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the-witty-pen-name · 3 years

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The Nanny Pt. 1

Lee Bodecker x Nanny!F!Reader

18+

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, implied age gap (reader is in her 20s), cursing, Sandy and Carl being bad parents, 18+ content in later chapters

Summary:

Based on this Request: The reader moves to Meade/Knockemstiff while answering an advertisement for a nanny in the paper. We learn that the ad was posted by Sandy, who has the reader watch her child whenever she and Carl leave to do their secret thing. After one of these trips, Sandy and her husband never return, so the reader is left caring for their baby. With the new investigation into these events, she meets Sandy’s brother Lee, the older, out of shape, alcoholic bachelor, and they are suddenly thrown into each others lives as he begins looking into his sister’s disappearance. Through it all, Lee starts to fall for her, and they slowly become a family.

A/N: Here is the first part of my newest series and I want to thank the anon who reached out to me with this idea!

If I missed anything I should include as a warning that I missed please let me know!

Taglist Form is in my bio and should be updated to now to include this fic! (If for some reason it isn’t working send me a message and I’ll make sure you’re added!!)

“Damn it, Sandy, can’t you handle that?” Carl yells from his dark room as the baby starts crying again.

“Fuck you, Carl,” Sandy shouts back, hurrying to put out her cigarette before heading to the nursery.

Their little girl was just about a year old, and neither one of them knew what they were doing. Carl was incredibly indifferent and despite her honest attempts at motherhood, Sandy’s maternal instincts never kicked in like she thought it would happen. Carl was annoyed that it cut into their time they would be on trips. They weren’t able to photograph models with the baby on the road, so he’d been itching to get back on the road.

“Is she hungry?” he shouts back, not even bothering to take his eyes off of the most recent photographs he had been developing.

“I just fed her!”

“Then why is she crying?”

“Fuck if I know,” Sandy shouts back exasperated. She scooped up the baby from her crib and started to rock her back and forth in her arms. Sandy also tried burping her, humming a little lullaby she made up on the fly… no luck. She walks around the house with the baby on her hip, trying to rock her back to sleep.

“We haven’t able to get back on the road in a year,” Carl says, clearly frustrated.

“That ain’t purely my fault,” she spits back, “Takes two to make a baby, Carl.”

“Fuck I know,” he groans, “But I need new inspiration. If I take one more picture of nature…”

“If she’s such a hindrance, pay for a damn sitter like I suggested months ago,” she counters.

“We can’t have no stranger walking around the house Sandy,” he points out.

“Just keep your damn room locked, it’s not a huge deal,” Sandy sighs. “Besides, no one is gonna snoop around if you pay ‘em enough. You damn well produce your own incriminating evidence; you should always have that room locked anyways.”

“We only have to worry about your damn brother,” Carl points out, “We hire a fucking sitter that’s two people we need to worry about.”

“You’re just to goddamn cheap to hire somebody,” Sandy states, moving back towards the nursery, the baby now snoring softly.

“You know what? Fine,” Carl says defeated. “But you’re in charge of putting the ad out and hiring somebody.”

“Thank you,” she says in a sing song tone, happy she got her way. But the moment of quiet that follows is short lived as they baby starts crying again.

“Please for the love of God can you just take care of that?” Carl yells, and the argument circles back to the beginning.

You had sat in the small dinner in the corner booth hunched over the newspaper and nursing your now cold cup of coffee. You had just arrived in Knockemstiff and were looking for work. “Any leads?” Julie asked as she topped off your coffee. Julie was your roommate. You had found her the same way you were currently looking for a job. You must have answered at least ten terrible Roommate Wanted ads until you had found Julie. The two of you now share an apartment- the top floor of a three-family owned by a sweet older couple.

“Thank you,” you say without looking up from scanning the ads. “Maybe this one?” You say pointing to one of the ads. She looks to see her manager stepped out for his smoke break before sliding in the booth across from you. You slide the paper over to her and she reads the ad out loud.

NANNY NEEDED Knockemstiff, Ohio

Couple that travels for work in need of a nanny for one-year-old daughter.

Temporary live-in position for several weeks at a time. Pay negotiable.

Call Sandy Henderson at the below number.

“I can sublet the room temporarily while you stay there,” Julie offers. “It’s a pretty vague offer,” she continues. “I wouldn’t commit until you call and speak to that Sandy woman.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll need to be interviewed,” you agree. “What kind of people are comfortable just leaving their baby for weeks at a time with a perfect stranger?”

“Paul is still out back I think,” she chuckles, “I’ll let you use the wall phone.”

You take a seat at one of the stools at the counter, and she dials the number for you and then passes you the receiver. You mouth a thank you and she waves her hand in dismissal as she heads over to take someone’s order.

“Whaddya want?” the woman on the other end answers abruptly.

“Oh, I’m calling about the ad in the paper regarding the nanny position. Is it still available?”

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, hun,” the woman says, now in a much nicer tone. “Thought it was my brother calling. Yes, it is, and we need it filled as soon as possible. When are you available?”

“For an interview?” You ask.

“Yeah,” she says mumbled, like she is dangling a cigarette from her mouth. “Can you come today?”

“Oh, wow. Yes, I can,” you reply.

“Great, um, you got a pen? Take down this address.”

About two hours, a change of clothes and a cab ride later, you were standing outside a house towards the end of town. It was a little run down, but what building in this town wasn’t? You were a little nervous of course, but it was also the most unconventional way you have gotten an interview. Part of you was relieved, because the woman on the phone sounded real, not phony, but the circumstances still made you uneasy. Julie had the address and said you’d call when you got back to the taxi dispatch.

“Welcome, welcome,” Sandy smiled, opening up the door for you. She had one hand on the doorknob and one of the cutest babies you’d ever seen in the other. “Come on in, make yourself comfortable.”

“Who is this?” you coo, leaning down to the baby’s eye level. “She’s darling.”

“This little sweetheart is Valerie,” Sandy smiles, passing the baby to you. “She’s so well-behaved. Hardly ever cries.”

“She’s adorable,” you smile, as the baby cuddles up close, resting her head on your shoulder. “I didn’t properly introduce myself on the phone. (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

“I’m Sandy,” she introduces herself. “Please take a seat on the couch, get comfortable. I hate things that are so formal. Bleh.”

You take a seat on the couch, and readjust the little girl in your arms so she’s sitting on your lap and her back is resting against you so she is supported.

“So, my husband and I are on the road a lot, usually,” she begins, “We took some time off when we had Valerie, but we really need to start working again, you understand.”

“Of course, what do you both do?” you ask politely.

“We’re photographers,” she beams, “Mostly nature and landmarks- which reminds me! We have a darkroom in the house, but that door will be locked when you’re staying here. We don’t want any damage to any of the negatives we have stored in there you understand. Everywhere else in the house is yours to explore! And of course we gotta spare bedroom you can call your own.”

“Fair enough,” you joke.

“So, tell me about yourself, honey,” she smiles, crossing her legs in the armchair where she sat.

“Well, I just moved here a few weeks ago actually,” you begin, “I just recently finished school, and now I’m looking for work. I just got my degree in early childcare from the state college.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she says with a clap of her hands. “So, you’re local?”

“Yes, I live in town.”

“Excellent! We’d also love for this to be like an on-call thing as well, you know for date nights and things like that for times when we’re home. Like for a few hours here and there. And of course, we’ll always live money for groceries or whatever you need on top of your pay for emergencies incase Valerie needs formula or diapers or anything.”

“Perfect,” you smile, surprised how well the conversation was going. Sandy was easy-going and nice to talk to. The two of you sat and talked for a little under an hour, her asking all the standard questions you anticipated. You also were able to ask her some more of your own questions as well. It was the most effortless interview you had been on easily.

“I’m sorry you weren’t able to meet Carl today,” she says when she is showing you out. “But hun, I feel confident to offer you the job. We haven’t had many applicants and you’re the most qualified one I’ve spoken to. The job is yours if you want it?”

“When can I start?” you smile, making her laugh.

“Your number is on the resume, right?” she says, scooping up the baby. You nod, waving goodbye to the baby and then saying goodbye to Sandy.

“I’ll call you when I speak to Carl, but I think once he knows he’ll want to head out as soon as we can. Plan for Sunday,” she says as you get into the cab.

Just like she had promised, you get a call from Sandy on Saturday afternoon asking you to show up the next morning at 9. You spend the day packing up your clothes and anything else you’d need for a few weeks. Sandy said they’d be back in two weeks but you pack for three just in case. Julie was also nice enough to help you. You didn’t need to do much. Ever since you had settled in Knockemstiff, you had been pretty lazy with unpacking and for once procrastination played out in your favor.

Julie insisted on taking you out to celebrate that night before starting your job tomorrow. There was a small little bar, a little shack of a place just on the outside of town you went to. Julie had a car and you drove, anticipating she’d have a lot more to drink than you. It was a hotter summer night, so you drove with the windows down and the radio playing a little louder than you normally would.

The outside was decorated with string lights of primary colors and the wooden awning looked like it was one more storm away from collapsing. But the atmosphere inside was to die for. The jukebox was playing loud dance music, and the place was crowded. Empty recycled glasses lined the walls on a high shelf as decoration along with weathered posters of anything Americana. A row of motorcycles and trucks were parked outside the little place and it looked like a pileup from how crowded the lot was. People lingered outside as well, and you both hoped you’d find seats inside.

The two of you found a high-top table and Julie made her way up to the bar, skillfully maneuvering through the crowd to grab you both some drinks. You let your eyes wandering, surveying the room and just people watching. Couples were dancing closely to the music that was rattling the jukebox, and a group of people were sitting at the bar huddles in to watch the little black and white portable television. You also noticed a group of men in uniform several tables down, local police. They weren’t paying any attention to anyone but their own conversation, except one.

He just so happened to have looked up just as your eyes landed on their table. Steel blue eyes cutting across everything and just staring right back into yours. It was a fraction of a second and his gaze was broken by Julie taking her seat across from you. You cleared your throat, and finally allowed yourself to exhale. You felt her raise an eyebrow at you but she didn’t press, just gave you a knowing smirk you brushed off. You still felt his gaze on you even if your view was now obstructed.

Sandy and Carl were in a rush when you arrived in the morning. Sandy ran you through the details of where everything was kept and told you that she would call to check in when she could when they made stopped. She helped you carry your bags in from the trunk of the taxi while Carl packed their bags in their car. He was polite enough, but you felt in your gut to just keep your distance. Sandy led you upstairs to the guest room she told you she worked to clean out for you. It was simple, a bed and a dresser with a small closet. She said it mostly had been storage and her weekend project had been clearing it out for you. It was simple, but good enough for you for sure. You thanked her and she dismissed it saying you were the one doing her a favor, making you laugh.

The whole ordeal was very hurried. Carl was rushing to get on the road as soon as possible and you could tell he was clearly irritated at how long Sandy was taking showing you around and explaining things about Valerie. Carrying the baby in your arms, you finally were settled in to your new role and Sandy gave one more big hug and a kiss on Valerie’s head before rushing down to the car. You waved to the pair of them from the small front porch, Sandy looking back and waving to the baby from the passenger seat until they were out of your line of vision.

The first day was a little daunting. New space, living in a house that isn’t yours and a baby babbling in your arms. She was a sweet thing, and she already had taken a liking to you. Heading over to her nursery, you saw that she had a little play pen folded up in the corner of the nursery and you quickly set it up in your room so you could unpack while keeping an eye on her. She babbled just happy utter nonsense to you while you navigated around the space and her big eyes just followed you, just watching you was entertaining for her for now. You were a new face and she was entertained just by that for now.

A few hours later, Valerie had settled down for a nap in the early afternoon. She was sleeping soundly in her crib and you were getting formula ready for when she woke up. It was quiet, the only noise in the house was the small sounds of your own rustling in the kitchen. You wondered when you would hear from Sandy, if it would be later tonight or in a couple of days. You just were lost in your own thoughts when you were startled by a loud knocking on the door. Instantly, Valerie began to cry. You wiped your hands quickly on the skirt of your dress before grabbing her. You rested her on your hip and rocked her gently, shushing her to calm down while you went to grab the door.

The first thing your eyes saw were the same blue eyes who was looking at you at the bar last night. The man’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked really confused. He had one hand rested on his hip and the other against the doorframe, but he stood up straight when he saw it wasn’t who he expected. Your eyes then went down to the shiny Sheriff’s Badge fixed in place on his uniform.

“Who are you?” he asks abruptly. “Where’s Sandy?”

“Sandy and Carl left this morning,” you explain, not sure if he recognizes you. “I’m their nanny.”

He laughs and shakes his head as he looks down, almost like he doesn’t believe you, or he just doesn’t believe the situation. “Carl? Carl Henderson hired a nanny?” he scoffs and you nod, holding Valerie a little closer. The little girl rubs her eyes and yawns, when her eyes flutter open, she looks at the stranger in the doorway and immediately reaches out to signal she wants to be held by him. You ignore her resistance to wanting to be in your arms until you get more information about why the Sheriff is at their doorstep, though she obviously knows him.

“I’m Sandy’s brother,” he explains, “Did she say when they were coming back?” He doesn’t try to hold the baby yet, just holds out one of his fingers and her little hand holds onto it tightly.

“Two weeks.”

“They hire a complete stranger to watch my niece and live in their house unsupervised while they drive around?” he scoffs, shaking his head again in disbelief.

“I’m more than qualified…”

“It’s not a jab at you, sweetheart,” the man tries to explain, “More so a reflection on my sister and her husband is all. They are… fairly selfish people and I wished this situation surprises me more than it does.”

“Should I tell her you came by when she calls?” you ask.

“If she calls,” the man chuckles, “Sure, let her know Lee stopped by to visit.”

“You don’t think she will?” you ask, tilting your head.

“We’ll see,” Lee shrugs, “Do I know you from somewhere?” He rests his arm back up on the doorframe and looks down to the baby again, extending out his free hand to her again and scrunching her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” you shrug, not wanting to admit you remembered seeing him last night. He purses his lips together and nods, not pressing further. He pushes off from the doorframe and puts his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket.

“Must’ve been in a dream then,” he smirks, and you feel your cheeks flush. He walks down the steps and back towards his cop car. “What did you say your name was?” he asks, turning back around.

“I didn’t,” you chuckle.

“Hmm,” he nods, and raises his eyebrows, waiting for you to fill in the blank. You tell him your name and he repeats it back to you like he’s thinking about it, trying it out to see how it sounds.

“Well,” he says, standing behind the open driver’s door, “Good luck, and I hope Sandy proves me wrong. Let me know if she calls.”

Taglist:

@adelaide-walker @thedepressolit @samanthadegaro

#lee bodecker #lee bodecker imagine #lee bodecker x reader #lee bodecker x you #lee bodecker x y/n #the devil all the time #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan characters #lee bodecker smut #lee bodecker fluff #sebastian stan one shot #sebastian stan imagine #x reader #fluff #smut #nanny!reader #x f!reader #found family

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tharros-auris-black-asimi · 2 years

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Lay All Your Love on Me (Chapter 12)

Pairing: Soft Dark Alpha Lee Bodecker x Omega Female Reader

Summary: After moving to Knockemstiff, Ohio with your troubled parents, you find solace in the local Seven-Eleven. There, you bump into the Alpha sheriff, Lee Bodecker.

And then you keep bumping into him. There’s just something about that chubby Alpha that keeps drawing you in. Now there’s something going on with the new preacher of the church that you attend. Everything’s a mess.

But you’re an unbonded Omega. Life can turn to shit anyway.

Chapter Warnings: Strong ABO dynamics, as usual. Dark!Lee has peaked out, once again. Rough, possessive sex in this chapter. A verbal argument too. Mild breeding kink towards the end? Biting. And a mild housewife kink. Everything's coming full circle here folks! All of it is coming in the form of Lee Bodecker proclaiming his possessiveness again. I think that should cover all my bases. If not, please inform me in the comments so I can update it!

Additional Notes: God, I did not mean to have this much smut, but considering it's been like, two chapters and that chapter was mild, I had to give back by giving you this mostly smut filled chapter. I hope you all enjoy!

As always, minors, DNI.

Word Count: 5,872

That following week on a Sunday…

You were in bed, looking up at the ceiling. Dressed in your nightgown, blandly looking up at the white ceiling of the master bedroom you shared with Lee, smelling like a concoction of your Alpha and you.

You were thinking. Very, very deep and hard thoughts.

Your mother was already asleep in her room, having eaten dinner. Sandy had done the same, sleeping in the basement downstairs. Lee’s house had two spare bedrooms, but Sandy wanted more space for herself. Besides, there was only one bathroom upstairs. She wasn’t about to fight your mother about the bathroom upstairs when there was a bathroom right across from her bedroom.

No thank you.

You heard the cruiser pull up to the house, signaling that Lee was home from work.

