utahbastards

[utahbastards]

[ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄 ]

She let the hot water run until it bit at her soles, shifting weight from one foot to another to share the sting. Only when it scalded did she step in, inch by inch, easing into her surrender. The grout lines blurred with pink—thin, obedient veins at first—then deeper, richer, blooming from blush to garnet as they overflowed, pooling at her feet like a cut wrist as she moved fully beneath the spray. Blood that had long since dried down on her skin woke up under the heat, stirring before snaking down her limbs in a rush. It slipped into the creases of her skin, hiding out in places it hoped she wouldn’t find.

Caroline Cunningham had been born at six pounds and two ounces, blonde-haired and green-eyed with a set of nine lives. The first went at four years old. Her parents were tipsy, laughing with their mouths full while their daughter stood on the first rung of the balcony railing. They didn't notice the second. Or the third. Or that she’d vanished at all, until a woman at another table started screaming. Caroline had dropped two stories into a restaurant dumpster—filthy, stunned, and a little bruised when she'd been plucked out, but whole.

She lost a few more along the way. Here and there. A neck that should’ve snapped when her spotter let her drop straight on her head at thirteen. At sixteen in a fiery wreck in a Ferrari her boyfriend shouldn’t have been driving, the front end folded like paper against a wall, doing eighty. Twenty-two, a stalker broke into her apartment. Her neighbor shot him just before he had managed to break down the bedroom door.

She was running lower than she liked. Whatever Beckett had done to her—whatever it had taken—she figured it had cost at least two. Today, she’d lost another. And it was starting to make her nervous, how thin the margin was getting. How close she might be to empty.

It happened fast. Too fast to make sense of. One moment she was bounding beside him, machete swinging loose from her fingertips, still laughing at something he'd said. Next, the forest split open. A noise like thunder poured through the trees, rabid feet pounding across pine needles, a wall of breathless momentum slamming down upon them.

Then the world flipped.

She'd hit the ground hard. Her skull rang like struck metal. No time to think. Just instinct—the primal kind that ices your blood and jacks your pulse so fast you think your heart might blow up and kill you before anything else gets the chance. The kind that saves your life. Her hands flew up, pure reflex, buying precious inches between her face and the flesh-slick teeth that snapped just shy of her skin. It was on her before her brain could catch up, cold rancid droplets spattered across her skin from its breath, snarling wet against her face.

There were too many. Two, three—maybe more. Ravenously clambering over her, their limbs a knot of putrid hanging skin and protruding bone. One sank its teeth into the sleeve of her jacket and thrashed, flinging its head back and forth like a dog trying to tear off a limb. The piglike squeal of its blunt teeth grinding against the leather made her teeth clench.

Her machete was long gone. In another zip code behind her. Might as well have fallen into another world for all the good it’d do now. She couldn’t reach, couldn’t scream, couldn’t move. This was it—she felt it. That quiet, final certainty. The moment when luck stops answering your calls. She bit down hard on her lip, pain flaring through the fog as something between a scream and a growl tore loose from the bottom of her throat. She shoved harder, bracing both palms against its collarbone as it snapped inches from her face, trying to force it back.

A blur of motion. A grunt of effort. And then his face—Slivko—cutting into the frenzy like sunlight breaking through after a too-long night. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t speak. Just moved. The machete arced through the air with brutal precision, biting through rot and tendon, cleaving the dead off of her, one after another. Piece by piece.

When the last one dropped, he grabbed its hair and flung it aside, then sank to his knees beside her.

She sat up in a daze, ears ringing—no, not quite. She hadn’t sat up on her own. Slivko had pulled her. She remembered the grip of his hand tight around hers, the other pressed flat between her shoulder blades, hauling her upright a little too fast, like he wasn’t sure she was still there.

Then she felt it: cold and wet trailing down her neck.

Her fingers trembled as she reached up, swiping across her throat—and then froze. Her hand came away red.

Caroline's breath hitched, her vision narrowing to a pinhole. She stared at the smear on her skin, suddenly unable to feel her lips. All the blood seemed to rush out of her limbs at once. Her fingers flew back to her throat, pawing at it, frantic. Had it gotten her? Had she not felt it?

Was this it?

Slivko was already on her, hands rough and fast. He yanked down the collar of her shirt, trying to scan every part at once. His face was tight and his eyes were wide, his mouth set like he was bracing for confirmation. She could feel the tension in his body, the desperate trembling in his fingertips.

Then he exhaled. One sharp, shaking breath, ragged in her ears and hot against her face. He breathed the relief straight into her lungs, like oxygen.

Her body sagged. Boneless. Weightless. Trembling. Not bitten. Not this time. But the stench of death clung to her skin. The weight of their bodies still ghosted over her chest. And in the back of her throat, she could taste it—the moment it almost ended. The moment everything nearly slipped away.

The joke they’d been laughing about—whatever it was—was gone now. Like it had never existed at all. He'd been so quiet for a man who never was. They had trudged home in silence, boots slogging noisily in contrast as they tracked through the dead leaves and marshy wet earth. She kept stealing glances at him from the corner of her eye, searching for something in the shape of his mouth, the set of his jaw. But mostly, she watched her own feet, convinced that one little stumble might be all it took to tip them both over the edge.

He hadn’t fought her for the shower. A gentleman after all. And now here she was—half-willing to live under the spray forever, skin long since clean, water still scalding her raw. She stood there until her courage gathered itself. Then, finally, turned the tap off. The water stopped, but the steam clung to her like it didn’t want to let go either.

Normally, Caroline liked to be alone when she licked her wounds. That was how it was done in the Cunningham house. Suffering was a solitary sport—quiet, practical, invisible. But now, with only a wall between them, she found herself staring like she might make out the shape of his shadow beneath the door. She wasn’t used to feeling lonely. It wasn’t a state she often let herself indulge. But something in her had paused. The private and cold creature she was had gone still inside her, just long enough to admit: she didn’t want to be alone right now.

She wrapped the towel tight around herself, her bloody clothes still in the bath, soaking in their own filth at this point, the tub water cloudy and red. She opened the door quietly. He was seated across the room, eyes unfocused, like his mind had gone somewhere else and wasn’t sure how to get back. Then, he blinked. The light came back on behind his eyes.

She ghosted past him without a word, her bare feet soundless on the tile. He stood when she did, not looking at her. Just moving. She watched his frame retreat as he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him with a soft click. A moment later, the water started.

She raided the drawer for something of his, though she'd never admit it. Caroline plucked the tee from the bottom of the haphazardly folded pile, rolling her eyes as they spilled out into the drawer in complete disarray before shutting it with the bump of her hip. It was khaki, some washed-out military issue embroidered with a unit logo she didn’t care enough to decipher. It didn’t matter. It was his. Not something plucked from a dead man and thrown in with the rest.

She waited for him. And waited. And waited.

Eventually, her body made the decision for her—bones aching, blood humming low in her veins. She lay down, just for a moment, telling herself it wasn’t sleep she was after. Just a moment to rest. To be horizontal. To stop holding herself upright.

She wasn’t sure if she’d fallen asleep—more like she’d drifted sideways into that in-between place, warm and weightless, breath slowed to something lazy and even.

Then she was falling.

Her heart kicked in her chest, dragging her back to the land of the living with a breathless drop. She jerked awake, blinking bleary-eyed and confused into the murky lamplight just as the mattress jostled slightly beneath her. She turned her head and saw him—Slivko—perched at the edge of the bed, still wrapped in a towel. His back to her. His head in his hands.

The wet spot could wait.

For a long moment, she didn’t move. Just watched the tremor in his shoulders, the way his fingers twisted into his hair, elbows braced hard against his knees like he was trying to hold something in. Caroline froze, unsure of herself all at once. She wanted to reach for him—ached to—but the fear caught her just behind the ribs.

He was so still it took her a moment to realize he was crying.

Or trying not to.

It didn’t suit him—Warren Slivko, unraveling. It scared her. It softened her. It twisted something deep in her stomach.

