#tagging the goobers who will be present next

[mr-malumm]

Starting a series of drawings for each song and we're going IN ORDER BAYBEEEE, so heres Happy Day in Hell!!!!!!!!

[bloodandpaintchips]

Eat, Pray, Love

Tagging→ Andrea Sheldon, Audra Sheldon, a dead guy named Lou Time Frame→ Late September, 2020 Location→ Brooklyn & Upstate NY General Notes→ Andy’s a mess, and finally meets her proposed dead mother, Audra. It goes well.   

Glamorous.

When Andrea got another bite on her Facebook post about her mom and the photos she posted, she didn’t open it for a while. When she finally did, just like the note, she just kept repeating certain phrases in her head. Like glamorous.

It still sat in her DMs days later:

Hey, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the lady you’re looking for. I work in Chelsea and I’ve served her and some guy a few times. Almost didn’t recognize her or say anything because the woman I see is way more glamorous. Not as grungy and artsy, just reallly nice jewelry and big tips.

Anyway, I don’t know much about her or where she’s from but I know she either lives here in the city or she comes in a lot. 

Hope this helps.

Andy knew this was supposed to be exciting, but for the first time in what had to be years, she was nervous. Did this person make a mistake or did she actually get a lead on Audra? Taking the next step felt important.

Maybe her head was also in a spin because she was so hungry. She looked up from the twin motel bed she sat perched on to look at the mirror across the room over the dresser. Just an empty spot on the bed in front of a laptop, but she didn’t need a reflection to know she no longer looked human. The hungrier she got, the more tired, the more she stayed in her true form, which she had yet to accept. Tearing her gaze away from the reflection, she looked over at the twenty-something year old guy laying face down on the bed, glassy eyes gazing at her and mouth quivering from her compulsion to stay quiet.

He looked bad. Skin overly pale, her bites covering him, some of them getting infected. It was like fasting and coming home to a TV dinner that had been left out for a week.

She groaned, shutting the laptop and reaching for a rubber band on the nightstand to put her hair up.

In moments she was out of the motel, walking to her van with No Name Dude slung over her shoulder. 

Tossing him into the back and unceremoniously shutting the doors, she got into the driver's seat, started the engine and took off to the local hospital. So far she’s been deemed in this West Virginia town as “animal attacks” but she knew she had about one more time before she had to hit the road again.

Parking far away from the emergency entrance, she put the car in park and looked back at the near dead college boy on her blankets. 

After stopping the car she crawled back there, taking a few deep breaths to hype herself up for one last feed on this guy so she could play it off long enough to find the next one. But she knew it was gonna taste gross.

Scanning his arm for an okay spot, she lifted his elbow to her lips and sank her exposed fangs a few inches above it, drinking and shutting her eyes through a few gulps. With a deep breath, she released him and wiped her mouth off with one of the blankets. Despite the stale taste, after a moment she felt slightly normal again. She could feel herself returning to normal, skin soft and eyes clear, but she had a small window of time before her hunger would begin to nag again.

She pulled the guy out of her van, throwing him back over her shoulder and taking off to the entrance to drop his body on the curb. Feeling his pulse, her eyebrows raised to find that it was pretty steady.

“Good luck,” she mumbled. After that she was gone, having sped back to the van, started it up and headed for the road.

West Virginia Tech wasn’t exactly a notorious party school, but she ate well while she was here. And if she was going to have the energy to get closer to finding her mother, she needed to be filled up one more time.

-

“Oh hi, I’m so sorry I’m just standing out here like a goober, I guess I’m debating cause I’m nervous,” Andrea said, greeting three girls walking up onto the porch of a house party.

“Oh my god! Are you new on campus?” One of the girls pressed her hand to her chest like Andrea was the most precious thing she’d ever seen.

“Do you know anyone inside? If not you can come in with us!” The tallest girl introduced herself as Kelly, the first one to speak as Chelsea and the third, who was already buzzed and shooting Andy a warm smile, as Morgan. 

“No, I just saw the public invite and wanted to put myself out there but I should have known coming alone would send me into a whirlwind of regret,” Andy replied, laughing and shaking her head.

“Come on, you’ll walk in with us and it won’t be awkward at all,” Chelsea said, earning nods from her friends.

When they entered the party, bass throbbing against wood floors and bodies everywhere, Andrea thought of a time when these kinds of events (outside of working) used to send her into an anxiety hole. She thought about her past fears a lot. Now, all she felt in the sweaty room to the soundtrack of Travis Scott was determination. 

She played up her role of awkward new girl, letting the threesome introduce her around until she found the right one. Luckily, he ended up presenting himself.

“Kelly, who’s your friend?” He asked, leaning in to be heard over the music.

“This is Rachel, our new friend!” She yelled back along with confirmations from the girls.

Andy maintained her role but almost wanted to giggle to herself at the way this boy looked at her, like he was hungry and she was a delicious snack; irony always got to her.

“Yeah, my name’s Rachel,” she repeated, reaching out to shake his hand. 

“Lou. You new to the school or just the crew?” His hand lingered on hers for a moment and the girls, watching and grinning and giggling amongst themselves, took that as a cue to let them get to know each other.

“New to the school and the crew I guess,” she answered, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving a half smile to really play up her naïveté. “I’m enjoying myself though.”

“Do you get high?”

“Yeah actually, are they smoking in here?”

“No but I’ve got some up in my room.”

She met his curious eyes with a smile, holding her hand out, telling him to lead the way. On her way up the stairs, you could hear whoops and other inappropriate commentary despite the loud ass music. She knew it was coming; the college parties all blend together after a while.

Lou sat on his bed, rolling a blunt on what looked to be a folder from one of his classes. He was asking her a lot of bullshit questions about her interests and who she was as a person so the obvious ploy to get her in the sack seemed more genuine.

“So I lied,” she said, once he’d finished rolling and was passing the second hit to her. She hit it once and pressed the burning tip onto the desk to put it out. “I don’t really smoke.”

Lou’s eyes lit up and she could tell he was holding back a pleased grin. “Oh, you just wanted to spend some time alone with me?” They were sitting on his small bed and he inched closer, putting an arm around her shoulder.

