Well, Folks, I've got major writers' block and haven't been able to update A New Lease on Life or Gallery of Memories as often as I'd prefer. When this happens, sometimes I try odd methods of coping...this is one of those odd coping methods. Introducing Writers' Block, an SI-parody starring yours truly, my crazy family, and a certain brainy turtle who has no idea what he's stepped in.
Installments for this will probably be random, not in any particular order, and may be long, short, or anywhere between. There's an overall warning for parody, language, suggestive language and situations, and a completely pathetic SI character who actually represents the SI person! Who'd'a thought, huh? Dedicated to the fuzzbutts: Heiferlump Chance and Woozle Thomas.
Warnings for language, honest and 'non-badassed' self-insert, suggestiveness, and some drama-slash-angsty-moments.
1: The Repercussions of Writers' Block
What started out like any other day would soon become like no other day; of course, by the time Ghost Chance realized this, she would be too busy questioning her sanity to remark on how bizarre that day turned out.
"Dammit, Heifer!" the overweight brunette hollered. An equally overweight blonde tabby bolted across the overgrown yard with all the grace of a pregnant buffalo. Deep green eyes scowled behind wire framed glasses, and she blew a loose wisp of mid-brown hair out of her face. "Heiferlump, ya bloody jail-breakin' moose, git back here!" Of course, hollering at a cat yearning for freedom never results in said cat actually obeying. This one fact has never changed, especially for Heiferlump, the feline known affectionately as Heifer. Resigned to chasing down the stubborn animal, Ghost let the door slam and took off after the errant feline.
Summer was almost over in her little corner of the Missouri Ozarks, but the humid heat was nowhere near through…and heat was never kind to those with extra insulation. By the time she made it down the steps of the porch and halfway to her crazed cat, Ghost was already dripping with sweat and struggling to breathe the heavy, humid air. Bloody asthma. Just on the other side of the fence and right at the property line, Heifer paused, staring out into the wooded area beyond with one paw poised for bolting. "Whoa-no," Ghost warned her quickening her steps to a clumsy half-sprint. "Don't you dare, Lil'—" Despite the warning, Heifer bolted out into the woods, her striped tail and dirty backside vanishing in the bracken. "Guch. Figures."
Grumbling under her breath—mostly oaths, expletives, and unflattering remarks about the cat's genetic origins and hygienic behaviors—the irate woman trudged out the gate and into the overgrown scrub brush. Every few yards, she hollered out the Heifer's name or one of her many frequently used 'pet names,' then listened for a telltale jingle from the cat's collar. Finally, success. "Gotcha!" Ghost's hands latched onto the fat cat panting for breath barely twenty yards from the house. "Nice try, Scatface—no one escapes Hellcatraz." Already, Heifer began her usual habit of regaling 'Mommy' with all the amazing things she saw in her short escape, all in a surprising range of vocalizations and intonations. Noisy moose.
At that moment, she realized something worrisome…the forest, normally full of racket, was quiet…too quiet. She wasn't alone. Green eyes darted back and forth among the trees for a sign of the intruder. She shifted Heiferlump to one wide hip, cradling the obliviously purring cat around the middle like a fuzzy handbag while still supporting the feline's flabby rib cage. She backed toward the property line again, carefully watching for any sign of company.
She knew moving out to that area was a risk—knew it was dangerous to live so close to the train tracks cutting through the river bottoms hidden in the secluded tree stand. If she screamed for help, it wasn't likely that anyone would hear her. Despite that risk, though, she and her husband Cold couldn't turn the house down. It had everything they wanted and needed, and because of a single albeit bloody day in its past, the price couldn't be beaten. She'd lived in a haunted house before, after all; if the double homicide left behind any unsavory paranormal residue, it would still be a cakewalk compared to her childhood home. Any other day, Ghost wouldn't have batted an eye about living in such a secluded area; now, she found herself terrified that decision was about to bite her in the ass.
"Excuse me." An entirely unflattering shriek ripped from her lungs and she whirled about, Heifer launching from her arms as one shot up to sock her would-be attacker in the groin. Instead, Ghost felt like she'd punched a wall and fell backward onto her over-plump behind with an incoherent cry of pain. The strange man simply stared at her.
Wait. Still cradling her throbbing hand, she blinked in disbelief up at the being standing above her. The stranger held Heiferlump to one bulky shoulder, the little green-eyed monster already purring up a storm. Hold. The. Phone. Hazel eyes, tortoise shell rimmed glasses, totally sexy coveralls and suspenders, violet bandana mask… Ghost blinked again, struggling to process the sight before her…a very familiar mutant turtle, clearly questioning her sanity, and holding Heiferlump like the cat's bewildered mama didn't just try to nut-shot him.
"The fuck?" One bare eyebrow arching under his mask and his nose wrinkling slightly, Donatello scrutinized her silently. Ghost cringed. Why was it so much easier to write a good first impression than to make one? "Uh…hi?"
