#it’s always sunny in westchester | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ila-appreciationweek · 1 year

Text

Roses and Vines

Artwork by @oh-so-youre-a-nerd, posting on behalf of JCR/Departer, who does not have a tumblr, for ILAW Day 4, favorite ships.

Pairing: Connor x MC Word Count: 2530 Premise: With parenthood on the horizon, Connor and Demelza discuss the roses and vines growing amongst them.

“Sorrows are like gardeners; they plant roses along waste places and teach vines to cover barren heaps.”

Henry Ward Beecher

The weather was unusually hot for Westchester. The sun beat down on Connor as he used a navy blue bandana to wipe his forehead before adjusting the tilt and seat height of the newly installed porch swing hanging from above. He put the bandana in his back pocket, keeping it separate from the clean, white one in the front pocket of his shirt. He adjusted the cushions and array of colorful pillows before stepping down onto the lawn and evaluating his work.

He exhaled and felt himself relax; everything was now ready for him and Demelza to bring their little boy home. Connor couldn’t wait for the upcoming, lazy summer and fall days he and Demelza would spend rocking back and forth on the porch swing with their son, just the three of them in their own little orbit.

Connor smiled and caught Demelza in the corner of his eye. He noticed her kneeling in front of the flower bed with two pale pink heritage rose plants on hand and one already sown into the land beneath. He went over, knelt with his face next to hers, and watched as she began preparing the remaining flowers for planting.

“Sweetheart, I got the porch swing up!” he exclaimed. “Do you want to try it out?”

Demelza didn’t hear him. Her mind focused elsewhere, and she dug two holes equal in depth and width before taking some dirt and holding it in her bare hands.

“Terra, me audi,” she whispered. The earth fell through her fingers, and she leaned forward and built a mound in the first hole before taking the first rose plant and placing it atop the soil. She filled the hole halfway with dirt and pressed down upon it, ensuring the roots remained firm before grabbing the watering can on her left side.

“Aqua, me audi,” Demelza breathed. She poured water into the hole, tilled it with the remaining dirt, and watered it thoroughly before using the remaining soil to cover the stems before watering them.

She held one of the blooms in her earth-covered hands, inhaled its sweet lemony scent, and exhaled, “Spiritus, me audi.”

“Do you remember the last time we said those words?” Connor asked. He kissed Demelza’s mahogany hair and took in the smell of wet loam intermingled with sweat and her lavender shampoo before moving downward and pressing his lips upon the back of her neck and bare, sun-kissed shoulders. He adjusted the top of her multicolored striped shirt and said, “We were bringing Noah back to life. Are you trying to resurrect some dead plants hiding under the surface?”

Demelza laughed and turned her head to face him. Every inch of her glowed and she looked beautiful despite the heat. “It’s not just for resurrection, love. Sunny said it’s also for new life, no matter the source. They’ve said that talking to your plants helps them thrive.”

“In Latin?”

“In any language,” Demelza said. “But it’s mostly for the little guy right here." She referred to the prominent bump straining against her overalls. "Sunny said it would help keep him calm.”

Demelza took Connor’s hand and placed it on her enlarged stomach. His grey eyes widened with amazement as they always did whenever he felt their son move beneath his palm.

Connor moved his hand along the expanse of Demelza’s girth before placing his ear up against it. He took in each of the baby’s movements, both feeling and listening to the gentle vibrations within. He looked up at Demelza and said, “You’re five days away from your due date; and our first anniversary is just four days after that! How is the little guy still finding room to move around in there?”

“Hell, if I know,” Demelza said. “It’d be great if he would stop breakdancing on my bladder and internal organs, though.” She paused and wiped the sweat off her face with a dirt encrusted hand before adding, “Can you imagine if he decided to come on our anniversary? I don't like the idea of being four days overdue, but at least it’d be memorable, and we’d always remember it.”

“I’ll never forget; no matter what happens,” Connor promised her. He ran a gentle thumb along her cheekbone before tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You have dirt on your nose. I’m going to kiss it off.” He reached up and brushed his lips gently against Demelza’s nose before kissing her on both cheeks, her chin, forehead, and behind her ears.

Demelza laughed at the touch, gestured at the lone empty hole in the flower bed, and said, “Help me out with this last plant here, will you?”

Connor nodded and handed the rose plant to her. He constructed a knoll inside the hole and watched as she placed the spray of roses therein before covering it with earth. She handed him a fistful of soil, which he pushed firmly upon the ground before they turned and faced each other.

Earth, hear me.

Connor grabbed Demelza’s hands and looked down, taking in her fingernails filled to the brim and caked with sodden loam. He noticed the cuts upon her knuckles and extremities from when she pruned and cut back the rose bushes next to the flower bed. He flipped her hands over and saw the dried, red scratches from her work maintaining the fuchsia Eden rose vines that adorned the front, sides, and back of their yellow house with white windows, railings, shutters, and trimmings. Connor brought Demelza’s hands to his lips and kissed every inch of them as his eyes fell on her bare feet, toes curled into the grass. She had taken to going barefoot around the house and while working in the yard; she said it was because her feet had become so distended with the pregnancy. But Connor knew it was because Demelza liked feeling the earth below her feet. She also liked feeling the lush vines between her fingers and the sturdy rose stems with the thorns that grew on them pressed against the palms of her hands. She said it kept her grounded and stable, reminding her that she still belonged to the same world that had taken so much from her, yet gave her everything and more in return.

He released Demelza’s hands from his grip, grabbed the watering pot, and poured the contents therein all over her hands.

Water, hear me.

Connor took the white bandana from his shirt pocket, and dried her hands with it, pressing gently down on each scrape before wiping away the dirt from her hands and beneath her nails. He drained the remaining water into the hole and tended to it before grabbing the hose from the side of the house. Demelza watched with her hands resting on her stomach as he watered the soil and encased the stems with more earth before watering them again, just as he had seen her do so many times before. He inhaled and exhaled while the smell of roses filled the air, bringing him to another time.

Spirit, hear me.

He resumed his spot next to Demelza and said, “Those flowers always take me back. My mom made the best lemonade and always had a pitcher of it ready for me and Stacy after school. She also brought it with her to our swim lessons during the summer and we’d have it with rice krispie treats afterwards.”

“Your mom made the best rice krispie treats,” Demelza said, resting her head on Connor’s shoulder. “She always added a teaspoon of her homemade vanilla to the cereal and another one to the melted marshmallows; and she cut them into the thickest, biggest squares, too. Then she used fresh lemons with cane sugar cubes, a dash of Sprite, and some of the homemade pineapple juice from the farmer’s market for the lemonade.” She smiled down at her stomach before removing one of her hands from there and placing it on Connor’s knee. “Why do you think I chose heritage roses for the flower beds and to plant those specific rose bushes right next to our house? It’s not because I want to eat rice krispie treats and drink homemade lemonade all the time, delicious as it sounds.”

Connor chuckled. He knew not to mention the constant morning sickness that still plagued her, let alone the cravings she got for Noah’s grilled cheese, Indian takeout, and mulberry pie with cinnamon ice cream. She had developed an aversion to her mother’s stir fry and the recipes that came from his family’s cookbook during the pregnancy - records from his own ancestors that had been collected over several generations and compiled together for him and Stacy for their future use. He knew better than to bring that up, let alone think about how Stacy was no longer alive to try those recipes herself.

Demelza squeezed Connor’s knee and said, “Don’t you remember? Heritage roses were your mom’s favorite flower. She always had giant bouquets of them in those blue and white porcelain vases she collected. She had one in every room of your house.”

Connor blinked away tears and swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. He remembered sorting through his mother’s belongings after her death and feeling as though she owned her weight in those vases, white like clouds at the base with floral patterns dancing all around in sky blue. He had packed them away, unsure as to why, knowing deep down there was a reason he couldn’t let them go. He saw the planted heritage roses in the flower bed and the large rose bushes Demelza had spent her entire pregnancy cultivating, knowing she had endured the thorns cutting her fingers and scratching her skin not just for the sake of feeling, but to give him a memory of childhood, home, and the first place where he had felt safe and loved.

He looked at the heritage roses in bloom and said, his voice quivering, “You did all this for me… and my mom.”

“That’s not all,” Demelza said. She brought herself up off the ground and motioned for Connor to join her. He smiled as she waddled over to the blush-colored Eden roses that bloomed upon the green vines cascading up and down the edge of their house. Connor would never admit it out loud, but he thought Demelza's penguin walk was the cutest thing he had ever seen.

Demelza propped up the biggest Eden rose on the vine. It had bloomed spectacularly, and its numerous petals danced outward in a pattern reminiscent of an intricately carved and decorated spinning top Connor’s grandfather had given him when he was small.

“This rose had some trouble at the beginning,” Demelza said. “I had to put a lot of care into this one just so it would open long after the others did; but once it bloomed… wow. This is the most beautiful of the Eden roses I have growing.”

She reached over and touched Connor’s halcyon hair before continuing. “These were Stacy’s favorites. She got a bouquet of them for her birthday every year in elementary school. Your dad would bring it out along with the rest of her birthday presents and she always got so excited. I remember seeing you in middle school and high school bringing these to her whenever she cheered at football and basketball games. Whenever she messed up, you were always there to reassure her and tell her she was doing great. Whenever she fell, you were always the first one on the football field or basketball court helping her up and making sure she was okay.”

Connor's bottom lip trembled, and he began crying. “I got her a corsage with these roses for the homecoming dance. It was the last thing I did for her before she died.”

He remembered being at the funeral home with his mother after the coroner had Stacy’s mangled, bloodied, and bruised body transferred over. The mortician had them confirm her identity and handed them a clear, plastic bag containing her personal effects: a gold clutch; her driver’s license listing her status as an organ donor; her Westchester High ID card; two hundred dollars in cash; spearmints in a vintage circular container decorated with a miniature watercolor painting of a Gibson girl; a tin of green apple lip licking balm; and her keys with the turquoise and gold beaded lizard keychain she made in sixth grade on the same ring. Stacy’s glittery dress and matching high heels had been disposed of, as was the corsage Connor gave her. He recalled seeing the indent on her wrist where she had worn it.

Connor’s father was not with him and his mother after Stacy had died; he didn’t even cry at the funeral. Connor realized in hindsight that was the beginning of the end. His father filed for divorce and left two years later, and another two years after that, Connor found himself meeting with the same mortician planning his mother’s funeral.

Demelza reached up and wiped away the tears from Connor’s eyes along with the ones that fell down his cheeks. She held him close to her and said, “I know how much you miss your family, Connor.” She rubbed gentle circles into his back as his shoulders heaved and his ragged breath shook. “I miss them too. I would bring your mom and Stacy back if I could… but since I can’t do that, I wanted to give you a reminder that they’re still with us even though we can’t see them. They can still be part of your life going forward. We can - and will - keep their memories alive.”

She pulled back, squeezed his hands, and said, “I love you, Connor, and I always will. I would still choose you if I knew back then what I do now. I would do it all again - and would live through all the pain countless of times - if it meant we’d never be apart. Nothing could keep me from you.”

Connor breathed out, his grey eyes meeting Demelza’s brown ones. “I love you too. I didn’t plan on staying for long when I came back here those years ago… but I know everything that happened to me was pointing me to you and your love.”

He looked at the plants in the flower bed, the rose bushes in their vibrancy, and the blooms flourishing on the vine, once empty and deemed a waste, but now covering what was barren. The roses would never replace what was lost but reminded him that beauty and new life could still be born from death and the sorrow imparted therein.

Connor placed his hands on Demelza’s swollen belly and felt her hands rest on top of his while the porch swing swayed in the background and the sun shone on them. The smell of roses and wet earth intermingled in the air as they felt their son - this eager new life - move beneath their touch, ready for the world to come.

#it lives in the woods #ilitw #connor x mc #ilaw #playchoices #connor green #pregnancy tw #pregnancy cw #pregnancy //

11 notes · View notes

mi4011elishajoseph · 1 year

Text

Jonni phillips story (II)

It was a one sunny day when a little girl woke up only to watch her favourite series Rachel and her Grandfather, she always wondered who made this amazing work as it is also weirdly funny,specially the movement of the characters. Little girl then runs to her mother and asks "Mommy who animated this series?", her mom replied "oh it's a young animator named Jonni Phillips, she is an independent filmmaker too". The little girl was surprised hearing that and asked "Mommy tell me more about her please and here the story of jonni phillips starts.

Some years ago, a little girl just like you named Jonni phillips had watched a TV series,however she showed no interest at all but what caught her attention was the movements of each characters. She from a young age had a creative visualistic mindset which had enabled her to produce some amazing unique words. Before Jonni started her teens, unknowingly she started spending her time mostly on the legos, and eventually produced series of films. At that point she didn't really think of anything untill people started recognising her work a bit.

Also knowing young jonni along with her mom and siblings had gone from one place to another through southern california making more experiences for her to take in. Jonni's works aren't just ordinary but extraordinary when she started using different mediums in making an animation.

She might have started these stop motion animations for fun but later on going ahead she might have noticed its attention and decided to further ahead her animations. Then she proceeds with paper cut outs too. Ofcourse knowing this she was hired into buzz feed, however left to join Barber Westchester and from there on she continues her animation life being independently.

"Ohhh when I grow up I would definitely want to be an animator too", said the little girl to her mom.

0 notes

vecnafirst · 2 years

Text

@herodeth

she thinks she feels it more when she's left alone. an unsettling gnawing in the parts she never wants to acknowledge as she lays in her bed, unable to fall back to sleep. the walls are painted a muted pink to color-coordinate with the white lace curtains mother sewed and placed. the shadows on the walls form into twisted shapes like symbols from the films her parents forbid her to watch, dancing along the antique westchester set and faded polaroid pictures of her and jason at last year's homecoming dance. chasing, battling, the shadows fight for dominance and she's too frightened to move from the four-poster bed.

‘ baby, steps, chrissy. ’ the tone drips patronizing. yet polished, contradictions like the etiquette courses teach her not to do is familiar.

brain consistently telling her to get up, to move. the voice in her head sounds like her mother. she buries it deep under hyper-focus in ways she can control. it starts out small, like drowning guilt if she forgoes a ritualistic set of purging and calorie counting in the earliest parts of the morning—her mother introduced her to the latter when she was twelve. she scrubs her mouth near raw before she leaves in the morning. it starts out small like she's forgotten something important as she always does—a designer wallet, a pair of too expensive sunnies from a boutique in chicago, distracted by a schedule that's filled out and highlighted onto a 'to-do' list board near the refrigerator indicating micromanagement.

‘ get it done, christine. ’ christine instead of chrissy for laura if she errors. failure forges familiar relations in their home.

'it's just a bit of brain fog', laura cunningham would say in response and chrissy would think everything's okay until it's not. her mother's lips become tight in a thin line with a collection derived through insults like second-nature. she allowed herself to fall into a false sense of safety and she never seems to learn otherwise. her father learned, her brother learned. she's not them.

it grows in the isolation of loneliness. when the clock strikes a number in the earliest hours of the morning that makes her aware no one else in the house is awake. the sound followed her footsteps as she headed to the bathroom. her eyes are blank, devoid expressions in the mirror. she's not dead. but she doesn't quite feel alive either. it follows her as the sun grows beyond the horizon and she's forced to undergo another day with bright blue across her eyes, a pom-pom in her hand, and jason's promises in her ears. it's too much.

by the second day, it manifests into something more than quick glances over the shoulders and fingers digging into her eyes to eradicate the memories. the voices become images chasing her through the halls. threatened her. that's her breaking point. she needs help and a sense of normalcy that she will not find at home. the desperation takes her to someone rumored to provide a mechanism for escape—she's not as naïve as she appears, she knows it's drugs. one of the fliers named bridgette was quick to give over a name and a location. the deal is set.

the moment of escape does not come with inhaling marijuana into her lungs. but through reflection and a foreign sense of safety with a boy she had forgotten—whose extremities and oddities put her at ease. she laughs and forgets the unnatural fingers clawing around in her skull in an attempt to pull back images and thoughts.

buzz-cut, dark eyes, instruments, and music so loud in the auditorium that it collectively pisses off the principal and the parents in the audience. especially laura. she then decided she liked the music after watching her mother drawback as if she wanted to complain to the nearest authority figure and get those boys arrested. devil music. 'i like your song', she recalls saying after the show (with more on her tongue). nothing like what she twirls herself to in her bedroom with the girls on the middle school squad. she accepts a ride back to his place without batting an eye.

‘ don't get into cars with strangers, chrissy. ’

doesn't know what to do with her hands and she pulls on the seatbelt with too much force. ‘ what ... what's exactly special k? ’ after she finds her voice. she doesn't care what it is, as long as it works.

#╰ ‘ IT DOES MY BODY NO GOOD … ’ › threads.#herodeth

2 notes · View notes

francoiserenaldt · 4 years

Text

prologue

a lil something I’m working on. hope you enjoy :)

warnings: some cursing

word count: 824

A TWO-WEEK SUMMER ROAD TRIP with college kids typically ended with hugs and promises to text and call every day, which wouldn’t ever happen, or perhaps with a sluggish goodbye as everyone dragged themselves into their vehicles to their homes where they would hopefully sleep well in their own beds for a change.

It should be noted that the Westchester 7 aren’t typical–far from it, actually–but even they couldn’t have fathomed what they were coming home to.

Of course, the ride into town was as normal as any, with good-natured banter such as:

“Why do you wear sunglasses indoors?” Dan frowned as Desiree adjusted hers so that they sat just before the tip of her nose. She stops fiddling long enough to meet Dan’s questioning gaze.

“Fashion,” Desiree retorted, lowering her small–borderline microscopic if you asked him—green sunglasses just so Dan could feel the weight of her glare, “try it sometime.”

To accompany the offending glasses, she wore a checkered cropped hoodie with a white mesh crop top underneath, a black skirt, a green Off-White belt and beanie, and a pair of green, black and white Balenciagas. Her fresh balayage brushed against her exposed waist as she flipped it back over her shoulder.

“She moves to New York and all of a sudden she’s the fashion expert.” Ava snorts, sweeping her hand to flip a page.

“I was always the fashion expert, love.” Desiree sends a sly wink in Ava’s direction, to which she receives an exaggerated eye roll. Lily giggles and shakes her head.

“Behave, kids.” Lucas chides. The smile on his face gives him away as they pass the “Welcome to Westchester!” sign.

“Yes! Finally,” Andy huffs, sitting up in his seat, “I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

“We were only two hours out, silly!” Stacy grins as she reaches to ruffle his hair. She isn’t quick enough and Andy lightly smacks her hand down before she gets close.

“‘Only two hours?’ Are you nuts?” Andy whines.

