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hermitcreep · 2 years

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[NSFW] The Devil Coming Inside - Chapter 2 - FULL CHAPTER AFTER THE JU

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Pastor!Henry Creel

Summary: Since the events of the first service Eddie's started having crazy dreams. Could this be Pastor Creel's doing? The only truth that Eddie knew was that something was going on around Hawkins and he would bet anything that the creepy pastor was behind it all.

Word Count: 6,274

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CHAPTER 2: LEVITICUS

"The First Disciple will bear the Censer, the Perfumes and the Spices."* --Prostrate before his Master.

Imbued with the calamity of his ancestors man does not inherently know what is best for him. The heavy hand of the Master is intended to intrinsically lead man toward a desired fate--a fate that he will be manipulated into thinking is of his own creation, though it lay written in the lines etched into the palm of his Master. The Disciple is to the Master what the ache of sin is to man. The ability to move forward, the strength in conviction of that rising number. The tightness of groin and loss of breath enough to propel the Disciple into the ever comforting hands of his Master.

His master quenches his thirst and infects his body, offering him his blood in the form of the sweetest of wines. Partaking of his holy communion will allow a bond stronger than the blood itself, the Disciple taking his Master with them--throughout his dragging days and fitful nights.

The Disciple does exactly fear his Master, however that fear is but kindling for a greater love--one that can twist the heart and bring brilliance to fruition. Dark motive in the guise of unconditional love, frothing lion in the guise of docile sheep, perverse letch in the guise of righteous man, cunning devil in the guise of unassuming preacher.

Man does not fear the dog as he believes it to be domesticated, but with the skin of that dog pulled tight over the wired hair and dripping maw of a rabid wolf, man believes he is safe in its malevolent presence--and he couldn't be more wrong.

***** 19 Days Later, 6 Sermons Conducted ***** "Vayikra..."

"Ha--ah...Nn...S-sacrifice...Hnn...Ha--ha. Offering...flesh. A-ah, uhhnn....ha."

A single light born from darkness, illuminating a podium on which sat a bible. A hand reached from pitch black, cracking open the dusty book with a deafening sound. A fingertip parted the pages, spreading open bible verses, tracing the slit of the binding--the book and fingers recognizable; familiar. Beneath the finger red would pool, dripping from it and into a silver cup, filling it. As the deep red met the surface tension caused by its circular rim, it would force over, spilling down the sides.

Gasping. Jerking. Pulsing. Awake. Damp.

Dreams had been plaguing the messy haired youth for nearly three weeks, causing him upset and unrest like he had never felt. He was reminded of a strain of marijuana that made him more fidgety and a bit paranoid, one he had long since stopped smoking, but this was like that on steroids. Eddie awoke nightly with a start, sweating, his underwear often dampened. What the hell did all of this mean? Memories of the dreams had also gotten to him, flashing across his mind's eye as he tried to go about his normal days. He had begun to feel hopeless. Usually he remembered little to nothing of his dreams, but these were vivid--and they effected him more than he cared to admit.

The eucharist, hands all over his flesh, intangible bodies entwining, the dripping of blood and a sacrament. Why?

That communion had done a number on him--one that could not easily be undone.

Getting out of bed in the mornings had proven more difficult as time went on, Eddie finding himself fatigued by the dreams that riddled his sleeping mind. But he had to get up--he had school. As much as he would like to ditch and spend the day smoking to rid himself of the incessant thoughts of bible verses and raven colored hats, Eddie had to go, already having been reprimanded for missing far too many days as it were. On the bright side, it was Friday and that meant the weekend would soothe him soon enough. Eddie needed peace-- honestly, he felt like he was slowly losing his mind.

Dressed and sifting through the dingy cabinets of the trailer's modest kitchen area, Eddie tapped his ringed fingers upon the paneled wood frantically. His sporadic thoughts and inability to sit still had been much worse since he attended that church service and he felt absurd attributing it to that--but what else could it be? He bit his lip as he snatched a granola bar from the back, assuming the thing was probably stale and had passed expiry. Forcing himself to eat it, having lost his appetite long ago, Eddie headed for the door grabbing his keys along the way.

The school day started like any other, Eddie taking to roughhousing playfully with Dustin in lieu of breakfast, picking the boy up and hugging him tight. Mike looked on, holding his books and grinning at how the two played around. Their collective laughter made others stare, but Eddie didn't mind, just happy to be so close to them. His fun was short lived though as the bell brought them to class, which meant several distracted moments of staring out the window while the teacher spewed useless knowledge at them. Normally, the male would find himself focused on a bird or the passing student, but this time he focused on a large-trunked tree. One he was sure he hadn't noticed before.

The tree reached its fingertips to the sky with not a leaf among the branches, its roots doing the same, breaking the ground around it. Eddie tipped his head, wide doe eyes staring, endlessly focused as he ignored the urge to imagine faces in the knots and veins of the bark. The great tree seemed to loom, something about it causing Eddie to feel rather troubled, though he couldn't manage to look away. His eyes then observed a hand manifest on the bark, the fingers longer than that of an average human. Eddie's brows wrinkled as those fingers touched along the shape of the bark, the appendage the only thing in view.

Just as the hand gave way to an arm, a loud thud would break Eddie's focus as a book was dropped onto his desk. Flinching hard and snapping his vision forward, he would find the object that caused the noise--that thick, dusty old bible. The same one from his dreams. The one from Pastor Creel's hand. Mouth opening wide, Eddie felt his bones shake. Looking up, he saw nothing but darkness.

"WHAT THE FUCK--"

Hands shoved the bible from his desk and Eddie nearly flung himself from it, the blackness of the room breaking into normalcy, a scene of classmates staring and a teacher in confusion and disbelief. He must have dozed off. "Edward. Are you alright? That was quite the outburst." The teacher's calm voice came, though the murmurings of "freak" and "what a fucking weirdo" danced around him, falling from the lips of his peers. Eddie cleared his throat, swallowing back his fear as he shakily settled in his seat. Class continued, but Eddie didn't dare look out the window again, feeling as if the pastor was right on the other side of that glass, staring right at him with a dripping grin.

The moment that the school day was over, Eddie ran from the building without so much as a word to anyone. He didn't even wait after to say bye to the boys, which was uncharacteristic for the metalhead as they were pretty much his only friends. Hopping in his van, the engine would rumble and he would take off, dust in his wake as he sped out of the parking lot. His hands gripped the wheel and he didn't so much as look to his radio, riding in silence, eyes direct and jaw tensed.

---

The van came to a stop and found its engine silenced, though it would not be at home. Eddie's grip on the wheel only tightened, making a soft sound as he moved his fists back and forth in contemplation. "What the hell am I doing?" He asked himself, kicking the floorboard as he raised his head and his eyes came to rest on the facade of the church, the beckoning of the porch-light sickening him. "What am I doing here, man?" Eddie couldn't believe he had come here and he was unsure of what he thought he could accomplish in this accursed place--all he knew is that the pastor had done something to him and now his dreams were fucked up and he barely got any actual rest from sleep anymore.

"Come on. Come on, man. Come on. You can do this. He's just a guy. Come on. Fuck. FUCK."

The walk to the arched doorway of the church was a blur and when Eddie rapped upon it he felt immediate dismay and regret. Only a moment passed before the doors were opened; and Eddie felt his heart drop into his stomach as his eyes met those of a wolf. There he was. Henry didn't immediately greet Eddie though, turning his back to the male to stride towards the podium, turning back as he came close to it.

"Edward. Hello. How can I be of service?" Henry's words were even toned and controlled. There was something abnormally soft about the way he spoke, the sound seeming to blanket the area, touching you gently with intent.

"Stop." Eddie put up his hands in protest, the stitching and metal hanging from his jacket's sleeves moving this way and that in the air. "Just stop it, man." Eddie breathed out slowly, looking from Henry's feet to his face, "What did you do to me, huh? I can't get you out of my head since the other day." Eddie said outright, not wanting to beat around the bush. Maybe if he talked fast, he could get out of there even faster.

Henry might have chuckled, though the sound got stuck in his throat. Rolling his lip into his teeth, he would let his eyes examine Eddie's face, "Perhaps that is a sign from the Lord that you need me to guide you back toward the path of light. The path of--"

Eddie's face contorted, "Don't give me that. No. That's not it. I...I am having these dreams, man. They're fuc--" He was in a church. Regardless of how he felt, he wasn't a savage and understood respecting a space, "Ugh--they're messed up, okay?"

"Dreams." Henry began, knowing full well what was going on with the youth. It was his hands that had put them into Eddie's mind, after all. "Do these dreams tempt you toward sin...or toward the light?" Henry asked, moving from his spot towards the middle of the few stairs to the baptismal, standing where he had the Sunday Eddie had attended. Where he gave communion.

"Wha--" Eddie was confused as he watched Henry traverse the area, unsure of the man's motive or next move.

"Come, Edward. Kneel before me again. Allow my communion to fill you once more." He gestured at the stool, which had materialized before him from seemingly nowhere, "Come." Henry smiled, but it looked to Eddie to be the dripping maw of a hungry predator, beckoning prey to lay upon his tongue. It felt sick and made Eddie's skin crawl.

There was no way he was giving in to this. Slowly, Eddie would back out of the space, his eyes fixated on Henry. The man's expression didn't change, though he knew that Eddie was slipping out once again. His hands remained in a gesture towards the stool even as Eddie closed the doors to the place and bolted for his van, gone from the place once more.

What the actual fuck.

---

"Absolutely not, man." Eddie shook his head in disbelief, disturbing curled locks.

"Eddie, come on--" Wayne seemed slightly annoyed by the resistance that Eddie was giving him, his head tipped to the side and arms crossed. He couldn't understand why asking the boy to sacrifice a Sunday or two to attend church with him was such a big deal.

"No, I don't like that place." Eddie couldn't figure out why his uncle was so set on getting him back to that place. "I told you. One time and that's it." Eddie leaned against the counter in the kitchen, having put some distance between them when the man started talking about the church. "Why do you want me to go back?" Eddie asked. He knew Wayne didn't usually have this much conviction--had he been brainwashed?

It was true that Wayne wasn't one for religion, or believing in anything you couldn't see or touch for yourself; but something about Henry's sermons had really moved him. "Pastor Creel stopped me after the service today and asked me to bring you back. He thinks that God could do you a lot of good." Wayne nodded, putting himself between Eddie and the living area, a hand stabilizing itself on the dividing wall.

"I'm telling you I can't do it. I've got some shit going on and I--" Eddie shrugged, not really sure of how to explain what he felt. He couldn't just tell his uncle that he had been having nightmares about things related to the church and the pastor. That sounded insane.

"Eddie. I've never really had anything to believe in...and ever since you were young I felt guilty that I didn't do more for you. I could have really stood up for you, been like..." Wayne let out a breath, seeming very sincere and genuine in his words--Eddie could feel that. "Well, shit. I could have made sure you had something to give you faith in yourself, in life..."

"Uncle Wayne--" Eddie deflated, "Man, this isn't about that. Or you. It's just--"

"Just what? Just you're not Christian and going to church isn't 'cool'?" Wayne lifted both of his hands and stepped toward Eddie, gently touching his chest. "Come on. I need you to go back with me. It would...well, it would mean a lot." He patted the boy and Eddie broke.

"Fuck. Sorry. F--" How could he argue when the man may as well have literally been his father. He was so good to him when Eddie was nothing more than a nuisance. "Fine." Eddie had to face his fears for once. He breathed out through his nose and lifted his shoulders, hands in the air. "Fine, I'll go."

Wayne patted Eddie on the shoulder and nodded to him, giving a genuine smile, though it felt odd for Eddie to see. Nodding as well, Eddie pushed past Wayne with respect and headed for his room. He needed a smoke after that--it was going to be a long restless night.

---

The closing of that bible could have been heard across the quarry, awakening the banshee. Its pages met in whispers and Henry picked it up from its stand, holding it over his heart, heading toward the back of the church, to a red door just to the left of the baptismal. That door opened to a small hall with a second locked door at the end of it. A skeleton key, kept on a string around Henry's wrist, would be used to open it, the door allowing entrance to Henry's quarters. Entering, Henry would sit the bible upon a pedestal near the chair in which he sat in contemplation most evenings. Hat and sports coat pulled from him and placed in their appropriate hangings, Henry would move back toward the bible, opening it slowly. His eyes nearly glowed as they looked upon it, the verses revealed to him as they had been all those years ago.

"--Then He asked him, “What is your name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.".”

The congregation were but pigs in the eyes of Henry--this had been the information given to him. They were but a means to an end. They must drown themselves in the absolving waters of time. Henry would shepherd them to their deaths, a slaughter that would bring about power to Legion once more, an undoing of expulsion. A damning of souls to bring rise to a true god--one that would need a vessel; one with the eyes of a newborn fawn and a smile that could damn the masses.

"--and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea."

Henry sensed that Eddie would return to him at the time of the next service and he was pleased. The mind of the disciple but an extension of the master, Henry could see all that Eddie did and understood it well. Moving to the side, away from the podium, Henry would pour himself a glass of whiskey, the crystal glass welcoming the slosh of liquid. Fingers running over the bottle, where the words "Black Velvet" were transcribed, he would return the cap and move the bottle back to its rightful place. Stepping toward his chair, Henry would sit, his legs spreading--one hand resting on his knee, the other holding the crystal glass opposingly.

Henry sipped the whiskey, running his empty hand up the shape of his thigh, fingertips grazing damnable places--Eddie felt his head spin.

---

Arms crossed and fidgeting, Eddie found himself sitting upon the same pew he had a few weeks prior, his toe tapping as he chewed on the interior of his cheek. The place was full, more so than it had been the last time Eddie attended, and the swell of the space had him feeling claustrophobic for the first time in his life. "I can't believe I'm back here." He said in a loud whisper, though Dustin seemed to be the only person that heard.

"Chill out, man. It's fine. It's just church." He offered and it didn't comfort Eddie in the slightest--he may have even felt more bothered by the coddling.

Henry stood before the people once again and Eddie felt like he could throw up. Every encounter he had with the man left him with a bad taste in his mouth. It was as if he saw things that the other people in the congregation didn't. They kissed the ground he walked upon and Eddie just didn't get it. There was something about the man, something he was hiding, and it made Eddie feel like he was covered in spiders, their thin legs upsetting every follicle of his skin.

"You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. John 8:44."

The message nearly made Eddie laugh with how ridiculous it was. The man may as well have been talking about himself, because if there was anyone in that building that resembled the devil himself--it was Henry. Eddie was sure of that. He wasn't even sure he believed in the Christian devil, but by every definition of the word, Henry was it. The Devil.

Henry called for communion once more and there was absolutely no way that Eddie was going anywhere near it, though the congregation seemed to line up like little hungry birds, each with their mouths open to receive that nasty, metallic wine. Maybe it was the silver goblet, but the whole of the liquid tasted like iron. Eddie remained in his seat, thinking on this and the events of recent past, resigned to stay there until the close of the service. A yawn passed from him and he realized he needed sleep--a thought that was drowned out by the calamity of devotional whispering. It seemed to stretch on for hours.