Caroline shifted closer without a sound. Her hand hovered for a breath, uncertain, then landed lightly on his back. She traced slow, aimless lines down his spine at first, letting her fingers skim the rough terrain of scar tissue and shrapnel remnants. He flinched, just once, then stilled. She tried not to conjure a story for every mark, instead focusing on the clean smell of his hair, the heat from the water still trapped in his skin under her touch.

She found the old cigarette burns without meaning to—faint, round ghosts of someone else’s cruelty. She lingered there longer than she meant to, tracing gentle circles with her sharp nails, a kind of reverence in the touch.

He didn’t pull away.

Little by little, he leaned into her. She could feel the tension bleeding from his shoulders, his muscles loosening beneath her hand. Whatever had been fighting it inside him—gripping tight and refusing—finally let go, all at once.

She curled in close, her nose brushing against the skin of his back, somewhere between a thick silver scar and the flat freckle on his shoulder. Then she pulled back, just slightly.

Closer still, she slid her arms around him from behind, chin resting in the crook of his neck. Her hair, damp and gold, fell over them both, clinging to his skin. She didn’t speak. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t break the spell.

They breathed like that for a while. In sync. Sharing warmth. Holding still so they didn’t spook it. If she asked what was wrong, he wouldn’t answer. If he asked what she was doing, she wasn’t sure she could explain.

So they didn’t ask. Didn’t explain. They just stayed.

She tilted her head, pressing a soft bite to the hollow of his throat—nothing hard, just teeth and skin and breath. She smoothed it over with the faintest brush of her lips. She would’ve lost her trachea today without him. And everything else with it.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice quiet in his ear. More sincere than she’d ever let herself be.

[utahbastards]

The Simpsons – 7.14: Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield

[utahbastards]

#my commitment to anything

The Simpsons – 8.20: The Canine Mutiny

[utahbastards]

"𝐈’𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬, 𝐮𝐡, 𝐠𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬."

The terrible water pressure in this wretched place couldn’t wash the day from her skin. Not really. It dribbled from the rust-caked showerhead like it could give out any moment, the tepid warmth owed to the heat of the sun on the pipes and nothing more. Barely working—just enough to smear the filth around. Traces of other people still clung to her cuticles, scarlet reminders of the dying and the dead. The pillaging had yielded crates of expired opioids and other goodies, but soap, of all things, no one thought to take. Why would they? Soap didn’t get you high. It didn’t kill pain. It just staved off infection. It spared the nose. Kept rot at bay. Small mercies, unappreciated in a place like this.

She picked at her nail beds until they stung red, peeling back every edge of skin that dared to remain soft. Several times she caught herself almost biting them and had to recoil with a grimace, shaking her head like it might rattle the memory of what her hands had touched—who they’d touched—today, back out of her.

The invasion had been a disgusting premise from its inception, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the full-throated depravity of it. The men came back clanging beer bottles together, braying laughter between stories of what they’d done. No one whispered. No one flinched. Not even the good faith to pretend to be ashamed. Blood under their nails, smiles on their faces. They wore cruelty like a medal. She stood in the corner, stiff and unmoved, carved from marble and loathing. The disgust radiated off her in silent pulses, visible in the sharp lines around her mouth, the hard set of her jaw, the way her lip twitched when any of them looked her way. If there were any justice left in this world, an asteroid would fall from the sky and turn this whole place into a smoking crater.

She needed to take Louis and run as far as her legs could carry her before that happened. She would not let these animals mould him into one of their own—some fat, self-satisfied mongrel licking god-knows-what from his teeth. She’d thought this a hundred times before, but it was the first time the resolve had followed with it. If they were shot in the back while trying, so be it. How much worse could it be? Better to die with a shred of humanity than to keep living under men like this for another year—another day, even. Better to die than hand them her little brother. He was six and still called out every butterfly he saw. Soon, they'd give him a gun and tell him to carry his weight. She’d rather bury him herself.

She heard the last truck roll in before she saw it—engine straining up the incline, tires spitting gravel as it heaved back through the south gate. By the time she reached the yard, only the last of the men were spilling out of the flatbed, hooting and hollering like their team had just won the championship game. She scanned the crowd. No sign of Stellan.

She moved through the fringe and caught the short one by the sleeve as he scooted past. She was flooded with immediate regret.

He wheeled around with the buzz of someone high on adrenaline, stepping in too close, eyes shining with a terrifying sort of excitement. The stink of blood and god knows what else had her recoiling. She stepped back instinctively, lip curling in revulsion. The anticipation in his face soured the second he clocked who she was. Recognition crept across his features—maybe it was fear of Boone, maybe fear of Stellan, maybe a healthy combination of both—but it curdled whatever bravado he’d had. His gaze dropped, shoulders shrinking in.

"Where’s Stellan?" she asked, flatly.

He scratched at the side of his nose, sucking in a reluctant breath. “Went inside,” he muttered, flicking his chin toward the cell block. “Said he was gonna wash up.”

She ought to feel relief. That quick, delicious gasp of breath when your lungs had started to burn for it. He was alive. That should’ve mattered. But the joy didn’t come. Why should it? This place was a hole where good feelings went to die. There was no warmth, no light, no love. She’d been delusional to think she could carve some out for herself. All she had to do was look around. Look at what passed for celebration. This place was an open-air hell.

She left the little leech to his own devices, chewing his tongue and glancing over his shoulder like someone might punish him just for speaking to her. She didn’t care, in fact, she hoped for it. She was already moving, boots kicking up dry dust as she crossed the yard, past the warped basketball hoop and the broken watchtower and the line of shirts still drying stiff on the fence. The sun had begun its descent behind the prison wall, drawing long shadows that followed her with hungry black eyes.

Inside, the cell block was quieter, the celebration pulling everyone from their corners to the dining hall. It was cooler, too—thick-walled and tomb-still, making her skin prickle with goosebumps. Her steps echoed through the empty corridors, each a little louder than she wanted it to be. Every breath felt like it scraped the back of her too tight throat. She passed a pile of plundered clothing, an overturned chair, a smear of something dry and dark along the floor tiles that no one had bothered to mop. No one ever would.

She turned the corner past the guard station. The showers were just ahead, tucked behind what used to be a locker room. A weak strip of light cut under the door—but no shower. You could usually hear them start from two floors above, screaming with exertion, as if resentful that no one had let them retire in peace. Overworked. Undermaintained. Unmissable, and now—quiet. The silence gave her pause. She stopped short of the entrance, bravery faltering, momentum draining from her legs like someone had cut the strings inside them. Slowly, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to the door, letting her eyes flutter shut.

She could almost feel him. Imagined his chest in place of the cold steel, imagined what it might be like to rest her face there, to be folded into his arms and squeezed tight—tight enough to wring the despair out of her like muddy water from a sponge. He hadn’t needed to hose himself off like the others. He’d slipped away to breathe. To think. To separate himself from the mess they’d made. Just like her. She exhaled with unearned relief, feeling her face soften.

Almost three years, and she was still no closer to knowing where she stood with him. They’d shared fires, meals, silences more intimate than words—but never crossed that invisible line. Not even once. Not a brush of lips. Not a hand held too long. They’d slept side by side and never woken to an advantageous arm tucked around her waist. Any other man, if he’d wanted her, would’ve tried something by now. That was the rule of this world: desire didn’t wait when tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed, and decency had an expiry date. But Stellan never touched her like that.

But he cared. That wasn’t in question.

She’d felt his eyes on her, quiet and searching, the kind of gaze that lingered when he thought she wouldn’t notice. She’d walked ahead sometimes just to see if he was still watching. Before the prison, he’d gone hungry more than once so she and Louis could eat. When they’d been scattered in the woods, forced off the road and into the brush, it was her he’d run with—covering her, steadying her over gnarled roots and broken ground between bursts of gunfire. He’d chosen her, again and again, in all the small ways that counted.

