#ohio is still missing from this map

[freedomfireflies]

Stuck With You*

Summary: You and Harry have been assigned to a case halfway across the country. And getting stuck for over twelve hours in a car with him is nothing short of excruciating.

But having to share a bed with him?

A fate worse than death.

(aka: enemies to lovers + one bed trope!)

Word Count: 7.7k

*Contains Mature and Explicit content! Take care of yourself first, only consume what you feel comfortable with!*

BAM!

The violent sound of the car door being slammed is what jolts you from your nap, weary eyes fluttering quickly as you sit up in the rather uncomfortable chair.

You aren't sure how long you've been asleep but from the lack of light outside, you guess quite a while.

So, in an effort to assess your location, you lean forward to peer through the windshield at the bright, neon sign shining just above you.

Roadside Motel and Inn.

Slowly, the pieces begin to come together as you yawn and roll your head back to relieve some of the tension in your neck.

You and Harry have been on the road for exactly twelve hours. 

Twelve long, excruciating hours filled with bad rock music, limited snack breaks, and arguments over which part of the map to follow.

Harry doesn’t obey directions very well, something that became abundantly clear when he threw the map out of the window somewhere back in Ohio.

You have to smirk to yourself at the memory of his little tantrum before you realize...he's not in the car with you.

Curious as to where he went, you look back out the window just in time to see him slipping into the lobby of the motel, that familiar, sour scowl still set firmly on his face.

He must be going to book a room for the night, and you feel rather relieved to be calling it quits for the day.

Although, this motel doesn't look all that...safe. Or sanitary. In fact, it kind of looks like the motel in a horror movie where they'd find a dead body.

But, you aren't in a position to complain, so you lean back in your seat and wait for Harry to return with a room key.

However, after five minutes has passed and Harry has yet to return, you realize that something must have gone wrong.

And knowing Harry…it's a pretty safe bet.

So, you retie your shoes, zip up your jacket, and slip out of the car.

You can hear the aggravated arguing before you’ve even reached the lobby door. And you have to resist the urge to roll your eyes when the sound of Harry’s seething retort echoes into the parking lot.

“You aren’t fucking hearing me,” Harry is growling as he leans across the counter. “Two rooms. That’s all. I don’t fucking care about bed sizes or furnishings. I don’t fucking care if the TV is on the goddamn ceiling. Just give me the fucking keys.”

The poor man behind the counter looks absolutely exhausted with him (a feeling you know well) as he waves his hands in front of his computer. “I don’t have two rooms available, sir. I only have the one. One room. One queen-sized bed. One TV on the floor.”

Harry slams his palm against the desk with malice as you rush forward to intervene.

“Hi. I am…so sorry about my friend,” you begin hesitantly, pinching Harry’s hip in warning. “But, um…are you sure you don’t have any other rooms with two beds? No matter the size? We aren’t picky, really, we just…we’ve had a long day. And we’d really appreciate anything you can give us.”

The man’s eyes soften while Harry scoffs.

“Sorry, Miss,” the desk attendant sighs. “Just one room with one bed.”

“I don’t fucking believe you,” Harry begins again, tossing a vengeful glare across the counter. “There’s no way every other room is booked up but that one. What do you want, huh? You want money? Is that what it’s gonna take? Fine. How much fucking money is it gonna take for you to give us a key to a room with two beds?”

With a sigh, the worker says, “Sir…there are no more rooms. I don’t know what else to tell you—”

“You fucking prick. You think you can just con us out of another room because it’s the last minute—”

“Sir. No room in the inn. I don’t know what else to say—”

“Oh, you won’t say fucking much with my fist down your throat—”

“Okay, all right, let’s calm down,” you interject, wrapping your hands around Harry’s upper arm to tug him away from the desk. “We’ll take any room you have. Please.”

The charged silence seems to span an eternity as the desk attendant goes to retrieve a key.

And as he does, Harry rips his arm from your grasp while viciously whispering, “I had it covered.”

You snort. After all, you both know that’s not true. 

Once you’re officially checked in, Harry storms for the exit, nearly breaking the glass in the lobby door as he slams it open and shut. 

You follow a few feet behind, desperate to put some distance between you and his unjust wrath.

But, even still, you don’t miss his aggravated grumbling as he stomps back to the car, griping and cursing about, “Shitty fucking motels,” and “sleezy assholes with a stick up their arse.”

You suppose it would almost be funny if you weren’t dreading having to spend a night with him. In fact, you’re almost tempted to offer to sleep in the car but…well, you hate those fucking seats.

Harry is already unpacking your things by the time you reach him, tossing items left and right as he attempts to retrieve what you’ll need for the night.

He finds your duffle, yanking it from the backseat before nearly hauling it at you as you catch it and go stumbling back.

Then, he pulls his own backpack free before slamming yet another door shut.

With that, he leads you to your room, booted feet stomping across the concrete as you trail behind. 

It takes him about five minutes to figure out how to even get inside, large fingers fumbling with the keys as he growls and nearly shoves his fist through the door.

Once you’re inside, he flips on the light, and you both take a moment to assess its condition.

The queen-sized bed is more like a full. The wallpaper is faded and peeling. The smell is…unplaceable. The carpet is stained and dingy. The TV (which is not on the ceiling) is at least forty years old. And the bathroom has no door. 

And seriously, what is that smell?

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Harry huffs under his breath, backpack dropping to the floor. “No. Absolutely fucking not. Not happening.”

“Look, we don’t really have a choice, do we?” you argue as you move for the bed to study its condition. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and the next hotel isn’t for miles.”

“So?” he sneers, moving his glare to you. “S’better than this.”

“This is fine,” you retort, but wince as you say it. “Yeah, it’s not…great. But we’re only here to sleep and then we’re back on the road.”

“No,” he decides, arms crossing as he shakes his head. “Uh-uh. Not fucking happening, I’ll sleep in the parking lot.”

“Okay, great. Buh-bye, then,” you call, waving your hand through the air as if to dismiss him.

His eyes narrow. “He lied, by the way.”

Turning around, you gingerly lower yourself onto the mattress, expression scrunched as you make contact.

Ew.

“Uh…who?” you ask, rather distracted by the somewhat moist duvet beneath your ass.

Seriously, why the fuck is it wet?

“The owner,” Harry snaps, head jerking toward the door. “When he went to get the key, there was another fucking key right next to it. For the master suite.”

“…okay?”

He seems rather unimpressed with your answer. “Seriously?”

“What?” you huff as you stand back up. “Maybe it’s his room.”

“It’s not,” he decides haughtily. “No, he doesn’t fucking sleep here. ’Cause even he knows this place is a fucking dump. All right, satan’s asshole is cleaner than this room.”

Your nose crinkles. “Ew.”

“Exactly. So, get your fucking stuff and let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“To the master suite, are you not fucking listening?”

“Harry,” you nearly scoff. “We don’t have a key. Okay, and even if we did, that’s…you know, illegal…I think.”

“God, you are such a fucking pussy,” he hisses, already spinning around to return to the door. “Fine. Fucking stay here. I don’t care. Sleep with the cockroaches while they make babies in your ear.”

You gasp as he disappears into the parking lot, the rather unsettling image in your head making your muscles recoil.

Ew, ew, ew.

You don’t know where he’s gone. Perhaps to argue with the owner again or perhaps to sneak into the other room.

But you don’t worry about him. Instead, you worry about what he said. About bugs, and babies, and them crawling into your ear, and mold, and bedbugs, and termites, and—

You fling yourself toward the door, duffle bag in tow as you slip from the room, nearly running into Harry on your way out.

He’s already returned, a key now spinning around his pointer finger as he nods at you. “Changed your mind, I take it?”

You exhale a deep breath. “Did you at least pay for the room?”

“What do you think?” he snorts. “Fucking waited till he went to the bathroom and snatched it.”

“Harry, he’s gonna notice the key is missing.”

“No he’s not. I put the old key in its place.”

You lean back. “Oh. That’s…smart.”

“Yeah. Thanks for sounding so fucking surprised,” he grumbles before brushing past you toward the stairs. 

“Come on, that’s not what I—” You begin but stop when you realize arguing with him is rather futile.

Instead, you follow after him toward the second floor of building as he leads you toward the end, where only one room lies. 

He manages to get this door open a little quicker and once it swings open, your eyes widen.

It’s not the Hilton, but it’s a hell of an upgrade. The room is significantly larger, it doesn’t smell like ass, and the bed is huge. At least a king, you imagine, if not bigger. With what looks to be fresh, clean sheets and even a nice throw blanket.

Harry grumbles something about, “Now that’s more fucking like it,” as you both continue into the massive space to look around.

There’s a mini bar, two TVs, and a nice vanity in the corner. The wallpaper isn’t stained, the carpet is soft, and this bathroom has a door.

“Shit,” you breathe as you practically levitate toward the mattress. “Okay…I hate to say it, but…you were right. This is…so much better.”

“I know,” he deadpans, tossing his backpack toward the floor before moving for the couch placed just across from the bed. “Okay, I’m going to sleep. We’re leaving at eight. Try not to fucking bother me until then, yeah?” 

With that, he flops down onto the sofa, eyes falling shut as he settles back into the cushions.

A little surprised, you stare at him, curious as to why he’s chosen to sleep on the most uncomfortable piece of furniture in the room. In fact, the floor would likely be more relaxing.

However, his expression remains placid, most likely aware of your presence but refusing to acknowledge it. “Go away now,” he mumbles without ever glancing up. “Stop fucking hovering and go the fuck to sleep.”

And you’d likely argue or remind him again of how unpleasant he tends to be but choose instead to obey as you head for the bathroom. After all, you are tired, and tomorrow you have yet another long day of traveling ahead.

With him. And his outrageously hostile temperament.

Once you’ve changed into some pajamas, you exit the tiny bathroom and scurry to the bed. It’s still winter outside, and even though this is the master suite, they apparently haven’t mastered heat.

The covers are thin, hardly adding even one degree of warmth. You tug the throw blanket further up and curl yourself into a ball, hoping to find some relief from the shivering of your teeth but to no avail. 

You have no idea how Harry isn’t freezing his ass off but can’t exactly focus on him as you begin to lose feelings in your toes. And now, the large bed seems to be working against you since all it does is provide you with more space to be cold in. And even if you wanted to readjust, you’d lose the spot of warmth you’ve created, forcing you to get stuck with the cold sheets once again.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Harry suddenly growls, and you vaguely see the outline of his body as he straightens up from the couch.

Curious, you sit up as he stalks over to you, his large hand coming out to snatch onto the blankets and rip them back.

“Shit,” you breathe, recoiling away from the frigid air. “The fuck are you doing—”

“You won’t stop fucking shaking and it’s fucking annoying,” he snaps as he climbs onto the mattress beside you. “Move.”

A tad stunned, you blink at him. “I—seriously, what are you doing—”

“I’m trying to get some goddamn sleep,” he huffs, as if it were obvious. “But I can’t with your fucking teeth making so much goddamn noise. So, I’m gonna fucking hold you until you stop shivering.”

“Like hell you are,” you snort, already wiggling away from him. “The whole fucking point of us finding another room was so that we didn’t have to share a bed. Remember?”

“Yeah, well, that was before your teeth started doing the tango,” he retorts. “Now shut the fuck up and cuddle me.”

“I—Harry. I’m not going to cuddle you, that’s gross—”

“Oh, grow up. God, you are so fucking dramatic. We’re adults—”

“Yeah, but we’re not in fucking Twilight. Okay, Jacob? I don’t need your doggy heat to warm me up—”

“My doggy heat? The fuck does that even mean? I wasn’t gonna hold you doggy style—”

“Yeah, ’cause you’re not gonna hold me at all—”

“For fuck’s sake,” he seethes for a second time before his arm is extending across the space between your bodies to latch onto your hip and drag you closer.

You don’t have the time to protest before your face is being squished into his chest as he pulls the blankets back up. 

Your brain is the next thing to freeze as you take a moment to comprehend what the fuck just happened.

And why you aren’t fighting it.

Because much to your dismay…he’s right. Again. Instantly, this is significantly better, and you can already feel the movement return to your toes as you take a deep breath.

And suddenly, you realize that he’s…everywhere. Against you, around you, inside you. Well, his smell is, anyway. The subtle scent of his cologne making a home in your lungs.

And it’s…nice. A masculine vanilla, of sorts. Comforting.

…ew.

And while your first instinct is to reach up and shove him away…you don’t. Instead, your hands come to rest on his chest as you feel each curve and dip of his strong body. Maybe you’re too cold or too tired, but whatever the case, you don’t push.

“You can’t do this,” you choose to mumble, despite the fact that you do nothing to stop it.

He simply snorts under his breath. “Already am.”

You shift but don’t pull yourself out of his arms. “I can’t breathe.”

“You’ll get over it.”

Your eyes narrow, even though he can’t see you. 

For a moment, the dark room falls quiet. The sound of his breathing above you is soft and you feel his body rise and fall with each one. It nearly lulls you to sleep as the heat begins to surround you, much like his arms have.

“Why are you so mean to me?” you hear yourself whisper, momentarily stunned by the words that came from your own throat without permission.

He seems to tense. “I’m not mean to you. That’s just…you know, our thing.”

“Our thing is you being mean to me?”

“I’m not mean,” he repeats sternly, arms constricting around your back. “Trust me, if I were fucking mean to you, you’d know it.”

“So…this is you being nice?”

You hear him huff. “Can you please just go the fuck to sleep?”

“Okay,” you murmur, with absolutely no plans to do so. 

But you allow him to think that he’s won for about two minutes before you voice your next question.

“Why is being mean our thing?”

Another sigh. “I swear to fucking God—”

“You used to bring me cookies,” you remind him, the memory of when he first joined your sector years prior coming to mind. “Every morning. You’d bring me cookies from the bakery you stopped at on the way to work.”

Again, he goes quiet, muscles hard beneath your touch. “I don’t remember,” he replies after a minute, the cadence of his voice so low you almost don’t catch it.

“I do,” you say, fingers absentmindedly stroking his soft shirt. A nervous habit. “I remember. It was my favorite part of the day. You were so…kind. Quiet. Maybe a little shy, but…you were a great addition to the program. I liked having you there.”

He snorts again, the sound full of disbelief and contempt. “Yeah. Right.”

You lean back, head tilting to look up at him. “I did.”

He looks down. Stares. Says nothing.

You don’t know what you wanted him to say but you do suppose you want to know why. What changed between the days when you were almost friends to…now.

“I’m not mean to you,” he finally answers, a bit softer than his last remark. “Not on purpose, anyway.”

“Oh, so the constant insults and degrading comments are just a part of your charm and charisma?” you tease, hoping to lighten the mood.

It doesn’t work.

His lips press into a thin line. “Why do you care if I’m nice to you or not?”

“I’m…’cause you used to be,” you say, rather confused by the question. “And clearly something changed, I just…I don’t know. I want to know why.”

“Why?”

“Yes, why.”

“No, why do you want to know?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it doesn’t matter. We’re not friends.”

“Yeah. I know. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t we friends?”

He leans back now, too. “…why the fuck would we be?”

You shrug. “Because we work together. And have to spend a lot of time together. And it would be nice to at least be civil.”

“I don’t want to be civil,” he scoffs. “Especially with you.”

Now even more startled, you blink at him. “I’m sorry, what the fuck does that mean?”

Again, his jaw clamps shut, effectively ending his side of the conversation.

You’ve struck a nerve, but you have no idea which one.

And despite the fact that he’s still holding you, his touch has grown cold and distant.

So, you snatch his shirt between your fingers and tug. “Stop doing that. Just talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about—”

“Yes, there is. Look…if I…did something…just tell me. Okay, because I probably didn’t mean to, and I can’t exactly apologize for it if I don’t know. So, just…spit it out—”

“No—”

“Yes—”

“I said fucking no—”

“And I said I don’t fucking care. Now, tell me what I—”

“Charlie.”

The name brings your response to a halt as you hesitate and flick your eyes between his, looking for understanding. “…what?”

Harry takes a deep breath as if steeling himself from the conversation. “Fucking Charlie, all right? You started dating Charlie. That’s what you did.”

There’s a certain disdain behind his expression that you manage to make out and it throws you for a loop. “I…wait, what? I don’t get it, why is that bad?”

He hesitates before sighing, seeming to dismiss the conversation altogether. “Forget it.”

“No, seriously,” you insist, tugging on him again. “Did…did you want to date him?”

His eyes roll. “Here we fucking go—”

“No, I mean it. ’Cause I don’t understand why else that would make you hate me—”

His attention snaps back down. “I don’t hate you, I…look. It doesn’t fucking matter, all right, so just drop it—”

“It does matter. It does, Harry, because it’s been driving me nuts for four years and I can’t take it anymore.”

And maybe he’s tired, too. Maybe he’s delirious from the long journey or maybe he’s just tired of talking, but for whatever reason, he finally lets his vulnerability slip through the cracks.

You see it peak through his expression. See it—feel it—in the way he holds you. Looks at you. In the way he fights with himself to reveal the truth.

“Because I liked you,” he says. So simply, you could almost be tricked into thinking it is. “I liked you. A lot. But you didn’t like me. You liked him.”

You can say nothing. Can offer no response or reaction as your lashes flutter and your brain works to process what he just admitted to you.

His jaw tenses as he waits. “Yeah. Exactly. So…there you fucking go. Happy?”

“I—” Your heart begins to race wildly inside your chest as this secret bounces around the walls of your mind. “Harry, I didn’t…I didn’t know.”

“I know,” he mumbles, shifting a little as his grip begins to loosen, desperate to let you go and pull himself away. “Why would you have? I’m not Charlie.”

You frown. You don’t like the implication in his tone. “No, you’re not Charlie. And you should be really fucking glad you aren’t.”

Now, it’s his turn to work through your reply. “…what do you mean?”

“I mean Charlie was a fucking ass,” you tell him, past resentment slipping through your hostile tone. “Okay, cheating on me was one of the nicer things he did.”

