#writin and ravin

[doodlebeeberry]

Hourly

(for objectober day 6: city)

It wasn't even a bad thing, inherently. They—he—had been waiting months to get back home. Or back to Earth, at least. Their own respective Earths. It had just been sudden. Too sudden. Bryce hadn't known what to make of it.

In which Bryce is left waiting in San Fransisco, and the consequences of having to be patient.

inspired by this drawing by @/sodabottlehfjone that i had life three separate ideas for a while back. admittedly this left the scope of my original idea a bit but still.

Also theyre humanizied here for consistency sake btw

2:58 a.m. An alley off 13th and Cabrillo, tucked between a shooting range decorated with little more than sun bleached targets and a diner sporting a crooked, half lit sign. Clear sky overhead. A dumpster half full of garbage and a skinny grey alley cat sniffing around near its base, where a few scraps had slipped through a torn bag and sprinkled the ground like an inverse confetti. No stars, not with the city light. In red and green blinks, though, an airplane crawled across the sky. The faint roar of its distant engines played Foley over the night.

It took one minute for the monotony to break. Kind of. Sixty seconds, the cat investigated a napkin and an empty grape jelly packet. The plane flew further eastward. Then, 2:59 on the dot, to the second, the millisecond even, and Bryce was there. Not there, then there, in an act so devoid of fanfare that, for several seconds afterwards—fifteen, to be exact—neither he nor the world itself seemed to have processed his appearance. Six months of grass stains were hidden only just by the green of his jacket. One hundred and eighty three days worth of wear showed on his pants, his shoes, his face tilted up and frozen mid one—sided—conversation. Longer hair with faded dye dripped down his head and shoulders and around his cheeks. The very first thing he saw, upon returning to Earth, was the plane retreating over the rooftops. Its green lights winked at him. Sixteen seconds after his appearance the wind blew stiff into his hair. Several strands tickled his nose. His mouth shut—clicked, with the tap of his teeth against each other so suddenly—and he took a deep breath in. It came back out heavy, something between a sigh and a growl and a groan.

   "That idiot," he said. The cat looked up at him, his words alerting it to his presence for the very first time. 

At 2:59 and twenty one seconds, the cat scampered around and away from him down the street. In the following thirty nine seconds the engine whirr faded from the air, and by 3:00 a.m on the dot Bryce was well and truly alone.

There were two ways he took that. On the one hand, he'd been alone a lot over the past six months or so. The plane wasn't massive really, but it was plenty big enough that he could wander far enough in the plug's direction for the silence to swallow him up. On the other, it never struck him as actual 'alone time'. Not like it was in his apartment, or his car, or the whole of Bridgeport, or now, with the smell of garbage starting to reach his nose. On the plane it was just separate. Quiet space. Maybe it was Liam that made it feel that way. Invisible and, if he wanted to be, inaudible above them in Airy's world.

Or was he besides them? Was that how Liam had described it? 

At 3:01 a.m, Bryce decided not to sweat the details. He fished around in his pockets instead, pulling out first a blue sticky note and looking it over the same way he checked his phone for the time. It did not tell him the time. It read him a couple phone numbers, a couple names, a couple different handwritings, a couple too many crinkles along the corners from living in his jacket for so long. He stuck it back in his pocket. Next a few dollar bills. Some coins. 16.65 total, lucky him. They all went back in his pocket. Then came a receipt, a torn scrap of cardboard packaging. 'Charger' was the only thing of note written on both of them. With purpose Bryce tucked them away. By 3:03 a.m he had taken a full, meticulous stock of his pockets. He wasn't expecting to find his phone, having lost it multiverse jumping months back, but the lack of it still disappointed him. Even if he wasn't sure what messages he would've been coming back to. 

A car drove past the alley. Headlights cast out around him, the LED kind that were brighter than the sun, and peeled away just as quickly without ever quite reaching him. Just an inch or two too far. The car in question had been red, he thought, and small.

3:04 a.m, he realized he could see the reflection of the sign next door on the windows across the street. He couldn't tell what the buildings were—shops, restaurants, apartments. Whatever it was, the lights inside were dark. From the distance, Bryce couldn't see his reflection.

3:05 a.m, he resisted the urge to pace. It was tempting, but he bit it back. He turned a pocket nickel in his fingers instead.

3:06 a.m, someone walked by. Tall, but not thin, with hair up in a bun. He guessed it was blonde, or white.

3:07 a.m, nothing happened. He cursed. "That idiot," Bryce hissed again.

3:08 a.m, He began to pace.

3:09 a.m, Bryce replayed their last interaction. 'Stop' wasn't what he'd meant to say, but everyone had vanished, one by one, and shouting Liam's name had hardly seemed to work. He'd given them no warning. Bryce had been telling Amelia a story. Then, Amelia was gone. Subway followed. Then Charlotte. Atom.

   Quiet. A slight shuffle in the air. "Did you—"

   "Yeah. Yeah, I did"

It wasn't even a bad thing, inherently. They—he—had been waiting months to get back home. Or back to Earth, at least. Their own respective Earths. It had just been sudden. Too sudden. Bryce hadn't known what to make of it.

   "are you gonna... can you send yourself back?"

   Pause. "Maybe. Probably."

2:59 a.m. Keyboard clacking. 

   "You've gotta go back"

   Less a pause, more a breath. "I—"

   "Go home , Liam."

3:10 a.m, Liam was never good at listening to him, not in Bridgeport and not now. Bryce didn't know what he was waiting for. 

3:11 a.m, he considered leaving the alley.

3:11 a.m and one second.

3:11 a.m and two seconds.

3:11 a.m and four seconds.

3:11 a.m and eight seconds.

3:11 a.m and sixteen seconds.

3:11 a.m and twenty-one seconds.

3:11 a.m and twenty-two seconds, on the dot. To the millisecond, even. And Liam was there. Bryce was no longer alone.

They stared at each other. Liam clutched the strap of his backpack.

   "Sorry," Liam said, simply. Another car passed, this one blue. Bryce could make out a baseline thumping through it's doors. diner—scent wafted above the garbage, slightly. The tense energy wound up in his gut lessened, tired.

   3:11 a.m and fifty-nine seconds. "Come on," Bryce walked around a proper reply, "let's eat."

*  *  *

The diner itself was fine. Small. A little dimly lit. Empty save for one guy in a worn-out suit jacket slowly chewing on a hot dog while watching a lets play on his phone. A counter with some assorted old barstools and booths that ran along the walls. Glancing at the bored server behind the counter—short and older with an abstract tattoo running along their neck—they sat at a booth beside a window. From this angle, Bryce could spot the moon hanging over them. Yellowed and crescent thin.

He wasn't all that hungry, honestly. He wasn't sure why he'd brought them here, beyond the promise of coffee that would chase away the sleepiness hanging over him. Regardless, he traded away the majority of his 16.65 in pocket money and contemplated swiping a bite or two of Liam's waffle—lightly syruped, and unbuttered—while waiting for his coffee—sweetened, but without milk—to cool, if only to keep hunger from catching up to him. He knew it would, sooner or later. 

Bryce set his chin on the table, slowly but surely giving in to sleep. They hadn't said much since they'd walked in, and it was the quiet between them that kept him from slipping under completely. He shut his eyes.

Liam, moments later, was the first to break that quiet.

   "You alright?" he asked.

   "Tired," Bryce replied, halfway to a mumble. Liam hummed. There was music playing in the diner, a dad-rock sounding band Bryce didn't know the name of, just loud enough to hear and acknowledge before it faded to the back of his awareness. If he bothered to listen closer, he could hear the sound of people shuffling around in the kitchen. Above all that, though, came the sound of ceramics across laminate. Bryce pried his eyes open. The waffle sat in front of his nose. Glancing up, he found Liam looking back. A scrap of waffle was pierced on his fork. He glanced between it, the plate, Bryce. Bryce, for his part, flicked his eyes towards his still steaming mug, then back to Liam. Liam bit off his waffle scrap and gestured with his fork. Bryce scoffed a bit. Once again, Liam  was never particularly good at listening to him. Still though, he sat up and snatched his fork from its resting place on the table, his pinkie brushing the warm mug in the process.

   "You never know when to quit," Bryce told him. 

   Liam held out his knife. "It's been six months"

   "So?" Bryce took it, "plus, they burned it"

True to his word, the left side of the waffle was overdone. Less of a golden shade of brown and more of a dark, dark one.

   "So?" Liam returned. Bryce didn't argue with him. Instead, He focused on cutting up one of the better looking sections he'd been offered. It gave fairly easily under the knife, soft and springy. He came away with a single square, a tiny puddle of syrup pooled within it. Sticky threads followed it some ways from the plate as he lifted it. The song faded out, shifting from electric guitars to acoustic, different in tone but not inherently more mellow. The waffle piece sat patiently on his fork. Bryce did not bite it.

   "What took you so long?" he asked. Liam, once again, paused. "to get here,"

A singer began, voice low. Liam looked just left of Bryce, like he was looking at his ear instead, or the counter behind them. 

   "I had to get Texty," he began, patting his backpack, "for one"

   "That took ten minutes?"

   "It could've"

Quiet seeped back over them. Bryce leveled him, disbelieving, but Liam still didn't meet his eye. Bryce dipped his piece in a thin syrup streak on the plate. He took his time, dragging it through, gathering up a heap of what was most likely artificial maple onto his piece. With one final glance at Liam that, once again, missed him, he bit into it. Sweetness filled his mouth, sweetness and the taste of maple. He couldn't remember maple flavour enough to speak to the authenticity of it—even before everything, maple syrup had never exactly been a frequent part of his diet. The syrup hadn't soaked the waffle completely. It was springy, relatively soft, thankfully devoid of burnt flavour. All told, it broke over him like a wave. He still wasn't hungry, but his body knew he hadn't eaten in months. The dissonance shook up his senses as he swallowed, foreign, familiar, a good reminder that he was on Earth again, even if he wasn't home, all at once. It all must've shown on his face, because he found Liam looking at him again, slightly puzzled.

   "God, that's weird," Bryce summed up, "how did you put up with eating again, the first time?"

   Liam shrugged, "I don't know. I guess I was so focused on getting to Bridgeport I just didn't think about how long it'd been." He pierced another piece with his fork, glancing out the window. "Honestly, seeing the sunrise again threw me off more than anything"

Bryce followed his gaze. It wasn't even 4 a.m; the sun wasn't rising yet. The moon hadn't moved much. It still watched them from the sky. Another plane was slowly making its way across the sky, though. Blinking, red and green. The door swung open, shut. Less than three seconds later the suited man walked past their window, leaving them the only patrons inside. 

   "I guess I can see that," Bryce said. They watched the city sleep a little longer.

A minute passed in this quiet.

Then another. 

And another.

Then, as Bryce's eyes began to droop again—

   "You told me to go home," Liam said, suddenly. Bryce looked at him, but caught the fading green of his hair rather than his eyes once again.

   "Yeah?"

   "You said I had to go home"

   "Yeah, what's your point?"

   "Why?"

Bryce blinked.

   "Why?" he parroted.

   Liam turned to him. "Why?"

Bryce shifted, leaning away from the window to look at him fully. 

   "What kind of question is that?"

Liam, following his lead, turned away from the window as well. He shrugged.

"It was over," Bryce said, "you stopped Airy, you sent us home, you didn't need to be there anymore." He grabbed his coffee, which had finally cooled enough to drink. Sipping it, he found it much less sweet and much more burnt than the waffle had been. Like he was sipping from the same pot they'd prepped the morning before—a likely bet, if he was to guess. At the very least he could appreciate its warmth.

He watched Liam's expression shift, and somewhere along the line he began fidgeting with a stained blue sleeve. Setting his mug down, Bryce nudged the half eaten, half forgotten plate into Liam's hands.

"You needed to go home," He said, "That's it. End of story." Bryce tried to keep his voice firm, certain, as though his thoughts on the matter began and ended here. Consciously, he didn't think of 2:59 a.m, how he'd felt when he'd opened his mouth. The coulds and woulds and formless opinions he had on Liam's fate. Either way, he'd known and still knew now, Bryce wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, not really. So instead, he picked up his fork. It left a sticky spot on the table where he'd left it.

Liam looked at him. His lips were pressed thin and his look measured. Almost like he didn't believe him, or had more to share. But whatever it was stayed in his head. 

Without another word, he grabbed his fork and began, again, to eat.

[tiredcowpoke]

TITLE: The Ease of a Storm PAIRING: Arthur Morgan/Reader. REQUEST: Unprompted. BLURB: A thunderstorm rolls in while you and Arthur are in the wilderness. WARNINGS: Thunderstorms, I guess? It’s mostly fluff.  NOTE: I’ve seen a couple works where Arthur comforts the reader about a fear of thunder, but usually I sit there like “can’t relate” because I love thunder. To an extent at least. lol So, I figured I’d write something for people who like thunder and standing around in the rain as much as I do. I miss it in the winter where I live. Anyway, gender neutral reader! Kind of short but to the point and fun to write, so hey. There’s also a bit of a personal headcanon in there too. 

Despite the pine tree, you could feel some wetness soaking into the fabric of the jacket you wore.

Thankfully, you had the foresight to take a heavier one that you usually wore, so the chill that settled didn’t effect you much. You could see your breath somewhat as the rain poured down on the ground around you, the branches of the tree at least making it only somewhat of a light spray. However, you had long since smelled the wet earth before the first drops fell where you were.

You had been sitting in the tent, reading, as Arthur had managed to doze off beside you in the late afternoon. Given the ride out to where you were near Strawberry, you weren’t sure if he was really out for the night or just napping. Still, the man deserved it. You had been acutely aware of just how much he worked for the gang, much to your own frustration at points when you just wanted to see him, have moments like earlier where you both could relax. That or when you wanted to help, but he brushed it off.

Still, it was nice to see. However, you weren’t all that inclined to join him and you had been getting a little restless when the first winds of a storm swept through the area. Luckily, the wind wasn’t too strong, just enough to add some chill and bring the rain your way. Normally, you knew you should have woken Arthur up and said something about the storm--it was still early out, maybe you could ride into Strawberry later if it gets worse.

Really, the idea of rain had gotten you a little excited. It had been enough for you to wait it out a bit before getting up and exiting the tent, wandering over toward the tree that you currently were standing under.

For once, your mind felt blank. At ease.

You could hear the rain falling against the ground and leaves of the trees, looking out over the small ravine as you watched the rain fall. You watched the dirt paths below, the odd rider racing through, hands keeping their hats securely on their heads as they rode through the downpour. There was the odd animal that would scurry across the paths down below, and you could hear them moving around near where you were. However, it didn’t seem like it was any cause for concern for you, your arms crossed in order to keep some heat in your jacket. You just listened, letting time pass.

There was no gang, no Arthur, no task at hand. Just you.

Though, your gaze flicked upward, catching a quick flutter of light in one of the clouds that loomed in the distance. Sure enough, there was a low rumble a few moments later, making a smile spread across your face.

However, you couldn’t hold onto the moment. Not forever, anyway. As the thunder settled, you heard a familiar voice call your name. There was a notable sound of alarm to it, making you turn to glance back toward where the camp was. You could see your horse standing under the tree you hitched her to, tossing her head somewhat but otherwise seemed unphased. Still, you shifted to push off the tree somewhat, hand coming down to rest against your holster.

“Arthur!” you called out, almost cursing yourself at possibly leading trouble your way instead of just heading back. Still...well, he had called out first.

Sure enough, you heard a rustle and hurried footfalls coming your way, as much as the rain threatened to drown the sound out as another rumble of thunder filled the air. Arthur walked toward you, hand resting on his hat as you relaxed somewhat.

“The hell’re you doin’?” he asked, accusatory but otherwise fine.

“Watching the storm,” you replied, turning to lean back to where you were against the tree trunk, beckoning him over with a small wave.

Arthur walked up beside you, pressing shoulder to shoulder as he tried to shelter himself under the same tree. As much as you weren’t freezing, the little warmth that offered was appreciated. You were fine with lapsing back into silence so you could listen to the downpour, but with Arthur there with you, you knew it would only be a while until he filled the silence.

However, you weren’t expecting the touch of sheepishness.

“Used to be...scared of storms. When I was little.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he replied around a sigh, “They used to get me bad, but after my mother passed...well, my ol’ man weren’t all that nice ‘bout it. Learned to stop cryin’ about them, but they used to make me anxious and thunder made me flinch well into me bein’ a teenager.”

“They don’t now,” you observed as a somewhat louder clap of thunder almost drowned out the last of his words--he hadn’t even blinked.

“Yeah, I stopped ‘round the time I got used to gunshots,” he replied, pausing a moment, “...and Hosea helped.”

“Hosea?”

“Yeah, think...think he noticed, when I was young,” he replied, a somewhat far away look in his eye as he continued, “About a year after I joined him and Dutch, he used to see a storm roll in and would linger about ‘round me. Tried to do some readin’ and writin’ too, if the storm weren’t too destructive. Eventually, he’d pull me away from camp and we’d watch it roll in if it weren’t too miserable. We were out west then, too...would feel the heat drop off and you just knew.”

“...I’ve always liked thunderstorms,” you admitted, “and rain. Ever since I was young. I’d get scolded a lot, running out into the rain and the mud whenever one would roll around.”

“You and I was two different kids, then,” Arthur commented, “Couldn’t catch me inside anywhere unless there was a storm.”

