#neil throws himself in a bush

[paradoxolotl]

i know it's basic but i need to know what was going through andrew's head when he hears that aaron asked neil to kiss him in the jeans fic (im so sorry i can't actually remember the complete name of the fic in my mind its saved as the gay jeans fic)

Specific Fic Asks

I absolutely can do this for you anon ~ for It’s in the Jeans

~

Andrew’s life could be boiled down to three points of orbit:

His brother, Aaron. A minor pain in the ass on any day of the week that ended in y. Also the person who Andrew had crawled through hell with to build some semblance of normalcy. So for him, Andrew kept his complaining to a minimum.

Secondly, the neighbourhood stray cat. Andrew called it Worm. He also fed it after school every day, crouched in the bushes breaking up bits of ham with the paranoia levels of a small rodent.

And then there was Neil Josten. A major pain in Andrew’s ass every moment of every day, who was probably more feral than any street cat could dream to be. He’d complain more, used to complain more, but Andrew had recently found a better use of his time.

Because Neil’s kisses were a mind numbing, bone buzzing, oh too sweet addiction. Nothing in Andrew’s life had ever been as viciously satisfying as having Neil beneath him, one hand tipping the menace’s head back for a better angle, the other ghosting fingertips across the sensitive skin of his stomach just to feel the muscles jump.

It was too easy to lose himself in this, in Neil. Minutes were meaningless, the world falling away, and Andrew found himself halfway drunk with just Neil’s mouth against the skin of his neck. Nothing on earth could pull him from this moment, his Eden. Nothing-

There was a clattering bang from Aaron’s room. Odd enough to rip Andrew from the haze clouding his mind. But when no other noises followed, no cries of distress, it only took his name, whispered quiet and reverent, to pull him back to Neil. The fingers on his jaw helped him along, until he was sinking sinking drowning.

“I tried!” This time, not even Neil’s breath on his neck or hands in Andrew’s hair could distract him from Aaron’s shout.

Annoyance flicked up within him, simmering in his blood. Whatever fucking melodramatic bullshit Aaron found himself floundering in could not be worth-

“I asked Neil to kiss me-”

The thing about Andrew was this: he didn’t care about much. Most things in his life were revolving time passers, some more pleasant than others. But when he found something that burrowed past everything else, something worth calling his, Andrew cared a whole damn lot. Some might call it obsessive, concerning, unhealthy. Bee called it a trauma response. Andrew called it practical, because those few things he cared about could be taken away too quickly, too easily.

And the thing about Neil was this: he was Aaron’s before he was Andrew’s.

Andrew’s hand slammed into the wall before he registered what his body was doing, the beat of his heart slamming from excited to pretending not to panic. An unfortunate event, due to snapping both Aaron and Nicky’s attention to him and his complete loss of composure. Part of him wanted to glance back, to see if he really had just abandoned Neil to throw himself into whatever fucking mess this was, but Andrew’s brain was still screaming WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK RED ALERT on full power.

He knew Nicky was saying something, the noises hitting his ears, but he couldn’t process them. Eyes locked on his twin, Andrew all but demanded, “What did you just say?”

By Aaron’s concerned confusion, Andrew had clearly missed the mark. “The fuck were you doing?”

Neil, he thought. But he couldn’t very well say that to Aaron, especially when Aaron wore the same expression he did when they had watched a man sprint from beneath a bridge and disappear into the woods when they were ten. Quickly righting himself, Andrew attempted to infuse his voice with his usual nonchalance. “Nothing,” he said. Completely fine, totally normal. Not weird at all. “What did you say about Neil?”

For a moment, Aaron narrowed his eyes at him. As if Aaron had ever been able to break Andrew with his judgement. But then he shrugged, and Andrew felt his stomach drop with the cocky smile that spread across his face. “Oh, just asked if I could kiss him. No big deal.” Smug. Smiling. Bastard. “Why?” Aaron asked. Like an asshole. “Did you need something?”

Yeah, Andrew needed the world to stop falling from beneath his feet. Because Neil was a prickly fucker, untrusting and vicious. He held his people just as tightly as Andrew held his. Andrew spent years studying him, falling hard and fast and lasting, but the one thing that remained elusive was why Neil had fallen for Andrew too.

And deep down, a small voice whispered that if anyone could catch Neil and take him from Andrew, it would be Aaron.

Only one person had ever been able to quiet that voice. What did Andrew need? He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, back to Neil. “Yeah. I just-“ Nope. Uh huh. Brain hadn’t reset yet. Abort. Abort, Minyard. “Need to-“ Phenomenal. His mouth just wouldn’t stop. Is this what Neil felt like?

Well, time to abandon ship.

He didn’t feel any steadier when the door closed behind him, but his eyes zeroed in on Neil. Still sprawled on his back on Andrew’s floor, he looked up with a crooked smile, laughter tucked into the corners.

“Oh, right,” he said softly, unapologetic. “Your brother asked to kiss me.”

Andrew swallowed. His throat clicked. His shoulders pressed harder against his door.

At the silence, Neil’s smile turned a little softer. “I said no.”

“You said no.” His voice remained flat, neutral in the way he always used when expecting something to hurt.

Sighing, Neil rocked his knee in the air. Not jittery. Not nervous, just…moving. “Because I didn’t want to.”

“I asked you,” Andrew said.

Neil hummed. “And I wanted to. Still do, if you ever decide I’m more interesting than your wall. Or I could leave and you can brood and mope or whatever people with on overgrown sense of doom and despair do.”

“Really?” Andrew asked, even as he pushed off the door, falling back on top of Neil and into his grin. “You’re not funny.”

“Never said I was,” Neil said, words a laugh.

Neil had always been a point of clarity. An impossible piece in Andrew’s life he could never stray from, despite his efforts in the beginning.

His hands found their home in Andrew’s hair, dimple flickering out alongside his mirth. Quietly, he said, “It’s just you, Andrew.”

And Andrew believed him, and let everything else fall away.

#phew that was longer than I meant #did I do it #I don’t even know #let’s yeet it anyways #aftg #all for the game #the foxhole court #the raven king #the kings men #andrew minyard #neil josten #aaron minyard #andreil #twinyards #nicky hemmick #para’s fics #ask me stuff #ask para

[giurochedadomani]

You know what? I'm not done with this. A Billy + Eddie friendship would have been so good. Billy in S4 would have been so good. So bittersweet. Billy being very angry and at the same time very protective of Max and in general not being able to explain why he's feeling the Messiest Most Complicated Feelings cause she's a fucking a child, but at the same time he's so sick and tired of taking care of her, but at the same time being possesed by an otherworldly creature is terrifying, but at the same time no one did root for him when he was possessed by the Mindflayer, now, did they? So what? Is he really going to do like his asshole of a father and behave like a jackass to the weaker person next to him because he feels sad and shit? It would have been an amazing redemption arc. But also the image of Billy and Lucas instantly going to grab the Kate Bush tape when Vecna attacks Max consumes me.

Billy pretending to be buddies with Jason long enough to throw him off Eddie's chase. Perhaps he even kickstarts the violence when the jocks confront the rest of Corroded Coffin-- and how that would culminate in Billy using all his brashness to goad Jason into a fight at the Creel house (and away from Max and Lucas). Just. Imagine who would have been the most unhinged between Jason and Billy.

The party finding Eddie through Billy. Cause even if Billy has the best poker face when it comes to lying to authority figures, Max senses something is off when cops come to talk to them at the trailer park and Max has seen them together!  Eddie lives almost next to them, she knows they hang out! And Billy's being so weirdly calm about all this. That's his bestie being acused of a horrible murder and doesn't he want to defend him!? (and perhaps she's projecting a bit and sounding a bit guilty). And perhaps she pesters enough to make him confess where Eddie's hiding, or perhaps he was already waiting for any excuse to ask for a little help without openly asking for a little help, you know?

(Talking about sounding guilty on both of their accounts. Does Max still write a good bye letter to Billy? Do they talk about her nightmares?! My god, imagine Billy's thoughts when he finds out that he haunts Max' dreams. There could have been such a strong theme of Billy activily reforming himself cause he doesn't want to end like Neil!!!!)

And Billy doesn't feel confortable at all with the whole getting the party involved. Cause now he's loudly arguing with Steve in Eddie's favor because of course they're loudly arguing and he doesn't want to explain to fucking Harrington of all people why he knows that Eddie's innocent. He knows, ok? He just knows. (Billy strikes me as someone strongly private with an equally strong tendency to get on the defensive cause. Well. Trauma) But it's kind of hard to give weight to his argument that Eddie's a little unhinged ball of sunshine dressed up as a metalhead when at the most Billy is vaguely okay with admitting to Steve that they hang out sometimes??? He buys him weed. They have listened to albums together, once or twice. God, stop snooping Harrington.

(Max thinks that he doesn't want to admit that he hangs out with nerds. Max, needless to say, is wrong)

And anyway this gets absolutely ruined when Eddie, true to form, goes to threaten Steve with a fucking broken bottle at the house. Billy wants to kill them both and then himself.

I don't know if I like more the platonic vibe or the romantic vibe between Billy and Eddie, but either Dustin sees all of this, pieces everything together, looks utterly flabbergasted, and (internally) goes: eddie wasn't doing a bit, you're friends!!!!!!

Or,

Oh no you're the mysterious crush he won't shut up about.

Just. Billy in S4. 

#Mungrove #Billy hargrove

[teenagefuckboys]

new fic!

sooooo recently i started on a new fic and i’ve decided that i can’t wait anymore and started by posting the first chapter! this is a  harringrove slow-ish burn, with billy stuck in the upside down au with a hint of dream-sharing, for spice 

Title: Running Through the Shadows, Down Comes the Night 

Chapter One: Kate Bush’s The Dreaming

Read here or read on ao3

It starts with Steve picking Max up for school one day.

After Neil ditches her and her mom like the goddamn coward he is, Steve drove past her skating to school one morning on his way to Family Video. He knew that Ms. Mayfield had two new jobs to worry about since all of their income was now gone, and that must have meant that Max’s mom had to leave early enough in the morning that Max either took the bus from the trailer park or she skated.

Steve couldn’t blame her at all for forgoing the bus.

But he can’t say that it didn’t bother the hell out of him that a fourteen-year-old girl—that he knows pretty well, no less—was riding a skateboard to school, alone, in the middle of November.

So the next day, Tuesday, he shows up at the Mayfields’ trailer before his shift at Family Video starts. Max schlumps her way out of the trailer, headphones from her Walkman over her ears and skateboard under her arm. She’s wearing a denim jacket that’s far too big for her. Idly, Steve thinks it might have belonged to Billy.

As she goes down the four stairs to the drive, she stops. They make eye contact, so Max has definitely noticed him leaning against the driver’s side door of the Beemer. There’s no way to back out now without making it terribly awkward. And while he didn’t mean to corner her like this, it is undeniably working in his favor. It’s not quite that she’s glaring at him, but she is making some sort of unattractive face in his direction.

“Hey, dude.” He greets casually.

Max doesn’t say a word, headphones still on; her eyebrows only draw down further.

The best course of action seems to be the most nonchalant approach he can manage. “Come on.” Steve gestures impatiently towards the car, “time for school, let’s go.”

Max looks like she’s seriously considering dropping her board and making a break for it.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Giddy up, buttercup.” And gets in the driver’s side.

A moment later, the passenger door opens, too.

Their ride is silent, except for the Fleetwood Mac tape he can hear pouring out of Max’s headphones. She gazes, blank-faced and tired-eyed out the window. Steve doesn’t bother her.

When they pull up to the school, she remains quiet. As the door is shoved open, he rolls down her window to call out a, “have a good day, kiddo.” Even Steve has to admit, it’s probably a little embarrassing. For a second, Max seems to falter, but doesn’t turn back. Her skateboard is still under her arm.

While he watches her go, he shrugs to himself. It’s a start.

After his shift, he’s heading out to his car as normal. Robin is with him though. He usually takes her home after work because her mom brings her and there’s only one car between them. But when he drops her off at her mom’s trailer, Steve nearly has an aneurysm. “Shit, Max.”

Robin gives him a concerned look, “what are you talking about, dingus.”

“I gotta go get Max.” Steve rushes out, throwing the car in drive.

“Picking up one of your children from school?” She asks blandly.

“Bye!” He stomps on the gas, and probably almost kills her. He can apologize tomorrow.

The Beemer screeches to a halt in the high school parking lot. They’ve just gotten out, thankfully. Max seems confused when she finds Steve waiting for her. Despite her confusion though, she doesn’t say anything. Just goes over to him and gets in.

It’s his second trip to the trailer park, and frankly next time, if he were smart—which everyone takes every opportunity to remind him that he isn’t—he would let Robin ride along to the high school from Family Video before he took both of them back. But as he said, he isn’t smart, and kind of wants this little bit of time with Max.

Besides El, who he just can’t figure out (and who he assumed didn’t care for him much), Max is the only one Steve doesn’t know that well. Hell, they were barely even properly introduced when they met. But he feels the same about her as he does all the others. They’re his responsibility. And Steve can take it upon himself to look after them.

When they arrive back at the trailer park, Max gets out and offers a small, “bye, Steve” before she goes inside.

See? Progress. Even in just one day.

The next few days are the same. Pick up Max, silent drive, drop her off, tell her goodbye. Eight hours later, and maybe dropping off a stray Robin, pick Max up from school, drop her off at home. Rinse, repeat.

It’s kind of nice, if Steve is being completely honest. For as grouchy as Max can be first thing in the morning, he values the little bit of time he gets with her. She’s been incredibly distant and somewhat self-isolated since the Fourth of July. Since…everything. But they’d never been close before. Steve doesn’t hate it. Thinks maybe he could see her the same way he sees Dustin.

About three weeks later, though. Max comes out of the trailer and Steve can just tell she’s mad. Slams her way into the car like a goddamn hurricane and crosses her arms angrily, glaring through the windshield as opposed to her usual place out the side window. It’s like she’s just waiting for them to fight.

Steve thinks that maybe this was what it was like for her when it was Billy driving her to school.

He tries to be gentle. “Hey, bud.”

Max nearly bites his fucking head off. “Would you just drive?! Jesus Christ, I could have skated to school by now. I don’t even know why you’re doing this!” she scoffs out a laugh. “You hated Billy.” Max snarls at him. “Why are you even bothering? It’s not like you owe him or me shit, now that he’s dead and you’re still here.”

That, for some reason, cuts him a lot deeper than he’d like to admit.

Right now, it feels like Max never really cared one way or another about him. And maybe she didn’t. It hurts Steve to the core when people dislike him. It also does damage to the neglected child still living inside him, the one who just wanted attention and to feel like he was loved. It was why he wanted so badly to be popular. Maybe, just maybe it would make him feel important, worth something. It was why it hurt him so badly when Nancy cheated on him. When she called him bullshit.

And no, he never hated Billy. He thought Billy could be an asshole of epic proportions, but after their fight? Billy just kind of…ignored him. After about three weeks, and all the bruises on Billy’s back—the ones that Steve knows for sure he did not put there—had faded…things dissolved between them. Barely any interaction besides what happened on the basketball court. They were strangers, not enemies.

Even so. Something about the way she said: ‘now that he’s dead and you’re still here’. Like it was some kind of accusation. It felt like a knife twisting after it had been plunged into his gut.

And Steve, for all that he really doesn’t know what she’s going through, knows that when someone dies: people just want something to blame. All Max has to blame is an other-dimensional human meat puppet and the combination of the Russian and American military systems. None of those things will ever grant her an apology. They weren’t even allowed to know if Billy’s body was actually in the fucking casket. The poor bastard could still be being dissected some 200 feet below ground level in a Hawkins lab.

They just don’t know. And she’s fucking mad about it. Steve lets her be.

This outburst isn’t really about him. It never was.

He realizes that it’s taken him quite a while to respond and sighs softly, trying to fix his features from hurt into non-threatening compassion. Max’s face is still hard but her eyes have taken on a hint of guilt.

“I know what it’s like to be alone.” Steve chooses to admit. “It sucks. Maybe I just wanted you to know that you aren’t. And it’s not to pressure you to talk. It’s to remind you that if you ever need me, or anyone else, that we’ve got your back, kid.” he has to take a second to swallow and take a deep breath, a little emotional thinking so much about his lonely childhood. “Nobody ever did that for me.” Steve adds in a murmur.

Max doesn’t apologize. Steve doesn’t ask her to. She’s sad, and angry, and probably confused, and hurt, and lost someone who—despite their rocky and antagonistic relationship—deep down, Max felt love towards. That’s a lot of conflicting feelings in a little body. He feels for her.

They drive silently again.

As always, Steve pulls up, lets her out and tells her to have a good day. Again, nothing.

But when he comes to pick her up, something seems different. Max asks if it’s okay if she puts a tape in the deck in his dashboard. He says go for it.

It’s Kate Bush. A song comes on that he’s heard before, but something about the words strikes him: If I only could/I’d make a deal with God/And I’d get him to swap our places. This is the first time that he’s driven her, in a span of more than three weeks now, that she hasn’t had her headphones on.

When Steve peeks over at Max, probably terribly conspicuous, she’s crying. He wants to ask if she’s okay, but he doesn’t want to prove his stupidity anymore than he already does, so he stays quiet. Lets her talk if she needs to.

“Billy showed me Kate Bush.” Steve looks over at her for real, but waits for her to continue. “He,” she sniffs and wiped her face fiercely, “he said his mom played this one album of hers. When he was a kid. Sometimes he’d play the tape at night really quiet when he couldn’t sleep. I could hear it through our walls in our house in California. But I didn’t want him to get in trouble, so I never said anything.” Max lets out a little, watery laugh. “I can’t listen to that album without falling asleep now.”

They still haven’t left the parking lot. Steve doesn’t move to start the drive. Max’s mom won’t be home until 7pm. They have time.

She pulls in a big breath. “Billy got me these tapes.” It takes her a second to continue, the tears are steady now. “He,” Max fumbles and more tears drip down her face. “It was for my birthday. He got me Kate Bush’s The Dreaming and David Bowie’s Space Oddity and new wheels for my skateboard.” A sob comes this time. “He put them on my board himself.”

“That’s a really great birthday present.” Steve comments idly.

“I really love that Kate Bush tape.” Max coughs out another small laugh. “But sometimes I don’t want to play it because I’m scared I’ll wear it out and have to get rid of it. But it’s the one that he got me. I don’t think I could replace it.”

Steve sighs. “Yeah, that would suck to have to throw it away. But, I think he’d appreciate it more if you actually used it. Tapes are meant to be played, right?”

Max shrugs, noncommittal and uses her jacket sleeve to wipe her face. “I guess.”

“Maybe we can get you another so you can keep the one Billy gave you.” He suggests.

A small nod. Steve gives one back and ruffles her hair. Max bats him away, but it’s gentle she doesn’t say anything.

They let the tape play until they arrive at the trailer park. When Max stops, rewinds, and ejects it, she pauses for a second. Her tears have stopped and dried, leaving red eyes and puffy cheeks. “Sorry I yelled at you.”

Steve shrugs and smiles. “You didn’t pull a gun on me or punch me in the face, which is less than most of my friends can say, so you’re good. Don’t worry about it.”

“Steve.” She says seriously. “I…”

Steve nearly tears up himself when she launches herself over the console to grab him in a hug. When she pulls back, Max smiles a bit back at him. “Thanks.” He doesn’t say anything back. Doesn’t think he can without getting choked up. Just waves as she goes inside.

Once the door is closed behind her, says, “anytime, kiddo.” Steve warms in his chest and he cautiously, so as not to jinx anything, that having a little sister might feel something like this.

