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impala666 · 3 years

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The One With The Boobies Part Four (The Real Reason)

Here we are! Another part and another finished episode!!! Hope you all enjoy!!!!! I love all of you!

Last Part (Part 3), Series Masterlist

After you had talked and confided in Monica and Rachel about what happened between you and Joey, you had ended up passing out on their couch. So when you woke up you couldn’t help but feel groggy, you had work to go to but you were so grateful that Monica had called off for you without even asking. You knew that you should have gone to work but you had basically stayed up all night crying your eyes out, and now that you were awake after finally sleeping. You still didn’t feel rested, you just felt sad and numb. But a knock on Monica and Rachel’s door caused you to escape your thoughts and sit up to see who was at the door when Monica got up from the table ro get it. “Hi.” Ronnie greeted Monica before she smiled and waved at you to which you responded with a halfhearted wave as you walked to the kitchen to get some coffee.

“Hi.” Monica smiled at the woman who was a stranger to her. “May I help you?” Monica politely asked the woman.

“Yeah. Joey said I could use your shower since Chandler’s in ours.” Ronnie told her, but Monica still had no idea who she was. But she guessed that any friend of Joey’s was a friend of hers.

“Okay.” Monica agreed but still needed to know. “Who are you?”

“Oh! I’m Ronnie. Ronnie Rappelano” She introduced herself as she reached out to shake Monica’s hand. Which Monica took and shook, but the name meant absolutely nothing to her. But Ronnie must have noticed Monica’s confusion, so she clarified. “The mistress.” That was what got Monica when she let out an ‘oh’ of recognition. Monica turned back to share a surprised look at you and Rachel to which you both shared.

“Um, come on in.” Monica waved the woman in.

“Hi, I’m Rachel.” Rachel introduced herself to the older woman. Ronnie greeted Rachel as she walked into the apartment. “Bathroom’s up there.” Rachel directed her as she pointed up the step. “Hey, listen Ronnie.” She quickly stopped her on her way to the bathroom, when an idea popped into Rachel’s head. “How long would you say Chandler’s been in the shower?”

“Oh, like uh, five minutes.” Ronnie answered Rachel.

“Perfect.” Rachel smiled at her in thanks before Ronnie made her way into the bathroom. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s pee-pee time.” Rachel announced with a look of evil on her face as she walked over to the door. Rachel walked out and across the hall when Monica held it open, then closed it and walked over to sit in the kitchen chair next to you. You sat at the table just staring down into your mug of coffee, but you could feel Monica’s concerned eyes burning into you. When you finally looked up at her she flashed you a sympathetic smile and reached forward and placed a comforting hand on your arm.

“How’re you feeling?” She asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve been better I guess.” You shrugged, not wanting to get to into how you were feeling, which she nodded in understanding. “It’s almost weird,” you told her as you rubbed your hands down your face. “I still love him and still want to rip his heart out.” Monica chuckled.

“That’s how you know he’s a good one. But I still can’t believe that he couldn’t say that he loved you! He always seems to be showing it to you in different ways.” Monica let out her own feelings on the situation, feeling frustrated. Joey almost always could never keep his hands off of you, and it just made no sense to her.

“Then I don’t know what to tell you.” You let out a sigh. You heard the door open as you rubbed your hands over your eyes, but jumped when you heard it slam shut. “What happened?” You asked in concern when you saw Rachel out of breath and he face as white as a sheet.

“I saw the wrong pee-pee.” Rachel said out of breath still surprised.

“Who’s did you see?” Monica couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity.

“Joey’s.” Rachel carefully looked at you, and so did Monica when they mentioned his name.

“You can say his name.” You told them, now annoyed at how they walked on eggshells around you. “He is still in our friend group.” Monica and Rachel gave each other a look when they realized what they had been doing to you, they had been trying to be protective of you because they love you. Which they knew you appreciated, but it just wasn’t something you needed right now.

“Well, regardless. You can hide out here for the day while we’re at work. So you can get over your break up, since I’m sure you aren’t ready to go back across the hall.” Monica offered, when you flashed your first small smile she knew that that’s what you needed. You looked at her to see if she was serious and once you saw that she was, you looked over to Rachel who smiled in agreement.

“Thanks, you guys.” Your voice started shaking when you realized that you still had a safe place to feel your emotions.

“Oh, of course.” Rachel told you as she walked over to you and leaned down to give you another hug.

“Believe us, we get it.” Monica told you she also hugged you before her and Rachel made their way to the door so that they could start their day. Leaving you in the silent apartment all by yourself, you felt another tear roll down your face. You got up and made your way over to the couch and flopped down onto it, you always hated being so emotional over men like this. But what could you say, this one really got to you.

******

Joey kept trying his best to put the pull out bed back into the couch but he just couldn’t do it, but he had his mind on other things, like his dad cheating on his mind. Chandler knowing why Joey broke up with you, you still not talking to him, and the fact that he knew that you were hiding away from him across the hall at Monica’s and Rachel’s. He had finally almost gotten the bed back in, but of course there had to be a knock at the door. But he had to answer it just in case it was you for whatever reason. It wasn’t you on the other side of the door, but the person made him smile just as big. “Ma! What’re you doing here?”

“I came to give you this,” she told him as she handed him a paper bag of groceries, “and this!” But then gave her son a smack upside the head after Joey had taken the bag from her.

“Ow! Big ring.” Joey reacted as he held the spot on his head that had just gotten hit and closed the door.

“Why did you have to fill your father’s head with all that garbage about making things right? Things were fine the way they were.” Mrs. Tribbiani yelled at her son. “There’s chicken in there, put it away.” Joey quickly listened to his mother and quickly put the whole bag into the refrigerator. “For God’s sake, Joey.” She threw her hands up when she saw that the bed was only half put away, as well as the women’s clothes and suitcase that was in the corner, but she would have to get back to that in a moment. But the best she did for that second was put the bed back into its couch position without a problem.

“Hold on. You knew?” Joey asked her.

“Of course I knew! What do you think?” She turned to face Joey. “Your father is no James Bond. You should have heard some of his cover stories.” Mrs. Tribbiani decided to give one as an example. “‘I’m sleeping over at my accountant.’ I mean what is that?” She explained, Joey knew that if you were here you would be laughing like crazy at the horrible and clearly lie that his father gave his mother. But Joey still didn’t understand how his mother could just be okay with it, and when he tried to ask questions he got cut off again. “Do you remember how your father used to be?” She asked her son, to which he nodded. “Always yelling. Always yelling. Nothing made him happy. Nothing. Not that wood shop, not those stupid little ships in the bottle, nothing. I mean it’s nice he has a hobby.” Mrs. Tribbiani told Joey, now looking on what she thought was the bright side. Joey took a seat at the stool next to his mothers when he knew she was about to start speaking seriously.

“Ma, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but… what the hell are you talking about?” He asked his mother, baffled by her reaction. If he ever even tried to do what his father did to you, you wouldn’t take it. He knew you would be gone. “What about you?” He asked in surprise and concern.

“Me? I’m fine.” She reassured her little boy. “Look, honey. In an ideal world, there’d be no her, and your father would look like Sting. And I’ll tell you something else, ever since that poodle stuffer came along he’s been so ashamed of himself.” She said, letting her son in on a little secret. “He’s been more attentive. He’s been more loving. It’s like every day’s our anniversary.” She shrugged when she finally told her son the truth, but it felt so good to have it off her chest.

“I’m happy for you?” Joey stilled tried to be supportive, but he was still son confused about the life choices that his parents were making.

“Well, don’t be!” She yelled at him again, making Joey look down at his shoes. “Because now everything is screwed up. I just want it the way it was.” She yearned as she walked her way around the counter and into the kitchen.

“Ma, I’m sorry. I..I just did what I thought you’d want.” Joey stood up on the other side of the counter as he told his mother that he thought his intentions were honest for her.

“I know you did, cookie.” His mom chuckled. “Oh, I know you did.” She reached over and lovingly ran her hands down Joey’s face. “So, tell me. Did you see her?” Mrs. Tribbiani couldn’t help herself but asked, and also be scared of the answer.

“Yeah, You’re ten times prettier than she is.” Joey smiled when he saw his moms smile grow.

“That’s sweet,” she smiled brighter and chuckled as Joey kissed her knuckles. “Could I take her?” She asked, her voice growing serious.

“Oh, with this ring,” Joey lifted her left hand that he was holding and smiled brightly at his mother. “No contest.” He reassured her.

“Alright, now more importantly, tell me about this girl you’ve been seeing?” Mrs. Tribbiani told him, apparently her son broke up with this girl Y/N because he didn’t love her, but when they first got together Joey wouldn’t shut up about her. So she knew that something was going on, and she needed her son to figure that out. She wanted grandkids soon.

******

After talking to his mom about you and walking her downstairs, Joey knew that it was time to talk to you about what was really going on. He didn’t want you to be sad and heart broken. Plus after his talk with his mother, he knew that it was now or never and he wanted to be honest with you. Not lie like his dad did with his mom, because if you love someone then you don’t lie to them, period. Joey lifted his hand up to knock, but he knew that you would most likely slam the door in his face so he just barged his way in to see you sitting on the couch, in your pajamas from last night, and watching Disney movies. Which you always watched when you needed to be cheered up.

You turned your head to see who it was, but your jaw dropped as you stood up. You weren’t sure what you were supposed to be feeling though. “What’re you doing here?”

“We need to talk.” Joey told you as he walked over to the couch and stood in front of you.

“About what?” You asked, tensing up. Which Joey couldn’t stand, he liked it when you felt good about yourself and he took that way from you.

“About the real reason we broke up,” Joey told you as he reached down for the remote to turn off the tv.

“Yeah, because you don’t love me.” You protectively crossed your arms over your chest. “I think you’ve already made your feelings perfectly clear already.” You couldn’t believe that he was trying to bring this up again, but clearly Joey wasn’t done. When you tried to walk away, Joey quickly took your wrist and pulled you to sit on the couch next to him.

“That’s not why, please believe me that that is not why.” Joey begged. “Just please, please let me explain and make this right?” He asked, hoping you would take it well. Joey didn’t think that he would be able to stand not being able to see you every day.

“Fine, 5 minutes.” You mumbled, you never really were ever able to say no to him anyway.

******

It was way more than five minutes but Joey had finally told you, but he could not read the expression on your face. “Can you say something now? You’re kind of starting to freak me out.” Joey spoke after a few minutes of silence.

“So, you do love me?” Was the first thing you said.

“Yes, Y/N, more than anything. I just want you to be able to get comfortable with everything else. You just got to the city, you should get to explore it. Plus you just started school and a new path, and I want you to have no distractions.” Joey said, but you went quiet again.

“I think I love you even more.” You whispered in frustration under your breath. “I think that is the sweetest and nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” You looked at Joey and you just felt your heart melting for the man. “Thank you,” you mumbled as you leaned forward to give him a hug as you tried to keep yourself from crying happy tears. Joey let out a sigh of relief as he wrapped his arms around your waist, hugging you back.

“Thank God. This means I still get to see you every day.” Joey sighed again.

“Joey, come on. We still would have seen each other.” You told him, not believing that he thought that you would leave that soon.

“Yeah, I know. But this way you won’t hate me.” Joey blushed as he spoke his fear as he pulled away from the hug.

“I don’t think I could ever ever hate you, Joey.” You smiled and blushed at him as you took his hand.

******

“So you talked to your dad, huh?” Monica asked Joey as she reached over for another slice of pizza out of the box and you all sat and ate dinner together in her living room.

“Yeah. He’s going to keep cheating on my Ma like she wanted. My Ma’s going to keep pretending she doesn’t know. And my little sister, Tina, can’t see her husband anymore ‘cause he got a restraining order.” Joey ended with, but you weren’t sure what it had to do with what happened with his parents. “Which has nothing to do with anything, except that I just found out today.” Joey added when he looked at your face as he sat on the arm of that chair that Chandler was sitting on.

“Things sure have changed here on Walton’s Mountain.” Chandler joked as Joey finished on his family drama.

“So, Joe. Are you okay?” Ross asked his friend.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just...you know, they’re parents. After a certain point, you gotta let go.” Joey said to him. “Even if you know better you gotta let them make their own mistakes.”

“And just think, in a couple years we get to turn into them.” Rachel just had to point out that fact to all of you.

“If I turn into my parents, I’ll either be an alcoholic blonde chick, chasing after 20 year old boys or...I’ll end up like my mom.” Chandler automatically decided.

“So I get to have a sex change and have a headlining show in Vegas?” You couldn’t help but ask as a joke.

“I’d pay to see that.” Joey laughed his comment to you.

“So, how are you two doing?” Chandler asked, to make sure after learning that Joey told you everything.

“I think we’re fine.” You answered making eye contact with Joey. “But I think I’m going to have to start looking for my own place now, which I really can’t afford.”

“How about you just come stay with me,” Ross quickly offered.

“Really?” You asked, perking up all excited.

“Sure,” Ross shared your smile.

“Thank you so much, Ross!” You quickly got up and bent over to give him a big hug.

“Hey,” Phoebe announced as she quickly walked into the room after closing the door, and you all greeted her as you took a new spot on the couch in between Ross and Monica.

“How’s it going?” Rachel genuinely asked her.

“Oh, okay, except I broke up with Roger.” Phoebe told all of you, which explained why she seemed to be a little down.

“Oh,” you all somewhat reacted.

“Yeah, right.” Phoebe sat next to Chandler calling all of you out on how fake you sounded.

“Ohhh,” you all tried again. Putting in more effort. “What happened?” Rachel asked her.

“I don’t know. I mean, he’s a good person and he can be really sweet and in some ways, i think he is so right for me.” Phoebe wondered. “It’s just...I hate that guy.” Phoebe said angrily, to which you all agreed. Happy that she finally saw Roger in the creepy light that he truly lived in.

*****

“Hey, Joey.” Phoebe greeted as she saw the man walk into the apartment as she steeped her tea.

“Here for the boobie payback express. Next stop Rachel Greene.” Joey smirked an evil smirk as he went to the bathroom door. But when he opened the shower curtain he was in for a surprise.

“Joey, what are you doing!?” Monica ordered the man as she chased him out of the bathroom.

“Sorry, wrong boobies.” Joey tried to apologize as he opened the door to leave the apartment, but he just couldn’t help himself when a smirk came to his lips as he looked over at Monica, casually checking her out.

#friends rewrite #friends #Joey Tribbiani #bing!reader #sister!bing #joey tribbiani x reader #phoebe buffay #chandler bing #ross geller #monica geller #rachel green

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter ten: dave, frank, and cliff

Cliff guided her by the hand into the tiny club: once again, it was early enough that they had plenty of time to congregate on the side of the room, alone, and out of earshot of the others. Sam held onto the yellow tulip he had given her with two fingers and she brought the petals to her nose for a whiff of that fresh smell.

“I didn't know if you wanted a bouquet again,” he confessed with a shrug.

“It's okay,” she told him as she held the flower close to her chest. “Sometimes one is good.” She took another whiff from those smooth yellow petals, as smooth as a tapestry of silk.

“Do you wanna dance again later tonight?” she asked him.

“Yes, please,” he replied; he took his hat off and ran his fingers through his smooth dark hair. “We did a square dance last time—let's do a little bit of slow ballroom dancing, too.”

He then wagged his finger at her.

“I have something else to give you,” he said, and he ducked past her to the bar at the far side of the room. She watched him with her hands still up to her chest so she could smell the tulip some more. He strode around Lars, who had taken his seat at the bar with a shot of vodka, and he ducked out of sight for a moment. She could only see part of his back; he rose up and stuck his hand behind his back before he returned to her.

“What'chu got for me?” she asked him once he came within earshot.

“Close your eyes and stick out your arm,” he told her. She did just that with her left arm and she felt something brush against her skin.

“Okay,” he said. She opened her eyes and she spotted a bracelet on her wrist made of braided strips of black leather and silver rings: she took a second look to find small sparkling rhinestones embedded within the braids. It was fastened together with a big round fancy silver button about the size of a nickel.

“This is something I found in the book shop,” he explained, “it was tucked between that copy of Siddhartha we found as well as a copy of Frankenstein. I just thought it was something you'd like.”

“I do!” she declared as she put one arm around him and held him close to her. She rested the side of her head against his chest. She closed her eyes and took in the soft sound of his heartbeat underneath his denim button up shirt. Sam kept the tulip near to her nose still.

Something fell over on the other side of the room and then a bunch of paper fell onto the floor. Sam opened her eyes but she kept her head pressed to his chest.

Dan shuffled through a bunch of paper on the floor: he had already slung his guitar over his shoulder, and he swung it upon his back so he could look for something. Sam lifted her gaze to the other side of the stage, where someone had moved the couch from backstage and put it up against the wall.

Dan picked up some paper and took something off the floor. He stood back up and strode over to the couch: he almost tripped over the cables on the side of the stage but he caught himself, albeit without unplugging anything. Scott skidded into the room right then.

“Hey!” he declared. Dan staggered forward and plopped down on the couch: the whole entire time, he never let go of his guitar. Indeed, once he took his seat on the cushions, he brought it forward and rested it upon his lap. He looked up at Scott as if nothing happened.

“What's all the hubbub, bub?” Scott asked him.

“Couldn't find my tuner,” he quipped as he picked up a little black box from the cushion next to him.

“Sure that's yours and not Alex and Eric's?”

“It's all of ours,” Dan pointed out, “yours, too.”

Sam looked up at Cliff, who gazed down at her: the light over their heads shone down on him so it looked as though a halo surrounded his head.

“Wanna take a walk?” he suggested. “It's going to be a long time before Legacy take to the stage again.”

“Yeah, let's,” she said. He doubled back to the bar to fetch his hat and to tell Lars where they were going. Once Cliff ran his finger across the wide brim of his hat, Sam put her sunglasses back on before they headed back outside. He held the door open for her and she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

He hurried up next to her so they walked side by side on the narrow sidewalk.

The sun hung strong and high over the city in the vast clear blue sky. Up ahead of them, the street bustled with life, and yet they rounded the corner towards where Joey's car was parked. Joey himself had gone in through the back door; the two of them strode at a brisk pace past the puddle of barf in the storm drain. Sam thought about Alex, who had ducked out of there and into the shadows around the club, and she wondered if he was alright somewhere in there.

She turned her attention to the block ahead of them once they had cleared the piece of sidewalk and slowed to a stroll. A patch of green grass and a line of trees stood across the corner up ahead. The very sight of the green was enough for Sam to bring the tulip up to her nose again. She looked down at the bracelet Cliff had given her and a part of her felt as though he was spoiling her. Spoiling her even with what he had.

“Is that who I think it is?” he said out of the blue.

“Who?” she asked him. Cliff pointed up ahead and there was a man seated on the curb in front of the grass. He looked back at her with a twinkle in his eye.

“Come along,” he coaxed her. His long legs stretched enough that Sam fell behind him to the end of the sidewalk; however, he awaited her at the corner, and they crossed the little side street together. Once they came closer to him, Sam made out the sight of the helmet of bright orange curls upon his head: they sprawled down over his shoulders and halfway down his back. Despite it being a nice day, he wore a faded black leather jacket over ragged faded denim jeans with large gaping holes in the knees. A pair of ragged gloves hung out of his pocket.

“Dave!” Cliff called out once they reached the corner. The man lifted his head and frowned at first, but then he showed them a smile once they came closer to him. He was a skinny, scrawny man who looked as though he was awaiting a ride somewhere.

“Hey, Cliff,” he replied back to him in a broken voice; Sam picked up the smell of cigarettes on him as well as fried beans. “Wasn't expecting to see you here.”

“I'm seein' Anthrax and Legacy tonight with her,” Cliff explained. “This is my date, Samantha.”

“Or Sam as I go by,” she said as she lifted her sunglasses off of her face for a better look at him.

“Sam, this is my friend Dave Mustaine,” Cliff introduced her. He gazed up at her from the gutter: the sunlight shone about his crown of bright orange.

“You're from California,” he remarked at a fast clip.

“Yeah.” She paused for a few seconds. “How'd you know?”

“You're too friendly,” he said as he brought a hand over his brow to protect his eyes from the sun. “You're also lacking that high New York energy, too.”

“Everything is just a hustle and bustle around here,” she added.

“Right! And you're too laid back, too.” He gestured up at Cliff. “He and I used to be in Metallica together.”

She then gasped.

“Oh, so you're Dave!” she declared.

“The infamous Dave,” he corrected her.

“Well, what're you doin' here?” Cliff asked him.

“I'm homeless now, dude,” Dave replied, even with the nonchalant look on his face. “Been homeless, too, even after Megadeth doing a bit of touring for our first record. Right now, I'm just hanging out here in the Big Apple because of the whole thing with studio time. It's the whole waiting game and everything.”

“Oh, man, I'm really sorry to hear that,” Cliff confessed.

“Yeah, I hope I can get back to L.A to do the new album by the year's end. Even thought I've been sleeping on a girl's old couch, and biding my time, being here in New York has kind of given me a different perspective of everything.”

“That's—kind of why I moved out here,” Sam told him at a deliberate pace.

“Oh, yeah?” Dave showed her a little smile.

“Yeah. I came here because I just wanted to be here as a change of pace. I haven't had as many problems, though.”

“That's smart,” he declared. He then cleared his throat and stood to his feet. Much like Cliff, he towered over her, this long and lanky redheaded man wrapped in rags that barely clung onto his emaciated body.

“You know I only started Megadeth just to spite James and Lars, right?”

“He really did, too,” Cliff filled in for him. “I had nothing to do with it so—if you wanna know more about that.”

“But Cliff and I are still good friends, though,” Dave continued.

“Don't get mad, get even, I guess?” Sam chuckled.

“Yes, YES!” Dave shot out a hand to her for a high five, and she did it with her pinky finger given her hands were full with the tulip and her sunglasses.

“Well, at least you've got a couch to sleep on,” Cliff pointed out.

“Yeah, but I think she might kill me, though,” Dave confessed.

“Why?” Sam chuckled at that.

“I like another girl,” he said, still nonchalant. “I might have to break up with Ellen so I can go with Corinne.”

“Do what you gotta do, that's what I say, man,” Cliff encouraged him.

“I hope she can get me out to California because I wrote a couple of songs already for the new album. I need to be back out West soon here because—you know—”

“It'll save you,” Sam finished for him.

“It'll save me and also my bassist,” he pointed out. “He and I are both struggling right now.” Dave nodded at the flower and the bracelet.

“Did he give you those?” he asked her.

“Yes, he did.”

“I found the bracelet,” Cliff explained, “the tulip I picked on my way over here. Even with our doing better than—we were—I still think less is more.”

“One of you kids have the time right now?” Dave asked them.

“It's around lunchtime,” Sam replied. “That's all we know at the moment.”

“I might poke my head into the show tonight,” he told her with a raise of his eyebrow. “I also ask 'cause I haven't eaten all day, either. I'm also dying of thirst right now.”

“We can go back and get you a drink of water,” Sam suggested.

“As long as James and Lars don't see me,” he told her with a wave of his hand.

“Yeah, he's, uh—” Cliff cleared his throat. “—kind of a loaded subject with the two of them especially. At least, that's all I know. That's as far as I know.”

“Cliff only has hearsay,” Dave pointed out.

“Well, let's—get you something, though,” Sam insisted as she put her sunglasses back on, and Dave followed suit with his own. She started back down the sidewalk and even over the noise of the street, she could hear him tell Cliff, “I like this girl.”

She brought the tulip up to her nose once she reached the corner once again. The two young men stood on either side of her for a moment, and she led the way across the pavement, back to L'Amour.

“She came here with Joey,” Cliff told Dave at one point.

“Joey from Anthrax?” he said.

“Yeah. He's another one who's been sleeping on her couch, too, oddly enough.”

“We're just friends, though,” Sam pointed out with a quick turn around to face them. “I promise.”

“I hope you stay just friends,” Dave stifled a laugh.

“I'm not gonna kill him,” she scoffed. “If he finds someone at some point, I'll be happy for him.”

She returned to a straight position and continued on to the corner of the club. Frank and Scott congregated outside of the side door: the sun shone down upon the dark crowns of their heads such that it looked as though they wore little golden crowns.

“Oh, hey, Dave,” Scott greeted him, to which Dave brought a finger to his lips. “Oh, right, James and Lars,” he followed along. “And yeah, they're here right now.”

“Anyway, what brings you here?” Frank asked him as he shielded his eyes from the bright sun.

“I'm just dyin' of thirst right now,” Dave told him.

“Well, what brings you to New York?” Frank clarified.

“I'm staying with a girl until I can get my ass out to California to record a record,” Dave briskly said, the first time he showed any bit of emotion right in front of Sam. “I just want a drink of water for the time being, though.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Frank replied with a nervous nod of his head. He ducked back inside of the club; meanwhile, Scott remained there on the sidewalk with his hands tucked into his jeans pockets.

“Quite the interesting little amalgamation we got here,” Dave remarked.

“Yeah, I'll say,” Scott added as he raised his thick dark eyebrows. “Buncha starving artists here.”

“In Sam's case, quite literally,” Cliff chimed in.

“I like artists,” Dave stated as he stuffed the gloves further into his jacket pocket. “You guys work harder than we do. At least, that's what I think, anyway.”

“Yeah, but you guys make inanimate objects make noises, though,” Sam pointed out.

“You make stuff out of nothing,” he insisted. A gust of wind made its way through the skyscrapers and his bright orange curls billowed over his head and shoulders.

Frank almost stumbled out of the club right then with a small clean glass of water in one hand. He gave it to Dave, who pushed his hair back with his free hand and looked on at him with a blank look on his face.

“Thank you—and don't sweat it, Frank,” he declared. Cliff then turned to Sam, again with a twinkle in his eye.

“Do you want anything?” he offered her.

