asked playfully, kicking off her wet shoes and socks.

“Yeah.” He grabbed some clothes from his dresser before excusing himself, and she looked around once the door was shut.

There wasn’t much, but she saw a lot of pictures, most likely from Toni, stuck to his mirror and clothes spread out. His backpack and books were in the corner of the room, and his tv was decorated in stickers.

She stood up, slightly swaying, as she undressed. She changed into one of Sweet Pea’s shirts, which fit her like a dress, and she looked around for bottoms. She settled for a pair of shorts she found shoved at the very bottom of his drawer, which were quite loose on her. She made her way back to the bed, falling back against the pillows and letting out a sigh. Seconds later, he entered the room, laughing when his eyes fell on her.

“Are you wearing my clothes?” He asked, amusement laced in his voice.

“Mhm.”

“You do realize they’re five times your size, right?” He snorted as he looked at her closely. “I haven’t worn those shorts since middle school.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, but he could tell she was tired. He had changed himself, wearing sweatpants and a tank top instead of his wet shirt and jeans. He climbed into bed with her, tugging the blankets around them.

“Sweet dreams, princess,” he whispered, looking up at the ceiling, and her eyelids fluttered shut.

“Night, Pea.”

He watched her bury her face in his pillows, staining them with her makeup, but somehow, he didn’t mind. He tried to keep a distance from her, giving her space as she slept it off, and slowly, he fell asleep.

In the morning, she woke with a start. She could feel the warmth of an arm around her, a chest pressed to her back, and for a second, her mind raced.  She relaxed when she began to remember what happened, though, turning over in his arms.

“Good morning,” he rumbled, his eyelids barely open, and her heart fluttered.

“Morning,” she replied shyly, her bare legs brushing against his. He gave her a smile that made her heart pound, and her face felt hot. She rested her head on the same pillow he was using, feeling the callouses of his hand as his fingers stroked the bare skin of her hip, right above the waistband of her shorts and underneath the ridden-up shirt she was wearing.

Reluctantly, she reached for her phone, seeing a missed call and a few texts from Toni wondering if she’d made it home okay. She typed back a quick response, with Sweet Pea watching her, before he tugged her body onto his.

They curled up together, her body slightly over his, and they gazed into each other’s eyes. Not wanting to waste another minute, he tugged her hips down, pulling her closer, and they began to kiss. His hands didn’t stray from her sides, not wanting to cross any boundaries, and her hands held his face. Their make out session was interrupted, however, by a knocking at his door.

“Ignore it,” he mumbled against her lips, and she nodded, until the knocking continued.

“Sweet Pea!” He groaned as he identified the voice as Toni’s.

“Wait here,” he instructed, gently setting her aside before he got up.

She watched him go to the front door, pulling it open and greeting Toni. Toni invited herself inside, talking animatedly about something, before Sweet Pea responded. Toni walked into his room, calling out for her cousin.

Her head peaked up from the blankets and Toni crossed her arms. “Why am I not surprised?” She asked, and Sweet Pea rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hello, cousin,” she said cheerfully, and Toni rolled her eyes, leaning against the doorframe.

“Just no making out in front of me, okay?”

“Deal.”

[quinlin-blog1]

Blurb from What’s It Like

Naomi Braxton was an eleven year old girl with a severe fear of heights.

Ever since she was a young girl Naomi has been afraid of heights. Maybe it was because when she was four her older brother died in a plane crash. Planes fly, therefore there must be a reason to be afraid of doing so.

I guess you could say that Naomi was more afraid of falling than she was of heights.

She never let anyone pick her up, she wouldn’t swing on the swing set at the park, and she wouldn’t up the hill behind her house anymore. She didn’t want anything to do with being off of the ground.

But then one day her best friend May went on a plane ride to England, Naomi felt like her fear as silly. ‘Who’s afraid of heights?’ Naomi would think to herself. ‘It’s a silly thing to be afraid of something like that. I can’t avoid flying my entire life.’

So Naomi became convinced that if she ever wanted to get over her fear, she must go as high as she could.

And so, that next day when Naomi’s father took her to the park like he did every day when she returned home from school, Naomi went straight to the swings, something she hadn’t done in a long while.

So naturally this surprised Naomi’s father, who hadn’t seen the girl so determined since he told her that she couldn’t have any ice cream until she finished her lima beans, the only food she wouldn’t eat. He watched as she sat down on the swing and began to move her legs back and forth, slowly the little swing went higher and higher.

But as it did so, Naomi found herself getting more and more scared. She reminded herself to not look down as the sing moved back and the forwards again, but she did.

The ground wasn’t very far away, she was maybe a meter and a half off the ground as she sung at the farthest height.

‘But’ Naomi thought to herself ‘that’s a meter and a half farther than I have been in a long time’ she reminded herself that she hadn’t been up high, or above to ground even, in a long time, which made all this a little bit scarier.

Suddenly, Naomi remembered a story that her cousin had told her. One of her cousin’s friends had gone so high, that the swing had flipped her over the top bar and when she landed on the ground, she broke her arm.

Thinking of this. Naomi felt a little more scared. The farthest she had ever fallen was when she had fallen off of her bike earlier that year, and she had only scraped her knee! What would happen if she went over the top bar?

Feeling a bit queasy, Naomi decided that she had had enough of the swings for that day, although she promised herself that she would return to them to fight back her fears some other time.

Naomi ran to the slide and climbed up the stairs. Naomi had no fear of this play set, because she knew that to fall off, you had to climb over the railing and only silly people climb over the safety railing.

Naomi went down the slide and few times, each time a little less exciting than the first, until she decided that maybe she didn’t want to play on the slides. She then saw something that caught her attention.

