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mcwriting · 3 years

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The Marriage Project (7)

IT’S FINALLY HERE! MY FAVORITE CHAPTER OF THIS SERIES!!! Consider it a little Christmas gift from me to y’all :) there’s plenty more to come, but I loveee the vibes of this one so much

Story Masterlist

Word Count: 3491

Warnings: Some language but I’m pretty sure that’s it

% approximately the end of the 2nd week of October %

You stood on the Holland’s front porch Sunday afternoon holding a rust red jumpsuit over one shoulder and your volleyball bag on the other.

It was nippy out, probably 50-something fahrenheit, but you’d tucked your long sleeved jersey into some black sweats and tossed on your letterman. You had decided to wear your favorite jersey, which was black except for the stripe down each sleeve in your school colors and the white words and number on the torso.

Since you were taking pictures, you straightened your hair again and put on some light makeup to complete the look.

Paddy opened the front door, looking star struck.

“Oh, hey Paddy. How are you?”

He stared up at you, flustered.

“I, um. Good?”

You gave a big smile.

“Good to hear. Mind if I come in? It’s kinda cold out.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

He stepped out of the way and shut the door behind you. Inside, Tom was running around frantically, grabbing various clothing items and stuffing them in a bag. He noticed you as he passed by.

“Hey, y/n. Sorry, just trying to get all my football stuff together. It just came out of the dryer.”

You watched in amusement as he rushed back and forth. Nikki came and stood next to you.

“I love my sons, but they can be a real mess sometimes,” she joked. “Let's go put your things in the car while he gets himself together.”

You set the bag in the back of her SUV and hung the jumpsuit hanger on a loop to prevent it from wrinkling. You were talking in the garage when Tom burst through the door, a duffel bag on his shoulder.

“Okay, sorry. I couldn’t find one of my cleats,” he explained, tossing his own bag in the back. He didn’t yet put on his uniform since the pads would get uncomfortable, so Tom just wore some jeans and a tee for the ride.

“Y/n, do you want to hop in front? I’m sure Tom wouldn’t mind,” Nikki said, raising her eyebrows at her son.

“Are you sure? I don’t mind either way.”

“It’s fine. We can just switch on the way home,” Tom replied. You found it odd that he didn’t press but assumed it had something to do with his mom standing nearby.

With that, you loaded up and started the hour long drive. The time passed quickly as you conversed with Nikki, telling her about your plans for after high school. In the backseat, Tom dabbed a little bit of his mom's foundation over the still-discolored parts of his cheek.

Eventually, you got to a small neighborhood and pulled up to a cute cabin. As you and Tom retrieved your things from the trunk, an elderly couple appeared on the front porch.

“Hey, mom. Hey, dad,” Nikki began, hugging them. She gestured to you, “This is y/n. You might recognize her from Tom’s soccer games and some academic things, she’s on the girls team and very smart.”

You blushed at the compliments.

“Why, yes, I have seen you. It’s nice to meet you, dear. Just call us grandma and grandpa,” Nikki’s mother said as you were shaking hands with her husband.

She walked up and enveloped you in a hug. As you awkwardly wrapped your own arms around her, you looked over her shoulder to find Tom shrugging sheepishly at you.

She pulled away, holding you at an arm's length.

“Well you are just the prettiest thing, aren’t you?” You blushed at her kindness and thanked her. “Now what are we all doing standing around out here? Come on in! I made cookies while you were on the way so they’re still warm.”

She ushered everyone in, Tom holding open the screen door for the group. Tom directed you to a spare room to set down your bags and hang your jumpsuit while Nikki got her camera things together.

You were sat around the dining room eating cookies discussing the afternoon’s timeline. You and Tom would take your sports pictures, then everyone would eat around five, and then you’d go back out in regular clothes for golden hour at around six.

After a few minutes, Nikki finished getting her lens ready.

“Okay. Tom, why don’t you go put on your football uniform and meet us down at the dock. Y/n, do you need to get anything else for your volleyball pictures?”

You answered yes, walking with Tom to the room to grab your volleyball shoes and ball. You were waiting to take off your sweatpants until you got outside for two reasons: it was cold, and you felt weird about walking around his grandparents’ house in only spandex shorts.

The dock wasn’t far, you could see it from the top of the wooden staircase built into the side of the hill the cabin sat on.

You and Nikki conversed as you walked down, discussing ideas of poses and where you’d stand.

You shimmied out of your sweats once you got to the dock, draping them over a metal chair covered in dead leaves. The cold air gave your legs goosebumps, but you sucked it up. You were just glad you’d remembered to shave your legs above anything else.

Nikki directed you around some trees, had you toss your hair over your shoulder, and took a few pictures with you in your letterman. It had been about 15 minutes when Tom came down in his football gear, helmet and ball in hand.

“Oh, perfect. Tom, would you mind tossing some leaves for me? I have a neat idea for a shot.”

She had you stand in front of the water and palm the volleyball as Tom sent a handful of leaves in the air around you. You tried a few with a serious expression and some while laughing. After a few more shots that included you sitting on the dock, she had Tom jump in next to you.

“Okay, y/n, I want you to stand with the ball on your right side like that, and then Tom, get on her left and hold the helmet by the facemask,” she pointed around, guiding you. “Good! Okay now y/n, put your weight on your left leg and Tom, raise your chin. Serious faces people!”

There were clicks and flashes as she continued to direct you in slightly different poses. One cool shot had each of you palming your respective sports balls in front of you.

“Okay, are you good with those, y/n? Is there anything else you want in your jersey before I start working on Tom’s?”

You shook your head and gestured for her to move on with Tom’s pictures. By now your legs were used to the cold, so you refrained from putting your sweats back on, instead just standing behind Nikki watching Tom model like he’d been doing it his whole life.

Oh right… he has

His mom and he worked together well, as if they were reading each other’s minds.

You studied the way Tom looked. After all these years, you’d never really looked at him intently enough to see the way he filled out his uniform so well.

His biceps bulged when he moved his arms to flex for a couple shots, and the tight pants and pads around his legs gave the illusion of massive thigh muscles. As you looked back up, his necklace caught your eye.

He hadn’t tucked it in completely, instead letting it dangle over his jersey, the red “ruby” glinting in the afternoon sunlight. You smiled at the fact he’d left it on, then looked down at your own hand. You’d forgotten to take yours off, too.

Would it be noticeable in the pictures? Was there a possibility family members would start asking if you’d secretly gotten engaged when you eventually shared the shots online? Maybe, but you decided it wasn’t a big enough deal to worry about. Some had already pestered you Friday at dinner.

You didn’t realize how long you’d been out there when a cowbell began ringing from above you.

“Oh! That’s mom. Dinner must be about ready. Let’s head back up. I think we got enough, Tom,” Nikki explained.

She started heading up the stairs as you grabbed your ball and sweats, and Tom was waiting for you at the bottom, holding his jersey and pads so he was only left in a compression shirt on top. He started up a few steps ahead of you.

Woah. His ass looks really nice in those pants was the first thought that popped into your head when you looked up. Oh wait. Shit, what am I saying?

You tried to avoid looking as you continued up the hill. By the time you reached the top, Nikki was already entering the house and Tom was again waiting for you. You passed right by him when he spoke up.

“You’re really gonna go in the house like that?”

You stopped and turned back to face him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you really want to walk into the home of my elderly grandparents with your ass hanging out?”

Right. The whole point of the sweats.

You set the volleyball down while you pulled them on.

“Now I’m not going to say that I minded the view or anything but-” you slapped him in the chest before you tugged on the waistband, hopping a little to make them sit just right and tightening the strings, then picked your ball off the ground.

“Don’t be talking about my ass that way! Nasty.”

“Sorry, sorry, I had to say it.” He put his hands up in mock surrender.

“Well if you’re gonna say that, then I’m allowed to do this,” you said, right before giving him a light slap on his own butt and darting to the house.

“Ohhh, I’ll get you for that!” he cried, following you in.

You were both chattering as you entered the dining room, where Nikki and her parents were setting up the tableware.

“Alrighty, we have some roast chicken and potatoes and green beans tonight. Hope you all enjoy!” the older woman said before sitting down. The smell made your stomach growl quietly.

You all made up plates and chowed down. Tom’s grandpa sat at the head of the table, with his wife and daughter on his left, and Tom and you on the right.

You and Tom were talking about school things when his grandma addressed you.

“So, y/n. How long have you and Tom been dating?”

You furrowed your brows, then looked between Tom and her, an awkward tension filling the room.

“Um, grandma… she isn’t my girlfriend,” Tom said for you. You gave him a light squeeze on the thigh to signify thanks.

“Oh! Oh my goodness I had no idea! You two just seemed so close that I just assumed you were together. Sorry about that!”

You talked a little bit longer as you finished dinner, but now things felt a little uncomfortable.

What were we doing that seemed couple-y? Could they see our little spat outside?

You took your plates to the kitchen before heading back with Tom to change into your other clothes. Since it was already almost six, you both just changed in the room, backs to each other.

You slid out of your sweats and tugged off the jersey, leaving on the spandex shorts under your jumpsuit since they didn’t show through. It was sleeveless, so you needed to change into a different bra. You glanced behind you quickly to make sure Tom was still turned around.

He was, but he was butt ass naked. You turned back towards the wall quickly, eyes wide. You assumed it had to do with the fact he wore a jockstrap under his uniform, but dear God did he have to take off everything at once?

You were scarred to say the least.

You ripped off one bra and fumbled to put the other one on before sliding the shoulder straps of your outfit on all the way. By the time you were done, Tom was at least wearing jeans and tugging on a white tee.

You finally slipped on some wedges and refixed your hair in the mirror.

“Ready to head down?” you asked.

“Why don’t you go on without me. I’ll be down here in a few. I need to restyle my hair,” he explained, sliding his own letterman jacket on.

You accepted that and headed back outside and down the steps where Nikki was waiting, shooting pictures of the lake.

“Oh, I love that color on you, it compliments the autumn theme well,” Nikki said as you began taking pictures. Eventually Tom appeared, too. He had another shirt in hand for when he was done with his letter jacket.

You let them take those pictures real quick, and then Tom changed, buttoning up a flannel that’s colors matched your own outfit. You were sitting on the dock balcony posing when Tom appeared next to his mother, who noticed the coordination immediately.

“This is amazing! Tom, go stand in front of y/n and cross your arms, and y/n, drape an arm over his shoulder… uh huh just like that… yes that’s good!” she directed you.

Tom helped you hop down after a few different shots and you went to stand with Nikki as she took more photos of her son.

The sun was setting quickly, so she was about to call it a night.

“Okay, you two, I just need you to get together for a couple final pictures. Act like you like each other for at least a few minutes.”

You couldn’t help but snort as you stepped up next to Tom, him putting an arm over your shoulder as your arm snaked around his waist. She was taking pictures when Tom muttered out the corner of his mouth,

“Your hand’s a little close there.”

Knowing exactly what he meant, you slid your hand down his back, resting it on top of his butt.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you feigned innocence.

He gave you a look that said “I’m onto you,” so you did what any rational person would do in that scenario.

You squeezed his buttcheek.

It must have scared him or tickled or something, because he about jumped from his skin, jaw dropped.

“Oh I’ll get you for that now!” he exclaimed, picking you up and tossing you over his shoulder.

You squealed and laughed and kicked your legs as one hand traveled along your waist tickling you. In the chaos, you didn’t notice the rapid clicks of the camera shutter. He kept you off the ground for a few more seconds before finally setting you down carefully.

“Rethinking that now?” he asked, eyebrows raised in amusement as you stared up at him, pouting.

“I’d do it again just to see your jaw hit the floor honestly.”

He rolled his eyes when some lights around the deck kicked on, not adding much brightness to the darkening sky.

“Well that looks like our cue to wrap things up. The lights going up the stairs won’t be much better, and I don’t want anyone to fall,” Nikki explained.

Once again, she headed up first, leaving the two of you somewhat alone. Now that it was dark, the air made you grab your upper arms and shiver.

“Here, put this on,” Tom said, holding up his letter jacket.

“Oh, I’m fine. It’ll only take a minute to get to the house.”

“No seriously, you look like you’re freezing. Plus, I won’t have to carry it,” he joked.

You rolled your eyes and snatched it from his hand, sliding your bare arms into the sleeves. His jacket was at least a size bigger than yours, so it basically swallowed you. He chuckled.

“Come on. I don’t want you getting lost up the stairs since you’ve practically disappeared under my jacket.”

He put his hand between your shoulder blades, guiding you to step ahead of him as the darkness began to set in.

You’d changed back into your sweats and put on a tee and your own letter jacket and were now loading up Nikki’s car to head back home.

After walking back to the house, you had all sat around and visited a bit longer until realizing it was half past nine and there was an hour’s drive ahead of you.

“Come back anytime, dear. You were a real delight,” Nikki’s mom said, squeezing you into another hug.

“Thank you, grandma. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Will you be at Tom’s senior night here in a few weeks? I’d love to see you there,” she said, holding your hands in hers.

“Yeah, I always try to go to the games. I’m hoping to be on homecoming court this year, too, so fingers crossed.”

“Oh, sweetie, if they don’t vote you queen, I’ll personally come count the votes myself,” she joked, shaking her head.

You laughed and after final goodbyes, climbed into the back seat, expecting Tom to go up front. Instead, he slid into the other side of the back row.

“You can sit up front, Tom. I’m happy to stay back here,” you explained, showing that you’d already buckled in.

“Oh it’s alright. I’ve already sat down, we can both stay.”

You again found it odd that he was willing to do so, but didn’t push the matter.

Having spent most of the afternoon with Tom’s family, you hadn’t looked at your phone much as not to seem rude, so you immediately began responding to snaps and scrolling through social media.

Tom, on the other hand, was watching Tiktoks.

“Hey, watch this,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt and sliding into the middle spot next to you, refastening himself in.

“You could have just given me your phone,” you said, eyebrows raised.

“Like I could trust you with that.”

He handed over an AirPod and you watched together, laughing. He continued to scroll through his for you page while you looked on.

After a while, your neck became strained, so you resorted to leaning your head on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything, instead only tilting his cheek to rest on your head as you continued in silence.

A little bit later, he left the app and went to Spotify, turning on a playlist containing songs with soft beats that made you sleepy.

You didn’t realize how tired you really were until you were being shaken awake by your nemesis, sitting up straight in realization of what happened.

“Hey, we’re about to pull into my neighborhood,” he whispered. You just nodded in response, trying to compose yourself.

Nikki pulled into the garage and you began collecting your things from the back.

“Y/n, would you like to stay in the guest room tonight? It’s almost eleven and I wouldn’t want you to feel unsafe going home.”

You thought about it for a moment before realizing you had no extra clothes and well… Tom.

“Oh that’s alright, my house is only 10 minutes away. Thank you though,” you told her as the three of you entered the home.

Nikki said her goodbyes and disappeared up the stairs for the third time that day, once again leaving you and Tom alone.

“Why don’t I walk you to your car?” Tom offered, opening the front door. You unlocked the car and Tom opened the back door for you to set your things in it. You were about to leave when something popped into your mind.

“Thanks again for clarifying to your grandma earlier. I didn’t want to break her heart but I wasn’t sure how to let her down nicely. She seemed so excited,” you explained.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure she would have asked any girl the same question. But she really did like you, grandpa too. He doesn’t quite show it like her.”

“That’s sweet. I enjoyed hanging out with them this evening, and the food was incredible.”

“She does make some of the best food you’ll ever eat, but you should taste grandpa’s grilled steaks. Those are a real treat.”

“Well, you’ll have to bring me again some time. Oh, and thanks for letting me use you as a pillow in the car. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

You knew your face had turned pink, but you could see Tom’s redden as well.

“Don’t mention it. I actually ended up sleeping for a little bit, too.”

A silence fell around you, so you eventually said your goodbyes and hopped into your driver’s seat.

You watched in your rearview mirror as Tom stayed standing on his sidewalk until you had driven a few yards off, eventually meandering back to the house.

There was a familiar flutter in your stomach as your lips turned up into a smile.

Maybe he’s not as bad as I always thought.

A/N: omg I’m so happy to finally post this y’all have no idea. Hope you enjoyed! As always, feel free to send asks about anything or just say hi!

Send a message or ask if you’d like to be added to my permanent or series taglists so I can verify you’ve been added!

Story tag list: @jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl, @l0lmk, @primadonnasdream, @bookworm06, @thenoddingbunny-blog, @agentnataliahofferson, @spider-babe, @stxfxniexreads,

#The Marriage Project #tom holland #tom holland story #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagine #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #paddy holland

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cullxtheherd · 3 years

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Hey! Here’s a random mini fic or drabble request; something I’ve been thinking about a lot. How about teenaged Jacob Seed. What was he like? How did he interact with his baby brothers? Feelings?? Anyway that’s vague asf I know but it makes me angsty to think about.

hi! uhoh okay skdjksfkdff this is uhh sfdjnfkfdg- good luck! if you are sensitive to depictions of (mostly) graphic physical/domestic abuse etc/more please: avoid this piece, thank you!

The dust is hot and thick, midsummer sun beating harshly on the back of his lily-white neck. Jacob angles, forehead pocketing into his shoulder to wipe away a layer of sweaty accumulation. “Oh,” He mumbles, sneakers kicking up dirt while he hums out a rhythm, “I wanna’ dance with somebody.” Hands slipping up on the straps to his backpack he readjusts, grip higher near the loose across-the-chest buckle, “I wanna feel the heat with somebody.”

It is almost shameful, the tune that he sings, lips formed in a wavering line; he’d be beaten if his father found out. Not only was he a deeply racist and hateful man, but the song's message wasn’t exactly Sunday School approved, either. Sniffling he resigns to humming as he cuts through the woods surrounding their home.

With no real, pressing reason to hurry home today he takes his time- by his calculations his father should still be on the road, peddling the last case of Bibles. Crunching down on a particularly well mouldered log he nearly loses his balance, arms spreading out wide to counteract his momentum. Feeling well proud of himself he hikes along, over a large group of rocks that aren’t even in his path.

Jacob, normally a young man that is inundated with responsibility and duty to his brothers and, consequently his mother, takes occasion to swordfight bugs with branches and tramp in the stream in his well beaten and leaky sneakers. He imagines his shadow coming to life and chasing him- fends it off with a stick too.

Here, during these private, simple moments he is the champion, the victor. He saves his brothers, his friend - a crush at school - all of them: even by penalty of himself.

Sliding down the mossy backside of a partially downed tree trunk he stills, posed precariously and listening: crunching, hard footsteps. Running.

“Jacob!”

In a split second he is down, on his feet and moving as quickly as he can, “Joseph!” He can hear the footfalls turn, redirecting and before he has time to truly panic, he has eyes on his middle sibling, “Joe!” Two large and lanky hands grasp at narrow, bony shoulders, “What’s wrong- are you okay?”

“I’m-” The scant thirteen year old croaks between rushed and weeping breaths.

“Where’s the baby?”

Unable to jump-start himself, Joseph hyperventilates, entire body stuttering with rushing, unhindered emotion.

Jacob shakes him, jostling him to attention, “Where’s John?!”

“Home, but,” Making progress is difficult but he musters, lower lip sucking into his mouth for a moment before he can continue, “Daddy’s got Momma and-” His brother turns but Joseph reaches out, gripping to stop him. Under the worried, frantic gaze of his brother his voice nearly goes silent under an oncoming sob, “It’s real bad Jake- never seen it this bad before...”

Jacob isn’t sure of the last time he’d run through the briars so quickly and they scrape against his cheeks, scoring deep, bloody lines. Adrenaline running high he barely notices after the first three or four and when he bursts through the line of overgrown brush, on to the dirt-and-gravel drive his mind is one too many steps ahead to even think about the thorns.

The porch and rusted out station wagon go by in a blur, a flash of ginger down the hall as he approaches the back room. Suddenly and all at once he can hear again: the shouting, cursing, bloody mess of it all is in high definition at last.

The bedroom door to the nursery is half off its hinges. A shoe lay abandoned on the threshold. John cries from somewhere within. Between the ear rattling screams of flesh on welted flesh the dial tone of a phone drones on, uninterrupted and he, long and lanky and disproportionate as he is at sixteen, enters quietly.

“Isaac,” His mother is more than a sight, mouth blossoming and voice heavy with blood, “Please!” Though she is clearly exhausted from her ordeal, sluggish and dizzy, she blocks him from her infant son.

Jacob no longer cemented in his semi-adolescent fear hammers across the room, a wrench across his fathers back. Years ago Isaac would have tossed his son aside easily but, lately, Jacob has been very nearly victorious.

And, so, they struggle: huffing and beating and hollering out- grunting and spitting at each other as they can. By the time he manages to land a successful enough string of punches he is bleeding heavily from his eyebrow, nose and mouth.

Jacob wrestles an arm under Isaacs chin from behind on a blind counter move, flexing with the help of his other arm. “Give it-” He nearly eats the side of his fathers hand, “Give up old man!”

Vaguely he registers Joseph tending to his mother and youngest sibling while he struggles on the ground amongst the rubble. John squeals his little lungs out somewhere behind him and, despite barely having any energy left, he finds himself incensed. Grip tightening he manages a bitter unhumorous laugh, “I’ve won and you know it!”

The fight between them unfortunately lasts until Jacob can feel Isaac slacken under the newfound enormity of his grip and he keels over on his back, catching his breath. “J-jhh-” His lungs wheeze for a few beats, “Joe?” HIs legs are pinned by the dead weight of his unconscious father, “Joey?!”

In return the absolute void of sound that he receives is more soothing than worrying and he heaves a sigh of relief. This deafening, ear splitting variety of silence means that his younger sibling had followed their well practiced evacuation plan. Slightly renewed on the fact and stored reserves of teenage resilience he gets himself up, carelessly pushing Isaac out of the way.

Moving through the woods around the house is easy, miniature Maglite poised carefully as he navigates. “Joe?” He calls quietly within earshot of their little safe haven. “You here?” Flashing his light in the agreed upon pattern he is met with a repetition of signaling light coming from the brush.

“Jacob- Jake!” His brother is excited, voice wavering under rushing endorphins, “We did it!”

Jacob knows that this will be a much longer, drawn out process than this tiny, one-note victory. In fact he is already placing personal bets on how long after the high of escape wears off it takes his mother to return, cowering- like a dog. “Yeah,” Not willing to burst Joseph’s bubble he smiles through broken and cracked teeth on his left side. “We did.” Ducking into their fairly well hidden fort he takes visual inspection of John and then Rebecca, his mother. Gritting his teeth is painful but he does it out of habit, wincing around his deeply Southern accent, “Y’awl right, Momma?”

She opens her mouth, jittery and bruised, “Don’t know what I ever did to deserve such good, perfect, blessed boys such as you three, hmm?”

John squeals in her arms, startled by the confusion of it all and he reaches unabashedly for Jacob.