“Not really, no,” she said as she adjusted the bracelet and shifted her weight right in her spot on the sidewalk. Dave meanwhile, had downed the whole drink of water in four large gulps.

“Want some more?” Frank offered him.

“Please. And I hope I can hang out around here without James and Lars seeing me.”

“We'll sneak you into the shadows if we've gotta,” Scott promised him.

Cliff then gestured for Sam to follow him away from there.

“Where you guys going?” Dave called after them.

“We're gonna take a walk,” Cliff replied. “Won't be long.”

He was quick to walk away from the spot on the sidewalk and he rested a single hand on Sam's shoulder as well. They strode away from the doorway and made their way towards the alleyway up ahead.

“I needed to get you away from there,” Cliff explained to her once they were far out of earshot. “Like I said, it's only hearsay to me. So I don't like how my brothers are fighting with each other.”

“That's—completely understandable,” Sam replied, slightly out of breath. “It's only hearsay with you? Really?”

“Yeah, I had no say in firing Dave,” he told her once they reached the street corner. “I'm still very good friends with him but it feels like I have to walk on eggshells most of the time when it comes to him, though. I can't really talk to anyone about it.”

“Have you tried to?” she asked him as they came to a stop. “The whole thing made me nervous.”

“Yeah, but every time I do, something always intervenes, though.”

“I kinda feel bad for Dave, too,” she confessed. “But he seems a little bit blunt, though.”

“That's just how he is,” Cliff explained. “And I would be, too, if I was thrown out like that and not given another chance to change my ways.”

“Was he really that bad when he got drunk?”

“Oh, yeah. It got fucking crazy at times. He got violent after he kicked back a few bottles. I remember one time he got drunk and he punched a big hole in the wall of the studio. The three of us get giggly and goofy when we've had a few. It was like oil and water. I wanted to give him another chance, and I still do, too, as much as I like Kirk and everything.”

“But you had no say in it, though,” she said.

“None at all. James just told me one morning, 'we made Dave go back home to L.A. and we're getting a new guitarist.'” She thought about Joey and the fact that he let himself drink a supple amount. She hoped that nothing would happen between him and Anthrax.

She peered around the block before them.

“By the way, did you see where Joey went off to?” she asked him.

“I didn't, no,” he confessed. “Why's that?”

“Well, 'cause he threw up when he and I got here,” she answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

“I hope they don't go through what happened to us,” Cliff confessed.

“I hope they don't, either,” she echoed.

“I'll be pissed if they do,” he added.

“I can see Joey and Dave getting together in a single act together,” she suggested. “That is, if it happens and Megadeth lose their hold.”

“They can call it 'Fired',” he laughed, and they crossed the street side by side to the opposite corner. Up ahead stood a stretch of more buildings as well as an entrance to the subway. He then turned his head to her.

“I have an idea,” he told her, and he took her by the hand. They hurried to the staircase in between the wrought iron fence. Unlike the other subway stations, this one smelled as though it had just been cleaned.

They reached the bottom of the staircase and the train stood at the platform.

“You wanna get on the train?” she laughed at him.

“No,” he said, and he guided her to a short corridor off to the right. On the right side of the hallway stood a broom closet.

“Right in here,” he coaxed her with a gesture to the door.

“What's in here?” she asked him.

“I wanna get close to you,” he said as he turned around to face her. “Like—much closer to you. Every kiss to you is one step closer to peeling it back.”

“You,” she sputtered, “wanna do that. In broad daylight.”

“We're not exactly in broad daylight,” he pointed out, “we'll be in a shadow. We'll be in a closet.”

“We're still in broad daylight!” she insisted. “Out in public!”

“Tell you what—I'll only let you touch me,” he said as he opened the closet door: there was barely room for the two of them in there. A metal rack filled up the entire back of the closet and a large yellow bucket and a mop took up an entire corner of the spot.

“I dunno, Cliff,” she admitted with a shrug and a little twirl of the tulip; and she thought about what she had told Joey before with her wishing to draw him.

“I just wanna be closer to you,” he confessed in a near whisper. “I don't wanna be like—weird or anything.”

“Oh, no, it's just—it's not very romantic.”

“We can make it romantic,” he pointed out. He reached for the tulip in her hands and he nestled it on the shelf of the rack, to which she chuckled at that.

“What do you have in your purse?”

“Uh, let's see...” She opened her purse and she spotted that photo of Frank and Charlie as children nestled on the side, right next to her wallet. Next to that was a little packet of spearmint gum.

“Here's something to make it smell better,” she said as she handed him the pack. He took a whiff and nodded.

“Oh, yeah.” He set it on the shelf and then returned to her. She looked past him and spotted a tall box that held an air conditioner in it at one point. He took his seat there and she squeezed in after him.

“Tight fit,” he said as she shut the door behind her: a small crack in between the door and the frame gave her just enough light to see what she was doing.

“Come closer to me,” she whispered.

“Only if you come closer to me,” he begged her. He kept himself seated on the box and she leaned in to him.

“So, do you want it below the belt, or—”

“Yeah, please,” he whispered to her as he opened his legs for her. “Nothin' fancy. But something to start us off with.”

In the dim light, she unfastened the button on his jeans and she reached down the front. The size of it. Even when inside of his jeans, her finger tips caressed over his silken skin. It felt like a big serpent, right inside of his pants.

“Wow,” she breathed.

“Yeah—I guess you could say I'm hung,” he said to her in a near whisper. “It does feel good, I'll say that. Those little fingers on me.”

“How 'bout my thumb?” she asked him as she stroked him with the pad of her thumb. He gasped at the feeling.

“Yes,” his voice broke. “God, Sam—you're a natural. With one hand no less!”

She knelt closer to him: the smell of the mint gum was faint and distant in comparison to the smell of his denim and his soft cologne, but she wanted to do it.

“I think I could do it with two,” she declared as she kept her voice down. In the dim light, she could see his Cheshire cat grin and the twinkle in his eye.

“If we were—in a bigger room,” he grunted, “like—your place.”

“Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't ya?” she teased him.

“I could give you sump'n to return the favor, too,” he retorted. He bowed his head and shuffled his feet at the feeling of her thumb and her two fingers on him. He then gaped at her.

“You okay?” she asked him, and he let out a soft groan.

“That's the spot,” he declared. “That's—the spot—and the best feeling.”

Sam was quick to take her hand out and he giggled at her.

“What?” she asked him with a smile on her face.

“I'm gonna have to change my panties now,” he said, and he couldn't resist the laughter.

“Your big boy panties,” she teased him. She stood to her feet and picked the gum and the tulip from the shelf. She put the gum back into her purse and she reached for Cliff's hand. He stood to his feet and adjusted the brim of his hat. Her breasts brushed against his stomach and he even had to bow his head from the ceiling.

“How do we get outta here?” he asked her as he held onto the brim of his hat with two fingers.

“You go first,” she told him.

“Oh, no, ladies first,” he insisted. She let out a sigh, rolled her eyes, and then giggled at him. She opened the closet door with her free hand and she stumbled out of there; he followed her and he almost dropped his hat on the clean tile floor. He caught it and put it back onto his head as the door swung closed behind him in one fell swoop. He then crossed his legs.

“Tell you what,” he started with a raise of his finger. “I'll run to the men's room and wash up—you go back to L'Amour and wait for me.”

“You sure?” she asked him as she twirled the tulip in her fingers: her hand was dry as a bone even though she made him come in his jeans.

“Positive. Go hang out with the gang and I'll catch up with you.” Cliff leaned into her neck and gave her a little kiss. The bristle over his lip brushed against her skin such that it tickled, and it brought a giggle out of her. He kept his legs together as he passed her and headed over to the men's room. Sam watched him go and then, once he was out of sight, she fetched up a dreamy sigh. But without another moment's hesitation, she surfaced from the subway and made her way back to the club.

Aurora, Zelda, and Marla showed up within the next hour, but she had no idea where Dave had disappeared to; Marla had put on a knit cap over her hair to hide it all away from onlookers. She also noticed that Cliff still hadn't showed up by the time the audience began gathering in front of them. A much bigger crowd that time.

The four girls stood at the back of the room and they watched Alex solo once again on that song “Alone in the Dark”. He stood still and kept the guitar pressed to his little tummy the whole entire time. Marla and Aurora both had stars in their eyes at the sight of him, but even though Sam kept her eye on him, she couldn't stop thinking about Cliff and Dave. Neither of them had arrived at the club still; she couldn't stop thinking about James and Lars, and the fact Scott and Frank felt like a pair of lynchpins. So much had happened without her looking, and there was so much that she still needed to know.

Meanwhile, Zetro did more straight up singing rather than that usual high shriek that caught everyone's attention. Legacy were tight and powerful on that second night, and Sam had hope for them. When Anthrax showed to the stage, she recalled what Charlie had said about Legacy and that there was another band called that. She wondered how that would work out as Joey stood in the middle of the stage with his head bowed over the head of the microphone.

His voice was more broken and he had a difficult time catching his breath. Indeed, they cut their set short by two songs because he couldn't hardly keep up with the other four guys behind him. Such a big crowd in front of them and yet he couldn't do it; everyone filed out of there as disappointed as Sam expected them to be.

“He didn't look too good,” she overheard Zelda say to Marla, who shook her head.

“I'm gonna go see if he's okay,” Sam told them as she adjusted the strap of her purse and tucked Cliff's tulip into her purse for safe keeping. “I did ride with him down here after all.”

“Okay—I will, too,” Marla said as she tugged down on her cap, and Sam strode across the floor to the backstage area.

“You wanna get something to eat?” Aurora offered Zelda as they fell out of earshot. Sam stepped over the cables on the floor and she leaned into the backstage area. No one there, and in fact the back door shut as soon as she knew what was happening there. She doubled back to the side doors and made her way to the street.

If nothing, she could take the subway back up to the Bronx, but it was getting late, and she knew she wouldn't return home until well into the night. The very thought of it exhausted her. She turned her head and she recognized Frank's car at the corner: he had rolled down the windows to take in the warm nigth air.

“Frankie!” she shouted as she sprinted down the sidewalk. In the darkness, she saw his silhouette turn in her direction. “Frankie!” He hesitated there to await her.

“Hey!” he called out to her. He leaned over the passenger seat: the orange glow of the street light washed over his handsome face.

“Do you know where Joey went?” she asked him, out of breath.

“Charlie and Marla just took him home,” he replied. “Poor guy had such a bad night.”

“Was he okay?”

“You know, he barfed this morning when you guys got here and then he knocked back another few drinks.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she groaned and she bowed her head. She lifted her gaze and stared on at Frank in the dim light. “Well—I don't really feel like taking the subway, though.” She adjusted the strap of her purse yet again.

“That's right, you and him rode together here,” he recalled.

“Did they take his car?”

“Yeah, they did.”

“It's getting late, too. You could do it but it kinda sucks, though—it's been a long day, too. Yeah, hop on in. Besides, you and I live in the same building.”

Sam slid into the passenger seat next to him, and she placed her purse on the floor next to her ankle. They made their way up the street and caught the light green.

“It wasn't just Joey who had a bad night, though,” he started. “I don't know what was going on with the amps tonight.”

“You guys sounded good, though,” she pointed out. “Legacy sounded extra strong tonight.”

“Zetro's last night, you know. He told me he wanted to sing tonight, too, which was real cool, if you ask me! But I felt so naked up there. Myself, Scott, and also Danny, plus Eric, Alex, and Greg. Charlie couldn't hardly get the mic on his snare to work. Louie just went 'fuck it' and took it off, but it seemed to work for him, though. We all struggled tonight.”

They fell silent for a long time, that is until they reached the freeway entrance.

“So Cliff kissed you,” he muttered over the roar of the tires on the pavement. Sam gaped at him.

“Wait a minute, how'd you find that out?” she demanded.

“The last time I saw him, he had this twinkle in his eye and he smelled like fresh coffee,” he explained. “So I asked him about it.”

Sam shook her head. And she had been keeping it a secret this whole entire time!

She squinted her eyes and gaped at him. Frank looked back at her with a concerned look on his face.

“What's wrong?” he asked her.

“He told me to keep it a secret,” she explained. “I—I don't even know what to say right now.”

“Wow, what the fuck,” he muttered as he returned his attention to the parkway in front of them. “You should bring it up to him once you get home.”

“Yeah, I'll talk to him tonight,” she vowed to him.

“You should,” Frank replied, “Cliff is my friend but he needs to know that he went behind your back like that. I wouldn't really be okay with that if it were me. Heck, I'm not okay with it not being me. I'll give you the number to Jon and Marsha's house, too. They're staying with them.”

Within thirty minutes, they returned home to their building. Frank bode her good night with a hug and then she made her way back upstairs to her room. She set her purse down on the couch and she took out the tulip. Cliff never showed again and the secret was out. She didn't want to get mad at him, but she couldn't help it.

She darted into the kitchen and set the tulip down on the counter so she could dial the Zazulas' number. It was almost midnight and thus, as she brought the phone to her ear, she wondered if she would wake them.

“Hello?” She recognized his voice.

“Hi, Cliff,” she said in a flat tone.

“Oh, hi.” He hesitated.

“You told Frankie you kissed me?” she blurted out. Silence on his end.

“Uh—”

“Why'd you do that, Cliff?” she demanded and she folded a single arm across her chest.

“Because,” he started.

“Because why?” She could feel her face growing hot from frustration.

“Because I needed to tell someone,” he said. “I needed to tell someone close to me. I was gonna lose it otherwise if I didn't tell someone about it.”

“But you told me to keep it under the wraps, though!” she pointed out.

“Well, yeah.” He never raised his voice. “But I didn't know how I was gonna react to it, though. Believe me, Sam, if I would've, I could've. Both my hands on my brother's ashes.” Sam fumed as she kept the phone up to her ear. He also left her hanging in the club as well. The second night in a row, and he failed to be her date to the shows.

“I'm also sorry for not showing up, either,” he added when she didn't reply to him. “Dave needed a ride back to where he was staying and I needed to change my underwear, too. We had to make some calls and I finally got back to the Zazulas' house for a change, and at that point, the shows had already started...” As he spoke, she eased the expression on her face. Even though she kept her arm crossed over her chest, there was no way she could stay mad at him for this.

“I'm just... I'm sorry, Sam,” he pleaded. “I'm sorry for everything. You can break up with me and tell me to go fuck myself, I'd understand.”

She swallowed, and she kept her gaze fixated on the tulip on the counter next to her. There was also that bouquet on the coffee table in the next room. Those soft smooth bright yellow petals that beckoned a smile out of her.

“No, no,” she told him in a low voice. “It's okay. Things just—happened.”

“That's just all there is to it,” he replied in a near whisper. “Things just happen, and sometimes you need to tell people about it. Otherwise you get what's going on between James, Lars, and Dave at the moment.”

“You were really cute when we got to the closet, too,” she said, and she couldn't resist the smile on her face. “Dolling that little space up.”

“Well, you wanted it to be romantic,” he pointed out with a little chuckle to his voice.

“True. But it was just—it was cute to me.” She snickered at the thought.

“When do Stormtroopers go on tour?”

“About a month. It's only gonna be a handful of dates, but Frankie told me it'll be my first taste of the road life. And it's money for me and Marla especially.”

“Take all your clothes,” he suggested. “All of them. You never know what the place will be like. Also, be prepared to not sleep, either.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” she vowed, and she yawned.

“It's late,” he stated.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Enjoy your sleep while you can, too. Just every minute of it. So—don't stay up another minute later. Also, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

There was silence on his end.

“I love you,” he whispered, and she never moved. Her chest ached a bit: it took her a minute to realize she had been holding her breath that whole time.

“You there?” he asked her.

“Yeah.”

“You alright?” “Yeah.”

He snickered at her.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back at him as she picked up the tulip from the counter. She brought those yellow petals up to her nose: still smelled fresh.

“You have a good night,” he told her in a soft voice.

“Kiss the Zazulas good night for me,” she said, and that brought a laugh out of him, and they hung up at the same time.

18 notes · View notes

longitudinalwaveme · 3 years

Text

Merry, the Boy Wonder

The multiverse is filled with endless possibilities. For example, in our universe, it was Dick Grayson whose parents, a pair of circus performers, were killed by gangsters in Gotham City, and who subsequently became the first sidekick to the mysterious Batman. But what if things had gone a bit differently? What if, instead of Dick Grayson, it had been one James Jesse whose family had performed in Gotham that fateful night? This is the story of the world where that happened….

“Great news, Helen! Haly’s Circus had to pull out of their planned appearance in Gotham City due to a scheduling conflict, so our circus has been called in to take their place!” Giovanni Giuseppi, known better to the non-carny world as James Jesse, the youngest member of the Death-Defying Jesses, looked up from his book at his father’s exclamation.

“Really? That’s wonderful!” His mother replied. Giovanni grinned. This was perfect! Not only was being offered to perform in a huge city like Gotham a sign that Big Circus had finally, well, hit it big (pun completely intended), but it also meant that he would be able to perform with his new airwalker shoes in front of a much larger crowd than he had expected.

“We’ve finally made it, darling! This the Death-Defying Jesses’ first step on the road to worldwide renown!” With that, his parents kissed, and Giovanni made a face. True, he himself had made out with Alessia, a cute knife-thrower, two days ago, but when his parents did it, it was just weird.

“This is awesome! Today, Gotham City, tomorrow, the world!” he exclaimed. His mother laughed.

“Well, we hope so, Giovanni,” she said.

“We’ll be leaving Happy Harbor and heading for Gotham tomorrow morning, son, so I expect you to get a good night’s rest. No staying up late to read about that outlaw Jesse James, understand?” his father added.

“I understand,” Giovanni replied, crossing his fingers behind his back.

“I’m glad to hear it, Giovanni. Your father and I don’t want you to get any ideas from those books of yours,” his mother said. Giovanni had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Marcello, a joey, and Georgio, who ran a garbage joint, had been teaching him how to cheat at cards and perform sleight-of-hand tricks since he was five years old. If anything was going to cause him to become a delinquent, it wasn’t going to be history books about Jesse James.

“I won’t, mamma.”

“In that case, you need to get to bed. It’s already almost 11 o’clock,” his father said.

“Already?” Giovanni asked.

“Yes,” his father replied sternly.

“Oh, all right. Night, mamma. Night, papá. Love you,” Giovanni said. With that, he went to his bed, and, after about thirty minutes of reading his latest book under his bed covers with the aid of a flashlight, he fell asleep, mind filled with images of his airwalkers, applauding crowds, and one very pretty knife-thrower.

Giovanni woke up at six the next morning and spent the next three hours helping the other members of the circus prepare for the jump. Once everything was prepared, the entire circus spent the next three and a half hours traveling from Happy Harbor to Gotham City. Giovanni spent this time alternatively reading, bugging his parents, and tinkering with his airwalker shoes. When the jump concluded, the circus burst into action again, setting up the big top and the joints, unloading the baggage wagons, distributing all the props, and generally preparing for the opening night of Big Circus’ date in Gotham. In fact, Giovanni was so busy that, although he saw almost every member of the circus, including the ringmaster, while helping to set things up, he didn’t see his parents again until two o’clock in the afternoon. By seven-thirty, however, even the business of setting up a circus came to an end, and Giovanni was free to search for Alessia. Giovanni was passing by one of the floss joints when he heard a voice he didn’t recognize. Curious, he snuck closer, then hid behind one of the gilley wagons.

“And if you pay us, we protect you. Get it, Chandler?” Chandler was the owner of the circus.

“Yes. I get it. You’re gangsters! It’s a protection racket! If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll call the police!” Chandler replied.

“You don’t want to die, do you? Be sensible. Pay us and protect your show from “accidents”,” a second unfamiliar man said.

“Get out! Big Circus does not make deals with criminali!” That time, it was Alessandro, Alessia’s father and the ringleader of the circus, who spoke.

“Alessandro is right. I won’t pay your kind for protection,” Chandler added.

“Okay, buddy. It’s your funeral. But remember...accidents will happen,” the first unfamiliar man replied. With that, he and his companion walked away. Slightly concerned, but confident that Chandler and Alessandro would be able to handle the problem, Giovanni decided to continue his search for Alessia. He found her a few minutes later, and the two spent the next three hours chattering excitedly about the next day’s upcoming performance, making out, and eating floss before returning to their respective trailers. By the time he entered his home and bid his parents good night, Giovanni had forgotten all about the gangsters who had visited the circus.

At five fifty-five the following evening, the entire circus was in an uproar. The show would begin in only five minutes, and everyone was running around trying to find costumes, props, and other kinkers.

“Where are my knives?” Alessia asked.

“I don’t know. Where was the last place you put them?”

“Right here. But they’re not there anymore!”

“I’m hungry!”

“Then you should’ve visited the pie car an hour ago!”

“I found your knives, Alessia!”

“Where were they?”

“Under my clown costume.”

“We’ve got a straw house tonight! Every seat is filled!” someone shouted. Giovanni’s father beamed and turned to his mother.

“You hear that, Helen? This is it. We’re going to be famous,” he said. As he fiddled with his airwalker shoes, Giovanni grinned, too. He couldn’t wait to show his family-and the world-his new death-defying tricks!

“I heard, Jacob.”

“Giovanni, I’m so nervous! What if I’m awful?” Alessia asked.

“Don’t worry, Alessia. I’ve seen you practice. You’re terrific,” Giovanni replied.

“Thanks, Giovanni. You’ll be terrific, too,” Alessia said.

“Alessia, don’t forget your hat!” another knife-thrower yelled.

“Sorry, Giovanni. I gotta go. See you after the show!” With that, Alessia ran off.

“Giovanni, you remember your part in the act, right?” his father asked him. Giovanni nodded. Sure, he planned to make his own slight addition to the plans, but he knew what he was supposed to do.

“I start climbing the ladder once you and mom have met in the middle of the tightrope, kissed, and started walking back to the platform,” he replied.

“Good. We’re so glad to finally have you as part of the act, Giovanni,” his mother said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to what will no doubt be the most thrilling, astonishing, and stupefying experience of your life!” Alessandro was starting his opening. The night’s performance had officially begun. Giovanni and his parents were scheduled for the second act, right after the clowns. To pass the time, Giovanni pulled a yo-yo out of a box of props and started messing around with it. Ten minutes later, the clowns were heading to the backyard, and Giovanni quickly stuck his yo-yo back in the box.

“And now, for the amazing feats of the Death-Defying Jesses, performed on a tightrope sixty feet above the ground!” Alessandro exclaimed. Giovanni and his parents entered the ring, waved to the natives in the crowd, and then walked over to the tightrope ladders, with each of his parents heading to the ladder on one of the sides and then scaling it. When they reached the top, they both carefully stepped out onto the high wire, and then started walking towards one another...only for the wire to suddenly snap! The next few seconds felt like hours, as his parents fell towards the ground below...then landed with a sickening, but surprisingly quiet, thud. After several seconds of staring at the scene in horrified shock, Giovanni ran to his parents, oblivious to the screams of the audience members.

“Mamma! Papá! Be okay! Please be okay!” he exclaimed. He kept waiting for them to yell “Surprise!”; for them to reveal that it had been some particularly clever trick used for the act...but deep down, he knew the truth. His parents were dead; life having played a cruel trick on them by killing them on what should have been the night of their greatest triumph. Giovanni burst into tears. How could this have happened? After several minutes, Alessandro gently led Giovanni back to his trailer, assured him that the Gotham City date would be folding due to his parents’ deaths, and then left him alone, something for which Giovanni was grateful. He didn’t think he could handle having anyone else around right now. A few minutes after he was left alone, he started sobbing again. His parents were dead. If the wire had broken a few minutes later, he would’ve died, too. How had everything gone so terribly wrong?

A few hours later, Giovanni decided to go outside in the hopes that doing so might clear his head and help him make sense of what had just happened to him. However, he didn’t get very far before he heard unfamiliar voices once again.

“Too bad about that “accident”, Chandler.”

“Yeah! But there wouldn’t be any accidents if you paid us to protect you!” Giovanni realized with shock that he’d heard the voices before...and suddenly, the earlier conversation Chandler and Alessandro had had with the men they had called criminals came rushing back to him.

“You murderers! All right, I’ll pay, but only so that no one else will be killed,” Chandler replied weakly. Giovanni felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. His parents hadn’t just died-they had been murdered!

“Those crooks...they killed my parents, and now they’re extorting the circus. I’ve gotta call the police,” Giovanni muttered to himself.

“No, boy. Not yet!” a deep voice exclaimed. Giovanni spun around to see a tall, well-built man who was cloaked in a deep blue-or possibly black, it was hard to tell in the dim light-cape. Giovanni was used to strange-looking people-after all, he lived with the circus and was currently wearing a blue-and-orange striped uniform-but this man had them all beat.

“Who...what... are you?” he asked.

“I am Batman. I want to help you bring the men who murdered your parents to justice-but you can’t go to the police. Come with me, and I’ll tell you why.” Normally, Giovanni would have scoffed at such an offer-it did, after all, sound exactly like what a kidnapper would say-but at the moment, he was too consumed by grief to really care. If this weird guy helped him get justice for his parents, great. If not….what else did he have to lose? The two people he loved most in the world were already gone.

“Okay.”

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Giovanni Giuseppi. James Jesse is-was-my stage name,” Giovanni replied. “Batman” nodded curtly and proceeded to lead Giovanni to a really nice-looking car, and the two climbed into it.

“Don’t touch anything.” Under normal circumstances, this order probably would’ve been necessary, as Giovanni knew he had a bad habit of pressing buttons and grabbing things out of curiosity, but right now, he had no interest in doing anything of the sort. What he was interested in was finding out whether or not this “Batman” could help him.

“Why can’t I call the police?” he asked.

“Because this whole city is run by Boss Zucco, a powerful mobster. If you told the police what you knew, you would be dead in an hour. Because of that, I’m going to hide you in my home for awhile,” the man replied.

