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kathyprior4200 · 4 years

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My Little Hazbins: Redemption is Magic!

Art by CHLane123

DEDICATED TO MAGICTRIX COSPLAY AND BLACK GRYPH0N

In Tartarus, the black alicorn Archangels sent by Princess Celestia had finished imprisoning several demon ponies and monsters. Those unfortunate enough to be imprisoned would be sitting around in cages day after day, with no hope of escape. Tartarus was filled with dragons, manticores, hydras, shadow ponies, and a wide array of villains. The three-headed dog Cerberus guarded the entrance. The only view of the outside world was the occasional glimpse of the sky and Ponyville when the heavy doors of Tartarus opened and closed.

One pony princess walked sadly on a balcony of the Trottin’ Hotel. Her name was Charlie Mane, the pony princess of Tartarus. Her coat was white and she had red blushes on her cheeks. Her mane of hair was long, curly, and blonde, as was her tail. The front part of her was covered by a pink tuxedo suit with a black bow tie. Using her white unicorn horn, she sent bursts of fireworks into the darkness, which seemed to wake up the other demonic ponies and monsters down below. On her flank was her cutie mark, a red apple in a heart shape with a pentagram in the center.

Tears flowing down her eyes, she began to sing out loud:

“At the end of the rainbow, there’s happiness

And to find it, how often I’ve tried

But my life is a race

Just a wild horse chase

And my dreams have all been denied”

“A ray of hope in this world of black

I wish the world to be free of sin

But no matter hard I try

I can’t get by

I never seem to win”

“Why have I always been a failure?

What can the reason be?

I wonder if the world’s to blame

I wonder if it could be me”

“I’m always chasing rainbows

Watching Cloudsdale drifting by

My schemes are just like all my dreams

Ending in the sky”

“Some ponies look and find the sunshine

I always look and find the rain

Some ponies make a winning sometimes

I never even make the game

Believe me”

“Will this world be a better place?

Or will loss never go away?

The choices I face, me, a disgrace

Loss of hope here to stay”

“I’m always chasing rainbows

Watching clouds drifting by

My schemes are just like my dreams

Ending in the sky”

“I’m always chasing rainbows

Waiting to find Rainbow Dash and friends

In vain.”

Not too far away from Charlie’s location, a slender female pony wearing a black dress, opened up red curtains and watched the fireworks in the sky. Toward the back was a slender black pony wearing a black top hat with a skull on it. His face was stormy gray and his two large eyes were yellow. He casually sipped from a red goblet, using his hoof. Behind him was a shadowy figure of a tall cyclops pony…and the white alicorn Lucifer sitting on a chair, holding his cane.

At Valentino’s Porn Studios, a demon unicorn pony named Vox posed for a selfie, his cutie mark a TV, his head dark blue with a small black top hat. He wore a large red bow-tie. A short earth pony with wild hair sat next to him, smiling and typing into her phone. Valentino, the owner, lounged in a chair, wearing heart-shaped glasses, a red robe and displaying sharp teeth. His coat was light blue-gray, his black mane slicked back. His cutie mark was a bag of money with a silhouette of a naked mare in a pose. He tapped his hoof impatiently as he glanced down at texts.

Valentino: Did you get my bits, Angie baby?

Angel Dust: I’m wittha John now. I don’t get why this needed to happen so soon after the imprisoning tho. Boss.

Valentino: Just do it. No sass. K sugar.

Angel Dust: Yes, Val.

Down below, a dark pony with a mane of hair proudly took a discarded weapon into her mouth and left to sell it on the black market. The harpoon weapon could stun any pony, leaving them open for imprisonment, or even death to the more sinister folk. An emotionless pony wearing a lab coat and red glasses, wrote on a clipboard, her pen in her mouth. Rosie, an Earth pony wearing a large fancy pink hat with pony skulls on it, crossed out Franklin’s name on the “Franklin and Rosie’s Emporium” sign. Rosie grinned as Franklin was mauled by dark hydras.

TURF WARS

The time on the grand clock read 5:07, and down below, the next patrol would occur in 365 days. A small blue pony fell down to the ground with a yell, a cloud of dust rising in the air. The pony had six dark blue hooves and large red eyes. He touched his face and body, clearly relieved.

“Oh, I’m alive. I’m alive!” he exclaimed.

Immediately, he was run over by a speeding car, exploding in a flash of blood.

The car stopped on a road, where a Jackpot Hotel and Casino stood in the background.

A tall, white demon pony hopped out of the car and rested his hoof on the top of the door. He slicked back the hair on his head with one of his pink gloved hooves. Being a pony with spider-like features, he had multiple hooves, six in total. He wore a black bow tie, tall stiletto boots, and a shirt with pink and white stripes. His large irises were pink, the sclera in his left eye dark instead of white. Pink dots resembling small eyes were lined up below his eyes. His right eye had black schlera, his left eye white, both with pink pupils. His tail was furry and white like his mane of hair. On his bare flank, a cutie mark of a heart and a bag of white slugs was displayed.

“Thanks for the fun time, hot stuff,” said the driver.

The white pony closed the door. “Yeah, yeah, listen. Keep this discreet, hear me? I can’t let it get out I’m offering my services to rando ponies on the street. It was a quick cash grab, ya got that?”

Travis, the dark black pony scoffed. He wore a black hat and both his eyes were red. One eye had black sclera. His fur coat was messy and his cutie mark was an owl with red eyes.

“Whatever you say, butt!” he mocked with a laugh.

The white pony cupped his face dramatically. “Ouch, ooh, such an insult!”

Travis stared nervously, a small heart in his left eye.

The white pony leaned in, showing a mouth full of fangs. “Let me know when you come up with something creative to call me, you sack of poorly packed horse spit!”

He poked Travis in the face with one hoof, and grabbed his collar by one of his other hooves.

“Tell the missus I said hi,” he added before giving Travis a quick kiss.

“Pack of poor…” Travis muttered, rolling up his window and speeding off. The car squealed and flipped over on its side in the air, falling with a loud crash.

The white pony glanced over at a nearby store. A sign advertising a casino with a pack of cards on the front read, “Casino: just a few wins away.” Beside an elevator, was a fridge with an upside down cross on the front. A vending machine with the word “drugs” on it in white letters, caught the pony’s attention. Giddy with excitement, he trotted over and glanced down at the options:

Coke

Bojack

McWeedies420

Squip

Hero-in

Krunchy Krokodil

Angel Dust

The pony pressed “Angel Dust” and a white sack of drugs fell to the bottom. With a greedy smile, he took it in his hoof. Coincidentally, Angel Dust was also his name.

With a yoink, a small gray pony snatched the bag from Angel’s hooves with his mouth.

“Hey!” Angel called angrily.

“Up yours, drag show!” he taunted, before being crushed to death by a boulder.

“Oh my god!” Angel cried in terror, racing to the scene.

But it wasn’t the fallen thief he was concerned about.

“My drugs! Damn it!” he cursed, picking up a piece of the sack.

Overhead were neon signs on top of buildings. One in yellow letters read “Begg Clop” and another one in teal: “I couldn’t think of a pun for our shop but we sell hard drugs!”

Angel turned around and spotted a flying metal aircraft, which was firing lasers at buildings. It looked like an industrial rocket ship made with gears and a steampunk style to it. A metal hook hung from the bottom of it. The lasers struck the buildings, which caused bright pink explosions to fill the air.

From inside the ship, a dark gray Pegasus stood high above over the controls, laughing manically. Down below, his deviled egg colt minions stood and watched. Each of them wore black top hats and pinstriped round clothing, and the scurried around on all fours. They were called Egg Colts.

The room had deep purple walls, cabinets for the minions and decorations of their leader along the wall.

The overlord was Sir. Stallionus. He wore a gray coat with yellow vertical stripes down the front. He wore a top hat with a moving pink eye and a grinning mouth of fangs. He sprouted a demonic grin of his own, his teeth sharp. His coat was dark gray and his cutie mark was a black snake. His gray wings opened up to reveal pink eyes against yellow skin flaps. His mane of hair and tail were long and black.

Up on the platform, he oriented two levers in his hooves, the control button in the center displaying a pentagram design.

“Those other cowardly sinners dare not hinder my territorial takeover! A wise decision. The power of my machines are unmatched! No pony else can compare to the likes of I!”

One egg minion with #23 on his back added, “Gee that was pretty swell boss!”

“Yeah!” another chimed in: #666.

“You really showed them what for!” called a third.

Another minion teasingly ran his hoof up the overlord’s back. “I like it when you shot them with your ray gun…”

Sir Stallionous punched a minion out the window and whirled around in anger. The other minions backed up. “I wish he’d shoot me with his ray gun,” a minion whispered, head lowered.

Sir Stallionous rolled his eyes at his masochist minions. He turned back to the controls and grinned. Pentagram circles revealed the areas he had taken over and the other territories ahead. “At this rate, I will seize control of the entire west side of Tartarus Town by day’s end!”

He laughed and bragged some more. “And nothing, not a single beast in this inferno of suffering, will be able to take back this empire from my constrictive grasp!”

As to prove his point, he grabbed a minion in his hoof and tightly squeezed him.

Another minion blew a noisemaker and then popped open a blue bottle of a brown drink. The overlord threw the minion across the room as the eggs celebrated down below.

“Tartarus will be mine,” he declared, “and everybody will know the name of Sir …”

“Edgelord!” yelled a voice.

“Pardon?!” Sir Stallionous shot back in shock. “Who said that?!”

He leaned in close to two of his minions, not pleased.

“What did you just say to me, you fried hay-eating chicken fetuses?!”

The minions shook in fear.

“Speak up!” he hissed.

“It wasn’t us, mister boss sir!” said a minion.

Just then, an object shot through the glass at the front, creating a small hole. A small pink bomb with a black horseshoe on the front, landed on the floor. Sir Stallionous observed it for a moment…the bomb looked like a cherry…which could only mean…

The bomb exploded, covering the room in sparkles and thick red smoke.

Sir Stallionous coughed and swiped some of the smoke away.

“You looking for a fight, old Equine?” a female voice challenged.

Sir Stallionous spotted his rival standing proud and casually catching another bomb in her hoof: Cherry Bomb.

She towered tall in pink high heel boots on her four hooves, ripped black jeans along her legs, a pink crop top with an x on the front. She also had white wings with black specks on them. She had a long strawberry blonde mane and tail, a single pink eye with an x that took up most of her white face…a grin of sharp teeth…it was her alright. Her cutie mark was a cherry.

“Why don’t you get that tinker toy horsespit off my turf before I smash it…” she declared before catching her bomb in her wing. A random barbell of metal crashed into the floor close to Cherri Bomb.

“…more.”

“Oh, you wanna go, missy?” Sir Stallionus retorted. He flicked his mane back before opening it. Well, I’m happy to oblige!”

He let out another evil laugh as his minions closed in, holding stun guns in their mouths, which crackled with yellow electricity.

But Cherri Bomb wasn’t scared. With graceful leaps, she avoided the blasts and threw down another bomb. She used the cover to escape, jumping down and swinging once from the anchor at the bottom of the flying craft. Landing gracefully on the ground, she continued her assault from below.

“Catch me if you can, pony boy!”

“Get her!” he bellowed through the red smoke, the eggs quickly running around in a frenzy.

The minions jumped to the ground after her, the overlord following suit. Cherri Bomb dodged a blast, grinned and picked up the minion egg in her mouth. She spun around and threw the minion straight into Sir Stallionous’ face. He threw the egg back at her, and she caught it with one hoof.

“Thanks for the gift!” she called out, before cracking the egg open with an evil grin. She placed a bomb into it, then threw it back at him...straight to his face. Sir Stallionous could only make a face of surprise before the egg blew up in pink smoke.

“Why you little…”

Cherri Bomb ducked as another egg pony sailed over her head.

Just then, a familiar white pony stomped on an egg minion and threw a grenade in the distance.

“Angel Dust!” called Cherri Bomb, happy to have her partner in crime arrive.

“Great to see you too, sweetie!” he teased.

Another pink explosion filled the air as the fight continued.

“Hey, thanks for the backup, Angie!” Cherri Bomb said as she fired a flaming red arrow with a large gun over toward Sir Stallionous.

Angel Dust laughed, leaning against volcanic rock as cover. He threw a grenade over his head with a hoof.

“You kiddin’? This is the best action I’ve seen in ages!”

A pink explosion rocked the streets.

“Where have you been anyway?” she asked. “I thought you up and gone away or some spit.”

“I wish,” he remarked as he lit another fuse and handed the bomb to his ally. She threw it forward, then ducked behind the rock next to Angel.

Angel continued, “I’ve been staying at this crappy hotel on the other side of town. Some boards are lettin’ me stay rent-free if I play nice.” They covered their ears.

A column of green smoke rose into the air with a fiery whoosh. The duo leaped over the rock and charged at the army of egg minions on all fours. Using four hooves, Angel Dust fired rapidly from a gun at the minions, making some of them explode.

He sighed, and used one of his hooves to gesture. “Y’know, no fights, no pranks, no “problematic language.” Her words, not mine.”

He tripped an unsuspecting minion, sending him into the air and exploding in a yellow yok mess. He waved a spiked club and continued firing his gun.

“These naysayers are no fun!” Angel complained in frustration. Splatters of yok landed on his head and face. “I’ve been clean for two weeks!”

“Holy spit!” Cherri Bomb yelled after avoiding a green explosion and leaping into the air.

Angel scooped up yok with his hoof. “Well, sorta clean.” He smashed apart another egg minion with his club. “As clean as you can get with a spitload of powder shipped down from Las Pegasus.”

Angel’s shadowy silhouette displayed sharp fangs, and pony ears as Cherri posed in the background, one of her boots missing. A sign read “50% off meth” above a small super market.

A black chain wrapped tightly around Angel’s waist sending him flying backwards. Cherri Bomb gasped as her ally was pulled away. Sir Stallionous threw the chained Angel Dust hard onto the ground a distance away. He landed with a thud against volcanic rock.

“Oh, harder daddy!” Angel teased with a wide smirk.

Sir Stallionous gasped, eyes tearing up. “Son?!”

Angel Dust stared blankly, one eye raised, a look of disbelief on his face.

Cherri Bomb rushed into action, landing a sharp kick to Sir Stallionous’ back. The villain landed on the ground, then neighed threateningly.

“You bores have no class!” he exclaimed. “In war, the side remembered is the side with the most…style.” He straightened his black bowtie with a spring.

Cherri Bomb broke open an egg and smashed the robotic egg pony on the ground. Angel stood up, freeing himself from the chains.

“Or the side that ain’t dead,” she added.

“Speaking of style, is your hat like, alive or something’?

Sir Stallionous huffed. “Oh, well, that’s none of your goddamn business, now is it?”

Angel continued, “Would that make your hat the top and you the bottom?”

He and Cherri burst into laughter. Even a pink “loser” sign pointed at the oblivious villain. “Ooooh,” said a minion near him. “One hellish burn.”

“I’m going to blow you to bits!” Sir Stallionous yelled, pointing at them with a dark hoof.

“Hmm! Kinky!” Angel teased.

An advertisement displaying a plate of, sausage, eggs and a tomato slice stood halfway buried in the ground. A glowing pink sign pointing down read “flank.” Another yellow sign read, “Clop here.”

“I’m not like that! Pervert!” yelled the villain. Cherri Bomb and Angel Dust held in laughter.

Angel suddenly pushed Cherri Bomb out of the way, as an egg pony shot tendrils of claws from behind them. The claws had eyes in the center and grabbed onto Angel’s four hooves. He struggled to free himself, the cords stretching.

Sir Stallionous chuckled. “Not so cocky now, are we?”

“Y’know, you really need to watch what’s coming out of your mouth,” Angel remarked. “Cocky…cumming, you get it?”

The villain didn’t respond.

Angel sighed. “I’ve been making these sex jokes the whole time!”

A drill poked out from the ground, Angel avoiding it. A minion held a drill in his small hooves at Angel. Two extra hooves popped out from Angel’s body, holding his rifle.

“And it’s obvious you ain’t catching on.”

He cocked his gun. “I mean, it’s just sad!”

