#to be fair i still have it on paper. somewhere *sweats* <- has four hundred million filled sketchbooks pilled in her room

[let-it-raines]

For the lovely @xemmaloveskillianx who asked me if I would write something inspired by this little prompt above. It’s a little on the saucier side because, come on, look at that prompt. ❤️❤️❤️

~~2,400 words

-/-

It has been a day.

Seriously. A. Day.

One of those where Emma wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, very literally, and then there’s no coffee in the house so she has no caffeine to help wake her up so that she won’t fall asleep driving to work. And, honestly, no coffee can be fine. She’s not dependent on it or anything, but when she doesn’t sleep well, she wants it.

This morning, Emma really, really wants coffee.

But there was no coffee, no pop-tarts either, and she knows that as a grown ass adult she should probably eat better, but she works her ass off – very literally sometimes – to be able to occasionally waste four-hundred calories on a sugary breakfast. She also works her ass off – more figuratively this time – to make sure that she can have working air-conditioning in her car, but that wasn’t happening for her today either.

It’s July. She needs air-conditioning in her car so that she can irrationally wear her jacket no matter the temperature.

So, it’s been a day that she thought would get better once she got to the station, but the moment she walked in the door David asked her if she could fix the computers as if she works in IT. Then when she couldn’t fix them, all David could do was complain. Instead of picking up the phone and calling someone who could actually help, he sat on his ass and waited for her to call. David is usually so great about taking care of things, usually much more on top of things than she is, but with Mary Margaret in her final month of pregnancy, he’s been a little frazzled. Emma can’t even imagine what it’ll be like when the baby gets here.

She doesn’t want to. That’s…terrifying.

To sum it up, today has freaking sucked, it’s now noon, and she still hasn’t had her coffee.

She needs coffee in an IV ala Lorelai Gilmore.

Rising from her desk chair, Emma moves across the bullpen to the break room, walking through the open archway and heading straight for the coffee machine. Her favorite mug is gone, of course, so she grabs one of those disposable paper ones only for the entire stack of them to fall to the ground and scatter across the tile floor.

“Oh, fuck me,” Emma mutters, bending down to start picking up the cups only to hear a familiar accent behind her.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

She drops the two cups she’d managed to pick up, the paper somehow louder when it hits the ground this time, and if Emma could disintegrate into the ground, she would.

Most definitely.

“That wasn’t an invitation, Killian,” she scoffs, bending down again to start picking up the cups once more only to see the flash of black skinny jeans that pretty much signals Killian’s presence in a room. He’s picking up the cups too, quickly stacking them, and while she shouldn’t be angry at his efficiency, she is.  “Fuck off, Jones.”

“Darling,” he leers, holding his hand out to take the cups from her hand as he steps further into her space, his proximity and the way that his lips are curled into a devilish smirk making a shiver run down her spine, “that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Emma gulps, any and all words she had stuck in her throat staying there, and it’s ridiculous that he can flirt like this and make innuendos the way that he does. It’s ridiculous that he smells the way that he does. His cologne is her favorite thing in the entire world, but right now, she really, really hates it.

She also really wants to take him up on the offer to fuck some of her frustrations out.

But she can’t do that right now for quite a few reasons. Needing caffeine is the main one.

“Leave me alone,” she mumbles instead of all of the dirty thoughts in her head. She snatches a cup off of the top of the stack Killian is holding and sidesteps her way out of his space, which was once her very precious personal space, and moves to start the coffee maker so that she can get the caffeine that she needs.

“What’s wrong, Swan? Are you sure it’s nothing I can help you out with?”

“Nothing is wrong,” she lies, wondering why the hell her drink isn’t ready yet even though she knows that it’s been ten seconds.

“Liar.”

Killian hums, and she doesn’t even have the chance to protest him calling her a liar before the heat of Killian’s body is covering hers while he steps up behind her, one hand pressed against the countertop near her hip and the other cupping her chin to make her look at him. Damn him. Damn him and the way that he can express so much with the arch of an eyebrow or the curve of a corner of his lips. That’s not even fair.

Neither is the blue of his eyes.

Damn him, damn him, damn him.

Or fuck him.

That’s also sounding much more appealing than it was three minutes ago. Must be the caffeine deficiency.

“You know,” Killian whispers as his thumb runs across the dip in her chin in a way that has goosebumps rising on her arms, “I’ve always quite fancied you when you’re angry.”

“That says a lot more about you than it says about me.”

“True,” he chuckles, deep and low and in a way that has heat curling between her thighs. “Swan, would you happen to be on your lunch break?”

“I can be,” she says hesitantly, the beating of her heart quickening.

“Well, darling, I think I can get you coffee somewhere else then.”

-/-

They only have thirty minutes for lunch, something she bemoans on a daily basis, so when they stumble through the front door, there’s no time for talking. Killian kisses her slowly but with deliberate precision, very obviously trying to get her where she needs to go as quickly as he can without rushing her and making her feel used. It’s the gentleman in him. She knows this, and as much as she appreciates that, sometimes she doesn’t need the gentleman.

Heat builds between them even as Killian’s jacket drops to the floor in a heap of black leather. Emma moves to do the same with hers, but then Killian’s mumbling something about liking the red leather jacket and licking his tongue into her mouth in a warm slide that has her groaning into his mouth. Suddenly she’s forgotten about everything but the way that he feels when he’s kissing her and when he’s running his deft fingers through her hair, yanking the slightest bit to help control the kiss. It’s glorious, and for this moment, the unfortunate morning that she’s had disappears in favor of the taste of tea on Killian’s tongue and the way that his scruff pricks around the skin of her mouth. It’s too many sensations all at once and yet not enough.

Overwhelming but only in the best way even if Emma thinks she’s never felt as frustrated as she is right now, and sexual frustration is far different than the frustration of this morning.

Nope. She’s getting those thoughts out of her head and focusing on threading her own fingers into Killian’s hair and feeling the long, soft tufts of hair as her nose presses into his cheek, breathing him in as Killian’s lips close around her upper lip and pull.  

“I love the way you sound when I tug on your upper lip. So delectable.”

“Shut up,” Emma huffs, both because she wants him to do that again and also because she doesn’t know any other words right now.

“So caring, love.”

“Shut up.”

“As you wish.”

And then the back of her knees are coming into contact with the arm of the couch and she’s toppling down onto it, her lips only leaving Killian’s for a split second. He makes sure of it with the way that he’s holding onto her, devouring her, and the heat of his body standing behind her in the station is nothing compared to what it is now. It’s consuming and overwhelming to the point that sweat is already beading at the nape of her neck while she arches her back and Killian’s hips roll into hers.

Fuck.

If she could feel like this for the rest of her life, she’d never have a bad day.

There are no other sounds but the beating of her heart and the sloppy sighs of their kissing, lips moving against lips and tongues tangling together. If she listens closely, she’s sure that the hum of the ceiling fan can be heard, but that’s the absolute last thing Emma cares about as Killian’s hands fumble with the zipper of her jeans and rough fingers brush against the aching flesh where she’s already ready for him.

“Have you been thinking about me then?” Killian sighs into her mouth, his tongue flicking over her bottom lip as his fingers flick against her clit in the way that makes her lose control of the bottom half of her body.

So. Damn. Good.

“No,” she lies, a smile on her face as her hands run down the curve of his arms and over the front of his shirt, twisting a bit of exposed dark chest hair around her fingers.

“Such a liar today, sweetheart.”

He smiles the words into her skin, but then he’s pulling back and yanking her jeans down her hips so that they settle at her knees. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but Emma doesn’t care as her hands grip into the material of Killian’s button down while Killian unzips his own jeans just enough for his cock to spring free and press into her swollen flesh.

If she didn’t love food so much, this is how she’d spend every lunchbreak.

With hooded eyes, Emma watches as Killian moves her underwear to the side, only getting it out of the way enough for him to slowly slide himself inside of her, his warmth filling her and filling her and filling her all the while his teeth bit down at the small patch of collarbone that’s visible underneath her jacket.

Fucking each other with their clothes on during a lunchbreak. The height of professionalism.

At least they’re not at the station.

“I am desperate for you,” he huffs as his hips roll into her and her eyes roll into the back of her head at the deep movement. “Always.”

A moan escapes her lips, a sound that she knows drives him crazy, and he bites against her collarbone harder in response. There’s going to be a mark there tomorrow, and they both know it. The bastard.

The rocking starts as slow, the two of them reveling in how it feels to be together, but that doesn’t last long until Killian is insistently pressing into her, alternating between fast, short strokes that hit her bundle of nerves and slow, deep ones that touch the spot inside of her that makes her lungs stop functioning. It’s enough to drive her mad, to not let her body know exactly what to expect next, but then the rhythm becomes steady, familiar, loving, and every careful thrust is meant to drive her into her bliss.

He’s always so good at that.

It’s a bit overwhelming.

And yet she wouldn’t change a thing as flames flicker across her skin at the feeling of Killian moving inside of her, his fingers working against her bundle of nerves, and his lips slowly moving over hers as the two of them both work to catch their breaths while simultaneously making each other’s heart beat far too quickly for normal life.

She falls with a stuttered breath, the steadiness never returning, and from the guttural groan that Killian emits, she knows that her walls are fluttering around him in the way that makes him rut into her at a quicker pace that means he’s coming too as sweat drips off of his forehead onto hers and the hair around her neck becomes damp.

Fucking while still mostly dressed is either the best or worst idea of her life.

It could be both.

She’s going to need a shower.

That does not at all matter right now.

“You,” Killian sighs, still inside of her as he presses his body weight down on top of her, “are a siren.”

“Even with how shitty I looked today?”

Killian pulls back, his brows furrowed together, and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him look this affronted. “You have never looked shitty.”

“Oh, come on,” Emma laughs as her fingers curl into his hair and brush the damp strands off of his forehead, “you’ve seen me in the mornings. You know how rough I can look.”

“Aye,” he agrees, propping himself up on his forearms so that she can breathe a little more easily. She loves the way the fringe of his hair falls over his forehead. “I know. But I also know that I love you even when your hair hasn’t been brushed in two days and there’s a questionable stain on your pajama shirt.”

“You bagged a prize, Jones.”

“First time in my life I’ve ever been so lucky.” He pulls out of her then with a slight hiss, and she doesn’t even want to imagine how messy this couch is going to be now. “Though, I do get lucky pretty often now if you know what I mean.”

Emma barks out a laugh at the way that Killian waggles his brows across his forehead, the smirk that was annoying her earlier making her smile now. It’s funny how things work like that.

“Go make me some coffee while I get cleaned up, okay? I don’t want David to know that we used our lunch break to have sex.”

“Darling,” Killian sighs pressing one more kiss to her cheek before he stands to pull his jeans back over the dip of his hips, “I think he knows that we have sex. We are married after all, not that not having the rings on our fingers ever stopped us before.”

#cs prompts #cs fic #cs smut #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

[jimlingss]

Jungle Park [9]

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10

➜ Words: 4.2k

➜ Genres: Fluff, Light Humour (?), Slice of Life, Workplace Romance!AU

➜ Summary: The equation is simple. Hoseok needs to hire someone. You need a job. Except like any actual equation, it’s not fucking simple at all! Not when you have to add the fact that he was forced to hire someone he doesn’t want in his office, he has little respect for your job in general, and oh yeah...once upon a time you might have—*CENSORED*.

It’s a crime scene.   There are no traces of blood, no signs of a break in, of thrown furniture or a deadly weapon next to a corpse. It’s much simpler and devastating than that. The lights are still on, shoes neatly put at the front door. There’s a white envelope on the small kitchen counter. It’s been ripped open with evidence of haste and panic. There are copper and silver keys that have fallen onto the tile floor, bag dropped beside it. And in your hand is a single piece of paper, the biggest crime of all.   One would take a look at the rent in your hand and find it ‘fucking astronomical’.   It’s an abomination.   And when you come to your senses, you discover yourself furiously knocking on the door of the perpetrator at ten at night.   The old woman swings the door open and it crashes against her pristine white wall. She’s clad in pajamas and a black robe, tea mug in her hand as she glares at you. “Do you know what time it is?!”   “I’m sorry.” The apology comes out automatically and you damn yourself. No, you’re not sorry. But instead of retracting, you simply lift up the bill and get to the reason why you’re here bare feet, standing in front of her door. “Can you please explain this to me? I’m confused.”   “What’s there to be confused about?”   “It’s almost double from last time.” You’re trying to calm down, but you’re still in hysterics, caught in between and you feel yourself going insane. Part of what you’re saying is shouted in anger and other parts you’re whispering in meekness. Your landlady looks at you like you’re a bizarre, yet sad clown. “It spiked like a lot.”   “I sent a notice to everyone in the complex,” she tells you impassively.   “I didn’t get one,” you attempt to reason with her and let the landlady see your perspective. But it’s futile and you’re only becoming increasingly frustrated.   “Well—” She takes a sip of her tea. “—I did send you one.”   “You can’t just change the lease agreement halfway through.” You’re on the verge of tears and you’re not sure you can make it through without breaking down like a pathetic fool. “That-...that’s illegal!”   “If you don’t like it, then you can find some place else,” she says with composure, fully knowing that it’ll affect you more than her. “I’m more than happy to let you break the lease. I’ll find another tenant.”   She knows and you know — you’re unable to leave this place. Not when it was one of the few locations that was close to work and anywhere near the city at this price range. You can’t afford to pack up your bags and go somewhere else. So you’re left defeated and pleading, as if the last whimper of your voice can convince her otherwise, “you can’t just increase the rent halfway through the lease.”   “I understand that,” she enunciates and punctures every syllable with a sharp tongue, tired of having to constantly repeat herself. “But I don’t think you understand how expensive taxes, insurance, and energy costs are getting. At this rate, I’ll be in debt, Y/N.”   When you drag your feet back home, you sit down and work to figure things out.   It’s entirely possible to get a rebate for your rent. You would have to go to a legal clinic and speak to someone, which works out perfectly since you work for a law firm. You have friends that are lawyers, Sunyi or Taehyung or Yoongi, the list is endless. Maybe they’re not knowledgeable in this specific kind of issue, but nonetheless in the general area and they could always recommend you to someone good. There’s also a chance that you would go to the tenant board and plead your case. But the problem you have are with the possible outcomes:

You will have no choice but to move out, even after getting the rebate.

There are changes in the property ownership. The landlady will lose the apartment complex. But as much as you think this ordeal is unfair, you’re not spiteful enough to make her lose her livelihood.

Best case scenario: the rent is forced to return to normal and the landlady keeps her property and you get to stay. But then she would have it out for you and you’re not sure you can handle such tense living conditions.