Your Omega couldn’t help but jump for joy.

Her Alpha had returned.

Lee noticed the kitchen lights weren’t on.

Nor were the lights in the living room.

For a moment, his heart clenched.

He knew your mother was at least home, her car had been parked at the driveway.

But the silence… it made him think. He checked your mother’s room. He saw her asleep. Next, he checked the basement. Sandy was asleep in her room too. Finally, his footsteps carried him back up the stairs from the basement to the master bedroom.

And there you were. Laying on your side on the bed that smelled so much like you and him. You looked so empty, just staring up at the ceiling. However, when you caught a whiff of your Alpha’s scent, your entire face brightened up, making him smile.

He just couldn’t help himself.

You made him happy. Happier than he ever could have been.

Sometimes, in times like these, Lee thought about what if he had never met you.

He would’ve come home to an empty house. No laughter. No conversations. His house would have been fully dark, and he would have walked over to the kitchen, taking out the dinner he would have made in advance because he spent a late night at the office. Before you, he did all of his meals ahead of time because he knew for a fact that he wouldn’t have made time for himself to cook something properly. It had been that or going to the diner to get something to eat.

Not to mention, his floors would be messy and beer cans would have been scattered all over the floors. His house would have smelled like a brewery. Just the thought of alcohol made him want to throw up.

You saw him.

Your Alpha.

Your Lee.

Your Daddy.

“Daddy,” you breathed out. Lee, who had taken off his shoes at the door, happily walked over to his Omega who embraced him. You inhaled his scent, sighing in relief. Nuzzling your nose against his scent gland on his neck. Even licking it, making your Mate rumble in appreciation.

“Love it when ya do that,” Lee’s voice washed over you like the tide washing away at the sand. “Love it when you lick my gland. I love you. I love you so much, Omega.”

Your Omega was doing her happy dance again. And then she was sighing in fondest. You thought she was more in love with your Daddy than you were. Which was an insult to itself. Lee was your Daddy. Not hers.

You happily continued to lick at his gland, drenching him in more of his scent. A deep rumble erupted from Lee’s chest.

Your Omega was preening.

Alpha. Alpha happy. Alpha wants us. Alpha loves us. We’re a good Omega for our Alpha.

Once Lee was absolutely drenched in your scent, you let out a gasp. Feeling his hand creep underneath your nightgown, pushing your skirts up, slipping three thick fingers down the waistband of your panties, sliding past your slippery, wet pussy lips with a slick noise.

You let out a soft little gasp of surprise. Your breath hitched.

“Please,” you let out a soft whimper. “Please, Daddy, I-”

Your pleas were silenced when Lee slid his fingers into your mouth. Like the first time, you accepted them greedily.

“Shhhh,” Lee whispered in your ear. Calming you. “Everybody else’s asleep. We don’t wanna wake em up, now do we?”

In response, you shook your head no.

“You want my fingers?”

You shook your head no.

“You want my cock?”

You shook your head yes.

Lee nearly swore out loud.

The unbuckling of his belt and hearing Lee shoving his pants so quickly, grabbing a hold of his throbbing erection and guiding it into you. Slowly. Inch by inch. Pushing the head of his penis into you, making your vaginal walls stretch out for his thick cock. Holding onto his shaft with one hand, while the other one that had been in your mouth was taken out. His other hand, smeared and slimy with your saliva was creeping up, all the way up your nightgown, so he could hold one of your breasts in his hands.

Your breasts always fit perfectly in his hands. Like a final piece that completed the puzzle.

His thrusts were quick. Fast. Every thrust sent you bouncing back into the mattress as his swift thrusts furthered your impending orgasm.

Good.

You felt so good around him. Your warm walls enveloped him as if someone had just put a warm blanket over him. The way your walls sucked him in made him cum so fast that it took him a second to realize that he had actually come first.

He was just so damn hard. Squirts of hot cum spilled inside of you as Lee let out a grunt, giving you all he had.

Maybe it had been that he had come first because your walls were seizing his dick so damn hard that your back arched up, and you were cumming. Your orgasm made you gasp for air, as your body went slack, falling back into the bed with a soft thud.

Your hands came up to grip his uniform tight. As if understanding, Lee guided you on helping him take off his shirt. You tossed it somewhere. It wasn’t important. Gripping his shoulder blades, you pushed him closer to you. In doing so, his cock wedged deeper inside of you. Filling you up deeper. It made you sigh in content.

“Feel better?” Lee’s voice was rough.

“Mmmm… much, Daddy.” was your hum.

The following Monday…

The sound of you slamming the trunk shut was what Lee heard when you and your mother were going to be driving up to Coal Creek that Monday.

Blowing a piece of hair out of your face, you looked at your Alpha.

“Get there safe, Omega. I'll be waiting for you.” Lee’s voice was low and gentle as he looked at you. Helping you get into the car and shutting the door shut. You looked at him through the rolled-down window. His hand covered yours as he pressed a kiss against your forehead.

“I love you,” you sighed against him.

“I love you too,” he mumbled.

When you and your mother got there, you couldn’t help but feel a knot in your stomach.

Like something had gone wrong.

But, like every time you and your mother came to visit, you greeted Emma, Arvin, and Lenora with enthusiasm.

… Until that Wednesday evening.

You had been in the kitchen, making a peanut and jelly sandwich for Lenora. Something her stomach could handle, with a glass of water to drown it down.

You had headed down the hall to Lenora’s room, lightly knocking. A soft “come in” told you it was safe and okay to enter. Opening her door as carefully as you could, you made your way inside. Putting the plate of food down, you looked at the pregnant Omega.

You sat down on her bed as she lifted herself up so she could be sitting up on her bed.

“How does it feel? Being pregnant?”

Your question caught her off-guard a little bit. Blinking, Lenora struggled to find an answer for a few seconds.

“Being pregnant is… well… it’s hell.”

Your face fell.

“Holy shit…” You breathed out, “Did you just-”

“… Cuss?” Lenora chuckled jolly. Even though she saw the surprised look on your face. “Weren’t you the one who told me everyone does it eventually?” She teased you lightly. Chuckling, “Yeah. But… is it because of… you know… that bitch?”

The bitch in question made Lenora sigh. “Honestly I… I gotta tell ya… sometimes I… I blame myself. That if I had just said no one more time… maybe he would have… stopped.” Her voice dropped from her jolly tone to one of disappointment. You didn’t dare touch her. You didn’t want to do anything to trigger her.

“Hey. Look at me, okay? It’s not your fault. Nobody ever chooses when or where they’re going to present. You didn’t choose to get raped by that little son of a bitch, okay? He did that. It’s his fault. It’s his responsibility. He took away your consent. No one should ever have their consent taken away. Ever. You should always have a voice on what you want or don’t want to do. At the end of the day, it’s not your fault. Your pup…” Your gaze went down to her stomach, “Will grow up in a happy home. Arvin‘s here. Emma’s here. I’m here. My Ma’s here too. And if ya ever need it, Lee’s here too, okay? You got a great support system. You’re stronger than ya look.”

Lenora sniffed. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones or your pep talk, but she found tears rolling down her face and she was leaning towards you and you were bringing her into a hug.

“Everythin’s gonna be alright. You’re gonna be alright.”

After Lenora had finished eating her sandwich and had downed her water, night had slowly begun to fall. You had eaten dinner and had washed the dishes. Including Lenora’s.

Only when the grandfather clock had shown it was midnight did you silently creep down the hall.

And that was when you started to hear the conversation happening behind your mother’s bedroom door.

“… And they said he’s missing? That he went missing?”

That was your mother’s voice. You silently pressed your ear against the door, listening in.

“… Yup. Cynthia said he went missin’ on Wednesday evening. Arvin told me that he was goin’ out shopping. The lady at the market said that he came in round' four. Bought some food. And then he came back home, he said.”

Cynthia was Preston’s wife. That was his wife’s name.

The realization began to slowly show on your face.

“… Ad nothing’s been done to recover him? He just vanished? Outta thin air? Just like that?” Your mother questioned.

“Just like that,” Emma confirmed.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Backing away from the door slowly, you made your way back into your room. Closing the door as silently as you could, you laid back in bed, looking up at the ceiling, to gather your thoughts.

Everything had gone to shit again.

That Sunday, you had bumped into Cynthia Teagardin at the local market.

To say you had been surprised was an understatement. Cynthia however, just beamed when she saw you. Speaking your name, you walked over to her. You had been headed into the baking aisle section, checking for flour.

But, you had time to kill. So, you indulged in a conversation with her.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m moving. The Sheriff of Knockemstiff was a huge help on finding a new place to live.”

You nearly dropped the jug of milk you had gotten from the freezer in the dairy aisle.

“… He’s your Alpha, right? Your husband?” Cynthia questioned you, having not seen you nearly drop the jug of milk, because your back had been turned to her. Hastily grabbing the jug of milk and turning to face her, you nodded quickly.

“Yeah. Lee’s my husband. And my Alpha.” You confirmed as you put the milk jug in your cart. Gripping a hold of the handle, you began to push it. Trying to get your nerves under control.

Your gaze fell back upon your wedding band.

The golden ring that was on your hand- a symbol of what your life was now. You swallowed thickly.

“Send him my thanks, won’t you? Thank him for me. I’m in his debt.” Cynthia sighed in relief.

The twenty-three-year-old Omega couldn’t help but feel relieved.

When Preston had gone out of the house that Wednesday evening, Cynthia wouldn’t tell anyone this. She would take it to her grave.

But, as Preston had left the house, she prayed.

She sent a silent prayer to God hoping that Preston wouldn’t walk through that door again. That when he would eventually walk through that front door, that she would be forced to do whatever he wanted because she was married and mated to him.

Even though she hadn’t chosen to.

Her Omega had not wanted this Alpha.

However, that Wednesday evening, he had not returned home.

And some part of her breathed a sigh of relief.

Free.

She was free.

She would never ever have to be his wife, his Omega, or do anything he wanted ever again.

“U-Um… yes. I’ll do that I’ll make sure to do that.” You promised her. The brunette-haired Omega gave you a warm smile before pushing her cart ahead.

And you were left in the dairy section, wondering just what the hell you were going to tell Lee now.

A few days later, on a Wednesday evening...

Shit had finally hit the fan that Friday night when you had been busy making baked apples. You had just gotten them out of the oven and put them on the wire rack on the counter to cool in the baking pan that you had put them in.

The wafting smell of cinnamon sugar-filled the kitchen as you gripped the oven door, slamming it shut. You gripped the handle so tight that your knuckles nearly turned white.

How could they do this?

How could he do this?

You had been biting on your lower lip so hard you tasted copper in your mouth. You were pretty sure you were going to start crying.

You had become so overwhelmed with emotion that you didn’t even hear Lee’s cruiser pulling up. You didn’t even hear the front door open.

The first thing Lee had smelled walking in through the front door was a singed smell.

For a moment, he panicked.

Had you burned something?

He had made his way into the kitchen, where the singed smell was the strongest. There you were, standing at the oven, gripping the oven handle so tight that your knuckles had turned white. Lee was certain that if you held it any tighter, your knuckles would pop.

A choked noise came from you.

His girl was upset.

You heard familiar footsteps, someone walking towards you. Through your haze, you smelled it.

Bourbon and chocolate.

Lee was home.

Clarity dawned on you. You turned around quickly, shoving him back as hard as you could.

Lee made a noise. He even looked shell-shocked.

Something akin to a deep snarl vibrated in your throat. Your singed smell of burnt chocolate chip cookies became worse if that was even possible.

Smelling that singed smell, you pushed back the bile.

You couldn’t talk to Lee if you were being an overall mess.

Sucking in a deep breath, you mentally counted down from ten. You closed your eyes tight, allowing the loose tears to roll down your face.

Opening your eyes, you saw Lee’s concerned face. You stepped back a few steps.

“Tell me why when I went to Coal Creek last week, that I bumped into the Preacher’s wife at the local supermarket. Tell me why everyone declared him as missing. Tell me why the Preacher’s wife told me, “Oh, I’m moving. The Sheriff of Knockemstiff was a huge help on finding a place to live.”

You crossed your arms. Your defenses were amped up to a hundred.

“Just what the hell did you do, Lee?”

He had not been acting out of the ordinary. At all. In fact, Lee had been like his normal self. He didn’t shower you or smother you with extra affection. Lee was an affectionate Alpha, he enjoyed touching you a lot. And not just in the sexual way. Cuddles, touches, forehead kisses- they were all normal to him.

Before you had left, Lee had been normal. He had seen you off with you and your mother, kissed you on your forehead, and told you to get there safely. That when you came back, he’d be waiting for you.

Nothing had been out of the ordinary.

Nothing had been strange.

But that knot in your stomach, just like the one that Wednesday night, didn’t go away.

So you took in another deep breath, deeply inhaling and searching within you. You were thinking. Your brain was firing at you. Running through every and any scenario.

“… Did you go to work?”

Your question was calm. You were looking at Lee. Watching him. Your stare was burning through him as if you were looking into his soul.

“Yes. I went to work, babydoll.”

Oh, the audacity of this man!

You were in disbelief when he called you that. In the past, it was a nice, cute nickname. When he had called you by the pet name in the past, it filled you with love and adoration.

Now?

In this moment?

It was like a slap to the face.

Like he was mocking you.

“So how do you know about the Preacher’s wife then? Huh? You had better told me right now because I swear to fuckin’ God Lee Bodecker, I will walk out of this house!”

Your announcement caught him by surprise.

No.

You couldn’t leave.

You weren’t about to leave him.

“No.”

“What did you just say?” Your quick response made Lee want to seethe right through his teeth.

“You’re not going anywhere. You’re not leaving the house. We’re going to talk about this like normal adults.”

How?

How could he be so calm?

So unaffected?

Looking at his chubby, soft face, with those blue eyes that you loved so much- it made your heart clench. Almost as if you couldn’t believe what you were seeing.

“You want to talk like normal adults? Fine! Tell me what you did last week. Monday through Sunday Go on. Tell me.” You took off your apron, folding it nicely and putting it on the kitchen counter. You even stepped closer to him, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear. Then, you crossed your arms against your stomach, your arms brushing over the fabric of your nightgown. The sheer ones. All pastel-colored. The ones where if you had crossed your arms underneath your tits, they would push up.

That position had Lee’s mind racing.

“I went to work on Monday. Tuesday. But not Wednesday. “

Wednesday was the day that Preston had disappeared.

And, to your knowledge, were the days where he’d go into his Rut. He’d lock himself away at his home. Said home that was now vacant.

“I drove up to Coal Creek on Tuesday evening. Considering, it takes eight hours to drive up there.” Lee continued, choosing his words carefully. He did not want to upset you, because he knew this next fact would send you spiraling.

“Then, I met up with the boy. We went into the church. Confessing. Once we got his guard down, we corned him and we shot him. He’s dead. The boy and I drove to the next town over and we buried him. Upstate. Deep in the woods. Nobody’s ever going to find him there. You know how the woods are. Soon, he’ll be a part of the environment. Serves him fuckin’ right, that damn son of a bitch.”

It was there, that you realized.

The boy.

He was talking about Arvin.

Which meant…

“-YOU KILLED HIM? YOU SHOT HIM?”

He had been waiting for that response. You marched right over to him, and you pounded your fists on his chest. You even tried to shove him back, but Lee’s hands grabbed yours. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum, you pushed back.

“… YOU MURDERED HIM? GODDAMNIT LEE! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?” You screeched, clearly enraged.

“… BECAUSE!” Lee roared, pushing you back. You tried to fight back, pushing and shoving him, but to no avail. Alpha strength outnumbered you. Overpowered you. You let out the loudest shriek of disapproval known to man as Lee had you over the kitchen table. All pushed back, bent over the glass table on your back.

Now, you were looking into eyes that instead of blue, were black with fury. His scent was overpowering yours, polluting your nose and making your eyes burn.

Your Omega was a storm inside you, howling at your indecency. She was telling you to offer your Gland up in forgiveness. She was telling you to apologize.

Things that unfortunately, you would not be doing today.

.Instead, your eyes were so full of anger and fury that if it were heavenly possible, that your Mate would have been on fire at this point.

“…You don’t know what he was going to do to you. You wanna know what he’d do to you, Little Omega? Huh? You wanna know what was in that sick, twisted fuckin’ mind of his?” He challenged you. You bared your teeth in response.

What Lee said next made the chills run down your spine.

“Our dear Preacher,” Lee couldn’t help but sneer, “Had a book. And you wanna know what is in it, Mega? Names. All the names of the girls who were around your age, even younger. All these names that he had crossed out. And there were pages. Pages of his bullshit. Lenora’s name was in it too. Her name was crossed out. And then,” Lee let out a bitter chuckle. “And then, I couldn’t believe the kinda shit I saw.”