“Why? Why do you care what happens to me? I’m not even from around here. I’m just some carny kid,” Giovanni asked.

“Because my parents were also killed by criminals. Because of that, I’ve devoted my life to wiping them out...and protecting their victims, like you.” At this reminder of his parents’ death, Giovanni started to cry again. How had this happened to him?

About twenty minutes later, “Batman” pulled into what appeared to be a very large cave….that for some reason contained a boat, a bunch of gadgets, a large computer, several costumes that resembled the one “Batman” was wearing, a giant penny, a huge playing card, what looked like a dinosaur, and...a butler? What was this place?

“Get out of the car.” Giovanni complied, still mystified by the whole situation, and followed “Batman” to the butler.

“Alfred, this is Giovanni Giuseppi. Giovanni, this is Alfred Pennyworth, my butler.”

“If I may be so bold as to ask, Master Bruce, why have you brought a child into the Batcave?” The butler, who was apparently named Alfred, sounded very British.

“His parents were killed by Zucco’s mob. To protect him, I’m planning to have Bruce Wayne adopt him,” ‘Batman’ replied. Giovanni started crying again. He didn’t want a new father-he wanted his old one!

“My, my. The poor child. Are you sure that adopting him is really the right decision? After all, you don’t exactly lead a….conventional life.”

“I’m sure. I was in the audience, Alfred. I watched his parents die just like he did. If I didn’t offer him a home after that, I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Very well, Master Bruce. Who knows? Maybe a child will be good for you.” With that, “Batman” turned back to Giovanni.

“Giovanni, you are about to be let in on a secret that only two other people in the world know,” he said. With that, he pulled off his mask, revealing a handsome young man, probably in his late twenties.

“My name is Bruce Wayne. I am the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and-”

“You’re the guy who purchased the most expensive grandstand seat! The...the billionaire!” he exclaimed, stunned. He wasn’t exactly used to talking to billionaires-after all, most carnies could barely rub two nickels together most of the time.

“Yes, I am. When I was eight years old, my parents were gunned down in front of me by a mugger. Since then, I have devoted my time and money to becoming the Batman-the world’s greatest crimefighter,” Bruce Wayne/Batman replied. Giovanni pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. This was insane! Billionaire Bruce Wayne ran around in a bat costume to fight criminals? And wanted to adopt him? Why? He was just a poor carny kid...and besides, he was already fifteen years old. If Bruce Wayne really wanted to adopt a kid, why not adopt a baby? Surely a baby would be easier to mold into an heir for Wayne Enterprises than a teenaged nobody.

“And you’re revealing your secrets to me? Why?”

“Because you’re going to be living in Wayne Manor with me. Since you seem to be fairly intelligent, you would almost certainly have discovered my secret at some point even if I didn’t tell you, so I decided it would be best to inform you about it upfront,” Bruce Wayne/Batman replied.

“You’re...serious about this adoption thing? But I don’t know the first thing about being rich or running a company or…” Giovanni began.

“When I became Batman, I promised myself that I’d never let criminals orphan another child in this city. When I failed to prevent your parents’ deaths, I broke that promise. Adopting you is my way of making it up to you and to myself. And besides, you’re pretty young to be left on your own,” Bruce Wayne/Batman cut in. Giovanni frowned.

“I don’t want a substitute father.”

“And I’m not trying to be one to you. I know no one will be able to replace your parents. Just think of me as an ally who’s giving you a home.”

“Well...I…” Giovanni wasn’t sure what to think. On the one hand, he didn’t want to replace his parents with this guy he barely knew, and he was pretty sure that he would stick out terribly in high society, but, on the other hand, Bruce Wayne did seem to know what he was going through, and had promised to help him bring his parents’ killers to justice.

“If you’re really opposed to the idea, I can return you to the circus,” Bruce Wayne/Batman said. That settled it. Giovanni knew he couldn’t handle returning to the circus where his parents had died, no matter how much he liked the other carnies. The emotions would be too much for him.

“Well, if you really want to adopt me...I guess I’m okay with the idea of an ally like you.” Bruce Wayne/Batman nodded.

“I’m glad to hear it. In that case, Alfred will show you to your room,” he said.

“Follow me, Master Giuseppi.” The butler gestured to a flight of stairs.

“Just call me Giovanni.”

“As you wish, Master Giovanni.” That hadn’t been exactly what he’d meant, but whatever. He had more important things to worry about. Giovanni followed the butler up the stairs, through what appeared to be a grandfather clock, through an enormous library, and to the largest bedroom Giovanni had ever seen. It was as big as his family’s whole trailer!

“This is all mine?” he asked, stunned.

“Yes. Are you displeased with it, Master Giovanni?” the butler asked.

“No. I’m just...not used to having a room this huge,” Giovanni replied.

“I can fetch you one of Master Bruce’s robes, Master Giovanni. If I had known about your arrival, I would have ensured that a suitable wardrobe was prepared for you, but, under the circumstances, I will have to make due with what I have on hand,” the butler said. Giovanni shook his head.

“Nah. I appreciate the thought, but I’ll be fine sleeping in my clothes. I’ve done it before,” Givoanni replied.

“Very well, Master Giovanni. Is there anything else you need?” Giovanni yawned.

“Tonight I think I just need some sleep. It’s been a really, really long day,” he replied.

“In that case, I will take my leave of you. Good night, Master Giovanni...and I express my strongest condolences for the tragic loss of your family,” the butler said. With that, he bowed and left the room. Giovanni walked over to the enormous bed and laid down on it. It was incredibly soft, and that, combined with Giovanni’s emotional and physical exhaustion, meant that sleep claimed him quickly.

The next week passed in what to Giovanni was an utter blur. He attended his parents’ funeral, bid good-bye to Alessia, her father, and his other friends when the circus left Gotham, was formally adopted by Bruce Wayne thanks both to the billionaire’s fortune and his own lack of living relatives, and was enrolled in a ritzy private school. And so it was that Giovanni Giuseppi, a carny kid who’d never been in a classroom in his life, entered through the doors of one of the most exclusive high schools in the country, Gotham Preparatory Academy. On Alfred’s insistence, Giovanni arrived at his first class early-so early, in fact, that he was the first person other than the teacher to arrive.

“Hello. My name is Mr. Cunningham. I’ll be your American History professor. You must be Giovanni Giuseppi, the boy Bruce Wayne recently adopted. I look forward to having you in my class,” the teacher said.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“I heard that you used to be part of a traveling circus. If that’s true, I’m sure this must be very strange for you.” Giovanni nodded.

“No kidding. This is the first time I’ve been in a classroom. My parents homeschooled me before...before…” He managed not to start crying, but it was a close thing.

“I understand, and I’ll do my best to make the transition easier for you.”

“Th-thanks.” The teacher nodded, and, soon after, other kids started entering the room. One of them, a tall, brown-haired kid, came up to the desk he was sitting at.

“I’m Jared Vreeland. You must be one of the new kids,” he said.

“Yeah. My name’s Giovanni Giuseppi,” Giovanni said.

“Giuseppi? I don’t know that last name, so you must be the circus kid Bruce Wayne adopted,” the kid replied.

“You’re right, I am.”

“Then you don’t belong here. Bruce Wayne’s always been eccentric, but adopting some circus vagabond and pretending that he’d fit in high society? It’s the craziest thing he’s ever done, and that’s saying something. I bet you’ve never even been to school before.” Giovanni frowned, now on edge.

“And I bet you’ve never understood basic manners.”

“I don’t need to be polite to vagabonds with no class!”

“Mr. Vreeland! That is entirely inappropriate! Sit down and leave Giovanni alone, or I will have you sent to the headmaster’s office!” Mr. Cunningham barked. Vreeland scowled, but complied, and Giovanni decided that he was definitely fond of Mr. Cunningham. About six minutes later, just as the bell was ringing, another kid rushed into the room, almost tripped over the flagpole, and then sat down in the seat to Giovanni’s left.

“I’m sorry I was almost late, Mr. Cunningham. I got lost,” the skinny, red-headed kid apologized.

“That’s all right. I take it you’re the other new student?”

“Yes, sir. My name is Hartley Rathaway,” the kid said. Giovanni noticed that he had a distinctly different accent than Bruce Wayne, Mr. Cunningham, and his other peers. That was odd. True, he sounded different from them, too, but he hadn’t been born in Gotham. Was it possible that this kid wasn’t from Gotham, either?

“It’s nice to meet you, Hartley. I’m Mr. Cunningham, your American History professor.” With that, the school day began, and, while the strict scheduling and multiple teachers were going to take some getting used to, Giovanni didn’t think he would have too much trouble with the coursework itself. What he was starting to suspect he was going to have trouble with was his peers. Apparently, Vreeland wasn’t alone in his anger at the idea of a circus kid being at their fancy school, and their hostility made him miss his parents...and the circus...even more than he already did. He had belonged there.

Roughly halfway through the day, the students broke for lunch, and Giovanni sat himself down next to the red-headed kid from his history class, who was apparently the other new kid at the school. He’d always been a curious sort, and he wanted to know the story behind his fellow newcomer. Besides, talking to the kid would help keep him from thinking too much about...about...not thinking about it!

“Hi! You’re Hartley, right? Mind if I sit here?” The kid looked surprised.

“I suppose not. Who are you?” Giovanni smiled (a bit weakly), sat down, and unwrapped his lunch.

“Giovanni Giuseppi. You sat next to me in history class. I’m the other new kid.”

“The one Bruce Wayne adopted?”

“Yep. I’m the carny kid...and apparently a lot of people here are unhappy about that.”

“I heard. And before you ask, I’m not one of them. I actually think it’s rather neat. I’m sure you’ve gotten to travel a lot, if nothing else. And...and I’m really sorry about what happened to your parents,” Hartley said. Giovanni smiled. It was good to know that at least one kid at this ritzy school wasn’t going to hold his being a carny kid against him, even if the kid had accidentally brought up painful memories that he’d been trying to suppress.

“Thanks for the condolences. And you’re right, I did move around a lot. Let’s see…I’ve been to Coast City, Star City, Opal City, Happy Harbor, Gateway City, Hub City, Ivytown, Central City, here…” He really didn’t want to think about his parents, so hopefully Hartley wouldn’t bring up what had happened to them again.

“You’ve been to Central City?”

“I was like three years old, but yeah. Why?”

“Because I’m from Central City.”

“Really? That explains why you don’t sound like anyone else from Gotham, then.”

“Yes. I’m the son of Osgood and Rachel Rathaway, the billionaire publishing magnates.”

“Never heard of them,” Giovanni replied honestly. Hartley smiled.

“You have no idea how refreshing that is.”

“So, what’s a Midwestern boy like you doing in Gotham City?”

“Well, I’ve been tutored at home for most of my life, but now that I’m high school aged, my parents had an excuse to send me away from home, supposedly so I could “meet the right people”. Of the schools that met their criteria, Gotham Prep was the furthest away from Central City, so they shipped me off here.”

“You make it sound like they’re trying to get rid of you,” Giovanni replied. He couldn’t imagine his parents...no, not thinking about it!

“They are trying to get rid of me. They sent me here so that they can hide their embarrassment of a son,” Hartley said quietly.

“Granted, I’m a nobody carny kid, so my standards are probably different from your parents’, but you don’t seem like an embarrassment to me.” In fact, as far as Giovanni could tell, Hartley looked and acted like the perfect heir to a huge corporation. In response, Hartley removed something from his right ear and handed it to Giovanni.

“A...hearing aid?”

“A very expensive, advanced one, but yes. A hearing aid. I was born deaf, and my parents have been disappointed with me ever since,” Hartley said. Giovanni handed the hearing aid back to him and, now a bit uncomfortable, decided to change the subject.

“So, do you have any hobbies?”

“I play the flute. And the violin. You?” Hartley replied.

“I’m the best cardsharp this side of Vegas, and I know loads of tricks you can do with yo-yos. And I’m an acrobat, of course,” Giovanni replied. Unfortunately, talking about his hobbies reminded him of his life at the circus, and that made him start to cry. Bruce Wayne, Alfred, Mr. Cunningham, and Hartley were all good people, but no matter how good they were, they weren’t his parents.

“Are you all right?” Giovanni shook his head.

“I...I miss my parents.” A few minutes later, he managed to calm down enough to stop crying, but he still couldn’t stop thinking about what he had lost. Those gangsters had killed his parents and destroyed his life, and all for some cash? How could they have done something like that? And why had it happened to him?

“I know that this won’t make up for what happened, but I’m so sorry for what happened to you. You obviously loved your parents very much,” Hartley said quietly.

“Why did they have to die? They never hurt anyone!”

“I don’t know. Probably the same reason my parents wish I didn’t exist.” At that, Giovanni looked back up at Hartley and gave him a slight smile. While their situations obviously weren’t exactly the same, in a way it was comforting to know that he wasn’t the only kid his age who had been hurt for reasons he didn’t understand.

“You know what, Hartley? I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

About three weeks later, Giovanni returned from Gotham Preparatory Academy to be greeted by a very grim Bruce Wayne/Batman.

“Giovanni, I’ve got proof that Boss Zucco was behind the murder of your parents. Tonight, Batman will bring him, and all of his cronies, to justice.” Giovanni smiled. This was wonderful! He was finally going to be able to avenge his parents’ deaths!

“I’m coming too,” he said.

“No.”

“He killed my parents! I want to help bring him in.”

“I said no. Even if it wasn’t incredibly dangerous, you don’t have the requisite physical training to fight crime.” Giovanni scoffed.

“Don’t have the requisite physical training? I’ve been practicing acrobatics since I was old enough to walk!”

“Crimefighting isn’t just a physical discipline. It also requires intense mental fortitude.” Determined to convince Bruce Wayne/Batman to help him bring in the men who’d murdered his parents, Giovanni rushed to his room, put on his airwalker shoes, and then ran back to the billionaire.

“I’ve got mental fortitude! I invented shoes that let me walk on air,” he said as soon as he caught his breath. Bruce Wayne/Batman looked skeptical.

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” In response, Giovanni activated his shoes and ascended several feet in the air. Once he was high enough for his feet to be roughly level with Bruce Wayne/Batman’s face, he stopped.

“Now do you believe me?”

“You invented those all by yourself?” Bruce Wayne/Batman actually sounded surprised, and Givoanni grinned. Surely he would be allowed to come along now!

“Yep. You see, when I was a kid, I was afraid of falling, so I decided to invent shoes that would make sure that I never fell. Pretty cool, huh?”

“If I don’t let you come, you’ll follow me regardless, won’t you?” Giovanni returned himself to the ground.

“Definitely.”

“All right. I know when I’m beaten. I’ll take you with me to bring in the men who killed your parents...but first, you must swear that you will fight with me against crime and corruption, and to never swerve from the path of righteousness!” Bruce Wayne/Batman exclaimed. Giovanni thought that that sounded a bit intense, but he would agree to anything if it meant that he could get closure for the deaths of his parents.

“I swear it. Can we go now?” Bruce Wayne shook his head.

“Not yet. I want to see the extent of your physical capabilities first.” Giovanni sighed, but allowed Bruce Wayne/Batman to lead him to Wayne Manor’s enormous gymnasium anyways. When Giovanni saw the trapeze, he grinned. True, his parents had primarily been tightrope walkers, but they had taught him a good deal about trapeze artistry as well. After a brief warm-up, he launched into his most complex routine, and executed it flawlessly. He’d never had more motivation to get the routine right than he did right now.

“I’ve been doing this since I was four years old!” he exclaimed as he landed. Bruce Wayne/Batman actually nodded, clearly impressed.

“As far as swinging ropes go, you could probably teach me a thing or two!”

“Told you I was good.”

“Don’t get too cocky. You’re obviously in good shape, but that doesn’t make you a trained fighter. If you want to help me take down Zucco’s mob, you have to promise to follow my orders to the letter. In this business, getting cocky can get you killed. Do you understand?” Bruce Wayne/Batman replied.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Giovanni mock saluted, feeling more like himself than he had in weeks. It was such a relief to finally be able to do something for his parents’ memories.

“I’m going to regret allowing you to join me, aren’t I?”

“Probably. Now are we ready to go?” Bruce Wayne/Batman shook his head.

“Not quite. You still need a costume and an alias. I don’t want people questioning why Bruce Wayne’s adopted son is running around fighting crime with Batman.”

“Gotcha. I’ll be right back.” With that, Giovanni ran back to his room, retrieved his old circus uniform, and then returned to Batman.

“What is that?”

“My costume.” Batman looked at him incredulously.

“A costume is intended to hide your identity, not make it even more obvious. The fact that you were part of the circus before I adopted you is well-known. Wearing that outfit is basically like wearing a sign saying that you’re Giovanni Giuesppi, Bruce Wayne’s adopted son. And even if it wasn’t, that costume is the most hideously garish outfit I’ve ever seen.” Giovanni scowled. His uniform was not hideous. What did Batman have against bright colors?

“Do you have uniforms in my size?” Batman frowned.

“Well...no,” he admitted.

“Then I’m wearing the circus uniform. If anyone gets suspicious, we’ll just say that I’m obviously not the kid running around with Batman. I was traumatized by my parents’ deaths-why would I want to run around in an outfit that would remind me of how they died?”

“Fine. But you’re at least going to add some accessories to it,” Batman replied. With that, he led Giovanni to the library, through the passageway behind the grandfather clock, into the cave, and to what appeared to be a dressing room of sorts, one that was full of costumes and accessories. Giovanni quickly ducked behind the divider in the middle of the room, changed into his uniform, and then returned to Batman.

“What other accessories do I need?” Batman handed him a yellow belt and a pair of black gloves.

“The belt contains a variety of useful crime fighting tools. The gloves prevent you from leaving fingerprints. Both are vital for our line of work.” Giovanni put the belt on, discarded the black gloves, and donned a pair of powder blue ones that were much more to his tastes.

“The belt’s a little big.”

“That’s because it was made for me. If you pull it taut, it should stay put.” Giovanni nodded and complied.

“Anything else?”

“You need a mask.” Giovanni nodded, picked up a black domino mask...and then noticed a huge blue cape. Grinning, he grabbed the cape, and proceeded to don both cape and mask.

“So, how do I look?” “Like a colorblind acrobat.”

“Because a giant bat is much less weird, right?” Batman frowned.

“You’re skating on thin ice, Giuseppi. That being said, your costume is basically complete at this point. Now all you need is a code name.”

“I know! You can call me the Trickster!”

“No. That sounds like a supervillain name.” Giovanni didn’t think so, but whatever.

“All right, how about the Prankster?”

“Taken.”

“The Joker?”

“Very taken.”

“Are you sure we can’t call me the Trickster?”

“Yes!” Briefly stumped, Giovanni pondered possible names for a few seconds...and then beamed.

“I’ve got it! You can call me Merry.”

“I suppose that’s acceptable. Merry it is.”

“So are we ready to go now?”

“Yes. But remember to do exactly as I say.” With that, Batman and Giovanni-Merry-entered the Batmobile and headed into Gotham City to take down Boss Zucco.

FIN

#james jesse #batman #fanfic #hartley rathaway #dc comics #au #alfred pennyworth #bruce wayne

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ericsonclan · 3 years

Text

The Gentle Warmth of Friendship

Summary: Brody and Violet journey with their Pokemon when suddenly they meet someone new.

Word Count: 3353

Read on AO3:

“Are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?” Brody asked as she struggled to balance the PokeNav in her hand while gently holding Cleffa. Ralts walked beside her, calm and collected as it followed its trainer.

“Clef?” The small pokemon looked up at its trainer’s face and saw the worry in her eyes. Brody’s brows furrowed as she studied the map. Prescott shouldn’t be far away from the route they were on.

“I don’t know. Aasim said to stay on route 116 and keep walking until we see a road marker that points towards Prescott,” Violet shuffled the pack on her back. Part of her wanted to take a break for the day and set up camp. But another, bigger part of her wanted to continue on. If the two of them walked on and didn’t stop, they could reach the town by nightfall.

“Okay, well I’m sure we’ll be able to find it,” Brody jogged forward and caught up with her friend. The auburn gave a friendly smile to Violet who offered a small one in return. Cubone walked alongside Violet and kept one hand on its weapon and another on her pant leg. The pokemon had always been extremely attached to Violet ever since the day she had found it after its mother’s passing.

Violet looked down with a smile. “You let me know if you get tired, Cubone, and we can stop,”

The words made Cubone look up with big eyes. “Cu? Cubone!” it cried happily and its grip on Violet’s pant leg tightened. Violet shook her head good-naturedly then turned her sights up ahead. Cubone had a tendency to push itself too hard but that only made things worse for the pokemon. With how tired it got it sometimes couldn’t keep up with Violet. At that point Cubone would start to cry from loneliness, causing a sad melody to vibrate throughout the skull it wore on its head, making it shake.

“Veno!”

The sudden call made Brody and Violet stop to see that Venonat had gotten distracted by rock collecting. The bug type pokemon pitter pattered over and stopped in front of Violet. Its large red eyes looked into hers as it held up the item. “Venonat!”

“For me?” Violet knelt down and gave a soft smile as her pokemon handed over the item before she tucked it away. “Thanks.”

“Nat! Nat!” The pokemon exclaimed happily and did a small dance before it gave Violet a look. Instantly the trainer knew what it wanted and carefully picked up her pokemon. Soon the two trainers were off on the route once more.

“Doesn’t carrying all those rocks become tiring?” Brody looked over at Violet who glanced over her way. Violet moved a bit closer to Brody and brought her voice down to a whisper.

“I don’t keep all of them. My pack gets too fucking heavy so when Venonat is napping I usually place them to the side or give them to some wild pokemon I see if they’re friendly.” Violet’s explanation made Brody chuckle softly. The reaction made Violet frown. “It's not funny.”

“Sorry, no, it's just that's really sweet. You really do love your pokemon, Vi.” Brody smiled softly and Violet looked away.

“Yeah, of course. I’d be a pretty shitty trainer if I didn’t think about my pokemon.”

“Speaking of trainers, I can’t wait to see the others in Prescott,” Brody’s eyes shone with joy and her Ralts moved closer towards her, drawn in by her positive emotions.

“Me too. I bet you’re really excited to see one trainer in particular,” Violet teased her friend who nudged her arm.

“Hey! I’m gonna be happy to see the others too! I haven’t seen Ruby in ages and Minnie will definitely want to challenge me to a pokemon battle when we arrive.” As Brody spoke Cleffa held onto her finger, snuggling it contentedly. “But yeah, I can’t wait to see Mitch either and watch that confident smirk turn dorky as soon as he sees me.”

“Not like your face is any better. You two short circuit around each other.” Violet’s words made Brody grow embarrassed.

“Well, it's not like you and Prisha are any better. You told me you dropped your PokeNav into the curry the last time you two camped together because she surprised you with a hug from behind!” Brody was now the one with the smug, teasing expression on her face while Violet felt overwhelmed.

“Whatever, the Pokenav still worked and besides, it's not as embarrassing as that berry incident,” Violet’s smile returned when she saw that Brody clearly remembered that day.

“Well played, Vi. Anyways, I heard that Prescott has quite the gym leader.” Brody shifted their conversation before rummaging around in her pockets. She offered some berries and other treats to Violet. Violet gave a small thanks before handing some of the treats to her pokemon before munching on a berry herself.

“Yeah, I heard the gym there is tough. The Fairy gym leader is known to kick anyone’s ass that challenges him,”

Brody nodded and was about to add to that when suddenly a patch of grass to her right rustled wildly. Both trainers stopped in their tracks and carefully studied the grass. Violet instinctively moved forward in front of Brody and prepared to defend her friend if need be.

The grass continued to move until suddenly a purple blob pokemon wiggled forward. Its beady little eyes looked at Brody then Violet before it smiled. “Ditto!” It cried happily then noticed Venonat staring at it from the safety of Violet’s arms. WIthout warning the Ditto began to transform and became an exact replica of the bug type pokemon.

“Veno?” Violet’s Venonat looked somewhat scared but squirmed out of Violet’s arms. Cautiously it moved forward and examined the Ditto who now looked exactly like it. Venonat did a few different motions with its claws and they were mirrored with ease. “Nat! Nat!” The pokemon screeched and waddled back frantically, clutching onto Violet’s leg desperately.

“Ditto?” Ditto looked confused as to why that had scared its potential new friend. The Ditto morphed back into its original form and was about to imitate another pokemon to see if it could become friends with it when all of sudden a soft voice called out to it.

“Ditto! There you are!” A trainer ran forward, his dark hair getting in the way of his eyes as he scooped up the Ditto. “I thought I told you, no running off and bugging other trainers,” The trainer scolded his pokemon before looking over at Violet and Brody. “Sorry about my Ditto.”

“It's fine,” Violet mumbled and picked up her Venonat.

“Yeah, your Ditto was just trying to make friends, right?” Brody smiled over at the trainer who nodded slowly.

“Ditto always tries to make new friends, thinks that it will help with my social anxiety,” the trainer explained, gesturing with his hands a lot and causing Ditto to nearly slip out of his arms.

“Well, there was no harm done. I’m Brody and this is Violet,” The auburn trainer gestured to herself then to Violet who gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

“It's nice to meet you. My name is James,” The trainer’s soft voice grew a bit quieter. It had been a while since he had run into trainers that weren’t mad that his Pokemon had bugged them. “Well, I should get-”

“Riolu!” A pokemon cried out protectively and ran forward. Its little paws whacked against the ground before the blue pokemon slid in front of James. Its red eyes dared Brody and Violet to even try to take a step forward.

“Riolu! No!” James placed down Ditto and reached out to stop his Riolu from starting a fight like it usually did. “These are nice trainers. What did I say about fighting?”

