#rob writes

[robinminustherichard]

Just a little bucktommy/Buck does what's best for him/Tommy is the #1 Evan Buckley defender drabble for you on this Wednesday

[HOWIE HAN]: 1 New Message

Hey Tommy, sorry to bother you with this but any chance you've heard from Buck?

[HOWIE HAN]: 1 New Message

He told us he was still transferring and also taking a week off and now no one has heard from him in days.

Tommy looks at the text messages, coming in quick succession, and snorts harshly.

[TOMMY KINARD]

That sounds like a lot. Did you check his house?

Tommy knows they didn't check his house, because they have absolutely no clue what had been going on in Evan's life for at least a few weeks, probably closer to a month.

[HOWIE HAN]: 1 New Message

Uh. Well.

[HOWIE HAN]: 1 New Message

We kind of don't know where he moved to.

Tommy rolls his eyes, mutters "Jesus Christ, Chimney," under his breath.

[TOMMY KINARD]

You don't know where your own brother-in-law lives? Dude.

[HOWIE HAN]: 1 New Message

Come on man I just had a baby

[TOMMY KINARD]

I thought your wife had the baby

[HOWIE HAN]: 1 New Message

You're a comedian.

[TOMMY KINARD]

I'd say I'm here all week, but I'm actually on vacation.

[HOWIE HAN]: 1 New Message

Yeah, yeah, I'll take the hint and stop bothering you. Even though you have no sympathy for the fact that my wife is going to be very disappointed with me when she finds out I lost her brother and she's going to look at me in the way that makes me feel very sad and also guilty.

[TOMMY KINARD]

Well, if I see him I'll let you know. Good luck with all of that I guess.

Tommy chuckles again, the face pushed into his stomach bouncing a bit with it. Evan rolls, sleep-bright eyes blinking up at Tommy in confusion.

"Whatsit?" Evan mumbles, a hand coming up to wipe away at what is definitely drool in the corner of his mouth.

Evan had been napping with his head on Tommy's lap, spread out across the couch in the cabin they're borrowing from a friend of Tommy's for a weekend getaway. They'd spent the last three hours hiking (and maybe some of it making out against a tree) and Evan was still in a bit of a sleep deficit from trying to quickly get all of his stuff moved out of Eddie's house two days ago.

"Nothing, sweetheart," Tommy tells him warmly, his torso curling down towards Evan as he runs a hand through slightly sweaty but impossibly soft curls. "Just texting Chimney."

"Mmmok," Evan says, rolling back into Tommy's stomach and kicking a knee out to stretch farther down the couch. It accentuates his long, long legs which are currently wrapped in hiking shorts that are honestly just sinfully short and leggings; and Tommy is also maybe drooling a little. He's going to let Evan sleep for a little longer, knowing if he lets it go on too long Evan's sleep schedule will be ruined.

But also beacuase Tommy is more than happy to pick up where they left off against the tree; this time in the plush bed waiting for them, with enough time and sunlight leftover to then grill the steaks they had bought for dinner.

Tommy shakes himself out of the daydream that's going to end up disturbing the man impersonating sleeping beauty right over something that will give away exactly what's going through his head and looks at the text conversation again. He sighs. He doesn't think that Howie and the rest of the 118 deserve much right now, but he does sympathize with a woman who just had a baby and who has access to another woman who won't hesitate to launch a manhunt for his boyfriend.

He sighs and pulls up Maddie's phone number, but then thinks of something much funnier.

[TOMMY KINARD]

Image

[TOMMY KINARD]

Oh shit man you'll never guess what I found

[HOWIE HAN]:

Tommy what the FUCK

[anexperimentallife]

Alex and the Oracle

This is a humorous short I sold many, many years ago, before I even knew I was autistic, but the rights have reverted to me, so I'm in the middle of a rewrite/update in preparation for re-release as part of an "Alex And" collection. The premise (inspired by some of my own weird impulses) was, "What if things that might LOOK like random impulses or compulsions were actually a form of precognition?"

Alex and the Oracle by D. Robert Hamm

The first thing you need to know about Jimmy Cane is that no matter what anybody says about him, he’s not crazy. And I don’t say that just because he’s my best friend. Sure, he once showed up to a black-tie affair wearing lederhosen and leading a ferret on a leash, but I think that falls under "eccentric." Also, in his defense, I’m pretty sure lederhosen are considered formal wear in some parts of the world, he was wearing a black tie, and the invitation did say, “and guest.”

Okay, so maybe he’s a little bit crazy, but if you had Jimmy’s ‘gift,’ you would be, too.

See, Jimmy’s a precog, but not in the traditional sense. He doesn’t actually know what’s going to happen; he just gets these compulsions that usually seem to work out in the end. That whole thing with the lederhosen and the ferret? Set off a Rube Goldberg-type chain of events that saved a guy’s life. In addition to the general agitation that comes when he tries to resist acting on his compulsions, knowing that something as small as, say, what color socks you’re wearing could be a matter of life and death for someone puts a lot of pressure on a guy.

