#allows him some installation of his screens in his own room
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I think it would be funny if in season 2 it becomes a running gag of Vox sending spies to the hotel who just end up captured into the net of found family and friendship and become part of the clientele and Vox doesn’t get why he keeps losing contact with them (and assumes Alastor probably killed them) until one day Charlie comes to personally thank him for bringing her so many souls for rehabilitation and for believing in her cause and Vox just. Doesn’t know what is happening. And short circuits.
#I love how the vees are like#so bad at being antagonists that they loop around to actually helping the plot#then charlie offers vox a spot at the hotel if he ever feels he needs#and it takes all of his self-control not to laugh in her face#but#this is an opening#maybe he can see for himself what alastor is up to#(and then my self-indulgent unrealistic brain goes to and then he also gets sucked into the clientele without realizing)#he would die without access to his gamer room of screens tho#and alastor keeps trying to ban his technology from the hotel#but vox just sends charlie one of his pathetic expressions#‘but it reminds me of home’#and charlie folds immediately#allows him some installation of his screens in his own room#yeah I know this is unrealistic but shh#hazbin hotel#hazbin vox
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Random Ren/Redacted HCs
---Minors/Ageless blogs DNI---
CW: Mentions of gore and stalking
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Ren has his eyes and mind on you 24/7, on the days you stay home so does he. Whenever you go out, whether it's with friends or to run errands he's always trailing close behind; far enough not to be noticed, but close enough to protect his angel.
-If you ever have the misfortune of coming across a creep during one of your walks, he'll promptly drag them into an ally way and give them the ass whopping of a lifetime before they can do any harm towards you. Typically he wouldn't even allow those types of people to approach you, let alone gaze at you, but on the rare occasion that someone does cat call you or even tries to touch you he'll bash their head into some good ol' concrete; without you noticing of course.
On the days you stay home are probably his favourites, he gets to watch you all day, doing your morning routine, while you busy yourself with your hobbies, or better yet watch tv/your preferred streaming service. As you lounge on your couch Ren is watches you through the camera he installed in your living room. Meticulously watching each and everyone of your reactions. Whenever you laugh so does he, if you start to cry or tear up, so will he. His emotions are practically interconnected with yours.
-His PC setup isn't anything notable, despite the fact he has 3 monitors, the first one capturing you, the one next to it being all open tabs of all your social media accounts, and the last one being work related or his screen saver of you. He has a simple wooden desk with a gaming chair, no RGB- though, he might have one of those mouse pads with a character that eerily resembles you.
Whenever he works, he loves having you on his main monitor; it truly makes him feel like your there with him. If he's alone, which is most of the time he is, he'll find himself talking to himself. Each topic of conversation is always about you, he's either commenting about how amazing you look today, or praising you for the littlest things. In his eyes everything you do is nothing less than perfection.
-Although he has a playlist of his own he loves listening to any and all of your favourite songs, doesn't matter what genre it may be he's all up on that shi. Extra points if it's romantic. He'll go on a daydream about you, imaging you, how whenever you listen to the song you can't help but to think about him and how your chest tightens up at the mere thought of him; as he feels with you. He knows every song in your playlist and all the lyrics to your favourite songs. Maybe one day you'll notice him and make a playlist just for him.
This one is less serious but as mentioned before on the 14DaysWithYou blog Ren had a red room phase. Though it was short lived I like to image that while he was selling the parts he obtained totally humanely that he often added a thank you note and one of those cute freebies you get whenever you buy from an Etsy shop. The note reading "Thank you for supporting my small business. Your patronage means everything to me! (*^_^*)" ITS SO DUMB DJKSDUVI
-In canon, he is extremely apathetic towards everyone with the exception of you. Which also makes him extremely accommodating towards your needs, he knows all your struggles even if you haven't voiced them to him yet. He accepts you and your struggles, no matter how big they may be; he'll always find a way to help you. This could be helping you with work, making or ordering special meals for you or simply listening to you vent. Whether it's mental or physical to him your health and happiness is his main priority.
Which leads me to that while he may be exceptionally caring, he's also remarkably jealous, towards everyone and everything that catches your attention. Now, he would never do anything that will harm you, but he's not above harming or black mailing others that get closer than he's comfortable with. Could be a coworker or a friend that is getting a bit too friendly with you which will enable him to scour every crevice of the internet to find any dubious rumors or photos including them. He'll also hack into their phone and go through their internet history and photos for more evidence against them. He'll then DM them through one of his burner accounts and present everything he found and threaten to leak all their information on multiple threads. Moth watch out 😨
-If the subject of your affection happens to be an animal or a stuffed animal he obviously can't go through those lengths. Although he would get jealous if he sees you cuddling with your pet instead of him he knows that the affection you feel is different and will opt to plopping himself next to you and proceed to get extremely clingy. He doesn't mind sharing you with any of your non-human companions as long as he stays yours.
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I haven't wrote in a while so srry if there's any run-on sentences + it's late so SPARE ME. Again these are all headcanons and if you wish to find canon content of 14DYW visit here, as well as to remember and respect the creators wishes and boundaries ^^
Side note I plan on writing more so if you have any suggestions please let me know! I haven't made a list of my do's and don'ts but please don't get offended if I don't take your suggestion!
#14dwy ren#14dwy#14 days with you#14 days with you ren#14dwy redacted#ren 14 days with you#14 days with you fanfiction#14dwy x reader#yandere#yandere visual novel#please dont flop
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Mean Daddy // JTK
Characters: Jake x reader, twin boys
Warning: All Dad!Jake.
Author's Note: Once again I was inspired by Full House to create this small piece.
Summary: The time has come for Jake to put his foot down.
“No, no, no!” You hear Jake shout downstairs.
Quickly jumping off the floor of the twin’s bedroom, where you’ve been folding their laundry to put away, you quickly run downstairs to find Jake in the kitchen and holding each boy underneath his arms. They were covered in flour and laughing hysterically. Some of the flour even got onto Jake’s face and bits of his hair.
“Oh honey..” You say, stifling a giggle.
“This isn’t funny..” Jake huffs. “I thought we had the pantry door locked?”
You shake your head. “You insisted that they wouldn’t–couldn’t–figure out how to get the door open so we never installed a lock.”
“Well I was wrong..” Jake sighs. “There’s flour everywhere.”
“Babe, don’t you think now would be a good time to start..you know.”
Jake shakes his head. “They’re just toddlers, they’ll grow out of it. Like Josh and I did.”
“Jake.. They’re literally destroying everything they get their hands on.” You say as you take one of the boys from Jake. “Yesterday they broke Josh’s salt lamp, how was that even possible? Last week they busted Danny’s snare by stabbing drumsticks through the top, now they made a mess with the flour, what’s next? Terrorize Rosie?”
“Fuck.. Sam would have a meltdown.”
“I think it’s time, Jake. We can’t keep hoping that they’ll learn on their own. You have to put your foot down and punish them.” You say as the two of you carry the twins upstairs and into the bathroom.
“Do I have to?” Jake says as he sets one twin on the ground and kneels in front of him.
“Yes, Jake.” You say as you set the other twin on the edge of the sink and pull his shirt up over his head. “You can’t be a pushover anymore. When they do something wrong, they have to be punished.”
“Punished how?” Jake questions as he pulls the shirt off of the other twin. “I’ve never done that before.”
“It’s not hard, Jake. You put them into a timeout in their rooms. No toys, nothing fun. They can lay in their beds or on the floor but they’re not allowed to play.”
“That’s just cruel.” Jake says.
“It’s not supposed to be good.” You say as you carry the one twin over to the tub and sets him inside before running the water.
“What if they hate me?” He says.
“Jake, they’re two. They’ll be upset, sure but they won’t hate you.” You say as you take the other twin from Jake and put him into the tub. Jake sits on top of the toilet as he watches you fill a cup with water and pour it into each kids’ head. Each one giggles which brings a smile to your face. “They will learn that when they do something wrong, they will be disciplined for their actions. It’s all a part of growing up and learning how to be human.”
After bathtime, you two get the twins dressed in their PJs. Jake takes them downstairs to the living room to begin their bedtime routine. One movie of their choice. But that choice always happens to be the same movie since the first time you had shown it to them.
Peter Pan.
Jake didn’t mind. He loved it just as much as they did.
Once all of their clothes were put away, you got their beds ready before heading downstairs to the kitchen to make a couple bottles of warm milk. Going into the living room, you take one twin from Jake and hand a bottle to the other. Each one cuddles into your bodies as the beginning credits appear on the tv screen.
It doesn’t take long for the boys to fall asleep. You look over at Jake who looks like he’s nearly falling asleep himself. You smile and lean over, careful not to wake the tot in your arm, and gently shake Jake.
He hums and opens his eyes. “I’m awake.”
You stand up from the couch, cradling the twin in your arms. “Come on babe, let’s get the boys into bed.”
–
“I’m so glad you could make it to dinner tonight.” Karen says as she sets a bowl of fresh bread on the table. “It’s been a while since we’ve been able to get everyone together.”
All the boys grimace but everyone laughs.
Jake looks over at the boys who are holding their bowls over top of their heads. “Hey, put your bowls back down on the table.” You speak up.
“Come on boys, listen to your mother.” Jake warns as he shoots a look at the boys.
Just as quickly, both acquire a bold smirk and look at each other.
“Tommy, don’t you dare.” Jake says. “Put your bowls down.”
Tommy looks back at Jude and giggles. Jude smiles and drops his bowl behind his head. It clatters to the floor and spills the contents of green beans and sausage onto the floor.
“I’m so sorry..” You sheepishly apologize.
Karen smiles. “It’s no big deal, the boys did it all the time.”
Jake huffs. “No, it is a big deal.” He says before getting out of his chair. “Terrible twos feel more like torturous twos.” He removes Tommy’s bowl from his hands and sets it on the table. “Come on boys,” He pulls them out of their chairs. “We told you twice to stop.” They giggle as he holds them underneath his arms. “I’ll be back.”
He carries them upstairs to his and Josh’s old room and sets them on the floor. “Do you know what a time out is?” He says as he kneels down in front of the boys. Both of them shake their heads. “Of course, you don’t.. Okay.. A timeout is when mommy or myself put you alone in your room–or in this case–my old room, for you to think about your actions. Now what you did tonight was not a good choice and when mommy or myself tell you not to do something, you have to listen.” He leans back on his knees and rests his hands on his thighs. “So, you two will sit here in timeout until I come back for you.”
“Papa, play?” Tommy says looking up at Jake.
Jake shakes his head. “No playing. No fun. You two will sit here and learn that what you did was bad.”
Jude crosses his arms over his chest. Tommy sees and follows in suit.
“Mean daddy..” Jude huffs.
“Yeah, mean daddy.” Tommy says.
“Now boys..”
“We no like you daddy..” Tommy says.
“Yeah, you mean..” Jude chimes in. “Mean daddy..”
Jake closes his eyes and leans his head back. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He says before rising to his feet before leaving the room.
“So how’d it go?” You ask when he comes to sit back down at the table.
He shrugs his shoulders. “Could have been better.” He says.
You sympathetically rub his back and lean over to kiss his cheek.
But he sits there for most of dinner, pushing the green beans around his plate as if he were a little kid again refusing to eat his food.
“Dessert anyone?” Ronnie says as she comes into the dining room with Karen. They carry several bowls of ice cream and give one out to each other.
“I’ll save these two for the boys.” Karen says as she carries a couple bowls back to the kitchen.
You look over to Jake to find him still quiet. You reach your hand over to his thigh and give it a slight rub. He turns his head to look at you. There was a distant look in his eyes that made you realize how deep into his thoughts he was.
“Are you okay?” You whisper.
Jake nods his head. He stands up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me..”
He leaves the dining room and heads into the kitchen. He pulls open the freezer and grabs the two bowls of ice cream and carries them behind his back and sneaks upstairs.
Despite having put his foot down, he hated hearing those words come from his sons’ mouths. And he also felt bad that they couldn’t enjoy the ice cream like everyone else is. As he approaches the door, he hears your voice call as your footsteps come up the stairs. Panicking he quickly shoves the bowls inside of his shirt, slightly wincing from the frozen dairy sliding against his skin.
“What are you doing up here?” You ask as you approach him.
“Oh uh, wanted to check on the boys.” He says as he moves his arms around his torso to hide the bowls in his shirt. “Make sure they’re not tearing the room apart.”
“Mmhmm..” You hum, not believing him. “What’s inside your shirt?” You say pointing to the now wet stains on his shirt.
“What?” He looks down at his shirt. “Oh well, I–”
You reach forward, not allowing him to finish his subtle white lie. You reach inside his shirt and pull out the two bowls of ice cream.
“Now how did those get in there?” He says faking surprise.
You smile and shake your head. “You just can’t put your foot down, can you?”
Jake sighs and leans against the wall. “I did. I promise I did.”
“Then why are you sneaking ice cream up here?” You say through a soft chuckle.
“Because you didn’t hear what they said to me..” He says. He folds his arms over his chest, similar to how the twins did earlier. “I’m ‘mean daddy’ and they ‘don’t like mean daddy’.”
You stick out your bottom lip in a pout and rub your hands up and down his arms. “Honey, they don’t mean it. They adore you, Jake. They’re just upset because you actually punished them for their actions during dinner.”
“But it sucks hearing that.”
“Trust me, babe, it won’t be the last time you’ll hear them “not like you”. When they’re older and you ground them, it’ll be “hate” instead of “not like”.”
“Oh great.”
You smile. “Jake, they won’t mean it. It’s just anger but it’ll subside.”
“So what do I do now?” He says.
“Go clean up.” You say. “I’ll talk to the boys.”
After cleaning and going back downstairs to the kitchen, Jake grabs a couple of clean bowls and remakes the ice cream bowls for the boys. He feels two pairs of arms wrap around each of his legs and when he looks down he sees the twins looking up at him.
“We love you Daddy.” Jude says.
“Yeah, and we’re sorry too.” Tommy pipes up.
He bends down to meet them at their level. “It’s okay boys.”
“Are you still mad at us?” Jude asks.
Jake shakes his head. “No buddy, I’m not mad at you. I was never mad at either of you–just disappointed. When mommy and daddy tell you to do something, you have to listen. It may seem like we’re being “mean” but we’re not.”
“We know.” Tommy sighs. “Mommy told us the same thing.”
“We’ll be better,” Jude says. “We promise.”
Jake smiles and kisses both of their foreheads. “That’s what I like to hear.” He says before standing up. “Would you like some ice cream?” Both of their faces light up and he chuckles. “Go sit at the table and I’ll bring them to you.”
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Janitor!MC at NRC (a smut series)
Part 3: Idia, Rook, & Vil
>Minors and ageless blogs DNI<
Series Content: Noncon/dubcon, forced stripping, unsafe sex, public sex, coercion, somnophilia, forced to wear skimpy clothing, bondage and other BDSM things, forced eye contact, biting/hickies, blood, weird dick shapes, watersports, forced prostitution, gangbang, spanking, forced exhibition, breaking in to steal your stuff and fuck you, noncon voyeurism, choking, (may add more)
Parts: Crowley & Crewel, Ruggie & Leona, Idia, Rook & Vil (you are here), Floyd & Jade & Azul, Lilia & Malleus, Che'nya (and a possible bonus part)
All characters depicted are 18+
Idia
Those panties that showed up one day? They're from Idia, but you don't know that yet. In fact, you don't even know Idia exists! But he knows you, very intimately. This man has full access to all security cameras in NRC, which show him almost the entire campus. And, along with the security cameras, Idia has installed his own secret cameras in places cameras aren't allowed with some of the best microphones that come in such a small size. Crowley and Crewel's offices? Yep! The locker rooms? Yep! In every campus bathroom? Yep! In private dorm rooms? Yep! Idia is a pervert who's been invading the privacy of everyone on campus long before you showed up. He is getting close to almost having an entire terabyte of videos he's saved from camera feeds. Some of the videos he just thinks are entertaining or sometimes they're just secrets he wants to keep. But, most of the videos are just straight up porn. He has hundreds of hours of video of his fellow students changing and showering, pissing at urinals, masturbating, and fucking each other. He honestly knows more about the sex lives of his peers more than anything else about them. One of the reasons he's so awkward around his peers is because he's seen all of them naked and have jerked off to most of them. When you showed up, he started getting so much more footage, and it is kinky fucking footage. Every time Crowley has used you like a toy in his office, every walk and punishment Crewel gives you, Leona and Ruggie using you like a toy and urinal, all of it he has footage of. He has cum so much from watching you.
It doesn't take long for Idia to buy more cameras and decide to break into Ramshackle to hide cameras and mics everywhere in your living space and stole some of your used panties while he was there. There are multiple around your bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen to catch every angle he can. He's even designed a program that learns how to recognize and follow you from camera to camera. Idia has a seperate monitor just to display you on seperate screen on his setup. Your addition to the campus has meant a whole new routine for him as well. He may have an eratic sleep schedule and take naps instead of actually getting a full 8 hours of sleep, but, once he learns your general schedule, he is up and ready to watch you get fucked live. He knows when you go into Crowley's office in the morning and when you leave. He knows what days you clean what rooms. He knows when Crewel gives his punishments and the routes he takes whenever he takes you on a walk. He knows what time you tend to get back to Ramshackle, and he knows your routine when you get there. He watches you stumble into your dorm, cum painting you face and running down your legs, and watches you peel your uniform off and try to clean it. Then he watches you wash yourself, watches you vigorously washing your face and hair, and watches scoop all the cum you can out of your hole(s).
Eventually, he gets horny enough to break in again while you're asleep. Without having any real pajamas, you sleep nude under your blanket. Idia peels your blanket off of your form and pulls his dick out. Just breaking in and having you naked in front of him already has him hard with precum dripping from his tip. Cautiously, he moves closer to your sleeping face as he slowly strikes himself. He can feel your breath on the tip of his cock. It doesn't take long for him to climax, shooting ropes of his cum onto your unconscious face, as he bites his lip and draws blood. He knows he should leave before he gets caught, but seeing his cum painted on your face means his dick won't be going down anytime soon. He knows when you usually wake up, and he has plenty of hours before then. So, he keeps going, rubbing his cock on your lips and across your chest, spreading his precum along your body. When he cums again, he aims for your thighs and crotch, covering them with his cum. Though, he doesn't want you to find out about this, so he takes a small wet towel and cleans up the mess he made on you.
When you wake up, you're none the wiser. This goes on for a while. He breaking in every night, covering you and your things in his cum. You don't realize this for the longest time. Your panties are already covered in cum stains, so Idia adding more goes unnoticed. You don't notice the added flavor of his cum to the food you store in the fridge. You don't notice the cum he's put in your toothpaste and shampoo. And, you certainly don't notice all the cameras that record all of this. Idia doesn't really like to look at himself, but he has recordings saved of each time he breaks into your place. Videos of him cumming on you and in/on your things, and videos of you using and eating what he's cummed in/on. And, you have no idea he's doing this.
Though, some nights you don't even bother to shower. You're too tired, so you throw a towel on your bed before you pass out. These are Idia's favorite days. A little whiff from a potion guarantees you stay asleep and Idia gets to have his fun without having to worry about the mess he makes. He licks the cum off your neck and chest and sucks on your collarbone, leaving his own hickies alongside the ones you collected earlier that day. He licks the cum off your thighs and cleans your hole(s) with his tongue. He whines as he fucks that same/those same hole(s) and fills you up with his own cum.
With his ever growing collection of porn staring an unknowing you, Idia eventually decides to put together a little anonymous (that's very obviously him) website where he puts all of the videos up with his face blurred. The website becomes very popular at NRC with other people uploading their own videos of you. You notice there's an increase of people pulling out their phones when you walk by while they try to strip and/or grope you. There's also been an increase of random students cornering you in more secluded areas to use you, and it almost always gets recorded and uploaded. Most are satisfied with you just giving them a blow job, but sometimes a whole group of guys will corner you and use any hole available you have. Your maid outfit gets ruined again and again with stains and ribs that eventually Crowley decides on a new uniform for you to wear. Now you have to walk through the halls in nothing but your dog collar, a bra that's basically a bikini top, and a small apron that barely covers your crotch along with buttplug that anyone passing by can see.
Rook
Rook is your other stalker you know nothing about. In his free time, he simply follows you around, watching you work in your skimpy outfit, and it never takes too long for someone to decide to have some fun with you. Whether you are enthusiastic in letting other people fuck you are are begging them to stop and are fighting back, Rook loves to watch and hear the noises you make. He also attends your walks with Crewel, observing from a distance as he watches you get tugged around on all fours and are forced to lift your leg to relieve yourself. When Vil requests information on you, Rook records his observations and shares the videos on Idia's website along with Vil.
Rook is also very aware of Idia breaking in and using you during the night. Rook regularly watches Idia use you, and, once Idia is done and leaves, Rook uses you as well. Rook freely uses your holes and stuffs you full of his cum and shoots multiple loads on your body. He loves painting your face, chest, legs, just as much of your body as he can in his cum and leaving you to wake up like that. He has so many photos of you covered in his cum. He also likes fingerings you and giving you head and just watching you react in your sleep.
