#wonky on vehicles but eventually got to work

[hazard-and-friends]

HAZARD TO SOCIETY NW1

[thezombieprostitute]

To the Rescue

A/N: Never been to England so I apologize profusely for getting things wrong. I've also never written for Gaz before so feedback is appreciated. I've had this story idea for a long time and tried multiple characters for it. Gaz was the first one that felt right.

Warnings: ex-boyfriend angst, mild language. Please let me know if I missed any.

You were shaking. Colin, your ex-boyfriend, had made a scene at the office, in front of so many people. You shot him down, gave him nothing, and eventually got him to leave by threatening to call the police. After you were sure he couldn't see you, you collapsed in the closest chair.

Lily, your best friend and coworker, was immediately sitting with you and praising you.

"Fuckin' tosser wasn't expecting you to fight back so 'hard. You were brilliant!" She paused for a minute when she saw you were still shaky, "you gonna be okay?"

"Feelin' wonky at the moment," you confess. "But I will be okay. At least until I have to go home." Lily gave you a confused look so you explained, "I'm worried that prat'll be at the bus stop."

"Tell ya what," Lily replied, pulling out her phone, "I'll call my brother, he's a military man, and get him to pick us both up after work."

"It won't be too much of a bother?"

Lilly chuckled, "not at all! I know exactly how to get Kyle over here. You get on back to work and I'll meet you at the front before quittin' time."

"I'm likely to not be doin' much but faff around," you admit.

Lily gives you a hug and assures you that that's more than enough after the day you had.

At the end of the work day you met Lily. She agreed to wait inside until she saw Kyle's car pull up and you started to walk out. You were almost to the vehicle when you heard your Colin yelling. Out of habit, you freeze but Lily keeps pulling your arm.

Not happy with being ignored, Colin got louder and walked faster. You were so focused on trying to get yourself moving that you didn't notice Kyle had gotten out of the car and was moving between you and Colin.

You looked up when Colin stopped talking and saw Kyle, standing tall and looking fit. He didn't even have to say anything for Colin to take a step back. Kyle turned back towards the car and opened the passenger door, "ladies." Lily helped you into the car and you moved to the other side to make room for her. Kyle closed the door and turned back to Colin. Again, no words needed to be said as he stared down Colin before finally getting into the driver's seat and getting you all out of there.

Gaz kept his eyes on you in the rear-view mirror. His sister was right, though he'd never actually admit it, you were pretty. Pretty strong, pretty smart, pretty nice, pretty patient (you were friends with his sister, after all). But you also looked pretty tired so he would wait to flirt with you.

"I'm in town all week," he said. "So, if that git shows up again, at all, you give me or Lily a ring."

"Or," Lily interjected, "you could just give us a lift to and from for the week."

Gaz thought it might be overstepping to offer but when he saw your eyes light up, he nodded his agreement. He was looking forward to getting to know you.

[scientested]

music commentary #17: zip it up

AAUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (celebratory scream)

so.............. SO........ album. this album. I'm gonna talk about this album. Ohhhh there's a lot to say about this album

i will start by saying... that i made this very fast... it was Two Days Ago that i thought "oh it'd be neat to make an album about zipper" and it's consumed almost all of my time over the past two days. but i think it was worth it because i think this is a very interesting album

this album is also a bit unique from my others because it's progressive. progressive? linear? i don't know what the right word is but what i'm trying to say is that it's following part of a story from beginning to end

that story is zipper's! he is both of the characters in the album art, just at different points in his story. he is a silly scientist guy that works for a place called the science company. one day, he gets approved to go on a research mission on a different planet, but when he arrives, he gets infected by a parasite. the parasite takes control of his body temporarily and he kills two people. after he regains control of his body. he is kind of Horrified at the fact that he's been infected by a parasite and that he (indirectly) killed two people...... but then he's like "oh being infected by a parasite is awesome actually" because he's weird

the last three songs in the album are intended to portray a series of events within each one. here is a breakdown of how those go:

infection

3:40 (this is a timestamp for the album video rather than a song timestamp): zipper is arriving at the planet he's going to research!! i imagine him kinda looking down at it from his Space Vehicle

4:19: zipper lands on the planet. it sounds kinda gentle and dreamy because it's nighttime on the planet at the time

5:23: the parasite cuts zipper In Half

5:35: the parasite goes in his body and starts infecting him

the murders

6:56: this is the next morning. zipper's body is lying on the floor of the research station. i think the parasite got control of him for a little bit and dragged him inside there so it'd have a private place to complete the infection process

7:10: the two people zipper (infected by the parasite) ends up killing start knocking on the door. they were sent to welcome him to the planet. it sounds distorted and it speeds up because zipper is sort of half-conscious and in the process of waking up

7:29: zipper becomes fully conscious. the catch is that it's not Him becoming conscious, it's the parasite. it's in full control of his body at this point and zipper, the guy, is not present at all. i don't think this parasite has a lot of experience piloting bodies with arms and legs so it's probably just jerkily and clumsily dragging itself to the door

8:55: the parasite manages to open the door. it stands there with extremely wonky posture and an empty look in its eyes and the people that are there are probably like "what the Hell." they probably greet it anyway and start asking it how the trip there was but then the parasite just kills both of them Very Quickly

9:10: the parasite goes back to trying to figure out how to Operate a Body. it's not very good at it but it's learning!

10:21: this is the point at which it starts losing control of zipper's body. it's just zipper's leitmotif playing (more on leitmotifs later) and it continues playing until the end of the song, where everything slows down and zipper's body drops to the ground

zip it up

11:16: zipper is coming to! he starts realizing what changes his body has gone through, and where he is, but he doesn't remember any of what the parasite did

12:06: zipper sees the bodies of the two people on the ground, and then he eventually slowly turns to see the scissor head of the parasite looking at him. it has blood on the blades. and it's coming out of his body

12:21: not sure Exactly what starts happening here, but basically zipper forces himself to stop focusing on the death and the blood and on the fact that he's been infected by a parasite instead

12:52: "hey you know what. i'm going to ignore the fact that i seem to have killed two people and that there's blood and instead i'm going to focus on the fact that i have a Cool Parasite. this parasite is so cool. i should study this right away. this parasite is so cool I Am Looking Away From The Murder And Blood"

ok that's it...wow....this is a long music commentary already........but there's more to talk about!!!! ummm leitmotifs. it's hard to explain leitmotifs through text. but zipper has a leitmotif which first appears in "a super important research mission" and that's the most present/important one. there are a LOT of other ones. maybe too many. but there is a leitmotif for the science company, multiple leitmotifs for the parasite, and one for xagnon, which is the planet zipper goes to.

hmm... something else i want to talk about is how i used """sound effects""" in some of the songs to represent things happening. there are a lot in "infection"... at 4:18 there is a echoey drum thing that plays that's meant to represent the sound of zipper's spaceship landing and him coming out of it... from 4:23 to 5:12 there are little sounds in the background which go down in pitch, and these are supposed to represent shooting stars and further communicate the vibe of Night. and of course at 5:23, that's the sound meant to communicate "this dude just got CUT IN HALF bro"

in "the murders" the cutting sound effect is there again, but it plays twice to represent the fact that there were two people involved

the final song, "zip it up", was kind of a difficult one for me to make because i wasn't sure what tone i wanted to communicate for it. should it be scary and sad because of the murders that just happened? or should it be happy to represent a new beginning for zipper?? and the fact that he just got infected by a Cool Parasite that he's fascinated by? i ended up going with both, but i still feel that i missed some emotions that he was probably feeling. i actually don't think zipper would have done a 180 from seeing that he Murdered People that quickly, but i kinda.... just decided to go with it anyway... because i liked the sound of the song and i had already entirely scrapped a first version of it, and i don't usually just scrap a song and start over. having to do it twice would be too much. but anyway, i don't think it would be Completely out of character for him to turn around that fast, maybe it was just the first impulse his mind gave him... like "ok. hey. ignore the fact that there's dead people. just focus on the One Positive Thing that's come out of this situation"

anyway.... zipper. zipper? what a silly guy. i like zipper

What I don't like: i think i already kind of talked about it... i think "zip it up" is a little too happy. i think maybe i should have added another part to communicate the anxiety and fear he was feeling or something (edit: after listening to the song i think there is actually a part that implies an anxious feeling. at 12:49 the sound that plays is the one that plays in "infection" just before zipper gets cut in half, but instead of playing the Cut In Half sound effect, it just goes into the happy part of the song. i think this could nicely tie into what i said earlier, about zipper being terrified but just shoving the fear down with the fact that. hey! there's cool parasite! or it could just be a way of saying he's still afraid of the parasite. but this is already a very long edit isn't it)

What I like: it's all good man!! i like it!! i REALLY like "infection" and "the murders" especially. the end of "infection" slaps. like it gives me the imagery of a crazy alien invasion in the dead of night. it's cool

[cerasus--flores]

All of the cocktails for Vespar.

All of them.

~🍁

for. for fuck's sake maple.

cocktail ask game !!

𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿 〜 if your oc can drive, what kind of vehicle do they have? do they have a dream vehicle?

vesper rides a motorcycle to work and back~ he is also always the designated driver if someone brings a car, y'know "make the drinks don't drink them" and stuff. xe doesn't have a dream vehicle tho.

𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗻 〜 what does your oc wear to sleep? do they have a dedicated set of pajamas or do they just wear whatever?

well, whenever they're sleeping at their own place, they do have a set of sleepwear !! they try to not mix up street clothing with sleep clothing bc it mixes up the smells and they don't like that. you know how it is w catpeople.

rest utc !!

𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗱𝗮 〜 if your oc has a bag or a purse, what are five things that’d be inside?

in no particular order~

his handgun. yeah. it's that bad.

bottle of water. many uses!

a travel sized spell book. he knows his usual spells by heart, but some reference can't hurt, right?

keys, wallet, that stuff.

hand sanitizer. you'll never catch him without it. freak /lh.

𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 〜 what was one of your oc’s favorite tv shows/movies as a child? do they still enjoy it now?

okay okay projection time but. the princess diaries. xe LOVED it and STILL LOVES IT to this day. knows the dialogue and shit. you know. like a Normal Person™ would.

𝘄𝗼𝗼 𝘄𝗼𝗼 〜 what’s their relationship like with their parent(s)/guardian(s)?

what's this cocktail's name lsbdlsbsk it's uh. not great! it was already a bit wonky, what with his career choices and whatnot (since he's wanted to be a bartender since he was 16 y/o), and then he found out that they lied to him about the nature of his existence for his whole life, which, uh... yeah. they still "care" for him, but they think they have a relationship with him that's simply... not there. the mixtios believe vesper is eventually going to crawl back to them. and he won't.

𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮 〜 does your oc have any disorders or disabilities?

catboy /j. they have adhd though. bc of course.

𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗮 〜 who are some of your oc’s best friends?

QUINN ATRUM MIERAN ATRUM APPRENTICE REAPER OF CHALKED PIGMENT THE SCHOLAR- *i am shot with a tranquilizer dart* but. um. yeah! ves and quinn (and later on, ves and mieran) are best friends! they care for each other a lot! and xe's also friends with lumio and heath. hasn't met mayra or nuberu yet but they'd probably be instant besties as well.

𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿 〜 describe your oc’s personality

easy question /s. ahem.

"Vesper Mixtio comes across as easygoing, charming, and silver tongued. Flirtatious, but not a flatterer, he knows his ways with words. And yet, he's quite closed off to those who have not earned his trust, never letting too much slip, using his drinks and magic to escape if necessary."

is the dainsleif-esque paragraph good?

𝗷𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗿𝗱 〜 has your oc ever made any choices they regret?

not caring more for quinn before his death. their abilities were telling them that the scholar was running out of time, and yet, they couldn't take advantage of this. even now that they have him back in the form of mieran, they regret not letting him know how much they truly cared for him.

𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 〜 post some images or a moodboard that fit your oc’s aesthetic

vesper moodboard here u go~

𝗱𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗮 〜 post a song or a lyric that fits your oc

why just a song when it could be his entire playlist, hm? hehe

𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗶 〜 does your oc’s name or design reference anything? i.e. music, movies, etc.

he's literally named after the drink vesper lmao. i can't go fully into detail w his design (mainly bc it's not fully done yet), but one thing is that he got his heterochromia alongside his cat features, bc it's very common in cats !!

𝗺𝗼𝗷𝗶𝘁𝗼 〜 does your oc have any tattoos and/or piercings? if so, what are they? if not, do they want any?

he has ear piercings (not visible in the picrew but like. trust me bro.), and sometimes he'll wear a lipring for the fun of it (again, i remind you, he can do illusory magic). he doesn't have any tattoos, but he wouldn't mind getting some.

𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗶 〜 is your oc a smoker? (tobacco, cannabis, etc.) if so, do they plan on quitting?

not really!! because of their job as a "renowned" merc, vesper is v wary of stuff like smoking and drinking, they're not out here painting even more targets on their back by getting intoxicated, y'know?

𝗺𝗶𝗺𝗼𝘀𝗮 〜 has your oc ever committed any crimes? if so, what did they do? if not, what would they be most likely to commit?

he's a merc. he kills people.

𝘁𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗻𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 〜 what kind of hobbies does your oc enjoy? is there anything they’ve always wanted to do but never had the time/resources to try?

xe's... *sigh* a gamer. action games are xyr shit. other than that, studying spellcasting and mixology (not simultaneously) are also things xe enjoys. xe's always wanted to try art, but could never afford to.

𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗶𝗶 〜 does your oc speak any other language(s)? if they didn’t learn to speak the language(s) when they were growing up, when and why did they learn it?

vesper's first language is english, but his second language is spanish! buenos aires spanish, to be more specific, since that's where his mother comes from. he's fluent in both languages, and has a STRONG GBA (gran buenos aires) accent when speaking spanish.

𝗰𝘂𝗯𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗲 〜 if your oc wears any perfume/cologne, what’s their favorite?

they make their own perfume !! the one they wear most often is a mixture of lavender and mint. comfy.

𝗰𝗮𝗶𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗵𝗮 〜 what does your oc’s voice sound like?

he's mostly calm when speaking. soft-spoken, but not hushed. he tends to speak in his medium to lower register, and will sometimes slip in cat noises in his words without realizing.

𝗴𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘆 〜 what does your oc consider to be their best feature? alternatively, what’s something they’re most self conscious about?

they're most confident in their mixing skills. they've been at it for almost six years now, they make really good drinks, they look hot as fuck when doing so, and by god are they aware of all of these things.

they're mostly insecure about... their lack of genuine connections, in a way. they notice that they don't have that many close ones, people that would care if they were gone one day, and it makes them... generally insecure. they can't figure out why people who do get to know them won't ever stay. one of the reasons they're so flirty and smooth, i suppose.

𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗵𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗻 〜 what kind of people does your oc hate the most?

people that don't hold themselves accountable for their actions. it's one of the reasons he dislikes the atrum clan (and, by proxy, disliked quinn). "if you personally can't own up to what you've done, don't fucking do it. don't use excuses, don't blame it on someone else, if you're in a situation where you can assume responsibility, then do so." is his mentality.

[aspenflower17]

Finding You (Part Five of ??)

Good morning/afternoon/even/night (which ever one applies to you)! I have another update for you guys! If you’re just joining us, the link to Part One will be down below. You can find the links to the next part at the end of each part (if something is wonky with the links, please just let me know!)

Part 1 

F!Mc / Satan

Tags :D :  @simpingforsatan @naimena @hachimochi @wrathandgreed 

Word Count: 2,083 (story under cut)

Triggers or warnings: angst

Satan growled as he redid his bowtie once again, Lucifer’s words still echoing in his head.

“Are you sure you need to go tonight?” Lucifer was standing on the ground floor of his room, while Satan got ready on the landing at the top of the stairs.

“Yes. How many times are you going to ask me that?”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to go opening night.”

Satan hoped Lucifer could hear his eye roll, “I can’t imagine why, unless the fact the artist is an angel has your panties in a twist,” the indignant noise Lucifer couldn’t contain made Satan snicker quietly.

“That isn’t the problem.”

“Then what is? You have never had issues with me going to an art show before. I heard Lord Diavolo will be there, so I can’t begin to imagine why I shouldn’t go.”

“Why do you want to go?”

Satan walked all the way over to the railing to give his brother an incredulous look, “Did you seriously just ask me that?” Lucifer took a stance that meant he wanted an answer, making Satan sigh, “Well, why wouldn’t I? I’ve heard about her art in the human realm. I haven’t been able to see any of her works unfortunately, but I’ve read the reviews. If nothing else, I want to say I was at the opening night of the first art show for one of the Celestial Realm’s up and coming artists, which you know doesn’t happen very often. The last angel I can think of who received any mark of recognition for their work outside of the Celestial Realm is Simeon.

“I also think it’s important at least one of us brothers attends the show, which I figured you’d agree with. You’re constantly going on and on about how important our image is and how we need to make sure to ‘understand the gravity of our positions down here as demon lords and as the Avatar’s of Sin’. You’ve already stated you won’t be going, and I have been planning on attending since I heard about it. I really don’t see what the problem is.”

Satan saw a flicker of worry cross Lucifer’s face multiple times while he was talking. He must really not want me to go. But why?

“And you’ve made sure none of our brothers can go with you?”

“Yes. In fact, I’ve asked Levi twice and had a soda bottle thrown at my head the second time for “making him lose the level he was on. I asked both Beel and Belphie three times, which they both declined, Beel stating he would rather stay home because they never had enough food at show openings and Belphie saying he didn’t want to get thrown out of one again for curling up in a statue to sleep. Asmo would come, but he got invited to some party the same night.”

“... What about Mammon?”

Satan blinked a couple times before his brain even began to process what Lucifer had asked, “Huh?”

Lucifer seemed to blink himself, though it could’ve been a trick of the light, “You didn’t mention Mammon.”

Satan opened and closed his mouth a couple times before being able to respond, “You want me. To ask Mammon. The Avatar of Greed. Who steals. And is loud. And uncouth. To go to the opening night of an art exhibition. For an up and coming artist. Who has never shown in the Devildom before. And is an angel… Do I have that correct?”

Lucifer’s resolve looked to be in tatters, and Satan thought he’d drop the whole thing before his resolve returned, “Yes.”

Damn pride.

“You must be joking.”

“If you don’t ask him, I will personally assign him to go with you.”

Satan really couldn’t believe his ears, “Assign him to go with me? Do I look like I’m nine? I do not need a chaperone. I-” the look in Lucifer’s eyes made him stop mid-argument. Is he really that worried?

“Fine, I’ll text him if you’re going to be so insistent. I will only ask once however, and if he does come, I am NOT responsible for his behavior.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’ve never been ta a art… Whas it called again?”

“And art exhibition.”

“Right, right. Thanks for invitin’ me Satan.”

“Mammon, we need to go over some ground rules here.”

“Course. Whadda ya wanna talk about?”

“First thing, art exhibitions are places of class and refinement. Please, stay quiet and respectful of the atmosphere.”

“Course I’ll do tha’. I’m great at blendin’ into the backgroun’.”

Satan cringed, but continued, “Second, if you steal anything from anyone, I will personally see to it that you are ejected from the show, and thrown into the labyrinth below Diavolo’s castle.”

“OI! Show ya big brother some respect!”

“We are not getting out of this vehicle until you promise me you’re not going to steal or otherwise take things that don’t belong to you.”

“Fine, fine! I promise. Geeze.”

