TheZot

I'm not sure I really like the way that Steve hassles Chris at the beginning of this. Chris certainly deserves it, but the banter doesn't quite work right. Once he starts laying into Chris it's fine, it's just the lead in that needs thumping. (He says, making notes for the rewrite)

In case you were wondering, it was about forty five minutes from Joe's office until he got to the bar. He's got an extensive colorful vocabulary. I definitely didn't expect Billy to be broken like this. When I figured I needed this chapter I was expecting a confrontation between he and Joe, with lots of yelling and the odd punch thrown. I was going to have Joe phone in to Steve after it was done, but I don't have to. And yeah, I was actually tempted to have Billy be already dead. Shades of Sixth Sense -- "I drink with dead people!" Joe may well end up adopting Stephanie, I'm not sure. I didn't think so a while back, but then I didn't expect her to play any part in the story, or be a relative, or anything. It may complicate the sequel, if there is one. Oh, well, gotta get to the end of this one first. Shouldn't be too much longer.

Well, as a resident of one of the blue states (though Connecticut wussed out and did the whole 'separate but equal' thing) I'll say that if you don't mind the cold, we've got plenty of space. People don't usually realize exactly how different things are from place to place in the 'states. My mom got a hell of an eye-opener the week she spent in rural Mississippi with a church group. It's a very different world compared to what's up here, that's for sure. I am so glad we got the stupid fire'n'brimstone religious crap out of the way a century ago. Wouldn't surprise me to see New York and the rest of the New England states to have marriage be gender-neutral within a decade.

Well, I look at this stuff as kind of quantum, y'know? There are so many potential, conflicting possibilities, but it seems foolish to collapse the eigenstate before you have to -- you never know when you're going to need an option in the future. But in this case I was being unreasonably coy. Joe sees the monsters, and they see him. The real question is whether the monsters know Joe can see them, and what happens when they realize that?

[Joe almost used the word 'execrable'. Correctly, too. But oh, boy, that man's got a temper. Things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get, so since this isn't a tragedy that must mean it's all up-hill from here!] Chris woke up with a headache so bad he wondered if he might be dead. Probably not, he decided after a few agonizing minutes. If he were dead it wouldn't hurt so bad. He felt like crap. Besides the pain in his head, he was pretty sure something had crawled into his mouth and died. There was a faint, lingering smell of mustard and vomit, and he felt grubby. His first attempt to get out of bed was a failure and left him lying on the ground in a pool of sunlight. That hurt almost as much as the light, and the twittering birds outside his window. The second attempt was better. He managed to get to his feet, though the floor was still less stable than he'd like. Staggering to the hall, he was hit with twin revelations: he was still a little drunk, and there was someone besides Toby in Toby's bed. The first scared him a little. He knew he'd had far too much to drink the day before. He didn't actually remember anything past about noon, and what he did remember was really fuzzy. The second scared him in an entirely different way. There was someone else in the house. In Toby's room. And he'd been so drunk he hadn't noticed. Chris shuffled into the room as quietly as he could. He was tempted to go back to his room and get his gun, but he didn't want to take the chance of waking whoever it was in the bed. He wasn't sure he could use it right either. Blinking to try and clear his eyes, he moved closer to the bed. He was only a few feet away before his addled brain finally figured out who it was. Joe. Chris wasn't sure whether to be happy it wasn't some sick burglar, or mad that Joe was in bed with his son, when he couldn't. Toby made a contented little sound in his sleep and snuggled into Joe. That made the decision. Angry won. Chris reached over and poked Joe in the shoulder. He would've hauled Joe out if Toby hadn't been wrapped around him. He almost did anyway. The poke was enough to wake Joe. It was still early, but the sun had been up for a while and there was some light coming through the bedroom windows. Toby was still sound asleep, dead to the world. So was Joe, more or less. The first few minutes after he woke were always fuzzy for him, as his brain tried to get used to reality again. He looked over to see who had poked him. Looming over him was a very hung over Chris. "Get out of his bed," Chris hissed. His breath was foul, and Joe winced. With Chris glowering at him, Joe carefully extricated himself from around Toby. It wasn't easy. Toby kept trying to hold on, but the boy was asleep and Joe was mostly awake. It took him a minute, but he got free. As soon as he got out of bed Chris grabbed his arm and hauled him out into the hall. Chris was leaning on him as much as dragging. It was clear he was still a little drunk. When they got to the hall, Chris turned on Joe. "What the f**K do you think you were doing?" Joe glared at Chris. He reached over and closed Toby's door. He was going to start shouting, he knew it, but he didn't want to wake Toby if he could help it. "You're still drunk." Joe said flatly. "What does that have to do

The bigger question, of course, is whether the monsters see him...