“Ri!” The pokemon huffed as it looked back at its trainer. James picked it up, now holding both his pokemon in his arms. Riolu’s eyes soon snapped over at the group once more. Quickly it sensed the auras surrounding the two trainers and their pokemon. Brody had a calm, comforting aura and her Cleffa and Ralts seemed to have a similar aura radiating off of them as well. Riolu looked over and noticed the spooked aurora around Venonat and felt the lonely aura around Cubone although it seemed to be tamer than other Cubones and an undertone of happiness danced within its aura. Lastly Riolu looked over at Violet and noticed her quiet, subtle aura. There was no malice or anger amongst them. The pokemon glanced back at its trainer. Now that Riolu thought about it, James’ aura was unusually calm too. “Ri, Ri,” Riolu grumbled and settled down.

“Thank you,” James hugged his pokemon softly. “Sorry about Riolu. He tends to get overprotective of me,”

“That's okay, just shows that you have a good bond with your pokemon,” Violet’s words made James’ eyes grow large. They had clearly meant a lot to him. He was about to thank her for them but a laugh made all three trainers pause. They looked over to see two grunts strolling forward. Both of them had a menacing aura to them and the look in their eyes made it clear they were looking for trouble.

“Look, Joey, we found some cool pokemon for the boss!” The grunt on the left smiled smugly at his friend.

“Yeah, I bet the boss is gonna give us a promotion. Maybe we can even get to choose one of the next Pokemon in the ring!” Joey’s eyes shone with a twisted joy.

“I don’t know who you are but we don’t want trouble,” Brody spoke up and drew the two grunts’ attention.

“Well, we do and we want your pokemon too!” Joey strode forward but Violet stood in front of the group alongside James’ Riolu who had wiggled out of its trainer’s arms.

“Get your own Pokemon and leave us the hell alone!” Violet growled at the grunts, her eyes burning with warning.

The two grunts shared a look and began to laugh.

“Who’s gonna stop us? Your little bug? Listen, just give us the Cubone, Riolu, Ditto and Ralts and we’ll let you keep your shitty pokemon.” There was cocky confidence in the grunt’s orders. Those words caused three different reactions from the trainers. Violet gritted her teeth and curled her hands into fists while James slowly strode forward, his eyes shimmering coldly. Brody gathered Ditto, Ralts, and Venonat together who Violet had told to go back to her.

“You would try to tear apart pokemon from their trainers? I won’t let you do that.” James’ calm aura had shifted and he was ready to fight if need be.

Heh, you don’t have a choice! We’re taking them by force! Ready, Justin?” Joey smiled over to his friend as he took out his pokeball.

“I’m always ready! We’re gonna show these dumbasses the might of Team Delta!” Justin unclipped his pokeball from his hip and tossed it in the air. The ball flew high before a light hummed from inside it and a pokemon emerged. A Machoke landed on the ground and shook its fist as it looked over at Violet and James. Its left eye was missing and scars littered its body. The sight pained James’ heart. What had happened to this pokemon? Had its trainer done this? Before James could ponder further Joey threw his pokeball and a Skarmory appeared in front of them. It gave a high pitched cry causing Brody, Violet and James to cover their ears. Its metal wings were damaged and its beak was bent. Violet clenched both of her fists. These two didn’t give a shit about any pokemon, even their own.

“Violet, would you help me in this battle?” James looked over with determination. Clearly he was just as upset by the sight before him as Violet was.

“Yeah.” Violet nodded and knelt down in front of her Cubone. “I’m going to need your help.” “Cubone!” The pokemon cried to hype itself up and waved around the bone weapon it wielded.

“Riolu, are you ready?” James asked his pokemon companion who got into a fighting stance.

“Riolu!” The pokemon declared proudly and glared at the Delta grunts.

“Okay then. We challenge you to a pokemon battle!” James yelled as he stood beside Violet.

“Bring it, losers!” Justin laughed then gave the first command. “Machoke, use low kick!”

“Choke!” Machoke roared and charged forward. It used its left leg to stabilize itself before sending a devastating low kick directly at Riolu’s face. Riolu lifted its arms to block the attack and soften the blow as it skidded backwards. Dust and dirt flew through the air; the battle had begun.

“Cubone, use headbutt!” Violet instructed and her pokemon charged forward with its head turned downwards towards Machoke.

“Cu!” the pokemon cried and landed a direct hit but it didn’t seem to do much damage.

“Skarmory, use wing attack!” Joey snapped and the pokemon immediately obeyed. Its sharp wings shone in the light and it flew forward, spinning wildly before its wings slashed out at Cubone. Cubone whimpered in pain and stumbled back. It was a super effective move.

“Cubone!” Violet glared at Joey with fiery hatred in her eyes. “You piece of shit!” Her anger only made Joey’s twisted smile grow. Violet’s jaw tightened; she wouldn’t give up so easily. “Cubone, use headbutt!”

Cubone listened and charged forward, ramming into the Skarmory.

“Heh, you’re so fucking stup-’

“Now! Use Bone rush!” Violet’s words made Joey freeze as Cubone used its bone and harshly hit Skarmory again and again. Skarmory cried out and tried to get away but the Cubone was too close and unusually fast.

“Justin! Help!” Joey yelled but his friend ignored him. He was too busy having fun using Machoke to low kick Riolu again and again.

“I don’t have time for your whiny shit, Joey! I’m busy beating the shit out of this twerp!” His words made James shake with anger.

“Riolu, use quick attack to dodge the next blow!” James cried and Riolu gave a nod. As soon as Machoke tried to use another low kick Riolu used quick attack, zooming underneath the outstretched leg.

“Machoke?” Machoke spun around this way and that to find its opponent.

“Now, use metal claw!” James’ voice rang out and danced around the battlefield as Riolu appeared through its makeshift shield of dust. Its claws shone as it tore at Machoke. Machoke gave a pained sound and tried to retaliate but Riolu slipped into the dusty wind once more. James continued on like this, commanding Riolu to use quick attacks to dodge Machoke’s onslaught before sending in a metal claw attack of its own. Slowly but surely Riolu was chipping away at Machoke’s health until James called out for the finishing blow. “Riolu, use force palm!”

“Ri, Ri!” Riolu dashed forward and appeared in front of Machoke. Getting on its left leg Riolu lifted up its right one slightly and got into a fighting stance. Moving both of its paws back it charged up a devastating attack and sent its right paw forward, crashing into Machoke’s chest.

“Choke?” Machoke stumbled back, frightened that it had lost. It tried to reach out to Justin but folded over and collapsed on the ground.

Justin tsked angrily and held out the pokeball to retrieve the pokemon. “Fucking useless! I’ll just have to steal a better pokemon,” Justin tossed aside the pokeball into a pile of mud nearby then looked over to see how Joey was faring.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!!” Joey yelled. “Skarmory! Use fly now!”

Skarmory tried its best to get away as fast as possible but it turned out to be fruitless.

“Cubone, use bonemerang!” Violet’s words made the Delta grunt’s eyes shake with realization.

“Cu, cu!” Cubone lifted up its arm and with a mighty toss threw its bone through the air. The attack connected and hit the Skarmory in mid flight. The pokemon gave another high pitched cry which made Violet and James cover their ears once more before Skarmory fell from the sky. Joey didn’t seem worried at all. In fact, it looked like he was going to let it fall to the ground. Violet and James ran forward at the same time to catch the pokemon, sliding across the ground to save it just in time. They had been able to stop the Skarmory from getting severely harmed even though it would definitely cost them a few bruises over the coming days.

“Argh!” Joey reluctantly held out his pokeball to retrieve Skarmory before he noticed that Justin had discarded his pokemon. Joey thought for a moment and followed suit, tossing aside his pokeball like it was nothing.

“How dare you!” Brody ran forward and carefully fished the two pokeballs out of the mud.

“You two are just selfish assholes!” Violet spat with venom and strode forward with James.

In that moment all of Justin and Joey’s bravery seemed to disappear and they frantically pushed each other out of the way as they tried to escape. They were fighting each other so much that a small pouch slipped out of Justin’s pocket without him even realizing it. “Team Delta won’t forget about this!” Justin yelled angrily then turned and disappeared down the road with Joey.

The three trainers were quiet for a few moments before Violet and James turned their attention to their Pokemon. Violet carefully checked Cubone’s injuries and took out a potion spray. Gently she began to spray the wounds and used some bandages to make sure no infection got into the injuries before they reached Prescott and could visit a PokeCenter. James frantically checked Riolu for injuries before tenderly holding the Pokemon in his arms.

“Thank you, for helping me fight them off,” James smiled softly at Violet.

Violet picked up Cubone who clutched onto her shirt. The blonde trainer looked over at James then glanced away. “It was no big deal. Someone had to stop those assholes,” Violet offered a small smile towards James then turned towards Brody who was sadly looking at the pokeballs which held the discarded Pokemon. “We should see if Prescott has a Pokemon sanctuary.”

Brody glanced up at Violet’s words and nodded. “I don’t know who would abandon their Pokemon like this.”

“Heartless people, that's who. I’ve seen it before,” Violet walked forward and stopped beside Brody. “They’ll be okay.”

That made a gentle smile appear on Brody’s lips. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Thanks for watching out for Venonat too,” Violet offered a small smile her friend’s way.

“No problem.” Brody’s lips held the same smile until an idea crossed her mind. “Oh, James, would you like to journey with us to Prescott? It could be safer to have others with you in case Team Delta shows up again. Plus, it's always more fun to travel with company,”

James’ eyes grew large at Brody’s offer. He studied her eyes for a moment and saw she was truly genuine. Glancing over, he noticed Violet gave a small nod in agreement and that she was being genuine too. “Alright, I haven’t traveled with others in a while so I may not be the best company,” James readjusted his pack then hurried forward with Ditto and Riolu.

“That's okay. I tend to do the most talking anyway since Violet can get lost in her thoughts and be kinda standoffish, especially with new people. But practice makes perfect so speak up whenever you feel comfortable,” Brody smiled over at James before looking at Violet who was frowning slightly at Brody’s description of her and quickly glanced away.

James was silent, processing the kindness he had been offered while watching as Brody reassured Violet who shrugged her off but seemed to not have taken offense. It was clear these two were close friends and maybe, just maybe they could be his friends too. James looked at the road ahead. It could be wishful thinking but he wanted to believe otherwise. These two definitely made him want to believe.

#twdg #twdg brody #twdg violet #twdg james #twdg moody #twdg privet #brody violet brotp #violet james brotp #fanfic #i want to be the very best au

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ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes · 3 years

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Promises Not Kept Part 34

Summary: Tommy Shelby made a promise to Jonah Ward while in the war. A promise he didn't keep. But it comes to haunt him when he tries to drown out his sorrows with a young woman.

Part 34: Johanna growing up.

Johanna nearly scared Tommy out of his skin when she started screaming at eight o’clock at night.

Leah was feeding Molly in the parlor while he was in the big room working. When he heard his daughter shrieking, he jumped up in an instant and made a mad sprint for the stairs. Taking two steps at a time, he dashed down the hall to her room. He ran inside and scooped her up. His eyes shifting with paranoia over the dimly lit room. “What, what is it, Jo?”

“Loose!”

Breathing heavily from the run, he looked at her with a confused face. “What’s loose?” He flicked on the nearest lamp to see what she was on about.

Johanna gave a big smile and pushed on of her front teeth forward with her tongue.

Realizing he’d almost had a heart attack over a loose tooth, he sighed and slumped to the bed with her in his arms. “Joey, it’s a loose tooth, it’s okay, that's supposed to happen.” He sighed, his heart still racing.

“I don’t like it.” She frowned and reached into her mouth to wiggle the tooth. "Feels not good."

“Well, by the looks of it, it’ll fall out soon.” He gently pulled her hand out of her mouth. “Just don’t touch it, it’ll come out on its own.”

A look of terror began to cloud over the little girl’s face. “But I don’t want it to fall out!” She exclaimed. "Where's it gonna go when it falls out?"

“It’ll grow back, Joey. Your baby teeth fall out and your grown-up teeth come in.” He reassured her.

It wasn’t convincing enough to Johanna. “What if I swallow it?”

“You won’t.”

“Yeah-huh, I could!”

“Okay, well.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Ask Charlie tomorrow, he’s lost some of his teeth, he's an expert.”

Then, Leah hurried into the room with Molly fussing crankily in her arms. “What was all that screaming about?” She gasped.

“Jo’s got a loose tooth,” Tommy reported.

“Mummy, I don’t wanna swallow my teeth.” She cried fearfully, wrapping her fingers tightly around Tommy's shirt.

“Oh, lovey, you won’t. Just have daddy pull it out so you won't have to worry about it anymore.”

Tommy frowned it sounded like a terrible idea to him. “I’m not going to pull her tooth out, Lee.” He replied.

“If it’s loose enough, it’ll come right out.” She shrugged.

Charlie peeked into his sister’s room, also alarmed by the screams. “Let’s tie a string ‘round it and then tie it to a doorknob!” He exclaimed after listening in on the conversation about teeth.

“Charles!” Tommy scolded.

“That’s how James lost his tooth. He said his brothers tied his tooth to a doorknob and then his brothers shut the door and it came out.” The boy explained while miming the motion of a tooth being violently ripped out.

Johanna whined in horror and covered her hands over her mouth. “I don’t wanna tie it!” She cried, her voice muffled.

“We’re not doing that, Johanna, it’s okay.” Tommy gave his son a disappointed look. “Charlie was just being silly.”

“Lovey, let me see.” Leah handed Molly to Charlie and knelt down.

Johanna hesitantly moved her hands away from her face and opened her mouth. Leah lightly wiggled the tooth. “Oh, Joey, it’ll be a few days before that comes out.”

“I won’t swallow it?”

“No, you won’t swallow it.”

“Feel better about falling asleep now?” Tommy asked hopefully, ready to end the drama.

Johanna nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you, daddy.”

He smiled and picked her up so he could tuck her back into bed. “I love you too, Joey bear.”

After getting Johanna settled again, Leah took Molly back downstairs. Tommy led Charlie back to his bedroom. He tousled the boy’s hair. “You stay away from string and doorknobs.” He warned.

The boy smiled and nodded. “Alright.”

Tommy wished him goodnight, not about to tell his son that’s how he and Arthur got John to lose his first tooth.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The next Saturday morning was one that Johanna had been anticipating for a very long time. She was officially six and a half and according to Shelby rules, made up some decades ago by who knows who, that meant you could ride a horse.

Tommy distinctly remembered being hauled onto a pony at a very young age. He almost slipped off the second the feisty little pony started to trot but he was grinning the entire time. He only hoped that his children would have the same love he had for horses. Charlie certainly did, looking forward to every lesson and every chance he got to ride alongside his father.

Now it was Johanna’s turn.

She awoke at the crack of dawn, almost too excited to stay in bed for another hour or so. She bounded out of her bed, down the hall and burst into her parents’ bedroom.

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy!” She launched herself onto the bed, causing Cyril to wake up with a startle.

“Joey.” Tommy groaned and blearily ran a hand over his face. Since he had been home more often, he wasn’t as used to waking up so early in the morning. He was actually getting sleep now that Leah and the children were home safe. Having Leah sleeping next to him was like a blessing, a comfort.

“Daddy, time for pony-ride.” Johanna crawled in between Leah and him.

Her mother stirred but was too deeply asleep to notice.

“It’s very early, Jo-Bear. The horses will still be asleep.” Tommy yawned and rubbed his eyes.

“But you promised!” She began drumming on his stomach with her open palms at a rapid pace.

Tommy grabbed her wrists to stop her. “I’m not breaking my promise. But we’re not going out right now. We’ll eat breakfast then go.”

The hushed conversation began to wake Leah. She rolled over and reached out for Tommy. “Who’s that talking?” She mumbled.

“It’s me, mummy!” Johanna exclaimed, thrilled to see that her mother was awake. She flung the quilt up and burrowed herself underneath between her parents.

“It appears we’ve got a stray Joey in the bed.” Tommy sat up, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to get any more sleep that morning. Once his daughter was up, she was up. He cleared his throat and opened the nightstand drawer for his cigarettes.

Leah cuddled Johanna close. “Tom, smoke outside, please.”

“Yep.” He stood up with a groan and went to don a dressing gown. “C’mon Cyril, I’ll let you out.” He patted his thigh to summon the dog.

The bullmastiff looked a little miffed that he’d been woken up so early but rose from his dog bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Breakfast occurred a little earlier than usual but Johanna was relentless. She would’ve inhaled her food if Leah had let her. Charlie came down a bit later only because Cyril had gone to wake him up. But the boy didn’t seem too cranky about it. It was nice to have three happy-go-lucky children at the breakfast table. Charlie eating peacefully, Johanna rambling on happily about her riding lesson, and Molly nursing contently.

It was a foggy morning but the sun was starting to warm up the spring day. Johanna skipped across the lawn toward the stables. She loved visiting the horses and watching her father and brother ride. But she especially liked feeding the horses carrots and peppermint candies.

There was a pony she’d taken a shine to, Peggy, a lovely bay with a white blaze and four almost perfectly even white socks. Standing at fourteen hands, the mare wasn’t large but Leah was still a little nervous.

Charlie wouldn’t admit it, but he was excited to show his sister the ins and outs of the stables. He’d been waiting ever since she was born to share the sport of riding. He helped Tommy walk her through grooming and tacking up the pony. The little girl ate up the information, listening intently and helping where she was able.

Leah was sat outside the riding ring with Molly sat on a blanket in the grass. She got a spike of nervousness when Tommy walked out with the mare in tow. Johanna followed with a spring in her step, so excited to finally ride a horse like her family.

But her mother was terrified. Leah could ride although she was still a little uneasy around the large animals. She sometimes found it hard to watch Charlie’s lessons even though the little boy was a natural. She nearly had a heart attack when Tommy let Charlie’s horse off the lunge line for the first time.

Now she had to go through the same panic all over again with Johanna and most likely Molly too.

Charlie came to sit with Leah while Tommy picked up Johanna to put her in the saddle. He stood with her for a moment, adjusting the stirrups, tightening the girth, and telling her how to sit and hold the reins.

After that, he began walking around the ring with Peggy. Johanna had a huge smile on her face. She waved at Leah when they passed by them.

“Both hands on the reins, lovey!” Leah called out nervously. “Oh that horse looks so much bigger than I remembered.” She mumbled.

“It’s alright, mum.” Charlie assured her. “Peggy doesn’t spook.”

It was almost as if saying it cursed the morning. Because almost ten minutes later, a large hawk descended near the ring. The large wingspan of the bird seemed to frighten Peggy and she pranced a few steps to the side.

This caught both Tommy and Johanna off guard and the little girl slipped right out of the saddle like a rag doll.

Leah jumped up and ran over to the fence. “Joey!”

Tommy dropped the lead knowing Peggy wouldn’t go anywhere and rushed to his daughter.

Johanna sat up and began, to both of her parents’ surprise, giggling. “Naughty pony!” She scolded playfully wagging her finger at Peggy and stood up. She clumsily brushed the dirt off her new jodhpurs.

“You okay, Jo?” Tommy knelt down and inspect her for any cuts or bruises. But it appeared she'd only gotten a little dirty from the tumble.

“Yeah, daddy, I’m okay.” She beamed. “I wanna get back up though, that wasn't long 'nough time.”

Tommy couldn’t help but smile and glance back at his panicked wife with a shrug. “She’s a wild gypsy girl, that’s for sure. Not afraid to fall off, aye?” He stood up and brought Johanna back over to Peggy.

“Oh, Tommy, I think that’s enough for today.” Leah shakily called from the fence.

“Lee, if she doesn’t get back on now, she never will. Can’t be afraid of it.” He assured her and hoisted his daughter back into the saddle.

She chewed on her lip but reluctantly retreated back to the blanket. “You Shelby children, so much like your father.” She sighed and brushed back Charlie’s hair.

He smiled and shrugged. “Did Grace like horses?” He wondered.

“I think so, you know your father had a beautiful racehorse named after her.”

“Has he named a horse after you?”

“He tried to a while back.” Leah remembered, picking up Molly and placing her in her lap. “But I convinced him to go with a different name. I’m not so much of a horse whisperer as you all are.”

Charlie nodded and leaned against her arm, watching the ring. “I like horses.” Then he added quietly, “They’re good listeners.”

Permanent Tag: @papa-geralt-of-cirilla @biba3434 @kimmietea @karmezii @enrapturedbythemoon @vampgirl1997 @tarafaithe @evelynshelby

Tag list: @shelbyblinded

Masterpost

PB Masterlist

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelbyxoc #tommy shelby imagine #peaky blinders #peaky blinder imagine #peaky fookin blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #fanfiction #ofc #oc #ocs #ofcs #season 5 #charlie shelby #cillian murphy #cillian murphy character #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian murphy thomas shelby

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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If You Are Vaccinated, You Can Dance the Night Away

Marissa Castrigno was walking through downtown Wilmington, North Carolina, when she spotted the sign in the window of one of her favorite dance clubs. After months of being shuttered by the pandemic, Ibiza Nightclub was reopening April 30, it announced.

This story also ran on Raleigh News & Observer. It can be republished for free.

Thrilled, Castrigno immediately made plans with friends to be there.

About 50 miles north in Jacksonville, Kennedy Swift learned of Ibiza’s reopening on social media. He, too, decided to attend with friends.

But on the night of April 30, the two groups were in for a surprise — one they would react to in starkly different ways.

In addition to IDs, they learned, they’d need to show covid-19 vaccination cards for entry. The club was letting in only people who had had at least one shot.

“I was shocked,” said Swift, 21. He learned of the policy a few hours before the reopening, when the club posted it on its Facebook page.

He and his friends had to cancel their plans, since none of them was vaccinated.

“I’m not against [Ibiza] exercising their rights as a business,” Swift said. “I just think it’s foolish. … This will discourage a lot of former patrons from returning to the club.”

On the other hand, Castrigno and her friends, most of whom had been fully vaccinated since early April, felt the policy made their return to nightlife even better.

“There was raw excitement about going out to a place and feeling safe,” said Castrigno, 28.

Similar conversations are playing out across the country as vaccination rates increase and bars, clubs and other businesses navigate how to reopen. The concept of vaccine passports — which allow people who have been inoculated against covid and are at lower risk of contracting or spreading the disease to participate in certain activities — has been floated for clubs, cruise ships and other spaces where large groups gather in close quarters. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent announcement that vaccinated people can safely gather indoors and outdoors without masks has reignited the idea. Yet these passports remain highly controversial and their implementation is largely piecemeal. Many private businesses are making their own decisions, and governments in different parts of the country are adopting varying stances.

In New York, for instance, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in early May that places where proof of vaccination or a negative covid test are required can operate at a greater capacity. Some nightclubs there have implemented policies similar to Ibiza’s. In Florida, however, Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a law prohibiting businesses, schools and government offices from requiring proof of vaccination, with fines of up to $5,000 per incident.

For Ibiza Nightclub in southeastern North Carolina — a political battleground state — the vaccine card requirement is proving to be a lightning rod. The club’s Facebook post announcing the policy had sparked 70 comments as of mid-May, and posts across other platforms echoed different sides of the issue.

“I am thrilled to see a personal business putting the health and safety forward in order to keep their business running,” one comment read.

Others took a markedly different tone: “This is pretty dumb!”

“Discrimination, expect lawsuits,” read another.

The Honor Code

Last week, after the CDC said vaccinated adults could largely live their lives mask-free, Raleigh restaurant owner Hisine McNeill felt a troubling pang of déjà vu. He owns Alpha Dawgs, a sandwich shop in southeast Raleigh, and said small businesses like his carried the burden of mask enforcement for much of the pandemic. Now, he said, they’re tasked with trusting adults who say they’ve been vaccinated. He isn’t ready to do that.

“I don’t have the luxury of taking chances on an honor code,” McNeill said. “If I have an outbreak because someone didn’t wear a mask and have to close down, who’s going to help keep me open?”

McNeill opened Alpha Dawgs in 2018 and, like most restaurateurs, he said, struggled through the pandemic, professionally and personally. He said he has lost friends and family members and doesn’t believe the pandemic is over.

“I know people personally in the ICU still recovering from [covid],” McNeill said. “I don’t need any more examples about how serious this is.”

So McNeill posted a new requirement on the restaurant’s Facebook page. He asked everyone to continue wearing masks unless they were prepared to show him a vaccine card.

“To whom it may concern,” McNeill wrote. “If you decide to come into my establishment claiming that you are fully vaccinated, I WILL ASK TO SEE YOUR CARD. If you don’t want to provide it then you will have to wear a mask in my store. And if you still don’t want to comply with either then I have the right to deny service. Thank you for your cooperation.”

The day after he posted that statement, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper eased most covid-related restrictions in the state, including its mask mandate. The Alpha Dawgs post stirred some online debate over masks and vaccinations and led to a few responses, including one from the Raleigh Republican Club.

“Should you be in the area…,” it read. “Eat somewhere else….”

McNeill felt the Raleigh Republican Club was calling for a boycott. Afterward, he noticed multiple one-star reviews pop up on Google, not from people who had been to the restaurant, but people accusing McNeill of discrimination.

“This is not political for me, this is a personal belief,” McNeill said. “I have an 85-year-old grandmother I see every other week. I’m going to make sure she’s protected.”

Raleigh Republican Club board member Guy Smith said the group’s post was written collectively, but he didn’t see it as a call for a boycott.

“Our philosophical position is it’s his business, the owner can choose to do what they choose to do within the confines of the individual business,” Smith said. “Our philosophical position is, to demand someone to demonstrate they’re vaccinated with a card, we think that’s out of bounds.”

Smith said the group also condemns writing bogus reviews of a business.

McNeill said Alpha Dawgs’ business has not suffered from the online dust-up.

“I haven’t had any problems,” McNeill said. “Only the online harassment.”

The Nightclub Expected Opposition

Charles Smith, general manager of the club, said he knew the policy would garner backlash, but “we’ve always put the health and safety of both staff and our patrons, and their families, first.”