“Third, just please don’t embarrass me. I sent you that page on gallery etiquette for a reason.”

“I read it, don’ worry… Uhhh, Satan. Not to change the subject, but why da ya have a long tie on, an’ not ya bowtie?”

“I… felt like it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Satan was extremely suspicious. They had been at the show for over twenty minutes, and Mammon had been better behaved than he’d ever seen him before. He’d even made fairly intelligent remarks about the art. He hadn’t left Satan’s side, but had been quiet enough Satan had forgotten he was there multiple times. Lucifer would’ve been more conspicuous. Satan kept expecting to have to reprimand him, but the time never came.

The gallery space was very large, one that was reserved for shows the demon prince hand picked. The space was set up like a labyrinth, and each bend had something new to display. The center of the show held a large, site specific installation. The art itself was very good, better than what Satan had assumed he’d see, but what really struck him was the breadth of the work. He marveled at how one person could produce so much art and in such varying mediums.

“Enjoying the work?” a random demon drawled, sidling up next to him.

“Yes,” he replied, taking a step back.

“You know, there’s a dead end just around the corner. The art in there is extremely… Exciting. I can show you, if you’d like,” the demon closed the space he had created, and reached out, their hand lightly grazing his arm.

“I’m fine where I’m at, thanks.” Satan started to walk away, and an exasperated sigh followed.

“I’m not sure you understand. The art is extremely stimulating. I really think you’ll enjoy it,” a hand was now grasping his arm.

“I said no,” Satan stated, extracting his arm from their grasp.

“Oi! Satan! You gotta come see this photograph,” Mammon interrupted the exchange, his loud behavior back, but eyes keenly trained on the unwelcome newcomer.

A strangled gasp came from the demon, eyes growing large, “Ah, hello Mammon,” another gasp and an audible step back, “Lead the way. Excuse me.”

The second born started rambling, but got quieter the further from the demon they got, until they both fell into silence. “Thank you,” Satan acquiesced finally.

“No need for my brother ta have ta deal with that,” Mammon said softly. Satan didn’t push any further, them both saying what they needed to.

The continued walking for another while, when the soft music that had been playing overhead was replaced with a voice, “I would like to thank you all for coming out to Jane Doe’s exhibition. As all of you know this is her first show in the Devildom, and I am so pleased at the turnout. As much as we’d love to have you all here at the center with us, but we hope that putting the artist talk over the loud speakers will be enough for all of you still in the labyrinth.”

“Jane Doe? Ain’t that wha’ they call dead humans?” Mammon asked, talking over Diavolo.

“Well, often it’s used for unidentified female human bodies to be specific, usually a murder victim. The use is mostly as a placeholder for unidentified, anonymous or hypothetical parties to a court case in some human countries. An obvious pseudonym, and one I find rather amusing and clever. I’m rather put out we’re still in the maze. I was hoping to be at the center by now. I guess this will have to do. It’s really smart to-” Satan stopped, his eyes growing huge and intense.

“Ya okay?” Mammon asked uncomfortably.

“Shhhhhh!…” Satan demanded, his ears now only trained on the voice above him. He could’ve sworn he heard…

“... And of course, I had to see if she would hold a show here in the Devildom. I’m just so excited to finally have her art down here. Anyways, I’ve taken up enough of her time. Everyone, please welcome, Jane Doe.”

“Thank you Lord Diavolo. That was such a kind introduction. I for one am so excited to have been invited to show my work…”

Satan was moving before he knew what he was doing.

“Oi, Satan, wait fer me!”

“Then move faster!” Satan called behind him, starting to run. He had no idea where he was going though. He wasn’t good with directions at the best of times, and this was meant to confuse him. Mammon caught up with him quickly, seeming very conflicted.

“Mammon, you’re better at directions than I am aren't you? Get us to the center of the maze, now!”

“Bro, I don’ think I can-”

“Are you deaf?! Did you not hear her? That’s Mc! I need to get to her, now!” Mammon didn’t seem surprised at the revelation, instead looking a little sad. Satan felt his anger flare as the realization hit him, “You knew, didn’t you?”

“Only cuz Lucifer told me, an’ that was earlier this evenin’. He wanted to make sure someone was aroun’ ta keep ya from goin’ crazy.”

Satan quickened his pace, his anger lending him more speed, “Of course he knew about this and didn’t tell me.”

“He was watchin’ out fer ya.”

“I don’t care what he thought I was doing. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

Mammon looked extremely conflicted, but eventually burst into demon form and flew up to see over the walls. Many demons were aghast at seeing someone flying in the gallery, it being against etiquette, but Satan didn’t care at the moment.

Mammon started flying forward, and Satan followed, only looking down enough to make sure he wasn’t going to crash into an art piece. That did not account for other demons however, and many indignant cries and shouts followed him.

“We’re pretty close ta the center Satan,” Mammon called down.

“I’ve always thought…” Mc continued, but Satan couldn’t focus on the words. He could only marvel at her voice once again in his ears and focus on going as fast as he could. Her laugh rang out, and Satan’s heart jumped. It’d been so long... 

“Hmmm… What was that? Oh, okay. I didn’t realize I’d been talking for so long. Apparently my time is up, but I’ll finish this up on Devilgram. You can find me at...”

“Quicker!” Satan shouted to Mammon after hearing Mc.

“We’re not gunna make it,” Mammon yelled back down.

“We need to go faster then!”

“I’m followin’ ya pace! If ya wanna go faster, you gotta go faster.”

Satan finally relented, and switched into his demon form. With his new power, Satan moved faster and Mammon matched his pace.

“It’s the next bend!”

Satan threw everything he had into covering the final distance of the hallway. He rounded the bend to find…

People milling about, discussing the talk, some extremely confused as to why it had been cut short. Satan looked on the stage, carefully crafted into the installation piece. Nothing. They were even removing the podium.

He sank to the floor, breathing heavily. Mammon touched down beside him, not wanting to bring attention to himself.

“Is she in the Devildom for long?”

“I dunno.”

“Where is she staying?”

“I dunno.”

“How close were we?”

“Real close.”

“Did you see a way out? I’m going to start breaking things if we stay here.”

“There’s a underground passage in the room,” Mammon held out his hand to Satan, who took it, not looking at him.

“Let’s go then.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As always, thank for reading! If you would like to be put on the tags list, just ask below!  I love me some likes and comments, and I love discussing Obey Me with people, so feel free to comment or even message me if you want! If you enjoyed, I also REALLY appreciate reblogs. I promise, you reblogging makes a huge difference to content creators, and each new reblog helps someone else find this fic, so thank you to everyone who does.

Part Six

[noddytheornithopod]

top 5 video games?

(For this)

I’m going to list five franchises and list specific games there because I’d feel bad if I let one take up the majority of space here. In no specific order besides maybe how easily they come up in my mind right now:

Danganronpa: No surprise to anyone who’s known me over the past two years. Visual novels watching a dwindling cast of characters as they’re all murdered was not something I ever expected to get into. Even if there’s some very obvious problematic stuff, the engaging story and characters sucked me in completely. The main trilogy of games are all pretty close in terms of how much I love them. Even if I have a very special place in my heart for the original Trigger Happy Havoc (particularly because Kyoko Kirigiri is still probably my favourite character in the series, but also because it had to set up this entire world and has a level of groundedness and realism to it that makes it stand out), my favourite is definitely V3: Killing Harmony. Favourite cast, favourite score, favourite trial (THAT FIRST TRIAL WILL FOREVER HAUNT ME AND BREAK MY HEART), my favourite... almost everything. Some of the art is a bit wonky and there’s of course the usual problematic missteps (*shakes fist* Angie!!!!), and the third trial is ironically one of the weakest for me, but when it hits, it hits HARD. Still not over stuff like the impact of Kokichi Oma and the game’s ultimate twist and what it ended up meaning for basically everything.

Little Nightmares: Anyone paying attention to my tumblr may have noticed this crop up occasionally on my blog. I pretty much got into this on accident, an artist I followed was streaming the first game, and that subsequently reminded me of seeing it on a YouTube I follow and liking how the game looked there. Not one for straight up horror usually, but I appreciate more atmospheric stuff like this. Of course there’s the usual very sus things you expect from the genre (seriously, did a fat person hurt someone at Tarsier Studios???), and I will say that I’m not used to puzzle solving that involves a lot of lateral thinking so that did annoy me sometimes (or maybe I just suck with my aging mid-twenties brain lol), but I’m really happy to have a horror experience that isn’t soft on you but also isn’t overwhelming and indulgent in things like gore and jumpscares. I also like the world that’s been created, especially after Little Nightmares 2, which is easily my favourite of the games. Why? Well, besides just naturally evolving and improving from the first game, the story hits a lot harder. I went into the game expecting scary times, but I came out utterly heartbroken and stunned at the twist at the end and all of its implications. It’s all very abstract, sure, but I think that adds to the power of many of these moments.

Crash Bandicoot: Probably the franchise that’s stuck with me the longest, playing these games is almost like second nature to me. I definitely think the cartoony nature of the games and their wide cast of characters helped draw me in, too. My favourite is probably Crash Bandicoot 2, I feel like it was expansive and varied enough while not going as overboard with stuff like vehicles. That being said, I definitely think Crash Bandicoot 4 is rivaling that position, it manages to keep that classic gameplay while escalating pretty much everything in a way that I appreciate. Also have to say I love Crash Team Racing, I’m especially happy with Beenox remaking the game. The original trilogy and the newest Crash 4 are probably the most polished games for me out of the main ones, but I also have a soft spot for Mind over Mutant, which I know is blasphemous to many fans, but I just really like how the game utilises the characters and humour there for the most part, and it’s surprisingly good at worldbuilding and tying to the rest of the series despite on the surface appearing very different.

Spyro: Yeah, given my interest in Crash it’s not a surprise I like the Spyro games, being a sibling franchise in a sense. The games are just really easy and fun to get into. Well, the original trilogy anyway. Everything after it is... something alright. I actually think the Legend of Spyro games are probably the best we got after the original trilogy, because they at least were willing to do their own thing. Dawn of the Dragon was frustrating to play, but from what I understand it was even more rushed and had more budget issues than even the others in the trilogy so yeah. Favourite Spyro is definitely Year of the Dragon. It’s a nice midpoint between the first two games even if overall it’s basically Spyro 2 but done way better. People see it as a rehash and running out of ideas (and I mean the latter wasn’t true, that’s why we’re playing as a flying penguin and space monkey as part of a larger cast of characters lol), to me Spyro 2 has just a lot of issues that 3 is honestly just what the game would be if it were more polished and thought out. I definitely have a soft spot for the original Spyro the Dragon too, sometimes simple treasure hunting and dragon saving is all you need, and it probably has the most fun exploration to it.

Ratchet and Clank: Spyro came from Insomniac games, so when they dabbled back in platforming, I eventually found Ratchet and Clank too. Hybrid platformer/third person shooter with ridiculous weapons and gadgets? Sold. Favourite game is honestly a hard pick. You can tell in the PS2 era they were trying to figure out what exactly they wanted to be, so the Future games definitely are more polished overall in terms of gameplay. Even with this, I really like the PS2 games, they have a satirical edge to them (well, ignoring whatever 3 thought satire was lol) and the first two games having more platforming is really cool. If I had to pick a favourite it would probably be the second game, it was the first Ratchet game to really lean into the weapons more. Even so I really like the first game being quite unique (and it probably has the best story in this era), Deadlocked while at first was a bit too edgelord for me has really grown on me with really honing in on specific things to focus on, and well Up Your Arsenal even if I find some things about it weird (mainly in terms of story) it’s still a really fun game that solidified what the second created. I’m not as into the PS3 and beyond games from a story perspective, but like I said I do think the games are more polished overall. A Crack in Time is definitely my favourite, mainly because they got the story to work best out of the new space opera tone the Future series was going for (nonsensical time travel rules aside). It also has probably my favourite boss in the series, the final one really surprised me when I first saw it and it still sticks out in my mind. Also have a soft spot for Into the Nexus, which even if it’s too short and probably a bit undercooked (eww low framerate) has a really unique tone to it that I’d love to see returned to someday.

[slashingdisneypasta]

Jason Voorhees x Freddy’sDaughter!Reader || Oneshot

Title: They Cuddles; Him, Her, and her Bottle of Hypnocil. 

Notes:

‘-There was something in her, something that was… pure horror. Everything you were supposed to watch out for. Heights, fire, shards of glass, snakes. Everything that his mom tried so hard to keep him safe from.’ - John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Inspired by the above quote.

Quick Background of Reader: You’re Maggies younger (Only a little) half-sister. (You were conceived and born shortly after he killed Loretta and your mother didn’t want you so you were pawned off to him so you were living with him until he was burnt by the Springwood Parents, whereas Maggie was of course taken away) (Pretend it was years between the time he was caught and the time he was killed)

Tried to write in Jasons POV, not sure how good it is, hah. 

I miiiiiiight have some ideas for future parts of this, this was adorable and sweet.

Plot: 

Just, Jason falling in so love with the enemies daughter who is so like her father - she’s loud, she’s hurt, she makes s t u p i d jokes and then laughs way too hard at them, she’s dangerous, - but who is gentle with him and kind. (She’s basically the type of girl Pam wouldn’t approve of at first but is so honest and kind that Pam cant help but begrudgingly like her eventually XD )

