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brelione · 4 years

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Kind Of A Cinderella Story (Sarah Cameron X Reader)

Request:37 from prompt list 2 with Sarah?+More Sara Cameron dating a Gardener pls

Warnings:This is trash and for some reason took me like three hours to write.Isnt proof read,implications of smut kind of.

Sarah was sick of her life.It was the same thing over and over again.She had to pretend to be this elegant,proper girl when all she wanted ot do was have fun.She felt like a puppet,being told what to wear and who to hang out with.She ahd been set up with countless kook boys that wanted nothing other than a girl to use as a sex object.She hated it.

Everyone thought that she was some perfect kook queen with no problems in her life but they couldnt be more wrong.People called her a whore for cheating on her boyfriends but all she wanted was to be loved.Like,genuinely loved for something other than her appearance.It was a process of trial and error.Ward would introduce her to one preppy kook boy with gelled back hair and toxic masculinity in a never ending cycle,hoping ot find the perfect fit.

Little did he know that she didnt want any kooks there was.She didnt even want any boys,no matter eif they were a pogue or a kook.Her heart was set on one pogue girl that didnt know how to match her pants to her shirt and had pierced her nose with a paperclip.She found her heart speeding up,trying not to smile or let out a nervous laugh whenever she saw said pogue even walk by.

You had always envied the kooks.While you worked at a bakery for 16 hours three days a week,living from pay check to pay check they were living it up in their huge mansions and getting their nails done with diamonds and gold.

You didnt even have a refrigerator or a microwave,you just kept what needed to be cold in a cooler that you had found on the side of the road two years ago.The bakery could only pay you so much so you decided that you might need another job.

It was either that or start stealing things.You chose the first option,unfortunately.Upon hearing that Ward Cameron was looking for someone to plant flowers and cut weeds in his garden you had volunteered for it.That’s what got you to this point,mud on your cheekbones,little scratches on your palms as you secured another bundle of impatiens into the soil.

The grass was still damp from the early morning rain,you were obviously tired and planning on going back to bed once you got back home.That was when the kook princess,Sarah Cameron,came running out of her house with a butter knife in her hand,demanding to know who you were and what you were doing in her backyard.You wiped your slightly bloody hands on your jeans,grinning.

“Im the gardener,Ward hired me last week.”You explained,smiling when a look of realisation came across the kook’s face,dropping the butter knife into the grass. “Oh-im so sorry!Im Sarah,they didnt tell me they hired you so I got scared.”She looked down at the butter knife,a blush coming across her cheeks.

After that first encounters she was desperate to speak to you again,having to wait a whole week until you came around to pull the weeds from the garden.She had considered stomping on the plants so you’d be forced to stay around longer but that would be pretty rude of her if she wanted to make a good impression.She had checked the weather,seeing that it was gonna be over 100 degrees.

That meant she had a perfect reason to speak to you without being strange.She’d come out after ten minutes of you being there and offer you a cold drink inside and when you were distracted with your drink she’d ask you questions about yourself and then boom.

You two would fall in love.It sounded like a great plan in her head.The night before the day you were due to come over she had set a blue gatorade in the fridge,preparing.But then she saw you out her window and became weak.Her legs were shaking as she took the gatorade out of the fridge,pacing around the kitchen with teh bottle in hand,taking in big breaths as she prepared herself.

With one last,deep breath she opened the back slider door,putting a smile on her face as she walked up behind you as you put long weeds into a bucket,your sleeves rolled up and sweat on your face. “Weather kind of sucks today,figured you needed a drink.”She licked her lips,wanting to redo.That just didnt sound right at all.You looked up at her,squinting from the sun that shined around her almost like a halo.

“Thanks,climate change is a real bitch.”You took the gatorade,opening it and taking a sip,some of the blue energy drink dripping down your chin. “Oh my god,I know.Don't even get me started on whats happening with the sharks in New England!The government is full of shit!”She exclaimed,not as nervous as she had been before.

You nodded in agreement. “Yeah,just like our oceans!In twenty years there will be more plastic than fish,I hate this world so much.”You sighed,sitting in the grass as you took another sip of the cold drink. “Do you want to come inside and talk about this?We’ll both get sunburned if we stay out here too long.”her hands went to her pockets,something that always happened when she was anxious.

You shrugged,standing up. “Yeah,ok.”You replied,following her.You were hesitant to actually step inside the house,figuring one of the tiles was probably worth your whole paycheck.You sat awkwardly at the counter,drinking the gatorade until there was barely anything left.

She grabbed you a water bottle and offered you a sandwhicih.You said yes of course,thanking her when a ham and cheese sandwich on a blue plate was placed in front of you. “You know what else I hate?”You asked,taking a small bite off the corner of the sandwich.She hummed,looking up.

“How organizations protecting endangered species are being defunded by the government!It’s trash.”You sighed,becoming increasingly more angry.SHe nodded,agreeing. “Same with deforestation!If the government was taking away tv’s everyone would freak out but of course when they cut down our source of oxygen its fine!”She smacked her palms off the table.

“I say we poison them all with wolfsbane and give Mother Nature her shit back.”You wiped some mustard from your cheek,making her grin.Once you finished the sandwich you insisted on getting back to work,groaning when the sun hit your skin again.She had sat by the pool,telling you that you could go for a swim when you finished working if you wanted to.

You tugged dandelions from the garden,it was your last task of the day which meant that you got it done as quick as possible,placing them into the bucket when you got a good idea.You took them back out,forming the weeds into a crown of yellow,grinning at your creation before presenting it to Sarah. “Figured the queen needed a crown.”Was al you said,placing it on her head before flashing a peace sign and beginning your walk home.

Sarah waited another seven days to see you.The sun didnt shine so bright,her hair felt lifeless and her smile just couldnt look right.She felt herself falling for you,not even bothering to fight off the feelings.Tuesday night,the night before you would be coming over she prepped herself.She made a ham and cheese sandwich with mustard and lettuce,wrapping it up and putting it in her fridge along with a blue gatorade.

She practiced how to do a cute bun that she had seen on her pinterest feed,picking out an outfit that would make her look nice without being too over the top.She ended up showering at two in the morning,making sure she would smell nice and her hair wouldnt be greasy.She woke up with drool tunning down her chin,her alarm loud.She groaned,wiping her face and checking the time.

She had a text from her dad to let her know that he and Rose had taken Wheezie to the beach and Rafe was off doing whatever it was that Rafe does.She sat in her living room,staring out the window as she waited for you to appear and walk around her house into the backyard.She grinned when she saw you,light overalls and a rainbow striped shirt,deep tan work boots and a tired look on your face as you opened the gate in the fence,walking around to the backyard.

She let out a soft sigh as she wiped her hands on her shirt,making sure there were no wrinkles as she grabbed the sandwich from the fridge,tucking it under her arm and holding the gatorade in her hand,opening the slider door with the other.She closed it,the hot humid air hitting her in a huge contrast from the cold air conditioned house.

“Hey,Sar.”You grinned,noticing that there wasnt much work that need to be done today.She held out the wrapped up sandwich to you along with the drink,crossing her arms awkwardly. “Do you want to come inside?”She asked,peeling at her white nail polish.You licked your lips,standing up and brushing off your pants before picking up the gatorade and sandwich,sitting at the kitchen table and eating. “So like,can I ask you a question?”She asked,leaning her elbows on the table.

You raised an eyebrow at her,swallowing the sandwich that you had in your mouth with a swig of gatorade. “I hate when people ask that.Are you gonna ask if I murdered someone cause the answer is no.”You said quickly,trying not to let your brain run wild.

You hadnt done anything wrong.Maybe you fucked up the order fo the flowers? “Oh,oh cool.But um….Like,what would you do if I accidentally kissed you?”She asked,making your eyes widen.Her heart beat only got quicker as the monet of silence lasted longer,a tension growing between the two of you.

“I dont know...thats never happened before.”You answered,avoiding her eyes.She blushed,leaning down quick and pecking your lips,pulling away just as quick. “Love that.”You answered,biting your lip lightly,trying not to laugh.

“Love you.”She answered,her face beet red.You smiled,looking up at her. “Love you too.”You answered,hearing the door open a few seconds later,Wheezie walking in,her skin slightly more tanned than it had been when she left. “Uhh...hi?”She frowned,looking at you but deciding not to question it before going up the stairs and into her room.

Ward and Rose came in soon after her,the same look on their faces. “Arent you the gardener?”Rose asked,coming into the kitchen and pouring herself a glass of wine. “She’s done with her work for the day.”Sarah answered quickly,looking over to Ward.

He didnt say anything,feeling that there was something going on between the two of you but deciding to stay quiet.You and Sarah had been dating in somewhat secrecy for a month and you no longer came over on just Wednesday’s to pull weeds.You came over pretty much everyday,going swimming or going to the beach with your lovely girlfriend.

You laid on your stomach on her bed,head on one of her many pillows,the show Lucifer playing on her large tv. “We should do something.”She spoke confidently,a mischevious grin on her face.You sighed,sitting up. “Like what?”You asked,knowing that she would probably suggest something ridiculous.

She smirked,grabbing her purse. “We’re gonna go shopping.”It wasnt even a question,just a straight out statement.You shook your head,going back to laying down when she grabbed at your ankles,trying to drag you off the bed. “Please?”She pouted,trying to get you to crack.

You simply rolled your eyes,reminding her that you didnt have the money for that type of thing.She sighed,grabbing your hands and pulling you up but you refused to go down without a fight,purposely pushing her backwards by wrapping your arms around her like a toddler.

“No.”You muttered,your nose in her blonde hair.You stared ahead of you,passing by trees and large houses,getting to the rich kook side of the island near the shopping boutiques and gold clubs. “I hate you.”You sighed as she pulled into a shop parking lot,a grin on her face. “I love you too.”She answered,opening the car door for you and making you get out.

“What if I buy you icecream after?”She asked,trying to get you to be less miserable,succeeding when your face lit up. “Like the fancy kind in a dipped waffle cone with the sprinkles?”You asked,willing to try on clothes if it meant getting to the sweet cold treat.

She nodded,complying with your request,holding your hand and bringing you inside.It didnt feel right for you to be here,even the lights looked expensive.There werent even carts,fabric bags instead.Thats how you could tell just how expensive everything here would be. “Sarah,this is ridiculous.”You mumbled as she dragged you over to some t shirts that had stripes but even they looked expensive,the material thick and durable between your fingers.

You gripped the price tag,eyes widening. “This shit is $130!”You exclaimed,letting go of it.She smiled,shaking her head. “Suck it up,buttercup.”Was all she had to say,finding your size and placing it into the fabric bag when a worker came up to the two of you. “Can I help you ladies?”He asked.You answered a wuick no but was overpowered by Sarah. “Yes,yes please.

Im thinking a whole new vibe for her,maybe like eighties meets surfing.”She tried to explain her ideas,somehow the sentence made sense in the man’s head as he guided the two of you through the store,showing you both sundresses,ripped jeans,pastel collared shirts,headbands and earrings.

He watched from a far as Sarah held up the clothing next to your body,holding others near your hair as she tried to decide on what she wanted you to try on.She decided a light yellow shirt,some light washed jeans,a pair of shorts that were dark blue with gold stars,a purple sweatshirt with the word ‘lovely’ on it,a set of cream colored underwear with a matching bra,a gold headband with flowers on it,a pair of boyfriend jeans,or as she called them,girlfriend jeans.

You didnt even give an opinion on any of the clothes she was putting into the bag,thinking about what kind of icecream you were going to get,snapping out of your thoughts when she told you to start trying things on.

She had requested that you took mirror pictures in everything you tried on and asked that you send them to her as she went to the jewelry counter,supposedly getting a spot on her gold necklace fixed.You took your time trying on clothes,trying not to become to insecure about it.

You took the photos quickly,plowing your way through the outfits,getting to the set of bra and panties.You slid on the underwear over the ones you were already wearing,seeing the sign on the dressing room wall that said not to try on undergarments on your bare body.You simply pulled on the bra over your breasts,not seeing a policy for that.

The fabric was soft and the bra held up your breasts perfectly,the cream colored lace straps tickling your skin.You snapped a few photos in the set,feeling a bit of heat rush to your face when the door opened,Sarah sticking her head in. “Are you checking yourself out?”She asked,a smirk on her face.You placed your hands over your face,laughing.

“Shut up.”You answered,letting her see what you looked like in the set.She did indeed shut up,biting her lip as she looked you up and down. “Yeah,we’re buying that.”She nodded,asking to see the photos and closing the door behind her.You scrolled through the photos,her head on your shoulder and kissing it lightly as she looked at them,nodding.

“Ooh that sweater is cute as hell.”She took the phone,zooming in. “So lets go look at some bathing suits and maybe get you some more bras...and then we can leave.”She grinned,gulping as she tried not to let her thoughts get the best of her.

You changed back into your normal paper thin striped shirt,shitty bra and overalls,putting the clothes back into the bag and walking back out,seeing her sitting in the chair with a grin on her face as if she knew something you didnt. “Look at how cute this bikini is!Your boobs would look good-we’re getting it.”She said quickly,putting a white one piece into the bag.

“Sarah-this is gonna cost like,a million dollars.”You grumbled,not really approving what your girlfriend was doing.She rolled her eyes,not worrying about it as she grabbed an ash colored bralette and underwear set,finally done picking clothes for you,dragging you to the counter to pay.You werent paying attention to anything the cashier was saying,only watching the total go up until it hit the point of $830.

What the actual fuck?Sarah simply swiped her card,taking the white and gold paper bag with a grin,pulling you along as you tried to get over the fact that she had just payed so much so carelessly.You two ended up back in the car,the bag in the backseat as you were still struggling to wrap your head around it.

