#those fucking ghosts woulda just murdered me probably

[nightssideblogofshame]

This game is so bad to play, i now need to figure out how to speedrun what took me 8hrs to figure out so the guy survives, but also no other game has stuck in my mind like this one

I was fucking scooping ice cream at my job and im sitting there like: ok, so maybe if i skip that hallway, but that hallway has all the equipment coin tosses, but if i snag a detour to the armory room and get lucky on tosses-

This game is haunting me and i am, against my will, highly engaged

[thiswasinevitableid]

62. you set off the fire alarm and I have a test tomorrow, and I might strangle you

Sternclay, sfw, please!

Why do fire alarms only go off in March? The one time Stern set one off (he fell asleep studying and the dinner he was reheating started smoking) it was in that endless stretch of time where the snow is no longer festive but will keep falling for at least two more months.

More importantly, who is responsible for interrupting his carefully planned out six hours of sleep before his midterm at eight this morning?

He stands in the freezing cold with the building’s other three occupants; the single man who looks like he stars in lumberjack porn and the girlfriends who live on the ground floor.

“Sorry” The other man mumbles, “I was making doughnuts and the oil I was using got too hot without me noticing.”

Stern runs a hand through his hair and keeps his voice low, “Why were you cooking with hot oil at three in the morning?”

“When I can’t sleep, I bake.”

“Can I suggest a less flammable hobby in the future?”

“Hey man, it was an accident. And it’s not my fault they stuck the fire alarm too high up for me to get to it before it called the fire department.”

“Too high? You’re taller than I am and I can reach mine.”

“My ceilings are higher and it was tucked between the cabinets and the roof.”

“Oh yeah, ours is in a super-weird place too.” Aubrey, one of the ground-floor neighbors, pats the offenders arm, “it’s okay Barclay, it’s just a little smoke.”

“That may be the case for you three, but I have an exam that’s worth thirty percent of my grade in six hours and I need my goddamn sleep.”

“Yeesh, man, chill out. They’re already waving us back in.” Aubrey points to the door of the three story house.

“I timed everything to optimize my sleep schedule so it actually is a big deal.”

Barclay glowers at him, “Look, I said sorry. But maybe get used to the fact the world doesn’t run on your schedule, mr. control freak, and fucking get over it.”

Stern keeps a smile flat as he bites out, “go to hell” and heads upstairs to salvage what’s left of his schedule.

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

The crash from downstairs comes at nine p.m; he has a huge day at his internship tomorrow, but Stern doesn’t hear any sounds after it, and he is not about to let a neighbor die on his watch.

“Barclay? Are you okay?” He puts his ear to the door, the heater drowning out all ambient noise.

“Nope, not really, agh, fuck, the doors locked, lemme try to stand-”

“Stay put.” He runs upstairs, grabs his wallet, and uses his debit card to trick the lock, “Shit, what happened?”

Barclay is clutching his forehead, blood between his fingers, and his ankle is swelling. “I got really dizzy, caught my foot on the couch and then my forehead on the table on the way down. Ow, fuck, it better not be broken” he growls as Stern kneels to look at his foot, “I’ve got a shift in six hours.”

“I can’t tell. You should get to a hospital; if it’s injured and you try to work on it, you might have an even worse fall.”

“Fuck, I’m not even sure I can afford the ambulance, let alone the fucking E.R.”

He knows Dani and Aubrey are out, “Any family in town, or a boyfriend?”

“No, if there I woulda called them.” He snaps, then tries for a slow inhale, “sorry, it just, it hurts-”

“I can take you in my car, that’ll be one less worry.” Stern helps Barclay up, gets him to his sedan, then tells him to hold tight while he gets something for his head. He ends up grabbing the first clean fabris he finds, which is how Barclay ends up in the E.R while holding a “Roswell, NM” tank-top to his forehead.

“Sorry to ruin your, uh, souvenir?” He mumbles as they wait for the doctor.

“It’s for a good cause. Besides, I know how to get bloodstains out of fabric.”

“That...that makes you sound like a serial killer.”

“If I were a serial killer I would wear things that could stain.” Stern winces, “sorry, I read too many true crime books.”

“I just don’t have the stomach for them. I like fictional mysteries but real ones?” he shivers, “makes me think an axe murderer is gonna break into my place. I mean, you did it with a credit card.”

“If you’d had the chain thrown it might have been another story. “

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Barclay shifts in the plastic seat, “you, uh, you don’t have to hang around. Know you got a rigid schedule.”

Joseph runs a hand through his hair, “I’m sorry for being so annoyed last week when you set off the alarm. I’m not always great at handling changes.”

“To be fair, doughnuts probably weren’t the best stress baking choice.”

“Did they turn out?”

“Nah. I’ll have to try ‘em another time. Did, uh, did your test go okay?”

“Yes. I, um, I got a perfect score.”

Barclay laughs, the sound like warm honey, and Stern blushes at looking so deeply nerdy in front of someone with a smile like that.

“Mr. Cobb? We’re ready to see you.”

The bearded man gives an slightly awkward wave as he follows the nurse through the double doors. Stern returns the gesture, pulls up the chess app on his phone, and settles in to wait until his neighbor is done.

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

Barclay comes out his nap the scrchh of a brush on tile. His first thought is that he’s so late for work he’s unavoidably fucked. His second one is who the fuck is in his bathroom?

His ankle twinges, jogging his memory; he got back from the hospital at 11:30, no stitches needed on his head but bedrest required for his ankle. He’d been contemplating how to convince his manager to let him shift from the warehouse to somewhere he could sit. Joseph raised an eyebrow and asked for his phone while telling him to go get into bed. All Barclay overheard was a polite, steely voice mentioning the labor laws in Dane County and how it’d be a shame if someone were to arrange an OSHA spot check. The last thing he recalls before falling asleep was Joseph telling him he had the next day off.

That doesn’t explain the cleaning sounds, though.

“Oh, you’re up.” Joseph pokes his head in from the hall. His hair is coming loose from his usual slicked-down style and he’s in a V-neck and sweatpants instead of the suit Barclay sees him in most days, “I hope I didn’t wake you; since you gave me the spare key I thought I’d check on you when I got back from my internship and leave you some take-out from the Thai place around the corner--you said the green curry was your favorite--but then I thought I should wait until you got up to see if you needed anything, so I, um, I cleaned your tub while I waited for you to wake up.”

Barclay isn’t sure what part of that is the most baffling. Or the most touching.

“Why the tub?” He eases his legs over so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

“It’s satisfying. And I, um, I clean when I’m stressed.” He wipes his hands on the rag in his front pocket, “I was worried about you, and my internship was murder today. They’re mounting a case against one of the biggest employers in the state and everyone’s on edge.”

“Heh, kinda makes me glad I work at WalMart.” Barclay takes the crutch Joseph offers him and hobbles into the kitchen, “oh, uh, if you want to try some cake, there’s leftover cinnamon spice cake in the fridge.”

“I think I will, thank you.” He bends into the fridge and wow has his ass always been that nice, “can I grab you a drink from in here?”

“One of those pre-bottled Kahlua things in the door; have ‘em for a friend but one sounds good right now.” He watches Joseph open it for him, setting it down before he pulls out Barclay’s chair for him. Normally, the kind of fussing and light ordering around Joseph has directed at him makes him bristle. This last day, it just made him feel safe and cared about.

He could get used to this.

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

“Good lord, we’ve even got a flood warning.” Joseph sets down his phone as rain attempts to pummel the house to dust, “Some days I wish we lived closer to one of the lakes but this is not one of them. Should we check to see if Dani and Aubrey need any emergency supplies for if we have to shelter here? I always keep more than I need.”

“Nah, Dani’s got a strong self-sufficiency streak; got her a bucket emergency kit for Christmas last year.” Barclay pops the cork on the Pinot Grigio they got for dinner, “and I don’t think they forgot your semi-drunk promise that if they ever had to run from a flood they had full permission to break open your front door to be safe on the third floor.”

“I meant it, drunk or no.” Joseph takes down the plates and portions out the carbonara; he’s been trying to cook when he has time, both because he likes it and because it gives him and Barclay something to talk about. Not that they need the help.

Things changed after the trip to the E.R; Barclay would bring Joseph fresh cookies or pie. Joseph would offer Barclay rides when their schedules overlapped. Barclay introduced him to his favorite trivia night spot. Joseph took some of his cookies to a worker-owned bakery where a former co-student worked, which led to Barclay getting a new job.

Now they see each other almost every day, whether that’s watching movies on Barclay’s cramped couch or joining Dani and Aubrey for board game night.

He’s pleased with how the pasta turned out, even more so with the fact that when their legs bump together beneath the table, Barclay doesn’t pull away.

They’re on the couch, chatting about the recurring themes in ghost movies, when the storm starts in earnest. The sky is so dark it may as well be nine at night, the lighting and thunder performing a cacophonous two-man show across it. The closer the thunder gets, the more Barclay tenses.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah” a thunderclap makes him jump, “I know it’s silly but I fucking hate thunderstorms, I have since I was a kid.” He chuckles, “my mom would always end up making a pillow fort for me to hide in.”

“We could do that now.” He offers, tapping his foot against Barclay’s own.

“Know this might be hard to believe, but I wasn’t always six-two.” The other man teases.

“Don’t count me out just yet. Wait here.”

It takes some precarity and most of his thumb-tacks, but soon he’s waving Barclay to come join him.

“Holy shit” Barclay laughs as he sees the bed and part of the floor in Joseph’s tiny bedroom are curtained in blankets, “do you ever half-ass stuff?”

“No one can ever prove I haven’t.”

“Uh huh.” Barclay climbs into the fort, “that’s Joseph speak for ‘no.’”

Joseph plugs in his UFO lights and follows him in, “I’ve failed plenty of times.”

“Not on this. Man, this is gr-” A thunderclap makes him jump, nearly knocking one blanket down, “uh, maybe if I…” He lays on the bed, Joseph deciding it’s the least awkward option to join him in that position.

“You really didn’t have to do this.” The green of the lights add a charming tint to Barclay’s eyes.

“I wanted to.”

His friend looks away, keeps his gaze on his feet as he murmurs, “How come you’re always so nice to me?”

“Because we’re friends.”

“It’s, uh, it’s not because you want something from me?”

“Of course not. Barclay,” he touches the cooks arm, “anything you’re thinking is a favor with an ulterior motive....well, it isn’t. It’s something I did to look out for you.”

“What if I, uh, I didn’t think it was favor hunting and was, uh, a different word that started with “F’?”

This time, when the thunder sounds, Barclay nestles closer to him.

“Oh, Barclay” he drapes a protective arm over his waists, “I didn’t mean it to be. At least, most of the time. There were, um, sometimes when I was more flirtatious than I’d have been if it were anybody else.”

“Do you...want to flirt more?” Barclay mumbles into his shoulder.

Joseph tips Barclay’s chin with his hand, brings their lips together as lightning flashes through the window. When he pulls back, Barclay’s eyes are wide. He kisses him once more just to see if he can make them entirely pupil, then whispers, “I hope we can do more than just flirt.”

“Joseph” strong arms slip below and across him, “fuck, babe, if it’s not flooded tomorrow, promise you’ll let me take you out tomorrow?”

“I’d like nothing better, big guy. In the meantime..” he rolls so Barclay is atop him, “I have some thoughts on how to keep your mind off the storm.”

[etirabys]

I said in my previous It post that the book has bad scaffolding but good substance built on it. The below excerpts are about ~11 year old Bill Denbrough talking to his friend about his guilt about his younger brother, who died while racing a paper boat Bill made for him in the rain. Bill’s parents totally fall apart after the murder and start neglecting the child they have left:

In those days his mom and dad had also been bookends on the couch, but he and George had been the books. Bill had tried to be a book between them while they were watching TV since George’s death, but it was cold work. They sent the cold out from both directions and Bill’s defroster was simply not big enough to cope with it. He had to leave because that kind of cold always froze his cheeks and made his eyes water.

And, when he enters into the monsterhunting & monsterhunted portion proper of his summer, he confesses to his friend that he’s afraid the malevolent entity that’s been haunting him is (in part) his dead brother’s ghost: 

“But you said you were scared. Why would George’s ghost want to scare you, Bill?”