And you almost think you see pity in his eyes mixed with just the slightest hint of rage. “He cheated on you?”

“Oh, yeah. Cheated on, belittled me, ditched me in the middle of one of our dates with no way to get home,” you recall. “Not to mention he was shit in bed, he couldn’t be bothered to learn my last name, and he owes me over fifteen thousand dollars.”

Harry rears back. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope.” You almost smirk, somehow amused by his utter shock. “So, trust me…Charlie was not a threat to you. In fact, nobody could have been a threat to you.”

 “And what does that mean?”

He sounds suspicious and you hesitate, curious as to whether or not this is really something you want to admit.

You swallow the urge. “It just means…you were my friend. And I cared about you, and it kind of fucking sucked when you turned on me.”

His expression falls, frown mirror your own. He opens his mouth, ready to respond, but then stops. He stops and he looks at you and he mulls. 

You wish he’d allow you a visit inside his mind. Wish he’d clue you into his thought process but perhaps it’s better this way.

And maybe he was right. Maybe this is your thing. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t like you. 

Maybe that’ll make it easier to stay away.

“So…he was shit in bed, huh?” Harry murmurs after a moment, and your brow raises.

“Really? That’s what you’re taking from what I said?” you tease, playfully slapping at his chest. “Very funny.”

“M’not being funny,” he insists, nodding his chin at you. “Must have been hard for you. Or…I guess soft?”

Your eyes narrow as you smirk. “Ha. Ha.”

For the first time all day…he smiles. “Look, I just…I feel bad for you, you know? I mean, yeah, the cheating and stealing and being an ass part all suck. But…the bad sex? That’s just unforgivable.”

“It was heinous,” you agree, feigning a wounded sigh. “Seriously, I had to replace three vibrators over the course of our relationship. Three.”

He sucks in an empathetic breath. “Yikes.”

“I know. But I got really buff in my right arm.”

His grin widens until you can see his bunny teeth. “For fuck’s sake—”

“But not the left one for some reason. So it was really uneven. I looked like a Picasso painting—”

“Oh, my god. Stop. Please stop talking—”

“What? You’re the one that asked.”

“Yeah, I asked because clearly you need some help.”

This time, you rear back, eyebrow raising as you look at him. “I’m sorry…what?”

And he almost looks like he regrets the words that just came out of his mouth, but instead of taking them back…he shrugs one shoulder up. “Well…come on. You have to admit you’re…tense.”

“Wha—I am not tense,” you sputter. “I’m…I…just because I don’t put up with your shit does not make me tense.”

“No, but you not being able to come the way you deserve does.”

It’s so…tenacious the way he speaks. The way he says deserve like he’s had this thought before.

You wonder if he has.

“And who says I haven’t?” you counter.

“Have you?”

Your split-second hesitation is answer enough and his smirk returns as he hums to himself.

“Got it,” he mumbles, letting his eyes rake down your face. “Like I said…s’a shame.”

You snort, “Oh, is it?”

“It is.”

“And why is that?”

“Cause I could probably help you out.”

There it is again. That confidence in what he’s offering that makes your breath hitch. “Harry…come on.”

“Come on what?” he teases. “Your tongue? Your stomach? Your pus—”

“Okay, all right, enough,” you interject, wincing a bit as you lean away. “Seriously. Stop.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? We can’t…this is a weird conversation,” you huff. “You don’t…that’s not what we…it’s just weird.”

“Why do you think it’s weird?”

An unamused glare begins to form. “Because it is.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because we don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk like that.” Your hand quickly gestures between your bodies. “You said it yourself. Our thing is being mean. Arguing and fighting and you getting on my nerves.”

He hums again, as if considering it. “Well…maybe this can be our thing, too.”

“Harry.”

“Princess.”

The exasperated expression on your face deepens at the familiar nickname. “It is not going to be our thing.”

“Fine,” he sighs, one hand raising as he surrenders himself. “I’m just saying…it would probably help you stay warm.”

Oh, he’s such a fucking—

“That’s…dumb,” is what you choose to reply with, to which he smiles.

“Maybe,” he agrees. “But it works. All that body heat, and friction, and excursion—”

“Harry.”

“Princess.”

Your lips set into a line. “Are you being serious right now or are you fucking with me? Because I really can’t tell.”

“I’m being serious,” he says, just as simply as before. “Dead fucking serious.”

“Why?”

Another shrug. “Told you. I feel bad for you.”

You scoff rather incredulously as you turn over onto your back, forcing his arms out from around you. “I don’t need you to feel bad for me. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Clearly.”

It goes quiet then, both of you falling in line with the comfortable silence.

After a moment, you look over, suddenly aware of the absence of his body now that you’re no longer trapped against his chest.

And you almost…miss it. The warmth, and the slight serenity, and…the safety.

He’s one of the most annoying people you’ve ever met but he’s damn good at his job. He’s quick, he’s smart, and he’s quite capable.

And he’s got more muscles than he’s got brain cells.

“What?” he grumbles, seeming to finally notice your staring.

“Sorry,” you whisper, shaking the thought of him free as you glance back up at the ceiling. 

But you feel him study you. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“No,” you deny instantly, cheeks flushing at the very idea. “God, Harry. You’re so—”

“Annoying. Yes. I know. I’m also quite good with my hands if that’s any help—”

“Harry.”

“Princess,” he mimics, and you can hear the smile. “We don’t have to, I’m just saying…my services are here.”

“Services,” you repeat under your breath, snorting some. “How romantic.”

“Never claimed to be romantic. Just claimed to be good.”

“Well, you would think so.”

“I don’t think so. I know so.”

“Yeah, well, Charlie thought he knew so, too.”

“Well, we’ve already established I’m not Charlie, haven’t we?”

Your eyes flick back over to his. “Maybe. That doesn’t make you good.”

“And what about me implies that I wouldn’t be?”

“I don’t know. The fact that you called it services?”

“Getting you off is a service. A very nice one, actually. Or would you rather call it a favor?”

“I’d rather call it nothing. Because it makes it sound cheap.”

“We’re in a roadside motel. What about this entire trip doesn’t scream cheap to you?”

“The fact that we work for the government. And the fact that they’re not paying us to…you know.”

“What? You can’t even say it? Come on, Princess, I thought you were better than that.”

“I’m…I…” It’s incredible how quickly he’s managed to render you speechless. “I’m just saying, that’s not what we’re here for.”

“People fuck on the job all the time,” he reminds you. “Just last week, Spencer Reid told me about this girl he met in Vegas—”

“I don’t wanna hear that,” you exclaim, hands immediately flying to your ears to protect you from any unpleasant information about your friend. “What he does is none of my business.”

“You mean who he does,” Harry corrects smugly. “Look, Hotch doesn’t care. As long as the job gets done, it doesn’t matter.”

“So…what? That makes it okay?”

“Okay? It’s just an orgasm, it’s not murder—”

“Shit like that is personal,” you huff. “It’s intimate and…delicate. You know? It’s not for people who already don’t like each other. That makes it…messy.”

“Yeah, well…I like it messy,” he says, and despite yourself, there’s a catch in your throat. “Besides, I don’t know why we’re still talking about it if you don’t want to do it.”

You hesitate. He’s got a point.

Suddenly, he pushes up onto his forearm to really get a good look at you. “…unless you do want to. And you’re trying to argue yourself out of it.”

Your mouth drops open. “What? No, I…no.”

He snorts. “Oh, well, I’m convinced.”

“I don’t,” you insist before the truth begins to beat against your ribcage like a drum. “I mean…I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be weird?”

“No. Not unless we make it weird.”

“Well how do I know you won’t make it weird?”

“It was my idea. Why would I make it weird?”

“Because you are weird.”

“Yeah, but I’m still good.”

You exhale a sharp breath. “Harry…I’m being serious.”

He returns your stare. “So am I.”

“Well…I still don’t understand why you want to. Don’t guys hate stuff like that?”

“Stuff like what?” he retorts. “Fingering you? Eating you out? Tasting you? I’m sorry, what part of that doesn’t sound like a fucking dream?”

“Listen, Charlie used to tell me that it was gross—”

“And Charlie’s a fucking pussy,” Harry decides, rather resolutely. “Which is ironic since he doesn’t know what to do with one. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Okay, we know how to enjoy the finer things in life.”

“Is that…a compliment?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“Thanks. Are you convinced?”

Are you convinced? You almost want to laugh at the very question but…perhaps you are. Perhaps he’s right—yet again—and this one-time agreement could offer you a bit of…help.

And heat.

Since it’s still fucking freezing.

“If I say yes…you have to promise to never…bring this up again,” you begin as he straightens up. “Never, Harry. I mean it. Not as a joke. Not when you’re mad at me. Not when we’re in front of anyone. Ever.”

“What, you think I want people to know about this?” He smirks. “Promise. What happens in the shitty roadside motel stays in the shitty roadside motel.”

“Great.” Your hands gather in front of your stomach as you begin to pick at your nail beds. “So…okay. Great. Is that…I mean, are you—”

“What do you need?”

You blink. “What…what do you mean?”

“My mouth or my fingers. What do you need?”

God, this feels too fucking real. You swallow rather thickly as you move your focus to his nose, looking for something less intimidating to concentrate on. “I don’t know. Whichever you want, I guess.”

“It’s not about what I want,” he replies easily. “It’s about what you need. So, I’m gonna ask you again. And this time I need an answer, all right?”

You simply look at him.

“What do you need…to come?” he asks softly, moving a bit closer across the mattress as his breath fans across your face. “Do you need my mouth? My tongue? My fingers?”

His hand outstretches for your neck, palm sliding up until his thumb can sweep along your jaw. 

“Hm?” he hums, gazing down at you rather curiously as you lean back into the pillows. “Or do you need it all? Do you need more? Need to feel full? Fucked?”

You feel like you’re being pulled into a trap. Lured into the devious intentions swimming behind his eyes.

But you don’t…care.

“Can’t help you if you don’t tell me, Princess,” he continues, his voice like silk. Sex. “Give you whatever you need. Just have to ask.”

“I don’t…I don’t know, really,” you whisper, desperate to shove the control in his hands. “I’m not…I don’t care. Do whichever you’re comfortable with.”

“Darling…there is nothing about you I couldn’t be comforted by,” he says, finger teasing your bottom lip. “Do you really think…I’d choose not to feel you? Slip myself inside you and feel how fucking tight you are. ’Cause I know you are, aren’t you, honey? Bet you’re so soft…so warm…so fucking wet. Be so easy to taste you for myself.”

 He was right. He is good at this.

And maybe in the past you’ve liked to have some control, but right now…you’d do anything for him. Be anything he wanted you to be. 

He knows exactly what you need. Knows that you need someone to put you in your place. Guide you toward what you want.

“Why don’t I start with my hand?” he suggests gently, looking for approval on your face. “Give you a minute to realize how much you like it.”

When your only response is continued staring, his head tilts.

“Words, Princess,” he warns. “Or we stop.”

And really, he hasn’t even done anything yet but the very idea of stopping makes your stomach recoil.

“Fine,” you manage to breathe. “Your…hand. That’s…fine.”

You hate how…nervous you sound. How unsure, but Harry is more than willing to make up for the slack, grinning to himself as he trails his palm back down your neck.

“Need you to relax for me, okay?” he instructs as he reaches your chest, delicately and tamely slipping between your breasts toward your stomach. He doesn’t linger, doesn’t graze, doesn’t take a moment to fondle you like a prepubescent horny boy. He does only what he said he was going to. “Just like that, there you go.”

He continues to glide along the fabric of your shirt until he reaches your hips where the band of your pants lie. 

His finger taps against the elastic, almost as if waiting.

“Say it again,” he whispers, dipping down until his nose ghosts across your cheek. “Need to hear you say it one more time.”

And you wonder if he really does want to be adamant about consent…

…or if he just enjoys hearing you submit.

“Please,” you just about gasp, suddenly aware of the lust you feel for his touch. The way you really do feel…empty. “Please, Har…just…just—”

His hand disappears beneath the material, and when you feel him brush over the fabric of your underwear…your eyes flutter shut.

He chooses to forgo skin on skin contact. At least for now, and you imagine it’s because he’s waiting for you to feel a bit more at ease.

And the rather generous thought does something to your stomach as he begins to drag the pad of his thumb down your covered clit.

You go still. Deathly still because it feels so fucking good. You hadn’t realized you were this wound up but instantly…your muscles turn to jelly.

“How’s that, hm?” comes the low purr of his voice, his lips now much closer to your ear. “Feel good?”

You nod mutely as your hands begin to fist the sheets below you. 

“Good,” he replies, seemingly proud as he repeats the previous action before moving down. Then…he tsks. “Oh, honey…what’s this?”

You venture a glance over at him as he leans back to see you.

“Already so wet,” he says, fighting his amusement. “What’s got you so worked up, darling? Haven’t even done anything yet.”

Truthfully, you don’t know. You hadn’t realized. Maybe he’s just that good or maybe your body has been more complicit to his unspoken intentions than you were aware of.

Either way, he’s right. You are so pathetically wet, and he hasn’t even fully touched you yet.

“Have you been thinking about it this whole time?” he asks next, voice slipping back through the needle of salacious resolve. “Hm? Just been lying here, dripping for me? Needing me to make it better?”

He adds a bit more pressure and you gasp, the ache between your thighs growing much more unbearable.

He does it again before slowing down and your chest just about caves in.

“What?” He moves closer again, grinning to himself as he places his lips against your neck. “Something wrong?”

“Har…” you nearly whine, squirming some under his hold.

His tattooed arm flexes as he rolls the heel of his hand down your clit. “What? What is it? What do you need?”

You, you, you. The thought screams inside your head as he licks his tongue along your jaw. 

“Please…” you say instead, hoping you sound desolate enough to garner his sympathy. 

“Please what? Can’t read your mind, honey. Need you to tell me.”

You groan in the back of your throat, partially from his arrogant, flippant behavior and partially from the way he’s pulling at your skin with his teeth.

“Just…just…” Still, the request refuses to come out, and you want to smack yourself for being so weak.

“Just…just?” he repeats, somewhat mockingly but still gentle. “Just what? Just…this?”

You feel his finger hook around the hem of your panties before he’s effortlessly pulling it aside to graze his touch through you.

And you moan, so much louder than you’d meant to. Because even this simple touch does more for you than Charlie ever did.

“Ah,” he murmurs as he dances his mouth down the side of your throat. “That’s what you need.”

And before you have the chance to reply, he’s slipping a finger inside right at the same time that he’s raising up to kiss you.

Really kiss you, his tongue tangling with yours as you willingly give him every breath in your lungs.

The combination of sensations just about kills you as he effortlessly works his touch in and out with ease.

And he’s not recoiling the way you imagined he might. He’s not half-assing it or declaring he’s already done.

No, he’s…he’s indulging in you. Truly and completely as he groans into your bottom lip before sucking on it.

“Fucking knew it,” he whispers, moving to sit up on the bed so he can fully hover over you. “Fucking knew…”

You aren’t quite sure what he means but you do like the way he says it, your skin flushing as he gently introduces you to a second finger.

And it’s so good. So…full. Exactly the way you’d hoped. Exactly the way he’d promised.

Practiced, and patient, and pure pleasure. Right now, you know nothing but this feeling he’s giving you.

His kisses grow hungrier. Angrier. Like he’s fighting himself on how much he’s enjoying it.

And it makes sense. You’re rather annoyed yourself at how easy it was to start needing him. How desperate he’s made you become in such a short time.

Your arms move to wrap around his shoulders and keep him close, nails scratching at the few hairs lying on the nape of his neck.

You hear him sigh. Perhaps with contentment as he places his other hand on the mattress to brace himself and fully give in.

You wish you’d turned a light on. Wish you could really see him. Drink him in. Admire the man you’ve always loved to look at.

Because he is quite fun to look at.

Your hips lift from the mattress as if chasing the feeling he’s offering, and he makes a noise against your mouth that’s a mix between entertained and disappointed.

“Easy,” he chastises, subtly pushing you back down. “Come on, Princess. Be a good girl and stay still for me.”

“Har,” you whimper again, pulling a bit harder on his curls. “Please…just…hurry.”

“No,” he says simply, and your lashes flutter. “No, I’m gonna enjoy you. Gonna take my time…and you’re gonna take it.”

You exhale a wounded whine as he leans back and slowly removes his fingers.

And the loss of stimulation just about ruins you.

“Fuck,” you seethe between gritted teeth. “Come on. God, knew you’d be a fucking pain in my—”

His hands latch onto your pajama pants and underwear so he can pull them down, and when the cold air hits your cunt…you gasp again.

Once they’re off and discarded to the side, he maneuvers along the mattress until he can take hold of your thighs and guide them apart. 

Then…he blows.

A warm, gentle breath dances across your already sensitive pussy, making you tense as he settles onto his stomach.

His fingers constrict around your legs to keep them planted firmly to the bed as he leans in to press a kiss to your inner thigh. 

Then, another.

And another.

And another.

Higher, and higher, and higher until he’s so close…you can practically taste it.

He pauses and you aren’t sure why. You hope it’s not because something’s wrong. Or because he’s repulsed. Or because he’s changed his—

His tongue presses into your cunt with fervor and pressure, cutting your overthinking short as he takes that taste.

And just like that…everything makes sense.

All you understand his him, and his mouth, and his lips, and the powerful rush of immense and innate pleasure washing over you.

But it doesn’t just wash, it surrounds you. Overwhelms you. Pulls you down until you feel like you’re drowning.

There’s static in your brain as he sucks on your clit and squeezes your legs in his hands. As he leaves kisses across your pussy and traces his name across every inch.

“Harry,” you whisper, too overcome to care how pathetically enamored you sound. “Please…please…please…”

You can’t see him, but you don’t doubt that he’s proud. Probably smiling to himself as he releases one leg to slip his fingers back in.

He curls, and he stretches, and he sucks until your skin is on fire. Until it almost hurts. Until you feel as though you can’t hold it.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, nose bumping into your hip as he works you closer. “S’a good girl…you can take it, come on.”