You let out a small hum in agreement, leaning against his side as you rested your head against his shoulder. The leather of his jacket had gone somewhat cold in the weather, some wetness on your cheek but you were getting rained on already. Though, Arthur shifted to wrap his arm around you and hold you closer to his side. You ran over what he told you in your head, seeing that scared little kid in your mind's eye (and tried not to think too deeply on his family life back then. He had mentioned a few things about his father, you were aware of what he was like.) Though, the Hosea story warmed your heart a bit.

Admittedly, you had noticed the photo of him, Dutch, and Arthur on the side of the wagon back at camp. When you first saw it, it was strange to see the younger versions of themselves. Though, you could imagine Hosea from that photo sitting on a bedroll under a tarp, trying to read to Arthur and them sitting together at the edge of camp.

There was some envy there, admittedly. You never really had much of a father-figure in your life. Then again, Arthur may not have either, if he hadn’t have joined up with the gang.

There was a history you felt relieved to be let in on, among other things that had developed as you and Arthur got close.

“I never took you for the storm watchin’ type,” he commented after the lingering silence, your head shifting somewhat from his shoulder.

“I never took you for someone who fears them,” you returned, letting out a small chuckle at the look he shot you.

“When I was a kid,” he stressed, “I ain’t no more. Don’t make me regret tellin’ you that.”

“I won’t,” you replied with another small chuckle, “I’m glad I heard it from you, I’m sure Hosea would have brought it up eventually. He does like to rib you.”

“He sure does…”

You smiled, reaching up to turn his head so you could kiss him. You held the gesture for a few moments, Arthur letting out a sound from the back of his throat before he pulled away somewhat.

“You’re soakin’ wet,” he commented, causing you to scoff lightly.

“You’re being dramatic. I’m a little damp.”

“No, seriously, I don’t even know how you’re not shiverin’,” he returned, though he didn’t shove you away from him as he glanced out toward the ravine again, “Though, hate to cut your fun time out here short, but that gets any closer and we might have to think about headin’ into town. I may not be scared of thunder no more, but I’ve seen what lightnin’ does.”

“...Yeah,” you admitted--you had been noticing the distance of the flashes and the volume of the thunder had been getting closer and louder.

“I’m sure it’ll be just as nice to listen to from inside that hotel in Strawberry,” he commented, stepping away from you.

As he did so, you could feel the coldness of the air seep in pretty quickly--maybe you were getting a little soaked. You cast one last glance out toward the gathering storm before turning and following him back toward the makeshift camp. As much as you loved storms, a warm bath seemed nice too.

[gettingthatyellowjaundice]

Eugene tastes of sorrow when Snafu kisses him in the hot rain of Peking, his teeth sharp and the memory of blood still caught in his skin, in his shadow, in the places where he ought to be clean but isn’t. Ain’t nobody clean anymore, not a single damn one of them. They been dirtied, sinned in the eyes of god and heaven and laid their arms down and wept in the mud, only they didn’t, they didn’t, they went on marching and killing and none of them ever repented, Snafu least of all, because maybe god never existed in the first place and it was all a lie, every last word of it, there wasn’t ever anything greater than man, and ain’t it all a big fucking joke, Sledgehammer? Ain’t that all it’s ever been?

No, says Eugene, no, you’re wrong, and there are tears in his voice because he still believes in god despite everything, still believes there was a reason for all that death, for the children who cried in the night over their mommas’ dead bodies, blood trickling down their tiny throats.  There is a heaven and there is a hell and we did what we were meant to do, Snaf, he insists, and Snafu kisses him harder, until he tastes blood of a different kind than in the war, and Eugene falls into him, his limbs useless, his breathing soft.

“You ought to come home with me,” He says, “Ought to get a place out by the river and we’ll buy a dog and sleep together at night, just you and I, and no one else in all the word, and we’ll forget the war -” “It don’t work that way."

But Eugene does not stop, his face frantic in the rain, like he’s running out of time for something he’s got to do, like he’s fixing to die, only Snafu wants to tell him it’s over, we lived we lived, we weren’t meant to live but goddamnit all we did. But Eugene's hands are desperate, his eyes are bright, he’s saying we’ll go away somewhere nobody’ll ever see us again and we’ll have the stars and the summer heat and each other and we’ll swim every morning and you’ll throw your Jap teeth in a ravine and I’ll stop writin’ in my bible and the blood will fall from our skin like water oh god Snafu can’t you see, why can’t you see.

“Hush, hush,  ain’t no use in dreamin’,” Snafu says, but it’s as if Eugene don’t hear him, the way he goes on in that breathless, dying way. So he sinks his teeth into Eugene’s lips and pulls him down with him onto wet ground, their knees brushing together as they fall, and Snafu buries his face in the sweep of Eugene’s neck and closes his eyes, the image of that wild, youthful face burnt into him - the rain pouring down the bridge of Eugene’s nose, eyes near delirious, his words all blurring together into one until Snafu couldn’t hardly tell one from the other, until in the end they didn’t mean a thing, nothing at all, except: I love you. That’s all Eugene had been trying to say, he realizes, all that had to be said before they parted maybe forever, maybe for the last time. Nothing more than that, nothing greater, just a confession in the end. 

“Oh, Hammer, didn’t your mama teach you sodomy is a sin?” “So is killing. So is everythin’ we’ve done.”

He mutters a muffled curse into Eugene’s rain-soaked shoulder, because Eugene’s right, what’s one more blasphemy, one more sin, after all they’ve done? They’re all goin’ to hell, every man on earth, except maybe for the saints and the children, so they ought to love while they’re still alive, ought not to try to be cautious and try to be good and try to be clean. And suddenly he feels he’s never been less sure about anything than he is now, doesn’t know what he wants or what is right, if there ever was such thing as right and wrong or if he and Eugene ought to stay like this forever, their bodies pressed close in an alleyway in China where no one will see the way two men hold one another like lovers, time moving neither forwards or backward, only caught forever in a tropical storm where Eugene is close and warm. 

“I hate you, Eugene,” He whispers, something raw and open in his throat, like the pulsing wound of war. “Wish I’d never known you.”

Eugene scrapes a stray hair back from his face with a shaking hand, “You don’t mean that.”

And Snafu says nothing, his heart on his tongue, an old grief filling him to the edges of what he is and where he ends. He can’t give Eugene what he wants, the softness Eugene imagines still lingers somewhere inside of him, can’t tell him: it’s gone, Gene. I lost it to the wet, cold mouth of Okinawa, to Peleliu in the sun, to Gloucester, Japan, America, the war, hatred. I haven’t got anything left to give you. You want so much but it isn’t there anymore.

He pulls away, his head bowed against the wind, rubs his thumb over Eugene’s knuckles once more, for good luck, for love, and says very quietly: “It don’t matter. Ain’t to be, boo, none of it.”

[cipheramnesia]

I stick my thumbs into my suspenders and begin to slowly stroll around the courtroom.

Now, ladies and gentlemen and others of the jury, I'm just a simple trans woman from the suburbs. I grew-up with honest arcade games, raised on generic cereal and lack of parental affection the same as you good, hard workin' folks. So it might be that I'm not smart enough to understand.

But folks, when a world famous British author writes what we can humbly call a manifesto opposing the rights of good n honest trans folx like myself and some of you too, yes you, my friends. Well folks y'see it seems t'me that when such a person of great fame and world-wide familiarity writes so lengthy a manifesto against trans rights, and spends the majority of such a document rantin' an' ravin' about thems as are trans masculine - friends, it seems to me that it wouldn't be such a great reach to say such a famous and world renowned bigot was opposed to all stripes of trans folks, all kinds, the mascs an the femmes an all them as what don't land on either gender space.

However, I am just a simple trans gal from the suburbs, so maybe I don't know what it is I'm talkin about. Maybe I read my way through that awful piece o writin' from a so called professional writer way back when it first come out for nothin. But my friends, I surely hope we ain't all forgot how it is with us, how we all gotta stand together? Ladies and gentlemen and many others of the jury, I thank you for your time.

The satisfaction of seeding some inclusionist details into a post to see if you'll get some exclusionists to out themselves versus the sadness of when they do.

[doodlebeeberry]

Losing and Finding

Bryce stared out at the stars above. Near to the city as they were, the vast majority were still blotted out, but the relative dark of the campgrounds revealed a small smattering of them, glittering clear. He knew—or, rather, he’d once heard—that all he really could see through the light pollution were satellites and planets he couldn’t name, but he didn’t care. Tired and sleepless, he felt as though he could touch them. In which Bryce, Liam, and Amelia go on a very important road trip

for objectober day 5- reunion! (and also for a request over on ao3)

my fun fact about this is that its the only thing ive ever written that ive made a playlist for. make of that what you will

(ao3 link in source)

They left early in the afternoon. Liam fidgeted with the radio dial, flipping past top 40s stations and several newscasts while Amelia drove along beside him.

    “I still don’t get why we’re driving there,” He said, pausing for a moment at the tail-end of what seemed like some 80s dad rock. 

    “What else are we supposed to do,” Amelia asked, glancing between him and the road, “take the train?”

    “Yeah?” a trap beat started up and Liam frowned, flipping past it. “The train is way better”

    “But it takes way longer.”

    “So? At least you don’t have to stop for gas every twenty miles”

    “Are you accusing my car of having shit mileage?” Bryce butted in from the back seat, leaning in over the center console. He grasped his phone in his hand, halfway through entering directions.

    “I’m not saying that!” Liam defended, throwing his hands up, leaving the radio on a live sportscast, “I’m not! I'm just saying, having to worry about gas stations isn’t the best way to travel”

    “And counting train stops is? Or do you just like traveling around with a bunch of strangers?” Bryce countered, typing on his phone once more.

Something good must’ve happened in whatever game they were covering, given the whoops of ecstatic joy that suddenly came from the radio. Liam turned back to it, flipping to static.

    “At least it’s more efficient. Better for the environment.” He said, faux-defensive.

    “Whatever you say, man” Bryce replied offhand.

Relative silence lapsed between them, above the radio and vrring of the car down the road. It persisted for several seconds.

    “Your mileage is pretty bad, though,” Amelia said, not bothering to look at either of them. Bryce flicked her rim. 

    “Is it that one about laying..” Amelia snapped her fingers a few times, trying to think of the name, “Chasing Cars, I think? That one?”

Bryce’s car didn’t have an audio jack, let alone bluetooth. A bit of an old junker, alongside the radio, it boasted only a skip-happy cd player and a tape deck that had chewed up a few cassettes in its time. But that hadn’t stopped Liam from breaking out his phone and, armed with the tape to aux converter buried in the glove box, playing dj after the radio had failed him. 

    “I don’t know that one” Bryce said.

    Amelia glanced at him in the mirror, “Yes you do. It's the one they kept playing at the store the other week”

    “The 'just lay here' one? You mean that?”

    “Yeah, that! God, how many times in a row did they play that?”

    “Way too many,” Bryce cringed a bit at the thought, “ Way too many. But no, it’s not that.”

They’d spent a while going around in a circle, each of them picking a song for Liam to play, one after the other. At present, though, the cycle had gotten stuck on Bryce, fumbling for the name of the song currently stuck in his head that he hadn’t actually listened to since high school.

    “Does it sound like that, though?”

    “Kinda?” Bryce furrowed a brow in thought, “I think it's named after some sort of flower?”

    “Oh! Hey There Delilah!” Liam chimed in.

    “No, not that either,” Bryce paused, briefly, then, turning to Liam, “how’d you get that from flowers?”

    “Cause a delilah is a flower.” 

    “What? No, it’s just a name”

    “No, Liam’s right, I think it’s a flower, too” 

    Bryce stared at Amelia and Liam like they were spouting gibberish. “What are you two talking about?”

    “It’s true!” Amelia defended, “Look it up! Liam, look it up”

Bryce peeked around Liam’s shoulder at his phone, the browser already pulled up. Upon typing in ‘delilah’, Liam pointed to the suggested searches.

    “See? ‘Delilah flower’, its the third result”

    “That doesn’t make you right, though” Bryce replied, clicking the search and watching it load, slowly. Several pictures of pink and yellow flowers popped up on the screen.

    “The delilah flower is a type of dahlia,” Liam read, “and is a member of the,” he squinted a bit at the word, “Asteraceae family, alongside daisies and chrysanthemums. They often symbolize kindness and steadfastness—see? It's a flower!”

They’d been sitting in traffic for a while now. Well over half an hour, at least. Apparently, according to the traffic report Liam had pulled up some twenty minutes ago, there had been an accident somewhere just ahead of them. A messy one, by the sound of it.

    “I spy with my little eye, something that is…” Liam scanned the lines of cars stretching down the highway ahead of them, “Purple”

    “Purple?”

    “Yep. Bright purple.”

Bryce hummed, studying their surroundings. Purple wasn’t exactly a common colour on the highway. Still, he spotted a few speckles of it in the median to their left.

    “Those flowers,” Bryce said, pointing. Liam glanced at them.

    “Pretty! But no.” 

He sputtered a bit. “What do you mean, no? They’re the only purple things around here!”

    “No they’re not,” Liam said, grinning slightly at his frustration, “You’ve just gotta look closer”

Music swirled around them as he searched, Amelia humming along, tapping the steering wheel. He turned to her after a minute.

    “Help me out, here, will you?”

    “Nope,” she said, almost, sing-songy, “you got yourself into this, you—”

    “You don’t know either, do you.”

    “..no, I don’t.”

Bryce rolled his eyes, glaring out at the horizon. It was then that he spotted it: a splash of colour sticking out ahead of them.

    “So? Admit defeat?” Liam asked. 

    “Oh my god,” Bryce replied. He all but shot forward to point it out, “That car ”

How he’d missed it before, Bryce didn’t know. It stuck out like a sore thumb: bright, almost neon purple, with what could only be described as a gaudy, yellow-striped fin sticking proudly out of the roof. Liam cackled.

    “What is that ?” Amelia cried upon spotting it.

    “That’s it!", Liam said between giggles, “You got it!”

Bryce continued to stare at it. He wouldn’t consider himself, or any of them, for that matter, an authority on good taste, not by a longshot. Their furniture clashed, their mugs were tacky—just about nothing back home in their apartment matched with anything else. But good god,

    “That’s awful,” he said, balking, “what the hell?”

An hour later, traffic finally began to let up. They’d fallen into a bit of silence by that point, letting the music alone fill the space as they passed by the reminisce of the accident. Pointedly, Bryce stared down at the directions on his phone, listing the miles and miles they still had left to travel, his chest just slightly tight. He didn’t look up until Liam choked, suddenly, somewhat past the reminisce, snorting at the garish car they were passing. Upon spotting the matching fins stuck to the side doors, all striped with different colours, the three of them nearly howled with laughter.

They’d pulled into a small rest stop just after the car chimed about being empty, a larger one boasting several little restaurants if the sign was to be believed. Bryce stood beside the car, nozzle in hand, listening to the fwish of gas rushing between the pump and the car. The total cost whizzed higher and higher, much faster than the slow climb of the gallons beneath it on the display. He grimaced. Liam’s train idea seemed to make a lot more sense, then. He took to watching the highway instead. A tractor-trailer roared past, followed shortly after by a u-haul van and a tiny bright orange fiat. He tried to squint across the distance, to make out the figures behind the wheels or in the passenger’s seats, but they all just blurred together, sticking out no more than a single leaf on the trees boarding the road, dense in early summer green.

He couldn’t remember the face of the driver. It’d been chaotic, and in the moment, he couldn’t care less. He wasn’t looking for them. He—

The nozzle stopped, clicking. He blinked out at the scenery for a moment. A red SUV breezed past, then a black sedan, then a convertible, and so on and on and on. He forced his thoughts back to the present. Sparing the screen a glance, he found the tank hadn’t quite reached full but returned the nozzle anyways. It would be enough for tonight.

    “Bryce!”

He turned, finding Amelia and Liam trotting out through the service center doors. A little black plastic bag hung off Liam’s arm, a sandwich in his hand. Bryce had just enough forewarning, when Liam threw it to him, to catch it. He turned it over, reading the label. Turkey and swiss.

    “They’re doing renovations in there, so the restaurants were closed,” Liam said on approach, “It was kinda slim pickings. I got some snacks too if you just want those instead” he began digging through the bag a bit. Bryce hadn’t actually told them he’d wanted anything, to his knowledge. He'd forgotten about eating almost entirely. Still, heart warm,

    “Nah, this is fine,” Bryce said, “Thanks.” He began unwrapping it carefully. Liam smiled gently, pulling out a snack cake for himself.

    “Of course, man.”

The three stood clustered together for several minutes, chatting and eating and stretching out after being cramped in the car for nearly five hours straight, drinking in the long shadows and the warm slant of the late afternoon sun. Amelia swallowed the last bit of her granola bar.

    “How much further are we going today?” She asked.

    Bryce hummed. “I think we're...an hour out from Pittsburgh? Something like that”

    “Alright, cool” She replied, crumpling up the wrapper. It glinted, silvery, almost dazzling in the light. Amelia tossed it into a nearby bin and stretched a bit, groaning slightly. “God, I don’t remember the last time I drove this long.”

    “I can take over, you know.” Bryce offered.

    “No need,” Liam butted in before she could answer, oozing with mock confidence, “I’ve got it!”

Amelia and Bryce looked at him flatly.

    “No,” they said, together.

    “Why not?” Liam whined.