Bill put a hand to his mouth and wiped it. The hand was trembling slightly. “H-He’s probably muh-muh-mad at m-m-me. For g-getting him kih-hilled. It was my fuh-fuh-fault. I s-sent him out with the buh-buh-buh—” He was incapable of getting the word out, so he rocked his hand in the air instead. Richie nodded to show he understood what Bill meant . . . but not to indicate agreement.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “If you stabbed him in the back or shot him, that would be different. Or even if you, like, gave him a loaded gun that belonged to your dad to play with and he shot himself with it. But it wasn’t a gun, it was just a boat. You didn’t want to hurt him; in fact”—Richie raised one finger and waggled it at Bill in a lawyerly way—“you just wanted the kid to have a little fun, right?”

Bill thought back—thought desperately hard. What Richie had just said had made him feel better about George’s death for the first time in months, but there was a part of him which insisted with quiet firmness that he was not supposed to feel better. Of course it was your fault, that part of him insisted; not entirely, maybe, but at least partly.

If not, how come there’s that cold place on the couch between your mother and father? If not, how come no one ever says anything at the supper table anymore? Now it’s just knives and forks rattling until you can’t take it anymore and ask if you can be eh-eh-eh-excused, please.

It was as if he were the ghost, a presence that spoke and moved but was not quite heard or seen, a thing vaguely sensed but still not accepted as real.

He did not like the thought that he was to blame, but the only alternative he could think of to explain their behavior was much worse: that all the love and attention his parents had given him before had somehow been the result of George’s presence, and with George gone there was nothing for him... and all of that had happened at random, for no reason at all. And if you put your ear to that door, you could hear the winds of madness blowing outside.

I love this passage. It’s so – kind, and psychologically astute. Bill’s home situation right now is so shitty! It’s fucked him up in such a meaty, believable way! And the next part, when he figures out and accepts it wasn’t his fault, has this amazing blend of their-particular-culture preteen boy friendship where they’re kind and supportive, but with the counterweight of fear about being vulnerable and emotional, with the overlay of being silly eleven years olds

The boat had killed George, but Richie was right—it hadn’t been like handing George a loaded gun to play with. Bill hadn’t known what was going to happen. No way he could.

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, feeling something like a rock—something he hadn’t even known was there—go rolling off his chest. All at once he felt better, better about everything.

He opened his mouth to tell Richie this and burst into tears instead.

Alarmed, Richie put an arm around Bill’s shoulders (after taking a quick glance around to make sure no one who might mistake them for a couple of fagolas was looking).

“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay, Billy, right? Come on. Turn off the waterworks.”

“I didn’t wuh-wuh-want h-him t-to g-g-get kuh-hilled!” Bill sobbed. “TH-THAT WUH-WUH-WASN’T ON MY M-M-M-MIND AT UH-UH-ALL!”

“Christ, Billy, I know it wasn’t,” Richie said. “If you’d wanted to scrub him, you woulda pushed him downstairs or something.” Richie patted Bill’s shoulder clumsily and gave him a hard little hug before letting go. “Come on, quit bawlin, okay? You sound like a baby.”

Little by little Bill stopped. He still hurt, but this hurt seemed cleaner, as if he had cut himself open and taken out something that was rotting inside him. And that feeling of relief was still there.

“I-I didn’t w-want him to get kuh-kuh-killed,” Bill repeated, “and ih-if y-y-you t-tell anybody I w-was c-cryin, I’ll b-b-bust your n-n-nose.”

“I won’t tell,” Richie said, “don’t worry. He was your brother, for gosh sake. If my brother got killed, I’d cry my fucking head off.”

“Yuh-Yuh-You d-don’t have a buh-brother.”

“Yeah, but if I did.”

“Y-You w-w-would?”

“Course.” Richie paused, fixing Bill with a wary eye, trying to decide if Bill was really over it. He was still wiping his red eyes with his snotrag, but Richie decided he probably was. “All I meant was that I don’t know why George would want to haunt you. So maybe the picture’s god something to do with... well, with that other. The clown.”

“Muh-Muh-Maybe G-G-George d-d-doesn’t nuh-nuh-know. Maybe h-he th-thinks –”

Richie understood what Bill was trying to say and waved it aside. “After you croak you know everything people every thought about you, Big Bill.” He spoke with the indulgent air of a great teacher correcting a country bumpkin’s fatuous ideas. “It’s in the Bible.”

[pjbehindthesun]

chapter 23: an hour and a half from now

Saturday, November 3rd, 1990

What does it say about me, that this is the most at home I’ve felt in this city since I’ve moved here? Leaning on a cold metal pole in the back of a shithole music venue by myself with nobody to talk to, just watching the people in the crowd who have no idea they’re being watched. Shit, I don’t mean it to sound all creepy like that, it’s just one of my favorite things to do: pay attention to people when they think they’re being ignored. That whole “dance while no one’s watching” idea? Makes for a solid evening of entertainment all by itself. Unless, like tonight, everyone seems to be here on a goddamn date. For the first half of the set, it’s just felt nice, the way no one’s bothered me all night, but it’s like a light switch flicked in my head and now all I can see is that everyone’s here with someone. Fucking great. Can’t even enjoy a show without reverting into a self-pitying, morose fucker. Maybe if I find a different spot in the club, I can try to force my attention back on the band. At least no one’s hassling me about shouldering my way forward. In a small enough place like the Off Ramp, no one really gives a shit.

Yeah, okay, this is better. The only people I can see are the handful of people directly in front of me and the band. They’re pretty fucking great, I never saw ‘em before… Jesus Lizard, I wanna say? Supposed to be out of Chicago, so we probably know a lot of the same people, although Beth was always way more into the noise rock scene than me…

Fuck. Stop it, Vedder. I hate this whole fucking break-up thing. Whose idea was it, anyway, not mine… I hate how everything reminds me of her. Or, I guess, I want to hate it. Truthfully, those painful little stabs of memory are all I have of her anymore, so I guess I should be grateful for them. I have a habit of hoarding them, like a collector, turning them over and over like cherished trinkets. How fucked up is that? Wait a minute… that’s not her, is it? There, the little brunette, up on the rail, in the white t-shirt that’s too big for her frame... fuck, it looks just like her from this angle, it’s got to be her… what the fuck is she doing here? She wouldn’t have come all the way up here, would she? For what reason? To tell me she wants to get back together? I shove between a couple of guys who are probably gonna murder me in an alleyway later, but it doesn’t matter, my hand’s on her shoulder, she whips around, and…

“M’sorry, thought you were someone else,” I mutter as the girl turns back to the music with a justified look of disgust, although there’s no way she heard my apology and definitely no way she cared. Of course it wasn’t her. What the fuck would she be doing in Seattle? What sense would that make? So fucking stupid. Doesn’t matter how many times I think I spot her in a crowd, it’s only wishful thinking. Stupid, invasive, immature dreams of her coming to find me, to tell me we’d made a horrible mistake. Just dreams. I can’t get myself outside the club fast enough. There’s a stack of the local circular on the counter by the door, so I grab one on my way out, hoping I’ll find something in there that’s actually worth thinking about, and shiver when I hit the damp outside air after escaping the stuffy club.

Maybe I should have gone out with Jeff and Mike after all, seen whatever show they wanted to see. Maybe I would have had a different set of distractions with them, done a better job keeping my mind off of Beth. Then again, seems like every time I go out with the guys, we end up hanging out with like a dozen of their closest friends in the music scene. Normally that’d be great, but I can’t shake the feeling that their buddies are always making fun of me somehow. I don’t blame ‘em, I’m probably fucking hilarious to them, a surfer in Seattle, a terrified frontman, the absolute antithesis of everything the guys had going on before, with Andy, just a…

...just a self-absorbed knucklehead whose problems aren’t shit compared to what I can see a little ways down the road from me. There’s a person, a woman, maybe, looks like she’s about my mom’s age, and she’s settling in for the night underneath the highway overpass. Okay, there’s one way I can quit being a mopey sack of shit and do something positive.

After giving her all the change in my wallet, the newspaper I wasn’t really reading anyway, the flannel under my coat, and the cut-off gloves I’d forgotten I had stashed in my pocket, I start back in the direction of home. Or Jeff’s apartment, I should say. Home’s a long way away. But I don’t get very far past the door of the Off-Ramp.

“Eddie?”

The door opens, carrying with it a wall of club noise and a familiar, mellow voice that makes me turn around.

“Oh, uh, hey Chris,” I greet him as he materializes out on the street, looming in all black. “You been here long? I didn’t see you, I woulda said hi.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” he smiles, “but it’s cool, I probably wouldn’t have either. It’s just one of those nights. You probably know how that is. I figured you’d be over at Squid Row with Jeff and Cready.”

“Oh, uh, you know, I was just…”

“Hey, like I said, it’s one of those nights. I’m being an antisocial shit too,” his grin widens. “We could team up, you know? Twice the brooding.”

“The more the moodier,” I’m chuckling in spite of myself. Chris seems to do that -- put people at ease. If he wants to. I’m glad I ran into him.

“Where were you headed?”

“There’s this footpath over at Discovery Park, and it’s usually pretty kinda quiet this time of night. My wife, she’s a big fan of these ridiculous little dogs. You ever seen a Pomeranian?”

I squint, racking my brain. “Those the Chinese ones, the little ones that look like mops?”

“No, no, that’s a Pekingese,” he laughs at the characterization. “Poms are even less dignified, they’re literally just pom poms with googly eyes glued on. Anyway, Susan’s all about ‘em, and we just got one. Well, a new one, I should say, we already had one, so now they’re a dynamic duo. Kinda funny to watch them try and keep up with my shepherd in the mud,” he mimes short legs flailing and a tongue panting, and his long hair looks for all the world like a pair of poodle ears as it sways along, “so I go out there by myself with a bunch of shitty beer and watch ‘em run around until they’re too tired and I have to carry ‘em back, one under each arm. It’s really fucking therapeutic, you should try it.”

Is this guy serious? I know I’m new to Seattle, but you’d have to live under a rock to miss how big Soundgarden is around here. And this notorious rockstar spends his weekends roaming through forests like a lonely ghost with a pack of ridiculous hounds? That’s officially the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever heard another human being say.

“Well? You in?”

I bob my head once in agreement, trying not to smile like too much of a fucking maniac, and another easy smile spreads across his face.

“Yes! My car’s that one, the Galaxie. Fuckin’ radio’s stuck on a religious station right now, though, hope you’re feeling the right combination of gullible and guilty.” He points at something parked behind him on the corner before turning on his heels to head in that direction. A massive, battered, late ‘60s Ford land yacht. I don’t think I could feel more heartfelt and instant love for an inanimate object if I tried.

“Hey, if you’re into hiking, we oughta go tomorrow too, there’s that trail Cora and I were telling you about a while back, I don’t think she’d be too mad if we went without her… although on second thought, I don’t want her to kill either one of us, so maybe we should probably check and see if she wants in... ” he trails off as I break into a jog to try and keep up.

***

Sunday, November 4th, 1990

“Where are you off to at this hour?”

In the quiet and darkened apartment, Alex’s voice makes me bounce into the air from my seat on the couch where I’d been tying my shoe.

“JESUS! You scared the shit out of me!”

He watches me with a rueful twist of his lips. “It’s my apartment too, ya know. You got too used to it being empty while I was gone, huh?”

“No, it’s not like that…” ...except it’s exactly like that, I mutter to myself as I try to stop my heart from racing like a cornered bunny's… “I just didn’t think you were awake yet and I didn’t want to be the one to wake you. I figured you’re probably still tired. From your trip.”

“Nah,” he groans through a stretch, “wide awake. My body’s still on mountain time.”

“Hmm.” I return my attention to my laces in the absence of anything else to say to him.

“You didn’t answer my question, though.���

“Your…?”

“Where are you off to?”

“So long, Mom, I’m off to drop the Bomb...” I singsong absently while I finish tying the other sneaker’s laces. When I straighten up, Alex is looking utterly lost and more than a little annoyed.

“Come again?”

“Little bit of pre-nostalgia for World War III, that’s all.”