He jumped into the air, freeing himself and firing the gun. The laser hit Sir Stallionous, and his gray top hat fell off.

Cherri Bomb popped up next to Angel. “So, think you’re gonna get into a lot of trouble for this?”

“Eh, what’s one little brawl gonna cause?” He shrugged and retracted his extra hooves. Sir Stallionus lay fuming on the ground.

More egg minions scrambled over to the edge of a high cliff, overlooking the scene. Egg shells, wires, and yok puddles littered the cracked street.

Cherri Bomb playfully elbowed Angel. “Glad ya haven’t changed. You know you’re my favorite guy to party with!”

“You know it, sugar bits,” Angel replied.

“You ready to finish this?” she asked. She rolled a bomb from one of her wings to her other wing and back into her mouth.

Angel cocked his gun again. “Born ready, baby!”

The duo charged at Sir Stallionous. Everyone yelled. More egg minions fell and Sir Stallionous realized he was running out fast.

After several more minutes of battle, Sir Stallionus and his remaining minions retreated back to his ship. “This isn’t over, naysayers!” he declared at his enemies. “I’ll have my revenge!” The ship hatch closed. The egg minions steered the ship and it rose into the air, almost sending the overlord flying out of the craft. He tossed out more minions in response before taking the controls and flying the craft away.

Angel and Cherri Bomb bro-hoofed with their hooves.

“See you around,” she said.

“Until the next brawl,” said Angel.

Cherri Bomb waved goodbye and blasted music from an Eye Pod (a device made from an actual moving eye. “Hello, daddy. Hello mom. I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb! Hello world! I’m your wild filly. I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!” she sang out loud. Angel Dust laughed and continued on his way.

After buying some more amino and pot from the 666 Shop, Angel met with Charlie and Vaggie in a white carriage drawn by red bat ponies. A great day indeed for the promiscuous pony.

The Trottin’ Hotel Interview

Transcript during the 666 News:

“BREAKING NEWS: A LARGE SCALE TURF WAR IS UNDERWAY IN TARTARUS TOWN BETWEEN SIR STALLIONOUS AND CHERRI BOMB. THE SURROUNDING AREAS ARE COVERED IN DEBRIS, SO PLEASE AVOID DOWNTOWN ON YOUR COMMUTE TODAY. TRAFFIC IS “HELLA” BACKED UP. GET IT? “HELL” BUT WITH AN “A” AT THE END? THAT’S A WORD YOUNGER PEOPLE SEEM TO ENJOY USING. I DON’T REALLY LIKE IT, THOUGH. I WROTE IT BECAUSE IT SEEMED LIKE THE NATURAL KIND OF PUN TO MAKE FOR THIS SITUATION, BUT NOW THAT I SEE IT IN TEXT, I FEEL LIKE IT WAS A MISTAKE, A MISTAKE I CAN’T TAKE BACK…LIKE CHEATING ON MY WIFE. I’M SO SORRY, MARTHA. I SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE IT, BUT YOU DID GAIN A LOT OF WEIGHT AFTER THE FILLY AND I REALLY NEEDED SOME SPACE. YOU KNOW, WHAT? NO, THAT WAS A GOOD CALL. I BUCKED THE CLEANING MARE, AND THAT WAS A PRETTY NICE TIME, EVEN THOUGH SHE LAUGHED AT ME WHEN I TOLD HER I COULDN’T GET OFF UNLESS SHE LICKED MY HOOF FIRST. I DON’T SEE HOW THAT’S A WEIRD REQUEST. MAYBE IF I’D JUST GET A HOOKER, SHE WOULD’VE BEEN MORE AGREEABLE. THE POINT IS, MY WIFE IS A FUCKING SNITCH. ONE TIME, WE WENT TO THE ZOO AND I GOT REALLY MAD BECAUSE I THOUGHT THE ORANGUTAN WAS MAKING FUN OF ME. HE KEPT DOING THAT STUPID DUCK LIP FACE? THEIR LIPS ALL PUCKERED? THEN IT STARTED SCREAMING, AND THAT REALLY PISSED ME OFF. MY WIFE TOLD ME IT WAS JUST A MONKEY, AND TO “CALM DOWN.”

A neon logo appeared on the screen, displaying “666 News” in a circle with a neon eye underneath. The names of the news cast appeared on the bottom of the screen.

A skeletal mare with short blonde hair and a large toothy grin was wearing a pink dress and a pearl necklace. Sitting at the other chair, dressed in a blue business suit was a pony with a gray gas mask for his face along with short white hair. They were live on the air.

“Good afternoon every pony!” said the mare. “I’m Katie Killjoy.”

“And I’m Tom Trench,” said the stallion. “Chaos at Tartarus Town today as a turf war is raging on the west side between notable king Sir Stallinous and self-proclaimed spunky powerhouse Cherri Bomb!”

Two pictures surrounded by flame borders showed Sir Stallionus wearing a yellow “music band” shirt, and wearing his top hat as a baseball cap with a dopey expression on his face. The other picture showed Cherri Bomb standing under glittering spotlights.

“That’s right Tom!” Katie added. “After the recent imprisoning, many areas are now up for grabs! Creatures all over Tartarus are already duking it out to gain new territory!”

The clips showed Sir Stallinous fighting Cherri Bomb with his egg minions. Hydras fought manticores, minotaurs, and ogres growled at each other.

“Those two seem to really be going at it, huh? Looks like they’re fighting tooth and nail for that hot spot!” Katie popped a tooth and a nail into her mouth.

“And I’d sure like to nail her hot spot!” Tom Trench said with a chuckle.

Katie giggled forcefully. “You are a limp prick jackass, Tom. Or should I say…”

Adding insult and injury, she poured her hot coffee over his crotch…

“No wiener havor.”

“Augh! Not again!” he groaned.

Another picture surrounded by a border of flames displayed Charlie with the letters “Princess of Tartarus” next to it.

Katie continued. “Coming up next, we have an exclusive interview with the daughter of Tartarus’ own head honcho, who’s here to discuss her brand new passion-project!”

Tom Trench winced in pain on the desk.

“All that and more after the break!”

She broke her mug in her hoof, and turned to Tom Trench. “Suck it up you little bi…”

The TV went off air, displaying Katie’s mouth, pointed ears and eyes, colored bars and “off air” with a pentagram in the “O”.

Inside the break room, Vaggie adjusted Charlie’s black bowtie with her hoof. Nearby, a red tinted sign said that smoking was, indeed, allowed. Another sign read “on air,” in large letters. Vaggie was a light gray pony, who wore stripped leggings over her hooves, a white crop top on her front half and a pink x over her left eye. Her mane and tail was long and white, looking like the wings of a moth. Her cutie mark was two harpoons in a cross shape.

“Okay, you remember what to say?” Vaggie asked.

Charlie took a deep breath, enthusiasm in her voice. “Yes! Let’s do this!”

Vaggie put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. She signaled with her hoof for her to pay attention. “Just, look at me and I’ll mouth it to you.”

Charlie sighed. “Come on, Vaggie! I know what to say!”

She walked on all fours over to the pitcher of red punch. “I just feel like we need to…I don’t know, make things sound more exciting…”

She tossed a donut aside before gasping.

“Oh! What if I…”

“Sing a song about it?” Vaggie finished.

“You knew I was gonna say that.” She gently touched her friend’s nose with her own.

Vaggie adjusted Charlie’s bowtie again with her mouth. “Because I know you. But please don’t sing. This is serious.”

Charlie stomped her white hoof and briefly winked. “Well, you know, I’m better at expressing myself through song!” She stood on the table and arched her hoof dramatically. Down below, Charlie’s doll Pegasus ponies Razzle and Dazzle chewed on donuts.

“But life isn’t a musical, hon,” Vaggie reminded her.

“Fine,” Charlie said with a slump. Then she brightened again.

“But I do have these other ideas of what to say.”

She got off the table and, using her magic, pulled out a piece of paper, hopping excitedly. The paper hovered in the air by pink sparkly magic. “The highlighted bits are my favorite parts!”

Vaggie took the paper and scanned it in disbelief. “Uh, it’s all highlighted. Is this a drawing?”

“Yes!” Charlie answered. She pointed to her picture. It showed a list that read: “4, unicorn kisses,” “5, dolphin high-fives?” and “6, sing show tunes = happy ending!” She drew stick figures of ponies and monsters standing on clouds under a rainbow with a sun and red hearts with faces on them. A castle was also in the background.

“That’s the happy ending, see? Everyone’s smiling and happy in Canterlot and Ponyville!”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Vaggie stated. She then begged her: “Just please follow the talking points we went over.”

She pulled Charlie close and stared her directly in the eyes. “And do. Not. Sing.”

Charlie sighed exasperatedly. “Fine.” Then she trotted over and spoke in an accent. “I’ll just have to resort to my impeccable improve skills.” She gave a salute, several moves of her head and went outside.

Vaggie somehow knew that this would not be going well.

Charlie walked over to Katie Killjoy, who posed in her red dress, smoking a cigarette.

“Hi! I’m Charlie Mane.”

She waved and held out her hoof.

“Katie Killjoy,” the mare deadpanned before blowing out smoke and snapping her cigarette. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but that would be a lie. You can put that away,” she regarded Charlie’s hoof. “I don’t touch the gays. I have standards.”

“Yeah?” Charlie asked nervously, looking at a big flashing sign that read “Tartarus’ #1 News!” “How’s uh…how’s that working for ya?”

“Look, my time is money, so I’ll keep this short,” Katie cut in. She invasively tapped Charlie’s chest and nose with her hoof. “We’re not here because we wanted you here. You’re here because Jeffry couldn’t make it for his cannibal cooking segment.”

Katie mentioned to a billboard that showed a tall stallion with glasses, short blonde hair with a white chef’s hat, a red apron, red suit, red horns, and a red devil’s tail. He held a platter of rotten hay and a horse head in his hands. Above it read “It’s Dahn Good! Cooking show: Guarantee Cannibalicious!” “Who approved this show?” was written on a sticky note tapped to the corner of the advertisement. Tom Trench shook his head in his seat.

Katie fluffed her blonde mane, swayed her flank, and continued: “You might be some royal bigshot, but that doesn’t mean spit to me. I’m too rich and too influential to give a flying buck about what some tux-wearing pony “princess” wants to advertise.”

“But I…” Charlie began.

“So don’t get cute with me, honey,” she warned, getting into Charlie’s face, “Or I will bucking bury you!”

“And we’re live!” said a voice.

Katie rushed back into her seat with a bony crack of her neck.

“Welcome back!”

Charlie sat in a chair next to her.

“So, Charlotte…”

“It’s Charlie,” she squeaked.

“Whatever,” Katie dismissed. She took a frustrated breath and clicked her red pen in her hoof. “Tell us about this new passion project you’ve been insistently pestering our news station about!”

“Well…” Charlie cleared her throat. She looked nervously at the monstrous crew in front of her. Vaggie encouraged her to go on.

Charlie took a deep breath.

“As most of you know, I was born here in Tartarus, and growing up, I’ve always tried to see the good in everything around me.”

Katie clicked her pen impatiently. She spotted a green caterpillar and stabbed it with her pen with a predatory grin. Ink splattered on Charlie’s face and around the area.

Charlie continued, wiping off the dark pink ink from her face: “Tartarus is my home and you are my subjects. We…”

Vaggie waved with a smile.

“…we just went through another imprisoning. We lost so many souls, and it breaks my heart to see my subjects being locked up every year. And no one is even given a chance!”

Charlie banged her hoof on the desk, waking Katie from a bored drooling daze.

Charlie made her way forward. “I can’t stand idly by while the place I live is subjected to such violence and punishment! So, I’ve been thinking. Isn’t there a more humane way to hinder overpopulation and crime here in Tartarus? Perhaps we can create an alternative way to change souls through…redemption?”

Charlie pulled a buff red pony into a side hug. “Well, I think yes. So that’s what this project aims to achieve!” She ran back to the desk.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, I’m opening the first of its kind! A hotel that rehabilitates sinners!”

The audience stared in stunned silence.

A bloodstained logo “Radio Hack” was displayed above a window which provided a stack of dozens of TVs inside.

In a bar, dark demon ponies wearing cowboy hats were playing pool, not even paying attention. The lead stallion wore a cloth over his grinning face and had a large barrel gun for an arm. His colt friend looked like a demonic bug, and another looked like a mustached villain from an old film. Meanwhile in a bar, purple and blue dragon-like ponies sat and drank while casually watching the TVs overhead.

Charlie stuttered, “Ya know…’Cause hotels are for every pony passing through…temporarily…”

A tattooed dark blue stallion demon stood up and let out a loud laugh.

“Is this filly for real? She thinks, you hear what she thinks? She…heh, heh, heh, oh she’s nuts.” The pony walked away with a small lavender creature and a tall maroon horse wearing punk rock clothing and crazy neon hair.

Charlie added, “I figure it would serve a purpose…a place work toward redemption!”

She weakly added in a Fluttershy voice, “Yay.”

One pony leaped away as a tall shadowy figure stood in the background…

The figure stood right next to a ratted flier which read “Beware him! Do not fuck with him!” “The Radio Pony” was scrawled in white on ponies screaming and fleeing from a monster with antlers overhead. A nearby flier read, “Discord vs the Radio Pony, tonight at 7!”

The stallion smiled and tilted his head a notch as he watched the TV with curiosity and amusement. His shadow pony next to him briefly morphed into a shadowy face with antlers on top. He spotted the fliers out of the corner of his red eyes, holding in a laugh.

“Who, me? ‘Obviously’ not! I’d never put on a show and make other ponies flee to their graves.”

Just the thought of it got him excited.

He had heard of the pony princess before, but he wasn’t expecting her to appear on TV. He certainly never heard of an idea so crazy before. Getting ponies and creatures out of Tartarus and redeeming them was even less likely than making pigs fly (which was one magic trick he could do on occasion).

When Charlie started to sing, the red eyed pony couldn’t help but tap his cloven hooves and silently hum along.

Befriending the princess, and doing something different seemed like a good idea. He glanced over at a faraway hotel building.

He knew where he would go next.

Back at the news station, a camera pony with blue hair and a white face looked up and scoffed, “Stupid bitch.”

Vaggie punched him hard in the face in response, causing him to fall off the chair to the ground.

Charlie stared around her, concerned. “Look, every single one of you has something good deep down inside. I know you do.”

A light bulb went off into her head. “Maybe I’m not getting through to you…”

Vaggie hoof palmed, knowing what was coming next. “Oh no…”

Charlie stomped her hoof and her bodyguard ponies appeared. One sat and began to play a grand piano.

Summoning the Disney princess within her, Charlie belted out her song:

“I have a dream

I’m here to tell

About a wonderful, fantastic new hotel

In Tartarus as well

It will all be well

Catering to a specific clientele”

Razzle and Dazzle howled along…

The tempo rapidly picked up…

“Inside of every pony is a rainbow

Inside every sinner is a citizen, bright and silly

Inside of every creepy hatchet-wielding maniac

Is a jolly, happy cupcake-loving colt or filly”

“We can turn around

They’ll be Equestria-bound!

With just a little time

Down at the Trottin’ Hotel!”

“So all you junkies, freaks and weirdos

Creepers, fuck-ups, crooks, and zeroes

And the fallen superheroes, help is here!

All of you cretins, sluts and losers

Sexual deviants and boozers

And prescription drug abusers

Need not fear

Forever again

We’ll cure your sin

We’ll make you well

You’ll feel so swell

In Tartarus here, at the Trottin’ Hotel!”

“There’ll be no more cages

And no more evil schemes

Just puppy dog kisses, and cotton candy dreams

And puffy-wuffy clouds

You’re gonna be like, wow!

Once you check in with me!”

“So all your cartoon porn addictions

Vegan rants, psychic predictions

Ancient Roman crucifixions

End right here!”

“All you monsters, thieves and bears

Cannibals and crying mares

Frothing mouthers full of scares

Fill with cheer!”

“You’ll be complete!

It’ll be so neat!

Our service can’t be beat!

You’ll be on easy street! (Yes!)

Life will be sweet at the Trottin’ Hotel!

Yeah!”