    “Cause we wanna get there without wrecking the car first” Amelia replied, patting his shoulder when he frowned, “Sorry”

    Liam grumbled, bitelessly, “You crash one car four times—”

    “How do you still have a license?” Bryce asked, opening the driver’s side door.

    “No idea. Dumb luck, probably”

    “Really?” Amelia said, sliding into the back seat, “I just thought you bribed the DMV somehow”

Liam sputtered as she shut the door.

Bryce stared out at the stars above. Near to the city as they were, the vast majority were still blotted out, but the relative dark of the campgrounds revealed a small smattering of them, glittering clear. He knew—or, rather, he’d once heard—that all he really could see through the light pollution were satellites and planets he couldn’t name, but he didn’t care. Tired and sleepless, he felt as though he could touch them.

He wasn’t sure how, exactly, Amelia and Liam had convinced him to go camping on the way here instead of just getting a motel somewhere. Some mix of ‘it’ll be cheaper' and ‘it’ll be good weather for it’ and ‘we can borrow the neighbour’s tent, he’ll let us’ and ‘come on, it’ll be fun’, combined with the fact that those two were very, very good at convincing him to do stupid stuff, regardless of the fact that none of them had been camping in ages at least, if at all. Between the three of them, they could hardly even set up a tent, a fact proven when they’d been startled awake by it collapsing onto them while they slept about an hour ago. They hadn’t bothered setting it back up, though. Rather, they’d chucked it into the back of the car, opting to sleep under the sky instead, still pressed shoulder to shoulder as they had been in the just-to-small tent. But he hadn’t fallen back asleep yet. For nearly an hour, he stared up, listening to Liam and Amelia snore or mumble occasionally in their sleep. Frogs and crickets sang out, all around them. A warm night, just slightly windy. He counted the stars once, twice, thrice, until he lost count, over and over, trying to drown out the creep up his spine. Not unease, not anger, not quite numbness. He clenched clover-filled grass between his fingers.

Half a block away. So, so close to home—most accidents happen close to home. He wasn’t sure where he’d heard that. It sounded true. It felt true. Bad things always happen close to home. He heard it happen from the front door. Screeching. Crashing. Clattering. Screaming. A voice.

Bryce swallowed. He counted the stars again. He didn’t know any constellations but sought them out anyways.

He could hardly see her. A flash of torn blue. Warped plastic, forced into itself. Crunched metal. Glass shards glittered. The streetlights hid nothing. Above the haze of voices, he heard her gasping.

Fuck.

Her friend was shaking, scraped. The driver could hardly stand. Despite the early summer, a chill seized him.

Liam, rolling over, threw an arm out, smacking Bryce in the face. It forced a shaky breath from him, so suddenly wrenching him from his thoughts. Once he realized what’d happened, he shoved his arm off of him. Several moments later he rolled over himself, facing the trees, and shut his eyes.

    “Right, you’d think that,” Liam said, “but that’s not what he did”

Amelia picked a glazed munchkin from the box between them. They idly soaked up the morning slowly, clustered around a teeny table in a rest stop dunkin.

    “What else could he do?” She asked before popping it in her mouth.

    “Double down.”

    “Didn’t you just say he was completely wrong?” Bryce asked.

    "Oh, yeah, totally,” He sipped his tea, “The book said he was wrong, but he didn’t care. He just started railing on us about it”

    Amelia wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Why?”

    “Cause he didn’t wanna be wrong? I don’t know. But he spent, like, half an hour arguing with us. He even gave one of my classmates detention over it.”

    She raised a brow, “Really?”

    “M-hm. I don’t think she actually went, though.”

    “Wow,” Amelia paused a moment, then, “He sounds awful.”

    “Yeah, he sucked,” He leaned back as Bryce sipped his coffee, “He was probably the worst science teacher I ever had. Like, he would fail you if he didn’t like how you did your notes”

    Amelia hummed, perking up, “I had an english teacher like that. She’d make you rewrite your homework if she didn’t like your handwriting.” 

    “Must’ve been a bad class for you, then” Bryce quipped. 

    “You have no idea. I still have nightmares about it” She grimaced, chuckling a bit.

Wind whipped in through the open windows. It would, under any other circumstances, be hard to make out the music crackling through the speakers, but,

    “Mamaaa, life had just begun!” Liam crooned along from the backseat, horrifically off-key, “But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away!”

Bryce held back a laugh, “At least sing it on key, ”

    “No! That’s no fun, come on,”

    “Oh my god—”

    “Mamaa,” Amelia sang, a bit more subdued but just as pitchy, “oooh,” She glanced between the road, Bryce, and Liam. Liam brightened. Bryce all but buried his face in his hands. “Didn’t mean to make you cry,”

    Liam joined her, “If I'm not back again this time tomorrow,” he leaned over the center console. Side-by-side, they nearly shouted, “Carry on! Carry on, as if nothing really matters,”

    Bryce snickered, “I can’t go anywhere with you two,”

    “Come on, you love us,” Amelia grinned at him.

    “Maybe, when you can sing on key”

    She reached over blindly to nudge at him, “You’re mean!” before launching back into the song with Liam. Bryce watched them, smiling slightly. He’d heard them both sing before, when making dinner or sweeping or flipping through the mail, melodies under their breaths. They weren’t quite so off-key, normally. Though in those cases, he supposed, they weren’t singing around fits of giggles either. And, during one such bout of laughter, when he chimed, a bit flat, 

    “So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye?”

Liam threw an arm around his shoulder. Amelia beamed, and the three of them sang into the afternoon, ringing out along the seemingly endless highway for all the world to hear.

    “Would you rather…” Amelia tapped the steering wheel, thinking, “fight one bear-sized ant, or a hundred ant-sized bears?”

    “Ant-sized bears” Bryce replied, almost off-handedly.

    “Really?”

    “Yeah, you just step on 'em.”

    “But they have claws, they can attack you. Ants don’t have claws.”

Liam butted in, “What kind of ants do you mean, though? Some of them b—”

He was cut off by a loud thup-th-thump from the back of the car. They tensed, and when it continued,  jolting the car as it drove along, Bryce’s heart lurched, uneasy.

Upon pulling over, though, the issue became clear enough.

    “Shit,” Bryce grumbled. On full display before them, the rear right tire had been rendered flat as a pancake. Despite the simplicity of the issue, the slight unease in his chest stuck.

    “No big deal, we can just replace it,” Amelia said confidently, turning to him, “Where’s your spare?”

    “That is the spare,” he replied without looking up.

    “Ah.”

They stood there for several moments, staring at it as though it might, by some miracle, reinflate. Cars breezed by, uncaring, filling the silence. When it became clear the issue wasn’t going to fix itself, Liam ducked into the car for his phone.

“How long have you been driving on it?” she asked.

    “About a month”

    She turned to Bryce once more, “You know you’re not supposed to do that, right?”

    “I know”

    “So…why?”

Now, the honest answer was simply that Bryce hadn’t gotten around to changing it, but,

    He glanced at her, “Is there any answer that’ll keep you from chewing me out?”

    “Not really, no”

    “Then I don’t know” Bryce replied, looking back down at the tire. She sighed, only somewhat exasperated, luckily enough for him.

    “Before you lecture him,” Liam said, popping back out of the car, phone in hand, “can one of you give me the number for the tow truck first?”

It took the truck about an hour and a half to get there, and another thirty minutes to drop them off at a garage. It would be at least twenty minutes before the mechanics would even be free to see their car, and even then it would take another ten to actually change the tire. They’d been a bit thrown off schedule, was the point. But, unlike the wait for the truck, which the three of them spent baking in the sun and, in Bryce’s case, getting just mildly chastised by Amelia for being unsafe, the garage sat right next to a strip mall, which they took to wandering through at their leisure. Most of the storefronts were fairly uninteresting: a craft store boasting a 50% sale on yarn, a dance studio through the windows of which they could spot a handful of kids stumbling their way through ballet, a shuttered antique shop that was nearly empty, it seemed, beyond a half-open box of ceramics, and so on and on. They drifted into a few shops but hardly stayed long enough to peruse, much less buy anything. 

The unease in Bryce’s chest hadn’t left. Really, it’d been hovering over him all day, just enough to be noticeable, but the blow-out had far from soothed it. As he trotted around aimlessly, making idle chatter with Liam and Amelia, it seemed to curl its way down from his chest to the pit of his stomach, wriggling ever so slowly into a dreadful weight. He knew, despite the setbacks, that they’d likely still make it there by the end of the day. Stepping out of a pet shop, he tried to tune the realization out.

    “I think we should’ve gotten that kitten,” Liam said, walking alongside Amelia a step ahead of him.

    “I don’t think our landlord would let us have a pet,” Amelia replied, “he was pretty cute though”

They wandered up to a little flower shop, nearly bursting at the seams with blooms if the view through the window was any indication. Several bins of bouquets sat beside the door.

    “We could’ve hidden him. That’s what I did when I was little”

Bryce slowed to a stop beside one of the bins.

    “You had a cat?” Amelia asked.

    “For a little bit, yeah. A little grey one. I called her Dusty”

They stopped, then, no longer hearing his footsteps.

    “Bryce?” Amelia called back, turning. He didn’t reply, looking over the flowers, frowning slightly. Thinking. She came to his side, Liam not far behind.

“They’re pretty,” she said, after a moment. He hummed, half listening. Carefully, he picked up a bundle of bluebells and baby’s breaths, turning them over in his hands. The back half of the bouquets had wilted noticeably. 

“Do you wanna get some?” she asked, gently. Bryce glanced at her. “For..”

    “Yeah…” he said, “I think so?” he set them back in the bin just as gently as he’d grabbed them. His hand hovered slightly at the edge. “I don’t know” 

He was almost sheepish—an odd look on him, in both Amelia's and Liam’s eyes. She looked out over her choices for a moment before reaching for a bunch in the center of the bin.

    “Here,” Amelia held the bouquet out to him: a small assortment of iris and white chrysanthemums, “how about these?” He took them, vibrant and alive, in his hands.

    “...They’re nice” he replied, smiling just slightly at her. She smiled back. The three of them trotted inside the cramped store and up to the till. But, when Bryce began fumbling for his wallet, Amelia set a hand on his arm.

    “Don’t worry about it,” she said, wallet already in hand. He didn’t get the chance to reply before she stepped up to the counter to pay.

It wasn’t until they began making their way back to the garage, side-by-side with her, that he said, warmly,

    “Thanks, by the way”

And she grinned up at him once again, just as warm.

They did not, in fact, get there before the end of the day.

Bryce gripped the wheel a bit too tightly, staring out into the evening din at the red light. They’d left the music on autoplay, and it’d wandered its way from oldies to 00s alt to soft jazz, somehow, spilling from the speakers alongside Liam’s gentle snoring from the backseat. Glancing beside him at Amelia, she seemed on the brink of dozing off, too. He watched the light, taking deep breaths. The feeling in his gut had only gotten worse, bigger, threatening to crush him beneath the dread.

Caught between a rock and a hard place. Metal against her arms. Her chest. Her legs. Unyielding, sharp. Pinned like an insect. She could hardly squirm. She couldn’t speak. Just stare. 

They were just outside Hartford. Twenty minutes out. Less than that, even. He hadn’t seen these streets in years, but somehow he still knew the path like the back of his hand. He wished he didn’t. He wished he didn’t wish that. 

He met her eyes around the mess. Wide. Terrified. Desperate. Staring straight into him. 

He wished the light would change. He wished it wouldn’t. He watched it, palms clammy, half seeing around the lump in his throat.

Friends and neighbours scrambled around them. She only looked at him.

Fuck. He couldn’t do this.

He said something, numbly. Whispery. Mumbling. Drowned out in the panic.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this.

He said something to her. He couldn’t do anything else.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. He had to turn around. He couldn’t do this. He—

    “Hey,” Amelia knocked him out of it, nudging him, “light’s green.”

He struggled to swallow. The buzz in his head lifted just enough that he could acknowledge the little green dot hanging in his sight. 

    “Right,” he said. Steeling himself, he pulled ahead. Nobody had been behind him, thankfully. Liam had stirred, at some point, leaning to look at him. The music had stopped. The quiet drenched him like cold water. He went a little faster, filling the space with the low vrr.

    “You alright?” Amelia asked eventually. He adjusted his grip on the wheel.

    “M-hm” he replied, flat, staring dead ahead. He didn’t notice the look she and Liam shared, much too focused on pressing onwards. He couldn’t do anything else.

Bryce stood at the threshold. A short stone wall stretched on either side of him, moss-speckled. Beyond the first few rows, the streetlamps did little to light the plots. Cricket song once more filled the air, now gone humid. His legs felt like jelly. Like bricks. Too heavy to move. Too light to control. The flowers had wilted just a bit on the car ride here. He clutched them in his left hand. Amelia held his right hand loosely. Liam stood at his other side. They hovered there for a minute, unmoving. Liam set a hand on his shoulder.

    “You don’t have to if you’re not ready,” he said, “it’s fine”

Bryce took a deep breath. Without a word, he stepped forward, pulling away from them, past the wall, and into the cemetery itself.

He’d only actually visited once, following her burial, early in the morning with his mother, just before they’d stopped talking completely. Even still, he knew exactly where he was going, moving on autopilot past rows and rows of graves. A few had candles lit around them, while others were decorated with flowers or pictures or the occasional odd trinket. Others still were laid barren, unloved. Moss and weathering crept up the headstones, so much so on some that their names became no more than unreadable impressions on the granite. He turned right. It was almost hard to breathe. The grass had grown in long, lit mainly by the little lights from Liam and Amelia’s phones. Hardly any of these graves were decorated, though none were yet overgrown. It seemed to take ages, like the row grew longer with each step. Eventually, though, he stopped, one grave over from the edge. It, too, was undecorated, a few leaves having gathered on the headstone. After a moment’s deliberation, he reached out and brushed them off with forced-steady fingers. 

Stella Hansen, it read. Dead exactly six years to the day. He set the flowers down and stepped back, hanging there just above her grave like a ghost. The dread was gone, somewhat. The weight remained, but it morphed into obtuse shapes, the names of which escaped him, moving senselessly through him. He remembered, last time he was here, how his mother had spoken: a curt, one-sided conversation, her shoulders stiff. He felt, now, that he should say something too. Some greeting, at least. Some talk about life. The scrips were there, in his head, for meetings with estranged family and friends he hadn’t seen since high school and any number of contexts he could try to slot his words into, but they refused to take form. He opened his mouth, and his throat went numb, language morphing and dying on his tongue. 

The world seemed small, impossibly so. Bryce stood in a bubble, him and her and the sounds of night, where life and death seemed to blur until he was back at the accident, in the radio room, her eyes meeting his across the distance. Like she’d be able to hear him, somehow. 

He stayed there until the numbness and weight grew too much and he stepped away, breaking back into reality. Turning, he walked off without saying a word, Amelia and Liam trailing behind him.

They sat on the hood of the car, shoulder to shoulder, parked in the near empty lot beside a worn-out epic burger, parking lines faded away and overrun with cracks. Yellow dandelions and little white clover blooms climbed up and spilled out across the pavement in clusters, soaking up the orange-y glow of streetlights in place of the sleeping sun. 

    “So I spent a few days feeding her, and eventually she let me get close to her,” Liam said. Hesitantly at first, both he and Amelia had taken to telling old stories to fill the dead air circulating around them. He gestured a bit with his cup, half-full with a sub-par chocolate milkshake. 

“But when I tried to pet her for the first time? She bit me! Pretty hard, actually. I’ve still got a mark on my thumb from it”

    “Is that what that is?” Amelia said, looking to the tiny scar on his hand.

    “M-hm. I still kept feeding her, though”

It was appreciated, honestly, but Bryce was only half listening to them, peering down into the depths of the vanilla shake slowly but surely numbing his palms. His thoughts all wandered in the same direction.

He had a lot of things he wanted to say. They rushed to the forefront now, well after they’d driven off and Stella was out of reach to hear them, like a delayed reaction.

He didn’t move an inch until they’d finally gotten her free. Hands hovered over her. Distant sirens wailed. She couldn’t hear him screaming her name. He’d scrambled to life several seconds too late.

He wanted to chew her out, so badly. He wanted to rant and rave at Stella for everything she had done, how she’d left and taken the fragile stability of his life with her. He wanted to apologize for never mourning her, never visiting, spending years drowning thoughts of her in idle stressors. He wanted to tell her everything— everything: how bad new action movies looked, how expensive gas was, how her favourite band released another album, how his new boss was kinder, how there was an ant colony outside their building, how the weeds in the grass had grown in lush. About moving and losing and finding and living and breaking and dying and living again. He wanted to ask her if she’d be there, when he finally, actually, kicked it. He wanted her to say that she would. He wanted, needed, her to understand the space she left behind, sometimes expansive and sometimes so very small. 

The cup crinkled, contorting in his grip. milkshake dribbled onto his fingers.

He wanted to remember her. He wanted to stop missing her.

    “Bryce?” Amelia set a hand on his arm delicately, “What’s wrong?”

    Liam leaned in closer at his other side. “Are you ok?”

He couldn’t see them clearly; he wasn’t sure when, but his vision had gone blurry, stinging. He opened his mouth to answer, but once more the words died on his tongue. What was he supposed to say? He hadn’t cried about it in years. But Liam took the cup carefully from his hands, and Amelia pressed a napkin firmly into his palms, and their voices were low, and warm, and palpable enough to pull the weight in his chest until his shoulders shook and his face was striped wet. They wrapped their arms around him tightly, murmuring, rubbing circles along his back. The first of few stars watched them overhead. Once more the world seemed to shrink. Bryce held them back just as tightly—tighter, even—letting Liam and Amelia fill in the gaps.

