#yeah angeline’s not that good of a parent either

[jjtheresidentbaby]

Little Spencer ‘Spider’ White headcanons

♡ attached to day 6 moodboard for fictionalagerechallange

notes: I ignored canon for a minute so I can do whatever I want — also this more so turned into me rambling about a fic idea I have in form of bullet points hshjsj

warnings: set in a classification au, talk of underage drinking/smoking weed, spider being insecure about his regression, swearing, his parents aren’t great, just angst tw

talk about repression. god he wouldn’t know what healthy coping is if it slapped him in the face

so so insecure about being a little to the point that he just doesn’t tell anyone — yeah this backfires…

has this whole “system” where he forces himself not to regress (even if he really needs to) until he’s alone and 100% sure that nobody’s going to bother him or risk anyone finding out

even Ant & Dusty don’t know for a while

because it all comes crashing down — as does most genius ideas Spencer gets tbh, he’s horrible at good decisions okay

but back to before anyone else finds out — his regression is kept to time alone in his room, maybe a kids movie going if he can convince himself that it won’t be the end of the world to allow himself some comfort

him hating the fact that he’s a little definitely bleeds into the times he’s actually regressed, he has a hard time relaxing fully, refuses to buy himself any little gear aside from what he already has, just lacking proper self care even more than normal

his regression is super emotional and taxing for him, which means he avoids it even more

can not stand when people make jokes about him possibly being a little — and everyone knows it so ofc they do it more

takes to drinking and smoking weed a lot heavier once he gets his classification and is hit with all that insecurity

the only backfire of this is that occasionally if he smokes too much he’ll start to slip and have to make up some excuse to either go home or drink enough to get blackout drunk and distract his mind

panics anytime another little is around him and asks him to play or really anything — people usually assume he’s just a neutral that has no idea what he’s doing

promptly ignores any speeches or comments in media or told at school about how important it is for littles to regress regularly and how not regressing can cause serious harm

he’s fine. definitely fine.

until he’s not and something happens and he’s suddenly involuntarily slipping into little space about to go into a panic attack because he’s around people and can’t leave

whoever finds him in that state deserves a gold star for weeding through his cries and mumbles to figure out what the hells going on

so sooooo resistant to having a caregiver around once he’s found out — still denies he’s a little, while he’s regressed, because yeah that’ll totally work

eventually Malakai & Amerie get him to talk about it, cause he lowkey can’t say no to either of them and they’re the most coaxing patient cg’s ever

they’re downright horrified when they find out how long he’s been going without regressing and how badly he’s been taking care of himself

Malakai almost cries seeing the pathetic 1 pacifier & sippy cup & 2 stuffed animals that Spider thinks suffices as enough little gear

the whole SLT’s group is equally as taken back by this information and promptly go on an online shopping spree to get Spider some new/better little gear

he doesn’t talk much while he’s regressed, falling more towards the baby space side of regression

clings to anyone that’ll let him once he gets over the whole ‘nah I don’t need a cg’ thing that goes on for a while

really likes sitting with Quinni and listening to her talk about Angeline of the Underworld lore — he might not understand it but he likes hearing her talk and she always has fun stickers/makeup on or little clips in her hair that he likes

has apologized a million times over for everything that he did — he’s been throughly assured that it’s okay and he’s forgiven but he still catches himself apologizing again

even once the group finds out he’s a little and he gets more comfortable in his classification there’s still times he doesn’t regress when he should or still falls into the feeling of being insecure about his regression

horrible at communicating things when small

has sat through entire conversations about Big topics™️ while small and only said something when someone asked his opinion on it — every cg in the group has tried to talk him out of the habit, it doesn’t work

practically every person he ever “hated” while big becomes his new favorite person when he’s small — he gets throughly teased for this

Sasha reluctantly lets him sit with her while she plans out whatever protest she’s going to be a part of — she’d never say it but she doesn’t find Spider that bad when he’s regressed

Harper also falls into the reluctant cg status when Spider’s small

Quinni would too if she wasn’t so forgiving and sweet, she could never be reluctant about taking care of anyone and yeah that includes Spider

Darren hates this. But they don’t take it out on Spider when he’s small as they aren’t mean but it’s definitely known when he’s big

his parents suck for a plethora of reasons but especially once he gets his classification — he doesn’t talk about it often or even acknowledge that his home life isn’t great, but sometimes when he’s regressed he’ll get triggered into crying fits over what his parents have said/done

the SLT’s group hate his parents. all of them.

if he can help it, he won’t be at home and will go to a caregivers house or find some activity to do

Ant’s parents also suck so they spend a lot of time at Malakai’s together

if Spider’s regressed and Ant’s around it is pure chaos, absolute madness, the caregivers of the group have to reign them in all the time

Malakai & Amerie are definitely Spider’s favorite caregivers and he’s shameless about it. nobody’s really surprised tho

he also clings to Dusty quite a bit

#heartbreak high agere #little!spider white #spencer spider white #fictionalagerechallenge #jj headcanons

[fowlblue]

Mater et Filius

———————

“Mother?”

“Yes?”

Angeline’s voice was light as she answered him. She didn’t look up from her book, which somewhat frustrated Artemis, but he didn’t bother to point it out, instead focused on what was currently the source of his excitement.

“You know next week is my first violin performance? At school?”

She nodded, narrowing her eyes slightly. Artemis wasn’t entirely sure if she was listening. Nevertheless, he didn’t raise his voice or repeat himself- that was impolite, something his father had told him never to be towards his mother. So he waited a beat, hoping she was paying attention.

“They’re letting me play my own music! I’ve been practicing all week.”

Angeline finally looked up, turning in her chair to face him. Her smile seemed slightly tense. “The practicing... I’m very aware of. I’m sure your performance will be wonderful.”

Artemis nodded furiously, overjoyed to have finally gotten her full attention. Granted, she didn’t seem too happy about his mention of practicing (he was beginning to suspect she found it annoying), but at least she was focused on him now, instead of her novel. He scrambled up beside her, choosing to perch on the chair’s arm.

He knew was very young to be performing in front of such a large crowd, being only seven, but like everyone around him always said, Artemis was no average child. And to be playing his own original music! It was an honor that was very rare for someone his age. She shifted away to give him some room.

“Are you and Father coming?”, he chirped, unable to contain his excitement.

His mother sighed then, loudly, interrupting his thoughts. She turned her gaze back to her book. Her expression was tense, and Artemis felt his heart still slightly. “Butler will have to take you this time, dear. Your father has a conference, and I’m going with him.”

Artemis paused, turning to look at her quizzically. “You said you were coming a few days ago...”. He distinctly remembered her nodding when he had first told her of the event. He received no comment, so he continued. “ Can’t you stay here? You went with him last time.”

“I changed my mind, Artemis. Your father is a very busy man, you know that. And as his wife, I want to support him. That’s what the family does- they look out for each other, remember?”

Who’s gonna look out for me?, Artemis briefly wondered, before shaking the thought away. Such speculation was unhelpful. He considered dropping the topic in favor of asking her what she was reading (Angeline loved talking about her books), sensing her growing frustration. But he didn’t really want to lie to his mother and pretend he wasn’t disappointed. That didn’t seem very logical.

“I know that, Mother. I just... wish you were around more, that’s all. I miss you and Father when you’re away.”

Angeline snapped her book shut, startling him, turning to give him a stern glare. “I know, Artemis. I miss you too. But I’ve already made up my mind- you know both me and your Father are often busy. We’ve discussed that with you over and over again. I’m going, and that’s final. Butler will take you. That’s the end of it.”

Set slightly on edge by her tone (Mother rarely raised her voice at him), Artemis slid down from the chair’s arm, and opted to walk away. Clearly his mother was busy (as always), and he had only annoyed her with his complaining. He should have known better.

“Great, now I’m the bad guy...”

He heard her mutter angrily as he slunk off. A pang of guilt stabbed Artemis. He hadn’t meant to make her upset, and he paused, turning to look at her with as much of a reassuring expression as he could manage. “I don’t think you’re bad.”, he mumbled into the now-silent room, hoping to comfort her.

If his mother heard him, she gave him no sign, her focus already returned to the book in her lap.

——————————————

Angeline never did attend one of his violin recitals.

She was always busy, even more so that Father, and as Artemis grew, he eventually stopped asking. She was clearly disinterested, and he respected that (though he wished she wouldn’t praise his musical talents to their friends- if it was a point of her conversation, he would have liked for her to have shown up at least once). But that acceptance never could fully alleviate his disappointment.

His mother never seemed to realize the sheer amount of people that asked after her: How was she doing? What was she up to? Why didn’t she show up today? Each one was asked by people from the village, parents from his school, curious friends- The questions were exhausting, especially seeing as he never had the answers. He never understood why, either, beyond his mother simply having priorities that didn’t pertain to him.

Then, the Fowl Star sank and his life fell apart.

His mother never recovered from the news. The first few days of bearing the news had been awful. More than anything, he had needed her, but she wasn’t never the same after that.

Her answers to his questions shortened to clipped words and indecipherable sentences, her mind entirely occupied by grief. Her once-light and loving voice turned bitter at the sight of him, and she no longer seemed interested in what he had to say. She simply paced around the Manor, paying heed to no one. She saw things in the shadows that he couldn’t, and as much as he tried to help her and be there for her, he had no idea what to do.

Those same questions continued to be asked, as the news of his father’s disappearance spread like wildfire and his attendance in school dropped. However, they no longer came from friendly neighbors or inquisitive classmates- instead, it was concerned teachers and counselors, school psychologists, all asking the same question- Where was his mother?

Artemis didn’t know. He couldn’t answer. So he brushed them off, retreating into a frighteningly cold personality that served to scare away even the most persistent. He told them it was not their business, and that he didn’t want their help, and that he was smarter than them anyway, so why did they care? He only had his mother left, he wouldn’t let anyone take her away from him.

And then, one day, she didn’t recognize him anymore.

Juliet took care of her, after that day. Butler refused to let him continue to do so. Artemis hated it, hated the way it burdened Juliet (who he had always seen as a sister), but there was nothing he could do to help Angeline anymore. Any appearance he made before her only ended in venomous words and on a few frightening occasions, thrown objects that shattered against the wall.

He didn’t see his mother much after that.

————————————————

“Artemis, dear? What are you doing in here all by yourself? Aren’t you going to come outside?”

The genius in question raised his head from his arms, tiredly blinking in an attempt to clear his fuzzy vision. His skull throbbed with the movement, and he winced. His mother stood framed by the much-too-bright doorway, her face set in a slight frown. “Aren’t you supposed to be playing with your brothers?”

“I apologize for not watching them, Mother, I’m having a migraine. I asked Butler to take over for me- they should all be outside, with Father. If they’re not there-“

“Don’t you think coming outside would help? You should spend some time with everyone.”

Artemis mentally groaned. He shook his head, immediately regretting the action as a sharp throb of pain shot across his temples. “The sunlight makes it worse.”, he rasped. “That’s why I’m in my bedroom with the door shut- I’m trying to recover, so it will be gone by dinner.

Angeline huffed lightly. Her eyebrows raised. “You could put on some sunglasses. You have those fancy mirrored ones, might as well use them.”

Normally, Artemis wouldn’t have argued. He hated arguing with his mother, because he was always left feeling unusually bitter afterwards. His head was aching terribly and he was tempted to abandon his desk and crawl back into bed until his body recovered, something he hated to do. Her suggestion, nevertheless, was out of the question. “I can’t do that, Mother.”, he groaned. “Why does it matter so much?”

Angeline crossed her arms, tilting her head slightly in a manner that suggested she didn’t like his answer. “Because you never spend time with the whole family anymore. Because you could do with some sun. Because normal children don’t spend all day inside of their rooms with the curtains drawn, dressed in suits. Normal children enjoy spending time with their families.”

This again.

“I have a headache-“

“You always have something wrong with you these days, Artemis!”

Artemis practically hissed as her elevated tone made the pounding sharpen. His head felt like it was splitting open, and he could no longer hide the weak frustration in his voice.

“Mother, I can assure you that this has nothing to do with spending time with anyone, nor with going outside or wearing ‘normal’ attire. I am having a migraine, and I need darkness and quiet to make it go away. My head hurts- please, please leave me alone.”

She sighed at that, but at least she turned to leave. Her final words caught him off guard.

“What happened to my little Arty?”

Artemis’s vision suddenly blurred, his breath hitching in his throat. His hands began to tremble.

“Get out.”, he hissed, his voice breaking. His heart began to pound. He felt bile rise in the back of his throat, and he fought to control the wave of panic swamping him. When Angeline froze, he snarled. “Get out.”

He believed he could make out the sounds of her fleeing, shouting for Butler, but he wasn’t sure, seeing as his hands were now firmly and immovably curled around his ears. He hunched in his desk chair, tears racing down his cheeks, eyes shut as tight as he could manage as he struggled to ride out and breathe through the sudden waves of pain and panic overwhelming his senses. Everything dissolved into white static- odd, since he could have sworn he heard the sound of smashing pottery.

‘You’re not my little Arty.’

