#Disconnected was the only AU that I had planned to do a ''full'' comic for - and have already started on. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angrylizardjacket · 3 years

Text

dirtbags // 4: Lola

Summary: High school AU. 1985. Winter. Heather’s party is huge; Lola makes new friends, get better acquainted with some underclassmen, and turns out to be far cozier with the hostess than anyone could guess. The next day, Nikki comes to work despite his hangover, while Charlotte and Eileen plan Vince’s murder. Razzle’s just there to have fun.

A/N: 6603 words. For @misscharlottelee and @julymotel , my beloveds, as always. Sorry it's late, it's been a hell of a week. But, here's the kids. I should say that this chapter does include slight, implied internalised homophobia, just as a warning.

judge if you want, we are all going to die. i intend to deserve it.

For the record, Lola isn’t a party-goer by nature, and the fact that she’s been to two in as many months is baffling her. Usually she just goes to see bands, and sometimes hangs out at peoples’ houses, but high school parties specifically alluded her for most of her time in Boston. It’s not that she wasn’t invited, but her mom had been something of a hardass, and the closest she’d ever gotten was when drunk kids made their way to the diner right before closing on a Friday or Saturday.

Her dad’s fully supportive of her going out and partying, which is weird in it’s own right. He writes down their home phone number on a piece of paper, in case Lola can’t remember it when she’s drunk - his words - and tells her to call whenever she needs a lift. Don’t go get into a car with strangers. Drink plenty of water. Be safe. Have fun.

“Dad, you’re being weird,” she’d told him flatly, applying eyeliner to her waterline in the bathroom. Leo, leaning against the door with his arms crossed, was watching her with a fond expression.

“If I was a hardass and banned you from going out, you’d probably still sneak out anyways -” Lola goes to protest, which Leo finds sweet, but he holds a hand up, and she lets him continue, “not that I don’t think you respect me, but I just know what it was like being a teenager; if you got into trouble while sneaking out, you wouldn’t feel like you could call me for help,” he explained, giving pause, “but I always will, you know that, right?” And Lola nods, but goes back to applying eyeliner, knowing her father’s tone of voice too well, anticipating the fact that he was about to dive into a story of his own to help prove his point.

“When I was your age, or maybe a bit younger, fifteen or sixteen, me and some friends snuck out to a bonfire one night that my parents had absolutely forbidden me from going to, and I ended up needing to go to the emergency room from a burn I got on my hand from being an idiot around the fire,” and he raised his left hand, to show the still visible, large scar on his palm, “I was more terrified of what my father would do than of the burn itself so I didn’t try and call him or mum; I walked home from the hospital alone the next morning, and lied about how I got the burn.”

Lola paused, lowering the eyeliner pencil, meeting her father’s gaze in the mirror. Leo’s smile had turned a little sad at the memory; Lola doesn’t hear much about her grandparents, and she wonders if stories like this are the reason why.

“You’re my kid, Keola, I never want you to think you can’t come to me for help, okay?” It’s rare for Leo to use Lola’s full first name, usually reserving it for more poignant and earnest moments, so every comment about how he’s being a sap, or that she already knows, dies on Lola’s tongue.

“Thanks, dad,” she smiles soft, and Leo smiles back, all crows feet and laugh lines, before he tells her that she looks badass, and he steps out of the doorframe, heading back downstairs to the diner.

By the time Lola shows up, it’s just edging past eight-thirty, though the party still seems to be in its early stages. There’s music that can be heard down the street, and fairy lights scattered throughout the garden, though most of the partygoers who had already arrived are still confined to the house. Apart from a gangly, dark-haired boy whose face she knows, but whose name she doesn’t, sitting on the wide, ostentatious front steps, looking up at the stars glittering overhead. There’s a cigarette in a loose grip between two fingers, though the ash has already burnt down half of it without him tapping it off; it’s almost comical, she’s pretty sure he hasn’t even put it to his lips yet.

“You’re wasting that,” Lola points out, and the guy is jolted from his thoughts, the movement sharp enough to have the ash falling from the cigarette and to the ground by his shoes. He looks to the cigarette, which has gone out, and then to Lola, a little helpless, “I could take it off your hands,” she offers, unsure of how to proceed, and he holds the cigarette out, smile blooming on his face.

“I can’t get the hang of it; I’m playing a smoker in this play I’m doing in a month, and I’ve been trying, you know, make it feel natural, never seems to,” his mouth is curved into a bemused smile as he shrugs helplessly, watching Lola tuck the half a cigarette behind her ear. For a moment, his eyes roam his face, like he’s searching for something to recognize, and she can read it all over him when he finds it, his eyes alight with familiarity, “you work at the diner!”

Lola hates how disarming she finds his earnestness. He doesn’t mention her reputation or the rumours around her, which she’s pretty sure he would have heard since she’s eighty-percent sure he goes to her school.

“Lola,” she offers her hand, and he takes it, using it as leverage to get to his feet before he gives it a proper shake.

“Keanu,” he says, matter-of-factly, still grinning, and Lola suddenly knows where she knows him from. The school musical sign-up sheet is on the Art Faculty’s notice board right outside her art classroom, and she’s been staring at his name amongst a small list of others, including Eileen’s, much to Lola’s surprise, while she and the rest of her art class wait to get into their room.

At least she’s pretty sure it’s him; Keanu’s not exactly a common name. The only other time she’d heard it was in one of her dad’s stories, it was the name of one of his childhood friends -

She leaves it be; he groans and stretches, and there’s an idle moment where his shirt rides up, and Lola reminds herself to focus on the person who actually invited her, and to stop getting fleeting feelings for people she barely knows just because they’re pretty. Lola mutters that she needs a drink, and Keanu claps her on the shoulder and agrees, the two of them heading inside.

Heather’s house is in the same part of town as Vince’s, almost an hour’s walk from the diner, but somehow Heather’s is even nicer. Sprawling front lawn, abstract paintings and movie props on little, pristine pedestals inside, Lola feels like she’s lowering the property value just by stepping foot inside. The party was easily both the nicest and most raucous Lola had ever been to, which, granted, wasn’t saying a lot, but their house was wired with speakers, all connected back to the jukebox in the living room, and Heather’s parents had even let her hire coloured lights.

“As long as the cops aren’t called, we can do whatever we want,” was the message passed around the school from Heather herself. Lola’s feels as though that probably won’t bode well for her parents’ elegantly displayed collectables, but whatever, it’s not like it’s Lola’s problem.

Already there’s a decent crowd inside, and Lola loses Keanu amongst them, making a beeline for the kitchen, manoeuvring around the house with easy familiarity. She reaches pushes past several people to get to the fridge, reaching all the way to the back, past a set of tupperware, to the bottle of wine Heather’s mom had stashed there. Lola removes the sticky note telling everyone not to touch it, and uncorks the bottle over the sink, scowling.

It feels like she’s floating through the night, no-one around that she knows just yet, disconnected from everyone else, carrying the bottle of wine by her side, occasionally taking a drink. Moving from room to room, she takes her time people watching, and guessing how long before the various, expensive props and bric-a-brac were being used for things counter to their intended purpose.

In the front room, there’s finally someone she recognises, kind of; the the young redhead, the fruit one- Peach! She’s unsteady on her feet, beautiful and angry, defiantly making her way through a can of cheap beer, and Lola wonders where the rest of her clique is, that sister of hers, Eileen, even Charlotte.

“You okay?” Lola’s never been great at comforting people, but Peach is currently leaning against a wall at a forty-five degree angle after losing her balance, and scowling. She’s drunk. Already. Fuck.

“I’m fine! Freaking- fucking great!” She’s not even looking at Lola properly, glaring out the window she’d narrowly missed falling on. Lola follows her gaze. It’s just passed nine, and Tommy and Charlotte can be seen walking up to the door; they don’t see Peach or Lola, thankfully.

“You - you’re friends with that... that mean, asshole, punk guy, right?” Peach asks, standing upright so suddenly she overbalances again, and Lola has to catch her elbow to keep her from topping. Peach slaps her hand away, but keeps her balance, obviously with a bee in her bonnet about something that Lola couldn’t even begin it fathom.

“Nikki?” Lola clarifies flatly, amused but not wanting it to show. Peach nods solemnly. Lola bites back a laugh, “yes, I’m friends with him, why?”

“Is he coming tonight?” Peach asks, tone almost forcibly coy and casual, raising her can of drink, taking large gulps as Lola says that he mentioned that he should be, and then asks why. Peach goes quiet. Lola had thought it impossible for Peach’s scowl to grow deeper, but it did, as a blush began to creep up her neck.

“You know my sister, right? Eileen?” Peach says, instead, and Lola nods slowly, and she takes a swig of wine, “she’s a year - a single goddamn year - older than me; I’m sixteen, Lola, she said I was too young to go to a party like this.” And yeah, okay, Lola makes a face at that; she was the same age as Tommy, and he’s done objectively worse stuff in front of Eileen and Charlotte with no complaints. The last house party flashes through Lola’s mind, and she grimaces - “exactly, it’s dumb! Charlie had been dating Duff for a year by the time she was my age, and let me tell you, they were proper gross!” Peach sways a little, and Lola reminds her that she has no idea who Duff is; Peach calls him a word that shocks Lola to hear her say it, especially for a girl who had to correct herself from saying freaking to fucking just moments ago.

“Noted,” Lola nods, and takes another drink; she’s almost a third through the bottle.

“I’m not a child, Lola,” Peach says, as seriously as she can muster, and, as if light a lightbulb has gone off above Lola’s head, she realises why Peach was asking after Nikki.

“You’re not,” Lola agrees slowly, and looks around, hoping to spot Charlotte or Tommy around, someone better suited to talking an angry, determined Peach out of something she’d regret.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Peach huffed, standing to her full height, which unfortunately for Lola, made her taller by a few inches, “you know what, fuck you, Lola -”

“Peach -”

“No, fuck that, I know that tone -”

“Never thought I’d see you out at a place like this, Peach,” there’s a warm familiarity in the voice that joins them, and Peach visibly relaxes. Lola turns, and sees Vince Neil, bleach blonde, decked out in his usual, obnoxious white.

“Fuck off, Vince,” Peach mumbles, turning back to the window in an attempt to hide her sudden blush. Lola raises her eyebrows and looks to Vince, intrigued. The moment his gaze meets Lola’s, Vince turns quietly awkward, and can do little more than offer a shrug.

“Peach?” He tries again, and Peach finishes her drink, tipping her head back, and doesn’t even seem to notice that she’s started to topple back until he catches her, “fuck, Peach.” He says, still holding her.

“You really should fuck off,” Peach says, softer this time, leaning into him, and something pained flashes across Vince’s expression for the barest moment; Peach doesn’t notice in her state, but Lola sees it.

“Eileen been in your ear lately?” Vince asks through gritted teeth. Peach’s scowl back in full force, and she’s righting herself.

“No,” she snaps, an obvious lie, and she pushes past Lola, making her unsteady way to the kitchen, Vince obviously feeling some sort of obligation to her, following quickly in her wake. Thank God. Lola really didn’t want to take care of a girl she barely knows all night.

She’s two thirds of the way through the bottle of wine, feeling good and buzzed, and she’s made polite conversation with the people she knows and the people she doesn’t, the people who know her by reputation, or from the diner, polite to a fault, knowing too much and too little about her all at once.

