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amethystunarmed · 5 months

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It Can't Be Undone Chapter 2

Word Count: 4,795 Chapter 1 Ao3 Link Detailed CW on AO3

When he realized what the Lords were asking Steph to do, Peter hadn't thought it was much of a choice. If it was him or Steph, it wasn't going to be Steph. And part of it made sense, didn't it? He and Richie and Ruth were a unit. Ted called them pack animals, and stopped bothering to ask if they were coming over when he picked up Peter from school. They were inseparable.

So doesn't it make sense he would follow them here, too?

As he waits there, on his knees, breath illuminated by the stadium lights, he wonders if one of the Lords in Black will wear him, the next time they're summoned.

Probably the yellow bastard.

“I’m ready,” he tells Steph, even though he isn’t.

The gun goes off and Peter doesn't die and for a moment, Peter feels disappointed. Then Max Jägerman is breaking his fucking arm and he doesn't have time to feel anything.

~~~

All in all, Max was having a pretty good day. He was pounding nerds to his heart's content, had Steph and her pet dweeb cowering at his mercy, and Grace Chasity finally realized just what she was missing out on. Which is why he is more than a little peeved when another fucking ghost shows up.

“Shitlips?” Max snarls, “ How you fuck did you get here? And what the fuck are you wearing?” Max woke up in the clothes he died in, but clearly Richie isn't bound by the same restriction. He's got green hair instead of blue and is wearing the $5 crown from last year's prom, but Max is 90% sure it's him.

“What did you just-” Shitlips hisses, then he stops and looks down at himself. “Oh. Will you look at that? I forgot what I was wearing.” He giggles, a wheezy, hitching laugh that Max has never heard from him before. A chill goes down Max's spine, and he feels uneasy in a way he hasn't since he woke up beside his dismembered corpse.

He thought originally that Shitlips was wearing one of his dorky cartoon outfits, the ones Max has pummeled him for wearing every Halloween since the 3rd grade, but looking at him, that seems less and less likely. He's pretty sure even Shitlips wouldn't shell out for contacts that made his eyes glow. That even with all those lame dances he's practiced in the cafeteria, he can't make his fingers bend like that .

“Shitlips?” He asks again, this time much more confused. What the fuck is happening?

“Actually, this is perfect,” the Lipschitz copy says with a grin, like Max hadn't spoken. “I can't imagine a better way to illustrate my point, Maxiepoo. You've been running around making quite the claims, haven't you? You said you were a god...” He pouts, and pats Max's head. “You don't know the meaning of the word.”

Max wrenches away from the touch. “I don't know what's gotten into you, but I beat your ass once, and I'll do it again!”

Max goes to punch him, but something grabs his hand. Fucking Flemwad , with gaudy glasses and long, highlighted hair, is holding him back. She has one hand clamped around his wrist, so tight his bones grind together. Max can feel bruises blooming under her hold. She giggles as he yanks against her hold. He had been able to easily throw her around the theater, like a toddler with a ragdoll. Now it feels like he's in the grip of a marble statue.

“What the fuck?” He moves to grab her with his other hand, but another hand clamps tight around him. Mayor Lauter isn't even looking at him, instead he is examining his fingernails.

Two more hands clamp around his ankles, and Max looks down to see the woman from the limo and the nerdy prude from the Waylon place, in blinding pink and neon yellow. They smile up at him with raucous, toothy grins. Their fingers burn where they touch him, so cold his skin cracks with neurotic black burns. Max thrashes, but he can feel their touch burrowing deep inside him, digging into the core of what he is now.

He knows, instinctively, in a way that took the place of breathing, that there is a well of power in him. It keeps him moving, grows with every nerd he guts, propels him like a shark. It is everything he is.

And he can feel these... Monsters draining it.

“W-what are you?”

Richie Lipschitz grins with bright, manic eyes. He takes Max's chin between his fingers and forces Max to look at him. “Look at what you did to us, Maxie!”

Blood soaks Richie's front, turning the green sweater a dark red. Richie reaches down and tries to rub it away, but green fur sprouts on his skin from wherever the blood touches. Richie opens his mouth, screaming like he had when Max had first descended upon him, only water floods from his mouth. It keeps opening, wider and wider, until there is a crack and tentacles pour forth, thousands of them, squirming and writhing and lapping at Max's face and arms.

He tries to lean away, but the tentacles push him to face Ruth Fleming. A spotlight illuminates her as the bottom half of her torso separates, where Max tore her in half. He remembers how her intestines fell out and he had laughed as they painted the stage. Now, eyes gush from the cavern in her abdomen, purple irises all locked on Max. They blink at him, blood and viscera eyelids his only reprieve from their stares.

There is a metal thunk, and Max turns to see a shovel embedded in Mayor Lauter's skull. With his free hand, he reaches up and tugs the tool loose. With a musical tinkling, shimmering blue shards fall from the wound and Max can see an endless black abyss inside of his head. Max can tell, intrinsically, that he is looking into the vastness of space, and that there are no stars, there are no planets, that he is entirely, singularly, alone. The two halves of Mayor Lauter’s face smile at him. Blue ooze swells up from the wound like crude oil from a well, and it dribbles down his front.

There is a wet splat, and warm, thick liquid splashes up Max's shin. A heavy weight rests against his shoe, and even before he looks down, Max knows the red headed woman's head is going to be staring blankly up at him. What he doesn't expect is the endless rows of serrated teeth lining the esophagus of her headless body. It leans forward and gnaws at his leg. Thick, viscous drool drips down his leg and even at a distance, Max can smell its breath reeking of rotten meat.

There is a sharp pain in his left foot. The man from the Waylon Place slams his head against Max's foot over and over, the same way Max had slammed his head into the rotting floorboards. His skull shattered the same way then, too. Only, instead of lying there, limp and gelatinous, the wet mess of flesh and brain sits up. It reaches a hand up to peel bits of skull away, like it is peeling a hard boiled egg, to reveal the bloody yellow head of a goat. It bleats at Max.

“W-what the actual fuck,” Max gasps.

The creatures laugh at him, wet and braying and metallic.

“Surely a god would understand,” the mass of tentacles coos. Bright, spotlight eyes illuminate Max, coating him in slimy green light.

The thing that never was Richie just smiles.

“You're in my world now, bitch!”

~~~

Peter takes a moment to gaze in amazement at where Max had been torn through a hole in reality. He turns to her, unable to keep the awe off his face.

“Holy shit, Grace! That was amazing!" She had saved his life. Was he indebted to Grace Chasity? Fuck, was he going to have to go to church with her now? He has no idea how he is going to explain that to Ted.

Grace looks up at him with a brilliant smile. Her shirt is still half untucked and there's grass in her mussed hair. Her lips are red and swollen and she looks the most relaxed Peter has ever seen her.

“My dad's dead,” she says brightly, and promptly bursts into tears.

“Oh shit,” Peter says frantically looking between her and Steph. Steph mouths “Do something!” at him while aggressively gesturing to Grace. Slowly, Peter reaches out and pats Grace's shoulder. “There, there...?” He trails off looking to Steph for approval. She facepalms.

She walks over to Grace, and sighs. “I still think you're fucking weird,” she says, but holds her arms open, “So this is a one time offer.”

Grace looks up from where she has her face pressed into hands. She blinks blearily at Steph, tears still cascading down her face. Then she staggers forward, falling into Steph's arms. Steph shakes with the force of Grace's sobs, tightening her hold on Grace as she screams into her chest. And then, almost impossibly, tears begin to trail down the lines of Steph's face. Slowly, first, then full hiccuping sobs. The two of them sink to the ground, fully weeping into each other's arms.

Peter doesn't know what to do, even more at a loss with two girls crying rather than just one. He swallows. Tears feel so far away. Everything feels so far away. He doesn't know how to comfort them or get them to stop or if he even should.

He kneels down, and places a hand on both their shoulders. He doesn't know what else to do.

He doesn’t know how long they sit there. Eventually, Grace and Steph catch their breath, panting and heaving under Peter’s arms, but they at least aren’t crying any longer. Peter waits for them to say something. They have planned every step of this excursion so far, and he is perfectly fine with being dragged along. But Steph and Grace don’t say anything. They just lean against each other.

It’s cold. None of them had time to grab coats and the temperature has plummeted with the setting of the sun. Peter can feel the girls shivering. So he says it.

“What do we do now?”

“I... I don't know. I don't even have anyone to call.” Steph says. “Miss Tessburger was my emergency contact if something ever happened to my dad, and...” Peter remembers the flare of red hair and the arc of blood that flew across the air. He swallows, fighting nausea at the memory of her severed throat.

Grace shakes her head as well. “I...” She stares blankly at her lap. She seems aimless, drifting aimlessly through the conversation. “I can't see my mom right now.”

So Peter ends up texting Ted. Peter doesn’t necessarily think this is the correct choice. His brother has been blowing up his phone all evening, with both texts and actual, honest to god voicemails. He is sure his message of “At the high school football field, please come get me” is not necessarily well received, given the way his phone immediately lights up with Ted’s face. Peter silences the call, and sends a thumbs up emoji when Ted texts “ill be ther in ten dont fuckin move”, and doesn’t really consider the implications of Ted showing up until his baby blue Stuedbaker pulls into the parking lot.

“PETER LORENZO SPANKOFFSKI!” Peter can hear Ted's screaming through the closed car windows. His brother steps out of the car, hands on his hips, keys jingling where they dangle in his hands. “Of all the times you decide to break curfew, it's when there's a fucking serial killer on the loose? And you couldn't even text me? I had to hear from Paul of all people that you nearly got arrested, at Beanie's of all places. You absolute noodle, I am going to-”

“Ted, it wasn't like that. We were just-”

“We?”

Peter can see the moment Ted realizes who is standing next to him. The anger drains from his face, and is replaced with a wide, smug grin. Oh no.

“Holy shit, are you out here with two girls ?” Jesus Christ. Peter is going to commit fratricide.

“We weren't-”

“If you were otherwise occupied, you could have just said-”

“Ted, cut it out!”

“You were letting me fucking pace at home while you were out here getting it on with-”

“Ted, shut up !” Peter shouts, ignoring the way his voice cracks, shoving his arms down stiff at his sides with balled fists. His injured wrist screams at the movement, and he whimpers, clutching it back close to his chest.

The others shout his name. Grace and Steph both come to his shoulders, looking over him. Ted about sprints to his side.

“What the hell happened, are you hurt?”

Ted looks at them, really looks at them. Peter knows they're a mess. Their clothes are torn from the shattered car windshield. Grace is still disheveled, with grass stains on her back and hickeys across her neck. Stephanie has eyeliner running down her cheeks and cuts on her face and arms from where they were running through the woods. Peter is drenched in sweat with dirt up and down his arms from digging up the black book. His wrist is swelling where Max grabbed it and Peter can already see the yellowing lines where his fingers dug into his skin.

“What the fuck happened to you, Pete?”

“Please can we just go home?” Ted still looks hesitant and it almost breaks something in Peter. He just wants tonight to be over. “Please Teddy,” he begs. His voice cracks again and it's fucking embarrassing but he just wants to go home.

Ted runs a hand through his hair but doesn't argue. “Yeah buddy, of course.” He wraps an arm around Peter’s shoulder, patting it once. “Let's go home.” Ted looks over Steph and Grace with awkward concern. “Do you, uh, need me to call your parents?”

“My dad's dead.”

“Mine too.”

Ted's eyes widen. “Oh. Um, I'm sorry. Are you sisters?”

“No.”