—————————————————

#finally finished the ‘sequel’ to the other thing I wrote about artemis’s parent issues #yeah angeline’s not that good of a parent either #admittedly most of this is headcanon but you get the idea #artemis fowl #angeline fowl #fowldom #my fics #familia supra omnis

[fowl-fox]

I know I keep asking you all these random questions, but- in AF, it always irked me that we never learned about Fowl Sr.’s return to Fowl Manor, given that he was recovering from being in a coma (I know his amputation sight would have been healed by then, but I don’t think he would have been strong enough to walk on a prosthetic for a while- he probably used crutches for a bit). Like... what was that like for the Fowls. I know that the books never go into it, but I would have hoped that it was a brief period of the Fowl Family being just... happy to be together again, even as they were having to dramatically restructure their lives again to adjust to the head of the family being home again, especially for Tim and Angeline. Any thoughts or headcanons or what-not?

Ask as many questions as you like! (That goes for anyone else as well.) It gets my brain going and motivates me to start writing things. Also sorry this took a bit, I've got medical crap going on rn.

As usual, I'm gonna toss this under a Read More, because boy, did this get long, I apologize. And I'm going to warn you, a lot of this delves into how I feel about Artemis' relationship with Tim and Angeline overall. But it's those feelings that drive most of my headcanons, so I feel like it's best to talk about them.

Let's start with Artemis Sr. and his state of being after rescue. I'm gonna pull some quotes from my copies of The Arctic Incident and The Eternity Code throughout my pondering, please bear with me.

At the beginning of TAI, we're given a laundry list of ailments Fowl Sr. has when he's dragged out of the water in the beginning of the book:

"Though the man's clothes were relatively intact, his body had not fared so well. His bare hands were mottled with frostbite. One leg had been snapped below the knee, and his face was a horrific mask of burns."

"He'll lose that leg for sure, (...) A couple of fingers, too. That face doesn't look too good either."

When it's Holly's turn to drag Fowl Sr. out of the water, his heartbeat is dangerously low, due to deadly cold water. We know she kept him alive, healed the chest wound caused by the blunt force of the shell Butler shot him with, as well as a blinded eye that wasn't mentioned previously, but we're not really told anything else, which I suppose leaves it up to our imaginations as to what ailments he's left with.

We know he lost his leg, but did he lose some of those frostbitten fingers? Frostbite doesn't fuck around (Mayo Clinic link, if you'd like), and while it's not mentioned, it would be likely his captors would have had to amputate a few of those as well, to prevent the dead tissue from eventually killing their meal ticket. His face was severely burned from the explosion, how extensive was the scaring after everything was said and done? We know magic can heal scars if that's what the magic is told to do, but Holly probably wasn't worried about that in the moment, and she makes this statement:

"I got him," she gasped, "One live Mud Man. He's not pretty, but he's breathing."

So even with Holly doing what she could, it sounds like Fowl Sr.'s condition was still really rough. Rough enough to need prolonged medical attention. He'd spent nearly two years in a coma before waking up in Murmansk, and the ordeal of his rescue was enough to throw him back into a coma, as we're told in The Eternity Code.

Except wait a minute. In Artemis Jr.'s diary excerpt, we're given some information that contradicts the previous book.

"It had been over two months since Holly Short used her healing magic on his battered body, and still he lay in his Helsinki hospital bed. Immobile, unresponsive.

The doctor's could not understand it. He should be awake, they informed me. His brain waves are strong, exceptionally so. And his heart beats like a horse. It is incredible, this man should be at death's door, yet he has the muscle tone of a twenty-year old.

(…) Holly's magic has overhauled his entire being, with the exception of his left leg, (...) He has received an infusion of life, in body and mind."

(...) my father had no need of medical attention. He simply sat up, rubbed his eyes, and muttered one word: 'Angeline.'"

So now Holly's magic apparently healed everything but the lost leg? What?

I love the Artemis Fowl books, but I will always be a little frustrated with their inconsistencies. But you know what? It's great for giving yourself permission to play around with your headcanons. If Colfer changes what he wants when he wants, I certainly won't feel bad about doing it.

I'm going to go with the TAI and say that Tim was still in a really rough state after everything. Ignoring that supposedly his muscles were fine, he'd still have to learn how to walk on the prosthetic. And tbh, I'm just going to believe that his muscles weren't magically perfect. Maybe easier to build back than they would have been without the magical infusion, but there was definitely gonna be work involved. And that's ignoring probable mental trauma. He was in a coma for a large portion of his captivity, but there was a brief period of time where he was conscious, with captors that maybe couldn't kill him, but definitely didn't treat him well (though it sounds like he was being a difficult captive, but yeah, of course, he's a Fowl lol.)

(Detour Thought: My mental picture of Artemis Senior has always involved heavy facial scarring, especially on the side of his face where the damage was apparently bad enough to blind him.)

But to get back to your original inquiry (Jesus, Blue, I am so sorry at how badly I've dragged this out) I do like to think there would be a period of recovery and restructure that would involve the Fowls getting to be a happy family together. Great potential for a hurt/comfort fic, if you ask me.

--

I'm going to be frank, (and this opinion puts me at odds with the fandom at large, I know) - from my interpretations of the books overall, while Artemis certainly had a strict upbringing with parents who were usually busy and definitely irresponsible, I never got the sense that it was a loveless childhood. Nor did I ever get the sense that Artemis feared his father as a person, but rather that he feared disappointing him, which at no point are we told ever actually happened. I've read these books a million times, I've never found anything in them suggesting Artemis ever disappointed his father, nor that Tim was ever actually cruel to Artemis. Strict, yes. Overly formal? Definitely. But not cruel.

Now, the fact that he felt he had to jump through so many hoops to maintain his father's approval? Bad parenting, Tim. Also, don't encourage him to be a criminal mastermind, maybe. But also Artemis is an over-achiever by nature, which Tim just either didn't clue in on or more likely imo, thought it was in Artemis' best interests as an heir of a criminal empire to be that way.

Aside from Tim and Angeline later suggesting he try to be more 'normal' and let go of his criminal tendencies, and that one incident of Angeline pulling a guilt trip (all of which is a whole other thing I won't get into rn), Artemis' parents speak positively to and about him. I just honestly think they don't know how to be actual parents, which, being aristocrats, tracks. They function almost more like older siblings after TAI, really, which isn't exactly great, but it could be worse.

We know his father used to read to him regularly when he was little (ending with a kiss on the head, which I always thought was sweet) and we know that Angeline was always warm and available to him whenever possible (until her grief-stricken dementia set in.) Artemis has a moment of angst at how strict/formal his upbringing was compared to the twins, but overall he generally speaks positively of his parents, and he loved and missed them enough to risk his life several times for them. Even when he's frustrated by their joined presence making it harder for him to conduct criminal activities, he still misses them and thinks about them often when he's away from them.

--

Which yeah, that's what this all boils down to for me. Artemis just wants time with both of his parents, and Artemis Sr.'s recovery, in my headcannon, would absolutely allow for that time he so desperately wanted, deep down. Assisting in the physical recovery, using the down time to really talk and catch up (without mentioning his fairy adventures, of course.) It would be a drastic change and awkward to adjust to initially, but overall I think it would be good.

And as for Tim and Angeline? I think there would be of course the joy of being reunited with the love of your life, because Tim and Angeline are absolutely soul-mates. But I also imagine there were many, many conversations of regrets and questioning how to move forward as a family from this point. Angeline seems to defer to Tim as the one who makes decisions for the family as a whole, but she isn’t afraid to give her input. I bet they were scared, in a way, because not only has everything changed, but the future is uncertain. They have to restructure their whole life, and while overall the changes are positive, they’re not going to be easy.

I also feel like it would be difficult for Angeline in particular because while Tim returning is a joyful thing, she now probably has some self doubts. Why did she fall apart so tremendously, at the expense of not only her well being, but her son’s? While she isn’t the best parent, I imagine Angeline will always carry heartache about her time in the attic and how she forgot her own son. And to an extent I bet Tim does too, because it was his disappearance that triggered it.

And now I want to write a fic about all of this, which I guess I'll add to my pile of ideas I've been playing around with.

–

I'd definitely like to hear more thoughts on the matter from you if you have them!

#fowldom #artemis fowl #fowl senior #angeline #this is long #but i've put a lot of thought into this even before being asked #so here you go #headcanons

[artemis20]

Artemis Fowl’s hideous movie: A firey review

Today I’ve decided to see the nefandous movie known as “Artemis Fowl”, just because my aim is to completely destroy that movie as that movie destroyed the book series. Caution for there will be spoiler from both books and movie. You can read my first impressions from the trailer here, and I can say that they did not change.

First thing: Disney decided to “unite” the first two books from the Artemis Fowl’s series in one movie, which is not a good idea at the core, but they failed completely, not only because of the alteration of the plot that such a cut requires, but also because the movie fails as a stand-alone, since it ends without the defeat of the villain, thus opening for a sequel, BUT IF YOU NEED A SEQUEL YOU COULD HAVE DONE ONE MOVIE FOR THE FIRST BOOK AND ONE FOR THE SECOND AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

So now I’ll list the pro and the cons of the movie.

Pro (very few):

The Ireland is as always wonderful, I longed to see the green shores, visually it didn’t disappoint at that point. Fowl’s Manor was also ok, I liked the setting, less the colours of the building.

The graphic was actually great, I loved the representation of the LEP technology and the City of Haven. In general, all the movie was a pleasure for the eyes and a knife in the heart and brain for the story.

I actually didn’t mind the cast, since the beginning. I had no problem with a black Butler, or Juliet, and to me Holly didn’t seem too young, actually she was as I imagined her. Female Root didn’t bother me, because the change of sex didn’t affect the character, so kudos to that. The actors also I think they did a good job; the problem is the writing for some of them as I’ll show later.

I was so happy to see Foaly, I was really scared that they would have cut him. We’ve seen him very little, but he didn’t seem OOC.

The Haven part was okayish? I mean the plot of the LEP instability was from the second book and it was mixed with the Mulch-Holly encounter which was from the first book. The whole scene in the end kinda works, and it is one of the two watchable scenes of the movie.

The launch from E7 with the lava vamp was very impressive, I really liked it.

The kidnapping scene until the beginning of the Fowl Manor scene when Holly wakes up was actually good, can we pretend it’s the only scene from the movie?

The battle with the troll at the Manor was also okay, a little bit different from the book but not too much except for one thing: Artemis that shoots and jumps, and he doesn’t fail doing that. That character is not Artemis Fowl II, not in a million years. In the later books Artemis is forced to move a little to save his life, but he remains unable to perform notable physical task, he’s at best as able as us couch potatoes.

End of pros of the movie, total watchable time: ten minutes at most.

Cons (very long list)

The movie has problems since the beginning, the first scene is the abduction of Artemis Fowl I, so it seems okay, but then we see THE HUMANS ARRESTING MULCH DIGGUMS. That is NOT possible, the existence of the People is concealed and it remains concealed, if Mulch is arrested, half of the premise of the series, the reason why the LEP acts in the first, the third and the fifth book (which is stopping mud people from learning that fairies exist) is cancelled. I understand that they wanted to preserve the narration technique from the books, which is that the author is Artemis’s biographer, but it doesn’t work this way. Mulch can work as a narrator, but you can’t have him narrating it to humans. In later books, there’s a character who would’ve worked very good as the role of the listener, and is Dr. Argon, who works in a clinic in Haven, and he actually has this role in the last book.

Since the beginning the entire movie revolves around the search of this “Aculos”, which is the source of People’s magic. This thing doesn’t exist in the books, but the real problem is how it is used in the movie. It works as a deus-ex-machina at the end to resolve the father’s abduction, because they finished the time screen, but they still had to save him. So no mission on the Artic, no learning to become a team, just magical teletransport (which doesn’t exist but ok).

Artemis in the first scene is surfing. Book description of Artemis Fowl II: “Riding was the only form of exercise that Artemis had taken to. This was mainly because the horse did most of the work.” He’s also described as having “two left feet”, he is not the perfect specimen of humanity, he is the greatest genius that isn’t able to jump a rope.

The scene with the psychiatric seemed great (ignoring the reference listed in the following point), but it was completely ruined at the end: Artemis would’ve never stormed off that way, he is not a normal teenager, he is practically an adult in a teen body. He’s controlled, he doesn’t externalize emotion to people, he controls them perfectly and is capable of acting and disguise his true character if necessary, and he’s able to play the emotions of the people he has in front.

Angeline Fowl is dead in the movie. That completely cancels the reason that triggers Artemis’s redemption. At the end of the first book he gives back half of the gold obtained by the people for his mother’s health, and in this book his family is pretty much the only thing he cares about besides his goal. Until the fourth book almost all his good actions are triggered by guilty conscience, caused by thinking of what his mother would’ve wished he would be. Angeline is the first positive force in Artemis’s life, and her worsened health is one of the reasons that we see such an evil Artemis in the first book.