Would he choose her now? Would he run, if she asked?

Whatever love lived inside him—whatever shape it took—was it strong enough to abandon safety in search of something better? He’d found her the morning she was ready to end it all. The gas already on, filling every room as she waited patiently for sleep. And then—him. Like he’d been sent by something above, cruel or kind, she never decided. But it felt like fate either way. Like he’d been placed in her path to pull her back from the edge.

That had to mean something. It had to.

Because if it didn’t… if she had been robbed… if she could’ve gone while her family’s souls still lingered... Could’ve followed them home, while the grief was still raw and the line between worlds still thin enough to cross in a breath. But now? She was years from that house. Years from them. She hadn’t gotten to bury them right. Hadn’t lit the candles. Hadn’t closed their eyes. They could be trapped there still—mulos, caught in the plot that birthed them, waiting for rites she never gave.

If she died here, in this hollow, foreign place… would she ever find them again?

The thought came veiled in venom, its barbs catching in her lung. Her ribcage locked. Her chest lurched in a spasm—sharp, involuntary—as if it wanted to cry but no longer remembered how.

She had to ask him. Beg him, if it came to that.

This wasn’t a place to die. If her soul was meant to fester, let it fester anywhere but these walls. If she were made to haunt, let it be in a house with windows—somewhere light still came in. Not here. Not this place. Not living or dead.

She sucked in a dizzying breath, the kind that made her chest buzz. She pressed her palm to the door, steadying herself against the deafening thrum of her own pulse.

“Hello?”

The voice jolted her. She flinched back from the frame, shame immediately flaring up hot in her cheeks. Of course he’d noticed her. Of course he would. Stellan’s sense for footsteps and shadows was a thing born of habit, not peace. A soldier’s reflex, drilled deep enough that he would never quite put it down.

“Just me,” she managed, voice thinner than she meant it to be. Her fingers ghosted down to the handle, pausing there like maybe it would turn on its own if she gave it long enough. “They’re serving dinner soon. Do you want me to bring you something up?”

There was a pause. Just a beat too long.

“Uh—no! I’ll… I’ll be there. Just need to wash this—uh, glue—off my hands.”

His voice was too quick, too tight. It pinched toward the end like he was forcing it lighter than it wanted to be. The words came out cluttered, like they hadn’t been rehearsed because he hadn’t expected to need them. The delay before the lie. The scramble for something benign.

Her brow furrowed. Glue? That wasn’t a word that belonged to their world anymore. Not really. Not unless it was binding something important. Flesh, maybe. Or a story.

She lingered at the door, fingers still hovering over the handle, breath caught somewhere in her diaphragm. Something cold and coiled settled in her gut—suspicion. A snake named Dread accompanied it, slithering under her skin, flicking its tongue along her spine until she shuddered. She didn’t know what she wanted to find on the other side. Didn’t know if she was more afraid of catching him in a lie or not.

If he’d done nothing, why lie? If it was guilt, what had he done?

She bit the inside of her cheek, hard enough to taste blood, grounding herself with the sting as her tongue probed against the bite. Her hand tightened on the door handle, but knowledge was a one-way door. You didn’t open it unless you were ready to live with what came through.

Her knuckles whitened, indecisive and rigid.

“Kira, just give me a minu—”

She pushed the door open in a blink.

The words died in his mouth.

He stood in front of her, frozen, shirt off and clutched in one fist, her brothers ring dangling loose around his neck. His eyes wide, breath held like hers had been. Her gaze dropped to the garment in his hands—his clothes weren’t stained. They were destroyed. Black with dried blood, stiff with it. Irreparable, even with industrial cleaner. Even with magic.

Her eyes trailed down the length of him, numb. Her body didn’t flinch, didn’t twitch. Just… stilled.

His skin was no better. Red and raw, glinting horribly under the flickering fluorescent light like fresh meat left out in the open. His forearms were wet, but not clean—slick with the effort of trying, with water that couldn’t quite carry away what he’d done. The sink behind him still dripped, a slow, mocking beat.

No words came to her mouth. None even tried.

They just stood there, caught in the awful stillness of being seen. Of seeing.

She had never looked at him like this before—hadn’t needed to. He had always been her tether, her steady hand, the one thing that kept her anchored to something that might still be called good. Now she wasn’t sure she could ever look at him any other way.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again.

"Is that blood?" She asked dimly.

Of course it was. What else could it be? Tar? Rust? Paint? Still, she hoped—no, begged—that he’d say something. Anything. Come out with some cockeyed story, just outlandish enough to explain it, just grounded enough to give her cover to believe it. Feed her even a half-truth. A shapely lie. Let her shut her eyes and fantasize a little bird beating its wings in her hands instead of the fist full of maggots he'd handed her. He said nothing; instead, the silence between them crackled like radio static, too loud and too empty all at once.

“Is it yours?”

Her voice cracked down the middle, barely above a whisper. A stupid question she didn't need an answer to, that was more blood than a man could lose and still be standing. But some little ember caught the wind, hopeful against all odds that it wouldn't burn out.

He didn’t answer, squandering the spark and letting it drift far beyond them. Just stood there, shirt clenched in his hand, chest rising and falling like he hadn’t quite figured out how to breathe yet. Like maybe he thought if he didn’t move, this wouldn’t count. That she hadn’t seen.

She blinked, eyes burning. “How many people did you kill today?” she asked, voice warbling—the sound of someone walking barefoot over glass, bracing for every step.

He met her eye then, finally.

And when he spoke, it was worse than silence.

“Does it matter?”

Kira’s heart sank straight through her ribs, through the cracked concrete floor, down into the deep pit where the rest of her hope had gone to rest. That asteroid couldn’t come fast enough.

"Yes, Stellan," her voice was ice. "It matters."

He didn’t flinch. Not even a twitch. Just stared at her like she was speaking a language he’d almost forgotten. A dead tongue that was no use to him now.

“I’m not sure,” he said, quieter this time. Like he meant it. Like he hated that he meant it.

Kira stepped back like she’d been slapped.

There was something unmoored in his eyes—lost, frayed at the edges. But not confused. No, he knew what she was asking. He knew exactly what this moment was. And still, he offered her nothing that resembled a man she could follow.

“You used to be,” she said. The words fell soft, but she hoped they stuck deep. “You used to be sure.”

He looked away. Coward.

She wanted to grab him by the chin, to force his gaze back to hers and demand to know what had taken root inside him, what hollowed him out enough that this—this—was something he could live with. Wanted to shake him until she had no strength left in her arms. Wanted to scream. To sob. To bury her fists in his chest and ask where the man she knew had gone.

But she couldn’t bring herself to move.

Her limbs felt foreign, heavy and dulled like she’d been dropped inside someone else’s skin. The breath in her chest had turned shallow and treacherous. Even if she could speak again, she didn’t trust her voice not to break. Not to betray just how much he’d wounded her. How stupid she felt for thinking he was the exception to this place.

He'd made a mockery of her. Of everything she believed in—what she thought they believed in.

All this time, she'd been clinging to the idea of him like a raft. Letting herself believe he was different. That though they may have been dimmed, they could still exist as light amongst all this darkness. But he couldn't. Not anymore. Maybe he never had.

She could see it now: how close she’d come to chaining her fate to his. To begging him to run. To trusting him with Louis, with herself. What a mistake that would’ve been. Whatever part of him she’d loved, it didn’t live here anymore.

And if it did, it was too deep down to save.

She swallowed hard, the sting clawing up the back of her throat. Her hand loosened at her side. Her feet, slow and reluctant, remembered how to move. She would go. But not with him. She’d carry her brother, her grief, her stubborn little flame of belief in something better—and leave everything else, everyone else, behind.

If she could take Daniela, she would. She’d carry her, too. Pray her baby might live to see a world less cold than this one. But Dani wouldn’t run. Not now. The infection had already taken hold—not the one out on the walls, the one in here. Her husband had doomed her to this place, stuck with the fester and muck, too afraid to fly free.