Throughout the song, Charlie imagined giving a shiny cupcake to a masked killer, holding cotton candy and a brown puppy in her hooves in the clouds…avoiding the attacks of every horror movie serial killer… (Music Logic)

She pictured throwing drugs into a bin of fire, giving shots to monsters, giving money to charity, disturbing porn additions with a bra…

Snatching a “My waifu” porn mag of out a stallion’s hooves…

Knocking over crosses…

Avoiding a scary spider pony with yellow bat wings and pink eyes all over his body…

Giving ponies big hugs…

Charlie emerging in her horned demon form from a flaming pentagram, her horn lighting up in pink, and jumping with joy in a land full of candy, rainbows, and ice cream.

Charlie finished with a pose on the table, front hooves in the air and panted.

The top hat pony smiled. “Wow! That was…shit!”

The crowd burst into rancorous laughter and boos, including a blue pony made of fire in the boo section. Katie shrieked and banged her hoof on the table.

“What in the River Styx makes you think a single denizen of Tartarus would give two shits about becoming a better denizen? You have no proof that this little experiment even works! You want ponies and monsters to be good just…because?”

Charlie lifted up her head. “Well, we have a patron already who believes in our cause, and he’s shown incredible progress!”

“Oh?” Katie asked, leaning in, “…and who might that be?”

“Oh just someone named…Angel Dust.”

“The porn star?” asked Tom Trench in disbelief. He subconsciously unzipped his zipper and Katie whirled on him; “You fucking would, Tom!” Her hooves left dent son the desk.

Katie turned back to Charlie. “In any case, that’s not even an accomplishment. I’m sure you can get that hooker to do anything with enough booger sugar and lube.”

Someone wolf-whistled in the audience.

“Oh, I beg to differ,” Charlie argued, holding up her hoof. “He’s been behaved, clean, and out of trouble for two weeks now.”

“Breaking news!” announced a voice as music came on. Excited, Katie pushed Charlie aside. “We are receiving word that a new player has entered the ongoing turf war! Let’s go to the live feed!”

To Charlie’s sheer horror, Angel Dust was seen on screen, crushing egg shells and fighting with Cherri Bomb.

“Oh spit,” she breathed.

“Oh spit indeed!” exclaimed Katie with a grin. “It looks like the one who has just joined the battle is none other than…”

She let out a dramatic gasp…”porn actor Angel Dust! What a juicy coincidence!”

The screen showed Angel Dust with the words “Angel Dust in ‘Well, Ok’: 18+.”

Satisfied, she turned back to Charlie. “You must feel really stupid right now.” Katie and Tom laughed again.

“Ratings!” Katie and Tom added with jazz hooves.

“Don’t look at this!” Charlie called, waving her hooves in vain from behind the screen.

“Well, it sure looks like your little project is dead on arrival. Tell us, how does it feel to be such a total failure?”

Failure. Failure…Charlie could see her doubt reflected in Katie’s pink eyes and overbearing shadowy figure. Katie and everyone laughed and neighed some more, their jeers painful to Charlie’s ears.

“Yeah?” Charlie asked. She snatched up Katie’s red pen with her horn. The pen hovered in the air with pink magic surrounding it. “Well, how does it feel that I got your pen, huh? Snitch!”

Katie glared dangerously. Charlie dropped the pen with a nervous smile, “Oops.”

Katie grew taller, her form turning to shadow. Out sprouted claws, four extra sharp appendages, and four red eyes on her face like a spider. She launched herself at Charlie, hooves raised. Charlie pulled her hair with her mouth and landed punches as the alarm went off in the news room. Katie crawled on the desk on all fours, baring her fangs before Charlie jumped at her and knocked her off the table. Tom Trench got so distressed that his entire body burst into flames.

Charlie ran out of the news room, Katie following her close behind, as everyone yelled.

“And stay out, you retarded spike!” Katie cussed as Charlie made a run for it down the sidewalk on all fours. Charlie was tempted to strangle the homophobic, news diva with her bare hooves…but that would only contradict her goal…if she even had one anymore.

Vaggie followed her and the two of them didn’t say a word as they waited for their ride. Soon enough, a carriage drawn by red bat horses rolled to the curb. Vaggie and Charlie hopped in…and so did an ecstatic Angel Dust. The doors closed and they drove off toward the Trottin’ Hotel.

Car Ride to the Hotel

Charlie had never felt so humiliated in her life. She sat in her seat and curled into herself. Once again, her ideas were dismissed, mocked, ridiculed. No one was willing to see the good in themselves. The ponies and creatures were content to wallow in suffering, violence, and cruelty until the end of their lives. They would be locked up forever, unable to enjoy life on the surface. They’d never know what friendship was. Tears were already threatening to spill from her yellow eyes, but she held them in.

Maybe her father was right. What if she really was a failure, like every pony said?

As if reading her mind, Vaggie gave her a small hug next to her. “You’re not a failure, Charlie. It’s just…no one understands your ideas. The denizens think they’re…I don’t know…outlandish?”

She got a sad sigh from Charlie in response. “I just wanted to make things better for my kingdom. I know I don’t feel much like a princess, but at the same time…I feel like it’s my duty…my destiny to being some cheer to this place.”

“Heh. No one can ever top your optimism,” Vaggie mentioned, with a playful roll of her eyes. “Your happiness can be spotted miles away.”

A small smile formed on Charlie’s face. “Well, at least I can pull myself up and keep going…”

Vaggie stared, hopeful…

“…But today isn’t one of those days.”

Vaggie slumped slightly. “I did warn you not to sing.”

“I couldn’t help it,” she countered. “How else was I supposed to get my message across?”

“Not everyone likes singing and music all the time.”

“My family does.”

“But the other ponies and creatures aren’t your family.”

Charlie stared out the window at the buildings whizzing by. “Sometimes I feel like my family is bigger than just my parents.” She turned to look at her girlfriend. “You’re my best friend, sorta like my older sister…and the only one who seems to get me. You’re part of my family already.”

Vaggie chuckled softly. “Without me, you wouldn’t have lasted very long out in the big world.”

“For once, I agree with you there,” Charlie replied. “I sure would love to meet Princess Twilight and Princess Celestia and so many others…”

During several minutes of silence, the two mares locked hooves just out of sight. It was their habitual way of showing comfort, and it worked on the many days when Vaggie didn’t want any hugs. The carriage bumped over potholes along the road.

“Don’t get too discouraged,” Vaggie said. “We’ll get back to the hotel and figure things out from there.”

“I kinda feel like singing another lament now.”

“Please don’t.”

“Fine.”

The carriage wobbled past the 666 Shop, Cozy Glow Fashion Show, the Nightmare Night Club (featuring Nightmare Moon eating other ponies who don’t worship her) the Changling Cave (Chrysalis’ makeover, hand over your soul and turn into one of us. Free green cocoons for customers!) and Tirek’s Donuts store, complete with slime and worms displayed on the donut structure. Pink eyes decorated the ceiling of the carriage’s interior. Charlie curled into herself again, and took a breath. Even the painted eyes on the small cloth ceiling seemed to judge her every move. She glanced over at Vaggie, whose eye was twitching in annoyance.

Angel Dust was busy blowing raspberries out the window. He froze when he saw an angry Vaggie staring at him.

“What?” he asked with a shrug.

“What? What?!” Vaggie shouted, pulling out chunks of her long white hair with her hooves. “What were you doing?!”

Angel sighed. “I owed my filly buddy a solid! Isn’t that a “redeeming quality?” Helping friends with stuff?”

“Not with turf wars that result in territorial genocide!”

“Eh, you win some, you lose a few hundred,” he said with a snicker. “It wasn’t that bad anyway.”

He blew raspberries again. Vaggie threw a dagger that nestled in the side of the wall. Angel stared, shocked and terrified. Vaggie growled in warning.

“Aw come on, I had to!” Angel protested. “My credibility was on the line!” He sighed. “I mean what kind of reputation would I have if every pony found out I was trying to go clean? It just throws out my entire persona.” He lifted up his furry chest.

“Your credibility?” Vaggie asked in anger. “What about the hotel? Your little stunt made us look like a bucking joke!”

“No, no no, babe. Jokes are funny! I made you look…uh, sad. And pathetic! Uh…oh with progeria!” Charlie covered her face with her mane as Angel blabbered on.

“Great! Now I’m bummed thinking about it! This thing have any liquor?” He bent down to the floor and tossed a bottle aside. He then flicked a wrapper away onto a wooden seat.

Vaggie was fuming. “Can you please just try to take this seriously?”

“Fine, I’ll try. Just don’t get your taco in a twist, baby.”

“Was that you trying to be sexist or racist?”

“Whatever pisses you off more. Is there seriously no liquor in here?”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Vaggie swore, flicking her tail and sitting back down.

“Too, late, toots.”

He laughed again. “Sorry, you’re stuck with me, bitch. Get used to it.”

Vaggie swore in Spanish.

“Listen, who cares if some jagoffs got hurt?” Angel nonchalantly asked. “Most of them are ugly freaks. Look around! Got a bunch of buckin’ harlequin babies down there.”

“You’re one to talk,” Vaggie muttered.

Angel laughed then yelled “Hey!” in protest. “This body is flawless! Everyone wants some of me and I’ve got the creepy fan letters to prove it!”

He pulled out a dirty scroll from his enlarged furry chest that read: “Show me your hooves! Bryrin. #1 fan/critic.” There was a picture of a young angel in the lap of a large gray Stallion, licking Angel with his green tongue. He had a tattoo of Angel with a red crossed out sign.

This time, Charlie spoke up. “That was really uncool, y’know, Angel.”

Vaggie growled and turned to her friend. “Uncool?!” She mentioned to Angel. “After that train-wreck, there is no way anyone is gonna wanna stay at the hotel. All thanks to you and your selfish horsespit!”

Angel glanced at a discarded pile of ash and used cigarettes. “Does this mean I don’t get a free room anymore?”

Vaggie spread out her hooves as if asking “Well, what do you think?”

He let out a mock sigh. “Ah, well, shucks.”

Charlie pulled off her dark pink shirt, revealing a white shirt with a black bowtie.

“Hey, come on, we don’t know if things are over yet. Try to relax, Vaggie. It’ll be okay!”

Now it was Vaggie’s turn to let out a small smile of thanks. Charlie placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder, and her friend calmed down.

“What would I do without you?” Vaggie asked. She and Charlie slowly leaned into each other, their heads gently touching.

“Get a room, fillies!” Angel remarked, before receiving a “Shut up!” from both of them.

Finally, the deviant crew arrived at the Trottin’ Hotel. It was an elegant building fit for any pony who wanted to stay a few nights. Eye designs lined the border of a dark pink canopy at the front like a creepy mosaic. Branches jutted out from the roof as part of the structure. Old fashioned lanterns attached to the wall had flames flickering inside, nonstop. The double doors consisted of stained glass windows with red apples in the center. Little stained glass snake eyes peered unblinkingly at them from around the larger window in the door.

Angel, Vaggie, and Charlie got out of the carriage and threw open the double doors. A random black bug scurried away from the incoming light. A yellow sign read “Concierge” behind a pink “welcome” banner. The check in table was decorated with colored flags leaning toward the floor and random balloons with small star shapes on them. A vase was decorated with yellow eyes along the sides. Another flower pot was in the shape of a horse mouth…white flowers posed above. Vaggie sighed and plopped onto a red cushioned couch in the style of a monster’s mouth.

The red rug down the hallway was decorated with the same eyeball designs, apples on the end, plus shadow skulls of horned monsters in the center.

All around the room, were pictures of Charlie as a little filly with her father and mother on various trips.

Angel Dust came across a red fridge leaning low against the wall. He opened the door and pulled out a purple box labeled “Popsies.” He shrugged at the dripping ruined box and took out a popsicle. He gave it a lick, talking with his mouth full.

“It’s prolly a good idea to get some actual food in this place. Y’know, to feed all the wayward prisoners ya got in here.” He laughed nervously, trying to cheer Charlie up. But Charlie just sat sadly on a wooden box in a darkened area of the room. Angel closed the fridge door, sucked on a popsicle and reached out one of his hooves to her…then hesitated. He walked away, letting her have some alone time.

Charlie walked past the two posing elephant statues balancing balls on their trunks, and toward the front door. She opened the door and went outside. She conjured up an old phone and dialed her mom’s number.

Charlie took a deep breath as a voicemail tone came through.

“Hey Mom. Um, I know I keep calling, and you must be busy. Really busy. But, um…the interview didn’t go well and…I don’t know if I’m going to make a difference. I don’t know what I’m doing. I could really use some advice, Mom.”

She slid down and sat on the stone ground, tears falling from her eyes. “I think Dad was right about me. A-anyway, I’ll stop talking before this gets long. Love you! Bye.”

She ended the call with a tap and rubbed her eyes with her hoof. Standing back up on all fours, she opened the door, closed it, and leaned against the stained glass window, eyes closed.

Enter Alastor (and Sir Stallionus)

A slow ominous knocking from outside interrupted Charlie’s thoughts. She opened her eyes. It was a rhythmic knock, sounding like “shave and a haircut.” (Or was it “skunks in a barnyard”, or “dragons in a cauldron?” She wasn’t sure.

From outside, Gabriel C. Brown’s voice sang a haunting song out of nowhere as jazz music played:

“I’m not a fan of puppeteers but I have a nagging fear

Someone else is pulling at the strings

Something terrible is going down

Through the entire town

Wreaking anarchy and all it brings…”

An ice cold feeling of dread spread through her veins. No pony else would ever do that kind of knock.

“I can’t sit idly, No I can’t move at all…”

Unless…

“I curse the name, the one behind it all…”

She tentatively reached out her hoof to the door handle, and quickly pulled it open.

Sure enough, the most feared pony in Tartarus was standing right outside her door.

He wore dark red dress pants, a red dress shirt along with a dark red pinstriped coat underneath. His shoes were black with red hoof prints on the sides. The two black lines in the center of his dress shirt looked like an upside down cross.

His coat was gray and his large eyes were red. He had a gray unicorn horn in between dark black antlers from his head. His mane and tail were black and red. A monocle attached to a chain was positioned under his right eye. His cutie mark was a microphone bearing a grin of sharp teeth. But his own grin of sharp yellow teeth was the most fearsome of all.

A vintage microphone staff appeared next to him in red aura, his horn glowing red.

Charlie’s face morphed into sheer terror, eyes wide as saucers.

“Alastor! You’re broadcasting on the air…”

Eyes glowing red, the stallion began to speak.

“Hell…”

She slammed the door in his face.

Opened the door…

“…o.”

Slammed it again.

“…and stealing all the souls, magic mayhem everywhere…”

Alastor stood, shocked in front of the stained glass door, smile still plastered on his face, hoof in the air.

“Well… that was…rude,” he thought. “Usually ponies and creatures are too sacred to answer when I come by. Or they rush to try and please me because they know I could slaughter them at any time. I’ll just wait here then…or maybe break this door down…”

“I’m fine with the smiles and the dancing around

But not with being bound

Now that Hell is being torn apart

A terrifying world of stress

Caused by your demonic mess

As you sing we’re never fully dressed!”

“Hey, Vaggie?” Charlie called.

“What?” Vaggie replied in annoyance.

Charlie flashed a nervous smile. “The Radio Pony is at the door!”

“What?!” she demanded.

“Uh, who?” Angel asked. He sucked erotically on his popsicle.

“What should I do?” she asked, pulling at her lower eyelids.

“Well, don’t let him in!” said Vaggie.

The strange singing continued.

“Alastor! Whatever did we do

To make you take our world away?”

Alastor! Are we your prey alone?

Or are we just a stepping stone for taking back the throne?

Alastor! We won’t take it anymore

So take your tyranny away!”

Charlie was tempted to do just that. But she also had a duty to not leave any sinners behind. She took a breath and opened the door again.

“May I speak now?” the stallion asked. The song appeared to be coming from his microphone staff.

“You may…” Charlie replied.

The man held out his gray hoof. “Alastor, pleasure to be meeting you, sweetheart, quite a pleasure.”

He eagerly grabbed her white hoof and leaned his face close to hers before strutting inside. Charlie stood, dumbfounded, her hoof still out. The music stopped playing.