“Shit…shit, Har,” you breathe, muscles burning from the way you attempt to hold yourself together. “Can’t…please…”

“Yes you can. You can, come on—”

“Harry—”

“I know, Princess. I know. S’okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you—”

“Please…”

“Shh…let me play with you. M’having so much fun. Don’t wanna stop.”

And you don’t want him to stop either. You never want him to stop again. You want to stay here, in this shitty motel, on this lumpy mattress, in his hands. Forever.

He’s so warm, and strong, and safe, and good.

And you can feel the tears slip from your eyes from the immense build-up and from the realization that you are so insanely…happy right now.

You hate him. God, you fucking hate him.

But there’s no one else you’d want around. No one else you can even imagine yourself doing this with.

You don’t want to let this go. This joy, this serenity, this moment.

Him.

You don’t want to let go.

But you know…you’ll have to.

The tears begin to flow a bit faster as you suck in a sharp inhale through quivering lips. 

You focus in on his touch. His voice. The gentle rasp that encourages you to keep going. That he’s got you. That you’re doing so good. That he can’t wait to taste you. 

And you can’t do it any longer. Can’t hold off, can’t fight it.

You come with a mangled whimper, fingers clawing down the sheets as your thighs squeeze around his head. As you see a glimpse of heaven while he makes you roll against his tongue. As everything changes.

“Fucking perfect,” he hums, working you through every second, thrusts slowing as he eases you back down. “So good, honey. Just like I wanted.”

But you don’t respond. Can’t. Not out of remorse or embarrassment…but because your throat has gone dry from the tears.

And as the dark motel room falls silent…he hears it. Hears your cries as you struggle to contain your emotion.

“Hey…hey,” he calls sternly, quickly straightening up so he can move closer. “What’s wrong? What happened? Why are you crying?”

You don’t answer as he reaches over to flick on the bedside lamp, and the moment the light fills the room, you throw your hands over your face.

“Fuck,” you whisper into your palms, cheeks stained with broken promises and humiliation. “Fuck…fuck, I’m sorry—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he warns, fingers already wrapping around your wrists to pull them down. “Don’t fucking do that. Don’t. Just tell me what happened, tell me what’s wrong.”

But you don’t. Can’t. You simply blink up at him as he studies you, the trepidation clearly etched across his expression. 

For a moment, you both stay there. Him kneeling above you, hands tight around yours, and you. Lying in your defeat.

After a minute of silence has come and gone, he seems to understand. Seems to accept that this isn’t about what did happen.

It’s about what didn’t.

His eyes grow sad as he sighs and reaches up to brush a thumb down your lip.

Then, he caresses your cheek with more tenderness than you’ve ever seen from him.

“I know,” he murmurs while your heart just about shatters. “In another life…I would have done it right.”

And you know exactly what he means.

You sniffle as he dips down to find you again. Mouth on yours as a hundred unspoken promises pass between you.

“Yeah…in another life.”

~ Other Harry Blurbs

~ Full Masterlist

[thesnadger]

20 Great Horror Podcasts To Fall Asleep And Have Nightmares To

I listen to a lot of horror podcasts, and if you’re looking for a spooky recommendation for October, I am here to provide. These are my personal top ten (not in any order) and ten rapid-fire “honorable mentions” as well.

The Silt Verses – Strange, soothing folk horror. Two followers of an outlawed god travel their deity’s great black river, hiding from a police manhunt and encountering other weird gods that have flourished in forgotten rural territories. There is a god in your fridge, a god in your radio, a god in your deepest regrets, and none of that is a good thing.

The Hotel – Someplace beyond time and space is The Hotel, where guests check in but they don't check out *Vincent Price laugh* instead meeting a violent death at the will of the Hotel. The truly stand out part is the hotel staff, who end up getting most of the focus. The interplay between these terrible monsters who are all trapped in hell together is absolutely fantastic, horror office politics at its finest.

The Magnus Archives – Jonathan Sims’s job is to record statements of encounters with the supernatural. But the more he records, the more connections he makes between these seemingly disconnected tales of terror. A horror/tragedy with a deep emotional core, difficult moral questions, and just the right amount of humor. You’ve already heard of this one why am I even telling you about it, it’s good.

Unwell – Mount Absalom, Ohio is a small town, the kind of place where you don’t lock your doors at night. Where the ghost tour at Fenwood House runs rain or shine. Where buildings still bear the marks of the last great fire in the Burning Woods. Where you might hear echoes of conversations long past in the observatory on Chapel Hill. Unwell is particularly memorable for its fun, colorful characters and for its themes of history and loss. A Midwestern Gothic mystery about family, memories, and the things that haunt us in the end.

Down – A submarine called the Virgil enters a seemingly bottomless Antarctic trench. Its mission: to map the pit and collect samples of any scientifically interesting creatures within. But when an encounter with one of these creatures goes awry, tensions form among the crew, and they begin to wonder how safe they really are. All the while, the Virgil descends … and descends … and descends.

Mockery Manor – It’s the summer of 1989, and people are going missing in Mockery Manor theme park. It’s up to a pair of teenage sisters to unravel the mystery and catch the killer – if they can get past their own traumas and work together. If you like 80s and 90s horror/slasher movies, this one is for you. The audio production values are some of the best I’ve seen, and include in-universe pop songs and wonderfully atmospheric 90s horror synth.

I Am In Eskew – David Ward is lost. He’s found himself in Eskew, a place of steep and winding streets, where the architecture changes at will and the rain never stops. Eskew grips its people tight, and does not let go easily. These are David’s stories of the city that has claimed him, and of someone who is looking for him there.

Gospel Of The Flood – The world is sinking. Slowly, day by day, the continents are vanishing under the waves. This is the age of the Flood. We follow a priest who has lost his faith, as he searches for the people he remembers in this doomed and dying world. A tragedy/existential horror about faith, despair, kindness, cruelty, and the tide that carries it all away.

The Lost Cat Podcast – Our narrator is looking for his cat. It isn’t the nicest cat, nor the most well-behaved, but it is his cat and he misses it. As he searches he encounters many people, many creatures, and some truly terrible things. He’d like to tell you about them. The tone for this one fluctuates from story to story, from genuinely horrifying to purely comedic to incredibly soft and gentle.

Archive 81 – A man named Daniel Powell listens to some audio tapes. This will surely not have severe consequences for anyone. Melody Pendras interviews the tenets of a building where reality wears thin at the edges. A play from golden age of radio brushes against something mankind wasn't meant to hear. Two siblings attempt an occult ritual left by their estranged (and now deceased) father. It's a lot of weird analog horror with fun found footage scattered within.

(Note: Archive 81 is genuinely nothing like the Netflix adaptation of the same name. The plot is entirely different, the characters act differently, the podcast is a surreal cosmic horror while the adaptation is a straightforward demon cult and Netflix made Melody straight. Don’t mention the Netflix adaptation in this household we all hate the Netflix adaptation here.)

Honorable Mentions: (i.e., I like them but for one reason or another they weren’t right for the top ten.)

Midst - More Fantasy/Weird/Western than horror, but if you like horror you’ll love the monsters, the cosmic horror reality storms and the truly weird imagery. The unique narration style is like nothing else I’ve ever heard and keeps the energy high.

The White Vault S1 & S2 – Frozen tundra horror, similar vibes to The Thing, in a found footage format. I mostly recommend the first two seasons, because they’re the most solid and they work as a self-contained story.

Old Gods of Appalachia – Appalachian folk horror, angry ghosts and forest gods. Some characters and threads run through it but largely each season is its own setting and story.

Alice Isn’t Dead – A truck driver searches America for the wife she long assumed was dead. Soft spoken road trip horror slowly unraveling an inhuman conspiracy.

Woe.Begone – More scifi/thriller than horror, but good shit. What begins as a mysterious and violent ARG with real-life consequences becomes a search for the technology that makes the game possible. Great music, fun narrator, dark themes.

Death By Dying – The Obituary Writer of Crestfall, Idaho just can’t stop himself from investigating the mysterious deaths he’s supposed to be writing about. Very silly and whimsical, more black comedy than pure horror with big Welcome To Night Vale vibes.

A Voice From Darkness – Parapsychologist Dr. Malcolm Ryder helps those who suffer from supernatural troubles on his call in radio show. I’ll warn that the update schedule is a bit slow and not super consistent.

The SCP Archives – A podcast that takes stories from the SCP Foundation wiki and gives them voice acting, foley and the full audio treatment. Picks a pretty good variety, too.

The Wrong Station – Anthology podcasts are always a little hit and miss, but the fact that The Wrong Station keeps the same writing/VA team from episode to episode really helps keep it consistent. I made a list of my favorite episodes here.

Nightlight – Anthology podcast with creepy stories written by black writers and performed by black actors. Like all anthologies, you’ll like some stories better than others, but they cover a pretty wide range.

[supernovafics]

you and bestfriend!steve go on a road trip

wc: 1k

a/n: had this sitting in the drafts for months lol enjoy !!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

maybe robin was right.

two directionally challenged people shouldn’t go on a road trip together. however, you and steve, god bless your hearts, thought that you could prove her wrong. because, in your mind, if the two of you just put your heads together and used a map the entire time as if your lives depended on it— which they kind of did— there was no way that you’d end up getting lost on your twelve hour drive to new york city, right? 

wrong. so, so wrong. 

“you’re stressed,” steve said, taking a quick glance at you before looking back at the road. 

“that’s actually an understatement,” you responded with an annoyed sigh. “you missed the exit we were supposed to take and the next one isn’t for forty miles. also, we should be in ohio right now, not kentucky.”

“we’re just taking… a different route,” steve told you with a small shrug. “a scenic route, if you will.”

the fact that he was so nonchalant about everything made you feel slightly less worried about the situation the two of you were currently in, but you still hated that he was so calm about potentially being lost. 

“also, if we’re gonna assign blame to someone for the “missing the exit” debacle, then it’s actually more your fault than mine because you told me the wrong number and didn’t tell me the right one until it was too late.”

you wanted to whack him with the map in your hand but you refrained from doing so.

“robin was right,” you told him. 

steve quickly shook his head at your words. “nope, nope, nope. don’t say that. we’re gonna make it to new york.”

“yes, but i think it’s gonna happen in two weeks instead of two days like we planned.”

“well, good thing we don’t have any big plans for the next month,” he said and smiled at you. 

you returned his smile with a halfhearted glare. “i hate that you’re so calm about this.”

“one of us has to be. and if i start getting nervous too, you’ll get into that pretty little head of yours and start freaking out even more and we’d be dead within minutes.”

you hated how true his words were, and instead of attempting to counter them, you simply said “okay,” and then leaned into the passenger seat, allowing yourself to finally get comfortable. the sun was starting to set and all of the stress was making you tired. 

he glanced at you. “go to sleep, i’ll wake you when we stop for gas. which will probably need to be in an hour or two.”

you nodded even though he couldn’t see you and let your eyes close. because steve was right, if one of you stayed calm, then everything would turn out okay, right?  

wrong again. 

when your eyes opened it was dark outside, which did not surprise you. what did surprise you was the fact that the car was stopped, and not at a gas station. instead, it was stopped on the side of the highway. 

you rubbed the tiredness out of your eyes, and turned to your best friend. 

the map was now in his lap and he had the interior car light on as he studied it. he had a certain concentrated look on his face, with his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes squinting down at the paper. from the moment you met him in fifth grade, you had always found that look endearing. this time was different though because the look worried you. 

“steve.”

he looked over at you, surprised to see you awake, and didn’t say anything for a brief moment before deciding to just be completely honest with you. 

“things aren’t looking too hot right now.”

“what?” you sat up in the seat. “did we run out of gas?”

“luckily no. but if we can’t find a gas station within the next twenty miles, then we will,” steve answered. “thirty minutes ago i saw a sign that said one was coming up in ten miles, but then it never did.”

you nodded at that and then bit your lip, thinking for a few seconds. “okay, we should just get off at the next exit and hope to find a gas station somewhere in whatever town it is, and if not, at least we won’t be stuck on the highway.”

steve nodded and was smiling as he handed the map back to you and then started the car again. 

you look at him confused. “what’s that smile for, steven?”

“i think you just took over my role as the calm one.”

“oh, trust me i’m absolutely shitting myself on the inside.”

he laughed at that and then started driving again. 

luckily, the two of you were able to find a gas station ten minutes off the exit. while steve started loading up the tank, you decided to go to the pay phone that was next to the convenience store, which you also planned to go into because you were starving. 

“i’m gonna call robin and let her know that we’re still alive,” you told steve as you started grabbing some coins from his glove compartment. 

“don’t tell her we got sorta lost or almost got stuck gasless on the highway.”

you nodded almost immediately. “of course not. like, i would give her any more reason to think that this road trip was a bad idea. we’ll never live it down if she finds out she was right.”

“well, technically, she’s not right since we are still gonna make it to new york.”

you couldn’t bite back your laughter. “i really love that enthusiasm.”

“one of us has to stay positive, remember?” steve smiled at you. 

you playfully rolled your eyes and finally walked away, popping a couple quarters into the pay phone before putting in robin’s number.  

“you’re alive!” she said when the call connected and you first greeted her with a simple “hey.” “i have to say i’m very surprised, but also kinda proud. how’s the trip going?”

you took a quick look at steve as you thought about how to answer robin’s question in a way that wasn’t a lie but also wasn’t the full embarrassing truth either. 

“we’re alive,” you ultimately settled on saying. “things could be much worse right now.”

and that was the first thing you’d actually been right about all day. 

[silverskull]

Ohio Laundry Room

Chenford Week 2023

Day 1: Inspired by Canon

Amazingly, this fic covers all three points: (one of my) favourite scenes, canon quotes, and season five song.

Whole work below, but also here on AO3. Comments, reblogs and likes are SO VALUED!

It was a dusty shade of green.

Soft avocado; mushy peas; moss stems gripped and plucked from the bottom of an Ohio peat marsh.

The walls were thick - rough cement blocks stacked close together to provide some sort of dampening to the constant rumble of whirring washers.

She’d thought it was a quake hazard - avoided the little room on purpose, having no need of the facilities thus far into her stay.

Then: “Lock the door first.”

Not what she’d envisioned utilising the meet spot for.

They’d mentioned it before, gone over the blueprints of the apartment complex and the map of the block. Decided it was inconspicuous and secure. Nyla had approved it and Metro had agreed. In case of emergency.

“Meet me at the laundry room.”

Relief had flooded through her when he suggested it, her breath finally slowing down and filling her lungs completely, her heart giving one quick squeeze and relaxing its frantic patter.

He’d had incident reports to sign, and she got there first, running into the apartment and peeling off the elegant jumpsuit she’d worn to dinner. Glass had settled in the folds of fabric and now tinkled to the ground as she stripped, sticking to her bare feet like lopseed burrs while she hopped out of one leg, then the other. Her night clothes were nearest  - a soft hoodie and some yoga pants - and, once she’d dressed, she pulled the hood up close around her neck while watching out the window for his lights. 

She’d made him sleep on it - the hoodie - her last night at home.

He’d rolled his eyes and pointed out the pesky lumps of metal on the end of the strings and along the zipper, but even as he said it, he tossed it on the bed, sitting on top of it and pulling her hips in close. She’d laced her hands around his neck and bumped his nose with her own.

“They’re called ‘aglets’.”

He’d had no interest in her trivia, kissing her mouth closed with smiling lips, knocking her knees out from under her and rolling her into the bed with him instead.

She could still just smell him along the seams of the hood, and she inhaled deeply, squeezing her arms against her chest to prolong the scent.

His headlights lit the sidewalk as he turned into her street, pulling into a space in front of the railings. She didn’t wait to see him get out, hurrying to toss some vests and fabric softener into a basket.

He was already folding jeans when she burst in the door. She recognised them too - a pile he’d packed and thrown in the trunk the last time they’d stayed at his house, ready to add to his slowly expanding set of clothing in her bedroom dresser.

But his jeans were just a fleeting thought and she discarded the basket as rapidly as she could, dashing into his arms and burying her nose in his neck.

“That was really scary.”

It was hard to separate the layers of the four words.

That was really scary…

I thought I’d die.

I thought you’d die.

I thought he’d take me away.

I thought they’d take you away.

I thought you’d crack and come looking for me.

I wanted you to come looking for me. (I didn’t want you to come, either.)

I saw you past the gunfire, your face lit up through the windshield by the streetlights: I saw how frightened you were.

I nearly didn’t look away from you in time.

I miss you so. much.

“Yeah, I ‘bout had a heart attack.”

She could still feel his heart against her own, hammering away in his chest, the rapid pulse in his neck at odds with the reserved stillness she’d seen him wear like a mask.

His hands covered the full expanse of her back and she wanted to melt into him, sink into his skin like warm chocolate.

Business first though, and he tried - he really tried - two or three times. But she could see the way his eyes flicked fretfully around her face, his hands twitching at his sides as he restrained himself from reaching for her. He sounded like he was talking about the case, but it kept coming back to her, to her… her control, her boundaries, her safety.

He trusted her beyond doubt - her skill and expertise and ability - but the shooting had shaken something loose and he was struggling to reign himself in. She could see the momentary release he’d had from holding her undoing as she spoke, his arms and neck tightening with anxiety, his shoulders curving under the weight of his fear.

It wasn’t what she’d planned on saying, or doing.

But it was out there, and when she’d said it, she knew it was exactly what both of them needed.

“Lock the door first.”

She didn’t have to ask him twice.

And as the ash-green wall burst into stars before her eyes, she dug her fingers into the warm skin of his back, his hair rough and sweat streaked between her breasts, and one thought lit up her mind like a firework.

It didn’t matter where they were - laundry room or private jet or his tiny office at the station -  because everywhere was better when they were together.

And she always wanted to be with him.

Because she was in love with him.

[fiona-frauenfell]

I posted a one-shot on Ao3 if anyone would like to read it! (Or it posted below the cut.)