Rook is honestly at least somewhat nice to you though, depending on how you look at it. He actually wants to make you cum when he's with you and uses his nights with you to learn all your weak spots. So, when he corners you after classes, he has you cumming on his fingers in no time and cooing every time you do. It becomes commonplace for him walk up behind you while you're cleaning, spread your ass cheeks, and dive in, eating you out as he tastes the cum of everyone who's used you that day. If you're lucky, he'll decide to eat you out when there's no one around, but half of the time he'll decide to eat you out in a room where there's plenty of people watching you cum on his tongue. Either way, after eating you out he fucks one of your holes, one of his favorite being your mouth. He loves watching you gag on his cock as he fucks your face. Also, if others are watching, Rook will show off you body to others, spreading your legs to show off your genitals and encouraging others to fuck you because he likes to watch. He definitely adores making out with you and playing with your cock/clit while others use your holes.
Vil
Vil is absolutely disgusted by you, but also kinda jealous about how much attention you're getting, especially online. He makes sure Rook keeps tabs on you and keeps many of the videos Rook gets of you. He toooootally doesn't jerk off to those videos and totally doesn't watch the many videos of you online. He also hates your uniform and how his pants tighten when you walk by him wearing it. He hates how often he sees you walking around with cum and piss dripping out of you and painting your body. He's walked in on you getting fucked multiple times, sometimes by a single horny guy and sometimes getting gang banged by multiple people. Each time he looks at you in disgust as he watches you cum on cocks belonging to men you don't know the names of.
It does get to a point he can't take it anymore. He drags you off to a secluded location and just insults and berates you while one of his hands are wrapped around your throat while slaps your cunt/cock. Vil calls you things like "desperate slut," "filthy whore," "useless cumdump," etc. He would get more and more aggressive over time and just torture your body, putting clamps on your nipples and choking you with your collar, writing on your body how much of a slut you are, and tying you up in compromising positions and leaving you at the mercy of others. He does go on 'your' website to see a whole new slew of videos and pictures of you getting fucked. He goes about his day, hiding the hard on in his pants, until things die down and he goes to you again. Sometimes someone else has untied you and you're not there. But, when you are there, still tied up, he insults you more as he treats you roughly. He doesn't fuck you because "You don't deserve a cock like mine", but he does pull out his cock and piss on you because "It's the only way a whore like you gets cleaned up."
(This one turned out shorter than the others mostly because I wasn't sure what to write and it has been sitting in my drafts for a while. So, I decided to just post what I have instead of trying to do another rewrite.)
#twst smut#twst writings#dubcon#piss kink#twst x reader#janitor!mc#twst idia smut#twst rook smut#twst vil smut
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Reformatting (Scaramouche/f!Reader) pt. 2
this was written for @onesaltygoddess. thanks for coming to me with this dope idea! :^) this fic is based off the recent fan animations that you can watch here and some cyberpunk 2077 mixed in to flesh it out.
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AO3 Link
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Scaramouche/f!Reader - Cyberpunk AU
2,753 Words - SFW, future NSFW
(Reader is a synthetic/android, NSFW tags will be on appropriate chapter)
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Scaramouche inhales sharply, eyes opening as he instinctively flinches back.
Sifting through your memories to put them back together meant the occasional leaking of your data into his own. There’s no risk of mixing or damage to either of you, but he finds himself coming to learn an uncomfortable amount of information about their newcomer.
“E-10…” He murmurs, pointing his palm to your collarbone to light up the designation inked beneath your synthetic skin. Replaced and tossed aside, forced to look that replacement in the eye as you’re discarded. There’s little room for fondness in him, but he does feel some sort of sympathy for your plight.
Or maybe there is some kind of mixing happening that he’s not aware of.
With a sigh, he pulls his hand back and looks to the screens hanging from his hat. That was the end of all recoverable memories - and from his estimation, it was all the important ones, at least. What’s left is to unscramble your core operating system and rebuild your ICE. Maybe a little stronger on that last one, considering how E-models aren’t known for their ironclad security.
After all, what nefarious purpose could an E-10 model be used for? Spying, he supposes, but you’d be able to tell someone is rifling through your system before the intruder was able to get anywhere close to their objective. Then, it would be a matter of shutting yourself down temporarily to avoid it.
Ei wanted to be here when you woke up, but for now he can at least finish the repairs and leave you in a powered-down state. Behind your ear, he finds your slot - newly installed by Ei. The previous one had been jammed with the very chip that destroyed you in the first place, and removal caused irreparable damage to the port.
On his wrist, a slot of his own opens to reveal a little wire, and it extends to plug into that port. It lights up to signify the transfer of data, and he closes his eyes to focus on moving and installing your new operating system and security. It should be compatible with your hardware, more or less.
In theory.
Compared to the expression from your memories, you look far more serene when completely idle rather than the forced mask of contentment you’d been made to wear. Quietly, only to himself, he remarks that you look better this way. Unburdened, at least for a moment.
And when you do lose that expression, he’s not going to bother being around to see it. The notification pops up at the corner of his vision that all systems are functioning optimally, and with that in mind, he calls Ei to finish this off. Scaramouche disconnects from you completely, withdrawing himself from behind your security protocols, and doesn’t spare another thought.
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When you awaken, it’s not to the smell of rancid oil and burning plastic. There’s a faint tang of ozone in the air, and your nose scrunches for a moment as you take a moment to categorize the few things you can make sense of.
The bed is soft, but not overly so. The sheets are the right amount of scratchy, well worn from countless cleanings and regular use. Your mind works quickly, piecing together that you’re uninjured, that you’re clothed once more, that something feels… different. You’re oddly warm.
Cracking open your eyes, you look to a wooden ceiling, and that in itself gives you pause. Wood isn’t a common material anymore, requiring trips to the surface to obtain. And the window is open, allowing a breeze inside that doesn’t smell like dirt and mildew and must. It’s… floral, almost, and upon further inspection, the warmth in your body is coming from the light shining on you through the open curtains.
The sun.
Something is wrong. Pushing up onto your knees, you crawl closer to the window that your bed is pushed beneath and push it open more, leaning your head outside. In your mind everything is spiraling; piecing the series of events together in a surprisingly quick and cohesive way. It’s presented to you oddly, and you stare unseeing at the glowing ball of light in the sky as you realize you’re not the same as you once were.
Your fingertips dig at the ports behind your ear, feeling for the broken eject button meant to keep your employer’s chip safely inserted. But the shape of everything is all wrong - you’re meant to have two ports, not three. These ports are vertical from your ear, not horizontal as they’re meant to be. They’re slim and sleek, not bulky and visible.
“You have Scaramouche to thank for that. And many other things.” A voice calls from behind you, and you nearly hit your head on the window when trying to drag yourself back inside. The woman stands at the closed door, her back pressed to it and a disarming little smile on her face. You’ve seen that expression before, but it’s never seemed so comforting.
The woman takes a step forward, but not before reaching behind herself to flip the lock on the door. No one is getting in, but the room’s occupants could get out. Your shoulders relax, just a little, and her smile remains, if not a little bit wider. “You’re safe here. Safe, and free. How much do you remember?”
Free; what an interesting word. One that you thought of so often that it almost didn’t make sense as a concept. Who is truly free? You were bound by your origins, the chip, your employer. Your employer was bound by greed, the city below was trapped by prejudice and racism.
And yet, had any of them felt the sun before? It beats against your back through the window, and your eyes shut for a moment as you just… feel. The sun, the wind, the softness of the bed beneath your knees. The ports behind your ear that are blissfully empty. Your mind runs more quickly and cleanly than it ever has.
You are still yourself, but somehow in the span of time since you’d been wiped, you’ve become more. And you think you like it.
Ei is her name, and she listens patiently as you walk her through the last memories you have of E-11 and how she’d held you as your body convulsed in her arms before going dormant for what you’d thought was the last time. Occasionally she’ll needle for other things, and you think she might be testing your memory.
Your designated model number E-10, or the tenth version of the Entertainment doll line. Your name, the only one you’d been given. E-10 was all you knew, all you had. If somehow you had been given a name by your prior employer, or whoever created you, it’s been lost among the corrupted bits of your memory that even now you can’t salvage.
It’s common knowledge what E-10s are skilled in, but Ei asks you anyway, like she’s inquiring about another human’s talents. Something in your chest tightens, your cheeks burn and your eyes grow watery as you lay it out in a way that doesn’t seem as if it’s been read from an owner’s manual.
A few names are thrown around. Raiden, the one who saved you and was created by Ei. Albedo, an L-13 model that is not under the control of the corporations and governing bodies. And Scaramouche, another of Ei’s creations and the one who pieced your mind back together after it had been crudely mishandled.
Unlike the others, you don’t see hide nor hair of Scaramouche.
At first, Ei’s only request is that you recover. That you come to terms with where you are and who you are, now that you’re not under the shadow of another. It’s difficult at first, and you find yourself struggling with agency and independence when there’s no longer someone to dictate everything about your life.
But you acclimate. You learn. You’re given an electronic keyboard to play music if you’d like, but no one demands it of you. Somehow, you enjoy it more when it’s a secret little sound for yourself. Raiden visits and brings you little flash drives of reading resources and materials to create art if you so choose.
And when all of that has become something less tainted with the memories of your life before, you finally have the time and mental capacity to be angry.
It’s a new emotion for you, one that you don’t know what to do with beyond pacing your room and tugging at the hem of your shirt until it begins to fray. Ei, ever practical, has a solution for this as well. One morning after a night of restlessness, Raiden takes you to what amounts to a training room, and she asks you to hit her.
You do, and she lets you, and you end up hurting yourself far more than you hurt her. But she doesn’t laugh at you for it, nor does she belittle you, but instead she dedicates her spare time to teaching you to mold anger into something more useful. How to curl your fist and follow through on a punch, the best way to break from a chokehold.
Eyes are on you, but you’re never quite sure from where. Sometimes it’s a distraction - times like now when you’re using one of Raiden’s spears to spar with her, dodging and dipping between her lightning-fast attacks, never quite trading blows. The spear acts as a base, one that you can plant firmly into the mat below and swing yourself around it for a quick kick that doesn’t connect.
Landing leaves you vulnerable, and her palm pushes between your ribs with enough force to knock you to the floor below. The wind is taken from your lungs, just for a second, and you stare at the ceiling and try to catch your breath.
“You’re getting better,” Raiden says, squatting next to you to lift your shirt and examine the mark that’s surely going to bruise, “we’ll keep at it. Don’t worry.”
It’s hard not to. And you tell her this, but she only gives a sympathetic smile in return and tells you that your ribs aren’t damaged at all. Training is done for the day, and despite her offer to help you up, you wave her away and decide that your place is right here for now. Flat on the training mat, looking up at the dusty wooden rafters and wondering what sort of tree that they were made of.
There’s a tree outside the sliding doors to the courtyard. A big thing that looks like it’s ancient, with leaves on long hanging strings that nearly brush the ground. If you go inside, you think it would block out the rest of the world, and that sounds awfully nice sometimes. You’re getting better in more than just fighting, but sometimes it doesn’t quite feel that way.
Somewhere above your head where you’re laying, the door to the room opens and the newcomer freezes. Then, in a voice you don’t quite recognize, “You’re still here.”
“Still here.” You confirm, craning your head back to look at them upside down. Immediately, you already know this must be Scaramouche. The similarities between himself, Ei, and Raiden are impossible to ignore. Maybe his hair is a little darker, and his eyes a different color, but the features are close enough that you’d be a fool to miss them.
The door slides shut behind him, and with completely silent steps, he enters the room with you. Stopping near your head, he looks down his nose at you and finally says, “Raiden said you’re making progress. Doesn’t seem like it.”
“If you’re doing something right, then it doesn’t look like you’re doing anything at all.”
“Mhm,” He crosses his arms, expression carefully neutral but you’d be remiss to not catch the air of derision. Vaguely, you wonder what you’ve done to offend him so, but never voice it with how he continues, “What do you hope to accomplish? E-10s aren’t built for combat, not like an L-13. Raiden is sparring with you as if you are a child.”
“I’m just trying to be helpful-”
“Helpful. Right.”
Lips turned in a scowl, you look up at him. And he looks down at you, and not for the first time, you’re unsure how to navigate this. So you do what you’ve been doing and just ask. “So what should I do, then? If I’m a fuck-up at fighting, then why don’t you teach me something valuable. Mr. Know-It-All.”
“And waste my time? Sure, because I have plenty of that to spare. Get real.”
God, he’s rude, but you push yourself to sit up, then up onto your knees as you level him with the same stare you’d given Raiden when asking to learn what she knows. “It’s not a waste. Try me. You’ll see. Unless you think you’re not good enough to be a teacher.”
Scaramouche’s eye twitches, his hands tighten against his arms in their crossed position, and you know you’ve won the first battle.
#mind the a/n for content tags#fic#fanfic#fanfiction#genshin#genshin impact#scaramouche#scaramouche x reader#scaramouche/reader#cyberpunk au#reader insert#x reader#f!reader#afab reader
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Regulatory Relations, chp. 13: The Children of Tarsus Redux
Hello everyone!! I hope you're having a happy Threshold Day!! Here is the big ole honkin monster of an installment for Regulatory Relations that has taken over my whole brain.
social media dry january was so much easier last year when i wasn't actively in a fandom. i just want to look at star trek memes so badly. see you all in two days!!!
Some things:
thank you so so so so much for reading. the response to this fic has been so joyful and supportive.
this story has gotten deeper and darker than originally planned, so I've officially changed the rating from "archive warnings not needed" to "graphic depictions of violence".
on that note: this is The Tarsus Chapter. content warnings for descriptions of violence, starvation, and death.
i wrote a song about Kirk and Kodos post-Tarsus :) if you're into that sort of thing I've reblogged it to this blog and the link is available here.
☆☆☆
At first, everything was dark. His room, the bed beneath him, even Spock’s hand in his--- all of it had vanished, replaced by the warm black nothing. He could not feel his body. He was not sure if he had one, here. But then he heard his name.
Jim?
Hello, Kirk said, or thought, and he sensed something that felt like Spock out in the darkness. It felt like his dry humor, his curiosity, the fierce energy of him coiled into waiting stillness. Can you hear me?
Yes, Spock said, and he sounded--- felt--- closer now. Are you in discomfort?
No, Kirk said, after a moment. But it doesn’t feel like the other times we’ve melded.
I guided your mind through what was necessary in previous circumstances. Here I have created space for you instead. Kirk felt the gesture of Spock’s mind, sweeping out around them. What you show me, I will see.
Cautiously, he thought of somewhere to start. Kirk cringed in anticipation of the nausea, the choking panic, but it did not arrive. He was uncomfortable, unhappy, flayed out and vulnerable, but he could physically continue. The Iowa farmhouse appeared, rippling out in vibrant color from the point that he thought he inhabited in this strange in-between space. The faded white wood paneling, the wide porch with the swing and its rusty chains, the windbreak row of trees, and the cornfield, stretching out as far as Spock’s mind allowed, were replicated as faithfully as if they were physically there. And then they were; Spock materialized at his side as his own body appeared beneath him.
Spock looked around. Is this where you were raised?
Yes, Kirk said, and as they watched, a child with sandy brown hair flung open the screen door, flounced down the stairs, and vanished into the cornfield. An older boy came out more slowly, accompanied by an adult woman with the same sandy hair. They talked on the porch, staring in the direction that the younger one had gone.
That was me, he said quietly. This is the beginning, I suppose. He had laid out in the cornfield for hours, watching the clouds pass through the sky as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes into the dirt beneath him. Kirk closed his eyes and pushed the memory forward, and when he opened his eyes again the sky had darkened and Jimmy was trudging out of the cornfield back to the farmhouse. He wiped the back of his nose with his forearm and let the screen door swing shut gracelessly behind him.
Akin to the strange logic of dreams, Kirk and Spock stood in the kitchen of the farmhouse without having moved. Jimmy sat at the wooden table, arms crossed protectively across his chest, as Winona Kirk pulled brochures out of a Starfleet-issue duffel bag.
“I don’t want to go to Mars,” Jimmy said.
“You don’t have to,” Winona soothed.
“I want to go with you and Dad.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Winona said. “For this posting, that’s just not an option.” Jimmy crossed his arms more tightly across his chest.
“Can’t I stay here?”
“Not by yourself.” Winona found the brochure that she had been looking for, the glossy paper reflecting the warm light and fluttering with the movement of the ceiling fan, and pulled the chair out next to Jimmy. “Look at this one,” she said quietly, and placed the brochure on the table in front of him. He turned away, staring out the window over the sink. “It’s not like Sam’s school. It’s all hands-on, all learning by doing. You’d get to be on a farm, just like here, with other kids. Dad and I could come visit you when we get leave.” Jimmy kept his gaze locked on the window, and Winona stood after another silent minute. She kissed him on the forehead and exited. When she was gone, Jimmy turned to the brochure. He frowned at it, but he picked it up and opened it.
Kirk knew what came next. He had been enchanted against his will by the promise of the experiential Farm School, and it would become his home for two beautiful years.
I wish I could just show you the good things, Kirk said. There were good things, too.
I believe you, captain, Spock said. Show me whatever you need.
Kirk crossed to the table where Jimmy--- his younger self, and it was hard to remember that he had ever been so young--- sat, flipping through the brochure. He looked down at the shiny pictures. They didn’t do it justice. I just need--- I need you to see what I saw. I think that’s what all this is about. Spock crossed to him, standing next to him, and even in the meldspace Kirk felt the comfort of his presence.
Kirk laced his fingers through Spock’s and remembered.
☆☆☆
Tarsus IV was the fourth planet in a small system in the middle of nowhere, Beta quadrant. It was Class M, with mostly mild seasons, and by the time Jimmy arrived, it was populated with eight thousand others, entirely human. It was not a highly developed colony; humans had only been there for twenty years, and it was technologically delayed--- no replicators, no transporters, only one government-owned high-speed comms relay to the rest of the Federation. Those who lived there were agriculturalists; scientists and farmers looking to conduct their research or make a living selling crops to the traders who passed through on their way to the further-flung starbases. After Jimmy had set his narrow shoulders, gritted his teeth, and taken the brochure upstairs to his parents, they had bought him a physical copy of a traveler’s guide to Tarsus IV. He read it back to front, over and over, until the spine crumbled in his hands and they replaced it with a digital copy on his padd. Six months after he had stormed from the kitchen and into the cornfield, the shuttle containing a newly twelve years old Jimmy Kirk touched down on Tarsus. He was met at the shuttle pad by two women in their twenties. Their names were Madeleine and Natalya, and, as Starfleet Academy graduates who had elected to take elementary teaching posts instead of a commission on a ship, they were impossibly cool and rebellious to a child whose parents rarely spent more than eight months anywhere. They took him to Farm School, where he was given three rough-spun jumpsuits to wear on outside days and a tour of the grounds. There were fields, a big house that doubled as a cafeteria and dormitory, a school building with classrooms and a gymnasium, and a contingent of laboratories built for little scientists with child-sized hands.
“Do you know what you might want to study?” Natalya was tall, blonde, and strong, and she and Madeleine both had been science track at the Academy. She led Jimmy through the different buildings, wandered through a wheat field with him, and then took him to the highest point on the campus so he could look out and see the sprawl of Farm School and the town beyond.
“Everything,” Jimmy said. For the first time in his life, Jimmy was judged by his own actions and interests and not by the reputations of his family. He could raise his hand in class and be called on by a teacher who had never taught his brother. He could take extracurriculars in engineering and make mistakes without being asked, “Didn’t your mom explain this to you?” He could shadow his tutors and tell them that he wanted to be a scientist without any of them assuming that he would be a captain, like his dad. For almost two years, he learned and grew and made friends with kids who cared more about his first name than his last.
For almost two years, he was happy.
Jimmy’s second summer on Tarsus IV was the driest on record. The swimming hole where he and a few of his friends spent most afternoons after their classes were over had shrunk considerably since the spring. The sudden thunderstorms that he had grown accustomed to the previous year were few and far between.
In late August, when they were on a break from their classes, Jimmy snuck into the patch of field that they had given him for his summer project to check on his crops: a small growth, only a few square yards, of yellow corn. He had hoped to have enough to make cornbread for his classmates once it had all reached peak sweetness. He walked slowly though the fields, brushing his palms carelessly over the purple amaranth that was his friend Laika’s project, one eye on keeping his feet in the walkways and one eye on the clouds above him. The formerly teal-blue sky had darkened considerably, and though he didn’t mind the rain, the teachers got nervous when any of them were out in a storm. The soil of Tarsus had a considerably higher metallic content than Earth, and they weren’t keen on testing the survival rate of lightning strikes on the children in their care. He walked faster.