Warnings: Age gap? I mean it’s not a main plot point so you could ignore it but Jason and Freddy are similar in age so you’re young enough to be Jason’s kid too- but you’re in your 30’s-40’s so its okie. Fatherly trauma (Is that the right phrase?? Hah. You know what I mean) / Nightmare on elm Street survivor trauma also. Panic attack I think? Ends in fluff ^^ 

~~~

When you stayed a night in your van at that old, abandoned camp, you certainly didn’t expect to meet Jason. I mean, you weren’t surprised by his… abnormalities -referring to the fact that he’s dead. Not his deformities, - as much as you were how cute and sweet he was. And how well you two got on, after he tried to kill you.

And you don’t blame him for that! You trespassed; you get it. If you had known he was there and he had taken ownership of the area, then you would have asked before parking there.

When Jason had found a girl hidden away, sleeping in the back of a yellow van, he certainly didn’t expect that she would soon become so important to him. She was just another trespasser acting like a hoodlum -living! In! A! Van?! – in his general vicinity and of course, he didn’t like that.

Boring chase story short; He pushed your van over and there was a chase through the forest (You’ve never run that fast in your life, jesus christ. You can still feel the wind burn on your cheeks, that one rock under your bare feet that cut you and the energy rushing through your body pushing you forward anyway) and you leapt into the lake- waiting until he came in after you. And then when he did, you just screamed random nonsense, splashing around spastically at him until you hit a nerve that sobered him (Something about his mother). This is a technique you developed after you were given up to various foster homes after your father was burnt to death (And then also when he found you again) when stinky foster parents, foster siblings, bullies at school rando’s off the street wanted to put their hands on you, and that you mastered since. It works, evidently, with asexual zombie monsters too.

After that, you went back to your van and rap up your foot, thinking that at least the lake water cleaned up the cut on your foot, and then grumpily set up your bed on your window now since the van (Poor, dear Mandy) is now on its side thanks to the local undead jerk!

You hadn’t slept a wink the rest of that night, not because of the hulking mass of rotten flesh and a hockey mask that you knew was lurking somewhere close by, watching you, but because you weren’t about to waste an extra Hypnocil pill in one night. You just laid there, pillows propping you up and being bored. Staring at the ceiling, smearing various ugly pastel shades onto a page in your sketchbook, listening to the woods and imagining getting rawed by Danny Zuko were highlights. Then, when daylight finally broke out, you were finally, unhappily wondering how you were going to get Mandy back on her wheels, zipping up your jacket and looking at your beautiful pale-yellow Volkswagen.

You thinking what pain this would be to correct… and then having turned on your heel and went on a trek to the closest town to get some kind of breakfast. Procrastinating the inevitable.

When you had returned, a bag of groceries in your arms -drink propped on top of everything else so you could sip through the straw as you walked,- , your van was back on her wheels.

You don’t know what it was about you that made him do that, that made him stop and not kill you, and its likely you’ll never find out since he doesn’t talk, after that you had gone directly to find the - cute, now, -behemoth you knew fixed it for you, to make and give him fairy bread to say thank you and sorry for what happened last night- and honestly you’ve been friendly ever since. More then friendly, after a while, but never less then.

___TIME SKIP: Current time now. Months and months after you met___

~ POV Change~

Oh my god.

The second I see that the familiar bottle, the one from Typo with the Coca Cola logo on it that reminds me absolutely zero percent of my father that I keep Hypnocil pills in is not where I left it, a deep sense of dread and anxiety fills me up to the brim- only proceeding to grow outwards to the air around me as I search in an increasingly more panicked fashion for the thing. Where is it!? Where is it, where is it, where is it. “Where, where, where, where, where, where- “

I fling a pillow out the back of the van and am just bundling up the blankets, not caring what else goes with it to push out as well so I can find that fucking bottle when I notice Jason standing there at the back doors watching me, head tilted. I immediately stop what I’m doing, heart stopping for a second. “Lost something.” Is all I can squeak out.

He leans forward and I watch as I bends down so his head and upper body are in here with me and looks around, then up at me again as if to ask what I’m looking for so he can help me. “I-Its, um… “ My voice trembles. I need to find that bottle- the fact that Jason is being so sweet and offering to help me look just makes me feel even less together. I could cry. “A r-red bottle with umm, curly writing on it?” He probably doesn’t remember what coke is, much less the logo…

He nods, and starts looking around, eyes focused and slow as the graze along everything in the van so studiously that I stay extra still instead of helping- so he doesn’t miss anything with that super-vision he’s acting like he must have. The vans a mess and I’m just kneeling in the corner, against the driver’s seat with the blankets all bundles up in my lap, worrying my bottom lip and waiting for this man to save me. Please, jesus- help me. Save me.

A moment later and I’m about to slowly move from my place and Jason suddenly moves. His heavy arm shoots forward and pulls the bottle, a tubular shock of red, out of a nook between my portable DVD player/screen and some books and I was showing him earlier, offering it to me.

Dropping the blankets and sitting on them instead, feeling the softness on my bare legs and taking the bottle from him before hugging it to my chest and covering my face with my hands, silently.

Oh my god.

~POV Change~

Y/N curls up on herself, hiding her face and the bottle between her legs and her tummy and doesn’t make much noise except a quick, quiet whimper. She’s acting different, in a bad way. Why isn’t she talking to him, Jason wonders? Why isn’t she being loud? Is she okay?

Looking around the van, because he has to go in there and see if she’s okay- get her out of that body-cocoon, Jason crawls into the vehicle that he’s never dared to touch since the first night they met, and it breathes under his weight a little bit. He sits down next to her, crossing his legs and watching her for a while. What… to do… now… hmm…

Finally, he decides putting his hand on her shoulder might work to get her attention at least, and she does relax her shoulders quickly at the contact. Then looks up, face red, at him before wiping her face again and crawling suddenly into his lap. She takes a deep breath, regaining some of her usual colour and composure as Jason just sits solid and c o m p l e t e l y still beneath her, flashing him a quick, toothless smile. “Thank you for finding this Jason, it’s important to me.” She looks at the bottle in her hands, not wanting to put it down and risk losing it again even as she knows its irrational that she would do it twice in a row. “Its… how I keep him away… “

Y/N looks up at Jason, eyebrows risen up her forehead to watch him cautiously, worriedly, looking for signs. Did he understand what you were talking about? And if so, is he okay at the mention of your father?

He’s just completely unmoving still. Y/N blinks at the utter lack of responce. “Jason?”

When she still doesn’t receive a response, she taps his mask gently. “Jaaaason?”

That gets his attention, as he looks down at her face… and nods. A wonky smile that makes his somehow-still-beating heart flutter weirdly appears on her face and she looks outside instead. “So, what did you come to see me for? Ya just missed me? Hah, I missed you too cutie. How about we go for a walk? Its pretty today- ah.” When Jason’s big arms suddenly, slowly take action and wrap heavily around her, she’s pleasantly surprised. Her anxieties and panic from earlier all but slip from their knot in her chest and disappear at the action, and she responds by turning properly to her side in his lap so she can lean into his chest. “Oor we could cuddle. That sounds better anyway!~”

She taps the side of his face affectionately before closing her eyes, and he lets his own half lid themselves at the feeling of her so close to him. She’s so cute and warm. Its weird, but he thinks- if someone were to come right now in this moment, and not be loud and not do anything to Y/N or him… he would probably let them go.

(Well at least until he let her go.)

[scatterpatter]

Breath of the Wild (and Hyrule Warriors) take place in the Child Timeline [Theory]

This is 100% Theory and I could be Totally Wrong but hear me out, because this makes perfect sense from my perspective and all it involves is considering Hyrule Warriors as a “main game”, talking about it under the cut cuz this is a long one

Okay so everyone knows that the Zelda timeline is a bit wonky, and should be taken with a grain of salt, but ever since Breath of the Wild came out the biggest question is “What timeline does it fall under?” And at first it seems like it should be an easy answer... except not. Ritos and Zoras co-exist, locations are named after characters that reside in any of the three timelines(even TERMINA), so on and so forth, it seems like it somehow dips into every timeline, which should be impossible... until I blow your mind.

Well one big thing we know is that wherever Breath of the Wild takes place, it takes place at the end of its timeline. So for BotW to have references to each timeline, it seems like there was some sort of... timeline convergence? Except that’s not how time works. Timelines can be split, but not thrown back together.

Here’s where I blow your mind, just roll with me because this’ll make sense once I explain: Breath of the Wild takes place in whatever timeline Hyrule Warriors takes place. I’ll go into detail why I’m convinced of this in a short bit.

First, I just want to throw the canon timeline from the Zelda Encyclopedia on here so we’ve got all our other games into one basket:

The only inconsistency note I’ll make is that Hyrule Historia places Oracles of Ages+Seasons before Link’s Awakening, though I believe this was retconned later on, and since Zelda Encyclopedia came out well after Hyrule Historia, we should believe this version more. But that’s a moot point anyways since that won’t affect my theory, just thought I’d mention regardless

So if we’re going to follow my theory on the fact that BotW is the same timeline as Hyrule Warriors, we need to find out which timeline Hyrule Warriors falls under.

First off, we know that Hyrule Warriors takes place sometime after Ocarina of Time, because Impa recognizes the name “Ruto”, so the events of OoT already happened. Therefore, HW has to take place in one of the three split timelines

I’m convinced that Hyrule Warriors does not take place in the Adult Timeline for the following reasons: 

We don’t see much of the land of HW’s Hyrule, but it seems like a solid continent and not a series of islands, so this likely cannot take place before Spirit Tracks

The Triforce, Ganon, and the Master Sword are not seen since Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, so this likely does not take place after Wind Waker

While Spirit Tracks is a new continent and a new Hyrule is established, Spirit Tracks introduces a new insignia, which involves a Force Gem, but everywhere in Hyrule of Hyrule Warriors we see the “traditional” insignia with the Triforce. 

So with the Adult Timeline rendered nearly impossible, this leaves the Fallen Timeline and the Child Timeline, and I’m about to explain why HW most likely takes place in the Child Timeline

You see, Hyrule Warriors is an... interesting plot. In that the main antagonist, Cia, opens what’s called the “Gate of Souls”, or “the doorway to time itself”. With her powers, she essentially opens rifts in time and space so that areas such as Skyloft, Death Mountain(OoT’s), and Twilight Field(Hyrule Field from TP) are now within Hyrule Warrior’s world

So we have worlds from Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess opened. The reason why these worlds specifically are because of Ganon. Before the events of Hyrule Warriors, in one of Link’s lifetimes we haven’t seen in any Zelda game(yet), after Ganon was defeated, he was split into four pieces. 3 pieces were scattered across time and space, the fourth sealed away with the master sword that Link eventually uses in Hyrule Warriors. Now let’s take a look at where each piece of Ganon was sealed:

Lake Hylia(Ocarina of Time)

Sealed Grounds(Skyward Sword)

Palace of Twilight(Twilight Princess)

Master Sword(Hyrule Warriors)

What’s VERY important to note here is that while, yes, Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time exist in every timeline, Twilight Princess only occurs in the Child Timeline. It was at this point I realized: the main story of Hyrule Warriors only covers these settings/characters, and makes a Majora’s Moon reference one time, but all other instances of characters from other timelines occur as DLC. And we’ll get to the DLC stuff shortly, but let’s focus on the “main” story first.

It’s quite possible that this Link before Hyrule Warriors, when splitting Ganon into 4 pieces, only had access to his own timeline to seal Ganon away. It isn’t until we get the powerful sorceresses Lana and Cia do we start opening rifts to other timelines. This makes me believe that Hyrule Warriors takes place in the Child Timeline

Side note: Goron Forces appear to be a mix of OoT Gorons with TP Gorons, judging by their tattoos

Also, no Sheikah appear in any of the games of the Fallen Timeline, whereas we have Sheik and Impa(who are both Sheikah) in Hyrule Warriors. This still lines up because even though not-explicit, Impaz from Twilight Princess is implied to be a Sheikah, implying Sheikah traditions are passed down through the Child Timeline and eventually to HW

“But Scatter!” You cry out, frustration setting in “What the hizzity heck does this have anything to do with Breath of the Wild?!”

*Leans in close to you and grabs you by the collar*

~This is the part where I blow your mind~

So now that we’ve established Hyrule Warriors most likely takes place during the Child Timeline, yeah? And I said earlier we’d get to the DLC?

Let’s talk about the DLC.

So we now know that Cia and Lana are capable of opening and closing rifts to other times, even other timelines. Let’s look at some of the DLC characters that are playable in HW as a result:

Marin(Link’s Awakening- Fallen Timeline)

Ravio and Yuga(A Link Between Worlds- Fallen Timeline)

Toon Link, Tetra, King Daphnes, Medli(Wind Waker- Adult Timeline)

Toon Zelda(Spirit Tracks- Adult Timeline)

Skull Kid, Tingle, Young Link(Majora’s Mask- Child Timeline)

These, combined with the SS+OoT+TP characters from the main game, and we have access to settings and characters from all three timelines. 

Now we could assume that after the events of Hyrule Warriors, the main characters never open a portal to another timeline again... but we could also assume the opposite. It could be entirely possible that the people of Hyrule Warriors regularly looked into these other timelines to learn from them. To study their past and alternate timelines really isn’t a farfetched idea when you have the power to do so. 

With these portals opening, it’s quite possible that yes, Zoras and Ritos began living in the Hyrule Warriors world, explaining the co-existing of both races by BotW. With the technology that Spirit Tracks provides, the people of Hyrule Warriors could have eventually learned to build their own vehicles and machines, eventually leading to the Guardians and Divine Beasts. The ancient robots of Skyward Sword could have also contributed to these, alongside possibly paving the way for Sheikah technology, such as the Sheikah Slate, to be developed. Twili technology could also contribute to this, as well as whatever the heck is going on with Ganon in the BotW2 trailer. 

With knowledge and access to other timelines, it makes perfect sense that the Child Timeline would face an immense industrial/technological boom in a very short time, leading to the Sheikah Towers, the Sheikah Slate, the Divine Beasts, the Pillars under the Castle, the Guardians, the Shrines, and more to be made for the battle 10,000 years before the events of Breath of the Wild. Sometime between then and the Great Calamity this technology was mostly lost(Zelda Wiki says this was due to fear over the power of such technology leading the Sheikah to hide their tech away, though I’m not sure where exactly in-game this info is revealed), paving the way for Breath of the Wild to occur.

There is no timeline convergence. Breath of the Wild takes place in a Child Timeline that obtained the ability to open rifts to other timelines.

Also one last little detail- this isn’t solid enough to be “evidence” but doesn’t hurt my theory either: Hyrule Warriors Link is the first Link to wear blue, meanwhile Breath of the Wild Link wears an entirely blue tunic

While this can’t be concrete evidence that the 2 are linked(HAH GET IT BECAUSE LI-), it could be possible that HW-Link started the trend of heroes wearing blue accessories. Again, a bit more of a stretch, but doesn’t hurt my theory either

So there you have it! I firmly believe that Hyrule Warriors and Breath of the Wild are both in the Child Timeline due to this evidence! And I’m so mad that of all games, Hyrule Warriors was the one to tie it all together XD

[lostinthewiind]

One Last Game

Joe Toye - Band of Brothers

Synopsis: when you were shot and sent to the hospital, Joe never got the chance to say goodbye. You’ve been gone for a month, but now you’re back, and neither one of you can hide your feelings anymore.

@bandofbrotherscurrahee wanted some Joe Toye, and I live to please! 

As the jeep rolled to a stop, you took a moment to take in the sight of the familiar and welcoming English countryside. You’d been in England for a while, but recovering in a hospital from a gunshot wound to the shoulder didn’t exactly provide you a lot of time to get out and get some fresh air.

The second you had stepped foot outside the hospital, you breathed easy for the first time since that bullet had pierced your skin. Finally, you were out of that damn bed, away from those incessant nurses, and done with doctors fussing over you. 

You just wanted to be back with the company, and now that they were in England as well, you could finally rejoin them. 

Turning to the driver, you flashed him a thankful smile before hopping out of the vehicle and starting off down the sidewalk. You had no idea where the men were, but you had a pretty good idea where you could find them. 

Stuffing your hands into your pockets, you rounded the corner and locked eyes on the brightly lit bar at the end of the street. Even from where you stood you could hear the laughter and mumbled chatter. The sound was like music to your ears. You had missed the men of Easy Company more than you had ever thought possible.

One man in particular crossed your mind on more than one occasion, and every time you lied awake at night, the eerie silence of the hospital making it impossible for you to sleep, you thought of him. 

With the warm glow of the bar illuminating the quickly darkening street, you pushed the door open and was immediately hit by the chaos that was a company of Paratroopers enjoying their first drinks in weeks. Your eyes scanned the room, looking for the familiar faces of your friends. Most every table was full, many with men whom you did not recognize; must have been replacements.

Then, you heard the booming voice of Buck Compton and your head snapped in the direction of the dart board where a few of the Toccoa men were having a round of darts. They were all too caught up in their game to notice you, so you began to push your way through the crowd of bodies.

Lining up, George Luz took his shot and threw his arms into the air in celebration when he managed to hit the bullseye. Luz had never been great at darts, so you knew it was all blind luck on the radioman’s behalf.

“Bet you two packs of smokes you couldn’t make that shot again if you tried.” you piped up from behind the group of men.

George, of course, was the first to turn around. “Y/N!” he exclaimed, pushing past Buck and wrapping his arms tight around your torso.

“Shoulder!” you warned as he squeezed a little too hard for the comfort of your still-healing wound. 

“Shit, sorry.” he jumped back, the excited grin still present on his face. “You’re back! How was your stay in hotel hospital?”

You rolled your eyes at the mention of the place that had been your own personal hell for the past weeks. “Ugh, don’t remind me.” you groaned. “It was awful. All I want to do is play some darts and get a drink…maybe two…maybe three.”

“Three drinks sounds about right.” Buck clapped you on the back, avoiding your injury. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone take a bullet so well. Not even a single tear.”

“I will take that as a personal achievement.” you laughed, your eyes peering through the rest of the crowd and settling on Joe Toye. “Joe.” you gave him a nod. “Good to see you again.”

Joe’s return nod was quick and sudden, almost as if he hadn’t been expecting you to speak to him at all. “Good to see you too.” he returned the sentiment. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Sore.” you moved your arm a little to prove that you could still move it. “But I’ll manage.”

The men watched intently as the two of you engaged in small talk. Every single person in that bar knew that Joe Toye had a deep infatuation with you. Everyone except you. 

You were the only one who knew you had a deep infatuation with Joe Toye. 

“I believe someone here is in desperate need of a drink.” Guarnere popped up out of nowhere and practically shoved the pint into your hands. “Good to see you again, short-stack.” he used the nickname he knew you hated. “Welcome back to war.”

A sly smirk spread onto your lips as you glanced around the bar. “If this is war, sign me up for life.”

“We won’t be here long.” Bill reminded you. “We never are. Enjoy it while you can.”

Taking a large gulp of your beer, you gave him a thumbs up. “I’m gonna get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible.”

“That’s the spirit!” Buck’s laugh was loud, filling the entire bar and causing a few head turns. 

Before long you were thrown into a game of darts, partnered up with Luz. Both of you were horrible, absolutely trash at the game, but that didn’t mean you two didn’t have a blast. 

By the end of the night, you did indeed reach that third beer, and as you finished off the remaining liquid in your glass, your head spun ever so slightly. You were most definitely tipsy, and after another thirty minutes to let the alcohol settle in, you were sure you would be full-on drunk. 

It had been way too long since you had been drunk last. You missed the feeling of having no cares in the world and just wanting to have fun.

As the night turned to the wee hours of the morning, people slowly began to file out of the bar, ready for a decent night’s sleep before whatever the next day had in store for them. 

You and your group, however, were still enthralled by your game of darts. Most of you were drunk, and most of you couldn’t throw worth a shit anymore, but still, you persisted. 

“Okay, okay!” you held your hands up, capturing the attention of the troopers around you. “One more game but we have to raise the stakes.” 

“And what would you suggest?” the replacement, Heffron, threw his arm lazily over your shoulder. He was just as sloshed as you were, if not more. 