It feels like you’re being shoved in a corner. Part of you wishes you didn’t care about the landlady’s well being and you would go through with one of the options and bring justice to your own life. But you can’t do it. Either way, guilt would gnaw at you like mites eating at your skin.   Someone once told you that you care too much for people when you shouldn’t. He’s right.   With a sigh, you think of only two things. It’s the only way you can afford to pay your bills and sustain your life — ask for a raise and take on more shifts.   “Where are we off to this evening?”   You shuffle back into the driver’s seat after guiding the passenger into the back seat and greeting them. The female passenger mumbles a destination and you pull away from the curb, knowing what streets and turns to take.   One after another.   You take young and old to the airport, to their homes, to clubs or late-night events, anyone and everywhere in between. Every night without break, you drive and cut down your sleeping time by doubling your caffeine intake. It’s unhealthy, but you’re still waiting for the right time to ask for a raise from both Jimin and Hoseok. Every time you linger outside their office, they end up exiting themselves and telling you to talk later since they have somewhere to be.   It seems like timing has always been your worst enemy.   “Where are we off to?”   The man in the backseat of the taxi glances behind him and then out the window before meeting your eyes in the rear-view mirror. His pupils flicker back and forth, shaking, and as strange as he is, you most definitely would’ve never guessed what his destination is— “the border.”   “Pardon?” You twist your body fully around, afraid that your ears are finally failing you.   But the man repeats himself. “The border, please.”   “That’s a four-hour ride,” you explain to him, unable to believe what he’s saying. Four hours to and from is eight hours in total. You’d be driving out of the city, far into the deserted countryside and you would have to go straight to work afterwards. It’s not like you can afford to call in for an unpaid sick-day. Though you have one bigger worry. “This...this isn’t illegal, right? Because I’ve had my fair share of driving people to illegal activities and I’m not doing that again.”   “No! No,” he spits out hastily and looks behind him again before whirling around. He’s sweating and you’re beginning to as well. The black backpack beside him is suspicious and you pray he doesn’t have any kind of weapon. “Just please bring me to the border. I promise it’s nothing bad and you won’t be harmed. I...I can give you an additional four hundred dollars.”   Four hundred tip?   The debate fires in your head and sadly, it doesn’t last long for you to make a decision.   “I hope you’re ready to pay up when the time comes.” You signal and pull away from the curb, destination already in the navigation system. From the rear-view mirror, the stranger gives you a big smile with swelling cheeks.   The trip is long and tedious. When it’s empty highways and one straight road, it’s easy to get lost in thoughts or to become sleepy. But you have strategies of keeping yourself awake, like downing the cup of coffee you always have in your thermostat mug or quietly humming a song or trying to keep from blinking for a long time. It helps that the stranger in the backseat of the car starts up a conversation too. He’s just been looking out the window, resting in the seat and you guess he might be too anxious to take a short nap.   “You’re not a fugitive, are you?”   “No.” He laughs and reassures you, “I’m not. The reason I’m going to the border...it’s a secret.”   You hum, knowing better than prying into people’s activities. When people are willing to tell you, then you’re happy to hear. When they’re not, the last thing you want is for them to pull you out the vehicle and point a gun at your head and tell you that it’s a shame you know too much now.   Maybe you just watch too many action movies.   Though for some reason, your intuition tells you the stranger in the backseat is more friendly and doesn’t mind you chatting and asking. “I just would like to know what the crimes of my passenger is if I happened to be arrested on those charges as well.”   He chuckles. “Then you’ll find out when you get arrested.”   “Ooh, keeping it a surprise.” You glance into the rear-view. “I like it.”   “You’re a funny one,” he muses. “Got any boyfriend or husband or wife?”   “If you’re asking for yourself then I gotta say sorry.” You smile. “I’ve taken a celibacy oath for the rest of my life.”   “What a shame.” He laughs again. “Do you always drive? I should make you my permanent taxi driver.”   “If you’re always going to pay me a four hundred tip, you got it. But unfortunately, this is only my night job, so only if you have any rendezvous after five.”   He leans his head on the cool glass, watching the headlights from the opposite highway road and the lights of the truck up ahead. “What’s your day job?”   “It’s a secret.” You don’t want to say in case you get found and killed. Safety was regarded above all. “You’ll find out when I get arrested and we share the same cell.”   “Okay, fair enough.” He grins. “That’s tough though. A day and night job? How do you find the time to sleep?”   “You don’t.” Another symphony of internal sighs ring inside your head and you decide that you might as well ramble your infinite problems to a stranger since it’s not like you had anyone else to talk to. “I wouldn’t have to do this if my landlady didn’t suddenly spike up my rent like crazy.”   “Does your day job not pay enough?” He asks not to invade your privacy, but out of genuine curiosity.   “...It pays well,” you reply. “Just not enough.”   He makes a sound of understanding and the conversations dim down for the next ten minutes. There’s more small talk made, but nothing significant. You learn he’s not a dangerous criminal (for now) so it puts you at ease. And when the border comes into sight, he asks to be let off before you can drive up to the booth. He expresses his gratitude for driving him this far out and follows through with his tip, giving you the right amount of a carefully counted stack of bills from his backpack. You don’t ask him any questions, only bidding him good luck on whatever journey he’s on and he smiles, hoping that you have a safe drive back.   You hope for the same thing.   //   The drive back is exhausting and endless. By the time you’ve arrived back home, your butt is aching, your eyes are burning, and your back is sore. You can’t believe you’ve been driving for a straight eight hours, but your full pocket of cash thanks you for your effort, even if you have to lug your legs inside. The sad part is that you can’t even roll on your comfortable mattress and get some shut-eye. Time is ticking and you rip yourself away from the bedroom into the bathroom to get ready for your day job.   And you try your hardest, even when you’ve been awake for more than twenty-four hours.   You slap water onto your face before dousing your poor skin in thick makeup to hide the purple eye bags. Then you force breakfast down your throat while changing clothes before you’re out the door again.   You try your hardest — not to fall asleep while you’re on the platform, waiting for the subway.   You try your hardest — to keep from stumbling when you’re standing in the crowded cart like you’re in a can of sardines, forced to hold onto one of the hanging straps.   You try your hardest — running through puddles in heels, sweat clinging onto your dirty body, late again.   “Is she not with you?”   Hoseok stops by Jimin’s office, glancing at his watch quickly before looking up towards the main foyer. His frustration and impatience increase, causing a frown to permanently attach on his face, giving the male wrinkles in places that shouldn’t belong there before he’s turned forty.   “Y/N?” Jimin sips on his coffee, surprised at the sudden question. “No. Do you need her?”   “I don’t,” he huffs out. “But haven’t you noticed that she’s been arriving late to work every day this week?”   Jimin hums a light note before he looks off and muses, “No, actually. I didn’t notice.”   “We don’t pay our employees to arrive late and slack off.”   “Y/N doesn’t slack off.”   “But her tardiness shows a bad work ethic.”   Speaking of the devil, Hoseok detects a figure jogging from the corner of his eye. He turns and you’re there, chest rising and falling, hyperventilating, a strand of hair fallen in the front of your face. At the same time as Hoseok outright gawks at you, you’re cringing, having hoped you could’ve slipped past. But now that he’s in front of you, there’s no choice but to dip your head slightly and divert your eyes. “Good...good morning.”   You’re about to be on your way, but his smooth voice stops you. “Can we speak in my office?”   “O-of course.”   The atmosphere is tense. All signs of the happy-go-lucky man that you’re the most familiar with is absent and a stern leader is in his place instead, controlling the air around you and making you shift on your feet.   He sits in his chair and glares. Sometimes it gives you whiplash how different Hoseok can be, how many sides he has, from being a ball of sunshine that wouldn’t hurt a fly to having a serious and rigid demeanour. He wears an impassive expression while looking at you, and remains stern. You guess that this is what it means to be professional and deep down, you know he has a hard time conducting himself like this, but he does such a good job. He’s a natural.   It’s intimidating.   “Sit down,” he says and you follow his orders. You’re tense, hands in your lap, and he clears his throat, making you finally meet his eyes again. “You’ve been late every morning.”   “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”   There’s a beat of silence, like he’s giving you a chance to explain yourself. But when you don’t, he’s forced to continue, “is there a reason...?” His voice trails off, becoming softer and he searches your expression for some sort of answer.   “No,” you lie. “There isn’t. I’m sorry.”   His frown returns and it’s deeper than before. “This is not your usual behaviour. There has to be a reason, Y/N. Tell me.” It’s not a demand, sort of gentle and deprived out of concern.   You wonder what he would say if he knew you were having financial problems, if he would help you sort it out, or maybe give you that raise that you’ve been meaning to ask for a long time now. If you told him that you held two jobs on top of each other, there’s a chance he would be sympathetic. He could help you out, pardon your mistakes and your late mornings. But—   But...there’s no reason for him to know.   He’s your boss. Is there really any sense in telling him what’s going on in your personal life? Hoseok is your boss. Nothing more. Nothing less. Maybe you’ve been forgetting this. Maybe you’ve been too reckless lately. But you need to keep it this way. If not for his sake, then yours.   “There’s no reason,” you repeat yourself, keeping the barrier up, not allowing him in. “I’m sorry.”   There’s a long held silence.   “You won’t tell me?” he asks you, aware of the lies that you feed him and the disappointment is all too evident in his voice and written across his features. You look away with a thick lump forming in your throat.   “There’s isn’t anything to tell. I’m sorry.”   If you want a raise, you’ll receive it by your own merit, not through pity.   Jung Hoseok leans back in his seat, accepting that you won’t give him a truthful answer. He gave you a chance and won’t force it out of you. “I expect everyone to be here at nine.” He shuffles a few papers, having written down details as evidence. “But you’ve been here half an hour to an hour later consistently for the past week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today. It’s unacceptable.”   “I’m sorry.”   “Just because you’re the only one who works in the HR department does not mean you get to come in late and do whatever you want. You get paid here like everyone else and they work just as hard. They come in and give their best effort and I expect you to do the same. I did not hire you to take it easy or to slack off. This is a job. You are to be here at nine in the morning and leave at five. You are not to be here at nine thirty or ten or ten thirty.”   “I understand.” Your head remains downcasted. “I’m sorry.”   He is loud and firm, making the warning clear. “If there is not an improvement made immediately, I will dock your pay. And if you can’t handle arriving on time, then maybe this job isn’t suitable for you.”   “I’m sorry.”   To say you were humiliated was barely scratching the surface. Not only were your bones and muscles fatigued, but you were barely holding yourself together emotionally. All you could do was feel the burning of your eyes and hold your head down as he continued to reprimand you.   “Don’t apologize. Make the improvement.”   You nod, fully aware that you won’t even be able to mention the idea of a raise.   Hoseok watches as you leave. There’s something uncomfortable that settles down inside of him and he turns to the window when you’ve disappeared. For a few minutes, he rests until his partner comes through the doorway. “Well, that was unusually harsh. “   Hoseok shifts his and exhales. “You heard?”   “Everything. And everyone did.”   “God…” He leans his head back and shuts his eyes tight, the oncoming of a headache beginning to pulsate at his temples.   “Why was it so excessive?” Jimin spills the honest question, brows raised and arms crossed as he leans on his partner’s doorway. “You know we both don’t care if someone’s late as long as they perform well and complete their duties. Why the hell were you being so unreasonable?”   “I don’t know.” And Hoseok genuinely means it. “I got frustrated.”   “Did she say why she was late?”   “She didn’t tell me.”   “I’m not surprised.” Jimin scoffs and gives him an incredulous look, still unable to believe that he gave a scolding to one of the best workers of the firm. “You’re kind of a massive asshole, dude.”   //   During your lunch break, you begin to search up for bank loans, seeing if you’re eligible for any and how big of a hole you’re digging for yourself in if you got a loan with high interest rates. You also slap and pinch yourself several times to stay awake, drinking more and more coffee to stay alert. The last thing you want is to accidentally fall asleep at your desk and have Hoseok walk by and catch you in the act. Little did you know that same man was already standing outside your door, pacing back and forth without letting you see him lingering outside.   “What the hell is he doing?” Seulgi whispers to Namjoon, hunched over by their table and flickering their pupils over.   He mutters back, “You tell me.”   “Is he going to fire Y/N?!” Seokjin is naturally louder and the two have to shush him, cowering together, especially afraid of their boss today because of his flaring temper. Everyone in the office was on edge.   “He better not,” Seulgi spits out harshly, baffled by the mere idea of it.   “No, he wouldn’t do that…..Unless….” Namjoon’s brows knit together.   “What?” The female legal assistant pokes him. “Unless what, Namjoon? Goddammit, don’t leave me hanging! Namjoon! Speak, you idiot!”   “Do you think he feels…..guilty?” The male in the glasses asks and quirks his head to the side, a sharp inhale stolen from the seams of his lips. He spins to look at his colleagues. “I mean he reprimanded her pretty hard. Maybe he feels bad.”   “Hoseok? Feeling bad?” Jin scoffs. “Yeah right.”   At the exact same time as the paralegals having their conversation, there’s a knock at your door. Your head whips up, eyes widening at who it is. The person at your doorway clears his throat and leans back with arms behind him. His black hair seems ruffled like he’s ran his hand through it several times. You haven’t seen Hoseok so disoriented in a long time. “Hey, I’m going downstairs for a coffee. Do you want one?”   “No, thank you. I’m fine.”   Seokjin shakes his head, oblivious to what’s transpiring. “Do you really think Hoseok’s the type to feel guilty over something like that?”   “Do you need me?” Hoseok’s appeared again at your doorway less than five minutes later and you’re bewildered, blinking twice before your mouth draws open to respond.   “What? Oh, no. I’m fine.”   “Okay.” The lawyer nods. “I’m busy anyways.”   “Okay.”   Less than ten minutes later, Hoseok’s swung by your little office once again. “About earlier….”   You frown. “Earlier?”   “Turns out the office machine downstairs is under repair,” he explains himself.   “Oh.” You don’t know what to say to him. “I see.”   “So I couldn’t get coffee for you...or me...anyways.” Hoseok clears his throat, aware of the stiff tension in the room and how bizarre he’s acting. “If you ever need me, just call Lisa or Dahyun.”   “Alright.”   Twenty minutes later, he’s once again stopped by your door. But this time, he has a coat slung over his arm, probably leaving to court or going out to meet a client. Your suspicions are confirmed when he says to you, “I’ll be out for the rest of the day. Taehyung’s coming with me.”   “Okay…?” But you’re still confused as to why he’s telling you these things. He leaves all the time without saying a single word to anyone in the office.   As if he can read your thoughts, the lawyer scrambles and elaborates, “I just thought you’d want to know. In case you were looking for me.”   “Yeah...umm....” There’s no way he would come to work intoxicated, so that possibility is ruled out. But you still don’t know what it is that’s making him act so strange. The lawyer keeps stopping by like he’s not drowning in work. And while this is the last time, that doesn’t give you much comfort as to why he’s speaking so gently and he looks so sad. “Thanks.”   He clears his throat awkwardly. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to say, by the way.”   “What is it?” You blink. “Do you need to come in?”   “No, it’ll be quick.” Hoseok hesitates and then a slight smile appears on his face, the corner of his mouth tugging. “Thanks. For that time on the mountain. You helped me from slipping.”   “Oh, yeah.” You’re reminded of the little event and you return his smile. “That was a given.”   His grin becomes sheepish. Jung Hoseok slips his hands out of his pockets and nods. “You’re right. I was scared. I’m scared of a lot of things,” he admits quietly. “So thanks for helping me.”   “It’s nothing.” The smile you have is more for yourself than to display to the world. And you finally know what it is. You know why he’s being so bizarre and being such an oddball.   Hoseok is the type to feel guilty after he’s gotten angry. He’s the type to want to shower people in kisses and apologies, squeeze them in a hug and beg for forgiveness in a squeaky voice. But he is sadly unable to do so with his position in this firm. He is unable to do what he wants most when he’s painted a serious and stern picture of himself in this office.   Jung Hoseok is the type who wants nothing more than to spread happiness.   He ends up leaving your office and walking down the hall with his hand out in front of him, palm facing towards the ceiling. After a moment of wistful gazing, he crumples his fingers until it forms into a fist. He can still remember when your fingers were slotted by his, when your palms clasped his, when he held you. Yes — Hoseok is scared and afraid of a lot of things.   One of those things just happened to be you.