Stacy chuckles and her jaw drops when she looks out of the window because holy shit, are you guys seeing this? The van stops and everyone darts for the nearest window and then, like clockwork, their jaws have dropped, too.

On a typical sunny Saturday, the streets of the town plaza are full of life. Children run around the park bench trees giddily as their parents pull them toward the ice cream shop, teens walk around with shopping bags on their arms and cars blast their music as they careen down the busy streets.

But today, a day just like that one, the streets are barren. In fact, the entire square looks like it’s been void of human activity for days. Missing signs stapled to trees are the only indication that anyone has ever been here at all.

“What the fuck did we miss?” Desiree murmured.

“A health crisis, apparently,” Lily shuddered. “‘Westchester has declared a health emergency as 25% of the population have been infected with an unidentified virus. The mayor urges all of the citizens to find somewhere else to stay until the issue is under control.’ What the hell does she mean, ‘find somewhere else to stay?’”

“I don’t know, but my flight leaves tomorrow night and I’m not sticking around for whatever bullshit Westchester has going on today.” Desiree huffs.

“How is there a potentially dangerous virus going around and your mom hasn’t said anything to you about it?” Dan asked. Stacy glowered at the question, but eventually, let out a sigh.

“I was wondering the exact same thing.”

“The hell are we gonna do now?” Ava grumbled, leaning back her in her seat.

“My place is the closest,” Andy volunteers, ”We can all crash there until everyone leaves tomorrow.”

A general murmur of agreement and gratitude falls over the group as Andy takes the wheel. The jovial atmosphere is gone with Ava’s question hanging over their heads: What the hell were they gonna do now?

Once they get to Andy’s place, Lucas, Ava, Lily, and Dan all leave to head to their own homes. Stacy and Desirée set their luggage in the living room and the three of them make conversation, trying to ignore the news they’ve just received.

Sometime in the early morning, Desiree feels a nudging in her side.

“Hey, I’m heading out,” Stacy whispers. The tired girl nods as they embrace quickly and wish each other well before Stacy rushes out of the door.

The bedroom door opens and Andy trudges out, yawning. “Did I miss Stacy?”

Desiree nods and opens her mouth to say more to say something, but the next words out of the early morning news anchor’s mouth make her blood run cold.

“The state has issued a quarantine on Westchester County. Everyone who has entered or exited the town within the past 7 days must stay in their homes. All travel to or from Westchester County has been banned indefinitely.”

#something gained #andy kang #andy x mc #it lives in the woods #ilitw #ilitw ava #ilitw andy #ilitw stacy #ilitw lily #ilitw lucas #ilitw dan

18 notes · View notes

insomniac-dot-ink · 5 years

Text

Scratch Marks

Genre: supernatural

Words: 4.3k

Summary: a mail carrier finds an unusual house on her route with junk out front and strange creatures scavenging through the trash.

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

I was on my third cup of coffee that morning and kept readjusting my crooked rear view mirror with a jittery buzz. My daughter's new baby had been keeping the whole house awake for a week with his crying and sleep had not been much of an option. Julie and her husband were staying with me while they got back on their feet, but little baby Timone had teething pains.

They were taking him to the doctor for a checkup that day while I did my normal route. I had been a mail carrier for almost twenty-three years at that point and I was also the only one making an income after my son-in-law lost his job.

I made it a point of pride to be timely and friendly as I went, because really there wasn’t anything else for it. My mom always said I had a sense of time like an atomic clock while my older brother’s said I was like a tiny bossy CEO of the household with that clock.

I was good at chatting and keeping a schedule, but that also sometimes meant a second or even third cup of coffee before the morning was through to keep up the same smile. I liked the drink strong and with extra shots if I could get away with it or simply black as sin and an added small dollop of cream.

I was enjoying a third black coffee my daughter made and put in a canister as I got the Westchester neighborhood. It was a semi-rural area with houses that barely touched one another for miles and long stretches of road where only yellow grasses and trees grew.

I wouldn’t call it poor, but maybe compact, subdued, weathered. People along the route were mechanics and waitresses and owned packs of duct tape to do repairs with instead of wrenches.

There were only five houses along the whole street and I knew every single one of them by name. I talked to Mrs. Thomas about her garden and delivered two separate envelopes to the pretty yellow house with both of their sons out on active duty.

It got to the middle of the stretch when I noticed that there was a new address on one of the letters: 1134 Westchester Road. I looked up to see that there were boxes out front one of the houses. That gave me pause to think, for as long as I had been delivering to the area there hadn’t been anyone living in the middle house with the weeds growing up and dusty blue sidings.

I hadn’t seen a for-sale sign in front either, but something must have happened as I now had a plain white letter addressed to it and heaps of rubbish stacked out by the curb. Good for them, I thought rather airily about the clean-up job and went up toward the mailbox by the road.

It was a one story house that was closer to the road than the others and had a short driveway and rocky garden out front. I noticed that the new owners had already bought frilly white curtains for the windows and cleaned up some of the plastic bags and metal cans left in the front yard.

I approached the grey tin mailbox and was going to be quick about the delivery. I had spent a little too much time talking to Mrs. Thomas earlier and I knew when I needed to keep myself on track.

As I rounded the house I noticed more and more garbage piled up: an old wooden dresser covered in scrapes, a squeaky metal chair, and boxes stuffed full left and right. There was junk wrapping all the way around the house and out back.

Moving into a new place is always tricky so I figured they must have made quick work of the clean-up job. It was all stacked high and had an abandoned feel to it, but I didn’t have time to really think too deeply about it.

I only stopped when I saw movement among the piles just besides the house. I was still slightly jittery from all the caffeine and the thing caught my eye as if my gaze was summoned to it.

It was furry, low to the ground, jet-black, and when I squinted ahead I saw a head with two pointed ears. I always had been an animal person, I enjoyed all the dogs and cats and even a parrot that I passed by on the regular. This one was standing on top of a box next to a spotted old mattress leaning against the side of the house with a spring sticking through the fabric.

The creature turned and it was as black as ink and almost wet looking. I only slowly recognized it as something like a cat. I say “something” because it waved it’s long elegant tail in the air and there were two of them.

Two twin tails that waved back and forth together. My eyebrows rose and the cat blinked back at me with jet black eyes that would have had me praying to God or the devil if I was the religious type. I shivered from the sight of the completely dark eyes and the two tails and took a staggering step back. I rubbed my eyes for a moment to get the image out of my head and luckily when I looked up again the cat was gone and there was nothing but a sunny home with new owners inside. I placed the letter quickly in their mailbox and hurried back to my van and was on my way. I limited myself to two cups of coffee a morning after that.

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

I only mentioned the weird cat once to my family, but my daughter told me to get my eyes checked out and my son-in-law asked me if I was feeling alright. They were always worried about my health after I took a tumble a few years earlier and banged my head on a banister.

I reminded them that I wasn’t old enough to go senile just yet and then changed the subject to the baby and whether we needed to invest in earplugs already. I put thoughts of the house out of my head.

It was a week later when I got a second letter for 1134 Westchester Road. I couldn’t exactly place why my stomach dropped so thoroughly at the sight of it, but it did. The letter itself was a normal envelope with a classic American flag as the stamp and no return address in the corner.

I shook it, once, next to my ear and found nothing unusual about that either. Don’t be daft, I told myself and brushed off any odd feeling in my gut and drove up to Westchester Road determined to think about anything else.

I chatted with Mrs. Thomas about the birds returning, delivered the letters from the boys stationed in Germany and South Korea respectfully, and then went toward 1134. It was a dull blue color and just as quiet as the time before.

There were no cars in the driveway and no lights on inside, which made sense since it was a sunny day in early spring. I was out of my van and couldn’t help but stare when I saw the piles and piles of junk out front. Maybe they hadn’t gotten the trash collectors to to do a big pick-up yet or maybe they were setting up a yard sale.

Explanations raced through my thoughts, but I couldn’t shake the fact that as far as I could tell this was an all new set of junk. Instead of a wardrobe there was a busted brown couch and old blankets stacked high and a bruised stool and several old stained pillows. Every last piece of it looked different and when I examined them I could see scratch marks and indents in all of the furniture and boxes.

I quickly went to the mailbox and forced myself to not look at the mini-junkyard forming in the front yard of the otherwise tidy looking house. I turned to leave and there was a shuffling.

I couldn’t stop myself and turned to where there were two of them this time. Two jet-black cats with twin-tails and black velvet eyes. I almost swallowed my tongue though when both cats tilted their heads up and they didn’t just blink two eyes.

A third, completely charcoal dark eye was in the center of each of their foreheads and I was transfixed. I had heard of six-toed cats that lived in Florida and different mutations like extra heads and legs, but there was something about these strange sure-footed creatures that turned my blood cold.

They gave me a passing glance and then turned back to the junk and started hopping among it. I didn’t stick around to see what they did next as I turned and bolted for my car and kept my eyes on the road as I drove away.

I went back and forth on whether I should call animal control or a priest or something, but I looked back in my mirror and I couldn’t justify it. It was just another rural home with too much stuff out front, could I really report it? Would anyone care? I kept driving.

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

I think the houses I delivered to could tell I was distracted. It had been two weeks since I delivered the letter to the house with the cats and I just received another letter for them. I noted the name at the top this time: Simon Wallis.

It wasn’t strange and I was starting to think maybe I should get my head checked out again for some sort of latent concussion symptoms. But I wasn’t there quite yet, and all I knew was that I was going back there that day and that made dread prickle across my skin.

I drank an extra coffee beforehand for the boost and called my daughter once on the phone as I started that day. “What’s up mom?” She asked before audibly yawning.

“Just wanted to hear your voice.” I knew it was an ominous thing to say and maybe even overreacting, but I the cold knot in my gut was hard to ignore. Everyone that day including Mrs. Sanchez and Mr. Harris asked me if something was wrong and I had to tell them it was nothing. Nothing at all.

I told myself to do my job and get it over with.

The house approached as it always did with square windows holding delicate white curtains and no sign of any people rummaging around outside. Mrs. Thomas wasn’t outside that day to talk to and there weren’t any letters from the brothers so I went straight to 1134.

It was like before: plastic bins and coffee tables and a broken lamp and armchair and even a dented old refrigerator out front. But it was all different and worn and nothing I recognized from before.

I took a deep breath in through my mouth and exited my vehicle to deliver the faceless white letter. I was quick on my feet and didn’t stop for a second until I reached the mailbox. There was something already inside when I opened the mailbox when I opened it and that made me wrinkle my brow.

I resisted the urge to open the folded piece of paper and look at it. There were rules and matters of privacy that you didn’t want to breach. I stood there deciding whether or not to give in and open it up when I heard a noise: skrtch, skrtch, skrtch.

I froze. A sound was coming from within the house. It was like something dragging across tiles or the long scraping of a knife against a pan.

Skrtch, skrtch, skrthch.

It wasn’t particularly loud or abrasive, but it was incredibly clear and unmistakable. I stood there, numbed by it, and my eyes were drawn to the garden level windows, the place where the basement would be.

Skrtch, sktch, skrch.

Some part of me knew this was the sort of thing you should run from or report or at the very least scream about. But I only stood and watched that garden level window as the scratching went on and on. Long and dragging with a dull force about it.

Something was down there.

I jumped violently when a sudden hiss came from an old tv box and I looked over to see one of the inky black cats hissing at the window. That broke me out of my revery enough to hustle back to my car and climb in.

I turned the engine on and it was only when I was miles away did I notice that my apparent internal clock had failed me. Almost an hour had passed with me not moving or thinking very straight.

I decided not to mention the incident to my daughter and apologized profusely to work and all my next deliveries for being later.

After that I asked for another route away from Westchester Road.

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

It was about two weeks later when I first noticed the significant rise in the number of “Missing Cat” posters around town. A certain number of them were to be expected because of coyotes in the area and cars and general bad luck.

But there were posters up at the grocery store plastering the community board and littering the local poles and little girls sitting on the side of the road asking if they had seen Sasha. Sasha was an indoor cat she said and had never been outside a day in her life. And now she was gone.

This unnerved me deeply, but I had to admit I was also distracted by personal matters as Julie and Richard were fighting often now and the baby was still not getting a restful night's sleep. I kept having to intervene and watch the bills keep piling up for diapers and doctors visits.

It wasn’t until April that the house returned to the forefront of my mind and I was completely undone. There were a group of four mail carriers congregated outside the post office. We often stopped and exchanged stories before being on our way, but the group had their heads together were all whispering and exchanging swift glances.

“What’s going on?” I asked slowly and looked to one of the newer and more talkative members of the group.

“Well,” Tim swallowed visibly. “Have you heard about Bao?” He asked quickly and my eyebrows rose.

“Yes, I know Bao. Good guy, has two kids.” Bao was somewhat new to the area, a Chinese immigrant, and a fellow mail carrier that always had a joke or two about heavy packages and people with tiny yappy dogs.

He was older than me and while I didn’t know him well I was always happy to see him.

“He hasn’t been into work for a couple of days.” Whispered Kim as if speaking any louder might hurt their ears. “I heard his wife is thinking of filing a missing persons report.” I stopped and stared out into nothing. “Is.” My face went blank, “does anyone know if he took over the Westchester Route?” Someone confirmed that he had, but I already knew that. I already knew that he had taken my old route and how that now meant something.

I thought about Bao and the terrible scratching house for the rest of the day, but when I went to the police station I ended up leaving rather quickly. I didn’t have anything suspicious to report except for a bad feeling and they reassured me they were looking for Bao Wu everywhere.

But I realized as I walked out that they weren’t going to the house.

I went home that night and helped entertain the baby with nonsense sounds, made a Hamburger helper meal, and watched my son-in-laws favorite Law and Order episode before climbing into bed. I didn’t sleep though.

I stared at the ceiling and stared and counted my breaths and the thoughts churned and churned inside me like an upset ocean. Bao had a family. He had two young kids and a wife he said snored so loudly it woke the dead.

And I let him take my route.

I threw the blankets off and went to my drawer. My husband had been an avid hunter before passing away in early 2013 from a sudden heart attack. He left me everything in the will, but I ended up selling the house anyway and only keeping a handful of things we owned together.

I opened the drawer and took out one of the few presents from him I still kept. It was a switch army knife with a silver cross on it and insignia on it: For my Mountain Lion Warrior.

When I was a kid me and my dad and brothers had scared away a mountain lion from our house by beating pots and pans together and standing in each other’s shoulders. That was the first story that made Michael hoot and slap his knee and ask if I was seeing anyone.

I said no and I wasn’t about to start. That made him laugh too.

That had been decades ago and as I was looking at my pocket knife I knew what I was going to do. I got dressed, left a note on the table, and slipped into my tiny neeson explorer.The silver of the moon as bright as daylight that night and hung shimmery and bright above the stars.

I texted my daughter at a red light and it wasn’t anything important, I knew she didn’t need anything more to worry about. I wasn’t one to let things go though.

I was still the bossy CEO as far as I was concerned and I was going to do what I needed to do. I slowly crept up toward the house on Westchester Road.

It was dull and quiet and the only sounds were crickets in the distance and lonely coyotes out on the plains. Every house I passed had its lights off and there were no street lamps out this far.

I parked across the street from 1134 and stared at the piles of junk: the office chairs missing wheels, and large vanity with a broken mirror, and an umbrella with holes in the fabric. All scratched and marked-up.

I slowly, painstakingly made my way toward the yard. The second I stepped past the first chair I saw two cat-creatures jump down from perches up high and stare at me. Their eyes were missing iris’s looked off past me and then leisurely darted back among the trash.

I had to pick my way through the boxes and piles of stuff to try to get to the front door, but I stopped when I was almost half-way there. The door was quiet and unassuming, but something deep in my chest told me not to knock. Not to go there and confirm my worst suspicions.

Instead, I watched as several of the cats flicked their double-tails back and forth and then rounded the house. I frowned for a moment before deciding to follow them. I tried not to disturb any piles of stuff and passed chipped plates in boxes and a large oven giving off a greasy burnt smell.

I wove my way back and as I walked I noticed more and more cats along the way. They were all the same with damp looking black fur and two tails, but only a few of them had the third eye in the center of their head.

I tried not to look at that eye.

There must have been two dozen cats I passed and as the yard opened up I only saw more and more of them crouching on the ground and hiding behind chipped pots and all glancing in my direction. Their ears twitched and their tails swept back and forth, but besides that they just seemed to be loitering.

Some of them gave out soft meows that were slightly off, a cat’s mew but deeper and fringed with something like clanging metal rods being hit together. I went around the house and faced the back of the house.

The back was demure and had the same white curtains in the windows and blank blue wall, but there was a garden window at the base of the house that was propped open. It was a long window that was about as tall as one of the cat’s themselves and dark inside.

Just outside the window were torn scraps. I circled the scraps and tried to get a better look at them. They were brown and frayed and as far as I could tell were just pieces of discarded cloth cut into squares.

None of the cats went near the long dark window, but I watched as several of them darted forward, picked up a scrap, ran away with it, and then settled in to gobble it down. The cats hunched low and ate piece after piece of the cloth squares.

I frowned at this deeply for a long minute and then a noise erupted from the window.

Scrtch, scrtch, scrtch.

The scraping returned, heavy and tangible as something you could hold in your hands. The sound drew closer.

Scrtch, scrtch, scrtch.

I turned just in time to hear a chorus of hissing cats and a long tendril thin arm slowly emerged from the darkness of the window. My mouth fell open as the it extended outward.

It was too thin and too long and too perfectly white and almost soft looking and with delicate thin skin- like flower petals. Blue rope-like veins that popped out of the skin itself as it moved.

At the very end of the long grotesque white arm was a hand with at least seven fingers and long, ugly nails at the end. They were yellowing at the ended and sharpened into gnarled ends. I gaped at the display as it held a handful of those loose scraps of brown fabric that dropped freely to the ground.

The cats circled the squares with interest, but none of them dared to go any closer to the clawed thing. My mouth was dry and entire body empty of any thoughts as blood drained from my face.

I couldn’t just leave there though. “Bao.” I called out weakly. “I’m looking for Bao Wu.”

I peered into the dark window and could make out nothing but the long arm that gently shook the pieces of fabric in the air as if offering it up. I shook slightly and all thoughts of heroics or investigation were draining away.

This was far above my pay grade.

I turned and started to edge back toward the edge of the yard and hopefully freedom. I was about to bolt away when the hand extended and shook the scraps more insistently. And there was an outline of a face in the dark. And eyes. At least four eyes with a milky-white gleam to them and piercing through me.

The feeling that gripped me from those ivory eyes was indescribable, hot and loose and terrible. I opened my mouth to scream. Then the hand wrapped around my ankle with the force of a snapping turtle’s jaw and yanked.