When communion ended Eddie left the church without a word.

---

The Earth cracked open beneath the church, coal embers and smoke blooming amidst the thick smell of ash and sulphur. The squealing of pigs danced through the air, the scent of burning flesh an undertone to the very whipping of air as it surrounded Eddie. Staring at the church, he found himself wondering how he had not fallen into the fiery pit beneath him--how was he still standing on a pathless terrain?

Beckoned, the metalhead denounced reason and headed toward the church, finding comfort in the cool surface of the steps once his feet found them, guiding him through the doors at the front; upon which held the depiction of seals in what looked like blackened blood--their origin unknown to Eddie.

Inside, the church was cold and damp like a cellar, the sound of whispering filling the space, echoing as it bounced off of the walls. The pews were gone, the place nothing more than an endless black room with no furnishings and no congregation. The only thing being Henry in the center, that same accursed stool at his feet. He wore the same sickening smile, his hands gesturing as they had the day Eddie had confronted him.

Eddie couldn't stop his feet from moving. It was as if he had no control over his own body, which was forcing itself forward. He screamed behind the wall of his own mind, thrashed to stop what he knew was inevitable in that moment. Outwardly, there would be no sound. He was going to kneel. He was always going to kneel.

The moment Eddie's knees hit the floor, the room fell silent, no whispers to be heard. Looking up at Henry, the man's eyes were bright and his teeth sharp as they bore themselves at Eddie through a disgusting grin. Hands found Eddie's chin and lifted his head up, guiding his lips and mouth to open. Eyes slowly closing, Eddie would feel the liquid hit his tongue and he would swallow it with fervor, as if it were the only sustenance he could ever need.

A heat filled him and Eddie cried in shame behind closed lids as he found himself unable to stop the hungry suckling of that cup's rim. As it was taken from him, he licked his lips and opened his eyes, his bleary vision coming to focus on open palms, which held white cloth. As he reached for it, he heard the bone-chilling screams of the herd. They cried for help, begged to be saved from damnation. They could not breathe. They were drowning. His fingertips touched the fabric and he felt every emotion of the dying congregation, his eyes welling with tears. Upon the white fabric, the seal appeared again, this time surfacing in bloodstains which grew as if they were supplied from the wound itself.

"What is your name?"

Soiled fabric. Sobbing mother. Hanged father.

"Eddie Munson."

Tormented youth. Pained eyes of the fallen. Adversary.

"No longer."

Bleating. Squealing. Begging.

Come. Come.

--- ***** 14 Days Later, 8 Sermons Conducted *****

The dreams were getting worse. So much worse. Eddie had made himself stay up most nights, hoping that the less sleep he got, the less he would dream--but that tended to backfire. The lack of sleep made him irritable and caused his focus issues to magnify, making school that much more infuriating--but he had to go just to get out of the house. He needed something to keep him occupied.

Part of him wanted to go back to the church and confront Henry again--but the larger part of him wanted to run away.

It was Friday again, and this time he made sure to talk to Dustin and Mike at lunch. Maybe he needed advice or perhaps he thought that talking it out might shed some light on what was going on. It didn't matter--what mattered was that he had to figure something out or he was going to end up in a padded cell.

"Nightmares?" Dustin asked between bites of food, "That's why you're acting so weird?" He nodded, thinking on how the male had acted the last few weeks and the times he had seen him at church. Eddie was an oddball for sure, but lately more so.

"Yeah, you look like shit, dude. You should get some sleep." Mike added in, eyes on a small mountain of potatoes he had been crafting into a lopsided castle.

"Don't you think I would if I could?" Eddie said, tapping his hands on the table. He had barely touched his food and found it nauseating to think of eating in the first place, "I can't sleep because I'm afraid to dream...and then when I do dream, it's all fucked up, man, it's--" He ran a hand through the front of his hair, grazing his temples, at his wit's end, "It's just...messed up."

"I know you said they're bad, but like...are they scary?" Dustin asked, tipping his head in the older male's direction, imagining demons and ghouls.

"That's not it. They're..." Eddie gestured wildly, "Ugh. They're like religious, right?" He said, shifting a bit in his seat, moving his fingers around on the table, "And they have scary shit that happens in them, but its like...hidden in mystery. You know?"

"Yeah, that sounds really weird." Dustin and Mike said in tandem.

"--and they're also--" Eddie started, then stopped, shaking his head.

"Also what, dude?" Mike said, Dustin looking on curiously.

Eddie leaned forward slightly, whispering, "They're also wet dreams." He said, not wanting the entire cafeteria to hear what he was saying, though the other boys leaning in to listen did draw a bit of attention from the other tables--the bulk of them chocking it up to the boys just being weirdos.

Mike nearly choked, Dustin laughed. Mike gave a wiggle of his finger, "Wait. You mean you--"

"Yeah. Hard. Every time. It's like nothing I've ever experienced before." Eddie inhaled through his nose and leaned back, "And that makes it almost worse, you know?" He let his head fall slightly toward his right shoulder, "Like...why does it happen?"

"I don't know, man...that's kind of--" Mike shook his head and paused.

"Fucked up? Yeah." Eddie added, chewing his cheek a bit in contemplation. What the fuck was he going to do?

Classes after lunch drug on and after a while, Eddie began to feel as if he was currently in a dream state, walking about in a blurred haze. The talking of other students seemed to drown itself out into a dense hum, breaking into the tolling of a grandfather clock. He heard it in the hallway before first bell, and again between his last two classes. There weren't any clocks in the school that he knew of.

During his last class he nearly fell asleep, but kicked himself awake at the last moment. Every meeting of his lashes had him afraid that he was going to drift away--that he would find himself in that same hell-scape, running from himself and the inevitable entwining with Pastor Creel as he had so many nights previous. When the bell tolled, he was thankful, and headed toward the exterior of the school and to his van.

"Eddie, wait up." Dustin called from a ways away, waving the older male down before rushing over to him.

Eddie gestured to his van, "Oh, hey man. I gotta go, I--"

"Yeah, whatever, man." Dustin removed a hand from the strap of his backpack to wave off whatever Eddie was about to say, "I was thinking you should go talk to Pastor Creel again."

Eddie was shocked and he wrinkled his brows, shaking his head, "No. I don't think that's the ri--"

"Listen. He's a man of god or whatever, so maybe if you tell him what's going on with you, he will have an answer." Dustin said as if it should have been the most obvious answer. He didn't understand that Eddie had already tried that and it had failed miserably.

The older male reeled, unsure, "I don't know if--"

"Hey." Dustin started, leaning over to touch Eddie's arm, "Just give it a shot." It was obvious that Dustin thought that Eddie was overreacting, and there was something in the touch of his arm that made Eddie feel like maybe the younger boy was right. This was all so ridiculous. After all, what had Pastor Creel done to personally cause Eddie distress? --Other than insisting he take communion.

Maybe he wanted to save Eddie's soul.

Right? Right. Riiiiiiiiight.

---

It was not until the squeak of his brakes and shift into park signaled his arrival that Eddie even realized he had driven to the church. Punching the steering wheel, he cursed himself for being here again, sure it would just end as it had the other times he had come into contact with the pastor and this place--Eddie would just run away. "Fuck."

Kicking up dirt as he walked to the stairs of the church's front before taking them in stride, he would find the doors open, welcoming him into the sanctuary. The sunset caused an orange and pink light to be cast upon the place, the color bleeding up the step and across the first few pews, covering them. Eddie pushed his fists into his jacket pockets as he entered, eyes falling upon Henry after a moment--the man leaning down to test the water of the baptismal, just having finished dusting.

"Hey!" Eddie shouted at Henry, breaking the silence. It was not that he sounded particularly annoyed or angry, but that his fear and insecurity pushed him to overact.

"Yes. Hello again, Edward." Henry moved to stand, stepping down the few stairs, closing the space between them a bit, "Come to accuse me of getting inside your head again?" His hand rested atop his chest, the white of his top stretching over that lithe form, eyes direct.

"Shutup." Eddie waved a hand, "Look, I'm having nightmares. Is there anything in your book there about why--or how I can get rid of them?" He pointed at the bible and Henry smirked.

"Nightmares? Hm. Sounds like a guilty conscience." Henry moved his tongue along his teeth and Eddie shivered.

Clearing his throat, Eddie shifted on his heels, "No, I--"

"You know, dreams come to us as metaphors...or things with a deeper meaning." Henry began, taking a few steps closer to Eddie. His head tipped, blonde locks shifting against high cheekbones.

"What deeper meaning could there be to communion and squealing pigs?" He asked, not feeling confident enough to look Henry in the eyes, so he settled for the bridge of the man's nose.

"All that acts as a pig should be slaughtered as one." Henry whispered.

Eddie wrinkled his brows, "What?"

"Nothing." Henry shrugged it off. "Perhaps the things you speak of are...representative of yourself in that...you have something to confess. To give witness."

"I don't know what that means." Eddie said, a hand rubbing at his neck. Suddenly he felt very hot.

"It means you need to give up your sins and suffering. Confess them and be absolved in the eyes of the lord." Henry explained, gesturing behind him.

"Yeah, I'm not really--" Eddie said, stepping back.

"Come." Henry said, closing the gap further, walking Eddie back toward a pew.

"No, really." Eddie protested, feeling a sudden tightness in his abdomen, a chattering of damnation in his groin. Why?

"Come." Henry repeated, now fully close to Eddie, the young male having bumped into the pew.

"Okay. Okay." Eddie said with a shaky breath. It couldn't be worse than this.

Henry seemed endlessly pleased and turned on his heel, leading Eddie back toward the baptismal. Eddie felt the same tenseness in his skull as he had in the last dream he'd had, as if he was screaming behind his eyes to stop, to leave. He felt though, in that moment, if he had rushed out, Henry might have chased him down; something so much more predatory in the man during this meeting. Circumventing the baptismal, he took Eddie through the door on the right of it; Henry having used the same skeleton key at his wrist to unlock it.

Inside, the room was dark, the only light centered on a large confessional box in the center of the room. It was a dark wood, with two doors on the front, the one on the right for the priest and the left for the sinner. Eddie immediately recognized what the box was, but he thought it out of place. Weren't those boxes inherently catholic? Shaking his head, he felt a sudden fear like that of stage-fright. Surely Henry didn't expect him to confess or something.

The two sides of the box were presumably identical, though Henry approached the sinner's side and opened it for Eddie. Therein there was a small bench topped with a velvet cushion, a light bulb in the ceiling of it that illuminated the small space, and not much else, save the partition with the metal mesh door through which the priest could see, hear and absolve the sinner. Eddie approached and took a step in curiously, entering the space fully after a moment. The closing click of the door had Eddie turn and he would find himself face to face with Henry who had entered after him.

Why hadn't he gotten in the other side? He was so close to him. Not a breath had room to pass between them.

"Pastor Creel, I--"

The crashing of their lips silenced Eddie and he struggled against the man who put his weight against him. Eddie put his hands up against Henry, who drug his lips from Eddie's to the male's jaw and neck, the whole of it causing Eddie to tip his head back and moan raggedly. What the fuck was happening? Eddie was sure he was more confused now than he had ever been.

Stone. Pulsing.

Henry's hands explored Eddie's front and stole the very breath from his lips, finding the object of their desire already needy and aching. Sneering, Henry pulled slightly back, admiring the shape with long, dexterous digits. Eddie's head fell to the side as he breathed hot and ragged. His eyes focused on the partition and he swore he saw a silhouette, though it must have been his restless mind playing tricks on him.

Sharp claws at the opposite side of the partition. An almost skeletal face. Undulating veins and tendrils.

A low hiss. The toll of a grandfather clock.

Leaning forward once more, Henry would kiss down Eddie's front, paying attention to the way that the male arched and shifted under him. Eddie was no longer struggling, the pleasure in his mind ebbing away the fear, covering it over. Working the handcuff buckle of that belt open, Henry made fast work of a zipper, pushing down blue patterned boxers to bring forth the heated, curved girth that pulsed proudly against the open air.

Each of Eddie's heartbeats struck the center of that cock, causing it to bob feverously, engorged and alluring. This is what nations fell for--what they killed their kin and raped their lands for. Henry salivated at the sight and reached into his pocket, bringing forth a small bottle with a cross etched into the side. Eddie watched as Henry opened the spouted bottle and drenched that cock in holy water, whispering all the while.

Cock bathed in absolution, it gave hefty, thick twitches, and found home in the palm of the pastor's hand. Henry stroked that aching spire, lips touching the tip softly, whispering verse after verse against the weeping cockhead. Eddie arched over Henry, his hand gripping blonde hair, ringed fingers tight, the light catching the pig's head on his knuckle. His head tipped back and he fought the urge to thrust into that hand.

The sounds that drew from Eddie were not an angel's chorus, but a demon's symphony. Henry stroked faster and Eddie's head tipped further. His eyes tightly shut as he felt himself climbing the mounting pleasure, his cup filling to the brim. Unseen to Eddie, steam surfaced from the flesh that worked over that cock, causing a heated friction that only spurred the younger male further.

Above Eddie, the light begins to brighten, pulsing in tandem. Henry breathed damnation onto the tip of that cock, causing Eddie to groan louder, his pleasure twisting tightly until it would break, a storm of sound signaling his arrival. He came undone with vicious force, his eyes snapping open, their color gone, nothing but a white void in their place--connected with the light above him. Blackened veins briefly danced over his tensed jaw before disappearing back beneath his flesh. The guttural noise that left Eddie only culminated in the splatter of sinful cum that coated Henry's lips and hand.

He has come.

"Legion, for we are many." Henry whispered against that waning girth as he licked the fluid from it.

Several blinks brought the color back to Eddie's eyes and he suddenly felt ill. This was worse than any dream he'd had and he felt as if his heart might burst. Filthy. Vile. What was happening to him? Struggling to get free from Henry, he managed to shove past him, nearly tripping on his pants as he stumbled out of the confessional. He pulled his pants up along the way, though his belt was still undone even as he left the room.

Gasping for air, Eddie burst into the night, breaking free of the place. Henry wouldn't hear the van from where he was, but he would sense that Eddie had gone.

Having moved to the seat of the confessional, Henry leaned back against the wall of it, wiping his lips idly. Inhaling, he would revel in his own aching, dragging his eyes to the light above him. Lips spreading into a devious grin, the light would vibrate with energy--growing brighter and brighter until it was snubbed, as if it was blown.

The room was black now--the tolling of a clock filling the pregnant darkness with dense sound.

[End of Chapter 2]

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aroundfortwayne · 2 years

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Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Matthew Sutter to retire in July

New Post has been published on https://aroundfortwayne.com/news/2022/04/19/allen-county-health-commissioner-dr-matthew-sutter-to-retire-in-july/

Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Matthew Sutter to retire in July

Today, Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Matthew Sutter announced plans to retire from public service later this year.