His hands moved from your hands, so he could be gripping your chin. Forcing any attention you hadn’t had on him, right at him. One-hundred percent. Maybe even more than that.

“He had your name in it.”

The chills ran down your spine. A horrified expression overtook the murderous expression you had previously on your face.

“Lee…” your voice trembled. Your Lee, your Alpha, your Daddy- his hand rose up to stroke again your cheek. Because underneath all that grumpiness, all that power and control he had, under it all, he was gentle.

Your Daddy would never hurt you.

“Your name was all in capital letters, and it was circled. Remember when ya asked me to come to help the boy?”

A nod came from you.

You remembered that.

“Well, the boy found out where Preston’s house was. And then, we drove up to his house, knowing he was out of town…”

The disbelief was slowly creeping back up to you. However, you remained quiet and allowed him to continue to speak.

“And when we broke into the house… and I found that damn notebook… I found the other things. In his closet.”

The disbelief was fully back.

He and Arvin had broken into Preston’s house!

His fucking house!

Could you be any more surprised?

“… He was ready. Fully ready to kidnap you and take you somewhere to breed you. He even had a drug to force you into Heat.”

Lee breathed right through his teeth. His jaw clenched. You could see the vein on his neck throbbing.

You couldn’t help it.

Your pussy throbbed.

Lee’s nostrils flared.

He could smell it. Your arousal in the air.

His grip on you tightened. Just a little bit.

And then he was leaning down, his tongue flattening on your gland.

You cried out.

Suddenly, his hands were everywhere. His hands had found the top of your nightgown, and you heard a loud ripping noise.

An unholy noise came from you in surprise.

He really had done it.

Your Alpha had ripped your nightgown open.

You were so sure that Lee had truly fucking lost it. He was really off of his rocker now. A shiver ran down your spine as you felt those large, soft hands trail up to your chest.

And when his hands roughly grabbed at your breasts, you weren’t afraid.

“… Now you know why I did it. I did it to keep you safe. You’re mine.” A broad lick against your gland had you shuddering. Lee’s teeth sank into your gland, piercing it. You cried out against him, pushing your body against his, as your ears popped. Lee didn’t lift his head up for a few seconds. When he did, he sank his teeth right back into your pierced gland, sinking and marking you deeper. Your arms wrapped around him tightly, pulling him down deeper.

You were holding onto him like a child holding onto their doll. Your pupils were dilated when Lee eventually lifted his head up, his mouth covered in your blood. Blood trickled down the corners of his mouth and down his chin. His eyes were still black, but they were watching you with an intense gaze. So intense that you felt your pussy throb once again.

Your vagina was a goddamn motherfucking traitor.

Oh, this night was going to murder you.

One of Lee’s hands grasped a hold of your left hand, placing it right on your bleeding gland. His breath tickled against your neck when he spoke.

“You feel that, babydoll? I put that there. That was me. I’m your Alpha. It’s my duty to protect you. And this?”

His fingertips brushed against your left ring finger, brushing right up against the gold wedding band. “This means you’re my wife. You’re mine. I made a vow to protect you.”

And you out of all people knew that whatever Lee held close to heart, he’d do anything to keep it.

But, deep down, you knew this wasn’t his first rodeo.

“If you’re gonna tell me that shit Daddy, you’re gonna have to fuck me while you talk all those other people ya mighta offed.”

As soon as those words came out of your mouth, Lee flipped you over onto your stomach shoved you back down onto the table. A deep noise of surprise came from you as he pushed you up until your chest was splayed on the cold glass table. The coldness of the glass made you gasp. Your breath fogged up against the glass when you heard Lee unzipping his pants.

Lee couldn’t explain just what the hell had come over him.

It was as if he had entered a haze.

“I like it when you’re like this. Under me,” Lee rasped, his erection pressed against your ass cheeks, telling you just how hard he was. His hands came to grip your ass, pulling your cheeks apart as he slid his cock into your pussy.

Your sudden cry pierced the air as he slid home. All the way in. All of him. All at once. It made your eyes roll into the back of your head.

Above you, your Alpha’s hips stuttered. Pressed into the glass dining table, mercilessly pounded you against it.

The mixture of his ejaculate and your cum trickled down your legs, and all you could do was grip the glass table like your life desperately depended on it.

“Killed three people before I killed Preston with the boy.”

Three?

Wow. He was on a roll.

“Two of em was my pimp and his bodyguard.”

Your eyes widened.

Smack.

“They were threatenin’ me with ruining the damn election. I coulda lost my position as Sheriff if I didn’t eliminate them. And they coulda came after you. I couldn’t have that.”

A harsh pump, “And then San and I murdered Carl.”

Carl.

You hadn’t heard that name in a while.

So they had-

… Well… you weren’t about to say you missed the Beta.

Because you really didn’t.

Another harsh pump, “You already know why I murdered that goddamn fat bitch. He was lookin’ at you. Like he wanted to fuckin’ eat you. Only I get to do that.”

Grabbing a hold of your thigh, he hoisted you up, easing his cock of you, allowing the head of his cock to slowly drag in between your slippery lips, making you whimper.

“Daddy,” you couldn’t help but whine at the empty feeling.

Slamming into you roughly, a scream slipped past your lips as you found yourself face planting against the glass table again.

With this new position, your thigh slung over his still-clothed shoulder, he continued to plow into you, the sloshing, squishing noises filling the kitchen.

“Feel that babydoll, huh? Ya feel of o’ me? Right here, babydoll. M’ right here-” Lee pressed a hand against your abdomen, where his thick shaft was currently splitting your pussy into two.

“… M’ right here and I’m not popping out.”

One last harsh thrust into you, and you were cumming.

Your mouth opened into an O. No sound came from you as your orgasm swept you off of your feet. Your slick, warm walls clenched around Lee’s cock, milking and seizing him for all he was worth.

Your orgasm made Lee grunt. It nearly made him lose his breath. His lips stuttered.

“… Sweet fuckin’ Jesus babydoll…” gasped Lee, “You’re never gonna wear any more fuckin’ underwear in this house ever gain’, ya hear me?”

A sharp smack against your ass made you sob out loud. Your pussy clenched around his cock.

Sensing this, another sharp smack echoed. Your cry was shrill.

“No more of ya wearing those goddamn undergarments in this fuckin’ house… you can wear whatever ya like, but if I see another fuckin’ pair of panties… I will rip them off myself, you got that?” Lee demanded.

Another sharp smack against you made you gasp out your reply.

“Yes, yes, yes Lee! Fuck!” you cried out.

You came for a second time, your walls squeezing the ever-loving hell out of Lee’s dick, and it left you gasping. You even choked. On thin air. It should have been considered a freaking life skill.

Your cries were muffled out by Lee’s sharp thrusts. He was still going. Because he just couldn’t get enough.

He already knew that he was a greedy man.

He didn’t share.

He was not going to share you with anyone else.

And with that thought, he felt his balls tighten. Signaling that yes, he was getting close. With a grunt into your neck, he came.

It left him panting against your neck as your cunt greedily clenched around him, milking him for all he was worth.

“One o’ these days Omega…”

You were slowly turning your head towards him. Lee was still panting deeply, trying to catch his breath.

“One o’ these days Omega… I’m gonna put a goddamn pup in you. Show everybody in this goddamn motherfuckin’ county who’s your Alpha. Then everybody’s gonna know who you really belong to.”

You couldn’t help it.

Your pussy throbbed again.

The TV was playing some rerun show.

Dinner and dessert had been eaten.

Somehow, you had fallen asleep during an episode of Doctor Who. You were all curled up against Lee, softly snoring away in his arms.

And then, all of a sudden, Lee heard the doorknob turn. When the front door eventually did open, it revealed Sandy. She looked a little disheveled. She looked like she had run home.

Which, she had.

She had run down the street to get back to the house after telling you that she was going on a walk to get some fresh air.

So she was not at all fazed when she saw her big brother and her sister-in-law on the couch, watching some Doctor Who episode that she couldn’t remember. Taking off her shoes at the door, she walked over to Lee in the living room and leaned against the back of the couch on her front. Her arms resting on top of the couch.

“You told her?”

“Uh-huh,” Lee replied, his gaze still focused on the TV.

“You know, you should really clean the glass table. Looks a little messy, big brother. And while you’re at it- half of the neighborhood heard that fight.”

Only when Sandy started to make her way down to the staircase that led to the basement, did Lee throw a pen at her. As if she had been expecting it, Sandy caught it. She threw it right back at Lee, landing the pen square in his chest.

“Fuck you San,” Lee muttered underneath his breath.

Sandy just let out a snicker. When Lee heard the door to the basement open and close, was when you had begun to stir. You opened your eyes just as the credits rolled for the current episode of Doctor Who.

“… She said to say thank you.”

Lee looked down at you. “Who?” he asked, confused. “Preston’s widow,” you replied with a yawn. You stretched in his arms, a soft moan leaving you. Said moan made Lee’s dick tighten under you, making you chuckle sleepily.

“Said that you were a huge help. That she’s in your debt. She’s free now. She don’t gotta deal with his shit no more.”

You shifted around a little, so you could be looking at him.

“Thank you. For protecting us. For keeping us safe.”

Lee brought you close to him. Holding you so gently, like a porcelain doll. As if you were about to break and shatter in his arms.

“I’ll always keep you safe, Omega.” He promised you.

Your hands intertwined as Lee turned off the TV, picking you up bridal style. Walking down the hall, to where the master bedroom was. Putting you in bed, he pressed a soft kiss on your head.

“Wait here. I’ll be back,” he told you gently. You nodded.

Lee made sure the dishes were washed and put on the dish wrack. You were still in bed, still awake when he climbed into bed. Your hands came to tug on his shirt again as you helped him undress to nothing. Your nightgown followed too. Skin against skin, you sighed.

Your voice was low when you spoke to him. As your eyes fluttered closed, beginning to fall asleep.

“I love you, Daddy.”

Lee expressed a smile against you.

“I love you too, Babydoll.”

Taglist: @greeneyedblondie44, @bxnnywriting, @hawsx3

Fic Taglist: @queenslvy, @hawsx3

#lee beodecker #lee bodecker smut #lee bodecker x reader #alpha lee bodecker x omega reader #lee bodecker x female reader #the devil all the time

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trashcanreddiefan · 4 years

Text

Richie Tozier Does the Wired Autocomplete Interview

Summary: Richie does the Wired Autocomplete Interview. Little does he know, there’s a surprise waiting for him at the end.

Word Count: 1150-ish

Warnings: None whatsoever. This is pure fluff.

Author’s Note: Post-Chapter 2. All of the Losers are alive in this fic, including Stan, because I promised.

CROSS-POSTED AT AO3.

Richie took a sip of his coffee before setting his take-out cup down next to his chair. "Okay, let's do this."

He waited for his cue then looked at the camera. "Hi, I'm Richie Tozier and I'm here to do the Wired Autocomplete Interview."

He paused and picked up the first poster board. "Is Richie Tozier…" he read out loud, then pulled off the first strip covering the rest of the question. "Gay?

"Yep," he answered, popping the 'p' with a grin. "I'm strictly dickly, and only interested in one guy's dick in particular these days. Next question!"

He pulled off the next strip. "Is Richie Tozier an actor?" He shrugged. "Well sure, if you count all those years I acted like I was straight. Otherwise, no, I've never been in a movie or on a TV show, unless you count hosting duties on SNL or talk show appearances. Moving on!"

Richie laughed at the next question. "Is Richie Tozier on drugs? One would think, huh, especially after my public breakdown on stage a few years ago. No, contrary to popular belief the only drugs I've ever been on are the ones that have been legally prescribed to keep me as a mostly-functional human being.

"Ok, next. Is Richie Tozier friends with William Denbrough?" He smiled. "Ahh, Billy Boy. Big Bill. Billiam. Yes, Bill and I were friends when we were growing up together in a little backwards-as-fuck town in Maine. We lost touch for a long time but reconnected a few years ago along with the rest of our group of friends and all hang out as much as we can.

"Last question on this card. Is Richie Tozier funny? Depends on who you ask. My friends would probably say no but the Emmy award sitting on my mantel would disagree with them."

Richie tossed the poster to the side. "NEXT!"

He picked up the next poster. "Does Richie Tozier…" He pulled off the first strip. "...Live in California? Yes, my home base is in L.A., but I currently split my time between L.A. and New York.

"Next question… Does Richie Tozier have any pets? Sadly, no, not at the moment. It's too difficult with my travel schedule to have a pet right now.

"Does Richie Tozier write his own jokes?" Richie winced. "I didn't for a long time, as made obvious by all the past jokes about the fake girlfriend that I most definitely did not have, but I have been for a few years now and they mostly seem to be going over well.

"Does Richie Tozier have a wife? Again, gay as fuck, so no.

"And the last question for this one… Does Richie Tozier wear contacts? I have them, but I never wear them. Contacts make my eyes itchy. Besides, my glasses have been part of my signature look for so long that they're basically part of my brand."

Richie tossed that poster aside and picked up the next one. "Moving right along! How did Richie Tozier get the nickname 'Trashmouth'?" Richie chuckled. "It was a childhood nickname that stuck. I was always making jokes and talking trash as a kid, so one day my friend Stan apparently had had enough and told me to shut my trash mouth, and it stuck. Actually the other day Stan called me 'dumpster fire', so the old nickname might be changing.

"How old is Richie Tozier? Let's just say I'm a Gen X'er and leave it at that.

"How did Richie Tozier become a comedian?" Richie looked directly at the camera. "Through a little luck and a lot of hard work.

"How did Richie Tozier win an Emmy? Honestly I have no idea. See above answer, I guess."

He set the poster down. "Is that it? Oh no, wait, there's one more set of questions."

Unlike the previous posters that had the beginning of the question revealed, the last poster had the entirety of each question hidden.

Richie pulled off the first strip before reading the question. "Is Richie Tozier in a relationship?" Richie put a hand over his heart. "The answer to this, and I honestly cannot be more happy to say this, is yes. My boyfriend Eddie and I have been together for two glorious years.

"How did Richie Tozier meet his boyfriend?" Richie grinned. "I'm sensing a pattern here. He was part of the friend group that I mentioned earlier, but my feelings for Eds were always different than my feelings for the rest of my friends, as in I loved to piss him off extra just to get him to touch me. While we were all back together in our hometown a few years ago Eddie was in a serious accident and almost died, and I was so relieved when he woke up in the hospital that I cried like a little bitch and confessed my love for him. Luckily for me, he reciprocated, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"Does Richie Tozier love his boyfriend?" Richie snorted. "People must see our Twitter exchanges. Don't worry, we don't actually hate each other -- roasting each other is basically foreplay for us. Eds gives as good as he gets -- in more ways than one, if you know what I mean. So to answer the question, yes, I love my boyfriend more and more every single fucking day. He's a tiny little ball of rage and I wouldn't trade him for anything."

Richie adjusted his glasses. "Okay, last question." He pulled off the final strip. "Will you marry me?" He blinked. "Wait, what the fuck?"

He looked at the question again just to make sure he read it correctly, then looked around in confusion until he saw Eddie joining him. He turned to face Eddie instead of the camera. "Eds, what the fuck ? What are you doing here? I thought you were in Bumfuck, Ohio on a business trip."

"You didn't answer the last question, Rich," Eddie replied.

"What the fuck do you mean, I didn't answer the last-- HOLY FUCKING SHIT."

Eddie had gotten down on one knee, pulling a platinum band out of his pocket and holding it up. "Marry me, Richie."

Richie blinked, willing his brain to form a coherent thought. "Yes." That sounds right.

Eddie grinned. "Yes?"

"Yes, yes, fucking yes ." Richie started to tear up.

Eddie stood and slid the ring onto Richie's finger before pulling him into a kiss. "I love you."

Richie sniffled and wrapped his arms around Eddie, realizing that Eddie had planned this out. "Oh my God, you clever, clever asshole. I love you so much," he murmured into Eddie's neck.

"Wanna wrap this up and go celebrate back at the hotel?"

Richie nodded and turned back towards the camera. "Once again, I'm Richie Tozier and this gorgeous specimen is my fiancé. Look for my new special, My Boyfriend is Hotter than Yours, premiering April 12th only on Netflix."

#Richie x Eddie #Reddie #tcrf writes

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peach-jaehyunie · 4 years

Text

The Descent

Pairing: Lee Taeyong x OC, (minor) Johnny Suh x OC x OC, (former) Kim Taehyung x OC

Rating: 18+

Warnings: swearing, suggestive content, implied drug use

Pt. I

Words 4,263

Genre: Fantasy, Fallen Angel AU, slow burn

Synopsis: Vada spends her days working in a restaurant, letting all the desires of her true nature remain mostly unfulfilled. Where passion had once been in her life she is left with only half memories—secrets of her past that haunt her heart. A man with blue hair catches her attention he and his friend begin to ignite the feelings within her that have long been dormant.