Reaching for the baby he’s never felt like more of a piece of shit. Sure. He’s saved the proverbial day, but it’s only for now- just this time. She’ll be back before the dawn and, without question, she will drag them sniveling along with her. And, now, more than ever before Jacob knows: he will have no choice but to break them up.

And, so? For now they huddle in the pre dawn hours, just a few, scant days after John’s first birthday, in the shelter of twigs and mud and unregulated, Georgian wildlife. A few tins of beans to spare between the four of them and not a pot to piss in- the certainty of their fate is clear to him now: John will need noticeable bruises for Bible school. Their teachers will have to get involved- won’t have any choice once there’s sufficient evidence. And?

Jacob must let them go to see them thrive.

#far cry 5 #jacob seed #john seed #joseph seed #akdjhjgfd i hope this is okay

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cajunquandary · 4 years

Text

Whispers of the Desert

Pairing | Reader, Sam, Dean

Summary | When the reader takes time for herself in the mountainous desert of far-west Texas, the last thing she expected was to have to fight for her life.

W/C | 6100

Warnings | Canon-level violence, blood, drowning and nightmares. It’s angsty.

A/N | Several years ago, I took a trip to Big Bend State Park, which is the setting for this tale. While there, my better half shared some folklore from his heritage. This was written in part for @supernatural-jackles SPN Bi-Weekly Writing Challenge. Prompt is in bold. Happy spooky-season, y’all.

The can of beans bubbled gently over the open fire. You stirred them carefully, as not to spill the contents or allow them to burn on the bottom. Little else is worse than burned beans. Using a well-worn cotton kerchief, you reach quickly to remove the can from the flames, cussing to yourself as the smoldering metal burns straight through the thin cloth to your fingers. The can lands next to you on the ground in a whap, a few rebellious beans jumping overboard as the can tipped and wiggled to a stop. You place the burned digits in your mouth one at a time in an attempt to suck the zinging pain away quickly then give up, wiping them on your dusty jeans with a sigh of resignation.

The sleepy spotted hound to the left of you continued to snore, exhausted from the heat of the day and the journey thus far. You’d been hunting for months straight without so much as a full night of rest and decided to take a weekend to yourself, far away from humans and monsters. You smile at the dog, glad to have such a loyal companion. Training him had been surprisingly easy, you reminisced while blowing on a spoonful of dinner-in-a-can to cool it.

You don’t quite remember when you stopped being a “normal” kid, if ever you were, and became a hunter. There was no dramatic intro, no amazing story—only a few ghosts and some salt. You sniggered at the thought, recalling how you’d been hooked on the Supernatural books as a kid, reading well beyond your grade level. So, when the time came that you actually confronted the supernatural in real life, you already had the answers. It was easy. You still weren’t sure about all the larger plots, like apocalypses and the Winchester boys, but the basic lore was solid.

Just a few years ago, you remembered being so lonely that it was throwing you off your game. Even though you craved human contact, you could never give more than a one-night stand on occasion. Loving me is a death sentence, you replayed over and over in your mind.

After a not-so-great hunt, you limped into a shelter, asking for the dog least likely to ever find a home. A puppy was unceremoniously thrown into your arms, the staff begging you to take it and go, as they were already struggling and couldn’t afford to keep a dog like this for long. Walking back to your old blue truck, you looked down at the small, fragile thing. Spotted all over, ears floppy and forlorn eyes that broke your heart. “A mutt,” they’d called it. One that just wouldn’t be wanted in that town. A runt and only surviving pup in a litter from a mix of a large, skinny hound dog and an even bigger, meaner pit bull.

As he’d grown, you trained him to hunt as well, bringing home bits of monster so he could learn the different scents and be able to tell you what may be approaching before you were caught off guard. The mutt grew up strong and confident with a huge loving heart.

On the rare occasion you make a public appearance in a town—any town—young children would come running to him, pulling on his ears and shoving their hands down his throat. He loved the attention. You couldn’t help but to smile, thinking that he would have been the perfect family dog, then sink into heart ache, realizing that the life you led would never allow for such a thing… that the two of you would likely both perish bloody at the hands of beasts.

You were scraping the bottom of the can now, grateful for the nourishment, when a shadow crept closer, curious of this new thing in its home.

Mutt sensed you stiffen and slowly turn your head to the midnight intruder. His hackles raised as he sniffed the air, a low, nearly inaudible rumble beginning deep in his chest as a warning. The waning light of the fire cast short, fleeting glimpses of the visitor. You dropped your shoulders and relaxed. It was only a coyote. Most people would be frightened by the animals if confronted in such a way, but you were familiar with them and with their mannerisms. You gently laid a hand on Mutt to reassure him that all was well. He trusted you fully, hackles lowering slightly, standing down.

The coyote lowered his head, sniffing towards your discarded can. You locked eyes with the scavenger, mirroring its movements. Its jowls drew back slightly, revealing short, sharp teeth in a smiling sneer. You drew back yours as well, baring your teeth and adjusting your features until your brows furrowed and eyes dared it to move closer. After a moment, the wild dog went back to a resting face, blowing from its nose and licking the air in peace. On swift, silent paws, it turned and trotted away in defeat, using the light of the Milky Way to guide it to its next meal.

You smiled and shook your head. Though during the day, the mountainsides and valleys looked barren and empty except for cactus and an occasional pile of wild grasses, the nights were always vibrant and teeming with life. Off in the distance, a chorus of howls echoed off of the cliffs and across the canyon below, rising and falling, sounding off in one direction, then another, then both. Cool winds of night lifted the solemn song through the air, carrying it for miles as if it were a raptor weightlessly gliding over the terrain.

Mutt released a tired huff, a bit of caliche dust stirring in a small curling puff in front of his nose. You killed the now flameless glowing embers with a swift kick of dust and your boot, smooshing it until the ash was cool. You climbed into the front seat of the truck, Mutt right on your heels. He laid next to you on the faded carpet as you sprawled across the bench seat and kicked off your boots. Folding your arm under your head, it was merely seconds before your mind fell to black.

The largest owl you’ve ever seen haunted your dreams. It was persistent and aggressively following you, swooping and diving towards your head. As if being shrouded in a spell, where you could only move sluggishly as if in water and your mouth could fall open but emit no sound, was terrifying enough, the owls face would morph continuously between that of the animal and of a young woman whose face twisted in unnatural ways. More than anything, you were angry—angry at the being, angry at yourself. Frustration pushed at the seams of your sanity as your mind and body fought each other when they should have been unified and fighting against the feathered behemoth. The shape-shifting head seemed to whisper a steady string of words you couldn’t understand.

The more you labored, the heavier your limbs grew and a thick fog began creeping at the edges of your brain, poisoning every thought and emotion until there was almost nothing left. Nothing but absolute, bone-chilling, illogical fear. Quick, panicked breaths drew fire-hot air into your lungs, but you could not longer even writhe in the pain with your body completely paralyzed—suspended high above the black silhouette of desert. Every cell in your being began to swell and pull, tearing apart. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you felt it being ripped from your body.

Your soul.

With the last bit of strength left within you, you forced your eyes open.

Mutt whined as you came to, suddenly upright and back in the safety of your truck. The first rays of sunrise were creeping up over the horizon. You looked down, feeling coming back to your body in waves of numb tingles. You were soaked in sweat and nausea overcame you. Barely opening the door in time, you leaned out over the step and released your stomach violently, heaving for some time until there was nothing left. Right then and there, you swore off canned beans for the foreseeable future. Mutt laid his head on your shoulder, licking the beads of perspirant off your temple in concern.

When the retching and trembling stopped, the stars had been all but chased away and replaced by the soft, subtle rainbow hues of morning. You groaned and rolled over, staring at the cab roof and planning your recovery quickly. Starting a day out here already dehydrated and weak could be a death sentence.

The wind kicked up, blasting a sweet relief of fresh air into your lungs. Whistles and other unexpected noises on the breeze were fairly normal, especially during daylight exchange, but you could swear you heard the distant hoots of an owl. Mutt didn’t seem to hear anything, so you shrugged the spooky feeling off and put the keys in the ignition, ready to head into the nearest truck stop for a shower and a sports drink.

About an hour later, you pulled your sputtering, rattling truck into the stop and parked next to a shiny black car. With windows rolled down for Mutt, you stepped out and around to get a better view of the old beauty. It was an Impala, probably a ’67 if you were to guess. You loved old cars, always wanting an El Camino for yourself one day. Even your truck was old—a faded and mildly rusty baby blue Ford. Your eyes traced and admired the curves of the car, the shine of the chrome and the matching leather interior. Everything was in perfect condition, as if it just come off of a show truck. You knelt down until you were on hands and knees, peeking up under the front of the car, taking note of the lack of rust underneath and original suspension. In all, you were impressed.

You straightened back up on your feet, adjusting your wide-brimmed hat back in its place. You went rigid, suddenly feeling a presence too close behind you for comfort. You spun on your heels, feet spaced and ready to defend yourself. It wasn’t often you had to, but once in a while, a particularly ignorant man would try to get a little too fresh with you—the small woman travelling alone.

You weren’t prepared for this.

Only inches away, a very tall, very handsome man in flannel stood cockily, a bag of donuts in one hand, beer and jerky in the other. You slowly lifted your gaze from his chest up to his face. Shaded green eyes caught yours like a spider would a fly—you were ensnared and unable to focus on anything else around you. The rest of the world fell away bit by bit as you performed in this staring contest. He slowly popped a little donut in his mouth, the pastry filling his cheeks and dusting his lips and collar with white powder. He chewed slowly with a poker face.

“Nice car,” you managed to choke out.

The tension between the two of you was palpable now. The freckle-dusted man continued to chew, responding with a throaty, mumbled “Mhmmph.”

The door to the building opened with a ring-ding, startling you from the awkward competition. You took a step back, breaking the stare and following the alert towards an even larger man walking towards you, face buried deep in a local map. “Hey, Dean, get this—”

His eyes snapped up, assessing the standoff before him, and he shook the hair out of his face. His eyes were nothing like the other man’s—they were softer, drawn together inquisitively, the sun highlighting the different shades of green, blue and brown folded and swirled around black pupils. He stopped next to the passenger door and cocked his head to the side. “Uh, Dean. Everything alright?”

Without so much as wavering his intense regard, Dean answered the taller man. “Yeah, Sammy. She’s just admiring the car.”

Sam rolled his eyes and huffed. “Dean, we don’t have time for this. Let’s go.” He waved amicably in your direction and settled into the Impala. You crossed your arms and turned back towards Dean after shooting a smile at Sam.

A little more confident now, you returned back to your game of glares. “Can’t take a compliment, Dean?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Yeah, it’s my baby. I put a lot of work into her. Thanks.”

The man continued to stand there, looking you up and down and eyeing you warily as if you were about to explode. You shrugged off the strange encounter and turned away, throwing a “have a good day” his way before you entered the welcome air conditioning of the store.

As you pre-paid for your shower and sports drink with the clerk, you could still see the man standing there out of the corner of your eye, watching you cautiously through the window.

You took the key and headed off towards the back of the building, ready to wash away the night terrors and bizarre encounter.

When you reached your private bathroom suite, you closed and locked the door then set down your backpack and turned on the hot water in the clean, sand-colored tiled shower. Steam started to fog the mirror, but you glimpsed yourself before it went completely white. Horrified, you wiped at the mirror. Your eyes were bloodshot and there was dried blood, almost black, that had trickled down your nose. Your veins were prominent and unnaturally blue, spiderwebbing across the thinner areas of skin. Your pupils were blown wide. You reached up to touch your face, confused, but your hand wandered to an itch under your ear. You leaned in closer and angled your head to see that blood had seeped from your ears as well.

You hastily stepped into the drumming water and tried to scrub away the knowledge that the nightmare may have been more than just that.

Back at the Impala, Dean watched you through the window, unmoved from the spot he’d caught you sneaking around the Impala. When you were out of sight, he slipped into the driver’s seat, hinges protesting with a squeak.

“You okay, dude?” Sam asked.

Dean set his snacks down between them. “No, Sam. Did you see her face? I found her creeping around the car. I didn’t see any hex-bags, but I think she’s a witch.”

Sam shook his head in disbelief. “Dean, she just looked like she had a few too many last night and maybe got in a fight.”

Dean shrugged, not willing to argue with his brother. One of his favorite things about Sam was also the worst—he always saw the good in people and, all too often, was blinded by it.

He turned up the music and peeled away from the truck stop, ready to put some distance between them and you.

You walked back to your truck, fully refreshed and looking much more like your normal self. Mutt stood up in the front seat, tail wagging and you couldn’t help but grin back at him. As you popped up next to him, you pulled out your phone to search for the nearest library. It was time to figure out what the hell happened last night.

The library wasn’t too far—another town over about a half hour away. It was a relatively small place, with only two computers and a few rooms. What it lacked for in size, it certainly made up for in quality and quantity for the research you required. Mutt walked silently by your side through the long, narrow passages between bookcases. Just before you reached the end, one book caught your eye.

Folklore of West Texas

You pulled it from the shelf, a familiar green eye arresting yours once more where there should have been another book on the opposite shelf. Startled, you took a stumbling step back, spine crashing into the full bookshelves behind you and digging in uncomfortably. Mutt stood at attention then, low growl emanating from bared teeth towards the stranger on the other side. You dropped your free hand to him, knowing that if he made a ruckus, you’d both be kicked out. He quieted, but still leaned into you, rigid and on high alert.

Dean rounded the corner quickly, looking down at the hackled dog and drawing his hands up quickly, as if mildly scared. “Mind calling off the attack dog?”

“Only if you tell me why you’re following me.”

“Following you—what? You’re following us!” He hissed, barely above a whisper.

Sam trotted up behind you, footfalls heavy on the old hardwood floor.

He looked from you to Dean to Mutt then to the book you were holding. Ignoring his brother’s strange demeanor, Sam asked kindly, “Hey, uh, mind if we borrow that book from you? The librarian pointed us towards it. It for research—important research.”

You gripped it tighter, suddenly feeling quite cramped in the small space and wanting to run the other direction, away from these crazy people. “Sorry, uh… Sam, is it?”

He nodded, small, thin, friendly smile coasting his lips.

“Sorry, Sam, I need it urgently. I uh… I have a paper for my college class due in like four hours and I haven’t even started. Maybe come get it tomorrow?” You hoped they would accept your lie and let you be.

Sam sighed. “Maybe we can share? There’s seating over by the computers. You can write and when you’re not using the book, maybe we can?”

You had to hand it to him, he was thoughtful and it would have been a good compromise. Unable to think of another excuse, you nodded in agreement.

After a few hours of searching through the book and the internet, through the library computer, you found a promising lead. Something called a Lechuza bruja, a type of witch or spirit well-known around the Texas-Mexico border.

The whole time, you could feel the eyes of the men as they bore into you, watching your every move.

You stood quickly, numb legs stretching and ready to carry you away from the situation. You smiled and tipped your brim at the men and quickly walked back through the maze of shelves and to your truck. The afternoon heat hit the parts of your face not shadowed by the black hat. Once in the vehicle, you opened the cooler to check your provisions. Hmm, running low. Next stop—the market.

Sam and Dean whispered with each other, huddled so close that their heads were nearly touching.

“A lechuga?”

Sam huffed. “No Dean, a Lechu-ZA. We aren’t fighting lettuce.”

Dean hung his head in his hands, dragging them across his hair and back down, rubbing his temples. “Frickin’ witches man,” he mumbled. At least for Dean, lettuce and witches were held in the same regard—both revolting.

You were glad to be back out in the wide-open human-less landscape. You cracked open a cold beer from the cooler and let the fizz glide down your throat, both cooling and warming you in delightful ways. Sunset was fast approaching and painting wildfires through the sky. Atop your plateau, you could look down and see Texas to the North and East, Mexico to the South and West, and the Rio Grande snaking between them, forming an oasis along its banks. You were close enough to hear the constant, deep rumble of water. You closed your eyes, imagining people from a thousand years ago listening to the same sound.

Letting the peaceful daydream fade away, you set the beer on the hood and went to rifle through the tool box in the bed of the truck. You pushed aside the smaller items of necessity and heaved a large bag of salt over your shoulder with a grunt. You painstakingly dug a shallow trench with your heel all the way around the vehicle, filling it with an unbroken line of salt along the way.

After you prepped the truck for a sleepless night potentially fighting away ghosts and witches, you climbed into the bed of the truck with the cooler and opened a bag of jerky. Mutt enjoyed his kibble and curled up next to you, happy and relaxed, innocent of the danger that would likely find you tonight.

As the temperature dropped and the familiar refrains of coyotes filled the air with music, your eyes grew heavy. You curled into yourself, pulling the rough blanket over your shoulders. You looked up at the stars, trying to tally the larger ones to keep yourself awake. There were so many that the dark sky was not truly black anywhere—everywhere you looked there were more. Every time your eyes adjusted and focused on a dark spot, you could count even more of them as they appeared.

Everything was true black and silent, as if you’d gone blind and deaf. This was not the desert you knew. You turned and felt the ground with your feet, trusting that your tall boots would block any cactus or unfriendly critters. You shuffled forward and tried to call out to Mutt, but the words caught in your throat. It began to constrict, as if something had you in a vice grip, crushing your windpipe from the inside out. You reflexively tried to breathe deeply, but fell to your knees, scratching at your throat, panic rising. Your eyes bugged and strained, desperate for any miniscule bit of light. You blinked hard, just to verify that your eyes were indeed open. Gasping for breath, your lungs burned and you fell onto your side, convulsing as if drowning. As numbness creeped its dark tendrils through your body, and you began to sense gravity fall away.

You continued to struggle, allowing fear to set in. Off in the distance, a light appeared. Like a shooting star destined to destroy worlds, it hurtled towards you. In mere seconds, the bright, glowing owl was there, once again sporting the glitching face of a woman contorted in sickening ways. The owl dwarfed you, calmly flapping its wings and whispering those strange incantations that drew such agony from your breaking body.

It floated closer to you, and in the light, you could see your hair suspended as if you were fully submerged under water. When the monstrosity got within arms reach with open beak, you reeled back and punched it right in the eye.

You woke with a start, Mutt pawing at you and barking violently. Urgently.

Shaking off the nightmare, you could taste blood in your mouth. Tears had run down your face at some point, and you hurriedly wiped them away.

The blinding light of the full moon revealed otherwise—blood. You were bleeding tears?

You withdrew a kerchief from your flannel pocket and wiped your face as you scanned the salt line. The wind had blown away several areas. You looked up at the sky and tried to calm Mutt, who was trembling for the first time since he was a small pup. The full moon snatched the breath from you, and your chest heaved. It looked exactly like the eye you’d just punched in your dream.

The night was far colder than you’d expected, the chill reaching down to your bones. That was it.

It was time to leave. This was not something you could fight on your own. You jumped from the bed of the truck and Mutt joined you in the cab. You tried to start the truck, but the engine just sputtered. You tried a few more times, then nothing—as if the battery had died.

“No no no no no,” you cursed, hitting the steering wheel with both fists.

Time seemed to slow to a stop, Mutt frozen mid-bark and facing the windshield.

A large gray owl landed on the hood and its striking yellow eyes sent shockwaves through you—overwhelming pulses of anguish. You screamed, mouth falling open and eyes shutting against the spell, trying to break its hold. A vision of a small child drowning in the river filled your mind. It was screaming, choking, begging for help.

When your eyes opened, the screams of the child urged your feet forward faster, now running full speed through the desert.

You were not in control of your body anymore, but merely a hapless passenger. Your feet betrayed you and you went tumbling down the side of the cliff, catching every sharp rock and thorn on the way down. If you had your wits, you wouldn’t have been able to move, too broken to continue. The rush of the water nearby caused your veins and arteries to constrict and pulse at a dangerously high rate. Adrenaline coursed along with your blood and you rolled and stumbled towards the river once more. In a kicking leap, you crashed into the frigid waters searching for the screaming child. The shrieks were so loud that they rattled your brain and hurt your ears, threatening to consume you. You thrashed against the strong current.

The owl screeched and swooped down, tearing at your drenched hair. The freezing black water helped ground you enough to realize that there was no child—only the horrid cries of the bird.

The Lechuza, you reminded yourself. Just as you reached for the vial of salt in your pocket, the witch-owl dove into the water, catching the back of your collar in its sharp beak, dragging you to the depths with it. Its eyes glowed, the only visible thing in the dark waters.

Dean pulled the Impala slowly up to your truck, eyes locked on the salt circle. “Shit!” He shouted as he threw Baby into park. He bounded from the car towards the abandoned vehicle. He whipped back around towards Sam.

Sam picked up the blood-soaked kerchief in the bed of the truck and gave it to Dean. “I think we’re too late,” Sam noted, his voice faltering with the worry rising in his throat.

“I didn’t know she was a hunter! How did we not know?! The signs were all there!” Dean cursed and kicked the tire violently, throwing firsts in the air as he gripped the soiled kerchief. Of course, he blamed himself. In fact, the only reason they were out there was to gank you. Until this moment, they’d had no idea that you were another victim and not the bruja herself.

Mutt whined and cried a high pitched imperative. Dean ran back to the Impala with a long string of creative curses, retrieving two shotguns and extra witch-killing bullets. Sam opened the truck door and Mutt spilled out.

“Here boy, here,” Sam called to the frantic dog. “Take her to us. Go get her!”

Mutt seemed to understand and took off towards the southwest, nose close to the ground and paws practically levitating across the rough earth. Dean tossed the extra gun to Sam and they raced off, following the dog’s brays. They carefully descended the cliffside, sliding partway down and narrowly missing a large crevasse. The men watched in horror just as the large owl drug you beneath the waves.

You thrashed violently against the authority of the currents and the essence of pure evil leeching into you through osmosis. Once you were fully saturated in the foul concentrate, the Lechuza Bruja reared its ugly head back, screeching at a decibel that whales would envy, resounding through your entire being and threatening to shred you to pieces. Whether it was the spell or hypothermia kicking in, your limbs grew stiff and immovable. Your lungs screamed for air until you couldn’t fight it anymore.

In that moment, you felt your very soul being stripped away, and in the void, water filled your lungs. The pain only lasted a moment more before you started to sink towards the rocky bottom, bits of freshwater weeds outstretching soft, welcoming arms. You blinked slowly one last time, looking up at the disappearing monster above you as it emerged forcefully from the opaque waters. With the fading light, you closed your eyes, ready to greet your reaper. Your limp body fell to rest with a soft thud into the bed of river grass.

Sam dove into the water immediately, shoes and shirt flying off in a frenzy along the way. Just as he submerged, Dean angled the shotgun full of salt pellets and hit the fleeing bruja like a game of skeet. The nasty beast crumpled at his feet but did not stay still long. Dean dropped the shotgun and withdrew his pearl-handled pistol. The man-sized owl stood and flared its wings, beak agape in a blood curdling scream. Without hesitation, Dean aimed carefully and shot it center mass twice then between the eyes once in rapid succession.