The Fireman’s Pole.

Naomi had seen several other older children on the fireman’s pole, but she always been too scared to try it. She felt that it was too far away from the step and she repeatedly thought that she would fall off.

But today Naomi felt a more confident, at least a little bit more than usual. So she got up off the end of the slide, climbed the stairs up again and made her way over to the fireman’s pole.

Her father, seeing his daughter’s actions, walked over to the edge of the pole, ready to hold her hand as she attempted to climb onto it, but Naomi swatted his hand away.

“I’m a big girl Daddy. I can use the Fireman’s pole by myself” Naomi stated quietly as she once again tried to not look down at the ground that seemed to be getting further away.

Her father stepped away, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he watched his daughter. Usually, she would have welcomed his help, but today she seemed very intent on doing thing herself. For a moment, he felt proud of his daughter, for taking on her fears.

But Naomi was scared. The ground the was only three yards down, but it seemed like it was getting farther and farther away, she felt like either she was getting taller, like her legs were stretching up and she was looking down, or the ground was sinking into itself, making it look further away.

Either way, Naomi began to doubt herself.

‘But it’s silly to fear things like heights, I’m not silly am I? No. So why must this be so scary?’ Naomi continued to ask herself this, but not answer came.

Feeling upset with herself, Naomi stepped back from the fire man’s pole and went down the slide again, her entire mood set back.

The night, when Naomi was tucked into her bed, she was looking through her scrapbooks, looking at pictures taken by her parents when they went on travels before she was born. There were many pictures that were taken from airplanes, looking down at the clouds and distant ground. Naomi couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like to be up there.

“Naomi?” Naomi turned her head and set her book down on the dressed as her mother walked into her bed room. Naomi’s mother went and sat on the edge of Naomi’s bed, rubbing her daughter’s hair and she laid in her bed, blankets tucked up to her chin.

“Your father told me that while you were at the park, you were on the swings, and tried to go on the fireman’s pole”

Naomi looked at her mother “I thought that maybe I could solve my fear of heights”

Her mother just looked at her, Naomi couldn’t tell what her mother was thinking and this startled her a little bit.

“Maybe you should try making a wish”

With those words, Naomi’s mother brushed her fingers across Naomi’s face and brought her hand in front of Naomi’s eyes.

Confused for a moment, Naomi looked at her mother’s hand and saw that on the back of it, was a dark eyelash.

Naomi then remembered the story that her mother had once told her.

‘If an eyelash falls out, put it on the back of your hand, make a wish and then blow on it. Then the wish will come true’

At first Naomi had thought this ridiculous. How could an eyelash make a wish come true? But then her mother had told her another story. She told Naomi about the time when she was young that she had wished for a new bike and ended up getting that bike two days later.

This, of course, could just have been her Mother parents (Naomi’s grandparents)’s doing, but Naomi still deep down inside liked the idea of magic and making wishes on things.

So Naomi closed her eyes and thought about what wish she wanted to make.

She wanted to no longer be afraid of heights, she knew that much, but how should she state the question? What did she really want?

‘I wish for a way to overcome my fear of heights. I wish for a way to not be afraid. I wish to not be afraid of heights anymore.

I wish to fly”

After the last thought, Naomi opened her eyes again and blew the long eyelash off of her mother’s waiting hand. The eyelash flew off and twirled in the air for a few moments.

Naomi’s mother turned away so Naomi wasn’t sure she saw, but she knew that she did. The eyelash twirled in the air a few times and them it stopped. Just stopped in midair. Then it turned into a small puff of smoke and soon that was gone too. Nothing left of the little eyelash anymore.

Nothing, accepts the wish.

The next morning Naomi woke up in her bed and was looking forwards to the next day.

The first thing that Naomi did was go to her parent’s room and open the doors to the balcony. She stepped out, feeling more confident than she ever had before then. She thought that she could do it, she could look down at her father leaving for work, wave goodbye to him and not be petrified with fear of being up high. She felt so proud of herself, prouder than ever. She thought of a few moments later when she could run downstairs to her mother and tell her that she was no longer afraid of heights and that her mother could take her to the park on the swing set and the fireman’s pole and she wouldn’t be scared anymore.

But as she walked over to the edge and leaned over the railing, Naomi found herself terrified. The ground seemed to sink into itself, falling further and further down, Naomi saw herself falling to the ground, she saw herself falling into an infinite abyss of darkness and felt that it was never ending.

Never in her life had Naomi felt so scared.

And because of this she as disappointed, why hadn’t her wish come true?

Naomi trudged back inside, shaking like a leaf from the terror that she had experienced, closed the doors, semi-slamming them and then she walked down the stairs to the kitchen, where had mother was making omelets and fried ham for breakfast.

But Naomi didn’t want to eat anything, she felt that her stomach had been turned upside down from being up so high. Her hands hadn’t stopped shaking, her head felt fuzzy and she didn’t feel like doing anything, not sleeping, not going to school, not eating breakfast lunch or dinner.

“Morning Mimi” Her mother greeted her with her old nickname.

Naomi didn’t respond to her mother, she just sat down at the table, folded her arms and then put her head in her arms, not looking at her mother as she set a plate down in front of her.

“What’s wrong sweetheart?” Her mother asked her.

Naomi shook her head “The wish didn’t work”

Naomi’s mother didn’t respond for a moment, but then Naomi felt a hand land on her shoulder in a comforting way. “Maybe” Her mother started “it did. But just not in the way that you expected it to”

This made Naomi lift her head to look at her mother, her eyes filled with curiosity.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, maybe your wish did come true, but sometimes things don’t happen in the way we expect them to.” Her mother paused for a moment “Why don’t you stay home today, yeah? Try and figure this out”

Naomi nodded and picked at her breakfast.