You had known a man like that as a sophomore in college. He had been your dorm roommate’s boyfriend, and he had radiated an unfamiliar energy. He was ethereal and his aura pulled you in. One time you asked how he got the two scars on his back “I had my wings ripped off,” he joked. He was gorgeous, but one day he was just gone and your roommate curled up in her tiny bed to weep over everything Kim Taehyung had taken and given.

He had made you look twice when you had first seen him a month ago. He rode a bicycle and his blue hair ruffled in the wind, you couldn’t help but look at him—the ethereal beauty you had seen before in someone else. It had become routine to see him as you walked to work: he would fly past, his shirt billowing, sometimes followed by a hooded figure with downcast eyes on a longboard. Eventually, his eyes would catch yours as he passed: they were deep brown and calming, there was always a twinkle of hope to be seen in them for a fleeting moment as he sped by. You noticed days you didn’t see him, they felt slightly emptier and work would be lacklustre.

“Vada?” You snapped to attention as your coworker said your name,

“Yeah, sorry, what did you say?” You quickly replied as you went back to whisking a pastry cream twice as hard.

“Katerina needs to know what to put on the menu for the desserts this week.”

“Oh, um,” Devo had caught you at a bad time as you were daydreaming about a blue haired stranger. “I made a white cake filled with almond pastry cream between the layers and an Italian meringue icing; I have blood orange panna cotta setting right now, which will be served with a blueberry sauce...oh! I’m making trifle with the leftover cupcakes, and I’m going to make a chocolate cherry mousse and serve it in martini glasses.” You noticed that Devo didn’t write any of this down and braced yourself for when Katerina would inevitably come and nitpick your work. You furiously whisked in the eggs yolks and were relieved that the cream remained perfectly smooth as it took on a yellow hue. You felt as though you could probably whip up a triple batch of pastry cream in your sleep, so thinking about the two men that chose a bicycle and a longboard as their methods of transport in a hilly city like San Francisco kept your brain busy.

A handsome man caught your eye for a second as you walked home with your bag of groceries. His eyes met your gaze and you felt unable to turn away. A chill came over you and you felt that his eyes were enough to suffocate you in the crowded sidewalk, every step drew each of you closer together. You fought back a grimace as the street narrowed and the mass of people were forced closer together. You were able to force your gaze from him, but the stranger’s arm bumped into your shoulder as he walked past. The hair on your neck prickled, your stomach felt like ice; he felt wrong. You couldn’t shake the feeling of repulsion even when you got home and set your TJ’s bag on the counter and began to unpack it.

“Hey, Vada,” your roommate greeted you without even looking at you as she breezes from the bathroom, through the tiny living room, and into her bedroom before shutting her door. You could hear two voices through the door; Brian must have been over and now they were getting ready for a night out. You considered an evening spent at home alone: you weren’t much of a Netflix watcher, and a string of bad first dates had left you in a dry patch romantically. You couldn’t go out with Ana and Brian, because you had fucked Brian first and now it felt awkward because he wasn’t quite your sloppy seconds; he just mostly was.

You ate the dinner you had brought home in a to-go container from work; it was delicious and the flavours were balanced, an array of textures should have been enough to excite your palate, but tonight it felt as tantalizing as eating cardboard. You picked up a book; any attempts to read it failed as you continuously got up to scour the cupboards and fridge for anything attractive. You spent the evening fidgety and almost...hungry. It was an odd sensation, a mix of physical hunger; for food, excitement, sex—anything to pull you from the mundane— and an even deeper hunger: a yearning. You thought of the blue-haired man on the bicycle, a warm and pleasant feeling filled you. It was the exact opposite sensation that you had felt from the other stranger while walking home. A streetcar outside the window clanged and you rolled over in bed, irritated by its sound.

The next day the blue-haired man was not to be seen on the way to work. A somewhat familiar feeling of unfulfillment took hold of you upon reaching your apartment at the end of the day. While you got ready to out to a bar with Devo you remembered someone else filling you with that feeling before: warmth, hunger, and insatiability that you couldn’t describe. You flinched like a wounded animal when you recalled the sharp grip of guilt that had clawed at you in punishment for giving in to such base desires.

“Here, you look like you could use it,” Devo said, sliding you his Manhattan as he ordered another.

“A Manhattan?” You looked at him skeptically.

“Sophisticated; like me,” he immediately quipped “No, but seriously, what happened in the two hours since I last saw you?”

“I guess I’m just kinda bored and very lonely.” You take a sip of your drink, already regretting the lasting taste the alcohol leaves on your tongue and the cloying aroma it will leave on your skin.

“What about your roommate?”

“She’s out with Brian,” you weren’t jealous, or at least not of the Brian factor, but no one would have possibly known that from the way you gulped down the rest of your drink.

“The one you fucked first?” Asked Devo.

“Yes,” you replied with a laugh in his direction, “The one I fucked-first. I’m very generous that way, you know, bringing people together like that.”

You and Devo’s friend, Adrian (boyfriend, but Devo’s parents don’t approve and, no, he doesn’t want to talk about it) must nearly carry poor, drowsy Devo back to his little bachelor apartment. It’s tidy but dark; there’s enough room for two men in love as long as lavish amenities like oxygen aren’t that important to you. The only pieces of furniture are a bed, two bean-bag chairs in front of a TV sat on the floor and a table in the kitchen area that’s used as an extra counter when Devo is experimenting with a new culinary delight at home.

“Vada, let me walk you home,” Adrian tells you right after you two have put Devo in his bed.

“Sure, thanks,” you tell him. You like Adrian, but he proves to be a slow walker and a fast talker on the way home. He asks you what Devo is like at work—Devo is the first guy he’s gone out with since moving to San Francisco from Ohio.

“What brought you out here?” He’s young and curious: Devo is the mutual friend, but no one talks about your past because the parts you make public are boring and you keep all the gritty and smutty stories to yourself.

“UC Berkeley,” you sighed, but not audibly. “My dream school; I dropped out Junior year, first semester.”

“Shit, didn’t like it?”

“Nah, it’s a great school, it just wasn’t what I wanted at the time.”

“What did you do after that, I mean before working as a pastry chef?” Damn, could he walk any slower.

“Just kinda bummed it on what I had leftover from student loans,” Liar. Someone had gotten you a lucrative job as a stripper in a club off of Broadway. You thanked Adrian and quickly left him out on the street as you hurried up the two flights of stairs to your apartment. There wasn’t a sound from Ana’s room, but empty takeout containers sat on the counter illuminated in the dark kitchen by a strand of lights that hung above the sofa. Your mouth felt dry as your senses were suddenly overcome with the bass of loud club music and a hint of chemical cleaner to cover up the odour of spilled alcohol. Your skin felt sticky with sweat and your hands felt grimy from money—but when you opened your eyes it was just a little two-bedroom apartment in a house with a blue facade staring back at you. It was not special, it was not grand; there were fairy lights strung up and a half-dead cactus (too much water) in the corner. You could close your eyes and remember a room for special guests who wanted a private show...after they inhaled from a blue balloon they were too out of it to do anything more to than slip a hundred into your g-string.

That night you had a dream (or maybe it was a nightmare, but it wasn’t all bad) that you were back in your Berkeley dorm. You laid in the bed and felt warm and full, it felt like happiness but there was a dusting of excitement: a *secret*—which is sometimes just a cute word for a lie. Your limbs felt tangled and you could hear yourself whispering, which was strange because you felt that you were alone until Ally came in and saw you on your little bed and started crying as she shouted and threw items from her side of the room at you. She didn’t want your apologies—were they yours? The dream began to feel claustrophobic; Ally wouldn’t talk, only cry and push away any comforting hands and you could feel yourself standing there...were you apologizing? watching? All you knew was that guilt was suffocating you.

You felt him before you saw him. For the first time, you were aware that you weren’t the only one who looked at him as he passed by on his bicycle. His gaze was as welcoming as a lover’s kiss and his eyes still felt hopeful and warm. You thought (foolishly? hopefully?) that he only looked at you.

You saw him again the next morning and you brazenly returned his gaze: his eyes were like a deer’s, you wanted to spend hours staring into them because they felt safe, welcoming, nonjudgemental. His sharp jawline made your mouth water, but the small smile that broke from his beautiful lips made you feel warm and happy.

Devo came to where you worked in the kitchen to complain about the new line cook.

“Does he ‘Yes, Chef!’ too much for your liking?” You ask him with a straight face.

“No—“

“Oof, he reeks of Axe—“

“No,—“

“Does he have mutton chops like the last guy? Those were gross.” Devo often came to you to complain about the new staff. You enjoyed listing off his complaints about coworkers more than you would like to admit.

“This dude just...creeps me out. Like, he seems nice and everything, but fuck, this sounds ridiculous, I just get this really bad vibe from him, you know? It’s like bad...energy.” You stifled your laugh because Devo was so earnest.

“Well, I feel like I have to meet him now.” You say wiping sticky sugar from your hands and setting a timer on your phone.

“He’s nice! He just makes my skin crawl,” Devo nodded and laughed as he said this before heading back to his prep station.

“Behind, oven door!” You said loudly as you stepped onto the line to put a sheet of rolls on the oven.

“Oh, hey, Vada?” The chef addressed you,

“Yes, chef?”

“This is our new line cook, Johnny.”

The tall cook turned to you and despite having not seen his face before today you knew, you felt that he was the man on the longboard.

“Hey,” Johnny gave a small wave “Vada...I like that name, have I seen you somewhere before? You look really familiar.” He looked at your face intently for a moment before you spoke.

“Um, no I don’t think so. I haven’t worked at many restaurants before.” Being under his gaze felt like a microscope, but...it wasn’t a bad feeling. He shook his head as if to get rid of a thought.

“Well, it is nice to meet you, Vada.” Johnny offered his hand for you to shake. There was a strange and sudden internal pull when you grasped his hand and he must have felt it too by the way he smirked at you.

You couldn’t be sure that he was the longboard guy; when Johnny left work he left on foot to catch a tram. He was talkative and easygoing, behind his outgoing demeanour there seemed to lurk a sedate and tormented individual. You could only see it sometimes: it was there behind his eyes as he worked, sometimes it was written on his face for just a second before the jovial mask would return. Devo avoided him as best he could and Johnny (strangely) didn’t seem at all offended, regardless of how obvious Devo was.

“Drinks and staff night out at Gus’s tonight!” Katerina yelled into the kitchen as closing started. You quickly cleaned up your work station and grabbed a bucket of cutlery for polishing to help the servers get out faster. An hour later the group of you were turning out the lights and locking up, stuffing the split tips into a safe place to be spent later on. Gus’s Bar was a short walk and extremely casual and therefore suitable for a bunch of sweaty kitchen workers.

“First round is on me,” Katerina stated as she sat down at the bar and the old barkeep slowly approached while he was polishing a glass. He nodded and remained quiet as everyone placed their orders, never writing anything down, and began to make drinks more efficiently than you had ever seen in your life. The barkeep (possibly Gus) soon had a row of drinks up for all of you. As soon as Johnny downed his first in one go he exclaimed with a mischievous glint in his eye:

“Third round is on me!” He winked at you as you realized what that meant because no one had offered to buy a second round.

“I guess I’ll buy round two,” said one of the waitresses with a chuckle, her long, blonde waves shaking as she laughed. You felt pleasantly buzzed after round three, not really needing a lot more but also not anywhere near turning down an offer for another one. You ordered a whiskey sour—neat; this one you were paying for. You sat between Miles and Johnny at the bar: Miles was laughing at everything anyone said but paying you no mind because you just wanted to sit there and enjoy the feeling.

“I know where I know you from now,” Johnny spoke resting his arms on the bar comfortably.

“Oh yeah, where?” You grinned at him, unfazed.

“The Velvet Angel,” he said it loud enough that you knew you could only hear him, but you still felt that your heart stopped for a few moments. His eyes stayed on your face, but your thoughts raced and your mouth felt dry when you realized what this meant.

“How did you—“ you began licking your lips

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything—it’s our secret.” He assures you upon noticing your hands shake as you tried to bring the whiskey sour to your mouth. You looked at him, blushing at how kind and welcoming his gaze seemed despite the fact you felt nearly like drowning. You wanted to run away...but you couldn’t, not from Johnny. Everything seemed foggy, but you finished your drink and ordered another. Adrian came and you felt the brush of his hand on your back as he said ‘hello’ and you thought you must have said something back but you couldn’t remember. Miles fell asleep with his head on the bar as Johnny comfortably nursed a beer on your other side. Strangers came and went, and one by one your coworkers left until it was just the three of you—two if you considering that Miles was passed out.

“Do you know where he lives?” Johnny asked you as he finally finished his beer.

“No,” you had to clear your voice as it cracked from disuse. Why weren’t you more shattered, why did this not feel so bad to have Johnny know of your past life.

“I have someone in my couch at my place, can Miles crash at your place?” You wanted to ask Johnny if it was the blue haired man of your fantasies that was on his couch. That thought felt silly and hopeful, especially because you were nearly just operating off of a hunch.

“Yeah, I don’t think my roommate will mind. Wait—“ You grabbed Johnny’s arm as he moved to get up and, you thought, leave. “—I don’t think I can move him by myself,”

Johnny chuckled at your panic, and you felt your face heat up even more than just from the alcohol.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get him home for you; I won’t leave you.” He said as he gently patted your shoulder. Johnny went to help Miles up, but the young man turned out to be drunker than expected and your jaw dropped as Johnny picked up Miles easily and began to carry him out.

“Are you okay to carry him by yourself? That’s not what I meant when I said I couldn’t; I can help if you want!” You called after him, nearly tripping out of your barstool and trotting to catch up with his long strides.

“No, I’m fine, he’s light. Just walk us in the right direction.”

It’s quite a few minutes before you pluck up the courage to say anything to Johnny about The Velvet Angel. You choose your words carefully, wanting to keep the conversation lighthearted.

“No offense, but you don’t really seem like the type of person that would have frequented The Velvet Angel.” You finally say.

“A man?” Johnny joked after a moment. His breathing wasn’t laboured even though he was carrying another person up a hill.

“No, I mean, like that place had other stuff going on.” You began to feel uncomfortable, maybe you had completely misread him.

“Oh...you mean the private rooms and the balloons...well, I try to avoid that a bit now, but I haven’t always.” His voice was soft and low, you turned to look back at him and there was that sad tortured look again. You regretted saying anything.

“I think I deserve some credit for remembering your face, though.” Johnny suddenly quipped with a shy smile.

“Yes, that was very gentlemanly of you,” you replied sarcastically.

“It was the expression you wore on your face,” he began after a pause, “Some of the women...you could really tell that you were just paying to see their body, and some liked to play as if they were teasing you, but you—your face was that of a lover.”

“A lover?” You dubiously queried.

“It’s… You looked like someone in love, your eyes invited an intimacy if you looked closely enough. You didn’t look fake or cheap, it was all art and the beauty of love in your face.”

Your mouth felt dry, and your walking slowed down as Johnny spoke. Love, what did that even feel like? Did you remember, had you ever known it? There was a void where memories of feelings like that should be stored. All you could remember was guilt...disgust, remorse, and guilt. You had slowed to a stop without realizing it.

“Are you okay?” Johnny asked, worried as he stopped by your side. You looked at him, unable to form a complete thought until the building behind Johnny took shape in the dark.

“This is my house.” You finally manage as you lick your lips and think to take keys from your bag. You unlock the main front door and hold it open as Johnny walks in carrying Miles.

“I live on the second floor, I’m so sorry,” You grimace thinking of him having to carry another man up the stairs.

“I said not to worry about it, Miles is light.” And he easily carries him to your apartment where Miles is laid on your sofa with a pillow from your bed and a spare blanket.

“Thank you so much, I hope you don’t have too far to go.” You tell Johnny as he walks toward your door to leave.

“Nah, it’s fine. It would be faster if I had my longboard, but I can catch a bus.” He shrugged.

“You have a longboard?” You asked, hoping you didn’t sound too curious.

“Yes,” he turned to you and chuckled a little “But you already knew that.” He couldn’t see your blush in the dark. How could he have known that you suspected him?

“Vada,”

“Mhm,”

“If you ever want to meet Taeyong...all you gotta do is ask.” In the hallway, a streetlamp illuminated his face enough for you to see his grin and wink in your direction before turning around and trotting down the steps and out.

———————————————————-

The blue haired man is absent for the rest of the week, but on Saturday night you follow Johnny out the back door to shout after him:

“I want to meet him; I want to meet Taeyong.” Johnny sets his longboard down and pulls his phone out to check it before he answers you.

“Okay,” he looks at you with a slow grin, “I’ll find out when he’s free. Now get back to work, I gotta hot date I have to meet.” He winks at you as he gets on and rides off.