So when I let myself in over at Jimmy’s place to find him on the floor in a bathrobe surrounded by thirty or so cases of diet soda and blowing up an inflatable kiddie pool, it wasn’t the strangest thing I’d ever caught him doing.

“Hi, Alex,” Jimmy said between breaths, “I know, I know. Don't have all the soda yet; I just couldn't wait to get the pool ready.”

Which made perfect sense, in a Jimmy kind of way. I grabbed a couple of Blue Moons from the fridge and kicked back on the couch until he finished with the pool and plopped down next to me, panting. We clinked our bottles together, and he drained about a third of his in one long drought. He sighed and wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his robe.

“Okay,” I said, “Whatcha got?”

We long ago gave up on serious predictions about the outcome of Jimmy’s compulsions, but we make a game of seeing who can come up with the most outrageous guesses. We play as a team against reality, and give ourselves points every time we out-weird what actually happens. Two-on-one odds may seem a little unfair, but reality’s been doing this a lot longer than we have, and it has the home field advantage. So far, reality is winning, and I don’t even want to talk about the point spread.

“Diet soda, kiddie pool… Gotta be a connection there,” Jimmy said. “I was thinking maybe a pile of aspartame-addicted carp showing up on my doorstep.”

“Nah, not weird enough. Make ‘em talking carp and I think we’ve got something. I got a better one, though; how about the Apocalypse is nigh, and diet soda will be the only currency of value in the aftermath?”

“Makes sense; only mutants would actually drink the stuff. But what about the pool?”

“Like you said—mutants.”

“What does a kiddie pool have to do with mutants?”

“Oh, so now I’m supposed to be an expert on genetic anomalies? Maybe it’s their religion.”

Jimmy nodded sagely and stroked the three-day growth of beard on his chin. “Hm…” he said. “Plausible. Hope you’re wrong, though; I think I’m allergic to apocalypses.”

We toasted to our brilliant predictions, and Jimmy went upstairs to get dressed so I could chauffeur him around for the day. He’s got this old VW Microbus, and while it runs great, he hates driving (everyone else hates him driving, too), plus he hadn’t really slept in a couple of days, which meant he’d be a danger to life and limb out on the road alone. (Although, knowing Jimmy, if he actually felt compelled to drive, an angel would get its wings and somebody’s dead dog would come back to life.)

I do a lot of things like that for Jimmy, but it’s not a one-sided deal. He doesn’t really benefit much personally from his gift—in fact, it often screws him over—but it does provide him with just enough resources to take care of basic needs so that he can follow his compulsions full-time with no visible means of support. That seems to include whatever I need in order to get by when I take time off whatever crappy day job I’m working at the time to give him a hand and help clean up his messes.

It’s like some kind of weird temp job where I get to go on wacky adventures with my best friend and still keep up with rent, and even though it’ll never give me financial security, and even though it’s made having any kind of decent career impossible, and even though no girlfriend I’ve found so far has been willing to put up with our little adventures for more than a few months, I challenge you to come up with a better job at any salary.

Because let me tell you, being friends with Jimmy is never boring.

After several years of this kind of thing, Jimmy was showing the strain. Over the past year, I’d seen him almost in tears a few times trying to choose between three identical boxes of cereal, and there was that time he couldn’t sleep unless he wore his shoes on the wrong feet and listened to yodeling records for three days straight. Don’t even get me started on the truckload of frozen mangoes in cold storage.

It was getting to the point where Jimmy wasn’t sure what was a ‘gift’ compulsion, and what was a random impulse, and fewer and fewer of his compulsions were bearing fruit—no mango-related pun intended—or at least none that we could see. But even if he could resist the occasional impulse, he doesn’t dare, just in case doing so might have a disastrous effect on someone else. He’d even started seeing a psychiatrist, but the only thing the doc was able to do for him was prescribe sleeping and anxiety medications.

Even with the meds, or maybe in part because of them, Jimmy was in even worse shape for driving than usual, so it was a damn good thing he’d called me. Once he was ready, I fired up his microbus, and we drove the forty minutes into Kansas City, where we spent the next few hours, stopping at grocery and convenience stores. At each stop, Jimmy pulled case after case of diet soda off the shelves with increasing degrees of agitation. When he found one that “felt right,” he was able to relax for just a few minutes before he started being drawn to the next case. A few places we had to talk them into letting Jimmy go examine the back stock. You’d think they’d refuse, or at least get a little annoyed, but Jimmy has this—I don’t know—this childlike, innocent vulnerability about him that’s hard to say no to. He lives in kind of a different world than most people do, and sort of expects everybody to be as nice and as helpful as he tries to be. It’s hard to say no to Jimmy without feeling like an asshole.

Sometime around ten o’clock that night, Jimmy guided us onto I-35 North, and we waited for the compulsion to tell us where to stop. We finally found the “right” convenience store about halfway to Des Moines, and I hit the men’s room while Jimmy perused the displays. I finished just in time to see Jimmy explode out of the store waving his arms and screaming, “No! Not that one! I need that one!”