Later, Naomi found herself sitting in her bedroom playing with her dolls, quietly and peacefully like she did every other day. Her soft brown hair falling in front of her eyes as she looked down at the figures. Annoyed, she roughly pushed the hair out of her eyes.

Tired, she put her dolls down and laid back on her bed. She couldn’t understand what went wrong when she made her wish.

‘Maybe I spoke it wrong. Maybe I forgot to do something. There has to be something wrong with it’ she thought to herself.

But when she thought about it, she couldn’t remember herself doing anything wrong. She tried and she tried but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She’d made wishes like that before. Although they had been for small things like the newest Barbie doll when she was five or for chocolate muffins to bring to school when she was eight. Small, little, insignificant things, but they all came true.

But perhaps that was because her parents had done those things for her, not the universe or God or whoever made wishes happen.

As Naomi thought about this, she started floating up into the air. She didn’t notice her back and legs leave her soft duvet, the air acting as a pillow to her. She kept on thinking, her eyes closed, completely unaware that she was getting closer and closer to the roof.

Until she hit it.

Her head hit the roof with a soft thump, causing her eyes to shoot open.

Thinking back to that day, Naomi didn’t really know what she had expected to happen. But she certainly didn’t expect the roof.

“What the-“ she started, but never finished.

She poked the roof with her finger and found herself drifting around her room in mid-air.

‘I must have fallen asleep. I’m dreaming’ she thought ‘And in dream, you can’t get hurt’

Smiling, Naomi willed herself to sink through the air and she pushed the air in front of her, propelling herself forwards. She reached her hand out and grabbed the doorknob, she twisted it and opened the door. She propelled herself forwards into the hallway, floating down the hallway almost like she was laying on her stomach. She grabbed the handle of the balcony doors and opened them, feeling the wind on her face.

Naomi forced herself forwards, over the edge of the balcony and she didn’t drop, she didn’t fall, she was perfectly fine. She looked down at the ground and when she did, she wasn’t scared.

Naomi knew that she wasn’t going to fall. She was flying! Of course she wasn’t going to fall! And besides, even if she did fall, in was dream and you can’t get hurt in dreams.

But Naomi had no fear of falling, she didn’t fear hurting herself if she went too high, in fact, she wanted to go higher.

And she did.

Naomi flew up into the air, her arms out at her sides like she had seen in the movies.

She flew up and into the clouds, which, even though they looked very fluffy and cuddly like she had always imagined they would be, they were filled with water and Naomi came out the other side of the cloud soaked. Her hair fell into her eyes and it took her a moment to pull it out of her sight, but when she did, her eyes widened at the sight of an air plane heading right towards her. Without thinking, Naomi dove out of the way of the plane, before the pilots could see her and she hid inside a cloud.

As the plane went past, a rumble filled Naomi’s ears and the wind picked up dramatically. She thought it to only be the plane and she thought that when it went past her, the sound and wind would go away.

But then something flashed behind her. She only saw it because it illuminated the entire sky, making the clouds light up different colors of yellow and pale purple. Fearfully, Naomi turned around and saw the behind her, there was a wall of dark, almost black clouds, coming right for her.

Naomi quickly remembered the weather forecast she had heard the night before.

“Heavy rain coming in late tomorrow afternoon, thunder and lightning storms” She remembered.

Now, she was up in the air, the wind pushing her so much that she found herself drifting backwards, the rain, which had started only moments ago, was pelting down so hard that it hurt Naomi’s head. Thunder boomed again, ringing through Naomi’s ears, causing her hands to shake in fear and she counted the seconds until the lightning struck.

“One. . . Two. . .  Three. . . Four-“

And suddenly, there was a streak that went through the sky, flashing a pale yellow and purple, zig-zagging through the sky all the way down to the ground where it came close to hitting the roof of an unsuspecting farm house.

The rain came faster, the wind grew stronger and the thunder soon came again, followed closely by another strike of lightning, but this time, it almost hit Naomi.

Naomi could feel the hair on her head stand on end as the lightning flashed, but quickly disappeared as fast as it came. Honestly she had never felt so scared in her life. No amount of heights or falling could ever scare her this much.

But she knew that if this was only a dream as she suspected it was, nothing bad could happen to her.

And if nothing bad could happen to her, Naomi could do anything.

This included, helping to save the plane.

You see, after the first lightning strike, the plane had begun to circle around, looking for a place to land, but the plane would not last much longer out in the storm, for the lightning was unpredictable and there was no telling where or what it would strike next.

So Naomi flew over to the plane, not quite sure how she was going to save all the people that were on said plane, but she had to try.

So, pushing herself forwards, Naomi grabbed the tail fin of the plane and began to push it.

The plane was heavy, the wind was harsh and the rain was falling so fast that Naomi could barely even see her hands, which was straight in front of her. She felt almost completely useless.

But none of that would matter in a moment.

The thunder rolled again and three seconds later the lightning struck. . . Hitting that right wing of the plane.

Naomi could hear the people inside scream in fear, terrified of the imminent death that was awaiting them. So Naomi flew over to the right wing, abandoning her position at the tail fin and her did her best to hold up the tail fin, using the wind to her own advantage and let it help her hold the wing up as she pushed it forwards.

Looking back on that day, Naomi thought she was a little bit like Supergirl, which made her feel proud of herself. But in that moment, it never occurred to her.

Soon, the plane made it out of the worst of the storm and found its way to the landing pad, where, even though it was a bit of a bumpy landing for the people inside, no one was hurt and the plane was left mostly undamaged.