“Excuse my sudden visit,” he went on, “but I saw your fiasco on a picture show and I just couldn’t resist. What a performance! Why I haven’t been that entertained since the Siren sisters sang their songs of doom!”

He bobbed his head side to side and burst into laughter. “So many arguments!”

Vaggie suddenly pointed a spear weapon at him. “Stop right there!” She swore in Spanish under her breath. (Son of a deranged mare!) I know your game. And I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone here, you pompous, cheesy, talk show spitlord!”

Angel peeked around the corner to see what was going on.

Alastor merely laughed slightly and nudged the weapon away with his fingers.

“Dear, if I wanted to hurt anyone here…”

He added in a low creepy tone, “I would have done so already.”

His large red eyes briefly turned to red radio dials and radio static filled the room. He tilted his head slightly, letting his chaotic magic roam. Red electricity traveled around his horn. Vaggie and Charlie were frozen in fear as they caught glimpses of red Voodoo symbols, static, and warped reality.

Then just as quickly, the noise and magic ceased and Alastor shook his head, eyes back to full red.

“No, I’m here because I want to help!” He bowed.

Charlie was sure she hadn’t heard him right.

“Say what now?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“Help!” he responded with another laugh. His staff hovered in the air by his magic. “Hello? Is this thing on? Testing, testing…”

He tapped it and a glowing red eye appeared in the center. “Well, I heard you loud and clear!” the microphone responded, eye shaking in fear.

“Um…you want to help?” Charlie asked.

Alastor appeared behind the mares, hooves on their backs, switching from a shadow to his regular self. Both Vaggie and Charlie flinched.

“With…” he mentioned in an imitation of Charlie’s voice,

“…this ridiculous thing you’re trying to do!” finishing in his normal voice. “This hotel!”

Charlie could hear the call bell ding twice on the table, even though no one was there to ring it.

“I want to help you run it.”

“Uh…why?” Charlie asked, confused.

Alastor laughed again. “Why does anyone do anything? Sheer absolute boredom! I’ve lacked inspiration for decades!”

He placed his hoof on an annoyed Vaggie’s head. Then he shoved her aside.

“My work became mundane, lacking focus, aimless! I’ve come to crave a new form of entertainment!”

He laughed again.

Charlie looked downcast. “Does getting into a fight with a reporter count as entertainment?”

“It’s the purest kind, my dear! Reality! True passion! After all, the world is a stage! And the stage is a world of entertainment!”

Charlie brightened a bit. “So, does this mean that you think it’s possible to rehabilitate a pony or a creature?”

Alastor help up a hoof and laughed. “Of course not. That’s wacky nonsense! Redemption, oh it’s non-existent! Nononono, I don’t think there’s anything left that could save such loathsome monsters! The chance given was the life they lived before in Equestria; the punishment is this!” He spread out his hooves. “There is no undoing what is done!”

“So then, why do you want to help me if you don’t believe in my cause?” Charlie asked.

Alastor smirked and looked at Charlie, sideways. “Consider it an investment in ongoing entertainment for myself!” He pulled her close to him with his hoof and twirled her around in a quick dance. “I want to watch the scum of the world struggle to climb up the hill of betterment! Only to repeatedly trip and tumble down to the fiery pit of failure.”

“Right…” Charlie began, slowly removing his hoof from her back.

Alastor took her aside for a walk. “Yes indeedy! I see big things coming your way, and who better to help than I.”

“Ah, so uh, what’s the deal with Smiles over there?” Angel asked Vaggie.

“Wait, you’ve never heard of him before?” Vaggie asked. “You’ve been here longer than me!”

Angel shrugged.

“The Radio Pony, one of the most powerful beings Tartarus has ever seen?”

“Eh, not big on politics,” he replied.

Vaggie, annoyed, leaned in close to explain.

“Decades ago, Alastor manifested in Tartarus, seemingly overnight. He began to topple overlords, dragons, centaurs, and other creatures who had been dominant for centuries. That kind of raw power has never been harnessed by a mortal soul before. Then, he broadcast his carnage all throughout Tartarus, just so everyone could witness his ability. Sinners started calling him The Radio Pony. (As lazy as that is). Not even Discord himself could imagine how chaotic Alastor could be. Many have speculated what unimaginable force enabled him to rival our world’s most ancient and destructive evils. But one thing’s for sure: He’s an unpredictable source of danger, a wicked spirit of mystery, and a violent monster of chaos, the likes of which we can’t risk getting involved with unless we want to end up erased.”

“Ya done?” Angel asked with a snicker. “He looks like a strawberry pimp!”

“Well, I don’t trust him!” Vaggie argued.

To be fair, do you trust any Stallions? Colts? Any pony who’s male?” Angel asked with a slight laugh.

Vaggie ignored him and walked up to her friend.

“Charlie, listen to me. You just can’t believe this creep! He isn’t just a happy face! He’s a dealmaker, pure evil! He can’t be redeemed! And is most likely looking for a way to destroy everything we’re trying to do.”

“I…” Charlie began. “…we don’t know that. Look…I know he’s bad, and I know he probably doesn’t wanna change, but the whole point of this is to give every pony a chance! To have faith things will be better! How can I turn someone away? I can’t. It goes against everything I’m trying to do. Everything I believe in.”

Alastor stared in fascination at a family picture on the wall. It showed a white alicorn pony Lucifer dressed in white, a mare, Lilith in a dark purple dress, and Charlie as a little filly wearing a brown and white dress in the middle. The picture border consisted of branches and yellow eyeballs and a dried rose in the upper right hand corner.

“Such a lovely portrait! A picture of perfection! It’d be such a shame if something awful were to happen to them…”

“Just trust me,” Charlie added placing a comforting hoof on her girlfriend’s back. “I can take care of myself.”

Charlie,” warned Vaggie, “Whatever you do, do not make a deal with him!”

From a distance, Alastor held out his hoof, glowing in red magic. Both girls glanced in his direction, worry on their faces.

“I’ll have these two in the palm of my hooves…”

“Don’t worry, Charlie replied to Vaggie. “I picked up one thing from my Dad…” she spoke in a manly voice, “Ya don’t take shit from other ponies!”

Gathering her courage, Charlie marched over to the Radio Pony.

“Ok, so…Al. You’re sketchy as fuck, and you clearly see what I’m trying to do here is a joke. But I don’t.”

Red Voodoo symbols appeared around Alastor, then vanished.

Charlie continued. “I think everyone deserves a chance to prove they can be better. So, I’m taking your offer to help. On the condition that there be no tricks or voodoo strings attached.”

Alastor twirled his cane with his magic and held out his hoof. “So it’s a deal then?”

Flashes of eerie green light surrounded him, electricity snaking up the walls.

“Nope!” Charlie yelled, stepping back. The energy stopped. “No shaking! No deals! I…hmm…”

Charlie decided to try another approach.

“As princess of Tartarus, and heir to the throne, I uh, hereby order that you help with this hotel, for a long as you desire.”

A moment of pause…

“Sound fair?” she asked.

“Fair enough. Cool beans.” Alastor shrugged, walking on and making his cane disappear. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief.

Alastor stopped and spotted Vaggie off to the side. He smirked in a way outside observers would describe as lecherous. He tickled her under her chin with his hoof.

“Smile, my dear! You know you’re never fully dressed without one!”

Alastor hummed happily on his way, while Vaggie growled in disgust and rage.

“So…where is your hotel staff?” Alastor asked.

“Uh, well…” Charlie began. Alastor peered at Vaggie through his monocle. “Oh ho ho ho, you’re going to need more than that.”

He walked over towards Angel.

“And what can you do, my effeminate fellow?”

Angel grinned. “I can suck your dick!”

“Ha! No.” Alastor deadpanned.

“Your loss,” Angel said with a slight laugh. Alastor summoned his cane.

“Well, this just won’t do!” Alastor exclaimed. “I suppose I can cash in a few favors to liven things up!”

The spell came easily in his mind: “dife sèvitè, reveye.”

He stomped his hoof and his horn glowed red. A fire sparked to life in a small circular fireplace. Horse skeletons decorated either side of the wall.

A dark figure plopped down onto the chimney floor.

Alastor walked over and lifted up the creature in a cloud of red magic. A large single yellow eye was revealed. Angel, Vaggie, and Charlie peered at the creature. In a puff of smoke and a squeak, the creature revealed herself. A cute cyclops filly was wearing a pink dress with a poodle on the front, her short wide hair dark magenta with a streak of yellow. Her coat was light yellow and she even had little Pegasus wings at her sides.

“This little darling is Niffty!” Alastor introduced, before dropping her. She landed on her hooves.

“Hi! I’m Niffty!” she greeted with a wave. “It’s nice to meet you! It’s been a while since I’ve made new friends!” She laughed slightly and her pupil grew smaller, darting in circles.

“Why are you all women?” she asked. “Have any men here?! I’m sorry, that’s rude.” She missed the fact that Angel was male, for obvious reasons.

She briefly picked up Charlie, while Vaggie held her spear defensively at her.

“Oh man, this place is filthy!” she exclaimed, flying around and lifting up couch cushions. “It really needs a lady’s touch, which is weird, because you’re all ladies, no offence.” She chewed on a black spider she found, then rushed toward some stained glass windows.

She flew around, using a dust ruffle to clean them. “Oh my Celestia, this is awful! No, no, no…Nope!”

She raced around, removing cobwebs, then poking at a piece of a voodoo doll. Well, it was actually a live blue beetle doll that Alastor had stabbed with a clothing pin for Niffty to play with. Alastor looked amused, while the others stared in disbelief.

Meanwhile, at a casino, a pony placed a joker, an ace, a 2, and a fourth card down on the table. He had a black and white coat, wore a black top hat and had red wings with card suits decorated on them. He also had long red eyebrows and wore a red bow tie.

“Ha!” he declared in triumph. “Read ‘em and weep, colts!”

He suddenly felt himself being forcefully pulled out of the room through space and time.

“Full…whoa!”

“Transpòte ganbadeur la.”

He ducked as a curtain of red energy surrounded the existing space. Voodoo symbols flashed in the background along with eight yellow eyes, a creepy voodoo skull and a purple skeleton of a worm-like creature. Another voodoo skull with horns appeared for a moment not too far from tan ghost-like spirits with creepy faces and a row of jagged teeth.

The pony figured he must have had too much booze to drink.

“What the hay?!”

As the images faded, he soon found himself at the hotel bar, not in the previous room at the casino. A large “Come and play Blackjack” sign took up much of the wall behind him. Most peculiar, the gray wood walls were missing halfway up, replaced by the red themed décor of the hotel. Husk was sitting in a portion of the casino he was in. It felt like he was in a house with no roof surrounded by the outside world.

“What the buck is this?”

He saw Alastor and pointed an accusing hoof.

“You.”

“Ah, Husker, my good friend!” Alastor cheerfully greeted. “Glad you could make it!”

Alastor’s head briefly had the appearance of large antlers sticking out from either side. When he moved it, it was revealed to be an antler skull with glowing green eyes hanging in the background. Snakes were wrapped around one of the white curtains supporting a bar stand. “Big Booze,” “Welcome” and “Big Soul” signs were placed overhead on the stand. Neon green card suits consisted of the designs at the bottom of the stand.

“Don’t you “Husker” me, you son of a bitch!” Husk spat, and swiped Alastor’s hoof aside from his shoulder. “I was about to win the whole damn pot!”

Husk stared in anger as the stacks of money and chips on the table vanished in static.

“Good to see you too!” added Alastor.

Husk hoof palmed. “What the hay do you want with me this time?”

Alastor grabbed hold of him, startling him so much that cards fell from his hands.

“My friend, I am doing some charity work, so I took it upon myself to volunteer your services! I hope that’s okay.”

Husk was taken aback. “Are you spittin’ me?!”

“No, I don’t think so,” Alastor replied. He casually brushed off his sleeves.

Husk shoved the Radio Pony off him. “You thought it would be some kind of big buckin’ riot just to pull me outta nowhere? You think I’m some kinda buckin’ clown?”

“Maybe.”

Audience laughter emitted from the microphone.

“I ain’t doin’ no buckin’ charity job,” Husk protested.

Alastor appeared next to him. “Well I figured you would be the perfect face to man the front desk of this fine establishment.”

He pointed toward the bar stand with the staff. The sound of audience clapping came from his radio staff.

“With your charming smile and welcoming energy…”

Alastor spread the corners of Husk’s mouth upward into a demonic smile of yellow teeth with his hooves. Husk frowned seconds after he let go.

“…this job was made for you!”

Alastor strutted over toward the bar stand, the soles of his shoes revealing red hoof prints as he walked.

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Alastor continued, “I can make this more welcoming…if you wish.”

His horn glowed red and a green mug of cheap cider appeared on the counter.

Husk stared with wide eyes, suddenly very thirsty. He swore he could hear the sound of a slot machine.

“What, you think you can buy me with a wink and some cheap cider?!” He took the mug in anger. “Well you can!”

He immediately guzzled it down and clopped away.

“Too easy,” thought Alastor.

By this time, Charlie, Vaggie and Angel Dust had arrived to see what the commotion was about. Vaggie rushed toward the bar, furious.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” yelled the mare. “No, no bar, no alcohol. This is supposed to be a place that discourages sin! Not some kind of…mouth, brothel, colt-cave…”

Angel lunged himself into her, knocking her to the floor.

“Shut up! Shut! Up! We are keeping this.” He pointed at Husk with multiple gloved hooves.

He slid up to Husk. “Hey,” he said in a flirtatious voice.

“Go buck yourself,” Husk deadpanned, drinking his cider.

“Only if you watch me,” Angel retorted.

To make matters worse for Husk, Charlie leaned in close to him, excitement and red stars in her eyes.

“Oh my Celestia! Welcome to the Trottin’ Hotel! You are going to love it here!”

“I lost the ability to love years ago,” Husk replied, gulping down more cider.

Alastor walked in, an ever-present grin on his face.

“So, what do you think?”

Charlie ran over to him. “This is amazing!” she beamed.

“It’s okay,” Vaggie said from nearby.

Alastor laughed and pulled the two mares close to him. “This is going to be very entertaining!”

Alastor conjured fire in his hoof…Charlie stared in wonder at the flames and the voodoo symbols. He pushed Vaggie aside and changed his attire. He now wore a fancy red suit with a white undershirt and a black bow tie. A red top hat appeared on his head, complete with small spikes along the black band and two needles sticking out from the top. He twirled Charlie around in a dance, the princess looking stunned. Pointing his hoof over her head, he transformed Charlie’s outfit. Her blonde hair was now short and wavy. She wore an elegant black and red dress, black gloves, a pink hat with a small black bow and black heels.

Charlie stared at her conjured clothing in amazement.

Vaggie was on the floor, fuming.

Alastor lifted Charlie up with red magic and threw her into the air. She yelped in delight and landed gracefully next to him. Two glowing apples and a skull with deer horns flashed in the background.

Reality had been altered to the Radio Pony’s liking. The entire room was lit in psychedelic colors. Voodoo symbols and shapes were etched in every nook and cranny, including a pair of pink claws reaching for the door. Alastor and Charlie waltzed in the spotlight as electro swing music began to play in the distance. The all-encompassing noise, though, was the signature radio-static sound.

Alastor sang his reprise to Charlie:

“You have a dream

You wish to say

And it’s so laughable

But hey kid, what the hay! “

Charlie found herself sliding down one of the apple-etched railings, Alastor leading the way. They landed on the lower floor as Alastor continued his reprise.

Deer statues and painted antlers were everywhere.

Back at the bar stand, Husk sat looking bored. Vaggie hissed at Angel grabbing onto her, while Niffty stared in wonder. Alastor’s horn sparked and their outfits changed as well.

Angel was wearing a neon pink suit, Husk a pink bow tie, Vaggie a dark dress, with her mane now smooth and long, and finally Niffty, with a cute top hat with small flowers.

“‘Cause you’re one of a kind

A charming pony belle!

Now let’s give these burning fools a place to dwell

(Take it, colts!)”