The creature exploded in a ferocious affair, leaving only dust and feathers behind. Dean held his arm up, coughing into the crook of his sleeve. When the particles settled, he rushed towards where Mutt dug at the bank, barking and whining, careful not to touch the water.

“C’mon Sam,” he prayed, pacing impatiently. Just as he thrust off his own shirt and shoes to rescue both of you, Sam broke the shallow waves with a loud gasp. He held you in one arm, treading towards shore with the other. With a waterlogged body, you were more than a typical deadweight. Dean grabbed onto you when he was close enough, about waist deep in the river, feet sliding on the slippery stones. He traded a glance with Sam to make sure he was okay. Sam nodded between coughing fits.

He would be alright, but he couldn’t say the same for you. Your eyes were half open and far away, likely lost on this plane. Dean set you down on a sandy patch devoid of sharp protrusions and slammed fists on your chest. You were cold and blue.

“No no no, shit! Come on!” He yawped into the waning night. He started CPR. In desperation, he rolled you on your side and slapped your upper back hard. Your lungs rejected the water, projecting it up to a few feet away. Shallow, agonal breaths shook you furiously, your limbs going into straight, fixed positions. He sighed a minor breath of relief then picked you up and slung you over his shoulder, hoping more water would drain that way. The boys scrambled back up to the plateau where they reached the Impala in record time. Your body still racked and spasmed, trying hard to intake oxygen but still unable to expel all the water on its own. Dean handed you to Sam and jumped in the driver’s seat, breaking his “no dogs in the car EVER” rule as Mutt joined him in the front. Sam slid into the back, still pumping your chest when needed.

Dean grimaced as he flew as fast as he could down the winding, bumpy excuse for a road through Big Bend. He checked his phone, waiting anxiously for a bar of service since the nearest hospital was almost three hours away by car. “Sam, is she—?”

“Drive faster, Dean.”

The car gained air a few times, until at last Dean slammed the breaks to a sliding halt, atop a peak near the park exit. He dialed 911, pleading with the operator to send a helicopter to them like yesterday.

Minutes passed.

Dean paced outside the car, searching the sky and spinning in circles, the first rays of morning shining in his eyes. Sam pulled you from the car to the ground when you stopped breathing again. This time, he started CPR and you didn’t react.

Ten minutes.

Sam sang the Bee Gees under his breath, struggling to hold tempo and arms shaking in exhaustion. Mutt lay by your side, eyes closed and whining softly.

Dean kicked and punched at the world around him, screaming curses into the sky and towards himself, tears coming freely now as he felt the full weight of his guilt. He’d allowed another hunter to die because he couldn’t see past his own pig-headedness.

Fifteen.

Sam collapsed, arms shaking with exhaustion. Dean picked up where his brother left off with torturous thoughts raging rampant through his mind.

The long-awaited sounds of a helicopter in the distance graced their hungry ears. Sam jumped to his feet, waving wildly. He helped guide the crew to a clearing just a few yards away. Dean shielded you from the flying debris.

Two medics quickly wrapped you and continued CPR. In seconds, the helicopter was pulling away towards the rising sun.

Dean’s hands were clasped together atop his head, but internally, he was imploding.

Your eyes opened slowly, blurred vision confusing your already muddled mind with distorted images. You winced against the cool, damp cloth brushing against your temple. You groaned as your body woke in stages, each one more painful than the last.

A solid, warm hand wrapped around your forearm. You clenched your fist in response, a sharp sting in the top of your hand. “Shhh, shh shh. You’re okay. You’re at the hospital,” the soft yet gravelly voice whispered reassuringly.

Bringing your other hand to your eyes, you roughly wiped and rubbed until you could see more clearly. You started to gag and heave at the tubes connecting your lungs to a breathing machine. You pulled and flailed, panic striking fight or flight into you once again. Nurses rushed in and your eyes followed them wide open and wild. They carefully withdrew the apparatus and strapped your limbs down, replacing it with a much gentler nasal cannula, and lastly lifting the bed so that you were sitting up slightly.

You tried to choke out questions, but the more you tried, the more it hurt. You gave in to frustrated silence and took in your surroundings. Dean was there, hovering closely, tears at the corners of his red-rimmed eyes and an apology already spilling from his mouth.

You shook your head, confused, and motioned for something to write with. He handed you a small whiteboard and expo marker.

Who are you?

“Dean Winchester.”

You looked at him, unbelieving that it could be that Winchester—the one from the Supernatural books. It was only a story, right? Yet it was all right there—the character description, the car, and even Sam. Erasing your last question, you sloppily wrote a new one.

‘The’ Dean W.? SPN Legend?

He chuckled lightly. “Yeah, that one.”

You took in the view of your body—wrapped nearly head to toe in bandages, some of them still bloody.

What happened?

“You don’t remember?”

You shook your head no.

He recounted his version of the night, looking over his shoulder to make sure there were no prying ears.

You could tell it aggrieved him—the whole thing. You didn’t blame him of course; you’d almost wondered the same about him and Sam, suspecting that they may have been the evil bewitched spirit.

Sometimes, hunters die.

He placed his palm over the scribbled words, eyes cast down. “No. Not like that, not when we can stop it.” You squeezed his hand then shoved it away lightly.

I forgive you.

The words brought the large hunter to his knees. When he found the strength to lock eyes with you once more, you gave him a thin, strained smile. Looking at the band on your wrist, it was obvious he’d guessed your name and age. You jotted the correct information down and showed it to him. He smiled back.

“Nice to formally meet you, Y/N.”

You, too. What now?

Making sure the room was still clear, he leaned in. “Now, we get you out of here. Sam has your dog back at the motel. You owe me a deep clean for my car, by the way,” he quipped.

Teaming up with the Winchesters wouldn’t be the worst thing, you considered. It sure as hell beat living this empty, lonely life.

Mutt could finally have a family.

As Dean expertly snuck you out of the hospital, you weighed the pros and cons of associating with the two most wanted men on the planet. Your decision came when the Impala pulled up to the door of the first-floor room where Sam stood out front, Mutt by his feet looking happy and well fed.

Through everything, we found each other. That’s all that matters.

Come Heaven, Hell, or Beyond. You owed them your life.

FOREVERS:

@carryonmywaywardcaptain @manawhaat @supernatural-jackles @jensen-jarpad @wheresthekillswitch @bummblebeeblue @nothin-after-79-blog @docharleythegeekqueen @fangirl-writing-fiction @inmysparetime0 @impala-dreamers-mainfrigginblog @impala-dreamer @arryn-nyxx @idk-life01 @attorneyl @deathtonormalcy56 @xwing-baby

ALL ABOUT THAT DEAN:

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Tags Open

#SPN Bi-Weekly Writing Challenge #Whispers of the Desert #chris writes things #reader insert #supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #spn fanfic #no pairing #yet

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ukdamo · 3 years

Text

Dresden

Ciaran Carson

Horse Boyle was called Horse Boyle because of his brother Mule; Though why Mule was called Mule is anybody's guess. I stayed there once, Or rather, I nearly stayed there once. But that's another story. At any rate they lived in this decrepit caravan, not two miles out of Carrick, Encroached upon by baroque pyramids of empty baked bean tins, rusts And ochres, hints of autumn merging into twilight. Horse believed They were as good as a watchdog, and to tell you the truth You couldn't go near the place without something falling over: A minor avalanche would ensue – more like a shop bell, really, The old-fashioned ones on a string, connected to the latch, I think, And as you entered in, the bell would tinkle in the empty shop, a musk Of soap and turf and sweets would hit you from the gloom. Tobacco. Baling wire. Twine. And, of course, shelves and pyramids of tins. An old woman would appear from the back – there was a sizzling pan in there, Somewhere, a whiff of eggs and bacon – and ask you what you wanted; Or rather, she wouldn't ask; she would talk about the weather. It had rained That day, but it was looking better. They had just put in the spuds. I had only come to pass the time of day, so I bought a token packet of Gold Leaf. All this time the fry was frying away. Maybe she'd a daughter in there Somewhere, though I hadn't heard the neighbours talk of it; if anybody knew, It would be Horse. Horse kept his ears to the ground. And he was a great man for current affairs; he owned the only TV in the place. Come dusk he'd set off on his rounds, to tell the whole townland the latest Situation in the Middle East, a mortar bomb attack in Mullaghbawn – The damn things never worked, of course – and so he'd tell the story How in his young day it was very different. Take young Flynn, for instance, Who was ordered to take this bus and smuggle some sticks of gelignite Across the border, into Derry, when the RUC – or was it the RIC? – Got wind of it. The bus was stopped, the peeler stepped on. Young Flynn Took it like a man, of course: he owned up right away. He opened the bag And produced the bomb, his rank and serial number. For all the world Like a pound of sausages. Of course, the thing was, the peeler's bike Had got a puncture, and he didn't know young Flynn from Adam. All he wanted Was to get home for his tea. Flynn was in for seven years and learned to speak The best of Irish. He had thirteen words for a cow in heat; A word for the third thwart in a boat, the wake of a boat on the ebb tide. He knew the extinct names of insects, flowers, why this place was called Whatever: Carrick, for example, was a rock. He was damn right there – As the man said, When you buy meat you buy bones, when you buy land you buy stones. You'd be hard put to find a square foot in the whole bloody parish That wasn't thick with flints and pebbles. To this day he could hear the grate And scrape as the spade struck home, for it reminded him of broken bones: Digging a graveyard, maybe – or, better still, trying to dig a reclaimed tip Of broken delph and crockery ware – you know that sound that sets your teeth on edge When the chalk squeaks on the blackboard, or you shovel ashes from the stove? Master McGinty – he'd be on about McGinty then, and discipline, the capitals Of South America, Moore's Melodies, the Battle of Clontarf, and Tell me this, an educated man like you: What goes on four legs when it's young, Two legs when it's grown up, and three legs when it's old? I'd pretend I didn't know. McGinty's leather strap would come up then, stuffed With threepenny bits to give it weight and sting. Of course, it never did him Any harm: You could take a horse to water but you couldn't make him drink. He himself was nearly going on to be a priest. And many's the young cub left the school, as wise as when he came. Carrowkeel was where McGinty came from – Narrow Quarter, Flynn explained – Back before the Troubles, a place that was so mean and crabbed, Horse would have it, men were known to eat their dinner from a drawer. Which they'd slide shut the minute

you'd walk in. He'd demonstrate this at the kitchen table, hunched and furtive, squinting Out the window – past the teetering minarets of rust, down the hedge-dark aisle – To where a stranger might appear, a passer-by, or what was maybe worse, Someone he knew. Someone who wanted something. Someone who was hungry. Of course who should come tottering up the lane that instant but his brother Mule. I forgot to mention they were twins. They were as like as two – No, not peas in a pod, for this is not the time nor the place to go into Comparisons, and this is really Horse's story, Horse who – now I'm getting Round to it – flew over Dresden in the war. He'd emigrated first, to Manchester. Something to do with scrap – redundant mill machinery, Giant flywheels, broken looms that would, eventually, be ships, or aeroplanes. He said he wore his fingers to the bone. And so, on impulse, he had joined the RAF. He became a rear gunner. Of all the missions, Dresden broke his heart. It reminded him of china. As he remembered it, long afterwards, he could hear, or almost hear Between the rapid desultory thunderclaps, a thousand tinkling echoes – All across the map of Dresden, store-rooms full of china shivered, teetered And collapsed, an avalanche of porcelain, slushing and cascading: cherubs, Shepherdesses, figurines of Hope and Peace and Victory, delicate bone fragments. He recalled in particular a figure from his childhood, a milkmaid Standing on the mantelpiece. Each night as they knelt down for the rosary, His eyes wold wander up to where she seemed to beckon to him, smiling, Offering him, eternally, her pitcher of milk, her mouth of rose and cream. One day, reaching up to hold her yet again, his fingers stumbled, and she fell. He lifted down a biscuit tin, and opened it. It breathed an antique incense: things like pencils, snuff, tobacco. His war medals. A broken rosary. And there, the milkmaid's creamy hand, the outstretched Pitcher of milk, all that survived. Outside, there was a scraping And a tittering; I knew Mule's step by now, his careful drunken weaving Through the tin-stacks. I might have stayed the night, but there's no time To go back to that now; I could hardly, at any rate, pick up the thread. I wandered out through the steeples of rust, the gate that was a broken bed.

#poetry #ciaran carson #dresden #northern ireland #bombing #china #history #WWII #wwii aircraft #the troubles #names #heritage #remembrance

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chloelucia13 · 4 years

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Chapter 5: The Flea and the Acrobat

Pairing: none of the moment (currently Jonathan Byers x platonic!Henderson!reader)

Prompt: You always thought Hawkins was the most boring town of all, stuck in a vacuum void of excitement and entertainment. Well, it seems that way until the world decided to flip upside down, literally.

Chapter Summary: The plan the three of you created was solid, and you all thought you were prepared to kill whatever took Will and finally bring him home. Things never go how they’re planned, though, do they?

Warnings: a little angst, a little fluff, language, violence (finally!!!), horror elements, gore

Word Count: 3720

A/N: New part! I hope you guys enjoy! As always, the tag list for this series is open!

Catch up: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

As soon as you had settled down onto your bed, a knock at the front door made you get back up.

You yanked the door open after shooing Mews away, letting out a huff. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, however, when you saw who was at your door. “Jonathan. What’s going on?”

Jonathan let out a sigh. “Lonnie is at the house,” he explained gruffly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“What?” You shook your head slightly. W-Why? Did he do something to you?”

He shook his head. “He’s just... There. I’m guessing for the funeral, but...”

“That’s bullshit.”

Jonathan nodded in agreement, pursing his lips.

“Well, do you want to stay the night here? Or do you want me to go over there?”

“No, no. It’s okay. I just... Needed to get out for a second.”

You nodded slowly, stepping to the side to let him in. “Did he say anything to you?” you questioned as you both walked back to your room.

“Said that mom is sick. That I’m pushing her over the edge. Told me to behave at the funeral tomorrow.” He huffed, sitting down on your bed. “Said that I should take down my Evil Dead poster because it was ‘inappropriate.’”

“God, what a fucking douche bag,” you grumbled, flopping down onto your bean bag chair. “He’s telling you to behave? And that you’re pushing your mom over the edge?” Your face felt hot, hands beginning to shake. “Fuck him!”

He sighed, tugging on the loose strings of your comforter. “It’s like he wasn’t the one who came home drunk every night and then left us to fend for ourselves.”

“He’ll be gone soon, trust me. Either your mom is gonna kick him out or...”

“Or?”

“Or I’m gonna kill him.”

He let out a laugh, shaking his head slightly. “Don’t kill him. He’s not worth the effort or the prison time.”

You laughed along with him, standing up and walking over to him. “Yeah I guess you’re right.” You sat down next to him on the bed, leaning your head against his shoulder. “... I’m scared, Jonathan.”

He took your hand in his and traced his fingers along the lines on your palm. “Why are you nervous?”

You shrugged slightly. “What if...” You shook your head. “Nevermind, it’s stupid.”

He sighed and pulled away slightly, touching your chin to tilt your head up so you could look him in the eye. “Don’t say that. Your fears aren’t stupid.”

You offered him a small smile before taking a deep breath, gathering your emotions. “What if... Whatever took Will and Barb... What if it takes one of us? Takes me? I mean, I’m no different from them, and we’re actively hunting the thing that took them. It can take me just as easily.”

Jonathan’s hand left your chin, grabbing onto your other hand and holding them tightly. “I’m not gonna let that happen. I’m gonna be right behind you the whole time. Nothing bad is gonna happen, I promise.”

***

You had dreaded getting ready that morning, both because you had to get up early on a Saturday and you had to actually put effort into your look.

You woke up at 8 and trudged to the bathroom, pulling out your mom’s curling iron and getting to work.

It had taken about an hour to get your hair perfect, not too curly but just curly enough that it looked like you made an effort. You sprayed a tiny bit of hairspray and applied some light eye shadow, mascara, blush, and chapstick in the mirror.

Afterwards, you slipped on the black button-down dress that sat in the back of your closet, unworn until that moment, along with your pair of combat boots.

Once you were finished, you stepped out into the living room where your mother and Dustin were waiting.

“You own a dress?” Dustin remarked, half shocked and half teasing.

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest. “God, shut up,” you grumbled.

“You are not wearing those combat boots. There’s a pair of flats in my closet, go put them on,” your mom complained.

You sighed and grabbed your keys. “It’s fine. We’re gonna be late!”

***

The ceremony extremely long, and your feet were aching the entire time (thank god you wore your combat boots). The pastor droned on and on about faith and God and whatnot, placing bible passages between every other sentence.

You stood behind Jonathan, your hands resting on his shoulders and habitually smoothing down his hair, anything to make sure that the both of you didn’t drift off. You kept your eyes on the patch of grass under your feet, unable to look at the small coffin just feet from you. Even if Will’s real body wasn’t in there, the thought of him being dead and stuffed into the ground for the bugs to eat made you nauseous.

As soon as the last flower was tossed on top of the coffin, you and Jonathan hurried out of the crowd after accepting a few weak condolences. Nancy lingered behind for a moment to avoid drawing suspicion.

“I never knew you wore dresses,” Jonathan voiced as you two walked towards the chapel.

You scoffed. “God, that’s the third time today-” you began.

“You look nice. Pretty.”

A blush rose to your cheeks and a small smile crept onto your lips. “Thanks.”

As soon as you felt that you were far enough away, the three of you cowered behind a fenced-off gathering of headstones. Jonathan tugged out a folded up paper from his coat pocket, unfolding it as you all sat down on the dead grass. on the paper was a map of the area where Barb and Will disappeared. “This is where we know for sure it’s been, right,” Jonathan explained, showing you and Nancy the map.

“So that’s-” Nancy started, pointing at one of the areas marked with an x.

“Steve’s house.” Jonathan pointed to another x. “And that’s the woods where they found Will’s bike.” He pointed to the last x. “And that’s my house.”

“It’s all so close.”

“Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s all within a mile or something. Whatever this thing is... It’s not traveling far.”

Nancy looked at him. “..You want to go out there.”

He nodded. “We might not find anything.”

“I found something.”

“But if we do see it,” you spoke up, “then what?”

Jonathan sighed, looking off into the distance for a moment before looking back at you and Nancy. “We kill it.”

He shot up all of a sudden, not even waiting for you and Nancy before hurrying over to the parking lot. You and Nancy shared a look before chasing after him, worry immediately settling in your chest when you saw him start to pick the lock for Lonnie’s car. “Jonathan, I don’t know if this is a good idea,” you voiced when he was in earshot, not wanting to shout and draw attention. “What are you even doing?”

He yanked the passenger door open and sat down in the seat, getting to work on the glove compartment. “Just give me a second,” he huffed. After jiggling his blade in the lock, it came undone and he pulled the compartment open. He sifted through the contents before pulling out a pistol and a box of bullets, quickly examining them before stuffing them in his pockets.

“Are you serious?” Nancy ridiculed, jaw dropping.

“What? You want to find this thing and take another photo? Yell at it?”

“Jonathan, we’ve just crossed into illegal territory. If Lonnie finds out, he’s gonna sue you for everything you have!” you whisper-yelled, glancing around to make sure no one was looking.

“And that’s why he won’t find out.” He hopped out of the car and slammed the door shut.

“This is a terrible idea,” Nancy argued.

“Yeah, well, it’s the best we’ve got.” You ran a hand through your hair, trying to stay calm. “What? You can tell someone, but they’re not gonna believe you. You know that.”

“Your mom would.”

“She’s been through enough-”

“She deserves to know!”

“Yeah, and I’ll tell her. When this thing is dead.”

You let out a huff and crossed your arms, nodding once. “Fine,” you grumbled.

***

You met Jonathan at the small makeshift shooting range that Lonnie had set up years ago. The cans were rusted and the logs were rotted, but that didn’t seem to bother Jonathan, who was trying his hardest to shoot anything other than the dirt.

“Don’t waste all the bullets, Johnny Boy. We’re gonna need them eventually,” you teased. flashing him a smile.

He let out a chuckle and dropped his arm to his side, turning to face you. His eyes immediately glanced down to the machete you decided to bring with you. “Where did you even find that?” he asked incredulously.

“I stole it from Dustin’s room. Pretty badass, don’t you think?”

“I think you’re gonna stab one of us from swinging it.”

You rolled your eyes and hummed. “But at least I’ll hit something, Byers.”

“Well played.” He reached his hand out and you handed him the blade. He examined it closely, poking the tip in the ground a few times before handing it back to you.

You took it from his hands and sat down in the dirt, watching as he sat down across from you. “Can I share a theory I have?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“What if the area that this creature is appearing in... What if it’s a ley line?”

“What’s a ley line?”

“It’s these lines that supposedly align prehistoric monuments and things like that. But it’s supposed to bring along energy. Maybe this area is on a ley line, and it’s bringing along this extra energy that led to all this weird stuff happening and this... thing.”

“I mean, it’s possible.”

You let out a sigh, tracing the tip of the machete in the dirt and creating random doodles. “The problem is, if it was on a ley line, these weird things would’ve been happening for a long time. It doesn’t make sense for it to randomly start happening now.”

You two sat in silence for a moment, nearly jumping out of your skin when you heard footsteps approaching. You jumped up from the ground and pointed your blade at the source.

“Jesus!” Nancy exclaimed, holding her hands up in the air, her bat dropping to the ground.

“Sorry, just a little... Jumpy,” you sighed, lowering the machete back down to your side. “Hopefully you don’t drop your bat when there’s an actual threat,” you teased, picking it up and handing it back to her.

Meanwhile, Jonathan had returned to the metallic targets, firing at them but never hitting them.

“You’re supposed to hit the cans, right?” Nancy hummed, stepping closer to him.

He chuckled. “No, actually, you see the spaces between the cans? I’m aiming for those,” he joked, a small smile on his face.

“Ah.” She shrugged off her shoulder bag, tossing that and her bat alongside your things.

“You ever shot a gun before?”

She scoffed. “Have you met my parents?”

“I’m surprised your dad doesn’t have one hidden away in his bedside drawer, just in case the commies come for him,” you teased, nudging her shoulder with yours.

Jonathan chuckled, emptying out the shells into his hand. “I haven’t shot a gun since I was ten. My dad took me hunting on my birthday. He made me kill a rabbit.”

“A rabbit?” Nancy voiced, concerned.

“Yeah. I guess he thought it would make me more of a man or something. I cried for a week.”

“Jesus.”

“What? I’m a fan of Thumper.”

“I mean your dad.”

“Yeah. I guess he and my mother loved each other at some point. but... I wasn’t around for that part.” He quickly loaded six bullets into the chamber and cocked the gun. Nancy reached her hand out, offering to try, and he handed it to her with no hesitance. “Uh, yeah. Just point and shoot.”

“I don’t think my parents ever loved each other.”

“They must have married for some reason.”

“My mom was young. My dad was older, but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family...”

You began to zone out at that moment, your own thoughts that you were too scared to voice swarming in your mind. Your tongue was literally in-between your teeth, trying your hardest to speak your mind.