Tommy’s roped them into a conversation with a few kids from his year that Lola doesn’t recognize any of them, and one, drunk, brunette, stupid, asks her about the rumours, in a crude, roundabout way. Tommy’s hand is firm on Lola’s shoulder, apology in his eyes as he silently pleads with her to not make a scene. Lola kicks his asshole friend in the shin anyways, and spits that he has terrible taste in friends.

Charlotte waves to her, but Lola doesn’t see it in her angry state, storming up the stairs to the second floor. It’s quieter up here, mostly. There’s a group in a side room playing spin the bottle, and people taking advantage of Heather’s parents’ bedroom, and the door to Heather’s room is closed. Lola bangs her closed fist on the nondescript door.

“Who is it?” Heather’s voice, strained, rings out from the other side.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Lola whined through a lie, banging again. There’s scuffling on the other side, Heather hissing for whoever’s with her to go, to get out the window, anything. Lola smirks, “please, all the other bathrooms are -” and she fake gags, right as the door wrenches open to show Heather’s flustered face, hair a mess, scowling.

“What?”

“I’m lying,” Lola whispered, leaning against the doorframe, pushing down all her annoyance at Tommy and his asshole friends, and playing at being coy. Heather huffs an annoyed breath through her nose.

“I know,” she snaps, but lets Lola in anyways, and Lola automatically closes the door behind herself, leaning her back against it, watching Heather try and act casual, heading to her bed, “should I be jealous?” Lola smirks, and Heather shoots her a filthy look. Lola takes a long drink of the wine, and Heather’s expression turns from angry, to simply annoyed.

“Of course, of fucking course, you, the only asshole who actually knew about it-”

“Your mom can buy another one, it’s not like you’re not -”

“Don’t say it,” Heather warns, sitting on the edge of her bed, and Lola’s smile grows sly and amused. Heather’s gaze flicks to the door handle, “lock that.”

“Yes, Princess,” Lola smirks, reaching over with her free hand, making quick work of locking the door.

“Do not,” Heather hisses at the pet name, and Lola pushes off the door, heading towards her, and offers her the bottle. Heather’s lips press into a thin line as the regards the drink she knows is completely illicit for a number of reasons, before taking it, and taking a drink - “fuck, how much of this have you had?”

In answer, Lola takes the bottle back and finishes it off.

“You’re a pig and a thief,” Heather tells her, but Lola’s smile is all teeth.

“And you kicked out someone - a boy, I’m guessing - for this thieving pig,” Lola reminds her, placing the empty bottle carefully on the nightstand of her luxurious double bed. Heather turns scarlet.

“I thought you’d at least wait until eleven to find me,” she deflects, defensive at the truth in Lola’s words, to which Lola herself actually laughs, flopping back onto the bed, arms spread, two fingers hooking into the back waistband of Heather’s flirty, short skirt.

“The fact that I’m here at all is a miracle, Princess -”

“Don’t.”

“And you know you could have told me to throw up in the garden,” Lola points out. A moment of silence follows, she tugs at Heather’s waistband, and Heather follows the unspoken prompt, leaning back onto the bed.

“Boys don’t know what they’re doing,” she says, staring up at the ceiling, arms folded but feet still planted firmly on the floor, and Lola’s eyes go wide, delighted, twisting onto her side to look at Heather’s blushing face.

“I knew you liked me,” Lola teases, grinning sharp.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Heather scoffs, angling her head back to level a glare at Lola, after a beat, she reaches back, fingers nimble and cold but her grip on Lola’s jaw secure. She frowns at Lola’s lips, rubbing her thumb none too gently over the bottom lip, taking off the black lipstick painted there, staining her own thumb in the process.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Heather prompts, frustrated, tone icy. Lola raises her eyebrows at the blonde's impatience.

“As you command, your highness,” Lola pushes herself up on her elbows, and off the bed, smirking in the face of Heather’s annoyance, before she scrubs at her mouth with the back of her hand, getting rid of the rest of her lipstick.

“I’ll be quick so you can get back to your boytoy,” Lola smirks up at Heather, kneeling between her knees, and in the next moment Heather’s legs clamp painfully tight around her head, bony knees pressing into her temples.

“If you tell fucking anyone I did anything other than get you water while you threw up in my bathroom, I will ruin your fucking life,” she spits, and Lola’s expression contorts into one of furious annoyance as she wrenches her head free, sitting back on her heels.

“As if I’d tell anyone; if you tell anyone, I’ll burn your fucking house down, do not test me on that,” she warns in return, before Heather relaxes and lays back, eyes back on the ceiling, waiting, “fucking pillow princess, I wish you’d get me a glass of water once in a while,” Lola muttered, leaning back in.

“Hey!” Heather objects, looking down, only to see the barely concealed fury smouldering in Lola’s eyes as she looks at Heather through her lashes. Lola orders her to shut up, presses a pointed kiss to her inner thigh, and Heather obeys without any more fuss.

All it took, in the beginning, was for Lola to confront Heather and ask why the fuck she couldn’t keep her eyes to herself during class, fully expecting a fight. It was after school, Lola had followed her into the bathroom after class as the school was emptying. Heather’s lip had curled, derisive, giving Lola a look like she was a bug beneath her shoe.

“You see something you fucking like?” Lola had snarled, ready to square up, chest puffed out, and Heather had rolled her eyes, scoffing about how Lola wasn’t even close to her type, before she’d realised what she’d said.

Neither had known how to proceed in that moment, both terrified of how the other would react, Lola could see the sudden fear in Heather’s eyes at the admission. Very deliberately, Lola had relaxed her posture, looking Heather over with a new appreciation, and Heather had flushed under her gaze.

“I didn’t know it was like that,” Lola had smirked, gaze locking onto Heather’s. The blonde was embarrassed, furious at herself, “well if I ever become your type -” those seven words had changed everything. Immediately, Heather knew exactly what Lola had meant, that she wasn’t a threat in the way she’d feared, and that Lola was like her, in some way, in a way that was safe.

“You’re -?” Heather raised a single, perfect eyebrow at her.

“I don’t advertise it,” Lola said, voice flat, hands in her pockets and shoulders carefully relaxed, “don’t know, you know, who else is... like me.”

“Like you?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it here,” Lola had muttered, gaze flicking to the empty stalls, and Heather had given her a long, evaluative look, before stepping forward, apparently finding something she likes.

Heather’s kind of pinning over a straight girl and none of the rest of the school has any idea she likes anything other than boys, and she’d like to keep it that way. No-one really cares about Lola the way they do about Heather, so they feel safe fooling around together at Heather’s under the guise of ‘studying’; they don’t really even like each other as people, it’s more mutually beneficial than anything else, but it’s kind of nice to have this understanding between them, free to be themselves without fear, even if it’s only for short amounts of time.

Now, at the party, when Lola goes to leave the room after all is said and done, hair checked in the mirror, lipstick reapplied neatly, Heather grabs her arm, quiet but no longer irritate in Lola’s presence, and Lola’s eyes go wide with question, but she too is silent. Heather steels herself, steps up to Lola, and then she’s got her fingers carding through Lola’s hair, and holding tight, and Lola lets herself be maneuverer, her head tipping and Heather’s lips on her neck.

When Heather steps back, there’s the beginning of a hickey blooming on the juncture where Lola’s shoulder meets her throat, aching faintly, pleasantly, and her hands are soft on Heather’s hips, lips twitching into a smirk.

“You could have just said thank you,” Lola snorted, and Heather’s frowning, but it doesn’t seem to be specifically at Lola; she rolls her eyes. Lola presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, quick and chaste, and scrubs at the mark she leaves behind before Heather slaps her hand away and tells her to get out, though there’s no anger behind it.

When Lola opens the door, she puts on a show of being a little more unsteady than she really was, and is surprised to see Nikki leaning against the wall a few feet away, chatting to Tommy, looking so carefully casual. Lola’s pretty sure she hears Nikki sigh something about needing to find a guitarist, but that’s the moment Tommy spots Lola. He tries to apologise for his friends, but Lola shrugs, letting the incident go easily.

And then Nikki’s eyes flick to hers, and he asks if she’s okay, and Tommy seems confused but Lola’s hit with a realization. She pulls back her act and tries not to smile too wide.

“I’m fine now, great actually, it’s sweet of you to care,” its absolutely and completely innocent, but she raises an eyebrow at him, as if asking how he knows that she was unwell. In lieu of response, Nikki stands to his full height, walks to the door, and knocks. Lola and Tommy watch, the former far more confused than the latter.

Heather opens the door wide, not a hair out of place, makeup immaculate and untouched, and tells Nikki to fuck off, swanning past him and down to the rest of her party. Nikki turns on Lola.

“You couldn’t have thrown your guts up in a bush somewhere?” Nikki hissed, frustrated, and Lola does a great job at biting back her laughter, shaking her head and shrugging helplessly.

“We’re you waiting out here that whole time?” Lola asks, and Nikki turns amusingly pink, stalking past her to the stairs, to which both Lola and Tommy followed, with Lola calling out a half-hearted apology, and Nikki telling her to shove it up her ass.

gandhi said 'be the change you want to see in the world.' fuck that. be the trouble you want to see in the world.

“Don’t tell me you’re still mad about last night,” the morning after the party, or was it afternoon - midday after Heather’s party - Lola’s tying her red bandana around her head, hip leaning against the counter out the back by the fryer where Nikki was scowling at an order of fries that was bubbling away.

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Lola,” Nikki snaps back, looking up at her, still frowning, and Lola’s smile widens, just a little. Nikki sighs, relenting, his voice dropping low, “I’m hungover as fuck, just piss off, can you?” But it doesn’t sound half as cruel as the words themselves imply, and Lola dips to press her cheek to his shoulder in a moment of affectionate familiarity before heading out to start serving customers.

It’s almost one when Charlotte and that English kid, Razzle, walk in, with the tall, pretty ginger, Eileen, sans their usual extras, but they take their spot at their usual booth by the window, talking quietly but animatedly.

“- the nerve on him! Hi, Lola,” Eileen’s practically vibrating with pent up, frustrated energy, greeting Lola with what Eileen probably assumed was a smile, but was still definitely a scowl.

“Everything alright here?” Lola asked, forcing her voice even brighter than she’d usually attempt, and Eileen’s gaze dropped to the menu, going quiet, brooding, while Charlotte sat up a little straighter and smiled, clearly not on such an intense wavelength as her friend.

“Everything’s just great; plotting Vince’s murder, kind of starving, the usual,” she shrugs, and Razzle, by her side, snorts a laugh.

“Good to see you survived the night, Honky Cat,” he adds in lieu of a greeting of his own, and Lola takes a moment to process all the information she’d just been exposed to.

“’course I did, I drank my weight in water between shots,” Lola smirks at Razzle, before her gaze slides to Charlotte, “and that’s very fair; I’d ask what he’s done now, but I think I’ll take care of your order first,” she grins amicably and pulls out her notepad and pen, as the three of them order their usual drinks and lunch preferences.

Lola heads back to the counter, calling out the order to the kitchen, taking another few order to their various destinations, before getting her friends’ drinks together to take them over.

“- home and didn’t even call, Razz, she didn’t even -” Eileen was still ranting by the time Lola deposits their drinks before them. Lola’s pretty sure she saw Razzle and Charlotte deliberately knocking knees beneath the table, but doesn’t think about it too hard. Nor does she dwell on the memory of seeing them at the party last night, of a gaggle of cheerleaders around talking to Razzle, though he just kept trying to talk to Charlotte. Later, she’d definitely seen them on the sofas, talking with Tommy and some of Charlotte’s other friends, leaning in to each other, Razzle’s arm around her shoulders, playing with the whispy ends of her hair. Lola hadn’t thought much of it at the time; she’d made out with Tommy at her first house party in the area, it hadn’t developed past friendship.