Over the weekend, he drives to the next town over to get to their music store. Finds a copy of Kate Bush’s The Dreaming and buys it. Nothing else. And when Max gets in the car the next Monday, it’s already playing in the deck.

For the first time in a while, Steve gets to see her smile.

It all goes downhill from there.

..

It’s a Saturday. Steve drove Max to school each day this week. He and Robin are stuck at Family Video. The two of them are playing tic-tac-toe on an inventory sheet that Keith entrusted Robin with. Joke’s on him. She’s just as displeased with working as Steve is. And she steals Twizzlers from the candy rack on a daily basis; chewing on the licorice when customers walk in and using it to point in the direction of aisles as opposed to actually walking people over to them.

Just as Robin is about to beat him for the fifth consecutive time, Max slams into the door.

Well, slam might be a bit of an exaggeration, but she has no qualms with throwing it open on them. Max comes right over to the counter, clearly on a mission. “Steve.” She basically ignores Robin.  

“Yeah?” He feels a little accosted, he can’t lie.  

Max leans on the counter, headphones around her neck still playing. “Will you take me somewhere? Please.” The ‘please’ is basically an afterthought. More there because she was taught by her mother to say please when she asks for something, not because she means it.

“Hi, or whatever.” Robin mutters, bitterly.  

Steve side-eyes Robin, who is now picking disinterestedly at the dark purple polish on her fingernails. She’s not actually offended. “I can’t today, kid, I work until pretty late. But tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Whenever. I just…need to. And I don’t want to go alone.”  

That doesn’t sound suspicious at all. Even Robin pauses her nail picking to lift a manicured eyebrow. Steve’s head tilts slightly, a small squint in his eyes. “Well, are you sure you don’t want any of your friends to go with you?” It doesn’t seem pushy, but he is trying to gently press her. There’s something fishy about this request. “And if it’s just too far to skate or walk, then yeah, I’ll drive you. Your mom busy working?”

“She’s working so much right now; I don’t want to make her worry about it.” Okay, that’s a bit of a red flag for Steve. “And I love the guys but. They kind of—” she clears her throat softly, for a moment her voice sounded thick. “They kind of, don’t really understand.” Max says haltingly.

Now Steve is really skeptical. “Do I understand?”

With a noncommittal shrug, Max hitches her jacket higher on her shoulder. “Probably not. But I don’t need you to. And I know that you won’t push it or anything.”

Great, now he feels bad for trying to underhandedly pressure her. “Max…” Steve starts gently, “I gotta be honest with you. The vagueness of whatever it is that’s going on is making me a little worried. Where is it that you need to go?”

With a huff, Max shakes her head slightly. “Nevermind, I’ll get there myself—”

“Hey, Max.” Steve rushes around the counter to get a few steps ahead of her and watches her roll her eyes. “Slow down, speed. I’ll take you. I didn’t say I wouldn’t. But I need to know that wherever it is that you need to go, that you’ll be safe.”

Heaving a sigh and keeping her eyes away from Steve, she answers quietly. “I need to see Billy.”

There’s something in her voice…something that maybe if Steve were better at reading people could pick up what exactly that tone is. Whatever it is that triggered this need, it’s something that’s heavier than she’s letting on. Setting a hand on her arm, he asks anyway. “Max, is something wrong?”

Now she won’t look at him, just nudges her toe into the ugly carpet. “No. No. I just. I just had a weird dream last night and I really need to go.”  

With a sigh, Steve concedes. “Can you wait until tomorrow?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll wait.”  

Patting her arm, he reassures her. “I’ll pick you up at noon, okay? Make sure you eat before we go.”  

She rolls her eyes, not giving an affirmative. “Bye, Steve. Later, Robin.” Giving them both a short wave, Max lifts her headphones back over her ears and heads for the door.

Robin at least has the decency to wait until the door has shut behind Max and the kid has dropped her skateboard before she starts to bitch. “Oh, I get it she can acknowledge my existence when she’s leaving but screw me when she needs to see her supplementary mom.”  

Steve actively chooses not to say anything about the ‘supplementary mom’ comment. Instead, he shrugs, leans his lower back against the front of the counter with a shrug. “We’ve gotten kind of close recently, don’t take it personally.”  

With a scoff, Robin shakes her head. “Taking it personally? Me? You must have me confused with someone else.” He knows she didn’t. It is funny when she gets dramatic, though. “Steve.” She starts, suddenly all joking leaves her voice. “Are you really about to take Max to her dead brother’s grave?”

It sure does look that way, doesn’t it. The fact itself isn’t a big deal. He knows to other people it’s probably weird. But it’s not really like the kid can take a bus to get there. And the cemetery is nearly outside town lines. It’s too far for her to use her skateboard. Too far for his comfort, anyway. Dear God, he does sound like a mom, Jesus. “It’s where she wants to go. If she wants to visit him, she should be able to.”

Unsuccessfully, Robin tries to hide a grimace. “You don’t think it’s a little weird?”  

Steve tries to reason with her. “I’m not going to go just to sit and watch her talk to his headstone. I’ll take her, wait in the car, then bring her home.”  

There’s an inquisitive look in Robin’s eyes when she leans forward on the counter. “Why are you doing this?” It isn’t accusatory, just curious. Not quite grasping what exactly is going on, wanting to understand.  

He may as well be as honest with her as he was with Max when she asked. “Because, right now, Max probably feels like she doesn’t have anyone. Her mom is busy all the time now that her deadbeat stepfather abandoned them and her only sibling was gored right in front of her on the fucking Fourth of July. The boys can’t do anything besides be supportive, and I have a feeling that because it’s Billy, supportive isn’t going to be their strong suit. They all hated the guy.”  

“Steve. You hated him.” Robin points out.  

“I didn’t—,”  he goes in to defend himself a little too quickly. Steve regains his footing and chooses his words, “hate him. I thought he could be a huge jerk, sure. But, I don’t like to hate people. We didn’t get along one time, it ended badly.” No other way to describe it. Did Billy perhaps fly off the handle? Yeah. But was it fairly justified considering the circumstances? Yeah. “But I also didn’t know him. Never did. I can’t bring myself to hate someone I never really knew.”

A small smile that could almost be called proud sits on Robin’s lips, she hums softly. “I see. I can’t say I expected you to be so mature about that.”  

“I’m willing to overlook that vast underestimation of my depth.” Steve thinks he notices Robin’s eyebrows raise at his vocabulary. Thanks, Dustin. “But I’m the babysitter, Robin. I haul the kids’ asses around. And what kind of babysitter would I be if I didn’t take them where they wanted to go?”

“If they’re asking to go to cemeteries? Probably a good one.”

Throwing his head back with a groan, Steve rolls his eyes. “Jesus, come on. Max isn’t going because she wants to have a séance. She’s going because she’s sad and someone she cares about is buried there.”

There’s something foreboding in the way Robin answers with: “we think.”  

“We hope.” Steve relents uncomfortably.

A ringed hand falls on his elbow. “Hey, do me a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“Bring some flowers or something.” Robin requests with a slight frown. “We all know that Max is the only one who visits him. It kind of makes me feel bad. Everyone deserves to have someone miss them.”  

Steve nods faintly. He’d never thought about it that way.

.. 

The next day, Steve arrives at the trailer park three minutes past noon. A bouquet of red, pink and purple gladiolas are in the backseat. Max is already sitting on the steps, waiting for him. Her headphones are already on.

When she gets into the passenger seat, she doesn’t say anything. Steve thinks that she probably isn’t in a very talkative mood today and he keeps quiet. They stay silent the entire ride out to the cemetery. The usual Kate Bush isn’t coming out of the Walkman. It something heavier, like maybe she’s listening to a tape that Billy used to play. Steve would guess the band, but he doesn’t know a goddamn thing about metal.

It isn’t a nice day. It’s cloudy and foggy and the wind is a little cold. But Max is staying in Billy’s denim jacket, it seems, despite the weather. Steve considers offering her the blanket he has in the backseat, but already knows that she’d never take it.

When they enter the gates of the cemetery, Max pulls her headphones down. Gives him a few directions on which curves to take and where to stop.

From where they end up, Steve can’t see Billy’s headstone. Never has. Offhand, he was aware that they had a funeral. Steve doesn’t know anyone outside of the family that went. He didn’t, wasn’t invited. In honesty, he can’t be sure that anyone was.

Turning back to look at Max, she’s already looking him past him somewhere not far off. Steve sets a hand on her shoulder. “Take as long as you want. I’ll be here when you’re done. And if you, you know, need me or anything…” he shrugs. “Just come get me.”

Finally, her eyes move over to him and she nods. Nothing else. As she goes to push open the door, Steve stops her.

“Hey, just a sec.” Turning and lifting out of his seat, he reaches in the back and grabs the flowers. “Take these up with you, yeah?” Max frowns but reaches out slowly and takes the gladiolas with one hand. “Robin said it might be nice. Leaving something for him. So, I thought…” he trails off, lifts a shoulder awkwardly. Even so, there’s a softness in Max’s gaze. So, gladiolas in hand, she pushes the door open and gets out.

Because that’s just who he is, Steve watches her walk up to the grave that must belong to her brother. Max pulls his jacket tighter around herself and sits down cross-legged in front of it. Gently, he sees her placing the flowers on the lips of the headstone. Steve chooses that as his cue to leave her be.

After a few minutes, as terrible as it is, he starts to get bored. If he were a person that reads, which—obviously—he isn’t, he would have brought a book. Or had one in his car in the first place. But it also seems kind of…offensive, doesn’t it? Bringing a book or tapes or something into a cemetery just feels a little rude. Despite not having anything to do besides stare into space, Steve can’t bring himself to play a tape. Max needs this time alone to be near someone she cared about.

Without thinking, Steve turns to look at her.

From where he is, he can see her, parked in front of the headstone. But there’s something off. The sky has started getting darker. The clouds over their heads are gathering, moving faster than they should. Steve paws at the door handle, popping it open and stepping out. Suddenly, a rumble of thunder sounds, resonating within his chest. A few stray flashes of lightning connecting into the clouds, before another rumble. Steve thinks the storm that brewed over them without warning probably means rain, and moreso that they should probably head out soon. It sucks that he has to cut her visit short but—

As Steve is about to open his mouth to call to Max, a bolt of lightning that he would swear looks fucking red splits the clouds.

“Max!” Steve shouts to her. Her head whips around to him, before the sky breaks open. “Let’s go, come on!”

Without answering, she’s racing towards the car. Steve already inside when the door slams behind her.

They’re both a little damp, her more than he is, but Steve turns on the heat to help hopefully prevent her from getting sick.

After a few moments, Max asks softly, “that was weird, right?”

Steve huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “Yeah dude, that was weird.”

..

That night, Steve dreams about Billy Hargrove for the first time since his death.

#my fic #new fic #harringrove #harringrove fic #harringrove au #billy hargrove

[the-chicken-or-the-banana]

can i just say that neil, having been on the run, would be so good at hiding from the paparazzi.

like, this is why no one finds out that he and andrew are together for so long; he just parkours away from reporters and photographers and leaves andrew to deal with them (aka stare them down)

#one time they were trying to go to a park with their cats #and then neil saw a horde of reporters coming down the street #word had spread that andrew minyard was out #and these people wanted the tea #neil throws himself in a bush #and andrew is left holding 2 kittens in his hands and a pack of cookies #the photographers have a field day #andrew grumps for so long #when they reach home neil is the one forced to give the cats a bath #andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten #aftg #all for the game #aftg hc #aftg headcanon #my headcanons

[moonlitwings1]

HC/ficlet for Billy and Max setting off fireworks please.

It’s New Year’s eve.

He would’ve been spending it at Steve’s place if Neil didn’t insist that New Year’s was a time for family to reflect on the past year and a time to celebrate the new one together. Bullshit.

Max would’ve been at Mike’s house with the rest of her little buddies, but Neil put a stop to that too. She wouldn’t stop going on and on about the fireworks the Wheelers were going to put out that she’s going to miss. Apparently, they’ve got the fancy ones that make shapes in the sky. When she complained to Neil, he told her that if she wanted to have fireworks. She can buy them herself. Having spent all of her allowance, guess who she goes to? Yup.

He originally refused to buy fireworks, but she promised if he did, that she’d cover for him the next time he sneaks out, and damn if that didn’t sound like a good deal. That is, until he realized that fireworks were fucking expensive. Max had gone with him to the mall to pick some up and when he looked at the price and glanced back at Max, she had plastered on the biggest shit-eating grin. It took everything in him in that moment not to smack her upside the head. Bitch.

But they shook on it, so there was no going back. A Hargrove’s promise. Besides, it’ll be worth it in the end when Billy makes up for lost time with Steve. He’s got some ideas in mind.

But now they’re standing in their front yard trying to figure out how to light this shit up. It’s twenty minutes before twelve. And Princess Maxine wants to light them exactly when it hits midnight. It has to be on time!

“It says we should wear protective eyewear,” Max reads, holding out the instructions in front of her face. Billy snatches it from her and throws it to the side. He meant for it to be an aggressive move, but the paper just pathetically flutters to the ground.

“We don’t need that shit. I’ve done this before,” he says, squatting on the floor, putting the fireworks on a board.

Max squints her eyes at him, doubtful. He has done it before with his friends back in Cali. Sure, they might’ve aimed wrong and almost shot someone’s eye out, but it was fine in the end. How hard can it be to do it with your little sister?

Turns out pretty hard. With Max peering over his shoulder at every second trying to correct him with those damn instructions, he nearly threw her back into the house. He probably should’ve. She’s a pain in the ass.

He elbows her in the stomach, shoving her back and making her flinch hard at the impact. He almost turns around to make sure she’s ok. He doesn’t.

“Stop standing over me,” he says instead. “It’s fucking weird.”

Thankfully, she shoves him right back just as hard. “You’re doing it wrong, asshole. Why don’t you get off your high horse and read the instructions for once.”

He ignores her, bringing his focus back to fireworks in front of him. The hell does she know? He brings the lighter to one of the fireworks.

“Wait! Don’t light it now,” Max says, turning to run back inside. “Let me get my mom.”

Just as she’s about to sprint back inside, Billy grabs her by the back of the shirt, bringing her to a halt.

“Chill the fuck out. I’m just gonna test it out.”

“It’s not even midnight yet,” she pouts as she wrestles his arm off her shirt.

“I said I’m testing it out, dumbass. Calm down.” He lets her go with a final tug and squats back down with the board of fireworks. Now he just needs to bring the lighter a little closer--

“Wait, maybe we should-” he doesn’t wait for her to finish before bringing the lighter to one of the fireworks, watching the flame catch on.

He’s quick to his feet, walking backwards, bringing Max with him. She doesn’t fight him, her eyes wide and focused on the flame, watching it get closer and closer, until-BAM. The firework shoots up in the sky bursting and letting out a hail of red sparks. He doesn’t hear her at first, the sound of the burst deafening him for a second. He forgot how loud they were up close.

“Billy! Billy!”

“The hell do you want!,” he shouts, patience finally wearing thin with her constant nagging.

She’s panicking, waving her hand frantically in the direction of---shit.

Their fucking bush caught on fire. He almost faceplants running toward it. Probably would’ve deserved it too, but he reaches the bush in a split second and stamps the fire out quick enough. Why does shit always go down when he’s around? All things considered, it’s not the worst thing that could’ve caught on fire, but still.

“How the fuck--”

“I KNEW THIS WAS GONNA HAPPEN”

Oh for fucks sake. He spins around to glare at Max. “Well, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Like you’ve been bothering to listen to anything I’ve been saying for the past fifteen fucking minutes!” she shrieks, stamping her foot. She looks like she’s imitating a toddler, but Billy figures now’s not the time to point that out. “I literally told you that we should bring the extinguisher just in case!”

She did say something like that now that he thinks about it. Probably mentioned it sometime between the rant about the Wheelers and the droning on about the instructions. He internally curses himself for not paying attention to her for once.

“Well, we didn't end up needing one, did we?”

Her jaw drops slightly and she just gapes at him. “You’re a fucking psycho.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now help me--”

“The hell are you two making a racket about?”

Fucking great. Perfect.

“Nothing, dad,” Billy bit out. “I just lit a firework to test it out. Max helped me.”

Neil glanced at Max, eyeing her as if that was gonna reveal anything. “Did she? Not banging up anything are we?”

“No, sir,” Billy replies, hands in his pockets. Subtly moving in front of the bush so that maybe, just maybe, Neil won’t see the burn marks. Thankfully, the entire bush wasn’t burnt, just the edge. He could probably hide it or maybe break it off. Neil won’t notice it just yet.

They stare at each other for a moment. Neil doesn’t say anything aloud, but Billy can see the threat behind the eyes. After a minute, Neil gives him a nod of approval and saunters back inside. He breathes a sigh of relief. Maybe he just didn’t want to give Billy too much shit for New Year’s sake. He’s just grateful he won’t have to show up to Steve’s house bruised up again.

“That was a close one,” Max mumbles.

“No shit.”

Five minutes ‘till midnight.

Billy squats down in front of the fireworks again. “Hand me the instructions,” he says, sticking a hand out towards Max who beamed at him, glad he’s finally listening to her.

He snatches them out of her hand and gets back to work, fidgeting around with the set before standing back up.

“Well Maxine? Do I finally have your approval?”

“Firstly, don’t call me that. Secondly,” she says, making a big show of inspecting the fireworks, circling around them, “Yes.”

“If this shit lights a bush on fire, I’m coming for your head.”

She looks a little hesitant at that, but he ruffles her hair and she gives him a soft smile in return.

“Should we ask if they’re coming out to watch?”

Billy checks his watch. “Nah. One minute ‘till midnight. They’re probably watching the ball drop. I don’t give a shit.”

“Yeah,” Max shrugs. “I don’t really care either. Let's just light them ourselves.” Lies. He can tell by the way she keeps looking over her shoulder for her mom that she does care. Susan won’t join them. He knows that much. Wherever Neil is, she is. She won’t watch fireworks with them unless Neil does, and there’s no way he’s going to want to do that despite his claim of today being a time for family. Billy knows better. Max will too one day.

15 seconds until midnight.

“You wanna light them?”

Her head snaps up to look at him. “Really?”

“Don’t blow shit up, though,” he says, handing the lighter to her. Neil would most definitely blow a gasket if he found out his 13 year old daughter was the one lighting fireworks. But what’s life without a little risk?

She grins. “So basically don’t do what you did.”

“Exactly,” he chuckles. “You know how to light it?”

“I think so.”

“Have at it,” he says, letting her go but staying close in case she screws shit up.

Five seconds ‘till midnight.

Four

Three

Two

Max quickly lights the fireworks in a swift motion, and turns to run back. She covers her ears as the fireworks all fly up, bursting in the sky with a multitude of colors. From a distance, Billy sees other fireworks bursting, neighbors shouting. He even spots a yellow one shaped like a star right above their house that Max points excitedly to. He might have snuck one in the cart when he saw Max looking longingly at it. Probably not as cool as it would’ve been at the Wheeler’s, but it’s something. She’s still a whiny little bitch.

Turning back towards the door, he sees Susan peeking through the window, a soft smile, strikingly similar to Max’s on her face.

Happy New Year.

