#also someone has stolen the wire off my phone???
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Me, walking into work this morning:
#I want to scream#nothing has been invoiced for two weeks#emails left unread for days#also someone has stolen the wire off my phone???#so I have a unplugged phone? guess I am speaking to no customers today?#small dub
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9-1-1: LONE STAR REACTION
This reaction is for the season 4, sixth episode "This Is Not a Drill" which originally aired on February 28, 2023. THis episode was written by Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson and directed by Michael Medico. Spoilers ahead!
***LAST TIME ON 9-1-1: LONE STAR***
Marjan discovers she is the reason the 126 has been brought under review by the Austin Fire Department Internal Affairs due to her calling a woman she was rescuing a "crazy lady". The woman and her former ex-husband ask Marjan to publicly apologize as well as paste a link to their GoFundMe on her Instagram. Marjan refuses to be extorted and ends up resigning from the 126. Meanwhile, Grace investigates the concerning phone calls she has been receiving from a little boy. She enlists the help of her husband and Tommy to come to the boy's (and his mother's) rescue.
Now that we're all caught up, let's talk about episode six - THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
We begin the episode with an actual drill. The 126, sans Marjan Marwani, enter a building with bomb gear on. Owen leads the team up a set of stairs and they find a young boy and his father. Owen tells the little boy to evacuate while Tommy tends to his father. The little boy tells Owen that his two sisters are in the room next door. Owen and the others go to the next room, open the door, and BOOM! Pink mist! The lights come on and a very official-looking woman with a clipboard in her hand comes out and tells them they're all dead. Paul, Mateo, Nancy, and TK are all upset by their failure at the drill. Nancy suggests that she is merely maimed and not dead since she isn't as covered in pink mist as the others. Paul makes a reference to the Kobayashi Maru (an unwinnable test) and my heart is filled with joy. My boy Paul is a Trekkie! It was fun to hear them banter back and forth but judging by the look on Captain Strand's face, he was not having it.
Title card!
Back at the house, Paul, Mateo, Nancy, and TK are in a jovial mood. They all take a selfie together to send to Marjan. Owen snaps on all of them and tells them to think about all of the first responders who went on calls where they didn't come back alive. I mean Owen does have a point but he's also being a major buzzkill. The others feel like poo after his outburst. Tommy gives Judd a look that says, hey, you got this one. Judd, our second in command, sighs and goes to talk to the captain.
Judd goes to Owen's office and tells him that the others - Paul, Mateo, Nancy, and TK - haven't been through what they have. They don't know what it's like to lose someone on the job. Judd also reminds Captain Strand that the drills are designed for them to fail. Owen goes to close the door to his office. He tells Judd he believes something big is coming. He then tells Judd that the Honor Dogs are on the FBI's domestic terror watch list and that a truckload of ammonium nitrate was stolen. Judd asks him how he has all of this information and Owen confesses he's been working with the FBI. Judd asks if the Feds have any clue as to what the Honor Dogs are planning and Owen tells him that they won't even return his phone calls. Owen says he's tired of sitting around waiting for something to happen so he tells Judd he's acting captain until he returns.
Owen goes off, alone, in one of the Austin Fire Department pickups, to the Honor Dogs' clubhouse and is met with an icy reception. He tells Red (Dan Sanders-Joyce) he wants to have a chat with him. Red asks if he's wearing a wire this time and Owen says he's not and tells Red he can "check his junk". Red says that he doesn't talk to Feds or the friends of Feds and threatens to drag Owen out of the bar. Owen reminds him he's a fire captain and tells him he can have the bar shutdown due to several fire hazards. Red asks him what he wants and Owen reveals that he knows about the ANFO (ammonium nitrate) and suggests that he can make a deal with Red if he gives everything up. Red is unmoved by Owen's words and claims he doesn't know anything. Owen is inclined to believe him just as the FBI raid the place. Owen is escorted outside by Special Agent Chuck Biondi (Rob Parks). Owen tells Biondi that he believes the Honor Dogs don't know anything about the stolen ANFO but Biondi is skeptical. He goes to put handcuffs on Owen right as the clubhouse explodes.
The rest of the 126 responds to the emergency and we find out there were nine FBI agents, including Special Agent Rose Casey (Amanda Schull), and who knows how many bikers inside the clubhouse when the bomb detonated. Paul and Judd notice an Austin Fire Department vehicle already on the scene. Judd gives out marching orders while Tommy, Nancy, and TK set start to set up triage. Owen carries Special Agent Casey out of the bar and she is taken by ambulance to the hospital with Owen riding with her. Special Agent Casey tells Owen she's scared and for a brief moment I wondered if this was a sign of a potential romance between the two. During the ambulance she asks him to call her "Rose" right before she dies.
Sergeant Ty O'Brien (Neal McDonough) arrives at the hospital at Owen's request. Owen fills him in on everything that's happened. Nine FBI agents, including Special Agent Casey, and several members of the Honor Dogs (we are told the number is in the double digits) are dead. However, Red is still alive but in surgery. The working theory regarding the explosion is someone 'accidentally' detonated the ammonium nitrate which was being housed at the bar. Neither Owen nor O'Brien believe this. Special Agent Biondi joins them and tells them that the case is closed since the prime suspect (Red) is in custody. Owen tells him that Red is not the man they are looking for and the explosion at the bar didn't even account for half of the stolen ammonium nitrate. Special Agent Biondi tells Owen that Red is refusing to talk. Owen suggests that he and O'Brien can try talking to Red.
Owen and O'Brien go into Red's room and find him bandaged up with several burns all over his body. The way he turned over in bed gave me Harvey Dent/Two-Face in The Dark Knight vibes. Red calls them both snitches which made me laugh. Owen informs him that eleven of his brothers are dead as a result of the explosion, including Turner (Scott Peat). Owen also tells him the FBI believes he is responsible due to his politics and their belief that he is a terrorist. Red doesn't seem too surprised by this information but he insists that he is not the one responsible. Owen mentions that prior to him arriving at the clubhouse the Honor Dogs in attendance looked like they were meeting about something. He asks if Red called the meeting. Red tells him that he didn't call the meeting but the invite came from his phone number. He suggests that someone 'spoofed' his phone number and he believes that someone is Andy - the person they kicked out due to his extreme views. Damn, how extreme do your views have to be if the Honor Dogs think they're too extreme?
The FBI raid Andy's house and find it empty. O'Brien tells Special Agent Biondi he hasn't heard from his niece (Andy's wife) in two days. Another FBI agent informs Owen, O'Brien, and Special Agent Biondi that a neighbor says they saw Andy's wife and son leave the house two days ago with an unidentified male. We then see Andy spray-painting a van. We also see two giant barrels of ANFO. Dun-dun-dunnnn!
Back at Andy's home, Owen asks O'Brien. Let me just say, I love their budding friendship. I feel like O'Brien brings out the best in Owen. He just seems more level-headed and people like Owen Strand need to be surrounded by people like Sergeant Ty O'Brien. Special Agent Biondi tells them three days ago someone blew up a school bus. Traces of ANFO were found at the scene along with a dead hiker. The school bus was traced back to a salvage yard where the owner identified Andy as the one who purchased it. Yikes! Things are not looking good for O'Brien's nephew. Special Agent Biondi asks O'Brien if he knows of where Andy may be. O'Brien doesn't know. Owen suggests Andy is living at The Farm which is where he and O'Brien found the ANFO. The FBI initially believed that Red and the other Honor Dogs moved the ANFO before the FBI raid, however Owen believes Andy is the one who moved it. Special Agent Biondi prepares to go to The Farm and O'Brien insists that he go with them. Special Agent Biondi seems reluctant to have him tag-along but Owen reminds him that he's already lost a lot of his team. Special Agent Biondi agrees to have O'Brien join them.
Owen heads back over to the 126 and comes clean to his team about his involvement with the FBI. He tells them that another terrorist plot is imminent and that he needs their help. Meanwhile, the FBI along with O'Brien and Carlos arrive at The Farm. I have to admit, Carlos looked pretty badass with a rifle in hand. We see Grace get a call at the 9-1-1 dispatch and then we see the alarm go off at the 126. Several houses are called into action. It's time for battle!
Back at The Farm, there's no trace of Andy. O'Brien speculates that someone is working with Andy and believes that person is still on the premises. Special Agent Biondi tells his team they need to head over to the capitol because he just got notice that an anonymous bomb threat has been called in. O'Brien thinks that they should continue searching the grounds, especially the surrounding woods. Special Agent Biondi tells him he can stay but they are leaving. Carlos offers to remain with O'Brien. Oooh, an O'Brien and Carlos team-up! I am definitely here for this!
Over at the capitol, the 126 are helping with evaculations. We see Owen inside of a van working with the bomb squad. They are trying to locate a bomb inside the capitol. Using a robot, they locate several metal drums possibly filled with ANFO. The funniest part of this scene is that Owen Strand, captain of the 126, appears to be running the whole operation. No one is a bigger Owen Strand-defender than I am. People often complain about how he gets too much to do in this show and my response is, Owen Strand is the main character on the show. Of course he gets more to do than anyone else. I don't see Lone Star as the ensemble show that the original 9-1-1 is. The original show has several big names attached to it (Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, Connie Britton, and Jennifer Love Hewitt) while outside of Rob Lowe, Live Tyler, and Gina Torres, Lone Star is mostly composed of actors who don't have a lot of heft to their iMDB pages. Anywho, with that said, I find it a wee bit ridiculous that a fire captain is having such a major environment in a bomb situation. And I know the writers are really pushing the narrative that Owen was at the Twin Towers during 9/11 but this is Austin, not New York City. Okay, back to the story.
The guy operating the robot asks how someone was able to get all of those explosives into the building without being noticed by security. Owen immediately leaves the van against orders and walks right into the capitol building. When TK sees him, he shakes his head and has a look on his face that says, dad's gonna dad. I feel like if this happened two seasons ago, TK would be freaking out. It just goes to show, after so many instances of Owen just walking into volatile situations, all willy nilly, everyone around him is just like, that's what he does. The guys in the van ask Owen what he's doing repeatedly over the radio and he assures them he will be out in a minute ... one way or another. Owen locates the metal drums and for some reason decides to open one against the orders of the bomb squad captain. Well, it turns out the drum is empty along with the others. Outside of the capitol, Andy pulls up in an EMS van (the same van we saw him spray-painting) and he starts the countdown on the bomb that is in the back of the van. We have 10 minutes! Yikes!
Meanwhile, my new favorite dynamic duo/buddy-cop pairing, O'Brien and Carlos, strike out into the woods where they find tiny white pellets littering the ground. O'Brien picks one of them up and determines its ammonium nitrate. O'Brien posits this is where the bomb was built. The two of them stumble upon a shed. O'Brien sees tire marks on the ground. He tells Carlos he will go inside and sweep the place and will holler if he needs him. O'Brien goes inside and sees evidence of where someone has been living. He continues to do a sweep of the premises and finds his niece, Joanne (Stevie Lynn Jones) and his great-nephew, Jack (Kayden Alexander Koshelev) in a cell. He opens the cell to release them but is shot by Mikey (Richard Meehan). It turns out Mikey is the same young guy we saw getting branded the night Owen and Judd went to the Honor Dog's clubhouse a few episodes ago. Thankfully, O'Brien is wearing a bulletproof vest. When Mikey goes to shoot him in the head, Carlos shoots him. Hey writers! This is the Carlos we need! Give me more badass Carlos! Oh, and please make him a detective. At this point, he's doing more than the average cop.
Owen exits the capitol and radios to Judd that everyone needs to go back inside the building. Judd asks if this is an all-clear and Owen tells him the safest place for everyone to be is behind the building's granite walls. Now, I'm not an expert on explosives but are we supposed to believe the same ammonium nitrate that can take out most of Austin is no match for the capitol building? Then again, who am I, a mere writer who likes to react to episodes of the TV shows I enjoy, to question the authority of Captain Owen Strand? Anywho, Judd thanks everyone for participating in the drill and tells them to head back inside. Owen debriefs with the bomb squad captain, Captain Jenkins (Bob Stephenson) and Tommy. He believes the reason the bomber wanted them to evacuate the building is because the bomb is outside the capitol, not inside. Captain Jenkins tells him that his team has secured the perimeter. Owen tells him he believes the bomb is in an emergency vehicle since they have clearance and access to the scene. Tommy suggests the bomb is inside an ambulance which seems like a leap to me in logic but, then again, an ambulance has more space in it to keep the explosives so perhaps that's her logic. She also mentions she saw a unit pull onto the scene shortly before the all-clear was given. She gives the unit number to Captain Jenkins and leaves to inform his team.
Owen gets a call from O'Brien and the latter catches him up on what he and Carlos have been up to. O'Brien tells Owen that Mikey is the one running the operation, not Andy. I get that this changes things a bit about the situation but I still don't see a scenario where Andy doesn't end up going to jail. Owen hangs up with his bestie and then we get a huge product placement for Verizon, one of the worst, if not the worst, cell phone carriers in the country. The bomb squad uses a drone (sponsored by Verizon) to locate Andy and the ambulance he's in. Special Agent Biondi arrives and tells Owen that when they find Andy, they're going to take him out. Yikes! Owen walks away and tells Special Agent Biondi he will find Andy himself. Owen sheds his gear and goes looking for O'Brien's nephew. He locates Andy and the ambulance and tells him that he knows that he's O'Brien's nephew. Andy tells Owen that Mikey's going to kill his family if he doesn't go through with their plan but Owen holds up a phone so that he can hear his wife. Joanne tells Andy that Mikey's been arrested and that they are safe. Owen tells him to get out of the vehicle and get his hand off the detonator but Andy tells him it's too late. There's less than 3 minutes left. Owen tells him to step out and do whatever the FBI says. While the FBI subdues Andy, Owen climbs in the ambulance and drives off.
Owen calls 9-1-1 and gets Grace on the line because, of course! Grace directs Owen to drive the ambulance into the river and make sure it's completely submerged underwater. Owen jumps out of the ambulance right before it drives into the water. In a funny scene, the ambulance stops just short of the water but thankfully, Judd, Paul, and Mateo arrive and finish pushing the ambulance into the water before it explodes. The underwater explosion isn't as big as I was expecting and all I kept thinking is, all of the poor wildlife! Also, what happens to the water supply in Austin if the river now has ammonium nitrate in it? Are we going to have a Flint, Michigan-level crisis in Austin because of this? Anywho, the day is saved by Owen, Grace, and the 126 so yay!
We then get a flashback to last summer. We see Andy get kicked out of the Honor Dogs due to his extreme views. Mikey finds him and the manipulation begins. Back in the present day, Andy tells the FBI he was really angry. He says he should've just walked away from Mikey but instead he got pulled into the madness. We learn Mikey's the one who stole all of the ANFO. Mikey is clearly psychotic. Sensing Andy's reluctance, Mikey threatens to kill Andy's wife and son and when he saw Mikey take out the hiker, he knew the threat was real. I'm so relieved that it wasn't Andy who killed the hiker. The last thing he needs is murder added to his growing list of concerns. Andy says that Mikey forced him to go through with building the bomb. He apologizes to his wife, Joanne. Andy thanks everyone, including Owen, for saving his family and all of the people.
We see Andy say goodbye to his wife before he is taken to jail while Owen and O'Brien watch. O'Brien says that the worst part of all of this is that now Andy will have to watch his son grow up from behind bars where he'll be for 20 years. O'Brien looks so defeated. I'm sure he probably blames himself for getting Andy involved with the Honor Dogs in the first place. O'Brien worries that Jack will grow up without a father just like Andy did. The cycle continues. O'Brien feels like he fails but Owen tells him that he hasn't. Andy's alive and that's what matters at the moment. O'Brien thanks Owen for being a pain in his ass. I hope we get to see more of these two.
In the final scene of the episode, we see Owen arrive at TK and Carlos' place with Chinese food. TK is pleasantly surprised by his father's presence and invites him inside. Owen tells TK he's proud of him. TK thanks him and asks what brought all of this up. Owen says throughout all of their ups and downs, he is grateful that TK has never decided to blow up a government building. Owen mentions the wedding and tells them he has thoughts. We then see the three of them through a window right before everything fades to black.
Okay, my thoughts on the episode? I really, really enjoyed it. I love that we got the culmination to a plot introduced at the beginning of the season. My initial concern was that we would drag this storyline out for most of the season. It was fun watching Owen save the day with the 126's help, of course, but I look forward to episodes where Owen isn't the main focus. At this point, I think the fandom will revolt if we don't focus on Paul or Nancy or Mateo. It does look like next episode we will get to see more of Tommy and her blossoming romance with Trevor (D.B. Woodside). So, until next time ...
#911 lone star reaction#tv reaction#tv reaction 2023#911 lone star reaction 2023#911 lone star#fox 911 lone star#blw reactions#blw reactions 2023#911 ls 4x06#911 ls s4#rob lowe#neal mcdonough#sierra mcclain#gina torres#brian michael smith#brennan keel cook#jim parrack
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Singing In The Dead Of Night Ch 2
Harley and Barman set up a playdate for their wards.
forgive the long post, i'll edit and clean it up when im home. chapter can also be found on my ao3, url in the description.
Harley made it back home, which was actually the manor of some billionaire who only really used the house for tax purposes. Harley had taken it over when Lucy came to live with her, deciding she needed more room, and they quickly changed it to suit their needs.
“Luuuucyyyy, I’m hooooome,” Harley called out to the manor, heading through the living room/gymnasium.
Lucy was balancing on the beam by her hands. “Never heard that one before.” She went into the splits and stayed on one hand.
Harley looked over her form. “Point your toes more...there ya go.” Lucy did as recommended. “I got candy for dinner!” She dumped her stolen lollipops on the table.
“I already ate, Aunt Harley,” she said, “I made extra pasta if you want.” She pointed over to the kitchen, before switching hands and flipping herself over.
“Oh,” Harley said, going over to make a plate, but feeling like ants were crawling in her skin. “You know, you don’t have to call me your aunt when it’s just the two of us,” She said, swirling her fork through the noodles.
Lucy shrugged, “Force of habit. Plus it’s a good idea in general, ya know, in case someone’s secretly listening in or we mess up some other time.”
Harley shrugged her shoulders. “Makes sense,” and it did, but it still kind of hurt. “You can have the lollipops for dessert though. You like cherry?” She tossed her the red candy.
Lucy looked down at the wrapper a second. “Can’t, I’m allergic to the red dye.”
“Oh,” Harley said, silently cursing herself. That was something that mothers should know about their kids, allergies and crap. “Well. Lemon then?”
“Sure!” They traded the lollipops, and Harley sucked on hers between bites of the pasta. Sweet and savory combined, delicious.
Lucy swung her legs as she sat on the beam. “Does...my father have any allergies?”
Harley blinked at her. Did Joker have any allergies? It was hard to say. Even now, Harley didn’t know a lot about the Joker. That’s how he liked it. “Best not to talk about it,” she said instead, “In case of those listening things or whatever.”
Lucy hummed, but didn’t seem satisfied. “Hey,” Harley said, trying to distract her from the ‘dad’ talk, “You wanna go out with me tomorrow?”
Lucy brightened, jumping a bit, “Where are you gonna go?”
“I dunno,” she said, “Go lookin’ for trouble. Let the trouble find me. Punch out a couple people but only if they REALLY deserve it!” And maybe if they only kinda deserved it, Harley thought.
Lucy hummed again, thinking. “I dunno. I think violence often begets further violence, and while it is occasionally necessary, efforts should focus more on the community building and personal improvement area.”
Harley blinked at her. Right, she was a reader, Delia had mentioned that. Not unlike Harley at her age, really, although Harley had focused on psychoanalysis instead of philosophy. “Ah, of course,” she said, “Well, what do you wanna do?”
Lucy thought for a second. “Well, there was this girl I wanted to go inspire to fight her eating disorder.”
“Oh,” Harley said nodding. It was a noble cause, really, but...also seemed really, really boring. “I...sure!” she smiled.
The truth was, when Lucy came out to live with Harley full time, she had really thought they would be a lady dynamic duo, a proper partnership mother/daughter team. But Lucy wasn’t much like Harley. Or, she was but, she was different, a goody two-shoes. Or, a goody tutu. Ha.
More than that, she followed a strange sense of logic that was oddly reminiscent of...Harley didn’t even finish the thought.
“You don’t want to go, do you?” Lucy asked.
“Hmm? Of course I do!” Harley said, “I’d do anything with you sweetheart,” she gave Lucy a wink, then went to the kitchen to hide her facial expression.
She didn’t see that Lucy had followed her until she was directly behind her. “Oh, Jesus!” She said, clutching her heart, “Gotta look out there, sweetie. Almost brained ya!”
“Is Dad like me at all?” she asked, head tilted to the side.
Harley blinked at her. She felt like her bones were shaking inside her skin. “Why would you ask a thing like that?”
Lucy spun a little in place making her tutu swish. “I’ve been reading about him. People think he’s crazy. I mean, he says it. But that’s not what your records say.”
Harley frowned, backing away as though physical distance would get her out of the conversation. “What’re you goin through my records for? What, are you a snoop?”
“They got published after one of your arrests,” Lucy said, “Other people were more interested in the little notes you left in the margins, but--”
“Alright, stop.” Harley said, hand clutching her lollipop stick so tight it might break. “Look, Mr...your father is mean and cruel and manipulative, and nothing like you! He wants to drive other people crazy, and for some people, self included, he succeded. But I grew out of it as best I could and now...you don’t need to worry about him, ok? He ain’t ever gonna know about ya, and he ain’t ever gonna find ya. Got it?”
Lucy hesitated a second and there was something strange in her eyes. Something familiar. “Got it,” she finally said.
Harley lightened, smiling at her. “Why don’t we play a game or somethin? You like Monopoly? I make up my own rules!”
Lucy smiled, “That sounds nice,” she said, all bright again. As they set up the game, Lucy said, “You don’t have to come with me tomorrow, by the way. I can take care of myself.”
“You sure?” Harley asked. Lucy nodded. For the rest of the evening, Harley felt like something was…off.
She slipped the burner phone out of her pocket. She typed, ‘Wanna set up a playdate?’
“She called it a WHAT?!” Damian said, nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Aww,” Tim said, over by the batcave computer, “Little Damian’s got a plaaayydaaate.”
“I will end you, Drake.” Damian snarled, fingers twitching for his sword.
“Enough,” Bruce interrupted the both of them. “Damian, if it helps you can think of it as a mission.”
“I thought I was forbidden from Robin duties for the next two months.” Damian said, arms crossed.
Bruce groaned. “Harley has taken in a ward, her niece Lucy. She has some petty crime charges, but from my recon, she’s not a villain. Harley wants her to spend time with someone her age, and I need someone who will watch over her.”
“Watch out for her, or watch out because of her?” Damian asked, scowling.
“Oooh, good question,” Tim said, still at the computer. “Hey, how come you didn’t set me up with vigilante kids?”
“Because you found them on your own,” Bruce shot back, “Look. Damian, you just have to spend the day with her. Follow her around, help her out as long as it’s not hurting anyone. Don’t let her get killed. Invite Jon if you want.”
“Uggh, Jon’s off world with his Dad,” Damian said.
“Oh right,” Bruce said, massaging his temple. “Why do interdimensional crises have to happen at the worst times?”
“Why is it we need a plural for interdimensional crisis?” Tim asked.
Bruce gave him a side glance to let him know he was coming up on the line that breached from ‘annoying’ to ‘problem Bruce will deal with.’ “Damian…”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, “But I won’t be her friend by you forcing us.”
“Fine.”
They met up with Harley at a neutral location downtown on top of a party goods store. “Hiya Batsy, Hey Bird Boy!”
Despite himself, Damian liked Harley. She was usually of a like mind about which villains did or didn’t deserve to live, but he didn’t tell Batman that. “Harley,” Batman said, “Where’s your niece?”
“Just doin some high-wire practice.” Harley said, “Lucy-goosey!”
From the side of the building, a girl faulted up from where she was hanging on the flagpole. A girl wearing a tutu and white paint. “Nice to meet you, Batman,” Lucy said, “Aunt Harley’s told me….a lot of mixed things.”
“YOU!” Damian said, before he could stop himself, and all three of the others turned to him.
Lucy trotted forward on her tiptoes. “Have we met?” She asked, tilting her head, and looking him up and down.
Damian swallowed. “Uhh….”
“Blackbird!” Lucy said, and swooped him up into a hug, “Oh, I knew you were a Robin, why’d you lie to me?”
“Blackbird, huh?” Batman said, and he couldn’t see, but he knew there was a very pointed eyebrow being raised at him.
Damian, still being swung like a ragdoll by Lucy, tried to gain his balance. “I didn’t...I mean I wasn’t…”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Batman said, “You kids go on, I have something to talk about with Harley.”
“Kids?!” Damian said, offended, especially that he was going to be left out of whatever this conversation was. But in doing so, he left himself vulnerable as Lucy pulled on his cowl to the edge of the building.
“Come on, birdy, whatever color you are. The city awaits!” And she jumped from the roof, grappling on outcroppings to reach the street safely. Damian grumbled, but eventually followed.
Harley looked to Batman, and her face fell. “He’s out there, isn’t he?”
Batman gave one slow nod.
Lucy skipped everywhere. It was very irritating, because it was faster than walking, but slower than running, so hard to keep pace. Also,it was just very perky, which made it hard to sulk.
Lucy claimed she had deliveries to make around town. Something about girls who were bullies in high school and were treating others poorly, but it was only because of the societal pressures that were put on young girls of America and...and thats about where Damian lost interest.
She carried a cartfull of boxes like a damn girlscout, and left them on the girls doors. Damian could have followed in his sleep...except there was something about one of the boxes….
“What’s in that one?” Damian asked as she brought it to the next home.
“Huh?” Lucy said, “Same thing as in all of them, some cookies, a letter, balloons of course and--”
“It’s beeping,” Damian said.
“What?”
Damian didn’t wait any longer, he grabbed the box out of her arms and tossed it as high into the sky as he could, tackling her to the ground. The box then exploded.
Lucy gasped in excitement, clapping her hands together. “Birdy, look at it! It’s fireworks!”
Damian growled, jumping off of her and taking out his sword. “I knew it, I knew you were up to no good.”
Lucy tilted her head. “Whatcha talkin about, Birdy?”
“You--” He pointed to where the box was still smoldering. “You were going to put a BOMB on that girl’s doorstep!”
“I didn’t put that there,” Lucy said, getting up with no care of the sword pointed at her.
“You-” Damian stammered. “What?”
Lucy bent down and picked up a scrap of paper from the ruins. “Change of plans for the evening, Birdy!” Lucy said, “We’re going puzzling!”
She tossed the paper at him and he grabbed it quickly. It read ‘I’ve the tallest of trunks and thickest of stumps, a switch in the breeze, but I’m no tree. What am I?’”
They came quickly to the elephant pasture at the zoo. Damian couldn’t help it, he held out his hand for the elephant. She reached out her trunk and wrapped it around him. He couldn’t help but laugh.
Her baby came forward this time, trotting on new steps. He was already the size of a small horse, but he stole Damian’s heart all the same. He tried to bowl Damian over like a large puppy, and Damian couldn’t help but laugh. “Didn’t know you could laugh, Birdy,” Lucy said, kneeling over a shady patch in the enclosure.
Damian’s scowl returned. “Stop calling me ‘Birdy,’” he said, “You can just say ‘Robin,’ if you want.”
“But aren’t there other Robins?” Lucy said, fiddling with something, “I’d love to call you something unique to you.”
“There’s already a Blackbird, you know.” Damian said, continuing to pet the baby elephant.
“There is?” Lucy asked, “Picking a superhero name is HARD. I’m still trying to get Commedia to stick. You know, like, Commedia del arte? But I’ll end up getting called ‘Tutu girl’ or something if I don’t watch out.”
Damian gently pushed the elephant away, seeing what she was doing. She was hands deep in another box like the one they’d found in her cart. “Careful, it could be another bomb.”
“Fireworks,” Lucy corrected, “and I already diffused it.”
Damian leaned down, looking. She had indeed done so, quite efficiently. “How did you know to do that?”
Lucy smiled, “An uncle of mine taught me. You’ll meet him.” She dug further into the box. “I wouldn’t mind some more fireworks, but I don’t want to scare the elephants.” She pulled out another slip of paper.
“This has all the hallmarks of The Riddler,” Damian said, “We have to be careful. He might have bombs all over the city.”
“Fireworks!” Lucy corrected again, “And, probably. See, we already have the next clue!” She waved the paper and read out “Can you hear me make a sound, only when you are around.”
“Of course you can only hear things when you’re around.” Damian said, frowning.
“But only when someone’s around does it make a...Oh!” Lucy said, jumping to her feet, “An echo! We have to go somewhere there’s an echo!”
Damian sighed, “I have an idea.”
Technically they weren’t IN the Bat cave. They were at a far entrance to it, another end of the cave system. So he wasn’t breaking any rules. “Hey, is that Wayne Manor?” Lucy asked. “I tried to break in there once, but they have some crazy rich person security system.”
“Funny that.” Damian said, trying to seem completely ordinary.
Lucy stood at the edge of the cave and yelled into it. “ECHO!” listening for the echo in return. She skipped into the cave, humming all the way, the sound bouncing off as she went.
“Lucy?” Damian said, following her, “Don’t go too far, there’s all sorts of--” He heard a squeal and rushed forward.
He stopped short, his flashlight falling on Lucy. She waved at him to put it down, squinting. “Look here!” She brushed aside some dirt to find some rusted over metal. “Isn’t it fascinating! This cave system must go on for miles! Maybe people hid treasure there!”
“It’s just the old mining system,” Damian said, truthfully. “It’s all blocked off.”
“That can’t be hard to undo,” Lucy said, intrigued by whatever lay beyond.
Damian grabbed her hand before she could continue. “We have to catch the Riddler. There has to be another package here.”
Lucy sighed, but nodded. She took his arm with the flashlight and swung him around the cave. “Ah! There.”
She took the package and skipped out of the cave. “Careful!” Damian urged. “Come on, just diffuse it.”
“Nope, not these ones.” She tossed the package high in the sky, and Damian saw the fireworks light up.
He felt his phone buzzing, no doubt Tim could hear an explosion out here, not to mention Alfred. They’d come investigating fast enough. He leaped up, grabbing the fallen slip of paper, and grabbed Lucy again to pull her along. He read it quickly and passed it to her as he made his way away. “Even in the city scape, nature comes to take its place.” Lucy read. “It must be the park!”
l,
“No,” Damian said, still pulling her, “I mean, yes, that is the answer to the riddle, but that’s not where we’re going.” He texted the police to inform them of the location of the hidden package so they could diffuse it, and dragged Lucy away.