The worst part of the movie is the fact that Artemis Fowl Senior knows about the People and works to protect them. Oh boy, I cannot even begin to list how much every word of that sentence is wrong. First: the Fowls were never protector, only criminals (yeah in the movie we are told they are, but they are justified by their motives, in the books they are criminals who care only for themselves). Second: Artemis Fowl discovers the Fairy People all by himself, it is the first time that the readers understands how clever he is, Artemis begins from zero (or only with the tales and legends) and he discovers the existence of the People, he manages to have a Book and have it copied, he decodes it and learns the language and the rules and exploits them for his plans. The Artemis in the movie doesn’t do that, he has everything already prepared by his father (to the point that I actually was led to believe that Book! Artemis was the father, but not such luck unfortunately). He is not a genius, he’s a normal teenager. I repeat: THAT. CHARACTER. IS. NOT. ARTEMIS. I will call him Orion from now on, since calling him Artemis is an insult.

Mulch mentions Butler’s name. OH. MY. GOD. His name is SECRET! Only his family and his dojo master know it, and he reveals it to Artemis in the third book because he’s in a death-or-live situation. There is no way that Mulch knows his name.

Artemis Fowl Senior was not abducted by Fairies, it was the Russian Mafia. People don’t usually mess with humans, it’s Artemis II that goes and start the interaction by kidnapping Holly.

Opal Koboi (who doesn’t even appear in the first book) is revealed to be the villain almost at the end of the second book, in a twist similar to the Bellweather’s one in Zootopia. Revealing it at the beginning takes away the twist.

After the call, Orion doesn’t deduce anything about the kidnapper and makes no plan, which Book! Artemis would’ve never done, but we are in front of his dumber twin soo…

Why put the plot that Mulch is a giant dwarf? He is not so much taller than other dwarfs in the books, I don’t see the point of this plotline.

Another invented plotline: Holly’s father. Holly has a parent who died heroically but it’s her mother, and she died because of mud people. This, in the books, is another reason why Holly doesn’t trust Artemis the early books, but in the movie is the reason why Holly trusts him, because their fathers worked together, exactly the opposite. At the end of the book, Holly relates to Artemis’s pain of having an ill parent, but it is pity, not trust.

Again, Orion does nothing but follow instructions, ok, let’s move on.

Juliet is too young; also, why did they make her Butler’s niece instead of his sister I don’t know.

This point deserves a standalone post, however I will start mentioning it here: I’m Italian, I’m fed up with the stereotypical representation of my country. It’s racist Disney, stop it.

Because of the Book’s rules Fairies cannot enter in a human building without permission. If they do, they feel ill, vomit and on the long run they might lose their magic. In the movie Orion invites Holly in the Manor but she was not affected by the rule at all. Also, this is the reason why the LEP recruited Mulch, he entered in so many human houses to steal things that he lost his magic, so that rule doesn’t apply to him anymore.

I only noticed when it happened that Orion changed in a suit after half of the movie. Artemis had to be forced to wear jeans from his mother.

The scene where Butler defends the Manor is also in the books but here Orion fights, I mean he’s not Artemis, who would have observed from a window

Why Opal claim to act for the People? Opal doesn’t care at all about the others, she just wants the powers for herself.

Why are Orion and Holly bonding? It’s too soon, they literally have no reason to trust each other at this point. Also of course Orion is so stupid that Holly manages to make him take off his sunglasses, he’s lucky that she was not book! Holly, because she would’ve knocked him down.

Mulch enters the Manor and tries to open a safe, and Orion declares that’s “exactly what he wanted”. Since I still hoped that that character was Artemis, I thought that either the safe was a test to prove Mulch’s ability before recruiting him or a trap. No, instead it was the fact that Orion isn’t able to open a safe inside his own house. How am I supposed to believe that this person is a criminal mastermind? He’s just a normal heroish-movie teenager.

Holly isn’t able to heal Butler just to create drama, also the almost death scene is supposed to be in the third book.

Artemis’s mastermind plan to overcome the People technology: not present

At the end they are all friends, even if they actually needed four books for that.

As I said before the magical resolution that they use to save the father does not work. There is no tension, no scene, no action for something that it was constructed at the beginning of the movie. The reason of everything is resolved in a magical PUFF.

Now that I see him more Artemis Fowl Senior is too kind and invested in his son since the beginning. He is supposed to be rigid in his education until he’s saved (one of the reasons why Artemis is also so stern).

They changed everything but they cut some of the best scenes: the beginning in Ho Chi Minh, Mulch that knocks out Butler, Holly’s escapade…

Artic mission (and therefore the evolution of characters that happens there which is a lot): not present

Goblin’s riot (and the plan to put out Opal Koboi): not present

This movie has the characters named after the ones in the books, it has the setting and the technology, but it has nothing to do with Artemis Fowl II’s history. They did the absolute worst they could have done plot wise, firstly because Orion says that he’s a criminal mastermind but he’s not even clever and the only criminal act that he does is the kidnapping (but we know from the beginning that it’s for the good of his father and the world, where in the books we discover later that he wants to save his father). As I already said the beauty of this series is that it shows Artemis redemption, from villain to hero, it’s a long road and it’s done gradually.

Second: if you want to make a stand-alone movie of Artemis Fowl, you could just adapt the first book. Opal is of course the most important and interesting villain of the series, but each book works also as a standalone itself. Even without a sequel, ending the movie with the victory of Artemis against the People works well.

If you did want to adapt the first two book in one movie, there was only one way to do it well, and it’s Zootopia. Really that movie is a more faithful adaption of the first two books.

In the end they only managed to make a movie without not only a good plot, but also an ending. As I said at the beginning, the movie ends with Opal still on the loose, so congratulations: you achieved nothing at all.

#artemis fowl #af #anti disney #artemis fowl movie #long post #misadventures in the fandoms

[idk-maybe-i-did-it]

Scars: Year five, Chapter nine

Remus Lupin x reader

Warnings: Alcoholics, mentions of blood, yelling, cursing

Loving can hurt

Loving can hurt sometimes,

But it's the only thing that I know

Sirius downed another shot of vodka as James pulled Y/n up to dance. His cheerful banter was broken for only a split second at Y/n's grimace by Sirius's actions, his smile plastered back again as she turned.

Remus spared a glance at Y/n as he danced gracefully with Mare, his sister looked beautiful that day, her dress had a simple layout but the sleeve atop had small, almost unnoticeable, pink fabrics layering up to the collar. Mare had earlier told her it was part of a dress her sister used to have before the accident.

Mare laughed as Remus spun her around and smiled as he dipped her with a flourish.

As the song finished James pulled Y/n over to where Remus was standing, gently presenting the flushed girl to him with a caress of his hand and a wiggle of his brows. Y/n looked dizzy and tipsy in a way, in Remus's opinion, and she looked beautiful in the dress Mare had gotten her to wear.

The bridesmaids, Y/n and two of Mares other friends, all had to wear light periwinkle dresses. They were feathery and easy to move around in and they dropped down just above her knees. Mare had also added greyish colored shawls to them and a pair of elbow length gloves the same color.

Remus slipped an arm around her waist as she attempted to find balance and he quickly, but carefully, navigated her over to the chairs with their names. _____________________________

He guided a glass of water up to her mouth with an easy hand and watched as she gulped half of it down before he took it away. " C'mon, time to get you to bed. Wait, Love who're you staring at?"

Remus moved onto his elbows beside the girl and looked at where her eyes were trained.

A man, who looked to be in his thirties, with short brown hair and e/c eyes stood outside of the Lupin's house door and was talking politely with his mother and father, gesturing towards the two teens seated at the couch. After a moment of their talking Hope pulled the door open and gave him a polite smile, inviting him inside.

Y/n shuddered inadvertently against the cold wind and pulled Remus's coat closer over her shoulders as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

The man came into the light and took a seat on the couch beside Y/n, Remus noticed the similarities between the two immediately.

She had his eyes, his jawline and the same smile his face that glowed up with sight of her.

Hope gently handed Y/n a cup of tea as she sat down on the other side of Remus, looking intently at the only other female in the room.

" Y/n this is your-"

" I know who he is."

She diverted her eyes from the man and looked down, taking a sip from her tea. Without looking up, she said, " Why's he here?"

Hope's face morphed into confusion at her question and she found herself stuttering out the answer.

" To t-take you home dear."

She finally spared another glance upward at him, her face a mask of neutral emotions and her eyes cold and skeptical. The teen locked eyes with him and kept his gaze as she took another sip of her tea, Remus's arm steady over her shoulder as he squeezed it reassuringly.

She looked upwards at Remus, her head tilted upward to meet his eyes, searching for something in them, anything to show his feelings on the matter. His eyes showed a positive attitude as he squeezed her shoulder again and pulled her close to his chest, dropping a chaste kiss to her forehead and moving his lips to her ear as she nuzzled her head into his neck.

" What'd you think I should do?"

" You haven't seen him in years Y/n, you should take this opportunity."

" I won't be able to see you though..."

" His house might be near James', I can always go over there and visit if you'd like."

" What if something happens?"

" You can always come back here love."

Y/n broke apart from the whispered discussion and turned to see the man, his elbows on knees leaning forward and brows furrowed as he looked back and forth between the two.

The man reached a hand up and pawed at his forehead as he stared at the boy holding his daughter.

" And- Who exactly are you in this story kid, and why did you just, do whatever it was you did?"

Remus launched forward immediately and leaned upwards, extending his left hand while simultaneously keeping Y/n close as to not drop her from the sudden movement while she buried her head in the collar of his shirt.

The man accepted his hand automatically and shook it as he gave Remus a once over, glaring lightly at the hold he had on his child.

" Remus Lupin sir, Y/n's boyfriend of four months, her best friend of six years sir."

Remus's face displayed a smile as he shook the man's extended hand, wincing at the amount of pressure being put on it. The brown haired man gave the boy a smile and moved his gaze back over to his grip on Y/n. His normally soft eyes hardened and Remus was quick to release her. ________________________________

Remus stood in the doorway as he watched Y/n put her trunk in the car's boot with a thump.

She turned around and glanced at her father before he nodded. The teen walked up the walkway and met Remus by the door, hooking her arms into the pockets of his jacket where his arms lay, lacing their fingers together. She pulled his forward lightly and he unlaced their fingers, instead opting to pull her closer while simultaneously slipping a hand to the dip of her back, dipping her backwards with a flourish. Her arm came up to his neck and she stared into his eyes, their noses mere centimeters apart.

His voice came out husky and low and filled with love.

" I'll miss you Y/n. Make sure to come back to either mine or James' if you need anything mi amore."

He smiled down at her with a simple, bashful smirk and Y/n laughed at him lightly, shaking her head.

" You always loved your Italian..."

She sniffled and Remus pulled her back up, slamming his lips against hers full force before she let go.

As the female closed her door Remus could've sworn he'd heard her say 'Until we meet again.'

If only he had know the exact date he would next see her, he wouldn't've let her leave. ______________________________

" What do you see in him Y/n?"

" He makes me happy, he makes me feel loved F/n."

" Yeah but, what makes you love him? I'm not criticizing you or anything I'm just curious kid."

" What makes me love him is the fact that he's been here with me ever since I was eleven and didn't know what to do, he stuck by me when I was sad and didn't get mad when I was the same, he showed me love and respect and he showed me that he cared by staying through it all. I know that my memory isn't all that perfect right now but I remember that much."

The man bit his lower lip in thought, his hands gripping the pickup trucks steering wheel tighter, before he nodded his head and turned down a familiar road she'd seen so many times before.

" Okay then, I respect that." ________________________________

Y/n's P.o.V.

" F/N YOU CAN'T JUST IGNORE THEM ANY LONGER AND YOU KNOW THAT!"

" I KNOW THAT M/N BUT I CAN'T STAY HERE ANY LONGER!"

" Just one more night F/n. One more night to explain and let them choose."

Liz came over and cradled my head to her chest while we tried to block out the noises of our parents. This was a weekly occurrence so it wasn't hard for us to block it out, it was no use trying to listen in anymore anyways. We knew what they always argued about, Me, Liz, the house, our schooling, Liz's condition, auntie Candy, auntie Angeline.

" Come on Y/n, let's try to lay dow-'

Screams.

Screams were what erupted from the hallway, a masked man shoved into the room we were in. He had our mum in a choke hold and kept on kicking her, punching her, slashing her as we-

" Y/n? You okay kid?"

" Oh, yeah, yeah I'm okay. Just thinking."

He leaned forward and went to shuffling the cards again, passing me ten of them where I laid them down atop the same glass table we used to play garbage at when we were younger.

I arranged the ten cards in two rows face down on my side of the table as he did the same. Then I picked a card up from the good pile and looked down at it.

7 of Ace.

I traded out that card for the one in place of the facedown seven card and placed the new one there, looking at the one previously in place.

3 of Diamonds.

I kept on switching cards until I got a blasted 7 again.

F/n snorted and flicked the card from my fingers with a snap, taking it for place on his arrangement.

We went on this way until I filled up my deck thrice and he gave in.

He stood up and grabbed our glasses.

" We ran out of tea kid, let's go back in before you kick my ass."

Since when do you curse? You never cursed while I knew you.

" Yeah, yeah okay. No. No F/n no, I'll get the notebook, you go and try to find something else to do."