She made eye contact with him again, giving a shy smile before pressing the middle of his chest back so he was essentially tossed onto the pillow. His eyes were wide from his now laying position but they still glistened with excitement as she crawled on top of him.

“You got me,” she said, taking off her glasses and putting them on the stand. His heart was beating fast and she could hear it so loudly.

“I uh, don’t have any protection, I hope that’s cool.” 

She tried not to roll her eyes, instead leaning down to press a small kiss to his neck before flicking her tongue at the lobe of his ear. “That’s cool,” she said simply before beginning a trail of kissing and sucking down his neck, collarbone and eventually removing his shirt to continue down his torso.

He bucked his hips a little, rushing her toward the blowjob he was so sure was coming.

“Be patient,” she said, running a finger down to his happy trail.

“I’m sorry you’re just...so—”

She didn’t want to waste any more time, sinking her fangs into his hip. She would later think it funny that she ended up being the impatient one. 

Covering his mouth when he started to scream, she shushed him repeatedly, still straddling his waist.

“You’re going to be silent. And you’re going to come with me.”

——

Back at the motel, Andy laid on one of the twin beds, her hand on her stomach and a smile on her face. She felt solid again. Lou was slumped up in a sitting position on the other bed, watching tv with dazed eyes and remaining under her command not to speak.

Sitting up, she grabbed her laptop and set it in front of her, ready to finally answer that message and possibly hit the road again soon.

“Thanks for this, by the way.” The comment was directed at Lou where he sat, as she opened the internet and leaned over to grab a lighter off the table, sparking the blunt he’d rolled for them (her, now) hours earlier.

______________________________________________________________

So Lou was dead.

He was also still in the back of her van, but once she reached New York, one hunch led to another, to an acquaintance to...actually being close to her mom. She’d been led to one more person, someone who supposedly could give her an address. So, she didn’t really have time to find a hospital and dump his half dead body there. She didn’t really have time for anything but feeding and fixating.

She was also not doing too hot again. Thumping her head against the driver’s seat of the van, she sighed heavily before aggressively slapping herself in the face.

“Come on Andrea,” she mumbled through gritted teeth. She knew she had to get better at feeding -- more efficient or something because she got to this point much too often. A voice in her head told her it was her own fault, feeding on singular targets until they get rotten, leaving them alive because of some pathetic desire she had in her heart to be good. Ironically, she didn’t care as much about that as a human. Maybe because she had a soul then and didn’t spend all the time lamenting about her lack of one.

She was the lamest fucking immortal on the planet, that much she knew had to be true.

Her eyes weren’t hazel anymore, her veins protruding to show she hadn’t properly fed in days. Maybe a week. Time was blurring together even more the closer she got to Audra. But she had to get out of the van and go across the street to the club. Her executive functioning also seemed to grow the closer she got. Scared but determined to find her mother; it was an annoying line to toe.

The nightclub was called BACCHUS and it was somewhere in Brooklyn. It would be the first creature friendly drinking hole she’d encounter since TARTARUS. Looking at the neon sign would have made her a little nostalgic if she wasn’t so focused on the turning of her stomach, skin and head. Her hunger made her feel like she had the flu, and that was only in early stages. If this place was for humans, they might have called her a meth-head and dismissed her at the door.

“Oh, honey.” The bodyguard at the entrance addressed her with concerned yellow eyes when she was at the front of the line. “Come on in.”

She simply gave him a grateful smile before going in, scanning the big city club for a bartender with fire red hair, as he’d been described to her by multiple humans and vampires who had encountered Audra. Supposedly he did more than encounter her before she “settled down” wherever she was. Fighting off a couple twitches, she continued to study the bar until she found him.

 “Don’t even, sweetheart,” he said, holding a hand up when she found a stool in front of him. She was confused until he set a tumbler of thick red liquid on the bar in front of her. Everyone could tell she was out of it. She downed it, no questions asked.

As soon as she’d set it down, he was refilling it again from a glass jar with snake engravings on it.

“That’s cool,” she said, pointing at the jar before gladly taking her glass and finishing it off again.

“I’ve had it forever. But let’s talk about who you are and why you don’t like feeding.” His eyes flashed a pretty violet and she found herself studying the vampire, thinking of her mother and the vast difference between this bartender and Frank Sheldon.

“Um, I’m Andrea. I got turned against my will when I was 24 and I guess I’m still struggling.” He was studying her too.

“So you need to loosen up,” he replied, ignoring the other bar patrons waving at him for service, to the irritation of his coworkers. “I have just the thing.”

He reached under the bar and pulled out a similar jar, only this one was matte black, covered in silver snakes.

“Why the new jar?” She asked, eyeing the new stream of blood being served into her glass. He shrugged.

“My good stuff. Consider it to be top shelf,” he said with a pleased grin. She was already feeling better, knowing the skin on her face was smooth again and her eyes back to their unassuming shade. As a result she relaxed the more she spoke to him, but she was getting away from the point. Downing the new glass and not tasting anything strange, she slid it back to him with a gracious nod.

“So, I’m not just here looking for free snacks and conversation with a new person,” she began. He liked that, leaning forward on the bar and cocking his head slightly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I...someone I met recently said you may be able to point me in the direction of Audra Sheldon.”

That gave him pause and he straightened his back, expression flopping between surprise and confusion.

“Sheldon?”

“Uh, she may have gone by Audra Miller when you knew her.” The confusion left his face and he folded his arms, eyeing her curiously.

“Wow. You’re the daughter.”

“Did she talk about me?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her expression dropped a bit when he shook his head.

“No. She was pretty withholding about her past. Especially with me. When I’m with someone I can briefly see their memories. You look like the little girl I saw, now that I get a real look at you.”

Andrea wondered if Audra never spoke of them to protect them. It would make sense. It just seems odd to brush a little girl’s hair every day and sing to her and read her comics only to never bring her up again.

“What would I see if I saw your memories?” he asked, bringing her out of the thought trail. She trailed the rim of her glass and laughed a little, feeling a strange buzz in her head that felt unfamiliar. Probably the top shelf blood or whatever.