He was charging straight at a grizzly bear in denim and plaid flannel. Okay, not an actual bear, but if a real grizzly ever met this guy it’d pee its fur, scream like a twelve-year-old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert, and run crying for its mommy. Man-bear had—you guessed it—a case of diet soda under one arm. Jimmy slammed into him at full speed, and cans flew everywhere.

Man-bear’s face went from surprise to ugly(er). He pulled back a fist the size of my head, and before I could get there Jimmy was flying backwards to land on the blacktop. Man-bear dropped the soda and took a step forward.

“Don’t hurt him,” I hollered. Okay, it was a little late for that.

“You want some, too?” Man-bear said, and I froze. I wasn’t just afraid he was going to beat me up; I was afraid he was going to eat me.

Now, I’m not the world’s bravest guy, but I do think pretty fast when the alternative is getting turned into hamburger. “No, he’s my little brother,” I lied, “I-I take care of him.” It was the best I could come up with. Hey, I said I think fast, not that I do it particularly well.

“Doin’ a pretty crappy job of it.”

“I know,” I didn’t have to fake anguish. Imminent death has that effect on me, especially when it’s mine. “ Look at him, though,” I pointed to where Jimmy was crawling around muttering to himself and gathering up the fallen cans while blood dripped from his nose to the blacktop. “You can see he’s not, y’know, quite all there in the head, can’t you? It’s not his fault.”

The trucker scowled at Jimmy, then at me. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s a little, uh... touched, you know? He gets it in his head that something—like one particular case of soda—is important, and he thinks something bad is going to happen if he doesn’t get it.” Well, that much was true.

I spread out my hands in appeal. “Look, I’ll pay for the soda. Hell, I’ll buy you ten cases.” Man-bear was silent. “C’mon, man, do you have a brother?”

Man-bear looked at Jimmy again and nodded slowly. He sniffed, then in a wilted growl said, “Keep your money. Tell him I ain’t gonna hurt him no more.”

While I stood gaping, Man-bear pulled a grocery bag from the cab of his truck, got down on all fours, and started gathering up the cans along with Jimmy. It took me probably half a minute or so to pick up my jaw enough to pitch in myself. Man-bear even got a cold pack from the cooler behind his seat for Jimmy’s face, and before he got back into his rig, shook Jimmy’s and my hands and said that while he wasn’t going to give any details, we’d changed his life.

Once Bruce’s rig was out of sight and we were back in the Microbus, Jimmy grinned at me, split lip, bloody nose, and all. “Alex, you were brill—”

And for the second time that day, Jimmy got punched in the face. Some things simply have to be done.

“Ow. What was that for?”

I glared at him, trying to ignore the fact that I felt like a total ass for hitting him. “I felt compelled, okay?” I started the car and pointed us back toward Lawrence. “I’m getting worried about you, man.”

“Yes, I could sense the concern in your loving punch.”

“Sorry about that, but are you nuts? That could have gone a lot worse than a punch in the face.”

“Two punches,” he said.

“Okay, two punches. I said I was sorry. But man, that has got to be the craziest thing you’ve ever done, and I’ve seen you do some crazy shit. Did you see the size of that guy? He’d give Mount Everest a Napoleon complex. We could have ended up in the hospital. Or jail. Or both. Hell, maybe even the morgue. Did you even stop to think we could have just politely offered to buy the soda from him instead of trying to tackle him?”

Jimmy’s face went slack. He stared at me for a few seconds, then hung his head. When he spoke, he sounded even more tired and beaten up than he looked. “I was so caught up in...” He looked back up at me. “You really do take care of me, Alex. And I don’t say thank you enough, but you never complain, and then tonight I almost got you… I’m sorry, Alex. It’s just… This is a bad one.”

I very carefully didn’t look at him. “Just think next time, okay?” I threw in some Ramones to cut short the Hallmark moment, and we cruised along to Blitzkrieg Bop.

About halfway through I Wanna Be Sedated, Jimmy turned off the music. “Hey, Alex? If we changed that guy’s life like he said, this diet soda thing is starting to play out, right?”

“Looks like. I just think it could have been handled differently.”

Jimmy shook his head. “I know, but if it’s starting to play out, my ‘gift’ or whatever should stop poking at me, or at least ease off a little, but it’s getting worse. And there are all those other cases.”

“Jimmy, I—”

“This so-called ‘gift’ pretty much runs my life, Alex, and it’s getting worse, and I can’t control it. I never wanted it to begin with. What if it gets one of us killed someday?”

I didn’t have an answer. When we got back to his place I was going to hang around to make sure he was okay, but he said he’d put me in harm’s way enough for one weekend. There wasn’t much I could do except make him promise to call me if he needed me.

#

My phone woke me a little before three a.m. the next night, which would have been fine if it were a supermodel calling to profess her undying love, but that, I decided, was an unlikely scenario, and stuck my head under the pillow to wait for the ringing to stop.