#bts fanfic #hoseok fanfic #hoseok fluff #bts scenario #hoseok scenario #OC as a poor taxi driver with two jobs....sad lyfe much #BTS HOSEOK as an asshole who's about to plead guilty for being an asshole #okay not gonna lie tho - as simple as this chapter is #i really like it a lot

[whatmack]

“Being attracted to people is exhausting” man Neil mood. Big mood XD I love mattneil

how can neil have energy for ROMANCE when there is EXY

Theair changes once they’re closed inside Matt’s truck (a different one from hisPalmetto days, but no less beloved). Neil knots his hands together in his lapand stares out the window. He can’t stop remembering that this is a date. He’s on a date, a real, physicaldate, with Matt. His best friend Matt. He’s on a date with him. Matt.  A date. For romance and stuff.It’s so much bigger than their Skype dates. Neil wants to open the door andleap out onto the highway. It’s survivable if you know it’s coming. The shirt Matt is wearing has a deep vee down the front, exposing the long lineof his neck. Whenever Neil turns to answer a question or make a comment, he’sovercome with the desire to find out how it feels under his lips. Thinkingabout wanting someone other than Andrew is weird enough, and Neil has hadmonths. Actually doing something about it might give his central nervous systemthe final excuse to tap out.

Mattpulls them into the parking lot of a bistro that has an alarmingly elegantspray of poppies carved into its sign-front. Warning bells sound inside Neil’shead as Matt leads him through exposed-grain wooden tables and couples incollared shirts and pretty dresses. His casual getup marks him instantly as anoutsider. Neil dodges the judgmental glances, curling his shoulders anddropping his gaze to the floor to be as invisible as possible.They get to a small counter at the back that turns out to be the cash register,hidden so as not to offend delicate sensibilities. Matt chats easily with thecashier and is soon handed two large paper bags, receipt attached marking themas take-out. Neil nearly sinks to the floor in relief. He keeps his legs steadyout of sheer will.A childish lisp breaks him out of his thoughts: “Mommy, look at the man withthe scars.” A haggard mother tries frantically to silence her child at anearby table, darting fearful glances up at Neil. She’s not distressed at herchild’s rudeness, Neil realizes, just afraid that he’s heard them. Neilstraightens his spine and bores his eyes into her plastic smile, keeping hisface still and staring much longer than social norms would dictate. Her palemouth turns down. Her son has no such compunctions.“Guy! Guy! What happened to your face?” He points to both his cheeks, eyesbigger than the plate in front of him. “How did you get those?”

“Kidnappingchildren who ask too many questions,” Neil says, not dropping the mother’sgaze. She flinches and yanks her son close to her, but not before a peal oflaughter bursts from him, bouncing off the exposed decorative rafters.Matt is beside him, takeout bags in one hand, the other rising to restproprietary at the small of Neil’s back. “Do we have a problem?” He’s smilingat the mother, and for once—Neil didn’t know it was possible—the expressionholds no warmth.Neil has to give the hostess his respect. It’s the fastest he’s ever beenushered out of a restaurant.

They don’t get back in the truck. Instead, Matt steers Neil across and down ahandful of the city’s long blocks, chatting idly. Neil memorizes the pattern inthe automatic back of his mind. It’s a warm evening, humid but not miserablyso, and people on the street nod instinctively to Matt’s general aura of charm.His hand remains on Neil’s back the whole time, pressing lightly to guide him.It’s something Andrew does when he’s feeling possessive, but not in public. Neilhas always liked the way it makes him feel taken care of.They stop to buy cups of lemonade from a dinky stand (the “best in the city,”Matt proclaims. Neil takes charge of the bags of take-out while Matt fishes forhis wallet), and then they’re tramping through the close-cropped grass of apark, dodging picnickers and other (other!) couples. A frisbee arcs through theair towards them, and Matt catches it one handed, laughing and calling out tothe children tossing it while he sends it back. His easy athleticism makes Neil’sskin burn under his collar.Expecting to be out in the open, Neil is pleasantly surprised when Matt ducksaround an intentionally arranged copse of trees and crouches to put thelemonade cups down behind a hedge. He motions for Neil to sit beside him andhand over the bags.“I was worried this spot would be taken,” Matt says, pulling out napkins and Styrofoamcontainers. “I found it last summer, but I can’t have been the only one. Look.”He points with a plastic fork through a gap in the hedge, and Neil squints tosee an outdoor amphitheater, concrete steps dotted with clusters of sunhattedpeople.“There’s a concert?” Neil has, in the past years, gained somewhat of a passionfor live music. It is as much of a shock to him as anyone else. He blamesKevin.“Most nights, once it’s warm enough. The sound carries decently well to here,and the important part is you can eat as messy as you want and nobody else cansee you.” Matt nudges Neil and passes over one of the containers. The hedge and the trees block them from the rest of the park, enclosing them ina small bower of greenery. On the stage in the amphitheater Neil can see thesound crew taping wires and gesturing to microphones. Matt leans against a treetrunk, leaving space for Neil to curl beside him but letting him decide whetherhe wants to or not.He understands Neil so well. Neil’s fingernails make dents in the Styrofoam.He has to swallow rapidly.“Eat that before it gets cold,” Matt says through a mouthful of food, and thelump recedes from Neil’s throat. He crawls to slump against Matt, heedless ofthe grass stains he’s getting on his jeans, and opens the container to find alarge, crusty-breaded sandwich and a cup of sauerkraut.  “Because your taste in food should be acriminal offense,” Matt says.“Won’t be the only thing criminal about me,” Neil says, elbowing Matt’sstomach. Matt yelps and nearly overturns his own, much less cabbage-y dinner.

It’snot the most comfortable place to be. Roots dig into Neil’s ass, and the drygrass is prickly even through his clothing. He keeps on the lookout for ants.The sandwich is too good to sacrifice to them, as is, true to Matt’s promise,the lemonade. They use every single one of the paper napkins and need more.Neil rubs his sticky hands on the grass, and Matt unselfconsciously sucksdipping sauce off of his fingertips. It’s an action he’s done a hundred timesbefore. This time Neil is allowed to stare.A four-person band takes the stage. Neil misses their name and half the lyrics.The drumbeat thuds up his hipbones to control the pulse of his heart. He closeshis eyes and wiggles into Matt’s lap, listening, feeling the sweat make theirt-shirts stick together. Dusk turns to twilight turns to the fluorescent brightnessof a city night.“I was worried you were going to take me somewhere with white tablecloths. Ortuxedos. Or chandeliers,” Neil says. He wraps the flap of Matt’s jacket tighteraround him. He’d stolen it after sundown had turned the gentle breeze to chill.That is, after all, why Matt has brought it.Matt chafes Neil’s arms. “Give me more credit, c’mon.” He pauses, and Neil canhear him thinking, so he waits. “Would that be…absolutely horrible?”The band finishes their last (no really, their last) encore to the scatteredapplause of the visible audience. There’s the shrieking of feedback as theybegin to pack up, the crew reappearing to monitor the band’s abuse of theequipment. Neil uses the time to figure out how to put his words in an orderthat makes sense.“I don’t get it,” he finally says. Matt’s legs shift under him, tipping Neilinto the crease, and Neil grabs Matt’s shoulder to stay upright as Matt leansback to look at him. “Why does anyone do that stuff? If you care about eachother, it shouldn’t matter.”Matt takes a while to answer. “When I was a kid,” he says, slowly, “I used towatch a lot of those—pirate movies, knights, cowboys…where it was all about thegood men and chivalry and beating the bad guys and winning over the fair lady.And Mom wasn’t…she was busy, but there were a couple months when she had donesomething to her elbow, and she read a whole book of Arthurian legends to me.It was the most time I’d ever spent with her all at once.” He traps Neil’sankle in the circle of his fingers; unties his shoelace when Neil kicks at him.“I guess I thought that that was what it would be like, for me. Stupid, I know.”He tips back, taking  Neil with him sothey’re sprawled on the grass. Neil is grateful to have Matt’s cushioningbetween him and the rocky soil.“Everyone’s stupid when they’re a kid,” Neil says.Matt laughs weakly. Neil can feel it rumbling against him, like the musicearlier. “Yeah. Anyway then I moved in with Dad and it didn’t. Happen likethat, I mean. I think the most romantic thing that happened to me was one timea guy made edibles that were m&m cookies because he knew those were myfavorite. And that was only because he thought I’d suck him off. When I got toPalmetto, I wanted…I think I want to be the one to make it better for otherpeople, you know? It doesn’t have to be like that, but it can. And not just toget someone to put out, or as a trick, or whatever. When I was younger I wantedit to mean something. I guess I still do.”Neil digests that, lying on Matt’s chest, Matt’s arms clasped around his waistas they look up at the sky through the shadowed branches. The city lights aretoo bright to see any stars, but Neil knows where they are. “Do people reallydo that?” He asks. “Have sex with someone because they’re nice to them, or givethem things?”“I don’t remember,” Matt says.Neil flips himself so he’s kneeling with his legs on either side of Matt’s,hand resting on the ground beside his head. With two fingers he traces Matt’snose, his cheek, the swoop of his browbone and the delicate skin of hiseyelids. He is so much bigger than Neil; Neil forgets he was built on ascracked a foundation as the rest of them. Neil wants to kill every singleperson that made Matt have to be strong.“Can I kiss you now?” Matt asks in the breath between them.“Do it,” Neil says, and leans forward first.Matt’s lips do not feel appreciably different from Andrew’s. Slightly fuller,perhaps, but just as soft. Neil goes down on his forearms as Matt’s palms pressagainst his spine, urging him closer. How long Matt has been waiting, Neil doesnot know; Matt does not rush him, keeps the kiss soft, pressing and easingagainst him in waves. Only when Neil tugs at the back of his neck does Mattroll them over so he can pin Neil to the ground with his mouth. Neil can’tfeel the roots with the weight of Matt’s hips on his. His heart is a wellspring, and Matt keeps adding water.“I would try it,” he says against Matt’s lips. “Thetablecloths and chandeliers. If that’s what you want. You can explain it to me.”“We’ll talk about it,” Matt promises, and kisses him again.

Can u believe Matt KISSED Neil after Neil ate sauerkraut…..what a mans

(No they did not fuckin a city park, Matt is a Gentleman)

#all for the game #the foxhole court #mattneil #boydsten #part 7 of #I'm not making u eggs #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #my fics #Anonymous

[rackartyg]

sara ryder is putting off sleep, again. SAM tries to keep her company.

f!ryder & SAM, fluff and mild hurt/comfort, 3K

[read on AO3]

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Outside the windows, the Heleus cluster is nothing but a smear of stars against all-consuming black. The lights changed to yellow-tinged… a number of hours ago; Sara decides she doesn’t care how many.

Just another late night working. Lots to do now, with a settlement of sorts in the works. That’s what she tells herself it is, anyway. And what she says goes—she is the Pathfinder, after all. The title’s got to be good for something.

She signs the report with a flourish, sending it off into the void of the Tempest’s digital storage, where it will languish until they pass close enough by a transmitter for it to zip off towards the Nexus. The vidcall on Havarl’s surface had been a luxury, piggybacking on the angara’s infrastructure out of the goodness of Kiiran Dals’ heart. The rest of the endless question-answering, negotiating, and brainstorming involved in making this collaboration work is being done by email, and the Initiative’s own, snail-slow system.

It’s tedious, nothing but pointless formalities and saying the same things over and over to the same people over in Colonial Affairs. Busywork. But Sara likes busywork. It’s good for staying busy. And staying busy is good for…

Well. When you can’t sleep. Or having a late night working. Same thing.

But. Now it’s done. And she still doesn’t think she could fall asleep.

Sara leans back in her chair. It creaks. To her left, SAM’s avatar spills blue light over the desk; it’s almost as if he’s keeping tabs on her. Keeping her company. It’s just a feeling, not anything real, but still.

“I would recommend resting,” SAM says, volume adjusted for the late hour.

She stretches. Every bone in her body screams for sleep, but she doesn't think she could manage it with a gun to her head. Well. It might be difficult to sleep with a gun to your head in general. “I know.”

Sara puts away the data pad and sighs, staring at the desk without really seeing it. It’s a blur of colour anyway, with how messy it is. She can’t be bothered to clean it up. Instead, she pushes a loose piece of paper around. Round and round. It rasps against the tabletop.

“Ever heard of a game called twenty questions?” she asks.

“Twenty Questions is a spoken parlour game which encourages deductive reasoning and—” SAM recites.

“I know what it is, SAM,” she says. It comes out fonder than she expected it to.

“Of course, Pathfinder.”

Something freezes solid inside her. Sara squeezes her eyes shut. “Please don’t call me that. I’m just… I’m Sara. That’s my name.”

“Protocol dictates—”

He keeps talking, but she talks louder. “I don’t care. You know it’s my name, you’ve called me by it before, for most of the time we’ve known each other, actually, so just. Keep doing that. Besides, it’s just the two of us here. It’s not like anyone’s going to hear.”

It’s quiet for a moment.

“Yes, Sara.”

She puts her feet up on the desk and crosses her ankles, resting her hands on her stomach. “That is how you say it, yeah. Well done.”

“That was sarcasm,” SAM remarks.

“Ahoy, captain obvious.” Sara picks up the piece of paper from the desk and contemplates tearing it into a thousand tiny little pieces. She decides it’s not worth the mess. “At this point, you really should be better at figuring that out. I think about what eighty percent of what I say is sarcastic.”

“Eighty-four.”

“That,” Sara says, lifting her head to glance at his router, “was a joke, and I am very impressed.”

SAM’s avatar flickers and flits in its strange patterns. “Thank you.”

“Anyway. Twenty Questions.” Sara clears her throat. She hadn’t noticed the real smile creeping up on her face. “You go first.”

SAM is silent for a moment. It’s more for her benefit than his, Sara suspects; he really is getting better at this whole social thing.

“Go ahead.”

“Okay…” Sara tips her head back on the headrest. “Could I hold it in my hand?”

“No.”

“Is it an object?”

“No.”

She taps her foot against the air. “Is it a… concept?”

“No.”

“Well, damn. An action?”

“Yes.”

She sits up straight. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” she says. “Could I do it?”

“Yes.”

“Am I doing it?”

“No.”