But Kira?

She wouldn’t rot here.

She turned for the door, voice cool and flint-sharp as it cut the silence behind her.

“Clean yourself up,” she said. “Don’t let Louis see you like this.”

[utahbastards]

I felt this interaction in my fucking bones.

They are so us coded it hurts

[utahbastards]

[utahbastards]

𝐼'𝑚 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝘩𝑒𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝘩𝑎𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛' 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑦, 𝑊𝑒'𝑙𝑙 𝘩𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑏𝑜𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑏𝑜𝑥 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝘩𝑜𝑡𝑜𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝘩𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑤𝑒'𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑎𝑦, "𝑂𝘩 𝑚𝑦, 𝑤𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠".

[utahbastards]

𝙾𝚑, 𝚖𝚒𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚔𝚢, 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎? 𝙲𝚊𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚟𝚎? 𝙲𝚊𝚗 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚒𝚗' 𝚘𝚌𝚎𝚊𝚗 𝚝𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚜? 𝙲𝚊𝚗 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎?

[utahbastards]

[utahbastards]

YELLOWJACKETS APPRECIATION WEEK 2025 Day 06: Song/Lyrics/Poems ↳Camille Rankine, "Tender", Incorrect Merciful Impulses

[utahbastards]

"𝑫𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒚. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈."

The sun had dipped below the horizon an hour ago, leaving the abandoned town draped in blue. They’d dug out the rusted, half-sunken development sign, removing the last remnants of their peachy-keen promises of "suburban bliss" before the world had gone to hell. It wasn't a large plot, only making it more insulting with just how many tidy little kennels they'd been planning to cram onto it. The empty land had now slipped back into anonymity, swallowed by time and weather, but tonight they claimed it in earnest. Staking a landmark in their new home for the better. They’d even spared a precious splash of gasoline to mow the worst of the overgrown grass—though no one bothered trimming the tangle at the base of the trees, where roots jutted like old bones and the mower couldn’t reach. Blackberry vines twisted through the underbrush like angry serpents, only to be gentled by the happy hands of children, plucking them faster than they could eat and staining their faces purple. Still, it worked. The waist-high tendrils bowed under the weight of wildflowers. After so long behind concrete walls and iron gates, it was euphoric just to breathe air that smelled sweet again.

The ground glittered with every salvaged candle they could scrounge, flickering in an assortment of cloudy jars and crudely formed lanterns. For the ambiance, Brandi had insisted. Pools of golden light mapped out warm little paths through the clearing, guiding the way to a patchwork of mismatched seats, crates, and sun-bleached stumps. It wasn't a party at the Ritz, but there was something tender in the scrappiness of it all—something real. Far more sacred than whatever grimy clubhouse hitch they would've thrown otherwise. The only thing dressed up was Tansy—radiant, even in nothing more than a white linen sundress and an old pair of boots. She looked like herself. Maybe that was the point.

Since they were kids, Cash had known—deep down, in that quiet place where certainty lives—that his best friends would end up at the altar together. Not in some grand, fairytale sort of way. God knew neither of them was built for that. It was just a fact of the world. Two plus two would always equal four. The Earth would keep rolling around the sun. Gravity would keep dragging the apples down. And Woody and Tansy? They were inevitable. His mother had tried to fight it; she had insisted for years that Tansy was the sort of girl that you built a club with. Not a life, or a home—no, those things were never uttered, but promises of what he could do with the right kind of girl behind him. Cash watched now with a soft smile as Tansy held everything she’d ever wanted in her arms—Woody swaying beside her, Willow curled into the space between them, all three lit by the flicker of a hundred trembling flames. He felt something itch at the back of his throat, emotion wreaking havoc as it plucked on unseen strings. He'd grown so accustomed to watching the world burn it was overwhelming to watch something being built, rather than torn apart.

He wasn't much of a dancer, not quite two left feet, but at least one and a half. She was though—graceful in a way that didn’t make a show of itself, more like water trickling down the smoothest path—moving easily around his cautious steps. Someone had unearthed an old CD player, limiting them to just a twelve-song tracklist that no one seemed to know, but the crowd didn't seem to mind. They bumped merrily amongst one another, laughing, drinking, dancing. Eager to make ceremony from any scrap they could find. He pulled her back in against his chest as the song slowed, one hand on her hip as the other splayed across her back as his thumb idly traced the notches of her spine, notably a little less stiff these days. She slid into the nook between his neck and shoulder like it had been shaped just for her.

The thought bloomed; sudden, sharp, and impossibly clear. Maybe he could do this too. Not the spectacle, not the ceremony, and circumstance. But the staying. The showing up. The choosing, over and over again, against all rhyme and reason. He didn’t know what came after this. They might not get another year, or hell, even another week. But if they did—if some small slice of time was carved out just for them—he knew who he’d spend it with. He could feel it humming in his chest, steady and low, like the throb of a distant engine on a long stretch of highway. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t want to outrun it.

They moved in a slow, swaying circle, tethered not by rhythm but by presence. Her chest pressed to his, her cheek warm against his collarbone. He could feel the shape of her lips through the threadbare fabric of his shirt. Every time he blinked, it was like the world had shrunk down to just this—her body in his hands, the whisper of her dress against his jeans, the brittle sound of laughter from somewhere behind them where Tansy and Woody were spinning in a dizzy blur in the darkness.

He should’ve said something. That was the part that killed him. The way the words sat behind his teeth, burning like whiskey he couldn’t bring himself to swallow. I love you. It lived there now, feral and restless, gnawing away at him. He didn’t know when it had taken root—maybe it had always been there, some stubborn seed buried deep in the soil of him, praying that he might move out of it's way and stop choking it with his damn shadow for a while so it might finally see some sun. Begging that, without his interference, it would finally get a chance to grow. He tightened his grip just slightly, fingers splaying at her spine like he was afraid she’d vanish if he didn’t hold fast. Like a drunk cradling his last drink— the threat of cut-off looming, and desperate to savor the final drops in case.

“You okay?” she murmured.

He nodded stiffly, “Just… thinkin’.”

“Dangerous pastime,” she teased, light as air, but she didn’t pull back to look at him. "Don't be shy, you can tell me what you've been thinking."

He was grateful for that. He couldn’t have held her gaze, not right now. Not with this much of himself bleeding through the seams. If she saw his face, she’d know. He wasn’t ready to be known like that. Not yet.

"That you're the most beautiful woman in the world." It wasn't untrue, only a lie in the sense that it was not what had been pressing him. "And not just 'cause most of them are dead."

She snorted a graceless sound from the back of her throat and his lips twitched into an involuntary grin. Again, they let the silence creep in and sit between them. Let it press and mold around the shape of the thing neither of them had said out loud. The song ended, but they didn’t stop moving. The disc clumsily looped again, launching back into track one. He didn’t know if anyone else was still dancing. Didn’t care.

[utahbastards]

[ 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐘 ] 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐭.

His right eardrum never healed right after his old man shattered it—slammed his skull right into the floor so hard the ringing never stopped. Since then, the world had always felt a little lopsided, sounds bleeding in warped and fractured. No wonder he hadn’t heard her climb the creaking ladder. But he’d felt it. The crow’s nest gave a twitch, subtle but sharp enough to send a shiver crawling down his spine. The sway was slight—blink and you’d miss it, but it never failed to raise the hairs on his arms. His stomach was already twisted—nerves, guilt mostly, maybe last night’s kitchen slop still crawling its way through him... but the gentle rocking wasn’t helping.

Dave didn't raid. It was a known fact to all who knew him. It didn't sit well with his fragile constitution. Cash had tried to force him when he'd first shown up here, only once or twice, but quickly learned that his brand of violence was not a universal language. Dave certainly had his own dialect, and he spoke it fluently. But he was not indiscriminate in his wrath. He couldn't steal blankets from the arms of women and babies. They'd come to an understanding. Dave had other uses, and Cash had more willing accomplices. Without that, he was sure he’d be rotting in the graveyard with all the other obsolete things. But Grayson wasn’t Cash—he had no respect for those quiet deals. Grayson wanted every able man present, gun in hand.