Ted's eyes get impossibly wider. “Okay then.”

~~~

The car ride home is awkward. No one speaks. Ted tries to turn on the radio, but Dan and Donna start reading out an APB for Grace and Peter slams his hand on the knob so hard he thinks he cracks it. Ted shoots Peter a flabbergasted look, but Peter just closes his eyes and leans his head back. If Ted ends up taking them to the police station, Peter at least wants a nap first.

But when the car rolls to a stop, they’re in front of Ted’s dated ranch house. The sight of it almost brings Peter to tears.

“Well, we’re here,” Ted says, as he puts the car into park. “Not exactly how I imagined Peter bringing a girl home.” The joke lands a pancake flipped onto the floor. “Okay, tough crowd. Come on, let’s get you all inside.”

They walk inside the front door, and Peter is immediately struck by the fact he and Ted haven’t cleaned in awhile. The sink is full of dishes, and an array of ties hang over the back of the couch from Ted yanking them off the moment he gets home. Crumbs cover the counters and Peter can’t remember the last time one of them vacuumed. Ruth and Richie were used to mess, so Peter hadn’t even thought...

He swallows the lump in his throat.

“Steph, Grace, do you want to shower?” He suggests, desperate to have a moment to at least shove shit in a closet, “You can borrow some clothes.”

“That sounds really nice, actually,” Steph says, with a gratitude Peter isn’t sure he’s actually earned. Grace nods as well.

“Sure, do you have a swimsuit I can borrow?”

Peter balks at the question. “Um, I have trunks?”

She sighs, looking so despondent, Peter actually feels bad he can’t summon a bikini out of thin air. “I guess it doesn’t matter much now. That’ll work.”

Peter grabs a pair of swim trunks that are a little small on him, and sleep clothes for the two of them. He walks Grace to his shower, and shows Steph to Ted’s master. Once the door closes behind him, he collapses against the wall. The striped wallpaper is cool against his cheek, and he trails his fingers against the slick surface as he catches his breath.

This is fine. This is all fine. He is just having a sleepover. That is a normal high school thing to do. Nevermind the fact it is with Stephanie Lauter and Grace fucking Chasity, never mind that he’s never had a sleepover with anyone who wasn’t Ruth or Richie-

Peter slams the brakes on that thought. If he starts to think about them, or worse, their doppelgängers, he thinks he may completely lose it.

He walks back to the kitchen and finds Ted pulling a mug out of the microwave. “Oh, perfect timing!” He offers the mug to Peter. “I, uh, I made you a hot chocolate? I figured... your blood sugar.”

It's a good point. Peter hasn't thought about it all night, but he's pretty sure adrenaline is the only reason he hasn't fainted yet. But he hadn't mentioned that to Ted. His brother just... did it.

“Thanks,” Peter squeaks out. That damn lump is back in his throat.

The mug is warm. It feels nice in his hands. His fingers shake as he brings it to his lips.

It’s fucking terrible. It's lukewarm, and not mixed properly so clumps of the mix coat Peter's tongue. But Ted made it for him. Tears well up in Peter's eyes and Ted begins panicking.

“Oh Jesus, is it really that bad? Sorry, sorry, I swear I followed the instructions. We could go to- fuck, they're closed. Everything’s closed, shit. Oh!” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I'll call Paul, he's been smiling lately so I'm pretty sure that barista is staying over, we can get her to-

Despite himself, Peter giggles. “You cannot just call Paul at 3 AM to use his girlfriend.”

“She already hates me, there's no harm, really.” And the thing is, Peter really thinks he means it. That he would call his coworker at ass o'clock at night just to figure out how to make hot chocolate.

A sob bubbles up his throat. He sets the mug down and he throws himself at Ted. He nearly knocks him over. He's taller than Ted now, even if he's lankier. It feels wrong still, uncanny; a reflection in the mirror he doesn't recognize yet. But Ted's arms are still tight around him, still hold him as he shakes. He rubs circles across Peter's back.

“What the fuck happened, Pete?” he whispers. For a moment, Peter almost tells him everything. The Waylon Place, cutting up Max's body, the blood he can still feel under his fingernails. The Black Book, the blinding power that welled inside him, the gods wearing the faces of the dead.

But then he remembers the god in yellow, the way Mr. Chasity's face had licked his lips as he said Peter's last name.

He can see it, suddenly, with perfect clarity, like the image was beamed into his brain. Ted, with vibrant yellow hair and square pupils, holding that glowing yellow box. He can hear his brother's voice making that terrible bleating laugh. He can practically hear Tinky's voice. Isn't this a good look for Teddy Bear? Don't be jealous, I'll be sure you match!

Vomit wells in Peter's throat. No. He won't tell Ted. He'll keep his brother as far away from that bastard as possible.

Instead, he tells a half truth. “We fought the murderer. The person who killed Ruth and Richie.”

Ted sucks in a sharp breath. Despair, terror, and fury wage on his face. He takes a few deep breaths, and Peter can tell he is trying not to yell. Peter curls in on himself.

“He... He tried to kill you?” Ted asks, and Peter nods. Ted hisses another pained breath. “Okay. Alright.” His voice breaks.

Peter... Peter can't remember the last time he saw his brother cry. There's a fuzzy memory in his head, of his fat toddler fingers patting Ted's wet cheeks, but it feels more like a dream than a memory.

But for as long as Peter can really remember, Ted never really cried when he got upset. He got mad, he yelled, but he didn't cry.

So Peter doesn't know how to react when tears well in his eyes

“Why didn't you call me?”

“I... I didn't want to get you involved.”

Ted glares at him, and jams his finger into Peter’s chest. “Fuck that. If it affects you, I'm involved, okay? So enough of these disappearing acts, of you just going completely radio silent. You want me to, what? Just stay awake all hours of the night wondering if you’re dead? Wait to get a call from the fucking coroner?”

Peter feels his eyes beginning to well with tears as well. “Of course not.”

“Then fucking call me, okay?” Ted shoves his shoulder, then ruffles Peter’s hair. “If shit is happening to you, I want to know about it. Okay?”

Not trusting his voice, Peter nods.

“Good.” Ted takes a drink of his hot chocolate. He promptly spits it back out. “Fuck that's terrible, what the fuck?”

Peter is still laughing when Grace and Steph get back from their showers.

~~~

Peter may not have thought the sleeping arrangements through. The three of them stand in a half circle around Peter's bed. Grace swims in a borrowed Hatchetfield high spirit week shirt and Steph has rolled up the ankles on sweatpants Peter stole from Ted.

“I... I can sleep on the floor?” Peter offers. His full bed should have more than enough room for Steph and Grace with him out of the equation.

“Peter, you are hiding us from the police, we are not going to kick you out of your bed,” Steph tells him. She grabs a pillow, and Peter realizes his sheets are nearly ten years old and have constellations on them. He is incredibly aware of the fact they are going to start glowing the second he hits the lights. He can feel himself blushing.

“I can go and sleep on the couch-”

Peter's stomach twists at the thought of her being out of his sight. Before he can even say anything, Grace speaks up.

“I think we can all fit.”

Peter feels his jaw drop, but he can’t help it. “Um...” He stammers, “You know that this is gonna be really uh, tight, right?” Peter knows his bed can fit three people, he, Ruth, and Richie have absolutely fallen asleep watching movies in it. But usually they have to pile on top of each other like puppies, curled up in a tangle of limbs. He can’t imagine Grace Chasity of all people being comfortable with the thought.

But to his immense surprise, she just nods, and then crawls into the bed. Peter turns to Stephanie, because clearly Grace has been replaced with a body double. Steph just shrugs and crawls in after her. And well, Peter really doesn’t want to sleep on the floor. He hits the lights, ignores Steph’s delighted laugh at his childhood bed linens, and joins them.

He was right, it’s a tight fit. He is pressed tightly against Steph’s side, and still feels like he is going to fall off the bed. Steph opens her arm, and Peter gladly takes the invitation. He rests his head on her chest. She is warm and soft and smells like Ted’s vanilla body wash, and for the first time since they were called into the principal’s office, something in Peter unknots. He lets himself sink into her, curling closer when she wraps her arm around him. He involuntarily sighs, content and comfortable, and Steph rewards him by running her fingers through his hair. It promptly turns off all the thoughts in his head. “Holy shit,” he whispers, without really thinking.

“Like that?” Steph asks, and he can hear the smug smile in her voice, but he still nods all the same.

“Fuck yeah...”

Part of him still expects Grace to kick up a fuss and tell them to leave room for Jesus or whatever the fuck she usually goes on about. But she is suspiciously silent. Peter is pretty sure he would be worried about it if Steph’s fingers weren't sapping up all of his brain power.

“Um, Grace, are you good?” Steph asks, and her fingers slow. Peter barely holds back a whine at the loss. “You are... pretty stiff.”

“Perfectly fine,” Grace says, sounding like she is having her fingernails ripped out. Steph sighs, sounding exasperated.

“If you are uncomfortable, we can make a pillow wall or something-”

“I’m not uncomfortable.” She doesn’t elaborate at first, staying quiet long enough that Steph begins playing with Peter’s hair again. He is nearly asleep when Grace says, “That just looks... really nice. That’s all.”

“Grace...” Steph says slowly, “Do you want to... cuddle?”

“Of course not! The wall is just digging into my back is all, and I figured, it would be an easier fit, if we were to get closer. Nothing untoward or anything.”

“Uh huh,” Steph says, breathing slowly, measured in a way that Peter has realized means she is holding back laughter. “That makes sense to me.”

“Right. So. Maybe, I could...” Grace doesn’t finish. Maybe she can’t. Peter feels Steph shift, offering her other side to Grace.

“Well? Get the fuck over here.”

Grace moves so quickly she almost headbutts Peter. “This is just for convenience, I hope that you know that.”

“Obviously,” Peter slurs, already slipping back toward sleep.

“Of course, Grace,” Steph agrees, “Now get some sleep.”

Peter doesn’t need much more encouragement after the night they’ve had. Steph and Grace’s breathing is a soothing lullaby, only a shade different from the sounds of his usual sleepovers, and he easily slips into a doze. It takes a while, longer than it normally would, for the shaking to rouse him. He blinks blearily, trying to figure out just want the fuck is happening, when he registers the sniffling. It is muffled, like someone has clamped a hand over their mouth, but it is clearly crying.

Peter initially assumes it’s Steph with the way she is shaking, but her voice is clear when she asks “Grace, what’s wrong?”

Grace doesn’t answer at first, can’t get past the tears. Peter and Steph don’t interrupt, they just wait until she says, “I had sex with Max,” and cries harder.

Steph doesn't seem to know what to say. After a moment, she asks, “And how do you feel about that?”

“It was... Good. It was really, really good. I liked it.” Grace sounds absolutely disgusted with herself. “This whole time, I have been trying to avoid these feelings and... I had sex. And it was great.” She clutches the pillow closer to her chest and sobs.

“Grace, I'm not following.”

“Don't you get it? I came up with the plan to get back at Max. I got us into the Waylon place. I killed Max. And he killed Richie and Ruth and...” She sniffles. Snot drips from her nose, and Peter grabs her a tissue from his nightstand. “And I could have... Just had sex with him and enjoyed it and maybe dated him and we could have protested homecoming together and now he's gone and none of it even matters because I gave up my virginity and we met five gods tonight and I don’t think any of them were Jesus.” She pauses for a moment, breaths heaving from the word vomit she just spewed. Then she lies back and stares at the ceiling. “My whole life has been pointless.”

“I can't say I get it,” Steph says, slowly. “Not in the same way. But like... My whole life has been dictated by my dad. Even when I went out and did what I wanted, it was stick it to him, you know? Prove he didn’t own me. And he was always calling me or having Miss Tessburger come and pick me up or... And now he's...” She swallows. “So what I'm trying to say is, I get what it is like to feel directionless.”

Peter thinks about his own life. About the absences in the room, about how his group thermodynamics project is now his sole responsibility, about the seats next to him that will be empty in every class.

“Maybe,” he says slowly, “we can find the point together.”

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shepherds-of-haven · 9 months

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For the writing ask meme:

What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

What is your deepest joy about writing?

Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage. (i’m not picking one, just grab something that was fun to write!)

Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

-emeraldgreaves

What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

My writing ritual, up until around May, was like a little bit cursed: I'd typically write from 10 PM to around 4 or 5 AM, which is obviously not great. I'd also put on a show that was guaranteed to not distract me on extremely low volume (like 1 out of 100) in the background, so a show I'd seen a million times before, like the Office or Bob's Burgers.

Since coming back from a trip to Europe, though, I saw an opportunity to reset a schedule I'd kept to for the last 12 years and have now been rising and writing at a more appropriate time! Nowadays my writing ritual is going to the library, putting on fantasy or TTRPG orchestral music (particularly by Ivan Duch, who is composing the music for the game) in my earbuds, and clacking away! This ritual is only cursed in that some really weird shit happens sometimes at the library, but sometimes I get around that by reserving a study room for myself or me and my partner. 😌

What is your deepest joy about writing?

Hmmm, it seems cheap to say all of it! I think the satisfaction of completing a story that you've not only mapped out and plotted through, but actually executed, and then elicited strong emotional responses from others (hopefully as according to plan) as a result of all of that hard work is a truly joyful thing to experience. But just writing about the characters, exploring their psychology, and especially building their relationships to each other is also a huge part of it, and it's also a joy to explore and flesh out and create an entire new world for them to exist in... I just love all of it!

Around him, Scythia stirred to life beneath the skin-soaking warmth of early morning. It was just past dawn, so the heat of the day was not yet beating down on the city like a hammer against an anvil; but in an hour or two, it would edge close to brutal. Herald tipped his head back and let himself absorb the sights and sounds of the city while he still could. Long-necked white herons—called sword-birds for their vicious beaks—dueled together in lazy displays in the streets. Charcoal-eyed concurs beckoned him from curtained doorways, then caught sight of his own brand of ownership and looked away. There was the heavy, acrid scent of fuel and machine oil as he passed the Metal District, where mechanics in their garages toiled away on the racers and war rigs that crisscrossed the Badlands in choking clouds of dust. Underneath a shabby awning, a suntouched fortune-teller gave advice to a lean, restless merc with scarred shoulders and a face studded with fearsome metal rings.

This is from my current novel manuscript, which I keep telling people is like a cross between Mad Max and X-Men, but it's really evolved to become this more magical and intricate science fantasy, because I can't stay away from magic and humanoid/alien races and disparate cultures and, like, oppression and persecution, I guess. I really thought it was going to be a gritty dieselpunk adventure with machine guns and monster trucks and things, which it still has, but I think this passage (from the first chapter) kind of showcases its latest vibe, which is a bit more mystical and fantastical, as well. I've rewritten the first chapter at least five or six times, with this particular passage only being appended in the fourth or so iteration, so I think it's a good way of seeing (to me, the only one who read the first few drafts) how far the world has come, when the city and its environs weren't really described at all! I also just like the rhythm of the passage: there's something about it that feels satisfying. :)

Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

It's an absolute vital necessity to me. It actively bothers me when I see the Oxford comma not being used... I will always use the Oxford comma. You could pry it from my cold, dead hands and I'd still be using it on my gravestone!

#me #personal #ask meme #ask game #extremely strong feelings about and for the oxford comma <3

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tartarusknight · 6 months

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I don't know what you're hunting. It's not me, it's something else - 10/10

Also on ao3 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 (FINAL PART): to that bloodshed, crimson clover, uh-huh the worst was over

El was scared, deep down, of failing. Of being too slow and failing. She had already failed just earlier that night. When she saw Steve. As he ran forward, she was scared for him, of him, of it all. She had been too slow, and she couldn't afford to let it happen again.

The Upside Down was just as cold as she remembered, and she gripped her sleeves tightly. Hopper had her back but as they stopped in front of the building, she just knew One was hiding out, she was still scared.

She looked back at the man who became her dad and took a deep breath. She had to believe that they could do this. Taking one last second, she pushed away her fear of not being enough. She thought of the people who loved her, trusted her, and cared for her. She let that power her as she moved forward.

She stood tall with people behind her as a backup. One's body was deformed, and she could practically see the anger radiating from him. Hopper took a step forward to be at her side and she knew she had to do this. She had to end this. She needed to stop him to save her friends. Her family.

Her arm raised and she didn't let One say a single word before she blew him backward. Satisfaction grew as he let out a pained grunt. He was weak, their past attacks against him having done more damage than they originally thought. She moved forward, Hopper matching her movements. His gun trained on One, firing a shot every time he seemed to attempt to get back up.

She couldn't afford to give him even a moment of reprieve. El's kindness- her belief that telling One about Papa's death would have an impact had failed her last time. She wouldn't be able to beat him with words. But she had strength. She had the strength to end this.