I turned around and took the pen from his hand before I dropped it on the counter beside him. The house wasn't fancy, it wasn't big or small, but it was a house. He grew up on a farm when he had been a boy so naturally, we live on the ranch with him too.

We.

I'm stupid.

We don't live here anymore, mum and Liz are dead.

I stumbled, almost dropping the notebook in my hand. An arm came to rest on my side as I tried to find my footing again. " You okay Y/n? This stuff's been happening all week, you've been spacing out and stumbling everywhere."

" Well, in my defense I am very clumsy and I space out a lot."

A shallow, hollow and numb, laugh cascaded my lips seamlessly as he eyed me with concern.

" Yeah, I forgot, you wouldn't know. Y'know, seeing as you've been in and out of my life since I was seven. Mostly out."

I turned and looked at him, my face neutral as he gaped at me, his face saddened.

I spun around on my heel and stood on my tippy-toes to grasp the tea kettle.

" This is how it goes F/n you can't just expect to randomly walk back into my life without complications. If you did, then you've expected someone else's kid."

" Y/n, you know I didn't mean to. Me and your mother just, had some differences to sort out."

I turned and glared at him with a heated passion, my voice coming out cold and with snide.

" No, you can't keep using mum as an excuse. She's dead, I watched her die and you, what did you do? You sat with a knife in your leg and stared at her as she was beaten bloody and killed. So do me a favor, and don't bring her up okay."

I figure I went a bit too harsh on him but that doesn't really matter.

What matters is the fact that he's using his dead divorced wife as an excuse for leaving me.

" I didn't realize taking care of a teenager would be this hard..."

" You realize that just because I'm walking to my bedroom, that doesn't mean I can't still hear you right." ________________________ Yeah Yeah Yeah, I know this is really frigin short but uh, I have my own reasons for the shortness of it. Just be glad, I could've made it as short as I am. ______________________ Drop a vote, drink some water, eat some food, take screen breaks and remember You Are loved! ^ - ^

#james potter x reader #Remus Lupin #Remus John Lupin #remus lupin x sirius black #remus lupin x reader #RemusLupin #remuslupinxreader #remuslupinxsadreader #jamespotter #siriusblack #peterpettigrew #peter pettigrew #siriusblackxreader #hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry #hogwarts

[nowitsdarkfic]

chapter twenty (back to the watershed)

“Take that to the bank and call it a check, Masked without a weapon. I'm skinny as a spit pan, dealing with the shit plan. Playing with my bad hand: just another rock band.” -”Wattershed”, Foo Fighters

December 22, 1988. Seattle, Washington.

I open up the curtains in time to behold the sight of Lars, Spence, and the girls bounding into the driveway down below. I turn to Nancy, who's got her arms folded over her chest. I'm sure this is the next step in figuring all of this out. It's all so obvious to me now, and it should've been obvious to me before now. Oh, well. Better late than never, I suppose.

“They're here,” I tell her.

“Okay.” She opens her arms for me. I hold her close to me and her arms go all the way around my body. “You guys be careful, okay?”

“Of course.”

“And you take care of yourself for me, too,” she adds, pulling back and running her hand down my stomach.

“Thank you,” I tell her, “thank you for everything.”

Chris strides into the front room right then, dressed in a flannel shirt and black pants, and his long black wavy hair drifting back from his head.

“Catch you later, man,” he chirps at me.

“Yeah, you too, Chris—we'll be back before either of you know it, though. I'm sure of it. And you guys take care of yourselves!”

“Oh, we will,” he assures me, putting his arm around her.

“I have to protect him, anyways,” she adds, leaning up to his neck for a little kiss. I then wheel around and reach for my coat hanging on the hook next to the door. The gloves and my pinky ring are once again in the pocket; I put the latter on once I have the coat on over me and then I slip on the gloves as I'm descending the stairs. A risky move on my part but one that'll get me into the car in time. Spence climbs out of the passenger seat next to Lars and heads for the back seat behind it. I duck into the car and before I can even so much as put on my seat belt, Lars steps on it and we lunge forward to the pavement in front of us so as to make a loop around the complex. The hydrogen never makes a sound as we go forth.

“Joey, there's a raspberry danish in the back seat for you,” he begins as I buckle myself in. “Sonia has it.”

I turn my head as she's reaching into a brown paper sack on her lap; she hands me the golden and crispy danish with the light glaze on the top accompanied by a white tissue paper.

“Thank you,” I tell her as I take it and then, with my free hand, I take out my sunglasses from my coat pocket.

“Okay, so we're going back to the airport because the plane leaves in about an hour,” Marcia explains. “Barney and Billy are already there, I guess.”

“Okay, good,” I reply, taking a whiff of the danish first before eating it.

“So, tell me,” Lars starts as we reach the street, “—how'd you figure this whole thing out again?”

“Okay. It's simple.” I take a bite out of the danish. “Angeline and I had dinner at Maya's foster parents' house over in Boston a few weeks ago on Matt's birthday, and we found the house was totally advanced like how all of Seattle and the cafe we ate it in Ballard was totally advanced.”

“Right.”

“You know that medicine I gave you for your knee?”

“Yes?”

“It's made by Morlente Medicine, which—I guess?—is an offshoot of Maxwell Industries.”

“Morlente as in Maya's foster parents,” he follows along as we pull onto the street.

“Right! It's so stupidly simple that I can't believe I missed it, either.” I take another bite of the danish, which, despite being crispy on the outside, is light and fluffy on the inside, just how I want a danish to be. I swallow it down in order to speak again. “I've known Brick most of my life but I never knew what his parents did for a living. Do you see where I'm going with this?”

“Brick's parents are in cahoots with Maya's foster parents?” Spence asks me.

“Exactly! But this almost feels like a conspiracy, though. Like, why? Why would a couple of French Canadians want to go into business with them like that?”

“Probably can't get that in Quebec?” Lars suggests.

“Eh, who knows, really. I only sort of knew his parents because we were more intent on playing hockey and hanging out with each other whereas they were more intent on working.”

“But why would Brick's parents be a part of something that's so intent on killing him, though?” Spence wonders aloud. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know, that's like the one thing that's throwing me, though,” I point out, licking some raspberry off my finger. “Why would his parents be a part of something so nefarious?”

“Wait a minute,” Lars stops me as we’re pulling up to a low hanging stoplight. “Are you telling me the shit you gave me for my knee is made by the same people who are Maya’s foster parents and are in cahoots with the same company that’s probably killing your best friend?”

“Yes,” I answer as hard as it is to answer that.

“And are you telling me the exact same shit you gave me for my knee is made by the same people who are Maya’s foster parents and are in cahoots with the same company that’s probably killing your best friend is the same shit Nancy rubbed on your belly after you were moaning and groaning in utter agony last night for that pain?”

“...yes.”

“What the serious—fucking what?”

“That’s what I’m wondering, too. But remember, Lars, it’s an offshoot from the parent company.”

“Yes, but—I remember distinctly it looking like some kind of... black tar with glimmers in it. Like neon glimmers.” The light turns green and we roll on forward with the sun in our eyes. Lars scoffs and tugs down the visor.

“Right, and their house is also full of the same millennia-ahead-of-everyone high tech that was in the cafe we ate at in Ballard when I first met Soundgarden. Tell me none of that is a coincidence.” I take another bite from the danish and catch a little bit of crumbs which fell from the corner of my mouth. “This is a really good danish, by the way.”

“Courtesy of Marcia,” Sonia pipes up.

“Really?”

“Smell the magic, Joseph,” Marcia replies. “Smell the magic.”

“I taste it, too.” Marcia really is not that bad. She just needs a little love, and I’m giving it to her by gobbling up this lovely danish before we reach the airport.

“Alright, so the three of us and the Greys,” Lars starts again, “are heading back to New York, and Marcia and Sonia are taking the car back up to Everett with them.”

“You’re not going to Portland?” I ask him, and then I remember. “Oh, right, right, right.”

“Yeah, it’s--yeah.” He shrugs at me. “And we still didn’t take a closer look at the heart of Seattle, too. Dammit!” He slaps the edge of the steering wheel.

“Probably don’t need to at this point, dude,” says Spence. “Joey’s pretty much got this in the bag.”

“I wouldn’t be so confident of that, though, Spence,” I point out to him as I’m dabbing my mouth with the paper, “I just answered one part of this whole puzzle and it only raised a metric shitload more questions. And even then I’m not feeling too good about answering that.”

“Why’s that?” Lars flashes me a raised eyebrow before turning back to face the road.

“Well, there’s the whole thing with Maya. I just answered what could be behind Brick. I figured out my best friend but I still have no idea what’s going on with her.”

“She does have that scar on her forehead,” Lars points out.

“Right. That’s what I’m talking about.” We fall into silence for a moment as we board onto the freeway and head on down to Sea-Tac. And then, I watch Lars knit his eyebrows together and cock his head to the side as if listening for something. Yeah, I’ve got a weird feeling, too.

“Hang on, hang on--” He closes his eyes. “You don’t think--”

I turn my head to see the disgusted look on his face, and I shake my head.

“No way,” I almost blurt out.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. No. No. No. No. No.”

“Brick’s parents are nice people,” I quip at him, flexing my fingers inside of my gloves.

“They really are,” Spence joins in.

“Distant, but they are in fact nice people. They wouldn’t--”

“No,” Lars sputters out.

“They can’t,” I continue as the sign for the exit to the airport enters our view.

“No.”

“They can’t!”

“No!”

“They can’t! They couldn’t! They didn’t!”

“No!” Lars shrieks, slamming his hands on the edge of the steering wheel. “No! Nein! Ingen! Ingen! No! No!”

“They did!” Marcia and Sonia shout in unison.

“Oh my gracious God,” I groan out, running my leather-bound fingers through my hair before peering out the window. “It’s impossible. It’s just--there’s no way. They couldn’t do it to her.”

“But they somehow did!” Lars exclaims. I let out a low whistle.

“Let’s just go back to New York,” I grumble to him. “We’ll--figure out where to go from here while we’re on the plane.”

Once we’re at the airport, Lars, Spence, and I climb out of the car and bide Marcia and Sonia good-bye for now, and head on inside to meet up with Barney and Billy at our terminal. Right before we board the plane, Lars takes something out of the lush interior of his coat and shows it to me: a little dark grey square with nothing on it.

“What’s this?” I ask him, taking it from him.

“Your voice.” And then it dawns on me.

“Oh, right!”

“I can probably help you with production, too, if you’d like. I’ve done it thrice before.” His breath smells sweet, like he just had a danish himself before picking me up. Well, he does in fact have history with Marcia and Sonia. 

We step onto the plane and find our seats in the front of coach class, right behind first class. Some day I’ll be up there.

There is one person I want to speak to when we get back to New York and that’s of course Maya. My hope is she can give me some more insight because I’m dying here. There’s so much here and I just figured one aspect of the whole thing, and I almost don’t even know where to begin with all of it. I hope I can get her to talk. And if I can’t get her to talk, I hope I can get her to eat something. It’ll serve her right for stuffing me silly that one time, too.

But the very first thing I want to do before I do anything is do laundry. I’m not going to my parents’ house for Christmas looking like I can barely dress myself.

When I finally return home at about mid-afternoon, I head on down the hall to turn on the thermostat and set down my things. I take off my coat followed by my shirt.

Something stops me.

I turn my shirt inside out and bring my nose to the fabric that was right over my belly. It smells sweet, like sugar. It’s not from the danish, that’s for sure, given the smell is on the inside.

I think back to when I dissolved some of the serum in a glass of water for Lars’ knee. I remember, albeit a vague memory, that it’s only to be taken orally with some water. Nancy rubbed something that’s only to be taken orally with water on my belly along with some aloe. Either it was the aloe and the tea alone that did the trick for my pain, and that cybernetic serum shit is a phony, or someone else is lying to me now.

But the sweet smell is so clear and crisp in my nose: it’s like someone burned some sugar and poured the caramelization on the inside of my shirt and never managed to scrub out the smell.

That cybernetic serum shit is a phony.

“Placebo,” I mutter aloud, rubbing my bare stomach with my hand even though it’s still kind of sore and not in the same agonizing pain from last night. “And someone else is lying to me.”

#after the watershed #now it's dark #who cares wins #chapter 20 #new chapter #fanfic #fanfiction #heavy metal fanfiction #thrash metal #anthrax fanfics #metallica fanfics #joey belladonna #lars ulrich #chris cornell #anthrax #metallica #soundgarden #noir au #cyberpunk #steampunk #gothic horror #dark sci-fi #amwriting #text

[baldysims]

Strange Legacy 3.2

“Hey bro, how was college? Still have all your skills maxed?”

“Oh, Di, it was amazing! You wouldn’t believ--”

“Hang on, I just realized it’s the middle of the day and I somehow failed to get in my coffin and am about to die from sunlight exposure yet again. Hold that thought.”

“But--!”

“We’ll talk about skilling laterrrrrrr! Hissssssss!”

Third generation heir Fornax has returned to the legacy lot and been reunited with his parents and older-but-perpetually-teenaged sister, Diadem. The main household got played a bit while the rest of the kids were at college so I could troubleshoot the whole teen vampire thing with fewer distractions.