“Ah!” I fell to the ground and disturbed a box of pots and pans that toppled to the ground and I was being dragged and dragged toward that open gaping window and strange horrible pale face. The nearest cats hissed violently and tore me out of my terror. I took out my pocket knife from pants pocket and twisted in place to hack wildly at the fingers latched around my ankle.

I ended up clipping myself and feeling the sting of my own blood dribble down, but I hacked at two of the fingers and they fell bloodlessly away with only dark holes in left in the place. The hand gripped harder, but made no sound. I cut faster and just as my toes dipped into the darkness I dislodged the last one and kicked and kicked until I was away from the hole in the wall.

I crawl and ran and screeched and pushed boxes down and ran into the side of the old fridge and blindly crashed into my car. I’m not sure if the thing tried to pursue me or not, but it didn’t matter. I was away.

I went to the police the night, hysterical, and while they didn’t believe me about the hand and the cats, they did go to the house.

I warned them over and over to get the military or a psychic or priest, but it didn’t matter. It was empty.

I didn’t go in with them, but according to reports and rumors they went inside and the house was packed wall to wall with junk. Old car bumpers and chairs and soiled mattresses and ovens that shouldn’t have been in the living room and piles of jeans and t-shirts that shouldn’t have been in the dishwasher.

I wasn’t proved to be completely crazy though, they went to the basement and it was the only place that was completely bare except for one sleeping middle-aged man. He was hog-tied in the corner and apparently drowsing in some deep slumber when they found him.

Bao Wu was rescued from the empty basement and reported that he was delivering the mail to 1134 one moment and then was waking up at the police station the next. The cats however were gone and so were the terrible brown pieces of cloth on the ground.

But I had to keep asking myself once Bao came back whether he always had six fingers on each hand.

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

If you enjoyed the story I have a patreon for long term support and exclusive bonus content and a ko-fi for one-time tipping and $3 coffee trips, please consider giving to the artist if you can! Even a little helps 🤗

#writing #supernatural #horror story #original writing #monster #my work #creepy/

54 notes · View notes

mattholicguilt · 6 years

Photo

it’s always sunny in westchester

#iasiw #xmen #uncanny x-men

490 notes · View notes

endlessflame · 5 years

Text

Family Reunion (Connor x MC, Logan x MC)

Summary: Maribel (RoD MC) and her family, including her cousin Vanessa (ILITW MC), get together in Lake Tahoe, California for a family reunion.

Rating: M

Author’s note: This is for @cora-nova‘s Choices August Challenge, bonus prompt Family Reunion.

Tags: @choices-august-challenge @cora-nova @brightpinkpeppercorn @mfackenthal @desiree-0816

Maribel closed the door to her hotel room and began walking towards the elevator. She was looking forward to seeing her mother's side of the family again. It had been too long since they were all together. They were spread out along the West Coast; she and her father were in Los Angeles, her maternal grandparents were in San Diego, Uncle Tony was in San Francisco, and Aunt Sara, Uncle Fernando, and her cousin Vanessa were in Westchester, Oregon. They had chosen Lake Tahoe as the site of their family reunion because it was a central location. As she walked down the hall of her floor, she heard a door open.

"Maribel!"

She turned around, rushed over to Vanessa, and gave her a hug. "It's so good to see you!"

"You too!" Vanessa motioned to the young blond man beside her. "This is Connor. Connor, this is my cousin Maribel."

Maribel smiled at him warmly. "It's nice to meet you, Connor. Vanessa's told me a lot about you."

"Oh, has she? Connor grinned. "It's nice to meet you too."

Vanessa looked to Maribel. "Don't tell Grandma and Grandpa that Connor and I are sharing a room, OK?"

"Of course! They'd probably want to drag you off to confession immediately."

They took the elevator downstairs and headed to the hotel restaurant, where the family was meeting for dinner. Her father, grandparents, Sara, and Fernando were already seated at a large table. They sat down and began talking.

Not long afterward, Connor turned to Maribel. "You weren't kidding about confession, were you?"

"No, why?" Her question was answered as a priest approached the table. "Oh! That's our great-uncle Pedro."

Vanessa looked from Connor to Pedro. "Uncle Pedro, this is my boyfriend Connor."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Father," said Connor.

A few minutes later, Tony walked in with another man, younger than him, with blond hair that had been partially dyed green. "Hi, everyone. This is Greg."

Maribel's grandparents looked at each other, and then her grandmother turned to face Greg. "I'm Tony's mother, Silvia, and this is my husband Manuel." She then turned to Tony. "I didn't know you were bringing a friend."

"Greg moved in with me recently," said Tony.

"Oh, you brought your roommate!" Silvia glanced at Pedro, then looked at Tony pointedly.

Tony glared at his mother. Before he could say anything, the waiter arrived. After everyone had ordered, he brought a bottle of wine for the table.

"None for you," Maribel's father said to her.

"Fine, I'll have a Diet Coke." After everything she had been through with Logan, she was no innocent, but apparently a glass of wine with dinner was still too much to ask for, even though everyone else was having some.

Once they all had their drinks, Manuel raised his glass. "To our family. Salud!"

The others raised their glasses as well. "Salud!"

"Nice tattoo, Maribel!" said Tony.

Maribel smiled. "Thanks."

"Don't encourage her," her father said.

Like she couldn't make up her own mind! "I was thinking of getting another one, actually."

"You should come visit me. I'll take you to a great tattoo parlor. Rahim's work is magical." Tony grinned. "And he's easy on the eyes, too."

When their food arrived, Pedro led them in prayer. "Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen."

They began eating, and continued to catch up with each other. Maribel filled in her family on her first year at Langston.

Silvia directed her attention towards Vanessa and Connor. "You two have been together for a while now. Are you engaged yet?"

"Not officially," said Vanessa. "We want to get married eventually, but not yet. I want to go to grad school first. Then my friend Dan and I want to open up a practice together. He's going to be a counselor, and I want to do animal-assisted therapy."

"Vanessa is so good with animals," said Sara. "When we came back from Portugal a few years ago, she had adopted a kitten, tamed a crow, and was petsitting our neighbor's dog. It was like coming home to a zoo!"

"And what about you, Maribel? There must be lots of nice young men at Langston. Have you met anyone special?" Silvia asked.

Maribel reached up and touched the sparkplug that hung around her neck. She never took it off; she always wanted a piece of Logan close to her heart. She still wasn't over him, and she wondered if she ever would be. "No, I'm focusing more on my studies." Maybe she'd better change the subject. Logan was still a sore subject with her father, and she didn't want to risk him coming up. "So, what are we doing tomorrow?"

"It's going to be a nice sunny day," said Fernando. "How about we go to the lake? We could swim, or go boating."

"Good thing Uncle Pedro's here, in case we need an exorcism," said Vanessa.

Silvia's eyes widened. "What?"

"You never know what might be out there," Vanessa pointed out. "And I heard things from my friend Milla. What if the lake is haunted?"

"You have such a vivid imagination," Sara said. "I'm sure it will be fine."

"Anyone want to check out the casino tonight?" asked Greg.

"I do!" replied Tony.

Manuel shook his head. "You're throwing your money away."

"Greedy people try to get rich quick but don’t realize they’re headed for poverty. Proverbs 28:22," said Pedro.

Tony looked to Maribel, Vanessa, and Connor. "You guys want to come?"

Maribel thought about the last time that she had been in a casino. She still had nightmares about being trapped in the vault after seeing Jason stab a member of his task force to death. When the gas grenade had gone off, she thought she was going to die. "No, I had a really bad experience in a casino. I'm afraid it might bring back memories."

"You lost big, huh?" Tony asked.

"I almost lost everything." If Logan hadn't opened the vault and rescued her, she would have lost her life.

Vanessa looked at Maribel sympathetically, then turned back to Tony. "We'll pass too. Connor and I will keep Maribel company."

Later than night, Maribel went to Vanessa and Connor's room, and the three of them spent time talking. Without the older generations, they could speak more freely.

"You're an artist, right?" Maribel asked Connor.

Connor nodded. "I mostly do sculpture."

"Are you any good at drawing?"

"It's not what I usually do, but I can draw, yeah."

Maribel looked at Vanessa. "Did you tell him what I went through last summer?"

"Of course not. That's between us."

Maribel turned to Connor. "You know how I said I wanted to get another tattoo? I was hoping maybe you could design it for me."

"Sure, what did you have in mind?"

She took a deep breath. "Last summer I found out that I was pregnant. I know it wouldn't have been easy, but I wanted to keep the baby." Tears welled up in her eyes. "But...I lost it."

"Oh God, I'm so sorry." Connor leaned in and gave her a hug.

"Thanks. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to get a tattoo in memory of my baby. I was thinking of an angel with a ribbon wrapped around its robe, half blue and half pink, since I don't know if the baby was a boy or a girl. That's the miscarriage ribbon. And maybe you could make the angel look like a combination of me and Logan. The father." Maribel reached for her phone and opened up the photo app. She scrolled through her pictures and found one of Logan, then showed it to Connor. "That's him."

"I would be honored." Connor walked over to the desk and found a pad of paper. He sketched the design, then showed it to Maribel and Vanessa. "Here's a rough idea of what it would look like. You'll have to imagine how it would look with the colors."

Maribel was overwhelmed with emotions as she looked at the drawing. "It's so beautiful. Thank you so much."

"You're welcome. I hope I did it justice."

"You did." Maribel touched her shoulder. "Think it would look good here? I like the idea of an angel on my shoulder."

"Definitely," Connor told her.

"That's perfect," said Vanessa.

"I bet Logan would love it too," said Maribel.

"Are you in touch with him at all?" Vanessa asked.

"Not as often as I would like. But at least I know how to reach him." Maribel picked up her phone and took a picture of the sketch, then sent a text to Logan. This is the tattoo I want to get in memory of our baby. Do you like it?

A little later, Logan replied. I love it. It's beautiful, and so are you. I miss you.

Maribel smiled as she read the text. "He loves it," she told Connor and Vanessa. "I hope you can meet him someday."

"I hope we can too. I know you miss him." Vanessa hugged Maribel tightly. "Remember, I'm always here for you. We're family."

#choices august challenge #connor x mc #logan x mc #tw: pregnancy loss #playchoices fanfic #choices rod #it lives in the woods #connor green

13 notes · View notes

pixelburied · 6 years

Note

Choices asks: 7, 8, 17

I answered 8 here. :)

7. Tell a character everyone loves but you.

I legally cannot answer this without having half the fandom after my head on a plate.

17. Declare your love for your favorite character.

Are y’all ready for this?

Tom Sato, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Here are the reasons why he is, and will probably always be, my favorite character:

1. As one of the probably two only asian kids in Westchester High (three, if your MC is asian), he never let the hate get him down. He kept playing basketball even if he was often overlooked. He never let the noise make him bitter or resentful. Instead, he was always so sunny and optimistic.

2. He was always a solid friend to Andy. Andy says so himself, Tom might have saved his life. He is accepting and kind despite probably having grown up being bullied by Cody and his posse.

3. He worked through his depression after the events of ILITW. Kept trying to figure things out on his own. Though I wish he’d had some help, he did his best. I don’t know if this is a common thing. But I think, and maybe this is just me, Asian parents are not as open to therapy and don’t exactly understand mental disorders. They grew up with the pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality. If things aren’t going well enough, then you’re not working hard enough. That kind of thing. And it is nearly impossible, at least in my experience, to say - Hey Mom, Dad, I think I need help. So the fact that he was able to work through his issues on his own fills me with so much hope.

4. And speaking of issues, he had several of his own. But that didn’t stop him from moving to a strange town to try to protect people he didn’t even know. If that isn’t the definition of a hero, I don’t know what is.

5. He is an absolute dork and is not ashamed of it. I am too but I am not confident in my dorkiness. I would like to be more like him.

6. He is a total bad-ass. His kind and gentle demeanor does not stop him from being tough when the situation calls for it.

7. I know some of y’all blame him for losing your pinky fingers (which isn’t his damn fault by the way). But what happens after that? He fights the cult to the absolute best of his abilities, getting stabbed, thrown, knocked about, hair pulled, eye nearly gouged, and not once, blaming MC for all of this. So I will not tolerate any disrespect in this house, you hear me? Not a single bad word.

Sorry this got too long??? OMG. I love you @brightpinkpeppercorn for giving me this opportunity.

#ask game #ask meme #not choices #technically #tom x mc #tom sato #tagging this because everyone needs to know #why tom is the best

23 notes · View notes

ephemeradio-here-to-staydio · 6 years

Text

2018

January --

Trip to Florida with Grandma in the first week. Dark when we leave New York. The under-the-belly fly away feeling when the plane takes off. The loudness of the plane (I didn’t remember it being that loud). There is no forgetting that we are in a giant metal tube barreling through the air. Florida is strange. The warmth is unnatural. I realize I’ve finally come to accept New York winters and the beauty of rest. Florida lives in a state of constant temperance. The trees look exhausted.

We stay in a giant apartment complex next to eight or nine similar buildings on the same street that runs parallel to the ocean front. They stand unnaturally like giant dominoes, fifty feet apart. Boca is extremely cultivated. We go to Wal-Mart, we eat at P.F. Chang’s.

We go to the beach. There is no salty sweet smell here (like the one at the beaches in Jersey). Uncle (with whom we are staying) is unwell and has been for years. He repeatedly tries to get me to down alcoholic beverages and whenever my grandma isn’t around, talks about sex. He brushes my ass with his hand on the beach as we walk, and I ball my fists up in anger and walk faster. I don’t tell my Grandma because she is hesitant about staying here, and I want her to enjoy her time.

I fly back after two days, as was the plan. I am relieved to get back to the small, cold airport in Westchester, to see my little red Civic and rich, who drives it up to the pick up area.

On my first night back, I realize how good it is to be home, and also how much it feels like home, more home than original home, my little family with rich and crowdog. I ask him to marry me and he says yes. The next day he buys a ring-pop and leaves it on my nightstand.

February, March, April --

Back to School. I left in 2015, and am finally back. Spring Semester. I’m taking the Novel with Michelle Woods and Seminar in Critical Practices with Vicki Tromanhauser. I’m amazed how each class goes by so quickly -- I am always disappointed to hear that final tone-shift in the professor’s voice when she says that’s enough for today, we’ll pick up here next class. I read Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, The Master and Margarita, We, Lolita, The Waves by Virginia Woolf, The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, St. Mawr by D.H. Lawrence, a short story by Ursula Le Guin, and the eco-critical theories of Morton, Harraway, Derrida.

I’d forgotten how much I loved reading and learning. I raise my hand in class and talk to other people. We go on a field trip to the Nature Sanctuary for my Seminar class and take a class photo. I save it to my computer when I realize it’s full of friends.

I write two papers that I’m extremely proud of, one about peasant dreams in Anna Karenina, and another about listening to Joanna Newsom’s Have One On Me as an eco-critical breakup album.

May, June --

My first semester ends, and my sister graduates from high school. I’m definitely old. I take an online summer class on Utopia/Dystopia with Cyrus Mulready.

July --

A trip to Long Beach Island, my place. rich and I stay crammed with my parents and my sister and her boyfriend in a two bedroom upstairs rental --the one that we used to stay at when I was little. We sleep on the pull-out couch, which was even less comfortable than that sounds. We stay for two nights. I eat oysters for the first time. My mom and I play kadima ball along the shore, and I eat a Spongebob Pop on a hot day, and his red pants drip down my hand. It’s a short trip, but enough. The year has been full but relentless, and here I have a few moments of actual content.

On the way back home, my radiator blows on the Garden State Parkway. We pull over and call rich’s cousin, and then we macgyver the shit out of it so we don’t have to get towed home from Jersey. The GPS decides to almost take us through the city instead of the normal way home, so a three-hour trip turns into seven hours -- but it was nice. We stayed fairly calm and worked it out, and it made me appreciate the shit out of our relationship.

August --

The dog days of summer. Everything is wet. We’re in the process of moving houses (something that I’ve done every summer for the past six or so years). Dealing with the old landlords in the final weeks is absolute hell. But we end up getting all of our security back, and we’re moving to a good house --it belongs to the Grandmother of the kids I used to babysit when I was in high school/early college.

We move in and I love the smell of the house. It’s a good place next to a stream. Everything is so wet that we start to notice mold on the furniture in the sunny room, and we fight it back.

September --

This is a very hard month. In late August, I wait and wait and wait for my period. It keeps threatening with cramps, but never comes. I take a pregnancy test and it’s positive. I make the decision that would be best for another human, not for myself. I can’t just have a baby because I want something cute, or because it’s “possible” to do so. We’re not ready for a baby, now or even ever --I’ve always been theoretically conflicted on if I wanted to bring someone else into this whole Thing against their will. And now I have to confront that hypothetical in my reality.

I make an appointment at planned parenthood after rich and I talk about it for a few days. It’s hard to get in, so I have to wait a few weeks. The house starts smelling awful. I get debilitatingly nauseous every time I go home. The smell of lavender dryer sheets (that I used to love) make me want to die. The world becomes a constant state of nausea. I get nose bleeds, I find out, because pregnancy changes SO MANY THINGS about how your body operates. Your body temperature goes up and your blood thins. Your teeth are more prone to infection and your body is circulating much more (like up to 50 percent more) blood.

At the appointment, the nurse is extremely nice and takes my blood without making me feel lightheaded. I find out I’m eight weeks pregnant and that I’ll need to schedule a termination procedure for the next week. I’m nervous but I want to get it over with. The doctor takes an ultrasound and shows me a picture of the “fetus” - it’s a small, black and white oval dot.

In the middle of September, I go to the Poughkeepsie planned parenthood to get the procedure. I decide not to take the sedation. I take four ibuprofen and they take me to the pre/post waiting room. I meet a woman who’s stocking up on granola bars, ginger ales and condoms, shoving them into her purse. She tells me this is her sixth procedure. “Are you nervous?” she asks. I say “no.”

It’s over quickly and it’s not more painful than some of the periods I’ve had. I get lightheaded afterwards and they keep me for an extra 20 minutes or so, but then I can walk out and go home. I tell rich to stop at mcDonald’s and we get burgers, and then I go home and sleep.

The first two days after the procedure I feel amazing. I’m no longer nauseous and I don’t have cramps. On the third day, the cramps start and so does constipation. I have extremely painful anal spasms at work one day. The bleeding and cramping stops around 2 weeks after the procedure, but begins again when I start birth control.

This all happens while my Fall Semester is starting, so there is no time to stop and rest and consider this whole thing. I keep going at the same pace because that’s what I have to do.

October --

My Fall semester is really great despite all the stuff of the previous month. I’m taking my Senior Seminar class about the Materiality of the Text with Mulready, and I’m taking The Epic Tradition with Thomas Festa. I read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Dante’s Inferno, Frankenstein, Hamlet, and a ton scholars that focus on materiality: Ong, Calhoun, Silverman, Sherman, etc etc etc. I’m energetic but anxious.