*Minor mention of verbal abuse*

Staring into a map for hours on end wasn’t my cup of tea, but alas, here I was. Alongside my loop mates, I found myself looking through maps to help Noor find her mom.

I would rather be looking at maps to find Fiona, but I overheard Millard asking Enoch earlier if he could “make sure he stays on task.” He being myself I assume because ever since Fiona has gone missing Millard has treated me as though everything I do towards finding Fiona is pointless. He claims there are “other things to worry about,” like finding V.

I feel like that’s all I’ve been hearing about for days. “Have you found anything out about V?”, “Are you looking for V?”, “Keeping looking for V!” At this point, I never want to hear the twenty second letter of the alphabet again.

Though I don’t blame Noor at all, I empathize with her if anything. I understand what it’s like to have someone you care about ripped away from your grasp. And Noor hasn’t seen V in years, I can’t even imagine how that feels.

Time went on, I begrudgingly looked through maps and Enoch stopped looking to over to see what I was doing, so I soon swapped my atlas of Ohio for one of Ireland.

Ireland was the only home Fiona had besides Cairnholm, not that she’d want to go back there anyway. After all the people who cursed her name and warned to never return, I doubt she would felt welcome to make a return.

Even if I did find a loop that Fiona could be hiding at, I would never get permission to go there. Heck, I don’t even have the permission to look through the map without having to sneak a glance, what made me think any authority figure would let me go to Ireland? Of course, I could always escape, but my chances of success with that were also very slim.

The only other option was to agree with my loop mates that Fiona had passed, which was an obvious no for me. But much as I didn’t want to believe it, it was still possible. But it couldn’t be, she couldn’t be, right?

I didn’t have much time to dwell on that thought, as my friends closed their maps for a lunch break. All except for Noor, who encouraged us to go eat, while she stayed to look through more maps. With this, I overheard Millard praise her for her dedication.

That was it. Before I could think to hold my tongue, I slammed my atlas shut and muttered “If you all had only cared this bloody much about finding Fiona, we would’ve had her back by now.”

I stormed out and tried to find a place to cool off. I end up finding myself on a bench beside the back doors of the library. Not all that far, but just out of the public eye. With tears streaming, I sat down and put my face in my hands.

I walked out of the building to try and hide that reaction. I was kind of embarrassed of how I reacted; Not the anger, Millard definitely deserved that, but the crying scared me. It put me in a state of vulnerability that I thought I escaped centuries ago, but here I was.

That was my father’s doing. In that moment I felt like I was fifteen again when the famine first stuck. Many of my friends were dying for an unknown reason and I was scared I was next. It got particularly hard when my youngest sister had contracted a disease that eventually also took her life. She was young, a couple months or so; we knew she wouldn’t make it but we had to latch on to some sort of hope, for there wasn’t any more of it anywhere else.

When she did eventually pass, I cried my self to sleep for almost a week. ‘Why was this happening to me?’ I could help but ask. Everyone around me was dying and couldn’t help but think that somehow maybe, it was my fault? How could I do this?

One night, my father heard the commotion in my room and peaked in my door. With an aggitated look he kneeled in front of my bed and whispered from behind gritted teeth. “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

From there on out I equated my empathy with ‘the need to grow up’ or ‘the need to become a real man, because real men don’t cry.’

I no longer cried because I was empathetic, I cried because what happened to me because I was empathetic.

But I finally found people that made me feel okay, like I could be my true self around them, even if I did cry every now and again.

Now the same people are trying to tell me my girlfriend is dead and tell me I’m over reacting when I tell them she’s not. What’s friends I have. If you call them that.

For example, when Victor died, nobody shoved it down Bronwyn’s throat. When she cried, nobody told her stop overreacting. They would sit with her, make sure she had a shoulder to cry on. And you see what I get?

Nobody treated me like that. And when I went away to sulk nobody would come to get me. Or so I thought.

About two minutes later Emma sat beside him, but I was a bit too preoccupied to notice. He finally noticed her presence when she put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be crying” wiping his eyes with my shirt sleeve as he spoke.

“Don’t apologize. I understand what you’re going through, and I know it’s hard.” Emma was trying to hard to use her “polite lady” voice and I was over it.

“No, you don’t. How could you possibly know what this feels like?” I shouted at her without even thinking.

“Because when Abe passed away…” she said, and I sobbed even harder; to think that Fiona could really be dead, yes it’s something I’ve considered but I didn’t believe it, her saying it just made it much more real.

“No,” I muttered “No, she’s not...” I try to continue my sentence but I find myself at a loss for words, instead I find myself wrapped in Emma’s hug. If anything, it always felt good when Emma gave a hug because of her fire powers.

We were comfortable. We stayed like that for a little bit, me crying on her shoulder.

In an attempt to cheer me up, she asks “So, what about lunch?” My weak spot; food. Through the tears I managed a weak, sarcastic chuckle. “I guess.”

[quietly-by-myself]

Shadow By My Fireplace - Chapter 31

Masterlist

Thank you again to @darkthingshappen for beta reading this and the entire series. It means a lot.

We’re in the final few chapters. There will be five or less before the story reaches its technical conclusion

CW: recovery whump, kidnapping/missing persons, panic attack, past slavery whump, reunion, emotional

===

The thought occurred to Cyril while he was lying in bed that night that Sacha probably had a family that was looking for him. 

After that, thoughts raced through his head and he couldn’t sleep. Though Cyril never had a family, he knew how important it was to people who did have one. It was the reason that not having one was such a loss. 

Could Cyril just ask Sacha? The idea of asking Sacha directly didn’t sit well with Cyril. Sacha had reacted so badly to finding out that his captor had died. How would he react to being asked about his family and having all that uncertainty about if they still wanted him? Sacha already believed that his family wouldn’t want him. What if that was actually true?

Cyril needed to protect Sacha from that, if it was true. He didn’t want his little brother to have to go through such severe rejection when he was so vulnerable.

Though, it was Sacha’s right to know what he was doing.

Cyril’s thoughts were a mess. He got up from his bed and went to his desk, taking out a pen and paper. Soon, he started writing things down.

Sacha’s family lives near a large body of water. They’re sailors. They’re also poor. 

Those were ambiguous clues at best. A lot of water folk were poor. Oswego, Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Watertown. None of them were particularly wealthy. It probably wasn’t any of the big cities though.

Maybe Sacha wasn’t from New York at all. He could be from Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota - maybe even Ontario or Quebec. With a name like “Sacha,” Cyril could believe that he was from Quebec. 

Did Sacha even know where they were?

As Cyril sat in his frustration, trying to figure out a starting point, an idea popped into his head.

Sacha went missing. There was probably a missing persons report about him.

Cyril opened his laptop. The time read 1:06am. However, Cyril was wide awake. His mind was buzzing.

He quickly typed in “missing persons database” into the search bar. Soon enough, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System flickered onto his screen. Cyril went to the tab for missing persons and began to type.

First Name: Sacha

Sex: Male

Race / Ethnicity: White / Caucasian

Height: 5’ 8”

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Hazel

By some miracle, there was only one result.

Matisse; Sacha; 19 Years; Hope; Chautauqua; NY; Male; White / Caucasian; 11/17/14

Cyril’s blood ran cold as he clicked the line and looked upon a picture of his Shadow, Sacha. He read through all the details, read the report.

Sacha had gone missing in a storm. His mother was looking for him. So was his father. His grandmother was deceased. What if Sacha had missed his chance to say goodbye? The thought didn’t sit well with Cyril. 

Where is Chautauqua?

Cyril opened Google Maps. Opposite side of New York, near the Pennsylvania border. He was up near Alexandria Bay, up by the Canadian border. It was a five-hour drive. Not bad, all things considered, but still very far. 

On the report, there was a phone number. His mother’s -  the house line and cell phone number. 

Should he call? Just to see if they were active?

Cyril decided to. If it rang, he would hang up. He dialed the number of the house line into his cell phone and hit “call.” The phone rang. Startled, Cyril quickly hung up and put his phone down.

Sacha had family and he could call them.

Cyril had to tell Sacha in the morning. Sacha needed to know. He needed to talk to his family. He needed Sacha’s family to know that their son was still alive. 

Anxiety filled Cyril. What if Sacha wanted to leave to go to his family? Of course, Cyril would let him, but it would be another loss of one of his only connections to other people. Cyril would survive, yes, but he’d never be the same.

Those were thoughts for another time. He needed to sleep. His clock read 3:34am.

—

Sacha could always tell when Cyril had something on his mind. Cyril was unusually tired, like he hadn’t slept enough. He kept telling Sacha that he was fine, he’d just had a bit of trouble sleeping, but Sacha was smarter than that. He knew that Cyril had something he was hiding.

However, Sacha didn’t have to be the one to bring it up. When Cyril came back inside from clearing the path to the cabin, he had words on his lips.

“Sacha, I, um,” he started. Sacha’s blood went cold. Was he kicking Sacha out now that he was doing better? Had he screwed up? 

“I found your family.”

For a moment, Sacha’s heart dropped to his feet and he thought he was going to faint. Cyril came over to him and helped him to the sofa. 

“W-what?” Sacha asked weakly. He was seeing stars. He could hardly think. His family wouldn’t want him, right? He was in such horrible condition. Nobody would want him. Nobody but Cyril, apparently. 

“Take a few deep breaths, Sacha. Tell me some things that you can see.”

Cyril guided him through the grounding exercise with the same care he always did.

“You- you’re not looking to get rid of me, right?”

Sacha had tears in his eyes. He didn’t know what to think. Did Cyril honestly find his family? Cyril was no liar. If he said it, it had to be true. 

“Sacha, please look at me.” There was untold emotion in Cyril’s eyes as Sacha looked at him. “Sacha, I would never do that. Frankly, I’m scared of you leaving me.” Cyril chuckled a bit to himself. “After we talked about what happened with me, you know, how I don’t have a family, I thought that you probably had one.”

Cyril took a breath, holding Sacha gently on the shoulders. “Your family filed a missing persons report for you four years ago. You’ve been missing four years. You’re only twenty-three,” Cyril chuckled a bit wryly. “Twenty-three and already been through so much. You’re so incredibly strong, Sacha.”

Tears formed in Sacha’s eyes. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know what to say.

“The phone number on the missing persons sheet still works. I don’t know if it’s still the same landline but we could try.”

A rush of adrenaline filled Sacha and he stood up suddenly.

“Let me talk to her.”

Cyril nodded a few times. “Yes. Yes, of course. Do you have your phone?”

Sacha had forgotten that he even had one. He pulled it out of his pocket and dialed the number that Cyril had pulled up on the digital file of his missing persons report.

Have they been looking for me this entire time?

Sacha could hardly believe it. He was in tears before the number was completely punched in.

The phone rang a few times before a very familiar voice picked up the phone.

“This is Clementine Matisse speaking. Who am I speaking with?”

“Maman…”

The line went quiet. More sharply, the voice came back. “Who am I speaking with?”

“Maman, it’s me. It’s Sacha. I’m safe. I’m alive. I’m okay.” It all came out at once. What was he supposed to say? After four years, he was finally speaking to his mother.

He started sobbing. “I’m safe, Maman. I’m safe. There’s so many things I want to tell you. Just, I’m safe. Okay? I’m safe.”

The line went quiet. So long that Sacha was afraid that his mother had hung up on him. She probably thought he was dead. 

However, the sobbing on the other end of the line soon told him that he was very much on the line.

“Tell me,” she asked between hiccuping sobs, “Who did you have a crush on in first grade?”

Sacha laughed, flushing a bit. “Did you really have to ask?”

“Tell me who you had a crush on.”

“Olivia.”

The line went quiet. He heard someone whispering. “It’s really him.”

Both of them were quiet for a while. Then, Sacha’s mother was the one to speak. “Can we come get you?”

Sacha looked at Cyril, who was nervously watching him. Sacha smiled a bit at Cyril. “I’m up near Alex Bay, Maman. I’m safe, but I’m far away.”

“Honey, I would travel across the world to come get you. Five, six hours is nothing.”

It’s your choice to make. It sounded like something that Cyril would say, coming out of that Cyril-sounding voice in his head.

“Just tell me where. I’ll come get you.”

“I’m with someone who rescued me. I’m staying in his cabin. Let me ask him where it is exactly.”

Sacha turned to Cyril. “She wants to see me. What’s the address here?”

Cyril froze a bit, but relaxed immediately in his normal, nonchalant way. He gave Sacha his address, which Sacha quickly repeated to his mother.

“We’re getting on the road now. We’re coming to get you, sweetie. You’ll be home tonight. I-I’ll call you when we’re in Syracuse.”

Then, the line dropped.

Sacha looked at Cyril. Cyril was smiling with tears in his eyes.

“She loves you, Sacha.”

“You heard?”

“You have your speaker volume very loud.”

Sacha didn’t realize that he never turned it down in the first place. 

“I-”

“It’s okay to not know what to think right now, Sacha. It’s okay.”

Sacha nodded and bit his lip. Then, he ran to Cyril and gave him a big hug, sobbing.

He was going home. He was actually going home.

Oh, how happy he’d be when he was finally in his mother’s arms.

===

Note on language: “Maman” is the correct French spelling of “Mama.” The “n” is not pronounced.

Tag list: @whumpsday, @i-can-even-burn-salad, @pigeonwhumps, @darkthingshappen, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @darlingwhump, @maracujatangerine, @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @flowersarefreetherapy, @octopus-reactivated, @quietshae, @whump-blog, @inkkswhumpandstuff, @whumpycries, @whumpkinz

[lilys42]

Bandmates (Josh Dun)- Chapter Four

I wake up late into the morning, unsure of whether or not I had dreamed the whole experience last night. I open my phone and go through my contacts, and sure enough, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun are listed. I immediately think about their offer to tour with them, and a mixture of excitement and anxiety churns in my stomach. I’m torn between staying in the small town band life I’m used to and traveling around the world with a well-established and famous band. I would no longer be practicing in basements and playing in old bars, half the patrons paying attention and the other half lost in their own conversations. I wouldn’t be making sandwiches with the expired ends of a loaf of bread because I didn’t get enough tips at my last gig to afford more, wouldn’t be making my own band merchandise and drawing my own logo. But wasn’t that the life I’d always wanted?

Ever since I graduated high school and flunked out of college my first year, I knew I wanted to be a musician. Rarely do bands make it to the status of the lucky few like Twenty One Pilots, but I didn’t care that I only had the smallest possibility of making it. I’d work part time jobs to make just enough money to get by as long as I could play music. I spent all my time during the day working so that Lukas, Flynn, and I could have late nights brainstorming new song ideas. We spent a lot of time practicing drunk, which never yielded good songs, but we didn’t have a care in the world.

I pull myself from my thoughts about the past and walk to the kitchen to get some coffee and breakfast. Rhea perks up from her spot on the couch when I appear.

“Morning. Did you get some good beauty sleep?” She asks with a glint in her eye.

“Yeah, I was exhausted when we got back. How about you?”

“Have any dreams about Ohio boys?” She completely ignores my question, obviously wanting to immediately grill me about Twenty One Pilots.

“Not that I remember. But I have been thinking about their offer.” I sit down next to her with my bowl of cereal and coffee.

“Oh? Do tell.” Rhea rests her hand on her chin and smiles at me in anticipation.

“My first instinct is to say yes. Even after mulling it over, I can’t ignore how incredible of an opportunity it is.” I begin.

“But..?”

“But it does make me a little scared. A lot scared, actually. I’d have to leave the only life I’ve ever known, and I’m so used to being a starved musician that barely makes enough money to survive that jumping to a band that makes millions would be a shock. And honestly, I’m most scared of losing my creativity. Everything about the tour is already planned out: the setlist, the stage design, the venues, the dates, even the songs themselves. Maybe they already have the harmonies worked out for me to sing, and who knows if I’d get to play my bass. I’m terrified that I’d miss the freedom of starting from scratch, you know? I don’t get to write lyrics and a melody, then get my bandmates to write the drums and guitar and finish off with a bass line that brings it all together. Isn’t that the beauty of being in a band? The chance to figure it all out together and have that unmatched feeling of finally pulling a song together?” When I finish and look over at Rhea, she’s looking at me with her mouth wide open.

“Damn, and here I was thinking it’d be a simple answer. I never considered…all of that. I completely understand where you’re coming from, but wouldn’t it be fantastic to get yourself recognized? You’ll have people lined up wanting to be in a band with you after they see you’ve worked with Twenty One Pilots. You’ll get your name on the map, and it won’t be so hard to start over with new bandmates. Plus, you pretty much have the guarantee of financial security. The pros outweigh the cons, do they not?” I think for a moment, but I still can’t come to a clear decision.

“I just don’t know.” She smirks at me knowingly, and I can easily guess what she’s about to say before the words come out of her mouth.

“Do I even need to mention how you’d get plenty of unsupervised time with that hunk of a drummer?” I can’t help it, my cheeks blush. We would be spending time together on a cramped tour bus, then hotel rooms, and backstage. And when Tyler goes to spend time with his wife, and we’re left alone…

“Look, why don’t you communicate with them about this? Maybe the decision will be a little easier if you tell them what you’re feeling. They might be able to ease some of those concerns.” Rhea suggests. And it’s a great idea. I finish my breakfast and text Tyler, asking if the three of us can meet up somewhere and talk about their offer. A few minutes later, I receive a message in response: Absolutely. Do you want to come to my house? Jenna and I are out getting coffee right now, but I can get Josh to come let you in and hang until we get back. I reply to his message, saying sounds good. He sends me his address, and when I look up from my phone again, Rhea is looking at me with her eyebrows raised.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re grinning like an idiot. Come on, give it up.” I hand her my phone, and she starts to smile too once she reads through the messages.

“Alone in a house with your drummer. You’ll have to take advantage of that opportunity.” She smirks knowingly.

“Oh, stop it. Will you drive me there?”

Twenty minutes later, Rhea pulls up in front of Tyler’s house. There’s a car in the driveway that I assume to be Josh’s, and my nerves light on fire all of a sudden.

