local man punts toddler into hedge

[feathery-queen-blog]

themidnightcouncil:

“Walk you through the night,” he mimicked. He was sitting in the booth with about as much ease as a vulture stuffed into a picnic basket, turning a carton of cigarettes end-over-end-over-end on the tabletop with his better hand, keeping the other wrapped around his coffee. The warmth helped, a little, easing the ache in his bruised knuckles.

“Alright, CSI: Avian Divison, my own pace. Vampires. Abandoned factory, clusterfuck, security, police, custody, potential trespassing charges. Sorry if that’s a little short for you, but it’s been a few since I’ve been called on to write up a full report.”

The response he got was a clicking of the tongue, almost impatient. “That’s plenty context, mister vigilante. And there’s nothing potential about the charges, that was a pretty lovely fine you wracked up.”

She sipped her tea, feeling it go straight to her aching head. There was a limit to her patience, but if there was one thing the queen was good at, it was pushing through irritability to get things done. Her eyes flicked over the form across from her again, from his hands to his face and back again.

“And your hand?” she asked, gesturing a bit vaguely with her own. “How did that happen? If you don’t mind sharing, that is.”

[themidnightcouncil]

“I...”

Kass looked at the ceiling, but it was stuccoed and dingy and didn’t help him any. He looked at the specials, got as far as YOU’RE CHOICE OF SIDES and gave up in disgust. Eventually, he looked at Queenie, straight and flat with a kind of dry resigned despair to his tone that did nothing to cushion it.

“I punched out a YouTuber.”

[themidnightcouncil]

feathery-queen:

-

The diner was a quiet thing, especially this early in the morning. Most of the booths and chairs were empty, save for one or two people seated far from each other at the counter. A waitress leaned against the hostess table, penning in what might have been a crossword or a sudoku.

“Okay,” May said, nursing the mug of tea she’d ordered as they’d been escorted to the booth by the window. Her spoon clinked softly against the edges of the glass, and then at its rim as she set it aside. “Take your time. Walk me through the night at your own pace.”

It was no secret that Kass was, well, secretive. There had been plenty of evenings where she had hardly seen him, and nights she knew he was not home by the time she went to bed. That was fine–it wasn’t any of her business. But maybe she should have been keeping a closer eye on the ex-agent. Maybe it would have prevented this.

Live and learn. She slipped her glasses off, folded the frames, and scrubbed the space underneath her eyes. “Thank god I have tomorrow off,” she muttered to nobody in particular, staring at the loops in the wood on the varnished table, before glancing up again.

“Walk you through the night,” he mimicked. He was sitting in the booth with about as much ease as a vulture stuffed into a picnic basket, turning a carton of cigarettes end-over-end-over-end on the tabletop with his better hand, keeping the other wrapped around his coffee. The warmth helped, a little, easing the ache in his bruised knuckles.

“Alright, CSI: Avian Divison, my own pace. Vampires. Abandoned factory, clusterfuck, security, police, custody, potential trespassing charges. Sorry if that’s a little short for you, but it’s been a few since I’ve been called on to write up a full report.”

[barabones]

A famous mermaid!

[feathery-queen-blog]

themidnightcouncil:

“You don’t need to recognise it, I’m not going to bloody use it twice, am I?” He waved her off, straightening up stiffly as he finished lacing his boots, but failed to step around her.

“The cops in this cesspit of a city might be thicker than a triple-decker pigshit sandwich but any idiot can keep records. It’s bad enough that they took my fingerprints-” He bit off the end of his sentence and stood still for a moment, bunching his injured hand. There were furious lines between his eyes and his mouth was a thin compressed slash, shut up tight on an entire raging swarm of words.

The bird pulled her fingers back, her own cheek pulled into her mouth. “Alright, touchy,” she said, eyes flicking over Kass’s frame.

He was angry, that was obvious. She had expected it, but there was a difference between expecting it and dealing with it. Worse, yet, he was internalizing it, trying to keep it contained in his head. It was destructive behavior. He didn’t know much else.

No more humor, then. May considered his curled hand (oh, he was only going to make it worse that way), and his tight jaw.

“Hey, we’ll straighten it out. We will, I’ll talk to the nerds and see what we can do about the records. But that’s an issue for the morning. Right now, just take a breath. You’re out here, not in there. I got you.”