I bite my lip to shut myself up. Weapons of mass destruction and nuclear holocaust are maybe slightly less funny when we’re actually keeping so many secrets from one another.

“You’re so fucking weird.” Alex shakes his head in dismissal, not showing any signs of having gotten the joke. Stone would have thought it was funny. UGH, god damn it, speak of the devil. Why am I thinking about Stone? Stop thinking about Stone! Stop it! Quick, change the subject…

“Well, I was going to go for a run, if that helps answer your question.”

Alex nods and I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s the only excuse I can find for getting out of the house long enough to clear my head and sort through some of the chaos of the last 48 hours. Making sense of what Lucy was trying to tell me the other day. Deciding what to do about this gift Alex sent Patch. Figuring out what the hell I actually think of Stone now. It’s gonna need to be a long run.

“Can I come with you?”

“Are you feeling okay?” I frown as he circles his arms around me, my body staying stiff as he tries to coax me to relax.

“Better than ever. So can I?”

“You want to come with me.”

“Mmm.” He kisses the tip of my nose, and it's a struggle not to wrinkle it in response.

“Outside.”

“Unless you just want me to chase you around the apartment, I figured as much.”

“Run-ning,” I stretch my word out, unsure whether I've lost my mind or he has.

His bottom lip pokes out. “Don’t sound so shocked, you might hurt my feelings.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just… I don’t think you’ve ever…”

“Who says I can’t start now?”

“No one, but…”

“But what?”

“I can’t guarantee there will be any bears or murderers chasing us, Alex, and I’ve never heard you say anything nice about weirdos like me who run for fun.”

“Are you impugning my athletic ability?” He laughs, grabbing my ass and making me contort away from him yet again. At the look of confusion on his face, it occurs to me that I'm being a colossal asshole.

“You really want to come running with me?”

“Mmhmm.”

“But… why?”

“Why what?”

“Alex. You hate running. And hiking. And being outside. And, like, nature in general.”

He shrugs and says, very simply, “yeah, but I love you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” he grabs my ass again, and it’s all I can do not to grimace, “I missed you, okay? I kinda want to spend time with you.”

Well, it’s official, if I blow him off right now, I’m a sub-human. So much for my grand plan to figure out how in the world I'm supposed to tell him I don't really love him anymore.

“Yeah… okay. Let me, uh, let me get some stuff together and we’ll go?”

He lets go of me with a smirk and heads towards the kitchen, but pauses a few paces away and groans as he claps his hand over his eyes.

“Pull a muscle?” I ask, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“I don't even think I have running shoes.” He faces me with a sheepish look, pulling his hand back to ruffle his hair. That always used to make me melt, when he’d do that. Used to. Now it just seems like a juvenile gesture he drops whenever he’s trying to get out of trouble. I never used to understand how falling out of love with someone was possible. I dimly remember thinking Stone sounded like a total asshole when he explained having gone through it. But right now, he’s the only person I want to talk to about it. Which is deeply inconvenient when I’m supposed to be hating his guts. Stupid Stone. But on the bright side, now I have an easy excuse to go on that solitary run.

“Oh, well, that solves th --”

“I’ll call Brian, he runs, I bet he has a pair I can steal!”

Before I can finish my objection, he’s got the phone to his ear and has already dialed his friend. I sink back against the lip of the kitchen table while he and his friend haggle over a pair of stinky running shoes, his friend who he’s never introduced me to, his friend who suddenly symbolizes how thoroughly we established completely different lives the moment we moved to Seattle. Why did it take me so long to figure this out? Lucy’s been trying to tell me, even Patch tried to tell me… damn it, I should really call Patch.

“Okay, don’t move a muscle, I’ll be right back!”

Alex plants a slightly-too-rough kiss on my cheek before flinging on his coat and bolting out the door. I numbly make my way over to the couch to curl up and stare at the phone. This is as good a time as ever to call Patch, right? See what he really thinks about Alex’s $500 stunt? Make sure he isn’t going to hate me if I go through with breaking up with Alex? God, they’ve always been such good friends, how on earth do you break up with someone who’s become a part of your family?

But instead of picking up the phone, I pick at a loose piece of rubber on the sole of my shoe. I want to hear my brother’s voice, but I’m terrified that maybe, possibly, there’s a slim chance he’ll tell me exactly what I want to hear and then I’ll have nothing left to do but act. And anyway, as much as I need his affirmation, I’m afraid of hearing yet again how I’m making all the wrong choices. It’s not his problem to solve, any more than it’s Lucy’s. I can hear how exasperated they’re both getting with me. So instead of calling my brother, and bothering him with my bullshit and hearing his predictable answers, I sit in a giant pile of mope and pick at my shoes while I wait for Alex to come back.

A heavy pair of footsteps slows down as it approaches my door. That must be Alex. I don’t even look up. Until the owner of the footsteps knocks. Alex wouldn’t knock.

“Uh, it’s open?” I call from the couch.

When Chris cracks the door and leans to peer inside, his hair precedes him, cracking me up and shaking me out of my mopey idiocy.

“Smokey! Can I come in?”

“Always. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

“Funny you mention woods,” he smiles, bounding over to the couch. He hesitates for a moment at the pile of laundry I haven’t folded yet, which is occupying the entire cushion next to me, but after I shrug at him, he scoops it up and dumps it unceremoniously on the floor. One item, my favorite navy blue bra, stays hooked to the afghan, and I cringe as I watch him gently untangle it and set it down on top of the rest of my clothes, looking totally unfazed. He joins me on the couch, staring at the toes of my shoes and stretching his arm along the back of the cushion. “I’m heading out for a hike, just gotta pick up my date first.”

He reaches over and shoves my arm with his fingertips.

“Nuh uh, no can do.”

“Smokeyyyyy,” he whines.

“I have to study! And, uh, I’m waiting for Alex to get back so we can go for a run?” I wish I could have kept my voice from turning my statement into a question, because there’s a glint of understanding in Chris’s eyes that I don’t particularly like. But his voice is mild enough when he speaks. I like him for that.

“Sure, sure.”

“Okay, fine, I kinda don’t feel like being around people today, are you happy?”

“Hardly ever,” his mouth twists, “but I know the feeling. Kinda why we’re friends in the first place, right?”

The corners of my mouth tug up just as his have as I stare at him and reflect on how much he’s brought into my life since I scolded him on a mountaintop on a day when we both needed to escape into the woods. This friendship that has never demanded much at all, but always been easy to settle into again after a lapse. The reassurance that there’s always someone with whom I have this maladjusted ghosting habit in common. And the Mookie guys. I have him to thank for that too. I swallow the peculiar lump rising in my throat.

“So, what’s new with you?”

“Yeah, I miss you too. Not much. Just working on Temple stuff now that we’re home for the rest of the year.”

“Ah, right. How’s that going?”

“Excellent,” he enthuses. “Shouldn’t even call it working. Never quite done anything like it. Have you heard any of it yet?”

“No, not that I can think of.” I haven’t heard the guys play in a while, but I’m not about to go into that. “You guys have that show coming up?”

He nods. “Couple weeks. You’ll be there, right?”

I let out a sigh that I feel like I’ve been holding in for days and resume torturing my shoe. “Uhm, I don’t know, I’ll have to see, I might be working that night. What day is it?”

“The 13th,” his voice drops about an octave, “and just what the fuck do you mean, you don’t know? Stoney’s gonna shit a brick if you if you miss it.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I glance back up at him and flinch at his menacing expression. “I don’t know. Things are just... weird… there... right now.”

“You and Stone? Seemed pretty okay a few nights ago.”

I cringe in immediate regret of how publicly cozy Stone and I had gotten on Halloween. And if that’s all Chris knows, then he doesn’t know the half of it…

“Yeah, well, I don’t know, it’s weird now.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?” Chris presses, shifting his posture to face me more directly and still glowering at me.

“The other day, before he went home with the flu or whatever, Jesus,” I pat the arm of the couch, “is this a witness stand or something?”

“Okay, okay,” his demeanor relaxes. “Just be there, okay? This whole thing, I mean, the vibe of working on it has been really overwhelmingly positive, but it’s the kind of thing that’s still… I don’t know, it’s just important to me that you’re there, I feel like you’d get something out of it. And whatever’s going on with Stone, I’m pretty sure it’s important to him too.”

“Okay,” I mumble, fighting back the lump again, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Chris bobs his head. “Flu, huh?”

“What? Oh, right. I don’t know, he just looked like death warmed over and I’m pretty sure he went home right after we talked.” Another twinge of regret twists my insides, this time because it hasn’t even occurred to me in all my anger to check in on Stone and see how he’s feeling. He looked really, really terrible. Fight or no fight, he’s still my friend, and if I were the one to contract whatever bubonic plague is going around, I know he would be the first one to make sure I was okay. Especially since I think his parents are still out of town, which leaves him all by himself trying to take care of that dog and house. Shit, I should probably go over there.

Chris doesn’t point any of that out, though, thankfully. Instead, he silently looks around my apartment with interest, seeming very much all of a sudden like a cocker spaniel with a very short attention span. For everything this friendship means, it’s kind of weirdly emblematic that he’s never even seen my place before.

“Chris?”

“Mm?” he responds, not looking away from the bookcase in the opposite direction.

“You didn’t come all the way over here just to see if I wanted to go hiking, did you?”

“Nah, I’m actually here to pick up Eddie, he said he’d go. I think I finally sold him on our mountain.”

“Judas!!”

I aim a kick square at his hip, laughing as he intercepts my foot and disarms it by yanking off my shoe and throwing it across the room where it thuds against the opening door, missing Eddie’s face by inches.

“Whoa-oh,” he calls as he flinches, but his dimples dawn as a smile draws on his mouth, “who the hell throws a fuckin shoe?”

Chris grins back, yanking off my other one to lob it at Ed’s face, but it’s caught easily. Eddie throws them both back to me in a pair of gentle underhand tosses.

“So you coming with us or what, Cora?”

“Nah, leave her for dead, she’s a lost cause,” Chris chuckles as he stands up.

“Gee golly, mister, can’t imagine why I wouldn’t want to go hiking with you,” I drawl. Eddie’s eyes bounce back and forth keenly.

“Well, uh, too bad, maybe another time?” he says softly as plaintive wrinkles appear on his forehead.

“You bet. Just, you know, the boyfriend’s on his way home and we’re gonna go running, so it’s not a great time.”

“Oh, alright,” Eddie nods, but the wrinkles deepen in a way that tells me he’s about as believing of my excuses as Chris.

“No Jeff?” Chris asks as they head for my front door.

“No, he said it sounded cool but he said he’s gonna help Lucy do some stuff around the apartment today.”

“I bet he is.”

“Okay, you pigs, get out,” I shove Chris in the back toward the door, throwing all my weight against him, although he digs in his heels and I have no hope of moving him unless he wants to be moved. “You kill any more fucking time and you’re gonna lose the light, you know.”

“She’s got a very good point,” Eddie agrees, and Chris unlocks his knees, laughing as I stumble to keep my footing.

I’ve just shooed the two of them out the door when Alex comes home, carrying borrowed running shoes and still exuding the same smothering, sycophantic energy as when he left. I’m feeling extraordinarily stupid for not calling Patch to sort this shit out when I had the chance. Maybe after the run. On the bright side, Alex is in terrible shape for such a beanpole, and I’m confident I can outrun him, or at least make him wheeze enough not to have to worry about making conversation.

***

My head swims from the fumes as I take another deep breath and force myself to steady the paint brush, even though my arm is starting to ache from reaching so high, and my knees are getting sore from balancing on the sink basin. Whose bright idea was it to repaint a room with so much trim all by herself with no ladder? Oh right, that would be me. The white noise of the bathroom fan blocks out everything except the exertion of doing the work properly and the joy of seeing a new color stain a primed surface. Even if I’m not sure about the color just yet. I’m not really a blue sort of person. But this feels like a direction I wanted to follow. Any of the weird “improvements” I’ve done to this place, I’ve done by following that urge. I accepted a long time ago that I wasn’t getting my security deposit back. It’s fine. I’m not good at coloring in the lines or making up my mind. Let me make my messes and see what happens. It usually cleans up okay.