His corn had grown to the right height, but as he brushed his hands against the stalks, they bent in a way that was unfamiliar. He frowned. He had spent the first twelve years of his life running through farm fields; he had long understood the way that the laws of physics exerted themselves on the stalks of late-summer corn. The stalks moved ponderously, with less structural resilience than he was used to. The ears swung heavily and drooped down more than he had expected. Jimmy reached out and grabbed one, thinking to pull it off the stalk and peel back the silk to peer inside, but he froze when it landed in his palm. Rather than the bumpy firmness of corn, it felt as though there was goo trapped inside the shell. He hefted the mushy ear in one hand and poked at it with a finger. His finger left an indent, meeting virtually none of the expected resistance. A single drop of a deep, metallic, mercurial blue liquid oozed out of the top and dropped to the soil below. He dropped the ear, and it hung morosely from the stalk, dripping blue ooze onto the dirt.
Jimmy turned and ran for the safety of the main house as the sky broke open above him. By the time he got inside, Natalya was standing in the foyer with a towel for him.
“My corn melted,” he said, confused, dripping rain onto the pale wooden floor.
“We can check it out when the storm is over,” she said, scrubbing his drenched hair with the towel. But it was movie night, and one of the littlest kids got overtired and set off a giggling fit that derailed everyone’s attention, and by the time Jimmy laid down in his bunk bed he had forgotten about the corn entirely.
Ten days later, during their first class after the break, Madeleine took them outside to check on their summer projects. Jimmy had fallen to the back of the group, play-fighting with Tommy, when they heard a dismayed scream from the front.
Laika wailed, “What happened?” She knelt in what remained of her amaranth. The proud purple bushels had veered decidedly towards blue and lay in mushy puddles, the flower heads shedding off the stalk in her hands.
“Laika, don’t touch that, get out of the mess,” Madeleine said, and stepped away from the group to flip her comm open. She said something quietly into it, out of Jimmy’s hearing, but her face, normally split by her wide smile, was pinched with concern. Laika stood, wiping the remnants of her summer project off her hands and the knees of her jumpsuit, and frustrated tears glinted in her eyes.
“My corn,” Jimmy realized, remembering, and took off running. He heard Madeleine shout behind him, but he couldn’t hear what she said and therefore didn’t have to listen. He skidded to a halt in the dirt after a few more seconds anyway, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The stalks still stood, half-bent, and the ears were still attached, in the loosest sense of the word. But whatever might have been growing inside had melted out, dripping down into the soil into noxious blue puddles.
Madeleine appeared over his shoulder and gaped at the oil spill that had been his summer project. “Let’s go, Jimmy,” she said, and steered him away, back towards the main house. They passed Natalya, standing with their biology teacher, Mr. Park, and the chemistry teacher, Mr. Lopez, talking next to the remains of the amaranth. Madeleine took them all inside and they played dodgeball in the gym until they were released for the afternoon. After dinner, Jimmy and some of the older kids played cards in the dorm until Madeleine called for lights out, and even Laika was pulled out of her mournful shell to play with them by the end of the night.
That was the last normal day.
One of the best parts of Farm School had been the food. There were no replicators on Tarsus, and Jimmy didn’t like the fake chemical aftertaste of most replicated food anyway. They bought food from the town and the other farmers, and got shipments from the traders that stopped through every month or so, but the majority of what they ate came from the farm itself. Over the next two weeks, the farm-grown food stopped appearing at mealtimes. Halfway through September, Natalya pulled all of the older children, thirty or so out of the one hundred at the school, aside before dinner.
“I think we all know that it was a very dry summer,” she said, and one of the boys started sniffling immediately in the back of the classroom. They had known that something was wrong after all their summer projects had died horribly, but Madeleine still showed them old Earth movies when they scored well on math tests and Natalya had taught the more flexible kids some of her gymnastics moves. The school schedule had marched on, and so, they had reasoned, things couldn’t have been too bad. But now Madeleine was here, her wide smile replaced by an unfamiliar strict line, talking to them without the littles present. It became impossible to ignore the changes that they had silently agreed not to discuss.
“Please, do not worry. We will take care of you. We’ve already talked to the governor, and help is coming, but until it arrives things are going to have to be a little different.”
The older kids voted to join the teachers in hiding the worst of the situation from the littles, and though it was not mandatory they joined the teachers in accepting limited rations to give the littles the last of the fresh produce. Jimmy sent a holo of his lab station to Sam with the caption, “still cooler than math school!!” and a message to his parents that said, “i miss you.” Over the slow civilian comms relay that the school had, neither of his messages would be received for a month at least. By then, Madeleine had said, Starfleet or one of the trade ships would have arrived and things would be back to normal. But it made him feel better to know that his messages were out in space, soaring from beacon to beacon towards his family.
“Summons from the governor,” Madeleine said cheerfully when she woke up the boys in Jimmy’s dorm room on a morning in late September. “Personalized invitations, too! Jimmy, your parents aren’t in the quadrant now, are they?”
Jimmy yawned, stretching, the morning sun warming the room through the white linen curtains. “Nope,” he said, half-asleep. “They’re still in Delta for a while, I think.”
Madeleine hummed, but she tapped something on her padd. “You and Tommy are coming with me and Natalya today.” Tommy hung his head down from his place on the top bunk.
“Me, too?”
Madeleine ruffled his hair, fluffy with gravity. “Better dress nicely. No holes in your jeans.”
“But they’re cool!”
“You say that now,” Madeleine said. “And in thirty years you’ll look back at holos of yourself and say, why was my clothing falling apart all the time?” She chucked him on the back of the head gently and left them to get ready. They rose, and dressed, and breakfast was sparse but Natalya snuck them each a cup of coffee and it helped to cut the hunger.
Farm School was on the side of a mountain, set above the main town, and its farmland was surrounded by forest. Someday, Jimmy thought, more people would live here, and there would be less forest, and Tarsus would feel less isolated from the galaxy as a whole. But he was glad to live here now, because Mr. Lopez sometimes led them on hikes deep into the woods to identify each of the birds by their song, and it was easy to forget that there was anyone else in the universe at all. Madeleine and Natalya led their parade of fifty down the hill, down the packed dirt road from Farm School that would meet the paved road that led into town. It was a familiar road; when there were holidays, or after the harvests, the governor’s office would put on festivals and the students would run down the road in packs of four and five to spend their credits on sweets and new books and clothing. The littles skipped between them, holding hands, but Jimmy and the other older kids didn’t want to waste their energy, not when they’d have to walk back up the hill in the autumn sun later.
They followed Natalya and Madeleine to the town hall. There was an auditorium there, in a drafty old hall towards the back of the brick building, where sometimes the local players would put on shows or traveling troupes would stage concerts. Today it would be nearly at capacity--- it sat almost five thousand people, and it was over half-full already. Madeleine narrowed her eyes at the presence of the governor’s security force, wearing their forest green uniforms, lining the walls and standing at the entrances, but she led them into a few rows near the back of the hall where they could all sit together. She and Natalya talked quietly with their heads close together while Laika pulled a deck of cards from her back pocket and dealt Jimmy and Tommy into a game of ratscrew. One of the littles, Kevin, stood over Tommy’s shoulder and asked too many questions, and two others, Ellie and Mira, slid themselves into Laika’s lap when it became apparent that Madeleine and Natalya would not be distracted from their conversation by their pleas for attention. The game devolved quickly from there, but the littles could be convinced to play Go Fish instead of the faster slapping game as long as the older kids pretended that it was cool. The other kids had distracted themselves similarly; a padd with books, a holofilm between two girls sharing a set of headphones, one of the younger kids with his ever-present sketchbook. The auditorium filled up around them, until the enormous wooden doors banged shut and Madeleine pulled them all to their feet to pay attention. The crowd fell silent.
A small door to the right of the stage opened, and the governor stepped out, flanked on either side by his green-shirted guards. Jimmy had seen him before, at the winter festival and harvest celebrations. He had wavy silver hair, and uncannily light brown eyes that Jimmy could see flashing in the stage lights even from where he stood in the back. Governor Kodos climbed the stairs to the waiting podium, and with a nod to someone offstage a microphone buzzed mechanically to life.
“Good morning,” he said, and gazed solemnly at them. “I appreciate every one of you taking the time to join us here today. It was short notice, but the community we’ve built here never shies away from pulling together for each other, does it?” Madeleine and Natalya exchanged glances over the heads of the kids lined between them. Madeleine rolled her eyes. Kodos continued, but Jimmy had a hard time focusing on his words. The auditorium was hot with the trapped body heat of four thousand others, and he wished that they had all sat before Kodos started talking. His attention drifted.
“...grateful for the sacrifices you have made thus far, and grateful for all those to come,” Kodos said. Madeleine’s head snapped up, and her eyes met Natalya’s. Jimmy saw, in the laser-focused line between them, that they had heard something that he had not, and the skin on the back of his neck crawled. Around them, the quiet listening stillness of the crowd shivered into an animal intensity, a predatory waiting. Natalya glanced around, and a muscle twitched in her jaw. She and Madeleine passed something invisibly, silently, through the air between them.
In the space between one breath and the next Jimmy watched as his teachers shed their masks of civility to reveal iron ferocity beneath. They might have been science track at the Academy, but they were still soldiers. The crowd’s discontented energy began to boil over. Natalya grabbed one of the littlest kids, hefted her into her arms, and marched straight at the nearest guard, standing in front of an exit. Madeleine swept backwards as she shoved Jimmy towards Natalya and the door.
“Start walking,” she hissed. “Get the littles, get to the exit, and get out!” Jimmy turned, on autopilot, and shoved at Tommy’s shoulder. Madeleine doubled back to push the second row of students towards the door, putting herself between them and the guards lining the back wall.
“Move,” he whispered to Tommy, and they shuffled towards Natalya and the guard.
“She had an accident,” Natalya said, smiling. “Excuse us. I need to change her before it starts to stink.” The little girl in her arms hid her face in her neck under the scrutiny of the guard. Their line bunched behind Natalya as the crowd behind them started to yell out.
“Quiet!” Kodos’s voice boomed out through the auditorium, and for a moment everything went perfectly still. “I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, governor of Tarsus IV.” There was one heartbeat of pure silence.
A phaser whined and discharged on the other side of the room. Someone screamed. Then five, seven, twelve other phasers fired. Bodies dropped to the ground. The crowd surged forward, out, away from the guards or towards them, yelling and crying out. Natalya kicked her guard in the knee, grabbed for his phaser as he fell, and shot him point-blank. Even as two other guards from the back of the auditorium ran towards her, she shoved the auditorium door open, revealing the cement hallway beyond.
“Go!” Natalya roared in pain as she staggered forward, a phaser burn eating through the shoulder of her jacket and revealing the muscle fiber beneath her scorched skin. She shoved the little girl in her arms at one of the older kids pushing by and turned, raising her phaser. As Jimmy passed through the doorway, running after Tommy, his heart in his throat and the cacophony of phaser fire filling his ears, he turned back--- to look for other kids left behind, or to look for Madeleine and Natalya, he wasn’t sure. He saw the bodies of his classmates, unlucky enough to have been in the last row and in the direct line of fire of the guards lining the back of the hall, curled together on the floor by their seats. Madeleine was sprawled over them, covering them, unmoving. There were piles of people, twisted together in awful ways, in front of the guards still holding phasers. And at the head of it all, Kodos onstage, hands clasped together, watching over the scene with a terrible calm.
The last time he saw Natalya, she stood in the open doorway between her fleeing students and the advancing guards with a half-charged phaser in her hand, blood dripping down her useless arm from the hole in her shoulder.
She screamed, “Close the door!” as she fired at one of the guards. Jimmy grabbed the door and slammed it shut, and he felt the reverberation of impact as something--- phaser discharge or Natalya or both--- hit it from the other side. He backed away, watching the door, but Natalya held the line. The door didn’t open. He turned and sprinted in the direction that Tommy and the others had gone as muffled screams faded behind him.
The backstreet behind the town hall was bizarrely, unsettlingly quiet. Natalya was gone. Madeleine was gone. Half of the students that they had come down with, maybe more, had been lost to the chaos in the auditorium. As Jimmy pulled the last door shut behind him, he saw Laika’s little gasp of relief. There was a question in her eyes, but he shook his head. There would not be anyone coming out behind him. They were on their own. Jimmy wound through the crowd to stand with her and Tommy, brushing his hand over the head or shoulder of a sniffling little as he passed through them.
“We can’t stay here,” Laika whispered, and she glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Where…?”
“We have to get out of the town,” Tommy whispered back. Jimmy stared at the plain white door that separated them from the slaughter in the theatre. He saw Madeleine sprawled protectively, uselessly, over the bodies of his classmates, Natalya’s broad shoulders filling the last doorway like she could protect them all. His heart thudded painfully against his ribs. Inside his head, he was screaming and screaming and screaming, but it didn’t come out. He felt his soul splitting into two. One part of him shrieked and beat his hands bloody against the white door. The other part was as cool as porcelain, utterly disconnected from everything he had seen, unfeeling but for the desire to stay alive, to keep the last of his friends alive.
“We’ll go through the woods,” he said. Laika and Tommy looked at him, but he couldn’t meet their eyes. The white door burned in his vision. “We probably know the forest around Farm School better than anyone else. If we get into the trees we at least won’t be seen. Then we can go home and find Mr. Park and he’ll know what to do.” He finally looked at his friends, and when he met their eyes, they nodded.
“Hold hands,” Laika said. She raised her voice slightly. “Ten and ups, grab a little. Buddy system.” Their little crowd--- only thirteen of them left, out of so many more--- shifted, reaching for each other. Jimmy felt like his bones were vibrating with the effort of keeping himself steady, but a tiny hand slid into his, grabbing onto three of his fingers with a chubby grip and anchoring him. He looked down.
Kevin stared up at him with enormous brown eyes, and it was the first time that Jimmy had ever seen him at a loss for words. He squeezed, feeling the fragility of the younger boy’s hand, and settled his shoulders back, the way he’d seen his dad do, the way Sam did. If they could get back home, then Mr. Park or Mr. Lopez would be able to fix this--- whatever was still fixable. All they had to do was get home. They could do that.
“Ready?” Jimmy’s mind shut everything else out--- his own screaming, the white door, Natalya’s bloody braid, the bone of her shoulder--- except for the only thought that mattered, singing through him in time with his heartbeat: get home, get home, get home. Laika nodded. Tommy nodded, gripping the hands of twin girls who had only arrived on Tarsus a few months prior. “Let’s go.”
They ran down the back alley that stretched along the back length of the auditorium, and their footfalls echoed eerily in the silence after the deafening phaser fire. Laika, who had arrived on Tarsus before any of them and knew the town better, took the lead. They followed her sure, quick steps, and she zigged down another alley that would take them out of the town, away from the main road, into the forest. Jimmy could feel the effects of a month of rationing in the burn of his lungs and heart, the empty energy of his cup of coffee making him jittery on his feet. When Kevin lost his footing on the uneven stones, Jimmy hauled him up onto his back and stumbled on.
It was as Laika led them onto the narrow plain between the edge of town and the start of the forest that they heard shouts behind them. Jimmy whipped his head back, searching for the source, and the flash of a hunter green uniform made his stomach leap into his throat. “No, no, no, no, no,” he whispered, in time with each footfall, and sprinted as hard as he could after Laika and the others. Kevin’s arms were clenched around his neck, and he could hear the younger boy’s muffled cries against his neck. He was almost across the plain, almost to the safety of the trees, when he heard the whine and discharge of phaser fire. He flinched to the side, but he was still on his feet. He was still running. Phasers discharged again and again, and the dry grass around him caught fire as he ran haphazardly towards the trees, trying to make them both a moving target.
Jimmy flung himself and Kevin behind the trunk of the closest tree. Pieces of bark exploded around him as phaser fire hit the other side. Jimmy slid Kevin from his back, pressing him to the ground.
“Are you okay?”
Kevin nodded, eyes wide and face completely blank. Jimmy thought that his own face might have looked the same. He wanted his parents--- but, no. If he thought about them, or the farmhouse in Iowa, he would never survive. He couldn’t think about anything but getting to Farm School with the littles and finding Mr. Park. Far-off phasers fired again and again, but his tree still stood. He looked up, and Laika was there, and Tommy and two other littles.
“Where is everyone else?” Jimmy’s voice was hoarse, scratching against his dry throat. His lungs still burned from the exertion of their flight. Laika’s eyes flicked reluctantly over his shoulder, out to the bare stretch of earth behind him. He dared one look over his shoulder. There were a handful of the guards from the auditorium, their pursuers, pacing the outskirts of the town with rifles in hand, and a trail of seven little crumpled bodies between the last of the buildings and the first of the trees.
Jimmy’s stomach heaved, but nothing came up. Stomach acid burned his throat. Tears stung his eyes. He heard a thin wailing, coming from Laika. He didn’t think she was aware that she was making noise. He closed his eyes and let the stony, unfeeling half of his brain take over.
“Get home,” he said, and Laika stopped wailing with a hiccup. “All we have to do is get home. We can do that.” He took Kevin’s hand in his again and held Laika’s gaze, before holding Tommy’s. “We’ll get the littles home. Mr. Park will know what to do.”
For a moment they stared at him, and Kevin sniffled. But then they nodded, and Laika turned to look at the sun before turning back to the woods.
“You know the way best,” he said. Laika loved to go birdwatching with Mr. Park. She had spent almost every weekend wandering through the woods, even when it was cold or rainy. “You can do this.” She nodded again, and she took the hands of one of the littles, and she led them up the mountain. Far from the main road, every step took them deeper into the trees until they couldn’t hear any sound but the wind through the reddening leaves and their own unsteady breathing.
They walked for two hours, taking a meandering route as Laika cast nervous glances in the direction of what Jimmy thought was the main road. As the sun started to slide down towards the opposite horizon, Jimmy caught her eye.
“All good?”
She chewed her lip nervously, glancing over his shoulder, but then her eyes snagged on something. She nodded decisively and pointed. Behind him, high up in an enormous tree, was the Farm School treehouse. “We’re close,” she whispered, and she led them on.
Farm School was as silent as a grave when Laika led their pack of six through the back entrance to the campus. They glanced around, but there was no one in sight.
“Maybe they’re hiding,” Tommy said. “Should we split up to look?”
“No,” Jimmy and Laika said, in unison. Jimmy shook his head as Laika said, “We should stay together.” Tommy nodded, and redoubled his grip on Mira and Ellie’s hands.
“Big house first,” Jimmy said, and they scuttled across the campus, through the empty fields. The grass had been trampled down, and any remnants of the ill-fated summer projects had been ground underfoot. They slipped into the main house silently, through an unlocked backdoor. The big industrial kitchen was empty, with the cabinets and closets thrown open like someone had rummaged through.
Jimmy pushed ahead to cross into the cafeteria, but Laika slowed, considering the empty shelves. “Someone took everything that was left here,” she said. “I don’t think the teachers would have done that. There’s not even salt left.” She was right, but there was nothing else they could do. They continued on.
There was no one in the big house. Not even bodies. Half the students had stayed behind that morning; those who hadn’t received a specific invitation to the day’s event. Jimmy’s brain reared back from the implications of that idea, and he put it from his mind. One thing at a time. They had gotten home. Now they had to find Mr. Park.
But he wasn’t in the big house, and he wasn’t in the classrooms or gymnasium. Jimmy turned in a circle under the dying sun, considering the shadows sinking over the campus. “The comm system is in the labs. It was in Mr. Park’s office, I think. Maybe he’s there.”
Laika nodded. She and Tommy looked at each other, and Tommy said, “I’ll stay with the littles in the big house. We’ll be in our room. You guys go look.”
Jimmy opened his mouth, ready to stop them from separating, but Laika shook her head, almost imperceptibly. They left Tommy with the littles and stole across the darkening campus to the laboratory building.
“I thought we said we weren’t splitting up,” Jimmy hissed, as they pushed open the door into the building. Laika considered him for a minute before she said, “Just in case there’s something we don’t want the littles to see.” Jimmy’s stomach dropped.
The labs were as silent as everywhere else was, but Jimmy’s ears still rang with the echoes of the phaser blasts. They tread carefully, fearfully, but every lab was empty. Mr. Park’s door, at the end of the central hall, was ajar when they reached it, and they exchanged uneasy glances. Mr. Park was quiet, and private, and his door was never open. But the comms unit--- an enormous, outdated, clunky thing compared to the sleek Starfleet one that Jimmy’s parents had kept in their Iowa house--- was on a table within.
Laika pushed the door further open. Jimmy crept in first. There was no one visible, but the comms unit was on. The front screen emitted a soft green glow. Jimmy approached it and tapped the playback button.