[doodlebeeberry]

Unearthly Spirits

Scenty returned to the present. A couch underneath her. A ceiling overhead. A mug of her own in her hands—was she really holding it?

in which Scenty is on earth for the first time in a while, much to her own surprise

2500+ words predicated on the idle thought of "this woman has not had a proper shower in months" that crossed my mind on the train the other day. it's also a vague precursor to another fic of mine, Meditation, that i started ages ago

(ao3 link in source)

Amelia had never believed in ghosts. Not ghosts, nor spirits, nor specters, angels, gods, or magic of most varieties. Mysticism and spirituality never really struck a chord with her, to the occasional confusion of students or acquaintances, who'd made the assumption, based on her profession and relatively mindful demeanor, that she was only ever one or two conversations away from telling them all about the power rose quartz held upon the soul. If she tried, she could remember a handful of occasions where her own students had wrapped her up in such conversations which, while interesting, were somewhat beyond her.

   "Lemongrass incense," a silver tumbler with a thick Boston accent had once remarked, breathing in deep. Amelia had lit the incense just after walking through the door that morning, and over the hour since the scent had dispersed some but still lingered. "good choice. Keeps the mind clear. Sharp!" they punctuated with a quick turn to Amelia, laying out a mat at the front of the room.

"It's really best in tea though. You've tried it, I'd bet" and, before she could correct them, with the cadence of someone gleeful, someone in on something, "keeps the soul even sharper, yeah? Gets rid of aaaall the guck--keeps ya clear!"

Built from half of a sun-washed oatmeal container, a stout pinhole camera had, on another occasion, piped up part way through a session, just before meditation.

   "Excuse me, excuse me! ma'am?" they'd pushed their round glasses—lenses thin as leaves and bright white framed—further up their face. "shouldn't you change the music first?"

Amelia had blinked,

   "I'm sorry?"

and the sparse few students in the mid-afternoon class looked between the two of them curiously as they'd gestured vaguely towards the speakers playing a six-hour loop of flutes she'd found online.

   "This is good for yoga," they'd continued, certain as the sky was blue, "but you really should play something with tones more in the 900 hertz range. It's much better for connecting one's self to the magnetic energies of the Earth." They seemed to puff up a bit, "As a professional, I'd expect you to know that."

And, at the end of one long class, with the sun casting the first low warmths of sunset through the studio windows, a willowy, argyle-pattern bookmark had shuffled up to her, hands clasped together, after everyone else had left. Their tassel, braided loosely and, admittedly, poorly, dragged along the ground behind them like a limp tail.

   "Uh, pardon," they'd begun with a soft, delicate voice, "Miss, ah..."

She'd turned to them, the last of the mats rolled up and tucked neatly against the wall.

   "Amelia," despite them being a relative regular to the studio, they'd never learned each other's names before then. She still didn't know theirs. Regardless, she'd smiled, "do you need something?"

   "Ah! Yes, well, uh.." they fumbled with something in their hands, then, "Here."

They held a tiny black stone. Polished, she could faintly see her reflection staring back at her through the confines of its curved surface.

"It's jet," they'd continued, letting it roll into her palm, where she'd picked it up and turned it this way and that to catch the light, "a protective stone. It's, ah, grounding, wards off curses and spirits-" Amelia perked up at that, and they'd waved their hand with a nervous giggle "Oh, but I'm sure you already know all of that, I'm sorry. I don't mean to prattle."

   "No, that's alright," She'd replied, holding it back out to them, "It's a lovely stone, I just don't-"

   "Oh, please keep it!" They piped, fretful, pushing her fingers closed around it, "Please, keep it here. Consider it a gift."

She ran a thumb over it, and someone in the building slammed a door shut, a sound Amelia had felt through the floorboards rather than heard.

Amelia hadn't believed in ghosts. But, the jet had sat in a little divot on the sill long after they'd closed shop for the day and all through the following months, beside the thin ring of paint peeled away slowly by her water bottle over the years.

Not ghosts, nor curses, nor spirits. But, on occasion, the light would catch it just right when she was tucking away the mats and it would dazzle in the corner of her eye.

Amelia hadn't. But-

Cl-link.

His spoon rattled. Slid along the inner wall, and settled only when he set his mug down on the carpet. Garrett took a deep breath, a hand on his knees.

   "You hungry?" Scenty returned to the present. A couch underneath her. A ceiling overhead. A mug of her own in her hands—was she really holding it? He didn't really wait for an answer. She wasn't sure he was expecting one.

"I'll make dinner," Garrett stood, stretching a bit, "don't have much around, but I'm sure i've got something"

He turned to her, smiling lightly. The incandescent light was dim, hard to see through with ill-adjusted eyes. 

"Was gonna swing by the store after class, but.." he tapered off. His stripes seemed harder to pick out, wavering along his rind. Paler and darker.

   "Alright." Scenty replied, trying to grip the mug tighter. He took a single step, then,

   "Want anything in particular?" His voice held out for something. Leading, tense. Appraising. "We could do delivery, too. Most places are still open"

   "No," She looked up, away from him, towards the light, "Whatever you have is fine."

It took a moment, but she heard the soft padding of his feet against the carpet, away from her. Above, the reminisce of a lone boob light lit her. Its frosted dome had, at some point, been removed, revealing the cave that housed the sockets underneath. Of the three, only one actually bore a bulb, which struggled to light the room but somehow simultaneously threatening to burn her eyes if she looked at it for too long, like a second sun. It buzzed, a low frequency hum. The carpet underfoot was stiff. 

Should it be stiff? Shouldn't it be soft? It prickled against her skin. Flexing her ankle, the threads bent like grass brushing her heel, natural and fake. A very convincing astroturf. A very real dream. Scenty pulled a hand from her mug and pressed it to the couch cushion. It squished inwards only slightly—slightly-damp-soil like, always perfectly watered. Soft like velvet. It was supposed to be soft. She ran her thumb over it: soft, but less smooth. More stubby. The whole room smelled like lemon. Like lemon and leaves and grass. It wafted off her tea, dark and swirling lazily. Looking down into its depths, she couldn't see the tea bag floating beneath the surface. She didn't want to. In all the time she'd been sitting there—long enough for it to go lukewarm, for her to forget if it had ever actually been warm in the first place—Scenty hadn't had a single sip. She wasn't sure she could.

Unceremoniously, she had thumped onto the ground.

She hadn't the time nor warning to brace herself, and had toppled, suddenly, onto her back, staring up into the dark where the bright blue sky had been, blinking rapidly as an assurance that her eyes were, indeed, open, straining to reassure herself she hadn't suddenly gone blind.

With much effort she'd made out faint circles above her, sleeping little dome lights like dull eyes looking down and through her.

The ground was flat, smooth, almost tacky. Plasticy and alarming. Foreign and familiar. Unreal and vague in the dark.

Scenty took a deep, shuddering gasp of stale air. The air on the plane was never stale.

Slowly, her arms slightly trembling, she pushed herself into a sitting position, struggling to breathe it in. Paper crinkled in her right hand grip, and she could just make out the rectangular outline of something—clear glass, pressed into a wall some feet in front of her, staring out into a dim sky. Into a crisp twilight.

Twilight.

Night.

Sunless, star-speckled, jet-black night through the tall windows of a building she was inside of.

Holy shit . Her ears were ringing.

Hesitantly, a beam of light cut through, revealing grey floors and reflections that bounced off the glass. Scenty turned to find three strangers—familiar faces—old friends—standing in the doorway, staring back at her like she was a ghost.

Scenty wasn't sure about a lot of things. She felt like she was dreaming. Or dead. Amelia was dead, and Scenty was scrounging through her memories. Or she was a ghost outside her body that'd stumbled into Amelia's place. Because while Amelia had never believed in the mystical, Scenty knew better. Nothing felt real. Scenty didn't know anything.

   "Here."

Something thumped onto the couch, and she startled, Garrett once again pulling her out of her reprieve. He'd tossed a towel down beside her, duckling yellow and a little bit threadbare at the edges. It'd landed in a half-folded lump. He leaned over the back of the couch, not quite smiling but still soft in the quirk of his lip.

"You can shower while I cook, if you want. Or just wait here. Up to you."

There was a slight wrinkle to his brow, a little crick, a bend. She wasn't sure if it'd been there earlier, but it was the only thing about him she could focus on. That, and the hold-out. The anticipation, the wait, it hung over him like a blanket, one long enough to brush her shoulder over the couch-back. They were frozen there, the two of them, waiting for the shoe to drop.

The fridge kicked on. She set down the mug and gathered the towel in her arms.

He stood up straight, and she followed suit, rounding the couch. His voice seemed to lighten an inch or two,

"You remember where the bathroom is?" Pause, from both of them, then, "First door down the hall. Can't miss it."

   "Got it. Thanks"

And she padded off.

The bathroom was much brighter. The door shut behind her with a light click, and the buzzing of the den lights disappeared with it, alongside the lemon-heavy scent. It was small and fairly clean, with what she could only guess was a different kind of bulb in the fixture overhead, emitting a much cooler light. Off-white walls, a toilet, a sink with a little bit of calcium building up around the drain edge. a turtle-patterned curtain, of all things, had been pushed off to the side, revealing the tub in all its glory, water stained shower head hovering above. She didn't bother looking in the mirror. Instead, she took a deep breath, like that would center her. The towel dropped into the, thankfully dry, sink, and she approached, across the cool laminate flooring, each step as strange as the next. She stopped on the bath mat—turtle-printed, a matching set. The shower handle was dead center in front of her, less water-speckled than the head, glinting like a gemstone that knew her future and did nothing to stop it.

They'd left the studio as a pack, the four of them, with little more on the agenda than for her to go home with Garrett and figure out the rest from there. There wasn't anywhere else for her to go, at least not anywhere close. They'd suggested the police, a hospital, calling her parents at least, but she was still too shell shocked by the notions of 'inside' and 'dark' to entertain the procedure and people of it all. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

But, before she could cross the threshold, the hallway light caught on something. Something by the far window. Small, and settled on the sill—practically rooted to it, by now. It nearly vanished into the night beyond, or even the indoor-dark: a little scrap of wood that’d been polished, cut, forced under extreme pressure until it becomes something else. It blinked at her. Off her rim, through the doorway, light gleamed.

Scenty didn't think about it. She turned the shower on. It squeaked, and roaring water shot out, pummeling the bathtub floor. She nearly recoiled from the noise. It was loud, and continuous, impossible to hear over. Only when a few drops of steaming condensation began to gather on her glass did she reach out. Water pattered against the back of her hand, and her breath hitched. It was warm. Hot. Probably too hot. It soaked her fingertips, her knuckles, running down her wrist and arm and off her elbow onto the mat, dripping over the same spot until it was soaked. Turning her hand over, she allowed it to puddle in her palm, overflowing through the crook of her thumb and spilling over like a fountain, this time down into the tub where, steaming, it ran into the drain and vanished from sight and reach.

Slowly, very slowly, she stepped over the low wall and into the stream, and instantly her head was filled with the thuddings of little droplets against her wax. It didn't take long for them to puddle, splashing against each other and soaking her wick clean through. What didn't make it in slid down her sides, dripping off her glass and rendering it slick.

They couldn't shower on the plane. It'd dawned on her while watching a bit of schmutz slowly rinse off her arm: they could wash in the pool, but not shower. She hadn't had a hot shower in over a year. The rumble in her ears, the pressure, heat and humidity she could breathe in deeply and shroud herself in like blankets. Four walls, a floor, a ceiling, echoing it all back to her, sensations she'd all but forgotten over the months. Sensations unique to the living. Unique to Earth.

She was on Earth.

The shower pummeled harder against her shoulders, her back, her wet face growing wetter. She wasn't on the plane anymore. She was on Earth. In Washington. In Garrett's house, his bathroom, his shower, in reality, awake, alive, alive, alive . Her breathing shuddered. She shuttered, despite the warmth. Her vision was blurry.

This was real. This was real. It was over. 

Just like that, it was over.

Scenty was-

   "Amelia?" Garrett called through the door. He knocked once, then twice, and by the third she realized that he was calling her, scrambling for the shower handle and twisting it shut. The head dripped, little by little, but otherwise stopped.

   "Yeah?" It was hard to keep the waver from her voice, but, beyond a brief pause, if Garrett noticed, he didn't comment on it.

   "Food's ready. Hope you wanted grilled cheese, cause it's all I've got."

   “That's fine," she replied, stepping out of the shower, but not before leaning forward and letting the water spill out of her before it could cool and chill her down to the bone. The drain gurgled a bit at the waterfall. Dripping onto the mat, she heard him step away from the door.

"...Could you make some more tea, too?" She called before he could get far, "Or just heating up mine from earlier, at least?"

He hesitated, and a blink of quiet passed them, but, 

   "Sure," his voice was looser, like he'd gotten whatever he'd been holding out for, "Just a sec" and he shuffled off, back, presumably, towards the kitchen.

She, meanwhile, grabbed her towel from the sink, running it over her arms, her glass, her face. She pulled it away from her eyes and glanced into the mirror. 

She couldn't see anything reflected in its steamy surface beyond a smudge of teal-blue. That, and the slightest glint in its edges from the light. She didn't spare it much thought. Throwing the towel over her shoulder, Amelia opened the door and stepped out into the dim hall.

[doodlebeeberry]

Restless Sleep

Liam turned to look at him. Their eyes locked, breaths quiet. Faces betraying nothing. Slotted streetlight crept over the two of them through the blinds. Two out of six out of eighteen out of twenty-four that god, for whatever reason, seemed to fucking despise.

in which Bryce tries to rationalize the present situation, just a little bit

give it up for these guys for having the absolute worst time ever.

(ao3 link in source)

 God must hate him. It was the only explanation Bryce had for any of this.

 Someone—or several someones, given his luck—had looked down at the earth from their cushy little seat in whatever stupid heaved they came from to find a prime someone to fuck with, and, for whatever reason, he’d just so happened to fit the bill. He checked all the boxes of someone deserving of a vacation straight to the strangest hell imaginable, and so off he’d went. Nevermind the obligations he’d been ripped away from: work shifts, mounting bills, bottles waiting to be emptied. No, no, no, just let all that pile up. Go live out some pointless nightmare, then come back to whole new problems instead. That’s what they’d decided for him, not giving a shit as to what he’d wanted. He was just lucky he’d been able to work with what he was left with afterward.

 Now, the brush with being fired wasn’t fun, to say the least, and neither was the lack of voicemails from anyone outside work waiting for him after he’d dropped off the face of the earth for several days. He’d spent plenty of the following nights watching the shadows on his ceiling instead of sleeping, unable to shake the feeling that he’d wake up somewhere else. But he’d weathered it out. He cleaned his apartment. Went back to work. Started talking to his neighbours more, and called his family for the first time in a while (if only just to hear their voices again). He’d even nabbed himself a managerial position after health problems forced the last guy to step down. He’d pushed away enough of the anger and confusion and dread that he’d been left with to finally get his life in a position he was ok enough with. Happy with sometimes, even! And then god remembered.

  And now there was. This.

 Now, Bryce had never been religious. He’d never put enough thought into it to really care, honestly. His last real experience with religion had been several years ago, at the funeral of an aunt he really hadn’t known well, crowded into the worn pews of the stuffy, summer-hot church it’d been hosted in, alongside a mess of family and family-friends, zoning in and out as the pastor spoke. He couldn’t really remember exactly what he’d said. Something about gifts from god. Or warnings, maybe. Reasons a higher power would hate you that he’d pointed ignored.

  Presently, though, he sighed, blinking up into the din once again. The blanket was both too hot and too cold, and the laptop’s fan filled the little apartment with a soft whirring as it charged. He wasn’t sure if Texty needed to sleep like he and Liam did, given that they didn’t seem to need food or water either, but he sure as hell wasn’t gonna ask, having made the very deliberate choice that he did not care. Speaking of which.

  Bryce rolled over, the bed creaking, until he found himself staring out at the apartment at large, Liam laying on the floor between the bed and the table. After shoving him off towards the shower the scattered man had sorely needed, Bryce had dug up the old quilt he used on colder winter nights and laid it out on the floor, along with a little rolled-up towel in place of the spare pillow he didn’t own. Once Liam had stepped out, seeming somewhere between slightly more at ease and just fucking spent, they’d turned in with hardly another word. Neither had slept, though. Even in the low light, Bryce could see Liam staring up at the ceiling, face blank, eyes elsewhere, arms folded over the blanket, grasping it tight. The towel, as not a pillow as it was, had flattened underneath him.

 For months Bryce had written the plane off as a nightmare brought on by one too many drinks. He still felt that way somewhere, deep down, despite the days he’d definitely missed and the half-stranger currently having an existential crisis on his floor. It was way better that way, after all. Just some nonsense his brain made up to scare him: no sunny fields, no giant pools, no living textboxes or abstract prophets or disembodied voices with enough powers and regardlessness for life to certainly fit the sound of god, nobody dead, nobody he knew and understood, nothing he’d never be able to understand, nobody he needed to worry about after the fact—no, none of it should’ve been real, none of it could’ve been real, and yet—  

  Liam turned to look at him. Their eyes locked, breaths quiet. Faces betraying nothing. Slotted streetlight crept over the two of them through the blinds. Two out of six out of eighteen out of twenty-four that god seemed to fucking despise.