#billy hargrove #max mayfield #maxine mayfield #billy and max #neil hargrove #stranger things #susan hargrove #steve harrington #mentioned #this was rushed lmaooo #happy new years!! #jkjk happy july 4th #my works #also sorry for completing this request way too late lmao

[heymrstargazer]

Neils a Badass and if Anybody Reduces His Character to Sunshine and Rainbows Ever Again, I’ll Throw Hands (pt. 2a)

(i actually made a list of ideas instead of walking into everything completely blind like normal, be proud. also to hell with canon, neil and renee friendship thank you)

tw: attempted child abduction

It would’ve been a hot June afternoon if Neil had worn the same blinding orange hoodie he usually sported, but he traded it out for a solid black tee (picked out by Andrew), pale blue jeans (also picked by Andrew), and a clean, white pair of sneakers (once again chosen by Andrew)

The sky was bright pink by the time they all settled down at a sticky table near a bench he was sure would stick a splinter in his ass

Rather than joining in, he watched in silent horror as Andrew and Aaron finished a funnel cake (he opted for calling it an “early start at diabetes”) in less than three minutes, enjoying his Push Up tube of sherbe(r)t from afar

Neil wondered if Kevin was having fun arguing with him and Andrew that it was sherbet

Unfortunately, the loud rings and chimes from nearby rides and games weren’t loud enough to drown him out

Clusters of screams came from high in the air, followed by the fast ticking of wheels on a track

The other’s faces were red and wind burnt, Neil, Andrew, and Renee instead tanned (in Andrew’s case, sunburnt) from hours spent trying every game they could find

His favorite in particular was the one where he had to shoot tiny little ducks that sped from left to right. It was easy for a trained hand and the expression on Andrew’s face when he handed him a stuffed fox no smaller than him was priceless

The only reason Kevin was standing next to him was because the fox had taken the last seat at the table

“What are you going to name it?” Nicky asked while taking another bite off the corndog in his hand that was probably two feet long

Andrew shrugged while gracelessly elbowing Aaron’s arm away to get the last bite, earning a flick to the back of the head

Neil ignored the push that sent Aaron off the bench and into the bush next to him in favor of listening to Matt

“I spent a hundred bucks on one of those like a year ago and didn’t win Dan shit but here you are, rubbing it in our faces,” he said in spite of the grin on his face

“Do you want me to go get you one or--?”

“No!” he quickly interjected, almost dropping his ice cream in fervor, “You have to earn it.”

Neil gave him what Kevin would call his “I’m begging to be called a dumbass” face, mouth slightly ajar and eyes curiously squinted

He felt a flick on his hand and looked over to Andrew to the sound of Allison’s laughter as she choked on her drink

Andrew handed him an empty plate and cup which he quickly threw away along with two plastic forks, one sitting on the plate and the other bouncing off the corner of the trash just after he closed it

He picked up the reusable cup he and Andrew had shared many refills of throughout the day, and excused himself to find another endless line to wait in

Out of curiosity and impatience, he peered down the lane of brightly colored games and food stands

At the very end was a neon green booth for drinks and only with four people in line. Perfect

A mere ten minutes later he was pulling the now full cup from the counter, taking a sip while turning to head back

But he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the shriek of a child

While it had been one of hundreds that banged against his eardrums that day, it was a familiar sort of sound

Children often screamed and yelled at the smallest things, good or bad, but not like that

He whipped around, keeping his breath steady with a clench of his fist and started around the corner

It muffled for a moment before it was back once again. Others walking by glanced between two stalls further down the line but did nothing else

He jogged that way, keeping enough distance so it would look like he was just taking a walk like many others

A large cutout in the concrete where two large trees hung low caught his eye and he easily slipped around them to get a look

Two figures were shadowed in, a small girl sobbing and pushing away from the concerningly large man that held her by the hands

He played it off like he was trying to give her a hug, but Neil saw the smothering for what it was

His own mother had to pull him away from his father’s people taking him in with sharp blades and the hot metal from their smoking guns 

Creeping closer, he heard the guy say to various people walking by that she had been scared of a ride. When they were far enough, it was that she didn’t want to leave. Then, it was that she was scared because she had gotten lost

It took a liar to know a liar, but this was fucking pathetic

Rule one was to stick to your story no matter how of course your plan went

The rushed, low whispers Neil heard as he crowded against the corner of the vacant, dark booth gave away the panic he knew came with an unexpected surprise

“Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll kill your mommy, understand?” the guy said viciously, growling in the kids face when he thought the coast was clear

“Let me go! I want my mommy!” she shrieked again, only a mumble from being buried into his chest

“You can have your mommy if you shut  your damn mouth until we get to the car,” he spat again. “She’ll have to pay to get you back.”

That was enough for him. He dropped the cup and let it spill on the sidewalk, coming around the corner with more force than he intended

It was enough to scare the living shit out of him, though

He didn’t speak for a moment, letting the virulent look on his face speak for itself

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” was all he could get out coherently, nearly vibrating with anger

He stammered in a stupidity that made Neil sick. “Listen, she’s my niece, she lost her parents and I’m just--”

“Oh?” he interrupted, “Not just scared of the ride? Or, is it that she doesn’t want to go? Remind me again.”

It was like he snapped his fingers to change the guys demeanor

A small storm whirred into a hurricane in his eyes as the guy in front of him put it together. He stood up, roughly keeping the girl at his side as she still beat at his arm with her tiny fists

He couldn’t even come up with another part of his bullshit story before he ran towards the opening Neil was securely blocking

Despite the towering difference between them, Neil had always been stronger and faster than he looked

The guy lost his balance on the toe of Neil’s shoe and he shoved him

Hard

(With the tip of his elbow for good measure)

The guy landed on his ass and Neil heard the little siren that he had passed a handful of times on a speeding golf cart with bright reflective tape on the back

Neil stuck one of his scarred hands out, pulling the girl up and out of his arms before he could take her down with him

“I don’t fucking believe you,” he got out just before some part of the security team pulled him and the girl to the side

They couldn’t even get a question out before there were two small arms clamped around his waist

(posting the next part immediately after because i didn't want this one to be annoyingly long)

#aftg #all for the game #neil josten #the foxhole court #tfc #aftg hc #all for the game hc #aftg headcanon #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #nicky hemmick #kevin day #allison reynolds #renee walker #matt boyd #dan wilds #the foxes #bamf neil josten #neils a badass

[puckandperry]

if you send for me

anderperry

synopsis: au in which welton academy isn’t a boarding school, and neil goes to todd’s house to throw pebbles at his bedroom window, and todd realises when it's his turn to throw the pebbles— before it’s too late.

warnings: slight sentiments of sadness. nothing too extreme!

w/c: 5.8k

a/n: hello all! this is my first time writing for these two, and the dps world in general, but i’ve done my best to capture the characters, and so i hope it’s worked. enjoy <3

⭒

The windows are dark, they always are. 

Todd’s parents have always been strict about that sort of thing— lights out after a certain hour, no going out on school nights, curfew and all that. 

Neil’s parents have always been like that too, but he’s learned to slip out of doors unnoticed, silent upon socked feet as he steals through the dark, only stepping on floorboards that don’t creak. Neil is a shadow, Neil is a thief. But the prize is far more precious than silver or gold. 

⭒

When the first pebble hits the window, Todd’s still asleep, and he doesn’t notice. 

The sound of the second pebble against the glass is conveniently part of his dream, and fades into the abyss of sleep, a drop of water in an ocean. 

The third is when he wakes properly, and he thinks that maybe footsteps are approaching his bedside. He shifts disconcertedly, sleep still trailing in the wake of his consciousness, the brush of a lover’s hand. 

But at the fourth, he sits bolt upright at the sound, eyes bright and wide in the dark, though moonlight spills onto the floor from the window, from behind those curtains that never consent to be fully closed. 

He slips his toes out from beneath the covers and winces at the cold when they meet the wooden floor, but he’s quick to recover from the tingle of frost down his spine, and he walks toward the window in three quick, short strides. 

When he brushes away the curtains and twines his fingers around the window latches to push the contraption from its frame, he finds Neil on the ground below, a hand raised with a fifth pebble, the other cradling several more. 

Neil’s face breaks into a smile when he catches Todd’s eyes, and Todd fights the flutter of his heart, coaxes his own smile into a grimace; he should not be happy that Neil is here, in the middle of the night. He should be cross, and worried about his parents finding him up after bedtime, and grouchy with his lingering drowsiness. 

But he is none of those things. He is decidedly lighthearted, awake and spirited and warm, despite the coldness of the night. He is how he always is, when he is with Neil. 

“What’re you doing here?” he hisses, his elbows on the windowsill as he leans farther out into the night, the breeze beginning to ruffle his hair. 

Neil smiles, like Neil always does. “What does it look like?” he says. “I’m here to see you, of course.”

“You can’t—” Feigned indignation has raised Todd’s voice on no account of his own, and he has to swallow to bring his volume back down. “You can’t be here,” he says. 

Neil folds his arms. “Why not?”

“Because it’s the middle of the night!” Todd sputters. “Because you should be asleep!”

Neil only grins. “You’re not asleep,” he counters easily. His tongue is poking out between his teeth, his eyes vivid in the moonlight. 

“Because you woke me,” says Todd, but it’s a lame attempt at an excuse, and Neil is already climbing the bush that twists up the wall by Todd’s bedroom, his sweater sleeves snagging on the brambles. 

And Todd is leaning out the window, biting his lip as his fingers tighten on the windowsill and he pleads with the darkness not to let Neil fall, because he’d never forgive himself if Neil fell for him, for his sake, for the sake of seeing him. 

And why? Why is the other question that nags at Todd as Neil skirts the windowsill, swings one leg up to clamber into his bedroom. Sure, they’re friends, but midnight visits in solemn shadow, pebbles thrown like stars, one leaning out the window to speak to the other like Shakespearian lovers.

It doesn’t make any sense. 

Todd isn’t paying attention when Neil finally tumbles through the window, making a shushing noise as though his shoes will obey him and not make a sound. 

He straightens up, and when he does, he’s nose-to-nose with Todd, who seizes up when he realises the position they’re in. 

But Neil only laughs, his perfect hair hanging into his perfect eyes, and Todd wants to reach up and brush it away, to see the other boy better. He doesn’t, though, and Neil is left with that task for himself. He takes it in stride, and when he smiles down at Todd, his eyes crinkle. 

Instinctively, Todd smiles back. 

“Hi,” says Neil. 

Todd’s reply is breathless, and Neil’s smile broadens. 

“Scared ya, did I?”

“Well who the hell prances about throwing pebbles past midnight?” asks Todd, as though expecting a legitimate answer. But for all Neil’s openness, his vibrant personality, he is noticeably quiet on certain topics. 

He snorts. “Prancing? I prefer gallivanting.”

Todd rolls his eyes in response. “Keating is getting to your head.”

“And yours,” says Neil, with twinkling eyes. “Can’t help but love him, though.”

Neil is often bold, but he rarely talks of love. Todd wonders faintly if it's because he’s never been loved wholly, properly. Only fragments here and there, what can be scavenged. Though Todd doesn’t understand how anyone could love Neil any less than wholly. Neil is magnetic, beautiful, powerful in his sense of self and conscious of the world around him. Todd has never met anyone like him. 

“So what are you doing?”

“Doing? Neil, I was asleep.”

He shrugs almost apologetically, then fishes a leather-bound book from the inside pocket of the jacket he’s wearing. “Feel like reading some poetry?”

⭒

It starts off with Whitman, and Byron quickly follows, to precede Shakespeare and Wilde, and then they halt with Wilde, because their voices have grown languid with the passing time, and it takes longer now to recite a poem than it did an hour ago. 

They’re sitting on the floor, leaned against Todd’s bed although the floor is cold, and Neil isn’t quite sure why they’re sitting on the floor, but he thinks it has something to do with the intimacy of sharing the space of someone else’s bed, a line Todd hasn’t offered to cross, and one Neil doesn’t dare to suggest— even if the floor is freezing.

But Todd’s side is pressed up against his, and so Neil is not as cold as he would have been. They lean against each other, and Neil reads aloud. 

In the words of Wilde he tells of the sun and the moon, of the moon retreating to her sombre cave as the night wanes to day, and the silence that love makes of a person. He reads of feelings seldom felt, though they are ones he feels strongly, and he thinks that he must be wrong in his assessment of himself, because surely, his heart should not be beating out of his chest for the one who sits beside him.

“But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show/Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; Else it were better we should part, and go,” Neil reads, and he thinks that Todd is falling asleep beside him. “Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,” and Todd is most definitely asleep, because his head rests upon Neil’s shoulder, and Neil thinks of how lucky he is for Todd to trust him this way, “And I to nurse the barren memory/Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.”

He finishes the verse, the poem, and there is a silence like that after rain. Soft, pure, and the world beneath is untouched, new, as the sun flits through the leaves to colour the Earth below in warm hues, firelight remnants. 

Or perhaps the silence is not what gives Neil this feeling, but Todd’s soft exhale on his shoulder. 

Neil smiles to himself. 

There’s a blanket on the end of the bed, and he reaches for it, drapes it over the boy beside him. Then slowly, carefully, he eases Todd’s head from his shoulder, and lets him curl up with his head upon a pillow, still on the floor, because Neil worries he’ll wake Todd if he tries to move him back to bed. But at least now the other boy is cocooned in warmth, and unbothered by the world around him. 

His cheeks are a little flushed, lips parted against the pillow. His hair is in his eyes, as Neil’s often is. Neil never brushes his own hair away. His mother used to do that. She doesn’t anymore, but he still hopes that one day she’ll return to her old habit. Neil wonders if Todd’s mother brushes his hair from his eyes. 

Neil resolves that it does not matter whether or not she does, but that one of the most gentle things in this world is to have one’s hair combed away from one’s eyes, and Todd is the gentlest person Neil has ever known. He’s fierce when sufficiently provoked, but quiet up until that point, and Neil admires that betwixt the cruelties of this world, there are still people like Todd who find it within themselves to be gentle. 

He stoops, and brushes the hair from his friend’s eyes, lets his touch linger. 

“Adieu, adieu, adieu,” he murmurs, because he has no words of his own for this moment, and must borrow from Shakespeare. 

Neil climbs out the window, finds footholds in the bush against the brick of the house, closes the window, and slips out into the night.

⭒

Todd wakes alone, and goes to school as usual. 

When he meets Neil in the morning, they do not speak of the night before. Still, Neil’s smile is bright and warm as the sun, and they talk between classes, stifle laughter at the same stiff-necked teachers that they always do, exchange glances with one another as Keating’s lesson of the day proves even more adventurous as the previous. 

He is getting to be better friends with the boys whom Neil keeps in company, as well, beginning to settle into a comfortable routine, and the lot of them meet in the cave on weekend nights as they always do. In content, it is much like the nights Todd spends with Neil, yet, the cave meetings have a different air about them. 

The days pass with school and homework, the bore of scholarly tasks made lively by the asides of his friends.

Todd loves the days, but he lives for the nights. 

Neil has now made a habit of coming to visit, sneaking up the climbing bush and letting Todd help him the last of the way through the window. 

He brings a book, or a leaflet, something to read, or the script for the play he’s in, so that Todd can help him to practice lines. Neil hasn’t told his parents about the play, so Todd’s house, in the middle of the night, is the safest place to practice. 

But Neil projects, as all good actors know to do, and Todd shushes him.

“My parents!” he reminds him, because they are asleep downstairs. But Neil’s speech only gives way to laughter, muffled by the wool of his sweater sleeve as he covers his mouth vainly, in an attempt to drown the sound. 

Soon Todd is laughing as well, and they’re not laughing, but giggling, and the sound is so absurdly childish that Todd shushes Neil with new fervour. However, Neil does not take note, rather throws his head back as his shoulders shake, and Todd reaches up and covers Neil’s mouth with his hands. 

Neil tries to bat away Todd’s hands, but Todd does not relent, a warning in his eyes. Neil ceases his giggling, and nods, to assure Todd that he will not laugh any more. 

Ever-trusting, Todd removes his hands from Neil’s person, but Neil starts laughing again as soon as he is free. 

Todd reaches up to cover Neil’s mouth again, more playful than in actual effectiveness, but immediately, Neil presses a kiss to Todd’s fingers, and Todd leaps back. 

“Neil!” he says, but Neil only laughs, and when the latter leaves in the twilight of the youthful morning, it’s with extra care to move in silence, as though to make up for the ruckus of earlier. 

Sometimes Neil brings food, pilfered from his own pantry, or from the dining hall at school, cookies and pieces of cake, fruit slightly bruised from being stolen and hidden away, but still always ripe and sweet. 

They read books and poetry, learn Shakespeare, trade stories over their pillaged feasts, listen to records at the lowest volume possible, parting in the morning with no word of the night. 

There is something comfortable about simply being in Neil’s presence. There is no pressure to do anything, to be anything in particular, and yet Todd feels that he could do anything, be anything— whatever he likes. So, in a rare moment of truth, he chooses to simply be himself.

He likes being himself. 

⭒

As midnight decisions often do, the lack of sleep earned by Todd and Neil in the company of one another catches up with them, and one day, the two are awoken by someone clearing their throat. 

But they are not in Todd’s bedroom when Neil lifts his head, lifts his head up from a desk and blinks sleepily to find Todd on his left doing the same. The classroom is otherwise empty, before they each notice Keating leaned against the table between them, his arms folded and his eyes crinkling at the corners as his gaze darts between them. 

“Morning, boys,” he says, and Neil thinks his smile broadens. 

“Mr. Keating,” he blurts, at the same time Todd says, 

“I uh—”

But Keating waves his hands, smiling still. “No, no. No trouble. I imagine my voice has a bit of a droll to it. I’m sure that’s why my first thesis presentation went as badly as it did.” He shifts, lifts his chin, narrows his eyes. “So, what’s keeping you up at night? Dreams? Or fears?”

Neil glances at Todd to see if he’s going to respond, but Todd only smiles, as though he knows something Neil doesn’t. 

A moment later, Neil realises that his glasses are askew on his nose, and adjusts them hurriedly, making a face at the other boy. 

Todd makes a face back, before they both remember Keating, and turn their heads in his direction once more.

His eyes twinkle. “Or,” he says thoughtfully, “each other?”

Neil swallows.

“We’ve been reading poetry,” says Todd, and Neil looks upon him with pleasant surprise. It is not often Todd speaks unprompted. 

Todd’s words are of truth, and Keating knows of the Dead Poets Society meetings in the cave. He should not, however, know of Neil’s late-night visits to Todd. And yet, something in his countenance persuades Neil that Keating does know.

“And poetry is all well and fine,” Keating responds, with his easy smile, “but you cannot dream if you do not sleep. And if you sleep in my class, you will miss some golden opportunities to follow your dreams.”

Neil fights laughter, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees that Todd is already in the throes of it, and so he gives up his solemnity and grins. 

“We are such stuff as dreams are made of,” Neil quotes, “and our little life is rounded with sleep.”

“Ah,” says Keating, “our good friend William. But, Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/Within his bending sickle's compass come;/Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,/But bears it out even to the edge of doom. Love waits,” he says, “and you have time. So long as in sleeping, you wait as well.”

The eyes of their teacher twinkle again as he gathers up his things and proceeds to the open classroom door.

Todd turns to Neil. “What— what d’you think he meant by that?”

Neil stares after Keating, though he feels Todd’s eyes upon him. 

“No idea,” he says. 

He lies.

���

Todd has been keeping Neil’s secret for months now. Two months, to be exact, and all he has to do is keep it for one more night, because Neil’s father mustn’t find out. Neil’s father mustn’t find out that Neil is going to be in a play. 

But be in a play Neil will, and Todd has never seen him as happy as he is now. 

They’re all here in the wings. Todd and Charlie and Meeks and Pitts and Knox, with Chris, and Ca— well, actually, Cameron seems not to be here. Todd has no idea where he’s got to, but he hasn’t seen him, and to be honest, he doesn’t rightly care where Cameron is. But Keating is here too and Neil— beautiful, brilliant Neil— waiting for the lights to dim and for the last of the audience to take their seats. 