I crawl off the sink, hastily wiping the smear of bright teal paint off the porcelain with the damp rag tucked into the waist of my shorts, and look around. It’s… very blue. But the cabinet’s dark stain doesn’t look so dingy next to it, and I’ve got plans for the mirror that should warm the room up a little more. I’m refilling the tray when I hear the apartment door open and close, the sound of hightops being nudged off, and the familiar beat of heavy footprints padding down the hall to find me. Just the sound of him in my apartment has always made the place feel brighter.

“Whoa,” Jeff’s rasp reverberates off the walls, “you weren’t kidding, that’s… that’s fuckin BLUE.”

“Too much?” I spin around to study his face as he studies the walls.

“Nah, it’s cool. Vivid. It’s very you.”

“Ooh, your stock is falling, Jeffrey, I was just thinking to myself that it might have been the wrong color.”

“Why?” he pulls the headband out of my hair and begins to kiss my temple, the outside edge of my ear, and down along my neck to my shoulder. It’s a struggle not to wrap myself up in him, but my hands are still covered in paint. I manage to resist that temptation, but talking remains a challenge.

“Blue’s, uhm, it’s kind of a bummer…”

“No, no way, it’s so… like… sensitive, and strong, and… okay, I’m babbling, but can you blame me…”

“Yeah… but… like… the trim’s kind of glaring now, I don’t know what to do about it…”

Time to abandon any pretense of thinking straight, now that he’s got his nose in my collarbone like this. Maybe he won’t mind a little paint on his jersey...

“So this is you staying close to home, huh?”

“What?”

“Cora, all that shit. You bailed on all my ideas for plans, remember? Wanted to stay close to home?”

I frown at him, wondering where he’s going with this. There’s that neediness again. It’s not like him at all. So far, we’ve always been able to strike the right balance naturally, without putting any thought into it. We’re together when we want to be, we have space when we want it. And lately, Jeff’s been throwing all that out of balance. I wish he’d just tell me what the fuck’s going on… I wish he’d stop kissing my ear like that, or I’d remember to ask him about it…

“I still do… I think that’s for the best. But, uh, there’s a lot we can do at home, though, right?”

“I have some ideas…”

Before I can respond with some cute, pithy bullshit, he’s spun me around like I weigh nothing at all and pinned me against the wall, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it’s still dripping with wet turquoise paint. But I don’t give a shit either. I manage to reach my bare foot out behind him and nudge the paint tray out of our reach, ease him over so we’re both standing on the dropcloth, and give in to the full force of his kiss, trying to plant my feet as much as I can because my back’s slipping sideways in the paint. But my effort is unnecessary, because I’m not going anywhere in his grip. His hand lands flat on the wall next to my head before raking blue paint through my hair and dragging blue fingerprints across my throat, and it’s a race to see who can get undressed enough, fast enough…

*

Winded, and thoroughly slathered in turquoise, we splay out on the soaked dropcloth in a blissful, painted pile.

“Well, at least now I know what to do about the fucking trim color,” I nod at the formerly crisp, white door frame, which is now coated in Smurfy fingerprints from our failed efforts to keep our balance.

“I dunno, it’s a nice artistic statement when paired with your vertebrae sliding down the wall,” his fingers point out the trajectory of my body.

“I think I’ll just do the trim and walls and ceiling all the same color. You know. Very Masque of the Red Death.”

“Gothic, I like it.” He sighs, letting his head fall back and his eyes close. I squelch a little closer, remembering that we still have unfinished business.

“Jeff.”

“Present,” he sighs, not opening his eyes.

“Just checking.” Somehow, I still can’t bring myself to spit it out. “Uhm, you still willing to help me finish painting?”

“What else am I gonna do,” he muses with a contended smile.

After a farcical attempt at cleaning ourselves up, we continue to paint, halfway dressed, until the entire room is saturated in turquoise. My every pore and mucous membrane sympathizes.

“Anyone ever told you you’re a disaster with a paint brush?” he teases, watching me try to wash the paint from deep under my fingernails in the sink.

“Oh, yeah, it’s on my resume, actually.”

“Smartass,” he reaches out with a menacing blue paw, attempting to smear the arm I’ve just washed off, but I manage to dodge him.

“Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me,” I taunt, feinting left and then right.

“Ugh, work work work,” he gives a gravelly laugh and abandons all pretense of not being able to catch me, wrapping me up once again and finding my mouth with his. But that annoying thought that there’s something we’re not saying still won’t leave me alone.

“Hey, hey, Jeff?” I kiss him back lightly but maintain my ground, until he finally quits and looks at me in confusion. “Why… uh, why don’t you just fucking say it?”

His grip on me lightens and his jaw falls slack, confirming that I was right to press the issue, that it wasn’t just my issue. I persist, “I know you’re all pissed about not making plans this weekend, I know you’ve got something you want to say to me, there’s some occasion you’re trying to manufacture, and either you’re really terrible at breaking up with me or it’s something I really want to hear, so either way, can you just spit it out already?”

Jeff’s shocked stare makes me wish immediately that I hadn’t said anything, damn it Lucy, things were fine, why did you have to put him on edge, here we go, the other shoe’s bound to drop, he’s gonna break up with me, come on, let’s just get it over with…

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he starts to pull himself together, making my stomach lurch and my shoulders tighten as I brace for the bad news. “Uh, I just… I really fucking love you. A lot.”

Now it’s my turn to gape like a fucking idiot.

“You what?”

“Yeah, Luce, I love you, and I’ve been thinking it, like, forever, and I just… I don’t know why I didn’t say it already, maybe I just assumed you already knew or something, because we’ve been so good at like, not needing to say the obvious thing… but I’m kinda tired of not saying the obvious thing, because we’re not promised anything, and I’m tired of taking it for granted, so... I love you, and I don’t want to spend my time with anyone else, and I don’t want to have to walk downstairs to see you in the morning, it’s just too fucking far, okay?”

My mind is full of stammering thoughts as I turn over the logistics of what he’s just said, but all that I can manage to say out loud through the grin splitting my face is, “I love you too,” as I pull him into a still-not-quite pigment-free kiss.

***

This. This is what dying feels like. I’m sure of it. Oh, yuck, I’m pretty certain the color coming out of my lungs does not occur in nature. Dark. Why is it so dark in here? What the hell time is it? Jesus, I slept the entire fucking day, that's just grand...

At least there's no one around to witness how pathetic I probably look right now. This whole flu thing's not very big on dignity. Although, who am I kidding, I'd wear a robe and slippers everywhere if it was socially acceptable, and I’d kill for someone to bring me a cup of tea so I don’t have to slither out of this bed and get it myself. My fever finally broke this morning, in a disgusting, sweaty miracle, which is a mixed blessing because it's nice not to feel like a shivery rag doll anymore, but now my sheets smell like gross fever sweat and not the much more pleasant smell left behind on my pillow by Cora the other night. I wish her hair didn't smell so damn good all the time. It's really fucking inconvenient.

Ow. Crap. Dehydration headache. One of the downfalls of attempted hibernation. With a chorus of my most pathetic whines, I manage to get myself out of bed and over to the kitchen to nuke a cup of water for some tea. Just as I’m steeping the bag, though, there’s a knock on my door. Fucking great. I wasn’t serious about actually wanting someone around… unless it’s…

“Hello?” I croak, wincing at my sore throat.

“Stoney! You live!”

“Cornell?”

“You gonna let me in or what?”

“I don’t know, how’s your immune system?”

“Strong, like ox.”

Laughing and coughing, I open the door to let Chris in. He shoves a box of tissues into my chest and blows past me to set a quart container of some kind of murky liquid, which I eye suspiciously.

“Hot and sour soup, from Grand Palace. Foolproof cold remedy, I’m pretty convinced this shit cures cancer, or at least ebola or something. Cora told me you looked like death warmed over. Girl doesn’t lie.”

“Oh, uh, you… you talked to Cora?” I pick up the soup and inspect it more closely.

“Yeah, I, uh, talked to Cora.”

“Hmm.”

“Dude, eat something, it’s not gonna kill you.”

“Doubtful.”

“Pansy.”

“Pusher.”

My laughter dissolves into a choked cough again as Chris saunters over to the cabinet like he owns the place and grabs a couple of bowls.

“Hey, let’s sit out on the steps, it’ll help the black lung.” He hands me a bowl of soup and, in no position to argue, I snag the blanket from the back of my couch to wrap around my shoulders as I follow him onto the landing outside my front door where we sit and dangle our feet over the edge, like little kids. I’m feeling too rundown to admit it, but he’s right -- my chest feels better within seconds.

“Eat, man, eat, you’re looking so thin you’re gonna blow away out here.”

“Who died and made you my grandma?”

“I prefer the philanthropic, mysterious stranger vibe, but have it your way.”

I try a bit of the soup, which sticks in my gullet after a day of not eating or drinking, and I sputter into another full-body coughing fit.

“Gahh, why’s it so… viscous??”

“It’s the viscosity,” Chris beams, slurping up another spoonful. “Coats the throat, or something.”

“Yeah, I bet you say that to all the girls,” I choke, but the soup’s actually pretty good and not too heavy, so I have some more. We sit in silence for a while, which is one of the things I’ve always appreciated about Chris, before I pipe up against my better judgement.

“So,” I have to clear my throat again, “uh, how’s, how’s Cora?”

“She’ll be alright, I think. Seems pretty unhappy with you.”

“That makes it a day that ends in -y.”

“But she’s fine. Tried to get her to go hiking today, but she was going running with that Alex guy.”

“You don’t say.” Alex and physical exertion? What the fuck? Is this a fever dream, still?  

“Seemed weird, I mean, he doesn’t really come along for a lot, she does a lot on her own. And she didn’t seem too excited about the idea of him tagging along, I dunno.”

“Would you be excited about trying to outrun a wart on your ass?”

“Ouch. So, you hate him, yeah?”

“It’s not that I hate the guy, necessarily…” Chris’s eyebrows shoot up as I continue, “...just… you know… kinda always wanted to buy him a toaster for his bathtub.”

He tosses me a pity laugh. “Yeah, well, she’s not an idiot, don’t think she hasn’t picked up on that. Whatever the hell’s going on with you two, you can’t ignore him.”

“You’re telling me.” I hold up my hand to shush him when I hear the phone ring, and we both listen as the garbled sound of my answering machine comes through the door, but there’s no message.

“Stoney, what the hell happened, anyway?”

I squint at his face for a moment, torn between not wanting to drag everyone into this little drama that’s been playing out with Cora and actually wanting to talk to a friend about it. Jeff and Cready were zero help, but Chris has always been a better listener for the heavy stuff.

“We… kinda… I mean, she stayed over the other night, and…”

Chris’s eyes widen and his jaw drops, although he can barely contain the laughter that accompanies his surprise. “Oh!” he exclaims with glee. “You’re idiots!”

“Okay, (a), thanks man, good talk, real supportive. And (b), why are we idiots, exactly?”

“You slept with her even though you knew it was a bad idea! That's not like you. That's like something Mike would do. Or me. You’ve always got all the angles figured out. And Cora, she's like, got her shit together more than any of the rest of us. She should have known better.” He frowns, drumming his empty spoon on his kneecap.

“Yeah, well, she's sorta… new at this. And anyway we didn’t actually sleep together, alright, I mean, we slept together but not like you’re thinking.”

“Reeeeal convincing, Stone,” he teases. “Whaddya mean she’s new at this? Haven’t she and that guy been together since, like the dawn of time?”

“Yeah, but like, that’s it, that’s her whole story, and I think… I think she and I have something really good, and I think she knows that, but it probably really freaks her out to think about ending anything that’s been, you know, such a fixture for so long. I don’t know, I’m probably not making any sense.”

“More than you know. Just give her time, man. She thinks the world of you, and it really pisses her off to admit it. That’s a good thing, it’ll still be there after she figures out the whole ‘first love’ thing.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I whine, which devolves into more coughing, which cycles back into even more whining.

“On the bright side, you’ve really perfected that Tibetan throat-singing technique,” Chris cracks as he stands up. “You’d better get back inside. Anything I can do to help while I’m here?”

“Nah, thanks, the toxic sludge seems to be working, I’m feeling a little better already.”