Mr. Park’s voice, harsh with his labored breathing, filled the room. They both jumped. “This is Lieutenant Commander Ashton Park, retired, sending an SOS from Tarsus IV. Something--- ah--- has gone terribly wrong. At first it was just a food shortage--- they said it was some fungus, but it was nothing I’d ever--- god! I’d ever seen.” Mr. Park’s breathing grew heavier, his breath hissing between his teeth. “Kodos has the only real comms relay, and he said he called for help, but I don’t think--- I don’t think he did. I don’t think anyone’s coming. And they took the kids. God, his guards took the kids. They had a list.” Jimmy turned to look at Laika, horror building in his chest, stealing his breath, but she wasn’t looking at him or the comms station. “He’s doing something. Kodos is up to something.” Mr. Park wheezed horribly, something wet rattling in his lungs. “This is it for me, but if anyone’s out there, monitoring any of these frequencies… get to Tarsus as fast as you can. While there’s still anyone to save. Park out.” Jimmy turned around to look where Laika was looking. A pair of dirt-stained work boots and two denim-clad legs poked out from behind Mr. Park’s desk. Laika shook her head, mouthing, “No, no, no, no,” and Jimmy grabbed her by the arm, towing her backwards.
“We have to get out of here,” he said, and she let him turn him from Mr. Park’s body and away from the office. Jimmy left the comms relay on but shut the door behind them.
“We can’t stay here,” he said, as they crossed back to the big house. “Some of the guards saw us running. They’ll come back for us.”
“The treehouse,” Laika said. “We’ll take the camping stuff and stay there. We can--- there’s probably some stuff we can still forage, at least for a few weeks, and drink from the streams. We can stay out there until help arrives.” Jimmy nodded.
“We can keep the littles safe. That’s what Madeleine and Natalya would do,” Jimmy said, and Laika’s lip trembled, but she nodded too.
The sun had set by the time they returned to the big house. They told Tommy what they needed to do, took all the camping supplies that they could carry, and left Farm School behind. As the six survivors headed back into the woods, towards their treehouse, their former home receded into shadow and was gone.
The four in-between weeks were fuzzier in Kirk’s memories than the beginning and the end. Most of the days blurred together in a mess of hunger and sleep, of stripping the bark off of trees with a knife and digging out the soft wood inside to eat; of telling the littles that collecting acorns was a game and whoever found the most would win; of the bright sharp days after stealing something worth eating from the town when they were brave or dumb enough to risk getting caught by the guards who still hunted runners on the streets. Kirk let most of those memories spin by them in blurry streaks, waiting for the memories of the days that mattered.
There was the day that the littles were too weak to climb the rope ladder anymore, and the big kids were too weak to carry them up. Jimmy packed up their sleeping bags and iodine tablets and tossed them down out of the treehouse, and Laika led them to an old animal warren that she had found while scavenging. Whatever large creature had created the den in the roots of the tree was long gone, and they crawled down into it gratefully. If Jimmy was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure how many more times he could have made it up the ladder before eventually falling--- the exertion made him dizzy, and his hands were too weak to grip the rope ladder. The den was more dangerous than the treehouse had been--- closer to town, closer to the ground, and every once in a while they heard deep voices of adults echoing through the trees. But they didn’t say so out loud.
In the beginning, before there was only the hunger and then the numbness, Laika and Jimmy and Tommy had harsh, whispered conversations about trying to save their classmates. What had they been taken from Farm School for? If terrible things were happening to them, shouldn’t they try to help them? They had no weapons, no help, no way to fend off an army of Kodos’s murderous guards if they tried to free their classmates, but talking about taking action kept away the urge to lay down and die.
Then, three weeks after the massacre, Laika came back with one expired can of sweet potatoes and a haunted, ragged look that Jimmy hadn’t seen on her before. He dragged her down into the den, catching her when she stumbled on her feet. Tommy leapt up to grab her other arm, and even with both of them holding on she trembled so badly that Jimmy thought she would vibrate out of her skin and into a puddle. They set her on the ground, used one of their hunting knives to wedge the top of the can off, and split the meager amount between the six of them.
“I saw Gemma,” she whispered, later that night. Jimmy sat, back against the wall of the warren, watching the tunnel entrance. Tommy lay with his back to it, one of the littles curled up against him for warmth. Laika sat cross-legged between them, no longer shaking but with a thousand-yard stare that seemed to burn through the wall of their safe hidey-hole, like she could see all the way back to the town. “There was a house with all the doors open, and I could see the kitchen… I thought I might get in and out, that there was no one inside.”
“Gemma was in the house?”
“Her parents live here,” Laika said dully. “Or, lived. They were all dead.”
Tommy closed his eyes. Jimmy said, “Starved?”
But Laika shook her head. “I don’t think so. They didn’t have food either, like I thought they might, but there was something else wrong with them. Their skin was all gray.” Jimmy shivered. “I looked everywhere, but that was all they had,” Laika said, lifting her chin at the now-empty can. “But they weren’t going to eat it.”
They sat in silence, listening to the quiet rustling of the trees outside, until Tommy unscrewed the lid to one of their bottles of stream water and offered it to Laika. She shook her head. “I drank enough out of their faucet,” she said.
“Fancy-pants,” Jimmy said, and he took the bottle when Tommy passed it to him. Laika laid down where she had been sitting, between Tommy and the wall, and Jimmy squeezed both of their hands before moving to lay between the littles and the entrance to the den. His bones pressed uncomfortably against the ground, but he curled up next to Mira and Ellie and fell asleep.
Jimmy woke up a few hours later. It stunk of warm skin, of sickness and rot. The earth was hard beneath his body. It felt like his hip bones, his tailbone and shoulder blades, each of his knobby vertebrae, were pressing a bruise against the inside of his skin where they rested heavily against the ground. It was mostly dark out, no sunlight to illuminate the rabbit-warren tunnel, only the faint light of a waxing moon providing any visibility. The shadowed bodies of his pack lay alongside him in gentle repose. He counted them off: one was him, two was Ellie, three was Mira, four was Kevin, five was Tommy. At six, he jerked to a halt. Something wasn’t right. Before he was aware that he was moving he had scrambled across the dirt to her: Laika, her brown hair a rat’s nest of dirt and leaves, unmoving.
“No, no, no,” he whispered, and shook Tommy’s shoulder. “Tommy, wake up!” Her unnatural stillness had caught his attention: now that he was next to her, he could see more clearly the graying waxy pallor of her cheeks and lips, the immobile smoothness of her eyelids. Tommy woke with a jolt, rolling over immediately. He pushed himself up with one hand and shook Laika with the other.
“Hey,” he said, his voice growly with sleep. “Wake up.”
Jimmy grabbed her other shoulder, shaking her, the other hand coming to rest against her gaunt cheek. “Hey. Laika. It’s not funny. Wake up.” But Laika did not wake up. Her eyes did not open. Her chest did not rise.
“Jimmy, what happened?” Tommy whispered.
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said, disbelief raising his voice high like one of the little’s. “I just woke up, and I saw that---” He gagged, overwhelmed by the smell of dirty skin and death, sickness and rot. “Laika, wake up!” God, he was so tired, and so hungry, and there were only five of them now, and what would they do without her? She had been so brave, had stolen for them, had known the woods and the way around town better than anyone, and now she was so still and silent, and they couldn’t drag her back from wherever she had gone without them. He closed his eyes, and the cold, analytical half of him rose up and drowned the half of him that cried out at how unfair it all was.
“We have to move her,” Jimmy whispered as Tommy whimpered to himself, hand still mechanically rocking Laika’s shoulder.
“What? No! Why?” Tommy whispered back.
“We can’t let the littles see her like this,” he said.
“Where are we going to put her? We can’t bury her!”
“Down the mountain. Near the town. They won’t notice another body.” Jimmy hated the words as they came out of his mouth: practical, useful, awful. He wanted to lay down next to Laika, close his eyes, and follow where she had gone. But he couldn’t--- not with Tommy and the littles still here. Not with his last holo to Sam and his message to his parents still soaring through space. Tommy sniffled, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and nodded. Jimmy nodded back and shoved Tommy gently. Tommy got up, stepping carefully around the sleeping littles, and gingerly picked up Laika’s ankles. Jimmy wormed his hands under her shoulders and bent his arms under hers, picking her up off the ground. They backed up to the entrance and Jimmy went as slowly as he could, arms burning with the strain of Laika’s weight, until he felt the cool air of the night outside of their den on his back.
Together they carried her down the mountain in the worst parade of two Jimmy had ever been a part of, and they left her on the outskirts of the town. Tommy kissed her forehead and cried. They held hands as they stole quietly back to their safe hole. They crawled back inside, each refusing to let go of the other’s hand, and fell asleep curled together.
When the littles woke up the next morning, and Jimmy pulled them all into the circle of his arms and told them that Laika wasn’t coming back, they were too tired to cry. But he felt their shoulders deflate, sinking further into themselves, and he held them closer. Tommy leaned against him, keeping Jimmy from tilting over, and their broken family of five slept most of that day away, letting the sun rise and set without them.
The next day, Tommy left them in the den to scavenge acorns. He came back as the sun slipped down below the horizon, staggering with exhaustion, his empty, distended stomach painfully visible as he held his bounty in the bottom of his shirt like an apron. Using two rocks and all the strength left in their arms, he and Jimmy cracked them open and scraped the meager meat out of the shells to distribute between themselves and the littles. The underbrush had died with the changing of the seasons, and Laika had held most of their knowledge about what plants were edible. Without her, they would have to survive on acorns and tree bark and water.
The morning after that, Mira cried and wailed and refused to open her eyes, curled around herself. Ellie moaned in sympathy, and Kevin sat next to them and talked incessantly about anything that came into his mind, just to distract them. But his eyes were dim and glassy, and more often than not his sentences trailed off before he finished them. The morning after that, all three littles refused to sit up and curled together with heavy-lidded eyes.
“I’m going into town,” Jimmy said. For a second, it seemed like Tommy would argue with him, to ask him to stay. But in the end he just nodded and pulled Mira against his chest, rocking her side to side. Jimmy left them like that. If Laika was right, and something other than starvation was killing the colonists, there might be something left for them to scavenge. He would find it and bring it back to them, and the littles would sit up and talk to them, and they would survive another few days.
The leaves had begun to fall from the trees. If he had counted the days correctly, and there was no guarantee that he had, October would start soon. Last year, that meant harvest festivals and a gourd that was certainly not a pumpkin but could be carved like one to be set out on every doorstep. Gemma had won the carving contest--- but he wouldn’t think about Gemma now. He dragged his legs, step after step, down the mountain to the town.
He didn’t see another living soul, but the bodies of the colonists were everywhere. On their front stoops, laying behind houses, on the main street, their graying, decaying corpses bloated and stinking. Some of them looked emaciated, their skin shrink-wrapped to their bones. But Laika had been at least partially right: not all of the dead looked like they had starved. Jimmy felt the knobs of his own knees knocking together as he passed the grayish-blue body of a man who looked like he should have been in the peak of health, except for the fact that he was dead.
He stole from doorway to doorway, peering around corners, moving as quietly as he could. But for the first time since the day in the auditorium, he didn’t see the green-shirted law enforcement agents prowling the outskirts of the town, nor guarding the waist-high iron fence that circled the governor’s house. He ducked around another corner, closer to the center of town, and stumbled over a pair of legs in dark pants.
He reared back, his heart in his throat at the forest-green jacket on the torso, before he registered the sickly gray pallor of the body’s skin. This guard looked like Jimmy imagined he did; sunken cheeks, deep circles under his eyes, and the bones of his knuckles jutted out of the skin like mountains. “Not even guards get fed,” he muttered to himself, and he felt a savage relief that those who had not been sacrificed, who had done the sacrificing, had not been spared the horrors that they had endured. He moved to continue onward before pausing. The guard’s phaser was still tucked into his holster.
Jimmy held his breath and bent over the body. It was stiff, unmoving, as he reached with shaking fingers to unclip the strap and slide the phaser out. He watched the body nervously, but it did not awaken to grab him. He glanced at the settings on the phaser, but he didn’t know what they meant, so he left them as they were and stuck the weapon in the waistband of his ratty jeans.
He had only taken one step away from the body when there was a crackle. He spun, horrified, but the guard still hadn’t moved. The crackling noise came again.
“My chosen ones,” Kodos rasped. His voice came through an ancient portable radio, clipped on the other side of the guard’s belt. Jimmy froze as that voice pierced through the fog of hunger and exhaustion, lighting up his brain with fear and anger. Why had so many people died, why had Laika died, and Kodos still got to live? Kodos coughed. “The grand experiment must end here. There is no path forward. Forgive me.” He wheezed again, voice quieting. Jimmy hunched next to the corpse and the radio, ears straining. “If anyone is out there, heed me. We must burn it down.” He reeled back.
“Burn it down. Destroy the evidence. Cleanse this place.” Kodos coughed, and then the crackle of another radio breaking through the static interrupted him.
“I hear you, sir,” someone else’s voice muttered, weak and ragged. “I can do it.”
“I owe you… a debt of gratitude,” Kodos said. Then the radio went silent. Jimmy froze on his haunches, consumed by his anger, replaying Kodos’s message in his head. Then something clicked, and he staggered to his feet. Blood dribbled slowly back into his weak limbs, but he forced them into movement. He turned back the way he had come and heaved his starving body back home. Kodos had called to burn it all, and someone had responded.
It had been a dry summer. It hadn’t rained in weeks. His friends were in the woods.
Lungs aching, muscles cramping, swollen stomach pinching in pain, he ran. Against the wishes of every bone in his body, he ran as hard as he could, straight down the center streets of the remains of the town, back towards the den and Tommy and the littles. He had to warn them. The woods were going to light up like a matchstick after the summer they’d had. They couldn’t have starved and survived for so long for Kodos to kill them like this, impersonally, anonymously. Madeleine and Natalya didn’t die in the auditorium so that Kodos could have the final word. Jimmy broke from the town and sprinted flat-out for the cover of the woods.
Stealth didn’t matter anymore. He screamed, “Tommy!” He sucked in huge, gasping breaths as his stomach threatened to rebel and his legs cramped and his knees ached. “Tommy! Get up!” He staggered through the woods, his vision going black at the edges as his body tried to collapse, but he shoved himself up and kept going, screaming for his friend.
Finally, up ahead, the enormous tree that had sheltered them--- and from the roots of it, an addled Tommy and littles emerging into the sunlight.
“Jimmy?” Tommy rubbed one eye, dizzy in the sudden brightness. “What happened?” Jimmy opened his mouth to respond when they heard it. Further up the mountain, something snapped and popped, then rustled, then roared. The fire caught.
“Run,” Jimmy said, grabbing Kevin and swinging him onto his back as Tommy grabbed Mira and Ellie’s hands. “Run!” His body protesting every step, his spine bending under Kevin’s weight, Jimmy and Tommy fled. Something cracked, and a hot gust of wind pressed them forward, singeing their hair and burning their backs. Mira started to cry. It was still somehow better than her half-dead silence from that morning.
“What---?” Tommy gasped out, footsteps pounding in time with Jimmy’s.
“Kodos,” Jimmy spat. “Fire.” Tommy moaned with fear, but when Ellie stumbled at their speed he hefted her onto his back. Behind them, the woods that had been their shelter and salvation erupted into an inferno. The flames caught the few leaves that hadn’t fallen and spread in a crown fire over their heads as they pelted out of the forest. Out of the corner of his eye, Jimmy could see it racing down the hill, almost even with them. Tears streamed down his face from fear and the smoke, which caught in his lungs, stung his skin. He could see similar tracks running down the dirt on Tommy’s face.
They had the littles. They had each other. They broke from the cage of the treeline as the fire leapt at their heels and caught in the dry autumn grass of the open plain between them and the town. The grass blazed up immediately, and Jimmy’s legs, his hips and back and shoulders burned with it. Tommy cried out and swung Ellie up too, away from the fire, her screams drowned out by the roar of the crown fire above.
Ahead, there was one patch of unburned safety that Jimmy could see. He cut towards it. “The road!” Tommy followed him, coughing as he ran, and they covered the distance to the hard-packed dirt as fast as they could. They staggered onto the dry earth as the plain behind them sparked and hissed.
Mira moaned, and the pathetic little sound broke through Jimmy’s panic as the pain of their exertion set in. He let Kevin slide to the ground, and the friction of the little boy’s clothes against his scorched skin was like being burned all over again. Ellie had gone very, very pale, the only shock of color on her skin the angry red of her legs and feet.
Tommy wobbled, and Jimmy grabbed his elbows, keeping him upright.
“Stay with me, okay?”
“It hurts, Jimmy,” Tommy said, and Jimmy didn’t dare look down over his shoulder to his back. His clothes were sloughing off of him, destroyed. Kodos couldn’t have him like this.
“Just a few steps more,” Jimmy said. He took Kevin’s hand in his and gently picked up Mira. “Can you walk with me? Just a few more?” Tommy wavered on his feet, but Ellie slid her hand into his and he nodded.
“It’s just a little further,” Jimmy said. “Then you’ll feel better.” There was a reservoir on the other side of town; even the farm’s irrigation system had been hooked up to it. Jimmy had never prayed as hard as he did that moment for there to be water in the reservoir still. Step by excruciating step, he led them down the road for the first time since the massacre day. Tommy fell silent and his eyes sometimes slid shut, but he held Ellie’s hand and walked on. Jimmy lost the feeling in his legs, but Mira let him put her down after a few minutes and she limped alongside them. The fear of guards or Kodos never really went away, but they didn’t see another living being on the road. The fire burned on the other side of the town, its roar muted by blessed distance and halted by the paved roads. Minutes later, or maybe hours, he was peering over the stone lip of the reservoir. The drought had done its damage, but there was a few blessed feet of water within. He found the stone steps leading down into it.
Jimmy walked the littles down into the water. They stood still and quiet as he stripped their burned clothing away from them before stepping into the water with them. Then, once they were carefully ensconced in the water where it was shallow enough for them to stand, he stripped his own clothing away. The phaser he had stolen, somehow still in his jeans despite his pell-mell flight, got dropped on top of his pile of clothes along with his t-shirt before he followed the littles into the water. He didn’t know if it was clean, but he couldn’t bring himself to care: it was cool, and there was enough to stand in, and it felt like heaven. Tommy’s clothes dripped off him, shredding as he pulled his shirt over his head, and his back was a mess of dirt and singed skin. But he sloshed into the water, eyes closing in relief, and the five of them drifted as the fire burned itself out on the other side of town. Smoke billowed overhead, clouding the teal sky with the angry black smog of organic matter. The ash fell like dirty snow. They still didn’t have anything to eat, but they filled their bellies with water, and it almost felt like being full. As the sun slipped down behind the horizon, they piled together on the day-warmed terrace steps and slept.
A high, distant droning woke Jimmy from his restless sleep, early the next morning. It wormed into his dreams, filling his mind, before his subconscious recognized it and he jolted awake. Kevin tipped away from him as he shot upward, scrambling for his jeans. Tommy’s eyes opened slowly.
“Where’re you going?” His words were slurred, but Jimmy didn’t have time to wait for him to wake up. If he was right, it wouldn’t matter.
“Shuttle!” Jimmy grabbed the phaser and his t-shirt, jabbed it into the waist of his pants and dragged it over his head. “I’ll be back!” His whole body felt alight with something he almost didn’t recognize--- hope, a hope so big that it hurt to breathe. He sprinted up the terraced steps, cocking his head to one side and scanning the sky as he ran. It was just past daybreak, the true teal of the sky still warming up from the inky black of night. He ran towards what he thought was the source of the sound, straight up the road from the reservoir towards the town. Maybe he could shoot the phaser in the air and get the attention of the pilot? They had to be looking for the colonists: whether it was a trader or a rescue shuttle or even just a random traveler, they had to be looking for the people who lived here. It must have already landed; he didn’t see anything in the sky. He followed the high humming of an active engine through the town square, past the cursed town hall, past the burnt husks of houses unlucky enough to be built from wood instead of brick. The land to his right was scorched black earth, ash as far as the eye could see. Eerie black fingers of burnt trees reached for the sky. He tore down the road towards the song of the engine.
“I’m here! I’m over here!” He hollered as loud as he could until his throat burned, but he didn’t see anyone. There was no movement, but the roar of the shuttle was growing so loud that it was vibrating the air around him. A shuttle meant people. People meant help.
Jimmy skirted the outer fence of the governor’s house, running along the northernmost edge. His hand brushed the iron of the latticework, and it trembled with the force of the engine. It had to be closer. He passed the back edge of the house and skidded to a halt.
The governor’s backyard was an enormous expanse of burnt grass and bushes, and parked in the center was a black shuttle. As Jimmy’s heart pounded and he cried out in outrage and disbelief, he registered three details in stark relief.
The first was that the Kodos’s guards had exchanged their hunter-green uniforms for black ones. Two of them held up a sagging gray body between them, and a third circled them with a plasma rifle in hand.
The second was that the shuttle door was open, and a fourth guard leaned out of it, reaching for the body.
The third was that the body was staggering to its feet, lifting its head. It was Kodos. He was alive. His horrible uncanny eyes were alight in his gaunt and crevassed face.
This was a mistake. This had to be a mistake. Help could not have arrived for him, after what he had done. What about the littles? What about Tommy? What about him?
He screamed out, “Hey!” The procession of guards and the devil himself paused, all four of their heads turning to look at him. “Help us!”