“Not much,” she shrugged. “You’d see a lot of movie nights with a human dad, my glorious years as a busboy and a few romps, some that stay with me, some I really wish I could forget. Typical sad immortal girl shit I guess.” The way he gazed at her made her add on another point. “I dont necessarily believe in the whole ‘when you sleep with someone you’re sleeping with everyone they’ve slept with’ bit, but I would definitely pass on having a sex partner in common with my mother.”

He laughed loudly, earning an eye roll from the other bartender who pushed behind him to serve an impatient demon. “Maybe you have a little gift for mind reading.”

“I don’t think so. I could just be good at reading people. Or it could be you blatantly looking...everywhere…” she said, trailing off a bit as his gaze drifted back up from her arms, neck and chest.

“I’m sorry, I tend to be a little greedy sometimes,” he said, trying his best at a well-meaning smile.

“I just need the address.” She knew he had it, he knew she wanted it, and she was grateful for the blood but tired of being leered at.

“Why do you wanna find your mom anyway? She certainly didn’t go looking for you.” Despite his discouraging words, he was ripping off a piece of paper from a pad by the register behind him. He scribbled a few words onto it with a sharpie and slid it to her.

“Well, I guess if that’s the case I have a twenty plus year curiosity to quell. Thanks,” she said, sliding off the stool.

“Good luck,” he paused and put his hand on hers that held the paper, smirking. “And have a good trip okay?”

She stood there, squinting at him after the weird sendoff and gently pulled her hand away. He said “trip” with a wink and she didn’t have time to decipher it. However the buzzing in her head had grown quite a bit and the further away she got from the bar, the more she thought his “top shelf” blood might have had a strange kick to it.

___________

Lou was well past the rigor mortis stage, but Andrea couldn’t be bothered with that. She only just realized she’d been dosed with a psychedelic and now that she had an address, stopping now seemed silly. He would just have to stay there for the time being. She had no idea how long the drugs would last or what they would do to her so she just needed to get where she was going.

The first wave was alright, maybe she even liked it. The lights of the city danced and when she got to the interstate along rows of trees, they danced for her too. Their arms reached over the road ahead of her, twisting and furling. As long as she did what the GPS said, she felt she would be fine. And she really believed that, until she started to peak and the hallucinations took form.

The van skidded to a stop off the side of the road when she felt someone there with her. She swore she felt someone sitting in the passenger seat but whenever she looked, they were gone. She had to stop. Get herself together.

When no one materialized, she cursed at herself and put the car back in drive, bouncing back onto the paved road.

“Oh, we could have been so happy Andrea. I swear you just didn’t see it.”

She heard those words, clear as day. But she wouldn’t stop again, could only grip the wheel until she could feel it indenting under her skin. She knew it was August’s voice, the sound of it sending a shiver up her scar. It was unmistakable.

“He’s not here Andy. That’s impossible. He’s not here.” She finally stole a glance over to the passenger seat and gasped, snapping her eyes back to the road and shaking her head. 

August was there, pale and dapper in one of those suits, holding his decapitated head in his arms, the blood pooling in his lap and dripping from the open wound that was his neck. The head was doing the talking while his arms kept him securely in his lap.

“You have so much potential, Andrea and you’re just wasting it!” 

“No. No no no no no…” she muttered to herself, taking deep empty breaths and trying her best to keep her eyes on the road. She knew the veins in her face were pulsing, unsure if she was turning against her will because of the drugs or if she was hungry again. She was so unsure and fucking August was still talking.

“You thought a bartender or a bouncer or a pizza clerk could give you what you wanted but I offered you everything you could need on a silver platter. Every single thing you wanted--”

“EXCEPT FOR YOU. I NEVER. WANTED YOU. YOU TOOK ME,” her bellowed words filled the van as it screeched to another stop and she looked at the headless man, red veiny eyes swelling.

After a glance back at the road, he was gone. But she swore she could still see the blood puddle stain from where he sat. Starting back onto the road, she was now very aware that she hated this. She was so on edge she knew her driving wheel would now be the shape of her clenched fingers when she pulled them away.

Her phone said she had another two hours before reaching her destination. With no one else on the road in the middle of the night, she sped.

The radio was blasting now because she needed a distraction. Needed something other than the silence and whoever else would try to invade it. A couple swerves on the road where attributed to her glancing in the rearview mirror and seeing her father, looking back at her as himself only with her glowing, veiny, black rimmed eyes. She continued to mutter “no” to herself, following the road to the best of her ability.

An hour had passed, and as long as she avoided the mirrors and thus Frank, she truly felt she could get to the upstate address mostly unscathed.

She felt what had to be genuine fear. That was something she couldn’t really remember feeling as deeply as she did as a human. What fucked up memory would replay itself next? Who from her past would appear to make her feel helpless?

The few glasses of blood, as she knew, were getting weaker and weaker at their job of keeping her sustained. She saw the road and her dashboard through a dark vignette, banging her head against the seat in some feeble attempt to keep herself more present.

Soon she felt something cold and wet sliding onto her hand through her fingers and down her wrist. “No…” was the best she could do this time, coming out in almost a whimper as the familiar black mass wrapped around the steering wheel and continued to slip down her arms until the area was covered in slimy black.

She could only hear whispers upon whispers until they were incoherent. Some words that slipped through, she recognized from phrases it used to chant to her while using her body. Her body was always being used, it seemed.

The whispers grew until she felt like they were literally crawling out of her ears to join the growing mass over her arms and torso. Her eyes burned with tears and her foot pressed harder on the gas, speeding up until it filled her vision.

“It’s not real Andy,” she spoke, finally caving to the disorientation she felt. Had she stopped the car? Did she crash? Would she? She honestly didn’t know.

_

Andrea hadn’t woken up in a bed this soft since she spent the night at Johnny’s. Due to the fact that she wasn’t in Johnny’s home, confusion hit pretty quickly. She opened her eyes to a bedroom with high ceilings and tall windows, sunlight pouring in somehow and...not burning her skin off. That was even more confusing.

“Did you sleep well?” She barely had time to collect her thoughts before a short suited man stood in the doorway.

“I...sure,” she replied, sitting up from under the comforters and wiping her eyes. “Um, where am I?”

“Apologies, you’ve been in a state since you’ve gotten here. I’m Alan, I work for Audra Langman. This is her home,” he explained, smiling and waving a hand towards the end of the large bed. “If you don’t mind getting dressed in some clean clothes, you can meet me downstairs for more to eat.”