“You okay?”She asked,noticing the look on your face. “You just spent an entire month of bills on clothes.”You whispered,making a smile come across her face. “That’s okay.”She answered,backing out of the parking lot and making her way to the icecream shop.

“Do you want to go to the beach to eat our icecream or do you want to go back to the house and model for me?”She asked,hoping you’d pick the second option.You shrugged,not really caring as long as you got your icecream. “yeah,you’re modeling for me.”She decided for you,turning on the radio. “Yeah?”You asked.

She hummed in response.The drive was quiet,your chin on your palm,the cool air of the air conditioning on your skin and the hot of the sun on your arm. “I feel like Cinderella right now.”You admitted,making the blonde laugh. “What do you mean by that?”She asked,curious.

You shrugged,turning down the radio. “I mean,you’re my beautiful fairy goddess and you just bought me some kook clothes and i’m used to cooking for people and pulling weed from rich people’s gardens...its like im becoming one of you.”You mumbled,her hand squeezing your thigh.

“You say it like we’re vampires, (Y/N).”She shook her head,pulling up to the icecream parlor,getting out of the car.You both walked up to the metal counter,looking at the menu.She got the same thing everytime.A medium cotton candy scoop in a chocolate sprinkled cone with whipped cream.

It was colorful and over the top,just like her.You decided on a rainbow milkshake which was layers of cotton candy icecream,strawberry,black raspberry,orange creamsicle and lemon all in one cup topped with whipped cream.

After getting your icecream you two went right back to the car,Sarah playing Lucifer on her phone and placing it between the two of you as she struggled to eat her icrecream quick enough so it wouldnt fall off or melt.She rested her icecream cone in the cupholder,driving back to the house,running up to her room with you close behind her,the white and gold bag tucked under her arm.

She ate the cone,getting to the end of it when she asked you to try on the bathing suit.You rolled your eyes,stripping of your overalls and t shirt,earning a quiet whistle from her.You sent her a quick wink,pulling the bathing suit up your body,pushing your arms through,your cleavage showing.

“Yeah,I was right.Your boobs look great.”She grinned,opening her drawers and picking out her pink bathing suit,changing into it right in front of you. “Lets go out to the pool.”She suggested,grabbing two towels from her drawer.The two of you sat in the cool water,the sun making it hard to look at. “I’ve got to get back to the house soon.”You mumbled,floating on your back.

She frowned,standing up in the shallow water. “Why?Cant you just sleep over?”She asked,not wanting you to go.You shook your head,figuring that it wouldnt be wise to spend another night. “I cant let the place get messy.”You answered,wringing out your hair.She pouted,understanding.

“You have to leave now?”She asked.You shrugged,sitting on the steps. “Probably soon,i’ve got to check the mail too.”You replied,stepping onto the hot concrete.She sighed,lifting herself out of the water and offering you a ride home.

You said yes,giving her a quick kiss before leaving the car,your backpack clinging to your shoulders,the store bag in hand. “I love you.”She grinned as you closed the car door. “Love you too,pretty girl.”You replied before going inside your small house.It was hot,dust on the counters and cabinets.

The coolers ice had melted,leaving cans of sprite to float in the water that was left.You sighed,going into your room and letting your backpack fall onto your mattress that stayed on the floor.You took the clothes from the store bag,putting them on hangers and letting them hang in your closet,far away from the one other pair of overalls you owned.You grinned at the splash of color in your dull home,ending up falling asleep on your stomach on top of your mattress,face in the blankets you had collected over the years.

Sarah looked in the mirror at her tube top that was covering a honey colored bralette that you liked so much,a pair of white jeans over matching yellow panties that you liked so much.

She tied her hair into a messy bun,letting out a soft sigh,grabbing her keys and getting ready to surprise you at your house.It had only been a few hours but she already missed you.She jogged down the stairs quick,close to leaving when Rose interferred.

“Where are you going?”She asked,looking at the outfit.Sarah cursed in her head,turning to look at her step mother. “Out.”She replied,not in the mood for her bullshit.Rose crossed her arms,a knowing smirk on her face. “Out where?”She pushed,acting like an annoying fifth grader.Sarah completely understood where Wheezie got it,Rose equally as annoying as the thirteen year old.

“Out on a date.”Sarah answered,glaring.Rose’s eyebrows furrowed,surprised. “Yeah?”She asked,raising an eyebrow.Sarah nodded. “Yeah.”She repeated,hand on the door knob. “With who?”Rose asked,really testing Sarah’s patience.

“With someone im interested in.”Sarah replied,venom dripping from her voice. “Hes got a job?”Rose asked.Sarah nodded. “Yeah.”She answered,sick of this interrogation. “What does he do?”Rose asked.Sarah rolled her eyes,nearly laughing at how clueless she was.

“Gardening.”Sarah replied,squeezing the door knob tightly.Rose frowned,a sympathetic smile on her face. “Sarah,he’s probably gay.”She whispered.Sarah chuckled,opening the door. “Yeah,she is.”Sarah answered,slamming the door behind her.

When she showed up to your house she let out an anxious sigh,standing at your door.She had never actually been inside before,knocking gently.Of course you couldnt hear her in your sleep though.She opened the door,frowning at the built up dust and lack of color.

She found your room easily,the one room that had a door.She knocked on it,not hearing anything and growing concerned,opening it quickly.She calmed down when she saw you asleep on your matress,hair messy.She smiled,taking a photo and sitting down on the mattress next to you.Your eyes fluttered open,squinting up at her. “Hi.”She smiled down at you.

You sat up,confused.The sun was nearly completely down,teh sky pink and purple. “Sarah?”You asked.She nodded,a grin on her face. “What are you doing here?”You asked,not really understanding why she was in your house or why she would want to be in your house.

It was messy and small and you hadnt been ready for her to see it yet.She shrugged,laying down with you. “I dont know,I missed you.”She shrugged,arms around your waist and head on your chest.You smiled,kissing her head. “I didnt end up cleaning,got tired I guess.”You replied,enjoying the warmth of her body.

She pouted,sitting up straight. “Its hot in here.”She mumbled,making you frown. “I mean yeah,I dont have air conditioning so-”You stopped talking when she peeled off her shirt and shorts,leaving her in one of your favorite sets that she owned.You nodded,agreeing. “Yeah,it is hot in here.”You agreed.

@outerbongs @copper-boom @httpstarkey @teenwaywardasgardian @drewswannabegirl @simonsbluee @jiaraendgame @khiaraaa-in-spacee @on-socks-off @poguestyleskye @jjtheangel @dannii-li @lovelyelinor

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#sarah cameron #sarah cameron x reader #sarah cameron imagine #sarah cameron x you #obx sarah #sarah cameron headcannon #sarah cameron smut #sarah cameron fluff #madelyn cline #outerbanks

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 3 years

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Eccentricity [Chapter 11: You Don’t Come Around No More]

A/N: I apologize profusely for the long wait. Thank you all so, so, so much for your support. Every single reblog, message, comment, emotional rant, and/or screech of despair makes my day, and I couldn’t do this without you. 💜 Only THREE more chapters left!!!

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “More To Life Than Baseball” by Petey.

Chapter Warnings: Language, angsttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Word Count: 7.5k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk

The Rain

I wish I felt empty.

I’m supposed to feel empty, right? I’m supposed to feel steeped in grey, oceanic misery; I’m supposed to dip in and out of depressive naps all day and sob delicately over creased photos and fading, wistful memories. I always envisioned heartbreak as a soft and inherently feminine sort of affliction: the hems of nightgowns and bathrobes sweeping along hardwood floors, Kleenex boxes and concave couch cushions, weepy phone calls to friends and aunts and mothers, Queen Victoria wearing black for the rest of her life after Prince Albert’s death, Mary Todd Lincoln sinking into dark and hushed obscurity. Women, hollowed out by despair, cross the history of the earth like lines of latitude.

I don’t feel empty at all. I don’t even feel sad. I feel razored by sharp, red, ceaseless anxiety. I am consumed by thoughts of what I did wrong, what I said that started the wheels of doubt spinning in his mind, if he had known how it would end from the start. I dream of white, clawed hands dragging me down through cold waves. I hear words scream to me as I toss at night in my suddenly too-spacious bed, words that now hit me like knuckles to the gut: Shhh, hey, it’s just me, don’t get up, as Joe slipped beneath the Arizonan blankets, wrapped an arm around my waist, kissed my collarbone as I tumbled back into sleep; I love you to death, as his Subaru idled in Charlie’s driveway; Baby Swan, listen to me, nothing is supposed to hurt, okay, so if anything hurts, ever, at all, you tell me and we stop, deal? as we stood in the doorway of our hotel room at the Four Seasons in Chicago. And now...and now...

And now everything fucking hurts.

It doesn’t make any sense; and yet it does. Look at him. Look at me.

The Polaroid photo from Homecoming was still taped to the top of my full-length mirror. I peeled it free like a layer of translucent, friable reptilian skin, tore it straight down the center, burned both halves over a brand new three-wicked, lemon-scented Bath And Body Works candle—a gift from Renee and Paul—and closed my eyes like a child casting a wish over her birthday cake like a spell. I wished for my memories to vanish with the photograph. I wished to get hit by a truck and wake up in the hospital with no recollection of the past two and a half months. I wanted the Lees to dissolve into distant, enigmatic mystery; I wanted to join the rest of Forks in believing that they were nothing more than bewildering and yet harmless freaks, barely worth noticing, one of those glitches of the matrix that were better off ignored like liminal seconds of déjà vu. I wished to carve out every part of myself that they had ever touched.

And Joe’s voice came rushing back from where we stood by that star-lit fountain outside the Church of Saint Lawrence, accompanied by falling raindrops and a crooked grin: I can make wishes come true.

The three tiny flames flickered in the breeze that sighed through my open window. The bright, citrusy scent of the candle reminded me of Lucy. I couldn’t fucking win. What else is new?

I turned back to the mirror. I flinched when my gaze snagged on my reflection: bloodshot-eyed, swollen-faced, utterly unbeautiful, restless like a caged animal. Look at him. Look at me.

I ripped the last memento off the mirror—Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!!—and watched the yellow square of paper catch fire, curl up around the edges, become unrecognizable, turn to ash. And I wished over and over again, like a poem, like a prayer: Let me forget, oh god please let me forget.

Charlie keeps asking if I’m okay. The answer, of course, is no; but I can’t tell him that. So I wear a serene smile like clip-on fangs, a cheap polyester cloak, crimson smudges of lipstick like trails of spilled blood down the side of my neck. Every day is Halloween for me now. I dress up as someone who isn’t haunted, who hasn’t become a ghost.

And when Charlie turns up the World Series or I’d Do Anything For Love on his geriatric, staticky kitchen radio—the same radio he’s had since my mother was the one joining him for daybreak coffee and Pop-Tarts—I choke back tears like dragonfire.

Missing In Action (Revisited)

Joe wasn’t here. Neither was Ben.

Lucy, Rami, and Scarlett were sipping cups of tea at the Lees’ usual table, their eyes downcast, their voices low and murmuring, their pristine lunches neglected. Lucy and Rami were dressed in matching charcoal grey turtleneck sweaters; Scarlett had come from Fencing Club and was wearing royal purple yoga pants and a black tank top, her duffle bag of gear on the floor by her sneakered feet. Her hair was in a long fishtail braid. Archer hadn’t mentioned her since Joe broke up with me. That either meant that it was going blissfully and he didn’t want to injure me further, or that Scarlett had ended things as well.

Since Joe broke up with me. That sounds so fucking pedestrian.

I stared at the three present Lees, almost leered, commanding them to see me, to acknowledge me, to admit that I had once meant something to them, that this hadn’t all been some transitory delusion to fill the cavernous void of losing my home, my life as I knew it in Arizona. They took no notice whatsoever.

Jess kicked me beneath the lunch table. My attention snapped back to her.

“Sorry, what?”

“You want to go shopping with me and Angela tonight?” Jessica’s hands were folded just beneath her chin, her voice gentle, her eyes large and sympathetic and watery. This was her version of being supportive. I appreciated it...in a perpetually tormented and preoccupied sort of way.

“No thanks.” I forked my cold, sauceless spaghetti listlessly. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch. I didn’t have an appetite anyway. I had deleted the GrubHub app from my iPhone and had no intention of using it ever again in my comparatively short and calamitous human life.

“You could come to temple this weekend,” Jessica pressed.

“Uh.” Mingling with a churchful of sociable, wholesome, marriage-obsessed adolescent Mormons sounded like the absolute last thing I’d want to spend my evening doing. “That’s a really generous offer, but I’ll pass.”

“Well you have to do something,” Angela said. “You can’t just sit in your bedroom alone all weekend and stare at the wall and wallow in self-pity.”

We’ll see about that. I turned to Jess. “How’s Vodka Boy from your Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class? Did he ever reappear? What’s his name again, Elmo? Ellington? El Chapo?”

“Ellsworth.” She frowned as she slurped her patron-drink-of-Mormons Sprite. “And no, he definitely failed out or overdosed or something, because he never came back.”

“Tragic,” I noted.

“But I’m pretty sure Mike’s coming over this weekend, so we’ll see if I can get some Netflix and chill action going.”

“Jess,” Angela chastised, widening her eyes and nodding to me subtly (but not quite subtly enough). No talking about getting lucky in front of the heartbroken single loser, that look said.

“I think I can be emotionally supportive without taking a goddamn vow of chastity, Angela!” Jessica hurled back.

“I gotta go.” I stood, threw on my backpack, discarded my nearly untouched lunch.