It was cute, if it was anything.

“Lola, you were there!” Eileen turned very suddenly, the moment her cup had been placed in front of her, and Lola’s eyebrows shot up, “did you see my sister last night?”

It feels like a trap, because yes, Lola definitely did, but also -

“Yes, why?” Lola asks, slowly, cocking a hip.

“They’re in the middle of a blue,” Razzle said, with a fond smile at Eileen’s carefully neutral expression, while she stirred her drink with intent.

“A fight,” Charlotte translated, “and Peach went to Heather’s last night, and got kind of shitfaced, and Vince took care of her, was really quite sweet, but she stayed with him because his place was closer and Peach refused to call Eileen.”

“She stayed with Vince?” Lola said carefully, trying not to imply she was jumping to conclusions, but Eileen’s stirring ceased in favour of vigorous drinking of the drink, obviously stuck on a similar train of thought.

“She slept on the couch,” Razzle filled in quickly, “was still there when I left, tucked in with a blanket, all above board.”

“And you didn’t know where she was -?” Lola frowns, confused.

“Vince called at three in the morning,” Eileen glowered out the window, voice low and even, “dad was mad until he was grateful; the man’s backbone is made of marshmallow fluff. She was meant to be home at one.”

“But she’s okay?”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Lola,” Eileen had said, giving Lola a look far older and longsuffering than her seventeen years.

“If we brought in Vince’s heart, would your dad batter it up and fry it for Eileen to eat?” Charlotte asked, tone teasing and light, to which Eileen rolled her eyes, but at least it got her to smile, even a little. Even when Lola snorted a laugh and told her ‘absolutely not’.

Later, on their break, Lola and Nikki sit on the roof of the building and share a serve of chips that he’d overcooked, and a cigarette, and Lola asks about Vince. Turns out Nikki doesn’t know much; he hadn’t grown up with the rest of them, had moved to the neighbourhood near the start of high school, and all he really knows is that girls apparently think Vince’s dick developed some sort of Midas touch over Summer.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s always been stupid pretty,” Nikki shoves a chip in his mouth before leaning back on his elbows, “far as I know, but you’ve seen his car, right? That fuck-off, expensive red one that sits in the teacher’s carpark, with the massive scratch in the paint along the left? Yeah that’s his; got it for his birthday last year and he’s been getting tail like nobody’s business ever since.” And Lola tries to process all this information before he’s barrelling right on ahead with, “speaking of; if you’re gonna nail Tommy, can you do it soon and put the poor kid out of his misery?”

“Excuse me?!” Lola had choked on her lungful of smoke, turning red at the suggestion.

“Yeah, poor kid was pretty convinced we were a thing and didn’t want to make a move; kinda stupid, but I dunno, admirable? Noble?” Nikki groaned through his words, laying back against the gravel of the roof, hand out for the cigarette. Lola passed it to him, glad he couldn’t see her vaguely guilty expression, knowing she’d slept with the girl he’d been hitting on the night before.

“Tommy has a thing for anything halfway pretty that’s not related to him, he’d be just as happy to boink any other girl,” Lola points out, and Nikki snorts a laugh in mild agreement, “and the only reason we’re not fucking is because you’re afraid my dad’s gonna rip of your arms like he’s the fucking Wampa from Star Wars.” She punctuates it by eating the last chip, laying out beside Nikki on the gravel, checking her watch. Five minutes before their break ends.

“Leo wouldn’t rip off my arms- I don’t think Leo would rip off my arms!” Nikki counters defensively, but that just has Lola laughing as she corrects -

“Sorry, no, your exact wording was ‘I don’t want your dad to Kali Ma my fucking heart like I’m that little bastard from Indiana Jones’,” Lola does an absolutely atrocious impersonation of Nikki, who’s laughing despite himself, “which you only took back because I told you he wasn’t Indian, and even if he was, it’s kind of a fucked thing to say,” Lola tells him pointedly, shifting onto her side, propping her head up on her hand as she smirked at Nikki.

When Nikki looks at her, green eyes shining in the overcast, afternoon light, there’s something unreadable, teasing and soft all at once, like he’s entertaining an idea he’d considered unthinkable.

“I don’t think I could look Leo in the eye if I banged his daughter,” Nikki’s voice is soft and low, though he’s grinning wide, tone coy, eyes creasing in the corners, and Lola’s gaze flicks to his lips.

“For Leo’s sake, then,” Lola matches his tone, corner of her mouth twitching into a sharp smirk when she finally looks back to his eyes, “and Tommy’s too,” she teases, pushing herself into a sitting position; she can hear it when he presses his head further into the gravel in exasperation, swearing under his breath. When Lola stands and smiles, the picture of innocence, she offers Nikki her hand to help him up; Nikki rolls his eyes, but is still smiling when he accepts.

“Your hair looks dorky like that,” Lola teases as she climbs down the fire escape.

“I know,” Nikki sighs, “but its better than getting hair in everyone’s food; I’m not gonna be the reason your dad fails a health inspection,” Nikki adds, a strange hint of protectiveness in his voice that warms Lola’s heart in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

“Don’t worry, Leo’s never failed a health inspection, he doesn’t intend to start any time soon.”

love is a dream someone else had last night.

Eileen and Razzle see fit to join their ragtag bunch of misfits at lunch the following Monday by the open gate and the science carpark, which Lola had been informed was the teachers’ carpark.

Lola doesn’t care who sits with them, except for the fact that she’d taken the leftover lemon merengue tart from the diner since it was being replaced with an apple crumble, and there was only enough for four. For the past week, Eileen’s been alternating sitting with them and sitting elsewhere, but she hadn’t been here last Monday, so Lola had assumed - anyways, now she’s worried she looks like a bitch, and not for an actual reasonable reason.

“What do you mean you almost got with Heather on Friday?!” Charlotte’s voice was somewhere between a horrified and disbelieving squeak where she was picking at the crust of the piece of tart she was sharing with Eileen. The lemon merengue debacle turned out to not be much of an issue, with Charlotte and Eileen sharing, and Tommy and Lola sharing too. Lola was incredibly focused on picking at a scab through the hole in the knee of her jeans.

“I mean I had my hand in her fucking panties when someone -” Nikki cast a very pointed look to Lola, “knocked on the door threatening to throw up, and I got shoved out a window,” Nikki played up being irritated, despite the fact that he was laying out on his side directly behind Lola, while she was leaning into him.

“You’re my hero,” Eileen told Lola, serious as ever, while Charlotte cackled with delight, and Razzle snickered from where he was touching up the left hand of Tommy’s sharpie-nails.

“You guys are a bunch of assholes,” Nikki huffed, shoving the remained or his own piece of tart into his mouth.

“I brought you food, show some fuckin’ respect,” Lola smirked despite herself, gently elbowing him in the ribs; he flicks her knee in retaliation.

“Absolutely not; you’re a cockblocking traitor and the worst friend I’ve got,” Nikki announced, nose in the air, and Lola leans all her weight back suddenly, tipping Nikki onto his back and laying heavy across his stomach as she demanded he take it back, the two of them getting into a petty squabbling match, shoving at each other while the others could only look on in exasperated amusement.

“I thought Heather had a boyfriend,” Eileen pipes up, to which Charlotte makes a a gentle ‘eh’ noise in the back of her throat.

“She’s getting laid,” Charlotte corrects with half a smirk, and everyone who was paying half attention understand easily. Tommy sighs, but it’s not nearly as dejected as he’s known for whenever the topic of girls he fancies being with other people comes up.

“Whatever, I got to second base with Pam that night, and no-one can take that away from me,” Tommy announces, watching Razzle finish off his pinkie.

“Good for you, man,” Razzle says, with his trademark sincerity. Eileen and Charlotte still can’t believe it happened, but unfortunately both Razzle and Vince had seen with their own two eyes and been able to confirm; Vince may be biased, but Charlotte trusted Razzle.

“Everyone got some fuckin’ action that night except for me,” Nikki whines, finally shoving himself off, “and the fuckin’ Vomit Comet over here,” he jerked his thumb to where Lola was righting herself; Lola flips him off in response.

“I didn’t,” Eileen points out.

“You weren’t there,” Nikki rolls his eyes, “you don’t count.”

Meanwhile Razzle and Charlotte had both gone very quiet, and very pink. However Lola, who had no patience for people trying to hide their somewhere-between-pining-and-sincere feelings from each other and from other people, instead turns her attention to Eileen as she’s sweeping her hair out of her face.

“Have things gotten any better with Peach?” She tried, tone hopeful, and Eileen’s expression barely changed, just the barest crease of a frown upon her forehead, though judging by the way Charlotte’s whole expression soured, things had not, in fact, gotten better.

“Came back on Saturday afternoon all sunny and smiley and mom was thrilled,” Eileen’s deadpan irritation really sold her exasperation at the whole situation, “that she was friends with Vince again, and she hasn’t said a word to me yet.” Eileen takes a deep breath, straightening up from where she’d been slouched without realizing, taking a deep breath, nose in the air as if rising above it all, “which is fine with me, because I have a ton of dialogue to learn and they want us off-book in a month.”

This only sets them off fondly teasing the ever-unflappable Eileen, for her seemingly out of character choice to join the school’s musical, though they were all very proud of the fact that she scored the lead, even Nikki had voiced that he thought it was pretty cool.

When Lola had asked about it, Eileen had made mention that it filled in a lot of free time, that it was something she could add to college applications, and that a friend had convinced her to do it; Keanu -

“I keep hearing that name around,” Lola muses, leaning back in her seat while they were waiting for their French teacher to arrive. Eileen raises her eyebrows, “is that the pretty, dark haired Senior?” Eileen, surprisingly, had flushed scarlet when nodding. Lola hummed thoughtfully, leaning back further until the front legs of her chair lifted from the ground; she hooked her feet around the legs of her desk as she contemplated.

“It’s a musical right?” Lola asked, and Eileen hummed in confirmation, “if you can sing, you know Nikki and Tommy are -”

“I’d rather eat an entire microphone,” Eileen responds flatly, already knowing what Lola was about to suggest before she’d even finished her sentence, and Lola really tries not to laugh, but she knows Eileen well enough by now that that response makes entirely too much sense.

“You make a fair -” and that’s when Lola’s grip on the table slips, her feet sliding quickly up the legs of the desk as she topples backwards, the momentum pulling the desk up with her legs and directly on top of her, winding her. At least it made Eileen laugh, mostly from shock, sure, but Lola counts it as a win.

#motley crue #nikki sixx #tommy lee #vince neil #the dirt #the dirt fanfiction #motley crue fanfiction #nikki sixx x oc #Razzle Dingley #lola&charlotte #charlotte & lola #the pack

9 notes · View notes

mwolf0epsilon · 4 years

Text

First off, before everyone comes after my butt with their "No Fun Allowed" and "Cringe" signs, this is in no way something to be taken as gospel or insightful. It's not a prophetic enforcement of canon. It's literally a theory done for fun, and to try to piece the Bendy Crack up Comics into the general and messy lore of the BatIM franchise.

Most of you get this and don't need a big wordy warning about fanon interpretation, but a lot of peculiar people tend to show up in my ask box hoping to start a fuss over my headcanons and AU ideas, so I thought to be nice and leave a polite and diplomatic "Kindly Fuck Off" sign at the door for them.

