#i often struggle to care about booker
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hiiiii emyr i was wondering if anyone has asked about the andy/booker fic (if you ask me, i will do it for you) yet <3 one of your tog fics that i read first and ive been rotating your commentary abt quynh/booker, andy/booker, and andy/quynh in my head for a while now :]
ur the first to ask about it!! booker/andy/quynh the triad from hell that lives inside my heart <3 i can make them all so much worse!
ask for my director's commentary of a fic
this fic!!! oh this fic. a big one for me, big reveal for many things i didn’t expect. i forgot how i got the idea, just that writing it sorta kinda pretty much gutted me <3 first time i properly wrote andy/booker after thinking about them for a few months as well as first time i wrote nb andy which was an eye-opening experience to me at the time. i wanted to try something softer, more subdued here, i tried to give the impression that this fic is told in quiet whispers if that makes sense, mostly because of the main topic here: grief
i keep it implicit but andy is grieving the death of their son here, i tried to draw parallels with andy and booker thru that idea, how they understand each other, and how they both deflect and avoid the topic with the same tricks (mirrored in the canon events we have, booker and andy are closer thanks to their misery, they’re stuck in a hole together). i needed a line about how booker sees the exact same unhealthy mechanisms in andy as he has himself, and calls it out and tries to make them talk it out because he knows what he’s doing doesn’t help himself but is hypocritical about it and doesn’t want that suffering for andy, just like andy despite and because of their old age refuses to pick the healthy choice and decide to stay stuck in the pain and suffer in it. the thesis of their ship to me is finding comfort in pain but going about it by cushioning the pit they’re in instead of helping each other out
i loved writing the first part before they bathe and how out of it andy is, they’re often so composed or in control of themselves that i enjoyed peeking at what happens when they crack under the pressure and crumbles. in contrast, it got me to write booker being competent, caring and providing for them, something he doesn’t get to do often around the other immortals, and what i think is a thesis of his character, something he’s missing now which explains in part why he’s so miserable: he’s a father who cannot be a father to anyone in his life anymore. i love tog immortals’ for how it allows u to play with relationships, and i like how booker can shift in and out of a fatherly behavior around andy here, how it brings him solace and soothes him too. that’s why there’s this almost desperate plea at the beginning of ‘let me take care of u’, booker needs this as much as andy does
and i think this must be one of the best sentences i’ve ever written: ‘He’s not good like them, he’s selfish, and scared, and terribly in love so he says the first thing that crosses his mind. “You’re good to me, Andy.” He says.’ im a fan of love that hurts, love that renders selfish, hozier’s ‘love as an act of violence against the world, i’m choosing this person over all of u’ and andy and booker, especially closer to the 21th where they’re both left adrift and struggling, embody that for me
and then there’s the physical intimacy, the nonsexual nudity, the complete trust they share together, how andy lets booker wash the blood off their hands and how they let him help and calm them down. that’s why i wanted to write this with bathing and hair washing, to pick this act that’s one of the most caring one can do, cleaning another person and rubbing their back and washing their hair for them, a sign of trust and intimacy and being family
there’s this stream of bitterness through the fic too, booker’s cynicism and multiple reminders that he doesn’t believe he’s happy but can’t bring himself to lie either (saying home without meaning it, not offering white lies like joe or nicky would do, not able to tell andy they’re ok or that it’s going to be alright) instead giving the only thing he can: factual assessment of the situation and himself (im here for u, whatever u get out of my presence by ur side)
and the last lines of dialogue! ‘it’s enough’ andy says because despite feeling pulled and broken from all sides by the world around them, the people they have around them are enough to make bearing this life worth it. i wanted to andy a version of andy that is tired already, but not yet exhausted by life like we see in canon where they do not want to keep fighting anymore, i wanted to showcase an andy that is worn down but still willing to bear pain and live, just weighed down not yet crushed by their long life
the title is a reference to booker's attitude here, all he wants is for andy to ask for his help, he's ready to give himself to them entirely, if only they were to ask for that. he's desperate to belong to them, and relishes in any drop of it he can get
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Sometimes I wonder about Booker and privilege a lot.
Of all the members of the guard, he is the only one who gets to go through life with the straight white man privilege. Who can walk into any country, any part of the world and be, well if not accepted, at least treated with caution. White people inherently have that advantage.
Now, Andy and Nicky share it too yes. But Andy has years and years of sexism to contend with. Of being forced to conform to the norms of a woman, of being thought weaker, of being treated as eye candy by lecherous men. For her, I imagine being captured by the unsavory always included the threat of rape or sexual abuse. And Nicky can find acceptance easier than her as long as he chooses to hide his love, as long as he distances himself from Joe and since thats antithetical to who he is as a person, it will grate his soul. His acceptance into white society comes at a price that he most often feels is too high. So his privilege comes at a cost that grants him awareness of it each minute.
I hardly need to talk about the multiple ways these issues intersect for Joe and Quynh when they attempt life in the western world at any given point in history. I'm not even talking about direct racist abuse and hate crimes. But day to day life. Restaurants and inns that either refuse to serve them or demand entry through separate doors, restrooms that are divided, public transportation issues, buying power being affected because too much money would raise questions of whether it's stolen money, that kind of thing. Problems coming up just because of their skin, even without the gender and sexual orientation.
Nile's experience with racism and sexism is subtler as all modern day issues are, but it is still very much present. Micro aggressions and purposefully designed power imbalance cloaked under the guise of a fair and upstanding world that left its ugly past in the last millennium and chooses to treat issues as things that magically vanished one day in the 20th century. Especially with America insisting it neither has a racist history nor is it anything but the land of the free.
Booker has no concept of dealing with discrimination in anyway but tangentially and no matter what, no matter how empathetic an individual is or how much one tries, it is not the same. The lack of privilege is the only way to fully comprehend its absence.
Which is another reason why I personally find it very hard to understand and sympathize with the 'nobody knows what it feels like, nobody understands' ideology he has. I accept the presence of his mental health issues and I very much find them valid, be it crippling depression or extreme alcoholism. But it still reeks of 'my suffering is unique' vibes to me and demonstrates a lack of understanding of the struggles the others face.
And sure, suffering is not a competition and everyone has pain tolerance to different degrees and Booker might just be one of those people who doesn't cope with it well. But his woe is me, my pain is beyond your comprehension is just... Idk suspect as hell.
Like, yes, it was not his intention to hurt the others, the set up at the start was only to give proof. He knows the risks of exposing their secret better than anyone though, since he came to them post the loss of Quynh and has heard their deepest fear. But he still went ahead with it, like did he think a big time pharmaceutical company in a capitalist world would want anything but profit at any expense?
His intention might not have been to hurt the others but making their worst fears come true shows, at the very least, a high degree of disregard and self centric attitude that comes with privilege.
Thoughts anyone?
#i often struggle to care about booker#not booker friendly I guess#he's super interesting to write as a grey character tho#someone tell me if this deserves an anti booker tag#the old guard#andromache#Quynh#yusuf al kaysani#nicolo di genova#sebastien le livre#nile freeman#white privilege#cishet privilege
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V.I.L.E Headcanons
- Graham “Crackle” Calloway grew up in the poorer slims of Sydnee Australia where his parents struggled on a day to day basis to provide food for their 4 kids, Graham, being the oldest son felt the absolute need to help his parents provide for his three younger siblings. Doubling down in school, and getting the best grades he could (B’s and low A’s) and then diving into work as soon as he got out.
-Graham started with small odd jobs until he got a part time gig with a rather cranky old electrician who had no love for anyone in his life. But he took Graham on as an apprentice because the stupid kid wouldn’t leave him alone. To his chagrin, the kid took to the job like a house on fire. This became important when he joine V.I.L.E
-Tigress came from a troubled home to say the least. Her mom was an alcoholic and her dad was a blue-collared working class man who would gamble and chase after his dreams while squandering all the families money She resented her parents for these reasons and acted out as much as she possibly could, whether by robbing small stores or beating up younger kids on the play ground
-She started out trying to make a quick buck to help her momma pay the bills, not because she was showing kindness to her mom, but because the land lord had threatened to kick them out one too many times, and kept making lewd comments and suggestions that even Tigress would not allow her mother to take.
-El Topo’s story isn’t the happiest, seeing as his mother moved into America when he was very young, unable to afford to bring her husband and son with her at the time. Of course, El Topo’s father was not keen on being left behind and took his 12 year old son, attempting to smuggle him into America. Sadly, this would not end well seeing as El Topo’s father was shot and killed, and he was placed in foster care, unable to contact his mother.
-El Topo got out of the Foster care system when he was 18 and was homeless for a long time. He lived on the streets in Georgia, the last place his mom was having known working. He did everything he could to find his mom and was devastated to learn that his mother had moved to New York, remarried and had a daughter.
-Le Chevre’s mother died giving birth to him in Paris, France. His father being left alone to raise their one and only son, they had married young and had a baby younger, leaving the young father devastated and entirely loving of his young son. Le Chevre’s young life was full of music and love. His father worked as a caretaker in a French Theater, working up with the lights and the set pieces.
-Young Le Chevre wasn’t as fascinated with the acting as he was with being high up and above the actors, it gave him a feeling of power and meaning while his father proposed that he take lessons to play instruments for the plays. HE did for about a week to please his hard working father, but took the gold star in thievery. To this day he still leaves large amounts of money on his’s father’s doorsteps as thanks for such a wonderful upbriging.
-Dash Harber grew up with a love of fashion and the stylistic life of the rich and famous. His parents, both very wealthy and distant from him, showered their son with gifts and money for doing nothing but existing. His parents ended up sending him away at the age of 15 (At his request) to his aunt “Cookie Booker” so that he could have a better, proper upbringing.
-Through his ‘Aunt Cookie’, he met the Dear Countess Cleo, who he took a major liking to the Countess, having a childhood crush on her. Cleo found the young gentlemen quiet endearing and took him under her wing, giving him the life he had know that he’d desired at a very young age. This came to bit him in the but when he started working for V.I.L.E. His parent identifying him during a caper and he had to go into hiding for quite a while. (His parents minds were wiped after this incident, as far as they are concerned now, they never had kids).
-Paperstar’s mother was a prostitute in Japan, and gave birth to her from an unknown father. Paperstar was devoted to her mother, even if she was not devoted to her daughter. She was usually there when her mother brought a man home, covering her ears when ever, what her mother called ‘Business work’, started.
-Young Paperstar started stealing from the men who her mother brought home when she was seven, doing this for many years before one man noticed and turned both Paperstar and her mother into the police. This enraged her mother and she disowned Paperstar, leaving the girl alone and vengeful, only wanting to look out for herself. (She might have killed her mom too, I’m still thinking on that one)
-Mimebomb was born in Ireland with their twin brother. When they were young their parents moved them to France. This is where they saw their first ever Mime, their mother had stopped at a shop and 3 year old Mimebomb had wandered off and stopped to watched a man with paint on his face act on a street corner. They realized they were lost and the Mime just... Scooped them up to help them find their mom and twin brother. This REALLY enforced in them that Mimes weren’t scary or freaky. (Their WHOLE family disagrees to this to this day)
-Spoiler, Mimebomb grew obsessed with Mimes and this really worried their parents. They sent him to a Psychologist, one Professor Maelstrom who was doing freelance work. Maelstrom found the phenomena rather interesting and kept track of Mimebomb for a very long time, it was Maelstrom who brought Mimebomb to V.I.L.E and showed them what their true calling was.
-Boris and Vlad.... I don’t have much for them but what I do have is rather... Boris and Vlad grew up in a very unwelcoming community. Russia at the time was very hostile towards outsiders and while their parents (They are not related, family friends in my eyes) had both of them in Russia, they were still not well accepted by their community, often bullied and beaten bloody by other kids, who forced them to clean up the mess after they finished beating them.
-This horrible childhood instilled a rather off form of PTSD and OCD in both of them that leads them to see every mess that a V.I.L.E operative made was something they had to clean up. Somehow, it was their fault and they had to fix and clean and pretend nothing ever happened.
-Cookie Booker is the Aunt of Dash Haber, she ADORES her Nephew and spoiled him rotten when he was a child, basically taking him in when he asked her too. She took great care to raise him the best she could, never having been able to have children herself, an event that let to her husband leaving her and marrying another woman.
-Cookie was also the woman who introduced Countess Cleo to Professor Maelstorm, a very monumental occasion in V.I.L.E history.
-Neal the Eel was just Neal as a kid. His mom and dad were performers in a Circus, a Magician and his Assistant. He used to adore the circus and wanted to be part of it as a contortionist/escape artist. He was bullied for his hypermobility ( similar to double-jointedness, but if it is progressively more serious it can create more problems for someone.) Causing him to end up resenting his upbringing and parents.
When Neal was 16 he began to break IN to prisons and then BREAK BACK OUT with a TON of the criminals inside. This quickly put him on V.I.L.E’s radar and they decided that they really wanted to recruit him. They made the offer and he vowed that he would never be seen as a joke like he was with the circus.
-MooseBoy was not the brightest kid in school, often picked on for being slow or stupid when he was really just a friendly kid with dyslexia. He almost flunked out of school and would have if not for this dorky looking kid who called himself “Otter”. Thus, a tense and rather abusive friendship formed.
-Otterman was the only reason that Mooseboy was able to graduate Highschool. They were a team, he was the brains (Still is) and Mooseboy the brawn (Still is). HE hated the fact that he was smaller and weaker and really took it out on his partner. Their first crime together was breaking into the school and stealing the principal’s desk on a dare.
-Spinkick and his half sister Flytrap have the same father, and different mothers. Their father lived a double life with his paramours only six miles from one and other. This affair was discovered by their moms and the two women ended up murdering their children’s father and then (unironically) falling in love with each other.
-Flytrap and Spinkick’s mothers moved in and the two kids were forced to get along, they ended up really caring about each other and watching each other’s backs and defending each other in school. Their mother’s never got caught by the way, just think about that.
-The Troll never had friends as a kid and met all his good good friends online, including Player (Plot twist?). Player and Troll got along like peanut butter and jelly, becoming a tag team in learning to hack and work with the internet system. The Troll became invested in trying to figure out how to lock down security systems like banks or Jail facilities (Seeing as his father was put in jail for robbing a back and killing a man who tried to stop him).
-This took Player aback and he began to back away from his friendship with The Troll. This didn’t matter to The Troll, he managed to shut down the security system where his father was being kept. This ends sadly due to the fact that his father doesn’t escape, but ends up dying in the break out. This caused him to draw back from people and remain in his room for a very long time.
Thanks for reading my ramble about V.I.L.E Operatives, I’ll be posting one for the Faculty soon!
#carmen sandeigo 2019#carmen sandeigo spoilers#crackle#graham crackle#tigress#el topo#le cherve#dash haber#cookie booker#papersta#paperstar#boris and vlad#the cleaners#mime bomb#neal the eel#flytrap#spinkick#otter man#moose boy#the troll#vile#vile operatives#headcanon#please help me#I'm obsessed with this show
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Everything is the same in canon except Andy never lost her immortality. Quynh's been back for a few years and they're going on missions.
Nicky through the comms: Andy....Andy she's not healing.
“Wait for my signal.”
“Seriously?” Quynh smiled at the love of her life.
“Yes,” Andy returned the smile, “That’s how we do it in this century, my love.”
Quynh scoffed, and a moment later Andy, with her gun and her axe, were out of sight.
“Was she always like this?” Nile asked the other woman.
Quynh thought about it for a moment, her smile still firmly in place. She’d only been back with her family for a few years that, for them, it’s almost like the blink of an eye. Only very recently she started joining them on their missions. The thrill of fighting side by side with her lover after so long was exhilarating. “Yes, more or less,” she replied, finally. She was thinking about finding Andy more protective, and with a darker, heavier heart, than she ever remembered seeing in her. Understandable. But now that they were getting used to each other’s presence again. Now that the others were getting used to seeing Andy smile so easily and lovingly much more often. It sometimes felt like no time had passed at all.
She would create a distraction, Nicky was watching her back from a distance, and when she gave the signal, Nile and Quynh would step in from one side and Joe and Booker from the other. Simple. Effective. In a matter of seconds they started hearing the gunshots. Quynh couldn’t help but grimace. It was an unpleasant shock discovering all the new ways humans had invented to kill each other. And to imagine Andy in the middle of it…
“We have a problem,” Nicky said through the coms. At this point, everyone in the team knew to recognize how bad of a problem it was judging by the slight tremble in his voice. It was really bad. “Andy…” he stuttered, and at that point Quynh was already the first one running toward her. The fact that he even struggled to say it was enough. “Andy, she's not healing…”
While the others jumped in to try to complete their job now that it was too late to turn around, Quynh ran as fast as she could. She fell to her knees beside Andy, who had thankfully been quick enough to find refuge behind a wall. Quynh had been shot several times on her way to Andy, she didn’t mind, she didn’t care, she knew she was still healing. But then she looked up, Andy was holding on to her shoulder, covering a bleeding wound, and she was still trying to peer over the wall and shoot at their targets.
“Stop,” Quynh exclaimed, her voice trembling just a little, her hands trembling as well but still gentle, still firm in holding the other woman in place. Andy winced in pain, and Quynh had to fight the urge to gasp when she discovered there was more than one wound. Her leg. Her stomach. This was worse than expected. “We have to go,” she managed to say, knowing Andy could read her lips, because there was no way her faint whisper was heard under the thunder of the battle going on beside them.
The older woman groaned, “I can’t leave like this.” The mission wasn’t accomplished, the job wasn’t done. As long as she was alive she would be fighting.
“Andromache,” Quynh said, her voice firm, but no less frightened. She knew this conversation well. They had been preparing for it for almost as long as they had known each other. When it's my time, it’s my time. “Not yet,” Quynh insisted, and despite everything her eyes filled with tears, “Destiny, fate, time, death, I don’t care. I’ll fight anything and everything for you, my heart. If saving you is an option, I’m taking it.”