The original Gotham Ice Cream shop was one of the oldest remaining buildings in Gotham, although was clearly closed for the night.
Damian saw a flash of green from the kitchens and rushed inside, finding none other than the Riddler standing there. “Stand down, Riddler,” Damian said, holding out his sword, “We’ve got you now!”
Riddler snarled, backing into a defensive stance. “Robin! How did you possibly find me?”
Damian smirked, “The beginning of each clue was clearly spelling out your final location. I-C-E. I didn’t need to follow 5 more clues to figure that out.”
Riddler cursed. “Those clues weren’t for you! They were for--!”
Lucy came skipping up to join Damian. “Hi, Uncle Eddy!”
“Lucille!” Riddler said, immediately warming. “I had so many sights around Gotham for you to see, why’d you go skipping to the end?”
Lucy skipped up to him, and Damian was once again left dumbfounded. “My friend Birdy here isn’t much for riddles, I think,” she said, “Although he enjoyed the elephants! And he knew about the mining carts in the caves, I want to explore those later.”
‘Uncle Eddy’ hugged Lucy, and Damian came to his senses, “THIS is your uncle?!”
Lucy shrugged, “I mean, that’s what I call him. I met him when I was visiting Aunt Harley a few years ago.”
“I heard you had moved to Gotham full time,” Riddler said, “I wanted to be sure you saw the sights. But the bat-brats have to ruin everything I suppose.” Riddler glared at him, and he glared right back.
“I don’t-” Damian started, but cut himself off, “You can’t just be leaving BOMBS around the city!”
“Fireworks!��� Lucy and Riddler both corrected.
“Whatever! They’re explosive and they’re dangerous!” Damian hated having to be the safety one. It felt wrong.
Riddler rolled his eyes. “He’s just as much a barrel of laughs as the big one.”
“Aw, he’s sweet, really,” Lucy said, coming over to Damian and linking their arms. “Aunt Harley and Batman set us up on our own little playdate.”
“It is NOT!” Damian said, squirming away from her, “It is NOT a playdate.”
“Uncle Eddy, can my friend Birdy have some Ice Cream too?” Lucy asked, ignoring him.
Riddler and Damian glared again. “Fine.” He pushed his own bowl of ice cream towards Damian and went to get his own. “It’s MYSTERY flavor!”
Damian looked at it hesitantly as Lucy sat down to enjoy. Riddler went back to the kitchen. “It’s coconut,” Lucy said, “But Uncle Eddy likes to think it’s a mystery, so I let him.”
Damian frowned at her. “You’re really weird.”
“Thank you!” Lucy said, patting the seat beside her. “Come on, even you had to admit you had fun today.”
Damian thought about the elephants, and skipping around with Lucy, and watching the fireworks at the mouth of the cave, and seeing her all excited about mining carts for some reason. “Fine,” he said, “But it’s NOT a playdate.”
“Alright, alright,” Lucy said, digging into her ice cream. “Just a regular date then.”
“I--” Damian started, his head exploding with so many protests that he ended up just short circuiting. Lucy continued chowing down on ice cream like she didn’t say anything of importance. So, Damian just sat beside her, and ate his own.
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Whumptober 2021- The Darkness I Know
Chapter 1
Note: So, I decided to do the same thing I did last year, which is to turn the whumptober prompts into one continuous fic! This first chapter heading info up here is a mess! I’ll fix the next post! Also will be posted on Ao3 (the link will only be on the chapter index page so I don’t keep forgetting to do that). These chapters are typically on the shorter side just because I am writing a chapter daily and haven’t written ahead more than the first two chapters!
Fic Summary: After the world as she knew it was destroyed by the corruption of Malice, Zelda allies herself with her saviors from captivity: a disgruntled former governor, an alert paramedic, a cocky pilot, an excessively overt optimist, and a blind strategist. While the corrupted, malice-filled Yiga Clan looks for revenge on them, Zelda has to learn how important it is to find family in others... and how much more dangerous the stakes become if she fails to protect them.
No. 1 - ALL TRUSSED UP AND STILL NOWHERE TO GO
“You have to let go” | barbed wire | bound
Chapter Index/ Next
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What do you mean you don’t have a ruler?”
“I don’t need one.”
“What are you doing—… no!”
Never had there been a more malicious offence in Zelda’s eyes. Rulers were the key to life: they kept things straight, and they made things balanced. There was equality in every precise and calculated movement, and a delicate hand was required to hold the simple mechanism steady.
So, watching Dorian take the scissors and cut three strands of paper was like cutting straight through the muscle of Zelda’s heart.
“Why would you do that!” she screeched, more an accusation than a question. “Now they’re uneven, and they’re crooked! You’re insane!”
“It’s just a stencil, Zelda. If you want to cut the wood with a ruler, go ahead, but now we have an idea of how much we need.”
“We need to redo that. It’s not accurate.”
“I’ve been doing this since before you were born. It’s accurate enough. I can eyeball it. Do you want to fix the fence today, or no?”
Zelda grabbed their tools off the table and sulked behind Dorian as he left without waiting for her answer.
There were some battles Zelda knew she had to lose to win the war. This was one of them,
The fence was a priority to keep out anything that might have been affected with Malice from entering Mabe Village. There were so few survivors as it was.
Before the Malice had invaded Hyrule, Zelda had thought that her student loans were the biggest problem she’d have to tackle. She’d thought the money she’d spent on an apartment outside Castle Town was worth it, despite being far from her family back in Akkala. She thought there was a bright future waiting for her behind the years she’d spent in academia, trapped behind computers writing term papers and researching and experimenting and playing by others’ rules with the dream of one day making her own.
Then, the Malice spread: a thick purple substance that oozed from a seemingly endless source; a vile smell that reeked of rotting food in a broken refrigerator, and a gaseous haze that followed that made it near impossible to breathe. Worse, it corrupted any who came into direct physical contact with it for too long, and most of those affected were now dead for one reason or another.
She remembered when her car stopped working on the highway as the purple smoke filled the air on that first day four years ago. She’d stayed inside the metal hull, watching in awed horror as it engulfed her in an endless stream of fog. She ducked down below the steering wheel and listened to the crashes of other cars on the road that didn’t manage to slow down before their sight was stolen by it all. The constant ring of a jammed horn had her blocking her ears after too long.
Three days in the car, officially parched and hungry, no one had come for her. No phones worked; no drivers dared leave their vehicles. But it had become too much, and Zelda decided it was worth risking a venture outside, even amidst the lingering smoke. Her tongue was dried out and every breath of air came out in a wheezing hiss. But she’d done it.
The haze had been unpleasant and burned her eyes a fair bit, but when she stumbled into a water cooler that had fallen from a shattered car’s backseat and chugged every drink inside, she found other survivors along the side of the highway doing the same, and they all stayed together until they could reach safety.
Enter Mabe Village, four years later.
Zelda and her group had scavenged on the side of the road for almost a full year before they’d found the refuge. It was safe from the crazed bokoblins who once lived peacefully in their own territories. It had walls to prevent any of the fast-but-grounded lizalfos from scaling over. And each creature came at them with a vengeance, each fueled by contact with the Malice.
For a while, Zelda was the only engineer who could fix the solar panel garden and keep the power running. She developed as many mechanical skills as she could, fixing tools and maintaining the plumbing. She even began to learn carpentry to keep the houses upright.
Then, Dorian came in: someone with far more experience than her to help lighten her load. She slept more with him around, and he was full of energy to work through the nights when Zelda couldn’t.
“Would your mom ever let you do this?” Dorian joked as they made it to the wall and set their tools down.
Zelda, now in her mid-twenties, hadn’t seen her mom in years, but she’d learned everything from her. She thought about the blonde woman with blue eyes who used to sneak Zelda dangerous tools when she was too young to comprehend the danger. The woman who had her daughter assist her with live wires because she needed a third hand. Zelda knew how to hold a soldering pen before holding a real one.
“No,” Zelda snorted, always careful about her mother’s carelessness. “She’d let me watch, but she’d definitely be too worried about my hands.”
“Always the hands,” Dorian repeated with a joking smile.
“Always the hands.”
The two set out to fix a gaping hole in their fence, and while Dorian took the outside, the barbed wire that was laid over the wood planks to discourage any creatures from ramming into it, Zelda took the wooden boards inside.
When they were all in place, Zelda examined some of the old wood, intrigued by a perfect set of bite marks.
“Dorian! Was this Ms. Maple’s dog who did all this damage?”
She turned it over in her hand and set it down with half a mind to stride right over to the only dog owner in Mabe Village, but when she heard silence from the other side of the fence, Zelda stopped herself.
“Dorian?” When it was still silent, Zelda turned and grabbed the closest tool she could reach: a screwdriver. She glanced down to see if there was anything better, but there was only her ruler, a hammer, nails, and a second flathead.
Looking behind her, she tucked the flathead into her belt and gripped the hammer as tightly as she could before heading around the gate to check on Dorian.
He wasn’t there.
There was barely a moment to think that something might have happened to him before she was face first in the grass with a heavy pressure holding her down.
Zelda tried to buck them off of her, but they were too heavy. There was a sound of metal scraping against something, and Zelda let out a muffled scream into the grass, still trying to free herself.
“No, wait! Wait!”
Zelda’s head whipped up and she saw a large group walking towards her, each dressed in red bodysuits with a strange mask concealing their faces. The voice though… the voice was…
“Dorian!” she screamed, trying to move again. “Get help!”
His face contorted, and he bent down in front of her, but his words were addressed to whoever was behind her. “She’s useful. She’s smart, handy, talented. We need her. And she’ll understand why we did this. She smart,” he said again, nodding to her.
The man behind her hesitated. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Positive. I’ve seen her work. I know her.”
A chill shot down Zelda’s spine, and she felt herself tugged upwards until she was sitting on her knees, face-to-face with Dorian in his red suit and a white mask atop his grey hair.
“Fine. Bring her with us. Tie her up.”
“Don’t fight, Zelda. I promise, this is just a precaution.”
She couldn’t help her body from struggling a bit, and she watched Dorian slide his mask into place.
“What’s happening? What’s happening?” Her wrists were tugged hard behind her back, and the rope was frayed enough to cut into her skin a bit.
Dorian held out his hand, and Zelda, now bound, was handed off. “You’re with the Yiga Clan now.”
And with that, every other member of the group drew out their weapons and headed into Mabe Village while Dorian held Zelda still through her sobs for all the friends she’d never see again.
#legend of zelda#breath of the wild#botw au#modern au#post apocalyptic#link#zelda#zelink#whumptober#whumptober 2021#whumptober2021#no.1#barbed wire#bound#whump#dorian#yiga clan#malice#writing
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Do you do headcanons?? If so can i get some domestic carulia headcanons 👀 like after carmen spends some time in argentina but then she misses jules so she goes back to england but jules is sad she left her so abruptly and isnt taking her shit so carmen moves near her and like has to re-win her over🥺🥺
anon, i absolutely do headcanons!! my brain is practically a dump for headcanons, you’ve come to the right place :D and if anyone ever wants me to write any just leave me a request in my inbox!
here is part one of my classic fic style headcanons based off of the prompt you’ve given (which is SO good by the way please i am so tempted to write it into a full fic and add to my mountain pile of drafts rn-):
carmen loves her mother, she really does. she’s sweet and kind and her family. it’s all she’s ever dreamed of. after carlotta sees her standing on her doorstep, her warm brown eyes freeze and then she gasps, launching forward and hugging her equally as shocked daughter.
“your eyes. my god, i would recognize them anywhere. [given name], is that you?”
“it’s carmen, actually,” she manages to say, her mother hugging her like it’s the end of the world. and her mother doesn’t question it, merely letting go and smiling at her with tear filled eyes.
“well, carmen, it’s nice to meet you.”
things aren’t perfect after that, of course. there are questions, so many of them that they stay up the entirety of the second night talking (not the first, carlotta insisted that she had to get some sleep). carlotta doesn’t seem fazed when she tells her about VILE and stealing from them, cries when she brings up her father, but they push through it because now they have each other.
it’s strange, then, the feeling she gets a month or so later. she’s lying on the couch after a few rounds of games with the orphanage kids, and she doesn’t feel... satisfied. she should, shouldn’t she? this is what she’s spent her life searching for. she left her team behind to focus on this, to give something to herself for once.
it’s maddening. she can’t figure it out, talking to player as she bounces a ball against the ceiling. her mom worries, asking her what’s wrong, but she can’t answer her because she doesn’t know.
another few weeks pass. she’s cleaning her tools, sorting through her red coat for some nostalgia. a slip of paper falls out, and written on it is the address to this house she’s living in, and-
“player- i never asked, and i’m not sure if you even know. who found the address?”
he hesitates. a beat, then— “your favourite ACME agent.”
oh. oh. jules. she hasn’t let herself think of her ever since she left them all behind, afraid of the memories of her brainwashed time being dredged up. julia probably hates her, and rightfully so.
but she’s buzzing. she feels like she’s onto something, like satisfaction is just out of her reach, and player is more than happy to check up on julia’s blog for her whereabouts. turns out she’s not in france but in england, visiting her mother, telling her blog audience that’s why she’ll be inactive for a while.
carmen laughs at the irony. player books her a flight.
fast forward and she’s halfway to julia’s mother’s place and in the middle of the sidewalk, she stops, suitcase rolling behind her. she probably shouldn’t be showing up randomly like this, no warning and dropping back into julia’s life when she doesn’t need it. julia’s had to have moved on by now, the girl in red just someone who was too afraid to meet up with her before she left.
“red, what’s up?” player asks her, staring at her unmoving icon on his screen. “you having second thoughts?”
“kind of, yeah,” she admits. “i’m just not sure if-”
there’s a tap on her shoulder. carmen turns around and feels her heart drop out of her chest.
julia argent stares back at her, arms crossed and looking exactly the same with her glasses and dressed in a casual tan coat, yellow sweater, and black jeans. she looked good, and, well, annoyed.
“hey, jules!” the greeting doesn’t come out as confident and suave as she hoped, but it suffices, and player speaks excitedly from his end. tell julia i said hi! he says, before cutting off.
“by the way, player says h—”
“ms. sandiego,” julia says stiffly, none of the playful flirting and easy tones that she’s gotten used to. “why are you here?”
“i thought you—” carmen stammers, reaching into her pocket and showing her the slip of paper. “you gave me this, and i wanted to thank you. also you know you can call me carmen.”
something in julia’s eyes softens at the sight of the paper, but then hardens again when she looks back at her. “you’re welcome. you didn’t have to come all this way to tell me, though. and calling you by a first name basis would imply that we’re friends, but it seems that we’re not, doesn’t it?”
carmen chokes a little, eyes widening. “we’re not- friends?”
“i would think a friend would at least say goodbye or get in contact with me any way before disappearing for months, so no, ms. sandiego, i don’t think we are.”
carmen’s first instinct is to feel offended, but she understands where the agent’s slight hostility towards her is coming from. this wasn’t just julia being petty, it was the consequences of her actions that she had to now make up for.
“jules, i’m sorry,” she says, going to grab her arm but drawing back at the last second. right. their subtle touches with each other were definitely off limits now. “we can talk about this in somewhere that’s not a public sidewalk, and i’ll explain everything, i promise.”
julia’s mouth twists into a frown, and she uncrosses her arms, one finger pushing up her glasses. she looks her square in the eye, her gaze cold and unflinching. “what is there to explain, exactly? how you left me- left us all so abruptly, and gave your closest family a note to remember you by? zack and ivy mentioned it to me- they’re being trained for ACME now, but i’m sure you knew that already.”
she didn’t. she hasn’t asked player for updates for a month. a heavy exhale escapes her, and she wishes she had player in her ear. julia lets out a humourless laugh at her lack of a response.
“i guess you found something better, ms. sandiego. i’m happy for you.”
the declaration is bitter- and with that, julia spins on her heel and walks away, heading to her mother’s house. carmen stands with her suitcase on the sidewalk, apologies on the tip of her tongue, wanting to chase after her. she swallows them down and drops onto the nearest bench, burying her face in her hands and tapping her earring so player can reconnect.
“red! how’d it go? what has julia been up to? is she-” player’s voice bursts through with questions, and carmen doesn’t say a word, a new mission in mind.
“do you know where julia is staying? not her mom’s place, i’m assuming.”
if player is surprised by the question, he doesn’t comment, and carmen can hear his keyboard clacking as he scans address books and properties. “she’s a couple blocks over, i’ll text you the address,” he says at last. carmen’s phone pings with the incoming text, but that’s not the actual thing she’s looking for.
“thanks, player. are there any houses up for sale near her street?”
“give me a second.” player pauses, scrolling through listings, and then continues. “there’s one like, diagonally across from her house, actually.”
“we have any funds left from our world saving?” she can tell player knows what she’s asking for now, from the telltale anxious drumming on his desk and the slower than usual clicking.
“a couple million, actually. i thought we were slowly distributing to-”
“i’ll make up for it, maybe nag some of the VILE stragglers and the remaining stolen artifacts and whatnot. can you set up a meeting with the house owner so we can wire the funds over?”
“this is a bad idea,” player cautions.
carmen grins. “and since when have i ever been known to have a good one?”
part two will be up as soon as i can get it written out! if you’re the anon that sent this, send me an ask about part two so i can answer it that way!
#asking carmen#my writing#carulia#julethief#carmen x julia#why do these posts of mine always get outrageously long 😭#give a writer a prompt and then boom a full fanfic#anon you asked for this#i love how you asked for domestic hcs and instead i handed you angst#don’t worry this is just part one!!!
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The Lunewell Saga - Natura: Chapter 2
Can also be read on ao3 by clicking here
First part is here (:
Third part is here
Book Sumary:
Zarifa Birch, an antique shop worker with an unusual past, has made a home for herself in the sleepy town of Lunewell. Though the shop she works at is not exactly ordinary, with cryptid items and odd occurrences, she has managed to carve the normal life she always desperately wished for out of it.
However, all that comes crumbling down, as a woman from Zarifa’s past throws everything into chaos. Faced with unimaginable horrors, seemingly unsolvable mysteries, and returning repressed feelings and memories, Zarifa along with her coworkers, must find a way to return the balance- and escape the cruel hands of death in this eldritch horror mystery
Chapter 2:
At 03:45 in the morning, under a night sky covered in a thick blanket of storm clouds, Zarifa was woken, not by any natural phenomena, or by her antique alarm clock, but by the sound of her phone screeching out what was effectively deafening trumpets. Though this had never happened before, Zarifa knew instantly what it was, and threw off her warm, cotton duvet immediately.
Grant, who frankly was the only one who had anything even close to technology related competence, had wired up an alarm system in the shop not too long ago, and connected it to Zarifa’s phone. He had also, of course, been the one to design the hideous sound. As she gripped her phone with a speed that almost made it go smashing to the ground, she turned it on to see that the alarm of Thorn’s Antiques had, in fact, just gone off.
She rubbed her temples, shivering slightly. Neither the room nor the outside world were particularly warm, with a chilly wind seeping on through the wall and around the room. Her bed was a haven of heat, and a place that could soothe the ever-growing, tired ache in her bones, and her entire body protested when she turned on her heels and began walking towards the closet, shuddering.
Zarifa threw on clothes at an impressive haste; a warm turtleneck and a pair of jeans that were just the slightest bit too small, then snatched her phone and purse, and put on her necklace, before rushing out the door.
She wasn’t all that worried about the robbery, not really. While they were an antique shop, they didn’t have anything really valuable, at least not that she was aware of.
Besides, if anything of value truly had been stolen, there was pretty much only one culprit, and lucky for them, Zarifa knew exactly where to go should that be the case.
No, her haste came not from a place of fear of the robber, or worry over the supply, but from Valour’s reaction. Valour, though usually apathetic, had an overprotectiveness of the shop, and any damage to it, might lead to the new rising of a mass murderer. The butterfly over her turtleneck saw one last glimpse of the light, before it was covered in a thick, black coat, and slipped outside into the shadowy night.
The breeze was particularly strong, fiery trees not so much swaying in the wind as almost being knocked down by it. Zarifa pulled her coat tighter, shivering as a cracking whip of gust slammed her face. The stars above, usually visible in the dimly lit dirt paths, were shielded behind towering, puffed-up storm clouds, almost menacing in their own way.
She walked onto the pavement, passing her small and worn car parked outside the small cottage. She debated on taking it, before deciding it really wasn’t worth it. Lunewell was so small anyway, and the shop hidden in the far corner was but a ten-minute walk. Though driving should technically have been faster, navigating her way around the roads and towards Lune Lake, where the shop lay, would take just as long as walking there. Even after living there for five years, Zarifa still found the roads and paths an absolute maze, like the village was purposefully trying to trap its inhabitants.
As she rounded a corner, and headed towards what had become a very small street of other local shops and one bar, a wave of newly baked pastries broke through the ozone-scented air, sending yet another hard hit of a gust that pushed her back ever so slightly. She didn’t mind the wind though, as her tight expression morphed into a delighted smile and her body became infinitely more aware of how long it has been since she’d eaten.
Zarifa relished in the smell for just a little longer, though she kept her pace up, before she froze in place at the edge of a lamppost light. Mr. and Mrs. Carr, both bundled up in striped, hand-knit scarves, were walking towards the bakery hand in hand, clearly preparing to open for the day. Zarifa stood almost inhumanly still in place, as though the Carrs were hunting predators and she was their prey, her breathing having grown shallower and tighter.
Taking a step back further into the shadows, she hoped the light was poor enough and their eyes old enough that she would slip under their senses. Or, at least, that was the plan, until her feet knocked against an empty can on the ground, sending a rattling sound that resonated through the street.
Their heads snapped up, landing first on the can that had rolled into the light, and then on Zarifa herself, who was still holding her breath, even her heartbeat muted. Mrs. Carr, who had never particularly liked Zarifa for whatever reason, gave a wave and a slightly tight smile as her greyed hair blew haphazardly around her head.
Her husband turned to see what she was looking at, lighting up when he saw Zarifa, who had edged herself into the event horizon of visibility. “Zarifa!” he greeted enthusiastically, but quietly, “Hello dear. What are you doing out here at this hour?”
Zarifa rubbed the back of her neck, shuffling further forward. “Good morning Mrs. Carr, Mr. Carr-”
“As I’ve said before, just Harold’s fine love.”
“Apologies,” Zarifa said, hands moving from her neck to the gold that hung around it. “I’m not in the best mindset right now,” Mr. Carr sounded an ‘Oh?’, as Mrs. Carr headed inside slightly huffy, “you see, the alarm for Thorn’s Antiques just went off.”
Mr. Carr’s eyebrows shot up in concern, wrinkles bunched on his ever-balding forehead. “That’s dreadful,” he exclaimed, “not the kind of thing you’d expect to happen ‘round here. You better be off, Lilly and I’ll drop by with some of the baked goods later in the day.”
“Oh, that’s very generous but you don’t have to,” Zarifa reassured in a slight panicky tone, “no point in dragging you two into this mess.”
“Nonsense,” he said, “everyone needs some baked goods in situations like this. Besides, I’m sure that young lad of yours with the glasses - Graham? Brant? - would be very appreciative.”
“If you’re positively sure it isn’t an inconvenience, that would be lovely,” Zarifa said, finishing it off with a warm if anxious smile. Any lingering silence was broken by the sound of Mrs. Carr calling for her husband and co-worker in a way fit for a dictator. Mr. Carr turned towards the door
“Yes, I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted, back, a stark contrast to the gentle lull of his tone before. “I believe my wife needs me. We’ll stop by later. Good luck!”
Zarifa took off like a jetfighter, sprinting away with a wave and footsteps that bounced into the streets. At her speed, it wasn’t long before she was no longer landing on cobbled streets but on overgrown dirt paths covered in damp leaves. The shop, a small stoney thing with dirty windows that practically looked abandoned, came into view, and her eyes moved to the door, which was in fact left just the slightest bit open.
Sliding inside, she closed the door behind her, though the shop remained equally cold. It looked almost eerie at this time, the furniture remnant of old times, empty and abandoned, a few vases smashed on the floor from where someone had been in a rush, and a stillness so quiet that it was deafening to her ears.
Picking up a blue floral patterned shard, she continued onwards, keeping her footsteps as light as a ghost. Well, as light as a ghost that could not sneak past a deaf person, but she digressed. Pushing open the door to the back, wincing as the door hinges made a shrieking creek, reminiscent of a whining child, she made her way in.
The employees’ lounge looked, as she had expected, fine. Everything was exactly as they had left it, slightly disjointed, except for Bruin’s desk that had been organised meticulously. She began heading for the downstairs, to see if any of the inventory had been stolen, when she heard a muffled thud from upstairs, releasing the pressured silence in her ear and exchanging it with dread.
Thud, thud, thud , multiple slamming sounds, equally light, equally muffled, radiated from upstairs. She could track the being’s every movement from the sound alone, see the continuous patterns of thuds make their way through the upstairs rooms. Her eyes trailed them vigorously, pupils jumpy, as she tightened the grip on the shard. The fact that it dug into her hand, almost piercing through her thin bicoloured skin, didn’t register.
The shop yet again went quiet, though any illusion of silence was broken by Zarifa’s hammering heart. She glanced around the room, gaze going to the cellar where she could take her hiding, to the second exit, and back up to Valour’s personal floor. She looked up, waiting for any more signs of life, before snailing sneakily up the stairs with the shard held out in front of her.
The steps, normal stairs instead of the never ending spiral leading to the basement, stayed as silent as herself throughout the ascent, as though they themselves were afraid of the intruder above. Zarifa tipped-toed up them, the yellow stained walls that the stairs were encased in almost suffocatingly tight, and ever closing in.
At the top of the carpeted steps sat a black door crested in a slightly lighter shade, with a pair of Bobby pins stuck in the lock. It was the only entrance Zarifa had never taken in the shop, looming above her and guarding a floor that even so much as seeing would lead to great punishment.
It was too dark to peek into the room, and there was no sound but her own swallowing and the wind that had picked up outside. She took another step up, and reached for the handle as though it was shatterable glass. With a prayer directed more towards the cosmic force of luck rather than anything specific, she gave one push of the door.
Luck, it seemed, was on her side, as the hinges opened without the slightest squeak. She took the final stairs up, giving one last glance to where she came from, and stepped inside what was effectively Valour’s house.
Even through the fog of darkness, she could see the layer of dust, and the sheer amount of things thrown astray on the floor. Outlines of books with unreadable titles spilling over the carpet, sheets of aged papers crumbled into what she assumed had once been a paper bin, and antique knick-knacks placed in tall piles, disfigured by the low lighting.
At first glance, it seemed disorganised, but as her eyes adjusted more to the lightless room, it became clear that similar items were bundled together, and that there was some kind of system. She just hadn’t quite figured out what that system was.
Looking away from the silhouettes of mess that seemed ever-shifting, she turned her eyes downward, looking at where a path had been cleared. Whether it had always been there, or whether the dear intruder had made it, she was unsure about. She walked across it like a minefield, eyes trained on the ground and not looking at the piles which were getting higher as she went along and spilling further towards her.
She stopped at a hallway, leading in two different directions, which was deserted compared to the room she had just arrived in, only containing a painting, a few near empty shelves, and a drawer. Though equally riddled with swirling, sand-like dust, it felt cleaner, and had a little bit of light poking through a curtained roof window. It shone on the portrait hanging large and proud above the wooden desk, enough so that she could see the illuminated face of a younger Valour with colour still in her hair and a rather androgynous person she couldn’t quite recognise. They invoked the same familiar feeling she had felt yesterday, albei more distant.
She took a step closer, staring intently. The person, a sickly pale figure with light brown hair and odd, pink, heart shaped sunglasses, was almost entrancing, to the point she had barely realised just how close her hand was to the canvas.
The trance was broken not by the touch of the oil canvas, but by a sound that Zarifa, when asked at a later point, could only have described as bounding . It was the sound of a constrictor wrapping around its prey, of tight ropes encircling a wrist, of becoming trapped and helpless.
A flash of light blue light, ever so faint and ever so quick that one couldn’t be scolded for mistaking it with a hallucination, appeared in the corner of her eye. Her head snapped towards one of the doors, hair on her arms rising, as she made her ways towards the source.
From the outside door, she could hear whatever was making that sound wrap further, deeper, and for a second, her mind cleared. She considered walking out; walking safely home, telling Valour that she couldn’t find anything stolen, and not getting involved. Letting this, whatever this was, live its life or death peacefully.
After all, was that not why she had come to find herself here in the shop in the first place? Was that not why Grant, Bruin, or even to an extent Valour herself had found themselves in this antique shop? To escape a past of unexplainable events, whilst simultaneously saving others from having the same brush with the eldritch, the unexplainable? To, for even just a split second, live in the illusion of normalcy, the lie that nothing had ever been wrong?
Zarifa turned on her heels, sneaking past the portrait of Valour and Heart-Glasses, which almost seemed to be judging her choice. Valour wouldn’t have turned away, which perhaps explained the scars and bruises. She couldn’t, however, bring herself to care, as her ever growing frantic footsteps made their way down the hall.
Now, what must be understood for the following sequence of events to make sense, is that Zarifa, deep down, was one thing; caring. She sees her fellow employees as great friends, always up to help or let them take breaks, she handles her books with delicate strokes and gloves hands, and she is always up to help.
Whether Zarifa’s caring nature always outshined her cowardice and self preservation is debatable, and a subject she preferred not to dwell on. However, in the word always , lies a hidden, implied one; sometimes.
Like when Zarifa, halfway down the hallway, heard a cry and groan of pain that was so distinctly Lottie , that she would have recognised it even if her ears got chopped off. As though someone had a pressed a button, she turned right back around, sprinted with loud thuds, and pushed the door with a speed that almost broke a whole in the wall. She stood panting in the doorway, all fear evaporated into a feeling that was not quite protectiveness, not quite caring, not quite pity, and not quite anger, before the muddled emotion transformed back into fear as her eyes landed on the strawberry blonde.
Lottie sat on the floor, legs dug into by long vines dressed in a barrier of thorns, arms tightly pressed against her body in a twisted bend that no human should have been able to achieve, and a streaming, jet black smoke arising from the leaf engraved ornate box in front of her and travelling right into her deep green eyes. Zarifa moved towards her and the box without even thinking, making her jerk, digging the thorns even deeper into her skin. “Don’t… to-touch a thing,” Lottie commanded, voice unbelievably hoarse, as though she had been shouting for hours, and Scottish accent more intense.