With that said, there will be mild spoilers, carry on of your own volition, down below under the cut that will definitely show up because Tumblr mobile is a functional app that's never given me trouble!!!

---

[[MORE]]

The Bendy Franchise has an established issue with cohesion in its lore. We all know what I'm talking about, we all have reservations about canonical character discrepancies (game vs novel vs guidebook) and we all have been racking our brains with a few holes in the timeline, as well as how BatDR (which is neither prequel nor sequel) will fit into this, since it's connected to BatDS and that's an established prequel to BatIM.

Granted I myself am missing a lot of pieces, having to scrounge around for info since I can't really get any of the reading material myself and rely heavily on @british-hero (who owns the novel plus got her copy of the comics yesterday), a very incomplete wikie, and analysis and theories from SuperHorrorBro's Bendy videos.

Heck, I also rely on a lot of gameplay footage, because BatIM has a bit of subtle storytelling through visual design of its levels, and hints of how certain characters work through a few game mechanics.

Through this mishmash of collecting puzzle pieces for the greater picture I even have a few notes on my phone to piece together certain events in established dates, something which comes very in handy for this theory since it talks about two particular characters, the Projectionist and Brute Boris (and I guess Twisted Alice to some extent but it's more of a note on some interesting thoughts I have of her).

Without further ado, here's what this theory is all about: Why did Norman become the Projectionist, and why did Twisted Alice turn Buddy Boris into Brute Boris?

If you think about it, there's only two creatures in the studio that really seem out of place in the world of BatIM, and that's Prophet Sammy and the Projectionist. Neither are inherently similar to any of the cartoon characters, nor are they considered to be Lost Ones. They're certainly not Searchers, but while we know Sammy is unique because his method of transformation was different, we never got an explanation for Norman's. It could be that it's a process similar to BatDR's new enemy type that's larger and seems to have bits and bobs stuck to it, but then those big guys seem like the equivalent to Swollen Searchers for the Lost Ones. The Projectionist doesn't really fit the puzzle.

Or at least he didn't.

With the introduction of the Crack up Comics collection, we get three new characters that were definitely designed in the same manner that the Butcher Gang was. Beginning with a corrupt monster forms and then giving way to perfect and pristine rubberhose toon forms.

I'm talking about Miss Twisted, the Brute, and Cameraman.

The villainous trio from the Souper Boris comic strip.

To us it's obvious the artists created them in parallel to Twisted Alice, Brute Boris and the Projectionist, but to the actual canon this actually has a bit of an impact on the Projectionist's existence.

Why, you ask? Because those characters were introduced between 1936 and 1940.

Bendy Crack up Comics table of contents, showcasing the publishing dates of the strips.

For anyone who doesn't know (either from not paying attention to the Joey Drew Studios channel audio logs, or from not owning the books) the Ink Machine wasn't conceptualized or installed until 1942/1943. Putting that into perspective, the only other thing that happened in Joey Drew Studios in 1940, was the conceptualization of Bendyland (which is likely the origin of the idea for the Ink Machine itself).

This means that Cameraman existed well before the Projectionist ever came to be, and that made me think about another thing: The Ink's apparent sentience.

I'll be frank, the Ink is very hard nut to crack. I consider it a form of alchemized entity, others consider it pure black magic, and I'm pretty sure Joey Drew himself had no idea what he was dealing with when he began using it. The fact of the matter is that the Ink is alive and that it has its own agenda. One that coincides with Joey's, out of mutual interest.

In the novels it seems to want to be free, but it can't exactly do that as a formless liquid, so it tries to body-snatch people (ex: Sammy and Buddy's grandpa).

When Joey tries to use it to give life to Bendy through nothing more than using the Ink and a template (likely a character model sheet) the Ink tries to follow the model but immediately becomes a distorted humanoid version of it (which honestly rings so many fucking alarm bells on its own). Things… Escalate there on out, with Joey trying to perfect the method and only managing to succeed through Daniel Lewek (and many other nameless Boris Clones), Allison Pendle and Thomas Connor.

An important thing to take from this, however, is that by trying to perfect this method Joey not only taught the Ink to reshape things into viable referenced material, but that he had to have lost control of just how many souls were being pumped through the Ink Machine for him to monitor and keep up.

Sammy started killing people when he completely turned, and it didn't seem to take long for him to cut down people in likely both the music and art departments. At this point he had no self-restraint and was completely wrapped around inky fingers and Joey's lies.

Norman is one such potential victim, and Dot and Buddy even passed by his ink-wrapped body while fleeing.

Now, the thing about trying to follow a specific guide and not having the actual means to make it exactly the same thing, is an easy enough notion to get (as shows like "Nailed It", and years of trying to perfect visual style mimicry, have taught me).

The Ink likely had the template it needed (maybe a printed copy of Souper Boris that got thrown around in the chaos), the insight of what Norman's role in the studio was, the amount of mass it needed to consume and transform his dead body, but not exactly the right sort of… Centerpiece for it...

Cameraman using his lens to light up his path.

But what's a projector besides a bigger fancier camera? Both blink, both take film, same thing right? The ink doesn't see the difference and just stitches together this humanoid bootleg cameraman with the pieces it finds that are similar enough.

Mechanical blinky head? Check.

Strange round disc near the belly? There's a speaker. That's round! Check.

Film? There we go, a nice big round reel full of film in it, let's put it near the head, that's how it works right? Check.

Lastly, no Joey to actually direct this artistic recreation of a one-off character. The Ink did it all by itself while he was off getting his hand broken by a rightfully upset Buddy Boris.

If you look at it objectively it makes sense that being the projectionist tasked with not only recording and maintaining the projectors themselves, that the entity in the Ink would pick Cameraman as a template for Norman's transformed self.

It also makes sense that the Projectionist is so off-putting in the studio. He's almost perfect, but not quite because there just weren't the right materials. He's stuck in between Twisted Alice and the Butcher Gang clones as another failed recreation.

Moving on to the next question on why Twisted Alice turn Buddy Boris into Brute Boris, when she hadn't done the same to any of the other Boris Clones.

It's hard to say really, but I think it all comes down to who Twisted Alice really is. It's very likely that, as Susie Campbell, she would have knowledge of the comic strips. A few were most likely made into cartoon shorts even (which isn't an unusual assumption to make), and maybe Susie voiced a few background characters for said shorts.

Susie may have lost her role as Alice, but before Joey came to her with his proposition for the "special project" it's very likely that she remained in the studio, forced to do the voices of characters that weren't noteworthy or that she felt completely disconnected from (talking chairs and singing hens really don't become beloved fan-favourites) . Maybe if the Souper Boris story was made into a short, she might have voiced Miss Twisted (which honestly would be personally insulting considering she once had the role of the main heroine).

Point is, Susie knows her lore, and that translates to Twisted Alice's repertoire of insightful knowledge on the abominations lurking around the studio.

She never did turn other Boris clones into brutish lackeys because at the time she didn't need to. But it doesn't mean she hadn't considered it. Henry's disruptive behaviour is just what she needed to put that plan into motion.

There was already a "Cameraman" walking about, one that could easily rip apart anything it came across, so acquiring the means to recreate the "Brute" would have been benefiting from her point of view. The Projectionist doesn't take orders and can't be reasoned with, so if she could make something just as strong that took her orders she could, theoretically, be safe from most terrors in the studio. If that didn't work, she would still likely send others to their death by simply sending them down to Level 14, or maybe lure the Projectionist to them herself (just because he doesn't take orders doesn't mean she can't use him to achieve her end goals).

Miss Twisted, the Brute and Cameraman in their evil swamp lair.

But why Buddy Boris specifically? Why couldn't she have used any of the bodies laying around? Freshness most likely. Rigor mortis is probably still a thing, even for living cartoons. Easier to work a fresh dead body than a bunch of stiff wolves.

That's at least why I think Brute Boris is a thing. Susie's knowledge of most Bendy cartoon/comic strip characters, taking inspiration from the Projectionist's presence, and honestly a very twisted sense of humor and irony. In her quest to become a Perfect Alice, the heroine of the show, she ended up becoming just as antagonistic (although more sadistic) as Miss Twisted, a Bendy comic strip villainess.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #bendy crack up comics #bendy spoilers #spoilers #theory #headcanons #speculation #twisted alice #the projectionist #brute boris #long post

99 notes · View notes

bl-giftexchange · 6 years

Text

Vital Signs

To: @c0njidraws From: @mandaocity

Based loosely on their HyperionSnake!AU. <3 <3 <3 Happy Holidays!

To say Jack was angry was a gross understatement. Fury flowed through his veins like magma and his belly was full of raging fire. He couldn’t let the fire run wild though, not just yet. The only safe option was to channel that energy into executing his carefully planned mission.

At the best of times he loathed the bandits, scumbags, and inbreds that made up the majority of Pandora’s population. This was the worst of times and the very nerve of them to snatch up something that belonged to Handsome Jack and try to keep it locked away.

Multiple times he had warned his younger lover that he did not think his security details for his surveying missions were large enough but the kid was all smiles and reassurances that he would be fine. The team had come through intact every time so far, after all.

Somehow his luck had run out. The loader bot assigned to Rhys had been destroyed and he figured the Hyperion soldiers with him were dead too.

The only way he even was sure that Rhys was still alive is that nested in his cybernetic arm was a tracker that provided Jack his whereabouts and vital information. His blood pressure was high and his heartbeat fast. The poor kid was stressed, probably terrified– he wasn’t used to this kind of danger.

The bandit camp was disgusting– little more than several old Atlas trailers propped up on a multi leveled structure built up against the side of a dusty cliff. Structurally questionable walkways lay to and fro like the fortress of the Lost Boys. They were lost, he supposed; the remnants of the men left behind when Atlas pulled out of Pandora before he crushed their corporation out of existence. Nonetheless, they were men who had crossed Handsome Jack and they would die like the rest of their kind.

The darkest hours of the night were closing in over the patch of dusty land that held the squalid base. That was fortunate.

He had summoned his best and oldest doppelganger; a man once known as Timothy Lawrence, to lead his main force. There was too much risk of getting the kid hurt if they went in with a full force of men, guns blazing, so Jack decided he would have his men wait nearby in the desert. There could draw the attention of the bandits once he had secured Rhys’ safety.

It was comical how easy it was. Even at some degree of a high alert they were laughably easy to maneuver around with his cloaking device.

Still, Jack was careful. Though he wanted to – and planned to – kill every last one of them he couldn’t risk a dead bandit alerting anyone to his presence until Rhys was secure. The cloaking device served him well, combined with the long shadows and scant light he was steadily progressing from the first level to the second in short time.

Jack felt his watch gently vibrate against his wrist so he ducked in a dark corner and uncloaked himself to see the message. The unthinkable had happened– Rhys’ vitals had suddenly flatlined. All of them.

Jack touched his hand to his ear opening up the comm line, “Light it up.” He said, shooting a bandit in the back of the head as he reactivated the cloaker.

It was only a moment later when the sound of gunfire could be heard from further down the canyon. A rocket launcher struck the far end of the structure which reverberated in protest but held firm to the rock. The bandits inside the structure came out shooting.

Jack’s joints protested with pain as he ran towards the ramp to the highest level. As he made it to the bottom, a large man in a cloth mask appeared blocking his path. Without thought, Jack raised his weapon and shot the man in the throat.

The bandit staggered and fell sideways off of the ramp to land on the level below with a sickening crunch.

With his way cleared Jack hurried up the ramp.