We have a housewarming party and it’s not a disaster. It’s mostly family and then some friends afterwards, but we’re old and tired and clean and go to bed pretty early, and I’m okay with that.

November, December --

Extremely exhausting and busy two months. Throwing myself into school work, I write two more papers that I’m fairly proud of: one on the materiality of Dante’s Inferno and the other about the myth of diaries, explored by looking at a few weird Frankenstein diaries.

Even New Year’s Eve was shot with a full day’s work followed by my first BioAnthropology exam (I’m taking a winter class), and I fell asleep at 10pm. Things will calm down in a few weeks hopefully (I’m done with classes after the 17th!!) and I can actually reflect on all the nonsense that happened this year.

Things are pretty good though, and I’m thankful for a lot. I challenged myself this year and it paid the fuck off. I made some new friends and wrote some things I’m proud of and I live in a pretty nice house with my family. I finally stopped bleeding, and I’m doing okay physically now too.

For Next Year:

- I want to bring my lunch to work at least twice a week!

- I want to stretch and do some type of exercise (so I don’t get winded so easily)

- I want to save some money and take a good trip.

- I want to stop scrolling so much!

2 notes · View notes

screamxqueenx94 · 7 years

Text

Your Song// X-MEN (Part 4)

I find inspiration everywhere. No lie, usually with music. So this is inspired by Your Song by Rita Ora. I thought it would be cute so I’m doing it :) btw, this is a contiuation of She’s Been Enrolled. It’s about four months later. Enjoy :)

Alex Summers x OC (Layla Hemmings)

Warnings: SO MUCH CUTENESS!!! fluff

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

It’s been about four months since Layla had been enrolled to Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters. She had made a few friends in the school, but her strongest relationship was with Alex Summers. The boy she brought back to life and who had asked her out. She had helped him catch up on what he had missed since he was gone. She also reunited him with his family. They always spent their free time together since they had become official three months ago. They wanted to take things slow since this was her first relationship and he was getting use to being alive again. Today they were going to spend some time together and have a lazy day, which neither of them ever really got since he was back in training to be on the team again and Layla was usually working on finding the true limit to her powers.

It was a warm sunny day when Layla got up. She got out of bed and turned on the radio as she was getting ready for the day like she usually did. After she put on a tank top and started looking for what to wear, the radio personnel came on.

“Good morning Westchester County! Today is a beautiful sunny day here and I’m in the mood to play some happy music to go along with this gorgeous weather we’re having! This one goes to all of you who feel as happy as I do this morning. This Rita Ora’s Your Song!”

Layla started jumping up and down with utter joy. She loves this song and even though Alex would never admit it, he liked it too. She grabbed her hair brush and started dancing around and singing into the brush like a microphone.

“….Last night we were way up, kissing in the back of the cab. And then you say, ‘Love, baby, let’s go back to my flat’. And when we wake up, never had a feeling like that…..” she danced in front of her mirror, flipping her ginger hair around, then goes and starts dancing and jumping on her bed.

“….I don’t want to hear sad songs anymore, I only wanna hear love songs! I found my heart up in this place tonight!” She jumped off the bed and spun in circles, giving the song her all.

“….Don’t wanna sing mad songs anymore! Only wanna sing your song! ‘Cause your song’s got me feeling like…” she goes to the middle of her room and jumps around in a circle, flipping her hair around once again.

“I’m in love! I’m in love! I’m in love! Yeah you know your song’s got me feeling like I’m…” she finally turns and faces the door then suddenly stops.

Alex was right there. Leaning against the door frame. One hand on the door knob and the other trying to help him hold in his giggles. Layla’s cheeks turn bright red as she tries to hide her face.

“Alex! H–how long have you been standing there?” She asks nervously, hiding the hairbrush behind her back.

“Long enough to know that you still jump on your bed like a little kid.” He smirks.

She put her head down, still trying to hide her face in embarrassment. He walks over to her and hugs her tightly, then looks at her.

“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s adorable!” He tells her sweetly.

She looked up at him, still blushing and feeling so tiny in his arms. She gives him a small smile. He let’s go and tucks some of her hair behind her ear and just smiles adoringly at her. They stay that way for awhile until she realizes that she was still half naked.

“Um, Alex? Do you mind if I finish getting dressed?” She asks shyly.

He looks down at her half dressed body and instantly turns red. He quickly turns around and rubs the back of his neck.

“Uh, yeah, of course! I–I’ll just wait for you downstairs….” He trails off nervously.

He walks hastily out of the room, still looking down and nearly running into the door way. Layla quickly put on a lacy off the shoulder crop top and high waisted velvet bell bottoms and heads downstairs to where Alex is. As Layla came down the stairs, Alex turned and looked at her as she came down the stairs. When he sees her, his eyes light up and flashes her his adorable crooked smile. She blushes and smiles back. He takes her hand and they head out the front door and borrow a car from Charles.

——————————————————————————

They spent the entire day at Glen Island Beach. They orginally went just to collect seashells and get fresh air, but they stayed for the sand and the ocean, which made Layla feel relieved that she put her two piece bathing suit on under her clothes. Layla always loved the beach, but now she had someone to enjoy it with and it made her feel like she was on cloud nine. It also didn’t hurt that Alex sunbathed next to her shirtless.

As usual, Layla brought one of her many sketchbooks. He laid out in the sun while she sat up and used her knees as a table for her sketchbook. He looked up to see what she was doing. He noticed she was drawing a picture of a mother and her baby playing in the water, reminding her of her and her mother.

“That’s beautiful.” he tells her, sitting up and half smiling.

She looks over at him and softly chuckles. “Thanks. I’m drawing it for my mom. This was always one of our favorite things to do when I was a kid.” she told him reminising about her mom.

“You miss her, huh?” he asked, putting his hand comfortingly on her back.

“A little. It gets a little easier each day… I mean, at least I still get to talk to her, y’know?” she replies quietly.

“Yeah. Yeah I know what you mean.” he says, laying back, supporting himself on his elbows.

Layla goes back to drawing, until the mother and baby leave, but Layla keeps adding small details. Alex sits up again and looks over her shoulder. He smirks and taps her opposite shoulder, making her look that way when he quickly takes her small sketchbook with a playful look on his face and she whips her head around to see him. She starts laughing and trying to get it back. Before she can grab the book, he wraps his arm around her waist and rolls over to be on top.

He’s surprised when she uses most of her strength to end up back on top. The laughter fades out when they make eye contact. He looks deep into her forest green eyes and she into his baby blue ones. Layla bites her lip. He tucks her hair behind her ear and gives her a half smile. After a few moments, like a magnet, their lips meet each other in a sweet, romantic kiss. She cups his face in her hands as his arms wrap tightly around her waist.

They’re embraced in the kiss for awhile. Once they pull away, they notice an elderly couple looking over in admiration. They lift their drinks to Alex and Layla and the two of them wave nervously to the elderly couple. They look at each other blushing from slight embarrassment.

“Don’t be embarrassed sweeties. We were there once too at your age.” The cute little old woman told them sweetly.

“Wait until you get to be our age. Even though you won’t look the same, you’re love will still make you feel like you’re youngsters.” her husband chimes in.

Layla just smiled and chuckled at their words, feeling less embarrassed.

“Just you wait, this will be a story you’ll tell your grandkids one day and it’ll make them believe in love.” the old lady continued as she held her husband’s hand as they looked lovingly into each other’s eyes.

Layla and Alex can’t help but look into each others’ eyes the same way. They’re fingers intertwine and Alex kisses her hand sweetly. The elderly couple pack up their things.

The elderly man leans in to talk to Alex. “You keep a hold of her, Sonny. She’s a real keeper.” He tips his fedora to them and walks hand in hand with his wife as they carry their lawn chairs and cooler. Alex and Layla look back at each other again. He leans back on his elbows while she still straddles his lap.

“How crazy would it be if that WAS us in 40 to 50 years?” he asks nonchantly, smirking.

Layla giggles. “They were so cute!” she exclaimed.

“I’m serious.” he says while chuckling.

Layla giggles again. “Well, if we’re anything like them, then I’d say we’re two very lucky people.” she tells him.

They stay in that same position, looking into each others’ eyes once again. Then Layla gets up and grabs Alex’s hand pulls him to his feet.

“One more dip in the ocean before we go back to the mansion?” she asks, smiling.

“I’ll race ya.” he replies.

They race to the water, with Layla ahead by just a little bit until Alex grabs her by her waist, spins her around and carries her to the water with him. They splash each other and play around until the sun started to set. They trudged out of the water and got ready to go. They walked hand in hand back to the car. Alex loaded up the trunk as Layla admired the view of the setting sun.

He walked up next to her and they sat on the hood of the car as they watched the sun set. She put her head on his shoulder and sighed to show she was relaxed. He looked down at her, half smiled and put his arm around her, pulling her closer and kissed the top of her head before looking back to the sunset view. After the sun had set and it got dark, they went back to the mansion.

——————————————————————————

Once they got back to the mansion, Alex walked Layla back to her room. Before she went in, she turned to him and half smiled.

“I had an amazing time with you today, Alex.” she said shyly.

“Me too.” he replied back, taking her hand.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked sweetly.

“Of course.” he tells her with a half smile.

He brings her hand to lips and kisses it, making her blush. Once he let go, she kisses his cheek and goes to her room. He walks back to his room, still smiling.

After that day, they both knew it was love. Now only time will tell on who says ‘I love you’ first. maybe it will be Alex, or maybe it will be Layla. All they know is how they feel about each other and those feelings are strong.

#lucas till #alex summers #oc #oc story #xmen #xmen imagine #charles xavier #hope you like it

22 notes · View notes

diamantinemind · 6 years

Text

Après Nous, Le Déluge

Summary: When Natalia is finally sent to terminate the threat posed to U.S.S.R. interests and assets like herself and her sister Black Widows that is the pair of American profligate psychics who ruined in West Berlin her otherwise spotless record with Rossiya-matushka, it’s to the prodigal 7th and 8th arrondissements of France’s capital city where she discovers that she may have bitten off more than she can chew.

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Mutant!OC (Enemies to Friends)

Word Count: 9,292

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated.

The sudden rise of a hot and blustery midmorning wind from the southwest announced the arrival of the dog days—or as the French called them, la canicule—to the electric city of Paris. Sweltering summer heat pressed down on la Ville Lumière, making the glittering Seine and every public fountain havens from the sunbaked boulevards that crisscrossed the capital city of France. Parisians and tourists alike fled in droves to such watery oases to find solace from the heatwave all across the city, barring the modish 7th and 8th arrondissements where some people were too sophisticated to run anywhere and were much too cultured to attend the public sanctuaries that the rabble visited. Rather, the cosmopolitan hordes haunting two of Paris’s most refined administrative districts seemed almost to ignore the scorching breath of the sun that curled around them as they walked the streets and went about their daily lives of capitalistic excess and privilege.

Natalia idly observed them all from her seat at a glass patio table outside an upscale artisanal boulangerie and patisserie on the 8th arrondissement’s fashionable Avenue Montaigne. The scent of various fresh breads made with cheeses, fruits, and nuts mingled with the sugary smell of pastries, folding her in a pocket of aroma. She adjusted her sunhat, dipping its floppy brim over her jade eyes and picked at the tarte tatin set before her. Pleasantly surprised by the sweetness of the caramelized apples and the buttery softness of the puff pastry, Natalia could almost forget the reason she was here.

The list of people that the K.G.B. perceived as legitimate threats to the U.S.S.R. and its mission was rather short. Names that the K.G.B. would want removed from the face of the earth if any Soviet operative could get within a kilometer of them appeared on a second and even shorter list—shorter because these people were absurdly proficient at either evading abduction and/or dodging assassination. Because of what the K.G.B. was now calling the “West Berlin Incident,” the psychic who had marred Natalia’s otherwise spotless record as an agent and Black Widow of Rossiya-matushka was now firmly at the top of the first and second list. The psychic was also now ranked first on Natalia’s personal revenge register which had totaled a zero sum until recent. More often than not, people never got the chance to make it onto Natalia’s own hit list since they were typically dead before they could even think of crossing her, but for those who did manage to appear on her list, they did not usually stay there long: whoever crossed Natalia rather swiftly ended up dead.

Comrade Vasily Lebedev—the senior handler of the women who had been given the mantle of Black Widow for graduating top of their class from the Red Room Academy and who were now employed by the K.G.B. as instruments of war and espionage—had received word from K.G.B. high command that the culprit behind the West Berlin Incident must be removed from the board or, at the very least, intimidated into hiding. The K.G.B. didn’t want any more of its beautiful and dangerous Black Widows being thwarted in the field. Nor did Vasily want harm coming to any of his weapons, especially not his favorites, one of the Devushki Vasiliyathat brought him so much acclaim in the shadowy world of espionage.

“I don’t care how it’s done, pauchok, and high command doesn’t care how many agents we need to put on this assignment,” Vasily had said in Natalia’s briefing with a few other important agents and handlers three afternoons into the aftermath of the West Berlin Incident, which mutually comprised Natalia’s failed assassination attempt and her being hurled into a psychically-induced coma from which she had awoken thirty-nine hours after initially being telepathically anesthetized. “Every agent on the ground will be looking for them, and once we get concrete intel on the target, you’ll be the only agent allowed within two kilometers of them. We wouldn’t want to tip our hand on your chance for… revenge.”

Natalia knew that what Vasily had meant to say was “redemption.” The K.G.B. had a low tolerance for failure, and an even lesser amount of patience for failed results from its best assets, and Natalia was by far the best in the Soviet Union’s arsenal. The burden of the West Berlin Incident rested not on Natalia’s shoulders solely but was also borne by Vasily since he was the one responsible for Natalia and all the other Devushki Vasiliya.

Comrade Sokolov was the only reason that Natalia had not faced harsher punishment than what she had—being handcuffed to the metal drain pipe of a bathroom sink and being electrocuted with an automobile battery’s jumper cables after waking from a coma was getting off the hook, really; she’d had much worse in the Red Room as a girl. Seeing as how the strange Comrade Sokolov was the leading psychic in the K.G.B.’s psy-ops team, when he had determined that Natalia could not have readily prevented what had happened to her, the K.G.B. had listened.

“The psychic responsible for subduing the asset,” Comrade Sokolov had said to Vasily and a few high-ranking officers after evaluating Natalia, “must have been one of the best to have been able to so effortlessly circumvent the Black Widow Ops Program conditioning the Red Room inculcates into its graduates before shipping them to us.”

“Stronger than you, Mikula?” Vasily had asked with a skeptical furrow of his brow.

“By leagues,” Comrade Sokolov’s tone had been grim as he had turned an appraising eye to Natalia. “Never have I seen such surgical psionic precision or finesse. Work such as this bespeaks not only a natural talent but also a lifetime or more of experience, which is… an inauspicious prospect for the future of our operations should the West Berlin psychic express an interest in continued intervention.”

“Is the asset’s conditioning broken?” One of the higher ups had asked Comrade Sokolov.

“Oddly enough,” the psychic had said, “it’s not. There are no detectable lingering alterations to the asset’s mind, and it seems as though the West Berlin psychic knocked the asset unconscious merely to neutralize the threat she posed. We were lucky in this regard.”

Comrade Sokolov had been positive of this much. Ever since she had woken up bound to a sink and faced with imminent electrical torture, though, Natalia had felt as if something had minutely shifted within her skull. She couldn’t quite explain the feeling, so she sure as hell hadn’t said anything to Vasily or to anybody else about the unsettling sensation. She hadn’t even thought about it much while off-mission to prevent Comrade Sokolov or any of the psy-ops team from detecting her doubts.

As if on cue, a feeling of unreality struck Natalia; she looked about the busy Avenue Montaigne to confirm her surroundings, to confirm her own presence in the rich and sunny environment. It was not exactly a bout of déjà vu or anything of that sort from which Natalia had been suffering as of late, but… Natalia could not put her finger on it. Perhaps it was an intuitive impression of wrongness, of falsehood, and as rapidly as it had solidified, it evaporated.

She glanced down at the empty dish of tarte tatin in front of her and gently slid it away from her. Natalia frowned before returning her gaze to the boulevard and its many upper-crust pedestrians. As expected, there was no one and nothing of import. Yet.

It hadn’t taken long for the K.G.B. to attempt to identify Natalia’s assailant in West Berlin. In fact, the K.G.B. had managed to narrow the search in the same amount of time it had taken to give Natalia a jolt in a dingy bathroom. As Comrade Sokolov had made it clear later in their meeting, there were only so many world-class psychics who could match Natalia’s extensive psychological conditioning or that of any Black Widow. To be precise, the K.G.B. was aware of only three candidates, one of whom was Professor Charles Xavier. Xavier, though, had been in his family estate-turned-mutant academy in Westchester County, New York, on the day of the West Berlin Incident.

Naturally, the remaining two possible suspects were the ones that the K.G.B. knew the least about: the White King and Queen of the New England branch of the Hellfire Club, a clandestine group whose leadership concealed their identities behind aliases based upon the titles of chess pieces—often White and Black—and who typically possessed some… unusual talents, although the Black royalty has historically been of the more mystical bent. Not much else was known about the organization. It claimed itself to be an international socialites club with branches on six of the seven continents; it held quite a bit of political and economic clout which it flexed behind the scenes around the world. Even less was known about the White royalty who co-led the New England branch with the Black King and Queen.

While other agents had been searching for the White royalty of the New England Hellfire Club, Natalia had been given a short-lived respite after her initial briefing. She had used the time to read through the pitifully thin dossiers the K.G.B. had on the enigmatic duo. The White King and Queen, real names unknown, but possibly Christian and Cordelia Winterson, Jeremiah and Jessamine North, or Elias and Emma Frost—the last pair was highly unlikely, but would be quite the scandalous reveal were it true. After all, Elias and Emma Frost were the CEOs and co-presidents on the Board of Directors of Frost International, a multibillion dollar Boston-based shipping, transportation, and personal electronics conglomerate. Of course, no one knew what the Frosts looked like, for they avoided the public eye as though it were the bubonic plague. They managed the family company by proxy via a chain of trusted directors, supervisors, and secretaries.

The White King and Queen were either siblings or lovers due to reports of one being not too far from the other wherever they went. They were also powerful psychics of some sort; however, the exact nature of their preternatural gift or gifts was also unknown beyond their having unparalleled telepathic prowess. Like all of the other leaders of the Hellfire Club that the K.G.B. had run into around the globe, the White King and Queen of the New England branch were as intelligent as they were evasive. The only photographs the U.S.S.R. intelligence community had of New England’s White King and Queen were indistinct CCTV images revealing little more than the pair’s haute couture and fair hair.