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one. Slowly but surely the sounds of the fight were dimming, at least, they were now sparse enough to hear also the siren of the quickly approaching ambulance.
“Please,” Quynh said at least. She knew that if Andy chose to get up and stumble back into the fight, kill and be killed, she wouldn’t be able to stop her. She also could tell that this much blood coming out of Andy wasn’t unstoppable, this didn’t have to be the end, but it was bad, she was growing pale with every passing second and she was struggling to breath.
Andy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m going to keep fighting… for a little bit longer,” she opened her eyes just to watch the surprise in Quynh’s face, “Take me out of here.”
#in this house andromache does NoT die!#but if that's what you were requesting anon im sorry im just physically incapable of writing that hjghjhk#but hopefully i delivered enough angst#the old guard#andromaquynh#immortal wives#andy x quynh#andromache the scythian#quynh#tog#prompts#moonlightandromache#usercoffeenate#userbooker#userpat#userbridget#rupzydaisy#diving-llama#alessandramortt#as always if you guys wan't me to stop tagging you just let me know :D#anyone else that wants to be tagged also lmk!
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Booker: a study of The Old Guard avoiding tired tropes
Now come on, we all know what tropes I’m talking about. The Crusading Widower. The Dead Wife. Those have been staples of tragic white man backstory for centuries across pretty much every genre of entertainment. And you would think Booker with his tragic backstory would somehow fall right into tropes. After all, he’s got a dead wife, and a dead family too. He’s perfect for the tropes.
Yet The Old Guard, in both the comics and the film, makes some very distinct choices in Booker’s backstory that allows his character to be tragic still, yet very different from your usual cookie-cutter tragic white male character.
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IMMORTALITY
When it comes the Crusading Widower and Dead Wife tropes, it’s always families or wives fridged for manpain. They are often killed in some horrible way, causing the white male character to have motivation for their stories.
But Booker’s family isn’t killed or fridged by some evil enemy he has to defeat. His family dies simply because no one can escape time, no one can stop their time from running out. And it is Booker’s immortality that leaves him behind in pain, not because some mysterious bad guy comes in to kill everyone he loves.
The tragedy and loss are inherently built in with his immortality, and it puts his story different from some tragic hero going off to defeat a villain because you can’t defeat time, you can’t fight against the reality of life.
His wife and his family aren’t dead because the story needs him to have the usual motivating manpain, but simply because that’s a trauma that every one of the Old Guard character has to deal with at some point in their existence.
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FATHERHOOD
Your usual tragic white male hero’s entire backstory would be about the Dead Wife, that ever so ethereal figure that’s so flawless and perfect in her death that drives our hero’s motivation, but she herself is stagnant because this story isn’t hers no matter how many times her name is being invoked.
The Old Guard does give Booker a dead wife by default of him having a family, yet Booker’s motivation is not framed around her at all. She’s not appearing in his dreams or flashbacks looking all demure and smiling.
No. Booker’s story is in fact about fatherhood. The only flashback we see of his previous life is that of his youngest son dying of cancer. His trauma is framed around his children and how seeing them die and having at least one hate him caused him to look at immortality with disdain, that it’s a curse.
Now one could argue that this narrative erases his wife since she’s not named nor mentioned in the story at all and is only assumed to exist through inference of him having kids. But Booker’s children are also unnamed except for one. And if anything, the focus on his three sons indicates in the narrative that Booker has perhaps worked through the loss of his wife as something that he could accept. Because after all, we in life could expect to lose a significant other and outlive them, it’s something that life prepares us for, but outliving your children is something else entirely.
And here is where Booker’s story is distinct from the usual trope. He lost his children yes, and that alone could have been enough to cause trauma, but the narrative folds that loss into its exploration of what it means to be immortal. How do you deal with not only outliving your children but unable to do anything else except staying young while they grow old and get sick and die? How do you reconcile with your duties as a parent to protect your children while possessing a power that could have saved them?
Booker does not have the usual motivations of revenge and justice. There are no monsters to defeat. In fact, his motivations are about making up to his children and seeking an end to his own pain. If the research had been able to figure out how his immortality works, not only would he be able to die and be with his family, but he would have also made up to his children, especially his youngest, by giving the world an antidote to disease and pain. He would have finally been able to do something for the world that he couldn’t do for his kids, be the parent they thought he was.
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NOT HIS STORY
It can be argued that even with both of what I discussed above that Booker could have still been a trope, yet The Old Guard sidesteps that by making this story not about him. It’s about Andy and Nile.
Yes Booker is a part of this story and his actions play an important role, but his story serves as both a mirror for Nile and Andy, and a cautionary tale. In fact, his backstory is really there so that Nile understands the gravity of their immortality and what it could mean about her wanting to return to her family. Everything in Booker’s story ultimately serves the purpose of a larger narrative that is not centered around his pain.
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CONCLUSIONS
It would have been so very easy for Booker to be a trope, all the ingredients are there. But because of its premise on immortality, a refreshing focus on Booker’s role as a parent, a thankful lack of smiling dead wife montage, and him not being the central figure of the narrative, The Old Guard dodges the pitfalls that so many other films/stories continuously fall into. And all the while creating an actually intriguing and nuanced tragic white male protagonist that you actually can care about not because the narrative told you that you had to but because his struggles actually felt human and relatable.
#the old guard#sebastien le livre#now i hope the story gets him therapy#really that is all i want#and continue to avoid those tropes#andromache the scythian#nile freeman
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Trich
Special thanks and much love to my beta readers @energievie @thebiggestnaturaldisaster @god-of-narcissism @haniawritesthings they were a Delight to work with and my story was very much improved 💕💕💕💕💕
Read on ao3
Warnings: Trichotillomania, emotional hurt/comfort (please let me know if I should tag anything else)
It was still unbelievable. It had been four months and Andy still couldn't believe Quynh was back with her. Most of the time when she had to remind herself this was real, that she wasn't only dreaming, she would have to find Quynh and tell her again how much she loved her. This time, as she mulled over the miracle of Quynh's return in her mind, she only needed to whisper it in her ear.
"I love you." Andy murmured, stroking Quynh's hair.
Quynh was already half-asleep but she still smiled and managed to mumble it back.
Quynh was still getting used to the twenty-first century. She loved the modern conveniences and how simple many things had become, her favorites being a toss-up between showers and how easy it can be to make food, but everything was so new and different it was still a lot to process, still a lot she needed to catch up on. She would excuse herself from the group frequently, still feeling the need to rest a lot. This meant ample time for cuddles and Andy was not complaining.
Andy continued to stroke her hair as the two of them drifted off. She was surprised when her hand ran across a smooth patch on the back of her head. She ran her hand over it again, wondering what it could be. It was covered by the rest of her long hair. She tried to look but couldn't with how Quynh was laying on top of her. She shrugged it off, since it hadn't been bothering Quynh enough to mention it and quickly joined her love in slumber.
Quynh woke up early that morning to make coffee and brought it back to Andy. She sat quietly, waiting for Andy to open her eyes, letting the smell slowly wake her up. Of course if you asked Andy she would argue that with all the sugar and cream Quynh added it couldn't even be called coffee.
Andy looked up at her and smiled a half smile letting her eyes drift closed for a few more moments before she stretched and sat up. She took her cup, taking in a long slow breath to smell the wonderful aroma and then let it out in a contented sigh. "Did you sleep well?" It had become something of a habit to ask Quynh how she'd slept. Andy tried everyday to ease the pain in Quynh's heart, but she couldn't chase away all of her nightmares. It was her way of gauging what pace to set for the day.
Quynh took a sip of her coffee. "It was alright. I slept most of the night and this time it actually feels like I did." She gave Andy a soft smile.
Andy smiled back. "I'm glad to hear it." She then set her cup down. "Can I fix your hair for you?" She never tired of brushing and fixing Quynh's hair, but she was also thinking about the spot she'd found last night.
Quynh didn't need to be asked twice, nodding happily and moving to the edge of the bed so it would be easier to sit without putting her drink down.
Andy grabbed a brush and an elastic and started gently working the knots out.
"Will you tell me a story?" Quynh asked sweetly. She loved hearing about all the things Andy had done while she was gone and Andy had a way of making her feel almost as if she was there too.
"Anything in particular?"
"Something nice."
Andy racked her brain for something light and smiled when she thought of just the right story to tell.
"I was the first person to introduce Joe and Nicky to skydiving. It's an amazing rush and I've been hooked since the first time I did it, I'll have to take you one of these days. I did it often enough that I got some training and became certified to jump with someone strapped to me. Naturally, I picked Joe to go with me and Nicky was strapped to another dive instructor. They weren't really scared, I mean, with everything we've been through we've all jumped from things under worse circumstances but the first time is always intimidating. I told him I would jump on three and the noise that came out of his mouth when I jumped on one is going to be something I cherish forever. Thought he might kill me when we landed because I pretended the chute was broken and only pulled it at the last second. Told him to come up with a cover story while we plummeted for why we weren't dead and everything. I don't think he fully believed me but he was still mad." Andy was laughing too hard at the memory to keep fixing Quynh's hair and had to take several deep breaths before she could continue.
Quynh was laughing too, how could she not when Andy's was so contagious?
That was another thing that surprised Andy. Her laugh came so much easier now that Quynh was back. Sure, she had laughed and joked with the guys plenty of times but she felt so free now, so unburdened and her laughter showed it.
Andy began fixing her hair once more and rediscovered the spot, parting her hair to get a good look at it. She frowned, slightly when she saw that it was actually two spots, both about the size of a dime, though not perfectly round. "Does this hurt?" Andy asked, gently running her fingers over the spots.
Quynh seemed surprised. "No, I don't feel anything. Why?" She reached her own hand back to feel where Andy had touched.
"There's just some hair missing but it's small and if it doesn't hurt I'm sure it's nothing."
Quynh shrugged. "Yeah, it's probably nothing."
Andy finished braiding her hair, giving it a playful tug to signal she was done.
*****
A few days had passed and Andy was still thinking about the spots on Quynh's head. She didn't know how concerned she should be since Quynh didn't seem concerned herself and she didn't want to overreact to nothing, so she didn't bring it up again.
It was a quiet day around the house. Joe and Nicky had gone for a hike, Nile and Booker were checking out the farmers' market and she and Quynh were relaxing at the safehouse.
Quynh had the TV on, watching some murder mystery show. Andy had missed the whole beginning despite Quynh's attempts to wait for her, so instead she was working on fixing the wobbly side table.
At a particularly intense scene she looked over to see Quynh's reaction and noticed she was messing with her hair right where she had seen the bald spot. "Does it itch?"
"Hmm?" Quynh put her hand in her lap and looked at Andy, confusion written on her face. "Does what itch?"
"It looked like you were scratching the spot I found the other night." Andy gestured to her own hair as a reminder.
"Oh no, it doesn't itch."
Quynh got sucked back into her show and didn't say anything else about it, so Andy went back to fixing the table.
*****
The next time Andy noticed Quynh messing with her hair was when she took her to a very busy mall. Sometimes she still struggled with the hustle and bustle of twenty-first century life. Andy had made sure she actually wanted to come and wasn't just doing it for her sake and Quynh had insisted she would be alright.
Quynh was not alright, though, it was too loud, there were too many smells and too many people. She should have taken up Andy's other offer to go for a bike ride instead.
Andy was holding her hand, taking great care not to get separated and add more unnecessary stress on top of what her love was already experiencing. She knew Quynh was trying to put herself out there, being the fearless spirit that she was but Andy also knew it was overwhelming and she was still healing emotionally and mentally from being isolated for so long. Andy tried to get her to take things easy but Quynh refused. She wanted to feel like she fit into these times now, not in a few months or even worse, years. Andy both admired her for it and worried about her. Most days she wasn't sure which emotion was stronger. In the end, she always let Quynh set her own pace.
"We can leave anytime you want." Andy reassured her, pulling her in close and linking their arms together, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
Quynh smiled gratefully but ultimately shook her head. "I want to try that ice cream you've been talking about."
Andy chuckled at her undying love of sweets. "Alright, it's right this way."
Andy noticed when Quynh was trying to pick a flavor that her hand went to the back of her head again. She found herself wondering why that spot in particular if it didn't hurt or itch? She made a mental note to check on it again.
They enjoyed their ice cream and bought some new clothes, then went back to the safehouse. Booker and Nile had dinner ready for everyone and they all had a good time catching up on everyone's day.
When they retired to their room after helping with dishes, Andy asked. "Can I braid your hair before bed?"
Quynh looked about ready to fall asleep as soon as where head hit the pillow but it had been a while since Andy had done her hair and after such a long day it was an offer she couldn't refuse. She hummed her agreement and they both sat cross-legged on the bed.
Andy carefully brushed her hair but before she began braiding it she checked the spots again. To her dismay they were bigger and there were a few more spots near them. She looked more closely and could see that some of the hair was starting to grow back but it was so short you couldn't even grasp it yet.
Quynh was too tired to notice Andy had stopped, so she finished braiding her hair, wondering the whole time what was going on. She knew Quynh was still healing, she had watched a paper cut heal just this afternoon.
After Quynh had fallen asleep, her head resting comfortably on Andy's shoulder and one of her legs thrown over her, Andy decided to see if the Internet had any suggestions for the hair loss. She hated using her phone for anything other than talking into it but it was a practical way of getting information.
She saw plenty of reasons why someone could be losing their hair and it was a little tricky factoring in their healing abilities. Trichotillomania kept coming up and it seemed to fit. Usually caused by stress, PTSD or anxiety. Andy knew just how much Quynh was suffering from all three of those despite trying to hide it. She decided she would keep a closer eye on her to see if she could tell whether or not Quynh was doing this to herself.
*****
A few days after that night Quynh wanted to go with Nile and help with the grocery shopping.
Andy double-checked that Quynh was sure about going out again but she insisted it would be fun, even telling Andy she could stay home and relax if she wanted.
Of course, that was the last thing Andy wanted to do.
Driving there Andy watched Quynh out of the corner of her eye and noticed her hand going back to that spot. Andy felt her heart break a little when she saw that Quynh had plucked a piece of hair from her head. In that moment she desperately wished she could take all of her troubles away with just the sweep of her hand or a gentle word but healing always takes time. Andy decided to simply place her hand on Quynh's knee and give it a gentle squeeze. She smiled when Quynh used both of her hands to cover Andy's.
*****
Andy continued watching Quynh. She was waiting for the right moment to sit down and talk to her about what she thought was going on but she was also trying to figure out if there were specific times Quynh was pulling so that she could find a kind way to distract her. She was worried it would only stress Quynh out more if she talked about it.
"Can I fix your hair before bed?" Andy asked one night. She felt like they could both use a little help with unwinding.
"That's ok, I can do it." Quynh answered.
Andy nearly got whiplash from turning to look at Quynh so fast. "What?"
Quynh shrugged like it was nothing. "I can do it."
Andy just stared at her. Of course there were plenty of nights when Quynh would braid her own hair, even a handful of nights when Quynh had told her no, for one reason or another but Andy instantly knew this was different.
Still it had been a long day, so she kept her voice light and teasing as she said. "I know you can do it but don't you want me to?"
"Tonight I'll do it."
Andy didn't miss the guilty look that passed over Quynh's face, and Quynh knew it. She looked anywhere but in Andy's eyes and quickly started braiding her own hair.
Andy walked over to her, gently covering Quynh's hands with her own to still them. "Quynh, what's going on?" She asked softly.
Quynh still wouldn't meet her eyes, instead looking down at the carpet. "Nothi... Wha-?" She tried to say Nothing, silly, to ask her Whatever do you mean? But she couldn't lie to Andy, she wouldn't, but she also didn't have the heart to tell Andy what was going on, she didn't want her to worry. Instead she squeezed her eyes shut and just stood there.
Andy tugged lightly on her hand, leading her to their bed and Quynh followed, she would always follow Andy.
"Hey, hey it's alright, Quynh. You can relax, I've got you." Andy murmured as they sat down and Andy gathered her into her arms, laying Quynh's head over her heart, kissing the top of her head and then resting her cheek on it.
"Please, Quynh. Please talk to me." Andy pleaded as the silence stretched between them. She couldn't stand the thought of Quynh feeling like she couldn't talk to her, like she needed to hide anything from her.
Quynh couldn't refuse, not when Andy held her like she was scared of losing her again. "I..." She trailed off with a shuddering breath and then started again. "I don't want you to see how much hair I've lost. Because... It's me. I'm the one causing it. I... I keep pulling out my own hair and I don't know why and I don't know why I can't stop."
Andy felt Quynh's tear land on her arm and realized she had waited too long before talking about this. She hadn't thought Quynh would feel the need to hide this and carry it on her own. "Oh my heart, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, I should have talked to you earlier about this. I think you have something called Trichotillomania and it's when people pull their hair because of stress and anxiety. It's compulsive, you'll hardly realize you're doing it, but a lot of people have it, you're not the first."
"There are other people who do this? So many it has a name?"
"Yes and considering everything you've been through..." Andy's arms tightened protectively around her. "Well, I count myself the luckiest person alive just for having you back with me."
Quynh pondered her words and when she spoke it was barely a whisper. "But what if I pull it all out? I know how much you love my long hair, how much you enjoy braiding it."
Now it was Andy who had to squeeze her eyes shut to keep the tears at bay so they could keep talking. "Oh, Quynh, I hope you know that nothing will ever stop me from loving you and wanting to take care of you."
"I know, Andy, I do."
Andy believed what she said, but she had to make sure there wasn't a shred of doubt in Quynh's mind. She tilted Quynh's head back and kissed her soft lips, tasting the salty tears. She kissed her long and slow and Quynh kissed her right back.
"I love you, Quynh. You could have no hair, no limbs, your face scarred beyond recognition and I would still love you because those things don't define you, those are not what I fell in love with a millennia ago."