El let out the feelings that had held her down since was forced to come to the realization that Will was pulled into the Upside Down because of her. She fought with the anger that had come from seeing Max's broken form in the hospital bed. She screamed out her grief at the loss of Robin. She felt tears fall from her eyes like the blood dripping from her nose as she hoped killing One would save Steve and Eddie. She fought against him, knowing she had the power to end this for all of those who died because of this. Because of One.

~~~~~~

Mike ran, seeing Will on his left as they tore through the woods. The sounds of Eddie right behind them. The sounds of Steve off in the distance with their friends. Mike stopped abruptly and froze as they were cut off by a large crack in the earth. Will stumbled, unable to slow down fast enough and hitting the ground from the force of his stop.

Mike could barely catch his breath and heard Eddie's wings in the air. Without thinking, Mike moved and pulled Will to his feet. Before pressing him against a tree, a hand covering his mouth. In the air above he could hear Eddie's chittering. The sound was unnatural and close enough to a Demogorgon that Mike struggled to calm down.

He couldn't imagine the trauma it brought up for Will as they stood there trying to catch their breath and stay as quiet as possible. Will's eyes were wide, and he gripped Mike's arms that held him in place as if he was grounding himself. Mike leaned in a little closer to Will, thankful that at least he wasn't alone.

He could still hear the others in the distance, and he hoped that everyone was alright. But... he could still picture Dustin's scream as Eddie slashed at him. He could still hear the thud of Joyce hitting the van. The way Will shouted for his mom. How Eddie had turned to look at him, blood dripping from one hand. Mike hadn't even hesitated to shout at Eddie, drawing his attention.

Mike just turned and ran, hoping to give the others time. Only, Will had run after him. Making it so the two of them ran into the woods together. He had just wanted everyone to be okay. To live through this. As Eddie took to the sky to follow them.

Eddie let out another shriek before he seemed to give up on them. Mike didn't know what to do but as he pulled back Will shook his head and held him closer. They just stayed there for a couple more seconds. Just staring at each other before Will leaned away from the tree and into him.

Will let out a soft sigh and Mike shifted to pull him into a hug instead. The soft sound of surprise made Mike's chest tight, and he held him a little tighter to his chest. It felt like years since they had hugged like this. Tears welled up in Will's eyes and he hugged Mike back, the two of them just trying to calm down.

Only after another moment Will went tense in his arms. He pulled back a little and Mike looked over Will's face for a sign of what was wrong. His best friend had an almost dazed look on his face and Mike felt ice flood his veins. “Will?” Mike whispered as Will glanced around as if he was looking for something. Only he stopped when his gaze landed on the gate.

Mike didn't move as Will took a few steps towards the gate as if he was once again possessed. “Will,” Mike's voice broke, and he felt too loud, but he couldn't stop it. Will stood at the edge and Mike moved to stand next to him. He grabbed Will's hand and the boy almost jumped at the contact as if forgot Mike was there.

He looked at Mike, but Mike couldn't understand his expression. “We shouldn't go in there,” Mike tried but Will gave him an almost bittersweet smile. He looked back to the portal and Mike watched the way his shoulders slumped.

“I think I have to,” Will whispered.

Mike held onto Will tighter. “No, no this- it's affecting you again. We- we need to get you back to the car. We can get in the sauna; you can sweat it out.” Mike promised but Will wasn't listening. Will's hand pulled away from him and he scrambled to grab it back, but Will was faster. He shifted until the strange gravity around the gate, pulled him through. "Will!” Mike shouted as Will landed on his feet in the Upside Down.

Mike glanced around the forest before he followed Will through. He stumbled onto the slightly rotted ground. Looking around at the red lightning that crackled across the sky. He could hear the battle further away going on between El and Vecna. But he kept his gaze on Will.

He was looking up into the sky, but Mike couldn't look away from him. “Will, please. Just tell me what's going on. What can I- Will, come on, we- this is- I can't lose you.” Mike's voice seemed to finally get through to Will and he looked at him.

He swallowed as Will gave him a small smile. “The world is shifting. There's a- it's like a power imbalance. Like it's trying to break free from Vecna's hold.” Will whispered and he looked back up into the sky.

Mike looked up to see smoke billowing down towards them and he sucked in a sharp breath. But Will didn't look scared as it crashed into him. It moved around him so quickly it pushed Mike backward. “Will!” He screamed but as Will glanced over to him his eyes were black. Mike's heart broke as he realized how badly their plan was going.

Especially as he heard the shriek of Eddie getting closer. Knowing that he had been too loud and led the monster in his friend's body straight to them. Yet he couldn't pull his eyes from Will even as Will's eyes shut, and he looked at peace. The world almost seemed to spark around them, and Mike jumped as a vine shot out. It reached Will and soon more were pulling at Will, raising him from the ground.

“Will!” Mike screamed but was distracted by the sound of something going through the gate. The gate opened up as Eddie pushed through and Mike could see the inhumane eyes following him. He swallowed and glanced at Will. Will shifted and the vines holding him were almost glowing. The cloud of dust was lightening as well.

Eddie seemed almost confused too, frozen in place as he watched Will. Mike didn't know what to do but soon he knew his purpose. The dust shot out from Will, spreading out. The vines seemed to bloom with a new life as they dropped Will and slid back into the woods. Mike didn't think before catching his friend and holding him in his arms.

A panicked screak came from Eddie and Mike looked back as golden light, no, golden dust swirled around him. Pulling at him. Mike watched with wide eyes as the almost bat-like wings were basically torn into. The dust seemed to be pulling and pushing at him. Molding him anew.

Before he collapsed as if he were a puppet with its strings cut. He could see the way the darkness left Eddie's features. The shift of features under his skin. Mike felt frozen but Eddie didn't move. He just stared, dread in his gut until he noticed the rise and fall of his chest.

But then Will caught his attention. He blinked his eyes back open, his eyes swirled with gold that seemed to spread around them. Mike watched as it almost seemed to bloom out of Will and into the world around them. Filling it with life, looking straight out of a painting.

The ash-filled air, the black sludge, and the long vines that looked like tentacles all began to shift, to change. The air came out clearer, the sky shifting from red lighting and dark clouds into a hazy yellow. The trees shook off the rot until they were a light gray, with yellow leaves blooming on their branches. The vines shifted, going gray with little stems with more yellow flowers blooming out.

Yellow flashes of lighting still went off in the distance. But Mindflayer began to shift, and it lost its spiderlike form, instead, the rest of it was melting into the clouds and into the ground. The ground trembled as the smoke pulled chunks of the world into the air. Floating in the sky as if that's what it was meant to do. Pieces of the buildings were torn in two and collapsing to the ground.

“Will?” Mike asked and Will looked at his friend's big, anxious-looking eyes. “Are you- what are- you're eyes.”

Will blinked like he was confused, “what?”

Mike held him a little tighter, “They're glowing, like they- like golden.” He whispered but Will only continued to look confused.

“What's happening?” Mike begged to know, and Will glanced around them.

“I asked it to stop following One and be- to let us go.” He admitted, “I- it was like it was reaching out. Like it needed someone to push it to change.”

Mike's eyes widened, “when you said let us go- do you-” he looked over at Eddie in his arms. “Is it- is it really over?”

~~~~~

Erica curled up under Robin, but Robin wasn't attacking. She was frozen. Erica scrambled away and looked back as the darkness seemed to fade from Robin's features. She looked at Erica once more. Gone were the black eyes but instead her blue eyes were back with a swirl of gold within them. They were the best thing Erica had been.

Robin's arms shook until she collapsed onto the ground. Erica moved forward, watching in disbelief as the features that made her monstrous changed under her gaze. Like she was released from a hold. Erica reached forward slowly and as she took Robin's hand. Her hand was warm, and it made Erica choke out a sob.

Footsteps broke them apart and she looked back to see Sam Owens along with a couple of guards. Dr. Owens stared in shock at Robin before looking at Erica. Erica looked back to Robin instead. To the rise and fall of her chest. She was extremely pale, but she was there. Owens moved forward, checking a few vital signs on the older girl.

He let out quiet huh. Then looked at Erica, “I think we should get her in a hospital bed. She's gotta have a place to rest.” He says like she's going to recover. At her tearful gaze, Owen places a hand on her shoulder. “We're not going to let this miracle go to waste. We'll save her,” he promised, and Erica let out another sob.

She didn't let go of Robin's hand as they brought a gurney over and picked Robin up and onto the bed. Erica just moved in with her. Her lungs were still recovering, and her legs were weak from exhaustion, but she wouldn't leave her side. She'd stay by her side until she got better. Because Robin Buckley was going to get better.

~~~~~

Nancy moved to shut the door of the makeshift sauna when she noticed it. The shift of bones under her hands. She let go of Steve on impulse and Lucas seemed to do the same. Steve dropped to the ground with a thud and she winced. But then she saw it.

The way the black seeped from his features. The lines that formed the petal mouth, smoothed until they only had a faint thin golden scar. Nancy felt shock running through her bones. The radio went off and for a moment before a voice, Nancy didn't think she'd hear, filled the air. “You- you assholes did it.” Max's voice was dry and exhausted, but it was there. They all stared, frozen from the shock of it all. Then Lucas was taking the radio from her again and speaking too fast to even let Max respond.

She choked on a sob as Steve let out a low moan before he was blinking awake. She crouched down next to him. His eyes were the soft honey brown she loved so much but with a newer swirl of gold inside them. He coughed and black sludge escaped his mouth. His hand shook as he wiped his mouth. Without even thinking, Nancy helped him sit up.

He looked dazed and Nancy didn't know if it was from the sedative still in his veins or from coming back to himself. But she was patient enough to wait for him to snap out of it. “N-” His voice was truly wrecked, and it made him cough. She heard movement and Dustin, who was covered in a mix of Robin's and his own blood, came into view. He had a long cut from where his collar bones should have been to his hip.

Steve wasn't given a chance to notice the injury because Dustin was pulling him into a hug. Dustin was crying and Steve just melted into the embrace. His eyes fluttered shut and he fell asleep in Dustin's arms. She couldn't stop herself from reaching over and taking one of Steve's hands. His hand was warm, and it made her relax a little more.

Her gaze left Steve's for a moment to find Jonathan's. Jonathan was over by Joyce talking, the two of them watching the woods. The radio with Lucas crackled, cutting off Lucas. “I'm glad to hear you awake, Max, but I could use some help.” Mike's voice broke through and Nancy let go of Steve, to come by Lucas's side. “Will and Eddie are both completely asleep and I don't think I could carry one of them, let alone two of them.” He said and Nancy's shoulders relaxed the rest of the way.

“What happened?” Joyce took to the walkie-talkie, her voice sounding nervous.

Mike let out a laugh like he couldn't even begin to understand what was going on. “Will- God it was amazing. He connected with the Upside Down and he changed it .” He said and Nancy looked over to Steve. “He asked it to let them go,” Mike said and Nancy couldn't even begin to understand how amazing all these kids were.

~~~~~

El stumbled, exhaustion in her very bones but she stayed standing. Not that she could say the same for One. He lay in a pile of debris, his body still. She watched as Hopper moved forward, gripping the sword he brought back with him from Russia. She winced as he swung down and looked away as she heard the way One's head rolled away from his body.

“Radio Owens,” Hopper ordered, “tell them it's done.” He states and then he's in front of her. She looks up at him, noticing the slight blood splatter on his shirt that hadn't been there before. “It's over, kid.” He says and she nods before leaning into him.

She was so tired but she blinked awake as the world shifted around them. Hopper's arm wrapped around her as the vines shook off the rot. As the world seemed to brighten and change for the better. El's eyes found the few flowers that bloomed off of the vines, a beautiful golden color and she knew... she knew who did this.

“What-” Hopper started to ask, the other military personal swearing and freaking out.

But she only smiled, “Will.” She said, sure and calm. Hopper looked confused but she leaned down and gently brushed her hand on the golden flower. It felt warm and safe. Like Will always was to her.

The red of the world, the infection that was One, faded away. Until all there was, was Will. He wasn't controlling the world, but he was helping shape it. He was urging it to pick kindness after years of violence. “We won,” she said and looked at Hopper.

However, she couldn't help but think that it wasn't really over until she saw her friends again. Until she knew for sure that they won. The people around them moved on their own missions but El just wanted to back to her friends. Hopper looked down at her and seemed to understand. He took her hand, and they headed back out of the cracks of the Upside Down.

After they got a ride back to the hospital, she was close to sleep but she was forced back into alertness as they reached the front doors. The vehicle the others had taken was terribly parked by the front door like they were in a hurry. Along with a large dent in the side. She swallowed hard, forcing her exhausted limbs to keep moving.

The hospital was a mess, with nurses and doctors looking frantic as they entered. She dropped Hopper's hand and as she raced towards the room, she knew at least some of the others would be in. However, as she got closer to Max's room. She saw the blood on the floors and walls.

Her heart dropped as she noticed the door no longer on its hinges that should've protected Max. She ran forward and felt tears in her eyes. But as she looked inside, she was shocked.

Max was propped up against some pillows, Lucas's hand in hers. Three more cots pulled in a squished to the side. A lump of dark curls and twitching muscles as they slept on one, Mike sitting on the end of it. Two people so intertwined El didn't know where one started and the other ended in the second one. And Dustin sat on the last one with a nurse patching him up, Will curled up on the end of that bed asleep. The rest of the party is packed into the room, either standing or sitting in the plastic chairs.

Nancy pushed away from the wall as she entered and El looked over them all. Joyce moved and took one of El's hands. "We're all okay," she promised and El's eyes watered as she realized that it was truly over. "We won?" Joyce asked and El nodded in agreement. Joyce caught her as she hugged her mom.

She looked over to Eddie who was passed out on a cot, twitching like a cat in its sleep but alive and okay. The two, Steve and Robin, words were so muffled that she couldn't make out through the number of tears in their voices. But they only sounded relieved. Dustin smiled at her, and Max offered her, her other hand. Proving to her that they really were okay.

El moved over and took the hand, exhaustion in her every movement. "You did it," Max said and El nodded. "I knew you could." Max yawned and El felt the tears beginning to fall. But they were happy tears as Max shifted just enough to let her curl up with her.

The party fell asleep in the small room. Too many of them to be comfortable. But not one of them complained. Not after the night they had. Not as the relief drowned out anything else.

That was the night I nearly lost you. I really thought I lost you (The Great War - Taylor Swift)

Tags: @ellietheasexylibrarian@nburkhardt@artiststarme@flowers-that-sing@juleswashere3@indiearr@remosdeerica

#tw violence #el hopper #mike wheeler #will byers #erica sinclair #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #post season 4 #platonic stobin #knightly talks #I don't know what you're hunting. It's not me it's something else

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felixcloud6288 · 6 months

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Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 107

I've never commented on any of the title pages but I really want to talk about the one for this chapter.

When I first saw this image, I made it my computer background for a long while. There's just something about people coming together for a united and just cause that makes me emotional.