Shadowy ponies rose to life from a hole in the ground. The happy spirits played a trumpet, a tuba, and a drum set. Charlie stomped her hooves to the beat, while Vaggie watched with worry. She reached out to her friend but was pulled away by Alastor. He enveloped the group into a tight hug, followed by glowing images of dark spirits staring at them. Niffty watched in amazement, but not the other three.

Alastor pulled Husk and Angel close again. He rubbed Angel’s head with a white hat and went on his merry way. Husk mouthed “buck you.”

Vaggie stood, annoyed in the spotlight. Using his cane, Alastor added a feathered peacock hat and a white fox fur to her outfit. Then out of nowhere, he slapped her flank.

“Pompous pervert!” Vaggie thought in rage as he wondered away.

Alastor danced some more, kicking a horned skull to the side. In the background, Niffy happily swept up the bits of bone.

“Inside of every pony is a lost cause

But we’ll dress ‘em up now with just a smile!

(With a smile!)

And we’ll chlorinate this cesspool

With some old redemption flair

And show these simpletons some proper class and style!

(What’s in style? Oh!)”

He made his way to the circular fireplace, where he waved his staff. Shadows arrived to join the party, including a shadowy version of himself, with large antlers, a mane of hair, and fangs. He made it disappear in a poof, then snuck toward Charlie. He led her in an upbeat dance, spinning her around, helping her match her steps to his. Charlie blushed when he toyed with her cheeks. As Charlie was led away, Vaggie stood in the background, horrified and disgusted. What was happening to her friend?

Charlie and Alastor laughed as they danced, the princess locked in a happy trance.

“Here below the ground

I’m sure you’re plan is sound!

They’ll spend a little time

Down at this Rottin’ Ho…”

Alastor was about to finish his song, when an explosion burst apart a window behind him.

Niffty stared in amazement, shouting “Whoo!” before she was blasted backwards, the door hitting her in the face.

Alastor’s spell soon wore off and everyone was back in their regular clothes. Alastor, Husk (still drinking), Niffty, Charlie, Angel, and Vaggie, peered out of the hole to see what was going on. Vaggie had her weapon at the ready.

Looking skyward, the group saw a cracked blimp in the air. It had a small random band aid with a sad face on it along the rim. A familiar villain popped out of his hideout.

“Ha!” Sir Stallionous laughed. “Well, well, well, look who it is harboring the striped freak! We meet again, Alastor!”

Apparently, he was also rivals with Alastor.

But Alastor simply asked, “Do I know you?”

The pony boss looked disappointed. Then he said in anger, “Oh yes you do! And this time, I have the element of…surprise!”

The villain raced toward his pink velvet chair and pulled a lever. A metallic cannon lowered to the ground. The cannon fired up with pink energy as pink smoke appeared around them.

“He laughed manically. “I’m so evil!”

Then he added, “I have an Egg army!”

“Well, we have an Alastor,” Charlie responded.

Alastor’s horn shot out red light and bursts of magic red tendrils of smoke rising from his horn. The weapon froze in mid fire and a fiery portal opened up below the blimp.

A horde of black tendrils rose from the hole, latching onto the ship. One tentacle ripped off the cannon and threw it into another smaller portal, causing it to explode in pink smoke. One of the tentacles had already smashed a hole in the large round window.

Sir Stallionous looked on in shock as his Egg Colts slammed against the wall (one of them read #Ouch.) One of the eggs cracked open, spilling out yellowish brains and small organs among the stains of yok. Sir Stallionous and another minion were thrown against the wall.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he screamed before he was slammed against the ceiling by a black limb.

“Oh, that hurt!�� he cried.

Sir Stallionous screamed as he was dragged along the floor and lifted up slightly. He was held in place, surrounded by the wrapped up tendril. At once, the tendril shrunk and squeezed the helpless snake. The Egg Colts galloped around screaming as black cracks appeared on the floor and walls.

From the outside, more black tendrils were closing in. Red voodoo symbols appeared around the blimp.

“Ede m 'sèrviteur.”

Four horned shadowy ponies with red auras floated around, wearing toothy grins.

The tendrils were now wrapped around the entire blimp, holding it in place like thick black vines.

Red radio waves filled Alastor’s eyes as more magic shot from his horn. Voodoo symbols appeared all around him as he altered the state of reality. Radio static consumed the air.

The vines thickened and completely enclosed the blimp. The spirits swooped around it in excitement, with echoing shrieks. The aura around the tendrils glowed a fiery yellow, the same color as the portal rim.

“Kalfu! Destriksyon pa bra nwa.”

The tendrils proceeded to crush the blimp. Pink rays of light shot from the center and the blimp exploded in a loud BOOM!

Pink smoke spread everywhere as the spirits sped away. The tendrils broke into severed bloody pieces that rained down to the ground. Alastor smiled victoriously, while behind them, the group of five stared in utter terror and shock. (Save for Niffty who had a small smile on her face).

“Well, I’m starved!” Alastor exclaimed, turning around to face the group. Who wants some jambalaya?” He spread his hooves out. “My mother once showed me a wonderful recipe for jambalaya! In fact, it nearly killed her! Straight from New Horseleans!”

He laughed as he led the way back to the hotel. The others followed.

“You could say the kick was right out of Tartarus!”

He added while laughing at his own joke, “Oh, I’m on a roll!”

Charlie and Niffty smiled while Husk, Angel, and Vaggie looked on with concern. Angel blew Husk a kiss, which earned the druggie demon a glare from the gambler. Charlie turned to Vaggie excitedly. Vaggie reluctantly went along with Charlie’s idea, even giving her a small supporting smile. As long as Charlie was happy, then she was alright, too.

From up above, the hotel looked like a mashed-up haunted house. An old dark train was perched on a balcony, with some monstrous faces carved in. A ship, reminiscent of the Titanic, was leaning upwards against the building as part of the structure. An old carousel served as part of the upper balcony and windows. Skull designs decorated the small windows in a row. Finally, on top of a giant yellow eye, was the sign “Trottin’ Hotel” supported by pillars of worn wood.

Alastor continued, “Yes, sir, this is the start of some real changes down here! The game is set! Now…”

He glanced up and aimed his horn toward the sign. Pink electricity shot out and made contact with the sign.

The sign now read “Rottin’ Hotel.”

“Stay tuned everypony,” he finished with a low sinister laugh.

Back at the crater, smoke took the faces of monsters and rose into the air. Broken egg minions littered the ground. One minion rubbed his head. With a shaking arm, Sir Stallionous lifted himself up from the gaping hole, fangs shattered.

“Now will you shoot me with your ray gun?” asked the minion.

Sir Stallionous face-planted on the ground in response.

#my little pony #hazbinhotel #crossovers

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angryangryaces · 5 years

Text

Poison

The air smells of rain, burning fuel, and the countless small poisons that circulate in the city, and my scars ache in the cold, a filigree of pain tracing out the lines of my skeleton. My damned, addicted brain is hissing for me to press the button. I don’t listen to it. I throw my bag into the transport and pick a seat.

“Caller” walks us through the job on the way in. It’s straightforward: get in, grab a prototype from the testing labs, get out again. Minimal casualties, which is why he told us to bring hammerblow rounds. Ideal for a pack that doesn’t want to make the news.

One of the others looks at the chain holding my gun to my wrist. Must be a rook. They’ll learn. You can always tell a seasoned wolf; they stop looking at your little tricks and secrets and just let you get on with your job.

As we come in for a landing, I pull my hat down and make sure my kerchief is going to hide my rebreather. Combined with the goggles and the coat, it should be almost impossible for the watching gargs and other cameras to tell who I am. I’ve already checked my gear: submachine gun, machete, grapnels, a few kinds of blasting charge, a couple of different poisons.

***

The windows break the neon light from outside into rainbow fragments, which play over my coat. The stylised illustration of a winged figure giving gifts from heaven isn’t spiritual; it’s marketing. The gifts being dispensed have brand logos on them for the corp’s subsidiaries.

One of them has the stylised atom of Nucleus Energy on it, and my scars flare into pain for a split second. I know it’s psychological. I grit my teeth behind my collar and carry on.

Phase one is a cakewalk. “Caller” had some inside intel that this part of the building was going to be low-security, and that seems to be working fine: the rook, who I’ve learned is called “Mooch”, is keeping the cameras under control, looping some footage so none of them pick us up. It’s not going to last forever, but it doesn’t have to; we’re not under any given eye for too long, and most of the gargs are outside.

The next corridor is wrong. The walls are riddled with bullet holes and carved with a filigree of blade marks. The mutilated bodies of corpsec guards are everywhere, limbs wrenched from their sockets and throats ripped out. Even through my rebreather, I can smell blood and gunfire, mingled with another smell: a thick, animal musk.

I’ve heard the rumours – everyone has, everyone knows this is happening, no matter how hard corpsec try to suppress it – but I hadn’t expected to see it here. You never do, right? It’s always a friend of a friend that runs into this shit.

This is going to suck.

***

“Mooch” is the first to pull the trigger. Not wise, exactly, but I can’t blame them; the dead guards are mute testimony to how deadly these things are, and it’s not like a full pack in tac gear is exactly subtle. Within seconds, everyone else has joined in. Hammerblow rounds patter off its hairy, gore-spattered skin like rain. A couple of them provoke flinches, leave a mark, but don’t slow it much.

It looks like someone took a very large, feral wolf and mashed it up with a man. Its head is mostly canine, although its teeth are larger than any reasonable animal’s, but the rest of it is chimeric: its apelike stance and powerful arms are human, or at least close to it, but its tail and hair are lupine, and its clawed hands aren’t really either. It’s also covered in blood and shreds of what might, once, have been a corpsec uniform.

It howls in fury and leaps at us.

***

According to “Mirai”, it’s all the fault of the veins and the other rich bastards. Says some conspiracy site put her onto it. Supposedly, the reason corpsec guards are so loyal to the veins, so weird and bootlicky, is that the labs figured out some kind of gene treatment, isolated the stuff from dogs that makes them so loyal, and the suits give it to the When it goes too far, they change, when the scum at the top finish draining their humanity.

“Sigismund” says she’s full of shit. Genetics don’t work like that, and even if there was some secret tampering going on, it’d be more likely to lead to cancers than monsters. Mind you, he thinks it’s magic, so I’m not sure how reliable he is on the science. (He’s got a wild set of ideas about that, too. According to him, the beasts are nature unfettered, lashing out at the corp-choked world in a violent frenzy. Says he’s trying to figure out how to use that power constructively. Hasn’t gotten anywhere yet.)

Right now, though, the cause isn’t particularly critical. It doesn’t matter if it was made by mad science or black magic or if creatures like this are just a thing now. It’s bearing down on me, and there isn’t much I can do to stop it.

I hit the button.

***

Not a literal button, of course; jek doesn’t use physical controls. Instead, I mutter the activation phrase, and a pain like cold fire stabs into my veins as the injectors pump poison into my bloodstream. My whole body convulses, and the cold fire begins to heat up. The part of me that’s given in, the addict in my mind, it tinges the whole process with an edge of lust that shames me. Even so, I’m not stupid enough to pick this fight without it.

The effect is almost immediate. My gear feels like it’s made from cotton candy. My original bones would have already shattered from the convulsion, but the substitutes are doing their job. My vision fogs around the edges, but it’s almost supernaturally clear at the centre – I can make out the beast’s individual hairs, and the shattered remnants of a corpsec radio headset dangling from its neck like a collar.

I give it a burst in the face before it hits me. I can tell it felt the impacts, but it barely slows before tackling me to the ground and knocking my gun out of my hands. Fine by me; the bullets aren’t helping much anyway. The others will have to go on, take care of the mission while I fight. It’s probably best; jek isn’t just physical, and it’s poison for a pack. Nobody on jek is a team player.

The force of the tackle rolls us into the last corridor, but my armour protects me from the impacts. Coat’s not going to be salvageable, though; it has claw marks in it now. Without the jek, I’d have been knocked a lot sillier than I am.

As the beast lunges for me, I bring up my machete. It doesn’t dig deep, but jek-fuelled muscles drive it through the skin. The beast’s blood is surprisingly bright – what little of it comes out, anyway.

It seems to have decided I need to be tenderised before I’m eaten. It scoops me up and slams me into the wall. My goggles dim; the beast has its back to a window, and the neon light from outside would be streaming into my eyes, so they’ve compensated.

Then it all comes to me at once: the window could be my solution here. The beast is recovering quickly; it’s already stopped bleeding. I’m not going to win this one-on-one, and if the pack know what they’re doing, they’ve already headed for the objective. I have to do something unexpected.

I fire one of my wrist grapnels. It hits the window, and the motors whirr. It’s designed for heavy loads, and after a frozen moment while it calculates the weight, it retracts, dragging both of us into the window.

The beast is surprised, but not enough to disorient it. It thrashes around, its rage twisting metal and driving tinted duraglass out of its sockets.

The window gives way, and we both go over the edge.

***

On impact with the wall, one of my charges goes off unexpectedly. My spine doesn’t enjoy it, even through the pain-deadening haze of jek, but it doesn’t do serious harm; it just blasts a chunk out of the wall and flings us into traffic. The beast sinks its jaws into my left arm, and I let go of my machete; it disappears, never to be seen again.

As we tumble, I try and find some weakness. I can’t go for its eyes with any kind of accuracy, its bones are nearly as tough as mine, and even striking at the stomach only seems to make it angrier.

Our descent is bluntly interrupted by a corpsec lighter. Our impact with the cockpit shatters the duraglass canopy, so we must have been going down pretty hard – but, fortunately, the beast hits it first. The impact solves two of my problems at once. First, while landing still hurts like a bastard, even with jek, the beast takes the brunt of the impact. Second, the beast’s breath is laden with pink froth. After a moment, the rage flees its body, and it goes limp. Probably had some of the canopy driven into its lungs; not a pleasant death, but a final one.

The lighter skews wildly off-course, and I realise after a second that the pilot is either unconscious or dead. Corpsec lighters do have autopilots, but some people prefer the personal touch or are worried about reprogramming (a valid concern; “Mirai” once sent a half-dozen corpsec troopers on a routine patrol out of state as a prank), so not everyone uses them.

I don’t have a chance to get to the controls, but luckily, we’re headed towards a window. The pain in my entire body worsens a step as I see a giant Nucleus Energy logo, and then we hit.

***

I stagger to my feet, somehow still conscious. It’s almost impossible to break my bones now, but my right leg is definitely not as straight as I remember it being.

The window in question was right next to a meeting room, apparently. A stunned silence hangs in the air, but in a few seconds – even ones drawn out by jek – people are going to start yelling and running.

The big logo on the wall confirms it. This is a Nucleus Energy office. The bastards whose strontium leak cost me everything. Their poison had seeped into my bones, forced me to get them replaced. Left me with a debt I could only pay off by taking wolf jobs here and there. All my scars, all my wounds, this growing addiction to jek – all their fault. I can’t tell if I’m hurting worse because I know it’s them, or if my body is already redlining my pain receptors.

My jek-focused perceptions show me that one of them has a refrigerator briefcase here. A vein, then, carrying his supply of transfusions around with him. I can’t tell which of the others are veins, but they all might as well be: even if they haven’t had the treatment, they have the same kind of mind. The suits in this city are all the same: cold, bloodsucking bastards, they only care about themselves. The veins took a treatment that would strip their empathy and didn’t even notice. Even before that was developed, they gutted the land, poisoned the water, pumped fumes into the air. We’d be better off without them.

The weight of my gun dangling from my wrist is still there, and with jek reflexes, I could do a lot of damage here. Start at the door, work my way across. Even a vein’s boosted body can’t take a good hit to centre mass, and none of them look to be wearing much armour.

It won’t solve much, but it’ll be a little less poison in the city’s bloodstream.

#short fiction #chrome wolves #cyberpunk #werewolves #I was working on a setting idea and this came out

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khemi · 7 years

Text

Fishbowl Punch

So this is a story I wrote for a Discord Secret Santa, and I’m going to finally post it here! It’s kind of... a mix, but I had a lot of fun writing it.

Slickpaint, and a Solfef/Eriara mash. Cw for alcohol.