You weren’t sure if it was the alcohol speaking — it most definitely was — but the idea that slipped past your mental filter and out of your mouth was a shocking one. “Me versus Joe. One on one. If Joe wins, I’ll give him a big fat kiss on the cheek. If I win, vice versa.”

George cackled at the rules, nearly tipping out of his chair as he leaned back. “Yes!” he nodded along wholeheartedly with the terms that in no way applied to him. “Either way, it’s gonna be fun to watch.”

Joe stood frozen, his mouth hung slightly open, unsure what to say. All eyes were on him, and before he knew it, he found himself agreeing. “Deal.” he tried his best to shrug it off and come across as indifferent. 

“Perfect.” you stood to your feet from your chair and pulled the darts from the previous game out of the cork. “You first.” you handed Joe the darts. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Joe swallowed hard as he positioned himself in front of the board and lined up his first shot.

With arms crossed, you watched on in amusement as he played one of the best rounds you had ever seen him play. However, his performance didn’t really matter to you one way or the other. You weren’t planning on winning.

After Joe threw his last dart, a proud smile on his face, you gave him a solo round of applause. “Very nice, but you better put on some chapstick, because you’re about to be puckering up boy.” you kept up the charade.

As previously stated, your dart abilities left much to be desired, but you were good enough to keep the game close enough to have everybody of the edge of their seat. You threw a decent game, and by the final shot, you could easily win it all or lose it all.

“Come on!” George cheered. “One more good shot and the victory is yours!”

Stepping up to the plate, you lifted your final dart and aimed up your shot. Then, at the last second, you turned your head and looked Joe directly in the eyes. Not breaking eye contact, you tossed the dart, the shot so wonky that it just barely caught the edge of the board altogether instead of sticking into the already hole-riddled wall.

“Whoops,” you stated dryly, purposefully tanking the game without even the slightest hint of subtlety.

Joe stared back at you dumbfounded. George let out another laugh; he was such a giggly drunk. 

“Time to pay up,” Buck announced.

“I couldn’t agree more.” you licked your lips before sauntering over to Joe. 

The confused man went to turn his head so you could have easy access to his cheek, but you captured his face in your hands and kept it still. Then, as if it was second nature, you pressed your lips to his. 

Joe’s hands snapped to your waist like he had done it a hundred times before and he pulled your body flush against his. At that moment, you weren’t in a half-full bar with your friends watching on. No, at that moment, it was just the two of you. 

The alcohol, mixed with the pure euphoria that came from kissing Joe Toye, made your knees weak and your head foggy. Your mouths worked so perfectly in sync with each other that, if you hadn’t known better, you would have sworn they had been made to kiss each other. 

Clearing his throat, Heffron shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Standing up, George placed a hand on Buck’s and Heffron’s shoulder. “Let’s give these kids some space, shall we?” he suggested. “I think I’m ready for a nice evening walk back to the sleeping quarters.”

Neither you or Joe noticed the three of them leave, but neither of you cared one way or the other. That kiss had been a long time coming, and now that you had your arms snaked around Joe’s neck and he had his hands on your waist, you never wanted to do anything else for the rest of your life. 

When your lips eventually parted for air, you giggled slightly, the overwhelming joy having no other way to escape. “Congratulations on winning,” you whispered even though the bar was practically empty by then. 

“Thank you for being such a gracious loser.” he retorted, his mouth moving to plant kisses on your jaw and neck. “You know, when you got taken to the hospital, I thought I wasn’t ever gonna see you again.”

“Mmm.” you hummed as his teeth nipped at your earlobe, sending chills all up and down your body. “I thought about you every day. I missed you the most.”

Joe smiled into the sensitive skin at the nape of your neck. “Did you think about me doing this?” he sucked at the soft flesh. 

You inhaled sharply. “No, but I wish I had.”

Then, as if he had suddenly remembered the two of you were still technically in public, he released you and grabbed your hand. “Come on.” he led you to the door. “Let’s find somewhere a little more private. I’m not done with my prize yet.”

[finca-arcoiris-sin-fin]

Pura Vida Adventures: A True Story About a Day in the Life

Many people here are true odd-balls. We assumed that we would stick out like two sore thumbs in this small, rural community --  that the people would think we were super weird with our grungy-unabashed hippie gayness -- but we were kind of wrong. People don’t judge us or find us weird because everybody is a rare creature in this community. They are mega hipsters (the Latin American version) without even knowing they’re cool. The most memorable and interesting person we’ve met yet appeared in our life about two weeks ago. He is an extraordinary coffee farmer and tinkerer from Northern Costa Rica named Manuel (pictured above, left). He had been referenced to us several times by our helpful neighbor, Don Juan (pictured above, right), as “the ariete man.” Arietes are amazing old-fashioned machines that use a series of hoses and tubing to redirect natural sources of water to wherever it is needed, often pumping it hundreds of meters up a mountain, all without using any electricity. They told us that he could help us become water self-sufficient, but they did not tell us what a cartoon character he is…

Last week, we went to visit Manuel’s farm, which is close to ours and we arrived to find that his driveway consists of miles of rocky road carved into the side of a mountain. Thankfully our newly-acquired vehicle is 4x4 and just high enough off the ground to handle this boulderous and uneven terrain.  As we bounced along in our Tracker, we tried not to acknowledge how utterly impossible it would be to turn back should the need arise...and just enjoy the beautiful scenery of La Amistad National Forest and Volcan Baru in the distance. Our grandpa-neighbor Juan was chillin’ in the backseat verbally processing the crazy ride we were on. 

When driving or riding in buses it’s always reassuring to have locals around because they are accustomed to the insanity of the road conditions. They are a thermostat for actual danger on the road.

When we pulled up to the main gate of Manuel’s 500 acre farm, we waited for a while, unsure if he was even aware that we were there. We took the time to check and make sure nothing broke off of the car on the journey, but within minutes he appeared on his moto to let us in. We could feel the buzz of energy and excitement immediately. Manuel was JAZZED to show us his farm. From those first moments we knew that this tour was going to be a way bigger thing than we had anticipated waking up that Sunday morning. He started by showing us his coffee drying area. The harsh midday sun was beaming down and glaring off of ten or more giant wooden-framed boxes covered in fabric and filled with drying coffee cherries. There he literally screamed from the mountaintop about his passion for growing coffee and using the four elements of nature to run his plantation -- earth, water, wind and sun. The intense energy radiating from the sun and Manuel’s spirit made for an abrasive but fascinating start to the experience. After that we drove through pathways lined with luscious vetiver to Manuel’s work shed to learn about the innovative technology he worked with. His shed was dark and cluttered with all kinds of machine components and other odds and ends. Even inside that small space, standing only inches away from each other, Manuel’s surprisingly high-pitched voice ranged from loud to louder as he explained in great detail the different types of arietes he has utilized to irrigate his entire property. He has three different pumps made from 50-year-old parts that he somehow acquired from Germany and England. 

We still have a lot of questions - probably always will...

After that, we took a lunch stop at his house, as is customary whenever a Tico family invites you to their farm. We were seated at a small booth table with a white tablecloth outside of a wonky-looking little cabin. Through the open windows we could see that the house was not much different inside than his eclectic work sheds. Outside there were various plants and succulents suspended from the awning in planters made from old, plastic soda bottles and jugs. Everything was adorably handcrafted  from reused and repurposed materials. There were also a few awkwardly quiet young men staring off into space on the porch who never spoke to us and were never introduced. Manuel’s wife promptly popped out of the house with fresh-squeezed lemonade and lunged down three hilariously oversized concrete steps at the front door to serve it to us. We looked at each other and giggled because at this point we felt like we were straight-up trippin’. Everything was so overwhelming and funny. Our hosts did not eat with us. While Manuel’s wife waited on us like a pro, he was busy showing us fancy framed photos of himself on huge horses and rattling off stories at 1000 words per minute.

 After lunch the tour resumed. Manuel guided us on a 300 meter descent into the jungle at the edge of the pasture. He told us to be careful as we climbed down the steep slope to the river where he basically said that the temperature would suddenly drop and that we could fall off the edge to our death at any moment. As we neared the bottom, the rhythmic sound of the pumps got louder and louder. He had built a series of concrete tanks and used various hoses and pipes to store and redirect the water from the stream into the ariete which would pump aka “shoot” the water hundreds of meters back up the mountain. As he showed us the first ariete, we realized that it functions like a heart. Using only the momentum and pressure that gravity lends, it continuously pumps water up from the ravine back up to the top of the property so that it can be distributed throughout the farm. Every time we thought we had seen everything, he would take us further in our descent. We wish we had pictures to show because there is not enough time to describe all the crazy mechanisms he had crafted down there. At one point we found ourselves scaling down a ledge on a narrow, vertical hand-made ladder of rebar with the river flowing below us. We nervously watched as our 80 year old friend, Juan followed us down the ladder without hesitation. Every step of the way, Manuel was telling us so many random stories in high-speed Spanish we could not keep up with what was going on. It was endearing at first, but he never stopped. Eventually it became stressful and we wondered if he would even have a voice the next day…

The final stop on the river was a breathtakingly beautiful jungle spot. There he showed us the last ariete (which supplied water to his house) and also a giant rock with an impossibly flat underside that he said was an ancient, overturned sacrificial table made by the indigenous people long ago. Considering that this area of Costa Rica has more indigenous people and artifacts than any other region, we believe him. 

He told us that he never goes to that area too late in the afternoon because one time he did, and a spirit appeared and violently shook all the trees as if an earthquake was happening yet no rocks were moving, making it clear that he was not welcomed there at that moment. At that point we thought surely the tour was over (it was definitely the climax), but about an hour later we found ourselves at the top of the mountain about to pass out from being talked at all day. We didn’t want to be rude, but we simply could not take any more talking--we HAD to get out. Manuel was not picking up on our body language either. As we got in our car we shook hands, expressed deep gratitude for his time and energy and made plans for him to come assess the natural water sources on our farm so that we could implement an ariete here also! A week later he showed up at our farm (of course with no warning) to check it out, and hopefully by next month we will be using all of our own water for our house and the farm!

This is just an extreme example of the type of crazy adventure we have to be prepared to roll with on almost any given day down here. It may not be what we had in mind for the day, it may be exhausting and overwhelming...but the payoff in knowledge, friendships and sweet perks is always more than worth it.

[youre-not-a-cat-youre-a-rat]

Title: “No Such Thing as Evil Love” (1/2)

(AO3)

Rating: E (for eventual make-up sex)

Words: 10,485

Summary:

Killian’s a witch. Which (ha!) means his life is complicated enough without his ex rolling back into town. Especially since his ex is a demon.

Emma figures Killian can never forgive her for their disastrous relationship. But with her former boss, the literal Source of All Evil, out to destroy him and his brother, she’s not about to stand by and let it happen when she can help.

Not when the man she loves is in danger.

A Charmed AU (it’s on Netflix, kids) for @cssns.

A/N:

Here I am horrendously late for my drop date. A huge, huge thanks to @cssns for still letting me post as part of their event. And thank you for organizing it too, you guys. This summer has really just been kicking me in the ass, and if it weren’t for this event I probably wouldn’t be writing at all. But with everything going on, it feels so satisfying to still have created something, as late and wonky as it turned out to be.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to @huffleporg for zher kick ass edit and zher endless patience with my procrastination bs. I do not deserve zher.

(Also, @saffronlesbian doesn’t go here but she was kind enough to beta for me anyway, so thank you hon!)

Killian’s demonic ex was on his television.

He had been enjoying a quiet night for once. No innocents to save, no drama with his brother’s forbidden love life.

There she stood, in the graveyard set of his favorite campy, throwback horror flick. It was too reminiscent of the last time he’d seen her, surrounded by fog and headstones. Except now, instead of the gray blazer and white button-down she’d sported as a DA, she was in head-to-toe black. Literally straight from Hell.

“Killian,” she greeted him, her voice low and urgent. Even through the speakers - even with everything she’d done - that voice sent a thrill through his body.

“Emma,” he responded. “What are you doing in my television?”

There was a pause where she blinked at him. “I, uh, learned it from the Demon of Illusion. Remember him?”

“Yes, I remember killing him,” Killian said. “But I meant, why. Why are you interrupting my night in with Kill it Before it Dies, Emma?”

There was a pause, and Killian could swear he saw some sort of tension leave her little, desaturated figure. Then she shrugged. “I like this movie.”

Somehow this put Killian even more on edge. Emma wasn’t one to beat around the bush. Lie with gusto, perhaps, but not chat.

“Do you?” he asked, playing along out of dread. “Or were you just pretending to like it when we saw it together because you knew -”

“About your massive crush on Billy Appleby,” she said, naming the film’s hero. “I always thought his girlfriend was hotter, if it’s honesty you want.”

“I want honesty about why the bloody hell you’re here.”

She seemed to steel herself for a moment, before she asked, “Are you okay?”

The question threw him. She was watching him with worry. He didn’t like it. When he’d imagined them meeting again - and he imagined it much more than he cared to admit - she was often smug and biting, or cool and indifferent. Just purely, black and white, evil. No hint that she felt anything for him at all. And he felt nothing for her right back.

“The Source is gunning for you,” she said. The Source of All Evil. Her former master that had charged her with seducing and destroying him, lest Killian forget.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “He must be gunning for you too.”

A cold smile stretched her lips. “Right. So if I’m hearing about his plots to kill you, it must mean he wants you bad.”

Killian felt a prickle of unease. “What have you heard?”

“Some lower level guys at the bodega near the cemetery were talking about warlocks or something? Knowledge-stealing warlocks?”

“Oh them.” Killian relaxed. “Aye, we’ve met. We dispatched them today, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Well, good. The demons at the bodega made it sound like it was a done deal or something.”

“It was. Except they were the ones who were finished.”

“I just...thought I would give you the heads up,” she said, somewhat lamely.

“Right,” Killian said. The awkwardness of the encounter was catching up with them. “Well, if that’s all...”

She let out a dry little snort at the dismissal before starting to turn away. She stopped with her back to him for a moment before turning back. “If you need anything…” she trailed off, looking pained.

“Excuse me?” Killian said, incredulous.

“I just…” she floundered again before pushing on, determinedly. “If you, your brother, whatever, if you need any help -”

“We don’t,” Killian snapped. “Not from you.”

He could see her guilt warring with her stubbornness, but finally her face shuttered, and her form dissolved into the soft, grey, static of the scenery, as if she’d never been there at all.

Killian let the movie play, lovely Billy Appleby and his plucky girlfriend hacking away at zombies in an Emma-free cemetery set, but he saw none of it. He sat there in his sweats, rubbing absently at the stump where his left arm ended, lost in memories of blonde hair and cautious green eyes.

It had never been easy, dating as a witch. Since that night a few years ago when Killian had sat in the attic reading his mother’s spellbook and found himself wishing that it wasn’t just some kitschy relic she’d found at a flea market and stowed away. Wishing that she’d left him a larger purpose than to wander the earth, a disappointment to his brother, to her memory.

The night he made a wish and it came true.

No, since then, it hadn’t been easy to carry on a grand romance when he was busy protecting innocent people from warlocks and demons and other things that go bump in the night.

But it hadn’t bothered him. He had his fun when he could and left the heartbreak to his brother. Liam promptly fell for the handy-woman who kept their mother’s unreasonably old house from from falling apart, just in time for her to turn out to be their supernatural caretaker sent by the heavens - where they kept a strict no fraternization policy, apparently.

As much as Killian had hated to see his brother unhappy, a small, spiteful part of himself had felt some satisfaction to not be the screw up of the family for once.

He shouldn’t have held his breath.

He remembered confessing this to Emma one night when she’d driven him home in her yellow bug (a ridiculous choice for a vehicle, in retrospect, but at the time he’d been enamored...at the time).

He hadn’t gotten her on a date yet, and he’d been stupidly over the moon to share space with her through the city traffic.

“I was a late bloomer,” he told her. Somehow, and to his delight, they’d landed on the topic of their romantic pasts.

“You?” she’d said, voice dripping with disbelief.

“Aye, me!” He lowered his chin to peer over at her cheekily. “All this takes time to perfect, you know.”

She’d laughed, surprising them both perhaps, that such a stupid line had worked. God, she had a lovely laugh.

It took her shooting him an expectant look for him to remember he’d been in the middle of a story. He’d been gazing at her like a dolt.

“Right. Well, I got to school and I was very happy to discover that suddenly people seemed to reciprocate my attraction to them. And I had a lot of good, harmless fun for a while.”

“Uh-oh.”

He hummed in response. “But then I went and fell for a woman who was married.”

She sucked in a breath.

“It gets better,” he said. “Her husband turned out to be one of my professors.”

She glanced at him, quickly, before she turned back to the road. But it was enough that he’d caught the surprise, that he’d caught the recognition. That he’d caught his breath, because the expression mirrored what he felt around her. She felt familiar to him.

“Shit,” she murmured, heartfelt and knowing.

“Aye,” he said, faintly. “So, naturally, he failed me. And there was a lot of dramatics and fights, and when they separated she broke it off with me too, saying she preferred to be on her own for a while, find herself. Which I can understand now, but as a wee, twenty-two year-old, I was very unreasonable about. So she left, and I dropped out.”

“You ran,” she said. Not passing judgement. Just with that same note of familiarity.

“Aye,” he confirmed, the memory of his bitter anger distant, dulled. “And now my brother is...in a similar situation. No one’s married or anything, but he could get in trouble if anyone found out he’s involved with this person. And…”

“And you’re enjoying not being the fuck up this time?” she guessed. Her smile was sad, but he found himself smiling in return.

“Something like that,” he said, and they sat for a moment in silence, as he wondered, a little nervously, at the rightness of the moment. Of her company. Of her.

Blissfully oblivious to the fact that he was still the bigger fuck up.

That he was falling for a demon.

Emma shimmered back into the mausoleum, the cold, silent stone a shock after the black and white fuzz of Killian’s horror movie.

She sighed as she sat down, folding her legs under her. Why the fuck did I do that? She’d spotted those lower level assholes on her usual twilight skulk to the grocery store. She’d doubled back to listen in on their conversation, just to make sure they weren’t there for her. One mention of the Charmed Ones and she was hightailing it to the manor, to see him. To see him alive, as if she could do anything if he wasn’t.

But he’d been there. A witch blessedly whole and living, and pissed. And as a bonus she got to issue him a completely useless warning.

Emma groaned, and gave into the impulse to sprawl out on the floor and wallow.

He’d looked good. Better. Well. Anything would look better to her than the expression of fury and betrayal he’d been wearing the last time they’d seen each other.

Shut up. She’d relived that night enough. There wasn’t much else to do since she’d spent the last few months sleeping a couple dozen yards away from where it happened. His expression was burned in her mind.

She should have run when they’d tasked her with killing him.

She thought back to their first meeting. It hadn’t been hard to catch his attention. She’d been gearing up to send him a few suggestive, challenging looks. Maybe lace some innuendo into the conversation. But he’d done all the work for her, breaking into a wide, crooked grin immediately. Repeating her name with sinful relish when she told it to him, earning a pained look from his brother.

It was probably the most passive way she’d ever made first contact with her target.

Her masters hadn’t been as confident.

“This will be difficult for you, Emmaline,” said the cloaked son of a bitch she’d reported to.

“Why should it?” she’d said, thrown. “It’s not like I’ve never pulled a seduction on a mission before.”

“A seduction, not a romance.”

Emma squinted at him. “They’re...the same thing?”

“You may know how to bluntly proposition the right type of floozy to gain access or information. But this is an entirely different animal. Humans prefer to show vulnerability when they’re expecting vulnerability in return.”

Vulnerability. Emma shifted. Yeah, she could see how that was going to be a problem.

