#i might end up scrapping some of the work i did because i accidentally projected some shit onto pandora that. doesnt fit ig?
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hello! i've been reading genesis for...oh god, since 2017-2018, i think. and it's been a blast, i love the series a lot! it's a really unique storyline with one of my favorite characters (mewtwo, beloved) and your art is fantastic! i was wondering how much of the storyline you have planned out/had planned out, and how much of it has changed over time? and how far along we are in the storyline/how much is left before the end. i hope you have a good day!
Oh wow, you've been around for a while lol Hi friend!
I'll be honest, Genesis had the most bare bones of starts. I created the characters for what I thought was going to be a one-off costume month long challenge, with some other old ocs to fill out the roster. I had zero plan to create a story with these new characters, since I was brand new to the idea of having a story based off of pokemon game play. I've always been a first and foremost Zelda fan and was actually slowly picking at my own Zelda story at the time but I couldn't quite get the story to go the way I wanted and I was determined to draw that comic first.
And then I drew this:
This is the first time I drew Prime, and a younger M2-K, I think. One of the very few things I drew before I launched into starting Genesis. Y'all might recognize this scene from the first few pages of chapter 2 lol. I was riding off of that high of finishing my first long-term project and now I had somewhere where I could start. So three months after that October challenge, I decided screw it, I'll just draw this pokemon comic as a practice, be done in like 2-3 years, then work on Zelda again. And then lol here we are almost 7 years later.
Read more bc it accidentally kinda got long :'D
A lot of my planning has gone like this; I draw a thing, and then work it into the story somewhere like threading pearls on a string, then I add more beads in between the pearls as I go.
So Genesis has points that I know I'm going to hit (the ending has probably the thoroughly written script of all of Genesis and I'm quite happy with it) but a lot of it is in a fuzzy grey area of I only kinda know what's going to happen next, I just need to write how to get there. It keeps me engaged with the story and the few drawings I have as story concepts are the juicy carrots I dangle in front of myself to keep the motivation going even if I'm going through an art rut or if work has been particularly draining.
As for things that have changed? Alcina didn't exist in the beginning. I sketched up a gardevoir gijinka in my sketchbook bc I needed K to talk to someone. And then she stuck around. Heph wasn't originally planned either, and he actually replaced this guy:
left to right: M2-K, Talil the heliolisk, and Jean-Luc (mega'd)
Talil was originally going to be the one to fix K's prosthetics, but that's all I really had him around for, and he eventually got scrapped. Which is a real shame, because heliolisk is one of my favorite Kalos mons. I did later use the concept of shorting out K's prosthetics when he fought a luxray in chapter 1.
I can't remember when V came into being, but I think it was sometime after Genesis had started, but well before she was introduced. She was originally supposed to be that one mewtwo from the Genesect movie (and that's where the V in M2-V originated from, M2-K was originally short for Mewtwo-Kalos. And then I made it worse by going alphabetically :) )
As for how much longer are we going to have? We've definitely passed the halfway point. But since I've had a revelation and added [REDACTED] in to the story, chapter 3 got longer unexpectedly and is gonna be split into a surprise fourth chapter. And then an epilogue, but //handwaves that's farther down the line.
#comic ask#anonymous#anon#Genesis art#i'll spoil y'all with 2 of like. 5 pieces of concept art Genesis ever got#no I don't recommend starting a comic with that little bit of work lol#i sometimes just have to follow the impulse or I won't Do the Thing
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Graphic Design :)
This was probably one of my favorite arts of the workshop. We were tasked to create and art piece from a bunch of magazines. I never knew this was an actual art form I really only thought it was a hobby but, this presentation really opened up my eyes to a new form of art. This workshop really made me rethink what I want to do withing graphic design( I will get into this later) . We created a mind map that elaborated on our project and we decided to simplify it down into three words we would be exploring our topic with
After this our mindmaps were scattered around the room and we were tasked to find pieces that this person could use from magazines we randomly selected. I found this really really fun :)
I ended up accidentally creating a collage but I feel like it perfectly demonstrates what my project is really about at the core. The chaos of cats and their moment. How did they end up half human? What's it doing inside a bowl? Why is it inside an orange?? I just feel like this project is very silly and fun whcih is what I try to make it appear as. I made them black to kind of resemblance my previous piece I did during painting.
After finding out I messed up (whoopppssiiieee) I started on the actual task... Create an art work! I siffted through so many magazines. Who knew it was this hard to find a cat??? I had some help and finally found two or at least I think one is a cat anyway... I decided it would be fun to put a cat in a location it's never allowed ( survey conducted among cat owners proved this) a dinner table. U collected scraps and cut up tons of bits. Here's my process :)
I really wanted to create this sense of movement in this like everything was flowing in some sort or chaos. The dinner table was perfect because it was elegent and something you woudont what to be messed up by a silly cat. I drew on many bits with pencil and even sharpie to make the piece blend in with the paper and with the other bits and pieces I stuck together. Over all I really liked this process it was really fun :)
What did I learn from this? Exactly how I want to execute my idea. I had this silly idea to create two posters. One was going to be an invitation to some sort of silly cat meeting. It ls idea is based off of where do cats go when we don't see them? I thought it would be really fun to add a bunch of really specific and random directions to get there for this silly meeting. My other idea was to create a music poster advertising a rock concert played byyyy cats! I was originally planning to create these posters on Adobe Photoshop but I really liked this process so I might give it a go. I doubt I will find all the pieces I need from magazines so I have accumulated a bunch of cat pictures from pintrest here they are :)
I will continue to look for inspiration from actual magazines so it isn't entirely printed. I also looked into a few concert posters themselves and here's some that really caught my eye. .. ( I don't have enough space so I will post separately)
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possible prompt for a university au: newt is the biology major who maintains all the fish tanks in the physics building at 11pm and hermann is the physics student who likes to wander the halls to think. newt accidentally flings water all over the ground and hermann trips, hijinks ensue.
earlier today I was thinking about how I wrote a college AU fic almost 3 years ago to the date, and how I wanted to do more bc its fun thinking about newt and hermann as dumb college students
----
Newt's not really sure how he ended up with the weirdest work-study job on the planet, but honestly, things could be much, much worse (he could be stuck down in the dining hall, or dealing with confused freshmen in the school bookstore) so he keeps his thoughts on the whole thing to himself. Every Friday at eleven sharp, Newt pulls on his grodiest t-shirt and a pair of long rubber gloves and treks all the way over to the physics department to set to work scrubbing down the fish tanks that line the classroom walls. Why does the physics department have fish tanks? Newt's not really sure about that, either. It's kind of an insane amount of them, too, more than even the marine bio department has. Maybe it's supposed to boost morale or something. Hey, look at these crazy cool tropical fish who get to do nothing but eat and swim in circles, sorry you're stuck inside calculating velocity and shit.
Whatever, Newt's not complaining about that either. Let the physics nerds have their fun. It'll be good for them to branch out a little, realize there's life beyond robotics club meetings.
Also, Newt likes the fish. They're cute. He likes to think they like him, too, because they're very well behaved when he has to scoop them out of their tanks and plop them into smaller fish bowls (the kind goldfish in movies always use). He's going to teach them tricks eventually—he had a beta fish once who would do a little flip when Newt tapped the glass a certain way because he knew he'd get rewarded with dried worms, so Newt knows it's possible. Just imagine, a hundred fish doing flips on command. Newt Geiszler, fish whisperer.
Yeah, maybe the job could be more glamorous. It's really hard to get algae out of the gloves, and he hasn't been allotted the budget for a new pair yet.
"Hey, guys!" he shouts as he pushes in the door to room 214. The fish don't acknowledge him: they just continue swimming in their giant tank. In and out of plastic plants and rock caves. The rock caves were a gift from Newt three months into the job, and so were some of the moss balls—stimulation is important for fish! He wouldn't want to be trapped in a glass box with nothing to do, either. "I bet you missed me. Ready for a clean tank?"
Newt always talks to the fish, even if they don't talk back, because he thinks it's important to build their trust. He'll usually keep a running commentary of his week as he scrubs the tanks, just get everything off his chest that he needs to get off. Stuff he's worried about. Stuff that went well. Stuff that went badly. Therapy's expensive, and Newt's student health insurance can only cover so much, but talking to fish? That's free.
That's also kinda why he does it so late at night and over the weekend. The last thing he wants is an audience. Because, one, talking to fish is admittedly weird, and two, no one wants a glimpse at Newt's psyche like that, probably not even the fish.
The first step in cleaning the tanks is relocation. Newt digs his stereotypical goldfish bowls and an industrial-size mesh wand out of the supply closet, fills the former with some of the special tank salt water, and begins the slow and arduous task of scooping out the fish and depositing them into the bowls. "I had the lamest week," he announces once he's about three clownfish in. "I was working on a group project Saturday—"
Then Newt stops, because he hears footsteps in the hallway just outside the classroom.
Serial killer, Newt's instincts supply helpfully.
No, Newt corrects himself, that's dumb. Why would a serial killer wander into the physics building at eleven o'clock at night? Why would anyone, period? He's probably imagining stuff. Lack of sleep, stress over his upcoming projects, residual embarrassment from his disaster study session Saturday, all of it culminating in Newt thinking there's someone there. No, definitely imagining it. Newt can only even get in this late to the department because his ID swipe card is set up with the right permissions—not even the physics students have the permissions he does to be in this late at night. Well, not unless they clean the kitchenette in the student lounge or something.
Or if Newt left the door unlocked.
More footsteps. Closer now.
Newt's pretty sure he didn't leave the door unlocked, because he thinks it locks automatically behind him, and he would have to literally prop it open for anyone to get in after him. But anything's possible. The door could've caught on a dropped pencil or a paper scrap or other weird shit that physics students leave around, and a serial killer could've noticed and taken the opportunity to sneak inside on the off chance a hapless young biology major was scrubbing slime off fish tanks in the middle of the night. Any minute now, Newt's about to end up on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. The Physics Department Murder. The Disappearing Biologist. (Nah, neither of those are very good titles, but that's why Newt isn't on the creative writing track.)
Step-tap-step. Closer now; Newt's heart leaps to his throat. Step-tap-step. Step-tap-step. Pausing just outside the door of room 214. God, why didn't Newt turn the lights off? Why didn't he shut the door?
Newt reaches for the first vaguely weapon-shaped thing he can find—an empty fishbowl, because Newt's not going to sacrifice any of the fish for this—and, as the door swings open, hurls it with a cry.
The bowl clunks on the ground. Except it turns out Newt grabbed the wrong fish bowl, because (even though it doesn't shatter, thank God) water quickly begins to seep across the slate floor tiles towards Newt's serial killer, a pathetic little clownfish (Newt thinks this one is named Albert, because the physics department is made up of nerds who do shit like name their random pet fish after their kind) flopping around in the puddle. Newt's serial killer, meanwhile, cries out similarly, his arms windmilling as he loses his footing and slips backwards, his cane—
Oh, fuck.
The intruder is not a serial killer. It's someone possibly worse, actually: Newt's mortal enemy, Hermann Gottlieb.
Newt's not really sure at what point Hermann became his mortal enemy and not just some guy I have class with that I hate, but he can pretty easily say that they've hated each other since the moment Hermann walked through the doors of Engineering 101 and was deigned Newt's lab partner by the Alphabetized By Last Name Seating Chart god. Something about Hermann just gets under Newt's skin. It's not his prissy English accent, or his oversized sweaters, or his absolutely horrendous haircut, and it's not even that he takes every opportunity to savagely rip apart every single thing Newt says in class. Don't get Newt wrong, that's all super fucking annoying, but it's annoying levels he can deal with.
It's the stuff they have in common that makes Newt hate him. It's like Hermann's a slightly broodier and more angular mirror that reflects all of Newt's most egregious faults—his arrogance, his stubbornness, his social awkwardness, his desperation to be taken seriously—right back at him. It sucks.
Plus, one time Newt caught Hermann ripping down the flyer he put up on the quad for Anime Club to advertise his stupid chess club instead, and he's never managed to forgive him for that.
Newt may hate Hermann, but he's not about to let him land on his ass in a puddle of fishy water (especially not on a freezing November night) just because the subsequent bitching would be unbearable, and, yeah, it would be supremely shitty of Newt, so he leaps forward just in time to catch Hermann and his cane before he hits the ground. He's so impressed with himself with his amazing catch that it takes him a few seconds to realize that Hermann is shouting and probably has been shouting since he slipped.
"—bloody maniac! What on earth are you doing in here? How are you in here? Did you just assault me? I'm going to phone campus police, you wretched—"
"Hold that thought," Newt says.
He rights Hermann and snags the mesh net and rescues poor Al before it's too late, dropping him back into the big tank with the rest of his friends. Newt can't be sure, but he thinks Al blows a bubble in thanks at him. Maybe he needs to make friends outside fish.
Hermann is still yelling at him.
"I am going to tell the head of the department you're—you're skulking about in here after hours!" he declares. "You're a menace. Pay attention to what I'm saying to you, Newton!"
Newt sighs and turns around. Hermann's turned an interesting shade of red—sort of like an over-boiled lobster, or if he fell asleep in the sun for too long. Newt wonders if it's from embarrassment (almost falling on his ass) or anger (almost being knocked on his ass). Probably anger. "Look, dude, I'm sorry," Newt says. His face twists like he ate a lemon, and he hopes Hermann doesn't notice. Newt hates apologizing to Hermann. "It's my job to clean the tanks every weekend. You scared the shit out of me and I freaked out—it's just that, like, no one ever comes by this late. Ever." He decides not to mention the serial killer thing. Hermann might make fun of him for being jumpy or paranoid or something.
Hermann's scowl doesn't lessen, but he does nod. Plus, he stops shouting. That's as much as Newt's gonna get of forgiveness. "Hmph," Hermann says. "You clean the tanks?"
"Every weekend," Newt repeats. He realizes he got some fish tank slime on Hermann's button-up when he caught him. Oops. Hopefully Hermann won't notice until Newt's in the safety of his dorm. "Gotta pay for my textbooks somehow." Then he frowns. "Wait, so what are you doing here? I didn't know you had access to the building this late."
Maybe Hermann is the kitchenette-cleaning guy after all. But, to his surprise, Hermann sniffs and casts his eyes to his dorky Oxford shoes. "Er," he says. "It's just—I was having trouble working out a solution to a problem, and thought a walk might do me good. Chilly nights like this one always do. And I quite like this building at night—it's calm, and much quieter than my dormitory." He fidgets. "And—well—only don't say anything to anyone, but I rewrote the permissions of my ID card so I could come and go wherever I please ages ago."
"You rewrote the permissions?" Newt says. "What the hell, wouldn't you have to hack into the security system or something to do that?"
"Well, obviously," Hermann says.
Despite himself, and despite Hermann being his Mortal Enemy, Newt is genuinely impressed. "Dude," he says. "That is so badass." Since when has Hermann been a badass?
Hermann's eyebrows jump, and he blinks at Newt behind his dorky librarian glasses. What twenty-one-year-old wears librarian glasses? With a chain? "You think so?" he says.
"Uh, totally," Newt says. "What problem were you stuck on? The one from Saturday?"
Being lab partners for engineering means Newt and Hermann have to collaborate on pretty much everything, including their midterms. Their midterm is what they've been working on for the past two weeks. On Saturday, though, they met in neutral ground to work on it (a reserved study room in the library), and, after a stupid and massive argument that had the librarians hoisting them out by their shirt collars and threatening to ban them for life, Hermann called Newt an idiot and stomped off into the night. Newt still hasn't gotten around to giving the problem another shot. Whatever, they have another week before the dumb thing is due. Plenty of time. Hermann nods. "Yes," he says. "Er—that one."
Newt glances at the clock ticking away on the wall. Quarter after eleven. Hermann's delayed him a whole fifteen minutes. Technically, he reminds himself, he doesn't actually have to have the tanks scrubbed by Friday night—he has the whole weekend to get it done. Also, he kind of feels like he owes Hermann for attacking him the way he did. Accidentally attacking. "Listen, Hermann," he says, feeling totally insane for what he's about to suggest. But he kind of wants to know more about Hermann The Badass. "What if we went back to my place and worked on it together? I'll buy us pizza, and I have, like, a bunch of energy drinks." The pizza place nearest campus is open until three in the morning, almost definitely because they get all of their business from sleep-deprived undergrads. Plus, they have midnight specials where you get free breadsticks with every pizza. Newt could go for some breadsticks. "It might be...fun," he adds.
Fun? With Hermann? Hermann will think he hit his head or something.
But to his surprise, Hermann doesn't hesitate even a second before saying "Alright, then."
"Oh," Newt says. He honestly thought Hermann would put up more of a struggle. "Cool!"
"But I might need to borrow a jumper," Hermann says. "If you'd be so...courteous, that is. I'm a bit chilly."
For some reason, the thought of Hermann (Newt's mortal enemy, but also a secret badass) curled up in one of Newt's baggy sweatshirts makes Newt feel all weird and warm all over. He swallows a few times, because his throat feels a little weird, too. Too tight. Like he just ate something he's allergic to. "No sweat," Newt says. "Let me just get these fish back in the, um, the tank. And—" He waves his slimy, gloved hands. "Take these off. And clean up that puddle. Gimme—um, gimme like, ten minutes?"
"Of course," Hermann says, and gives Newt a small, terse nod.
From Hermann, it's a smile. Newt almost slips on the puddle he's so blindsided by it. Stupid Hermann, making him feel all weird and clumsy.
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Ocean Sampler complete!
[Hi-res version]
I recently started a self-patterned project that is larger than I usually work, and in order to avoid burnout I’m alternating it with @mathysphere samplers -- in card-sized pieces, as is my habit! First up was the Ocean sampler, because I just barely had enough blue scraps for it and I didn’t want to accidentally use them for something else. I also did a bonus navy edition of the tenth one, which I think looks really neat! My goal is to do two hours on the big project for every sampler stitchbit, and I am currently right on track at 34 hours.
Fun tidbit: I got to show @tkingfisher the whale fall one during CrossingsCon! Due to the combination of Ursula being a guest at the convention at the same time as I got to the final piece of the sampler, her whale fall acceptance speech was hovering in the back of my mind every time I worked on it. xD
Technical details under the cut, for those of you interested in such things.
As mentioned, I was working with just whatever blue scraps I happened to have in my stash, so my options were a little more limited than I’d hoped. In particular, the top row is a touch lighter than I would have chosen, and I would have liked to have four colors, for a more proper gradient effect from top to bottom. That said, I was mostly just happy I had enough to do them all, and even each row one consistent color!
First row: crashing wave, playing dolphins, breaching ray, splashing gull.
The fabric here is a very pale blue aida, 14ct. Everything was stitched as given in the pattern, but I did end up adding a subtle tent stitch fill to the sky on the gull one, to help those bright white wings be visible. I wanted to use up some of my orphan thread pile for the outlines on the whole set, and to my delight I had some blue that matched perfectly for this row so that was the obvious choice.
Second row: coral reef, whale and baby, fish swarm, seal in kelp.
This fabric is a grey-blue linen, 32ct, and you may notice that I was not paying attention to the orientation each time I grabbed a new piece! Linen is a little tricky because even ‘evenweave’ linens may not be precisely the same count vertically and horizontally, and that’s especially visible with small pieces like this. Everything here was also stitched as given (over two), and the border color for this row is a muted purple because I didn’t have any green in the orphan pile.
Third row: hungry clams, jellyfish, lanternfish, hermit crab.
Same fabric as the second row. You might notice that the first in the row is a little mottled in comparison to the rest; this was mostly intentional! After an accidental encounter with some fabric glue, I noticed that the linen held onto it more visibly than my more usual fabrics, and decided to lean into it as ‘background detritus’. I do wish this row could have been on a slightly darker fabric for the sake of the jellyfish, mostly, but I made up for that with the bonus navy jellyfish at the bottom! This row got a warm brown border to match the hermit crab’s shell.
Fourth row: giant squid, angler fish, tube worms, whale fall.
This darker blue fabric is another linen, a 28ct this time, and you can see around the edges that the color is a bit lighter inside the weave than on the surface. Once again I failed to coordinate my orientation, so there are some pieces that are wider and others that are taller. All of these were stitched as given with the exception of the angler fish, where I swapped out the blues for 813 and 826 to better match my fabric. This row got red outlines, carefully patched together from a few different red variegation orphans.
Bonus jellyfish: Last but not least, I used a 14ct faded navy scrap for the glowy version of the jellyfish! The fabric was very stiff and felt a little weirdly coated with something; it’s one of the perils of using random scraps picked up from wherever! I’m quite pleased with how it looks though. All thread colors are exactly the same as the original jellyfish, including the brown border, so the only difference is the fabric.
#dd makes things#dd stitches#cross stitch#mathysphere#love me some good ocean weirdness#tbd project tracker
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For the wip ask (they all sound very interesting ngl it was hard to pick just one!) LostSteve
lost steve! yeah, so. what if shield defrosted captain america, and he broke out and just...kept running? what if they lost him? what if he ended up hiding out in tony’s tower, away from the fight for long enough to get his feet underneath him?
this fic is mostly about steve and tony finding each other first, so they can form the heart of the avengers, instead of the fault line that splits the team in half. here’s the first part of it.
—
There’s an alert from Nick Fury that Tony chooses to ignore, for the sake of his convenience and Fury’s ongoing character growth. JARVIS announces its arrival and then diligently reminds Tony about the message twice before Tony tells him to mute it until morning.
“If it’s really that important,” he says, “they’ll just send someone to break in anyway.”
Which is why, on some level, he’s not at all surprised to find a man sitting on a couch in his penthouse twenty-seven hours later. He will admit to being caught somewhat off-guard by the specifics of the situation, though, because Steve Rogers has been dead for longer than Tony’s been alive.
“Zombie?” Tony asks. “Hallucination? Oh, clone? Are you a clone?”
Steve Rogers looks at him the way people look at wax sculptures. Like he’s interested in the details of the creation in front of him, but doesn’t believe for a second that what he’s looking at is real. “Mr. Stark,” he says, politely. His voice is deeper than Tony would’ve guessed.
“Robot,” Tony theorizes. “Sexbot? Updated Trojan Horse? If I let you inside me, are you gonna--”
The man’s brow furrows, and his mouth twists down, and his eyes are too sad for circuitry. No one would code that kind of grief.
Tony pauses for a moment, rocks forward onto the balls of his feet and then back onto his heels. He studies this intruder carefully. Someone sent him a Steve Rogers lookalike in a white t-shirt and stained khakis. He’s hale and healthy, built like a god, but his feet are bare and dirty.
Bloody, too. There are bloody footprints on the carpet.
“Wait,” Tony says. “Wait. Who the hell are you?”
There’s a long beat of silence. The man on his couch just stares at him, eyes tracing over Tony’s face, his shoulders, looking at him like he’s starving for something. He’s quiet and small, somehow, in a way that doesn’t relate at all to the amount of space his body takes up.
And then he stands, light and graceful on his bloody feet. His jaw tightens, and his shoulders pull up, and he’s an American Hero, suddenly and decisively, like he’s made some kind of choice about it.
“Mr. Stark,” he says, again, “I’m Captain America.”
And he is, Tony thinks. The same way that he’s Iron Man. Because once you put on that kind of armor, whatever else you used to be is irrelevant.
—
He’s Captain America, and he’s back from the dead. SHIELD had him and lost him, and Nick Fury wants Tony to go looking for him. That’s the message he left with JARVIS over a day ago. And Tony can’t imagine he was the first name on their list, which means Steve Rogers has been alone in the wrong century for an unknown but considerable amount of time.
“Hey,” he says, calling out from where he’s slouched against the kitchen island, watching Captain America dutifully eat through every scrap of leftovers Tony had in the fridge. “How long have you been here?”
“I was born here,” he says, through a mouthful of fried rice that he hides behind a napkin. He chews, swallows, and jabs his fork over Tony’s shoulder. “In Brooklyn.”
Tony knew that. Of course he knew that. He memorized everything about Steve Rogers back when he thought he could become enough like him to make Howard consider him worthwhile. “No, I mean,” he says, waving his hands, “in this century. How long have you been--- Jesus. I dunno. Awake? Aware? Unfrosted flakes?”
Steve blinks at him. He stares for a second and then ducks his head, stirs his fork through the open takeout box in front of him. “Spent a couple days,” he says. “Looking around.”
Looking around. Steve Rogers, unwitting time-traveler, barefoot in New York. What had he been looking for? Why did he come here?
“Why didn’t you get any shoes?” Tony asks, instead of any of the more complicated questions.
Steve tucks his feet under his chair. He washed them half an hour or so back, walking uneasily into the bathroom Tony showed him and then locking the door behind him, like he thought Tony was some kind of pervert who would bodyslam through the door to catch a glimpse of him sudsing up his bare ankles.
“Didn’t have any money,” he says, surprisingly mulish about it.
“You couldn’t smash and grab a pair of Sketchers?” Tony shakes his head. “If you get lockjaw, you’re gonna have to tell Fury you caught it from somewhere else. Fuck’s sake, when was your last tetanus booster? 1943?”