You feel giddy—butterflies like a schoolgirl when you get back inside the restaurant. You have trouble sleeping that night: trying to figure out every possible scenario as to how Johnny knew about your hunch; all the ways you could meet Taeyong, and imagining a first date in which you were overflowing with wit, intelligence, and good things to say; and also a terrible dread and anxiety that Taeyong was just some random person and not the man with the blue hair.

Your eyes are bleary the next day, the cookbook in front of you seems to keep going out of focus.

“Fucking shit!” You curse as you burn your hand on a cake pan, a silent stream of fucks threatened to be uttered by your tongue as you cup your tender wound. Disheartened, you peer into a mixing bowl of clumpy custard. It will need to be strained. Nothing is going right and you feel frazzled. You check the fruit purée in the freezer to see if they have set in their molds yet—they haven’t. You go up to the main kitchen and pour yourself a coffee with extra cream, avoiding the warmth of the mug with your burnt hand. It’s not a glamorous place to enjoy a coffee or a five-minute break, but the sun lights up the alley and even the dumpster doesn’t look too bad in this lighting.

He hops lightly off his bike as he reaches the alley corner, his frown is matched by your own. The hood of his sweater is up but it doesn’t stop the blue fringe from peaking out. He walks straight up to you with his bike, his frown softens and his eyes look like two inviting pools of melted chocolate.

“Is Johnny here?” He asks after a moment of you staring at him. You nearly choke as you try to speak and swallow your spit at the same time—

“Um, no he hasn’t come into work yet.” You finally manage after clearing your throat. The beautiful man’s frown returns and he almost seems to scowl at the back of the restaurant.

“He was off early last night, and said he was meeting up with a hot date.” You added, it felt rude but you were really unable to take your eyes off of him.

He looked back at you, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His expression was safe and inviting and you suddenly felt less bad for having been staring at him.

“He didn’t come home after his date, and I can’t reach him on his phone; so I thought I’d check here just in case.” His grip on the bike loosened and tightened. Finally, he shyly averted his eyes for a second before offering you his hand to shake.

“It’s nice to finally meet you; I’m Taeyong.” His eyes confidently search yours out when he says his name.

“I know—“ you want to slap yourself as the words fall from your lips, but your hand meets his and you feel a warm and familiar pull in your very core. “I mean, my name is Vada.” You blush as you stumble over the words.

“I know,” and a soft blush breaks out over his smooth cheeks, his grip on your hand never loosening.

49 notes · View notes

artemismoon12writes · 4 years

Text

Title: Gotta Get ‘Em While They’re Down

Daltonfic Big Bang 2020: Week 3, Day 3, Wevid

Based off @hufflebecks‘s Motorbike Bros concept & the Weebly Fact: “Wes got into a motorcycle accident once- it was an attempted hit and run.”

David spent most nights studying these days. Between checking in on Katherine’s recovery, beating Siegerson’s GPA, and his extra-curriculars, he couldn’t really participate in Windsor shenanigans anymore. It made him sad to see his housemates off having fun, but it was Senior Year, he couldn’t mess around.

What hurt him the most was that even in his studying blitzes before, he had Wes by his side as a good natured distraction. They’d bounce ideas off each other, throw trivia, and toss ideas for editing notes. Now? Wes had early acceptance to ASA College, and David was still trying to get Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to respond to his letters. But that’s what David got for shooting high he guessed.

Now, whenever he saw Wes, his best friend would wave in passing before heading out with his motorbike club. Yeah, they hung out on weekends, but it still felt like he was being replaced. Why did Wes even own a motorbike? Yeah his dad had taught him to ride a vespa on family trips to Naples, but they lived in Ohio right now- it wasn’t exactly cosmopolitan.

David sighed, he shouldn’t be so harsh. Maybe it was good they spend time apart; after all, they wouldn’t be going to the same college, let along even in the same part of the country. It stung though. He missed his friend. If only he wasn’t so busy.

Buzz buzz. David’s cellphone went off from its spot on the shelf. He’d put it away to limit distractions. Why wasn’t it off? Oh, wait, all calls except his parents, Katherine, and Wes were sent to voicemail.

He stood up, reaching and unplugging his phone. The caller ID said Wes.

“Hello?” David asked. He checked the time. It was 10pm, why was Wes calling him now? He was supposed to stay at the Blakes after their day of riding. Maybe he needed a ride back? Typical of the Day Students to just assume boarders could sleep wherever because they typically had two homes.

“David? It’s David right?” A girl answered.

“Who is this?” Was this a new girlfriend? Had Wes not told him? He felt his heart sink. Wouldn’t have Wes told him.

“Jackie Blake. We’re at the hospital with Wes.”

No.

“What!” He didn’t even ask, just exclaimed; jumping up out of his seat and looking for his car keys. “Is he hurt? Which hospital? How far is it from Dalton?”

She sounded relieved. “We’re at Mansfield Hospital, it’s an hour north from where you are. I’m glad you picked up. Todd said you’re the only one who’d have his parent’s numbers.”

“Is he okay?” David repeated, throwing his coat on as he struggled to keep his phone to his ear.

“Yes and no.” Jackie’s tone was more cautious this time. “We were on our way back from the ride when a pickup truck decided they’d cut our lead on the pack; Wes’d decided to set the pace, and I guess? They just didn’t like motorbikes?”

David swallowed. A third time: “Is he…?”

“We need his parent’s permission to get him into surgery. They think a rib punctured his lung when he was knocked off the road.” Jackie’s voice stuttered. “They just kept going. Like they hadn’t throw him across the freeway.”

“Surgery?” David swore to himself. He knew the motorcycle club was a bad idea. Shit. Wes’ parents would die of heartbreak if this was how their boy went out. “I’ll text you their numbers. But, introduce yourself first. They need to know who’s telling them Wes is hurt.”

“Okay…” Jackie said slowly. There was a ping from her end of the phone as David sent it. He was at his car now, ready to hang up and put in the directions to Mansfield.

She spoke again, quieter. “I’m sorry we didn’t get the licence plate. Colby stopped us all and had us put out flares so we could get him off the road. Dustin wanted to chase after them but-”

“Don’t worry.” David said, “just tell his parents. It will all be okay.”

“Okay.” She said quietly.

“I’m getting in the car now. I’ll talk to you soon.” David said, hanging up before she could say something else that would make him madder at the situation.

It wasn’t Jackie Blake’s fault. It wasn’t her brother Colby’s fault. Most of the Motorcycle Bros (as they called themselves) were fairly good people from what Wes described to him. It didn’t mean he couldn’t feel guilty he let Wes go out there. He’d already seen Katherine in the hospital because of one foolish driver; to see Wes? A target of a hit and run because of some stupidity about bikers? No. He didn’t want to accept it.

The road opened up before him, darkening fast in the early evening sunset. The lights were coming on one by one, making the road feel quieter than it was. He didn’t want to play the radio in case he got a call from Wes’ phone again, or from the Hughes, or anyone. He had to stay alert in case speakerphone went on.

It didn’t though. He made it to the hospital, probably passing the place the driver ran Wes off the road. He didn’t want to think about it, but he was.

David found the front desk, trying to look presentable, and not like he’d just sped an hour up the I-71. He approached the desk, ready to ask about a Hughes, Wes please- but a familiar face caught him by the arm.

“Hey, David. Are you alright?” Todd asked, still wearing the ridiculous jacket Wes commissioned for their little club. It was scuffed, covered in mud, but the smear of brown against Todd’s gloves made David swallow any jealousy he felt.

“I’m fine.” Of course he was. He wasn’t the one in hospital.

“He’s still in surgery, but the hospital isn’t busy tonight so they let us into the cafeteria even though its closed. We’re waiting for someone from the Hughes to show up; they said it will still eb a couple hours, but I guess,” Todd paused. He was leaning David off the entrance, presumably towards the sitting area. “None of us could just go home. Not, well… his motorcycle is still in the ditch and, it wouldn’t feel right riding without him.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t gone out with you guys.” David found himself saying bitterly.

Todd eyed him. He didn’t say anything for a moment; their footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. “I’m sorry you feel this way. But statistically, you know without us this just would have happened sooner.”

“You guys make it easy with your little bike gang.” David said, fiddling with the keys in his pocket. Wes was in surgery, and he was out here, chatting. It didn’t feel right. There had to be something he could do.

“Wes can have more than two groups of friends.” Todd said quietly, checking the door before opening it. “But now is not the time to fight. Sadie and Colby know more about the medical situation because they had to relay information to the doctors and the Hughes. We all care about Wes, but think about it- only you have his parent’s number. Don’t be mean because he’s not devoting his life to you.”

David kept quiet, the door opened to the large hospital cafeteria. The whole group was there, sans Wes. Some still had their jackets on; others like honorary member Casey Lambert, had taken it off in a haze of frantic pacing. Colby, Dustin, and Jackie were whispering between each other, while Sadie comforted a crying Allison.

“It’s okay, he’ll be fine.” Sadie said, loud enough for David to hear as they came in. She was holding Allison against her chest. David had seen Allison enough in passing while visiting Katherine at Royal to know she was a loud, confident girl. She didn’t seem like the type who cried much.

“I- I was supposed to ride with him. This is my fault.” Allison cried, sniffing between words into Sadie’s t-shirt. “Maybe he wouldn’t have been hit if I was on the back of his b-b-bike.”

Sadie petted her hair, “Allie, honey, you know he would have just sped faster. You two are speed demons. Shh, shh, this is no one’s fault except that evil truck who hit him.”

“I should have go-gotten the plate, or I could have-”

“Allie, honey don’t do that. No, no. Come on sweetie.” Sadie said, holding her tighter. “We’ll be back on the road soon, don’t worry. He’ll get out of surgery and everything will be fine.”

Sadie looked up, meeting David’s eyes. She pressed her mouth together and averted her gaze. Colby noticed the company Todd brought and got up quickly. He dodged around the table to hold his hand out to David, an awkward greeting.

“Hey, I’m sorry we gotta meet all proper like this- but, uh, I’m Colby from Lancaster?”

“I know who you are.” David said quickly. “Todd said you know what’s going on with Wes?”

Colby scratched the back of his neck nervously, “Yeah, uh. Shit. I. Okay. So his parents okayed the surgery, after that I was cut out of the conversation because of confidentiality; but before that I saw the whole thing. Fucking car comes out of the left lane, clips Wes’ wheel and sends him into the ditch. It was mostly a skid, but he flipped once so between the road burn and the fall I think he’s got a broken leg, a couple ribs, and like… there was a lot of blood along his whole? Side? I guess?”

Todd nodded, “Yeah his side. We’re usually in full protective gear, so if anything his face is the one thing that’s fine. The chin strap didn’t budge thank any gods who were listening. But, well, padding only does so much against gravel.”

“The doctors say he should be fine. But its his lung they’re worried about. He’s got two, but like? Internal bleeding… fuck.” Colby didn’t seem to know how to order his thoughts. “It was deliberate. And, his parents said something weird, like, ‘we’ll take care of it’, like they would just be able to pick out of hundreds of fucking pickup trucks which one got Wes on a random road in Ohio. They must know some cops or something….”

“Or something.” David said solemnly. So they didn’t know; or they didn’t know David knew, so they were pretending. Colby seemed like he couldn’t keep a secret though; so, maybe Wes didn’t trust them with that kind of information.

“Is he going to be out soon?” David asked.

“Not sure.” Colby said. “Sit down, its going to be a while.”

---

It was a while. Four hours in fact. One to take him apart, and three to put him back together. The group was told they wouldn’t be able to stay at the hospital overnight, but Victoria Hughes arrived banked by two large, bulked up men, all except David were told to leave.

He was grateful, he was. He promised to keep the Motorcycle Bros in the loop, but right now Wes was his priority. Answering confirmation texts from Casey Lambert were not going to be on his to-do list.

Wes didn’t wake up that night. Or the next morning. Victoria left for a few hours, switching off with David at his bedside. The large men by his doorway stood silent watch. It was a long time before David felt safe enough to let himself sleep.

He was shaken awake sometime in the evening; a fragile grip tugging at his pant leg. “Davey?”

“Wessy.” David smiled sleepily before he even opened his eyes.

Wes groaned. David couldn’t help but laugh. “You called me Davey, fair is fair,”

“I’m high on painkillers, let me live.”

David opened his eyes to his best friend, tired and exhausted, but alive. Thank you, God; he was alive. He resisted the urge to hug him, conscious that underneath the hospital gown was probably a whole mummy’s worth of bandages. Instead, he gripped the hand on his trousers tightly. He wasn’t going to let go until Wes asked.

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” David said, weight behind his words.

“Yeah, bit gnarly.” Wes smiled.

“You’re a dork.”

“Yeah, and?” Wes rolled his head against the pillow, scraped scabs visible under his neckline. “How long have you been here?”

“Last night. Victoria is here too. She brought the goons.”

“Probably Alejandro and Pino; they’re nice guys.” Wes said, stifling a yawn. “Sorry to keep you up, it wasn’t even the fun kind.”

“I don’t mind, you’d do the same for me.” David squeezed his hand. Wes squeezed back.

“You know it.” Wes said, tiredness seeping into his voice.

David couldn’t help it though, his next words just came out. “What were you thinking? Going out riding? Leading the pack? They’re…”

“They’re the only reason I’m alive.” Wes corrected. “If I’d been alone? Shit.”

“I know, but you’re on the road with-”

“David not every traffic accident is Katherine!” Wes said, sitting up and wincing. “God. You remember when I skidded off the road in sophomore year; that was my own stupidity. This time? I could have just stayed in that ditch for a week and no one would have found me. It’s the side of the I-71 on a weekday, no one cares. Besides, its not like you’d come out riding with me.”

“Its dangerous Wes.” David insisted.

“God, David; is this about me spending time with them and not you?” Wes asked, nailing the issue on its head.

“It’s not.” David lied.

“I’m not stupid. I know you.”

He did.

“I just-”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been spending time with you; but have you considered you haven’t made it easy?”

“I-“

“I know, you want to get into a good school. I don’t care because I’m running the family business no matter what my grades are.” Wes sighed, “David. Has it occurred to you I miss you too?”

“But you spend all your time with-”

“Only when you blow me off to study!”

“We used to study together.”

“We used to have all our classes together.” Wes pointed out. “I’m going business, you’re going medical. Why would I still be in Biology or Physics? Why would you be in Accounting?”

David said nothing.

“For someone so smart you can be a real idiot.” Wes said, pulling David’s hand closer. “But okay, if you promise to stop being just a territorial idiot, I’ll make a special David Only Day- not just movie nights, but just us.”

David snorted, “You’re just saying that cause you’ll be on bedrest until you’re better.”

“You saw through my evil plan! Oh no!” Wes said dramatically, raiding his hand as many degrees it could go until it hurt.

They would be fine. But it would take work. Luckily, both of them knew how to make the impossible out of probabilities.

David then realized, “Hey wait are you dating-”

“They’re all taken and it’s unfair.” Wes said. “I know!”

“Oh that’s rough man.”

#daltonficbigbang2020 #daltonfic #oneshot #wes hughes #david sullivan #brotp #pg #owie #todd hendricks #colby blake #jackie blake #sadie moore #allison seymour #artemiswrites

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candle-jill · 4 years

Text

The Final(ish) Chapter of PE is officially posted! The following is basically just a long author’s note/commentary/explanation of the ending/what’s up for the future. SPOILERS if you haven’t read the last chapter, I linked back to here on AO3 - hit that up first then come back here for more info if you’d like.

I have so much to say and I didn’t want to post it all on AO3!

First of all - THE ENDING:

At this point you can stop right where it ends and it can live on its own as a non-zombie AU (despite Negan’s remark about weird aggressive behavior on the news - guess it’s just the state of our world today?). Carl and Negan ride off into the sunset, traveling the world as Murder Husbands, and live happily ever after! The End! BUT! I will be continuing the story using the foundation of PE with the introduction of zombies. I’m really entertained by the idea of Negan and Rick reluctantly dealing with each other, 1) for Carl’s sake and 2) because they understand that the other is an asset in the new world order. I don’t know how frequently I plan on updating but I have a few plots in mind that I’d like to write. I want to explore how Negan’s character develops in that setting with Rick and Carl as an influence. ~*~ OKAY! Now that that’s been stated... THANK YOU! Can I just say thank you? Like... so fuckin’ much dudes. The feedback, comments, questions, fucking FANART?! and the love you’ve shown me since I started this (way too fucking long ago) has been so far outside of any expectation I’ve ever had - I honestly can’t believe it.