You nearly bit through your tongue when Nancy shot the gun, the bullet connecting with the can and making it fly to the ground. Your thoughts scattered like startled birds, and you blinked your eyes a few times to get yourself focused back into the present.

“Y/N?” Jonathan voiced, his hand touching your shoulder, making you jump. “Are you okay?”

You nodded, forcing a smile. “I’m good.”

***

The tip of your nose and your fingers felt numb as you walked, the cold effectively chilling them to the point where they were bright red. Thoughts of regret continuously popped in your head, telling yourself that you should have stayed home instead of freezing your ass off in the Indiana woods.

“You never said what I was saying,” Nancy voiced, tearing the blanket of silence.

“What?” Jonathan responded, eyebrows furrowing.

“Yesterday. You said I was saying something and that was why you took my picture.”

“Oh, uh... I don’t know.” he was silent for a moment, pondering. “My guess... I saw this girl, you know, trying to be someone else. But for that moment, it was like you were alone, or you thought you were. And, you know, you could just be yourself.”

Nancy was silent for a moment. “... That is such bullshit.”

Jonathan stopped in his tracks for a moment, nearly making you run into him, before he began walking again. “What?”

Nancy stopped, prompting everyone to stop, as well. “I am not trying to be someone else. Just because I’m dating Steve and you don’t like him-”

Jonathan sighed and stomped forward. “You know what, just forget it. I just thought it was a good picture.”

Nancy followed behind him, forcing you to keep up with them. “He’s actually a good guy.”

“Okay.”

“Yesterday, with the camera...” She rushed to catch up with him. “He’s not like that at all. He was just being protective.”

“Yeah, that’s one word for it.” He huffed and attempted to storm off.

“Oh, and I guess what you did was okay?”

“No, I-I never said that.”

“He had every right to be pissed-”

“Okay, alright. Does that mean I have to like him?” Jonathan stopped and turned to face her, which gave you some time to catch up to them.

“No.”

“Listen, don’t take it so personally, okay? I don’t like most people, he’s in the fast majority.” He huffed and turned on his heel to walk away once more.

“You know, I was actually starting to think you were okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking ‘Jonathan Byers, maybe he’s not the pretentious creep everyone says he is.’“

“Well, I was just starting to think you were okay.”

“Oh-”

“I was thinking ‘Nancy Wheeler, she’s not just another suburban girl who thinks she’s rebelling by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does until that phase passes and they marry some boring one-time jock who now works sales and they live out a boring little life at the end of a cul-de-sac., exactly like their parents who they thought were so depressing but now, hey, they get it.’“

“God, can you guys grow up for once in your goddamn lives!” you finally screamed, making them both jump and turn to you. “If you guys had forgotten what the point of this whole fucking thing is, it’s to find Will and whatever that thing is that took him. Can you guys just deal with each other for one fucking night!”

“Y/N-” Nancy began.

“And at least you guys know who your dad is, because I sure as fucking hell don’t!” Tears welled in your eyes and you looked up at the sky to keep them from falling.

They were both silent, eyes glued on you as you fell apart. “Y/N,” Jonathan voiced this time.

You cast your gaze back down to the ground, shaking your head slightly before stomping away, tears slipping down your cheeks.

***

The sun had already set, leaving the woods completely barren of light, save for your tiny handheld flashlights you all carried.

None of you had spoken a word since the blow up, which happened about 2 hours ago. You could feel the dried tear tracks lingering on your cheeks, but you didn’t dare wipe them away to show Nancy and Jonathan that you had been crying.

You nearly collided with Nancy when she suddenly stopped, almost unnoticed by you due to your lingering stare towards the ground.

“What, are you tired?” Jonathan sighed, turning to you two.

“Shut up,” Nancy commanded, glancing around nervously.

“What?”

“I heard something.”

Suddenly, a sharp whimper pierced through the air, sounding as though it was coming from only yards away.

Your brows furrowed in thought for a moment before turning towards the sound and walking that way, not waiting for Nancy and Jonathan. The whimpering grew louder and more persistent with each step, causing fear to brew in the pit of your stomach.

As you shone your flashlight around, something reflective sparkled under the light, in the same area that the whimpering was coming from. Gripping the handle of your machete tightly, you made your way over to the source, your jaw dropping in horror when you finally came across the sight of a wounded deer laying in the brush.

“Oh, god,” Nancy choked out, all of you focusing your light on the wounded animal.

Slowly, you all knelt down in front of it, trying to avoid scaring it.

“It’s been hit by a car,” Nancy voiced.

You shook your head, gently reaching out and pointing at the deep cuts along its side. “A car doesn’t leave bite marks like this. Something attacked it,” you explained, gingerly gliding your fingertips along its un-wounded leg.

“We can’t just leave it.”

You nodded, bile rising in your throat as you pushed yourself to your feet. “It hasn’t lost enough blood for it to bleed out quickly.”

Nancy stared down at the pistol in her hand, then looked back at the deer.

“I’ll do it,” Jonathan voiced, holding his hand out.

“Jonathan,” you sighed, reaching out and touching his shoulder for a moment.

Nancy hesitated. “I thought you said-” she began.

“I’m not nine anymore.” He took the gun from her hand and they both rose to their feet, stepping back next to you.

You held back a sob and slowly turned around, squeezing your eyes shut and waiting for the gunshot.

Suddenly, Nancy and Jonathan jumped back in horror, Jonathan tightly grabbing onto your arm.

“What happened?” you asked, spinning around to look at the deer, only to see a bloodied patch of grass where it once laid.

“Something took it, something grabbed it,” Jonathan rushed out, letting his hand fall from your arm, fingers grazing against yours for a split second.

“Could it have been a bobcat? Or a wolf?”

He shook his head. “It was too quick. There’s no way.”

You let out a sigh and gulped, tightening your grip on your machete before walking forward, following the bloody trail left behind.

“Where’d it go?” Nancy voiced, glancing around quickly.

“I don’t know,” Jonathan sighed. “Do you see any more blood?”

“No,” you huffed, shining your flashlight around. “It just... Stopped.”

Jonathan nodded and turned around, going the way you just came from. You and Nancy searched for more blood, slowly walking along the line and glancing forward at the large tree in front of you.

“Nancy,” you whispered, nudging her and gesturing at the base of the tree, which appeared to be dripping with something blood-like.

“What the hell is that?” she questioned, both of you crouching down and examining the cavernous and bloodied hole.

“Sometimes animals store their food in tree trunks, but the animal doesn’t just... Disappear after.” You sighed and got down on your hands and knees, slowly inching into the tree.

It looked as if the hole in the tree continued forever, with no clear end in sight. With a sigh, you scooted forward, trying to keep the contents of your stomach from coming up at the awful smell of the odd substance that coated the insides of the tree, reeking of spit and gore and rot. Nancy followed close behind you, her gags and gulps audible.

You had finally reached what appeared to be an exit, covered by an odd membrane-like barrier. You poked the tip of your blade through it and tore it open, slipping through the new opening and coming out on the other side, feeling as if you were just born again.

Nancy came out right behind you, both of you immediately rising to your feet and glancing around, your view slightly impaired due to your flashlight which now began to flicker.

The air seemed thicker, somehow, and odd ashy particles floated around the air. Everything appeared grayer and dingier, and odd purple vines covered the forest floor and the trees.

“Where are we?” Nancy whispered, to which you could only respond with a shake of your head. You stepped forward, holding your machete out in front of you.

A loud snarl sounded to the right of you, both of you turning to view the source.

An odd, gangling and pale creature stood hunched over, feasting on the remains of the deer that you had found earlier. You covered your mouth, feeling Nancy slowly step back.

A twig snapped underneath her feet.

The creature turned to you two, letting out a horrifying roar. He had no eyes, no face, just five petals of skin flared out, covered in rows of sharp teeth. You both let out screams and turned the other way, sprinting as fast as your bodies would allow to get as far away from the creature as possible.

As your heart pounded in your ears, you could hear the faint echo of Jonathan’s voice screaming for Nancy.

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woodelf68 · 4 years

Text

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

My long-promised homage to @worryinglyinnocent‘s Playtime ‘verse, because she managed to write fifty installments without doing hippies, and I had to rectify that. Also my contribution to @rumbelleishope. Rated E.

***

The large cardboard box bearing items from the estate sale was like a time capsule from the late 1960s. Gold sorts through the items, fond memories of his early childhood stirred by such things as the beaded curtain and concert posters and the heavy stack of albums, their cardboard covers worn along the edges but still bright with the distinctive graphics of the era. The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Iron Butterfly. Donovan, too, Glasgow-born like himself. He can hear them in his head, like a soundtrack to the Summer of Love, and he wonders if Belle will like any of them. He’s fairly certain that she’ll like the clothes, and holds up a loose, flowing smock with wide sleeves and delicate flowers embroidered around the neckline and hem. It’s a pretty thing, and he can easily see Belle wearing it, hopes that she’ll want to.

Methodically he sorts through the contents of the box, dividing everything into three piles. One to be priced and sold – the two posters were what had drawn him to bid on this lot in the first place, and he knows that he can sell them for a pretty penny – one of things he thinks Belle might be interested in, and one of a few items of clothing that he looks at doubtfully, unsure if he wants them to fit or not. But he thinks of Belle in the short dress, thinks of surprising her with a scenario they haven’t played out yet, knows he won’t regret any temporary feelings of silliness at wearing what are, after all, fairly normal clothes compared to some of the things he’s put on for her. Making up his mind, he goes into the shop’s small bathroom and locks the door.

Several minutes later he’s studying his reflection, and surprisingly not feeling too ridiculous. although he would die of embarrassment if anyone other than Belle were to see him wearing a suede leather vest adorned with long fringes. But the undyed linen shirt with the open neck and band collar is soft and comfortable, and if it’s a little too big, it’s not overly so, and he can roll up the sleeves. Same with the trousers, he’s sure that the flare-legged rust denim was originally meant to fit a bit more tightly than they do on his frame, but although he knows that Belle would no doubt appreciate that, he’s gotten used to more freedom of movement. With a belt and the cuffs turned up if he doesn’t want them to drag on the ground, the jeans fit well enough. The clothes remind him of his childhood, those years after he had been taken in by his aunts, where he had learned the feeling of security, and being wanted, and what it was like to be praised and encouraged instead of constantly belittled. Whether it’s the warm memories associated with the era, or simply the fact that he knows his ten year old self would have loved to have had a fringed leather vest, he’s satisfied with his image. Now all he has to do is suggest a scene. He thinks about it as he changes back into his suit and tucks the vintage garments into a bag. The shop is small, and would be easily decorated, but far too public for more than a quickie. The large Victorian house filled with fine antiques is not right at all. That leaves the cabin, he decides.

Saturday morning, he drops Belle off at the library and hands her a box tied with string that he’d stashed in the back seat of the Cadillac. “Don’t open it until lunchtime,” he says, knowing the pleasure of an anticipated surprise. “I won’t be in the shop today; I’ve got some other business to take care of.”

“All right; see you later.” Belle watches him drive off, mystified by the package in her hands. By the time lunchtime rolls around, she’s more than ready to tear off the box lid and find out what’s in it. A piece of paper sits on top of some tissue paper-covered contents, with the heading “Playtime?” She forces herself to read the rest before folding back the tissue paper and seeing what awaits her. “It’s 1968. Fibre artist and co-founder of Storybrooke’s new “Enchanted Forest” commune “Rumpelstiltskin” Gold has agreed to an interview with the hip young reporter from the local newspaper. Please confirm interview at 6 pm Saturday.” Intrigued, she folds back the tissue paper and nearly squeals with delight, instantly picking up the beaded, white leather headband that lays on top of the other items and tying it around her head. She gets out her compact mirror to admire how it looks for a moment before texting Rum back.

“Interview confirmed. Looking forward to it.”

He must have been waiting for her reply; his return message is swift. “Dove will have the car there for you at five; I’ll see you later.”

Dove arrives with the keys to the Cadillac before she closes the library at five, and as soon as she locks the front door, she retires to the restroom to change into her outfit. It’s a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and she drives out to the cabin as instructed, deciding what she’s going to say when she gets there. Parking, she starts to head for the door of the cabin when she hears music coming from around the side of it and alters her course. Gold is there, sitting on top of the picnic table, his spindle hanging down and twirling as he spins a smooth yarn from the basket of wool roving in the basket beside him. He is dressed – well, he is dressed to match her, obviously, and it suits him. It suits him incredibly well. He looks softer, younger, his dark hair set off by the off-white linen shirt, feathering out over the band collar, the open neckline displaying the line of this throat and a string of love beads, mostly black with a few white and sky blue ones mixed in at regular intervals. The rust-coloured denim of his jeans sits low on his hips and flares out below the knees and the fringed vest…she’d like to see him move with it on, see the fringes flare out. She kind of wants to borrow it herself, and thinks about what it would feel like to wear it with nothing on underneath. Preferably while she was riding him in bed, rocking back and forth, the open edges of the leather rubbing back and forth against her bare skin… She swallows hard, and pushes that image back to take out and play with again later. Gold looks both snuggly, and sexy, and she wants nothing more than to go over to him and slide her fingers into his hair to hold him still while she kisses him breathless, but she has a part to play first.

”Mr. Gold?” she asks, approaching. “I’m Belle French, with the Storybrooke Mirror. You agreed to an interview.” She holds out her hand and he lets go of the dangling yarn forming between his fingers to reach out and shake it.

“Call me Rum, please.” He goes back to smoothing the spinning fiber into a smooth, even yarn, and Belle can’t help but watch his hands.

“That’s a nickname, right?” She takes out a pen and notebook from her purse, ostensibly jotting it down. “For Rumpelstiltskin, because of the spinning.”

“It is. I quite like it.”

“How did you get into spinning?”

“My aunts taught me. We had a wee croft, a few sheep, chickens, that sort of thing. Turned out that I was quite good at it. I like the rhythm of it, and there’s a lot of satisfaction in taking a bit of dirty, rough wool and combing it clean and spinning it into a strong, even twist of yarn that can be made into things.”

“Do you use the yarn yourself? Make it into things?”

“Aye, we do a fair bit of that here, at the commune. Granny’s our champion knitter, ponchos and scarves and mittens, they always sell really well at the Miner’s Day Festival. And my son and his girlfriend like to make dreamcatchers with the wool; they’re another popular item. And of course we make things for ourselves as well.”

“So is that part of your goal here? To be as self-sufficient as possible?” Belle drops her bag on the grass and sits down beside it, cross-legged, resting her notebook on her thigh and glancing back up after scribbling a few things down in it. It’s a lazy sort of day, and for once she isn’t in a hurry to rush to the sex, instead interested in the unusually detailed background story he’s made up about himself, and hinted at in the letter he’d written. She wouldn’t mind being a journalist if she wasn’t a librarian, she thinks, and wonders if the Mirror might be interested in her starting a weekly column about books.

“Aye, I suppose. It’s cheaper to make your own bread than to buy it, for example, and better for you. You’ll have to talk to Anton, our crops expert, if you want to know more about that side of thing. He’ll talk your ear off about beans if you show even the slightest bit of interest.”

Belle grins, thinking of the gentle giant who ran the local health food store, and knowing it was actually true. “You mentioned your son; tell me about him.”

Gold smiles fondly. “He’s an artist. Does portraits when he can get a commission, freelance political cartoons, sign painting, anything really.”

Neal is indeed a good artist, she knows, even if he has chosen the steady paycheck that came with a job at the hardware store over any artistic dreams, preferring to keep it a hobby. “You sound very proud of him .”

“I am.”

“What about those other people you mentioned? His girlfriend, and Granny. Do they live here, too?”

“Aye, Emma and her parents are fairly new here. Her mother’s our respectable member of society – she’s a teacher at the school – and her father can do just about everything around here. Good with the animals, construction work, anything that needs doing. And I can’t even be jealous of him because he’s so nice, too.”

Belle laughs; it really is a good summation of David.

“And Granny, well, she’s been here since the beginning.”

Belle makes a note, and looks back up to watch the whirling spindle, his fingers never still as he forms the yarn between his fingers. “Tell me about the beginning. What made you decide to start a commune?”

“Well, we didn’t, not really, certainly not at first. When my son was young – “ he hesitates, and then continues. “His mother left us, and there I was, needing to go to work and having a wee boy to take care of at the same time. We didn’t have any family, or friends. But I knew the woman in the flat across from ours had taken in her granddaughter recently and was raising her on her own – there’d been some scandal with the mother, from what Milah had gathered. But the lass looked hearty enough, so I figured that the woman knew how to take care of a bairn and I was desperate. I went knocking on her door, thinking she might be willing to look after Neal for what little money I could offer her, since it would be in the convenience of her own home. And he was a sweet, well-behaved boy, no trouble at all.”

Belle looks up at him uncertainly, knowing that he was talking about his own real life here; at least as far as Neal’s mother leaving them went, and wonders about it. He normally never talks about that period of his life, maybe this was one way he could do so? She isn’t sure about the Granny part; they don’t seem to have that sort of relationship. She stops herself from asking if Granny had really watched Neal, though, not wanting to break character yet. Rum has gone through a lot of trouble putting together a backstory for this particular scenario, and she doesn’t want to break the mood. She realises that she knows even less about Granny’s past, or Ruby’s parents, and makes a note on her pad to ask later. She squints against the sun, positioned behind his head and outlining the locks of hair falling forward into his face, and tries to think what would be the next question that a journalist would ask.

“Were you working as a spinner then?”

“Lord, no, an accountant. It’s only been in the last few years that people have begun appreciating handcrafted items again, enough to pay a little more for them than mass-produced factory goods. It was when the last of my aunts died that I took it up again. They’d left me their cottage, and everything in it, including their wheels and a good stash of both raw wool and spun yarn. I would have moved back to Scotland and lived there, but Neal had his friends and his life here, and wanted to stay, so I sold the place and brought as many of their things home with us as possible, things that I remembered from my childhood, even though I had to place most of it in storage. But I made Neal a scarf for Christmas from the yarn, and his friend Emma then asked if I could make her a hat, and paid for it with her allowance money, and then Granny’s Ruby wanted one, and pretty soon the boutique in town contacted me about selling some of my stuff there. I took a leap of faith and quit my job, but if I was going to spend all day at home spinning and weaving, then I wasn’t going to do it in my tiny apartment. This cabin was for sale, needed a lot of fixing up, but Neal was old enough to help by then and enlisted a bunch of his friends from woodshop at school as well. We had it fixed up and livable in quite a short amount of time, and well, that was the start of things.”

Belle mentally sorts out the facts from fabrication. His aunts had been real, she knows, but the cabin has never been more than a weekend getaway place. She is saved having to think of another question by the music in the background coming to a stop and Gold putting aside his spindle and going over to the record player to flip over the disc. A new song begins playing, with what she thinks is a bass line, a deep, thumping riff that gets under her skin and makes her want to move. She stands up, leaving her notepad and pen lying on her bag in the grass, and goes to meet Gold. “I like this song,” she says, beginning to sway in place as he turns back around to face her.

“Do you?”

“Mm-hm.” She takes his hands, trying to get him to dance with her. “In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey, don’t you know that I love you,” she sings, and nearly laughs at the way his eyebrows go up in surprise, biting back the remark that Storybrooke does have an oldies radio station, and it’s kind of hard to forget a song that seems to go on forever. “In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby, don’t you know that I’ll always be true?” She lifts his arms up, spinning beneath him, and smiling; he helps twirl her, her lightweight skirt flaring out around her.

“Oh, won’t you come with me,” she sings, and her mind completely derails in a sexual direction. “Won’t you take my hand?” With a filthy smirk on her face she tugs at his hands, backing away, and he follows, entranced, helpless to do otherwise. “Oh, won’t you come with me and walk this land? Please, take my hand.” She stops as they reach the picnic table, putting her hands on his shoulders, swaying to the music, forcing him to move as well, his feet staying planted but hips and shoulders moving to the beat.

“That’s it,” she encourages, and he smiles, drawing her close with his hands on her hips, pulling her flush against his body. She loops her arms around his neck, playing with his hair, her gaze drawn to the open collar of his shirt. “You look good,” she says.

“Do I?’ He tilts his head, grazes his lips against hers.

“Mm-hm. You should wear light colours more often.” She dips her head, pressing a kiss against his collarbone, mouthing against the warm skin.

“Have we moved into the second portion of the programming?” he asks, amused, leaning in to run his tongue around her earlobe.

“New questions. Like, do you believe in free love?” She runs her hand up his back, feeling each bump in his spine through the soft shirt, and then back down again, slipping up underneath the sun-warmed fabric.

“Oh, most definitely,” he assures her, his breath ghosting over hers as the music throbs in the background, a primal beat that makes him want to move against her, inside her. He debates the practicalities of just lifting her up onto the top of the picnic table and taking her right there.

“And is there a reason for that picnic blanket that you spread out so thoughtfully in the shade of the tree over there?”

“There are twigs and bugs in the grass,” he says, and Belle snorts. “And I thought, if any visitors should wish to recline in comfort…”

“Well, then,” she says, and takes his hand, leading him behind her towards the blanket. She sinks down upon it and he sits down beside her, facing her, and she can’t think of anything else to say, because all she wants to do is touch him. She slides her hand beneath his hair at the nape of his neck and draws him closer and he tilts his head and then they’re kissing languorously, need slowly building between them. Belle slips her hands up under the hem of his shirt, then back out again, tugging at the hem. “Off,” she instructs.

Gold breaks away from the path he’d been nuzzling along her neck to grin at her. “Run out of questions, have you?”

“The only thing I want to know is what you’re going to look like spread out naked before me,” she says, her voice gone a bit husky.

Gold sheds his vest first and then reaches back and yanks his shirt off over his head, his eyes darkening. The light breeze rustling the leaves above them feels good on his heated skin as he shakes his hair out of his eyes, reaching out to splay his hands over Belle’s ribs before she can touch him herself, very much aware that she isn’t wearing a bra and grazing his thumbs over her nipples. Her breathing quickens and her head falls back as he rubs them, back and forth and back and forth, feeling them tighten and swell until she moans and reaches down to grab the hem of her own shirt. Gold obligingly drops his arms so that she can pull it off and cast it aside, the motion lifting her breasts and stretching out her taut belly. She kicks off her sandals and Gold takes the opportunity to remove his own low cut boots and socks, shifting more comfortably now onto his knees, and drawing Belle forward to straddle one of his thighs before kissing her again, more urgently than before.