Andy saw her eyes relax some but not completely, so she kept talking. "I fell in love with your brave spirit that never puts up with cruelty, I fell in love with the way you laugh at every bad joke you've ever heard, I fell in love with the way you fight for what you believe in. Everything that makes you you, Quynh, that's what I'm in love with."
Now Quynh was crying even harder. She wrapped her arms around Andy's neck and sobbed into her shoulder.
Andy held her tight, slowly rubbing Quynh's back just the way she liked and she cried too.
They stayed like that for a long time, until both of them felt like they had cried out every tear they had.
"Hey, how about I get us some water? Are you as parched as I am?" Andy asked, placing a kiss to Quynh's neck.
Quynh nodded her head and squeezed Andy's hand, returning a kiss to Andy's temple.
She came back with two cups of water and they both drank them down quickly. "More?" She asked, taking the cup from Quynh.
Quynh shook her head. "No, thank you."
Andy put the cups on the floor and crawled back in bed, gathering Quynh close to her once more. They were both completely exhausted.
"I love you." Quynh whispered.
Andy nuzzled her neck. "I love you too."
*****
Quynh was up before Andy and went to make coffee and start the day.
Andy was awake when she came back into their room. "How are you feeling?"
Quynh shrugged. "Tired. Worn out." She handed Andy her coffee.
"You could have stayed in bed with me." Andy tugged playfully on her pajama shirt.
"I like bringing you coffee in bed, it makes your eyes light up."
"Oh, it's not the coffee that makes my eyes light up." Andy leaned forward and gave Quynh a kiss.
They fell silent drinking their coffee and staring out the window at nothing in particular.
Quynh cleared her throat, breaking the silence. "I got up early to look into Trichotillomania." She said it quietly, as if she almost sounded guilty about it.
Andy's eyes softened. She moved so they were sitting side by side and took her hand. "You are not alone in this, my heart. Please don't forget that."
Quynh laid her head on Andy's shoulder and stroked the back of her hand with her thumb. "I know, I know you're here for me. I just wanted to look for myself while the house was still quiet and everyone was asleep."
"And?" Andy felt like she wanted to continue.
"While I'm getting used to everything." She vaguely gestured." To being back, to adjusting to the twenty first century, I... I think I would like to shave my head. I can't stand the thought of pulling it all out, and even if I start to pull from somewhere else it should be better than this." She paused, tracing the rim of her mug with her thumb. "Then when I'm more adjusted to this new world I can try growing it out and work on getting help." She held her breath, waiting to see what Andy would say.
Andy kissed her forehead. "I have clippers with me, whenever you're ready. May I do the honors?"
Quynh let out the air she'd been holding. "Thank you, my love. Thank you for understanding, of course I'll let you do it."
"There's nothing to understand. I've been wondering what you would look like with a new do anyway. I think it will look incredibly chic and sexy."
Quynh actually laughed at the way Andy wiggled her eyebrows when she said that and it warmed Andy's heart so much she thought she might burst.
"I'm ready now, let's do it this morning." Quynh said with confidence.
Andy jumped up and grabbed the clippers from the drawer she kept them in. "How short do you want to go? Do you want to see skin? No skin?"
Quynh cocked her head to the side. "You pick, just make it short."
Andy placed a hand dramatically to her heart. "Your trust in me is touching."
Quynh grinned. "Drama queen."
They headed out to the kitchen and Andy began to set up just as Nile and Joe emerged from their rooms looking barely awake. Nicky was already in the kitchen making omelets for everyone.
"What's going on?" Nile asked, looking skeptically between the two of them.
"Quynh's getting a haircut." Andy flicked the clippers on and off once for emphasis.
"She's letting you do it?" Nile asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Hey, I can cut hair."
"Hmm, I'll have to see it to believe it."
"She's cut all of our hair before but she's not allowed to touch Joe's anymore." Nicky chimed in.
"Why can't she cut Joe's?" Quynh asked.
"She gave him a terrible mohawk and then hid the clippers so we had to wait days before we could fix it." Nicky explained. "I haven't let her touch his curls since."
Andy threw her head back and laughed. "He deserved it."
"I did not!" Joe interjected.
"He ate my baklava and didn't even buy me more." Andy explained.
"It wasn't me, that was Booker!"
"Booker didn't do it. I knew instantly you were lying."
Joe grumbled something about her having no proof.
Nile looked around. "Is he still in bed?"
"Most likely, I think he stayed up late watching movies." Nicky said.
"Sorry, my heart, for the delay, I'm ready now." Andy patted the chair and Quynh sat down.
"Hmm, I don't know, I think they've changed my mind about letting you do it." Quynh teased.
"Turning my own wife against me." Andy shook her head.
Nile rolled her eyes. "As if."
Quynh only laughed.
Andy studied her assortment of clips before selecting the number two. "It's gonna be short." She warned Quynh.
"I'm ready."
"A buzz? Oooh, that's exciting, Quynh!" Nile moved chairs so she could easily watch Andy work.
Andy turned the clippers on, took a breath and made the first cut. She worked the clippers around Quynh's head and made sure it was perfectly even before turning them off and admiring her handy work.
"I love it." Andy said, running her hand over the top of Quynh's head feeling how different it was compared to what she was used to. She had to resist the urge to kiss it until after Quynh could wash it and make sure all the little hairs were gone.
Quynh ran her hands over it. "It feels so weird."
"Good weird or bad weird?" Andy asked.
"It's good." Quynh reassured her.
"Wow, Quynh, you pull it off so well! It makes you look very elegant." Nile said.
Joe and Nicky chimed in with their love for the new look.
"I'm gonna go look at it." Quynh said.
"Wait." Andy said, causing her to pause. "You said you trust me?"
Quynh eyed her, trying to figure out what she had up her sleeve but answered immediately. "Yes."
"I'm gonna add something, alright? A finishing touch I think you'll like."
Quynh nodded and settled back in the chair.
Andy picked up the trimmers and got to work.
Nile came up behind her to watch what she was making. "Aww." She exclaimed once she realized what Andy was doing.
Quynh smiled but didn't say anything, waiting patiently.
"Done. This time for real. Go look, my love." Andy kissed Quynh's cheek.
Quynh ran to the mirror to see and was surprised by how much she liked the shaved look. Then she turned her head so she could see what Andy did to the side and saw she had shaved a heart just above her ear.
She ran back out to the kitchen, flinging her arms around Andy to give her a crushing and urgent kiss.
Quynh knew she had a lot of healing left to do, that none of it would be easy but if her heart remained by her side, she knew they could face anything.
#The Old Guard#trichotillomania#trich#Andy#Quynh#immortal wives#soft#fic#Twi writes sometimes#hurt/comfort#healing is a process
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So I've been thinking about why I love The Old Guard so much and it's because it says fuck you to all the normalised stereotypes and tropes in relationships that are abundant in media these days.
Starting with romance, we're shown that Joe and Nicky are so deeply in love with each other and have a very healthy relationship. We're all aware of that at this point I know, but for me it's the way it's shown.
I'm an aromantic and sex-repulsed asexual which means sex scenes often ruin whatever it is I'm watching, I find it disgusting and will close my eyes and stick my hands over my ears. It's just not my thing and there are so many movies that chuck these scenes in for what seems like no apparent reason other than the fact they could. Action films seem to do this a lot and I'm so glad we didn't get this with TOG. I suppose the film's plot would have struggled to actually fit this scene in but again, it would have been so easy for them to introduce Joe and Nicky with a sex scene and shown us explicitly that these men are a couple.
Instead, the first direct showing of them being a couple is when they're cozied up together sleeping on the train. Sure we get those looks on the kill floor but if someone had just shot up my family and potentially killed us permanently, I would look to my bro and check he's still alive and ready to kill some bitches too. Also, it shows us just how much these two care for each other that they're sleeping soundly in a soft embrace. I am a sucker for Soft men and affectionate (but not inherently sexual) touch.
The way these two love each other so naturally fills my heart. Looking across the table at one another with smiles meant just for them, Joe's wink, "the love of my life", "as much as I like watching you sleep, I'm glad you're awake", them holding each others shirts/arms after Keane shoots Nicky, spooning, just... YES!
Of course, the van scene is so soft and tender and loving too! I hate watching people kiss, it's gross, and here this film presents this extremely romantic couple who are so in love with each other, and they only ever kiss on screen ONCE! I only have to look away from the TV for a few seconds and that's it! They aren't kissing each other throughout the film to make the audience know FOR SURE that they love each other. They don't need to. And I'm all for it! Also, gay representation! Healthy, happy gay representation!
With Andy and Quynh too, we get those smiles to one another, "the two of us, until the end", and granted there isn't much screen time with Quynh but their relationship is still shown to be so incredibly strong and loving without needing kisses or sex shown to us. I mean, you could read it as a strong platonic bond and disregard comic canon, and their relationship is STILL powerful with the loss of Quynh weighing so heavy on Andy's heart. Romantic or platonic, Andy and Quynh's relationship is given such weight to it.
And speaking of platonic relationships, I absolutely love Andy and Booker's relationship. The BFF/sibling roles they have is great, "you're still in this shitty game with me", the affectionate head bonks, "you and me Book", the way they understand each other. Their relationship is incredibly strong and given just as much attention as the romantic relationship in the group. It isn't shown as a second tier relationship, it's one of the reasons Book betrays the team after all - "this is what you wanted" - which makes it all the more heartbreaking. I know people love friends to lovers but when so much of media has this trope, it makes it seem like friendships aren't to be fought for as much as romantic ones, that friendships aren't enough. It was so nice to have a movie have this strong friendship and when I wished for "oh god please don't make them kiss" it came true! No kiss, no romance, no weird sexual tension, just pure and utter love for their friend/family.
And in conjunction with the heartbreak, one of the main reasons for Book's depressed arse is due to familial relationship! The fact he can't escape the grief of his children dying and this is given more weight to it than the relationship he had with his wife. The thought of losing my parent is something I can absolutely relate to and while this isn't the same as losing a child, it's something I can understand much more than a romantic partner.
I'm just really in awe of this film and how it presented relationships. The way it has me, an aroace, fawning over a romantic pairing is something I didn't think would happen. I just really appreciate it, especially in a day and age where romance and being in a relationship is held in such high esteem. Kissing? Sex? Ew can't relate, but soft head bonks and smiles, hell yeah gimme more of that!
#Aroace approved#aromantic#asexual#Aroace#The old guard#The old guard thoughts#Tog thoughts#lgbtqia#lgbt representation#sex repulsed
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Hello! Can you do a fic request of NickyxJoe where Nicky is taken hostage for 23 hours, and by the time he's rescued, he's traumatized to the point where he doesn't speak or move? Joe is fretting and caring and wants to kill whoever assaulted Nicky.
This is part one, because I was having too much fun, and then I got too into it - but it was mainly the prologue! I hope it is an alright first part one! <3
Nicky doesn’t pray much anymore.
It’s been a while. It’s been since he spilt so much blood under God’s name, thrilled at the death of innocents under his blade. He wonders absently if he would live long enough to make up for it. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t able to die. To make up for all the people he ended, he spent his times on the earth trying to save more lives than he took.
The day started with a nice espresso, a long kiss from Joe, and then an excruciating amount of pain.
Long after Merrick, the nightmares of the lab slowly drifted away like a ship off to sea, he found himself in the comfortable routine with Joe that he loved. They traveled, they ate, they were with each other in the way that made Nicky think that he wished two people could inhabit the same space at the same time. They laughed with Andy, showed Nile the world, and slowly started conversations with Booker mere months after his banishment. He felt complete and whole.
…and comfortable.
It’s the comfortable that becomes dangerous.
He’s stirring a sauce that he told Nile would change her life, watching the bubbles of the tomatoes so they don’t burn. The love of his life is telling a story in the 1500s, where the two of them found a hidden waterfall and Nile is laughing at him. He loves that Joe has someone who is as forthcoming with her emotions as he is, the two of them getting on quicker than he’s ever seen anyone with Joe. His heart is full and warm, and he smiles as he stirs.
Then, the world explodes.
Nicky never quite gets over the sensation of dying. He’s standing at the stove, then suddenly he’s on the ground. Blinking a few times, Nicky tries to figure out what’s going on. Nile and Joe are a few yards away, coughing and slowly getting to their feet. Except Nicky can’t get up. He tries, but it hurts everywhere. It isn’t until he hears the painful howl of Joe does he realize someone’s pulling him to his feet. He wants to move away, but his limbs aren’t really functioning right now.
He’s dragged to his feet, which feels like they aren’t there, someone screaming. He blinks, trying to fight back, but he can’t feel anything. Someone yanks his hands behind his back and people yell. Nicky opens his mouth, but blood spills over his lips. He wants cry out, he wants to tell his love that everything will be okay, but all he can do is choke on the blood in his mouth.
They drag him away, further from his sun, further his family. Nicky wants to cry out, but he can’t.
He can’t.
As soon as he’s in the lab, they tie him down. It makes him feel rabid – feel angry and like a wild animal. Nicky always tried to be restrained after all the people he killed. But they’re strapping his arms and legs down, he’s healed, and he doesn’t know what to do. “No!” He cries, struggling against the restraints. “No!”
But its no use.
They tighten against his wrists and he feels feral. “No, no!”
Then they leave him.
Nicky lies in the room, strapped to a table, by himself. The walls are white and clinical and he smells antiseptic around him. There are instruments around him and he looks at the ceiling. “Io credo in Dio Padre onnipotente.” He says softly to himself.
Nicolo doesn’t say prayer often.
He says it because it’s comfortable and he’s feeling alone. He’s blessed, because he hasn’t felt alone in almost a thousand years. “Oh Yusuf,” he says softly. “I’ll find my way back to you.”
Nicky means it.
He will.
***
“Not good enough!”
“Joe—” Andy says exasperatedly.
“I said, not good enough!” Joe states, swiping his hands against the cups on the counter, the porcelain breaking against the floor. Nile flinches his violent reaction, feeling his anger from across the room. He paces, his hands on his hips, muscles straining against his shirt. “They have Nicky!”
“I know they have Nicky, Joe!” Andy shouts, her eyes wild. “I am doing what I can, but this is not my area. You know that!”
“Then call Booker!” Joe shouts, throwing his hands up.
Andy pauses. “What?”
“Call him!” Joe cries, his eyes filled with tears as he throws his hands up in the air.
“Joe, the—”
“I don’t care!” Joe cries. There is still blood flecked on his neck and his skin has stitched back together. “He can find Nicky and Nicky is gone. Call him.”
“Joe—”
“Call. Him.”
The next noise is a phone beep.
***
Nicky swallows, a probe inside his spine. They decided that they didn’t need to waste his time on antiseptic, so he feels the metal scrape against his skin. Nicky tries his best not to cry out, his hands shaking under the restraints. He curses in Italian, the words low and quick.
If only Joe was here.
He would look at him, feeling all his anxiety melt away.
Nicky sucks in a breath, looking at he ceiling. “Collect the samples.” Someone says and Nicky tenses.
In this moment, he thinks of Joe.
He can’t help it. His mind travels to the time in Malta, he will never forget.
Joe stood on a balcony, the sun shimmering against his skin. He was sweating slightly from the sun and from what they just did. Nicky never thought he’d seen someone so immaculate. He remembers laying in the bed and watching him. Watching the way the muscles move and the way his body curves. Nicky knows God and he knows truth.
Both are standing in front of him.
A scalpel is shoved against his skin. Nicky sucks in a breath and tries not to think about the blade against his skin. He swallows and tenses when the blade slices his skin. He closes his eyes and thinks of Joe.
Thinks of the way his eyes crinkle when he’s amused or the way his beard feels against Nicky’s chin. How he can’t picture anyone else next to him, his heat and his weight against him. Nicky turns his head away from the scientists, and sees no one.
Actually, that’s a lie.
He sees Joe.
***
“Keep your eyes open. Be ready.”
Andy is giving them instruction, but Joe barely hears her. Booker came through and traced the lab to a small town in Norway. Joe thinks that he and Nicky haven’t been here in a long time, and the ghost of his touch burns against his skin. “Nicolo, wait for me.” He says quietly, holding his weapon against his chest.
That was their promise. That they would go together.
Joe lets out a breath. “Together,” he whispers. “We promised.”
Booker turns, clearly able to hear Joe, but still unsure. Joe hadn’t said anything to him, outside of demanding he find Nicky. To his credit, he found him. He found him in Norway, when everyone else lost hope. Booker poured him a drink and Joe took it. The two sat in silence, Booker tapping his keyboard on his computer. Joe sat there, sipping the whiskey, listening to the keys.
“I’m not ready.” Joe said.
Booker didn’t respond. He hesitated over the keys and Joe almost yells at him to continue. He doesn’t.
The two of them lead the way. Joe feels closer to Booker than he’s ever felt, and further away from everyone. The world is lonely and he feels it. He feels the ache in his chest. It had been twenty-three hours since he’d seen Nicky. The longest since the time two hundred years ago when they got in an argument over a certain family. Joe remembers thinking he never wanted to be away from Nicky ever again.
And yet, here they are.
“I-I’m not ready, Booker.”
Booker doesn’t say anything. But his eyes speak louder than any words can say. The man reaches out and grab his forearm, eyes filled with world Joe knows he needs to discover.
They blast through the walls of the lab, each room empty as the next. Joe tries not to cry out each time there’s no one waiting for him, but he can’t.
Until.
Until.
They blast through a wall, and there’s figure at the end of the lab. Joe doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he’s at his side in an instant.
Joe cups the man face. His hands hover over the side of Nicky’s head, his eyes unseeing. He’s never seen Nicky like this, except the times that Joe was waiting for the main to wake up after a tragic death. “Nicolo, destati. Destati, Nicolo!”
Nicky doesn’t move.
His icy eyes stare at the ceiling, seeing nothing. “Nicolo,” Joe states, shaking his shoulder. “Nicolo!”