They knew he was there now though they couldn’t see him. He passed through a group of men that were running out to defend their camp, letting three men get ahead of him only to turn and shoot two of them in the back of the head before the sniper he’d placed exploded the head of the third in an explosion of gore.

Worn sneakers carried him across the final stretch of walkway just as his armored team rolled up to the outskirts of the camp.

His own voice sounded over the Echo Comm, “Alright ya bunch of pukes. Handsome Jack here to take back what you stole from me. Hand over the nerd and I won’t have to kill every last, useless one of you.”

Jack braced himself for what he would see when he entered the bunker though his mind just kept wishing ‘Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”

He came around the doorway and blasted the lone remaining occupant of the room in face, he laser virtually disintegrating him as he fell to the floor in a bubbling heap.

Rhys’ echo eye had been forcibly removed, the wires that had connected the core trailing down from the mostly empty socket. His arm, too, had been removed– though somewhat more carefully than the eye. A single chain trapped Rhys’ good arm to the wall.

Rhys looked up at him with his lone brown eye and smiled faintly, “Jack,” he breathed, “you came.”

Jack was joyous with relief, “Of course I came, pumpkin, I couldn’t leave my best boy with these frickin’ savages.” With careful aim he shot the chain and Rhys’ arm was freed.

“Thank god. They smell terrible.” Rhys tested the feeling in his recently liberated arm.

Jack extended a large hand down to the kid to help pull him to his feet. “I thought they killed you… your vitals…” He cleared his throat in an effort to cover how choked his voice sounded.

“Yeah, they thought they could sell the eye and the arm. They disconnected them… pretty roughly.” He swayed a bit on his feet and jack kicked the only chair over to him.

“Sit. You aren’t looking so good.”

Rhys acquiesced and thumped into the seat, leaning his head back against the wall.

Jack frowned, stepping in front of him to keep his gun trained on the door. “I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.”

“God,” Rhys rolled his one good eye. “Can we do this later?”

There were gunshots, explosions, and screaming down below. “Yeah… we’re gonna let my men sweep up these cretins. We have a shuttle ready out in the desert to take you home. You in pain?”

“Yeah… a little,” Rhys said. “They weren’t really gentle about pulling my gear out. I hope they didn’t fuck up my brain.”

“You know I’ve got the best doctors money can buy. We’ll look you over good once you’re home.” Jack spoke reassuringly. His anger had had calmed, mostly. Rhys was safe and they were going to be alright. It was just a matter of time.

‘Who needs a hero?” Jack’s voice could be heard crowing triumphantly as the doppelganger stepped into the doorway with a ridiculous wink.

Jack gave his double a dark look, “I told you- no winking. Did you get them all? Are we clear?”

“Yeah,” The man sounded less like Jack now when he spoke; the cadence of his words was different– more mild mannered than the man he impersonated. “Yeah, we’re all good, boss.”

“You catch any live ones?” Jack’s eyes narrowed.

The doppelganger looked a bit anxious, “No sir… We tried… but you know how these bandits are. They know even if they surrender they’re as good as dead. Damn, Rhys. You look terrible.”

“I’ll be fine.” Rhys assured as he turned away and worked at unbuttoning his ragged button-down so he could wind it around his head to cover his eye.

“Tell the troops here I’m going to send them some reinforcements and have them scour the desert for stragglers. Have them raze every last filthy camp in this sector,” Jack ordered.

“Yes, sir.” the double’s perfectly coiffed hair bobbed as he strolled off to handle the business of being Jack.

Rhys insisted on walking without any aid though he walked slowly. Once buckled into his seat of their private shuttle his hand reached out for Jack’s and held it as the rockets fired up, hurtling them back to their home.

____________________________

The first day back had been a long stressful day of surgery for Rhys. He demanded to have everything replaced immediately with complaints of how naked he felt without his arm and eye.

Jack spent the long hours walking up and down the corridor of the private medical lab as they worked on installing his new equipment. It took effort to repress a strong urge to punch the orderlies in the face out of pure stress and frustration. His mind played out an array of scenarios in which he had failed to make it on time to Rhys’ aid and it was disconcerting how empty it made him feel.

After the procedures, they returned security of Jack’s large penthouse so he could rest.

Rhys was already as good as living there. Sure, he still had some clothes and stuff in the apartment he shared with his weird friends but he hadn’t slept there in months.

There was always work to do so while he slept Jack spent some time getting things done.

When he heard him up and moving around in the bedroom Jack decided to make him a treat. After going through all his cupboards he realized he had the opportunity to make a masterpiece. With his ingredients marshalled, he assembled a sundae.

It was magnificent. Resting upon a large, singular mound of blackberry ice cream was a replica of Helios. Two rectangular bars of traditional shortbread cookie were paired with a vanilla wafer to serve as the hub. He pipped chocolate details onto the sugary Helios as well as putting a chocolate swirl around edge of the ice cream. The final touch was just a drizzle of mango sauce representing the crackening. He carried it along with a bottle of water to the bedroom.

Rhys was hunched forward at his workstation, leaning on an elbow when Jack pushed through the unlatched door. The room was still dim from Rhys long post-surgery nap, the only light was the soft ambient glow an inset wall light ran across the whole north end of the room two feet up from the ground and the light from his computer monitor.

The younger man was dressed in a soft robe with the right sleeve removed so as to not impede his cybernetic arm. He didn’t seem to notice Jack’s entry and began typing again.

Jack strolled up behind him and bent forward to kiss him on the head, pushing his keyboard out of the way with the bowl.

Rhys looked up, brow furrowed, “Hey!” before his lips split into a sad smile as he took a closer look at the carefully presented ice cream sundae. “Jack,” he sighed the name out, low and full of fondness as he looked over the frozen treat before him with hungry eyes.

“You’re still supposed to be resting, doctor and mechanic’s orders. Come on. I made you a tiny Helios. Eat it,” He ordered before tacking on a “please.”

The cyborg’s smile didn’t meet his intentionally mismatched eyes. The new one was almost distractingly golden yellow. “I will… this looks amazing. Thank you.” The echo flashed intensely yellow a moment as he took a picture of the sundae before digging into Elpis with the spoon.”

Jack leaned forward and looked at the computer screen to see what his partner was up to, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Blah, I regret to inform you.” He looked down at Rhys, “Is this what you’re working on– Condolence letters for the survey team? Pumpkin, that’s… not work you need to be doing. We’ll have your assistant handle it.” He leaned forward and spun Rhys screen away to drive it out of his mind. “I know, you feel bad… that some people kinda… died… but they died protecting you sweetheart.”

“Why do you think I’m so upset?” Rhys replied a little louder than necessary, his frustration clear.

“That’s what I pay them to do!” Jack said, raising his voice to match Rhys’ before realizing that was probably uncalled for. “People die for me all the time. This is a rough industry… this isn’t teaching kindergarten… I mean… what do you expect?” He stood behind Rhys’ chair, carefully massaging his shoulders.

“I didn’t expect to feel so messed up about it!” He leaned forward and spun his screen back to face him. “But I do… and I’m not going to have an underling do this. I need to do it. No one’s ever died because of me before.”

Jack sighed, “Well… you always wanted to be in the big leagues and that’s how things work up at the top. I got a lot of enemies, cupcake, and Pandora isn’t a cake walk. These soldiers are the first but they are definitely not going to be the last to croak watching your back so you better make peace with that.”

Rhys sighed and bowed his head. He knew it was not what he wanted to hear but Jack preferred to tell him the things he needed to hear. “You warned me I wasn’t bringing enough security. I should have listened.”

“You’ll live longer yourself, listening to me, that’s for sure. Look… I guess, if you feel you need to do this, then do it… but not now. You’ve been through some traumatic stuff. You never forget the first time you almost got killed by insane people. Come and sit on the couch and eat ice cream. We can watch whatever movie you want to put on.”

Rhys deliberated on it for a moment before he reached out to shut off the monitor. He braced a hand on the desk to rise and pick up his bowl. “Okay.”

They walked to the living room and Jack settled down on the end of his plush sectional couch and Rhys sat beside him, leaning into him just a little.

The younger man held the bowl with his metal hand and used the other to pick up one of the shortbreads. He ran it through the ice cream and sauce before biting it in half.

“Not even Zarpedork could destroy Helios like that.” Jack observed with a sly smile.

Rhys chuckled, “If you hadn’t made it so delicious this wouldn’t be a problem.”

Jack’s chest felt tight and he noticed an ache there that he had not realized was present until now. His voice came out especially tight, “Rhys… I want you to know… I was really worried that I was going to lose you.” Generally, he went out of his way to avoid appearing vulnerable, even with Rhys. They had only been together just shy of a year and it was hard for a man like Jack to trust. If he showed any bit of his soft underbelly it only ever felt like an invitation for a knife.

Rhys ran the other half of the cookie across the ice cream and put it to Jack’s lips, “I’m sorry I scared you.” He wouldn’t meet Jack’s eyes.

Jack accepted the treat and chewed which gave him time to think about a reply. “It’s okay. We both… learned some junk from the whole mess, at least… right?”

“I definitely learned not to underestimate Pandora.” Rhys sighed, “What did you learn?”

Jack leaned in close and kissed Rhys on the side of his face with sweet and sticky lips. “I learned that I love you, you nerd.”

Rhys’ brows lifted sharply. Neither one had said the big “L” word yet– at least never in direct reference to each other. They had both stated that they loved any of a number of sexual positions and various parts of each other’s bodies, but never the whole person.

“You do?” Rhys seemed like he was skeptical of the concept.

“When they yanked your hardware and your vitals flatlined” he shook his head, haunted just by the memory, “I almost lost my mind– I couldn’t imagine waking up without you next to me. I haven’t felt like this about anybody in a long, long time. I like how you care about people… I like how you aren’t afraid to tell me off. I fricken’ love how smart and ambitious you are… how dedicated you are to your work. You paid for that robot arm out of your own pocket just so that you could be more badass at your job. You’re outstanding. You remind me of… me.”

Rhys set the ice cream aside nearby on the couch and shifted to put his arms around Jack. “I… “ He cleared his throat. “Are you sure you don’t regret… taking me on? I’m not as good at all of this as you. I almost got killed by shitty bandits. They didn’t even have a cool, imposing leader.”

Jack snorted, “Pumpkin… we work good together. You’re the ying to my yang. The peanut butter to my chocolate. Remember when you stopped me from airlocking that one scientist and then he invented that grenade mod that is making mad money on the southern shelf?”

“Yeah… Doctor Bains.” Rhys reminded him, “You weren’t really happy I had an opinion on it at the time.” His jaw appeared tense.

It was difficult to not get distracted by his younger lover’s cheekbones. “You were right and I was glad I listened. So next time listen to me when I tell you to take more men- and when I say I love you. I don’t say things like that… lightly.”

Rhys sat up and lifted one leg to straddle both Jack’s. His robe fell open a bit wider, revealing more of his tattooed chest. “I… love you too, you know. You looked so damn heroic appearing in the doorway like that. Saving me in my darkest hour. I owe you a life debt. Let me pay you back.”

Every selfish fiber in Jack’s being told him to take Rhys and give it to him rough. Jack groaned faintly at the dilemma before becoming resolute, “As amazing as that sounds, I’m going to take a rain check.” His hands moved to Rhys’ hips. “You’re not supposed engaging in any vigorous activity.”

Rhys’ eyes rolled and he pressed his lips to Jack’s for a kiss. “Then do it less… vigorously… I don’t care.”