Neil is in costume— a simple thing, matching greenish-grey trousers and shirt, a crown of twining twigs and ruby berries upon his hair. The lot of them have been talking animatedly for the past few minutes, Neil the most animated of them all, but now Keating glances at his wristwatch and announces that they should probably make their way to their seats, before the theatre falls entirely dark. Murmurs of agreement ensue, and the gaggle of boys turn to follow Keating. 

Keating pauses, touches Neil’s shoulder. 

“Break a leg, ye merry Puck.” He grins, and Neil smiles happily. 

Meeks and Pitts wish Neil the same, and he nods his thanks. Knox tells Neil good luck, to the uproar of Charlie.

Charlie cuffs the back of Knox’s head, and Knox yelps. “What kind of idiot are you?” 

“You tell me!” says Knox. “What kind of idiot am I, Charlie?” 

“You don’t tell actors good luck!” Charlie rebuts. “That’s the kind of idiot you are.”

Charlie stalks off, and Knox runs after him. Their conversation floats back to Neil and Todd, who stare after them. 

“But what kind?! CHARLIE!”

Todd finds Neil laughing when he turns back to his friend. 

“They’re both idiots,” he says. “The same kind.”

“S why they get along so well,” Todd responds, and Neil nods his agreement. 

Then at once, his eyes flit away from the shrinking figures of Charlie and Knox, and when Todd looks at him, Neil’s gaze dances with light.

“What?” says Todd, a half-smile already upon his face. 

Neil’s eyes meet with Todd’s, and he grins. “I’m just so excited! I’ve never been this excited before, I mean, to be in a play, to be in an actual play, and not just any play, but Shakespeare— Todd!” Neil laughs delightedly, spinning in a wild circle with his arms outstretched, so that he nearly whacks Todd in the process. 

Todd laughs as well, and marvels at the colour of Neil’s eyes, a colour for which he has no name but the-colour-of-Neil’s-eyes-colour. He’s never seen a colour like this anywhere else, with the sheer spirit and liveliness it bears, despite the fact that it is only a colour, and colours cannot be neither spirited nor lively. But then there are Neil’s eyes, staring back into his, and Todd thinks that colours can most certainly be both spirited and lively.

“I’m so excited, I swear I could do anything.”

“Anything?” says Todd, as the lights begin to dim. 

“Anything! I could run a marathon—”

Todd laughs. 

“— scale a mountain, write a poem far better than yours—”

Todd scoffs, not at that Neil should be able to write something better than he, but at that Neil thinks Todd sets a standard for poem-writing in the first place. 

“— alright,” says Neil, “maybe not a poem better than yours, but still!” He’s breathless, now, eyes flitting from the stage lights to the stage itself, all about the world around him, and back to Todd. Always back to Todd. “I could fly,” Neil says. “I really think I could fly. I have this feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“Yeah, a feeling,” he breathes. “Like I’m invincible. Like I could do anything.”

“That’s generally the definition of the word ‘invincible’,” Todd deadpans. But nothing can or will faze Neil Perry. 

“I’m so excited I could dance. Sing—”

“Yeah, got that. You could do anything.”

“Todd, I could kiss you, I’m so excited!”

It slips out, just slips out. That much is apparent to Todd, even as his cheeks flush crimson in the waning light, even as Neil’s eyes grow soft and Todd finds he can’t look away. 

It slips out, but Neil is entirely serious. 

Todd’s stomach does somersaults as he opens his mouth to stammer out that it’s fine, they can forget about what Neil’s said, but then Neil stoops and kisses him. 

Gently. Quickly. He’s drawn back again before Todd can think to respond, though he realises his eyelids have fluttered shut. 

When he opens his eyes, there’s a sigh on his parted lips, and he’s taken half a step forward, drifted toward Neil.

Neil’s face is impassive as he straightens up, but his eyes are soft and searching. 

Todd wonders what he’s searching for, but he once again has no time to react before someone calls,

“Neil, showtime!”

Neil drops his gaze to the floor and spins away from Todd, showing no signs of the adrenaline high that presently has Todd in its thrall, rushing through him like an opened dam— there’s no coming back from this. 

But before Neil gets too far away, Todd grabs his hand and squeezes. 

Neil doesn’t look back, though his fingers curl in Todd’s grasp. 

He disappears amongst the crowd of cast and crew before another word can be exchanged. 

Todd doesn’t think anyone saw them, but he understands Neil’s caution, even as his heart twists in his chest and he makes his way to Mr. Keating and the others in the audience. 

He settles into his seat as the lights finally fade into shadows, and Keating glances at Todd as though to ask if he’s okay. 

Todd gives a brief nod and turns his head toward the stage, hoping Keating cannot see the apprehension in his eyes. 

But as Neil and his castmates take the stage, Todd forgets everything but the show, and how talented Neil is as part of it. He chortles alongside the rest of the audience, smiles upon Neil with reverence, the way an astronomer would look upon a star, an artist upon their paints, an adventurer upon the undiscovered secrets of the universe. 

His heart is full, his hands are warm.

And Neil lights up the stage.

⭒

They’re taking their bows upon the edge of the stage, striding forward to be met with the standing ovation gifted to them by the audience, and as the house lights come back up, Neil sees his friends and Keating applauding, whistling, cheering for him. Sees Todd cheering for him, for once the loudest of them all.

And then the curtains are closing and Neil exhales the high coursing through his veins, throws back his head and laughs as his castmates shout and celebrate around him. They jostle, congratulating one another and him, and Neil congratulates them in turn. 

But then there's a cloud, because he’s being told that his father is waiting for him. 

He changes briskly, takes his duffle bag in one hand and his crooked crown in the other, and parts the grand drape. He doesn’t breathe as he lifts his gaze, and makes eye contact with his father.

Any hopes he had of his father understanding this talent of his, this acting, which is not a fleeting love but an enduring one, disappears when he next exhales, a puff of air in the coldness of night, gone before you have time to fully realise that it is there. 

Silently, Neil follows his father out the door. His friends fall upon him, some of them calling to him to congratulate him on his performance, others to invite him to some kind of afterparty. 

“I can’t, guys,” he is forced to say, though really he has no idea why it is that he can’t. Neil was good as Puck. Neil knows he was good. Can’t his father see that too?

Somebody says his name as he’s walking, but it’s not until the repetition of it that Neil startles to perceive Keating beside him.

“You have the gift! What a performance!” 

Keating is smiling and Neil smiles back, momentarily lost in that someone has spoken what he wants to hear. “You left even me speechless!”

It does not last. 

“Stay in the car,” Neil’s father growls. “And Keating. You stay away from my son.”

Charlie is shouting Neil’s name, shouting an appeal to Neil’s father, but the latter only glares, and Neil gets into the car without argument. 

As the car is started and driven away, Neil’s gaze lingers on Todd’s, through the window, through the snow. 

⭒

They’re walking back to school, where they’ve left their bikes, when Todd stops in his tracks.

The others have been talking, but Todd has been thinking. Thinking about earlier.

He can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. Or that something was wrong. Or will be wrong. 

And suddenly there’s an urgency that plagues him, and he has to see Neil, or he won’t be able to sleep that night, or any night.

He stops, turns, and then simply starts running. 

Carpe fucking diem.

“Hey— Todd!” Charlie is the one shouting, again. “What’re you—  where are you—”

“I’ll catch up with you guys later!” Todd calls back. 

“But where’re you going?!” says Meeks.

“Neil’s!” 

He begins to run properly, pumping his arms, letting the wind assault his senses as it whips the hair about his face, as he throws himself forward like he’s falling. And he is falling. But not because of gravity.

He barely knows where he’s going, but he and Neil have walked home together plenty a time, and so he remembers what street Neil lives on, by intuition, if not by name. 

When he reaches the street he’s looking for, he slows and nearly slips in the snow when he makes a hairpin turn onto the lane. 

From a run to a jog to a walk he slows, because now he’s looking for Neil’s father’s car to identify the house. 

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Todd mutters as he hurries up the road, scanning left and right, left, right, left— right again. 

His heart is sinking and he bites his lip, starts to notice the cold, how his fingers tremble with it, his cheeks burning from the wind. 

And then he sees it. 

And he runs. 

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do once he gets there, but within moments, he’s there. He has to be here. 

He runs across the grass, and then, by sheer luck, he sees it: Neil’s crown from the play, sitting atop a windowsill in the upper floor of the house. 

Todd’s eyes scour the ground, but the snow is thick, and there are no pebbles. 

He glances up again, and that desperation seizes him. Back down to the ground, and still he sees nothing. But then the next time he looks up, there’s Neil, standing in the window, and the crown is upon his head. 

He stares forward into the darkness of the night, blankly, and Todd has rarely seen him this colourless. Still, there is something beautiful in those dark eyes, in the curve of his mouth and how it matches that of his shoulders. 

Todd considers shouting, but then he doesn’t want to wake the whole of the Perry household.

In one moment, Todd is watching Neil through the window, and in the next he has formed a snowball in his hands. 

He arcs it toward the window with a huff, never dreaming that it will land.

Much less dreaming that it will sail straight through the window— which appears to be open— and catch Neil upon his bare shoulder.

Neil startles with a gasp, the coldness of the snow instantaneous in reviving him from his reverie, and when he sees from whence the projectile came, his mouth falls agape. 

“Todd?”

“I— I don’t know how I’m going to climb a drainpipe in a suit but I’m—” Todd swallows, steels himself. “I’m going to do it.”

He braces one foot against the brick and grasps the drainpipe with both hands, attempts to hoist himself upward. 

“Todd, you’re crazy,” says Neil, and he’s leaning against the windowsill, the way Todd did the first time when Neil came to visit him. “This is crazy. Get down from there, you’ll fall!”

Sure enough, Todd slips, but he wasn’t really off of the ground in the first place, so it doesn’t matter. He looks up at Neil, standing in the window. 

“You’re crazy,” he replies. “And you’ll freeze to death. Get back inside.”

But Neil shakes his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Todd huffs in indignation. “Well, what then?”

Neil smiles. “Hang on.”

“Hang on?” Todd mutters, as Neil disappears from the window. “I’m still on the ground, how can I hang on?”

But then Neil reappears in the window, and drops a length of bundled bed sheets out the window. 

Todd dodges before they smack him in the head, then takes the end like a rope that’s meant for climbing. 

He calls to Neil in a stage whisper, “How do you just so happen to have bed sheets made into a rope?” 

“Silly goose,” says Neil. “How do you think I get out of the house when I go to visit you?’

Todd grins in response, and Neil mirrors. 

“Now come on. I’ve got you.”

With one final eyebrow raise directed at Neil, Todd shrugs and begins his ascent up the brick. 

It’s an arduous climb, particularly since Todd has never done anything like this before, but Neil’s grip does not falter, and soon Neil is pulling Todd through the window, and Todd is collapsing atop Neil on the bedroom floor. 

Todd blushes, embarrassed, but Neil laughs and winds Todd in his arms, and Todd feels as though his heart will burst. 

“What are you doing here?” Neil asks, when he stops laughing. But it’s more habit than actual askance, and Neil has rolled over so that the two of them are on the floor beside one another. He props himself up on one elbow and stares at Todd, that soft expression ever-prevailing. 

Todd shrugs, because he doesn’t know how to answer, doesn’t actually know what made him turn around and sprint through ice and snow to Neil’s house, and really, now that he’s here, it seems sort of ridiculous.

“Dunno. Couldn’t let you leave like that.” He’s mumbling, and something about what he says makes Neil’s face fall. It breaks Todd’s heart a little. “Neil?”

Neil presses his lips together, and Todd’s eyes trace constellations in the spattering of freckles that cover Neil’s shoulders. He repeats the other boy’s name quietly, and Neil inhales stutteringly. 

“My father’s sending me to military school.”

“What?” Todd says. “Military school?”

Neil nods, avoiding Todd’s gaze. 

“But what about Welton?”

“Pulling me out tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, but that’s— he can’t do that, can he? In the middle of the year?”

“He can,” says Neil morosely. 

Todd doesn’t know what it is that’s driving him any longer, but it certainly is not his head, because he grabs Neil’s hand. 

Neil looks up. 

“It’ll be okay,” Todd says. “I’ll write to you. We’ll all write to you. In a year, you’ll be eighteen, and then—” Todd’s being bold, forward, doesn’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s doing it, pushing his fingers through the hair that falls loosely over Neil’s forehead— “then you can do whatever you want.”

“Whatever?” inquires Neil, and the smile has returned to his voice, his eyes. 

Todd cants his head to one side, and he thinks that Neil has moved closer. Any closer at all, and Todd swears he will disintegrate. “Whatever you want,” he murmurs. But in truth, he’s not really thinking anymore, as Neil’s sigh fans his lips. 

“Can I kiss you again?”

Todd lets out a nervous giggle. “I don’t know, Neil. Can you?”

And Neil does. 

Neil kisses Todd deeply and steals the air from his lungs, the thoughts from his mind, the senses from his body, until there is nothing but thoughts of Neil and the curve of Neil’s body against his own. Neil is soft, like his smiles, and Todd feels himself melt, helplessly tracing fingertips over Neil’s skin, to touch those constellations he has only ever looked upon— and even so, rarely— lets Neil push the hair back from his face and kiss him with the lips that have for weeks read him poetry, shared emotions never shared with anyone else, breathed encouragement and compliment to no end, with ardour, with truth, with love. 

Then abruptly, Neil’s mouth is gone from Todd’s, and Todd groans his discontent.

“Do you really think I could do anything?” says Neil, his hands resting on either side of Todd’s face.

“Anything,” says Todd.

“So you think I could be an actor, for real?”

Todd snorts. “For real, I think you could do anything. Most easily of all become an actor. You were good, Neil,” he whispers. “Really good.”

Neil positively beams, and Todd resolves that he wants to see Neil smiling like this forever and always. 

He loves that he, of all people, can make Neil smile like this. 

“Come see me tomorrow,” Neil breathes, “before I go.” 

Todd promises to.

Neil seals the promise with a kiss. 

The two part, and Todd departs, but they reunite upon the morrow.

And when they part again, Todd begins his first letter to Neil, writes to him then and there. Tells him of how he and the others already miss him terribly, though in truth, Neil cannot yet be far down the road that leads from Welton. 

Todd writes to Neil that day, and the day after, and every day after that. 

A year later, he stops writing to Neil, and Neil stops replying, because they see one another every day, free of parents and free of Welton, free to be with their friends and with each other, free to meet their former English teacher for coffee on Thursday afternoons, because that is simply how it is supposed to be.

They are living their dreams, and they are truly free.

Twas thus, and always thus will be.

#my tags are a mess but here we go #anderperry #anderperry fic #todd anderson #neil perry #neil x todd #dead poets society #fic

[antoine-roquentin]

Since World War II, every two-term Republican president has been more right wing than the one before. Dwight Eisenhower was first. Then Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In between these five Republican presidents, there were four sets of Democratic administrations: Kennedy/Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Obama.

Each of these Democratic administrations made key concessions to the right, and these concessions produced resentment and frustration. Kennedy/Johnson went to war in Vietnam to prove that they were just as tough and anti-communist as the Republicans. Carter appointed Paul Volcker Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and began pursuing a ruthless anti-inflation policy that drove up unemployment and laid the foundation for the neoliberal era. Clinton sliced the federal budget and attacked the welfare system. Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011, starving the recovery of necessary stimulus and allowing extraordinarily unequal growth.

Carter, Clinton, and Obama all oversaw increases in inequality. The top 1%’s share of income increased under all three:

Democrats promise to help us and then let the oligarchs get their way. The frustrated American has nowhere to turn but the Republican Party, and Republicans attract them by becoming steadily more nationalist and more committed to liquidating the establishment and its institutions. Ordinary rank and file Republicans hate government because they think it’s too corrupt to do any good for them. Every chance the Democrats get to prove them wrong, they fail. Worse, they reinforce the view.

When Americans vote for Republicans, they’re often voting against the consequences of the right wing policies of Democrats. Think about it:

Nixon won in part because Americans didn’t trust the Democrats to end Vietnam, a war the Democrats started because they were afraid of looking soft on communism. Of course, Nixon then escalated the Vietnam War.

Reagan won in part because Americans believed that Carter’s economic policies–the right-wing policies of Paul Volcker’s Federal Reserve–hadn’t made them better off than they were four years ago. Of course, Reagan then escalated Volcker’s war on inflation.

Bush won in part because he promised to return the surplus Clinton had accumulated through miserly right-wing budgeting to the American people via tax cuts. Bush then gave that money to rich people and spent trillions on insane vanity wars.

Trump won in part because he promised that the people who were left out of Obama’s recovery–the “forgotten people”–would be his priority. Of course, he has continued to give piles of money to rich people and to prioritise inflating the stock market over ensuring ordinary Americans can pay their bills.

It wasn’t always like this. Franklin Roosevelt forced the Republican Party to adapt to him. Before Roosevelt, the Republicans were the party of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. They had little regard for the government’s ability to step in and protect its citizens’ fundamental economic rights. But after Roosevelt, the Republicans became the party of Eisenhower. They became a party that was comfortable building interstate highways with public money and wouldn’t dare raise a hand to Social Security.

McCarthyism broke the domination of Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition, and with it, the ability of the Democratic Party to set the agenda. From that point forward, the Democrats have adjusted to the Republican Party, and in the process they have normalized its excesses and encouraged it to go further. Nixon was comfortable secretly bombing Cambodia because Kennedy and Johnson lied about their wars. Reagan was comfortable driving unemployment through the roof in the early 80s because Carter had already begun the experiment. Bush was comfortable cutting taxes for the rich because Clinton had given him the surplus he could use to fund it. Trump has been able to prioritise the stock market portfolios of the rich because under Obama a skewed recovery had become our new normal.

Joe Biden loves to tell us that “nothing will fundamentally change”. If nothing changes, another Democrat will normalise what Trump has done and frustrate the American people into voting for someone even more right-wing.

Look at what’s happened with Bush. He’s more popular than ever before. In the 00s, we recognised that Bush was nuts. Bush believed the God wanted him to bring peace to the Middle East by spreading democracy by the sword. That’s crazy! He killed hundreds of thousands of people and accomplished absolutely nothing.

But Barack Obama destroyed Libya in 2011. The civil war in that country continues to this day. And many of the people who recognised that Bush was nuts made excuses for that, and they made excuses for Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State who urged him to do it. They acted like it was no big deal. And now people don’t think Bush’s wars were a big deal, either. They miss him. When Obama was first elected, the American people knew Bush was a terrible president. In January of 2009, Bush had a net favorability rating of negative 19. In the summer of 2016, it was plus 9. A year after that, it was plus 22.

The experience of the Obama administration made the American people decide that George W. Bush was okay. Worse, it made Trump possible. Some Americans moved from Obama to Trump, looking once more for hope and change. Many others stopped voting, because Obama broke their confidence in our political system’s ability to help them. They believed in Obama, and Obama let the rich get richer and let the forgotten stay forgotten.

The Democrats are a big part of how we got to where we are. And if we think that the Republicans are authoritarian nationalists, it is the Democrats who have encouraged them to become that way. The ordinary American cannot look to the Democrats to resist the ravenous elite. They look to the nationalist firebrands of the right because there is nothing else on the menu. The Democratic Party is the party of the Ivy League technocrats who scorn them and tell them to “learn to code”.

Joe Biden solidifies all of this all over again. He is the embodiment of keeping things exactly the way they’ve always been. The American people have been bludgeoned for forty years by oligarchs. They can’t take it anymore. They’ll vote for anyone who promises to make it stop. If the Democrats won’t stop it, they’ll vote for someone who will. The next Republican will be worse than Trump, and Joe Biden will make it happen if given the chance.