“I can’t sit by and watch… whatever’s happening!” Zarifa shouted frantically, panic stirring in her. She crouched down to the floor, even as Lottie made a sound of protest. “How can I stop this?”
“Y-you can get the fuck out,” Lottie managed to gasp out meeting her eyes. Her brows were stern, but her expressive emerald eyes were scrunched and her face was in a grimace that drew at Zarifa’s heart strings like a wound bow. All the while, the black smoke from the box-
The box. Of course. If she just closed it, Lottie would, theoretically, be fine. She began reaching for the moonlight-reflecting gold leaf, one of the only items visible in the otherwise almost pitch black room. She stopped as she heard her name called desperately from beside her, followed by a string of curses.
“Don’t touch it!” Lottie pleaded with a tone laced in anger, voice teetering on the edge of death, “Just get out of here, butterfly!” And oh, if her heart didn’t skip at that slip-up, “Don’t want to…” she gasped again, not quite managing to bite down another whimper, “d-drag you into this shit again.”
Zarifa looked at Lottie, her pained glare, the arms that looked like they had been put on backwards, and the pierced legs. She took a breath; “I’m sorry,” she said, and before Lottie could say so much as a word, she snapped the lid shut with a snap that hit like an atom bomb.
As soon as the bomb landed, everything went quiet. Zarifa moved quickly, as Lottie fell limp into her chest like a stuffless ragdoll, arms clicking back into the place with an audible sound, and eyes fluttering open to give one last angered, intense stare before shutting. The smoke, escaping Lottie’s eyes in a violent manner, balled itself up into the center of the room, the thorns vanishing and joining it to create a rotating, black and dark green, spiral-patterned sphere.
Keeping a close eye on the orb, she scrambled further backwards, pulling Lottie along with her. Her mind raced as she scanned the thing, trying desperately to decipher what it was, what it could possibly be. Though she wanted to leave the room, to drag Lottie and herself outside and never enter again, her eyes were entranced in the beautiful, indescribable spiral. It was, Zarifa thought grimly, a bit like the train incident all over again. Or the summer camp, for that matter, but she preferred to keep a lock on those memories.
The orb continued spiralling, room still quiet except for Zarifa’s heavy breathing, and the wind outside. It was then that she saw something in the spirals, something beyond the mist of black. She squinted, though in the light and with the colour it was hard to see much of anything except the swirling pattern. She began leaning in ever closer, though recoiled almost instantly as soon as the orb came to life.
A hand, pink and fleshy and clearly human, pushed against the pattern, stretching the orb to translucency like a tight latex glove. It pushed against the swirls, followed by another, then three hands, then 10 hands, and then an uncountable number. Everywhere you looked where skin covered fingers, all trying to break the barrier that had slowly stopped swirling.
Though they pushed and pushed, hands clawing with the ferocity of a starving lion, pounding with all the force of a hurricane, the barrier refused to move, just stretching to expose the arms further up. It had gotten to the point where Zarifa could clearly see knobbly elbows bending robotically, aimlessly through the cover. She regarded the arms from where she sat, eyes trailing their every movement, before she turned over, head still on them, and took a single, crawling movement towards the door.
All the hands stopped pushing, falling limp into the orb as though their strings had been cut. They were dragged back jerkily into the core, pulled out of sight as quickly as they had appeared. Zarifa held her breath watching the orb move towards her and out of the moonlight, the colours fading to nothing but a monochrome silhouette, and the shape morphing into something reminiscent of a bald human, albeit with arms just the slightest bit too long. She could not see its face, or any details on its body, even as it took an unsteady tumble towards her.
When Zarifa was twenty-one, and visiting Lunewell for the first time since the train incident, a seventeen year old girl, younger than herself, but already the owner of a shop, named Valour Thorn had taught her a very important lesson; When faced with the unexplainable, always close your eyes. At that time, Zarifa had yet to see what that would do. After all, simply ignoring danger when it was so close seemed like a sure fire way to get yourself killed, but a method of saviour.
Now, however, faced with an ever-approaching, vaguely human-shaped blob, staggering towards her like a drunken man with a concussion, she realised that situations like this could only have two outcomes, and closed her eyes. She kept her breath and body stiff, even if she knew she had already been spotted by the sound of bagged, wet meat slapping against the ground. The sound stopped completely mere inches in front of her, and everything went quiet, on what could very well have been the last moment of her life.
A breath, muffled as though it was coming through fabric, though no less warm and moist than what would have expected, blew against her cheek. It sounded strained, as though it’s lungs were thick as needles, but the breathing was rhythmic and distinctly alive. The breath inched closer, warming by the second as she squeezed her deep brown eyes tighter, mind caught in a loop of prayers to all the gods she could think off.
Lottie, who had previously been nestled comfortably against Zarifa’s jacket, let out a slightly pained groan. Her heart stopped, as she felt the creature's breath pan over her face, and towards where the pigtailed girl rested. In a flurry of movements that made Zarifa flinch violently against the wall, she felt the weight of Lotie lifted off her in one sharp movement. A dazed whimper once again admitted it from her, but it sounded distant compared to the one that had been right against Zarifa’s ear.
She desperately wished to open her eyes, to see what was happening, to make even a singular heroic movement to save Lottie, but she stayed in her prey position; paralysed and blind. It was a grim but realistic reminder that she had and would never be a saviour, nor a survivor, just lucky. Regardless of prior experiences, she was no more competent or threatening than a shot deer.
The squishy sound returned, just as the warmth where the creature had poised left her neck. There was a distinct dragging sound on the floor, a sharp leather and zippers scrapping on wood, as the wet splotches rounded around her. She still didn’t dare open her eyes, until the footsteps and dragging vanished.
As the house and flat quiet, her eyes opened slowly, the lids still recovering from the glued fear. She glanced down to her hands, and realised that somewhere along the way, they had reached up to grip the necklace, which she squeezed as she took a shuddering, shallow breath. She reminded herself that both she and Lottie would be okay, that they’d both been through far worse, but the comfort only resonated on a surface level.
Looking around the dark room, she noticed the outline of a light switch right by the door, which stood more ajar than she had previously thought. With a final, semi-deep breath, she flicked it on. The room burst harshly into a bright yellow lamp, her eyes burning at the harsh contrast. She blinked rapidly, trying to blink away the tears that at first came from brightness, but as her vision cleared, came from a true realisation of what had just happened.
In the light, it became clear that this tiny room was a study. There was a dust laden desk with old, leather-bound journals, a desk light with a shattered bulb, and a computer just slightly more modern than the one downstairs, a corkboard with images connected by different coloured strings that looked like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream, and lots of shelves populated with antiques and books. However, Zarifa was not so much focusing on the small glimpse into Valour’s elusive personal life, as the floor where the encounter happened.
Splattered across the planks were puddles of a black, tar-like liquid, intertwined with small specks of blood. The ornate box itself had at some point been knocked over, tilted on its side, spreading a few small, thin sheets of ancient looking paper out. Zarifa gently made her way over, stepping past the puddles with a scrunched up nose, before reaching the papers. She didn’t pick it up, nor touch it, instead tilting her head to read what the dull, brown ink said.
To whom it may concern…
In this letter lies the seal, which I fear must not be opened till The Dawn. If the time is not right, you must close this box, and ignore this. Do not read onwards, or you will bring upon yourself the cruelest of fates.
In a worst case scenario, if the seal has been unsealed before The Dawn, if doors ideally locked stand open, you must be prepared to make a key.
A key is forged by fragments of Touched sanity eating a sight of one that Sees, dipped in water oh-so divine. Once the key has begun, the fragments must sew themselves between the fabric, letting all webbed light shine on them. As they are blessed by the minute, and after the final step of-
Zarifa’s eyes widened, turning the page frantically looking for the continuation of where the text had been ripped off. She glanced around the room, looked once again inside the box, only to find it an empty chasm. With a shaky breath, she wiped away her tears, determaimly, and pulled up her phone.
Zarifa furrowed her brows as the time, reading precisely 06:00, appeared onto the screen. Had it really been two hours already? Nevertheless, she decided to ignore it for now, opening up her contacts, and quickly clicking the one person who she knew would already be up at such an early hour.
“Hey Grant? I need you and Bruin to come in as soon as possible. We have a slight… situation on our hands.”
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You should hate yourself
Summery: Aaron gets kidnapped by his therapist.
Taglist: @ellyhotchner @unionjackpillow @eleanorbloom
Warnings: kidnapping, torture, mentions of anxiety attack and addiction, implied/reference child abuse, hospitals, mentions of scuicide
Aaron had been feeling so much better. He has been talking about his trauma to his therapist. At first he was hesitant to tell all of his deepest secrets but he tried. It was hard for him to be so vulnerable around someone but it was slowly lifting so much weight off his shoulder. She has been helping him so much ...
And now she is pointing a gun towards him.
"Come on... spill all of your dirty secrets"
Aaron stares at her in disbelief. How could he have not seen this coming? She knows more things about him than anyone alive. This was all his fault.
"Oh Aaron ... I didn't think I would need to punish you this early. But I guess I should since you're not listening to me"
Aaron can see two men with ski masks. One of grabs his neck from behind the chair he is sitting on. The other guy picks up a bat. Aaron winces as he feels the bat hit him in the stomach. Tears threatening to spill and his stomach getting repeatedly hit. Each hit hurled more and he used more force.
"Alright that's enough. I think he got the message"
The two men let go off him. Aaron slumps down on his chair. He finally breathes normally but he can feel his tears rolling down his cheek. Aaron could see the camera recording him. He just wonders who is watching him.
Morgan can't bare to see his boss like this. They both hadn't always seen eye to eye but they both were there for each other. Hotch had helped him with Buford and any other case that got to him. And now the man he respected the most is getting beat up.
Emily looks down at the ground but she can still hear his chocked sobs from the screen. Her eyes shimmer with tears threatening to spill. She looks at JJ. She wants JJ to hug her and say everything is going to be ok.
JJ looks at Emily. They both share a stolen glance. They both are thinking the same thing. Hotch was the first to now about their relationship. He supported them immediately. He also made sure to give JJ all the time she needs with her divorce with Will. Hotch doesn't deserves this.
Reid looks at the ground. He was like a father to him. The only father who hasn't left him. He knew him personally. Hotch knew how to help him through his anxiety attacks. Hotch had even helped him through his addiction. He even considered him as a son. Spencer can feel tears spilling from his eyes.
Rossi can feel his eye's fill with fury. Hotch is like a son to him and seeing someone hurt him like that angers him. They need to catch whoever is doing this to him and fast.
"Garcia", Rossi says still processing what he had just saw.
"Y-yes sir?" Penelope says holding back her tears.
"Have you tried tracking the video's location?" Rossi asks. He needs some good new right now.
"I- no", Garcia says sadly.
"Damn it Garcia! Can't you even do your job? Hotch could die any minute now!" Rossi yells at Garcia. At this point she can't control her tears.
"Rossi! She's doing everything she can", Morgan says to Rossi.
He sighs and rubs his eyes.
"You're right, I'm sorry Penelope. Is there anything we now about this lady?" Rossi asks.
"W-well she obviously knows Hotch so she could work with the FBI", Garcia says as she wipes the tears from her face.
"Ok, starts there. Look for anyone in the FBI who has a connection to Hotch", Rossi says. He looks back at the screen. His eyes widens in fear when he realizes what they’re about to do.
Aaron watches as the two men tries to unravel a bunch of wires. He doesn’t know what they’re doing. Are they going to strangle him? No, that would be a quick death and he knows that isn’t what she’s trying to do. The two men start sticking wires on Aaron’s chest. Suddenly it clicks to him. They’re going to shock him.
“It looks like you realize what I’m going to do”
“I- god why are you doing this?” Aaron asks.
“Well where’s the fun in this if I tell you. You see I’m not just going to physically torture you, I’m going to mentally torture. By exposing you and making you vulnerable to your team. I’m going to destroy you”
“I-“, before Aaron can say anything he feels a shock going through his heart. His heart starts racing and he can feel himself shaking. When it finally stops, he looks to see her holding a remote.
"Oh that's just level one, wait till you see level 5", she sneers.
Aaron looks at her with fear. He just hopes his team can make it in time.
The team look at the screen in horror. If she shocks him too long then he could die. They all stand there in silence before Rossi clears his throat.
"Have you found anything yet?" Rossi asks impatiently.
"No sir, a lot of these things are so secure I can't even hack into it", Garcia says as she looks at her computer.
"There's got to be something we have to do", Morgan says.
"Well who do you think would do something like this to Hotch?" Emily asks.
"That would be almost every unsub Hotch has caught", Reid says.
"Ok well we know she has some sort of connection to Hotch but maybe ...", JJ says before her eyes lighten up.
"Hey Rossi, remember that guy who's brother you put in jail?" JJ asks.
“The one where Reid said those stuff about evil twin and eviler twin?” Rossi asks recalling that memory.
“You think that she is related to an unsub Hotch caught?” Morgan asks.
“But Hotch has arrested so many people so it’s going to be hard narrowing it down,” Reid says.
“Ok Garcia, start by looking at any unsubs who have sisters with blonde hair and see where they’re at now”, Rossi says to Garcia.
“There is a lot of unsubs with sisters but I’ll try narrowing it down”, Garcia says as she begins typing on her laptop.
“What is she doing?” Reid asks making everyone look at the screen. They see her showing pictures but they can’t see what’s on there.
“Look at that, isn’t that your sweet, perfect family”
Aaron looks at the picture in shame. He can see his mother holding Sean when he was a baby and his father placing a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. It was all fake. They weren’t the perfect family and she knows that.
“Come on .. tell your team what was actually going on in your family”
The team looks at each other confused. Aaron never really talked about his family but soon they’re going to know why.
“He- my father abused me”, Aaron says quietly. She smiles wickedly.
“And what did he call you”
“He said I was weak and pathetic”, Aaron says recalling the time where his father would say that.
“Well he was right, wasn’t he?”
After Aaron didn’t say anything, she pushed a button sending shock waves throughout his body. Aaron yells in pain.
“Ok- yes yes he was right”, Aaron says with tears streaming down his face.
“That’s right and what did your team call you?”
Rossi looks at his team confused. What did they call him? He can see the guilty looks at all of there faces. Even Garcia looks at the ground in shame.
“What is she talking about?” Rossi asks. The rest of the team look at each other wondering who should say first.
“Well when Reid was kidnapped he had to call Hotch a narcissist to get his attention”, Morgan starts saying.
“And?” Rossi asks. He could tell there’s more.
“Well then he asked what was his worst quality and we all said something”, Morgan says in shame.
“Oh god, what did you say?” Rossi asks.
“I- well JJ called him a bully, I said he was a drill sergeant and Emily said he doesn’t trust women as much as men”, Morgan says finally.
“No no no no”, Rossi chants.
“I- well it was a long time ago, it’s not like he remembers or anything”, Emily says in their defense.
“These kind of things gets to Hotch and now she is going to use them against him”, Rossi says as he looks back at the screen.
“Th-they didn’t mean it”, Aaron says trying to defend his team. He suddenly feels his chest getting shocked again.
“Yes they did! And they are right. You are a narcissist, a bully, a drill sergeant and that’s why everyone hates you. You should hate yourself”
Maybe he should. Maybe Aaron Hotchner should hate himself. He couldn’t save his mom from abuse. He got Haley killed and put Jack’s life in danger. One of his team members got addicted and kidnapped. Another one of his team members got framed and had to face his abuser. Then another one had to fake their death. And another one had to watch their husband get shot and then had to go through a divorce. They all went through so much and it’s all because of him. Aaron Hotchner should hate himself and he does.
“I- I think I found something!” Garcia says making all eyes turn on her.
“What did you find?” Rossi asks.
“Remember Megan Kane?” Garcia asks making everyone nod.
“She has a sister, Molly Kane and she works for the FBI as a therapist”, Garcia says.
“Oh my god, Hotch was going through therapy”, Emily says in realization.
“That’s why she knew so many things about him”, JJ adds.
“Garcia, Can you search for any private properties owned by her?” Morgan asks.
“Yeah I’m doing that right now ... She has one private property! It’s an old barn and I’m sending you the address right now!” Garcia says as she typed furiously on her laptop.
The team quickly check their phones and begin putting on their vests. They had no time to waste. Hotch would die any second now. They all quickly broke into two team and went in their SUV’s. They all drive quickly to the address Garcia send them. If Hotch dies, they won’t know what to do.
“P-please I’m sorry, whatever I did .. I’m sorry”, Aaron says in tears.
“You think saying sorry would bring back my sister!”
“I- wh-who is your sister?” Aaron asks.
“You probably don’t even remember”
“I-“, suddenly it clicks to him. Aaron had always through she looks familiar but he couldn’t find where he had seen her. But he never saw her because she was Megan Kane’s sister.
“Y-you’re Megan’s sister?” Aaron asks.
“You finally figured it out”
“B-but I didnt kill her-“, Aaron says before he feels another shock in his body. This time it went longer than before and it hurled more. Aaron kept himself from yelling in pain. When it finally stops, he can feel his heart racing through his body.
“Yes you did! You killed her and now I’m going to kill you”
“She-she killed herself”, Aaron tries to explain.
“No she didn’t! Megan would never do that. That’s just a cover up to hide what really happened”
“Y-you’re in denial. I was there, I held her hand while she took those pills”, Aaron says with sympathy.
“Lair!”
Before Aaron can feel another shock, the door gets kicked down. His team is here. He’s safe now.
“FBI! Molly, step away from him and show me your hands”, Morgan says with a gun pointing at her. Aaron can see the other two men getting arrested by Reid and Emily.
“He killed my sister”, Molly says pulling out a knife to his throat.
“Molly, I know what’s it like to have your sister kill herself. It’s hard but this is not how you grief. I can help you, let me help you”, JJ says.
“No- I’m going to meet my sister and he’s coming with me”, Molly says but before she slits Aaron’s throat, she drops to the ground. Morgan shot her. Before Aaron could say anything, Rossi helps unties him and gets the wires off his chest.
“Son, son look at me”, Rossi says to Aaron. But he can’t. Aaron tries to stand up but he also drops to the ground. The last thing he heard is Morgan calling for the medics.
After a couple of hours, Aaron wakes up groaning in pain. He can see bright lights above him. He tries to sit up when he sees someone holding him up.
“Easy”, Rossi says helping him up.
“Dave?” Aaron asks.
“Hey son”, Rossi says.
“W-what happened?” Aaron asks wondering why he is in the hospital.
“After Morgan shot Molly, you fainted. The doctors said it was because of your heart being exhausted of being electrocuted”, Rossi says. Aaron hums in remembering what happened.
“J-Jack?” Aaron asks.
“Jack is with JJ. He should be coming to here soon”, Rossi says. Aaron hums again in response.
“Aaron look ... what she said, you’re not any of those things”, Rossi says. Aaron looks up at him.
“I-I’m afraid I’m going to turn up just like my father”, Aaron says.
“How about this, if I see you becoming anything like your father then I’ll personally drag you by the ear myself”, Rossi says promising him.
“P-promise?” Aaron asks.
“Promise”, Rossi says. He knows it’s not enough for the future but it’s enough for now.
#aaron hotch hotchner#aaron hotchner#david rossi#spencer reid#emily prentiss#jennifer jareau#jennifer jj jareau#derek morgan#Penelope Garcia#cm#criminal minds#criminal minds fic#aaron hotchner fic#hotch whump#tw kidnapping#tw torture#Tw mention of addiction#Tw mention of anxiety attack#jemily#implied/reference child abuse#tw child abuse#tw hospital#tw mention of scuicide
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“Mistakes”
(BOYD gets to spend the afternoon with Gyro, then Mark Beaks shows up and brings on emotions that BOYD has never had to face before.)
The day so far had been one of harmless goings-on and quiet excitement. BOYD went to school with his adoptive brother Doofus Drake, for once not being as much the studious little database he always was in class—he was going to meet with Gyro Gearloose and Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera after school, and it filled him to the brim with joy.
Since the day he’d reunited with his creator, BOYD loved spending time with the scientist, always awaiting a time when he would call the Drakes over the phone and ask to pick their ‘younger’ son up and bring him to the underwater lab. Gyro always said he needed to perform regular checkups and maintenance on the little android, but BOYD was hoping secretly that it was also about spending time together; The doctor was becoming gentler now that everything in the past was behind them.
Regardless, BOYD’s feet were bouncing lightly under his desk with the anticipation of it all the way until the final school-bell rang—any excuse to see Gyro, someone he considered so close, gave his mechanical heart inexplicable delight.
Finally when class had let out for the day, BOYD took Doofus’ hand, smiling, and pulled him gently along.
“Come on, come on, big brother! Dr. Gearloose and Dr. Crackshell-Cabrera are waiting outside!”
Doofus grunted. His parents had strictly told him to be on his nicest behavior in front of Scrooge McDuck’s scientist, especially for his little brother’s sake—and to say nothing at all if he hadn’t anything nice to say—or else not expect any dessert for the next several weeks. He threw a fit, of course, but eventually resigned to not ruin anything for BOYD—or his chance at still being allowed to eat an ice cream float every night—and let BOYD have all the ice cream for himself.
Some part of Doofus’ subconscious didn’t mind the constant company of someone his own age. But all the unpleasantness that buried such feelings from his thoughts and actions that proved Louie Duck right kept the boy from understanding any of that, and so he simply allowed BOYD to pull him along—small as he was, the android could easily overtake his brother—and decided to be pouty but uncharacteristically quiet the rest of the day—though not altogether unhappy.
When the two boys reached the front gate, Gyro and Fenton were waiting at the entrance. The latter grinned and waved a friendly hand. The former smiled a bit more visibly than he’d have liked to when BOYD ran out to him.
“Dr. Gearloose!” BOYD called out, immediately throwing his arms around Gyro’s knees.
The gesture pushed Gyro to hide his previous smile by putting a fist to his mouth and clearing his throat. But his tone wasn’t harsh.
“It’s nice to see you, 2BO—er—BOYD.”
He had no idea how to greet Doofus Drake, however. He groaned with his mouth closed, awkwardly, and looked away, but Doofus had nothing to say either anyway.
“Are we going to the lab right away?” BOYD asked with bright eyes.
“Well I have an errand to run in town first, but it shouldn’t take long.”
Fenton chimed in;
“We could make a fun outing of it! Uh—nothing that would deviate from the plan, of course,” he said drawing back once Gyro side-eyed him, “Just something to do while Dr. Gearloose is busy.”
“Yeah, like find a local landmark to learn about!” BOYD did some drawing back of his own when he noticed his brother pout, but did so more graciously than nervously as compared to Gyro’s assistant.
“Or maybe there will be a park nearby!” He smiled more when he noticed his brother’s frown fade a small amount.
“Whatever we do,” interjected Gyro, “Stay close to me. I do not want everyone running all over and taking up too much time.”
BOYD’s sunny smile remained as he put his hands behind his back, determined to be well-behaved.
“Yessir, Dr. Gearloose!”
About twenty minutes of walking had led the group of four to an obscure electronics store. Gyro needed a special kind of copper wire before going back to the lab and his odd specifications were hard to meet. While he spent his time inside, Fenton and the boys went to the adjacent shop to buy ice cream. Gyro had told them not to wander off, so once both kids had a cone of their own, they walked out to wait for the doctor.
It had taken several minutes longer than usual for the store owner to fetch what he needed, but by the time he had his purchase in hand, Gyro pondered over taking another minute or two to browse recreationally for spare parts. However, the thought was suddenly halted by the sound of a piercing shriek from outside.
“BUT I DON’T LIKE PISTACHIO!”
Gyro’s whole body jumped at the sound before he bolted out the door to see what the commotion was.
Oh.
Of course.
Doofus Drake was throwing another tantrum, shaking his ice cream cone violently.
“Then why did you ask for it?” Fenton asked, confounded.
Gyro ground his teeth and rubbed his middle and index fingers against his temples. But the eyes he’d at first squinted shut opened back up when he heard the screaming stop at a kind voice.
“It’s okay, big brother. I’ll eat yours and we’ll trade!”
BOYD had a warm little grin on his face, holding out his hand.
“Fine!” snapped the spoiled drake, fuming as he thrust the treat into his brother’s hand. “You wanted to try a new flavor of ice cream anyway!”
This caught Gyro’s attention particularly. That little brat shouldn’t be forcing something on a robot who wasn’t built for consumption. He approached, and took on a less-than-pleasant tone that now commonly became him.
“Ice cream?” the chicken asked, twisting his face, “2B—er, BOYD, doesn’t eat.”
“I don’t need to,” answered BOYD, “I like to! My big brother told me about all the different kinds, and now every time I eat a new one, I add it to my memory. It’s fun!”
There were so many words in there that Gyro had to take a moment to think over. First and foremost, it was still mystifying why someone like BOYD and someone like Doofus Drake would consider eachother brothers—leaving aside that the former was much older than the latter. But he chuckled mentally a bit at the association between ‘memory’ and ‘fun’. The only other boy he knew who thought like that was Huey Duck, and it was nice that he and the android had found someone like the other. It felt nice too that such a thought could soften him back up again and make his migraine go away.
But Gyro wondered what eating must really be like for BOYD—he didn’t remember programming BOYD specifically to eat, but on a technical level, he supposed it was possible, given the way he’d built him.
“Can you taste it at all?” he said looking down at BOYD now, curious at the answer.
“Yeah! It was actually only recently I first had ice cream. I didn’t know I could taste anything until then, but it seemed to register, and I really liked it! So when I got home, I asked about it, and now I get to have it every day!”
Gyro didn’t realize how much he’d been missing out on the little boy’s life. Even the very first tests he’d run on him didn’t experiment with things like taste, or smell. Body temperature, vision, maybe—but those were comparable to how a computer would run. Gyro had made BOYD with sentient, behavioral programming, but he supposed he never put any of it into practice, in a real-world scenario. Part of that may have been Dr. Akita’s fault, but… Well, Gyro didn’t want to make excuses for what he did and didn’t do back then.
It was strange—and a little sad; BOYD went twenty whole years unaware of whether or not he lacked the sensation of taste, and Gyro wasn’t there when he finally tried. Gyro knew every single robotic modification BOYD had—from the USB drives in his fingertips, to the blasters throughout his body—he’d put every one of them to the test, but how often did he actually take the child outside the old laboratory? Did the small creature have any memory of Tokyolk before his core was overridden?
Quickly Gyro shook any dwelling thoughts from his mind. No matter. He was making up for it now.
At least he hoped so.
All of a sudden, Gyro felt someone bump against his side, sending him back into the conscious world with a jolt. He made a startled squeak, which embarrassed—and therefore slightly angered him.
“Can’t you watch where you’re—Oh.”
The scientist wrinkled his face with annoyance when he turned and saw a slightly younger man on a self-balancing scooter.
“It’s you.”
There was no mistaking it. Sleek cardigan, large overconfident eyebrows, phone in hand…
It was Mark Beaks.
Mark Beaks blinked when addressed. He had no doubt everyone knew who he was, but the lanky chicken facing him seemed to be acting like he’d met him before.
“Oh heeeeey… Uh, do I know you? Probably, right? You see so many faces every day when you’re this famous, they kinda all just blend in, y’know?”
Gyro looked up at Beaks with half-lidded eyes.
“Dr. Gyro Gearloose? Scientist of Scrooge McDuck? You’ve stolen and modified my tech about four different times?”
Beaks looked up and narrowed his eyes, stumped.
Gyro sniffed. Mark Beaks had pointed him out in public several times; This was quite obviously being done to wind him up.
“Perhaps he looks familiar to you?” he said, throwing a hand out to gesture at BOYD.
“Ohh yeah! You built that guy? No wonder he went all terminator on me!”
Again Gyro responded sarcastically, with more of a scoff this time.
“That is not my fault. Likely you reprogrammed his hard-drive and rewrote his memories so many times, one simple question overwhelmed him to the point that he couldn’t even tell a person from a flyswatter.”
“Ugh, whatever.” Beaks said, waving his hand, “If you make faulty robots and don’t wanna keep the improvements I put in there, that’s on you. Kid was pretty popular online though. I mean, come on!”
Mark Beaks pointed back and forth between himself and BOYD with both of his index fingers.
“He looks just like me!”
When Beaks acknowledged the android a few feet in front, suddenly two yellow eyes stared back. A little gasp emitted from the little black beak that was previously opened to eat ice cream. BOYD hadn’t seen his older doppelganger since the day he met Doofus Drake. His whole face suddenly beamed with cheeriness at a familiar face.
“Da—”
He bit off the word ‘Daddy’. That was a memory overwrite, he knew now. Still, he was happy.
“Mr. Beaks!”
BOYD instantly ran over to the addressee to jump up and hug him. Beaks just as instantly wheeled back with his scooter board, holding his palms up.
“Woah-ho-hooooh, don’t like touching, remember? What was the number one rule?”
Oh. Right. Remembering that made BOYD’s smile fade.
“No hugs?”
“Exactly, see? You’ve still got some of the good ol’ Beaks programming clunking around in there somewhere!”
Gyro rolled his eyes at a statement like that, but for BOYD it started to set a certain train of thought in motion;
Mark Beaks had programmed him to be like his son. At the time, he had felt like it, not simply had it wired into his head, but… now that he thought about the standoffish way the young adult was acting, was that all he was to him? Like a son?
That couldn’t be true, could it?
“Um, Mr. Beaks?” BOYD said, voice starting to grow more shy, “I know things are different now—the two of us living separate lives and everything—but even so, would it be okay if I still spent time with you once in a while?”
Beaks sucked his teeth at BOYD.
“Ooh, no can do, sport. See, if we’re not family, there’s kinda no point anymore. Nobody looks at pics of me just hanging with some rando kid, y’know? Outside that, I’m like super busy all the time, sooo…”
“But… Didn’t you have fun with me?”
“Sure, I did all kinds of awesome stuff in a whole day! Took lots of great selfies!”
BOYD faced the ground at that response, trying to process it. All the words were simple, but slowly, they triggered the most complex of memories…
______________________________
The first memory he had after the incident in Tokyolk was the faint recognition of someone’s voice in the garbage dump he’d evidently wound up in. He didn’t know what was going on, and had no recollection of where he came from, how he worked, or hardly even who he was. All he could bring to mind was an assigned identification number—2BO—and a gut feeling that he was a definitely real boy.