“You don’t care because you’re tripping on pain meds. Remember the brain surgery you just had, dum dum?” Smiling ruefully, he said, “Sit down and finish your ice cream. We’ll watch a movie.”

Rhys’ narrowed his eyes and his lips twisted into pure petulance. With a sigh he seemed to realize that he was, indeed not up for the action and leaned against Jack’s shoulder for a long moment. “Okay,” he agreed finally and eased back into his seat before picking up his bowl of ice cream. He set the bowl on his knee and used his robotic arm as a remote control to turn on a hilariously terrible movie they both loved.

“You had a hard couple of days… just let me take care of you until you’re feeling better.” Jack looped his arm around his partner. “You can thrill my dick when you’re feeling better.”

Rhys chuckled a little and said, “Okay. I absolutely promise I am going to knock your socks off… eventually.”

“Eventually.” Jack grinned.

When Rhys had finished his ice cream, Jack moved the bowl to the end table and put his arm around him while they watched the screen hero mow down endless soldiers in some sweltering jungle.

Before the big finale Rhys dozed off against Jack’s shoulder; snoring softly in medicated sleep.

Jack rose and carefully hefted Rhys up into his arms to carry him to bed. There was no reason to watch the end of the movie. He knew it by heart. The hero wins.

The hero always wins.

#Borderlands #Handsome Jack #Rhys the Company Man #Rhys the CEO #Rhack #sfw #fic #no holiday theme #submission

41 notes · View notes

lunamanar · 7 years

Note

What are some of your headcanons on Squall and Rinoa's relationship and how it progresses post-game?

I’m glad you said “some” because the full answer is the biggest reason I write fiction for FFVIII in the first place (I’m just not good at finishing it, eheh). I can do “some,” though.

I suppose the first is simply, “they stay together.” I know, I know, then we can all pack up and go home, right? Nothing more to see, here.

In seriousness, though, I’ve written plenty of doomed romances. I do not see Squall and Rinoa as one of those. I’m not saying there not huge obstacles for them to overcome, or that there are no possible situations where they would break up or be forced apart, or that there aren’t valid interpretations of them who are simply incompatible. That would be unreasonable, and…I mean, just look at fanfiction.net. Of course they could, and of course there are. But If you’re looking for that sort of drama, you won’t find it in anything I write, and I don’t think it spoils anything to say so. But that’s forced me to tackle all of the “well how do they deal with ____?” questions (and really, that in mind, if you want interpersonal tension and drama, sometimes holding on is the hard option). Those questions in turn have led to a lot of worldbuilding and plot points, which then led to a lot of the other answers I’ve given over the last several days. So to say that the entirety of my headcanon revolves around them wouldn’t be too far off-base.

I’m a lot more focused on how they grow over time, as individuals and as a unit, how they overcome obstacles both inevitable and inserted in their path by Yours Truly, and how it all affects how they see the world, how they see other people, each other, and themselves. I really like getting into the gritty details of character development for my faves, and they’re some of my favorites of all time, so I love everything I can get from them, whether it feels amazing or hurts like hell. They give me a hearty helping of both, haha.

With that said, while the game presents a lot of options with Rinoa and Squall as an either/or experience, in most cases I re-envision the scenes so that most of the possible outcomes are true. For instance, my Rinoa initially has a very nice talk with Squall at the FH concert. She says her heartfelt piece, and feels good about it…and then Squall clams up. And Eyes on Me starts playing after the playful jig. That reminds her of her mother, who was quite an example of “we can’t predict the future…” Which saddens her, makes her feel very vulnerable all of a sudden, and when she realizes Squall hasn’t moved toward her or said a damn word for minutes…well, that’s when the other dialogue happens, she gets upset, and leaves.

I even, surprisingly enough, found a way to make most of the dialogue with everyone reuniting at FH work (whether you sent her to D-district or not, with my end result being that she does not go), so…keep in mind the precise version of the game I’m keeping in my head. It’s already a tiny bit edited, although I really don’t think it’s edited enough to be called AU. Just, my headcanons start inside canon, so it’s probably worth my pointing that out. (Self-plug: you can find a number of these on my DA, AO3 and FFN pages.)

Moving on…immediately post-game, my Squall is a damned mess. He barely survived Time Compression and it takes weeks for him to recover physically. Dealing with the mental trauma will take a great deal longer. He’s having flashbacks, waking nightmares, various sleep disturbances, freezing/staring episodes…the whole experience messed with his head but good. He wants to get back to work, but Dr. Kadowaki refuses to clear him. So, even though Rinoa has stayed with him for the whole thing, he’s pinned in the worst place he can think of being: tearing himself apart on the inside and unable to do anything about anything.

And Rinoa has her own…situation. Word is spreading that Garden is housing the successor to Adel’s powers (the whole…thing with Ultimecia is not actually that widely known outside of Esthar), and that successor is the daughter of General Caraway, once “involved” with terrorists from Timber. Galbadia doesn’t like this very much and is demanding answers. Although mostly harmless, Odine is being creepy wanting to “observe” her to see how she “handles” what seems must be an oroborousine feedback loop of Hyne’s powers. Meanwhile Dollet is heralding her as some kind of heroine due the version of the story that reached them: that she stopped Adel and broke the back of Galbadia’s army, causing it to cease its assault on their borders indefinitely. Even the people of Esthar, more knowledgeable than most, seem determined to refer to her as “their” sorceress, and are intensely intrigued by the fact she seems to benevolent. So she is at once a villain, a hero, a science project, and a somewhat holy figurehead she never asked to be. She’s barely had any time to learn how to use her powers, so she’s in a dangerously tenuous position with trauma of her own, even without a boyfriend suffering acute PTSD and maybe some other things, too.

The solution: turn it all off, pack it up, and take a vacation from everything.

Well, ‘vacation’ might be too idyllic a word, but essentially. Edea has decided she is going to rebuild her house, and repurpose it as both a place for her and Cid to retire, and as a sort of Bed & Breakfast, haha, as the only outpost in Centra, in the hopes that adventurous people will have a starting point to return, explore, and repopulate the fractured continent. The repairs on the main building are already complete, so it’s in livable condition, if only barely.

And, sympathetic to Rinoa’s situation, as well as the only person available to her who has the experience and desire to teach her, Edea agrees to take Rinoa with her, quietly, while Galbadia’s attention is still focused on Garden and Esthar. In turn, Rinoa asks Squall to come with her. He’s doing nothing but spinning his wheels at Garden, not even allowed to arm himself for the Training Center. There are only so many laps and pushups you can do in a day, he needs something to do, a plan of action to focus on. Squall is function-oriented, and denied the freedom to perform that function, he’ll run himself in circles until he starts losing screws and bolts.

And his new function, alone with Rinoa and Edea at the abandoned house of his childhood: help Rinoa become the best damn sorceress she can be. Be her “Knight,” her partner in coming to understand her magic skills, even perhaps her target, when it comes to it. Use all that strength he’s gained to make sure that by the time they rejoin Garden in six months, she’s ready for anything.

After some resistance, he agrees. It’s just six months, right? Xu and Quistis can take care of things for that long.

Turns out to be a long six months. This is where a lot of the domestic problems crop up–among the worst of which is that for some reason, Rinoa always takes the soap out of the shower with her and leaves it in weird places and seriously, what the hell, Rinoa?!–but it’s also where a lot of ground is covered between Squall and Rinoa, because there are no distractions, no one else for thousands of miles in any direction. Just the two of them, to hold each other up or crash and burn together.

Oh yeah, and there’s a ghost in the woods across the field. It doesn’t seem all that friendly, either. So there’s that.

But yeah, basically the thing that I think is most important for Rinoa and Squall’s relationship to work is for the both of them to–temporarily–disconnect, focus on themselves and each other. And I think it makes a lot of sense that they both do exactly that. So much has changed for them, so much damage has been done to them and their former lives, even if they weren’t involved with each other, it would be nearly impossible for them to just keep on doing what they’d been doing and recover in any meaningful way at the same time. I’ve seen a lot of fics where Rinoa goes insane because she doesn’t have the support she needs as a very new, very powerful sorceress, and others where Squall regresses and withdraws even worse than he had been while trying to fulfill the demands of being SeeD’s leader immediately after the events of the game. And I think that’s perfectly reasonable. I also think it’s reasonable to just put it all in a box and come back after they’ve done some figuring things out…and maybe having a little adventure on the side.

I’ve talked in other asks about how my sorceresses have the ability to tap into the life force of other people and even bind themselves permanently to a person for the purpose of augmenting their powers. Edea’s house is where Squall finds out that this is possible…not because Edea tells him, but because he finds it in a very old book that had survived the weathering of the house. It’s the sort of absolute purpose Squall romanticizes, and although Rinoa is afraid of the idea and Edea is flat-out against it, it’s something that holds his attention, an idea that allows him to concentrate and a perspective that helps him work through a lot of the lingering problems even Rinoa can’t seem to touch.

Even by the time they finally go back to Garden, they’re a ways off from anything like that, but the idea’s been put forth…

A lot of people have already seen the very end of that particular story, because as an Epilogue, it kind of stands on its own: Miles to Go, a comic I did with @skribleskrable a couple years back, caps things off and marks where they are by the time they come back to Garden: uncertain, still a little confused, but hopeful, and ready to face whatever happens next together.

There’s a lot that does happen, a ton of headcanons I could share, but I should probably stop rambling, as this has gone on for quite a bit. I’ve only glanced over so much of it…I hope some point soon here I’m going to have the time and the space I need to stop thinking about this stuff so much and actually get to writing it.

#ff8 #Anonymous #headcanons #squall and rinoa #squall leonhart #rinoa heartilly #sorcery #succession of witches #story: miles to go #ff8 world #asks

15 notes · View notes

wavemaker9 · 7 years

Text

other important gta xover shit

Austin and Oliver working together and how good that is? This fucking crew boss that is nothing but pleasant smiles and offers of tea and sweets until you get on his bad side. his right hand man who looks like he'd break if you blew on him too hard but you'll never see your death coming if he's told to take you out. the two actually kinda getting along, as well as austin gets along with anyone anyway, and having pleasant chats over milk and sugar cookies before they start planning a new heist.

Toni’s real good too. Much like Oliver, seems super friendly and relaxed. Talks in an easy, lax tone, full of slang and double negatives and casual cursing. He’s the kinda guy you see in media where someone gets sent to talk to their boss and is all nervous and then the boss is seated at the desk with a huge smile, waving them in, asking them if they’d like any coffee, go ahead and take a seat! Normal Toni is already pretty damn good at manipulating people, he just is genuinely trying to do better so he tries not to do that much and instead wants to be more real about his charm. GTA Toni not so much. He’s not actively like a comic book villain in his badness. He’s still christian, still kind on the surface, but he’s a crime boss in charge of one of the bigger crews in Los Santos. Like Kyle, he doesn’t have any delusions about being pure of sin here (not that normal Toni does either, though, I guess) and he’s comfortable where he is. He has regrets, he repents when he can, but he likes where he is and he’s gonna keep doing this shit. Anyway, straying off a bit, but Toni seeming super chill and warm and nice but also god fucking help you if you give him a reason to hurt you? Mainly I swear I had to have mentioned this before but him getting to do interrogations for info on other crews or planned attacks on his. There the manipulation really gets to come out with a lot of good cop-bad cop but just toni playing both sides and even his bad cop is nice cop just nice as he’s torturing you and asking pleasantly as he twists a knife into a long line of red on your arm wouldn’t it just be easier to tell him what he needs to know? plus just. Again, normal toni does have a part of him from his old days that still loves that violence and blood and everything and that part of him is not so smothered down for gta toni. There’s a reason I put him as Kevin in the wtnv xover and it’s because the further down the bad-person scale you get with toni the more likely he would absolutely decorate the walls in the blood of others, /toni/. I also know I’ve joked about Toni being the nicest of my three boys I write but that was a lie they’re all bad they’re all so bad in their own ways all of them.