"Hi." It wasn't much consolation, but he seemed just as confused by her presence as she was by his. Of course, in his world, this sort of thing wasn't exactly uncommon; her world was an entirely different story. Growing up in an actual haunted house taught Ghost that no one believed in mysteries anymore, even the ones that weren't quite so far-fetched. "I take it this is yours?" As though knowing she was being talked about, Heifer gave him a loud half-purr-half-meow, then turned to shoot her owner a smug grin.
"Yeah." Ghost fought the urge to return Heifer's 'smirk' with some immature expression and instead focused on the three fingered hand scratching the cat's white cheeks. "Just took the trash out…she's a runner." Another 'wuuuROWurrr' from Heifer made Donnie smirk. Smacking the cat hair off his unoccupied hand, he offered it to the woman still flat on her ass in the leaf litter. It took a moment—and another arched eyebrow—but finally she managed to goose her mental hamster into doing its job. He hauled her upright like she weighed nothing, but clearly didn't expect her to nearly topple over front-first once she was on her feet.
"Are you alright?" Ghost leaned against the nearest tree with a hiss and grimace; spasms shot through her right leg from the knee outward, reminding her she'd overdone it that day. If only it didn't take a mere few hours of basic housework to constitute 'overdoing it…'
"Yeah, just gimme a sec." Fingertips digging into her knee, she easily located the familiar dent in her tibia; the landmark found, she traced straight upward then followed the line of her kneecap around to the spasming nerve cluster there. "Anyone ever offers to park a car on your ass, decline."
"I take it you didn't?" A telltale smirk tilted his lips upward at one side, and hers soon echoed the expression.
"You're only young an' dumb once, right?" she teased. The pain passed, she reached out for the cat still telling Donatello all about herself in a multitude of purrs and meows. "I'll take that lump from ya. C'mon in out'a the heat—we ain't had neighbors in a bit, but this weather'll kill ya."
Almost as soon as the two were inside—with Heiferlump crated for a time-out—Ghost led him to a cramped and shabby, if clean, kitchen, directing him to the half-full coffee pot and the microwave. "It's a day old," she admitted digging a coffee mug out for him, "but it's still good—had some 'is'mornin'." While she was pointing out the locations of the coffee fixings, a low, sad yowl rang through the air. "Woozle," she called out dryly, "yer not lost. Quitcher lyin' a'ready."
"Woozle?" Donnie echoed dubiously, but before he could add to the question, a flash of white and ginger fur bolted in from the hallway. Winding eagerly around Ghost's bare legs was a second, slightly less obese cat—white with bright reddish orange splotches and vibrant copper orange eyes.
"Woozle," Ghost affirmed with a grin, hoisting the chubby cat up into her arms. "Y'already met Heiferlump, this's her brother, Woozle." After a mere moment of 'Mommy time,' the ginger cat decided he'd had enough and fussed to be put down. "Yeah, yeah, screw you too, ya lil' rodent," she teased depositing the squirming cat on the floor. After a send-off from Ghost—a teasing pat on the butt—he galloped off to parts unknown, yodeling a battle cry. After digging through a low cabinet, she emerged triumphantly with a bottle of Drambuie and glass tumbler and poured herself a good three fingers worth. The familiar scent made Donnie still in preparing his coffee, eyes rolling toward her in blatant disbelief. The brunette fished a curled sliver of orange rind from a small bin from the freezer, plopping it into her glass with an odd smile.
At first, Donatello was bewildered at the sudden change in scenery and worried the strange woman hurt herself lashing out at him; now he could see a faint resemblance. Her frizzy brown hair was only greying lightly—mostly at the hairline with plenty of grey shot through her eyebrows—and the lot was piled into a sloppy braided bun instead of tied back in two neat braids. Her eyes were a muted blue-green, not pale grey-green. Awkwardly tanned skin was decked with hordes of freckles and broken by numerous ambiguous scars, and her body type was clearly well beyond chunky into obese. Out in the woods, she'd gripped her right knee and remarked about someone 'parking a car' on her. There were many differences but the similarities were jarring. "Who are you?" he asked, his knuckles white around the handle of a coffee mug. She swallowed her sip of scotch liqueur and shrugged.
"Name's Ghost Chance," she answered with deceptive simplicity. "I'm a writer working on going pro, a crazy cat lady, an' that one friend ya don't take home ta Mom. Nice to meet ya." Donatello shook his head at the explanation, his eyes narrowing as he compared the woman before him to another—one with soft grey-green eyes the color of sunlit moss, pale, freckled flesh, warm brown hair streaked liberally with grey—a woman who was most likely worried sick about—
"Amber!" he burst out suddenly, losing his grip on the coffee mug; the plain white porcelain tumbled to the floor in a shower of cold coffee, shattering upon impact. Suddenly jolted back into himself by the crash, he dropped to his knees on the ade-dingy tile and began gathering the shards. "Ah, shell, I'm sorry, I—" A hand on one of his stilled him, froze him; nervous hazel eyes rolled up to meet a pair of deep green ones. Ghost knelt before him, seemingly visually dissecting him.