But when the voice came closer, BOYD felt his OS booting up again—his processor bringing things back online. What life he may or may not have had before, he knew not. He only understood that there was reason to be up and running now—alive. These feelings hadn’t manifested into thoughts at first—and then he heard the moving figure above him make a noise. When BOYD parroted back the mimicry of lasers, it was purely instinctual—technological sounds, technological creature. But it made someone notice him. It made someone marvel at him. It made someone give him a real name. It made someone want to take him home. That someone was Mark Beaks.
Even if he had only programmed into him the title of ‘father’, the wealthy parrot was the first person he knew to give him somewhere to live. With or without his original memories, BOYD had never really had an actual home before. He’d never had anyone so willingly look after him like a normal kid—like their kid. In many ways, both literal and figurative, Mark Beaks was the first person to be a parent to BOYD. Even lacking the memory of Akita’s cruelty and Gyro’s hesitance, when BOYD was around Mark Beaks, he felt like someone’s son with no hint of abandonment for the first time in his life.
Yet some underlying doubt lie buried, deep down in one of the many corners of his mind that BOYD didn’t have access to—only this one wasn’t blocked by another person’s override. Anytime he called out ‘Daddy’, Beaks didn’t always turn around right away. He might look confusedly around the room, or take a second or two to respond. And even then, he didn’t seem to say things other than ‘Hey you’, or ‘Need something?’—they were happy, but one-sided. BOYD didn’t think about that then. He was just glad to have family, and to have anything a kid could ask for.
But that was another thing that suddenly made BOYD think. The two days he’d spent with his new father were the best of his whole life; He spent time at an office filled with apparatuses to play on, candy to eat, and places to nap everywhere—even if he didn’t need to nap. Then for the rest of the day, the two Greys went all over Duckburg having fun—eating, playing, exploring… And still, through everything, there didn’t seem to be a connection. When BOYD and Beaks spent time at a show, flew kites, or wore novelty hats, the latter was always taking pictures with the former in them, but seemingly never with him. BOYD was too distracted by the thrill of spending time with someone he considered family to notice before, but now that Beaks worded it the way he did, only mentioning the fun he himself had that day, the signs were becoming obvious. He never once touched him—never once looked at him when he took those selfies—BOYD might as well have been a part of the background.
Come to think of it, did Mark Beaks ever touch BOYD? His biggest aversion, which he’d made clear several times, was touching, after all; The hopes of the first hug BOYD thought he’d ever had at the time were straightaway brushed off. Maybe once or twice, when he needed to be kept from getting wet or from going haywire… But otherwise, the man hardly paid physical attention to him. He didn’t want to feed into the worry that was always secretly there, but the recollection of everything made it impossible now. It hurt BOYD so badly to consider that he was only there to serve a purpose—as he had been his whole life—after all. He couldn’t remember Beaks saying his name, he couldn’t remember Beaks saying something gentle to him… Sometimes if he didn’t act the part he was made to, Beaks would scold him. He tried to avoid calling to mind that once, Beaks struggled to even remember the familial title under which BOYD was programmed.
“Yeah, I love this… What was it again? Uhh, uh, son!”
Oh no.
Mark Beaks never even said the words, ‘I love you’.
But no. No, it couldn’t be true that he didn’t at least care about BOYD, it just couldn’t. It was painful all the same, though, no matter how trusting and unassuming a child BOYD was.
He had to know. He wanted just a little word of assurance that he was wrong, that it was all in his head, that it was just worry that came with twenty years of feeling unloved. Even if Mark Beaks saw him as means for attention first, surely there was some sort of fatherly instinct left over from caring for someone made to be for all concerned his family.
BOYD was feeling some sort of physical discomfort he couldn’t pinpoint when he made his next inquiry, as if he was swallowing something down.
“Mr. Beaks,” he questioned, blue irises still fixed on the ground and fingers toying with one another, “Do you…”
He swallowed physically this time.
“Do you love me…?”
Mark Beaks’ face froze, and before answering made a noise somewhere between the word ‘I’, and an ‘Uh’.
“Kid, what kind of question is that? I don’t do the whole affection thing, okay? Much less with someone who’s not even in my entourage anymore.”
Oh, that hurt. That hurt far too much. Normally with Dr. Akita’s overriding, emotional triggers like this would have BOYD glitching. But that wasn’t there anymore. He was open to feel whatever a boy would feel any time he wanted now, without malfunctions and without something to block his true childlike wiring—too open, perhaps, because now instead of his mind going blank over spiritual pain, his mind would take in every single thought that set him off, and fester. What Beaks said to him now was festering. It made him feel vulnerable. Even if it didn’t hurt or scare him as much as when Gyro told him he was going to shut him down for good, or when Gyro constantly put him down, there was nothing to keep BOYD from blacking out afterward anymore. The feelings over Mark Beaks’ statement were flooding all throughout him.
“But…” BOYD persisted still, wanting some sort of kindness—at least for a fresh start. “Couldn’t we at least be on friendly terms? Isn’t there anything you like about me?”
“Aw come on, little man, it’s not like I was letting you get close to begin with. You’ve got other rich people and tech geeks to be with now. So you don’t need me and I don’t need you.” The man crossed his arms.
If any justice could be done, it might be stated here that the biggest reason Mark Beaks was beginning to act more and more bitter with the small child was out of a sour-grapes mentality. Visible weakness wasn’t characteristic of the young trend-chaser, but in a situation like this, where something he genuinely found impressive and thought he’d made his own had been lost to him, and had been left in the hands of someone else he barely knew—knowing that a technological wonder like BOYD was something he could no longer have—Beaks was annoyed, and he would never dare let it show through. Instead he increased his shallowness ten-fold.
Poor little BOYD’s eyes went wide, wanting so terribly not to believe what he was being told, wanting so desperately not to be outright rejected by someone he’d let himself previously grow so attached to. He looked into Beaks’ black eyes, searching for some kind of reassurance in spite of only hearing cruelty. He wanted so much to hear something that would make the building pain he’d never understood before shrink down.
“But,” he said, voice more quiet and in disbelief than he could ever remember expressing, “You gave me a name. You took me home with you. I was like your family.”
Mark Beaks rolled his eyes back, looking only more annoyed that the little creature almost forced him into guilt with such words.
“No way, kid. I just scooped you out of the trash because I thought I could make something out of you. But four-eyes over there took out all the mods I made to begin with—the new voice I gave you isn’t even there anymore. Hate to say it, but without any of that, you don’t mean anything to me.”
He shrugged his shoulders, talking for a minute more so to himself than anyone, but nonetheless just as aloud as before.
“Guess all the time I put into you was a waste. ‘Least with everything else, I got some money or permanent attention out of it.”
Beaks blew air out through his nostrils almost like a laugh when he thought about it.
“Jeez, kid, you were my worst investment.”
BOYD didn’t know what the feeling was, but those awful words broke something within him. His face tensed up. The tightness in his chest started to swell. All that desperation to disprove his first proper parent didn’t actually care about him, all that pain welling up inside him the more said person shot down attempt after attempt for requited affection… And now he’d dealt him a blow like that? Mark Beaks had thoroughly destroyed his spirit—he might as well have slapped him in the face. And incidentally, his face started to burn. BOYD had no idea what this meant, but the reaction was involuntary. It hurt so much, he couldn’t understand. The heat concentrated in his eyes. His nose and mouth trembled as he faced his former caretaker. A warm, salty liquid began slowly to fill his eyes and then roll down his cheeks.
BOYD was crying.
______________________________
All the time Beaks had been talking, Gyro and Fenton had been narrowing their eyes in anger and darting them back and forth between the two parrots facing one another, the taller one saying nastier and nastier things to the smaller one. Neither Fenton nor Gyro knew quite what to say or do, or how to intervene—for Fenton in particular because he also had to keep an eye on Doofus Drake, who any second could stop being content licking the inside of his ice cream cone and go ballistic again. It irritated him that he had to keep his mind on such a small matter when clearly there were bigger fish to fry at the moment—and also a little bit that BOYD’s adoptive brother didn’t seem to be noticing how much he was hurting.
Gyro wanted to speak up at some point, but couldn’t bring any words into his head.
And then out of the blue, when Mark Beaks had finally pushed innocent BOYD to a breaking point, the tiny thing cried.
He cried.
Gyro’s heart stopped dead in its figurative tracks.
His eyes went wide and dropped their gaze to the ground. This was something he had no idea was physically possible. An invention of his had been, through instinct alone, pushed to actually cry. He didn’t understand. He didn’t specifically write that sort of thing into BOYD’s coding when he made him—certainly Akita didn’t put that in—so then what? BOYD was a definitely real boy, but, to this extent? Gyro wanted to react, to do something for the boy, to get angry at Beaks, but everything failed him. He was stock still, frozen with a horrible blend of shock and concern.
Meanwhile, BOYD continued to stare up at Beaks as tears stained his face, disbelief and utter heartache consuming everything from the waist up.
The first reaction was when Doofus Drake turned and took notice of what he had been sure was a robot his parents adopted, somehow leaking sadness out of his eyes. The Drake boy physically reeled back, socially perturbed.
“Agh, he’s broken!” he yelled, unable to understand, “Do something and fix it!”
Fenton reacted second, clenching his hands into fists, intent on indeed doing something to ‘fix it’, but not the way Doofus imagined. He held back solely on the basis that Gyro was going to say something.
But Beaks was the immediate one to react next.
“Yikes, buddy,” he said to BOYD, backing up uncomfortably. He didn’t mean to make anyone cry, but then again, he didn’t think BOYD could feel anything that real. “It’s not my fault a lack of Beaks tech makes you basically worthless.”
Where Gyro normally would have gotten angry, this time Fenton stood in—he saw that the doctor was too dumbstruck to do so for now. But Fenton was certain both of them were equally as angry.
“What on earth are you thinking saying that to his face,” he snapped, “He’s a kid!”
Mark Beaks shrugged, as if his next reply was a matter of fact.
“Well I mean yeah, but like, not a real one…”
Each adult’s face in present company sneered at Beaks. That was the final straw. With that, Gyro Gearloose was finally able to pull himself out of his stunned state and draw up the emotion to straighten his back and snatch BOYD’s hand, dragging him away. Whatever he was thinking or wasn’t able to think at the moment didn’t matter. This child wasn’t going to be tortured by being here any longer.
“Cabrera, you take Doofus Drake home and get rid of this…” He struggled to find the words; “this, while I take BOYD back to the lab.”
Fenton nodded, determined, as Gyro stormed off, leaving Beaks to be thoroughly dealt with.
______________________________
The walk back to the underwater lab wasn’t a long one, but when Gyro wasn’t seething mad, he would look down at BOYD and notice a look on the boy’s face not dissimilar to his own from earlier—it contained surprise, the fearful kind, as if he didn’t know he could shed tears either. He didn’t look up at his creator, even though he followed the aggressive tug of his arm compliantly, and he didn’t try to wipe at his face. He seemed, again, to be having the same sort of shock that tried to question what in the world was happening to him.
When the two finally did make it inside, Gyro relinquished his tight grip on BOYD’s hand, picked him up by the waist, and sat him down on his center loft work desk.
“BOYD,” he said directly, but not ungently, “Keep your face still for a moment, okay?”
Gyro cupped the little creature’s face in his hand, taking a moment to peer into the huge ovate orbs that were wet as ever. There was nothing physically wrong with them… Nothing functionally wrong with them… Lightly touching the substance that had wavered within them didn’t seem to prove this was some sort of fluid leak. As far as Gyro could tell, these were tears, plain as plain.
So then how was that possible? It wasn’t as if the scientist had actually sat down and built a mechanical version of every single organic function an ordinary person had when constructing BOYD—he and Akita wanted a defense drone—but he knew the little one had an approximation of a heart, and bones, and lungs, and other such things; He was an android, which meant he was deliberately supposed to resemble other people in addition to all the access ports and ribbon wire. Still. Things like tear ducts, taste buds, the need to sleep? Gyro didn’t physically install those things into him. Now a possibility occurred to him. He decided to address BOYD again.
“Can you tell me… Can you tell me everything you’ve been feeling since you talked to Mark Beaks? I know it might be hard, but I need you to try for me.”
BOYD felt Gyro place both hands on one of his. It was the first time the doctor had engaged him like that, and it brought on a warm confusion in spite of the pain he still felt at his core. BOYD’s teary eyes were trained on the floor when he started to analyze what kind of things that pain entailed.
“I’ve… been feeling…” he began, voice thin and shaky, “Sad… and overwhelmed… and afraid… and alone, and… and confused… Before, when I had programming issues, I would start to malfunction anytime something hurt me. But now instead of glitches coming on that I can’t control, it’s more like…”
BOYD’s whole body started to shiver. “It’s more like something my heart can’t control, I guess? Not literally, but, I…”
His vision grew blurry and his voice shakier than ever.
“I don’t have anything holding me back from losing emotional control, and I don’t understand. What Mr. Beaks said really hurt, but… I’ve been told things that made me lonely and sad before. I don’t know why I’m only reacting this way now.”
BOYD shut his eyes, rubbing at them as he made a little whimper.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Gearloose. I know that doesn’t help. The only other thing I know when I think about all this is that it scares me.”
Gyro felt choked up. He wanted to react beyond keeping his hands palmed over the one BOYD wasn’t wiping his own face with, but twenty years of distrust and cynicism had clouded his ability to be as kind as he used to. But that answer actually helped Gyro a lot. Before, he remembered BOYD saying something about eating—he didn’t need to, but he liked to—that he wondered whether or not he was able to taste, but it ‘seemed to register’. Gyro then supposed while he didn’t build BOYD to eat, it wasn’t impossible given the way he was made; He likely found some sort of place in his structure to double as a stomach, being that he was basically the same as any other boy.
This was what made it click in Gyro’s brain. He had programmed BOYD, for all intents and purposes, to be a living child. Even if the actual hardware wasn’t there, even if Gyro hadn’t thought of specifics when creating… Akita called it ‘real boy programming’—there were things within BOYD that could adapt, and apparently had adapted, themselves to become a part of his sentient reactions and behavior—there were things inside him that manifested because at the end of the day, BOYD was… well, BOYD was a boy.
BOYD wasn’t crying because he was built for it. He was crying because all boys were built for it.
Oh god. A realization like that sent a heavy weight into Gyro’s chest. This wasn’t just some invention that was child-like he’d made, as he initially thought two decades ago. He had brought a life into the world.
He was responsible for every bad thing that life would ever face, because he was the one responsible for ever having made something that could feel, could want, could hurt. Why hadn’t he once considered that when wiring sentience into a body? Gyro felt sick to his stomach.
Yet here was BOYD sitting on a desk, afraid because he wasn’t ever told what would happen if he was sad enough—as if crying was normal, but not for him.
“Dr. Gearloose…?” The timid squeaks in BOYD’s broken voice coupled with glumness on every part of his face made Gyro feel pain in every inch of his body.
“Is there something wrong with me?”
Shocked as he was still, an automatic reaction came on that brought Gyro to dry the small creature’s eyes. This reaction, too, shocked him.
“No—no,” he answered nonetheless, just as reactionary.
“Really?”
The nervousness in that inquiry pushed Gyro on. What he was grappling with wasn’t important. There was a child in front of him, needing to be consoled. And while he normally was awkward with children—with people in general, really—Gyro knew about BOYD at least from a technical aspect. He wasn’t a medical doctor, but he did have a doctorate in mechanical engineering. He could work from there—he knew hardly anything about children from a biological standpoint, anyway. In a way, BOYD being an android worked to his advantage here. Gyro sobered up mentally and placed both hands on the little one’s shoulders.
“Yes,” he replied, surprised with himself that he was able to sound so matter-of-fact so quickly. He tried as hard as he could to sound gentle too. “Besides your internal structure, you are otherwise indistinguishable from organic life. You have thoughts and feelings, wants and needs. It’s inherent for you to be sad just as any normal boy would—because that’s what you are.”
BOYD looked back at the ground for a moment, then up at Gyro again, putting his tiny hand over the fold of the man’s thin elbow. There was something he wanted to know—there was still pain in his chest that was building up beyond his control.
“Then…” he asked with teary, pleading eyes, “Can I cry a little more?”
Gyro wished that he knew just what to say—his heart ached so much to hear such a little boy ask for permission to feel—but he simply gave a pitying, guilty, yet mostly obligatory,
“Yes.”
That one word of acceptance sent BOYD over the edge. A little hiccup escaped him, and what had previously been only silent tears that fell on their own turned into a full-on fit. BOYD covered his face and wept.
Gyro tried and failed to swallow the lump in his throat when he saw BOYD truly cry for the first time. But in under a minute, his creation said something that brought him to accommodate without a single thought.
“Dr. Gearloose? I know you said back in Tokyolk that hugging was just for that day, but—”
BOYD was interrupted when Gyro immediately drew him in with a one-armed hug, bringing him close and holding him tight. BOYD in turn drew himself closer to his creator, no longer holding back.
BOYD’s little cries then were soft and whining, innocent and unhinged in the way that became any child. Any time he needed to sniff or dry his eyes, he buried his face into Gyro’s chest, and sunk his tiny fingers deep into his vest. The length in each wail that came on now and again reflected the fact that BOYD had never cried before, and that he was discovering in the moment just how much he needed to all this time.
Poor BOYD, Gyro thought, barely ever allowed to simply hug anyone before. He was the sweetest living creature Gyro had ever known—always smiling so jubilantly and talking politely to everyone and everything—and yet so many people met him only with malice? That was far too unfair.
Oh.
But then, that was exactly what he’d done, wasn’t it? He’d so readily assumed when Inspector Tezuka brought BOYD down that he’d created something evil—he’d thought the evidence was everywhere, quite literally. But couldn’t it have been just as easy to think that someone like Dr. Akita who’d turned out to be a known criminal could have been responsible? Couldn’t Gyro have at least considered for a second that it wasn’t BOYD’s fault and defended him more? But he hadn’t. Instead he’d let his young mind believe everything his former mentor drilled into his head; His inventions were weapons, plain and simple, and nothing would change the fact that that would be a part of him the rest of his life—that he would always know somewhere in the back of his mind that he was just a big screw-up. And Gyro had taken that out on BOYD. He’d turned his anger and fear over himself and projected it into anger and fear over his first real invention. He’d defended inventions like Lil’ Bulb to the last ditch—even when the evidence they were turning evil was just as seemingly apparent, if not more so. Even they weren’t referred to as failures. All that bitter sarcasm and unkindness that became a part of who he was had all been based on nothing. When they’d reunited, he lashed out at BOYD over and over again, scornful whenever he even looked at him, refusing to call him anything other than an ‘it’, saying he was dangerous to his very core, saying he didn’t have feelings—even when the sadness and frightened tentative motions in his expression and body were clear as day—he even said straight to BOYD’s face that he was going to ‘fix’ his malfunctions by essentially flat-out killing him.
Gyro was furious when Mark Beaks made BOYD cry. But the first person to ever treat him inhumanely, was Gyro himself.
It made him feel so unbearably guilty he almost couldn’t breathe.
No matter what his eyes would look like anytime Akita’s programming kicked in—those things weren’t even there anymore. Anytime Gyro thought back, those big eyes were always so full of light—light of happiness, of sadness, of kindness, of intelligence, of innocence. How could he have ever looked at eyes like that—eyes that were capable of producing tears—and thought BOYD was evil?
Even if the child wouldn’t say so, Gyro knew there must still exist an ache within him over being rejected by the person that gave him life. He owed it to him to make it known just how sorry he was for it—even if the words kept getting jammed in the middle of his throat.
“BOYD,” he faltered, though it was now becoming easier to call him by his real name, “I need to apologize for the way I treated you back then. I know Mark Beaks hurt you when he told you that you weren’t worth his time. But the awful things I’ve said to you… they’re no different.”
BOYD calmed himself down a little to be able to speak. He didn’t face Gyro when he answered, but it wasn’t out of unacceptance—his answer was simply an automatic one.
“It’s okay…”
Gyro let go of BOYD for a moment to stare at him gravely in the face.
“No. It’s not okay.”
Gyro couldn’t remember when he’d talked so seriously before. He’d talked sternly—talked angrily—shouted several times… But as far as he knew, nothing compelled him to speak so straightforward and strict and deadpan as this in his life. He wasn’t going to let anyone make excuses for him ever again—not BOYD, and most certainly not himself.
“I said I’ve spent my whole life trying to live down my first invention being evil. But you were never made evil. I made you out to be evil. And now I’m going to spend the rest of my life living down ever having damaged you like that.”
Gyro found himself astonished that he was able to say what he did next, but nonetheless let it be said; BOYD needed to hear exactly what he was deserving of.
“And I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to do right by you. Because after everything that’s happened, I am so proud that a boy like you does right by me.”
In spite of BOYD’s constant shivering and whimpering, he was able to smile comfortingly just for a moment, nestling his head further into Gyro’s scrawny arms.
“I of all people know what it’s like to be new to Duckburg and down on your luck with nothing—with nobody. But I was fortunate. I met Scrooge McDuck and he gave me a place to work, and to make my way up the ladder. He was the only one to give me a second chance—to trust me.”
Gyro sighed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t do the same for you—as if I didn’t learn. How you stayed the same as I built you this whole time is beyond me. I’m nothing like you.”
“That’s… That’s not true,” BOYD sniffed, rubbing his eyes again, “If I make you as proud as you say, then some of that had to come from you—where else would I get it from? The only other person around me then was Dr. Akita, and then I spent twenty years asleep in Duckburg. I’m like this because you made me. And if I’m still like this, that part of you has to still be in you too—doesn’t it?”
Gyro couldn’t respond to something so kind. He couldn’t. Gyro didn’t deserve merit like that. Instead, he turned to another question that he’d been thinking of as BOYD stayed settled under his arm—something more technical, but still in reference to the android’s feelings and his sentience.
“When you shiver…” he asked with difficulty, “Is it because you’re cold? And if you overheat, do you feel feverish?”
“I do feel sort of sick when something overheats inside me… At home, it’s treated like I have a cold, which usually helps. But… when I’m cold, I operate at peak efficiency, so that’s never uncomfortable.”
BOYD’s voice was still full of quiet hiccups and characterized by the hurt within him.
“I guess I’m shivering because of how sad I feel. There are a lot of things I’m scared of—and things I’m so glad of, they hurt—but mostly, I just keep thinking back to what Mr. Beaks said. He brings up this little voice in my head that tells me people don’t want me. Like I’m making it hard for them.”
Gyro surprised himself again by stroking the back of BOYD’s head lightly. Nevertheless, he responded with defense and firmness in his tone.
“You should make it hard for people like that to want you. If you’re a waste of energy to someone like Mark Beaks, then good. The more you keep being yourself, the less they’ll stick around to hurt you.”
BOYD looked up at Gyro once more with his wet, shining eyes.
“But you won’t do that if I’m myself around you, right?”
That question pulled Gyro into a riptide of guilt so strong that it almost drove him to cry. But he squeezed his eyes shut, fighting down the urge for BOYD’s sake—this was about him. He made it clear to himself he’d never let his little creation down again when he hugged him in Tokyolk—and now he was going to make it clear to BOYD, say it out loud to his face so there was never any doubt again. Gyro rested the hand he had on BOYD’s head, held him just a tad closer with his arm, and said,
“I’m only saying this once; There is nothing you could do in front of me that wouldn’t make me want you. Ever. You can come to me for whatever you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
Gyro watched as that sentence prompted tear after tear to fall down BOYD’s heated face, nearly every part of his insides nagging uncontrollably at him when the little creature encircled his puny waist with his arms.
“I’m so glad!”
The sobs that BOYD let loose figuratively jabbed the scientist in the gut as he thought of the fact that were it not for his sheer irresponsibility, the poor little thing would never have had to be born into a world that presented such harsh treatment.
Still, BOYD wanted to cry. Didn’t the need to cry come from getting to let go—to feel better—to be alive?
Gyro thought as he instinctively continued to stroke the small head under him with his thumb. If he had brought a life into the world that was going to have bad moments, that meant that the same life was going to have happy moments too, didn’t it? Well—he already had! BOYD might as well have been built as a bluebird. Gyro should be glad BOYD was finally allowed to have this kind of release. It meant he could finally, truly, feel like the definitely real boy he was. The pain of fault and responsibility still wracked Gyro—he figured it always might—but at this point, he was relieved the poor thing he held close in the underwater lab wasn’t going to be mistreated any longer—not if he could stand to help it.
______________________________
BOYD sat in Gyro’s lap, beginning to feel better as he allowed himself to let everything out in the embrace of someone close to him. He could cry as much as he needed around Gyro. And he was going to take that allowance for all it was worth.
Part of his crying now came from the warmth he felt knowing that the old Gyro he thought he’d lost was still in there somewhere—that he hadn’t gone after all—and that even though he’d through no fault of his own gotten it lost, he had brought its return as well. That restored a lot more of BOYD’s self-worth than he fully realized.
BOYD was so grateful—so, so grateful to have that Gyro here again. He didn’t understand why at first it hurt so much to be called an ‘it’ by his creator—he didn’t remember Gyro was his creator at the time—but to think that someone was afraid of him and that someone hated him just for being himself stung so badly. He didn’t cry then—he didn’t know he could. But he cried now, over the cutting things Mark Beaks said, over Gyro’s hand at his back, over anything he could think of that needed crying over—mostly however over the knowledge by now that Gyro didn’t see him as nothing more than a destructive machine—as ‘evil down to his core’ any longer. He could tell that even if Gyro didn’t say it, he loved him; He risked his own life just to hold him in his arms, to save him and others from himself. Now BOYD really did have someone who loved him the way a father would a son. He could hug Gyro if he wanted—as many times as he felt like it—and never be brushed off. That thought brought such relief to him, his processor couldn’t take it all in.
But he didn’t tell Gyro any of this; He noticed all those looks on his face—they gave away just how terrible he felt over not being able to do as much as he wanted for him right away. So he kept any more words from leaving his mouth in order not to burden his guardian with any more guilt. BOYD simply let himself release all the emotions he could which he didn’t know he had before, as if he were wringing himself out—and as such, began soaking up all the comfort he was being given like a dry and thirsty sponge.
BOYD learned some wonderful things that day as he clung so strongly to Dr. Gearloose in that lab—much as it hurt to tremble violently, and bleed out feelings until one’s eyes burned, and let out enough raw noise fit to make one’s throat sore. He learned that being allowed to feel so sad was rewarding, and cleansing. He learned that tears were something he could produce no matter what he felt. And he learned that everyone in the world would make mistakes, no matter what or who they were, but that it was never too late to grow from them.
~
Holy shoot, wow, this is the first serious fic I’ve ever posted on here before.
I really wanted to share it, because it took so long to write—although I didn’t think it would turn out so long… 8k words! It’s the lengthiest thing I’ve ever written.
Anyway, this is a story that is very dear to my heart, not only because I put the most into it out of anything, but because studying Gyro Gearloose as a character and loving his dynamic with BOYD has been one of the most amazing things to think of through the hiatus that came after Astro BOYD.
I always loved BOYD, of course, but once I started seeing all the art and fanfics that others had started doing out of the emotions that came with his and Gyro’s backstory, I got swept up in it too, and wanted desperately to get out all those feelings into one story.
The idea came from the concept of whether or not BOYD can cry. We’ve never really seen him do it before, and it’d probably be hard because he’s normally so happy—but I kept wondering if he, as an android, even could. So it hit me; What if BOYD could cry, but Gyro wasn’t aware of it? What if even BOYD wasn’t aware of it? I kept playing with what would possibly make him cry, because even when Gyro was threatening to shut him down or was calling him ‘it’, BOYD only frowned a little. Suddenly I got the nasty idea of Mark Beaks showing up and telling him he never wants to see him again, and it built from there—I started also thinking that maybe what brings BOYD to cry is just a long enough buildup of pain, and maybe he couldn’t feel as much because Akita’s meddling with him had gotten in the way before.
On a sidenote, Mark Beaks was pretty hard to write at first; I had to make sure his confidence was switched on all the time or he’d come off a little out of character. But much as this is about Gyro & BOYD, Beaks being awful is so deliciously fun to write. I think it’s because he makes you love whoever he’s being mean to even more.
Anyway, after I’d written that part out, I spent a lot more time than I initially thought I would focusing on how all this would make Gyro feel—that is, how much guilt his responsibility would bring on. I’m really desperate to see for myself how they interact in canon from now on, but I always imagine that Gyro’s feelings which are most associated with being a father are of guilt; They make him protective of BOYD, they make him sensitive to BOYD, and they might drive him to treat BOYD—again, be more like a father. Pretty much all Gyro’s niceness comes from wanting a do-over.
I never post my serious writing publicly—mostly because I’m really tentative and shy about showing my literary ‘skills’ and the kinds of raw emotion I spill out in words sometimes—but this fic slowly became something I wanted really badly to share with the DT fandom, as a thing that could both be a way to show my own interpretation and thoughts of Gyro and BOYD, and could maybe even be liked by people as much as it is by me.
I know a good few episodes have aired since Astro BOYD did, and that it’s been a long while since the episode has been talked about, but I’ve only now been brave enough to decide to put this story out there for all to see.
I really hope you enjoyed it.
(Incidentally, I wanted to be sure to post it before Let’s Get Dangerous! airs, because I know this fic would get swallowed up by all the emotions to be had from that episode… ^^; )
#boyd#gyro gearloose#astro boyd#ducktales 2017#dt17#mark beaks#fenton crackshell cabrera#doofus drake#oh boy here I go writing again#is my new tag for this predictably#not woy
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Help From Yoongi-hyung (Pt. 2)
Jimin asks his hyung for more help.
Jimin once again approached the door of Yoongi’s hotel room and knocked. He wasn’t as quick to answer the door this time, but when he did, Jimin noticed headphones around his hyung's neck. “You’re back? How did it go with Min?” Yoongi asked. Jimin shrugged and said, “I guess as good as it could’ve… Hey, what are you up to now?” Yoongi rubbed his eyes, as he had been staring at his computer screen. “I was working on some music,” he answered.
“Good,” Jimin said, gently pushing past his hyung and inviting himself into his room. “I need help writing my song for ‘Love Yourself: Her’ intro,” Jimin said as he sat down on the armchair sitting next to Yoongi’s desk chair. Yoongi chucked and sat back down in his desk chair. “You should be done with that song by now… I’ve already started working on my solo song that’s not even going to be released for another year!” Yoongi said. “I know, but I’ve been struggling with what to write the song about, but I’ve just figured it out,” Jimin replied.