It turns out teen vamps are hard, but not that bad when you build them a garage full of snapdragons and give them a fancy sports car to shield them from the sun’s harsh rays on their way to and from school... at least when certain other people aren’t hogging the coffin. *coughCASSIEcough*

Yep, Cassie’s back home too. Why? Well, I wanted a platinum grilled cheese grave for the lot, but I also really didn’t feel like making another Sim eat 200 sandwiches. Sue me.

It’ll be nice to have an extra set of hands around to raise generation 4, though, especially since I’m sure I’ll be pretty distracted a lot of the time with keeping Di alive... in a manner of speaking.

Generation 4 will be here very soon, since Fornax took less than a day to fulfill his lifelong (or at least last-two-years-of-college-long) dream of becoming a rock star. Not bad for a former nerd who never even made out with a girl until after he’d already graduated.

Fornax’s wedding to Danni, the sexy heroic firefighter of his dreams, was thoughtfully held at night so that all members of the Strange family could attend, both living and dead.

Unfortunately this included some family members who probably shouldn’t have been invited, like Uncle Alpheratz.

Ever a man of class, he couldn’t even wait until the reception was over to start trash talking the groom. It’s extra gross when you realize that the woman he’s talking to is his daughter Cursa, who you might remember along with her sister Bellatrix as the tearful, brokenhearted children from the last family wedding Alpheratz ruined.

What have Bells and Cursa been up to since we saw them last, anyway?

Well, Bellatrix married the love of her life, Tybalt Capulet, and became a business tycoon in the family company. She’s angling to get her son, Lucius, named the heir to the Capulet fortune, but I doubt that’ll happen given how matriarchal the Capulets are. Still, she tries. I guess you can take the girl out of the patriarchy, but you can’t take the patriarchy out of the girl.

Cursa moved into Capulet Manor alongside her sister, and immediately began a scandalous May-December romance with Tybalt’s grandfather, Consort. No one in the family has told Betelgeuse about their affair, and for good reason. Bete was raised to believe every Sim in the family must abide by the Strict Family Values and True Love handicaps, regardless of whether they were raised in the main household or not. The knowledge would only hurt him, and clearly, he’s happy in his blissful ignorance.

Bete also doesn’t know that his youngest daughter, Electra, is also keeping certain aspects of her life as a spare a secret from him.

Sure, she locked down a True Love in her college years and married him as soon as humanly possible, just like her parents always dreamed, but given that she and Freddy are a couple of video game-obsessed slackers who can barely put down the handhelds to feed themselves, much less raise a child, I decided to let them embrace the wonders of modern birth control.

And so it seems that Betelgeuse and Angeline’s only grandchildren will be through Fornax and Danni. Speaking of whom, let’s get back to their wedding; I think we’ve gone on more than enough spare-related tangents for one chapter.

Danni Strange, former last name unknown, is a knowledge Sim and former firefighter who is truly, madly, deeply in love with her dork of a husband. She saved his life back in college and the sparks, so to speak, were instant.

Danni’s very well liked by the rest of the Stranges. Cassie used to be the sole holdout, but now that Danni is officially part of the family, she seems to have come around.

It’s shaping up to be a very wholesome generation.

Danni got pregnant right away, and spent the majority of her pregnancy working on maximizing all her skills. She’ll need them, because I want to get the collection point for having all the career rewards this generation.

Danni was game, and dedicated herself so thoroughly to this task that she even gave birth with her skilling hat on.

Little Gomeisa here turned out to be a girl, which gave Betelgeuse a little anxiety. He himself took four tries to have a boy with his wife Angeline, and they ended up cutting it pretty close age-wise. He doesn’t want that stress for his own son, so he urges his son to try for more grandchildren as soon as possible.

Fortunately, that’s not a problem for Fornax and Danni. Their chemistry is through the roof and they basically go at it like rabbits constantly, so it wasn’t long before Danni gave birth to another girl, Hamal.

This did not relieve Betelgeuse’s concerns.

“Son, you realize that only boys can inherit the legacy heirship, right? You have to have at least one, and really, two is best.”

“You think I don’t know that, dad?”

“Of course not, Fornax, but I want to talk you through some of the implications. The only way it’s mathematically possible for you to have an heir and a spare is to have at least two more children.”

“So? That’s fine. I mean, sure, I’m not a Family Sim like you or grandpa, but I’m permaplat and Danni’s definitely up for it.“

“The problem, son, is that there are already seven people in this house. Di can’t move out until your mother and I die, which we’re nowhere close to, and Cassie can’t leave or we lose the grilled cheese grave. Essentially, you’ve only got one more chance to get a boy... and I hope you’ll agree that we should maximize it.”

That’s right, it’s cheesecake time! Betelgeuse himself was a cheesecake twin, so of course he’s aware of this classic legacy strategy.

I actually hate having twins, especially during the toddler years, but Betelgeuse is right -- it only makes sense to double the chance of getting an heir before it’s too late.

And so Danni went through a third, much more difficult pregnancy, while the rest of the household worked as hard as they could on various miscellaneous legacy milestones.

Cassie spent a lot of time tediously job-hopping for various career rewards, and also painted the next generation of Strange family portraits. She herself won’t have an official portrait as a spare, but I thought it would be nice to let her memorialize herself for posterity with a grilled cheese masterpiece.

Betelgeuse finished his memoirs, as demanded by the Storyteller handicap.

He also spent some genie wishes bulking up the family fortune. The Stranges don’t really need money for money’s sake, since they’re already swimming in filthy lucre, but in order to get maximum points they'll need $3,000,000 by generation nine, so every simoleon counts.

Diadem earned all of her point-based scholarships as well as an impossible want point by maximizing her skills. Now that she’s free most nights, she spends a lot of time acting as her nieces’ night nanny.

“Glowing skill milk for Gomeisa! Hissssssssss!“

Unfortunately, I realized too late that I made a big mistake by maximizing Di’s skills as quickly as I did. She’s knowledge, so now that she doesn’t have anything left to learn, the only real big-ticket wants she can satisfy are being scared by ghosts... and ours aren’t exactly cooperative.

“Grandma, scare me! Bleh!”

Grandma Sharon would never, Di. She’s too nice. Sorry. You’ll have to wait for Grandpa Zaniah... and for some reason the only time he ever came out to haunt was to scare your mother during her last pregnancy. Jerk.

Di also tends to get lured by the siren call of the career reward collection, which I foolishly stored out of sight in the backyard. Pretty much every morning I lose track of her until I realize from her red icon that she’s been roasting in the sun.

“You can’t blame me for wanting to live on the edge! It’s what teenagers do! And I’ve been a teenager for decades now.”

Yeah, fair enough.

Finally, the twins come along... and it’s two more statistically improbable girls, Ilkil and Jishui. I was so upset by this revelation that I completely failed to take a decent birth photo. I mean... ugh. The house is as full as full gets, but no one can really go anywhere until either the girls grow up and go to college, or I decide to kill Betelgeuse or Angeline. I really don’t want to have to deal with annoying non-Old Age ghosts this early in the legacy... so that means I’m stuck raising four girls while Fornax and Danni’s adult lifespans get shorter and shorter, unable to be lengthened even by Elixir of Life due to yet more legacy handicaps.

That’s right, little spare, grow up! Grow up in your pajamas with no party and no cake. With all 4+ of you little monsters running around, it’s not like birthdays are going to be anything special around here.

It goes without saying that the whole house is basically living off of cheesecake right now. Betelgeuse made a lot. Just in case.

The sole exception to cheesecake for dinner is when the headmaster comes over for lobster, but even then, Angeline objects.

“Fornax, you don’t need to go to such lengths. Just let me fix BJ a few drinks! We go way back, you know.”

I was pretty sure that was the booze talking, but then this happened:

Well, I’ll be damned! I guess booze really does beat out a home cooked meal. I’ll keep that in mind for my next dinner party.

“Aunt Di, why do me and Hamal have to go to private school and study so hard just to start college early? That sounds boring.”

“Gogo, I’m going to lay some truth on you. Private school is the best thing in life. I mean that, literally. The only joy I get in life anymore is from the occasional report card that barely keeps me out of aspiration failure. Hissssssss!”

Yeah, I think Diadem might be depressed.

To cheer her up, I sent her on a date -- the good, expensive kind, not the Aunt Electra “Just take my $25 so I can get a memory token” kind. The matchmaker conjured up Adam, a store clerk who’s been selling the Stranges clothing and groceries since the dawn of the legacy.

Diadem couldn’t get enough of him. He seemed genuinely fascinated by her stories of being abducted by aliens back before getting vamped, and for once in her life since maximizing her skills, Di felt... passion.

Of course, love in a knowledge Sim vampire tends to express itself in a rather, um, aggressive way, and, well... I just couldn’t resist the aspiration bonus.

Sorry, Adam. I'll try not to burn you to a crisp when the Stranges visit community lots during the day from now on.

After claiming him as a creature of the night, Di claimed her first kiss, just as the sun came up. Away with you into your coffins! Bleh!

Oh, Angeline. Booze for dinner with the headmaster, and now booze first thing in the morning? I get that you picked up certain habits from your mother in law, but did you have to pull Fornax in on the day drinking? He’s been so functional up til now!

“I resent that. I day drink purely out of my own free will, just like you would if you knew you’d be changing diapers until retirement age.”

Sigh... fair enough.

In other news, Cassie continues to pursue various careers in search of all 20+ career rewards. Most of the time I just nab them from the newspaper so she automatically grabs them, but sometimes I let her go all the way to the top.

Something about the sweet mad scientist robot hand just seems right for her, you know?

Anyway, we’re about halfway there as far as the career rewards go. I decided I was sick of them cluttering up my view of the lawn (the Stranges are trashy for sure, but like, rich trashy, not furniture-on-the-lawn trashy), not to mention almost killing Di every morning, so I resolved to spruce the place up with a mausoleum/career reward storage facility. And a greenhouse, because hey, why not go for that extra Seasons point?

We already have most of the fish thanks to Angeline, which is the hard part, so really all that’s left is the wishing well and a few juices. Might as well, right?

“Grandma, why can’t you play red hands with me?”

“Well, Hamal, you’ve got to be a good girl and study for when you become a teenager. And I’ve got to spend all day fishing so that I can get red and pass out on the lawn over and over!”

And so she did! Here, have an ugly photo of the upstairs hall proving that Angeline nabbed us every kind of fish.

And not a moment too soon, because as soon as the first leaves began to show on the crops in the greenhouse, Angeline received a ghostly final visitor.

R.I.P. Angeline Strange, former cute teen downtownie, wife and mother of four, Sim City General Chief of Staff and lifelong alcoholic. You were many things, but most of all fun to play, and I’ll miss you.

Poor Bete. Family Sims take the death of a spouse extra hard, so I was expecting this, but it’s still sad. Especially when his morbid vampire daughter discusses it so bluntly over a game of pool that very night.

I don’t mean to imply that Di didn’t care about her mother’s death. She did, of course! She was probably even closer to Angeline than Betelgeuse was. But Knowledge Sims show it in a different way.

And so Angeline was laid to rest in the upper floor of the mausoleum, where Sharon was already haunting in welcome. Hopefully she’ll have some company soon.

Life went on for the rest of the family, with Betelgeuse still hellbent on getting a grandson out of Danni and Fornax.

Yeah, yeah, she already promised to have more kids once you’re dead, Bete! Give it a (final) rest already!

“Aunt Cassie, do I have to die to get a brother too?”

“No, Gogo, of course not. You’ll just go to college, that’s all. We’re not killing anyone on purpose in this legacy until at least generation 7.”

I’m sure Gomeisa was very comforted to hear that.

In protest, she rolled Romance on her teen birthday, but just like Cassie last generation, I don’t think it suits her.

She is ridiculously uninterested in all the men she meets.

She’d much rather hang out with her younger sisters, especially Hamal, who’s about to join her in teenhood.

Now, I’m not a total monster, of course I let Gomeisa have a first kiss before I sent her off to college. The last thing I want is to force Fornax’s children to relive his grisly fate as an inexperienced child in college. Plus the wishing well we got from joining the garden club makes it so easy, how could I not?

Hmm, Loren Teens, not bad, not bad. Technically he’s part of yet another matriarchal Maxis family, the Tricous, but the Tricou matriarchs are all dead and Loren is ultimately just a descendant of one of the men who married in, so I don’t think Betelgeuse would necessarily object.

Especially since it’s finally his deathday.

R.I.P. Betelgeuse Strange. You did everything you could to continue your father’s legacy, even when you probably shouldn’t have, but I respect the effort. I hope you have fun whaling on Alpheratz in the afterlife.

With Betelgeuse finally dead and gone, Fornax and Danni were free to try for babies #5 and #6. Yes, I’m doubling up again, and if I get two more girls, I’m going to scream. I’m not even sure Danni will be young enough to carry another pregnancy if that happens. But hey, at least this picture of them cuddling under the stars is cute. I like to think they’re planning their babies’ names when they do this, since everyone in the family is named after either a star or a constellation.

Just like big sis Gomeisa, Hamal rolled Romance on her birthday and summoned a Tricou kid, this time Loren’s brother Tiave, from the wishing well for her first kiss. The girls in this family really seem to enjoy flirting with matriarchy.