Chris claps me on the back, betrays the slightest slip of a smile, and starts down the staircase without another word. I let myself back inside, free to moan and groan as much as I like in the absence of anyone to make fun of me for it, and shuffle my way over to the answering machine. The first message is pure auditory chaos, but through the cacophony, I gather that Mudhoney’s on a tour stop in Tijuana and that my answering machine tape should probably be burned after I listen to the message so as not to implicate anyone in a felony. The usual. That’s got to have been from earlier today and not just now -- Chris and I would have heard that excitement through the door for sure, but I wouldn’t put it past myself to have slept through it this afternoon. Whatever. I delete their message and listen to the second, much quieter one.

“Hey, Stone? uh…”  Cora’s hushed voice is interrupted by Alex calling her name in the background. I hear her give a sharp inhale, followed by a click, and that’s all.

[dpargyle]

Thoughts on the Last Jedi

OMGs so many spoilers!!!!! Also it gets a lil NSFW and super dweeby at the end…. (proceed at your own risk)

So I just got back from The Last Jedi and -

I have so many EMOTIONS!!!

Lemme at least attempt to go through this chronologically…

“The First Order reigns.”  I got goosebumps from that opening sentence of the opening crawl.  It was like, yup – pretty much the feeling in the real world rn too hahahaha *sobs*

That whole opening space battle scene – ahhhh!!!!  I loved so much about it – I especially loved how quickly Rian Johnson (the writer/director) was able to establish Paige Tico’s character – make the audience care about her and then boom she’s gone and I knew she was a goner as soon as they introduced her at Celebration but still it hit me right in the feels – like damn the sacrifices the Resistance is forced to make

At long last we got back to Rey and Luke on Ahch-To and I love how he doesn’t even say anything – he just flips the lightsaber over his shoulder like “thanks, I hate this!”

And then Rey follows him around like an adorable lost puppy for days and days and days and I was like awwww!

Speaking of which – I really liked how Daisy Ridley played Rey this time around – not so naïve (although I loved happy go-lucky, plucky Rey from the Force Awakens) – but she’s grown now – she’s seen some shit – and so as a result her character is a little more galaxy-wise and wary – which I think fits – though we see some of that lighter Rey sprinkled throughout the narrative – the “reach out” moment which I thought was pretty damn hilarious…

As for the new characters – oh my – how I love Rose.  She’s this fan girl who’s suddenly grieving and then one of her heroes shows up and she’s all ready to fangirl but then he severely disappoints her but she doesn’t even hesitate – she stuns him – like yeah, she’s excitable and incredibly sad but she’s still gonna do her damn job and I loved it.  And we see her grow and mature throughout the film and learn to trust Finn again – and the end where she saves him and then she says “we can’t fight what we hate – we have to save what we love” and then she snogs him and I was like HELLLS YES!  What a bad. Ass. Character.. I love her.  #protec I already liked the sorts of things Kelly Marie Tran was saying from the press tour – but she brought this character to life and now I have EMOTIONS.  

So yeah, I’m totally on the FinnRose ship now since Disney are cowards and Stormpilot is never gonna be a thing ☹ (though I did appreciate when Finn and Poe finally meet up again Finn literally squirts on Finn lmao (I’m sorry I have a dirty mind!)  so I think that’s the closest we’re ever gonna get hahaha)

I loved how Canto Bight really illustrated this incredible gap between rich and poor – so similar in our own world right now – and Rose’s rage at this injustice – “I just wanna punch straight through this beautiful, ugly terrible town.”  (First off – what a line.  Second off that sounds like something Leslie Knope might say hahahaha) Rose was given some of the best and most poignant lines.  

Also – the focus on the little children slaves – fuck, that was crushing.  And the Fathiers – how their coats were bleeding from the whips and the lashes – damn all so heartbreaking.  I’ll get back to the little slave boy at the end – as I think there’s so much going on in that final scene.

Back to the Force montage on Ahch-To with Luke & Rey – damn I love how Johnson elaborated on the Force – showing us what Rey was seeing – such beauty.  Such resonance.  Kinda reminded me of those BBC nature documentaries (The Planet, etc…) – the beauty and savagery of nature – personified in the Force – ughh so frikken powerful.

As for Luke – his scene with Artoo was the best.  Artoo shows him young Leia pleading for Obi-Wan and Luke’s all like “you’re not playing fair” and Artoo basically gives him this shit eating grin and oh gods so good – this is why Artoo continues to be my fave. Character.  He is the best.  Doesn’t even have to say anything.  Like yes!  Damn! Ughhh!

Then Luke’s scene with Yoda’s force ghost!!! As soon as you saw that little profile and the ears I was internally going like !@@!#$%&^%!@#$%%@$ and then he just blows up the tree like HaShem in Exodus and you’re like lmao – and he literally tells Luke “Rey has all the knowledge from the Jedi Texts with her already” – then if you fast forward all the way to the very end of the movie when everyone is on the Falcon – Finn is rummaging through a bunch of drawers and if you blinked you missed them – but the texts were in there!  Rey up and stole them hahaha – amazing!  And Yoda knew too!  Ugghhhhhhh I love these characters!

Alright.  Now on to the really big stuff.

Holy crap. Snoke is dead.  HAHAHAHA!  Ren turned out to be the BIG BAD of this trilogy.  I guess I shoulda seen that coming, but tbh I was absolutely gut-wrenched. I thought he and Rey would join forces and become gray force users and have babies and it would be beautiful, but it was not to be.  When they were fighting Snoke’s red guards I thought that would happen but then Ren is so full of hate and greed he can’t see anything else – he’s dead inside.  He can’t see a path to redemption.  He doesn’t even ask for forgiveness.

Yes, I know – for the last several months I have been a Reylo.  I really wanted them to get together.  And when they were force-touching hands I really thought they would – but then this asshole goes and

Decides to tell Rey she’s nothing????  Like what? No.  No, no, no.  You don’t tell someone they’re trash but they mean everything to you.  Like I sorta get what he’s trying to say but he’s being super manipulative.  Is that what gaslighting is?  

Like fine you murdered Han Solo.  You blew up Akbar.  AKBAR! But you will not insult Rey.  No.  That is crossing a line.  Maybe he wasn’t even consciously doing it – maybe he thought he was praising her – but really he was just trying to convince her she’s nothing without him.  He allowed his rage to rule him.  

I’m sorry people who still might see them together – but I no longer do.  Rey doesn’t need Kylo’s bullshit.  She gave him a chance at redemption and he denied her.  She realized she can’t save him – and I think that’s an incredibly valuable lesson to teach young girls.

I’m sorry if that offends some people on the Tumblrs – and you’re totally entitled to your opinion – I’m not gonna be a dick about it (it’s not my way) – but respect that I’ve changed my mind.  

As a side note – I think it’s kind of hilarious how whoever the hell Snoke was and who Rey’s parents were don’t even matter!  All those theories!  All the mental anguish we put into discovering how everything connects to older characters!  But it doesn’t.  Ha!  We deserve it!

Luke made a mistake trying to take out Kylo, no doubt, but Kylo has to be responsible for his own actions.  I think that’s what Johnson was trying to say – sure he might have been neglected, abused, and then manipulated by Snoke – but ultimately he had the power to choose – and like so many young men in this day and age – Ben has chosen hate.  Rey has chosen hope.

And I choose Rey’s path.  

The darkness might reign right now.  But the light is strong.  And it can burn in us all, if only we allow it to ignite within us.    

Sure, the Jedi have a legacy of failure.  But as Yoda said, “Failure is the best teacher.”  Don’t I know it.  Failure is painful.  Failure sucks.  But that doesn’t mean we burn it all down.  We can rebuild.  We can grow. We can make new the old.

The Jedi can live again.

And that gives me great hope, kids.  

Great Hope.      

And now, Luke and Leia.  

I….

I can’t even…

This woulda been emotional enough with Carrie Fisher still with us – but now that she’s gone…

“Nobody’s really gone.” – Luke.  That last conversation – just the two of them – Oh man, I’m not a crier but sometimes I wish I was.  So powerful. So important.  So cathartic.  Funny. Sad.  Bittersweet reconciliation.  Imperfect people, imperfect goodbye – but a perfect scene.

I feel like we all needed that.  Or I did anyway.  

And then….Luke dies.

Luke dies?

Luke Skywalker. Is gone.

What?  No!  How?

Feels like I’ve known him my whole life – cuz I have.  Like he’s a real person and the myth he became all at once.  Who was one of the ones who taught us the power of forgiveness.  To let go of hate.

And now he’s gone?

I know, I know, I sound ridiculous – he’s not a real person and it’s just a movie and you’re probably all rolling your eyes and saying “bundles you’re being such a dweeb rn” but damn it! stories matter.  Characters matter.  Words matter. Words have power.  

Star Wars is a great myth of our time.  The saga of the Skywalkers is our Arthuriana.  From Anakin to Rey – this is our Trojan War.  Luke is our Achilles.  

And now he’s gone? When he disappeared watching those two setting suns (gods what great cinematography) it was like a gut punch.  Like fuuuuuuuuuuuuck what now?  

How do we go on?

I think Johnson gives us an answer – look to the past – look to the future – to the balance – to the cycle –

Which brings me to that final poignant scene -

The slave boy on Canto Bight.  As with Anakin Skywalker all those years ago – he’s a force user (pulling that broom to his hand ala Mickey Mouse in Fantasia) and he’s staring up at the stars and dreaming….he embodies, with his phoenix-inspired Rebel insignia ring – the rebirth of hope – of the rebellion – of the resistance – of the beautiful broken dream that were the Jedi – he is Johnson.  He is all of us.  From Anakin all the way to this slave boy.  And the story repeats.  The cycle continues.  

The myth lives on. Hope lives on.  And if the myth lives on, well then so does Luke – “nobody’s really gone…”

I love Star Wars.

I love stories.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Countless Roads - Chapter 4

Fic: Countless Roads - Chapter 4 - Ao3

Fandom: Flash, Legends Pairing: Gen, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, others

Summary: Due to a family curse (which some call a gift), Leonard Snart has more life than he knows what to do with – and that gives him the ability to see, speak to, and even share with the various ghosts that are always surrounding him.

Sure, said curse also means he’s going to die sooner rather than later, just like his mother, but in the meantime Len has no intention of letting superheroes, time travelers, a surprisingly charming pyromaniac, and a lot of ghosts get in the way of him having a nice, successful career as a professional thief.

A/N: This is a new chapter (chapter 5 on Ao3) 

———————————————————————————-

The first time it happens, it's – kind of funny, actually. In retrospect, anyway.

"Don't you dare touch him," Mick growls from where he's standing by the door, glaring at where they’ve got Len all tied up. They being some Santini Family assholes who hired Len and Mick for a small job - nothing big, the main guy said, just need it done quick, don't want to get the Family name involved - and then decided they didn't feel like paying some freelancers for work they apparently should've been doing themselves. Sadly for them, Len's just smart enough not to have brought the goods with him and had no intention of giving said goods up until they coughed up the cash for them.

Damnit, Len hates Family jobs. They shouldn't have taken it, he knows that, but it'd been such an easy job...

"And what exactly are you planning to do about it?" the main Santini asshole drawls, smug and confident now that he's got his people with him.

"You'll touch him over my dead body," Mick says.

"Fine," the mobster sneers, and shoots Mick dead in the chest, the force of it making Mick stagger backwards and fall down to the floor.

"You fucking little – " Len shouts from the chair he's been tied to, eyes wide with terror, worried half to hell because he has no idea what happens when you make a ghost as solid and real as he's made Mick and then that stupid ghost goes and gets himself shot.

"Enough!" Santini snaps. "Or you're going to get a bullet yourself, Mr. Snart – "

"I told you," Mick rasps, and the entire room turns to look to see him standing back up. Mick makes a big production out of it, too, dragging his limbs up like he's in pain, like his joints are creaking, clutching at his chest, but he gets up, eyes fixed on Santini. "You'll touch him over my – dead – body –"

Santini shoots, but Mick takes a step forward. Another shot, another step.

The third bullet clicks to an empty chamber, and Santini just breaks, turning tail and running, each and every one of his men with him.