Donald Trump Doesn’t Pose an Existential Threat to Democracy

The Democrats say we have to stop Trump because Trump is an authoritarian who poses an existential threat to democracy. But for Trump to be a dictator, he would have to stage sham elections or ignore the results of elections that are free and fair. Trump hasn’t tried to hold a sham election–he’s tried to delay one that’s free and fair, because he knows that if he loses he won’t be able to ignore the result. He hasn’t even managed to secure his delay, much less anything more than that.

Authoritarians use crises to seize power. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán used coronavirus to consolidate power around himself. But Trump responded to coronavirus by running away from decision-making responsibility. Instead, he kicked decisions to governors and mayors. Coronavirus gave Trump an opportunity to centralise power around himself, but he chose to decentralise power instead. He likes the trappings of power, but is afraid of the real deal.

Trump talks a big game about cutting trade links with countries all over the world. But his trade wars usually bring us back where we started, with trade deals that are almost indistinguishable from those that came before. His new version of NAFTA is virtually identical to the old version of NAFTA. He has tried to push jobs and investment out of China, but they’ve been sliding down the coast to Vietnam instead of returning to America. His bark is worse than his bite.

Ultimately, an authoritarian needs the backing of the military. The military has to allow the authoritarian to hold sham elections, or to ignore the results of elections that are free and fair. But America’s leading generals largely despise the president. Our intelligence services loathe him. The military remains committed to the constitution and will arrest Trump if he loses and attempts to carry on. Trump knows this, and that’s why he suggested delaying the election–he knows he could lose, and he knows that if he loses he won’t be able to keep going.

Trump has treated protesters terribly–but he’s not the first American president to do so. The Hoover administration used tanks to bulldoze the bonus army’s camp in 1932, killing two demonstrators and injuring dozens. It was a brutal and shameful act, but it wasn’t the end of American democracy:

The Democrats said Bush had an “imperial presidency“. Then Barack Obama tried to outflank congress with a series of outrageous, unconstitutional executive orders, and many of the same people cheered him on. Now when Donald Trump throws out piles of orders that are probably unconstitutional, the Democrats try to get us outraged again. But the American people are used to the president trying to get away with things. Barack Obama made it cool.

Many of Obama’s unconstitutional orders were struck down by the courts. The Democrats tell us we should be worried that Trump is packing the courts full of stooges who will approve of everything he does. But judges aren’t very predictable. Neil Gorsuch has already voted against the president’s wishes on transgender employees. John Roberts increasingly votes against the president’s wishes to protect the court’s legitimacy. Many of the court’s liberals have historically been appointed by Republicans. Earl Warren was appointed by Eisenhower. John Paul Stevens was appointed by Gerald Ford. David Souter was appointed by George H.W. Bush.

Even if Trump really does pack the court, many on the left have called for packing the judiciary or reforming its structure. In the past, they’ve suggested doing this simply because they don’t agree with the politics of the current judges–not because they believe the judges to be authoritarian. If it’s really the case that Trump manages to load the judiciary up with raving authoritarian nationalists, the judicial reforms already under consideration by the left could be used to undo the damage.

The real concern is not a president who is allied with judges–it’s an authoritarian ruler who is allied with the military. Donald Trump alienated all the leading figures in our armed forces by ignoring their advice, leaking classified information to the press, and blatantly disparaging both them and the intelligence they gathered. Because of this, they will never support any authoritarian bid emanating from him.

We need to articulate a compelling left-wing alternative to the politics of the past 40 years. When Republicans are in office, we flip out over every little thing they do. We oppose it all. People who reject the status quo come to the left and look to the left for a new way forward. But when Democrats are in office, there is no meaningful left-wing opposition. Intellectuals point out the failings of Democratic presidents, but they are derided as bad sports. People who reject the status quo are pushed toward the Republican Party, and pushed into authoritarian nationalism.

A Biden Administration Will Create a Whole New Generation of Bad Democrats

The left hopes that replacing Trump with Biden will buy the left time. But Biden will pack his administration full of a whole new generation of vulgar careerists. It will be these people–not the left–who inherit the Democratic Party when he leaves. They will have the institutional knowledge and connections and access to money that are needed for success in American politics. They will continue servicing the oligarchs. And the Republican Party will respond by growing ever more bellicose, ever more grandiose, ever more willing to tear the whole thing down. Biden will accelerate the rise of new nationalist figures who might be able to do all the things Trump can’t even dream of doing.

We can’t have that, and for that reason I can’t support Biden, even as a matter of strategy. To give the left more time, we need to give the left something to oppose. We can oppose the Trump administration in its second term. But if it’s Biden, we’ll be stuck defending him as he slugs the ordinary American in the face. The American people won’t forget the black eye we’ve given them, and they’ll vote for the leaders who will be the death of us.

[paradoxolotl]

Oh my, all those wips! I’m always interested in anything you write, but now I’m really curious about Words Unspoken and The Pull, apart from everything else.

(Love your writing, and your doodles)

Thank you 🥺🥺🥺

Because you asked about these two, have another snippet or two!

~~

Words Unspoken

When he reached the room his uncle had pointed out for him, Neil couldn’t understand why he had thought Neil would like it. It was on the corner of the house and had pale walls and soft carpet. The most noteworthy thing in it was the large window facing the backyard with a ledge underneath it that was deep enough for him to sit on. The room was good enough if otherwise unremarkable and he didn’t care enough to change it, so Neil tossed his bag into the corner.

Settling onto the ledge, Neil looked out into the backyard, studying the single tree and sad flowerbeds there. Neither he nor his uncle had a green thumb, so Neil doubted it would look any better later on. Their neighbour’s garden, on the other hand, was full of lush greens and climbing vines and sudden pops of colour. He could just spot a vegetable garden off by the fence with tomato cages and larger bushes with what might have been berries. The image of the two yards side by side was almost funny.

Neil was about to turn away and go find his uncle when a flash of movement caught his eye. There was a giant cat walking along the fence, its feathery tail slowly flicking back and forth as it moved. It was watching something intently, its ears perked forward. Its giant white paws stepped almost delicately along the fence, and Neil was amazed the thing, as large as it was, didn’t just topple over. After a few moments, it settled down, somehow managing to lay its body over the thin wood of the fence.

Curious, Neil tapped on his window. Its ear twitched but it didn’t turn its head. He tapped again, a little harder. This time, it glanced over its shoulder, its eyes glowing yellow in the sun. Neil tapped again and those eyes found him, looking almost unimpressed at the interruption. It dismissed him with a flick of its ear, turning back to whatever it found so interesting in the neighbour’s yard.

Huffing out a breath, Neil hugged his knees up to his chest, dropping his chin onto them. He could hear the floors in the hall creak under his uncle’s weight as he moved through the house, a steady noise accompanied by soft footsteps. Neil let his mind track the movements as he watched the cat. He wondered if it was his neighbour’s, or if it was just passing through.

“Neil!” Stuart called. “The movers will be here soon!”

Sighing, Neil stretched out his legs, his knees cracking with the movement. He tapped the glass again, seeing if he could get the cat’s attention. It stood up, and Neil pressed his forehead to the glass, somehow excited over something so small, but the cat didn’t even turn to look. It hopped off the fence and into the neighbour’s yard, disappearing from view. Frowning, Neil went to turn away when he saw a flash of blond so pale it was almost white. A boy around his age was walking back towards what must be his house, the cat in his arms. Neil stared down at unblinking yellow eyes set into a furry grey face.

The boy shifted, looking at his cat before his eyes tracked up to where Neil sat. His gaze bore into Neil, sharp and cutting in an otherwise apathetic face. He was all pale skin and golden tones wrapped in black clothing, and Neil couldn’t help but stare. They watched each other for what felt like an eternity, neither daring to blink. Finally, when Neil felt something buzzing under his skin, the boy lifted a hand and gave Neil a mocking two-fingered salute before turning around and slipping out of view.

Swallowing, Neil shook himself and finally moved away from the window. As he moved further into the house to help his uncle, he couldn’t stop thinking about yellow eyes staring back at him.

~~

The Pull

Neil was at the beach again. The weather was shit, the ocean angry and the wind spiteful, but Andrew could still see the glint of auburn from the road. There was a scattering of bodies along the beach, people either too stupid or too hopeful to know today was better off spent chasing ice cream from fingers than sitting on scalding sand. Not that Andrew had much room to judge.

Throwing his car in park, he sent a final look at the steel grey sky before climbing out. Immediately he could taste the grit on his tongue, the wind’s greedy fingers tugging at his clothes as he picked his way down the path. The long grass whispered against his legs, and he paused before shucking off his shoes when he reached the sand. It burned like hell, his skin rubbing raw against the heat, but Andrew refused to falter.

Neil looked up from where he was staring out at the ocean when Andrew tossed his shoes down. Settling beside him on the smooth wood of the log, Andrew kept his eyes on the crashing waves. It was cold, this close to the water, sending goosebumps along his skin. Or maybe that was the ever present tug in his gut, trying to pull him into the dark depths.

“Not surfing today?”

Andrew watched the dark shape of a bird high above them, it’s wings outstretched as it moved through a current unknown. “No.”

#aftg #all for the game #aftg fanfiction #aftg fic wip #para’s fics #ask para #ask about my wips

[theblogchelor]

The Bachelor Week Ten Point Five aka Sweet Mercies Are In Endings

Here’s What Happened Tuesday

Proposals, breakups, Babs, photobooths, deeply hateful rhetoric, Kelley?

Let’s dive in, finale style.

The Proposal

Peter, a man left with one subpar option, employs a method that men have been employing for centuries of subpar options: willful self-delusion. He gives himself a Hannah Anna pep talk, chooses a ring from Neil Lane’s briefcase of mysteries, and facetimes Father Sluss to ask for his blessing.

Hannah Anna, faced with the knowledge of being potential second best, employs the method that women have been employing for centuries: just napping through it. Eventually she wakes up, now hours late for her proposal, and calls an Uber to drive her into the middle of the bush to meet Peter.

And thus commences the marriage proposal equivalent of someone going in for the handshake while the other goes in for the hug. Peter explains that his heart had been pulled in two different directions, but that Madison already left, he’s scared of his mom, and she’s his only remaining option. Hannah Anna emphatically accepts.

The Un-Proposal

A month later in LA, Hannah Anna sits on Peter’s lap while he tells her that he can’t give her his full heart. Hannah Anna takes off the ring which was never sized for her and gives it back to Peter. Hannah Anna has questions. How dare he take her precious first engagement from her? Why does he have a photobooth in his home? What kind of creepy shit is that?

Fast forward to now. Hannah Anna has spent weeks with her defense attorneys prepping for her After the Final Rose opening statements. Somehow she manages to flip the script of signing up for a reality TV show to not being given the full information of what her proposal acceptance would mean, and even more significantly, she gets Peter’s mother to provide a character testimony for her. Barbara, from the crowd, actively claps as Hannah Anna tells her son to take a long walk off a short pier.

The Madison Revival

Back in Alabama, Chris Harrison throws pebbles at Madison’s door until she lets him in. He informs her of the pending-to-unpending nuptials, then encourages her to fly to LA and rekindle the spark – a spark that died, I’ll remind you, because these are two completely incompatible people. But this time it miraculously sticks.

If looks could kill, Barb would have Madison lying dead on the live stage floor while Madison confesses that she still loves Peter. Dressed in her best funereal blacks, Barb vocalizes her deep detestation of Madison, a woman who made her wait three hours and didn’t even let her son get it. Madison smiles at her and reminds her that her son’s penis is not her only priority. And, after a season of pain, that’s basically where we leave it.

I need a drink.

#The Bachelor #Bachelor #bachelorette #the bachelorette #thebachelor #The Women Tell All #the bachelor finale #pilot pete #Peter Weber #hannah ann sluss #madison prewett #bachelor in paradise #bachelor nation #blogchelorpeter

[futurewriter2000]

Sweet Rebels - Pt. 4

A/N: Finished this and am kind of proud. I love Knox so much. He my bae but yeah part 4 is done <3

XX

Everything was perfect. Words couldn't describe the perfect completion of yourself. The hold of his long arms, the movement of his chest and the sweet scent of his cologne on you. Looking up at his gorgeous brown eyes stuck on the ceiling, you got the opportunity to see those little details of his face features. The wrinkles on the corners of his eyes, the cheeks his usual grin is plastered on and beautifu arch of his upper lip. 

"Enjoying the view?" he grinned, taking you closer and nuzzling closer. 

"Are you always this cocky?" you rolled your eyes.

"You haven't seen nothing yet." he climbed on top of you and placed a soft and slow kiss on your lips. His hands went under the covers and he deppened the following kisses, slowly moving down to your neck. 

"N-uh." you smiled and pushed him off. "You have to go." you stood up and put shirt on.

He groaned and burried his head in the pillow. "Why?!?" he grumbled in the sheets and looked back up, seeing you fiddling with his tie. You put it around your neck and walked to the mirror.

He smiled as he saw his white shirt so wonderfully hugging your body and your bare legs exposing the stunning colour of your skin. 

"You know..." you said as you kept looking in the mirror, playing with his tie around your neck. "... This tie isn't as ugly as I thought it was." you turned around, seeing him grin. "But then again, nothing looks ugly on me." you winked and walked back to him.

He laughed as you approached him slowly, and as the tie hung close to his chest, he twisted it around his knuckles and pulled you down to him. "Who's the cocky one now?"

---

When Charlie came to his room, he expected Cameron to attack him with questions but unfortunately, Cameron wasn't in his room and so he went to Knox's, Meeks' and lastly to Neil's room.

Nobody. Not one.

Was everybody at breakfast?

No. They couldn't be. It's only six.

"Oh, look who decided to show up?" Neil's voice echoed at the door.

"Where the hell are all of you?"

"Study hall. Studying." Neil smiled,grabbing his math book. "Forgot my book."

So, when Charlie did come down to the study hall, completely stuck in his own head that was when the questions struck.

"How was it, Dalton?" Cameron whispered, grinning as the others exchanged looks.

Charlie looked up, placing his usual grin on and biting his lower lip in the process.

"Come on, Dalton. Spill!" Pitts insisted.

"I shouldn't be telling you this but..." he wiggled his eyebrows. "Poetry has nothing on women." he kept spilling. "Her breasts were like and she did this thing..."

And as Charlie continued to talk about your intimate night, spilling out all the details of every inch of your body, Knox stood at the doorway hiding and listening.

And he felt... He felt embarrased. He felt embarrassed for you because you were this amazing girl, his trusting friend and Charlie was talking about you like you were nothing more than an object.

That was why he snuck to the phone booth before bed-time and spun your number.

You sounded as he expected. Cheery.

"Hello?"

"Hey, (y/n). It's me, Knox." he said quietly.

"The Knox Overstreet. The I love pancakes woth lemon juice Knox Overstreet?" you teased and he laughed.

"Yeah. That's me." he smiled than at the thought of what he has to say, frowned upon him.

He has to tell you. It's the right thing to do.

Is it? Is it worth to betray his best friend?

But you're there too. You don't deserve this.

"Knox? Are you still there?"

"Uh- yeah." he stuttered and at this point, you just knew something was wrong.

"What's wrong?"

"I shouldn't be telling you this, (y/n) but-" he stopped, contemplating. "I-well-"

"Just tell me."

And he did. He said it all. Every little detail he heard Charlie say was true and if it wasn't for the phone separating you and Knox, he would probably hug you. Because now you were on the ground with tears in your eyes and your dignity stripped.

Knox knew you were hurt. He could feel your smile gone, your usual cheer erased. "I'm sorry, (y/n)." he sighed in the phone and you felt a sob escape your mouth.

"Uhm-" you cleared your throat, sniffing in. "No, don't be. Thank you for telling me. I won't tell him you told me."

"I don't care about that. Are you okay?"

"Thanks Knox. Gotta go."

"(y/n)-" he said but there was nothing but a beeping sound on the phone line. He put the phone down and went up stairs but little did he know that another meeting would be held this night.

---

And Knox wasn't enjoying it. Not even the slightest bit. Because he watched Charlie boasting and beaming in the cave meanwhile you were home, crying. And it was unfair. Knox being with Charlie instead of you.

And he just. Snapped.

"Why did you do it?" he asked loudly so that the question echoed in the cave.

Charlie looked at his friend and noticed that the question was directed to him. "Why did I do what?"

"She's my friend, Dalton! How can you keep saying those things about her?!" he was now standing up.

"Excuse me." Charlie kept grinning, standing his ground.

"If I knew that all you were gonna do to her was use her and then strip her of her dignity, I would have never introduced her to you."

"You wanted to know. So now you know."

"Yeah. And so does she."

Charlie's grin wiped itself faster than a light second. "Wh-What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I told her what you said to us and how you said it- and how could you?!"

Charlie was now close to Knox by an inch. "You told her?"

"Yes. She deserves to know what an utter prick you are!" and the first punch was thrown. Charlie lashed himself on Knox and Knox fought back strongly until Neil, Pitts and Meeks tore them apart.

"YOU HAD NO RIGHT INTERFERRING WITH MY BUSSINESS WITH HER!" Charlie roared at Knox. "SHE'S MY GIRL!"

"If she was your girl you wouldn't have treated her the way you did!"

"FUCK YOU!" shouted Charlie and stormed out the cave, racing to the city, racing to you.

Yet, his body wasn't the only thing that was racing, so was his mind.

He-why would Knox tell you?! He didn't-He couldn't have known-He's - God why is he such an idiot!

He was already at the foot of your window and he could see that it was slightly opened.

He can't use the front door. He can't even climb up. It's all but bricks. He can't throw a rock. He can't do anything.

Except wait.

And wait was exactly what he did.

He waited all night, in the freezing cold until a sound of Keating's voice woke him up. "I'll be back as soon as I can! Make yourself some tea! And try putting a hot water bottle on it!" he shouted until he closed the door and left.

Charlie, frozen to death, knocked on the door, ringed it times and times again until your voice rang. "Forgot your keys again!" you shouted, thinking it was your uncle but instead of green eyes, brown were looking back. They were wide and scared but you just didn’t care about that anymore. "Screw you!" you snarled, smacking the door at his face.

"(y/n)!" he put his foot inbetween so the door wouldn't shut. "Just listen to me." his voice shook violently. "I-I'm-" and there was darkness.

---

"Pick up. Pick up. Pick up." he heard as he gained back his coinscience. He opened his eyes slowly until the vision got clearer and he could see the girl in front of him, tearing up.

"(y/n)." he spoke weakley.

"Oh my God." you dropped the phone back and ran to him. "How are you? Are you okay? Please, don't do this to me again!"

"Drama is my middle name." he tried to joke and for a moment you almost smiled. For a moment you almost forgot because there was this gorgesou charm in his eyes and his wonderful smile that just made you want forget everything Knox has told you. But you couldn’t. You then shook your head and climbed on top of the covers and blankets you wrapped him in.

"Your body temperature is really low, so I have to raise it up. I put a water bottle to your back, for your kidneys need to stay warm and body heat can help as well, so I am only doing this to save your dumbass life." you said with a raspy voice and wrapped yourself around him.

He looked down on you, seeing only a big bush of hair, smelling like coconut. He smiled.

"(y/n), I-"

"Don't." you cut him off. "I don't want to hear it."

"Whatever Knox said, he-"

"-lied?" you looked up at him with glistened eyes.

"No. He said the truth, he protected your name... And I... He's right. I don't deserve you, I just- I just don't know what gets into me. I just want to..." he stopped, sighing as you kept your focus on him. "I just came to appologise. I shouldn't have said those things."

"Well, you did."