Naomi left as quickly as she could, feeling cold and hollow from the rain, but proud and confident. She’d helped save those people! She only wished that she could tell her mother about this day, but if she did it would be a lie because this was a dream.

And dreams don’t really happen.

Only, Naomi didn’t realize that she didn’t know how to land. She knew how to stop in mid-air, how to go, how to lift up and lower herself, but she didn’t know how to land. But landing was crucial, Naomi had to land at some point, so the sooner she figured out how to, the better.

And as she flew up to the balcony of her house, now seemed as good a time as any. So, as gently as she could, Naomi let herself down, slowly and carefully. And when she was a foot off the ground, she let herself drop, she stopped flying like she had turned off a light switch.

Unfortunately, Naomi’s little feet were so cold and brittle from flying in the cold hard rain, that they had become numb and brittle themselves. And when they touched the ground, shots of pain flew through her feet, up her legs to her tummy and in that moment Naomi knew.

She hadn’t dreamt anything.

[kalcat-sketches]

Making New Friends

“Uhg, what did I sign myself up for?”

The desert heat pounded down on a lone cargo ship, sitting dejectedly in the sagebrush as its pilot sat in a cleared area of ground next to it, taking cover in the small shadow cast from the afternoon sun in a desperate attempt to stay cool.  Because of the broken… something, the pilot knew nothing of engineering and mechanics, staying in The Glavnaya was more unbearable than sitting in the desert sun.

“I can try to fly to the delivery point, and probably burn to a crisp before I get there.  Or I can stay here and die of the heat.  Either way I die because of the heat.” the pilot said to himself, falling backwards so he was looking up at the cloudless sky.

“Well that’s an incredibly pessimistic way to look at things Ammeron.” the pilot thought to himself a moment later.

“I could try and fix my ship myself.” Ammeron said to himself after a long moment of thinking.  He then visibly winced at the thought, remembering the last time he attempted to repair his ship.  It had not gone well.

“If I remember correctly, the America’s are full of scavengers, maybe I could wait for one of them to show up.”

Ammeron then frowned, not really certain about how he felt about meeting a scavenger.  As far as he knew, scavengers could be bad as thieves, and just take apart his ship and leave him to die.  He wasn’t good at fighting, but he did have a way with words.

“But what good will words do on a person who only cares about themselves?” the cargo pilot said to himself.

“Expect the worst and hope for the best, right?”

Just as Ammeron started to berate himself for not expecting to be stranded in the desert, he heard a faint rumble.  He sat up, propping himself up on his hands.  It couldn’t be thunder, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, even on the horizon.  He looked at his ship, worried that it was coming from his already broken vehicle.  He stood up, walked over to his ship, went up the cargo ramp and into The Glavnaya.  A couple steps into the ship intense heat pressed down on Ammeron, but the sound had disappeared.  He walked back outside, relieved that it wasn’t his ship rumbling, but still confused about where the sound was coming from.  After minutes of careful listening, Ammeron still couldn’t tell if the sound was increasing or decreasing in volume.

After much awkward scrambling and struggling, Ammeron was able to climb on top of his ship.  Now able to see farther and in all directions, Ammeron surveyed the land for the source of the persistent rumbling.  Between the glaring light from the sun and the shimmering waves of heat rising from the earth, Ammeron was unable to find the source of the noise.  Struggling to bare the heat from being exposed to direct sunlight any longer, Ammeron gave up his search to find the source of the constant noise and began to climb down off his ship.  Hopefully whatever was making the rumbling wouldn’t want to cause trouble for Ammeron.

The shade cast by The Glavnaya had grown significantly when Ammeron noticed a change in the noise.  He had retrieved a book from his ship's quarters while he bandaged a cut he received while climbing down from his ship, and was reading to pass the time, and try and ignore his current problem, when he noticed that the rumble was ever so slightly louder than it was the last time he paid attention to it.  He had also picked up a sound of mechanical growling mingled in with the rumble.  With this realization, Ammeron knew that the sound was coming from an engine, and a loud one at that.

Ammeron looked up from the book he was reading and scanned the horizon.  Off to his right, he noticed a cloud of dust growing larger as the noise increased in volume as well.  

“Well it looks like I’ll have some company then.” Ammeron said, and then thought, “But will it be friendly company or not?  I should probably arm myself just in case.”

Ammeron stood up and marked where he was in his book.  He walked towards the entrance of his ship and said,

“Now where did I put my pistol?”

“And I should probably stop talking to myself.”

It took less time than Ammeron thought for the other vehicle to arrive.  Once the vehicle came close enough for him to see it, he was able to identify it as a rather old hoverbike with a sled dragging behind it.  He was then able to see not one, but two people were riding the bike.  The one driving the bike had a scarf wrapped around his face and pulled up over his head, with a pair of goggles covering his eyes.  The second occupant didn’t look like they were dressed the same way as their friend, but due to them being behind the driver, it was hard to see their appearance.  The way the driver was dressed though didn’t reassure Ammeron.  

The bike pulled up along Ammeron’s ship, and the occupants climbed off.  The second rider was a girl that looked to be in her late teens or early twenties.  Her hair was pulled up into a clip to keep it out of her face, and she was wearing a tattered jumpsuit that may have been white at one point, but was now a dusty tan color.  The driver had pulled the scarf away from his face as he climbed off the bike, and had pushed his goggles onto his forehead.  The rest of his dress was worn and dirty.  He looked around the same age as the girl, and looked like he had grown up in the desert, unlike his companion.  A golden brown dog's head popped out of the sled.

“Jeff, stay.” the man said, pointing at the dog.