"Amber-who?" Ghost's expression was guarded, he realized with a noisy swallow, but he couldn't dismiss the recognition in her eyes. "Amber-who?" she insisted.
"Amber…O'Brien," he finally admitted with a wince. Surely not, he argued silently, surely he hadn't somehow made it to Amber's world! On the off-chance that he had, though, he found his lips illogically loosened. "She's my…my girlfriend. Last I remember, I was with her…then I was in the woods…and…" He couldn't continue, torn between his worry, the impossibility of his being torn out of Amber's arms and thrown into her world, and the horrified gape on this stranger's face.
"Amber…O'Brien…" Ghost repeated slowly, shifting from her knees to her rear end. A loud smack made him jump—her palm violently impacting her exposed forehead. "Holy friggin' Moses," Ghost grumbled digging her fingertips into the emerging wrinkle between her eyebrows. "This day jus' keeps gettin' better."
Over the next half hour—and more coffee and Drambuie—Ghost got the story out of Donatello…and by 'story' she meant his side of the story. He fell asleep in Amber's arms, as they were wont to do. When he woke up, he found himself at a crossroads—the train tracks that cut through the bottoms followed the crick less than a mile before the riverbed took a sharp switchback turn. Where the lines crossed, the riverbed had been dug out and the rails put up on a trestle.
It was under this trestle that Donatello woke…bewildered, paranoid, and puking his guts up. Even living in smog-cloaked New York wasn't enough preparation for the smell of a half-dry crick in record heat. Even if he hadn't woken up face-first in dying fish and algae, Ghost knew the smell of her home state took some getting used to. A relative of hers moved to Cali a few years back and came home for Christmas and Midsummer. Every time he got off the plane he chucked his cookies right there on the tarmac from the oppressive combination of agriculture, manure, pollution, and exhaust…and the rarely-acknowledged but always present stench of countless morons cooking meth. The meth problem was always bad, but up until her lifetime, you couldn't smell it everywhere you went, no matter how well the wind carried the fumes.
Ghost swore under her breath, pacing the linoleum, mussing her already messy hair with every turn. It didn't make sense—it was impossible!—somehow, if she was reading the situation correctly, Donatello was inexplicably spirited away from his world at the precise moment she'd ended the last chapter of his story. Nearly two weeks ago, she'd hit a road block in her writing and couldn't seem to get past it. There was always a backlog of one-shots due for Gallery of Memories, and now she couldn't seem to get even a word out for the main storyline.
Unable to find a better title, she'd called the long, sprawling epic "A New Lease on Life"…because that sounded saner than "a bullshit story about a bullshit character I made look like me just so I can kill them then torture them repeatedly for lolz." Well, technically it wasn't 'just for lolz.' The story began as nothing more than a tool, a writing exercise. She hoped by 'seeing' a character even weaker and more messed up than herself heal massive emotional scarring, she could finally heal her own less-massive scars. One character died to the killer storm that inadvertently spared Ghost's life; another character dealt with not an abusive partner for years, but an abusive mother for her whole life. Despite their similar appearances, Ghost wasn't Amber, and despite their similar personalities and attitudes she wasn't Mercy, and likewise, they weren't her.
Though the story started out as a slightly morbid attempt to 'kill' her weaker self and emerge victorious, the characters and storyline quickly became much more than an exercise. Against their puppet-master's wishes, they grew, fleshed out, blossomed, and became actual characters and stories of their own rather than personified traits and traumas. Before Ghost's Ides of May hiatus was over, a story was born from a sketch and she knew she could never keep it bottled up. Another world was woven into the plotline—new characters, new trials, allegations of deception and broken hearts—and by the time the prequel was posted, there was no turning back. It started out as a slightly sadistic exercise in irony but it had long since become a story.
How the hell did she manage to drag a fictional character from her story into her reality?! Ghost needed something a helluva lot stronger than Drambuie—she needed a mental vacation, starting with a few strawberry daiquiris, some head-banging heavy metal, a crappy romance novel about some illogically awesome beefcake meeting a hopeless nerd, and a long, hard soak in the bathtub! Increasingly aware of Donatello's keen eyes studying her in confusion and disbelief, she scrambled for some way, any way, to explain the bizarre situation without really explaining it or lying. After all, she just spent over a year repeatedly torturing Donatello, his family, his girlfriend, and several other characters he knew! Granted, that's what authors do, but she doubted the characters saw it that way. Already she could see him putting an 'only use Justin Bieber wallpapers' bug on her laptop—or rigging up her tablet to blast bad pop music anytime it was on—or some other equally horrific act of retribution!
"What's your real name?" The question came out of the blue, and the frazzled brunette turned to address the mutant turtle in her kitchen.
"Wha?" As usual, she considered with a cringe, one word out'a her mouth and she convinced everyone and everything in earshot that she had the IQ of an amoeba. Awesome. "My real name?" she repeated to disguise the sound of her brain scrambling for any possible escape.