"I swear-"

"You swear nothing, Charlie Dalton!" you moved away and stood up, looking anywhere else but at him. "I actually let you into my home! Into my bed! I lied to my uncle who I HAD THE PRIVILAGE TO LIVE WITH! And I risked it all with you!!" you were shouting and screaming at the boy, wrapped in layers of blankets. "Never going to make this mistake again." you huffed and took a few steps back. "I called Knox to tell him to come and get you. He said he wouldn't but Neil would. Here's for the taxi." you put the green on the table and sat on the furthest seat possible.

---

You stood on your doormat, looking him in the eyes.

He stood as well, looking at you, feeling inside that he didn't want that. Deep inside he knew but told himself it was over. He did what he planned to but there was something about you that changed everything.

No. - He shook his head. You're done. He's done. It's over.

#charlie dalton #Charlie Dalton x reader #Charlie Dalton imagines #knox overstreet #Knox overstreet imagine #Dead poets society x reader #Dead poets society imagines #Dead poets society imagine #dead poets society

[andreil-protection-squad]

So I wrote some Kevin x Seth smut and here you have it

Please excuse any grammatical errors, english’s not my first language and I’m still trying to learn how to proper use it in a text lol

Anyway, my second attempt at ever writing smut, please be kind.

__________

“I can’t fucking take this anymore,” Seth mumbles. He mumbles something more, but Kevin can’t quite make it out.

“Don’t be such a bitch,” he replies. “The game starts in about an hour.”

“Not everything is about fucking exy, you fucking maniac,” the other boy answers. “I mean, I really need some pot right now, ‘cuz I am so fucking stressed.” Seth groans loudly, which gathers the attention of his other teammates, but he doesn’t even spare a second glance to them. “Fuck off,” he mumbles in their direction.

Kevin’s face scrunches, as he thinks about high Seth, who is so much more chill than the regular Seth. The red in his eyes is almost calming and the slow movement of his limbs can be described as mesmerizing, if it wasn’t for the fact, that Kevin would always think about all the times, he had the horrible thought, that Seth wouldn’t be able to play exy again after smoking_._ Fortunately, Seth was always able to throw a punch and a ball, no matter how much he smoked, so there really wasn’t any reason to worry about him at all.

“You know what, Day? I’m gonna smoke in the bathroom and you’re gonna cover me.” Seth stands and Kevin raises his eyebrows.

“Why should I do that, Gordon?” he asks. “And why would you rather smoke than watch the report on the team?” Kevin glances at his teammates, who all watch the report, while being busy with doing their usual routine before a game. Nicky texts Erik, Andrew is half-asleep in Neil’s lap and Allison is painting her nails, even though she will have to do it again once the game is finished. But atleast everyone – besides Seth and Andrew – has their attention focused on the right thing: Exy.

“You could also suck my dick, but I guess that won’t happen either”, Seth suggests snarky. “You need to chill the fuck out with your exy bullshit, dude. There are other things in life, too.”

“Like pot?” Kevin asks.

“Like pot”, he agrees. “See, you understand me. So, excuse me, while I go smoke some.”

Before Seth can go, Kevin reaches out and catches his wrist. “You can’t fucking smoke some pot before a game, Gordon. You won’t be able to do shit.”

“Bummer.”

“I mean it, Seth. If you make us loose, then I will shove all of the opposing teams exy racquets up your sorry ass.”

“Jesus”, Seth mumbles and gets his hand free. “You are such a lame fucker, did you know that? Loosen up a bit, will you?”

“I will, if we win this game.” Kevin raises his eyebrows again.

“Fine. Fine, I won’t smoke. But I need to piss.” He walks a step, then stops and turns around again. “Unless you don’t believe me and want to check, that I really am only pissing.”

Kevin growls in defense. “Actually, I need to go to. So yeah, I will keep you company.”

“Great, I can’t even take a piss without you playing my watchdog,” Seth mumbles. As they both begin to leave the waiting room for the Palmetto State Foxes, none teammates even notice it. And even if they would have, it wouldn’t be that uncommon of a sight – Seth and Kevin both leave together for the bathroom several times a month. It’s a natural sight, really. Not even Aaron has the audacity to leave a snarky comment for them, because he doesn’t have to.

The second the bathroom door falls in place behind them, Seth checks all of the stalls to see, if anyone is still in there, then he takes the trashcan and the potted plant in the corner and shoves both of them right in front of the door. “No lock,” he says. “But better than nothing.” He winks at Kevin before he relocates into one of the empty stalls farthest away for the door. “What’re you waitin’ for, Day? Get that ass in here.”

Kevin chuckles and blushes. It’s also nothing new for him and Seth to fool around when they both want to. It’s kind of their thing, like Andrew and Neil have their roof, or how Allison sneaks her hand into Renee’s when she thinks no one’s looking. There is really nothing more to it than some sex. But Kevin would lie, if he didn’t think of it as more. Every time they do it – in an empty bathroom, on his bed in the dorm while the others are out or even in the dark and shadow-y bushes outside of the Foxhole Court – he has this feeling in his chest, that it’s something more, at least for him. He actually and generally likes Seth, even if he would never tell him that because then Seth’s gigantic ego would explode.

Before Seth can grow impatient, Kevin moves in front of him. Seth sits on the closed toilet but is still tall enough, that Kevin doesn’t has to bend down too much to kiss him hard and fierce. Seth’s lips part in an instant and he grasps Kevin’s neck with one hand to pull him even closer to him. A moan hangs between them, like the hot air between their mouths. Kevin smiles as Seth’s mouth begins to wander to his throat, where he slightly bites his skin. Cold shivers run through him, Seth’s finger trace the little hairs on the back of his head and begins to suck on his skin. Kevin throws his head back to let out another groan, then he slips his legs between Seth’s legs to stand even closer to him. He could feel the hard on of the other boy pressing on his thigh.

“Come ‘ere,” Seth mumbles. He presses his finger in Kevin’s neck to pull him closer to him and then they are kissing again, licking each other’s lips, biting them, playing with their tongues. Seth tastes like smoke and mint bubblegum and Kevin enjoys everything about that.

He buries his hand in the other boy’s hair while his own dick just continues to grow. He can feel it itching against his jeans, longing to be freed. Kevin’s free hand begins to wander down Seth’s chest, just past his hard nipples that poke through his shirt. Seth groans again but Kevin just kisses him harder. Just hearing him breath is enough that Kevin grows impatient himself. He wants him and he wants him now.

“Hey.” Seth looks breathless and hot as Kevin stops kissing him, but his brows are tight. “Why’d you stop, Day?”

“Ask again and I won’t continue, you shithead,” Kevin answers while he reaches his destination with his hand. Seth’s dick is hard against his pants and the moment he lays his fingers on the bulge in the other boy’s jeans, Seth moans.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

“Yeah, that’s what’s gonna happen,” he says grinning. Kevin opens Seth’s zipper and Seth start to stand and pulls down his pants and boxer in one go. The many times he now has seen Seth’s dick are enough, that Kevin doesn’t admire the view anymore but gets to work. He strokes the skin before he reaches out to hold its entire length in his hand. Seth groans even more and sits again. He presses one arm against the stall wall while Kevin begins to gently rub his dick up and down, up and down again.

“You fucking,” he begins to mumble but stops and bites his lips the second, Kevin touches the tip of his dick.

Instead of saying something back and ignoring the fact, that several thoughts in his head are screaming about the lack of hygiene on this bathroom floor, he kneels between Seth’s parted legs and begins to blow the other boy. It’s something he’s done many times now, but every time feels like another life where he just begins to experience this side of his sexuality anew. Being with a boy was so much different than being with a girl. Maybe Nicky really had a point and he, Kevin, too needed someone to lean against. Sucking someone’s dick was never really on Kevin’s to-do list when he started to have feelings for other people, but now that he’s done it more and more times, he really can’t tell why he never thought about the fact, that he might be into this. It was always girls when he discussed his sexual preferences and maybe this was all Riko’s fault, who stole his virginity and also his free will to experiment, but whatever it was - it lead to Kevin leaning on a bathroom floor with his teammates just outside the door and licking the tip of Seth’s dick who looks already like he might cum any second.

“I swear to god, if you cum before I even got a chance to get touched, I am going to murder you,” Kevin says as he stops blowing. “Like, seriously. It’s like you can’t hold out for another minute or what?”

“It’s been days since my last shot,” Seth grumbles. “Also, you’re too good at this. You’re making me feel things.”

“What a wonder,” Kevin laughs. “I’m making you feel things while I literally devour your fucking dick. I guess everyone would feel things when I had their cock against my throat.”

“I fucking hate you,” Seth says. He grabs Kevin by the shoulder and forces him up, before he kisses him hard and hot. “Get that pants down,” he mumbles between two breathless kisses.

Kevin does as demanded. His dick springs out as his pants and boxer drop to his feet. The cold air feels good against his skin but even better is the feeling of Seth’s fingers on his cock. Ever since their first time, Seth would give Kevin a hand job whenever he felt like it. He didn’t even care that other people could see them. Whenever Seth was feeling horny enough, he would stick his hand into Kevin’s pants. This time, though, as he was stroking Kevin’s dick with his hand, he pushes himself up, spins them around without ever breaking their lip contact and then forces him away from Kevin’s mouth.

“I will suck you so hard, you won’t be able to remember your own name,” he says before he drops to his own knees.

The sight of Seth swallowing Kevin whole was a real blessing, even though Kevin quickly closes his eyes and throws his head back, as the wet and hot feeling of Seth’s mouth was doing things to his dick. An animalistic groan builds in his throat, but he is able to hold it a bit longer in him. The slurping sound that Seth makes whenever he opens his mouth and takes a breath is just another sharp knife in Kevin’s stomach, twisting with the longing after releasing and more pleasure. He grabs a fistful of Seth’s hair, just to feel this boy even closer to him. He moans loudly.

“Be a bit louder and everyone can watch in a minute,” Seth complains with wet lips and saliva sticking to his chin. Kevin, throbbing and pulsing and hot, lets out a quick whine, before Seth rolls his eyes and swallows him again. This time, as Seth lets his teeth make some good and honest work on Kevin’s dicks skin without hurting him, he puts a hand over his mouth to contain the next moan that was already escaping him. The feeling of a river pulsing in his skin grows stronger with every lick and touch and hot, wet kiss Seth does to him, so much that Kevin must pull his teammates mouth away from his dick. “So fast?” Seth asks grinning. “And you’re one to complain.”

Seth stands again and wipes his mouth before Kevin can pull him close again. It doesn’t even bother him, that Seth now tastes like his own dick. He just kisses him, licks his lips, grinds his tongue again Seth’s, bites the sensitive skin right next to his lip corner. Seth moans into his mouth. “You got a condom?” Kevin asks.

“Always for you, dear,” Seth replies against his lips before he parts away from him to reach in his jeans pocket on the floor. “Will you do me the honor?”

“Fuck you,” Kevin says but catches condom and rips it open before pulling it over Seth’s throbbing, hard cock.

“No, I think, I’ll rather fuck you,” Seth says with a sly grin.

Kevin turns around and bends over. He feels one of Seth hands on his shoulder, massaging his hot skin, before he feels two of his other fingers entering his hole. Another beastly moan builds in his throat, as Seth begins to widen his ass, entering another finger just a moment later. They didn’t bring any lube, but they did it so often without that Kevin was sure, that it didn’t matter now. He could hear Seth spitting in his hand and then the wet, cold touch of his fingers, rubbing all over his hole. His dick twitches and he uses his other hand to work on himself while Seth was busy preparing him.

Seth’s hand slides down from his shoulder to his lower back and the next thing Kevin knows, is the tip of a dick entering his ass. This moan he couldn’t contain anymore. Beastly, loud and deep it escaped his mouth the second he presses his hand on it. “Fucking be quiet, Day, I know I’m good.”

“Fuck – fuck you, Gordon,” Kevin is able to reply before Seth slides all the way in.

The feeling of a dick entering him was also something Kevin never thought he would experience, but as Seth now slowly began to widen Kevin’s ass by pulling his dick out and entering again, he was sure it was something he wouldn’t want to miss again. A girl could never, he thought as Seth enters again. This was nothing compared to his own fingers or that one dildo Nicky gifted him as a joke a year ago. Feeling Seth inside him was real and raw and just unbelievable hot. He wanted every inch of him and more. Everytime Seth pushes himself in, Kevin loses his mind. His hole itched and tightened around the cock in it, but he knows it was just preparing itself for all the other pounds that were coming. Seth laughs and moans.

“This is better than pot,” he says while pounding again. “Guess you were right, Day.”

Kevin can’t answer. He is too busy with blocking his own mouth from messaging their teammates of their little game in here with a loud and hot moan, that’s already tickling in his throat. His eyes roll back into his skull, while Seth builds up speed and power, pounding faster and harder into him. Seth’s dick inside of him should be enough to make him cum, but Kevin just fastens that process by stroking his own cock with his other hand. Masturbating alongside Seth fucking him is just the best relaxation before an important game and while Kevin feels his cum building up in his balls, he hears Seth’s balls slap against his cheeks with every pound.

“Fuck,” Seth groans. “I could fuck you all day.”

“I would let you,” Kevin can say before he presses his hand against his mouth again. He feels the cum leaving his dick just as a hot feeling runs through his whole body. Anticipation is dead and the new king of his body’s name is pleasure.

“I’m gonna –,” Seth starts, but he cuts himself short.

The next thing Kevin feels, is Seth grabbing a fistful of his hair and pressing his dick as far inside Kevin’s ass as he can. Then there are waves and waves of hotness in him, throbbing feelings and wet salvia against his hole. Seth releases another load into the condom that’s thankfully still on, but even with that Kevin can feel it in him. They both pant and breath for their lives. Seth chuckles as he presses a soft and lazy kiss against Kevin’s shoulder blade.

“Nice one,” he breaths.

“You’re better be relaxed enough now,” Kevin replies breathless. His own skin buzzes. He feels himself in every pore, everything is more colorful. His heart races against his chest and he counts the seconds Seth still remains inside of him.

“I could go for another round,” Seth admit sheepishly.

“Fuck you,” Kevin says. “We don’t have the time.”

“Bummer,” he answers and sighs, before pulling himself out of Kevin. “It was a good ride though.”

“It was,” Kevin agrees. “Maybe,” he starts and turns around to witness Seth pulling the filled condom of his dick, “Maybe we can have round two when were back in Palmetto.”

Seth catches his eye and grins. “You little bitch,” he says. “You’re really starting to enjoy this, huh?”

Kevin growls angrily. “Don’t start_ _with that, Seth. We both know that it’s not really easy to not enjoy this. Also, we’re both really good at doing it. I don’t think I would have this much fun with another guy.”

“I feel loved,” Seth says with a sarcastic grin before he throws the condom into the toilet. “Clean that up,” he then adds and points at the sticky white marks on the ground. With a smirk on his lips, he leans forward and kisses Kevin again, hot and wet but also soft and more affectionate. “Maybe I really enjoy it too, Day.”

Even though Seth is a fucking bitch who wouldn’t say shit to save his own life, he really makes Kevin feel good whenever they kiss and fuck. It’s not even his primordial instinct kicking in, telling him to enjoy the warm body next to his while he can. It’s a feeling deeply buried in his heart that he’s way too afraid to tell without knowing if Seth could even reply to those feelings with enough thought and meaning. Kevin smiles and pushes that thought away. For now, it’s good enough for him that he can have Seth whenever they please. He doesn’t need the conformation that it’s something more for both of them, because he knows it is for him and he knows he is the only one entering Seth’s bed.

They share one last, lazy soft kiss before Seth walks over to the sink and cleans himself up and Kevin admires the muscled, toned back of his – boyfriend? Lover? Something different? It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He loves that it’s Seth and he loves every second with him, even if they only throw snarky comments at each other before they make out in an empty bathroom stall.

Kevin Day doesn’t have to love Seth Gordon but maybe he just does.

#Kevin Day #Seth Gordon #Sethvin #All for the game #Neil Josten #Andrew Minyard #Allison Reynolds #Nicky Hemmick #Erik Klose #Aftg #be careful consuming this #it's some raw fuckery #also Seth is a desaster and I love him #I can see the appeal behind this ship tbh #maybe I'm shipping them too #But I'm still calling them Sethin cuz it just sounds better

[lepus-arcticus]

OMENS: CHAPTER SIX one | two | three | four | five trigger warnings apply

HORIZON POLICE STATION 3:20 PM

Hugh sat with his elbows on the desk across from Scully, fingers interlocked in front of his mouth, his brows knit in pensive, tortured reflection.

They were alone in the dim, chilly police station, and the rain outside had begun again in earnest, all the more livid for having given up this morning’s skytime to the sun. The station had been a schoolhouse in a previous incarnation, and green chalkboards still lined one wall, a faded, dusty black-and-white photograph of Truman lurking crooked above them. Theo was off somewhere, chasing down a rogue preteen who’d gotten ahold of a can of spray paint, leaving Scully with a set of keys and instructions for the finicky coffee maker. Not that she needed it with all the caffeine swimming in her blood already, or the jolt of pissy adrenaline that bickering with Mulder always gave her.

Scully hugged her elbows against the cold, letting the revelation settle between them.

“You’re sure?” Hugh’s voice was soft, unsteady. “You’re sure she was pregnant?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Scully said soberly. Anna’s body, or what was left of it, was still in the next room, piled like compost into a biohazard bag in the fridge. Maybe it was because of the nightmare, or because this might very well be her last case... but it had affected her more than she would have expected. The absolute carnage of it, the impossible task of trying to arrange the raw-hamburger heap of torn flesh and skin into something readable, something that might give her any insight into what happened that night.

From what little she could ascertain, the characteristics of Anna’s remains would, hypothetically, match the tearing patterns of beaks and talons. But she still wasn’t ready to admit that crows could have done this. It was too sensational, too extraordinary to believe.

She thought of Anna’s pale face, marred almost beyond recognition, cold and lifeless below her on a surgical table that had previously only ever seen ailing family dogs and diseased sheep.

Anna’s pale face, above her in the night, screaming, tortured, falling apart.

In the painstaking process of sifting through the meat, she’d almost missed the cluster of soft, tiny bones, a small ribcage, the shards of a miniature skull. Anna had to have known.

She shivered, willing the image away.  

“Mr. Daly…” The man was frozen, blank, completely unresponsive. Scully looked him over⁠—his hunched shoulders, his three-day beard, the dark circles under his eyes⁠—and her heart went out to him. It was almost inconceivable that she’d found him so unnerving at their last encounter. She reached out and gently touched his arm. “Hugh��”

He shook her away, a muffled sob rising from his throat, and cast his eyes downward. “Please don’t make me look at her. I can’t bear to see her,” he said, and the utter defeat and devastation in his voice humbled Scully further.

As she watched him try to pull himself together, try to wrestle with the demon of his grief, something expanded and softened within her. She couldn’t help it. She’d never been able to; something about growing up with her father’s stoic, expressionless mein meant that she could hardly bear it when grown men cried.

“Hugh… there’s no need to look at Anna’s body. You don’t have to see her. Theo, Rhiannon, Marion… they’ve already given us a positive identification.” He sucked in a breath, then let it loose. “But if you can think of any reason, any reason at all, why Anna might not have shared the news that she was pregnant with you… we need to know. I need to know.”

“Ehm…” he shook his head slowly. “I don’t know why Anna would have kept this from me. I really don’t. We weren’t… actively trying to become pregnant or anything, but there were no... I mean, we were married. There were no… precautions taken, either.