“I want to write the song about Min… or… rather to Min… telling her how I feel about her,” Jimin said, shyly, still not quite used to admitting to someone out loud how he felt about Min. Yoongi raised his eyebrows. “So, a love confession?” he asked. Jimin shrugged and replied, “more or less… I know how passionate Min is about music, and if I could just come up with a song good enough… I think it would be the proper way to finally confess to her.” Yoongi found this to be extremely cute, but he tried to hide his smile.
“You’re the best at composing and writing lyrics, which is why I wanted to come to you for help. I want this to be perfect,” Jimin said sincerely, looking over at his hyung. “Well, if that’s the case, I need to make a better set-up,” he said, turning to his desk. He untangled some wires and unplugged a few things before heading to his suitcase and pulling out a MIDI keyboard, microphone, mini soundboard, and another headphone set. Jimin watched him in amazement as Yoongi gingerly plugged in all his equipment to his laptop.
“Do you have any ideas for lyrics yet?” Yoongi asked as he worked on his travel studio set-up. “I have a few in mind… like ‘the universe has moved for us, our happiness was meant to be,’ er… what else? I guess I should start writing it down,” Jimin said, drawing a blank. “It’s not too cheesy, is it?” he asked, afraid of what Yoongi would think of it. “I think it’s sweet… it makes me think of serendipity… like how everything somehow works together by chance,” Yoongi said as he typed something on his computer.
“How is this? ‘The universe has moved for us without missing a single thing, our happiness was meant to be ‘cause you love me.’l Yoongi quoted from the lyrics he was beginning to write down. “Ohhh, Yoongi-hyung you’re so good!!! Hmm… how would it sound with ‘and I love you’ at the end of that?” Jimin asked. “Well, we haven’t come up with the tune and rhythm yet, so anything is game,” he said, adding Jimin’s suggestion to the end of the line.
“Really, we should start with the tune and flow of the song before we get into more lyrics,” Yoongi suggested. He stared at his MIDI keyboard, then had an idea. “You know… this is the first intro to any of our albums that is done by a vocal line member. I think it would be cool if we emphasized your voice in this song… and maybe add some light beats in the background,” Yoongi suggested. Jimin nodded. “And by emphasizing my voice, hopefully my message to Min will be clear,” he agreed.
Yoongi put on his headset and began messing around on the piano setting of his keyboard, coming up with a melody that he thought would sound good when sung in Jimin’s voice. After a few minutes, he passed Jimin the other headset and played what he had come up with so far. “Yoongi-hyung! You’re so quick in coming up with a melody!” Jimin said, impressed. He listened to it repeatedly, until he got used to the tune, then he began humming to it. “Can you move the key down half a step?” Jimin asked. Yoongi pushed a few buttons on his laptop, changing the key to A♭.
Jimin hummed along to the track again and nodded with a satisfied smile. “That’s better,” he said. Yoongi made a few more notes and then re-recorded a part based on how Jimin sounded with it. “It would sound good if it went high and then back low here,” he explained the one part and the change he made. The pair continued to do this for hours, adjusting each note to fit Jimin’s style, him humming the tune all the while. They finally made it past the tune of the verses and came up with the chorus melody and refrain as well.
“Ooo, what about ‘Just let me love you’? and then there can be kind of an echo like ‘let me love let me love you’?” Jimin suggested when they decided to move back to the lyrics. Yoongi nodded and played the refrain track to test his lyrics out. After hearing Jimin sing to it, he smiled satisfactorily and wrote it down. The pair continued to think of lyrics, writing them down and tweaking them to fit the melody Yoongi wrote, until every part of the song had a lyric to go with it.
“Ok, let’s see how it all sounds back-to-back,” Yoongi said, putting on his headset and handing the mic over to Jimin. Jimin put on the other headset and took the mic from Yoongi, clearing his throat and then nodding to him as if to say, “I’m ready.” Yoongi played the piano melody track in the background, guiding Jimin to sing the tune that they had written. Still not quite used to the lyrics, Jimin messed up a few times, but then was finally able to record the vocal sample for the whole two-minute track.
Jimin took off his headset while Yoongi did some mixing, then he unplugged it and played it out loud for Jimin to hear, without the piano melody in the background. Jimin balled his hands up in fists and shook them like he did when he was excited, grabbing onto Yoongi’s shoulders and squeezing him. “Hyung!!! It sounds so good already!!!” Jimin said as Yoongi tried to wriggle himself out of the tight grip of affection. “We’ll obviously have to record the final in the real studio, but we have a good track to go off of,” Yoongi said.
“Since we have your voice now, I can delete the original piano melody,” Yoongi said, finding the file on his computer. “Wait!!” Jimin said, an idea suddenly popping into his head. “Can you actually re-record the piano, but a little nicer?” he asked. “You don’t think my piano playing was good enough??” Yoongi teased, shaking his head before saying, “no, I really don’t think the song will sound good if your voice is overpowered by the piano.”
“No, I mean, record it as a cover of the song… I think the melody you wrote is so nice, I had the idea of dancing to it, maybe even with Min,” Jimin explained. “Ahh, then she’d also get used to the sound of the song and form a connection with it beforehand,” Yoongi said, now understanding what Jimin wanted a piano version of it for. Jimin smiled and said, “exactly!!” before standing up from his seat and stretching, suddenly aware that there was a bright light trying to sneak into the room behind the curtains.
He walked over towards the window and pulled the curtain back further, only to see the view of the NYC cityscape, with the sun rising in the background. “What time is it?!” he asked, looking down at his phone and seeing it was 5:30 in the morning. “Did we really work all through the night?” he asked, bewildered that it was already morning. Yoongi was either ignoring him or was so engrossed in playing his MIDI keyboard that he didn’t answer Jimin’s questions. When he was done re-recording it, he mixed it with a small amount of percussion and synth in the background to make it sound professional, then he emailed it to Jimin before taking his headphones off.
“I emailed the cover to you,” Yoongi said. “Do you realize what time it is??” Jimin asked, still staring out the window at the sunrise. Yoongi shrugged and said, “I’m used to all-nighters,” before getting up and stretching. Jimin’s phone buzzed at the receiving of Yoongi’s email with the instrumental version of “Intro: Serendipity,” and he was reminded of how much his hyung helped him over the course of the night. While Yoongi was still stretching, Jimin quickly approached him and wrapped his arms around his chest. “Thank you so much for helping me,” was all Jimin was able to say.
Touch-me-not-Yoongi gently slapped Jimin’s arm until he let go of his grip and said, “I didn’t do this for you… I did it for Min!” He halfway lied, as he truly did it for the both of them, but he wasn’t willing to admit he had a soft side towards his younger member that had become like a brother to him. “Either way I am grateful to you, hyung,” Jimin said, bowing out of gratitude to him. Yoongi, starting to feel sentimental at the sight of Jimin in love, just shook his head.
“Yeah, whatever… Will you leave me alone now so I can get some sleep? You’ve stolen enough hours from my life already,” Yoongi complained, though Jimin just continued to smile brightly, beyond satisfied with the work they were able to accomplish together. “Fair enough, I’ll let you get some sleep! I should probably rest too,” Jimin said, starting to realize how tired he was. He headed towards the door and turned to Yoongi once more and bowed. “Thank you again, hyung,” Jimin said one final time before exiting, leaving Yoongi alone in his makeshift studio.
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Seen ✓ - 1
REWRITE OF “Can You See The Stars”
Pairing: Sam x Fem!Reader
Warnings: fear of being kidnapped
Word Count: 2.4k
Series Summary: On her way home, Y/n finds an abandoned, cracked phone on the sidewalk. Anxious about the well-being of its owner, she picks it up and texts the first contact she finds; Sam.
A/N:This is my second attempt at the story everyone loved, with an actual pllot in mind this time. So, attempt number two, better writing, better story. Have at it kids.
I have tagged the old taglist for this first part. Let me know if you wanna be removed/ added
Beta: The lovely @percywinchester27 . Thank you so so much hon :)
Masterlist
Chapter One: you sure know how to fuck me up on a friday night
Y/n | Sam
The road to independence is uphill, and Y/n knows this better than anyone. She’s done it all. She’s gone through jobs at a similar speed with which she goes through books, worked two or more of them, while also studying for college… She knows how it works, and it’s really fucking difficult to balance emotional baggage the size of a city, an underage sister and college, while also trying to keep, not only yourself, but another person, alive, under a safe roof with food in your stomachs.
Currently, she’s only working one job, at a dive bar owned by a friend of a friend as a waitress.
It’s a difficult job, and Y/n has struggled with it, but the hardest part is not the endless knowledge one needs to mix drinks –on the nights Joel takes time off and she has to take his spot behind the bar- or the carrying up to twenty pounds of glasses and drinks and delivering them at the right table without soaking herself or anyone else with copious amounts of alcohol. Any minimum wage worker will tell you the same thing- clients of any kind fucking suck. Especially if you’re a young woman at a dive bar after midnight.
Another thing she’s struggled with is not having too much money, which is why she’s needed multiple jobs in the past, so she has to use public transport- buses specifically, to go to and from work. And that is exactly where she finds herself, a couple hours after midnight, at her bus stop, five minutes from the bar, when she finds a phone which, unbeknownst to her, will flip her world upside down.
It sits on the pavement of the bus stop, limp and sad. The screen is cracked a significant amount, and for a second she figures someone got rid of it and was too much of an asshole to throw it in the trash. But the second that thought crosses her mind, the screen lights up with a concerning text.
dude where the fuck are you?!
The contact reads “Sam”, and Y/n stands over the phone staring at it. She’s concerned. What if the phone’s owner is in trouble? The device may have fallen from their pocket on the pavement and cracked because they were running from someone and never made it home, and now whoever is texting them is worried for their well-being. Anxiety grips her heart.
It’s instinct that brings her to kneel down and pick it up. She can’t possibly know when the owner lost it, or how long the phone has been sitting there, but there’s an overwhelming urge to contact this Sam person and let them know what’s going on. Of course, the voice in Y/n’s head tells her that this all could just be a product of her anxiety, but it beats leaving it there and having it be stolen by a passerby.
Whatever, right? Best case scenario, she contacts the owner, who is perfectly safe and sound, and they take their phone back. She’s not really planning to pocket it. It’s fairly damaged anyways. Her own three year old, beat-up, 100$ phone is in better condition.
The bus arrives, and Y/n picks up the phone and boards it.
As she sits in her usual seat in the back, alone in the bus apart from an elderly man asleep with his head on a window and a cap on his head near the front, she starts speculating, eyes glued to the black device in her hands. Who’s the owner? Who is Sam to them? Perhaps a partner? A friend? How did the owner lose their phone? Why would this Sam sound so concerned, and most importantly, is the owner okay?
The heavy weight of dread weighs her chest at the thought of the phone’s owner being in trouble and without a phone. She must contact Sam immediately.
Hey, is this Sam?
As she awaits for a response, her curiosity is killing her. The intrigued part of her, reasons that she should snoop, it’s alright, she’s only looking for more information about the owner. Like whether or not they’re a woman or a man- which, sadly, matters when you’re walking alone in dark streets like the ones around this area- and perhaps their age –because, again, it matters if they are a teenager or a forty-year old adult.
The lack of passcode indicates someone older, with nothing to hide, or perhaps someone less technologically savvy, again, someone who may not be very young. The lockscreen is the most popular Led Zeppelin icon, and she instantly respects their music taste, and the home screen is some generic western movie from the 90s with Clint Eastwood. The chances of this belonging to someone younger further decline.
There’s a grand total of four downloaded apps in the phone. There’s an email app, a scrabble app, a microphone recorder and a dating app, no other sign of social media. Someone over 18 years old, definitely.
Soon, she’s tapping on the dating app, and opening their profile page. Holy shit, she thinks.
A guy, the tall, dark and handsome kind. Spiky hair and a smolder-like smile, sharp edges everywhere on his face apart from his gentle, olive-shaped and colored eyes. His lips are full, his nose straight, and his eyelashes long, dark and thick. He’s a real-life dreamboat, the kind you see in movies and Cosmopolitan articles about sex. He’s sitting on a black muscle car, a Chevrolet, with his thick thighs barely contained in blue jeans.
Dean Winchester, the app writes. 28. Male. Likes: old cars, beer, hard rock, westerns, she figured that much, bacon burgers. Dislikes: pop music, modern horror movies, uncomfortable beds. Not looking for anything serious, just a night of fun ;), and wow, okay, he sounds a bit like a dick. The very Red-blooded American Male kind, that enjoys BBQs and winking at women from across the bar. She’s had enough of those during her line of work; she can recognize them from a mile away.
Whatever the case, her moral compass couldn’t allow her to pass up on the opportunity to possibly help someone in trouble. She ignores her urge to roll her eyes, and scrolls a little, finding other pictures of the same guy, when suddenly two separate notifications appear, the phone itself vibrating. One is from the app, which has now received a picture from this girl, Jamie, one which she certainly doesn’t plan on opening, seeing as it’s followed by a winky face. The second one is from Sam.
jesus dean how drunk are you
yes it’s sam. your brother? remember?
No, this isn’t Dean, uh.
My name is Y/n. Your brother lost his phone at a bus stop, near a bar.
i should’ve figured. dean rarely ever uses punctuation.
nice to meet you i guess
Nice to meet you, too.
So basically, uhm, I thought you might help me return his phone to him? I got worried, because this was dumped on the sidewalk, I thought he may be in trouble or something.
knowing him he probably dropped it while being too shitfaced to function.
gotta admit i’m impressed though. most people would’ve pocketed it by now.
I mean, it’s not much use to me with such a cracked screen haha.
yeah i guess.
i don’t know about getting it back to him though. i’m in kansas right now so i’m not close by. i don’t think i can help you.
he doesn’t use social media either.
Crap.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this phone then?
keep it probably.
You sure there’s no other way I can reach him?
i mean i can give you his email but i’m not sure he’ll respond.
I’ll take it. Thank you :)
no problem :)
As she looks up the bus stops, and she quickly realizes this is her stop. Throwing profanities loudly enough to wake the older man at the front of the bus, she scrambles for her things, haphazardly thrown in the seat next to her, and gets off the bus. She pats herself down, making sure she hasn’t forgotten anything as the doors of the bus shut, and starts down the road to her apartment complex.
She could probably navigate this road blind. There are many ways to reach the apartment she’s renting from the bus stop, but her favorite goes through the park. It’s a large area, full of big trees with thick foliage and leaves that brown in the fall. The paths are paved and winded, and the park benches are stained with dark wood stain and curve comfortably. She enjoys coming here in evenings she has off, watching the sun descend behind the top of the trees with a good book.
The air smells like oncoming rain now, and with headphones deep in her ears, she walks taking deep breaths and enjoying the clear atmosphere that seems so unlike the roads that surround the park. As soon as she spots the first raindrop falling from the sky, she pulls her hood over her head and smiles.
It’s minutes later, when single drops have picked up to a drizzle, that she gets a sinking feeling, her hair standing up on edge at the back of her neck, shoulders knotting closer to her ears. Someone is close to her.
With the wire pinched between her thumb and index, she pulls one earbud off and pays attention to the surrounding sounds. Sure enough there’s a second pair of footsteps behind her.
Fuck, if she gets kidnapped or attacked right now, she’s fucked. There are no witnesses, and at this time of night screaming for help would be futile. She checks her bag, but her paper spray is nowhere to be found.
Yeah. Definitely fucked.
Her hands go deep in her pockets, going for her phone, but as she hears the footsteps behind her picking up speed along with hers, she panics and grabs Dean’s instead. She doesn’t look for her own, there’s no time for that, so she does the first thing she thinks of.
She texts Sam.
I think I’m being followed.
what?
Yeah
wait what’s going on? are you okay? who’s following you?
I’m walking home from work. I can’t see who it is, but they’re definitely on my tail.
how are you even typing right now??
is there any buildings around? somewhere public to get in?
It’s 3 am. Everything is shut and I’m in the middle of a fucking park, Sam.
Fuck, I’m fucked.
what are you doing at 3 am in the middle of a fucking park then?!
A hand falls on her shoulder and she goes to scream, before she’s quickly spun around. Her free hand is curled in a fist, ready to fall on the attacker’s nose, when they speak.
“Y/n! I thought it was you!”
“Connor?!” She squints and pushes her hair away from her forehead, heart just about ready to fail out of the fright she’s gotten. “Fuck’s sake, dude, what the fuck are you doing sneaking up on me in the middle of the night like this?!” Rain still falls on her, grounding her to the present, the fact she won’t have to fight for her life and corporeal integrity sinking in slowly.
Her neighbor smiles a crooked smile, watching her place a hand over her heart and taking a deep breath. His fluffy blonde hair is damp under the light rain, light green eyes glowing under the street lights. She’s so angry at him right now, she legitimately thought she was gonna die for a second there.
“I’m sorry for scaring you,” he says, dropping his hand from her shoulder. “I didn’t think to call out to you.” A shrug.
“It’s okay,” it’s really not, but there’s no point in staying angry at him. Besides, she figures she’ll be a little safer with him walking next to her all the way back to their apartment complex.
On the way back, they catch up. Connor is back in town after a long week and a half at his sister’s wedding. He’s in a brand new relationship with the guy he’s been pining over for like 9 months now, and he got a job at the bookstore, close to their building, he’s starting next week. He was out for a drink, he offers as an explanation, and was returning home, when he bumped into her. The park is also his favorite route to take.
The key dangles from her hands and finds a home in the lock and twists, while Y/n waves at her neighbor.
“Have a good night, Connor.”
“You too, Y/n.” It’s delivered with a wink and a bright smile.
The motions of dropping her bag by the kitchen counter, dumping the keys in the small bowl and hanging her coat on the hanger are delivered on autopilot in quick succession. Shoes toed off, hair pulled out of her lazy bun, she falls unceremoniously on her thrifted couch, feet suspended on the hand rest. Emmy must be asleep, the only lights on in the house are the fairy lights over the couch, setting a soft glow over the furniture. Y/n sighs. What a day.
Seconds before she falls asleep on the couch, a phone vibrates and it’s definitely not her own. Her eyes snap wide open, and she curses, fumbling with Dean’s device.
The messages are seven, and they all share the same panicked tone. Upon reading them, Y/n facepalms and curses, guilt weighing her down. Poor guy.
y/n?
what’s going on?
are you okay?
y/n
what the hell is going on.
you’re not replying.
please text me if you’re safe.
My God, Sam, I’m so sorry.
It was a neighbor/friend, he sneaked up on me.
you sure know how to fuck me up on a friday night.
I’m genuinely so sorry, Sam, I had no idea it was him.
it’s okay
you were scared.
i am starting to question your choice in friends though.
Y/n grins for the first time that day. It’s wide and full. Sam sounds like a guy she’d hang out with.
Hahahah yeah.
I promise, Connor’s odd, but he means well.
well i have to go
but i’m glad you’re safe
Again, I’m really sorry to make you go through that.
it’s fine really.
Thank you.
Goodnight :)
Night :)
---
Part 2
A/N 2: Tell me how you’re liking the rewrite!
Old Can You See The Stars taglist:
@shutupiminlooove @sammysgirl1997 @kymberlytorres @bambi95-blog @demonic-meatball @thekarliwinchester @littlekay15 @li-m-ii @thinspo-isuppose @carryonmywaywarddemigodwitch @ellen-reincarnated1967 @moonlitskinwalker @marichromatic @illuminatus42 @lazy-author @mirandaaustin93 @hauntedsiriel @pilaxia @devilgirlsarah @nobodys-baby-now @captiveties @calamitychaos @midiocris @wordswillscream
Sam taglist
@kymberlytorres @theboykingsam @depressed-moose-78 @andi-mendes-barnes @captainmarvelcorps @nerd-in-a-galaxy-far-away @nellachain
#sam winchesterx reader#sam x fem!reader#sam winchester x fem!reader#spn fanfiction#supernatural#spn fanfic#sam x reader
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35. I hate trying to put my desire into words when my body knows exactly what to say. Come home. (You can’t start a fire without a spark.) with Winteriron, please and thank you❤❤ Happy Birthday!
EEEEE okay I hope you like this I’m sorry it took so long! (Also thank you!! 😘 😘)
WinterIron, T, 2.5k, humor, pining, denial | AO3
-
I hate trying to put my desire into words when my body knows exactly what to say. Come home. (You can’t start a fire without a spark.)
“Okay, now reattach the first two wires, and you should be good,” Tony says, relaxing back into the couch and adjusting his blankets. “Emphasis on ‘should be’, because I can’t actually see what you’re doing at all, so I have to just assume you’ve followed my instructions perfectly.”
“Eh, close enough,” Bucky says, and then laughs when Tony makes a concerned squawking noise. The connection is grainy, but it’s clear enough for Tony to picture the way his eyes shine with it. “It’ll last ‘til I get back an’ you can actually fix me up.”
“I do not find that reassuring,” Tony says and focuses harder on the boring emails pulled up on holoscreens in front of him. He does not focus on the warmth spreading in his chest, nope, not even a little. “Just know that if you come back carrying your arm again, I am going to beat you with it.”
“I’ll tell Steve you’re picking on me,” Bucky says with a dismissive huff, but Tony would swear he can hear the smile in Bucky’s voice, the way it curves up just the corners of his lips. “He’ll give you his ‘can’t we all just get along’ face.”
“God no,” Tony says with a snort, throat tight with something that’s probably horror. Probably. “Anything but that face, I’ll beat Steve with your detached arm too, if I have to.”
“I want out of this family,” Bucky whines, and it’s not hard to imagine the way his face probably scrunches up as he says it.
Tony startles himself with the force of his laugh. “Oh, it is too late for that frosty. I’m pretty sure we’re all locked in for life at this point.”
Bucky makes a teasing, thoughtful noise, broken by a hiss of static, because he’s underground, on the other side of the world, so incredibly far away. Not that Tony has been thinking about that constantly or anything.
“Well, at least-“ Tony doesn’t get to find out at least what, because Bucky cuts off and Tony’s heart lurches for a second when he thinks the connection has dropped. But no, there’s Steve’s voice in the background of the call, and then Bucky says “Yeah, Tony got me all fixed up.”
“I make no promises as to the accuracy of that statement,” Tony points out, raising his voice in that hopes that Steve will hear him, “For all I know he somehow turned his arm into a bomb.”
“That would be cool,” Bucky says cheerfully, and Tony laughs. He can hear Steve’s voice again, too muffled to make out the words, and then Bucky says “Gotta get back to it. Anythin’ else before I go doll?”
“Yeah,” Tony says and then freezes. There’s something caught in his chest but he can’t find the words, can’t force them out, can’t breathe around the sudden lump in his throat. “Don’t die,” he finally spits out and it’s not quite right, but fuck it, it’s close enough.
Bucky just laughs again and says “Doin’ my best, dollface.”
The line goes dead and Tony is all alone with only this stupid cast on his leg for company. Because despite his insistence that he could totally alter one of the suits enough to fit the cast inside, it would only take a couple hours max, the rest of the team had insisted he stay behind. Literally all of them had insisted, the bunch of betrayers.
So Tony is stuck here, in the big empty tower, laid up alone on the oversized couch in the communal living room while his family is off fighting on the other side of the world and okay fine, he’s pouting about it.
There’s also this weird feeling in Tony’s chest, and it’s like a set up to a joke, right? Because when doesn’t Tony have a weird feeling in his chest, except this one is new. Just the slightest catch sometimes when he breathes, like there’s something bright and warm and sharp bouncing around in his poor damaged rib cage. Something new, strange and terrifyingly familiar.
“Thousand dollars says he fucks up his arm,” Tony tells the empty room. The empty room says nothing back, but Tony is pretty sure that’s the pointed silence of JARVIS judging him.
-
“So, it’s making this weird grinding noise,” Bucky says, instead of anything like a normal human greeting, and Tony seriously considers just hanging up the phone.
He doesn’t, because maybe he’s not actually considering it. “It’s probably because you used your fingers to tighten a very important bolt, instead of an actual wrench,” he says instead and carefully shifts his foot a little where it’s propped up on a step.
“Again,” Bucky says with great patience and an amazing amount of amusement for someone whose arm is supposedly making a weird grinding sound, “Not everyone carries tool sets with them everywhere they go.”
“I still don’t understand those words,” Tony says flatly, and then grins proudly at the ceiling when Bucky snorts with laughter. “That’s why you should have brought me with you!”
“Or I could’a just stolen your tool kit,” Bucky says and laughs again when Tony gasps in loud offense. “Why’re you echoin’?” Bucky asks abruptly, “you in the stairway?”
“No,” Tony says slowly, even though he definitely is, and there’s nowhere else in the tower that echoes quite like the stairways.
“Tony,” Bucky says back, just as slowly, “tell me you weren’t tryin’ to go down the stairs on your crutches.”
“Why would I do that?” Tony scoffs and winces when he shifts wrong. “There are literally elevators everywhere, why would I ever need to take the stairs?”
“So you’re not laying on the landing between the communal floor and the gym?” Bucky asks pointedly, the bastard.
“I am not,” Tony lies smoothly and looks around for hidden cameras. Other than his cameras, obviously.
“We shouldn’t have left you alone,” Bucky says with a heavy sigh. Tony is pretty sure he can hear Natasha demanding to know what’s he’s done now, and sure enough the next thing Bucky says is “Nat wants to know why you fell down the stairs.”
“I did not fall down the stairs,” Tony defends with another huff and lifts his foot to try propping it on the handrail instead, because it’s still kind of throbbing. “I am simply taking a break on the landing, after... maybe rolling down the last couple of steps, just a little bit.”
Bucky makes a sound that’s caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh and says “Next time we’re gettin’ you a babysitter.”
“I am an adult!” Tony insists and oh, he can just imagine the look on Bucky’s face, equal parts amused and horrified. “I am an adult man, and I am hanging up on you now.”
“Don’t hang up!” Bucky protests with a sputtering laugh, “My arm is still making weird noises! Don’t be so heartless, doll.”
“Wait, does it hurt?” Tony asks, because if so he is going to feel terrible for just laying on the ground giving Bucky shit. Even if he’s not sure how he’d be able to help right now, and he’s not actually sure how he’s going to get off the ground. Worst case scenario JARVIS will send Happy to come shamefully scoop him up.
“Nah, but it’s annoyin’ the shit outta everyone else,” Bucky says with an audible smirk, and then adds “Sam keeps offerin’ to rip it off for me.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, that’s what you all get for leaving the mechanic behind. Find a wrench and suck it up. Or just let Sam do what he’s gotta do,” Tony says with a shrug, and grins when he hears Bucky completely fail to fight down a laugh.
“Well that’s jus’ hurtful, darlin. I’ll find a wrench, don’t let the mean ol’ bird boy rip my limbs off,” Bucky says, a smothered grin still obvious in his voice.
Tony feels suddenly, terribly alone in the echoing stairwell with only his throbbing leg trapped in a cast and this weird, warm feeling bouncing around in his chest again. “When are you going be done with his stupid mission you love more than me, anyways?” Tony blurts before he can stop himself, before he can swallow it back down and deny, deny, deny. Still, it could have been way worse.
Bucky just laughs again, which is probably for the best. “We should be back tomorrow, day after at the latest,” he says, “try not to break yourself any worse until then.”
“I resent that,” Tony says with a sniff, and forces down all the other unknown words trying to build in his chest, trying to claw their way out. Maybe he has a fever, because his entire body feels warm, like the thing in his chest is spreading.
“I know ya do,” Bucky says, all amused and fond, then adds “lemme know when you make it out of the stairwell.”
“I told you, I’m not stuck,” Tony insists, but the line has already gone dead. It’s probably for the best, who knows what other words will come spilling their way out of him at this point.
-
Tony is half asleep in bed when a thought occurs to him, and he rolls towards the nightstand with one hand flailing for his phone. ‘No longer living on the stairs’ he texts to Bucky, ‘Please cancel rescue party.’
He’s not actually expecting a response to his stupid texts, what with the super important mission that he wasn’t invited on, but he hasn’t even set his phone back down before it’s vibrating in his hand. ‘So impressive. It would be more impressive if JARVIS hadn’t told me Happy had to come save you.’
‘Stop texting with my AI, you weirdo’ Tony sends, and then falls asleep with his phone in his hand.
He dreams that he’s alone in his big empty tower, like he used to be all the time and maybe it’s not so much a dream as a memory. But it won’t last forever, there’s something almost like static electricity in the air, like a building tension. Tony can feel it thrumming in his chest as he walks the empty halls of his dreams, spreading red hot through all his limbs, spilling liquid gold from between his lips.
Tony wakes up slowly, an empty ache in his chest that he knows, that he’s terrified to put a name to. His phone is still in his hand, battery almost dead, and apparently he’d managed to send a couple more texts as he fell asleep.
‘Pretty sure you’re conspiring against me. I’m onto you.’
‘JARVIS I expect this from, but you?!”
‘Just hurry up and come home.’
Tony hasn’t sleep-texted in years, since college when he spent most of his time sleep deprived, hopped up on espresso, and was known to text Rhodey long, complicated equations while in a state of half-unconsciousness. But apparently Tony’s stupid thumbs have betrayed him, begging Bucky to come home like Tony misses him, like Tony needs him around and oh god Tony doesn’t know that he’s ever meant anything so much in his life.
He hates being left behind, hates that all his friends are out there without him even though he knows they’ll be fine. He hates feeling useless and more than anything Tony hates that he can feel the absence of Bucky in the tower like an open wound in his life, that his carefully built denial is falling apart around him.
Tony is still laying in bed, trying to decide if the buzzing in his ears is panic or excitement, when his phone vibrates with a reply from Bucky. ‘On our way back. See you soon doll.’
That thing in Tony’s chest is growing out of control, taking up his entire body, sharp, bright, about to catch flame.
-
Tony would like to say that he’s not waiting out on the roof when the quinjet lands like a desperate, lovesick fool, but he absolutely is.
He’s leaning heavily on his crutches, squinting up into the rush of wind, feeling like he’s in that exact moment before the flare of a spark becomes a blinding explosion. The split second between falling and flying. Like he’s at a breaking point.
The jet has barely touched down, engines still going, and already Tony can hear the lectures he’s going to get from Bucky. He shouldn’t be out here on his crutches, in his pajamas no less, a million other things that Tony should find super obnoxious but definitely doesn’t.
He’s looking forward to it, because he’s missed Bucky’s ridiculous hovering, and his dry, dark sense of humor, and just... all of it, fuck Tony has missed him.
Bucky is the first one out, trying to look disapproving as his eyes fix on Tony but there’s clearly a wide smile trying to break free across his face. He opens his mouth, starts to say something that might be a greeting or an admonishment or even the beginning of a lecture, but Tony doesn’t hear it.