#ACDH Administrator Mindy Waldron #ACDH Allen County Department of Health #Adams County Health Network #Allen County Board of Commissioners #Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Matthew Sutter #citizen square #COVID-19 pandemic #COVID-19 Public Health Emergency #Dr. William Pond #Fort Wayne Indiana #Indiana University #IU Health Fort Wayne #PUFW Purdue University Fort Wayne #St. Joseph Township Fire Department #TRAA Three Rivers Ambulance Authority

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gamma-xi-delta · 2 years

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youtube

Alpha Phi | Saint Joseph's University 2022

Published by Kyle Schmidt

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itmeblog · 3 months

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It's Black History Month

(Over here in the US of A) So here are some podcasts to check out.

Absolutely no Adventures - a fantasy (un)adventure story that follows Sig, the owner of Signature Eats bakery, as he aggressively avoids becoming embroiled in any daring quests or chosen one shenanigans even though the universe really seems to want him to do just that. This is a story about cutting Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey off at the knees to chill with friends and staying far, far away from the slightest whiff of adventure. And also baking. This is also a story about baking.

Afflicted - Lovecraft Country meets True Blood in this new series from award-winning producers Tonia Ransom and Jen Zink. In season one, a small East Texas town suffers supernatural disasters caused by a demonic book bound in human flesh…and only hoodoo can save the town from its affliction.

Apollyon - In the early 22nd century, the Apollyon virus wiped out 75% of the world’s population, and now most of the world is governed by the International Conglomerate of Research Scientists. Dr. Theo Ramsey is an ICRS research scientist who may have just discovered an effective vaccine for Apollyon, but the stakes to get the vaccine to the public are higher than she ever imagined.

Between Heartbeats - Tan immersive Urban Fantasy about the hurt, the powerful, and their growth within a broken world. We follow Sundiata, a guilt-ridden time manipulator with a knack for unemployment, and Nadia, a moralistic telepath determined not to lose control, as they balance frayed mental health against an unsympathetic police state. But when a malevolent presence rears is head, their neuroses become the least of their problems. Can our heroes make the most of their abilities before the option is taken from them?

Fan Wars: The Empire Claps Back - Two passionate Star Wars fans on opposite sides of the Last Jedi debate argue via Skype after their favorite forum closes down. If you love Star Wars (or call yourself a proud member of any fandom), you’ll love this romantic comedy told via

Harlem Queen - a Black historical fiction audio drama based on the life and times of Black, woman, "gangster" Madame Stephanie St. Clair during the Harlem Renaissance.

His Royal Fakin' Highness - What if Ophelia helped Hamlet get his throne back? This modern day, romantic comedy re-imagining of Shakespeare's Hamlet asks just that. As they stage an engagement in the wake of the king's death, these childhood frenemies must decide between duty and love.

InCo (This one's mine :D) - A Sci-Fi story about a disgruntled information seller, a mysterious space boy, and an android doing her best.

Janus Descending - a limited series, science fiction/horror audio drama podcast, follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place.

Lady Lucy - Lady Lucy is an audio drama inspired by Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" Sonnets, 127-154. Between running her brothel, fighting the Church, murdering her friends' abusive husbands, and pretending to be a poet, the last thing Lucy needed back in 1586 was a surprise visit from her former flame... Will Shakespeare.

Liars and Leeches - Tonya Wright felt it all after the tragic murders of her sister and brother-in-law in a random act of gun violence. Struggling to travel outside of her home, she now lives constantly on edge about perceived threats that seem to surround her.

Nightlight - Multi-award winning horror podcast featuring creepy stories with full audio production written by Black writers and performed by Black actors. So scary it’ll make you want to leave your night light on.

Null /Void - a science fiction audio drama about a young woman, Piper Lee, whose life is saved by a mysterious voice named Adelaide. Piper soon uncovers a malicious plot by a monopoly of a tech company and must work with her friends and an unusual ally to help foil their deadly plot.

Out of Ashes - (currently remastering season 1) Follow a group of survivors as they navigate the ruins of modern civilization and battle against demons, ghosts, monsters and the looming threat of extinction from an ancient power.

Small Victories - A recently recovered drug addict tries to start her new lease on life, too bad life has it out for her. This dramatic comedy follows Marisol through the ups and downs of her life.

The Courtship of Mona Mae - In the 1870s, pioneers Mona Mae Christophe and Zekial Montgomery search the American West for Mona Mae's mother, Clara. Mona must recall a past, long forgotten in order to survive, so that she can find her mother, love and create a way of life for herself.

Vega a Sci-Fi Adventure Podcast - In a fantasy futuristic world, Vega Rex is employed by her government to kill off the world's worst criminals. She's never met a criminal she couldn't catch…until now. Join Vega as she journeys through a world of bumbling apprentices, powerful technogods, and her biggest challenge yet. Hosted by Ivuoma Hall.

Witchever Path - is an anthology series where your decisions effect the story. Our stories are based in America’s NorthEast, featuring characters finding themselves in the thick of the unknown while tackling issues like queer identity, gender, race, and spirituality. Stories often focus on the communities not typically seen in stories taking place in New England, and giving voice to the perspectives of those communities while uniting under some universal themes. And the supernatural happens. A lot.

(All descriptions were taken from websites)

If you want to find more and there are way more there's a directory :D

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reportwire · 2 years

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Notre Dame adds ‘daughters’ to iconic fight song

The iconic Notre Dame Victory March song finally officially says “daughters”Image: Getty Images It’s official — 50 years after Notre Dame welcomed the first cadre of female undergraduate students to its campus in 1972, the university has officially changed the fight song, Victory March, to reflect the addition of women. Can listen to it here. Only took five decades (kind of). The line “while her…

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#Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities #Deadspin #Education #Fight song #Geography of Indiana #Indiana #National Register of Historic Places in St. Joseph County #Notre Dame Fighting Irish #Notre-Dame #Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend #St. Joseph County #University of Notre Dame #Victory March

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batboyblog · 18 days

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My Super Gay/Queer Reading List

The Long Run by James Acker

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Another Dimension of Us by Mike Albo

Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak

Alan Cole Is Not a Coward by Eric Bell

Alan Cole Doesn’t Dance by Eric Bell

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

Felix Yz by Lisa Bunker

Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron

Dragging Mason County by Curtis Campbell

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Carry the Ocean by Heidi Cullinan

The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich

Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Wild by Sally Green

Half Lost by Sally Green

Heartbreak Boys by Simon James Green

Gay Club by Simon James Green

You’re the One That I Want by Simon James Green

We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra

Totally Joe by James Howe

After School Activities by Dirk Hunter

At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson

A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly Straight by Jeff Jacobson

Haffling by Caleb James

The Lightning-Struck Heart by T.J. Klune

A Destiny of Dragons by T.J. Klune

The Consumption of Magic by T.J. Klune

A Wish Upon the Stars by T.J. Klune

The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune

Flash Fire by T.J. Klune

Heat Wave by T.J. Klune

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

The Bridge by Bill Konigsberg

Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

Every Day by David Levithan

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Ryan and Avery by David Levithan

How to Repair a Mechanical Heart by J.C. Lillis

Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell by Tobias Madden

When Ryan Came Back by Devon McCormack

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Fraternity by Andy Mientus

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller

Hero by Perry Moore

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

More Than This by Patrick Ness

Junior Hero Blues by J.K. Pendragon

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

When Everything Feels Like the Movies by Raziel Reid

Kens by Raziel Reid

Emmett by Lev A.C. Rosen

Jack of Hearts by Lev A.C. Rosen

Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez

Rainbow High by Alex Sanchez

Rainbow Road by Alex Sanchez

So Hard to Say by Alex Sanchez

The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

All Kinds of Other by James Sie

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Freak Show by James St. James

Ray of Sunlight by Brynn Stein

The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis

366 Days by Kiyoshi Tanaka

The Language of Seabirds by Will Taylor

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas

Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

Spin Me Right Round by David Valdes

Always the Almost by Edward Underhill

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Tumblr got rid of yellow so I couldn't do pride colors, sorry!

If you want help picking something out just send me an ask with what kind of thing you're looking for and I'll select something for you, and if you end up reading something because you saw this list, please let me know

#books #reading #book list #gay books #queer books #queer lit #red white and royal blue #love simon #Carry On

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smallcollegebasketball · 1 year

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Small College Basketball Tidbits

As we approach Christmas, I simply wanted to jot down some interesting observations and notes from the first several weeks of the season. In no particular order, here goes:

- Langston is a remarkable story. Last year, the Lions went 1-27. After the season, Coach Chris Wright was hired as the new Head Coach, after leading Talladega to the NAIA National Championship game. Langston overhauled the roster, and is now 13-0 on the season. Just incredible!

- After Emporia State knocked off #1 ranked Northwest Missouri State, the Hornets have now defeated NW MO State in three consecutive games. Last year - in a season when NW MO State won their record-setting 3rd consecutive NCAA Division II National Championship, Emporia State swept the Bearcats in two regular season games. Congratulations to Coach Craig Doty, who has won two NJCAA National Championships and an NAIA National Championship in his young career.

- Last season, Young Harris was 6-21. Thus far this season, the Mountain Lions are 10-0 thus far. Congratulations to Coach Jeremy Currier and the Young Harris team.

- The University of St. Joseph is an incredible story in NCAA Division III basketball. In only their fourth year as a basketball program - started by Coach Jim Calhoun - the Blue Jays are now the #1 ranked team in NCAA Division III basketball. Now led by Coach Glen Miller, St. Joseph is now 9-0. Coach Glen Miller has the unique distinction of leading two different NCAA Division III teams to the #1 ranking in Division III basketball (he also lead Connecticut College to the top spot during the 1988-89 season. Coach Miller has also been the Head Coach at two different Ivy League schools: Penn & Brown.

- Randolph-Macon, who won the 2022 NCAA Division III National Championship, has now won a remarkable 53 straight home games. Incredible!

#Randolph-Macon #University of St. Joseph #Young Harris #Emporia State #Langston #Chris Wright #Jeremy Currier

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2kmps · 4 days

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BOUNTY

hot outlaw x engineer!reader | 2.8k

story summary; shortly following the death of your mother, you come to learn that you're the illegitimate offspring of a railroad tycoon with insurmountable wealth and power meant to inherit it all. after a hasty departure from home to begin your journey across the continent of san-am, your train is stopped and boarded by a mysterious man in black tatters who claims to be there kill you.

story warnings; mentions of death, mention of bodily fluids and excrement, heavy worldbuilding, mentions of conspiracy to murder, kidnapping, neo-western setting, old-west slang used, usage of unique slang, not really proofread or edited, concept piece for a much larger project.

if you enjoyed, please interact & reblog this post!! ❣️

Mother died a week before the lawyer showed up on your doorstep with an inheritance letter and half-hearted condolences for your absentee father’s poor prognosis. A day after that, your life was stowed into a pair of suitcases and a heavier hard case that you barely justified bringing aboard the train. In three weeks and three layovers, you would be across the continent in St. Corpus, the industrial heart of San-Am, where your father awaited you on his deathbed.

Horace Grissom had fathered a new age of industry and outward expansion in lands once believed to be sprawling metropolises centuries long gone. They had been left behind as skeletons of steel and rust from a time of global war, reclaimed in totality by the roots of elder trees, the decay of salt and sea, the precarious will of mountains, and the great sinkholes and corrosion of sand and time.

Traces of that old world had survived thanks in part to the rigorous efforts of archaeologists and conservationists at the University of San-Am in Grimerise. With each new discovery, opportunistic vultures like your father blotted their pens to their tongues to their pocketbooks and readied themselves to own the patent of it like history had a price and could only belong to them. Indeed, anything could be bought, because with those fragments of history, he built the San-Am Continental Railroad which crossed through each of the five territories and was considered the premier way to travel.

You were never allowed to ask questions about Horace under Mother’s roof as the very mention of his name would set her ablaze in some pettish, garrulous tantrum that, oftentimes, ended with you going to bed before dusk without dinner until the next day. She loved that bitterness up until the very moment she died, clawing your clothes, your skin, her nightgown, her own throat because she couldn't breathe and there was nothing you could do to save her from succumbing.

“Go in peace, Mother.” you said, kissing the back of her sun-speckled hand even as she tried digging her nails into your face. “I love you.”

She did not waste peacefully, nor did she end by staring up rapturously at the ceiling as though something else waited for her beyond it. Mother passed in blood, vomit, excrement, and all her hatred while you bade her farewell and considered who was best to call to have her body carted away to burn with all the others that had also succumbed that day. You made sure to label that as the cause of death on the official paperwork.

After that, you had made quick work of piling all of her things into boxes to be incinerated as well, certified the house was safe and in a liveable state (besides her old mattress, which was the first thing you disposed of because of the smell) for another family to move into.

Once all of that had been finished and you gained the time to rest, you got a knock at your door, a bald, sinewy man with a round hat claiming to be Joseph Whitwald—estate planning lawyer, he made sure to specify more than once—and that you needed to leave post haste to your father's estate in St. Corpus before he perished.

“You have significant placement in his will, illegitimate or not. This is what he wanted, this is what shall be done,” said Whitwald assuredly as he rooted through the pockets of his pants and white suit vest for something. He found it and made a sound and a flourish, revealing to you a red ticket. “Take this. It's for one of the elite cabins in first class. Your father wanted you to have the best amenities that the San-Am Continental has to offer.”

Even with such luxuries available to you with the sound of a bell on string, you eventually found yourself exchanging tickets with a young woman traveling solo for the first time. She went red in the eyes, asserted her appreciation, and scooped you into a hug before taking the ticket and her belongings to the first car.

The passenger car was considerably noisier with children running amok, drunks and musicians belting tunes while dancing in the center aisle—doing poorly to keep their balance as the train navigated the terrain beneath the rails, and ladies in bustles and fashionable blouses screaming like hens over fresh gossip. The stewards were frustrated that they couldn't get their trolleys through all the bodies, whereas some passengers let their stomachs roar through their mouths as they assailed anyone nearby (especially the poor lads just trying to deliver food) with complaints.

You liked everything happening around you; it was a good distraction from the way life had twisted your arm behind your back. The cacophony of laughter and anger felt like home, a comfortable companion to sit there with you on the empty, thinly padded benches while you stared uselessly at the inheritance papers—uncomprehending.

A gasp shot up your throat and made you bite your tongue as you were launched forward onto the adjacent bench (also empty) when the train suddenly began to slow—brakes engaged with such quickness that the wood beams under your feet vibrated up through your soles into your bones and teeth and skull until you became lightheaded and collapsed back into your seat.

The squeal and grind of steel worsened your confusion, turned the fuzz in your head into dull drumming—aches that pulsed to a beat you couldn't figure out, but it deadened the screams all around you and bodies hitting the floorboards in thunderous heaps.

And then, there was silence.