"Yeah," the genius answered, drawing out the word pointedly. "I've never heard of anyone actually naming their kid Ghost."
"Yeah, they name'em North West instead." Her grumble was answered with an unamused stare. Digging her fingertips into that emerging wrinkle again, she sighed; she felt a headache coming on, and at this rate, she'd wind up yanking on her daith piercing in minutes. "Yeah, ya got me, it's a nickname. I'd rather not share my real name if ya don't mind—not a lotta people know it, an' for good reason." Donatello's stern gaze made her skin itch, and she wanted nothing more than to blurt out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her bog. Should she share that truth, though…
"Listen," she explained instead, finally meeting his eyes. "I can't tell you everything, but I promise I won't lie to ya—I can't stand lies, and I always wind up ready to yack if I'm stuck doing it. Don't ask questions I can't answer, accept when I can't answer one, an' we'll try to figure out how to get you home, 'kay?" A long silence passed, the mutant staring her down over the chipped formica counter.
"Are you a friend of Amber's?" he asked, clearly willing to let go of the name issue. "or do you mean her any harm?"
"Friend?" Ghost repeated with a weak smile. "You could say that I guess…we…have a lot in common…as for whether I mean her any harm…" She paused for an overly drawn out sip of liqueur, waiting for her brain to catch up with her mouth. "I want only the best for her…an' I'm totally shippin' you two—yer a cute couple."
"Then you know what our life's been like," Donnie acknowledged with a shrewd stare. "Dare I say you've been watching us somehow? Or that you know how things will end up between us?" Ghost froze. She wanted to give a somewhat intelligent answer, but all that came out was a half-garbled,
"…uh…huh?" Again, Donnie's nose wrinkled slightly, but whether in amusement or disgust, she didn't know. "Pass."
"One more question, then." He finally looked away, and the absence of his gaze revealed how heavy it had felt; nervously fidgeting with his already empty coffee cup, he stared through the ring of grounds at the bottom. "Will we…I mean…" After such a long episode of nothing but Ghost freaking out and Ghost being socially awkward, now the turtle was a fit of nerves and almost as awkward. "I don't…don't want to lose her," he admitted softly his eyes narrowing, but not tearing. "We don't really know what brought her to my world or what's keeping her there…and there've been strange things happening left and right, impossible dust, ticking clocks, unexplained voices and the feeling that someone's watching us…"
At his sudden startled glance, Ghost piped up, "No, that's not me watchin' y'all. Chill." She could almost swear his cheeks darkened at her answer; what sort of thoughts were running through that turtle's head? If he was her, she'd say he had some seriously explicit footage playing through his thoughts, but she was gutter-brained to a fault—Donnie wasn't like her. Blushing alone didn't mean he was considering pinning a certain brunette to some random surface and— Crud. Hello, gutter.
"If she's going to be taken away from us—from me," he summed up with a burst of resolve, "I need to know…so I can stop it." Oh, how cute. Ghost chuckled, her lips twisted into a wide, lopsided smile.
"You're adorable, ya know that?" she teased rolling her eyes. "No, Amber's not gonna get taken away from ya—if she leaves, it'll be'er own choice." This apparently didn't reassure him any, so she added, "an' she ain't gonna leave unless ya really fuck up. So don't."
At first, he meant to question her about this statement; then he realized her eyes had grown distant, as though fixed on some unpleasant memory. A familiar scene played out before him: green eyes lost focus and dilated, unpainted lips weakened, shoulders hunched and tightened. Unlike his Amber, though, Ghost stormed out of the room as though the very devil was on her heels. After a moment of hesitation, he followed and found her staring nervously out a window into the back yard, her right hand clenching her left wrist and worrying at some unseen scar.
"Hey." His greeting startled her—an exaggerated startle response, as he'd expected. Despite the layers of fat over it, he could clearly see her pulse racing in her throat. "It seems you have similar demons," he remarked with feigned nonchalance, coming to stand beside her and stare out the window as well. "Similar, if not identical."
"Identical?" Ghost mumbled starting to worry at her wrist again. "Not really…we've both got issues from a helluva storm, but I've moved past mine. No, my real demon is something different—something older…" She cringed, forcing a swallow past the illogical fear rising up her throat. "Jus' call'im Walker."
While Donatello was still processing that bombshell, she shook herself out of her morbid thoughts and brushed past him. "Cold'll be home soon—that's my husband—so we'll need'a hide ya 'til I can work up some explanation." Still focusing on slowing her breathing and stopping her fight-or-flight response, Ghost led Donatello down the poky hallway. She gave a cursory glance into the 'man cave,' then pointedly yanked the door shut while griping about Cold leaving his underwear all over the place. Honestly, there was only one pair of boxers on the gaming chair, but there was TMNT paraphernalia all over that room…not a good idea. "We'll put'cha up in th'office, 'kay?"