 On the way to New York, Liam had given him a clearer (read: comprehensible) explanation of what had happened after Bryce’s elimination. Of Scenty (Amelia, Amelia, fuck—) throwing the challenge to send him home, Airy disappearing when he was so, so close to home, the system of shifts, the plug, the shed, the realization that Liam was literally dead to the world. The world, except, of course, for Bryce.

 Liam broke away first, turning, after a moment, onto his other side and shuffling in an attempt to force the towel into a comfortable position. Engrossed in the impossible task, he didn’t even notice Bryce’s own shifting, nor his brief consideration, or even the tossing of the pillow itself until it smacked Liam square in the back. By the time he turned to grab it, Bryce had already rolled over to face the wall. He heard Liam breathe in, pause, then, in a tired whisper,

       “Thanks”

  before the apartment fell silent once more. Bryce pressed his cheek into the crook of his arm, staring out, trying not to think too much about any of it.

 Who cared if god hated them, anyway.

[doodlebeeberry]

Scarf in the Sun

As the two bickered, Ruby trotted over to the workbench. A little wooden thing she’d found on the side of the road a while back that her friends had helped her paint in chaotic, patch-mark colours last month, now it was a mess of assorted tools and broken things in need of fixing and gifts her friends had given her that she liked to keep around. Much of the garage was like that, clustered with little gifts and memorabilia: Book’s radio sticking halfway out of the clustered shelf, Bubble’s plant growing wild on the windowsill, Flower’s scarf, the newest edition, living on her workbench until she could find it a proper home. Treasured things.

in which Ruby mistakenly damages a gift from a friend

for objectober day 2- fashion!

have i ever mentioned that i love mechanic ruby. top ten bfdi hcs i love it so i want her to fix a car

(ao3 link in source)

    “Ack!”

 Ruby threw her arms up in front of her face, as much as she could from the tight underside of the van where she was currently squished. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much. Oil sputtered out of the now open line in inconsistent spurts for several seconds, splashing rainbow-black into her scrunched-up face before it dawned on her that she could simply tighten the nut she’d just loosened back up instead of getting drenched. It took a few extra tries, given the slickness now coating her hands and tools and everything in reach, really, but in a few hearty turns she managed, until the flow slowed to little more than sparse drips, few and far between. At the criss-cross of pipes, lit mainly by the now filthy penlight she’d dropped beside her in preparation of the onslaught, she stared, noting which line the oil waterfall had just come spurting out of. Notably,

       “Is it broken?” Pencil called to her flatly, interrupting Ruby’s train of thought.

       “Uh, kinda.”

 Ruby slid out awkwardly, looking up to find Pencil leaning over her, lips pressed in an impatient line.

 “There’s oil in the fuel line? It’s not supposed to be there” Ruby reported, sitting up. Pencil’s brows jumped up at that.

       “Oil?” she pondered this for a minute as Ruby pulled herself to her feet, tools in hand. And, when the answer, or, rather, culprit, seemed to dawn on her, Pencil turned her eyes to the third and final person in the ramshackle little garage.

 “Match?”

 The match in question, disinterestedly fiddling her way through staticy stations on the slightly rusted radio, looked at them.

 “What?”

 Pencil’s look went steely.

 “Hey! I didn’t—” Match yelped defensively, catching on.

 “Match.”

 Match looked between Pencil, the van, and Ruby, weighing her options carefully.

       “Ok but it was like. Really early in the morning right.”

 Pencil pinched her brows, sighing.

 As the two bickered—or, more accurately, Match defended her inexplicable mixing up of oil and gas while Pencil regarded her, unamused—Ruby trotted over to the workbench. A little wooden thing she’d found on the side of the road a while back, which her friends had helped her paint in chaotic, patchmark colours last month, now it was a mess of assorted tools and broken things in need of fixing and gifts her friends had given her that she liked to keep around. Much of the garage was like that, clustered with little gifts and memorabilia: Book’s radio sticking halfway out of the clustered shelf, Bubble’s plant growing wild on the windowsill, Flower’s scarf, the newest edition, living on her workbench until she could find it a proper home. Treasured things.

 She tossed her wrench down haphazardly, knocking a pile of bolts around in the process.

       “You know what, whatever” Pencil said, yielding, “Can you fix it?”

 Ruby turned to them.

       “Yep!” she chirped, reaching blindly for a rag, “It’s pretty easy,” she set about wiping the mess off her face quickly and easily as she continued, “I’ve just gotta clean the oil out!”

 Eyes now clear, she pulled the soft cloth from her face, blinking at the duo currently staring at her from several steps away like she’d suggested turning the van inside-out. Pencil looked between Ruby and the cloth in her hands.

       “Uh, Ruby? Did you mean to do that?”

       “Do what?” Ruby replied, blissfully ignorant right up until she looked down at the rag currently bunched up in her hands. Now, in most circumstances, the rags she kept around the garage were either old disused dish rags or scraps of leftover fabric from Flower that she otherwise couldn’t make much use of, all of which were matted with grease and grime that, even after washing, still left them dulled and greyed and rough-feeling. What she was holding, however, was bright blue with yellow trim and baby blanket soft, sparkling slightly in the morning light that came in through the window. She unbunched it, letting one end tumble out of her hand and onto the floor in all its scarfy, now oil-soaked glory.

Ohhh, Ruby thought, Flower’s gonna be mad.  

 Match and Pencil exchanged a look, then, in an act of true loyalty,

       “Yeeeaaah,” Match said, “we’ve gotta gooo.”

 Ruby’s eyes snapped up to them, slipping out the door.

       “What?”

       “Yeah, we’re busy,” Pencil responded quickly, turning the corner out of view, “have fun with that.”

 And, after a moment, she called as an afterthought,

 “Call us when the van’s fixed!”

           “Oh! I could paint it!”

 Several hours later, Ruby sat at the workbench, the scarf Flower had gifted her sprawled out across it. On the floor were bottles of just about every cleaning supply she could get her mitts on—dish soap, laundry detergent, scouring powder, even—all emptied in half-baked attempts to lift the stains to no avail. They had made the situation considerably worse, if anything, as the bleach in some products had burned white patches into some of the unsoiled parts of the fabric, avoiding the oil stains almost entirely by the looks of it. At the thought of paints, though, she hopped to her feet, clattering about the shelves and knocking a few things off in the process.

 “I still have some,” she said, sticking her tongue out a bit as she dug, “…here!”

 She pulled out a can of spraypaint in the completely wrong shade, holding it aloft like treasure.

 “See?”

       “I think Flower might notice that,” Book said gently, leaning on the hood of the supervan, a pencil and notepad with several scrawled-out cleaning ideas in her hands. After Ruby had exhausted her own ideas, she’d called up Book as a last resort, figuring, the smart friend that she was, that she’d be able to come up with something. Book hadn’t been thrilled to work with water, not wanting her pages soaked, but she’d still come by with a list of cleaning hacks that she’d ripped off the internet in hand. And after two boxes of baking soda, three tubes of toothpaste, and nearly gassing themselves with ammonia and bleach, they were left, still, at step one. Lower, even, all things considered. Book tapped the pencil against the hood.

 “Maybe you could just tell her you lost it?”

       “Hmm, I don’t know, she’d get pretty sad if I did that. And mad.” Ruby replied.

       “Madder than she would be, though?”

       “Maybe?” Ruby pondered the possibilities for a moment, “Yeah, maybe”

 Silence settled over them, broken by Ruby, a moment later, shaking the can, “Are you sure the spraypaint won't work?”

 It was then, before Book could reply, that a voice called from outside,

       “Ruby!”

 Ruby dropped the can. The two shared a look, not quite of panic, necessarily, but some undeniable alarm. By the sound of it, Flower was heading straight for them. Ruby scrabled for the workbench, taking the scarf in hand.

       “Is that—”

       “Cover for me?”

 “...What?” Book blinked, slightly puzzled, before Ruby ducked behind the van, vanishing from view.

 “Ruby, what are you doing?”

       “Sneaking out the window!”

 Book looked at the window, a long, thin cut-out poised up high along the far wall. Much thinner than Ruby.

       “I don’t think that’s—”

       “Ruby!” Flower’s shout cut Book’s rebuttal short, rounding the corner and descending on the seemingly Ruby-free garage. Ruby began to creep slowly across the room. Stealthy, she tried to be, weaving around the odds and ends on the floor as Flower entered.

       “Book!” she said, emphatic. Book struggled a bit to play it cool. “Is Ruby around?”

 It was then that Ruby elbowed one of the empty soap bottles, sending several clattering to the floor in a cacophonous, if brief, domino chain.

       “Nope,” Book replied once it was over. “Haven’t seen her.”

 For a half-second, both Book and Ruby held their breaths, frozen, waiting for Flower to trot behind the van and catch her red-handed.

       “What was that?” Flower asked instead.

       “The van.” Book answered quickly, “It’s the exhaust. It uh. Ruptured”

 It was all over, they figured. They were dead.

       “Oh, ok,” They breathed a sigh of relief at that. Thank god almost none of their friends knew anything about cars. Ruby quickly continued her scrabbling,

 “Well, if you see her, can you tell her I—”

 Right up until she tripped over the end of the scarf, sending her tumbling out from behind the van and into the open with a noticeable clatter. Both objects turned to her.

       “Ruby! There you are!” Flower all but shouted upon spotting her. A pink bag hung off her arm, and she seemed so awash with excitement that she was nearly buzzing. Ruby just barely managed to hide the scarf behind her back. “Do you still have the scarf I gave you?”

 Trying to hide her mild panic, Ruby looked beyond Flower to Book, who shook her head fervently, mouthing ‘no’ at her almost overdramatically.

       “Umm…Yeah!” Ruby replied like it was the most obvious answer in the world. Book buried her face in her hands. “But!” she tried to backtrack at that, “I don’t—”

       “Good, cause you need to throw it away”

 Ruby froze. Her arms dropped to her sides, and the scarf came into view with them. Oblivious to, or perhaps simply not acknowledging, her shock, Flower began digging through the bag.

       “Huh?”

       “I messed up the stitching, and the colours are kind of…eh,” Flower said, and, with all the bravado of a mad scientist presenting their latest creation “you should just get rid of it, cause I’ve got something even better!”

 In a dramatic flourish, she pulled out another scarf, this one wider but seemingly of a lighter weight fabric than the one currently clutched in Ruby’s hand. Unlike the solid tone of the original, this one bore a gradient of more gentle, subdued blues stretching from either end, a delicate viney patterning sewn along the edges in glittering turquoise thread. Flower held it out to her, smirking almost cockily.

 “What do you think? Pretty good right?”

 Ruby stared at it a moment, letting the old scarf fall from her hand.

       “It’s beautiful!”

 She reached for it, but Flower snatched it back, spying the still slightly soiled state of Ruby’s fingers.

       “Wait” Flower said, cringing only slightly,  “wash your hands first. They’re kinda gross.”

[doodlebeeberry]

Fall Festivities

“What about playing some games?” Shieldy asked, drawing the ghost’s attention from the poorly airbrushed shirts he’d been eyeing in the stall across the footpath, puzzled. “I think you’d like lucky ducky—you could win a goldfish at that one!”

in which Shieldy and Rook visit a fair, and mild curse shenanigans ensue

For objectober day 4- maple!

love Vicarious. love to write another chapter of that someday. for now though you get cursed-to-be-buddies hanging out

(ao3 link in source)

 Shieldy stumbled out of the crowd, his legs shaky beneath him. The Gravitron never failed to absolutely floor him for a minute or two after it was over, as he readjusted slowly to the comparative stiller world outside the walls of the ride. Even still, pausing for a moment to lean against the side counter of a pizza stand, he couldn’t say he hated it, not by a long shot—he loved it, as a matter of fact.

       “Oh, goodness,”

 He just wasn’t sure Rook shared the thought. Shieldy glanced around a moment at the faint shaky voice, rising above the shouting and chatter in favour of settling in his ears alone, spotting a small puddle of spilled soda on the ground, shimmering in the afternoon sun. Leaning over it, he found the ghost in question reflected back at him, one hand on his head.

       “So, what’d you think? Wasn’t it awesome?” Shieldy asked, his voice a bit low as to not attract attention but still bursting with energy that Rook didn’t quite mirror. Truth be told, he already knew the answer. With his reflection on his back, he’d gotten a pretty good impression of Rook’s thoughts as he screamed his way through the ride.

       “I don’t believe that’s the word I would use,” Rook replied, “Who would design such a dreadful contraption for entertainment? I would think it a tool of the dungeons”

       “You’re no fun”

       “Perhaps, but I am no masochist either”

 Shieldy frowned, humming. He’d gone to the fair early today, well before he was supposed to meet up with his friends, to give Rook a grand tour of all its modern wonders. This was the third ride the two of them had gone on, though, and the third Rook had come away disliking. Rook’s expression softened a bit in the pause, almost sheepishly.

 “My apologies,” he said, “I understand that you enjoy these ‘thrill rides’”

       Shieldy shrugged, “It’s fine. Maybe you’re just not a ride person.”

 Having found his footing, he trotted off into the crowd, thinking. An odd weight slid onto his back, like rainwater off a roof, as Rook moved from shining off the puddle to shining off his back. Shieldy surveyed the stands as he passed them: giant pumpkins, handcrafted pottery. Objects passed him by with armfuls of deep-fried foods and hard-won stuffed animals that likely cost much less to make than to play for. Croaking puffs of hydraulics and dubiously maintained machinery drifted from one of the kiddie rides as he passed it, and for just a moment he understood where Rook’s distaste for them was coming from at the sound. But, rather than dwell on that, he stopped out front of a food booth. Massive cutouts of overflowing popcorn buckets hung over the window, enticing, and after half a second of deliberation, he hopped into the short line.

 “What about playing some games?” Shieldy asked, drawing the ghost’s attention from the poorly airbrushed shirts he’d been eyeing in the stall across the footpath, puzzled. Despite Rook’s less-than-stellar experiences with games, the idea intrigued him a bit. “I think you’d like lucky ducky—you could win a goldfish at that one!”

 The line shuffled forward.

       “Perhaps, though I’m not quite certain what a gold fish is,” A cold feeling seemed to creep along Shieldy’s shoulder blade, settling on his right side, just above his shoulder, as though Rook was trying to face him properly. “How do you play?”

       Shieldy brightened, “Oh! You’ve gotta get toy ducks out of a pool with this little hook” he mimicked the motion a bit with his hands, one finger arched like a hook, “if you get two that match, you win!”

 The line moved forward once again. In a rough voice, the object in front of them—a stout violet—began to order. Rook tapped his chin.

       “How exactly does one…hook the ducks?”

       “They’ve got these loops on their heads, And you use this stick to…reach over and… hook. The loops. Hm.” He deflated a bit, realizing, suddenly, that the game wasn’t exactly ghost friendly. Yelps of laughter came from one of the nearby rides, filling in the silence between them as the person at the window paid.

 “You know what possession is, right?”

 Rook blinked.

       “Possession?”

       “Yeah! Like ghosts do in movies and books and stuff. You can do that, right?”

 As they walked away, arms full of brightly coloured candy popcorn, Shieldy did not miss the slight look the plum sent him.

       “Not to my knowledge, I’m afraid” Rook replied, watching them go. Shieldy hummed flatly before stepping up to the window, being greeted by a slightly frazzled cotton candy cone.

       “Hiya! What can I getcha?”

       “A bag of maple popcorn, please?”

 Shieldy sat at one of the nearby picnic tables, this one boasting an abandoned, half-filled water cup that Rook peered at him through the clear sides of. He crunched on a kernel, savouring the salty-sweetness.

       “You mentioned an agricultural area before, is that still an option?” Rook offered.

       “The farm tent? Yeah, I guess we could try that,” he furrowed his brow a bit as he munched on another piece, trying to find something interesting to say about what was, in his mind, the least interesting part of the whole fair. “They’ve got some giant vegetables that are pretty cool. I think they’re doing a horse show too at some point.” He swallowed. “Tonight, I think? Yeah, definitely tonight”

 Once again, relative quiet settled over them. A group at a nearby bench burst into laughter, and in the distance, folksy music blasted from the main stage. Rook watched a few wasps buzz around the trashcan, drawn to the sugar-dusted plates and half-finished treats balanced delicately on top. One of them flew in close, buzzing around the kernel in Shieldy’s hand. He held perfectly still through the couple of seconds it waited before flying away. Only then did he toss it in his mouth.

 “Sorry you’re not having fun,” Shieldy said, finally. Rook turned to him. “I kinda didn’t think this through.”

 Rook softened slightly. “It’s quite alright. It is a bit..” He fumbled about for a more delicate phrasing, looking at the bag in Shieldy’s hands. Striped red and see-through, showing off the brown splashed kernels inside, broken bits already gathering at the bottom. He’d seen dozens like it as they’d traipsed through the fairgrounds.   “Out of my comfort zone, perhaps, but it is quite interesting to see what festivities look like these days, to say the least.”

       Shieldy perked up, “You think?”