And that so many of you have stuck with it for THIS LONG? That is just incomprehensible to me. THANK YOU! For anyone who has commented, or kudos’d, or gently (or aggressively) nudged me in the in direction to continue the story... thank you so much. You all know I’ve had real life get in the way but if it weren’t for your cheerleading I would have just dropped this story. I always wanted to finish it, I always had this ending in mind (some of you have guessed it - hopefully you’ve still enjoyed the ride), and I’m so grateful for the support you’ve given me over the years that has helped motivate me to finally get this story out. THANK YOU FOR READING! But especially thank you if you’ve ever commented or messaged me. I don’t know how to express how insecure I am in my writing and how much your support has meant to me. Truly! <3 ~*~ DISCLAIMER! At this point it’s a bit late in the game to state it, but I don’t condone any of the actions of what the characters are doing in the fic. Murder/torture/abuse - that’s a no-no kids! But specifically writing Carl to be underage for sexual contact (of any kind) has actually really bothered me. I’m not condoning sexual contact with minors in any form but I had at originally planned on him being 18 before they do-the-do. I changed some of the story and it worked out better for the plot to have him underage... but to reiterate, I do not condone that kind of behavior in real life. Fiction is just that, it’s fiction. It’s my personal opinion that exploring problematic themes, questioning mores, and providing commentary on all of the above through a safe creative outlet is important in a free society. The “Victims” 1st guy they kill - he’s just generic predatory Dude. No real inspiration for him except EAR/ONS, maybe. There wasn’t much thought except to be a plot device. 2nd dude - I’ve worked with a lot of people who were survivors of sexual abuse as children and it’s frequently a boyfriend/step dad/family member that is the abuser. This dude was a reflection on my experience working with those kids. Bryce was inspired by the rich/athletic fucks you see getting away with what they get away with - the Brock Turners, Steubenville, and Brett Kavanaughs of the world. Paul/Arthur were based on guys like Jerry Sandusky, Jim Jordan, Richard Strauss, Larry Nassar, and the institutions (Penn State/Ohio State/Michigan State/US Olympics) that encourage, enable, and protect that behavior. Throughout the story I don’t feel like I ever properly gave weight to survivors of incidents like those mentioned above, because that’s not the kind of story I was writing. But fuck if what they put people through doesn’t stick with me. I don’t actually believe that people who commit those acts should be murdered violently, but it’s kind of nice to write a novel length fanfic about it. And to be honest, for this story I do like the hypocrisy of Negan perpetuating some of the problematic behaviors in a way that he thinks are justifiable - it’s sort of depressingly well rounded for me. I like that the “bad guys” always have the “they were asking for it” kind of plea and that’s essentially what Negan tells Rick when he finds out. Only in Negan’s case it was... kind of true? ~*~ Misc Shit Here’s fanart of Negan I did (print for sale in my shop). Here’s fanart of Carl/Chandler. I don’t have prints available because it was mostly just a portrait study but if anyone was interested I could put it up. Here’s a Cegan soundtrack that I listened to for most of writing PE. ~*~ I’m finally done (if you’ve made it this far)! So, again, I am going to update a post-PE story with a walkers very soon. Keep an eye out for that! If you’re not into that, then I hope you liked the journey of Physical Education. As Chuck from SPN says, “Endings are hard. Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can.” Thank you again for EVERYTHING! I don’t know if I can say that enough. Please feel free to message me anytime! <3

#cegan #carl/negan #pe #carl grimes/negan #my fic #me #my post

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meditationsfromthethirdrail · 4 years

Text

Credentials and Credibility

I’ve written about polarization and about empathy, rights and responsibilities in the last couple of blog posts. I have a long list of interrelated topics to cover before the November elections and I plan to keep plowing through them. But I’m well aware that my voice is a candle in the wind, to borrow the phrase used by T.H. White in the title of his tale about King Arthur’s dream of a more egalitarian and peaceful society. The number of readers of my blog thus far may barely run into double digits and that may never change. We are all drowning in information (and misinformation) unless we are either so socioeconomically disadvantaged as to be denied access or are actively disengaged from media. People in either category aren’t reading this.

With all the competition for the attention of readers and listeners, if someone wants to be heard above the din, he or she either has to have a forceful personality and a good platform, or actually have something important to say. I may not have either of those. Readers will judge for themselves. But it occurred to me that I ought to at least provide a little background about myself, which may or may not compel you to hear me. So here it is.

My story is not one of hard knocks and resentment - it’s a success story. There are a lot of ways to define success but I feel like I’ve grabbed a nice assortment of brass rings during my almost-seven decades on the planet. I’ve had a long and happy marriage to an incredible woman; I’ve traveled extensively (six continents and all fifty states) and lived for substantial periods in many states; I have three degrees from a major college; I attained a modestly high position in a large, global professional services firm and was financially well rewarded for my efforts; and I have many hobbies and interests that make it easy for me to stay fully occupied in retirement. Most importantly, I’m happy and at peace with myself and others. One could argue that these successes may have caused me to be out of touch with those who’ve enjoyed fewer of them, but I don’t think that’s entirely true, and I’ll try to suggest why.

My parents were the son and daughter of a sharecropper and a truck farmer/itinerant salesman, respectively, in rural Mississippi. They grew up during the Great Depression. They were married and gave life to my older brother when they were still in their teens. My dad dropped out of high school to sign up for the Army and served in the European theater in WWII. After the war he got a G.E.D. and served as a tractor mechanic for a while. Around the time I was born he was hired by a prominent agricultural implement manufacturing company, which led to him being transferred from Mississippi to Maryland to Ohio to Idaho to Oregon and to Iowa in order to earn promotions, and with family in tow. Later he also transferred to Texas, Missouri and Georgia, after I was left behind to attend college in Iowa. In those days it was possible to rise pretty high in the ranks of a business like my dad’s, without a glittery collegiate resume, if you worked hard and were willing to uproot yourself and your family whenever it was called for. So my dad eventually did rise fairly high in the ranks, and in the meantime my mom scrambled her way to a B.A., then taught high school English for a short time.

All’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare once said. My parents came a long way from the dusty fields where they picked cotton for 50 cents a day. My own road to success was much easier than theirs. During most of my childhood our family was financially situated about in the dead center of what was then considered middle class. My parents were not rich, although they accumulated modest wealth later in life, and they were always frugal, so I grew up with very few toys and a mostly empty closet. My parents were not the type to devote much time attending to my personal pursuits, other than to quietly demand that I get good grades in school. So I wouldn’t say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I understand that’s a relative thing. I certainly wasn't lavished with material things as a child, but I never went hungry or worried about having a roof over my head.

Aside from a base level of financial and emotional support and protection, the best thing my parents gave me was a solid education in a robust public school system. This was a pre Betty Devos era. Fortunately I had just enough innate ambition (or willingness to succumb to my parents’ expectations) and intelligence to perform in the upper tier, academically. I could have done better but I often didn’t “apply myself,” as they say. In retrospect I realize I had ADHD but few people understood or cared about that back then.

My college record was spotty at first, but ultimately pretty good. I had almost no grasp of what I wanted to do with my life. As a result, I had an abnormally extended adolescence, to roughly age 27. Maybe I was a trendsetter; I see a lot more of that happening with young people today. In any case I considered, at various times and among other things, becoming a Baptist minister (I was licensed and briefly attended seminary), an English professor (I have an M.A. in English and instructed freshman writing courses for three years), a novelist and poet (insufficient talent and discipline derailed that plan), and a hotel manager (nah). A happy accident of my wandering and indecision was that I acquired a lot of knowledge that later paid off in surprising ways I’ll come back to later. I was financially very poor the entire time, which gave me considerable perspective on what it means to be concerned about affording basics such as food and transportation.

I vividly remember the catalysts for my decision to enter the social mainstream. One was the fallout from a poker game I got into with some friends. One of my “friends” was a notoriously unethical character who, one late evening when I was especially unlucky and perhaps too full of beer, lured me into some bad bets that resulted in a $700 debt to him. At that time, when I was working several crummy part-time jobs to afford food and my $50 share of the rent on a slum-quality house we shared with two other guys, $700 dollars seemed like a million dollars. I didn't realize and no one told me that on the very next evening the same group of friends gathered for another poker game as I was licking my wounds and trying to form a plan. I was not present to witness the scene in which the guy whom I was newly indebted to suffered an equally humiliating loss - a loss that was forgiven by the victor on the condition that the loser would also forgive my loss. My friends assumed that Bart (not his real name, or is it?) would inform me that I was off the hook. He did not.

For the first time in my life, I devised a budget in order to determine how I could repay Bart the debt that didn’t actually exist, because that’s the kind of guy I am. I believed, and I still do, that a person is morally and ethically responsible for meeting whatever commitments he or she enters into. So I scrambled for more hours working as a church janitor, a tutor and a library assistant; I ate Kraft macaroni and cheese almost every day (30 cents a box, if I recall); I stayed in my room as if I had contracted the then-undreamt-of coronavirus; and I turned over every penny that didn’t go for rent and minimal food to Bart in three monthly installments until I was finally clear. I was six feet tall but my weight fell to about 140 pounds. On the day I forked over the last $200, Bart skipped town, just as the news finally arrived that I wasn’t supposed to have owed that debt.

That sordid chapter concluded with me taking a job, out of sheer desperation, in a factory where I was paid a below-minimum wage to operate a machine which applied mailing labels to printed advertisements. It was mind-numbing. There were perhaps another 100 workers in that factory doing the same thing I was doing. The output of each worker was measured daily by the factory management. By the end of the first week I was the most productive mailing label attacher in the factory. To keep myself from going insane, I approached my task as if it were a game and challenged myself each shift to beat my previous day’s output, which I always did. During my brief lunch breaks I used to surreptitiously glance around at the other workers and I understood exactly what Thoreau meant when he opined that the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. I don’t know if he was right about “the mass of men,” but he certainly could have been describing that crew at the factory.

In my second week at the factory I met another newly-hired college guy whose wife and he were trying to save enough money to move to Los Angeles so he could take a shot at professional acting - this was his second job. Chatting with him during lunch breaks, i was inspired by his desire to fulfill a dream and the difficult steps he was taking to do it. I listened to him, I looked around at the hollow-eyed, middle-aged folks who had worked for years operating labeling machines, and I squirmed as I considered what a sap I was for racking up a poker debt and falling victim to a con man. i abruptly abandoned the factory but I felt so discombobulated that I enlisted my good buddy John to drive out to Idaho with me so I could visit my brother and try to get my shit together. By the end of that brief sojourn out west, the best job offer I could manage was from Roto-Rooter . . . to work in the field, as it were. Wake up call!

If you’ve read this far you must be wondering how any of this supports the notion that I’m qualified to write about sociopolitical matters. It doesn’t, except to demonstrate that I have at least a small measure of “street cred.” But the best is yet to come. When I returned to Iowa I found a better job in a hotel. Initially I was a night auditor, which is a position that involves being a desk clerk part of the time and an accountant the rest of the time. Only a small step forward, financially, but it gave me a taste for something I had never previously thought about doing for even one minute. Accounting, I quickly learned, was something I had a natural aptitude for, and in some quirky way I found it interesting. Once again I viewed my duties as a sort of game, but this was a game that lit up my brain much more brightly than did operating a machine to perform an exceptionally repetitive task.

My whole life is a series of lucky breaks at critical junctures. In this instance the break was that I met a co-worker - a guy who shared the hotel night auditor position with me - who had previously worked for a large CPA firm. He had taken the part-time hotel job because he was trying to become a full-time stock trader and that’s what he was doing during the day. From him I learned what it is that CPAs in a big firm actually do. Let me assure you I’m not going to get into that subject, in case you were already feeling the dread. (Thank God for actuaries - the only people who make accountants seem slightly interesting.) Suffice it to say that I figured out how I could minimize the additional schooling I would need to become qualified to be a CPA and I decided to take a stab at it.

I kept the hotel job but started carrying a heavy load of college classes - accounting, math, economics, law, etc. It so happened that I met my future wife, who was just finishing her Interior Design degree at the same college, about the same time I took the first tentative steps down my new career path. That was even more fortuitous - I give her lots of credit for helping me stay the course. The two years in which I went to college in the day, worked at the hotel at night, and struggled to get our new romance off the ground, was “character-building,” to say the least. I can barely remember anything about that period, it was such a blur. To give you an idea of how much of a blur it was, the major highlight I remember was driving with my new spouse to Des Moines to dine at Spaghetti Works. $5 for beer-and-cheese spaghetti, all-you-can-eat salad bar and a glass of swill. Heaven!

When the two hellish years finally ended and I received my B.S. in Accounting, I had already lined up a job in Des Moines as an auditor with one of the Big 8 (at that time) accounting firms. Not long afterward, I passed the CPA exam and my wife landed a spot with a local design firm, and we were on our way.

Ok, at last I’m where I possibly should have started. In the ensuring three decades I continued to work as a CPA, becoming a partner along the way (meaning that I became one of the owners), and developing a specialization working with clients in the financial services industry - investment management companies and banking and finance companies, primarily. This is the good part, folks. My career soon took me from Iowa to New York City, where my background in English earned me the privilege of being a key designer and the principal author of new practice guidance for our international firm, which was just merging with another large international firm. That put me in the spotlight for a time and gave me a leg up for promotion. After the merger we relocated to Los Angeles, where I worked with some of the most prominent investment management companies in the world, and numerous banks, mortgage banks and other financial institutions. Finally we moved to southeast Pennsylvania and I split time engaged with clients there and in California, and with our national financial services practice in New York.

Late, late nights on Wall Street helping to prepare financial offerings with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line. Late, late nights at client offices in L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York and Philadelphia, managing teams of young accountants to deal with complex accounting problems under tremendous pressure. Board meetings, fee negotiations, staff meltdowns, discoveries of fraud and malfeasance, financial crises in which I was an inside observer. A 60-hour work week felt almost like a vacation compared to many weeks with even longer hours. It was enough to give me PTSD. I don’t want to overstate it - it wasn’t like actual life or death combat PTSD - but I still have nightmares ten years and more after the fact.

That’s a very quick summary of the 30+ years in which I obtained hard-won knowledge about global finance and economics - a period in which I also had a lot of experiences with politics, charitable organizations and other components of society I didn’t have time to get into today. I still spend a lot of time staying informed about subjects ranging from psychology and mythology to current events and hard science. There’s a ton I still don’t know. But as my all-time favorite singer Joni Mitchell famously said, I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.

