On that basis, this "stuff y’all secret soldier boys took" does not sound quite natural to me - out of my aunts or cousins, it would more likely be "yew". Then again, there are subtle regional differences and I don't know that character at all, so I don't know if it would be right for him. I'm almost completely certain no one in my family ever said "might could" - that sounds more westerly to me. I can hear Sheldon's mom saying it; whereas I'm pretty sure my gramma would have asked where the hell I learned to talk if I ever called her "meemaw".

I do know at least one ex-Texan that did have a Memaw, but I don't know where she is from. ETA: to the extent, that using "y'all' as a modifier is a real thing, I either got it from Wire cornerboys or hip-hop, in which case it would make sense that a middle-aged white man from a different region might use it differently. I just switched it "your soldier boys," because I've already slipped in "kinda" and "dyin"...no need to dialect people to death.

I just switched it "your soldier boys," because I've already slipped in "kinda" and "dyin"...no need to dialect people to death.

Good call. I had not been sure whether you intended for it to be Raylan's soldier boys or soldier boys including Raylan. Possessive of "y'all" that I have heard is "y'all's". But now that I think about it, that wasn't so much from my family as from neighbors in Cleveland who had migrated north.

I don't know if I should ask this here or in Natter, so let me know if I should move this:

Broken/bruised ribs.

I have a character who gets in a mild car accident. Bruised ribs. Then days later, suffers a shove to the chest/abdomen and falls. Leading to more bruising or cracked ribs. Not broken, no puncturing of lungs. What is the hour to hour pain like? Physical limitations? Breathing? I'm imagining hours upon days of difficulty breathing in addition to the pain of bruising/fracturing. Is this overdramatic? (This is one of those sort-of contrived situations where the character refuses to go to the hospital). I'm imganing the character in such a state of pain as to be unable to sleep, having to sit up to be able to breathe, and being exhausted from the not-sleeping and just living in a hellish state of not enough oxygen or sleep.

As I recall from when Paul had this happen, the bruising hurts like a mothertrucker, but breathing didn't require sitting up and mostly, he was just cranky and in extreme pain.

"Nick, can you make this fast? I'm headed to the gym for my spinning class." Monroe's tone carried no irritation.

"What has pale white skin?" said Nick "hard as a rock, and so cold as to almost freeze your fist within seconds of contact?"

"Oh man" said Monroe "that can't be good. What's a Häagen-Dazs doing in Portland?"

"Umm Monroe," said Nick "a Häagen-Dazs is a brand of .."

"I know, " said Monroe "and whoever named a line of frozen deserts after a particularly nasty type of frost giant must have had a very dark sense of humor."

I have no idea what fandom that was from, Typo Boy, but it is funny as all get-out.

Grimm. I should have said. And thanks.

Because every fic should have a (borderline) Dirty Part."You can have a good time in a car,"

"We're still talking about driving, right?"

Well, yes and no. Before Raylan even knew what he was doing, he was borrowing Graham's little hatchback, telling himself it would be a way to combine patrolling and getting to know Buffy better. He kept thinking that up until the point that they knew each other almost as well as two people could.They kept saying it was a mistake, but they kept coming back to the other’s eager lips, even as Raylan risked injuring several vital parts of his anatomy on the gearshift. “Last time I made out in a car,” he whispered. “Either it was bigger or I was smaller.” He was still enjoying himself either way, but somehow he had to point that out.
He touched the scar on her neck.It was raised and if he didn’t know better, it looked like a…there he was again, bringing his work home.”What happened there?”

“Long story…Fourth of July, barbecue fork, you do the math.” He’d like to tell her he’d have all night to listen to her stories, whatever their length, but his legs were cramping, and the moon was rising…he might have to start patrolling soon.

“I’ve never done this in a car,” she says, face flushed, eyes almost green, tiny girly underpants(pink enough to make him feel like a dirty old man) lying in a puddle on the truck’s floor…he keeps waiting for her to tell him it’s gone too far too fast,but this seems like something else.
Like she is making fun of him.
“Go on!” He tells her. “You went to high school, didn’t you?” And maybe burned it up.He asked himself later if he might have said it if she wasn’t making him feel so good, and steaming up the windows so hard he would barely notice if a whole crypt of hostiles came up demanding all his blood. Most of it was headed for his nether regions in any case. Someday he’d feel guilty about that; as it was, Professor Walsh was pissed at him for letting the bleached-blond hostile escape. He wasn’t the only one, but sometimes rank meant taking the blame.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his hat on the dash, where he put it when things got so hot and heavy.He remembered the first time she touched him and she said “You’re so *warm*. Later on, he could kick himself for being such a wiseass, but at the time, it struck him as her own little way of making a joke. “Okay, Buffy, it occurs to me that I haven’t heard dirty talk in quite some time, but shouldn’t ‘long’ and ‘hard’ be in there, too? Enormous, however, is strictly optional.” Not his best joke, but he’d expected a smile. A real one, not the closed-mouth prom queen special he eventually got.

“No…it’s true. My boyfriend was…older.” Raylan savored the little catch in her breath as his fingers found the right spot.

Raylan could picture him and the hand that was not on Buffy clenched into a fist almost involuntarily. “Married?”

“Something like that. We were kind of…starcrossed.”

Because he had been there, he doesn’t say much after that. They stayed close together, until, finally, as Raylan feared, there is an ominous rustling in the trees. “Stay there!” he ordered, sweet nothings forgotten in the hit of adrenaline.

“No, it’s okay…I’m not that far from the dorms..I could just walk.”
Buffy picked up her purse and began rifling through it intensely. She tensed as the rustling continued, closer this time, and showed a lot of guts as a newly formed vampire made his way through the brush. Buffy had a wooden stake in one hand and lip gloss in the other as the creature approached. Raylan’s body tensed as he grabbed his Taser. “Be right back…”

Buffy made a luscious motion, bringing her newly repainted lips together, before, quick as a shot, ramming that little old garden stake in that thing’s concert-shirt covered heart. He didn’t say anything for the next little bit, for he’d found the few vampire dustings he’d witnessed as weirdly fascinating as sprinkling salt on snails as a boy, only this (continued...)

( continues...) time without Aunt Helen around to make him feel guilty about it. For a moment, he almost applauds, instead saying “I’ll be a son of a bitch!”

“No,” Buffy said. “That was the last guy. If you say you’re gonna call, please try, okay?”

“Why not? I think you can take me…how’d you do that?”

Buffy looked bored, and like she thought he was teasing her.”In every generation, there is a Chosen One…she alone…forces of darkness…you know. The Slayer?”

“That’s an old wives’ tale, isn’t it?”

She stood up on her tiptoes to peck his cheek, after which he almost wanted to say “but you feel so normal!” but he didn’t. Either cause he’d fallen hard or cause he didn’t want to think where that stake could end up next.

“Well, as you can see, I’m nobody’s old wife and I am she. Her. One of those, anyway.”