       “Oh certainly! It’s almost fascinating, really. For all the changes, it is not too dissimilar to the festivals we once celebrated in the fall.” Rook’s reflection seemed to drift back somewhat, looking beyond Shieldy and into the blue horizon, broken up by neon-painted thrill rides and the slowly turning ferris wheel. Shieldy snacked as Rook rambled, almost wistfully.

 “Bards from all corners of the kingdom would come and play in the castle for hours. Golden flowers would grow in the courtyard, and the gardeners would fashion their bushes into the most beautiful figures. Artisanal things. And when the revelry spilled into the city—ha!” A thin frost layer coated the cup’s base, spilling over onto the table like he’d slapped his hand down on it before receding, “Oh, the dancing wouldn’t stop for days! Guards would sing ballads from the rooftops, we would parade the drunks through the streets like kings, chefs would make shows of cooking elaborate, strange feasts—though, nothing quite as strange as what your modern cooks have invented, admittedly.”

       “Hey! None of its that weird, come on” Shieldy defended, grinning, popping another corn into his mouth.

       “You’ve taken to mixing maple and corn. How on Earth does one think of such a thing?”

 Shieldy shrugged. “I dunno, but it’s good!”

       “I have my doubts.”

 At the sight of Rook’s nearly sly grin, Shieldy took a large piece and, sticking his tongue out at him, threw it into the cup. He expected, given past experience with throwing things into water, that it would either sink or, given its buoyancy, float on the surface. He did not, however, expect it to vanish beneath the surface, reappearing as it dropped into Rook’s hand.

 They both stared at it for a moment. Shieldy looked between the bag and the flabbergasted ghost.

       “Is the popcorn…also cursed?” He asked, hovering directly over the cup as he dropped in another piece. Again, it seemed to pop from his reality to Rook’s, who studied it closely with wide eyes.

       “I’m. not quite sure.” Rook turned the pieces over slowly, poking a bit at the hulls.

       “...Are you gonna try it?”

 Rook glanced at him almost flatly.

       “Must I?”

       “I think you should”

 He took a deep breath. Cautiously, as though he thought it would burn his tongue, he popped the smaller of the two kernels into his mouth. The flavour was faint, like a ghost of its former self, but,

       “It’s sweet,” he said eventually, “very sweet.”

       “Well, duh, it’s got maple syrup on it”

 Rook ate the second one just as slowly.

       “It…” Rook tapered off, sweet, rich flavours lingering. Thoughts of nigh-ancient festivals swirled in his mind. Long-dead friends—bakers, bricklayers, fellow servants—gathered in tight clusters just outside the castle walls, passing around gingerbread smuggled from the king’s kitchens, smothered in honey and maple and bits of dried fruit that all stuck to their hands as it dripped of the edges, chased with cider someone had swiped from inn, listening to the off-tune caw of objects up and down the night-bright street singing along with drowned out bards, at times even singing along himself, pitchily. A little smudge of syrup still clung to his pointer finger.

       “You ok?” Shieldy asked after several seconds of Rook’s awed silence.

       “I,” He mumbled, seemingly automatically, in reply before shaking his head, snapping back to awareness. He turned to Shieldy, hovering just slightly concerned over the cup.

 “Apologies, it was simply a bit strange. I admittedly can’t quite recall the last time I tasted—” he searched for the appropriate word: sweetness, richness, maple as a whole, but found it all best encapsulated with simply “..anything.”

 Shieldy blinked at that. “Oh. Yeah.”

 It made sense, all things considered, but he’d never really considered it. Rook had been a ghost for, what, four hundred years now? All of those years spent stuck in the dream realm, largely alone, how would he ever even have the chance?

 “Do you want some more?” Shieldy asked, shaking the bag slightly.

 Laughter and song rang out through the fairgrounds.

       “It would be appreciated,” Rook replied, “thank you”

[doodlebeeberry]

Sort It Out, Somehow

“Why?” Peach Pit flinched at the high edge in Rae’s voice, high-strung to the point of snapping. She’d hardly even waited for Kerchief to shut the door behind them, leaving them alone in one of the many long-disused classrooms the shuttered campus provided. “Cooking?”, Rae continued, “of all the themes you could’ve picked, you went with cooking?”

In which Rae, Peach Pit, and Kerchief try to climb out of the hole they've dug themselves by digging further down

for objectober day 1- behind the scenes! featuring some blorbos from my brain bickering about cooking shows and the ethics of larceny. comes with a free preface for context, cause unless i get pestered for further details i will probably not talk about these folks for another year lmao

(ao3 link in source)

some of that sweet sweet context for ya, as promised: these three goofs-Peach Pit, Rae, and Kerchief-get blackmailed by a guy they accidentally kinda-but-not-really nearly kill, who threatens to get them arrested for attempted murder if they dont make a tv show and give him the royalties/residuals they get from it. mostly cause he thinks itll be a good way to get a lot of money with little effort, provided it has literally any success. with about a semester of production school experience between them, they proceed to dig themselves a progressively deeper hole trying to make it work. it's all very very silly and nonsensical but i really dont care

just before this, the cast and crew had cornered them at the end of a particularly vague and suspect tour of the contest grounds, threatening to riot if they didn’t get some answers regarding, among other things, what exactly they’d be doing, which at the time the three of them didn’t really know. (this bit is somewhat explained but, just in the interest of clarity, i thought i’d explain here too)

-

An unusually warm day for the end of March wrapped itself around the city like a much welcome blanket. Its denizens, for the most part, wrapped it tight around them gratefully, savoring the long-absent heat. They trotted through the streets, hither and thither, crowds of objects blocking the sidewalks and flooding the parks like it was a festival. Some took to playing in the grass—or what dried up husks remained, newly unearthed in all its muddy, sodden glory by the melting snow—games of tag and frisbee and other such things that caked their shoes in the kicked-up grime, while others lept for the snow that still remained, scattered piles of slush and near-ice that nicked the ankles of any who dared break through the surface layer, and fashioned it into poorly snowmen or mounds for brutal rounds of king of the hill. Others, still, took to simply trotting through the footpaths slowly, admiring the crocus as it woke. And as the light began to grow low and the shadows long objects settled on stoops and porches and at every last bench to await the dawning evening, before the nightly chill could return.

Rae wished she was one of them. The only thing she wanted, truly, was to take a nice jaunt through the park and cap it off with a visit to the dingy little cafe on the east side that she’d taken to visiting in the early spring. The food itself was only decent, and the ambiance of it interchangeable, but its sparse outdoor seating faced several buildings, each window lined with a box that bloomed with new-spring flowers. To the universal remote, it sounded like a dream.

But instead,

   “Why?”

Peach Pit flinched at the high edge in Rae’s voice, high-strung to the point of snapping. She’d hardly even waited for Kerchief to shut the door behind them, leaving them alone in one of the many long-disused classrooms the shuttered campus provided. Though, were she in any mood to consider semantics, she would consider it better to call it a potential newfound set in the studio the campus had very suddenly become.

“Cooking?”, Rae continued, “of all the themes you could’ve picked, you went with cooking?”

  “'Theme' isn’t really the word for it,” Kerchief said, drifting closer. All white cloth, red embroidery at the edges, legless and hovering like a bedsheet ghost that scrunched up a bit when uneasy, currently curling inwards a bit at the corners despite the cool ease in her voice. Rae glared at her. Kerchief threw her hands up.

“If we’re gonna be working in tv you might as well get the terminology right.” She leaned on one of the desks, “Not disagreeing with you though. Cooking is a pretty bad choice.”

   “It was the only thing I could think of!” Peach Pit piped up, standing tall. Had she any arms, Rae could imagine her throwing them out in a wide gesture. Instead, the old bag around her hip slid down a skosh. Peach pit adjusted it with her knee as she went on,

“There’s a ton of old kitchens here—rich-kid school kitchens! They’ve got every tool in the world, and they’re laid out perfect for this!”

Which, in and of itself, wasn’t untrue. Granad’s School for the Monetarily Gifted was only ever lauded, in particular, for its surprisingly competent cooking program, and in hurriedly shutting the school down following a slew of controversy, faculty had largely neglected to take most of the equipment with them. For the purposes of a cooking competition, having a place like this would be a miracle for a prospective creator.

   “Sure, whatever, that’s all fine and good, but we’ll need food for this to work! Lots of it!” Rae began to pace, “We’re already working with practically no budget, not to mention no means of actually getting it here! We haven’t even tested any of that old equipment to make sure it works, we have no idea what allergies everyone might have,”

She continued on and on, back in forth in a straight line, intent, seemingly, on digging a rut into the vinyl floor amidst her harried ramblings. When Rae drew close to her, Kerchief reached over and flicked her in the side of the head.

“Ow,” Rae rubbed her head, “hey!”

   “You’re not helping, bud.” Kerchief said, voice flat. Rae grumbled.

   “Whatever. I’m not wrong. Peach—”

   “I know, I know, just…” Peach Pit, at some point, had begun tapping her foot in thought, looking off at the door, beyond which the scrabbled-together cast and crew were likely ambling about, getting to know the lay of the land just as much as they were getting to know each other. She stopped, looking up at them both.

“Look, they didn’t know anything. I had to tell them something! They were gonna rip us to shreds!”

Which, again, was not untrue. Come evening and the end of the ‘grand’ tour of the grounds, Rae wasn’t entirely confident she’d make it to midnight without being torn limb from limb like a cheap doll in the hands of a seven-year-old, desperate to know how long filming would take, and what the reward was for competing, and what exactly competing entailed. Now, to be fair to Peach and Kerchief and even herself, nobody had bothered to ask any of these questions until after signing the contracts they hadn’t bothered to read.

To be fair to the cast and crew too, though, perhaps telling them they were all contractually obligated to stay on show grounds until they lost or were otherwise fired wasn’t particularly useful in soothing their worries. Rae sighed.

   “That doesn't change the fact that we don’t have a plan. Making this up as we go along was fine when it’s just the three of us, but not anymore. How are we gonna make this work?”

A beat of silence settled heavily over them. Rae crunched the numbers in her head. They’d gotten just enough money to pay the cast and crew the absolute minimum, and maybe repair some of the worse-for-ware equipment the network had loaned them. But even if they had the funds, who were they supposed to turn to for a vendor, particularly on such short notice?

   “There’s a grocery store a few miles out,” Peach Pit said eventually, “off I-83. One of those wholesale whats-its.”

   “So?”

   “So, it’s a big store, they probably won’t notice if a few things go missing”

Rae glared at her flatly.

   “You’re kidding.” She waited a beat and, when Peach Pit didn’t confirm as much, “You’re kidding!”

   “What gave you that impression?”

   “Do you know how much we’d need over the course of filming? How often we’d have to go—we’d get caught!”

   “Not if we’re careful”

Rae sputtered, looking between Peach and Kerchief like a fish out of water, fumbling to find the logic in her friend’s little fruit stone head. Kerchief shifted, choosing to sit on the desk instead of leaning on it, her corners swaying back and forth where they dangled over the edge, curled up somewhat into themselves even still.

   “Honestly, it’s not the worst idea.”

Rae resisted the urge to rip Kerchief to shreds.

   “Do not encourage her.”

   “Why not? It’s a solution, it’s in budget—”

   “It's illegal!”

   “I mean,” Peach Pit piped up, “that didn’t stop us from breaking in here, did it?”

Which was, once more, not wrong. They weren’t actually allowed to use the school for filming.

  “Or from threatening the network head,” added Kerchief, choosing her words carefully. Rae was quickly getting quite tired of the at least minor truths coming out of her friends’ mouths.

   “And you want to add larceny to the list? More crimes don’t exactly negate the rest, you know”

   “Of course not!” Peach lept on one of the chairs, trying with little success to meet Rae at eye level, standing tall.

“Look, I don’t like any of this either-neither of us do,” she continued, gesturing vaguely to Kerchief, watching from the side “but we don’t have time to do this the right way. What would you have us do instead?”

   “I don’t know, push back the shoot date?”

   “The network won't let us break schedule”

   “Drop the cooking thing?”

   “The crew’ll start asking questions again”

   “Call the cops, or a lawyer, or—someone to help us? Like we should’ve done weeks ago?”

   “At this point?”

The door creaked. All three visibly jumped, Peach Pit nearly falling off her chair in the process, and turned towards it with a speed unrivaled by light itself. Peeking in from the hall was one of the crew members, a humidifier roughly half filled with water, their once-white plastic yellowed with age and sunlight, lines of condensation traced faintly along the interior of their blue-tinted tank. Rae couldn’t quite recall if they were on lighting or not.

   “Hey, um,” they began, “is this a bad time?”

The trio blinked at them. Peach forced her posture to loosen a bit.

   “Nope. What’s up?”

  “Well, uh,” they opened the door a bit wider, allowing Rae a peek into the hall in all its paint-peeling glory, where she spied two other crew members clustered some feet behind them, watching the exchange.

  “Some of us were wondering what the whole bedroom situation is gonna look like,” Nervousness crept into their tone, despite the valleytalk twinge in their voice, “are we just staying on sight, or…? Do you know?”

Peach Pit blinked, then smiled at them, slightly and easily.

  “Yeah, of course,” she replied, hopping off the chair, “Let's get that sorted now. Would you bring everyone to the lobby, please? We’ll fill you all in there.”

They scampered off, following a short affirmation. Rae heard them chatter with the other crew members faintly through the door, left slightly ajar.

Peach piped up once more, before Rae could comment, “Kerchief, help me out?”

Looking between the two a moment, Kerchief shrugged,

   “Sure”

And slid off the desk.

  “Look, if you don’t wanna do that, then fine,” Peach turned to look at Rae, “but I’m trusting you to figure this out before shoot tomorrow. Can you do that?” She asked, as though it were even much of a choice on Rae’s part, let alone a question. Even still, Rae tried,

   “Kerchief is the one with industry ties, not me”

  “True, but she’s not the moral compass, now is she?” She turned on her toes, heading out the door alongside Kerchief. “Plus, Ms. Master's Degree, you’re smarter than both of us! You’ll figure it out!”

Rae watched her friends disappear down the hall, chittering like birds amongst themselves, likely about the room and board plans they absolutely did not make, if she was to guess. Dust swirled a bit in their wake, twinkling in the final few thin sunbeams slipping in through the tall windows, laid over the empty desks and the grey universal remote, little shadows catching on the edges of her silicone buttons and their bulb poised on the top of her head. The classroom was cold, the heating inactive and, for all they knew, potentially broken. She would’ve much rather been anywhere else. But, heaving out a weary sigh, she sought out a phone and something to write on. She had work to do.

[doodlebeeberry]

One Crisis at a Time

Several months ago, he’d vanished from the bridge with hardly a trace. The only thing he’d left behind was his bike: no sign of a crash or a struggle. Scenty has been right, there really was nothing to go off of. His friends, his family—what were they supposed to think after weeks and weeks of nothing? That he really had just...disappeared?

in which Liam takes a moment to weigh his options.

just realized i never posted the rewritten version of this post one 9 sketch i did back in like december on here so. here you go

Sunrise came slowly. It stretched dusty gold across the horizon line, climbing up, the first streaks of sun brushing the sparse clouds, shading them purple, shimmering in the water as it rippled sleepily, gently, unendingly out between himself and what faint blur of the far shore he could make out behind the fog, rising like a ghost along the bay. The golden gate reflected faintly on its surface. Cars rolled along behind him, a sound he only half-heard. Bikers rode past. Strangers strolled by. Liam almost let himself think about them as the tide washed past his ankles, receding. Almost wondered if the passers-by spotted him, or acknowledged him, or questioned what a dead man was doing up so early, watching the sunrise. He peered into the water instead of thinking, staring as his face stared back. Worry lines seemed permanently etched onto his face. Exhausted eyes. Heavy shadows. Thin-pressed lips. A bone-deep haggardness that seemed to pale him.

A ghost along the bay indeed.

What did they think happened to him? He’d spent much of the night too shell-shocked to wonder about it. Or to think about anything, really. Once it really hit that he was dead, legally speaking, with nothing left to his name, he’d begun to spiral and untether until he could hardly even focus on the papers in his grip or the hail that pelted him. The cold water, though, shocked him as it ran by his ankles, grounding him enough to think about it.

Several months ago, he’d vanished from the bridge with hardly a trace. The only thing he’d left behind was his bike: no sign of a crash or a (largely fruitless) struggle. Scenty has been right, there really was  nothing to go off of. His friends, his  family—what were they supposed to think after weeks and weeks of nothing?  That he really had just...disappeared?

The water pulled away. For a long moment, he stared at the sand, a plastic bottle cap worn and half-buried by the tide. The world seemed to grow still, he almost felt like holding his breath. Finally, the ocean ran up high along the shore, Liam hardly flinching as it wrapped around his feet.

They probably thought he jumped into the bay. Or maybe that he’d been pushed in. They probably thought that he drowned out there, alone and unseen, and his body had simply drifted out to sea.

(Which, in a sense, wasn’t entirely wrong, just mostly. He forced himself to push the memory of death out of his mind for now. One crisis at a time, Liam)

God, his mom. They’d always been close, even after he moved to San Francisco some years back. He called her on the weekend for long afternoon chats, she texted him updates on the old cats living outside her building. He’d planned on paying her a visit, back before he’d been taken to the plane.

And now she thought he was dead. Dead, dead, dead as the leaves,  dead, with no knowledge of how or why. What had she done with that?

The wind blew back his straps, cooling the air enough to nearly make him shiver. On the bridge, he watched the vague shapes of cars make their way over the water, headed somewhere.