Joe leans his head toward, tapping his forehead against Nicky’s. “Love of my life,” he pleads. “Light in darkness. Please, come back to me.”
Nicky doesn’t move. His body is still.
Joe cups his face, leaning closer to him. “Nicolo, please. Come back to me. You promised me. You promised that we would go together. We promised.”
Nicky doesn’t answer. His eyes remain unseeing, unmoving.
Joe grips his face. “Please, Nicolo.”
Nicky sucks in a breath, his back arching against the restraints. Joe all but cries with relief, his eyes watering. “Nicky, please.”
Nicky’s eyes dart around like they do when he comes back to live, searching for answer that Joe doesn’t know the question. The man searches and finds Joe’s eyes and stays there. He lives there.
“Nicky, please.”
When Joe whispers his name, Nicky’s eyes roll toward him. “Nicolo.” He states. His eyes roll in the back in his head, and the man dies.
Nicolo dies.
He dies, Joe searching on his body for the culprit. When his hand runs down his side, he feels a sharp blade buried in his side.
Joe sees red.
The moment he takes the blade out, Nicky sucks in a breath. His body jerks and Joe presses his forehead against Nicky’s, the man shuts his eyes. “Nicolo, please.”
Nicky stares at him.
Joe loses himself in the worlds of Nicky eyes. Nicky looks around, trying to focus on something, then fixates on him.
Joe stares. “My love,”
Nicky doesn’t say anything.
Not anything.
Before Joe can plead, someone blasts through the lab. Joe turns, seeing the soldier before him. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”
Multiple guns point at him.
Joe straightens. He pulls out his sword, bracing himself against those in front of him. The curved sword is in front of him, pointing against those in front of him and Nicky. “I would recommend you leave.”
The soldiers don’t move.
“Alright then,” he states, bringing the blade up. “I suppose this is what we’re about to do.”
The guns blast. The sword swipes.
Words fail.
#the old guard#the old guard fanfiction#asks#lindsey writes#nicolo di genova#nicky#joe#yusuf al-kaysani#joe x nicky#yusuf al kaysani#yusuf x nicolo#fanfiction#drabbles
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Someday Soon-Chapter 1
Pairing: JJ Maybank x Fem!OC
Summary: The only goal Isabella Bailer has this summer, is to have a good time with her friends, the Pogues. But when they find a ship wreck after a hurricane their summer takes an unexpected turn.
Note: So this is my first fic that I have actually properly finished and I am so excited to share it. I first posted it on Wattpad but I find that I don't really use that platform much so I wanted to post it somewhere I go on often. I hope you enjoy my twist on Outer Banks :) Also the I have written Iz to be as nondescript as I could so that you can imagine her however you want.
Word Count: 10.5k (The first chapter is really long but later on the chapters get shorter.)
🔅🔆🔅
We’re the Pogues, and our mission this summer is to have a good time, all the time.
The soft breeze brought the smell of the ocean to my nose while the sun shone brightly on my cheeks. I had to squint to see my friends through the bright rays. As the sun fell lower the day only seemed to get warmer, the beer in my hand brought a cool relief, after taking another drink a smile grew on my face as I listened to the conversation between Pope and John B.
“That’s what, a three-story fall to the deck?” Pope asked, looking up at John B who was currently balancing on one foot on the edge of the roof. We were all hanging around one of the many mini-mansions that were under construction in Figure Eight. “I give you about a one-in-three chance of survival.”
“Hm” John B replied as he stuck a finger into the air pretending to check the direction of the wind. “Should I do it?”
“Yeah, jump.” Pope quipped, pointing a drill at him. “I'll shoot you on the way down.”
“You’ll shoot me?”
“Yep. Pow!”
“They’re gonna have Japanese toilets with towel warmers.” Kie told us shocked, as she emerged from the house that was yet to be finished.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t they?” I inquired somewhat bitterly from my spot sitting next to JJ. Nothing Kooks did surprised me anymore, all they seemed to care about was their own vanity.
“This used to be a turtle habitat, but who cares about turtles, I guess?” Kie asked, sounding somewhat defeated. I sent her a sad smile, wishing I had more power to change the way things were.
“I can’t have cold towels.” JJ added sarcastically before we all directed our gaze towards John B.
“Can you please not kill yourself?” Kie asked him sweetly as he continued to lean dangerously close to the edge of the building.
“Yeah that would really ruin my summer.” I added, I had protested John B climbing onto the roof in the first place but once that boy got something into his mind, no one could change it.
“And don’t spill that beer. I’m not giving you another one.” JJ warned seconds before the can slipped through John B’s grasp and came crashing onto the deck.
“Whoa! Oh, shit.” John B exclaimed as he attempted to regain his balance on the roof, I turned to look out at the ocean again, not wanting to see him hit the deck as well.
“Of course you did. Smooth.”
“A plus.” Pope commented as he leaned over the side of the deck before looking back at the group. “Hey, uh, security’s here. Let’s wrap it up.”
“Humpty Dumpty, let’s roll.” JJ called to John B while he hopped off of the scaffolding we had been sitting on, before turning around and offering me his hand to help me get down. “Sweetheart?”
“Thank you.” I replied, accepting the hand he held out as I jumped down onto the deck.
“Yeah. Let’s go.” John B agreed as he followed us down.
“Gary, is that you?” JJ called out to the security guard as we gathered our stuff up. “It’s me. Gary, good to see you, man!”
“You’re just asking for it.” I told him as I shook my head trying to hold in my laughter.
“Get ‘em! They’re comin’ your way!” I heard one of the guards shout from behind me as I followed Kie towards the van. “Hey! Stop!”
I spared a glance behind me as I exited the house and saw the guard catching up to JJ.
“Not much of a hugger!” I heard JJ shout as he avoided the guard.
As I ran down the front steps John B pulled up in the van, Kie hopped into the passengers seat as I climbed into the back leaving the side door open for the boys to jump in whenever it was they decided to show up.
“Bus is leaving!” John B called out as he honked the horn. I peered out the back window watching as Pope started climbing over the fence, before promptly falling flat on his face. JJ hoped over next and helped him back to his feet.
“Come on, boys!” Kie called.
I held out my hand for Pope who was struggling to get into the moving van. Once both boys were inside John B stepped on the gas and we all watched Gary hopelessly chase after us. We were all left in a fit of laughter after JJ was done teasing the poor security guard.
🔅🔆🔅
The Outer Bank, Paradise on Earth. It’s the sort of place where you either have two jobs or two houses. Two tribes, one island.
All right. So there’s Figure Eight, the rich side of the island. Home of the Kooks. So, guess where we don’t live?
And then, there’s the South Side or the Cut. Home to the working class who make a living busing tables, washing yachts, running charters. The natural habitat of… drumroll, please… the Pogues.
That’s us.
Pogues, Pogies, the throwaway fish. Lowest member of the food chain. Okay. So, the downside of the Pogue life is we’re ignored and neglected. But the upside of the Pogue life? We’re ignored and neglected, which means we do whatever we want, whenever we want. So, let me introduce you to the crew.
First up… JJ Maybank, my best friend since the third grade. He's about as local as they come. Latest in a long line of fishing, drinking, smuggling, vendetta-holding salt-lifers who made their living off the water. Best surfer I know. Just don’t tell him I said that. Mild kleptomaniac and a future tax cheat.
Next up is Isabella Bailer but we just call her Iz. A former Kook up until she was ten and her dad was caught embezzling money from his company and promptly arrested, her family basically lost everything. Shortly after that she moved in next door. Definitely the Mom of the group, she basically takes care of all of us, and when she’s not cleaning up our messes, she’s working with her Mom, cleaning houses for the Kooks. Iz is the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet until you threaten her friends then you better run the other way and hope she doesn’t find you.
After Iz there’s Kiara Carrera, or Kie, as we call her. When she’s not saving turtles or listening to Marley, or getting a dolphin tattoo, she hangs out with us. I’m not really sure why though. So, she’s a rich kid, actually. Foot in both worlds. Her family owns The Wreck, this Outer Banks institution. Total cash cow with the tourists. You know, I’m not really sure how her parents feel about us. But I think we all have had a thing for her at one point or another.
Finally we have Pope Heyward, the brains of the operation… finalist for the Lucas T. Vanderhorst Merit Scholarship. And the smartest person I know. Little bit of a weirdo. His father’s this legendary character, Heyward. Anything you wanted on the island, Hayward could get for you. Now, I’m not sure Heyward knew what to make of his oddball son, but it didn’t matter. He was a Pogue, just like the rest of us.
So, that’s my crew. And my name is John Booker Routledge. I’ve been living on my own for the past nine months in an old fish shack on the marsh. The Château, as my dad used to call it. Where is my dad? Well he disappeared at sea nine months ago, looking for a shipwreck. Who disappears at sea these days? I miss him. Any other possible guardians who could look after me, might be your next question? Well Mom split when I was three. Last I heard she was in Colorado and Uncle T who is supposedly my legal guardian is currently in Mississippi, building houses…
Which means it’s just me right now, on my own, hangin’ with my friends.
🔅🔆🔅
I swung lazily in the hammock that sat between John B’s house and my own as I watched the water. The sun was starting to rise higher and I could already tell it was going to be another long hot day. I was lost in my own thoughts until I felt the hammock dip to the side. Glancing up I gave John B a small smile as he tried to readjust the balance of the hammock.
“You know I really hate this thing?” He told me still struggling.
“I know it's ‘cause you don’t know how to relax.” I replied, teasing him as I shifted to help balance the hammock after the change in weight.
“I’m gonna take it down one of these days.” He threatened, finally leaning back.
“No, I love this hammock, it's my favorite spot.”
“I know I’m only teasing you, I’m not sure you would ever talk to me again if I took away your hammock.”
“You’re damn right I wouldn't.” I told him attempting to sound serious before letting out a laugh. We laid quietly for a few minutes before I spoke up again. “So do you have big plans today?”
“Um, yes.” He responded after taking a moment to think. “I get to go down to social services and talk to some people about how there are no responsible adults in my life.”
“Oh that sounds like sooo much fun.”
“I know right? You want to come with me?”
“As much as I would love that, JJ said he was going to take me out so I could practice driving the boat.” I had my license but I was not the best driver on land and I had barely ever driven in the water.
“Oooh you and JJ alone on a boat?” John B asked, stretching out his words and wiggling an eyebrow at me. He loved to tease me about the very obvious crush that I had on JJ every chance he got. At his teasing I took the half empty beer he had brought out with him much to his protest.
“No, number one, you and I both know that I will never be brave enough to make a move, number two, no Pogue on Pogue macking and number three I think that Pope said he was coming with us.” I rambled about the many reasons why what John B was suggesting would never happen before I downed the rest of the beer and handed back the empty bottle.
“Wow, thanks, I wanted to drink that.” He commented on the bottle in the grass beside us, I shrugged my shoulders as if to tell him he should have expected it after his teasing. “Also if I were you I’d go confirm that JJ still knew this was happening because he’s inside with a girl right now and they looked like they might be awhile.”
“Seriously?” I groaned trying to cover up my jealousy with annoyance. I knew that I had no right to be jealous, JJ didn’t belong to me and I was far too scared to ever confess how I really felt, not that I could even figure out how I really felt. But it still hurt to see him with different girls all the time. “I guess I’ll go investigate.”
I quickly stood from the hammock before thinking, but it was too late. As I turned around and watched the hammock flip and John B tumble off onto the grass below.
“Thanks for the heads up.” He grumbled as I helped him to his feet.
“Sorry. I forgot how terrible you are at sitting in a hammock.” I said trying to cover the smile on my face.
“Yeah laugh it up, your friend just got attacked by a hammock, real funny.” He replied pretending to be upset as he dusted the dirt off of himself.
“I mean it is kind of funny.” I called over my shoulder as I made my way back towards The Château to find out who was around. “I’ll see you later John B.”
I stepped onto the porch only to find Pope stretched out on the couch fast asleep. ‘I suppose he won’t be joining us.’ I thought as I walked past him into the house.
In the main room Kie laid on the pull out couch blowing clouds of vapor above her. I sent her a soft smile which she returned before I turned the corner towards the bedrooms in the Château.
Only one of the room's doors was closed so I figured that was where JJ was. I raised my hand to knock on the door but the sound of a shrill giggle stopped me. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what was going on so my hand retracted back from the door and I walked back towards where Kie was.
I laid down beside her with a sigh. Kie shifted closer to me as we both just hung out.
“I’m pretty sure it’s some Touron who’ll be gone by the end of the week.” Kie finally spoke up, I raised my head to send her a questioning look. “The girl in there.” She added pointing to the room JJ was in.
“Oh.” I nodded laying back down. I stared back up at the ceiling, contemplating whether I wanted more details about this girl. “Was she pretty?”
“I didn’t get a good look.” She responded.
“Huh.” I responded, unsure if she was telling the truth or just trying to make me feel better. “Are you working today?” I asked, wanting to change the subject before I thought about JJ anymore.
“Um, yeah. I have to leave soon.” Kie responded, glancing at the time on her phone. “Did you want to come with me, I might be able to sneak out fries for you.”
“No, I better stay here. I think my Mom has a few things she wants me to do before the storm tonight.” I responded, I also still half hoped that JJ would want to hang out.
“Okay, well I’m sure that I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said, smiling as she stood to gather her stuff.
“Yeah, tomorrow morning we’ll all go out and check out the damage.” I responded, standing up as well.
“Love you.” She cooed, pulling me into a hug.
“Love you too.” I responded, before we both let go of each other. She then grabbed her backpack and headed for the door. “Stay safe!” I called after her as she walked towards her car.
After Kie had left I had made my way to the dock, which is where I was now sitting watching the stormy clouds that were forming out in the open water.
“Hey.” Pope spoke softly, alerting me to his presence, before he sat down next to me.
“Hey, I figured you were going to sleep all day.” I teased, sparing a glance at him.
“Yeah, I guess I was more tired than I thought.” He responded with a smile. “It looks like it’s gonna be bad.” He added, referring to the dark clouds that were beginning to move closer.
“Yeah I just hope it isn’t too loud, last year Emmy had nightmares all summer from the thunder.” I said, remembering how bad my little sister’s nightmares had gotten.
“Well there aren't any thunderstorms in Agatha’s path so there shouldn’t be much thunder this time.” He informed me.
“You are too smart for me, Pope.” I said with a smile.
“Speaking of smart things, we should bring in the boat before it ends up in a tree somewhere down the road.” He said, I looked over at the boat which had sat in the water by the dock all day, waiting for us. I was more than a little bitter over the fact that JJ had stood me up. “Iz?” Pope asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, yeah let’s bring in the boat.” I finally responded before standing up to help Pope.
We were able to bring in the boat before Pope had to head home to help out his Dad and I walked back to my house to help my Mom before the storm hit.
🔅🔆🔅
The next morning I woke up to the sound of someone clattering around in the kitchen. After getting dressed I walked out to see my Mom and Emmy at the kitchen table eating breakfast in the dark.
“No power?” I asked as I flipped the switch knowing nothing would happen.
“Nope.” My Mom replied as she walked past me to put her bowl in the sink. “And no water. I’m gonna pick up another tank of water from Heyward on my way home from work. Seems like the storm took out the whole island. Listen I know that you wanna hang out with your friends but I need you to take down all the storm shutters at some point.”
“Mom the day after a hurricane is a free day.” I argued, I knew better than to argue with her most of the time but I still had to try.
“I know and I’m not saying right this minute but at some point it would be nice.” She surprised me with her reply, most days I would get a lecture about talking back.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked checking her forehead temperature.
“Yeah are you feeling okay Mommy?” Emmy parroted from behind us, one of her new hobbies.
“Yes, I’m feeling fine.” She said, swatting my hand away from her forehead. “I’m trying to be nice, this is your last summer before you graduate and I know you’ve been working a lot.”
“Okay…” I replied, still suspicious that this was some kind of trick. Quickly kissing her cheek, I grabbed my bag and kissed the top of Emmy’s head, jogging to the door I left the house before she could change her mind. “I’ll see you when you get home.”
I heard them both say goodbye as I closed the door behind me and made my way over to where John B and JJ were standing clearing branches off the HMS Pogue.
“Mornin’ boys.” I greeted the pair as I helped them finish clearing off the boat.
“Someone's in a good mood.” John B suggested as he made his way over to the side of the boat I was standing by. “You and JJ have fun?” He asked in a quieter voice.
“Nope, he completely blew me off. I don’t even think he remembered.” I replied, biting the inside of my cheek trying to not show my disappointment. “But it’s fine, today is a free day and we are going to enjoy it.” I said putting a smile back on my face as I looked over to where JJ stood oblivious to mine and John B’s conversation.
🔅🔆🔅
“Well, look who we have here.” JJ taunted as we pulled up to the Heyward’s dock.
“We have a safety meeting. Attendance mandatory.” John B added pretending to speak into a walkie talkie.
“I can’t. My Pop’s got me on lockdown.” Pope replied sadly.
“Come on, man” JJ grumbled from his spot beside me. “Your dad’s a pussy. Over.” he commented speaking into his own pretend walkie talkie. I turned to look at him surprised as I hit his arm lightly. “What? He is?” JJ tried to defend.
“Oh, I heard that, you little bastard.” Heyward scolded JJ.
“We need your son.” I said as I directed my attention to Heyward. “Island rules. Day after a hurricane’s a free day.”
“Who made that up?” Heyward demanded moving closer to the boat.
“Uh… Pentagon, I think. We have security clearance.” I added, trying to come up with excuses.
“Yeah, I have a card.” JJ tried to add to my story.
“You think I’m stupid?” Heyward challenged.
“I'll do it tomorrow. I promise. Tomorrow.” Pope told his dad, getting ready to get into the boat.
“You think... No, no. Hell no. You doin' it right now.” Heyward told Pope as he hopped into the boat. “Bring your ass back up here.”
“I promise I'll do it tomorrow, Dad.” Pope assured his father as we started to float away.