Actually Toni & Oliver hanging out sometimes and getting along swimmingly on the surface, but there’s no real connection or history like Toni and Arthur have so Toni will push with Oliver’s crew a bit more and not be so willing to help in dire situations when he wouldn’t be getting much back in return. If someone like Arthur or Francis or Gilbert (and somewhat by extension Ludwig) called Toni up and asked him for a favor in a life or death situation, Toni’d probably do it and just say they owed him later on. If Oliver did, Toni’d probably be negotiating before agreeing to anything or making a bigger deal of how much Ollie owes him, and that’s if he did it at all (though he probably would; doing favors like that helps build the christianly, good guy look he’s got going for the more expendable members of different crews that haven’t seen just how dark he can get; besides, no need to make enemies for no reason. He’s going to get something out of it but he’d really only say no if it was putting his own crew or the crew of someone he valued more at risk).

Ollie doesn’t have any delusions of them being bff’s either though. both get along so well in passing but will 100% talk shit about the other the moment they leave the room. not that toni and arthur won’t do that. but it’s more of a tolerable, less disconnected thing. like the ‘i’m allowed to make fun of ___ because of this relationship we have making it clear i don’t mean it to be hurtful, but you’re not!’ that toni and arthur talking shit about each other to everyone else is part of the game tehy play. it’s just accepted behavior. again, because of the lack of history, none of that association is there between oliver and toni. they smile and hug when they great each other for a meeting, but when toni leaves the room- if oliver leans over to austin and mutters something about how it’s surprising toni can be so clueless as to still not see he’s way past his prime in this biz and how it’s kind of pathetic how he’s still trying to stay in the game? like there’s not really a lot of play to that. that’s not a fun rivalry, that’s ollie 100% talking shit about this guy. and the same for toni taking shots at oliver when he meets gil and francis for drinks that afternoon. basically, to use current internet meme terms) toni and arthur call each other trash, toni and oliver go for ‘garbage’.

after kyle and ivan start like dating, more or less. again, gta kyle still more iffy about the idea of dating, but less for the 'they'll eventually leave me' idea, more just the crew differences make it hard and he's never really 'dated' anyone before. he's had relatively long lasting fuckbuddies and shit, but nothing 'cutesy' like dating, so this is def one of hte kyles where even if they're doing cutesy dating shit, he refuses to call it that. but anyway, they'd both have pretty low morals since it is gta au. gta kyle is i'm pretty sure the worst kyle for tha? there might be worse au's for kyle's morals but gta him's the big worst one i talk about often enough. so the kind of date shit they get up to is just the worst kind of shenanigans. instead of dinner and a show, it's dinner and crashing the heist gil and ludwig's crew are pulling off to shoot flares at them while they try to escape. some of those flares might also be grenades, it's hard to say really- oh. no, no. just saw the explosion, that was definitely a grenade.

#ignore this #amusing muse musings #crossovers! unlimited crossovers!#crossovers gta edition

2 notes · View notes

chasingthecosmos · 4 years

Text

Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 2/40 Read on AO3 here.

“‘Oh, dear. Looks like we might have picked up an extra passenger,’ the Doctor grumbled to himself. His gaze raised to Rose’s once more and she was struck by the sheer intensity of it and the way that he managed to look at once so familiar, and yet so different from what she was used to. 'Best find something to hold on to,’ he warned her ominously.”

A Season 8 & 9 AU centering around Rose Tyler and her newly-regenerated Doctor as they both struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of some unknown force that seems to be drawing them together. Will they be able to solve the mystery of who is pulling the strings before it’s too late?

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first. Tags will be updated as I go.

For once, Rose was glad for the TARDIS's meddling with her plans, as she was immensely grateful for the help that Jenny, Vastra, and Strax posed for her. Without them, she wasn't entirely sure if she would have been able to look after the Doctor all on her own while he was in such a state. It certainly took effort on all four of their parts to get his unconscious body back to Madame Vastra's estate, and it took all of Rose's considerable strength and patience to get him changed out of his old jacket and bowtie that no longer fit him quite right and into something a bit more comfortable when he finally came back to consciousness a short while later.

She had never thought that she would find herself actually missing the hologram projectors that he had insisted they use not so very long ago, but then again, life with the Doctor was nothing if not unpredictable.

"It's simply ... misunderstandable to be ..." the Doctor growled as Rose forced him to stop wriggling long enough to slide a clean, cotton night shirt over his head. "I don't know what it is. Who invented this room?"

He glared down at her as she finally settled his new clothes over his shoulders and Rose met his unfamiliar gaze warily. He was breathing heavily, as though the very act of changing his clothes had drained him of what little energy he had left, and his new blue eyes were still hazy and unfocused as he stared down hard at her.

"Doctor, please," she whispered quietly as she met his gaze with an earnest expression and attempted to reach into his scattered, broken thoughts to try and calm him, "won't you lie down? You need to rest ..."

"But it doesn't make any sense ..." he insisted as he turned and swept on of his arms out across the small bedroom that they stood in. "Look, it's only got a bed in it. Why is there only a bed in it?"

"Because it's a bedroom," Rose sighed exasperatedly, rolling her eyes at him and fighting the urge to shove him down onto the mattress by force, just to get him to be quiet. "It's for sleeping in."

The Doctor eyes widened to comical proportions as he glanced in horror from Rose, to the bed, and back again. "Okay ... so you've got a whole room ... for not being awake in. But what's the point? You're just missing the room! And don't look in that mirror!" He was scowling again as he brushed past Rose and pointed a finger angrily at the large glass mirror that was hanging on the wall behind them. "It's absolutely furious!" he exclaimed as he met his own gaze and glared.

"Doctor, please!" Rose insisted, stepping between him and his reflection and forcing him to meet her steady gaze once more. Please, love, please calm down ... she begged him silently as she fought to make sense of his frazzled thoughts. She could feel a crushing hopelessness weighing down on her as she stared up at him and fought to find even the slightest hint of familiarity or recognition.

The Doctor was still staring down at her with those thick, furrowed brows, his face leaning in close while his mind trailed away and spun off in a million different directions that Rose simply couldn't follow. "Wait a minute, why do you keep talking like that?" he demanded suddenly, his gaze narrowing on her suspiciously. "What's gone wrong with your accent?"

"Sorry?" Rose asked in confusion as she watched him stumble away from her with a look of apprehension on his face.

"You sound all ... English!" he insisted, throwing his arms out dramatically as he passed a helpless look around the small room. "Now you've developed a fault!"

Rose sighed in frustration and gritted her teeth together as she propped her hands on her hips and quietly regarded him. It seemed that no matter how many times she called out to him, she simply couldn't get him to focus - his mind was still far too discordant and disconnected after being scrambled by the regeneration energy that had swept through his entire being. She knew that she had one last resort, but she was hesitant to use it.

After a few moments of consternation, Rose finally opened her mouth and whispered the Doctor's true name into the quiet of the room around them. It was a risk that she normally wouldn't have taken in the middle of a strange house and in an unfamiliar time-period, but they were in the midst of some very dire circumstances, and that called for drastic actions to be taken. She knew that using the Doctor's name was the one, true way to guarantee that she would have his full attention, and it worked almost immediately as the Doctor seemed to freeze in place and turn on her with an expression of wide-eyed shock.

The name on her lips, which was normally only ever spoken with an air of reverent, loving devotion, was now whispered as a quiet, desperate plea, and it felt so horribly wrong that it made Rose want to cry.

"Doctor, I know that this is confusing for you ..." she murmured as gently as possible. "Believe me, it's hard for me, too. But right now, you need to calm down and rest, or else you're just going to make the process that much harder."

The Doctor's features fell back into his new, severe-looking scowl once more as he silently regarded her, but he still allowed her to take him by the hands and lead him slowly towards the bed without complaint, for once. Rose, however, could still feel his thoughts racing haphazardly around them in dizzying, incomplete circles as she forced his long limbs under the sheets and directed his head towards the pillow.

"I remember the last time you regenerated, you know," Rose murmured with a rueful smile as she slowly tucked him into the newly-made med. Memories of that life from so long ago made Rose nostalgic for a time when she had had a family and friends to fall back on whenever things like this happened. She wondered what her mother and Mickey would say if they could both see her now. "Back then it seemed that we couldn't wake you up for anything. Now it's like I can't get you to sit still."

"Had to go into a healing coma," the Doctor agreed, his voice coming out rough and distant-sounding as he gazed wearily up at her. "Taking the entire time vortex into your head will really take it out of you."

"Yeah, you're telling me," Rose teased gently.

The light-hearted banter seemed to raise the Doctor's spirits somewhat and the edge of his lips lifted ever-so-slightly as he gazed up at her. "You should sleep, too. It's past your bedtime, Amelia," he muttered, shifting the covers around himself and lifting them as though to invite her into the bed with him.

"Doctor ... it's Rose, remember?" she reminded him nervously, not liking the feverish look that was now in his eye and the way that his mind seemed to be tripping over his various thoughts and memories, unable to find sense in the patterns and faces of his past twelve lifetimes.

"Come along, Pond," he insisted, attempting to sit up once more and struggling against Rose's hand as she urged him back down to the bed.

"Ssh, sleep now, love," she whispered softly, placing her index finger against his lips to stop the rest of his frenzied words. She flashed him a small, sad smile as she quietly projected the sensation of unconsciousness into his thoughts and the Doctor finally let out a long, shaky sigh, his eyelids drooping wearily as the tension in his bone seemed to slacken. He still hadn't fallen completely asleep yet, but at least he had come to a halt at long last and his hallucinations seemed to have subsided for the time being.

Rose gazed down at him in pensive concentration as she studied his new features and attempted to sort out the frazzled, tangled consciousness in the back of her mind. Even now, it seemed that the Doctor's thoughts were running off without him, attempting to find sense in the mess that his regeneration had left behind.

Alone, alone, so alone ... he seemed to moan frantically.

You're not alone. I'm here, Rose assured him, her own thoughts trailing against the rough, unfocused edges of his mind.

He immediately grasped onto her presence as though she were a lifeline, his grip on her mind almost painful as he desperately tried to right himself and regain his bearings. Don't go, don't leave, please stay ... he begged.

Terror gripped Rose's heart in that moment, but she wasn't entirely sure if it was his or her own as he helplessly drug her down with him into the sea of chaos that was raging within him.

I'm not going anywhere, Rose assured him as confidently as possible as she fought to steady her breathing and remain within her right mind. Stay with me, come back to me, she coaxed him gently.

A pitiful, moaning sound escaped from the back of the Doctor's throat that broke Rose's heart and made her chest swell with a sharp stab of protectiveness. She moved further onto the bed beside him and took one of his hands in both of hers, noticing that his skin felt even cooler than normal as she held it close to her chest and tried to ignore the odd new shape of his fingers.

Rose had seen so many different versions of the Doctor, and she had loved every single one of them. She knew that this one would be no different, and that in time, she would find her hands fitting into his as easily as they always did, no matter what shape either of them took. She simply had to believe that that was true. The alternative was ... simply unthinkable.