Bridgeport, Connecticut. Bridgeport. Connecticut. He wasn’t dense; Stone left him that note for a pretty clear reason, even if he didn’t know how he was supposed to get there. He’d left California, what, once? Twice, maybe? How long would it even take to reach Connecticut? What was he supposed to do once he did? The only thing out there for him was Soda Bottle, and he might not even want to see him. He might’ve even forgotten about him already, for all he knew. They’d known each other for three days, seven months ago, though It felt like it’d been a lifetime, and Liam...just wasn’t sure. Not about Soda, or Connecticut, or leaving once again without the chance to say goodbye, no matter how inevitable it was. Because, even as the birds sailed east overhead, he kept thinking about the west coast. The city. His family. His home.

—

The dial tone grated on his ears, flaring both his nerves and the steady headache that had started building after sunrise. He tried not to fidget, genuinely, but couldn’t help from tapping the handset clutched in his tight grip. He’d only scrounged up enough change for a single short call. He could only hope, on the third ring, that it wouldn’t go to waste.

She picked up on the fourth ring, her voice still somewhat hazy with sleep.

“Hello?”

Liam simply mouthed the words first, the sounds stuck in his throat. He almost wanted to cry. From what, exactly, he wasn’t sure: relief, or joy, or maybe sorrow. He knew he didn’t have long. Even still, he fumbled over the words a second time,

“Hello? Who is this?”

And pushed the lingering thoughts of Connecticut out of his mind.

“Hey, mom”

[doodlebeeberry]

Spare Roll of Bandages

He’d learned fairly early on the importance of handling injury. How to patch himself up, how to heal. He wasn’t the best at it, particularly in regards to the ladder, but at the very least he understood.

in which Swaine bandages an injury

a secret santa gift for @twylaisdonewitheverything , who asked for some swaine content! absolutely love this guy so hope i did him justice :^)

(ao3 link in source)

To say Swaine had gotten into his fair share of scrapes would be an understatement. He’d spent the majority of his life by now getting by with little more than his gun and the shirt off his back, the fabric growing thinner with each passing month and letting more and more of the cold and wind seep its way into his joints. Sure, he got his hands on a few guilders here and there, working odd under-the-table jobs and flitting around busy marketplaces scrounging up dropped change, but even still he was often left at a loss for shelter or food or any number of vital things. And loss bred need, and from need came desperation. Throw in a nasty case of broken-heartedness, and it became a wonder as to why so few towns had chased him out. 

Trouble tended to leave its marks, too, and he was living proof of that. From head to toe, he was scattered with little scars from a million different escapades. A long pink line above his hip from a messy barfight. A slight divot beneath his knee carved out in an encounter with a beastie. Little raised marking littered his hands from work on his gun with poor materials—not really trouble in and of itself, but the end result often was.

He’d learned fairly early on the importance of handling injury. How to patch himself up, how to heal. He wasn’t the best at it, particularly in regards to the ladder, but he understood.

     “Oliver, you’re bleeding”

Only a couple steps away, he’d been trying to roll the post-battle ache out of his shoulders when Esther’s comment caught Swaine’s attention. She held the last crumb of their bread in one hand, pointing with the other at the boy’s right arm. They both sat cross-legged on the ground, backs to the low-set sun.

    “I am?” he twisted it a bit, revealing the red now smudged slightly along his forearm. “Oh. I am”

Esther began digging through the bag. Things clattered a bit as she moved them; clinks of glass and metal stuck out most.

“I think that bread was the last of it,” 

    “But—” she paused, looked up, scrunched her nose a bit in thought. Swaine made the journey over and settled down beside him. “Right, we used all our coffee in the fight”

Auroralynxs tended to do that, Swaine found. Obnoxious little bastards. 

She held out the last scrap of her bread, as though a piece that small would do much of anything.

“You can have what’s left, if you want”

Oliver shook his head.

    “It’s alright, it’s not a bad scratch, I’ll just leave it.”

And, to his credit, he was right about that. Though scratches was the better term really, two lines running down along the middle of his forearm, not gushing blood at all so much as beading up with it. Given a few minutes, it would likely stop on its own.

But it was nearly dusk, the sky around them growing dark. He could see the first few stars just beginning to peek out from where they sat, hours away from town. They’d camp out for the night, most likely.

    “No,” Swaine nabbed the bag, “don’t do that”

He knew how poorly open injuries paired with sleeping in the dirt.

Pushed to the top thanks to the earlier shuffling, he grabbed a small cloth and a bottle of water. He opened it, watching his own hands move.

    “Here,” he said, dampening the cloth carefully, “give me your arm.”

He blinked.

    “Really, it’s—”

“No,” Swaine cut him off, “I nearly lost a finger doing that”

He set the bottle to the side, looking at them both, expression schooled into something neutral. Just as carefully he held out his hand.

“Come on”

Oliver hesitated a bit before relenting. Swaine held his arm just below the wrist, tilting it slightly. It was small in his own rough hand. He set about wiping up the smeared blood first. The kids watched him quietly. 

The word ‘kids’ left some kind of sour taste in his mouth ever since they’d crashed on Teeheeti some time ago, following him every time he so much as thought it. It was an unspoken kind of sour taste, the kind that made him furrow his brow and bite down a sensation pooling at his gut—sometimes a simmering anger and others a chilly discomfort. It was no fault of the kids themselves, neither Oliver nor Esther, and oftentimes there was nothing he could do beyond ignoring it for the time being.

But sometimes he’d find himself laying at an Inn, staring at the ceiling, or watching the fire dwindle as everyone else slept in a small cluster, some handful of miles outside of town. He’d run his fingers over the scars on his hands, old and new. Not a single one, he’d remember, had been pleasant to get.

He set the cloth on his lap, the scratches clean, and dug around in the pocket of his shirt. He’d gotten a small package of bandages and a roll of fresh gauze not long after they’d mended his brother’s broken heart. Esther had given him an odd look at the time, as though he’d grown a second head.

    “We have magic, you know,” she’d told him then. He’d rolled his eyes, scoffing just a bit.

    “How could I forget.”

    “So what do you need those for?”

He’d thought up a variety of answers.

    “They’re just good to have,” was what he’d went with. 

They’d gone nearly unused since then, thankfully. Shifting his grip slightly, he pressed a thin bandage against his arm. He didn’t miss how Esther blinked, just shy of wide-eyed for a moment. He filed that away among the things he could hold over her head in an argument later. Oliver broke the silence.

    “How did you nearly lose a finger?” he looked up from his arm to Swaine, who hummed. He resisted the urge to tap his chin, instead wrapping gauze slowly around his arm.

    “That was a while ago,” he began, giving himself just that little bit of time to pull the pieces together. The memory was in a haze, hard to parse as most every other memory from the years he’d spent brokenhearted was. 

“I’d cut my finger on a piece of glass, not much worse than the scratches on your arm. I didn’t take care of it, and it got dirty,” He began to loop the wrapping back over itself.

“Then it got infected, and the infection got worse ‘till it nearly took my finger.”

He was fairly certain he heard Esther make a small, grossed-out noise under her breath. She was little more than a silhouette in the low light. Holding the gauze down with one hand, again reaching into the bag, he pulled out a glowcap, emitting just enough light to bring their faces back into view.

“Here, hold this a second.”

Esther took the glowcap, twisting it slightly in her hand. She hovered a bit closer over Oliver’s shoulder.

    “So,” she asked, watching ten whole fingers tear away the gauze, “What happened?”

This time around he paused. The details grew somehow fuzzier, too much so to parse, yet another fun side effect of losing his restraint. He’d tried his damnedest over the past days and weeks to fill in the gaps but many things still stayed entirely out of reach. He shrugged, tightening it slightly.

    “Nabbed some medicine” he, perhaps, lied, “took a few days but it fixed it up.”

Swaine tied the ends firmly. It wasn’t pretty, but it was serviceable. 

“There. Try not to let it come undone.”

Oliver turned his arm a bit, taking it in, before smiling at him.

    “Thanks, Swaine”

 Several hours later he found himself in a familiar position, his cool unease off-set only by the dying fire. He’d been up alone for a while, going between stargazing and fire-watching, both unsatisfying. He could still feel the rise left behind by the glass cut, like a hill. It was almost smooth.

He’d been older than both Oliver and Esther when he’d left home, he was sure of it. Even still, throwing himself out into the world had been rough, painfully so, made all the worse when he’d finally learned of his father’s death. He could recall with an almost startling vividity the clash of emotions when he heard the news: the horror, the grief, the strange bitter anger towards someone he, at the time, couldn’t name. A bone-deep sense of resolution, soon turned to desperation, then to an awful cloudy haze as brokenheartedness overtook him.

Something moved in the corner of his eye, and he looked just in time to catch Oliver turning in his sleep, the bandage stark against his arm.

Swaine wasn’t unobservant. He’d learned some time ago that his mother had died and had filled in the blanks enough from there. Something to do with soulmates. Something to do with prophecy. Something to do with a sage, and Shadar. The familiarity of it all made him bitter-angry all over again, once again watching the fire go out. The scent of smoke was thick in the air, sticking to his throat alongside thoughts of fathers and mothers and kids with worlds and kingdoms thrown onto their shoulders. All different, horrible things with the same source. He let his thumb still over the old scar on his finger, aware of every other old injury. Again came a sense of resolution, a certainty, clearer than day.

The day he saw Shadar again would be that bastard’s last. Maybe then, finally, everything would

[doodlebeeberry]

Missing Persons, Missing People

days turned to weeks, which yielded no changes, which concerned him. And when weeks began rolling over into a month, into months without a single new bit of information he began to realize that something had to have gone wrong along the line

In which Soda Bottle finds a page on a certain missing person

wow! angsty gay people that have been sitting in my drafts unfinished for a month! amazing!

(ao3 link in source)

He blinked. Despite the slits of morning sun leaking through the blinds, his eyes struggled at the relative darkness he’d been plunged into, picking out silhouettes before forming more detailed shapes. His counter. His microwave. His chair—

His apartment, just as he’d left it.

He sat with one knee to his chest, his hand half-raised in the air. A radio show blared from his alarm clock yet somehow Airy’s voice still rang in his ears. He’d never hear the rest of his sentence—if there was anything more that he’d said—but he could easily imagine whose name made up the punctuation. An empty chill hung in the air.

He slammed his hand on the snooze. Pointedly, he avoided reading the time; he figured it’d been going off for a while. Traffic cut through the silence, alongside the creaking of his ceiling as someone crossed the room overhead. The bed squeaked as he shifted, breathing deep, stilling himself before he could begin to shake.

 He’d gotten out.

    San Fransisco crossed his mind about a week later, just as his lunch break began.

Quite frankly he considered it a miracle that he managed to keep his job at all despite his sudden absence. Though, admittedly, he’d been thoroughly chewed out the moment he stepped into the building, and had to needle and push them just about as much as he could to keep him on. The universe had to show him pity at some point, he supposed.

Leaning back against his car, he stared at the cracked screen of his phone.

San Fransisco. The city pinged important in his mind. The bay area...Backpack was from there, wasn’t he? All the way out west, farther out than he’d ever been. Not that he could really afford the trip, anyhow, but he still wondered what it was like. He turned, propping his elbows up on the hood and shivering a bit at the late winter breeze that crossed him. It was probably warmer out there, at least, the city baking in the coastal sun. He opened his browser, if only just to fill the time, hovering idly in a new tab.

 ...He should’ve gotten back by now, shouldn’t he? For as much of the competition he’d been dragged through himself, he’d only really been gone a week. Plus, he figured, it wasn’t as though Backpack was trying to win. Quite the opposite, actually.

He turned an idea over in his head for several seconds before tapping the search bar.

     backpack san fransisco  

Several stores and Amazon listings filled the results. There was an outdoors shop four blocks from him, apparently. Figures. He backpedaled.

     green backpack san fransisco  

The Amazon links were replaced by eBay listings. Everything remained the same otherwise. He tried again.

     male green backpack san fransisco  

The search results led to male styles specifically. He huffed.

     male green backpack san fransisco missing persons  

The first few were local news stories, all from Connecticut and all several months old by now. The fourth, a link to the SFPD website, caught his eye.

It was a short article, giving a time and place he’d last been seen, alongside a number to call if anyone saw him. Biking home, it read, just like he’d said. A picture of him, hardly smiling, looked back from the top of the page. His name sat just below it: Liam Plecak      .  

Liam.

The page still referred to him as missing. He tried to ignore the slight worry that tugged at his chest, scanning the page another minute or two before letting the screen go dark.

Backpack-no, Liam-hadn’t gotten out yet, it seemed. That, or the page hadn’t been updated. It was fine either way, he decided, pulling away from his car.

Not like he’d be stuck there much longer anyway.

He didn’t check it all too often, but he kept the tab open on his phone. Every few days he would spot it, pause, and look to see if anything had changed. He expected, particularly at first, to find something every time he checked, or for the page to be gone altogether. For ‘found’ or ‘solved’ or something along those lines to be thrown in front of the title, at least. Something to prove that Liam had returned home to San Fransisco, that he’d gotten back in one piece. To ease the antsy feeling that crept on him every time he checked the page, shake the last dregs of his voice from his ears and lingering images of him from his mind.

(Sometimes, as he checked Liam’s page, he’d be reminded of Scenty as well. More than once he’d considered looking her up too, just to see if she’d made it back, but he’d find himself with too little info to go off of. She’d never told him where she was from, and while he was sure he could dig something up given the time, he never had enough to commit to it. The lack of knowledge did little to sate him.)

But days turned to weeks, which yielded no changes, which concerned him. And when weeks began rolling over into a month, into months without a single new bit of information he began to realize that something had to have gone wrong along the line. That nobody had reported he’d returned, or nobody realized he’d returned, or, or—    

He began checking less often.

He’d really rather not be right.

The first signs of fall began rearing their heads just before the start of September. He spotted a small few trees painted red at their very edges, for one. The sun was already low in the sky by 7, gone behind the buildings much sooner. Not to mention the bright orange displays popping up in corner stores, boasting spider-themed garland and pumpkin-shaped candies in anticipation of Halloween. He rolled his eyes every time he saw one. Somehow they appeared earlier every year.

He was indifferent to the season most years. The weather tended to be pleasant right up until the first dusting of snow in mid-November, bringing with it then the imminent threat of storms and slushy, half-salted roads. Ads for state and county fairs would fill the radio for a few weeks, and he’d imagine ferris wheels stretching far above his head, and the sweet scent of fried dough over endless streams of chatter and laughter. He hadn’t visited one since he was a teen, accompanied then by family and friends. The thought always tangled something deep and quiet in his chest, making him want to give his parents a call.

Sometime in mid-October, when he had some time off work and could dredge up the energy to do it, he’d hop into his car, make sure the tank was full, and drive north along I-95, from one side of the state to the other. Sometimes he’d turn off at random exits, weaving his way through small towns he couldn’t name until he found himself alone on narrow, unpaved roads, all dappled in shade by the trees hanging over them, burning orange and gold and all warm colours. He’d follow the traffic out of instinct, watching the world as it passed in a mess of vibrant hues that dulled his thoughts into an awed whisper, even after all the years he’d seen them, until his car pinged that it was low on gas and he’d scramble to find a station.

He found himself yearning for it, that long drive to nowhere, as he watched dusk reach his peak from where he sat, phone in hand. Truth be told, he was really yearning for the cooler weather that came with it. A heatwave had been pummeling the city all week, drowning it in humidity and sapping it of energy. He’d been off work for a while now, but his apartment was stuffy and just too damn hot to be in, pushing him to a small family restaurant several blocks down, with staff behind the counter that hardly glanced at him when he sat by the window without ordering anything. From there he alternated between people watching and skimming the news, letting his thoughts drift until they reached the speed-blurred sights of golden sunlight on golden leaves.

He always took that drive alone. It was a bit too impromptu most years for him to really invite anyone else, not without throwing a wrench in their schedule. Even if he did plan it out in advance, who would he even invite? He wasn’t really close with many people, hadn’t been in some time. He could invite his folks, maybe, but he doubted they’d really have any interest. Besides, something about inviting them didn’t feel right. Something about the wonder of it all, the role it played in stilling him, if only for a day, it felt too...intimate, for lack of better term. Too personal. Too quiet.

He watched several people walk past the window, deep in muffled conversation. One, a small green vase, burst into laughter as they passed, loud even through the glass.

He still wanted to share that moment with someone though. Someone different.

He thought of teal wax within cool glass. Of green fabric warmed by an endless sun. Green and teal, cool shades against blazing leaves, painted in foreign night-time shadows as stars came to life overhead, talking and laughing and smiling. His heart fluttered, though he’d never admit it.

Two weeks since he last checked, he flicked the missing persons tab open, watching the page slowly reload.

Presumed Dead. 

His stomach dropped.

He didn’t take a long drive that October. He avoided I-95 almost all fall until the last brown leaves fell from the trees and the first morning frost hit. It wasn’t really a conscious decision on his part, he’d very nearly gone several times, but the rows of trees and bright-red leaves brought thoughts of broken glass and water-logged fabric, of frightened, shaky hands in his and an awful horror etched on the faces of strangers.

He couldn’t really understand why it bothered him so much, they really were practically strangers. He’d known them for, what, a week? He hadn’t heard news of them in months, let alone seen them. He couldn’t have, no matter how much he wanted to. All things considered, the outcome wasn’t a surprising one given the circumstances, and yet he couldn’t get the phrase out of his head.