“You’ve barely eaten anything!” Angela protested. “You’ve barely eaten for a week!”

“I’ll live.” I picked my umbrella up off the slippery tile floor—peppered with muddy shoeprints and pearlescent drops of water fallen from coats and limp, sopping locks of hair—and headed out into the pouring rain. I hated the rain. I hated it. Maybe I had forgotten that for a while, but it all came hurtling back now like a hurricane, like a hand cracking across my face. I ached for the desert, for blatant and unapologetic heat, for palm trees and cacti and naked stars in the night sky. I had been researching marine biology graduate programs in the Southwest. There were good ones at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Texas A&M, the University of Southern California, UCLA. I would miss Charlie and Archer—and maybe Jessica and Angela on occasion—and absolutely nothing else about Forks. At least, that’s what I promised myself.

This is a no-giving-a-fuck-about-Lee-boys zone, I thought morosely.

Ben was brooding at our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom. It was the first time he’d shown up to Chemistry since that day Joe met me on the beach at La Push, since the place I’d once occupied in his universe had closed like a wound. I took my seat beside Ben. The window was shut today, the downpour outside torrential. Ben recoiled, just enough for me to notice; he was wearing his oversized black hoodie and practicing his Welsh, his handwriting messy and unbalanced.

“You could have warned me,” I said.

Ben didn’t glance up from his notebook. “Would that have made it any easier?”

“No,” I realized in defeat. I guess it wouldn’t have. I pulled my own notebook, my favorite pen, and a can of Diet Coke out of my backpack.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ben said. “You really need to know that. It had nothing to do with you. And none of us are happy with the current situation. None of us.”

None of them. That included Joe. “Interestingly, that didn’t stop him from creating it.”

Ben was thoughtful, debating his next words. “We’re probably going to be moving soon.”

“What?” I startled; my turquoise blue pen dropped out of my grasp and rolled across the table. Ben snatched it up and returned it to me. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And what, just redo this whole college thing?”

Ben shrugged. “We’ll probably start our junior years over again. Gwil will say there was some horrible family tragedy and we needed a few semesters off. I could use the extra time to figure out Calc anyway. Parametric equations make me want to kill myself.”

I just stared at him. It didn’t make any sense. “But...why would the whole family leave Forks? Because of me? One pathetic, aggrieved human? Do you all pack up and relocate every time Joe fucks and dumps someone? That must be exhausting.”

“It’s better for everyone if we get some distance. Put more space between our world and yours.”

“But...” I tried to imagine never seeing any of them again: no Mercy humming merrily as she tossed handfuls of homegrown carrots to the alpacas, no Dr. Lee dabbing away my blood with an ageless sort of patience, no Scarlett or Lucy or Rami, no brief glimpses of Joe as he avoided me in the campus library. It’s exactly what I wanted; and yet it wasn’t. It so, so, so, so wasn’t. It keeps getting worse. How is that possible? My voice was flimsy and quivering, absolutely pitiful. Disgustingly pitiful. “Who will be my lab partner?”

Ben peered over at me with wide, confused green eyes. And then—gingerly, awkwardly, like holding an acquaintance’s baby for the first time—he laid his hand over mine. “I’ll miss you too.”

Professor Belvin lectured about coordinate covalent bonds. I didn’t absorb a word. I conjugated Italian verbs with my turquoise blue pen, sketched disordered whirlpools of ink, tried not to think about whether this was my last-ever Chemistry class with Ben, whether it was my last-ever weekend sharing Forks with the Lees. Those rageful, frantic thoughts were back. What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? Why did he have to leave?

My nomadic gaze caught on a flier on the wall next to our misted window. I had assumed it was a leaflet for some club or protest or seasonal dance that I would definitely not attend, but it wasn’t. It was a missing poster.

Have you seen this student? the flier asked in bold, businesslike black font. It was urgent, but not quite despairing; not yet, anyway. I could hear a Dean of Student Affairs cajoling some affluent, strings-of-pearls-adorned mother over the phone: Yes ma’am, you have my full attention and I can assure you that we’re very concerned, but I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding...he’s probably gone backpacking or sailing with some friends and forgotten to call home. You know how college students can be. Beneath a large photo of a grinning blond kid—pink polo, flushed cheeks, clever crop job to nix a can of Natty Light clutched in one fist—was a name: Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin.

Ellsworth, I thought, my stomach plummeting. The guy from Jessica’s Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. He hadn’t failed out. He was missing. Missing like a 20/20 episode or a true crime podcast, missing like the pregnant stillness before a murder is confessed in some glaringly florescent-lit interrogation room, before a distended and bloodless corpse washes up on shore.

I turned to Ben. He noticed me eventually, crinkled his brow, shrugged in that way that seemed so petulant if you didn’t know him well enough to not be offended.

I pointed to the flier and raised my eyebrows. Ben twisted around in his chair to look. Then he sighed, scribbled a sentence in the corner of a piece of notebook paper, tore it free, and slid it across the table.

Ben’s note read, in atrocious penmanship: Are you seriously asking me if I ate that guy?

Maybe, I wrote back after a moment’s hesitation. Maybe that wasn’t exactly what I was asking; maybe I just wondered if he knew anything about it.

In either case, Ben’s reply was swift and resounding, and underlined three times: No.

Sorry, I wrote, abruptly remorseful. I am a jerk. And I added a frowny face for good measure. Ben chuckled when he saw it, shook his head, gave me a drawn little smirk. His words tiptoed around in my skull, leaving searing imprints like footprints in the sand. I’ll miss you too.

I have to forget about them. I drummed my turquoise blue pen against my notebook as Professor Belvin drew families of molecules on the whiteboard with squealing dry erase markers. I have to find a way to make myself forget.

Jessica was waiting for me in the hallway after class. It was part of her convince-Baby-Swan-not-to-jump-off-a-cliff initiative. “Hey.”

“Okay,” I told her with steely resolve. “I’m ready for you to set me up with one of those guys from your church or temple or whatever. I’m ready to be a nice wholesome wife, pop out like six kids, learn how to scrapbook, give up caffeine and horror movies, do the whole white picket fence thing. Sign me up.”

Jessica blinked at me. There were flecks of fallen mascara on her cheekbones like ashes. “What?”

“You’re a Mormon, right?”

“Girl, I’m not a Mormon,” Jessica said, puzzled. “I’m a witch.”

Lucille

I found Joe where he usually was these days: sprawled on the sofa, engulfed in the same blue Snuggie he’d been wearing for thirty-six uninterrupted hours, gazing catatonically at the big-screen tv. A 90 Day Fiancé marathon was on. Some rodentish guy named Colt was apologizing to his gorgeous, aspiring-green-card-holding Brazilian love interest for calling the cops on her during their last screaming match. He was also apologizing for the fact that they lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother. I didn’t need clairvoyance to see where their future was headed.

“Hey,” Ben said when he spotted me. He was sitting next to Joe and occasionally tried to shove pieces of popcorn into his mouth, which Joe accepted passively like coins plinked into a gumball machine. Ben had been his shadow for the past week; he was perhaps the best equipped of us to understand this degree of melancholy, of hopelessness.

“Ciao.” And then, to Joe: “How are you?”

“Terrible,” he replied, not tearing his eyes from the tv.

“I figured.” I squeezed between them on the couch, curled up next to Joe, rested my chin on his shoulder. He ignored me completely. I could hear Mercy tapping at her laptop keyboard out in the dining room; she was browsing through Zillow listings in Portland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Dear god, please don’t let us end up in fucking Cleveland. “Guess what.”

Joe stared at the tv for a long time before he answered. “What.”

“I had a vision of you. Just now, as I was doing laundry. Crystal clear and very scenic too, I might add.”

“Fascinating,” Joe said flatly.

“What happened in this vision?” Ben asked, far more invested, which I was thankful for.

“It was pretty far away, maybe a year from now. I saw you in the desert at night, under a full moon. There were cacti everywhere. The shadow of the Milky Way was threaded through the sky, and the stars were very bright. I could make out the constellations Pegasus and Cassiopeia. You were filling up a tiny glass bottle with dirt.”

“That’s remarkably helpful,” Joe said.

“It is, a little bit,” I insisted. “It means you get through this. That you have a future. I get nervous when I go too long without a vision of someone in the family. But now I know you’re going to be okay.”

The reflections of the feuding 90 Day Fiancé couples danced in his glassy eyes. “Being alive doesn’t mean you’re okay.”

“That’s dark,” Ben said. “Even I think that’s too dark.” He pushed a handful of popcorn into Joe’s mouth. “Are you gonna hunt at some point or what?”

“No.”

“You’re just gonna sit on this couch and waste away?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to bring you anything? Grizzly bear? Brown bear? Fuck it, I’ll get you a polar bear if that’s what you want. There’s probably some on the black market. Rami would know.”

“He what?” Mercy called from the kitchen. Her typing had stopped.

“Nothing, Mom!” I shot back.

“I don’t want anything,” Joe said. That was a lie, of course. We all knew what he wanted. Rami couldn’t stand to be around him; the thoughts were relentless, smothering.

I linked my arms around Joe’s neck, laid my head against his chest, sighed deeply and mournfully. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I know that doesn’t fix anything. But I’m so, so sorry. And I’ll help however I can. We all will.”

And I had accepted that Joe wasn’t going to respond at all when he finally whispered: “I just wish I could forget.”

Cato

My rolling suitcase snagged on the cobblestone driveway. The tiny spinning wheels bashed against concrete as I scaled the front steps. As the taxi pulled away, I dug around in my suit pocket for my keys, found them, unlocked the enormous front door, stepped inside the palace as my suitcase trolled along the marble floor.

“Cato’s back!” Charity announced as she breezed down the nearest staircase, beaming and embracing me. She was a lovely, innately warm woman from Pointe-Noire, Congo; she still wore the silver cross necklace her mother had once given her around her neck. “Did you have a nice flight? Wait, let me check.” She pressed the fingertips of her right hand to my cheek. I felt the memories rush up like blood to a flushed face: the bite of sipped champagne against my tongue, the thin semi-transparent newspaper pages gliding between my fingers, the husky voice of the bearded, bearish naval officer who sat in the seat beside me, the misted silhouette of Vladivostok as it rose up out of the Pacific Ocean. “Uneventful, but pleasant enough. You flew commercial?”

“The jets were otherwise occupied, apparently.” Charity could see things with the predictability and precision that Lucy so often lacked, but only the past. I pushed her hand away. “Was that really necessary?”

“You’re not mad,” Charity declared, confident, impish, helping me shed my suit jacket and draping it over her arm. “You’re never mad.”

She was very nearly correct. “Where are the rest of the kids?”

“In the kitchen. Go say hello, they’ve missed you dreadfully.”

“I know the feeling.” I kicked off my Berlutis, ran a palm over the wiry fur of the Irish Wolfhounds that appeared to greet me before they resumed padding watchfully around the palace, and went to the kitchen, my black socks slipping a bit on the marble floors.

I could hear their voices before I reached the door: laughter, teasing, complaints, requests. The scents of pancakes and cold butter and maple syrup were thick in the air. Charity was one of our four newest recruits, and they all still had that energetic lightness of being human, a youthful enthusiasm, a relative normalness. I spent quite a lot of time with them. It was my job—to help with the transition, to keep them happy, to facilitate the welding of their individual parts into the beastly machine that was the Draghi—but oftentimes it felt more like a reprieve. Some would stay close to me as they matured, others would grow in different directions, like ambitious vines climbing the skeleton of a garden trellis. I usually missed them when they ‘grew up,’ so to speak...although there were exceptions. I had never liked Liesl. I had always liked Ben. I opened the door.

“Ah, you are home!” Ksenia cried from where she stood over the stove, a spatula in her right hand, bouncing excitedly in place on her small bare feet.

“Hey!” Max and Austin called together. They were both sitting with their shoes propped up on the unglamorous kitchen table. There was a massive formal dining room that could accommodate up to twenty-five guests, but we rarely used it.

“Good morning,” I said, aware that I was smiling for the first time in days.

Max groaned as he scrolled through his Google search results on a burner phone. “What the fuck. My name is one of the top five dog names again. I think I’m gonna have to change it.”

I ruffled his long blond hair, stealing a piece of bacon from his plate. Max had grown up a trust fund kid in Perth, Australia. His mother was old money; his father was a professional surfer. “Your name is fine.”

“Really, Kato Kaelin? Is it really? How am I supposed to intimidate people when I have a fucking dog name?”

“So make them call you Maximilian,” offered Ksenia in a heavy Ukrainian accent. She’d only been with us for eight months, but her English was coming along swimmingly. She flipped a massive A-shaped pancake on the sizzling griddle. That one was for Austin.

“Seriously?” Max said. “That is just way too many syllables. They’ll be halfway down the block by the time I’m done introducing myself. ‘Hey, come back mate, I haven’t killed ya yet.’”

“At least you aren’t stuck with a basic-white-boy-circa-1992 name for all of eternity,” said Austin Tyler McInerny, originally of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He was chomping on a multicolored Fruit Roll-Up, which swung from his mouth like a lizard’s tongue. He’d been working at an ailing skatepark when Larkin found him. He still enjoyed showing off his kickflips, and kept insisting that he was going to teach me how to ollie. I didn’t have the faintest idea what an ollie was.

“Do you want a pancake, Cato?” Ksenia asked, passing Austin his plate and wiping her hands on her pink apron. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail with a matching rose-colored ribbon. She looked so young. She was so young, actually. Nineteen. And she would be forever.

“No, thank you dear. I’m alright.”

“I like Alaric,” Max decided. “First king of the Visigoths. Alaric is a name fit for a vampire. Creepy, yet dignified. Or maybe Silas. Or Draco.”

