There'd been a time, longer ago now than she could really consider, that by the time she turned twenty, Lucy was meant to be a engaged to a handsome soldier, a scholarship student at a prestigious college, living the kind of life that girls were supposed to dream of. That had changed, of course, before she'd gotten any of it; in retrospect, she ( Read more... )

Two days ago I had been entirely ready to die. Less than forty-eight hours later and that hasn't changed. Even after having gone so long without it, sleep didn't come easily. Nightmares chased away any chance of oblivion I might’ve had. I'm not exactly what you could call surprised. My one easy fix was tabled by Rogue for the time being and the ( Read more... )

Okay, so Stephen was going to hurt someone soon. Possibly himself.

Ever since the other day when stupid Joey said Stephen's ears had gained weight and then suggested that maybe it was his hips that were bigger...well, Stephen couldn't take criticism very well. Every time he passed a mirror, he paused to turn this way and that, wondering if somehow ( Read more... )

Now, Kirk thought he'd been pretty good with his temper lately. And that had nothing to do with the fact he often dealt with his aggression by boxing his kangaroo (not a metaphor). For a man who had frequently been in the tabloids for chucking wobblies, he'd been remarkably calm on the island, despite everything it'd thrown at him ( Read more... )

Chase was tossing the old rugby ball around as he sidestepped small remaining piles of snow, trying to ignore the general sense that the Island had been put through one hell of a blizzard, like it got turned upside down, shaken, and then put back on its head and expected to go about things as if it were just normal.

He was trying not to think too ( Read more... )

I heard the first crunch before I saw anything. A faint resistance under my boot, a pop and then a give, and my eyes dropped to the floor. I froze there, hand on the doorknob, and now I can’t breathe ( Read more... )

Unlike last year, Stephen was in an okay mood for his birthday. Sure, no one was running towards him to shower him with gifts the way they should have been, but enough time had passed that he didn't really expect that. And sure, he was actually still wearing the ridiculous shirt with the even more ridiculous image on it that Frank had given him, ( Read more... )

It was the kind of lazy, do-nothing sort of day where, at home, thirty years ago or so now, Kirk would have spent getting the wobbly boot on down the pub then having a Technicolor yawn or five in the dunny afterward. He'd get into a couple of fights, wherein projectile vomiting was actually considered a useful weapon, then he'd go home and have a ( Read more... )

It was more than strange to be in a church again. Chase knew that while he wasn't precisely a minister and had never gone through with that ideal life of chastity and prayer, he knew every step, had almost become that, and now he was in the church with his son (adopted or not, he was a son to Chase) with godparents at the ready, wine blessed by an ( Read more... )

( Cut for spoilers for Watchmen )