"You okay?" Len asks the second the last one is gone. He knows ghosts don’t feel things the way the living do, but he’s given Mick a lot of life over the years…

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, I’m good. Stings like a Lisa special, nothing worse than that."

Lisa had once expressed her frustration with Mick by squeezing a lemon at him when he'd just cut his hand open in the kitchen and had been bleeding a little - more out of habit than anything else. Mick is never going to let her live it down.

"But you're okay?"

"All good, boss."

Len shakes his head, starting to grin. "Well," he says, biting his lips to keep from laughing. "Guess now they know you meant it about it being over your dead body."

Mick snorts.

The next time, they try shooting Mick in the head.

Of course, that doesn't work either - Mick confirms that lots of life or not, dead men don't feel pain the same way the living do, so it's all the same to him - but it does bring up some logistical issues.

Mick wisely plays dead until Len gets them to go away, because there's reputation and then there's revelation, and the whole gang that tried it unanimously flip their lids in a most satisfying way the next time Len walks in, Mick trailing behind him, same as always, and both of them playing dumb as rocks about the whole alleged – it's their new favorite word after a stint in prison and the justice system - the whole alleged murder thing.

Len's gotten Mick some damn fine fake papers, too, so the Fed threw them into the same prison, too. It was a learning experience.

Not one Len's all too eager to repeat. Mick got into fight after fight on Len's behalf, even with Len felling a few overly touchy guys personally. Next time, he's going to send Mick floating out the wall and get a quicker exit that way.

Mick's quasi-solid virtually all the time now, which Len likes. People think he's a living person, which in fairness is probably why they try to kill him.

Len's pretty sure he's doing the ghost thing wrong, that he's not supposed to give a ghost another life like this, a life made out of his own life, but he figures if he really wasn't supposed to do this, he wouldn't be able to use his feelings about Mick for the extra boost he needs to keep him solid so often.

Love really is the most powerful force. Who woulda thought it?

Other than literally the entire literary world, anyway.

Len still doesn't like it when Mick 'dies', though, whether the cause is an angry mobster or a hail of police bullets, so he starts doubling down on his plans, working on them all day and night so that they don't go wrong and Mick isn't called upon to protect him.

"You know it doesn't hurt me, right? Not really?" Mick asks from the poker game he's set up with a handful of friendlies: the nun who's waiting to see her last student graduate, the thirteen year old who died in a car accident on the way to hear his favorite band, the prostitute that got killed by a serial killer (Len's working on IDing the bastard in his spare time), and a grandmother with wicked children who wouldn't let her see her grandkids.

Grandmother or not, Sun-hui is kicking everyone's asses as usual. Tyrice is staring at her with an expression of awe – Len's got the feeling that the kid's going to be moving on pretty soon if he can convince Sun-hui to attend that concert with him.

(Len underestimates exactly zero of his friendlies - sure, they protect him from the unquiet dead, but Tyrice has a tendency to cause accidents on the street corner where he'd died and Sister Bea has a way of guarding her church schoolkids from trouble that includes nearly giving them heart attacks when they start to do something she considers stupid.)

"I know it don't hurt you," Len replies, not for the first time. "Makes me all queasy, though."

"Awwwww," Daniela says. “You’re such adorable snugglekins.”

"Shut up."

"Find the guy that beat my face in, and I will."

"I'm working on it!"

"Len – " Mick starts.

"Mick, if it makes you feel better, you can think about it as me not wanting to go back to jail, okay? If no one catches us, there's no problem."

"Fine, fine."

"Your plans are getting much better," Sun-hui says approvingly. "You leave very little trail behind you, like a ghost."

"Aw, thanks," Len says, grinning at her. He would never have understood Sun-hui in life, due to the language barrier that vexed her, but the dead all speak the same language.

He's not entire sure what language that is – he's pretty sure it ain't actually English – but that's what he knows, so he hears it in that, or else he just understands it regardless. Len vaguely recalls his mom saying something about how the curse of Babel didn’t apply to the dead, but the specific mechanics aren’t really that interesting to him – they can talk, he can listen, that’s all that matters.

“Plus your plans got much better since your old man got sent away,” Tyrice says, kicking his heels. He’s pretty short. Maybe he regrets not getting tall? Len should offer him some help with that. “Good-for-nothing dickwad.”

“Well, yeah,” Len says, because it’s not untrue. He’d resisted getting rid of his father at first, either by making a heist go wrong or via Mick’s preferred method of just up and torching the fucker, but that'd been because of Lisa, who needed to stay in a good school for her skating and grades. Once his dad fucked up her ankle right before a big skating competition because he needed spare cash, Len saw red.

He’d been able to sweet-talk the old lady down the street into signing up for fostering and then agreeing to take in Lisa for the remainder of her schooling once Lewis was on his way to prison for a good long time.

Having said old lady’s husband around – and said old lady being a devout spiritualist, or whatever the hell you call people that pay fake mediums too much money, much to her deceased husband’s concern – had really helped.

Besides, if her boo-boo told her the money was better used on taking care of Lisa than on all those mediums, who was she to object?

(Boo-boo. Really. Len is so glad he and Mick aren’t over-the-top smoochy like that.)

All things considered, it worked pretty well.

His remaining concerns about leaving Lisa with the old lady were misplaced: Mrs. Crabtree was officially Lisa’s favorite person ever, being a proper old grandma type, and Lisa chased the fake mediums who sought Mrs. Crabtree out for an easy mark away with a baseball bat, which in turn meant Mr. Crabtree felt comfortable moving on, which made everybody happy.

But since that skating scholarship didn’t look like it was going anywhere anymore, not since Lewis, that still left the question of somehow paying for Lisa’s continued schooling. It turned out high school was fine and all, being public, but college? College is an expensive pain in Len's ass, but he was determined that Lisa would go. Mrs. Crabtree certainly couldn’t help pay for it, living off her pension as she did, and neither Len nor Lisa would ever ask for her to. Now that Len knew that Lisa was somewhere safe, though, he could devote himself to dealing with that little problem.

With his dad gone, Len could recruit his own crew and hunt up some game of his own, and what glorious game it was: high end jewelry transports, art museums with shitty security, history museums with even shittier guards, fashion designer outlets where they carted away bags of dresses, much to the complaints of his crew until they found out they could sell that shit to a copy-cat place for very near the price of gold…

Okay, sure, it didn't work perfectly all the time – he spent a good few of Lisa's teenage years in prison – but after he got out again, he went right back at it, saving up the money for Lisa’s college and grad school and whatever else she wants in life. Two solid years of it, travelling the world, and it was fun and all, but Len’s not going to lie, he’s damn happy it’s over. Now that he’s had time to try all the different variations, he definitely prefers taking his time and planning out the perfect heist instead of doing them all rapid-fire like he has been.

Not to mention, now that the heat’s passed in Central and they’re mostly looking for him in Europe and the coast cities instead, it means that he gets to come home and settle down, and best of all that he’ll get to see Lisa again regularly instead of just talking to her on the phone like it’s been the last two years.

Lisa is twenty now – starting a bit later than the rest, yes, but money takes time and she's not so far behind that people would really notice. College freshman, thanks to the fudging of her high school record that he paid for to make sure she got to go anywhere she wanted, though she still picked Central City Uni so that she could live in her own apartment but still come back to Mrs. Crabtree’s for her laundry and to hang out, apparently.

College.

Lisa.

Man.

Len doesn’t even know what to do with that.

Like, he's been dreaming of it and planning it and counting on it, but now that she's actually enrolled, it's all weird.

He hasn’t been much of a brother these last few years, he feels – he’d been in and out of prison until she was seventeen, and he’d spent her last three birthdays out raising money for her. Len took care of Lisa as long as he could, and when he realized he couldn’t, he got her where she needed to be, but it’s not the same as really being there, even though Lisa assures him that between the near-daily phone calls and the week-long visits he tried to arrange at least once every three months, she never felt like he was too far away.

Still not the same, and he’s gotta admit, he’s feeling a bit insecure about it. Which, he suspects, leads to his current overreaction now that she’s coming to crash with him for her very first spring break.

Len spends a whole week cleaning up the place he’d acquired in anticipation of Lisa's arrival, and he never cleans.

"Why are you so worried?" Sun-hui asks, even as she supervises his (deplorable) cleaning attempts. "Your sister loves you, and will be happy anywhere."

"She's a college student now," Len says, focusing on his scrubbing. "I don't know, there's a difference."

"Nah, man," Tryice says. He’d finally gotten his concert, but he’d decided to wait on Sun-hui reaching her own goals before agreeing to pass on. "Still your sister. My big bro went to college, but he was still the same coming back." He pauses. "Smoked more pot, though."

Len gives Tyrice a dirty look, then sighs. "Well, s'long as it's just pot, we'll be fine."

"Yeah, crack's the bad stuff," Tyrice says all too wisely.

"Pssh, heroin. Now that's a college kid killer – and I should know," Julie says. She's new - died of an OD before flying home for Christmas, now waiting for next Christmas to go back and say goodbye to everyone, and she’s become best buds with Daniela, which is good since Sister Bea has finally moved on by now.

Kiki, another new one, a soft-spoken too-late-regretted suicide, nods in agreement.

“Very bad,” she says solemnly. Nora – a sad-looking woman in her late thirties who’d gotten stabbed in the chest and never saw her beloved eleven-year-old grow up – covers her mouth to hide a smile at Len’s expression.

"Well, I think meth – " Daniela starts.

"Will you all stop talking about drugs!" Len finally yells. "Lisa's not on any! So shut up!"

They all smirk at him, but fall silent. They usually listen to him, Len's found, especially when he means it. He's not sure if it's because they all want something from him or because he actually has some power over them, but he's been trying not to think about it too hard.

He's not a necromancer, damnit. His job is to help fix the world by doing his own special part of the spiritual cycle of life, just like the bacteria that eat the body of the dead, except he helps clean up the ghostly realms instead of the forest.

Julie thinks the metaphor is awful, and Nora agrees. Mick kind of likes it, though.

Speaking of Mick, he's been too quiet.

"Mick?" Len calls, but no, nothing. "Go check if something's on fire," he tells the ghosts, shaking his head.

"Nothing's on fire," Mick grumbles, walking through the door to the kitchen. The open door, for once; he’s getting better at pretending to be living on instinct. "I went grocery shopping and didn't want to holler back from the porch."

"Groceries?"

"If we're gonna impress your sister like you so obviously want to, we're gonna need some food,” Mick says like it’s obvious. “College students eat like pigs when the food’s free.”

Len sighs and looks down at the half-scrubbed floor. "I'm not gonna impress her either way," he says. "I'm a high school dropout with a criminal record – "

"Who raised her from childhood," Mick says skeptically. "Who got that criminal record paying for her schooling. Who got your dad put away on charges of theft and murder that'll keep him there for a few years at least, so that he won't find you guys when he gets out. Nah, nothing impressive there at all."

"But – "

"Lenny. It'll be fine. Relax."