And there's just the wonderful touch that this includes EVERYONE who is united under this cause, including those who could not or did not make it. We can see the hands (and hairbun) of Hughes, Foo, Havoc, Pinako, Winry, Buccaneer, and ...

KIMBLEE!?! So yeah, Pride's actions last chapter disgusted Kimblee so much that he opted to throw his full support (meager as it was for he was just a single soul in Pride's body at that point) into stopping Father. If he was still alive, he more than likely would have fought alongside the heroes in the final battle.

An alternate joke interpretation: They're all playing rock-paper-scissors and Xiao Mei won cause she was the only one who chose paper while everyone else chose rock.

What's the point of having powers if you can't use them for more mundane purposes like protecting yourself from bits of debris.

And that's a nice little detail that Greed is protecting Lanfan from it as well. He doesn't get along with her at all, but he's still going to protect her because it's just in his nature.

And look at the elegant craftmanship that could only be created by the beauty of Alex Louis Armstrong's Alchemy.

Olivier Mira Armstrong finally trusts her brother to lead.

There is so much out-of-context Royai bait this chapter.

Major General Armstrong didn't get the memo that Scar is on her side. Her troops all have guns pointed at him.

Now that there's nothing else for her to do, Olivier is able to take time to process Buccaneer's death and grieve.

Before there was Smash Ultimate, this fight was where the phrase "Everyone is Here!" applied. Anyone who could make it participated in the final battle and it was the most hype thing ever.

Imagine you're playing an RPG where you only ever get to use 5 party members max during the whole game. Then you go into the final battle and you pick your 5 mains. And when you press Confirm, a message pops up saying "All party members must be selected."

This is a fight where the hype is due to how everyone is getting to participate. And it does an excellent job because the entire strategy is keep Father on the defensive and burn out his stone. He cannot attack and defend at the same time so it will take a whole army to beat him because anything less will not be able to keep up the consistent pressure.

Once again, I feel like a page is missing in the chapter. Ed is pinned and Father is going to try stealing his soul. And Al immediately decides to trade his soul so Ed can regain his arm. Maybe I'm just spoiled because the final battle in the anime managed to be even more hype and we have a scene of Al screaming and trying to crawl his way toward Father only to realize his bloodrune was about to be damaged by the crack in his armor.

He understands his soul is about to get separated permanently, so he might as well use it to give Ed a fighting chance.

Every shot of Ed's right shoulder after really makes me wince. The metal socket for his automail is still there. His arm was just attached over it. He's going to need surgery after this is over.

Ed transmuted the exact same spear he made in chapter 1 and he finally got to use it.

And seeing all this, this "ultimate power" being utterly defeated and everyone putting their hopes on Ed, Greed has a moment of self-reflection.

He's spent his life trying to get that power Father has gained, and it is nothing. But he hears everyone cheering Ed on and he realizes that's what he'd like.

Greed is his own person, but he still has many of Father's faults. In particular, he can't feel content with anything because he's always looking up at those with more than him.

He wishes he had friends and companionship so strong that everyone would put their trust in him.

I used the below image and NASA's simulation of the 2023 eclipse to estimate how long it took the heroes to beat Father.

He was defeated roughly 35 minutes after achieving a goal he'd spent over 350 years working toward.

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#fullmetal alchemist reread #fullmetal alchemist

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pancake-breakfast · 10 months

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Totally cheating and writing this post early. IT'S THE ONLY WAY.

Stream-of-consciousness thoughts for TriMax Vol. 6, Chapters 5-6 below.

Chapter 5: Colorless Expression

Vash's careless pose with a cheerful smile is a very harsh contrast to the revelation at the end of the last chapter.

I wonder who got that photo of July going up. Also, shout out to the tiny, tiny headshot of Vash in the newspaper.

Never underestimate the cruelty potential of little old ladies. Especially if they think they have nothing to lose.

Is Vash going to church??

LOL, not if this kid has anything to say about it.

I dunno. I think Meryl might be onto something. Or maybe just noticing it for the first time. Maybe some of both.

Vash looks like he's praying. Or falling asleep.

Aaand there's tired Vash looking like Knives. Ugh, someone take care of him.

Very rude of them to bring guns into the house of God AND to then suggest murdering someone with them right then and there.

I read this guy's name wrong so from now on he's Justin Baby.

Never trust a Haliburton. They're always up to something.

Meanwhile, Wolfwood is in noodle bliss. I'm sure that's gonna last and he's gonna get to enjoy the whole bowl undisturbed.

Yep, he got a whole three panels before a cacophony of news about Vash's latest shenanigans interrupted his meal. You can see his peace and quiet melt out of his being.

Vash was already feeling pretty freaking depressed over all he's done. That's why he went to the church in the first place. This is not helping.

Wait, has Vash been drinking?? Buddy, don't you know alcohol's a downer? It's not gonna help with the depression. Even Wolfwood thinks this is a bad idea. Looks like he still has the moves, though.

Ohhhh, babygirl doesn't look so good.

Wolfwood and the girls know what's up, and Wolfwood in particular looks less than thrilled about it. First his soup, then sloppy mess Vash, and now his boss.

Vash, babygirl, what's going on in that spiky head of yours right now??

Wolfwood has clearly had enough of this morning's shit.

There's so much going on on this page, with characters overlapping without any panel breaks even though they're clearly not realistically positioned around Wolfwood. It's like our priest man is drowning in them. And then there's Vash, alone in the lower left corner, the last place you're likely to look when reading manga, and the only one set out from everyone else. ;_;

"Needle-noggin-isms." Heh.

Dude, this guy has Mad Max speakers.

Drunk or not, Vash still has mad skills.

He burned some of his power to catch that bullet. That's... he's really not in a good mental place, is he.

Meryl just goes into a full-on panic at the sight of it. Can't say I blame her, all things considered. No one was as up close and personal with that last encounter in the Dragon's Nest as she was.

Uggggghhhhh, Vash knows he's messed up.

Guys, I shoulda stopped three chapters ago. This chapter's depressing AF.

God bless Wolfwood. He's doing his best to protect Vash while abiding by them Needle-noggin-isms.

Milly's just straight up carrying Meryl, isn't she?

Vash, noooooo, this huuuuurts.

He's got too much he's trying to carry, and now he's just lost. Thank God for once he's not alone. He's got people around him right now, and that... that might be enough. Even one person having his back might be enough.

WHICH IS ALL HE'S GETTING APPARENTLY BECAUSE VASH CAN'T BEAR TO WORRY MERYL ANYMORE AND MERYL'S IN NO SHAPE TO DO ANYTHING.

Heh, the kid is trying his best to fight the adults. Good for him.

And Wolfwood, trying his best to lighten the mood. Awkwardly.

Chapter 6: Seeds Voyaging to the Stars, A World Inside A Pod

How DARE you show me their smiling faces after that. How dare. I'm in no mood. D:<

Oh, good. It's Knives. I think.

Ok, I love how in every one of these panels, the dark streak in Knives' hair is somehow hidden. It gets called out once on its own, but when we're looking at Knives' face, it's not there. It just kind of deepens how incredibly important it is.

The games are over. Now Knives has to find a different way to save his brother... and himself. Or risk them both dying in the process.

I wonder what Legato will think of his boss's new look....

I thought Elandira was down with Knives' plan because she had no issues with it for some reason, but now I think she's just here for the chaos and not really much more invested in who wins than Zazie is.

Ooof, Vash catching sight of his reflection. That face looking back at him is always his brother's.

Yeah, Wolfwood's run out of patience for this shit. He might punch Knives in the face if he had the chance right now. This... this is how he shows he cares about Vash's well-being.

Ooohhhh, is Vash getting echoes of what happened there?

Seeing his sister's corpse isn't sitting well for Vash, either.

Hells, even before the fall, we have Vash just floating around by himself. He has a whole-ass happy, non-genocidal brother and a caring surrogate mom, and our introduction to him here is him by himself, touched by nothing, backdropped by the void of space.

Hahahahaha, the boys look so confused.

Interesting that Rem is wearing a silly mask at this awkward birthday party when we were JUST TALKING ABOUT how Vash plasters a fake expression on to try and paint things a brighter color. I'm sure it has no significance whatsoever, especially with Rem awkwardly dodging Vash's question about what's the matter by saying how incredible a year it's been.

OMG BABY KNIVES!!! You can't look at this and tell me Knives didn't adore Rem at least as much as Vash did.

She adores them, too, despite how much she must feel like she's grasping at straws trying to figure out how to take care of them.

I love that every version of Trigun thus far has had a birthday scene for the boys with Rem.

Fishing them out of the plant bulb must have been a task.

Hahahaha, definitely a shortcut. In so many ways.

The boys aren't fooled. I know the boys are hyper-intelligent and all, but even normal kids often pick up on micro-emotions like this.

Ugggghhhhh, they both loved all the people on the ships. THEY BOTH LOVED ALL THE PEOPLE ON THE SHIPS!!!

Their conversation.... They both want to be friends with the humans, even if it takes effort.

Knives, maybe you should lay off some of the war movies.

I like to think they created Plants the way the Quarians created sentient AI in Mass Effect. They were just trying to do something that didn't include making a conscious intelligence, and then something went weird that no one understands, and now Plants.

Blaring space ship alarms are not a preferred wake-up method. Especially when you're on the spaceship.

Is Rem trying to hide the twins from the crew??

Cliffhanger ending?! Booooooo....

Author Bonus Chapter

Uhhhh, ok, I'm just gonna note the kana here...

...isn't exactly a sound effect like all the rest of the kana on this page. This is literally the word for "pants" (ズボン, zubon) repeated several times.

Why they're all shouting "pants" at a pro-wrestling event is beyond me. Maybe 'cause the guys often don't wear pants.

Tiny, tiny Nightow in the audience. You know, I would have never guessed he was into pro wrestling given the IMMENSE AMOUNT OF DRAMATIC POSTURING AND WRESTLING OUTFITS his characters wear all the freaking time.

Gods, I recognize some of those signs. I didn't even like pro wrestling....

"Check my monkey ass directly into smackdown hotel!" LOL

"Ah, this reeks of effort!" Classic Nightow.

LOL, I could see him trying to buy all the figurines for himself. Gotta admit, if someone made a figurine of the main character of something I published, I'd buy it, too.

I will never get over Nightow asking McFarlane to do an "American Check" on the gun. The legacy of my country, folks.

"Please detail this area as it pleases you." Good to know Nightow is paying attention to those small details when he draws. /s

Actually, he did bother to emphasize the need for the ear piercing and the mole, which is good.

Somehow, I don't think he regrets the chain too much.

Hahahahaha, he imagines the place like some sort of evil lair.

Ohhhhh, nooooo. New Jersey?? Gods, this must have been a thing for someone who wasn't very familiar with U.S. geography. This was in 2000, too, apparently, which means (for all you young 'uns) that the internet was notoriously unreliable for looking up stuff like this. This was back in the day when a lot of teachers banned the use of internet sources because it was just assumed they'd be wrong. Assuming your teacher wasn't afraid of the internet entirely because they heard people could find naughty images on it.

They make figurines via DARK RITUALS.

Good to know I'm not inexcusable. I may not have many figurines, but manufacturing processes have always intrigued me.

LOL, "san kyu." San kyu for writing it, Nightow. You bastard. I'm going to cry myself to sleep over fictional characters tonight because of you.

This song started playing around the time I finished up this volume, and it seemed fitting, so I'm gonna put it here.

youtube

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Trigun Volume 1: Covers + 1-3, 3 Detailed Thoughts, 4, 4 DT, 5-6, 5-6 + DT, 6 DT, 7-8, 9-10 || Volume 2: Covers + Extras, 1, 1 Supplemental Research, 2-4, 5-6, 7-8

TriMax Volume 1: Covers + 1-2, 2 DT, 3-4, 3 DT, 5-6 || Volume 2: Covers + 1, 2-4, 5, 6-7 || Volume 3: Covers + 1-3, 4-5, 6-7 || Volume 4: Covers + 1-2, 3-5, 6-7 || Volume 5: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 3 DT, 5-6 || Volume 6: Covers + 1-2, 2 DT, 3-4

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bittersweet-riley · 7 months

Text

Angel (Chapter 5)

Pairings: Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!OC!Reader

Summary: When simon's mission went terrible wrong, she was there to save him. So far only her call sign was angel, but maybe she was his angel nonetheless.

"I'm assuming you're good at shooting." Ghost's muscles were tense as he looked at her. His gaze burned her skin. He hesitated for a moment before pulling his gun out of the holster and counting the remaining bullets. "I don't shoot at innocent people."

Warnings: Mention of blood, mention of torture, manipulation, brainwash, weapons, kidnapping, swearing, smut (kind of) in later chapters, mention of medical stuff that may not be true or accurate, description of a reader that may not be like you imagined reader, still use of Y/N, clearly female reader, perhaps bad english, third person view (switching from reader to Simon), multiple chapters

Opening

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 6

They sat together in silence all night. None of them closed their eyes, no matter how tired they were.

Ghost hadn't put his sunglasses on again. Instead, the glasses were in one of the empty pockets of his vest, which was strapped back around his body.

Angel would have loved to stare at his well-built upper body all night long. As soon as she let her mind wander, his body constantly appeared in front of her inner eye. And even though she didn't know his face, he was the most attractive man she had seen in three years.

At some point she brought the suitcase that she had gotten from Flora to Ghost. "Here. In case things get heated." There were weapons in the suitcase. They were all silver and each had a second magazine. Instead of giving Angel one of the weapons, Ghost kept them all himself.

They didn't spoke a word after that. They were too focused on the sounds around them. The fire in the fireplace was now out because the room was warm enough.

Angel wondered how the big soldier had lasted so long in his uniform and the masses of muscle. She wanted to take off her clothes to cool down. On the other hand, she didn't wanted to sit somewhere els to be further away from Ghost.

It would have been a lie if she said she didn't felt safer next to him.

As the first light shone through the windows, Zakir's footsteps could be clearly heard from above. He walked back and forth between rooms several times. Then it was quiet again for a while.

Zakir's noises were like the opening of a conversation, as Ghost studied Angel's face before muttering the first words. "What's the plan?"

She didn't knew herself, which is why she swallowed hard. “We have to wait until it’s safe.”

Now he turned completely to her. Her small form was ridiculous next to his large body. "And then what?" His voice was deep and rough because he hadn't spoken all night.