He shrugs. He doesn’t seem concerned. He’s busy eating his way through enough calories to keep your average winter-starved grizzly happy.
It’s hungry work, coming back from the dead. Tony remembers the unholy things he would’ve done for a cheeseburger.
“Didn’t have any money,” he repeats, scraping his fork around the sides of the takeout box, diligent and serious, like it’s the very last scrap of food he’ll ever get.
Tony clears his throat, hip-checks the counter to heave himself to standing. “I’ll get you some cash.”
—
There’s a weird moment, when Tony gives him the money. It’s just a few hundred dollars. He’s not Tony’s problem, not his project raised from the dead, but he still doesn’t want to give Steve Rogers the means to get himself truly lost in a world he doesn’t know.
Five hundred dollars will get him some food and somewhere to sleep for a few days, but it won’t get him far enough out of SHIELD’s orbit to get himself in trouble.
He looks up when Tony gets close. There’s a well-worn wariness in his eyes. He watches him the way a dog from a bad home might watch him through the bars of the shelter’s kennel. Resigned instead of hopeful, like he knows how this goes, like he knows he can survive it.
“Here,” Tony says. He leaves the money two chairs away from him, within easy grabbing distance. “And I have shoes your size, if you want to borrow them.”
“I don’t need that,” Rogers says, pointing at the money.
Tony lets his mouth tip up sideways, smirks like this is the part of the whole situation he finds truly unbelievable. “You’re going to come into my house,” he says, “uninvited, unannounced, and then you’re going to refuse to accept my hospitality? Rogers, what would your mother think?”
There’s a stall point in Roger’s stare, like watching a bird fly into a window. There’s a moment, right around the word mother, when those blue eyes blank out, and Tony’s just staring into empty space.
“She didn’t,” he says, and it’s fascinating. He’s stitching himself up right here at Tony’s dining table. Tony can practically see it happening, vertebrae stacking up, pulling him taunt like a needle tugging on a thread. “She never liked charity.”
Tony is familiar with pride. He has something of an overabundance himself, although he comes by it honestly. He knows hurt pride hates an audience, so he looks away.
“I imagine she hated the idea of you starving, too,” Tony says. “Probably worked very hard to make sure that didn’t happen. Going to waste all her work now, Rogers? Seems ungrateful.”
He’s half-taunting by the end of it. He’s not sure why. He finds weak points like a magnet finds iron. Sometimes he doesn’t even know what he’s pulling on until after he’s accidentally ripped out someone’s heart. It’s not one of the traits he’s proud of, but, like his pride, he knows where it came from.
Rogers glares at him, but he hooks the next takeout container over anyway.
“I’ll get those shoes,” Tony says. JARVIS has already measured; Rhodey left some boots that should fit.
Steve doesn’t say anything, but, when Tony comes back, the money is gone, and so is he.
—
Tony doesn’t tell Fury a damn thing. If Fury lost a national icon, that’s his problem. And anyway, Tony’s still not completely convinced that the blonde who materialized in his penthouse was actually Steve Rogers and not some kind of really confused, really well-built homeless man. Or a stripper.
Tony’s never actually met a stripper who showed up in khakis, refused to disrobe, and then ate ten pounds of takeout before silently disappearing, but he’d be willing to pay another five hundred dollars for a repeat performance.
He figures out how the maybe-Steve got into his penthouse. He upgrades the security, but he tells JARVIS to let him in if he ever comes back. He’s not sure what he’s hoping for, but he’s too curious to lock him out.
—
There’s a bit of nothing that kicks off in New York, some Hammer tech that goes haywire. Tony puts it down like the cheap knockoff that it is, but he gets stuck in debrief with Phil Coulson afterwards, because he’s not quite quick enough to abandon the scene after the fight’s over. In his defense, he was holding a car above a partially-trapped bicyclist, and Coulson caught him before the EMTs could finish disentangling her.
He makes it back to the Tower after an hour of mostly-wasted time. Steve Rogers is sitting at his dining table. Tony bites back the ludicrous urge to “honey, I’m home!” him.
“Hey,” he says instead, as he steps in from the balcony, stripped down to the skintight suit he wears under the armor. He didn’t expect company. “You get something to eat?”
Steve seems somehow offended by the question. “I didn’t break in here and steal anything,” he says.
“Okay,” Tony says, moving past him. “Well, that’s a gold star and an empty stomach for you, Rogers. We’re all very proud.”
“It’s not my food,” Steve tells him. If he had hackles, they’d be raised. Tony wants to pat him on the head, but only because he’s always had a sort of neurotic tendency to see how hard people bite before he decides whether to trust them.
“Yeah, and a twenty-dollar grocery bill is really gonna break me,” Tony says. He takes a smoothie out of the freezer. “You want pizza? I’m gonna order pizza.”
Steve stares at him for a long moment before he shrugs. “I could eat,” he says.
“Great,” Tony says. He has JARVIS order three pizzas, because he wants at least half of one for himself, and Steve Rogers is a human garbage disposal.
Steve takes a shower while they’re waiting. He asks first, which Tony supposes is the polite thing to do, and he takes his backpack with him, like he’s worried Tony’s going to steal his wallet.
“You know,” Tony says, when Steve remerges, wearing another knockout set of some grandpa’s Goodwill khakis and button-down shirt, “you keep showing up like this, and it’s gonna get harder for me to lie to Fury about having no idea where you are.”
Steve flips open a pizza box and carefully selects a slice. His hair is wet and neatly combed back from his face. He’s handsome from a distance but damn near devastating at close range. Tony takes another bite of pizza, hopes it’ll help swallow back the urge to sink a few grand into war bonds.
“Fury’s the guy with the eyepatch?” Steve doesn’t settle into a seat. He takes his pizza and wanders over to the window, stares out at the skyline.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Tony says.
Steve makes a face. Tony can see it, dulled and faded, in the reflection on the glass. “He’s persistent,” he says, slowly. Not like it’s a compliment.
“Yeah,” Tony says, again, “that’s him.”
Steve doesn’t say anything else. Tony finishes his slice of pizza, eats another one. There’s an ache in his right shoulder from being wrenched around by Hammer’s ridiculous creation, and he should be icing it, but he doesn’t want to. Not with Steve Rogers here.
He’s never liked looking human in front of an audience. His problem has always been that he couldn’t figure out how to stop. At least, not until he built his armor.
Steve comes back when he’s out of pizza. He’s catlike in his wariness, in the way he seems pissed at Tony for daring to exist in his proximity.
“That fight,” he says, apropos of approximately nothing at all. “Earlier.”
“Oh,” Tony says, rising out of his chair and moving toward the bar, giving Steve the room to loom over the pizza like he’s defending his kill. “You see that on the news?”
“Saw it on the street,” Steve says. “Heard the screams.”
Heard the screams and came running. So he’s still in the hero business. Fury will be happy to hear it.
“You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Steve tells him. He sounds angry about it. At Tony, not the situation. “Where’s your backup?”
“Backup,” Tony repeats. “Cap, c’mon. Read a newspaper. I work alone.”
Steve Rogers looks up from his pizza perusal just long enough to roll his eyes. It should feel like a slap across the face, and maybe it does. However it feels, Tony likes it. Wants more of it. There’s always been something grounding in being dismissed, like Tony’s never known where he stands until someone shows him how he doesn’t measure up.
“Is that supposed to be impressive?” Steve asks. “Men who work alone die alone, Stark. And they’re not very effective when they do.”
Tony knows he’s meant to be offended. He is, probably. But he couldn’t bite back his smile for anything. “I think I liked you better when you called me ‘Mr. Stark.’”
“Seems to me,” Steve says, “you want everyone to call you Iron Man these days.”
“Oh Captain, my Captain,” Tony says, “surely they had that line about glass houses in the ‘40’s?”
Steve frowns at him. “I never asked anyone to call me Captain America.”
“And yet,” Tony says, tipping a bottle of whiskey his direction, “that’s how to introduced yourself to me.”
Steve gives him a look like he thinks Tony’s being deliberately obtuse. “That’s who I am,” he says.
Tony rolls his eyes and flips a tumbler right side up. “But when I start using a stage name,” he says, “suddenly I’m a narcissistic asshole who doesn’t--”
“Do you think,” Steve says, looming up suddenly, shifting gears like something mechanical, going battle-ready with more decisiveness than a faceplate clicking down, “that anybody spent years, spent—I don’t know. Millions of dollars? Do you think anybody did that for Steve Rogers?”
Tony’s caught wrong-footed. He did it again. Drilled until he found the nerve, cut until he broke the skin.
“I think you don’t get one without the other,” Tony says, trying now to soothe. But he’s not very good at it. His instincts don’t run this direction. His whole life, the only things he could ever repair were machines.
Steve shakes his head. He steps away from the pizza. He looks around, eyes zeroing in on his backpack.
“Stay here,” Tony says, sidling out from behind the bar, whiskey now in hand.
Steve straightens up like a cobra, like he’s going to spit venom in Tony’s face. Tony wants to put his mouth on him, which is probably only half because he’s always been hellbent on his own destruction. The other half is that Steve Rogers is beautiful like something made in a lab for aesthetics alone, carefully designed for universal appeal. Tony likes to tell himself he has a taste for the exclusive, but the reality has always been he wants exactly what everyone else does.
“You don’t want SHIELD to find you,” Tony says, “then stay here. Trust me, this is the last place they’d think to look.”
He’s not standing between Steve and the exit. He was careful about that. Whatever SHIELD might think about him, he doesn’t have a death wish. And also, when he’s thinking about it, he’s not usually deliberately an asshole. It’s just that, most of the time, he’s not thinking about it.
“Why should I trust you?” Steve asks.
Tony shrugs. Hell, he has no idea. “Why’d you come here? The first time. When SHIELD lost you, you came here. Why?”
“I went home,” Steve says, argumentative, all squared shoulders and tight jaw. “I went to Brooklyn. But it wasn’t there anymore. None of it was—I couldn’t find…”
He trails off, shakes his head, sharp and agitated, a horse bothered by a fly. It’s hard to look in his eyes. There’s something in them that Tony doesn’t want to see. It’s like watching a statue bleed.
“I heard there was still a Stark in New York,” Steve says. “I read about you. I thought maybe you’d--”
“You thought I’d be like Howard,” Tony finishes for him. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I thought you’d be like me,” Steve says, which doesn’t make any sense at all.
“You,” Tony says. And then, a little helplessly, “What?”
Steve looks away. He shrugs, looks back. “I saw the suit,” he says. “On the news. I saw what it can do. I didn’t think--- things have advanced a lot. I didn’t understand. I thought Howard had…”
Tony squints at him. “You thought Howard did a Rebirth redux and tested it on his kid?”
“I thought a lot of things,” Steve says, snappy. “It was a very confusing couple of days.”
Tony can imagine that it was. “So you thought I was Rebirthed, and you wanted--”
“I didn’t want anything,” Steve says, and there’s that flash of exposed nerve again, that look like a sinkhole in the backs of his eyes. “That’s not the point.”
Tony takes a sip of his whiskey. It settles, warm and sweet, into his stomach.
I didn’t want anything.
I shouldn’t be alive, unless it’s for a reason.
Tony holds the tumbler out. Steve needs the warmth more than he does. “Here,” he says.
Steve takes it, seemingly on reflex. “I can’t get drunk,” he says.
“Well,” Tony says, circling back toward the bar, “not with that attitude.”
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The Mettle Of A Man; Part Twenty
Fandom: Fallout (4)
Pairing: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor
Rating: Holy shit M.
AN: Welcome to the end of our tale, everyone! Thank you so much for reading and enjoying over the years. I love you so much and appreciate you more than words can say. Here's to 2021, my friends! Ad Victoriam, and stay safe! Tagging @anonymouscosmos, @culturalrebel, @wrestlingfae, @toxiicpop, @mercy-and-malice, @deepkittycollecto, @nelba, @mechanicalism, @commandershepardshtole, @valkyriejack and @kovu-the-mythical-being. Enjoy!
Part One: ArcJet
Part Two: The Prydwen
Part Three: Orders
Part Four: Finding Brandis
Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland
Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew
Part Seven: Radstag And Radstorm
Part Eight: The Return To Sanctuary Hills
Part Nine: Domestic Ruminations
Part Ten: Institutionalized
Part Eleven: Two Weeks, Three Days
Part Twelve: Haylen’s Warning And The Glowing Sea
Part Thirteen: Under Fire
Part Fourteen: Dichotomy
Part Fifteen: The Litany Trial
Part Sixteen: Nice Try
Part Seventeen: Preparations
Part Eighteen: Divide And Conquer
Part Nineteen: Lucky
[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains holiday celebrations, brief emotional distress and unprotected sex. Stay safe!]
Time seemed to pass both too fast and not fast enough.
Synths were accommodated, reprogrammed at their wishes or helped to adjust to their new lives. Doctor Amari and the rest of the Railroad had no shortage of work, and Desdemona eventually tapped MacCready and Cait to oversee their caravan logistics back to the Capital Wasteland.
"And the people of the Commonwealth slept soundly, for the greatest monster was gone." Nick had remarked, touching the brim of his fedora in a half-salute. The old detective quickly appointed himself as head of first impressions in Diamond City, making certain that no trouble befell any wayward synth that accidentally wandered in. There was still a lot of work to be done to repair the Broken Mask incident, after all.
New settlements sprang up overnight and while there may not have been total harmony, there was the sensation of the whole Commonwealth heaving a sigh of relief. Recruits flocked to the Minutemen and Brotherhood in droves as Piper's Publick Occurrences spread the word of their successful campaign against the Institute.
Commonwealth boogeyman decimated by combination effort: Brotherhood Of Steel and Minutemen join forces to save Boston from bodysnatchers!
Deacon had effortlessly deflected Piper every time she asked for an interview, the mysterious man more than content to keep the Railroad shadowy. The less everyone knew, the less they could tell, and that suited him just fine. "You did real good, Icebox. Helped a lot of people."
Elder Brandis sought approval to establish a permanent outpost at the Boston airport ruins, the former paladin keen to send the Prydwen back to the Capital Wasteland. "Oh the Prydwen's a fine ship, but put me in the field any day!" The airship, once a proud symbol of the Maxson reign, now served little purpose aside from blocking the sun on occasion. Scribes laughed and played in the massive shadow, kicking up dust until the circle where the litany trial had taken place was nothing but a memory.
X6-88 had floundered for several weeks, the courser falling into a depressive slump that not even Curie could rouse him from. Oddly enough, it was Preston who ended up being able to haul him out of the darkness, the lieutenant making a point to visit the courser to drag him from his room for target practice and other low-effort patrol duties. "Sometimes all folks need is a hand, General."
The courser went on to reluctantly take the role of defective defector, working as a consultant to the Minutemen to help ward off any future attacks by desperate coursers or Institute scientists. Preston found his input invaluable, and the duo could often be found in the lieutenant's quarters poring over threadbare maps and trading tactical information. Preston also seemed to have a calming effect on the synth hunter, helping to blunt some of the cold steel edge that X6 had honed his entire life. Add on to that the constant caring presence of Curie, and they made a strange but surprisingly effective trio.
With the new supply line firmly established between the verdant utopia of Starlight Drive-In and Oberland Station, the strain of the prior lean months finally eased a bit. Faces grew less pinched even with the increased burden of the synths, and many settlers began to tentatively plan for a small celebration in the beginning of the winter.
"'The Holidays' is what they been callin' it, real simple and succinct. Some freaky hodgepodge of everyone's traditions. I guess a lot of folks on that fancy director's board also celebrated around this time of year. Not that the synths would know, naturally." Hancock had muttered, his expression sour. "Poor bastards always workin', and they ain't got fuckall to show for it. Seems like a shit deal."
Elder Brandis granted Danse an extended leave of absence after the toppling of the Institute without the paladin even requesting it, the large man dumbfounded for a moment upon receiving the news.
"If you're up for it, I could use a hand back at Sanctuary." Vega had grinned up at him, her eyes squinting a little under the force of her smile. "A lot of prep work goes into a holiday, after all."
...
Danse had taken it upon himself to retreat from Shaun's previous bedroom when he accompanied Vega and her son back to Sanctuary. He debated heavily on returning to the airport; after all, there was no real reason for him to stay in Sanctuary Hills, at least none that he dared to dwell upon. The few small projects that Vega had to manage were easily accomplished and he was left a bit lost in the wake of the excess of his leave.
Vega, however, had begun framing in what was once the carpark for her house. Sturges helped of course, and once Danse caught on he was touched by the gesture.
"I don't want you to feel like there isn't room for you just because Shaun is back." Elizabeth had said, lugging a chunk of scrap metal from the wreckage of her car.
The paladin had to take a moment, claiming sawdust in his eye as the culprit.
Now Danse lived in the area she had partitioned off for him, uncertain if he still believed he was intruding. Those thoughts were troubling, because if he could get comfortable…
What if Vega eventually decided that Shaun needed a father and what if...what if she chose a real man? Really real, not a sham like Danse was. And if she did, what man would permit Danse to stay? What real man would permit a synth that was currently entangled by these...human emotions to remain on their property, even if Danse proved he wasn't a threat?
What man would believe him if he claimed to have no interest in Vega? Hell, Danse didn't even believe himself.
But he didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay. He wanted to tell Elizabeth...well, there were a lot of things he wanted to tell her.
His silence was more of a burden each day, and Danse knew he must seem sullen. It gnawed at him; it felt like lying every time he choked the words back down because it wasn't the right time or he just didn't know what to say, and he didn't trust himself not to say something foolish.
He decided he would wait until after the holiday gathering. Whatever the verdict was, it shouldn't take away from the joy she was clearly feeling over the festivities. So Danse threw himself into helping Sturges, Mama Murphy and the Longs around Sanctuary.
Secretly making a toy truck for Shaun had been a painstaking process fraught with peril. Mainly because Danse was somewhat indelicate and carving tiny wheels had never been his area of expertise. Oh certainly, he could build a survival camp with nothing but a combat knife and time, but a toy...
The paladin had spent countless hours creating prototypes in his cobbled-together room as he pondered the path he should take, sometimes working into the wan light of the morning. He eventually showed the truck to Jun, immensely fearful that Shaun might not enjoy the toy. Danse couldn't recall his own interests when he had been Shaun's age, and thus fell back on the other man's expertise.
"It looks good! Sand the wheels a little more, maybe give it a coat or two of paint." Jun praised the pensive paladin, turning the vehicle over in his hands to examine it. "Kyle loved these kinds of things y'know, trucks and trains and little toy boats." His gaze grew distant for a moment, the rough plaything stilling in his grasp. "Marcy thinks she's pregnant." He said abruptly.
"Pregnant?" Danse repeated without meaning to, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.
Jun nodded jerkily. "It's been three months now. She's scared, Mr. Danse, real scared. Thinks something bad will happen."
"What can we do?" The paladin asked sharply.
Jun gawked up at him, seeming confused. "We?"
"I am unfamiliar with this process. What needs to be done?"
"I...I don't follow, Mr. Danse."
"To simplify the duration! What precautions can I-"
"Whoa, hang on." Jun protested. "We aren't sure if the general will even let us stay here with an extra mouth to feed. I've been trying to figure out how to bring up the subject." He admitted.
"You haven't even told General Vega yet?!" Danse squawked.
"W-Well, no! I figured maybe we would...we'd see how the winter went and play it by ear." Jun mumbled, seeming defensive.
Danse seized the other man's arm, heedless of his protests as he hauled him across the front lawn to Vega's abode. Today was the day that Vega had planned to sort through decorations; there were many left over from the fall holiday the Commonwealth had been preparing to celebrate before...well, time had stopped for most when the bombs fell, it was understandable that faded pumpkins and skeletons would still grace crumbling walls with their orangey-cream presence.
Vega looked up from the veritable pile of brittle, salvaged decor in confusion when Danse barged into their...her home, the paladin immediately halting and offering a sharp salute. "Danse! I...uh, what's wrong?"
"Mr. Long has something he needs to discuss with you immediately." Danse informed her, tugging the other man forward.
"I-I...er, General, you…" Jun struggled to speak, twiddling his fingers wildly. "M-Marcy--"
"What's wrong, Jun? Is she okay?" Vega asked, getting to her feet and shooting Danse a worried look. "Did something happen?"
"B-Baby." Jun squeaked. "Pregnant."Backhand went still, her freckles stark against the fresh pallor of her face. "I'm sorry, General, I know we haven't discussed it beforehand a-and I know food's been better as of late...I-I guess she got enough nutrients and got healthy enough for...er, well, you know." Mr. Long looked like he wanted to disappear into the ground. "We should have spoke to you sooner; I don't know if she can leave with the weather being--"
"Wh-Where are you going? Why leave, what?" Vega stammered, "Jun, you can't travel now, if something goes wrong-!"
"We weren't sure if you'd let us stay!" The thin man interrupted her frantically. "This is your base, after all, and you didn't sign on for an extra person to worry about."
Vega inhaled deeply. "Danse, could you give me a minute with Mr. Long?" She requested, her voice suspiciously even.
Danse obeyed, closing the front door gently and meandering a pointed distance down the main thoroughfare so as not to eavesdrop. He had a relatively good idea of how the conversation would go, despite Jun's misgivings. So he wandered down to the huge tree at the end of the cul-de-sac, fiddling with the truck in his pocket absently as he stared upwards at the barren branches.
"Y'know kid," Mama Murphy piped up from her customary chair on her porch and the paladin turned to face her, giving the elderly woman his full attention. "When I had the Sight, I saw this place. Sanctuary." She nodded in the direction of the river, then gestured upwards. "The bridge, and this tree. Massive and old, worn out from all those years." She cocked her head, giving Danse an appraising look. "The tree though, it was...covered in lights. Like what you see in the pre-war mags. The Holidays, shinin' like a beacon of hope at the end of the tunnel."
Danse hummed, the vaguest beginnings of an idea taking root in his mind. He couldn't bring Vega's old life back, but maybe...maybe he could bring something from it back to her. Like what you see in the pre-war mags.
"I think you're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down, kid." Mama Murphy's smile was knowing, the old woman reaching over to pet Dogmeat. The dog seemed to materialize out of thin air sometimes! "Now get to it."
...
Backhand was already scurrying around the kitchen when Danse rose on the morning of the Holiday celebration, the paladin pausing only momentarily to yawn in the doorway before sleepily offering his assistance. "Is there something I can help with, Vega?"
"Uh, Sturges, he said something about you and stuff from Goodneighbor, I think?" Elizabeth replied, obviously preoccupied with whatever she had in the semi-functional oven. Danse nodded, trudging across the kitchen to tug on his boots by the door.
Shaun bounded out of the bathroom, his face still damp from his morning wash. "Oh, can I help too? Please Mom, let me help Mister Danse and Mister Sturges!" He begged.
"You'd better stay right where Danse and Sturges can see you." Backhand instructed him sternly, one oven-mitted hand gesturing to indicate the gravity of the situation. "Otherwise you're coming straight back inside. Go put on your warm coat."
Shaun cheered in delight, racing back to his room.
"It's okay that he's with you two, right? I know he's not your responsibility." Backhand continued in an undertone to the paladin.
Danse's throat tightened and it took him a moment to respond, "I don't mind at all. He's a very well-behaved child."
"Let me know if he's an issue and I'll bring him back inside. I just need to get this done and the oven is being all-"
Danse stood up and placed his hands on her shoulders, deliberately schooling his expression into something more stern. "General, you're doing a fine job. Stop worrying."
"Am I? Shit, I really hope so." Elizabeth mumbled, tipping her forehead until it rested against his chest. Danse prayed she couldn't hear his heart, hammering merely from her proximity. God, his body was nothing but an embarrassment waiting to happen. "I've never really done this crap. Not sure if I'm cut out for it."
The momentary respite was broken when Shaun reappeared in his oversized flannel and oilcloth jacket, the child bolting past the two adults to put on his boots. Danse reluctantly released Backhand, noting how flushed her face was but not really daring to dwell on it. "I'll...I'll watch him." The paladin said, his voice a bit stilted. "I promise."
"Thank you." Backhand mumbled, wiping her eyes and then returning to coddle…whatever it was in the oven.
"Ready, Shaun?" Danse asked the boy, who nodded rapidly and extended a hand.
The snow outside was still fresh from the night before and Danse took a moment to appreciate the view of the Commonwealth covered in a thin layer of white. Off in the distance, the towering crimson insignia of the Red Rocket gasoline station stood stark against the backdrop of the gray sky. Even further down the road slumbered the empty shell of Concord, the tallest of the town's dilapidated buildings only just visible from the paladin's position.
Shaun tugged at his hand, pulling his attention back to the present. "Mister Danse, Mister Sturges is waiting for us!" The child announced, waving up at the engineer who was currently settled into a crook of the brittle branches that graced the tree on the cul-de-sac island. "Hi Mister Sturges!"
"Howdy fellas! Come to give me a helpin' hand?" Sturges called, grinning down at the two of them.
"What assistance can we offer?" Danse queried, wary that the other man might suggest Shaun climb up to him. His fears were quickly allayed when Sturges instead asked Shaun and Danse to begin untangling the long strands of old lights.