Austin shook his head as he swirled a river of viscous maple syrup over his A-shaped pancake. “Definitely not Draco.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the Harry Potter connection is unfortunate. People will hear Draco and think of that obnoxious white-haired kid from the evil snake-people house or whatever.”

“Oh, right,” Max sighed. “Like I said. Alaric would work.”

“So many A-shaped pancakes!” Ksenia poured a K on the griddle for herself.

“It’s good for you,” Austin replied, pointing at her with his fork. “We’re practicing English.”

“Alaric Luther,” Max mused, scrolling through his phone. I didn’t think he’d find that on any list of trendy dog names. “Alaric Lothaire...Alaric Lucian...”

“I like your name, Max,” Larkin said from the doorway. None of us had heard him arrive. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, wearing a deep maroon suit and a ring on every finger, grinning hugely. He was exactly as I remembered him: stunning, captivating, terrifying. The kitchen fell quiet. I could smell Ksenia’s pancake beginning to burn.

At last Max chuckled nervously, pushing soggy pancake hunks around on his plate with his fork, averting his gaze. “Guess I’ll keep it then.”

“I thought I heard you come in,” Larkin told me.

“It’s always a pleasure to be home.”

He nodded out towards the hallway. “Come. Regale me with the stories of your travels.” Then his eyes flicked down to my socks, and he grimaced—slightly, briefly—before turning away. “And find your shoes.”

I followed him through the hallway, the living room, the grand front foyer with the crystal chandelier, into the elevator. Larkin did not speak, but he hummed as we ascended: House Of The Rising Sun.

It hadn’t always been like this. It was difficult for me to pick out the details of what had changed—the tone of his voice, the proportion of wonder and gratitude I associated with him versus fear, the way this palace (or the one in Reykjavik, or Juneau, or Ivalo, or Murmansk, or any of the others) felt when I stepped inside it—but I knew something had. It had begun before Ben left. It was much worse now. Older vampires, in my fairly learned opinion, are something like the stars. They mellow as they age, temper their character flaws, grow wise and patient like Nikolai or Honora or Gwilym Lee; or they rage until they burn away every last atom of humanity, until they destroy themselves and take entire solar systems down with them. Increasingly, I harbored fears that Larkin was a vampire of the latter variety. And we were all his planets.

In his study, Larkin dropped into the chair behind his desk, brought a hand to his forehead, surveyed a disarrayed flurry of papers: letters, notices, deeds and titles, meticulously managed accounts of finances and disciplinary actions. Larkin had a laptop and burner phone, of course, as we all did; but he liked to work in paper as much as possible. That’s how he’d done things for centuries, since long before the name of the inventor of the internet (or harnessed electricity, for that matter) was a whisper on his parents’ lips. The sky outside was clouded and seeping soft rain.

“Things have been busy?” I ventured.

He frowned, gesturing to the cluttered desk. “I’m in purgatory.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Can I help?”

“The Lancaster coven says they’ll need an extension for their dues. That’s the second year in a row, now it’s not just an exception, it’s a precedent. If you let one coven bend the rules, others will follow. So something will have to be done. Then there’s Stockholm. Anders’ coven has eaten a few too many locals—including the mayor’s favorite niece—and now the city is launching an investigation. Fucking idiots. They’ll probably all have to relocate. There’s some new territory dispute in Lima between Alejandro’s coven and a group of strangers that just came out of the Andes. We’ll have to make their acquaintance, of course. And as if all that weren’t enough, Rigel accidentally fed on a heroin addict and he’s currently detoxing in a cell in the basement. Would you check on him for me? I’m sure your presence will be a...” He waved his hand distractedly, almost dismissively, searching for the words. “A comfort to him.”

“Of course.”

“How are the Lees?”

“Fine. Typical. Gwil’s putting in a lot of hours at the hospital. Rami’s planning to get another law degree. Ben is, uh, adjusting. Slowly, very slowly. He’s not particularly content. But he hasn’t murdered anyone that I’m aware of.”

“How nice.” Now his eyes darted up to catch mine: focused, luminous, unreadable. “Nothing new at all?”

And instantly, I wanted to tell him everything. I forgot why I had ever planned to blunt the girl’s existence, to conceal her talent entirely; I felt her name rising in my throat. And then I remembered again. I’m doing this for Gwil, for Ben.

I pretended to ponder Larkin’s question, as if it was so difficult to remember, as if there was nothing left to sift through but a trunkful of mundane details from the trip like a grandfather’s tattered correspondence and tarnished war relics. That was something an average family might have squirreled away in their attic, I assumed; I’d never met my own grandfather, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have had anything to leave me if I had. “Joe’s got some new girlfriend, but I don’t think it’s serious. I doubt she’ll be around long. You know how Joe is. Scarlett’s seeing someone too, actually. A Quileute kid.”

“Poor boy.” And Larkin grinned like a shark beneath burning eyes. “He’s in for a lifetime of disappointment. Who will ever be able to hold a candle to those memories?”

Larkin had a moderate preoccupation with Scarlett’s beauty, her...tenacity. Her lack of talent was a great disappointment to him, a somehow more egregious fault than Joe or Gwil or Mercy’s. What a shame, Larkin often said. And I believed I knew what came after in his mind, although never aloud: What a partner she could have been.

He was still grinning at me. His expression was hollow, vacuous. A shiver clawed down my spine. He was waiting for something. No, he was searching. I stared back, and I willed for that intangible, contagious harmony I carried around like a wedding ring to hit him like carbon monoxide or bromine: undetected and yet inexorable, knocking him off his path of inquisition.

What does he suspect? What does he already know?

“Anyway,” Larkin continued abruptly, turning his attention back to his paperwork. “I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about in Forks. Liesl will be back in the next few days, Rigel will be ready to work again, I’ll come up with a plan to handle all this and my mood will improve tremendously.”

And where has Liesl been? I almost asked; and then I didn’t. It was a good sign that she was coming home. I had looked for her once while I was in Forks. When I made up my mind to find someone—when that switch flipped in my skull or in the tangle of nerves of my solar plexus or wherever it lived—it wasn’t like poking around on Google Earth: zooming in here, scrolling over there. A goldish trail lit up on the floor, a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ Honora and I sometimes joked, and I followed it. And I had no way of knowing how far that trail might lead. A route heading dead east from the palace might stop in the next town over or continue across the Pacific Ocean; my search might last one day or a hundred. In Forks—as I perched in a soaring western hemlock tree in the forest outside the Lee residence on a cool October evening—Liesl’s trail had led north. North to Vancouver, to Victoria, to Dawson, to Alaska? Who the fuck knew. I was just relieved it hadn’t led to the tree next to mine.

“Well, as always, I’m happy to assist however I can,” I told Larkin. “Just let me know and I’ll be on the next flight out of Vladivostok.”

“I appreciate that, Cato.” He smiled, paternally this time. And then he spun his chair around to peer out the window into the episodic flares of lightning that illuminated great dark clouds like neurons in a celestial brain. I hate thunderstorms. They remind me of South Carolina. “But I think you’ve earned a rest.”

After checking in on Rigel—irritable, frenetic, pacing, and yet predictably pacified somewhat by my visit—I trotted up the main staircase to the second floor of the palace. I found her in our bedroom: sitting at her easel, a paintbrush held in one graceful hand, an image like a photograph on the canvas. I promptly pried off my Berlutis for the second time today and tossed them into the closet.

“Ciao, amore,” I said.

“Ciao!” Honora replied, beaming. Her curly brunette hair was pinned up and away from her face; wayward tendrils spiraled down to brush her bare shoulder blades, the back of her neck. “Just give me five minutes...I have to finish the shadow of this tree...”

There weren’t many in the Draghi who survived the transition from Nikolai’s leadership to Larkin’s, but Honora had. She was gentle to a fault, a hopeless warrior, turned into an immortal on her forty-fourth birthday when Rome was still an empire; and she was without any talents whatsoever, except for one which was useless in combat. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures adorned every palace the Draghi owned. Each year, Larkin would ask her to paint all of us together, incorporating any new faces, erasing the memories of those who had proven themselves unworthy. One such portrait, I knew, hung in Gwilym Lee’s home office.

I went to the woman I called my wife, laid my palms on her shoulders, leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Take your time, love.”

“Everything’s alright?” Honora asked, looking hopefully up at me with large, wide-set jade eyes. No, not just hopefully. Trustingly.

“Everything’s alright,” I agreed, not knowing if I believed it.

Shadows And Spells

“He just...just...disappeared?!” Jessica sputtered, scandalized, gaping at me as she held a Styrofoam cup of spiked apple cider in her clasped hands.

We were on a quilt near the outskirts of the sea of beach towels and blankets that circled the bonfire. Women—wearing flowing dresses or robes or tunics or not very much at all—flounced around the flames banging tambourines and reciting chants that I didn’t know the words to. Some carried torches, beacons of heat and light in the darkness. Jessica was wearing a short black shirt, fishnet tights, and a black crop-top turtleneck sweater; I had opted for a bohemian blue dress patterned with stars, an old thrift shop find and the closest thing I owned to Wiccan festivities apparel. I had a cup of hot apple cider as well, enhanced with a generous splash of Captain Morgan, but hadn’t quite conjured up the rebelliousness to drink it yet.

I suddenly recalled Mercy bringing me an endless supply of virgin autumnal sangrias as Joe and I swam in the hot tub on the Lees’ back porch. As soon as you turn twenty-one, you can have the real thing. I frowned, shuddered, took a bitter and burning sip.

“Yeah,” I replied. “He told his roommate he was going to a frat party or something and never showed up and never made it back home either. The parents are blaming the university, the university is insisting he must be off with a girlfriend or on some hipster soul-searching nature adventure or whatever, it’s a mess.”

“Jesus,” she murmured. “What does your dad say?”

“He’s been helping the state police with the investigation. There’s really no evidence of anything. No witnesses, no footprints, no surveillance footage, no handy anonymous tips...”

“No body,” Jessica finished.

“That’s morbid.” I downed the rest of my cider. Was the world already beginning to list like a ship on choppy waves, or was that just my imagination? I guess it would be possible. I’d barely eaten all day.

“You were thinking it.”

“Well, one’s mind does tend to wander towards homicide under such circumstances.”

“It is the season of the dead.” She grinned wickedly, then took my empty cup. “He’s probably fine. I bet he wants to drop out to become a weed farmer and hasn’t worked up the guts to tell his parents yet. You want another?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back.” Jess rose to balance on black boots with five-inch heels and staggered off to the foldable table piled high with cans and bottles and snacks. I was getting the impression that her Wiccanism was more of a novelty than a spiritual commitment.

The season of the dead. Now that’s VERY morbid.

There were some guys laughing, smoking home-rolled cigarettes, and toasting glasses of red wine on a nearby mandala blanket, bespectacled intellectual types who were probably getting PhDs in Anthropology or Medieval Studies at the University of Washington. One of them—curly-haired, pale-eyed, wearing a sweater vest and a cautious smile—raised his wine glass in my direction. I waved back without much enthusiasm.

“He’s cute, right?” Jessica asked, plopping back down onto our quilt and shoving a full cup of spiked cider into my grasp. She motioned for me to drink. I did. “That’s Sebastian, but he likes to be called Bash. He’s twenty-three and speaks fluent German.”

“Charming.”

“He’s very...uh...gifted. I’m not saying I know from personal experience, but I’ve heard it from a very reliable source. And his parents own a beach house in Monterey. You could go skinny-dipping.”

“In the ocean?” The world was definitely wobbling now. I was warm all over, numbed, fuzzy; it was becoming difficult to picture Joe’s face, to hear his voice. This was good. I kept drinking. “No thanks. Too many sharks. They have great whites down there.”

Jess tossed her long, loose hair and sighed impatiently. “I’m just saying that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. So you should pursue that.”

“I’ll totally consider it.” I lied. I would not consider it.

She smiled, sympathetically, fondly. “I can’t believe you thought I was a Mormon.”

“I can’t believe I’m out in the Washington wilderness commemorating the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but here we all are.”

Jess glanced over my shoulder. “Oh my god. He’s coming over here.”

“Ugh.” I craned my neck to see. Sebastian—whoops, my mistake, Bash—was approaching. “Please distract him. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Also I’m pretty sure I’m getting drunk and I don’t want to do anything humiliating, like sob uncontrollably about how much I miss my ex-boyfriend.”

“Don’t worry. I gotchu, Baby Swan.”

“Hey Jess,” Bash said, but he was looking at me. He pitched his cigarette off into the trees. What the fuck, who does that?

“Only you can prevent forest fires,” I told him in a woozy, mock-Smokey Bear voice.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“Ignore her, she’s drunk,” Jess said quickly. “So what’s up? Come on, sit with me. Keep me toasty. Teach me some German...”

As they chatted and giggled and snuggled closer together—I’m starting to think that Jessica might have been her own reliable source—I studied the forest, watching to make sure the cigarette didn’t begin to smolder in the damp brush. The voices and crackling of the bonfire and sharp ringing of the tambourines faded into one muted, uniform drone. The trees reeled in the haze of the spiked cider; the cool wind moaned through them. And then, for only a second: a glimpse of something impossibly quick, something silvery and reedy and sunless.

What was that?

I blinked. It was gone. I blinked again, staring penetratingly. The swarming heat from the cider evaporated from my skin, my blood. There were goosebumps rising all over me.

What the hell was that?

I remembered how Calawah University students sometimes reacted to Ben: flinching, withdrawing, autonomically fearing him on some primal, evolutionary level. They knew he was a predator. They knew they were prey. It was chillingly similar to what I was feeling now.