When the White royalty did leave a trail to be tracked, it usually went cold. It had taken over two weeks of grueling manpower, several favors traded in, and an inordinate quantity of rubles to get a lead on the White King and Queen of New England’s Hellfire Club. A European source had finally disclosed to the K.G.B. that a pair of towheaded American socialites had appeared in Paris after the conclusion of President Kennedy’s European tour in early July and had been staying since. All agents in the area had been mobilized to investigate the situation.

After almost a week of observation and no sign from the Americans of being watched, real intel that warranted Natalia’s dispatch had trickled in. The pair owned a summer home in Paris’s 8th administrative district. A private Louis Seize penthouse on Avenue Montaigne between the neoclassical façade of Dior and the red window awnings and even redder window box geraniums of the sumptuous Hôtel Plaza Athénée where Natalia was currently staying in a K.G.B.-rented suite. Moreover, the two blondes were characteristically American profligates, purchasing designer fashion from the luxury flagship stores on Avenue Montaigne and visiting some theatre or ballet or opera or museum around the capital city every day. Identities have yet to be confirmed, but more than likely, the K.G.B. had finally found the White King and Queen.

When Natalia had at last been told to remove the Americans from the picture and was preparing to leave the K.G.B. outpost in Novosibirsk where she had been stationed, Vasily had brushed her cheek with his rough knuckles and had said, “You’ll always be one of mine, little spider; make it clear to those capitalist warmongers who trample upon the poor and working class that no one toys with the Devushki Vasiliya.”

“Pardon, mademoiselle?”

Natalia cast her gaze to the waiter, a pale mustachioed Frenchman dressed in a starched white shirt, pressed black pants, and a black vest. He was the same man who had served her tarte tatin on the bakeshop’s patio.

“Yes?” She said in perfect French.

“Will you be staying for our lunch special, miss?” The waiter asked as he took her empty dish. “We will be offering bouillabaisse paired with a toasted garlic-rubbed baguette and rouille that has been prepared onsite.”

“I—” Natalia’s eyes darted to a shimmer in her periphery.

A woman in monochromatic white strode by in the street beyond the waiter’s shoulder. She wore atop her head a pillbox hat with an attached pearl-strung birdcage veil and oversized square-framed Nina Ricci sunglasses upon the bridge of her fine upturned nose. A pair of Italian kid leather gloves reached up to her elbows, and a brocaded dress with a scooped neckline, sheath skirt, and sash tied into a bow about her waspish waist embraced her trim body like a jealous and grasping lover. Diamonds dangled like icicles from her ears and exposed throat, and a Gucci handbag swung from the crook of her arm. The sunlight ran like water down each gently waving strand of her pale blonde hair that bounced with every purposeful step and lifted from her shoulders in the breeze.

Every single person on the glamorous Avenue Montaigne instantly paled in comparison, and they all knew it as they stared at her, stumbling to leave a wide berth for the trail she and her designer pumps blazed. Had Natalia not been paying as close attention as she had been, she would have thought Marilyn Monroe had been resurrected on the streets of Paris or that Jacqueline Kennedy had dyed her hair platinum and had returned to France for an undercover shopping spree after her husband’s return to Washington.

“You know,” Natalia returned her attention to the waiter and brushed aside his curious gaze. “I think I will stay for your lunch special.”

The waiter nodded before stiffly walking away. Natalia’s eyes followed the blonde until she disappeared completely into the crowd. Natalia set her hands upon the glass tabletop and tapped out a steady sunny beat with her manicured fingernails, a tune that gradually morphed into Tchaikovsky. As it always did. She could feel her feet itching for her favorite pair of satin pointe shoes and her face in need of the warmth of the Bolshoi spotlights.

She blinked hard. She yearned for something, felt a twisting in her gut. She was Natalia Alianovna, Black Widow, the deadliest of the U.S.S.R.’s lethal arachnids. She never yearned—it simply wasn’t in her nature, not since… Natalia’s mind blanked. She shook her head. Not since ever. Her sisters never yearned. Those who had were long ago buried outside Red Room Academy in the primeval forests and snowbanks of the B.S.S.R. Natalia stilled her hand and scanned the crowded boulevard.

The intel had indeed been good; the White Queen was in Paris. Natalia had no plans of pursuing the woman, though. Loath to make a move on the Queen without knowing the exact location of the White King—he was not far, of course, which doubled the risk of being detected or deterred from carrying through with her mission—Natalia watched and waited. Her bouillabaisse, garlic-rubbed baguette, and rouille were served to her, and she pecked at her lunch over the span of a half hour, ears ever pricked, eyes ever searching. After paying for her brunch and lunch, she sat outside the bakeshop for an hour more, content in the cool green shadow of the store’s awning, before she stood up from the glass table and decided to promenade along Avenue Montaigne. She stopped outside several shops and stores, silently peering in to watch as the sheep bleated about fashion and the economy and capitalist things for which Natalia had little care.

By midafternoon, she walked back in the direction of the boulangerie and patisserie toward the Plaza Athénée. She may not have spotted the White King during this particular outing, but she had at least seen his colleague, and that was enough of a success for Natalia. The fear of New England’s White royalty slipping between her fingers was practically nonexistent in Natalia’s mind as she reached the magnificent glass doors of the Plaza Athénée; with K.G.B. agents peppered throughout the city, the White royalty would not be able to make a move without someone catching their scent.

When Natalia went up to her suite of extravagant baroque-themed apartments, she tossed her sunhat aside like a discus, kicked off her strappy heeled sandals, and snagged the telephone set off the mahogany end table in the plush sitting room. Ringing the secure K.G.B. number on the rotary dial, Natalia padded as close to the picture window overlooking Avenue Montaigne as the phone cable would allow. She wedged the receiver between her ear and shoulder and waited for the call to go through.

“Pauchok,” Vasily’s voice was clear on the line. “Report.”

“Seen,” Natalia said casually. “The White Queen, anyhow. Hard to miss. Very white. I imagine the King will be equally as easy to spot.”

“He will be. Are you going out tonight as planned?”

“Yes,” Natalia said as she turned her gaze up from the boulevard and to the neighboring buildings. She should be able to use their rooftops and balconies as steppingstones to a location that would lend promising results to spy on the White royalty in their lavish Louis XVI styled penthouse. She had examined the building yesterday after flying in, so she knew how to get a view into the King’s and Queen’s private Parisian home overlooking the Eiffel to the southeast and the Louvre to the southwest. “I have plans tonight.”

“Check in,” Vasily said.

“I will.” Natalia ended the call, cradling the phone set to her body as she stared outside.

She felt at once an eagerness to seek retribution and an unnamable murmur of hesitation in the far recesses of her mind. Shaking her head, she turned her back on the Parisian skyline and began to prepare for the night.

At half past nine, Natalia slipped out of her suite dressed in the same charcoal black and midnight blue as the few shadows which survived the well-lit night in la Ville Lumière. Though it took a series of rather impressive acts of acrobatic excellence to reach her predetermined vantage point, Natalia secured it nonetheless and crouched down atop the roof of the building directly across the boulevard from the stacked luxury apartments atop which sat the White King’s and Queen’s penthouse. Body alert and tense, Natalia was hyperaware of her potentially compromising position; the White royalty had elevation on her since none of the buildings on or around Avenue Montaigne came within a story of the penthouse’s lofty heights. Even from where Natalia was currently hunkered down, all the pair really had to do was go to any one of their south-facing windows and stare exactly at her location to spot her and her long red hair which she had attempted to knot atop her head and conceal under a dark cap. Natalia supposed she could have scaled the building, stolen into their open-air courtyard, and broken in through their patio door, but that seemed to her like too much passive suicidal ideation for a reconnaissance mission.

Natalia sat impossibly still for almost two hours before a light finally turned on in one of the bedrooms at a quarter past eleven. She shifted forward, eyes trained on the sparkling floor to ceiling windows that offered sight into the room. She hadn’t brought binoculars with her, but frankly, she found that she no longer needed them since her graduation from the Red Room three years ago as a young woman of eighteen bitter Russian winters. Vastly improved eyesight was but one of the many biochemical enhancements Natalia had received upon the completion of her training and conditioning as a Black Widow.

A man wearing a navy velvet blazer with pearlescent buttons, a silver silk cravat with blue-black fleur-de-lis, and flat-fronted white chinos crossed the room. His ringed fingers deftly unfastened the closure of his jacket as he walked. He passed by one window, and by the time he reappeared behind the next, he had shrugged out of the velvet garment, revealing the sleek silver waistcoat fitted to his trim torso with a pattern matching that of his necktie over his pressed white dress shirt. He tossed the dark blue blazer over the back of a gilt-framed tapestried chair, pausing long enough to slip loose the knot of his cravat and cast it with a flourish over the back of the same chair. He quickly ran his hand through his tousled tow-colored hair, causing a few long fair strands to fall into his eyes from the styled coiffure he had them swept up in when he retracted his hand, and swaggered out of Natalia’s view.

It was the White King, without a doubt, and his resemblance to the White Queen was uncanny. Natalia tossed aside the nonsense about the pair being lovers—they were blatantly related by blood, and a great amount at that. Whereas the Queen’s angled jaw and cheekbones and hair color had lent her an impression of platinum-tressed Marilyn, the same features translated across the medium of the masculine sex as distinctly James Dean en blond. Her distinct nose, brow, and full lips as those akin to Paul Newman’s on him. He even carried himself with the same monarchical air, his posture impeccable and indicative of generations of fine breeding and indescribable wealth. Summarily, Natalia was certain of one thing: the White King and Queen were American gods of a manifestly Nordic pedigree.

It was twenty minutes before the White King came back into sight, this time wearing cream-colored silk lounge pants and a sheer feather-trimmed floor-length ivory robe that billowed behind him as he strode by the windows, the damask curtains swinging shut of their own accord. Natalia’s eyebrows rose in surprise at both the shock of witnessing what must have been telekinesis—she’d never seen it in action before, but she knew that some of the members of the K.G.B.’s psy-ops team were capable of the feat—and the man’s bold sartorial choice to wear something that was both sheer and trimmed with feathers.

When he reached the final window of the room, his hair wet and straight, he did not will the curtains closed. Natalia remained perfectly still. A flash of silver caught her eyes and drew her attention to his bared sternum where a pair of military identification tags hung from a slender ball chain about his neck. He stared out the window, surveying the horizon with eyes pale like Siberian waters and twice as cold. He cocked a golden eyebrow, and the lights in his room died in response, plunging him in utter darkness. Natalia could still see his silhouette in the window, limned by blue moonlight and the white-orange glow of the sleepless city. The shine made the dog tags wink back at her as he outstretched his arms and drew the heavy curtains closed.

After five consecutive nights and two daring mornings of nocturnal observation, all that Natalia could say about the White King was that he was a man of routine: he exercised before his morning shower and breakfast, he applied the same cologne to his pulse points before getting dressed, he returned to his bedchamber in the evenings wearing a different outfit than the one he had begun the day with, and he took a second shower before turning in for the night.

He spent the same amount of time each morning deliberating upon his outfit for the day, pulling from his various mahogany and gilt wardrobes Italian suit jackets and silk shirts and garments made of cashmere and velvet and fur. Natalia personally thought the fur was a bit unseasonal since Paris was still caught in the snarling jaws of la canicule and only cats were wearing fur in this heat, but what did she know of haute couture? Some nights after his shower, he curled up on a daybed and read The Feminine Mystique, a newly published book which her handlers assured her was the poisonous epitome of American radicalistic arrogance and an indicator of a infirm mind, with a cup of tea set on a nearby end table. Natalia also noted that he never took off the pair of dog tags hanging from his neck, and she had witnessed him on more than one occasion absently bring the tags to his lips and hold them there for moments on end. She wasn’t sure why, but she found it hard to look at the White King when he did that.

After she had bathed and wrapped herself in one of the hotel’s fuzzy pastel pink bathrobes on her seventh day in Paris, she phoned her handlers to report the previous night’s observations. It was not initially Vasily who had greeted her, but the handler she had reached was quick to transfer the call to the senior handler of the K.G.B.’s Black Widows. Natalia’s brow furrowed as she waited. Water dripped from her long hair and dampened the collar of the robe.

“Good morning, pauchok,” Vasily’s voice came on the secured line seconds later.

“Vasily,” Natalia’s tone was guarded. “The King has shown no variance in his behavior or any actions to suggest that he or the Queen know they are under surveillance—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Vasily cut her off. “We’ve just heard that they’re planning to fly back to the United States tomorrow. We have reason to believe that they will be going to Les Invalides this afternoon to view the exhibits in the Musée de l’Armée.Get results by tomorrow morning, little spider.”

With that, the line went dead. Natalia placed the receiver back on the phone set and sat down on her bed. She gazed down at her hands, her fingers interlacing in her lap, and she thought. Or, didn’t think. She knew what needed to happen, but she found herself peculiarly deferring the inevitable. Her fingers unlaced, and her hands fisted the plush material of her bathrobe. She felt herself resisting Vasily’s orders, felt herself attempting to embrace something which she did not quite have a word for anymore, something she had forgotten in her girlhood. Her head began to throb.

Natalia clenched her jaw to ward off an impending headache and geared up for her visit to Les Invalides. She left her suite and emerged on Avenue Montaigne in the midmorning heat wrapped in an eye-catching black gown and armed to the teeth. Guns strapped to thigh holsters hidden in the folds of her pleated skirt. Knives concealed in the bodice of her dress, an inconspicuous set of stilettos pinning her hair into an elaborate blood-red updo, blades hidden in the soles of her heeled shoes. Enough cyanide packed inside a fake diamond ring to drop a herd of white rhinoceroses and a false pearl necklace with timed explosives buried within each pretty bead. Dressed as she was, it was all too easy to flag down a cabdriver on Avenue Montaigne and be driven southward across the lazily flowing Seine, into the stately 7th Arrondissement, and through the sprawling green lawn of the Esplanade des Invalides via the flower-lined Avenue du Maréchal-Gallieni. The cabdriver was so generous (or so enamored) that when he dropped Natalia off at the open wrought iron gates and stone walls of Les Invalides, he forgot to request his fare from her before he drove off.

Natalia slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses and passed through the gateway, her heels clicking on the cream-colored pavers underfoot. Shrubbery-bordered walkways fanned out from the gate in a starburst of stone to connect with all the major entries to Les Invalides from the north. The palatial complex’s long five-story stone facade and central pedimented arch depicting Louis XIV astride a horse were dominated only by the adjoining magnificent Dôme des Invalides that rose over 100 meters high. The dome’s gold leaf ornamentation twinkled in the sunlight and caused the air around it to waver from the reflected heat.

Had the weather not been so intemperately hot, Natalia supposed that the Esplanade des Invalides and the northern yard of the complex would have been rife with picnickers, sunbathers, and tourists. As it was, though, the complex and its lush green lawns were almost wholly devoid of any semblance of human life. Here and there, Natalia would spot a person within one of the buildings as they drifted by a window or hear the distant murmur of foreign tongues from within a hall or courtyard. Flanking the low stone wall surrounding the complex was a parking lot numbering twenty or so vehicles, all unattended and likely unlocked. Natalia kept that in mind should the need to make a hasty retreat, however unlikely, present itself. After what the White King and White Queen had done to her in West Berlin, regardless of who it really was that had botched her assassination attempt, Natalia was not going to let them get out of Paris without at least making it clear that they’d never interfere with K.G.B. matters ever again.

Natalia paused in the shadow of the pedimented archway, gazing up at the stone reliefs of kings, lions, and medieval armaments of all kinds. Her eyes flickered across the Greco-Roman-inspired architectural details, and Natalia was torn in a way newfound to her since coming to France. Such extravagance and waste. Such craftsmanship and manmade beauty. Her mind beat against this place of ugly capitalism, but her soul had not the same resistance.

Something moved her deeply at the sight of this Western masterpiece, this pompous show of everything she had been told was evil in the world and must be expunged to restore morality to mankind. Something wondrous and defiant and utterly unknown to Natalia stirred within her, and that unsettled her in a way that nothing else ever had or ever could. For some equally inexplicable reason, she began to hum Tchaikovsky, and all was righted once more.

Freed from the arch’s strange hold, Natalia passed under it and into the cannon-filled Cour d’Honneur. A plaque written in French supplied Natalia with the name of the complex’s central courtyard and its purpose for military parades. An array of signs likewise pointed out entrances to the surrounding arched five-story buildings. The Saint-Louis-des-Invalides Cathedral made up the rear of the courtyard and offered ingress beneath a bronze statue of Napoleon standing on the second story overlooking the court with a hand in his waistcoat. Flanking the courtyard to the east and west were wings of the Musée de l’Armée which were otherwise unmarked to reveal what lay within each. Natalia followed the small crowd milling about the court, purchased a ticket at one of the entrances, and slipped into a series of rooms dedicated to French history from 1871 to 1945 A.D.

Natalia took off her sunglasses and silently made her way around the exhibits, squeezing between tour groups and studying each display as she kept an eye on the faces surrounding her. She inspected military uniforms from the World Wars, objects from soldiers’ daily lives, emblems, arms, and items relating to France’s colonial history behind protective glass cases. She examined paintings, personal archives, photographs, and cards that gave a distinctly Gallic perspective on the conflicts escalating to the Great War, the inter-war period, and the build-up of nationalistic and political pressures which led to World War II.

Having learned all there was to learn from the exhibits and displays in the Département Contemporain, including the fact that her hotel’s restaurant had apparently served as a cafeteria for the American troops during the Liberation of Paris, Natalia slipped out of a massive set of mahogany doors and broke from the relatively bustling World War rooms. Finding herself in a desolate hall lit only by the sun’s warm rays filtering in through the windows on either side of her, Natalia watched as dust motes spiraled through the light before slinking down the corridor.

An hour or more had elapsed since her arrival and there was still no sign of the White King and White Queen. Perhaps the intel had been bad? Then again, it was just now thirty minutes shy of noon and the Musée de l’Armée was a large portion of an even larger network of interconnected buildings and halls—the pair could have been anywhere. A tingle in the back of her mind and a tug in her gut told Natalia, though, that she was going in the right direction. Since her intuition had yet to fail her in her twenty-one years, she listened. After a series of similarly deserted hallways, a flight or two of stairs, and a set of heavy wooden doors later, Natalia found herself in one of the many rooms of the much less populated Département Ancien.