#politics #sociopolitical #accounting #credentials

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canaryatlaw · 5 years

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alright, so today was pretty fun. I woke up at 9:20 when my alarm went off and started getting ready. I was meeting friends at 10, so I figured 20 minutes to get ready, 20 minutes to get there, should be good and I left on schedule. of course it took me more like 7 minutes to get there because the place is actually really close to my house, but I figured there’d be a wait because it’s a pretty popular place and most people are still off. So I figured I’d go put our names on the list, except I walk in and we got empty tables and nobody waiting. Oh. So I get seated at a table by the door and wait for my friends to arrive. It’s this cute little place down by the old village area in like the historic district of my town that’s all just very nostalgic and cute. They have a ton of like, different fun wintery coffee options but also said they had flavored hot chocolate, so I asked what flavors that could be and they basically said whatever we had for the coffee, so I ordered the gingerbread cookie coffee flavors in hot chocolate form and it was so damn good, let me tell you. Friend 1 arrived after not too long, I expected them to come together being that they are twins but they’re both married and don’t live together; apparently they had been planning on it but the other was running late so they decided to come separately, and friend 2 showed up not long afterwards. These are like, the two friends from high school I actually keep up with and make an effort to see when I’m home because I really don't give two shits about anybody else (the only third person would be the guy one of them is married to, so he kinda comes with the package). They’re both currently working as teachers at the school now though, which was a bit of a change for the second as she has a degree in biology and was planning on doing fertility treatments, which she’s still pursuing on the side, but she ended up coming in as a part time english teacher after the last one (who was by far the worst teacher I’ve ever had and she was there for WAY too long) got offended when they moved her to part time because there were less kids in the class and decided to quit, for the good of all humanity (I seriously cannot emphasize enough how shitty of a teacher she was. she was fucking awful. we were supposed to be reading the tragedy of julius caesar like, out loud in class, and it took us 3 fucking months to get through it because she was so incompetent we’d get through like a page a day. it was torture). so I was glad to hear that at least, especially because that teacher would’ve had the class my sister is in, and my sister now has my friend instead, which I’m very thankful for. So we talked about the school of course and what’s going on there with the administration and all that. They of course always had a much better relationship with the school than I ever did to be able to go back and teach there; I mean if I was a teacher I would never even consider working there because I had such a terrible experience as a student there. but yeah, good stuff to discuss, and then we moved onto some of our more typical discussion topics like abortion and foster care and all that good stuff we like to discuss lol. the Ohio heartbeat bill that had just been passed then vetoed then maybe overriden came up and I just of course repeated my position that if you want to decrease abortion, you should remove the need for it from society and change the culture, not decrease access to it, which I think is a solid argument most people can get behind. once we finished breakfast we walked a bit in the little shopping area and ended up in a store that has super cute baby clothing and toys and such. one of them has a ten month old so she was telling us about him and all that fun stuff. I didn’t have anywhere I specifically had to be afterwards so I ended up following her back to her family’s place to see the baby, but he ended up having been taking a nap so we figured we’d save that for another day, so I headed home from there. Not too much was going on at home, my sister had decided she didn’t want to work on college apps today but would do so tomorrow instead, so that wasn’t on the schedule. I forget if I talked on here about it before but she’s decided she wants to go to one of the state schools upstate fairly recently, but still hasn't taken the SAT or started her application, whereas my parents very much want her to stay at home and do the local community college, so that’s gonna be interesting to see play out. so I mostly just chilled for the rest of the day and didn’t do all that much. people came home after work and they had dinner before one of my friends from theatre came and picked me up and we went out to Applebee’s (after another restaurant was way too crowded). We’d been keeping up fairly regularly, she’s one of the only ones I still talk to other than the guy I was with yesterday who was a family friend long before we did theatre together. But this friend is now in her second year of law school, so of course we have a lot to talk about and such. so we talked about passing the bar and it being over, she wants to do like, financial regulation law which tbh I don't even know what that means but she seems to really like it so hey good for her. and yeah, we chatted about all that good stuff and somewhat about how the other people we used to know just have not moved on with their lives whatsoever and we’re just like....we’re so far removed from that now it’s crazy really. so it was a nice time. once we finished she dropped me off and I spent a little bit sitting in my parents room mostly talking to my brother about law related stuff which eventually veered towards the juvenile justice system in comparison to the adult justice system, because NY just recently raised the age for juveniles to automatically be sent to adult court to 18 instead of it being like 16 I think previously, which is insane when there’s literally only one other state that was doing that. but we were talking about a small charge in the adult system versus one in the juvenile system, whereas in a more regulated system like Chicago small charges all go to juvenile court, and the only ones that make it into adult court are the very serious ones (murder, rape, etc.) I still firmly believe there should be a hard limit on not charging kids under 15 as adults, they are children in every sense of the word and treating them like adults is absurd when we literally have an entire fucking system based around addressing the different needs juveniles have than adults and to use the adult system anyway is ridiculous. okay I’m ranting I know, but the point I was getting at was it was actually a fairly civil conversation and I was able to share some of my experiences working with juveniles and how they end up in the situations they did, and I felt like (for once) he was actually listening and thinking about what I was saying rather than just trying to argue with everything that came out of my mouth, so that was a nice change. of course he ended with “well there's not much we can do to help [low income communities riddled with violence] and they can just shoot each other it’s not our problem” at which point I was like, except I work with the incredibly traumatized kids from those communities and it very much is my problem because that’s the work I want to be doing, and I don’t think he gets that, but he seems to be at least a little more open minded towards all of it, so that was good. I was telling him how when I was in juvenile justice class we had to read this book about a family in the projects in Chicago in the 1980s and I would read it on my commute to and from the juvenile courthouse, and the bus I took there passed right by where the projects used to be (like the book would mention a kid chasing a ball across the street of Damen ave, which is the street the bus runs down) and I swear passing it every day was like seeing ghosts, phantom children running after balls in the street and getting caught in the crossfire of gangs, little girls being gunned down while jumping rope where what now is just a parking lot, and all of that hit me real hard. And I think if you’re gonna work with these kids you need to understand the background they’re coming from and the trauma they’ve been experiencing all of their lives. I’m ranting, anyway. Once we wrapped up that discussion I headed to my room and got in the shower to start getting ready for bed and now here I am. it is just past 1:15 am and since I got up rather early (for me lately at least) so I am quite tired and will be going to bed now. Goodnight my friends. Have a joyous rest of your evening.

#daily journal #December 2018

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tilbageidanmark · 3 years

Photo

Movies I watched this week - 38

Early 60′s Sidney Lumet X 2:

✳️✳️✳️ “...You have a poet in you, but it’s a damn morbid one...”

Lumet’s 1962 powerful version of O’Neill’s stage play Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Superb ensemble performance by Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, and very young Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell.

A dysfunctional family of three drunks and a morphine fiend mother bicker and struggles with their own shortcomings, responsibilities and madness.

✳️✳️✳️ The Pawnbroker (1964), first mainstream American film to deal with the psychology of a holocaust survivor. But the combination of a bitter & lonely concentration camp survivor who became a Harlem pawnbroker, the black & Puerto Ricans stereotypes, the money as the only value left for the desperate Jew, Etc. didn’t gel. 3/10.

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Udo Kier’s plays the lead in the new Swan Song, a daring & heartbreaking tear-jerker about a very old gay hairdresser, the “Liberace of Sandusky, Ohio”, who escapes his nursing home in order to style a dead woman's hair.

Beautiful! The best film of the week.

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A thought-provoking documentary, I, Pastafari, about recent efforts by adherents of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (”FSM”) to be accepted as a “real”, non-satirical religion, mostly in The Netherlands and in Germany. "It is a serious offense to mock God". I found it an interesting argument on claimed faith and the nature of traditions. Long live Bobby Henderson!

R’amen!

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Yves Montand X 3:

✳️✳️✳️ First re-watch in over 20 years: Claude Berri’s ‘The Water of the Hills’ stories, AKA Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Two classic period pieces of classic Provence-chic with Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil and Yves Montand. Deception, betrayal and revenge. 7+/10

✳️✳️✳️ First watch: Melville’s cool heist ‘policier’ Le Cercle Rouge, with Alain Delon’s glued-on porn-'stache. The ‘Red Circle’ is actually a ‘Red Herring’, as the Buddha quote in the epigraph was made up by Melville: The divergent paths of unknowing men will come together inside the Red Circle... Yeah sure.

Now, off to see Rififi...

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Lennon’s Last Weekend, a Nothing documentary centered around the week-long interviews that Lennon gave DJ Andy Peebles of the BBC up until December 6, 1980, 2 days before he was killed.

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2 Directed by Tony Gilroy, again:

✳️✳️✳️ “I'm Shiva, the God of death.”

Michael Clayton must be my absolute favorite film from the last 20 years. I’ve seen it 12-15 times, and it’s perfect in every sense: every single frame, or cut, the soundtrack, his son Henry’s 'Realm and Conquest' sub-plot, the horses, Monsanto’s Karen Crowder’s double-speak... Every time I’m reminded of it, I'm ‘forced’ to watch it again.

10/10

✳️✳️✳️ 2 years after Michael Clayton, Gilroy assembled many of the same players to do Duplicity: Tom Wilkinson & Denis O’Hare acting, James Newton Howard’s score, Robert Elswit DP, Etc. but this convoluted romance between two industrial spies who double and triple cross each other and everybody else is too clever, with too many complex plot twists. 5/10

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Not a big David Lynch fan, and re-watching Blue Velvet for the second time after many years, I disliked it even more. The brilliant beginning, up to the discovery of the severed ear definitely signifies “This is Andalusian dog for the ‘80″. The rest of it, the sexual slavery, the masochism, voyeurism, fetishism of vintage pop songs left me completely cold.

(Photo Above)

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Based on Michael Lewis’s book, The Big Short is another of my regular Guilty Pleasures housing market crash films. Because it’s about my 2004-2010 real estate investment career, and because I was there. 9/10

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More about the shuttered, big American Scam, Frontline’s The Retirement Gamble. I can’t believe that for half my life I let myself live within and (somehow) accept the system. Thanks, Sammy.

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“It’s the corn cubes!...”

Beatboxer Reggie Watts's A Live At Central Park (2012) - Funniest shit of the week!

(Prompt by a refresher on Metafilter.)

✴️

Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Steven Soderbergh‘s pathological debut film. It influenced me so much, I even had the same wooden cassette cases, to keep my tapes. The four then-unknown actors were all incredible. 100% mature film, not by a 26 year old pisher. The only vague, unconvincing scene is Graham opening up to Ann at the end. 9+/10

✴️

...Compared that to Bitter Moon, another late 80′s erotic ‘thriller’, Polanski’s unwatchable Merde. The man directed ‘Chinatown’ for Christ sake! Four terrible performances (including Polanski’s wife, Mariel Hemingway-lite), in a ‘daring’ exploration of ‘depraved’ sexuality. Truly awful.

1/10

✴️

2 X National Lampoon:

✳️✳️✳️ Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, a 2015 documentary film. I wasn’t familiar much with that history.

✳️✳️✳️ And so, National Lampoon’s Animal House - First watch. I wish I saw it 40 years ago, then maybe it would have worth a chuckle or two. As it is, it was the worst film I saw this week.

✴️

2 short documentaries:

✳️✳️✳️ Ice Ball, a short Vimeo story about Ice Harvesting in northern Minnesota.

✳️✳️✳️ The driver is red, an animated short about the hunt for Eichmann, told by an Israeli Mossad agent.

✴️

The Swarm, a new French horror movie about anthropo-entomophagy (insect eating): Blood sucking grasshoppers!

Meh.

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

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weneverlearn · 7 years

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R.I.P. Grant Hart

When some kind of celebrity death occurs -- and that “celebrity” can be Prince or Paul Hamann -- there’s often a genuinely heartfelt and/or morbid need to reach out and tell someone. Add the internet into that instinct, and this human action takes on more strange, conflicted, even narcissistic layers.

I woke up yesterday to a text about Grant Hart having passed away. I told myself my girlfriend was awake, and gently tapped her on the shoulder to tell her. She has been working a lot lately, and it was probably best to let her sleep and talk about this later. Telling her, telling anyone wasn’t going to bring Grant Hart back. Basically I just confused her, though she sweetly said “Sorry,” and went back to sleep, somehow.

The emotions were flooding through me, and it was one of numerous deaths that have occurred in my sphere of late, so the usual sinking heart feeling sunk as low as it’s been in awhile (and that’s saying something in this Trump era). One song popped in my head, “Think It Over Now,” from Hart’s excellent 1999 solo album, Good News for Modern Man. In a sea of great Grant Hart songs, it’s Ronettes-meets-rainstorm ramble makes it one of my favorites of his, and it’s positive message helped instantly assuage some sadness. I posted it on Facebook for whatever fucking reason, and went to work, unable to think about much else the rest of the day, into today, and I don’t know, maybe from now on.

It feels awkward to make a celebrity death personal with some tossed-out Facebook post. But I am at that point now in my life where the passing of such monumental artistic figures starts to occur closer to you, more frequently, and it’s inevitable that it spurs you to seek comfort from just telling others why this death is monumental. I mean, in my early 20s, if I had heard the bassist in the Johnny Burnette Trio died, oh, that’s sad. But had that bassist been close to my age, had I seen that bassist play live, got to hang out with him a bit, cranked his records through headphones throughout my teens, well...

It was early summer, 1985, I was 17, about butt-deep into a growing pile of records, increasingly punk records, and my au currant desire was to “get into hardcore.” I mean it was all over college radio, Cleveland had a decent scene of it (although in that odd Ohio-y, weather-beaten way), and I just thought, well, that’s what a guy like me should be doing right now. So I went to my local rack jobber and asked him for a great new hardcore album, and he hands me New Day Rising.

I took it home and played it, but I was a bit nonplussed. This wasn’t the bald-head dude screaming in a circle pit shit I thought I was searching for. It was loud and fast for sure, but not the polka-beat, the government and your parents suck spiel. Instead, as I noticed while I self-surprisingly kept playing the record over and over for the next week, was an instantly recognizable melancholy, damp atmosphere, and intense energy I’d already loved from midwest acts. Husker Du just felt like me and lots of strangers I was starting to get to know at Cleveland punk shows -- already a bit beaten by long winters, mall jobs, and terrible sports teams we didn’t care about, but you live in Cleveland, so you’re going to hear about the fucking Browns whether you like it or not. My image was the three Huskers sitting in their dank basement, from about the first week of October until the first week of March, with a space heater sparking in the corner, complaining about fucking jocks, drinking the cheapest local beer, excited only about the tunes they were coming up with, grasping for hopes maybe winter will end early this year (the last week of February), but knowing for sure it’s just gonna come around again anyway, so whatever, let’s go through that new one again.

I already knew enough about the California-based SST Records to know a shlubby band from Minneapolis with cutoff shorts and an almost sobbing seriousness to their loud fast rules, featuring lyrics about folklore and summer ending, was not that label’s raison d’etre. No doubt most of their bands had shitty lives, crappy parents, drug problems, and whatever. But to me, nothing I’d heard on that label (save some Black Flag), had this depth of pathos and seething spirit. I mean come on, it’s California. You don’t spend your teens hanging out on beaches and seeing pretty girls all the time all year and think, “Damn, remember those good times we had? Fuck! Where’s my copy of Being and Nothingness?!” (Well, maybe the Minutemen did.)

Indeed, from what I understood through the grape, er, hops-vine of the time, many diehard SST fans didn’t dig Husker Du. (Someone did, because I think Husker Du was the best selling act on SST, but you record scholars can correct me on that.) To me they were a sudden, jarring connection between the jangle of ‘60s folk and garage rock -- meaning they were contemporaries more with R.E.M. than Saccharine Trust or what have you -- and a huge leap into some fuzzed-out new world of extreme emotional and sonic confessional. Even moreso than the, truth be told, kind of cute Replacements, Husker Du were the gnarled heart pumping to where punk could grasp towards, to survive not just the winters but encroaching adulthood abyss. Even their name, from an old board game (fun!) that translated to “Do You Remember?” (sad), was reflective. They were 20-year olds and already nostalgic, wistful. But their own apocalyptic Reagan-era shakes were vibrating them out of that basement. They toured like fucking crazy, rust belt work ethic and all; and with hooks that finally put a relevant nail in skinny tie power pop’s coffin.

New Day Rising has mostly remained my favorite Husker Du album since, the opening title tune being my favorite opener on any album (save maybe “I’m Stranded” by the Saints). But their whole catalog is worth churning through. And it wasn’t just Grant Hart’s massively manic drum pounds that hit you hard, but his and Bob Mould’s strained, splitting-at-the-edges voices. Like their Minneapolis contemporaries (Replacements, Soul Asylum, Magnolias), they sounded like they were incredibly pissed off and ready to fight, to the point of tears. Not to belabor the midwest/California dichotomy, but the Offspring never struck me as tearful guys.

Of course soon enough I gathered, via unexplainable gut impressions and gossipy fanzine articles, that there were gay men in Husker Du. And there’s no doubt that the usual animosity towards jocks for this punk band left larger scars.

The scar I personally got from their records was a band. When I first met New Bomb Turks’s guitarist Jim Weber at our college dorm, one of the earliest conversations centered on how Jim couldn’t get to the Warehouse tour stop in Cleveland, and hence never got to see Husker Du. I’d seen them twice, regaled Jim with some details, and made tapes of the Husker Du albums he didn’t have. You can ask him, but I think Bob Mould was his biggest early guitar inspiration. And further discussions involved the gender identity of the band, though being early-20s guys in the late ‘80s, we probably didn’t talk about “gender identity” as much as how/when we were called the ol’ “f”word in high school, and how the Huskers must have dealt with tons of awful shit from the more unseemly sides of the hardcore scene.

Husker Du was a favorite band, but also our introduction to really thinking about these issues that were still pretty swept under the turkey at the family Thanksgiving meal back then. We were both raised Catholic, so...

So, Grant Hart. After the Warehouse show at the Phantasy Theater in Cleveland in summer 1987 (they would break up soon after the end of that tour), I made my way to the adjacent upstairs bar, whose backroom was being used as a backstage. I saw Grant and said, “Great show!” He looked at me a little cockeyed, then turned around, asking, “Does anyone have any heroin around here?” So, that was that.

I loved his 2541 EP from 1988, the first post-Husker Du release. By then I was best friends with the first friend to ever come out to me; and that happening right around the release of that EP, well, one should always appreciate life’s teachable serendipity.

Then, the first time I ever went to New York City and first time I went to CBGB in 1989 with said out pal, the first band I saw there was Hart’s Nova Mob. (Well, technically Run Westy Run opened up.) They were pretty good, and I was glad to see Hart still going at it, but it seemed soon enough that he wasn’t. Didn’t hear much except sporadic solo stuff after Nova Mob split up, and given the usual rumors, figured he was done. But then my band was pretty busy those years, and I was soaking up tons of new bands, so who knows.

Then, in mid-summer 1999, I get a request from an editor at the Cleveland Free Times to write a preview for Grant Hart’s solo show in Cleveland, and found out he’d be playing Columbus a couple days before. So we hooked up a meeting, which is a whole other story for another post, or if I had the power, a movie. It was a strange couple of days, involving breaking into the trunk of the early ‘80s Cadillac he was touring in (”Got it from Rent-a-Wreck, seriously”), the club, Bernie’s, not paying him what they promised, Hart rightly taking a monitor as payment (probably not worth the $250 he was guaranteed), and me getting a call from him at 3 a.m. asking to be a character witness in court on Monday. Nice dinner with him in there too.