Belle begins moving, riding his hard thigh, rubbing herself against him. His belt buckle digs into her stomach, and she reaches down, tugging it open and free impatiently, and then going for the snap and zipper of his jeans, wanting only warm skin against her, feeling Gold slide his hands up under her skirt, his palms smoothing along her legs. She slips her hand inside his jeans, palms his growing hardness, and Gold makes a desperate sort of noise, pressing up against her and then pulling back, scrambling to his feet to shove down his jeans and underwear together, while Belle makes quick work of removing the rest of her clothes and tossing them to the side, where she spots his discarded vest and, with a small smile, pulls it on over her bare chest. It feels as good as she had imagined, the suede soft but with just enough of a roughness to its texture to make her very aware of it as it shifts over her breasts, the edges grazing her nipples. Gazing up at Gold, she thinks it’s a good angle, his cock already half hard and lifting away from his body, and she thinks about rising back onto her knees and taking him into her mouth, but as she shifts onto her knees and curls a hand around his ankle, he braces his hands on her shoulders and lowers himself back down to the blanket, stretching out above her, one hand supporting her lower back, and she lets him ease her down, enjoying the weight of his hips pressing her down against the ground. They kiss, long and slow, and then he begins working his way down her body, touching and tasting, fingers and lips and tongue as her head falls back and her body arches into him.

She buries her fingers in his hair and gazes up into the branches of the tree as he suckles at her breasts. Something glints there, catches the sun and magnifies it. She closes her eyes briefly against it, becomes more aware of the pulse of the music in the background, the pulse of her blood in her veins. She opens her eyes again as his mouth leaves her and he moves further down, leaving her nipples wet and swollen and aching. She looks down at her body as she lifts her hands to cup her own breasts, to tug and pinch at the nipples and sees small rainbows dancing over her chest, her skin dappled in light and shade from the sun filtering through the leaves. She looks up in puzzlement, and then smiles in delight and reaches up as if she could reach the crystals she spots hanging from the branches of the tree, their prisms catching the light and breaking it up into the bands of colour that paint her skin and increase the dreamlike quality of the moment. She knows at once where they’re from, thinking of the box in the shop’s back room full of dismantled chandelier parts, but the knowledge doesn’t lessen their magic. She traces one along her skin, then takes one of the vest’s long fringes and shifts it back and forth over her nipple, sucking in a breath as it catches briefly before rolling over. Gold runs a hand along her thigh and she lets her legs fall apart and half closes her eyes as his fingers slip inside her, drawing out her moisture and using it to draw slow circles over her clit.

He watches her rolling the fringe back and forth over her nipple, the flesh visibly puckering around the hardening nub, and his own cock hardens in response. He longs to take her into his mouth, but cannot look away.

“You would fit right in at Woodstock,” he says huskily. “Imagine us there, listening to the music, and I’m standing right behind you, and we’re swaying to the music. You’re wearing nothing but your skirt and that vest, and it’s open, and I’m cupping your breasts in my hands, and playing with your nipples.“

Belle’s hips jerk, as the image goes straight to her core.

Gold dips his fingers into her again, and feels the effect his words are having on her. There’s plenty of slick now, for his thumb to glide easily over her flesh, that light, grazing touch that causes her clit to swell and harden in response. His voice drops in pitch, his Scottish accent strengthening without him being quite aware of it. “There’s people all around us, but it doesn't matter, no one does more than glance our way.” He searches his memory for images from the documentary of the famous concert. “It’d been pouring rain earlier, and your shirt had gone drenched and transparent in minutes. Other people were stripping off their wet things, and you’d boldly done the same; there’s no shame here, no constraints. Bodies are natural, they’re beautiful, there’s no need to hide them. There’s people with body paint, offering their services. Perhaps we’ll ask one to decorate your breasts; would you like that?”

Belle can’t keep from squirming, her eyes wide as they rake over his smooth, lightly tanned chest and lower, his cock blatantly erect for her.

“If we could paint you, too. What about you? Is your shirt off?”

“Oh aye, my chest is bare against your back, and my jeans are clinging to me like a second skin, and my cock is straining against the zipper; anyone who looks at me would know how much I want you. I want to take you away from the crowd and find a place to lay you out on the ground and rut into you like a wild beast, but I need you to come first, come on my hands, come for everyone to see – “ He slid his free hand up her chest, pushing the suede leather of the vest aside, completely baring her front, and cupped her breast in his warm hand, his hips shifting and pressing down against her pubis as he leans over her, thumb being replaced by middle finger, changing the angle, rubbing relentlessly. “Come on, sweetheart,” he urges, kneading her breast, his touch rougher here where she prefers lighter down below.

The music pulses in time with her blood and Gold’s hair falls forward to hang in his face. He blocks out the sun, he is haloed by it, sun and shade and the scent of grass and incense and she is here and she is there at the same time and his cock is heavy and stiff against her thigh and the hard knot of pleasure bursts within her and she comes with all her muscles clenching tight and her fingers digging into his skin where she’d reached for him. His finger stills against her, knowing not to move again until she relaxes, the tension sagging out of her body, and she feels good but it’s not enough, there’s an aching emptiness inside her that needs to be filled. She sits up abruptly, tumbling him onto his back, and straddles his hips, taking hold of his cock and stroking it firmly.

“We’ve gone away from the crowd now,” she tells him. “Found a place by the lake, behind some bushes. They offer us some privacy, but we can hear people nearby, going down to the lake, to bathe, to swim. Someone could easily come upon us, if they came in just the right direction.” She rubs her thumb over his slit, coaxing out a bead of moisture, and he lets out a nearly inaudible whine. “I don’t care, though. I want you, and I don’t want to wait. Are you willing to risk it? Willing to risk someone seeing me riding you into the ground?”

“Hell, yes.” He can’t wait, either. “Let them see. Let them see a beautiful woman like you wants someone like me.”

“You say “someone like me” as if I’m not dripping wet for you, as if I don’t want to have you buried inside me more than anything in the world,” she says, and rises up, positioning him at her entrance so he can feel the truth of her words. “You have to be quiet,” she warns, mischievously, and sinks down.

Gold swallows down the noise that wants to escape his throat as she engulfs him. “I don’t know if I can promise that.” He splays his hands out on her waist, just under the edge of the vest, his thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. Hanging open as it is, the vest only half covers them, baring a lovely wide strip of pale flesh right down the center of her body, adorned only by the love beads she still wore around her neck. As she shifts above him, the edges of the vest fall back, just revealing her nipples, and his cock throbs in response. He bucks up, everything feeling tight, and hot, and urgent. “That vest is a good look on you; we should keep it.”

Belle grins. “I’m glad you think so; I quite like it myself.” She leans forward over him, resting her weight on her hands, and begins to ride him, deliberately shifting continuously in a way that keeps the edges of the vest moving and rubbing against her breasts, her nipples staying hard and sensitive from the teasing friction. She undulates; rising and falling and pleasuring herself on his shaft, the long fringes falling forward as she lowers herself above his body.

Gold arches up as the leather fringes trail over his belly and swing forward to drag over his nipples, driving himself deeper inside her as he seeks more of the teasing sensation. He cups his hands over her breasts, rolling her nipples between forefinger and thumb, and Belle moans. He grins. “I thought we had to be quiet.”

"I never said I would be." She lifts herself up until just the head of his shaft remains within her, glancing down to see the hard column of his flesh joining their bodies. She tightens her muscles around him, squeezing as hard as she can.

Gold's whole body jerks as he cries out, his balls tightening and drawing up. He drags her back down upon him and rolls them over, pulling back out just enough to slam forward into her, rocking her backwards. He thrusts into her again, all control gone, feeling his climax rapidly approaching.

"That's it." Belle braces herself with drawn up knees and urges him on. "Come on, Rum, give it to me." He is all lean, wiry muscle, and dark hair falling forward and shielding his eyes from her view. She arches up into his next thrust, digging her fingers into his lean buttocks and feeling him long and thick and solid inside her. "That's it, so good, come on, come for me."

He snaps his hips forward, driving deep again and again until his body seizes with pleasure and he stills, braced on his forearms with his hips sealed against hers while the hot flood of his release spills inside her. After a few seconds his muscles unclench and he lowers himself to lay atop her, panting and letting his eyes fall shut as he savours the fading rush of ecstasy, his cock twitching a few times in aftershock as he softens inside her. He feels her fingers run through his hair and turns his face into her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin and the smell of crushed grass beneath the blanket, the air moving lightly over his sweaty back. A bird chatters above them, and he realises that the record had stopped playing at some point, unnoticed. He takes in a deep breath and rolls off to the side, blinking up at leaf-dappled sunlight and rainbows dancing in the air. He turns his head to the side and the corner of his mouth quirks up as Belle does the same and meets his eyes. She looks as debauched as he feels.

"So, Rumpelstiltskin," she says, reaching out to twine her fingers with his. She feels thoroughly well-used and it is about all she has the energy for at the moment. "Do you have any final words for the readers of our paper?"

Gold's smile widens into a grin. "Yeah. Turn on," He draws their joined hands to his lips and presses a kiss to her knuckles. "Tune in, and drop out." He lifts his free hand and flashes her a peace sign, feeling utterly sated and stupidly happy. He thinks of the box from the estate sale.

Best buy ever.

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle is hope #worryinglyinnocent #ficwoodelf #turn on tune in drop out #AHAHAHA I FINALLY FINISHED IT #THE SMUT HAS BEEN FIGHTING ME FOR TWO YEARS #BUT I WAS DETERMINED TO GET THIS DAMNED THING OUT OF MY DRAFTS #i'll put it up on ao3 in the morning #i want to give the smutty half a better edit when my eyes aren't so burning and blurry #also i'm never writing anything in present tense ever again #but i wanted to match the style of the others #every read through i kept finding spots where i'd slipped back into past tense and had to change all the verbs #ugh

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hydrospanners · 4 years

Text

a very velaran life day

every 3 years, wookiees across the galaxy come together to mourn what they've lost, honor what they love, and celebrate the plans they have for the future. and maybe it's a bit weird to be so invested in a holiday mainly meant for wookiees, but no one ever said the velarans were normal. these are the thinly-veiled holiday vignettes about jedi knight nirea velaran's family and those who orbit them throughout the years. chapter 1 of 17. swtor genfic. character background/origins for my jedi knight nirea velaran who is not actually in this chapter but her dad and aunt are. 2283 words. ao3.

25 BTC - Coronet City, Corellia

The twelfth time A Day to Celebrate starts to play, Ranna flings the transceiver against the wall. It flies through the holotree still clinging to life by the window, leaving the neon branches flickering, its motor whining as it struggles to regen the projection.

She hopes it fails, but even her misery is a disappointment today. The tree solidifies into a standard, jolly tree shape and the busted transceiver is just whole enough to keep playing that stupid fucking song.

A day to celebrate, she thinks, bitterness dripping from her thoughts. What the fuck have I got left to celebrate?

Her knee hurts so much she can’t even hobble to the kitchen for a beer to numb the pain. Not that it matters; she drank the last beer hours ago, and it’s not like there’s anyone around to run to the store for her, is there?

“Happy fucking Life Day,” she grumbles, glaring at the transceiver like that might be enough to finally do it in.

It isn’t. Joy to the Worm starts playing and it’s somehow even worse than A Day to Celebrate.

Pain pulses through her leg, her buzz finally wearing off enough that she can feel her legs again, and Ranna desperately wishes she’d given up and gone to bed hours ago. Her parents won’t be back from work until morning and Raad is--

Who the fuck knows where Raad is? She hasn’t heard from him since she washed out of the Academy. He’d been annoyingly optimistic about it--“It’s not washing out,” he’d tried to tell her. “It’s a medical discharge. That’s different.”--but then he’d vanished into thin air and she’d had to take a public transport back home, alone with her beat up go-bag and the enormous contraption meant to be healing her knee. Not exactly the cutting edge of medical technology, but it was the best they could spare for a useless, busted nugget. Anything for the fucking war.

Stars, she needs a beer.

No. Not a beer. She needs a whiskey. She needs six whiskeys. Six whiskeys and maybe a very limber young lady with a nice smile and nicer--

“Happy Life Day!”

Like she summoned him with her thoughts, Raad bursts through the front door. His face is flushed with cold and his are eyes sparkling with excitement, an almost-beard she’s never seen before sprouting across his jaw. He’s aged six years in the six months since she saw him.

Ranna wants to punch him square in his handsome fucking face.

She wants to throw her arms around him and never let him go.

“Where the fuck have you been?” She demands, reaching for the anger because that’s what she always does. Because tonight is not the night for personal fucking growth.

Raad just laughs. “I missed you too,” he says, grinning like everything is just the way it used to be. Like the galaxy’s still full of possibility and adventure. Like her life didn’t just end before it even got started. “You ready to see what I got you for Life Day?” His smile slips, just for a second, while his eyes search for the missing chrono, now one of the six different pieces of shattered transceiver scattered across the floor. “It is still Life Day isn’t it? I know I was cutting it close, but--”

“Oh, it’s Life Day alright.” Joy to the Worm finally ends, but it’s followed up with a static-y Bingle Bells which is even worse. “All fucking day.”

Undeterred by her mood as always--both his most charming and most annoying trait--Raad just beams at her. “Great. Then let’s go see your present!”

Ranna snorts, gesturing to the sixty pounds of metal caging her stupidass leg. “Not fucking likely.”

“You can still ride in a speeder. C’mon Ranna, it’ll be worth it, I swear!”

It’s a tired line by now and she’s never known it to be true, but Raad looks down at her with those big, brown eyes so full of earnestness and excitement and it doesn’t matter how sideways his promises always go. She’s gonna go right along with anything he asks cause she’s a damned fool who could never say no to that pleading look. Cute fucking asshole.

She scowls up at him half-heartedly. “You want me to go, you’re gonna have to carry my ass.”

He’s supposed to laugh--a year ago he would have--but things have changed while she’s been at the Academy. Her little string bean is tall now, half a head taller than her, and that lanky frame of his has filled out. He reaches down, all earnest excitement, and lifts her out of the chair like she weighs nothing at all. Of course, he bangs her caged leg on the door twice trying to maneuver her out of it, but she’s so proud he can carry her now she doesn’t do more than hiss at him when he does it.

And, of course, grab her blaster from the holster hanging by the door. She learned a long time ago not to go anywhere with Raad without proper precautions.

The speeder is not one she remembers, but it looks just like every other ride he’s ever had. The chassis are a thousand years old and beat all to hell, patched in a dozen places with pieces from a dozen different machines, looking like the only thing holding it together is spit and luck. And if it’s anything like his other rides, under all that rust and despair is a pristine fucking engine that looks and flies like it was lifted directly from the speeder of the most corrupt Senator on Coruscant.

“Where’d you get this hunk of junk?”

Raad shrugs, trying to ease her into the passenger seat without much success on the easing part. “She’s a loaner. My friend Telo’s.”

“You? Without a speeder? Never thought I’d see the day.”

Once Ranna’s in, trying very hard to hide how much her leg hurts after he banged it against everything coming and going, Raad swings his legs over the side of the speeder and drops into the pilot’s seat. “Some things are more important than speeders,” he says, smiling that smile he always wears when he’s trying to hide something. He’s the worst fucking liar in the galaxy.

“Not to you,” Ranna says.

“Might be I’ve learned a thing or two since you left.”

Ranna snorts. “We’ll see about that.”

Seeing as how the speeder isn’t actually Raad’s, the shabby exterior isn’t actually disguising tens of thousands of credits’ worth of exquisite machinery under the hood. It’s a rough, stuttering ride to the spaceport. Ranna tries her best not to swear every time her leg gets knocked around by the damn thing, but she knows she isn’t succeeding.

Raad takes it all in stride. He’s in one of those moods where he’s so happy nothing can touch him and it’d be annoying if it wasn’t so damned contagious.

Happy fucking bastard.

Once the speeder is parked and Raad comes round to haul her useless ass out, Ranna throws up a hand, looking at him suspiciously. “I’m not gonna get arrested for this, am I?”

The trouble is, she can’t figure what he could possibly have gotten her that would have to stay in the spaceport. He can’t afford anything big and he’s gotta know she’d have nowhere to store it even he could. Which basically just leaves smuggled shit. Either that or he finally convinced Kalinski to let her have a free swing. She’s been waiting half her life to nail that smug little motherfucker right in his prissy motherfucking nose and she doesn’t want to get her hopes up or anything, but punching Kalinski would really turn her Life Day around.

All Raad says is, “I guess that depends on how you use it. Let’s go.”

Not exactly comforting. And probably not a free swing at Kalinski either. But it’s not like she’s got a military career left to ruin so what’s another fucking arrest?

She sacrifices her dignity on the pyre of his excitement and lets Raad wrap an arm around her waist, half-dragging her through the port. It’s crowded just the same as it always is. Doesn’t matter if it’s Life Day or Election Day or Invasion Day; someone always needs to get somewhere and there’s always credits to be made taking them, so the spaceport is always crowded. Over the noise and bustle, she thinks she can hear the faint sound of fucking Bingle Bells playing on the loudspeaker.

Thankfully, it isn’t far before Raad’s steps start to slow. “Okay,” he says, “time to close your eyes, Ran. We’re almost there.”

“Close my eyes?” She snorts. “I’m already crippled. You want to blind me too?”

He rolls his eyes. “Just do it, okay? I swear it’s not much farther.”

Making a show of her reluctance, Ranna lets her eyes fall shut. It’s disorienting as hell, but Raad is taking so much of her weight he’s practically carrying her over the last few steps to what she guesses is one of the hangar bays. She’s tempted to have a look, just to see if she’s right, but Raad wants to surprise her and she can’t let him down.

“No peeking!” He warns.

“I think you’re overestimating my curiosity,” she teases, and he laughs right in her ear.

They shuffle to a stop and she can feel the way his hands tighten on her waist, the way he’s almost trembling with anticipation. She can hear the faint countdown he’s doing under his breath as he blows out a long, steadying exhale.

“Okay,” he finally says. “Open your eyes.”

She does.

Her good knee trembles beneath her, almost collapsing under the weight of what she sees.

Ranna can’t see his face, can’t look anywhere but straight ahead, at the impossible thing she can’t be seeing, but she doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s beaming like a thousand suns.

“She’s The Golden Gizka,” Raad says. “And she’s all yours, Ran. Right and legal and everything.”

For the first time in months, Ranna forgets her pain. The weight of everything lifts from her chest, and when she sucks in a deep breath of air, it doesn’t even matter that the air down here is stale and stinks of oil and unwashed bodies. It’s the best gulp of air she’s ever had, because it’s her first breath as a motherfucking captain.

“Well fuck me sideways,” she says.

Raad laughs.

“Karking shit, Raad. H--” She starts to ask how he’d done this impossible thing, but then she remembers the borrowed speeder, the way he vanished right after she washed out.

“Now before you go being impressed my noble generosity,” Raad says, “you should know I’m changing the engine codes if you don’t make me your first mate.”

She laughs, trying to ignore the way tears are stinging at the corners of her eyes. “Who the fuck else would I pick?”

They don’t talk about it, but they both know all her bridges here got burned before she left. And maybe that’s why she’s staring down a glorious hunk of junk with her name on the title; maybe Raad figured out why she burned those bridges. Why she left Corellia in the first place. Maybe he feels like he owes her.

She wants to ask, but she doesn’t. Maybe one day she’ll be brave enough to wonder why.

“You keep stroking my ego like that,” Raad says, “my head’ll be too big to fit up the ramp.”

“Shame.”

He laughs, and then he’s dragging her forward, to the lowered boarding ramp of the ship that is, unbelievably, hers. “I know she’s not much to look at--”

“--but she’s got it where it counts?” Ranna finishes for him.

He hesitates. “Uh, no. Not really. She’s pretty much junk on the inside too. But I know this mechanic...”

He gives her a sheepish look, like she’s going to be upset with him for giving her a garbage ship. Like the condition of the thing matters at all when he just gave her a motherfucking starship.

“Raadris Velaran, I know you aren’t out there hiring my crew before I’ve even boarded my ship.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain.” He grins one of those shit-eating grins she loves best. “But as your first mate, I’ve got some suggestions.”

“If it’s Daeleth you’re about to pitch, don’t waste your breath.”

Raad’s face falls. “Really?”

“He’s the best starsdamned mechanic on Corellia, Raad, and that’s saying something. Save the sales pitch for him. Stars know we’ve got fuck all to offer.”

“Oh you don’t need to worry about that. I got a plan.”

Raad having a plan was the very definition of something she needed to worry about, but worry could wait until tomorrow. Today, for the eleven glorious minutes left in the best Life Day she could ever remember having, Ranna Velaran wasn’t going to worry about a damn thing.

“Can she get off the ground at least?” She asks.

Raad waggles his brows at her. “Only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

Ranna’s no expert, but she knows enough to know that The Gizka is in rough shape. Maybe rough enough shape that just cranking the sublight could be the end of her, and possibly the end of everyone in a half-mile radius.

But what’s the point of living without taking a risk every now and again?

Head held high and walking under her own power for the first time in days, Captain Ranna Velaran hobbles slowly up the boarding ramp of her very own starship.

“Happy fucking Life Day indeed.”

#swtor #swtor fic #introducing some very niche self-indulgent bullshit #the velaran legacy #ranna velaran #raadris velaran #a very velaran life day #hydrofic #hydroswfic #hydrostuff #hydroswstuff

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crossbowking · 6 years

Text

The Road Ahead : Chapter 5

Chapter Index HERE

Summary : (Set in the beginning of season 1) Anna Brooks lost everything after the world ended — the last remaining part of herself being her older brother, who she lost contact with after communications dropped. While en route towards Atlanta to find him, Anna’s truck breaks down, leaving her at the mercy of the cruel new world. Now, Anna must face her fears head on as she struggles to deal with devastating loss, constant danger, and finding her way in a land that now belongs to the dead. But sometimes, a glimmer of hope can be found disguised as a short-tempered, hard-headed redneck who may just save her life in more ways than one.

Pairings : Daryl x Original Female Character

Warnings : Slow-Burn, Language/Violence/typical Walking Dead themes

Author’s Note : This chapter is a bit short - sorry to disappoint! But I promise that the next chapter is nearly twice as long! Thank you for all the wonderful feedback! I couldn’t stop smiling reading everyone’s comments! I love when you babes share your thoughts and opinions with me! It makes this process so much more enjoyable! So thank you!!!

Happy reading!!!

xx crossbowking

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

Previously...

She held the flashlight to her chest, curling inward as a hunger pain rocked through her body, her lips cracked and dry with thirst, unease coursing through her veins.

Then, with nothing more left to do, Anna cried herself into a restless sleep.

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

Now...

Anna woke up the next morning feeling more exhausted than ever.

She’d tossed and turned all night, afraid the moment she closed her eyes, something would go horribly wrong. Every time she felt herself begin to doze off, flashes of blood and death would invade her mind, making sleep a futile thing. She could feel the ever-present dark circles under her eyes growing and wondered if she’d ever sleep well again.

Anna scoffed aloud at the concept of sleeping through the night ‘nightmare free’. She hadn’t had a good nights sleep since the world went to shit…and even before that, her dreams had been plagued with the horrors from her everyday life...

Anna scrubbed at her face, hoping a little blood flow would get her up and moving, but she found her limbs heavy as lead. She stared up at the decaying ceiling, feeling the Georgian heat beginning to press against her bones, the day already suffocatingly humid. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of her face, settling at the nape of her neck.