It didn’t.

“I have a hammer,” I yelled, “and I’m not afraid to use it.” Apparently the phone was unafraid of percussive maintenance. I tracked it to the pile of laundry under which it had made its rebel lair, and flipped it open. “Please state the nature of your emergency.”

“Alex! I’m glad you’re up.” Jimmy sounded like an auctioneer who’d been up all night mainlining double-espressos. “I dialed you like, nine times. Are you busy?”

“No, I was just going through the yellow pages trying to find a re-education camp for wayward cell phones. Look, it’s three AM, and you don’t sound like a buxom supermodel.”

“That has never been my aspiration. You said to call if I needed you. And I do. So I am. It’s the soda thing.”

I squeezed the bridge of my nose and censored myself. I had told him to call. “Okay, what do you need?”

“I know how to make it stop. Gotta get one more case and get to this little spring in the Flint Hills. About a hundred and fifty miles. Don’t trust myself to drive that far.” He giggled and switched to a bad falsetto. “Help us, Obi Wan. You’re our only hope.”

“You can’t play the princess-in-distress card, Jimmy. First, it’s not fair, and second, you know I’m already in.” If he didn’t trust himself to drive, I sure as hell didn’t, especially when he sounded that out of it.

Half an hour later Jimmy lurched in and knocked (in that order) dressed much like “The Dude,” from The Big Liebowski, only Jimmy’s bathrobe was fuchsia. He banged his shin on the coffee table, but barely seemed to notice. His nose and lip were still swollen, and his eyes were spider-webbed with red, but he was practically vibrating with nervous energy.

“You look like crap,” I said. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Can’t sleep. Gotta go. Here.” He dug into the pockets of his robe and handed me a printed-out map along with the keys to his old VW min-bus.

“Okay,” I said, “but shouldn’t you be wearing pants?”

He looked down at himself and frowned. “What’s wrong with swimming trunks?”

“Dude.”

“Okay, okay. But we gotta hurry.” Jimmy’s a little smaller than I am, but I managed to find some clothes that didn’t fit him too badly. (I let the Cthulhu slippers slide. You have to pick your battles.)

Jimmy had a bunch of those big plastic bottles—the kind that go on top of home water coolers— filled with slightly brownish water and strapped together in the kiddie pool in the back of the mini-bus. “What the—”

“No time. I’ll explain on the way.”

By the time I had the mini-bus in gear he was already asleep, slumped against the passenger door. I knew how this worked, though. As soon as I stopped heading toward our destination he’d wake up frantic. Besides, I probably wouldn’t get anything coherent out of him until he’d napped, so I bit down on my curiosity.

He woke up about halfway there. “Take the next exit,” he said. “That’s where the last case is.”

I pulled off the highway. “You wanna fill me in now? And please tell me we’re not going to get our asses handed to us by a human grizzly again?”

He laughed, bouncing up and down on his seat. “No promises on that count, but I don’t think so. As for filling you in... Wait. Turn here.” We pulled into a service station with all its lights out. Jimmy opened his door.

“Dude, they’re closed.”

“Gonna check the hours on the door and see how long we have to wait.”

The station wouldn’t open for three more hours. “All right,” I said, “That’s plenty of time to fill me in, so spill.”

“I’ll warn you, it’s going to sound crazy. I’m going to sound crazy, but hear me out, okay?”

I said I would, and he continued. “You saw how I got earlier. I had to get some sleep before I finished this thing or I was going to fall apart. Or even worse, screw it up. But I couldn’t. I even took a sleeping pill, but all it did was make me spacey. I finally gave in around one and poured the soda into the kiddie pool.”

He paused and stared out the window. “Keep going,” I said, “You poured the soda into the swimming pool, and then what happened?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I started pouring, and there was this... face.”

“What, at the window? Somebody was watching you?”

“No, in the pool. A woman’s face, there in the soda.”

Now that topped the weirdometer, even for Jimmy. “Right. You’re sleep-deprived, and like you said, you were on sleeping pills. People see things.”

“Whatever. Anyway, it freaked me out,” he said.

“Understandably.”

He got quieter. “Her lips started moving. She was saying, ‘help me.’”

“Hang on—You know it wasn’t real, right? Unless... Is your ‘gift’ giving you visuals now?”

He didn’t seem to hear me. “What could I do?” he said. “The more I poured, the more of her there was, until there was this… this beautiful woman standing in the middle of the pool. She was real, Alex. She had sort of blue-tinted skin and long green hair, and she reached out of the pool and called me her hero and kissed me, and—Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’m starting the engine. And unless I hear something of the not-crazy variety come out of your mouth in the next five seconds I’m turning around.”

“Wait, Alex. Don’t freak out on me.”

“We’re way past that. Look, it’s probably just sleep deprivation combined with Ambien, but we gotta get you looked at.”

Jimmy grabbed my sleeve. Not like he was trying to pull my hand off the steering wheel, but just to emphasize his words. “Alex,” he said. “Please. I’m not crazy.”