[punkscowardschampions]

Ali & Carly

Ali: ⚰ knock knock Ali: do i need to get the ouija out Carly: yea Carly: tho bit late to ghost the lad in my bed Carly: idk who he is Ali: 🤠 put on a disguise Ali: like whomst Ali: beats having to leave your own gaff Ali: tho it is a crime scene Carly: got love bites from my arse to my elbow Carly: is he a vamp or what like Carly: i taste good i kno Carly: [sends photographic evidence] Ali: bitch Ali: are you anaemic?! Ali: leech sounds more like it but is he sparkly with good hair Carly: bitch its too early for words i cant spell wtf Carly: he is sparkling but thats my shine ha Carly: the hair is a no Ali: low on iron, probs, i'll get you some iron tablets Ali: taste like blood, don't tell your bedmate, he won't wanna leave Ali: party's over n sharing ain't caring Ali: someone's feeling herself this morning Ali: here for it Ali: I've already been left so that's a no to me Carly: party only ended when i passed out a few hours ago Carly: so yea Carly: was fun Carly: baby no come over Ali: was whilst it lasted for me too but you know Ali: duty calls Ali: you sure Ali: don't wanna break it up if you're good to go again Carly: yea Carly: not scared to go hard on site cuz garda are to come around Carly: i am but hes snoring Carly: & boring Carly: come Ali: perks Ali: check he's not bumped his head Ali: they'd have to come if a normie went missing Carly: nah he has to go before he goes for a slash in my bed Carly: lads are ming Ali: want me to forward that to lene Ali: make her day Ali: steal my girl Carly: do Carly: never seen her party before Carly: weird Ali: Yeah Ali: she can hang but Ali: you know, other shit on her mind Ali: work being one of 'em Ali: thank god I ain't working today Carly: & i cant get a job Carly: ha Carly: can get rid of this boy easy tho Carly: hold on Ali: another skill for the CV Carly: yea Carly: better not have knocked me up Carly: not cute Ali: Umm Ali: you need to go to the pharmacy Carly: theres so much shit on the floor i cant tell whats us & whats party Carly: idc Carly: idk Carly: ill ask him Ali: Lemme know Ali: if I could pick it up for you I would Ali: guess I can, put on a oscar winning show for the nosy bitch in there Ali: Ma will die Carly: ha Carly: its k he wouldnt have gone near me w out Carly: quoted Ali: what a prick Ali: better not be there when i show up cunt Carly: hes leaving Carly: screaming him awake will do that like Carly: ha Ali: what he get for passing out 🤷 Ali: coulda shaved his eyebrows off like Carly: next time maybe Ali: get out the sharpie and all Ali: now it's a party Carly: need your artsy talents tho Carly: me just hold up i need my baby Ali: you got it covered babe Ali: i believe in you Carly: aw Carly: i gotta clean me & this place need belief Ali: how long are your rents away and are there enough stragglers we can rope in Ali: twatface not included, bye Carly: idk but yea theres lads everywhere Carly: mattress is covered Ali: 👏 Ali: put 'em to work Carly: while i lie here k Ali: hmm Ali: no bitch Ali: i know you're princess 'round these parts but still Ali: carriage is back to being a pumpkin sweetie Carly: but im 🤒 Ali: you're hanging Ali: can't claim morning sickness now bitch Ali: chop chop Carly: ha Carly: k bitch Carly: honeymoon over yea Ali: will be if your 'rents come back to this and murder you Carly: idc Carly: be sweet to me Ali: awh baby Ali: only playing tough love Ali: thinking i'm spending too much time with my gf? Carly: yea Carly: i missed you when she stole you away Ali: how dare she 😜 Ali: missed you too tho Carly: youre mine Carly: married you first Carly: & you didnt say bye to me 😢 Ali: are you sure Ali: 'cos I ain't Ali: but how unforgivably rude 😰 Carly: id remember Carly: never forget my boo Ali: baby Carly: you can make it up to me tho Ali: oh yeah? Ali: lemme guess, feed u grapes whilst you recline Carly: nah just be here Ali: easy Ali: got to yoga first but then i'll be there Ali: went too hard with the dancing last night obvs Carly: k ill shower that lad off me Carly: i think you went just right baby Ali: too descriptive babe 😬😂 Ali: calm down with your creative ways Carly: ha Carly: you should hear me sext Carly: so good Ali: sure Ali: maybe works on the straight boys 😉 Carly: not trying to work on anyone else Carly: tell your gf if shes gonna come for me Ali: you're alright, not her type Ali: I barely am Ali: 50% like Carly: shit odds Carly: that why shes so angry Ali: as shit as yours Ali: just in reverse Ali: not saying you're both wrong but Carly: k Carly: cant all be perfect babe Carly: thats just you Ali: 💁 Carly: you kno Ali: ugh my brother's being so annoying Ali: bitch i'm coming down i will fight you Carly: which 1 Ali: dancing one Carly: hes fun Ali: glad you think so Ali: send him over instead yeah Carly: you come here & stay at yours Carly: i'll Ali: alright Ali: you're getting a rough deal soz Carly: why Ali: 'cos he's usually the alright one, so if he's testing me, wait 'til the rest rock up Carly: idc i can sleep through anything Ali: be my guest Carly: but i want you to be mine Carly: had to share last nite Ali: you done w sharing? Carly: yea Carly: im mad Ali: aww Ali: pouty princess Carly: [sends a pouty selfie] Carly: cuz its better when you stay Ali: you're so cute Ali: it's rude and i object Carly: just for you my baby Ali: 😏 such a tease Carly: nah Carly: you can have anything you want Ali: yeah yeah Ali: anything you want from the shops Carly: theres nothing here Carly: i cant do that to you Ali: okay, i'll get breakfast and cleaning shit Carly: theres no money tho Ali: i don't mind Ali: s'only breakfast Ali: IOU if you want but honestly Carly: you're too good to me & for me boo Ali: nah i'm not Ali: no one deserves to be treated like shit the morning after Carly: got me crying Ali: baby Ali: don't be sad Carly: come down is a bitch but youre an angel Ali: 💚 i know Ali: you've survived it many a time before though, you'll be okay Ali: especially when you get some food and hugs Carly: yea Carly: shouldve invited your brother to my party Carly: what a bitch i am Ali: no no, he ain't here, just blowing up my phone being dumb Ali: you're alright, sure you'll meet him when summers out and he's out on town being fabulous Carly: k didnt fuck up the 1st impression Carly: love the gays Carly: your gf excluded like Ali: he's stalked your socials and liked what he's seen Ali: not in a creepy way 'cos gay, of course Ali: awh 😂 why can't we all get along Carly: he can add me i wont send him nudes Carly: cuz she looks at me like she was willing me to hang this hard Ali: oh good to know 😜 Ali: not letting him though, he chats shite and if he's gonna I need to vet it Ali: deal with it boy, crazy posessive wife like Ali: she's just angry with me Carly: idk who lads are if i cant id them in my usual and not seen his dick Carly: my bad if nudes go where they shouldnt Carly: whats he saying about me Carly: who could be angry at you too beautiful Ali: me either for a while, like Ali: feel it's unfair to describe it from memory of having to bath together Ali: awks Ali: just that you're cute Ali: n fun, of course Ali: and a hoe with it 😜 so her, easily lol Carly: aw Carly: but you didnt snog ronan last nite he werent there Ali: nah but she thinks i'm making a twat out of myself with you Ali: tragic straight girl crush, like Carly: cant have a crush on your missus Carly: weve gone beyond it Carly: real love Ali: yeah Ali: but you know Carly: she thinks were gonna fuck Carly: 3way would sort that Ali: exactly Ali: can't on principle Ali: and even if we whack out the strapon, no real dick for you so Carly: list where ive been Carly: puts loads of people off Carly: she'll know youre not trying to get w me Ali: i'm not gonna do you like that Ali: fuck that Carly: idc Carly: do what youve gonna do boo Ali: i know you don't Ali: but i do Ali: fuck those people who are just mad they weren't higher up in the list Ali: s'why you weren't so jog on Carly: stop being so nice to me Carly: if youre mean she'll forget her jealousy Ali: i don't want to Ali: i can handle it Ali: if she can't then Ali: that's that, isn't it Carly: yea Carly: but i dont wanna start shit for you Ali: trust, you didn't start this Ali: it's easier for her to pretend that's all it is Ali: that's all Carly: k Carly: if i was a lad id be fucked wouldnt i Ali: probably Ali: don't agree with that, it'd be the same but it'd be different in how she'd be able to deal, yeah Carly: thank god i grew some tits Ali: 😂 Ali: good job babe Carly: my ma was made up as well Carly: took a while like Carly: cant let her get the album out cuz i look like a lad Carly: pretty one tho Ali: you were always cute Ali: i remember Ali: grew into your ears and all 😉 Carly: aw Carly: do you tho? Ali: yeah, 'course Carly: you were always scrapping Carly: shouldve got w your gf then she'd like you more Ali: 😬 let us not think of how troubling the age gap woulda seemed then Ali: must've thought i was a right scouse stereotype Ali: bitches deserved it tho Carly: i thought you were cute Carly: & brave Carly: i was always behind my ma's legs Ali: like my sister Ali: I was always down for the more the merrier but her and Laoise said coven's had to be three so Ali: 🔮 number and all Ali: and tbh Laoise weren't that thrilled Ro was there, like Carly: black magic vibes from her forever Ali: legit Ali: shoulda been scrapping with her, like Carly: yea or fucking her first bf but i got there before you Carly: idk how she knew tho cuz he didnt tell anyone Ali: never lose that sixth sense, babe Ali: esp. when concerning keeping a man 🙄 Carly: did her a favor he was shit Carly: didnt have a clue what he was doing Carly: thought every virgin binge watched porn like Ali: 😂 Ali: have you ever binge watched? you're learning nothing of value from that shite Carly: yea but when youre bored youre bored Ali: I hear ya Ali: always bored Carly: me too Carly: & this sex drive isnt set for a cry wank or eye fuck Carly: no offence ma and da Ali: can't take it personally, lads Ali: ain't there's to try and control Carly: they gotta txt me back so i kno when they are coming home Carly: wtf got you two so busy Ali: all that sex they ain't having Carly: porn binge watch Carly: tho my dad likes reading his Ali: Can't beat a sticky page Ali: lost arm form Ali: art, lmao Ali: sure his form is grand Carly: doctor like howd you lose that arm Carly: epic cry wank Ali: 💪 on the right Ali: limp noodle on the other Carly: hot Ali: that's your father you're talking about Ali: no need to be that stereotypical Carly: shit my bad Ali: 😂 Ali: i love you bitch Carly: I love you too Carly: loads Carly: im mad at you again tho Ali: why what have i done>!> Carly: some1 came round the doorway & i thought it was you so i opened up but nah Carly: enjoy the eyeful lads Ali: oh babe Ali: 😏 bless you Carly: not gonna put clothes on for my girl Carly: waste of time Ali: obvs, charm you out so quick Ali: least it weren't the postie, or was it Ali: Ma reckons we were gonna get complaints, as if mother Carly: lad did deliver for me Carly: not letters tho Carly: least id showered Ali: gotta replenish Ali: you chasing off your comedown rn tho Carly: cant outrun that bitch Carly: some of the mas on site are mad tho you can tell yours Carly: state of their sons my bad Carly: should've kept em in if you were bothered Ali: oh great Ali: no you can't speak to the manager, piss off helen Carly: ha Carly: my da is gonna be in such a mood when he hears Carly: sorry you missed out Ali: parents Ali: not like anyone died Ali: calm it everyone Carly: dont want me to fuck on site dont want me to go off it Carly: talk sense Carly: other day you were trying to marry me off da Ali: just 'cos it brings people to his door Ali: soz to take you away from all the cranking but Carly: yea Carly: sorry im not hiding in the back like w i was little Ali: yeah Ali: too big for the caravan now baby Ali: need your own, how much is it to rent Carly: theyre on about it but the state on this one might change their minds Carly: im cleaning as fast as i can k Ali: we're gonna sort it, i am omw swear Ali: and i'm a parent pleaser so Ali: do the rounds, sweettalk to mothers Carly: he'll just take me back to the doctors like take her off the tablets shes too outgoing now thx Carly: another of your talents boo Ali: when the meds work TOO well Ali: but of course Carly: if he was around hed kno how shit they are Carly: ha Ali: 😔 Ali: baby Carly: its k just gotta double down Carly: pro now Ali: 💚 Carly: style the freakout out cuz ima bad bitch Carly: facts and talents Ali: no lies Ali: the baddest Carly: what we doing today that isnt boring Ali: you mean you ain't buzzing to make like kim and aggy Ali: rude, i'm living Carly: do anything w you but Carly: can only check you out every time you bend Ali: cheeky Ali: appaz imma check all of you out, like Carly: what you dont wanna Carly: your gf will be sad shes so wrong Ali: didn't say that but yeah Ali: hate to make her admit that as well, like Carly: ill tell her Ali: you gonna snitch on me Ali: 🍯 Carly: nah jk Carly: i like annoying her tho Ali: i know Ali: it is funny Ali: not taking sides but lol Carly: taking mine i kno Ali: shh Ali: there's no right or wrong here, babe Carly: k but you love me more Ali: its different Carly: maybe Ali: maybe huh Carly: idk she dont think it is Ali: yeah Ali: but we know the truth Carly: fact is we're ruling this place together Carly: no surprise shes jealous Ali: if the 👑 fits like Ali: soz babe Carly: & we fit Carly: cant fight it Ali: nope Ali: if it works it works Carly: yea & you work it better than anyone babe Ali: oh you Ali: save it for all the Ma's you gotta say soz to Ali: 💋 Carly: ha Carly: mine will kick my arse out if she gets on one better leave the mattress where it is Ali: not gonna come to that but always room for a lil one at ours Ali: i got you Carly: aw Carly: never had a sleepover when i was a kid Ali: 😧 then you gotta Ali: tbh they weren't all that always but you know mine were the best Carly: yea no doubt Carly: all the magic Ali: exactly, midnight snacks and scaring the shit out of each other Ali: can tell you who you gonna marry if you've got a tea light, like Carly: thats easy tho Carly: no1 Ali: alright then, excluding the fact we already is so rude, tbh Ali: i'll tell you who you next gonna bang Ali: same diff Carly: youre just gonna say you Carly: smooth Ali: please Ali: gimme some credit 😂 Carly: now i gotta kno Ali: we'll do it when i get there Ali: which will be soon Ali: got stuck chatting to an old lady in the shop Ali: assume she can't see or she'd have avoided me like hell 😂 bless her Carly: if its ronan again or his cousin dont tell me Carly: aw so cute Carly: youre the sweetest & prettiest ever Ali: i'll casually throw the wax in the bin like nothing to see here Ali: not this morning baby but 1/2 ain't bad #stillgotit Carly: tell me you see my death & run like k bye Carly: every morning Ali: you'd rather your literal death? they ain't THAT bad, predictable but like, damn Ali: that's some shade, feel the burn, lads Ali: so are you cutie Carly: idk but over ronan hard Carly: hes being such an arsehole to me Carly: cba Ali: don't Ali: ignore his Carly: yea but like im gonna see him even if i do Carly: fucking site life Ali: i kno but blank him Ali: nothing talks louder Ali: or if you gotta, be proper polite like he's a stranger Carly: ha yea Carly: amazing Ali: childish but so is he so Ali: two can play at that game Carly: youre right i kno Carly: ive deleted his txts so i cant show you but its k cuz youd be sad Carly: or mad Ali: i'm sure i could guess the gist Ali: you can tell me if you wanna talk about it though, i promise i won't go ripshit Carly: idc Carly: ive known him long so i didnt think hed go that hard but thats what lads are like Carly: he fucks around more than me too Ali: he's a hypocrite Ali: just 'cos he knows other lads can do it better Ali: he's just insecure, babe, ignore him Carly: i need a holiday from here Carly: but ma & da never take me w Ali: shit considering how many times they manage Ali: cut a hol off and you'd have enough funds lads Ali: maybe we can Carly: i did kick off last time cuz they didnt refill my prescription Carly: went crazy like Carly: wouldnt want that girl there either Ali: not your fault, that, though Ali: you were literally off your meds Carly: that they reckon i dont need tho Ali: if you didn't then you wouldn't act like that without Ali: simple as Carly: never thought of that Ali: we'll go, i promise Ali: even if it ain't far Carly: lets camp Carly: marshmallows are the shit Ali: hell yeah! Ali: let's find a cave forreal Carly: YEA Carly: dont fall over tho Ali: do my best 😂 Carly: you gotta Carly: only scaring me w ghost stories or whatever Ali: promise Carly: k we'll go Carly: 💙 Ali: 💚 done and done Ali: do you wanna bring anyone else or Carly: got my fave coming Carly: do you Ali: nah Ali: just wanna take you exploring Carly: k Carly: then you can Ali: 👌 Carly: id go now so whenever you want boo Ali: soon Ali: i'll work it out Carly: i kno Carly: got the belief Ali: 🔮 Carly: should get dressed or nothing'll get done Ali: awh Ali: you knew i just got here Carly: they arent on yet Carly: not that fast Ali: jk Ali: find me on the mattress when you're decent bitch Carly: baby no Carly: youll catch something off that Ali: sitting on the carrier bag Ali: always thinking Carly: so smart