“Deep breaths, Dani. They’re people.” Rhea reassures me, easily reading my thoughts as always.

“I know. I’m just still not used to this. What if I make it awkward?” I say.

“You won’t. I know you won’t. Once you get used to being around them, the conversation will flow easily. Now go on, it’s starting to feel like I’m dropping you off for your first day at kindergarten.” I chuckle, then force myself to open the door and walk up to the house.

“Text me if you need anything. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Rhea drives off, and I knock on the door. The muffled sound of barking and paws scurrying across the floor comes from behind it, then footsteps. I take another deep breath, then Josh is standing in front of me. I take him in: brown hair tousled and un-styled, black t-shirt and gym shorts, and a pair of scuffed white Nikes. He gives me a wide smile, then his golden retriever, Jim, shoves his head between Josh’s leg and the doorframe to greet me.

“Hey Dani! It’s good to see you again.” He says brightly.

“It’s good to see you too. And to finally meet Jim.” Josh opens the door for me to come in, and I immediately lean down to pet the dog. His tail swishes back and forth excitedly.

“How are you doing? I know last night was…a lot.” Josh asks.

“A lot better. It really helped having you and Tyler there when I was freaking out. I will admit it was a bit embarrassing to have a panic attack in front of people. That’s why I usually hole myself off from everyone.” I explain, opening up a lot more than I initially thought I would. I’m not the type to show my true feelings around anyone when I first meet them. Maybe it’s because I’m a fan of Twenty One Pilots, so I feel like I already know them, but it’s more the way Josh looks at me. He gazes at me with his brown eyes so full of concern and interest, and I can’t help but to spew every thought I’ve ever had. He looks at me like he cares.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed. At all. Ty and I both know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed like that, so we want to help. But I understand the urge to run and hide. Did you want to talk about the tour, or would you rather wait until Tyler gets here?” I smile at how much he’s making sure I’m comfortable, and I tell him we can go ahead and discuss what I’ve been thinking. We sit on the couch side by side, maybe a little closer than necessary, and Jim hops up next to Josh, affectionately laying his head on his lap. Josh strokes his fur absentmindedly, and I can’t help but watch the prominent veins in his hand as it moves. When I look back up to meet his gaze, he’s looking at me with a slight smirk on his face, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. I ignore the heat creeping up my neck and say,

“I’ve kind of been spiraling, to be honest. Going on tour with you guys seems like a no-brainer, but it’s a really big deal, and I’ve never performed on a scale like that before.” The moment I start talking, I can’t stop. I didn’t expect to be trauma dumping to him, given that I’ve known him for less than twenty-four hours, but here I am anyways. I relay everything I said to Rhea, all my deepest darkest fears about the slim chance of being successful in music. He listens patiently, and when I’m done, tears are trailing down my face.

“God, I’m sorry.” I wipe my face and look away from him, my cheeks flushing from embarrassment this time. Josh brushes my arm lightly, and I turn to face him again. He’s looking at me with furrowed brows and a slight frown on his face. Not out of pity, but pure understanding and concern.

“Can I give you a hug?” He says quietly.

“I’d like that.” I expect him to stand up, but he pulls me to him on the couch instead, wrapping his arms around me, holding me sure and steady. My body immediately relaxes, and I press my face against his shoulder. Then he does something I really didn’t expect: he rests his chin on the top of my head. It’s such a simple gesture, but it’s so intimate. Maybe Rhea was right. Maybe he is into me. Or maybe I’m delusional and he’s just being nice.

“Thank you for sharing all of that with me. I know it wasn’t easy. If it helps you decide, Tyler and I talked about giving you a lot of creative freedom. This would be a collaboration more than us telling you what to do onstage. Sure, it’s a job, but we want you to have fun, first and foremost. Plus, I saw your energy when you were singing. You were genuine. You felt the music deep in your soul. That’s definitely the kind of person I want to hang out with for months on end.” Josh says honestly. I can hear a smile in his words as he talks. We let go of each other, and I suggest,

“Why don’t we all play a song together? That way we can get a feel for each other musically and if this would really work.” Josh suddenly grins from ear to ear.

“So, you’re considering saying yes?”

“I guess I am.” I laugh as he jumps up from his seat on the couch, Jim getting up with him and mirroring his energy. He grabs the dog’s front paws and lifts him up onto his hind legs, dancing with him and looking like a complete fool. I laugh harder, and all traces of panic or sadness leave me.

Suddenly, the front door swings open; Tyler and Jenna take in the very odd scene before them, and Tyler says,

“Am I interrupting something?”

“As a matter of fact, you did. Jim and I were having a moment.” Josh replies in a sassy tone. The golden retriever wrangles free from his grasp and goes to greet the couple.

“Well anyways, hi Dani! This is my wife Jenna.”

“Nice to meet you. Glad you kept this one in check and didn’t let him destroy the house while we were gone.” She says, pointing to Josh. I giggle at the fact that they keep talking about him like he’s their teenager.

“It’s nice to meet you too. Your house is beautiful.”

“Well thank you. I’ll leave you three alone to work on your music.” She smiles, kisses her husband, and heads upstairs. Tyler watches after her with an expression of pure love and adoration.

“So, how’s it going?” Tyler looks mainly to me when he asks this question, presumably checking in on my anxiety level exactly like Josh did.

“Better. Josh and I talked everything through a bit before you got here.” I explain everything that I told Josh and Rhea, and Tyler listens intently. Once I’m finished, Josh brings up his proposal to play a bit together so I can make a definite decision.

“Sounds like a great idea! And Dani, your fears and anxieties are completely valid. I mean, if you’d taken me out of my parents’ basement when I was first learning to write songs to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of people, I’d freak out too. This is a big step, so let’s work through it together. Come on, let’s go downstairs.” Tyler says. I want to tear up at how good they’re being to me, but I fight back my breakdown this time. Josh scans my face and gives me a slight smile, like he can read the emotions just by looking in my eyes. He puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder as we go down to the soundproof basement. I miss every point of contact once he takes his hand away.

I feel a wave of calm wash over me as soon as I enter the room. There are a couple bass guitars lined up along the far wall, along with an electric guitar and a couple amps. Tyler has hung his ukuleles up on the wall, on full display. I recognize the instruments he plays onstage immediately, and they’re noticeably more worn down than the others, the wood and frets worn down from years of hands moving across the neck. Then, there’s Josh’s drum set. It’s a basic kit that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles like his stage drums do. They’re plain white, and he has a couple backup drums, cymbals, and piles of drumsticks tucked away in a corner. Theres also a couch across the room and a mini fridge, which I imagine is full of Red Bull, Tyler’s drink of choice.

“So, do you play any instruments?” Tyler asks as he picks up a white electric bass and plugs it into an amp.

“I play bass, actually. I tried to learn drums, but I guess I don’t have the coordination. As soon as I touched the kit, it’s like I forgot any sense of rhythm.” Both the boys laugh softly, and Josh says,

“I could teach you sometime. If you want.” His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he looks nervous. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s about to play his music with a new person, or if he was anxious to offer drumming lessons to me. Maybe a little bit of both.

“I’d like that.” I respond, and he lets a breath out. Tyler looks between us with his eyebrows slightly furrowed, then smirks.

“What songs of ours do you know on bass?” He breaks the weird trance between Josh and I, and I falter. It’s like every time I look at him, I forget how to be a person. I forget how to breathe, how to speak. The only thing on my mind is him, and the only thing I can focus on is trying to impress him, trying to make him like me. I can hear Rhea’s voice in my mind: just be yourself. He’s a person, just talk to him. I bring myself back to the present moment, and both Tyler and Josh are looking at me expectantly.

“Quite a few. My favorite to play is Jumpsuit. I’m working on a couple from Scaled and Icy, but since the album just came out and the tab isn’t available online, I’ve had trouble picking out the bass line.” I explain.

“Jumpsuit is a fun one. I can also look at some Scaled and Icy songs too with you. I could always give you the tab for it, and you can practice it on your own. Feel free to grab a bass and mess around.” Tyler points to the instruments, and I pick up a black one. I plug it into an amp, turn it on, and mess with the settings a bit until it sounds how I want it. I feel eyes on me, but when I look over to Tyler, he’s fiddling with the knobs on his own bass. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Josh hovering near me, watching my hands as I pluck a few strings on the bass. Just like I was watching him earlier.

“Alright Dun, get situated.” Tyler says. He reluctantly turns from me and heads over to his kit, his best friend nudging him with his elbow playfully before he sits down. As soon as he’s in the stool and there’s drum sticks in his hands, he visibly relaxes.

 I take a deep breath, listen to Tyler counting down, then begin the song’s low opening bass notes. He watches me for a moment, and once Josh comes in on the drums, he starts improvising some backup notes. Tyler sings the first verse, and then nods to me once the second verse comes around. I sing quietly and unconfidently at first, and Tyler walks a few steps closer so he can hear me better. I look over at Josh, and he gives me an encouraging smile. Tyler starts to sing with me again, and the three of us find a comfortable rhythm that makes me let go of my lingering nerves. I start to move around just as I would onstage, close my eyes, and feel the music. Once I’m confident enough to sing at a normal volume, albeit slightly louder so I can hear myself over the drums, I realize Tyler and I sound good together. Really good. Our voices compliment each other: mine light and airy, his more raw with emotion and feeling.

Once the final notes of the song ring out, Josh and Tyler look at each other in wonder. “You know,” I say, “I think this just might work."

[xtruss]

Solar Eclipse Path Map Shows States Where Sun Will Be Blocked Out

— March 16, 2024 | Newsweek

A rare total solar eclipse will take place next month and will be the last chance for Americans to view the natural phenomena for two decades, astronomy experts have said.

A total eclipse will be experienced by millions of Americans on April 8 this year—a rare astronomical event in which the skies briefly turn dark during daylight hours. Next month's eclipse is a rare event, with the last one taking place over the U.S. in 2017.

"You definitely want to be looking at the sky on April 8th because if you miss the solar eclipse this year, you have to wait two decades until the next chance to see a total solar eclipse from the contiguous United States," Brian Lada, AccuWeather astronomy expert, told Newsweek.

"Total solar eclipses themselves are not rare. They happen every year somewhere around the world. What is rare is to have them visible here in the United States."

Total eclipses occur once every other year somewhere on the planet, but for each individual community, they occur once every few centuries with some exceptions, Lada explained.

A solar eclipse is seen at Liberty Island in on August 21, 2017, in New York City. While New York was not in the path of totality for the solar eclipse, around 72 percent of the sun was covered by the moon during the peak time of the partial eclipse. Noam Galai/WireImage/Getty

What Is A Total Solar Eclipse?

According to Jonathan Belles, digital meteorologist for The Weather Channel, a solar eclipse takes place when the moon's orbit "takes it into the same plane as the sun, blocking out the sun."

There are numerous things to look out for - aside from the skies turning dark in the middle of the day - during a solar eclipse. Belles told Newsweek: "During a total solar eclipse, you can see explosions of matter being launched from the sun on some occasions. You'll likely see some eerie shadows in the form of eclipsed discs or even slithering snakes on the ground under trees and other objects. You might see bats and birds head out for food thinking that the sunset has arrived."

"If you look at the horizon, you may see thin clouds of ice that are usually invisible to the naked eye. You may also see clouds shrink over land or grow over the ocean. In elevated locations, you might also be able to tell where the sun is still shining."

Where Can I See The Total Eclipse?

A Map, Provided by NASA, Showing the Trajectory of the Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024. NASA

According to Lada, those wishing to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon will need to be "in a narrow area called the path of totality", stretching from Texas all the way to Maine in the northeast.

A NASA map shows the full trajectory of the eclipse across the states, including times it will occur on April 8. Starting in Texas at around 1:30 p.m. CDT, the eclipse will occur in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and finally in Maine at 3:30 p.m. EDT. Small parts of Tennessee and Michigan may also experience the total solar eclipse.

"Everywhere outside of the path of totality will only experience a partial solar eclipse, of course, as long as it's not cloudy," Lada told Newsweek.

Americans in 13 States Will Experience a Rare Total Solar Eclipse Next Month. Getty Images/Newsweek

If you're planning to look skyward to see the event, you need to be prepared. NASA advises using the correct equipment to prevent causing serious damage to your eyes.

"When watching the partial phases of the solar eclipse directly with your eyes, which happens before and after totality, you must look through safe solar viewing glasses ("eclipse glasses") or a safe handheld solar viewer at all times," NASA explains. You can also use an indirect viewing method, such as a pinhole projector."

[dayshift-loop]

the... idk what to call it. the non-phone guy steven au lives rent free in my head despite being pretty much unrelated to the timeloop au rn so have MANY fun facts for it + doodles + an actual map of the location below the cut

It's 1978 and Location 14 is in Ohio bc we all know how cursed Ohio can be.

Henry leaves after killing 3 kids and Steven. The whole first week is Steven being as annoying as possible to Henry and vice versa (and he gets employee of the month by default bc he succeeded in not killing a child).

Steven escapes becoming a phone because he wakes up mid-procedure and he has help from a certain shadow doggo (why? shrugs loudly. maybe it's a timeloop in some way after all lmfao ghdkjghjf).

Jack and Dave are there because again. loud shrugging. menaces to society ig. They suggest ways for Steven to sneak back into location 14 (including using blue paint and an illusion disk), though they think it's for revenge against Harry for almost turning him into a phone guy. Which it is, but also he wants to find Henry and stop him, too. Only Steven and Dave are on dayshift, Jack's the nightguard going by Jeremy Fitzgerald. Dave's mainly there to see the chaos unfold. Jack's there to help the kids have their happiest days.

Location 14 has been open for awhile at this point, and is one of the bigger locations. Harry is the phone guy here, and is VERY new, considering that he was springlocked here as well.

Steven doesn't use the springlock suits since he's a technician. The Fredbear one still needs to be repaired from Harry's springlock failure (sadly enough, Steven would be the one to repair it, unintentionally allowing Henry to use it to murder kids at the end of the week.)

Technically, Steven's scars aren't springlock scars. They look similar on the neck, arms, legs, and face, but the scars on his chest are so bad that it looks like there was a hole in his chest from Freddy's endoskeleton since the bear isn't a springlock suit. He literally couldn't move at all.

Matt works there. Again.

Dave does try to cause another MCI here, but is stopped when Jack suggests arson instead.

After Location 14 burns down, Harry is moved to location 47 (aka Colorado). He's there until Jake is brought in to replace him and then goes to Location 6, and then Location 32 after. Jake is the phone dealing with the bullshit of DSaF 1, in this case. (rip Jake, you're a real one, dealing with these 3 idiots all on dayshift)

Steven's phonification had been almost complete, just missing the head and a few systems. So he's missing all of his memories except for the most recent ones, namely the memories of his first week there (I know he works there longer in canon, but this isn't canon).

The animatronics at location 14 are the same as FNAF 1's main cast, with Fredbear and Spring Foxy as the springlock suits.

Henry kills Steven with Freddy instead of Spring Foxy because Freddy is front and center on the stage, and easier to stuff someone into.

During week 2, after he gets fired and then comes back anyways, Steven uses the name Fritz Smith.

[borderland-ranger]

Weekend Warrior 2022: Day Two (10/22/22) Tired, freezing and exhausted, I put on my outer layers of cold clothes as the temp began rising to the 40s and made my way to the Mead Hall for the restroom and found myself waiting for over 40 minutes, unfortunately missing breakfast during that time period. While there however I overheard that since last night, the Hearth Guard had laid claim to the Thornwood, renaming it the “Queen’s Wood” after a celebration they had seeing a woman named Tove being elected their own “Bandit Queen” in an act of defiance once they heard that Bryce was to be named King of Olaran. Likewise, the Sea Lords had last night also elected their own member Torvin as “the King of Throi” and demanded to be acknowledged as their own nation, also refusing to bow to the appointed bastard son.   These developments would be known back in camp as well, as upon arriving back those things had already become common knowledge, and the Rangers were instructed to gear up and march out with the Kingsmen to face the Hearth Guard on the battlefield. The Kingsmen were only 40 in number, while we Rangers outnumbered them as nearly 100 strong. The heavily armored Kingsmen in plate spread out before us, while we positioned ourselves accordingly, myself being assigned to Arrow Squad of the archers. We heard the Hearth Guard before we saw them, the chants as they marched and the beating of their drums. Rising over the far hill as wide as they could be were the barbarians. 

Another horn was blown, and moments later their ranks were doubled as the Sea Lords approached alongside them. In all, the battle was rough, being an uphill battle trying to fire into the shieldwalls of the Heath Guard as the Kingsmen were picked off by Sea Lord Archers who had greater distance than we did from below. The Heath Guard broke through our ranks and I found myself speared in the gut by one of their number, but not before taking down two of them with arrows and cutting down a Sea Lord in the back who had been harassing another Ranger. During the battle, Order of Luminos member Killian unfortunately dislocated his knee, and the leader of the Hearth Guard, Gamble, hit his head. 

After being healed, and recuperating at camp, it was announced the battle had been lost. Rather than marching back up to the Mead Hall to wait in line for lunch, I retrieved an apple from my tent and with my knife began eating the apple in the shade of the trees, along with a friendly couple of rangers (from Ohio) who were also having a fruit breakfast. Finishing my food, I re-entered camp to find the Ranger Vaarg who had been inspecting a map he’d received from the bar trying to locate where he needed to go for his quest. We rationed that it was directing him into the Thornwood not too far from where the battle had recently taken place. 

Trekking inside, we came to a run down and ransacked wooden cart, and therein found a white cloth bag containing a silver hammerhead tied in maroon fabric. Vaarg was unsure what the item was he had been sent to retrieve, but know it would be wrapped in purple; not this. Still, the item was taken, knowing that everything could be sold to the bar, once it re-opened. 