“Maybe not, but something’s wrong. What kind of a friend would I be if I—”

“Okay, okay” he said, “Just for argument’s sake, let’s say I was hallucinating, and that it’s from not sleeping because of this compulsion. What’s the fastest way to fix that? The only way to fix it?”

I sighed. “Seeing it through.”

“So see this through with me, give me a day or two to catch up on sleep, and if you still think I’ve lost it, I’ll go to a doctor or whatever you want. I mean, come on, it’s a few hours of driving is all, and then we’re done with it, I promise. Deal?”

I rolled my eyes and climbed into the back to stretch out by the kiddie pool. “Damn it, Jimmy, there’d better be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.”

It only took a few minutes for me to doze off. I couldn’t have been asleep for long, though, when I woke to shrill ringing. Jimmy jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and started the engine. We threw gravel getting back on the road.

“What the—” I looked back at the service station. The front window was broken out. “Jimmy! What did you do?”

“I couldn’t wait. She can’t hold out much longer.”

I climbed toward the front. “That’s it. You’ve lost it, man. Pull over right now. If you pay for the damages they’ll probably let you off with probation.”

Jimmy’s voice was choked and he was blinking back tears. “You don’t understand. She’s dying. There weren’t any security cameras, and I left money on the counter to pay for the window. If I drive fast we won’t get caught.”

“We? I didn’t do anything except ride along with a crazy man!” I reached for the steering wheel, but we were already going fast enough that I’d probably flip us if I grabbed it. I got out my phone. “Pull over now or I’m calling the police.”

I wasn’t really going to. As far gone as he was, he might try to outrun them, and things would only get worse.

He called my bluff. “Go ahead. If you’re still my friend, though, wait until it’s over.”

There wasn’t much of an alternative. About an hour later Jimmy turned onto a dirt road. When we got to the end of it and bounced to a stop I grabbed the keys from the ignition.

“Help me with the bottles,” Jimmy said, “The spring is just a little ways off.” He unbuckled himself and moved toward the back. I grabbed his arm, and he looked me square in the face. I have never seen him so determined. “What are you going to do, Alex? Hit me again?”

Ouch. I let go, and Jimmy’s expression softened. “I know you think I’m crazy, but I can prove I’m not.”

He started pulling stoppers out of the water bottles. “I hope she’s up to this. She’s in pretty bad shape, or I’d have tried it earlier.”

I had to clench my jaw to keep from responding. Jimmy un-stoppered the last bottle and leaned over it murmuring. “I know,” he said, “But we have to prove to my friend that you’re real before he’ll help us get you home.” He turned to me. “She wants you to know that not all of this is her. Some of it’s just regular water and soda.”

“Great,” I said, “Tell her those bottles don’t make her butt look big. Honest.”

Jimmy scowled at me, and I was about to say something more when the water moved. Trickles from each bottle snaked up and joined to form a translucent face like in, what was that movie... The Abyss or something. It—correction, she—stuck out her tongue at me before turning to Jimmy with an expression of such adoration that it broke my heart. The sun was rising, and it glinted off of her in reds and golds. Jimmy touched her lips with his fingers and she kissed them, then lost cohesion and flowed back into her bottles.

All I could do was stare.

“Well,” Jimmy said, “Am I crazy?”

Either she was real, or Jimmy’s insanity was contagious. I preferred to believe the former. I had to work my mouth a bit before anything came out. There isn’t much to say when you witness the impossible. “What are we waiting for,” I growled, “Let’s get her home.”

We used the deflated kiddie pool as a sled where we could, and carried the bottles one by one over the rough spots until we reached the spring.

Jimmy finished filling me in on the way. The woman’s name was D’lahna, and she was a naiad, a water nymph. She’d been exploring “Overhill,” as she called it, when she somehow got stuck in a soda bottling plant. She wouldn’t have lasted much longer if not for Jimmy and his gift.

We poured first the bottles, then the final case of soda, into the spring, and D’lahna rose up out of it more beautiful than you can imagine. And very, very naked. I stood staring until Jimmy punched me in the arm. “Hey. Mine.”

“Sorry.” I averted my eyes. Kind of. Hey, she might have been my best friend’s girl, but she was gorgeous. I tried not to gape at her, and searched desperately for a way to cover the awkwardness. How do you make small talk with a mythological creature?

“So, uh...” I said, “Sorry about the whole thinking you were imaginary thing. Nice place you’ve got here. Love what you’ve done with it. Seems like a quiet neighborhood.”

D’lahna laughed. If you’ve never heard a nymph’s voice, I can’t really describe it to you except to say it sort of... sparkles. “Your friend is funny,” she said to Jimmy, then looked at me. “This isn’t where I live, Alex, but it will get us there.”

It took me a moment to process that. “Us?”

I turned to Jimmy, who had just stripped naked. (Now there’s a sight I hope to never see again.) He grinned at me. “I’m going with her,” he said.