“Your hardness,” her master continued, “feeds your strength, your ferocity. But this situation calls for a certain skill in manipulation that I fear you lack. This is a dance, not a blitzkreig.”

She hated having to take their criticism. Almost as much as she hated when they were right. Faking vulnerability came about as easily as the real thing for Emma.

Ironically, it seemed like Killian was better suited for her job. She couldn’t help admiring him when he’d seek her out to probe her for information on obviously supernatural cases. His questioning was never that subtle, but his breezy flirting served as a pretty damn effective distraction. If she weren’t - as a demonic pawn sent to kill him - completely aware of what he was doing, she might even walk away from their little interviews totally clueless.

He was kind of a pro. And he was flashily beautiful. But that wasn’t what got to her.

She’d asked him out. She thought he’d appreciate having the tables turned, her pursuing him instead of the other way around.

Appreciation wasn’t quite his reaction, though. There was a flash of something in his eyes, an eager, earnest thrill. He hadn’t expected her to make a move, and he was excited that she had.

Vulnerability.

It had felt weird. It had felt weird that it felt like anything at all. Emma had a century of this work under her belt, and when she snagged a target, one thing she didn’t do was feel. And she certainly didn’t feel...dread?

Was it because she could sense, even then, how fucking endearing he was? How important he was going to become?

He was more dangerous than her masters knew, more than they could understand. More than she could foresee.

So they’d gone on that date. And as planned, they’d hit it off. Even though Killian had to run off to deal with the lower-level spawn she’d sent to case the manor house.

Emma had felt a shock of disappointment when he left. She tried to ignore it.

It went on like that for a bit. Dinners. A movie. A really fun night at his brother’s bar. Killian had been on duty and she’d sat close and watched him show off, mixing multiple cocktails at once, tossing bottles, flirting with everyone.

Things always ended chastely when he had to leave to deal with a very vague problem. “Family emergency,” was his favorite excuse. It wasn’t even a lie, really, Emma marveled.

A few times she’d had to take care of a demon or warlock that got too close to him for comfort. She told herself it was demonic pride, her being territorial over her target. As if she’d ever felt anything like pride when it came to her work.

The first time they kissed was the same night they first had sex.

It had been...a lot. Too much.

She had wondered, if he kissed everyone this way, and if so, how he could survive it. He kissed her with no abandon, tilting up into her mouth. She could feel him pouring all of himself into her, handing it all over. And worst of all she could feel herself answering in kind; all that she was for all that he gave.

She couldn’t tell which one of them was leading and which was following, hopelessly. She couldn’t tell who the hell she was, what she was doing.

Too much. A little too raw, too naked, too dirty, too intimate. It had been very humanly imperfect, and very unnaturally good.

They shook, afterwards, clutching each other, and through the haze of her afterglow Emma had felt the dull, creeping, choking fear. That it would end. That he would end.

That was it, really. What she felt whenever another demon got too close.

It was what she felt when the Source sent Cruella.

“Together again, eh, partner?” the Demon of Rage had purred. “The Charmed ones won’t know what hit them.”

Emma’s jaw had tightened and she’d said nothing as she listened to Cruella explain the Source’s plan.

The plan had been to incite a feud between the brothers, forcing them to use their magic against each other which would sever their magical bond and strip them of their powers. Then Emma could pick them off when they were vulnerable.

The first part worked, if only temporarily. Emma didn’t follow through on the second.

And now she was sleeping in her father’s grave with the evil masses bearing down on her. She wasn’t even able to use her shimmer to teleport too much since she’d discovered they could track her with it. But it didn’t matter. That wasn’t what scared her.

She’d felt it rising up in that bodega. The horrible possibility that he was gone. Struck from the earth.

He’s fine. She’d seen it with her own damn eyes that he was fine. It had been worth all the embarrassment, all the guilt of facing him again.

But the fear didn’t abate as she yanked off her boots and crawled into the tent she’d set up in the corner of the mausoleum. Killian lived, but she knew a lot about the Source’s repertoire, and when she laid down and closed her eyes she couldn’t stop herself from picturing the thousands of ways he could die.

Killian decided to pretend it hadn’t happened. It was easy. He’d been steadfastly pretending Emma was dead since that fateful night several months ago, had told Liam and Belle so. There was no reason to drop the act now.

He could have easily dreamt it. Though when he did dream of Emma it was never quite as odd or uncomfortable.

Sometimes he’d dream of the last time they’d seen each other. Sometimes he’d imagine her crueler, cartoonish, laughing at him for failing to see her true nature. Sometimes he’d go with her when she shimmered away, sometimes he’d ask her to stay and she did.  Sometimes she really did die at her masters’s hands, shocked and alone when he couldn’t reach her in time to stop it.

Those might be the worst.

Sometimes he’d dream of her in his bed, rolling her eyes at some terrible joke of his, making him laugh with her own barbed pillow talk. Her nails biting into his shoulders as he thrust into her, she spoke his name in a low, urgent, whisper. Eyes bright with something like wonder, full with something like -

“Killian.”

He blinked to find Belle giving him an irritated look as she stirred the eggs she was making for them. This had become a routine for them, having a late breakfast while Liam went to check on the bar. That is, if there was no supernatural situation that required their attention.

Killian shook off his thoughts and tried to dazzle his sister-in-law with a smile. “I apologize, love. What do you need?”

“Would you get the door please?” Belle repeated, her expression half fond, half annoyed. Proof that his smile had done the trick even with his scattered thoughts.

He noticed finally, the hesitant rap at the door, repeated from a few minutes before, though he’d been too lost to absorb the sound at the time.

Probably Liam, he thought. Can literally be in two places at once, but can’t remember his bloody keys when he leaves the house.

His grin died when he opened the door.

It was Emma. Life-size, flesh and blood, full technicolor Emma - though she was still all clad in black. For a moment Killian was struck mute.

And then he found his anger again. “What are you doing here?”

She watched him, wary. “I thought about it...and, I want to help.”

Killian closed the door in her face.

Through the stained glass, he could see that her shadowed form wasn’t moving

“Killian,” Belle called, “who -”

He stepped out to the porch and closed the door behind him, hoping Belle would just leave him to deal with this without ever discovering what he was dealing with.

No such luck.

He’d barely fixed Emma with an accusatory look before the door swung open again to reveal his sister-in-law, wide-eyed.

“Emma?”

“Belle,” she answered, looking tired.

“You -” Belle struggled, “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“Good morning to you too.”

Belle balked at her.

“Look,” Emma said, shifting her gaze back to Killian. “Last night I heard you were dead. I’m glad you’re not, but I really think I could contribute to you staying not dead.”

“Goody for you,” he growled. “I’ve been just fine without you so far.”

“So far you haven’t been hit with the worst the Source can throw at you.”

He gave her a cold smile. “I thought that was you.”

She didn’t flinch. Her gaze was as steady as ever, as inscrutable. He remembered suddenly, the look she given him when they’d first met. He and Liam had been questioning her on one of her clients and naturally he’d thrown some sort of mindless, teasing comment at her. Her green eyes were just as harsh and unreadable as they were now - then she’d thrilled him like a gathering storm. She’d looked at him, and he’d been filled with a joyful recklessness.

He ignored the sharp pain of the memory, fought not to look away.

“You’re not wrong,” she said quietly, “but that just means I have a shot at matching whatever he throws at you.”

Her tone should have been as neutral as her expression, but Killian could hear something disturbingly like concern laced into her voice. It made him snarl. “What are you proposing? That you be my bodyguard? Love, I’d have to bloody trust you -”

“And you don’t. Got it,” she muttered.

“- in order for that to work. But even if I did, isn’t all of Hell out looking for you? Wouldn’t we just be inviting them to attack us even more than usual?”

“This is the last place they’d expect me to be,” she said, her voice quiet and imploring. “No fugitive demon’s going to hang around the scene of the fuck up that made them a fugitive in the first place.”

There was a rustling of leaves that warned her enough to duck as the potted plant that normally sat by the porch steps came flying at her head. The pot shattered as it hit the wall next to the door. Killian raised his hands to shield himself from the spray of dirt.

When he looked up again, another pot was flying towards her. He was moving before he could process it, time slowing as he stepped beside her, power rushing up to gather at his fingertips as his focus narrowed and pushed.

The pot froze in mid air, dirt and roots tipping over the clay rim.

Liam stopped just in front of the porch, a third plant hovering in the air beside his head. He glared at Emma for a few moments before turning to Killian - who felt his stomach sink. His brother’s expression was at peak disapproval.

“Why isn’t she dead?” Liam asked.

“Hi, Liam,” Emma said, lightly.

Liam ignored her, but to Killian’s surprise he lowered the plant-missle. “We don’t have time for this,” he said. “We have a situation.”

“What is it?” Killian asked.

Liam shot a pointed look at Emma as he joined them on the porch. Behind them Belle stepped out to bear hug the potted plant still trapped in mid-air in anticipation of its un-freezing.

“Leave it, love,” Liam murmured, stepping past Emma to take his wife’s hand and lead her into the house.

After an expectant look from his brother, Killian followed, leaving Emma alone with the suspended plant. She stepped away just in time for it to be released, clay shards and a cloud of dirt splattering onto the porch.

Young witch in trouble. Petty thieves hoping to exploit her power for their own gain. Distress call picked up by ouija which Killian had forgotten to take home the last time he’d brought it to the bar.

Business as usual. Just a normal day. Liam even tutted at him a bit about leaving the ouija at the bar despite the fact that they wouldn’t have caught the girl’s message if he hadn’t. However, Killian could sense that his brother was trying to be kind by giving him the lesser of two scoldings.

Liam filled them in on the details while Killian performed the scrying spell, letting the crystal swing over their worn paper map of the city until it landed, with harsh tap, on the auto shop. He’d been ready to ward Emma off before they left but she was gone when they stepped out onto the porch. It was uncomfortably quiet in the car as they drove to the girl’s location. Belle kept shooting him concerned looks over her shoulder.

“Maybe I should have stayed behind?” she suggested. “In case she came back?”

“She won’t,” Liam said. “If she has any sense.”

Belle looked thoughtful. “She didn’t seem like she was there to hurt us.”

“When we met, she didn’t seem like she was there to hurt us,” Killian said. “That’s sort of her specialty.”

“You think she would try the same trick twice?” Belle asked.

Killian didn’t answer. The real question was if he was stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice. He tried not to think about the stab of...whatever he’d felt when he realized she’d left. It definitely wasn’t disappointment.

They parked uphill from the auto shop. It seemed to be closed, the garage doors closed, dust accumulating on the windows. The midday summer sun bounced harshly off the white of the sign, the red lettering that spelled out Eddy’s Auto peeling away. An old van parked in the lot was the only sign that anyone was home.

Belle elected to be the distraction, faking a flat tire. This was usually her role as being both naturally and super-naturally angelic lent her an air of innocence. She would draw kidnappers attention while Killian and Liam ducked in through the back to find the girl.

It all went fairly smoothly. Liam broke the lock on the back door with no fuss, and there was no one in the musty stockroom except a very frightened little girl, gagged and tied to a chair.

“Lucy?” Killian asked her.

She nodded vigorously, her red-rimmed eyes wide.

He smiled and spoke gently to put her at ease. “We got your message, lass. We’re the rescue team.” He showed her his pocket knife. “I’m going to cut you out now, alright?”

She nodded again. Liam walked to the door that led out to the front room where they could hear Belle chirping about not knowing what a lug wrench was. Killian sawed through the strip of fabric that covered the poor girl’s mouth. He managed to hold in the grimace as he removed the second wad of cloth they had stuffed between her teeth. She sputtered and coughed before rasping, “Hurry, the other one went out but he’d said he’d be back.”

Killian dutifully started working on the zip-ties that bound her to the arms of the chair while Lucy continued to chatter in a frantic whisper. Apparently they’d been threatening to hurt her parents if she didn’t help them break into a bank.

“And how on earth were you supposed to do that?” Killian murmured. He managed to free her right hand and started on her left.

“I can make things that run on electricity go weird. If I concentrate enough, I can make them turn off.”

Killian let out a low whistle. “Impressive. You must be powerful.

That won him a shaky smile. She was a tough lass.

A swoop in his stomach, and the hair at the back of his neck rising were his only warning before the vision bloomed in his mind.

The back door slamming open, followed by another bang, this one the blast of a gunshot, a bullet tearing through his shoulder.

Killian blinked away the premonition. Lucy stared at him, probably at the pained expression he got whenever he was hit with a vision. He pressed a finger to his lips and strained his ears.

There. A muttered curse from the back door.

“Liam!” he shouted before tackling Lucy to the floor, chair and all. The door flung open, the shot rang out. Killian heard shouts from the front room. He chanced poking his head up to see Liam sending the shooter crashing into the wall, before turning and running into the front office.

Killian looked back at the shooter where he’d collapsed. Unconscious.

He turned back to Lucy and pressed the knife into her free hand. “Stay down,” he told her. I’ll be right back.”

He threw open the door to the front office to find Liam and Belle standing over the body of a second kidnapper.

“The other one ran out,” Belle said.

“Stay with the girl,” Killian told her before following his brother out the door.

The rush was unnecessary.

Just as the third man was reaching the end of the lot, a figure stepped around the open gate.

Killian heard the man yell, something that could have been get the fuck out of my way, when the lightning hit. The man snapped to a halt, spine stiffening, head thrown back. He shuddered for a moment and then crumpled.

Emma stood over him, looking sheepish as they approached, her hand still outstretched. Killian could swear her fingers smoked.

“Did I read that right?” she asked. “He’s the bad guy, isn’t he?”

She stuck around even after the police arrived, though she kept her distance. Killian supposed this was to avoid running into anyone who might recognize her from her days working in the DA’s office.

He could see her sulking around the same spot she’d jumped out of to taze their kidnapper. He took a minute to extricate himself from Lucy’s very relieved parents - a nice young couple who cooed to her in a mix of English and Spanish in between effusive expressions of thanks directed at Killian, Belle, and Liam - and snuck away to join her.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked as he sidled up next to her, not meeting her gaze.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Thought I’d live tweet the arrest.”

That made him look at her, frowning.

She gave him a helpless shrug. “Sorry,” she waffled, “I don’t know what to…”

He had a sudden flash of her at the DA’s office on the day they’d met, hair bright where it fell over her red blazer. Their prying into one of her cases had somehow branched off into Liam’s harping on him about trying a new fat-free, frozen yogurt monstrosity they sold at the place around the corner from the bar.

“I just want you to put something new in your mouth,” Liam had been saying, when Killian heard a muttered, “That’s what she said,” from the poker faced defense attorney.

It was the joke that made him smile now. Not her.

He scratched his ear as he pursed his lips, schooling his features back into something more composed. “We didn’t need your interference back there,” he said.

She nodded, face shuttering, “I know.”

“But thank you.”

Her eyes shot back up to pierce him, wide with surprise. Killian cursed inwardly at the sudden fierce urge to touch her in some soft way, her face, her hand. She wasn’t his to comfort. She wasn't one to need comfort.

He stepped closer, telling himself it was to intimidate her, even as her chin tilted up to meet his challenge, keep his gaze. Even as the scent of her washed over him, reminding him of an endless night in her moonlit apartment, the striped shadows of the blinds across her skin, the rasp of her voice, the way she kissed him - as if she were taking him into her soul.

Somehow he managed to ask, “What were you doing at the house today Emma?”

Her jaw tightened, and he could see her steel herself, as open and as clear to him as she was that night in her apartment weeks ago.

“I was worried about you,” she admitted, her voice low and thick.

“I can take care of myself,” he told her.

Her eyes squeezed shut. “I know,” she said, before opening her eyes to look at him again. “But I still need you to know that I’m here. And I can help.” She was full of that familiar furious intensity. He still found it beautiful. “Even you don’t need me, even if you don’t trust me, I’m here. You can use me.”

He dipped his head, helpless against the wave of want that rolled over him - you know better than to want to trust her, you bloody fool.

“Alright,” he said. “You’re here.”

Emma stared at her own hand on the knocker of the manor house. She’d knocked. It was too late to change her mind and make a break for it. She definitely wasn’t going to ding-dong ditch her ex-boyfriend. She was an adult.

But maybe she could just leave him a note?

She patted the pockets of her jeans with more force than necessary, as if she could manifest a pen and a post-it pad through sheer will. It was hotter than the last time she’d darkened Killian’s doorstep, so she’d come with nothing but the black tank on her back.

Not that she ever carried a purse, anyway. What was the point when she could teleport whenever she needed something?

Or used to teleport. She didn’t have the same freedom of movement as a fugitive, when the demons chasing her for a bounty could sniff out her shimmer if she wasn’t careful.

So she was stuck, tethered to the aggressively cheerful welcome mat (was the exclamation point really necessary?), sticky with sweat, torturing herself with the memory of Killian’s face as he’d repeated, You’re here.

Good. Fine. That’s all she wanted. For him to know she was an asset. That’s all. She didn’t expect him to trust her. She sure as hell didn’t expect him to forgive her.

Ugh. This was not encouraging her to stay.

But as she turned to leave, she heard the door creek open behind her. She turned to find a confused little brunette craning her head around the cracked open door.

The whitelighter.

“Hey!” Emma said, wincing at her forced cheeriness. She coughed and tried again. “Hi. I, uh, have a case. Maybe. Or it might be nothing, I don’t know. But, you know, I thought I’d just tell you in case it is...something.” She took a breath. “Is that what you call them? Cases?”

The whitelighter was peering at her, consideringly.

Emma shifted nervously. “Um. Is Killian home?” she asked, like a god forsaken teenager.

“He’s at the bar,” said Belle. After another awkward moment of staring, she stepped back and opened the door wider. “You can wait for him, if you like.” With a polite smile she turned and walked back into the house.

Emma blinked. After a moment or two she stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

She found Belle in the kitchen, barefoot, stooped over a merrily boiling pot, humming a random melody as she stirred.

Emma felt her eye twitch at the domesticity of it all.

She’d been surprised when Killian had first introduced Belle, the whitelighter’s heavenly pixie dust splattering onto the sleeve of Emma’s jacket as they shook hands. It hadn’t been hard to piece together that she must be Liam’s ill-advised romantic interest. A guardian angel dating their charge. She couldn’t imagine the whitelighter Elders were happy about it. About as happy as the Source would be if one of his demons fell for a witch, she remembered thinking, bitterly.

Belle glanced up and flashed her that polite smile again. Emma squinted at her, trying to detect any righteous anger, but Belle only waved at one of the stools at the counter. “He shouldn’t be long,” she said. “What’s this about a case?”

Emma climbed onto a stool, feeling too tall, too big, taking up too much space in the bright, cheerful kitchen. Quickly, she told Belle about the women in the cemetery. They hadn’t gone near her father’s tomb, thankfully, but Emma had spotted them when she was coming back from a diner around the block.

The’d all been wearing black, party store, cloaks, but Emma could sense their magic was real.

“It was a summoning spell,” she told Belle. “Definitely a demon summoning spell.”

Belle had stopped stirring and was staring at her with a strange look on her face, her hair curling in the steam.

“Are you living in the cemetery?” she asked.

Emma blinked. “Um, yeah. In my dad’s mausoleum. That’s where I took Killian after…” After I showed my big, bad, demon face to everybody and everything went to shit.

“Oh,” Belle said. There was an awkward pause. “I didn’t know it was your fathers grave.”

Emma nodded.

“And you’re sleeping there?”

She nodded again, and watched as Belle’s face puckered into a look of concern.

Emma shifted on the stool. “I’m not sleeping on the floor or anything. I’ve got a tent.”

“A tent?” she balked.

“It’s a good tent,” Emma said, defensively.

“And you’re comfortable?” She squeaked. “Sleeping? In the cemetery? In a tent?”

“Sure I’m comfortable.” Emma frowned at her. “I’m not afraid if that’s what you mean. I’m a demon, Belle. I’m the scary thing in the cemetery.”

“Right,” she said, not sounding convinced. She began to stir the pot again absent-mindedly. “Except now you say these women have summoned another demon?”

Emma relaxed slightly. “Definitely. I didn’t get a look at who it was before they disappeared, but they reeked of demonic energy. I followed the women to one of those retirement communities nearby.”

“You followed them?” Belle repeated.

Emma bristled. “They’d just summoned a demon.”