He wiped at his eyes and placed his hands face-down on the table, breathing deeply. “Miss Scully… Agent Scully. Back at the farm… yesterday. I am such an ass. Such an intolerable ass. I’ve been an utter mess since Anna…” He shook his head. “Forgive me. I beg of you.”

She pulled her lip between her teeth. “You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

“I should have never spoken to you in such a disrespectful way… I’m so sorry. You’re here to help me.”

Scully, almost unconsciously, let one of her hands fall lightly next to Hugh’s. They were farmer’s hands, scarred and calloused and square, and she found herself appreciating the sheer masculinity of them. “It’s okay,” she said after a moment, and meant it.

“Have you ever… lost somebody? I mean, like this? Unexpectedly? Tragically?”

Scully looked at her hands, then back up to his face.

Hugh’s red-rimmed eyes remained on hers, bright with spent tears and deep with acknowledgement. “What happened?” he asked.  

“It’s a long story,” she said, quietly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” he said, under his breath. “I’ve seen my fair share of unbelievable things, Miss Scully...”

She took him in, all of his unsophisticated honesty, the unpretentious poetry of his voice, like a peasant prince in a fairy tale. “It’s, um… it’s Dana,” she said mildly. “Call me Dana.”

“Dana,” he said. “Please. I can’t be here. Not with… not with her in the next room. And I’m in dire need of a coffee. The Half-Moon’s just fifteen minutes north, can I buy you a cup? It’s the very least I could do.”

Just then, her phone shrieked from her pocket, shrill and unpleasant and demanding. She slid her hand from beside Hugh’s, fumbled around for the wailing hunk of plastic, looked back at the man across from her… and ended the call.

“Sure. I could use one too.”

KICKING HORSE B&B 3:30 PM

The rest of the drive back to Rhiannon’s was silent, save for Neil Young’s nasal crooning and a few distant, ominous rolls of thunder. Mulder’s mind was doing somersaults. He tried to worm his way into Marion with a few tentative questions, but she was quiet and resolute, determined to keep him in the dark, and he knew better than to push her until precisely the right moment.

Kicking Horse stood tall and proud over the wheat and wildflowers, the lake like a silver coin in the distance. Mulder eased the truck up the driveway and killed the engine. Immediately, Marion reached over and yanked the keys from the ignition, throwing the passenger door open and clambering out. He followed her up to the porch, where she unlocked the front door with shaking hands, mumbled a goodbye, and practically sprinted back to the truck. Before Mulder had a chance to organize his thoughts, the truck growled back to life, and she was already driving away.

He watched her disappear into the fields, and then opened the front door.

The house was dark with the coming storm, the watery afternoon light stretching shadows across the walls. “Hello?” he called, shrugging off his trench and hooking it onto the old brass coat tree. At the sound of his voice, Hypatia’s long white face appeared from the top of the stairs, and she barreled down to greet him with a low whine. She writhed in excitement, mouthing at his hands as he knelt to unlace his shoes. “Get outta here,” he scolded, brushing her away.

As he stood up and toed his shoes off, leaving them in a muddy jumble at the entrance, he noticed a slip of paper on the hall table, bright against the dark wood. He picked it up. An old receipt for fertilizer, a note scribbled onto the back. The handwriting was an unfamiliar loopy scrawl, barely legible.

Fox, Dana - If I’m not back before you, please make yourselves at home. R

Mulder crumpled the note and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, fishing out his cell in the process. He thumbed star one on the speed dial, and stood, gnawing his lip, anticipating the soft, staticky bleed of Scully’s voice over the line.

One ring, two, and then it disconnected abruptly. She must still be at the station.

He didn’t like it, any of it⁠—the fox, Abel Stoesz, Marion’s tear-stained, panicked words on the highway. Scully, clearly affected by the results of the autopsy, likely in the middle of questioning a man who made her uncomfortable. A man who, despite the lack of evidence pointing towards him, Mulder was beginning to think of as a suspect.

Get a grip, he admonished the part of himself that wanted to run to her, find her, make sure she was okay. She was the most capable woman he had ever known, and cancer didn’t negate that.

He checked his watch, and decided he should probably eat something. Hypatia trotted after him as he moved into the kitchen and plucked an orange from the bowl on the countertop. He dug a fingernail into the rind and peeled it off in one go, unsuccessfully searching for a garbage bin before tossing it into the sink. The dog stared at him.

“What?” he asked, and she turned tail and paced off into the conservatory. He figured he didn’t have anything better to do until he could get ahold of Scully, so he followed her.

The conservatory was quiet, save for a few lyrical pings of rain against the curved glass. The air was rich and heavy and alive, sweet and spiced with the scent of nectar and herbs. Mulder pulled in a deep and cleansing breath, and padded along the cool tile in his socked feet, munching sections of his orange, surveying the greenery. Next to a potted rose bush, a thick vine of near-ripe tomatoes climbed up a rickety trellis. A box of rosemary sat next to a planter of sage.

As he leaned in to better inhale the green fragrance of it, he received a sudden, unbidden image of his father’s mother in the garden in Quonochontaug, her knees caked with dirt, her wide-brimmed hat casting her face into shadow. Samantha running towards her, braids whipping in the wind, half-bloomed peonies tucked into the breast of her overalls.

He was lost in the memory, turning it over and smiling sadly to himself, when something caught the edge of his attention.

The barest wisp of movement from the kitchen, barely discernible out of the corner of his eye. He turned sharply, but there was nobody there. His nerves tingled. The dog stared up at him with warm, steady eyes.

A deafening crash of thunder overhead startled him, and then a moment later, a gentle rush of rainfall obscured the sky. Mulder shook himself out of it. He finished his orange, sucking his fingers clean, and returned to the kitchen.

The dog followed, watching.

He walked past the island and into the dining room, trailing his fingers along the worn surface of the table. The fireplace yawned in front of him with a mouth that was cold and black and empty. Without Rhiannon, the house seemed to take on an energy all its own, and Mulder found himself with the unshakeable sensation of being watched. Of being noticed.

The sitting room was dark and crowded with mismatched furniture. There was an overstuffed floral couch bearing a cluster of beaded pillows, a wooden rocking chair wedged into a corner and piled with quilts, a Victorian loveseat squatting under a lace-curtained window. Mulder located a vintage glass-bellied lamp and switched it on, making his way over to the wall of books.

He lingered over the contents, wary of Hypatia’s stare from her chosen perch on the couch. Outdated veterinary texts were wedged in between leather-bound photo albums and volumes of poetry. The collected works of Shakespeare were arranged in a tidy row, sandwiched between Interview With the Vampire and The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. 1984, The Story of O, Jane Eyre. Mulder narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of Rhiannon’s scattered reading habits.

He eased a fat photo album from its place on the shelf and let it fall open, balancing it in the crook of his elbow. The pages were black, old-fashioned, the photographs held in place by small, ornate brass corners. His eyes fell on a faded snapshot of a little girl, around 9, freckled and smiling in the sun. Her hair formed a boisterous marmalade cloud around her cherubic face, and she was missing a front tooth. The photograph beside it showed a woman swooping in to scoop her up, and Mulder realized from the striking resemblance that this must be Rhiannon and her mother. He thumbed through the pages, watching Rhiannon grow.

Rhiannon as a gangly teenager, sitting on the porch railing, her skinny legs dangling. Rhiannon astride a horse, hands knit into his mane, bareback and barefoot. Rhiannon in taffeta on her way to the prom, with a young, blond, beaming man hooked by the elbow. The first man, in fact, that Mulder had seen in the album at all. He looked familiar, and as Mulder studied his face, he realized it was Theo, football-thick beside Rhiannon’s thin frame. Mulder recalled the look they’d shared at dinner the night before.

On and off, maybe? Divorced? Hopelessly and painfully in love, but never managed to sack up and just make it work?

Mulder closed the album with a grimace and slid it back into its spot, tipping out the next one. The first page featured a yellowed clipping of an obituary.

Morgana Elizabeth Bishop Morgana Elizabeth Bishop, 53, of Horizon, Montana, departed this earth suddenly on Thursday at her home. A practicing midwife for 30 years, she was well-loved and well-regarded by the citizens of Glacier County, many of whom she helped to bring into the world. Born in 1932 to the late Agnes Bishop, Morgana spent her life in service to the community of Horizon. Morgana is survived by her daughter, Rhiannon Bishop. Funeral services will be held at 7 p.m. on Sunday at the historic Kicking Horse homestead.

The photograph above it featured a woman that looked like an older version of Rhiannon, with a few more lines around her eyes and a sallow, sunken look to her cheeks. 1932... 53… the obit must have been from sometime in 1985. Rhiannon most likely would have been in her 30s. Mulder turned the page, and was surprised to see a jump in time.

Marion peered up at him from the cusp of 16, already tall, her arms crossed on the porch of Kicking Horse. Her smile was tight and wary. “1991” was looped in white chalk beneath the photograph. Mulder fingered the corner of the page, intrigued, and continued.

Hypatia as a puppy, her nose hooked over Marion’s shoulder as Marion pressed a kiss to her ear. Marion’s long braid reaching the small of her back. A candid shot of Marion and Theo washing dishes in the sink. A rueful-looking Rhiannon opening a present at Christmas, a pine lit up behind her.

And then Anna appeared. She posed on the porch with the half-grown dog, teenage-chubby and extensively freckled. Anna and Marion in the barn. Anna and Marion laughing and posing in front of Marion’s Chevy. Anna in the grass, sleeping, a book tented over her face, with Hypatia curled beside her, snout resting on her thigh.

Mulder turned another page, and found it blank. No photos of Marion graduating from the police academy, or in her uniform, like you might expect any proud foster parent to display. None from Hugh and Anna’s wedding. None of Hugh at all. A good third of the album remained empty.

The wind knocked against the window, and a chill ran down his spine.

He realized with some confusion that he’d been humming something, and stopped himself.

The water is…

But then he heard it again⁠—a small, thin voice, shifting in and out of his periphery. But no, he wasn’t exactly hearing it… but he could sense it, could almost even make out a tune.

… cannot get o’er….

He shook his head to break the spell. It was probably the rain, the thunder, the winds. Turning his attention back to the album, he studied the last photo of Anna, looking for shadows of turmoil, hints of anything.

There was a flicker of light in the corner of his vision, and his eyes jolted upwards. He went still, suddenly aware of his heartbeat, of the hairs on his forearms. On the couch, Hypatia flattened her ears and whined. Nobody was there. He willed himself to calm down. He was just getting spooked. It was just his imagination.

Or was it?

“...Anna?” he tried out loud, his voice cracking. He ran through the lore in his mind, looking carefully around him, holding his breath, his stomach twisting itself into a fist. Places could hold memories, energetic signatures. Spirits repeating their earthly paths, walking hallways and doing the dishes. Spirits reaching out for help, for closure.

He glanced down at the photograph one more time, and then he saw it again, in the corner of the room. Not quite a shadow, not quite a light, not quite a shimmer, but something that somehow contained all three. If he looked at it straight on, it disappeared. Hypatia keened. The surface of his skin prickled.

He slowly replaced the photo album, and moved towards where the glimmer had been. “Anna, are you here?” A glimpse of movement in the hall, drawing him onwards, drawing him upwards. He pursued it, the floor creaking under his footsteps.

The rain picked up outside, falling harder, faster. His heartbeat followed suit.

He tiptoed up the stairs, slowly, the faces of the Bishop women following him from their frames. Brotherless, fatherless, sonless. He was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t necessarily a design choice.

In his periphery, the glimmer seemed to slip into Scully’s room. He followed it in, his hand resting instinctively on his sidearm. The bed where they’d laughed the night before was still rumpled, which struck him as strange. Scully was usually tidy to the point of absurdity. No matter how seedy the motel, she’d unpack completely, hang her clothes up, make the bed before the maid could get to it.

Hypatia whined uneasily behind him, and he turned to her. She pawed at the threshold of the door, but would not follow him in. Her ears lay flat and quivering against her head.

Mulder looked once again around the room. With a swell of guilty curiosity, he slid the top drawer of the bedside table open. Scully’s folded pajamas, a pair of stockings still in their packaging, a makeup bag, a black journal, an extra clip. He touched the journal lightly, as if he could absorb her thoughts through osmosis.

And there it was again, that wisp of something in the corner of his eye. He slid the drawer shut and followed it out, moving slowly, carefully through the hallway. Past the tiny bathroom, past the faces of the dead, all the way to the base of the spiral staircase that led to the tower. He hesitated, just for a moment, and then began the climb, an unexplainable sense of dread burning hotter and hotter in his chest.

Hypatia was at his heels, trying to get in his way, blocking his path, whimpering. And then, without warning, her demeanor changed, and she began a low, persistent growl. Mulder glanced back at her. Her lips were peeled back to bare her long, white teeth, her body locked in a tense crouch. He stared at her a moment, palmed his gun, and continued.

There was a door at the top of the stairs. Mulder jiggled the handle with his free hand. Locked. Hypatia snarled and yipped, but didn’t advance. Mulder dug in his pocket for his lock pick. Just as he was about to withdraw it, there was a voice from the bottom of the staircase.

“Fox.”

Mulder jerked in surprise, almost drawing his gun up. Rhiannon stood, arms crossed, at the base of the staircase. The dog cowered behind her.

“That door is locked for a reason,” she said, frost edging her voice. Shame and suspicion crept up his neck. “This is my house. Please respect my boundaries.”

Mulder nodded and pressed his lips together in a small smile. “Bad habit. Sorry.”

Rhiannon retreated and he returned to his room, immediately trying Scully’s cell again. The call was cut short. He flung the phone hard down onto the bed, and dug into his duffel bag for his laptop.

Something wasn’t right.

#omens #txf fic #the x files fic

[knox-knocks]

Things you said while you were drunk for andreil! Congrats!

ahh thank you! here’s nearly 2,000 words of fluff and pining :3

read on ao3

The sun hung heavy in the sky and the rays fell through the branches around them like a cascade of golden light. There was a gilded edge to the leaves where the light caught them, highlighted veins, a bright summer emerald green, stirring in the warm breeze. Andrew didn’t understand how the world could be so bright, radiant even, when night would call in an hour. 

A raised hand in the corner of his vision caught Andrew’s attention like cotton snagged on a bush. Golden as the light with thin, nimble fingers and pale scars crisscrossing knuckles and circling a thin wrist. Neil held his hand above him, touching the streams of gold with his fingers, turning it this way and that. He wasn’t trying to block out the sun but he did just that, and long shadows were thrown across his face. He let his hand drop back across his stomach and Andrew was left staring at the dust motes and pollen swirling in the air like stars in a galaxy. 

It was nearing the last days of summer vacation, and in a couple weeks, Andrew would be moving two hours away from Columbia to live in a college dorm. He was accepted into Palmetto State University on a scholarship, which was a surprise to some but not to the people who had ever seen him guard a goal. Andrew didn’t particularly care about Exy or college - his major seemed somewhat interesting at least, but he was unsure of what he could do with a degree in Criminology - but what really made Andrew stop and think, Am I really doing this? was Neil. 

Neil still had his last year of high school to finish, and no matter how he denied it, a part of Andrew twinged at the thought of leaving his best friend behind. Attached at the hip, Nicky had said about them once, and while Neil was the easiest person in the world to be around, someone Andrew could rely on and trust, someone he could actually talk to, it wasn’t exactly right. They weren’t attached at the hip, there was no tether keeping them together. They just were. 

But what if Andrew left and all of that changed? 

Andrew didn’t like change. His childhood was full of change, going from foster home to foster home, passed around like a particularly unpleasant stray. He’s lived in Columbia for three years and has been friends with Neil for two, and to most that wasn’t a lot of time - but to him it was. He’d never had something so permanent before, and soon enough it was all going to change again. 

Breathing out a sigh, Andrew reached for the bottle curled loosely in Neil’s fingers and brought to his lips. He tipped his head up so he wouldn’t slosh it all over himself and took two long sips of the wine, letting the sweetness settle low in his stomach, making the tips of his fingers feel tingly and numb. He handed the bottle back to Neil and watched as Neil drank from it, cheeks flushed, throat bobbing as he swallowed, lips already stained red. Andrew wondered if his lips looked the same. 

They’d stolen the bottle from Neil’s uncle. It was expensive, but Andrew thought it tasted the same as the cheap stuff from the grocery store. Still, they were well on their way to drunk and the bottle was only about half empty. Neil had drank more than Andrew had, and he was already tipsy. Andrew could tell from the light dancing in his eyes as he lay on his back with his head pillowed on his arm, head tilted back to watch the dapples of light play out across the leaves above them. 

Andrew wanted to kiss him, right there, while the light still lit his face and painted him in gold, while the curve of his lips held that soft, content smile of his. He thought about kissing those lips, tasting the wine they’d drunk and feeling the buzz in his veins of a high despite the alcohol in his blood. Andrew stopped that thought right there. He wouldn’t kiss Neil, not without an explicit yes untainted by alcohol. He wouldn’t kiss Neil now, maybe not ever because Neil didn’t like people that way. But, god did he ache with want. 

Tearing his gaze away, Andrew rubbed his palms into his eyes until he saw lights bursting like fireworks, different from the sunshine around him. He willed his thoughts to stop, urged himself to stop thinking about Neil and kissing, but it was a gargantuan effort. He knew it was so hard because of the wine in his system, that he was perhaps a bit more drunk than he’d thought. Despite this, Andrew reached for the bottle and took another swig, trying and failing not to think about how Neil’s lips had touched the rim when he drank from it. 

Andrew allowed a tiny lapse of self control and looked back at Neil. His eyes were closed, and the fringe of his auburn hair, bright and burnished in the sun, had fallen over his forehead. He still had that easy smile, and Andrew was looking at Neil’s lips again. Fuck. 

He sat up, wobbling slightly as the blood and alcohol rushed to his head. Neil’s eyes drew up and he turned his head to look at Andrew. When he spoke, his words were slow but not quite slurred. “Are you leaving?”

Andrew had a sharp retort waiting on his tongue like he always did, but as soon as he looked down at Neil he forgot it. Whether it was from the alcohol or just Neil, stretched out in front of him, languid like a cat, Andrew couldn’t remember. There was a new softness to his expression, a look in his eyes, the way his features relaxed. Andrew had seen that look on Neil’s face only a couple times, more often recently, and it still made his stomach swallow itself whole. 

He wasn’t thinking right, his thoughts dulled by the wine, and he was drunk, but Andrew dropped back down into the grass and leaves and faced Neil. Neil turned on his side, curling up on himself as he tended to do, and a honey-slow smile spread across his face as he met Andrew’s eyes. 

“Why do you look at me like that?” The words were past Andrew’s wine-tinted lips before he could stop himself. 

Neil tilted his head to the side. “Like what?”

“Like,” Andrew waggled his hand in front of Neil’s face “that.”

Neil sucked his bottom lip into his mouth as he thought and Andrew was proud of himself for keeping his eyes firmly on Neil’s. Although that wasn’t much better - the blue in Neil’s eyes swirled and swirled until Andrew thought he was going to drown in them. Unintentionally throwing Andrew a life raft, Neil said, “Tell me.”

For a second, Andrew thought Neil was toying with him, that he’d caught onto Andrew’s attraction to him and thought it as some sort of big joke. But Neil’s expression was open, and all the softness there was genuine and Andrew knew Neil would not do that to him. 

Andrew lifted his hand and tapped a finger next to Neil’s eye before he could talk himself out of it. “There’s this light in your eyes here, and the corners crinkle like this when you’re happy,” he said. Andrew wouldn’t even have noticed the way Neil’s eyes and nose scrunched the tiniest bit if he weren’t already looking so closely. Following the line of Neil’s cheekbone, across the long scars he felt under his fingertips, Andrew rested his thumb by the corner of Neil’s lips. “Your lip quirks up like this and you have this soft smile, like you can’t stop yourself from looking at me like that.” Andrew traced his thumb across Neil’s lips. They were soft and pliant and Neil didn’t pull away. Andrew’s throat was dry but he didn’t want to reach for the wine again. “No one’s ever looked at me the way you do,” he said and let his hand drop away.