More?

She looked at the clothes on the bed, a sweatshirt with a faded college logo on it and a pair of leggings.

“Oh, and miss?” She looked up when Alan paused in the door, smiling still with a knowing look twinkling in his eyes. “We disposed of the body for you.”

_______________

Andy had a moment upstairs trying to figure out how she made it here, why she was in a mansion, why she was inexplicably fed and why Audra had a new last name. But she figured she wouldn’t get the answers to those questions if she stayed upstairs just staring at everything.

In her new clean clothes, she entered the kitchen to find a glass of dark red liquid on the counter. Walking up to it, she realized it was still warm once she picked it up. She was real tired of taking blood from strangers without knowing their origin but it smelled so good, like it was fresh. Hunger always won.

As she finished off the glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, Alan was in her line of view again.

“You’re kind of sneaky,” she said, licking her lips.

“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, miss. Now that you’re fed, Audra is going to meet you in the sunroom. You can follow me,” he said, waving and walking out of the room with her on his coattails.

She couldn’t believe she was here, after everything. She found her and she wasn’t dead and they were in a fancy house with a butler, and the sun that shone through the windows didn’t burn her. As she followed him, she couldn’t help but look at every surface. It had truly been so long since she’d seen sunlight, she forgot she missed it.

“Right in here,” Alan said, holding a hand out. She walked past him into the plant filled sunroom. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, almost too distracted by the brightness of the colors -- straight sun hitting the veiny colorful leaves of all her plants. It was beautiful and for the first time in forever, she really wanted to paint.

“It’s nice isn’t it?”

Andy froze at the sound of her voice, something she only knew from fuzzy childhood memories now directly in earshot. She’d only spoken four words and Andrea knew. That velvety, deep, slightly raspy tone was her mom. She finally looked up from the plant she was fixated on and made eye contact with the woman. Audra continued speaking before she could muster a response.

“The sun, I mean. That enchantment was a hard one,” she said, laughing and going to sit on a wicker couch in the middle of it all. There was another one directly across from it beyond a coffee table and Andrea followed her, choosing that one as a seat. She was unsure how close they should be.

“It’s...I didn’t know it was possible,” she managed, looking around at the windows and rays more. “The whole place is uh, pretty magical.” She knew she had so much to say, and Audra was examining her intensely. 

“So, you probably have a lot to say,” her mother expressed, basically parroting her thoughts. She crossed her toned legs under the black slip she wore under a black silk robe. Andrea wondered if she stayed in her pajamas all the time. If she lived in a house like this she probably would too.

“Yeah. I just don’t know where to start I guess.” She looked down and fiddled with the bottom of the old sweatshirt. “I made this decision to come find you and it felt so dead-ended and hopeless for years that now that I’m like, here I almost don’t know what I wanted anymore.”

“I get that.” Audra stayed silent for a few moments to let her get her thoughts in line. Finally, Andrea went on.

“Well I guess I can start by asking why you have a different last name and why I kind of just woke up here? I don’t remember a lot.”

“Okay,” Audra began. “I married Martin Langman about 3 years ago. He’s a piece of shit, but this house is his, he does what I ask of him and I come and go as I please. You woke up here because my gardener saw your van skidded off the side of the road. Looked like you got here, almost, and then passed out. You were practically shaking and you’d scratched yourself up a bit. We fed you so you could stabilize and got you into a bed. Got rid of the trash in your van, too. How long have you been like this?” She leaned back on the couch, legs still crossed.

“Uh, I guess roughly five years or so. Time started to blur a little after a while,” Andy replied, maintaining eye contact and trying her best to read her.

“You don’t like it.”

“It’s...taken some getting used to.”

“Nah, you’re still not used to it. Or you wouldn’t be carrying bodies and searching for Long Lost Mommy,” the woman said, leaning forward to pick up the mug of tea that had been waiting for her on the coffee table. Andrea steeled her spine a bit, tensing at her words.

“Maybe not. Guess we all couldn’t slip into it effortlessly,” Andrea replied, barely holding back the resentment in her tone.

“Of course I didn’t slip into it effortlessly. No one does,” Audra said with a small eye roll. “But I will say perhaps it was easier for me because I didn’t spend my time obsessing over my human life and what I had to leave behind.”

“That’s not easy for everyone like it was for you. That’s all I’m saying. Some of us have regrets about leaving people behind.” Andrea clenched her fists a little bit, trying to keep herself even, but everything Audra said, every look she gave -- it didn’t feel familial between them. There wasn’t even a fondness. A lot of questions she had were already being answered by the way the woman acted. When Audra laughed, Andy had to clench a little more.

“You resent me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I guess that’s fair. Comes with the territory. And I get it. It wasn’t exactly my plan to have a daughter. I never wanted the responsibility but there you were. And I tried the mothering role, I really did. I tried reading to you, singing to you, hoping to feel that connection other moms never shut up about.” She scoffed a little and set her tea down, settling back into the couch. “So I get why you’d grow up, human and vulnerable, wondering what happened to me and if we had all these lovely things in common or if I was missing you. That has a big effect on a child. I get it.”

It was Andrea’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think you get it.”

“I really do apologize, Andrea. Maybe I don’t get it emotionally, but it makes sense that you’d hate me. Unfortunately it’s a risk I was willing to take in the back of an alley with a traveler while your father waited for me at home. It sounds ugly, but sweetheart,” she ran a hand through her thick dark hair, messy and just like Andrea’s. “I will always put myself first. As a human, as a witch, as a vampire. Family is the center of some people’s world, but that’s just never been me.”

“How nice that must’ve been for you to be able to make the conscious human decision to fuck off despite having a husband and daughter.”

“Frank!” Audra exclaimed, clearly unfazed by Andrea’s words and going into a soft expression and a smile that was almost pitying. “Frank Sheldon. I really do think about him occasionally.”

“Occasionally.”

“Yeah. He was a nice guy and it’s ultimately why we didn’t work. Typical college white boy in a band who was dying for some girl to sweep him off his feet and distract him from how boring his life had been up until that point. And he was cute. I liked him for a while, then I got pregnant.”