To her surprise, Belle actually looked chagrined. “Right,” she said. She glanced down into the pot and turned off the stove. She turned and opened a cabinet to pull out a strainer.

“Right,” Emma echoed, feeling awkward again. Had she been dismissed? She started to stand “So, that’s it. If you could just let Killian know…”

Belle looked around at her. “You’re going?”

Emma paused, half-way out of the stool. “Uh,” she said.

“I told you,” she said as she set the strainer in the sink and took the pot off of the stove, “Killian shouldn’t be long.”

Emma continued to hover. “Ok. But that’s everything I know, you could just tell him yourself.”

Belle stopped, still brandishing the pot of boiling water, and gave her an assessing look. “Are you avoiding him?” she asked.

“No,” Emma said. “I mean, it’s not like we run into each other often. There’s nothing to avoid.”

“Well,” Belle turned again and drained the pot into the strainer. “I think he’d like to see you.”

Emma blinked. “What?”

“He’d like to hear about this demon business from you, I think,” she said.

Emma stared at her. Was she hallucinating? “He would?”

“Sure,” Belle said, absently. She was frowning down at the strained pasta. “I never know what to do for sauce,” she muttered.

“Aren’t you supposed to be giving me the third degree?” Emma said. “Asking about my intentions or something?”

Belle’s gaze shot up to hers. “What are your intentions?” she asked.

Emma tensed. Alright. Well, there was the righteousness. “I don’t have any,” she said. “Or, I guess, if I could do anything to keep him safe -” she stopped. “I just want to help,” she finished, tiredly.

Belle hummed. “Well. I do think you care about him at least.”

Emma felt a jolt of something, a hot, painful sort of longing. To her horror she felt her eyes sting with tears. She looked down at the countertop, studying the grain of the wood.

After a moment she asked, “You’re making pasta?”

Belle groaned. “It’s always pasta. I can take apart this whole stove and put it back together, no problem. But all I know how to make on it is eggs and pasta. But as great as Liam and Killian are at it, I feel guilty making them cook all the time.”

Emma snorted and stood. “Do you have any tomato paste?”

Forty-five minutes later, Killian walked in to find them laughing over a pot of sauce that was a lost cause.

“What the hell,” he said.

“Oh, hello, Killian!” was how Belle greeted him.

“Hello,” he said, watching Emma warily as he approached them.

Ignoring the tension, Belle began adding the sauce to the pasta. “Emma says some women from a retirement community have summoned a demon.”

“She does, does she?” Killian said.

“Can we skip the part where you roast me and just get to the investigating?” Emma said. She raised her eyebrows. “You’ll get rid of me faster that way.”

He nodded, yielding. She might have imagined the old playful light in his eyes. “Retirement community?” he asked.

“It’s called the Atrium,” she said.

“You two can go on ahead,” Belle said. “I’ll call Liam and we can meet you there.”

Both Emma and Killian stared at her. But Belle just started searching the cabinets for a container for her terrible pasta, as if she hadn’t just made a ludicrous suggestion.

Killian cleared his throat and gestured to the door. “After you.”

Emma glanced over her shoulder as they left, and found the whitelighter watching them with an inscrutable expression.

The car ride was fairly quiet after Emma told him what she’d seen in the cemetery.

When they got to the security gate, Killian made up some story about joining his aunt at a party for her friend.

“And I’m sorry you have to look at my awful photo on that, by the way,” Killian said as he handed over his driver’s license. He flashed the guard a lopsided grin.

Right on cue the guard blinked and laughed, flustered. “I wish my driver’s license photo was good.”

“Come on, don’t lie,” Killian said, his eyes raking the guard up and down. “And I can’t imagine someone like you being unphotogenic.”

The guard laughed again, thoroughly charmed. Emma held in her snort.

“Oh,” Killian said. “And I know this is a bit unorthodox, but I cannot remember the name of my aunt’s friend. If I told you what she looked like, would you be able to tell me?”

Thirty seconds later they were being waived through with their quarry’s address and the guard’s phone number.

“Jeez,” Emma said. “Is that some kind of third power you have?”

“Nope,” Killian leered. “Just the magic of good, old-fashioned, human charm.”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “Don’t I know it.”

She watched as Killian’s smile slowly dropped off his face.

Shit.

They bookended their drive in another awkward silence.

She beat him to the door, figuring since he’d gotten them through security, she should be the one to pick the lock.

The house was pretty gorgeously decorated for all it’s boring suburban architecture.

“Is that a bloody harpsichord?” Killian said as they walked into the living room.

Emma walked over to the rickety old instrument. The paint was peeling and its white keys were stained yellow.

She plucked a few notes of a Beatles song.

“You play?” Killian asked.

“My dad had a piano,” she said. “I didn’t practice as much as I should have.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t die in a car accident then?” The way she’d told him.

“No,” she said. She reached for the low keys and stumbled through another riff. After a moment Killian recognized it as Barry White. She looked up at him, smirking as she clicked out a drum beat with her tongue.

Killian felt a tug somewhere in his chest. But he just rolled his eyes and turned back to the house. It was full of antiques, well kept ones. Furniture, art.

He walked to the mantle and looked at the photos. There were several faded ones of a young woman with various important-looking people standing next to even more antiques. From the clothes Killian guessed the photos were taken in the 70s. There were also many of the same woman in full Studio 54 regalia, laughing over glasses of wine and champagne with other similarly glamorous people.

“It doesn’t look like she has any pictures of family,” he said.

Emma joined him in front of the mantle piece and hummed in agreement.

Suddenly, they heard a crash from another room.

They ran towards the noise and found a woman staggering in through the kitchen door, her auburn hair mussed, her eyes wild as she looked up to find a pair of strangers in the house.

It was the woman from the pictures. As in, she looked exactly like the woman from the pictures, transported through time.

She clutched her shoulder with one hand and with the other scrambled to grab a knife from the block on the counter. She pointed it at them.

Killian held up his hands and tried to speak soothingly. “It’s alright, we’re here to help. Gayle Hartman is it?” The woman nodded, eyes bouncing between him and Emma.

“It’s alright,” Killian repeated, keeping his voice soft. “I’m a witch. My -” he glanced at Emma, “friend here said she saw you and a few others summoning a demon in the cemetery not far from here last night. By the looks of it, I’m going to guess it was a demon of...beauty? Youth?”

“Vanity,” the woman said.

Emma hummed. “Yeah, that fits the brand better.”

“Sound familiar?” Killian asked her.

“Sure,” Emma said. “His name’s Cryto. But last I heard some witches had stripped him of his body.”

“That’s why we summoned him in the cemetery,” she said.

Emma and Killian shared a grimace.

“So,” Emma said, “You made him a new franken-vessel and he made you young again?”

Killian took a slow step towards her. “Can I see your shoulder?” he asked.

Gayle seemed to deflate, looking defeated. She dropped the hand with the knife to her side. “It’s no use, you can’t fix it.” She took her hand away to reveal, through a tear in her blouse, grey, dry, cracked skin, as if she were made of clay. “He wanted me to keep finding him people to de-age in exchange for their souls. I couldn’t keep doing it, they don’t understand the trade they’re making.”

“And you do?” Killian prompted.

Gayle’s face grew tense. “I got sick. A tumor. And I have money for treatment, but I couldn’t stand the idea of being reduced to being a pathetic invalid in a hospital. I used to live. I used to be beautiful, I mean look at me! I had so many friends, lovers.”

“Did you?” Emma said. “None of those friends wanted to stick around long enough so that you could lean on them now? They weren’t your friends then.”

Killian shot her a glare. Now wasn’t the time to be lecturing her. Emma managed to look chagrined.

He turned back to Gayle and softened his voice. “What about the friends you summoned this demon with, love?”

She let out an unsteady gasp and began to cry. “He killed Rosemary. Turned her to dust. Said it was insurance. It takes three witches to summon him, three to banish him.”

Killian took her hand. “Then you can help us banish him.”

Gayle shook her head and waived at her shoulder. “I got away before he could finish the job, but I won’t last long with this.”

He smiled. “Oh that’s nothing, I know someone in the business of miracles.” He looked up and shouted, “Belle!”

Suddenly the kitchen was filled with blinding, otherworldy, dancing lights. They converged to form two figures that turned into Belle and Liam when the lights faded. Emma blinked hard to get rid of the spots in her vision. Fucking whitelighters.

Emma and Liam shared a dirty look as a greeting while Belle ran to Gayle. Another bright flash of light and the wound was smooth, human skin again.

Emma took the spot at Gayle’s side as Killian and Liam began to plot. “Hey,” she whispered to her. “I know you were doing what you thought you had to do. But take it from me, even if you’re drop-dead gorgeous, a long life isn’t any less lonely when you have no one to love, or love you.”

Gayle blinked at her through watery eyes, no response.

Emma bit her lip. “Maybe you and your other witch friend could take a painting class? Or maybe, like, a trip to Amsterdam or something? A river cruise?”

Gayle let out a hiccuppy sort of snort. “I haven’t been to Amsterdam in years.”

Emma smiled. “Look, no one says you can’t enjoy yourself just because you’re sick. You definitely seem like you’ve got the money to afford it. And stop trying to get back to the good old days. I doubt they were as good as you remember. What you should be looking for is a friend. Not a bunch of admirers. A friend. Someone to care about.” She stopped, realizing she had spoken this last part into a silent kitchen. She looked up to see Liam, Killian, and Belle staring at her.

“Sorry,” Emma said. “Did we come up with a plan already? I missed it.”

“We’re going to need some more information from Ms. Hartman first,” Liam growled. “If you’re finished, that is.”

Emma rolled her eyes and stood. “Yeah, yeah. All yours.”

She wasn’t sure what had made her lecture the woman anyway. Summoning a vanity demon just seemed like an overly complicated solution for a simple problem to her.

Maybe it was the woman’s loneliness that hit close to home. Sleeping in her father’s tomb was dredging up some Emma’s more depressing memories. She found herself missing her parents more. Missing Killian.

Not helpful, she thought, forcing herself to look at the man in question as he and his brother plotted out how they were going to banish Gayle’s demon.

They dispatched the demon Cryto fairly easily with Gayle’s help. She returned to her former physical state once they’d done the deed, but she didn’t seem too distressed by it. Maybe the whole ordeal had given her a new perspective on her situation.

Maybe Emma’s talk had helped.

He glanced over at her, back in the passenger seat of his car. Liam and Belle had orbed back to the house, and he’d offered to drive her back to the cemetery, since it wasn’t far.

She was lost in thought, her brows furrowed, her shoulders tense.

“Is this going to be a regular occurrence?” he found himself blurting.

She jerked up to look at him, surprised. Then she shrugged. “I saw something that I thought you should know about. Do you not want me to tell you next time?”

He sighed. “I am glad you told us.”

She straightened, annoyed. “Look, I told you I want to help -”

“You’re still staying at the mausoleum,” he interrupted. What are you doing?

She looked at him confused. “Yeah.”

Killian hesitated a moment before making what was probably a vastly stupid decision.

“Maybe you should stay with us,” he said.

She stared at him. “What.”

He scratched his ear, waffling. “Well, it’s like you said. No one who’s hunting you would think to look at our house.”

“No,” she said. “But. I did try to kill you. And your brother. He probably wouldn’t be crazy about me living under the same roof as him and his new wife. And you.”

Killian exhaled. “No. He wouldn’t.”

They sat in silence for a moment as Killian pulled up to stop in front of the cemetery gates. The sun was setting already. On the other side of the wrought iron, the tombstones seemed to lengthen with the shadows, the whole place darkening, blending into one great pit devoid of light. A vacuum.

He heard Emma shift and turned back to watch her suck in a breath. “Ok. I’m gonna chalk that up to momentary insanity.” She laughed, nervous. “You shouldn’t worry about me, Killian.”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

It came out harsher than he meant it to, and she flinched.

He hated it.

He tried to soften his tone. “You shouldn’t worry about me either.”

She let out another awkward chuckle. “Right. Well. Just take care.” She stepped out of the car. “And I’ll see you whenever, I guess.”

She closed the door and Killian watched as she passed through the gates, the shadows swallowing her.

Liam carefully placed his fork down next to his bowl of the lukewarm pasta they were having for dinner. “You what?” he asked.

“I think Emma should stay with us,” Killian repeated.

“I agree,” Belle said.

“You do?” Liam squawked.

“Look,” Killian said. “She has no where else, she has no one else.”

“And why should we bloody care, Killian?”

“Because I don’t want her dead!” he said. “I know she lied to me, I know we’d be stupid to trust her, but I don’t want her to die! And if she stays out there, alone, she could be killed.”

“So could we, if she stayed here,” Liam reminded him.

“With the four of us altogether?” Killian asked. “I think you’re underestimating us. And that’s if anyone thinks to look for a demon in a witch’s house.”

“Well I think you’re overestimating us,” his brother said. “And why are we even debating this? She tried. To kill us.”

“Yes,” Belle chimed in. “But she also technically saved our lives.”

Liam’s head whipped around to so he could stare at his wife, gobsmacked. “You believe her?”

“I spent some time with her today and I can’t forgive her for what she did to Killian,” she paused. “And it’s not my place to anyway. But I don’t think she means us any harm.”

Liam shook his head as if to buck off that statement. Then he rounded back on his brother. “When she showed up here alive after you told us you’d killed her, I didn’t say anything, because I’d always had my doubts. Because I knew you cared about her and killing her was a horrible thing to expect from you. So I was glad! But letting her move in?” He let out a disgusted scoff. “Do you still love her?”

“No,” Killian snarled. "But I can't let her die."

Liam stared at him, searched him.

“Brother,” Killian spoke low, beseeching. “Please.”

Liam glared. “For you,” he said. “I’ll do this for you. But if she does anything the slightest bit suspicious -”

“Liam,” Belle snapped. She and her husband shared a silent look.

Liam sighed. “Well, I’m not happy about it. She can stay, but I’m not happy about it.”

Killian stood outside David Nolan’s tomb.

It was grand. White stone pillars rising up to carry the domed roof. Quite a resting place for just one man.

Killian sensed the memory rising up to claim him again. This time he didn’t fight it.

He remembered the demon appearing in the sun room of the manor house. Paper white skin with black markings, black eyes, teeth a row of sharp little points as she snarled, poised to strike with a wicked looking dagger in her hand.

He’d tried to freeze her but she’d only slowed, pushing through the spell.

His brother and Belle had run into the room at the commotion, and Liam had thrown the demon back just as she reached full speed again.

Then the second one had appeared.

Dark red skin, black and white hair, cackling with a horrible high pitched screech. “Up, Emmaline. Finish your work.”

Liam raised a hand to knock her off of her feet, but the first demon shot back up and lobbed a handful of lightning at him. Liam jerked to the side to avoid the blast.

Killian dove for his own dagger, loaded with curses and enchantments. They’d prepared for her, for the black-eyed, white-skinned terror they’d found in their mother’s Book of Shadows, for the demon they’d been hearing about for weeks from the lesser warlocks and assassins they’d vanquished. Emmaline will get you. No one survives when the Source sends Emmaline.

Killian’s hand had just closed around the hilt when the red one’s claws sunk into his shoulders. He was yanked backwards, an arm snaking around his neck to lock him into place. He choked and his vision swam as the white one started for them, low growl building into a savage roar. He fought to keep conscious as he thrust the dagger out.

There was an awful, dull squelch as the blade pierced flesh.

The pressure around his throat loosened and there was a thud and a poof as the red demon disintegrated. Vanquished.

She’d stabbed her.

The white demon let out a soft, strangled, exhale. Killian felt the breath on his face, close as she was. She smells familiar, was the wild thought that entered his mind. Like burned incense.

In her low, otherworldly voice she rasped, “Killian.”

Her hand went down to the dagger that stuck out of her stomach, and Killian could see her skin darkening, her eyes lightening, hair appearing, long and golden.

“No, no, no, no,” Killian whispered.

He watched Emma - Emma - collapse. And then he was crouched over her. He didn’t remember moving, couldn’t feel the tiled floor of the sun room under his boots, couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t think. Emma, Emma, Emma. She was bleeding, an ugly brown stain blooming over her blouse. She wasn’t moving, her head lolled as he tried to drag her up. He could barely sense the blur of Belle at the corner of his gaze, distantly recognized the muffled buzz in his ear as her voice. Everything felt dulled, like a dream. Was this a dream?

He tore the fabric of her blouse around the dagger to look at the wound. It was grotesque. Torn skin and mangled flesh, singed with magic.

The words choked out of him before the thought was fully formed in his head. “C-can you?” He looked at Belle.

Her eyes were huge and despairing. “Oh, Killian,” she whispered, over a roar that sounded like his brother.

“Please - would you - I have to,” his voice was a hollow rasp that grew stronger with his panic, “I have to see her, I have to - you have to - I have to see her.”

He felt her touch his shoulder, gently. “Killian -”

“I can’t do anything!” The shout ripped out of him. “I can’t do anything until you heal her.”

She jumped at the change in volume, but she must have read the frenzied determination in his eyes, because, hesitantly, she pulled the dagger away and placed her hand over the wound.

As the glow rose from between her fingers, Emma jerked, eyes snapping open as she hissed. The glow faded and Belle snatched her hand away.

There was a beat as they all looked at the ugly, puckered scar where her wound used to be. And then Emma snaked her arms around him and the house, Belle, and his brother faded away. The tile changed into soft, damp, grass. The house lights faded into moonlight cutting through a fog, bouncing off marble headstones.

It made Emma’s hair look a shade lighter.

Killian snapped back and her arms fell away instantly as he scrambled away from her on the grass.

She raised her hands as if to placate him. Her hair rumpled from the scuffle, her eyes red with exhaustion. “I won’t hurt you,” she rasped.

“You’re Emmaline,” he said. “You were sent to kill us.”

“Yes,” she said.

Killian didn’t know what he was expecting. Shame? Villainous smugness? She just looked her usual impenetrable self, if a little - a lot - worse for wear.

But then she said, “Please,” and Killian caught the tremor in her voice.

“Why should I believe you? You lied to me.”

“I did, but I didn’t lie when...I really do...I care about you Killian, I - ” her voice broke, her eyes were bright. She looked afraid. And it scared Killian because he realized he’d never seen her look so vulnerable before.

“Tell me what happened,” Killian said. “Tell me what the hell this all was. Fucking explain yourself.”

She looked around, frantic, scrambling to her feet. “Come on,” she said, gesturing, and Killian noticed the tomb for the first time, ghostly white in the fog. “I’ll tell you, we just can’t be in the open, come on.”

He followed her - too distracted by shock, and blooming despair to question whether he was being led into a trap - and listened as she relayed the whole sorry tale. How she’d been an assassin for years, rising through the ranks to become the Source’s favorite. How her mission had been different this time, how she was supposed to get close to them, find out how to make them weak, so that she could destroy them when others couldn’t.

Soon they heard faint shouts from outside in the cemetery. Liam. He’d found them.

Emma looked at him. “That’s it, pretty much. I was taking too long and they sent Cruella to keep me on track.”

“Is this on track?” Killian asked.

“No,” she said. “Which means the Source will come at me full force, soon enough.”

“What will you do?” Fuck, but the question was full of fear. He was reeling, but he couldn’t bear the thought of her in danger.

“I’ll run,” she said, simply. Her voice was hollow, her eyes bleak as she looked up at him. “I guess it would be crazy to ask you to come with me, huh?”

He stared at her, the anger and fear and hurt rolling inside of him. “Yes. It would be crazy.”

She nodded, and started to step away. He reached out to stop her with his prosthetic.

“Wait.” He tugged on her blouse, on the torn fabric stained with her blood. “Help me,” he muttered, and she reached to help him rip away the bloody scrap.

He tossed the scrap a few yards away from them and pulled out the vial of the vanquishing potion that he and Liam had taken to carrying around on them at all times. He pulled Emma further away from the scrap of her blouse before tossing the vial. The glass broke, and burst of flame rose up, the magic burning away her blood.

“I’ll tell Liam you’re dead,” he said. “Maybe it’ll get back to the Source, somehow.”

“It won’t work forever,” she said.

He looked down into her pale, grim face. “But it’ll give you a head start.”

She nodded. “You don’t have to help me.”

He kissed her. A last kiss. Full of everything he didn’t have time to express, all the feeling that poured out of him whenever she was near.

He broke it off. “I won’t after this,” he swore, and pushed her away.

Her eyes were shuttered and her cheeks were wet with tears as she looked at him.

“Bye, Killian,” she said, and faded away.

He found her wrestling with a mess of fabric that he guessed was supposed to be a tent.

At the sound of his entrance, she whipped around, hand crackling with electricity, poised to strike.

“It’s me,” he said, hands raised.

“Oh,” she said. “Uh. Sorry,” she gestured to the tent. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

Killian looked at the tent. Licked his lips. “Pack your things,” he said.

She blinked. “What?”

He shifted his weight, strangely nervous. “Pack your things,” he repeated, “so I can take you to the house.”

She looked at him, bewildered. Then she raised a brow. “Do I get a say in this?”

He relaxed. “Yes, love, of course you do.” He stopped. The endearment had slipped through. A habit.

Her strickened expression told him she’d noticed.

He cleared his throat, eager to get this part over with. “Well, Swan, what do you say?”