She needed to find water and soon — otherwise, she’d most likely die from dehydration before she even set foot in Atlanta.

Anna groaned softly as she pulled herself into a sitting position, absently rubbing her empty stomach, her fingers tracing the faint outlines of her ribcage — she hadn’t been able to feel her ribs last week. Things were not looking too good for her right now.

With a sigh, Anna clambered to her feet, dragging her backpack and flannel off the ground with her. She straightened out her dirty, torn jeans that hung off her hips, fastening her belt as tight as possible, hating how much room she still had between the fabric and her skin.

Ignoring the nagging in her head that told her she was slowly starving to death, she stretched out the kinks in her neck as she glanced out the front store window. If she had to guess, she’d say it was late morning — the sun wasn’t at its peak, but the morning dew had already settled — which gave her more than enough time to trek into the city and find her brother’s apartment — and hopefully her brother — before nightfall.

Anna started pulling everything out from her backpack, laying it on the counter to take inventory — two cans of string beans, one can of peaches, two protein bars, an open can of Red Bull, half a bottle of Advil, a toothbrush and travel size bottle of toothpaste, half a roll of toilet paper, a flashlight, a can opener, one change of clothes, an empty canteen for water, and her gun with five bullets in the chamber. Her supplies were dwindling faster than she was able to restock and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could survive off one can of string beans a day.

Anna took a generous swig from the opened Red Bull, knowing that the beverage would only result in further thirst but choosing to quench her parched lips instead. She unwrapped one of the protein bars, nibbling on the end as she toyed with the chain of her necklace.

She’d inspected the mini-mart top to bottom for water, but there was nothing — no bottles, no jugs, no cases, no hidden stashes in the storage room, no water in the pipes, not even a god damn vending machine. Scavenging a surrounding neighborhood was an option, but that would delay her getting to Atlanta. Plus, she only had five bullets left and no other weapon on her, leaving her defenseless against more than a couple walkers. But no matter how badly she wanted to get to Atlanta, no matter how badly she wanted to find Ben…she needed to find water first.

Anna finished up her protein bar, ignoring her stomach’s protest for more, and downed the rest of her Red Bull. She would just have to take half the day to scavenge — it was her only option at this point.

With a sigh, Anna shoved everything back into her pack, tied her flannel around her waist, and slipped her backpack over her shoulders. She scanned outside the front building, looking for any signs of the dead as she picked up her gun. Just a few lone walkers limped about the street, heading in the direction of the city. It was nothing to worry about — she would just sneak out the back, hop in her truck, and leave those biters in the dust.

Anna made her way out of the main room and into the storage area. She rolled away the shelving unit she’d propped up in front of the exit, pushing it to the side. But right before she moved the plywood she’d used to block off the open doorway, she paused, spotting something to her left.

A cooking pot.

Not the most convenient weapon of choice, but it was better than firing off her gun and risking the chance of attracting a bigger crowd of biters. Anna picked it up, testing the weight in her hand before tucking her gun into the waistband of her jeans. It would have to do.

Gripping the pot in her left hand, she used her right to pull away the piece of plywood, shielding her eyes for a moment against the glare of the sun bouncing off the pavement.

And then, after her eyes adjusted, she looked around — and what she saw made her stomach drop.

A herd. Right outside the mini-mart. Wandering across the back parking lot. Her appearance having drawn their attention solely on her.

“Oh shit,” Anna whispered in horror, quickly scrambling back inside the store as the first walker made its swipe at her. “Shit, shit, shit,” she hissed, gnashing her teeth together as she swung the pot towards the walker, slamming the bottom against the side of its head. Her heart hammered against her chest as more of the dead began to filter into the store, hungrily reaching for her as she stumbled backward, further into the storage room.

Anna’s stomach plummeted as she smashed the pot against another walker that had gotten too close. There were too many to fight off. She frantically scanned the room, searching for a way out, when she suddenly spotted a rusted ladder attached to the back wall. She had no idea where it led, but if she couldn’t go left, right, forward or backward…she would just have to go up.

Anna landed a powerful kick into the gut of the closest walker, watching as it fell backward into the crowd, knocking a couple others down like bowling pins. She took the opportunity to scramble over to the ladder and began climbing as fast as her body would allow her. She felt a hand wrap around her ankle but quickly kicked it off, climbing until her head touched the ceiling. Wrapping her shaking limbs around the ladders top rung, Anna looked down.

A mass of the dead crowded below her, the group so vast she could no longer see the floor. Outstretched hands reached up towards her, some soaked in blood, others rotting to the bone — but all vying for her flesh, fueled by nothing but innate hunger. Their collective groans grew into one deafening growl, sending Anna’s heart into overdrive as her grip began to quiver around the rung.

Anna took a deep breath and forced herself to think rationally. Someone wouldn’t attach a ladder to the wall if the ladder didn’t lead somewhere…she turned her gaze away from the dead and scanned the ceiling above her, using her fingertips to feel for some sort of door or latch.

Within seconds, she felt a groove in the ceiling. Using her finger, she followed the crack until she felt a handle. A burst of hope shot through her as she twisted the handle, using her shoulder to push the hatch up. Sunlight surged through the opening as Anna climbed through the hole and onto the flat top roof of the mini-mart, slamming the flap closed behind her.

Stumbling backward, Anna ran a shaky hand through her matted hair, sliding her backpack off her shoulders as she frantically looked around. She inched towards the edge of one side of the square building and peeked over, feeling as though someone punched her in the gut at the sight of how many walkers had swarmed there. She scrambled to look over the other three sides of the building, seeing nothing but an endless crowd of biters — even more ambling out of the woods, drawn in by all the commotion.

Backing away from the edge, Anna fell to her knees, splaying her hands out in front of her, her fingernails digging into the concrete.

What the hell kind of ending was this? After everything she had been through, she was either going to climb off the roof and get massacred by walkers…or she was going to stay put and die a slow, miserable death due to starvation and dehydration. Feeling every ounce of fight drain out of her, Anna curled up on the roof, too tired and too discouraged to do anything else.

The roar of the dead below eventually dulled as Anna closed her eyes and thought of her family. She pictured her father’s eyes — warm, like honey — so similar to hers. She remembered her mother’s smile — weary, but bright — even on the days she couldn’t muster the strength to get out of bed. She imagined her brother’s hands — strong and calloused from spending hours working on car engines — guiding her away from their mother’s hospital room…

Anna squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, curling her knees closer to her chest.

Things had gone from bad to worse to downright shit.

And now, the undeniable truth was this — for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Anna Brooks was completely screwed.

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A/N : Oh shit...what’s going to happen next?!

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What would YOU do in this situation? Try to fight your way out or stay on the roof and hope the herd eventually loses interest?! Share your thoughts!

CHAPTER 6 WILL BE POSTED SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7TH! (AKA THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 9 PREMIER!!! I’M SO PUMPED.)

Feedback is INCREDIBLY important. I write for my own happiness, but I also write for YOU. So don’t be afraid to shoot me an ask or message or leave a comment with your thoughts! It truly motivates me and helps move along the writing process. Let’s discuss and be friends!

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othercat2 · 6 years

Text

Crooked Little House One

Hives more likely to be there than not

It happens at an official dinner on the Flagship, celebrating some official shit, because of course it does. There's a moment that's like a lightning strike, then a shift in perspective, and almost identity. The world spins and history changes and always-was. You’d been in the middle been in the middle of drinking a glass of wine while all this was happening. You choke and cough all over the third course, much to the horror of the other guests and your guards, who immediately swarm the table.

"No!" You gasp out, trying to get control of her aeration sponges, gills and whatever was swarming into your head. “I’m fin,” you say. “Somefin went down the wrong hatch, is all.” Making your excuses, you get away from the table, surrounded by a school of rattled guards.

They take you to a seadweller ablution block with a little parlor, a long couch and an entertainment unit. Servants come to help you into a new dress, adjust your jewelry and fix your hair. You sit your bass down and try to think through a fog of memories that ain’t quite yours, but were and never had been. Fuck. Other-you had been a miserable beach. She’d been old, angry and just plain miserable. Desperate for shit she lost and never had, under the thumb of some giant green basshole.

But she was just a past you, and there was no invading personality behind the memories.

Reset, just like your kismesis said it was going to be.

“Okay.” You take a breath. “I can’t bereef it, but this is a thing that’s actually happening.”

There’s such a smug feeling in the parlor just then. It’s followed by a warm chuckle against your fins and a tug on your horn, friendly and entirely too casual. You growl and tug your horn free of a ghostly hand. “Basshole,” you mutter. The smug feeling just gets stronger.

You take out your shelltop. There are orders to issue, things you need to explain. You need to get back to Alternia. There were Heroes of the Imperium to recognize, and you needed to explain why they were six sweep wigglers. You had a new Heiress to acknowledge, as well. You were going to need to do so much spin.

Dola is kind of mad at you when you get to her, and also confused. Dola is always kind of mad at you so that's not a big deal. "I assure you that the location of all wiggler hives are listed and carefully monitored. There aren't any 'hives that weren't there before but it's mostly plausible that they should have been there.'" She frowns at you. "Is this some kind of joke based on the assumption Psii hasn't sent me podcasts of Troll Welcome to Nightvale?"

"Dola, just look," you say. "I swear they'll be there, right where there wasn't anything before according to the drones, but it'll be all archived like it was."

Dola’s mouth thins into a straight line, but she looks in the records, like you asked her. “I don’t suppose you have any other information about these anomalous wigglers?”

You list off hatch names and lusii. She is not happy about the names, and she also isn’t pleased about a few of the lusii. “The lusii should be dead,” you tell her, which she also isn’t happy about, except for the seagoat and the spider.

“They haven’t been used as lusii for sweeps,” she says.

“Well, the Serket sprat had a giant spider and the Makara sprat had a seagoat. Special circumstances.”

“Like living in hives that more likely to have been built where they are than not?” Dola asks in what you’re pretty sure is a rhetorical fashion. She follows it up with, “I’ve found the Serket and Zahhak wigglers,” she says, sounding surprised, even though you told her. Then she frowns. “Their hives are really very extravagant.”

“Rattling around like beans in a pod,” you agree. Dola had strong opinions about stipends and resource allotments. You’re pretty satisfied with the results of setting her loose on revamping early grub and wiggler care and education. “Be careful when you approach the lowbloods. They should all be asleep still when you find them, but the rust, gold and bronze bloods are going to panic if they see drones and adults. Probably especially the rust and gold.”

Dola frowns at that, but doesn’t question that. “Will we be sending these wigglers to the ship, since they’re apparently ‘Heroes of the Imperium,’?” she asks.

“Nah. Put ‘em up in my hive,” you tell her. Her frown doesn’t lighten. “You, know, the one your basshole wiggler made me build?”

“Your…hive is barely habitable, Empress,” Dola says.

“Is so,” I say. “It’s just a little…eccentric.”

“Your hive is a nightmare of bad architecture decisions,” Dola says.

“It’d been a while since I’d had anything built,” you say. “It’s all solid construction with a good foundation.”

“And staircases that don’t go anywhere, walled up rooms, leaning floors and mismatched windows,” Dola says. “And it hasn’t been opened or used since it was built.”

“It’s big enough for twelve wigglers, close to a resource depot and you can get it set up in no time flat,” you tell her. “That’s what construction drones are for.”

This is the story behind the house, which is coincidentally the story behind your coddamn haunting by your fucking kismesis who you didn’t realize was your fucking kismesis til he started haunting your bass:

There’s some basshole preaching about how the hemospectrum shouldn’t be a thing. That certain instincts should be ignored or weren’t as important anymore because everyone was connected or should be connected by society and mutual cooperation for survival. This all went against your philosophy of competition and rigidly maintained control of the hemocastes for greater strength and reproductive fitness.

You are not happy. Your fucking Grand Highblood is not happy. Your nobles are not happy, either your supporters of the coddamn caste-traitors supporting “The Signless.” The lowbloods are definitely not happy. You eventually put the rebellion down, and string up “The Signless” and make his lovers watch. (You did not realize at the time that Dola was not one of his quadrants but actually his lusus, which you still think is weird as fuck.)

A perigee later the fucker appearifies his ghostly bass in your fucking throne room. None of the little rusty necromancers you keep around to get rid of hauntings can or will get rid of him for fear or money. He bitches in your head nonstop. He hates you and all your works and he’s going to tell you exactly what he thinks about you. (There is nothing about you he likes, and he is so fucking disappointed in you.)

He tries to make you cut Psiioniic loose. Not even pointing out that you’ll just put in some other yellow blood makes him reconsider. He and the Psiioniic have the pitchest fucking diamond jam because the yellow blood won’t let any of the technicians take him down. (Psii feels guilty he couldn’t protect Signless, he also feels guilty because the rig you set up for him is state of the art and connects him to the ship like it was his own body, not like something he’s dragging along like a cartbeast and is fucking sweet. Signless is furious that Psii is punishing himself, you are so fucking jealous and you don’t even fucking know why.)

Some dumb blue blood technician goes fucking ashen and starts babbling about rigs that involve full mobility. The guppy is just utterly fucking inspired and babbling schematics and power sinks. Soon he and Psii are babbling at each other in tech, and you and Signless are just watching this bullshit transpire. “What the fuck is even happening,” you say. Your imperial majesty is being ignored by the geeks, but not by Signless who is this blazing furious red presence with white eyes.

“Psii may be a stubborn dumbass, but you’ve proved you’ll cave if I’m persistent enough,” he says. “Free my mother, you heinous bitch.”

“You don’t have any lusus,” you say. “You’re a fucking mutant.”

“My mother,” he repeats, like you’re a moron. “The Dolorosa.”

“How the fuck?” you ask. “No, nevermind, don’t know, don’t care. She’s a deviant jade and the caverns wouldn’t take her back anyway.”

“She’s lived free on the surface for years after she left the caverns,” he says.

“She was a fucking fugitive with a mutant grub that should’ve been culled,” you say.

He throws you up against the nearest bulkhead. You do your best to fight back, but there’s fuck-all you can get purchase on or make a mark. The two of you are screaming at each other in pure pitch rage. “Oh hell no, not in my block!” Psii says, and separates the two of you--how he got hold of a ghost that don’t have no proper substance to hold onto, you don’t know. The fucker mediates between you and the mutant.

So you recover the Dolarosa and she hates your guts. Her buoy is dead, and fuck if she cares he’s also a fucking active haunting. She visits Psii and is in and out of your quarters. Your servants have no fucking idea of what to do about her or what her position is supposed to be. You’re fucking courtiers don’t know what to do about her. She sews and makes snide comments about your preferred color palettes, the design of your clothes, the livery of your goddamn staff.

You get nagged into trying to recover the Disciple, but that ain’t going to happen any time soon; she kills anyone you send after her and renders their blood into paint like she was some kind of olive subjuggulator. “Your gill is outta her coddamn mind,” you tell the ghost.

“You could try not sending soldiers after her,” the ghost says with a patient air. “I’m sure you can understand why the sudden appearance of ruffianannihilators wandering through her territory would be upsetting.”

“Well, how the shell am I supposed to look after her, if she keeps shanking everyone I send after her?” you ask him.

The ghost smiles at you. “Maybe you shoal-d trying talking to her yourself!”

“One, that was weak, two, I’m the coddamn Empress, you fuckers all come to me, I don’t go to you.”

“Whale, good luck with that, Empress,” the little shit says and absconds.

You are stupidly pitch for him, you realize. You otter be finding a way to keep him the fuck away from your ship, but instead you’re fucking rising to his mockery and thinking I’ll show that little bastard what’s what. You step up your attempts to catch Disciple, but fail pretty dramatically. The nubby little shit is helping her avoid the soldiers you send after her and isn’t shy about admitting it. This is plainly cheating, but according to him you have an unfair advantage.

“Don’t see why she hasn’t dumped your bass,” you tell him, going for an emotional attack the next time he turns up. “Using her as a prawn in this game.”

“How eels is she going to get paint for her murals?” The little shit says. “When we weir travelling people donated in exchange for portraits and sigil-work, but she’s a little far out from any settlements, and understandably wants to keep to herself.”

“Nasty little wanna-be clown,” you mutter.

“Not really,” the little shit says. “She’s a much better artist than most of the Subbjuggalators I’ve seen. Possibly because she’s able to accept and actively seeks criticism, whereas the average Subbjugalator artist tends to crush criticism, so their work tends not to improve.”

“I hate you so much,” you tell him. The very first time, completely and honestly ebon and your fins flare and flutter in utter embarrassment like you’re a teeny little grub with her first crush.

“I’m flattered,” Signless says. “But you missed your chance when you had me tortured to death.”

He says it so gently and so kindly you want scream. You almost do, but bite your tongue instead. Screaming means he wins and you don’t want him to win. Blood fills your mouth, and you want to tear at something, the rage bubbling up like something toxic from a deep sea volcano vent. It makes everything seem sharp and vivid and poisonously bright and loud. For a lack of anything else, you tangle your fingers in your hair close to the scalp, dig in and yank hard. Blood trickles down into your hair, into your eyes.

Signless catches you by the horn and untangles your hands from your hair. Dola comes in, already armed with a first aid kit. You’re pretty sure Psiioniic must have sent for her. Signless disappears, and because you are a coddamn wiggler, you curl up and burst into stupid wiggler bawling.

Dola cleans you up; tsking over the blood you got all over the sit stub and your clothes. It is pretty clear the fabric is more important than your imperial person. You can’t tell her a damn thing because she hates you platonic. You can’t tell her a damn thing because she won’t even pretend to be pale for your stupid ass. So you cry and she cleans up your cuts and all the blood.

He wins anyway. You take a shuttle down with a few guards, and set up a little campsite to wait for the Disciple to show up. You’re out there for about three nights before she makes an appearance early in the evening at the edge of your campsite. Just suddenly there when you could have sworn there hadn’t been anyone there a few minutes ago.

Against the better judgment of your guards, you approach her. She speaks, and her voice is soft and hoarse, like she hasn’t used it much for a long while. “He says you’re pitch for him, much good may it do you,” she says.

“Fuck you,” you say, still feeling raw and sick about your little breakdown. “He also say he’s been bitching at me to bring you in?”

“He says a lot of things,” the Disciple says. “I don’t always agree with him.”

“Well, he ain’t going to shut up until he knows you’re safe. Why he thinks I should be the one taking care of his followers is a mystery of the coddamn universe.”

“You’re the one he holds responsible,” Disciple says. “And he feels pitch for you as well, for no known reason in the universe.”

You’re stung by that. “You think I can’t get pitch action all up in?”

“You aren’t his widow,” Disciple says, blunt and cruel. “It doesn’t matter what you can get, you don’t have.”

“Not much I can do about that now, can I?” I ask. “Even if I had he wouldn’t have lasted longer than a spark.”

“You wouldn’t have even known what you lost,” she says, and she’s gone again.

You don’t go after her. You stay at the campsite in the foulest mood while your guards try to figure out your imperial will or what the fuck ever. It’s a nice area, with just a hint of post-dark season chill in the breeze. The forest is blue and pink mostly, with pale greens and yellows mixed in. You don’t know from trees, except some woods are more expensive than others because they’re fancy. You know fuck all about land animals except birds are the ones with wings, but there are various kinds of both in the trees, and various kinds of insects, a few of them hellacious little bastards who want to sample imperial blood.

There’s a lot that can be handled from the campsite, you don’t need to go back just yet. You are pretty determined to win at getting Disciple to come back with you. Signless turns up a few days into your wait. “Still here? I would have thought you’d gotten bored,” he says.

“Do you, or do you not want me protect your matesprit?” You ask, aggravated.

“There’s lots of ways you can do that, that doesn’t involve dragging her up to the ship, where she wouldn’t be happy anyway,” he says.

“What the fuck am I doing here then!?” You definitely don’t shriek.

“You need to build a house,” he says.

“I need to build a house. Why the fuck do I need to build a house?”

“Well, one reason is that if Dis thinks you’re here for the long haul, she might talk to you,” he says.

“I want to talk to her why?” you ask sourly.

“You also need to listen to her,” he says. “You’re here, so there’s some hope!” Then he absconds.

You also don’t screech and pull your hair, mad as fuck, but not mad enough to claw yourself up this time.

You think about giving up. You think about just flat out not letting him have his way. At the same time the back of your brain is set on following this challenge and proving yourself. That part doesn’t care one bit that the prospective kismesis is fucking dead and you aren’t ever going to pail him. (You are never going to be properly kismeses.) It’s full of all of this hopeful determination and pitch fucking longing and it won’t let you leave.

“No that’s too big. I said house, not palace.”

You

“Also I think you should work on at least thirty percent of the building, to show willing.”

Build

“You are really hilariously bad at this.”

The

“A saltwater swimming pool?”

Coddamn

“I’m just saying if you fuck it up and it gets saltwater everywhere...”

House

At the end, it’s a rambling two and a half story sprawl with an attic and a basement. Front and back porch. Nothing’s quite straight and you fucked up a lot of shit, but the drones were able to make your designs work. You’re proud of what you got built, even if it’s a dilapidated mess. The generator’s placidly crunching away at fuel, the electricity works, the water heater is doing its job, you got the landscaping roughed out, and a maintenance schedule set up.

You’re admiring your work when Disciple says from behind you. “Am I supposed to live here?”

You don’t jump. “Why you and not me?” You say.

“It’s not a palace ten times as big and made of coral and gold,” she says.

You turn all slow to face her. “Yeah well I was building it to someone else’s specifishcations.”

“Why?” she asks.

“I know fuck all how to answer that,” you tell her. “He won’t leave me be, bitching all the time. Judging me on every fucking particular. He wants to protect his quadrants. He wants to protect his lusus, he wants me to do it and I’m the one that krilled his bass. He acts like he’s dispensing life lessons and I can’t punch him in his coddamn smug face.”

“He usually backs off if someone doesn’t want to listen,” she says. “He must really be pitch. Really really pitch. Oh.” Her hands fly up to cover her mouth, and she actually fucking bounces on the balls of her feet, all sudden wiggler delight. “Psi’s never made him that pitch; I’ve never made him that pitch!”

“Vacillating with his matesprit and kismesis?” You ask, because you’re a nosy bitch. “Wait, he’s pale for Psii, what the hell?” On the other hand, that was one obsidian diamond…

“We’re never any one quadrant,” the Disciple says.

“Y’all are deviants,” you tell her. She laughs at you.

Coddamn.

Talking happens, rebellions happen. Signless makes suggestions. You occasionally follow them. You have to kick the Grand Highblood’s bass a few times because he thinks he has more of a say than he actually does. (“I’m scared of science and social change, look at my codpiece durr hurr.”) There’s an uprising involving some bronzeblood you think was mostly being manipul8ted by some cerulean bitch. (Signless is snide with you for assuming that, completely ignoring the coddamn evidence.)