Sara is quiet for a solid minute. Then she says, very softly, “SAM, is it sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“God, I wish you had a face I could punch,” she groans, sliding down in the chair until she’s not sitting in it so much as awkwardly draped over the seat. “I have been given a passive-aggressive robot nanny at the age of twenty-two. Fantastic.”

“Your health will deteriorate if you do not get adequate rest, Sara,” SAM says, and just the fact that he uses her name for goddamn once makes her less inclined towards murder.

By way of reply, she makes a grunting noise.

SAM’s avatar flits on the desk. The patterns are different every time. Sara has given up trying to link them to any sort of meaning. “You are physically exhausted.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I apologise, but I do not understand the reasoning behind your actions.” If he were human, Sara wouldn’t blame him for feeling testy. As it is, through the monotone, he just seems… confused.

“Well maybe I’m not using much reason. Ever think of that?” She lets herself slip the last bit down on the floor. It’s cold, even through her clothes.

Honestly, he can take it. It’s just a taste of his own medicine; lord knows Sara likes unanswered questions—mostly because they’re a lot like busywork—but even she is starting to feel some frustration. If they’re equally inscrutable to each other, then that’s fair. A level playing field.

Except it’s not a game, and definitely not a competition—or if it is, they’re on the same team. They’re as much on the same team as anyone could ever be.

So, “Here’s an idea,” she says. “You can ask me twenty questions, about me. Anything you don’t understand. I’ll… do my best to explain. I can’t promise I’ll make sense a hundred percent of the time, but…”

He barely gives her enough time to finish speaking. “Why will you not sleep?”

Sara sighs. “Because,” she says, “I hate it. I don’t— It makes my mind wander, and I think about things I can’t, not if I’m going to stay sane until this is all over.” She huffs a laugh. “You know I get nightmares. Even if I manage to fall asleep, I just wake up again. So.”

“Emotional distress?”

“I guess.” It’s dark under the desk. And it smells funky. “You really haven’t registered my stress levels going crazy?”

“I have.”

“Then, there ya go.” Sara makes a gesture. From this angle, she’s pretty sure SAM’s can’t see it, but he can feel it through her, probably, so it’s fine. It’s all perfectly fine. Especially sitting underneath this desk right now. “Two questions down, eighteen to go. Hit me.”

“I have no more questions.”

“Sure you do,” Sara says. “Listen, I know you’re doing your best to be unobtrusive, and I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s getting a bit frustrating. Just— talk. To me. I promise you won’t scare me off.” She adds, with just a hint of bitterness, “It’s not as if you could. It’s literally physically impossible.”

“Which is why I have attempted to keep you comfortable,” SAM says. She’d say he sounded somber, if he were human.

“I figured.” Sara draws a meaningless pattern in the dust on the floor. It sticks to her fingers. “But I’m saying that you don’t have to. It’s honestly more uncomfortable listening to you hedging and avoiding and skipping to the middle. And manipulating me.”

At that, there’s silence. Sara looks up, bending her neck at a bad angle to catch a glimpse of SAM’s avatar.

“I know you’re doing it, SAM. I can’t tell as it’s happening, but I know it must’ve happened at some point. You’re too clever to not have.”

“I have not,” SAM says, and it’s almost heated. “I would not. It would go against my basic programming.”

Sara blinks. “Huh.”

But she was so sure—

“Harming the pathfinder is in opposition to everything that I am. Which is why I implore you: go to sleep.”

She’s so tired. Something has gone soft in her chest, and she thinks, Why not at least try.

“Okay,” she says quietly.

As she tries to clamber out from underneath the desk, she first almost sends herself sprawling when she pushes the chair away, and then she bangs her head on the underside of the table. It makes everything on top of it rattle ominously.

“I hate myself,” she sighs, rubbing at the spot as she picks herself up from the floor.

Walking over to the bed is less walking, more dragging her uncooperative body across the room. She flops down on the bed without even bothering to change out of her clothes. SAM dims the lights of his own volition.

“G’night, SAM.”

The blue light of SAM’s avatar goes out. “Sleep well, Sara.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Some indeterminate-but-clearly-not-enough amount of time later, Sara bolts awake, half on her feet before she even knows what’s happening.

As soon as her brain catches up, she sinks back onto the bed with a hand gripping her forehead, groaning. Her heart is pounding in her chest and she’s out of breath. Sweat clings to her exposed skin in a thin film. Every individual stitch of her day-clothes is rasping against her skin like a thousand tiny knives.

Great. Super great.

“Awesome,” she says.

“Are you well?” SAM asks. His avatar winks into existence over on the desk.

“Nightmare.” Sara squeezes her eyes shut and pinches the bridge of her nose, begging her heart to calm down. It wasn’t real. She’s awake now. Fuck off. “Another nightmare.”

She can’t even remember what it was about.

“I can see why sleeping is an unpleasant experience.”

“Can it be my turn to ask questions?” She doesn’t wait for a reply. “How much can you tell about… my general state of being, without asking?”

She presses the soles of her feet hard against the floor. In a minute, she’ll get up and pace a loop around the room. That usually helps. But at the moment, she trusts her knees about as far as she can throw them.

“Through your implant, I have access to your nervous system, circulation, endocrine function, and exteroceptive senses. I can monitor brain activity and other functions as well.”

“So, a lot.” Sara blinks her eyes open. It takes a bit for the room to come back into focus. “But you still decided to ask?”

“Based on previous experience,” SAM says, “initiating a conversation is the most efficient way to calm you down.”

Sara mulls that over for a bit. Her fingers clench around the edge of the mattress. The hum of the ship filters back in, past the roaring of blood in her ears.

It’s true, she supposes. She imagines someone else, like Liam, chatting with her now, but something in her recoils at the thought. It’s okay when it’s SAM, though. And that’s where tonight’s sleep-deprived contemplations will stop dead.

“Building a predictive model of me, are we?” she asks instead.

“I believe you would call it, ‘getting to know you.’”

Sara snorts. “Yeah, well, I don’t have the memory or the processing power or the mathematical capabilities to do anything even remotely similar to what you can. Us organics do this annoying thing called ‘getting caught up in the moment.’”

The darkness of the room feels like it’s suffocating her.

“That is two questions,” SAM says. “You have eighteen more.”

The lights turn on. Sara rubs at her eyes. They dim slightly, to a level that doesn’t make her eyes sting. “Thanks SAM.”

He lets it pass without comment.

She thinks for a moment, then decides, fuck it, she’s sleep-deprived enough to ask. “What’s your opinion of me? Are you…” She scuffs the end of her foot against the floor. “Okay with this? With being joined with me?”

“That was three questions,” SAM observes.

“You said I had eighteen,” Sara says, with a boldness she doesn’t really feel. “Answer ‘em.”

This is such a silly game. But he’s playing along, so maybe it’s not that silly. Or maybe things are allowed to be silly, sometimes. Maybe, sometimes, they need to be. Right now, they do, at least, because it feels vaguely normal. Silly Sara and her games.

“My purpose is to aid a Pathfinder in their work,” SAM says. “My design is reliant upon an organic partner. As such, there is nothing disagreeable about the current situation.”

That’s what she gets for trying to pry a personal opinion out of an AI, she supposes. But it wasn’t supposed to hurt. Or maybe it was? Is she in that kind of mood?

“You didn’t answer my first question,” she says, pulling her feet up from the floor and folding them sideways on the bed. “What’s—and this doesn’t count against my total because I am repeating myself, just so we’re clear—what’s notable about me? How do I hold up against dear old Dad?”

Yup. Definitely supposed to hurt.

“You are… different from Alec,” SAM says diplomatically. “But there are similarities.”

“Like?”

“Your curiosity. Your drive to explore. Your stubbornness.”

Sara snorts.

“Your determination during hardship,” SAM adds. That makes her go quiet.

She swallows. Fuck. She misses him. Despite everything, she misses him.

It’s not fair.

“Thirteen questions remaining.” SAM’s router whirrs softly. “I have distressed you.”

“Did that to myself,” Sara replies and presses a sleeve to her eye. “Not your fault. Thanks for the compliment.”

“You’re welcome, Sara.”

Sara sucks in a deep breath, holding it for a moment. She will not cry. She won’t. “What time is it?”

“The Tempest’s day cycle begins in two hours.”

That’s basically morning. It’s socially acceptable to ‘wake up’ now, right? Early bird gets the worm? The really, really early bird probably gets the gold. She could go for a medal. Some sort of acknowledgement other than more reports to fill out would be nice.

“If I may,” SAM says. “It is generally considered beneficial to cry during moments of intense emotion.”

Sara hiccups a laugh. The tears are rolling down her cheeks in little trickles now, thick and salty-sweet. She’s trying, but she can’t stop them. Never could. “I know. It just makes a mess, and…”

It’s stupid. She knows it is. But she’s the Pathfinder.

“Heroes don’t cry,” she whispers thickly. “I’m supposed to be one.” She sniffs, aims for levity. “I’m going the ‘Fake it ‘til you make it’-route."

“For what it’s worth, we are alone,” SAM points out.

A sob pushes its way out of Sara’s mouth. “Oh,” she says, and starts crying harder.

Her shoulders shake. Tears drip down on the sheets, drop after drop striking the fabric. She can tell her face is already a mess, hands clenching on top of her thighs.

Sara likes questions. But she wants an answer to this one: Why? Why her? Why now?

Why them? Haven’t the Ryders already suffered enough?

Just. Why.

“I cannot answer that.”

“Oops,” Sara mumbles, and clumsily swipes the back of her hand over her face. “Didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

“I apologise.”

“Please stop apologizing,” Sara says. Her voice is so hoarse she can only just barely tell what she’s saying. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

The majority of the fuck-ups are hers, and the rest belong to the conga line of supposedly competent adults she’s surrounded by. There’s enough guilt to go around without SAM making up some of his own.

“Noted.”

Another sob makes its way up Sara’s spine, out her mouth. She’d forgotten how crying is a full-body experience. It’s easy to forget anything but the tears themselves, because they’d make such a romantic image in isolation. In reality, there’s the snot to deal with. God, how she hates the snot.

“Worst involuntary reaction to distress ever,” she mutters.

“I have limited experience with non-human expressions of emotion,” SAM says, “but I believe there are worse.”

“God,” Sara says, breath hiccuping a little, “don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“I concur.”

Sara dries her eyes with a sleeve. It rasps against her cheek, just this side of painful. “Imagine if we just straight up died,” she says, with something that approaches humour. “Like, our brains couldn’t handle the stress and we just straight up died on the spot.”

“That would be inconvenient.”

“Like hell. I’d never get anything done.” Sara scoots forward on the bed, touching the soles of her feet to cold floor. She needs to clean up. There are tissues on the desk. She just has to make it across the room.

With a sigh, she pushes herself up on her feet. She’s given up on squashing the instinctive reaction, so it feels like SAM’s avatar watches her as she wipes her face, throwing the sticky tissues into the trash can one by one. When she’s done, she leans her forehead against one of the shelves on the wall above the desk. It’s cold. Everything on a spaceship is always cold.

“Thank you,” she says hoarsely. “Thank you, SAM.”

“Thank you, Sara,” SAM tells her.

A small smile touches her lips.

#she speaks #my fic #sara ryder #twenty questions #which is not-so-incidentally the name of this fic! #hey look it's my dumb kids #trying to teach each other how to people #me:a #meafic

[gahdspeed]

this 'check-up' essay was first submitted in May as a nonobligatory requirement for my philosophy class. i thought posting this here would give me something to look back to in ten, twenty or maybe one hundred years. it'd also serve as an evidence of living in these excruciatingly exhausting times & being a witness to continuing culture of violence, terror & social injustices that the majority of the philippine population face everyday. see this as a receipt manufactured in anger.

Notes and Investigations in Quarantine 

I. The first month of the lockdown was perhaps the hardest time I've experienced this year. Just two nights before Duterte officially declared the lockdown of Central Luzon, my cousins and I were still drinking alcohol in a funeral home. We’d lost one of our uncles suddenly and we were granted permit to hold a funeral procession under the suspecting eyes of deployed military members. On my tito’s final night, I remember escaping from my relatives to observe how the streets and highways had looked so surreal in their vast emptiness and terrifying silence. A pandemic sounded too archaic to me to even occur in 21st century. Or perhaps, it was just my petty fears of no longer doing the things I was free to do before this disease brought everything into a halt that got in my way of fully realizing the weight of the current situation to others. 

Before the crisis, as much as possible, I rarely stayed at home. We don’t really have internet, nor the signal was any better, so I would always go to my cousin’s house to connect to their wifi. Disconnection from the virtual world just made every day harder to get through. Getting away from my thesis, backlogs from previous sems, and not being able to do a thing about being locked in our home that I abhor, I spent the first two weeks silently crying at night or sleeping all day. I grew tired and ashamed of asking favors from friends and classmates for a certain e-book that I needed for a paper or online announcements in my classes. I thought I was just making another set of excuses to make up for my lack of trying, and that I just didn’t have enough resources to work on my thesis or requirements. But I wasn’t too smart to realize sooner that not everyone under a pandemic is in their sane mind to continue worrying about such trivial things either. Most importantly, I failed again at recognizing my own incapability to work under such emotionally draining times. I was consumed by academic pressure, and my own guilt of having spent five years in a supposedly four-year course that I feared will lead to another extension of semester just because I didn’t work harder back then. I wept for my mother in silence, who all her life worked for our survival, and has been wanting to retire by the end of the year at age 62. 

Possibly the worst week I had to endure during that first month was the week where we were given quarantine passes, and I finally had to line up in front of groceries to purchase essential goods. Everyone at our house, including myself, is immunocompromised: my mother has pre-existing conditions relating the heart and lungs, father’s a PWD, and I have weak lungs as well, that were only made weaker due to my years of smoking. The thought of having brought the virus with me at home frightened me so much that I’d spent that week having nightmares. I would wake up in the middle of the night short of breath, trembling and tired. That experience felt unreal. I got through that whole week in panic and fear, intensively exhausting whatever free facebook had to offer to research everything about coronavirus, what systems does it attack, measures to take, etc. I don’t think doing that had done me good, either, because I’d just suspect myself of containing the virus when I notice a quick delay in my breathing that almost led to me calling our local hotline for suspected patients. 

Being locked within the confines of our home and being exposed daily to a familial situation that I’ve been struggling to negotiate with for so long just opened wounds that I’d rather forget existed and once again found myself somewhere other than the present. I realized that the more I stay at home, the more my tendencies of repeatedly grasping our current state just naturally come out of me, and it’s something that I’ve been trying to veer away from. If we only had internet and better network connection, at least the feeling of being connected with people in the virtual realm would help me release from this claustrophobic suffocation somehow. I find it petty for a reason, really, and lack of internet connection didn’t really bother me before. But I couldn’t find better ways to keep my sanity amidst a pandemic that wouldn’t put myself and others at risk. 