Andrea let out a dry laugh. Every expectation she had was shattered by this little convo. It’s not like she didn’t think about the possibility of being disappointed, but Andy just didn’t expect her to be...such a bitch?

“So you liked him until you got pregnant.” Maybe repeating her own words would make her realize they were shitty? She wasn’t sure why she kept doing it.

“Yep.” No change in expression. She just looked so casual, like Andy was just an old girlfriend who showed up on her doorstep. “He got so domestic. All we did was fuck and play music and ride around but as soon as we were in that doctor’s office, all he wanted to do was settle down after that. He got that place from his grandmother and started talking about fate, how everything was lining up and we would be just as in love if we settled down. I was barely in love with him before that. After I had you I realized I was basically committing to all this stuff I didn’t want. I didn’t stumble upon an out, I was actively searching for one.”

“So why not let me die out there in the van?” Andy asked, crossing her own legs.

“Doesn’t look cute in front of a mansion,” Audra said simply. “Okay, that was a joke.” She added that when Andrea scooted forward like she was going to get up.

“Was it, though?” 

“Half. It really would look bad, and maybe it’s because my blood runs through you and you actually found me and the ancestors pushed me to do something about the state you were in. At the very least it’s embarrassing. Also, I knew you were coming.”

Andrea furrowed her brows. “How?”

“The cards. Of course it wasn’t spelled out for me, but the entire reading surrounded the Daughter of Wands. That’s not me, and it’s not anyone in my life currently. Everything else said travel, transformation, subsequent Nine of Swords…I just knew the reading wasn’t about me. You were coming.”

“And here I am,” Andy replied, sighing and sinking a little into the couch.

“Here you are. And I’m sorry, Andrea.”

“Why do I just feel like you’re not? You don’t really seem like the type to say sorry.”

“No, I am. I’m not sorry in the sense that I apologize, but I’m sorry you’ve been starving yourself for years and trying to find me. If I could, I would have told you to save yourself the trip. I’m sorry you spent your newborn years looking for me instead of spending them discovering yourself. That’s what I did. It’s what most new vampires do. Not you.”

“Discovering myself,” Andy said, laughing. “It’s not Eat, Pray, Love.”

“You can joke all you want to, but look at yourself, Andrea. Maybe you didn’t want to be a vampire. Maybe you didn’t choose it. But here you are. You resent me because I didn’t cling to my humanity, but you’re clinging so hard, you don’t even know who you are. That Andy is gone. Accept that.” 

Andrea’s eyes flashed red and finally, she stood.

“You don’t get to call me that. Boring Frank calls me that.”

Audra put her hands up in defense and stood as well. “Didn’t mean to step on toes.” 

“I’m gonna go. Don’t wanna take up too much more of your time,” Andrea said, patting down the pockets of her pants out of habit. She guessed all her stuff was in her car. As if on cue, Alan appeared in the sunroom with her keys extended.

“Your van is in the garage, miss. We took the liberty of cleaning it. You can follow me to get there.”

“Thanks, mister,” she mumbled, taking the keys and turning to look at her mother once more. Audra was still giving her this pitying yet curious look that Andrea realized she hated. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

She didn’t wait for a response, following Alan to the garage so she could leave this place. 

Not only was her van clean and the body gone, it seemed like they cleaned the blankets too, the errant blood stains she’d grown used to being either faded or completely gone. “Thanks again,” she said, closing the back doors and looking across the garage at Alan.

“Do you think it’s time to go home?” he asked. She wondered if he listened to their conversation. She wouldn’t have blamed him.

“Yeah, Alan,” she called back, flipping the keys in her palm and biting her lip. “I think it’s probably time to do that.”

[aion-rsa]

Rick and Morty Season 5 Finale Review

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This RICK AND MORTY review contains spoilers.

Rick and Morty Season 5 Finale

It’s been a while, so let’s first recap the consistent problems with season five of Rick and Morty. Problem one is that characterization feels like it’s either pushed aside in favor of crazy, silly sci-fi nonsense or lost in a muddle of convoluted sci-fi nonsense. Problem two is that episodes are so overloaded with plot and dialogue delivered at such breakneck speed that there’s either no time for jokes or, packed in with everything else going on in these overstuffed episodes, they just don’t land. The missing characterization issue isn’t exclusive to season five, but the lack of laughs is; this has easily been the least-funny season yet.

Now, finally, after a month’s wait, we get the two-part season finale! Does it manage to avoid the problems that have haunted this season until now?

Not really! But some of it certainly looked cool.

“Forgetting Sarick Mortshall”

Though they’re both about testing the strength of Rick and Morty’s relationship and the first does directly lead into the next by virtue of… crows… these really are two separate episodes with two different focuses and tones. This first one is closer to a “normal” season five episode. Sure, it’s got Rick pissing Morty off so much that he goes off on his own anti-Rick adventure (with a dude fittingly named Nick), but, for the majority of the runtime, it’s not handled like it’s all that big of a deal.

Regardless, the inciting incident here of Morty accidentally getting portal juice on his hand, thus creating a portal in his hand that connects to Nick’s thigh is a really clever one. It’s unfortunate that an odd side effect of a series with a premise that allows for infinite sci-fi possibilities is that many concepts, no matter how much creative effort is put behind them, feel like retreads that fall into a similar category (e.g., the season premiere with its Narnia world that evolved at hyper-speed felt not entirely dissimilar from the sequence of Morty living an entire life in “The Vat of Acid Episode” which, in turn, felt not so dissimilar from that time he played Roy: A Life Well Lived). However, this portal in the hand thing feels totally new and fresh.

They get some good mileage out of it too, with some cool action sequences (like Jackie Chan!) and inspired moments like Morty making a dude eat shit, literally, by transferring the contents of a chamber pot by way of the hand/thigh portal system or when Nick takes control of the car Morty’s driving by sticking his hand through Morty’s portal hand. It’s also used smartly in the most effective dramatic moment in “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall” when Morty chooses to destroy his portal connection to Rick by placing his hand on a train track so that it’s severed off, and then drops the hand-portal into Nick’s thigh-portal to kill him. It’s all very clever, well-executed stuff, though, typing it out, it sure sounds weird.