Tony can’t actually hear anything past the rush of blood in his ears, the way it feels like he’s touched a live wire, like his entire body is burning. Tony isn’t sure what his face is doing, but Bucky’s eyes go wide and Tony has barely made it a single hobbling step before Bucky is right there, right in front of him, warm and real and looking about as flushed as Tony feels.
Bucky freezes there, inches away, like he’s hesitating, but Tony is so far past that. He throws himself forward, abandoning his crutches in favor of wrapping his arms around Bucky’s shoulders, trusting Bucky to catch him. Sure enough Bucky’s right arm is instantly around his waist, pulling him in closer, and Tony isn’t sure which of them is shaking slightly. Possibly both.
Tony is only vaguely aware of people moving around them, someone nearly tripping over his abandoned crutches, soft chuckles and he’s pretty sure someone even whistles. Tony does not care at all, just presses his face into the curve of Bucky’s throat and breathes him in, blocks out everything that’s not the
“Hi,” Bucky finally says against the top of Tony’s head, voice quiet and warm as his fingers tap against Tony’s side. “‘M home.”
“About fucking time,” Tony grumbles, face still smashed into Bucky’s neck, and then after a moment demands “Where’s your other arm?”
“I left it on the jet, didn’t want you to hit me with it,” Bucky says easily, like that’s actually his biggest concern, and Tony laughs again.
“Smart,” Tony says and then takes a shuddering breath. His chest is warm and full, nearly bursting with all those bright happy feelings, and when Bucky’s arm tightens around him Tony is surprised it doesn’t all come spilling out of him, catching everything around them on fire.
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Survey #351
“the writing on the wall / a psalm of napalm / abandon all hope, but try to stay calm”
Do you have bad posture? Oh yeah.
Are your eyes sensitive to sunlight? VERY.
How many miles can you run without stopping? An astonishing zero miles.
Who is the most attractive person you know personally? My high school friend Alon, probably.
Have you ever dated someone who was very vastly different from your “type”? No.
When was the first time you said "I love you" to a significant other? When I dated my first real boyfriend Jason at 16. I actually said it very early in because I thought I was "supposed" to, and I did REALLY like him.
How old were you when you first lived alone? If you’ve never lived alone, how old do you think you’ll be? I haven't yet, and idk.
What do you wish you had been better prepared for? Ha, adulthood.
Is there anything about you (physically) that you think turns people off of you right off the bat? My weight.
Do you know anyone with a semicolon tattoo? I have a semicolon butterfly tattoo on my wrist, and while it's very subtle, my Mark tat features a semicolon, too. It's outlined by a quote he's said ("you are important, never forget that"), and the "i" is a semicolon. Idk if I know anyone else with one.
Have you ever overdosed on a drug? Once accidentally, once purposefully.
Have you ever kissed a guy you didn’t want to kiss? Yes.
Who was the last guy you cuddled with? Girt.
What is something you’ve had a toxic reaction to? The breakup with Jason.
In the last picture taken of you, how did you pose? I just tilted my head, smiled, and gave a peace sign, haha. Mom wanted to show my sister how I looked with a dozen wires and other shit attached to me for my sleep study.
Have you ever made a fake Facebook account? If so, why? No.
If you were an Eevee, what would you wanna evolve into? Probably Espeon? They're so, so majestic and beautiful. I'd love to feel like that, lol.
What flavor was the last piece of gum you chewed? Raspberry lemonade.
Did you ever used to watch the show Teen Titans? Nah.
When you were in school/if you are in school, do you actually share your grades with your parents? If you got/get a bad grade, do you hide it from them? My mom always stayed up-to-date with my grades. I never really had anything to hide.
Have you ever been the designated driver? Once or twice, yeah.
Were you obsessed with Webkinz when they first came out? "Obsessed" is an understatement. I was that kid with dozens upon dozens. They were pretty much my favorite thing.
Who do you subscribe to on YouTube, if anybody? Oh Jesus, looooots.
Are you wearing nail polish right now? What color? No.
Neon colors, or pastel? Pastel.
Are you currently pregnant? Do you wish you were/weren’t? I'm not and have zero desire to be.
Have you ever had a dog? A good number of them throughout my life.
Is there any drama going on right now in your life? No.
Does your hair fall out a lot? No.
What’s your favourite type of bird? Barn owls. I also love ravens and crows.
How many friends do you have on Facebook? 126.
What was on the last sandwich you ate? Pb&j.
What sort of music did you listen to when you were in high school? The same as I do now: metal and its various subgenres.
Have you ever gotten back together with an ex? No.
How far away is the closest store to your house and what is it? I'm actually unsure which is the closest. We live in a cul-de-sac with a bunch of houses, and the street opens into just outside the main city, so there's a lot of stores.
What is your favourite Thai dish? I've actually never tried Thai food.
How many contacts do you have in your phone? Very few, but I don't feel like counting.
Are there any candles in your bedroom, and what scent are they? No.
What pet names do you use with your significant other? I'm single.
Do you have to wear a name badge where you work? I don’t have a job.
Can you hear anything right now? Yeah, I'm watching Gab Smolders play Skyrim. It's a game I've always wanted to play myself.
Is there anybody else in the room you’re currently in? No.
What’s the name of the store you usually get your groceries? Walmart.
Does your house have a porch/balcony? It has a very, very small porch.
What is your mother’s first name? Donna.
Did you have a tree house as a kid? No.
Are you afraid of speaking to large audiences? I'm terrified of it.
Have you ever cried from being so mad? Oh yeah, it's very common for me to cry when I'm mad.
Have you ever taken a bath with someone? As a kid, yes.
Do you have any brothers? One older one.
Does your family use coasters? Is anyone in your family excessively tidy? No.
Do you wear pajamas to places other than at your house? Ha, yeah, just depends on where.
Do you take showers in the morning or at night more? Morning. I used to be ALL about night showers, but I just love how refreshing they are in the morning. It's a good start to the day.
Do you snore? Steal the covers? Roll around in your sleep? I steal the covers SO bad and roll around a lot. God bless whoever marries me.
You see the person you fell hardest for. What do you do? I can guarantee I'd be a total deer in headlights and probably tear up or just straight-up cry.
Have you been/are you depressed? It's nowhere near as bad as it was once upon a time, but I honestly am depressed these days.
Who is the one person you can completely be yourself around? I only feel entirely "safe" doing that around Sara.
Are your popups blocked on your computer? Yeah.
Are your parents night owls or morning birds? My mom's a total night owl. She absolutely hates sleeping because it's "such a waste of time" to her, but of course she does it anyway. I haven't lived with my father since I was like 16, so idk what he's really like with this stuff now, but I'd call him an early bird, particularly because his job has him up early anyway.
Do you have high blood pressure? No; my blood pressure is actually extremely low, so much so it scares every doctor who hasn't treated me before. It's a medication side effect and seriously sucks, because I am absolutely always light-headed and dizzy.
Have you ever pumped gas? No.
Are you affectionate? Very.
What would a perfect yard look like for you? Hmmm... I'm going to include things I know I won't realistically have for maintenance reasons, but what's ideal. I would loooove love love at least one really big tree with maybe a birdhouse and like a bat box (is that what they're called?), and I'd love tons and tons of flowers to feed bees and other wildlife. A koi pond would be amazing, but that's one of those things I know I won't actually have. A pool would be really nice, preferably inground, and having a spot in the shade would be perfect. Some berry bushes would be cool, and grape vines... Man, I'm really fantasizing now, haha.
What is a topic that you have just recently become interested in? Nothing very recently, but I'd say the most recent would be uhhhh tarantulas, though that's been a thing for many months now.
What is a feel-good song that you’ve been listening to lately? None lately, anyway. I can tell you "Jump" by Van Halen is the staple "feel-good" song for me, though.
What are some things you enjoy seeing pictures of? Meerkats... Mark... more meerkats and Mark... oh also meerkats and Mark...
Is there anything you are scared/awkward about talking about in life? Don't talk to me about sex.
Has a pet ever stolen food from you as you were eating it? AS I was eating it, no.
What is the weirdest compliment you have ever been given? I have no idea.
What’s stronger - your upper or lower body? Jesus, I couldn't tell you. I'm just weak, period. Women tend to have more lower body strength, so I GUESS maybe that, but given the fact my legs are horribly weak, I don't know. My arms aren't strong, either.
Are you very careful with your technology (phone, laptop, etc) or do you take risks that could damage them? I try to be mindful and careful, but you could say the way I pick up my laptop sometimes is risky.
Have you ever been in the newspaper? What for? I think so, as part of my graduating class? But that would be a LOT of people... so I actually don't know. I have this faint memory of being in it with other people, but idr.
Would you say that the area you live in is particularly picturesque? Ew, no.
What is your favorite type of cat? One does not simply pick ONE favorite kind of cat. I love Persians, Ragdolls, Siamese, sphynxes, bengals, Abyssinians, and I could go on and on.
If you had your way, what color(s) would you dye your hair? I have A LOT of colors I want to dye my hair, but the ones I'm currently most interested in are pastel pink, creamsicle orange, and lilac.
Do you like seafood? If so, what is your favorite? If not, what is your favorite type of food? I only like shrimp.
What religion/spiritual path intrigues you the most, if any? Paganism. It's the one I think is closest to what I believe in, and I just find it all very interesting. I love the nature focus.
Would you ever consider getting dreadlocks? Nooooo.
How many times is your cartilage pierced in your ears? None anymore. :( I miss all my piercings that closed while hospitalized.
Have you ever had a pet bird? Nah. It'd be cool, but I don't want one enough to actually get one.
Do you like dinosaurs? I looooove dinos. They were my obsession as a kid. My first dream career was even a paleontologist.
Do you like going for long walks with friends? If my legs worked like a healthy fucking human's, I would love to do that again. I would literally collapse if I tried to go on a long walk now.
Do you miss anyone from school? I miss a lot of people from school. I'm thankful for Facebook for that, but even that's not enough, really.
What is your favorite flavor of Jolly Ranchers? Watermelon, I think? Was there a strawberry one?
How are your parents right now? I'm assuming Dad's fine, and Mom's okay, just stressed as she always is.
Can you take naps, or does it make you feel horrible? Man, I love naps. They're like, mandatory for my existence, lol.
If you celebrate Christmas, do you get a real tree or an artificial tree? A fake one.
Have you ever been told you were a good writer? Yeah.
Do you watch music videos? No.
Do you own an account on Club Penguin? Haha awww, remember the worldwide heartbreak when that site shut down? Anyway, I did as a kid.
Do you like lemonade? Sure do.
Was your first kiss perfect? To me it was.
How do you feel about the first person you kissed? I feel a lot of things about him.
As of right now, how do you feel about your future? Nervous.
Who is the last person you ran into unexpectedly? *shrugs*
Is sex something special, or just for fun? It has to be something special for me personally.
Do you follow fashion? If so, why? Not at all.
Have you ever played a real pinball machine? No.
Do you like the smell of BBQs? I love the smell, but don't like the food.
Do wasps scare you? Yes.
Are you currently trying to get over someone? I mean, yes and no. I don't think I'll ever be fully over Jason, but I feel like I'm as "over him" as I'll ever be, maybe. I hope I can even further let him go, but we'll just have to see.
Have you ever dated someone with longer hair than yours? Yes.
Have you ever worn flip flops in the snow? HA, oh yeah. If it's only a dusting, I don't care at all. I pretty much always wear flip flops.
How old were you when you met your first love? I was 15.
If you could have one more pet, what? JUST one? Probably a Brazilian Black tarantula, ideally. I technically want a western hognose snake more, but given I already have a snake, in this hypothetical situation, I'd take the spider.
Would you rather have an owl or a snake? Ha, speaking of snakes. A snake, even though I adore owls.
What do you order at Chic-Fil-A? I don't give my business to Chick-fil-A. They're reigned by homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit that have given monetary contributions to anti-LGBT foundations, including most disgustingly those that support conversion therapy. I admittedly looooove their chicken sandwiches, but I just can't in good conscience go there.
Have you ever been addicted to cigarettes? No, given I've never smoked and will never.
Which do you use more? Facebook or Instagram? Facebook.
Did you enjoy your past relationships? Yeah.
Do you like '80s music? '80s metal is great.
Something you would NEVER buy? Drugs.
Have you ever questioned your sexuality? I first questioned if I was bisexual in middle school, 8th grade I think, but I went into denial about it given I was Christian at the time. Looking back, there were many clear signs of me liking girls too, I just didn't notice them until a few years ago when I came out as bi.
Do you like Star Wars? No.
What is the best thing about life? Experiencing love, both platonic and romantic.
Are you superstitious? No.
What show/concert have you gone to that you didn’t like much? I haven't experienced a bad concert before, but then again I've only been to one.
Is sex a must in your life? Nah.
Have you watched porn alone before? I've never watched porn period. I have absolutely no desire to watch two random people go at each other.
What do you think about weed? It should be legal everywhere, but treated similarly to alcohol in that there are legal repercussions to doing certain things, like driving, under the influence. There are just too many benefits for many health conditions to ignore.
Have you read the entire Bible before? No. I've started to before, but I didn't get far.
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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong
“To love something, then, is to name it after something so worthless it might be left untouched—and alive. A name, thin as air, can also be a shield.” (25-26)
“He was only nine but had already mastered the dialect of damaged American fathers.” (35)
“My sneakers erupted with silent flares: the world’s smallest ambulances, going nowhere.” (36)
“Our mother tongue, then, is no mother at all—but an orphan. Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended, ashed. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.” (46)
“It’s true that, in Vietnamese, we rarely say I love you, and when we do, it is almost always in English. Care and love, for us, are pronounced clearest through service: plucking white hairs, pressing yourself on your son to absorb a plane’s turbulence and, therefore, his fear.” (48)
“She has given birth to a girl she wraps in a piece of sky stolen from a clear day.” (59)
“A new immigrant, within two years, will come to know what the salon is, in the end, a place where dreams become the calcified knowledge of what it means to awake in American bones—with or without citizenship—aching, toxic, and underpaid.” (115)
“I hate and love your battered hands for what they can never be.” (115)
“In the nail salon, sorry is a tool one uses to pander until the word itself becomes currency. It no longer merely apologizes, but insists, reminds: I’m here, right here, beneath you. It is the lowering of oneself so that the client feels right, superior, and charitable. In the nail salon, one’s definition of sorry is deranged into a new world entirely, one that’s charged and reused as both power and defacement at once. Being sorry pays, being sorry even, or especially, when one has no fault, is worth every self-deprecating syllable the mouth allows. Because the mouth must eat.” (132)
“...to be an American boy, and then an American boy with a gun, is to move from one end of a cage to another.” (170)
“We were exchanging truths, I realized, which is to say, we were cutting one another.” (195)
“It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus—that curve of continuation.” (204)
“They say nothing lasts forever but they’re just scared it will last longer than they can love it.” (253)
“I knew it was a prayer by the tone he used to lift it, as if the tongue was the smallest arm from which a word like [Allah] could be offered.” (254)
“But why can’t the language for creativity be the language of regeneration?” (257)
“Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, ‘It’s been an honor to serve my country.’” (259-260)
“The truth is we can survive our lives, but not our skin.” (261)
“The truth is one nation, under drugs, under drones.” (262)
“Let me tie my shadows to your feet and call it friendship.” (263)
“I miss you more than I remember you.” (267)
“They will tell you that great writing ‘breaks free’ from the political, thereby ‘transcending’ the barriers of difference, uniting people toward universal truths. They’ll say this is achieved through craft above all. Let’s see how it’s made, they’ll say—as if how something is assembled is alien to the impulse that created it. As if the first chair was hammered into existence without considering the human form.” (267)
“He laughed, the fake one you use to test the thickness of silence.” (269)
“That’s what writing is, after all the nonsense, getting down so low the world offers a merciful new angle, a larger vision made of small things, the lint suddenly a huge sheet of fog exactly the size of your eyeball. And you look through it and see the thick steam in the all-night bathhouse in Flushing, where someone reached out to me once, traced the trapped flute of my collar bone. (270-271)
“A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And yet we are moved.” (272)
“Despite my vocabulary, my books, knowledge, I find myself folded against the far wall, bereft. I watch two daughters care for their own with an inertia equal to gravity. I sit, with all my theories, metaphors and equations, Shakespeare and Milton, Barthes, Du Fu, and Homer, masters of death who can’t at last, teach me how to touch my dead.” (299)
“All freedom is relative—you know too well—and sometimes it’s no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they ‘free’ wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders.” (309)
“How waste, shit, excess, is what binds the living, yet is always present and perennial in death.” (309)
“I remember my father, which is to say I am cuffing him with these words.” (310)
“I remember studying my father’s letter and seeing a scatter of tiny black dots: the periods left untouched. A vernacular of silence. I remember thinking everyone I ever loved was a single black dot on a bright page. I remember dragging a line from one dot to another with a name on each one until I ended with a family tree that looked more like a barbed wire fence.” (320)
“In that war, a woman gifted herself a new name—Lan—in that naming claimed herself beautiful, then made that beauty into something worth keeping.” (329)
“Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence—but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.” (329)
“My nails blackened with my country, My country dissolving on my tongue.” (330)
“The door slammed and someone came home and low voices could be heard, the single lilt of a question as it rose, ‘How was it?’ or ‘Are you hungry?” Something plain and necessary, yet extra, with care, a voice like those tiny roofs over the phone booths along the train tracks, the ones made from the same shingles used for houses, except only four rows wide—just enough to keep the phone dry. And maybe that’s all I wanted—to be asked a question and have it cover me, like a roof the width of myself.” (335-336)
“To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.” (338)
“I run thinking I will outpace it all, my will to change being stronger than my fear of living.” (342)
“And like a word, I hold no weight in this world yet still carry my own life. And I throw it ahead of me until what I left behind becomes exactly what I’m running toward—like I’m part of a family.” (343)
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Endless Summer Book 4: Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 52)
Description: As Alodia and Diego flee toward Northbridge, Zahra makes an astonishing discovery
Tagging: @endlesshero1122 @mysteli @feartheendlesssummer @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @tigerbryn11
Chapter 52: Stranded
Zahra
“...The Hydra is a myth. Look for the triumvirate. Crassus has betrayed Caesar and Pompey. ...JAKE!”
“You listening to that recording again?” Craig's voice is languid with sleep. I don't need to look up from the computer to know that he's in his boxers in the doorway with his hair adorably tousled with sleep, because that's how I left him.
“I've got it on in the background.”
“The background of what?”
“Iris and I are looking into the background of that plane Lundgren used to get Jake and Sean and Michelle to the island.”
He wanders over to stand behind my chair and absently massage my shoulders as I click and clack away at the keyboard. “I thought the cops or whatever had already looked into that?”
“They have. But all they've told us is that it wasn't one of ours. They didn't say anything about who it was actually registered to.”
“Maybe they're still trying to figure that out.”
“Yeah, I'm guessing they are, assuming they're not actually actively hiding something. Either way, I'm not inclined to wait for them to decide what we should know.”
I have the numbers I need. The tail number, and serial numbers for various parts on the plane. Now I just need to get out without a trace, and into another database where I can plug those numbers in to find their matches. Even if the plane was cobbled together from stolen parts—if that's even possible—I can trace the parts' histories and their last legal location. Hopefully, there is enough consistency to pin down a location where the plane was most likely assembled. Or where it was stolen from. Craig sits down in the chair beside me. I reach over to rub his shoulder appreciatively before returning to the task at hand.
I won't admit out loud that this chasing after airplane parts is mostly to occupy myself and make me feel like I'm doing something now that my progress with the Galatea recording has stalled. I've gone over it from every angle I can think of. But now I feel like I just need to step back and work on something else for awhile. Look at it with fresh eyes after a relatively simple task like tracking down the owner of a possibly stolen plane.
Craig nestles his head in his arms on the desk beside the computer while the numbers flash over the screen. He starts to snore softly. When Iris' hologram flickers to life and floods the room with blue light, Craig grunts and mumbles something unintelligible.
“Zahra,” Iris says, “I have found something that I believe you need to see.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“I believe the plane was not assembled from stolen parts. ...However...if you will observe the information on the screen...”
I turn to look at the screen. I squint as I scan what Iris has projected there for me. Then I feel my eyes go wide.
“...Holy shit...”
Diego
We change drivers about an hour into the trip when we stop to refuel. After another hour, we change again. Conversation ebbs and flows as we speed along a dark and empty stretch of road that runs through what must be a forest preserve. When we speak, it's mostly about where we should go when we reach Northbridge. Estela and Quinn first, we decide. We don't know whether Michelle and Sean made it back from their honeymoon or not, or they would be our first stop. Actually, as Allie points out, if Jake was taken prisoner at the same time we were, it's possible Sean and Michelle were taken, too. Even more reason to try someone else first. If Estela and Quinn can't be reached, we'll seek out Aleister and Grace, then Zahra and Craig, then Tahira. The important thing is that we get Allie someplace safe while we try to get a handle on what's happened to Jake and if he can be located.
“Midwife said the wouldn't kill him as long as he could still be used against me,” she says softly. “...But...when they find out I've escaped...”
“He'll be that much more valuable,” I assure her. “And they'll want to use him to lure you out, which will probably make it that much easier to find him.”
“...What if they hurt him to punish me for escaping?”
My heart squeezes at her question. I can't say they won't. I can't ignore the possibility. But I also can't let her think escaping was a mistake.
“Allie...as soon as you're safe, my priority and everyone else's is going to be to get him safe. You know that, right?”
She nods. “I know. But it's not like not worrying is really an option...”
“Hey, I get it. But let me tell you something. When we first got back after the island, Jake was arrested almost the moment we set foot on American soil. ...We had him out in four months. And that was while we were trying to make up a semester's worth of college work.”
“...You're exaggerating.”
“Nope. Cross my heart, it's true. You can ask him yourself when you see him again. Which, by the way, is going to be before you give birth to his kid.”
“Well...it's certainly hard not to trust confidence like...” She trails off so suddenly that I can't help but feel a quick, hot flash of dread. I glance over to see her frowning.
“What?”
“Are...you messing with the light level on the dashboard?”
“What? I don't think...” I feel my stomach lurch as I get a good look at the dashboard and see what she means. The panel has gone dim. So dim that I can barely read the time on the clock, much less the GPS screen. The headlights aren't looking their brightest, either. My gut tells me to pull over. A worn dirt road just ahead of me drifts off the main road. The dimming headlights are just bright enough to illuminate it, and I just manage to pull off as the car abruptly stalls and dies, slowing to a stop. It's only once we've actually stopped that I realize my heart is pounding and my knuckles have gone white on the steering wheel. I carefully peel my fingers off the wheel and feel the tremors racing through my body as I put the gear shift in park. I look over at Allie. It's dark, without street lamps along the quiet road, but what little moonlight there is reflects off her pale face and shows me a stunned expression.
“Are you all right?”
“W-what happened?”
“The car kind of...lost power. And I think...” I experimentally turn the key, but nothing happens. I try again. I flick a few switches, try the key a third time. “...I've had this happen before. It's probably a bad alternator.”
“...What do we do? How do we make it start again?”
“...There's...there's a portable jump-starter in the back with the gas cans,” I offer, but the knot in my stomach doesn't loosen. “We don't need another car to jump-start with one of those, but...if I'm right and it's the alternator, it might not do any good.”
“It's worth a try...”
I nod, grabbing the flashlight that we found in the glove compartment the first time we stopped to refuel. I pop the hood and get out of the car, shivering at the blast of bitingly cold air that hits me. I rub my arms vigorously as I make my way around to the hatch at the back of the jeep. I'm not dressed for this weather. Maybe a native northeasterner wouldn't feel the cold so badly dressed in a sweatsuit, but I'm from southern California, and I don't stop hopping as I fetch the portable jump-starter and hook it up to the car battery, the flashlight's beam shuddering over the maze of parts and wires under the hood. Unfortunately, I'm proven right about the effectiveness of the power pack. The car stays stubbornly dead. I groan, pressing my forehead to the steering wheel.
“Cell phones,” I mutter. “We should have asked Midwife for cell phones...”
“I've already groped around the glove compartment for one,” Allie says apologetically. “Granted, the light in there is out, too. I could take another look with the flashlight, but...”
“It's worth a try,” I echo ruefully, and pass her the flashlight. I'm not surprised when it turns out she didn't miss anything. “...Shit. What now?”
“I guess we need to get out and walk.”
“Walk?” I repeat incredulously. “Walk where?”
“Follow the road we're on. Or the main road. The forest preserve can't be so big that we won't hit civilization after an hour or two.”
“But it's night. In the northeast. In late March. We're really not dressed for it.”
“There's the tarp that was over the gas cans. We can wrap up in that. Beside, the heat won't last in here if we can't keep the car going.”
“But we will be a little better shielded from the elements. We could wrap up in the tarp and wait until morning. At least the sun will keep us warmer.”
“But we'll lose our head start. We're only about two-and-a-half hours from where we escaped from. Granted, we'll be slower on foot, but at least we'll be moving. Come on, it's not like it's likely to be a lot more walking than we ever did on the island, right?”
“You weren't nine months pregnant on the island,” I can't help pointing out.
“...Yeah, I know. Not saying that won't make it harder. But when you weigh the options...I gotta say, I think we'll both be safer if we keep moving.”
“I guess splitting up isn't an option...”
“No way in hell.”
“Yeah,” I agree with a rueful smile. “I wasn't keen on that either. Just thought I should make sure we didn't ignore any options. Guess we're walking then.”
* * *
We opt to follow the main road, but stick to the shelter of the forest preserve to avoid being seen by anyone who might be on the road searching for us with hostile intent. Getting into the trees proved a challenge, as the incline up into the forest from the dirt road we stopped on was steeper and higher than we anticipated. With a little bit of help, and a little bit more panic from me, Allie made it up onto relatively level ground, but the going is till tough. The path is uneven, and everything outside the beam of the flashlight is a mess of black shadows with patches of navy blue.
Huddled under the tarp, pressed close together, the cold night air is at least a little more bearable. Still, my fingers, my toes inside my worn sneakers, the tips of my ears, and my running nose are all numb. I dab at the mucus trickling from my nose with the tarp draped over my forearm and sniff forcefully, hoping give myself at least a moment of relief. It doesn't really work. My breath is short with the exertion of trying to navigate an uneven terrain while pressed close to another person, and the cold, dry late winter air is like gaseous fire in my lungs. My throat is starting to itch. I don't even know how long we've been walking.
“Allie? You holding u—hpp!” Okay, clearly trying to talk was a mistake. The itching in my dry throat is suddenly unbearable, and I have to cough. And once I get started, it doesn't stop. I double over, hacking and coughing like a 20-year chain-smoker. I only vaguely feel Allie guiding me to the edge of the path to sit down against a tree and catch my breath. I collapse on my butt in the cold dirt and lean back against the rough bark as I draw in wheezing breaths and release them in another round of explosive coughing. She crouches down in a slightly awkward motion, and I feel her cold hand rest gently on the back of my neck as she places the plastic rim of a bottle to my lips.
“Here. Take a couple sips. Slowly.” I do as she tells me. Cool water flows soothingly down my throat, and I start to breathe a little easier.
“W-water bottle?” I question hoarsely when I think I can speak again without starting the whole ordeal over again.
“Found it behind the gas cans. Not a big one, but I thought I should bring it along. Been carrying it in my pant leg.”
I nod as she takes a sip herself. I can believe that the baggy sweatpants with their tight cuffs made a pretty nice pouch for what I can just about make out as a 20-ounce water bottle.
“Must have been cold holding it there, though.” I sense her shrug more than I see it in the swimming darkness.
“The heater in the car had warmed it up enough. And the heat from my body kept it at a bearable temperature. You feeling good enough to press on?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay now.”
“Good. But...actually, take a couple more minutes. I need to...um...well...squat.”
I laugh, which almost makes me cough again. “Say no more. Take the flashlight and yell if you need anything.”
* * *
Once we get moving again, I'm not sure how much more time passes before I first start to notice the space around us turning the slightest bit grayer as the first hints of light start to wink at a horizon obscured by foliage. I don't remember what time we started out on foot, but I can guess now that it's pushing six in the morning. I have no idea of the date or the day of the week. Hopefully civilization isn't much further. And hopefully it's a work day. More likely that people will be up and about at the buttcrack of dawn. By now, the exertion has warmed us up enough that we aren't huddled so close together, though we keep our hands clasped firmly to keep from losing each other. I think I can see a bit of a break in the trees ahead. I gently steer us toward it, and Allie follows my lead.
What happens next happens so fast that I'm not sure what happens first. One second, Allie is right beside me, her hand curled in mine. The next, I hear the sound of loose earth shifting, pebbles tumbling over each other. I feel a tug, our hands pulling sharply apart. I hear a human body hitting the ground, and my best friend's strangled cry of pain. I turn to see empty gray air beside me where she had been standing.
“Allie!”
I just manage to stop myself from diving into the space where she was. A good thing, too, as I realize when I swing my flashlight towards the sound of her whimpering and catch a flash of golden hair in the beam. She's lying on her side halfway down the inclined bank of what looks like a dry creek bed. From her position and mine, it looks like she put her food down on the edge of the incline and lost her balance.
“Diego!” she groans through clenched teeth. “Stay back, okay? It's really steep here!”
She's right. There is at least three feet of distance between us, but at least she seems to be at least somewhat anchored where she is.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“...Yeah...” she admits, her voice a croak. My heart drops into my stomach with a sickening splash.
“What? How? Where? How bad?”
“Not entirely sure. I need to get up.”
“Right. Rightrightright, okay...” I look around frantically, spotting a solid looking tree that appears to be in a good position. “Allie? I'm gonna wrap the tarp around this tree and feed it down to you. Grab on, and then you've got something solid to hold onto if our hands slip.”
Between me and the tarp, we slowly and laboriously manage to get Allie back on level ground. She curls up on her side, gasping, her face twisted in a grimace. I rub her shoulder and brush stray wisps of hair off her forehead.
“Where does it hurt? Can you stand?” Fear seizes me afresh as a horrible thought worms its way into my head. “Is it the baby?”
“Baby's fine...” she manages to croak, though it sounds like it takes a lot of effort. “She's squirming away in there. It's my back, Diego. My lower back. I got cut by something...”
“Shit...”
I move to kneel on her other side and shine the flashlight at her lower back and shudder at what I find, my veins fizzing with anxiety. A long, jagged wound oozing blood in the fleshy part of her lower back, running from above her hip bone almost up to her last rib. As gently as I can, I put my thumb to the edge of the wound and lift just enough to see if I can tell how deep it is. Allie gasps sharply, letting out a whimper as she exhales.