She stared at him for a moment, inscrutable again.

“I say, thank you.”

[drrubberfunk]

Earlier in the year I was asked to contribute to the excellent ‘Dusk Dubs’ mixtape series, and jumped at the chance. They have a nice format of asking guests to provide music that has a special place in their memories and in their souls - ‘...music that moves them, that invokes images of sunrises, sunsets, good times and good people’. 

I thought it’d be a nice way to compliment the other ‘My Life At 45′ themed mixes that I’ve done this year, with a selection of music you’d be likely to hear playing at my house over the last 30+ years, with tracks featured in full, mixed end to end, and a little story to go with each track. 

Here’s the full tracklisting, and photos of some of my well-loved vinyl that the tracks were recorded from - hope you enjoy this laid-back late summer stroll through my record collection, and My Life At 45!

1) Peddlers - ‘Whole Lot Of Sunlight’, from the 1970 Philips LP ‘Three For All’.

I picked this up in Avid Records in Oxford in the late nineties, I got a lot of good stuff from them around that time, picking up cheap classic soul, blues and jazz LPs, bargain priced late ‘80s / early ‘90s 12” singles that I’d missed the first time round and just taking a punt on interesting looking sleeves, or bands I’d heard about in sampling cirlces. ‘Suite London’ was the hot crate digger’s favourite from The Peddlers, but the production on ‘Three For All’ is right up my street, with wonderful hammond playing and a killer drum sound. It’s a great album from start to finish. I’ve used tracks on a few mixtapes in the past 20 years, but not this particular one, and with an apt title, it seemed like ‘Whole Lot Of Sunlight' was a nice way to kick off my late summer Dusk Dubs selection!

2) Joe McDuphrey Experience - ‘Solar Waves’, from the 2002 Stones Throw 12” ‘Experience EP’.

Madlib made a big impression on me when I first started producing with a sampler and a second hand Hohner Pianet. I really enjoyed this era when he was mixing live instrumentation with the straight up MPC sample business. ‘Solar Waves’ has it all - lolloping drums, wonky synths and tasty electric piano - a super laid-back groove, and is one I rediscovered in my collection recently. Plus, I’m a sucker for coming up with a bunch of aliases to cover all the roles you might play on a record - Madlib is the undisputed champ at that.

3) Paul Weller - ‘That Spiritual Feeling’ (New Mix) from the 1993 Go! Discs promo 12” GOXDJ 102.

My first proper music industry job in the mid nineties was as a radio plugger, and we shared an office building with Go!Discs - home at the time to Portishead, David Holmes, The Beautiful South and Paul Weller, amongst others. There was a little shared kitchen area with a photocopier, and I was busily copying press releases one afternoon on about my 3rd day in the job, when I heard someone making a drink behind me. Turning round I was confronted by Mr Paul Weller himself, impeccably dressed (with an AMAZING tan) stirring his cup of tea. ‘Hello’ he said, ‘I’m Paul - nice to meet you’.

I managed not to swoon or drop my photocopying and introduced myself as the new boy. I worked on radio promo with him across various album projects for the next 4 years, culminating with a week on a tour bus with Paul and his crew doing sessions at radio stations across the country. Story for another time maybe … Anyway - also in that little kitchen area at Go! Discs was their stock cupboard, which I rinsed for releases I’d missed in the years prior to my starting work there. ‘That Spiritual Feeling’ was originally on his first solo release ‘Into Tomorrow’ in 1991, but got remixed and added to this promo, as well as appearing on the ‘Sunflower’ 12” (taken from ‘Wildwood’) It’s got the instantly recognisable JBs on it, with a classic horn arrangement backing up a kinda hypnotic 2 chord groove that just rolls and rolls. I can listen to it for hours.

4). Rhianna - ‘Word Love’ (4 Hero Soul Mix) from the 2002 Sony Soho Square promo 7” XPR 3600.

4 Hero were killing it in the early ‘00s as their productions evolved from the breakbeat mastery of the ‘90s into the wonderfully orchestrated arrangements that saw them covering ‘Les Fleur’, and bringing their deft touch to an increasing number of quality remixes. I don’t think this version of British soul star Rhianna’s ‘Word Love’ - which I loved in it’s original form - ever made it to a commercial release, but it’s something I’ve played out a lot over the years, and it always gets great comments and a bunch of info requests from the crowd.

5) GangStarr - ‘Jazz Thing’ (Instrumental Mix) from the 1990 CBS promo 12” XPR 1571.

I saw Mo Better Blues at the cinema in Australia in November 1990 and bought the soundtrack on cassette the next day. Brandford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard have a superb dialogue across all the tracks, especially on the Canonball Adderley-esque title track. However, Gang Starr’s ‘Jazz Thing’ blew my tiny teenage mind, and I became a bit obsessed with it over the next few years, the samples, the cuts, the live loops - especially after my new college mate Pete made me a tape a year or so later with two extra versions from the 12”, including this, the Instrumental Mix. I finally tracked down my own copy of this import promo in the Soul & Dance Exchange in Notting Hill in the late nineties, and it’s lived in my record bag pretty much ever since.

6) John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Peter Green - ‘Greeny’, from the 1969 Decca LP ‘The World Of Blues Power’.

Everyone my sort of age with some records is bound to have one or two liberated from their parent’s collection, and this was an album I discovered in my folks collection in about 1987, not long after buying a drum kit. I’d been rinsing their Beatles albums since I was a kid - singing along to ‘Drive My Car’ and ‘Octopus’s Garden’, but the World Of Blues Power seem a bit of alien concept until I gave it a good listen as a teen. There’s some classic pyrotechnic stuff from rising Brit Blues stars like Eric Clapton and Paul Butterfield, alongside US veterans like Champion Jack Dupree and Eddie Boyd, who’d moved to Europe in the ‘60s.

Always understated, Peter Green’s playing on ‘Greeny’ is perfect; simple and catchy as hell, but with complete mastery of his instrument.

7) Stanley Clarke - ‘Blues For Mingus’, from the 1979 Nemperor LP ‘I Wanna Play For You’.

This was another ’90s bargain from Avid Records in Oxford, but I first heard it when babysitting in the late ‘80s. The couple who’s kids I was deemed suitably responsible enough to be left in charge of were very happy for me to listen to their small but perfectly formed record collection, and many happy evenings were spent with a pile of C90s taping all sorts of classic jazz and blues. Took me the best part of the next 20 years to find my own vinyl copies of them all mind you. The uptempo jazz rock that Stanley Clarke was known for in the ‘70s is featured throughout the part-live ‘I Wanna Play For You’ album, but this downtempo small group number perfectly encapsulated my idea of what a jazz club gig should sound like; dark, smoky and soulful.

8) Al Green - ‘Lay It Down’, from the 2008 Blue Note LP ‘Lay It Down’.

Is it controversial to call this my favourite Al Green album? I mean, you can’t deny the classic ‘60s and ‘70s hits, but for me, this Questlove produced LP is right up there in terms of songwriting and production. I could have happily featured any of the album tracks here, but went with the title track for the silky strings and restrained playing from Questlove. Something as a drumming producer myself I’m less good at ;)

9) Matt Deighton - ‘Hey, My Mind’, from the 1995 Focus LP ‘Villager’.

This whole album is stuffed full of timeless sounding songs, it's one I’ve listened to alot over the years and comes complete with alot of happy memories.

Just before I got the plugging job, I’d been working in promotions for (the original) Virgin Radio in London, driving a branded vehicle around town all day. Seems mad and pointless in 2020, but it was fun in 1995, I was young, it seemed to be sunny all the time, I had a free 4WD and it paid quite well. I used the station’s copy of ‘The White Book’ - an entertainment industry directory that cost a small fortune back then - to look up the addresses of my favourite record labels, and spent most days knocking on their doors in an attempt to blag some free records. One of these labels was Acid Jazz, and, having announced which station I worked for, I was rushed in to meet their head of marketing and plied with records and CDs, before someone eventually asked ‘so, what is it you actually do at Virgin again?’. I bluffed my way through the next 10 minutes and agreed to have a chat to the producer of the evening show about getting a session for Matt Deighton. Matt was the singer and guitarist with Mother Earth, of whom I was a big fan, and was currently promoting a new solo album ‘Villager’ - Mother Earth had been a guest on the Virgin show before, and so the producer said yes to a session. I’m sure she would have booked him anyway, but she graciously let me set it up with Acid Jazz, gaining me some vital industry kudos and connections in the process.

10) Money Mark - ‘All The People’, from the 1998 Mo Wax / A&M LP ‘Push The Button’.

Mo Wax were one of my favourite ‘90s labels, having been introduced to them by a college friend sometime in ’93, and I think I tried unsuccessfully blagging my way onto their mailing list in my Virgin days, but later on, after the A&M deal, I had better luck getting occasional freebies. ‘Mark’s Keyboard Repair’ was the record that the genre lo-fi was invented for, with the mix of bit-crushed samples and live vintage keys, but ‘Push The Button’ is a brilliantly rounded record, with some great pop songs. Session legend Jim Keltner is playing drums on this track, which I’d forgotten about until I was reading the sleevenotes while recording this mix - his playing with the likes of Delaney & Bonnie, BB King, Leon Russell, Bill Withers, Eric Clapton and all of the Beatles on their various solo projects has been a big influence on my drumming style over the years. Records I’ve never heard of but have bought just because Jim Keltner is on drums is an extensive section of my collection.

11) Bedouine - ‘Summer Cold’, from the 2017 Spacebomb Records LP ‘Bedouine’.

Spacebomb are one of my favourite contemporary labels, with a studio sound and ethos that I aspire to greatly as I enter my third decade as a producer, and I’ve been picking up their releases since hearing label owner, and talented artist, Matthew E. White interviewed on 6 Music back in 2015. LA Based Syrian born Bedouine put out one of my most listened to albums of 2017 (and since!), and I would have featured any of the tracks in this mix, but something about the found sounds at the end of ‘Summer Cold’ seemed to work very nicely with the start of the following song from Emily King. Bedouine’s vocal and guitar sound is wonderfully distintive, and beautifully enhanced by the sympathetic Spacebomb Horn and String arrangements - get yourself the LP!

12) Emily King - ‘Distance’, from the 2015 Making Music Records LP ‘The Switch’.

I didn’t listen to many new records while I was producing Izo FitzRoy’s debut (track coming next!) - I think I thought I’d find it distracting, I suspect that wouldn’t have been the case, but once Izo’s record was in the can, I gorged on releases I’d missed and found things that have become all time favourites. Most of them seem to be by women with a very different sound to Izo, but equally captivating writing and energy. Emily King is one of those artists, along with Bedouine, Jane Weaver and Aldous Harding amongst others. ‘Distance’ is such a great song, and I love Emily’s voice and guitar playing, plus the production and feel too - ticks all the boxes for me.

13) Izo FitzRoy - ‘Heads Held High’, from the 2017 Jalepeno Records LP ‘Skyline’.

This was one of my favourites from Izo’s debut that I produced and played on a few years ago. A great lyric and performance from Izo over a groove that we worked hard to sound like a mix of samples and live instruments, but was in fact all recorded and produced in my studio at home. Initially Izo and I were writing on some tracks that I’d already recorded with a view to them going on a Dr Rubberfunk album, but it was pretty clear after we’d written a few things together that she had so many great songs that the project needed to be an album for her. Even at a few years distance, I’m still really pleased with how the record turned out, with a ’studio sound’ I can call my own, and one that I’ve been able to carry over to my recent ‘My Life At 45’ LP - on which Izo turns in another couple of killer performances!

14) Urban Species - ‘Blanket’ featuring Imogen Heap, from the 1998 Talkin’ Loud LP ‘Blanket’.

Along with Acid Jazz and Mo Wax, Talkin’ Loud were another label I was madly collecting everything they released throughout the ‘90s and beyond. Having DJ’d in support of Urban Species at my college in 1994, I was already a fan, and their second album ‘Blanket’ is one of my all-time favourites by any artist. It features two great collaborations with Terry Callier, and two with Imogen Heap, including the title track featured here. Great writing and production, I was very influenced by this record as I started working with vocalists. Always love the guitar solo over the fade out too - if it exists, I’d love to get my hands on the full version without the fade!

15) Routes In Jazz - ‘Out In The Jungle’, from the 1992 Concious Records 12” CON 999.

Another sure shot from my days as a nascent DJ at Froebel College in West London in the early ‘90s. I was fortunate to have the support and encouragement of a couple of older students as I joined the Student Union and started organising events, and one of them - Lee - actually let me borrow his records a few times to play out with. Cheers Lee! This was one he used to play in warm up and bar sets, and I loved the double bass loop and ear worm horn sample (I never have worked out what it’s from), so had to get a copy. In some ways it’s a very 1992 record, but has stood the test of time in terms of production as far as I’m concerned.

16) DJ Krush - ‘Yeah’, from the 1994 Mo Wax LP ‘Strictly Turntablized’.

Early Mo Wax classic, from before all this sort of thing was considered ‘trip hop’, it was just killer instrumental hip hop as far as I was concerned, and DJ Krush, along with DJ Shadow, was right up there, leading the way. Another big influence on me when I eventually got a sampler - tough drums: check, swinging bass sample: check, jazzy horn and vocal samples: check. Love it.

17) Freak Power - ‘My Heart Sings’, from the 1994 ‘In Dub - The Fried Funk Food EP’, bonus album with some vinyl editions of the ‘Drive Thru Booty’ LP

They say never meet your heroes, but having meet and worked with both Norman Cook and Ashley Slater, the creators of the Freak Power project, I’d have to disagree. Naturally, if you’ve read through the tracklisting this far, you’ll have worked out there’s another showbiz story to go with this selection, and there is, but I’m saving it for another time, ‘cos it’s LONNNGGGG. Suffice it to say, ‘Turn On Tune In, Cop Out’ was a massive tune in ’93, and when the album dropped the following year I was straight down the record shop on release day. I wasn’t expecting a bonus ‘Dub EP’, much less one with almost unrecognisable remixes of the album tracks, but I was very happy to have it included. Some of the best downtempo beats Norman has made I think, and the drum programming on the second half of this track had me scratching my head in my pre-sampler owning days and wondering how the heck it was done. Fabulous sample choices, and nice and long too - handy for those DJ set comfort breaks.

18) John Martyn - ‘Sunshine’s Better’ (Talvin Singh Mix), from the 1996 Go! Discs promo 12” SSB1.

Talking of long tracks, here’s 10 minutes plus of John Martyn and the balearic classic ‘Sunshine’s Better’ reworked beautifully by Talvin Singh. John was another of the artists on Go! Discs when I was plugging for them, and I think it’s widely accepted he was a challenging character at that stage of his career. Still an amazing songwriter and performer though, and sounding as good as ever on the album ‘And’ from which ‘Sunshine’s Better’ is taken. Phil Collins on drums too.

19) Incognito - ‘Out Of The Storm’ (C’s Planet E Mix), from the 1996 Talkin’ Loud promo 12” TLDJ54.

If you were putting together a downtempo set in ’96, and you had ‘Sunshine’s Better’, you needed this Carl Craig mix of ‘Out Of The Storm’ for sure. Hip hop drum loops, swirling synth pads, a wobbly flute sample and some perfectly placed little bass guitar fills and turnarounds made this perfect in so many ways. I was VERY excited to get a promo copy, and definitely felt I had ‘arrived’ as a DJ when this came through the letterbox one morning. old DJ voice “Those were the days.” LOL.

20) Freddie King - ‘Gambling Woman Blues’, from the 1977 RSO LP ‘Freddie King (1934-1976)’.

In case you were worried I’d skipped over my love of the blues with just one track, here’s a less well known number from Freddie King, recorded during sessions with Eric Clapton and his band in the early ’70s, just a few years before King’s untimely death in 1976. I’ve got plenty of albums by the ‘Three Kings’ (Albert, B.B and Freddie) and they all had some very funky moments in the late sixties and early seventies. This posthumous compilation album was also in the collection of the family I used to babysit for, another tape that had pretty much worn out before I could track down my own vinyl copy, which, as you can hear, has been well played too. Again, a track that seems to fade just as it’s getting going, but fear not - there’s a 20+ minute version on some of the popular streaming services.

21) Donny Hathaway - ‘What’s Going On?’ from the 2014 ATCO Records LP ‘Live At The Bitter End 1971’.

I heard Gilles Peterson play tracks from this album on his 6 Music Show on Record Store Day in 2014. RSD often falls on my birthday weekend, so I thought I’d treat myself to this re-issue (with previously unissued tracks) of Donny Hathaway’s 1971 shows at the Bitter End on Bleecker Street in New York City. Although there aren’t many artists that can make a convincing go of covering Marvin Gaye, Donny is definitely one of them, and ‘What’s Going On?’ sounds just as relevant today as it ever did. I felt it was an appropriate choice, given the state of the world today, my love of black music and the fact that my whole music career is based on it. Once more, for the people at the back, BLACK LIVES MATTER.

22) Wes Montgomery - ‘Sun Down’, from the 1966 Verve Records LP ‘California Dreaming’.

3 quid from, you’ve guessed it, Avid Records. Bargain. I listened to an absolute ton of blues guitarists in my late teens, but it was a few years later that I started going sideways into jazz guitar, falling in love with the soul jazz / acid jazz sound of Grant Green and Ivan ‘Boogaloo Joe’ Jones, before finding the earlier generation - the likes of Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery. Tricky to pick between them to be honest, but it seemed this upbeat and optimistic big band number from the 1966 ‘California Dreaming’ album by Wes Montogomery, a mixture of contemporary pop covers and jazz standards, with Herbie Hancock on piano, and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder - two more heroes of mine - was a good way to close out my Dusk Dubs choices.

[maliwarm]

Recollection

K’ peeled his eyes open, unsure of exactly what it was that woke him.  Greeting them was a dark skyline, the only available light coming from passing street lights and the radio whispering some rock anthem on low volume.  Stores passed by, many unlit, and the rest adorned by patches of bright neon.  All of them were blurs.  Slowly, he shifted up from his slump. His cheek was peeled away from the window and rubbed at to chase away the numbness from resting on it for too long.  Softly though.  It, and much of the rest of his body, was tender with bruises about… half a day old now, he thought.  Some burns and gashes, too.

“Hey,” Maxima greeted softly.  He didn’t look away from the road, large hands lightly drumming the steering wheel in time to the radio.  “Have a good sleep, partner?”

K’ hummed neutrally.  Lingering sleepiness was impeding his ability to form words as of this moment.  The sleep itself hadn’t been awful, he supposed.  Dreamless and, for once, heavy.  He attributed that to recovering from the aftermath of their successive fights - twice against Krizalid, and then against the massive platoon of Ikari soldiers who had stormed in, guns blazing, in the wake of his death - and their mell pell escape.  

His gaze swung downwards to his lap, where his gauntleted hand rested.  The deep crags running through its middle were visible for the briefest of moments every time they passed under a street light.  The flames it helped to contain shifted sluggishly beneath his skin, having exhausted themselves out of their raging pillar some time ago.  Maxima might have had a hand in that.  He had a vague recollection of the cyborg explaining a plan to attempt interfacing with the circuitry inside the gauntlet to trigger the inbuilt failsafe.  Maybe.  His consciousness had been wavering too badly by that point to be entirely sure; exhaustion from combat and the strain of his flames going haywire, burning him up from the inside and out, swiftly dragging him towards blissful darkness.  If the plan truly was real it must have worked, since the car hadn’t exploded into a fireball while he slept.  Speaking of… he was curious as to when and how Maxima had acquired the vehicle.  But he was much too tired to quiz him about it.  Maybe later, when his fatigue petered out some.

His eyes wandered away from his hand, heavy and tingling with pins and needles, to the passenger window.  Vaguely, he was able to make out a large body of water.  It seemed to be shifting and rolling gently.  Curious, K’ wound the window down enough to poke his head through.  Cool wind whipped at his face, blowing his snowy fringe up and back, semi-plastering it to the top of his skull.  The air was clean and scented heavily with salt.  His nose twitched, hoping to make sense of the sudden strange lightness in his chest and fuzzy prick of familiarity that had arisen when he got his first whiff.  “What is that?” he murmured, voice quiet and thick with drowsiness.

He half expected Maxima to be unable to hear him over the wind.  The fact he was silent for a good couple of minutes hinted as much.  Eventually though, he answered, shooting K’ a brief look tinged heavily with curiosity; one he missed as he continued to stare, enraptured by the water.  “The ocean.”

“Ocean, huh…” The feeling of familiarity sharpened some.  It sounded right.  It also stirred up a fractured image; sun-bleached sand and two small sets of hands patting down a raised lump of the stuff into a wonky dome.  The lightness in his chest swelled and he brought his left hand up to rub absently at it.  The chill was beginning to get to him, so with no small amount of reluctance he pulled his head back in.  The window whirred back up, blocking the salted breeze.  K’ rested his cheek against it again, watching the distant roiling surface through heavy lids.  His fingers trailed up higher, gently tracing the ridges of the silver cross at his throat.  “I wouldn’t mind going.  Once this shit clears up a little.”

[3wishes-rpg]

Meg Brainstorming #3

Character Arcs

So I was joking in Slack that Agni’s confusion tactic on Meg reminded me of Monty Python’s Confuse-A-Cat skit. After thinking about it a bit more, that actually fits Meg a lot better than I was meaning. Meg is indeed in a bit of a rut, and needs to be thoroughly confused in order to snap out of it. HI TEAM BYAKKO WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH ALL THOSE FUNNY THINGS OUT ON MEG’S BACK LAWN. <3