Hancock and his ilk had arrived from Goodneighbor, bearing the gifts of dubious treats and many, many mangled strings of lights. Goodneighbor had always been drenched in neon, after all, so Danse had assumed the ghoul mayor would be the best person to call upon for aid. It would appear that Hancock had delivered in spectacular fashion.
"With your help, we'll have this place lookin' pretty as a picture in no time!"
…
Maybe she had bitten off slightly more than she could chew, trying to cook a traditional dinner. Backhand sighed, glumly poking at the cold poultry with a wooden spoon. Her cooking skills had never been much to write home about in the first place, and this only served to solidify that fact.
"Oh Mum, I'm so sorry. The old oven just isn't how it used to be." Codsworth commented, his mechanical voice tinged with melancholy.
"It's not a big deal, Codsworth. I hate to waste the food, that's all." Backhand muttered, assuring herself that she wasn't fighting back frustrated tears, her eyes were just tired. "Damn thing didn't even get to the warm phase."
"Mum, if I might suggest…?" The robot started hesitantly, carrying on when she nodded. "Perhaps it can be salvaged. After all, we make bread in that same pan by tucking it beneath the hot coals out front. What do you say, shall we give it a go?"
"Got nothing to lose, right?"
"It will be just fine, Mum! You're an adaptive sort." Codsworth remarked, drifting out the front door to stoke the usual cooking fire to life once more. "Indeed, just fine!" He called.
Vega shook her head ruefully. "Oh I'm sure." The woman grumbled. "Can't cook and comes with baggage. What a catch ol' Vega is." At least the bread had come out well, in spite of the brisk weather. She could thank whoever for that small favor.
Once Codsworth had coaxed the embers to life in the fire pit, Elizabeth bundled up and brought the still-cold cast-iron pot outside. Maybe it had been wishful thinking to believe that the oven portion of her stove would still work. Or even heat at all. It had been promising earlier in the week, but this might be a blessing in disguise. If the whole house had gone up due to a cooking malfunction...well, the holidays wouldn't be too happy then, would they?
"Please cook." She begged under her breath, troweling hot coals onto the battered dutch oven lid. "I need this, y'know? Just a little victory, that's all I'm asking for here."
"Shall I get started on the tatoes, Miss Vega?"
Elizabeth nodded, only half-listening to Codsworth. She knew she would have a good forty five minutes to an hour to wait, and it wasn't as if it was colder outside than it was inside. The joys of semi-functional heating!
Vega shook her head at herself after a second, since when did she dwell on everything that Sanctuary wasn't? At the end of the day, it was her home. She wouldn't trade it for the world, and she knew she had much more than most people.
At that thought, her gaze wandered to where Danse and Shaun were. The larger man had Shaun on his shoulders while he patiently unwound a massive bundle of flickering string lights. Shaun, for his part, was passing the untangled lights up to Sturges. The engineer slid down the ladder so he could reach the child, looping the lights over his arm before climbing back up and painstakingly placing them in the gnarled grasp of the tree's limbs.
The manufactured cheer that the lights had given off pre-war was still somewhat there, though the radiant colors were washed out to pastel and the warm whites had gone dingy gray. Instead of it being a melancholy reminder that her life had changed irreparably, Backhand was overcome with gratitude. For her son's safe return, regardless of his synthetic makeup, and for the man who was currently carrying Shaun on his shoulders. For her home, for her family.
A family.
Perhaps she was getting a little ahead of herself. After all, Danse was still adjusting to life in ordinary time. It would be selfish of her to voice her feelings to him while he was coming to terms with everything that had happened. For better or for worse, their lives were different now.
It ought to be enough that he was in her life at all. She should be content. His presence alone was a miracle; for all intents and purposes he should be dead. Yet there he was, mere feet away, helping to brighten up the holiday celebration.
Tonight there would be a multitude of visitors. God only knew how many would arrive from settlements near and far, to say nothing of Goodneighbor, Diamond City, the Prydwen and the Castle! It would be an incredibly busy evening for certain. Hancock had arrived early with a posse of ragtag drifters from Goodneighbor, all of them offering gifts of food or scavenged ornaments to decorate. Hence the massive mound of lights that was currently being diligently sorted through.
The aforementioned ghoul appeared to have delegated the task of quality checking the lights, as his form currently leaned against the faded blue siding of her house. With cigarette smoke wafting from his mouth and nasal cavity in equal amounts, he seemed content to just watch the chaos unfold.
"Aren't you a little chilly?" Backhand queried, raising an eyebrow. The mayor was still clad in his usual garb of...for lack of a better term, repurposed period dress. Granted it wasn't seasonably cold out, at least not like how she remembered it being before the bombs dropped.
"Nah, we ghouls run pretty warm. Ham's like a portable space heater." Hancock answered, giving her a lazy grin. "Cute of you to worry, though. I must be growin' on ya'."
"Whoa there, let's not get too crazy."
"Whatcha' think, General?" Sturges shouted from his perch, waving to get her attention.
Danse turned in place, appearing to realize that she was watching as his hands flew up and grabbed Shaun's legs, stabilizing the small boy on his shoulders.
Backhand couldn't keep from smiling when she called back, "it looks wonderful! Keep up the great work!"
"That ain't the only thing that looks wonderful, right Sunshine?" Hancock snickered, rolling his eyes at the now-sputtering woman. "You better give the Brave Little Toaster the ride of his life, that's all I gotta' say."
"Hancock!" Vega hissed, making a half-hearted swipe at the mayor. "You fuckin'--"
"Ah ah, little pitchers!" Hancock scolded, tilting his head to the side to draw Vega's attention to the rapidly-approaching form of Duncan, MacCready's son. "Gotta' watch that mouth of yours, Sunshine."
"This ain't over, ya' raisin-lookin' bastard." Backhand snarled under her breath, pasting on a friendly smile for Duncan while Hancock wheezed with laughter. "Hey bud, how's things?" She greeted the child, who grimaced.
"Dad's kissin' Miss Cait again. S'gross." The little boy announced, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
"That does sound pretty gross." Hancock piped up before Backhand could reply. "But you like seein' your old man happy, right? The lady makes him happy. Simple as that."
"Yeah, I guess. Can I play with Shaun?" Duncan asked Vega, eyes wide as he seemed to take in the tree covered with lights.
"Go ahead, kiddo! Just be careful and stay away from Sturges' ladder." Elizabeth warned, grinning when the little boy took off with a whoop.
Cait and MacCready strode up after a moment, both of them red-faced. MacCready bent double, his hands on his knees. "I'm not built for these bullsh--awful conditions." He panted. "I don't know how the kid does it. He was nearly dead a few months ago and now he's out here kicking the snow in the a--er, butt."
Backhand glanced around, and then snorted. "You call this snow? It's a dusting. Back before-"
"Ah ah, easy now Mumsicle, we ain't got time for yer trip down memory lane." Cait teased. "Work to be done, aye? C'mon then, General, shape up. What you doin' on the ground anyway, all crouched like a mother hen broodin'?"
"I'm cooking." Vega replied tersely.
"Oh aye? Looks like yer shirkin' t' me, love. Codsy can manage that mess, c'mon." Cait seized her elbow, levering her up out of the snowy grass. "Now, what needs doin'?"
...
The day was a whirlwind of arrivals, preparations and well wishers. Elder Brandis even stopped by briefly, taking precious time away from his all-consuming duties to distribute some useful supplies and catch up on the gossip.
The Diamond City trio graced Sanctuary with their presence shortly before noon, Nat scurrying off to play with Duncan and Shaun while Piper made a beeline for Hancock's merry band. Nick was more keen to meander around the outskirts of the groups forming, amber eyes taking in his surroundings.
Preston appeared midafternoon with X6, Curie and the entire O'Brian clan in tow, later than expected but apparently they had stopped to help out a settlement along the way.
The cul-de-sac soon rang with the laughter of the rambunctious children; even little Siusan was permitted to briefly toddle about in the trampled snow under the watchful gaze of Eamon. The weather was chilly but the sun had broken through the clouds throughout the day, sending momentary waves of brilliance across the Commonwealth.
Every table and chair that could be salvaged had been assembled on the old foundation at the end of the cul-de-sac, and it was there that the adults began to gather as the sun set. Metal drums loaded with wood were lit, providing heat and illumination to the many guests of the Commonwealth's first official potluck dinner.
"Or rather," Piper amended, clearing her throat with a touch of self-importance as she tapped her notepad, "the first documented official potluck dinner."
The large tree twinkled and shone in the fast-approaching darkness, the occasional flicker or broken bulb doing little to diminish the cheer it provided. The food was distributed, Backhand's roast chicken disappearing without a hitch. The young woman couldn't help doing a mental dance of victory, delighted that Codsworth's quick thinking had saved that particular endeavor.
Vega found a place to sit somewhere in the middle of one of the many long tables, red from the praise of her companions and the persistent chill in the air. She got even redder when Preston loudly proclaimed a toast, to the General!, her lieutenant tipping his bottle and everyone else following suit.
"I remember when I first met the general, she was half-dead on her feet." Preston began the story, his smile fond. "Sturges couldn't even believe our luck. Hell, none of us could. When freedom called, our general answered!"
Backhand, who had lived the story and knew all the ins and outs, found her attention wandering to Danse while Preston regaled the crowd with his tale. The paladin seemed to be listening closely, his meal forgotten. Deacon even began to thieve bits of chicken and tato out from beneath his nose, the Railroad agent shooting Vega a sly wink over his sunglasses.
Backhand shook her head at the other man's antics, then focused her attention on Preston. "...'Lurk queen, a huge, mean seabug, taken out by landmines! The Castle was ours once again, and we all had General Vega to thank for it." The lieutenant stated firmly. "The one who can get things done in the Commonwealth, the one who gave folks hope when it was in mighty short supply. We uh, we owe you a lot, ma'am." He raised his bottle once more. "To General Vega, leader of the Minutemen!"
"To Elizabeth!" Hancock yelled, echoed by half the damn populace as Vega tried to wave it off, the young woman laughing awkwardly. "To our Sunshine, the hero of the Commonwealth!"
"Synth savior, a regular knight in shining armor." Deacon teased.
"Well done, General Vega." Danse said warmly, "I can't know for certain whether the Brotherhood itself would be proud, but I certainly am." His praise for whatever reason made Vega's blush feel like it would scorch her skin.
Oh she knew damn well why, she was just being willfully oblivious at this point.
"Speech! Speech! Is that not zee norm for zis sort of occasion?" Curie called, the diminutive synth currently sharing X6-88's coat as well as his plate of food. X6 didn't seem to have any reservations about the matter, his arm slung around her shoulders without a care in the world.
Much to Vega's chagrin, the majority appeared to be in favor of such a vocal endeavor. She attempted to laugh off the suggestion to no avail, and finally got to her feet. "Alright, alright, settle down. I'll say a few words if it'll get you all off my damn back." She grumbled, her body thoroughly warm now with a combination of embarrassment and gratitude. "I uh…"
Vega trailed off as she looked out over the ragtag gang of expectant faces staring back at her. So many friends and neighbors, finally getting the chance to breathe. The chance to celebrate the fruits of their labor...it was sobering.
"I can't thank you all enough for...well, for everything that you've done. You all sacrificed so much for this peace, stuff I could never imagine doing even before the bombs dropped." She cleared her throat. "My mentor, Sergeant Shaun Cathan, was a great man, and he often had some very succinct or choice words which I'm not about to repeat in polite company."
"Aw c'mon-!" Zeke began to protest loudly, his voice fading as he noticed the small gaggle of children still gawking at his power armor.
Backhand continued, her jaw set firmly, "but one thing I can say that he told me is this: a leader who permits their pride to impede their decisions is doomed to failure. Pride built the Institute, and that same pride rotted it to the core. Pride built the Brotherhood of Steel, the Minutemen, and we've seen the both of them nearly toppled." Vega clenched her fist. "Pride brought nuclear fire down on Boston, but people hauled themselves outta' the ashes of that fire. Good people, tough people. Folks I knew. Folks I cared for, even if some of 'em did spend a little too much time on the Cape. If pride can do so much effin' harm, I expect simple compassion and decency to do just as much good. Hell, more than that. Humanity's built itself back up after the cluster that was armageddon, and we ain't through yet."
She tipped the jar she had been drinking out of towards the crowd, sternly studying the collection of scavengers, families both new and familiar.
...
"So here's to you, my friends. To all that you've done, and to all that you will do."
Vega's salute was rigid, pre-war. Like her helmet on the table beside her, scraped and covered in faded sigils. The mixture of candlelight and the lights on the tree reflected off the worn lenses of her glasses, shielding her eyes from view. Danse wished desperately that he could see her eyes; more than anything he wished to stand up and flat-out state what she had done for him to every soul there, display his...admiration.
Was that even the right word? Admiration, adoration, affection--
His face was strangely warm all of a sudden. Danse flinched, staring down at his mug of coffee with single-minded intent as the buzz of conversation around him picked back up. His mind raced, pieces falling into place in a nigh-unstoppable rush.
Affection. Like...what he had felt for Cutler? Almost. A little to the left of that. Brighter.
Happier.
Not perfect, nothing could ever be perfect. But...
"Elizabeth Vega?" A male ghoul's voice barely penetrated the paladin's consciousness, his words not really registering until, "Beth, it really is you!" The ghoul exclaimed. "I thought I was crazy! It's me, Beth. It's Nate."
"...Nate?"
Danse's head whipped up so fast his neck popped in warning, the paladin having been only tangentially aware of the conversation happening mere feet away from his position. But at that particular nickname his entire being snapped to attention, eyes darting sidelong from where he had been intently studying his mug of coffee.
The ghoul man that Vega was currently speaking to was an inch or two taller than her, with a single tuft of dark hair that still remained over his left ear. He appeared absolutely delighted, but Vega seemed...wary.
"Beth," Danse heard him say once more, and he watched Backhand visibly tense. "I never thought I would see you again! After the bombs dropped--I mean how the hell did...is that Shaun? God, he got so big!"
"Nate, is there something I can do for you?"
Nate.
Danse's breath caught in his throat and his mouth went dry. Nate? Nate her ex-husband from before the war? Nate, the man who had divorced her once he found out she was pregnant with his child?
Somehow he had managed to survive?
Oh, what an incredibly bitter thing to think! Danse was somewhat startled by his own dark path of reasoning. But it wasn't untrue; his mind railed at the unfairness of it all.
The paladin stood up, his mug of coffee forgotten. He wasn't exactly certain what he was about to do, but he also wasn't going to do nothing. He cast around wildly for a plan as he approached Elizabeth from behind around the table, and Danse latched onto what was probably the least intelligent course of action that he could have conjured up.
"Elizabeth," the paladin called, loud enough to be heard over the general hubbub. She turned and Danse briefly spied a look of intense relief on her face before he enveloped her in his arms. "You appeared cold, figured I could warm you up a bit." He reasoned aloud, smiling benignly over her head at Nate. "Who's this?"
Vega began to introduce him even with her face still comically buried in Danse's chest, "Nate, I'd like you to meet-"
"Paladin Logan Danse, Northeastern chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel." Danse interrupted her smoothly, extending a hand to Nate. "I've heard a great deal about you, Nate. It's a privilege to meet you, and a welcome surprise to see that you endured the radiation."
"Uh, is it? Well I-I guess it is." Nate looked flummoxed and crestfallen all at once, glumly shaking Danse's hand. "I suppose you two are, er..."
"Vega is my partner, yes. For over a year now." Danse replied once the other man had trailed off, his tone saccharine-sweet. He heard Vega gasp against his chest. "She is a truly incredible woman. I'm immensely lucky."
"Yeah, I...yeah. Uh, I have to go...talk to--I'll see you later, Beth." Nate squeaked, sidestepping away from the two of them and making a beeline for the road.
"I can't even believe it." Backhand's voice grated with tangible irritation. "I cannot even fuckin' fathom--I...dammit, why him?!" She seethed into Danse's jacket, clenching her fists on his hips. "Phew, boy, I sort of thought I'd already dealt with all that resentment." The woman admitted unhappily.
"You do things in your own time." Danse replied quietly. "Are you alright?"
Vega went still for a second. Danse felt her unclench her fists, hands going slack on his body. Had he misspoken-?
"In my own time, huh?" Vega muttered, almost like she was thinking out loud. "I...I'll be back in a little while, Danse."
…
I'm not panicking. Definitely not panicking. One hundred percent not panicking, totally fine.
Backhand scurried away from the paladin, trying to hide the tell-tale redness of her face. She needed to find either Mrs. O'Brian or MacCready, fast.
As luck would have it, MacCready found her. The former merc tapped on her shoulder as she bounced up on her tiptoes to search for Mrs. O'Brian. "Hey boss, Shaun wanted me to ask you if he could sleep over with Duncan tonight." The man began after she whirled around to face him.
"Yes." Vega replied, perhaps a little too quick and definitely too enthusiastic. "Mac you're a lifesaver, I was just about to ask-"
"-for me and Cait to watch your kid so you and the tin can can get some alone time?" MacCready smirked, giving her a wink. "Dang General, I don't think I've ever seen you so red! Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."
"Shut up, Mac, you're so exasperating." Backhand jabbed a teasing finger into the center of his chest. "You talk, Mayor, and I'll know." The threat was toothless; the both of them grinned at each other after their fierce staring contest. "Thanks for everything."
"Don't mention it. I figure getting you some Brotherhood...uh, Steel, heh, is a pretty decent way to make up for the fact that I didn't bring you a present." Mac shrugged, fiddling with the bill of his hat. "I have beef with the Capital Brotherhood, but these guys...I mean, they don't seem all bad." He allowed grudgingly, giving Vega a gentle nudge with his shoulder. "Go on."
A bracing shot of whiskey shored up her tenuous spark of confidence and Vega marched back to Danse, the large man now engaged in conversation with X6 while Shaun, Duncan, Bridget, Nat and Matthew swirled around their ankles.
Danse was saying, "--collateral ramifications would be inadvisable, I suggest a soft breach. With adequate preparation-"
"Adequate preparation on your part borders on over-caution." X6 interrupted him dismissively. "However, I will take it into account and speak with Preston on the matter. He seems to share your morality. A pity."
"Play at the unfeeling machine all you want, X6." Danse retorted. "It does you no favors. You have people who care about you now, and you would not have asked for my input if you believed the endeavour would be futile."
"True enough, Paladin." The vaguest hint of a smile tugged at X6's mouth. "You are capable."
"I suppose that is the best that I can hope for."
"Hey, Danse? Can I uh, have a little chat?" Backhand asked, stifling a hysterical giggle when Danse immediately looked guilty. The paladin nodded, bidding X6 farewell and attempting to sidestep around the children who were currently playing tag in an ever-tightening circle. "Not um, here though. Let's go to my house, okay? Shaun, you're all set to stay overnight with Duncan, Mac and Cait, right?"
"Yeah!" Shaun replied breathlessly, pausing in his chase to give his mother a massive grin. "Already brought my blankets over and everything. Mister MacCready said Duncan and I could sleep in their wagon, and that he'd tell us Grognak stories!"
Danse's brow furrowed. "We are leaving the gathering, then?" He asked, looking a bit distressed when Elizabeth nodded. "A moment, please." He turned back to the children, calling for Shaun.
The boy bolted away from the group, skidding in the muddy slush. "Yeah, Mister Danse?" He asked, his impatience plain.
"I, er. I...happy holidays." The paladin mumbled, extracting a small bundle from his jacket pocket and giving it to the child.
"Whoa, for me?!" Shaun practically crowed, tearing through the old newspaper to reveal the gift.
It was a sturdy carved vehicle, its edges sleek and smooth. The wood was coated in shiny green paint, giving the little truck a distinct air of newness in this post-apocalyptic world. Danse swallowed audibly as Shaun stared down at the toy without saying a word.
Backhand closed her eyes, hoping and praying that the kid remembered his manners. She hadn't even known Danse had planned on giving him something. Did he make the truck himself? It was wood, not the usual plastic or aluminum of pre-war children's toys. When had he found the time to make a toy? She suddenly remembered his uncharacteristically wide yawn that morning and her eyes flew open, darting to look at Danse. He had been staying up, hadn't he?
"I love it, Mister Danse!" Shaun interrupted her mental panic with his enthusiastic eruption, smiling wide and bolting forward to hug Danse around the waist. Danse's own relief was evident, the large man patting the child on the back with an awkward chuckle.
Oh Jesus, I'm not going to cry, Vega insisted, taking a deep breath. Nope, won't do it.
"Mom look, look what Mister Danse gave me!" Shaun exclaimed, as if she hadn't been standing right there the whole time.
"It's really cool, right?" Backhand grinned, rumpling his hair and then giving him a kiss on the forehead. "Make sure you wash your face and brush your teeth before bed, okay? I hope you and Duncan have fun. I love you."
"I love you too, Mom, I will. Thank you again, Mister Danse!" Shaun rushed to say, clearly eager to return to his friends.
"Alright, go on." Vega tapped the end of his nose, "go have fun." She watched him scramble through the slush, nearly tripping again. "Jesus, he's a bull in a china shop," she sighed, making Danse snort. "Shall we, Paladin?"
He fell into step beside her, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket and his back ramrod straight. He was silent until they were actually in Elizabeth's living room, the young woman barely able to shut the front door before he started babbling, "if I offended you earlier, if I-I overstepped my bounds, I apologize. I just recalled what you had said about the name he used for you and I'm afraid I started moving before I could reconsider-"
"Danse, do you remember how we started all of this?" Vega cut off what promised to be a downright incredible justification, cocking her head to the side. "How we met, and what happened?"
"You came to our aid at the Cambridge police station. Then you carried on assisting me with our mission. You helped acquire the deep range transmitter. You greased my armor." Danse paused, fidgeting. "You...said it was alright if I wanted to kiss you."
“It’s alright if you want to kiss me, you know.” Her smile was gentle. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Vega nodded, smiling once more. "The offer still stands, naturally."
"I...things are different now. I'm different. You still...even now, after everything that you know about me?"
"Of course."
"I didn't want to believe you felt that strongly about our...about us." Danse was smiling, actually smiling! "I'd given up hope a long time ago that I would ever be enough for anyone. I was never...enough. Smart enough, or strong enough or...well, just enough, I suppose." He shrugged, his smile fading. "With what happened between Maxson and I, and previously with Cutler…" The large man trailed off.
Vega took a deep breath, nodding furiously. "I do feel strongly for you. Danse, I know that this is a lot, b-but I...uh, I think I love you." She gestured up and down at the speechless paladin, feeling the heat that bloomed fresh on her cheeks. "Not just the wrapping, y'know, but uh. The whole package. You."
His look of shock and confusion slowly dissolved into something unreadable, and he broke eye contact for a moment to stare down at his boots.
"Uh, it's okay if you don't reciprocate! O-Or even if you can't reciprocate, I'm not going to be offended!" Elizabeth rushed to add, waving her hands nervously. "I know that this is a lot to dump on you all at once, I-I'm sorry. I don't want you feeling pressured to give me an affirmative answer just because you don't want to hurt my feelings or whatever."
"I...I can't say that I haven't thought about it." He admitted softly. "But Shaun, he needs--Vega, I'm not really human."
"Neither is Shaun, but I don't love him any less." Elizabeth replied. "Shaun is my son. For all intents and purposes, he is my real son, Danse."
"It's one thing to overlook it for a child, Vega. But I'm...what if something goes wrong with me? What if there's some sort of fault in my programming, and that's why I'm like this? What if-"
"It's alright if you don't want me, or even if this is too much right now. I know, it's a lot." Vega interrupted him, her heart sinking but determined to make damn sure he didn't feel pressured.
"Christ, that's not what I meant. I just want to make certain you know exactly what it is that you're agreeing to." Danse cut her off, his shoulders rigid like he was bracing for impact.
"I understand, Danse. I've understood for a while now." Elizabeth dared to rest her hand on his arm. "I want to be with you. I know that nothing in this shitshow of a future is guaranteed and I want to have something good in my life before my inevitable demise at the hands of some overconfident mole rat."
Danse nodded stiffly, and then grabbed her by the lapels of her canvas coat. Vega found herself abruptly pinned against the wall, Danse's mouth hungrily seeking her own. "You mean that?" He panted.
The brush of the stubble on his face reminded her of their first kiss in the Cambridge station and drove home the differences between he and Nate for the hundredth time. Nate was always clean-shaven, favored pecks on the cheek and lived saturated with cologne. But Danse was grizzled, earnest, reeking of the outdoors and power armor grease. Nate had been eloquent, while Danse was taciturn or tripped over his words. Nate was cold and calculating, and Danse…
Danse was fiery and raw, more vulnerable now than she could ever recall him being before. His knee nudged against her thigh and without conscious input, Elizabeth parted her legs for it and threw her arms around his neck to try to urge him even closer. "Yes, Danse," she gasped. "Oh, Jesus, yes, fuck-ing shit--"
She ground herself down against his leg, relieved that everything seemed to be functioning normally and somewhat impressed by her body's ability to mount such a rapid response after a two hundred-plus year dry spell!