How Morty comes to the decision to sever his hand and connection to Nick is less well-executed. It unfortunately brought to mind the episode with Planetina, perhaps the worst of season five, as in both episodes Morty realizes the person he’s spending time with ain’t so great because—shock horror—they’re cool with killing innocent people! Yes, Morty has a moral core, so it’s not like it doesn’t make some sense, but it’s just that, with the amount of people he and Rick murder out of petty anger or just by happenstance all the time, it feels like they need to sell his change of heart a little more.

The other half of this episode is about Rick replacing Morty with two crows, at first as a joke, but then he gradually comes to realize crows are actually cool and can teach him about empathy. The idea of it is that this “two crows” thing is engineered to be a silly, one-off inanity, but then the joke becomes so much more as the writers sincerely explore the concept. However, it never really successfully elevates itself above its initial inane premise. I still just found myself thinking “What is this crow bullshit? Why crows?”

It’s also becoming a bit of a predictable Rick and Morty staple that characters that appear incidental at first actually have a whole society and way of life we get to learn all about (the face-huggers, the Narnia people, the Chuds). It’s an obvious plot device to return to seeing as this is a sci-fi series about visiting new universes and alien worlds all the time, so it would be irrational to suggest they stop doing it altogether, but did this particular plot really need to go in that direction? The introduction of the crow society comes out of nowhere and it isn’t convincing that Rick decides to follow a path of empathy with his two crows right after he just killed a whole bunch of other crows. Anyway, the only thing that makes the crow plot “interesting” is that the writers commit to it so hard it carries into the next episode.

Season five style, “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall,” is not funny. I chuckled at the very last moment in the tag when Garbage Goober said “Mmm, trash, I love trash” and I smiled at Rick’s (possibly improv’d) rant about watching sitcoms on your shoes, but that was about it. Still, at least there were the aforementioned clever moments and it got a tiny bit emotional when Morty told Rick “I miss you, man” and when Rick admitted their relationship was abusive.

“Rickmurai Jack”

Lore, lore, lore! How do you like it? Hopefully you like it lots because “Rickmurai Jack” is chock full of the stuff!

The Rick and Morty team, however, absolutely hate it! Well, they can’t totally hate it, or they wouldn’t have bothered to make this episode, but they definitely have an acrimonious relationship with continuity and canon. Dan Harmon has stated before that giving Rick a tragic backstory would ruin the character and Rick himself reaffirms that opinion in the episode. In fact, the writers can’t help themselves in breaking the fourth wall throughout to remind us how much Rick hates canon and how it’s better to “keep it episodic.”

It’s understandable why they resent canon. It’s got to be much easier to write one-off, funny sci-fi adventures than to sustain serialized plots told over multiple episodes. Unfortunately for them, way the hell back in season one Rick and Morty destroyed their universe, killed alternate universe versions of themselves, and took their places. The series kept this plot point intact, referencing it later, and also gradually made Morty’s character more jaded in response to this, as well as the many other horrors he witnessed. In other words, they made this canon bed and now they have to have adventures in it (I know how this sounds and I’m fine with it).

Before it gets to all that serious canon, however, “Rickmurai Jack” has to honor the continuity of the previous episode by tidying away the stupid crow plot. The continuity is certainly sound: the crows weren’t funny in the last episode and they’re not funny in this one either! There’s an anime intro. There are villains whose names flash on the screen in big letters. There’s an arch-villain named CrowScare who has sex with Rick’s crows. Yeah. Fine. At least this part is done away with relatively quickly. (Side note: Odd that Rick becomes a bird-based superhero and yet there is nary a reference to Bird Person.)

Read more

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After this, the episode maintains the season five status quo by continuing to be unfunny. I don’t believe I laughed at this one at all, although I liked Evil Morty’s line, “I lied. That second seat’s a toilet.” The lack of comedy is a bit more forgivable, however, as “Rickmurai Jack” isn’t trying as hard to be funny. This really is the loreiest lorepisode they’ve ever done and so the focus is on backstory and continuity to do with Evil Morty’s long-gestating plan.

As one of the annoying nerds constantly complaining that this show doesn’t do enough character development anymore, I know I’m supposed to be thankful for this episode (Rick angrily says as much) and I am, somewhat. It’s cool to see Evil Morty again and to hear his awesome theme music. Personally, I was never asking for Rick backstory and I’m a bit surprised his origins more or less are just the easy answer of “dead wife” after all, but sure, that’s fine. More profound and fucked up is the origin of all the Mortys in the multiverse, engineered by Ricks to be the perfect sidekick.

I just wish all this development hadn’t been given to me, season five style, in such volume at such speed. The fact of the matter is I was straight-up confused about what the hell was going on sometimes. I understood Evil Morty’s plan enough to get that he’s extricating himself from the cycle of Ricks and Mortys (and maybe ending the cycle forever?), but where did he fly to? Did he kill every Rick and Morty ever except our protagonists and whoever they escaped with or just everyone in the Citadel for some reason? Did he remove all portal fluid from the multiverse? I also lost the plot of Rick’s backstory, not understanding why he was going around killing all these other Ricks until I watched it back and realized he was going after the Rick who had killed his wife and kid Beth; I still feel it could’ve been more clearly presented though. Also confusing was the sequence in Rick uses some of his blood to create Big Boy(?) who… transfers power to Rick when he’s attacked… or something?

Look, I know how this goes. I’m a stupid moron and the nerds in the comments will be more than ready to let me know that everything that was confusing to me was, in fact, completely obvious, duh-doy, and here’s why and I should stop watching the series, and so on, and so forth. However, something I’ve always marveled at (as I did only two episodes ago) with Rick and Morty is, despite how crazy and layered its ambitious plotting gets, I never lose track of what’s happening. So, either my very high IQ is dropping points or this shit was kind of confusing.

Regardless, it’s appreciated the creators of this show finally gave in and threw a bunch of continuity and canon in my whining face. It just would’ve been nicer if it had been delivered in a clearer way that was easier to process and to feel something about. Like, every time Evil Morty has appeared in the series, he’s been an intimidating and chilling presence. I did get chills when his theme song kicked in this time, but that was more of a Pavlovian response earned from his previous appearances. Otherwise, I was just bewildered by all the information being chucked at me. Still, if nothing else, it was certainly a cool-looking spectacle.