Time slowed as the guards looked at him, on the other side of the fence, then looked at each other. Jimmy grabbed the fence between them, shaking with the force of his hope and disbelief, and watched as they looked away from him and kept walking.
They kept walking. They were going to put Kodos on the shuttle and take him away and leave them here. Fury like Jimmy had never felt before rose like a tsunami within him, drowning out all reason and leaving only the knowledge that Kodos did not deserve to be rescued from the ruins of the colony that he had destroyed.
There was a phaser tucked into the back of his jeans. The cool metal of the barrel dug into his back. He took it out and, like he was shooting skeet back on the farm with Sam, sighted along it. He saw Kodos’s fine gray hair and craggy face on the other side.
He fired.
The head of the nearest guard snapped up at the whine of the weapon. He locked eyes with Jimmy and, without hesitation, stepped directly in front of the bolt of energy meant for Kodos. Jimmy watched in frozen horror as the phaser fire hit the guard and tore him open. He spun and dropped to the ground. Kodos glanced blankly at the body on the ground, just another sacrifice for him, and allowed the guard in the shuttle to grab his arm and haul him in. The guard with the rifle pointed it directly at Jimmy.
He had shot at Kodos and missed. The shuttle and the people on it weren’t going to help them. Jimmy stood his ground, phaser still raised, and glared at the guard, refusing to look at the rifle aimed at his head. He was going to die, but he was going to do it without flinching. In his periphery, he saw the last guard drag the body of his comrade into the shuttle. The blood from the wound glinted against the dirt in the early-morning sun.
The other guard came back around and pushed the barrel of the rifle down. “Leave it,” he said. “Look at him. He’s almost dead anyway.” With a final sneer the rifleman turned away. They swung themselves into the black shuttle, and the door slammed shut behind them.
Jimmy watched numbly as the shuttle lifted off vertically, soaring higher and higher until it was just a black dot against the blue sky. Then it was gone. He looked down again, and saw the blood of the man that he had killed drying on the hard-packed earth.
He threw the phaser as far as he could away from himself and, turning from the scene of his violence and failure, vomited up all of the water left in his stomach. He leaned back against the sharp metal of the fence and slid to the ground, staring blankly at the blackened edge of the prairie beyond the town. He didn’t know how long he sat there for before Tommy’s voice broke through his reverie.
“What happened?” Tommy was shaking him, panic on his face, and Jimmy felt guilty. He had meant to go back to them, but he couldn’t seem to shake the whine of the phaser out of his ears. It was hard to hear anything else over it. The littles hovered over his shoulder, their drawn faces pinched with worry.
“Nothing,” Jimmy said, with a glance at the littles. He coughed, stomach acid burning in his throat, and let Tommy help him up. “I think this house is empty now, though. Let’s see if there’s anything in there to eat.”
“Isn’t this the governor’s house?” Tommy dropped his voice low as the littles straggled behind them in a line. “You don’t think he’s…?”
“He’s gone,” Jimmy said, and his own voice was rough and unfamiliar.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Jimmy said, and glanced down at the littles as Kevin snagged two of his fingers in his weakened grip. He led them into the empty house, and they walked quickly past the rooms where the bodies of guards decayed on couches and seated against walls, until they arrived in an enormous kitchen. It seemed to be made entirely of ceramic and aluminum, with two huge ovens set into the wall and a stovetop built directly into the counter. It was so different from the industrial-sized kitchen at Farm School, which managed to feel warm and cozy despite being built for mass production. This kitchen was cold and clinical. They opened all the cabinets and drawers, finding only utensils and pots and pans, before Tommy noticed a narrow door set back in a corner. He opened it, and revealed stairs leading down into a darkness that smelled like soil and rot. They both looked mistrustfully at it.
“I’ve got this one, Jimmy,” Tommy said finally, and left him standing in the kitchen with the littles. Jimmy continued to open cabinets and drawers, finding nothing but kitchen utilities, until Tommy climbed back up the stairs, wiping his hands on his already horrible pants.
“It’s awful down there,” Tommy said, but he clutched a can in his hands victoriously. “Like the summer projects all over again. But I did find this.” He wiped oily blue smears off the label, revealing a label for baked beans that had expired the year previous. They heated the beans up in a pot on the stove, reveling in the warmth from the electric burner, and the five ate directly from the pot with wooden spoons, just because they could. They dumped the pot and spoons in the sink without cleaning them.
They scavenged through the house, stealing blankets and pillows off of couches that were unoccupied, and found a room that didn’t stink too badly of decay--- a sunroom near the back of the house, through the windows of which Jimmy could see the flattened, desiccated grass where the shuttle had been. As the littles slept, their bellies not empty for once, Jimmy told Tommy, quietly, shamefully, what he had done. The sun was setting by the time he finished.
Tommy considered what he had said, turning the embroidered edge of a blanket over in his hands. Jimmy picked at the burned skin on his hands and tried not to think about the blood against the dirt.
Finally Tommy looked up, eyes flashing in fading light, and said, “Fuck ‘em. He probably deserved it.” Something in Jimmy’s heart unclenched. He and Tommy fell asleep facing each other, with a roof over their heads and the littles between them.
He awoke the next morning to shouting and movement, adults in red and blue and gold swarming into the room with phasers and comms. Jimmy flung himself upright, crouching over the littles, baring his teeth at the intruders before he recognized the familiar uniforms.
“Oh, my god,” the closest Starfleet officer said, a whirring tricorder in her hand. “You’re alive.”
The memories of the next month were a blur of pain and space. Jimmy and Tommy and the littles were beamed up together to the U.S.S. Valiant, where they were poked and prodded and tied to biobeds with IVs of fluids and nutrients. They were scanned with every machine in Medbay, it seemed, while the doctors spoke quietly to each other and refused to tell them anything about what the scans said. Not a single one of them stopped shaking for the first seventy-two hours.
After living feral for a month, adjusting to the sterility of a starship was excruciating. The littles screamed shrilly when Jimmy or Tommy were out of their vision. Jimmy ate a meal from the replicator and threw it up immediately. Tommy had to be sedated and restrained after the doctor tried to put him in the metal box of the dermal regenerator for his back. They refused to sleep apart from each other, and the whirs and beeps of the unfamiliar ship made it impossible to pretend that they were in their treehouse or the den. Jimmy whispered to Tommy that he was afraid of Kodos coming to find him, and Tommy held his hand in the dark of the room that they all shared. Under the harsh lights of the starship and after the dirt and blood and soot was washed away, their skin was an unhealthy gray, and every day medical staff took their blood and patted their heads and made nervous eye contact when they thought the children weren’t looking.
In the end, the captain and the first officer told Jimmy and Tommy, it was Lieutenant Commander Ashton Park’s last desperate call that got the Valiant to Tarsus in time. Kodos had never used the government relay to call for help, not even when the harvest first started dying.
Then there was the journey back to Earth. Tommy and their littles were shipped off to what remained of their families, and no one would tell Jimmy where they went. Jimmy’s own parents were waiting for him when he got to Earth. A week after he arrived home, Sam kicked his hospital door open and set up shop next to his bed while he slowly ingested three months’ worth of nutrients through an IV and finished regrowing his skin. Every night, he woke up screaming Kodos’s name, and his parents looked nervously at each other, and Sam stopped going home with their parents and instead dragged a cot into Jimmy’s hospital room.
Then Dr. Johns replaced the familiar Iowa family doctor that he had been seeing. Jimmy confessed that he wasn’t sleeping, couldn’t bear to be the only person breathing in a room, and he told Dr. Johns that all he could think about was Kodos coming back for him.
“Kodos is dead, Jimmy,” Dr. Johns had said kindly, reading the screen on the machine hooked up to Jimmy’s arm.
“You found him?” Jimmy sat up so suddenly he got dizzy, the hospital room swirling around him. Dr. Johns gave him an odd look.
“Governor Kodos died on Tarsus, Jimmy. In the fire that claimed everyone else.”
“No,” he said. “No, he didn’t. I told you, and I told the doctor on the Valiant. There was a shuttle! It came and got him!” Dr. Johns sat on the edge of his bed and pushed him back against the headboard with a gentle hand.
“Please, calm yourself,” he said. “You are very upset. You survived something awful. It is only natural that your thoughts are confused at this time.”
“I’m not confused,” Jimmy had insisted. “I know what I saw. And he got out.” Dr. Johns had a conversation with his parents outside his hospital room, and through the little window set into the door he saw his mother stare haughtily out the hallway window as his dad wiped a hand across his devastated face. Sam held his hand and said, “I believe you, Jimmy.” But Sam couldn’t convince their parents or Dr. Johns, and then Jimmy woke up from the same awful nightmare to find his old friends from his elementary school in Iowa standing behind his mom with balloons. They sat around him as he tried to sit up straight and felt the weakness in the muscles along his spine, and then after a painfully awkward hour they left, and he did not see them again until he started back at school the following year, when he only had to check in at the Dr. Johns’s clinic once a week for blood testing and dialysis. They said hi, and they signed each other’s yearbooks, and Jimmy skipped the school dances and football games and a lot of his classes to climb up to the roof of the high school and stare at the stars instead.
Then he got to the Academy, and he met Elise.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on you,” she said to him during their first meeting, her eyes twinkling. “We knew you were going to be special.” He talked about Kodos and Tarsus, and it helped, until it didn’t. She taught him how to hide the parts of him that the IVs and dialysis and dermal regenerators didn’t fix. He met Bones, and made friends, and he was surrounded by people who didn’t know where he had been and what it had done to him, and he was happier than he’d been in years, despite the nightmares and the panic attacks and the grief. He missed Tommy and the littles, but Elise said that she’d checked in on them and that they were doing well, and at the Academy he got to learn by doing and experimenting for himself the way he had at Farm School. Then he’d graduated, and worked his way up the ranks despite the ceaseless fear that Kodos would hunt him down someday, and eventually he became a captain and was given the Enterprise. The ghosts of Tarsus lived in him, but he had bricked them behind a wall that got thicker and thicker with every passing year.
It wasn’t until he had gone and fallen in love that he had been forced to reckon with the fact that he still carried those ghosts at all.
☆☆☆
The memory-stream faded, leaking away into the abyss. Kirk stood in the black of the meldspace. His whole soul ached with grief and remembrance, but there was a clarity to it. There was still a wound in him, one that had healed poorly, but in the telling, some of the rot in him had been finally cleaned away.
Jim, Spock said, and it was with a slight jolt of surprise that Kirk remembered that he wasn’t alone. Spock’s voice was ragged. I grieve with thee.
Kirk bowed his head, and he sensed Spock’s mind curled around his, protective, comforting.
I will take us from the meld now, Spock said. You will rest. And then we must talk about what you showed me. The rough edges of Spock’s voice were smoothed over as he reasserted his control, and Kirk felt a flicker of unease at his words. He had tried to convince the rest of the world that Kodos had escaped, and had failed each time. But then Spock said, without preamble, I believe you, captain, and one more piece of Kirk’s anxiety melted away. There was a sense of rising, as if coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, and the blackness lessened until Kirk felt himself reemerge from a very long tunnel back into his own mind.
He still lay on his side, Spock’s hand pressed to his face and clutched between his own. His arm was numb beneath him, and his eyelids were sticky with stillness. He opened his eyes as Spock pulled his hand back from his face, extending and clenching his fingers. Spock’s eyes opened as the familiar noises of the Enterprise around him floated slowly back into his awareness: the hum of the warp drive, footsteps in the corridor, faint beeping from far away.
“That’s what I saw,” Kirk said. “That’s what I did.” He rolled over onto his back and stared up at his familiar ceiling. He was tired, all the way down to his bones. He felt as though someone had wrung his brain out like a sponge. “Can we discuss this in the morning?”
“Certainly,” Spock said, after hesitating only for a second. His voice was deep with disuse. Kirk closed his eyes and waited for him to get up.
He did not get up.
Kirk opened his eyes and turned his head. Spock still lay on his side, watching him. Rather than the pity or disgust Kirk expected, Spock’s face was open and warm.
“What?”
Spock hesitated, before reaching across the space between them and resting his hand on Kirk’s bicep. “I am disquieted by the possibility of you having died before I knew of your existence in our universe.” His fingers flexed, tightening on Kirk’s arm. “I have never been more grateful for your refusal to submit to the law of large numbers.”
Kirk closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of Spock’s palm on his skin. He brought his other hand to cover it, his fingers brushing the back of Spock’s wrist. They lay next to each other, their breathing slowing until they were inhaling in tandem. The post-meld exhaustion pulled at Kirk’s mind, the gentle rhythm of Spock’s breathing lulling him to sleep.
“Jim,” said Spock quietly. Kirk forced his eyes open again, fighting the weight of his eyelids. “Would you like me to stay?” Kirk looked at him, trying to read his expression--- the Vulcan’s face was neutral, watching him in kind. But his arm was still stretched across the distance between them, his hand steady against Kirk’s arm. Spock had walked unflinchingly beside him through every memory of the worst days of his life; he did not think that he would begrudge him his company now.
“Please,” Kirk said. Spock’s hand pressed against his arm before he sat up swiftly and stood.
“I will return momentarily,” he said, and Kirk nodded. Spock crossed the room, retrieved his clothing from his half of the closet, and vanished into the bathroom. Kirk heard the air recycler kick on at his entrance, and he pressed his hands to his eyes.
Despite everything, despite his grief and trauma and the ghosts and his failures, he felt the irrepressible start of a crooked smile forcing its way onto his face. He felt lighter. He felt free. He had shared everything that Elise had told him could never be shared, and Spock had not run screaming from the room or removed him from duty. He had told Spock about Kodos and the shuttle, and Spock had believed him. Showing Spock what he had done, what he had failed to do, hadn’t been the end of the line. It was only the beginning of the conversation. And then Spock had reached out to touch him. He wasn’t alone.
Spock reentered in the tunic and pants he slept in, with his makeup gone and smelling faintly of mint. Kirk sat up. Spock met his eyes.
“You know,” Kirk said, before he could chicken out. “That couch is not the most comfortable piece of furniture to sleep on.”
“I did not object to it,” Spock said, but he clasped his hands behind his back and cocked his head slightly.
“It’s not awful, but the bed is better for a proper rest.”
“Indeed,” Spock said slowly, and Kirk saw a hint of that daring steal into his eyes, glinting in the half-dark. “What do you propose, captain?”
“I think the most logical course of action is to share the bed,” Kirk said. “It’s been a long night. And we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“I had assumed the day would be the same size as all other days, but I am curious to hear why you think otherwise,” Spock said, and he crossed the room to the bed. Kirk scooted backwards so he could slide beneath the comforter, and Spock joined him.
“Computer, lights to zero,” Kirk said. He tried to steady his breathing, sink into the sleep that his exhausted brain wanted, he couldn’t. Though his brain unhelpfully, unsurprisingly supplied him with the image of the shuttle taking the governor away again, and he could still feel the lingering dread and exhaustion in his limbs, the fear that Kodos would hunt him down had lost a little of its strength. Even if Kodos did find him out here, he was only human, and there was a Vulcan laying in Kirk’s bed. Spock would tear Kodos apart if he came anywhere near him again. The thought was comforting, but he still couldn’t convince his mind to rest. His memories were too close to the surface. He lay in the darkness instead, listening to Spock breathe.
���Jim.” Spock’s sudden voice spooked him.
“Yes?”
“You are unable to sleep.”
Kirk huffed out a laugh. “Something like that.” He heard Spock shift, the sheets rustling against his sleep clothes. Then a long, hot arm snaked around his torso and pulled him backwards, until he was pressed with his back to Spock’s chest, Spock’s arm over his waist.
“You find physical contact soothing,” Spock murmured, and his breath ghosted over Kirk’s ear.
“But you don’t,” Kirk said. He should pull away, allow Spock his space, but---
“I do when it is you,” Spock said, and Kirk was shocked into silence. “I appreciate the confirmation that you are near and safe.” The warmth of Spock’s chest, the steady beating of his heart against Kirk’s spine, and his even breathing against his neck was doing more for him than Bones’s sedatives ever did. His eyelids grew heavy, and the whirling images through his mind slowed and dimmed, losing their sharp edges, as he breathed in time with Spock.
“Rest now,” Spock said softly, and he did.
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last night, i didn't sleep until 7:30 am cuz the sound of the cars on the road, the planes, and trucks were bothering me so much. and then when the sun came out, my thin curtains did nothing to block out the light, so i barely slept again. so of course i've turned my pain into a fic
so here's what i think harry would do if luce was unable to sleep because of those reasons <3
***
It only takes twenty minutes for Lucía to give up trying to take a nap. She gets up and drags herself to the living room where Harry is sitting, his laptop perched in his lap. The blinds are still open, allowing orange pink sunlight to stream in, hitting the right side of his face so beautifully. His hair turns lighter, some curls escaping his bun as he leans down to peer at his work on the screen. She doesn't know what he's working on, but it seems to require his entire concentration.
She slinks over closer to him, dragging her blanket behind her. At one point, she even trips on it, her vision swimming from extreme tiredness, though he doesn’t seem to notice.
Lucía stops in front of him and sighs. He glances up at her and then smiles, tilting his head back to rest against the back of the sofa. "Hi."
"Harry."
“Just woke up or couldn’t sleep?” he asks, holding his hand out. She takes it eagerly and then climbs up on the couch beside him. Immediately, she nestles into his shoulder, and he reaches to spread the blanket over her body and half of his.
“Second one.”
He rests his head against hers after a kiss to her forehead. “I'm sorry. Should have checked in on you. What was it this time?”
She closes her eyes and exhales, her body utterly exhausted from a lengthy day at work. She was all over the office today, meeting with new hires, training the new department heads. Most of the time, she can get away with staying in the comfort of her own space, but there was a lot of moving around today.
That, and a large group of coworkers and her decided to get lunch together at a restaurant. She had worn the wrong shoes. Her feet ached and her calves burned as she walked with her co workers in the heart of Boston to the restaurant.
She wanted to get home and take a quick nap before having dinner with Harry, but despite the fatigue that plagued her body, there was nothing to calm her mind down enough to get half an hour worth of uninterrupted sleep.
Harry had helped the best he could. Just last week he’d installed thicker curtains to keep the bright spring sun out of her eyes when she’d sleep. He’d bought her a weighted blanket and always turned her AC on to make it cold in the room, no matter how much he complained about it.
It should have been enough, but she still could not sleep sometimes.
Lucía lifts her head up and sleepily looks at him through her lashes. He’s broken his concentration from the laptop, simply staring down at her now.
“It’s stupid,” she murmurs, skating her arm across his torso. She feels the muscle harden beneath her fingertips. He’s ticklish.
“It’s never stupid,” he says, catching her hand. He brings it to his mouth to kiss softly, and then rests it on his chest. Above his heart. “Maybe it’ll be something we can work on, like the sunlight thing.”
“And the clock thing.”
“Yes, actually. Exactly like that. If it’s fixable, then we’ll fix it.”
She peeks up at him. “And if it’s not fixable?”
“We’ll worry about that when we get there. I’m sure there’s something we’ll be able to do though.” He nudges her with his shoulder. “Tell me.”
“It’s stupid and embarrassing.”
“I love stupid and embarrassing, Luce.”
Lucía sighs. He’ll never let this go now that she’s mentioned it. Slowly, she shuts his laptop and slides it off his lap. Instead of climbing into his embrace, however, she simply drops her head to his thigh and adjusts herself.
Harry smiles, pushing her curls out of her eyes.
She shuffles closer until she feels the fabric of his shirt scratching her nose. “Couldn’t stop counting the cars,” she mumbles against his stomach.
Harry’s eyebrows raise. “That’s a new one.”
“Mhmm.”
“So how many cars are currently on the street, Luce?”
She scowls. “It’s not funny.”
“Of course it’s not,” Harry says, smiling, pushing her eyebrows apart. “What number did you get up to?”
“27.”
“Good number.”
“Mhmm. Had to get up before my head exploded.”
“Poor baby.” He cards his fingers through her hair, separating her curls, something that would have her whining, but right now she doesn’t seem to mind. He presses his fingers against the crown of her head, massaging the area.
Lucía didn’t even have to tell him where it hurt. Somehow he just knew. Somehow, he always knew.
“Can’t do anything but wear earplugs to fix that,” she sighs.
Her eyes close, enjoying the feeling of his gentle fingers providing her relief. She was so tired, she didn’t even get the chance to properly comb out her hair from her own bun. He massages that area too, causing her to nearly whimper with exhaustion and relief.
“You don’t like earplugs,” he says softly, thumbing over her cheek. “Maybe we can try out white noise.”
“Maybe.” She stretches her legs and then buries her face against his hip. With his shirt riding up slightly, she can feel the warmth of his skin against the bridge of her nose. She inhales his scent, humming appreciatively. “You’re still using my body wash.”
“Haven’t had the chance to go to the store,” he says defensively. “And yours is nicer than mine.”
“Are you still using my conditioner?”
“That too. It makes my curls look nice.”
She smiles. “Your hair has seemed extra soft recently.”