Neil’s eyes were so wide and so, so blue, but Andrew couldn’t look away. They were close enough that Andrew could see the freckles dusted across Neil’s face, he could count them, really. 

“I must like you an awful lot, then,” Neil said, his eyelashes fluttering as his gaze dipped down, “if that’s how I look at you.”

Andrew’s breath hitched and his heart rate picked up. “Do you?” he whispered. 

“I’ve never liked anyone the way I like you. I just thought.” Neil paused, eyes squeezing shut, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I thought.”

He opened his eyes and he was staring again. Something in Andrew trembled, like leaves rustling in the wind. Neil was drunk, he didn’t know what he was saying, he would regret it when he sobered up, Andrew should never have asked. Neil’s tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip and Andrew couldn’t take it anymore. 

Sitting up, turning away from Neil and drawing his knees up and curling his arms around them, Andrew said, “I more than like you, Neil.”

He didn’t dare look at Neil and see the surprise spilling across his face, the regret pooling in his eyes as he took back what he said. Andrew’s fingers tightened and it took everything he had to relax before they curled into fists and he collapsed in on himself. A small tug on his sleeve nearly made Andrew startle, but this was Neil and he made himself release the remaining tension in his body. 

A brush of fingers along Andrew’s shoulder, never touching skin, always so careful. Neil leaned forward until he was in Andrew’s line of sight, his other hand braced in front of him so he wouldn’t topple over. There was a bit of leaf in his hair but he didn’t brush it away. “You should do something about it, then,” he said, because of course he would. 

Andrew grit his teeth. “You’re drunk.”

“That doesn’t change how I feel,” Neil countered. 

“You’ll regret it.”

“I don’t think I will.”

Andrew shot him a look. Neil smiled and twisted his body until he was sitting facing Andrew. “Kiss me?” he asked and the air in Andrew’s lungs got lost somewhere along the way. “Yes or no?”

“Not until we’re sober,” Andrew said. “Ask me again then.”

“Okay,” Neil said easily. He stood up, stumbling before he caught himself on the the tree. He laughed at his own clumsiness and leaned against the trunk.

“Your uncle’s going to be mad at you for stealing his wine,” Andrew said, grabbing the bottle. 

Neil shrugged, unconcerned, and held out his hand to help Andrew up. “He’ll get over it.”

They walked home together, the sun setting behind their backs, and their fingers brushing the whole way.

#aftg #tfc #andrew minyard #neil josten #andreil #i am still very very slowly working through all these prompts in my inbox #and i've wanted to write this sucker for a while now so what better time! #mine #my writing

[firstruleofmethclub]

Yes Eggboy is of course a national treasure, but if you’ve only seen the ~5sec version of the video that just shows the event itself (the most widely distributed version of it) you won’t have seen the horrific things Fraser Anning was saying immediately leading up to this, and more importantly, you won’t have seen the fact that this man in his 60s, a representative of the Australian Government, responded to the egging (an embarassing and annoying, but also completely harmless act) by repeatedly punching the person responsible, a literal teenager. He went absolutely fuckin’ ham, and only stopped hitting him because there was people between him and the kid. To that point though, the vast majority of those people were restraining the kid, which sounds fine on paper, but if you actually watch the footage, you will see that while he is restrained prone, multiple people are (or at least are attempting to) strike him, and one has him held by the throat so tightly he cannot speak and is turning purple. These were not Anning’s security, these were his psychopathic fans, that had come to hear his hate speech. These were people who had been given the okay by Neil Erikson, (who has previously been hosted at other white power rallies, and held a mock execution in public to incite hatred against Muslims... You can Google him if you want, he’s famous for a lot stuff, only most of it racist, but all of it proving he is a garbage human being) so of course they were violent white supremecists with a hardon for the prospect of torturing children. The media were the only people trying to stop him from being chocked (not very hard, but still). Seriously, if William Connolly wasn’t white, there is a massive chance he’d be dead right now. Or even if he still was white, but the media had been there to film everything, he could very well be dead. 

For those who come to defend Anning by saying that “You can’t treat elected officials like that”, I’ll remind you that Fraser Anning was never elected, he scored a whopping nineteen first preference votes in his electorate. The fact that he is in Government at all is thanks to the exploit of like, three seperate technicalities, which he took advantage of to get in as a member of One Nation, then, on his very first day on the job (where he also gave his famous “Final Solution” speech), he quit One Nation and declared himself an Independant so that the seat couldn’t be given back to the One Nation party member he took it from. So not elected at all. Also, I would put genuine money on betting that about 99% of the right wing nutjobs that are “shocked and appaled” at what happened to Anning, thought it was fuckin’ hilarious when someone chucked a sandwhich at Julia Gillard (an incident which she laughed off instead of throwing hands at the kid responsible), and yes, even when a shoe was thrown at conservative US President George W. Bush (a much more hazardous projectile than an egg), I can guaran-fuckin’-tee you, they thought that shit was gold and they’ve shared about 47 memes about it over the years. You don’t think what happened was “inappropriate” at all - so stop wasting everyone’s time and just admit that you hate brown people, and love people that talk openly about how it’s okay to kill brown people. That’s all this is.

People who hold stations like politicians and cops should be held to a higher standard than everyone else, corruption and hatemongering and bigotry should be even less acceptable when it comes from these people than when it comes from anyone else, so why are theses the people who are constantly defended for it?

If you can ignore all of that, and truly think that an egging is as heinous a crime as there can be, and that Fraser Anning is a perfect Angel who has been victimised by this yolk-wielding teenage beast, then at the very least, think about the fact that this all happened in the first place, because Anning wanted a platform to talk about how in New Zealand, the worst massacre in the country’s history just took place, and he wants to tell you, that the 50 people who were senselessly murdered by a white man with a gun, has precisely zero to do with white men, murderers, or guns, and the blame exclusively lies at the feet of the Muslim immigrants in the country. After all, if they weren’t there, they couldn’t have been shot. And that is the genius fucking logic you are throwing your weight behind. Somebody commited violent acts against Muslims, and he thinks should prove to the world “the link between Muslims and violence”. By his own logic, if someone burnt Fraser Annings house down and chopped his arm off, all this would serve to do is “prove the connection between Fraser Anning and Arson/Mayhem”. Or in this particular example “The connection between Fraser Anning and juvenile pranks”.

#auspol

[thecomicsnexus]

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES / FLAMING CARROT CROSSOVER NOVEMBER 1993 - FEBRUARY 1994 BY BOB BURDEN, JIM LAWSON, NEIL VOKES, ERIC VINCENT AND MARY WOODRING

SYNOPSIS (FROM TMNT ENTITY)

A super storm has recently ravaged the eastern coast of Central America. The Turtles and Col. Blade are on their way to the decimated town of Santa Baloona to help the locals. To get there, they’re travelling in a blimp they absconded with after a team-up adventure in which they defeated Mr. Cadaverous and his Blue Santas.

After fishing the cow from “Bonanza” out of a tree, they set down on the roof of the US Embassy and the Ambassador takes Col. Blade aside for a debriefing. They meet with Professor Daub, an archaeologist. The Ambassador explains that a unit of the US Military called the I-Team went missing somewhere in the Abecero Peninsula and they need to be found. Col. Blade reconvenes with the Turtles and says that they and Professor Daub are deploying immediately for a special mission.

At Mystery men HQ, following a shrunken head/protein shake/ice cream incident, the team receives a top secret call to arms. Apparently, thousands of years ago, there was a highly advanced, nigh-mythical city called Botaquaxal, hidden in the Abecero Peninsula. It vanished somewhere around 948 AD and all attempted expeditions to locate it ended in tragedy, as the investigators all vanished. Recently, a dentist bought an artifact at a flea market and after x-raying it, found "something". That clue incited the Pentagon to send the I-Team into the Abecero Peninsula. When the super storm hit, it caused an earthquake, revealing a lost city. However, the I-Team’s last transmission wasn’t very hopeful, as the radioman screamed about flaming people burning everyone to death.

Flaming Carrot rallies the Mystery men (Screwball, Bondoman, the Shoveler, Mystic Hand, Mr. Furious, Star Shark, the Zeke’s and the Spleen) and they take off in their aircraft, the Flying Wing (after donning sombreros suitable for a Central American vacation). As the other Mystery men take turns flying the Flying Wing, the Shoveler does some meteorological investigation. He determines that the super storm didn’t follow any natural weather patterns but appears to have originated right from the Abecero Peninsula.

Via blimp, the Turtles, Col. Blade and the Professor find the I-Team’s campsite (but only after Raph wails on a saxophone he found in a locker). They investigate and find no signs of life, save some meals that appear to have been suddenly abandoned. The surrounding jungle appears likewise abandoned, without any traces of animals. What they DO find are the personal effects of the I-Team (rings, watches, fillings) sitting atop small piles of ashes, indicating they were incinerated almost instantly.

Searching, they eventually come across the unearthed city. Oddly, all the ancient buildings appear to be made of a strange plastic substance with magnetic properties. As Mikey skateboards the ruins, he spots a tower jutting out of the sea not far from the coast. Spying through binoculars, Col. Blade notices equipment abandoned outside the entrance to the tower, indicating people had recently been there.

They decide to break for pizza and investigate the tower the next day. Sleeping, Mikey has a strange dream about a prospering city, shadowy halls and a flaming man. He’s awoken by Leo’s screaming. Leo exclaims that while he was taking watch, a tiny man made of green flame attacked him. Leo wasn’t lying, as the flaming man pops out of the bushes and attacks again. Leo attempts to cut it in two, but his swords have no effect. Col. Blade pulls out his gun and aims for what looks like a heart in the center of its chest. Blade shoots the heart and the flaming man vanishes. Professor Daub laments that they didn’t try to communicate with the creature. Suddenly, Raph is startled and points to the sky as lights approach.

As the Flying Wing zooms over the TMNT’s camp, Mr. Furious suddenly loses power on all the instruments. He order all the Mystery men to bail save for himself, Flaming Carrot and Bondoman, who stay behind to manually work the wings. Once they glide far enough away from the camp (and the ancient ruins) the instruments begin working again. Mr. Furious sets the Flying Wing down and, after reconvening with the Spleen and the Zeke’s, they decide to hoof it toward the camp.

Meanwhile, the Turtles and Col. Blade are pretty spooked after the buzzing their camp received from the strange plane. The Turtles split up and journey into the jungle to check things out. Raph winds up getting into a tussle with the Shoveler, who proceeds to trick him into jumping off a cliff. Raph lands right next to Screwball, who panics and flies away on his rocket-boots.

Elsewhere, Donatello has a run-in with the Mystic Hand, who scares him off with his flying, disembodied hands. Star Shark rolls into camp and meets up with Col. Blade. Recognizing the Colonel as an American soldier, the Mystery man explains everything. Raphael, meanwhile, has begun trailing another green flame-man. The flame-man escapes, but leads him to the Flying Wing. Mr. Furious and the Zeke’s are about to open fire when Flaming Carrot stops them. He and Raphael know each other and the two trade information.

Back at camp, all the Mystery men have been rounded up and both groups brought to speed. The Shoveler, taking watch, sees activity off in the distance. Mr. Furious concocts a way to draw all the little green flame-men toward them so they can deal with them all at once. They set the area with traps and drive the Flying Wing and all its weapons near a clearing. They then throw all their green flares into a bonfire, hoping to attract the flame-men. Meanwhile, Flaming Carrot opens a lemonade stand to serve all the thirsty flame-men.

The plan works and the flame-men converge on the bonfire, creating a rainbow in the night with their weird energies. Michelangelo tries to scare them off with a flamethrower, but finds that by feeding flame-men mass quantities of fire, they only get bigger. Luckily, shooting the flame-men in the “heart” still causes them to snuff out and the giant is destroyed.

Col. Blade takes charge and hands out artillery to everyone, including the Turtles. However, it may not be enough as hundreds of flame-men storm the clearing with no signs of slowing down.

In the clearing, the group is struggling to gun down the army of flame-men, but they’re running out of ammo. Suddenly, flame-men reinforcements arrive via river, riding giant leaves. After sinking a few, the Mystery men and the Turtles realize that water can extinguish the flame-men. After cannibalizing the fuel pump from the Flying Wing, they hose down the flame-men and send them into retreat.

In the aftermath, all that’s left of the extinguished flame-men is protoplasmic goop which the Professor describes as being like giant amoebas (and which the Zeke's describes as smelling like Corn Flakes). The Shoveler and Star Shark, who were attacked by the flame-men, say that they weren’t burned but instead drained of energy, like they were being absorbed. Screwball panics when he can’t find his pet shoelace Sherman, but it turns up in a bag of Fritos. In the morning, Mystic Hand, Bondoman and the Spleen decide to stay behind and try to reassemble the Flying Wing while the others return to the I-Team camp and search for more clues. Shortly after they leave, the Spleen sees something lurking in the woods and Mystic Hand goes to investigate.

Fiddling with the I-Team’s radio, the Professor determines that the electromagnetic static that brought down the Flying Wing is spreading out from the ruins and may soon envelope the whole world. They also find Polaroids of the I-Team getting along with the flame-men and keeping them as pets. Flaming Carrot presumes that once the I-Team ran out of things to feed them, the flame-men turned on them. The group decides to head to the ancient ruins, leaving Screwball, Leo and Don behind to guard the camp. Searching the tents, they find one of the flame-men sleeping on a cot.

At the ruins, Mikey recalls the dream he had about the ancient city and follows his memories to a hidden opening in one of the buildings. At last inside the previously impenetrable buildings, Col. Blade orders Star Shark to stay and guard the door while they split into groups: He, the Professor, Raph and Mike will go in one direction while Flaming Carrot, Mr. Furious, the Zeke’s and the Shoveler go in the other. Col. Blade’s group stumbles upon paydirt quickly, finding skeletons of strange creatures, albeit ones with gold fillings that imply a greater intelligence.

At the camp, the flame-man introduces himself as P.F.C. Layton Sykes of Anniston, Alabama. He says that he was once a member of the previous investigation into the ancient ruins. His team encountered the flame-men, who ate anything but plants. When they ran out of food to feed them, the flame-men devoured him and his men. They were absorbed into the flame-men who ate them, merging their consciousnesses. Don asks if he remembers eating himself and, if so, then what do humans taste like? Sykes says “like chicken”.

Back at the ruins, Col. Blade’s team finds a chamber with a hole blasted into it by a flamethrower (indicating the I-Team had been there). Inside are hundreds of glowing eggs, each containing a flame-creature. The Professor joyously announces that they must certainly be looking at beings from another planet.

And at the Flying Wing, Mystic Hand returns with news that he found nothing. Suddenly, a trio of cloaked, spectral figures comes floating their way.

And back again at the ruins, Flaming Carrot’s team finds a huge pod with a glass lid. Inside is what looks like a 9 foot-tall werewolf clad in a jumpsuit and boots. Ignoring their better judgment, they open the pod and release the werewolf. The monster chucks Flaming Carrot, the Zeke’s and the Shoveler out a window and into the sea. Tearing a pipe off the wall, Mr. Furious charges the werewolf.

Mr. Furious dukes it out with the alien werewolf only for the beast to back off once it sees his Free Masonry ring. Being a Mason itself, the werewolf runs away. The Mystery men, the Turtles and Col. Blade eventually catch back up and ask Mr. Furious what the deal with the werewolf is.

Back at the Flying Wing, the Spleen, Bondoman and Mystic Hand are under siege from the spectral figures. The spirits are blasting beams of ice at them, encasing the jet. The Mystery men flee into the jungle with the specters close behind.

At the ruins, the werewolf is desperately trying to communicate with the team via dance, but they can’t interpret him. Don, Leo, Screwball and the flame-creature Sykes show up. After a brief bit of exposition, Sykes has a chat with the werewolf in its native language. The werewolf then devours Sykes and collapses. Star Shark comes down from his lookout post and tells everyone that the Flying Wing is under attack. Leaving the werewolf behind, the Turtles and the Mystery men return to camp.

They reach the Flying Wing, but have no idea what happened. The werewolf then catches up with them and explains everything… in English! He says his name is Chontre Mac and he’s an alien from a planet that exists within the center of the Sun. He says that there are a diverse number of races from that planet and all have the ability to absorb the minds of those they devour (hence how he was able to learn English by eating the flame-creature that ate Sykes). Chontre says that long ago, his people came down to Earth to set up a colony and built this great city. However, civil war erupted and most of his people retreated back to the Sun. Chontre was chosen to sink the city deep into the Earth so that its technology and culture could be preserved, putting himself in cryogenic stasis so he could keep watch.

Chontre is happy to be awake again and, seeing that there are no more warring Sun people on Earth, feels that now is the time to share the technology of the lost city with humanity. Suddenly, Mystic Hand’s disembodied hands float over and motion everyone into the jungle. They find Mystic Hand and Bondoman frozen in cryogenic ice (which Chontre assures them will defrost to no ill effect in a day or two). The Spleen, who fainted, wakes up and describes the ice-blasting specters. Chontre says that the specters are the Eikers, the faction who incited the civil war. When the city was unearthed, it sent a signal into space. Responding to it, the Eikers traveled down from the Sun to regain the lost technology and invade the Earth. The electromagnetic beam that has been shutting off all technology on Earth was a homing beam from their mother ship. Chontre explains that the only way to stop the invasion is to re-sink the city so the Eikers have nothing to home in on.

Screwball then calls down from his lookout post that the Eikers are coming. Chontre says that they’re an early scout patrol. He urges the Mystery men and the Turtles to lead the aliens to the nearby river where the additional humidity will react with their freezing powers and force them to take tangible form. The plan works and with the Eikers finally solid, Col. Blade is able to kill them all with machine-gun fire.

Chontre leads Col. Blade, the Professor and Mr. Furious back into the main hub of the ruined city where they found him in cryo-sleep. Chontre mans the controls to re-sink the city, telling the others to leave so they don’t become trapped, too. The controls malfunction and Chontre laments that the only way to re-sink the city now is for two individuals to man separate emergency controls simultaneously. The Professor volunteers to stay behind, jumping at the chance to go into suspended animation and awaken centuries from now in a brave new world.

Blade and Furious escape the building just as it and the rest of the city sink back into the Earth. Everyone’s electronics begin working again, proving that the Eikers have lost the signal and retreated from their invasion. Col. Blade gives a salute, praising the selfless sacrifice of the Professor.

REVIEW

While I usually enjoy Flaming Carrot, this story seems too focused on the Mystery Men, and while the typical team-up tropes show up, this is a very regular team-up. The Turtles are too normal and I think this drags the story down a bit. I was actually expecting more weirdness.

Not only they are too normal, they are a bit out of character (without their weapons, you cannot guess who they are by reading their dialogues).

The good thing is there is enough weird stuff to satisfy die-hard flaming carrot fans. As I mentioned before, most of my writing stuff is pretty much like Flaming Carrot, so for me, it was a trip down memory lane (but a lane that is not connected to this one).

The art is better than usual for Jim Lawson (apparently color really makes his style stand out more). And at the same time, the Turtles look good with other artists as well. Flaming Carrot looks as good as usual.

In the end, I feel like this story could have gone wilder.

I give the story a score of 5.

#jim lawson #steve lavigne #mirage studios #comics #review #1993 #1994 #modern age #indie #alternative #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #flaming carrot #mistery men