“Hi there.  Anything I can do to help you?”  Ammeron asked the strangers.

“Actually, we were wondering if we could do anything for you.  Is there something wrong with your ship?  We thought this was, abandoned but then we saw you and assumed something was wrong.” replied the man.

Ammeron felt a wave of relief when he heard this.

“I could use some help, I don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s a furnace in there.  Are you good at engineering?”

The man was busy digging through his bag, so the girl responded this time, “I am not that good at engineering, but Gray was raised in a machine repair store.”

“Gray, is that your name?” Ammeron asked the man

“Yeah, and this is Kalbot.” the man answered and gestured toward his companion.

The girl frowned, “Why do you call me that?  My name is Kalista, not Kalbot.”

“Because it’s funny.”

Ammeron interrupted before Kalista could respond to Gray’s childish taunt, “So anyway, can you fix my ship?”

Gray sized up the ship and said, “Sure, shouldn’t be a problem.”, and headed inside.

Ammeron stood with Kalista in uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Ammeron decided to talk.

“I would invite you inside, but it’s really hot in there.”

Kalista nodded, and grimaced saying, “And I would accept your invitation, but I do not enjoy the heat.”

The two lapsed back into silence, before Ammeron asked, “So are you and Gray good friends?”

“We have only known each other for a few day’s, so I don’t know if that would count as being good friends.”

“Really?  How did you two meet?”

“The shuttle I was traveling in suffered a navigation error and I ended up stranded in the desert.  Gray saw the craft I was in go down and found me while scavenging for parts.  He took me back to his town and helped me out.  I go out on scavenging trips with him mostly because I do not know what else to do.” Kalista said.

“Wow, that’s,” Ammeron replied, “not what I was expecting you to say.”, not really sure what else to say.

Before another uncomfortable silence could begin again, the dog in the back of the sled jumped out and began to growl.  Ammeron backed away from the dog, unsure what it was he did to upset the canine.  Kalista stared at the dog, and then stared at Ammeron with a confused and curious look.  Then Ammeron saw that she wasn’t staring at him, but she was staring at something behind him.  Ammeron turned around and looked out at the desert.

“What are those?” Kalista asked

Ammeron still couldn’t see anything, but Jeff the dog growled louder, and Kalista called for Gray.  Gray came out of The Glavnaya, at first confused, and then worried when he saw Jeff.

“What did you do to my dog?” he asked.

Ammeron was still trying to figure out what the others were seeing that he wasn’t.  Kalista simply raised her hand and pointed out to the horizon.  Gray squinted and pulled his goggles back over his face.  Not a moment past before Gray obviously saw what the others did.  But he seemed to know what he was looking at.  Gray swore before turning to Ammeron and asking,

“Do you have a cut, or have been sick recently?”

“Um, I cut myself a little while ago, but I bandaged myself up, why?” Ammeron said, still confused about what was going on.

“Mirage Coyotes, they can track down any injured or weakened person or animal for miles.  They’re not very strong if there’s just one, but their always seen in packs.”

Ammeron turned back towards the horizon, but this time he was able to see pale, wolf-like creatures a couple hundred yards away.  He couldn’t tell how many of them there were, the forms of each animal shimmered and blurred as they moved.

“What can we do?” Kalista asked

“I’m going to try and get this ship working as soon as I can.  You,” he said looking at Ammeron, “Shoot any of the ones that come close, and you” Gray looked at Kalista, “Make sure my dog doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Gray picked up the still growling Jeff and shoved him into a surprised Kalista’s arms.  Both the dog and the girl looked insulted at this action, but Gray was already running back into the ship.  Ammeron didn’t look any happier than Kalista.  He pulled his pistol out of it’s holster.

“I have shot this thing once since I have had it.  How am I supposed to shot a bunch of invisible wolves?” he thought.

As if she had read his thoughts, Kalista said, “Have you ever used a pistol before?”

“Ah, not really.” Ammeron replied.

“Trade you.” Kalista said, grabbing the gun from Ammeron and pushing the dog into his arms.  This time, it was Ammeron’s turn to look offended.  At least Kalista looked happier.

“Do you know how use that?” Ammeron asked her

“Yes, very well in fact.”

As if to prove her point, Kalista turned and shot 3 coyotes in rapid succession.  Ammeron was stunned by the fact that Kalista had shot and killed three coyotes without blinking, and the fact that three coyotes had gotten that close without him noticing.

“I’ll leave the shooting to you.” he said.

Kalista only smiled in return.  The smile flipped into a frown as more coyotes came closer, their confidence growing.  She took a defensive stance and analyzed the growing line of coyotes, who had started circling.  

“Stay behind me.” she said.

Kalista’s demeanor had changed slightly, the confidant air she portrayed now had a undercurrent of uncertainty.  Ammeron looked at the near invisible pack animals, that were starting to circle around his ship, and obediently placed himself and Jeff between Kalista and his ship.

Some of the coyotes were getting more confident, coming closer, only to be shot down quickly.  Jeff struggled in Ammerons’ arms, trying to free himself to go fight the threat.  Ammeron tightened his grip on the dog.

“Just how many of these things are there?”, Ammeron thought, “Every time one dies it seems like there’s another to take its place.”

He looked back over at Kalista, whose quick attacks were becoming slower, and her movements becoming more halted and jerky with each attack.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Ammeron asked.

“I, I do not function well in the heat.” Kalista replied in a tired way, her words coming slowly.

She went to fire another shot, but the pistol made a funny noise and it didn’t discharge.  Kalista looked down at the gun with shock and fear.

“What was that?” Ammeron asked

“It’s jammed.”

“What!?!”