If I were to place myself in that situation again, I’d probably conclude that one of the few things to come out of a crisis like this is the realization of wanting to continue enduring, but it's the ideal kind that's fueled by constant questioning and fiery refusals. Some friends I’d opened myself to in the beginning of the lockdown had told me to be thankful for still existing despite everything, which most had seemed to downplay my inner wars like they were never real. I had succumbed myself into years of battle with self-loathing and depression that I’ve forgotten how to fear for your life when the opportunity gets robbed of you. But life in these times do and will not, in any way, exude that kind of sense of triumph in surviving especially when the act of resiliently struggling is being forced to us by an already exposed broken system that hides itself in the form of a disease. A lot of people I know have told me to just make use of this time to be creative, make art, devote the entirety of my break into my thesis, and dismiss my anger at celebrities who use their platforms to sing ‘Imagine’ for no relevant reason. They basically told me to just be thankful, and I refuse to conform to that. My very guilt lies within the fact that whatever comfort of a household not exactly economically thriving but doing just enough offers, only mirrors those who couldn’t even afford to bask in the assumed promises living under a fractured governance holds. I feel like all these bourgeoisie fronts will only discredit institutional failures committed by those in power to respond to our needs on the basis of equality, transparency, fairness and empathy. I’ve been too vigilant to be too grateful to be alive because I know that would just invite romantic disillusions about life that’d likely betray us in the end and keep our eyes away from propagators of this self-serving idealism. 

II. For a week after seeing the controversial Japanese cult classic Battle Royale (2000), I couldn’t sleep properly. Something about it felt familiar, or at least the feeling that it evoked when I saw it was the kind that I'd met somewhere but couldn't really recall. This mystery immediately triggered a second - and third - screening in a row, an attempt to decode my newfound weird fascination with it. 

I’m not really the type of cinephile to enjoy films that belong to the action-thriller genre, although admittedly, Battle Royale is objectively of god-tier standards no matter how I keep on trying to steer clear of it - conflict is present, decisions made by the participants are all driven by a single urgency, stellar cinematography, straightforward storyline. As a package, I'd say that the film is a product of both technical and poetic triumph only auteurs aesthetically and politically different from directors behind cliché action blockbusters can achieve. And it left me in a strange quest to answer what had really drawn me into its fractured, vividly violent world. 

At first, I was just trying to reassess a cinematic bias that was once unwelcome in my years of involvement with films. But after going through it for the last time, the series of internal and external reassessments had transformed themselves into pleas for negotiation, and implicitly denial of truth. 

Why Battle Royale, with its characters struggling to survive the forced institutional (and along with, the philosophical) challenge within a limited time, felt strangely familiar upon seeing it, was because I've seen and have been a witness to the exact same drive of characters and even creators of the film that motivates almost everyone today. I've seen it on people's faces in groceries during my once-a-week shopping routine as the representative of our household. I’ve felt its energy through the empty shelves of essential products most people are accused of hoarding. I’ve watched it through locals in long, excruciating lines where they loudly accuse one another of subtly slipping themselves in while those who lined two hours early before the store opens tirelessly let things go. I notice it within me, whenever going out for these routines & find myself always in a rush and panic, sweat dripping from thirty minutes of walking from our house to the market under the sun. 

It would be absurd for many to compare an intensely exhausting day under a lockdown with a film whose portrayal of explicit violence committed by teenage kids in response to the survival challenge imposed by their totalitarian government had Japan’s cinema board infamously censor it from the world. But the film’s concept didn’t exactly emerge from the vacuum either. When the ever-incompetent World Health Organization officially declared the global spread of coronavirus as pandemic, most of us, unprepared and uninformed, were forced to make use of whatever means and resources we have in order to make ourselves stay alive, while the politically and economically powerful few didn’t have to bother a second in their lives scavenging for food while putting themselves at risk. Like characters in Battle Royale, we are armed differently, and it isn't even based on choice¸ because most of us simply didn’t have that luxury to start with. A film may be just a film, but it may be brutally speaking of investigation and observation of daily realities we face more than we would like to acknowledge.

#2020 pandemic #philippines #politics #fuck the government #eat the rich #stay alive #stay mad

[andykoons]

CHAPTER 9 - THE AGRICULTURALIST (part 1)

We froze. None of us said a word. We just raised our hands in unison, bathing in the pale, blue-white light from an LED flashlight.

"Put down the fuckin' knife, girl." The man said in a voice that sounded like buttered leather. The knife clanged as it hit the floor.

"We didn't know anybody lived here." I said. "We're just trying to find supplies. But we'll leave and you'll never see us ag—"

"Shut the fuck up, fat boy." He barked.

Fat boy? I thought.

"Y'all are as fucked as a hillbilly at a family reunion." He said.

I saw a spark in Addy's posture. Something had hit her like a ton of bricks.

"Adam?" She asked. It was quiet.

"It's me." She said. "It's Addison."

He pushed Sammy and I aside, cursing under his breath.

"You better not be fuckin' with—" He whipped her around angrily and shone his flashlight directly in her face. His motions became slow as he stared at Addy in disbelief. He lowered his sawn-off shotgun and it dropped to the wood floor before he grabbed her and pulled her in for the longest hug ever recorded.

He held her face before his own and studied every facet. He wore an old trucker hat which had the white stains of salty sweat lining the rim. The coat he wore was old and tan and torn in places. His black, bushy beard contorted in a way that suggested he was sporting a large smile underneath, and the tears that fell from his eyes speckled the wiry hairs of his admittedly magnificent beard, forming constellations of reflected moonlight. I thought of my own beard and just felt emasculated.

That bullshit emotional barrier that all members of the Fields family have began to break away from Addy and she wrapped her arms around Adam and sobbed.

"The hell you been, girl?" Adam asked. Addy sniffed and wiped her eyes as they took a step back from each other.

"We've been in Leonidas." She said. "We were heading for Battle Creek but we got—" She sniffed and then laughed. "We got stuck in Leonidas and just never left."

"You been in Leonidas this whole time?" He chuckled.

"We had a settlement out there." I said. "It was overrun after an explosion drew in a herd of zombies."

"How long ago? Five? Six days ago?" He asked. I must have said something interesting.

"Five days ago." Sammy said.

"Knew I heard something'." Adam said. "What was it?"

"Propane tank." I said.

"Goddamn." He said. "I always wanted to blow up one of them."

"It wasn't as fun as it sounds." Addy said. "We lost a lot of people."

"It's why we're out here." I cut in. "After they breached the fences, we had to evacuate in the military trucks and head for Alamo. Heather is my wife, and she had my kids on those trucks."

"And you lucky fuckers missed the trucks." He said.

"Yeah. We need supplies and weapons if you have any to spare." I said.

"I got some stuff." He said. "Probably not as much as you need, but it'll help."

"Anything will help." Addy said.

Adam closed all the curtains in the house and grabbed a box of matches from a cupboard. He lit a series of lanterns in the central room. Everything was wooden. Like a lumberjack's wet dream. It was exactly what you would expect from a guy who ives alone in the woods with a fuck-ton of guns. The walls were covered in beer signs and taxidermy trophies. There was a severely outdated calendar, each month adorned with a scantily clad swimsuit model. We were standing in the home of a living stereotype. Unsurprisingly, I found a "Make America Great Again" sticker on the side of his gun safe.

This man and I will not become friends. I thought.

His dinner table was a large slab of organically shaped wood. The chairs weren't actually chairs, they were sawhorses that could seat two at a time. We gathered around and sat.

"Man." Addy said. "This place has changed a lot."

"Did most of it myself." Adam said.

Would have never guessed. I thought.

"Was David with you?" Adam asked.

Addy looked down at her twiddling thumbs. She was thinking about her brother.

"I haven't seen him since before Beijing fell." She said.

"Yeah. It seems like that's when everything went to shit." Adam said. "I'm sure he's somewhere saf—"

"In all honesty, Adam. He probably isn't. My brother probably died two years ago when the virus got to the states. I've accepted that much."

It felt uncomfortable.

"My name's Milo Becker." I extended a hand to shake. He responded in kind. His hands were tough like sandpaper. Much like my father's hands always felt. They were the hands of a man who worked very hard.

His grip was firm and his hand nearly swallowed mine. It was a reminder that even as a married father of three, I still can't help but think of myself as a boy. My hands have done their fair share of work, but to me they still feel soft and juvenile.

"You married Heather, huh?" He asked. "She still a spoiled brat?"

I laced my chuckle with extremely subtle sarcasm and contempt. Sammy's eyes darted back and forth from me to Adam.

"She's doing good." I answered. "Or at least I think she is. If that's what you're asking."

"She's a hard headed bitch." He fired back. "In a good way. She get's that from her mother. If anybody was built to survive all this, it's Heather."

"She's definitely hard headed sometimes." I said, nodding in agreement. I didn't like what he was saying. Heather didn't like being compared to her mother. They never really got along. And I definitely didn't like her being called a bitch in any fashion. But nevertheless, I nodded and smiled, because I didn't want to ruin our chances of getting supplies from him. It wouldn't kill me to just bite my tongue until the next day when we leave.

"They have three kids, Adam." Addy said. "Three boys. Wilson is five, Everett is three, and they have a little baby, Lucas. He's a little over a year old."

"Wow! Three kids?" He exclaimed. "I never thought in a million years that she'd settle."

"Huh. Settle." I said, hiding the contempt a little less. "That's funny."

"Wasn't trying to be funny." He said.

"Well I'm pretty tired, guys." Sammy said. "I'm just gonna—" He stood up, awkwardly pointed toward the bedroom, opened his mouth to say something, then turned and walked away.

"I'm coming too." I said standing. I reached out and shook Adam's hand again. "Sincerely, Adam. Thanks for everything."

Sammy and I climbed into the huge California King and almost instantly passed out, waking briefly as Addy climbed in later that night. I had a dream about a dog who was somehow a lawyer. Don't know where that came from.

I was shaken out of sleep. It was Adam. Pale blue moonlight seeped through the cracks between the curtains and illuminated the sparse, floating flecks of dust.

"What time is it?" I whispered.

"It's about four in the mornin'." He said. "You and me are gonna go out and get some food." He extended his hand to pull me up.

I grabbed my blue jeans and my jacket and threw them on. It was a cold September morning and I could faintly see my breath as I was lacing my boots. I felt the air moving behind me as Adam shoved a hairy arm into the sleeve of his coat. The house was dark, only lit by a single lantern on the handmade dinner table. Making everything either a dark shade of yellow or ebony.

Adam opened one of the cupboards and revealed a large stash of cigarette cartons. I watched as he opened one and grabbed a fresh pack, slapped it against his palm a few times and ripped the plastic off. He turned and saw me eyeing him.

"Smoke?" He asked as he extended the pack forward to me. I grabbed the pack and pulled the white cancer stick from the soft paper box. Two long years elapsed since I had a cigarette. Not by choice, mind you.

"After things got bad here." He began. "This was the first item on the list of shit I needed. Priorities, right?" He chuckled.

"Heather will kill me if she finds out I smoked." I said.

"If that's what she's gonna get hung up on when you get to Alamo, then her priorities are as bad as mine." He said before lighting his cigarette and then lighting mine. The smell of smoke, the feeling of your blood vessels constricting as the nicotine takes effect, it's fucking orgasmic.

I followed Adam to the gun safe, he turned the dial smoothly in a variety of ways, aligning an arrow with a sacred sequence of numbers. The lock clicked and he spun the three-spoke handle, allowing him to swing open the heavy green door.

I had never seen so many guns and knives in one place outside of dated action movies. This man was a survivor in every sense of the word. There were three shotguns, a tactical, hunting, and his sawn-off from the night before. Half a dozen pistols, another half dozen hunting rifles with varying sizes of scopes. My lack of gun knowledge was painfully obvious. The only one I really recognized was the M1 Thompson submachine gun with a drum magazine, or "Tommy Gun" for those of you who know less about guns than I do. I pointed right at the iconic death machine.

"Is that semi automatic?" I asked, sounding a little boy.

"It was when I bought it." He said. "But now it'll saw someone in half at six-hundred rounds a minute."

"Holy shit, that's cool." I said. He handed me a black pistol.

"Ever use one of these?" He asked.

"Not really." I responded. "I'm better with a knife. I used to have a sword but there was this couple we ran into on the way here and took it along with most of our stuff. Left us with just one knife."

"How did they manage that?" He asked sarcastically. I showed him the gun he had handed me.

"They brought a gun to a knife fight." I said. It managed to put a smirk on his hairy face. He reached into the safe and grabbed one of the hunting rifles.

"Grab your coat, I'll show you how to use that." He said, looking at the pistol he handed me. I followed him outside.

He walked me through the basics of the handgun, a Glock 19, apparently. He familiarized me with the safety, how to eject the clip, checking the chamber, weight difference between a full, half, and empty clip, keeping my hand clear of the slide so I don't tear a chunk out of my hand when I fire. Just enough information to make sure I don't shoot myself in the face. We walked a mile or two from the house in the cold darkness of the morning before he felt comfortable enough to have me shoot for practice.

I managed to shoot at things, only hitting them by chance at first, but after a few pointers, Adam improved my aim. He was as patient as a Bhuddist priest with severe anger management problems.

"I'm gettin' fuckin' hungry, man. If you hit that damn tree where I told you to, we can get some food." He said impatiently.

"I started my shooting career half an hour ago, give me a break." I fired back as I aimed, and then I fired the gun. A small puff of dust popped out from left of the center of a crudely carved circle Adam had made in the bark of a tree about twenty yards away. I smiled in my victory and looked at Adam.

"It's about fuckin' time, boy." He said. I rolled my eyes.

"C'mon. The dead folks are probably headed this way." He said. We continued deeper into the woods.

Roughly a mile later, we came upon a tree with a deer stand about fifteen feet up. Adam threw the strap of his rifle around his shoulder and began to climb up the knotted rope tied to a thick branch above the tree stand. It obviously wasn't his first time scaling this particular tree.

When he reached the stand he sat and huffed for a few moments before catching his breath. I looked at my gun.

"What do you want me to do? Look for rabbits or something?" I asked.

"Ain't yer daddy ever take you hunting?" He said. "You don't use a handgun to hunt. Least not that one."

"Then why am I out here? I thought we were hunting." I said.

"I am hunting." He corrected me. "Yer standing watch to make sure none of them dead folks gets me. Now shut the hell up and keep yer eyes open."

It was silent for a few seconds.

"What if I see a deer?" I asked. He looked down.

"Every time you say something', I get less worried about how mad Addy will get if I kill ya." He snapped. "Now shut the fuck up. I ain't gonna say it again."

I looked around obediently, searching for signs of the dead folks.

Dead folks. I thought. What a stupid name.

Adam was peering through the giant scope mounted on his rifle. You could probably see mice getting it on from a mile away with it.

I thought about what he said before about my dad taking me hunting. It was true, I never went. Growing up in Kansas, hunting was all anybody ever talked about. I always wanted to go, and was told on several occasions that we would, but those empty promises never came to fruition. Getting older and moving north turned me into the very antithesis of my family's culture, anti-gun, heavily liberal, atheist, and if I'm being honest, a hint of elitism as well. I began looking down on people who wore camouflage. People who voted Republican. People who had a Christian fish magnet on their car. I became the kind of person that annoyed the shit out of my family, partially because I just didn't believe the same things they did, but mostly because I wanted to be the pariah. I wanted to be the black sheep. Maybe I thought it would make me interesting, or maybe I just like to have pointless arguments about religion or politics.