Only a few museumgoers shuffled about in the room Natalia had crept into, looking at dusty sets of war armor and arms from the 13th to 15th centuries and an impressive collection of medieval swords. Natalia idly inspected the remarkable quantity of blades for a few moments before continuing on into the next room which was named, according to a plaque over the doorway, the Louis XIII Room: The Progress of the Royal Army. Five civilians milled about the Louis XIII Room, which Natalia quickly discovered was more precisely dedicated to artifacts from the Italian campaigns, the wars against the Habsburg Empire, the wars of religion of the 16th century, and the early 17th century French wars. Arms and armors related to major figures of French history spanning from Francis I to Louis XIII were featured, and there was a Turkish cabinet showcasing Ottoman pieces from the same period. Natalia traipsed on through a themed arsenal gallery next and then through a room highlighting courtly leisure activities like hunting and jousting from the late Middle Ages to the mid-17th century.

Finally, she came to an archway bearing a plaque that read “Oriental Cabinets (15th – Early 20th Century).” Beyond laid a room much like the others in the Département Ancien; it was occupied by a handful of immediately visible people, filled with relics of long-dead peoples, and was seemingly absent of any sign of Natalia’s targets. She stifled a sigh as she stepped into the room and immersed herself in the wide assortment of suits of armor, knives, and firearms deriving from the war cultures of the Ottoman, Persian, Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesian civilizations. The Musée de l’Armée’s host of weapons, ornaments, and oriental trophies from the Middle East to the furthermost bounds of Asia, from Maghreb to Japan, was astounding.

As Natalia approached a display of five samurai panoplies upheld by wooden pegs protected behind a glass wall, a glimmer of ash-pale blonde hair appeared in her periphery. Natalia focused all of her mental energy on appreciating the craftsmanship and antiquity of the suits of armor before her, the way the light played off the grotesque black masks, the distinct shape and construction of each piece’s breastplate. The White King and Queen had rounded a corner and were murmuring to one another about an opalescent sea snail shell that had been transformed into a lustrous powder horn and a series of heavy 16th century matchlock guns. Natalia’s hands folded over her stomach, her fingers prepared to slip a set of concealed blades out from a series of slits in her bodice. She quietly walked to the next display in their direction, a collection of Japanese horse armors fitted on life-size model horses, and eavesdropped on their conversation.

“—hard to believe the Portuguese singlehandedly changed the way warfare was fought in Japan forever, is it not?”

The White King’s voice was like liquid crystal, like cut glass: polished, cold, smooth, hard. It sent a chill through Natalia, and she was momentarily torn back to the pressing heat of June 26. His voice—she hadn’t remembered it, couldn’t quite recall it, not until now. He was the one, the one who caused the West Berlin Incident. Natalia’s eyes snapped to his reflection in the glass of the display she stood before.

His back was to her and he was several exhibits away, but she was able to get a clear image of him nonetheless. Light grey slacks and matching Italian suit jacket. Pale cashmere Borsalino fedora. Black leather brogues and gloves. He shifted his weight and turned to examine another matchlock, permitting Natalia sight of the pressed white dress shirt, asymmetric maroon waistcoat, and wine-colored ascot he wore under his unbuttoned suit jacket. He was not visibly armed, but that mattered very little in his case; as a psychic of the highest order, his mind was an armament deadlier than any nuclear or chemical weapon.

At length, the White Queen—wrapped in an ecru shawl-necked and sheath-skirted dress paired with lace gloves and designer pumps—replied with an equally as frigid aristocratic accent: “You know how looking at these dusty old guns catapults me into a depressive spiral, darling.”

The White King glanced to the woman beside him, his eyes studying her profile, and he reached a gloved hand out to her exposed bicep. His fingers had barely brushed the White Queen’s skin when she reached up and gently patted the back of his hand. Natalia’s eyes narrowed. There was something peculiarly childlike in his action, something maternally reassuring about her reaction. Natalia reassessed their relationship in her mind, placing the White Queen in the role of elder sister this time and the White King as younger brother.

“If you need anything, I’ll be at Napoleon’s tomb reliving the days when Joséphine and I used to mock his stature behind his back,” the White Queen flashed the man at her side a wry grin, and Natalia’s brow furrowed in confusion. Was she speaking in code? She must have been—Napoleon Bonaparte died over a century ago. “Who knows? I may ridicule the domineering little toad once more for old time’s sake. Kisses.”

With that, she turned on her heel and sashayed out of the room through the opposite archway. The White King returned to his inspection of the matchlocks and likely to his musing about the Portuguese influence on Japanese warfare as well. Natalia walked on to the next display, no longer paying much attention to what rested behind the sturdy sheets of glass. Her eyes flicked around the room.

Glass displays set in the walls. Glass exhibits anchored to wooden or stone bases strewn about the floor. Weapons of all sorts at every turn. Walls on either side with wide, full-length arched windows looking out to a courtyard each—the Cour d’Honneur to the east and the smaller Cour d'Angoulème to the west. The open archway behind her offered passage to the room concerning the pastimes of France’s court and another arch in the far southern wall opened to a corridor. The few museumgoers in the room slowly made their way in either direction out of the Oriental Cabinets.

Natalia steeled herself. When the last civilian exited the room, she noiselessly turned about and stalked toward the White King. Her fingers twitched against her bodice, and thin blades slipped free and rolled into each of her hands.

“Lovely to see you again, comrade,” the White King said, facing the centuries-old harquebuses rather than Natalia. “Have you enjoyed spying on us?”

Natalia was stunned, nearly stumbling on her way to him. He knew. They knew—had known all along. They’d been playing the K.G.B. this whole time, intentionally leaving a trail to be followed. Why? Natalia’s eyes snapped around the room. No civilians, no witnesses, no White Queen. The heavy mahogany doors thrown open at each archway slammed shut and bolted as if controlled by a spectral breeze. She had walked right into a trap.

Her lip curled, and she charged the White King. She fell upon him as he turned to finally face her, and she buried one knife deep into his back as she jabbed up with her other arm, jamming the blade into his throat. His eyes widened in shock before he collapsed to his knees and—

“You are going to have to try harder than that, sweetheart.”

Natalia whipped around, drawing the last set of blades from her bodice and slashed out at the man behind her. Blood arced in a brilliant scarlet stream in the air until it… didn’t. Before it even fell upon the ground, it had vaporized into prismatic mist. The crimson dripping down her knives and staining her hands melted away into nothingness. The White King—a second White King?—crumpled at her feet.

She staggered, backing into a glass display case, eyes wild. Natalia’s gaze snapped from the first White King to the second, both equally as dead as the other, both the exact same person. How?

“Cute,” a third White King stepped into view from around a rack of North African armors.

Natalia snarled and threw a blade in his direction. Her aim was true, and the knife spiked him between his piercing ice blue eyes. He died on the spot.

After a pregnant pause, Natalia frowned and knelt down beside the second White King. She pressed her index and middle finger to his throat, feeling for a pulse that had already weakly bled out of existence. His flesh was still warm, though, and it was surprisingly soft. She withdrew her hand, uncertain what to make of… well, anything.

“What kind of deception—?”

“You tell us, comrade,” two identical voices—the White King’s—harmonized with one another, and Natalia scanned the room in alarm. A White King leaned against the display of samurai armors she had earlier observed. Another King yawned indifferently by the far mahogany doors. “In fact, why not tell all of us?”

Before her eyes, the three corpses scattered about on the marble floor twitched to life. Quick as a lightning strike, Natalia slammed her final blade into the stirring White King nearest her and watched as he immaterialized into glittering stardust and then empty air. Natalia’s eyes widened, and when she felt the first White King’s hands grasp her shoulders from behind, she surged up, snagging the blade protruding from his throat, and flipped herself over. She landed on his shoulders, her strong legs wrapped about his neck, and with a twist of her body, she severed his spine and leapt off of him. By the time her last victim crashed to the floor, she had already flung the knife she had just recovered and had stuck the White King nearest the far doors in the sternum. Both White Kings burst apart in clouds of sparkling dust that drifted away like smoke into the horizon. Natalia rounded and chucked her final blade at the White King she had previously nailed between the eyes, once more dropping him.

“Illusions of a sort,” said the White King—the final one, the real one?—who leaned casually against the samurai exhibit, “but also tangible constructs, as you clearly noticed. A little blending of telepathic persuasion and telekinetic energy can go quite the distance.”

Natalia blinked.

“Yes,” the corner of his lips ticked up into a roguish grin. “I am the authentic. It really is a delight to see you again, Natalia.”

“You were in West Berlin,” Natalia said dumbly, her composure apparently fractured after such a strange experience.

She’d fought a psychic or two who had tried to distract her with illusions, but never before had they been so… corporeal. She had felt the wet heat of fresh blood on her skin, had felt the smooth fabric of his clothes and the straining solidity of the body they covered.

“Indeed, comrade. Now, is this the point in our exchange where you tell me to keep my nose out of K.G.B. business? I admit that I have been looking forward to it.”

Natalia took a single step toward the White King, and he tilted his head curiously. Something popped in her head, and Natalia’s vision splintered, spidery fissures rapidly spreading inward from the corners of her eyes until her sight had corroded into a series of frost-edged translucent fractals, until she felt as though she were looking directly through the heart of a multifaceted jewel in order to see her surroundings. She attempted to glower at the White King but found that when she turned her gaze on him, she saw his face broken into five different shards and the rest of him jaggedly distorted like a damned Picasso portrait. Natalia stumbled, struggling to make sense of what she saw around her. She shook her head, wincing and nauseous, and felt a white chill tapping on the boundaries of her mind.

“You look a mite ill, comrade,” the White King noted dryly. “Is this really all it takes to squash one of you Soviet spiders? In the spirit of candor, you fail to live up to expectation.”

Natalia gnashed her teeth and rushed the man. He easily sidestepped her and leaned out of the way when she wheel kicked the space between them. Growling out her frustration, she lurched at him, hoping to tackle him if nothing else, her vision crystallized and heartbeat quickening. He merely nudged her out of the way, knocking her into another glass exhibit.

Natalia closed her eyes and recomposed herself. Getting worked up would only result in getting even sloppier. She needed to focus. To breathe. To listen.

“This is just embarr—” Ears pricked and eyes clenched shut, Natalia stepped into the King’s voice, jabbing out with her left fist and brushing the fine fabric of his suit jacket. Reconfiguring the proximity upon hearing his breath spike in surprise as he pulled back from her, she took three quick steps and hooked him across the jaw with her right fist. “Bloody hell!”

It had been a glancing blow, but it had been enough. She let her body turn with the momentum of her right hook, leaning into his recoiling frame and spinning to strike the White King with the back of her left fist or to crush his windpipe with her elbow. He tripped her foot mid-turn, though, and sent her tumbling before him. Twisting, Natalia plucked the stilettos from her updo, sending her long hair cascading around her, and slung the short tapered knives up at the White King from her inelegant stance on the floor. The sleek daggers slowed the second they left Natalia’s hands until they came to a halt in the air, their deadly points half a meter from piercing the man’s thigh and abdomen.

The White King slowly turned his gaze back to Natalia. His jaw was already beginning to bruise. His fedora sat at a jaunty angle atop his head now, and long strands of hair hung down in his face from his coiffure, having been knocked out of place by the force of Natalia’s punch which had also apparently jarred him enough for him to cease the telepathic spell he had over her sight. Her vision had finally returned to normal. The White King’s eyes were ablaze, his glacier blue irises becoming rings of luminous silver light in seconds that seemed to span centuries. Natalia could feel the air crackle with energy around the King and her, and she finally felt like she was beginning to comprehend that this man was not one to be trifled with. She had read as much in his files, but reading and witnessing were two entirely separate things as Natalia was discovering.

“Good hit,” his voice was hard as stone. “Now, if you would, my rebuttal.”

The stilettos redirected their suspended trajectories and were released from the White King’s telekinetic hold, or rather, were expelled like darts from it. On either side of Natalia and the White King, the daggers streaked through the air and struck the marble floor, puncturing it as though it were warmed butter rather than cold rock and sank to the hilt into the polished stone. Before Natalia could even respond, she was hurled across the room and propelled into a case of antique blades from the Middle East, the wind knocked from her lungs as glass shattered, wood cracked, and blades fell around her and cut at her exposed flesh. She slid to the floor amidst the wreckage, gasping and eyes wide but not frightened. She didn’t scare that easily.

The White King’s irises returned to their normal frigid blue hue, and as he strode to her, he turned his gaze down to his white dress shirt which had come untucked during their fight. He fixed his shirt while he walked, and Natalia eyed the man for a moment as he stalked toward her before quickly taking stock of the situation. He had five or six inches of height and maybe twenty or thirty pounds of weight on her, but she was surrounded by fallen swords and was used to capitalizing on her being the smaller opponent in combat. While the King’s attention was elsewhere, Natalia subtly reached across her body, wrapped her fingers around the leather-wrapped grip of a scimitar, assessed the length of the blade and the diminishing distance between the King and her, and waited. Three steps, two steps, one step—

She lunged upward just as the White King stepped within range, and she swung the scimitar’s curved edge out in a wide arc, catching the man off-guard. His reflexes were quick, but they were not anywhere near quick enough to entirely evade the blade. He cursed hotly and staggered away from Natalia, gripping his right bicep. Claret blood spilled like dark wine from between his gloved fingers and trickled from the gash in the arm of his suit jacket. Had he not managed a half-step back before the sword struck him, he would have lost his arm.

Pressing her advantage, Natalia utilized the motion of the first strike to spring into the air. Swinging the scimitar over her head, she planned to bring it crashing down on the White King. She had not expected him to be prepared for the downstroke of the sword, though, much less catch the blade between the flat of his hands and actually stop it, leather gloves ripping and sparks flying. Natalia couldn’t even process how he had done it until after she had collided into him, had felt every bone in her body rattle on impact, and had rolled to the blood-speckled marble floor after he had shoulder-checked her aside as though she were a ragdoll.

She stared up at the White King as he tossed the scimitar over his shoulder, his whole person scinitillating in the afternoon light. His flesh, his hair, his teeth, his eyes… they were coated in some kind of crystalline carapace. Or… the makeup of his entire body had somehow transmuted into a strange, organic diamond substance.

“Bozhe moi…” Natalia breathed, otherwise rendered speechless. He was beautiful and awesome and definitely a hell of a lot harder to kill now. This certainly hadn’t been mentioned in the K.G.B.’s dossier.

The second his body shifted to take a step in Natalia’s direction, she snapped out of her daze and hiked up her skirt, drawing her handguns from the holsters strapped to her thighs. She didn’t even aim. Not at the range she was at and not when a man made of diamond was about to bear down on her. She just fired. Repeatedly. And prayed to a God she just might start believing in if this do-or-die tactic worked.

A fusillade of staccato gunfire filled the room, but much to Natalia’s dread, the White King still stood resolute and immovable. Every single bullet had either flattened into steaming bronze discs when they struck him or had ricocheted wildly off the curves and contours of his dazzling body. One of the bullets actually slung off of him and grazed Natalia’s left shoulder. She couldn’t even feel the stinging pain beyond the numbing shock she felt. Who was this man?

“You are certainly not the first person to realize that you cannot harm me like that in this form, comrade,” The White King said, his voice oddly metallic and detached. “But be my guest and keep trying if you so wish.”

He began to prowl toward her, and after everything she had seen today, Natalia knew with a cold rationality that her only real option left to her was racing in the opposite direction of the White King and hoping for the best. She wasn’t equipped with the means to take him down, not like this. As he continued to unhurriedly advance on her, Natalia scrambled to her feet and ran, covering her retreat with another vain barrage of bullets.

Her eyes darted along the wall to which she dashed. Eastern wall. The Cour d’Honneur was two or three stories below her—she couldn’t remember anymore, but it didn’t matter. She had made jumps much worse than two or three stories and had walked it off afterward. Out one of the windows it was, then.

Natalia gritted her teeth and braced herself seconds before she barreled into a window and soared out of the Oriental Cabinets. For the second time that day, shards of glass burst around her, the sharp splinters sparking in the sunlight and spreading like pearlescent lines of a web behind her. The wind tugged at her snapping hair, and she alit neatly upon the sun-warmed pavers of the complex’s vacant central courtyard as the glass rained down around her like cutting hailstones. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Natalia glanced back up in the direction from which she had fallen. Outside the long rooms of the Musée de l’Armée, she could now tell that she had in fact been on the third story.

The White King stood in the window with one brogue-shod foot raised on the ledge and one hand gloved in tattered leather resting against the frame. Shimmery colored light sparked like fire off of him, and when he canted his head to scrutinize her from three stories up, glaring starbursts of prismatic color scorched Natalia’s eyes. When she finally averted her gaze and did the only logical thing left to do—sprint out of the Cour d’Honneur, hotwire a car in the parking lot of Les Invalides, and speed back across the Seine away from her second failure as an elite deep-cover agent of the K.G.B.—the bright white spots of his shine that had been burned into the backs of her eyelids remained.

2 notes · View notes

coolthingsisee · 4 years

Text

How to start your own backyard vegetable garden

Vegetable gardens for beginners: 6 steps to get started

Kim Kleman For The Journal News

Published 7:31 AM EDT Apr 13, 2020

During periods of uncertainty, time outside in a natural setting can provide a measure of calm.

Taking an actionable approach by growing your own vegetables may provide a small sense of control, even if the vegetables produced are a small supplement to your diet. Gardening is a low-tech (hey, no-tech!) activity you can do with your kids or grandkids.

If you’ve always wanted to grow your own vegetables and feel that now is the time to start, but don’t know how to begin, here are some basic tips:

Vegetable garden in late summer. Herbs, flowers and vegetables in backyard formal garden. Eco friendly gardening

firina, Getty Images/iStockphoto

CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS IN NY: A list

STRETCH YOUR PANTRY: Food Network star has easy tips

SOUP CHALLENGE: Chefs aim to make, distribute 1 million gallons

Where to plant?

Most vegetables require six to eight hours a day of direct sun, so a plot with a southern or southwestern exposure is perfect. Avoid low areas that tend to drain poorly. As a beginner, keep your plot to 100 square feet or less. That size will take you roughly an hour to prepare, an hour to plant and a half hour each week to weed, water and harvest.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have the perfect location — almost nobody does. Consider using several small areas to take advantage of fragmented sunny spots. Or interplant vegetables in your flower garden. Many vegetables grow well in containers on a sunny porch. (Container plants dry out faster than garden soil, so you have to be diligent about watering, and these will also require more fertilizer than vegetables grown in the ground.)

Soil prep

Soil in our area typically has sufficient nutrients to grow vegetables. Do not disturb the soil until it is dry enough to be worked. Wait until a handful of soil crumbles a bit after you if give it a gentle squeeze. There’s no reason to haul in topsoil, but do remove any weeds where you plan to grow your crops.

It’s a good idea to check the soil pH and correct this if needed (pH is the relative acidity or alkalinity that determines nutrient availability). It’s also a good idea to mix in organic matter such as compost. And you’ll want to fertilize occasionally, especially if the vegetables you plant are heavy feeders, such as tomatoes. Consult seed packages and the Cornell Cooperative Extension for information on fertilizer requirements for specific vegetables.