“We’ll bring him back in one piece.” I called back to Heyward as we started to speed off towards Kie’s dock.
🔅🔆🔅
After picking up Kie, Pope had taken over driving the boat and the rest of us were sitting around watching JJ attempt one of his many tricks that he had tried a million times but that never seemed to work the way he wanted it to.
“You’re getting beer in my hair!” Kie reprimanded JJ.
In an attempt to avoid the same fate as Kie I stood up from my spot beside her. But just as I got to my feet I felt the boat shift under me and jolt to the side throwing me off the edge. After a moment underwater I realized what had happened and swam back to the surface.
“Jesus, Pope!” I heard Kie berate Pope.
“You okay, JJ?” John B asked, I assumed he had also been sent overboard.
“I think my heels touched the back of my head.” I heard JJ reply from the other side of the boat.
“Kie, you okay?” John B asked, shifting his concern away from JJ.
“I’m all right.” Kie answered John B after a moment of pause. “Where’s Iz?”
“Over here.” I called from where I was treading water, a moment later I saw JJ swimming over to where I was. We made eye contact for a moment before he scanned that rest of my face with concern making sure I was good. I gave him a reassuring smile before looking back at our friends on the boat.
“Guys... I think there's a boat down there.” Pope said looking out from the ledge of the Pogue.
“Shut up. What?” Kie asked moving to look into the water. “No way.”
“No, no, guys. I'm serious. There's a boat down there.” Pope added confidently. “For real. “
“Holy shit, he's right. Let's go.” Kie said, getting ready to jump into the water.
We all dove down as deep as we could and sure enough a sunken boat was sitting below the surface.
“You guys saw that?” JJ asks as we all come up for air. A chorus of agreement followed JJ’s question as we looked at each other shocked. “That’s a Grady-White. A new one of those is like 500 Gs, easy. That’s a primo rig.”
“Yeah. That's the boat I saw when I surfed the surge.” John B informed us after we had all climbed back into the Pogue.
“You surfed the surge?” I asked, concern filling my thoughts.
“What the heck John B?” Kie added in the same tone.
“That's my boy. Pogue style.” JJ congratulated him, as John B nodded confirming what he had just said.
“Wait, wait. Do we know whose boat that is?” Pope asked curiously, wanting to know more about the wreck.
“No, but we're about to find out.” John B replied as he went to grab the anchor of the boat.
“Dude, it's too deep.” JJ warned as John B made his way over to the edge of the boat.
“Oh, for the weak and feeble, JJ.” John B challenged as he readjusted the anchor in his grip.
“Well, I'm not resuscitating you. I'm just making that clear up front.”
“That's fine.”
“Diver down, fool.” Pope said while giving John B a mock salute.
“Diver down.” We all called as JJ pushed John B off the side of the boat. We all leaned over the side of the boat anxiously waiting for John B to come back up.
“Should we go get him?” I asked the others in a concerned voice. It felt like he had been gone for ages at this point and I couldn't spot him in the murky water. Moments after I spoke John B broke the surface tension in a fit of coughs.
“Oh, my God. That took forever!” Kie said, relieved as we all allowed John B some space to climb onto the Pogue.
“I found this motel key.” John B supplied holding up the key while he got into the boat.
“Great! We salvaged a motel key.” JJ spoke sarcastically as I inspected the key that John B had found.
“Guys, we should report the wreck to the coast guard.” Kie suggested “Maybe we'll get a finder's fee.”
“Yeah, and not work all summer.” JJ added, hopefully as we speed off toward town. “Thanks, Agatha, ya batch.”
🔅🔆🔅
After an unsuccessful talk with the coast guard, as in we were completely ignored because they had no interest in what a group of teenagers had to say, we decided to head straight to the source and check out the motel.
The boat slowed down as we got closer to the motel and began to take in the scene before us. It was a disaster, mattresses thrown on the lawn, windows broken, and trees that had been uprooted or close to it. I had to wonder how much of this damage was caused by the hurricane and how much was caused by a neglectful owner.
“I thought the Château looked bad.” JJ commented from the front of the boat.
“This place is a shitshow.” John B added.
“Doesn't look like a place somebody with a Grady-White stays.” I said, confused as to why someone with such a nice boat would be staying somewhere so rundown.
“No. Looks like a place someone with a Grady-White would get killed.” Pope suggested.
“All right. Here we go.” JJ started jumping out of the boat ready to tie us to the shore. “This is your captain speaking. HMS Pogue comin' in for landing.”
“We good?” John B asked, standing beside me.
“Yeah, we good.” JJ confirmed.
“All right. Here goes nothin'.” I stated, while I tried to take the key from Pope’s hand, who had elected to stay on the boat with Kie as lookouts.
“Hey.” Pope said seriously, while he held the key just out of reach.
“Yeah?”
“Don't let them do anything stupid.”
“Yeah, I’ll try.” I gave Pope a reassuring smile as he passed me the key, still holding a look of uncertainty on his face.
“Uh, be careful.” I heard Kie tell John B from behind me. “I mean it.”
JJ offered me his hand as I jumped out of the boat but I just ignored it, still a little mad that he had forgotten about me the day before. I made eye contact with him for a moment and saw a look of confusion grace his features before disappearing. I began walking away from the boat as JJ waited a moment for John B to finish talking to Kie. I listened to them talking behind me.
“Just be so careful, John.” I heard JJ tease as I started making my way across the front lawn of the hotel.
“God, you're so weird.” John B replied.
“What was that about?”
“I don't know. Maybe she wants us to be careful?”
“Ever since she heard you're being threatened with exile, she's just been, like, <Oh! Be so careful, John B.>” JJ mimicked what Kie had told John B earlier as we started to climb the stairs to the second floor. “<Oh, just give me that John D already.> Just ask Iz she sees it too, right Iz?” JJ asked me.
I paused for a moment when I reached the top of the stairs, turning around to meet JJ’s eyes
“Are you done?” I asked in a sour tone.
“What?” He responded with confusion evident in his voice and the smile falling from his face. I rolled my eyes before turning around and beginning to count room numbers. “Why are you so mad at only me? What’d I do?”
“Dude.” I heard John B start saying. “You completely blew her off yesterday.”
I was curious what else they said to each other but their voices became muffled as I walked too far ahead. Stopping at the end of the hall in front of room twenty-nine. I turned to find the boys jogging towards me, John B gave me a small smile and JJ had a look that almost resembled remorse on his face.
“This is it?” John B asked as JJ took the key that I was holding up in front of me.
“Housekeeping.” JJ called out in a shrill voice knocking a few times on the door.
“Should we try it?” John B asked, pointing to the key in JJ’s hand.
“No power. No security cameras. No one's gonna know.” JJ reasoned as he pushed the key into the lock. It felt like we could still get in trouble if we were caught but before I could voice my concerns JJ was already half way into the room.
“Huh.” I muttered, as the two of us followed JJ in. It was dark and smelled of mildew, definitely not the kind of place someone would stay if they had the funds to buy a Grady-White.
“Check the bag. See if there's a name on there somewhere.” John B instructed JJ as I moved past the pair to open the blinds at the side of the room.
“A jacket.”
“No name on the jacket?”
“No. It's a nice jacket, though.”
“Definitely over 50. He's got New Balances.”
I listened to their conversation as I walked across the small room into the bathroom. As I moved through the bathroom and rustled through the medicine cabinet, I heard the beeping of a safe in the other room.
“Uh… JJ? Iz? You’re gonna want to see this” I heard John B call from the other room.
Entering the room I looked at John B first who was looking over to where JJ stood with wide eyes. Following John B’s line of sight my own eyes widened as I realized what JJ was holding.
“Is that a gun?” I asked as if it could be anything else.
“Put the gun back, JJ!” John B tried to reason with him.
“This is a fucking spendy gatt, man. Just…” JJ said, eyes wide like a kid in a candy store. “Bam! Bam!” He mimicked the sound of a gun as he pointed it around the room.
“JJ, we’re not stealing anything.” John B told him for the hundredth time.
“Just take a pic of me. Right here.” JJ pleaded with John B, but my attention had shifted to the sound of a rock landing on the window sill.
I pushed past the boys as they continued arguing with each other, and looked out the window.
“Cops. Cops!” I could see Kie and Pope whisper yell while they pointed in the direction of the door. Turning around quickly I waved at the boys to get their attention.
“Guys, the cops are here.” I told them in a hushed tone. John B moved towards the door to see if he could hear anything. “How are we gonna get out?” I asked them, feeling panic start to rise through my chest.
“Out the window?” John B suggested as he pushed open the small window as far as it would go.
With John B out first and standing to the right of the window, I followed quickly behind him moving to the left so that JJ could get out. In an attempt to keep us from being seen JJ pressed me against the wall of the motel, which meant that I was now pinned between him and the wall. My chest rose and fell unevenly as I squeezed my eyes shut hoping the cops couldn’t see us. As we we’re standing on the ledge I felt JJ’s hand grab on to mine and give it a reassuring squeeze.
“Listen Sweetheart, I’m sorry I ditched you yesterday. I didn’t mean to forget.” JJ whispered to me, his head was right next to my ear and I could feel his breath fan out against my skin as he spoke.
“As much as I appreciate your apology, I really don’t think this is the time JJ.” I whispered back terrified of every word that left my tongue.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right, sorry.” JJ replied, shifting his weight slightly.
“Guys! Shut. Up.” John B whisper yelled from where he stood on the ledge.
As we both turned to look at John B I felt cold metal touch my free hand, startling me I pulled my hand back swiftly and as I did I heard a clattering as something fell from the ledge.
“JJ, tell me that wasn’t what I think it was?” I demanded as quietly as I could.
“Well you tell me what you think it was and then I’ll tell you it wasn’t.” He said and I could hear the smirk in his voice, shocking me that he could still be joking when we were about to be caught at any moment, I rolled my eyes at him.
🔅🔆🔅
After our narrow escape from the motel, myself and the Pogues were headed towards town, discussing what we were going to do next.
“The cops took everything like it was a crime scene.” John B stated still sounding shocked at what he had seen back at the motel.
“Did you guys find anything?” Pope asked us curiously. My gaze shifted to JJ as I already knew what he had taken.
“Did we find anything? No, I don't think so. Oh, yeah, we did.” JJ responded smiling as he held up the gun, and to my surprise a wad of cash. I let my head fall into my hands wondering how JJ could be so dumb.
“What the hell?” Pope asked standing, panic written all over his features.
“Dude, chill.” JJ started walking over to where Pope stood. “Better than cops having it.”
“I'm gonna lose my merit scholarship.”
“Hey, hey, hey. Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh.” JJ said, grabbing Pope by the shoulders in an attempt to calm him down. “At least you have us, right?”
“I'm living the nightmare.”
🔅🔆🔅
After a trip to the marina and witnessing Scooter Grubbs get taken away by a coroner, we were back at the Château trying to figure out what to do next.
“Okay. So, um... we didn't see anything.” Pope spoke up as he paced in front of us all. “We don't know anything. We need to have total and complete amnesia.”
“Actually, Pope's right for once.” JJ stated, looking at us all. “See, I agree with you sometimes.” He assured Pope. “Deny, deny, deny.”
“Guys, we can't keep that money.” Kie piped into the conversation. “We have to pass that off to Lana Grubbs. Otherwise, it's bad karma.”
“Bad karma to be implicated in a felony, too.” I added referring to the gun JJ was still in possession of.
“We gotta go dark.” Pope suggested.
“None of it makes sense.” John B finally said, breaking his silence. “This is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about. Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. Shit, one time I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot because he needed gas. We're talking about a dirtbag marina rat who's never had more than 40 bucks in his pocket, and all of a sudden, he's got a Grady-White? Just sayin'.”
“So how does a marina rat get a Grady-White?” I asked, thinking out loud.
“Prostitution.” Pope suggested making me laugh under my breath.
“Okay...” John B stated, trying to move past Pope's comment. “Or maybe they're trying to fly under the radar, no aerial surveillance. They don't do that stuff during a hurricane. What does that mean? JJ?”
“They were straight smugglin'.” JJ finished John B’s thought.
“Smugglin'.” John B confirmed. “And I guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck.”
“For the record, if that is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband on the inside of it…” Pope said and I could tell he was thinking about all the terrible outcomes. “...it probably belongs to someone else.”
“Minor details.”
“They could come looking for it.” Pope warned. “Taking it would be catastrophically stupid.”
“Right. Well, stupid things have good outcomes all the time.” JJ reasoned holding up the money that he had now decided belonged to us. “All we need to do is figure out a way to get into the cargo hold of that wreck.”
“Until then, we just lay low. Just act normal.” John B added.
“Right. And how exactly do we do that?” I asked. I still felt like Pope was making a lot of good points that the others were not listening to.
“Kegger?” Kie suggested looking at the rest of us for confirmation.
🔅🔆🔅
You can't understand the Outer Banks without understanding the boneyard. It's kinda like a three-layer burrito. There's us and our friends, the working-class derelicts. Then, there are the Kooks, the rich second-homers. They're mostly from poncey-ass boarding schools, just rich trustafarian posers. Our natural enemies. And then, there are the Tourons. Totally clueless. Here for a week on vacation with their families. Chum for the sharks.
Later in the day after the sun had set, the kegger was coming to life, basically the entirety of the island's teen population was in attendance and the beach was getting pretty crowded. Earlier on I had been hanging around with JJ, all had been forgiven between us and we were back to cracking jokes.
Up until JJ spotted a girl he wanted to flirt with and I was left alone. Since then I had started chatting with a couple of Tourons who had taken one surfing lesson earlier in the week and now thought they knew everything about the sport. Desperate to make my escape I searched through the crowd for my friends. Just as I was about to make up an excuse I heard shouting from the water.
“Sorry, I have to go.” I told the pair lamely. “I think that’s my friends calling me.”
“Okay. Bye.” They replied as I walked away.
Much to my horror, once I had reached the shore it turned out to actually be my friends shouting, and the shouting had turned into a full out fight. I recognized John B in the water but the Kook he was fighting had their back facing me. I pushed my way through the crowd once I spotted Kie and made my way to stand beside her.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, looking at her face which was covered in fear.
“Topper and John B started arguing and now they're trying to kill each other.” Kie answered, watching as the fight got worse. That’s when I noticed the Kook Princess, Sarah Cameron, trying to calm down her angry boyfriend.
I used to know Topper when I was young. We had been friends but when I had moved to the Cut we lost touch. Now as he stood over John B I barely recognized him. He wasn’t the young boy I had once known, now he was a cruel person who thought he was better than others just because his parents had money.
“Hey, John B, don't make me drown you like your old man, all right?” I heard Topper challenge John B.
After that comment I had had enough and I was desperately looking around the crowd trying to figure out what I could do to stop them. I felt useless as I definitely couldn’t just jump in there, I had no idea how to fight. But we had to do something before Topper killed John B.
As my eyes scanned the crowd I noticed JJ who was already looking at me. His once bright eyes looked dark and it seemed like he knew exactly what he was about to do. I shook my head as I tried to make my way over to him, but he was already stalking towards where Topper and John B fought. I had a feeling I knew what he was about to do but I didn’t want to believe it.
I held my breath as I heard the crowd go silent when JJ clicked the gun's safety off.
“Yeah, you know what that is.” JJ threatened as Topper pulled away from John B. “Your move, broski.”
“Come on. Chill, dude!” Topper responded, trying to reason with him.
“Put the gun down.” Sarah cried desperately.
“Did you say somethin', Princess?” JJ asked, not taking his eyes off of Topper.
“We're good. We're good.” Topper tried to tell him, raising his hands in surrender.
“Kie! Iz! Can you check your psycho friend, please?” I heard Sarah screaming behind me pulling me out of the trance I had been frozen in. I took a few steps closer to JJ but I didn’t want to get too close when he had a gun pointed at someone. I had seen him get in fights before but never like this, this was different. I really thought that he might kill Topper and that terrified me.
“JJ.” I spoke softly so as to not startle him. He turned to glance back at me but kept the gun pointed at Topper who was looking back at us. “Think about what you’re doing.” I continued speaking calmly, meanwhile I could hear Sarah practically sobbing behind me. “You have to let him go.” I said, at this JJ nodded ever so slightly before pulling the gun away from Topper.
“Okay, everyone, listen up! Get the hell off our side of the island!” JJ yelled into the crowd of people before shooting the gun into the air.
The second JJ moved Topper was out of sight and Sarah wasn’t far behind. While Kie and Pope began to berate JJ over his actions I ran into the water to go check on John B.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked John B once I reached him, holding his shoulders so he wouldn’t fall back into the water. He mumbled back something incoherent as he swayed in my grasp. “Guys! Can you help?” I asked the three Pogues who still stood arguing behind me.
With their help we got John B out of the water and closer to the fire that had been started a while ago. We all sat silently there for sometime before John B was able to get up again and we all headed home.
🔅🔆🔅
After a sleepless night, we were all back together at the Château, I sat next to Kie as she lazily hit a pair of bongos that sat on the table between us and Pope. JJ was further away in the yard throwing god knows what into the grass. I stood up as I saw John B make his way over to us. Meeting him halfway between the main house and where the rest of our friends were I pulled him into a bone crushing hug.
“What was that for?” He asked, chuckling while he looked at me.
“I’m just glad to see you’re okay. I can’t lose you, any of you guys.” I explained making myself think back to last night.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” He joked trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah, I know.” I said the smile returning to my face. “Hey, by the way I saw the cop car driving away this morning, is everything okay?”
“Eh, it’s alright Peterkin stopped by, told me to stay out of trouble and to clean up the house.” John B explained as we made our way over to the others. “Look, I'm callin' it off. All right?” John B announced to everyone. “Peterkin said, if I stay out of the marsh, she'll help me with DCS.”
“And you believed her?” JJ questioned.
“Yes, I believe her, JJ.”
“An actual cop, John B. You believed a cop.” He added, trying to make his point.