Eventually he explains about the house. He tells you about his visions, and a game. The Game is part of some vast machinery that creates universes, destroying the world of the species that plays the game. Alternia is/was/not slated to become the next world to produce Players for it.

“Our particular edition of the game is actually part of a tangled up mess around an object called the Green Sun,” Signless says. “So the process is extra complicated for getting viable universes. In an ordinary game there’s always a reset so the origin universe can continue, with iterations of the complete set of players. Unfortunately the Green Sun is a pile up disaster of several universes, so the resets are pushed pretty far out. Apparently there’s also a demon involved, who keeps destroying iterations of the players. There’s an absolutely lovely young lady who’s taken it upon herself to fix the problem.”

“And this universe is the ‘reset’?” You ask him.

“I wasn’t sure at first,” he says. “But things became much clearer when I met the young lady in question.”

“So these Players are going to show up?”

“Wigglers set back to their original ages when they entered the game, but with gifts from the Game,” he says. “I’d like them to live in a better world than the one they came from, also, it would be better for them to live together than not while they adjust.”

You want to ask him questions about “gifts from the game,” but you know he won’t answer you direct. “And if I make that ‘better world’ for you, everyone else benefits too.”

He smiles at you. “Of course.”

#homestuck #the signless #the disciple #hic #crooked little house

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riddlemethis1445 · 2 years

Text

Ch 6. The Conclusion

Turns out I was right. A car crashed and hit a tree I was walking by, narrowly missing me, and the driver’s black eyes stared at me before he died, a rabid dog tried to bite me and almost succeeded until I managed to kill it with my knife while using my cast to hold him back, the police was in a shootout with some crazed man, and I almost got caught in the crossfire, and I tripped over some debris and almost fell in an opened manhole. No matter what crap this-this supernatural force sent towards me, I wasn’t going to stop until I got to that house.

And it was worth it in the end because I now standing here, looking at this innocent yet somehow foreboding looking chipped blue-painted door. I tested the knob and, suspiciously enough, it was unlocked. After all those near-death experiences, I thought Cherish would’ve made me work for it a little more. No matter. Things to do, kids to stab.

I walk inside and close the door behind me, looking around the place. Honestly, it looked frozen in time. There were still family pictures on the wall, furniture in the rooms, and a small pair of shoes by the front door. I looked a little closer and noticed that they were white and glittery pink with unicorns on the front.

There were some suspicious red splotches on them…

“I know your name now… Cherish, right? I also know what you did, you sick freak. I know what you did. You murdered all those people for no fucking reason. I don’t know how you did it or why they don’t suspect you, but I know it was you. Come out. I know you’re here. I bet you’re always here when you’re not terrorizing me and killing more innocent kids.” I keep my hand in my pocket, clenching the handle hard as I wait.

Suddenly, a searing pain starts behind my eyes and spread throughout my head. I try to rub the sudden migraine away but it only gets worse. Before I knew it, blackness crept into my vision, and I was falling to the ground. ******************************* I looked around, utter confusion coursing through me. I was obviously in the same house but everything just felt… different. Livelier, I guess. The family pictures on the wall weren’t coated in dust anymore, the air wasn’t musty, and I could actually smell the dinner cooking in the kitchen. It was a delicious honey ham baking, some mac & cheese, probably still in the oven, and the scent of fresh string beans permeating the air. My mouth was watering, reminding me that I haven’t had much of an appetite since all of this crap started. I make my way to the kitchen and my breath catches in my throat at the sight.

A beautiful woman with cooper colored hair styled in perfect curls is standing in front of the stove, her plump lips painted red and pulled into a soft smile. I can see her long eyelashes softly fluttering from where I’m standing, and my eyes trail down her body. A sunshine yellow sundress with white polka dots was wrapped around her petite frame and swishes gently around her knees as she sways softly to the music in the background. A handsome man with wavy, sandy blonde hair and deep blue eyes sneaks behind her before suddenly grabbing her waist.

“BOO!”

“JESUS!” The woman jumps and turns around, a slight glare on her face. She smacks his arm as the man lets out this loud, belly-deep laugh, his head tossed back. “Harrison! What did I tell you about sneaking up on me like that!? One of these days, I’m gonna have something heavy in my hands, and I’m not gonna feel sorry for you when I smack you with it!” “I-I’m sorry, Kimmy, I just couldn’t resist. You make it so easy!”

Their words hit me hard, and my eyes widen in realization. This was them! Cherish’s aunt and uncle! But what about-?

“Mama! Cherish took my stuffie again!” A cute little girl came barreling down the stairs, tears staining her chubby cheeks. This has to be Lynn, Cherish’s cousin. Lynn was wearing some dark purple overalls with a pale yellow and white stripped, short-sleeved shirt underneath. Her rust-colored hair was pulled into two pigtails that bounced along with her steps. Harrison knelt down and caught the little girl, already cooing softly at her.

“Aww, don’t worry about it, princess. I’ll go talk to him. He’s probably just having a bad day.” Lynn huffs and wipes her snotty nose on Harrison’s shirt.

“But he’s always like this! Why is he so mean!?”

“C’mon, baby, he’s not mean. He’s just going through some tough times, and he some times he doesn’t know how to properly express himself.” Harrison caressing the top of her head while Kim looks towards them with obvious concern in her eyes. “You remember when you ripped your favorite pretty pink dress and threw a tantrum about it?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s kinda like how Cherish feels some times. He lost two of his favorite people and gets mad when he remembers it.” Lynn looks up at him and sniffles loudly.

“You mean his mama and papa?”

“Exactly. He lost his mama and papa and acts out because of it. Wouldn’t you be mean if you lost Mama and me?” Harrison lifts her chin up to look her in her eyes and smiles when she agrees. “Alright then. Now, you stay down here with your mommy, and I’ll go get see if I can rescue your stuffie.” Lynn nods and giggles a bit when Harrison tickles her sides and plants numerous kisses over her face.

I felt a sense of warmth fill me before it cools over as I remember that this wasn’t gonna last. What was the thing that destroyed this happy family? Harrison sets Lynn down at the table, wipes her face, and starts to leave the kitchen. Kim lunges towards him and grips his hand hard, a nervous look on her face. No… nervous doesn’t even begin to cover what she looks like.

Her hazel brown eyes were blown wide and a noticeable tremble racking her body. Her bottom lip was trembling as she desperately clutched him.

“Harrison, please… don’t go up there. J-just let him cool down for a while.” Harrison gives a small look of disapproval.

“Kim, you know he needs us to be more involved with him, and we can’t do that by acting afraid.”

“That boy isn’t natural!” She takes a glance towards Lynn who was watching them curiously with wide, blue eyes. Kim moves closer and lowers her voice. “There is something wrong with him. Every time I look at him, I feel… this overwhelming sense of dread. It’s like a dark energy just drains the life out of me.” My heart stutters as I recognize those symptoms.

That is the exact feeling I get around Cherish. That helplessness that makes me just want to… give up. My heart is slamming in my chest and it’s difficult to swallow the lump in my throat. This just proves that there is something extremely wrong with that boy. You couldn’t invoke that sort of terror in another person if you were normal.

I watch as Harrison just shakes his head and heads up the stairs. I wish that I could drag him back downstairs or scream at Kim to try harder to convince him to stay away from that monster. But I can only watch as Harrison disappears up the steps, and Kim moves back to the stove. I walk to the woman as she kept stealing glances towards the stairs as she laid the dishes out on the counter. I wish I could hug her or-or something! I want her to know that she isn’t the only one feeling like this. To tell the truth, I’m actually glad I’m not the only one.

Ever since Cherish has been stalking me, I’ve felt isolated. Like I was the only noticing the general wrongness going on in Credence. Now, I got kin. I got someone who understands me. Who knows that there is a dark presence in Credence. I just wish I’ve met her earlier. Maybe I could’ve prevented her death, however it comes. But… I already know how it comes.

I’ve always known.

The sound of faint thudding could be heard, and I look towards the entrance of the kitchen. Judging by the lack of reaction from both mother and daughter, I’m apparently the only one hearing it. My eyes burn as tears fall down my face.

I decide to take a seat at the dining table and fold my hands on top of it. Even as I hear the sound of someone casually walking down the steps, I can’t bring myself to look up. I keep my eyes strictly on the table.

I don’t look up when I hear Kim’s bloodcurdling screams.

I don’t look up when I hear Lynn’s heart-wrenching sobs for her mother.

I don’t look up as the sound of heavy hits and wet squelches fills the air, and I can practically taste the copper in my mouth.

I don’t look up when everything becomes dead silent.

No more cries. No more screams. No more Myers.

I barely registered the tears continuously falling on the table or even the heavy trembling of my hands so tightly clasped together that they turned pale from the cut off circulation. It’s just total silences. A heartbreaking silence. The only time I look up is when the chair in front of me, previously occupied by Lynn, scrapes across the tiled floor, and a new body plop down.

There, sitting in front of me, is Cherish Moore. The blood on his face does nothing to take away his unearthly beauty. He still has that cherubic face with freckles splashed across the bridge of his nose. His curly, raven black hair still looks soft and bouncy. His cerulean blue eyes still look like an angel personally carved gemstones and implanted them into the boy. He still has the appearance of an absolute angel, and this realization brings forth an important detail that I always forget. That I think everyone in Credence forgets.

That Lucifer was never a beast with crimson colored skin and goat horns… he used to be God’s favorite for a reason. He used to be an angel.

“Now you’re getting it.” Cherish moves his hand on top of mines, the softest smile I’ve ever seen gracing his lips. “I’ll see you soon.” He pats my hands twice before getting up, bloodied baseball bat with red chunks and hair clinging to it dragging behind him, and nonchalantly walks out the house. I hear the door open and gently close. Then the sounds of screaming come from outside.

He’s right. He’s right about everything. ******************************************* My head is pounding as I finally come to. It takes a second to realize that I’m still inside of the Myers’s home. I struggle to sit up and my back aches from lying out on the hardwood floor for who knows how long and a glance down reveals that there is a note beside where my head was. I pull my phone out my pocket and swallow thickly when I find out that it’s 3 days later. I try to collect my thoughts, but I realize I’m not freaking out as much as I should be.

Huh, guess I’m just used to randomly blanking out.

As I’m looking at my phone, I notice that my hands are bloodied. This is weird since I don’t feel hurt. I check over my body for any injuries and find that my clothes are almost completely coated in blood. I purse my lips and rise to my feet.

This is so strange… this isn’t normal yet I feel fine. I mean, everything just feels… okay. More okay than I have since everything started. Recently, I’ve been used to feeling anxious, angry, and depressed but now I feel nothing and it feels… great. Before I could ponder this new feeling, I hear shouting from out the front door before it’s thrown opened and multiple officers are pointing their guns at me.

“FREEZE! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.”

One of the officers threw me to the ground and wrenched my arms behind my back to handcuff me, but honestly the pain didn’t even register in my mind. No, my focus is on that note. Since my face was harshly being pressed against the floor, I turned my face towards the note that was beside me. When they yanked me up, I was able to just make out the words written on there. It was complete chicken scratch… like a child wrote this.

“We’re not just similar now. We’re brothers. :)”

The officers’ harsh expressions as the sheriff reads me my rights pass over my head as I register the words.

Yeah… we’re brothers. A feeling of relief spreads throughout my body, and I can finally breathe as that constant dread finally fades away. For the first time in what feels like years, a smile spreads on my face.

#horror

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monkeystrokes9 · 3 years

Text

I'm not a bad guy, really. I just get carried away. Trickster by trade with an unfortunate knack for choosing the wrong ones and taking them too far. A hot foot that sets a house afire, a pop out of a cake that gives some geezer a stroke.

Anyway, no reason to lock a guy up. But here I am with every other backfiring joker—pucks, reynards, zomos, Sly Peters and other assorted pusses-in-boots—in the high-walled and moated Mischief Correctional for Sly Crimes and Mythdemeanors, all because some judge is too humdrum to appreciate a nice fat kipper in the Magistrate’s sock drawer.

Medium security for most of us, excepting the bad’un witchipoos and sorcerers under Maximum in Spell Block #9, with potion detectors, etcetera. But here, life ain’t so bad once you get used to the Penrose staircases.

Naturally, the guards have absolutely no sense of humor. Everyone finds a way to cope. I bite my tongue a lot. The gremlins throw things. The leprechauns stay drunkenly morose on rotten-fruit toilet wine.

They call me “Shorty the Imp,” with a fireplug stature, and burnt-orange shag carpet sideburns down to my dimples. After a lifetime of pulling old age home fire alarms and squirting lapel flowers of Holy Water at the Archbishop, I’ve seen my share of shenanigans, but nothing close to what Guy pulled.

He was prodded into my cell one morning by a guard wearing an expression like Medusa’s stylist with a “Get cozy, bozos.”

“Name’s Guy,” the newbie said, proffering a shake, then yanking back his hand to slick his age-inappropriate pompadour. His lanky frame towered over me, eighteen hands high.

“Shorty,” I says, giving him a quick wedgie to show who’s in charge.

Guy was nicked after sending a wax impression of his arse to the Queen on the solstice. We hit it off like bacon and beans. A fair-to-middling cribbage player, quick with a knock-knock or off-color limerick (A cunning lass flying Aer Lingus…), and a good Guy indeed.

An odd duck nonetheless, forever pestering the library monk for old periodicals, back issues of Trebuchet Digest, Ming Dynasty-era Chinese phone books and such. His eating habits peculiar as well, with a partiality for biscuits—nothing but.

Guy would nibble a corner and squirrel away the rest, like winter was nigh. Never saw him eat nothing else, swapping his fatback and turnips for my biscuits.

Lichen climbed the walls as days passed. I worried about my new friend. He’d dieted himself down to a swizzle stick. “You getting ‘nuff to eat there, Guy?”

“Oh yes,” he’d answer with a toothy smile, “I’m getting down to fighting weight right proper.”

And then one night, long after lights out, as snorty snoozing wafted through the cellblock, I woke from a dream of making whoopee on a cushion by sounds of rustle and slosh.

I struck a match. Below, an avalanche of stale biscuits spilling out of his slit mattress, a rat’s nest of ripped periodicals, and Guy, elbows pumping, making a mush in the cell’s rust-tinged washbasin sink.

In a hop he blew out the flame, putting a gummy hand over my gob, finger to his lips. “Not a peep, sir. It’s been a swell little party, mate, but it’s time I skedaddled.”

My thick, flame-colored eyebrows are second only to my sideburns in splendor, and even in the shadows, Guy plainly saw them raise in query.

“Daddy was a yanker of chains and tablecloths, but Mum was a shapeshifter. Miraculously, it’s not on my record. These turnkeys keep shabby files. Here I am can turn meself into a kite string, sitting around here essentially free as a duck scoring one for the nobs. You’ve been a breath of fresh, Shorty. Good for the ol’ morale, what. So I stuck around. But now I gots to go.”

Digesting this news like a competitive turkey-leg eater, I choked on the concept. Shapeshifter. I’d heard of the species, but assumed it medieval bunk.

“Nothing gaseous of course. Solids.” Guy nodded toward the small floor drain twixt the sink and toilet, “And liquids.”

He gave my shoulder a squeeze and fluffed my pillow. “In the morning you’ll find a papier-mâché sculpture of me sleeping tight. Buy me some time to get downstream. But when the boys get wise, and sneeze powder hits the fan, be sure to tell them my little secret.”

Morning broke with a nightstick clanging the bars, shaking my fillings. I bolted upright, the pom-pom of my nightcap bouncing off the ceiling.

A handful of frantic guards conferred beside Guy’s bunk, alternating stink eyes from my sleep-wrinkled face to the body double of Guy. I peeled a crusty eye at the handiwork. A mite thicker than the real Guy, but the features were spot on down to the nostrils.

A guard cuffed my ear. “Awright, what’s this all about?”

I pointed to the thin line of water streaming from a rumpled pile of prisoner’s stripes to the drain. “Bars can’t hold a shapeshifter, Guv. You boys bungled it.”

I didn’t get a new roommate, but a week later, a note in my porridge.

Shorty!

Took me long enough to cook up the shapeshifter ruse but what a stroke of G. To think I could cover myself in flour-coated newsprint, play possum, and fool them into carrying me out with the rubbish. Stiffened in my shell there was risk of the incinerator of course, but the rats chewed me free toot sweet and I sprang into the world bare-ass and blinking like the day I was born.

Can you believe in this age anyone could actually swallow that shapeshifter hoo hah? (No offense.) Still, I’m flabbergasted the goons fell for it. Has somebody been reading too much Sir Terry or what?

P.S. I’m coming for you tomorrow night. No sense in a jolly chap as yourself left to rot when there are so many misguided pranks to pull. No fretting, I’ve got a plan. Stuff yourself in a pillowcase and keep an eye out for the laundry man wearing a funny nose and glasses.

We’re outta here.

Peaches and pints,

Guy

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meltingalphabet · 6 years

Text

I thought I heard you

“I thought I heard you in here.” My grandpa says to the room. Christmases have been rough since grandmother died.

As a young child, I always looked forward to Christmas at my grandparents’ house. The warm smells that floated in the air: cinnamon, pumpkin, and ginger mixing together into a shapeless cloud around me. Just a hint of mint tinging the air with a crispness that made the warmth all that much more pleasurable. The small home was cozy and comfortable, the polished wood worn with use, brown with age, cracked and creaking from the weight of our lives. My grandpa made sure to always have a fire roaring in the cast iron fireplace, the yellow glow playing across our faces, making the presents gleen under the tree, begging to be opened, the bright green and red metallic wrapping paper pleading to be ripped by our hands. The warmth of the flames ate at my skin, dancing expertly along the line of pleasant heat and burning pain.

My mother and grandmother would cook and bake together. They’d make pies and turkey, cranberry compote and pumpkin cookies, mountains of mashed potatoes sweetened with fresh butter and thick cream, homemade caramel and green beans with shallots, mushroom gravy and sweet potatoes with coconut, coffee crumb cake and mulled wine. The air would alight with the scents of their cooking and my stomach would kick and growl with anticipation. Grandmother would slip me a cookie or a candy cane, the sweet treat accompanied with a small innocent wink. I’d eat it slowly, savoring each small bite as I eyed the rest of the meal that grew, almost organically, on the counter before me, the sights and smells tickling my nostrils. Dinner time would not come soon enough, but until then, it was a sight I hungrily devoured, my eyes full, my tastebuds lacking.

My father would read me stories, epic tales of fantasy worlds where mythical beings lived in the ground and the trees. He’d change his voice with each character and gesticulate wildly with his arms, the line of vision from his eyes to the words on the page teetering with each arching movement, each brave dwarf, each cackling witch, each billowing wizard. He’d create a magical world so believable, so engrossing, that I would become utterly entranced. The smells and sounds of the house heightening my absorption, blending my mind’s eye with what was directly in front of my face, making the fake world as tangible as the real one, the real world as intangible as the one my father was creating with his voice. My grandfather would add his own power to the Christmas cheer by playing songs on the old piano in the living room. The cabin would fill to the brim with both his fast and cheerful melodies as well as the slow and brooding songs that seemed more of a warning than a celebration. The heavy ivory keys creaking as the hammer hit the tightened string, a crystal note rising quickly to the air, only to dissipate instantly above me, showering me with sound.

And every night, as I lay awake in my grandpa’s office, the cushioned cot beneath my small frame, I’d pull my favorite of grandmother’s quilts, the red and white one that smelt of pine and lilacs, up to my chin to protect me from the drafts and groans of the old house. And every night, Nana would come visit me. She’d share secrets with me, stories of Santa and his reindeer, of the elves and their toys, the North Pole and how, even on the chilliest of days, no one there ever gets cold.

“No one shivers at the North Pole.” Her cobwebbed throat would strain with the words. Like opening the cover of an old and forgotten book, the binding cracking, the pages falling with a thud instead of a rustle, her voice would rise with a cloud of dust. “There’s magic in the air,” she’d whisper, “magic that keeps everyone warm, all the time. No one ages. There are no wars, no famines. It’s a magical winter paradise.” She’d lean close to my face, so close that only her bright eyes filled my vision. “And you can be Queen.” She’d wink at me, a slow wink, as if her eyelids were heavy, heavier than they should be.

I’d smile, “I can be Mrs. Claus?”

Nana would nod, a slow and calm nod, as her thin lips turned up into a small, tight smile.

I would fall asleep with images of the North Pole in my mind, the voice of Nana flitting about my subconscious like a lost butterfly.

“I thought I heard you in here.” My grandpa says to the room.

“Who do you think is there, dad?” Mom asks.

Grandpa turns to her, blinking his eyes as if adjusting to a great brightness, confusion etched on his lined face. “I thought… I thought I heard your mother.”

Shushing him like one would a child, my mom escorts him out of the office, one hand firmly, but gently, grasping the side of his upper arm, the other hand on his back, guiding him away from the ghost of his dead wife.

We still visit my grandpa every Christmas. Since grandma died, he’s been really lonely. My mom, dad, and I always make the trek up to his cabin. My parent’s old station wagon slowly dragging us up the mountain, tracing the snowy winding roads. Even with my thick winter coat and the dry heat from the dashboard, the cold crept through the car’s windows and bit into my skin like a snake.

The smells of Christmas are fainter now than they were when I was young, the rooms slightly cooler, the house less comfortable. Sometimes I’ll sit in my grandma’s old rocking chair and a shiver will suddenly break over my body, running from the top of my head through my neck and deep into the bottom of my spine. Whether from cold, loss, fear, or all three, I do not know.

It is now my job to stoke the fires. Grandpa is too old, too lost in the archaic crevices of his mind. He stares out the windows for too long, his eyes no longer seeing, the cold begging him to give in. Mom still cooks and bakes, but each year there is less and less food. Each year our holiday feast morphs more into a simple dinner. Instead of reading to me, dad plays Sudoku on his smartphone, the blue glow illuminating his face, scrunched in calculated concentration.

I like to think back to my younger years often. The warmth of the cabin an enveloping hug, holding me close, protecting me from the outside, from the snow. Nana sitting on the edge of my bed, whispering to me, her voice barely audible, almost too quiet to carry through the air. Each word would rise and fall with the indiscernible movements of the draft in the chilly office. Her voice was light, like a broken feather, fluttering towards me, landing lightly on my skin, tracing my features as it crawled from every direction, sliding slowly into my ears.

Images of a great man, strong and ancient, standing proudly over his workers filled my mind. His long grey beard flowing gracefully down like a waterfall, stopping in a wispy curl against the dirt ground, packed hard from years of toiling, years of heavy boots and sharp bone hooves. His mass filling the room, the space glowing red as his body reflects in the polished stone surrounding him on all sides. Stone flat and tall like walls but bigger, higher, stretching endlessly into the black cloudless sky.

“You can barely breath at the North Pole, for he encompasses all, even the molecules of air your lungs need and the blood in your veins craves.”

“But Nana, won’t I die if I can’t breath?”