“Definitely not as soft as yours,” he says, giving her hair a teasing yank. She makes a noise at the back of her throat. “You’re still very sleepy.”
“I wanted to sleep so bad. Was all I was thinking about. And the food coma I got after lunch really got me. I wanted to sleep off the entire afternoon.”
His body trembles as he laughs softly. “You’re so cute.”
“I’m cute for enjoying my food?”
“Yes.”
“The bar is low, Harry.”
“I’d say the opposite.” He runs the back of his knuckles against her cheek. “Why don’t you try to sleep a little bit right now.”
“There’s a lot of light.”
Harry chuckles. “Not if I go like this.” He gently places his hand over her eyes. His singular cold ring makes her shiver. “Try to sleep for a little bit. Just try. As sexy as I think you are, you’re starting to look more like a Tim Burton character with those dark circles, my love.”
“My dark circles are the sexiest part of me.”
“I’m not one to disagree on that.” Harry takes the discarded blanket and drapes it over her. It's awkward to do with one hand but eventually he manages. She raises her chin and lets him tuck her in properly.
“Is it still loud?”
“A little bit. Maybe…maybe you can talk about your day? That usually helps.”
“Sure, Luce.”
He goes into a long detail about his day. Starting with the morning they shared. “I woke up this morning absolutely freezing because the woman sleeping with me had stolen not one, but two of my blankets off my body. And she had the audacity to lay all innocently on my stomach.”
Lucía smiles. “I was so warm.”
“So I open my eyes and I go to give this particular woman the scolding of her lifetime, but I can’t. Because she’s on my stomach facing me. And I can barely see her face because all her hair is in it, so I have the option of yelling at her, or making her even more comfortable.”
She remembers how she woke up to Harry gently caressing her cheek. “Mhmm.”
“I manage to get her up. She’s an absolute monster in the morning by the way. Looking all sweet and sleepy like that. Makes it real hard to get out of bed on time. I go shower and when I come back, I find that she’s slept through her alarm.”
“Two of them,” she murmurs.
“Right. So I have to stop getting ready for work and instead make this lovely woman get up. And despite all the clawing and hissing, she gives in.”
“I didn’t claw or hiss.”
“I hand her her clothes and send her off to the bathroom. Then I put my clothes on and I get started on breakfast. She comes down moments later and decides it is the right time to cuddle with me, getting my shirt all wet from her soaking hair.”
“‘S because you’re so warm all the time.”
“Sure.” He tilts his head back and closes his eyes. “Then I have to wrestle her off–”
“Liar!”
“--and then beg her to take her vitamins and supplements.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“And then I have to make sure she gets some food into her before we’re all ready to go. I drive by the way.”
“Which you insist on.”
“We stop by to get some coffee on the way. Suddenly, she’s looking more alive.”
Lucía sinks against him, enjoying the way he’s still scratching at her scalp. It makes her want to succumb into a good sleep for a long time. The unconsciousness is catching up to her. The more Harry talks, the deeper she sinks, holding the hem of his shirt in between her fingers. It doesn’t take long at all for Harry’s words to become a distant rumble.
No longer is the sun bothering her. No longer is the sound of traffic outside disturbing her.
All she feels is Harry’s hand over her eyes, his voice in her ears, his strong thigh beneath her head, his scent in her nose. If she could stay like this forever, wouldn’t life be so perfect? With one more barely there sound in response to his story, she is finally asleep.
#harry and lucía#harry styles fic#harry styles writing#this is pretty short#harry styles fanfic#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles x oc#harry styles x woc#harry styles blurb#harry styles fluff#surprise i guess!
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For Christmas Infero gives Black Star the highest quality gaming/recording set up, with his own private recording room attached to his actual bedroom.
Blue Moon gets a private hunting labyrinth and all the supplies he needs to make a second cursed puppet. Plus large blankets to cover his moving nightmare puppets with.
RBB Computer gets a nanomachine body to operate when they feel like they need to, and upgraded hands.
Ravenous gets a enchanted storybooks that cast illusions on the room to match the pages. Mainly for reading lessons, but also for bedtime stories.
DH Earth gets a beginners’ magical tome (he asked NS Golden for present advice) and a gun.
Beast Maker gets a high-quality gaming computer designed to connect across dimensions, with a few new games installed like Ultrakill and Monster Hunter, and a bunch of giant pet costumes that will magically size themselves to fit any of his beasts he wants to put them on.
Ralph’s spirits get the ritual Infero and NS Golden have worked out to try to transfer them into a nanomachine body without ending them.
Ralph himself gets his personal own maintenance lab/bedroom.
Black Star and Blue Moon are surprised with their gifts. Christmas having been forgotten by them. Although they are very happy with what they got.
Blackstar incredibly happy to have a gaming setup that is completely private. Able to record and make funny talk about their own lives easily. Comfortably recording the Christmas events mostly out of excitement.
The hunting labyrinth brings Blue Moon much predatory enjoyment. I'm unsure who is wandering in there, but I assume it is TFs and BTB eclipses. Blue Moon is very happy to be able to make another puppet. Crafting one fairly similar but with a different color palette and wings this time. Still cursed, so the add-on of the blankets they are very thankful for. Now usually holding their curse to puppet underneath a blanket instead of in the open.
The computer is happy to have a body to move into. They were probably shift it to something similar like the creator's simplistic drones. Although with a screen face though. Like a protogen but less dragon face and more flat screen. Honestly just using it to hug his son for the first time.
Ravenous didn't even know Christmas existed. So when they suddenly get a gift they don't necessarily connect it to the event. just sort of taking it as a happy new object given. Ravenous is very happy about the magical books. Touching the moving holographic images with playful interest. Happy to read the stories as long as it gets the cool pictures to move. The liking all the bright lights when they fall asleep.
DH Earth is intrigued by the magical tome. Reading it with interest. She is absolutely pleased with the gun. Carefully testing it in her grip and would probably go outside to see how it fires.
Beastmaker is happy to have a gaming computer that can allow him to play with others without them coming to their dimension. Especially interested in all the games and their violence. As much as games like monster Hunter might scare their beasts. Especially happy to put their beasts in little costumes. The grotestor creatures somewhat nullified to a cuter state. Even if it's slightly creepy.
The ritual is a success. And in their new nanite bodies the spirits are happy to be free of Ralph. Ralph maintaining his personality and his more sentient traits. Even if it is still some robotic. The spirits will still likely follow Ralph around. Giving him input when he's acting a little robotic.
Ralph is happy to just have a lab. Even if the others do not come to him much for repairs. The fact that he can quietly tinker and has a bedroom suited for his size makes him happy. Even if it only shows slightly. This is a lab he can get locked into. Which is something he can get by.
#haha#Happy Christmas#crossover story#red blue and black#desolate hunger#mechanical medic#beastmaker
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Adjustment Takes Time Part 2/2
(Heavy content ahead! Implications of rape/non-con and semi-graphic physical violence.)
Max was gone, finally!
It took a while to actually get him out of the house. Max kept trying to find reasons to stay where he was– it was like he had grown roots. Still, Al made it very clear that since he had a job and had been making a stable income for a month or so, he had enough financial security to rent out an apartment somewhere. Eventually Max had caved, and Al helped him move out, loaded up all his belongings into the back of his van and helped set up his apartment. All in all, the actual moving only took a few days, and it was like a massive burden had been lifted from Al’s shoulders.
Albert does appreciate his brother, really, but his presence could get rather exhausting quickly. Him being gone also meant he could worry just a little less about being caught.
This first thing Albert had done once Max had left, was bring Finney upstairs to have a bath. The boy looked like he wanted to bite his hand off when he offered to help him wash, and pointedly yanked the shower curtain over to obscure himself.
He couldn’t blame him for that. He wouldn’t have wanted help with something like that when he was a boy, even if he had really needed it.
When Al had first moved into the property, he had installed locks on all the doors and windows, no matter how odd it may appear to outsiders. It served its purpose, and briefly Albert left Finney on his own locked in the restroom while he gathered some clean clothing for him. He’d made sure that he wasn’t gone for too long, lest Finney accidentally hurt himself or try to act out of line.
Once he’d finished bathing, Finney had tried any and every trick in the book to get Al to leave the room while he dried off and dressed. He begged and pleaded, he shouted and cussed, but Al remained steadfast in staying. Eventually he had tired and gave in, drying himself off and dressing as quickly as possible.
His shyness was quite endearing to Al.
He needed to wade into things slowly, safely, so afterwards Albert brought Finney back downstairs. While he wanted to keep the boy out longer, he knew he couldn’t yet. It was too risky, he needed to carefully make his way towards that point. He'd expose him to more and more time outside of the basement slowly over time.
Al couldn’t fully trust Finney yet, but he could at least start trying. He was sure he'd eventually be able to in the future.
That attempt at building trust, allowing the boy out of the basement and upstairs was what eventually led to Finney and Al sitting in the living room, watching a movie together.
Finney sat beside him on the couch, watching the TV with split attention. Al wasn’t stupid– he could feel Finney’s eyes burning into him, but he chose to ignore it and focus on the shitty romance flick playing instead. Finney had crammed himself to the very furthest end of the couch from him, knees pulled to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around them. In a word, he looked terribly uncomfortable with the whole situation. That would, of course, change eventually. Finney would realise just how much Al was doing for him, how he was bettering his life, and he’d begin to appreciate him.
Until then, though, Al would need to exercise a kind of patience he’d never really had before. A type of patience that had never been extended to him.
Something particularly amusing happened on screen, and Albert laughed a bit. It was mostly just a huff of breath, really, as it really didn’t warrant real laughter. Finney shifted in place, and from the corner of Al’s eye, he saw him put his feet flat on the ground before leaning back into the couch cushion, arms crossed tightly against his chest.
It was a lot less of a guarded stance, though he still looked uncomfortable. It was a start. Al couldn't help but smile when he saw it.
Al reached to his side and planted his hand into the boy's hair, tousling it a little. Finney flinched, but didn’t attempt to flee his touch.
“You hungry, huh? It’s not much, but I have some bagged popcorn in the pantry.”
Finney watched him in silent bewilderment for a few seconds, before shrugging. Albert took that as a yes, smiled once more and got up from his spot on the couch.
He kept his ears peeled as he left the room for the kitchen, he paid close attention to any noise he could hear while he opened the bag and dumped a portion of it into a plastic bowl. By the time he got back, hardly a minute later, Finney was in the same place he’d been beforehand, still watching TV. He didn’t look any more nervous then he had when he left, so with a pleased hum Al fell back into his spot, putting the bowl of popcorn between them.
“Here, don’t go too crazy on them. Save some for me!” He teased, to which Finney side-eyed him and didn’t reach for any.
After a few more minutes and Finney still hadn’t taken any, Al went for some. It was just a small handful, and he thought that perhaps it would show him that it was alright to take some. Maybe he was shy about eating in front of others? He did always look particularly uneasy while eating his dinner in front of Al. It was something they could work on together.
Suddenly, and without prior warning, Finney struck him. It was an objectively weak hit, but his fist had collided with the mask that covered the upper part of his face, jamming the hard plastic inwards. Al’s face throbbed and his eyes watered, he knew for a fact that he’d look much akin to a raccoon after this.
Through the haze of confusion, pain and anger, Al noticed Finney leaping to his feet to make a break for it. With a low growl, Albert himself leapt forward as well, grabbing the boy by the back of his shirt. Finney twisted and writhed, attempting to escape his hold and run away, but Al had a good grip on him. In a surprising move, Finney fell backwards onto the ground. Al grabbed him by the wrists, only to have the air knocked out of his lungs when Finney kicked upwards with all his might. Albert lost his hold on his arms, and Finney squirmed away, crawling across the living room floor. Still out of breath, Al lunged back on top of him, pressing his forearm to the back of his neck, and using the other hand to yank one of the boy's arms back and behind his back.
For a moment, Al stood still, taking in deep, deliberate breaths and refilling his lungs. Beneath him Finney was still trying to squirm away, but Al likely weighed twice Finney did. His weight itself was enough to keep the boy pinned, but the way he’d cranked his arm behind him in a painful position alongside the arm bearing down on the back of his neck limiting oxygen intake, left him unable to really even try.
“What. The. Fuck. The fuck were you trying to do, huh, Finney?!” Al’s voice rose in volume but fell in pitch. Even through his rage, he knew he couldn’t get too loud. The neighbours or somebody passing by outdoors might hear, and he’d be fucked if they did.
Albert pulled the arm he’d been pressing into Finney’s neck away, but before the boy could feel any form of relief he took a handful of those nice curls he enjoyed so much and pulled, shaking his head around as he continued to growl. “I do so many goddamn nice things for you, and you just don’t give a fuck! Just like those other boys! They didn’t appreciate a thing I did for them, and well, look where that got them!”
“You didn’t do shit!” Finney snapped back in a strained voice that broke around the words. “You– you took us from our families! You killed them! I want to go home, I just fucking want to go home!”
“You aren’t going home! Either you get over that shit, or I fucking slit your throat and do us both a favour!”
Albert released Finney’s arm and hair, flipped him onto his back and grabbed him hard by the face. He avoided grabbing him too close to the mouth– he knew that Finney bit when cornered, and he’d prefer not to have to deal with patching up a bite wound. The boy's hands snapped up, scratching and pulling at his hand, but he didn’t budge. He slammed his head against the carpeted floor beneath them, not too hard, but enough to temporarily daze the boy. From his pants back pocket, Al retrieved a switchblade. It wouldn’t make the most effective weapon when killing someone, but it was sharp and that was all he needed. He flipped it open, raised it high enough to give it some good momentum, and he– he–
Finney hadn’t made a peep. He had scrunched his eyes shut and was very obviously holding his breath. His eyelashes had liquid gathered on them– tears, he noted. He wasn’t struggling, wasn’t screaming, he was just laying there with his eyes shut and a death grip on the wrist of the hand holding his face in place.
It was a pathetic display of acceptance and submission, but unlike how he’d felt about the other boys' reactions before he’d killed them, he wasn’t disgusted. It didn’t fill him with rage or hatred.
–he stabbed the knife down hard into the carpeted floor beside Finney's head. The blade was going to be all kinds of fucked up after that, but he could just sharpen it again later.
“Just– fuck! Things were alright, they were fine! They were fine and you went and pulled this bullshit!” Al was still seething, but he’d calmed himself enough to grab the knife and get up off of the boy and step back, to begin pacing and pulling at his hair.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Finney scramble into the corner of the room, nearest to the couch. He couldn’t see the boy, hidden by the couch, but he knew he was still there.
“I thought– I thought I could start trusting you, but I guess I was wrong!”
“I never asked you to trust me!” Finney snapped back from his hiding place, voice accusatory and growing higher in pitch. “I never asked for any of this!”
Al thudded towards Finney, grabbed the arm of the couch and shoved it away, opening up the space the boy had wedged himself in some more to make him more accessible. Finney tried to crawl away, but he was all but caged in and Albert had little difficulty catching him once more.
“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME, DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH ME!” He screamed, and panic boiled in Al’s gut. He was being too loud. He was being too loud! He could go scream his throat raw in the basement, but not upstairs!
Sampson started to bark and howl, which thankfully overpowered the racket Finney was making. If anyone came and questioned all the noise, he could blame it on the dog.
Al grabbed Finney by the ankle, dragging him forward. The boy reached to his side and grabbed the nearest thing– which unfortunately was a tall lamp. It came with him and fell to the ground. The bulb broke and went out, and the only light that illuminated the room was seeping in through the kitchen and what was cast by the TV.
Finney swung at Al’s face once more, but with him laying on his back on the ground, he wasn't able to put as much power behind it. Albert caught Finney’s wrist and wrenched it away from his face. This time, it was Al who swung, and he was a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than Finney. The hit met the boy's lower face, who coughed and sputtered. When his fist came away wet and warm, he didn’t have to guess why.
The boy rolled onto his side, one arm still restrained by Al while the other propped itself above his head, trying to guard himself from more blows. Al wasn’t thinking straight though– he was angry, so fucking angry, and he just wanted to make him hurt. In that moment he wouldn’t have cared if he’d started seeing brains, if he’d beat in and disfigured the face he’d been so drawn to. He just wanted Finney to shut up, to stop making noise and to stop moving.
The first hit to Finney’s arm had it nearly folding. It wasn’t even a matter of whether or not he could take the hits pain-wise, he was hitting him with such ferocity that his arm was being jostled in and out of the way, leaving his head and face open to more blows.
On the second hit, Finney seemed to realise his attempts at guarding his head were well and truly pointless. Instead, he threw his shaky hand into the air, shoving at Al’s shoulder.
It didn’t stop him. He barely even noticed the touch.
What he did notice, though, was that Finney had quieted down. The only noise that came from him was the popping of bloody bubbles forming on his lips.
Albert took a long, good look at what he had gone and done.
His fists were split and bloody– though he figured most of that blood wasn’t his own. Blood had gotten onto his nice carpet as well, a soft beige with dark brown patterns. He’d need to find a way to clean that up, and if his attempts weren’t successful, well… he’d need a new carpet. Finney’s face, which was half pressed into the carpet, looked pretty banged up. Al grabbed the boy by his chin, the blood on his hand and fingers smearing onto his skin. He turned his face to look at him, ignoring the sounds he made. Soft and quiet, they were wet and whiney, gasps and audible swallows as he looked up at him through wide eyes. He could already see that his face was beginning to swell and bruise. He was surprised it was setting in so quickly.
Finney’s lips parted, and for a moment, Al feared he may have chipped or even knocked out some teeth. Thankfully, though, the boy's tongue darted out in what seemed to be a subconscious reaction and wiped blood and broken skin from his lips off of his front teeth. He couldn’t tell if that blood had come from his mouth itself or from his nose. He watched as blood oozed sluggishly from both nostrils, and decided it could be either or. It didn’t even really matter, now did it?
Absent-mindedly, Albert grabbed Finney’s forearm and rubbed soft, soothing circles into it with his thumb. The boy sniffled and winced. The wetness that had previously just been beading up on his eyelashes was now streaking down his cheeks, mingling with the blood, diluting it to a soft pink in places.
“Ohh… Finney, don’t cry.” Al whispered softly, voice a few octaves higher. “No, no I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you. I promised you I wouldn’t hurt you, didn’t I?”
Finney didn’t answer verbally, just clenched his eyes shut and let his lower lip wobble.
“Hey, hey here,” carefully, Al worked him up into a sitting position before wrapping his arms around him nice and tight. He rocked them both from side to side, tucked the boy's head beneath his chin and pressed quick, chaste kisses to the crown of his head. A sob bubbled up from Finney’s lips, and Albert shushed him quietly. “It’s okay, it’s okay… You’re okay.”
Al ran his hand up and down Finney’s back, rubbing soothing patterns into his ribs. He felt every hitch of his back, and the expansions and depressions of his chest as he sucked in frantic breaths between his weeping.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… let’s get you cleaned up in a few minutes, huh? Then we can get you down to bed. You need a nice night of sleep, and you’ll feel as good as new tomorrow!” The boy didn’t speak, nod or give him any form of confirmation that he’d heard. Still, Al had a feeling he had.
It was nice, holding Finney like that. One day, he hoped that instead of pulling his hands to his chest or dropping them to his sides, that maybe Finney would hug him back. It’d be nice.
It was just a test run. It was just a test run. It failed now, but he could try again in the future.
While Finney may be a good boy compared to the others, good boys could still be very naughty sometimes.
But still, a small niggling part of his mind whispered, maybe he had been a little too rough with him that night.
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Take It From the Top
Jameth Abnale | Civitrecce | Present Night
Cleaning up Civitrecce was becoming quite the learning experience, and while Jamie was glad the empire no longer had a bounty out on him, he was even more tired these nights than usual.
It did help that he, Chimer, and the entirely suspicious but admittedly effective hemoanon she had in her employ made a good team, and even further that they were clearly being assisted by Jastes, though none of them had seen him again.
There were whispers of a slim yellowblood with glowing green eyes and an afro who appeared to protect lowbloods about to be thrown from their hives, being hunted by highblood lusii, or even those being robbed by gangs.
A pity he was impossible to find. Jamie would have liked to ask him some questions. But he understood, too, that the rebel owed him nothing, and that what he had forced him to do had changed his entire life.
He sighed, tapping his tablet pen against the low-lit screen as he reclined in the heated couch that had politely been installed for him at his new office.
He needed a break from schematics and Chimer’s bloody conversion efforts. Profits were going to tank.
Such was the deal: lend his mind and skills for changing over Starsight to non-helm energy sources or be out on his ear.
He had to admit (only to himself) that she’d been more than fair to him. He was protected from the imperial cull and he could do what he loved again in the city he belonged in, even if he didn’t have as much executive power.
But it still rankled, and despite his fatigue, he was restless.
He put his tablet in sleep mode and pushed it to the side, pushing his desk attachment away so he could grab his crutches. He got to his feet with reasonable grace, the heat lingering in his back a welcome balm against his usual stiffness and aches.
He made his way to a different part of the offices, walking despite Chimer’s offer of a wheelchair or other device. The night he gave up moving on his own two feet, he should ask a drone to spear him with a trident, because he might as well be dead by that point.