"Please come back," she whispered as she pressed her lips to his knuckles and sent a wave of peace throughout his mind that seemed to calm the turbulent waters of his thoughts for a moment. "Please don't leave me ..."

"Rose ..." His voice was no more than a rough, muttered whisper, but it was the first time that she had heard her true name on this new man's lips, and it gave her the small spark of hope that she knew she had been looking for ever since he had changed. It also gave her the confidence that she needed to pull up the edge of the sheets of the bed and slip into the small space at the Doctor's side, her arms going around his middle as she settled in as close as she dared and desperately attempted to transmit some of her warmth into his chilled skin.

Rose closed her eyes and moved the palm of her hand over his chest so that she could count his heartsbeats and use their steady rhythm to slow the pace of both of their thoughts. She felt the Doctor shift slightly, as though he were turning his head closer towards her familiar presence, but she didn't both to open her eyes and look as she quickly drifted off into unconsciousness with him, her mind joining his as they fell into a deep, restless sleep.

-------------------

Rose's dreams were filled with memories and equations and emotions that she knew were not her own. When she was finally startled awake once more by a loud, pained roaring, she felt somehow even less rested than she had been before she had drifted off to sleep.

When she felt the cold, empty space beside her in the bed and realized that the Doctor had somehow managed to disappear into the night, she reached out over their bond on instinct in an attempt to find him. However, she was met with nothing more than a flurry of panic and a thick mental barrier that kept her firmly separated from the rest of the Doctor's thoughts. It seemed that he was slowly coming back to himself, but he was determined to keep her shielded from the tangled, chaotic mess that he had accidentally pulled her into before.

This was further proven to be true when she quickly joined Jenny, Vastra, and Strax and came upon the Doctor standing on an old stone railing and looking down at the flaming remnants of the dinosaur that they had accidentally time traveled into Victorian London.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Rose called up to him in quiet concern. She silently begged for him to come down and talk to her, or at least share with her what it was that was currently troubling his thoughts so much, but she was met with nothing more than silence as he refused to even turn around and meet her gaze.

"She was scared," he breathed quietly as if to himself. "She was scared and alone. I brought her here, and look what they did ..."

Jenny, Vastra, and Strax all attempted to help the Doctor to see reason, but he seemed determined to be obstinate as he growled down at all of them, pointedly ignoring Rose the entire time as she silently felt out the edges of his silent, closed-off mind.

"Why can't I meet a decent species?" he groaned in frustration. "Planet of the pudding brains!"

"Doctor ..." Rose piped up gently, refusing to let his biting words get to her as they once might have done, "I know you're upset, but you need to calm down and talk to us. What is the question?"

"A dinosaur is burning in the heart of London," he growled, finally turning to meet her gaze with a carefully blank expression that did nothing to disguise the anger glowing in his eyes, "nothing left but smoke and flame! The question is ... have there been any similar murders?"

Jenny, Vastra, and Strax all exchanged a weighted look between themselves before Madame Vastra replied gravely, "Yes. Yes, there have."

#doctor who #dw #fanfiction #fanfic #dw fanfic #dw fanfiction #doctor who fanfic #doctor who fanfiction #the doctor #twelfth doctor #rose tyler #twelve/rose #twelvexrose #the doctor/rose #the doctorxrose

0 notes

harryburger · 7 years

Text

Fic Tag-Game

List the first lines of your last 20 stories (or however many you have altogether).

See if there are any patterns.

The, tag your favorite authors

I was tagged by @kingotabek

I’m not sure who to tag......so if anyone writes fic and follows me you can say I tagged you.

Lies || Harry Styles (AU) - "London don't walk away from me!" Harry yelled as he tried to catch up to me.I continued to walk not wanting to look back and see how far away he was or even how close he might be. Anger continued to course through my veins, I never imagined he would do this type of thing. I thought he was my best friend. Why would he lie to me and not expect to get caught?

30 days - I place the blunt to my lips as I inhaled. The feeling was something that I was way too familiar with, I blew out the smoke as my body began to rejoice in the feeling. The party around me was in full swing, there wasn't one person who wasn't enjoying what was going on around them. I was in my own world, nothing was going wrong in my life and me sure as hell wasn't letting anything damper my mood right now.

Betrayal // h. s. au - The sound of muffled voices surround me, i don't know what happened or even where I'm at. "Drive Louis! Drive!" Louis? The sound of gun shots makes my head hurt more, the pounding sensation grows more and more as the sound gets closer. The force of the car moving forward makes my head sling against the window. I squeeze my eyes tight as the pain grows.

The Life of Riley Stromberg || E3 & 1D - I stayed sitting on the couch as Lucas decided to go make some more popcorn, he has literally been at my side since Dad and Luke left for some sort of business work. they were always leaving mom, Kory and i behind. so having Lucas over helps me keep my mind off missing my older brother and my favorite person in the world, my uncle wes."popcorn my lady." Lucas spoke as he took his original seat beside me while handing me the bowl. i shook my head at his wording before smiling."you are such a dork sometimes."

The Break Up Plan // Jai Brooks - There she was, Jess Taylor. I watched on admiring her. The way her eyes glistened as she walked down the hallway. Her beauty was mesmerizing. The way she laughed as she starred on. Her smile was the best thing to look at in the world, she had the best figure. Not to big not to small just perfect. I watched on as she kept getting closer. I couldn't help but smile. Her blue eyes shined bright, brighter then the bluest ocean. I couldn't help but look onto her. Her blonde hair sways as she still proceeds to make her way down the hallway. Watching her wrap her arms tightly around him. I stand back as he picks her up and swings around, her laugh is heard. My smile grows but soon fades as his lips meet hers.

A Dream Come True | Keaton Stromberg ||COMPLETED|| - I can't believe that today is the day I move to Cali with my two best friends. I barley had any sleep last night because all I kept thinking about was that Im finally going to leave this hell hole I call home. I was taken out of my thoughts by my mom knocking on my door."Morgan get up or you're going to miss your flight!""I'm up" I said loud enough for her to hear.As I started to get out the bed I realized that Im probably breaking her heart by leaving. I'm such a Momma's girl, definitely not a daddy's girl. I don't talk to my father but I do have a step dad and grandparents that's all I need in life right?

Disconnected || L.H. - She stayed seated in the grass as the cheers of the crowd as the baseball team yet again scores. Carly fought the urge to turn aroun and watch the game. She clutches her camera in her hands before raising it up and capturing yet another picture of the beautiful sunset that is placed in front of her. She smiles as she finally feels at peace. She snaps a few more angelic photos before grabbing her jacket from beside her. Standing back to her feet she notices him, his team mates congradualte him on yet another win. The cheering gets more loud as girls that waited on the stands finally got the chance to go to him. Everyone embracing him in a tight hug, Carly couldn help but laugh at their actions. Acting as if the boy is a star, or he played a amazing game.

That Boy // l.p. ||COMPLETED|| - Emma Johns.A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. Having all the guys drool over you was normal to her. But most guys had a chance with the girl of my dreams. I on the other hand just admired her from a far. Keeping her in my thoughts and dreams was the only I would ever get close to her. She was the head cheerleader and the only girl at Samuel's High who has a boy friend from America. All the girls wanted to be her friend, or know how she got a guy from America. Seeing her walk around laughing and smiling as I wished to be the cause of it. Just the sight of made my heart race. Knowing that her attention would never be focused on me, just the idea of her and me is comical.

Fake Boyfriend || Keaton Stromberg {Completed} - Your personality" His words keep playing over and over in my mind. I was fine if he would have told me he didn't like me like that but my personality. Seeing that my personality wasn't what he wanted in a girl broke my heart, I knew I wasn't good enough for him and that there was no chance of me an him being together but I never gave up. Liking a guy all through high school was just plain stupid. Everything he has ever said to me was lies, he told me everything I wanted to hear from someone. He never cared that's what kills me. Ever since those two words escaped his lips I haven't left my room or let along the house.

The Nightmares That Follow A Dream || Keaton Stromberg \ COMPLETED| - Morgan had to make a decision to either stay in California with the love of her life Keaton and let something bad happen to him or leave it all behind to go live with a guy who will do anything to ruin her life. Morgan left Keaton and everyone behind to live with Scott it wasn't the best choice she made but she knew she made it for the right reasons. Scott has done everything to her from beating, raping, to almost killing Morgan. But what can she do and if she tried to leave she will get it worse then she already does.

I’m No Good For You // H. S. - I stay focused in class as Mrs. Crawford begins to explain the assignment that we be explained to us in the next couple days as our partners will soon be named. I write down the notes that are needed for this assignment as how many paragraphs will be needed and when its due. Her words soon fade as she stops talking all together.I look up at her noticing her attention is focused on the back at the room. Knowing there is only one person she could be focused on and that has to be the arrogant Harry Styles. The only guy in school that can have any girl he wants and who is hated by everyone.

A Dream Boy || Keaton Stromberg - "Look at me Rowen" he says grabbing my face in his hands. "You're such a beautiful girl."I look up at into his green eyes, wishing and hoping that this will be the moment he finally kisses me. As he starts to lean in, i do the same waiting for the contact. "Rowen get up you have school!" I jump awake at the sound of my dad yelling at me. I blink my eyes, trying to contract the normal surroundings. This makes a month i having these weird dreams of a light brown curly headed boy. I never seen a boy like this, his facial features astonish me.

Rejected // Wesley Stromberg - "Annie one date?" I question "Wes no, I can't sorry" she says before walking off. Haven't I learned my lesson by now, that every time I ask her out she always says no. But I know that she cares about me, but why not give me a chance? I understand that we are best friends but she can go out with Drew who has been her neighbor since she was three. This is all so confusing.

Living with the Cliffords || m.c. - I stay seated on the couch as Noah kept pulling at my hair. I could see the doubt laced in Cade's eyes as she looked to the twin girls playing in the floor."Michael i love you and all but-""Trust me i got this." I reassured her as gestured her to go.She looked towards Noah as has his hand stayed tightly in my hair before she turned towards the door, the smile on her face was not genuine.

Something About The Way She Looks - "Olivia get up or you will be late for school!" My mom yells from downstairs. I slowly roll over, not fully aware that I'm on the edge until I find myself laying on the floor."Fuck." I mutter to myself as I ease off the floor and stumble towards the bathroom to get ready to go to hell.. I mean school.I looked in the mirror to see a sight I sure was a natural thing for me, my hair was wildly everywhere. I try running my fingers through the mess in hopes to tame it down but as my fingers get stuck in the wild mess I know surely that wouldn't happen.

Sexting ✖ h.s - I stay looking at my phone wondering how in the hell I know all of these people or how their numbers ended up in my phone. I scroll down until one strikes my attention.Abby Shaw.God. How it has been so long since I talked to her. Last time I remember actually communication with her was when Jason pushed me into her and she looked at me wide eyed as her books stayed scattered on the floor. I mutter a quick apology before calling Jason a dick.

Innocent | a.i. - Today was the day I was moving across town, as my mother has acquired a new job. I wasn't so happy about this move as I would be leaving everything behind me that I have come accustom to. I remember the exact conversation my mother and stepfather conversed with me about this whole move. I was so against it. I wanted to stay.I believe I even brought the idea of living on my own or with some friends but my mother was so destined on me coming along. So here I am caring my last box to the car as the yelled for me to hurry. Taking a quick glance at the house I have so many fond memories in, I sigh before heading towards the running vehicle.

0 notes