"Language," Danse rumbled in reply, his hands tugging her heavy coat off of her shoulders. "Too fast?"
"No, hell no!" Backhand protested, "not fast enough."
"Shh," Danse rested his hands on her hips, shoving up her shirt slightly so he could touch bare skin. "I have you, Vega." Vega pushed herself excitedly into his grip, grinding on his thigh and arching her back. The way his breath hitched sent shockwaves to her core; the way he watched her...
"Danse we should...we should-" Vega's voice wavered as Danse laved her throat with tender kisses. "-should--bedroom, bed."
"Yes." The paladin growled, making no move to actually follow the direction. That is, until he hoisted her up to rest on his hips.
Backhand yelped, her thighs gripping his sides tightly. "H-Hey!"
Danse pressed his forehead to her own, brown eyes attempting to read her soul. "Elizabeth…" he sighed, his expression gone hopelessly soft. "I should warn you, if we...if you do this, I...listen, I can be a little--a little wordy, sometimes. If I am speaking too much-"
"Hey, no, you talk as much as you'd like, okay? Doesn't bug me at all." Vega assured him, slightly curious about what this might mean. Wordy?
"Elizabeth, you are everything that I never knew I was looking for." Danse murmured. "When I lost Cutler, I didn't think I deserved to be happy again. I assumed that my failure would continue to darken any future triumph, and when the majority of Gladius was...I feared that I was unfit for my rank. How could anyone have faith in my skills after such a catastrophic loss of life?"
"It's hard being the one making the choices. You have to be able to bear the burden of responsibility and also the burden of guilt." Vega reasoned, sympathizing with his plight.
"You had faith in me, though. You didn't even know me, but you didn't judge me for my inadequacy and you allowed me some damn peace. I'm just sorry you had to go through that abuse at Maxson's whim for my sake." Danse cupped her hand in his own, pressing kisses to her scarred knuckles. "You've already done so much for me, Vega. Let me undo you?" He offered seriously, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Well, I uh, I-I can't say I've ever been propositioned quite like that!" Backhand stuttered, certain that her flush covered her entire body at this point.
His laughter, heard so rarely, washed over her like a tidal wave. "Forgive me."
"Only if you keep asking me to have sex like that." Vega shifted her hand in his grip, intertwining their fingers. "C'mon, bedroom."
"It's not just that." Danse tried to protest, shaking his head. "I care about you. About your wellbeing. I want to make you happy."
"You do. So happy. I'm so glad that you're here with me still." Vega turned in the doorway of her room when he set her down, seizing Danse by the collar of his worn t-shirt and tugging him into her arms. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Danse."
"You don't know how much it means to me to hear you say that."
"It's the truth, though!" She insisted.
Danse surged forward, his kisses still rough and demanding as he fought to claim her affection. But she gave it freely, all he could ever want and more.
He stripped her of her shirt and dragged his own off over his head, chuckling at the way she greedily drank in the bare skin he presented. "See something you like, General?"
He was hairier than she was used to, but Backhand decided it suited him. Nate, after all, had been absolutely adamant that body hair was grotesque, and now look at him. He'd likely never have to worry about that again.
Thinking of Nate yet again put a frown on her face and Danse paused, giving her a quizzical look. "Is something amiss?"
"Oh! No, I'm sorry. I was just remembering. Nate was all…" Elizabeth gestured vaguely at Danse's chest. "He shaved everything. I'm not used to all...well, seeing so much."
"Is it off-putting? I assure you it's within the Brotherhood's hygiene guidelines, but if you don't like it I-"
"No, I love it. It's new. I've seen your arms, after all, I knew what I was getting into." Vega teased, grinning to ease his worry. "If you can accept all my stretch marks and leftovers, I can definitely handle your chest pelt."
"I'm planning on doing far more than accepting." Danse cradled her breasts in his palms, the paladin lowering his head to draw his tongue over one of her nipples. "I don't care." He soothed when Elizabeth tried to stammer out something else in regard to her stretch marks. "I don't care. It doesn't make you any less desirable to me, Elizabeth."
Vega squeezed her eyes shut, kissing his forehead as he continued to cautiously rouse her peaks until they were stiff and aching for more. Then his thumbs took over, stroking in slow, firm circles that made her quiver from head to toe. "You...you're really good at that." Elizabeth said faintly.
"I'm pleased you think so." Danse grunted when her fingers found his belt buckle. "It has been a significant amount of time for me as well, I...my excitement may be a bit obvious." He admitted, his smile sheepish.
Vega's breath caught in her throat, her hands trembling as she struggled to draw down the worn zipper of his jeans. The underside of his cock throbbed against her palm when she dared to slip her hand into his briefs, his skin searing and smooth.
Danse huffed out a breath, crumpling a little at her tentative touch. "Elizabeth," he groaned, hiding his face in her neck as he rolled his hips eagerly into her hand.
"Keep saying my name like that." She ordered, laughing when the paladin nodded rapidly into her shoulder. "I love you, Danse."
...
Danse rumbled again, words failing him while Elizabeth's fingers wrapped around his cock. This seemed like a dream, another one of his fantasies brought into being. He couldn't seem to do anything aside from stare down at her hand.
"Hey, Danse?"
He jerked to attention, eyes flying up to meet her own guiltily. "Y-Yes, Vega?" He stuttered.
"Do you...uh, y'know." Backhand fumbled to undo the button on her jeans. "You can, if you'd like." She finished awkwardly.
No sooner had she given him permission than Danse was pulling her hand out of his pants, urging her backwards onto her bed even as he kissed her battered knuckles again. "Yes." He grated out, kneeling to untie her boots so he could get her pants off. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes."
"A for enthusiasm, big guy." Elizabeth teased, lazily fingercombing his short hair back. Her veneer of composure was shattered when the paladin eased her underwear down her legs, the young woman covering her face as if she was embarrassed. "Listen, just uh, go easy on me. It's been over two hundred years, after all." She reasoned weakly.
Danse swallowed hard. Cutler had always praised his dirty talk, the calculated way he could take apart a person with his words and touch alone. Maxson hadn't appreciated his speech, granted, but perhaps…
"You're saying you don't want me to bury my fingers in you, Elizabeth? You don't want me to open you up, work my way into that beautiful, flushed little cunt of yours?" Danse rasped, two fingers tracing lightly on her pubic mound. Her cesarean scar was faintly visible, and he felt a brief flare of concern before recalling that was indeed where the scar was from.
"Oh, Jesus. Okay." Vega gasped, blue eyes wide in what Danse could only assume was shock. "Keep that up and you won't have to worry about using anything else. Fuck, Danse, have some pity here." She pleaded, burying her hands in her hair.
"Language. Do you deserve my pity? How would you earn it?" The paladin queried, the heel of his hand applying steady pressure to her mound now.
"I can be good, Paladin! I can be really good. So good." Her breathless use of his title had Danse's cock pounding, though he tried not to make it obvious. "Please Danse, please touch me…"
Danse climbed up onto the bed alongside her, gently parting her labia with his fingers. "You'll be good for me, Elizabeth?" He asked, propping himself up with an elbow.
"Yes, please."
She had wonderful manners. Danse grazed her clit and her breath stuttered, the paladin spreading the liberal lubrication that she had already created with deft, slow strokes of his index. "Please, what?"
"P-Please...Danse."
He cautiously eased one finger into her, exhaling raggedly when her hand sought out his cock. "Vega-"
"Shh, let me." Elizabeth hushed him, her smile a little dreamy as Danse crooked his finger and rubbed in just the right spot. "Oh, f-uck, Paladin, you--"
"Language, Vega. Can't have you being a bad example while I'm knuckle deep in your cunt." Danse admonished, groaning when she whimpered. "You're so tight, this could take ages. We'll need to come up with some stretches to cope with this." He teased gruffly, sliding in another finger and spreading her open. "Mm, Elizabeth, you need to relax. Relax." He murmured, latching onto her breast.
He felt her pussy clench down around his fingers and he took a greedy suckle from her breast, making Vega cry out his name, "Danse!" She twitched and writhed under his deft attack, her thighs quivering even as she tried to spread them wider for him. Her hand fell still on his cock, not that Danse minded. It had always been more about his partner, he couldn't care less if nothing was done for him. Watching someone else fall apart because of him...now that was its own reward.
"What do I need to do to get you there, hmm?" Danse taunted playfully, tonguing sloppily over the peak of her breast. "What will it take, Elizabeth?"
She arched her back in response, pressing her breast firmly against his mouth, and Danse gently nibbled on the sensitive area she had offered up. Elizabeth sobbed out, shoving one hand down to her cunt to spread herself even wider for his plundering fingers. "More, Danse! Please please please-" she begged, her moan when he pressed a third finger into her absolutely enough to have Danse hurrying to talk himself down. "Yes, Danse." She was practically growling, her arousal something primal and untamed.
If Danse had his way, it would stay like that forever.
"What is it that you want, Vega?" His inquiry was almost lazy, three fingers stroking in and out with much less resistance now. "Hmm, I wonder if you're wet enough to take me."
"You can't just-" Vega made a noise of dismay. "That's not fair, Danse, that's not fair, you know it's not. Please, please fuck me."
Jesus. Danse almost choked on his own breath, letting his fingers slip out of her cunt. "How do you want me?" His voice broke noticeably. It felt like a lifetime since he had been desired, wanted in such a blatant and strangely pure fashion. She loved him. She wanted him inside her. Wanted him to make love to her. Wanted him.
The speed at which she flung herself up a little higher on the bed made Danse want to laugh, but then she was arching her back and looking over her shoulder at him and he suddenly forgot how to breathe for a moment. "This okay?" She panted, brown hair all tumbled around her face as she took off her glasses and pitched them in the general direction of her bedside table.
Danse nodded hurriedly, kicking his pants off. "If you need me to stop, just grab my hand." He instructed.
"This isn't exactly my first time getting fucked, Danse-"
"Language," the paladin reprimanded her with a chuckle, greedily fondling her rear as he mounted up behind her. "You have such a beautiful form, Vega." He murmured, leaning over to press a kiss between her shoulder blades. "An absolute vision."
"I do have nice tits."
Danse rolled his eyes, slipping his hands down to grope said breasts. She gasped out, rocking back against him as he agreed, "yes you do, that can't be denied. Soft, the perfect size, they fit in my hands so well, and so sensitive." He found himself laughing when she whimpered again. "Don't offer up all your weak spots unless you want them taken advantage of, Vega."
"The only thing I want to take advantage of right now is the raging hard-on I can feel." Elizabeth wriggled and Danse grunted, shuddering. "Pl-ease Danse, please put it in me."
The paladin slipped his cock between her labia, the hot, slick flesh pressing against him mercilessly as he teased her. He suddenly felt her fingers on his cock and then-
"Fuck." The paladin grated out the uncharacteristic curse through his teeth, his fists meeting the bedding on either side of her body as he fought the urge to thrust himself home in one breath.
Elizabeth half-collapsed while he slowly, slowly rutted into her, the woman panting and clawing at the blankets. "Mmmgod, Danse-" she slurred, sighing loudly. "So good, fuck, Danse…"
Danse toyed with her nipples, stupidly snarling "language," as she keened in reply. "I'll take care of you, Elizabeth. Be good for me." He pressed a kiss to her temple, smirking at the way her body quaked when he finally bottomed out in her. "That's it, look at you, taking all of me so well," he praised. "Now, how can I make you come?"
"Fu--Please use your big cock to get me off, oh please Danse!" She begged and Danse fondled her breasts yet again.
"You don't want me to touch you here, just like this?" He asked, stroking over her nipples and lingering to tease the area. "They're so hard, though, begging for my attention."
Backhand made a noise of despair, burying her face in her pillow.
"I think you need me to play with them, don't you? You like when I touch them like this." Danse muttered, thinking out loud and coming to that realization even as the words left his mouth. "What is it about it that you like?"
"S-Sensitive." Vega whimpered, "feels good."
Danse rumbled again, bending over to press his chest to her back so he could whisper in her ear, "does it feel good when I'm inside you, Elizabeth? Can you feel how hard I am for you? Feel how badly I need you?"
Elizabeth gifted him this pitiful sound, canting her hips and clenching down around his cock so tightly it took Danse's breath away. "Yes, I love it. I need you too, Danse." She murmured, shifting back and forth ever so slightly.
"Good. I'm glad." Danse took hold of her hips, seating his cock as deeply as he could in her cunt. Elizabeth whined, burying her face in her pillow again as he slowly began to make love to her.
Paladin Logan Danse, pride of the Brotherhood of Steel, had never been a man who took sex lightly. It was too important. Even after everything that had happened with Maxson, Danse still held to that belief. The display of vulnerability, the offer of power in exchange for pleasurable release, the brief moments of tenderness in an existence that was soul-crushingly difficult…
It was serious. It always was.
Vega's arms gave out and she slumped onto the bed, but Danse followed her down. Covering her with his body, the paladin thrust into her again and again, her soft whimpers and cries of his name music to his ears. "What do you need, sweetheart?" He asked raggedly when she began to squirm and arch back against him. "What can I give you, Elizabeth?"
"Fuck me, Danse!" She pleaded, turning her head to the side so she could see him.
"Language," Danse smiled, kissing her temple again. "But understood, ma'am."
…
For the first time since she'd awoken to an irradiated hellscape, Vega was wholly content to just lay down and be taken care of.
Danse was huge, proportionate to his already overgrown size, and he made the most incredible sounds when she inadvertently squeezed down on him. Groans burring in his chest like some untamed animal; he seemed content to just slowly fuck her into oblivion. Which was honestly more than she thought she would ever get.
Her fantasies, much as she'd believed they were wrong or silly at the time, didn't hold a candle to the reality of having Danse on top of her. She had gotten off more than once to this exact idea, being dominated and pinned by the massive paladin. This was a dream come true.
Elizabeth whined when he bottomed out in her again and just rutted himself back and forth slightly, making her feel every inch of his cock. The underside of his dick throbbed against the spot that made her see stars and then, the bastard, he slid his cock out of her cunt to press the head to her clit for a second. "Turn over for me?" He requested, punctuated by a gentle smack to her ass.
Vega rushed to obey, eager to have him back inside her as quickly as possible. The woman spread her legs wide so Danse could settle in between them and when the paladin did, he shifted upwards to kiss her tenderly.
"I've wanted this for so long." He admitted quietly.
"So have I!" Elizabeth replied in delight, her grin beaming. She was sure she looked like a mess, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat and her face all flushed. But the way Danse was smiling at her…
She found she didn't really care about her appearance at this point in time.
"I love you." Danse murmured as he slid back inside her.
"I l-love you, Danse." Vega stuttered, the natural curvature of his cock applying steady pressure to her g-spot. "Make me feel so good, fuck."
"Language." He growled, making her laugh and then moan.
"Feels too good, brain can't cope." She gasped, wrapping her arms around his neck and tugging him closer until all he could do was grind down into her in a merciless manner. The motion flung her towards her peak, disconnecting her mouth even further from her brain and making her ramble into his ear, "God, I love you so much, make me feel so good--"
"I love you too, Elizabeth." He panted into the hollow of her throat, "you feel incredible. Outstanding."
Elizabeth wasn't sure how she could feel both so aroused she thought she might die and so annoyed that she wanted to explode. "Danse, did you just call my pussy outstanding?"
"It's not an incorrect statement, from my perspective. It's perfect. Wet and tight and hot." The paladin praised her freely, a hand lowering to apply gentle pressure over the scar on her lower stomach. "Beautiful."
I am not going to cry, Vega told herself sternly as she hid her face in Danse's neck. Definitely not going to cry, not going to.
A sob somehow escaped her as she came and Danse froze, his whole body flinching when her cunt clenched down on his dick. "V...Vega?" He asked tentatively.
"I'm fine! I'm fine, I promise, m'not hurt or anything. My brain is just dumb." Elizabeth hiccupped, rubbing her eyes. "I'm okay, Danse, I'm fine."
The paladin seemed uncertain and she couldn't blame him, she didn't seem fine even if she felt a thousand times better than she had in literal months.
"I swear I'm okay, that was just...it was really intense, y'know?" She mumbled awkwardly, unable to make eye contact anymore.
She felt Danse shift his weight and then he settled down on top of her, holding her close and tight. "You're sure?" He murmured, "if you're overwhelmed, that's entirely acceptable. I'm not hurting you, am I?"
"No, shit no, you feel incredible. I'm not going to be able to walk after this." Vega huffed, giggling a little when he rolled his eyes. "Keep going, okay? It feels fantastic."
"If you're certain." Danse acquiesced, kissing a hot trail down her neck when she nodded. "Let me know if you need me to stop."
Watching his forearms cord with muscle as he propped himself back up again, Vega's mouth went dry. "I have to say, this might be the best night of my life."
Danse pressed a sweet kiss to her forehead, the tenderness of the action a wonderful contrast to the needy way he sheathed his cock in her body once more. "I've thought about this." He confessed again, punctuated by a roll of his hips. "What you'd sound like, look like beneath me. You put my imagination to shame."
"What did I do in your dreams?" Backhand asked, unable to keep from breathlessly laughing when Danse hid his face in her neck. "So shy, Paladin! Even with that huge cock in me?"
"It's lewd, Elizabeth, I-I'm not proud of it." He mumbled. "Shouldn't have thought of you that way." He spread her legs wider, one hand on the back of each knee to urge her to bend.
"Mm, you thought about fucking me? Nice to know I'm not the only one with dirty thoughts."
"I did not." He protested staunchly. His cock slid back and forth between her pussy lips in a purposeful teasing motion. "I thought about how...I thought about how good it would feel to make love to you." He continued, his voice wavering slightly as his dick brushed her entrance and he plunged deep yet again. "Thought about how good I could make you feel."
Now it was Vega's turn to be shy, the woman looking away from him and flushing.
"It was still inappropriate at the...time, but I assure you it was never about that. I am not-" Danse struggled for a moment to find the words, before he sighed and rested his forehead against her own. "This already isn't simple, and I know I make it miles less so. Forgive me."
"I feel like it's pretty simple." Vega gasped, twitching as his fingers landed on her clit. "I f--fuck, Danse--I feel like it's real simple. You like me. Love me, yeah?"
"It's more than that, dammit." Danse growled, rubbing her clit in merciless circles. "What you did for me...how can I ever be worth your affection? Hell, your time?"
Elizabeth threw her head back, arching her entire body up into his chest. "Whatever good I give to you," she moaned, almost exasperated that they were even having this discussion, "you deserve it. Take it."
Danse's hands latched down on her hips, thumbs stroking back and forth over her pronounced stretch marks as he fucked into her so fiercely that Vega swore she saw stars. His pelvis ground against her own, body hair providing a delicious new sensation that had Vega grasping at the blankets in an effort to keep herself grounded. "I'm going to come, Elizabeth." Danse panted. "Where do you-"
"Inside." Backhand implored him, "come inside me, Paladin, please come inside me-" Her voice broke as she begged and Danse groaned loud, the sound incredulous.
"You...inside? Are you sure?" He asked through gritted teeth, dark brown eyes conveying his uncertainty. In reply, Vega dug the heels of her feet in beneath his rear, effectively locking him in place.
She caught a handful of his hair, gently tugging it until he leaned down again so she could seethe in his ear, "yes."
"Oh, dammit." With that wonderfully characteristic swear, Danse shoved his mouth against hers gracelessly. The heat in her belly spilled over from the onslaught of his enthusiastic thrusts and Backhand cried out, fingernails digging into his back when she came a second time.
Danse, either spurred on by her sounds or by the way her pussy gripped his dick (maybe a combination? Backhand mused) found his release seconds after, his voice breaking and dropping into a lower tone as he moaned her name. Her real name.
Elizabeth.
Vega cupped the nape of his neck, guiding his face into the hollow of her shoulder. "Lay down, sweetheart, you're shaking." She murmured, stroking over his quivering back.
"Don't want to flatten you." Danse rasped, his dick still throbbing inside her.
"Lay down. It's okay." Elizabeth flexed her bicep. "I'm strong, I can handle it." Danse laughed wearily, almost immediately going limp on top of her. She wrapped her arms back around him, fingers digging into the knots that she found to ease out the tension. "There, isn't that better?"
"Mmmmuch." Danse slurred into her neck, sounding exhausted. "Love you."
"I love you. Sleep, okay? We'll get cleaned up later. Right now though you seem like you could use a nap."
Danse nodded, the tangled mess of his hair mashed flat against her cheek in the process. "Want...to be a good parent." He mumbled several minutes later, just as Vega had thought he was dozing off. Danse propped himself up with one arm, cradling Vega's cheek in his palm. His thumb absently traced the cryo burn marks from the stasis as he continued, "a true partner for you. I don't know if you...if you even want me in that capacity, I--I don't know whether you would prefer that Shaun thinks of me as simply your friend, but I-"
"Danse," Elizabeth interrupted him sternly, raising an eyebrow. "Someone who's simply a friend wouldn't be balls deep in me."
Danse sputtered, his blush spreading down his neck to his chest. Despite his proclivity for dirty talk in the moment, he was endearingly embarrassed by her blunt words. Vega felt her heart pound as he floundered to collect himself, the large man looking away.
He's really nothing at all like Nate.
"Danse." Her voice was gentler this time, unmistakable affection bleeding through. "I would have to ask Shaun, of course, and I'd like to have an adjustment period before I do so that he can get comfortable with the idea on his own, but…" The young woman swallowed hard. Why was she so nervous all of a sudden? Oh sure, she could handle the vulnerability of being naked and fucked with absolute abandon but this? This was where her brain drew the line? Unbelievable, Backhand grumbled at herself. "I think the odds are in your favor." She concluded with a grin.
"You...even though I'm not-?"
"He's probably the last person to care about that kinda' stuff, Danse. C'mon." Vega chided, running her fingers through his sweaty hair. "Now. We are...absolutely disgusting. We need a bath big time."
"I...you're right, of course." Danse agreed absently, still seeming shocked at the whole scenario. "I should...w-we should bathe. Er, at the same time. To save water." He didn't meet her eyes, his attention focused somewhere by her left shoulder.
Elizabeth laughed, bumping their foreheads together before carefully scooting up the bed. His cock slipped out of her and she couldn't help her sigh, the noise echoed by the paladin who tilted his chin to catch her with a kiss.
"You are amazing." He breathed when they parted, his smile small but sincere. "I'm...I'll be hard-pressed to keep my hands off you, Elizabeth."
"Why bother?" Vega asked, chuckling as he ducked back in for another kiss.
...
Hours later, Danse laid awake while Elizabeth slept peacefully on his chest. The paladin stared up at the ceiling, his mind running rampant.
The future.
He hadn't really dared to think about it since discovering his true identity. Hadn't felt like it was something he deserved. After all, if he was just a machine, it hardly mattered. But Elizabeth…
She thought it mattered. She wanted him. Wanted him to stay with her. Wanted him to act as a father. Pending Shaun's approval, of course.
It was surreal how much his life had changed, how far they had come in such a short amount of time. Danse was a little overwhelmed by it all, if he was being honest. Scared, yet hopeful at the same time. And, he thought as he wrapped his arm around Elizabeth, incredibly, immensely grateful.
This new world was unforgiving, the universe coldly testing the mettle of a man time and again. But Danse had finally come out the other side, and he liked to think he had changed for the better.
Whatever the future held, they would face it together.
Ad Victoriam, General Vega. Thank you for having faith in me.
#fallout 4#fallout four#paladin danse#paladin danse x sole survivor#paladin danse/sole survivor#paladin danse imagine#fallout fandom#fallout fanfic#slow burn#Eventual romance#The Happy Ending#that's right#paladin danse x f!sole#fo4 companions imagine#fo4 companions#epilogue#the gang's all here
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Ant-Watching
Y’all ever watch ants?
That’s what I just did. I came back from running an errand for someone else, and I decided to go visit my local gas station, right near where I live, just to see if there was anything I wanted to pick up. But, my attention was quickly piqued by a long line of ants, strewn across the sidewalk surrounding the gas station. I was of course intrigued, and tracked them from one end up the brick wall of the gas station, and into the tiniest possible hole there. I’m not sure where the hole led, it seemed so tiny, and I’m not sure how such a small, precise little tunnel could form in the seams between the bricks, leading all the way into wherever it was, within the gas station.
Tracing the other end of the line, I saw the familiarly-textured dirt of an ant colony, nestled within beneath the local, obligatory bush placed next to the parking spaces. I’ve gotta admit, I have to hand it to whichever Queen Ant established this colony, she chose the perfect spot… Or not. Being directly next to a gas station, in the patch of dirt and shrubbery as close as possible to it, that’s an amazing source of endless, reliable food right for this colony, so close and convenient!
On the other hand, I could see the proximity to the gas station leading to the colony having an exterminator called upon it. I’d be sad to see it go, but alas, such is life. Ants keep making do regardless. I wonder what happens to ants who survive the destruction of their colony, the eradication of their queen- Do they just blindly wander until they starve to death? If you introduced an ant to a new colony, would that colony accept, or instead reject and kill, the poor little creature?