I have to get out of here. I have to go home.

I shot to my feet. Oh, wrong move, that was too quick. I swayed, and Jessica reached up to steady me. “Are you—?!”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I gotta go home now.”

“What?! We just got here! Look, chill out, let me get you some vegan samosas or something—”

“No, seriously, I have to go.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessica conceded. “I’ll finish my drink and we’ll call an Uber, alright?”

“Really?” Bash asked, crestfallen.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I told Jess. “You stay, I’ll go.” Maybe she shouldn’t stay, I thought foggily, irrationally. Maybe it’s not safe.

“I can’t let you go alone. I got you drunk and now you’re a mess and if you end up murdered it would be my fault. There are unsolved mysteries going around, you know.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Girl, there’s no way I’m gonna—”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get in the Uber and I’ll stay on until I’m physically inside my house, okay?”

Jessica considered this. Bash leaned in to nibble her ear. I could smell the red wine and nicotine and animalistic lust sweating out of his pores. And unexpectedly, agonizingly: a biting flare, a muscle memory, Joe’s fingertips skimming down the small of my back and his scent like winter nights saturating the capillary beds of my lungs. Stop, stop, stop. “Okay,” Jess agreed at last.

“Awesome.” I was already opening the Uber app on my iPhone.

My driver was a Pacific Northwestern version of Santa Claus: wild grey beard, red flannel, L.L.Bean boots, rambling about his upcoming trip to hunt caribou in British Columbia. I honored my promise to Jessica and kept her on speakerphone for the duration of the twenty-minute drive. I rested my whirling head against the seat, let my eyes dip closed, watched the intermittent streetlights appear and disappear through my eyelids. I let myself into Charlie’s house when I arrived, wished Jessica goodnight (and reminded her not to get pregnant), and meandered clumsily into the kitchen for a glass of water and a cookie dough Pop-Tart to ward off a possible hangover. Charlie was snoring quietly on the living room couch. I watched him for a while, smiling and achingly grateful, before heading upstairs to my bedroom.

My window was wide open; that’s the first thing I noticed. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. I was always neglecting to lock the window, sure—I kept forgetting that there was no one to leave it unlocked for anymore—but I hadn’t left it open when I went to meet Jessica this evening. Icy night air flooded in. The stars were bright and furious in an uncommonly clear sky.

“You trying to give me pneumonia, old man?” I muttered, thinking of Charlie. I tossed my iPhone down onto my bed and crossed the room to close the window. And as it creaked and collided with the sill, I heard my closet door open behind me.

Someone’s here. Someone’s in this room with me.

I turned, very slowly; it felt like it took a lifetime. She was standing in the doorway of my closet, sinuous and white-haired, wearing black leather pants and stiletto heels and a long-sleeved lace blouse the color of blood, the color of her eyes. And she was harrowingly beautiful; not like Lucy or Mercy, not like Scarlett. She was beautiful like a prehistoric jawbone, like a serrated crescent moon, like a blade.

The owl. The goddamn albino owl.

I recognized her immediately. I heard Joe’s words as he introduced each vampire in the immense painting hanging in Dr. Lee’s upstairs office to me, though I desperately didn’t want to: She’s literally Satan, only blonder.

Her name tumbled from my trembling lips. “Liesl.”

“Wonderful, we can skip the introductions.” Her voice was like windchimes, cutting and brisk, with a hint of an Austrian accent like a shadow. Now she was at my bedside and picking up my phone, scrolling through it with lightning-quick and dexterous thumbs. “Hm. No texts from any of the Lees in the past week. So we don’t have to worry about them dropping by, I suppose. Joe got bored with you already, huh?”

“Evidently.” My own voice was brittle, anemic, weak; just like my ineffectual human body.

“That’s quick, even for him. How sad.” She sighed, tucking my iPhone into her red Chanel purse. “There’s a private jet waiting at the Forks Airport. Pack a bag. You have five minutes.”

“Please don’t hurt my dad,” I whispered, scalding tears brimming in my eyes.

“Of course not,” Liesl replied with a savage, saccharine smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

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a-table-of-fics · 3 years

Text

Oddworld, Conar's Ambition, Chapter 2, Draft 1

[[Thanks to Tumblr updating the post length limit, I can finally put the full draft of Chapter 2 in one big post!]]

Slim was silent in line to Slugbite Motel. The chatter was hopefully decent cover; he didn’t need yet more attention after his outburst. If he kept his head down, he’d be fine, and wouldn’t get any more surplus bruises on top of the regular workday bruises.

He heard chatter all around him, gossip from other Slog Huts, Splinterz, and Flub Fuels.

“Management must be pissed, what with -”

“I can’t believe what Skrag did to me! What got into-”

“- hear about FeeCo?”

“We’re gonna be settin’ some electric fences up tomorrow, anyone know about -”

“ – say Abe’s got to Necrum –“

“ -Sligs must be worried if Abe’s getting’ to their place –“

Any talk of Abe was, of course, in whispers. No one believed him to be a terrorist, really, but everyone knew better than to celebrate. Well, everyone but him, apparently, but still. Slig forces were already pretty antsy right now, and there were cameras everywhere. Besides, it was a long day full of more abuse than normal. Everyone was just ready for bed, so to speak. Sure, it was less a bed and more a closet with a dirt floor and next to no elbow room, but it was a place to sleep, nonetheless.

It was almost his turn in the queue. Slim dug in his pouch for his meal ticket. With any luck, he’d get half a Scrabcake with the somewhat edible slop they served here. He presented the ticket to the Slig clerk Jeandis. Jeandis took one look, rolled his eyes from under his visor, and then slammed the counter to his left, deepening the indentation next to the bell. A Mudokon, wearing a light brown cap with deep red stripes and a similarly-colored loincloth, emerged from the back door, carrying a tray of gruel with him.

The tray had no trace of Scrabcakes, sadly, but it did come with a small can of that drink everyone was talking about – Soulstorm Brew. The green can with that nondescript Glukkon’s face on it was an interesting look, at least, and the somewhat sickly Mudokon in those commercials did look exceedingly happy when Director Phleg gave him a crate of the stuff, as if it was sorely-needed medicine. Slim even saw the server longingly stare at the can he had to give him.

“On the house… buddy,” Jeandis said, his line carefully rehearsed. “You saw the commercials; it’s a freebie!”

“Um, okay, thanks.”

Slim took his dinner tray and a plastic spoon over to find a seat that was open; this was no small feat in a Slugbite Motel. Many Mudokons had long since given up on the prospect, instead sitting on the floor against any given wall. He noticed how everyone was given similar cans of Brew, and a lot of the chatter he came across was already shifting from the recent Abe scare to the Oddsend the new drink was.

He walked through the throngs of fellow Scrubs, the smell of Brew filling the air. It was very strange; a tangy aroma that was also somehow familiar. The chatter grew louder and more animated as time went on, and even Slim was feeling a little less tired from the fumes and infectious cheer.

Still, it was a long day, so he still prepared to just sit down and eat. He found a place next to Ben, and dug in. Well, as much as you could dig in with whatever this was. Some said those were fruit chunks mixed in with the goop, some said they were Elum Chubs, but one thing for certain was they were undercooked. It was well known that this was the least of dinner’s concerns, sadly.

Slim took a few shaky scoops, doing his best to forget the words “gag reflex”. He was able to swallow the muck as usual, but he found himself coughing; it felt like he was eating sawdust under the slimy texture!

“Yeah,” Ben said, sympathetically, “Jeandis’ Special really sucks today, doesn’t it?”

“WHO SAID THAT?!” demanded Jeandis, so loud that everyone on the other side of the cafeteria could clearly hear the greenish-yellow Slig. The din died down as a furious head chef stomped over to the wall where the sound came from. There were at least ten cowering Scrubs under his wrathful glare, and they were all pointing grey or green fingers at each other.

“This is more than you deserve, ya miserable Chippunks! You oughta know I could—Eh?”

He was interrupted by frantic whispers from the server Mudokon, who was quick to rush up to his boss. He lowered his fist, slowly, and his face-tentacles sagged.

“…You oughta know…er…I could getcha another can of Brew to…wash it down…?”

Nine out of ten Mudokons were nodding enthusiastically, and the Scrubs at the surrounding tables cheered.

“Shut up and get in line again if you want another round!”

Almost all the Mudokons immediately shot up and sprinted into line. Some of them trembled excitedly while they waited.

Slim had never seen the cafeteria so alive or enthusiastic before. This Soulstorm Brew stuff must have one hell of a kick. If he drank it now, he’d probably be up all night. Best to save this stuff for when he needed it – no need to come to work tired tomorrow.

Besides, if all else failed, he had a bartering tool now.

With this in mind, he tucked the can he had into his pouch. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to sleep with a dry throat; he knew better than to ask Jeandis for anything else to drink.

His body still ached, and it had been a long day on top of that, so while Jeandis was occupied with his sudden fame, Slim quietly ate up the rest of his “meal” and left. With the “first come, first served” policy of getting a room for the night, he was able to get one right by the cafeteria for once. He might even be able to get breakfast tomorrow!

He dug in his pouch for his ID, and a quick scan gave him the room for the night. As the door closed behind him, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the windowless closet. When he did, he could see all kinds of scratchings on the wall. Short complaints about bosses and a variety of tally marks filled most of it, but there were some other things. There was the occasional crude drawing of a bird, which gave Slim nostalgia over something he never experienced. There were conversations between anonymous Mudokons, about the latest gossip, concerns, and anything else. It was comforting; they watched out for each other and kept each other informed even when they didn’t really know each other.

With his nightly reading done, Slim slumped down to the ground. The dirt here was cool, but nothing he wasn’t used to. With any luck, he wouldn’t wake up to Bolamites crawling over him, but that was a problem for future him. Present him just had to be absorbed by the soft earth, and dream of a better workday, one where Abe saved him from this miserable job and blew up the Slog Hut.

It was all he could do, really.

* * *

It wasn’t even five minutes before he felt a cold breeze, and the light of the hallway made him squeeze his eyes shut more before sitting up. A hand went up to shield his vision, but he was still blinded for a moment while he tried to make out the silhouette. A Slig, for sure, but that hardly narrowed it down. The Pants were pretty basic, being two robotic legs attached to a large ball. However, the giveaway was the mask that obscured this particular guard’s face. It was one of the older visors, like some Sligs still wore, with a single long visor. However, this one covered his scalp, forming an ugly black helmet rather than just a scary red visor. Only Conar had that version, but what was he doing here of all places?

Well, it couldn’t be anything good. Slim shuddered, wondering what he’d have to apologize for to get a manager from work to find him in this motel. But… no beating or gunfire came his way. In fact, Conar looked taken aback. He wasn’t aiming his Blunderbuss anywhere in particular, and his head kept turning either way, as if he wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Well, whaddaya know, Slim,” he said, after a moment. “Funny I’d run into you here…”

Slim blinked, lowering his hands, but remaining where he was.

“So, uh... you wanna get outta shoveling Slog crap?”

Slim opened his mouth to answer, but Conar grabbed his arm, so the Scrub’s confused questions were interrupted by his own yelp.

“Time’s up!” Conar said, hearing the chatter die down in the cafeteria. “We’re leavin’!”

“Oh-okay…”

“And you’re gonna shut yer yap! We ain’t supposed to be doing this, you know!”

With that, the two of them silently beat feet away from the hubbub of the mess hall, kicking up a lot of dirt on their way.

The hall separated into two different ways at the end. Conar knew that to the left was the back door he came from, and was going to drag Slim with him. But Slim had other ideas, nearly pulling Conar out of his Pants as he pulled them both to the right.

Conar adjusted his seat so he could run properly again, then struggled to get out of Slim’s grip.

“What the hell?!” he protested, before realization struck, and he quieted down. “The back way’s the otherhall!”

“Where do you think most’f the Sligs are?” Slim harshly whispered. “Seen at least four Mudokons try that, and they never make it to the parking lot!”

“Oh, and the front door’sgonna be much better? Hah!”

“Dunno,” Slim shrugged. “No one’s tried it.”

Conar was about to say something pretty snippy, but he saw they were close to the lobby. The pair stopped just short, and Conar looked ahead. There wasn’t much to see, past the dozens of bored Mudokons waiting in line to be checked in by a very bored Glukkon receptionist, complete with a very bored Slig there to type the guests’ numbers in.

No one was looking their way, so Conar motioned for Slim to follow, and the two of them walked towards the other exit. They made it about halfway through before the Pud looked up.

“Where do ya think you’re goin?!”

“Ah…” Conar started, before regaining his composure. “Y’see, he was volunteered to work overtime tonight! Just came here to pick ‘im up!”

The Glukkon rose to his full height, which would have been impressive if he had shoulder pads or any non-plaid clothing. His assistant also rose, clicking a pen as violently as one could manage. Both Conar and Slim hunched a little, preparing to put their hands over their heads.

The receptionists walked over, sneering. The Mudokons in the queue muttered, some talking about the scene, others complaining about this new delay between them and dinner.

The Glukkon leaned close, so close Conar could almost read the miniscule nametag.

“We have procedures for this, you know! Guests –“ he said the word like most would say “slurg”, “—are to be signed out before leaving the premises!”

Slim blinked. It was hard to tell if Conar did the same.

“Yeah, er…” Conar said, rubbing his head. “Sorry, sir. I thought you wanted ‘im in line, too.”

“And risk the liability?” the receptionist exclaimed. “No, we have registration protocol for a reason!You security and your..your… unprofessionalism!”

His assistant merely gave Conar a look of resignation before marching back to check the Mudokons in.

“If we were to mix the lines like that, our quotas would go kaput! And this is a fine establishment!”