You realise you’re boned the moment she slaps some shine on your shoes and hands you a brand new tie like it’s a pleasant surprise instead of a portent of coming doom, all bright pink and the sort of thing you’d laugh off the face of the earth before putting on if it was being presented in any hands other than those soft round ones of hers that could hand you your best friend’s head on a stick and still get an earnest, aw, thanks doll in reply.

Either she knows that and is playing you like a fiddle or she doesn’t and is sincere in everything she does, and one is hot and one is cute and both just make your traitorous heart beat a little faster as you take the tie and loop it under your shirt collar and lean forward just enough she can reach up to you and do it up in a neat knot you absolutely couldn’t have managed with two hands, let alone one. Lousy knots. The woman’s a wizard at them, weaving ties and bows in shapes you’re pretty sure are non-Euclidean in nature, but if an Elder God ever comes knocking looking for some help dolling up for their prom they can take a hike because those magical hands and the bustling body of joy they’re attached to are taken, and adored right the fuck where they already are.

Dolling up is something best left to her, anyway, and she paints her face pretty as she paints a canvas, all subtle colours in the right places that are barely noticeable but could make a sculptor weep jealousy over the perfect shapes they come together to form. You call up into the bathroom if she’s going to wear that one dress, she knows, the sparkly one with the green. She asks you if you’re going to wear your nice eyepatch if she does.

You do not want to wear an eyepatch that makes you look like you’re some anime-obsessed twelve year old’s character on some shitty online collection of art that you have too much pride in yourself to know the name of. There’s a silence while you consider how best to let her down.

She’ll wear the headscarf you like with all the pastels, she calls down into the pause.

Well then.

It’s time to find your nice eyepatch.

You know you’ll find it right where you left it, shoved underneath everything else you never wanted to see again, like the full ream of love notes Clover kept posting through your door before he caught sight of that new guy with all the shouting and the hair that defies at least three laws of physics. The collection of letters seeking your wife’s affection- and also, to your continued distaste, your own- are pushed to one side and reveal a poster with your own face on it, like a further descent through the circles of hell that will end with an eyepatch or with eternal damnation, both of which would suit you about the same. The reward above your leering mug is severely out of date. There’s been at least four major incidents since then, and at least two extra zeroes slapped on the end by the powers that be.

What will be the third level of hell? You lift the poster and- oh. Er. You lift a hand to shove the lens of some imaginary viewing device aside, leaving the purely hypothetical viewer staring at a picture of the finest breed of dog ever bred, sitting on a cushion with a little tartan hat at a jaunty angle upon its noble head. If said viewer were to have briefly caught glimpse of any pictures of you in any kind of canine-based outfit, say the kind used by platonic connoisseurs of all things furred, you would tell them that first of all, they’re seeing things and no such pictures have ever existed, kid, shut your dirty lying mouth.

Secondly you would tell them that mouth better stay shut, or else.

No one can know.

Especially Droog.

And- Look, it’s not your fault that that gal at the store with the fuzzy ears was so persuasive when she started talking about that convention thing and the need for extra guests and discount rates and getting to experience the carefree life of a perfect Scottie-

Oh thank fuck there’s your eyepatch you’ve never been so happy to see it in your life.

After a little business, you return to the stairs just in time to find the missus slipping down it with all the grace her stout body can pack, dress clasped gently in one hand to lift it high enough it doesn’t get in the way of each of her steady steps. She smiles at you, cheeks dark and eyes surrounded with a pastel rainbow that sets off the dark colour in them nicely, and you’re halfway to a goofy smile back before she stops and sniffs once, then again, her eyebrows dropping with her dress and her arms coming into a tight fold over her chest.

What’s that smell, she asks you.

What smell, you say.

The smell of burning, she replies without a minute of time for your shit. And why is there ash on your fingers?

Spring cleaning, you tell her with a very serious nod.

What did you do.

You didn’t do a damn thing.

She said, what did you do.

You squeak. Damn, she’s got that look in her eye that says if you want to make it to the diner in one piece you better buck that shit right the fuck now or she’ll be packing what’s left of you in her handbag. She’s a feisty little thing, really.

You adore her.

Alright, alright, maybe you burned something, obviously accidentally, like some kind of incriminating photo that definitely, one hundred percent does not exist any longer, if it ever did. A tragedy! A disaster. How will you live without that unproven photograph haunting your every-

Was it the dog photo, she asks.

What dog photo? There is no dog photo. Was there ever a dog photo? You doubt it.

She smiles and finishes her descent, bustling past you with a very gentle pat to your arm.

Don’t worry, she says, she has copies.

Your wife is the single worst thing to ever happen to you. You set your jaw and roll your eye into the patch as you turn and sulk your way out behind her, pouting as she settles in the driver’s seat and reminds you that if she’d been looking for a child to take care of, she’d have gone looking for an adoption, not a wedding.

The place is basically empty when you show up, except for two assholes in the corner who both look like the only reason they’re even here is to hide from the fashion police and the laws of decency that forbid the wearing of stupid shades everywhere but mostly indoors- oh, and a group of kids who apparently haven’t heard dress codes have updated a little since the middle ages, given there’s one more cape involved than is acceptable in a modern public place, meaning there’s exactly one cape.

Of fucking course the waiter takes you to the table right next to them, ignoring the many, many empty tables that are literally everywhere else.

“-I’m not saying you can’t wear a cape in your own space,” one of the guys behind you is saying, slow and steady but not escaping the flat hiss the attempt at each s makes when it hits his teeth, “but that’s in your own space, where no one else has to experience its- what did he say?”

“Majesty,” a girl replies, tone so dead you’d think she was if she wasn’t speaking.

“Right, right, its majesty, because that’s totally a thing it’s got in droves.”

“My cape is fine,” hisses back becaped asshole, showing a staggering lack of self-awareness you thought only Deuce was capable of. “In fact it’s more than fine. They asked us to dress smartly and you’re all fuckin’ underdressed and jealous, that’s what you are.”

“Oh yeah. That’s exactly what’s happening here. I’m not embarrassed, I’m devastated by my stupid clothing choices that led to me being caught in this part of town without a cape. I must look like a beggar, barely able to afford a napkin for a makeshift cloak-”

“Put that down,” Cape hisses, informing you along with the chorus of giggles that a napkin had in fact probably made its way across Lisp’s shoulders. “God you wanna talk about embarrassments? You’re an embarrassment.”

“How can I argue with that? You are a professional in the field of huge fuck-ups.”

“You little piece of-”

“Can I get you a drink?” The waiter interrupts, and you’re almost annoyed at him for distracting you from the possible soap-opera in the making over your shoulder until you see your doll giving you a look and hastily sweep up the menu so you can jab at something without looking at what it is. “Oh- An excellent choice, sir. And for the lady?”

“Scotch,” she hums, and you stare at her as she adds that she’d like it on the rocks, maintaining eye contact with you the whole time as your brain filters Scotch to Scot to Scottie and you get the joke being made at your expense. Absolutely hilarious, you mutter at her once the waiter is gone. Her wink tells you she agrees.

You give it a reasonable pause before you filter back into the conversation playing out behind you, irritated to have missed some of what might actually be passable entertainment.

“-not my fault Kanaya enables him,” the girl who didn’t speak before is protesting in the kind of voice that’s bright and loud even when it’s cramped into a whisper. “She says he’s very persuasive when he wants to be!”

“Yeesh, there’s a whole thing I don’t want to know about,” Lisp answers, and you know the affronted sniffle is Cape before he starts complaining.

“There is nothing between Kanaya and I and I don’t much appreciate you implyin’ anythin’ to the opposite effect! Ain’t my fault she’s got a sense of style you’re lacking, or that she’s the only one around who listens to my voice of reason- except you, Ara, obviously, you do plenty of listenin’ to me and I appreciate it constantly, sweetheart.”

“A noble sacrifice that won’t be forgotten by those of us getting our poor ears spared.” It sounds like Lisp just reached and pat her hand in sympathy, and as your glazed eyes roam the menu you gotta say you don’t think you blame him. “A terrible burden, the path you’re walking down…”

“Eridan is more interesting than you think,” Ara replies, revealing herself as the voice of death and still sounding just as excited as the crayfish you’re considering for a starter. “He has a lot of interesting stories about the socio-political imbalances that led to historical conflicts, and also wizards.”

“And also wizards. Fuck, I’m pissing over here.” Yeah, you too, Lisp. You too.

“Wizards are cool,” Cape protests, pout audible in his voice. “Better than fucking bees.”

“Hey the only thing fucking bees right now is other bees and also humanity’s disregard for the most important species on the planet.”

“There I was thinking humans were pretty fuckin’ important.”

“Get back to me when humans can function in perfect harmony with nature to keep the whole world alive and I’ll reconsider.”

This is sounding dangerously like a synopsis of that fucking film Deuce keeps sending you sped up versions of, and this time you’re grateful for the waiter interrupting it right up until you see the monstrosity of a drink sitting beside a small, sensible glass of ice and whiskey.

“One scotch on the rocks,” he explains, placing the glass down in front of your wife even as she continues to stare at the new focus of all your barely contained hatred, “and one fishbowl punch.”

Well you can’t pin them for false advertising because that is a fucking fishbowl in front of you, filled with punch, umbrellas and straws, turned luminescent pink by the flashing ice cubes inside that are pulsing to the beat of a rave being held all over the corpse of your dignity. You stare at it, the waiter stares at you, your missus stares at the waiter and he holds up his little pad like a shield and taps frantically at the scrawled note on it you couldn’t read if you were a code breaker.

“It’s what you ordered, sir!”

Of course it is.

Before you can get out a protest he’s absconded and you’re left gazing at the mesmerising jacuzzi of poor taste that only the sort of person who wears a cape unironically would find appealing, opening and closing your mouth a few times before your dear, darling wife takes pity on you and pushes her scotch into your hand.

You could both share it, she suggests as you down her drink in one, although that would involve consuming it, and you’re not sure what shit the colour of potpourri windex would do to your insides. Come on, she prompts. You can both have a straw each and drink together and it’ll be romantic.

And then you can both get food poisoning or- if it’s a drink it’s just straight-up poisoning, right? And you can have a romantic hospital stay together!

Exactly, your missus smiles, and waits patiently until you cave in and lean forward to take a tentative sip of what you can only assume is the milk of a mutant hybrid between a cow and a stick of fruity bubblegum. Ugh. You make a face that’s probably just a redraw of the same disgusted face everyone seems to make in this godforsaken town, but your doll looks happy and you guess in some deep-down secret part of the withered thing your doctor would hesitantly refer to as your heart, that’s what really matters.

“Oh man, that looks delicious, you think I can order that?” Cape is whispering on the table behind you, and look at that, who would’ve guessed it, who could possibly have foreseen he’d want to drink the atrocious insult to cocktail menus everywhere that is glittering obnoxiously between you and your lady.

A chair creaks, once as someone turns towards you and once again as they turn away.

“We could share,” Ara monotones, “but I want the umbrellas.”

“Of course, love, you can have every umbrella that you want.”

“Ugh,” Lisp starts, “you guys are-”

“I want one.” Bubbly interrupts him, and all of a sudden her sugary voice is like a candy-cane made of cyanide. “Please, Sollux? You said it was my treat today!”

“Fef, I said my willing participation in an event involving sitting next to Eridan for an hour was your treat.”

“No, you said dinner was my treat, and that I could’ve have whatever I wanted!” She’s whining like a kicked puppy and you can perfectly picture the sort of satisfied smirk that must be lighting up Cape’s- Eridan’s? Why do you even care what their names are- face right now. “I want one of those! It’s in a fishbowl, Sollux! It’s so cute!”

“It looks like poison.” A man after your own heart.

“It looks great! Stop being a wet fish and drink it with me! Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? Pretty please with a cherry on top and-”

“Fine! Oh my God, fine. You can have that, I’m not going to stop you.”

“And you’ll drink it with me?” Her smile is so bright it’s making you cast a grouchy shadow.

“...I- guess. Sure.”

Fef squeals, and it’s the delighted nail in Sollux’s coffin. Maybe you’ll see him in the emergency room later, and you can both share a knowing nod about the dangers of flashing cocktails served in pet housing.

Another sip confirms it still tastes like bubblegum.

Sollux manages to bargain his way into ordering the food before the fancy drinks, which is a valiant attempt at escaping the pink-tinted death you’re currently bearing half the brunt of. Maybe he hoped they’d forget or fill up and no longer brave the sugary terror, but his zero hour arrives and you shake your head sadly as you listen to the now fully identified Aradia order two fishbowl punches, and on purpose, which is a whole new level of shame.

The waiter asks her to repeat the order, to make absolutely sure of what she wants. You can’t imagine why.

He passes you shortly after with a tray laden with not one, but two bowls of fuschia piss, and you hear an enthusiastic thank you from Eridan and Feferi and flat ones from Sollux and Aradia, although in the latter case God only knows, that’s probably cheerful for her. You watch the waiter’s reflection turn back towards you in your own fishbowl of death, and as he hurries past you pause and wonder… Maybe if you just.

Your wife quietly enquires after what you’re doing as you reach and start slowly adjusting the bowl sideways.

Upgrading your radio to a television, you explain patiently.

You aren’t spying on anyone, are you? She told you to stop doing that.

It’s not spying if it’s in a public place, you told her that before.

And she told you that as soon as it involves a reflective surface, it’s spying.

You wore the eyepatch, you plead in a muted hiss.

Her fingers tap against the side of the glass and she inclines her hand, her other hand lifting to gently adjust her scarf. Alright, she agrees, and you continue moving the bowl until she adds an ominous but-

But what?

But she gets to take one of the pictures of you in that adorable outfit, blow it up nice and big, and make a painting out of it for her gallery.

Your eyes narrow. She drives a hard bargain.

You know what, maybe you can live without-

“What do you mean it’s stuck?”

On second thought, that sounds lovely, you hope it brings in lots of discerning patrons.

The bowl slides the rest of the way and you finally get a view past yourself, back to the table you’ve been entertaining yourself with on-and-off all night. It isn’t perfect, and you can only see the thick tresses of the two girls, but you have a fair angle on the faces of their dates as Eridan attempts to reach past Sollux’s swatting hands and grab the umbrella that is somehow jammed between his two front teeth.

“‘O! ‘Eth ‘ethethi oo ih-!” Those are probably words but between the teeth and the blockage you’ve stopped being able to pick out much more than what you’re guessing is Feferi, though you’re more amused by how the umbrella is wiggling every time Sollux’s mouth opens and closes. Sollux continues to force Eridan back, turning and leaning across the table. “‘Ethehti!”

“Oh gosh oh goodness-” Feferi is on her feet and leaning over the table, as though walking around it isn’t the option. She leans forward, over the bowl that caused this misery, planting a hand on Sollux’s cheek and bracing the other against the table that they’d been sitting at, one of two pushed together to make a four. Her fingers are spread just in front of the drink, the whole thing tipping forward under her weight. “Okay, I’ve got this! You just hold still and I’ll get this right out-”

“Wait-” Eridan starts but Feferi has got her hand off the table and on the umbrella, and you see her realise her mistake just as the umbrella pops free and takes her balance with it, feet sliding on the ground looking for a purchase they don’t find. She yelps and drops, Aradia moving to catch her but not before Feferi’s legs have flung up and kicked the table hard enough the whole unbalanced thing is flying forward and the bowl of pink murder juice is gracefully arcing up through the air.

Sollux had fallen back into Eridan’s arms and jerked back up just as fast but you know he’s regretting it as his eyes widen behind his glasses the smallest fraction before the wall of pink that’s spraying from the soaring bowl has splashed into him, splattering him and the floor behind him with the punch it also packs. You cover your mouth as Sollux opens his and lets out a pained sound, and Eridan swoops to grab some serviettes for his face but his foot hits the punch dripping onto the floor from the still shaking table and there’s an instant between him being there and him being gone, sneakers up in the air.

One knocks that table, and the punch starts to slide but Aradia catches it and lifts it above her head, sighing and handing it to a frantic Feferi as Sollux gropes blindly forward to try to find the serviettes now accompanying Eridan all over the ground. What he manages to find instead is the punch bowl, which he shoves his hand into just as it’s finished rattling around and then flings his fingers back out of in disgust, the bowl ricocheting away towards Feferi and ending up barely caught in her hand as she balances the first against her shoulder before- in an astounding show of idiocy- lifting her knee to try to steady the table she isn’t even standing in front of.

