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 Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 4:14 pm
“Not the -feet-“ He said with a duly aghast face. “That’s just like threatening someone with hypothermia! So mean! I should have given butt rock to Nelson.” He grinned. “I’ll text, it’s late, want pose for a picture?” He picked up his phone and waved it back and forth inviting. “See? I’m even being nice enough to ask instead of dragging you in for a photo shoot. Aren’t I a cool brother? I’m even working on overpowering pigs under your guidance!”
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Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 4:57 pm
Jace almost snorted but he humored his brother and leaned into the picture, trying to relax so he didn't look so uptight. "A 'cool' brother. Sure. Do not tell Holden you're thinking about working to overpower pigs. He'll think it's some wrestling thing. I'm not smiling, Nelson will think I'm trying to murder you. So hurry up and take the picture, this food isn't going to order itself."
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Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:17 pm
“Alright alright, I’ll smile for both of us!” He twisted and leaned in, holding up the phone to try and get a good angle of the both of you together, him smiling hugely and throwing up a ‘v’ with his fingers. Thankfully he hadn’t turned the flash on and neither of you ended up blinded and cursing. “There ... and I won’t show Holden, he was already ‘Sus’ enough asking what shirt size you normal wear.” He tapped out a rapid message with his thumbs. “He did say he was playing that little astronaut game. Can you just imagine? Any time someone asks him who he thinks the intruder might be...” he chuckled. “Okay- food and movies, let’s get marginally comfortable eh?”
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Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:50 pm
"How is it that you go to a farm in the middle of nowhere and come back with slang like that," he huffed, elbowing him for good measure if nothing else. He'd heard of some game, but Jace hadn't had much experience with it. He was enormously out of touch with things without Xander around to give him the cliff notes.
"Food is ordered. Mostly. I'm getting like six coffees. If I'm paying for delivery, it's going to be worth it. Are you comfortable?" Another brief bout of seriousness. "Just tell me what you need. I'll be extra nice. For tonight."
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Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:59 pm
“I saved it! Just for you…” He grinned. “Also it totally kept me sane.” He laughed. “I’m comfortable, promise. Everything is comfortable after those things Uncle calls a mattress. I know he says they are stuffed with cotton but, I am still betting on rocks. Come on… get comfy too alright? We can listen for Mom to leave and I can even tell you the dumbest thing I did while I was out there. It wasn’t even something painful I promise.” He offered. “Totally involved the horses though.”
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 6:19 pm
Jace's eyes narrowed. "...Xander. You can't say things so vaguely, I am automatically assuming the absolute worst. I don't even know if I want to know," he said flatly, but rose from the chair and made his way to his bed, flopping down almost unceremoniously and reaching for a pillow. He shoved it into his lap and propped himself up on his knees with his elbows.
"I'm comfortable." He could work on his essay later; he didn't want to get too comfortable given that he knew he was going to be the one running to get all the food. He could have sat further away from his brother, but he didn't; he was just close enough that when they moved, their shoulders could brush.
It was an old habit, he didn't know when he'd first realized that he just felt stronger when he was standing shoulder to shoulder with his brother. He didn't know if Xander was the same way.
Either way, he was perfectly poised to jab Xander with his elbow if he needed to.
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:16 pm
“I can say things vaguely, I did… it’s just that you don’t like it.” He grinned. “Ok…so, you know that old gelding, the one with the attitude problem about certain trails and lord knows why Uncle still has it other than sentiment and stubbornness? Well… Uncle had me doing his curry brushing and cleaning his hooves, that’s fine…” He waved his hands vaguely. “Cause I had to muck the whole place anyhow…but, this damn horse.” He sighed. “It really, really likes it when you curry his… bum.” He made a grand sweep motion with his hands. “And that's kinda where you finish, well…” He took a breath and gave the most exasperated look. “He backed me into a wall. The damn horse pinned me to a wall…with his butt. So, you now have a rock that not only looks like me but will forever commemorate the day that I was pinned to a wall by a giant a**.” A pause. “And it wasn’t even uncle.”
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Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:07 pm
Jace listened with all the patience that he could muster, but by the end he was staring at Xander, just squinting--and then he snorted. "You are so lucky I don't just push you off this bed right now."
Still, he almost laughed, and his mouth stayed half curled and he shook his head. "Oh my god, don't let mom hear you say that though," he snickered.
He was imagining the image--and then he did laugh.
"I hope that was the most traumatizing thing to happen to you. I'll treasure that rock a little more, now, I think."