The silly fuchsia didn’t believe in a proper jail cell, for some accursed reason. When he’d asked, with all the politeness he could manage, she’d shrugged and asked where exactly he thought they were going to escape to.
They didn’t know. That was the problem. No one knew anything about them except for rumors and urban legends.
At least she had agreed they couldn’t be allowed to roam freely. Though they barely seemed inclined to do so.
He arrived at the door, and keyed in the code on the softly glowing number pad, his crutches gleaming silvery blue under the ceiling lights.
The door slid open, revealing a large, nicely furnished room with a table, a few chairs, a computer, a few flowers in a vase, and a cheerfully bright rug. A fridge hummed in the corner, and pictures of metallic sculptures hung on the walls.
Ridiculous that Chimer had given them all this. What did the former AI care about their furnishings?
Process laid on the room’s slate-gray couch, which was where he’d found them the two other times he’d come. They simply stared into space with their now yellowblood eyes, their hands clasped and resting on their slim torso.
“Still meditating on the meaning of the universe?” Jamie asked snidely. “I’ll give you a hint; it involves not being such a massive prick.”
No response. Just like before.
“Was it all because I refused to help you as a child? Please. What the blithering hell do you think I could have done? Do you regret saving me, is that it? Can you feel regret? Was I always just a bloody pawn in your schemes? Was that all?”
His voice got louder the longer he spoke, his thin fists gripping his crutch handles tightly.
“You owe me some answers, you wretched thing. Sweeps I trusted you. Sweeps! I thought despite our differences you would at least have my back! My shattered back that you saved!
What was it all for, hm? What was the point? If all you ever wanted me for was…I don’t even know…to make Jastes come to you? Was that all I was?”
He sniffed, hating his own weakness, hating that he cared so much.
Process sat up and looked over at him.
Though their hair had Jastes’s texture now, Chimer had granted them straighteners to return it to something of their preferred appearance. Their face, at least, did not have his features; Jamie was glad of it since that would have been a bit extra eerie.
The fact they’d been turned troll at all was unsettling, even if it had certainly saved his life. Just the fact that that kind of power existed…he understood so little of what the yellowblood was capable of. It fascinated him, but it was terrifying.
“I saved you because your ancestor would have wanted me to.”
Process delivered the line bluntly and flatly, as if they hadn’t just left the kookaburra troll gobsmacked by those precious few words.
Jamie stared at them, mouth agape.
“You…you knew my ancestor?”
Then he bared his teeth.
“And you never told me?!”
Process’s face was as impassive as it had always been.
“It wasn’t relevant.” They stated.
“Like hell.” Jamie seethed. “You knew what that meant to me. What it still means to me. You’re lucky I don’t go beating you bloody. You can’t hide now, eh?” He said, two-tone blue eyes alight with fantasies of violence.
“I could do it. Could Chimer really say I was wrong? You would have killed me. You would have killed me for nothing more than being stupid enough to trust you.”
“They’re not worth it.”
Said a quiet voice, coming out of the computer.
Jamie froze. Process looked over.
“Jastes?” He whispered.
“They’re not worth it, Abnale. And I have questions too.”
The blueblood stood still and silent, still clenching the handles of his crutches, before he let out a long breath and relaxed slightly.
“Fine. I can’t really deny you anything.”
“You could.” Said the voice, amused. “But I’ll take the reparations.”
“Can you come out? It’s odd talking when I know you’re there, but I can’t see your face.”
“And give you a chance to catch me? No.” The tone was pleasantly neutral, but the cyborg’s voice was firm.
Jamie sighed. He’d more than earned the man’s distrust.
“Can I at least see you on the screen?”
“No.”
No wonder he’d never been caught. Even though that wasn’t at all what Jamie wanted now. He just…wanted to see the rebel, wanted some reassurance that he was all right after what he’d done to him.
But he could hardly admit that.
“All right.” He sighed, unwilling to press the issue. He was fortunate Jastes hadn’t wanted him dead.
“You go first, then, I admit you’ve got the right.”
“That’s nice, but I’m interested in this too. It seems a little too coincidental to me that Process knew both our ancestors.”
“It wasn’t a coincidence. They were matesprits.” Said the former AI, again in the most neutral, uncaring tone.
There was a moment’s pause as both men absorbed this information.
Then Jamie grinned.
“Does that mean my ancestor was a robotfu - ”
He found his own words dissipating into silence and knew Jastes had put a sound seal around him.
The blueblood continued laughing noiselessly for a bit but then sighed and raised his hands in defeat. Jastes took the seal down.
“Couldn’t resist, sorry.” Jamie said, grin still on his face.
“I’m sure.” Said the yellowblood, deadpan, before continuing.
“Anyway. So Torvah and…Abnale Senior…knew each other. And Torvah was your technician.”
“His name was Leeson.” Said Process. “He did find Torvah quite attractive, both with and without their tech.”
Jastes sighed as Jamie cracked up further.
“Anyway.” Said the lowblood in a more annoyed tone. “How did you meet them? How could Torvah live openly? I’ve always had to hide. Why did they quadrant a blueblood? That’s so risky.”
“Pardon?” Said Jamie in mild protest. “I’m right here.”
“I know.” Deadpanned the cyborg.
Jamie wanted to be mad, but he sighed and chuckled a bit instead. He supposed it was a fair hit.
Process looked between Jamie and the computer screen, and then spoke again.
“I met them because I wanted a safe place, and Torvah was building one. So I came. Torvah lived openly because the empire once stayed away from this valley, over five hundred sweeps ago. The last city that was here was destroyed by terrible earthquakes and fires. Even the local jade cavern had been lost along with it.
They and their people came to reclaim it, to build somewhere away from surveillance and conscription.”
They paused.
“They quadranted Leeson because they were deeply flush for him. And he for them. They loved each other very much.”
A hint of sadness ran through their words, despite their continuing neutral expression.
Jamie knew everything they’d said so far had been true, but he wasn’t expecting the emotion behind it.
“So you really were their friend.” The kookaburra troll murmured.
“Yes.”
Their voice was flat again, but Jamie knew what he’d heard.
“I want the whole story.” Jastes said. “Everything from how exactly you met our ancestors to why you treated us both like disposable tools.” He said, voice hard. “Don’t leave anything important out.”
Jamie nodded along, blue eyes gleaming.
Process got up and poured themself a glass of water, their motions stiff, very exact. Then they drank from it and sat back down.
“I met Torvah first. Four hundred and sixty eight point forty six sweeps ago…”
Both men listened, rapt, as the former AI began to tell their story.
#cloud writes#the sword of damocles#jameth abnale#jastes verdan#process#you have no idea how long I've wanted to write Jamie opening his hell mouth to make that joke and Jastes shutting him up
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Hey! In case you want a one-word-prompt even after the weekend, how about: Starker, Smile? Or if smuttier: Starker, lingerie ? I hope your week gets better!
I may take either 2 hours or forever to respond to ask box prompts, but I always want to try and get to them all so here's this one, anon! I combined them both <3
Semi-NSFW. Smiles and lingerie, just like it says on the tin. 1500 words.
-
"No, no, it's okay -- I'll just, change at home," Peter implores, trying to play it cool by brushing off some of the sticky acid web fluid from his thigh and instead hissing sharply as his hand starts burning.
Speaking of burning, his jeans are starting to smoke, fibers melting away into nothing and filling his nostrils with an unpleasant tang of some sort of glue, revealing inch by inch of his bare thigh as the fluid soaks farther down his pant leg.
Tony raises an eyebrow at him, his lips pursed, a few degrees from sarcastic and lined with tight worry instead.
"Really," Peter says, but the rest of his sentence ("I'm fine!") dies on his lips. There's no way out of it, his soft dusting of leg hair is burning now, followed by his skin as it works overtime to bubble then quickly turn pink and shiny as his powers try and heal him over and over again, and Tony is watching him critically.
"Really," Tony repeats, suddenly up close and pushing Peter toward the elevator with a firm hand on his back.
Tony is muttering as the elevator speeds upwards toward the penthouse; Peter doesn't catch much other than "biohazard shower installation" because he's focused on two things:
First, his skin is stinging to the point of needing to grit his teeth, the oily compound he was working with continually burning and fighting with his healing factor.
Second, he's wearing a red g-string under his jeans, the combination of an impulse late night purchase, curiosity, and hilariously poor timing to swap out his regular boxer briefs for the first time ever. Somehow, burning in his gut, he knows Tony will somehow see and Peter will -- Peter will not follow that train of thought.
While Peter tries desperately to not turn red, and not allow his brain to freak out, Tony is manhandling him out of the elevator and down the long hallway at the other end of the expansive living space, not for the nice little (bigger than Peter's entire bedroom) guest bath, or the second guest bath, but Tony's own bedroom.
Contrary to what Peter's brain might have him believe, he's never actually been in Tony's room, or his bathroom. Tony moves him quickly though the space, barely enough time to register anything until Peter is faced with the most enormous shower he's ever seen in his life, so big it doesn't even need glass, just a little lip of tile to designate the start of the space. There are two benches on either side, all of it in some grey slate that looks seamless, and no less than four -- wait, five -- showerheads are embedded in the ceiling and walls.
"Earth to Peter, are you going into shock, kid?" Tony asks, pulling at Peter's t-shirt with one hand and stretching out to tap on a complex screen that starts several of the nozzles at once.
"Peter," Tony says, more firmly, and Peter has to physically shake himself to reply.
"Sorry, just-- that's a shower," is Peter's genius response. On auto pilot, he walks over the little lip into the smooth slate space and into the spray, surprised to find it at the perfect temperature.
"What the fuck, Parker," Tony says, exasperated.
Peter steps back further, alarmed as he watches Tony shuck off his shirt and pants -- with inhuman speed borne of practice, it seems -- to step under the water, too.
Maybe Peter is going into shock, just from some silly experiment gone wrong, his brain comforting him with some of his most buried fantasies while he's blacked out somewhere back on the lab floor.
Tony's hands are tugging at his shirt again and oh, it's all wet, Peter absolutely stepped into the shower with all of his clothes on, so concerned with having to take them off at all that he did a full 360 into ignoring their existence all together.
There was barely any acid splattered on his shirt, not even enough to make his stomach do anything more than sting a little as the material lifted away, Tony helping him peel his too-heavy shirt off and throw it on the ground in the corner with a wet smack.
"Not so bad actually," Tony says, thumb rubbing over a few red blotches of newly pink skin over Peter's abs.
It should feel perfunctory, just a kind gesture by his mentor to make sure he's not bleeding out but Peter is struck with how intimate it actually feels as his own brain comes back online a bit more. Tony is in black briefs, wet and slick against his skin, and staring down between them so his damp hair is the only thing at Peter's eye level.
"Looks like this is the worst of it," Tony says, thumbing down to the large burned out hole on Peter's left thigh, hissing when his own thumb encounters some of the sticky acid the water hasn't yet washed away. "Okay, pants off, kid."
"Uh, that's..." Peter starts, but Tony is already thumbing open the button at the top of his fly, and pulling down the--
Peter's hand flies down to catch Tony's wrist just a second too late, not spurred on by his danger senses at all but by pure heat crawling up his cheeks, and when Peter looks back up at Tony's face Tony looks shocked.
"Shit," Tony says, taking a dramatically large step back (still enough space in the gigantic shower that he doesn't even hit the wall yet) with his hands raised. "Sorry, overstepped, I--"
"No," Peter cuts him off, frantic, understanding the conclusion Tony made but wholeheartedly but absolutely disagreeing with it. He would take Tony's hands on his fly any day of the week, if it were something he was allowed to actually have.
Quickly, before he loses his nerve or Tony realizes this current moment they're in is largely inappropriate and leaves, Peter finishes lowering the zip on his fly and bends at the waist to roll his heavy-wet jeans down until they fall at the knee.
As he starts to straighten back up, entirely too aware of the way the g-string is pulling taught between his ass cheeks, and how the silky material suddenly feels so slick with the shower water, tighter than even before, he hears a small barely perceptible gasp from Tony.
"Kid," Tony says, low and disbelieving, quiet enough Peter isn't sure without his senses working overtime he'd have heard him over the spray of water steaming up the space.
"I know," Peter says, and feels anxious words bubbling up from the hot flush staining his chest as he struggles to raise his gaze back up to Tony, "I'm -- I was just trying it out, and I didn't know this would happen, obviously, or that you, you know, would be seeing, I know it's weird and--"
"It's not weird," Tony cuts him off.
Peter risks making eye contact, feeling like the rivulets of water coming down from his hair onto his face might start to steam at any moment. Tony is decidedly not making eye contact, might not even know Peter has finally looked up. Instead, he seems fixated on Peter's thighs, at the junction of them, where Peter knows the water has stained the red satin obscenely dark and cupped the tight scrap of barely-there fabric even closer to every embarrassingly growing curve of him.
"It's something," Tony continues, "that's for sure. Just -- not weird, Peter, jesus."
At that, Tony does glance back up, meeting Peter's flushed and frankly, he's sure, openly confused gaze. The contaminant has long washed away now, swirling down the drain between them, and yet Peter feels like his skin is burning even more than before, the cells of his being trying fruitlessly to knit themselves back into some order of sense where he's not standing naked save for a small g-string in Tony Stark's luxurious room-sized shower, across from the man himself.
"It's something," Tony repeats, a smile curling up on both sides of his mouth, not sarcastic or tight, or lopsided and charming for the flash of a camera -- all smiles Peter has catalogued over the past few years -- but a new one, entirely for Peter.
Peter wants desperately to understand it, the slow curve of Tony's lips, and wants to smile back to match it, but Tony is stepping closer again, one hand outstretched. Peter realizes that his smile is almost hungry in its shape, in the seconds before Tony is too close to even focus on, and before Peter can return the smile at all he finds himself opening his mouth on a gasp instead, tilting forward to close the space between them with his lips already parted.
"Oh," he manages, soft and drowned out by water, as Tony presses that smile into his mouth entirely.
"Yeah," Tony agrees, said directly against Peter's lips, warm and rumbling and still distinctly curved, just for Peter.
#starker#i wrote this in the damn ask box in hopes of brevity#but alas#i guess my sweet spot is like 1500 words#ask prompt fill
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OOC: Heart-Aik: Aik Membrane's Prequel
Chapter Six /tw: children in distress/pain
After Bel's death, there were a few structural changes Membrane made to the lab. He removed the door entirely from the white room Aik slept in. Aik was allowed to sleep in there or just hang out in there when he wanted, and Membrane spent his nights in the lab as he began working on the third clone.
However, he couldn't stay there 24/7, he still had to leave for a few hours every few days. Locking Aik in his room proved to not work at all, Membrane discovered Aik's method of escaping. His solution?
He installed a large square container, 6 feet on each side, two walls and the floor were solid metal, and two others and the ceiling were bars. It was equipped with heat sensors that would give an alarm if the one inside managed to get out, and a lock with an electric charge. The entire contraption was kept right by the entrance to the lab.
Yes. A literal cage was Membrane's solution. A few hours a week, kept in a cage to prevent Aik from being able to mess with the new clone.
<February 28th, 2002>
A seven year old Aik, dressed in a yellow t-shirt and jeans, sat on the floor of the 'container' he was being kept in, tossing a rubber ball against the solid wall to bounce it back to his hand. Membrane had been gone for an hour, Aik didn't expect him to be back anytime soon. From where he was sitting, he had a perfect view of the canister containing the new clone. He had been able to watch this one grow everyday, he could even see the vitals monitoring screen. Membrane hadn't told him the name of this one yet, he hadn't even woken up, but Aik was already determined to not let this one go nor make the same mistake he did with Bel.
Even though Aik hated this cage, at least he would never have to let the clone out of his sight, and could even talk to him from here once the infant woke up.
Despite knowing the baby wouldn't be able to hear him, Aik found himself talking to him many times anyway.
"Dad kind of sucks," Aik said with a sigh. "But I'm going to protect you from him. You're going to grow up and be the best one ever. Not crazy, you'll be great." He paused for a moment. "I wonder if you'd like to be read to. Eventually. Or if you'd prefer warmth or…" He trailed off. To this day, he hadn't yet cried over Bel's death. For some reason, he couldn't. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt. He still grieved over Bel, like any brother would.
But the fact that he didn't cry over it must have convinced Membrane further that he was some kind of heartless monster.
Aik shook his head to settle his thoughts. "You're going to be your own person. Yeah. Your own incredible you. And my brother too."
The lab door opened and Membrane entered, startling Aik, who quickly stood up and tucked the small rubber ball in his pocket. "Hello."
"Hi." Membrane opened the locked door and gestured for Aik to follow.
"You're back early… why?" Aik followed cautiously.
"Cor, it's time to wake him up," Membrane responded simply.
Cor. So that was the boy's name. "Does he have a middle name?" Aik asked.
"Cor Lux Membrane," Membrane replied, typing on a monitor to begin the process of waking the infant. "Don't touch anything, Nil. Just watch."
"Yes Dad," Aik said with a nod. He was already watching everything. Cor's entire development, he had been watching to try to figure out what might go wrong. He was going to save this one.
After the canister was drained, Membrane took the infant out, dried him off, and dressed him in an orange shirt. "Welcome, Cor."
Similar to Bel, Cor was thinner than Aik was, but damn this one was much more energetic than Bel. Seconds after breathing, he was wiggling and squirming, struggling against every little thing Membrane did.
"Wow, you're feisty. Don't bite though," Membrane warned, causing Aik to roll his eyes.
Cor stuck out the tip of his tongue, frowning with a confused expression. His hair scythe couldn't decide whether it wanted to be straight or crooked, causing it to be slightly split at the end.
"Aik, camera," Membrane directed.
Aik sighed and handed Membrane the same camera, and another picture of Membrane and both living clones was taken. With a bitter sting, Aik was reminded for a moment of the purple shirt he had folded neatly in a tiny package on his shelf. And the fact that its owner wouldn’t be in this picture with them.
But he straightened his shoulders with a deep breath and allowed the thought to pass as Membrane returned the camera to its belonging place and began to inspect Cor like he had with Bel and Aik.
Aik stayed very close without being in Membrane's way, something he had learned to do by now. Where to stand and walk so he could see everything without being nudged out of the way.
Despite clearly not being alright, just like Bel was, Cor was much more mobile. But Aik made note of the similarities. Trouble breathing occasionally, the thin arms and body, and blue and purple vein markings that were barely noticeable at the moment.
Though for Cor, there was something new. As he squirmed his breathing became worse. It didn't dissuade him from struggling and a trickle of red liquid began to drip from his nose.
"Nose bleed?" Membrane said, confused. He grabbed a tissue and gently held it over Cor's nose. Cor was still struggling, but seemed weak and exhausted from the effort, closing his eyes and finally focusing on breathing.
"What happened?" Aik asked, barely able to keep himself from snatching Cor out of Membrane's arms.
Cor's eyes popped open again and he stared at Aik, wide eyed.
"He's disoriented, he'll be alright," Membrane said, checking to make sure the nose bleed had stopped before taking off the tissue.
Aik tilted his head, looking back at Cor. Cor sniffed and stuck his tongue out at Aik.
"Do you recognize my voice?" Aik asked hesitantly. And to his surprise, Cor smiled. He thought for sure Cor wouldn't have been able to hear anything in the canister, much less recognize his voice.
"That's ridiculous, Aik, he's minutes old, he doesn't recognize you at all," Membrane huffed and continued to fuss over Cor.
Aik ignored the professor and stayed where Cor could see him. Because as long as Cor could see Aik, he was calm. Which seemed to help his breathing.
"Hello Cor. Nice to meet you," Aik said with a small wave.
Membrane was completely obvious to the fact that Aik's presence was keeping Cor calm. "Aik, shouldn't you be studying?"
"I already read all the books you gave me," Aik replied.
"I doubt that, you read slow."
"No I don't," Aik huffed and crossed his arms.
"Go study," Membrane directed, but Aik knew that Membrane didn't actually care about what Aik was doing, as long as he wasn't affecting the newest clone or getting in the way. So Aik just stayed very quiet and watched. He noticed Membrane was feeling Cor's thin arms. Cor winced occasionally, and Membrane made a note.
Aik peeked over Membrane's shoulder to see what the note said. 'Bone formed wrong, causes discomfort.'
Aik frowned. Is that the same thing that happened to Bel? And why did they both struggle with breathing…
Aik took a mental note of everything Cor reacted to, all the similarities to Bel and the differences, as Membrane checked him over. He also watched as Membrane filled the canister with a new liquid. It was a greenish blue hue as opposed to the pinkish clear liquid that Cor had been taken out of. It was much thicker too. But it was only half full. He put Cor back in the canister, the liquid came up to his waist. Cor squirmed and swatted the liquid with his hand, making a small splash.
Aik frowned. "Dad, what are you doing?"