The other passengers kept their voices low as they climbed back into their seats, children were smothered deep into their mother’s bosoms as they wept, and no one dared to investigate what had brought the train to such a violent stop.

“Mummy, what's happening?” asked a girl from the benches behind you. She couldn't have been older than ten, from the sound of her. “Mummy, why—”

“Lottie!” the mother hissed at her daughter, “Shhh! Say nothing else, child.”

From a few seats away, closer to the front, you recognized the gruff, muddled voice from one of the drunkards who had been dancing in the aisle a while ago. Now, he had a bloody nose and a nasty knot growing on his forehead.

“What the hell is the big idea of them scarin’ the piss outta us like this? Do you see my face? They gonna do somethin’ to fix it?” he complained, then swigged liquor from a flask he had smuggled on. “I should go up there and give ‘em a piece of my mind. Bastards.”

“Peace, friend,” soothed a musician with an unfamiliar accent and stringed instrument. “Don't be hasty. I'm sure there’s a good reason why they had to stop. Let them find a solution, we’re just here for the ride.”

Just as the chatter was rising up again, commotion from the first class car stifled it hard, prompting some folks to abandon their seats near the door separating the cars to crowd into the rear. You were tempted to flee with them, join their pack so if they were going to find a way off the train, you'd be mixed up in their stampede and have a better chance to get away.

Except, you simply packed away your inheritance paperwork and sat there with your chin tucked to the collarbone, the visor of your baseball cap pulled lower over your sunglasses to seem as nondescript as possible. Meanwhile, the sounds from first class grew intense; glass shattered, passengers screamed and shuffled around, something you knew to be true because you felt the floor rumble under your feet again.

And then, the passenger car door slid open without the ferocity you had expected. The door scraped along its metal rail, allowing the body to pass through in heavy, languid steps. You paced your breaths to hear it all; the boots and clinking spurs striking wood with dull thuds, a baritone hum that you were convinced you could feel reverberate in your own chest as it came closer, the scuff of thick fabric and creaking leather.

You waited for it all to pass, to move on like a slow-moving rain cloud amidst a humid summer day, but it stopped at you instead. The tips of the man's boots were within view, as were slithers of tattered, black fabric from a long duster that fell short of his shins.

And then, there was the barrel of a gun. The breaths you had been holding shivered out of you, cold dread sank deep into your stomach and bones as the gun flicked upward a few times.

You obeyed and raised your head up to look at the man—tall, broad-shouldered, a rugged face with dark features mostly obscured by the shadow of his wide rim.

He tilted his head, gun higher as he flicked it down and you understood that to mean to take off your sunglasses. When you did so, offering him a full view of your face, his lips lifted crookedly into a half-smile.

“Well then,” he took the bench adjacent to you before holding something up to your head, seemingly a piece of paper, and shifted his gaze between you and it just twice. “Aren't you something special? Found you, darlin’.”

“What?” you frowned. “Found me?”

“Yeah, the resemblance is uncanny. You're definitely his kid. It's all in the eyes, really.” He said, turning the paper around to reveal a photograph of a man who you did share an eerie likeness to. It was the sameness in the eyes—the color and shape and emotion they evoked through a simple still image. “Horace Grissom had an illegitimate kid a long time ago. Turns out, not everyone is so pleased for that to become public knowledge. Turns out, someone wants you to bite the ground.”

“I've done nothing wrong!” you bristled.

He settled on the bench and hiked an arm up across the back of it. “That's usually how it goes, hun. Puttin’ holes in types like you really ain't my favorite thing to do. You'd be surprised how many people get put in your exact situation. Well, eh, not quite. ‘Cause not everyone is Horace Grissom’s kid.”

“Who hired you?” you demanded.

His lopsided smile remained. “Can't tell you that, darlin’. Confidentiality an’ all that.”

“So, then, you're a bounty hunter?” At this point, you weren't sure if you were trying to stave off an inevitability, or he had just riled you up that badly. “How much are you getting?”

“Enough to live the high-life for quite a while, I'd say.” He continued, “but I ain't no bounty hunter. Them folks gotta play by rulebooks an’ a bunch of codes and whatever. Not my thing.”

“A criminal, then,” you said. “An outlaw.”

He shifted the rim of his hat away from his eyes and leaned towards a pillar of golden, midmorning sunlight that came in through the window. “Sure, if that's what'll make you feel better about this entire thing.”

You could actually see him now—the contrast between the ambery hue in his rich complexion and pale green of his eyes. His skin had some weather to it, enough to prove that he had seen the worst of every season for years on end without it wearing him thin, along with thoroughly kempt hair on his face and loose waves that draped slightly beyond his shoulders.

“I…” the longer he stared at you, the less you were able to think. That was ridiculous considering you had survived the soul-crushing burden of engineering school and all of the personalities therein. “I can offer you something better than what you were hired for.”

He did a fast sweep of the colossal heaps of fabric hanging from your frame, a style you preferred to keep eyes off of you on the best and worst of days. It didn't do much to deter him as it did others.

“Oh, yeah? Whaddya got, hun?”

You lifted your shoulders and stacked your bones right. “I've got a vast inheritance that I'm not interested in. Horace is dying and I’m in his will to receive half his properties, along with his shares in the San-Am Continental Railway and Subsidiaries. If you can get me to St. Corpus, you can have the inheritance—every last gris.”

A shrill whistle echoed around your head, tuneful and mocking. The sound of it whittled your confidence back down to nothing, filling the space of your throat with a vise that you couldn't seem to swallow around. That same great unease you had felt before weaseled around in your chest, coiled your ribs and then plunged straight down into your gut.

“Good offer, but it ain't on the table.” The way he spoke was easy and slow, a thick drawl that suited every bit of him up to even now. He acted as though he weren't essentially holding a gun to your head, threatening your life in the name of money—or something else. “Gris is always good to have lyin’ around, but, honey, it don't really mean a lot to a man like me. Why, then, d’ya think I take on work like this? Why do ya think I trek halfway across the five territories time and time again? What really keeps a man goin’ out here in this godforsaken place?”

You felt yourself shrink in your seat as he leaned forward over his thighs, coming closer still like he had a secret to keep. “It's for the thrill. The hunt. The challenge of it all. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't actively seek out men to shoot or… nice types like you, but part of the fun is trackin’ down, the other part is just havin’ a chat—just like this.”

Then, he had the picture of Horace held out to you between two fingers. “Tell ya what, I see that hard case you brought aboard. I know what it is, but I want you to offer me somethin’ more interesting than a bunch of gris.”

You scrunched the photograph against your palm once you had it, hoping the sweat off your skin would ruin his face and make the ink run, but looked to the aforementioned hard case instead.

It was made of a hard plastic shell with strips of rubber outlining the odd shape of the thing. Inside was your handheld welding gun—one of many—that you had decided to bring along for little reason besides thinking it could be of use at some point during your time away. It wouldn't be enough to handle larger jobs such as the ones you were accustomed to in the workshop back in Grimerise, but it could fix a wagon or two, glue some pipes together, and do some damage if need be.

“C’mon, darlin’, sell yourself to me.” he pressed, gesturing his impatience with winding fingers. “What do you do for a living, huh?”

“I'm an engineer,” you continued hastily, “I-I can solder, weld, braze, cut, and saw. I can do anything if I have the right equipment.”

In turn, he asked, “Does that mean you can cut open a safe?”

“If you give me what I need, I can do anything.” you said.

A new sort of look overcame his features, one of great fondness and admiration that made the green of his eyes take on the milky luster of jade. You had the hope that this unique softness would gain you freedom from a shallow, empty death; a chance to go forward to seize the assets sworn to you by a man you'd never known.

His hands came forward to take your wrists, the weight of them first heavy and then cold as a pair of handcuffs were locked around you, knocking bone when you lunged back into your seat and fought against them.

“I've got myself quite boon!” In the next moment, he had hauled you up across his shoulder, retrieved both your suitcases, and called one of the stewards to carry your welding gun after him. “Time to go. Gotta introduce you to the crew and get ya settled in.”

“Wait, I don't even know your name!” you shouted and thrashed from shoulder.

He grinned. “Jericho, darlin’.”

a/n: so, this is a concept piece to a very large neo-western project I'm currently in the process of outlining and fleshing out. most things mentioned in this little oneshot will not be present in the final piece, the quality will, of course, be substantially better.

jericho is an outlaw with an extremely complex background story and will definitely be one of the more interesting characters I've ever written. he's not necessarily the sort of man you want entangled in your life, but he's loyal to a fault once you have his trust. his personality tends to revolve around "taking things as they come", which is a great nuisance to those around him. he likes a good challenge, strong liquor, and good medicine.

here's a brief glossary if you're interested:

san-am: the continent where events take place. no one knows what it used to be called because most historical documents have been lost. it's divided into five territories with a "capital".

grimerise: the central hub of commerce, home of the governing bodies. it's a large city dead center of the other four territories. mc was born and raised there. the university of san-am is also here.

st. corpus: the industrial heart of san-am, found down south near the seaboard. mc's father lives there.

"gris": currency in this world. its components are coins and bank notes. it is a relatively new thing to come about because the bartering system is still the preferred method of trading.

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precious-little-scoundrel · 6 months

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As Requested: The Birth of Jesse and Ella

From the Sarge and lil Mama Universe

Warnings: pretty darn fluffy and sweet with the exception of descriptions of birth and labor, along with what might be considered disturbing inclusions of period typical insensitivity towards women’s wishes during labor and mention of a husband stitch

Word Count: 5k…a blurb was requested, well, uh, sorry about that

With excerpts from:

October, 1958 Memphis

Birth was awful, Elaine had always heard it, been cautioned of it, had the warning dumped like ice water on her motherly ambitions. You want a lotta kids? -just wait till you have to push a single one out. Elaine had expected it to hurt worse than anything she ever imagined but somehow, she thought it would feel more natural than this.

The pain was terrifyingly foreign and without a single cessation to get on top of it, the contractions put broken bones and smashed flesh to shame, and the helpless urge to do something was a floundering and aimless desperation that filled her with anxiety so strong she could barely breathe from it. The nurse cupping the gas mask to her face smiled down assuringly and Elaine hated her for it, the gal was so sure all would be well when everything in Elaine’s body rebelled against the drugged misery, the flat back, stirrup strapped contortion the doctor had locked her body in and left her at.

She thought it would at least feel natural. Like pulling a tooth. Like taking a man. Like all the other painful rites of passage that women surmounted generation after generation.

But now, near puking from pain and cuffed like a psych prisoner to the bed, no distraction save the flicker off the fluorescent bulbs above her, Elaine felt a wrongness and a betrayal she never expected.

She’d been so agreeable to going to the hospital, never thought otherwise. The army had been accommodating enough to let them return to Memphis and everything, and here she lay giving birth in the same ward she was born in. It should have been sweet. She had assumed it would be and it had been non negotiable with Elvis, things were to be done properly for his babies, and she had no comparison to cause her to object.

Elvis lost his brother in a twin birth, a home birth, and nearly his mama too. Things had to be done properly. What else was his money for?

Elaine hadn’t thought to object. What else was there? Primitive squatting in the woods somewhere? She was a decent, suburban girl, she had passed through a successive graduation of establishments throughout her life, preschools and proms and community services and now she was at St. Joseph’s pushing out her first child in a condoned, sterile, proper facility. Elvis, cheated of such all American properness by his upbringing, often praised her teasingly for being “such an upstandin’ lil citizen”.

Somehow the pride didn’t manage to fill her this time. Just the wrongness of it all. She tried to think of Elvis in those first hours, how anxious he must be having been kept out of the room, how happy she’d make him by presenting two healthy children at the end of her feminine ordeal. She refused to accept the thought for anything going wrong. Women were made for this, and she had assumed a miraculous sort of sustenance and wisdom were given them during.

Laying rigid and wracked with pain on scratchy white sheets -Elaine had never felt so alone, not a shred of Divine motivation or husbandly encouragement left in her exhausted heart. Becoming frantic as the ordeal wore on, she found herself begging for some assurance, more than those spinster nurses and bored physicians could provide her. She begged for her mama, she begged for Dodger who had told her they’d do nothing more than torture her “in that big ole place.”

No visitors are allowed, Mrs. Presley -she was denied each time.

Dodger, as usual, had been right. And Elaine demanded she be let in. She was sure that her husband and his grandma had stayed in the waiting room, they weren’t far.

Bring Minnie Mae in -she was Elaine Presley, wife of Memphis’ own Elvis Presley, and if they denied her she’d ruin their hospital's name.

Bring her Dodger, she needed Dodger.

Dodger came in, in low, slung-back heels and a dress that was fashionable three decades ago, wrinkled bony hands and thin, hard set mouth. Elaine thought she’d seen an Angel.

“What do you want?” Dodger grunted down at her.

Elaine whimpered and shook her head, entirely unsure, she’d just wanted comfort or direction. “I thought you’d know what to do.” she explained in a wheeze.

“You push ‘em out.”

“I can’t.” Elaine sobbed, she physically didn’t feel capable of doing anything but enduring. She really had thought she’d be able to participate in her own delivery.

“What’s gonna make ya?” Dodger asked.

“I can’t do anything like this.” Elaine cried, yanking at her restraints.

“Wanna stand up?”

Elaine was startled at the suggestion and through the fog of pain and gas it sounded like a rebellion of sorts. She hesitated. “Maybe.”

“You ever shit layin’ down?” Dodger put it ever so delicately in clearer, enlightening terms. “No one can ‘nless they got the runs. Baby’s head ain’t no runs, get up.”

Dodger had yanked the straps off and threatened to use the forceps on the objecting nurse. She stood Elaine up with a yank to the girl's arms and spun her round till she was facing the bed, feet spread apart and hands on the bed, head hanging low and her back heaving in breaths now the position allowed her to breath. She’d taken Elvis this way a hundred times, nothing to it -you just hang your head and tilt your hips and breathe through it till the cock didn’t feel so big.

This she knew. “Ok, ok, it is better.” she agreed even as a scream tore out of her at the burning stretch down below.

That stretch had been Jesse’s head, although in the midst of agony and Bureaucratic chaos, Elaine didn’t know anything beyond fiery stretching and a gush down her legs. His little noggin almost hit the floor he slid out so lanky and tiny, no sooner had she register a modicum of relief from passing her first child than the doctor berated her.

“Almost hit his head, this is why we labor in beds.” he had said and she could have gnawed his balding head off his scrawny neck for using the word “we” when he’d never felt or ever would feel what she had just endured. “She’s torn, a lot actually, going to be a mess to clean up later but I guess it will help the next one.”

They took Jesse and they wiped him clean as his first cries sounded somewhere behind his mama, Dodger’s hand still pressed firmly to her lower back as Ella used his newfound vacancy to make an effort herself. Elaine struggled and twisted, trying to catch sight of her son.

“I want my baby.” she gasped, “Y’all give me my baby.” she stood straight with an effort that even Dodger tried to prevent. “I want my baby!”