Back in camp, it was brought to our attention by Commander Brandis that a cart would be coming through the area, from beyond the hills and to the Mead Hall, supplies that would benefit the Kingsmen and Ranger forces, but it was assumed that the Hearth Guard and Sea Lords would be interested in intercepting it. An advance force of Ranger Skirmishers were sent to the treeline of the Thornwood, while us archers were led by Kat to meet the arrival of the cart and to travel along with it, protecting the supplies.  While the Hearth Guard burst from the woods, slamming into the Skirmishers and some positioned Kingsmen, the Sea Lords arrived from up the road sending us into volleys of arrows at each other. During this battle I fired around 18 arrows and took down at least three Sea Lords, and included a back and forth period between myself and Amy the Sea Lord (who operates the Etsy store Folk of the Wood) from behind our respective trees. At one point I was shot in the leg, but before I could be finished off, the battle was called as the Sea Lords had taken control of the cart. The surviving Skirmishers, Kingsmen and Archers were then told to press on into the Thornwood. I however had to retire to the camp to catch myself and recuperate. 

There I re-met with Vaarg and attempted to assist him in a quest he had received from the quest board; a note from a woman named Keira An’Farde who had been looking for her lost brother and wanted him sent her way. When Vaarg gave up, I continued on, conversing with Kingsmen, Hearth Guards, and Sea Lords (including Amy), but could not find who Kiera was or what faction she belonged to. Before long, it was time for dinner and I entered the line for food, alongside Commander Brandis, who told me of his time working with horses. I had dinner alongside Brandis and two others (who had flown in from England). Afterwards, as the sun had set once more beyond the mountains, I entered the fighting pit, this time finding myself up against a Kingsmen sword wielder who bested me but offered some fighting tips. Back in the mead hall, King Bryce’s coronation began, seeing the Rangers and Kingsmen kneeling to the new king as he was crowned after a few religious statements from the priests of the Order of Luminos. From outside, chants of protest were heard by the Hearth Guard and Sea Lords while from within the Mead Hall echoed cries of “For King and Crown” and “For the People!”

Once the crowd dispersed some I found myself grouping with nearby rangers, learning two female rangers had recently returned from a recon mission into the Sea Lord camp, wherein they had stolen two seashells from their “throne.” Wanting to try their luck again, myself and the commander of the Arrow Squad joined them as they left the Mead Hall to approach. It was decided that the two of us were to act as distractions at their second gate while the other two slipped inside again. I spoke with the guard at the gate, giving him the spiel about Keira’s Lost brother, asking if she was a Sea Lord or if her brother was inside the camp. Unfortunately we were turned away, and the other rangers were caught and told to leave. However, nearly seven more rangers approached us, and a plan was hatched to scout their main gate, and if it were defended poorly to charge the gate. The reason being that one of them had a quest to steal the Sea Lords artifact polearms, large polearms that were used in battle, but when not being used were put prominently on display just at their inner gate. Finding it poorly defended, us Rangers swarmed their entrance and a rallying call was cried out. In moments a number of rangers lay dead inside the camp gate and we were driven out by large amounts of Sea Lords. The captive rangers were released to us after being revived and we were instructed to leave. 

I made my way back to the fighting pit, I spoke with Argus, a skirmisher of the Rangers about how his buckler was treating him. I then sparred with him, using his buckler in addition to my longsword to see how I liked combat with a shield. Still, he bested me with swipes below the shield. Back to camp I headed, spending some time at the fire pit and meeting Azeem, a friendly Sea Lord who had army crawled into the Ranger Encampment just to see if he could. I didn’t stay up late that second night, as I’d had no sleep the night before and I was determined to get wrapped up in bed before I was chilled to the bone. 

It was semi difficult to doze off, hearing the ruckus of the camp, but before falling asleep I overheard Finn the bard singing “The Bard’s Song” at the campfire; a song I’d hoped to have heard at some point during the weekend. 

[truecrimepromiseversion2]

Disappearance of Beverly Sharpman

Beverley Sharpman circa 1947 (The Doe Network)

Beverly Sharpman

Physical Description

Full Name: Beverly Sharpman

Date of Birth: December 10, 1930

Race/Ethnicity: White/Caucasian

Sex: Female

Height: 5′0″ - 5′6″ (60 inches - 66 inches) (152.4 cm - 167.64 cm)

Weight: 100 - 180 lbs (45.35 kg - 81.65 kg)

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Nicknames/Aliases: Babe

Distinguishing Characteristics

Hair was long and wavy

Family

Mother

Father

Brother

Misc. Info

Worked at a clerk job in downtown though she resigned from it the day before she disappeared

Was going to be a senior at Overbrook High School before she disappeared

Case Information

Age at Disappearance: 17 (92 if still alive as of April 23, 2023)

Missing Since: September 11, 1947 (Missing for 75 years as of April 23, 2023)

Location Last Seen: Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, USA

Location Last Seen on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B057'09.3%22N+75%C2%B009'54.8%22W/@39.9525839,-75.1652215,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d39.9525839!4d-75.1652215

Case Classification: Endangered Missing

Dentals: Not Available

Fingerprints: Not Available

DNA: Available

Clothing & Personal Effects

Gray or Brown suit or dress

Brown in Black shoes

Flush Colored stockings

Earirngs

Suitcase

Circumstances of Disappearance

Beverly was reportedly last seen at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station at 24th and Chestnut Streets carrying a suitcase and sent her parents a telegram telling them she was leaving home to marry and not to worry. She was never heard again. The day before her disappearance she appeared to be troubled and wanted to tell her mother something but later changed her mind and her mother decided to not press her about it.

Unidentified Person Exclusions (NamUs)

https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/7034/investigations (30)

Misc. Info

The Text of the Telagram: "Got married. Leaving town. Will not be back. Don't worry. Babe."

Police labeled her a runaway but they still searched for her

Beverly had taken $175 dollars from her savings account

She had told coworkers that she was going to Chicago and while she has relatives in Chicago, those relatives reported that they never seen or heard from Beverly

Beverly had no boyfriends and none of her friends know of any men in her life nor of anyone she would eloped with

Authorities had checked marriage-license bureaus in all 50 states but didn’t found any evidence that Beverly had married

There were many reported sightings of Beverly in cities all over the United States after her disappearance but none of them were confirmed

Her parents published advertisements in newspapers in attempt to appeal for to contact them but she never reached out.

A theory is that she ran away because of an illegitimate pregnancy as it was a heavy stigma in the 1940s though nothing found support that theory

Contact Information/Investigating Agencies/Contact Agencies

Philadelphia Police Department

Agency Case Number: 2010-16-028710

Agency Contact Personals

Detective Viviana Reyes

Detective Valarie Miller-Robinson

Agency Phone Number

215-686-3093

215-685-3252

209-937-8377

NamUs

Agency Case Number: #MP7034

Agency Contact Personal: Regional Program Specialist Katherine Pope

Agency Phone Number: 817-879-9357

Agency Email Address: kpope@rti.org

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)

Agency Case Number: 1148707

Agency Phone Number: 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-The-Lost)

Sources/Further Information/Places of Interest

https://charleyproject.org/case/beverly-e-sharpman

https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/7034/details

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2220dfpa.html

https://www.missingkids.org/poster/NCMC/1148707/1/screen

https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/pa-beverly-sharpman-17-philadelphia-11-sept-1947.61173/

[beachy--head]

since you said you would try AUs and my mind literally only works in AUs here are more prompts lol (although i do think it’s harder to do drabbles for AUs 🤧):

high school japril - whatever tropes you want cuz i’m a sucker for all of it

or

they meet while traveling and keep running into each other

as you can see I was a bit inspired :D my very first au! It was super fun.

___

The first time she sees him, she's trying to take a picture of the Colosseum, and he won't move out of the frame. He's not even taking pictures, he's alternating between looking at the map in his hands and at the amphitheatre in front of him, probably trying to picture the whole building as it used to stand centuries ago. She watches him as he notices she's waiting to take a picture, making a vague hand gesture before moving out of the way. She nods to say thank you, and he smiles before walking away, trying to shield himself from the italian sun. Her pictures don't do justice to the building standing in front of her, but she doesn't really care, so happy she's finally here and determined to enjoy every single minute.

The second time she sees him, she's getting out of Notre-Dame cathedral, feeling calm and at peace after talking to God in such a historical landmark. It's almost sunset, and he's leaning on the railway of a bridge, looking pensively at the Seine. She stops in her tracks, trying to make sure it's the same guy, and sure enough, the buzzed hair, the black messenger bag, the red sneakers tell her that he is indeed the same man she saw in Italy. She's weirded out, but well, coincidences happen. Why wouldn't two tourists meet in two of the most touristic places in Europe? So she crosses the bridge towards the Quartier Latin, making a pit stop at Shakespeare & Company (because who can resist a good bookstore facing the Seine?), and she misses the way his eyes find her and watch her walk away.

The third time she seems him though, she's starting to get freaked out. While the City is never void of tourists, it's also not the most obvious of places to visit in London, and the chances they would both book a ticket to get at the top of the Sky Garden, to admire the British capital from above, on the same day and at the same time, are quite honestly very low.

She's usually shy, but she's also usually curious, so she gathers all of her courage and marches towards him as he's taking in the view on the platform deck.

"Are you stalking me?"

"Am I...?"

"Stalking me. I'm pretty sure I've seen you in Rome and in Paris, and now here, and it's getting really weird."

"Now who sounds like a stalker?"

She rolls her eyes as he laughs, taking in his eyes, and his smile, and the way his shoulders move for the first time.

"I'm flattered I'm so memorable, but no, no stalking, I swear. Just a guy making his way through Europe. Like you?"

She doesn't know why, because this guy could be a psychopath after all (her ears ring with all of the advice her mom gave her before leaving, don't talk to strange men, stay safe, it's dangerous to travel alone), but they start talking.

They're still talking as they make their way downstairs, cross London Bridge, walk along the Thames on the Southbank before ending up in a pub. Jackson Avery, from Boston, tells her he's here because he has just finished college and that this trip is his grandfather's notion of a Grand Tour, sending him to Europe to broaden his mind and perfect his education (the only education he got so far though, he admits, is learning how to ask for a beer in five different languages). April Kepner, of Moline, Ohio, tells him that she's saved up for two years to go on this trip with her sister, but Alice's time off work was cancelled, and the tickets were non-refundable, so she went by herself and doesn't regret it.

They talk for hours, and through them all, she's trying to decide if all of their meetings are only a result of some random coincidences, of a complete lack of originality in their itinerary.

Hours later, in his hotel room, when he's moving inside her and she's gently biting his neck, she comes to the conclusion that she wouldn't be mad if they were the result of something bigger.

[pizza-is-my-buziness]

Can I send a Sameena prompt? From the Fall Writing list I suggest 1 and 7 together.

Please know that you can always send a Sam and Deena prompt any time, any day, anywhere. Please. I'm begging you, actually.

1 is "who doesn't like pumpkin pie" and 7 is "are you wearing my flannel" (which screams Deena, am I right???) Thank you for sending this and letting me indulge in some fluff and my fav: college Sam and Deena.

“Oof. I can’t breathe.”

Unfortunately, this statement, grumbled into a pillow, does nothing to dislodge the weight on her back and Deena tries in vain to wiggle herself free. “Seriously. I think you’re crushing my kidney.”

Sam murmurs something in response that is lost to Deena’s curls, though she does, thankfully, shift her knee so that it is no longer jabbing Deena in the back and, predictably, Deena misses the heat of her, the furnace of Sam’s body the only thing, apparently, that had been staving off the chill of a late November Ohio morning.

The bed is bigger than the ones they’re used to sneaking around in, hopping from dorm room to dorm room depending on whose roommate is gone for the night or the weekend or has been bribed to be somewhere else for a few hours and yet, here they are, still tangled together under the blankets that still smell exactly the way Deena remembers.

It would be a lie to say that Deena minds. Bruised kidneys or not.

She rolls onto her back, blinking up at the same ceiling she’d mapped for the first eighteen years of her life, all of it unchanged and frozen in time. She’d left most of her things behind when she’d left, unattached to most things that weren’t her person or her photos or her records and cassettes and just being back in her bedroom leaves Deena feeling almost exactly as she had the day she’d left, a tangled mess of excitement and nerves and, surprisingly, a bit of sadness too because this had been the space where she’d spent so many nights with Kate and Simon, their laughter forever trapped between these walls, and Deena hadn’t been sure how to bring them with her when she went to a place they would never see. Even now, she isn’t sure, isn’t sure what they would think to see her back here again, driven steadily toward the edge of the bed by the person who currently has her face hidden against Deena’s shoulder.

Except, maybe that’s not entirely true. Deena thinks she knows exactly what Kate and Simon would say about everything that’s happened over the past year.

The house is still quiet, just as it had been when she and Sam had finally made it the night before, predictably late and off the schedule Sam had been so certain they could stick to, coming in as silently as possible so as not to wake Josh or her father. It had been a few hours since Deena had last talked to Josh, calling him from a payphone outside the gas station where they’d had to stop for gas and for Sam to use the bathroom and as Deena had listened with half an ear to what Josh was saying, she’d watched Sam through the plate-glass windows of the gas station convenience store, seemingly buying enough sugar to keep them wired for the next seven days. Despite their late arrival, Josh had left the living room lamp on for them and it had been almost as good as coming home to find Josh himself waiting up.

Their bags are by the door, dumped unceremoniously as they’d quietly closed Deena’s bedroom door behind them, getting half undressed and falling into bed and she’d been so certain that they’d be up all night, delirious and punch-drunk from driving and sugar and cheap fast food but she’d fallen asleep almost the minute Sam had pulled the comforter around them, cocooned by the smells of the home she’d left behind months before.

“We should get up,” Deena says regretfully, the idea sounding all the more terrible once she actually says it out loud.

Sam doesn’t move from her spot, one leg still slung across Deena’s thighs. “Should we?”

“Eventually,” Deena relents. “I mean…it was your idea to go see Ziggy.”

Huffing out a breath, Sam sighs, tucking herself against Deena’s side. “Ziggy would probably be glad if we didn’t show up. We’d be doing her a favor.”

They both know this is a lie. They’d both been fielding calls on the communal phones in their respective dorms for the past month, trying to shrug off the assurances from the other floormates that it was a little weird that a slightly neurotic thirty-something kept calling about their holiday plans.

“We need to bring something,” Sam adds, already having abandoned the argument for skipping out on the visit all together.

Not that either of them would even want to, seeing as visiting with both Ziggy and Martin had been half the reason for coming back to Shadyside for the Thanksgiving holiday in the first place. Josh had been the other half and it hasn’t escaped Deena’s notice that Sam has yet to bring up making time to see either of her parents. Not that Deena is going to press that particular bruise.

“Oh yeah?” Deena turns so that she’s on her side, face to face with Sam instead. “You gonna cook a giant turkey?”

Sam rolls her eyes and her face is still soft and rounded with sleep, her hair a tangled mess of gold and Deena doesn’t resist the urge to slip her fingers into the strands, brushing it back over Sam’s shoulder. “I was thinking a pie. Like a normal person.”

“Turkey is normal,” Deena points out and Sam gives her a poke in the side in response and Deena traps her hand in place, holding it against her side. “What kind of pie?”

“Pumpkin,” Sam says, and, off Deena’s look, she adds, “Who doesn’t like pumpkin pie?” with a roll of her eyes.   

Deena inches away from Sam, rolling over once more so that her back is to her instead. “Pumpkin pie is disgusting. I’m starting to rethink this relationship.”

The mattress dips and shifts as Sam moves and Deena finds that her plan backfires when Sam slips out of bed rather than attempting to win back her affection. “You think about it,” Sam says with a shrug, the strap of her tank top slipping off her shoulder as she kneels down in front of their bags and starts digging around. “I’m going to shower.”

Deena props herself up on one elbow, letting her eyes travel from the dip in Sam’s collarbone and toward her face. “Don’t take too long.” She hopes the smile on her face is enticing rather than crooked and sleepy, though she’s not holding out much hope given the fact that she can’t even muster the energy to slip out of bed to press her lips to Sam’s bare shoulder.

“Hot water and not having to fight fifteen other girls for the shower? I think I might be in there for hours.”

Laughing, Deena flops back down onto the pillows, the lingering warmth in the bed beside her a poor consolation for Sam. Briefly, she considers getting up, following after Sam, indulging in some of that hot water with her, but she ends up keeping herself curled up in bed instead, grabbing the Walkman from its spot on the floor where it had ended up last night when they’d come stumbling in.

Deena puts on the headphones and presses play and, ah, this is where Sam’s ubiquitous copy of Tragic Kingdom had ended up after Deena had finally vetoed it somewhere around the fifth hour of their drive, after they’d already listened to the album three times and she’d been certain the sound of Gwen Stefani warbling “Don’t Speak” was going to cause her to drive the car right off the road. Now, Deena doesn’t mind so much, letting the tape play through as she closes her eyes, too lazy to try and change it out for something else, especially when it reminds her of Sam anyway. Sam with her head pillowed on her elbow as the wind played with the ends of her ponytail, humming along with the words coming through the crappy speakers in Deena’s crappy car. The car had driven them out of Shadyside and now back again and the place doesn’t seem all that bad now that Deena knows she can leave again, that she has a real life to go back to, classes and friends and a path she wants to follow and Sam, always Sam, humming along in the passenger seat.

It isn’t until Deena feels the gentle brush of Sam’s hand on her shoulder that she realizes she’s fallen asleep and she jerks awake suddenly, surprised to find herself back in her childhood bedroom with the headphones crooked on her ears and the tape having fallen silent. Sam’s cheeks are still flushed pink from the shower, her hair in a messy knot on the top of her head, and she looks so beautiful that Deena can’t breathe, can’t do anything but blink up at her and hope it can be blamed on the grogginess of sleep.

“Sorry,” Sam says softly. “Do you want to get ready?”

Deena sighs, pulling off the headphones and tossing them aside without much interest in where they land. “No.” She puts her hands against Sam’s hips, pulling her down onto the mattress, not caring much that Sam is back to half-crushing her kidneys. “Let’s just stay here.”