Right after Hamal hit him and quit him, Zaniah popped out to scare her. I don’t think the old hypocrite approves of his great-granddaughters rolling Romance or dating Tricous.

With Gomeisa and Hamal’s first kisses obtained and generation two finally laid to rest, Diadem was able to nab her last scholarship and get shipped off to college with her nieces. I’m sure they’ll have a blast there while I head back to the home lot and pray to Wright for an heir who STILL hasn’t been born and (hopefully) play him all the way to teendom and young adulthood. Sigh.

Legacy Scoring:

Legacy: 3 Money: 2 Family friends: 38x.25 = 9.25 Impossible wants: 9 (Alph 20L, Sharon 30F, Zaniah 7Sk, Angeline 7Sk, Fornax 7Sk,  Cassiopeia 200S, Electra 50FD, Diadem 7Sk) Platinum graves: 4 (Family, Popularity, Fortune) Ghosts: 1 (Old Age) Business: 4 Seasons: 2 Free Time: 4.5 (Games: Zaniah, Betelgeuse, Alpheratz, Electra, Fornax, Cassiopeia, Angeline) Collections: 1 (25 Elixirs) Master: 2 (Social Bunnies Need Love Too, Child Prodigy - Fornax, ) Handicaps: 0 Overflow: Penalties: -1 (bills) Total: 38.85

#sims 2 #sims 2 legacy #strange legacy #strange legacy generation 2 #strange legacy generation 3 #strange legacy generation 4

[kristie-rp]

when the morning comes

Who: Toni Crueson, Raphael Constantine, Adrian Crueson (Toni’s dad), Lola Crueson (Toni’s mum), Ross Crueson (Toni’s little brother), Enid Crueson (Ross’s wife), Courtney Crueson (8-year-old only daughter of Ross & Courtney, Toni’s niece), Adelaide Crueson (Toni’s older sister, pregnant), Corey Oliver-Flannigan (Adelaide’s partner), Angeline Andurgor. What: Inspired by Stay Awake by Dean Lewis. Toni’s niece is sick, and she’s got to go.

-----------------

You said you’re leaving          When the morning comes                  Stay Awake  - Dean Lewis

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“Oh no, that’s awful.”

Rain continues to run down the window as she spins idly in her chair. She keeps pausing, whenever the person at the other end of the call speaks. She is listening intently: her brow dips in a small furrow, and grief brings her shoulders arching up towards her ears.

“How long?”

Whatever she is told is enough to bring it to a head, and her shoulders slump. Her curls trail after it, dark brown waves swaying and slumping. They shift and end up in her face, before her eyes. She makes no move to tuck them back out of the way.

“I’ll book the soonest flight I can.”

Quiet fills the room again. Only the dull stream of rain from outside the apartment can be heard, pattering constantly against the glass. She stares at the window visible above her computer screen, no longer spinning idly.

“I’ll see you in a couple days.”

-

Toni is very, very drunk by the time she brings it up. She’s been oddly manic all night, jumping between topics like none of them can hold her attention. There’s a faraway look in her eyes whenever she gulps her booze, drinking with clear intent.

When she slams her dozenth empty bottle back onto the counter, it startles Raphael enough to get him to adjust his focus. He watches her more often than not; dark eyes on her. Her curls, her smile, the way her honey-brown eyes crinkle when she laughs. Only there hasn’t been any laughter tonight, just drinking, and raving, and changing the subject.

“I’m leaving,” she says without preamble. “I go back to Auckland in the morning.”

Raphael freezes in place. He’d been prepared to laugh off any concerns she’s having, to talk them through and work it out. He is frozen now, lips barely parted, transfixed by her in a different way. He cannot breathe a word, and Toni takes advantage of the opportunity to barrel through it.

“The flight leaves at five, so I’m probably just gonna go straight to the airport; it’ll be easier than waking up. You don’t have to see me off, or anything. I don’t wanna force you into anything you don’t want to do.”

And, well. If he could form a sentence, he might protest that. He might say that she’s never made him do anything he didn’t want to do, not at all, and all that is happening here is – well. She’s asking him to say goodbye to her, sort of, and he has never, ever wanted to do that. Not since he met her in Auckland in the first place, when she offered up her families house to him for as long as he wanted to stay.

She makes him smile, usually, even when he’s miserable. But now, he has a look on his face like his heart is breaking. She says something about how she doesn’t know how long she’ll be gone, and drowns the sentence in yet another drink.

-

The apartment is too quiet.

He heard her leave in the small hours of the morning, trying to be quiet. She was probably trying not to wake him, but he didn’t sleep at all. He’d wanted to get up and beg her to stay, had wanted her to come and check in on him. Wanted her to see he was awake, and either say goodbye herself, or say she doesn’t want to go. It’s not like her Visa is expiring; his families money is good for that much, even if it never did anything else for him.

But she doesn’t say goodbye, and the door closes. It’s the click of the lock in the silent apartment that reminds him to breathe, to catch breath he hasn’t realised he’s been holding.

The flight leaves at five, he remembers. He’s got time. Until then, there’s a chance she’ll turn around.

He stares at the red glow of his alarm clock until the sun starts to rise, and then rolls out of bed to force himself into doing something, anything, anything at all.

The clock says 5:55.

-

She’s outside cutting wood. It’s all she’s been doing for most of the day, since she woke up. She’d arrived at a time that let her take dinner with Adelaide, Corey and their parents, and Ross’s partner Enid. Ross and Courtney had been conspicuously absent, but they didn’t talk about it. Instead, Toni asked nosy questions about Adelaide’s pregnancy, and pushed for information about their dads work, or what remained of it.

After dinner, Enid comes back. She’s exhausted, and miserable, and Corey gives her a hug on his way to go take her place at the hospital. “She was asleep when I left,” Enid says. She’s pale, with dark circles under her eyes like she hasn’t been sleeping. Toni remembers when Enid, her sister-in-law, was pregnant with Courtney; remembers how full of life she’d been. Nothing like this half-dead mother in front of her.

“You should’ve told me,” Toni tells Ross, “instead of leaving it to Enid. You’re my little brother, you’re supposed to tell me things!”

“I didn’t want to ruin your weird elopement,” he snipes back, clearly resentful. Toni doesn’t rise to the bait; instead, she whirls away, and goes to bed, too tired from the timezone change. It’s after 4am in America, not 8pm, and she’s still on that system. It’ll take ages to get back into it.

So she wakes at 3am after what feels like not long enough, and tosses and turns before going outside.

That’s where her father finds her four hours later, still chopping wood for the fire. He watches her, for a while, taking note of the swing of her hand, the grip she has on the handle. Toni has always been more interested in computers and music than the work they need to do to stay warm around the house, and finding her out here – well. Chopping wood to divert anger is common to most of the family members. Only Corey and Courtney have never fallen into the trap.

“You wanna talk there, trooper?” he calls at last. It startles her, and she misses the log she is splitting. It buries deep into the block they use to hold it, splinters off. Toni sidesteps before the axe can lop off her toes.

“God, dad, are you trying to kill me? Don’t do that!”

“No harm, no foul,” he retorts, and folds his arms over his chest. Adrian Crueson raises his brows at her, a challenge in them. “Now. Talking?”

“God. No, no thanks.”

She isn’t looking to see his lip twist in dismay, but she does meet his gaze when he clears his throat. “Breakfast, then. You must’ve worked out a helluvan appetite. C’mon. Your mum’s making waffles. And your brother’s at the hospital.”

And, well. Toni never actually needs to be convinced to eat the waffles Lola’s mastered.

-

“How’s your boyfriend?”

They’re doing the dishes, Toni washing while Adelaide dries. The question startles Toni, but she manages not to drop any cutlery, instead rolls her eyes at her older sisters’ question. No wonder she’d been so adamant of drying; Toni cannot leave with the dishes half washed. Not without getting reamed by mum and an exasperated sigh from dad.“Raphael isn’t my boyfriend.”

“You’re travelling the world with him.” Adelaide pauses. “He’s paying for you to travel the world with him.”

“Actually, we sort of live in Port Lyndon now?”

“Oh, so you aren’t in touch with him anymore?”

Toni flushes, and busies herself scrubbing a plate more hard than is strictly required. “We kind of live together. In his apartment. That he kept while travelling. For... reasons.”

“Oh my god, you live together? Toni! No way you aren’t an item.”

“No one says item anymore, Addie.”

Adelaide shoves Toni gently, laughing. “That’s garbage, and you know it. Now. Spill! You have to be a couple.”

Toni clears her throat, and focuses intently on the dishes before she speaks. “He’s never asked me. On a date, or to be his, you know, girlfriend. Or whatever. So. I guess it’s just not a thing he thinks about.”

There’s quiet as Adelaide stops moving. She sets down the glass she’s been drying for longer than necessarily as gently as she knows how, wrapping Toni in the tight bear hugs she’s so well known for in their family. If you want a hug, you ask Adelaide. She’s always been the best at it. “Oh, Toni,” she soothes, clinging to her sister as she shakes. If she hadn’t already known how Toni gets, how the more dismissive she is, the more distressed she is, it’d be given away in the way her shoulders tremble. “I’m sure that’s not it.”

Toni hiccoughs softly. She’s not so sure, and it shows.

-

“I don’t get why you don’t just call her, genius,” Angeline is saying. She’s plucking absently at her guitar, tuning it on the armchair in Raphael’s apartment. Normally she’d claim the couch, but he’s stacked CDs over the spot she usually claims, and she doesn’t want to move them.

“I don’t have her number.” She plucks out an experimental tune, a little thing that sounds like judgement. Raphael doesn’t look up from the guitar he’s carefully cleaning.

“Bullshit, you don’t. You don’t fool me, Constantine.”

He sighs, long and hard. “She didn’t say goodbye, Ange.”

Angeline, though, has no patience for his lamentation. “Did you?”

He’s quiet.

She takes it for what it is, knowing what he’s like. She leans down to where he’s leaning against her chair, and slaps him lightly. By her standards. He still winces. “Bloody hell, Raphael. Why would she say bye when you don’t say bye? Oh my god, it’s like you two don’t know how to communicate at all!”

“Says you, Angeline. Remind me how you and Jackson started dating? Was it – oh, I don’t know – something to do with your boss telling you dates get discounts?”

Angeline snorts. “We still got it together, unlike someone in this room.”

“Yeah, well. It doesn’t matter. She’s back home, now. No need for me to reopen old wounds, you know?”

Angeline heaves a sigh. Raphael has always been prone to self-pity, and when she isn’t in the mood for it, it’s tedious as hell. “Here’s what you’re going to do,” she says, and starts slowly, methodically, scrawling a detailed plan into a book she reserves for song lyrics.

-

“Hey, champ. How’re you doing?”

Toni asks it because she doesn’t know what else to say, and is afraid of the silence that’ll fall if she doesn’t. She doubts Courtney remembers her; doesn’t know why she was asked for. She just knows it’s her turn to play the just in case vigil. In case things get worse. In case someone has to call the family to say goodbye to a comatose 8-year-old with a DNR. In case her niece dies.

Courtney looks like a Crueson, or at least, she’s got the same curls the siblings and their dad share. She must’ve gotten them from Ross, because Enid’s hair is as straight as if a straighteners been used, even when she’s just woken up. Courtney has bright eyes, but they look out of place on the sickbed, in amongst the white sheets and pasty skin. Her dark auburn hair is lank, unwashed and barely brushed, and Toni’s heart is in her throat. She’s already been told she mustn’t cry, though, mustn’t make this worse for the girl.

After all, Courtney’s the one dying, an armada of tubes and cords hooked up to her to keep her alive until the doctors can talk Ross into letting them drop it.

Or until she dies anyway.

“Sore,” Courtney croaks, and Toni refuses to wince at the harshness of it. She’s got a recording, somewhere, sent her way ages ago, of one of the solos the girl did for a school thing. She sounded like she was going to be a natural, if she got some training. She sounded sweet. She certainly hadn’t sounded like someone on deaths door.

“Well, that sucks,” Toni retorts. “What d’you wanna do? I know you can’t get out of here, but I’ve got my music, if you wanna listen. I can grab my guitar from the car, if you want. Or we can play, I don’t know, I Spy or Never Have I Ever or Twenty Questions.” It’s possible she’s listing the ideas she pulled from a google search, trying to figure out what eight year old nearly dead kids like.

“Dad says you’ve got a boyfriend. I wanna hear about him. Please.”

She bites her tongue on her usual he’s not my boyfriend, swallowing the protest whole. “Alright, fine, I’ll spill,” she says, and starts telling her niece the best stories she has of her and Raphael. And if they err on the side of making Raphael sound like some sort of gift – well.

She’s a musician, not a historian.

-

“Toni’s phone,” she yawns into the receiver.

“Promise you won’t be mad.”

That wakes her up. “Raphael?”

“Uh-huh. I – have some news. If you want. If it’s not okay, I won’t follow through, but. I’m kinda about to get on the plane? It’s – it’ll go to Auckland.”