"Office?" Another room—and shut door—later, he followed her into the last room on the line and found himself speechless. Though the house was overall cluttered, dated, and somewhat shabby, this room seemed the sole exception.
"Artists have a studio and actors have their dressing rooms, but I'm a writer," Ghost explained as she led the way into her sanctuary. All through the rest of the house, she had to fight Cold tooth and nail over décor, arrangements, and everything from how clean it should be kept to how clothed he had to be in said locations. This room was her sanctuary from game cases, movie posters, dirty underwear, and cackling streaking husbands intent on re-christening everything at once. God, they fit together well. "This is where the magic happens," she shrugged instead of acknowledging her unbidden X-rated memories of the kitchen.
"Magic," Donatello mumbled, eagerly scanning the ceiling height bookshelves lining three of the room's long walls, and the tall windows parading along the last. "Right." As he studied the room, his host threw open heavy curtains—revealing a broken view of the wooded area behind the house, muted by sheer drapes—swiped cat hair off the surface of the massive wooden desk, and awkwardly shoved a litterbox out of view.
"We don't get overnight guests often," Ghost explained as she swatted dust out of the pillows piled into the old wicker papasan chair, "but when we do, we usually put'em up in here for the night—there's room for an air mattress, if you do some creative fi'nanglin' of the furniture, or we've got sleeping bags if that's more—"
The weight of a heavy hand on her shoulder stunned her into silence, and she choked down the fear rising in her gut. She wasn't afraid of Donnie—she could never be afraid of such a sweet, sensitive, and downright drool-worthy man—but more and more, she found herself falling prey to the demons that had stalked her for many years already. A demon called Walker. Despite the gooseflesh dancing down her spine, she forced herself to meet his eyes.
"It's perfect," Donatello reassured the suddenly nervous woman with an easy smile. "The whole room smells like books." …and cat litter, but he didn't mention that part. As he expected, her eyes practically lit up behind her glasses.
"Not much like the smell of books, huh?" she admitted wistfully, wandering over to the nearest shelf—literature, classics, and short stories—without the slightest pause, she pulled a volume free and held it up to her nose, taking a long, deep whiff of the book. This is my Best was an old, forgotten literary anthology, a former favorite read of her father's that eventually became one of her favorite 'sniff' books. Not only did it have that delightful 'old book' smell, it carried faint traces of other memory-invoking smells—long-drunk whiskey, fresh wood shavings and grass clippings, Old Spice aftershave, and the sweet pipe tobacco her father had slowly traded for putrid cigars. The combined fragrance always brought her back to when her father gave a damn and her family wasn't working on killing each other off with drama. Her guest probably thought she was loony for huffing the book, but she didn't care; nothing can ever hold as many vivid memories as a familiar smell, and that book was full of both.
Shaking herself from her reverie, she reluctantly re-shelved the book and turned an apologetic smile to Donatello. "The Ma-in-Law-from-Hades should be bringing Cold back anytime—I'd best start figgerin' out dinner. Help yourself to the books and whatnot until I come get you…just…" She cringed. "…please don't hack my computer until I've cleared my browser history?"
About half an hour passed by without notice. All the while, Donatello paced from one end of the sizable library-slash-office-slash-'magic'-room, waiting, worrying, and wondering. Occasionally, he'd get snippets of sound from the front half of the house—the usual cooking racket, his odd hostess grumbling aloud or hollering at one of the cats, presumably Woozle—and faint, barely-heard traces of music played low. So far, no one had come to find him, and Heiferlump, curled up on the closed laptop Ghost warned him away from, had yet to tire of talking at him.
Mah. "What?" MAOW! "I really wish I knew what you were saying." Mrowwwr—ack! Donnie didn't have much experience with animals, aside from strays, but he'd never come across such a noisy cat before. If he 'answered' her, she'd spout another strange half-purr-half-meow or odd chatter; if he 'ignored' her, she'd sit and make a racket until he looked at her, then she'd repeat herself, as though expecting him to understand. Big cucumber green eyes watched him with startling intelligence, making him more nervous by the moment. Already he wished he'd shooed the cat out when her owner left.
Mor-OWR! "You're a noisy one, huh?" he muttered at the insistent cat, but she looked all-too-pleased with the proclamation and gave a closed-eyed-whiskers-arched ack in response. Finally, it hit him, and it was all he could do to not face-palm. "I'm arguing with a cat…it's not even my cat." Ack!
Before he could respond, whether to roll his eyes or argue back—again!—an ear-piercing shriek rang out in the kitchen followed by an even louder clatter of metal on tile and the sound of shattering pottery. Instantly on alert, he reached up for his goggles…and found nothing. Their absence was ominous, and he quickly realized the rest of his gear and equipment were all missing too. How could he have not noticed that?! How could he have simply found himself in the forest, unarmed and practically naked, and not noticed?! Oh…right…he woke up puking his guts out.