“You can’t hold him now-“

“Give him to me-“

“Elaine honey,” Dodger shushed as gently as the old bird knew how, “you’re too weak, can’t push and hold. Let ‘em put him on the bed. Put him there, right in front of ya, yeah, that’s it, so you can see him. Just do it, ya pinstriped idiot, it’s her kid, ain’t it?”

When the nurse laid Jesse down on the sheets, he was a dark haired, swaddled little thing in a bloody towel. Tiny but not so shrimpy for a twin, he was red and purple all over with the puffiest little face and the juiciest little lips and a tiny nose and eyes that squinted shut in tears. His cord was still attached to her, hanging off the bed between her legs, the tether not yet cut. Elaine felt it to be the specialist moment in the world, that one right then.

Oh it’s an unaccountable thing, that rush of gratitude and relief when your first born is laid on you. Violent love surges after it, quick as a tidal wave, as a tiny hand still covered in your blood pats your skin to learn you from the outside this time, the only person who’s ever done it opposite from all others. It's immeasurable the strength that frail little being gives you, to push once more, to bring out another life after it, a twin to reunite the Trinity.

“My son” Elaine acknowledged the gift through the agony, her sweaty forehead against his fuzzy one, watching his brave little face take in the lights and sounds and pain of this life she’d given him with a wonder that steeled her as she braced and pushed again.

Ella was easier, in the way someone at the brink of their worst feels no exacerbation of their agony. It was every bit as bad and every bit as tiring, doubly so with one already done, but this time Jesse lay there with an oxygen cannula taped to his fuzzy cheek and watched his mama huff and grimace above him, her hips cradled by Dodger’s boney hands, and in between the increasing spams, Elaine gasped adorations and babbled welcomes to him. After a short time Jesse snoozed in his little cacoon, and his peacefulness was more calming than any breath coaching the staff could give her. She matched her breaths to the rise and fall of his tiny chest and soon enough when she felt between her legs, there was the furry little head of his sister.

This time the doctor was prepared and had a nurse knelt to catch Elvis’ Presley second child. Little Ella came out the opposite of Jesse, no trouble at all with her petite head but a decent belly and buttox in the little girl gave Elaine a brief bit of grief before she popped out entirely.

Ella may have been caught in the safe hands of a registered nurse but Elaine had no such luck. No sooner was the rush over and her impediments pushed out of her body than she staggered backwards and landed flat on the floor, her legs giving out. Dodger’s shins caught the back of her head and saved her from splitting her skull on the tile but it was a brutal jarring nonetheless and it cemented a terrified horror where Elaine felt that she was entirely neglected in a room full of people sworn to help her.

Dodger, bless her, cursed up a storm at the accident and knelt beside the poor girl, doing her best to gather Elaine up as blood and fluids gushed freely between her legs.

Elaine felt like sobbing. Soon she fully was and remained so as the Doctor and two nurses hefted her onto the bed as gingerly as they could, profusely apologizing to Mr. Presley’s new wife. Jesse was placed on her chest and Ella, after having the cord snipped and washed, bundled and had her foot stamped, was brought over, too. Elaine laid there on her back again, eighteen hours after she had first begun and did her best to hold them as the sugar crash and blood loss made her teeth chatter and limbs tremble.

“A healthy five pounds both of them,” the doctor beamed with the satisfaction of a man who had accomplished a hard day’s work, “although the boy has a couple points on the girl.”

They were perfect, they were positively perfect, that’s what Elaine tried her best to focus on as her bearings came back to her and tiredness drug her limbs down. They were perfect and they were here. “Dodger,” she addressed Grandma in a thin voice, not even bothering to send her request to the staff, “would you go tell Elvis they’re here? Tell him they’re perfect.”

“He can’t come in yet, dear!” The head nurse protested, knowing the mulish young man would be forcing entry as soon as he heard.

“Why not? It’s over.” Elaine sighed.

“We’ve got to clean you up!” The nurse was scandalized, “He mustn’t see you all disheveled like this, it can very negatively effect a man, seeing his wife rumpled and brutalized by the birthing process. It's ended some marriages.” She warned and then added, “And you must be stitched first.”

“Then could we please -do it?” Elaine asked, “I’d like to see my husband and I’d like him not to worry any longer.”

“Y’all clean her up,” Dodger motioned, “and I’ll go fetch him.”

They were applying ice towels to her swollen eyes to reduce the evidence of weeping when she left. They sat Elaine up and they checked her pulse and blood pressure and her temperature. All was well, or as well as could be hoped. All except down south with her house, Elaine chewed her lip anxiously and clutched little Jesse harder for comfort as the doctor inspected her, rather like Elvis had done when proposing. Except Elvis was always so tender and he worked his touches up from gentle to firm, never went right in and spread torn petals apart without a care. Elaine bit her lip and figured she’d been awful enough to the staff, harsh and stubborn, a rebel in so many ways and now her ordeal was over, it would be best to resume the proper attitude she’d been taught.

So she was meek, and she was obliging and grateful, and she tiredly agreed when the doctor said she’d need stitches, the same as any other tear to the flesh. And when, lamp beaming at her nether regions and needle in hand, the doctor told her he was going to add one extra little stitch for her husband's enjoyment, Elaine assumed it was a medical formality. After all, he didn’t ask if he could, he said he was going to, and doctors only do what doctors must. She had her babies now, and anything required to have more must be done.

Sat up on stitched and taut flesh, pillows stuffed behind her back and her face scrubbed into immaculate freshness, Elaine put on her widest smile for Elvis, not a hard thing to do with the gifts in her arms. It turned fully genuine as her man burst through the door only to stall and moderate his intensity the minute he realized he had arrived. Elvis looked bewildered, eyes wide as saucers and his long legs stumbling to a halt as the door thudded behind him in Vernon’s face, assessing every bit of equipment inside and potential threat before his eyes landed on the bed that held his new family.

Elaine could hear his intake of breath from across the room and her grin now threatened to split her face.

“Those our babies?” he asked hoarsely with a shaking finger, not making a single move to come closer. Like this whole ordeal had him so shaken he didn’t know which way was up or down.

“Yeah baby, they’re ours.” Elaine had to force her smile closed to talk, marveling at his timidity, the awed look on his face and the reverent little shakes coursing up his body like he was about to go up Mount Sinai and meet God. “Come meet your children, Elvis.” she whispered, framing it in a way she hoped would remind him he too belonged in this room, he was head of them all, their protector, their provider and perhaps most importantly, the architect of the dream that brought them into being. “They wanna meet their daddy, keep lookin’ around and fussing like they know someone’s missing.”

He gave her a look of reproof for fibbing to spare his feelings before one of the babies came to their mother’s rescue and let out a pitiful, newborn wail. Elvis flinched at the sound, drawing back into himself for a brief moment before the cry was repeated and his instinct to soothe dominated his tentative fear.

“See, I told you!” Elaine grinned as she pulled down the blanket little Jesse was swaddled in and showed his puckered face.

Slowly, with light footfalls and a hand running along the bed for support, Elvis drew closer until he was beside them and Elaine saw his face light up with more overwhelmed joy than she’d ever seen on him before, just as his eyes filled with tears in an instant.

“Oh Laney,” he put his hand to his mouth unsteadily, “you done good mamas.”

She did her best to scoot her legs over without wincing and nodded to the vacated little space on the bed. “C’mon Elvis, they don’t bite. Not yet.” she whispered, casting a glance at the nurse who was peddling soundlessly in the far corner, back turned and utterly discreet, waiting if she were needed at any moment.

“I’m jus’ worried ‘bout breakin’ ‘em.” he confessed, gingerly sitting down beside her, his eyes never wavering in their metronome bounce from one child to the next and back. “They’re so little, so fragile lookin’ and -a-and they’re so pink, baby, look how pinks and fluffy they is.” Elaine thought his wide-eyed, rosebud mouthed awe was rather identical to the faces he was admiring and understood his shock, pretty things take the wind out of you. “I-I-I was so damn scared of touchin’ you, you’re so lil and gentle a-a-and they’re even littler!”

“I’ve never seen a more tender man, you’ve got fingers so delicate they could undo a knot in silk thread.” Elaine disagreed, “You should feel their cheeks, even softer than they look.”

Elvis swallowed hard, screwing up his courage before he raised his hand from where it had been wiping sweat off on his pants and brought it dried and shaking to gently run along the curve of Ella’s tiny face.

He little out a little gasping laugh. “Angels, they’re gen-u-ine angels.” He pronounced softly after rubbing his forefinger along Jesse’s tiny nose. “Ain’t nothin’ made me happier than I am right this minute.” he realized and Elaine’s heart clenched in gratification for the success of all her labor. “God took away one, gave me three back.” he huffed in a breath and realizing he needed a handkerchief, pulled his hand back, looking around in the white sheets like one would appear. The kindly nurse took pity and brought one over wordlessly, Elvis was a little shocked to find her present, not registering her existence in the room before, (as was she to meet Elvis Presley wordlessly with a proffered tissue) but he took it gratefully.

“Would you like to hold one of them, Mr. Presley?” she asked after having given Elaine some water as Elvis still sat where he’d perched himself and stared like he was looking into a portal.

“C’mon daddy.” Elaine whispered, nudging his stiff leg with her foot, “they wanna meet their daddy.”

Elaine suggested Jesse be the one as he’d eaten most recently while Ella was having some trouble latching. The nurse took Jesse from his warm little cocoon at Elaine’s side, and brought him around the bed to his daddy, who carefully formed a cradle with his arms and the nurse deposited his son there.

“Yeah, give me my boy.” Elvis nodded through parched lips and shuddered as he felt the tiny weight of his child settle in his arms, tiny head cradled to his chest. “Hey buddy,” he whispered, head reared back and expression a little frozen, like he was either holding something very dangerous or something very good that could be taken back at anytime, “sorry bout all the racket in there.” he referred to his pounding heart right beneath Jesse’s pink ear, “S’just that I’m so glad to meet you. Been waitin’ so long.”

Elaine watched them happily, exhaustion and satisfaction turning her complex feelings into the most rudimentary emotions and thoughts. “We made these.” she marveled and thought she heard the nurse titter for a moment, “Does everyone say that?” She asked her with a laugh.

“Not uncommon.” The woman agreed bashfully, “Me and my man did. Couldn’t stop saying it.”

“Absolute miracle.” Elvis protested, growing bold enough the thumb as Jesse’s cheek as he held him, “We made ‘em alright, strangest thing, the way I’m holdin’ something that’s half me and half you!”

“Made duplicates just in case.” Elaine added her joke and they both laughed.

“Sweet Jesus I think he just cracked a smile.” Elvis’ laugh was suddenly cut short as he wheezed in fascination.

“Babies usually don’t smile until much later.“ the nurse soothed gently but Elvis interrupted with an adamant-

“-well it appears that my son is extra smart, ma’am.” He grinned down at his boy with an immense amount of pride at his good humor which reminded him of his pride in Elaine and his eyes flitted up to hers and locked there. “You know I love you, Tink, but I-I-I- d-don’t think you’ve got the vaguest notion h-h-how grateful I am to you right this minute. You’re makin’ dreams come true like a goddamn fairy. I-I-I can’t say enough I-I don’t got words for it I just -I’d die for you, girl, and you and our babies ain’t ever gonna want for nothin’, I swear it.”

Elaine had never trusted another human being more in her life than she trusted this young man sat on her bed, about as young and lost as herself but so determined that she hadn’t a single choice or doubt except to believe him.

Ella began to fuss and the nurse asked if she wanted to try feeding again, no doubt the baby girl was hungry and Elaine agreed. “Here, Mr. Presley, I’ll take the little boy so you can go.” she helpfully held out her arms but Elvis clutched his precious bundle like she was gonna take him permanently. Elaine was reminded of a story Miss Gladys used to tell her about baby Elvis and a prized sack of bananas.

“I-I-I don’t wanna give him.” Elvis settled for this moderate expression of his sentiments on the subject.

“But sir -your wife needs to nurse. I'm sure they’ll extend the visiting hours for you, no need to worry on that account.”

“Oh I’m not leavin’ for that ma’am.” he clarified breezily, “I hold eatin’ in mighty high regard and I’d like to see to it my daughter finds her footin’ in it, ya see.”

“But-“ the nurse was rather astounded at this simple logic and in torn loyalties she turned back to Mrs. Presley in concern “-wouldn’t you like some privacy, ma’am? We’ll have to…uncover you.”

Elaine looked at her a little puzzled before assuring softly, “I don’t mind, he’s seen me before.”

The nurse colored at this modest statement that spoke so much and Elvis wasn’t sure if she was taken aback at their comfortableness around each other or at the suggestion of The Elvis Presley and his little wife making babies. Half the nation were obsessed with what they did behind closed doors and Elvis eyed her suspiciously lest she turn into some sorta fascinated personage. She didn’t though, she allowed Jesse to remain with his father and, rather more delicately than necessary, helped Elaine with Ella’s latching.

There had been dribbles of milk that Elvis had seen before Elaine gave birth, but it was nothing like the profusion that poured out now, so much sustenance that Ella’s tiny throat made great gulping sounds as she drank. Elvis, much to the nurse’s horror, was fascinated by it and soon found his old boldness, scooting himself up till he was sat beside Elaine in the narrow bed and could support her elbow while watching. The nurse was made more uncomfortable when the new father took to whispering a thousand different thanks and endearments into his young wife’s ear, and sweet as it was, the aggressive smooches she answered him with were of the sort the nurse was usually of the assumption led to more. But not with this couple, they swapped affection easily, too easily, and shared sentiments and compared their two children for the next hour, pointing out features and guessing at characteristics until the nurse quietly took her leave, stumbling into a barricade of men outside waiting on their boss.

“You should sing to them.” Elaine suggested to him once she’d gone, when Jesse wouldn’t stop fussing when it was his time to burp. “They’ve heard it for nine months, worked with the kicks every time.” she recalled and Elvis smiled sheepishly in reminiscence that those little kicks he’d once poured his heart out to were now little souls laying in his arms with his features printed on them.

At the first swooping and softly sung words of ‘My Father’s House’ by their daddy both babies stilled and their little slits of eyes searched restlessly until they found his face and they stayed staring at him until their violet, paper thin eyelids fluttered closed in sleep.