Angel found it hard to hold his cold gaze. She wished he still had his glasses on. "Like I said, I'll get Max and you go to my grave."

"What am I supposed to explain to my general when I get back? That my wounds magically stitched themselves up? Or that a woman made of skin and bones-" he looked at her puny figure. "-knocked me out before I could take her back to base as a witness?" Angel could hear how annoyed he was.

"How about the true story, up to the point where Nika dies. You killed him and took me hostage. So the story I'll tell Ivanov and the one that his informant might tell Ivanov will match. And then I escaped and you returned to base. Ghost, please don't put our lives in any more danger than they already are."

"It would be better if you came with me." He said as if he really wanted to have the last word in the discussion. But Angel couldn't help him any further. His rescue was already a flaw in her original plan. He now had the choice to be part of her plan or to betray her like someone had done before.

Footsteps on the stairs finally made Angel stand up. Zakir went into the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine. "You look like shit, Angel."

"Good morning to you too, Doc." She replied with a playful eye roll.

Zakir placed three cups on the dining table. “Does your friend drink coffee too?”

Angel looked questioningly at Ghost, who had gotten up as well and was standing in a corner again as if Zakir was going to attack him with a baseball bat at any second. "Looks like he needs something stronger. Do you have vodka?"

Zakir grinned. "Unfortunately not." He poured the fresh coffee into the cups. Angel then took two of the cups and brought one to Ghost, who didn't rebel as she handed him the warm liquid with a slight smile. Then she sat on the kitchen table. She warmed her hands on the cup.

"My son is coming over today. He's bringing gas for the car. I hope it's okay that he knows about you." Zakir then confessed into the silent room.

Angel sat on the kitchen table and blew her hot drink. "You shouldn't drag him into this." She was now indebted to a lot of people. But she had promised herself that she would eventually pay everyone back for the help she got.

And as if on cue, there was a knock on the door. "That'll probably be him." Zakir said, but it gave Angel a strange feeling. She put her cup down where she had been sitting before and looked at Ghost, who was already holding his gun in his hand, the cup sat ontop of the mantelshelf of the fireplace. His posture was as tense as her own. She was relieved when Ghost left his corner and stood next to her.

Zakir opened the door. "Sem. Nice to see you." The father hugged his son and then let him into the house. "Angel, Ghost, this is Semyon, my son."

The blonde-haired man smiled and raised his hand in greeting. "So you're the infamous Angel. The old man told me a few things. Only for my safety, of course." Sem explained, giving Angel a too-wide smile as he held out his hand to her.

A strange humming noise escaped Angel's throat. Ghost still held his gun. He had straightened up further as he took a step forward, causing Sem to look at Ghost and withdraw his hand.

It wasn't that Angel didn't trust Zakir, but the last time someone talked about her behind her back, Y/N had died and Angel had to rise from the ashes.

"Cool mask, bro." Semyon clicked his tongue and then showed his white teeth in a wide grin. "I wore something similar to play paintball back then. It is attached to my rearview mirror of my car as a souvenir." Ghost didn't react to the young man, aside from tightening his grip on the gun.

"Stop joking, Sem. Better take care of Angel's car." Zakir rolled his eyes but there was a hint of a smile on his lips.

His son breathed a small "Fine." before he then took the key from Zakir and went out the front door again.

"Sorry for his behavior. He's trying to lighten the mood a bit, but his humor is weird." Zakir tried to explain, but his sense of humor wasn't really what worried Angel.

"How much does he know?" Angel asked with a cold look in her eyes.

Shrugging his shoulders, Zakir put his cup to his lips and took a sip. "Having secrets is sometimes more dangerous than simply telling the truth. In order for Sem to be protected from Ivanov, he first had to know about him. And in order to even explain how I was able to escape from Ivanov, I had to tell him about you. I'm sorry, Angel, but everyone protects their family in a different way."

The red haired woman nodded dully. "It's okay, it was just..." she searched for the right words. "-unexpectedly."

After the incident, Angel didn't felt like drinking coffee anymore and Ghost didn't seemed to let his gun out of his hands either, even though Sem hadn't been there for a while and they were sitting at the table with Zakir.

"Sem has got a special radio. He can block certain channels and only send out signals where it is supposed to reach. We should be able to reach the base more quickly without waiting until Ivanov has given up hope of finding you. If they come to pick up Ghost, there's an abandoned parking garage an hour away from here. A helicopter could land there without attracting immediate attention." Zakir pointed to a map he had spread out on the table. Since Ghost and Angel were both sitting on the same side of the table, Zakir turned the map towards them after circling an area in red.

Angel looked at Ghost who briefly studied the map and then returned his attention to the entire room. "That should work. How long does your unit take to get here after you contacted them?" She then asked him.

Ghost's dark brown eyes settled on Angel. "A few hours, if there are no complications due to air strikes."

Angel shook her head. "Ivanov won't expect us to leave the country. He's probably still waiting for a deal for my trade." The soldier didn't seemed happy with the answer.

"Are you going with him?" Zakir asked. Worry lines lingered on his forehead as he studied Angel.

She nervously rubbed her tattoo until the skin turned red. "You know I have to go back."

Zakir's shoulders droped in disappointment. "I know, I was hoping you'd change your mind." He took a deep breath.

Angel's heart sank into her stomach at the thought of returning back to Ivanov. "It has to be believable if I go back. I need something to prove that I was a hostage."

Zakir sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead. "What do you mean? You don't have enough blood on you to pass as a hostage yet?"

Silently, Angel bit the inside of her cheek. She felt Ghost's piercing gaze on her skin. "There has to be more." She replied quietly.

The doctor pushed back in his chair. "Angel-" he replied sternly. It was almost a warning. However, there were no further words from him and he just shook his head.

"It makes sense. His gunshot wound could have been from me. If I tell Ivanov that I tought I killed him and the informant tells that Ghost survived his injury, our stories match and are realistic at the same time." Angel explained. "I just need something to prove that I really was a hostage."

Angel watched as Zakir opposed the plan with every cell in his body. He looked at Ghost. “Could this work out?”

The soldier thought quietly for a while. "It's our best chance." The tall man murmured back, causing Zakir to rub his hands over his face and then sigh in surrender.

"All right. Fine." He replied through gritted teeth. "You're killing me, kid."

Angel gave him a sad smile at the nickname. She reached for his hand across the table and squeezed it lightly. "I know."

Angel quickly withdrew her hand as the front door opened and Sem rushed in with a large radio. "Surprise!" He placed the radio on the kitchen counter and pulled the toaster out of the socket to plug in the device.

Zakir and Sem fiddled with the radio for a while. Ghost was still sitting at the table with Angel. They were silent most of the time and the young woman thought for a while about what she could do to demonstrate a more plausible hostage. She relied on a clean bullet wound. It was the only wound that resulted from one of Ghost's weapons. But a second idea popped into her head.

"Why?" He asked. His voice was as cold as his eyes.

"I need something personal from you to prove that you really were my captor." She said quietly. At first she thought her voice would be lost in the static of the radio, but he looked at her with a hard look.

Angel broke eye contact as quickly as it was made. "I just think that it would be proof that we didn't work together. If I had something of yours that you would never have given away voluntarily, your team won't notice that you're lying. We could also find out how close the spy is to you at the same time." She pushed her explanation out from unter her breath and rubbed her tattoo again as if it would make it disappear.

Their brief conversation died out, only the noise and arguing of the Korovin men echoed through the room as they tried to get the device to work.

She knew that Ghost hadn't taken his eyes off her yet. She nervously sucked the soft flesh of her lower lip between her teeth.

"My mask." He said at some point and Angel looked up in surprise. There was a popping sound as her lip slipped out of her mouth.

"Huh?" A sound of confusion escaped her throat before she could stop it. Her big eyes examined his balaclava. The white paint in the shape of a skull was peeling off in some places.

"I'll give you my mask. They wouldn't expect it." His deep voice vibrated in Angel's ears. She assumed he wouldn't give up his identity easily, which was confirmed when he made no move to remove his mask.

“Sem, you were talking about the mask in your car earlier, right?” Angel asked as her eyes slowly left Ghost's and swung to the man being addressed.

He turned his attention to Angel and nodded. "Yes, my paintball mask."

The young woman had to force a friendly smile onto her lips. "Can I see it?"

Sem fished his car keys out of his pocket. "Sure, wait a minute." It didn't took long before Sem was back with his mask.

Angel took it. Conceptually, it was almost like Ghost's mask. The main material was a black balaclava, but instead of a skull print like Ghost had, there was a plastic skull sewn onto the material. She ran her finger over the cold, soft plastic. With her touch, the plastic adjusted to her body temperature almost immediately. She looked at Sem with a half-smile. “Can I keep it?”

"Go ahead." Sem replied politely. "I don't need them anymore anyway." There was a slightly annoyed expression on his face as Angel passed the mask to Ghost.

The soldier changed his mask in the bathroom and when he came out of the bathroom, Angel's breath caught in her throat. "Oh..." She breathed. "Looks like the mask was made for you."

"It looked ridiculous on Sem. Seems like the mask was always meant for a higher purpose." Zakir laughed as Sem rolled his eyes with an annoyed snort.

"The radio works now." Sem pointed at the device and then crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the fridge.

Ghost contacted his base in England and requested a rescue team. He announced that his entire team was dead and he was the only survivor who hadn't made it back to the agreed pickup point in time. Since they wanted to send a helicopter from Germany rather than a plane, Ghost was able to provide the coordinates for the abandoned parking garage.

After a quick farewell to Flora and Sem, Ghost and Angel stood at the refueled car. Zakir's face was lined with worry, as he passed the map to Angel.

"Where do you think it should be?" Angel asked the doctor, who then shook his head again.

"Don't get a plug shot, then you'll die on the way back. The shoulder would be okay, but the chance of permanent nerve damage is high. You shouldn't hit the subclavian artery either, otherwise you'll bleed to death." Zakir sounded like he was trying to talk Angel out of the idea, but she knew that Ivanov would do much worse to her if he found out what really happened. "Just be careful. Angel isn't immortal either."

Instead of saying more, the girl pulled him into a goodbye hug before getting into the car and leaving the property with Ghost.

The journey only took an hour, just like Zakir had said. Angel left the car at the entrance to the parking garage. The street was just as dilapidated as the old parking garage. There used to be a shopping center next to the parking garage, but it was torn down and since then there has only been an empty fenced-in area next to the parking garage. There was a poster hanging on a piece of the fence with the plans for a new shopping center, but there were no construction vehicles in the empty space, and it didn't looked like the poster would ever become reality.

"Here we are." Angel muttered as she looked up at the parking garage. It only had three floors, but it was large. The roof should be big enough for the helicopter. Despite Angel getting out of the car, she stayed her ground not to go with Ghost. "I should be gone before your team gets here."

"Please come with me." Ghost said. She noticed that his instruction was expressed as a plea.

"We've already had that conversation. I don't like repeating myself." Angel spoke as she opened the car door again, but this time she took a pen from the side compartment. She turned the car's side mirror so that she could see herself and took off her leather jacket. She pushed the top aside and inspected her shoulder before sighing and circling a spot on her skin with the pen. "I'm assuming you're good at shooting."

Ghost's muscles were tensed as he looked at her. His gaze burned her skin. He hesitated for a moment before pulling his gun out of the holster and counting the remaining bullets. "I don't shoot at innocent people."

"I'm not innocent. Please, Ghost, let me stop what makes us guilty in the first place." She had placed her hands together in a begging gesture. "I can't do this without your help."

And the shot came much faster than Angel had expected.

#call of duty #cod x oc #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #price mw2 #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #soap mw2 #cod mwii #simon x reader #könig mw2 #ghost x reader #ghost mw2 #john price #john soap mctaviah

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wandawiccan60 · 2 years

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A Hope of Life

Part 5

MAX ROCKATANSKY MASTERLIST

A/N: Hello everyone I hope you are all having a wonderful and safe day. And yes I am back with another chapter, I had a hard time making this chapter but I hope you all like this new chapter. I felt that this one is slow but I promise the other parts will be more interesting. And again as always, my friends Enjoy!!!!

TAGS: @hecatemoon87, @kittycatcait219, @jarvisrocks, @tomhardyspinkyfinger, @potter-solomons, @alikaheroes, @annisse, @omgeternal, @madame-wilsonn, @zablife, @rikki-b-lake, @mollybegger-blog, @rayanee05, @imaginesofthefandoms

WARNING 18 + ONLY!!!: Some Graphic Blood, and Some Cussing

Word Count: 7,184

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Akia only could feel nothing for she felt like she was floating in mid-air. Darkness only consumed her every second and minute. She didn’t know if she was in her last resting place, finally thinking that this was the end. But she could see a hint of light blinking in and out in front of her. While in the middle of it all, she saw what could be a figure of a woman looking down at her. Akia could recognize who it was looking down on her, and she couldn’t believe who it was.

“Akia, can you hear me? It’s me, your mother. Your dad and I are waiting for you, baby. Don’t be afraid. Come and follow my voice. You are safe now.

“Mo... Mom?” Akia’s voice echoed as she still floating, while it lifted her up to the blinking figure of her mom.

But everything became brighter and brighter as she got closer to her mother’s voice, feeling that she is finally going to be reunited with her brother and her parents. But in the corner of her ear, she heard another voice coming through, which this time was a male voice that she couldn’t recognize.

“Akia, please,… sister if you can hear me, it’s me, Miles. Please come back don’t you give up, I can’t. lose, you not like this.”

In that very instant, Akia felt her body floating down and away from the beaming light of her mother. She then tried to say something but couldn’t seem to hear her voice while she continued to get lower every second. She felt everything was going in slow motion while she tried to call out to her mother. But at that precise moment, Akia suddenly found herself in the middle of the orange wasteland. The bright sun was beaming down above her head while being surrounded by nothing but sand and rocks. She could hear her breathing become uncontrollable and uneasy, not knowing why the hell she was in the middle of the endless sands. She called out for help to know that no one seemed to be around to hear her.

“Akia?” said a male, raspy voice. Akia then turned her head slowly around and to her horror, it was Abner.