What’s best about this episode is what it sets up for the next season. Who knows how long they’ll stick with this, but it’s implied that Rick is out of portal juice, which makes him that much less god-like and which could maybe, finally, reintroduce some actual stakes into Rick and Morty instead of every episode being about a sarcastic unstoppable murderous sci-fi family. I truly do look forward to that.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The other best thing is Mr. Poopybutthole’s profound advice that we should be brave enough to love the people who love us back. Thank you for your wisdom, Mr. Poopybutthole.

The post Rick and Morty Season 5 Finale Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[mrandmrsvex]

Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia, Vax'ildan & Vex'ahlia (Critical Role), Vaxleth (implied) Characters: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, Vex'ahlia (Critical Role), Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Keyleth (Critical Role) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Modern AU, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher Series: Part 2 of thursday nights and friday mornings

Summary:

It was almost a completely normal 90 minutes of class. If her head wasn't constantly spinning around that argument before class. Her stupid question and his stupid answers and their stupid fight. Could you really call it a fight, though?

Notes:    

You do need to read the first part of this series to understand anything.

This is pretty much a transitionary chapter. I promise there's gonna be more, well, action? In later chapters. But it takes some work to get there. So far we've only seen friday mornings. Once we get to the first thursday nights, things will pick up

[Part 1]

It would be okay this time, she told herself standing in front of the classroom door. She'd be more awake, less hungover than last time, and he'd have no reason to constantly call on her and nag her for it. It would be a regular class, like it had been every friday morning before he showed up to teach it.

„Good morning.“ It was just a harmless greeting, but it made her jump nonetheless – Percy was standing far too close for comfort, talking almost directly into her ear. She brushed him with her shoulder while turning, ending basically face to face if he wasn't so damn tall. As it stood, she was pretty much just staring at his throat and collarbones before looking up.

„You're quite early.“ he continued before stepping past her to unlock the door, not even waiting for her to reply to his greeting.

She couldn't form a single word, couldn't stop staring, for some strange reason, at the part of his neck where white hair faded to almost as light skin.

„Well, in you go, if you please.“ He turned to her – damn it – and motioned into the classroom. „Class doesn't start for another 10 minutes, I'm afraid, but you might as well sit down already.“ With that, he was heading for his desk.

Vex stood in the doorway for a second, realising that going straight for the back row as she usually did would be the single most awkward thing to do right now.

After a moment of hesitation, she put her giant travel mug of coffee on a table in the second row and began unpacking her bag. She hoped he wouldn't notice. The way his eyebrows rose above his glasses while he was still looking halfway down on his papers told her he did.

Vex was desperate to break the awkward silence, but with what, she couldn't figure out. 8am was too fucking early, she thought, even without a hangover. Her mouth acted before her brain could stop it.

„I had a question, actually.“ Fuck. What? No. She did not have a question. She had no idea what to ask. She barely remembered the topic of the last class right now.

„Oh yes, of course.“ Percy sat up straight, obviously expecting her to talk about just that class, considering he'd offered to answer any questions last time they spoke.

„How did you know I was out drinking with old men last week?“ Oh balls, it was only getting worse. Vex, you idiot, you absolute fool, what in hell's name are you doing. She wasn't sure if the voice in her head was her own or her brother's. Sure, he'd probably still want to know, being the one who'd brought that question into her mind, but just maybe he might've been smart enough not to corner the guy he considered a possible threat in an otherwise empty room, at an almost empty school.

Percy's reaction at least assured her that he was most definitely not a threat, stuttering and blushing and awkwardly fidgeting with his papers.

„Oh god, you remembered.“ He whispered more to himself before clearing his throat. „Again, I'm very sorry for that comment. It was uncalled for.“

„That's not what I asked.“ She realised she had the upper hand in this conversation, for now, and was most definitely enjoying it. Percy blushing even more was definitely helping.

„It was a bad assumption. I remembered seeing you outside the Strongjaw pub with that weird musician.“ He paused. „You seemed quite drunk, to be fair.“

„And what exactly were you doing at a seedy pub on the other side of the town?“ She tried hard to keep her upper hand, but it was already slipping. The question had sounded far too biting.

„I'm pretty sure that's none of your business.“

„How drunk I get and with whom is none of your business, either.“

„Indeed, and I've apologised twice now. You decided to bring it up again.“

Silence. She downed her coffee more angrily than ever. Before she could give just as angry an answer, though, two students came in. The way Percy greeted them made it more than obvious how relieved he was to see them.

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

It was certainly not as bad this week as it had been last time. He'd only said 'Vex' during attendance. He never once called on her. She actually, voluntarily, raised her hand for two answers – and she even got them right. The topic was getting more and more interesting, the way Percy presented it, full of energy and obvious enthusiasm for his subject. It was almost a completely normal 90 minutes of class.

If her head wasn't constantly spinning around that argument before class. Her stupid question and his stupid answers and their stupid fight.

Could you really call it a fight, though? Vex remembered proper fighting, with shouting and door-slamming and cursing and saying things you could never really take back. She remembered Vax fighting with their father. Vax fighting with unstable patrons when they worked at the pubs. Vax fighting with drunkards outside pubs who tried to make a move on her.

Vax was getting into a lot of fights, she realised. Her worry was cut short by everyone around her suddenly getting busy packing up. She hadn't even noticed that Percy had ended class.

„Vex, could you stay a bit?“

Almost. She'd almost slipped out of the room unnoticed. She needed to work on her stealthiness. Now she had to face another definitely awkward chat with this, this goober.

Steady, she tried to calm herself while sauntering over to his desk, you might actually be lucky enough that this is not about the drunk old men again.

„Yes, Mr. De Rolo?“ She leaned against the table across him, trying to act nonchalant, and failing hard when she realised how agressively raised her shoulders were in this pose.

„I've been going through Mr. Myers' notes this past week. What with taking over this class and having to be actually prepared.“ Percy was shuffling through said notes, not looking at her. „Luckily he left pretty detailed info on everything and.. everyone. Attendance, student evaluations, all sorts of info.“

„How fascinating.“ That was not nonchalant either. That was teasing, she realised. Why, why in god's name was she trying to tease her teacher? Why did it cause him to look up, actually look at her, with those blue eyes, why was he even allowed to have such blue eyes, and why the hell were they so concerned right now?