She didn't greet him aloud, but then, she never did. Only crept in beside him with soft patters, sudden and predictable like the tide rising to meet the shore. Hiro's dark eyes were taut with wary interest, investigating the somber lines of his body like she might solve the problem without confession. He chewed the nail of his thumb mercilessly raw; the point of no return lay miles behind him. There was blood on his tongue, skin between his teeth, and a dull ache that kept him tethered to the ground.

The gun that always rested across his thighs lay discarded by the hatch floor opening. He hadn’t even reloaded since morning—only parted with his clip during the hospital chaos, but not a bullet more. His eagle eyes, sharp enough to spot a snake in the grass at a hundred yards, were now listless and unmoored, unable to force himself to care if someone climbed the walls to bring ruin. They’d earned it all, and then some. Nevertheless, the horizon was dark and unyielding, only a spray of luminescent freckles dashed across the skyline.

She nudged him in greeting, content to pretend he hadn't noticed her intrusion rather than ignored. He managed a terse nod before his teeth sank into the corner of a cuticle with just a little more give. For once, he was uncertain who would like to speak least between them. Their typical comfortable silence had been enveloped by his gloom, leaving the air thick with static and trepidation.

"You don't have watch until three," He muttered, still staring nowhere in particular. "You should sleep."

She shot him a skeptical look, both of them keenly aware of how many nights she’d spent up here beside him—watch or no watch. The problem wasn’t the hour. It was his mood. She had to know. All of them had come back drenched in blood. She had to know at least that he’d done something awful. He hadn’t meant to. He’d tried to focus on the men fighting — it wasn’t supposed to be a slaughter. But it ended like one all the same.

His stomach twisted again, a bitter knot tightening like a noose. He tried chanting purple elephants in his head, any damn thing that might drown out the images clawing their way back. But the claws only sank deeper, dragging him back to watch it all unfold. A girl had tried to wrestle his gun from his hands, so terrified, driven by pure adrenaline. If he’d been in his right mind, he’d have dropped it without a second thought. But it wasn’t a girl for a moment. It was his mother— yanking with all the force of a hurricane, her screams splitting his ears with peals of raw terror. He shouldn't have pulled the trigger. He shouldn't have pulled the trigger. He shouldn't have...

Dave buried his head in his hands shamefully, the wound the feeling left was raw and weeping. She nudged him again, tapping her notebook insistently until he dragged his eyes down to her scrawl.

'Can I do anything?'

He shook his head, tentative and hollow. "No. I don’t think you can."

He wished it wasn’t true. For the millionth time, he wished he was like the rest of them. Wished he could fall into a woman’s arms and be one of those men who let her coil her hands around him, wringing out the hurt like he was some old sponge. That she could pour it all out on the lawn while he just focused on her touch—the quiet promise of comfort.

But women offered him no solace. Men even less.

He didn’t know where to fall, who to fall into. The world he’d been handed was too sharp, too unyielding. And here he was—adrift, caught in a storm that no one else seemed to weather quite like him.

She didn’t push. They sat in the kind of silence that wasn’t peace, but not quite tension either. Just the distant hollering from inside, punctuated by the occasional sharp cry of a lone coyote on the wind. It wasn’t soothing, but it didn’t make the air heavier, either.

His eyes flicked to her, catching that same sullen twist at the corners of her mouth—a mirror of his own worn-down resignation. This place, if it wasn’t hell itself, was the closest damn thing—a freight ride straight into the belly of the beast. Cruel. Unforgiving. And it was swallowing them whole.

She didn’t have to say it. Not tonight. He already knew. She hated it here as much as he did. But before Hiro, before any of this, he’d never dared to imagine there was anything else. He was supposed to be in his cell until the day he died. How could he picture anything else, let alone a world beyond the endless grind, beyond the blood and the bones and the sharp edges of survival.

Now, the thought lingered, fragile as a whispered secret: maybe there was something else waiting— or maybe just a moral panic that it was better to die trying than stay here and fester.

"Do you trust me?" His voice cracked the stillness like a gunshot. She turned, startled, but offered a faint nod. "Like you really trust me?" His eyes strafed between hers desperately, catching the flicker of doubt that danced across her brow as she carefully weighed the implication loaded behind his words.

"Because I trust you. Only you." The words slipped out like a confession, quiet, raw—torn from somewhere deep. It had been years since he’d let himself feel anything close to love. Years since he’d cared enough to bleed for someone else.

Family—that word had long since rotted in the corners of David’s mind, something bitter and broken. A joke. A curse. He’d buried it so deep he forgot what it ever meant.

But not now. Not with her. She mattered, in what was left of this tiny broken world, she was all that mattered to him. He couldn’t stay. Not to watch them gut her spirit piece by piece.

“Hiro,” he said, voice low, eyes sharp. “We should go. You and me. Before this place kills what’s left of us. I could keep you safe.”

[utahbastards]

𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐆𝐎 𝐅𝐀𝐑, 𝐊𝐈𝐃. || 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

The pounding of thunderous fists on his front door shattered the quiet of the night. Half past two— later than coincidence allowed, too late for anything good. Each THUMP sent a cold bolt of adrenaline up his bristled spine. Cash jerked upright from the couch, unsure if he'd managed to doze off for a minute there or just blinked too long. The pistol sat impatiently on the mantle in quiet disappointment; he was so slow on the draw these days. Cash seized it in a swift, deliberate motion, his footsteps cautious as he moved through the darkened house. He pressed his shoulder to the wall and edged up to the curtains, muzzle-first and safety off, then peered outside. A frustrated huff escaped him—half relief, half irritation. Beau. The automatic porch light bled over his brother in uneven patches— just enough to catch the jostling of his form as he struggled to steady himself against the railing. His bike idled in the yard, leaning as crooked as its rider, beaming a spotlight through his kitchen window.

Cash let the curtain fall and rubbed a hand over his face. So much for getting to bed before dawn.

The locks are absurdly complicated, a veritable fortress between them almost comical as his hands work their way down. On the other side of the door, Cash can hear Beau singing—no, wait, groaning? Yowling, more like, followed by a harsh cough, and the familiar sound of the man toppling down. With a frustrated grunt, Cash slams his palm against the door just as his brother hits the planks. Too late.

Unswept leaves, still wet with dew, clung to Beau's jeans as his legs splayed awkwardly out ahead of him, one arm was thrown over his eyes like he could block out the whole damn night if he just tried hard enough. Beau let out an uneasy groan and ran a filthy hand down his face, then smacked his lips with a twist of disgust. The explanation for his wailing becomes clear, and that's when the smell hits—sickly, sour. The pool of vomit rolls sluggishly toward his boots.

"Jesus Christ, kid," Cash mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose, irritated. It was frankly a miracle he'd managed to make it all the way here in one piece, though miracle feels like an optimistic word for the state Beau is in—drunker than a fly at the bottom of a bottle.

With a heavy sigh, Cash stepped over him and stalked down the steps. He yanked the keys from the bike, and the second the engine cut, the night pressed in. The headlights winked out, leaving only the hush of cicadas and the distant hum of the highway. A pair of unimpressed eyes gleamed from the curb. The neighbour's cat, watching with the same disdain it always wore with long, lazy blinks, tail curled neatly around her paws.

He glanced back to find Beau still sprawled on the porch, showing no inclination to get up—surrendering to the night like a discarded crash test dummy. He didn’t need to ask; he knew what had happened. He and Dani were at it again. Beau drank, sure—they all did. But he wasn’t the type to end up legless after a good time. That kind of oblivion was saved for more than just anger, either. No, Beau only drank like this when something real was tearing him apart.