She pulls the phone from her ear for a moment, gaping at it. His voice, tinny and concerned, asks if she’s still there, and she hears his voice become more distant. He must be looking to see if the call is connected; he does it all the time, if he notices he’s been talking uninterrupted for what he deems too long. “You – why? I thought you were happier in PL, now.”

She can hear the grimace. “Well. Not exactly. It was kinda just that you were there? I guess? And also that Veronica kinda disappeared from our lives; I don’t know how that happened, but. Kudos to Liv, I think, and dad? For finally pulling it off.

“Anyway. You kinda – we didn’t say goodbye? When you left? And I know you were drunk and I was in shock, I think, and you were in a hurry and had that early flight, and I just. I don’t know if you’re sick of me or were waiting for something I didn’t give you, but Toni, I will actually buy you a house down there if you’re moving back properly, so you don’t have to live with your parents. Just. Just let me say goodbye in person, please?”

“Say – what? Raphael, oh my god, why would I be moving back? I hate Auckland. Nothing ever happens here.”

“I – then why’re you there now?”

“My – my sister in law, Enid? She called the other day. And told me what my dear brother Ross refused to tell me. My niece, Courtney? Remember?”

“The Amazing Grace recording?”

“Yes! She’s sick. Like. Really sick. They’ve known for ages, I knew she had to go to the doctor ‘cause of something Ross said during one of our calls months ago, but Enid told me last week that it’s. It’s bad.” She pauses. “Courtney’s dying, Raph,” she whispers. “And I – I don’t know if she asked, or if that was a lie Enid told to get me back here, but. I can’t not be here, you know? It’s. They’re family.”

There’s a stunned silence from the other end. Toni waits patiently, eying the window. Rain trickles down it, down, down, down; just like Port Lyndon. Just like everywhere, actually, but. This is the place that she is right now. “Fuck. Do I feel selfish now, or what,” Raphael mutters at last. Toni hums her curiosity.

“I – Angeline is gonna mock me forever. I kinda – I thought you were sick of me. That. That you were trying to get away from me?”

“What the hell, Raphael! Why would I be doing that? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t know –” she cuts herself off to seethe, hissing through gritted teeth.

“Don’t know what?”

“Don’t know how you don’t think I’m absolutely obsessively in love with you. I followed you to Equador, for Christ’s sake!”

He’s quiet. Then, “I thought you just wanted a travel buddy.”

“Oh my God, I’d known you for, what, two weeks at that point? Of course I was in love with you. God. I guessed you didn’t feel the same, but if you just didn’t know –”

“I am a musician,” he says stiffly, defensively; “not a mind reader. I paid for you to travel – you live in my apartment. My apartment that I only came back to because you wanted to see where I grew up.”

Toni falls quiet, listens as the PA system on Raphael’s end of the call puts calls out for his flight to start boarding. “God. Hurry up and get here, you absolute idiot. We’ll be at the hospital, probably. Ask for Courtney Crueson’s room, they’ll send you up.”

“Why there?”

“Because my niece is dying to meet you,” she says, deadpan. “And also, I promised, but I really want to finally try kissing you. In a romantic way, not a cultural experimentation way.”

Raphael hums eagerly; she imagines he’s nodding on the other end of the call, where she can’t see. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh my god, you’re ridiculous,” she scoffs.

She feels more alive than she has all week.

-

Raphael shows up to a hospital room that isn’t overly crowded. Enid and Adelaide are on either side of Courtney’s bed. Enid, her mum, plaits her hair with gentle fingers, while Adelaide hums and paints her nails. It’s not allowed, technically, but they can’t stop her.

Raphael crashes in, more or less, because he’s excitable and is trying to avoid the pitying looks from the nurse, the one who thinks he’s related to the patient. He blinks blankly at the group of women, and is relieved when recognition lights Adelaide’s features.

“Raphael?” she asks, clearly surprised. Toni hasn’t mentioned his imminent arrival, but considering how much she’s been buzzing for the past day, it makes sense. They sent her to get coffee, worried about her energy aggravating Courtney somehow, and only realised afterwards that that might not be such a good idea.

“Adelaide. It’s been too long.”

“As I recall, that’s on you,” she points out, voice dry. “This is Courtney, and her mum, Enid, Ross’s partner. I’m assuming you remember Ross.”

“That depends. Does he still think gummy worms are good for a balanced lunch?”

“Yes,” Enid says, and opens her mouth to say more. She is cut off by Courtney.

“You’re auntie Toni’s Raphael? Is it true a llama spit in your eye twice on one trip?”

“I – yes. But Toni never mentions that she was definitely bribing it to do that.”

“Excuse me, but I believe that’s my good name you’re slandering,” comes the next interruption. Raphael turns a little slower than is ideal, and she makes a noise of complaint in the back of her throat. She places the coffee on the side table near the door, and crosses the room in three steps. Then, she drags Raphael down to kiss him soundly, maybe a little too eager. He hums his approval, and kisses back with vigour.

When they break apart, Courtney claps twice, and rolls her eyes at the way her mum leans over to readjust the cords. Adelaide scoffs. “Not your boyfriend, huh?”

“Oh, shut up, Addie.”

#kwrites #kwriting #kristie writes #kristie's writing #tw terminal illness #tw child illness #ft. toni #ft. raphael

[nowitsdarkfic]

chapter nineteen (chris and nancy’s place)

The pain in my stomach escaped from the one in my heart.

Not even Spence with his arm around me is enough to comfort me.

I wish my mom was here to help me.

I wish Lupe was here to help me.

Heck, I wish Ronnie James Dio was here to help me.

My hair is dangling down over my shoulders and upon my chest, and over my face.

I feel Spence right next to me, and I think Lars is next to me.

Might be Sonia.

I don't know.

I don't know where we're going, just so long as it isn't the hospital in Syracuse.

But wait, we're too far from Syracuse.

At least I hope we are.

The neon that surrounds us is as bright as day and is making everything into a blur.

This pain is agonizing.

I was singing way too hard, I'm sure of it.

But it's too late now.

I'm dead.

Going to the hospital is going to kill me now if it didn't back in the City.

I can only hear my own breathing and my own heartbeat, but I can't hear what Marcia is saying.

We're going where?

Please, no.

Dear God, no.

Not there.

Not the hospital.

They'll do to me what they did to Maya and Brick.

And I still haven't figured out what happened to either of them.

Spence sounds so far away even though his lips are so close to my ear.

I feel the car turning off the freeway.

I lift my head to find everything is a blur of black and neon blue.

Oh my fucking God.

Please, Sonia.

Please, Lars.

Please, whoever the hell is driving right now.

Don't take me there.

Please, don't.

Don't—

And—

I'm waking up to warm golden light bathing over me. Something warm and heavy covers me. There's something on my stomach. Something that feels like… gauze. But even though it's not as horrible as it was… then, I'm still in pain.

I roll my head over to see a big heavy wooden coffee table right next to me. There's a paint palette resting on one corner, a stack of some art magazines, and an opened bag of chips. It smells like fresh brewed coffee in here.

The hell? I roll my head the other way to see the back of a couch. I look right in front of me at a heavy quilt covering my body.

Am I dead? No. If I was truly dead, I would've seen Death harvesting me before she takes me off to the afterlife. But I also remember that every time I do in fact see her, it doesn't mean I am in fact dead, just need a reality check.

Nancy, her plump body accentuated by a fitted purple sweater and a short black skirt, walks into the room right then with a little white mug of coffee with her school's emblem on the side. She's about to walk on over to an armchair next to the couch when she sees my face.

“Hey, there he is!” she declares. Chris emerges from the doorway behind her, already in his dark red flannel pajamas. He nods at me.

“He's awake,” he says. I rub my eyes with one hand. I want to sit up but I don't know if the pain in my belly will come back if I do in fact do that.

“Yeah, I'm awake,” I reply to him, feeling my voice break. “What happened?”

“Marcia, Sonia, Spence, and Lars brought you here,” Nancy answers, taking a seat in the recliner behind me. “I guess you were in a ton of pain last night. Chris thought you got stabbed.” It almost did feel like I was stabbed now that I think about it.

“Yeah, and then Lars said you sang way too hard and it really, really pulled a muscle in your stomach,” Chris adds.

“Wait a minute,” I stop them. “Last night. It's morning?”

“Indeed it is,” Nancy continues. “Almost eight thirty. I was about ready to wake you up to see if you wanted some coffee.”

“They brought you here,” he says, pressing his hands to his hips, “'cause you were like 'not the hospital! Not the hospital!'”

“Yeah, it was like you were scared shitless of going to the hospital. And Sonia was like 'okay, okay, we'll just go to Chris and Nancy's place.' We got a cup of chamomile tea in you and smeared some aloe and a little bit of the cyber serum right on your belly and put some gauze on it. And then you went right to sleep there on the couch. Chris put the blanket over you because you looked cold.”

“You put some of that black glittery tar stuff on me?” My heart skips several beats at that.

“Yeah. That stuff is like—a miracle elixir. Yeah, yeah, it's from the big cyber corporation running the city here but it does in fact work, though, Joe.”

I groan in my throat. It's not really a deep pain now as it is a sore feeling. I hoist myself onto my elbows right underneath the blanket. I guess at some point I had taken off my shirt because I'm looking at my bare body under the blanket: I push it down to reveal the patch of white gauze stretched over my stomach.

“How you doing there?” Chris asks me.

“I dunno, let's see—” I push back a corner of the tape holding it down to my skin and then peel it off. The tape is still stuck to the left side of my skin when I lift the gauze off of me. My skin is as smooth as ever: there's no blemish, no bruise, nothing. The aloe and the serum did the trick for the worst part of the pain and disappeared while I was sleeping. Now here's just my bare skin on my flat ironing board of a belly.

My fingertips caress over my skin: it's as soft and silky as ever, if not softer. That little combination softened me up.

“My goodness, you look a lot better,” Nancy remarks: I turn my head to find she has stood to her feet for a better exam of me.

“I feel better, too—like I'm sore, but it's nearly as intense.”

“You also looked like you were about ready to faint,” Chris adds.

“Yeah, you were like pale,” Nancy recalls, taking a sip of her coffee, “—all the color washed out of your face and all over your body. It was like something had sucked the life out of you. You almost looked like you were frozen, like you had hypothermia because your skin was as white as paper, even on your chest and your stomach. I remember asking Sonia if you accidentally fell into the Sound and you know—she said no.”

I groan again and rub my eyes a second time.

“Where's your bathroom?” I ask them, clearing my throat again.

“Down the hall, second door on the left,” Chris advises me.

“Okay—” I lift my legs out from under the heavy quilt to find I still have my pants on, which is good. I sit there for a second to straighten my back. Even though the pain was mostly right in my belly, I still have that memory of that car accident residing in my back. I raise my arms over my head to stretch a bit before I stand up.

Nancy returns to the chair and Chris moves out of the way for me. I step out of this little living room into the rustic wooden kitchen: right in front of me is the hall leading back into this house, apartment, whatever.

I soon find it's an apartment because I take a glimpse out the kitchen window over the sink at the sheer sight of the little rustic looking complex with the silvery fire escapes, kind of like the ones back in the City. I keep going into the hall and into their cozy little bathroom.

I unzip my jeans.

I swear, I have drunk more tea than coffee in the past month or so. Maybe that's why my skin's getting so soft as of late.

What I don't understand, after everything that's happened the past two months, I'm only met with dead ends and close calls on my part. I just want to find out what happened to Maya and why my best friend is being subject to the most horrifying thing I have ever seen. It's almost as if I'm being pushed back every time I have a lead on something, either figuratively by some stupid thing coming up or literally like the flood waters down in New Orleans.

Another thing I don't understand is when Angeline and I were over in Boston and Maya's foster parents were so friendly to me and her but not to each other. I also want to know why, since that cyber serum whatever the flip it is, is made under Mike's last name.

I give myself a shake.

“Hang on a second,” I say aloud. Nancy said I looked frozen. Frozen.

Freeze dried food.

The food of the future.

The future.

The future is burgeoning outside of this apartment.

“If Molly knew how the banana slugs behaved—”

Of course.

Of course!

THAT’S IT!

Duh!

I zip up and wash my hands, and return to the front room of the apartment to find Chris and Nancy nestled down in the recliner together, thus leaving the couch open for me to come back. They lift their heads to look at me.

“Where did Lars and Spence go?” I ask them.

“They went back to their room, I think,” Chris recalls; he's got his arm around her and so he's twirling a lock of Nancy's hair around his finger. I chew on my bottom lip and glance off to the side.

“And Marcia and Sonia are up in Everett,” Nancy joins in before taking another sip of coffee. “They should be back here—in a couple of hours, though. Why, what's up?”

“I need to tell Lars something.”

#after the watershed #who cares wins #now it's dark #chapter 19 #new chapter #fanfic #fanfiction #heavy metal fanfiction #thrash metal #anthrax fanfics #soundgarden fanfics #joey belladonna #chris cornell #anthrax #soundgarden #noir au #steampunk #cyberpunk #dark sci-fi #amwriting #text

[nowitsdarkfic]

chapter sixteen (the third hockey game)

December 20, 1988. Seattle, Washington.