————————————————-

|| Excerpt from Mrs. Presley and Other Living Martyrs:||

“There was a narrow window in the door he’d rather uh, rudely let slam behind him,” Billy Smith would later recall with a smile, “and you best believe the whole lot of us were pressed up to it trying to get a glimpse of them inside. We were all real excited about the babies and we knew Elaine was a champ but it’s one thing to think about it and it’s another for her to do it and be alright after. We were all worried for her, last time we’d been in this hospital it had been with Gladys. So we were all crowding the window and Vernon and Mr. Phipps were actin’ like teenagers with their elbows jabbin’ at each other for space but this one time the grandpas seemed to be actually jokin’ about it. Granny tried gettin’ us to leave ‘em be but it wasn’t like we were disturbin’ them none, they didn’t mind us one bit and it was the sweetest thing watchin’ them pass a baby back and forth and they were gigglin’ so much one minute then cryin’ the next. EP was an absolute mess, he was so happy. They looked like a couple of kids clutchin’ a candy haul they stole and figured someone was gonna come along and say they were too young for ‘em and had to give ‘em up. Just two kids really, two kids with a couple of babies they’d made. Not sure they’d ever had such a normal moment in their lives, not since he got famous, at least. They stayed like that for a couple of hours ‘till Elvis realized he could have some fun introducin’ his new kids and so he came out the door holding little Jesse above his head like he was the damn Prince of Memphis. The whole hallway was jam packed with folks who were visiting their hospitalized relatives, loitering staff, all sorts, everybody havin’ heard she was here delivering, and the whole place erupted when he brought the baby out, said that him and his sister were well and Miss Elaine was in fine shape. That applause must’ve been real gratifying for Mrs. Presley.”

Ten days were encouraged for the new mother to stay in the hospital but after five Elaine found herself anxious and uncomfortable away from her home and she begged Elvis to make the staff let her come home.

“Elvis was never more besotted with Elaine than when she was pregnant, and it only got worse when she’d just popped out a kid and was holding it and asking for something.” Joe Esposita wrote, “She talked him into making them send some staff to Graceland and letting her out early, and she swore she’d let him carry her up and down any stairs for the next week. So, after he made her sign a drink coaster that said as much, he went and charmed the administrator into sparing a doctor and four nurses to come live at Graceland for 10 days. We later learned the staff had flipped coins to see who got to go, everyone was so eager to see the famous couple up close. ”

Five days after delivering, Elaine got her wish and was wheeled out of the maternity ward in a wheel chair and down the hall to the elevator, a pristine and glamorous figure with a baby swaddled in her arms as her handsome husband strode by her side, wearing his uniform on leave as suggested by the Colonel, and carrying a precious bundle himself.

In “TLC: The Presley Way” -Marie Presley’s documentary of her family’s life- Ella recounted having often heard from her mother the story of Elvis preparing her to leave for home.

Ella recounted: “She would often tell me about how daddy had come up to the room with all these bags. He’d already brought so much stuff over during her stay, they had to haul literal baskets full of possessions and gifts and stuffed animals out of her ward back to Graceland when they moved out, it had been like a hotel stay, collecting so much. But he did come up that day with these pretty pink bags and he was so excited, he tore the tissue paper out himself and showed her this absurdly fluffy white coat he’d bought. It was way too heavy for October but it was a little chilly out and it gave her the perfect excuse to wear it. It was made out of arctic foxes and was the fluffiest, most expensive, whitest thing you’ve ever seen and it hid her swollen figure perfectly, made her look like an angel in the press pictures. Mama said he also brought a little makeup kit, and there was hairspray and curlers and combs in the other bag, and daddy sat on her hospital bed while she was in a chair and he carefully painted her face. She always loved telling about how sweet and careful he was about her image, she said she had felt very humiliated and out of control during the labor, and it was like he was putting her back together, making her familiar to herself again, crafting some dignity back. And -you’ve seen the pictures, she’s perfection, her makeup is flawless and he had swooped her hair back from her face so she’s glowing. Even tied it back with that little ribbon, it’s just so much, I mean -she looks like a doll carrying out smaller dollies from the hospital. And of course later the female press would slam her for making something as hard as birth and children look like dollhouse props but like a lot of things, they didn’t realize it came from love. It came from daddy caring about how she felt, how she wanted to be presented, they both had a lot of pride and were complementary in that way. She had just delivered twins and was about to meet half of Memphis on the curb before going home. Can you really blame her for letting her husband make her up? Can you blame him for pouring out his pride in what she’d done through his art?”

Along with tender care and as much provision for her comfort as possible, it would be Elvis Presley’s last gift to his wife before he left for Germany less than two weeks later.

Hope y’all enjoyed! Your “bugging” and “screaming” is music to my ears, fuel to my fire and keeps me writing, please never hold back -this is a safe space for feral little Elvis loving rodents…like you and me.

If you’d like to be tagged in this particular series please drop a note below. I’ll admit I’m disorganized and have trouble keeping all the requests sorted when they’re scattered, what I do check regularly are the requests in the notes for chapters -and I do manage to get those added. So, if you’ve put in a request and I’ve failed ya, or if you’re new and would like to be added, please pop a note below. Xoxo 💋

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thepastisalreadywritten · 2 months

Text

The Year’s Most Spectacular Photos from the James Webb Telescope

By Jeffrey Kluger

December 22, 2023

Close to 1,500 light years from Earth lie a pair of baby stellar twins known as Herbig-Haro 46/47 — which are barely a few thousand years old.

A star the size of our sun, by contrast, takes an average of 50 million years to reach even the stellar equivalent of young adulthood It's Herbig-Haro 46/47's extreme youth that gives the formation more of a blob-like appearance than the stellar duo it is.

Young stars are buried in clouds of dust and gas, which they absorb as they grow. Sometimes, however the infant stars ingest too much material too fast.

When that happens, dust and gas erupts from both sides of the formation, giving the young pair their misshapen look.

But if you have patience — 50 million years worth of patience — what is a blob today will be stars tomorrow.

NASA, ESA, CSA. Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

A pair of brilliant stellar nurseries located 1,600 light years from Earth, the Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster are home to a relative handful of very young but very bright stars.

Four of the stars are easy to see with a simple, amateur, four-inch telescope.

One of the four — the beast of the young litter — is especially visible, a full 20,000 times brighter than our sun.

Apart from their four main stars, the Orion Nebula and Trapezium cluster contain approximately 700 additional young stars at various stages of gestation.

NASA, ESA, CSA/Science leads and image processing: M. McCaughrean, S. Pearson, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

(L): It’s not easy being a Wolf-Rayet star, like this specimen imaged by the Webb telescope at a distance of 15,000 light years.

A rare species of stellar beast — NASA estimates there are only 220 of them in a Milky Way galaxy with at least 100 billion stars — the Wolf-Rayet burns hot and burns fast, with temperatures 20 to 40 times the surface of the sun.

All of that rapidly expended energy causes the star to lose its hydrogen envelope quickly and expose its helium core.

The result: a very early and very violent death.

A star like our sun burns for about 10 billion years. As for a Wolf-Rayet? Just a few hundred thousand before it dissolves into cosmic dust.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

(R): If the Wolf-Rayet star dies an ugly and violent death, the celebrated Ring Nebula, photographed by the Webb at a distance of 2,000 light years from Earth, has been expiring beautifully.

The glowing remains of a sun-like star, the nebula was discovered in 1779 by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix.

As the nebula throws off its outer layers of ionized gas, it reveals its characteristic blue interior, composed of hydrogen and oxygen that have not yet been expelled off by the nebula’s stellar wind.

ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (University College London), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)

Dwarf galaxy NGC 6822 lives up to to its name — home to just 10 million stars, compared to the minimum of 100 billion in the Milky Way.

But what NGC 6822 lacks in numbers, it makes up in spectacle — which the keen eye of the Webb telescope has revealed.

Discovered in 1884 by American astronomer E.E Barnard, NGC 6822, is now known to have a prodigious dust tail measuring 200 light years across..

What's more, it's home to a dense flock of stars that glow 100,000 times brighter than our sun.

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Meixnev

Spiral galaxies are often defined by uneven — and even ragged — arms.

But not galaxy M51, which lies 27 million light years from Earth and is defined by the tautness of its arms and the compactness of its structure.

M51 isn't alone in space. Nearby lies the companion galaxy NGC 5195.

The two galaxies are engaged in something of a gravitational tug of war — one that the NGC 5195 is winning.

NGC's constant gravitational pull is thought to account for both the tightly woven structure of M51's arms and for tidal forces that are thought lead to the creation of new stars in the arms.

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team

Just below Orion’s belt lies one of the most celebrated objects in the night sky: the Orion Nebula, a stellar nursery that is home to about 700 young stars.

This Webb image focuses not on the entirety of the nebula but on a structure in the lower left-hand quadrant known as the Orion Bar.

So named because of its diagonal, ridge-like appearance, the bar is shaped by the powerful radiation of the hot, young stars surrounding it.

ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), and the PDRs4All ERS Team

A baby by stellar standards, the IC 348 Star cluster is just five million years old and located about 1,000 light years from Earth.

Composed of an estimated 700 stars, IC 348 has a structure similar to wispy curtains, created by dust that reflects the light of the stars.

The conspicuous loop in the right hand side of the image is likely created by the gusting of solar winds blowing in the direction that, from Earth, would be west to east.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Kevin Luhman (PSU), Catarina Alves de Oliveira (ESA)

When it comes to galaxies, there's big and then there's huge and by any measure, Pandora's Cluster — more formally, known as Abell 2744 — qualifies as the latter.

Not just a galaxy, and not even a cluster of galaxies, Abell 2744 is a cluster of four clusters, which long ago collided with one another.

Located 3.5 billion light years from Earth, Pandora's Cluster measures a staggering 350 million years across.

The cluster's massive collective gravity allows astronomers to use it as a gravitational lens, bending and magnifying the light of foreground objects, making them easier to study.

NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology) and R. Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Webb was built principally to look at the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, some of 13.4 billion light years away.

But doesn't prevent the telescope from peering into its own back yard.

This image of Saturn and some of its 146 moons, rivals the images obtained by the Pioneer and Voyager probes.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Matt Tiscareno (SETI Institute), Matt Hedman (University of Idaho), Maryame El Moutamid (Cornell University), Mark Showalter (SETI Institute), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Heidi Hammel (AURA). Image processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)

Infant stars are born all over the universe, but the closest stellar birthing suite to Earth is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, located just 460 light years distant.

A turbulent — even violent — place, Rho Ophiuchi is defined by jets of gas roaring from young stars.

Most of the stars in this comparatively modest nursery are more or less the size of the sun.

But one, known as S1, is far bigger — so much so that it is self-immolating, carving a great cavity around itself with its stellar wind, the storm of charged particle's all stars emit, though few with the gale-force power of S1.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)

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hermitcreep · 2 years

Text

[NSFW] The Devil Coming Inside - Chapter 1 -FULL CHAPTER AFTER THE JUMP

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Pastor!Henry Creel

Summary: Eddie would have been lying if he said that there wasn't something about Henry Creel that immediately caught his attention. He looked like the preacher from the cover of some old metal album, the kind that would wave in the devil to gobble up his congregation. Between the man's words, Eddie felt the power of his energy--something he would chock up to the atmosphere of the place and the fact that there was something about church that made everyone feel as if they were racing fast toward hell, reaching out for the holy hand of the maker. It was a stress unlike no other, but a comforting grip all the same.

Word Count: 7,514

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CHAPTER 1: GENESIS

A preacher's hands are a funny thing. Man looks upon his own hands and sees the trials and tribulations written in their every wrinkle. He sees his hard knocks and his soft landings bundled up in the callouses of his palm. A preacher looks at his hands and he sees every temptation that wet his lips and beckoned his tongue, every soul-guiding word and pregnant dawn. A preacher sees the end of days at the pulse of his wrist, thwarting the devil as he spills over it. A preacher should find his fingertips bathed in absolution, perfumed by the glory of his God. They should not be found beneath his belt as he howls at the blood moon and brays at the supple flesh of the virgin. His hands should find themselves in a field, leading sheep to grace with a compassionate, open palm--shouldn't they?

Hawkins was not an intrinsically religious town, nor was it a mecca for organized religion like other small towns. Like most local communities, the townsfolk seemed far more interested in basketball and local gossip than anything resembling a church service. Sure, there were fights when a rowdy team from another town showed up on the school field, but there weren't any sign-wielding extremists on street corners trying to save your soul. Truly, with the exception of a few loons, there wasn't anything 'radical' about Hawkins at all, and this extended to those that practiced any kind of spirituality. That was, until First Divinity opened its wooden doors for the first time.

The church went unnoticed by much of the town, having settled a few miles from Sattler's Quarry, just off of Kerley Boulevard. It wasn't hidden in the woods, but rather situated in the middle of a barren field of dirt, peppered with the yellowed sprigs of crops past. Nothing grew there anymore and Old Man James had sold it to the church in order to get it out from under himself. He had happily remarked, "Why till dirt when you can make money off of it", as he handed over the deed to the land. It wasn't as if the old man needed the dirt anyways, the strange drought of 1959 having killed every single plant under his father's hand--along with his mother and their beloved family dog, leaving Old Man James the last of their living lineage. In many ways, he was happy to have sold the handed-down land, the memories and blood upon it a blight against that which had well-stained it. A church would be a far better fate for the infertile patches.

The antiquated-looking building just seemed to pop up out of the very earth it sat upon, no one seeming to have witnessed its construction. Old Man James never confirmed nor denied if the church was original to his land, or if they intended to build it with old time religion in mind. Regardless, it was almost as if it had always been there, right under the noses of those who worked the land. If it hadn't, one would think a new structure of any kind would find itself on the lips of every citizen in Hawkins, especially since the mall had been the last thing to go up in years, but everyone seemed oddly quiet about it. Perhaps they had been too busy focusing on their Sunday paper and diner waffles to notice a building on the outskirts of town--or maybe it was the will of something unseen that materialized it, the ground opening up just to spit it out. No need for construction costs when you've got divine intervention on your side.

The church was off-white in color, most likely from the dirt kicked up around it, with oak steps and a dark-tinted, arched door. The panels were a dense pine with weathered spots in the very veins of the wood that shown through the cracking paint. It was not the largest of buildings though it reached a humble height, straining its fingertips toward the sky. The steeple was a black iron, the cross nothing to be marveled at, however it served its purpose in calling the flock to it like a silent siren's song. One of comfort and familiarity.

With the dark doors open in the budding morning, the sanctuary would reveal itself. With two rows of wooden pews lining the way to the podium, setting the stage for the baptismal and a hand-laid stained glass window, the church had a welcoming and comforting atmosphere that was open to all. The carpeted floor was only slightly dingy, its red color warming the entire space. Footsteps upon it would send dense thudding throughout the place, the high ceilings offering the slightest of buttress in order to maximize the acoustic range of the building itself. It was a home for worship, the mantle beckoning a sharp eye and silver tongue.

Long fingertips rested upon the podium, bright eyes pleased as they looked over the place. Pointed boot and black brimmed hat gave way to a long silhouette which was encased in ashen fabric and controlled by a postured line which met the floor. A church was only as good as its preacher, a preacher only as good as his congregation--a truth that held fast despite the flare of dense flame at his heel and seduction of his tongue. Those fingers did not aim to guide a flock to glory, but rather sweetly lull them into the ecstasy of damnation. He observed once the quarry, dragging his eyes to the lake on the opposing side, fringing the distance. The notion of placement split a handsome face into a venomous grin.