Sam leans in to kiss her, bracing her arms on either side of Deena’s shoulders to keep her from falling completely, not that Deena would mind that either. They aren’t the same people who used to kiss in this bedroom with the Pixies on the stereo and the door locked so they had a chance to pretend like their flushed cheeks and inability to make eye contact were from something else. Then, Deena had worried that every time Sam had kissed her would be the last and that she would wake up from the moments with Sam that had always felt like dreaming anyway. She worries less about it now, even though it still feels like a dream.

Less so, unfortunately, when the kissing stops.

Sam pulls back, reaching up to brush her hair behind her shoulders, and Deena lifts an eyebrow, studying her. “Are you wearing my flannel?”

Now that Deena is looking at Sam properly, she can’t believe she didn’t notice before. Can’t believe she’s capable of noticing anything but the way Sam looks in the red and black checkered print, filling her with an almost palpable urge to see Sam in her clothes every single day, this subtle proof of the way their lives are twined together.

“Is that okay?” Sam glances down at herself, uncertain. “It was in the closet and-”

“Yes,” Deena says, nodding, letting her fingers brush the familiar fabric. “It looks better on you anyway.”

Sam smiles even as she shakes her head. “Impossible.” She leans forward, kissing Deena once more. “You look good in everything.”

Deena tucks Sam’s hair behind her ears, letting her hands settle against Sam’s cheeks. “Are you hitting on me? Because I have to tell you, I have a girlfriend and she’s really-”

Sam silences her with another kiss and Deena figures that’s just as well. There are better things for her to do be doing than making stupid jokes anyway.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Tales of the Walking Dead 1x01: Joe and Evie

how did everyone like ToTWD 1x01? I actually loved it! I didn’t expect to like it so much. So, let me just put the main reason out there right at the start: Joe and Evie were a retelling of Beth and Daryl in SO many ways. They had a similar dynamic that complimented one another. They had similar conversations. Even similar situations (Joe taking a piss and such.)

Me and my fellow theorists’ thoughts are below. If you didn’t read the episode this way, I think we’re about to change your minds.  😁

@galadrieljones:

I watched the episode! I loved it. Omg, like I knew I’d like it, but it was actually much more entertaining and sharper than I sort of thought it would be. I really like Olivia Munn in her role here. Someone mentioned it above, sort of, but she reminded me of like a quirky, hippie “good” Leah. She’s even wearing a red hat when we first meet her. It took me a long time to get through the episode. I took a lot of notes and a lot of screenshots lol, just as you predicted Ann. I will share those tomorrow. For now, I just want to share one thing that got me most excited, because I have been thinking a lot about the WB coda and what it could mean for Daryl’s spin-off. So, the big thing I was paying attention to in the episode, which had me continuously smiling, was the setting: Ohio. Joe played football at Ohio State, and this wasn’t the end of it. Him and Evie do a full blown road trip through Ohio on the I-75. I loved all the signs and ofc I mapped everything out lol.

They drive through many cities: Hamilton, Dayton, Springfield, Lima, and Bowling Green, and the montages are sure to tell us all of them. These are all real places, most of the Ohio locations along the I-75 or on smaller freeways around it.

Anyway, the most intriguing thing I noticed was where they camp, after their nice little sunset Beth/Daryl conversation about there still being “magic” in the world. They are probably camping very near to Toledo. If you look on the map above, you'll see they pass through Toledo metro between Bowling Green and Ann Arbor, MI. Toledo isn’t mentioned on any of the locations they pass, obviously.

That would be too straightforward lol. Gimple is, like you said, Ann, talking to people who are going to, idk, be obsessive and map the road trip lolol. So, when they stop to camp it’s immediately after the “Greetings from Ohio” sign, but it's BEFORE they see the “Welcome to Michigan” sign, implying that they’re camping between Bowling Green and the Michigan state line. They’re in Toledo! Or right outside it.

This is what really got me: When they camp, they see something very interesting—one of the walkers that attacks them that night has its heart completely, surgically removed from its body. Joe takes notice and says something about it, to which Evie responds that she hopes it happened “after they turned.” 

All of this is happening after the Ohio sign, which says, “Greetings from Ohio! The HEART of it all.”

Okay, so I think this is a big nod to the Primrose Team, who is supposedly in Toledo, OH for a conference during the outbreak. I also think it's a nod to Dr. Jenner’s talk about kick-starting the circulatory systems of walkers. The key to the cure is in the heart, not the brain. Ohio is the “heart” of it all, and we have a walker with a missing heart. Ohio is very important, apparently.

Also, Idk if the walker is a pure symbol, or if it’s meant to imply that perhaps the Primrose Team was doing experiments at/for the “conference” in Toledo, or even after the turn, and some of those experiments got loose. Idk the whole thing was very exciting to me. Because the Commonwealth is also in Ohio, ie: Daryl is not in Ohio yet, but he will be in about ten years…what is he about to find there? And ofc who wears hearts? Heart necklace, hearts on her cowboy boots…Can’t be Beth. Anyway. That’s all for tonight. I had lots of other things, ofc, the episode was full of symbols and interesting stuff I loved, and I can’t wait to hear what you all saw, too!!

Oh, also, I'm just going to throw this out there because it occurred to me only just now. The I-75 was familiar, so I went back to my notes. The I-75 is the freeway that goes north out of Atlanta and is part of the original "Green Route," as marked by the Terminus map. It runs basically straight from Macon (Terminus) to Atlanta, and then due north through KNOXVILLE, all the way up to Toledo.

Idk I'm trying to find connections between Ohio and Atlanta, via smart walkers, trying to trace what may have happened at Grady back to T. Brooks Ellis and the Primrose Team. I don't have a ton yet, but this episode really made me feel strongly that whatever happened with Team Primrose, we're going to learn more about that, and it feeds in some way into the Daryl Spin-off...

Oh, here's one more map, of the I-75, just for a visual:

@wdway:

I did assume though that they were going near Toronto. I can help you out on how you can find a connection from Atlanta to Toronto Ohio, this is something I research a couple of years ago but at the time it didn't seem all that important which is laughable now. In s4&5 we saw signs on the back of the railroad sign where Maggie, Sasha and Bob first find out about terminus. A railroad number, it's the same number I believe that is on the sign when Rick and TF come out of terminus. My point is that railroad eventually goes to Toronto Ohio. I would suggest you recheck this because it has been quite a while.

Now I can give y'all part "A" of one of the biggest clues of what happened to Beth after the end of Coda. Part "B" I'll give later on because I don't want it to be overshadowed by "A." @galadriel, I immediately thought of you when I did a related Google search that will be near the end of this ramble. On my first watch of the episode, I thought the little animal that Joe and Evie rescues was a goat. It looked like a little goat to me because of the spots. I thought it was a nod to the goat in Here's Not Here, named Tabitha which was a nod to Resurrection because of the New Testament Bible figure by the name of Tabitha who was risen from the dead by one of Jesus's apostles.

On rewatch of the episode I realized that they kept referring to it as a lamb. So not a goat, but the more I thought about it being a lamb the more excited I got. It was a sacrificial lamb! That lamb was sacrificed in order so that its owner could got away. Are we all hearing in our heads the conversation between Father Gabriel and Sasha about, "leaving one of your own behind."

The other thing is Jesus is often referred to as the Lamb of God. With Beth being a Christ, Jesus type figure then she was team families sacrificial lamb being left behind in order for the family to escape. I'm sure you guys already came to the same conclusion about this lamb but here's something you might not have done that I did first thing this morning, I Google spotted sheep. I'm going to cover my ears now for this part because I know that @galadriel will be screaming when she reads it. They're known as Dutch spotted sheep in Europe but here in America they are better known as..... Jacob's American sheep. They're called that as a nod to the Bible story of Jacob who raised spotted sheep. Are you freaking out Tarah because I know I was when I read that. I cannot wait to read what you have to say about this and how it adds another layer to the ties with Beth and Leah and the story of Jacob that you have already so brilliantly written.

@galadriel, there was something in your initial comment above, far above this point, that I wanted to clear up. Maybe I misunderstood you, but I got the impression that you thought I was referring to Evie as a Leah proxy. I was actually referring to the nut job that Joe was searching for. The lady that went crazy and try to kill both Joe and Evie. Imo Evie is definitely a Beth proxy and to emphasize that and also a tie in to railroad tracks leading to Toronto, here's the shot of the clue that tptb gave us.

Here's Joe and Evie on the railroad tracks that you pointed out must be near Toronto. Evie a proxy to Beth holding the sacrificial lamb, another Beth proxy.

@galadrieljones

Ooh I’m going to look into these more today. The connection between Ohio/Atlanta and the sheep. Jacobs spotted sheep were thought to have been a sign of his favor from God and his prosperity. It took him 7 years to breed his spotted sheep, the seven years he waited to wed Rachel after being tricked into wedding Leah in her place. Very interesting!! 

Also I definitely saw Evie as a Beth proxy. I saw her as an inversion of Leah. She’s this hermit woman but she’s a good person. I noticed how she ties up Joe, holds him at gunpoint, all these things reminded me of Find Me, but Evie is ultimately good, and she saves Joe’s life. So I saw her as Beth, but situationally, I saw the writers creating parallels with the Leah arc, almost to cal attention to the fact that Leah and Beth are mirror images, if that makes sense. She reminded me a lot of Beth spiritually. Even her name, Evie, which is very close to “Eve,” made me think of Still as an Eden allegory.

@wdway:

Evie's red hat would definitely fit in with Kari's theory about Beth holding the gate since Evie would be a proxy to Beth.

Joe was fooled by shelter woman (SW) sorry I don't know her name, he thought she was a good person. Whereas Eva he grew to respect and care for because he saw that she was a good person and had all the qualities that he mistakenly put on SW. Then at SW shelter he realizes that she is not what he thought she was and ended up killing her. That is so the story of Daryl and Leah being mistaken for someone good and ultimately realizing that she wasn't and killing her.

@galadrieljones:

I thought of that too, and as the red hat being related to Leah’s red hair in Find Me. Maybe they stand on opposite sides of the gates: Leah ushering Daryl into hell/death, while Beth ushers him back to earth/the living. Just a thought. But I definitely saw the red hat as being a way of thinking about Leah’s red hair as a disguise of some sort. She has blond hair but Daryl remembers it as red. I just thought w Evie it was another way of pointing this out to us. I’m also remember when I went back to “Guts” and “Tell it to the Frogs” earlier this week, there’s this insanely obvious shot of Amy carrying a red bucket. Knowing Amy dies soon, I saw the red imagery as being g a sort of red flag death warning as early as this.

I was just thinking something similar. Shelter woman’s name is Sandra, and her screen name USHLDBSCRD, ie: YOU SHOHLD BE SCARED. She has blond hair, like Leah, but her screen name is this obvious warning, sort of like Leah’s red hair.

Joe is easily swindled by her and drugged. She has gone insane and puts on clown make-up, another aspect of disguise. Only the disguise is the reality. She is insane and lives in a clown reality in which she can’t trust anybody. She collects watches too, which made me think of Terminus but also a little like she’s just collecting time. She’s definitely some sort of underworld creature, akin to Leah.

Then Evie comes with her lamb and pulls him out of hell.

@wdway:

Good points. I was thinking more on the lines that Beth at the end of s3 wear a knit hat look comic book Andrea's. I thought Evie knit hat might be a nod to Beth's.

@galadrieljones:

Yes!! Totally. Beth’s hat is white, I believe.

@wdway:

Joe's screen name was DOTTHEEYES, dot the eyes. A total eye symbol. And another was of saying look closely and read what's your seeing.

@galadrieljones:

I was also kind of struck by Evie’s husbands hate paintings. They reminded me of that horrific painting Carl finds at the house with Michonne in “Claimed.” And the painting Carl finds, if I recall, looks a lot like Mary from Terminus. Same hair. She was a redhead. Just lots of weird parallels. I also liked how Evie was content with learning she was loved. She didn’t need to search for Steven. It was t about getting him back, just acknowledging that she was loved, and she could move on.

@wdway:

Yes! Well said. There were several clues pointing to the house in both s4 episodes e9 &11. Joe said to Eva that she ties a good Clover hitch and that is something that Carl said to Rick when tying up the door in s4e9. Joe also asked if Eva's father was military which brought in the thought of military.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Loving all of this, too. I’ll start with what you’ve already discussed. I had much the same thought as you about the lamb. I compared it to Tabitha, and thought the lamb would die by the end of the episode, but it didn’t. (Not sad about that; just kinda surprised.) But as you said, it’s not a goat. A slightly different symbol, so it’s even more significant that the lamb lived. I definitely thought of it as Christ the lamb. The other really interesting thing of note (which is why I totally agree it’s symbolic of what happened to Beth after Coda) is that when it was left, it was tied to a concrete block. So, not only left behind, but left behind shackled, or imprisoned.

I haven’t worked out all my thoughts about this yet, but I also think there’s something very significant about Joe’s bike being stolen. We had all the details of Daryl’s bike dying in 10x21, him working on it, finding some way to fix it, etc. And then in 6x06, Sherry and Dwight also stole his bike. Now we have the same thing happening to Joe. I maintain that at least one level of the symbolism is that the bike represents Beth. Something precious, that’s part of who he is, forcibly taken from him. 

And after the bike left, Joe went on and on about how the bike was his whole life. Everything that meant anything to him was on it. Sounds like how Daryl felt about Beth to me. Love all your mapping, and the connection to Toledo. Awesome. I definitely noticed the walker with no heart, but didn’t think to link it to the primrose group. That’s genius! On a more abstract, and perhaps more obvious, level, I think it also represents Daryl’s heart (Beth) being taken from him. Here, Evie is Joe’s heart, or will become so eventually, and he saw the heartless walker with her, not Sandra.

In terms of which is which, I think both women represent both Beth and Leah at various times. Which is pretty much what you said above. Overall, clearly Evie is Beth because she’s the good one and probably Joe’s soulmate, and obviously Sandra was coo-coo. But Sandra was wearing bright yellow, which was interesting. I think the thing there is that yellow doesn’t have to be about romance. It definitely can be, but it’s really about reunion, and specifically finding someone you’ve been separated from and are searching for. What happens after the finding and reunion can go any which way. So, the yellow doesn’t specifically symbolize Beth and Daryl’s romantic feelings. There are other symbols for that. It does represent that she’ll live, and he’ll find her again.

I thought of the pre-Terminus paintings as well. That was a really interesting aspect of the show, and one I want to think about more. Of course we had Beth talking to Edwards about art and painting. But I really loved the moment when Evie when through them and was labeling them as “hated” or “loved.” The interesting thing is that all the “hated” ones were clearly gross and sinister looking, which is why we thought of Terminus. But the one of her was lovely and sweet. It made me think of the paintings above Maggie’s desk at Hilltop. Beth, of course, but even Glenn and Hershel, etc. When Evie said, “loved” I thought of all of them. It was just so sweet and compelling. And, though we all already knew this, a good confirmation of the emotions behind paintings we see in the show.

Yeah, her doll/clown make up was something else. I was thinking, okay yes, we definitely have the dark comedy and the obligatory walker gore, but this is also super creepy! I agree that it was a mask she put on, and sometimes, with evil people, the mask reflects the madness within. CREE.PEE.

I also loved that when they finally got out, Joe started laughing. It was clearly a laugh of relief, but like I said before, Terry Crews was just perfect and adorable in this episode.

Let’s talk about Joe’s dog for a minute. First, and most obviously, we have that it’s his companion and the most important relationship in his life, which is taken from him. I don’t know if we should read into the fact that the dog was bitten. It doesn’t mirror how Daryl thinks Beth died or anything, but it’s still a bite/cure theory sort of situation, and the writers could have just had the dog pass away from old age or something. The other thing I thought of—and maybe I’m splitting hairs here—had to do with his pajama bottoms. They made me laugh, because every time he woke up, he was wearing a different shirt, or no shirt, but he always had on the same pajama bottoms, lol. So, his dog was a Doberman, but the dogs on the PJs looked too husky to be Dobermans to me. They honestly looked more like Rottweiler. Same coloring, but different build and different breed. And Emily was seen filming with a Rottweiler during the missing scenes from S5. That’s all.

Okay, I’m going through my notes, now. There was also a dog mailbox, which I want to think about more. We’ve talked about mailboxes being about communication, and how he knew something was wrong was that the mailbox had been knocked over. So, breakdown in communication? Because this is the thing that led to him losing his dog, I want to equate it to when Beth was first taken from Daryl. They didn’t know they were being watched by someone. Or maybe it should even be equated to the loss of the prison. Idk. Like I said, I need to think about it more. 

There was also a fallen mailbox in the episode with Connie and Virgil in the creepy house. I need to deep dive and figure out what this symbol means in detail. The dog’s name was Gilligan and at the end, he wanted to name the lamb Skipper. Gilligan’s island is all about being stranded with a limited number of companions, and making the best of it. Similar to Beth and Daryl being thrown together, and then Joe and Evie here. 

Oh, I have a note that it was a blond, female walker who bit the dog. The sudoku puzzles reminded me of the mystery/detective symbol. And even here, finding her, figuring out where she was, took some detective work. She never told him directly, though she sent a picture. So he had to do some investigating and deductive reasoning in order to find her. Meanwhile, there’s the Daryl/homicide detective reference.

At one point, he says to himself, “You made it. When everyone else didn’t.” Beth echo. Of course there were cuffs. As you talked about, it mirrored Leah tying Daryl up in her cabin, but with the handcuff theme thrown in. Her talking a lot is what made her a lot like Beth as well. Leah was oddly silent in those early scenes. Which isn’t a bad thing. Daryl is oddly silent most of the time, and on him, it’s endearing. But Beth talked constantly. So, just another way she’s opposite of Leah and why Evie = Beth. (P.S. I thought of the Adam and Eve reference to her name as well.) There were at least 2, possibly 3 “serious/Sirius” references.

One of the red-letter Bethyl scenes for me was when he stopped to pee. Not only did he “take a piss” but he basically told her to stop talking so he could pee in silence. Not exactly how it all went down in Still (the situation, not the pee) but it was just such a Beth and Daryl interaction.