“But you... She... You can’t...”

“It’s okay,” Jimmy put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”

They offered to take me with them, but instead I watched as Jimmy took D’lahna’s hand and waded into the middle of the spring with her. They turned translucent and flowed into the water.

It was a long drive home, and I thought about the two of them all the way.

Two weeks later I turned on the kitchen faucet, and out came an invitation to Jimmy and D’lahna’s engagement party. They’ve already set me up with a date—a wood nymph friend of D’lahna’s who, Jimmy thinks, just might break my losing streak. He mentioned a possible job offer, too.

And guess what D'lahna's family's favorite fruit is? Yeah, at least now I know what to do with all those frozen mangoes.

[unseelie-robynx]

Pale blue eyes stared unseeingly straight ahead, empty and dark. There was breath there, but it was so shallow that the Great Sage was forced to focus to properly see the faint rise and fall of his mate's chest. The sparkle that had always been in Liu Er's eyes was gone. The crinkle at the corner of his mouth from the smiles he tried to hide was completely smooth. His Liu Er had been smothered under a layer of frost and it was unacceptable.

"What have you done." It was not a question. Not really. "Oh come now, I thought you would be pleased." That sickly sweet voice mockingly purred. (And it took all of the self-restraint Wukong possessed not to tear the wretch's head from her form right there and then. She was hovering over his mate, looming over him with her hands so casual on his darling's shoulders, as if she had any right to breathe the same air as Liu Er, let alone touch him. Liu Er was his) "After all, your mate has been so... finicky lately, it was assumed that it would only be natural for you to... appreciate having him so... submissive." There was a low sound as the Great Sage's jaw clenched hard enough to grind, yet the witch still continued to seal her fate. "And it is only fair after all, given what he did. The Six-Eared-Macaque will serve as replacement for my fallen champion, and then once destiny is fulfilled, you shall have the perfectly obedient 'lover' you have desired all this time." When he killed her, Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, was going to ensure that she suffered the entire time.

In the swap au how does SWK react to a possessed Mac? Is he pleased having a passive and silent Macaque who isnt running away or fighting him anymore or is he angered/annoyed that Mac is basically a lifeless puppet for LBS?

He's very not happy about that because that was not part of what SWK and LBD agreed on

But hey, it ends up in the heroes' favor since Wukong is the one who ends up killing and defeating the LBD!

Ain't that handy

[thoughtkick]

It’s easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams… that is being naked.

Rob Bell

[perfectquote]

It’s easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams… that is being naked.

Rob Bell

[robsheridan]

[Update: Apocalypse in Pink part 2 is out now]

Before Barbenheimer, there was “Apocalypse in Pink,” the August 1983 theme of fashion/culture magazine SPECTAGORIA. The issue’s controversial imagery of Barbie-esque models attempting to stay gorgeous and glamorous amidst nuclear annihilation sought to, in the words of editor/photographer Sera Clairmont, “revel in the morbid absurdity of the new American condition,” an “anxiety vibrating underneath all our plastic smiles.”

“It’s The Hot Pink Cold War,” Clairmont wrote in her introduction. “It’s ‘Material Girl’ on the radio and ‘WarGames’ at the drive-in. It’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ interrupted by the emergency broadcast signal. We’re told to look sexy, dress fashionable, make money, and spend money, but be sure we’re just the right amount of terrified about the bomb. Get that Malibu dream home, keep working on that perfect body, sip cocktails by the pool in your little pink bikini and watching the stocks go up — but STAY VIGILANT! and for God’s sake vote Republican, because that dream home could melt into a pink plastic inferno at any given moment. Just don’t stop smiling as the blast liquefies your skin into bubbling ooze like a Barbie doll in a microwave - it’s bad for the economy.”

***Continued in PART 2***

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NOTE: This is a work of fiction created by me. This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series (visit that link for a lot more). NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and interconnected alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

If you enjoy my work, consider supporting me on Patreon for frequent exclusive hi-res wallpaper packs, behind-the-scenes features, downloads, events, contests, and an awesome fan community. Direct fan support is what keeps me going as an independent creator, and it means the world to me.

[zephyrchama]

You were in the middle of conversing with Luke during some RAD downtime when Mammon dragged his desk over and sat down like he owned the place. He had no interest whatsoever in your discussion on flower vases.

"Let's play cards!" he insisted. "I'm dyin' of boredom over here."

"Why don't you go bother someone your own size?" Luke retorted, but Mammon was already shuffling a rather worn deck he kept in his bag.

He looked like a professional dealer, mixing the cards so smoothly. 52 pieces blended together into a flowing bridge as he deftly tossed the deck from one hand to another.

"Whaddya wanna bet? Loser does everyone's homework? Or how's about you two gotta listen to whatever I tell ya?"

You rolled your eyes at the thought. "How come you're the winner? We haven't even started yet." Not to mention, you could command Mammon whenever you wanted. It wasn't an enticing prize.