"The breathing apparatus didn't work enough. This goop will filter the oxygen he needs directly into his skin. It'll help him breathe as his lungs finish," Membrane explained distractedly. He went to a computer and began typing, barely paying attention to Cor struggling to get the fluid off his legs. He was far too small and weak to succeed.
Aik sighed and approached the canister, opening the hatch. Doing so didn't cause any liquid to spill out, but it did make Cor stop struggling.
And Membrane was too distracted to notice Aik slip his hand and whole arm in the canister. He didn't mind the liquid covering his hand up to his wrist.
Cor stared at Aik's hand, poked it, then gripped his arm in his weak grasp.
Aik chuckled. "I'm gonna take care of you," he said quietly, so Membrane wouldn't hear.
#iz fanfiction#iz dib membrane#iz ocs#iz dib#project eternal#professor membrane#aik membrane#heart aik
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𝚂 𝚈 𝚂 𝚃 𝙴 𝙼 𝚂 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐…
𝚂 𝚈 𝚂 𝚃 𝙴 𝙼 𝚂 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐…
𝚂 𝚈 𝚂 𝚃 𝙴 𝙼 𝚂 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐…
𝚂 𝚈 𝚂 𝚃 𝙴 𝙼 𝚂 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐… 𝟺𝟼% 𝙿𝙾𝚆𝙴𝚁
𝚂 𝚈 𝚂 𝚃 𝙴 𝙼 𝚂 𝙾𝙽𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴.
𝚆 𝙾 𝚄 𝙻 𝙳 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙻𝙸𝙺𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝚁𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃? 𝚈/𝙽
M A M M O N busily types on his keyboard, frowning at the screen as he could have sworn he saved Ollie’s back-up files. He has files on all the robot’s, so where was his? A faint stirring from behind him forces him to look away, squinting at the robotic Jester that was slowly coming back online after a forced shut down. Pink optics peer quietly around the room before landing on Mammon and not moving.
“W E L L… Good morning, sunshine. Care to tell me what happened?” Tone dripping with sarcasm, the Sin rises from his chair and makes his way over, crossing his arms behind his back. It felt strangely empty in his head as he was used to another voice occupying it, that voice being Ollie’s but because of his little ‘stunt’, now he only had his own thoughts to hear. The pair of pink eyes blinks a few times, clearly puzzled by what Mammon was going on about. What happened? He couldn’t remember anything from last night when he…
A small spark emits from his neck, frame twitching. Mammon took notice of that and began to undo the binding that kept his jester in place. “What do you remember? Do you remember anything from yesterday? Anything at all?”
O L L I E shakes his helm. “Am I suppose to remember something, sir?” His usual cheery and playful tone was replaced by something devoid of emotion; monotone. Nothing like he’d usually sound. It’s enough to make the Sin cringe as he waves a hand angerly and gets to his feet.
“O H for fuck sake…!” Turning his attention back to his computer he begins to try searching for those valuable codes again, knowing they had to be here somewhere. He feels a slight tugging on his pants and looks down. Ollie clutches to the rich fabric, pinks squinting some as a slight hint of emotion entered his features that read– Panic. Worry. He couldn’t probably emote so it was hard to tell.
“H A V E I upset you, sir?”
M A M M O N rubs at his face, “…Please stop calling me sir. Call me Mammon. Understood?” He’s getting the feeling the jester has reverted back to the first day he got him; quiet, stoic and entirely obedient to his every command. That normally wouldn’t pose an issue but there were drawbacks to when he was like this and he’s beginning to remember why he had even installed the heart device in the first place. Grumbling to himself he moves to exit the room but pauses near the doorway to glance back at Ollie, “Do NOT leave this manor until I get back. I have to find some parts… Disobey me and I’m going to scrap you for good. I should just go ahead and do that now, but I’ve put too much work into you to stop now.”
O N C E he leaves, Ollie does what he’s told. He takes a seat on the floor and keeps his eyes trained on the door, waiting for when Mammon would make his return. Nothing was making sense at the moment, but questioning Mammon was not allowed and thus… He wouldn’t.
#IC STATUS ➡#ROBO FIZZ ➡ Comes with all the bells and whistles#MAMMON ➡ I want more and more#EVENT ➡ Restart
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Hardly Living & Not-Yet Dead Pt. 2
MTL OC Lillie Ann x Charles Offdensen
Summary: Lillie is not the only one of the pair hiding a dark truth, Charles grows fonder of his favorite author.
Warnings: 18+ NSFT, darkish content, stalking, voyeurism, masturbation, paranoia-inducing, hallucinations, nightmares, and break-ins. Charles is a nasty, nasty man. also pov changes when it’s on Charles’s portion of the story, but goes back to first person for Lillies.
Words: 1,323
A/N: heyy!! i’m really sorry for being gone so long, i’m gonna try and write and draw more. this is what i have for right now, i hope you like it!!
—
Charles steps out of the bookstore, holding the newly signed copy of his favorite Lillie Ann novel. His heart is pounding and he’s pretty sure his face is beat red, but the thrill of meeting the object of his desire keeps him from feeling embarrassed. A klokateer holds open the car door, Charles slides in and settles down.
As scenery passes by the window, Charles lets his mind wander. How would Lillie react if Charles asked him out? What would Lillie look like if Charles pinned him underneath himself? Charles contemplates this as he traces Lillies signature with his finger, delicate as ever so as to not ruin the autograph. His hands are shaking and his pulse is quickening, there's nothing more that he could want other than to have his love pinned down beneath his hands.
Charles shakes his head as Mordhaus comes into view. He puts an end to his foolish fantasies, realizing there’s no point in daydreaming about something that’ll never happen. Especially, with the role he plays in this world. He can’t stray from his boys, it would be catastrophic.
Charles’s dress shoes clack against the stone as he swiftly makes his way to his office. The door is locked, as always, and he steps in with a barely concealed fervor. Although he may not be able to have Lillie for himself, he can still watch him from afar— or rather from his laptop—right?
He pulls out the bottle of brandy from his desk drawer, he takes a swig before bending lower to grab his laptop. He recently had some klokateers install cameras in Lillies house, to make sure he wouldn’t get robbed or anything, of course! It could never be for personal reasons, Charles couldn’t allow that.
Charles pulls up the live footage. He drums his fingers on the wood of his desk, waiting impatiently for Lillie to appear at his own front door. He anxiously takes another drink of brandy and sets it to the side just as the handle of Lillies door is twisted.
The footage crackles as Lillie walks into his living room, seemingly batting away something that remains to be unseen. This isn’t new to Charles, he knows everything. Perhaps, the only thing he doesn’t know, is the reason why Lillie is plagued with visions. But he has no time to speculate as the blonde man sits down on his couch, rubbing his hands down his thighs and back up again.
Charles squints at his screen, aching to see more as Lillies head gently rests back against his couch. Charles has seen this before; again, he knows everything. He knows the little gasps Lillie makes when he touches himself for the first time in awhile, it’s not often that he gets a reprieve or even some time alone.
Lillies breathless voice can be heard through the shitty speakers of Charles’s laptop, and it’s now that Charles starts to hope that he locked his office door. But he doesn’t have time to get up and check, there’s no way in hell he’s going to miss this.
Lillies slender hand wriggles it’s way into his pants, rubbing himself through his underwear. Charles slowly leans back to do just the same. Charles doesn’t often have much time himself, but he can understand Lillies appreciation for foreplay. Lillie quickly undoes his pants, pulling them down half-way to let his member spring free. He’s not fairly large but he’s exactly what Charles needs.
Lillies fingers travel through the wiry hair around himself, gently rubbing at the base of his shaft as his other hand reaches slightly down to fondle his balls. Charles’s breath catches in his throat, he has the perfect angle to see Lillies hands rubbing and squeezing at himself. Charles grunts and rubs the leaking head of his cock, pulling it free from its confines just as Lillie had done.
Lillies wanton moans are echoing through Charles’s office, practically forcing groans and grunts to fall from Charles’s own mouth.
Charles almost feels guilty as Lillie suddenly goes rigid and cums rather fiercely into his own hand, sometimes he forgets that the other man is a virgin. Charles tries to hurry his own orgasm, to catch up with Lillie. Thankfully, Lillie continues to stroke himself even after he gets overstimulated. He whimpers and cries as Charles finally comes undone himself, watching as Lillie slows down and drag his fingers through the cum now staining his shirt and thighs.
Charles reached forward to grab a tissue to clean himself up, watching as all Lillie does is wobbly walk towards the bathroom for a shower. Another pang of guilt snaps it’s way through his heart, what would Lillie think if he knew Charles was watching him? Surely, he wouldn’t enjoy it, who would?
Charles decides to call it a night as he hears the quiet sound of Lillies shower turning on. He tucks himself back into his slacks and shuts off his laptop, feeling almost sorry for what he just did.
Though, he decides, there’s no harm in what Lillie doesn’t know.
He stands up, checks his suit for any stains (luckily, he cleans up well), and sets off outside his office. He heads up to the recording studio to check in on Dethkloks progress with the new album, those boys are starting to get on his last nerve.
—
I close my eyes as water droplets run down my face, I’ll have to do another set of laundry tonight it seems. As the water crashes down on my back, a creeping feeling slithers it’s way through my chest. I feel eyes on the back of my head, but no shadows to accompany them. That’s rather odd.
Often times after I finish a novel, I get some time to myself— no matter how brief— and I tend to consider them “vacations.” I grab a towel and head to my bedroom, flopping on the bed and thus beginning my vacation of sleep and sheets.
I drift off quickly, exhausted and worn down so completely. My dreams are filled with fire. There’s burning rocks and a river full of corpses, I row down it, watching as faces long past scream and cry in agony. They seem to call my name but it’s not one I recognize, I’m curled up against the back of the little wooden canoe I’ve found myself in and I cry out for help just as they do.
But if I’m the one they look to, who will come to save me?
My heart thumps and I start to fear it may burst out of my body, black inky hands writhe from the water and clutch at the sides of the boat, rocking it to and fro. They jostle me and cry out my name, they screech and holler and pound against the wood.
I jolt awake as a rather loud crash resounds from inside my kitchen. This isn’t a dream anymore, I realize as a cold sweat comes over me. I jump to action, hastily put on a pair of sweatpants and the baseball bat I keep besides my bed.
I creep out from the hallway, watching in the shadows as a rather large man in a black hood—strangely like the ones I saw at the bookstore today— rifles through my pots and pans.
My heart stops and everything goes silent as I gather my courage. I charge at the man and swing my bat as heavily as I can, and it’s not until I hear the most satisfying of sounds that I begin to calm down. The man’s skull cracks so loudly it practically deafens me, and he only stays upright for a few seconds before he flops to the floor.
I’m hasty as I call the police, and it’s not long before I’ve tied up the man for good measure and sit on my couch, just as I had earlier, to wait for the authorities to show.
#mtl oc lillie ann x charles offdensen#charles offdensen x oc#charles foster offdensen x oc#oc lillie#my writing#metalocalypse#charles
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Seven (Se7en)
1995 - 2h7m - Rated R
Directed by David Fincher
Written by Andrew Kevin Walker
If you’re a fan of crime movies or just Brad Pitt, there’s a good chance you’ve seen Seven. If you haven’t…It’s currently available on that streaming service we all share with our families.
Directed by David Fincher, this dark drama truly set the tone for not only more incredible Fincher films, but the crime genre as a whole. After a somewhat rocky directing debut with the third Alien installment, David Fincher’s sophomore film Seven helped to set him apart from similar directors at the time. I wish I could have seen this movie when it premiered in 1995; I’m sure there were fans like me that were anxious to see what he would work on next.
Cinematography is an important part of any memorable film and Seven is no exception. Especially as of late, people are always discussing the “vibe” of a movie they’ve recently seen. This vibe is created by the Director of Photography, also know as the Cinematographer. The DOP for Seven was Darius Khondji, who also worked on beautifully shot films such as Midnight in Paris and Uncut Gems. I have no doubt that this movie jump started Fincher’s love of poorly-lit rooms and consistently rainy doorways. It showcases many artistic choices that continue to reappear in his later films. I dig it.
The screenplay is written by Andrew Kevin Walker who’s writing credit include the Burton/Depp Sleepy Hollow and Jason Segel’s modern day chamber film Windfall on Netflix. I think Seven starts a bit slow, but in my experience, that’s how Walker works. He takes the time to introduce characters and establish the world they live in. The writing isn’t flawless. In my own critical review, I rated this category 3/5. It’s important to let the audience figure things out, but lay the context clues to fully understand the story. This movie does that well. And the fact that the writing allows for viewers to “pick up the pieces” means you’ll be pausing it to explain to your parents or discussing it with coworkers the next day. The only downside for me was the use of an overpowering score paired with the panning view of the newest crime scene. It is ominous, sure, but almost distracting at times. With new tv shows and all-star films emerging everyday (some with equally awkward music choices) most detective movies can seem trite. But I think Seven’s style of storytelling through dialogue is intriguing and put simply, it works. It probably wouldn’t work as well as it does with just any actors. If you’re not a fan of either actor in this starring duo, why are you even interested in reading this far?
Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are cast as recently promoted “rookie” detective Mills and close-to-retirement officer Somerset, respectively. The conversations between them are written in such a way that they become the glue that holds the story together. If you’re not listening to the back-and-forth of this team, it’s all too easy to miss critical plot details. Detective Mill's wife, Tracey is played by a young and pretty Gwyneth Paltrow, though unfortunately, that’s the only way she seems to be portrayed. Though it’s probably intentional, her time on screen always seems to be cut short. Kevin Spacey (in what some might say was his prime) is our intelligent yet terrifying antagonist, John Doe. He doesn’t talk much either, but delivers an unforgettable performance. (He won the MTV Movie award for Best Villian in 1996.) Both these characters are important to the film’s story, but somehow, I still find myself wanting to know more about them. You’re sure to recognize a few other faces in the background of these scenes, as well. The casting only strengthens the authenticity of the world Fincher builds. Even though at times you may find yourself checking your watch, when the film’s concluding few minutes come around, you’ll be hooked until credits roll.
So, is Seven worth a couple hours of your time? Yes. It was one of the first of its kind and has aged rather gracefully. Sure, there are other films with similar plots, but the building blocks of dark, edgy crime dramas are visible here. I love that about it and any true movie fan would, too.
#se7en (1995)#Seven#seven movie#David Fincher#Fincher films#movie review#movies#film#film reviews#filmisnotdead#crime#action#drama#true crime#Brad Pitt#morgan freeman#gwyneth paltrow#kevin spacey#Netflix#what to watch#movie theater#classic movies#October#October movies#Halloween#halloween movie
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Talking about old crushes
Hi there. This is another filler post in between my bigger works.
This is more of a joke post, poking fun at how silly old crushes can feel at times. (Thomas's is a little more serious though, I suppose) It's all in good fun, but I apologize if anyone takes offense.
(Reader is specified as female, Bo and Michael tease but it's in good fun, yes this was an excuse to bully myself about my Michael Myers crush)
2018 Michael Myers
You and Michael were watching a movie tonight; you were watching Candyman. Of course, Michael wasn't really watching, he was using this as an excuse to spend time with you. He didn't take much interest in movies, but you liked them, and Michael liked to indulge you in your interests whenever he could. It made him feel like a real lover. Now and then, however, the film caught his genuine attention.
"Helen…" That voice, smooth as velvet, echoed through the house thanks to the surround sound speakers the last home owners installed in Michael's house. It made Michael's eye snap up at the screen, to witness the actual Candyman finally on screen. As he took his first steps out of the shadow, he heard you sigh and hug his arm, making him look down at you quizzically.
"I had the biggest crush on this guy when I was 16." You answered his silent question. "I mean, who doesn't have a crush on Tony Todd?"
Michael had to look back at the screen and confirm you were both looking at the same guy. You had the hots for this guy with a hook for a hand?
"... Your taste hasn't gotten any better." Was all he said to that, and without his mask on, you saw him grinning to himself at the realization of the irony of your past crush.
"Shut up." You smack his arm and give him that playfully annoyed look before just hugging his arm again as you both turned your attention back to the movie.
Thomas Hewitt
"God, Hoyt doesn't even try to hide it, does he?"
Thomas looked back at you after your groan of disgust during your cleaning of the living room. He poked his head out from the kitchen to see what you were talking about. That's when you held up your discovery to him, a Playboy magazine with Marilyn Monroe on the front of it. The huff and eye roll he did told you this was not the first time he's seen stuff like that around the house.
"Well, at least he has decent taste." You lazily flipped through some of the pages, finding exactly what you expected to find in there. You looked back up and noticed Thomas giving you that quizzical look. That's when you gestured to Marilyn on the cover.
"Marilyn Monroe, at least he knows a beautiful woman when he sees one." You tossed the erotic magazine back on the table now. "Though I doubt he respects her beyond this thing."
Thomas awkwardly stood there for a moment. He wasn't sure if he was really allowed to agree to that, since it was another woman and you were right there. But you noticed his awkward glances and just smiled and came up to him so you could wrap your arms around his waist.
"Aw Tommy, it's alright to acknowledge someone else's beauty even if you're dating. Marilyn Monroe is a beautiful woman." You met his unsure glance with a smile and a nod. It calmed him down enough to hold your waist in return and pull you in for a hug.
Now there was only one question left in his mind; Could he find the same gender attractive like you did?
Bo Sinclair
It was Halloween, and while you couldn't dress up or celebrate the ways you used to, the Sinclair's did have Halloween among their movie collection, which was an impressive collection in your opinion.
Vincent passed on the movie night, he got a sudden burst of inspiration when you reminded him it was Halloween so he was making his own Jack o Lantern with wax today. He was in the zone as Bo says.
So, it was just you and Bo. You, Bo, and a bowl of popcorn of course. The movie was nearing it's climax, Laurie approaching the room where her dead friends are stashed away all over the room. That's when Bo finally perked up.
"Ya know," he started, "I used to have the biggest childhood crush on her. Shit, her name's Jamie, right?"
"It is, yeah." You slid from popcorn into your mouth and happily chewed away as Laurie screamed at her friend swinging down from the ceiling. "She's a beautiful woman, I can see why you did."
Bo just nodded before wrapping his arm around you and focusing on the movie again. As the Shape emerged from the darkness, you decided well, if we're talking about childhood crushes.
"I had the hots for him."
Then, the movie stopped. Paused, just before Laurie was unknowingly slashed with a knife. You almost didn't want to look at him, but you did, and you were met with his what the fuck eyes.
"Baby. This guy?"
Your cheeks burnt the second he started teasing you. You groaned and covered your face.
"Yes."
"Baby."
You made a "tsk" sound with your tongue before smacking his arm to get him to quit it. "Stop teasing me, I didn't tell you to be teased!"
But Bo shook his head. "Oh no, darlin', I am never gonna stop teasing you about this." He was dissolving into shaking his head and starting to chuckle.
You groaned and grabbed the empty popcorn bowl to refill it, using it as an excuse to escape the teasing. Bo sat up straight and watched you go into the kitchen, still chuckling to himself.
"So should I go buy a white mask for our next role play night?"
"I mean…" You casually tossed the bagged popcorn in the microwave and hit the 2 on the door before turning to him. "If you can find one…"
"Babe!" Now you both were snickering and shaking your heads.
It was at that moment that Vincent came back upstairs, with his Jack o Lantern which finally dried. If things couldn't be even more ironic, it was the one from the Halloween intro. He displayed it on the dining room table before noticing the atmosphere in the room; and that he was definitely missing something. Bo was quick to enlighten him though, even when you gave him the you better not stare.
"She had a crush on Michael Myers."
You groaned again and dropped your head on the counter, shaking your head and chuckling in defeat, knowing you weren't going to live this down any time soon.
Vincent took a moment to give Bo the what the fuck eye before just shrugging. "Yeah, and now look who she's with."
Bo shot him the finger, making them both start to chuckle before Vincent took himself back downstairs to clean up his mess; leaving you to Bo's merciless teasing.
Vincent Sinclair
You and Vincent were having a movie night together, as Bo went straight to bed when he came home tonight so it meant you two would finally have the TV to yourselves. You suggested Queen of the Damned, and he was very eager to agree. Turns out, this was a favorite between the two of you.
"I'm sorry," you suddenly said when the queen finally made her appearance on screen, "But queen Akasha is gorgeous."
Vincent immediately nodded his head in agreement. "She is. Bo teased me to hell and back when he noticed my crush on her when we watched this movie together."
"And I don't blame you, just look at her!" You sighed dreamily at the screen, followed by Vincent's own sigh.
You both were unapologetically pining for Queen Akasha for the rest of the movie. And after it finished, Vincent took you down to the basement to show you all of his old sketches he drew of her years ago to prove his past crush on her. You both had a good laugh about it.
#slasher x reader#michael myers x reader#bo sinclair x reader#vincent sinclair x reader#thomas hewitt x reader#ya'll are lying if you say you didn't crush on queen Akasha#It's such a shame what happened to her actress#I want to make more posts like this#just having casual every day conversations with slashers#talking about normal things#feel like a COUPLE#I wanna shoot the shit with peepaw all day#this is 100% self indulgent and I'm not sorry
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