Since opening as a gay bar in 2001, Ibiza has been a pillar of the LGBTQ community in Wilmington. Although its clientele has expanded over time, it’s still known for drag shows on Friday nights.

Last year, the club shut down March 12, about a week before Gov. Cooper ordered all North Carolina bars and restaurants to stop dine-in service. Ibiza remained shuttered for 14 months, using the time to renovate, Smith said, and leaning on federal and state assistance for small businesses.

When it came to reopening, he said, “the question was: How do we provide the absolute safest experience alongside the nightlife experience we’ve been known for?”

It wouldn’t be easy. Nightclubs are a perfect cocktail of covid risks: lots of people socializing and dancing in close quarters. Alcohol lowering inhibitions. Music forcing people to speak louder, releasing more droplets into the air.

“The concept of social distancing in a nightclub is an oxymoron,” Smith said. And the club’s staff didn’t want to be “the police of nightlife,” trying to separate people on the dance floor, he added.

The safest option, it seemed, was to require people to be vaccinated.

The club waited till all adults in the state were eligible for vaccines before reopening.

Now Ibiza requires patrons to present their vaccine cards or photos of the cards for entry. On reopening night, the club asked customers to wear masks and limited its capacity to 50%, per an executive order from the governor. But as of May 14, the state lifted its capacity restrictions and masking requirements.

Castrigno, who’d been looking forward to that night for weeks since she saw the sign in the club’s window, said it was “the most jubilant I’d ever seen Ibiza.” Several performers put on a drag show. Customers took turns dancing on poles. Some people wore masks with rhinestones to match their outfits, she said.

She wasn’t surprised that many people took the vaccine requirement in stride. “Queer people are well versed in the risks of public health crisis and protecting the community,” she said, referring to the AIDS crisis, which devastated the community in the ’80s and ’90s.

For James Colucci, who has been a customer since 2016, supporting Ibiza’s vaccine policy is about protecting the club’s employees. Some of them have “spearheaded the [LGBTQ] movement, so we can get together and have events like this,” he said.

But others say the policy is discriminatory and injects the nightclub into people’s personal health care decisions.

Joey Askew, a 37-year-old from Greenville, wrote on Ibiza’s Facebook page, “I’ll never go back to this club until they lift this mandate!!”

In an interview with KHN, Askew said he’s not ready to get the vaccine because there haven’t been lifetime studies of recipients to determine long-term side effects. He’s willing to wear a mask and maintain physical distance, but a vaccine requirement goes too far.

“A mask is something I can buy from anywhere and take off whenever I choose,” he said. “But I can’t take a vaccine out. It’s a permanent choice that [the club] is involving themselves in, and it’s not their place.”

In between the people condemning the club’s policy and those applauding it are many who are conflicted.

Mark Russell, 29, is a nurse in Washington, D.C., who cares for covid patients and contracted covid last year. He plans on visiting Ibiza Nightclub in late May while attending a small wedding in North Carolina where everyone will be vaccinated.

The club’s policy makes him feel safer, Russell said. But he also worries about its effect on people of color, who in many places have faced barriers to vaccination.

“It’s a battle in my own brain, thinking those two things,” Russell said.

For Heidi Martek, 55, the policy raised a personal question. “What about those who can’t get the vaccine?” she wrote on Ibiza’s Facebook page.

She has an autoimmune disease, making her body hypersensitive to any vaccine, Martek said, even the flu shot.

But when commenters on Facebook suggested she sue the club, Martek pushed back. The club is facing difficult choices, she told KHN, and there’s no right answer.

“Whether I can go in or not, I support them,” said Martek, who’s been a patron at Ibiza for six years.

She wants the club to survive the pandemic, unlike other establishments that have closed in the past year.

“It’s not like Wilmington is overwhelmed with LGBTQ clubs,” Martek said. “Ibiza is really important.”

News & Observer reporter Drew Jackson contributed to this story.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

If You Are Vaccinated, You Can Dance the Night Away published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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julienschuester · 4 years

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KISS IT BETTER

WHO: @ivystjamess & @julienschuester WHERE: st. james residence WHEN: 10/08, evening WHAT: after a brutal tennis match between ivy and darcy that resulted in baby raine’s...beheading...julien goes to ivy’s to comfort her on his birthday.

JULIEN: When Ivy stormed out of glee club rehearsal after everything that had gone down between her and the Canaries, Julien wanted nothing more than to follow her out of the choir room and comfort her. He felt guilty about everything that had happened with Darcy and the last thing he wanted was for Ivy to be upset or worse…upset at him. But when Dan took the floor and announced that it was best to let Ivy cool off, Julien wilted. He stayed put in his seat and although he was pretty downtrodden through practice, he powered through it. Once it was over, Julien hitched a ride with Dan back to the Schuester residence where a birthday dinner was already made and presents were wrapped and ready to be exchanged. Julien put on a smile for his parents and siblings as he went through the motions of a traditional Schuester birthday celebration until finally, he was granted permission to be excused. He wanted to be more present and engaged during his little family party, but all he could think about was Ivy. How was she? Had she iced her bruises? Had the Canaries done more harm than she’d let on? He was spiraling in a mess of ‘what ifs’ and knew the only way his brain would calm was if he saw her. Julien ran up the stairs to his bedroom and quickly changed into some casual grey sweatpants, his favorite hockey sweatshirt and his glasses. He was already half way out the door, ignoring his mom’s ’where are you going?’ when he realized he’d forgotten a hat. Oh well. Julien didn’t like driving a car that had the word cheater scrawled into the side, but these were desperate times. He got into the Schuester mobile, which now had fresh wheels thanks to Julien’s summer savings, and sped to Ivy’s in record time. He parked a couple of blocks away (just in case her parents were around) and lightly jogged the rest of the way to her house. He moved stealthily once he reached her yard, doing his best to avoid any light sensors as he made his way through the bushes towards Ivy’s window. Jackpot. There she was, hunched over her desk doing what Julien could only assume was homework. He took in the sight of her for a moment, heart racing as a goofy smile danced its way on to his lips. Even angry and pouty, Julien couldn’t get enough of that face. Don’t get distracted, he reminded himself. Right. He took a deep breath and braced himself for the physically demanding task that was scaling the side of her house and then he was off. He had done the climb a couple of times before and it got easier each time...but not easy enough. He made it to her window in minutes and once he reached it, he tapped twice before he started trying to pry it open himself. “You gotta let me in legs,” he whisper yelled, slightly straining to keep himself up, “it’s my birthday wish.”

IVY: Tonight now marked twice in a row that Julien had come to her house tapping on her window. If Come to my Window hadn't been an anthem for sapphics everywhere for the better part of the last 50 years, Ivy probably already would have been preparing an arrangement for her and Julien. Her heart just wasn't in it tonight. After the worst day in what was shaping up to be a horrible week, Ivy had no song in her heart. Not only was a duet arrangement out of the question, but so was social interaction. It was so cruel of fate to not only give her a baby to tend to after the summer she had, but it was crueler to have it taken from her, and cruelest for everything to have blown up on Julien's birthday. She had pinky promised him not to be mad at him on his birthday, which she totally broke during glee club earlier. That bummed her out even more. With some time and cooling down, to no one's surprise, Ivy wasn't angry. Just hurt. Hurt Darcy had masterfully pulled off a villainous scheme, hurt that none of her teammates seemed to care, and hurt that Julien couldn't step up to the plate and defend her. It was all too much. Joey had texted her a few times about arranging a funeral for Raine over the weekend, but she left him on read. Everything about this situation was tender and she just wasn't feeling like herself. She cashed in on skipping both glee and Grease rehearsal and went home almost instantly where she dove into trying to do her homework. It was a slow and strenuous effort. It felt like anytime she got a good pace going, something set off the tears. Whether it be the envelope with Julien's birthday present sitting pretty on her desk, moving her rapidly bruising body in the wrong way, or the eerie absence of Raine's oh-so-annoying cries, there always seemed to be something that triggered the waterworks. Luckily, when Julien asked to be let in, Ivy was about an hour past her last cry session. For a brief moment, she stared at him dubiously until he clarified it was a birthday wish. Shoot. She couldn’t turn down a birthday wish. Wincing slightly as she rose, Ivy moved to open her window and help Julien climb in. Once he was in safely, Ivy filled the silence with the soft sounds of her shutting her window, closing the curtains, locking both her doors, then putting on some music to mask their inevitable conversation. She gave room for Julien to begin first, but painfully aware of the fact he wasn’t the most articulate, she broke the ice by grabbing the holographic red envelope with Julien and an assortment of hearts scribbled onto it. It wasn’t Ivy’s best gift, but she was confident her boyfriend would be happy to attend a Blackhawks game. She held out the envelope with an almost somber, “Happy Birthday.” This was the extension of her olive branch. Just to be explicit though, she added, “Sorry for calling you a musical slut and a cheater and like all that stuff. I didn’t mean it. I was just like being stupid.” she murmured, wincing once again as she sat on the foot of her bed. “Are you gonna open it?”

JULIEN: For a split second, Julien thought Ivy wasn’t going to let him in. He was moments away from panicking and probably tumbling down to the ground when she finally moved from her seat and opened the window. Once Julien was on his feet inside her bedroom, he wiped the beads of sweat forming on his forehead from the physical exertion and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with his pointer finger. As he smoothed out his sweatshirt and caught his breath, Ivy moved around the room like a busy body, taking all the necessary precautions to make sure they weren’t caught by her parents or sister. His eyes followed her as she moved around the room. Ever since they had officially gotten together, Julien felt inexplicably more self-conscious about saying the right things. Maybe self-conscious wasn’t the right word…but he just wanted to make Ivy happy. Getting to this point in their relationship had been a long and dramatic road, so the last thing he wanted to do was mess it up by acting rashly or doing something dumb. So as he stood there, letting his bottom teeth graze his top lip as he performed mental gymnastics trying to figure out where to start, Ivy took the lead by sticking a red envelope in his general direction. “For me?” he asked, almost surprised by the gesture, “woooow.” Julien stared at the envelope in complete awe before he even looked at what was inside. Whatever it was, it was from Ivy. To him. It could’ve been a $2 bill and he would’ve been over the moon. Before he could open it, Ivy was apologizing for what had gone down earlier in the choir room. A warmth filled his chest as she took back all of the things she’d said. It was water under the bridge for him. “You don’t have to say sorry,” he assured her, glancing down at the envelope again, “I’m sorry—“ but before he could say it, she was asking him to open the gift. Okay, maybe his apology could wait. He somewhat carelessly ripped open the envelope (but not before admiring all the little hearts she’d drawn around his name on the back of it) and quickly removed the two tickets that were inside it. He stared at them, mouth agape, for a second too long as he slowly read over the words. Blackhawks vs. Blue Jackets. A genuinely touched smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he looked up at her. “Ivy,” he cooed, quite literally fighting the urge to dance in place by excitedly making his way to the foot of her bed and sitting next to her, “this is the best gift. Did you know I’ve never been to a Blackhawks game? You’re seriously the best, I love—“ a pause as he let out a bashful little laugh and cleared his throat, “I love it. I really love it. I can’t wait to ask the prettiest girl in school if she’ll go with me…” He turned to look at Ivy then, his eyes notably softening when it dawned on him how sad she still looked. He put the tickets back in the envelope and then placed it down on the bed before giving Ivy his undivided attention. “I’m really sorry, legs,” he started, gently reaching up and placing his hand on the side of her head to softly strum her cheek and her hair, “what happened to you today was…so messed up. The next time I see Darcy…” Julien wasn’t an angry person, but now that he’d had some time to process, even saying her name left a bad taste in his mouth, “I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind. You didn’t deserve that. And I’m…” it felt silly to say, but it needed to be said, “I’m sorry about Raine. I know he was just a robot baby, but still.” Julien was great with words when it came to group pep talks, but he notably struggled with being articulate in more intimate one on one conversations. “I’m just sorry,” he concluded, holding her gaze before letting his eyes assess the damage done to her by tennis balls. “I want to hug you or hold you or something but I don’t want to hurt you,” he admitted, clocking the welts on her arm. Looking around, he scooted back on her bed until he could lean back against her pillows. “Come here,” he urged her, opening his arms, “birthday wish.”

IVY: This birthday wish business was going to be the death of Ivy. It had landed Julien, cute as ever, in the center of her room. From the way he pushed up his glasses to the way his sweatshirt hung over his frame made it increasingly difficult for Ivy to feel as sad. Though, as much as she apologized and engaged in conversation, nothing could stuff those sad feelings back into her heart. Julien's response to her apology in addition to his own brief one had her feeling a little better. Despite that sadness lingering, Julien's smile when he opened the envelope to the tickets momentarily made this horrendous day feel entirely worth it. With his smile like Christmas Morning and his eyes like Fourth of July fireworks, Ivy was hardly thinking about apologies. The way Julien said her name made her heart pound desperately in her chest. She was glad he liked the tickets so much. As he sat beside her, definitely a little needy, Ivy grabbed hold of his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. Maybe had she not felt so off she would have been more vocal. That wasn't the case, so instead she sought comfort in Julien's touch and provided him with a soft "No, I didn't know you've never been, I just like assumed you would have by now." His 'I love--' resulted in Ivy lifting her head to look at him. Was he about to--? No. He loved the gift. A lot. Clearly. Maybe the tickets were a better gift than she had initially anticipated. Now looking at him, Ivy felt a warmth that enabled her to smile. "Hm, well I hope she says yes because I heard she's like totally cute in a hockey jersey." Ivy said very seriously. The burst of feel good energy faded quickly as Julien once again brought up the events of the day. Still, she leaned into his touch and hummed softly at his claim he was going to give Darcy a piece of his mind. Ivy didn't entirely believe that, but didn't want to complain either. Her and Leo always fought when she brought up things like this that upset her. She didn't want to be dramatic and let the same happen with her and Julien. He was too special. Remaining quiet for a moment as she tried to find the right words, Ivy hummed to herself again. "We really like, don't have to talk about it. Seriously. It's like so totally...yesterday's news." she insisted after inhaling sharply. She'd get over it. "Okay it like, doesn't even hurt that bad--" That lie was a little more obvious, but she wanted to be held regardless. Luckily, her boyfriend seemed to pick up on that as he adjusted his position and fully settled on her bed. Crawling up to him and curling into his side, Ivy's doting gaze inevitably fell on Julien, "So like, what do you want to do? Watch a movie?" she asked, then threw in a playful, "You only have fifteen more birthday wishes to cash in before midnight, Jules. Choose wisely."

JULIEN: Ivy wasn’t particularly good at hiding her emotions, so despite Julien not being the most intuitive person, he could see very clearly that she was in need of some tlc. From the way she stared up at him with those sad blue eyes to the way she clung to his arm and rested her head on his shoulder, it was obvious that the bad feelings from the day were lingering. Julien pushed aside his excitement over his birthday gift and decided right then and there that despite it being his birthday, Ivy would be tonight’s focus. That was why he’d come to her house after all. The two bantered briefly before Julien launched into his own apology but Ivy wasn’t having it. Julien always liked to talk through his feelings (mostly out of necessity because he never knew how exactly he felt about things), but his girlfriend didn’t seem to want the same so he wasn’t about to force her to talk about what happened. Maybe it was best not to dwell. “Okay, Titan Times,” Julien sighed out with a soft, closed-mouthed smile, “yesterday’s news then. Out of sight, out of mind.” And that was that. Next thing Julien knew, he was scooted all the way back on her bed with Ivy curled up cozily at his side. All was right in the world again. With one arm around her, Julien very gently circled a fresh bruise on her arm with all the caution in the world to not apply any pressure and cause her pain. Her question made him chuckle slightly as he tilted his chin downwards to look at her. “We could watch a movie,” he mused, insinuating that they could if she wanted to, “but I’d rather just talk to you.” At the mention of his whopping fifteen remaining birthday wishes, his expression changed like something dawned on him suddenly. “You wanna know what’s crazy?” he asked, brows raised, “I’ve been here for like ten minutes and you haven’t even kissed me once.” Julien clicked just tongue and shook his head disappointedly. “Kind of mean to do to the birthday boy if you think about it...” he sighed dramatically before playfully kissing the top of her head and hugging her towards him just a little tighter.

IVY: On top of all her other bad feelings about this wretched day, Ivy presently felt the worst about being so glum on Julien's birthday. He only turned seventeen once and the last thing she wanted was for this day to be shrouded in her own selfishness. Sure, it would be a struggle to let go of that overbearing feeling that she was right and he was wrong for not standing up for her in the choir room as is, but laying curled into his side soothed that burn. ( At lease, temporarily.) Fantasies of them at the Blackhawks game swirled in and out of her mind, but for the most part Ivy's focused remained on the gentle circling of his thumb around one of her numerous bruises and the comfort of his natural scent wafting into her nose. Beyond being talented and sweeter than she could ever be, Julien had a natural gift when it came to cheering her up. Ivy could only hope she provided him with that a sliver of reassurance he so easily gave her. That was beside the point though. As Julien confessed to preferring to speak with her over all else, a familiar thumping radiated throughout her chest as she smiled up at him with nothing but sheer adoration. "You're so sweet, I swear you're like giving me cavities." she teased, only for her own brows to quirk upward at his next comment. "a whole ten minutes?" Ivy repeated quietly as if she too were in shock. Now that all the upset glances and brooding sighs had passed, Ivy found herself warming up to their usual playful routine. Giggling at the dramatic sigh of Julien's own, Ivy propped herself up on her elbow, "Okay, well like, we definitely cannot have that on your birthday." she agreed before leaning down and granting him a quick peck. "You've got fourteen left, lover boy." She said, still gazing down fondly at him. Less desirable feelings from the day feeling more and more distant, Ivy drawled "Wanna like cash them in for more kisses or...?" before closing the space between them once more. Ivy didn't need Julien to speak to know the answer was yes. So as she moved her lips against his own, she began to familiarize herself with the idea that if she were ending her night making out with Julien in her bed, maybe this day hadn't turned out so horrible after all.

AND SCENE.

#kiss it better #para #p: ivy #ivy #discord para

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iamfitzwilliamdarcy · 4 years

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Title: His Father’s Heart

Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne (some), and OCs

Summary: A priest must have a father's heart, and Fr. Todd has had a good example. Or, the one in which Jason is a priest and starts a school. (a03)

Note: -shows up 4 months late with Starbucks and too many epigraphs- Happy (extremely belated) birthday to @catie-does-things!!! I finally finished this fic and have 9 pages of a google doc to give you <3 We discussed this once and then I just Ran with it (this fic is also how i learned there is no midnight Angelus???)

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction....

-James 1:27

“Without confidence and love, there can be no true education. If you want to be loved…you must love yourselves, and make your children feel that you love them.”

“The school was not the end; it was rather the instrumental means for improving the way of life.”

-St. John Bosco

The school that never was supposed to be started with three boys.

Many would say it was Fr. Todd, who worked tirelessly for the crime, addiction, poverty ravished community he served. But Fr. Todd knew, and he knew God knew as well.

The school started with three boys, huddling behind the dumpster in the alley adjacent to St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church.

It was, when Fr. Todd reflected on it, the Hand of God, pushing them where they needed to be, beyond where they thought they ought to be. He was, after all, a diocosean priest, not of a teaching order, and kept plenty busy by the daily happenings of parish life. He had no room in his life for a school.

He was, though, also very much his father’s son.

And his father was not the kind of man to leave three, shivering boys in an alley because he was busy. Neither was the Lord, Jason reminded himself, who was in the least of these.

So he squatted down beside them, enough of a distance they didn’t feel cornered but close enough that he was a presence. And said, “Good evening.”

They were clearly brothers, with the same almond eyes and thick black hair. Even the one whose was curly fit in the set. Hunger made their faces gaunt, but beneath it, if one knew how to look, one could see the same jawline, the same off center nose.

The oldest one shifted to be in front of his brothers, glaring at Fr. Todd. “Go ‘way,” he said. “I know what you collar people do my momma told me and I say go way.”

Fr. Todd frowned, but kept his face and voice soft. “I promise,” he said. “I’m not here to hurt you. My momma warned me about dangerous men too.”

The boy continued to glare, not convinced. “I have food,” Fr. Todd offered, and the younger boys shifted behind him. Even the oldest betrayed himself with longing in his eyes, though he quickly masked it. “And a warm bed.”

The little ones were sold, but the oldest was smarter. He clearly wanted the food and the bed, but he didn’t trust a stranger.

Smart enough, Jason thought. He himself hadn’t trusted Batman when they’d first met.

Better the evil you know, right?

Jason rocked back on his heels, thinking. “Stay here,” he told them. “I’ll be right back.”

He got up and quickly returned to the rectory. He called the Bishop, waking him up in the middle of the night. Jason, who had requested the exorcist more than any priest in the entire state, had earned that privilege.

“Almost time for the Angelus,” he said cheerfully, before the bishop warned him about the optics of three boys staying in a priest’s rectory, then added a small lesson of what the Lord would do, contrary to the optics.

He made a few sandwiches, snagged a couple of water bottles, dumped Fr. Dominic’s hot chocolate from the stove into a thermos, grabbed a blanket, pocketed his cellphone, and made his way back to the alley.

He sat down, cross-legged, still enough distance the boys didn’t feel trapped. “Here’s the deal,” he said, handing out the sandwiches; the oldest boy didn’t stop the younger ones, but he still eyed the bread and meat in his hand like it was poisoned. “You can let me help you or I’m going to have to call someone else who can.

“The cops?” asked the littlest one, and Jason nodded. “I can’t leave you out here. It’s going to drop below freezing tonight. I have a contact with GCPD, but I won’t lie to you, if we go that route, likely you’ll end up in a group home and the foster system, if they can’t find your mom or she isn’t able to take care of you.”

“She’s dead,” the oldest said abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said. He knew what that was like, to find your mother dead, to have nobody else. After a pause, he added, “When my mom died, my adopted father caught me stealing the hubcaps off his car.”

The middle one laughed a little and Jason smiled at him. “It was pretty scary, but he turned out to be a good man. He’ll help you, too, if you let him.”

“We don’t need help,” the oldest boy asserted. The sandwich seemed to give him strength and he glowered at Jason again. “I told you.”

“That’s not one of the choices,” Jason said.

“Who’s your dad?” the middle one piped up.

The older boy threw him a dirty look, but Jason answered, “Bruce Wayne.”

The little one leaned forward, eyes wide, and whispered, “He knows Batman.”

Jason whispered conspiratorially back, “So do I.”

That, more than anything, sold the younger two. Even the older, still wary, agreed to come back to the rectory with him.

Fr. Dominic was awake, grading papers at the table. He eyed the three small boys, smiled, and said, “I was so sure my hot chocolate went to a good cause and looks like I was right. Who do we have here?”

The oldest boy gave his younger brother’s a stern look, one that looked out of place on his young face, but they ignored him. The littlest piped up that his name was Joey and Liam was the middle and his biggest brother was Tucker. Dominic shook each of their hands solemnly, even Tucker’s, and then let Jason slip away to make a phone call.

Dominic was still awake when Bruce Wayne showed up in Lululemon joggers and a henley at the rectory and deposited a sleeping nephew into Jason’s arms.

“Since I’m a good Catholic and all,” Dominic said, “I won’t say there are too many kids. Just seems like a lot for a rectory at 1am.”

“We’re night people,” Jason said apologetically, raising his eyebrows at Bruce.

“Dick’s sick,” Bruce explained as Johnny snuggled his head into the crook of Jason’s shoulder. “And Barbara’s out of town. I couldn’t get out of the Mansion without this one tagging along.”

He held up a bag and said, “It should be enough clothes for a couple of days. I swung through the store and got some toothbrushes too.”

“You’re a blessing,” Jason said, stepping back to let Bruce in.

Bruce grunted in acknowledgement. Then muttered something about needing a throat blessing before he caught whatever illness Dick had come down with. It was, apparently, hitting him hard.

“St. Blaise’s Feast Day isn’t for a few months, but I think I know a guy who could hook you up,” Jason teased, shutting the door and following him towards the kitchen.

Dominic had gone ahead of them, and his grading had turned into discussing the religion test questions with the younger two boys while their brother watched from his place leaned against the counter.

Tucker eyed Jason and Bruce as they came into the room, and Tommy in Jason’s arms. “Who’s that?” he demanded.

“Nephew,” Jason told him. Jerked his head at Bruce as an introduction, but Bruce beat him to it, holding out a large hand and saying “Bruce Wayne.”

Tucker did not shake it, eyeing Bruce suspiciously. As Bruce dropped his hand, the kid said, abruptly, “My momma used to work for you. ‘Fore she got sick.”

It was the most he’d said after telling Jason to go away, and it was the type of thing Bruce would take personally.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t help her,” Bruce said after a moment. “I would like to help you now.”

When the boy didn’t answer, Jason gestured to the bag and said, “Bruce brought some clothes for you to change into after you clean up. You can take my room for the night, the bathroom’s attached.”

Tucker eyed them like he was waiting for the catch, but when none came, he abruptly moved away from the counter to usher Liam away from Dominic and snatch up Joey’s hand. He glared at the adults as he shut the door to Jason’s room behind them, as if daring any of them to try anything.

“You were that defensive,” Bruce reminded him quietly, so that Dominic couldn’t hear. “When we first met.”

Jason knew. He’d been cocky and brash, but it had never really covered up the fact that he’d been a distrustful 11 year old who didn’t really know how to look out for himself.

“I got ahold of Jim,” Bruce continued, louder. “Said he’d send a social worker in the morning but odds were in my favor of being able to foster while they sort it out.”

“Gordon can’t decide that,” Jason muttered, with a head shake, but the way Gotham rolled, the commissioner did have a lot of influence.

“Do you need me to stay?” Bruce asked. He glanced at Dominic, then took a step forward and settled his hand on Jason’s shoulder.

Jason smiled at him. “I think I can survive on a couch for one night.”