Luke looked wary. "Gambling is against the school rules. You shouldn't do things knowing Barbatos will catch you."

"Ah, shut it. I'm on the student council, remember?" Mammon started dealing cards, tossing five your way and five to Luke. "I practically make the rules around here."

Mammon leaned back in his chair until the front legs were off the ground while you and Luke studied your cards. Mammon looked to have memorized his hand with a quick glance, while the angel alternated between intensely staring at his cards and Mammon.

"Luke, do you even know how to play poker?" you asked. The exact game hadn't been specified, but there was little question about what you were playing.

"Not really," he answered, "but I used to play a lot of Old Maid with Simeon when I was little."

Mammon snorted. "When you were little? What, like, this mornin'?"

Luke kicked at the airborne leg of Mammon's chair while the demon cackled at his own joke.

[strawnger]

steddie au where eddie thinks they're just hooking up because steve never treats him like all his previous girlfriends, but steve thinks they're dating and the relationship is only different because it's Gay. he's just trying to follow eddie's lead without making a fool of himself (he keeps buying gifts and flowers then shoving them into the back of his closet because he doesn't want eddie to think he's "treating him like a girl")

[technically-human]

I'm not very sure about this concept, so just a sketch for now

[fishcalcart]

Selkie!stone showing off his teeth >:)

[tarvek-sturmvoraus]

bats: tim are you going to tell us anything you did while searching for bruce tim: not unless everyone gets real cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly

[robinminustherichard]

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Hi Tommy. This is Ravi.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Panikkar.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Like from the bar.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Or from the 118. Buck's Co-Worker.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Sorry, Evan's Co-Worker.

[TOMMY KINARD]: I do know his nickname is Buck. I also do remember you, I promise. What can I do for you?

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Right, of course. So I really do not want to be in Buck's business but like, everyone is kind of being a bad friend to him? And every day he looks more sad and it's kind of killing me.

[TOMMY KINARD]: Uh, okay? That's tough bud.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Come on dude don't make me spell it out. Can you come do your weird Tommy magic again please and fix him? He's threatening to transfer houses. I've tried getting the others to notice but it's not really going well. I took him out to a bar tonight and he's just kind of stared at a TV playing a basketball game the whole time. He didn't even notice me putting his phone back after stealing your number from it while he was in the bathroom.

[TOMMY KINARD]: I don't know who you've been talking to but I don't think I have any magic there. Evan is an adult, and we broke up. Like at least twice I think.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Damn whenever people talked about the Great Tommy Kinard they didn’t say he was a quitter.

[TOMMY KINARD]: Okay first of all, that was rude.

[TOMMY KINARD]: Second of all, I am a quitter and I am proud of it.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Dude.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: What if I told you that he baked a triple chocolate cake at 2 AM in the station the other night and no one even said thank you while they ate it and he looks like he hasn't slept in weeks.

[TOMMY KINARD]: I agree that isn't great. But it's not my place to talk to him or anything right now, Ravi. I'm sorry but that's the reality of it.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER] 1 NEW MESSAGE: And what if I told you that Eddie announced he was coming back to L.A. and gave Buck 72 hours notice to find a new place to live or risk sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future? He's drinking a White Claw right now Tommy. A White Claw.

[TOMMY KINARD]: Okay that is

[TOMMY KINARD]: Well

[TOMMY KINARD]: Fuck it.

[TOMMY KINARD]: What bar?

[RAVI PANIKKAR] 1 NEW MESSAGE: The same one, dude. I was hopeful, but, well.

[TOMMY KINARD]: When this blows up again it's on you. Be there in 30.

[RAVI PANIKKAR] 1 NEW MESSAGE: Sick thanks man see you soon!!!!!!

"Who are you texting?" Buck asks, breaking out of his fog for a moment, "pretty big grin you've got there."

Buck is trying, clearly, but the smile he tries for doesn't quite get there.

"Eh, just a friend. Needed a favor."

"Oh, uh, are you good? I can--"

"Nah, Buck, it's all good. He already said yes. Plus it's honestly kind of more for him than me. Kind of guy that doesn't see what's right in front of him, you know?"

"Oh," Buck says, looking a little lost, "y-yeah, I get that."

"So, that last rescue. Kind of crazy, right? I think I could have swung the weight a little better--"

"What?" Buck says, a spark of something finally breaking through as he pushes the White Claw aside and leans forward, "No way, that was great work, Ravi! The way you--"

Ravi lets him go on, hoping that the topic change will keep him distracted enough that he won't shut down again before Tommy gets there.

[anexperimentallife]

Are You There? Are You Safe? Is The Flock Safe?

(I'm posting the full text of some stories I've sold, but for which the rights have reverted to me. This is the second story I ever sold--an 800 word flash piece I wrote for Daily Science Fiction--and they bought it just in time for me to buy a needed prescription. It's not my usual style, but I'm proud of it, especially since none other than Cat Rambo said it made her cry.)