Cash’s thoughts flickered to the state of his brother’s marriage—a fragile thing for months now, teetering on the edge of the dreaded "D" word: Divorce. Months of shouting, silence, more shouting. Lately, the silence had been worse. He didn't know how either of them could take it. Cash could see the toll every time Dani showed up with bags under her eyes and her jaw set hard. Every time Beau drank like he was trying to forget what his own name sounded like. He’d only just gotten his brother off his couch last week, and here he was again, crawling back on his belly in defeat. It wasn’t just the alcohol lately. It was the hollow look that had taken up residence in Beau’s eyes, the way his shoulders sagged suggested that the invisible monkey on his back was starting to get too hefty.

Cash shoved the keys in his pocket and climbed the steps again. “Get up.”

Beau let out a slow, miserable sigh. “M’fine.”

“The hell you are.” Cash hooked his hands under his brother’s arms and hauled. He was met with all the resistance of a sack of wet concrete. “C’mon, you’re not sleeping out here. Get inside before you ruin my welcome mat.”

Beau grumbled something unintelligible, but when Cash yanked at the scruff of his kutte, he finally stirred. Thankfully, Beau began to struggle with him, rather than against him. His boots scraped against the wood, his weight shifting like he was trying to remember how legs worked.

“That’s it,” Cash urged, voice strained with impatient coaxing. “Get in. Move, Beau. Move.”

He shuffled forward, more like a drunk newborn foal than a grown man, and all but collapsed into the first piece of furniture he reached. The old armchair groaned under the impact of his lanky frame.

Cash rolled his shoulders, shaking out the stiffness in his arms before facing the door. His busy hands worked the locks back into place as his mind churned, trying to scrape together something—anything—to say that hadn’t already been said a hundred times before. Something that wasn't just another offering in a long, weary cycle.

Hang in there? Meaningless.

It'll get better? A glib lie.

What really were you expected to say on board the Titanic when the iceberg had already struck? The kid's marriage had been gutted, bow to stern, and Cash wasn’t sure there was anything left to say. Someone cue the violins while we wait.

"You and Dani...?" Cash trails off, his voice low. Beau nodded, his head lolling back against the headrest, eyes closed as if he were already halfway gone. Cash pressed his lips into a thin line, already moving toward the kitchen. He knows better than to offer him water—it would only be taken as a slight, a silent accusation. The two could be as indignant as each other.

Instead, he pulled a Bud from the fridge, cracked it before dumping half down the sink. The lacklustre smell lingered in the air for a moment before washing down with the sudden eruption of the tap. He topped it off with water, gave the bottle a half-hearted swirl, then handed it off. Beau nonethewiser in his state took a grateful swig. He made a face, brow pinched like something was off, but dismissed the flawed taste with a crinkle of his nose and nothing more.

“What started it this time?” Cash asked, the sigh escaping before he could stop it. He sank onto the edge of the coffee table, elbows on his knees, hands loose between them—waiting for the answer he already knew.

Beau let out a slow, tired breath. “Same shit.”

Cash ran his tongue along the back of his teeth, jaw ticking as he wrestled with himself. Getting in the middle of those two had never brought him anything but trouble. Too many uncomfortable conversations spent caught between them. Too many days spent talking his little brother off the edge. Almost a decade had passed since their first big bust up, and Cash was still marked—Dani nose to nose with him, calling his bluff with a whisper that still rang in his ears. Mocking him with things he hadn’t even realized he wanted until she named them.

He shook the thought off, but it lingered—unwelcome, shameful, and sharp around the edges, haunting him ever since. He shifted subtly away from Beau, like guilt was a scent his brother might catch on him if he got too close.

"You two have been beating this dead horse for fucking months, man."

Beau flinched.

Cash exhaled hard through his nose. Shit.

Another D-word to avoid, apparently. Divorce. Death. Dani. Didn’t matter which—each one cut too close to the bone. But what the hell else was there to say? That's what they were, weren't they? Dead. And that was the problem. They were stuck in it. All of them. Like those boys—God, those boys—who hadn’t even made it to the second grade before they were sent to tiny coffins. No amount of crying, be it Beau's, Dani's, or whatever solemn chorus they’d been producing in that house together night after night, would change that. But Cash understood, the guilt in that place didn’t come in waves—it hung, thick and unmoving, like fog on the floorboards. Like rot.

“She hates me,” Beau rasped.

Cash’s gut twisted. “Don’t be stupid.”

“She does.” Beau’s voice rose, raw and hoarse. “She doesn’t even have to say it. I can feel it—like leeches, just—just draining me dry.”

Cash stayed quiet for a long moment, his eyes shifting to the floor. He still remembered how Dani used to watch Beau when she thought no one was looking. Big brown eyes, mooning after him like he hung the stars. It was obnoxious. But sweet, too. The little smile she used to wear when Beau walked into the room—just the barest curl at the corner of her mouth—was a ghost now. Cash couldn’t remember the last time he saw it. It did neither of them any good to admit he couldn’t imagine ever seeing it that sort of light in her eyes again.

“She loves you,” he said instead, firm. “You know that.”

Beau shot upright like someone lit a fire under his ass. His limbs jerked back to life, clumsy with emotion, and he fixed Cash with a bloodshot, furious stare. "She should hate me," He bit. The whites of his eyes were raw and shining with unshed tears, his voice wrecked from drink and whatever had come before. “She fucking should.” His voice rose with every syllable, like it had to climb its way out of his belly. “She saw them. I saw them! And now—it’s never gonna be the same! Not for her. Not for me.”

There it was—the truth neither of them had wanted to name. The real reason Beau couldn’t crawl out of this hole. It wasn't that Dani couldn't forgive him; he'd faced those odds before. She might’ve found a way to accept him again one day, if she really wanted to. But Beau couldn’t forgive himself.

Cash didn’t answer right away. He sat there, just looking at him. The air in the room felt heavier, like the ceiling had bloated and bowed under the weight of it all. It was the kind of confession that didn’t invite relief. It was the kind that made every hair on your body stand up.

Beau’s shoulders had started to tremble, a fine shake barely visible at first, then more pronounced as his breath began to stutter. He was holding it in—whatever it was—like a dam on the verge. Grief, rage, guilt… all tangled together so tight you couldn't feel the difference. The Dawson Flaw.

"They were babies, man." Beau's voice warbled badly, his lips pressing so hard together they almost disappeared entirely.

“Don’t,” Cash said, low and fierce. “Don’t do that to yourself."

But the words were futile, like throwing sandbags against a tidal wave. Useless. Beau wasn’t just drowning in guilt—he was trying to go under, desperate to be washed away.

Beau's life had been ruined over a forty-dollar ice cream cake. Tacky and bright blue, it was the third they'd had to buy in as many years for Fitz, who couldn't seem to stop impregnating the hang arounds. He'd been inside the parlour all of five minutes, politely cruising the flavors for the third time while he waited for little Maisie to finish checking the back freezer. Then the bell above the door clanged twice, as they struggled with the push/pull door, before two boys stumbled in. Grinning, out of breath, sticky center console change in their fists and a wadded-up bill crumpled between them. Best friends since kindergarten, the paper had said. The kind who wore matching sneakers and made pinky promises that still meant something. One of their dads had been just outside, engine idling in the parking lot, savoring the two-minute luxury of not being needed. Two minutes to scroll his phone in peace had ruined his life too.

Beau hadn't even known what hit him. One moment he was leaning against the counter, watching the boys weigh the pros and cons of sharing something bigger, or simply getting a cone each, and the next his ears were ringing like someone had set off fire crackers next to his head. Then, everyone was on the floor. The ice cream tubs were bleeding color down the shattered glass fronts, pooling on the floor. Pink. Blue. Green... Red. And there were bodies. Small, motionless bodies.

There was a bullet in his thigh, but Beau didn't register. Only focused on the boys as he toppled forward in a panicked daze, working backwards through the steps for CPR– he felt little ribs give out under the pressure. The awful sound of crunching where there should’ve been breath. Beau continued steadfast and desperate. He heard pitched sobs over his shoulder, Maisie dropping her phone as she exited the storage, her face stricken. Beau tried to walk her through compressions, but she had barely made it to her knees when the father burst into the store and threw himself down atop his son, pleading. Beau worked tirelessly to keep those kids' hearts thumping right until the paramedics showed up and hauled him out of the way.