"This will do. This will do nicely." ***** 24 Days Later, 3 Sermons Conducted ***** "Come on, baby. Come on. Purr. Come on, please. Please, baby. Please."

Sputtering broke through the birds who greeted the morning, its sound a broken song of trepidation, resonating the possibility of unfortunate events. Ringed fingers tightened to a fist and hit the dash of the well-loved vehicle, quickly turning to a flat palm that would pet the dusty shape lovingly, trying to coax the firing and start of the engine. The van had never let those hands down before, having been brought to a roar time and time again at their turning--and this time wouldn't be the exception.

Eddie Munson seemed to always find himself in situations like this. It wasn't that his karma was inherently bad, but rather that he lived a life where being unlucky just sort of came with the territory. Biting his tongue and lifting his head, wild curled hair a dark halo as he looked up and into the sky, searching for some sort of fortune. Turning the key for the hundredth time, the engine would turn over and give a strained roar before humming noisily. It had started--and with a happy yowl and a fist pump, Eddie was off, heading towards Hawkins High School.

The school day went on like any other Friday. Eddie found himself conversing with the Hellfire Club at lunch about their upcoming meetings, the male becoming overly enthusiastic when speaking about his campaign. With wild hand movements, he teased the boys about upcoming enemies who he claimed could "take you all out with one swipe of its tail" giving the all-too-well-known wide-eyed awe that came so easy to him. Whether it was giant monsters, game mechanics or even the mention of dice, Eddie seemed to be very keen to discuss the game, happy to impart long-winded tirades about any and everything that came to his mind.

"--Yeah, you know...Man, he was the type of God to gather as many worshippers as he could because they were, you know...like an extension of him?" Eddie said, dropping his edition to the table, the pages open to a monster missing an eye and hand. He tapped the page with a finger adorned with the head of a pig, "I know lots of Gods could do that, but... it was like the way he could perceive through them." Fingertips touching before he would gesture outward with them for emphasis, he made his voice more direct, "His uh...His senses could reach further because he could see what they were seeing, regardless of how far they were. It even worked for people that just thought about the guy. Crazy, right?"

Mike Wheeler and Dustin Henderson were always the first of the group to be enthralled with what Eddie was saying. It was unclear if they looked up to him because he was their DM, or if they truly thought of him as some sort of older sibling. Mike smirked to what Eddie had said about the creature and forced air through his nose, his upper lip lifting, "Sounds like a pretty gnarly dude." He offered, glancing to Dustin for confirmation before looking back to Eddie, "Is he going to be the final boss or something?"

"Final Boss." Eddie smirked, dropping his head behind the meeting of his palms, "Small mind, my friend. He has so many monsters under his charge! Not to mention his worshippers!" He exhaled and when his head lifted, that smirk had turned the line of his lips into something more dubious. Eddie sat up straight in his chair then, his jacket and vest pulling back away from the front of his torso, "Along your journey you will meet many a foe--" Eddie began, his tone growing grandiose, "--Whether or not you are slain by them will be entirely up to your fate and THE DICE!"

Some of the other students around the room had begun to look over, curious what all of the commotion was about, giving a shake of the head when they observed Eddie up to his usual mischief. Mike felt small when stared at by the others and he cleared his throat, voice shrinking as he leaned forward a bit, "Uh--Yeah, Eddie, sure. I was just asking about--"

"--about Vecna?" He said aloud, to which Mike would nod and retreat back, causing Eddie to shrug and make eye contact with him, "I guess you'll just have to wait and find out." Eddie winked, licking over a canine mischievously, "Won't ya?" The look he shot to Mike was nothing short of devilish and Mike might have blushed out of sheer confrontation, giving the shyest of laughs as he looked away and focused on his lunch. Eddie was always a little weird, but there was something endearing about it and Mike appreciated that.

"Speaking of worshippers--" Dustin chimed in, hindered only slightly by his teeth, which had become one of his most charming features, "--Did you guys hear about the new church that opened up three weeks ago? My mom said that one of her friends was talking about it at the diner yesterday when she went for donuts."

"Wait--" Mike said with a full mouth, a lifted hand wielding a fork and two outstretched fingers the only guard, "--Your mom has friends??"

"Shut up, dude." Dustin shot an annoyed look at Mike and shook his head, glancing to Eddie, who gave a scrolling gesture with his hand, telling the boy to continue, "--Anyways, she said that almost two months ago some spooky guy bought Old Man James's land for it and that it looks really dusty and old even though it's new."

Eddie clicked his tongue against his teeth and gave a breathy laugh, "Sorry man. Not really in the business of checking out churches." He tapped a finger on the book in front of him again, tracing a line of text before drawing his hand over the illustration of a giant spider, the gesture clinking his rings against one another, "--Never been a religious guy. I mean, what do you expect to find there anyway? A vampire or something?"

"Vampires don't like churches. Crosses, remember??" Dustin retorted and Eddie just chuckled, the young male shifting in his seat to show that he was serious, "I was just saying it's kind of a weird thing to just pop up. Feels...creepy."

Eddie opened his mouth to speak but was immediately cut off by the bell, signaling for them to return to class to finish out their day. Standing, the dungeon master would bow, arms outstretched before looking up, eyes bright, "Well, looks like it's time. --The bell tolls for us all."

The school day continued on as planned, Eddie spending his time spacing out in class and weaving around cheerleaders to admire their 'school spirit', a few of them waving him away coyly. He wasn't exactly a ladies man, but the girls didn't seem to mind him so much. Hell, most days he even got a few smiles, which helped pass the time in his erratic mind, which seemed to flit this way and that, thinking of a million things and nothing all at once.

The last class of the day seemed to drag on for eons, but the minute that bell rang, Eddie was out the door like a bat out of hell. Though it gave a strained throttle, his van started like a dream, the charge from the morning having miraculously been enough to keep it going. He drove towards the trailer park, swerving a bit as he got distracted by the cassette player, which seemed to disagree with him about as much as the van did. Switching gears and pulling a half-eaten mixtape from the player at the same time, Eddie would bite his lip, narrowly avoiding off-roading. He managed to right both, however, and would slide into his usual parking spot, blaring Dio loud enough to alert the entire park.

Eddie truly didn't have much of an agenda after arriving to the trailer, planning to smoke and play guitar for the bulk of the evening--homework be damned. Stepping in noisily, he would gently kick the door closed with his foot, the dingy white of his sneaker squeaking across the faux wood paneling as it came to a latched close. The space was slightly dim, the television flickering projected light into the room, illuminating his uncle's face, which was now turned to him in silent greeting.

"Hey, Uncle." Eddie said, lifting his hand to give a half-hearted salute, meandering into the area. Apt to rock back and forth from heel to toe for a few moments before excusing himself to his room for the remainder of the night, Eddie began to fidget, turning slightly to show his intent.

Wayne Munson was sitting on the edge of an old, well-loved couch, the cushions long passed their ability to hold their fluff. He had his arms resting on his knees, his posture carrying the weight of his thoughts. Wayne's eyes set on the boy, brows lifting, "Eddie. Let me talk to you for a second."

Eddie looked a bit struck by his Uncle's communication. "Okay. What's got you so talkative?" He asked, his hands lifting in odd little movements as his body pushed towards the other male, pulling him a couple feet closer, "Normally I can't get two words out of you, man."

"I was just thinking. You're kind of a rebellious kid..." Wayne said, scratching at the scruff of his chin, the cigarette in his fingers long since extinguished, "Maybe you need some structure in your life that I can't quite give--" His eyes flicked from the floor to Eddie's face, seeming serious.

"Man, this sounds heavy." Eddie said as he showed his palms in resistance, "Is this because I sold drugs to that girl? I thought that was cleared up."

"Eddie. Eddie, listen. You're not in trouble." Wayne sighed, sitting up a bit straighter, his hands searching for his lighter idly.

The boy lifted his hand, having procured his own lighter from seemingly nowhere, "Okay, then what? I mean, you're freaking me out here. You're looking at me like you're about to ask me to leave the Shire." Eddie seemed curious and worried, his body shifting, disturbing the bandana in his left back pocket.

"That's not it, I--" Wayne paused only to light his half-burnt cigarette. The smoke pushed from him and his fingers met his temple, "I've been going to that new church. First Divinity."

"Uncle Wayne. Church isn't really my bag." Eddie exhaled, gesturing at himself, bringing eyes down his front, "Heh. I mean, look at me, I'm--" His head shook, fluffed hair whimsical in the way it moved.

"Would you just shut up and listen, boy?" Despite his words, Wayne seemed compassionate in the way he related to Eddie, "This isn't about God or saving your soul. --Not about your 'devil music' or whatever you want to call it." He pulled air through his cigarette, situating the filter between his lips, "The preacher has a good way of talking and some discipline might give you a little more focus." Wayne's eyes squinted as he let the smoke leave him, eyes on Eddie as he hoped he would get the gist of what he meant.

"--and you don't think I'd burst into flames the second I stepped in there?" Eddie smirked, showing his teeth.

"This isn't a joke. You can ignore the 'god stuff' as you call it, but I think you'd benefit from the actual message." Wayne gestured at Eddie, "Stuff like "Do unto others" and "Break bread with the less fortunate"."

"Uncle...I..." Eddie didn't honestly think that this was a good idea. Bringing someone like him into a place like that. It would just seem as if the male was up to no good. He thought for a moment on his relationship with Mike and Dustin, kids that he took under his wing. His thoughts shifted from them to some of the girls he'd spent his free time with, the ones that he'd rather not name, but he held in sweet regard, "I 'do unto others' enough." He teased.

"I'm not talking about the girls, Eddie." Wayne shook his head. This kid was going to be the death of him. He exhaled, "Look, just go to the Sunday service for me. I don't ask much of you."

"Fine." Wayne had a point. He had been the only stable thing in Eddie's life, the only father figure he'd ever really had--and if he was honest, Eddie did owe him quite a bit. The man let him stay in his house, eat his food and disappoint him time and time again without so much as a torment, "--But only once. Then I'm out of there."

"Fine." Wayne would take what he could get, satisfied with the outcome, knowing it was like herding cattle to get Eddie to do anything he didn't intrinsically want to do. Wayne felt pleased, and after he finished his cigarette he would snub it in the nearby ashtray before leaning back onto the couch, resigning to relaxation.

*****

The dust from the quarry had kicked up over the field, despite it being a few miles away. It made the scene look as if it were something out of an old storybook, a devotional set in the past. First Divinity stood steadfast in the Sunday morning light, beckoning believers to it like a neon sign advertising salvation. It was a modest size and its off-white color and arched doorway seemed as normal as any other church the town had observed since it was established. Those that gathered before it were a modest people, a mash-up of townsfolk who didn't really seem to match. They didn't have an observable lean, represented by all; from electrician to councilman.

Eddie's van came to a halt atop the gravel in a small plot that had been sectioned off for cars to settle. As the engine turned off, the blaring metal music would fall to silence, the van finding itself slightly crooked in its parked position. Hopping from the driver's seat, the door slamming behind him, Eddie would run a finger down the rusted white stripe of his van before pushing the ringed hands into his pockets; turning on heel to face the church. God did he feel out of place already. Approaching, he would find himself greeted by his uncle as well as the judging eyes of at least a baker's dozen churchgoers.

"So, uh..." Eddie moved his hands a bit, pockets lifting in a curious gesture, his eyes focusing on his uncle as he tried to pretend the man was the only person there. He thwarted the eyes of the others who stood around, "...What are we waiting for?"

Wayne seemed annoyed already, but he would be lying if he said that he wasn't happy to see the boy, "--We are waiting for the doors to open." Wayne explained, his tone signifying how the answer should have been obvious, "When the preacher's ready, they'll open for us to go in. Until then--" He shrugged, "--we wait."

Leaning back on his heels, Eddie felt himself quickly grow bored of standing next to his uncle, idly listening to words being thrown this way and that. Something about tithes and tiny crackers; he wasn't sure. In scanning the small crowd of people, the depth of his hues would come to rest on a familiar face: Dustin Henderson. The boy had mentioned that his mother was interested in going to the church, but Eddie didn't realize that meant that he would be in attendance. Staring holes into the younger male, Eddie would wait for Dustin to notice him, and when the boy did, he lit up like the fourth of July.

"Eddie!" the small-framed boy called out affectionately, "Eddie, hey!"

Wasting no time in traversing the gap between them, Eddie would greet Dustin in kind, quickly pulling Dustin into a bear hug, "Hey man. I'm so happy to see you." Pulling back, Eddie leaned down slightly, just to get on Dustin's level, "This place is already so weird. I feel so...uh, out of place, you know? Sore thumb and all."

"I know what you mean. My mom wanted to come, so she drug me here." Dustin said, gesturing back towards the woman with a crooked smile, "Why are you here though?"

"My uncle wanted me to come. Thought um..." He paused to think, shifting his weight awkwardly, "...Thought I'd come so he'd get off my back and stop acting like I don't do anything other than smoke, play D&D, and listen to music--"

"That is all you do though." Dustin chuckled lightly, his cheeks eclipsing his eyes a bit.

Eddie playfully punched Dustin's shoulder, "Yeah, but THIS makes it seem like I don't." He said, trying his best to convey that he was doing this so that his uncle would stop shooting him passive looks and shaking his head when Eddie walked by. He thought that perhaps it would make him seem a little bit less than a hooligan if he complied just this once.

"I gotcha." Dustin said, nodding and needing no further explanation. It made sense to him. If Wayne was Eddie's only parental figure, why wouldn't he want the man to think of him as at least grateful of the roof over his head. Dustin patted Eddie's shoulder and tipped his head slightly, "It's gonna be fine. Don't be too weird about it. It's only an hour or so. You can be back to planning the campaign in no time."

"Oh yes. Can't wait to leave here just to plan a plot surrounding turmoil arising from Gods and monsters--" Eddie paused, biting his bottom lip with a cheeky smile, eyes bright, "--guess it's not that different."

Although conversations amongst the church goers began to buzz, gaining volume until they reached a steady hum, the wooden doors easily silenced them as they creaked open. Eddie, along with the others, turned head to look in the direction of the sound. He noted two women, one at either door, their faces covered in sheer black lace and dresses of the same color. The hem reached the floor, making them look like some sort of specter. Eddie noted to himself that it felt like they were about to attend a funeral, not church. He shot a look to Dustin, who shrugged and immediately turned his focus back to the doors; and the women--so Eddie did the same.

The walk to the church was only about sixty feet from where Eddie stood prior, but it felt like miles. With eyes on the place, it almost looked as if it was looming, shading the lot of them as they entered. If there were anything to mirror their actions to sheep, it was this. They, without so much as a guiding word, moved up as a flock would, clamoring into a kind of line; heading towards the church. Each person took the few steps to the door and walked through, passing the lace-faced women as if they were not even there, the explicit goal of finding a place at the pews garnering their full focus.