Awww, gee shucks. I do like this chapter. Plus it was the bit that pretty much decided how the rest of the story was going to fall out. (There's one more scene I haven't gotten to yet that was a milestone for it) Now I've just gotta decide in the end whether Chris saves Joe from the menace at the end or the other way 'round...

Well, it's a darned good thing for Chris that Toby's in the house. Otherwise the neighbors down the block would hear the explosion...

Nah, not on the couch. As we see in chapter 32, which I just released. Setup for fireworks anyone?

[in which we find that the author can't quite manage to work in the phrase "something under the bed is drooling". Dammit.] Chris' couch was damned uncomfortable. Joe had spent the better part of two hours trying to get to sleep on it, but he just couldn't. It was so old the lumps had lumps, and the ones that didn't had springs sticking through them. He had no idea how Chris had managed to lay on the thing, drunk or not. Joe's anger had died down as the evening passed. He was still annoyed, but the cleaning had given him time to think. Chris wasn't his parents. He'd remembered what Steve had said, about Chris' divorce, and about what happened to cops that didn't have any support. It didn't excuse what he'd done, but it did explain it some. It was going on midnight, though, and he was still awake. Not that he had any place to be on Sunday, but it had been an active day and a crap night. He wanted to sleep, and he didn't want to be asleep when Chris got up in the morning. On top of everything else, he had a headache. Joe hoped there were aspirin in the bathroom upstairs. He didn't want to be going through all of Chris' cabinets, definitely not at midnight. He made his way upstairs, trying to walk as softly as he could. The floors creaked a little under his feet, in ways he'd forgotten that houses did. It brought back memories of sneaking into his own room, back before he'd left, before they'd stopped trying to make his life hell. He'd forgotten but his feet hadn't. He kept close to the walls and kept the floors quiet. It was quiet enough that he could hear faint whimpers coming from Toby's room. Joe thought that the boy was having a nightmare, and cursed himself for not leaving a light on or something. While it didn't hold any terrors for him any more, he understood being afraid of the dark all too well. He didn't want to turn the lights on and lose what night vision he had, so he pulled the door to the bathroom nearly closed and flipped the light on. A beam of light was cast against the hallway wall, enough to see by but not enough to blind. "Toby?" he said softly as he entered the room. "It's Joe. Are you okay, Toby?" In the faint light he could see that Toby was on his bed, huddled up in his blankets, pressed into the corner. He didn't say anything, but Joe could see him shake his head. He walked slowly over to the bed. It was bright enough for Joe to see he was scared of something. Joe sat down next to him. "I'm here, Toby," he said. Joe reached out to stroke Toby's hair, trying to reassure the boy. That touch was enough. Toby lunged over and grabbed hold of Joe as if his life depended on it. He could feel the boy trembling. Joe pulled him into a hug and stroked his back, humming a soft tune. When Toby's shakes stopped, Joe let go a little. "Did you have a nightmare?" he asked. "Yeah," Toby mumbled into him. "You going to be okay?" Toby just shook his head no. Joe was at a loss. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Monster." That he understood well enough. Every kid had a monster somewhere, in their closet or in the attic. "Well, good thing I'm here," Joe said. He tried to sound as cheerful as he could. "I get to handle monsters all the time at work." Which was sort of true, Joe thought. Some of the people he had to deal with could certainly pull night duty hiding in closets and scaring little kids. "I'll just tell it we don't need it and it can have the night off. So, where's the monster?" Toby looked up at him. He was clearly torn, part of him wanting to believe Joe, the other part not at all sure. "Under the bed," he finally said. "Oh, monster," Joe said as he slid off the bed. "This is Joe. There's been a mixup with the paperwork, and we don't need a monster here any

Yeah, I've been working on that. There's a lot of backstory, but I've decided that I really don't like huge chunks of expository dialog or third-person lecturing. Bleah. The Story Must Move. Still, without reason for the character's motivation or the world in which they move things get all abstract, and if we go that way we end up waiting for Godot, and he missed his connecting flight so it's gonna be a long wait. So... bits and pieces. The whole story's chock full of bits and pieces. The trick is putting the right pieces in the right places. Haven't quite got that down with this "one-pass and it's out" format, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