[erosanova-blog]

The Magic Hour

Warning: Explicit Language. Mostly nonsense.

I want the reader to know that I am not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, merely lost in a lack of sleep. Ahhh the painful insomniac. Didn't I wake up at 4 yesterday...? Wait was that today..? I haven't slept who knows? But what else is a man to do on a Saturday night?

2:58 a.m. This is where the magic happens. The lonely writer types, chewing on a minty flosspick while the African Dwarf Frogs(Hymenochirus curtipes) echo in the background, undoubtedly heckling each other and their tank mates, the ghost shrimp(Paleomonetes sp.). Why am I still awake? Is it a result of an obsession with social media? Perhaps, my thumbs have been rather sore as of late. But let's get down to the real nitty-gritty; why not we're all mostly insane friends here right? Shit I just hit the number lock. At this time of night, you really have to wonder what an esoteric button like that even does.

Oh the lucidity. Shhh quiet Frog and Toad! Yes I named them. Why not? The ghost shrimp are Casper and Glassy wtf do you want me to do about it? Glass Shrimp is synonymous with Ghost Shrimp as far as common names go. At this hour, you have to wonder if I really have to capitalize a common name. And I say yes, they are my fuckin' pets bro, they're important to me. But enough of that nonsense. Back to the nitty-gritty, as aforementioned.

The real reason why I'm probably awake is I tend to think too much. That's what got me into this mess. That's what gets me into a lot of messes. I pity the simpleton that can go through life complacent and detached. I'm not saying I'm a damn genius, far from it, but I think constantly. My mind comes up with (sometimes a bit on the... creative side) the depths of unfathomable consequences and possibilities... permutations if you will. I'm not a psychic, I just tend to think ahead. Thinking ahead is like driving too fast on a mountain pass: you can't always accurately predict what's on the road ahead. Wow what a life lesson. HA!

3:20 a.m. It's cold in this basement apartment. I have the heater on economy mode... meaning it works half the time. It's like buying juice and you think you're getting a fucking deal and then it's 17% juice. Thanks for the overpriced water assholes.

Do you see now? Have you begun to understand the nonsensical bullshit I can come up with at this hour? I MISSPELLED TOO BACK THERE! Can you believe that? Luckily I caught it but... whew.. close one. Fuck. (shh that definitely wasn't a sentence fragment and those little red lines under my fucking shh back there (and apparently right there), those obviously don't exist(imaginary, like the tooth fairy or... another... fairy (Easter bunny maybe? Think about that, a fucking rabbit that shits chocolate eggs. What if it switches over from chocolate to regular and you don't know it and then one day... ohhh nooo... wait am I really doing this? Longest paragraph in multiple-parentheses ever!) so don't get too carried away bro... can I call you bro?)-By the way I learned how to do all those parentheses correctly thanks to Calculus... Thanks CSU... Thanks Newton... Leibniz..

Well instead of insulting deceased mathematical theorists I should get down to the real nitty-gritty. Regret. Sometimes all this excess thinking makes me say things to people I care about, perhaps accusations, that are sometimes ridiculous. The problem with opening Pandora's box is once it's open, everything is unleashed.

Humpty dumpty in real life? Fuckin dead. A fuckin omelet bro. Its true google it. I may be lying. Alright my eyelids have begun a slow shutter speed so I should probably get to bed but I have a few final notes for the reader, if anyone is actually reading this. This may get preachy so if you want to start sending me hate mail... just shut the hell up I'm not trying to influence anybody just speaking my personal opinions, which is protected under the Bill of Rights.

Being in a relationship for money, power or fame is fucked up. Make your own way, pave your own path, and find your passion in life. Be a fucking legend, don't live like a sidekick.

It takes two (or sometimes three... or more... fuck idk people do what you want damn its a free country for the most part) people to make a relationship work. You have to stick together, and be honest. It's the hardest thing to do but it goes the farthest. If you don't want to be with them, tell them... don't break their fucking heart like a mirror on the freeway, be gentle, but be fair.

It is NOT okay to hit a woman. Or drug a woman. Or touch a woman without her permission. Actually you probably shouldn't be doing that shit to anybody, what the fuck is wrong with people? All this talk I hear of the date rape drug being back in circulation... what is this the seventies?! For fuck's sake people... have some respect. Have some fucking morals. Quit living YOLO like nothing fucking matters. IF YOU DRUG A GIRL AND HAVE SEX WITH HER SEMI-CONCIOUS BODY THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES. That's not a threat, it just needs to be said. Yeah you think its funny now, yeah you get off the hook with the law and all big fucking whoop. But guess what? Thirty years down the road, (if you're not still a total piece of shit that lives in a bowling alley and drinks turpentine) you're going to regret it. I hope it eats at you... the best punishment is one's own mind (funny how I came back to that huh? But I generally try to do good :))

Getting married to save your relationship won't save you're relationship. It will subject you to a mass amount of turmoil, paperwork, bullshit and red tape. If you get married, make sure it is the one that gives you a look that's a combination of digesting you with their eyes (in a good way, not a Jack-the-Ripper-hooker way. A feeling like you're almost tempted to rip their clothes off right then and there-with consent! see above!) and a look that says they want to spend their life in your arms. A look like them tearing up at the thought of you leaving... almost at the brink, the cusp, but too strong to let the tears flow... maybe a quivering lip).

Respect your parents, at the very least, respect your mother. You realize what giving birth is like right? I don't give a damn if it's a C-section or natural or fucking water birth you were once a baby coming out of her. Ouch. Respect that. There are circumstances in which a parental figure abuses a child. ALSO NOT OKAY! Yeah I was spanked as a child, and yeah, most of the time I deserved it. But my mom never raised a fist to me... She never brought out the belt (though she had this wicked paddle that somehow disappeared in a mysterious driveway fire...) out and she always encouraged me to find happiness.

Find happiness, find your passion. Am I rambling again? What is this a Sunday sermon? Holy shit its Sunday... that's blasphemous... no offense everybody religious! Fuck. Walking on eggshells around here. Find your happiness, find your passion and quit taking offense to everything Americans, you're making us look bad. Shit man we're the whiners of the world, and we're going downhill because of it. Instead of complaining about the piece of trash on the ground reach down and pick that fucker up! (I think that's from an old commercial).

I don't care who you are, sex, race, religion, gender, sexual preference etc etc etc etc etc... respect your country. I didn't say you have to agree with your leaders, I'm not stating my political preference because I'm not a fucking whiny baby that doesn't stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. I stand up because my grandpa, for which I have a deep respect, fought in the Korean War. He fought for our country. This gentle man, who taught me how to care for animals of all different kinds (not specifically just how to approach, etc) killed people. You think he knows why he killed them? Probably something they amped him up on at the time, but regardless, he had a red right hand for his country. So you can sit in your Mercedes with your Starbucks and play your PS4 (I love Mercedes and Starbucks. I have no preference for video games) on a bright sunny day in summertime without being murdered or raped.

3:59 a.m. Last one for tonight... wrote way more than I should've anyways, and probably enough to piss some people off if they ever read it.

If you find that person with that glimmer in their eye when they see you... and you feel it too... don't let it go.

_______________________________________________________________________________

I had to add these quotes today, 4/23/17 at 4:15 p.m because I can't stop thinking about it, ..., last night...

"I wanna die where the sun sets, where there's no rain clouds... floating beneath my wings... floating beneath my wings. And if I had one reason... to stay right here... it would be all for you... it would be all for you.

...

And on the other hand, if I woulda stayed, maybe we could fix it all, maybe it would change. Or maybe not, or maybe not today but if we both want it bad baby there's a way. I say we should have no worries, we could be together now, no hurry. You ain't gotta quit, I ain't gotta leave. We could move slow, baby, we ain't gotta speed. I'm not quittin'... never ever, I... pinky promise. If your hand gets cold then I put a ring up on it. I... cook you noodles when your tummy don't feel right... that's how I kill nights... because it feels right... yeah... because it feels right... it ain't real love if there ain't real fights... work it out yeah we still might... we ain't perfect... but... this is real life.

... And if I had one reason, to stay right here... it would be all for you, it would be all for you." -"Where the Sun Sets" -Ryan Caraveo