Her tone wasn’t placating so much as it was firm–a statement of facts instead of comfort. Her face reflected that; through the glinting light reflecting off her glasses, her own eyes were stern.

“Will you tell me what happened?”

[themidnightcouncil]

Kass screwed up his mouth and eyes in a quick, tight, childish moue that spoke volumes, more of a flinch than exasperation. He clearly didn’t want to tell her what happened. There was something other than his merely feeling like an idiot going on here, and the beginning of it was a nasty little thread that threatened to unravel an entire circus-tent-sized sweater of... fuckitude, for want of a better word. Still, she’d asked... and she was the reason he was out here, not in there.

“I... phhhmph.”

His pathological wariness got the better of him. He hunched his shoulders in his coat and squinted up the shabby little parade of stores. Everything was closed, apart from a small all-hours diner, a couple of vehicles in the spaces out front. He let out his breath in a resigned puff.

“Let’s take this off the street.”

[osteophagy]

doodled the soot goblin who has been staring ominously at me and violently grooming my arms for the past couple days.

[huffylemon]

[copperbadge]

I laughed suddenly and loudly in my cubicle at work. 

[themidnightcouncil]

feathery-queen:

themidnightcouncil:

“I’m just one-hundred-percent peachy, thank you,” he snapped, already walking. Every second this close to the police station felt like holding his hand in an alligator’s mouth. He still missed his van for a whole host of reasons, but right now the fact that he couldn’t just jump into the geriatric purple hunk of shit and grind the gas pedal into the floor was high on the list.

He’d gone nearly a block, heedless of whether she was following or not, before he paused.

“Thank you.”

He had already half-stumbled, twice. In the awkward silence, he fished into the ziplock bag and pulled out a fistful of shoelaces like tangled black spaghetti, and started feeding them impatiently through the eyelets of his boots. He was clumsy with his right hand, the knuckles a mess of angry skin and tape.

“There’s at least fourteen thousand Niemands on this planet, that makes it a damn sight more popular than Petrikov or, god help us, Membrane. It’s forgettable, which is the entire fucking point.”

His pace was always so fast; with legs like his, his gait was much longer than hers ever could be. May trailed a few feet behind, her own pace a bit uneven, like a fawn that couldn’t quite keep its balance. So sue her, she was drowsy.

When they finally stopped—really stopped, as opposed to the little trips she’d just kept herself from mimicking when he halted unevenly in front of her—May finally came round to his front. Kass was knelt low as he laced his shoes, and the block’s lights cut uneven shadows on his face and boots.

Yet his awkward motions couldn’t be hidden, not from her. Through the midst of sharp nervousness (and anger? She couldn’t be sure), she could see the lack of grace with which he looped the cords through his shoes.

“Fair enough, I guess,” May began complacently. “God knows it’s not something I’d ever pin to a face like yours though. You’re more of a Drew, or a Sam. And lord knows I’m not one to recognize the name at 3 in the morning.”

Her tone wasn’t sharp, not necessarily, but it was clearly a pointed one, one that stated he was not getting out of this without some sort of recompense, however small.

“But,” she continued, “You’re welcome. When you’re finished with that, let me see your hand?”

She offered her own, held out in the faint fluorescent glow of the street signs.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“You don’t need to recognise it, I’m not going to bloody use it twice, am I?” He waved her off, straightening up stiffly as he finished lacing his boots, but failed to step around her.

“The cops in this cesspit of a city might be thicker than a triple-decker pigshit sandwich but any idiot can keep records. It’s bad enough that they took my fingerprints-” He bit off the end of his sentence and stood still for a moment, bunching his injured hand. There were furious lines between his eyes and his mouth was a thin compressed slash, shut up tight on an entire raging swarm of words.

[ultrakillblast]

CREEPY #98 (1978)

[themidnightcouncil]

feathery-queen:

themidnightcouncil:

It wasn’t a big police station. This kind of cookie-cutter building could just as easily have been used as a government office, or a jail, and the straight square rooms and plain cinderblock walls were as ugly as they were functional. The corridor they walked him down from the cells was comically short, the cell itself had been maybe a quarter of the size of the garage at 1, Tesla Drive.