For a moment, she looks like she’ll pull it off.

She does not.

Aradia has just grabbed Sollux’s glasses and started wiping them as Feferi’s balance gives way for the second time, and you see the glass go sailing up before it comes hurtling down. Feferi barely manages to tuck and roll out of the way in time to avoid the glass or the fresh torrent of punch but her skillful youth roll takes her straight into the path of the waiter rushing to help, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing down on her as his glasses bounce off in what promises to be a further level of hilarity.

“Fuck!” There he goes, scrambling for them, as Feferi squawks under him and Sollux finally regains vision in time to let out his assumed girlfriend’s name in indignation. The waiter gets shoved off, the dame rescued, and the glasses sit in pooling punch and await their retrieval with growing, sticky impatience.

Eridan’s hand has regained ground on the table, and Aradia is attempting to help him up but from the choked wheezes about fucking cape fucking stuck fucking hell you’re guessing he’s a little wrapped up with a fashion disaster that you’re sure is soaking up its lovely new pink ombre wonderfully as he wiggles around on the ground trying to escape his own poor taste.

Your missus moves and you think she’s going to call you off until you glance her way and see her leaning to see over your shoulder, eyes wide and lips pursed. Hah! Even she can’t fault quality entertainment like this, and you know this is the best date both of you have had in years, not including that one time in France with the accidental diamond heist. You grin at her and she rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are tinted darker as she looks back to the action and so do you.

Eridan is up, but the cape has become the second tragic casualty of the punch war after the waiter’s nose, going by the way the kid’s clutching at it and cursing up a storm with words you don’t even recognise. The cape collar, however, has remained as a delightful reminder of what was, turning Eridan into a smart casual dracula who is clinging to Aradia like she’s the only stable thing nearby- which honestly, yeah, you can believe it. She pats his back gently, before picking him up bodily and tossing him into a chair outside of the punch disaster zone, ignoring his confused wheeze as she hops over the table with perfect balance and sweeps the second pair of glasses she cleaned recently up off the ground to wipe them on her dirtied skirt before dropping them onto the chest of the bemused but thankful waiter.

Feferi is still a little unsteady and Sollux appears to be figuring out how to help while also not touching her in anyway lest he dirty her pink-splattered body with the punch that covers his own, but Aradia sweeps her up instead, up onto her arm as she thrusts the serviettes she collected during her sumersault at Sollux and then hooks her second arm under Feferi’s legs.

With that she walks over to the waiter, who has barely sat up and clearly isn’t expecting the looming figure of Aradia with all her curls cascading down her back and a fish-out-of-water hugging her tightly with legs dangling over her arms and punch dripping down the both of them.

He stares up at them both, full of the stupid kind of awe that only shows its face during spectacular shit like this, and then carefully unbuttons his apron and draws out a little notepad, with a little printed label stuck to it, which he offers up with a few dazed blinks.

“Cash or check?”

You’re going to die laughing if you start so you shut yourself up by shoving a straw in your mouth and slurping down glorious, wonderful, life-saving fishbowl punch with the sort of gusto that might get an umbrella stuck between a distracted idiot’s teeth.

Your wife joins you, your eyes meet, and she finally lets her face crack into the sort of gorgeous smile that reminds you why you married her.

You’ll have to come here again, she tells you. She’s a big fan of the drinks.

Yeah, you agree. Yeah.

Turns out, so are you.

#slickpaint #eriara #solfef #erisolfefara #homestuck #i wrote a thing #i don't know the tags so can someone tell me if they know them #drink cw //

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firstjustgoin · 7 years

Text

Other Women’s Boyfriends I’ve Loved

2003

When Georgia first tells me that she has a boyfriend, it’s between the last two stalls in the girl’s bathroom. I can only see her shoes dangling through the crack in the stalls, her gold high-tops and rainbow socks with the scalloped edges that I’ve always wanted but knew I could never pull off.

I think she’s telling me now, between pees, because she doesn’t want to see my face, or maybe she doesn’t want me to see her’s –– how the dark reds must have crept up her cheeks and into the curves of her ears.

“He’s super cool. Nothing like you think he’ll be like because, you know––” She’s referring to his tendency to wear his pants belted right below his butt, with Christmas or Halloween-themed boxers ballooning out above them or how he carries a skateboard with him everywhere but never rides it. “Yeah, okay,” I say but inside I’m thinking bitch. It’s not a word I’ve used out loud yet but it’s been used on me: just once in sixth grade when Johanna was waiting behind me to drink from the water fountain and I took too long or something so she shout-whispered bitch loud enough for the whole hallway to hear and start cackling.

The toilet flushes and then the door next to me creaks open and I realize that I’ve been just sitting here not saying anything for thirty seconds, maybe longer. I pull up my striped pink and white leggings over a pair of My Little Pony underwear I won’t even wear to sleepovers just in case anybody sees. Georgia’s layering on cotton candy lipgloss and making intense eye contact with herself in the mirror when I leave the stall so I just wash my hands quickly and mutter, “See you at passing” and let the bathroom door swing closed behind me.

Zack starts hanging with us at lunch, once or twice a week and it’s the first time I’ve ever eaten with a boy so I never knew how disgusting their eating habits were. He brings over two or three slices of sausage pizza and then drowns each slice with what he calls “special sauce”: a combination of ranch dressing, ketchup, and mayo. It makes me want to barf into my tuna sandwich, but Georgia –– a girl who forced me to have British tea parties until we were 11 –– just sits next to him, twirling her hair and laughing at all of his dumb jokes.

The first time I hear him tell her that he loves her is after school by the bike racks. We’re waiting for the bus and he’s just fiddling with the wheels of the skateboard I’ve still never seen him ride. We’re about to board the bus and all of a sudden they’re making out right in front of me –– their thick, messy tongues jousting between gaping, open mouths –– and then when they finally pull apart he looks right at her and says, “I love you, Georgie.” Bitch, bitch, bitch, I think all the way home until it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.

They break-up and get back together more times than we have pop quizzes in math class. During one of their off times, Zack turns to me during the one class we have together and says, “Damn, what do you think Mr. Carlson did over the weekend? He looks like he got eaten and puked out by my cat.” I’m kind of shocked that Zack’s talking to me at all, especially since he just walked past me rubbing the shoulders of his sobbing ex-girlfriend less than an hour ago. But when I look at Mr. Carlson, I break out into a fit of laughter. His hair is moving in a million directions like it’s been electrocuted, his eyes are shining red, and his collared shirt is crinkled up too. He looks exactly like cat puke.

Zack starts laughing too and before we know it Mr. Carlson is standing right next to us saying, “Is there something you’d like to share with the class, folks?” and we shake our heads back and forth as hard as we can and say, “No sir” while biting the insides of our cheeks to keep from laughing again.

After that, we’re always laughing about something during 6th period History class. When Georgia tells me that they’re back together I say, “Yay! That’s awesome!” but I’m still thinking bitch like a metronome in my head, this time because I’m not even sure if she deserves him. He’s got dark green eyes and one of the few kids our age who’s managed to nearly escape puberty without any pimples or acne scars. He starts showing up in my dreams, laughing and smiling with his eyes looking right at me.

It’s almost Christmas vacation and Georgia and I are sitting in her kitchen looking at Florida Keys guidebooks in preparation for the family vacation I’m tagging along to.

“Hey, Nell,” she says quietly, her eyes still glued to the page about sea life off the Florida coast.

“Yeah?” I say, my mouth half-full of Cheerios.

“What if I told you that Zack’s gonna come with us? To Florida? That wouldn’t be weird, right?”

Wouldn’t be weird, right? I can’t say anything else but no so I shake my head and say, “no” when what I really mean is Yes, bitch, it would be weird and I hate you for even asking.

But I don’t say that, I don’t say anything not then and not for the whole four days we’re lying on the beach crisping up like toast left too long in the oven. I don’t say anything because Georgia’s weaving her fingers in his and sharing virgin mango daiquiris with the same curly straw and whispering “I love you” and rubbing up against each other when they think I’ve already fallen asleep.

2007

Emmanuel leans back in his chair while Ms. Neusen is looking the other way and whispers to me, “Hey, you got a piece of gum I can cop?”

I giggle nervously and fumble through my backpack looking for a loose stick of gum that isn’t coated with the crumby leftovers of the many extra large bags of Doritos I’ve been stuffing in my face in the car before pulling into my driveway. I find a clean stick and hand it to him wordlessly, afraid to make eye contact for fear that my face will erupt in a firework of pink hues.

When I finally get the courage to look up at him, he’s unwrapping the stick of gum, eyeing it with his dark brown eyes nestled below thick black eyebrows. He pops it in his mouth so casually like he’s doing a commercial for Trident. He turns back to me and smiles wide and says in a light singsong, “Nell rocks my world” to nobody but me.

I’m sprung.

I trace his full name into the tops of my desks during every class. Emmanuel David Díaz. I actually look forward to 1st period English. I toss and turn in my sleep on Sunday nights, imagining how he’ll saunter through the doorway into our class the next morning, his shaggy brown hair waving behind him like a cape.

You might not think to look at him, the quarterback of the football team, always surrounded by a hive of boys with small heads and large biceps, but he has real thoughts and feelings and maybe it’s because I’m currently living in a cesspool primarily devoid of both those things, but it makes me love him even harder.

Usually it starts real quiet and then builds. A quick nod and a “hey” when he slides into his desk next to mine. Ms. Neusen will say or do something ridiculous –– like attempt to use household appliances as metaphors for Romeo and Juliet –– and we’ll cover our mouths to mute the laughter and turn to each other with eyes wide.

“You think she practiced this one in the mirror this morning?” I say.

“Maybe to her husband over breakfast?” He says.

“I’m sure the dog had to sit through at least one rehearsal,” I say, before the giggles become too intense. I cover my face with my hand and turn away. He can’t see me like this.

Too sprung.

I’m an A student, honors English, but when I’m slouching in the back of Ms. Neusen’s first-period English Lit class with Emmanuel, I’m the class clown. Second and Third quarter report cards bewilder my parents. Turns in above average papers always on time, but does not know when to stop socializing in class. Smart but often insubordinate.

“Every single character in Shakespeare’s plays are insubordinate,” I say to my mom when she corners me in the kitchen while buttering my toast, “She really doesn’t give us very good role models.”

“Honey,” my mom sighs, her face stuck somewhere halfway between disappointment and bemusement, “Most of the characters in Shakespeare’s plays end up dead. I don’t think she’s trying to give you role models.”

I don’t tell her it’s because of a boy, the boy; the boy who has been taking up major real estate in my poetry journals for the last seven months and counting, the longest a boy has ever taken up residence there.

Cuz that boy can make a hill look like a giant mountain

he can make a flower look like a room filled with roses

like the sunshine has just come out after the storm.

When we’re exchanging jokes at the back of the classroom, it feels like we are levitating in a world without gravity, without reality. But then the bell rings and my stomach drops because I know what’s waiting for us right outside this door.

Leaning up against the lockers –– black choker around her neck, dark eyeliner painting her face, wearing a short black jean skirt –– is Louisa, Emmanuel’s girlfriend. She smiles when she sees him, wraps her long thin arms around his neck and plants a thick, wet kiss on his lips. His hands travel from her back down to her ass and I stand there for a few seconds too long, unable to remove my eyes from her tiny, little ass.

Louisa and Emmanuel are the couple everyone loves to spin stories about, no matter how true or false they are.

“I heard she went down on him in his mom’s Escalade on the side of the highway.”

“I heard they had sex in Conor’s dad’s pool after everybody passed out.”

“But she’s been fingering that foreign exchange student in the girl’s locker room during gym class.”

I stumble upon these glimmers of gossip like a peek into a portal to a world I can’t understand -– Escalades, oral sex, kegs, pool parties –– all of it pieces of him I never see in the back of Ms. Neusen’s 1st period English class. I can visualize this world only because of how I actually spend my Friday nights: cuddled up with Marisa and Ryan in The OC or Blair and Serena on Gossip Girl. When I imagine Louisa and Emmanuel having sex in a pool, it’s a villa overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When I imagine Louisa fingering a foreign exchange student, it’s in the coat check room at the Met Gala.

But when I’m sitting in the back of the class with him, I don’t tell him that’s how I spend my Friday and Saturday and Sunday nights. I don’t tell him that I line my eyes with black charcoal every morning only to rub it off before walking outside or how I listen to The Pussycat Dolls more than the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I slouch and chew contraband gum and laugh at all of his jokes, trying to cultivate that illusive low-maintenance personality that will make him realize that I see deep into his soul in a way none of his slutty girlfriends ever will.

2011

Wyatt and I met a couple years back at Freshman orientation, a hopelessly awkward time when everyone’s pretending they’ve had more sex and gotten drunker and have more cool friends from high school than they actually do.

Wyatt didn’t have any time for that shit, which I respected though couldn’t exactly emulate. He was part of a pack of boys, wild and rabid, on the hunt for frat parties they could get into and I had developed a bit of a reputation for sneaking into them. Total fluke. After a hot streak, my luck dried up and they went off wandering for the next party hopper to whom they could affix themselves.

But Wyatt stayed. On Friday nights when the rest of the dorm floor ventured off to find upperclassmen to buy them booze, we climbed up through the dense forested hillside next to campus and smoked weed, talking about the end of the world. It wasn’t imminent or anything, but when you’re a college freshman, riddled with anxious energy to know more than you do, talking about the end seemed fitting.

We’d stay up there until all the was left at the bottom of the bowl was ash and the early morning fog started descending from the sky. Then we’d stumble back down the hill grabbing blindly for branches when we tripped over tree roots and rocks.

After those first few months of college where you cling to whoever’s close by, we found ourselves flung to the opposite sides of campus: me staying up in bio labs late into the night instead of getting high and him jamming in underground shows in whatever band he was in that month. I’d get the occasional last-minute text invite for a while until even those dried up and then we’d nod to each other in the library and chat about whatever professor was killing us that semester, but never broached the subject of the inevitable apocalypse or even the destruction of the coral reefs.

We’ve reconnected recently, now that we’ve got a mutual group of friends who all get together to do improv together. I still can’t believe I’m in a college improv group given how much it used to scare the shit out of me in high school. Whenever I’m up on stage with the spotlights staring coldly back at me and I hear someone yell, “Give me a random word!” I freeze up and think for a second that I’m fifteen and part of some cruel practical joke.

After a big showcase event, we find ourselves squished together on a fraying, floral couch with god knows how many substances soaking into its cushions. Someone passes me a joint and we just turn to each other and start laughing and fall right back into it again.

“You read the story about the bees?” He says, his mouth turned downward but the creases along the edges of his green eyes betraying the laughter bubbling up.

“Oh yeah, fucking scary shit. And how about North Korea’s nukes?” “Fuck, I know. People are saying with what’s-his-face dead now that we might be able to intervene but I don’t know.”

“I know!” And we both crack up. He’s still the only person I know who can talk about worldwide nuclear warfare while laughing.

“Hey, babe!” I hear from across the room. It’s Margot, Wyatt’s girlfriend, who is cool as hell and made a big name for herself on campus recently for her feminist photography. She even got a cover of her period blood-stained underwear and bushy underarms on the front cover of a campus zine, much to the chagrin of the Board of Trustees. She ambles over to us and sits down on his lap, her long, hairy legs draping over mine.

“Hey Nell,” she says, “How’s the night? You killed it up on stage today.” I smile and squeeze her hand, “Oh I don’t know about that,” I say, pausing to exhibit proper modesty, “I think the whole team kicked ass.”

“Can I borrow Wy for a sec?” She asks as she pulls him up and towards the beer pong table. “I need him to do a celebrity shot.” I gesture a “go ahead” motion with my hands and watch and she leads him away.

Two lost games of flip cup and a chugging contest later, the whole world’s spinning, making me feel like one foot’s walking up a flight of stairs while the other foot’s trying to walk down. I rest my head on the side of the couch and after what I think is just a second, Wyatt’s leaning over me, shaking my shoulders and whispering, “Hey, Nell! Nell! You okay?”