“All I gotta do is stay out of the marsh for a couple days, and she'll help me out. It doesn't help that your ass was the one shooting a gun.”
“You know what I should have done? Just let Topper drown your ass.”
“Topper was gonna drown me?”
“Sure looked like it.”
“Alright, calm down.” I spoke up trying to get them to stop.
“Come on. They always win, don't they, man? Kooks versus Pogues. They always, always win!” JJ started to raise his voice.
“Look, it's okay!” Kie reasoned, also trying to help me calm them down.
“No, it's not okay!” JJ argued, turning his attention to John B. “It is not! They don't want us to go down into the marsh. That means there's something valuable down there, and you know it. I know you do. And I understand why you don't wanna go. You're the golden boy. You got way too much to risk.” JJ added pointing a finger at Pope. “ And you...I mean, you're already rich as fuck anyway. Why would you bother?” He asked Kie. “But us three.” He finished looking at John B and I. “We got nothin' to lose!”
“I don't want to talk about this.” John B told JJ as he began to walk away.
“So that's it?” JJ asked and I could tell he was losing hope in John B.
“Just get out of my way, bro.”
“John B, listen to me. I have a plan.”
JJ telling us he had a plan? That was never a good start.
🔅🔆🔅
We all gathered around Kie who was inspecting the tanks that John B had stolen from the Cameron's. JJ had tried to argue that we were going to return them so technically we were just borrowing them but I didn’t think the Cameron's would see it that way or the cops they would inevitably call if they found out.
“This is empty. You took empty tanks? I…” Kie told John B sounding defeated. “Okay, this one's a quarter full. It's enough for one of us. Love it when a plan comes together. Does anybody know how to dive?”
“It's kind of a Kook sport.” JJ replied.
“I... read about it.” Pope responded cautiously.
“Great, Pope read about it, so someone's gonna die.” Kie reasoned.
“Look, y-you put the thing in your mouth and breathe. How hard could it be?” JJ asked.
“If you come up too fast, nitrogen gets into your blood, and you get the bends.” Pope told him.
“Bends like, bend over and…” JJ asked, making me roll my eyes at him.
“The bends kill you.” Pope said seriously and JJ straightened up.
“I can do it.” I finally said standing up at the front of the boat. “I went diving a few times with my dad when I was younger.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” JJ stated, a look of worry crossing his features.
“I’ll be fine, it’s like riding a bike, you don’t forget.” I reasoned. “Right?”
“Let me do some calculations real quick.” Pope said while he looked through his bag for a notebook.
“Are you serious? You’re gonna do some calculations right now?” John B teased Pope with a smile on his face.
“Hey, let the man do his calculations, alright?” JJ told John B before glancing over at me again.
“That boat's about 30 feet down. Okay.” Pope stated, thinking out loud. “So it'll take 25 minutes at that depth.”
“Twenty-five.” I confirmed half listening to him half focusing on keeping my hands from shaking, suffice to say I was a little nervous.
“Which means you need to make your safety stop at about... ten feet. All right? For two minutes.”
“Okay, ten feet, two minutes.” I confirmed, attempting to remember everything he was telling me.
Kie suddenly stood up from her spot and jumped off the side of the boat, disappearing into the dark water.
“What was that all about?” Pope asked, distracted.
“I don't know, but I liked it. A lot.” JJ commented.
“Anything else I need to know?” I asked, looking at the boys who were all very clearly still thinking about what Kie had just done.
“All right. Yeah. Uh, when you... uh, when you're down there, you look for the cargo hold.” John B stated remembering where he was.
“You stick this thing inside and twist and pull, okay?” JJ told me, holding up a key and miming it in the air.
“Yeah I think I know how a lock works JJ.” I told him sarcastically, as I took the key from his grasp.
“Hey! I tied my T-shirt to the anchor chain about ten feet down.” Kie said finally emerging from the water. “It's where you need to do your safety stop.”
“Okay, thanks.” I responded giving her a smile before pulling the heavy tank onto my back. I could barely pull the straps tight because of how much my hands were shaking. Seeing me struggle, JJ made his way over to me and finished strapping me in. Giving a thumbs up as he took a step back.
“Keep an eye on this.” Pope said, pointing to the console attached to the tank before handing it to me. “You need to make sure you have enough air to decompress.”
“Okay, how much do I need?” I asked.
“Unclear.” He answered truthfully after a brief pause. “Breathe as little as possible.”
“Zen. Think Zen, you know?” JJ commented trying to get me to relax. He took my hand in his while I looked around at everyone.
“Yeah. Got it.” I responded, moving closer to the edge of the boat.
“Hey, if we get caught in the marsh, we're basically screwed, so... better get a move on.” Pope said. I knew he was just trying to be helpful but it did not help me feel very Zen.
I was about to pull down my mask from where it was sitting on top of my head when I realized JJ still had a tight grip on my hand.
“I’m gonna need this.” I told him, holding up our interlocked hands.
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that.” He said, awkwardly letting go of my hand and rubbing the back of his neck. “Be careful, yeah?”
“I’ll be fine.” I responded, but I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince him of myself. “Diver down?”
“Diver down.” My friends all confirmed as I pulled the mask down over my face before jumping into the water.
🔅🔆🔅
A couple of minutes after Iz had dove off the edge of the Pogue, the rest of the group sat waiting anxiously in silence for their friend to return. Well everyone but JJ who was currently pacing back and forth across the floor of the small boat, seemingly mumbling something under his breath about how Iz would be fine. The other Pogues watched, baffled as to how he could do things like this and yet still not realize how he truly felt about the girl who had just dove into the water.
JJ and the rest of the Pogues were pulled out of their thoughts by the sound of sirens and the flashing lights of a police boat.
“Shit.” Kie said, alerting everyone that the cops were pulling up next to them.
“Guys, that's the police.” Pope said, the panic in his voice rising with each word.
“Oh, you gotta be kidding me.” John B said standing up.
“Yep, that's the police. Just act frickin' normal.” JJ confirmed what they were all seeing, meanwhile acting the least natural the Pogues had ever seen him. JJ never panicked. “Evening, officers.”
“How you kids doing?” Deputy Shoupe asked the group, passing a rope over to connect the boats. “You know the marsh is closed?”
“No. No. Wow. I didn't know that. Why... Why is it closed?” Pope asked, trying to look calm.
“Well, we're conducting a search out here. Boat went down. Seen anything?”
“No. No boats. No.” John B responded.
“Where's your other friend you always hang out with? Who’s that, Bailer’s kid, uh, Isabella? She here?” Shoupe asked.
“She's working.” Kie lied.
“Hm.” Shoupe hummed, not entirely convinced. “I'm gonna check your little boat out.”
“Yeah, hop aboard.” John B said, waving a hand. “You wanna check... uh, check her out.”
Meanwhile below the surface Iz had found what she was looking for and began unlocking the hold.
After Shoupe had inspected their life jackets, he made his way to the front of the boat, putting his sunglasses on and looking out onto the water. From the back of the boat JJ also scanned the water, he thought that he saw something move beneath the surface and prayed that Shoupe hadn’t seen the same thing.
🔅🔆🔅
After getting into the hold I found a small bag and took it with me as I swam towards the anchor of the boat so I could make my safety stop before heading back up.
From my spot ten feet below the surface I looked up, noticing the shadow of a new boat and someone looking into the water. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment as if that would help me keep from getting caught before opening them and looking at the console in my left hand. There was less than thirty seconds of air left and I was panicking even more than before.
Just in time the figure left and moments later the second boat disappeared. With my last breath of air I swam to the surface pulling off my mask as I took a huge breath of fresh air.
“There she is!” JJ pointed at me letting out a sigh of relief. “Don’t scare us like that!”
“How'd it go down there?” John B asked as I made my way to the ladder on the back of the boat.
“Did you find anything?” Pope asked, pulling me up.
“Did I find anything?” I answered the question by holding up the small duffle bag that I had found in the hold.
“Yeah, there we go! That's my girl!” JJ hollered scooping me up into a hug as John B took the bag from me.
“Jeez.” I laughed as JJ let go of me again and Kie made her way to my side.
“You okay?” She asked, a look of concern painting over her usual happy expression.
“Yeah, I ran out of air.” I said trying not to worry her but realizing my words did the opposite of that.
“You scared the shit out of me.” JJ said, snaking an arm around my waist. I knew he just thought of me as a friend but his actions still gave me butterflies, it was nice to know he cared.
“Yeah, the cops were up here, but, uh... we took care of 'em.” Pope informed me.
“Hey, guys? Guys, bogey, two o'clock.” Kie said, pulling us from our previous conversation.
“Do you recognize that boat?” Pope asked.
“I've never seen it.”
“What are they doing here? The marsh is closed.” John B asked and I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of his words, after all we knew better than to be there and yet here we were.
“Let's not stick around and find out.” JJ stated, moving to the front of the boat.
“Should we wait on 'em?” Pope asked.
“Are you joking?” I asked, helping start the boat up. “JJ, hurry up.”
“Guys, don't wait for me. Go.” JJ told us as he pulled the anchor up as fast as he could.
“Go right.” I suggested to John B who was standing behind the wheel, thinking if we went further into the marsh they might not follow us.
“Let's go!” Kie rushed as the boat turned behind us. “Hey, guys, they're following us.”
“This can't be good.” I said as JJ moved to stand beside me.
“Dude, you gotta go faster!” JJ urged John B as the boat began to gain on us.
“I'm going!” He said while trying to maneuver the marsh that was filled with thick weeds.
Looking back I noticed that one of the men had leant down and was now standing back up holding something I could quite make out.
“Uh, guys what is that?” I asked as everyone but John B looked back.
“What the…” Pope started but the rest of his question died out at the sound of a gunshot.
As everyone one dropped down to the floor of the boat I felt as if I had been pushed, there was a heavy weight on my chest.
“Holy shit!” I heard Kie mutter as I opened my eyes realizing that JJ was on top of me. This was now the second time in the past two days that I had been pinned between JJ and another surface. Had it been under different circumstances I might have been able to enjoy it.
“John B, get down!” I heard JJ yell as I felt the vibrations of his voice echo through my own chest.
“We're gonna die!” I heard Pope say hopelessly from beside me.
“Shit! Pope, move.” Kie muttered, I couldn’t see much but I thought I saw Kie walking to the back of the boat carrying something.
“Get down, Kie!” John B yelled as the man in the other boat continued to shoot at us.
Then the shooting stopped as the sound of the other boat died out.
“Oh my god.” Pope sighed, sounding very relieved as everyone started to get back up except for JJ.
“JJ?” I asked, looking up at him. His face turned towards me, inches away from mine as he hovered over me.
“Yeah?” He asked, sounding completely oblivious.
“You gonna let me get up?” I asked, smiling.
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that Sweetheart.” He said standing before he offered me his hand. A look flashed across his face that I couldn’t quite recognize, if I didn’t know better I would think it was disappointment?
🔅🔆🔅
After arriving back at the Château we all gathered on the dock. To take a look at what I had found in the hold of the Grady-White.
“What do you think it is?” Kie asked us.
“Gotta be money, right?” John B responded with another question.
“That or a couple of keys with street value from the low-to-mid-mils!” JJ added.
“Can we please just open the bag?” Pope let out looking impatient.
“Wow, Pope. That's a rare outburst of emotion.” John B teased as he stretched out the wait even longer.
“Okay. You guys are literally killing me with anticipation.” I said in the same boat as Pope, urging them to hurry up.
“Alright Sweetheart, calm down.” JJ said from beside me putting a hand on my arm to calm me down.
“We almost died over this.” Pope added to our argument to open the bag faster.
John B opened the bag pulling out a metal canister. After opening that too he let the contents spill out onto his hand. Disappointment rose up as we looked to see that all it was was an old compass. While taking a second look I thought that I recognized it from somewhere but wasn’t sure.
“Oh, wow. Yup. That's about right.” Pope stated, standing from his crouched position. “Good job, everybody. We found a compass.”
“Dude, what? It's not worth anything.” JJ told John B who was staring at the compass in awe.
“This was my father's.” Were the only words that left John B’s lips.
🔅🔆🔅
After the disappointment of not finding much of anything after we all risked our lives we all headed home. Entering my house the sun was setting outside and it seemed empty. But my Mom’s car was parked just off the road and I could hear faint talking coming from the back of the house. I walked through the living room and kitchen, past the stairs that led to the loft which was my Mom’s room. Past my own room and the bathroom before coming to a stop in front of my little sister’s door. Leaning against the door frame, I saw my Mom reading Emmy a book by candle light, I assumed that the power was still out.
Walking back to the main room I started to make myself a sandwich, realizing that I hadn’t eaten much of anything all day. Just as I was about to take the first bite. I heard Emmy’s door close and my Mom entered the room, holding a candle in her hand.
“Hey, Honey.” She greeted me as she set down the candle. “How was your day?”
“Good.” I responded in between bites of the sandwich I had made. “Pretty uneventful.”
“Really?” She asked, almost surprised. “I saw Shoupe on my way out of town and he said that he saw your friends out on the marsh when they were doing their search for Scooter’s boat. He also said that you weren't there. Your friends told him something about you working, but I didn’t know you were working at all for a few days.”
“Oh really?” I said trying to figure out how to cover the real story up. “Um, Mr. Cameron came down and asked if I could pick up another shift. I guess his kids have been spending a lot of time inside since the storm so it was a bit of a mess over there.”
“He drove all the way down here?”
“Yeah well since the phone lines are down he couldn’t call.”
“Huh, it seems strange he would come all the way down when he could just wait a couple more days for us to come over.”
“Yeah well it was really bad. I would have taken pictures if my phone wasn’t dead.”
“Oh no I don’t need pictures, I’ve met those kids and cleaned that house, I believe that they could make a terrible mess.” She said seemingly believing everything I was telling her, she paused for a moment before asking another question. “You don’t know why your friends were in the marsh do you?”
“Well” I started, thinking about what I could say that would get us all off the hook. “They were actually waiting to pick me up. Yeah. Cause I went up to Figure Eight with Mr. Cameron but I didn’t want to make him drive me all the way home. So they hung out in the marsh I guess while they waited.”
���How’d you call them?” Mom asked, picking apart my story.
“Walkie Talkies.” I blurted out. “You know the ones that Heyward got Pope and I a few years ago? And that must have been why they were in the marsh even though it was closed. You know cause the walkie talkies only work for a certain radius, and the Cameron house is probably too far from here.”
“Yeah I guess so.” She said moving towards me to grab my now empty plate.
“Thanks.” I said, as she put my plate in the sink. “I think I’m gonna head back over to John B’s if that's okay.”
“Of course just don’t forget to sleep at some point. You do still require sleep.” She told me.
“I know, I’ll see you later.”
“Love you!” I heard her call after me as I closed the door and made the short walk over to John B’s where I saw him and JJ lounging on the porch.
🔅🔆🔅
#outerbanks#outer banks#jj maybank#jj obx#obx#jj x oc#jj maybank x oc#jj x reader#jj maybank x reader
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Literary vs Genre Fiction
The divide between literary and genre fiction is one of those topics that gets endlessly debated in writer circles. You’ll see it making the rounds on social media every time a book gets some buzz for busting out of its category. You’ll hear it in MFA programs across the country. But what even is literary fiction? How is it actually different from genre fiction? Is one better than the other? Why does anybody care?
A lot of smart people before me have thrown their hat in this particular ring, but I’m going to try tackling this one anyway.
First Off: What Do We Mean When We Say “Literary Fiction”?
Defining the thing is almost the hardest part of this whole discussion, and that may be part of the reason why people argue so endlessly about the literary vs genre divide -- if you don’t have a clear definition of the categories, that divide can be drawn up just about anywhere.
So before we dig into characteristics of literary fiction, let’s look at some clear examples. The Booker Prize is a literary award specifically given to works of literary fiction, so it stands to reason that winners of that award would be the best examples of the category, right? Here are some recent Booker Prize winners (as pulled from Powell’s bookstore):
Margaret Atwood - The Testaments
The sequel to A Handmaid's Tale, told as testaments from three female narrators in Gilead, a dystopian setting where women have been stripped of their rights.
Bernardine Evaristo - Girl, Woman, Other
Twelve central characters, mostly black British women, lead intersecting lives with struggles of identity, race, sexuality, class, etc.
Anna Burns - Milkman
A girl identified as "middle sister" catches the unwanted attention of "the milkman," a local paramilitary, and has to deal with the threat of violence and spread of rumors.
George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo
A father-and-son story about Abraham Lincoln and the 11-year-old son who died of illness in the midst of the civil war, leading to them both struggling in a type of purgatory.
Paul Beatty - The Sellout
A satire about an isolated young man who ends up at a Supreme Court race trial after trying to reinstate slavery and segregate the local high school in an attempt to put his town back on the map.
One thing becomes immediately clear about literary fiction when skimming through the titles and summaries of these award-winning books: These novels are well-nigh impossible to summarize in a way that actually sounds enticing.
So okay. What are some genre fiction books, for comparison? There are genre fiction awards, like for example the Hugo award for Sci-Fi/Fantasy:
Mary Robinette Kowal - The Calculating Stars
A cataclysmic meteor collision in 1952 causes an accelerated effort to colonize space, leading to a woman fighting to join the astronaut team in this alternate-history book.
N. K. Jemisin - The Stone Sky
The third in a trilogy of post-apocalyptic novels about two women with the power to avert destruction of mankind.
Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem
Against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project makes contact with aliens whose civilization is on the brink of destruction, leading them to plan a takeover of earth.
There’s also the Edgar Award, which is given to mystery fiction (it’s named after Edgar Allan Poe):
James A McLaughlin - Bearskin
A man on the run takes a job as a park ranger, but runs the risk of being found by the men he's hiding from when he tries to expose some poachers.