The coyotes could smell the fear in the air as Kalista struggled to restart the pistol.  The feral animals tightened the circle, coming closer and closer as Kalista struggled with the weapon.  Just as one of the coyotes crouched to pounce, Kalista gave a yell of frustration and threw her arms out in front of her.  A blast of pure energy emanated out from her throwing everything in front of her several feet away.  Ammeron was shoved back a couple steps into the side of his ship.

The majority of the coyotes fled, but a fewer of the braver (or stupider) stayed behind to finish their hunt.  But before they could reorient themselves, Kalista had fixed the gun and finished them off.

“How did she do that?” Ammeron thought, slightly dazed from his bump into his ship.  He began to let Jeff down onto the ground, but stopped when he began growling again.  Ammeron quickly found the coyote that had hidden among the bodies of its pack.

“Kalista!”

Kalista turned towards the coyote, the quick movement of its charge catching her eye.  She raised the pistol and pulled the trigger, only for it to click.  Empty.  Before she had any time to react, the coyote slammed into her, locking its jaws around her right arm and throwing her to the ground.  Ammeron cried out, but before he could do anything the coyote went limp and the fiery look in its eyes died as they clouded over.  Kalista was able to pry her arm free as she pushed the coyote off her and onto the ground.  As she stood Ammeron saw the dull glint of a knife in her left hand.  The sleeve of her jumpsuit was torn and shredded beyond repair.  Kalista looked down at her arm and winced.

“That doesn’t look good.”

Jeff finally broke loose of Ammerons’ grip, snapping him out of the trance he was in.  He then ran towards her, asking at almost a yell, “Are you alright?”

“I am all right, it is just a superficial injury.”

Now that Ammeron was closer he was able to get a better look at Kalista’s arm.  The thing that surprised him the most was the fact that there was no blood.  Her skin was torn and cut, revealing dull metal plating and covered artificial muscles, that was now dented and scraped from the coyotes bite.

“A mechanical arm?”

“We should leave, do you think Gray is done with the repairs?” Kalista ask, her words quiet and slow.  She looked tired, but rather unconcerned with her arm.

“Oh, um yeah maybe, do you want to go see?”

Kalista nodded.  Her eyes were half closed and she was swaying where she stood.  Ammeron reached out to steady her.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Kalista looked at Ammeron, her gaze unfocused and exhausted.  She opened her mouth to respond but before she could her eyes closed and collapsed.  Ammeron caught her before she hit the ground.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Ammeron dragged Kalista into the shade and gently laid her down.  He placed his hand on her forehead and withdrew it almost immediately.  Her skin was feverishly hot.  Jeff looked down at the unconcious girl and then up at the pilot.  Ammeron looked at the dog and pointed to it and said,  “Stay”.  He then ran onto the open cargo ramp and shouted into his ship.

“How close are you to being done?”

Gray appeared from behind a stack of crates that Ammeron was transporting to the mines in the west.  

“Just finished up, is everything alright?  The coyotes aren’t overwhelming are they?” He asked, growing more concerned after seeing the worry on Ammerons face.  

“The coyotes are all dead.  But your friend, Kalista, just passed out.”

Grays look of concern turned into one of confusion.

“The coyotes are dead?  All of them?”

“Yes!” Ammeron said impatiently, “Kalista killed them all and then passed out!”  

Gray didn’t even look worried.  Didn’t the scavenger care about his friend?  He just simply walked outside and down the ramp.  Ammeron followed, and when he reached the end of the ramp he saw Gray carrying Kalista over his shoulder.  He stopped halfway between The Glavnaya and his bike.

“Ah, do you think I could let her recover in your ship?  My bike doesn’t have any AC.” Gray asked Ammeron.  So maybe he did care.

Ammeron said he didn’t mind and Gray took Kalista up the ramp.  Gray found an open spot in the cargo bay then unceremoniously, and not very gently, dropped Kalista onto the floor.  Or maybe not.  Ammeron turned and looked at the hoverbike parked near the ramp of his ship, as well as the rundown and beaten sled it carried.

“Why don’t you bring your bike into the cargo hold, and I can take you and your friend back to your settlement.” Ammeron said suddenly, surprising everyone but the unconcious girl and the clueless dog.  

Gray gave Ammeron a startled look and said, “Really?  You’d do that for us?”

“I’m not getting paid any less for delivering late, so I can take a detour.” Ammeron shrugged.

Gray opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to have changed his mind, so he gave a simple “thank you” and went to pull his bike into the cargo hold.  Jeff followed his master for a few steps, then ran and jumped into the scrap filled sled when the bike started up and began to growl loudly.  Ammeron rearranged some of the crates he was carrying to make room for the new freight.  

As Ammeron walked toward the cockpit, he glanced over at Kalista.  To his surprise, her eyes opened.  She was looking at the ceiling of the hold, but her eyes seemed almost glazed over as she blinked once, twice, as she tried to focus.  

“Hey, you okay?” Ammeron asked.

Kalista sat up, but not in a slow, gradual way he expected.  Her torso came up off the floor in a smooth, graceful motion, keeping her back straight and stiff.  Her arms bent in synchrony as she brought her hands up to rub her temples, her palms and fingers flat.  

“Is Kalbot up?” Gray asked from the door of the hold.

Kalista’s blank expression turned to one of mild irritation when she processed her friends words.

“I thought I told you not to call me that.”  she said in weak and emotionless voice.

Gray either didn’t hear Kalista, or ignored her.  There was a moment of silence as Kalista mechanically raised from her seated position.  Even though she stood rigidly straight, her balance seemed to shift causing her stagger and nearly fell over.  Ammeron took a step forward, his arms raised to help Kalista.  Her hand shot out to grab the wall of crates to keep her self standing as she tried to keep her balance.  She blinked and slightly shook her head, and seemed to notice Ammeron for the first time.