There was also the part where he said something about new age hippie bullshit. Of course, Beth wasn’t actually a hippie, but it just shows their different but complimentary beliefs. 

Between that and the scene with the magic-of-the-sunset conversation, it parallels Beth talking about faith and Daryl said “faith ain’t done shit for us.” We even saw Joe feeling sorry for what he said, and apologizing, as Daryl felt bad after saying what he did about Hershel. 

And of course their big fight on the train tracks after his bike is taken mirrors Beth and Daryl’s in Still. They both sing. Badly. Which was adorable. But it hearkens back to Daryl’s “I never” about how he’s never sung out in public before. We STILL don’t know how that is going to be fulfilled, but I absolutely loved seeing these two sing together.

Oh! The freaking sloth! What did everyone make of that? We saw that EXACT thing with Eugene at the Sanctuary. We really have to nail down this symbol because it’s driving me bonkers.

Joe taught Evie things, like how to sharpen a blade. Just as Daryl taught Beth how to use a crossbow. Oh, and the quote you said yesterday, Ann. Hope is a thing with feathers. All birds on the show, in some way, represent hope. I think different birds represent different nuances, but none of them represent death or despair. They always represent something hopeful. “Puppies and poetry.” Both houses they were looking for were by the river, so that symbol was present.

Sandra talked about someone getting in, at some point. She killed them, but I couldn’t help but think of Terminus. Maybe she was raped or otherwise brutalized, and it messed her up. Before that, maybe she really was an okay person. We also haven’t mentioned the parallel between Joe and Sandra talking online, and Eugene and Stephanie talking on the radio. Then, much like Eugene meeting Stephony, but it was really a mask and not who he thought she was, Sandra turns out to be crazy and evil. Meanwhile, the real soulmate is around, and he just has to find her again.

There was a big Side A/Side B emphasis, though I didn’t write down the details of that. I’ll have to re-watch (what a shame. ;D).

The watches she had were also very creepy. They smacked of a serial killer collecting trophies. You have to wonder if ever lured men there just to kill them. And maybe a symbolic tie to John Dorie, Sr. and Teddy.

That’s most of what I have in my notes. In terms of templates, here’s what I worked out. The first part between Joe and Evie is clearly a Beth and Daryl template. They meet, are awkward together at first, but come to trust and be comfortable with one another, survive together, get in a fight, later make up. I think Sandra represents Beth as well, but more in terms of her template than her personality. Obviously. She’s the girl he found. She was hidden in a bunker. Wearing yellow. He didn’t know if she was still alive. By all counts, she shouldn’t be, but his heart told him she might be. He searched for her. Etc.

In terms of the lamb, I was thinking that both the bike and the lamb represent Beth in different ways. It’s all about what Daryl understands, perceives, and focuses on. When the bike was taken (Beth being shot) he could only focus on what he’d lost, and he gets very emotional about it, as Joe does here. He doesn’t realize the lamb (also Beth) is still alive and close by. Just imprisoned. He’s not truly seeing that, and what he sees, he discounts, because his grief is too strong. When Joe and Evie walk off together at the end, the lamb is still with them, which symbolizes that Beth is still alive and with Daryl. He just isn’t aware of it, yet. That’s what I have thus far. Might try to rewatch tonight. I’m sure there’s more I can glean, template-wise. Can’t wait to hear more all of your thoughts!

@galadrieljones:

Great comments, @twdmusicboxmystery​!! Per the lamb thing. I did think of Officer Lamson, whose death indicates a sorrowful omen in Coda, following the red flag on the car antenna. Lamson’s death screws up the exchange. I have often thought of him as the sacrificial lamb in Coda, as he appears with “Shepherd.” Tho his sacrifice is in vain. I believe his death is engineered to communicate Rick’s migration away from the shepherd role and toward the wolf. He hits and murders Lamson needlessly. 

So here I thought, the lamb survives! I don’t know what that means. Lambs are hugely sacred creatures in the Bible and their sacrifice is an act of worship. Christ is also considered the Lamb of God. I see it as a reversal of outcomes in a way. Had Lamson lived, perhaps Beth would have lived. It would have been the “B” scenario, rather than the dreaded “A.” Idk if this makes sense?

Also, per the “hope is a thing with feathers” quote. I actually recognized that right away. It’s from an Emily Dickinson poem:

It reminds me of Beth and Daryl. There are a lot of birds in this episode. Lots of the signs for the cities and the signs for Ohio and Michigan both features state birds

Also, I didn’t think about the bike getting stolen as being related to Always Accountable. They leave the lamb behind, like a trade? It’s tied to a brick. In AA, the sacrifice is Tina, another Beth proxy.

It’s a good connection. I wanna think on it more.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Makes total sense! I agree about Lambson. I always thought his name was WAY too obvious to be accidental. Not to mention, he was the second Bob in Sasha's life, so we have a dichotomy or dualtiiy pairing there. And maybe we really could equate Skipper the Lamb and Tabitha the goat. Tabitha = scenario A (Beth dies) and Skipper = scenario B (Beth lives.)

I didn't realize this was from a Dickenson poem. Awesome!

@wdway:

This is the huge deer symbol I mentioned yesterday. 

It is not a legit John Deere but because of the colors of green and yellow that's what it represents. I'm sure they probably had some legal issues about using the John Deere name logo.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

I totally missed that! But I agree. A generic John Deere tractor, same as in Go Getters with Maggie.

@wdway​:

I want to talk about Evie taking Joe with the handcuffs. It didn't feel quite right for Evie to be a Leah proxy although I could see her being a opposite parallel proxy. I felt with crazy Sandra taking Joe captive using zip ties truly was more of a comparison to Leah taking Daryl captive. Other than the pictures of Sandra with the tractor my first impression when I saw her in the shelter was that she was wearing yellow, an important Beth color. She also had on multiple tank tops similar to what Beth wore but remember they did the same thing with Leah just in the opposite colors earlier this season. I feel that the writers wanted us to think of Beth when we saw Sandra and when I say ‘us,’ in this case I mean TD.

She appeared to be so nice, and Joe was blinded (eye reference) by what he wanted to believe Sandra was and didn't recognize the telltale signs that she was giving off that Evie caught right away. Just as the writers in s11A used the yellow house as a decoy for where Maggie was hiding when in fact she was in the green house, in this scenario Sandra's yellow tank top represented her being a decoy, Sandra wasn't a Beth proxy, she was a Leah proxy.

I feel that Evie holding Joe with handcuffs was just an easy way to throw in many Beth symbols. Handcuffs are a Beth symbol that has tie to Daryl. In Alone, Beth hurt her ankle taking down a police walker, Joe also hurt his ankle, both Beth and Joe were helped to walk by their companions. In Alone, we saw in the cemetery that Beth was wearing the police walker’s utility belt which has handcuffs, and we actually see that when Daryl was carrying her. Handcuffs=Beth symbolism tied to Daryl.

Daryl saw handcuffs in the outstation during AOW, where someone had been held. Andrea was held captive with handcuffs in s3, just as Beth was given comic book Andrea symbols like wearing a knit cap. The other big handcuff tie was Daryl's brother Merle being held on a roof with handcuffs. Both Merle and Beth have appeared as hallucinations. @frangipanilove pointed out recently that when the car trunk (tomb) was opened by Beth in Still, we can see behind Daryl the number 3 which look like open handcuffs. This is why I think the handcuffs used on Joe relates to Beth and not Leah.

Now for what the stuffed animal sloth symbolism means.

While Evie and Joe are talking as Joe is sitting in handcuffs Evie is packing a type of what I've known as a carpet bag. The pattern gave me major Daryl feels because it reminds me so much of 2 throws that we see in Daryl’s AZ apartment in s10e21 Diverged. It's not exact but it does have several of the colors and patterns combined that are in the carpet bag.

 This in my mind is a symbolic tie to Daryl. Evie packs the Sloth in this bag.

This Sloth is apparently a dear companion to Evie.

Just like you mentioned above @twdmusicboxmystery, it reminded me that we have seen a Sloth in TWD several times. You mentioned Eugene with one at the Sanctuary. I couldn't remember exactly what episode that was so I did not get a shot of it, but I did remember seeing a Sloth in s10e10 Stalker and in Daryl's apartments in Diverged.

In the first shot the Sloth is in the baby's highchair. Look who is in this shot, Rosita and Father Gabriel, the living Sirius symbol and we could say a Beth proxy. We can also include Eugene especially after the time jump as being a Beth proxy. Daryl is not a Beth proxy, he is Daryl the other half of Daryl and Beth (the love story).

Am I trying to say that Sloth=Beth? Yes, I am. Why a Sloth you asked, let’s think about sloths. They are known for living most of their lives in trees. Trees are a crucifixion symbols, Christ was nailed to a tree. That's not much of a connection for calling a Sloth a Beth symbol, you say. I agree totally, so what else is Sloth known for? Being slooow. If you have to used only one word to describe Beth's long-awaited return than Sloth would be the perfect word. It represents the slowest in all the years that has gone by without Beth's. Sloth=Beth. Or Sloth=Beth's slow return.

Now think about the scene in the episode when Joe and Evie see the sacrificial lamb and go to investigate. They see the motorcycle speeding away and Joe desperately runs after it. In this scene Joe is Daryl's proxy chasing after the vehicle carrying away the things most dear to him. It's a strange remix of Alone. The main question regarding Beth after Alone was, what happened, where is Beth, that question was answered in s5.

After Coda, the question was what happened to Beth's body. Looking at the whole scene with Joe as a Daryl's proxy and Evie, the lamb and Sloth are in part acting as a Beth proxy, the lamb Beth is sacrifice in order for the motorcycle owner to get away. Joe chase after it just as Daryl chased after the car for Beth in Alone. What need would there be for the Sloth in the remix story of Beth and Daryl if Beth was dead? We know Beth lives because the Sloth symbolized Beth. 

In the next scene of this remix before the Still fight, Joe states that everything he cared about was in that motorcycle and Evie agreed by saying that the Sloth was in it as she is holding the lamb. The Sloth had apparently been placed in the carpet bag. A type of trunk/ tomb. Hope you guys like this.

Really how can we not read into these so innocent focused on items. They had me with the first two books, Green and (Daryl's) the path of Zen.

Love that Joe has a orange/rust colored backpack like the one that Rick, Michonne and Carl took in episode Clear. So much like to backpack Glenn used when the escape the prison. Many important scenes were shared by this orange/rust colored backpack.

A bridge with diamond/X covered sides. I don't see any important symbolism here, not.

Oh, remember I mentioned a red "A."

Her high forehead. It caught my eye in the scene even though it went by very fast. I'm sorry, but to me it's screams "A."

Jo in his doggie PJ's.

Love the X, + cross railing on the porch.

Did anyone get the full lyrics of the song sung by a woman at the beginning of the episode. Caught my attention, certain lines. Find it's me that's your dreaming of. I'm going to take a chance and offer you true romance. You're going to give me that second chance.

Can we talk about the fact that Joe had a black journal with white crisp paper inside. Black and white, Daryl and Beth.

@galadrieljones​:

Love all your thoughts! I’ve only ever read the sloth through a more generic Christian lens, re: the cardinal sin and how it relates to Biblical indifference. It tends to show up around characters who are struggling with indifference, choosing a side, choosing God, etc.

But I really love your reading here of how it actually relates to Beth. Super interesting and I’m going to think about it some more… Also, amazing catch on that “A” on Evie’s forehead! It looks super obvious now that I can see it. Does anyone have any takes on that? I know the A/B theory is still pretty fragmented, like I have theories, but they all feel sort of incoherent or incomplete. Also, another great catch with the orange backpack. That is definitely a callback.

@twdmusicboxmystery​:

I love the sloth = Beth, too. It makes me want to go rewatch parts of S8 when Eugene is at the Sanctuary. Because that probably means Eugene = Beth in that template/foreshadow. Which I’m pretty sure we’ve theorized before (he used music to try and get the walkers away from the Sanctuary) but this just solidifies it. 

Couple of other notes note mentioned above. When they first leave together, Evie starts telling him which way to go, and Joe says, “I’m not deviating from my route.” She responds with, “then you’ll just be heading directly into a trap.” Sounds like a Greenroute/Grady sort of thing to me.

Also, at one point they stop and he offers her alcohol (Bethyl) which she declines. He then says he has orange juice powder. She drinks that. I’m linking that to the orange soda around Denise, who was also a Beth proxy.

That’s it for ep 1x01 of Tales. As you can see, we really loved all the symbolism in it and had...just a few thoughts, lol. How did everyone else like it ?

[reasoningdaily]

Ars Technica: ISP admits lying to FCC about size of network to block funding to rivals

Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider in Ohio, last month received an email that confirmed some of his worst suspicions about cable companies.

Grewell, founder and general manager of Smart Way Communications, had heard from some of his customers that the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map falsely claimed fiber Internet service was available at their homes from another company called Jefferson County Cable. Those customer reports spurred Grewell to submit a number of challenges to the FCC in an attempt to correct errors in Smart Way's service area.

One of Grewell's challenges elicited a response from Jefferson County Cable executive Bob Loveridge, who apparently thought Grewell was a resident at the challenged address rather than a competitor.

"You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today," Loveridge wrote in a January 9 email that Grewell shared with Ars. "With our huge investment in upgrading our service to provide xgpon we reported to the BDC [Broadband Data Collection] that we have service at your residence so that they would not allocate addition [sic] broadband expansion money over [the] top of our private investment in our plant."

The email is reminiscent of our November 2022 article about a cable company accidentally telling a rival about its plan to block government grants to competitors.

Speaking to Ars in a phone interview, Grewell said, "This cable company happened to just say the quiet part out loud." He called it "a blatant attempt at blocking anyone else from getting funding in an area they intend to serve."

It's not clear when Jefferson County Cable plans to serve the area. Program rules do not allow ISPs to claim future coverage in their map submissions.

Jefferson County Cable ultimately admitted to the FCC that it filed incorrect data and was required to submit a correction. The challenge that the ISP conceded was for an address on State Route 43 in Bergholz, Ohio. The town is not one of the coverage areas listed on Jefferson County Cable's website.

While checking the FCC broadband map today, we confirmed that the address is no longer listed as having Jefferson County Cable service. But that one fix alone wouldn't prevent the company's grant-blocking strategy from working, because the FCC map still lists the company as serving the address right next door and others on the same road.

False data hurts ISPs seeking grants

False broadband data could hurt Smart Way directly because the ISP plans to apply for grants to upgrade its network. There have been over a million challenges submitted to the FCC nationwide, and it's unknown how many mistakes are on the map overall.

The new FCC map is supposed to show exactly which homes and businesses have access to Internet service and what types of service are available at each address. Using that data, the US government and states will decide how to allocate federal funding to projects that fill in broadband-availability gaps.

But the maps rely on Internet service providers to report where they offer service and are rife with errors that show ISPs claiming to serve more homes than they actually do. Nevada officials said they found more than 20,000 mistakes in their state alone. Vermont officials said the map is "missing or incorrectly lists the location of over 60,000 broadband-serviceable locations" and "lists service availability levels far beyond what the state has found through its mapping and what we are hearing about from residents."

If you'd like to submit challenges, you can search for reported broadband availability at specific addresses here and use that page to file challenges. In addition to the individual submissions, state governments and broadband-focused groups have been submitting bulk challenges.

Grewell said he submitted about a dozen challenges in late November, most of which pertained to addresses purportedly served by Jefferson County Cable. He said he filed the "challenges in areas that I knew there was no fiber-to-the-home whatsoever."

We haven't received a response to requests for comment from Loveridge or Jefferson County Cable. But Jefferson County Cable withdrew its coverage claim at the one address referenced in Loveridge's email after Grewell's challenge.

"The provider subject to your challenge has conceded the challenge and is required to submit a correction for the challenged location in the online portal within 30 days," the FCC told Grewell in an email notification on January 12.

Despite that one success, Grewell told us yesterday that he hasn't received responses for any of the other addresses he challenged. The successful challenge at one address also didn't trigger map updates to nearby homes, as previously mentioned.

[thewordwideweb]

Beware the mountweazel

As the comedian Victor Borge once said, “I normally don’t do requests. Unless, of course, I have been asked to do so.” My friend Michael requested “mountweazel” as the Word of the Day. With a word like “mountweazel,” how can I refuse?

A mountweazel is a fake entry deliberately placed into a reference work, like an encyclopedia or a dictionary. It’s a trap, to prevent (or at least discover) potential copyright infringement. That is, if someone cribs whole sections of your encyclopedia and reprints them, and you find your mountweazel in there….bang, you’ve caught them red-handed and probably red-faced, too! Let the lawsuits begin!

The word originated as a bogus entry in the fourth edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia in 1975. The entry began: “Mountweazel, Lillian Virginia (1942-1973).” It went on to say that the fictitious Ms. Mountweazel was an American photographer, born in Bangs, Ohio, who turned from designing fountains to taking photos in 1963. She died at the tender age of 31 when, while on assignment for “Combustibles” magazine, there was an explosion. Poor Lillian. It’s enough to make you want to shed crocodile tears.

Sometimes, phony words turn up in dictionaries not as mountweazels, but as “ghost words,” because someone made a mistake and a proofreader or copyeditor simply missed it.

Mapmakers have their own version of moutnweazels to prevent copyright infringement. They call them “trap streets,” which is not as cool as “mountweazel,” but serves the same purpose. In the 1930’s, the mapmaking firm General Drafting Corp. added a whole fake hamlet called “Agloe, New York” (in the Catskills) to one of their road maps. In the 1950’s, some clever souls built the “Agloe General Store” at the intersection shown on the map, and it became a landmark. The Agloe General Store eventually shut down, but if you search for it on Google maps, it’s still there! (As Casey Stengel said, “You could look it up.”)

I’m pretty sure that a few years ago, my GPS accidentally deposited me in a field far from my intended destination because it was reading a trap street. Or else it just had a grudge against me. We’ll never know for sure.