I went inside the gas station, did some snooping. I couldn’t find where the ants were, but if I had to guess, directly on the other side of the wall they were crawling into; There was a countertop with a trash area underneath. Is this where the ants were getting their loot- Some small tunnel outside, leading directly into the inside of this dark cubby where all of the trash and food was dumped? Either way, it was such a jackpot for them, I felt weirdly proud of them despite having nothing to do with it.
I went back outside, and I noticed on my way back to the line, bristling and bustling with ants crossing by one another in opposite directions, that there was a dead bug. Quite a bit away from the line of ants, it was the dessicated corpse of… A cockroach? A beetle? I wasn’t sure what. Regardless, I wondered if the ants could make use of it; Or if they already had, the corpse seemed not much more than empty, chitinous shell, which might’ve been too hardy for the ants to break apart. Or, maybe they hadn’t bothered because it was too far away…
To test my theory –because I honestly didn’t care if people were watching, I was allowed to do what I wanted, and as corny as it may sound, I think Dana Terrace and The Owl House helped me develop the bravery to be as weird as I wanted in public, and it’s enriched my day greatly for it- I skidded and lightly kicked the dead bug, all the way to the ant line. And, success! They seemed attracted to it, and next thing I knew the bug was bristling with shiny little ants; I’d accidentally overturned it while moving the dead bug, and exposed its much softer underbelly, ripe for the taking and picking! Now I felt proud, and this time it felt earned because I DID contribute, I did help with something the ants couldn’t have done on their own! I did good.
So, I’m getting a bit existential about the life of ants. How it’s all long, thankless, endless work, as they drag food back, go on an arduous trek that for us giants, is just a few steps. Rinse, repeat, help feed the young, and so forth; Survive, but for what purpose? There is no downtime. Such is life, it’s interesting how we developed from just basic propagation, to really enjoying the fruit of existence; But only after we ensured it’d last, that we had reliable stuff to keep going on through. In the meantime, I decided to go back to the brick wall. There was another, tiny little hole, and I could see what looked like the tiniest little… egg shell? It was a shell of some sorts, gradually being dragged through, as if unclogging this second hole.
I was half-tempted to help the ants with it, but I decided not to interfere, in case I did something wrong, or if I misunderstood what they were getting at. But, I later checked, and indeed they had dislodged it, and were now moving down the length of the wall with it! It was a roly-poly shell, I wonder what killed it- The ants, its own natural lifespan? But as I checked, I noticed this one particular ant, hauling a crumb of food bigger than the others I’d seen. While other ants returned from the gas station with tiny little beadlets of food, this ant had a larger, misshapen, yellow-ish grain of something. I wasn’t sure what, but it seemed an arduous and difficult task to handle it, to get it down the side of a vertical brick face.
But, when I checked on the ant again- It succeeded! It was on the ground, scooting the grain, one gradual, agonizing millimeter at a time. I turned back to the dead bug, thought about helping the ants by pushing it all the way, right next to their nest; I grabbed a dead stick nearby that seemed sufficient, and for a moment I reveled in the power I had. I was no longer a child who’d be grabbed along by my parent and told not to mess around- I had the freedom and autonomy to observe insects, however I wanted! So I used the dead chip of wood to try and scoot the dead bug along…
Alas, the wind came and it scooted it past the ant line, back upright. I tried again to scoot the dead bug back to its trajectory, but then some ants crawled up the stick, and onto my hand! I panicked for a bit, I think one might’ve bit me… But I brushed them aside. Eventually I settled for righting my previous wrong, by overturning the bug and returning it back to the line; I’d just settle for that, for now. No time for ambitious projects on behalf of the ants…
Though, I DID consider buying just a little bit of food, and maybe scattering a piece or two by their nest, to see what the ants did with it! Ant feeding… Imagine that, like throwing bread crumbs to the pigeons, except I’m throwing tiny scraps of food to ants, diligently tearing apart and working, hauling, etc. Breaking it down bit by bit to divide the work, the power of infinitesimal hands amounting to something huge! I ultimately didn’t buy anything, alas, but it’s a fun thought, and I might try it another day and opportunity.
Anyhow, I watched the ant struggle with its lone yellow grain; Somehow, likely because of the wind, it had gotten separated from the line, its grain moved away. I felt some compassion, and I grabbed another tiny dead stick-chip, and pushed it back to the line; This was much more successful, and the ant began moving the grain along the line, once more. I kept watching, and got tired of crouching upon the balls of my feet, so I just went F it, and sat down onto the concrete.
THAT was much more relaxing, and for a while I enjoyed and watched and marveled, mesmerized at the coordination and moving patterns of it all, the shiny ants, how some had tiny little beads in their mandibles, etc. At one point I looked back along the line, closer to the nest, and I saw a tiny roly-poly, a living one; Nearby, stumbling across. In morbid fascination, I checked to see what would happen; Would the ants pursue and harass it, or was the reliable source of inanimate food, more preferable than taking on live prey?
Thankfully, despite bumping into the ants at the line, the roly-poly was unscathed and ignored. It departed from the line, and headed elsewhere along the patch of dirt where the shrubs grew, the patch where on the edge dwelled the ant colony. I turned my attention back to the ant with its large grain. By this point, I was used to the hot sun beating down on me, but it wasn’t unbearable, and I felt gratitude for the brief periods of cloudiness and shade. Agonizingly, I watched the ant make its progress…
At one point, it actually veered off-course, as these ants seem wanton to do, for some reason. I couldn’t let that happen again, so I grabbed another of my dead, discarded sticks –the ants ignored the cellulose they seemed unable to work with- and pushed it back on course. To my delight, the ant kept working, and I internally cheered as it pushed the grain up the slope of the driveway, surprisingly more easily than I’d anticipated, and much faster too! At one point, a kind passerby asked if I had a flat tire; To him, it must’ve looked like I was staring at the tire of the car parked in the space right next to the colony, as the ant line passed nearby. I said no, and he went on his way.
The whole time, some other people went on their way, passing near me. Nobody stopped to look or notice, at least as far as I could tell; I was much too engrossed in these ants. I’m glad nobody stopped to bother or harass me for it. Eventually, the lone ant began transporting the grain into the final stretch, in the seams between the blocks of concrete, right before the colony itself! There were points where it seemed like other ants were helping with the burden, perhaps other ants took over for the original. I thought about how this lone ant likely went through all of this effort, took it upon itself without any thought, and would get no recognition for it.
It didn’t think about it, it just did it; It saw something to be carried and worked with it, no thought about how hard it was, no consideration of letting someone else do it. It found something and grabbed it and moved! Marvelous. The ants kept moving the grain, at one point I lost it beneath a wood chip wedged in the concrete, but the ants succeeded in moving the grain past the chip, beneath and over as needed. Finally, right before the grain reached the colony, right before it arrived at the entrance to be dropped down, I hastily took a photo;
And at the last possible second! I’d fumbled with the perspective, zoomed in, tried to figure out where my camera was looking at, before re-orienting and focusing on where the ant and its grain were, and finding it. I’d planned this for a while, a victory photo for when the grain had reached the colony, and I’d barely snapped my picture before the grain dropped in, out of view! I felt oddly triumphant; But then again, I HAD contributed, hadn’t I? I felt proud of these ants, of the ant- They’d finally done it! This long, agonizing work… The grain would make good feeding for the young and everyone else.
And then, likely- The ants just went on! They went right back to work, always focused in the now. Never wondering, never questioning, such a simple existence. No higher thought nor reason besides doing what needed to be done, no particular selfishness, no shirking of the work, they just did it. It was almost robotic, although I knew that ants didn’t have any actual hive minds; They merely coordinated well. As one person said, if a giant watched us humans work and collaborate together, WE’d look like the hive mind! I���d sat and watched for a while, taking different positions, sitting and crouching and kneeling in various ways; But after faithfully, diligently watching this one particular task and its undertaking, more or less the whole way through, until it was finally finished…
Well, I felt finished myself! And so I headed inside the nearby dollar store to cool down with its AC, near the frozen section, before getting back into my car, and heading home- Where I’ve since sat down to type this all out. I dunno, something about watching the ants in nature… It just gets to me, I think I ended up kinning a couple of ants along the way. Very wondrous stuff, and time really passed by; It was so much more fun, engaging, and unique, than what I usually did to pass the day along, whenever I drove out. 10/10, would do it again, Ants are wonderful and would recommend!
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7/46 for Spicynoodleshipping, before Red disappears for four months while getting ready to leave his parents?
Prompt meme
7. French kisses where they trace every tooth with their tongues as though trying to memorize them. // 46.A lingering kiss before a long trip apart.
I think this one just came out cheesy, I think it’s like 90% cheese so like... not for those with a dairy allergy
--
Xiaotian had thankfully not blown their secret prematurely when he'd saved him from his parent's ex-ally, he'd done enough Nominal Goody Two-Shoes things over the years that his parents hadn't thought twice about him hugging Red Son for almost dying. And He'd made his own 'stance' clear that he was simply proving a point TO his parents and saving Xiaotian from their supposed Ally was simply means to an end. To show that he and his were more than willing to go back on their agreement now that they'd had his tech and no longer needed them. Even going on later to say that he'd overheard their actual plans but he knew the two of them weren't going to listen without any proof, so... he had to take matters into his own hands.
His mother both berated him for taking risks like that and lightly chided for being so weak that a hit like that had stunned him for long enough he'd needed to be saved. His father as usual, had nothing to add. Xiaotian when they'd seen each other that night had received his own berating FROM Red Son about risking everything they'd arranged because he wasn't thinking. To which Xiaotian responded with his own rant about Red Son acting just as thoughtlessly by taking the hit for him in the first place.
When Xiaotian finished his rant he was holding back tears, brokenly finishing that he wouldn't have any idea what to do with himself if Red Son had died to save him. He'd tried to remind him that something like that couldn't do him in so easily, but it hadn't helped. He could only submit to his fretting, especially because he couldn't apologize, even if it were just for making Xiaotian so upset, nor could he promise he wouldn't do it again. But he could hold Xiaotian as he continued to grumble about how badly Red Son had scared him.
He'd meant it when he'd told him he'd do it again a million times over, and it was like something had loosened in his chest after their 'activities' that night. He found himself far less worried over accidentally falling asleep, found his tongue looser and relishing in the pretty blush his passion driven words would bring to Xiaotian's cheeks, and when he returned home found himself looking over exit strategies.
Whether he'd been cognizant of it at the time or not, that day saving Xiaotian had been a watershed in his life, and he'd... he'd made his choice.
And he picked Xiaotian.
And sure his parents didn't know that that was what had happened, but he did. And he'd never not know who he'd pick again; because there was no guarantee that that fool of a clan leader wouldn't kill him, wouldn't rip his head right off before anyone could have stopped him, he knew that, that was why he'd been so afraid for Xiaotian: his only thought was to get him out of there and didn't spare a second one for himself. Just because he was made of sturdier stuff than a mortal didn't mean he couldn't have died in that fight, and he'd come to terms with it in those split seconds, if it meant Xiaotian didn't die instead he’d accept it.
Though at first the change was just... noticing things he'd been pointedly ignoring. It was HIS tech that had been used against them, against the city they wanted to RULE not DESTROY, and not a single scrap of some of his most advanced work was even saved and tossed back at him nonchalantly, every scrap of metal bent into disuse as his parents took their dissolution of allyship out on the former clan leader's men.
He was gonna need more time for those upgrades to father's armor because he was mostly working on THAT OTHER project they'd tasked him with, He'd need to redraft that ENTIRE machine from scratch and he was ALREADY in the prototype phase if they wanted those changes.
And he'd started daydreaming. He'd been daydreaming about Xiaotian ever since they started their Arrangement, but those domestics that would occupy his mind in the middle of the menial parts of putting together machinery felt... different... than they used to.
He used to fantasize about bringing Xiaotian with him to his own home, usually heading back to the Firey Mountains, though sometimes other family homes would show up, and the two of them would...simply be. But those had become few and far between lately, what had occupied his mind as of late was a... more humble dream.
A medium-ish sized apartment in the city, near the noodle shop so Xiaotian could continue to work without too many commute related worries. He'd have a proper drawing easel in the living space, preferably by the window in the 'guest room' so he'd have a nice view. And though Red Son probably would keep most of his own projects in that 'base' Xiaotian had told him his friend had constructed he would have his own worktable for minor tinkering and blueprint drafting. They were both only 'perfectly okay' as cooks, so they'd generally decide who would make dinner depending on who got home first.
Red Son would likely wake up first every morning and get to finally see Xiaotian when he's so deep asleep he's just a limp noodle sprawled across the bed—and the bed was big enough for the both of them and then some, so no one would fall off. And as he'd put together his morning routines he'd realize he hadn't been this content in actual centuries and-
and he had to come to terms with the fact that a future with Xiaotian meant one without his parents, because there was no intersection of the two. Being Xiaotian's partner meant turning against his parents, and being a dutiful son meant being complicit when his father struck down his revenge and slaughtered Xiaotian.
And as he'd so recently come to terms with, that was unacceptable. He could live without his parents as he'd done it before, it would be difficult, and terrifying, and he knew he'd probably need to battle himself relentlessly for it, but now that he knew on a bone deep level that Xiaotian was not allowed to perish, he couldn't wait for the eventuality and hope he could swoop in then.
No. He couldn't chance that.
He needed to move out.
And if he was going to do this he had to do it right. He had to make his break as clean as possible, so there was no doubt on whether he was doing this of his own will or not. So he'd need some time staying back home, to ensure if things got out they were on no one's terms but his.
He'd of course been telling Xiaotian everything, and he was well aware of his plan. And now...
Now was the last night he could spare before he would make his leave and had to disappear for a time.
Their activities had gone on long into the night, savoring every moan and sigh and shiver because heavens knew how long it would be until either of them saw the other again, and Red Son found a particular joy in the act of memorizing every inch of Xiaotian's body that he possibly could branding every dip and curve and hardened muscle and gnarled scar into his mind so he'd have vivid memories to keep him company until he returned.
He didn't have to map out Xiaotian's mouth so intricately, he'd been kissing it for nearing on two and a half years now, he knew the shape and feel, the exact heat of his mouth and the slide of his tongue against his own, but Red Son found it would not be complete without it. So when allowed to plunder Xiaotian's mouth he worked slowly, moving across the entire area, and brushing playfully against every molar and sharpened canine (Xiaotian insisted he was still mostly human but the monkey magic was starting to seep in, eventually he'd sprout a tail and Red Son hoped he could see that when it happened) until the taste and feel were so deeply understood they'd be forever scorched across his heart.
“I will come back.” He whispered, “I swear I will return.” He reiterated for the... had to at least be the tenth time that night. The very last thing he wanted was Xiaotian doubting him for how long it might take or what may happen in the interim.
But now he had to go. He wanted to linger for longer, he could tell Xiaotian wanted him to linger for longer, but if he started out this whole thing with his parents already suspicious of where he'd been it would make things considerably harder. So he slipped back into his street clothes, maybe a little slower than his usual speed, and watched Xiaotian slip into his pajamas out of the corner of his eye. But by then, he was dressed and had no further excuses to stay.
Except maybe...
He cleared the short distance between the two of them and kissed Xiaotian one last time, a kiss that was eagerly returned. Not to memorize, just to savor. Full of longing instead of heat.
“I will return.”
“I know you will.”
--
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How Final Destination Went From Real-Life Premonition to Horror Phenomenon
https://ift.tt/30jSLcc
The year 2000 was a scary one for horror films and not always in a good way.
While American Psycho and The Cell offered up visually striking nihilistic thrills to genre fans, the majority of horror movies released at the dawn of the new millennium were at best forgettable and, at worst, lamentable – yes, we’re looking at you, Leprechaun in the Hood.
This was the year of duff sequels like Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Urban Legends: Final Cut and, though it is painful to admit, Scream 3. Horror fans were screaming out for something different, something exciting. They found it with Final Destination.
Discarding the stalk-and-slash thrills that had enjoyed a revival in the years following the release of Scream, Final Destination centered on a group of high schoolers who end up avoiding a fatal plane crash thanks to a premonition, only to discover there is no escaping death’s plan as one by one they are offed in a variety of brilliantly inventive “accidents”.
Released in March of that year, Final Destination was a sleeper hit with word-of-mouth helping the film to clean up at the box office, earning $112 million off a $23 million budget with more than half of that coming internationally.
To date, it has spawned four sequels as well as a variety of novelisations and comic book spin-offs while a franchise reboot is also on the horizon.
Read more
Movies
The Final Destination Movies, Ranked
By Sarah Dobbs
Jeffrey Reddick has worked on several films during his career to date but he’s probably best known as the creator of Final Destination. It’s something he has come to terms with.
“It’s probably going to end up on my gravestone, it’s such an ironic title,” he tells Den of Geek.
“Sometimes I’ll be out and I will hear someone say ‘you just had a Final Destination moment’ and it will make me smile. The whole thing just took on a life of its own.”
Nightmarish Origins
A screenwriter and director, Reddick recalls how his neighbors in rural Jackson, Kentucky, would laugh when his six-year-old self would tell them about his plans to work in the movie business.
An avid writer and reader of Greek and Roman mythology, he recalls spending his formative years watching horror movies with his friends. His mother was only too happy to indulge his burgeoning interest too, knowing it kept him out of trouble elsewhere.
Reddick’s life began to change after he saw A Nightmare on Elm Street.
“That film cemented my love of horror. I was this 14-year-old hillbilly from Kentucky but I decided I was going to write a prequel. I went home, banged it out on my typewriter and sent it to Bob Shaye.”
The legendary head of New Line Cinema initially dismissed Reddick’s draft out of hand, returning it with a note explaining the studio did not “accept unsolicited material.”
Undaunted, Reddick sent the script back with a note telling him “Look mister, I spent three dollars on your movie and I think you could take five minutes on my story.”
Shaye was impressed and struck up a bond with the youngster that saw him sending everything from scripts to posters to Reddick during his teenage years.
When Reddick moved to New York to study acting, age 19, he was offered an internship with New Line, which would become a full-time role despite acting being his “main passion.”
“Diversity in casting was not a thing at that time,” he recalls.
“My agent was like ‘I don’t know what to do with you as an actor. We can’t put you up for gangsters or pimps and you don’t rap and you don’t play basketball.”
“So I figured, screw it, I will just write stuff and put myself in it.”
Reddick was present at New Line during their company’s early 90s creative heyday and credits the experience with helping him get Final Destination off the ground.
“I learned a lot about how to get a movie made. I knew that to make a movie that connected with an audience you had to tap into something that was universal. Death is the ultimate fear.”
As luck would have it, the idea actually came to Reddick while on a flight back to Kentucky.
“I read about a woman who was on vacation and her mother told her not to take the flight she was planning to take home as she had a bad feeling about it. The woman changed it and the plane she was supposed to be on crashed.”
At that point however the idea wasn’t Final Destination. It wasn’t a film either. It was an episode of The X Files.
The Truth Is Out There
“I was trying to get a TV agent at the time and they recommended I write a spec script for something already on the air. I was a huge fan of The X Files and thought about a scene where somebody has a premonition and gets off the plane and then it crashes and used that as the plot.”
“It was going to be Scully’s brother Charles who had the premonition. He gets off the plane with a few other people but they start dying and Charles blacks out every time there is a murder so people suspect he is doing it.
Read more
TV
I Still Want to Believe: Revisiting The X-Files Pilot
By Chris Longo
“The twist at the end was that the sheriff who had been investigating alongside Mulder and Scully the whole time had actually been shot and flatlined at the same time as the plane crash. Death brought him back to kill off all the survivors, including Charles.”
It would have made for a great episode except it was never submitted to The X Files. Reddick showed his spec script to some friends at New Line who were so impressed, they told him to develop it into a treatment for a feature, which was eventually purchased by the studio.
Producers Craig Perry and Warren Zide were brought onboard to develop the story and set about tweaking his idea.
“Originally the cast of survivors were adults because I wanted to explore more adult themes but Scream had come out and teenagers were hot again so New Line got me to change it”
In a twist of fate, two established writers from The X Files, James Wong and Glen Morgan, were brought onboard to rejig Reddick’s script.
“My version was definitely darker and more like A Nightmare on Elm Street,” he says.
“In my script, death would torment the kids about some kind of past sin they felt guilty about. They would then die in these accidents that ended up looking like suicides.”
For example, Todd’s death saw him chased into the family garage by an unseen specter where he accidentally ended up rigged in a noose triggered when his dad opens the automatic garage door.
Death is all around us
Ultimately that death scene and several others were ultimately scrapped in favour of what would prove to be the franchise’s calling card.
Reddick credits Wong and Morgan with coming up with the idea of having the film’s key death scenes kicked off by a Rube Goldberg machine-like chain-reaction that would see everyday things colliding to create a lethal scenario. It was nothing short of a masterstroke.
“It created this notion that death is all around us,” Reddick says.
“Death would use everyday things around us. It made it more universal and allowed us to set the deaths in places where people go all the time. The payoff would be fun but it was the build-up that had you on the edge of your seat.”
There was one major sticking point for the studio though: the presence of death, or rather the lack of.
“I fought really hard to make sure we never showed death because for me, if you didn’t show it, it could be something someone, no matter their belief system, could project onto our villain. That was a tough sell for the studio. They would be like ‘this doesn’t make any sense, you can’t see it and you can’t fight it’ but that’s the point, it’s death.”
“Luckily both James Wong and Glen Morgan were very insistent we never show it and tie it in to a specific belief system.”
Reddick credits the move with helping Final Destination become “an international phenomenon”.
“It struck a chord with people around the world. It broke out beyond the horror audience.”
Casting dreams
When it came to casting, Reddick had a clear idea of who he wanted in the lead roles, even if the studio’s opinion differed drastically.
“I had a wish list with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst as my two leads but New Line was like ‘well…’”
He might not have got his first pick but Final Destination boasted an impressive cast of up-and-comers who had already made waves among teen audiences.
Devon Sawa had starred in Idle Hands, while Ali Larter was known for Varsity Blues and Kerr Smith was a regular on Dawson’s Creek. There was even room for Seann William Scott, fresh from his breakout turn in American Pie who was drafted in on the recommendation of producer Craig Perry, who told Reddick “you’ve got to get this kid, he’s going to be huge.”
Even so, Reddick was left a little unhappy.
“One of the conversations we had early on was like ‘Just remember this is set in New York, which is one of the most diverse cities in the world so let’s make sure we have some diversity in the cast’ and they were like ‘oh we will’ and then there wasn’t anyone who wasn’t white in it.”
New Line chief Bob Shaye did find a way to make amends on some level at least, casting Candyman horror icon Tony Todd in a cameo role as a mysteriously foreboding mortician.
“He called me up and said they had got Tony Todd and I flipped out. He is an icon. Such a talented, serious actor.”
As well as co-write the film, Wong took on directorial duties while each of the film’s death sequences would require careful planning, his first aim was to have the film start with a bang by creating as terrifyingly realistic a plane crash as possible.
“We want to do for planes and air travel what Jaws did for sharks and swimming,” he declared in one interview.
Yet the film would later garner criticism for its eerie similarities to the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 off East Moriches, Long Island, New York in 1996 where 16 students and five adults died.
“There was some criticism that the movie was written to exploit this real-life crash,” Reddick recalls.
“I even realised later they used footage from one real-life crash which I wasn’t particularly happy about.”
Indeed, much of the news footage shown in the film actually came from the 1996 crash.
That didn’t stop the film becoming a major hit and spawning a sequel within three years.
Final Destination meets Game of Thrones
Reddick returned to write the treatment for Final Destination 2, determined to move the franchise away from its teen Scream origins.
“We had tapped into that zeitgeist and didn’t have to do that again. I wanted to expand the universe and subvert it, so I had it open by following a bunch of teens who are then killed off.”
Once again, divine intervention led to divine inspiration for the opening set piece.
“Originally, I was going to have it open with some kids going to spring break and they stop off at this hotel and there is a fire but the producers were not sure. Writers always say you should go out and live life – life informs you and a lot of inspiration comes out when I go out for a walk.
“I was driving back to Kentucky to see my family and I got stuck behind a log truck and the idea just came to me. I pulled off the highway and called Craig and was flipping out with this idea for a log truck on a freeway.”
The resulting freeway pile-up that leads to multiple deaths is one Reddick ranks as his “favourite scene in the entire franchise.”
“The second film is my favourite. I wanted to create a sequel that didn’t feel like a remake of the first. It went in a more fun direction – but it’s still scary.”
That first sequel also represented the last of which Reddick was formally involved in, though he remained very much in the loop as the Godfather of the franchise, revealing that producers had been “looking at scripts before Covid hit.”
He also revealed that, at one point, things looked to be heading in an altogether different and thoroughly fascinating direction.
“There was talk about setting a Final Destination back in Medieval times. Like Game of Thrones in Final Destination. Craig Perry worked with a writer and they talked about the idea and put a teaser trailer together [which has leaked online].
“I would go and see that movie in a heartbeat but the studio said that the reason Final Destination was so popular was that element of deaths in normal, everyday situations.”
Future Destinations
Reddick hasn’t given up on a return to the franchise though, hinting at a “unique” idea he has for a new film that is simply too good to reveal yet.