“Could I have a moment of privacy?” she asked him, tones of emotion returning with each word.  Her face was beginning to show the slightest hints of embarrassment, but her eyes read a different emotion.  Nervousness?

“No, that’s fear in her eyes.” Ammeron realized.

“How do you close the cargo ramp?” Gray asked from the back of the ship, sounding utterly confused.  

Thankful for a reason to give Kalista her space without it being too awkward, Ammeron walked towards the cockpit.

“There’s no way to do it from the back, the only mechanism is in the cockpit.” Ammeron shouted over his shoulder.  

Ammeron heard Gray say something along the lines of  “that’s dumb” as he climbed into the captain's seat and powered it up.  He flipped the switch that closed the back of his ship and set the coordinates of the nearest town into the navigation computer.  He walked back to the cargo hold to check on Kalista and how she was handling after her fainting spell.  He found her sitting on the floor playing with Gray’s dog.  Both the dog and the girl seemed to be enjoying themselves, so Ammeron went further back to see what Gray was doing.

The Scavenger was standing in his sled sorting through the junk he had picked out of the desert.  As Ammeron approached Gray, he noticed the obvious look of concern on the others face.  Gray looked up as Ammeron knocked on the side of the sled, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“I’ve got my ship heading towards the nearest settlement.  Do you want me to check if I’ve got the right place?”

“I’m sure you’ve got the right place.  Towns are pretty distant from each other out here, so it’s highly likely that we’re going the right way.” Gray responded absentmindedly.

Gray never looked up at Ammeron as he spoke, keeping most of his focus on his haul.  Ammeron studied Gray’s face.

“Concern, apprehension, disappointment.”

“Is something wrong?”

Gray looked up at Ammeron.  The Scavenger gave Ammeron a weary look, and after a brief staring contest, Gray gave in and explained,

“I didn’t get a very good haul today.  If my brothers didn’t have a very busy day we’ll all have to work a little harder the next couple weeks.”

“How much do you make on a average day?”

“40, maybe 50 chips”

Ammeron stared at Gray in shock.  He made almost ten times more than that making a small shipping run.  Ammeron thought back to when he made barely enough to live, and the man who helped him get into a better position in life.  He thought of how quickly Gray had repaired his ship.  How easily Kalista had killed the coyotes.  How much he could use some reliable help.

“Come work for me.” Ammeron said

Gray looked at Ammeron in utter confusion and disbelief.  

“What?”

“I could use a mechanic to help keep The Glavnaya in good condition.  And I wouldn’t say no if Kalista wanted to lend a hand around here either.” Ammeron explained.

“I missed a rather important piece of information.” said Kalista, who had apparently had enough fun with Jeff and came to see what Gray and Ammeron where talking about.  Gray didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re offering me a job.  Why?” Gray asked incredulously.

“To be honest, I have no idea, but you guys seem trustworthy.  And I could use some trustworthy help.” Ammeron said.

“What is it exactly you do to earn money?” Kalista asked, making herself noticed again.

“I carry freight from one place to another,” Ammeron said, turning back to Gray, ”There’s a lot of traveling, but the pay is good and it’s easy to take breaks and visit family.”

After a long moment of silence, Kalista spoke up.

“I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing, but I do know I want to learn more about this world.” she started, “I will accept your offer.”

“Sounds great!” Ammeron smiled.  He then turned to Gray, “What about you Gray?”

“I’ll do it.” Gray responded, “But on two conditions, I want to tell my family what I’m doing and where I’ll be going.”

“Of course, what’s the other condition?” Ammeron said.

“I get to keep Jeff with us.”

Ammeron almost laughed, “Fine with me.”  He turned around to head back to the cockpit.  Kalista looked as if she wanted to say something, but was too nervous to bring it up.

“Everything alright?” Ammeron asked her.

Kalista glanced over at Gray, who went through a brief cycle of confusion then realization.  He gave an indifferent shrug that seemed to convey might as well.

“There is something you probably should know, if we will be working together.” Kalista started reluctantly, “I am not a, usual, being.”

“Are you talking about your arm?  Cause that’s not an issue.” Ammeron said, not really sure what Kalista was getting to.

“Well, it is not just my arm that is artificial.” Kalista said, gently touching the torn skin of her right arm, “My whole body is that way.”

“How?” Ammeron said slowly, trying to comprehend what she was saying.

“She’s an Android.” explained Gray.

[pbandjesse]

I love my scarf so much. I did not actually wear it outside at the house. I wear a jacket. But I've had that scarf on pretty much all day. It is the best scarf even if it sheds a lot.

Today was a good day I did not accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish but I did a lot. I slept really well last night. Had very bizarre dreams. But I got up and felt good. I woke up and had biscuits for breakfast. Got dressed and walk to the grocery store. I brought my grandma card and bought lots of food for the week. I am trying to eat at home more this week. Especially since my hours are very weird. I wandered around for a bit and then went home. I am packed everything and then I had it over to Eddie's to get a couple things I can't get at streets Market. I biked over to Eddie's though and was only there for a couple minutes. I still need to get milk and I'll probably have to get eggs at some point but for now it's fine. I used my heart boiled egg cooker to while I was gone and didn't check the eggs but I'm assuming they're okay. I'm very excited about my hard-boiled egg maker though and I really hope that I can figure out the best time frame to leave them in there to cook.