After relative (college) radio silence for a few years, I didn’t know what to expect of the show, and without going into details, let’s just say this seemed like a “rent tour.” Hart was fairly disheveled, but super nice. He’d recently become close with Patti Smith, and I guess she told him her parents last names were Grant and Hart, and that once she heard of him, she took that as a sign from the stars to work with him. Anyway, standing in Berne’s with like 10 other people watching him, I was utterly floored once again. His voice was just teeming with the weight of all those slushy winters. I just kept thinking, this is unbelievable how intense he is, and how good these songs are, and how no one even in my circle of music heps even knew this show was happening, in the middle of summer no less, when campus is pretty dead anyway. Unfortunately, a horrible flu had also floored me, a 102 temperature, and I could only stay about four songs of his set before heading home to sweat in bed. “Ah, I’ll see him again.” That was the last time I saw him play.

R.I.P. Grant Hart.

#grant hart #husker du #newbombturks #granthart

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rockrevoltmagazine · 5 years

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An Interview with Royal Beasts

Royal Beasts describes themselves on their Facebook page as, “dynamic, groove-oriented, guitar-driven, synth-friendly, melodic, post-rock featuring live visuals. An instrumental outfit of sound,” and I could not agree more. The Cleveland, OH band’s shows are full of extreme energy, musicality and captivated crowds. With no vocals, you are given the space to appreciate the ride that their music invites you to jump onto. Royal Beasts has several shows coming up, and their next up is at Mahall’s in Lakewood, OH on March 22. If you are in the area, I highly recommend grabbing a drink, snagging a spot on the floor, and watching their set.

NEXT ROYAL BEASTS SHOW: https://www.facebook.com/events/606323463161839/

To get to know the band and how they arrived to their unique sound, I sat down with them and asked a few questions. If you want to hear about their camaraderie, their starts, and their future shows, check out the interview below the images.

INTERVIEW WITH ROYAL BEASTS:

Jason: My name is Jason Dunlap. I play guitar and synthesizers in Royal Beasts. I am a transplant to Cleveland, Ohio…been here for 7 years. I spent a lot of time out on the west cost in Seattle. Originally, though, from Northwest Ohio. Grew up playing piano and guitars since I was a little baby boy.

Alec: My name is Alec Schumann. I’m a Leo, I’m 27 years old. I’ve lived in Northeast Ohio my whole life. I play drums and synthesizer in Royal Beats; I also make the backing visuals for our live shows. I have received my musical training at the Kent State University, where I studied Percussion. I’m self taught in synthesis, but I took piano lessons for a while—so make of that what you will.

William: My name is William Hooper and I’m also from Cleveland. I lived here my whole life and I play guitar in Royal Beasts. I started playing when I was 11 years old in 1999. It’s when I got my first guitar. I went to Cleveland State University for a couple of years for Music Theory and Jazz performance.

Devon: One question that I always have with musicians, because I know everyone’s story is a bit different, is what got you into what you play? Was there a moment when someone played something and you were like, “that sounds really cool, and I want to do that?” Also, what was your first instrument and how did you get it?

Jason: My first instrument was a piano from when I was younger, and having to take lessons early on. Then, when I was a teenager probably around 13 or so, I distinctly remember telling my mother I don’t want to play piano anymore because girls don’t want to kiss boys that play the piano; instead, I wanted to play a guitar because it was a guitar. I think my mom in her infinite wisdom was just more concerned with me sticking around playing music. So, I shifted over and started playing the guitar…then really stopped playing piano until I got to college. Then, I went a totally different path in school. I wasn’t a music major by any stretch of imagination, but still self taught. But, I enjoyed taking electives, and I took an audio production sort of elective just for kicks—it was all about synthesis and it blew my fucking mind wide open. Because I was a massive fan of bands like the Talking Heads and The Cure and that kind of shit from being way younger. Then starting to understand how groups like that were actually able to manipulate sound; then able to use that training from so young and long ago in piano just cracked everything open for me and I never really looked back. Then, I got bored with how a guitar sounded and so I started just fucking around with all sorts of different pedals before pedals became the phenomenon that they are now… but just trying to discover different sounds and make my guitar sound like the things I can do on synthesizers. I was always fascinated with artists and bands that didn’t need to rely on vocalists and perform very profoundly. So, I had always wanted to be in a project like this where it is driven and dynamic in so many other ways without the need of someone coaching you upfront on stage or being a front man— that sort of idea. That’s the journey.

Alec: I got my first snare drum when I was 8. I was in 2nd grade and I really wanted a violin for Christmas, but, I was going back and forth between a violin and snare drum. My older siblings were really musical, so my dad and mom were like oh well, clearly you should play something, what do you want? I was like oh, snare drum or violin. Then I got a snare drum for Christmas right after I decided violin and I was like never mind, I’m going to play snare drum now because this thing is cool and loud— immediately broke it a week later. I broke the bottom head so I assumed the whole thing was ruined. When I was in 4th grade, I started taking private lessons at a local music shop. That continued until I took private lessons with a couple of different people throughout high school. I went to school at KSU [Kent State University]. I vaguely wanted to be “a musician” whatever that meant. Then my sophomore year, I fell through a really deep depression of just being like, “I don’t know what I want to do actually,” because I didn’t enjoy being a member of the classical world. I didn’t enjoy the academic world around music. Then, one night I was just like well, if I’m going to like be broke and try and make myself a “professional musician”, why don’t I just do that with Indie rock? That was a lot of the stuff that I grew up with, a lot of the more mainstream alternative like Radiohead and like the Shins and Beck. When I got into college, I discovered like Animal Collective and I got really into the noise scene for a while. That, really, I would say pushed my love of synthesis. Like I said, I took Percussion lessons but I bought my first synthesizer when I was a freshman in college and from there, I learned like how to make sounds happen and what all that world was. While I was in college, I joined a band called Half an Animal and moved to Cleveland and that’s when I became a member of the Cleveland music scene. I joined a bunch of bands. Then, this one formed because Will was jamming with Jason. They knew each other and Will and I had been trying to be in a band multiple times.

William: I wanted to do some kind of instrumental project, like a post rock kind of project, and I knew that Jason was interested in that kind of music—and he had a friend who plays trumpet who played with his old band. So, I initially reached out to Jason because I wanted the trumpet player’s number. But, he wasn’t really interested. So, I got together with Jason and I’ve known Alec for a long time too and it just kind of…

Alec: Will and I had a couple of bands together. Will is in another project called Ottawa, and there’s been one or two occasions where they’ve needed drummers and I’ve been the one to fill in because I love all those dudes and that’s the end of my story.

Devon: How about you? [William]

William: I have a similar experience because a got a bass guitar first because I thought it would be easier to play. I was like 11 years old so I thought 4 strings would be easier. Then I got a guitar soon after BC Rich red mockingbird. I thought it was really cool. I thought it was jam set field literally. Well I loved like metal music like Metallica and like really embarrassing stuff like Dream Theatre…but, mostly Metallica. Then eventually high school came around then I got into like the Beatles and then after that Devo and Frank Zappa and all that stuff.

Alec: We’re all excited for each other and for ourselves.

Jason: That’s something that’s really interesting about this… It’s been about a year and some odd months, and we’ve already gone through a little bit of heart break in that an original member of our band isn’t with us anymore. But, we knew that the 3 of us that had this thing from the outset, and the reason it works is for things like that. We genuinely get so fucking excited by each other seeing each other do things sometimes and sounds come out and we’re generally just like, “that was amazing! Do that again!” It’s just so happy with the 3 of us and because we also are these long winded rambling people, it allows for us to also share a constant narrative with one another and play along with each other in that regard too. Because, we get a kick out of telling stories.

Alec: Kind of going off that, like, there’s not any taking advantage or like losing appreciation I guess. I am always amazed by like both of your guitar abilities. No offense, Will especially because your synth shit, I’m always amazed, no offense [To Jason]. You’re a strong interpolator and a strong synth player like our sound sculpting is amazing and like you’re I don’t know how to play this and it’s going to work and that always blows me away and it’s something like… I’ve been in bands where we all really get impressed by each other and then we all get bored. Like there’s a honeymoon period and then it goes away.

Devon: It’s like a relationship.

Jason: We’re still having amazing sex. Like, a year and a half into this relationship, we still actively fuck.

[Collective Laughter]

William: You’re my favorite drummer I’ve ever played with in my entire life.

Alec: You’re my favorite interpolator, you’re my favorite, like, multi-instrumentalist. You’re crazy, man.

William: It’s funny because for like 5 years I’ve known you and I just wanted to start a band with you so bad.

Alec: We’ve tried a couple…

Jason: The thing is, I had never met Alec before a year and a half ago.

Alec: Yeah no, one day you showed up. We used to practice in my basement and then one day you showed up. I thought you were a base player, and the first thing I ever said to you was that’s not a base amp. You started going and I was like, oh! But, yeah, no the cool thing about this band is we think of an idea, and it isn’t like that sounds like a lot of work, it’s that’s sounds like a lot of work lets do it. Which is how we got to the point where we have backing visuals and stuff.

Devon: How did that start? The backing visuals?

Alec: I’ve been wanting to do that in the project forever. One of my hobbies is video editing… I’m very basic at video editing stuff,like it’s just something I kind of learned how to do on my parent’s computer in high school. And every once a while, I jump back in and be like oh yeah I can sort of figure it out. But I mentioned that we had talked about the idea of backing visuals. Then one day I was like I have a projector and I know how to make the stuff. And everyone else in the band was like oh alright I guess let’s try it. Then the set up that we have is I actually trigger the next video to be played like for the next part of the song. I have a little foot switch next to my hi hat. So while I’m playing, I also like really quickly tap over to the next scene essentially…

William: And he’s also playing synth.

Alec: But yes it’s one of the things like kind of going back a little bit too like I never made a new video… We’re really overdue for new visuals so I’m trying to change it up but I’ve just been very busy the last couple of weeks. I’ve never not made like a new visual thing to send to the crew and never not gotten back like whoa holy shit. I always feel very appreciated in this project. And it’s never like oh we should make sure Alec feels appreciated. It’s wow my friend is doing a great job and I feel the same about them. I feel the same about my friends in this room.

Jason: I didn’t know what to expect the first time when he was hey they’re done, I have the visuals all ready to go. I was like alright I’m excited to see and I know you’ve been working on them all by yourself and I went over to his house and we just listened to the record while he played the visuals and my fucking jaw was on the floor. Because he has this aesthetic for these visuals that are just these trippy analog 80s VHS feedback loops, is what it feels like. And it’s such a…

William: It’s a perfect compliment to the music…

Jason: Yes. Because we really do [05:49 Unintelligible] a lot to like all the shit that we had talked about before like bands we listen to and all that kind of stuff. And we throw back a lot of like… It’s funny because old metal dudes love us. Because we get a little “prog” at times…

Devon: I’m a huge metal fan that’s why I think I got so into you guys.

Jason: See I hate metal. No I really do. It’s probably my least favorite genre of music next to like top 40 country music. I really don’t get down with it and so there are times in this band where moments have happened that Alec and Will be like, what if we try this and something comes out. And I’m like whoa that’s kind of starting to touch some boxes I’m not sure if I want to check but then I open it up and I trust it. Then that trust is what I’m like oh I get it. So I’m actually maybe coming around to metal.

Alec: Even in this band, I don’t listen to a lot of post rock. Being in this band, we did a couple of practices and I was like I probably should check out Mogwa and I’ve still only listened to a few songs. My drumming styles has always been really influenced by Deerhoof and Lightning Bolt. All these really fast insane dudes who just kind of break the rules of what you should do. Then it was like okay Alec, be in a post rock band. Which is like oh that’s like a lot of being in the background and holding a gun drumming…

Jason: … I think it’s perfect. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, I just want to chime in and say I think it’s perfect that you don’t listen to a lot of the genre because that’s what allows how far we bend in the genre to exist. It’s because you don’t know how to be a post rock drummer.

Alec: I think all 3 of us started under the idea of like let’s be post rock and halfway through our first album we were like lets bend that a little bit.

William: …Yes, literally the last 2 songs we did a little different, a little more progressive.

Alec: And the 2 most recent songs we’ve written have been very much against… not against post rock, they are very heavy heavy parts. Like this is not in that realm at all.

William: I think they’ve been more like experimental instrumental music. Just less like post rock.

Alec: Especially the way we’re talking about changing things up to with the recent loss of our base player, there’s a minute where we were like whoa should we get another one and now we can kind of explore this area where it’s like well do we need another one? Do we need somebody to play base? The 3 of us are all multi instrumentalists. We all know how to play synths, we all know how to play guitar, we all know how to play base. I know how to play drums and you two know how to play drums too. I’m on stage so I don’t have to play like a beat the whole time. I have a few samplers and that’s a world I would love to jump in with this band. What if we rotated roles a lot more?

Jason: Switch instruments up a lot more…

Devon: And that’s very unique. I think it’d be very cool and very fitting.

Jason: Yes, that’s our next step. We have this show tonight and a couple of shows the next couple of months but then we are hunkering down into figuring out how we’re going to keep progressing with just the 3 of us doing things like that; experimenting more with really shifting around a lot of instrumentation and the overall soundscapes themselves. I think they’re going to change pretty drastically to what we’ve done right now.

Alec: I would say the term post rock is not going to apply to our second album. Not going to say it’s going to be gone, I’m just going to say it’s going to be much less and it’s hard to say.

William: I do love post rock though. It’s always been like a… not a guilty pleasure but like a secret pleasure like none of my friends know. None of my friends are into it until really I met.

Alec: That was like me and Chillwave for a while, like I totally get that.

William: I could not relate with anybody about it.

Alec: Yes, it was like this is mine. I’m going to go home into my bedroom, close the door and just listen to this for a while.

Jason: Well it’s also hard to meet a new friend and be like here let me put on this record by a band called ‘Godspeed, you Black Emperor’. And the first 6 minutes they’re just like “umm….has it started?”

Devon: Returning back to you said you have a couple of more shows coming up. What are those shows so the listeners can know when they’re going be and where they’re going to be so they can attend.

Jason: I can tell you real fast.

Devon: Sorry, I know it puts you on the spot.

Alec: We’re doing a tour April 4th, 5th and 6th. We’re going to Chicago, Detroit and Columbus.

Devon: Is that your first tour as a band?

Alec: It’s our first all weekender. We’re also doing Friday March 22nd. That’s our next show. That one’s going to be with Times Ten and BirdDog Cats. That one’s going to be at Mahall’s in Lakewood Ohio.

Jason: Then yes the 4th, 5th and 6th we’re on the road, then Monday April 22nd, we’re playing with a band from New York called You Bred Raptors. That is at Mahalls as well, the same spot.

William: 30th of April is with Blessed at the Grog shop.

Alec: That weekend prior we’re also playing a show.

Jason: We don’t have a whole lot of information on it yet but April 27th and 28th, the ACLU is having a fundraiser in public square in downtown Cleveland and we’ve been asked to play that. That’s going to be really great. That just confirmed this week. We don’t have a lot of details other than we know that it’s going to be Saturday, April 27th we’re playing but the fundraiser is the 27th and the 28th.

Devon: The one question I do have is your first time on the road as a group and as a project. What are some concerns or excitement that you have for being on the road with each other?

Alec: I don’t have any concerns honestly.

William: We’re all pretty easy going as far as personality wise. It’s more about what we’re going to eat.

Alec: That’s a concern, it’s like being well fed and making sure we can be. We’ve all done that kind of thing. The thing I’m personally excited about is going to be a thing like wow we’re really going to know the deep dive stuff. Speaking from experience where you can be in a band for like 4 or 5 years and then go on a tour and then you learn stuff that you never knew about the other people. Because it isn’t just you’re getting together once a week, it’s you’re in a car with somebody for the whole day. Then you go to the venue, you don’t know anybody else and if you’re not feeling it, you just hang out with your band again. I personally am excited. I hope the 3 shows that we play are good and I hope they’re encouraging to keep going on tour. Even if they’re bad, they could be encouraging to go on tour because then we’ll know okay this is what we’ve got to switch up.

Jason: Yes, I concur with all of that. I’m excited for learning the little weird quirks about spending 24 hours a day with somebody. That kind of excites me. I just want to make sure that we have a good steady supply of comic books and cheap pulp sci-fi novels. Just stuff to like burn through and Alec is not allowed to have the playlist control for longer than 2 hours. [laughs] That’s what I’m most excited for and honestly to spread this a little bit more to see what… Because, we’ve come to a point in Cleveland where we know what we’re doing here and we know people’s reactions to it and it’s been very positive and very encouraging. So now we’re ready to see what other places have to think and say about it.

Devon: Well thank you so much for your time and we hope to hear from you soon.

An Interview with Royal Beasts was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

#Interview #music #news #Rock Revolt #Rock Revolt Magazine #RockRevolt #RockRevolt Magazine #royal beasts

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