Critter control

Your hard work will be for naught if you don’t varmint-proof your garden. Unless your vegetables are in containers on an inaccessible deck or patio, this means erecting a tall fence for deer, and one that extends out at least 12 inches horizontally from the base (a few inches under the soil surface) so rabbits and woodchucks don’t burrow. For accessible container gardens, consider covering plants with hardware cloth cages or supported plastic mesh so critters don’t have a feast on your porch.

What to grow?

Plant what you know your family will eat; if they tolerate only vegetable basics, don’t go wild with kale and bok choy. This first year of your garden, consider growing easy vegetables that typically taste better homegrown than store-bought, such as peas, snap beans and some salad greens. Good for small spaces: salad greens, beets, herbs, hot peppers, radishes and snap beans. Tomatoes may be more of a challenge. Start with small to medium-fruited varieties that have multiple disease resistance. Know that broccoli, cabbage, corn, cucumber, melons and squash take up a lot of room and can get buggy.

Various types of lettuce grow in vegetable gardens

Cate Gillon, Getty Images

How to plant and how much to grow?

Plant tall vegetables in the back (north side) of your garden so they don’t cast shadows on smaller plants. Save space by trellising crops that produce runners or vines, such as squash and pole beans. You can group plants together with similar requirements, such as those that tolerate a bit of shade, or group early crops together so you can plant a second batch more easily. You can plant in rows or in “blocks” of plants; the latter provides a higher yield.

Avoid growing too many plants of one crop. A few productive tomato plants can supply the average family more than enough fruit. A few square feet of radishes or lettuce can overwhelm you; if you plant several at a time biweekly, you’ll have a steadier supply of produce. Follow advice on seed packages or seedling pots for planting, spacing and yield information.

Care and harvest

Keep seeded areas evenly moist until plants emerge. Mature vegetables typically require an inch of water per week. A good, deep soaking is better than frequent, light waterings. To minimize diseases, water early in the morning and try not to wet leaves. Fertilize only as necessary. Suppress weeds with a thin layer of organic mulch or pluck them when they’re young; they otherwise compete with your vegetables for light and water. Harvest vegetables regularly and at their peak for continued production (and best flavor).

For more information on vegetable gardening, contact your local Cooperative Extension. In Westchester County, see westchester.cce.cornell.edu

Outside of Westchester, find your local Cooperative Extension office at cce.cornell.edu/localoffices.

Kim Kleman is a Master Gardener Volunteer with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester.

Published 7:31 AM EDT Apr 13, 2020

This content was originally published here.

0 notes

nightmare-afton-cosplay · 4 years

Text

Why the Coronavirus Has Me Window Shopping Real Estate Like Crazy

peakSTOCK/Getty Images

It’s 2 a.m. and I can’t sleep—a common occurrence ever since the coronavirus began its hideous, horrible path through New York City, where I’ve been living for the past year.

Yet whenever pandemic panic kicks in during the wee hours, I have figured out the perfect panacea for my insomnia: I grab my phone and start shopping for real estate.

Right now, I rent an apartment in a high-rise building. If I venture outside, I strap on a mask, touch elevator buttons with my elbow, and cower from my neighbors in the lobby.

It goes without saying that New York is a tough place to live right now. My anxiety craves an escape hatch.

And nothing delivers like a listing photo of a spacious cabin on a remote, wooded 10 acres, with a lush garden overlooking a private lake.

How to socially isolate in style: 10 acres, two ponds, and your own stream. A back-to-the-land dream house.

realtor.com

Am I looking to move? Not yet. In New York state, in-person home tours aren’t even allowed, and I’d never buy a place sight unseen.

Nonetheless, window shopping for real estate fills me with a sense of calm.

In the same way that fantasizing about an upcoming vacation helps people slog through a few more weeks of their 9-to-5 job, checking out real estate gives me the fortitude to push on.

Why window shopping for real estate is a popular pastime today

“I’m thinking this is a sign from above that we aren’t meant to live in cities,” remarked one of my friends, a fellow New Yorker.

During this conversation, my friend shared with me the real estate listing she was eyeing online.

It was a sweet white Colonial with buttermilk-blue shutters in Connecticut, about 45 minutes from her current apartment, with a pretty green lawn and a slate patio. Just looking at it made the oppressive anxiety I was experiencing lift briefly.

My friend was, like me, just looking, with no serious intent to buy just yet. And it turns out we’re hardly alone; apparently online real estate window-shopping is a very popular pastime these days.

“This COVID thing has me looking online for a condo rental on the Jersey Shore,” another New Yorker friend told me.

“I feel as if I could be laid off any minute now, so why not have a cheap little place by the beach to ride this out? Not sure if I’ll actually do it, but I’m considering it.”

While window shopping for real estate has always been a thing, it’s on the rise.

Pollena Forsman, associate real estate broker at Houlihan Lawrence, in Westchester County, NY, just outside the city, has seen online views “ticking up and up.”

Browsing listings during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, is a bit different from the garden-variety real estate window shopping of the past.

For one, there’s an element of high anxiety and a slew of “what ifs” in the mix.

As in: What if this pandemic gets so bad, I need to escape the city? What if the economy tanks and I have to head to the (inexpensive) hills because I’m broke and can’t afford the city?

This sunny, rambling Connecticut Colonial with a pool out back and a swing suspended in an old tree lowered my stress to manageable levels.

realtor.com

“People are panicked,” explains Alison Bernstein, president and founder of the Suburban Jungle Group, a national real estate firm that assists people leaving the city for the suburbs.

“[Our web traffic and calls] are up 40% from this time last year.”

Many of these calls, Bernstein says, are from people who were previously considering a move but decided they were not ready.

“But now, they are ready,” she says. “They don’t want to get on elevators anymore, or do laundry in a shared space.”

In the past, I might have swooned over a cute, compact brownstone in a hip neighborhood in New York City.

Now, I place a premium on space, picking out dilapidated Victorians on a few acres, or well-kept contemporaries with pools, or hot tubs—anything that would enable my family to practice social distancing in style.

In my fantasy real estate shopping, I often remind myself that mortgage interest rates are at near-historic lows. I allow myself to nudge my price point up, virtual-touring a beautifully restored Greek Revival with a pool out back.

Then I think maybe, if the COVID-19 devastation continues, I should consider smaller-town life, far from the pull of the big, germ-infested city. That’s when I find myself looking at little brick row houses in charming villages that dot the border of Pennsylvania.

I tell myself that perhaps we should relocate completely—none of this “weekend house near the city” nonsense.

Who knew a contemporary house could be so charming? I call dibs on that hot tub.

realtor.com

What real estate window shopping really means

Yet while many people are formulating their plan B’s right now, whether they’ll actually move once quarantine lifts and people can start touring homes remains to be seen.

Perhaps real estate window shopping serves a more immediate purpose: to keep us calm during this crisis.

It’s not on a big lot, but the architectural detail of this village Victorian had me swooning.

realtor.com

“Of course, people are likelier to feel unsafe in a densely populated area where they are more likely to contract the virus,” says Jennifer Kornreich, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in private practice in Huntington, NY, when I ask her what this relentless and restless real estate review is all about.

“Also, the upside to city life diminishes when people see that they can’t take advantage of all things that drew them to the city, like great restaurants and the arts,” she adds.

“And people who have lost income may be even less able to do those things when cities reopen. Simpler pleasures that you can still do while social distancing—gardening, enjoying nature, exercising outdoors—just aren’t as easily available in the city.”

Also, there’s a fantasy component to this.

“Since we can’t get together with others, much of our leisure time is spent in our imaginations,” Kornreich explains.

The house hunting is all about dreaming of possible escapes, somewhat like looking at vacation spots, even if you never actually go there.

Fantasy aside, COVID-19 is also prompting people to re-evaluate their lives. “Confronting your mortality as we are now doing may push you to think about what changes you want to make in life,” both large and small, she says.

In other words, this pandemic may urge you to live closer to family, or quit your rat race job in the city for a kinder, gentler life in a more rural setting.

What’s more, scanning for alternate homes feels as if we are mobilizing to take action in a situation that has thrown us all into a state of upheaval and powerlessness.

“Right now, you can’t control where you go in public, but you may be able to control where you live,” says Kornreich.

Maybe she’s right.

Perhaps this is why I’m awake at 2 a.m., scanning everything from short sales and mini estates that could get me off the urban grid.

I have lost my bearings, my lifestyle, and my confidence in my own well-being.

Looking at houses lets me imagine a life different from this lockdown. It makes me think there’s a future for me in making a fresh start, having freedom, taking the reins, and living my best life.

Whether or not I move, that hopeful, confident surge I get from real estate window shopping into the wee hours is 200% worth it.

The post Why the Coronavirus Has Me Window Shopping Real Estate Like Crazy appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

from https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/why-what-if-real-estate-window-shopping-is-all-the-rage-today/