While Meg is mostly content with her lot in life, resentment aside, I think deep down she knows she isn’t reaching her full potential with the way things are going. Having the monkey wrench of being a Byakko warrior is just the thing she needs thrown at her to shake things up a bit, even if she vehemently denies it at first. Coming to terms with her status as Subaru is her first big character arc. I like to think of this as including both accepting her warrior gifts and learning how to actually use them beyond giving falling engine blocks The Glare. I think Meg has the potential to become a very powerful Subaru, especially because she has a lot of determination when she puts her mind to it. She will will things to happen by goddamned force if she has to, and she refuses to give up as long as she’s got the smallest iota of strength left. That…actually might put her into some sticky situations if she overexerts herself.

I’m not sure about a lot of the details of how she comes to this point of acceptance. Maybe at some point she’s put in a situation where she uses her powers and sees the good she’s capable of doing, or maybe it’s just the attachment she gets to the other Warriors, I dunno.

Her second big character arc is going to be letting go of her past and allowing herself to realize her full potential. She needs to stop holding herself back and allowing herself to stew in resentment over her lost opportunities, and learn to make new ones for herself. She has the potential to become a great mecha designer, and I would love to see that put into practice in-game. Maybe she designs a newer, better engine, and uses that to make an air or ground vehicle for Team Byakko (CUSTOM AIRSHIP ANYONE?), something that surprises the hell out of the Empire when it comes to light. (Fun little aside: In my headcanon for the Three Wishes TV series, this music would totally be the soundtrack for the montage of Meg and everyone Building the Great Thing – rolling out the designs, welding, tests that end explosively and Meg looks Askance at the tester while Joren is completely oblivious in the background while they paint the hull, Meg and Shahil consulting over a part he’s made, a piece of the engine acting wonky until Red gives it a good kick, Khanda bringing in a big pot of curry for everyone and getting mobbed, Agni cheering everyone on and trying not to get in the way, and of course the SUCCESSFUL TEST WITH LOTS OF HUGS AND HIGH FIVES.)

One arc that would be happening throughout is Meg accepting the rest of Team Byakko as part of her family. Some of the relationships happen super easy for her, but others are gonna be a bit rocky. Annaisha’s probably going to be a bit difficult, and depending on when she meets the Byakko priestess, that might be a bit rocky at the start as well. She’s basically the walking message from the Tiger God of “YEP WE’RE ACTUALLY DOING THIS, SORRY, YOU’RE STUCK KIDDO” and Meg might not take that very well. She’ll come around in the end, and I expect by the end Meg will be willing to pull a Sailor Mars at D-Point for her, but it might be a bit difficult at the start.

Also a small arc will be Meg coming to terms with the fact that Nidhi is growing up. She’s spent a good chunk of her life raising her little sister, and Nidhi’s at that age where she’s Becoming a Teenager and starting to chafe against the parental figures in her life and wanting to do her own thing. Things are probably going to be a bit rough for them at times. Not to mention the massive guilt Meg will have when it’s time to go on their Grand Adventure to Save the World and hoping that Nidhi won’t hate her for leaving.

Another arc that I would like to see happening throughout is improving Meg’s self-image. Meg actually has a pretty low regard for herself, and doesn’t see herself as attractive or desirable to anyone. As far as she’s concerned, Nidhi got all the attractive genes (and any potential caller is gonna have to watch out for Big Sister Meg). The only part of her that she thought was attractive was her hair, and she kinda chopped most of that off to avoid potential tragedies involving long hair and running engines. She tries not to think about it too much, keeping her head down and focusing on her work, but she really does want to feel pretty. She thinks she doesn’t deserve it, though, and who would find a rough and tumble gearhead like her attractive anyway?

Other small things I’ve got knocking around:

--I think Meg gets a motorbike eventually. I have this story knocking around in my head of how Meg’s father was working on a custom bike for his wife, and when she died, he gave it to a tense mecha competitor friend of theirs, asking him to get rid of it. Instead, he hung onto it, and comes around several years later to give it to Meg. She restores it and has herself a new way to get around town.

--I expect this wouldn’t happen in the main storyline, maybe some time after, but I think Meg eventually has a child. I think somewhere in the back of her head she’s thought that having her own kid is something she’d like, but expected it to be something that would never happen until she got her life turned upside down by Team Byakko and she saw how she has the power to make her own fate. She already has gobs of mom qualities that she’d probably be a natural, even if she bucks some of the traditional visions of motherhood. She would probably be the most badass pregnant lady and refuse to let it slow her down. Also there would probably be lots of hilarious hijinks during the birthing if the other warriors were involved. Meg would probably come up with a whole dictionary’s worth of new swears.

[hyodo-juza]

The platonic FukuHata is done! Sorry it took so long, I know more people are waiting, but I promise I’ll have all of them up soon. You can also read it on my AO3 and Fanfiction.net account. 

Tazaki flipped the lights on as he sorted through his roommate’s wallet for the money he needed for their dinner. A few wads of cash were tucked away and Tazaki pulled them out, along with two poorly clipped coupons that were wedged between the bills. He inspected the paper, reading them and discovering that they were discount coupons for two different pizza places.

Looking closer, he read the fine print at the bottom and noticed that they were both expiring today. “Hey, Amari?”

His friend was just across the room, seated on their couch and looking through the television channels for their movie night. While Tazaki was in charge of food, Amari was in charge of entertainment, and he wasn’t finding much this time. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to order pizza tonight? You have a coupon for Pizza Hut and Domino’s.”

“Do they deliver out here?”

Tazaki set the coupons down and started sorting the money. “Domino’s does, but I think Pizza Hut charges a fee.”

Amari shrugged and landed on an old black and white movie that just started, the background music wonky and distorted. He figured they could watch it for a while until he could find something better. “Pizza sounds nice.”

Tazaki counted the bills and pulled out his phone, dialing the first number.

Hatano stared down the dashboard of his car, eyeing the fly that was unfortunate enough to get itself trapped in his vehicle as he sat idle in the middle of a street. It was early evening and people from all over town were driving to get home and enjoy their dinner, so the heavy traffic was to be expected.

What he didn’t prepare for was having to sit in his car by a four-way intersection at a light that hadn’t turned green in over three minutes. The ten cars in front of him were too slow with the last light and it ended up costing him precious time that could have been spent delivering the stupid pizza that sat in his passenger seat, which was a pineapple and ham.

“Who puts pineapple on their pizza, seriously.” Hatano watched as the light finally turned green and the line was moving again, Hatano carefully pressing on the gas pedal as he inched behind the car in front of him. The roof was decorated with a sign that read “Domino’s” and Hatano rolled his eyes at the coincidence. It was a Friday night and pizza delivery was popular on the weekends, so he wasn’t very surprised to see his company’s rival to be drifting among the traffic like the rest of them were.

Hatano managed to get past the intersection, finally, and down the road that he familiarized himself with to learn the routes. The congestion didn’t cease even after the people around him had made turns or switched into the other lanes, the man forced to slam on his brakes on multiple occasions when another light came up or people were slowing down for whatever reason.

Hatano looked down at the clock on his radio, the time informing him that he spent over fifteen minutes in traffic alone. Whoever was ordering the pizza wasn’t going to be pleased by the time he would get there, but he supposed it was their fault for living so far out from the city limits for it to be considered an on-time delivery.

Another ten minutes went by and Hatano was finally seeing a difference. The longer he drove, the less apartment complexes he saw and more rural housing that was spread further away from the next, real lawns and fences separating them. “The rich neighborhood,” Hatano commented to himself, glancing at the houses while still maintaining focus on the road. The traffic wasn’t so bad anymore, Hatano finally getting up to the speed limit and setting a comfortable pace that didn’t require him to be alert of sudden stops.

Funnily enough, the Domino’s car was still in front of him. He knew they didn’t have a limit policy like his company did, not a very strict one at least, but he was genuinely impressed that he had been following the driver for seven miles. Who knew that they were delivering to the same neighborhood at the same time.

Hatano kept an eye out on the addresses further down the road while still managing to give himself some space between his car and the next. An acquired skill he picked up after a few years of working at the pizza joint, and one he was proud of. As he spotted his delivery numbers scrawled on the side of an upcoming mailbox, he flicked his turn signal on just as the Domino’s car had done the same and he found himself pulling into the driveway behind it, his bumper nearly sticking out into the road with the lack of room.

Hatano reached for the pizza and secured it in his arm before he opened his door and watched his company rival’s employee step out of his car. He was tall and wore his uniform hat on his head, a large pizza box balanced on his forearm as he shut the door behind him. He turned and noticed Hatano standing there and nodded, but Hatano wasn’t sure if he was so surprised to find a second delivery guy. His stoic expression was hard to decipher, but Hatano supposed it didn’t matter much.

They both silently walked up the driveway and stood beside one another as Hatano took the responsibility of knocking on the front door. It was always a guessing game when he was out dropping off pizza, wondering how long it would take for the person to get there, or what they looked like, but all Hatano really cared about was getting paid and going home after such a long day of driving. It was his last delivery stop of the night, so his impatience was understandable.

After about a minute of silence, Hatano knocked again, this time louder, in hopes that the person inside would have heard it the second time around. He was positive that his customer was not one of their usual prank orders, but because of the Domino’s guy next to him, now he wasn’t so sure.

“You think it’s a prank?” The guy beside him mumbled, as if reading Hatano’s mind. He was standing still, his stare straight at the door as if waiting for it to open any second.

“Maybe.” Hatano wasn’t really comfortable talking to a complete stranger on another complete stranger’s doorstep, but he’d been in worse situations.

“I can try calling and see if they pick up?”

Hatano never remembered the numbers that called for orders, but he figured it was worth a shot. So, as the guy fished his phone from his pocket and searched for the supposed number, Hatano kept himself busy and eyed the chipping mahogany paint on the door, the sides of it revealing what was once an eggshell white. He could feel the pizza warming his hands as he observed the rest of the front porch, casting a glance behind his shoulder to look at the potted plants under the porch light that illuminated the small space.

After a minute of the other holding his phone to his ear, getting no response, and no sign of anyone answering the door, Hatano decided that it was time to give it up. Just as he was preparing to turn around, the man beside him spoke.

“Hey.”

Hatano stopped and allowed himself to humor the guy.

The man wore a grin on his face and motioned to the large box in his hands. “I’ve got a cheese and mushroom pizza.”

Hatano looked down at the one he was holding. “I’ve got a pineapple and ham.”

“Seriously?” The guy looked more amused than disgusted. “I’ll trade you.”

“I mean, sure, but I’m probably going to look suspicious when I bring back a Domino’s box to work.”

“I meant we can just eat it now before heading back.”

Hatano paused and looked at him for a few seconds. “On someone’s front porch?”

The man shrugged. “I’ve done it before. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“What if we get caught?”

“Then we drop the pizza and run to our cars. It’s easier if you pull your hat lower so they don’t see your face.”

Hatano had a feeling that he had done something like this before.

Did he care though?

“You know, pineapple on pizza isn’t as bad as you think.” Fukumoto, Hatano had learned his name, was keen on letting him know that the tropical fruit tasted just fine mixed with cheese and pizza sauce.

They were seated on the ground under the porch light, both of their backs against the wooden railing that went around the house. Each of them had the other’s box of pizza in their lap and Hatano was already on his third piece. “I’ll stick with the cheese and mushroom.”

Fukumoto shrugged and finished his fourth, finally slowing down and resting against the railing. “What made you work at Pizza Hut?” Fukumoto didn’t usually strike up conversation with anyone outside of his close friends, but meeting another delivery worker on his last shift didn’t happen often and he felt that it was worth asking questions.

“To pay my way through college. Not the greatest pay, but it’s not the worst job you could have.” Hatano decided to take a break and close the flap to the box and keep the remaining pizza warm for later. “What about you?”

“Free pizza.”

Hatano laughed, stretching out his legs after crossing them for so long. “Do you get null orders like this often?”

Fukumoto shook his head. “Some of my coworkers go out and get a few prank calls sometimes and come back with the pizza, so we just choose to wait and eat it ourselves before we leave.”

“Then shouldn’t you be getting back to them instead of staying here?”

“Last week one of them ate my share of the pizza, so I’m eating his share without him knowing.”

Hatano grinned. “I like your logic, Fukumoto.”

“I try.”

The conversation eventually quieted as they nibbled at the rest of the food they had, both of them calling it quits about seven pizzas through and unanimously deciding that they should head back to work and finally clock out. They would be late if they stayed there any longer.

They walked to their cars and Hatano promised to see him on one of his delivery routes one of these days before he backed out of the driveway and watched Fukumoto’s car follow him into town. It wasn’t until Hatano was almost to his work that the other’s car had turned a corner and went down another road where Domino’s was located.

Hatano parked into the near-vacant lot of his work and went inside, only one other customer standing in line to pick up a last-minute pizza. Hatano maneuvered his way around the back and went about his rounds in the kitchen before clocking out. He saw one of his co-workers follow him out, pulling his uniform hat off and holding the door open for Hatano.

“What took you so long?” Kaminaga loitered behind him, eyeing the box in his arms that had a different logo printed on the top. “You traitor.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be? You know, like in your car and away from me?” Hatano spotted Kaminaga’s car on the other side of the parking lot, sitting there and waiting for Kaminaga like the faithful chunk of metal that it was.

“Not really. I didn’t think you stopped by Domino’s on the way back from your delivery, though.” Kaminaga leaned against the side of Hatano’s car as the other unlocked it. He took the box from Hatano and waited until he was seated inside to pass it to him. “I won’t ask any questions.”

“Good, because it’s a long story.” Hatano didn’t feel like explaining himself to his friend, mostly because he realized that what he did seemed illegal to some extent. But then again, the customer never answered the door, and therefor never paid for the pizza.

Hatano even made a new friend because of it.

Amari stirred awake and lifted his head from where it was resting on Tazaki’s shoulder on the couch, the man blinking away his drowsiness as his eyes came into focus. The television was playing another black and white movie like before, only it looked a bit newer than the last one that had put the two men to sleep.

Amari yawned and looked at his roommate, noticing that he was passed out against one of the throw pillows propped up against his side and the arm of the couch. Glancing around, he yawned again and absently wondered when the food they had ordered would arrive. He looked down at the watch on his wrist and took in the time, his eyes widening at the realization.

“Shit!”

[wordcreatr]

Okay, folks, the Land Manatee is back in Arizona after two glorious weeks visiting the relatives in the UK. I meant to keep blogging as I went along, but — well — it didn’t happen. The road to hell paved with best intentions and all that. You get the picture.

The (Kind of) Old Man and the Sea.

The good news is my cousin’s wedding was a success despite the threat of rain. I’m sure it will result in a long and happy marriage between the young couple. Had a lot of fun at the reception and ate too much, which seems to have been the theme for my trip.

The return trip

Considering my troubles on my outbound trip, you may be wondering if I had an uneventful return? Well, other than Virgin Atlantic’s ramp crew ruthlessly savaging my bag (missing wheel, bent frame) yes, it was fairly uneventful — well, for me. For my cousin, Martin, who drove me to the airport, things got a little more exciting. At Manchester airport, he decided to come in with me instead of just dropping me off. When I arrived in Atlanta, I checked the messages from our WhatsApp group and discovered his car had caught fire and burned up while we were in the terminal. And it took out several other vehicles with it (including a rather pricey Range Rover, I believe. Ouch!)  (You can read about it here in the Manchester Evening News.)

Hope you like your VW well done, Mart.

The fire brigade thinks it was possibly the car’s electrical system that sparked the blaze, but it’s still under investigation. Part of my brain was telling me my Land Manatee luck was rubbing off and taking out innocent bystanders — though on second thought, maybe it was good luck. The fire could have happened while my cousin was in the car with his kids or while parked in front of his house. His weird neighbor is already a pain in the ass over minor things. For example, he claimed the passenger door on Martin’s car swinging open over his driveway constitutes trespassing. Imagine if his car got accidentally barbequed, which was a distinct possibility with how close the two driveways are to each other.

Back in AZ

After a day of traveling, I felt shattered by the time I arrived home but didn’t want to go to sleep too early so I watched the series finale of Game of Thrones. (You have no idea how hard it was to avoid spoilers for 2 weeks.) Maybe it’s because I felt tired, but it seemed underwhelming for a finale and in general, I thought it kind of sucked. A disappointing end to a great series in my opinion.

Later on, the Houseguest showed up and the fact she no longer had to worry about killing my oleander bushes by failing to water them was a huge weight off her shoulders. (They’ve made another comeback after I nearly killed them twice through insufficient watering.) While the oleanders made it through my absence, unfortunately, there was a casualty — my car battery was deader than a doornail (which sucked since I had zero food in the house other than peanut butter and a stale street taco tortilla.) The Houseguest apologized because she hadn’t started my car while I was away. To be honest, I never asked her too. (I did request her to do so on my last UK trip during the Year of Sean because of the length of my absence and it occurred during the blazing summer). This time, I figured with the mild temps in AZ, it would be fine — and it should have been. The only thing I can think is the security camera in my car must have drained it. Supposedly it turns off automatically, but I suspect it’s wonky, but that’s just a guess. Hmm hopefully my alternator didn’t crap out — I guess I’ll find out when I try to leave work.

I fear dead car batteries

The Houseguest felt some measure of responsibility for the dead battery because she didn’t start my car while I was traveling, and I played along with it milking her guilt until she remembered I had forgotten to start her car while she was away. Admittedly, as a joke, I have a bad habit of letting her feel guilty about things. For example, she still thinks she ran the curbing over (pictured below) while backing out (Well, she won’t anymore after reading this post), but I actually did it when dragging the garbage can across the rocks because her SUV was in the driveway blocking it. (Hey, it keeps her humble — plus she did run it over once.)

The Houseguest failed to notice the telltale trash can wheel marks in the rocks.

Anyway, the Houseguest helped me try to jumpstart my car yesterday morning, but we failed miserably — no clicks or any attempt by the engine to turn over. Nada. Knowing my propensity to screw things up, she seemed highly anxious the whole time she held one set of clamps from the jumper cables and wanted me to call for roadside assistance. (The fact that I kept consulting Youtube didn’t bolster her confidence). As my readers may (or may not) know, I don’t have great experiences when it comes to electricity. I get super anxious when jumpstarting or disconnecting a battery due to the minor chance I could blow it up (a kid in my high school had one blow up in his face and I read about a dentist who almost lost his finger when he had his wedding ring on and touched the wrong thing).

Cautiously, I took the battery out and lugged it into AutoZone. Family friend and AutoZone manager Suzy tested my battery and confirmed it was dead. However, she told me the battery was still under warranty, so she exchanged it. Anyway, I did have some issues getting the battery back in place but eventually succeeded. And it started. Here’s to small victories!

  Readjusting

While I’m happy to be home, I’m also mildly depressed. I found it comforting to be around family. My cousins are mostly around my age and we have a lifelong bond. Now that my parents and brother are dead and my sis lives in Florida, it’s just me out here in the desert. Or maybe I’m just depressed because I’m back in the metaphorical salt mine? Eh, who knows?

Anyway, I feel guilty about not blogging and still feel lethargic, which is a bad sign. It’s time to get back in the saddle again and knock off the rust! Also, I’ve decided to get off my ass and get back to working on my book. We’ll see how that goes.

      The Land Manatee Returneth Okay, folks, the Land Manatee is back in Arizona after two glorious weeks visiting the relatives in the UK.