Once I got everything unpacked I made lunch. I rested for a little while and made some plans. And then I headed out to go catch the bus. I left a little bit earlier than I really need to because I wanted to get the earlier bus just in case. I think I am going to be able to get away with getting the 12:30 bus. But just so that I get used to when I'm getting off going 20 minutes early. It's nice that that bus runs so often though.

It was nice and sunny out. There's a chill in the air but I was never uncomfortable or anything. In either direction. Hot or cold. I had a nice talk with an old man at the bus stop. And then the bus came. And it was a nice ride. It's like a 25-minute ride and it's very comfortable. I got up to Wildwood and like I said I was like a half an hour early. So I walked around the neighborhood.

The neighborhood very much reminds me of Mayfair in Philadelphia. It's mostly row houses with little front yards. Lot of Old Stone. In the direct neighborhood it's all houses in churches. There's not even a corner store. I think maybe at some point I'll try to wander out a little bit farther and see if there's somewhere to eat. Now that I really plan on it but just in case something happens and I have to get something close by.

When I got there Fitsum was already there and said that Tiffany wasn't in yet. So we sat in the waiting room and talked. We accidentally both were wearing the same outfit. Well not exactly. We're both wearing brown jackets and are in shirts. And I made us laugh. It seems like we are going to be together but it's still unclear at this point. I hope we do though because he's a sweetheart. Tiffany came and found us because it turned out she was there. But it was no big deal. We went back to your office and did a bunch of paperwork. Went through how are lesson plan is going to work. And I feel so excited about it. I was pretty nervous at first but now that all my questions are answered I'm like excited. And I have so many ideas. I've written 8 months of vague themes and topics in my tablet. I think I'm just going to keep everything on my Google Drive since now I paid for it for the year anyway. I was considering getting a Chromebook since I'm going to have to be doing a lot of writing. But instead since my tablet doesn't work very well I just decided to buy a Bluetooth keyboard for it. So that should be here on Thursday. And then I can actually do my lesson plans for real. I feel very excited.

We just did a lot of going through packets and making sure all of our paperwork was good and it was just nice to be able to honestly answer questions and not have to feel silly for wanting clarity. I got my direct deposit setup and we have to take 15 hours of professional development courses over the school year. And so she help me setup my account for that. And I was able to get into the CPR first aid training class on Friday morning. So I get my first three hours of PD in and I'm excited to have that certificate my record. Even though it was a little bit of a hassle trying to figure out how to make an account for some reason. They make it like all secret like.

After we finished all of her paperwork and spent a lot of time discussing how things go. We did another walk around the building. This time we actually got to meet the other teachers that we may be working with or will be the team with the 5th graders. They were both really nice and I would be equally as excited to work with them. I think it might be nice though to have a blank slate with the new class with fitsum and there won't be a weird power Dynamic there. Of having a current teacher and a new teacher. But regardless the students were there too. They were all so sweet. They liked my jacket and they asked me if I could teach him how to sew and they asked me about other different projects that they were interested in doing. And it was just so cool they were so engaged and so sweet. I'm really excited to get to work with them. There was a couple big personalities but in the best ways. I'm very excited for this opportunity. I really think that this is going to be the exact thing I've been looking for. The rest of my jobs and lives are going to have to sort themselves out. Maybe I'll slow down my work at the BMI and take my mornings for myself. Or maybe I won't and maybe I'll still do exactly what I'm doing now. I just don't want to burn out. I want to really enjoy being able to teach and museums and do all the things that I do. But today really made me excited for going forward.

Fitsum was nice enough to give me a ride again. I'm going to have to figure out a way to tell him I will give him money. Because him giving me a ride back is saving me like $16 every time. It's like even if I throw him like 20 bucks a week or something. It would be worth it to me. You also just lose them walking into my apartment though so I think he just it is being kind and just giving you rides. But I don't want to take advantage he's so nice. I really just hope that we become friends too cuz I think he's a really cool guy. He was telling me some about working in Ethiopia and the culture there. And I'm curious to learn more.

Once I got home I have kind of a going back and forth doing things all night. I watched the new Shane Dawson documentary series. And I ate snacks. I've been eating snacks all night. I work in my studio for a while. I played with the new Furbys. They both had some corrosion inside of them from their batteries leaking so I had to clean that up with vinegar. But they're both working just fine and they were chatting with each other. They do make that high-pitched screeching sound that I read about. So I may take them apart and disconnect the wires. Honestly I might disconnect all of their speaking wires because I'm not super a fan of their voices. But I still think they're very cute. I like the way that they move they're very active. So I think painting with them is going to be really interesting.

I talked to James for a little while he's at his apartment having a D&D night. I think I just have too much social anxiety to participate. I told him I would be a guest are at some point but I just don't know if I could play with them and feel comfortable enough to do it. But we'll see I don't know. I like doing it one on one with James that one time though I hope we can do that again cuz I did enjoy that.

I did fall down the stairs. I hurt my hand a little bit but I'm okay. I mostly just scared me. I took a shower and wash my hair. And it's just chilling at my apartment and I'm wearing Chenille socks and leggings and I feel very cozy. I think I'm going to switch my stuff for work into my new work tote bag. That I have gotten from my causebox. It's such a pretty bag and I think it's going to be perfect for carrying all my papers and things. And it stands so I feel like if it gets paint on it and stuff it'll be cool. I think now though I'm going to start winding down for bed. I have to wake up early tomorrow and try to get some more done. And then I have to go over to Northern Parkway to get my fingerprints done for the city to get an ID and a background check. And then I have to go to Wildwood at 12:30 for staff meeting. I'm very excited for that I think it's going to be very fun. I'm excited too more formally meet everyone. So I hope it's just another really nice day. I hope you guys all have a great night and sleep well. Be safe out there. Be kind