His face was so unrecognizable from all the blood he had all over his face and body, while one of his hands held a gun and on the other a long rusted machete as blood was dripping down to the sandy floor. What frightened Akia more were the surrounding bodies that were circling around Abner. But not just any random people. It was her group, her family, including her brother Miles and, to her dismay, Max was in there. Everyone was slaughtered like animals, like something you see in a slaughterhouse. Their eyes were lifeless and cold and some others had their eyes gaped out. Akia only heard her heart beating fast against her chest, lost for words as she looked at everyone that was lying dead on the ground. Suddenly, she saw Max moving his body with difficulty, grunting out in pain as he tried his best to get up on his feet. What made her feel sick to her stomach was his face it was badly scarred, a dark bruise was marked on his right cheek, his mouth was dripping with blood, and what hurt Akia to see the most was his once blue eyes were now filled with blood.

“R..., run A- Akia,” said Max, his voice raspy while blood spilled out from his mouth as he raised a hand towards her.

Abner grabbed a fist full of Max’s hair, pulling his head back and making Max groan in pain. Akia didn't hear what Max told her to do, and Abner made eye contact with her. Abner sinisterly smirked back at her, as he then placed the sharp machete against Max’s throat, his breathing increased ever so fast.

“Don’t you worry my queen, you won’t have to see this face ever again, this creature deserves to go back where he belongs,” Abner said as she then sliced open Max’s throat, blood gushing out here in there on the earth as Akia then screamed out in terror, while Abner laughed maniacally.

Akia awoke from that dreadful nightmare. She was breathing in and out of her mouth as she looked around her surroundings. From what she could pick out and see is that she was in a white canvas tent, feeling the cool and soft sheets underneath her body while the silky pillow was placed against the back of her head. She then heard children running around outside of the tent, while a bark of a dog was heard along with them. She heard other voices passing by her tent, including what sounded like the necker of a horse, something that Akia hadn’t heard in years. As her breathing became calmer moments later, she then felt the sharp pain in her stomach making her wince. She then tried to sit up carefully, not wanting to make any other movement, but it was so difficult. As she finally sat up from the bed while in front of the tent appeared a young woman in her 20s, had light brown eyes, her black hair resting on her shoulders, while wearing a white shirt and baggy black pants.

“Good morning Ms. Akia, how are you feeling at the moment?” the young woman asked, making her way to Akia’s side of the bed.

“Where, where am I? Where is everyone else?” Akia said, not really sure if she could trust this new stranger.

“You are safely inside Zinnia Town ma’am, Miles has been waiting to see you all this morning. I’ll let him know that you’re awake. One of your friends actually was with him all the time. I’ll let them both know that you are awake. But first, let me change your bandages here. Let me help you get on your feet,” the young woman said as she extended her hands out to Akia, to which she accepted in return.

As Akia steadily got up to her feet, Amena then lifted Akia’s clean white blouse revealing the dirty bandage. Amena then carefully unwrapped the dirty material around Akia’s waist, making her wince. While Amena carefully placed a new clean bandage around her waist, Akia then thought back to the nightmare she had a moment ago. She didn’t know what to think about it. What did that all mean? Was it some type of hallucination that she just had while she has been unconscious for god knows how long? But what she still remembered the most was Abner and the bodies of her family circling around him. It was such a horrible sight that she had to see, especially when he cut open Max’s throat right in front of her eyes. Akia then overthinked the many possibilities of Abner capturing her and her family once again and not wanting to imagine the many torturous things that he would do to them. Akia just shrugs those thoughts away from her head, as Amena finished tying the bandage from behind her lower back.

“There you go, alright? Well, I’ll let your friend and Miles know you are up. Hey, are you ok there? Looks like you got spooked by something,” Amena said as she looked back at Akia, who looked back at the young nurse in front of her.

“Yes, sorry, just got a bit sidetracked, that’s all, but I am fine. Thank you for helping in changing my bandage. Never thought that I would see a girl like you help the wounded like me. Which that says something,” Akia said, making the young girl smile.

“Hey it’s not a problem. It’s the best that I can do around here, you know. I’ve always wanted to be a nurse since I can remember, but you know The Fall happened and never got the chance to experience nursing school before that,” Amena said while Akia nodded her head in reply.

“Well, got to tell you, from what I could tell you did a pretty damn good job I’ll tell you that,” Akia said as Amena chuckled in return, taking that as a compliment.

“Haha, thank you. I better tell the others that you are up. You can get your strength back by eating something. There is a cafeteria not too far from here that you and your friends can go to. If you like, I can bring you your plate if that is fine with you,” Amena said which Akia said ‘thank you’ but would rather go with them instead, which Amena nodded in return.

As Amena walk her way out of the tent, Akia then was left alone in the tent trying her best to relax while feeling the sharp pain of her stomach.

As the minutes went by, Akia then heard footsteps approaching from outside of the tent. She could only think that it was Ethan and the others, plus her brother Miles, coming along with them. Akia then was first shockingly greeted by Miles, which she couldn’t believe that it was truly her brother that she thought had been long gone all this time. But he was here alive, and all grown up, matured, and overall, Akia felt overjoyed to see him again. Miles then smiled so big that he walked his way toward her big sister, while Akia couldn’t believe that this was happening right now.

“Oh my god, Miles, it’s, it’s you. I thought you’ve been long gone since The Fall happened. I’m so glad to see you again, little brother,” Akia said as her brother now sat next to her sister, both siblings embracing each other in a warm and longing hug.

“It’s good to see you too sister, I’m... please forgive me for leaving you all alone back home, it was such an idiotic thing that I did to you I felt so guilty for also screaming at you as well. I was in an awful place after what happened to dad and mom and now that I look back at it, I just wish I never got myself into doing those mistakes. But what matters now is that you are here and I am not going anywhere, I will never leave you ever again Akia, I promise you that,” Miles said as he looked back at her sister, and Akia smiled feeling her eyes get watery.

“It’s alright Miles, I forgive you. I was worried sick that something bad happened to you after you left home. I called you so many times and went to go find you myself. But from there I was losing hope, not wanting to think that you were gone from this world. Then The Fall happened, and I became more desperate and prayed that you were still out there, which until now we are here together. How I missed you so much Miles, you can’t imagine how worried that something horrible happened to you. Where were you all this time, and how did you end up here in Zinnia Town?” Akia asked as Miles gazed and looked down with hurt in his eyes.

“After the fight, we had before all of this. I went off to live with some friends from high school and ended up renting out this cheap apartment that we could settle in. We did little in the first few weeks, I didn’t have a job, got to do more drugs of any kind that I could get my hands on, had a girlfriend for a short time, and worst of all I felt lost and scared. After you tried to call me and text me, I really ignored you and block you out completely like a total dick. I didn’t want to know anything about you. I was a coward and never had the courage to come back home to you and say sorry. It was the worst thing that to this day felt nothing but ashamed of myself. After what seemed like months later, The Fall happened my friends and I tried to get somewhere out safe. But it got worse from there when they left everyone behind and after that, the explosion happened, and I blackout before my eyes. After that, I woke up and was the only owner who survived. My friends got badly decomposed and just their bodies were covered with burns of every kind,” Miles said, as he could still remember the horrible images of his dead friends.

Akia just placed a gentle hand against his right shoulder, feeling empathy for what her little brother had to endure.

“I survived out in the sands for days and weeks without food or water,” he continued feeling the tears forming in his eyes, “I felt like it was the end of my life, my mind was wondering about where you were, mom and dad, and everyone that I really cared about could be dead and gone. It’s as if I failed you and our parents, and I didn’t get the chance to say sorry when I had the chance. After what felt like I was on the brink of death, Matthew found me and he took me in after that day. I gain back a sense of hope again. Praying to get at least know that you were alive out here, and now here we are,” Miles said as she smiled back at her sister, as Akia did the same.

“I’m just glad to see you again, Miles. All that matters now is we stick together and I forgive you and let the past die and look to where we are right now. I miss you so much, little brother,” Akia said as both siblings hugged once more.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ethan and behind him was Elijah and the rest of her group following him behind.

“Akia, you're finally awake. Oh god we thought we fucking lost you,” Elijah said as he knelt down in front of her, hugging her carefully.

“It’s good to see you already awake. We thought you were a goner for good, but I know you are a strong woman. How are you holding up?” Ethan said as he nodded at the woman’s wound on her stomach.

“I’m so glad to see you all, and I’ll live just still in pain of course, but I am feeling alright. I think I should get some more rest but I am feeling hungry,” Akia said as she tried to get on her feet but had a hard time doing it.

“Here, let me help you get up,” her brother said while Elijah helped along.

“I think we should all head to the cafeteria, then heard that it was going to be something good. Got to say the food here looks and sounds very edible and finally getting to eat something real for once,” Milo said, which made everyone get a chuckle out of it.

What Akia noticed the most was there was no sight of Max anywhere, and she felt concerned about where he could be. She then thought that maybe he ended up leaving the town since he said once they reached the town, he would have to leave and get back to who knows where. Akia hoped he didn’t leave without thanking him for bringing her and her family here to Zinnia Town. Deep down in her soul, she really found Max interesting. Even if they both never had a proper talk with each other, she found him very peculiar in a good way.

*****************************************************************************************

As the group made their way to the cafeteria, Akia looked at her surroundings as they walked down a narrow path. She could see many tents like hers, but they all had a unique way of how they looked. Some were big and small while she saw how the people here were all peaceful, and most of all it was as if they were back in time before The Fall. It was weird for Akia to see even if the world has gone into chaos and destruction there is still humanity that is still alive. She saw children, babies with their mothers, the men helping with chores, and what surprised Akia the most was the mini field of what looked to be green plants, some fruits and vegetables, and most of all, some flowers here and there. It amazed Akia at what she thought couldn’t be real. Seeing the bright green plants made her feel gleeful, since she hadn’t seen them in such a long time.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Miles said as they continued to walk through the mini field. “One of the old women of the group here had some plants stored away, which they planted on the ground. Which then became what you see here, and they also found other different seeds as well, which you can see that they are all different.”

After they passed by the green garden, they all made their way through a tunnel connected to a big canyon like the one from Max’s home. As they got inside, they were welcomed by a vast hole in top of them where the rays of the sun were hitting down on them. And in the middle of a, it all was the people sitting down at what looked to be tables made of rocks while the seats were also made of rock. The smell of what could be beef was spread in the air while she saw a small food stand as people were lined up to wait for their turn. As Akia and the others waited passionately for their turn in the corner of her eye, she saw Max sitting alone at the table, not noticing her from afar.

“Hey Miles, I’ll be right back,” she said to her brother, and she heard him say ‘ok’ as she walked her way to Max.

He didn’t see her presence after Akia stood by his side now, which straddled him for a moment, but once he knew who it was, he felt nervous.

“Hey Max, I thought you left without saying goodbye, but glad to see you are still here,” Akia smiled. Max nodded his head, trying to not look into her eyes.

“Yea, I umm,... I felt hungry, so I stuck around before I head out, and also glad to see you awake. How is your wound?” Max said as he took another bite off his plate.

“I’m fine, just still feel some pain of course, but I’ll be alright. I still feel exhausted, but I’m still here, you know. Thank you for helping my family and me get here. It really means a lot. I don’t know where we would do if it wasn’t for you, Max,” Akia said as she placed a hand on top of his, making him feel tense just by feeling her touch.

“It’s not a big deal, really. It is the best I did for you and your family to get you all safely here. There’s no need for you to thank me,” Max said as he looked at the woman’s eyes, those bright shiny amber eyes that Max found stunning and out of this world.

“Max, come on I’m serious you don’t how much this really means for me, without your help we would have been dead by now,” Akia said as she now steadily sat down on the handmade rock, which she winced once again.

“Here, let me help you,” Max insisted as he stood up from the rock, as she held onto her hands while she slowly got down on the rock.

Once she finally sat down, Max sat back again. He still felt uneasy talking with her alone knowing that they weren’t supposed to do it, but here they are. Max really had some type of fondness towards Akia, knowing that she almost was on the brink of dying from the bullet wound she had. He really felt worrisome when she passed out when they reached Zinnia Town, thinking that she was already a goner forever. He felt some type of self-condemnation if he didn’t save her in time. If she died in his arms, he would feel nothing. It would make him feel ashamed of himself for letting another person die. He has seen too many people that he knew died in front of him, which still haunted him to this day. After the nurses attended to her wound, the nurses said that Akia needed blood. Max volunteered to give her some, but Elijah didn’t take it kindly. He then told Max that once he transmits his blood into her body to leave her alone after he was done. Max just said nothing and understood what he had told him to do, not wanting to cause any more trouble. After last night, he then just made his way to his tent that Matthew gave everyone, which he just went straight to bed. But he then had a nightmare, but this wasn’t any other normal dream he had before this one, however, was more different. It was about Akia but she didn’t look normal, for she was all covered in blood and repeatedly telling him ‘it’s your fault’ repeatedly, which woke him up with a fright. Max then couldn’t sleep after that. He instead just made stayed awake the rest of the night, thinking about only Akia throughout his mind.

“Hey Max, Max, you alright?” Akia said. He then shook his head as he looked back at Akia, giving him a puzzled look in his direction.

“I’m fine, just couldn’t sleep last night. It’s one of those nights that I have terrible dreams which I had one last night. Which it was actually about... about… never mind, it’s nothing really.”

“About what? You can tell me I too have nightmares of my own, too, which I had one last night, and it wasn’t a pretty picture really,” Akia said, still remembering Abner cutting open Max’s throat in front of her.

“You, you did. May I ask what it was about? If you don’t want to tell me it’s alright, I just don’t want you to feel you need to tell me,” Max said as he fiddled with the small cup in his hands, while he looked back at Akia.

“Well, it wasn’t like anything I have seen before. It was terrible really, but it has something to do about y-.”

“Akia, what the hell did you go off like that? I thought you went off somewhere considering how you are right now. Come on, your food is getting cold, let me help you get up,” Elijah said, making both Akia and Max look up at him.

“No, it’s fine Elijah. I can get up myself now. Thank you and I’ll be with you in a moment,” said Akia to which Elijah glared back at Max, who just sat there saying nothing.

“Akia, it’s right now, please. Why are you even with this man here?” Elijah said while he still has his gaze towards Max, sounding like a threat and it made Akia feel annoyed.

“Elijah stop, I just came to him and told him to thank you for bringing you and me and the others safely here to Zinnia Town. Don’t you get it? Without Max’s help, we wouldn’t be here right now and probably be dead by now. Why can’t you see that in him, Elijah? You should be glad that he brought us here and risked his life for us,” said Akia in an irritated tone, tiring of hearing and seeing Elijah act this way towards Max.