„Vex, you're failing this course.“

Oh.

Her heart dropped all the way down into her stomach.

„I'm what?“

„According to Mr. Myers' notes and your review. Apparently your participation is sub-standard, and your short-exam results...“ He shuffled to another paper. „He's also noted down that rude answers on questions you don't know the solution to are not going to earn you extra points.“ He couldn't hide a short, but amused snort. At any other time she would've found it endearing.

„I'm failing the course? Actually failing?“ Her hands were grabbing the desk under her so hard the knuckles turned white.

„At the moment, yes.“ Percy tried to smile at her, tried to soften the blow any way he could. „I don't really share Mr. Myers' opinion on your participation, but as it stands... your current grades will be hard to turn around.“

„I can't fail this course.“ Her heart, still down in her stomach, was racing. She didn't even know what would happen if she failed a non-mandatory course. All she could think of was being told that for some reason she couldn't continue her studies. That she'd have to leave the school, or spend a year making up for this stupid engineering class, paying out of her ass for another year she didn't want to-

„I can't fail this course.“ She simply repeated, her face almost as white as her knuckles now.

„You don't necessarily have to.“

Her head shot up, staring straight at Percy. His eyes were more hopeful than her entire mind was right now.

„As I said, it will be hard to turn your grades around. But I think you can do it, if you put in the extra work.“ Another paper shuffle. He was doing that a lot. „You need to do more in class, obviously. Get at least a B on your next exams. And to make up the missing points from the past lessons, I've collected some additional tasks you can hand in, like an essay and some research-“ he was almost nervous looking for those papers now „- and if you just turn these in bit by bit during the rest of the semester, and do them well, I'm pretty sure you'll make it through, even if your final grade is not, well, the best you could do.“

He handed over the papers he finally got together. Her hands were shaking as she took them, they both noticed. Staring at the pages, she had a hard time focussing on the text.

„So I have to hand all these in.“ Was all she could say.

„Whenever, basically. The only real deadline is a week before final class, so I can mark them in time. Or earlier, of course, if you get it done.“

„This is a lot.“ She flipped over the pages. What the hell, Vex? Are you complaining about being given a chance to make up for your fuck-up? Percy's look seemed to echo her thoughts.

„Well, there is a lot to catch up. You can try to turn this ship around, or“ he shrugged „you let it sink and just drop the class.“

„No!“ That may have been a bit too quick of a reaction.

„It's not mandatory for you, though, is it? People drop extra classes all the time.“

„I'm not dropping anything. I can do this.“

„I hope you do.“ Rude. Was that rude? She wasn't sure. It was hard to make out his intentions right now, what with staring at pages of pages, full of equations and questionaires and graphs. As it was, she just huffed indignantly.

„I can. I will.“ Maybe she shouldn't be quite so rude in return. „Erm, thank you, of course. For letting me make it up, I mean.“

„It's the least I can do.“ He smiled, thank god. She was feeling more at ease, seeing that. Maybe a bit too much.

„Or you could just fudge some numbers and let me pass.“ As soon as she said it, she regretted it. That was definitely a step too far into teasing again.

Percy snorted again, trying to hide a short laugh.

„Don't push it, Vex.“ It could be just her imagination, but she was pretty sure there was teasing in his voice too.

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

„Vex!“ A voice from the other end of the street called. „Vex, wait!“

For a second, she hoped it was Percy trying to come after her. It was a ridiculous thought, though – he wouldn't have been fast enough to match her speed, he definitely wouldn't follow her all the way home anyway, and besides, she would've recognised his voice (it was hard to admit that, even to herself).

Instead, when she turned she saw a woman almost as tall as Percy come jogging, her bright red hair trailing behind her. Vex tried to smile as best as she could when she recognised her.

„Oh Keyleth, hi! We don't have study group today, or did I miss something?“

„Oh nonono, don't worry. I'm, I'm just on my way over to- Vax and I were gonna meet up-“ Keyleth began to stutter and blush. Vex had been wondering what was going on between those two, but it was becoming pretty obvious by now.

„He didn't tell me he had a date. Do you want the flat to yourself?“ She winked and got the expected result – the poor girl in front of her went almost crimson.

„Oh gosh, oh, no, we wanted to get some, um, just some lunch. Down at Gilmore's. You're, uh, welcome to come along if you want!“

„Don't worry, I won't bother you. I haven't got time, anyway. Gotta do a whole lot of extra homework tonight.“ She kept walking towards her apartment house, Keyleth now in tow.

„Oh, what, extra homework? What for?“

Vex sighed dramatically. „This stupid as shit engineering class my idiot arse signed up for. Apparently I'm falling behind.“

„The one with the horrible substitute last week?“ Well, wasn't Vax a chatterbox, apparently. She didn't remember telling Keyleth anything about that.

„Yeah. Except he's not a substitute anymore. He's taken over the class now.“ She stopped dead in her tracts, and Keyleth only noticed after getting quite a few steps further. „Oh god, don't tell Vax that, okay? He still thinks that guy has it out for me, he's only gonna worry about it.“

Keyleth quickly nodded, but raised one eyebrow. „Um, I mean. If he's giving you extra work now, Vax is sort of right, though? Is the teacher picking on you, maybe?“

„No, no. The work is help for me. I'm, uh, I need to get my grades up, and he offered it for extra points.“

Keyleth's worried face lit up just as quick. „That's nice! If you need any help, just ask – I mean, I don't know much about engineering... nothing, really... but we could do a library date if you need to? Additional study group?“

„I might actually take you up on that.“

They'd arrived at the twins' front door now, and Vex tried not to think about everything she'd been fretting over on her way home. She especially tried not not think about Percy's worried look when he saw her pale face. Or his hopeful smile when he offered the help. Or his face at all.

It was easier to forget his face when she saw Vax's behind the door – giving a bright smile to Keyleth, which quickly turned into absolute shock and embarassment when he noticed his sister behind her. Now this was definitely the right place for teasing.

[Part 3]

(other fanfics: -non-AU-)

Percy being a wreck about having babies

Percy being a wreck about protecting his new baby

Proof that his kids are doing just fine with him as a dad

Percy is a wreck after Vex kills him in his dreams