The sounds of a one-sided struggle silenced his mental tirade; his hostess ordered him to stay put, but if she was in danger… Before he could talk himself out of it he crept down the dark hallway armed with the only 'weapon' he could find: a letter-opener of a knife from the desktop. "Hey, hey…shh…shh…" The frantic cries smoothed into choked sobs and the sharp sounds of someone on the verge of hyperventilating. "It's okay, it's just me…it's just me…"
At the doorway to the kitchen, Donnie paused to scope out the situation. A large terra cotta flower pot—broken—had doused the floor with clay dust and potting soil; its previous occupant, a bunched up grouping of mint-like plants, slumped wilting in the dirt. A metal pizza pan leaned against the far wall and an unbaked supreme pizza was crumpled nearby.
Most likely the cause of the commotion, a new stranger had arrived—a rather short man with off-kilter blue eyes, wire-rimmed glasses, and short-shaven blonde hair. Ghost—Donatello's strange hostess—was uninjured, clutching the man's shirt like a lifeline. He, in turn, held her tightly in his thick arms, rubbing her back and shushing her. He wasn't a threat. Donatello's hackles lowered, the sudden burst of adrenaline petering off into nothing as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place—the music he'd barely heard in the office was practically blaring in here. Ghost clearly hadn't heard the man's arrival or approach and she already had an exaggerated startle response.
I've been up and down and over and out, and I know one thing: each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race. That's life! As the song went on and Ghost's breathing slowed and steadied Donatello crept back down the hallway. This moment wasn't one he should intrude on…and it was entirely too familiar.
"I hate'im." The claim—halfway between a snarl and a whimper—was nothing new after countless such incidents over the years. "That—tha'son'va'bitch—he—he—"
"He's a bastard," Cold agreed, his usual gruff and blunt manner somewhat gentled. As Ghost's breathing and heart calmed, her anger faded into bitterness. The aftermath of a panic attack is hard enough to get through when your primary reaction is fear. When you add in rage at the cause, anger at yourself for falling prey to that cause, and frustration at being unable to get past the trauma, it's even worse.
When Ghost first started having panic attacks, Cold was bewildered—lost, frightened, and to an extent, irritated at her for being irrational and hysterical. Once she finally confessed their cause to him, told him of the now-infamous 'Walker' and stopped pretending he neither existed nor hurt her, the fear and irritation faded. Now, he felt only anger—at the scumbag who knew his partner first and left her scarred—and disappointment—in himself, in the situation, in the world in general. He didn't blame her anymore, though…Cold was autistic, not stupid. "He d'serves to be beaten," Ghost groused into his sweaty shoulder.
"And tortured," Cold added matter-of-factly.
"And castrated..."
"With a spoon." She snorted at the mental image, finally smiling again, even if it was a little weak.
"A dull one?" she asked finally emerging from his neck to meet his eyes. Her eyes burned from drying salt and throbbed from the slight change in light—a sure sign her pupils were still constricted from the rush of adrenaline—but the slight upward tilt of her husband's whisker-bordered lips soothed the sting.
"Nah," he teased, releasing her with a teasing pat on the rear. "Let'im suffer—use that screwy-sharp-pointy-spoon-thingamabob."
"Ya mean a grapefruit spoon?" Ghost supplied slyly as they went about cleaning up her mess. "That's...incredibly awesome. Scoop those puppies out a lil' at a time'n go back to scrape the sac clean!" Sure enough, Cold winced at the mental image, but he grinned at her. He opened his mouth to fire off another even more disturbing mental image—after all, this wasn't their first 'torture Walker' contest—but she turned away and knelt to hold the dustpan. Sure enough, his eyes were immediately drawn from the dirt to her over-plump posterior and his brain ceased functioning, leaving him standing there staring like an imbecile. "It was your hair...I didn't expect it to be so short."
"Blame Mom," Cold answered sullenly, finally shaking off the 'power of the pudge' and fulfilling his end of the bargain with the broom. "I agreed to be kidnapped, not shaved."
"She wouldn't cut it if ya'd take care of it." She fought a grin at the familiar argument and the sulky expression he always wore when it came up. "Ya've got such gorgeous curls, Hon…really ought'a take care'f'em."
"Fuggoff."
"You first."
"Maybe later."
"What'd'ja do?" The sudden demand—halfway between irritable and sarcastic—froze Ghost in her tracks. The office door hung open and her pizza-deprived partner stood pointedly in the doorway, arms crossed and his expression flat.
"Uh…do?" she echoed back hurrying toward him with a forced grin. "Did I lock Heffy-butt in here?" The last few steps revealed Donatello standing silently by the window closest to the papasan chair, his expression torn between offense and embarrassment. The heavy floor-length curtains and gauzy sheers lay pooled at his feet, evidence that he overestimated the security of the hardware. Heifer sat on those drapes too frequently for the already wimpy tension rods to have held.