I thought about those arguments, and how much I really missed them. I miss thinking I had my shit together and then someone pulling the rug out from under me with some statistic I thought they would be too dumb to research. It told me that nothing is ever black and white. No political party has the correct answer on every issue. Every question, every problem has grey areas, and you'd be an idiot to deny that. Maybe I just miss talking to my family. Maybe I'm just over being away from Heather and the kids.

Maybe I'm—

BANG!

"Hell yeah!" Adam yelled as the thunderous blast echoed through the trees.

"Jesus fuck!" I yelled back. "A little warning next time? I just about shat myself!" Adam was laughing.

"I dropped that fucker! It's fuckin' head got blown in fuckin' two!" He said gleefully as he descended from the tree stand.

"C'mon, man. Let's go get it." He said before hopping ahead like a little Japanese school girl. I followed.

[hauntingtv]

Today we have a special treat for you, it’s a short story written by S.D. Hintz. S.D. is the author of numerous horror books. And if this short story has anything to say about his other work, I’m excited to read more from him in the future.

A note: This is a horror story with adult language. Readers of a more delicate nature need not read on.

  The Horror House

By S.D. Hintz

“Pretend they’re Girl Scout cookies. Your husband will love ‘em.”

“Frank’s been dead for fifteen years!”

The solid oak door slammed in Dickie Dangler’s face. “Just buy the stinking subscription, lady!”

The tenth consecutive neighbor had turned down his offer. Dickie was at his wits’ end. His new money making scheme had rendered him penniless. Christ, if he couldn’t sell magazine subscriptions, what the hell could he do? Deliver the Pioneer Press? A paper route was a dying trend, too, and he wasn’t sixteen anymore. He was twenty-three and still lived with his parents. Why? He wasn’t about to ask and blow his free ride. He simply wanted to prove that he didn’t need a college degree to succeed in life. He was a man on a mission, which lately seemed like a mission impossible.

Dickie climbed into his lime green Yugo. He tossed his black duffel bag of magazines on the backseat. “Who now? Who can be fooled?”

He gazed through the bug-splattered windshield as he turned the ignition. The engine sputtered to life and a dim bulb flickered in his skull.

The Tickle twins!

Of course, he thought. Who else?

A wide grin cracked Dickie’s freckled face when he spotted Tibia and Tritt Tickle. The mischievous fraternal twins sat on the curb three houses up the block. Tibia’s middle name was gullible and Tritt’s was…hell, probably the same thing. After all, they were twins.

Dickie snapped out of his daydream and punched the stick shift into reverse. The Yugo screeched down the drive. It jolted as it jumped the gutter onto October Street.

“French Ticklers, here I come!”

He put the pedal to the metal and burned rubber in a cloud of charcoal smoke. Tritt looked up from the magnifying glass as he fried one last ant. He nudged Tibia with his elbow. At the end of the block, the Yugo shot toward them.

Tritt shoved his torture device into his pant pocket. “Great. Tricky Dick rides again.”

Tibia stared at an anthill she had spit on. “Really? I like Dickie.”

“Only cause he sweet-talks you.”

The Yugo skidded to a halt beside the Tickle twins. Dickie craned his ostrich neck out the passenger side window and smiled.

Tritt glowered as he stood up from the curb. “What are you looking at, dickhead?”

Dickie whistled. “Have I got a deal for you.”

“Sorry. We don’t make deals with the Devil.”

Dickie paused and sized up the twins. He’d tricked them more times than he could count on both hands. He’d known them for about three years, but still had no idea where the strange twelve-year-olds lived. They were always in the neighborhood. In truth, Dickie didn’t care. He merely loved the sick enjoyment of emptying their unusually fat pockets. All in all, they acted and looked too damn innocent to be ignored. Tritt resembled Damien from The Omen; he had pallid skin, a coal crew-cut, cerulean eyes, and wore a black hoodie with matching sweatpants. His eccentric sister Tibia was a borderline anorexic with straight black hair that curled at her waistline. She was also ghostly pale with a hooked nose and large wart on her cheek. Even though they were fraternal twins, they always dressed identical.

Dickie reached into the backseat and grabbed the bulky duffel bag. He then exited the car, neglecting to remove the key from the ignition, and approached the twins.

Tritt sneered. “I’ve read every issue in your bag.”

Dickie was caught off guard. “How the hell do you know what I have in there?”

“Cause you stick out like a sore thumb. Nobody sells subscriptions in this neighborhood. Most of the block won’t answer their doors while the rest are crushed when they find out it’s not the Girl Scouts. It’s dickface!”

“That’s why I’ve come to you! I bet you’d make a mint off a scheme like mine.”

“We’re tired of your schemes.”

“We? I’m tickled pink. Tibia, my queen of the curb, tell me you don’t feel the same way.”

Tibia looked up from the street for the first time. Her cheeks flushed at his flirtatiousness. “Well, Dickie. I—”

“Feel exactly the same,” Tritt interjected. “We’re twins, for God’s sake!”

Dickie set the duffel bag on the Yugo’s trunk. “I was just asking. I thought it would tickle my fancy, that’s all.”

“Dick!” Tritt turned to Tibia. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Whoa, Tonto! Okay, I confess! I came here for a reason!”

Tritt whirled and glared at Dickie. “A reason?”

“Fine, a challenge. Since you’re so critical of my scheme, why don’t you give it a try? Let’s see who’s more successful at selling subscriptions. We’ll pick a random house and pitch our asses off.”

“What’s at stake? Besides your reputation?”

Dickie thought for a moment. He was broke as a bum, so he’d have to wager something of value. But what the hell did he have besides his vintage 1985 Kangaroo high-tops? “How about my ride?”

Tritt looked incredulously at the jalopy. “You’re serious?”

“For once, yeah! C’mon, it’s a classic! If you sell a subscription and I don’t, you win the ride. If I sell a subscription and you don’t, I get all the money in both of your pockets.”

“Excuse us for a moment, Richie Rich.” Tritt grabbed Tibia by the arm and led her a few car lengths away. “What do you think?”

Tibia smiled. “I think he wants to be friends.”

Tritt seized her by the shoulders. “Are you brain-dead? Don’t you remember the last time he tricked us? It took a month to scrub that makeup off your face. Not to mention, we’ve got over four hundred dollars each in our pockets. He’s trying to scam us again. It’s time we turned the tables. If he plays by our rules, maybe we can make him look like the chump.”

“Deal.”

The Tickle twins shook hands and approached Dickie, who tapped his fingers on the Yugo’s dented hood.

Tritt nonchalantly removed the magnifying glass from his pocket. “Okay, Carrot Top. We’ll agree to your deal on two conditions. One: we choose what house you have to con and vice versa. And two: since this is your line of work, you go first and show us how it’s done.”

“Okay, Twit, have it your way, but we use my magazines. Deal?”

“Deal,” the twins replied in unison and spat into their palms.

Dickie grinned as the saliva dripped between their fingers. “I didn’t say shake on it. Shit, you guys must be French.”

Dickie reached into the duffel bag and removed two magazines. He slapped a rolled up issue of Penthouse in Tibia’s slimy hand and winked. “Hold on to this. And don’t even think about peeking at the centerfold.” He stuffed his own issue in the back pocket of his corduroys. “So, which sucker will it be?”

Tritt answered with a roving glare that Dickie followed across October Street, up along the sidewalk, and then somewhere in the distance. “The last house on the corner.”

“The Hauer house,” Tibia informed, much to Tritt’s disapproval.

Dickie furrowed his brow. “The Hauer house? That place has been vacant for years.”

Tritt glared. “Prove it.”

“Fine, Tickle Me Elmo. If I go up to that house and no one answers the door, that’s a subscription sold.”

“Suit yourself.”

Dickie grinned. This would be easier than he thought. The Yugo wasn’t worth more than a hundred dollars, so a profit was inevitable. He could already smell the scent of green. Or was it something stronger? He sniffed the cool breeze, and then felt the burning pain in his big toe. He leapt a foot off the ground with a yelp. He glimpsed the magnifying glass as Tritt concealed it in his pocket.

Dickie stomped his smoldering shoe. “Goddamn it!”

Tritt chuckled. “Better hop to it, Dangler. Pitch that porno mag!”

Dickie turned his back on the twins and marched down the sidewalk. He cursed under his breath and squinted ahead in the simmering sun. The Hauer house loomed two lawns down. He glanced over his shoulder. The Tickle twins followed in his footsteps at a safe distance. He returned his gaze to the corner as he passed a yard shaded by evergreens.

The Horror House.

Dickie shuddered at the recollection of the nickname. The Horror House. That’s what everyone called it. He’d heard his fair share of stories back in high school. One in particular used to haunt him around Halloween. He vaguely remembered some sort of tale regarding an ax murderer. It had been too a few years since he last trick-or-treated. His short-term memory wasn’t what it used to be.

He came to the last lawn and followed a row of half-dead hedges to the property line. As he rounded the corner, the strange facade of the Hauer house came into view. It was one of the creepiest places he’d ever seen. It was two stories tall with weather-beaten, blue-black siding that seemed to be clinging on for dear life. It had two cobwebbed dormers with barred windows, as if imprisoning its occupants. The rest of the place was windowless. The front steps were even stranger; the entrance descended into the ground like a cellar stairwell. The front yard was weedy and riddled with crabgrass. A gnarled dogwood creaked in the breeze.

“Little early to be ghost hunting, isn’t it, son?”

Dickie stopped in his footsteps and turned. An old man with wrinkly, raw sienna skin and long snow-white hair down to the small of his back rounded the hedges. He wore a sweat-stained, white tank top and faded cutoffs. He clutched a pair of rusted shears. As he approached, Dickie noticed that his beady eyes were bloodshot and he reeked of bourbon.

Dickie searched for an excuse. Instead, the truth came out. “I’m selling subscriptions door-to-door.”

The old man pointed the shears. “Then where the hell are your magazines?”

Dickie reached into his back pocket and revealed the rolled up issue. He then opened it up for the man to see.

The man smirked. “Why don’t you save yourself the trouble and sell it to me? I’ll give you double the price you’re asking for.”

Dickie snickered at the man’s voracious appetite for pornography. He shook his head. “Can’t. I made a deal.”

“Please tell me it doesn’t involve this house.”

Dickie nodded, rolled the mag back up, and then stuffed it in his back pocket. He glanced over his shoulder. The Tickle twins sat on the curb across the street. They held hands and sneered.

The old man narrowed his eyes. “Take my advice. Turn around and forget this place still stands.”

“What’s it matter? No one’s home. It’s been vacant for years.”

“A house is never vacant. Especially this one.” The man snapped the shears shut. “Enter it and it enters you.”

“Ooh, I’m shaking in my Kangas, Father Time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a subscription to sell.”

The man seized Dickie by the shoulders with surprising strength. When he opened his foul mouth to speak, Dickie’s stomach churned. “Listen to me, numbskull! That house is evil! You don’t know a shitting thing about it, do you? Well, do you?”

Dickie shook his melon head until his neck cracked. Sweat trickled from his brow.

The man’s grip relented, but his trembling hands remained on Dickie’s shoulders. “The last time a man entered that house, I happened to be within spitting distance. It was Halloween of ‘92. You might remember it like the rest of us. That year the blizzard buried trick-or-treaters up to their necks? Anyhow, the Hauers lived there then. Old couple, both in their seventies, kept to themselves. And believe it or not, October thirty-first was their wedding anniversary.

“I was outside shoveling my driveway. I’d seen Mrs. Hauer leave in her car earlier, before the snow really started blowing. Well, I’m just about at the end of the drive when a young man goes trudging up to the house. I’d say he was about your age, bundled up, puffing like a chimney. Saul Hallows was his name.” The old man paused and removed his hands from Dickie’s shoulders. Dickie exhaled as they both gazed at the house. “Anyways, it turned out old man Hauer was having an affair with Saul, a boy five decades younger, mind you. They must’ve figured nobody would notice anything unusual in the middle of a blizzard. Well, they forgot about Helena. She pulled up to the house about five minutes after Saul arrived. From what I know, she walked in on the two…and only one person came out alive.” He mulled over the details as he ran the shears through his windblown hair. “I was milling about my garage, waiting to see the outcome, when the gutters on the house…well, I still I have trouble believing what I saw, but they started…gushing blood.” Dickie stared at the man in disbelief. “Saul came stumbling out of the house screaming bloody murder. He started rolling around in the snow like he was on fire. He was yelling about snakes…snakes all over him, everywhere. At that point, I called the police.”

“What happened to Saul?”

“A straitjacket and padded cell. The kid never stopped seeing those damn snakes.”

Dickie was unfazed. “That’s a pretty good campfire story. Well, you changed my mind. I’ll be seeing ya.”

Dickie turned his back and walked toward the street. A foot before he reached the curb, he whirled and dashed across the weeds and crabgrass. He blew by the curmudgeon, practically knocking him down, and sprinted to the underground stairwell.

The man shook his shears in the air. “You stupid son of a bitch! I know! I’ve seen! You’ll never see the light of day again!”

Dickie slowed his pace as he reached the crumbled brick steps.

Knucklehead bastard, he thought. What does he think, I’m coming here to roll out the welcome mat? Shit. One knock on the door, no answer, and I’m turning tail. We’ll see who’s tickled to death then.

Dickie descended the mossgrown steps. When he reached the bottom, he discovered that there was no door. Instead, a long corridor with cobwebbed, mudstone walls disappeared into the shadows.

Well, there must be a door somewhere, he thought. If it’s not at the end of this hallway, I’m dropping the porn and telling the twins I sold it.

Dickie ventured a few steps farther into the musty darkness. He could see an iron gate up ahead. It was ajar with a broken padlock and shrouded in spider webs. Dickie squinted down the corridor, his eyes slowly adjusting.

Hell, maybe this is the door, he thought. Goddamn Ticklers.

He shook his head. He wasn’t about to push the gate open with his bare hands. He took a step back and gave it a boot. It slammed against the wall and Dickie darted through.

After six yards, he paused. The hallway was longer than he thought, and he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He turned and squinted behind him. In the faint light, it looked as if the gate was closed. His heart leapt at the recollection of the old man’s story.

What if the house is haunted? he thought. Or worse yet, Mr. Hauer’s ghost sodomizes me?

Dickie hurried back to the gate. It was indeed shut.

And locked!

The broken padlock had somehow been magically repaired. Dickie yanked it down, but it refused to budge. He booted the gate with his heel. To his dismay, the cobwebs failed to even quiver. He kicked it hard three more times to no avail.

“Goddamn horseshit licking Ticklers!”

He cursed a few more times under his breath. What the hell was he going to do? He could yell for Old Man Crazy Coot, but he was probably long gone by now. He could holler for the twins, of course. What a brainstorm that was. No. That was definitely out of the question. That would be admitting defeat. Presumably, there was only one way out, back the way he was headed, down the length of the corridor.