What killed Cash the most was knowing Beau had saved them—had tried to save them. If he hadn't been so fast; if his arms had grown stiff and tired and he'd paused for a moment, those boys would never have made it to the operating table. If they'd been sent to the morgue instead of the hospital, Dani would have never seen them. Before this, he saw the compartmentalization she lived with. Twisting herself in knots to avoid the reality of who Beau was when he was not in her presence. This event had shattered that illusion. If she hadn't been forced to really see, Cash was pretty confident she would have been able to look the other way, as she had almost everything else.

It was a rotten thought. Morbid and cruel. But Cash could only lie to say that his little brother wouldn’t have fared better if they had died on the scene. It wasn't fair. It wasn't Beau's fault, except that it was.

"I killed Ramirez," Beau managed. "If I hadn't, those boys would still be here."

Beau began to crumble, shoulders shaking as real sobs overtook him. Cash stiffened, caught off guard by the sheer force of it— he wasn't sure he'd ever seen a man cry like that. Cash felt something juvenile in him twist, sharp and uncomfortable in the pit of his stomach. His eyes roamed the room for somewhere else to look. “They were so little, man. Six!” Beau choked out. The sound lodged in his throat, thick and ugly, like it might strangle him if he tried to speak again. Then came a hiccupped sob, and Beau buried his face in his hands like he could somehow disappear.

It went on like that for a long moment, Cash staring at his shoes like it might suddenly pass. His teeth creaked in warning, the pressure of his clamped jaw starting to ache. Beau curled in on himself like he used to when they were little, arms tight around his middle like he could hold it all inside.

He couldn't say why, but that—that broke something in Cash.

He didn’t think. Just moved. Closed the distance and dropped a hand— somehow, too rough and too hesitant—on Beau’s shoulder. Then he wrapped an arm around him like he was preparing for a headlock, not attempting to hold a man together. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t warm. But it was all he had.

For a flash, Beau wasn’t thirty and broken. He was five years old, bleeding from both knees after eating it on his bike. Cash remembered shushing him hard, desperate to quiet the sobs before their father came stomping outside. Same helpless sound now. Same helpless brother.

And still, he didn’t say anything. Couldn't. Just held on, wrapping his arms tighter as they fell into a rhythm. Beau’s hands found his forearms, clutching like a man lost at sea, and there they stayed—rocking slightly as the sobs began to ease. Cash wished he could say it felt right and easy; that it was as natural as breathing to comfort his little brother, but the awkwardness crawled back with the quiet.

"We're gonna fix this club, Beau. You and me," He promised. Cash pulled back just enough to see him, one hand still gripping Beau’s shoulder. “The old man can barely ride. He’s stepping down soon. When I get my patch, I need you there. With me.” He hesitated, then pushed on. “Once a couple of the older guys follow… we could even bring Birdie i—”

Cash hadn't noticed how silent Beau had fallen until he erupted, tearing out of his grip with a sudden, sharp shake. "I don't want Birdie in this!" Beau glared up at him incredulously like he'd suggested taking her out back and shooting her.

He blinked, stunned by the intensity for only a moment before his face furrowed into a snarl of his own as confusion turned to offence. “What are you talking about?” he snapped.

Cash had expected some long-winded sermon about preserving what innocence Birdie had left. Or fear that the next Dawson buried would be their baby sister. It was neither.

"I want out," Beau said, cold and clear.

The brothers had talked about this future since they were old enough to understand they wouldn't be children forever. And just like that, something inside Cash gave—quietly, but irrevocably. Like a hairline crack running down the middle of a load-bearing wall. No loud break, no drama. Just a shift. A slippage. Something foundational that would never sit quite right again. Beau's words had been felt more than heard. Cash didn’t move. The only indication that he’d even processed that someone had spoken was the flicker behind his eyes, like someone had knocked the wind out of him.

He swallowed, slow and dry, eyes still locked on his brother like he couldn’t quite believe the words had come from him. Like if he stared long enough, he might peel back the screen in front of him and reveal the man he knew five minutes ago. Out. The same mouth that used to badger him to go for rides before the sun had even hit the horizon, begged him to teach him to shoot and cheered at every obliterated bottle, whispered to sneak into his dad's closet to try on the president's kutte one after the other back when he thought this life was a crown, not a curse—that same mouth was saying out.

Beau dropped his gaze, shame flickering across his features. He looked like a boy again—small, unsure, waiting for the inevitable. For Cash to raise his voice, throw a punch, say something sharp enough to draw blood. The tension in his shoulders said he was bracing for it.

But Cash still didn’t move.

He still didn’t speak.

He just stared, jaw locked and unmoving, a storm tightening behind his ribs, silent and dangerous. Cash felt unmoored. Like the room had come unhinged around him and everything was tilting slightly left. His pulse roared in his ears, and his fists ached—not from use, but from the raw restraint of not doing something reckless. He didn’t know if he wanted to tear the room apart or sit down quietly and let it decompose around him. Both options felt equally appealing. Equally futile.

"You mean that?" Cash said, finally.

"I can't do it– I hate this place," Beau blew the words out of him in a rush, desperate to justify his position. "What if I'd been there with Dani, Cash? If she got hurt-" Cash could feel it, his brother's desperate tap-dancing at the edge, not the words but how they're said. Pulling the Dani card like it might nudge his position. The implication that his interest in his sister in law might somehow outrank the planned trajectory of their entire lives. Still, Cash said nothing. His jaw ticked once, but nothing more. But there's a turn in the calcified air, and they both sense how close violence may be with the following sentence.

Beau backs away from the topic, softer now, like he could patch the damage of his overplayed hand with gentler words. “This shit never ends, man. You and me? We’re gonna be killing 'til we're dead.”

Cash didn’t answer right away. Just studied him like he was a stranger in familiar skin.

"You want out?" He asked again, each syllable clean and clipped. Unmoved by any words that came before.

Beau answered with faint nod.

“And then what?” Cash asked, voice low, taut. “You're gonna leave Clearmont? Go get a nice little picket fence and a brand-new name? You think they're gonna let you?"

Their grandfather had lived long enough to watch his eldest grandson stitch a probationary patch onto his first kutte. Died in the hospital three days later. Cancer had hollowed him out from the inside—liver first, then everything else.

Cash was fifteen when they buried the old man, and the club wasted no time putting him to work. He was stuck cleaning out his garage, a prospect honor. Beau had been ten—bored, too young to be helpful, too stubborn to stay home—so he tagged along, more in the way than not. There was so much junk, it was hard for anyone to stay on task. Dust thick enough to choke on. Tools rusted to the bench. At one point, Beau aimed a century-old hunting rifle at Cash’s head and made pew pew sounds. In retaliation, Cash chased him around with an old Polaroid of their scantily-clad grandmother they’d found shoved in the back of a photo box.

It wasn't the only grim discovery of the day.

They’d flipped through a handful of pages—Cash as a baby, passed around like a bottle at a party, cradled by half the club. And then a series of photos that made him pause. She had long blonde waves, familiar eyes, but Cash couldn't place the face. She was holding him in every frame—feeding him, chasing him round in the yard, bouncing him on her hip. One shot had Clyde standing behind her, grinning down at his son like the proudest man alive. There were too many pictures. Too much intimacy for some club girl doing a favor.

There she was on every other page, drifting from the focus to the background. Present for Cash's third birthday, but not a picture more. Aunt Louella. A forbidden name in the Dawson house, Cash had almost forgotten she existed. He wondered if his father knew these had survived his extinction effort. He glanced over at Beau, who flipped through cluelessly and didn't say a word. Just closed the album and slid it back into the box, like burying it again might keep it from burning.