Conar chose not to bring up the dirt floor or the mold-eaten wallpaper. He was already debating whether or not this endeavor was worth it. Zoning out and wondering about that was far easier than listening to this chump.

“…My brothers and I… investors….”

Conar nodded along, thinking about the future, and the riches that would be in store for him. Maybe he could force Zeb to work for him. Of course, something like that would come after a little bit of begging for mercy. But what to spend the well-earned Moolah on? Maybe he’d get himself a nice, classy suit, with premium Slig Pants, armor, and a nice, big gun with all the works…

“…So, I’d really appreciate it if you’d show some class and go to the other desk!”

“Yes, sir!” Conar nodded, moving over to the empty desk. The Glukkon waddled over to the other side, and started controlling some machinery with his shoes.

“Name?”

“Slim.”

Tap, tap, tap.

“…Not found in our records.”

“Can’t you just add ‘im?”

“We just went over this! There are procedures! It will not be as simple as your mind! I can’t just add a Mudokon who is already in the--”

As Conar prepared to sigh, Slim stepped forward.

“Sorry sir,” he said, putting on his best Gluk-pleasing face (that is, a weak smile politely begging for mercy), “He must not’ve read my ID. Do you need my number?”

The receptionist laughed, looking down at Conar while nodding. He kept chuckling at the absurdity of this Slig’s ineptitude as he worked the pedals, searching for Slim by number. He finally stopped adding to Conar’s humiliation, catching his breath while reading what came onto his black-and-white monitor.

“Right, right, you’re all set to leave. Can’t be too careful this day and age, with all those escapees… Anyway, give him a few corporate-approved smacks to keep him in line, would you?”

Connar nodded, a little too hastily. After a moment to ensure no signature or receipt was needed, he turned and poked Slim with his blunderbuss.

“Alright, get movin’. We’re goin’ to work, now!”

Conar couldn’t believe it; he was expecting a tense escape, maybe an amazing shootout. But no; he was walking through the front door, with a Mudokon openly in tow. He even waved at a couple of the guards on his way out. He looked up at Slim, who kept himself hunched and shivering in a clearly practiced manner. The two of them marched in silence for a while, with Conar occasionally tapping the muzzle of his gun against Slim’s back for effect.

“You’re welcome,” Slim finally said, once they were closer to the Slog Huts again, and well out of earshot.

“What, you expectin’ thanks?” Conar asked, laughing at the audacity. “I was the one bustin’ ya out, y’know!”

Slim gave a smug grin, leaning against the wall as he did so.

“Oh, really? You go out the back with a Mudokon like you wanted, they’d be throwing your lead-filled ass into the recycler faster than you can say—”

He tried making that noise he heard many Sligs shout, but it sounded more like his lungs were playing tug-of-war.

“Yeah, well, you seemed pretty comfy in that filthy closet.”

“Ha, yeah, thanks,” Slim laughed, looking around for a moment. “So uh, why didja get me out of there anyway?”

“Right, yeah,” Conar said, clearing his throat. “So, you’re gonna help me take Zeb down a peg. If that Abe guy can take down RuptureFarms, I figure you can help me get his Moolah and ruin ‘im!”

Slim’s smile faded, and he looked at Conar like the Slig grew legs on the spot.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nah,” Conar shook his head. “This should be easy; we go in, hold ‘im at gunpoint, and—”

“And just how,” Slim asked, leaning forward until he was face to face with Conar, “do you expect us to ‘go in’? Do you even know where his office is?”

Conar’s smug grin faltered.

“Eh--? I…”

“To say nothin’ about the security he’s probably got! You got the news just like I did; they’re scared. They probably got security tighter than Jeandis’ skull there! Didja think any of this—”

He was cut off by a blunderbuss muzzle under his chin. So it was going to be certain death or immediate death, he saw.

“…G-got it. So, what’s the plan, boss?”

#oddworld #oddworld conar's ambition #oddworld fic #chapter 2 #draft 1 #oddworld conars ambition full chapter

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jennydeutsch · 5 years

Text

“Dillon Beach Exposed”, acrylic on canvas, 8x10.

By Jennifer Deutsch

I'm going to try to be short winded and honest here; in other words, just the facts ma’am...

A day in the life:

Spending time in a skilled nursing facility has it's “laugh out loud” moments. If any of you have read my blogs in the last four years, you know our situation — my husband, due to a tramatic brain injury, lives in a skilled nursing facility.

I was sitting by my husband‘s bed this week, helping him, Brian, with his dinner. It was one of those busy nights where everyone was eating “in” because the dining hall was closed. One of the male residents was having his dinner, sitting in a wheelchair, outside of his room. He was parked in the well lit hallway, with his hospital tray before him. An ambulatory male resident walks by and I hear “...um, hey, that is my shirt.”

The resident who was humbly sitting and eating had spoken this in a very dead pan, low, monotone voice. I decided to glance out the door to see what was happening. There was a semi-naked man wearing a shirt, no pants. Walking casually down the hallway, unaware, thinking this was completely normal evening attire.

Again, the gentleman sitting in his wheelchair repeated, “Hey, he’s wearing my shirt!”

This time it was expressed with a bit of vim and vigor, he was hoping one of the employees would do something. To be fair, the resident walking up and down the hallway was also wearing what is politely known as “briefs” in the industry, a.k.a. adult diapers. Oh, and the borrowed shirt. The employees did eventually re-direct the wandering shirt guy. I had to laugh audibly, because comedy relief is a must in this situation!

Being with Brian, my husband of 37 years, and seeing him in his present ultra impared, declining condition, is one of the hardest things I’m ever going to have to do in my entire life. I’m convinced! I’m sad to report it’s getting harder for both he and I. My faith keeps me/us going. There is always the hope of heaven (these momentary light affliction’s are nothing compared to future glories!).

This newest painting above, “Dillon Beach Exposed” is just pure fun! Brian and I lived in Dillon Beach for over five years, with two of our three girls, decades ago. This work was painted from a photograph that one of my friends took, and he has recently commissioned me to paint. I know the spot, and I have a feeling for the area.

I brushed the bright horizon with a tint of yellow, to highlight and tie in the sky framed by the snarled cypress tree. The vibrant bowing branches and foliage move the eye, and accentuate the surf, with the lovely sandy beach below. The fence posts in the foreground, head out to the right of the canvas, which evokes a rustic feeling. It’s a place one might want to escape to, including myself! It is a paradise where nature speaks to the soul, and many would call it “God’s Country”. I hope you, the viewer, enjoy this bright and joyful little piece.

Here’s to quirky happenings in daily life — unfiltered comedy. And here’s to a temporary escape to God’s nature exposed on earth, and His glory someday exposed in heaven.

Keeping things real,

Jennifer

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darkness-envelops-me1-blog · 6 years

Text

If you sucking on a dildo and the girl that is wearing the dildo is moaning like its a real dick. the 2 of you are legally mentally retarded

Slavery auctions the original black friday sales

A black baby was given wings by god. The baby asked "does this mean im an angel?". God laughed and said "naw nigga you a bat"

Family joke daughter: dad how do you feel about abortion? dad: ask your sister daughter: but i dont have a ...

i saw my neighbour at the bus stop and said "hop in ill give you a lift". he said "fuck off!". what an ungrateful bastard, so i zipped up my bag and kept walking

got my kid a puppy as a present but it died before christmas. now im stuck taking care of a puppy

Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe. the only kkk that lets black guys in

Can you spare $2.00? ranji is a 9 year old boy living in Namibia. He has only 1 leg, 1 arm, and 1 eye. Each day he has to ride 7 miles to school along a narrow road on a rusty bike with bent wheels, no brakes and only one pedal. If you spend $2.00 we will send you the video, it is fucking hilarious.

Just at the moment when the dentist was leaning over towards his patient to start on her teeth, he was startled. Dentist: excuse me, miss, thoes are my balls that you are holding Patient: i know, so let us be very careful not to hurt each other, OK?

Black people started wearing their pants low, white people started calling it saggin. spell saggin backwards... those sneaky white people

my girlfriend's parents called me a peadophile because i am 30 and she is 18. it really made our 10th anniversary dinner awkward

Son-Mom conversation Son: mommy how can you live without eating? Mom: what do you mean? i eat everyday. Son: i heard daddy tell his friend you haven't swallowed since college

Just sold my homing pigeons on ebay... for the 22nd time

Boobs, proof that men can pay attention to two things at once

My Dads met at Bible camp.

3 k's in a day keeps the niggas away

How far can a black guy run? as far as the chain goes

The world is so politically correct that you cant even say "black paint". Now you have to say "Leeroy please paint my fence"

Never joke about an asian it's wong

Why do black people run fast? the slow ones end up i jail

Where in the universe are there the most jews ... Jewpiter what a conicidence its a gas planet

Lose yourself parody gas is heavy jews weak ovens are ready there is ash on my sweater already jews spaghetti

2 guys in a conversation Guy 1 : do you know how much a hall costs? Guy 2 : no, ask hitler. he might have an idea as to how much a holocaust

#dark humor #MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM #sorry not sorry

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nightingveilxo · 7 years

Photo

Christmas in Sherlock: Four Minutes, Four Seasons

ASiP

Mrs. Hudson, might need some food...something cold will do.

Sherlock is then drugged in ASiB, falls in TRF, then is drugged and shot in HLV. He’s also close to ODing in TLD, and beaten by John. More about similar injuries in @ebaeschnbliah meta Strange Similarities.

The scene at the top is from the ASiB Christmas party, and the Norbury scene from T6T is a replay of these events + the date of TAB. John announces that because his blog counter is stuck at 1895, Christmas is cancelled. So, from here on out, Sherlock relives Christmas over and over.

HLV is Christmas

Mycroft even bemoans how long it goes on, before Sherlock temporarily forgets it’s Christmas Day.

(Notice the way it’s framed through a window, a visual clue we’re having to look into somewhere to see the story unfold. Also, the way Sherlock eats in this scene is how he eats the gingernuts in T6T.)

This scene gets replayed in TAB.

Where is was also Christmastime, albeit in ACD terms, it was 1892.

Close-up on an issue of The Strand Magazine. Nearby, a news vendor is calling out to the passing pedestrians. He is holding newspapers and another copy of The Strand with a small red sleeve around it on which are the words “SHERLOCK HOLMES” and an in-profile white silhouette of the detective. Offscreen, carollers can be heard singing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” NEWS VENDOR: Papers! Papers! (A hansom cab approaches along the street.) NEWS VENDOR: Papers! Papers! (The cab slows down as Watson leans out of the window a little and gestures to attract the attention of the vendor.) WATSON: Here. (The cab stops.) WATSON: How’s ‘The Blue Carbuncle’ doing? NEWS VENDOR: Very popular, Doctor Watson. Is there gonna be a proper murder next time? WATSON: I’ll have a word with the criminal classes. NEWS VENDOR: If you wouldn’t mind. (He points towards the figure sitting next to Watson.) NEWS VENDOR: Is that ’im? Is ’e in there? (Holmes, mostly obscured from the vendor’s view, apparently kicks Watson, who grunts.) WATSON: No. No, no, not at all. (He tips a finger to his hat.) Ah, good day to you. CABBIE (to his horse, shaking the reins at it): Walk on. (The cab sets off again. The news vendor calls after it.) NEWS VENDOR: Merry Christmas, Mr Holmes! ( x )

So far on SHERLOCK ( x ) 2010 Sherlock unzips the body bag in “A Study in Pink.” SHERLOCK (at the door to the Bart’s lab): The name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street. (He click-winks at John.) SHERLOCK: Afternoon! (He leaves the lab.) MIKE STAMFORD (to John): Yeah. He’s always like that. Brief shot of Sherlock in his security man’s uniform at the Hickman Gallery in “The Great Game.” Sherlock flogs the dead body in “ASIP.” MOLLY: Bad day, was it? In the warehouse in “ASIP.” MYCROFT: Since yesterday you’ve moved in with him ... (There’s a brief shot of the door to 221B closing.) MYCROFT: ... and now you’re solving crimes together. In the hallway of 221B in “ASIP,” Sherlock kisses Mrs Hudson’s cheek. MRS HUDSON: Look at you, all happy. It’s not decent. SHERLOCK: Who cares about decent? The game, Mrs Hudson, is on! Brief shot of the Houses of Parliament exploding in “The Empty Hearse” [which is out of context when so far this is meant to be a summary of the Season 1 episodes]. 221B’s living room in “TGG.” SHERLOCK: Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them. At the pool in “TGG,” John opens his jacket to reveal the bomb strapped to him. JIM (to Sherlock): I’ll burn the heart out of you. 2012 In Irene Adler’s living room in “A Scandal in Belgravia,” a naked Irene clamps her teeth onto Sherlock’s fake vicar’s dog-collar just as John comes in with a bowl of water and a linen napkin. JOHN: Right, this should do it. (He stares in shock at the sight that greets him.) In the sitting room in Buckingham Palace in “ASIB,” John glances at a besheeted Sherlock. JOHN: Are you wearing any pants? SHERLOCK: No. JOHN: Okay. (They both crack up laughing.) In Irene’s bedroom, she flogs a drugged Sherlock, then strokes her riding crop over his face. IRENE: This is how I want you to remember me: the woman who beat you. In Dewer’s Hollow in “The Hounds of Baskerville,” Sherlock looks at Henry Knight. SHERLOCK: But there never was any monster. (The hound howls and everyone turns their flashlights to the sight at the top of the Hollow.) JOHN: Sherlock? On Bart’s rooftop in “The Reichenbach Fall,” Sherlock walks across the roof towards Jim. JIM: Here we are at last. (He shoots himself in the mouth. Sherlock cries out in shock and leaps back.) Later, Sherlock is talking over the phone from the rooftop to John on the ground.) SHERLOCK: Goodbye, John. JOHN (crying out): SHERLOCK! (Sherlock spreads his arms and starts to topple forward. John runs towards the place where Sherlock landed.) 2014 In the underground car park in “The Empty Hearse.” SHERLOCK (offscreen): Those things will kill you. (Greg Lestrade takes the lighter away from his unlit cigarette.) LESTRADE: Ooh, you bastard! In the kebab shop SHERLOCK (to John): The thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through your veins ... (Brief flashback to John outside Angelo’s restaurant in “ASIP,” jumping over the bonnet of the car.) JOHN (to the driver): Sorry. (He chases off after Sherlock.) SHERLOCK: ... just the two of us against the rest of the world. (John grabs Sherlock’s jacket and head-butts him.) In the streets near Baker Street in “TRF” [again, shown in the wrong season flashback], Sherlock, handcuffed to John, jumps over the iron fence. John grabs his coat through the fence and pulls him back. JOHN: Wait! We’re going to need to co-ordinate. (Brief shot of Sherlock’s grave.) At the bottom of the stairs in 221B in “TEH.” JOHN: I asked you for one more miracle. I asked you to stop being dead. SHERLOCK: I heard you. Outside Sholto’s room in “The Sign of Three.” JOHN: Shut up. You are not a puzzle solver; you never have been. You’re a drama queen. Now there is a man in there about to die ... [This could apply to Mycroft as well.]