“Then why the hell did he let a bullet puncture into you instead of him? He deserves to get that bullet, then you, Akia. He should be the one suffering in pain and not you. Isn’t that right Max, why not you, and why her huh?” Elijah said while his face felt with anger while he was breathing in and out of his nose.

“Elijah, for god’s sake stop, come on let’s just go eat before this gets any wor-.”

“No, I don’t want to leave after he answers my question. Why Max, why? Why did it have to be fucking her and not you? That bullet meant for you and not her, that fucking had to be you and her,” Elijah’s voice boomed throughout the cave, making everyone else look in their direction while Akia tried her best to quiet down Elijah.

“Elijah, hey look at me, look, stop it, please. You're being ridiculous right now. Please, just let this go alre-.”

At that moment, Elijah struck a fist at Max but he dodge in seconds now. Both men went hand in hand with each other. Akia screamed for Elijah to stop fighting, but both men were too busy killing each other as everyone else looked at the brawl that was happening. Ethan and everyone else came to Akia’s side as both Ethan and Noa tried to break up the fight between Max and Elijah and they finally separated both of the man's moments later. Ethan held Elijah tightly with both of his hands against his shoulder, while his breathing increased. Max tried to catch his breath as his nose bled a little, so he just cleaned it off with the back of his right hand.

“What is going on here?” said a male voice which everyone looked towards, and in came a man with black hair combed back, with a short trimmed beard, some cargo brown trousers, a long sleeve dark blue shirt, black combat boots, and a brown scarf wrapped around his neck.

“I apologize Matthew but my friends here were just fighting for no apparent reason, but I’m sorry for your people to see this,” Ethan said while he now released Elijah from his grip, not breaking his eye contact with Max wanting to punch him once again.

“No need to be sorry Ethan, it’s a rare sight for us not to see such violent fights on these grounds. Max, what was the meaning of all this?” Matthew asked while Max just looked back at the leader of Zinnia Town, to which he just stayed quiet.

“Because he knows deep inside his gut that he deserved to get that bullet then this woman here,” Elijah said while Akia just sighed quietly as she slowly shocked her head in disappointment at what he had just said.

Max just looked up from the floor as he now looked at Matthew, not knowing what else to say at that moment. Max felt uncomfortable that he was the center of attention right now, not like to feel so many eyes looking straight at him.

“Elijah, can you just fucking stop for once in your life just shut that damn mouth of yours,” Ethan said in an irritating way and Elijah just rolled his eyes.

Akia just looked back at Max, and he could see in his eyes and body language felt utterly humiliated right now. She felt the same way and just really wished that this didn’t escalate in such an idiotic way.

“It was my fault, Matthew. I started this whole mess. It was just something stupid that I said that caused us to fight. I am the one who is to blame, not Elijah,” Max said, taking in blame that wasn’t even true. To begin with.

Akia couldn’t believe what Max had just said about lying about the fight he had with Elijah. Akia wanted to say something, but they cut her off as Matthew continued to talk once again.

“Was it really necessary for you both to fight about whatever it was you said to this man here, Max? You already know that violence won’t solve a thing. I suggest that you both stay out of each other way from now on. And if anything like this happens again, ever again, I am sorry, but you must leave Zinnia Town. This will be your only warning for you two, which I hope you two now understand, and I wouldn’t want to see you both leave for such a nonsensical reason if you commit a scene like this again. Are we clear on this, gentlemen?” Matthew said as Max just simply said ‘yes’.

While Elijah said nothing for a moment, but then just silently nodded his head in reply.

“Good, now please, everyone returns to your meals, and where are my manners. My lady, I am Matthew. I am the leader of Zinnia Town. It is a pleasure to meet you,” Matthew said as he extended a hand towards her which she took in and shook hands with.

“It’s also nice to meet you. My name is.”

“Akia, yes, I have heard about you. Your brother Miles has told me all about you ever since he came into our group. I hope you feel comfortable in here while you regain back your strength, so please make yourself comfortable and you are welcome to come and see me if you need anything,” Matthew said as he gave a generous smile to Akia, who smile back.

Matthew then made his way to get his own meal to eat while Milo, Noa, Alex, and Terra made their way back and sat at their table to eat.

“Come on Elijah let’s go back and eat, and please for just one time in your life, keep that fucking angry of yours in control, you understand?” Ethan said in a low voice as Elijah look down at the ground still feeling agitated.

“Yes, I know, I understand Ethan, it won’t happen again,” Elijah said a moment later as he looked back at Ethan who just walked back to the others, Elijah following along with him, as he looked back at Max a flaring gaze still stuck in his eyes.

“You should eat with your family. I am done here. I have to do something before I go,” Max said as he grab his tray of food from the table.

“Max, wait, why did you lie about what you just said? You know it wasn’t your fault and I’m sorry about Elijah, really. He can be such a pain in the ass. It’s like every time I am around with you, he is there suddenly. I know he is still angry about what you did to me back in your home, which I know you didn’t mean to do. We were still strangers, but now, we are not and Elijah can’t seem to pass that. I want you to know that the bullet didn’t mean it to you at all. It had to happen to me for a reason, but I am still here and am thankful to you, Max. I hope you know I am thankful for everything you have done for me and my family Max, and I thank you for that again,” Akia said as she nervously placed a gentle hand on Max’s large hand, which made him look down at her touch and look up afterward.

Max said nothing and in a quick swift walked away from her, not wanting to stay in her presence any longer. Akia felt confused at this odd behavior and once he gave back his tray to a woman, he made his way out, not bothering to gaze back at her. She just gave out a long sigh, feeling at fault for approaching in such a place like this.

“Akia, hey, your food is getting cold aren’t you going to come and join us?” Terra said from behind which Akia looked back at her.

“Yes sorry, it’s just... I don’t know if I should go after him and say sorry.”

“Sorry for what? He said himself, didn’t he, about him starting the fight with Elijah? Why would you say sorry to him if it was you who fought him? You should just let him be Akia. I don’t know why you should be concerned in the first place about him. Come on, let’s get you to eat something already,” Terra said as boh women now walked their way to the table, while Akia just still couldn’t help but feel bad for Max.

*************************************************************************

After Akia finished eating her meal, she and Miles explored a bit more around their new home. Akia found this place to be very homey and, most of all, finally able to roam freely without having to be monitored every day by someone. At first, it felt weird for being in control of herself for the first time in 6 months, but once she got to talk to two people, she then got herself more comfortable. She learned many new things from her brother while also getting to know everyone better, which Akia found to be amusing at the same time. She learned about how they keep a close eye on and preserve the plants that they have been growing for a while. As for the water, they were lucky enough to find water inside of the canyon caves. Miles told her they were deep down inside the caves and also they made a water system with materials that they have found while they go for a search party every once in a while. After what seemed to be hours of experiencing something new, she and Miles ended up going to the stables where the horses were placed. Akia was mostly excited to see the horses the most, and she still couldn’t believe that some of these creatures survived during The Fall.

“This is amazing, Miles, but how in the hell did they find these horses around here? I mean, I know they have been long gone after what happened in the beginning,” Akia said as she gently patted a lovely black stallion on the top of his head, while he nickered a bit.

“That’s what I said to Matthew when I first came here, but it is also nice to see a familiar animal that I know you like a lot,” Miles said as Akia then chuckle while the stallion pressed its nose against her.

“I know they are my favorite animals. He seems to like me suddenly,” Akia said as the horse sniffed on top of her hair.

“Your right he is growing fond of you, uh-oh don’t look now but your boyfriend is coming this way,” Miles warned Akia as she looked back behind her and saw Max carrying what looked to be a huge sack of food for the horses.

“Oh, for fuck’s sakes, can this day get any worse, or is it just bad luck for me today?” Akia questioned Miles, just shrugged his shoulders in reply.

Max didn’t notice her and Miles, for he was too busy filling a steel tray filled with yell seeds. Akia was hesitant to go up to Max, wanting to talk to him more properly now that she didn’t have Elijah to look after her or even bother her. Miles could tell by the way her sister looked at him he knows she wanted to talk to him so badly.

“Go on, talk to him while Elijah is not around right now don’t worry I won’t say a single thing about this to anyone I promise,” Miles said as he shrugged her left shoulder to encourage her, which Akia just nudged back at him in an annoyed manner.

Akia was hesitant at first to wanting to go up to Max, not wanting to cause anymore trouble and making him feel annoyed to see her presence. She felt the need to just wanting to talk to him like a normal human, wanting to try to at least know who he is and what was his story before The Fall happened. But with a little encouragement that Miles gave her and confidence she was building inside, she went for it, not giving a shit if things get south again. As she nervously walked up to him, his back was facing her while he was busy feeding the horses one by one. But once Akia was staying behind him without him noticing, she just told him ‘hey’, making Max jump, knowing it was her and nobody else.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to fright you like that, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry again about Elijah. He just doesn’t seem to bypass the whole you putting a knife on my throat, which we both know it wasn’t intensional but a mistake. I just want you to know that you're not a bad person. You're a good person, Max, but what you said back there bothered me. Why would you lie about you starting the fight, which we know very well it was Elijah, and not yo-.”

“Can you shut up for one second already? You should just stay the hell away from me. Because every time you are around with me, there are always problems behind you. Just stay away from me please, I like to be left alone and I suggest you do the same,” Max burst out saying, making Akia lean back startled at the way he talked to her.

Akia didn’t know what to say at that point, not knowing if she should protest and tell him he was an asshole and wanted to be nice to him. But Akia just didn’t have nothing to say for she just nodded her head and just walked her way back to Miles, leaving Max, who was continuing to attend the horses once again. Max stopped what he was doing and just sighed under his breath, feeling like a total prick for yelling at Akia.

He looked back at the woman which she was now next to her brother Miles, which they both now just walked out of the stables, wondering off to wherever they were going next. Max only now felt total guilt for what he just said to her, letting his frustration and anger get the best out of him. He angrily kicked one of the empty buckets with his foot, making one horse neigh in fright. Max just tried to keep himself in place but it was no use for he now just felt mentally defeated. Max was deciding very hard if he should say sorry to her or leave Zinnia Town without saying goodbye. As he tried his best to shrug Akia out of his mind, he then continued doing his chores, just wanting to get things over with.

As the sun was setting behind the canyon rocks, Akia and her family attended to a small meeting gathering where Matthew wanted to speak to them about their situation with Abner following them. As the group made their way through the narrow path surrounded by more tents, on the end of it all, there was a brown canvas tent waiting for them. And as they made their way inside, Matthew greeted them and two others which were two men that looked the same age as Matthew, and on the right side stood Max. Akia just looked away for a moment, trying her best to not to glance for a second to him, which Max did the same too.

“Ah, you all arrived. Thank you for coming. I wanted to summon you all for a reason. My friend here Max told me everything about your risky escape from Red Hill Town that you all successfully made it out and stubble upon him for help,” Matthew said gesturing a hand pointing towards Max while he continued speaking. “We heard far and wide about that sick leader, Abner. We are very aware of who he is and what his twisted mindset is like. Some folks here told us stories about this leader, knowing that we are prepared for him no matter what. But it seems now, from what Max told us, he has been following you from behind. But don’t be alarmed, for we will send out scouts to keep an eye out for him, but once we see if he is near these parts, we will be prepared for him. He will not know what is coming to him if he dares step into this peaceful community of ours,” Matthew said as he smiled at the small group.

“Thank you, Matthew. I appreciate that you and your people will keep us safe and your town from this man. We... we were kidnapped and been there for almost 6 months. So we did the unthinkable and made our way out of there, ad along the way we met Max and thanks to him we wouldn’t be here in front of you and here in your home.”

“And you are more than welcome to stay here as long as you like, but I would be happy if you all stay here for a good time. I am more than happy to bring in fresh faces to our home, for it is better than being out in the dangerous sands of The Wasteland. I am also sorry to hear about Archer, I am sure he wanted every one of you to reach here, I pray his soul is somewhere up in the heavens now,”Matthew said as he showed sympathy in face, which Ethan just nodded his head in return.

“Yes, he, he was a good man, brave, strong, and a great elder. I also know he is in a better and peaceful place, which we know we will see him once again. Again, Matthew, thank you for doing all of this for us. How can we repay you for all of this?”

“Don’t you worry Ethan, it’s alright, if it weren’t for Max’s help you all wouldn’t know about us. Again, we will try to look out for this man and we will let you know. So please rest, eat, and make yourselves at home. That is all and I’ll see you all tomorrow. Goodnight to you all,” Matthew said as he bowed his head, which Ethan return the gesture.

As everyone made their way out of the tent, Akia looked back at Max one last time, which he was talking to Matthew and the two other men. She felt curious what Max was talking about with the other, which it shouldn’t be her business. But once he finished speaking with them, she just quickly got out of the tent, trying to catch up with the others. Max saw her but as he also made his way out, he saw her already with the others, not wanting to approach for any reason. As he saw her walk away with her family, he then just made his way back to his tent and, while doing so, he thought long and hard about staying in Zinnia Town or just leave. But somewhere in his consciousness he felt that the right thing to do was to stay, not because it was a haven but because for other reasons. And one of those reasons it was because of her… Akia.

What the fuck is wrong with me? Have I already lost my mind again?

A/N: Thank you guys again so much for sticking around. It's crazy to think I have already 100 followers, and I am so grateful and thankful for everyone who has been following my blog. I will be working on my other stories no matter what, and I can't wait for you guys to read them. As always guys please comment and reblog it'll help a lot. And as always I hope you guys stay safe and catch you all later. See Ya!!!

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klove0511 · 4 months

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It's Rest I Want Chapter 2

Dean rolled over, glaring at the red numbers on the radio clock. 5:32 AM. He should just accept that he wasn’t sleeping tonight and get up, but that sounded like too much work. Sam’s apparition had thrown him badly, even though it had only lasted a few seconds. Not even long enough for Sam to say anything. Still. So much for whatever he’d been trying to tell himself. Sam had obviously been haunting him for weeks now.

He flipped onto his back, kicking at the comforter that was now twisting around his legs. Sam was here. Sam had, presumably, been at Bobby’s and in the woods by the pyre too. The last one made some sense, but the others didn’t. Dean rolled the problem around his mind, not really trying to figure out the answer but unable to stop thinking about the fact that Sam was a ghost and all the implications of that. Sam was attached to something, and it was something that had come with Dean from Bobby’s. The car, maybe. Dean winced at the thought. Not that he planned to, but if it came to it, he wasn’t sure he could stand to burn the Impala to lay Sam to rest for good. No. He could. He would, if he had to. But maybe he wouldn’t have to. Sam hadn’t been acting like a vengeful spirit so far. Maybe it would stay that way.