I groan and try to sit up. The lights are dimmed and the room’s empty besides us, just littered with a bunch of crumpled red solo cups and PBR cans. “Er, yeah, I was just –– just sleeping it off a bit. But I’m feeling, just, uh, fine.”

He sits on the couch next to me and pulls my legs over his lap. “Yeah, you seem just, uh, fine to me,” he smiles and starts to rub my calves.

“Hey, Wyatt?” “Yes?”

“Is the world ending?” He laughs. “No, I don’t think it is yet. Though, if it was,” he pauses for a second and looks at me with his eyes suddenly wide and mischievous, “what would you want to do?” His hand is crawling up my leg towards the edge of my skirt. My heart’s pounding against the bone and for a second I think about pushing his hand away but the couch is so deep and soft and his hand feels like fire against my skin. I don’t push him away; I pull him in.

His tongue slips into my mouth at the same moment as his finger enters me and I want to say that I’m still drunk, but I don’t feel the alcohol anymore, just the buzz of synapses flying. I unbuckle his belt with one hand and plunge my hand onto his dick, hard and ready.

It’s not until he’s inside me that I realize that music’s still playing from speakers in the other room. I hear a man’s voice crooning and it takes me a second to realize who’s singing. John fucking Mayer. I can’t help it, I burst out laughing.

“Um. Yes?” He says while he rocks back and forth above me.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just that ––” I think about trying to explain: the years I spent lying alone on my bed in my childhood bedroom, staring at the ceiling and imagining myself into the lives of my classmates. It was Heavier Things, it was Room for Squares that set the score for those interminable, pimpled years where my brain didn’t fit my body and my body did not fit my life.

But there’s a boy inside me and so I don’t say any of that. I just shake my head and mumble, “Ugh, tequila” and pull him closer and deeper.

When we’re done, he buttons up his pants as I clasp my bra, not needing to say a word. As I’m about to walk out, he grabs my hand and kisses me on the lips, barely a peck, and I shuffle the rest of the way home wondering what the fuck just happened.

The next time I see him is at a party a couple weekends after, in a black lit basement with a hanging beer pong table and a bar glued with beer bottle caps. College chic. I’m there with a group of other friends and I don’t even know he’s going to be playing, but there he is in the corner with his bass, hair falling in front of his face. My heart starts beating fast and I feel it in every part of my body. I stare shamelessly, waiting for him to look up and catch my eye.

Then I see her: Margot, standing to the side closest to him, staring too. She’s mouthing every word to this shitty college basement faux-rock and bouncing along with the bass. My heart’s beating like crazy now, but instead it feels like it’s crawling up my throat trying to escape.

When the music ends, I watch her step across wires and over speakers to get to him, her hands sliding into his back pockets and he kisses her, his hands covering both of her cheeks. I back into the corner of the room where the black light doesn’t hit and sink into the sticky concrete floor, feeling nothing but emptiness now buzzing inside me.

2017

The first time Paul and I speak, it’s with our backs on sticky linoleum floors of a fourth grade classroom, scraping gum off the undersides of the desks.

The janitorial staff is on strike again, and instead of offering to meet their demands, the superintendent's office has decided to initiate the adult version of chore charts for an already precarious teachers’ union. It’s mine and Paul’s turn to scrape the gum off the desks and it’s a duty I hold with the same amount of honor and responsibility as cleaning the errant pee off the bathroom floors in the kindergarten wing.

“This is karma, huh,” he says to me from under a desk in the next row.

“I’m sorry?”

“You know, for all of the gum I shoved under my desks when I was a snotty kid.” He rolls out from under the desk and I do the same, surprised to see a tall man in his early 30s with a full head of hair in front of me. Most teachers in this school are either 24-year-old white women straight out of education school or octogenarians.

“I’m Paul, by the way,” he reaches out his hand to shake mine, but changes directions mid-course. “I suppose this isn’t the best circumstance for a handshake.”

“I suppose not,” I say, and offer an awkward fist bump instead. “Oh, I’ve clearly been hanging around too many fifth graders.”

He laughs and reveals two rows of perfectly straight, white teeth. His mouth looks like the white picket fences lining the bougie part of town I sometimes drive through after work, just to remind myself to get the hell out of this town before I settle for a house barricaded by the suburban sprawl cliché.

“You new to Deer Park?” I ask, lamely, knowing the answer already as he begins to nod.

“Started last week, brought me in just in time for this rousing array of household chores. Left behind a cushy programming job for this too, can you believe it? But now I’m the newest intrepid Computers teacher, determined to make a difference by teaching third graders how to type 20 words a minute.”

“Have you seen a third grader recently? They can type 100 words a minute as long as it’s on Snapchat.”

“Oh god, we’re really old aren’t we?” He smiles again and this time his rows of pearly teeth reflect off the fluorescence in the room, shining like tiny moons.

We go from scraping gum after school to eating lunch in the teacher's lounge every day, talking about the latest murder podcast we’re listening to and quietly snickering while Brenda, the school librarian, stands in front of the refrigerator smelling her brand-new turkey sandwich only to decide it might have mold or salmonella or something and throwing it out.

My favorite part about being a teacher, besides the sweet perks, is the continual realization that the young, hip teachers I had growing up were all rushing home after a hellish day in the classroom to drink a bottle of wine or smoke a joint or have crazy sex with a stranger. It’s comforting to know that teachers have been defying stereotypes for generations just as much as the more adventurous chosen careers of my college friends, who are all investigative reporters and backpackers and third-year residents.

While everyone else at our quarterly appreciation parties (a half-hearted attempt from the administration to thank us for not striking) is shoving baby photos into each other’s faces and complaining about their IRA accounts, Paul and I sneak out to the playground and pull a few long drags off a joint one of us has in our pockets while taking turns pushing each other on the swings, feeling almost light enough to be seven again.

He’s the only one I can say these kids are the fucking worst to and he knows to read the love I have for them underneath the frustration. Other teachers just let their mouths hang open in disgust and whisper, “you shouldn’t say such things” like they are duchesses in Victorian England, the purveyors of decorum.

But something’s been off about Paul in the last couple days. We’ll be sitting at the corner table in the lounge and I’ll be telling him about one of my fifth grader’s writing a story about his sister having sex, and nothing. He’s a blank stare.

“You okay?” I ask, but he just shakes his head quickly and stands up, making up some excuse about prepping for next period.

Last week, we were both on lunch duty and I swear I saw him just mindlessly eat some leftover french fries off a kid’s tray, his eyes never leaving some indeterminate place on the wall.

When I finally get him alone, I circle around the elephant-sized silence in the room, and finally just blurt out all in one breath, “So what’s going on? You seem a billion light years away these days.”

He nods, not betraying even a glimpse of his teeth. “I’m sorry, Nell. It’s been a week from hell.” He sucks in a huge, heavy breath. “We were at the doctor last week. Actually, four fucking doctors, all more clueless than the last.”

My brain’s turns off slightly at the first mention of we, a pronoun I usually try to ignore coming from him. We means him and his girlfriend, nearly fiancé, once he saves up enough cash to buy the engagement ring. The older female teachers love chatting him up to ask about what kind of proposal he’s going to do and I spend about as much of that time talking about how expensive proposals and weddings are an archaic symbol of a sexist society.

I think my face is showing the proper amount of concern, though, because he keeps talking. “They, well the last two doctors who finally got a good read of her test results, think it’s cancer. Fuck I just, I can’t deal with her having cancer. ” He pauses there and finally looks up from his twitching hands at me, and I’m at a near loss.

“Shit. That’s so scary, I’m so sorry. That’s the fucking worst,” I say. “What happens next?” I’ve watched my mom navigate grieving people my entire life like a master. She’s an empathy machine, always knowing exactly the right questions to ask and the right amount of sadness to express personally. I did not accrue those skills. I hide in bathrooms at funerals, stuff too many hors d’oeuvres into my mouth and just say weakly, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry” if I have to speak the grieving person directly, while thinking what good is I’m sorry when someone they love is fucking dead? What good is an apology in the face of death?

For someone who spends so much of her time thinking about death and how life on earth will end, I am remarkably inept at dealing with actual, in-your-face death or dying. Paul knows this; we’ve talked about this a million times, but here he is telling me that the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with has tumors literally growing inside of her and I can’t do anything but throw these weak-ass apologies in his face.

I don’t talk about murder with him anymore and he doesn’t either. During lunch, he’ll call home to check in on his girlfriend and I’ll watch Brenda sniff and sniff each corner of her sandwich while sliding further and further into my chair. When we do eat together, I test the waters with what kinds of conversation topics he can stomach.

“You hear about that conspiracy with the dogs Vulture posted this morning?” I ask. “It’s actually crazy; there was this huge investigative piece that came out about the town across the river that’s literally taking people’s dogs and bringing them to a kill shelter.“

Paul’s sipping a diet coke and nods, “Yeah, Jenna was texting me about this today. She thinks we shouldn’t even let our dogs go outside anymore in case they come by our neighborhood.” Jenna’s losing her hair, I see it on the cuffs of Paul’s jeans. Thick clumps of dyed red hair wrapping around him like chains.

I’ve gone too dark; I try to pivot back. “You missed it the other day, Frieda brought her dog in for her parent-teacher conferences and it shit all over the Hendersons. They had a field day, talking about suing the school or something for damages. I don’t know who I hate more: rich people or fucking dogs.”

“I can’t believe you don’t like dogs. There’s something seriously broken about you,” Paul says, laughing. “Sometimes I think our dogs are like the biggest thing in my life right now.”

I’m walking out of school the next day and I see him sitting on the benches in front of the bus stop, his tie pulled out and hair all mussed up. I’m about to head over to check in on him until I hear him whisper yelling on the phone.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s all unimaginably worse for you, but you’ve gotta understand the position you’re putting me in,” he’s saying, his perfect moon teeth gritted so tight, I’m surprised I can understand a word coming out of his mouth.

Picking a fight with a cancer patient. Classy, Paul.

“I’m about to come home, can’t we just talk about this there? I’m just exhausted is all. Today, a kid puked on my shoes. And like a fucking maniac he just wiped off his mouth and kept typing.”

I lean awkwardly against the bike racks and pretend to flip through Facebook, a skill I’ve perfected after a year-long teaching gig with 11th graders. High Schoolers can ingest social media while listening in on their friends’ conversations like master multi-taskers.

“I’m trying. I just don’t feel like you’re hearing me at all. I’ve got nine hours a day in this sinkhole of a school and then I come home and it’s just ––” He puts his hand up to his eyes like he’s about to cry and I think about walking back into the school, awash with shame over witnessing this moment of naked sadness.

It feels like a minute passes while we’re both suspended in silence.

Then he snaps. “Fucking great. See ya.” He pushes his finger hard to his touch screen and slams his phone into the briefcase beside him on the bench.

I begin ambling down the steps, pretending I just walked out of school while still aimlessly refreshing Facebook every few seconds.

He looks up at me with bloodshot eyes.

“Oh hey, Paul. What’s up?” I say with the same amount of nonchalance as a rocket launcher.

He shakes his head but says nothing. I reach out my fingers to touch his shoulder but curl them back to my palm.

I look back and forth quickly to the edges of the empty parking lot. It’s Friday afternoon and everyone’s long since run off to their respective cocoons. “Wanna get high?” I ask and he smiles for the first time in what seems like a long time and follows me to our cars, parked side by side in the abandoned parking lot.

We sit on a bench off the highway for an hour smoking and saying almost nothing at all. It’s 78 degrees and humid for late spring, but my whole body is shivering like every hair on my arms and neck is being pulled separately, invisibly. I drive the rest of the way home with our last interaction playing on repeat in my head: his swollen eyes staring into mine, his body leaning towards me until finally, smiling faintly, he just says, “Thank you, Nell” and then drives away. Maybe I’m stoned, but it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to a man in my life and I can’t shake the electricity from my veins.

The next morning I awake before sunrise, just as the warm glow peeks out from above the horizon. I run through my neighborhood, my legs feeling powerful and assured, watching as the first lights flicker on in living rooms and dogs bark to be taken out for a walk. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been up to watch the first moments of a stranger’s daily routine; to watch them brush the sleep from the corners of their eyes through filtered light, the muted yawns while slouching against the kitchen counter watching the coffee drip, drip, drip through the percolator.

When I started teaching, at a school as far up in Bronx as you can get without being in Yonkers, I would roll out of bed like a knot of hair and bad breath and clumpy mascara. I lived in a six bedroom loft in Bushwick at the time, where the walls didn’t quite reach the ceilings and I could hear my roommates tripping over shoes in the hallway at 3:00 am with random people they’d met at bar, followed by low moans and the creaks of bedsprings long into the night. I was young enough at the tie that I could delude myself into thinking that I wasn’t gentrifying Bushwick; I was hovering there like a spectre until I could jet out of its muggy concrete streets and back into a land that made sense –– upstate maybe or out west, a place that aimless twenty somethings settled into like sand on a layer of glue.

I would catch the L at Wilson and take it across the bridge to Union Square at the same time as the street vendors and morning TV crews, all of us staring at nothing across subways and in empty platforms, imagining ourselves into other lives. Then I’d catch the 4 up to Woodlawn just as most of my students would be eating breakfast, willing myself into waking up in time to teach a class on To Kill a Mockingbird or All Quiet on the Western Front, or whatever unrelatable lesson plan I had been assigned to teach that day.

One year and I was burned out, pushed out of the Bronx and New York City altogether by my own incompetence and inability to mold my life to the thrum of the city while expecting it to mold itself to me. A classic New York failure story. I moved out the next summer with a teaching degree and a year of trauma under my belt and $250 in my savings account.

I teach fifth grade in the burbs now at a school with a compost heap and an annual gala planned by their Parent Teacher Association with literary themed cocktails. Tequila Mockingbird, the moms order at the bar and laugh and laugh and laugh. The same moms who storm into my classroom during parent-teacher meetings to demand I structure my lessons around Tommy’s learning style. He really prefers to meditate while learning math, I’m sure that won’t trouble you.

After five years, teaching here has settled into this one-note, tasteless, perfectly straight road leading nowhere. Until I met Paul under the desks, smelling like Bubblicious and Old Spice.

I can’t fully explain what this sense of closeness is with a man whose life I just hover around, but it’s addicting. I want him to know me without having to risk an emotional investment; I want to know him without worrying about his attachments to the world outside of me.

I don’t tell my friends any of this. I let Paul float like a fantasy coloring my living reality. During the day, I watch him from across the playground, chasing kids across the blacktop with his arms flailing wildly. But at night, he is the person who infects my thoughts just as I’ve released conscious control while falling asleep, the one who sneaks into my dreams and smiles 32 moons.

On Monday, Paul comes in and he looks like a new man, his face aglow and doing everything but literally whistling as he saunters down the hallway. I wait until lunch and corner him in the teacher’s lounge. “You look happy. Anything in particular?”

He whirls towards me and for a second I think he’s going to lift me up in the air or something he’s got so much energy. “I proposed,” he says, his eyes sparkling.

“You what?” I say, forgetting to be cool or calm or collected or all of the other things I imagine a Cosmopolitan article titled “10 Tips & Tricks for Reacting to When the Man You Thought You Loved Gets Engaged” might suggest.

“I proposed, Nell. Jenna said yes. We’re getting married! Obviously, it’s going to be crazy. We trying to do it by the end of the summer, you know, while she’s still got energy and before the next round of chemo, but we’re doing it. Oh my god, I can’t believe we’re doing it.” This is the most I’ve ever seen him talk, except when he’s high and talking about the history of astronomical discovery or something else I thought he only talked about with me. I know better now.

“Holy shit, dude. That’s incredible. How incredible! What an incredible thing.” Does he notice that I’m repeating myself because my brain’s buffering and can’t move past it? “I’m so happy for you,” I say, hoping that he can’t hear the flatness of my voice from his perch in the clouds.

I can’t look at him, the joy radiating from him, the love he sees beyond the walls of this elementary school, the future he sees with a woman who might not make it past the next teacher appreciation party. I hate how much I hate a woman whose body is literally crumbling inside her but whenever I think about the love she’s taken from him, I can only think bitch, bitch, bitch like a metronome in head.

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