“It...doesn't look very deep...but it's deep enough to be bleeding pretty badly.” I run my fingers through my hair, grabbing a fistful. The pain in my scalp feels somehow steadying. “I'm going to use the tarp to put pressure on it.”
“The tarp is filthy,” she protests weakly.
“I know. But it's all we've got right now.”
“We don't have time to stop. We have to keep going.”
“If you drip blood, that's just going to make it easier for them to track us.”
When she doesn't protest further, I help her sit up carefully. Quickly as I can, I find a relatively clean section of the tarp and press it to what looks like the deepest part of the wound. I fold and wrap and tuck until it feels like I have a sufficient enough bandage to last a little while. Allie doesn't protest when I pass her the flashlight and tuck myself under her arm to help her get to her feet.
“You're going to have to be in charge of the flashlight. I'm not letting you get away from me again.”
She laughs weakly, mirthlessly. “Wasn't actually trying to. Promise. ...Anyway, I don't think we have a lot farther to go. I think I can see a building up ahead.”
Alodia
The building that I see in the distance was probably at one time a cute little ranch-style house. With a brown-brick-and-stucco facade, gray-shingled hip roof with wide eaves, and a front-facing bay window overlooking the porch swing, it must have been like a fairy-tale cottage on the edge of the forest preserve. But as we get closer, and the sun lifts over the horizon, I realize it has probably been abandoned for at least a decade, if not longer. The rows of shingles have gaps in them like missing teeth. The windows that aren't cracked or broken are layered with grime. The facade is crumbling in places. But it's shelter.
There's a stabbing pain in the arch of my left foot. My legs and thighs throb with exhaustion. I have to pee again, and the wound in my back is burning. That's not to mention hunger and thirst.
“We have to get inside...” I croak weakly. “I need to rest.”
Diego hesitates for just a moment before nodding. He needs rest, too. And now that the sun is coming up, I think he's just as inclined to get out of the open as I am. We shamble up to the front door, and Diego knocks experimentally. When I look quizzically at him, he shrugs.
“Don't just want to barge in if someone's squatting here.”
But no one seems to answer. When Diego tries the door, it opens easily. We cross the threshold into a small foyer with cracked, filthy linoleum and peeling wallpaper patterned with strawberries that probably looked cute and cheery in its prime. The archway to our left opens into the kitchen. Just ahead is what looks like it used to be the living area. And then to our right is a hall that leads to the bedrooms. I'm not sure what I was expecting it to smell like, but it smells better than I would have expected. Dust, mothballs, earth, and just a hint of mold, but it's nothing overpowering, even with my sense of smell still heightened by pregnancy. Diego guides me into the living room, and eases me onto the dingy carpet.
“Here. At least you can lie on something a little more comfortable than tile while I look around.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Just...wanna see what we're dealing with...”
I don't miss the tremor in his voice, and I can guess what's worrying him. I reach out to grasp his wrist. “You shouldn't go alone.”
He shakes his head. “You're hurt. And exhausted. It's better if you stay here and rest for a moment.”
“At least don't go completely unarmed.” I glance around, and I catch a glimpse of the fireplace on the far wall. It looks like it was an old-fashioned wood-burning fireplace, rather than gas, unless the fireplace stand on the hearth is just for decoration. “Take the poker. For my peace of mind.”
“Twist my arm, why don't you,” he quips. “Lie down for a few minutes, Allie. You need some rest.”
I don't lie down until he actually takes hold of the poker. Even then, I take the water bottle out of my pant leg first so I can take a swallow. But once I am horizontal, whatever kept me going through our slow slog through the forest drains right out of me. My lower back is on fire, and the worn, ragged carpet feels coarse and greasy against my cheek. But I am so damn tired. The abandoned room around me fades into a gray fog populated by dancing ghosts.
I looked out the window, and I couldn't see. It wasn't too dark, it was just too foggy.
The voice is distant, buried inside my head, but it sounds like a child. I can almost see a child, too, cooing in a sing-song voice at a toy that they walk across the carpet. And a smaller sibling, naked except for a diaper, shrieking with delight as their parent chases them with a pair of footie pajamas.
“Allie?” Diego's voice draws me back from the warm, happy fog, and reality crashes over me in a chilly wave. I feel a shiver race down my spine as I force my eyes to open and look up at him. It's a good deal brighter than when we came in, and the light hurts my eyes enough that I can't fully focus. But there's still something in his voice and his grip on my shoulder that alarms me.
“What's wrong?”
“I think there is someone living here after all,” he says grimly. “There's no one here at this exact moment, but I found definite signs of life. Including generators, a mini fridge, a hot plate, and a Porta Potty. There are also mattresses in the bedrooms. And blankets. And I found a first aid kit in the bathroom.”
“Is it stocked?”
“Fortunately, yes. Here's my plan: I get you into the bedroom. We set ourselves up in there with some food and water and blankets and stuff. Then we lock the door and hole up in there until nightfall. We can get some rest, and if the original squatters come back, there's a desk under the window inside, and an HVAC unit outside. It wouldn't be the easiest escape, but we could get out.”
“Or we could leave as soon as this cut on my back is cleaned and bandaged.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you're up for that, and that's what we'll do.” But of course, I can't. I can barely even get my eyes to focus on his face. I need rest, and so does he. I exhale slowly, closing my eyes as my answer. “Yeah, that's what I thought. Come on. I'll help you up.”
I lean heavily on Diego as he walks me down the hall. I don't mean to give him so much of my weight, but if I'm honest with myself, I don't feel steady at all. The sight of a mattress on the bedroom floor, complete with pillows and blankets is truly a welcome one. Even if when I lie down, I discover that the mattress is far from new and that it smells faintly of stale sweat. A lamp clicking on behind me sprays the wall in front of me with harsh white light that crests over my dark, crisp-edged shadow. Diego helps me sit up just long enough to untangle myself from the tarp before I let my head drop back onto the pillow.
“...I still can't quite reach Varyyn,” I murmur softly as Diego gently lifts my sweatshirt away from the wound.
“Midwife did say it would take awhile. ...Seems like it stopped bleeding. ...But it also looks like it's a little deeper than I thought...”
I hear him rattling around with the first aid kit. Tears start to well in my eyes, whether in anticipation of the pain, or...everything else, I'm not sure. Maybe it's both. Probably. Last time I was in a similar position, Jake was with me. Everyone who matters was with me. Well...everyone except the baby in my belly. I think I felt stronger then, though. Sure, I was in pain and scared of everything happening around me. But somehow, the Celestial felt smaller and more intimate than this tiny abandoned ranch house. And the faceless enemy whose purpose at the time was still unknown didn't feel as close and threatening as the former Arachnid goons hunting me now.
A flicker of movement at the edge of my vision makes me suck in my breath. Diego has stuck his hand over my shoulder, fingers splayed in an invitation. I lift my hand to his and squeeze it firmly. I start to draw it back, but he gently tightens his grip.
“It's okay. I gotcha. I can do the cleaning one-handed.”
“Thanks,” I murmur.
“You ready?”
“Go for it,” I reply tightly, screwing my eyes shut. “Let's get it over with.”
I manage not to flinch or cry out, but I kind of fail at breathing slowly and deeply like they've been teaching me in my birthing classes. My breath hitches in my throat, and I'm crying by the time Diego sticks a few piles of gauze pads to my back with first aid tape. Diego is quiet as he strokes my hair comfortingly.
“...Thanks,” I say at last, my voice hoarse. “Thanks for doing that.”
His hand pauses on my head. “...You protect me, Allie,” he says softly. “It's what you do. It's what you've done all our lives. But we both know you can't be the strong one all the time. I know I'm not a naturally brave person, but I'm always going to protect you when you need me to.”
“You're braver than you think you are,” I whisper, squeezing his hand.
“You just get some rest, okay? I'll fix us something to eat.”
Zahra
As usual, I'm already at the office by the time Aleister comes in at eight in the morning. He's maybe a little surprised to find me in his office instead of mine, but he doesn't show it with more than a raised eyebrow.
“Good morning, Zahra,” he says as he closes the door. “What's going on?”
I flash the file folder in my hand. A paperclip keeps the pages inside secured to the flap. “I had a feeling the cops were hiding something from us with regards to the plane that took our friends to the island. I was right.”
“I see.” He sits down at his desk. “Do we know who owns it?”
“Yeah. But that's kind of the least of our worries. I ran the tail number, serial numbers on the parts, everything they had that I could think of. They all came up attached to a single plane. ...A plane that is currently in pieces in the custody of the NTSB. And what pieces aren't in their custody are at the bottom of the ocean.” I push the folder across the desk toward him. “...All the numbers match a certain plane that crashed in 1996. ...The same one that Alodia's parents were on when they died.”
Aleister flips open the folder and scans the pages inside, his eyes alternately widening and narrowing as he takes in the information.
“...I would say that's impossible,” he says slowly, “...but I think we both know that's not true. Even if the how escapes us.”
“I'm a little more concerned with the why. Why use that plane specifically? If they didn't want to use a currently existing plane, why use the one that killed Alodia's parents? Why not a different plane from the past?”
“Perhaps they needed one with a connection to Vaanu. The one that killed his human form perhaps has more of the energy they need.”
“Yeah, I guess. ...I mean, it's all speculation at this point.”
“Did you relay this information to Jake and the others?”
“Nah. I mean, Craig knows because I tell him pretty much everything, but it doesn't seem like this is gonna do much to help actually find Alodia here and now. I feel like this tidbit can wait until they're done with their part.”
“Hmm. I suppose there is wisdom in not throwing them any potential red herrings when time is of the essence. What about the recording? Have you gotten anywhere with that?”
“I'm stuck,” I admit. “I figured out that the recording was mostly spliced, but then there was that cry for help that wasn't spliced...but where do I go from there? I mean, I guess I could isolate the background audio for any potential sound signatures that could give me an indication of where the recording was made...but that's kind of a long shot, even with Iris to help.”
“Truthfully, I am a little more interested in the coded message before that.”
I shrug. “Seems to be a code in keeping with your dad's Greco-Roman obsession. I looked up the First Triumvirate on Wikipedia, but didn't get much that was useful.”
“The relationships between the key players certainly don't seem to reflect history if Crassus is betraying Caesar and Pompey. Crassus and Caesar were steadfast allies. Historically, Pompey was the odd man out.” He sighs. “Ironically, I expect Alodia would be very helpful in figuring out the message.”
“She is our resident history buff,” I agree. “...But...maybe history isn't what's important here.”
“I expect not,” I agree. “But you sound like you're thinking of something specifically.”
“Your old man's a megalomaniac. He's interested in building himself up as a god. Maybe we should be focusing on mythology rather than history.”
Aleister frowns thoughtfully. “I don't disagree with your assessment of my father. But if the message is from Alodia, wouldn't history make more sense?”
“You're assuming it is from Alodia? If that's the case, why go through the trouble of splicing her voice together?”
“Perhaps as a distraction to anyone else who might be tracking her? If nothing else, the fact that her cry for help was not spliced suggests she knew the recording would somehow reach Jake.”
I'm still not sold on the idea, but whether Alodia sent the message or not is not my point. “Even assuming the message is from Alodia, that doesn't necessarily make what I said wrong. Don't forget she was the Endless. She succeeded in making a god of herself to the Vaanti. She knows how to build a mythology.”
“...She knows how to build a mythology from facts,” he says slowly. “...She knew what my father was planning. She knew he could be stopped if we had the Vaanti's help, and she knew that she needed to change the Vaanti to protect us.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Now you're the one who sounds like you're onto something.”
“As the Endless, Alodia built her mythology around what she knew would happen in the future. It's hardly an uncommon scenario to play out when one imagines traveling to the past, is it?”
I shrug. “Probably not. People imagine a lot of things when they imagine time travel.”
“Right. What if this message is the same sort of thing in reverse?”
“...In reverse? Like, building facts from mythology?”
He frowns, shaking his head like he's trying to dislodge a bug from his hair. “No...not quite. Or perhaps.” He blows upward, briefly lifting a few strands of pale hair from his forehead. “I think the metaphors are rather getting tangled up in themselves.”
“Yeah, probably,” I agree slowly. “But I think we're ultimately ending up on the same page. ...It's not history or mythology that's important here, but both together, right?”
“Yes! Precisely!” He snaps his fingers. “Ancient Rome's history is littered with apocrypha, especially about high-profile figures like Caesar and Pompey and Crassus. History and myth are already difficult to distinguish.”
“Okay, so what do we have to go on? I guess we can assume that Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus represent three different people. Or...factions. Seems likely one of them is Rourke.”
He nods. “I would put money on Silas Prescott also being represented. Given their long-standing rivalry, I would have considered him and Father to be shoe-ins for Pompey and Crassus...but the message states that Crassus has betrayed Caesar and Pompey, and based on what Grayson told us about his holiday encounter with his father, I think it's more likely that Father and Prescott are working together.”
“Right. If Grayson's suspicions were right, and we're right about what Rourke is ultimately planning, then Prescott has probably gotten in on the Janus Project somehow. From what Tahira said about their showdown, it seems like all Prescott wants is his wife back.”
“And if Father is to be believed, he can deliver that.”
“So, if Rourke and Prescott are Caesar and Pompey, who is Crassus? Who betrayed them?”
Aleister sighs, slumping back in his chair. “That is the question, isn't it. The possibility that we have an ally out there is tantalizing.”
“They might not actually be an ally,” I warn. “We might have a common enemy, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're on our side.”
“I suppose not. ...But returning to Caesar and Pompey for a minute, I think I might have an inkling which is which.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Caesar was the one who made himself dictator. He's primarily remembered as the politician, while Pompey is primarily known as the general.”
I snort. “I think I see where you're going with this. Your old man's Caesar, right?”
He smirks. “Precisely. And when you consider their respective foils, it makes even more sense. Alodia is my father's foil, both as herself and as the Endless. Especially as the Endless. The Endless succeeded in building herself up as a god, and thus prevented him from doing the same. Meanwhile, Prescott's foil is Tahira. He raised an army of criminals to take down her band of superhumans. All in all, they project a more militaristic image than the Endless and my father manipulating and influencing to gain power over each other.”
“Which is pretty much what the First Triumvirate did, isn't it? Manipulate and influence and all that?”
“That's pretty much what Romans did.” He chuckles, but there's enough of a pause beforehand that I don't think he's chuckling at the comment he just made.
“What?”
“Julius Caesar had two known children, a son and a daughter. And a few illegitimate children who were suspected to be his, but two that are widely accepted as his: a daughter, Julia, by his first wife, and a son by Cleopatra called Caesarion.”
“As in the Cleopatra?”
“The very same.”
I can't help myself. ��Which kid do you think you are?” I ask with a smirk.
He laughs. “Oh, without a doubt, I am Julia. Born to his wife, but ultimately useless to him. No doubt he considers Estela his Caesarion.”
“Even though you both rejected him in the end.”
“Well, it's hardly a perfect parallel. Caesar never even publicly acknowledged Caesarion was his, and Olivia Montoya hardly shares my father's ambition. For another thing, Julia was married to Pompey in order to cement the alliance with her father.”
I snort. “Now that seriously tangles the metaphor. We'd have to rethink every...” I trail off as I realize that Aleister is suddenly sitting ramrod straight, his eyes wide. “...Uh...Aleister? You okay there?”
His eyes lock with mine. “...Blair. Blair Hall. ...Blair Hall is Crassus.”
Michelle
I check Tahira's wound every time we stop the car to refuel and eat. I have found her to be a very easy and relaxed patient, in spite of the rough environment. Clearly, she doesn't share her cousin's fear of medical procedure. She stretches out in the backseat of a car as I press gently around the edges of the wound with vinyl-clad hands.
“You're healing nicely,” I tell her. “Not quite ready to have those stitches out yet, I think, but it won't be long. Any pain?”
“Not anymore. I just need to be ready to fight by the time we find Alodia.”
I carefully peel off my gloves, discarding them in a portable biohazard box. “I can't make any promises. Particularly because I don't know how long it's going to take us to find her. But you are healing faster than an ordinary human being would.”
“Guess that's all I can hope for. ...I tested my powers at the last rest stop. I managed to fly and tear a branch off a tree with my bare hands, so I think we can safely assume those are intact.”
I pause for a moment. “...If this is too personal a question, feel free to tell me off. But if you did lose your powers...do you think you'd be okay?”
“Ultimately? ...Yeah. Probably. Frankly the worst part would be feeling helpless. I mean...before I got my powers, I was a business woman. I did some volunteer work in my spare time, and I worked out, but I never felt like I could really protect people from anyone who wanted to hurt them. Honestly, that's something I admire about Alodia. By all accounts, she's been a fighter all her life. The type of person who wouldn't hesitate to face down a criminal or a bully, with or without superpowers. On the night I got my powers, my friends and coworkers and a hundred innocent people were threatened by armed robbers, and my instinct was to comply with their demands so that they wouldn't hurt anyone.”
“That is a very sensible reaction,” I say firmly.
“Yeah, I know. And it's still the advice I would give anyone in a similar situation. But it's still nice to feel like I don't have to take that advice myself anymore.”
“I get that,” I concede and smile wryly. “And I certainly don't mean to imply that Alodia's courage shouldn't be admired. Actually, she's usually very good about recognizing her limits. But she won't hesitate to risk everything if she thinks there's half a chance of protecting her loved ones. ...Right now, she's a prisoner, and most likely, her best friend is with her. ...I don't know whether her being pregnant makes me more or less worried about that.”
Tahira sits up carefully, raising an eyebrow. “More, I should think. Right?”
“Well...in most ways, yes. Her being pregnant makes her situation a lot scarier to imagine. But I'm at least reasonably sure she's not going to take any undue risks when her baby depends on her to be healthy. Still...if they try to control her by threatening Diego...there are a few ways that could go. One, we find Diego hurt very badly. Two, she submits to protect him, but the stress has other ill effects on her health. Three...she fights back...”
Tahira puts a hand on my shoulder. “Michelle, I may not know her as well as you guys do, but I know her well enough to know how much that child means to her. She's not going to be reckless.”
I nod. “You're probably right. If I am honest with myself, it's the second option that seems most likely. The problem is that stress could negatively affect her baby as much as her. There is no safe way to keep a pregnant woman prisoner...”
Tahira squeezes my shoulder, grinning. “Well. Then it's lucky we're coming to rescue her, isn't it.”
Alodia
I'm dying. I can feel my body going cold as the blood drains out of me from the hole the bullet tore in my side. Jake's face swims above me, and I am vaguely aware of his hands on my face and hair.
“Come on, Princess, stay with me.” Agony flairs as the world tilts sickeningly around me, and I hear myself cry out. “Shhh. I'm here. I gotcha. I know it hurts. I'm right here.”
“Entry and exit wounds,” I hear Michelle say. “Straight through. Shit, I really hope this works...”
Darkness is creeping in at the edges of my vision. Suddenly, I feel myself growing warmer, and the pain starts to dull, replaced by a pleasant tingling sensation. The darkness recedes and the world reasserts itself. Jake has me cradled in his arms, and Michelle is beside us with one hand on my belly and the other on my back. A healing leaf under each palm repairs my torn flesh. Within ten minutes, I am breathing painlessly. Jake smiles down at me, tears still shimmering on his cheeks and eyelashes.
“There she is. Welcome back, Princess.”
“Hey,” I croak.
“How're you feeling?” Michelle asks.
“...Probably not up to running a marathon. But probably not dying, either.”
“Yeah, I bet. You've lost a lot of blood, so you'll need to take it easy. Unfortunately, I don't think a transfusion is possible. But at least what you've got left is staying on the inside.”
Jake eases me upright, and that's when I see that I'm not the only one injured. I frown.
“Michelle, you're bleeding...”
Michelle glances down at the deep gash on her lower leg and winces. “Yeah. Looks worse than it is, though.”
“It could still probably use a healing leaf.”
“Unfortunately, those were the last ones.” She shrugs dismissively. “I'll wrap it up. That should hold it until we get back to Elyys'tel.”
“...It isn't going to.” As I say it, I realize with terrible certainty that I am all too right. This is a memory. I have lived this before. I know what happens. Over the next two days as we journey to Elyys'tel, that wound will fester...
“Don't,” Michelle says firmly. “Don't linger here, Alodia. Don't think twice.”
“About what?”
“You're going to figure out soon what you're remembering. It's going to be used against you. ...You know what you are to us. What you were made to be. Let that be your strength. Not your sorrow.”
“Michelle...”
“Come on, Alodia. We need you.”
Diego
I found a couple pots in the kitchen. I used them and some of the bottled water supply to make us some ramen on the hot plate. We cleaned our hands with alcohol wipes from the first aid kit and ate with our fingers straight from the pot. Then while Allie slept, I went through the house and locked every door and window. The front door wouldn't lock, but I stacked up a pyramid of canned goods behind it to give us a warning if someone decides to come in. Only then did I lie down on the mattress beside Allie to get some rest myself.
The space heater I found isn't very big, but with the door and windows closed it's enough to bring the air to a tolerable temperature, and its hum is soothing. Exhaustion takes over, and I drift off almost immediately. I'm not sure what time it is when I wake up, but it's dark again. I find the flashlight beside me and ease myself out from under the blanket. I won't disturb Allie just yet, but we should probably get moving soon. But first, I want to make sure we can go out the door. I'm not going to make my injured, pregnant friend climb out the window if she doesn't have to. I grab the fireplace poker from beside the door and creep out into the hall with my flashlight shining.
I'm painfully aware of how much I'm shaking as I creep through the house, thoroughly checking every room. My breath is shallow with anxiety, my throat tight. I swear my heart is about to hammer out of my chest, especially when I have to creep into the cobweb-infested basement. But every room is empty. The cans behind the door are undisturbed. Relief floods through me as I return to the bedroom. I lock the door again when I get back in. No good letting our guard down. We're safe now, but that could change pretty quickly.
“Allie? Are you awake?” She makes a noise that's a cross between a moan and a whimper, like she just woke up from a bad dream. “It's okay. It's just me.”
“...Diego...?”
“Yeah. I'm gonna turn the lamp on, okay? It's dark out.”
“...We escaped. We hid in an abandoned house.”
“Yeah.” I flip on the lamp. Her back is to me, but I still see her flinch as the light floods the room. “How're you feeling? We should probably move on before either the original squatters come back or Fiddler and her goons show up.”
“...I don't feel right...” Her voice comes out in a weak whimper. Something cold trickles down my spine.
“Allie...?” I make my way around to the other side of the mattress and feel my breath catch in my throat. Allie's face is ashen in the harsh light of the lamp. Tiny beads of sweat glisten on her forehead.
Oh, no...oh, please God, no...
The thought comes before I consciously realize what's happening, but deep down, I know. I drop to my knees beside her and reach out to press the back of my hand to her brow. I almost yank it back when I feel the heat coming off her skin.
“Shit! Allie, you're burning up!”
“...I'm cold...”
“It's chills. You have a fever.” I leap up to move to the other side of the mattress again. “I'm just going to check your wound. I'm gonna have to move the blanket.”
She moans, but she doesn't protest, though she does shudder violently as I expose her back. I carefully peel back the pile of gauze and first aid tape. I can't help sucking in a sharp breath. The skin around the wound is swollen, glowing an angry shade of red. I cautiously press the skin with my fingertip. It's hotter than her forehead, and she flinches at my touch, whimpering.
“Oh, God...Allie, hang on, okay? I'm gonna clean the wound again...”
I fumble for the first aid kit, pulling out an alcohol pad and a tube of antibiotic cream as I try to swallow my fear and doubt. Keep going, Diego. Just take care of her. Keep her safe.
But she's not safe. We're not safe. And now our situation is worse.
God help us. What are we going to do now?
#pixelberry choices#choices stories you play#playchoices#Endless Summer#hero#Diego Ricardo Ortiz Soto#Jake McKenzie#sean gayle#Craig Hsiao#raj bhandarkar#aleister rourke#grace hall#michelle nguyen#zahra namazi#estela montoya#quinn kelly#grayson prescott#dax darcisse#poppy patel#kenji katsaros#eva minuet
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More Than Words (Four)
This chapter turned out different than I planned, but if there’s one thing I learned, it’s to let stories do whatever they want because Free Range Plots are much more fun to read than plotted, planned and outlined ones.
Note: while this story isn’t actually D/s, I have given ‘subspace’ a MTW/ABO twist and I sort of love it. Hope everyone else does too!
Also, I love snarky Hank Pym so much omg his character in the Ant Man movies was amazing.
MTW MASTERLIST HERE
*******************
Hank Pym had an entire list of people he never wanted to see knocking at his front door.
Tony Stark topped the list, Tony Stark’s uncomfortably intimidating assistant Pepper Potts was a close second. Norman Osborn wasn’t even allowed within a hundred yards of the property-- or was it that Hank wasn’t allowed within a hundred yards of Norman Osborn? Restraining orders between old men fighting over physics were so complicated-- and even though Scott Lang was well on his way to becoming part of the family, Hank didn’t particularly want to see him at three in the morning either.
The very last person Hank was expecting to see on the other side of his door was the mutant cyborg Cable, and though he would happily die before admitting he screamed when that metallic yellow eye zeroed in on him---
“Shit!” Hank tried to slam the door right in Cable’s face, shrieked a little when metal fingers grasped around the edges and pried it back open, and then shrieked a little louder when the heavy door came right off its hinges as Cable barreled inside.
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Hank swept a shock of silver hair away from his eyes and puffed out his chest, folding his arms and rocking up onto his toes and doing everything possible to appear bigger than his several inches shorter than the Alpha. “You can’t just run in here like you own the place! Who the hell do you think you are!?”
“You know who I am.” Cable didn’t bother hiding his smirk over Hank’s floor length striped robe and color coordinated slippers. “Nice jammies.”
“I’m insisting I don’t know who you are, so when I’m taken to court for whatever mayhem you’re about to unleash on Manhattan, I can truthfully say I had no prior notice of your bullshit.” the Beta retorted. “Get out. Your kind isn’t welcome here.”
“My kind.” Cable dumped his utility bag out onto the nearest surface and rifled through the assorted items. “Pretty bold words coming from someone who’s future son in law has a standing appointment at the local prison.”
“Scott’s a good kid, he’s just a dumbass.” Hank defended. “And by your kind I meant you, specifically. You, Cable, are not welcome here. The last time you ended up in my neighborhood you tried to steal my tech and destroy my gardenias. You need to leave. Take that bionic arm and creepy eye and your fanny pack and get out.”
“It’s a utility bag.” Cable held a computer chip up towards the genius. “And I’m not going to apologize for your gardenias. They weren’t prize winning no matter what the old lady across the street told you. Are you going to help me or what?”
“It’s absolutely a fanny pack and no, I won’t be helping you.” the Beta inched forward a step, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “What is that? Why is it glowing gold?”
“I thought you weren’t going to help me.” Cable taunted, holding the chip away when Hank reached for it. “Or did you change your mind?”
“I’m not going to help you.” With a quickness that belied his nearly eighty years, Hank grabbed at a small remote and pressed the button. There was a whir and a pulse, and Cable’s left arm dropped limp and useless, the chip falling from his fingers.
“Gotcha.” Hank darted forward and grabbed it, ducking back out of the way as the robotic pieces of Cable’s body came back on line. “You like that? Pocket sized EMP. I know that shiny shit up your neck is more techno organic than mechanical, but an EMP will stun anything for a few seconds.”
“Congratulations.” Cable said flatly. “You stunned me for a few seconds and got your hands on the computer chip. What now?”
“Now you can leave.” Hank flipped on a lamp and studied the piece under brighter light. “But before you go, tell me what this is?”
“It is part of the computer that controls my time travel device.” the Alpha admitted, and Hank’s eyes widened in excitement. “It’s all I have left, actually. A back up to my main piece. My device was...taken… and now I need to build a new one.”
“The mighty time traveling Cable stuck in the year twenty nineteen?” Hank whistled in mock sympathy. “Got your fancy time traveling gadget stolen, huh? Who took it from you?”
“That doesn’t matter.” Irritation blanketed Cable’s scent, but Hank Pym was a Beta and gave exactly zero fucks what an Alpha scented like. “You need to help me build another one.”
“Oh-ho, I think I do not.” Hank ran a curious finger over the glowing chip. “Why does it light up like this? Is it like the glow of my Pym particles?”
“Pym particles.” Cable rolled his eyes. “You’re a few years ahead of this timeline’s science and think you can just name sub atomic particles after yourself. You know what we call them in my timeline?” Hank’s eyes narrowed and Cable finished bluntly, “Trash. Pym particles are trash because we’ve moved beyond them. Now are you going to help or not?”
“Right.” Hank turned the chip over a few times. “Remind me why I’d help you now that you’ve thoroughly insulted my life’s work?”
“Because you’re desperate to know how time travel works.” The Alpha unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to the scientist. “And because you’re so damn curious you’re gonna throw me out tonight, then fuss and fidget for a few days, and then call me and act huffy about helping. How about we skip all of that and you just help me now?”
The muscle in the Beta’s jaw jumped as Hank ground his teeth together and glowered, but finally he snatched the list from Cable and read through it, muttering under his breath the entire time.
And finally, “I have most of this on hand. A couple items will take me a week to get my hands on but some of these?” he shook his head. “Cable, I don’t know what’s just laying around on grocery store shelves in your timeline, but these sort of things are locked up tight in all the places the government swears they aren’t stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and doomsday devices. I can’t just waltz in the front door, have a cashier ring me up, and then waltz back out with this in a paper bag.”
“You tell me where to find it, I’ll get in and grab it.” Cable maintained. “You get me the rest. Then I’ll need your lab for the finer work.”
“No no no, you aren’t listening to me.” Hank stabbed his finger at the list. “Even if I called in a few favors and managed to get my hands on it, those phone calls would end with me being tossed down a dark hole and probably charged with war crimes and consorting with terrorists. No. No, I’m not doing it.”
“Hank--”
“How do you lose a time travel device anyway!” Agitated now, the Beta crumpled the list up and tossed it back at Cable. “Don’t you have a spare?”
“I have the one.” Cable said in frustration. “I have charges for it and enough pieces to make minor repairs, but it’s gone and now I have to build a rudimentary piece from scratch to get back to my timeline and retrieve a newer one to return to the past!”
“Why the past!” Hank threw up his hands. “Why does it matter? Why did you pound on my door at three in the morning to ask me something imposs--”
“It’s a kid.” Cable cut in, and Hank’s mouth shut with an audible click. “He’s just a kid, twenty something years old, scrappy little Omega is all. He ended up activating the device without meaning to and now he and the dial are gone. I need a new one so I can go and get him back.”