Dickie turned his back on the gate and returned to the shadows. The farther he ventured, the mustier and darker it became. After what seemed like a minute, he began to wonder if it ever ended.

His foot snagged a loose brick. He stumbled, falling to his hands and knees. He felt along the ground. It was frigid and fractured.

Dickie blindly reached ahead. It was a step! There were steps leading upwards!

Grateful he’d arrived at the end of the corridor, Dickie scrambled up the stairs. He reached the top and ran his hands along the door. He grasped the cold knob. He turned it as dread crept over him. He sighed when it opened with ease. He stepped across the threshold.

He scanned the cobwebbed room. It appeared to be a large foyer with a glimmering tile floor. Curious, Dickie crossed over to it. With a wide swipe of his foot, he cleared away a thick film of dust.

He furrowed his brow. He saw that the floor wasn’t tiled at all, rather covered with plates of glass. He wondered if Mr. Hauer was some kind of sick pervert who had used the reflection to look up skirts. Then Dickie realized he was the pervert with the sick imagination. After all, Mr. Hauer was banging paperboys.

A howl echoed throughout the room. Dickie shivered from head to toe. He prayed he was hearing things.

“Saul!”

Dickie whirled. He glanced at the shadows, certain something was lurking about. The entire room was vacant and unfurnished. His gaze settled on a doorway in the corner. The darkness seemed to waver. No. Fluctuate!

Dickie backpedaled and nearly lost his balance on the slippery glass. His back slammed against the wall. His heart raced. His brain told him to run like hell. The stairs! It’s the only way out!

A dark form emerged from the shadows. It slowly glided and wavered across the room.

Dickie’s instincts screamed, Run!

He made to dash for the stairs, but his feet slipped out from under him. He landed flat on his back with a grunt. He raised his head. The apparition continued to approach. It appeared to be a bride in a black wedding dress and matching veil. She was hunched over and inched forward.

Dickie stood. He looked up from his shoes and saw only black. The bride loomed over him. His legs turned to Jell-O and his knees ice caps. Her pungent perfume enveloped him, churning his stomach — concoction of rotten eggs and horseradish. Before he could think of holding his breath, a skeletal hand clutched him by the throat and lifted him off the floor. He flailed, but the ghost’s grip was relentless.

A glimmer caught his eye. He glanced down, and then instantly wished he hadn’t. A portion of glass had been cleared of dust. In the reflection was an entanglement of black snakes slithering in midair beneath the bride’s dress.

Saul, she moaned in a rasp.

Dickie’s wide eyes returned to his ghostly assailant. He saw only black — the shoulder-length veil tickled his face.

Kiss me, Saul! Raise the veil!

Mortified, Dickie pounded his fists on her head as he gasped for air. Her chokehold tightened, unfazed, as her nails pierced his skin.

Kiss me or die!

Neither option appealed to Dickie. He cursed his strong will. He didn’t want to die, especially in a haunted house, and he was clearly overpowered.

He reluctantly grasped the bottom of the veil. His hand trembled. His lips parted. He slowly raised the cloth. He grimaced at the sight of the bride’s hooked chin and dangling skin. He felt her icy breath against his fingertips. His hand shook uncontrollably. He inched the veil up, dreading the look of lust in her eyes and the tongue that would slither down his constricted throat.

A rattling sound shook the house. Dickie unveiled her pursed, crimson lips. Her toothless mouth dropped open. A black snake shot out from her throat. It was at Dickie’s tonsils before he could scream. His eyes rolled back as his mind drifted into a writhing void. His entire body quivered and felt as if his veins slithered. His temples throbbed rhythmically.

After what seemed like an hour of excruciating pain, the snake withdrew and Dickie collapsed. He clutched his head and screamed as a deafening hiss coursed through the room. There was no other sound, only hissing. Dickie’s mind reeled as if he was drunk. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see straight. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed clarity.

His eyes snapped open. He shrieked at the top of his lungs. The bride was gone and the entire floor was writhing with black snakes. They slithered down the stairs and coiled the banisters. They fell from the ceiling.

It’s all in my head, he told himself. It’s all in my head. None…of this…is real.

His eyes focused for a split second on the steps. I have to get to the stairs! It’s the only way out!

“No!” Dickie’s shout was swallowed by the symphony of snakes.

He fought the driving thoughts in his head. Something urged him to ascend the stairs. Something yearned for him to follow its lead.

He struggled to think straight. The house! It’s inside me!

The old man’s words of warning flooded him, “Enter it and it enters you.”

Dickie moaned. He gritted his teeth against the pain that pulsed in his brain. “I have to…get out of here!”

He turned as the snakes strove to entangle his legs. The room swayed. Dickie’s glassy eyes focused on the wall he’d backpedaled into earlier. He saw that he’d been leaning against a dusty window the size of a door. He stumbled toward it. His feet slipped on the glass and he slammed into the cobwebbed sill. He glanced down. The rattlers were slithering up his thighs. He wiped away the grime and peered outside.

Dickie couldn’t believe his eyes. Tibia and Tritt Tickle were rolling in the lawn, giggling maniacally. The same black snakes wriggled around them. Tritt spotted Dickie and pointed. The twins clutched their stomachs and laughed .

“Damn you!”

Dickie punched his fist through the glass.

The hisses and maracas faded. Dickie stared at his bloody hand. The drunkenness eased in his head. He looked to his thighs. The rattlesnakes were lapping at his crotch. He seized both of them by their throats and threw them aside. Their siblings slithered toward him. He took a few steps back and rammed the broken window with his shoulder. It shattered on impact and the shards rained down. He clambered over the sill, overjoyed to have escaped the house. He then stumbled to the ground as his equilibrium capsized.

He looked up. The sky was black as night. A loud screech echoed in the distance. Dickie clutched his head and howled.

He saw his Yugo passing by through a sea of snakes. Tibia and Tritt Tickle waved from the front seat, cackling. They tossed his duffel bag out the window. It landed at his feet and the magazines spilled forth. He stared in shock as the green machine disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

A thunderclap rocked the neighborhood. Dickie’s nightmare came into focus. He was certain he’d escaped the house, but such was not the case.

Rattlesnakes slithered everywhere — in the crabgrass and bordering lawns, on the rooftops across the street, and down the sidewalks. At the edge of the curb and the corner of the block, in fact, on every doorstep of the neighboring houses, and strolling through the writhing street were a hundred Mrs. Hauers, searching for Saul in her wedding dress and veil.

Want more from S.D. Hintz?

Why you most certainly can have it. All of his books are available on Amazon and the two I think look like particularly fun reads are Starvelings and Blood Orchard.

Thank you so much S.D. for sharing this story with us here on Horror Made! And thank you, my dear reader for visiting. <3

  There's always that 1 house in the neighborhood everyone fears. Maybe they should. #horror Today we have a special treat for you, it's a short story written by S.D. Hintz…

#Art #cautionary tale #ghost story #Guest Post #Haunted #Horror #Horror House #S.D. Hintz #Short Story

[tellusseries]

Character Short: Harry

It was hot. That was all Harry could think of as the Stormdancer landed gently in the docks of Cayn, Mericus. Hot, and scorchingly dry. He was surprised there was any wind to speak of, that the whole shipyard hadn’t just become another dead zone, but sure enough a warm breeze remained steady, making him feel like he was sat in an oven. 'Gods, how long do we have to stay here?' he complained to John as the pair of them went back below deck. Harry had only ever been to Mericus in the colder, wetter months before. He hadn’t been prepared for this.

'Two weeks, your Dad said,' the mechanic replied, chuckling. 'Lighten up, lad; you get used to it after a few days. Just don’t go outside while the sun’s high.' Harry grimaced; great. Two weeks in a foreign country and he’d probably be spending most of it inside. Still, he supposed, it wasn’t like they were on holiday. They had work to do. His Dad was looking to get a new supplier, something about a new fabric the Mericans were making that was light like cotton, but as hard to pierce as leather. Harry wouldn’t be too involved, as much as his father was trying to teach him the ways of the business now he was seventeen and a man grown. Truthfully, Harry didn’t care about fabric trading; he just wanted to fly.

They wandered into the control room, where their other mechanic Stan was stood leaning against the back of Jess’ pilot’s chair, laughing with the petite woman. 'All settled in, then?' Harry asked him, as Stan was the one currently on shift. The dark-haired man looked up, giving him a crooked smile.

'Oh, aye, she’s all powered down for the long stay. Go get your bags, lad.' They were staying in an inn for the duration of their stay; John said he wanted a break from having to cook for all of them, and the Stormdancer was long overdue a complete cool-down. Harry wondered if that was secretly the real reason they were staying so long.

'Yes, sir.' Harry turned on the heel of his boot, leaving the control room. His room was messy as always when he entered, but he ignored it, reaching into his wardrobe for the bag he’d already packed.

Pausing for a moment, Harry shrugged off his brown wool jacket, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt and shoving his sleeves up his elbows, tossing the jacket on the bed. If the heat was going to stand, he wouldn’t be needing it.

Shouldering his bag, Harry gave the room a quick once-over for anything he might have forgotten, checked his pocket watch, and upon realising that he was running late to his dad’s schedule — a cardinal sin on their ship — darted from the room, jogging back up to the control room. The entire crew had gathered by then, Harry being the last. No one scolded him; as the captain’s son, he was allowed a few liberties. 'Everyone sure they’ve got everything?' his dad asked, eyeing each of them. 'I’m locking her up behind us, if you’ve left something behind, you’ll have to make do without.'

'We know, Theo, you’ve told us a dozen times already,' Jess replied laughingly, tossing her curly auburn hair over her shoulder. 'Let’s just go, we still need to find somewhere to stay, and register for long-stay with the guards.' The entire crew grimaced at that; dealing with Anglyan guards at any dock, regardless of country, was always a nightmare. Harry didn’t know why Anglya didn’t just leave the rest of Tellus to it, rather than insisting they monitor every coming and going.

With John leading the way, the small crew made their way on deck, Harry braced for the rush of heat this time. He felt sorry for Jess, bundled in her tight corset and long ruffled skirts. She had to be sweltering. How did Merican women cope?

Easily treading the gangplank down to the concrete floor of the shipyard, Harry hoisted his bag further up his shoulder, waiting for instruction. 'Harry, lad, you can come with me to get registered. The rest of you, ask around for a decent place to stay. We’ll book a night and if it’s not what we’re after, look elsewhere tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I could kill for a decent lunch.' Harry nodded in agreement, his stomach rumbling.

'Meet back here in half an hour?' Stan queried, offering an arm to Jess. Harry made a face at having to do the boring paperwork part with his father, and John snorted.

'We can only hope we’ll be done by then, knowing this lot,' Harry grumbled under his breath.

'I heard that,' his Dad chided. 'All part of the family business, lad, so you’d better get used to it. We’ll meet you here whenever we’re done, so stay out of trouble.' Faced with three identical innocent expressions from his crew, the captain huffed, shaking his head and cuffing his son on the shoulder. 'Come on, lad.'

Harry obediently followed, running a hand through his dark brown hair as he felt sweat begin to bead on his brow. His father led him through the bustling crowd towards the guard’s office near the entrance to the shipyard, and Harry let his eyes wander as they walked. While they didn’t come often, he loved Mericus; the centre of Tellus, it was always full of people from every corner of the world. A melting pot of cultures, it made him smile to see dark-skinned Kasemans in their brightly patterned, flowing clothes stood talking to deathly-pale Siberene natives, squinting in the sunlight and looking deeply uncomfortable at wearing so few layers. He saw a pair of young Dalivian women practically skipping as they walked towards the city, and it made him smile. Mericus was the only place outside of Dalivia itself that people from the far-flung land could be regularly found; they avoided Kasem due to a grudge from the old wars, and anywhere else was too far for most Dalivians to travel. They kept to themselves for the most part, anyway. Harry had always dreamed of going to Dalivia, but they had no business reasons to, and his Dad rarely travelled somewhere without a purpose. When he was captain, Harry decided, he would take his crew all over Tellus, just so they could see it.

Snapping back to the present as his father knocked on the guard office door, Harry shoved his hands in his pockets, wishing he weren’t wearing leather trousers. He felt like his legs were being roasted. No wonder the Mericans had taken to inventing a lighter fabric to better suit working in heat. He wasn’t sure what Anglyans would do with it, but he didn’t doubt his Dad had a plan. He always had a plan.

As much as he knew he was supposed to pay attention to the guard and the registration papers, Harry couldn’t help his concentration wandering; he’d filled out papers a hundred times before, he knew how it went. He was hot, and tired, and hungry, and wanted to sit down and have a drink. He hoped the rest of the crew had some luck with finding an inn.

Finally, the papers were filed and everything was in order, and the pair left the office, stepping back out into the heat. It was starting to cool down a touch, though, as the sun got a little lower in the sky. Clearly they’d arrived at the exact time they were supposed to avoid being outside in. Typical.

The rest of the crew were waiting by the ship as promised when the father and son duo returned, and Harry’s shoulders relaxed at the smiles on their faces; they’d found an inn. 'There’s a great little family-run place a few streets over, apparently,' Jess relayed, her cheeks dimpling as she smiled, her fingers twined with Stan’s. Their relationship was still fairly new; still in what his Dad and John called the ‘honeymoon stage’. Harry was happy for them, they made a good pair. 'A fair few crews recommended it when we asked. Far enough away that it’s always got free rooms, but it’s definitely a shipyard inn. Service is good, too, so we’re told.'

'Sounds good to me,' the captain said with a shrug. 'Did you get directions?' One of Jess’ perfectly plucked eyebrows arched at the tall man.

'What kind of pilot do you take me for? Of course I got directions,' she retorted, making Stan snicker. The crew let Jess lead the way, Stan at her side, and Harry mused on how odd they must look; a group of tall, muscular men obediently following a dainty woman who was all of four foot eight and looked barely a day over eighteen. In reality she was twenty, Harry knew, but she definitely didn’t look her age. Shifting his bag onto his other shoulder as his back began to ache, Harry let his gaze wander again, wishing he had a hat or something to block the sun from his eyes. Maybe he should invest in one; he thought he’d look rather dashing in a hat.

As Jess has promised, the inn wasn’t too far out from the shipyard. It was a tall, sandy-coloured building, the front porch running right the way across the front of the building and shaded with a dark red awning. There was a rocking chair off to the left of the door, currently occupied by an elderly man smoking a cigarette. A bell rang as they opened the door, and Harry sighed in bliss as they stepped inside the cool building. A large fan was spinning on the ceiling, accounting for the drop in temperature. He could get used to that.

The inn was busy in the lunch run, but not too crowded, filled with low-level chatter and the occasional burst of laughter. It was quaint, decorated in a homey way with all sorts of knicknacks on display that made him wonder if the owner used to travel. Scratching at his cheek and making a mental note to shave that evening, Harry glanced over at the bar, and froze. Storms.