In the meantime, he has been busy writing and directing Don’t Look Back, a film that shares some surface similarities with Final Destination and is painfully relevant to society today.
“It’s a mystery thriller about a group of people who witness someone getting fatally assaulted in a park and don’t help the person and somebody films them and puts it online. The public turns on the witnesses and someone or something is coming after them.”
Eager to make more horror films and celebrate diversity in his work, Reddick remains immensely proud of Final Destination and the impact it has had on audiences.
cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });
“It’s cool. To have one movie that is going to be talked about after you die is a life goal. If that’s what I leave behind as a legacy that’s enough – but I still want more.”
Don’t Look Back is available on DVD & Digital from 14th June
The post How Final Destination Went From Real-Life Premonition to Horror Phenomenon appeared first on Den of Geek.
from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3oUb1UD
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So I finally nailed down my designs for the black heart characters (except colossus, perry/predator and Madusa I'm still massing with them) along with some head canons! The characters might look a bit weird next to each other, I didn't draw them all on the same canvas. I know I'm suppose to but I was lazy and didn't want to re draw the refs on one canvas. I also appologize for this being so long.
I'm hoping to start a comic with these guys. I always end up saying no to projects like this because I don't think my art is good enough but I think I'm going to put my foot down this time!
Hal:
Can talk(unlike my version of Cyan)
Pretty laid back but knows when he needs to be serious
Will curse you out
Thinks Aura and Nautilus are cute together
His cape works as his "soul meter"(idk what to call it). It has 3 squares on the back that represent Hal's souls. The cape becomes tattered and ripped when souls are taken.
He just wants 5 minutes of peace without someone trying to take his souls, please give him his 5 minutes of peace.
Really hates colossus
In the context of black heart I don't consider him a nano bot. He can bleed and stuff like that.
When he sleeps his body starts to heal any wounds and mend his cloths. This leaves him defenseless as he will remain unconscious until it's finished. He tries not to sleep out in the open and often uses caves and trees as temporary shelters when he needs to sleep. This can also activate when he is knocked unconscious but in cases like with Colossus the healing part is stopped.
He can change colors but he prefers red. His cloths don't change colors with him. Just his skin and his cape.
Again, in he context of black heart, I imagine Hal just kinda woke up somewhere with a bit of knowlage about himself and that's about it. Shortly after works he ran into Aura and Nautilus for the first time. He considered the battle a joke.
Nautilus:
Has glowing markings all over his body. He can cause them to glow at will
Can only breath air for around 10 minutes( this time can decrease with some conditions such as heat or cold. This is because his gills need to be wet for him to breath air, so if it's really hot out his gills will dry out faster)
Has a stutter due to the N.A.T.U thing, among other things. Like trust issues when Xero is around
Is euryhalinr(this just means he can breath any kind of water)
His suit adds about 100lbs to him (material, water, and special boots to help with balance when moving around in the suit)
Likes to make jewlary with shells and stuff
Loves Aura to death. Would litterally die for her.
His teeth work like a shark's. One falls out? You've got plenty more to fill the gap! He has given pretty much all his friends breif heart attacks when he casually spits one out after they hear the loud bone cracking noise of a tooth braking. He keeps all the teeth.
Runs on all fours for some reason. No one knows why, including Aura.
Aura:
Learned all her magic from her parents
Her parents lived like hermits because they believed people still hold witch hunts. Aura hated this because she snuck out a lot and knew that this wasn't the case.
Can be a bit forgetful with spells so she always keeps her book with her at all times
Love Nautilus to death, would die for him too.
Can't swim, her body it denser then water so she just sinks. Nautilus is almost always with her when she's near water for this reason.
Aura's wand is broken but she just keeps fixing it with tape because she doesn't know how to make a new one. She also doesn't want to ask her parents because they wouldn't let her live it down.
Made the headphones Puffer wears so he doesn't have to worry about Siren trying to mind control him, again.
Aura has a secret garden. She uses it to grow her magic plants. It has a defense system that even Jestar can't get past. Only those she has given permission can enter, but those people can give temporary permission to others. Only Nautilus, Puffer and Solario have permission to go into the garden.
Has gotten use to the weird things Natalie can do.
Puffer:
A bit of a hermit, but will open up when he trusts someone
Always has his eyes closed because he thinks his eyes look scary. He can still see for some reason? (Like Brock from pokemon, idk how he could see but he traveled like 3-4 regions like that)
Changes colors depending on emotions. Blue is calm and happy, purple is upset and sad and red is anger and frustration.
Puffer can create lots of spikes all over his body if needed as well as a set of claws. He doesn't do this often.
Likes to cook but keeps it a secret from everyone. (Aura and Nautilus found out though, they just kept the secret)
He really doesn't like Siren after what she did to him, but he will talk to her and hang out with her if someone else he trusts is around.
Really wants to apologize to Hal but he hasn't gotten the chance to yet.
Is really self conscious.
He's not very good at swimming but Nautilus teaches him when Siren isn't around or in Aura's secret garden.
Siren:
Likes to sing for no reason
Has a not so small army of skeleton fish
Is litterally heartless (she doesn't like to talk about it)
Has a crush on Puffer but she doesn't know how to fix the bridge she burned with him
Plays chess with Myst a lot(and wins a lot, much to Myst's dismay)
She can shape shift her tail into a pair of legs. This was a "gift" from Jestar to help her be a better assassin for him
Thinks Xero is a prick
Likes to steal Xero's alcohol sometimes
Can water bend. She can't blood bend though. She's tried.
Likes rock and country music for some reason
Nautilus likes to play with her fish some times.
Knows a bit about necromancy. She doesn't like to talk about it though. She never does it in front of anyone besides her fish army
Myst:
Doesn't like to talk about his life outside work
Is well over 100 years old( he lost count)
Is very protective when it comes to Shade
Doesn't really understand Shade but will support her regardless
Likes to smoke when he thinks no one is around
Can create an umbrella to protect himself if he is caught outside when the sun comes up
Likes to play chess
Is basically a dad to the other assassins
Rarely opens his third eye. This usually only happens when he gets frantic, scared or extreamly angry
Does not have any remorse over killing Parry
He doesn't eat in front of others if it can be helped
Myst told Nautilus about Shade once. He had a bad feeling and asked that if anything happened to him Nautilus would take care of her. Only problem was no one thought about the address of Myst and Shade's mansion. He found her though, don't worry.
When he is exposed to sunlight it will immediately cause him to get sunburned. If he doesn't leave after about 30 seconds- 1 minute he will start to die slowly and painfully. He has taken a lot of tea baths because of the sun
Solario:
A big dork
Very loud and bubbly
Is a prince from a kingdom galaxies away from where black heart takes place in
Was suppose to marry the moon from the moon is getting away level (haven't given her a name yet) but she unknowingly broke Sol's heart so he left. He wanted her to be happy and he clearly couldn't give her that happiness.
Doesn't understand "mortal" things but wants to learn.
Nautilus taught him the word yeet and now he won't stop using it
I headcanon that his voice actor would Gary LeVox(lead singer of Rascal Flatts)(don't ask why, I can't change what has happened in my brain)
Will stop at nothing to see his friends happy
Likes hanging out with Aura, Nautilus and Puffer
Can make himself hotter or colder at will. He tends to stay at a heat that won't hurt others when the go near him, but not cold enough to cause himself harm.
If he gets to cold he can die. He also starts to become extreamly cold or extremely hot before death. The direction his tempature goes in is dependent on what he was doing before hand. (Example: reading a book, gets shot, starts to get colder and colder. Attacking Hal trying to get his soul, shapeshifts so much he almost blows himself up, gets hotter and hotter)
Can be a bit over dramatic sometimes
He is incredibly strong. He can lift both Puffer(who whieghs roughly 230 lbs) and Nautilus when he's in his suit(so about 250 lbs) with no trouble. He forgets about his stranghth some times and has accidentally thrown a few things before quickly trying to fix it.
His shapeshifting isn't limited to just objects, he can shape shift small things about him self like his cloths or his entire body into something like a dinosaur. He doesn't do it often though. Mostly just the cloths thing.
Jestar:
Yells a lot
Thinks everyone is incompetent except Xero, for some reason
Accidentally took Puffer when Siren joined do to a confusion about Sirens powers. He refused to send Puffer home.
Colossus is basically just his pet
Xero is the only one who can get away with yelling at Jestar. No one really knows why but they hold really long arguments about all sorts of stupid stuff
Did I mention he yells a lot? I did? Well I’m saying it again. He yells A LOT.
Can shapeshift in to anything
Does not know how to handle baby Madusa. He doesn't know how to handle people in general, and he thought creating a baby was a good idea.
Xero:
Smokes and drinks a lot
Has a German accent(I can’t un heard it, I’m sorry)
Has a wrapped sense of humor
Calls Natilus “shark boy” after natilus bit him(this is related to what happened before N.A.T.U)
Calls everyone a nicknames besides Jestar.
Makes more robots then he needs and holds robot death battles at night.
Wants to dissect Siran after he found out she’s litterally heartless.
Is drunk 90% of the time but that's when he works best. He doesn't care that he has a problem either
Dressed Madusa up is costumes a lot during the 2 weeks it took him to grow up. He created a scrap book with photos of them too.
Can actually be a really nice dude when he wants to be. He doesn't normally want to be nice
90% of his robots are idiots
He's left handed
Colossus:
Is basically Jestar’s pet
Doesn’t speak a language anyone knows
Is basically a king without a kingdom
Starts out really tiny but gets really big for a short period of time once he has infected someone
Shade:
Has trust issues
Is only like 16 years old
Has normal(ish) ghost powers because she was born a ghost
Drives Myst nuts with her edgy stuff
Likes talking to Perry(she meets him after the Funk Hole level)
Can bounce between having a ghost tail to having normal legs.
Her flower is technically apart of her but she doesn't consider it part of her.
Perry:
Kinda skittish around people who look scary to him(so 90% of the black heart cast)
Has a crush on Shade but won't admit it out loud because he's scared of getting bitten in half by Myst, again.
Around 18 years old
Left home because his mom and brother suck and he wanted to be a ghost hunter like the ones he saw on tv. He got his wish for like 2 hours?
Transforms into Predator during the full moons and special moons. Special moons can have different effects on his transformation and mental state. Like a blood moon causes him to become more blood thirsty but a blue moon causes him to actually retain his normal mental state.
He has a habit of spiraling about everything
Predator:
Can't say anything understandable
Each part of his head has a brain so they agrue sometimes
Around 5X the size of Parry
Acts like a dog sometimes
Would have probably just ate Hal instead of taking the souls.
Madusa:
Can breath underwater and air without issue
Doesn't like the fact that he looks like Nautilus
Hasn't figured out how to swim fast like nautilus yet but won't admit it
Calls Jestar dad
Actually gets along well with Xero
Xero calls him Moccasin
Has markings like Nautilus but they only glow in the dark and they aren't as bright
He's allergic to shell fish
Actually had about a 2 week period where he was a kid. Xero and Jestar just gave him a special serum that caused I'm to grow up faster.
Most of his teeth ended up like Aura's but his canines are significantly sharper then they would be. Xero also found an extra set of teeth under Madusa's adult teeth.
Doesn't like the idea that his whole life rests on a tiny, easy to brake, stone on his head but just rolls with it.
Scared Jestar and Xero a lot during his first few days of life. He not only descovered his allergy to shell fish but almost got himself caught by the others a bunch of times.
All these guys belong to OL666 except Hal, he belongs to vitamin games
#art#bai zewarrior#my art#project arrhythmia#project arrhythmia puffer#black heart project arrhythmia#nautilus project arrhythmia#project arrhythmia Hal
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Hope That You Fall In Love (And It Hurts So Bad)
Part II>
Somehow I never posted this here oops--
I’ve always loved @umisabaku ‘s Designation: Miracle fic series on Ao3, and I love to see a half-Canadian protagonist in anime because no one ever thinks being half-Canadian is cool, so I love Sk8: The Infinity, and I figured, hey! Why not combine them! And this happened.
TW for mentions of child experimentation and torture, a scene where it is heavily implied Nanako trades sexual favors in exchange for custody of Langa, a few scenes where Langa has nightmares, a brief moment of Langa having a panic attack, non-graphic descriptions of Oliver developing liver cancer, discussions of death and funeral arrangements, a non-graphic scene of Oliver dying, and the beginnings of Langa's depression.
Ao3
Hasegawa Nanako didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she got contracted by a private company straight out of nursing school. She was young and trusting and desperate for money after her parents died and left her with their debts, and the recruiter from Teiko Industries handed her a quote that was three times the average pay for nurses, so she took the job. She signed the stacks of NDAs, went through with the extensive background checks and drug tests, and underwent a psych evaluation before she even stepped foot into the lab that would change her entire life.
She wants to quit as soon as she figures out what was really going on. Human experimentation, torture, training children to be assassins… the whole thing makes her skin crawl. But, again, she really needs the money. No other job she could get right out of school would pay enough to chip away at her parents’ debt and pay for her apartment and car and food. So, with a heavy heart, she shows up for her shift five nights a week, and she’s assigned to the hospital ward that cared for Generation Infinity.
They’re the youngest generation so far. Eight years younger than Generation Miracle, which, Nanako learns from a particularly chatty coworker, was the most successful Generation by far. “They’re almost all Successes,” the other nurse says, cheery, like they’re talking about some sports game or a litter of kittens instead of living, breathing children. “They just had to scrap O394, but the others are all still promising. Well, maybe not B452, but still. That’s six out of fourteen! Imagine that.”
Nanako doesn’t want to imagine that. The thought makes her stomach churn. The casual talk of killing children…
“Maybe Infinity will be even better!” the coworker chatters on. “If our Orange Three can actually fly… think they’d give us a raise?”
*
The Project she sees most often during her shift is GI-B423.
Nanako knows there isn’t much hope for him. He’s only two years old, but he’s barely developed even the slightest invisibility. He doesn’t even display any Latent Overflow, which was supposed to be inherent in every Project. The scientists still make him wear the shock bracelets (horrible things, Nanako wanted to rip them off of him with her bare hands) and still send him to that torture chamber they stole from Orwell, but he’s already a Failure in their eyes.
To Nanako, he’s a baby. He’s tall for his age, with curious eyes and an unfillable stomach and a wonderful smile when she could wrench one out of him. He winds up in the hospital ward so often because of his reckless behavior. He tries to copy everything the other Projects do, particularly GI-O376’s jumping and GI-B531’s speed, and even when he doesn’t hurt himself trying something stupid, his heart rate elevates and he gets shocked.
“You should be more careful,” she says to him one night as she patches up a scratch he got when he scraped his arm on the wall of his cell trying to touch the ceiling. “I’d hate to see them hurt you for being reckless.”
Those eyes, too smart for a toddler, stare into her soul. “You’re worried about me?”
“Yes.” There’s no use denying it. Even if she didn’t care too much about this child who will probably be killed by the time he’s ten years old, it would be cruel to deny caring for a boy this young. And maybe she’s selfish, for feeling like this about GI-B423 and not the other children, but the scientists care about them plenty. They are Successes.
GI-B423 will never be a Success. So she has to care about him, because no one else will.
*
Nanako quickly comes to realize she’s one of the only people in Teiko that thinks of the Projects as human. This lets her see things no one else does.
So, a few years after she starts working, she notices GM-B425 is planning something.
She’s sure he’s fooling the others. The scientists and doctors and contractors think of these children as weapons, unfeeling, unthinking save for their direct orders. The Miracle Projects are generally allowed free reign of the facility as long as they stay out of the private offices and labs, so Nanako will take her time at the vending machines to watch them, and she notices the way GM-B452 watches everyone else. He’s the closest thing to a Success a Black will ever be, Nanako has heard, but he’s still going to be scrapped soon.
Nanako knows what desperation looks like.
She makes a choice.
*
“Let me get this straight,” says Honda-san, the director of Generation Infinity. He’s an older man, probably pushing sixty, with graying black hair and dark, mean eyes. He’s watched her with a predatory gaze from the first time they met when she first started. Nanako’s always known she’s a pretty woman, one of the few things her mother gave her, so it wasn’t like she was unused to attention from old, greasy men. “You want to resign, and instead of a severance package, you want to take GI-B423 with you?”
“Yes, sir.” Nanako’s wearing her best dress (and if it’s cut just low enough to be flattering, well, that’s just a bonus) and she did her make-up and she is being as polite as she can possibly be. “I’ve made more than enough money here to pay off my parents’ debts, and I was never cut out for work like this in the first place, so I see no reason to continue in my current position when you could hire someone more suited for the role.” She’s been saving since the day she started working. She never eats out, she doesn’t go out drinking, and she takes five minute showers. She’s debt-free, with savings to spare.
“And GI-B423?” Honda-san leans forward on his hands, his wrinkled brow furrowing further. “What use could he have to you?”
Nanako inhales and brings a hand to her stomach. “I’ll never be able to have children,” she says, the truth burning her throat. “I had to get a hysterectomy due to my endometriosis. I’ve come to care for GI-B423 as my own child, and you know as well as I do that he’ll never be a Success. If anything, he’s more noticeable than the other members of his Generation. Why spend the resources continuing to believe he’ll develop the abilities you would need him to? Why dissect him as if anything about him could better future Projects?” The words sting, tasting sour in her mouth. She hates saying these things about GI-B423, but it’s what she needs to do. “If you can get him on my family register, that’s all I ask. We’ll leave the country, and you’ll never hear from us again.”
Honda-san makes a considering noise, and, after a moment, he places his hand on her bare knee. His wedding band glints in the overhead light. “I might be persuaded.”
Nanako tries to smile.
*
Later that night, as Nanako is slipping her dress back up over her shoulders in the room of the love hotel Honda-san rented for the evening, Honda-san says, “What name did you want for him?”
“Langa,” Nanako says. “His name is Hasegawa Langa.”
*
Langa is confused, at first. “Where are we going?” he asks Nanako when she loads him and his meager belongings into her car. He’s never been out on a mission, so this is probably the first time he’s ever seen a car. “Does R0132 know where I am? He’ll get mad if I’m not at training.” He rubs at his wrists, finally free of those awful shock bracelets, like he can’t believe they’re gone.
“I don’t work here anymore,” she tells him. “I quit. Do you know what adoption means? It means I’m going to take care of you from now on.”
“So… I don’t live here?”
“No. And you’ll never have to do training again, or wear your shock bracelets, or go to Room 101. You can eat as much as you want. And you have a name.”
“A name?”
“Yes. Your name is Hasegawa Langa. You’re my son, now, and I’m your mother, and that means I’ll love you and take care of you for the rest of your life.”
Langa blinks. Then, he says, “Okay,” and he lets her buckle him in.
*
Two days later, they’re on a plane to Canada.
*
A month after that, nestled in their new apartment in Squamish, Nanako holds Langa in her lap and they watch, together, as Generation Miracle escapes from Teiko.
“Will they come for us, Mom?” Langa asks.
She squeezes him around the middle, perhaps a little too tight. “No, honey. As long as we keep our secret a secret, we’ll be fine.”
Nanako hopes she’s right.
*
The military never ends up knocking on their door, and Nanako thanks God for small mercies. She and Langa are doing everything they can to blend in, like normal immigrants. Nanako’s working at a nursing home, and Langa is enrolled at the local Catholic school, and they both attend Mass on Sundays and Wednesdays. Nanako makes friends with the other women in the apartment building and she tells them all that Langa’s father got her pregnant and walked out on her, so that’s why he’s not in the picture, and Langa dutifully goes along with the sentiment when asked. Langa isn’t making a lot of friends, and that would worry Nanako, but mostly she’s glad that it means there’s no danger of Langa accidentally telling a kindergartener with no filter about his time at Teiko.
He still gets nightmares, sometimes. Nanako never saw the inside of Room 101, and she wishes Langa never had, either. She never let him see the press images of how the JSDF found Teiko when they went hunting for the scientists, because that would only make the fear worse. Hell, she woke up in the middle of the night sometimes, catapulted out of a dream of fire and screaming, bloody children, guilty that she couldn’t save the rest of them, guilty that she only loved Langa and not the others, and she’ll never make Langa feel that, too. He has enough on his shoulders as it is.
Then, for Langa’s first Christmas outside of Teiko’s walls, Nanako uses up all the PTO she’s saved and they take a trip to a ski lodge, and there they meet Oliver Campbell.
*
Oliver, as it turns out, also lives in Squamish, as he tells Nanako one night over boozy hot chocolate after Langa has been put to bed. “I’m a firefighter,” he says, “though, when I was younger, I wanted to be a pro snowboarder.”
“I could never,” Nanako laughs. “That’s a little too dangerous for me.” Then, because the alcohol makes speaking secrets easier, she says, “Langa would probably love it, though. He’s always been an adrenaline junkie.”
Oliver looks surprised. “He seems like such a quiet kid.”
“Oh, you should’ve seen him when he was—when we still lived in Japan. Scrapes and broken bones everywhere.”
“Well, then, he’s lucky he had such an amazing mother to patch him up.”
Heat floods Nanako’s cheeks. “What good would my nursing license do if I couldn’t even take care of my own kid?”
“And… Langa’s father?”
“Not in the picture. It’s just the two of us.” Please don’t ask anymore, she begs. There’s something about Oliver that makes her want to be completely honest, and that could end very, very poorly.
“Ah,” he says, instead, “I’m sorry about that. Wherever he is, he’s really missing out.”
Nanako thinks of Honda-san, of his leer and his sweaty hands and his potbelly dragging against her back, and says, “We’re better off without him, trust me.”
*
The next day, Oliver starts teaching Langa how to snowboard. Just like Nanako thought, he takes to it like a fish to water, and even when he falls, the snow cushions his landing, so he just laughs and jumps right back up to try again. She watches from the sidelines and smiles, feeling warm, because this is what Langa deserves. He deserves to be a normal kid.
*
“When are you guys going home?” Oliver asks over dinner one night, a few days into their stay at the ski lodge. They’re having breakfast for dinner, a phenomenon Langa was very pleased to learn about, and Nanako ordered him three helpings of Eggs Benedict.
Langa is too busy shovelling peameal bacon into his mouth like he’s never eaten in his life to answer, so Nanako says, “Boxing Day. We don’t have any family in the area, so we’re just doing Christmas here.”
Oliver leans back in his chair. “That reminds me! Why did you guys move here, anyway? If you don’t have family here, I mean.”
Langa only barely doesn’t tense up, and Nanako promises to give him extra dessert for his restraint. “We needed a fresh start,” Nanako says. “I got pregnant with him while I was still in nursing school, and by the time I graduated, my parents had both died, and I got saddled with their debts. We stayed in Japan long enough to pay the debts off and save enough money to move, and we just… left. Where we went didn’t matter much, honestly, as long as it wasn’t Japan.”
“Your English is pretty good,” Oliver notes. He genuinely just sounds curious. “Both of you, actually. If I didn’t know you were immigrants, I would think English was Langa’s first language.”
Langa swallows a huge mouthful of English muffin and egg and says, “I know French, too! And some other languages.”
Nanako takes back her internal promise of extra dessert as Oliver’s eyebrows migrate up towards his hairline. “That’s very impressive,” he says. “Where’d you learn all those?”
Langa shrugs. “Around.”
“We learn English all throughout school, in Japan,” Nanako cuts in. “When I knew we were going to move abroad, I taught Langa, too. And he started teaching himself French when we decided on Canada. He’s a quick study when it comes to languages.” Oliver still looks a little unsure, so she rushes to change the subject. “When are you leaving the lodge, Oliver?”
“I’m checking out of my room on Christmas Eve. My parents always throw a big Christmas party at their cabin in Princeton every year, with all the aunts and uncles and cousins. It’s a riot, especially when we play Pass the Ace.”
“Pass the Ace?” Langa asks. “What’s that?”
A playful glint enters Oliver’s eye. “Oh, Langa, my boy, do you have any loonies on you?”
*
The three of them spend the next few days together. Langa wakes Nanako up as soon as the sun rises and they go downstairs to meet up with Oliver, who spends the rest of the morning teaching Langa how to snowboard. Then they go to the bunny slopes to toboggan, and at night, they eat dinner together, and Oliver and Nanako stay up long after Langa goes to bed to drink and talk.
Nanako’s surprised at how easy it feels to be around Oliver. Even before she started working at Teiko, her dating life wasn’t exactly active. Sure, she’d hooked up with a few guys in college, and she had a boyfriend in high school, but there was never a connection, not like this.
“Here,” he says, the night of the 23rd, “let me give you my number.”
“Really?” Nanako asks, even though she’s already pulling her phone out of her pocket.
Oliver gives her a confused look. “Yeah? I mean, unless you didn’t want to meet up back in Squamish—”
“No, I do!” Nanako rushes to correct. “I do. It’s just… I mean, with Langa…”
“Hey.” Oliver reaches across the table to take one of her hands. “Langa’s a great kid. Any guy who got scared away by him isn’t worth the time of day. I like you, and I like Langa, and I would love nothing more than to get to know the both of you better, if you would allow it.”