It would be a whole three weeks before the four of us could group together and head on out to Seattle as a hockey team. On top of that, ever since we visited Brick in the hospital, we were slammed with some of the worst snow I had ever seen in my life: it was so bad, the four of us all got snowed in, stranded in Oswego for a whole two days. Marcia and Sonia were even lucky to leave Rochester for a little while and head on over to Buffalo for a day. And Lars and I still haven't had lunch with them yet. The good side of being stranded at home was I didn't have to leave the apartment for a full day, and then I was able to buy myself a pair of guards for the blades of my skates.

The more I think about it, the more I want to head on out there on an actual plane instead of crawling through a wormhole, especially since the wormholes move about places when we least expect them to. Between scrounging for plane tickets and my calling up places to see if we could play a game up there, as well as my calling up any place to record my songs. Lucky for us, Lars, Marcia, and Sonia all pitched in for us, as the two sisters themselves decided on flying out there to visit their parents and their good friend there in the cozy corner of Washington; meanwhile, I called my parents to assure them I would be home in time for Christmas.

I told Lars not to worry about heading down to Portland to tell his wife because we all know the story there at this point. He also told me that Kim and Hiro could find some studio space for me in the University District of downtown but I have my doubts given it's such a strange setting.

But on the other hand, I'm also open to it. I spent the whole flight nestled in between him and Spence with my hockey gear in my overnight bag right in front of my feet. I have my notepad tucked in the pocket of my big black overcoat. Nothing to see here. Just five guys going to play up in Seattle. We're not a professional team as much as we wish we were.

The other plus side is going to see Soundgarden themselves again, this time as the four guys we knew before and not the band with the soundscapes that fill a whole theater of some two thousand people. I assured Lars not to worry about finding skates to fit him to partake in his role as goalie. If nothing, he's going to be the ultimate badass with his own stick in one hand and his cane in the other.

We landed at the airport there in Seattle, right in the heart of the neon lights as they're still glimmering on in the wake of all the dense morning fog surrounding us. I'm leading the whole pack through the airport with my scarf around my neck, my leather gloves and chained boots on, and my mirrored sunglasses upon my face, like I'm the big Italian mob boss. Don't mess with me: I've got a sack full of blades and a hockey stick just waiting to come out if I get any looks.

There's just one foreseeable downside with all this and that's we actually have to compete with a team now.

Fine by me, as long as they don't try and intimidate us because I've got an album to record on top of everything else.

Marcia and Sonia meanwhile have the keys to our rental hydrogen cars, one for the two of them to head on up to a little town called Everett, and one for the five of us. Sonia pats me on the back as she hands me my key. I really don't know if she's telling the truth about calling Spence after the accident, but I also haven't heard a word from Dominique on the whole matter, either.

Anyways, if I recall correctly, this place is right near the heart of downtown so we'll get a good look of more than just the neon lights there. And there is a Denny's nearby, much to Barney and Billy's rejoicing. The hydrogen hum here is virtually silent; Lars is right next to me in the front seat with his mask already on over his face.

“Relax, dude,” Spence tells him from the backseat. “It's gonna be a bit before we start playing and even then we've got to warm up.”

“I think he's a little wary of all the neon here,” I suggest as we pull up to a stoplight.

“I really am,” Lars replies through gritted teeth.

“It's alright, it's just a little light. It's not gonna hurt ya.” But I peer out the windshield at some of the little buildings here in this part of town. Some otherwise small, nondescript shops, garages, and places that are perfectly fine otherwise but have these odd flat black screens on the front sides. They're odd because they seem to follow the outer corners, like they're wrapped around. And the buildings themselves almost look abandoned: we pass a leather shop which has the lights out even though it's still early in the day.

This fog meanwhile is growing thick and heavy over our heads with each passing intersection. I hope it's not too cold as we reach the intersection of the street leading over to the recording studio Soundgarden recorded Ultramega OK.

This part of town was not nearly as advanced back then when I first met Soundgarden as it is now. The buildings all look like they're made entirely of polished silver: even the Space Needle is looking extra shiny and clean and crisp at the moment, its blue and green neon as bright as a lighthouse. The glimmers of neon are in full swing here up on the rooftop gardens and over the awnings. Then I catch the sight of something small and shiny flying against the dense fog.

I think back to what Angeline told me about the drones. They make a sound that's below human hearing, such that it can cause paranoia. I think about the hydrogen car that we're riding in right now and I wonder if it's the case here, too. But then again, probably not. I feel fine.

But then there's Lars with the mask already over his face.

That one drone itself is floating over the heart of downtown Seattle, right where we're headed.

The light turns the brightest neon green I have ever seen in my life and we roll onward to the hockey rink.

Lars peers out the window at the heart of downtown and I catch glimpses every so often on my part. Everything is so smoothed out and polished: all the lights are suspended by those spindly white wires. The street itself is black and in need of those street cleaners.

I think about Maya, how she spent all that time here, running around the puddles and the blacktop with nothing more than her own mind. At least I think she did.

But that copy of After the Watershed was real. Surely she did. I touched that booklet. I felt it, I read it, I tucked it under my jacket to protect it from the rain, and I wound up losing the stupid thing after the accident. But there's too many sides to this story. I can only make a guess and right at the moment, I don't feel like taking a shot in the dark because I'm looking around for the hockey rink—

“Ah! Here we are.”

I spot the Denny's, nestled on the corner right across the street from the tall matte silver light posts surrounding a good sized outdoor hockey rink. I pull into the tiny sliver of pavement right near the entrance right as those light posts flicker on and bathe the ice in pure white light.

“Okay, so I just have to sit and make sure the puck doesn't get in?” Lars relays to me, still through gritted teeth.

“Exactly,” I reply as I kill the hydrogen engine. I don't think it goes off at first but I turn the key again, and yes, it's off. I climb out first to take in the cool dampness lacing throughout the corridors of Seattle; embedded in that dampness is the chill of cold metal and stone. I shiver and close my coat as I shut the door behind me. Barney, Billy, and Spence climb out of the backseat so we can fetch our things.

“I assume that's where we change?” Spence nods to the little shed to our right.

“Maybe?” I wonder aloud. I really have no idea. “It's worth a shot.”

Billy puts his arm around Lars so as to help him out and Spence takes off his gloves before following them over there.

“I've noticed something, Joey,” Barney starts as he closes the trunk lid.

“What's that?”

“There's no people.”

I glance around the block. Indeed, it's just us here. I didn't even see any passersby at any of the crosswalks. There weren't even any other cars on the other side of the street. I just saw the drone up in the sky and that was it.

“Yeah. On top of that, I haven't heard a bird or anything since we left the airport, and even then it was just the whir of the waters.”

“Oh, from the Puget Sound?”

“Yeah. It's weirdly quiet right now. But let's get changed, though—surely the team will be here any second now.” We head on over to the shed and step in through the door on the other side. There's a few wooden benches in here plus a single row of metal lockers that look very old. Billy and Spence have already changed into their jerseys while Lars is still trying to change out of his jeans. Poor guy.

He finally gets it once I open up my bag and take off my coat, my gloves, my scarf, and then my shirt. I put on my jersey, only to take off my boots and replace them with my skates.

As I'm lacing up, Spence calls me from outside.

“What's up, man?” I reply back once I straighten myself upright. He stands in the doorway with his hands resting on the edges of the door frame.

“The team's here,” he tells us, “but it's not what you think.”

“What do you mean it's not what we think?” Barney asks him. I put my gloves back on and pick up my mask before standing onto my feet; Lars stands up with his cane in hand and follows me out. I poke my head out to see a half dozen of narrow white human shaped things. Robots, I think. Everything about them is perfectly smooth and they're faceless, and they're so skinny they make me look overweight.

They shuffle about the pavement in total silence: their metallic feet don't even make a sound as they walk towards the rink. Spence glances back at me with a befuddled look upon his face.

“Who did you talk to when you said you wanted to play a game up here?” he asks me, his tone of voice unsure of where any of this is going.

“Some lady,” I reply to him. “An actual person. I forget her name but yeah. I sealed the deal with her and I thought for sure. What is this, some kind of gag?”

“I think not, Joey,” Lars tells me; I turn to see him pointing at the edge of the rink and the bots' feet narrowing and turning into something that resembles blades on skates.

“We better get to it,” Barney advises us.

“Yeah—” I turn my head even more so as to come within sight of the doorway to the shed. “Hey, Bill, you coming?”

“Yeah! Just need to get my laces secured—okay!” He emerges from the shed with his stick over his shoulder. I wonder how this is going to go as we pad over to the entrance of the rink and, once we remove the guards from the blades, we file onto the ice, one right after the other. I pass the shiny blue metal posts on our end of the rink and I make out the shiny green ones on the far side.

I've got my mask resting upon the crown of my head and my stick firmly in my leather gloved hand. I make my way over to the middle of the rink right as the one robot shows me a hand which morphed into the head of a hockey stick at some point. Gotta be brave. Surely this can't be that bad. Five guys versus five robots that look like a bunch of mannequins.

This can't be that bad.

It was in fact that bad.

Spence fell down so many times trying to catch the puck: probably two of those times right on his ass. Barney, the resident badass, lost patience with one that he deked twice and ended up high sticking and wound up in the penalty box. Billy, the well behaved one, also deked and almost hit me in the head. Poor Lars, the stand-in, could hardly keep the puck out of the goal posts. Meanwhile, I, the quick one, was about to hobble the captain on the other side because the son of a bitch was moving too fast that I could hardly catch up to it.

These damn bots are good. Too good in fact. It's like they were specifically made to beat humans at hockey.

The only time I did score was when Marcia and Sonia arrived and the former chucked a milkshake at one of the bots which allowed me to scoop up the little black puck. I pretty much sprinted down the rink with the puck right in front of me, and I was moving so fast that I hardly paid attention to where I was going. I leaned so far back that I almost fell on my hip shooting the puck into the goal posts and between that goalie's legs.

“YES!” I shouted, and that's when I fall right on my ass. The goalie sidles away from there, right around me to the other side of the rink.

Spence flies over to me with his hand outstretched for me. I climb onto my feet as if I'm on firm hard ground instead of ice. I strip off my mask, and rub my eyes and my nose with the back of my glove. I notice the robots are filing out of the rink.

“Is that game?” I ask him in a broken voice.

“It is,” he informs with a look of disappointment on his face. “What the fuck was that?”

“I'll tell you what the fuck was that,” I quip to him, “we bombed, that's what the fuck was that.”

“That was brutal,” Barney joins in from the side; he's out of breath and his face is flushed. This is probably the one time I've ever seen Barney truly exhausted.

“How's Lars, by the way?” I ask him, and he points down the rink to where Lars is laying flat on his back on the ice. Billy is approaching us from behind Barney: he, too, looks beat.

“He was working harder than I imagined,” he answers me.

“Oh, I don't believe this,” I scoff at that. I lead the three of them to the other side of the ice, where the robots have already left and Marcia and Sonia are congregated at the entrance huddled down in their coats. Once I come closer, I make out the look of agony on Lars' face.

“You alright?” I ask him, reaching out my hand for him to take.

“My knee,” he moans, “one of those—bloody machines—strained my knee so much. Oh—God dammit.”

I lift my gaze to the two girls at the entrance and I make my way over to them.

“Here, hold these.” I hand Marcia my stick and my mask before doubling back to the goal posts. I stoop down to pick him up: it's tricky doing so on ice but I managed to do it anyways. I hold Lars close to my chest as I make my way towards the entrance.

“Sonia—on the wall to your left is a pair of long grayish blocks. Those are the guards for my skates. Could you be a dear and help put those on for me please?”

“Yeah, sure—”

Still cradling Lars in my arms, I lift up one leg for her to put on the first one, followed by the other. And at that point, Lars is feeling rather heavy against my arms and I stagger over to the shed so as to set him down on one of the benches. I lay him flat on his back with his legs stretched to ease the pain on his knee. Breathing hard, I collapse right on the bench next to him. I give my curls a toss before proceeding to untie my skates. Sonia emerges in the doorway with Marcia right behind her.

“We were not expecting all that,” Sonia remarks to me.

“You're telling me!” I reply to her, taking off my gloves so I can better unlace my skates. “That last shot I did was one for the money, I know it.”

“We should tell you guys,” Marcia begins, poking her head over her sister's shoulder, “Chris and Matt told us that there's a little band playing just to the south of here tomorrow night that we think you boys'll really like.”

“How far south from here?” Lars asks her, lifting his head from the bench.

“Little town called Hoquiam,” she replies. “Not too far from here. They're called—Nirvana, I think is what Chris said.”

“They said they're like their little brothers,” Sonia adds.

“Sweet,” I tell them, unlacing my skates. “By the way, you ladies gonna join us over at Denny's?”

“We might as well,” says Sonia with a shrug. “We owe the two of you a lunch anyways.”

#after the watershed #now it's dark #who cares wins #chapter 16 #new chapter #fanfic #fanfiction #heavy metal fanfiction #thrash metal #anthrax fanfics #metallica fanfic #joey belladonna #lars ulrich #anthrax #metallica #noir au #cyberpunk #gothic horror #amwriting #text