“He slept on a cafeteria floor at last year’s high school retreat,” Dominic piped up.

“Kid forgot his sleeping bag,” Jason said with a shrug, shifting his nephew’s weight. Johnny had crashed since getting here and was dead weight in Jason’s arms, drooling slightly on his shoulder.

Jason caught Bruce’s eye, who smiled a little. They both knew Jason had slept on harder than a cafeteria floor before.

“I’ll come back in the morning,” Bruce said.

Jason raised his eyebrows higher. “For Mass,” Bruce agreed. He paused, and added, “Alfred will send food I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Dominic cheered quietly, raising a hand in victory.

He rose to lay his hands on Bruce and Johnny with Jason, to offer them a blessing before they left.

“You know,” Dominic said thoughtfully, after they were gone, watching the closed door of Jason’s room, behind which the shower was still running, “those kids are smart. Think Bruce would enroll them at St. Xavier?”

Jason frowned. “It’s far from Wayne Manor. He’d do it, but I don’t know how the kids would like that commute.”

“Far from here too,” Dominic agreed. He yawned and stretched as if to prove his point. “Speaking of, I should get some sleep. Take my bed, I’ll take the couch.”

But Jason shook his head. “I want them to be able to find me if they need to.”

***************

It took a long time for the boys to settle in with Bruce as a foster; the younger two settled better They’d had to switch out of their public schools because they were not districted there anymore. They hadn’t been to school in a while anyway, Jason gathered.

There was plenty of catching up for them to do, Dominic somehow found time to tutor them in between his own papers and gradings and other priestly duties.

The boys, like the rest of Jason’s family, became a semi-permanent fixture at the rectory.

***************

That was how it started. There was Dominic’s numerous mentions of St. Xavier being too far away, of the boys’ intelligence, the need for a more individualized approach that private school would afford.

There was the lady at the parish who sobbed to Fr. Todd one morning that she could not afford Catholic school and her district was not a good place for her children--no education, she said, just violence. She was scared they’d join a gang or start using drugs. St. Xaxier had scholarships to offer, but it wasn’t enough, and she had no way of getting her kids to school so far away.

“St. Maria Goretti parish has always been in the thick of the throes of poverty,” Fr. Paul, the pastor, had said gravely when Jason had mentioned it to him later.

There was the altar boy who tarried too long at the church after Mass, following Fr. Todd like a duckling, asking theological questions. He never wanted to go home and sometimes sat on the church steps doing math homework until Jason let him inside to pray.

There was the 17-year-old drug dealer Officer Grayson picked up off the streets; Dick got him set up with a WE program but conditionally that he stop dealing and earn a high school degree, but going back to high school hadn’t put him in the best environment, and he was dealing again within the year.

There was child after child, and family after family, who needed something more.

***************

Cardinal Tolan was the one who first brought up the school. Fr. Paul was retiring, and Jason appointed pastor in his leave.

“The Nashville Dominican sisters are looking in this area to open a school,” the cardinal said. “I think maybe St. Maria Goretti parish could be benefited by that.”

Jason nodded. “A boys school,” he said, as way of agreement. “We’ll need one for the girls as well. The Sisters will know what to do.”

“We have a donor,” Cardinal Tolan added, thoughtfully. “I’m sure he has enough for two.”

“And boarding,” Jason said, thinking hard. “We’ll need housing for some of them. Students need to feel like it’s home.”

Cardinal Tolan looked at him a long time, then said, “Truly, you have a heart after the Father’s.”

“I had a good example,” Jason replied, flushing a little.

***************

It was another two years before the school was built. The sisters moved in, Fr. Todd was appointed chaplain, and the first year saw only 15 students from 9-12th grade, Tucker among them.

He’d been the most resistant to Bruce and Fr. Todd over the years, though Jason accepted that he loved as best he could. His brothers adored them, more than Jason anticipated. They’d become altar boys at St. Maria Goretti’s as soon as they’d been able, and had cried when CPS had finally tracked down an aunt nearby to take them in.

They stayed in contact throughout the years. They continued in their service as altar boys, and had dinner at least twice a month with Bruce. Jason usually joined, when obligations allowed him.

When the school opened, their aunt enrolled Tucker, the only one high school aged, right away. Full scholarship, she’d told a bewildered Jason, who knew the diocese hadn’t been able to set up any scholarships yet.

Leave it to Bruce, he thought ruefully.

***************

By the time the schools were ready to open younger grades, Joey and Liam were ready for high school, and they joined Tucker, now a senior, at Maria Goretti’s. The younger ones were still rambunctious, but Tucker had grown into a rather solemn young man. He frequently did his homework at Jason’s kitchen table, mouthing quietly to himself or asking Fr. Dominic to read over his papers, while the younger boys played sports or just waited for their aunt to be off work and pick them up.

He graduated salutatorian with a full ride to Catholic University in DC.

Jason, handing out diplomas at his graduation while the school secretary announced names, didn’t cry a bit when Tucker shook his hand, and then leaned in to whisper, “thank you.”

He did look out and find Bruce, caught his gaze, and smile.

Bruce understood.

***************

Two years later and new Masters degree to join the one he already had, Fr. Todd was appointed principal and chaplain of the school. He’d been involved from the start, as the parish pastor, but now he took even more responsibility.

“Should’ve been a Salesian,” the cardinal teased, when he told Jason.

Fr. Todd laughed and shook his head, “Maybe a Domican at that. But God saw fit to use a simple parish priest.”

***************

Four years later, Tucker sat in his rectory, a month out from his college graduation.

Bruce had been over for dinner but Tucker declined a ride home to his aunt’s. There had been something on his mind all night, Jason knew. He’d danced around the issue of a post-graduate career, awkwardly steered the conversation away from a Wayne Enterprise job waiting for him as soon as he said the word.

It wasn’t until Bruce left, after exchanging a significant look with Jason, and Jason had poured them a rather heavy nightcap, that Tucker blurted out, cheeks flaming in embarrassment, “Will you wrote me a recommendation for seminary?”

Fr. Todd lowered his glass and blinked at the boy in front of him. Now 22, Jason could still see the small defiant, malnourished boy that had huddled in his alleyway. Something like pride and warmth rose up in his chest. Had this been how Bruce felt, all those years ago, when Jason himself had given up the red hood for a white collar?

After a long pause, Fr. Todd managed, “For here or for Mount St. Mary’s?”

Tucker looked up, surprised. “Here,” he said firmly. And still too much of a hooligan, finished what could have stayed unspoken, “obviously.”

Jason said, “Of course.”

He took a sip of his scotch, suddenly feeling the prick of tears at his eyes, and looking at the young man before him, remembered a little boy hiding behind a dumpster on a cold winter night, and then a little boy stealing hubcaps off the Batmobile, and then man God had sent him to save his life.

#jason todd #bruce wayne #Fr. Todd AU #fanfic tag #my fic #batfam #katie's adventures in writing

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Rubin Carter

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (May 6, 1937 – April 20, 2014) was an American-Canadian middleweight boxer who was wrongfully convicted of murder and later released following a petition of habeas corpus after serving almost 20 years in prison.

In 1966, police arrested Carter and acquaintance John Artis for a triple homicide committed at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey. Police stopped Carter's car and brought him and Artis, also in the car, to the scene of the crime. Carter and Artis were tried twice for the murders in 1967 and 1976 and convicted; both served time in Rahway State Prison. After the second conviction was overturned in 1985, prosecutors chose not to try the case for a third time.

Carter's autobiography, titled The Sixteenth Round, written while he was in prison, was published in 1975 by Warner Books. The story inspired the 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane" and the 1999 film The Hurricane (with Denzel Washington playing Carter). From 1993 to 2005, Carter served as executive director of Innocence Canada (Formerly the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted).

Early life

Carter was born in Clifton, New Jersey, the fourth of seven children. He acquired a criminal record and was sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for assault, having stabbed a man in self defense when he was 11. Carter escaped from the reformatory in 1954 and joined the United States Army. A few months after completing infantry basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he was sent to West Germany. While in Germany, Carter began to box for the Army. He was later discharged in 1956 as unfit for service, after four courts-martial. Shortly after his discharge, he was convicted of two muggings and sent to prison.

Boxing career

After his release from prison in September 1961, Carter became a professional boxer. At 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m), Carter was shorter than the average middleweight, but he fought all of his professional career at 155–160 lb (70–72.6 kg). His aggressive style and punching power (resulting in many early-round knockouts) drew attention, establishing him as a crowd favorite and earning him the nickname "Hurricane." After he defeated a number of middleweight contenders—such as Florentino Fernandez, Holley Mims, Gomeo Brennan, and George Benton—the boxing world took notice. The Ring first listed him as one of its "Top 10" middleweight contenders in July 1963. At the end of 1965, they ranked him as the number five middleweight.

He fought six times in 1963, winning four bouts and losing two. He remained ranked in the lower part of the top 10 until December 20, when he surprised the boxing world by flooring past and future world champion Emile Griffith twice in the first round and scoring a technical knockout. That win resulted in The Ring's ranking of Carter as the number three contender for Joey Giardello's world middleweight title. Carter won two more fights (one a decision over future heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis) in 1964, before meeting Giardello in Philadelphia for a 15-round championship match on December 14. Carter landed a few solid rights to the head in the fourth that left Giardello staggering, but was unable to follow them up, and Giardello took control of the fight in the fifth round. The judges awarded Giardello a unanimous decision.

After that fight, Carter's ranking in The Ring began to decline. He fought nine times in 1965, winning five but losing three of four against contenders Luis Manuel Rodríguez, Dick Tiger, and Harry Scott. Tiger, in particular, floored Carter three times in their match. "It was", Carter said, "the worst beating that I took in my life—inside or outside the ring". During his visit to London (to fight Scott) Carter was involved in an incident in which a shot was fired in his hotel room.

Carter's career record in boxing was 27 wins, 12 losses, and one draw in 40 fights, with 19 total knockouts (8 KOs and 11 TKOs). He received an honorary championship title belt from the World Boxing Council in 1993 (as did Joey Giardello at the same banquet) and was later inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame.

Homicides

At approximately 2:30 a.m. on June 17, 1966, two men entered the Lafayette Bar and Grill at East 18th Street at Lafayette Street in Paterson, New Jersey, and began shooting. The bartender, James Oliver, and a customer, Fred Nauyoks, were killed immediately. A severely wounded customer, Hazel Tanis, died almost a month later, having been shot in the throat, stomach, intestine, spleen and left lung, and having had her arm shattered by shotgun pellets. A third customer, Willie Marins, survived the attack, despite a gunshot wound to the head that cost him the sight in one eye. During questioning, both Marins and Tanis told police that the shooters had been black males, though neither identified Carter or John Artis.Petty criminal Alfred Bello, who had been near the Lafayette that night to burgle a factory, was an eyewitness. Bello later testified that he was approaching the Lafayette when two black males—one carrying a shotgun, the other a pistol—came around the corner walking towards him. He ran from them, and they got into a white car that was double-parked near the Lafayette.

Bello was one of the first people on the scene of the shootings, as was Patricia (Patty) Valentine, a resident on the second floor (above the Lafayette Bar and Grill). Valentine told the police that she saw two black males get into a white car and drive off. Another neighbor, Ronald Ruggiero, also heard the shots, and said that, from his window, he saw Alfred Bello running west on Lafayette Street toward 16th Street. He then heard the screech of tires and saw a white car shoot past, heading west, with two black males in the front seat.Both Bello and Valentine gave police a description of the car that was the same. Valentine's testimony, in which she initially stated that the car had rear lights which lit up completely like butterflies, changed when she testified during the second trial to an accurate description of Carter's car, which had conventional taillights with aluminum decoration in a butterfly shape. The prosecution theorized that the dissimilarity in Valentine's description was the result of a misreading of a court transcript by the defense.

Investigation, indictment and first conviction

Hours before the triple murder, Carter was searching for guns that he had lost a year earlier. Carter was driving a white Dodge Polara, which was notable for its out-of-state license plate with blue background and gold lettering and taillights with butterfly-shaped aluminium decoration. Ten minutes after the murder, police stopped Carter's car. The police, who were searching for a vehicle with three occupants, let Carter go.Minutes later, the same police officers solicited a description of the getaway car from eyewitness Al Bello. He described the car as white with "a geometric design, sort of a butterfly type design in the back of the car", and as bearing out-of-state license plates with blue background and orange lettering. On hearing this description, the police realized that Al Bello was describing a car similar to the one that they had only moments earlier let go.

When police found Carter's car they stopped it and brought Carter and another occupant, John Artis, to the scene about 31 minutes after the incident. The police took no fingerprints at the crime scene, and lacked the facilities to test Carter and Artis for gunshot residue.

On searching the car about 45 minutes later, Detective Emil DiRobbio found a live .32 caliber pistol round under the front passenger seat and a 12-gauge shotgun shell in the trunk. Firearms Identification later established that the murder weapons had been a .32 caliber pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun. The defense later raised questions about this evidence, as it was not logged with a property clerk until five days after the murders. The prosecution responded to this line of questioning by producing a report lodged 75 minutes after the murders that documented the presence of the .32 caliber pistol round and 12-gauge shotgun shell. The defense was able to show that the bullet found in the Carter car was brass cased, rather than copper coated like those found at the Lafayette Bar, and that the shotgun shell found in the Carter car was an older model, with a different wad and color. In response, the prosecution argued that the metal and make of the retrieved ammunition was meaningless because the ammunition found at the crime scene was also dissimilar. Furthermore, the ammunition found in the car was usable by the murder weapons.

The police took Carter and Artis to police headquarters and questioned them. Witnesses did not identify them as the killers and they were released. Carter and Artis voluntarily appeared before a grand jury, which did not return an indictment.

Several months later, Bello disclosed to the police that he had an accomplice during the attempted burglary, one Arthur Dexter Bradley. On further questioning, Bello and Bradley both identified Carter as one of the two males they had seen carrying weapons outside the bar on the night of the murders. Bello also identified Artis as the other. Based on this additional evidence, Carter and Artis were arrested and indicted.

At the 1967 trial, Carter was represented by well-known attorney Raymond A. Brown. Brown focused on inconsistencies in some of the descriptions given by eyewitnesses Marins and Bello. The defense also produced a number of alibi witnesses who testified that Carter and Artis had been in the Nite Spot (a nearby bar) at about the time of the shootings. Both men were convicted. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but jurors recommended that each defendant receive a life sentence for each murder. Judge Samuel Larner imposed two consecutive and one concurrent life sentence on Carter, and three concurrent life sentences on Artis.

In 1974, Bello and Bradley recanted their identifications of Carter and Artis, and these recantations were used as the basis for a motion for a new trial. Judge Samuel Larner denied the motion on December 11, saying that the recantations "lacked the ring of truth."

Despite Larner's ruling, Madison Avenue advertising executive George Lois organized a campaign on Carter's behalf, which led to increasing public support for a retrial or pardon. Muhammad Ali lent his support to the campaign (including publicly wishing Carter good luck on his appeal during the airing of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on September 7, 1973). Bob Dylan co-wrote (with Jacques Levy) and performed a song called "Hurricane" (1975), which declared that Carter was innocent. On December 7, 1975, Dylan performed the song at a concert at Trenton State Prison, where Carter was temporarily an inmate.

However, during the hearing on the recantations, defense attorneys also argued that Bello and Bradley had lied during the 1967 trial, telling the jurors that they had made only certain narrow, limited deals with prosecutors in exchange for their trial testimony. A detective taped one interrogation of Bello in 1966, and when it was played during the recantation hearing, defense attorneys argued that the tape revealed promises beyond what Bello had testified to. If so, prosecutors had either had a Brady obligation to disclose this additional exculpatory evidence, or a duty to disclose the fact that their witnesses had lied on the stand.

Larner denied this second argument as well, but the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously held that the evidence of various deals made between the prosecution and witnesses Bello and Bradley should have been disclosed to the defense before or during the 1967 trial as this could have "affected the jury's evaluation of the credibility" of the eyewitnesses. "The defendants' right to a fair trial was substantially prejudiced", said Justice Mark Sullivan. The court set aside the original convictions and granted Carter and Artis a new trial.

Despite the difficulties of prosecuting a ten-year-old case, Prosecutor Burrell Ives Humphreys decided to try Carter and Artis again. To ensure, as best he could, that he did not use perjured testimony to obtain a conviction, Humphreys had Bello polygraphed—once by Leonard H. Harrelson and a second time by Richard Arther, both well-known and respected experts in the field. Both men concluded that Bello was telling the truth when he said that he had seen Carter outside the Lafayette immediately after the murders.

However, Harrelson also reported orally that Bello had been inside the bar shortly before and at the time of the shooting, a conclusion that contradicted Bello's 1967 trial testimony wherein he had said that he had been on the street at the time of the shooting. Despite this oral report, Harrelson's subsequent written report stated that Bello's 1967 testimony had been truthful.

Second conviction and appeal

During the new trial in 1976, Alfred Bello repeated his 1967 testimony, identifying Carter and Artis as the two armed men he had seen outside the Lafayette Grill. Bradley refused to cooperate with prosecutors, and neither prosecution nor defense called him as a witness.

The defense responded with testimony from multiple witnesses who identified Carter at the locations he claimed to be at when the murders happened. Investigator Fred Hogan, whose efforts had led to the recantations of Bello and Bradley, appeared as a defense witness. Hogan was asked on cross examinations whether any bribes or inducements were offered to Bello to secure his recantation, which Hogan denied. His original handwritten notes on his conversations with Bello were entered into evidence. The defense also pointed out the inconsistencies in the testimony of Patricia Valentine, and read the 1967 testimony of William Marins, who had died in 1973, noting that his descriptions of the shooters were drastically different from Artis and Carter's actual appearances.

The court also heard testimony from a Carter associate that Passaic County prosecutors had tried to pressure her into testifying against Carter. Prosecutors denied the charge. After deliberating for almost nine hours, the jury again found Carter and Artis guilty of the murders. Judge Leopizzi re-imposed the same sentences on both men: a double life sentence for Carter, a single life sentence for Artis.

Artis was paroled in 1981. Carter's attorneys continued to appeal. In 1982, the Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed his convictions (4–3). Although the justices felt that the prosecutors should have disclosed Harrelson's oral opinion (about Bello's location at the time of the murders) to the defense, only a minority thought this was material. The majority thus concluded that the prosecution had not withheld information the Brady disclosure law required them to provide to the defense.

According to bail bondswoman Carolyn Kelley, in 1975–1976 she helped raise funds to win a second trial for Carter, which resulted in his release on bail in March 1976. On a fund-raising trip the following month, Kelley said the boxer beat her severely over a disputed hotel bill. The Philadelphia Daily News reported the alleged beating in a front-page story several weeks later, and celebrity support for Carter quickly eroded, though Carter denied the accusation and there was insufficient evidence for legal prosecution. Mae Thelma Basket, whom Carter had married in 1963, divorced him after their second child was born, because she found out that he had been unfaithful to her.

Federal court action

In 1985, Carter's attorneys filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. Later that year, Judge Haddon Lee Sarokin of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the writ, noting that the prosecution had been "predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure," and set aside the convictions. Carter, 48 years old, was freed without bail in November 1985.

Prosecutors appealed Sarokin's ruling to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and filed a motion with the court to return Carter to prison pending the outcome of the appeal. The court denied this motion and eventually upheld Sarokin's opinion, affirming his Brady analysis without commenting on his other rationale.

The prosecutors appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

Prosecutors therefore could have tried Carter (and Artis) a third time, but decided not to, and filed a motion to dismiss the original indictments. "It is just not legally feasible to sustain a prosecution, and not practical after almost 22 years to be trying anyone," said New Jersey Attorney General W. Cary Edwards. Acting Passaic County Prosecutor John P. Goceljak said several factors made a retrial impossible, including Bello's "current unreliability" as a witness and the unavailability of other witnesses. Goceljak also doubted whether the prosecution could reintroduce the racially motivated crime theory due to the federal court rulings. A judge granted the motion to dismiss, bringing an end to the legal proceedings.

Post emancipation

Carter lived in Toronto, Ontario, where he became a Canadian citizen, and was executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) from 1993 until 2005. Carter resigned when the AIDWYC declined to support Carter's protest of the appointment (to a judgeship) of Susan MacLean, who was the prosecutor of Canadian Guy Paul Morin, who served over eighteen months in prison for rape and murder until exonerated by DNA evidence.

Carter's second marriage was to Lisa Peters. The couple separated later.

In 1996, Carter, then 59, was arrested when Toronto police mistakenly identified him as a suspect in his thirties believed to have sold drugs to an undercover officer. He was released after the police realized their error.

Carter often served as a motivational speaker. On October 14, 2005, he received two honorary Doctorates of Law, one from York University (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and one from Griffith University (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), in recognition of his work with AIDWYC and the Innocence Project. Carter received the Abolition Award from Death Penalty Focus in 1996.

Prostate cancer and death

In March 2012, while attending the International Justice Conference in Burswood, Western Australia, Carter revealed that he had terminal prostate cancer. At the time, doctors gave him between three and six months to live. Beginning shortly after that time, John Artis lived with and cared for Carter, and on April 20, 2014, he confirmed that Carter had succumbed to his illness. He was afterwards cremated and his ashes were scattered in part over Cape Cod and in part at a horse farm in Kentucky.

In the months leading up to his death, Carter worked for the exoneration of David McCallum, a Brooklyn man who has been incarcerated since 1985 on charges of murder. Two months before his death, Carter published "Hurricane Carter's Dying Wish," an opinion piece in the New York Daily News, in which he asked for an independent review of McCallum's conviction. "I request only that McCallum be granted a full hearing by the Brooklyn conviction integrity unit, now under the auspices of the new district attorney, Ken Thompson. Knowing what I do, I am certain that when the facts are brought to light, Thompson will recommend his immediate release ... Just as my own verdict 'was predicated on racism rather than reason and on concealment rather than disclosure,' as Sarokin wrote, so too was McCallum's," Carter wrote. On Wednesday, October 15, 2014, McCallum was exonerated.

In popular culture

Carter's story inspired:

The 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane" proclaimed that Carter was innocent. Carter appeared as himself in Dylan's 1978 movie Renaldo and Clara. In the 2019 film Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese, Dylan talked about his involvement with the Carter case and Carter was also interviewed in the film, describing his relationship with Dylan.

Norman Jewison's 1999 feature film The Hurricane, starring Denzel Washington in the lead role. The film is about Rubin Carter's accusation, trials, and time spent in prison. Carter later discussed at a lecture how he fell in love with Washington's portrayal of him during auditions for The Hurricane, noting that boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler and actors Wesley Snipes and Samuel L. Jackson all vied for the role. Washington was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance at the 72nd Academy Awards.

#05/06 #04/20

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askeletonintheclosetfic · 4 years

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The one with a bloody knife

*blood, gore, and smut warnings*

November 30, 1986.

The past couple of days have been a complete dream come true for the Black Moon camp. Between the two of us hanging out with all of the guys and all of them being so kind to us, I've completely forgotten that the King of Hearts exists. We're in Connecticut right now and it's pouring rain outside at the moment. Just something about gazing out of the hotel window while Ceecee's in the shower, looking out to the pitch black sky as the rain is streaking over the window pane and there's nothing more than the golden street lights to glean over them. Not even the little desk lamp next to me can give them some highlights.

We're going to New York City tomorrow and Ceecee and I can hardly contain our excitement! We love New York and the guys from Nuclear Assault told us they'll introduce us to the crowd if they must.

I finally got close to Joey last night after our show in New Jersey.

The past couple of days I've brushed elbows with James and had breakfast with him and Lars, the latter of whom always gave me a good morning kiss once he saw me, and as a result the two of us have bit of a friendship going, but Joey seemed to back off for a little bit. I barely saw him in Poughkeepsie and they left before the two of us and Metallica piled into Nuclear Assault's van again to make the drive back here to New England.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the letter Frankie wrote to me. And I thought that might have had something to do with it, like maybe Joey and Frankie are both purposely avoiding me. But that makes no sense, though.

And then I actually bumped into Joey after Anthrax's set. Literally bumped into him.

Ceecee and I earned swag and stuff at every venue we've been to so far, and our guitar cases have been overflowing with said stuff. Since we're on the road, we have no permanent space for all of this, so just when we're about to settle into the room, we have to leave and go to the next one. It's all so quick and transient that Clara actually confessed to me that she's surprised everyone manages to keep themselves sane this whole time.

But because our cases are so heavy now, the three of us had received the help of the guys from Overkill as we made our way out of the theater. It was this cozy little venue with red and gold trimming all around the front lobby so even though it was quite cold outside, the whole place felt warm and comfortable: we brought even more warmth to our set which I feel the people there in New Jersey loved us for, perhaps more than our music.

Clara had her cane extended out right in front of her and Bob had his hand rested upon her shoulder to ensure she could find her way to the door. They were underneath the heater vent in the ceiling when I almost lost my balance from the dead weight on my back. I staggered about to catch myself.

I fell on something soft, and I looked up to find it was Joey.

"Damn, easy there," he told me as he clasped onto me to keep me from falling to the floor. His fingers crept over my shoulders: I could feel his thumbs right on my chest. I raised up to look into his big brown eyes and at the smooth bridge of his aquiline nose. I finally had a moment alone with Joey.

"You okay?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I assured him.

"Chris!" Ceecee called out from behind us.

"I'll catch up with you guys," I told her. She then flashed me a mischievous grin before she and Clara ambled out of the hallway with Overkill. The last thing I heard before the door closed was the sound of the rain on the pavement out there.

"What you wanna do?" Joey asked me once I brought my attention to him.

"Oh, my God, you are so cute, it's annoying," I scoffed at him.

"Wow, great singer and I'm cute?" he teased me. "By the way, I wanna keep thanking you ladies for coming with us."

"It's either that or staying there in Sea-Town with that serial killer coming after us."