[A bit longer, this one. Only two more to go and we're done with this bit. Woo!] Joe came downstairs, bare chested and shirt in hand, to see Steve guiding a barely conscious Chris out of the living room. "C'mon, Chris," Steve was saying. "One foot in front of the other. You can do it." Chris looked up and saw Joe. His face broke into a huge grin. "'M dreeeeming," he said. He turned to Steve. "y'din' tell me I was dreeeming." There was drunken accusation in his voice. "Yeah, it's a dream, buddy," Steve said. His voice was a little forced. "Dream yourself upstairs, okay?" Chris took two stumbling steps forward. Then his eyes went wide and he fell forward, right into Joe. He barely caught Chris and lurched back a step. He caught his heel on the bottom stair ended up laying on the stairs with Chris on top of him. "What the f**K do you think you're doing?" Joe spat. He was somewhere between furious and puzzled. Chris was dead drunk, but he was apparently a happy drunk. He was also very heavy. Chris gave him that very serious look that only drunks and small children can give. "I'm dreaming," he said. He said it slowly and carefully, so as not to slur the words. He was convinced of it, too. The world was very wobbly, and Joe was there, naked. Well, mostly naked, but Chris was willing to forgive him the shorts. That meant he was dreaming. He didn't remember Joe being nearly so cranky in the other dreams. On the other hand, in those dreams that mouth was either kissing him or sucking him. Chris couldn't quite reach his pants, so that left only one option open. Joe was surprised for a second when Chris started kissing him. Then there were a few seconds where he kissed back. He was pretty sure the fact that he wrapped his arms around Chris was only out of reflex. It was when he couldn't come up with an excuse for the crotch-grinding that he pushed Chris away. "Get off me," he spat. He was furious. Mad at Chris for getting drunk when his son might need him. Mad at Chris for kissing him. Mad at himself for kissing right back. "Can't," Chris said cheerfully. He tried to move, with no success. Mostly because Joe hadn't actually let go yet. "'M stuck!" Joe let go, feeling like he'd just been burned. "Get him up, please," he snapped at Steve. He was enjoying this altogether too much for Joe's comfort. "You sure?" Steve asked. "I was thinking of giving Mary a call and

Nah, no confrontation yet. Chris still needs to really embarrass himself first. Plenty of time for that...

Yeah, there are elements of farce here. The characters are all seeing different things, and misinterpreting what's going on. Maybe it's not really farce, what with the lack of funny and all, but close enough. One of the harder things here is to keep the characters from being sensible, since that's... out of character. Joe's in your face and has a temper once you get him going. Chris gets surly and argumentative, and they both lash out when they've been hurt or are feeling defensive. Then we've got Steve, who despite actually being a pretty damn good detective, has this bad habit of pushing people towards what he thinks is the best thing for them, especially if he thinks they're being stupid or blind. Some day I'm going to write a story where the lead is sensible, knows he's sensible, and works hard to be sensible. (I even know what it's going to be) This would not be that day. Also, while I'm thinking of it, does everyone have a reasonbly good idea what the characters look like? Not exactly, I mean, but general shapes and relative sizes. I think it's important (well, sorta) since at least with Chris and Joe it has some bearing on how they act or reflects on their past. I've skipped the whole "I looked at myself in the mirror and reflected narcissistically on my phenomenal hotness" cliche, but I still need (I think) to get across what these guys look like, at least generally.

[There's a reason Joe left home at 18, changed his name, and never looked back. A reason he doesn't drink, too, they're just different reasons. This one's the reason he's so mad at Chris...] Joe was fuming as he carried Toby upstairs. He'd actually worried about Chris earlier. He snorted. Sick. He knew exactly what sort of sick Chris was. Toby moved in his sleep and held on a little tighter to Joe. Joe's fury vanished for a moment as he gave Toby a little squeeze and a kiss on the top of his head. That surprised him. He hadn't intended to do that. It was instinctive. It felt right. That brought the fury back. He'd grown up with this sort of crap. Parents who were drunk all the time. His parents, his brothers, his sister, most of their friends

No, it's not another chapter of Busted, but I saw courtesy of a link from y!gallery. Gotta love the funny.