"There's a mutant nerd in there!" Crap. "Screw how ya managed it, why didn'ya at least pick Raph or Mikey, or even that stick-ass Leo? Mikey's a gamer, Raph's entertaining as Hell, an' even Leo has experience with pointy objects! I could'a shown'im my blades! Why this guy?" With every word, Donnie's cheeks grew darker and darker, and his eyes narrowed into a more blatant glare. Earlier, he was ready to give the loud-mouthed blond the benefit of the doubt; now he felt like finding a way to 'accidentally' electrocute him. Not for the first time, Ghost found herself staring at Cold in blatant disbelief, wondering how on earth his strange little mind worked.
"Wait," she demanded of her husband. "There's a six foot talking ninja turtle in my office, I clearly hid him here, an' all you care about's that he's not fun? —and somehow it's my fault he's here?! –and I somehow managed to choose which turtle to drag here against his will?!" Her arms spread wide in a 'da fuck?!' gesture, she scoffed.
"Well, yeah," Cold answered as though pointing out the obvious. "It's Donnie—of course, you dragged his ass here." Off-kilter blue eyes rolled at the unspoken. "If it was anyone else, I'd know it was an accident." In the awkward silence that filled the room, one could even have heard a hiccup from a world on a dust speck clearly. Not recognizing that awkward silence—or perhaps wanting to make it even more awkward—Cold added in a huff, "Ya don't clear your browser history…perv."
That did it. Without even bothering to disguise her intentions—or the raging blush spanning from her hairline to her neckline—Ghost stomped up to her husband and thwacked him on the back of the head Mikey-style.
"Let's get some things straight, Assmunch," she ground out while he whined and pouted. "One, look in the fuckin' mirror before ya call someone a perv—I've seen how ya drool over that Jehovavilch gal!" Without pausing to let the sting fade—or let him correct her on Mila Jovovich's (intentionally butchered) name—she launched right into the next, ticking the points off on her fingers. "Two, I did not drag him here or have anything to do with him being here! I was s'prised as he was! Three, if I was so Mary-Sue-Rageous that I could literally drag someone from another world into ours, do ya really think I'd be fuckin' unemployed?! I'd'a dropped Jabba-the-Fraggin'-Hut in that scumbag's livin' room when he decided to stop payin' me for the work I was doin'!" Finally a reaction from Cold—granted, it was a blink, but it was a start. "Four, if I could do somethin' that awesome, I'd totally be abusin' that shit—I'd'a yanked Walker out'a our world an' dumped'im in Gollum's pit—or Voldy-dork's playroom—or a friggin' Barney episode for God's sakes! I'd torture his screwed up sadistic carcass beyond recognition!"
Suddenly, it became clear to her that she was deadly serious instead of being sarcastic…and she was only a few decibels from a harpy shriek. Even Cold, who normally could listen to her rant and rave for hours on end with little more than a shrug and 'meh,' was cringing slightly. She probably looked crazy…time to wrap it up. "…and five?" All the fingers ticked off and closed, she gave her husband a half-assed sock to the shoulder. "Lay off'a the genius a'ready. Brains trump brawn, knucklehead." She shot said genius a chagrined smile and bodily turned Cold around in the hallway, and without further ado, physically herded him to the kitchen.
"Yeah, for zombies," Cold shot back. Another brainduster.
"Say you're sorry, Cold!"
"I'm sorry, Cold!" As the eccentric and incredibly immature couple bickered their way out of earshot, Donatello stared at the empty doorway in disbelief. A timely murr-OW! from the desk chair drew his attention. Heiferlump sprawled precariously along the top of the narrow back monorail style, with her eyes locked on him as though eager to continue their 'chat.'
"Good grief," Donnie muttered reaching out to scratch Heifer's dirty white chin. "Here I felt crazy for talking to you." Another closed-eyed-whiskers-arched ack! told him she didn't blame him…and warned him the insanity was only just beginning.
WARNING: Long-ass notes to follow, feel free to skip or skim unless you have a question!
NOTES in order of occurrence
*Landscape around the house: This part is fictional—Cold and I are too bleepin' poor to own our own home and are currently living in a loft apartment sandwiched between a noisy nympho, a screaming baby, a chronically-drunk frat boy, ONE pair of good, quiet neighbors, and at least two families with under-supervised teenagers. It would literally take a double homicide for us to be able to afford a house—especially since the housing market blew up after a large percentage of the homes in town were trashed by storms. Anyway, the NON-fictional part is that this area is somewhat like the one I lived in as a teen. For those unfamiliar with the terms: A tree stand can mean a hunting blind mounted in a tree, OR it can mean an area of forested land left to grow wild. River bottoms or just bottoms are usually a low, flat, undeveloped area bordering a body of water. Normally these fallow lands are very much in the flood plain and border 'cricks' or creeks and are intentionally left undeveloped because of their risky location and frequent marshiness. Some bottoms, like the ones described, were built up so railway lines could go through them without dealing with buildings and such. Either way, public wooded areas, bottoms, and especially remote areas adjacent to train tracks, are dangerous places you don't want to go rooting around in without packing some serious heat.