"It's gotta be quite the relief to be all around the Northeast." He gave his inky black curls a little toss which showed off his neck. I hoisted the guitar case back over my shoulder: I didn't care if it was weighing me down a bit. I stood there with Joey in a lush red and gold corridor in New Jersey. I looked down at his hips and his thumbs tucked under his belt loops.

I raised my gaze back up to his face.

"Like what you see here?" he teased me.

"The darkness all around us, bringing us together," I whispered to him.

"You wanna... give me a bit of poetry?"

"Give me your warm flesh, and give me your earthly fire," I said on the spot. "Give me a single reason and know that I've taken your gloves. Without a light in the hallway and without a hallway in the mind; slide in between me and the cold of the void."

Joey ran his tongue along his bottom lip. "Go on."

"Lay me down to feel the leather—" I eyed the smooth sleeves of his jacket. "—tie me down and lock the door, and touch me 'til sunrise on all quarters and hit me 'til midday on all sides."

He glanced down at his chest, and I looked right at that low neckline of his shirt.

"There's no heat—of breath and there's no sear—of pain, even as you shake beneath me and the salt hangs over us."

I could hear him breathing harder as I moved in closer to him.

"No one can ever know the way you've touched me," I whispered into his dark lips, "or that I've caressed you down, even as the mark is made. But lo, darling—" He closed his eyes when I said that. "—know that I'm forever yours, carved into each other's skin, the mark—of the Black Knight."

"Kiss me," he pleaded. I brushed my lips against his: chills ran down my arms and my spine. I rested my fingers upon his chest. He felt soft, even with his slender build.

I had my first kiss, and with Joey, the sexy bachelor no less. I pulled back and gazed into his eyes once more. He stared into mine.

"Our parents can't know about this," he whispered to me.

"Especially with all of the murders around us."

"They could murder the both of us if we let the cat out of the bag."

"We could end up in bags ourselves." I dropped my gaze back down to his chest and his stomach.

"That'd be a shame," he pointed out.

"I couldn't be able to feel you," I whispered. Something caught his eye and he tilted his head to the left to check it out. His eyes enlarged and he looked as though he was holding his breath.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"Chris, don't look now, but—" I couldn't help it. I turned to look.

Blood dripped down the side of the wall across from us. My heart hammered inside of my chest as I found out it was oozing out of the vent in the ceiling. Right where Ceecee, Clara, and Overkill had stood a mere few moments earlier.

"There's blood. Blood everywhere." I looked to the right to find even more blood running down the wall down the corridor from us.

"You have to kiss me," he whispered to me; his voice was husky and delicate, a far cry from the soaring powerful shriek I had heard over the past few nights.

"Here?" I demanded.

"Yes. Please. Please, Christina—I'm begging you, Mama."

I pressed my lips onto his again. Even though blood and the feeling of death surrounded us, I never felt closer to Joey than in that moment. The dead weight of the guitar case pressed against my back so I pressed my body against his. We were making out as blood trickled out of the vent and the trimming of the corridor over our heads. I never imagined I would make out with a boy in such a morbid setting.

He clasped his hands to the sides of my face.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," he told me in a hushed voice.

"Let's," I agreed with him. I led him out of the corridor as even more blood fell out of the vent to our left. Even with the heavy weight on my back, I managed to run with him right behind me. We hurried out of the venue as a few police men wrapped in black cloaks passed us to the side door there.

"There they are—" I heard Lars' voice to the right of us. Joey put his arm around me and ducked his head away from the pouring rain. We caught up with all them congregated there at the sidewalk. Frankie offered his umbrella to us; on the other hand, Charlie offered to take my guitar case off of my back. I stretched my arms to give Ceecee and Clara both hugs, and then one to Joey himself to feel his softness yet again.

"Bastard mutilated one of Metallica's stage hands," Scott told us.

"Who?" I asked him as I moved my hand away from Joey's side.

"The King of Hearts," Clara filled in; there was a soft thud behind us. I turned to find two of the police men tossing things to each other. Since it was raining, I guess their hands were slippery.

"He followed us over here to the East Coast," Ceecee added. "Dan from Nuclear Assault said he stabbed that poor guy and ripped his heart straight out of his chest." Thud.

"When did it happen?" Joey asked her with a mortified look on his face.

"No idea," continued Ceecee. "Dan poked his head out of the window up there—" She gestured to the second level of the venue behind us. "—and told us to call the cops—" Thud. "—and then Clara and I remembered you and Joey were still in there."

Thud. I felt Joey put his arm around me. He called me "mama" in there as the blood was coming down around us.

"What do we do?" I asked them.

"Blend in," replied Frankie. Thud.

"Since we're hopping all over the Northeast, he's having a hard time catching up with us," said Clara as her dark lenses peered off into the darkness.

"Hartford's out of the way," said Danny. "Pretty out of the way, too—" Thud, thud. "He'll be in the City first before we're done. And then we're going to the Big Apple afterwards, and then into Canada."

"It's New York City," Charlie assured me, "—it's big and foreboding. He'll never find you ladies."

I have to take Charlie's word for it, and I still have, even now as writing this entry and looking back out the window again. I can't help but have an unsettling feeling within me. He's out there somewhere with that knife in hand. He's out for my blood and out for it in such a way that he's willing to kill anyone to get to me.

#new chapter #fanfic #fanfiction #anthrax fanfic #metallica fanfic #anthrax #metallica #heavy metal #thrash metal #dark romance #horror romance #blood tw #gore tw #also on ao3 #also on wattpad #smut

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jentheone12 · 4 years

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A Vulgatto love story Chapter 5 (Last chapter)

Chapter 5: Concerned jokers,and sad loss and a comfort for Sal:

The doctor on duty found Sal's note,and called by telephone to the best friends of his brother Cuban boy. Brian and James were on their way to look for Sal. Luckily,the boys arrived to the skating rink,but specially they got to find Sal,and in silence they hugged his boy;without that Sal putting resistance. Surely,to the two jokers felt affected and saddened Joey's departure,as did Sal... Several minutes before Q and Murr went to look for Sal... The two jokers entered the hospital and called the doctor on call. -¡We need to see Joe!-Q shouted and Murr nodded -Do you have the note of Sal?-

-Yes,It is here!-

Q and Murr read the note Sal wrote for them,and after a few seconds they looked at the doctor with a shocking look...

-I see that you guys are Sal and Joe's friends and/or family,right?-

-And,we are!-

-Umm... Unfortunately,Mr. Joe Vulcano-Gatto has passed away...! I am sorry for your loss!-

The two jokers were perplexed,looking at each other and completely silent.

-Can we go see it at least?-

The doctor did not deny the request of the two and above all because he noticed his distressed look. Both,without saying almost anything,went to his best friend's room to see him for the last time... James and Brian entered to the room and saw to his brother and deceased best friend. Murr was the first to go to Joey,and sadly and hurt hugged him in his arms. Then,Q approached at Joe and touched him affectionately,while he looked at him with a serious and distressed look at the same time. It was a hard and sad moment for the two jokers,but at least they could see him and somehow they said goodbye to their Joey... Once they left the room,Q and Murr hugged and almost silently went to look for Vulcano. The brown-eyed man was driving his car during the snowy weather,the balding man was sitting in the passenger seat and contemplating how Sal was asleep in the back seat. Luckily,the boys took care of Sal,because while they tried to comfort his Cuban boy on the bench near of the skating rink,one of them felt that Sal fell asleep on his shoulder and collapsed.

-Oh God! Go find the doctor! COME ON! COME ON!-

-Okay,okay!- Despite the snow,James ran for the doctor and fortunately the hospital was not far from where they were and medical help arrived just in time. The doctor checked Sal and asked his fellow doctors to bring a stretcher to take to his ambulance and check it quickly. Q and Murr accepted the suggestion and left behind the doctor,although when they reached a few meters from the truck,the jokers had to wait until further notice. Until... -I have already checked your friend. He just had a faint and I guess it was for something emotional,right?-

Murr and Q simply nodded.

-We can see it?-

-Sure!- The two entered the ambulance and saw Sal.

-Sal,are you okay buddy? Here we are-

Miraculously,Sal began opening his eyes and regaining consciousness.

-What happened?-

And with almost nothing else to say,Murr and Q went straight to hug him. One time that Sal finally woke up,and with the approval permission of the doctor,the two guys could take their brother. They literally clung to Vulcano which is also as if they had curled up very close to him and holding him in his arms,just in case...

Back in Q's car... -Where we go?- Murr asked to Q,curious.

-To my house! I know Sal doesn't like cats,but first we'll go to our friend Joey's house to look for his dogs and take care of them- Q assured to his best friend.

-Alright Q!- And so it happened. Before going to Gatto's house,Brian went to his house so Sal could stay there and that they could comfort him. When he got there,the middle-aged man got out of his car to wake up his friend.

-Hey Sally! Wake up!- Q tried to wake him up,moving his shoulder a little with his hands but it didn't work at all,because Sal was still asleep and he didn't sleep.

-I have an idea but you will have to help me,right?-

-Okay bud!-

Q opened the other door of his car and grabbed Sal from his arms,and then he let that Murr grab his brother's legs. Maybe Q and Murr cost them to carry Sal in their arms maybe because of their weight,but not because of that they won't let Sal try to cope with this hard moment alone. Luckily,they finally reached the entrance,took at Vulcano to one of the rooms where Q's cats were not there,both best friends laid Sal on the bed and left him alone. But before leaving the room,the two jokers covered him with a blanket to his brother so that he is not cold,although Sal still was in his own slumber... Murr and Q spoke alone in the living room, once they laid Sal in one of their main rooms temporarily.

-Hey Murr! I will go find Joey's dogs in his house! Meanwhile,I thought to ask you to watch Sal to see how he is,if he wakes up! Just try not to disturb him... And also, watch my cats until I come back! Right?-

-Alright Q!- Q said friendly farewell to Murr and left. While the balding man saw Q's cats,he caressed them affectionately. Until he took advantage of the right time to feed them,and so he went to see his best friend. He barely opened the door,and looked at Vulcano as he slept...

-Oh Sal,if only I could help you... I remember when I sent you a text message to know how you were because I was worried about you,after what happened by the pie that you ate...- Murr muttered something distressed by his friend,and slowly closed the door so as not to wake Sal.

After a few hours later,Q returned home and asked Murr about Sal,and the balding man told him everything (about the sadness and pain he felt through Sal's face). The middle-aged man decided to go see Sal immediately. -Hey bud! Did you have trouble talking to Sal? How is he?- Murr asked,after to notice that his best friend got back to see at Sal.

-Actually yes,Murray! I went to see him,I caressed him while Sal slept,but surprisingly he was barely awake and offered to help him take care of Joey's dogs,Sal did not allow me but if he let me take one of the puppies!-

-At least you can take care of one of them!-

-And it is! After what happened,Sal went back to sleep almost clinging to the dogs and I left maybe because I didn't want to make it worse than I was...-

-I think Sal needs time to be alone... Don't you think?-

-Yes...-

On Q's room... Sal was still asleep,and near him were the dogs of her late husband Gatto,who were also sleeping.

-Hey buddy! Wake up!- There was a hand that slapped the black widower a little and gave him a brief slap again,until the young Cuban woke up. -WHAT THE FUCK IT IS?- Sal exclaimed in a disturbing tone,although he was surprised to find out who was in front of him. -Joey?-

-Hello,handsome boy!- Joe said very happy to reunite with his beloved husband,who began to caress his cheek and shoulder. -I suffered much and I've missed you!- Sal admitted,and he laid down beside of his man. Joe followed suit and also laid down beside of his ''Sexy Jello''. Sal fell asleep,resting between his arms of Joey;while the blue-eyed man kissed softly Vulcano's lips.

-Sally,I've watched over you... I think that my fellows tried to help you and I've really noticed too how much you have suffered without me...!- Joe assured,staring into the eyes of Sal.

-It is true?- Sal asked,after he opened instantly his eyes,and also looked at Joe.

-Yes! I would like you to be happy and so you will got to fulfill with your promise...-

-This will be very hard...!-

-I know that you will do it,just as Q Murr and I have seen how most of the punishments you could do it...!-

Sal smiled and hugged almost tightly at Joe. He hugged back and also smiled to the green-eyed young boy.

-Also,you have something like a kind of souvenir to remember me!-

-Please... You mean your tattoo that you chose me on my thigh?- -WELL... I'm kidding! I was referring to my dogs!-

-Oh!- Then,Sal turned around and saw that her husband's dog was barking on the ground.

-Look Sal!- Joe said,putting his hands Sal's face and cheeks slightly at him,so that his partner paid attention. -Like all spirits,I think I have to go... Meanwhile,I'll stay with my teddy bear until I'm ready to leave...-

-Joey...- Vulcano simply pronounced,and chuckled a bit.

The two jokers gave each other an eskimo kiss across their nostrils and kissed.

-I love you buddy!- Joe whispered sweetly at Sal.

-I love you too!- Sal answered to the blue baby eyes man.

They enjoyed his moment together and specially alone,regardless of whether Gatto's dog was watching or not that show of love of the two guys.

Some hours ago...

Sal slept completely along at Joey,while few seconds the blue-eyed man woke up; ready to say goodbye. He was saying goodbye at Sal,giving a kiss in his cheek and left him a letter above of the pillow.

-I see that you didn't take our wedding ring off your finger! I won't take mine from my finger either! I promise!- Joe whispered to Sal's ear,before going to look for his dog. -Hi! My lil' puppy! I want you to watch Sal and take care of him,and don't leave him alone! Okay?- Gatto asked friendly to his puppy as his last wish. Before leaving and going through the window,Joe also said goodbye to his dog stroked his head a lot and laid him next to Vulcano. Mr. Gatto-Vulcano did not stop looking at his husband,he smiled him and waved his hand to say goodbye.

-If you don't want to forget me and still want to remind me,you know how to do it or where to find me,Sally...!- And with these last words of Joey and with a wink at his beloved and favorite joker,he vanished as he crossed the window. Vulcano had not realized that his late husband had left his side and that only Joey's dog was sleeping beside him... Upon waking up,Sal was surprised not to see Joe,but he saw the letter that said his name and began to read it: *My beloved Sal: I'd like that you let Q and Murr help you take care of my dogs and make you happy,just as we were many years ago. Although at this moment I am in the hereafter,you will always be my favorite! And you will be in charge of this puppy (the one you didn't let Brian help you take care of). I love you so much Ja'Crispy,and I will never take out my engagement ring. At least,you will not only remember me through the tattoo you have on your thigh,right Sally? And as I heard in a television series: See you on the other side,Mr.Gatto Vulcano... With much love,Joe Gatto Alias ''Joey''* After finishing reading,Sal got a little excited and looked up. -I won't take my ring off either...At least,I didn't let Joey jump down the stairs of the mall like it happened in one of the extra scenes of our show! I wonder if he's watching me now...?- Before the sapphire-eyed young man came to say something to Joey or not,he was interrupted by the barking of his blue-eyed man's dog. -Hey!- Vulcano affectionately caressed the dog's head,and began to smile (maybe because to see to the white puppy,he reminded a bit his reunion with Gatto). -I'm going to try to take care of you,as my special and funny husband asked me that I do for him!- Until Brian and James opened the door and headed to see Sal,and the dog who he was with Vulcano got out of the bed.

-Hey buddy! I see you woke up!- Q said.

-How are you,Sally?- Murr said.

Sal didn't know what to say,but he should consider himself lucky not only to have had his best friend as his brand new husband but also to his other two best friends who nevertheless expressed their concern for him. So the jokers took advantage of that moment to go hug him,and they did. Vulcano returned the hug to both of them.

-Guys...! Thank you very much...- Sal barely got to say something excited In the middle of the hug between the three.

-Honey,be happy! My soul mate...!- It was Joe's voice,who said that specially at Sal,slowly like a whisper and hidden somewhere in the house and smiled. Few seconds,the blue baby eyes fade away;knowing that his beloved husband will be in the best hands.

The end

(Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19208641?view_full_work=true)

#Impractical Jokers #Joe Gatto #Sal Vulcano #Brian ''Q'' Quinn #James ''Murr'' Murray #Vulgatto #ij fanfiction #joe and sal

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thesportssoundoff · 4 years

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Sometimes Good Enough Just Ain’t Good Enough: 10 Challenges For The Yankees Going Forward

Joey

October 21st

At the end of the year, 29 teams will head into the latter stages of the Fall simply saying they weren't good enough. On Saturday night, it was the Yankees turn to stand up, look in the mirror and say "Not good enough" as they bowed out of the ALCS in the deciding sixth game of the series. When you win 100 games, survive countless injuries, win with a sweep in the ALDS and lose on a walk off in game 6 of the ALCS it's normally a successful season but this is New York where expectations aren't the same as Milwaukee, Oakland, St. Louis or any of the teams who played into October before finally saying "Not good enough!" as they hung up their hats. The Yankees expect championships and it's sometimes mutant fanbase (of which I am firmly a member of) are now going on 10 years of no ticker tape parades. Still let's not lose ourselves to delirium and point out that this is a damn good team with a deep core and plenty of organizational depth to take the next step. The Yankees aren't falling off or in a rebuild; they have a team that guarantees every October, they'll be talking about the chase for 28 in earnest. With the season in the rear view mirror, let's chit chat about ten things the Yankees have to do or figure out as they continue that chase for 28.

1. Fire the training staff

Easy enough! Injuries can sometimes be fluky but good lord, the Yankees were besieged with them. All three starting outfielders (Judge, Stanton, Hicks) saw IL time, their back up OFs saw IL time, their starting catcher saw IL time, starting 1B saw IL time, pitchers both high on the totem pole and in the jabroni ranks went on the IL. Clean house!

2. The same ol' same ol' scramble for a lead starter

Since the end of 2016 when the rebuild was officially over, this team has been chasing the #1 starter you normally need in the post season. At the end of the day, it's just easier to win in the playoffs when you have a game 1 starter you have endless confidence in. While Boston got away with it in 2018, they also had Chris Sale who maybe didn't pitch like an ace but was clearly one of the top 5 starters in the AL that year. The big myth is that the Yankees don't have good starting pitching and that is for the most part a lie. The Yankees pitching after the All Star break was pretty solid and in the playoffs they got quality enough from guys like Severino, Paxton and Tanaka on an inconsistent basis. The Yankees pitching rotation is NOT awful and plenty of teams would kill for a 1-2-3 of a healthy Louis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka in big games and James Paxton after the All Star Break where he went 10-3 with a 3.59 ERA and an 11 K/9. In the playoffs, Paxton was more good than bad and Tanaka shoved in two of the three games he pitched in. That said those three have all battled injuries (Paxton admittedly pitched with a knee he never quite felt great about) and all three of them weren't good enough in the playoffs. Maybe that changes with Severino healthy, Paxton more comfortable and Tanaka staying his usual course but it would be difficult to return with the same rotation in tact and say you feel confident about your chances against the Astros. This has been a chase that has spanned three years now as the Yankees tried with James Paxton, Sonny Gray and J.A Happ, were outbit on the likes of Carlos Quintana, Yu Darvish and Gerritt Cole and allegedly never tried for the likes of Marcus Stroman, Patrick Corbin, Justin Verlander and countless others. 2019 will be yet another year where they'll enter Christmas hoping to have a starter locked up.

The two obvious names will play next week when Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg take the bump for Houston and Washington respectively. In the Yankees of old, George Steinbrenner would hand Brian Cashman a blank check and tell him to pay for one IF not both. Time's have changed for better and/or worse with the Yankees. Brian Cashman is a man of due diligence and a man with the longest leash in sports. The Yankees didn't spend on Corbin, didn't try on Harper and made a modicum of effort for Manny Machado last year. In the free agent market, they're likely to not play heavily unless Hal Steinbrenner pretty much demands it. Paying for Cole and Strasburg is the easier fix but it's an avenue they've shied away from recently plus there are teams who "need" those guys more. The Yankees probably aren't as desperate as, say, the Angels are to win in the Mike Trout era and they've got money to play with so why not? The solution may be the trade market where the Yankees can make some hay in their search for a #1. Brian Cashman has parlayed his farm system (which is still plenty deep) into the opportunity to trade for arms in the past which figures to once again be the case. Conversely in the trade market, the farm is thinner than it's been in recent years AND Cashman prides himself on not losing trades. Also there's not much TO trade out there. Obviously it's his job as a GM to go out and find a potential solution that maybe the public hasn't heard is available but right now who is the best starter knowing that the Mets and the Yankees won't trade? It's not a robust market.

So your solutions are to pull a rabbit out of your hat or pay or hope Severino becomes an ace again after an injury plagued season. I suppose the only potential opt out route would be to sign a Hyun Jin-Ryu or a Jake Odorizzi and hope you can just build a deep rotation of names and faces that will give you quantity (while not high end quality) at the end of it.

3. Figure out Luke Voit

Let's play a game.

Player A- .333/.405/.689 195 wRC+ 14 HR 26.4% K rate Player B- .280/.393/.509 140 wRC+ 19 HR 25.8% K rate Player C- .238/.348/.368 95 wRC+ 4 HR 32.3% K rate

Player A is Luke Voit during his 2018 run with the Yankees Player B is Luke Voit up until he got hurt in the London Series Player C is Luke Voit from July 12th to the end of the year

Voit will never be the guy who took over the MLB in 2018. The sample size was bound to even itself out over time and Voit was bound to cool off when pitchers got to know him better. Player B though is a borderline All Star level first basemen. A power hitter who could hit for average, got on base at a solid clip and play a somewhat manageable first base is an asset for any team but especially a Yankees squad that has been hungry for competent first base play since injuries robbed Mark Texeira of his ability. Then? Voit got hurt. Back issues limited down the stretch and as you can tell by the numbers, Player C was awful. He just looked timid and afraid like he had been sapped of his confidence entirely. Luke Voit got left off the ALCS roster and had to watch as the offense struggled without him. Imagine a confident and healthy Luke Voit at the DH spot instead of Edwin Encarnacion when he went ice cold in the ALCS and maybe the series is a bit different. The Yankees are saddled with determining which half of the Luke Voit story is the real one. The Yankees are a better team when DJ LeMahieu is freed up to play 2B where he's an insanely elite defender and Luke Voit could help in that regard. At the same time? The Yankees have been burnt in the past by gambling at 1B (like when they kept thinking Greg Bird would finally put it together) and options would help. Even if he ran out of gas, Edwin Encarnacion did some good work when he was healthy and few dudes hit dingers the way he does when he's locked in. There's also Greg Bird I guess? Which reminds me....

4. MAYBE chase better balance

I don't believe a team gets better by marrying itself to letters next to names ie: we have to have x amount of leties in our pen. I do think that the Yankees righty heavy lineup could use some better balance. The team was batting Gardner 3rd in the playoffs despite his inability to do much of anything for stretches because they felt like they needed someone to break up the righties at the top of the bill. With two lefties about to hit free agency, maybe the Yankees need to flirt a bit with shaking things up in their lineup. Getting back a healthy Hicks would help of course but in general, this team could benefit from having maybe one more competent lefty bat especially if Did is out of here. It's not the sexiest name alive but given Voit's struggles down the stretch and the fact that they could probably use a more competent 1B defensively, maybe Mitch Moreland (former Red Sox 1B) as a back up/defensive replacement could make sense. Coming off an injury plagued season where he was still pretty damn productive vs righties. Maybe this is even where Mike Ford (who caught on late) fits as a future part of the team.

5. Figure out your free agents

Dellin Betances- There's some serious rebound value in bringing Betances back at fair market value. The Yankees just never had a replacement for what Betances could do as a pseudo fireman; a guy with low contact rates who can K a side and come in the middle of an inning to calm things down. Betances at a multi year deal would be a fair and modest investment.

Brett Gardner- There's a group of mutant Yankee fans who hate Brett Gardner and I feel like people forget Gardner was supposed to be at the very most a part time 4th OF. Injuries forced Gardner to continually play and he answered the bell quite well every time. He'll likely take a step back next year BUT he'll also be asked to play less.

Edwin Encarnacion- Was absolutely brutal in the ALCS but hits for power and usually has composed at bats. Was always a hired gun who the Yankees were probably gonna buy out when the time was right.

Didi Gregorios- Ugh. Didi went from being one of Brian Cashman's biggest steals and a potential cornerstone to a guy who will probably be allowed to test the open market. Didi's strengths are his defense, his clubhouse presence and his better than advertised bat but the Yankees have been waiting on him to take a firm step into top 10 SS for about two years now and it's not coming. He deserves a lot of credit for battling back from injury but he was brutal outside of games vs the Twins. I also sort of feel like his approach is all wrong for the Yankees as its constructed. For a team that preaches patience at the place and commanding the strike zone, Didi's approach often gets worse the more pitches he takes so he often swings at the first pitch and often does so when it's the wrong time. Defensively it looked like he took a step back as well although that may have been due to injury. The Yankees are better with DJ at 2nd and Gleyber at short and a competent 1B manning that spot but they love Didi so much (and he's so valuable when he's right) that they kept forcing him into the spot.

Austin Romine- Catching across the league is bad and Romine, noodle arm aside, is a solid back up catcher. Those tend to get signed for decent coin and normally for multi year deals. As such the Yankees need to maybe consider their options at the BUC spot because they won't have Romine.

Cameron Maybin- I'm not entirely sure Maybin's got a real fit here now. If Stanton, Judge and Hicks are healthy then it's probably him vs Gardner because Mike Tauchman has a long term future here. I wish Cameron Maybin well, he was a breath of fresh of air in the locker room and he deserves to have a good spot on a team somewhere.

6. Figure your outfield situation out

We know Judge, Stanton and Hicks are going to be here. Mike Tauchman was a star and a half for a month and change before injuries finally sapped him of his super powers. Gardner is a free agent but I'm betting the Yankees will bring him back comfortably so. Beyond them you have Estevan Florial (a former Yankees top prospect on a slide), Clint Frazier (a borderline toxic fit for the Yankees) as well as pseudo OFs Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada. The Yankees OF depth tends to get tested throughout the year but is Clint Frazier better suited to be a trade piece for some team in desperate need of an outfielder?