Eddie would hang back, but took his place in line near the end next to Dustin, making sure he wasn't the last to enter though as he didn't want the focus to turn to him. Walking through, he would cross the threshold with a bit of hesitation. It wasn't that he had anything against church, it was just that he truly felt as if he did not belong there. Religion was something that fringed the music and aesthetic that Eddie subscribed to, but he wouldn't have defined it as a symbiotic relationship between the two.

The interior of the church was as modest as the facade, holding simple furnishings and well-loved pews--they looked as if they had possibly been donated when the church was erected. It was a basic structure, stretching back from the doorway into the sanctuary, a row of pews on either side of the room. The shape of the place was broken by the natural light coming from windows near the ceiling and archway-lined hallways which flanked the pews; making for easy access to any part of the sanctuary without having to traverse the center aisle. The stage at the far end of the church held before it the podium at which the preacher would give his sermon; the steps behind it leading up to a baptismal area behind crepe-colored curtains, golden back-lit crosses suspended above the in-ground basin on the wall. There were three, no doubt for the trinity, their styles differing and color untarnished.

Dustin's mother took a seat at a pew just a few rows back from the front, motioning for Dustin to follow, to which he would drag Eddie with him, hoping the older male would hang close to him for the duration of the service. Eddie settled in the spot he'd ben led to and reminded himself that this wouldn't last all day; that in just a few hours he could be back in his room. Unsure of what to do, other than wait, he would cross his arms so that he was sort of hugging himself. He didn't know what to expect, but the quiet was rather eerie, unlike the silence that occurred naturally--this silence was pregnant and for several minutes it did not so much as contract.

Hyper-focused on the silence, Eddie would nearly jump out of his own skin when the doors latched closed. His first thought was that the lace-faced women had locked them all inside and this was going to be some sort of high-fantasy torture-porn by Bible beating where they were all held captive and subjected to some sort of bizarre punishment for simply being human. However, if that had been the case, wouldn't people have stopped coming or warned him of what was about to happen? Eddie shook his head--he'd been reading entirely too much Heavy Metal. Taarna. Yeah, Taarna would have made this situation better.

If anything could have broken him from his Taarakian daydream, it was the sound of pointed boots as they met the maroon carpet of the church's floor. Eddie sat up straight upon hearing the rhythmic footfalls and would let his eyes focus on the man who they had been coming from--the preacher. The man was tall, his body an intimidating line from crown to toe-tip. He wore black slacks, sportscoat and buttoned vest, the line of which tightly rested atop a white long-sleeved undershirt with a collar accented in a stark black that matched the rest of his outfit. Atop his crown a circle-brimmed hat rested, his golden hair falling from it about his ears and fatally high cheekbones. Something about his lithe frame and powerful presence sent shivers over Eddie's shoulders beneath his vest and jacket, his hands gripping his arms a bit tighter as he regarded the man. His name was Pastor Henry Creel.

*****

Henry Creel was born a broken boy to broken parents in 1947 and it was apparent by the time he had hit puberty that he did not fit in with any of his peers nor did he fall in line with the expectations of his parents. His mother, Virginia Creel, moved them to Hawkins, Indiana in 1959 after a windfall of funds landed in her lap from the death of her great-uncle, a man who she would have described as 'overly friendly'. She, along with her husband Victor Creel, had hoped that the new home would be a fresh start for Henry and his elder sister Alice, thinking that the change of scenery would lend to helping Henry grow, that it would help him to 'find' himself--though the only thing he would discover would be a large nest of black widow spiders that had taken residence inside a bathroom vent.

The spiders were misunderstood yet powerful, their venom, appearance, and reputation causing them to be reviled and feared despite their size and fragility; thus giving strength to the their weakened form. Henry craved this revelation--and from the twisted tangled web of those very spiders, he would find it. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he observed the very object that would bring this revelation about--a glinting gold just out of eyesight. Not fearing the spiders of whom he found kindred, he would reach a hand down, fingers seeking out his prize. From the depths of that sticky silk he would pull the object, white tendrils straining before breaking over its surface, revealing the worn leather and gilded glint of an antique Bible, its yellow pages flanked in gold leaf with tarnished prints of long-vanished fingers.

The Bible was no doubt well loved, with dog-eared pages giving way to doodles of massive spider-like beasts and notations of preferred passages, the hand-writing as delicate as it was crude, drawing Henry's eye like a moth to flame. As his fingers moved over the ink-filled indentions, he felt as if a power was kissing at his fingertips; just as he had upon first seeing the black widow--he felt the kinetic energy of something greater than himself, something that could mend his broken humanity.

Henry found himself studying the pages of that text as if they held the antidote to life's mundanity; which he had grown to despise. He knew that it was human to follow the dismal structure of time and the "mindless play" of life itself. Born to reproduce, born to die. The Bible seduced Henry with its meticulously woven words, its mentions of damnation and twisting of souls. It was in the book of Mark where Henry would see the word of his rapture for the first time: "LEGION". The word would be found littering the pages there-after, the obsessive writing intriguing Henry, even at such a young age. Reading over the story contained in those passages caused Henry to feel great intrigue. The story told of an entity using its telekinetic and telepathic abilities to send a herd of two-thousand pigs running into the lake to drown--the same entity that would possess a man, gripping his very soul in its blackened clutches as it bore its name to Jesus himself-- "LEGION".

Henry's lips formed the word silently at first, following the letters with his focused eyes. When he uttered it aloud, he felt himself quiver at how powerful the word felt on his tongue--he may have even smiled. Touching the word again, the previous owner's handwriting seemed to speak through him. "Legion," it repeated and so did Henry's lips allow it to pass. With the third iteration, the grandfather clock on the lower level of the home would sound, giving Henry quite the start-- the noise a bit out of place as the time did not call for a toll.

"Legion." And the clock thrummed again, mere minutes from its last sounding. Henry's breath hitched and he looked to his door, the wooden portal creaking open slowly, the dark outside of it seeming thick with the need for intrusion. Brave as he was in the nest of spiders he was here as well, hopping from his bed and heading towards the darkness, its black tendrils reaching for him and enveloping him the moment he was within reach. He welcomed them, feeling the dense power bloom inside of his body, hardening his very marrow.

Henry would keep the Bible at his side as if it were as vital as his very breath. Most evenings the young boy would find himself obsessively tracing the letters written therein, caressing the curve of every line that made up "LEGION". He could feel himself changing, though it would not surface in his physical appearance, which was still very meek and unassuming. Finding comfort in cultivating the power that was growing inside of him, Henry began to focus entirely on the path that the darkness unfolded before his feet, the tar flecking at his heels as he moved through it.

A slew of dead animals would be found in the weeks following, each of them mutilated in the clutches of Henry's budding 'salvation'. The massacred animals and their desecrated corpses were blamed wholly on wildcats and packs of wolves, which only incited Henry's father to become more paranoid and worried for the safety of his children. Victor's watchful eye did not please Legion, so it had to be plucked from him. The man made better food for the pigs than he did a father in the eyes of Henry.

*****

"My brothers and sisters, flock and fellowship. Good and divine morning." Nimble fingers moved with damning intent up the sides of the podium's pedestal, coming to rest about the corners, culminating in a grip that seemed to hold the gaze of every person under that roof. A cunning smile spread across Henry's face, eclipsed by that black hat. Reflected in his expression was a bountiful harvest not yet come to pass, of imminent will and control, "I come to you as that of a newborn fawn. Vulnerable am I before you, opened to offer myself and message."

Eddie would have been lying if he said that there wasn't something about the man that immediately caught his attention. He looked like the preacher from the cover of some old metal album, the kind that would wave in the devil to gobble up his congregation. Between the man's words, Eddie felt the power of his energy--something he would chock up to the atmosphere of the place and the fact that there was something about church that made everyone feel as if they were racing fast toward hell, reaching out for the holy hand of the maker. It was a stress unlike no other, but a comforting grip all the same.

Henry Creel had grown to be a luminous man of what some would call God. He was lengthy in limb and long in torso, his face baring a strong bone structure and overly tense jaw, his eyes direct and hypnotic in their light hue. He had let his hair grow past his chin, thinking the color and cut framed him well--and he'd be right. His father would have hated it. The stitch of Henry's clothes hugged him, making the onlooker feel lust and shame should their gaze linger too long upon him--temptation was the skeleton key. This was not lost upon Eddie. Though the young man hadn't found himself ever attracted to a man, there was something about the contrapposto stance and pointed toe that made him shift uncomfortably in his seat.

"Today I shall speak on the offerings of flesh." Henry began, his accent hard to place, his voice sounding far away and far too close all the same, like an old radio recording played through a Walkman, "The pound of flesh and the blood moon under which the devil feasts. An angel. A demon. I am." Henry continued and something about the words that fell from him had Eddie focused for the first time in years, confused as to what this message was truly saying. He may have looked to Dustin, but he didn't recall that, his brows wrinkling and lips slowly parting. Henry didn't yet look at him, though he scanned his flock, "Your dues are but an offering of flesh, guarded by the shining light of God and yours alone to give...or protect in his name." His tongue may as well have been forked.

There was a low murmuring of agreement in response to the words that Henry spoke, and the sound made Eddie flit his gaze this way and that, immediately distracted by every pitch and tempo-fall of sound. When the depth of his doll-like eyes rolled back to Henry, he was met only with solid eye contact, which held him in that gaze like a man stunned. Henry lifted his chin and his lips slowly spread into another smile, this one knowing, as if he could read the very soul of man, "I am naked before you, giving myself to you in hopes that you do the same for me." Henry said, his tone softer now, though everyone seemed on the edge of their seat as they listened. Eddie, however, found himself shutting his legs tightly. Henry breathed slowly, "Subject yourself to my hands, my word." Yep, that did it.

With one hand still gripping the podium, Henry would hold up a worn black book; the Bible he had forever kept at his side. In Henry's hands, the cross was upside down, visible as his grip caused the book to tremble lightly--not unlike his congregation. "Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality...Galatians 5:19--" His eyes once again scanned, though Eddie would swear he lingered on him a second time, "--and this is the sin of man, the calamity of human need and primal urge 'For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries...' Mark 7:21".

All of the talk of sin and sex had Eddie antsy, his knee bouncing as his toe pushed his leg repetitively from the floor, causing the lightest of sounds to resonate from the chain at his side--no one seemed to notice. He licked over his lips and glanced down at his hands, trying his damnedest to figure out why he had come. This was all so foreign and strange--and now it was causing him a discomfort that he was sure many would say was hell at his back, beckoning. Sure. A half-smirk crossed Eddie's lips, an expression that was broken when he noticed the bulk of church goers moving to stand. Looking to Dustin, who urged him to move as well, Eddie wrinkled his brows in confusion, "Wha--"

"Dude, get up." Dustin whispered noisily, gesturing for him to move from where he sat upon the pew, "We have to get in line for the grape juice and crackers."

Communion. Fuck. Eddie fumbled as he moved from his seat, nearly falling into the floor. The clamoring made Wayne run his hand over his face, turning his back slightly so that no one associated him with the calamity his nephew was causing. A pin could have been heard dropping in that sanctuary, but Eddie sounded like an entire bundle. Standing with a playful grin, he showed his palms in truce and then righted his jacket, moving where Dustin had gestured only to find himself in the aforementioned 'line', Dustin right behind him.

Glancing down the row of people, Eddie could see Henry as a man would see a mirage in the desert, blurred yet looming, "I thought this only happened in Catholic churches. I mean--maybe they all do it?" His ignorance for Christian practice was truly telling of how many times he had been in any sort of church, "...I thought in normal churches they just--" Eddie gestured wildly and Dustin looked amused, "--I don't know. They passed it out? Little cups and uh...like a platter?"

"This is the same thing, we just have to do it one at a time." Dustin said, forever optimistic even in the face of something so foreign to them, "It's not that weird."

The line moved and Eddie did his best not to bump into the patrons in front of him. For some reason Eddie seemed slightly panicked. He turned to Dustin to give a frantic whisper, "It's weird, man." His voice was elevated, a tone that Dustin knew meant Eddie was really uncomfortable. Staring down the line, watching as each person stood before Henry, kneeling to take the flesh and blood, Eddie wanted to run. Something was off and he thought to himself that this had to be cult activity. The younger male offered a hand to Eddie's arm to calm him, but it didn't seem to work.

With only an elderly woman between him and the preacher, Eddie found himself wishing he had just bowed out. He could have said something about it being blasphemous for him to take part since he wasn't a Christian; but that would have outed him as an outlier--and the community already seemed at odds with him for his attire and loud 'devil' music. Damn small towns. He didn't need another strike against him. The woman knelt and Eddie watched her, observing the offering of cracker and cup. The entire process took only a minute before she would stand, satisfied to have him touch her shoulder and whisper something to her, before turning to head back to her seat.

Now, with no one between them, Eddie stood before Henry. Their eyes met and a hand with elongated fingers would slowly motion for the metalhead to kneel. He couldn't make a scene. As he moved, knees coming to rest on a short, red upholstered, wooden stool which had been sat there for this purpose alone; Eddie could not deny that something about it was undeniably sensual. This feeling was reflected in the subtle strain of his zipper and tightening of his abdominal muscles. He would later curse himself for letting something like that effect him, but for now he was hyper-focused and by every definition enthralled.

The next minute seemed to last for days. Henry moved forward and touched the tip of a finger to Eddie's bottom lip, tracing its line down to his lightly stubbled chin, tapping it once. Somehow Eddie knew what beckoned him and he opened his lips, showing the thick pink of his tongue. Upon it, Henry would rest the Eucharist, the thing purposely placed with the cross facing upside down. Eddie's tongue trembled beneath it, but as the hand gestured further, he would close his mouth and swallow the thing whole. A silver goblet would then be brought to his lips, dexterous hands pressing the thin line of the cup to that quivering tier, pressure gentle. Eddie's lashes fluttered and he allowed his lips to slowly open, unto which Henry would tip the cup and not grape juice, but rather a thick metallic-tasting wine would dash across that muscle, flooding as it rushed down Eddie's throat. It was a modest gulp of fluid and as the cup pulled away, Eddie felt himself twitch harder than he ever had--and not once had he broken eye contact. A hand was then placed on Eddie's shoulder, the contact like searing flame and cold stone all at once--Eddie could feel his muscles reeling Henry leaned down, lips a breath from the curve of an ear, "I am the patron of the crash and sword. I am the Holy Lord."

Oh. Oh.

Eddie trembled for a split second before breaking that contact and blinking rapidly. What the hell just happened. An expression that should have only belonged to a fearful pup would bloom across Eddie's face, his body shifting awkwardly to put space between him and the preacher. Henry grinned and Eddie broke, nearly kicking the stool as he clumsily jumped up and ran from the place, passing the seemingly endless line of people who awaited a similar fate. Henry merely stood, raising a hand to quiet anyone who had been stirred by the commotion. Righting the stool with the toe of his shoe, Henry would gesture the next patron to kneel upon it, the sound of Eddie's van roaring the only backdrop to the continued communion.

[End of Chapter 1]

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