(Brief shot of Sherlock putting on the deerstalker at the end of “TEH.”) JOHN (sarcastically quoting Sherlock): ... “The game is on.” Solve it! At Appledore in “His Last Vow,” Magnussen opens the doors to his ‘vaults.’ SHERLOCK (voiceover): He is the Napoleon of blackmail. (Brief shot of Magnussen walking through his Mind Palace library. Shortly afterwards, Mycroft’s helicopter has arrived and is hovering near the patio.) MAGNUSSEN: No chance for you to be a hero this time, Mr Holmes. (Armed police move into position.) SHERLOCK: I’m a high-functioning sociopath. (He shoots Magnussen in the head, then kneels on the patio with his hands raised, his face full of despair.) MYCROFT (speaking to Lady Smallwood and her colleagues): There is no prison in which we could incarcerate Sherlock without causing a riot on a daily basis. The alternative, however, would require your approval. On the tarmac at the airfield, Sherlock offers his hand to John. SHERLOCK: To the very best of times, John. (His plane takes off while John and Mary watch from the ground.) JIM’s VOICE (distorted): Did you miss me? Did you miss me? LADY SMALLWOOD: How is this possible? MYCROFT (over the phone to Sherlock in the plane): How’s the exile going? SHERLOCK: I’ve only been gone four minutes. [FOUR is important.] MYCROFT: Well, I certainly hope you’ve learned your lesson. SHERLOCK: Who needs me this time? (On every TV screen in the country, Jim looks over his shoulder to the camera.) JIM: Miss me? MYCROFT (over the phone to Sherlock): England. (Sherlock’s plane touches down on the tarmac.)

TFP

THoB Sherlock is still living under Moriarty’s shadow, despite Irene revealing that John has feelings for Sherlock, and John not denying it. Also, Sherlock is drugged, and for the first time, experiences doubt.

Moriarty is shot, but according to Mycroft in TAB, his body is never recovered.

Sherlock is killed by Mary in HLV, but he comes back to life for John, only because he imagines Moriarty prompting him to see who will miss him. Which always seemed like an odd thing for a villain to do. So, what if Moriarty wasn’t the Big Bad Wolf, but was in fact an actor like Richard Brooke, on the payroll of Mycroft and Mary and/or Magnussen? So, on the rooftop he shot blanks, and someone else shot Sherlock?

Sherlock shoots Magnussen, but this is edited to be someone else in T6T.

Eurus shoots John, but in TFP we’re told it was just a tranq, even though John is former military and Sherlock told us in ASiP that he knew the difference between a real and fake gun.

i.e. it’s Sherlock’s brain trying to tell him that the gun action is linked to the mystery in ASiP (where he first hears of Moriarty), the events surrounding Irene and her working with Moriarty (being drugged=being beaten), and the gun situation not adding up in TRF for multiple reasons. Moriarty becomes the present for Sherlock’s mirror, because he’s the clue to the case, Goethe is a statue in Sherlock’s room, Ode to Joy is played in TLD, and that’s why Staying Alive was the song. Riechenbach is German, as was Rache from ASiP, and in TRF we get Moriarty saying “I owe you a fall”, which is “Ich schulde Ihnen einen Fall” in German, it can be understood as both: I owe you a fall or I owe you a case. Again, it’s his gift. Heart vs brain. @monikakrasnorada (I’m tired, so I hope this makes some sense.)

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

Text

Eccentricity [Chapter 2: You Can Run Around Infinite In My Head]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make.

Potentially a better love story than Twilight (we’ll let @killer-queen-xo decide when it’s all said and done 😉).

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: Rome by Dermot Kennedy.

Chapter Warnings: Language, mentions of violence.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Tagging: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @killer-queen-xo @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! 💜

Missing In Action

I wish she would stop staring at me.

Lucille sat at the Lees’ usual table and apathetically picked through a heaping salad. (Friday was salad bar day, which I appreciated considerably more than the chicken finger obsession that marred Mondays at Calawah University.) Every once in a while, Rami nudged her and Lucille would spear a cherry tomato with her fork and bite it in half with perfectly even, white teeth. But her large blue-green eyes—they reminded me of webs of seaweed tumbling in the cold, frothing La Push waves—always found their way back to me, strangely focused, inquisitive, perhaps accusatory.

Ben probably told them how much he hates me for whatever nebulous reason and now they all hate me too and I’m going to spend the next two years being death-glared by five ridiculously attractive and somewhat incestuous foster kids.

Chemistry was a three times a week class. Ben hadn’t shown on Wednesday, and I was 99% sure he would skip again today. I spotted him around campus periodically, always from a distance: dropping quarters into a vending machine, clandestinely vaping behind dorm buildings (what self-respecting pre-med student VAPES?!!), browsing YouTube videos in the library next to a tower of unopened textbooks, biology and chem and physics and calculus. He wasn’t home, he wasn’t sick; there was no attempt made to construct any sort of pretext. He was patently avoiding me.

I stabbed moodily at the serrated disks of cucumber in my salad. Jessica was blathering away about the latest season of The Bachelor and ranking the contestants’ eyebrows from best to worst. “...Like seriously, has she never heard of microblading?!”

“For real,” Angela offered, not especially invested but forever a good sport.

Lucille’s eyes settled on me again as she sipped a cup of steaming tea, staring until her forehead crinkled with the effort, staring hard, almost leering.

“What’s her problem?” I muttered.

Jessica shot a glance towards the Lee table and slurped her Sprite. The great mystery surrounding her potential Mormon-ness persisted. “Who? Lucy?”

Only Lucille’s friends called her Lucy. Jessica, a shameless aspiring socialite, presumed she was everybody’s friend unless they explicitly informed her otherwise, which of course no one ever did.

“Yeah,” I answered glumly.

“Maybe it’s your dress.”

“My dress? What’s wrong with my dress?”

Jessica wrinkled her nose and surveyed me as if I were a bug, and not a cute bug like a roly-poly bug or The Very Hungry Caterpillar or whatever. Like a really hideous bug. Like one of those spider-cricket hybrid things that hopped straight out of a hell dimension and into the dark, drippy corners of your basement. “It’s, like, very 1960s. But not in a sexy Woodstock way. In a ‘I’m about to join a hippie murder cult’ way.”

“I got it at TJ Maxx. It was on sale.”

Jessica snorted. “Probably for a reason.”

“That’s it. I’m giving all the hippies in my new murder cult your address.”

She and Angela laughed. Mike and Eric, the missing pieces of our daily lunch puzzle, were preoccupied with a campus protest to convert fried fish day (Thursdays) into tacos day. I sympathized with their efforts, but didn’t feel that my one-week tenure as a Calawah University student gave me much right to go around overhauling the dining hall schedule.

“I doubt she’s actually offended by a dress,” Angela said, nibbling on French fries that shed grains of salt like snowflakes.

Jessica sighed dreamily. “But Lucy’s just so fashionable...and that accent...” She drifted off into some daydream which began—I could only assume—with Lucy’s invitation to go shopping together and concluded with marrying Ben on some lush tropical island in the South Pacific.

Lucille was definitely fashionable, especially today: short black dress with sheer sleeves that ran to her fragile wrists, black polka dot tights, black heeled oxfords, dangling ruby earrings like beads of blood. She would have blended in perfectly at Paris Fashion Week. Rami was wearing a cardigan and khakis, per usual; Joe was in dark fitted jeans and a roomy U Chicago hoodie despite the fact that Forks was at minimum a thirty-four hour drive from the Windy City. What did Angela say his major was? Finance? No, Mathematical Economics. So he’s probably aiming at Chicago for an MBA or Econ PhD someday. Angela had told me that Joe was wicked smart. He better be if he’s entertaining fantasies of grad school at the University of Chicago.

Scarlett had come straight from Fencing Club and was wearing bright pink yoga pants and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut out, sprinkling Hot Cheetos into her open mouth, her blonde hair secured in a tight French braid. You know those girls who are so irrationally, gluttonously, unfairly beautiful that it doesn’t seem possible the genetic lottery could spit out so many winning numbers at once, and you comfort yourself with the certainty that there must be some set of circumstances that would level the playing field—I bet she looks like anyone else without all that makeup, she just has a really good sense of style and knows how to maximize her assets, there are definitely some goofy oversized ears hiding beneath that hair and that’s why she always wears it down—and then one day you run into them wearing sweatpants and a ponytail in the tampon aisle at Walmart and they’re still so perfect it stings you, baffles you, makes you feel like there must have been some divergence in the evolutionary chain because there’s no freaking way you’re the same species? Yeah, Scarlett was one of those girls. Scarlett was the queen of those girls.

Ben was conspicuously absent from the table.

Scarlett’s pink leopard-print iPhone rang and she answered. “Hello?” She turned to Joe. “Dad says you left your phone at home. Do you need it?”

Joe was gnawing his way through his third slice of pepperoni pizza. “No, I’m good, thanks though.”

Scarlett relayed the message. “Dad says he’s going to bring it by just in case.”

“Oh my god, ScarJo, I’m fine! Tell him not to!”

“Dad says he doesn’t trust you and he’s going to be here in fifteen minutes. He’s also bringing the Game Theory homework you left by the hot tub.”

Joe groaned and rolled his lively dark eyes as Rami grinned at him; Lucille was still watching me and entirely oblivious.

“Isn’t it weird that Ben and Lucille have accents?” I asked Jessica. “That they’re from the U.K.? I didn’t think fostering kids was an international thing.”

“It’s not that weird. Dr. Lee is British too. Maybe there’s some kind of exchange system, I don’t know. But you know what I do know?”

“What?” Now my interest was piqued.

She smiled. “That the British accents are hot.”

“Ugh,” I exhaled involuntarily.

“Please get a hobby,” Angela begged Jessica. “Start a YouTube channel. Make care packages for orphans. Grow marijuana. Adopt a cat. I have a shift at the animal shelter this Sunday morning, you want to come with me?”

“Sorry, can’t. I have a temple thing.”

Temple on Sunday. The mystery is solved. She’s a Mormon for sure. I mentally resolved not to let her set me up with anyone unless I was still single on Valentine’s Day. Which, obviously, assuming I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere, I will be.

I gathered up my trash and slung my backpack over my shoulder. “Okay, well this has been a bizarre lunch to be completely honest, and now I have to go to Chemistry so I’ll see you later and hopefully we can brainstorm some more alternatives to Jessica’s current life trajectory on Monday. Because I am not looking forward to being a bridesmaid in these impending Lee nuptials.”

“Oh please!” Jessica lamented. “He doesn’t even know I exist. You, on the other hand...”

I scoffed. “Yeah, he wants to kill me. I truly have a gift.”

They waved as I left. I could feel Lucille’s eyes on me until I reached the door.

Sure enough, Ben wasn’t in Chemistry. I tried not to notice. I drew my atoms, wrote my equations, took my notes diligently and in my favorite sky blue ink. But I felt the emptiness in the chair next to me like a black hole, like an immense and dragging weight, like a snag in the fabric of all those interwoven strands of physics that orchestrate the universe like an immortal puppeteer. Why can’t I forget this guy? Why do I still feel like I’ve met him before?

Halfway through class, I hauled my emergency sweatshirt out of my backpack and pulled it on over my dress, floral and flowing and golden yellow like the sun, the sun that never shines here in Forks. I had liked it plenty under the florescent lights of the fitting room at TJ Maxx, and I had still liked it this morning; but Jessica’s words hummed around in my skull like wasps. The zipper of the sweatshirt was broken, but it accomplished the task of obscuring my dress well enough.

After Chemistry, I journeyed to the campus library to find a book I was supposed to read and present for a different class. I looked it up in the computer catalogue, spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out how the Dewey Decimal System works, eventually wound up finding the book on the highest floor of the library...and, to add a little extra peril to the mission, on the highest shelf. The book mocked me from its lofty, unattainable stronghold. The title was embossed in gold letters down the crimson spine. The Walruses And Me: A Transformative Experience. Idiotic title, I’m aware. It’s about some marine biologist who spent months alone in the Arctic studying the lifecycles of walruses. A noble pursuit, sure, but still a terrible title.