7. Settle the 'pen out a bit.

Yankees have four tremendous bullpen arms tied up with Britton, Ottavino, Green and Kahnle comfortably under wraps. Aroldis Chapman will probably opt out in a so-so closer's market and the Yankees will probably re-sign him (they took the PR smear after trading for him and then brought him back so clearly they value him). If not? Britton was an ace closer but in general the bullpen needs more arms. Remember the CLOSEST they got for a trade in July was for Bluejays closer Ken Giles so I'd imagine they'll poke around there too. If you can't find a starter of high quality and won't trade for one then you need one more big arm in the pen. It'd be pretty cool to both a) get a stud reliever and b) hurt your primary rivalries by signing either Joe Smith or Will Harris from under Houston.

8. Find a role for whatever J.A. Happ is.

The Yankees got ace level production of J.A. Happ when they had him in 2018 and even including his playoff bust vs Boston, bringing him back in some form or fashion seemed like a can't miss concept. Well it done missed. Pick whatever metric you want and Happ was genuinely bad for a Yankees team that desperately needed him to ONLY be a competent arm. He did improve as the season went along (imagine how awful he had to be that his last five starts with a 2.33 ERA that it managed to ONLY finish at a sub 5 ERA) and a lot of his game felt like it was just blitzed by the juiced ball and a lack of adapting to that. Happ is still under contract for 2020 and it's going to be hard to shake his deal so you're stuck with him. Figure out I guess if he's a long man, a 5th starter or a really overly expensive LOOGY type.

9. Battle royal the 5th spot

Keeping with that, the Yankees were roasted for their lack of SP depth and it showed up big last year. The fact that this team turned to an opener and wound up riding the likes of Chance Adams and Nestor Cortes as long men suggests they got got by the lack of options in the rotation. Turn the 5th spot into a battle royal position. Jordan Montgomery, J.A. Happ, Johnny Lasagna, a few retreads on other teams who are a tinkered arm angle away from being a competent 5th starter etc etc etc. Don't go into the year just figuring your minor league depth options are going to be enough because it probably won't be.

Unless you want to sign Zack Wheeler or Jake Odorizzi and be done with it.

10. Accept Gary Sanchez

I guess this is more for Yankees fans than anybody else. Gary Sanchez is a good catcher. Offensively when he's healthy, he's among the game's best and defensively? He's actually improving really well to be one of the better catches in the AL. He has a crazy throwing arm and while stolen bases are becoming less frequent, he's still got the ability to further mitigate that. Sanchez is a good player who plays the most physically demanding position in baseball and does a good job at it. His playoff numbers were abysmal this year but I still have faith.

#MLB #Yankees #playoffs #2019 #aaron judge #tanaka #severino #chapman #baseball #sports #hicks #stanton #sanchez

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter twenty six: wet dreams and frisbees

“I can't believe your dad actually helped us with that,” Eric said aloud to her with a shake of his head. All she knew was she had to be there for real that time around: after their album dropped, her father had invited her back up to the Bay Area before anything else huge happened between them.

The day following the release of that new album in the first week of May and all the while the video for “The Ballad” had hit everyone's television there in the Bay Area and also down in Los Angeles. Sam was sure that Testament hadn't had such a stronghold like that of Metallica given they had started a year after Cliff was killed; but every time she turned around or went anywhere with a television screen, she saw Chuck's face there as he crooned out that song.

There was that plus the video for “Practice What You Preach” which never surfaced as much, but she swore that she saw them everywhere there in California. They always came on after Prince and Michael Jackson it seemed like, and it traded off between the two of them. There came a point in which after not even a week in which Sam began to associate Testament with either doves crying or pretty young things.

It was also around the time she headed back up to the Bay Area when she caught a glimpse of a rather darkly lit video which followed the one for “The Ballad” there in the bus station.

She frowned with the feeling of unfamiliar familiarity. She had no idea where they were from, but she knew them from somewhere. Within time, through the shades of rich royal blue, she recognized Kirk's black curls and Lars' sharp eyebrows. James' eyes pinched shut.

Jason there on the stool with a pair of wire framed glasses upon his nose.

Her mouth dropped open.

It was the first time she had ever seen Metallica in a music video. Even though she couldn't hear the music over the hustle and bustle in the bus station, she could feel it in her bones. The very sight of it almost brought a tear to her eye. Jason there on the stool in Cliff's shoes: there was no way he was echoing him, but rather he continued on from where Cliff had left off in the three years before. She adjusted the brim of her hat and sniffled a bit at the sight up there on the wall.

She thought about it all the way up through the outer rim of Los Angeles and into the Central Valley, such that she had plunked open her journal at one point and sprawled it across her lap. All she could think about was Jason and the pensive look on his face.

She yearned for something rich and dark like black ink for her new drawing, and yet all she had at her disposal at the moment was her kit of pencils. She got about as far as the sketch, albeit in cartoon form, but she had one with her regardless of anything she had with her.

Something to remember her dead love to, and something to exemplify his band's membrance of him as well. It was yet another secret drawing she had on hand, and one that she had no idea as to when she would finish up, either.

In the meantime, there on her second trip back up to San Francisco, Eric and Greg picked her up from the bus station in Hayward and as they drove back to the rehearsal spot together, she remembered the bet she had made with Alex as well. She had drawn him and thus she had to get alone with Greg whenever she found the chance.

She could only hope that Alex had told him about their bet, and if he didn't, there had to be a way in which she could explain it to him and in the best way possible as well. She sat there in the front seat next to Eric: at one point, she peered into the rear view mirror and through the dark lenses of her sunglasses, she noticed Greg tucking a lock of wavy dark hair right behind his ear.

That long hair and that soft scruff on his chin and on either side of his face.

It was hard for her to imagine it, even her having known Greg for a few years at that point. She strove to picture that scruff against her thighs; her holding onto that hair and giving it a pull; figuring each other out. All fuzzy and difficult for her to really think about.

She peered over at Eric and his little baby face from the side.

All five of them with long black hair and round faces, except they were all slightly different in some fashion: Alex with the obvious tuft of gray over the right side of his forehead, Chuck with the similar grave Native American look to his face like Joey, Greg with the scruff on his face, Louie looking serious, and Eric being the odd man out with the look that started it all.

“I just realized I've never really been to Catalina,” Eric said at one point.

“It's gorgeous,” she told him with a sparkling smile, “especially when it snows.”

He frowned at that where she giggled and held her journal close to her lap. They rolled up to a stop sign and he looked over at her, and she had no idea if she was looking at the journal or something else. He gave that smooth stripe of dark hair on the right side of his forehead a little toss back with a flick of his head and then they rolled forward along the block towards that low white brick building in question; right next door was a little bistro. Greg was quick to climb first, even before Eric pulled up the parking lever.

“My goodness,” Sam remarked.

“I know, right?” Eric showed her a little smile.

She took off her sunglasses and ran her fingers through her dark hair, and then he cleared his throat. She turned to him: it looked as though he wasn't ready to climb out of the car as of yet.

“I wanna ask you something,” he started in a soft voice.

“Go ahead.”

“Seeing as you're here and not back East anymore—you wanna do something some time?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Like what? Like a date?”

Eric shrugged his shoulders.

“I dunno if you could call it that,” he said, “I just think of when we took you over to Castro Valley to visit the place where James and Lars spread Cliff's ashes, and you and Alex got behind the building there... it was kinda hot, to be perfectly honest with you.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I catch myself thinking about from time to time.”

“You know, my dad lives there now,” Sam pointed out.

“Oh, yeah, that's right! Have a little fun near your daddy's place.” Eric flashed her a wink at that. “Anyways, I mean it. I wanna do something with you. Like maybe have dinner at your dad's house or something of that nature. I gotta spend a bit with the little Sammich at some point.”

“You're just saying that because I'm a girl surrounded by a bunch of boys,” she scoffed at him, and albeit with a roll of her eyes. He shrugged at that.

“Not necessarily,” he clarified with a raise of his eyebrows. “It could be from the fact that you're a girl who likes to chill with a bunch of boys.”

“I chill with girls, too, you know, Eric,” she pointed out.

“Kinky.”

“Kinky?”

“Kinky.”

“You little fat rat,” she teased him with a shake of her head.

“Little fat rat, is that what you called me?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, 'cause you're little—you're fat—” She reached for a poke of his little belly and he flinched back in the seat, and his face turned bright pink from the feeling.

“I'm not fat,” he scoffed.

“You're chubby,” she corrected herself.

“I'm not chubby, either,” he said. “Chubby means you're cute and round—fat implies you've got too much on you. I'm neither of those things.”

“Really?”

“I dunno. I just think that's the assumption surrounding it and that's according to your dad, too.”

“My dad told you that?”

“Yeah. Your dad is quite the interesting man if I do say so myself. Maybe that's why you're so amazing.”

She gasped at that and then Eric climbed out of there and into the bright sunlight before she said anything further to him. She clutched her journal to her chest and slung the courier bag over her shoulder, and she followed him up to the front step. He held the door for her all the while: she dared not sashay her hips at him with each and every step.

Once she entered that first hallway followed by that cool, dark front room, she spotted Greg before the table on the side of the room with a glass of beer in hand. Alex was nowhere to be seen. She walked on over to him and he turned to her as he took a sip from the glass.

“What's up?” he greeted her; she peered over her shoulder and Eric ducked into the next room over.

“I have to tell you something,” she began in a low voice.

“Go ahead,” Greg encouraged her as he leaned in closer to her.

“Close the door, too—” He did just that with his free hand around her shoulder.

“I dunno if Alex told you this,” she said, “but I made a bet with him that if I draw him, I have to have sex with you.”

Greg hesitated for a second and then he burst out laughing.

“Did you really draw him?” he asked her as he took another sip of that fresh beer.

“I did, yes! And here's proof.”

She opened her journal to that drawing she had made for him back up at her dad's house. Greg took another sip from his glass and he raised his eyebrows at it.

“Oh, shit,” he sputtered. “I'm in trouble now.”

“He also told me to keep it between us—yeah, I don't get it, either.”

“He wants the three of us all to be hot shit,” Greg explained, “at least that's what I think he wants—I dunno, I can't read his mind. That's a gorgeous drawing, by the way.”

“So,” she stated as she closed the journal and gave her hair a toss, “what do you say?”

“Can I at least have my drink first?” he asked her with a sly little smirk on his face.

“Of course! Take your time with it.”

The door swung open right then and it caught the both of them off guard. Sam whirled around and she recognized that rich black curled hair and that little cleft in his chin.

“Hey, Charlie!” she greeted him, and his face lit up when he recognized her.

“Oh, hey!” He threw his arms around her. “Oh my gosh, I feel like I haven't seen you in ages—how are you?”

“I'm well—I've been living!”

“I should tell you—I got in touch with a woman who might help you out with promoting your art because you need it, Sam. You really do.”

“I'm not sure, though, Charlie,” she confessed. “I'm just trying to find my voice in the wake of being in school.”

“Take it anyways,” Greg told her as he took another sip of beer.

“She also offered to help Marla out, too,” he added, “because you ladies are damn well and good at it.” He handed her a little creamy white card with the words “Scarlett Valentine: art agent—New York, New York” inscribed on the front in rich red swirled letters.

“So should I call her whenever I can or whenever it's convenient for her?” she asked him.

“Whenever you can,” he replied, “mention my name, too—tell 'er you've been Benante'd as a result of this.” His expression then turned serious. “Also, I have good news and some bad news, and they kind of go hand in hand.”

“Go ahead,” she coaxed him as she tucked the card into the interior pocket of her purse.

“Good news is Anthrax is heading back into the studio, hopefully soon,” he said in a single breath. “Bad news is I'm not sure what Joey's doing right now, but I don't think he'll be joining us.”

Sam frowned at that. “What do you mean?” she asked him.

“I called him yesterday and we talked—for a long time, almost two hours. He's not really feeling good even though I told him he sounds good and we kind of need him.”

“What do you think he should do?” Greg chimed in from behind her.

“Well, I told him—take your time with it. When it happens, I'll call you and tell you about it. Your well being and your health comes first. I really want him on it, just to clear up any confusions that he might have about it. He thought we had fired him, for god's sake.”

“What if he says yes to it?” Sam added.

“If he says yes to it,” Charlie continued, “it'll be up to him as to how he does it. Vocals come last, you know.”

“Absolutely! I hope he can do it.”

“I hope he can, too,” he admitted. “Scott's written a bunch of new songs and I can't really imagine anyone else singing them. I mean—I can kind of, but I know they would fit Joey's voice like a glove. They were made with him in mind.”

“Who else can you imagine singing them?” Sam asked him.

“Mark from Death Angel, believe it or not. Just 'cause they have a similar range.”

“Yeah, they do!” Greg chuckled at that.

“That reminds me,” Charlie wagged a finger at him, “a word, Gregory.”

He opened the door and stepped out first; Greg followed right behind him, and the last thing he did for Sam was shrug his shoulders.

“Eventually,” he mouthed to her all the while, and then he followed Charlie out of there and back into the hallway. She spotted Alex by the door, and thus, once she tucked her journal into that courier bag, she headed over to him.

“Hey, you,” he greeted her as he took off his sunglasses and showed off those deep eyes to her.

“So that little bet you made with me,” she started with him and with her arms folded across her chest, “how if I drew you, that I had to do it with Greg—” She stopped and he slowly turned his attention to her with his eyes wide open like big marbles.

“Did you?” he blurted out, stunned.

“I almost did. He didn't seem to ready about it—not like you.”

“You'll have other chances,” he said with a wink, and she gave him a little smirk as a result of that and she knew she would have more chances to see sexy Alex at his best as well.

“By the way, what happens if I don't do it with him?” she asked him in a low voice. Alex shifted his weight right before her and then he walked around her back to that room. She followed him back inside, right as he took a seat before that table. He gestured for her to take a seat in front of him, and she did, albeit with her courier bag on the table top next to her. He shifted the chair around so he faced her straight on. He set his hands on her knees and he lingered right before her face as if about to kiss her. Instead his eyes closed part of the way as if he was seducing her right then and there.

“Come on tour with us?” he whispered to her.

“I'd have to pick up and leave more and more, though,” she pointed out.

“You'd be with us, though. You'd be with me.”

“But what about our secret, though? Our keeping ourselves a secret?”

“Greg can take secrets to his grave,” he said, “and I can, too.”

The palms of his hands pressed right into her knees. Her chest rose up a bit as he closed his eyes and took in the smell of her shampoo on the right side of her head. She brought her hands to his chest as if about to push him back. Instead, she stood to her feet and he followed suit.

They were alone in that room together.

She kissed him right on those soft lips and all the while, she kept her hands on his chest. His body was warm and soft even while being so thin. He was so sensual and tender towards her, such that she wondered where this side of Alex had been this whole entire time. He was like a diamond fresh out of a mine, or a rock straight off of the summit of Mount Whitney: all he needed was a bit of polishing and then she could have a better look at him.

She could still taste the ginger from the ginger snaps on his lips.

She could feel that right amount of softness staying perfectly intact all around his hips and his waist. She thought about his sentiments about getting so heavy by the time he reached middle age, and she smirked at the thought of Alex getting chubby while staying as lovely and sensual as ever.

He brought his hands up her back towards the hooks on her bra. She could feel the warmth from his chest and his stomach, that sweet sense of fever. She could feel how firm he was getting in between his legs. She moved her head back from him and she gazed right into those deep eyes.

“Careful,” she warned him in a near whisper. “We go a little bit far with it, I'll end up like Aurora.”

“We won't,” he whispered back to her. “I promise you, Samantha—I won't go that far with it.”

Sam brought her mouth to the side of his neck once again for another little love bite there, but instead she kept her nose there. She relished in his scent, there on his skin and on the underside of his hair. She kept her hands right over his hips: his skin resembled to silk. She imagined him even softer and more tender than ever at one point. The softer and the rounder he was, the more she could hold him and feel him.

“Mmm, baby—” she whispered to him.

“Baby, is that what you called me?” he retorted back to her.

“'Cause you're soft and sweet like a baby,” she told him and she ran her tongue along her top row of teeth. She ran her fingers through his soft black curls and he tilted his head back a bit and showed off more of his neck to her. For a fleeting moment, she thought about that encounter in the closet with Frank back in Charlie's old apartment. The way in which she caressed his soft lush hair, except Alex's hair was even more plush and even lighter. She brought her lips back to his, but she never kissed him.

Instead, she moved her right hand to the front of his jeans.

“What if I—” Her fingers caressed over the zipper and the button. She was about to slither down even further when he flinched back a bit.

“Easy now,” he warned her in a husky voice.

“What?” she teased him.

“You do that, I might not keep it together later tonight when I go to bed.”

“Oh, yeah, like you'd have a wet dream about me.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip and gazed on at her in the dim light: those deep eyes as deep and dark as they had ever been up to that point.

“I actually have had a couple of wet dreams about you,” he confessed.

“Oh, have you now?”

“Yeah. It's funny—I didn't think I'd have wet dreams about anyone before.”

“All dripping wet and hot,” she teased him.

“Not if I get you dripping wet and hot first—”

“You want me to bite you again?” she offered him.

“How 'bout down by my belt this time?” he suggested. “The last time—when you got me right here on my neck—I had hell of a time explaining it to my parents when they saw it. My mom was like 'oh mah gawd, Alex, what were ya doin'!”

She burst out laughing and then she clasped a hand to her mouth so as to not to draw attention to herself. Alex lowered his eyelids a bit as if seducing her himself, but she was the one who had done it in the first place. He lifted the hem of his shirt and showed her his slim stomach to her: the edge of his belt hung right underneath his belly button so she could do it with such ease.

The door hung ajar by about an inch but she knew no one else was around. Eric, Greg, and Charlie had gone somewhere else in there, but they were alone as far as she could tell.

Alex leaned back on the table so she could better reach his waist. With the tips of her fingers, she caressed his smooth white skin there over his belt first.

She brought her teeth onto his skin for a gentle nibble. She tried to imagine him with a bit of weight on his body at the same time, all from eating too many ginger snaps.

To think she was a few inches right above his genitals all the while.

“C'mon, Samantha, you can do it a little harder than that,” he encouraged her with his voice still husky and low. She nibbled a little harder on his skin and he gave her a soft groan from the inside of his throat in return.

“C'mon—you can do it,” he encouraged her again, that time through gritted teeth. A little harder and he started to breathe harder as a result. His chest heaved from the feeling there.

“Oh, god, that's hot—”

She closed his eyes as she nibbled on his skin, a sweet little love bite. Alex breathed harder and he gave her soft little whimpers all the while.

“I'm a bad boy,” he blurted out. “I'm a bad boy! Suck me—suck me—like you did last time—I'm a bad boy, Samantha.”

She put her lips there for a little sucking, and she traded in between the two. Her lips puckered and her teeth ground up against his skin, right there next to his belly button.

More silence ensued on the other side of the door so she traded in between the two for what felt like an eternity. All the while, Alex breathed harder as if he had just run a mile.

She bit extra hard on him and he gasped from the feeling.

“Tasty,” she whispered as she slithered her tongue along that little bit of bruised skin there. She had left a genuine bruise the size of a dime there on his skin, right next to his belly button. Alex let out a low whistle.

“Oh, man, that was hot,” he whispered to her as she finished up with a few little kisses there. “That was really hot.”

“Sam?”

She kept her lips there on Alex's skin as she glanced over to the door. Ruben's voice carried in from right there behind the door.

“Damn it,” he muttered. She gave him another kiss there and then she tickled him there. “Easy now.” He giggled at that and she moved up to his face; he kept his shirt pushed back so she leaned up right against his bare belly and gazed right into those deep eyes. His body was warm and soft, much warmer and softer than before that little vampire bite.

“So now what?” he asked her in a broken voice.

“I go hang out with my daddy now,” she told him, “I think he's gonna take me home, too.”

He pouted his lips to her a bit as if he beckoned another kiss from her. He closed his eyes so his face was extra soft. She moved in closer to him, right before his lips, but neither of them did anything further.

“Go to bed and dream of a beautiful gray stripe,” he breathed right into her mouth. He then looked right into her face, complete with the come hither look in his eyes and a softness about his face.

“You know I will, sweet boy,” she whispered to him.

“Sam?” Ruben called out from the next room.

“I have to go, baby,” she told Alex in a soft voice.

“I'll see you soon,” he vowed to her with a wink. She moved away from him and she ran her fingers through her hair before she picked up her bag and headed out of there, as warm as the sunny day outside. She smiled back at him as he shook his head and in turn his hair about: he showed her his slender neck and his beautiful pale skin all the while. The little tuft of gray over his forehead seemed to glimmer even under the dim light there.

“If you see Aurora again,” he said, still in a husky voice, “you should talk to her.”

“You think so?” she asked him, and he nodded at her.

“You really should.”

“Okay, baby.” She flashed him a wink before she ducked out of there. She spotted Ruben at the far end of the hallway there, and his face lit up at the sight of her.

“There you are!”

She greeted him with a hug and a little pat on the cheek. Ruben treated her to lunch at the bistro next door: they sat there on the porch which overlooked a small stretch of grass, still lush and green with the onset of springtime all around them. While he was inside there, she spotted Zetro and the guys from Exodus on the far side of the grass. She noticed something round and orange over their heads. She knew she had to see more of them as well.

Zetro lifted his right leg and chucked the Frisbee from underneath his thigh to a few kids on the far side. The Frisbee landed on the grass not even a foot away from him and they all burst laughing at that. Sam propped her chin up on the palm of her hand and watched them.

A woman stepped onto the porch right before her, and she recognized that head of black hair and those Korean features. She looked exhausted. It didn't help matters that her belly protruded out so massively at that point, such that her blouse struggled to stay over the roundest part.

“God, Aurora's huge already,” Sam remarked to herself. “She looks like she just ate a whole turkey.” She chuckled at that, but then she thought about what Alex had told her before. She knew what he meant by that: he had forgotten the whole thing between her and Aurora, which meant it was time for her. She took off her sunglasses and Aurora flashed a glimpse over at her before she stepped inside of there.

Her blouse was tight up top and Sam struggled to fathom how she could get any bigger.

“Aurora—” Sam started and she dropped her gaze down to her big belly. She looked as though she was ready to give birth any second there as she pressed a hand to the small of her back.

“Sam,” she greeted back to her.

“C'mere,” Sam coaxed her.

Aurora kept that one hand on top and her other hand on the small of her back. She was enormous and Sam tried to think about her pregnant with her daughters.

“When are you due?” Sam asked her, much to her surprise.

“You know, I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you asked,” she said.

“Really?” Sam glanced over her shoulder as if someone listened in on them.

“I'm due next month, actually,” Aurora continued, “although—” She ran her other hand over her belly. “—it feels like it could be way sooner than that. I'm having a son.”

“Aw, that's cool.”

“You're about to say hello to Theodore Samuel Young-St. Vitus,” she added, to which Sam gasped.

“Samuel!”

Aurora nodded her head and Sam lunged for her with her arms wide open: her breasts were snug and so tight, and her belly rose out before her, as hard as a rock, and yet it felt like hugging her mother. The first time she had hugged her in so long. Those old wounds, while still raw, could heal from the mere sound of his name.

“It's the least I can do,” Aurora explained. “I really feel terrible for having been such a bad friend to you after Emile and I got married. It's my way of apologizing to you as well as thanking you for being such a good friend to me. Being a mom has made me reconsider just about everything, Sam, especially when it comes to my friendships.”

They held one another once again and Sam was about to leak out even more tears.

“We both went to New York from here in California,” she recalled with a slight break in her voice; she moved back again for another look into Aurora's face, round and glowing with the life within her.

“You went with the boys where I settled down with a single boy,” she noted, and her face fell at the sound of that.

“Do you ever feel like you could continue with it?” Sam asked her with a sniffle.

“Somewhat,” she confessed, “although I can't imagine not being a mother, though. I love my daughters and I already love Teddy—”

The door swung open and Ruben stepped back out onto the porch with a root beer float in either hand. Zetro said something on the far side of the grass right then, something about Exodus' new album being about women and children first; Aurora backed up from him.

“Oh, my god, those look good,” she remarked as he took his seat across from Sam.

“Sam's mother always wanted ice cream when she was pregnant, too,” Ruben joked. Aurora kept one hand on her lower back as she headed inside for something. Sam picked up her glass and held it out as to give a toast.

“To our boys, Testament,” she said.

“To our boys,” Ruben echoed, and they clinked their glasses together. Sam sipped through the red and white striped straw right then.

“Aurora's a trooper,” he noted. “When your mom was about to have you, she had lots of energy. Even the day she gave birth to you, it was like nothing was about to slow her down.” He shook his head. “Not gonna lie to you, Sam. I miss your mom sometimes.”

“What's done is done, though,” she said.

“What's done is done, right. It's a new chapter of life.”

“She's having a little boy,” she told him, “and they're naming him Theodore Samuel Young-St. Vitus.”

Ruben raised his eyebrows at that.

“His middle name is gonna be Samuel!” he exclaimed, and Sam couldn't help but choke up at that.

“She's naming her kid after me,” she sputtered, and Ruben stood up and held her close to him. She sniffled and brushed a tear from her eye. “Teddy. He's gonna be named Teddy, too.”

“I just think of teddy bears,” Ruben confessed, “or better yet—graham crackers.”

Sam thought about Alex right then. She thought of running her hand down the small of his back and she pressed herself closer to his body. Still soft despite having reached his twenties and having lost enough weight to where he was so thin. Soft like a teddy bear himself.

Holding Aurora close to her body made her want to hold onto him even more as she gave her father a big hug.

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