Kass said nothing as the officer on duty handed him his coat and a gallon ziplock with the few effects they’d confiscated hanging in a heavy lump at the bottom. No sooner had the words ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ left the arresting officer’s mouth, than he’d shut up tighter than a bear trap and let out nothing aside from the purpose. The most he’d said had been May’s number, her address. The rest he’d said had been very, very very careful lies.

Frank was in the bag, he could tell by the weight. He stuffed the bulk of it into his pocket with his better hand and narrowed his eyes against the savage buzz of the security door as the attending officer herded him through it. Christ on a bicycle, he needed a smoke.

“Good morning, starshine,” he heard directly to the left of him. May’s tone held nothing but her usual gentle ribbing, if perhaps laced and slurred with weariness. “Ready to go, Jackie-boy?”

She uncrossed her arms, trying to smile in what she hoped was a relaxed manner. There was, for her, a rather palpable tension in the air, the kind that made her neck hurt as though she’d twisted it to and fro round the room like a nervous animal.

She walked him to the exit door with a half-wave in the direction of the receptionist’s desk, and held it open for him instinctively. As they made their way onto the sidewalk under the night sky, the girl yawned behind her hand. On the wind-down, her voice muffled and warped, she finally asked.

“What the fuck kind of name is Jack Niemand anyway? Was Nor-man Percy taken?”

Alright, that was a pathetic joke. The tension had really only followed them outside, and her brain was still mostly back at 3, Tesla Drive, dead asleep. 

The smile finally pulled away from her face as May turned to Kass, looking him over. Her expression was–well, to him, it was probably not an easily recognizable one. Or maybe it was; she was an expressive person, he’d probably seen it a lot in the recent months. It was concern. It was with concern that she looked over his face and form, as though trying to spot any injuries out in the open.

“Are you okay?”

Not what the hell happened, not dude what the hell did you do this time. Are you okay, are you hurt.

“I’m just one-hundred-percent peachy, thank you,” he snapped, already walking. Every second this close to the police station felt like holding his hand in an alligator’s mouth. He still missed his van for a whole host of reasons, but right now the fact that he couldn’t just jump into the geriatric purple hunk of shit and grind the gas pedal into the floor was high on the list.

He’d gone nearly a block, heedless of whether she was following or not, before he paused.

“Thank you.”

He had already half-stumbled, twice. In the awkward silence, he fished into the ziplock bag and pulled out a fistful of shoelaces like tangled black spaghetti, and started feeding them impatiently through the eyelets of his boots. He was clumsy with his right hand, the knuckles a mess of angry skin and tape.

“There’s at least fourteen thousand Niemands on this planet, that makes it a damn sight more popular than Petrikov or, god help us, Membrane. It’s forgettable, which is the entire fucking point.”

[thatsbelievable]

Update

The sink in the break room is no longer dripping.

Also, the break room is missing.

[themidnightcouncil]

feathery-queen:

The ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card

Her sneakers were dirty around the toes. May scuffed them along the smooth tile floor, just barely grazing it and causing an unpleasant little squeak that made her flinch belatedly. Her eyes were fighting to stay open. The building was slightly warm from the summer heat.

Above her, the flourescent lights built into the ceiling buzzed, like cicadas humming from far away. It was a nearly calming noise, white and fuzzy in her head.

“Miss Sparrow?”

Her head snapped up from where it had hung towards the ground. For an inane second, she had the mental image of a little puppet on a string suddenly snapping to with a single tug. She stood up, out of the chair across from the receptionist’s window, with a tired little blink.

“He’s coming out now.”

-

30 minutes earlier

The jaunty music that suddenly blared through the second bedroom was followed, after a few moments, by a muffled swear. It continued to play undeterred, looping nearly perfectly.

I am gonna make it through this year, if it kills me!

I am gonna make it through thi–

There was a fumble, a groan, and then, blearily, May held the phone to her ear. Her voice was heavy with sleep as she spoke.

“Hello?”

“Am I speaking to May Sparrow?”

She rubbed the crumbs from her eyes, still prone, still half-unconscious. The bedroom was mostly dark, save for the little glow stars that were pasted on the walls. “This is she. Who’s speaking?”

“I apologize for the early hour. This is the county police department, calling on behalf of a Jack Niemand.”

Unseen, the girl made a face in the dark—a confused scowl, her eyes pinched up in a squint. “Who?”