Walter Mosley - Down the River Unto the Sea
After spending a decade in prison for a crime he was framed for, former-detective King works as a private investigator whose investigation of his own frame-up leads him to cross paths of a journalist with a similar story.
Sujata Massey - Widows of Malabar Hill
In 1920s India, Bombay's only female lawyer investigates a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows, a case that takes a murderous turn.
These aren’t the best summaries in the world, but there does seem to be a stronger sense of both plot and character in the story concepts. At least, when someone asks, “What’s that book you’re reading about?” the genre fiction ones will have a somewhat easier time explaining it.
So What REALLY Separates Literary From Genre Fiction?
There are a lot of battle lines drawn between genre and literary fiction. I’ve heard it argued that literary is about character while genre is about plot; that literary is about the quality of the prose while genre is about the story; that literary is about experimenting while genre is about adhering to formulas. That literary is about expanding horizons while genre is about escapism and comfort. That literary is about realism and genre fiction is about fabulism.
I think there’s a nugget of truth in all of these, but I’m not really happy with any of them.
So I’m going to toss out my own hypothesis: I think the difference between literary and genre fiction is the way tropes are employed.
“Okay, great, but what are tropes?”
I’m so glad you asked. Fiction tropes are a type of shorthand. They are things that we the audience have seen before, so we know immediately what they mean. Tropes exist in characters, plot points, settings, concepts -- you name it. Here’s a sampling of tropes you might be familiar with:
The tough lady-cop whose dad was a police officer
Thanks to a mix-up, two people with hidden romantic feelings book the last available room at a hotel but there’s only one bed
A man goes on a quest for vengeance but destroys himself in the process
The wise old man who teaches the young hero valuable lessons but then dies before the pivotal battle
And so on, and so forth. Every genre has its own tropes -- a formula, if you will. In that sense, genre fiction is formulaic, but that doesn’t make it easier to write; actually, a big part of the challenge is in giving fresh twists to familiar tropes. Readers of genre stories demand certain tropes; the author has to deliver on those demands in a fresh way.
By comparison, I would argue that literary fiction does not rely upon tropes. There certainly are tropes and conventions that emerge in literary fiction -- a middle-aged academic struggling through divorce, for example -- but these tropes are more often than not met with irritation, not delight. Readers of literary fiction are looking for fresh insights and innovations, not familiarity.
Tropes are powerful tools. They are the mythic seed of storytelling. They are the archetypes that pass down through generations. They are a sacred backbone of mythology and folklore. Genre fiction, at the end of the day, carries the torch for storytelling in a long and (ha, ha) storied tradition from our prehistoric days huddled around a campfire.
Literary fiction, on the other hand, eschews tropes -- with their agreed-upon meanings -- in favor of assigning fresh meanings to things. Literary fiction is chock full of metaphors, but it’s the author, not convention, that determines what those metaphors mean and how they’re employed. Literary fiction reinvents the wheel. When it succeeds, it hits on depth and emotional resonance that can be life-changing for the reader. When it fails, it comes off like so much navel-gazing nonsense. So it goes.
Fiction Wars and Gatekeeping
The problem with the literary vs genre fiction divide is that it never stops with “This is how these categories are defined.” The problem is that people will insist on ascribing moral significance and hierarchy to them.
Literary fiction is viewed as being smarter, deeper, more meaningful or more valuable than genre fiction. If a genre fiction story manages to break out and gain wider appeal, suddenly people will start ascribing to it literary attributes (whether or not the book and many others in the genre had them all along). And that is all a bunch of nonsense.
It’s the exact same thing that happens in horror fiction -- when a horror story goes mainstream, suddenly it becomes a “psychological thriller” or a “dark drama” or anything other than horror, because “horror” is an inferior genre.
The fact of the matter is that literary fiction gets elevated over genre fiction for systemic reasons:
Most MFA programs focus on writing literary fiction, which means that a lot of lit-fic authors come out of those programs, which means that literary fiction is often the domain of upper-middle-class, frequently white, people who can afford to graduate from those programs
A focus on dense prose and “difficult” writing means lit-fic books must be analyzed and interpreted; it’s hard to read, making it exclusionist to people who lack formal education
Lit-fic dominates awards, gets pushed heavily onto book clubs, is talked about more often on daytime TV and so forth (because it is perceived as being better/more important, thus creating the ongoing cycle)
Basically, lit-fic gets held up as an example of Fine Culture. And any time something is designated as Fine Culture and High Art, it is subject to a completely arbitrary classist distinction meant primarily to keep out an undesirable element (women, BIPOC, poor people, you name it).
That’s not a problem endemic to lit-fic itself. It’s really a problem of the culture surrounding it, and attempts to hold it to a higher esteem than genre work.
Cross-Pollination Is Inevitable and Desirable
How do tropes get made?
Someone comes up with a new metaphor, concept, character, or idea that resonates so deeply that others who follow borrow that same thing and its meaning, and it gets repeated enough times that it becomes a stock trope.
In other words, every single piece of genre fiction exists because someone writing in some other established tradition decided to experiment and go off on a tangent to create something really fresh and new -- and knocked it so far out of the park that people were compelled to follow.
People like to pretend that the overlap and blurred lines between genre and literary fiction are somehow a new trend, but the fact is that this has been the trajectory of fiction-writing for the whole history of storytelling.
Literary agents have a term for this: Upmarket fiction. Books that “transcend” genre definitions to appeal to readers on either side of the aisle. And those are highly sought-after books, because they have the potential of bringing in double the readers.
So, snobby gatekeeping aside, is there any real reason to argue about the definition of literary vs genre fiction?
I’d say...no. Not even a little bit. I’ve got a mix of both on my shelves. I incorporate a mix of both in my writing. And I don’t see that changing any time soon.
A Final Note
I mentioned above that lit-fic tends to be written by people in MFA programs, and I wanted to touch on that again as an MFA drop-out and someone who was once warned by a teacher not to bring “any more of that genre nonsense” into the classroom.
I can understand, from a teaching perspective, why writer’s workshops would want to focus on lit-fic. From the perspective of learning how to write, forcing writers to derive stories from their experiences, to dig deep into themselves and ascribe unique meaning to things, to develop their own metaphors and hone their craft at the sentence level -- all of that makes a lot of sense. Banning genre tropes is a way to force writers to hone their craft without leaning on the work of generations of storytellers before them, and as a teaching tool I think that’s actually really valuable.
But I think it’s pretty important that we keep that in context. The lit-fic focus in writing classes should be a teaching tool first and foremost. It should not be the end-all and be-all of writing classes.
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I am but a sad little trans man who absolutely wants to know your thoughts on immortals capabilities to transition because I have thoughts and they make my depressed little trans heart hurt because how in the world could they transition if their bodies heal everything?
Hi! Sending you hugs because I've been struggling with the exact same thoughts! I wrote this lil meta last month but I don't like it and my brain keeps interrupting things like my job and trips to the grocery store to get me working on this puzzle.
From what we see in the movie, our elderly friends have regular-human healing, just faster and MORE, plus magic. We have canon evidence of how this works with wounds/injuries and can infer from there about how their immortality would handle infections, genetic/physiological/autoimmune/etc disorders, malnutrition/dehydration/etc, mental illnesses, and dental stuff, as well as things that bodies do that aren't necessarily bad but often need medical care — like pregnancy and gender transition. (I’m not a medical professional, just a nerd who loves a good Wikipedia rabbithole.)
Let's start with an easy one. Nile's hand healing after she stuck it in the fire is just a lickety-split version of what would happen to a regular human with a small skin wound: clotting, inflammation, rebuilding, healed.
When Nile yeets herself and pharma bro out the window of the topmost tower, we see the same thing happen again but bigger, plus we see several of her bones pop themselves back into place, and presumably any blood vessels that got torn up magically correct themselves under her skin. Humans have been surviving injuries like major bone fractures for a very long time but a bone that heals without medical intervention to realign the fractured pieces might heal at a new angle, meaning it doesn't work as well anymore, and it might cause damage to surrounding organs/tissues and leave a lot of scar tissue or a chronic wound. But Nile only needs Booker and Nicky keeping her upright for barely a minute and then she's walking around on her own just fine.
A large wound that breaks deeply through the skin, like Nile's sliced throat or Booker's exploded abdomen, can be survivable for a regular human if it doesn't irreparably damage critical organs and if you can get medical attention before you bleed out, but even with modern medical intervention the results are rough. Jay and Dizzy aren't wrong for being deeply weirded out by Nile's flawless neck: even with the best plastic surgeons in the world on the case, closing up a wound like that will leave scar tissue that affects both appearance and function.
So, we've got immortality magic moving bones back into place, restarting stopped hearts and lungs and brains, rebuilding major structures like arteries and intestines, healing up wounds without scar tissue, pushing out bullets, and otherwise handwaving the big stuff. But it's not a magic wand, it’s a process, and bigger wounds take longer. It's like these people's mitochondria have little gnomes in there with schematics to rebuild their bodies to factory default.
From how these bodies handle wounds we can infer that they'd handle pathogens / infectious diseases the same way: inflammation, white blood cells attack, byebye plague see you never. And if these bodies are resetting bones and rebuilding organs, they're probably also correcting genetic disorders and shifting around physiological problems like bone spurs. So let's keep on inferring.
What if, instead of every death erasing hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery and leaving a trans immortal detransitioned over and fucking over again, what if the magic that governs immortality considers dysphoria-causing body parts just like any other wound to heal?
What if Booker is a trans man, and he's got that sweet muscle mass and that height and that beard that comes all the way up his cheeks because he's been on the wonder drug that is testosterone for over 200 years? What if immortality was all "we see you've been hung from the neck until dead, and your eyes have been pecked out, and also you have all these hormones that turn your body into a shape that makes you miserable — we're gonna fix all that" and then regenerated his pecked-out eyeballs and unsnapped his neck and undid the results of months of insufficient food AND ALSO started pumping him with the fantasy version of HRT so his chest started to reduce and his fat redistributed itself and his beard started coming in?
Who's to say that's not how it works?
All my dysphoria is social — I'm fine with my body for the most part and I CANNOT STAND when people assume things about my gender, because of my body or for any other reason. We see pretty clearly with Booker that mental illness isn't magically healed the way physical injuries are, and I think that's because the causes of mental illness are a combination of physiology/chemistry stuff and things like our beliefs about ourselves and the world, our experiences of trauma, and our experiences of getting our needs met or not. If I were immortal I could maybe break up with my SSRI, but it wouldn't stop me from getting misgendered — I'd still have to find a way to cope with the ongoing trauma of that. Having to navigate hundreds of cultures' ideas about gender when my gender is "uhhhhh" sounds like absolute hell for me, no thank you, do not want.
But for my fellow trans people whose dysphoria is primarily body-related, and for my social-dysphoria pals whose gender is something nearly every human being would recognize and all they need is to pass, how about let's make an executive decision that immortality includes HRT for anybody who needs it, with no psych eval or begging your insurance company or poking yourself with needles, and just like with wound healing it's like regular HRT but faster and more. HRT so powerful and so magical that it gives you the best possible version of the results you want and none of the results you don't. If I had the option to go on HRT for just like one or two changes but not the whole battery of things I would fucking do that, and if I were to join our elderly friends, maybe I could.
This might be easier on transmasc immortals than transfeminine ones, because testosterone's effects are basically impossible to reverse. But also you can't just keep waking back up after repeatedly drowning for 500 years, so fuck it. We're making an executive decision here.
Estrogen that grows your breasts and softens your dick but doesn't lessen your ability to orgasm. Immortality magic that makes your beard go away and maybe shrinks your height an inch or two or six. Maybe Quynh is trans and one time a few thousand years ago she got injured in battle worse than Booker's grenaded belly and she woke up an hour later with a vulva and a uterus and now her body is just like that. Factory reset.
I subscribe to the "God made wheat and grapes but not bread and wine so humans could share in the act of creation" model of transness and I personally feel very weird about the idea of immortality magically giving a trans immortal cisnormative genitals the same way it resets bones. There's no one right way to have a pussy or a dick, you know? Maybe Quynh woke up from a catastrophic gut wound in like 800 BCE with a constructed vagina rivaling the best our modern money can buy, without a uterus but with a clit that's just as magical as anybody else's.
I've been thinking about writing a Book of Nile fic with trans man Booker, which is why the two of them are most of my examples here. It would include porn, because apparently I can't write more than 1500 words about them without writing porn, so I need to think more about what's going to feel good for me and other trans people who might read it and won't accidentally facilitate cis people objectifying us. Like, I've thought in a lot of detail about what a clit enlarged by that many centuries of testosterone might look and feel like, and that specific experience is not mine so I'm treading carefully.
Cis people are welcome to reblog this! Fellow trans folks are welcome to join me in the act of creation on this post ;)
#trans things#fandom friends#tog meta#tog#book of nile#fic ideas#transphobia#dysphoria#gore#long post#mine
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Hi, I hope you are fine.
I think I'm late for your "35 Questions for Fanfiction Writers", hehe.
I would love to know the answer to 22,27 and 33 (only if you want).
PS: I love your mando fic.
Thank you, anon! <3 <3 <3
22. Do you listen to anything while you write?
Yes! Absolutely! I almost never write in silence. For stories that take me more than a day to write, I’ll often make a playlist for them with an emotional theme I want to focus on. For my fic Fulminating, I made a playlist called “things catch up” which included songs about drowning, water, and inevitability; for stories with a strong setting, like a desert, I have a few climate-based playlists with tracks on deserts, sun, and heat (”Desert Daze”). I have playlists for Hawke x Varric, for Fitzsimmons, for Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth Comstock, for Shakarian stories; I also have them for specific characters (Namira Lavellan, Din Djarin, Phil Coulson, Xia Shepard, Zevran Arainai, Cullen Rutherford, Steven Universe). Writing playlists for me are almost always moody, heavy things, even if I’m writing relatively fluffy stories. Artists that make frequent appearances include Radiohead, Menomena, Aimee Mann, Modest Mouse, Poe, Kathryn Joseph, The Postal Service, Rufus Wainwright, Florence and the Machine, The Tiny, The National, Wolf Parade, Moby, Muse, M83, and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.
27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?
Any comment longer than a paragraph can make me swoon all day and go back and reread it again and again. But, I’d have to say the comments that have stuck with me longest have been those that commented on my handling of grief in my writing. My writing definitely changed after my brother’s death in 2017, and I incorporated his loss into many of my fandom stories where grief played a role. Hearing from others who have lost someone that they recognized that depth, and those feelings, really touched me. So in stories where Peli Motto encourages Din to talk about losing Grogu, or Hawke nudges Varric to talk about losing Bartrand, or Azula struggles with dementia while an elderly Zuko cares for her, that all comes from a place of loss, and knowing that I helped someone else feel a little more seen and a little less alone is so rewarding.
33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?
Hmmm... there are definitely times that I go back through my own writing and hope that my readers don’t see all of my commonly used tropes and phrases! There are definitely words or phrases or actions that I absolutely overuse, and I’m not sure anyone has noticed yet, but I know they’re there. ;) If you do spot something I use all the time, er, consider it a fun Easter egg? Y’know, the type of Easter egg you hide but then forget about, haha.
In general, though, my writing process is pretty much Find New Fandom, Wait for Inspiration to Attack, which is why it’s probably a good thing that writing isn’t my day job. :)
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Hilary, you’re probably up to your ears in plot bunnies/prompts, but I just wanted to sidle in with: the Old Guard eating ice cream (for the first time!), Joe making Andy ride on the handlebars of one of the first bicycles, and other assorted historical fluffy nonsense
It’s just going on to summer, and the Brazilian air is starting to turn especially hot around the edges; the October sun is thick and soupy, and the team is sweating and breathing hard and a little stiff from everything that just went down. It’s 1834, Emperor Pedro I just died a few days ago, there has been unrest and struggling in the city over the politics of the succession, and the Old Guard has been doing their best to ensure that it doesn’t get any worse. This has, however, involved some adventures, including the unanticipated and dramatic shattering of windows in the Paço de São Cristóvão. Joe grimaces, still picking bits of glass out of his suit lapels, until Nicky takes over and brushes his cravat straight again with somewhat more attention than it really needs, but neither of them care. They exchange a brief smile, pinkies linking, and then Joe turns to the others. “I just broke a damn palace window,” he announces. “With my body. Is there anything we can get to eat?”
The team exchanges looks, rolls stiff shoulders, Andy still shucking the remains of her torn velvet skirt, and decides this sounds like a fine idea. The emperor died across the sea in Lisbon, not Rio de Janeiro, but since the city was briefly used as the Portuguese imperial capital itself during the Napoleonic exile of the royal family in 1808, there are plenty of nerve centers that can be profitably exploited. Booker spits out a piece of wooden splinter that looks like fancy furniture in a previous life, grimaces, and announces, “I could eat.”
The four of them, still dirty, dazed, looking more than slightly disreputable, and only badly concealing a stupendous array of weapons beneath the boys’ pinstriped suits and Andy’s ruffled skirts (the first thing she did was complain about how she was supposed to fight like this, and good luck getting her to put on the lacy bonnet), lurch off along the shady, treed promenade that borders Copacabana beach -- still, at this point, a few centuries off from becoming a tourist mega-destination. A few of the Portuguese and Brazilian gentry stroll along sedately, almost entirely unaware of the upheaval that just took place under their noses, though some of them notice the team long enough to cast judgmental glances. Finally, Nicky shrugs, takes Joe’s hand, and says, “What? Might as well give them something to really feel outraged about.”
“We’re supposed to not attract attention,” Andy reminds him dryly, but without any real condemnation. In a few more steps, they reach an enterprising ice cream vendor selling his confections in cut-glass bowls, enticing the top-hatted gentlemen and parasoled ladies to stop for a cool bite in the heat. The team looks at each other. There’s a long pause. Then Andy sighs, digs in her impractical ribboned pockets, and says, “Fine, I’ll pay.”