--

Even this close to the desert, the sun finds enough cloud on which to paint its retirement colors. Turner Bray sits beside an almost-dry stream under a Joshua tree while the oranges and yellows and reds and pinks fade into one another, and listens to the birds.

They are not Original birds, of course; the stores of avian DNA were among the many things damaged on the voyage here, centuries ago. They might look like Original birds, and hatch from eggs like Original birds, but they are partly carbon filament and nanotubes, and they grow tiny processors in their brains to guide them--with varying degrees of success--toward Original bird behavior.

This flock--Turner's flock--comprises both parakeets and cockatiels, as well as a mated pair of African Grays and an elderly Amazonian Parrot. Original Birds did not mix like this in the wild, and that is part of why Turner is here; to learn more about how these birds differ in behavior from Originals so that new designs can take into account the failures of the past.

As the light fades, the birds start up the evening chatter that binds them as a flock in much the same way it must have for Original birds. They speak in chirrups and sweels and little squawks that ask, "Are you there? Are you safe? Is The Flock safe?" And they answer each other, "I am here. I am safe. The Flock is safe."

To pass the days and weeks, Turner teaches himself to imitate the bird calls, becoming fluent enough to engage in their daily reassurances. Sometimes he spreads crumbled rations on the ground and calls out in their language, "Food! Food! There is food here!" After a while, most will eat tidbits directly from his hand, and after a longer while they seem to accept as one of them this wingless giant who speaks the language of the flock.

The birds have names for each other. They give Turner a name, as well--a simple, trailing squawk--and even contact-call to him when he moves out of sight. "Where are you? We can't see you! Are you safe?"

On the day of the snake attack, Turner is recording. Although he should simply observe, his first reaction is to raise the alarm. "Snake! Snake! Protect the chicks!" The snake is menacing the Grays' nest, but it is a little cockatiel--his real name is a lilting whistle, but Turner has dubbed him Geronimo for his bravery--who throws himself at the snake's eyes, protecting the chicks for the scant second it takes the rest of the flock to descend in a fury of beaks and claws and battering wings.

When the battle is done, Geronimo lays on his side on the ground flapping one wing and peeping feebly. The lump in Turner's throat surprises him, but more so the reaction of the flock. Original birds would have left Geronimo to die or--depending on the species--finished him off. But these birds form a protective circle around their fallen hero, and several of the smaller ones line up to press their beaks to Geronimo's to feed him the snake meat they've consumed.

They are not just different from Original birds, Turner thinks, but--as blasphemous as the idea may be in a world where terraforming has become a religion--better than Original birds. Yet, because they are not enough like Original birds, they will be phased out and replaced over the next five years.

For the first time since he was a small child, Turner weeps openly.

Years pass. Turner is an old man, now; too old for field research, many say, but he manages to acquire a grant, even so. His new study will take him to the edge of a different desert, far from the intentionally terraformed parts of the world, but to a place where Terran life has, nonetheless, taken hold. Most importantly, it will take him far away from the "civilization" he no longer wants to be a part of. The one that saw fit to destroy something beautiful simply because it was not what they had imagined it should be.

After setting up camp, he wheels the heavy cryogenic sample cases out of the back of his vehicle. Most biologists carry empty cases to the field and return with full ones, but Turner is doing the opposite. By the time anyone discovers what he has stolen it will be too late.

The first chicks hatch after a couple of weeks, and Turner speaks to them in the language of birds. "We are here. We are safe. The Flock is safe."

(Also, my health is failing, and I need to get back to the US where I can use my medical benefits if I'm going to live to see my daughter grow up. If you'd like to help, please see this post.)

[morganbritton132]

AU where Eddie doesn’t like this, and he doesn’t want to be doing this but he’s short on cash and he’s desperate.

He puts hand in his pocket and follows behind the first guy that looked like he had money. He sticks two fingers against the guy’s back and said, “Give me your wallet.”

With the deepest sigh, the guy said, “Just do it, man.”

Oh,” Eddie says horrified, taking an actual step back, “Don’t say that.”

“Man, just do it. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t,” The guys says. “If I have to go back to the DMV, I’ll lose it. I’ll end up on the news.”

Eddie just stares, gasping at the the back of this man’s really luscious head and then does the one thing Wayne had instilled in him. He offers a helping hand, “Do you want to get dinner?”

The guy turns his head to give him an incredulous look. He’s so beautiful, Eddie can almost forgive his blunt words when he says, “You don’t have many money.”

Eddie grins, “True. I’m Eddie.”

“Steve.”

“Well, Stevie. Looks like you’re paying.”

[not-equippedforthis]

forever mourning how granada holmes never adapted the three garridebs. diabolical. unbelievable, even. 'if you had killed watson you would not have made it out of this room alive' but in brett's frightfully intense and low, biting, hissing voice. the violent, wild stare versus the gentle hand on watson's knee. all of that precarious control getting flung out the window. the humanity of it. gritting my teeth can you fucking imagine.

[thehopefulquotes]

It’s easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams… that is being naked.

Rob Bell