“So you know where he is.”
“I know exactly where he is.” Cable nodded. “I had the dial pre set to a specific year, just gotta jump back and drag him back before it’s too late.”
“...what’s too late?” Hank swallowed and took the list again, scanning through it a second time. “When will it be too late?”
“Don’t worry about that.” the Alpha waved the question off. “How soon can you have this all for me?”
“It will take a few months.” Hank felt around for a pen and started making calculations. “Most of the pieces are easy to get, assembling them into such a delicate device is completely different. The more difficult items will take several weeks to get in, I’ll have to treat the wires, build a circuit board, all that sort of thing. And the more impossible things could take months if I can get them at all.”
“You have ninety days.” Cable said flatly and Hank gaped at him.
“Were you listening to what I said? It could a month and a half just to track down some of these, and the rest I’ll have to call in favors for, sell my soul and probably sign over Hope’s first born child! I can’t do it in--”
“You have ninety days.” the mutant said again. “I have to get that kid and get him back within ninety days.”
“What happens in ninety days?” Hank held up a hand stubbornly when Cable tried to argue. “No, you need to tell me. What happens in ninety days if I can’t get all this material?”
Cable swallowed, guilt laying heavy over his shoulders. “When a human is placed into a timeline other than their own, their body stops working. Blood cells stop regenerating, wounds won’t heal, a cold could actually kill them because their immune system can’t rally. Anything other than their basic functions grinds to a halt. Sometimes mental stability is affected, other times it eats away at them visibly-- hair falling out, loss of hearing, severe eczema, all of that.”
“What?”
“This is a virus.” Cable tapped at the metal leeched into his neck. “I’m not a cyborg, I’m not a robot. I’m sick. I don’t belong in the future timeline, I was sent there as a child and was infected with this virus. Every time I use my device it takes over my body a little bit more until one day there won’t be anything of me left. But I’m mutant, so it's a slower progression. On a human, it won’t be slow at all.”
“Ninety days.” Hank stared stunned, the color draining from his face. “Red blood cells only last about a hundred and fifteen days before our body breaks them down, is that why it’s ninety days? Anything past that and his body starts to shut down entirely?”
“If he gets a bad cut, he’ll die because his body isn’t making anything new to replace what’s lost.” Cable stated. “If he gets a cold, it will turn into fatal pneumonia within a matter of days. A fever could end him by sun down, an allergic reaction could kill him within minutes. This is life or death, Hank. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Ninety days.” the Beta looked back down at the list. “I can get this in ninety days. Maybe even sooner.”
“Maybe make it sooner.” Cable grunted. “You let me know how I can help. And Hank?”
Hank looked up and Cable offered him a half smile. “Thank you.”
The mutant was out of the house and gone a moment later, leaving Hank holding the paper and the computer chip as the cold night air wound in through the broken door.
“Prick.” he muttered to no one in particular. “I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for the kid.” and then quieter, “And because I am dying to know how time travel works.”
“Ninety days. I can do this.”
***************
***************
Peter hummed to himself as he gathered eggs, shooing the chickens away from their nests and tucking the eggs in the pocket of his hoodie. He’d never put even a split second of thought into where his breakfast came from but apparently chickens only lay one egg a day which meant his favorite brunch meal of three egg omelets was the combined effort of three different chickens and that-- that just didn’t seem right.
Looking down at the five meager eggs, Peter made a silent vow to never eat more than two at a time anymore, especially since Wade more than likely ate all five and was giving up part of his breakfast for Peter.
“You look awfully stressed out for having tussled with chickens.” Wade flashed his fangs in a teasing grin when Peter made it back inside. “Figured after three days the birds would stop giving you grief. Which one did you poke in the butt?”
“I didn’t poke anyone in the butt.” Peter huffed, and the Alpha’s smile stretched wider. “It’s just um--”
“Just what?” Wade could fit all five eggs in his big palm without even stretching, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Peter, even though he didn’t let himself linger too long on the fact that Wade had big feet too. We all know what that means. “What’s on your mind, Pete?”
“Um, it’s stupid.” Peter grabbed at his notebook and jotted down a few lines. “I just never put any thought into where my food came from or how much effort goes into making it.”
“...it takes two minutes to collect eggs, Pete.”
“No.” Peter shook his head. “No I mean. Chickens only lay one egg a day.” Wade blinked at him and Peter gestured vaguely. “My normal breakfast is the work of three chickens, a cow or goat, and someone who has to plant and harvest vegetables!”
“Yeah.” Wade cracked the eggs into a pan. “And?”
“And.” Peter emphasized. “I just go to the grocery store and buy a dozen eggs, a quart of milk and grab a tomato on my way up to the register. I never put any thought into how much effort goes into food. It’s about enough to turn someone vegan.”
“And vegan means…”
“I won’t eat any product that comes from an animal.” Peter stared down at his cup of milk. “Even though I feel like that barely works in my time where I can buy basically anything at the store, I’ll definitely starve to death here if I have to live on pine cones or something.”
“Yeah it’d be a real shame if you starved to death.” The Alpha stirred at their breakfast for a minute and then dropped a slab of meat into a frying pan. “I got five chickens because I usually eat five eggs and then I butcher them in the hard parts of winter so they don’t freeze and so I have fresh meat. I keep a goat for the milk and two horses to help haul the wagon. It’s not like I’m over hunting deer for the sport of it or keeping so many chickens I just end up attracting coyotes and mountain lions. If I don’t eat--”
“No.” Peter held up his hand to quiet Wade. “No, I’m not saying you’re wrong for needing to hunt or anything. I’m just saying that the-- wow the sheer amount of eggs and meat and milk that people in my timeline go through and now that I know a chicken only lays one egg a day it’s just… It’s sort of awful.”
“Well it’s a good thing you’re here now.” Wade turned the meat over and raised his eyebrows at Peter. “Right? Because it’s not awful.”
“It’s decidedly not awful.” Peter agreed, a faint blush climbing his cheeks when the Alpha rumbled at him softly. “And thank you for breakfast. I promise I can actually cook though, so maybe tomorrow morning you let me try?”
Tomorrow morning. The words came so easily, the assumption and acceptance that Peter would be there another day something that made both Alpha and Omega smile.
Four days had come and gone since Logan’s visit, and every day Peter woke up a little more rested, a little more peaceful.
He followed Wade along with chores and helped where he could, spent long hours exploring the surrounding forest while Wade worked on the cabin or chopped wood, and at evening they ate dinner together, talking quietly about the day and sharing increasingly warm smiles. Peter would write down all the new things he learned, Wade would patiently try to answer a litany of questions and Peter would exclaim in delight every time he figured out an answer before Wade could tell him.
Every night Wade motioned Peter towards the bed and Peter would put up a fuss about how Wade should be sleeping in the bed. The Alpha would growl a little and demand, Peter would huff and turn his nose up but inevitably, he would snuggle down into heavy blankets and Wade would watch protectively until the Omega slipped away into dreams.
It was the easiest thing in the world to move around each other, to move with each other, to laugh and talk and find conversation and for the first time in years Peter asked questions without urgency, wanted to know without feeling like he might explode if he didn’t, he was learning without painfully, desperately searching.
Wade’s scent wrapped safe around him at night, the cabin air saturated with contentment, and even though neither Peter nor Wade had re- introduced the topic of their scents matching or how they knew each other, there wasn’t really words for what they felt anyway.
The knowing was more than words, it was more than what Peter had read about in romance novels, more than what science could explain away, the sort of comfort and security that settled soul deep despite knowing Cable could return any minute and take him away.
They weren’t ready to think about that though, not about Cable and not about saying goodbye when they were still just barely skating along the surface of the bond sparking between their souls.
No, Peter was more than willing to put Cable out of his mind for right now and focus on learning everything he could about Wade’s world… and perhaps focusing on pulling as many fanged smiles from the Alpha as he could.
And it was this focus that led directly to Peter deciding he wanted to help Wade out more by taking on another chore, which in turn led directly to the Omega staring down a goat and immediately wondering if he’d made a mistake.
Offering to clean the cabin would have been a better idea.
“Alright Goat.” Peter eyed the beast warily, bucket clutched in one hand, a chunk of dandelions held in the other. “You got milk, I need the milk, are you gonna be cool about this or what?”
The goat bleated and stamped it’s little hoof.
“What was that?” Peter asked suspiciously. “Was that a yes? Are you saying yes? Gonna give it up for some dandelions?”
Wade was busy working tangles from Bea’s mane so he didn’t witness the head butting but he definitely heard the Omega squawk in outrage, heard the goat bellow in triumph, and when Peter came out of the barn spitting both hay and curses, Wade turned back to the roan so his laughter wasn’t quite so obvious.
“I can hear you.” Peter snapped and Wade tried even harder to muffle it. “That Billy goat knocked me right over! Does it do that to you?”
“First of all,” Wade smoothed his fingers through Bea’s mane and patted the mare on the neck to shoo her on. “That’s a nanny goat, not a billy goat. Billy goats are boys, nanny goats give milk. What did you think you were tugging on down there to get white stuff to shoot out?”
Peter's jaw dropped, his perfect lips opening in an shocked ‘oh’ at Wade’s phrasing. “I— um— I mean I wasn’t—“ Wade waited until he finished lamely. “I wasn’t tugging. Not yet anyway. I got head butted before I could try.”
“Fair enough.” Wade’s scent colored amused and the Omega turned bright red. “C’mon, get your bucket and I’ll show you. Come on.”
Peter grumbled under his breath as he followed Wade back into the barn, but he still dragged the stool over and paid close attention as Wade led the goat back over and tethered her to a short post, putting a pile of food in front of the animal to keep her distracted.
“See this? Milking post. Keeps her from running.” Wade smoothed his hands down the goat’s back and patted her rump. “Make sure she knows where you are, talk to her a little. She might be an animal but that doesn’t mean she likes being yanked on any more than a person would, you know? Easy and steady, firm but not painful. Look.”
Peter watched in fascination as milk hit the bucket in steady streams, Wade making the motions with no visible effort at all. “It doesn’t hurt her?”
“It’s more of a relief.” Wade trilled at the goat when she balked away from Peter. “She had kids this past spring so she’s pretty full of milk still. When we go to town, I’ll get her bred up with one of the town billies so her production stays up. There will be a few months in the spring where we don’t have milk cos she’s nursing but otherwise she puts out all year.”
“Is she acting weird around me because I’m new?” Peter picked up the nearly trampled dandelions and offered them to the goat again. “Or am I doing something wrong?”
“You smell off.” Wade eased off the goat and got up from the stool, motioning for Peter to take his place. “Humans don’t like the scent of mutants because we scent wild. Animals like our scent just fine. S’why the wolf pups follow Logan. They recognize the wild in him.”
“You don’t smell weird to me.” Peter settled onto the stool and petted at the animal awkwardly. “I think you smell good.”
“Yeah well,” Wade cleared his throat, swallowing back a burble of happiness. “That’s because if you told me I stunk, I’d kick you out and make you fend for yourself.”
“You’re right, that’s exactly what it is.” Peter wrinkled his nose teasingly, then put cautious hands on the goat. “Is this right? It doesn’t feel right. In fact it feels a little… ick.”
“You’re basically right.” Wade crouched behind the Omega, big arms circling Peter's lean frame so he could cover Peter's hands with his own and better direct each motion. “Feel that? A little pressure and it will give, and then right here where you meet some resistance, back off. No no don’t let go.” He recaptured Peters hands. “You let go and she thinks you’re done. Always hands on.”
“How do I know when she’s empty?” Peter’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Do I keep going until she’s all the way dry or stop before then?”
“You’ll feel when she’s about done, but you do wanna get her empty.” Wade let Peter take over the milking again, but didn’t move from behind the Omega. “Leave too much and her body thinks she doesn’t need to produce and then we end up with no milk at all. And having a full udder for too long can give her an infection.”
“Okay.” Peter nodded, eyes trained on the bucket and the stream of milk. “We do this twice a day?”
“Twice a day, and once you get comfortable it shouldn’t take you more than five or six minutes.” Wade confirmed. “Think you can handle it?”
“I think it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you watched me a few times to make sure I’m not hurting her.” Peter clicked at the goat when she shifted uncertainly. “Would you mind?”
Wade would certainly not mind sitting here twice a day with Peter cradled between his thighs, the Omega’s thick hair in his nose and back fit to his chest. Peter hadn’t seemed to notice yet that Wade was practically hugging him, that all he’d have to do was turn his head and their lips would meet, or scoot back a few inches to plaster their bodies together.
He was so close and here in the barn the Omega’s honeysuckle scent mixed with sun warmed hay, lavender underscoring the earthier tones of animal and it would have been so easy for Wade to shift forward and bury his nose in Peter’s hair, to inhale deep and get scent drunk right then and there.
Tempting.
“‘Course I don't mind helping.” Wade tried for teasing but it fell flat as his entire body tightened with a surge of longing . “Last thing I need is you pissing off the goat and her giving me spoiled milk, right?”
“Ugh. Right.” Peter laughed quietly. “You’d kick me out for sure then, wouldn't you?”
“Without even hesitating.” Wade said immediately and Peter laughed again.
There really was something sort of relaxing about this particular chore. Sunlight was streaming bright through the open barn doors and settling warm over their shoulders. The goat was calm and the steady crunch of it eating was oddly comforting. Peter could hear Bea and Arthur stamping around in the yard and their soft nickers and neighs as they talked to each other, and beyond that was the sound of birds in the trees and the whistle of autumn wind through branches.
Wade was set right behind him, the Alpha solid and steady, soothing and dependable, dark licorice scent like caramel flowing thick through Peter’s veins, the cedar bringing to mind long summer days and lazy naps in the sunshine.
Not that he needed a nap, no Peter had slept better in Wade’s bed the last several nights than he had in months. The mattress was barely comfortable but somehow Peter sank right into it and passed out almost immediately. Dreams that had been almost nightmares before were now nothing more than vague impressions of calm and home and even though waking up to a cold cabin wasn’t easy, it was wonderful to sit up and stretch and watch Wade’s eyes light red and possessive for just a split second before the Alpha got himself under control again.
Never once had Peter thought to want an Alpha outside his heat, but oh he wanted Wade and the sudden shift made his fingers tremble, his heart pound.
“Easy. Let up now.” The Alpha’s deep voice was low and smooth in Peter’s ear, breaking into his thoughts and pulling him back to the moment. “She’s all done, Pete. Don’t want to stress her out.”
“Hm?” Peter blinked a few times, lethargic and lazy and not wanting to break the hazy spell that had fallen over them. “Oh. Oh sorry. Is she okay?”
The goat bleated at Peter in annoyance and side stepped away, so Wade reached with one hand to undo her tether and send her out into the yard, then murmured, “It’s alright. You didn’t hurt her.” and pressed at Peter’s side gently, before spreading his fingers out over the Omega’s stomach so Peter wouldn’t move away quite yet. “Are you okay? Seems like I lost you there for a minute.”
“Yeah, I just sort of--” Peter’s mouth felt dry, his tongue thick and head fuzzy and he closed his eyes to the pull of slumber. “--just sort of floated away. I dunno what happened.”
“Floated away…” Wade hesitated. “...in a bad way?”
“Mmmm, no.” he hummed a little and turned in Wade’s arms, tucking his nose into the Alpha’s neck and parting his lips to take a slow breath in. “No, I got tired all the sudden and I feel… spacey. Sorry.”
“Christ.” Wade slipped his hand over Peter’s stomach and around to the side, holding the Omega tight to his chest and shuddering when Peter only sighed and settled firmer into his shoulder. “No, don’t apologize. This is-- this is fine. I’ve got you. Just… just keep floatin’ Pete. I’ve got you.”
Peter’s smile was soft and secret, fingers clutched into Wade’s shirt and frame limp and trusting and the Alpha whispered, “Stay right here.”
It had been so long since Vanessa had passed that Wade had forgotten about this, forgotten about the way two bodies could yearn and linger and the way one partner could fall into a lazy sort of euphoria just because there was nothing better than being held safe in the others arms.
Vanessa had been an Alpha, so these sort of moments had been few and far between but Wade remembered slow nights watching the fire as she drew mindless patterns on his chest and how he’d slipped deeper and deeper under until he could have sworn the stars were shining bright right there in their cabin. He remembered Vanessa wearing nothing more than his shirt, fangs glinting as she laughed, all her edges softened and blurred as he brushed her hair or whispered sweet things into her skin as she tumbled into brilliant nothingness where the only thing that mattered was the pressure of his fingers and the rumble of his voice.
And now Peter was tipping over the edge with nothing more than sunshine and Wade holding him close. He was gorgeous, breath taking even, and it was all Wade could do not to gather the Omega up and carry him to the cabin and lay claim to him properly.
But it wasn’t the right time, it may never be the right time, not when their realities were so far separated and not when Cable was bound to return and take Peter away.
It wasn’t the right time and the thought made Wade’s blood rush hot, his fangs aching as the instinct to claim now before it was too late flashed through his core. His scent roiled sharp, fingers gripping too tight, and the change had Peter shifting against him, the Omega’s perfectly pert nose wrinkling in distress.
“No no no, no distress.” Wade tried to calm his scent, to loosen his hold. “Easy Omega, little Omega, it’s alright. Settle down.”
“Mmm.” Peter hummed and stilled again, and Wade ignored the burn in his thighs from crouching so long, the ache in his back from being bent into such a weird position, and mentally willed the Omega to stay.
Please stay.
Please don’t leave me.
They sat together for a while, and would have sat together long enough for Wade’s legs to go entirely numb if the goat hadn’t interrupted the quiet moment with an aggressively annoyed noise from outside. Wade’s heart twisted when Peter’s eyes opened wide in surprise, and then shuttered in shyness, his cheeks stained red as he peeked up from beneath his lashes.
“We probably have more chores to do?” he whispered, and Wade whispered back, “I can do them, why don’t you go rest?”
“I’m not tired anymore.” Peter denied, but the stretch and wriggle and sleepy sigh he gave said something different. Need punched Wade straight through the stomach as the Omega’s shirt rode up to expose perfect skin, Peter’s satisfied moan as he came back to himself enough to have the Alpha biting his tongue until it bled. “Okay, maybe just a short nap.”
“That’s fine.” Wade managed. “You need help back to the cabin?”
“I’m pretty sure I can walk.” Peter teased him, but standing on wobbly legs was more difficult than he imagined, and he pitched forward a little, catching himself on Wade’s shoulders. “Wow. Sorry. Seriously, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“It’s fine.” Wade ran gentle hands up Peter’s long legs to settle at his waist, holding the Omega steady. “It’s-- shit, Pete. This is fine. How are you feeling? Still floaty?”
“Feel like I’m coming back around now.” From this angle Peter was staring right down at the Alpha, rubbing his thumbs over Wade’s collarbone and the scars at the base of his neck. His eyes were lit with curiosity but not disgust, maybe even affection and Wade held his breath and waited for the inevitable questions---
“Does this hurt?” Peter asked softly and that-- that wasn’t what Wade had been expecting at all.
“What?”
“Does it hurt when I touch you?” Peter clarified. “If I touch you here?” his fingers slid under the shirt collar just a bare inch, and Wade felt the touch like a brand at his soul. God, how long had it been since anyone had touched him like this? “Do the scars hurt?”
“No.” Wade shook his head, his scent filtering thankful when Peter flattened his palms to touch more skin. “Not anymore. They only hurt when I get a new one, but once they fade, I don’t notice anymore. Looks worse than it feels.”
“When you get a new one.” Peter swept his fingers up along Wade’s neck, trilling sweetly when the Alpha tipped his head into his palm. “How often do you get a new one?”
“...one part of my mutation is that I heal.” Wade explained slowly. “I heal from everything. But the scars never go away. Every cut, every broken bone, every scrape stays on my skin forever. The older I get the worse it becomes.”
“How old are you?” Gentle so gentle over Wade’s bare scalp, a soft hush when Wade shuddered. “How long have you been collecting scars? Logan said he fought in all the wars with you, what does that mean? How old are you?”
Wade hesitated, wet his lips and steeled himself for shock and rejection before finally admitting, “Logan and I met during the war of 1812. I’d recently lost my mate Vanessa and when war broke out I went and lost myself in the fighting. Men like Logan and I-- you find each other when you’re the only ones walking off a battlefield full of dead men.”
“1812.” Peter repeated, and unbelievably, his beautiful mouth tipped up in a smile. “That’s amazing. So you-- you’re a hundred years old? Older?”
“I’m not sure of my exact birthday.” Wade swallowed, pressed at Peter's waist coaxingly. “You’re not going to ask about Vanessa?”
“I’m so sorry you had to lose her.” Peter inched closer, lips parting over a shaky sigh when Wade’s hold tightened. “She was your first mate? Have you-- have you had one since?”
Just you. “...no.” Wade shook his head. “I never thought I’d get another chance at a scent match and a soul bond.”
“Oh.” Another sigh, this one even more unsteady. “A hundred years you’ve been collecting scars, you’ve bonded and lost her, and now you and I-- um, you and I--” the Omega bit at his lip shyly. “You’re beautiful, Wade. Incredible. I wish I knew all your stories.”
“Stick around.” Wade waggled his eyebrows to break the tension, and obligingly, Peter laughed. “I’ll teach you a thing or two.”
“Plan on it.” Peter finally leaned away, clearing his throat and blinking the last of the daze from his eyes. “Chores?”
“I thought you were going to take a nap.” Wade stood gingerly, stretching his sore muscles until the hurt bled away. “Go lay down, Omega. I’ll wake you in time for dinner.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Wade jerked his head towards the cabin, then turned away so he wouldn’t be tempted to follow Peter to bed. “Go on. See you tonight.”
*************
*************
It wasn’t easy for Peter to wake up in a cold cabin, or stumble from the bed to splash ice water on his face to help with chores, but it was easy to look up with a smile for the Alpha when Wade offered him a cup of too strong coffee to help him face the day.
It wasn’t easy to learn how to milk the goat, or to dry his clothes when Peter inevitably knocked the milk bucket over, or to keep the goat tethered tight enough to not move too far but not so tight that the ornery thing yelled at him the entire time.
But oh it was easy to blush when Wade looked up and caught Peter shirtless as he tried to wring out the wet, the Alpha’s eyes lighting red and scent charging eager for a few breathless seconds.
And it really wasn’t easy to force himself to eat red meat, but this life required more energy than Peter was used to. He couldn’t survive on beans, eggs and bread forever, so he sat down for dinner each night and ate tiny bites so his stomach wouldn’t hurt.
It wasn’t easy, but it was so very easy to trill sweetly when Wade tried so hard to pile mushrooms and wild carrots on the plate along with nuts and berries he found around the property.
“I thought you said I had to find my own salad.” Peter teased one night as Wade produced an entire bowl of gathered greens. “Are you a gatherer now, Wade?”
“It took you so long to milk the goat, I figured I should help you out with the salad thing.” Wade deadpanned, and Peter laughed at him, clear and cheerful and the Alpha only rumbled in response, closing his eyes to inhale sweet happy Omega scent.
Nothing about this life was easy, but it was so easy to live this life with Wade, Peter found himself forgetting this all had an expiration date.
He could stay here forever.
*****************
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#ncts fics#spideypool#peter parker#wade wilson#cable#time travel#abo dynamics#soulmates#hank pym#alpha wade wilson#omega peter parker
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September 24, 2020: 3:41 pm:
Centurylink Internet Service Terror: A model used for nationwide terror.
In Oregon throughout Josephine County, the phone lines in the ground do not attach to the homes and businesses they are mapped to be attached to at the Centurylink offices.
The system, all of it, has been changed inside of the service terminal access boxes that compose the connectivity to residential and commercial buildings where phone and internet service is used.
The Centurylink phone system is connected by virtue of underground buried cable. Some of the cable is newer, fiber optic cable, and most of that is nearby the Interstate freeways. Those main fiber optic lines, are connected to older buried cable, often called “Two-Pair”, “Four-Pair”, or “Six-Pair”, etc. phone cable.
“Two-Pair” is capable of delivering two phone numbers to a location.
“Four-Pair” is capable of providing four phone numbers to a location.
“Six-Pair” phone cable will bring six phone numbers.
Where I live, the residential housing was all provided “Two-Pair” at each physical address where at least one house was built.
The Address, is what is considered when determining if phone service will be attached to the home. One set of “Two-Pair” goes to each physical address.
My property has two physical addresses. My property is only one single “Tax Lot”. Each of the two addresses was provided with one “Two-Pair” buried cable, and thus each of the two addresses was provided with access to two unique phone numbers.
My property was provided with access to four unique phone numbers total. Two at each physical address.
There are other ways to describe this. One internet access, is the same as one phone number. So, you could also say that each address is equipped for one land-line phone, and one internet access. That combination uses up the “Two-Pair” buried cable the same way that having two unique land-line phone numbers do.
On all of the residential streets, is a service access box, in front of almost each physical address. Some are in close proximity to others, and don’t require a separate access box.
The access terminal boxes are places where the underground buried “Two-Pair” cables come up out of the ground, and into the service terminal access boxes. The access boxes are all in a line, distributed along the residential streets in front of the addresses they serve. They are on top of the lines of buried cables protruding vertically from the ground for access to the cables, and access to the terminals inside the boxes, where connectivity is made to the individual addresses. Other buried cables are distributed from the access terminal boxes, and those are the ones that are attached at each physical address. From those access terminal boxes, comes the “Two-Pair” to each physical address on the street.
Inside those access terminal boxes, there are terminal studs, a screw, with a nut. The wire is attached to the screw, wrapped around it, and the nut secures the wire in place on the stud terminal.
Centurylink terror operatives, have gone around, and opened all of the access terminal boxes, taken the wires off of the terminal studs, and attached the wires to other studs inside of the access boxes. For instance, the phone lines that are mapped to serve the address at 600 Jackpine, actually serve 507 Jackpine. (That is only a demonstration, I don’t have specific information about how the switch was made between each address, and where the service actually goes, verses where it is mapped to go.)
There are other service access terminal boxes. The ones that connect the main fiber optic cable that leads into the neighborhoods is one of the kind I am referring to here. There is such a main terminal access box at the corner of Monument Drive and Three Pines Road. There is another main service terminal box at the corner of Russell Road and Pleasant Valley Road. Those main access boxes are much bigger than the individual access boxes that serve each address. Those main terminal access boxes branch out a grid of buried cables that composes the individual ones on each street.
Like your spinal cord comes from your brain, is big, and branches out to your arms, and your legs, from your arms, and legs, there are other places that further branch out to your fingers and toes.
The phone systems are like that, are buried in the ground, and branch off to smaller lines, from bigger, main ones.
The reason I mentioned that I have two addresses, and each one was equipped with it’s own set of “Two-Pair”, is because in addition to those phone lines all attached at the wrong terminal stud inside of the service boxes, one of the “Two-Pair” that serves my property, was stolen completely. Centurylink terror operatives disconnected one “Two-Pair” from the access terminal box in front of my house, and attached it to someone else's house.
“We need the phone line more than you do” they said.
They took it, they told me they were taking it, they were not apologetic for having stolen my phone line, and blatantly told me that they needed it.
I have called Centurylink many times, demanding that they put it back.
“You are at the end of the line” they say every time.
They refuse to put the stolen phone line back where it goes, on the terminal that serves my physical address, on my property.
As a result of all of that intentional manipulation, public safety personnel, FBI, National Security personnel, cannot trace from where a conversation is taking place on a land line call, nor can they trace internet usage of any individual in the entire county.
The result of a phone line trace leads to a map at Centurylink HQ Corporate Offices. That map shows the place where the phone line of interest is supposed to be, while the reality is that the one that security people have traced is in some other neighborhood then the one where Centurylink says it is.
Public Safety officers are led into traps, with internet and phone activity that was played out as an act, in order to bait them. They take the bait, and go where Centurylink advised, the place on the map where the interesting activity is said to have come from.
Officers are killed that way.
Many are led into traps at the Monroe terror cell at 434 Jackpine. Others are led into traps at 376 Jackpine.
I make cries for help every day, no help ever reaches me. I never have had opportunity to explain more detail about the terror takeover of Oregon, or what I know about the same thing in California, or to provide further information about the day that Boeing in Seattle was hijacked by men with machine guns who shot all of the office workers right there in front of me and my family while we were touring Boeing Seattle.
And so much more information.
No one can reach me.
They are led to the wrong place when they trace my internet use.
There is more phone manipulation. I have explained all of this before here on this account, and I am explaining it all again, to spell it out that you CANNOT TRUST THE LOCAL OREGON AUTHORITIES! They are the ones that make sure the set-ups to kill the Federal officers happens smooth, and they are the ones who arrange all of the cleanup and cover up afterwords.
There is Stingray Surveillance Equipment in the hands of the local authorities, and in the hands of other terror cells who were issued Stingray equipment by the local authorities. There are Kingfish surveillance equipment also.
Those units, and other Hong Kong Huawei Knock Off versions that have more features then the real ones, are used in conjunction to the buried phone lines that are connected to the wrong terminals.
There is a number of old PBX Switchboards in the area. They are used in connection with a Stingray. A phone call happening on a Cellular Phone can be transferred with the Stingray to a land line that is on the wrong terminal in the access box. The signal from the Cellular phone conversation is routed to a location where there is a old style analog PBX switchboard. The call from there, can be routed to any other place. Tracing that is not possible.
The terror bastards have created a system of communication that is impossible to trace the origins of, and is designed to lure national security to the wrong places where traps are set to kill them. The traps include spring loaded snares inside and outside of the houses around here.
There is a PBX Switchboard at least some of the time at Fran Taylor terror cell at 600 Jackpine. There is one at least some of the time at Manning terror cell at 598, and one at Freeberg 535 Jackpine, and one at Cyde Baum terror cell at 333 Jackpine. It might be the same switchboard just moved around from time to time.
The locals on Jackpine call the Switchboard “Medusa”. They named it.
So, there is these things to repair before any security work can be done.
The spaghetti phone lines of Centurylink, in the neighborhoods, and at the main fiber optic access terminals.
The Stingray’s in the hands of the terror army.
Eliminate the PBX Switchboard the system is attached to.
And put back the phone line to my address from where it was stolen.
(My property is the only property on Jackpine that has two, real, physical address numbers. There are others that claim to be “A” and “B” units, but they don’t have real physical address numbers, which are required for having a phone line access in the terminal boxes.)
End terror report: 5:04 pm.
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