They’ve eaten ice cream before -- it’s just starting to be popular and more widespread, though still a delicacy -- but not often, and these spoonfuls taste especially sweet. The vendor tactfully does not ask about the soot on their faces and the splinters in their hair (to be fair, they’ve gotten most of them off), especially when Andy slips him a few extra reals for his trouble. He passes them four glass dishes and four tin spoons, thanks them, and resumes hawking his wares to the next passersby. Exactly what they can all appreciate.
The four of them wander onto the white sand of Copacabana, the crystalline-blue waves crashing on the shore, the shoulders of the green mountains rising up into the sky. (Even through everything that happens to it, part of Rio will always naturally feel like heaven on earth.) They sit down and eat the ice creams with moans and sighs of appreciation, the cool sweetness exactly what they need after the punishing events of the day. Joe and Nicky feed each other spoonfuls (Andy rolls her eyes but otherwise pretends not to notice) and Booker eases off his boots. He’s the newest, he’s only been with them for about twenty years, and they know he wants to get this done and go back to his sons at home. “This is nice,” he says. “This part, at least.”
Joe looks briefly about to make a comment about how they can get ice cream now because he dramatically crashed through a window like a big damn hero earlier, but decides against it. It is nice: the four of them together, the sweat of a mission drying on their brows, the torn clothes, the usual scrapes that have sealed up, the knowledge that they’ve done something worthwhile today, and can have a moment to sit and relax as a result. Andy’s face as she gazes out to sea, however, is not entirely peaceful. Joe and Nicky know that there’s only one thing, one person, she can be thinking about. Knows that Quynh’s iron coffin has not washed this far across the Atlantic, from the cold seas of England to the bountiful bays of Rio, but some part of her cannot help but wonder.
“Hey, boss,” Nicky says in an undertone. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.” Andy looks at him, and smiles almost entirely convincingly. “Finish your ice cream,” she commands. “Before it melts.”
Nicky glances at her again, but does as told, and they lick the spoons clean. The breeze tousles their hair, and the shadows grow longer. They sit there until the sun has vanished behind the shoulders of the mountains, and gaslamps begin to strike on along the promenade. Then they get up, return the dishes to the vendor as he packs his cart away for the night, and hand in hand (or arm in arm) they go on, into the evening, and leave Rio as quietly as they came.
#the old guard#the old guard fanfiction#...i realize too late that it was sao paulo 1834#not rio 1834#but shhh?#(also it makes more sense to be rio because imperial capital of brazil at the time)#(okay i'm shutting up)#youareiron-andyouarestrong#ask
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Raccoon king gets hung while trying to do missions in his own to try and do some sort of GOOD to try and make up for what he did. But he doesn't believe it could ever make up for what he did.
He's hanging there dying over and over again thinking of his first death in Russia. Hanging is the one thing he's terrified of, he has a lot of fears and issues with it.
But swinging there he can't help but think he deserves it. He knows that eventually the rope will rot so it will only be a few years of dying his most feared way over an over thinking he deserves it. But at least he isn't in the ocean like quyhn.
He's resigned himself to it, and eventually his mind leaves and he's in a safehouse hanging out with the team laughing and joking but it's almost as painful as reality.
Copley comes to the team (cause they couldn't leave him completely in his own, they had Copley check in on him digitally every so often) and says he can't find Booker. There's no trace of him on any camera in the last year.
Joe points out that Booker knows how to disappear and probably found out about Copley checking in on him and hid just to be petty. The team actually agrees, and decides to give Booker his space for now, after all they asked him for space first it's only fair to respect when he wants space.
After a second year with no trace they get worried and go try to find him
It takes them a month to find him
Hanging in an abandoned church covered in dry blood. Nile vomits. Quickly Nicky grabs Booker and holds him up so he doesn't die again while Joe and and quynn scramble to find something to stand on to cut him down.
Booker comes back to life, but he doesn't gasp to life or struggle, or even open his eyes on the cold stone floor.
They get him to the closest safe house, and they are all freaking out. They haven't seen anything like this before. He's physically healed so he didn't lose his immortality he's just... Gone.
They clean him up and tuck him into bed, everyones anger at Booker is gone replaced by fear for their brother and anger at whoever did this to him.
They take turns sitting at his bedside and just talking, Joe Nile and quyhn talk the most Andy and nicky talk a lot but they spend a lot of time just sitting there holding his hand.
Eventually Booker opened his eyes sees them sitting near him, that he isn't in the abandoned church, whispers a hoarse "no" and closes his eyes again.
They have to give him an IV to keep him fed and hydrated.
Eventually he comes back but he doesn't come back. His eyes show only pain and he's like a ghost.
Booker doesn't believe it's real, just his mind tricking him with the people he so desperately wants to care about him. He knows he's still living his worst fear in that church, a fitting punishment he thinks, since it all went to hell in a church.
The team trys but they can't prove that they are real. But at least he is eating and not comatose anymore.
They take him on outings as soon as they can get him to move that much, they go to museums and beaches and concerts, anything they can think of.
Sometimes Booker let's himself believe it's real but then he goes to sleep and he's back kn the church and realizes he must have just woken up back in the church again and it's not real and that makes everything so much more painful. He wonders when the rope will snap and he'll be free. And if Nile is anything like dream Nile. He hopes so, he likes dream Nile.
The team is eaten up with guilt for leaving him for the extra year, thinking he just wanted space, and now Booker is here but gone
-A
Oh ouch!!! This is such a painful scenario but I fuckin love it!! They would like try to convince him by doing things he loves or gifting him things they know he’d like but he’d just be like “oh it’s an especially lovely dream this time, this is nice” but his hand would still come up to trail across his neck, feeling for the rope that isn’t there but he’s still convinced it is.
And “...if Nile is anything like dream Nile. He hopes so, he likes dream Nile.” broke my heart madude!! Ouch ouch ouch!! I love it. So sad but so sweet too idk ouch!!
(Side-note: the whole thing of Booker not believing the team is real is gonna be explored in a few of my upcoming fics so this definitely sparked some motivation in me to work on those, so thank you very much A!!)
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The next time that Nicky comes to, he’s still blind and deaf. He struggles a little before Nile pulls the couch closer to the warmth of the fireplace. He must be cold- that’s what every website she went to said, alongside the importance of burn wards for victims like Nicky to help them stay warm and heal in a sterile environment to prevent infection. For now, they just have to do the best they can. There are bandages folded under him, of course, but that will only do so much. Besides that, he’ll need those bandages checked and changed often so they don’t fuse with his healing skin.
“I got into contact with Booker,” Andy says when she comes back. “He’s going to bring some serious supplies. Hopefully we can get Nicky through this until then.”
“Why isn’t he healing?”
Joe throws some wood from outside into the fire to stoke it warmer. “It’s a big injury. It’ll take time. Just so you know, Nile, he’s only alive because he is healing, it’s just very slow.”
Then he takes up a twin vigil with Nile, looking over Nicky’s body. He moves often, seemingly unable to just relax, only stilling for a brief amount of time after each dosage of morphine. Nile has to assume that it’s because he’s in pain, but she cannot give him morphine more often when she can’t guarantee he won’t overdose on it, no matter how much she wants to relieve his agony. Joe left her in charge of the painkillers for this exact reason; he doesn’t think he could be so rational about it. She doesn’t blame him.
Some four or five hours later, he checks the fire again as it dies down and Nicky begins to shiver. Nile watches him build it up again, to the point that he isn’t careful enough and burns the curve of his thumb. Of course it heals quickly, leaving only a moment of pain, but it was enough for Nile to smell the singe of his skin. Evidently, it was enough for Nicky as well. He cries out and struggles to sit up.
“Nicky, Nicky, it’s alright! I’m alright!”
Joe tries to soothe him, a futile endeavor when Nicky cannot understand him, but one that is impossible to neglect when they all feel so helpless. He nearly tries to cup Nicky’s face, or holds his hand, before remembering that he cannot touch the raw flesh where skin used to be and pulling back. It seems to cause him pain as well to be unable to comfort him. As he sags back against the couch, burying his face in his hands to try and hide his tears, although his shoulders still shake with the force of it.
If only there were words of comfort that could actually help, or a single thing Nile could do to speed along Nicky’s healing. Unfortunately, all they can do is wait. The pain will last, as will the guilt, and the haunted look in Andy’s eyes as she takes in the way the light reflects off the wet-looking surface of what had once been Nicky’s kind and capable hands.
Nile busies herself with research for as long as she can stay awake. Everything from skin graft research to the typical amount of it takes for someone to heal from full body burns. She considers the idea of grafts for perhaps too long, no matter horrific the idea of it is- one or all of them would have to donate the skin to Nicky, and hope it takes. But then again, the grafts would speed up the process, and for all she knows, Nicky’s body will reject or grow over the grafts eventually.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Joe says to her as the sun rises through the window. “You’ve done enough, Nile. More than.”
Reblog if you enjoyed! | Ko-fi
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BioShock Infinite MBTI and Enneagram — Daisy Fitzroy
Daisy Fitzroy is a major side character who is both hero and a villain to our main protagonists.
Before we analyze her we will look into her past. Fitzroy’s birthplace and origins are unknown so we can’t speculate about her upbringing and past life, but we know that Jeremiah Fink "procured" her and brought her to Columbia intending to use her for menial labor within the city. As you would imagine she was not happy with this but she obliged for a short while. During that time Lady Annabelle Comstock employed her and had Daisy work as her maid. This worked well and Daisy ended up respecting Lady Comstock because she treated her with respect. Alas, that respect was short-lived. One day she found Lady Comstock dead and was wrongfully accused by her murderer Zachery Hale Comstock. Fitzroy escaped and vengefully founded the Vox populi. She was eventually captured by local authorities years later in Finkton. This lead to her being interrogated by Dr. Francis Pinchot who found out she had genius-level intelligence surpassing his. This resulted in the scientific community of Columbia declaring her a threat thus wanted to lobotomize her to make her more servile. Her intelligence impressed Dr. Pinchot, and he feared the lobotomy would render her useless, thus tried to stop it. We’ll be continuing this story in our analysis of her dominant function.
Dominant Function: Extroverted Thinking
Daisy Fitzroy is an exceptional TE user. She’s ambitious, intelligent, structured, and she knows how to turn situations to her advantage and quickly. To continue our story, we’ll be seeing the first example of her Te usage.
As Dr. Pinchot disagreed with the Columbia scientific community, Daisy formulated a plot to escape. She would use Pinchot and then eliminate him. This plan worked, she asked for “help” and lured him into bringing the keys to escape, she then shot him to tie up loose ends. Ruthless and efficient. Daisy then planned her revenge against The Founders. She quickly raised an army by using her voice of reason, telling them they are tools to be used and discarded like she was. Unlike Comstock, Daisy doesn’t mince words, she’s direct and to the point. You’re either helping us or you’re a liability.
Extroverted Thinking dominant and auxiliary users often see the world in black and white. Daisy Fitzroy is no exception she takes black and white thinking to the next level. Now we’ll be moving to Extroverted Thinking examples as seen within the game. Our first example will reflect her black and white thinking. Daisy states Fink sees people as livestock and wants to keep them controlled like the animals they are. She uses this as her argument to recruit more members to her cause by uniting them against a single cause. Daisy, however, is doing the same as Fink albeit, in a much more moralistic light, she uses people like tools to achieve her goals for the sake of revenge. Daisy exclusively uses facts and statements to prove her points. She often does that within her speeches and we can hear one of these speeches inside of the Graveyard Shift bar in Shantytown when Booker and Elizabeth enter the tear which allows the Vox populi to have their weapons for their revolution. Daisy mentions that if you were able to rationally think you’d be striving for your own dreams and aspirations. Not the aspirations of men who want to control you by telling you when to eat, when to sleep, when to stand or when to sit down. The thing is, Daisy Fitzroy is absolutely correct men like Fink and Comstock seek to control the people of Columbia, especially minorities such as Daisy Fitzroy. It’s entirely rational and in your own self-interest to defend yourself against people who will use you until you hit your breaking point. They only care for their self-benefit and will dispose of you when they’re done. Overall Daisy Fitzroy is a noble example of a TE user it was her structured mind that united the people of Shantytown against all of Columbia. She isn’t doing it because it’s the right thing to do. She’s doing it because it makes logical sense to not want to be oppressed, how could you succeed in life if every action you take is controlled by another individual.
As Malcolm X once said, “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.”
Auxiliary Function: Introverted Intuition
Daisy Fitzroy is a visionary and opportunist who knows how to use her NI function wisely. We’ll be backing up that claim with a brilliant example. During the start of the game, after Elizabeth knocks out Booker, he’s left unconscious on the First Lady airship. Daisy boards the airship with her Vox populi and runs into Booker. He demands her to get off his airship; she retorts by mentioning they’re in the middle of a war and that she needs his help. She does this by telling him if he wants his airship back he must work for her by getting her the weapons she needs for her revolution. She then knocks him out of the airship, sending him on his new quest. Her intuition about Booker ends up being correct. He succeeds and recovers the weapons she required to kick off her revolution. But now there’s an additional problem. Booker and Elizabeth needed to open up 2 tears into parallel universes to get this job done. Meaning this deal never happened when they meet up with Daisy Fitzroy again. Our next example of her NI function being used exceptionally is seen when Elizabeth and Booker return to Columbia through a tear, they arrive in a world where Booker died for the Vox populi. As they contact Daisy Fitzroy, she mentions there’s no way he survived since she saw him die with her own eyes she then turns her guards against these “imposters”. This ends up being a clever ruse. Fitzroy willingly sacrifices her men to lure Elizabeth and Booker closer to her. Once they reach her she pretends that she’s gone mad with power and she’s willing to kill children for her revolution. This causes Elizabeth to freak-out and murder Fitzroy while Booker distracts her. This plan was designed to harden Elizabeth by turning her into a killer. This action ultimately would be the one to ensure the success of Fitzroy’s revolution, the destruction of her oppressors, and all the events that occur in the original BioShock. Fitzroy may have not known it, but her sacrifice also saved the Little Sisters in Rapture and allowed Elizabeth to murder the final Comstock. We can see our last NI example in the DLC Burial at Sea in Fink’s private quarters. Within those quarters is a seized kinetoscope from the Graveyard Shift bar. Inside that kinetoscope lies Fitzroy's thoughts about God.
She believes there is no God and claims men like Comstock use the idea of God to control the common folk by shaming them.
" If there were no God, you could rest assured the first deed done by the first rich man would be inventin’ him.” - Daisy Fitzroy.
Within a historical context, Fitzroy is correct, the rich and powerful often used the “Wrath” of God to control the public. This was especially true in the Middle Ages to the 20th century.
Tertiary Function: Extroverted Sensing
Daisy Fitzroy doesn’t seem too interested in her Se function and prefers to use her dominant and auxiliary functions. However, that doesn’t mean she completely neglects it. We can see her Se function within her actions. These actions are usually caused by TE-SE loops. They often end up being violent because that is the quickest way to get results. To Daisy, actions are louder than words. Sure you can reason with people, but will it get you what you want right away? No, therefore take action. She keeps this mentality throughout the game. Most of these actions can be seen by how the Vox populi functions. She’s instructed them to act first by killing everyone and then decorate the area with red by claiming this is their territory now. Daisy is concerned about the future as seen by NI function but will achieve that by first destroying everything and striking fear into the hearts of the people who align themselves with the oppressors. Her tactics are basic overwhelm the enemy, do what you have to do, and execute the ones who won’t cooperate. Many of her speeches are driven by TE-SE loops, she’ll go on about facts, and then she’ll refer to the actions that The Founders have taken against the minorities to convince them fighting is the only choice. Our main example of SE can be seen in the Speech she makes about Booker DeWitt dying for the cause. She mentions he died for the cause and now we must stand true to the cause by killing Fink, to only relate it back to Booker’s death. With that logic she’s suggesting because Booker died for the cause we must also sacrifice our lives like he did because that is the truest way to show your dedication to the cause after all he’s a hero you want to be a hero right?
Inferior Function: Introverted Feeling
We can definitely see that Fitzroy struggles with her FI function. On one hand, she is very aware of how her feelings often control her when she enters angered states and that they drive her revolution but on another hand, she knows when they’re appropriate and when to seal them away.
We can hear her speaking about that within her voxophone recordings. Most of the recordings will follow the same premise she reflects on her morals and feelings towards her actions and then justifies it. So we’ll be using one voxophone example. This voxophone recording can found in the office of Jeremiah Fink chief executive area in the Burial at Sea DLC. This is before Daisy organized the Vox populi and rose up against her oppressors. Within the recording, she recognizes that violence only causes violence and that the rational mind wants to find a peaceful solution but she asks herself what does a father do when he sees his child bleed out on the streets? Do you deny him his vengeance? She then refers to her own moral code and understands because she’s been there and lived through it, this leads to the biggest question “Will I be able to stay the hand” From the actions we’ve seen in-game Daisy Fitzroy could not stay the hand and instead she gave in to her feelings and lead a revolution very much knowing she will hurt others to achieve her goals. She does, however, redeem herself within our last example. This occurs when the Luteces let her know she must make Elizabeth think she will harm Fink’s son so she could have her revolution succeed. That action was driven by her NI function to piece together the puzzle for the long term but was completely inspired by her FI function. Her moral code would not be broken even with all the anger in her heart Daisy never planned on harming children, especially Fink’s child because he did nothing wrong. “I will not hold the son to account for the deeds of his father”
https://youtu.be/2r6btwu_hPA
#BioShock#BioShock MBTI#BioShock Infinite#BioShock Infinite MBTI#enneagram#mbti personality types#MBTI#complex character#Daisy#Daisy Fitzroy#Fitzroy#BioShock Infinite MBTI and Enneagram#Bioshock Daisy Fitzroy MBTI#Daisy Fitzroy mbti#hero and villain#revolutionary#ENTJ#ENTJ 8w9#863#intelligent#Malcolm X inspired#rational#enneagram 8w9
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