Behind the glossy bar-top were three young women, sisters by the looks of them. The elder two were exactly identical and looked to be around Jess’ age, while the youngest couldn’t have been older than Harry himself. And she was beautiful. Honey blonde hair in a long braid down her back, several loose strands framing her heart-shaped face. Crystal blue eyes sparkled with delight as she chatted with a customer, the colour enhanced by the pale blue of her dress. There was a smile on her face that had Harry’s stomach doing backflips, and her arms were bare to expose smooth, golden-toned skin, wrists adorned with several brightly coloured knotted bracelets.

'Lad? Lad? Harry! Storms, Theo, your boy is done for, gods help him.' The amused voice snapped Harry from his trance, making him realise he’d been stood staring for a good while, and John was waving a hand in front of his face. 'There we go! You back with us?'

'Yeah, I just— I was— Sorry,' Harry muttered, flushing. John snorted, grin widening.

'You were stargazing, that’s what you were doing! Which of those fine barmaids caught your eye, then?' Stan teased, his arm settling around Jess’ shoulders, though she barely came up to his chest.

'The one in the blue,' Harry admitted quietly, blush still fiercely present. His dad let out a low, approving whistle.

'Yes, I can see why, lad. Go on, then.' He shoved his son’s shoulder, making him stumble forward a step.

'What?'

'Go talk to her, lad!' the captain urged. 'See if they’ve any rooms free. Introduce yourself.'

'Remember your words,' Jess added helpfully, giggling. Harry shot her a dark look.

'Thanks, Jess. Great advice.' He turned back to his father, opening his mouth. 'I— you— do I have to?'

'Don’t be such a coward, Peanut!' John goaded, using the childhood nickname that Harry despised. That was one of the downsides of growing up on a skyship; when some members of the crew had known you since you were born, they knew just how to embarrass you. He was just glad Jess and Stan had only been around for a few years, and had missed his awkward childhood.

'Fine, fine!' he relented, squaring his shoulders and making for the bar, determination on his face. He almost chickened out, but a glance over his shoulder showed the entire crew watching his progress, and he knew he couldn’t. He would never live it down. Besides, he really wanted to talk to that girl.

Waiting until she was finished with the customer she was serving, Harry edged towards her section of the bar, clearing his throat nervously. 'Hi, uh. We’d like to stay here. I’d like to book some rooms. I mean my crew— my Dad’s crew!' The girl couldn’t quite hide her amusement, and Harry sighed, feeling his cheeks redden. 'I would like to book three rooms on behalf of my Dad’s crew, if you have any free,' he said eventually, a somewhat helpless expression on his face that made the girl laugh, the sound light and musical.

'Sure, we’ve got plenty free,' she informed him. Her accent was definitely Merican, but it was fairly neutral, as in a lot of people who spent most of their time around foreigners and travellers. She’d obviously grown up in the shipyard area; the inn was probably her parents’. 'What kinds would you like?'

'Two twins and a single, if possible,' he requested. He’d share with his father, Stan and John would share, and Jess would get her own room. The teenager couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before that would change, and Stan and Jess would start sharing instead.

'And would you like to make a payment for your entire stay upfront, or pay by the night?' The girl was polite, but the smile on her face gave Harry hope; or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

'By the night, thanks. Dad can settle up every morning, if that’s all right by you?' She nodded, turning to one of her older sisters, who was darker haired and taller, with her hair cut to her shoulders.

'Cora, can you go out back and tell Pa we’ve booked out five, seven and ten to a crew from Anglya, please?' she requested, turning to grab the three room keys off the board tacked to the wall. 'Paying by the night.'

'Tell him yourself,' Cora replied in annoyance, making frustration flicker across the younger sister’s face.

'Cora, please.' Cora huffed, rolling her eyes.

'Fine,' she muttered, her lilac skirts twirling as she turned to head through into the kitchen. The blonde girl smiled apologetically at Harry, and his heart skipped a beat.

'Sorry about her. Here are your keys, and breakfast and dinner are included in the price of rooms. You’re welcome to stay for lunch, too, but that’ll cost extra. I can show you to your rooms, if you’d like, sir?' she offered. Harry grinned, nodding.

'That would be great, yeah.' The girl smiled back, handing over the room keys before making her way in front of the bar. She came up to Harry’s shoulder just about, and he had the brief thought that she’d have to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him, making his cheeks flare pink.

'My crew are over here,' he stuttered, gesturing with one arm and leading the way to where he could see them waiting, Stan and John looking like they were about to burst from holding in their laughter. Harry mentally cursed; they were going to embarrass him, he knew it.

The captain offered a short bow to the girl, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. 'Pleasure to meet you, young lady. I’m Theo Kent, the captain of this crew and young Harry’s father.' She smiled, eyes flicking towards Harry, and the elder Kent paused. 'He didn’t introduce himself, did he?' he presumed knowingly. Harry wanted to swear; he’d completely forgotten to give her his name, or get hers! 'I promise I raised him with manners. He just forgets sometimes.'

'No, he didn’t,' the blue-eyed girl replied with a laugh. 'It’s fine. My name is Alice, this is my parents’ place. If you need anything during your stay here, feel free to ask me, or one of my sisters, Cora and Kayleigh. Cora is the one with shorter hair, and Kay always has a silver bracelet on, if you need help telling them apart,' she added helpfully, clearly used to people getting her twin sisters mixed up.

'I, uh, Harry Kent,' Harry mumbled in introduction, bowing jerkily as his father snickered.

'Pleased to meet you, Harry Kent,' she said, eyes bright as she smiled back. Hopefully she thought his fumbling charming, rather than idiotic. 'If you’ll all follow me, please.'

'So, Alice, you work here for your parents?' John asked curiously as she led the way towards a staircase in the back.

'Yes, sir,' she confirmed. 'I finished school a couple months back, now I’m here until I can find a better offer. Pa says it’s his dream come true having all his girls working with him, but even he can agree it’s getting a little crowded behind the bar with all three of us.' Harry listened intently to her words; if she’d just finished school, that made her sixteen or thereabouts. Only a year younger than him. Surely that was too good to be true.

'I can imagine,' Jess sympathised. 'I’ve got four big sisters, it’s kind of a nightmare when we all get together.' Alice winced.

'I thought the three of us were bad enough; five is crazy! But Kay’s sweetheart is looking like he’ll propose any day now, so she’ll probably be moving out soon,' she mused. 'Then it’ll just be me and Cora.' She didn’t look too thrilled about that, and from what Harry had seen of Cora’s attitude so far, he could understand why.

'And what about you; have a sweetheart waiting to sweep you off your feet and whisk you away?' the captain asked, making Harry blush brightly. He couldn’t believe his father was being so forward! Alice laughed, shaking her head.

'No, sir, no one like that.' Harry hated how much his heart jumped with hope at the admission, and Stan winked at him in an entirely unsubtle way. 'These are your rooms; number ten is the single, and seven and five are both twins. Bathrooms are at the end of the corridor, and towels are supplied in your rooms.' Harry passed the key to room ten over to Jess, and number seven’s key over to Stan.

'Would it be possible to get lunch for all of us?' Harry’s father asked. Alice smiled, nodding.

'Of course, sir. We’re serving chicken pot pie and greens today, if that suits?'

'Sounds brilliant, lass,' John enthused. 'Thank you.' Alice dropped into a brief curtsey, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

'I’ll get that sorted for you, it’ll be ready whenever you’re done settling in. Just shout if you need anything.' With that, she left, and Stan punched Harry playfully on the shoulder as soon as she was out of earshot.

'She’s single, lad! I’d say you’ve got a chance, the way she was smiling at you.' Harry raised his eyebrows, too surprised to be embarrassed.

'Really? You think?' he asked. He’d been too busy making sure his words came out in the right order to notice whether Alice was giving him any sort of smile.

'Aye,' John agreed. 'But you need to keep it together! You’re acting like a blushing schoolboy.'

'It’s adorable,' Jess agreed. 'But it won’t get you a date. Like I said, remember your words,' she added lightly, winking one green eye at him. He scowled, sure he’d had a permanent blush since entering the inn.

'Just go unpack,' he muttered petulantly, turning towards his own room and unlocking the door, trying to ignore the crew laughing at him.

****

By the time they were back downstairs, Harry had — for the most part — composed himself. Aided by a pep talk from his father, in which the man admitted he’d been much the same when courting Harry’s mother, Harry was determined to make conversation with Alice. They were only going to be in Mericus for two weeks, he didn’t have the time to be hesitant.

Unfortunately, it was Kayleigh who brought their lunch over, taking their drinks order. She seemed much nicer than her twin sister, but… she wasn’t Alice. 'Cheer up, lad,' Jess encouraged. 'She’s probably just busy with other orders. She’ll be back.' Harry sighed, tucking into his pie somewhat forlornly. It was spectacular, as they had been promised, but he could hardly pay attention to the taste, his eyes fixed on Alice as she charmed customers and delivered orders. Once or twice, a middle-aged man with short cut brown hair emerged from the kitchen to talk to one of the sisters, and Harry assumed it was their father. His presence made him more nervous than he was willing to admit. This was ridiculous! He’d talked to girls plenty before, why was this one so different?

He saw Alice starting to load up a drinks tray, and perked up when he realised it was theirs. She was coming back over! An elbow to his side made him grunt, and he glared at Stan. 'Play it calm, brat,' the mechanic muttered under his breath. 'You look like a puppy with its tail wagging and she’ll think you’re dense. You want her to be just as intrigued with you as you are with her, and that means taking it slow.'

'Bit rich coming from you,' Harry retorted. Stan had been the embodiment of a tail-wagging puppy from the moment he’d met Jess, finding any excuse to be in the control room while she flew.

'I had more time with Jess than you have with this one,' Stan pointed out. 'You need to make an impression.'

Harry couldn’t say anything more as Alice arrived, handing out their drinks with a smile on her face. 'How is everything?'

'It’s great, thank you,' Harry replied. 'So you said you’d just finished school, earlier. Not going for an apprenticeship in anything?' Girls doing apprenticeships was becoming more and more common these days, but some still preferred to just stay at home with their parents until they married. It wasn’t the smoothest line, but it made Alice’s smile widen, her cheeks dimpling.

'Oh, no. I’m not so much the scholarly type; the only thing I could see myself doing an apprenticeship in is hospitality, and after growing up here I don’t think I need to! Pa could sign me a certificate any day of the week,' she said brightly. 'How about you? Excuse me for saying so, but you look too old to be in school. You apprenticing with your Pa?'

'I never went to school in the first place,' Harry told her with a grin. 'Homeschooled on the ship, me. Dad signed me off as soon as I turned sixteen. I’ve been an official member of the crew for about eighteen months now.' Just in case Alice wanted to know how old he was.

'I’ll remember you said that next time you beg out of doing maintenance because ‘it’s Dad’s ship, not mine, I don’t work here!’,' Jess mocked.

'That was once!' Harry’s indignant tone drew a quiet laugh from Alice, who tucked her hair behind her ear once more.

'Being homeschooled on a skyship sounds wonderful,' she mused. 'I bet you got to see all kinds of things.'

'Far more interesting than school, at any rate!' Harry agreed. 'Dad says there’s no better lesson than experience. I could maybe tell you about it, if you’d like? When you’re not busy, of course.' Alice’s cheeks went pink under her golden tan, but she beamed wider, nodding.

'I would like that very much.' She took her tray, heading over to serve another table, and as Harry turned back to his food he noticed the rest of the crew staring at him, looking almost impressed.

'Not bad, brat,' Jess said with an approving nod. 'There may be hope for you yet.'

****

Harry was hardly able to believe it, but even after their lunch was long finished the crew were still at their table in the inn, and Alice was still talking to him. Between orders she would duck past their table to carry on their conversation, asking Harry about his travels and things while he asked her about growing up in Cayn. Having the rest of the crew there made it harder, as he was well aware of them listening to his every word as he tried his best to charm the pretty blonde girl, but he didn’t let it put him off, and they didn’t try and sabotage him. Much. There were more stories from his childhood revealed than he would have preferred, but it could have been worse.

They kept talking well into the dinner rush and even past it, going from talking about themselves to discussing anything and everything that came to mind, sometimes with the rest of the crew getting involved. Harry’s heart raced the entire time, so much so he worried he was going to give himself a heart attack. Every time he thought he had himself under control, Alice would laugh or smile and his stomach dropped out all over again.

'We’re off to bed, lad,' Stan declared as he and the rest of the crew got to their feet, clearly having been discussing that while Harry was too busy watching Alice pull pints. 'I assume you’re staying down here?'

'Uh, well,' Harry started, and the crew laughed, the captain ruffling his son’s hair.

'Don’t come in too late, lad, I don’t want you waking me up.' Harry nodded and the older man clapped him on the shoulder, bidding him goodnight. When he was alone at the table, Harry bit his lip, bravely rising and making his way towards the bar. There was a free stool near Alice’s section, and she looked up when he slid onto it, smiling.

'Been abandoned, huh?' she asked wryly, making him snort.

'Something like that. I’m not bothering you, am I?' The inn was getting less busy as the evening drew on, but there were still enough customers that Alice probably shouldn’t have been chatting to Harry so much.

'No, not at all!' she insisted, taking money for a man’s beer all while she looked at Harry. 'I’m just surprised you’re not bored of my chatter, is all.'

'Never,' he promised, smiling at the blush he brought to her cheeks. Maybe Jess had a point, about her liking him back.

Without either of them realising, they managed to talk all the way through to closing time, and were both laughing loudly when Cora came over and cleared her throat. 'Allie, Pa says you need to stop flirting and help do the dishes, it’s time to lock up.' Alice and Harry both turned scarlet at her words, and she smirked at them both, tossing her short hair and flouncing away into the kitchen. Harry checked his pocket watch, eyebrows shooting up at the time.

'Storms, it’s almost midnight!' he exclaimed. 'I’d better get to bed, or Dad’ll skin me for waking him up.'

'Oh! Yes, you should, it’s late,' Alice agreed, though she didn’t look happy about having to stop their conversation.

'I’ll, uh, see you at breakfast?' he asked hopefully. She nodded, twirling the end of her braid around her fingers.

'Of course. Will you guys be sticking around long, or…?' Her question was tentative, like she was afraid of the answer.

'Two weeks,' Harry told her, smiling when she immediately brightened.

'Great!' she enthused, before blushing. 'I mean, it’ll be nice to talk to you more. You’re interesting.'

'I very much look forward to talking to you some more, too,' he assured, daringly reaching over to take her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. 'But for now, goodnight.'

'Goodnight, Harry,' she replied, eyes looking even bluer next to her bright pink cheeks.

Harry turned away and made for the stairs, only glancing back once at Alice. He couldn’t shake the beaming grin from his lips, even when he slipped into the room he was sharing with his father, seeing the man sat up in bed with the lamp on and a book propped open. The captain glanced up at his son’s entry, rolling his eyes at the lovestruck expression Harry didn’t doubt he wore.

'I’m going to marry that girl,' the teenager declared dreamily, his tone certain. His father snorted, shaking his head.

'Sure you are, brat,' he placated. 'If you say so. Just get some sleep.' Harry shot his father an annoyed look; he wasn’t kidding. He was going to marry Alice, whatever it took. Now he just had two weeks to find out if she felt the same way.

#takebacktheskies #myposts