“Mr. Niemand has noted you as his emergency contact, stating your relationship as both residents of 3, Tesla Drive.”

A beat, then two. And then–

“Oh, him,” May said, a touch irritably. “Yeah, um, I know him. What’s going on?”

“Mr. Niemand was apprehended this morning and put into temporary custody at the county police office for overnight holding. He’s requested you come and pick him up.”

“Wh–”

She dropped the phone. It landed oh so kindly onto the side of her head and slipped onto the pillow. There was a squeak of displeasure and surprise as she picked it back up, and its screen flashed brightly in her eyes. She squinted, grimacing.

“What time is it?” she asked, to no one in particular.

2:41 am, her phone told her. She swore quietly, pushing herself up into a sitting position.

“God, I’m gonna kill him.”

Then she blinked, and sheepishly glanced at her phone again.

“You, uh. You didn’t hear that.”

“Frankly, miss,” the tired voice on the other side of the line said, “I don’t blame you.”

-

She stood by the receptionist’s window, holding herself up on the little platform that jutted from it as she waited. There was something quite disheveled about her appearance, from her sleepy blinks to her mussed hair.

She’d gotten over most of her annoyance on the fly to the station, but May was never the happiest when awoken suddenly. Sparrows were, after all, morning creatures more often than nocturnal ones.

She turned to the receptionist’s window suddenly as a thought occurred to her. “N’ they’ll give him his stuff back before he comes out?”

The woman behind the glass looked equally as happy to be awake as May felt at the moment, but she, at least, looked a good bit more put together. That was probably due to the very large mug full of dark coffee that she could see on the desk, sitting beside the little fan that spun fast as it could.

She nodded, and then glanced back to an area May couldn’t see, before pressing a button built into the desk.

There was a loud buzzing noise, and the sound of a metal bolt unclicking—and then another buzz. Her wince was a second or two late, as, finally, the thick door that led deeper into the building, opened.

It wasn’t a big police station. This kind of cookie-cutter building could just as easily have been used as a government office, or a jail, and the straight square rooms and plain cinderblock walls were as ugly as they were functional. The corridor they walked him down from the cells was comically short, the cell itself had been maybe a quarter of the size of the garage at 1, Tesla Drive.

Kass said nothing as the officer on duty handed him his coat and a gallon ziplock with the few effects they’d confiscated hanging in a heavy lump at the bottom. No sooner had the words ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ left the arresting officer’s mouth, than he’d shut up tighter than a bear trap and let out nothing aside from the purpose. The most he’d said had been May’s number, her address. The rest he’d said had been very, very very careful lies.

Frank was in the bag, he could tell by the weight. He stuffed the bulk of it into his pocket with his better hand and narrowed his eyes against the savage buzz of the security door as the attending officer herded him through it. Christ on a bicycle, he needed a smoke.

[badfoodnetworkpuns]

[alltheladiesyouhate]

what bastille song is this from

[pianissimoworld]

Things we lost in the fire

[usbghost-blog]

I respect bees more than I respect white men in positions of power

[fuzzycricket]

that’s because we actually need bees

[queenburd]

All You Can Eat Pancakes

A Teslaverse fic. An early morning, a diner booth, and some warm drinks. Something I am craving rn.

Keep reading

[queenburd]

I don’t know why I’m letting you be the one to hold my heart in your hand. Sometimes it feels like I don’t truly have a choice, like my own body has rebelled against my common sense, pulled hard in your direction like a compass needle pointing northward. But it sits in your hand and when you hurt, you squeeze the thing just a touch too tight. And you hurt so often, darling.

The awareness is daunting, I think. I feel my pulse throb in my neck when you scowl. I want to save you. I want to help you save yourself. You tell me you’re rotted inside, that you spit smoke and ash. I see flames in your throat, and your joints groan like dead wood. But baby that fire damage is not the same. I think you swallowed fiery rage as a child and have been choking on it ever since. It’s lodged in you, but we can turn you from a burning building into a smoke signal.

[thatsbelievable]

Update

One of the unpaid interns (Zachery) plugged the toaster into the outlet clearly marked, “DO NOT PLUG THE TOASTER INTO THIS OUTLET,” and now we’re all praying for a miracle.

[screenshotsofdespair]