Presumed dead. Presumed dead. He’d made it back, but for whatever reason Liam hadn’t shared his luck. He feared that neither of them did. There was nothing he could do about it now, he knew it. He couldn’t pop into The Plain and pull them back like it was nothing. It was out of his hands, no matter how much he wished it wasn’t.

He checked the page one last time, one partly sunny day in December, before closing the tab for good. He didn’t so much as look at his phone for the rest of the day.

Winter felt a little colder than usual when it finally hit the city.

A little bit hollower too.

He blinked. Despite the slits of morning sunlight leaking through the blinds, his sleep-addled eyes spent a moment struggling to take everything in. His counter. His microwave. His chair.

His apartment, the same as it’d ever been.

He rolled awake with a groan, his mattress squeaking in sync, and shut off his alarm clock. The screen blinked up at him, a bright green 8:00 a.m. It’d only just begun to ring. Taking a moment to breathe in deep, he pulled himself to his feet, stretching, before shuffling over to the window and lifting the blinds just enough to peer out. A car or two rolled down the street, adding to the faint birdsong in breaking the morning quiet. A small puddle of water had begun forming on the outside sill, as an icicle melted somewhere above it. Uneven patches of snow littered everything they could. He let them fall back down, uninterested, and set about getting ready for the day.

Breakfast was equally uneventful, nothing but corn flakes and milk. He was reminded, as he was every morning, of how he disliked the minty flavour of toothpaste, and got about halfway through washing his face before—

     Rap-tap-tap.  

He shut off the sink, staring down his reflection as he listened for it again. Water dripped onto the counter as he waited.

     Rap-tap-tap.  

Huh. That was new. It wasn’t often that people came knocking on his door, even less so this early in the morning. They knocked again as he stepped out of the bathroom, drying his face.

       “Yeah, give me a sec,” he grumbled, just loud enough for them to hear. He couldn’t think of anyone who’d visit him, not unless it was over some bill that he owed. Even still, running over everything in his head, he came up empty. He turned the lock, only somewhat hoping he looked more awake than he was, and swung open the door to the stranger awaiting him.

A scrap of blue paper was clenched in his hands, wide eyes tinged with shock and relief, set against green fabric so familiar it ached.

 He’d gotten out.

[doodlebeeberry]

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

It’d been sundown when she first put on the kettle, and her tea had long since gone cold.

in which Taco celebrates new year's eve, to the best of her ability

a really short and silly taco fic before i head to bed cause! idk! she lives in the woods and i just think shes neat what can i tell you

(ao3 link in source)

It’d been sundown when she first put on the kettle, and her tea had long since gone cold.

Truth be told, despite how often she dragged the little cup around, Taco didn’t drink much tea, the varieties she liked being a bit out of budget for her current lifestyle. Sure, she could—and had, on occasions where her hands shook and the wind grew too nippy to bear—boil pine needles and wild mint and all manner of native floral sprigs into something vaguely palatable, but more often than not she kept the teacup empty, waving it as she spoke at times, if only to give her something to hold. If only to give her something to do.

Instead, she saved it for special occasions. Holidays, mostly. Solitary birthdays. The day Mic first began working with her, she put on a pot of the very same variety currently freezing over in her hands: a fine hazelnut black tea, rich and smooth, with just a drop of honey. Her absolute favourite. She’d sworn, some time ago, to fully savor every last cup she brewed.

Slowly, she swirled it, feeling the weight shift between her palms. The woods themselves were quiet, but if she strained she could just catch a faint commotion somewhere beyond the trees, seemingly in the direction of the hotel, if she was to hazard a guess. She’d caught glimpses of their parties before through bushes and windows, wild affairs with firework-bright lights and mountainous tables of food and music practically bursting through the walls like great ocean waves. They were havens of warmth and mirth on any other occasion, it’d reason that New Year’s Eve would be no different. If she were to once again hazard a guess.

Hardly poking through the barren branches, wispy-thin moonlight stretched to the ground, accompanied by flecks of icy stars, a thin scratch carved in the southeast sky, slowly waning. Only the dim fire-glow illuminated her enough to see. It, too, wained slowly. The ground underneath her was cold. Hard and unyielding, braced in full for the steady might of a lonely, lonely winter, even if the sleeping trees kept it from truly, technically, being alone. On that front, the fireside did little to help.

She tried to estimate the time. The sun had gone down several hours ago, at least; it should be nearing midnight by now. The party, raging on and on all the same, did little to clarify.

What does one even  do  once midnight hits? It’d been long enough now since she last celebrated that the details began to slip.

Scream until your throat went raw?

Drink until the bottle ran dry?

Eat grapes off the vine?

Hug a new friend?

Kiss an old stranger?

Laugh?

Wish?

Cry?

A clamouring of voices began calling through the trees,

   “Five!”

   “Four!”

Faint, still, and bouncing around her. They were distant as they made the ground shake.

   “Three!”

    “Two!”

Taco closed her eyes. Breathed deep.

She’d no frame of reference anymore. Not for this, nor any other holiday.

   “One!”

In a single sharp motion, she kicked back the rest of her tea. It was terribly bitter, heavy as a rock in her stomach. The fire fizzled out.

The partygoers cheered.

[doodlebeeberry]

Chasing its Beam

He watched for a moment as Soda wrinkled his nose before burying his face against Amelia's side, pulling his arm closer. Pale moonlight poured over both of them, glinting against glass and plastic. It turned them to something very nearly magical.

In which Liam awakes from a dream

ive had the mental image of amelia liam and soda sleepin together since yesterday so thats literally just this. 1000+ words of the three of them waking up n going back to sleep

Liam woke with a start. 

His heart pounded in his chest, the air in his lungs thicker than water. He made a conscious effort to breathe. The strange, weightless feeling from his dream left him, and the full weight of gravity pinned him for several moments to the bed. He shivered at the cool touch of air.

The dream was a blurry one, but no less familiar. Water on all sides of him, and hands far out of reach, alongside the awful burning sensation as the air slipped away from him. No matter how far he swam he was always stuck below the surface, frightened faces above distorted by the rippled sunlight until they became unfamiliar. He was only thankful he woke before it reached its end.

He kneaded the off-white bottom sheets nervously, bathed in a beam of moonlight peeling through the nearby window. It painted a single neat stripe along the wall that he watched, only half-seeing. Beyond his own uneven gasping the room was silent, still. He’d seemingly pushed the blanket away from him at some point in his sleep.

After a minute he at least somewhat regained his breath, and felt enough like he wasn’t trapped under heavy water to pull himself into a sitting position. He lingered there, somewhat, taking in his dresser and the cast-off blanket and the just-ajar door. It was all silhouettes, coated deep in drowsy dark, a small world still asleep. Beside him, the sheets rustled slightly.

Amelia lay curled just beside him, or where he once was, rather, fumbling a bit in her sleep at his rising. She’d one hand thrown over her head, fingers laced loosely with Soda’s, who snuggled against her on the opposite side, his other arm drooping over the edge. He’d stretched his leg out so that his ankle sat directly atop Liam’s. He watched for a moment as he wrinkled his nose before burying his face against her side, pulling his arm closer. Pale moonlight poured over both of them, glinting against glass and plastic. It turned them to something very nearly magical.

He felt restless, despite the slight weakness in his limbs. He considered getting a drink, but the thought made his stomach turn warily, and he closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply to drive it off. Even still, he felt a bone-deep need to get out of bed. Walk around a bit. Center himself.

He leaned back along the pillows a moment, setting his hand atop Amelia’s and Soda’s. Gently, like an act of reassurance, he gave them a squeeze, running a thumb in a loop between them. His throat still felt a bit too full to manage saying anything, not without breaking down, so let the action hang. After a few seconds he pulled away and slid out of bed. Amelia mumbled, more a breath than words, and Soda’s fingers twitched as his contact fled.

The floor was just a bit chilly, creaking as he slowly paced the room. He paused for a few moments at the door, a small scratch of warm light trickling from underneath. He frowned a bit at that. Glancing back for a moment at the figures curled up in bed, he opened the door as quietly as he could and crept into the hall.

Beside the front door was a tall thin lamp, slightly crooked near its top. They’d left it on hours prior by mistake. He stood in front of it for several seconds, hands lingering beside the switch, studying the lampshade. It was a bit too large, painted poorly with brightly coloured flowers on a blue background. It hadn’t originally come with one, truth be told. He’d picked it up from a garage sale a while back, from a selection of, to put it kindly, gaudy lampshades of all shapes and colours. Amelia had called it one of the ugliest things she’d ever seen. Soda said it, sadly, matched the couch. He was fairly certain they wanted to kill him when he bought it.

He flicked the light off, plunging himself into darkness. The fridge rattle-hummed a bit behind him, and if he really listened he could catch the heater click on and begin to work away. He couldn’t see the pattern any more but it still remained vivid in his mind, under his fingers, in the garish cushion and plates they’d bought in retribution. He never wanted to put them away, or switch them out for something newer or nicer.

Liam couldn’t quite figure out what to do from there though. He still felt odd. Off-kelter. Tired, but like something was keeping him from sleep even still. Through the window over the kitchenette sink hardly any light leaked in, but even still he found his way back to the bedroom, lingering in the doorway. The blanket had slid all the way to the ground while he was gone. The moonlight streamed through the room all the same. 

He padded over to the window, the full moon shining through it, leaning on the sill. It bathed him pale, casting on the rooftops of nearby buildings and shimmering on the leaves of the little tree stretching up from the sidewalk. One or two stars blinked in the clear sky. Behind him, the sheets rustled once more. The chill of the sill matched the floor, very nearly stinging his arms as he pressed against it.

It seemed almost strange to think he was here. Somewhere in his gut, he felt it should leave him. That it would. That he would. 

If he did, he wasn’t sure where he’d end up.

    “Liam?” 

Amelia’s voice was deeply groggy, and even with his back to her he could picture how she rubbed at her drowsy eyes. He hoped she didn’t notice how he startled.

“‘S like...two in the mornin’. Come back to bed.”

    “I will. In a minute.”

A great silence settled in between them, broken only by her hand settling on the sheets. She watched him at the window ledge, framed by the silver light as though glowing. Even through the distance she swore she heard him breathing. Her voice grew quieter.

    “...is everything alright?”

He gave it a second, then two, then another three.

    “Yeah.”

Soda Bottle stirred a bit, woken by their voices, rolling over to face him.

    “‘S goin’ on?” 

He cracked an eye open, pushing himself up an inch or so. Though his vision was still blurred with sleep he watched Liam shift his arms along the sill, turning a bit to face them.

He flopped back down with an audible poff against the mattress, gesturing with little coordination.

“Come back ‘ere, Ame’s too cold. Wanna sleep wi’ someone warm.”

She flicked his shoulder.

“‘S true.”

Liam chuckled a bit, the sound weary. He followed the beam of moonlight carving a path through the room, deviating only once to pick up the blanket slumped at the foot of the bed. It was Amelia’s originally. Thick and warm and having lost just a bit of its softness to wear, flannel-patterned and matching his sheets and Soda’s pillows and covers. He tossed it down first before slipping in between them, pulling it up close enough to settle just below his arms. Amelia did much the same, and Soda simply kicked it up over his legs, opting instead to throw an arm over him the moment he laid back among the pillows, sighing contently the moment he was pressed close. Amelia curled against his chest, Soda’s fingers just brushing her back. She kept one arm smushed between them, the other reaching over and tangling with his own.

The bed creaked a bit like an old ship, and they settled into a great sea of quiet, floating gently among the window light, well above the surface. Their breaths were warm against his side.

He spent a while laying awake, feeling how they both shifted bit by bit but still held close before finally allowing himself to drift too, deepening alongside them into sleep.

[doodlebeeberry]

aauuh ill finish this tomorrow probably but like. here. a one fic wip cause i really wanna post it

Fuck, it’s cold.

Connecticut winters weren’t known for being the kindest. Sure, they weren’t the worst New England had to offer, as far as he knew they couldn’t hold a candle to New Hampshire or Maine, but the air still bit straight through him, wind bellowing, rushing like an onslaught of dogs. Come November and he was already digging out his coat. 

Stepping out of his car, Soda Bottle found this year to be no exception, the late hour exacerbating the dry chill. He pulled his coat tighter around him, breath billowing before his eyes and hiding the near-midnight sky, twinkling with clear icy stars, behind a momentary foggy sheen. Warm humming lights lit him. He squinted at the gas prices over the pump. $3.40. He rolled his eyes, turning to the rest stop behind him. 

Truth be told, he really didn’t want to be out on the road right now, late hour aside. Were it up to him, he would’ve spent the past two days curled up in bed catching up on sleep, or watching movies on his phone, or even just staring at his ceiling, watching over the hours as the lights through the windows stretched and fell back. But his family would’ve killed him had he not come up for the holiday, or at the very least would’ve dragged him up themselves. So, despite the fact that he really hadn’t celebrated it for years, he’d dragged himself to his parents house for the two day celebration, seeing relatives he’d otherwise go years without hearing from. Aunts and uncles and cousins prattling on and on over cheap wine and plates of lasagna, nieces and nephews running underfoot by the dozens, catching each other up on their new jobs or engagements or achievements he couldn’t match. He always preferred listening to them rather than sharing news of his own, but even still, on the evening of the 24th, one of his aunts turned to him, an older retired woman well into her 60s, nearly 70s. 

    “What about you?” she’d asked him. One of the kids trotted into the den, right in between them, plucking a plastic brick from the floor. The tv behind her was muted. One of his elder cousins leaned over the back of the sofa she sat on, looking across to him. Both watching him.

“What have you been up to?”

His cousin piped up,

    “Yeah, finally meet anyone?”

He’d thought of the endless sun. Of green, and teal, and the feeling of really, truly, missing his family for once. He’d thought of the chance he didn’t regret passing up. He’d thought of the chances he did.

    “No,” he’d replied, shrugging “Just more of the same.”

Now, after many goodbyes, he was driving home, feeling some way about it. Or, more accurately, was getting gas for his near-empty car at the only rest stop for miles, feeling some way about it. The convenience store was empty, stepping in. The cashier scrolled through their phone.

Outside it only seemed to grow colder.

The sign seemed like a beacon, yellow and red and glowing blue, shooting out against the night. After following the highway for hours—which one, exactly, he wasn’t sure any more—Liam could’ve cried at the sight of it. He very much would’ve, had he the energy. It was so close too. It wasn’t one of those massive signs that towered over the trees, visible for miles but not at all near, no, it was smaller, dimmer. He could see the station itself, and its little shop, windows glowing warm. His legs shook as he approached.

He’d been walking for...a while. Days. Weeks. Well over a month, he knew, though the exact time frame was lost on him, mind hazy. The east coast was wildly different than the west, more so than he’d anticipated. He began to really take in the weather differences around Ohio, or maybe Pennsylvania, or maybe New York, and at first he figured it would be easy enough to handle. Things were more clustered together out east, if maps were to be believed. He’d tried to stick to more populated areas, particularly at night, so at the very least he’d have somewhere he could drop into once the cold became too much. But eventually he found himself facing long stretches of highway, or got turned around and wound up in small towns, spaced widely out with no places to stay, and would drag himself through wind and frosty grass in search of lights that didn’t come from cars, wishing he had the money for a bus or a train ticket, or had learned to drive while he’d still had the chance. He considered hitchhiking, had even tried it after getting lost somewhere around Iowa, but the results had been less than stellar. The roads being nearly empty hardly helped, but even still everyone just drove on past him. After about a week he gave up trying. 

His breath rattled in his chest as he approached the parking lot, only in part from the effort. He began noticing it a couple days ago, coupled with an annoying achiness that settled in his limbs and made his mind a little blurry, enough to get him turned around more than once. He’d started coughing yesterday, and sometime that afternoon his head began to ache too, growing more and more incessant by the hour. Deep down he knew that wasn’t good, that catching something while running on empty was a dangerous combination. He knew that his luck was running out, but he didn’t really bother acknowledging it. Instead he leaned against the building, stone cold against his palms, pausing to catch his breath. Another moment or two, and he slid to the ground.

God he was tired. Exhausted, really. But tired worked too. He was too worn out to care. 

Slowly, deliberately, to work around the stiff cold in his fingers, he fumbled for his inner pocket, pulling out what he had: a handful of coins, he counted out quickly and carefully, totaling about a dollar seventy, give or take. The small blue cap of a water bottle he’d lost yesterday, likely blown away by the wind once it’d gone empty. He pulled out the papers last. They’d been thoroughly crinkled by now, the left side of the SF paper torn, the right corner of the address paper stained. He’d memorized it weeks ago, but read it anyway.

5628 Saratoga Avenue

Apartment 130A

Bridgeport CT

Over and over it repeated in his head, like a strange melody. 5628. 130A. Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Bridgeport. Was he even close? He had to be. He had to be by now. He already passed through New York, he knew he was in Connecticut, but where? The north? The south? He couldn’t remember what town he’d come from, and didn’t know what town he was in. The parking lot was empty, pumps all free, the sign overhead listing only prices, $3.40 for a gallon of regular. A few cars peeled down the highway. Where were they going, late at night in the middle of December? Home? To visit friends? To visit family?

He pulled his knees in close, coughing roughly into the crook of his arm. His thoughts grew cloudy. He felt indistinct. He hardly registered the wall against his back.

What he wouldn’t give to visit family.