There wasn’t a chair or stepstool in sight. I tested my weight by stepping up onto the second-lowest shelf. The metal immediately squealed and shifted in protest. I retreated back down to the carpet, defeated by gravity. I scowled up at the book and sighed melodramatically. Ugh.

“Need something?”

I spun around to see Joe in his University of Chicago hoodie and pale flawless skin and intangible magnetism, that bewildering trademark Lee ethereality. I instinctively crossed my arms, clutching the sleeves of my sweatshirt, shrinking inwards like a startled armadillo in the Arizona desert.

“Are you, uh, anemic...?” he ventured.

“Oh no, I’m not cold. I’m just trying to hide my dress. My friend said it was too hippie-murder-cult 1960s.”

I figured he’d laugh, make a snide comment, maybe just blink in confusion. Instead, he glimpsed down at my dress—what could still be seen of it, anyway—and shook his head. “The neckline isn’t right for the 60s. And you seem like you’ve showered at least once in the past two weeks, so definitely not a hippie.”

I smiled, completely unexpectedly. “I didn’t realize Econ majors knew anything about leftist counterculture.”

“Disparaging it is our favorite pastime. Are you trying to get a book or are you just disrespecting university property for entertainment?”

I pointed. “The big red one.”

“The Walruses And Me...?”

“I know, it’s a horrible title. Not my personal preference. It’s for a class.”

“Bestiality 101?”

“Good guess. Marine Mammals.”

“Ahhh.” He glanced up and down the aisle, tapped his chin with agile fingers, pondered something I wasn’t privy to. “Turn around for a second.”

“What? Why?”

He waved his hand mysteriously in front of his grinning face. “It’s a magic trick. I’m going to make your problem disappear.”

“You can’t climb that,” I warned. “You’ll fall and break your neck. Or you’ll knock the whole shelf over and cause a tragic domino effect and the university will withhold your diploma until you pay them restitution.”

“I’m extremely athletic.”

“Are you sure?” I appraised him with exaggerated skepticism for comedic effect. “My dad refers to you only as the spindly annoying Lee.”

Oh my god, WHY did I say that?

Now he would definitely hate me. Now I’d have two mortal enemies on one campus. I mentally calculated how humiliating it would be to transfer to some Florida college, any Florida college, after only one week at Calawah. Hi mom, yeah I’m coming to live with you and Paul, a gang of hot pasty foster kids wants to slaughter me.

Instead, Joe threw back his head and cackled wildly. A librarian—mid-fifties, angry red hair from out of a box, fuzzy cat sweater—glared into the aisle and shushed him.

“Chief Swan...he actually...he calls me that? Really?!” Joe managed, wiping his leaking eyes. “That’s hilarious. I’m so glad my life is in his hands. Okay seriously, turn around.”

“Why would you help me?” I asked suspiciously.

“That’s just what I do. I’m a friendly guy.”

“This friendliness must not run in the family.”

Again, Joe’s cheerful demeanor didn’t falter. “You mean Ben? Forget about Ben, he hates everyone. Don’t take it personally.” Then he added: “Plus, as I’m sure you know, we’re not biologically related. No overlapping genetic material whatsoever. I didn’t get the male supermodel gene, he didn’t get the irresistibly charming gene, life’s not fair but the world keeps spinning.”

“It sure does,” I agreed softly. Unexpected wisdom from my new favorite Lee. I turned away from him. “Fine, I’m not looking, go ahead and dazzle me with your supernatural friendliness—”

“Done.”

“What?” I whirled around. Joe held The Walruses And Me in his hand. “How...did you...?!”

He passed me the book as I sputtered incoherently. “I told you. Magic trick.”

“I don’t....?!” I gawked up at the top shelf, at Joe, back to the top shelf. Sure enough, the space where The Walruses And Me once lived was now just a vacant slit in the row of dusty books. How could he have climbed up there that quickly? How could I not have heard anything? “The shelves didn’t even creak,” I murmured shakily.

“Yes, well, that’s due to my conveniently spindly physique.” Joe winked. “Any other problems I can help you solve at the moment, Baby Swan?”

“No. And don’t call me Baby Swan, or I’ll push this whole bookshelf over and tell the feisty librarian lady you did it.”

“That’s cold, ma’am.”

I liked that Joe didn’t make me feel like Ben did: unworthy, unloved, infuriating. Joe made me feel something else, something lighthearted, casual, buoyant; like the world didn’t have anything in it worth worrying about, regretting, agonizing over. Like unadulteratedly myself was all I ever needed to be.

I heard a muted buzz and Joe slid his iPhone out of his jeans pocket. Dr. Lee must have successfully delivered it. “Whoops, I forgot that Ordinary Differential Equations existed. Got to go. See ya.”

“Bye,” I replied. And then Joseph Lee was gone, very quickly, a little too quickly, the same way that Ben had vanished on that first afternoon after Chemistry.

Forks is weird. Calawah University is weird. And the Lee kids are super fucking weird.

Long Walks On The Beach

“Can I ask you a random question?”

“You just paid me $100 for an oil change that took fifteen minutes. You can ask me anything you want.” He grinned, flashing bright teeth and deep dimples.

It was Saturday afternoon. I had shoveled down a Chipotle veggie bowl as Archer changed the 1999 Accord’s oil in a small garage with a cracked concrete floor and the searing pungency of gasoline fumes thick in the air. He had apprenticed all through high school and rented his own shop after graduation. Archer now had a loyal clientele that encompassed virtually the entire Quileute reservation and a growing chunk of Forks...including Charlie and me, of course. Archer was the only child of Larry Foxchild—Charlie’s best friend since they worked together at Dairy Queen as teenagers—and the closest thing to a son my dad would ever have. I guess that made him like a brother to me, something that seemed intuitive now that I’d thought of it.

After the Accord was serviced we drove it down to La Push to walk on the beach, climb the salt-lashed rocks, toss pebbles into the roiling surf, reprise our childhood enthusiasm for poking dead washed-up marine creatures with shards of driftwood.

“Do you know anything about the Lees?” I asked Archer, investigating a deceased green shore crab.

His brow furrowed. He looked so serious like that, suddenly so much like Larry: the same tan skin, jet black hair, umbral eyes like oil wells, strong jaw overlaid with the stubbled shadow of a beard. We really aren’t kids anymore, are we? “The doctor and his kids?”

“Yeah. The foster kids. They’re really pale and strange and half of them are British.”

Archer chuckled. “I know who you mean. They’re hard to miss.”

“Are they...” Just eccentric rich people? Traumatized from abusive childhoods? Government experiments? CIA agents? Secret murderers? The image of Ben in that first Chemistry class came roaring back to me, including the adjective that had flashed red behind my eyes like an emergency exit sign: fierce. Finally, I decided: “Dangerous?”

Now Archer full-on laughed, gripping his belly, shaking his head. Drops of saltwater flew from his short hair. “Seriously?!” he exclaimed. “Come on, they’re freaks but they’re not, like...that kind of freaks.”

“Are you sure?” I was starting to feel better already. Of course they’re not actual demons, you fucking idiot. This is Washington, not The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Not goddamn American Horror Story.

“Yeah.” Archer skipped a grey pebble over the water, something I’d never been able to do. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know them all that well. They usually keep to themselves. But I’ve never heard anything bad about any of the kids. And everyone respects Dr. Lee and appreciates him for taking the pay cut to come to some bumblefuck town like Forks. He’s insanely highly credentialed, has degrees from Harvard or Yale or somewhere like that. Super impressive. We’re lucky to have him. I definitely sleep better at night knowing he’ll be the one to fix me up if I ever get a few fingers ripped off on the job.”

“Don’t even say that. Then who would I grossly overpay for oil changes?”

Archer smiled, then sobered as he peered out over the Pacific Ocean.

“What?” I asked, feeling a plummeting in my guts like primal fear.

“Well...okay, so there is one thing that’s always bothered me. You remember Grandpa Foxchild?”

“Yeah, of course.” He had been an impossibly ancient man with long grey braided hair, a low rumbly voice, gnarled arthritic hands, ceaseless wrinkles. I remembered Charlie calling me when he passed away last spring. Renee and I had picked out a flower arrangement to send to the funeral.

“So,” Archer said slowly, like he was still puzzling it out himself. “Grandpa used to say things like ‘That Dr. Lee has been around a long time.’ Which of course makes no sense, the Lees moved here like two years ago. And I’d tell Grandpa that, but he completely ignored me. He would just keep repeating it. ‘That Dr. Lee shouldn’t still be here.’ ‘That Dr. Lee should go on home to where he came from.’ ‘That Dr. Lee isn’t right.’ Creepy shit like that. My dad and I always assumed it was the dementia talking, but...I don’t know. It just bothered me. Because Grandpa...he wasn’t just being gossipy or suspicious. He was angry. And he was afraid. Grandpa was at Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima and he would talk about that no problem, mention landmines or flesh melting off a soldier’s face like it was nothing. He was a tough guy. Immeasurably tough, I’ll never be half the man he was. But if you mentioned the Lees, Grandpa got scared. Why the hell would he be so scared of them?”

I didn’t have an answer for him, not a single word. I just stared at Archer, my eyes growing huge, my heart sprinting, blood pounding in my ears. He knew. Grandpa Foxchild knew there was something off about them, and now I know it too. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

Archer tittered nervously. “Anyway, that was genuinely disturbing. But like I said. It was probably just the dementia.”

“What if it wasn’t?”

“It had to be,” he insisted. “There’s no other logical explanation.”

“I guess,” I agreed, scooping up the green shore crab corpse with my bare hands. I hurled it out into the waves, imagined it sinking through murky water and suspended grains of sand, the body settling into prehistoric silt, the scavengers descending upon it, the inescapable wheel of birth and death and resurrection through those who unwittingly carry our atoms with them into the next generation, into the perpetual future.

That night my dreams were full of pale skin and scorching eyes, Ben and Joe and Rami, Lucille and Scarlett, crashing waves, cold water and bleached bones; and Grandpa Foxchild’s mistrustful refrain: That Dr. Lee has been around a long time.

Benjamin

I soared down the staircase and through the dining room. Gwil was working late at the hospital, Mercy outside tending the animals, everyone else presumably scattered throughout the house. I had to get out before anyone noticed me. I had to get out without Rami or Lucy knowing.

I yanked open the door to the back porch. Rami was waiting there.

“Good evening,” he greeted me in that slow, thoughtful drawl.

“Stay the fuck out of my head.”

“You know how it works, Benny Boy. I can’t ignore the loud thoughts. And you’ve been having some very loud thoughts lately.”

I stared down at my shoes, all black Adidas. Black is good. It doesn’t show stains. For example, purely hypothetically, splatters of human blood and organs. “I can make it quick. I can make it painless.”

Rami’s aura flared maroon; not enraged, no, not quite that, but certainly revolted. I was always finding new and horrifying ways to revolt them, whether I was trying to or not. “She has a family, Ben. A father. You know Chief Swan, you’ve seen him around town. He’s a good person. She’s a good person. You really want to do this? You really want to relapse like this?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t have to. Hearing thoughts is a tricky thing, and not a gift that I would ever want; unspoken words are rarely a steam and usually a storm, disjointed and twisting, interrupting each other, bottomless layers of whispers and screams. But I was sure Rami could catch the important parts: that I didn’t know the difference between good and bad people, that I didn’t know what to think of people at all, that for me her blood was not a desire but a compulsion. I couldn’t stop envisioning it spilling over my tongue and teeth, down my throat, hot and pulsing erratically and fading. “Why can’t you hear her? Why can’t I see what she’s feeling?”

Rami shrugged, characteristically placid and restrained. It was maddening. “There are seven and a half billion people on this planet. So maybe every once in a while you get one that lives in our blind spots, there’s something chromosomal or psychological that puts them on a different frequency. I don’t know. How the hell should I know? All I know is that you definitely shouldn’t be seriously considering...well. What you’re considering.”

“Have you ever met someone whose thoughts you couldn’t hear before?”

“No,” Rami admitted; and was that a ghost of unease that crossed his face?

“Please, Rami. Let me go. Pretend you never saw me.” My words come out strained, hushed, like a spilled secret, like a confession. I’ve never wanted anyone’s blood like I want hers.

He heard that; I could see the dismay in his eyes. Now his aura is dark grey, almost black. Disappointment. Resignation. Mourning. “I told you what Lucy saw.”

“What she saw is impossible and you know it.”

Again, Rami shrugged. That blind, mindless faith. I wished I knew what it felt like. “She’s never wrong.”

“Have you told him?”

“Who, Joe?! Of course I haven’t told Joe. He...”

“He wouldn’t believe it either?” I snapped, like it was a victory.

“No,” Rami amended carefully. “No, he would believe anything Lucy saw.” Lucy had visions: flashes of the future, the past, the present. They were rare and unpredictable, often fragmented, snapshots rather than arcs. But they were always true. Or, rather, the other Lees claimed they were. The real Lees. “I don’t know what he would do about it,” Rami said finally. “So I’m waiting it out. And killing one of the primary participants is definitely not waiting it out.”

I seethed as I glared at him, hating him in that moment, hating myself only slightly more; and he heard that too. But then that wispy, fleeting haze around him was a pink like the last threads of sunlight sinking into the Western horizon. Forgiveness. Attachment. Love.

“Come with me, Ben,” Rami said gently, opening the door. “Come back inside. You can beat this. You’re better than this. You’re a good soul. You wouldn’t be with us if you weren’t.”

I tried to laugh. It came out like a snarl. “I haven’t had a soul in a long time.”

#joe mazzello fic #joe mazzelo x reader #borhap #borhap fic #borhap cast fic #twilight au #twilight #supernatural au

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