Nana’s chuckle was low and each strained sound was cut short, like a cough deep in someone’s throat, muffled and painful as they try hard not to let it escape. “No, child. You won’t die at the North Pole.” She brought her dry, crusty lips closer to my face, “you’ll live forever.” Her breath, a strange mix of peppermint and mud, kissed the tip of my nose delicately, like a ballerina, weighing almost nothing, as close to air as a human could ever be

She told me stories of the different types of elves that live at the North Pole: the ones that carry long leathery whips, stained a deep rust color that flaked, the whip strong while the stains fragile, only permanent through repeated application. The elves that had dark metal spears, the points of which were so small, they dissolved into atoms.

“The tip is so fine, one poke, and you don’t even realize you’ve been pierced.” Her voice, so impossibly rough and strained.

Images danced across my mind. Pictures of elves with cutting, blood-stained knifes, elves with red hot matches. Elves with heavy chains, with chisels meant to flay skin, hooks to pierce and pull at flesh, pliers, boiling water, pins and needles and thread. Elves created to pierce, burn, tear, cut, and break the bodies of the sinners. Sinners no longer in the hands of an angry god, but instead in the claws of a loving demon, so infatuated with every inch of their skin, the softness of their lips, the moistness of their groins, that it wants to lick and suck and eat every sweet morsel. Again and again it will have them. A lover never satisfied, an executioner never done.

Reindeers with teeth that snarl at their prisoners, drool forming and flowing from between each deadly fang, their eyes gleaming a menacing red that matches the blood stains on their coarse and wiry fur. Reindeers that beat the ground with their hooves and kick at the bodies in front of them, that step on heads and hands alike, not stopping when the bodies break or pop beneath their powerful weight.

There is an awkwardness in the air as my grandpa shuffles into his office, and tells the empty, silent air, “I thought I heard you in here.”

My mom and dad ask grandpa if he needs anything, maybe a nice cup of chamomile tea to calm his aging nerves, and mom leads him out of the office, my bedroom for the week, and into the kitchen.

Only I realize that it’s not my grandmother that grandpa hears. It is the dry, dusty voice of Nana. I can see the shadows of her hands underneath the cot, her bright orange eyes reflecting in the twinkling white Christmas lights hanging around the door frame. Her long, crooked fingernail, black with age or earth, possibly both, or probably something beyond either, beckons for me to come, to join her.

Maybe this is the year I do. Maybe it’s finally time for me to follow Nana to the enchanted North Pole. To take my promised place as Queen.

#nosleep shorthorrorstory horror xmas christmasshortstory christmas

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literarypsychobabble · 7 years

Text

How It All Began

"This is Alice Smith?" I blearily wondered if I should have never answered the call. Strange things had started happening and I was busy enough as it was and very starved of sleep so everything felt like another jarring blow to my head. Somewhere nearby the wolves had started howling. A long, loud, melodic and mournful howl that kept making something beautifully painful grow inside me. There was something soothing about their disdainful howls for a moon that probably had no idea. I never blamed them though because the moon had become a constant in my life as well, punctuated by sleepless nights and bleary, sickly mornings. "Yes...I am Alice Smith." I glanced across from me at my own shaggy haired reflection that looked a lot more rock n roll than I felt myself. My name hardly made things better. "How may I help you?" Probably another prank call. If I could have slit throats with words she would have been bleeding through the phone, whoever she was... "I'm nurse Wendy. You brought an injured-" "-Wolf-" my eyes widened as I remembered hearing the clattering sounds of a heavy body being dragged along outside along the wooden walkway separating my room from the forest, his soft tawny fur and how much blood there had been. I had struggled to heave his body into my car with no idea why and how anyone would help me help an injured wolf but Wendy had agreed to try to help me by pretending the wolf was my pet dog. "Yes." A pause that made something cold tighten around my throat. "We need you to come in and collect Mr Liam Walters from our office." I jerked upright, heaving myself away from the wall, eyes wide. "What do you mean?! Liam is dead-" I almost started laughing "-look Wendy you SICK SICK FUCK I am in NO MOOD to deal with this shitty joke ok?! My FRIEND LIAM WALTERS RECENTLY DIED OF CANCER AND I AM IN NO MOOD TO HEAR-" "Jesus Christ woman calm down, I'm sure you would have deafened her by now!!" Liam's calm voice almost tore a scream out of my mouth. "FUCKING FUCK WHAT IS WHAT AM I WHO HOW WHAT-" "Alice...calm down." "I CAN'T CALM DOWN MY DEAD FRIEND IS TALKING TO ME ON THE PHONE!" "Can we not talk about me like I'm not here?" "Sorry-" "Look...Alice....I don't know what's happening or....WHAT happened but I'm here. I'm STARVING and I REALLY need to talk to you because something is happening and it's important for you to know..." I had melted against the wall again. "I'm coming ok? I'll meet you there." I croaked before I shakily hung up, shoved the phone into my pocket and grabbed my coat. Tripping out of my room, I stepped straight into my boots, ignoring the sleepy amber eyes of the confused black cat who stared at me owlishly from where he was curled up on the mantle piece like a dark sphinx. I ran back to quickly kiss his sweet snout, letting him lick me once with his warm rough tongue. "Jaggers!" I peered plaintively into his amber moon eyes, "I think I'm going crazy and I'm about to go out and pick up a dead person who is alive and I need you to make sure everything is ok here and if I don't return soon you have my permission to meow and pee on everything around you!" He meowed as if in agreement as I turned to trip out of the room, into the shadows and out of the front door. * A singular light flickered and buzzed blearily like a confused stirring sleeper as it dreamed, possibly of day time when it could rest and be turned off. Three sleepy cats stared blankly at me from their makeshift beds on the floor under signs declaring them rescues. A dog barked somewhere as if it had sensed me and was calling out to welcome me. I looked around me at the medicated cat and dog food, the various collars and random treats and glanced into the darkened grooming room that homed a funny little lopsided and empty cage that was rusting slightly and what looked like a small hoover but was actually a drier. It smelt like meat and medicine. "Hello!" I started slightly at the sound of Wendy's voice and was amused to see that she still looked wide awake behind her rounded spectacles and frizzy black hair. "Wendy," I offered. What was I meant to do? What if this was just a joke and she wanted to see what I did? What if I had taken something that had made me start hallucinating? Or-I glanced up at the flickering light and the white washed walls-what if I was dead? Of course that would make Wendy an Angel? Or a guardian...small and Asian was the only thing I thought of her and smiled despite how confused I felt. "Sorry if I kept you waiting." I wanted to slap myself-maybe I would wake up and realise this was a dream-and Wendy would be confusedly staring at the person who had fallen asleep instead of just doing what everyone else did; take in their pet cat or dog for a check up or something. "He's-" "You took your time." I almost choked on my own breath as I heard his voice and my mouth twitched into a ridiculously wobbly smile as I felt my eyes burn. Liam looked as ridiculously tall and lanky as he always did, just a bit more scrawnier. His dark blonde hair was also longer and more rumpled, accentuating his now enhanced dark brown eyes and gaunter face. His hair actually looked healthier than it had in a very long time and he no longer had the faint wrinkle like lines that had appeared around his mouth that had somehow been linked to the cancer growing silently within him for so long. "Liam!!" I became a ridiculous three year old and hurled myself at him, tripping at the last second so that he had no choice but to wrap his arms around me tightly and hold onto me to steady us both. I felt the tinkling laugh rumble through him, almost crying as I felt how real and warm he felt before he I finally let him go and almost collapsed. He looked worried when I stumbled slightly. "I'm fine!" I offered almost squeakily and could have hugged Wendy but stopped myself just on time. "How are you though?" I quickly looked him over, despite how scrawny he seemed he also seemed...to glow with an odd wildness that made no sense to me but was maybe because he smelt slightly like forest; sweet wet earth and pine. "Starving." He offered. "I could kill for normal food for once!" He glanced apologetically, almost at Wendy. "Your sandwiches were amazing but I can't seem to not feel hungry..." he trailed off almost dreamily. "Is that fish and chip shop open?" "Why?" "Because I could do with a baked potato with every bloody thing they offer I don't even care anymore." I smiled despite myself. "Sure...I guess I may as well take you home..." * Liam had not been joking when he said he was hungry and I was slightly amused by how fast but cleanly he managed to eat the potato with countless sauces and various other things in the cramped space of my car without covering us both and everything around us in potato or cheese and sauce or beans. We had decided to keep him in the car because despite him looking scrawnier than himself he was still an easy face to pick up and I wanted to hear what was happening from him before the whole world did. "Thank you." He finally offered as he stuffed everything into the bag and knotted it. "I swear I would get rid of this if I could-" "It's fine...we'll take it home just put it somewhere....and...." I kept driving in silence over eerily empty roads as the moon stared at us blankly from its black velvet home. "And?" He asked. My car smelt like baked beans now, which made me think of rainy mornings and toast for some reason. "What exactly happened? I mean you're...meant to be dead?" He was quiet, almost thoughtfully and then he shrugged. "I woke up in the forest and everything hurt." He glanced at me almost wearily. "And then I couldn't stop shifting back and forth. And I know that I was shot by someone who came in to try to stop the wolves." "So......you're telling me werewolves are real and you are one?" I sounded crazier than I felt. "I'm telling you I'm a science experiment gone terribly wrong." A pause as an agitated bat squealed as it darted around almost blindly outside like a broken puppet caught on strings before the night jerked it away restlessly to show us the moon again. "You know they inject bodies with this.....thing that's supposed to make them into proper fertiliser? Well it seems it doesn't do that really it just means that....we're kind of not dead and stuck shifting back and forth repeatedly." Liam had leaned back now, the moonlight making his face pale and his mouth look almost garish and blood stained. "There's an entire pack of us. Anyone and everyone from the last ten years. But there's a point when we stop shifting back." I had no use of words and was wondering if I would wake up and realise I had been drugged by some random bloke who had then forgotten me. "So there's a...a pack of....you..." "Yes." I glanced at him almost warily. "I know it all seems really sudden but it's the reality here and it's becoming an issue. I mean we can't control ourselves and we can't control the blood lust and we suddenly end up with guns pointed at us and it's aggravating because we never even did anything...just following instincts." He closed his eyes; dark, spiky eyelashes casting ridiculous spider leg shadows over his face. "What changes you?" "Right now it seems what changes us or me is a range of things...pain, feeling....anything we feel that's out of place for wolves I guess but what I'm trying to say is human emotion." I would have laughed in any other situation. "I don't exactly understand what you mean." "You know when you feel too much?" "Yes." "Imagine that happening all the time no matter what the feeling was or is you just feel too much all the time." "Ok." I watched the distant flashing lights of a plane gliding dreamily through the sky. "So you're saying a bunch of extremely emotional men is...are...I...I guess running through the forest howling at the moon, accidentally attacking people and getting shot?" "Something like that yes." He sounded tired and then shrugged. "Speaking of which a part of me thinks I should go." "What do you mean?" My heart spluttered. "I want to get back out there so when and if I change back there's no danger and we're all safe...it's the least I can actually do right now so I may as well do it-" he opened the door that groaned as cold air whistled on its way in, carrying in a dead brown leaf. I found myself grabbing his arm, staring at him almost manically. "Don't go. Please?" He looked at me, smiling wearily and then glanced outside. "I'll be back ok? I'll be back very soon..." he ruffled my hair, smirking when I cringed. I felt my heart sink as I watched him slink towards the shadows, moonlight gold gilding his dark blonde hair before the dark shadows swallowed him whole. I watched, and waited. The cold wailing wind stabbed sharp fingers into my eyes and filled my lungs with shattered glass until I had no choice but to reach out and drag the door shut after him. It groaned again, annoyed at me for being yanked out of its easy slumber. The world outside was a blurred blank tapestry with splotches of greys, greens, whites and the occasional red. Bleats, squeals and tooting horns would occasionally break out from other rushing night cars around me and the wet road would sigh wearily as the world raced all over it. The bag and smell of beans and potato lingered to remind me of my companion as my brain worked to try to digest all of the thoughts and ideas, churning through images of how Liam had looked, felt and sounded as I accepted that it was all a rattling part of reality. My brain slipped into a autopilot so I never realised when I got home, or when my numb hands grabbed my keys, jangling them to fill in the gaping silence as I strode towards the door that would lead me out of the night. Asian music weighted by drums, sirens and the stench of petrol and fish and chips trailed me to the front door until my eyes fell on the figure clad in dark there and I stopped moving. "Thank GOD you finally returned!" There was a woman on my doorstep with sleek dark hair and bright green eyes. Her skin was pale and ghostly and she looked like she had just stepped out of a fashion magazine even though she was wearing a huge blue hoodie, tracksuit bottoms and random flip flops. Her bare pale feet were surprisingly not frozen off and her eyes seemed blood shot and red rimmed. "Cora." I found her name rattling around inside my head and almost started laughing as I wondered how she would feel if she realised who I had been with. I decided to swallow that truth and keep it hidden; I did not know her well enough just yet to tell her I had just picked up her dead fiancé from the vet and that he was a science experiment gone horribly wrong. They all were, really. She rose slowly and gave me a sweet sad smile, her lips were dark. "Come in. It's really cold outside." I found myself looking around us for no reason before unlocking the door and letting her in to the dark where I knew Jaggers was asleep and probably dreaming about sardines. She kicked off her flip flops as she looked all around us and I felt ridiculous because she belonged in a posh eatery, not in my vintage-hippie-esque living room. I wondered if she smelt cat or if she smelt the sharp almond and coffee scent that I had decided should permeate the inside of my humble abode. She looked a bit green and sickly when I turned on the light. "Why don't you sit down." I heard myself offering as I realised she was wearing Liam's hoodie. "And tell me what you want and I'll-" She smiled wearily as she sat down, seeming slightly hunched over and shook her head sadly. "Oh it's fine I don't want or need anything....I can't really deal with food nowadays..." Had she lost weight? She seemed tired and as though an invisible leech was sucking the life out of her as well as as though she would shatter and fall apart at any second. I contemplated telling her about Liam. Howls punctuated my thoughts and jarringly wrenched me back to reality as the wolves started up a mournful orchestra for the moon. I sat down and ignored the awkward silence that tightened like a noose around my neck. She ran a hand through her hair before splaying her hands, palm side down on her thighs, focusing on a spot by my toes, which made me feel self conscious. "Are you sure you don't want to eat anything?" I asked as the wolves kept howling and I wondered how they felt; grown emotional men trapped to howl at the moon in vain. "I can't keep anything down, at all." She mumbled, playing with her hair. "Maybe you should have that looked at, it doesn't seem fun-" She closed her eyes and seemed to sigh soundlessly as I realised her hands were shaking. Jaggers stirred behind her but I ignored him for a bit, focusing only on her. "Alice I......" I felt myself frown worriedly as the first plump tear rolled down her ashen face. "I'm......I'm sorry because I didn't want it to be like this...but it is and I loved Liam so much more than you can think...I...he....he meant so much to me....a-and....so I....I've been looked at.....and I just.....I left Roger....today I told him I couldn't be with him anymore so soon after Liam....but.....but....I....I'm.....pregnant." My mind drifted back to Liam earlier on before I blanched and then was wrangled through a fire of thoughts and feelings. "Cora-" I was dying to tell her Liam was still alive. She had dissolved into messy tears. I sighed to myself. "Cora it's late...." "You're right...sorry....I'm a huge mess nowadays." I opened my mouth to speak but seemed to freeze maybe out of exhaustion, confusion and shock so I hardly noticed when she finally did leave. * LIAM I watched her walk away from the house with windows leaking light like orange juice and was painfully aware of how she smelt. Still my favourite infusion of sweet blossoms but with a new undertone, something that compelled and scared me but made me want to follow her around and make sure she was ok. My hands were tied. I had spent so many nights watching her and the new man. The other man who had once been my friend and silently hoping that she would be ok. She was mine. It was crazy I still thirsted for her and I was stuck, trapped and lost beneath my new skin and the need to howl like an idiot at a bloated orb that would never even respond or react. I wanted my life back. Badly. * ALICE I was aimlessly attempting to read, my mind many miles away when the feeling that I was being watched made a shudder jolt down my spine. My eyes flew open and I grimaced at the sickly yellow sun that tried to warm me up before I turned towards the rain soaked trees. And froze. Two huge green eyes flecked by gold watched me from the trees. He had dark brown fur bejewelled by flecks of water and dew that made him gleam in the sickly sunlight and he sat close to the edge of the forest and stared at me, or rather stared through my soul and ripped holes through me. My heart started pounding as I wondered what I should do. "Hi Alice." I jumped slightly before I registered Liam standing next to him, smiling. "Liam." I managed. Was he going to feed me to the regal beast beside him? The wolf opened its mouth in a huge yawn and the sun shone off his sharp fangs and teeth that glistened with saliva before he looked up at Liam and blinked slowly. "Um...why have you brought....a wolf to me?" I finally managed to ask. Liam was quiet for some time before he managed a smile. "What about him stands out the most to you?" "Apart from size?" "Apart from size." The eyes drew me in again and my mind lit up the memory of a tinkling laugh that made me feel warm. "He has green eyes." I managed dumbly. Liam waited for me to remember something and then looked down at the wolf that seemed close to sleep. I blinked dumbly again. "Sorry Liam you have totally lost me now." * SPENCER I had watched her grow up from afar; the tiny girl who liked waking up to play with me when she was younger. There had even been a time when I had managed to walk through her life on two legs. It had been a kaleidoscope of her sincere affection, the sweet sound of her laughter, the sun on her pale face and her big, brown eyes full of mystery. Her parents had never quite realised their precious princess ran out in the morning and hid from school bullies to play with the small and ratty wolf cub who waited almost eagerly for her, letting her yank on his tail and ears and feed him strips of meat and whatever else she wanted to. I held tightly to the memory of the day she had found me; me on two legs, a small scruffy waif with twigs in his hair sneakily watching her through the trees. She had seen me and her eyes had widened; orbs of shock and amusement. And I had felt my heart break when she had run into the house, away from me. The suffocating cold had pressed even tighter against me, rattling me in my thin clothes and I had considered running away. "Here you go!" My eyes had widened on the piece of buttered bread held out to me on the palm of a tiny hand that seemed so promising warmth and comfort and peace. "You must be hungry so I thought you might like some bread?" I had taken it, biting into the chewy, soft, salty bread that scorched my taste buds with a wild explosion of tastes that had etched a ridiculous smile onto my face as I felt the warmth of the sun for the first time in a very long time. The hunger had been burning inside me like a fire for so long I had forgotten what it was. One day I had found her crying over a boy, her broken heart obviously causing her a lot of pain judging by the huge sharp sobs that struck me like shrapnel as I worriedly watched her from the fringe of closely intertwined trees, their connections older than time. I had found a bright red sparkly plastic flower on the ground outside a playground and my pulse sang to me as did birds as I held it in my mouth and struggled to refrain from accidentally chewing it to a mushy pulp. I could smell the sweet, warm scent of her skin and hear the subtle thumping of her broken heart. Her tears smelt like dissolved salt when I finally bolted out and ran up to her, almost wagging my tail in excitement and walked up to drop the shiny plastic flower in her lap. She froze at the sight of me, startled as she gawked at me. I had grown since last time. And I had forgotten. I realised I had probably scared her with the flower and moved back, ears down. "Don't go-" her long fingered, delicate hands suddenly reached out to scratch between my ears. And then she actually laughed through her tears. And it sounded like music to my alien ears. "Thank you for this.." She picked up the shiny flower and I really did end up wagging my tail, albeit sheepishly as I realised how soggy it was from being in my mouth. "It's....quite a thoughtful gift..." She chuckled again, her whole face lighting up at the musical sound that I watched in awe, struggling to somehow show her more to make her keep laughing. Her laugh, the gentle feel of her hands and fingers, the occasional glimpse of her face in a crowd of many others always made me smile and filled me with joy when I had nothing else to hold onto. I had no choice but to watch her speed through life at what felt like break neck speed, longing to chase away the boys who played with and shattered her heart and the unkind eyes that glared at her frail body that I felt must always feel cold. And now I sat in front of her. A huge lumbering lump of fur. So sleepy and tired. She has forgotten me. She is taller now. Her eyes are wilder but sadder; the sadness haunting. ALICE I felt myself almost smile as I broke free of my stupid daydream. Liam stayed quiet, watching me as though he expected me to save the world. "I know you!" I finally stepped forward and extended a hand to the wolf that kept watching me with gold flecked green eyes, before the reality of what he was made something weird twist inside me and I looked at Liam, aware that my eyes were slightly wide. "You're kidding me!" Liam managed to smile. "I might have told him about how you helped me..." I glanced back at the wolf. "So...what now then? I mean...he's basically still a wolf..." She gave me an apologetic look. Liam looked down at the wolf. "Spencer you need to change back bruv she can't exactly have a huge wolf trotting around her house I don't think..." The wolf yawned wildly again before trotting away to a thick growth of bushes and trees that he seemed to melt into almost entirely, eerily. I took the time to study Liam; he looked a lot more rested today and seemed to have attempted to wash his hair. I wanted to tell him about Cora but wondered if he could deal with the truth, especially after what he had told me earlier. I bit my tongue instead, focusing on the citrusy scent of the forest and the faint birdsong. "We need to find a new place to dispose of our clothes when we don't need them because they smell a lot like nuts and forest in there than anything else and I'm not sure that's a good thing..." A voice that was deep but high somehow at the same time, rolled into poshly pronounced tones and smoothed into a fluidly gentle and haunting sound accentuated further by a subtle raspiness made me turn away from Luke to the other man in the clearing. The first thing I thought about him was that he was some kind of ridiculously tall and lanky giant. He had badly rumpled brown hair and pale skin pulled tight over sharp, high cheekbones and a long thin nose. His eyes were big and green but outlined by bruise like dark circles, his lips were blue tinged and he had a faint scar on his lower lip. He had an eerily haunting androgynous sharpness to his features that hinted at haughtiness and walked with the sureness of a man who had spent a very long time getting used to his body and understanding exactly how to refrain from anything awkward or clumsy. Liam rolled his eyes. "Alice this is Spencer. He's a total cunt and he's our alpha. No one knows where he came from but he's just always been there." Spencer suppressed another yawn. "You do realise I still have my ability to talk don't you Walters?" His lips curled into a mocking smirk before he looked at me and smiled. "Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance..." he held out a huge long fingered hand for me to shake without looking away from me. I found myself taking it and shaking it; of course his hand felt warm and oddly human because of course he was as human as Liam was. Spencer looked all around us with the air of someone who knew his way around and I realised he actually did, and that was unnerving. "Everything is still the same as it was a few years ago...." He walked over to look at the birdbath and ran a finger along its lip as the wind showered us all in leaves and reminded me how painfully cold I was. "You two should come in for tea." My body somehow offered. "It's awfully cold outside and I'm sure you're both probably hungry..." Spencer kept staring at the birdbath, the sunlight turning to flames in his hair. I looked at Liam. "Of course," Liam smiled at me warmly. "You lead the way and we'll follow you."

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