Ah, I realize nobody's really rushing (not that anyone, me included, would mind the whole thing getting posted tomorrow) which is fine. I'm trying not to get frustrated at the pace this is going. Some days I can manage 1K words in an hour no problem, others I spend twice as long and manage 50 words, and it's frustrating. Some consistency and predictability (preferably at the higher end... ) would be nice. Ah, well, I managed almost 3K yesterday in two chapters, so there's some stacked up stuff, which is good. More fun later tonight, then.

Well, I'm trying to chunk this out as best I can, and it's been a bit of a trial to get longer pieces done. (I really need to grab something to eat on the way out of work in the evenings...) I've only got one more chapter queued up, and a second mostly done, and at the moment it feels like having smaller pieces that actually go out is better for the whole writing momentum thing than longer less frequent releases. I'd toss chapter 30 out there once I get 31 done, but I think it's best to keep things at no more than one a day, so people following along don't miss one and wonder what's going on. Which means tomorrow evening at the earliest. (And Chris is in so much trouble by the time this day's done... ) (And 31's now done, and a beefy (for this) 1700 words. Something to look forward to on wednesday or thursday)

[it's weird, stopping at what's really just a scene breakpoint, but only occasionally. Still, it keeps me moving, which is good] Joe was snoring softly when Steve nudged him awake. At some point, after a half dozen games of Candyland, he and Toby had managed to fall asleep. Joe was still sitting on the floor. Toby was curled up in his lap with Joe's arms wrapped around him. "Hey, wake up," Steve said softy. "It's time to go to bed." Joe looked up, entirely confused. "Uh

D'oh! Steve's kids. Dammit.

[Apparently Toby really likes Joe. Didn't expect this particular twist. Gotta love characters that surprise. Poor Alex though, he's getting the short end of things with Joe] Joe and Toby kicked the soccer ball around for an hour before they were interrupted by a clap of thunder from off in the distance. The promised storms were coming, and they were bringing lightning in their wake. "Guess it's time to head inside, Toby," Joe said. "'Kay, Uncle Joe." Joe was glad for the excuse. He kept in shape, hitting the gym three days a week, but after an hour chasing around wild kicks and diving after the ball he was winded. Little kids were nuclear powered, he decided. Toby was ready to go another hour. At least. Toby took Joe's hand and the two of them walked back to the house. Steve's kids had already gotten out of the pool, and everyone was gathering up things to take inside. The grill had been shut down, and the cooler moved. "Need a hand?" Joe asked. Steve smiled. "Looks like yours is already full. We're good, thanks." Mary was giving Joe an odd look, and it made him a little uncomfortable. He couldn't read her well. She seemed okay, and from what Steve had said she certainly didn't have a problem with hum being gay, but he wasn't sure if she actually approved of him personally. He wasn't sure why he cared, either, but he did. "Looks like your side-kick projection didn't work too well," Steve said to Mike as he lowered the umbrella. "Had to do all the work ourselves. Maybe your projector needs a new bulb." "That's psychic projection, and it works just fine," Mike said. "The only dim bulb around here is you." Steve looked around. "I don't see any projections, Oh Enlightened One." Mike tried to look haughty, but the chagrin spoiled it. "Not one of my talents," he said. "Ah. You can't project to steal beer. Gotcha." "Uncle Joe." Toby tugged on his hand. "I wanna play Candyland." Steve looked surprised. "Now I am impressed," he said. "That's Toby's favorite game." "C'mon, please

Heh. It's an old, old computer joke, but I like it. I probably should've mentioned the beer was Belgian, but it was spur of the moment. I'll have to patch that up in the rewrite. At the moment Chris is more than a little worried about what Toby might be dreaming. Which, given what he's been dreaming, is warranted. (Not going there, thanks, but that doesn't mean the characters know that, which should give me all sorts of opportunities to embarrass them...) Alex and Chris' connection'll get clarified to some extent through the rest of the story. I think I've decided how the rest of the story's going to go, and that it's even Joe's fault (kinda, sorta, involuntarily) that he's getting Menaced. Some of the details are still up in the air, and I fully expect the story'll end up taking a twist or two I didn't expect, but that's fine. It's been, and continues to be, fun. I think I'm even gonna enjoy the rewrite.

[This space intentionally left blank] Joe had a feeling of d

Hah! Like Joe'd ever be a damsel. In distress, yeah, but that's different.

It's time to start menacing Joe, I think. Or at least after this day is over, and there's a fair amount more of it to go.