Nanako flushes again. She likes this feeling, like someone is looking at her and seeing her and still liking it. She knows she shouldn’t, that Langa’s secret could be in jeopardy if she gets too close to the wrong guy, but she can’t help it. “I think I will,” she says. “Langa would probably never forgive me if I took his snowboarding teacher from him.”
And Oliver laughs, and it’s one of the most beautiful sounds she’s ever heard, right under Langa calling her “Mom.”
*
She and Oliver start officially dating not too long after Christmas. He’ll come to the nursing home with Tim Hortons when she’s working twelves, and he picks Langa up from school and helps him with his homework, and he invites the two of them over for dinner at least twice a week because he knows Nanako is often too busy to cook. When it comes time to celebrate Langa’s birthday, Oliver buys him a brand new snowboard, and Langa throws his arms around his neck and chants “thank you”s into his hair.
He brings them to his parents’ cabin for Victoria Day, and his family is just as kind as him. His nieces and nephews do their best to include Langa in their games, but they don’t push when she shies away and hangs out by the buffet table instead, and his mother, Barbara, hugs Nanako like she’s an old friend rather than a stranger.
“Hey, Langa, wanna swim?” Oliver’s dad, Ray, asks, gesturing to the small pond nearby. Some of the other kids are already splashing around in it, and it is getting warm, so it’s no wonder he’s suggesting it.
Nanako tenses, but Langa just shakes his head. “I don’t swim very often,” he says in that serious way of his, and she releases the breath she was holding. She’s never taken him swimming since she adopted him, because she can’t be certain no one will see the GI-B423 brand on his upper thigh. He doesn’t have many scars, other than the faint ones around his wrists he usually wears long-sleeved shirts to bulky bracelets to cover up, but that one in particular would be very hard to explain away.
Oliver gives her a curious look, but she just shrugs like she’s seen other parents do when their kids are acting weird, and he gives her that lopsided smile and everything is okay again.
*
A month later, Nanako terminates the lease on her and Langa’s apartment, and they move their things into the small house Oliver owns. Langa’s a little confused about why Nanako says he can’t sleep with her as often as he used to now that they’re living with Oliver, but he doesn’t complain. After her, Oliver is his favorite person in the whole world.
*
They go to the ski lodge again for Christmas, and Langa barely stays off the slopes the whole time. He’s only seven now, but he snowboards better than people three times his age and with a decade more experience.
“He’s a prodigy,” Oliver says, watching him jump a worryingly high way into the air. “He could go pro.”
Nanako hopes he doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to attract too much attention to himself. “Maybe,” she says. “But he’s a little too spacey for that, I think.”
Oliver laughs and puts an arm around her waist, letting her melt into his side. “Maybe.”
*
That Christmas, surrounded by the Campbell clan, Oliver gets down on one knee and asks Nanako to be his wife. Nanako can see Langa over Oliver’s shoulder, bobbing his head up and down like a bobblehead, and she lets out a wet laugh and says “yes.”
*
It’s a quiet wedding, at the cabin in Princeton, with just Oliver’s family and some of Nanako’s friends from work. They include Langa in all of their wedding photos, and he hugs Oliver and calls him “Dad” and Oliver almost cries.
This is it, Nanako decides. This is all she needs. Her husband and their son and the life they’ve made for themselves.
As long as no one finds out about Teiko.
*
Langa’s been very good about keeping it all a secret. He never talks about Teiko, or his Generation, or the powers that should have developed but never did. He doesn’t take his bracelets off around anyone, even Oliver, and when he has his nightmares, he quietly wakes Nanako up so she can slip out of bed and comfort him until he falls back to sleep.
Things aren’t perfect, but they work.
Until Generation Miracle is put back into the spotlight.
*
Nanako studiously never brings up the Miracles. Sometimes people will ask if she has an opinion on them, and she always says no. If a news segment is playing and talking about them, she’ll change the channel or turn the TV off. It’s been harder to ignore all the media attention lately, since Teiko’s more insidious designs are suddenly being brought to light. She’s not sure who is suddenly talking, or why, but she’s more than happy to bury her head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t concern her.
Until one day, when she gets home from work, and sees Oliver and Langa sitting on the couch and watching as a teenage boy with light blue hair and a calm fury Nanako only ever saw in one person says, “All we have ever wanted to do is be free.”
Nanako lunges for the remote to change the channel. Oliver squawks in surprise, but she kneels in front of Langa, who’s sitting rigid, like a stone, and takes his hands and says, “Are you okay, sweetie?”
He nods robotically, and she winces. He’s retreating. That’s not good. “Hey, baby, breathe for me, okay? In for four, hold for five, out for six. Just like we used to.”
Langa sets about his breathing exercises, and Oliver stands up, looking more concerned than she’s ever seen him look. “What’s going on? He got all quiet as soon as that news segment started.”
“Oliver, it’s a long story—”
“If my son is having a—a panic attack, or something, I think I deserve to know why!”
This is what she’s always dreaded. She has to come up with something. If she brushes him off, he’s just going to keep digging, but if she says something too complicated, she won’t remember what she said later and it will bite her in the ass. I shouldn’t have gotten him involved, she thinks, mournfully, already picturing the divorce proceedings and custody battle and Langa missing the only father he’s ever known. I knew it was too risky.
“GI-B423.” Langa gasps, and Nanako whips her head up towards him.
“Langa—” she starts, panic rising in her chest, at the same time Oliver says, “What?”
“My designation,” Langa says, he’s still clearly upset. “GI-B423. The twenty-third Black Four Project in Generation Infinity. Failed experiment. GI-B423…” He continues muttering, clearly back in that awful place, and Nanako throws her arms around him.
“Shh, baby,” she coos, rocking him back and forth, feeling him tremble against her. “That’s not you anymore, remember? You’re Hasegawa Langa. You’re eight years old, you’re in year three, and you live with your mom and dad in Squamish, British Columbia.”
She repeats this mantra a few times, drowning out Langa’s, until he stops trembling so much. His little hands grip her scrub top like she’s a liferaft in the middle of the ocean. She’s no stranger to this feeling; most of his nightmares result in a similar embrace. Her neck is damp from his tears and snot, but she keeps on rocking him, letting him cry himself out until he falls asleep.
Throughout it all, Oliver watches, silent.
*
Nanako carries Langa to bed and tucks him in for an impromptu nap, and braces herself for the awful conversation she knows she has to have.
Oliver is still sitting on the couch, silent, staring at the wall behind the TV. “Well,” he says, before Nanako has a chance to say anything, “a few things make more sense now.”
“Oliver…”
He looks at her, meeting her worried gaze, and sighs, opening his arms. She falls into his embrace readily, collapsing against his side. In his arms, she feels safe, like nothing can touch her here. “Tell me your story,” he says, playing with her wedding band, and she does.
*
Nanako won’t say things are perfect after Oliver learns Langa’s secret, but they’re certainly easier.
Now, when Langa has his nightmares, he can crawl into bed in between his parents and not have to worry about revealing anything he shouldn’t. Oliver’s always been better at calming him down, too, so having his help in soothing Langa’s nightmares is a huge deal. Nanako doesn’t have to be on the lookout for evil scientists or government agents all on her own anymore, now that Oliver is also keeping an eye out.
The three of them sit on the couch together to watch the coverage of the Special Diet, and when the Miracles are declared not dangerous, Nanako almost cries.
Maybe they can finally be free.
*
And so, the years pass.
Things are never perfect. They wouldn’t have been perfect if Langa wasn’t a genetically engineered child designed to be an assassin, but even then, things are a normal amount of imperfection. Langa still has trouble connecting with kids his own age, but not in a weird way, just a kid way. Nanako and Oliver have their odd disagreements, though they never go to bed angry. Oliver goes out drinking with his coworkers from the fire station more often than Nanako would like, but he never drives drunk and never gets angry or abusive, so she doesn’t try to make him stop. They get enough money to buy a larger house just outside of Squamish, and Nanako starts up a garden in the backyard in the spring and summer. In the winter, they spend more and more time on the mountain as Langa falls more in love with snowboarding.
And he does love snowboarding. He’s always pushing himself to go faster, jump higher, do more. Nanako is nervous that he might want to go pro, but he never brings the possibility up. He just wants to snowboard with his dad. He doesn’t care about the money or the glory or anything else. As long as he has his board and the snow and Oliver, he’s happy.
And then Oliver gets his diagnosis.
*
It starts small. He’s less hungry than he used to be, “But your food is as delicious as it’s always been!” he says with a flirty wink. The fifteen-year-old Langa rolls his eyes.
Then, he starts losing weight. He was always fit, with not a lot of fat on him, so when he starts losing weight, Nanako gets concerned. “You’re not trying to diet or anything, right?” she asks, staring at his narrower chest.
He shakes his head. “I’m probably just getting old, honey. We didn’t get to go on the slopes much this winter. I’ll start jogging to get my muscle mass back up, if that’ll make you happy.”
Langa goes on these runs with him. He’s always been an active kid, since Teiko was training them to be super soldiers, so he always has too much energy. The extra activity is good for him.
Oliver, on the other hand, doesn’t benefit as much from their daily jogs. He keeps losing weight, and every once in a while, he complains of abdominal pain. “No, Nanako, I’m not going to the doctor,” he says when she gives him a worried look. “It’s probably nothing.”
Then, on Canada Day, Nanako is woken up when Oliver bolts out of bed to be violently sick in their ensuite bathroom and notices his skin is jaundiced, and the next day she packs up him and Langa and they all go to the hospital together.
*
Liver cancer.
Stage 4.
Treatment options.
Life expectancy.
Langa shuts down.
*
Oliver deteriorates quickly after that.
He’s in the hospital more often than not, and when he’s admitted two weeks before Thanksgiving, everyone knows it’s for the last time. Nanako and Langa are there as often as they can be, sitting with him and holding his hand and desperately trying to pretend he’s not about to leave him forever. The nurses even buy Langa a cake when the three of them all collectively forget his sixteenth birthday.
When Langa is at school or sleeping in the waiting room, Nanako and Oliver go over his will. He’s leaving everything to Nanako, of course, but he says she should let his cousins come and take a look at family photos after she decides what she wants to keep. He also writes a letter for Langa, but doesn’t let Nanako read it. “It’s for him,” he says. “He should be the first one to read it.
“I don’t want a funeral,” he tells her, voice weak. “Don’t spend your money on that. Don’t make Langa go through that. Cremate me and bury me next to my grandparents, and go out to lunch after.”
“Okay,” she says.
“I wish this wasn’t happening.” For the first time since he got his diagnosis, Oliver starts to cry. “I don’t want to leave you and Langa. I want to see him grow up and fall in love. I want to see your hair turn gray.”
“I want that, too,” she says. She grips his hand tightly and lets her own tears roll down her cheeks. “How am I going to do this without you?”
He tries to crack one of his crooked grins. “You’re a smart lady. You’ll figure it out.”
*
A few nights later, Nanako and Langa are woken in the middle of the night, and they rush to the hospital. They get there in time for each of them to hold one of Oliver’s hands as he takes his last breath.
*
Like Oliver wanted, he’s cremated and buried in Princeton, next to his grandparents in the Campbell family plot. His parents take them out for lunch at a Swiss Chalet, and Langa barely eats. He has the letter Oliver wrote him clenched in his fist. He hasn’t read it yet; the envelope is still sealed.
Nanako won’t push. He’ll read it when he’s ready.
*
They go up the mountain that winter.
Langa stands at the top of the slope and stares down it. He does this for twenty minutes, and walks back to the lodge.
*
“We can’t stay here,” Nanako tells Barbara a few weeks after Christmas. “It’s—it’s killing Langa, being here without Oliver. He’s not eating, he’s barely sleeping…” She chokes back a sob, and melts into the warm embrace her mother-in-law offers her.
“You’ll always be family,” Barbara assures her. “Do what you need to do. We’ll always be here if you need us.”
*
“I’m thinking we should move back to Japan,” Nanako says to Langa later that night. She doesn’t really want to go back to Japan, but Teiko is gone. For good, now that the Miracles thwarted their attempt to build a new one near Hawaii not long after the Special Diet. There’s no reason not to go there, when that’s where they came from and the country in the world most comfortable with mutant children.
Langa, still blank, says, “Okay,” and then nothing else for the rest of the night.
*
They sell the house, find an apartment in Okinawa, say goodbye to the Campbells, and get on a plane to the country they fled almost ten years ago.
I hope I’m doing the right thing, Oliver.
#designation:miracle#sk8: the infinity#sk8#langa hasegawa#nanako hasegawa#oliver hasegawa#ao3fic#my writing#my post#mine
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Some more random bits of trivia about With Great Power
Part 1
Might as well just… put this here. Spoilers below! I ended up talking a lot about the villain side of things.
All for One uses a quirk he refers to as “Clothing Swap” to replace Izuku’s hero gear in Chapter 1. For some random reason, I made a description of the quirk that ended up in my notes, though it never became relevant again. Here it is:
Clothing Swap: The target may have any article(s) considered to be “worn” swapped with any other article(s) the user has seen them wear previously. The user may choose themselves as a target. The swap may be uneven - a hat can be swapped for a full outfit, leading to someone really overdressed, or a full outfit for a hat, leading to the opposite - but “nothing” is not an option for either side of the swap. Objects in pockets or similar places of holding may be transferred into similar places in the new outfit, if available; otherwise they will stay with the clothing they were originally in.
See that part about the user needing to see the target wearing the clothes previously? All for One’s been stalking, and Izuku would’ve been able to guess almost immediately if he heard the details of that quirk.
Speaking of my notes, I tend to name the random fic ideas I write down in order to keep them easy to reference in my notes (or head). I don’t always use those names for the finished product. I liked the reference to the quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”, that I ended up going with for WGP’s story/chapter titles; but I actually came up with that theme after the majority of the fic was done. For most of the writing process, I kept it filed under “Kingmaker AU”.
All for One’s threats to Izuku in the first chapter were something of a bluff. If Izuku refused to listen, All for One would’ve been in quite a pinch - he certainly didn’t want to kill or Noumufy Izuku, and he had the feeling that “lock him in a vault and make him listen” wouldn’t work any better here than it did with his brother. He did have other plans in case getting Izuku to agree to parley failed, but he was massively relieved when it worked. (Izuku’s threat in Chapter 10, on the other hand, was definitely not a bluff.)
Gigantomachia saw the resemblance between Izuku and All for One the moment Izuku opened his mouth - not just in the contents of Izuku’s self-introduction, but Izuku’s voice itself. As seen in canon, he has a very dramatic emotional reaction to hearing All for One’s voice; and while Izuku’s isn’t an obvious match, he could hear similar notes. This was helped by the fact that Izuku was very tired and decided to start making threats, and was consciously using All for One as a model for those. Gigantomachia’s easy initial acceptance of Izuku was mostly down to this (”He speaks with the voice of my Master”). Of course, Izuku’s speech about not proving himself to everyone who asked did make something of an impression on its own merits.
As for the rest of the villains, Shigaraki and Kurogiri were the only ones close enough to All for One to notice Izuku’s resemblance to him (or care; if Dabi had any suspicions, he kept them to himself). It took a few days after Izuku was left with the dictatorship for Shigaraki. Kurogiri, on the other hand, noticed years ago - but decided it wasn’t his place to wonder about it, so he didn’t.
None of the villains guessed that Izuku was a close relative of All for One’s. They all thought, at best, that he was some distant relative who All for One had taken an interest in and who happened to suit his plans. They were immensely surprised by All for One’s choice of successor.
Shigaraki and Kurogiri got emails after All for One disappeared, too, not just Izuku. All for One drafted them beforehand, as well as a few alternate versions for theoretical scenarios that didn’t happen. Shigaraki’s gave him some sarcastic advice on how to make nice with the new Overlord, which worked surprisingly well. Kurogiri’s included advice on Izuku’s preferred coffee brands, which also worked surprisingly well.
All for One had discussed a few things with Gigantomachia beforehand and so didn’t bother with an email - namely along the lines of, “I’m planning to make someone else the Supreme Overlord in my place. Do what you want, but your life will be short and painful if he doesn’t stay in one piece.”
Shigaraki and Kurogiri spent most of their free time after All for One disappeared trying to track him down. Izuku won their loyalty over time - or more accurately, having gainful employment and being surrounded by decent people while trying his best to behave himself helped Shigaraki feel less inclined toward villainy, and Kurogiri appreciated being given a fair chance at all. However, Shigaraki in particular had many questions for All for One, and Kurogiri followed his lead. Gigantomachia them helped out for a while, until…
Gigantomachia saw Izuku’s “father’s” signature, and realized he might’ve accidentally stumbled upon a secret that All for One would be happy to kill half of Japan over. He smartly refrained from telling the other two, and pulled back somewhat on his assistance in their search.
When Gigantomachia met “Hisashi” in person for that trip to America, he sent a panicked text to Shigaraki that he wasn’t offering any more help and that they should stop going behind Izuku’s back if they truly valued their lives and limbs intact. This sparked their decision to bring their research to Aizawa while Izuku was away. Yagi’s assumption that they were afraid of Izuku’s reaction was entirely legitimate, but that wasn’t the full reason for their choice of timing.
One more note about Gigantomachia: When Izuku had his panic attack in Chapter 5, the reason Yagi showed up was because Gigantomachia made a beeline for his office and told him that the Supreme Overlord needed his help. Yagi ran.
I honestly didn’t expect for the villains to take up so much of the fic (or this trivia). I also was hoping to have more of Aizawa and Class 1-A in the story. But since criminal rehabilitation ended up being such a focus, the villains ended up being particularly relevant. I’m still a tiny bit annoyed about it.
How much did Inko know about Hisashi? He tried to give her a similar story to the one he gave Izuku once he returned. However, she knew him and his views well enough that she managed to get out of him that he wasn’t “working with villains” entirely under duress, and that he had done a few things to earn the enmity of “people who were after him”. She was surprised when Izuku made All for One tell her the truth about his villain identity, but less than Izuku expected.
I don’t usually have soundtracks for my writing - I’ll put on whatever music I feel like listening to, or even nothing, depending on my mood. However, for Chapter 10, I wrote most of it while listening to “Devastation and Reform” by Relient K on repeat. I think it fits the self-inflicted tragedy that is All for One’s existence pretty well, and helped me capture the right tone for his side of the story.
Alright, a cheerier note is in order. Originally, Chapter 6 (now the Social Media Chapter) was an utter slog of exposition that made me despair. I ended up scrapping it and rewriting it as a social media interlude that communicated the stuff I wanted it to communicate, but I ended up cutting along with it a draft of the scene Hatsume’s video refers to. Y’know, the one where Izuku sets an attempted assassin on fire. It was indeed accidental - she was hounding Izuku to let her make the perfect Supreme Overlord outfit, and had shoved an ordinary-looking watch at him when the assassins showed up. He threw the watch at one of them and it exploded. Hatsume got yelled at by a tired Izuku afterward for endangering the paperwork he’d have to fill out all over again.
In the Discord conversation where I mentioned the initial concept of this fic, someone proposed a scenario in which Izuku starts crying in the middle of the UN because some representative was being an asshole about how Japan was being handled, and then everyone else would jump in to go, “Nice going, Rick, you ruined a perfectly good Supreme Overlord, now he has anxiety.” I therefore decided that I would indeed make Izuku cry at the UN. This was how the UN chapter came to exist. Of course, in my version, the tears were because of the support Izuku got, and the good guy was named Rick.
Izuku setting someone on fire was also a concept I got from my favorite Discord server. Several other people had Izuku setting people on fire in their stories. I decided to join them.
Finally… you know how I abbreviated “Supreme Overlord” to “S.O.”? Yes, I’m aware that the abbreviation usually stands for “Significant Other”, and I decided to go with it because I thought it was funny. And a good way to embarrass Izuku even further.
I think that got all the major trivia and a few minor bits too. Though I probably can dig out other things from my brain if people have questions; my askbox is open. Otherwise, I’ve got a new prospective writing project in the concept stage, so I’ll switching mental gears off of WGP, I think.
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Let it be known that I have fallen to the forces of Chaos. Which mean that after many, many years of relative sanity I decided to catch up with the recent developments in the Warhammer 40.000 universe.
Now, I loved that bloody, golden, full-of-skulls, grimdark thing once upon a time, but it did go a bit stale, what with the Corpse Emperor God Emperor of Mankind rotting on his golden throne, the Inquisition doing... inquisitiony things and the hero-planet of Cadia still standing against any odds. So I bailed. Okay, to be honest, I bailed but for one guilty pleasure, namely watching the glorious If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device series. Which so does not count!
And then I heard the Ultramarines chant once again and remembered all the glories of soup. (If you listen to it long enough and know Russian, you too shall be enlightened. For all non-Russian speakers, it really does sound as if the lyrics talk about cooking some amazing soup and then eating it. It’s... a thing.) Wait, I said to myself, they released a Roboute Guilliman figure, right? I saw that, not like you can miss it with it’s... very subtle aesthetics. And I sure saw an amazing figure of Magnus the Red (who, let it be known, didn’t betray anyone, oh, and Leman Russ is a bitch). So are the Primarchs back or something, I asked the Corpse Emperor God Emperor. There was no answer. So I went to do some research.
And once I did, I actually picked up a WH40K novel (or two). Again. And let me tell you, those are usually a dredge to get through. A very grimdark, testosterone-dripping, wordy, ridiculously epic dredge. *shudders* Some are readable. Some... are not.
Anyway, the ones I did pick up were the Dark Imperium series first two entries, because my beautiful Smurf Boy Roboute Guilliman is back and was there ever any other choice? Rhetoric question of course. If you are still reading and have no idea whom am I talking about, a quick recap:
Once upon a time there was a universe that was so ridiculously grimdark that it wasn’t even funny. Although sometimes it was grimdark in very funny ways. Humanity spread throughout the Galaxy, then got hit hard with Bad Things, mostly courtesy of themselves. Then an egotistical gold-loving Immortal Man With A Plan decided to unfuck the Galaxy. In order to do that he made - after some rather disastrous demo versions - an army of GMO-supersoldiers, using genetic material harvested from twenty vat-grown fetuses of super-superhumans. Those fetuses? His so-called sons, the Primarchs. Who got baby-napped by the powers of Chaos and thrown into space. Where they grew up into killing-machines, each one on a grimdark planet of his own, until Daddy Emperor picked them up and sent them a-crusading, that is a-conquering the Galaxy for Humankind. Never paid any child-support, the bastard. Anyway, they did... reasonably well with this whole Galaxy-conquering thing. And then things happened, which ended in half of the Primarchs going full Daemon, the other half fucking off in a non-constructive manner and into unknown direction, one of them becoming a sainted martyr and the Emperor becoming a skeleton and sitting on his Golden Throne for the next 10.000 years. Ah, no, sorry, one Primarch tried to put things into order, but the only thing he got as his reward was his Daemonic Bro’s sword to the neck... and spending the next 10.000 years as a bloody tourist attraction. And that was Roboute Guilliman, The Supposedly Boring And Weak One. Meanwhile, the Galaxy went to hell by the way of religious fanatics, xeno incursions and Chaos shenanigans.
After years of marinating it its own sauce the WH40K universe finally started to move. And move fast! The hero-planet of Cadia got smashed to pieces, Warp-rifts basically tore the galaxy... also to pieces and things got so bad that even the space elves decided to help. Which they actually did (!) by getting that tourist attraction of a Primarch off his non-golden throne by the way of technological fuckery and death magic. Accidentally they chose to revive the one Primarch who was actually good at state-building and logistics, and unlike most of his brothers was actually sane to start with.
Well, now he’s still sane. And, which is rather new, deliciously bitchy. See, he returned to life, stood up from his bier-chair, massacred an entire army of Khornites by himself, went to talk to his Dead Emperor Dad, got hit in the face by Daddy Issues, massacred another army, got into a screaming match with his Evil Brother, forced useless supergolden supersoldiers to actually do something after 10k years on sitting on their asses, pulled some well-marinated super-supersoldiers from the basement of some creepy tech-person and went a-crusading. Only his version of a-crusading was suspiciously similar to taking a stroll with his closest buddies and stabilizing the realm. Only it took longer that six months in this case. 112 years long, to be precise. At the end of which he went back to his own his own province... in order to defend it from a Chaos incursion courtesy of the local Plague God and another Evil Brother.
That’s tough, buddy, one might say and they would be completely right. What gets me about this plotline is not the novelty of somebody actually doing some good on a galaxy-wide scale and being a decent person about it (which by local standards means not killing one’s own and choosing to actually heal the sick instead of bombing their planets from the orbit). I knew that would happen the moment I saw which Primarch got revived. What gets me is how internally bitchy the guy gets about it, although in a rather stoic way. And I don’t blame him. If I was a part of a group project, did about half of the work by myself, saw that project implode by no fault of my own, then managed to salvage some of it, then chose to sacrifice myself to save that small salvaged scrap, hoping that everything would turn out okay once the new team took over... and then woke up to find that project utterly fucked in ways thay I could have never imagined with myself being the only competent project manager around, I would be bitchy too.