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:21 am
Xander laughed and grinned. “No, you’re the only one who gets to know about that…asinine adventure.” He put careful emphasis on that particular word just to try and bring a further grin. “Not gonna lie, I had a moment of thinking ‘all my brother is going to know is that a horse sat on me, and I hope he never finds out how precisely it did so if this kills me.” … He spread his hands like he was laying out a spread for the news paper. “Lawyer’s adopted son dies from horse butt… news on channel 2 because that’s hilarious.”
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:18 am
Jace snorted but laughed again and shook his head. "Stop it," he said, and gestured towards the television. "I don't want to think about you getting crushed to death by a horse."
The smile on his face almost said otherwise and he shook his head again, as if that would dispel it.
"I checked the newspapers for things exactly like that, you know. Mom got so mad at me," he said. "She nagged at me for having time to look up 'stupid things' on the internet but not finishing three textbooks for her. How was I supposed to focus, knowing you could have been crushed to death by a horse sitting on you at any point in time? A lot of weird stuff happens over there, you know. I never had to look up the news for there before. I don't want to go back. Don't want you to, either."
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:43 am
“You mean you didn’t want to go down the particularly epic rabbit hole about Mrs. O’blaum’s goiter? Xander said trying to look as serious as possible. “Or how close they came to finding the world record breaking puffball fungus? The one thing I really would like to know, is how ‘Chewy’ from two houses down, somehow didn’t notice that someone had parked his truck on the old bridge before they tore it down.” He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t even think drunk can explain that one.” He grinned again and nudged Jace’s shoulder gently. “I don’t want either of us to go back either, though at least if you’d seen me pinned by a horse butt you could have laughed pretty hard about it. But, I’ll try and stay out of her hair enough to make sure I don’t get sent back. Hell, I’ll… grab holden or Nelson and rent a four-bedroom, we can hold a space open for you. Because you’re NOT going back either, and you’re not living in the law office on a cot.”
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:41 am
"Okay, deal," he said, and jutted out his hand to shake on it. "You stay out of trouble, and if she threatens you again with it, you crash with one of them and work on finding a good place for us to move! And I've got savings, so I'm willing to make an investment if it means you get us a good place."
He reached for one of the blankets and draped it over his shoulders, apparently already affected by the threat of cold.
"Because, I don't mean fungus or goiters. I mean, weird things. Like Destiny City, but creepier, because there's less people out there. I don't know. I read about a family that disappeared two weeks ago and still haven't been found. And a horse they found skinned. And eight people in the county went to the hospital because of some sickness, only they haven't identified it. And the rising crime rate. Burglaries, and two murders. An attempted kidnapping. I don't know. And I was on some weird forums, too, that talked about just weird things happening."
It's not like they weren't surrounded by weird things, here, but here was different. It was home. There were explanations. And internet, and hoaxes. And a lot more people.
He wasn't superstitious, but he really didn't like the countryside. The forests where they went hiking around here weren't like the ones out there. Warm, inviting, fresh. The forests nearest to Destiny City were liberating.
The forests out there were just a prison. Cold, foreboding, dark.
He shuddered but feigned a chill as he pulled the blanket tighter.
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 11:15 am
“Oh…. “ Xander said blanching. Clearly, he’d been kept so busy that he hadn’t caught wind of any such things. “Damn, that makes me even more glad I’m home.” He shuddered too and pulled a blanket over his own shoulders. “I don’t think they have enough people for a high crime rate, it’ll be a ghost town with uncle surviving based on pure…spite and tenacity.” He blinked thoughtfully. “Did it say anything about the sickness? Should I be scrubbing down with lysol so I don’t give you like, backwood country fever?”
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 2:36 pm
Jace huffed at him. "Well. That sounds par for the course for Uncle. For Mother. For that whole side of the family." For him, too, one day. Maybe. Spite and tenacity ran thick in his blood as well. "It didn't say anything. But if you didn't hear about it, I don't think it would affect you. Besides. After dinner, with the hot sauce we're going to eat? If you've got anything bad living in you we're going to burn it out."
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 2:41 pm
It was Xander’s chance to burry his laugh into his hands. “You just wait, one of these days, you’re going to see me get a package, and you’re gonna record me eating some of those ‘world’s spiciest’ challenges.” “That’s good, though… I’d hate to come back and be like… country-plague-marry.” He pulled a face. “Hey… thank you again, mushy moment, I’m sorry I made you worry.
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