0 notes

short-fuse-long-jacket · 7 years

Text

A Case of the Fuck-Its || Jubes and Jono

Jubilee had been half tempted to ask someone to come get her from the city, and now that she'd made it back to the mansion she regretted not. The subway connections followed by a long train back to Westchester had done nothing to help her mood, nor did any of the looks she got as she made her way to her room, occasional sparks she'd managed to control until then flying from her fingertips. She slammed the door with enough force that it bounced back open, hit the wall and stilled half way closed. The sound echoed through the staff quarters and she was (very) distantly grateful that Ex wasn't in her room. She gave the door a nasty look but didn't bother to close it again. It would have to wait a few minutes at least. She used an old training bo staff to slide her backpack to the far side of her bathroom, putting as much distance between herself and her electronics as possible. Still using the staff she unplugged everything else and poked what she could into the bathroom. It wasn't until she finished that she realized how hard she was gripping the staff and let it fall to the floor. Her hands flexed, tiny plasmoids forming around them almost as fast as she could will them away. "Get it together, Lee." She gritted out, though apparently that wasn't what she needed to hear, even from herself and she lashed out, swiping everything off her desk and onto the floor. - Jono didn’t startle easily, but that didn’t hold true for the Purrfessor; when there was a loud and resounding door slam followed by the thud of the door hitting the wall, the cat was flying off the bed in a matter of seconds with Jono left holding his book, wondering who was attacking the Academy this time. Eventually he realized the answer was ‘Jubilee,’ so he scooted off the bed and headed for his door, pausing only briefly to consider before he stepped into the hall. All things considered, this would be one of those times that, if he were her, he’d tell anyone trying to get involved to fuck off. He also realized, however, that nine times out of ten, he didn’t actually want anyone to fuck off. So, it was worth a shot. Jono sidled carefully into view at Jubilee’s door, and sure enough, his warning bells were ringing; anyone who’d spent any length of time at the Massachusetts academy had learned soon enough that if Jubilee was putting her electronics out of sight, it was Bad News. Angelo had learned this a couple of times, both of them the hard way. Still trying to figure out exactly how to get her attention without getting paffed, Jono blinked in surprise as he watched Jubilee swipe the contents of her desk to the floor and finally took a half-step into the room, holding up a placating hand. \Oi, sunshine--… \ It ended there. “Are you okay” was obviously a “no,” and he wasn’t about to tell her to calm down. Not if he wanted to keep the top few layers of his skin. - She stared at the objects strewn over the floor, taking deep measured breaths and flexing her hands repeatedly, trying to will away the gathering electrons before they could charge the gases in the air coalesce into something bigger. She was mostly successful, stray sparks flying but fizzling out before they hit the floor. She was gritting her teeth, though against what she wasn't sure, yelling, probably. She saw a tall figure in her doorway out of the corner of her eye before he spoke, but didn't acknowledge him until he stepped in and his voice came into her mind as cautious as she'd ever heard it. Even then she didn't make eye contact, afraid that he might try to calm her down, or worse, succeed. "Go away." She growled, kicking at the text books sprawled on the floor just for a way to vent some anger without lashing out at Jono or damaging her room. "'M not feelin' all that sunny today." - \Tha’s okay,\ he reassured her carefully, side-stepping both the request to leave and the door as he pushed it closed again with a far more gentle hand, giving them some privacy but not advancing any further into the room. It wasn’t that he was afraid Jubilee would lash out at him, even unintentionally, and Jono figured he probably wouldn’t even mind if she did. He just didn’t want to invade her space without any kind of go-ahead first. \Textbooks are expensive, though,\ he added, with a nod towards the books she’d leveled a kick at, trying to lighten the mood without being patronizing. \Maybe yeh wanna talk about it, instead?\ Jono’s eyes flickered from what he could see of Jubilee’s face to her hands and back up again, wondering what could’ve pushed her buttons so thoroughly. - She shot him a brief and suspicious look when he closed the door, distantly aware that she didn't actually want to be alone, wanting him to leave anyway and frustrated at having both feelings at once. But that was the problem, wasn't it? She was just feeling too much. Anger and grief and disgust and betrayal and all of it boiled inside her, feeling like there was no way to let it out. This wasn't her. It's not like she's some kind of image of serenity, reactive and volatile were probably better descriptors for her temperament. It didn't matter what emotion you were talking about, hers went off like...well, a firework. And usually they burned out just as quickly, settling back into her normally positive outlook. Three hours in and this one was still burning hot. "I don't want to talk," she said, a larger blue plasmoid forming before she could will it away. She held it there in her control, slowly letting the charge go until it vanished. She sat on the edge of her bed and pressed her palms to her thighs, knowing it would discourage them from forming. "I'm so sick of talking, Jono." - \Okay. No talking,\ he agreed easily, holding his hands up as he watched that blue plasmoid growing and crackling in Jubilee’s hand, still unafraid but keeping a close eye on it all the same. Jono kept his eyes fixed on her as she sat, his brow furrowing as he watched the way her fingers bit into her thighs with the tension, and eventually he nodded. \C’mon.\ Jono pulled the door open again with a gesture, stepping out into the hall and only pausing when it was clear he expected Jubilee to follow. \I won’t make yeh talk, but I want to show you somethin’ instead.\ - She hated feeling this out of control, it reminded her of being young and scared and of all the damage she could cause if her powers got away from her. That wouldn't happen today, she wasn't that far gone, but if something like this had her powers on the fritz, what would a real loss do? Jean once said she might be able to do fission and fusion at the height of her powers. So if it wasn't bad enough to know you might be a walking a-bomb, they had to add knowing you could create a sun? Yeah, that fucked her up for a while. And knowing she could hurt Jono, even when she's like this, that sent a sharp chill down her spine. "I'm not interested in a field trip." She grumbled, but stood anyway, cramming her hands into her pockets. "Just leave, Jono. I'll be fine in a couple'a hours." - \I thought we weren’t talking. C’mon.\ Apparently not about to take no for an answer, Jono jerked his head towards the hall again before turning on his heel and starting to walk down it, slipping his hands in his pockets and sincerely hoping Jubilee would follow. Anyone who’d known Jono for long enough -- and it didn’t have to be long at all -- knew he had the market cornered on emotional outbursts that frequently went literal, with his powers involved. He’d blown half of the Massachusetts’ female dorm off when a drunk Paige had unexpectedly kissed him, and while that was likely the most embarrassing instance, it was neither the first nor the last. Jono wasn’t necessarily anticipating Jubilee would go nuclear. He had way more faith in her control over her abilities than he had over his own. He had a different kind of plan. - She shifted her weight from foot to foot for a few seconds before rolling her eyes and making a completely unexaggerated sound of frustration. It was a struggle between wanting to be alone to wallow and wanting the comfort of another person (specifically him) that didn't last long and she found herself jogging to catch up, her hands still balled into fists in her pockets. "Where are we going?" Her tone was still flat and irritated, though she hoped he knew it wasn't at him. She just didn't know how to cope with this, with something so out of line with her view of reality, with feelings that conflicted with how she saw herself and with everything she'd always believed. She couldn't imagine anyone, even someone who knew her as well as he did, finding a way to distract her from this. - \Outside.\ It was obviously more specific than that, but Jono was sticking with the ‘no talking’ rule, since he didn’t really want to try and explain before they got there. He pushed open the nearest door that would take them into the outdoor heat, holding it open for her without fanfare. He’d felt a surprising amount of relief when he’d heard Jubilee’s footsteps catching up to him, not that Jono had expected her to ignore him but quietly pleased when she didn’t all the same. He was feigning nonchalance as they fell into step on a path that lead them away from the academy and towards a line of trees, but there was a tension in his shoulders as he struggled with not asking her what had happened, what was so wrong. Jono knew she’d tell him on her own time, and even if she didn’t he’d do his best to accept that. Still, even as they walked in the relative quiet of buzzing insects and the occasional bird, Jono kept casting glances at Jubilee from the corner of his eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets again to avoid reaching for hers. - It was hard not to bump against him or fish for his hand when she caught up with him, but as much as she wanted the affection she wasn't sure what would happen if she let her rage cool down. She settled for scuffing her feet along side him, petulantly kicking up tufts of grass with each step. She didn't look at him, shame over how she was acting warring against all her other emotions. 'Not even related and I still managed to get Logan's temper.' She grumbled internally. Though if anyone was going to understand her lashing put it would probably be Jono, especially considering he'd already managed to get her out of the dorms without her blowing anything up, crying or screaming. She let her arm brush against his for a step, hoping whatever residual electrical charge she had around her didn't bother him too much. - The hair on Jono’s arm bristled with the brush of Jubilee’s, and he suppressed a shiver at the feeling. It was unexpected but not unwelcome, and he moved his arm to brush carefully against hers in return when he had a chance, purposeful but light enough to be incidental. Even then he didn’t say anything, leading her deeper into the woods once they passed the tree line. After another ten minutes or so of walking that probably felt like a lot longer for the silence, Jono stepped back out of the trees into a field, far bigger than a usual forest clearing but still fenced in by trees. Jubilee might have noticed it was even quieter out here than in the forest, if she managed to get past the state of the field first. Large stripes of the grass were burned beyond recognition but also in varying degrees of subsequent repair, with new grass sprouting in channels that might’ve been months old or dry, brown grass surrounding fresher charred earth. They all bore his signature burn pattern, and seemed to have originated from a small swell of a hill closer to the middle of the field. Jono rubbed at the back of his neck, uncomfortable, but eventually spoke up. \When I’m sick of talking, I… come here. You don’t have to use your powers if you don’t want, I just wanted to show you this spot because I’ve… done a lot to it and no one bothered me, so. If you need to, you can. If you just want to scream, you can. I do this because I can’t.\ He gestured at one of the fresher charred lines. \Scream, I mean. Not really.\ He shook his head and continued quickly, not wanting to give Jubilee a chance to interject. \You can… whatever. I’ll leave you now, if you still want me to. But I’ll wait for you at the other edge of the forest, if… you want to talk then.\ - Jubilee had no idea where he was leading her, Jono wasn't the 'look at the majesty and beauty of nature and see that things aren't so bad' type, so she doubted that was the purpose of their little hike. She wasn't sure if it was because of her shorter legs or the silence between them, but it felt like they'd been walking for a while, when she noticed the trees starting to thin out ahead. She felt something change about him, the way he moved or held himself, something subtle she couldn't identify, but she figured the change meant they were close to whatever he'd brought her here to see. The destruction in the field caught her off guard and she had just a momentary hesitation before she followed him out of the trees. There was no way for her to not recognize those marks, the places where his powers dug into the earth, others that curled, the flames having lashed out without direction. Under normal circumstances she might have dropped a low whistle and a wisecrack of some kind or pulled him into a hug. Today she just stood quietly through his explanation, a level of understanding there that wouldn't have been otherwise. When he turned to walk back to the outer edge of the woods she reached out after him but didn't touch him. It was a struggle to know what she needed, let alone ask for it, but he'd gotten them this far, she could meet him part way. "Stay?" She nudged at the ground with her foot, turning over some of the burnt earth to reveal the damp soil beneath. "I...please don't watch? But stay close?" She wasn't sure why everything came out as a question, but maybe it was the closest she could get to apologizing just then. - Jono had no idea what sort of response he would’ve expected in regards to all of this on a good day, much less on a day where Jubilee was feeling… whatever kind of way she was. He turned on his heel and was prepared to beat a hasty retreat so she wouldn’t have to respond if she didn’t want to, but when he saw her hand reach out from the corner of his eye, he stopped short. \Of course,\ he murmured, hesitantly extending his own hand to brush his fingertips over the back of Jubilee’s hand with another brief crackle of energy. \I’ll just… \ Jono trailed off, then gestured at a tight grouping of trees at the edge of the field. \Take all the time you need.\ Jono withdrew his hand reluctantly, pausing only a moment longer before he nodded and started walking again, shoving his hands deep into his pockets before he reached the tree line. He took one last glance over his shoulder and then turned to step behind the nearest tree, leaning heavily against it and tilting his head back to stare up into the canopy, and… wait. - She watched him walk back to the trees, a little bloom of affection making itself known in the middle of her fury. In another contradiction it was both a comfort and...not to know he was close by. But he'd brought her here, he hadn't told her to calm down or that this wasn't like her or to smile or find the bright side or any of the crap that people usually told her. And...he'd shared this place with her, if he could be that vulnerable, she could be too. She made her way out into the field, to the epicenter of the damage and looked out and around. She unclenched her hands, small sparks flying freely now, some coming together into small plasmoids, popping and cracking as they moved away from her. She didn't bother to control them, didn't try to keep the fields that contained them intact. Some went off close to her and she could feel the polish curling and cracking off of her nails from the heat. For the first time in hours she let herself think. The train ride in: the man reading the paper, talking to the woman next to him about a a factory explosion, 'I'd bet good money that it was some mutant." The guy in her public policy class that volunteered to play "devil's advocate" (as though the devil needed help these days) and argue that places should be able to screen for the x gene the same way they have metal detectors, because obviously people like her are the same as guns. She paced back and forth, jaw set. Going to the center and finding the windows blown out, police tape all around it and being notified that they would need to close until the police could figure out how to handle it. They were being ATTACKED and they were the ones who had to shut down. THEY were the problem. People like her, people she cared about, people who were just trying to survive in a world that didn't want them to. She screamed, a high, agonized sound of grief and rage. She threw her hands up, the charge around her having gotten too strong to tolerate, and multi colored plasmoids shot up about fifteen feet with a shrill whining sound before drifting down and going off in a cascade that made the ground shake around her. Her vision spun for a second, the sudden change in the air too much for a minute. When it settled she was on her ass looking out at the circle of charred earth around her. For the first time in hours her other emotions weren't drowned out by anger and electricity and she found herself wishing she could have it back because these other feelings hurt so much more. Her body was already crying before her mind caught up, choked sobs that shook her shoulders as she curled in on herself, knees pulling up to her body. - It wasn’t easy for Jono not to watch, if only out of a sense of wanting to make sure Jubilee was okay, wasn’t going to hurt herself. In his own experience this kind of outburst exhausted him, drained him to the core if he did it right, and he was having difficulty suppressing the anxiety of how she might feel afterwards. Still, he stuck to his guns and folded his arms tightly over his chest, brow furrowing and fingertips digging into his biceps. It was even more difficult to stay cemented where he was when he heard her scream, and a series of loud sounds and explosions vibrated the ground under his feet. Jono brought one hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose as his frown deepened, and he waited for more -- but silence fell for the time being, and then started to stretch. Jono shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as he waited now, and was only narrowly able to force himself to keep his back pressed against the rough bark of the tree. She needs this. Give her time. You know how this works, he told himself, and he told his own nervous energy roiling inside to calm down and keep waiting. Jubilee would let him know when she was ready. - Finally exhaustion started to outweigh her sadness and the broken sounds slowed until she was taking long, even (albeit shuddery) breaths. She tried to call out to him but her voice was shot from screaming. /J'no, can y'come back?/ she even sounded congested and weepy in her head and buried her face in her knees to hide her embarrassment with a groan. /I hate this./ she could have elaborated, but didn't. It pretty much covered everything. She hated feeling this way, hated being seen like this, hated crying, hated feeling powerless and weak...and now she was crying again even as she tried to breathe through it. - Jono’s head snapped up again as soon as he heard her, his metaphorical heart breaking at the sound of even her mental voice over the link. Almost immediately he reappeared at the edge of the field and was jogging up towards the mound, not even sparing a glance for the damage done amidst everything he’d done himself. He dropped to his knees beside her, wanting nothing more than to gather Jubilee up into a hug but still not entirely certain if that was what she needed. Still, Jono couldn’t stop himself from settling his hand on her back, tentative at first and then more reassuring in its firmness, trying to keep the traces of pity off of his face. All he wanted was to support her, and now that he was close he waited patiently to see what would help her most next. - She wasn't quite ready to meet his eyes but she did lift her head to wipe at her face and try to sweep her hair back, though that was a less than successful endeavor. Eventually she gave up with a frustrated huff and leaned over until her head was on his arm in an awkward sort of hug. She cleared her throat but it still came out hoarse, "So I might'a had a bad day." - \I gathered that, yeah,\ Jono replied gently, neither teasing nor patronizing as he leaned closer to slip his arm more completely around Jubilee’s shoulders, turning his head to nuzzle his nose into her hair, closing his eyes and exhaling. He still wouldn’t pressure her to talk beyond that if she didn’t offer, but all bets were off in terms of physical contact once she leaned in. Jono gathered her closer, his other hand settling gently on Jubilee’s knee, mindful of how she might be feeling after an energy expenditure like that. - Well, he didn't seem scared of her, even with the ground still smoking in patches around them. She took that to mean that it was probably ok to get close to him and wiggled in as near as she could without climbing into his lap (and only then for lack of energy, not lack of wanting). She forced a half smile even though he couldn't see it and have a shot at a joking tone that missed by a mile, "An' here I thought I was hidin' it well." She nuzzled into him, making a small sound as the urge to cry built up again, but she pushed it back. "Sorry 'm such a disaster." She mumbled as she wiped at her face again, this time looking up at him when she let her hand drop. - \Please,\ Jono murmured, the word a gentle scoff in and of itself. \’Ave you met me?\ He wasn’t about to turn it into a “most miserable” contest; that wasn’t what Jubilee needed right now. He just wanted her to know she wasn’t alone and that he’d absolutely felt the way she does -- several times over the past handful of months, if the field was any indication. Jono shifted to stretch his long legs out to either side of her, gathering Jubilee closer with the arm around her shoulders and using his other hand to brush at her hair and any stray tears that lingered on her cheeks. \If yeh want to tell me about it, I’m here. If you don’t… \ Jono trailed off and shrugged faintly before he gave her another reassuring squeeze. \Tha’s fine, and I’m still here.\ - She giggled at the self deprecating "please." "Yeah, but you make being a disaster look good. You're a natural disaster." She teased, managing a very small but real smile up at him. She was breathing a little easier now, more in control for having let lose and feeling safer with his arms around her. "Still, I'm sorry I was mean to you. An' if I scared you." She ducked her head and nuzzled against his chest, the hum of his furnace a comfortable sound to sink in to while she continued to pull herself back together. "I want to talk. Try not to get too mad though? I think I've still got it covered." She gave a shrug at the field around them. "The center is closed." She said, breathing evenly to not ramp herself up. "Will be for a while, maybe permanently." - \Jesus,\ Jono murmured automatically, his tone a mixture of disbelief and concern as he was already bristling at the implications, his arms tightening around Jubilee almost without thinking about it. He shook his head, pushed down a wide variety of emotional reactions, and gave Jubilee a more reassuring squeeze. \What in th’ hell ‘appened?\ - She nodded, tears welling in her eyes again, but still calm enough to speak. She considered sitting back some to be able to see his face while she spoke, but wasn't sure that would help and made no attempt to pull out of his embrace. She knew him well enough to get some idea of what he was thinking from his body language, having recognized the first squeeze for the protective and upset gesture it was. "There was a bombing. It was a bad day even before that, but when I got to the center it was still smoking. Windows all blown out in the front..." She took a couple slow breaths, "No one was hurt and... the damage was minor." The second half of the sentence came with a heaping helping of sarcasm. "But the police declared us a public nuisance and won't let us reopen. Apparently WE'RE the problem! Not the people who protest, or throw stuff or shoot at us or try to blow us up!" Her voice had gone high, frantic and lost. She glanced down at her hands even though she didn't feel electrons gathering, surprised to find that no plasmoids were forming. She wasn't sure if it was because she's worn herself out or because she was talking about or if Jono's arms around her were just that grounding, but she relaxed at little at the realization. When she spoke she sounded less panicked, but nothing like herself. "I just...I know people hate us, I see it every day." Her words were soft and scared, "but... I just don't get it. I don't...I don't understand and I...I couldn't process it and I just got so angry!" She was shaking now, overwhelmed with fear and rage and not sure what to do with it. - The longer Jubilee’s explanation went on the tighter Jono’s fingers wound in the fabric of her jeans where his hand rested just below her knee. The fact that people hated them and wanted to attack them was bad enough. But to add the fact that those who were intended to protect the entire populace were content to not only ignore their problems but to blame them for it… well, he was starting to understand firsthand why she was having difficulty controlling her anger. Once she finished talking Jono was quiet for a long stretch of time, his own thoughts a jumble of rage and even more frustrating helplessness as his hand only managed to remain steady by virtue of running slowly up and down Jubilee’s back in an attempt to soothe her own shaking. He somehow managed to sort his feelings out before he spoke up, his words careful but with a clear undercurrent of his own frustrations. \As much as I wish we could, we can’t force anyone not to ‘ate us.\ He shook his head slowly, eventually resting his forehead against Jubilee’s temple, eyes sliding shut. \We can’t even force ‘em to ignore us. All we can do is try to focus on lookin’ after each other and wait for the pricks to catch up.\ Jono wasn’t even convinced by his own pep talk, brow furrowing as he struggled to make sense of it all. \I’m sick of the idea that we can’t retaliate. I wish I could ‘unt the bastards down m’self. But without the clinic there’re vulnerable kids who need us to channel that energy towards them instead.\ He gave Jubilee a careful squeeze. \M’not gonna tell yeh not to be angry. I’m angry. We’ve just gotta try and be the better ones, no matter how far into the mud they’re grindin’ us with their heel,\ he added, with no small dose of bitterness. - She stretched up to nuzzle at the line of his jaw, quietly appreciative of his effort, especially because cheering people up didn't come naturally to him. "Good, 'cause I'm gonna keep being angry. For a while at least. I know the center will reopen, probably in a different police district, but we shouldn't have to!" She pried one of his hands from her jeans and worked her fingers between his. "We were doing good work there, people knew they could come there and be safe. We'll have to build that reputation all over again." She gave a big sigh, and shook her head, mostly at herself. "If we all look after each other as good as you looked out for me today, I think we'll probably be ok." She flashed her first real smile of the day. - \Hopefully not all over, we’ll do our best to get the word out to anyone who needs it.\ Jono had an odd relationship to the clinic. It was important to him not only because it was important to Jubilee, but it was such an essential part of the mutant community to rally around. Still, he had difficulty being there. He told himself he stayed away because he wasn’t exactly the warmest welcoming committee half the time, but in reality, it probably reminded him too much of his own mutant catharsis and the support he never really had at the beginning. Jubilee’s smile and compliment caught Jono off guard (as compliments often do), and a lot of his anger and frustration drained out to be replaced by mild surprise, and then a measure of embarrassment as he shrugged and had to look away, his eyes wandering over the field around them. \I’m just… really familiar with anger, s’all. But I’m… \ He trailed off, the fingers he had laced in hers giving a tentative squeeze. \I’m glad it ‘elped.\ - She was still angry, but that anger was starting to take a more specific direction than just 'everything'. She was considering options for the center, talking to the Professor, Alison, Warren and Remy about donating to help rebuild, connecting them with the director. It was good to know that there were things she could do, but it was also overwhelming right then. Jono's surprise gave her the perfect distraction. She turned her body to face him more directly, her legs flung over one of his. A gentle tug brought him in for a kiss. When she pulled back she nudged at his nose with hers for a minute, smiling softly. "It helped so much," she said earnestly, "and it means a lot to me, that you'd bring me here." She reached up and ran a hand through his hair, subtly trying to bring his gaze back to her. She wasn't sure how to express how she felt about him constantly making himself vulnerable when she knew how hard that was for him. "If you hadn't come in I'd probably be crying in the middle of my room, which would be on fire." She slid her hand free of his and wrapped both arms around him in a tight hug. "Thank you, like, really, thank you. You're super good to me an' I don't deserve it." - \Don’t be ridiculous, luv,\ Jono mumbled with a faint shake of his head, bringing his attention back to her with those fingers through his hair and offering Jubilee a mild look. \The things yeh said to me today are nothin’ compared to the things I’ve said to yeh in the past. You’d have to do a lot worse to me to be even close to makin’ things square.\ He bundled her close against him and closed his eyes, nose burying in her hair with an absent nuzzle. \You deserve everythin’. I mean it. That clinic is important to you, and you’re important to it. And anythin’ else I can to do help, you or them… y’know I’m here. Alright?\ - She rolled her eyes behind her lids, of course he'd make this about stuff he did years ago, or a while ago anyway. She made a disgruntled sound and snuggled in harder. "That there, that's the kind of stuff that more than makes up for anything you ever did while you were hurting. I know the center...that it's hard for you, but you're still willing to help." She decided to retest her theory that if she just cuddled him thoroughly enough he would realize how amazing and important he is (it hadn't worked so far, but Logan didn't raise a quitter). She braced her feet on the ground and pushed, landing him on his back in the grass, sprawling over him. - Jono gave a faint shrug and was probably about to say something else before he found himself tipped over and with a Jubilee on top of him -- not at all an unfavorable turn of events, despite the noise of surprise he made. He draped his arms comfortably around her waist, one hand flattening against her lower back as he shook his head and looked up at her. \It was hard for me then, it still is, but it shouldn’t be for others. People need somewhere to go.\ It was matter-of-fact, but there was a lot of feeling behind the statement. Jono tried to brush said feelings aside by glancing to his right, at the charred grass. \Nice work, by the way. Still warm,\ he added with some amusement, nothing one or two places where smoke was still curling up from the ground. - She gave him a pass on talking about feelings, considering how many of hers he'd had to deal with and how much he'd shared already. She gave him another squeeze and a nuzzle that was all gentle affection and gratitude. His comment about her contribution to the destruction around them had her avoiding eye contact for a second. "Yeah... thanks?" She surveyed her wobbly circle of scorched earth, knowing that below the surface there would be glass where her plasma had fused the silica in the dirt. "I think it really adds to the place. Gives it that lived in feel. Not dissing your decorating skills, but it clearly needed a woman's touch." - \Yeah, that must be it.\ Jono’s eyes smiled absently up at her with an expression that was at once affectionate and sympathetic, trying to bring her attention back to him like she’d done for him moments ago. He tucked a stray piece of hair behind one of Jubilee’s ears before seeming to have a thought, brow furrowing. \How are yeh feeling, after all that? Alright?\ His hands settled flat against Jubilee’s back, running slowly up and then down again with a careful touch. \I always end up knackered after this sorta thing. Are you hungry?\ It was almost an afterthought; something he never had to consider for himself but that would make sense for someone with… normal organs, and all that. - "So tired. An kinda like someone took a couple passes over me with a steamroller?" She sighed, melting into him at the feeling of his hands on her back. "Bit of a headache too, probably from crying, but it's not that bad." She nuzzled in and let herself enjoy being pet, the ache from being that tense for that long receding has his hands moved over her. Her head popped up at the mention of food, she was never sure how to talk about it with him (she figured that would be the thing she would miss the most in his situation), but this time her words came out in a rushed confession, "I am like, Galactus, devourer of worlds hungry." - \Alright, luv.\ Jono chuckled, seeming not at all bothered by the mention of food as he gave her one more squeeze and then relinquished hold on her waist to let her get up. His hands moved to lace behind his head and cradle it, since he was pretty sure he was only going to end up putting his hands on Jubilee again if she didn’t take the chance to move. \I’ll even go get the stuff for yeh, if you want.\ He shrugged, eyes still smiling up at her. \Might look at me weird, but somehow I doubt they’d try ‘n question me.\ - She made a soft disappointed sound when he took his hands off her, but climbed to her feet with a grumble that cut off when she saw him sprawled out on the ground like that. "You'd better get up before I come back down there." She offered him a hand up. Once he'd gotten up she laced their fingers and started to lead them out of the clearing and back towards the school. "That would be amazing." She said, nuzzling her cheek into his arm as they walked, "It'd give me a chance to wash my face and change." When they'd walked a little further she looked up at him. "Does it make me awful if I don't want to think about it anymore tonight?" - \No,\ Jono murmured with ease and without even having to think about it, only letting go of Jubilee’s hand in favor of draping his arm over her shoulders when they were out of the other side of the forest and headed up the path towards the school. \You’ve had your emotional reactions -- entirely warranted, by the way -- and now yeh need to clear your head before we can start figuring out what to do next.\ He gave her shoulder a firm squeeze, frowning faintly as he kept his gaze forward, doing his best to keep his own emotions on it contained and… almost entirely succeeding. \Whatever help yeh need, whether it’s for the clinic or just… \ Jono trailed off and shrugged. \Anythin’. Y’know I’m here, sunshine.\

#a case of the fuck it's #ch4mb3r #Jono and Jubes

2 notes · View notes