Not to mention that poor guy has to deal with 24/7 physical pain as well as the realization that Big Emperor Daddy never loved any of his sons, only seeing them as tools and only allowing them to believe in this whole family bullshit for his own gain. Big Daddy told him so mind-to-mind. Yay.
Also, people are now insisting that Big Daddy is God Daddy and he himself is the Son of God. Something he would very much like to keep denying, but he can’t, because the whole bloody Empire he’s so desperately trying to save is now powered by a fanatical horror of a religion, one dangerously prone to mass-murder and causing planetary exctinction events. And they are thiiiiis close to calling him a heretic, despite technically being the Son of God.
Oh, and apparently technology went backwards. Backwards and sideways! So bloody sideways that it’s a matter of course to have flying loudspeakers shaped like golden cherubs... made using baby corpses. As in corpses of actual babies. Tasteless and not even well-crafted, ugh. The architecture is pretty unrecognizable too with all the unnecessary things piled on top of other unnecessary things.
You’d think that that was enough, right? Yeah, no. The guy also hasn’t properly slept in 112 years! Which, okay, GMO-demigod, but still.
Kill me now, but I enjoyed Dark Imperium. A lot. More than I remember ever enjoying a WH40K novel, which is curious, since this one is still a wordy awkward dredge, even if a rather lovely one, and my taste should have drastically improved since the times of old. I guess the next one for me is going to be The Regent’s Shadow. You see, I would really like to see the batshit insane oligarchs of Terra try to pull one on a guy who got into non-bloody empire-building at fourteen. Boring he may be, stupid he is not.
Wrapping this rather random rant up - I do think that the 8th and 9th editions of Warhammer 40.000 (2017 and 2020) were a breath of fresh air, at least lore-wise. Will have to do some research as to how the actual rules might have changed, but it really doesn’t matter since I was always more of a lore-gal anyway. It’s also, I think, a great moment to actually get into this thing, since there is a dynamic, galaxy-scale, linear plotline to follow. Which, let me tell you, is not something that happens all that often. But please, please, please don’t get into this thing!
#WH40K is still terrible but also terribly epic#very much not rebel princess#although Guilliman is the only sane decent guy#who takes active steps to unfuck the Empire#and cares about little people#he's still no unusually uxorious Jesus Christ#also Xiao Qi is not a three meters tall vat-grown demigod#not sure if that's a pity or not#not sure why I wrote this post#screaming into the void I guess
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Nile Freeman week, day one: Love
Rating: M, warnings for (quickly ended) harassment
Contains food, sex, and Nile/OFC
Proper post to come at a more civilized hour.
Nile + Love (September 6)
Nile falls hard, lands on her side and rolls when she hits, but there's broken glass on the concrete and she leaves a smear of blood. She's back on her feet again, glad she wore her less-cute jacket tonight, because it's ripped and she's not great at mending, but Joe will cheerfully insist that it's a wonderful time to learn. The asshole who hit her (while she was removing his buddy's hand from the short, round, butch girl he'd cornered) gears up for another swing. But she's seen him now and would probably have been able to take him down before MCMAP. After several years of getting her ass thoroughly and systematically handed to her by Andy, Nile puts him on the ground in under a minute. She turns to see the butch girl alternating ducking and kicking at the guy who'd started it. She's not doing much damage, but she's distracting the guy plenty. Nile gets him in an armlock that will only damage him permanently if he struggles too hard and escorts him out the door. He stumbles away, white with pain, abandoning the unconscious friend Nile drags out after.
"You all right? I'm Nile," she says.
The butch girl, more impressed than scared, apparently, offers her hand. "Ah, I'm fine," she says. She definitely is and probably did not mean it like that. Her hair's in an afro undercut that's dyed almost navy blue underneath, her mouth is a generous curve of a smile, and her jeans are fitting her really well. "Jackie. Where the hell'd you learn to fight like that? My ma's been after me to take up martial arts since I moved to the city, but this is the first I've taken the idea seriously." Her handshake is warm and dry, calloused in entirely different ways than anybody else whose hands Nile has touched recently.
"Kung fu is really great, if you can find a dojo around," Nile says, which sounds like an answer, but isn't. "Are you sure you're okay? The flat my friends and I are renting is just around the corner." She pauses for a second and adds, "Sorry, that sounded weird. If you wanted to sit down and have a glass of water or something, I mean."
Jackie looks her over and tips her head, smile widening. "Wouldn't mind, if your friends don't."
Nile feels the blush rising in her face. "Of course they won't."
She leads the way. It really is just around the corner and she calls, "Nicky, Joe, company!" as they enter. It takes a few minutes to take off their shoes and hang their coats, and by the time they make it to the kitchen, Nicky and Joe are waiting eagerly with an extra plate set out.
"Oh, I didn't realize you were in the middle of supper," Jackie demurs.
"No, no, a new friend of Nile's is always welcome," Nicky says, and gently works them through the required rounds of polite refusal, including how grateful she already is that Nile helped her with the creeps and how nice it is to have visitors and how she can't impose and how they accidentally made far too much, surely she can do them a favor by helping them eat it, it would be a shame if it went off before they could finish all of it. Eventually Jackie sits at the table with a plate of mullah and a couple pieces of kisra to dip in it, looking slightly shell-shocked.
She tastes it tentatively, then starts eating as enthusiastically as everyone else. "This is brilliant."
Nile groans in sympathy. "Right? These guys are amazing cooks."
Nicky pats her shoulder in passing, heading for the fridge for more water. "It is only practice, Nile. And the joy of cooking for people we love."
She grins at Joe, who looks smug.
The food is good, even though she's still not used to the spices, and they chat lightly. Jackie's working at a grocery and doing a postgrad in mathematics. Nile and the rest of the household are doing some holidaying after finishing a big project for the company they all work for. "Ugh, security consulting, it's incredibly boring," Nile says.
"Oh," Joe says, as if he's just remembered. "Andy is out for the night; she wanted to go backpacking and get away from people for a little. We're going to a club a few streets over and I have Nicky's promise we will spend at least three hours. I want to do some dancing." He shimmies a little in his seat to make her laugh.
"And there will maybe be karaoke and he will need at least an hour to try to convince me to sing," Nicky added, sitting back down.
"Oh, yeah, that's no problem," Nile says, feeling a blush heating her cheeks again. "I'm sure I'll be fine here."
Jackie's eyes have gone heavy lidded. "I can hang around if you'd like some company," she suggests.
"Sounds great," Nile says, and Joe is definitely flashing a thumbs up in her peripheral vision.
They head out as soon as the supper dishes are put away, and she's pretty sure she hears the word 'wager' in Italian as they go, but Jackie is leaning against the doorframe looking like a snack and she doesn't really care what kind of bets they're making about her right this moment.
"Hey," Jackie says. "It's been a weird night, but you're cute and a bit badass and I'm down for a fling. What do you say?"
Nile hasn't been smooth, ever, in her life, but that's a softball question if there ever was one. "Absolutely," she agrees, and steps forward, fingers slipping carefully around the curve of Jackie's hip.
Jackie stretches up to kiss her and it has been way too long. Nile moans into her, pressing her against the doorframe. Jackie pulls back after a minute, her hands wrapped around Nile's biceps and mouth wet.
"Girl, you lift weights? Oh my God." Jackie looks her up and down, more slowly this time. "I'm getting you naked, right? That's on the table? Show me those muscles already."
Nile bursts out laughing. "Sure, if you want. My room's this way."
Jackie is soft and lush under her button down and sports bra and very vocally pleased with every new bit of Nile she uncovers. They shove each other around in their eagerness, eventually making it to her bed and naked, where Jackie pushes Nile down on her back, and demonstrates with mouth and hands just exactly how much she likes Nile's body. Nile yells loud enough that Jackie claps a hand over her mouth, muttering around her mirth about scaring the neighbors.
Nile lays there for a second, blinking stars out of her eyes, then rolls them over to return the favor. Jackie comes with Nile's mouth on her chest, and two fingers deep inside her, clutching Nile's shoulders like she's drowning.
Jackie drifts off for a bit afterward, leaving Nile free to admire her some more. Her hair is flattened a little, from Nile's thighs around her ears, and Nile isn't sure she has a pick handy, she'll have to check.
When Jackie blinks awake, she smacks a kiss on Nile's cheek. "Gotta clean up. I'm not going to stay; work in the morning."
"Oh, sure," Nile agrees, still a little floaty from endorphins. "My toiletry kit might have a comb that will work and there's extra toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet, if you want. First door on the left."
"You are a gem, as well as a knight in shining armor," Jackie informs her. "It's been lovely meeting you, Nile."
"Same," Nile tells her sincerely.
After a brief tidy-up, Jackie kisses her one more time, hot and deep, pats her on the cheek, and says goodbye. "If you visit again, look me up," she says, offering Nile a scrap of paper.
"Thanks," Nile says and waves her down the street.
She has a pot of water on the stove and herbal tea steeping when Joe and Nicky amble back in, Nicky humming and Joe swaying in time.
"How was your evening?" Joe asks, pouring himself a mug and sitting beside her to bump her elbow gently.
"Good," she says, still feeling a little unmoored. "She was nice."
Nicky sits across from them and steals Joe's mug for a sip. "Good. I'm glad. You deserve people who treat you sweetly sometimes."
"I've got you guys, and Andy," she says.
"And we love you, but there's other kinds of sweetness than family," Nicky says fondly.
"That's for sure." Nile leans into the warmth of Joe's arm. "You have a good time?"
"We did." Joe's jaw cracks on a yawn. "Bedtime for old men."
"He is ancient and creaky and needs his rest," Nicky informs her.
"You're only three years younger than me," Joe says, shaking his head. "Come on, ridiculous man. Good night, Nile. Sleep well."
She goes. She feels alive and wrung out and pleasantly warm, but in many ways, mostly she feels loved.
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Dee Day Thoughts and Analysis
Preface: For those who don’t know, I’m a homoromantic asexual woman of color (mostly black).
Anyways, unlike many folks on Tumblr, I did not have too much of a problem with this episode. It did feel kinda..”eh”...and it could have been much better, but I had some laughs and laughed more with this episode than last week’s episode.
Here are my thoughts on the controversies of the episode. They might help some hate the episode and/or RCGMegan less:
1. Yellow/Brown Face – When I first saw those costumes I was like “Oh, we’re doing that again.” But it didn’t surprise me too much. This has been a part of the show for a long time and the racist caricature characters are “old” characters (i.e. known to the audience and not new caricatures created for shits and giggles), so I’m kind of shocked that people are so shocked by this.
I love RCGMegan, but RCGMegan are just…white as fuck. As a person of color, my standards are low for white people. (I HATE that this sounds racist but y’all know what I’m talking about) Like, I can’t even be mad about it. I’m just glad that there were attempts™ to point out the racism and the shittiness of Dee’s characters, which is something they’ve always done as well.
I think RCGMegan really meant well. It’s PURE SPECULATION but it’s possible that that’s why they hired Pete Chatmon, a black man, to direct the episode. White people sometimes think that if they add a person/people of color to their group and they don’t say “PLEASE DON’T DO THIS THIS IS FUCKING DUMB” what they are doing is okay.
And even though this is PURE SPECULATION on my part, I think RCGMegan’s wellmeaningness is one of the reasons that Pete Chatmon chose to do the job and posted on Instagram that he had a good experience working with RCG and co.
I think RCGMegan were attempting to be “silly classic hijinks” Sunny but also “woke” Sunny but they are…white as fuck and sometimes just do not “get” it. (I get the vibe from interviews that they mentally/emotionally separate the show from themselves and from reality.) I hope they learn to chill out with the yellow/brown/red face one day because, even ignoring the racism issue, it’s SO BORING, but I don’t expect them to because…they are white as fuck. Some white people figure it out and stop doing awkward shit. But some just…don’t. Especially when they have a long history of doing questionable things.
For a person of color to be a fan of this show, we/they have to accept the nature of this show or just stop watching it. Those are the only real choices and both choices are valid.
I’ll admit that I think the “Asian driver” joke was actually somewhat funny because the purpose of the joke was to highlight the phenomenon of white people acting like they aren’t racist when they actually are and are too stupid and delusional to realize it (i.e. benevolent racism). I love attempts™ at highlighting benevolent racism because of the subtle and insidious nature of it.
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2. Predatory Gay Mac – I get where people are coming from, but I feel like Mac’s homosexuality wasn’t the joke. I feel like the joke was that Mac was being a goofy idiot who happens to love Dennis, but can’t always express it properly. (example: Mac trying to get Dennis to get on stage with him so he could maybe kiss him…which is the kind of harebrained scheme you’d expect from a goofball 1st grader with a crush and not a full-grown 40 year old man)
Mac’s behavior in this episode was similar to Charlie’s messy over-the-top behavior towards the Waitress in previous episodes.
There was also the dual joke of Mac trying to “one-up” Charlie and so veering into accidental innuendo territory. (example: Mac repeating the comment Charlie said to Dennis about wanting to get in Dennis’ pants)
Also, it’s canon that Mac is often gross when it comes to sexuality in general and I think they were playing with that as well (example: the social network episode where Mac asked the distraught woman about where to find her leaked nude photos).
Everyone in the gang is gross when it comes to sexuality. I feel like a lot of fans forget that Dennis and Dee are canon rapists who usually rape the opposite sex (and Dennis has literally sexually assaulted Mac before even though he considered it a prank). Being an equal member of the Gang, I’m not surprised the writers decided to pass the baton to Mac this episode and even then Mac’s behavior in this episode was fairly tame (in the context of this show LOL).
And FINALLY, even though Dennis protested Mac trying to get them to kiss, I never got the vibe that Dennis was extremely uncomfortable. I think it was just supposed to be a typical “Dennis is annoyed at Mac because Mac is being stupid” reaction. Mac gets on Dennis’ nerves sometimes, but Dennis loves and accepts him and all his weird and stupid behavior. I don’t believe it’s even possible for Mac to make Dennis extremely comfortable. Like, these two are pretty much a hivemind…
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3. Charlie and Dennis Kiss Scene - I TOTALLY GET THE DISCOMFORT WITH THIS. And while the second kiss was actually a surprisingly good kiss (Charlie and Glenn can ACT), the scene wasn’t really funny. It was just like “Why? What am I supposed to be getting from this?”
One criticism I’ve seen is that the scene was saying two men kissing is gross (i.e. homophobia). But I don’t think that was the purpose. It honestly reminded me of the awkward attempted kiss scene between Mac and Dee when they were playing characters in one of the lethal weapon episodes.
Another criticism I’ve seen is that Dee (who, as we know, raped Charlie) forced two child abuse victims to kiss. VALID CRITICISM. But when it comes to the characters: they just don’t give a shit. Charlie still hangs out with Dee and considers her a friend (which is COMPLETELY different than how he sees Uncle Jack). Dennis loves her and hangs out with her. Notice that they were more concerned with coming across as homophobic (which is so, so stupid but typical of them) and they hated that they had cheese breath.
And keep in mind that even though it was Dee Day and they were “supposed” to do what she says, they didn’t have to. They treat Dee like garbage 364 days of the year with little remorse and she always come back to them. I feel like the implication is that they CHOSE to do the kiss, considered it gross but didn’t consider it a big deal, and would not compare it to their child abuse experiences.
Dee’s behavior analysis: The previous season’s Mac/Charlie/Frank orgy with the Dennis doll that she watched permanently fucked her up. Like, she knows she’s making the Gang uncomfortable, but she’s lost the ability to comprehend how abnormal her behavior is. Boundaries are gone in her mind. In her mind, she’s simply teasing them and they’ll be fine no matter what happens.
I know people identify with the characters because of their personal experiences and I get that. I get that people have strong feelings about these characters and it’s totally understandable and valid. But I think we have to be careful not to project too much on the characters and instead try to keep in mind how the characters are instead of how we think they are. Like, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has a ton of dark elements, but it’s a relatively upbeat show that often doesn’t take itself too seriously.
This is PURE SPECULATION but I got the vibe from the second kiss that “someone” (possibly Megan?) wanted to do a CharDen scene but needed to do it in the spirit of IASIP (awkward situations + the Gang willing to do anything if they are passionate enough about it) and that scene was the result. It’s also possible that it was the result of some kind of RCG “in-joke” that they didn’t realize might not translate very well on the screen to certain audience members.
At the end of the day, I think it was just supposed to be a goofy “lolwut the Gang is so wacky” scene and it’s not meant to be psychoanalyzed the way certain things on the show are.
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4. Dennis Without His Make-Up – I get people’s concerns about this. But the show has occasionally made fun of Dennis’ self-esteem issues concering his looks throughout the show, so this is nothing new. I feel that the scene was designed to make you feel sorry for Dennis, but also it was supposed to just be classic Sunny. Like him hitting on the congresswoman wasn’t just funny because he looked “off,” but because he just kept saying weird and awkward shit to her (similar to the scene in Season 13 where he was trying and failing to hit on the fantasy baseball woman).
And keep in mind that the rest of the Gang kept reassuring Dennis that he looked fine even after the scheme, which was sweet. The same cannot be said about Dee. She’s received a lot more abuse from the Gang and only scraps of affection and reassurance from them to the point where she always lights up when they show her basic kindness. If Dee (and we) can handle Dee’s abuse, Dennis (and we) can handle Dennis’ abuse. And, as mentioned above, he did not have to remove his make-up. He chose to do it and he chose to deal with the consequences of that. But he’ll be fine.
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5. There was not enough focus on Dee – 100% agree. Nothing else to add. LOL.
#iasip#iasip season 14#iasip spoilers#dee day#rcg#megan ganz#pete chatmon#musings meta headcanons#god level fandom posts
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Day 3 - Dearest Wish
The camera blinked on, only the synthetic muscle of an exo’s hand was visible as they adjusted the camera. The hand moved out of the way, linking up with its other half on the table. The exo’s optics looked everywhere but at the camera as he sighed.
“My name is Cobalt and this is the first… log?” He winced as he said it. “That sounds stupid.” with a groan he let his head fall into his hands and stayed like that for thirty seconds of the video.
He finally sat up again.
“It’s been one day since you left.” Cobalt looked away, a grimace pulling on his face plates. “I already miss you even if I could be there… even though if I jumped into a ship right now I could probably catch up.”
Leaning his head to the side, supported by his hand, the exo looked around the room. Muffled and outside of view the telltale sound of a ghost’s voice could be heard but the words were hard to make out through the video.
“Yea, thanks Bandit.” Cobalt replied, glancing back to the camera he sat up.
“I still want to stay and help in the city, be a guardian, have a purpose but-” As he trailed off he closed his optics again, holding his face as if he was pinching the bridge of his nose, something that did nothing for the exo but was an odd habit anyway. “Sometimes I wish I could cry, to get all of this sadness out quick and easy.”
Instead he had to sit there and deal with it.
“You’re never going to see this, but I miss you.” Cobalt said, a small smile on his face, the first in the video. “And for what it’s still worth after what I said before you left… I love you.”
The exo reached out to the camera and the video ended.
The Drifter stared at the last frame for minutes after, blinking away a few tears. When Evelon had given him some of Cobalt’s belongings and files recovered from his dead ghost, he hadn’t expected to find a couple hundred videos behind a password that was embarrassingly easy to guess.
A couple hundred videos all dedicated to him.
He took a deep breath and continued watching.
The camera was clumsily adjusted again, synthetic tongue slightly poking out as Cobalt concentrated on getting it right. Drifter smiled at the sigh, it looked cute. Satisfied after a few seconds of fiddling the exo sat back.
“I’ve been out of the city for a while.” Cobalt said, taking a sip out of one of Drifters old mugs with the text ‘I boo what I want.’ with a ghost flipping people off. “Met another guardian, a titan named Alejandra.”
He kept the steaming mug in his hands and stared inside of it for a few seconds. From the angle the video was shot at it was hard to make out what he was drinking, but Drifter could bet it was more sugar than anything else.
“We talked about the people we lost.” He took a shuddering breath. “I guess you technically count as a lost one now.”
Cobalt’s hands visibly clenched around the mug as he frowned. “Doubt you’ll be back before I get myself killed fighting hive or whatever, or that you’ll ever get back at all with how likely you are to get yourself killed out there.”
Drifter winched at the reality of his dead partner's statement. He had almost died, and when he had come back it was indeed Cobalt who had died at the hands of one of the ‘enemies of the city’.
In the video the exo took another long swig of his drink. “Nevertheless, I still wish for you to come back to me.”
Cobalt stared at the camera for a solid 20 seconds before sighing and moving to turn it off.
Several videos later Drifter had moved from leaning on the railing to just sitting on the ground as he watched Cobalt moving things around his desk, tidying up. The exo had gotten more comfortable recording with every video he watched.
He finally looked up and smiled. “The hunter from our fireteam, Dione, he’s a good kid.” Cobalt said as he absentmindedly fiddled with a pen. “We worked with another fireteam, Voidlight, on a raid into fallen territory recently and he hit it off with their warlock, Avil.”
Drifter knew those people, Evelon was still friends with them and had dragged them into Gambit once or twice.
“With how spotty Dione’s memory can be, he managed to remember Avil pretty well so that’s a good sign.” Cobalt said, his smile widening. “It’s cute to see the budding romance, they have the freedom and safety here in the city to actually… date and woo each other without worrying about their final deaths every other day.”
Cobalt looked somewhat lost in thought as he was talking and accidentally shot the pen across his desk. He cursed and moved partially out of frame as he dove after it. Putting it back in its place when he had located it again.
“Cobalt, Siph and the others are here for that game night, you coming?” A person moved into frame, their face not visible just his waist as he stood next to him. “You recording again?”
Cobalt smiled at his teammate. “Yea, be right there Orion.” The other exo patted his shoulder in reply and walked away again.
“This is a short one then.” Cobalt grinned in the camera and turned it off.
It had been a few hours since he started up the first video, the Drifter had stayed up all night and it must’ve been nearing morning again when he heard guardians moving around the annex again. He had moved to a different spot, not wanting a stray guardian looking for gambit bounties finding him tearing up.
He was nearing the end of the videos.
“Bandit you’re recording?” Cobalt asked, the ghost turned around and then he was in frame, smiling.
“Uhm, I’m ready I guess.” Came a familiar voice from out of frame.
“I present to you, our newest fireteam member.” Cobalt pulled the awoken hunter into view and hugged her close to his side. “Evelon Naleen, kinderguardian and hunter extraordinaire.”
Evelon gave the camera, Bandit, a small wave, as her face and body language gave away how uncomfortable she was. Drifter had never seen her with hair that long but that was definitely the godslayer he had come to call his partner in crime. Although she definitely didn’t look like much of a godslayer right now.
Orion moved into the frame as well, patting the taller guardians head. Both of the exo’s being dwarfed by the beanpole of a hunter.
“We are very happy to have her on the team and look forward to our many adventures.”
Evelon gave a more genuine smile at Cobalt’s words.
“Bandit, end recording.”
The videos leading up to the last one were the happiest Drifter had seen Cobalt in the hundreds he had watched by now. He was glad his love had found friends he could trust, that would have his back.
As he opened the last video Drifter held his breath, he wasn’t sure what this was going to end up being.
Cobalt came into view, the scenery behind him showed forest and ruins of a church and other buildings. He was likely to be somewhere around the EDZ, which is where Evelon said they had found his dead ghost. This was not long before he died but Cobalt in the video didn’t know what was going to happen and smiled.
“I’m feeling good about today, Eli.” Cobalt had always liked that name best, probably because he had picked it. Drifter smiled ruefully at the irony as he watched his lovers last moments, hours or perhaps days.
“Nev and me have been tracking her old house in hopes of establishing some contact.” Off screen said fallen chittered in Eliksni, Cobalt turned his head and answered back in the same language, the wonders of an exo voicebox, Nev let out what must be a laugh at the reply.
Cobalt smiled as he turned back to the camera. “Nevrik’s kell is first and foremost a technocrat, so we hope to build a good relationship by giving them some new tech from the city they could use.”
The Drifter could feel his stomach sink, he knew how this was going to end.
“This could be the first step towards peace with the Eliksni.” He smiled a bit sadly. “Although you might call me hopelessly optimistic.”
Cobalt stopped walking and leaned against a tree, the fallen he was traveling with nodded at him as she walked past the frame towards the distance, firewood under her arm.
“I guess Evelon rubbed off on me.” Drifter could definitely relate to that, the kid had a way of worming into your heart even though he met the hunter at a way darker time in her life.
After a few beats of silence Cobalt looked directly into the camera. “I miss you everyday still, it’s been years and you haven’t come back yet..” His voice box stuttered as he got choked up, closing his eyes for a few seconds to get his bearings. “But I saw a falling meteorite a few days ago, wished on it like the kids in the city told me to, so maybe I’ll see you around in a few days, or a few years.” Cobalt’s smile was sad.
“See you around, Eli.”
The video ended.
And all that would be left of Cobalt was a stray leg that Nevriks old kell had ripped off and apparently hadn’t needed for whatever fucked up project he was going to repurpose him for. His ghost crushed into a pile of scrap just outside the encampment.
Drifter pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes and willed himself not to cry.
#destcember2020#destcember 2020#more cobalt and drifter#i love cobalt so much its unreal#destiny#destiny the game
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