**Regarding the 'haunted house' bit: Jokes aside, yes, Cold and I BOTH have personally experienced brushes with 'ghosts,' I DID grow up in a house that turned out to be pretty legitimately HAUNTED, and in both my case AND his, what we saw, heard, and experienced was also seen, heard, and experienced by many others, both familiar and completely strange. In my case, that means my family, the family we sold the house to, AND the ones THEY sold the house to, who seemed to be toughing it out, and a few friends of all three of those families. In Cold's case, everyone who worked at the same late-night grab-and-go diner his mother did while he was a kid, half the regular customers, visiting family of staff, and on occasion, an unfortunate person delivering stock and supplies. None of the persons who regularly experienced the 'hauntings' were experiencing any psychological impairments or under the influence. I won't go into further detail here because people tend to get bent out'a shape over the debate between 'hallucinations' and 'honest-to-bog paranormal activity.' If anyone asks about it, I'll post the specs on my forum and add a link. For the record, I'm STILL not convinced my house was haunted, even after so many other people experiencing the same stuff; still, my mother and I are only two of dozens of former residents who wouldn't return there for the life of us. I'd rather face the zombies, thanks. ;)
***To many who live here, Missouri is a wonderful, beautiful, ecologically diverse place that we wish we could share with the world, but we often wind up ignoring or even completely MISSING things that appall outsiders...like how the overwhelming majority of Missourians are law-abiding and not brain-dead, but the whole state REEKS because of the few who AREN'T law abiding and ARE brain-dead AND making drugs. S.M.H.
****'ANLoL was an exercise that became an epic.' – There, ya have it, the ugly truth behind A New Lease on Life. Flames, rants, whatever, I'll take'em, but I stand by my statement—it IS NOT a self-insert and has not BEEN a self-insert since before it even became a TMNT story.
#Frank Sinatra "That's Life." I usually wind up playing swing, jazz, and similar music while cooking—LOTS of Sinatra and Michael Buble!—and classic rock while cleaning. (Quiet Riot, Survivor, and all those awesome classics you just never hear on the radio!)
"Character" rundown in order of appearance
Ghost Chance – That would be yours truly, the odd little duck who brought you A New Lease on Life, ANLoL: Gallery of Memories, the Moments in Time series, and Little Moments. I have an incredibly dirty mind that is ALWAYS swan-diving gleefully into the gutter and a tendency toward being predominantly unfiltered. I WILL be AWKWARD. Hubby and I are both pretty immature, overly emotional, and very loud; we both have major potty-mouth and smartassery problems and frequently get into spontaneous 'insult contests' and 'smart-off contests,' and our favorite petnames for each other are insults. Honestly, we curse WAY more in real life than you'll see here. We do NOT have children and WILL NOT have children because we'd probably be HORRIBLE parents.
Heiferlump Chance – our incredibly fat and even more incredibly talkative tabby cat. Often referred to by any number of nicknames – including but not limited to Heifer, Heffy-butt, and Fat Lump – she is a blonde tabby with pale green eyes and is a total attention whore. She NEVER shuts up. She has been known to approach people who 'don't talk to animals because 'that's crazy' or 'they don't understand anyway'…and drag them into long, loud, and increasingly vehement arguments with her. She's primarily well behaved, as she's getting on in her years, and is way smarter than anyone gives her credit for. She does tricks for treats.
Woozle Thomas – our other cat, slightly less fat but still obese. Woozle is younger than Heifer and is white with bright reddish-orange splotches and freaky-vibrant copper-orange eyes. He's fussy, hyperactive, often goes from clingy to lemme-go at the drop of a hat, tends to beat up his 'sister,' and has anxiety problems…and unfortunately, incontinence issues. He also has a habit of wandering the hallway wailing as though lost; when this happens, Cold or I respond as described, and he comes bounding into the room as though he was actually lost.
Walker – Cold's predecessor by several years. Walker started off a model young man and gave off no red flags until I was living on my own. Once my folks weren't around to interfere, he became increasingly controlling, irrational, aggressive, and eventually, violent. I have apparently blocked the worst memories from our relationship and frankly, if they haven't returned in going on ten years, they can STAY blocked.
Cold Thomas – Cold is my lifemate, my partner, and in everything but name and paper, my husband; we've been together for almost a decade but have our reasons for not getting legally married. Cold is mildly autistic—he has high-functioning Aspberger's—and was raised non-autistic. Perhaps because he didn't know about it until a few years back, he learned to work around his oddities and cope with them well. He is incredibly fluent in saracasm and turning words around, and is a bona-fide smartass with major potty mouth.
Glossary:
Guch – a generic 'ick' word. Starts with 'guh' and ends with phlegm.
'is'mornin' – this morning
Quitcher - Quit your
Tha'son'va'bitch – crying-snot-nose-speak for 'that son of a bitch'
Fuggoff – Fuck off
Voldy-dork - Voldemort