That’s what their future would be—they just hadn’t known it yet. Some kid, twenty years from now, brushing dust off old photographs and squinting down at a man who looked just like his father. Asking questions no one wanted to answer. Who’s that? Why don’t we talk about him? A life scrubbed clean from the record, not because it didn’t matter, but because it mattered too much. The thought sank deep into Cash’s gut, cold and heavy. He let himself fold down onto the edge of the coffee table, spine bowed under the weight of the evening. His eyes found Beau again—vacant, unreadable, like someone had scraped the color out of them.

"I've got to," Beau mumbled, voice thick again. He wasn’t just trying to be understood—he was begging to be absolved, as if Cash’s forgiveness could ease the pain all this guilt was causing him. "You know I’ve got to."

“You think leaving erases what we’ve done?” There was no heat behind it. No accusation. Just a numb curiosity.

Beau’s head shook before the lie had a chance to form. Reflexive, immediate. Cash caught it—tucked it away. Some bitter part of him was almost smug.

“No,” Beau murmured, finally. “But maybe I don’t have to keep adding to the pile.”

Cash stayed seated for a long moment, staring at nothing in particular. His thoughts overwhelmed him, too many conflicting voices screaming over the top of each other into an undiscernible roar between his ears. He was still trying to find the loophole. Some angle where Beau could stay and survive it. Where they both could. But there wasn’t one, and somewhere deep down, he’d always known that.

It made him sick. Sick with helplessness, with fury, with grief.

What made it worse—what turned the ache to acid—was how satisfied Clyde would be. That smug, dismissive prophecy fulfilled: Beau never had the stomach for it. Wasn’t built like his big brother. Cash had spent half his life shielding Beau from that judgment, doing the dirty work so his little brother didn’t have to. He thought that counted for something. Thought it meant maybe they could bend the world into a shape that would let Beau stay.

But Beau was slipping the noose, and Cash… he’d be the one left hanging.

His jaw tightened, muscles twitching like they were trying to speak for him. He wanted to argue—hell, he wanted to blow the fucking roof of this place. Wanted to drag Beau back by the collar and shake some sense into him. Boss him around and tell him what was right and what was wrong like they were still children.

But the fight died somewhere between his chest and his throat.

Because Beau was right. And Cash hated him for it.

He rose from the table, not with the sudden force of anger, but the slow, quiet weight of surrender. Like a man getting up from a grave he’d been kneeling at too long. He crossed the room toward the door, with heavy, leaden steps. The keys in his pocket feel heavier than cement.

“You really want out?” Cash asked again, not for clarity—he already knew—but because some stubborn part of him was still clinging to the hope that Beau might flinch. Might crack under the weight of it. Admit he was scared, drunk, lost—anything but sure.

But Beau just nodded, knocking loose the tears that had been resting on his lashes.

Cash winced a little, feeling his eyes shut as his chin folded towards his chest with a nod of submission. His lips twisted together hard and he sucked a single hard breath in through his nose, clearing his sinus of that itching grief that threatened to spill out. He wriggled his toes inside his boots, sucked his tongue across his teeth, thumbed the jagged edge of his car key, anchoring himself in external sensations to keep from unravelling.

Then, after a beat, he opened his eyes and released the breath he'd been holding in a quick huff. Final.

“Then you need to be gone before dawn.”

Beau blinked, surprised. Cash couldn’t tell what rattled him more—that he hadn’t fought to stop him, or that he’d gone and opened the door himself.

“I’m serious,” Cash went on, steady now. Smoothed over in that particular way men get when they’ve boxed something up so tight it might as well not exist. “You pack what fits in your truck and Dani’s car. And you go. Before you got eye's poking around.” Before you have a chance to change your mind. “Use the Nevada cash house for a while- Least 'til you know where you're going,” he added.

Beau didn’t argue. Didn’t ask for more time or try to explain himself any further. Just stood there misty-eyed, jaw working, like he was chewing the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something stupid.

"C'mon, Beau," His voice soft and sad. "I'll drive you."

The ride home was nearly silent, save for the occasional creak of old leather and the soft roar of the engine. It was late enough, the streets were empty— Clearmont was fast asleep. Cash drove one-handed, his elbow leaned against the window, his other hand resting on his thigh, fingers absently twisting the ring on his index finger. It was something to focus on, something tactile to keep his hands from shaking. He counted the windows with lights still burning, anything to keep his mind from slipping into grief. Every glimpse he caught of his brother stung, so he kept his eyes anywhere else.

Beau sat hunched in the passenger seat, face turned toward the dark beyond the glass. His reflection flickered faintly across the window like a ghost. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders curled in like he was bracing for impact. He looked cold. Or maybe he just looked small. Smaller than Cash could ever remember him being.

The drive had never felt shorter. Like time had conspired against them—chewing up the last of it too fast to taste.

Before Cash was ready, the tires crunched up along the curb and the house came into view. He counts one last light, watching it snap on upstairs, a yellow ring circling the bedroom window. Dani. She’d seen the headlights. Cash spotted the shape of her behind the curtain, just the edge of her face caught in the lamplight.

He looked away before she could vanish from view.

The ache in his chest pinched sharper as he realized there'd be no goodbye. That fleeting glimpse would be the last time he saw her—just a sliver of her, half-lit and watching from behind glass. There was a silver lining; perhaps the distance from her might do him some good, might dull the edge with some time. But he already missed her.

He could feel Beau burning a hole through the side of his head, Cash pretended not to notice as the silence hung over them, oppressive. He didn’t trust his voice. Didn’t trust what might come out if he opened his mouth. Because as much as he wanted to say take care and I hope you find peace...

He wanted to say don’t go a hundredfold more.

And that would ruin everything.

The silence held, thick and taut, until Beau reached for the door handle. The sound of it lifting—soft, mechanical—cut through the stillness like a knife. Cash felt a sudden swell of panic rise in his throat.

“Beau,” he said, sharper than intended.

His brother paused, glancing back over his shoulder. His face caught the dim wash of the dash lights—lit with something tender and uncertain. Hope. Just a flicker of it, hanging on the edge. That part of him still waiting for permission to stay, still ready to turn back if Cash said the word.

Cash swallowed hard, the lump in his throat almost too thick to speak around.

“You need to cover those tattoos up,” he said finally, voice low and measured. “Fast. There’s charters in every state now. I don’t want trouble for you out there.”

Beau blinked slowly. The light dimmed in his eyes, but he nodded. A silent promise. He knew exactly what could happen if he didn’t—knife or fire. His choice.

Cash didn’t know if that was the right thing to say. Probably wasn’t. But it was what he had. A warning in place of affection. Protection disguised as protocol.

It was love, in the only language he knew how to speak. A 'please take care of yourself' and a nudge out that door before Cash could change his mind again.

"You better go inside," He mumbled. "You don't have forever."

"Okay," Beau sucked down a trembling breath, petrichor filled the air of the car with the kid's unshed tears. Cash loves him more than he can say, so he said nothing. Just nodded. A nod that could have meant anything.

Beau slides out of the car and he can feel his heart breaking. His brother pauses, leaning back through the door with a lopsided frown.

Beau slowly stepped out of the car, aware of how fast the end was coming. Cash felt the crack in his chest widen. His brother paused, one hand braced on the doorframe, leaning back in with a crooked frown.

"I really didn't want it to be like this."

"I know," Cash said softly.

"Take care of my bike, yeah?"

Cash nodded and felt his eyes start to burn.

"Birdie too," Beau added, his voice cracking a little. Cash could only nod again.

Beau hesitated again—jaw clenched, eyes wet, like he had one last thing he wanted to say but couldn’t bear to say it out loud. He let it die, stepped back, and closed the door gently behind him.

Cash watched him cross the yard, his shadow long and warped under the porch light. Just before Beau disappeared inside, he turned. A glance, brief and searching.

But by then, Cash was already halfway down the block.

[utahbastards]

adria arjona for tiffany and co. via instagram

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