Tossing his arm over his eyes to block out the light from the parking lot, Dean groaned in frustration. He wasn’t going to dig into it, but he knew he was lying to himself. No ghost stayed peaceful indefinitely.

Sam didn’t make any more appearances that day, and Dean was both relieved and bothered by it. Did it mean he couldn’t? Or could he just appear at night? That was common enough. What about other ghost stuff, like moving things or EVP? He tried not to think about it, with limited success.

He was here to do a job, though, and he needed to focus. Andy Gallagher was an unknown quantity, but people had been killed. Maybe he was dangerous like Max Miller had been, or maybe he was unlucky like Sam, but either way Dean needed to watch himself.

The first thing he did was hit the police station. All the news articles Dean had managed to dig up surrounding the deaths had conspicuously avoided mentioning Andy, even James Gallagher’s obituary. The other people, ok maybe. Dean could see no one making the connection between an old coworker and the guy’s pediatrician. But when he was omitted from his own dad’s obit, Dean’s spidey senses tingled.

Luckily, the police reports were more useful. Dean had to dig through them for an hour before he found what he was looking for, though. The finished reports had been scrubbed clean too, but the files still contained some of the preliminary notes. From there, he headed to county records and between the two managed to discover links between Andy and every victim. Tracy had been more than a coworker, she was his ex. The doctor who shot up the gun store had arranged Andy’s adoption. The woman who torched herself was his birth mother. And the guy who had been stabbed breaking and entering James Gallagher’s house had been Andy’s twin, separated at birth. This guy was bad news, no doubt about it.

Dean pulled Andy’s plates and registration information from the police database and did his best to prepare for a confrontation.

Andy's van was parked just two blocks from the police station. It was a hell of a sight, with a polar bear and a barbarian queen painted on the side. He watched it for a couple hours with no activity, which just served to remind him why he hated stakeouts. If there wasn’t a good chance Andy had killed half a dozen people, he would have gone over and pounded on the back door. Anything to get this moving along. But he wasn’t looking to die today.

That realization alone surprised him, because it had been weeks since he felt that way. His first reaction was horror that he was coming to terms with Sam being dead. Moving on, or whatever. But no, when he probed the aching pit in his soul he realized he wasn’t moving on at all. Sam’s loss hurt every bit as badly as it had the day he died, and if Dean was spending more time marginally functional that was just his liver adapting. The thing that had changed, really, was that Sam wasn’t gone anymore. Not in the same way. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and he wasn’t dumb enough to think there wouldn’t be any consequences down the road. But for now, looking at the empty passenger seat didn’t make him want to leap into moving traffic because it maybe wasn’t empty. Maybe, just now, it was filled by an invisible little brother.

After too many hours spent in a car, the back of the van cracked open and a dweeby looking guy poked his head out. He looked like shit. His beard was overgrown; his eyes were red. Dean thought Andy maybe looked like himself lately. Andy disappeared into the convenience store he had parked in front of, then reappeared not five minutes later with a bag of food. The guy didn’t look like a killer, at least not one who felt good about what he’d done and knew he’d gotten away with it. Dean decided it was worth the risk to talk to him, and he went and knocked on the back door. A breath of cold air on the back of his neck made him think Sam might disapprove, but he pounded the door again anyway.

It cracked open, and Dean was slammed with the smell of weed. Beyond the weed smell there was the scent of unwashed dude and alcohol. Andy blinked at Dean in his fed suit, looked like he thought of doing something for about half a second then thought better of it. “You here to arrest me?” he said, resigned.

“You done something worth getting arrested?” Dean replied.

Andy shrugged, clearly tired and depressed to the point where emoting was too much work.

“Why do you think I’m here to arrest you?” He hoped playing dumb would work. Something had made the police and reporters omit Andy from their stories, and Dean didn’t want to find out firsthand what that was.

Andy fiddled with his sleeve.

“Andy?” Dean pressed.

He fidgeted some more, but Dean saw him check out the surrounding area surreptitiously. Looking for witnesses, he thought. “I only killed Weber.”

Confession out of the gate. That was surprising, but it made Dean want to believe him. The guy just looked so broken up over it. Dean mentally ran down the list of victims. “The guy that broke into your dad's place? What happened to the others?”

Andy winced. “He was insane. Said we were brothers, that we were chosen. He said he'd killed everyone that had come between us.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Who does that? Who finds out they have a twin brother and starts killing people?”

“You did,” Dean said pointedly.

“He wanted me to go with him. To, to... I don't even know. To hurt people.” Andy's voice cracked. “He killed everyone. I couldn't— He had to be stopped.”

Dean clenched his jaw, let that statement stew for a bit.

Andy continued, “He killed my dad. He killed Tracy. He wasn't going to accept no for an answer.”

“The police report said those people killed themselves.”

Andy looked away, fidgeting. “I know.”

“And the reports don't mention you at all, Andy.” Dean ducked his head to meet the guy's eyes. “Care to explain?”

Andy rubbed a hand down his face. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“I’d believe a lot of things. Try me.”

Andy tugged at his sleeves then shoved a finger in his mouth, gnawing a ragged cuticle. All his nails were bitten down and raw. “I told them to.”

Dean didn’t follow. “Told them to what?”

“To forget about me. To write me out of their stories, out of the police reports.”

Dean frowned. “And they just did it?”

Andy narrowed his eyes to slits and looked from Dean to the Impala behind him. “That your car?” When Dean nodded, Andy said, voice distorted, “Give me your keys.”

It was like the words were heavy in his brain. Without thinking why it was a bad idea, Dean pulled out his keys and handed them over. As soon as they left his hand, the fog lifted and he stared at his car keys in horror.

Andy grimaced and held them out to Dean, palm flat. “Easier than explaining.”

“Mind control? Seriously?” Son of a bitch. He was so in over his head on this one. Andy could do whatever he wanted, and Dean wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it. The only bright spot in this shithole assignment was that the guy was still talking. “That guy, Weber, he could do that too? That how he killed those people?”

Andy slumped against the door, nodding forlornly. “It didn’t work on me.”

“He tried?”

“Yeah. And I did too, on him. I, uh, I was there when—”

Oh. Shit. He thought back a couple months to that night in the cabin, watching Sam aim the Colt at John. Dean had begged him not to do it. He regretted that, now, but only because of how things played out. If Sam had gone through with it, Dean would have never forgiven Sam. Briefly, he tried to imagine how that would have felt, watching Sam kill John. “I'm sorry,” he said. It didn't sound right, too stiff, too... something. Too broken, maybe. He tried to get back to the reason he was there in the first place. “You think it didn't work because you were brothers? Or because you were both psychics?”

“I don't know. I don't have any other brothers. Who are you, anyway? You aren’t a cop.”

“If I’m not a cop, why did you think I was here to arrest you?” Dean pointed out the obvious. With luck, Andy would make the assumption that Dean was, in fact, a cop and not use his power to get at the truth.

Andy sized him up. “I figure you’re something like the Men in Black. Or X-Files. Special cops. Except you’re just talking to me and not arresting me for killing Weber. So what gives?” Dean hesitated a moment too long so Andy added, “Dude, you might as well be honest. If I think you’re lying then I’ll just use the Voice.”

Dean swallowed hard and grit his teeth. Spilling his guts under a truth compulsion was not his idea of a good time. So he talked. He told Andy the truth about who he was and why he was there, at least in broad terms. Honest enough but hopefully less overwhelming.

The kid still looked shell-shocked when he was done. “Demons killed my mom?”

“One demon. But, yeah, I think so. Do you know if Weber—?” Dean suspected no, both to whether or not there had been a nursery fire and to the question of if Andy knew. Ansem Weems should have come up in Ash’s search, and he hadn’t. There had been a surprisingly small number of kids that matched Sam’s profile.

It was no surprise, then, when Andy shook his head no. “What happens next?” he asked. “What are you going to do to me?”

That was the question. He made Andy tell the whole story, beginning to end, and Dean had to admit that Weber/Weems had needed stopping. Andy seemed like a good guy, overall, and he admitted that the experience had been a…disincentive to using his powers much.

“Be good, Andy. If you go dark, I’ll be back. But, uh, call if you need anything. Help. I’ll come for that, too.” He hoped it would be enough.

The Roadhouse was largely how John remembered it, and Ellen looked exactly the same. Jo, on the other hand, he barely recognized. She was a woman now, though still so small compared to his boys. She gave him a wary glance from behind the bar while Ellen cracked open a beer and set it in front of him.

“Let me go grab Ash,” Ellen said, then disappeared into the back rooms.

Jo wandered closer.

He didn't say anything, just quirked an eyebrow.

“I remember you,” she said. “You used to come by a lot.”

He nodded, took a pull from the beer. Ellen had given it to him without asking. She'd remembered his favorite back in the day and assumed it was the same now. He still liked the beer, just wished it was something stronger.

Growing bolder, Jo leaned on the bar near him. “Why'd you stop?”

“Things change,” he said. If she didn't know, he wasn't going to tell her. That could be Ellen's job.

She grinned, suddenly reminding him of Dean's swaggering charm, and he wondered why she'd seemed shy earlier. “Mom told me you're hunting a demon.”

“Jo, go grab another case of beer for me, will you?” Ellen cut in.

Jo rolled her eyes and huffed, but she obliged her mom.

“Hard to believe she's all grown up,” John said.

“You stay away from her,” Ellen said, voice harsher than he'd expected. He hadn't planned on— Oh. This was about Bill.

He studied his beer. “She hunts?”

“No, and I intend to keep it that way.” Ellen sighed. “Ash'll be out in a minute.”

He looked at her, noted her tense posture, her folded arms. “She doesn’t hunt, and you don’t want her to, but you’ve got her working in a hunter’s bar? She doesn’t get curious?”

Ellen shook her head. She murmured, “Of course she does. Thinks of hunting as a way to connect to her dad. But I can’t lose her too, John. So don’t go putting any ideas into her head.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Ash emerged from the back wearing a sleeveless denim shirt and combing his fingers through his mullet, and John tried to understand how this person could possibly help him. The man was obviously still a little drunk from the night before—or had gotten a very early start today—and was one of the strangest people he’d ever met. That was saying something, considering he saw an awful lot of strange in his job. Once they got into the research John had brought, though, he got it. Ash was a genius who hadn’t fit the traditional molds of society, so he found himself on the fringes, just like a hunter. John didn’t have to explain anything twice, barely had to explain some of it once. Ash took the pile of notes and observations and started drawing conclusions that had taken John years to make.

“This is brilliant,” Ash said. “You’ve been tracking the demon like this?”

John nodded, surprisingly gratified to get the compliment. “It’s slow going, and I’m not usually in time to do anything but clean up the mess. Couple months ago I got lucky and saw the signs early enough.”

“But it got away. Dean told me about that.” Ash was dismissive, as though that botched job hardly mattered. “This is good work.” He looked up, earnest. “I can make a program that’ll ping me anytime these signs crop up. It’s not as much lead time as being able to predict where it’ll go next and who it’ll target, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll look into the data going back too, see if I can find a pattern with its appearances and targets. Not all the families had nursery fires, and finding out how many others are out there is going to be like finding stars with Goldilocks planets.”

That was news to him. “What do you mean, about the fires?”

Ash grunted, flipping through pieces of paper. “Dean found that one. There was a psychic out in Oklahoma, turned out to be two people. Twin boys, separated at birth. One had a fire, the other didn’t.” He pulled his computer into typing range. “Both had the same ability, and the one without the fire definitely had contact with Yellow Eyes.”

“That breaks the pattern,” John said, confused and a little angry. “Why would it do that?”

“No idea. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Your data is going to help, though.” Ash continued typing, mostly ignoring John now. “I’ll call you when I get something.”

John was two states away when Ellen called. “I thought Ash was going to be the one calling me,” he said.

“Have you seen Jo?” she barked.

He saw Jo in his mind’s eye, young and pretty, surrounded day after day by hardened, miserable, lonely hunters. He went a little cold. “No, I haven’t. What happened?”

“She’s just gone.” He could hear her cursing under her breath. “Her credit cards say she’s in Vegas.”

“But?”

“There was a case she was researching, some missing girls in Philadelphia. I—”

“I can be there in twelve hours,” he said.

“John, you don’t have to do that. Ash can watch the bar for a while.”

John thought of Ash running the Roadhouse for any length of time and shuddered. “The man may be smart, but he’d drink you bankrupt before you got back. If you think she’s in Philadelphia, then I’ll head there. I’m closer than you are.”

“I can get a flight out, be there in the same amount of time. I ain’t some damsel in distress needing you to rescue me.”

He grinned. For all that she sounded pissed off, she sounded fond, too, and he knew she was glad he’d offered. “Let me. Watch the bar, keep Ash in line. Hell, see if he knows something. No offense to your girl, but he seems like the one more capable of faking a credit trail. I’ll bring her home.” He swallowed, hoping to hell he would be able to keep that promise.

She called again a few hours later, letting him know Ash had caved. He had, in fact, helped Jo fake a trail to Vegas and confirmed she’d been headed to Philly instead. John had her put Ash on the phone and proceeded to grill him for information on the case. It took a while; Jo had apparently done her homework.

He was impressed by the case that she’d put together, even though all she’d really done was eliminate options. He was less impressed by the fact that she’d set out without backup or any real clue about what she was hunting. When he caught up to her, she was squatting in one of the victim’s apartments waiting for the thing to appear. He arrived in time to blast the ghost with rock salt as it tried to drag her unconscious form into the air ducts.

“I’m taking you home,” he growled as soon as she woke up.

She was still groggy but aware enough that her voice carried venom. “The hell you are! You aren’t my boss, and you aren’t my mom. I don’t have to—”

“Stow it, kid,” he grumbled. “Your mom is worried sick, and you nearly got yourself killed playing bait with no backup.” Without waiting for her response he gathered her bags and headed for the door. He didn’t much care if she followed or not, but either way she was done with this hunt without her gear.

“I’m not a kid!” she said, whining creeping into her voice as she stomped after him. It made her sound even younger than she was. “Besides, Dean was hunting when he was 16.”

He rolled his eyes before slowing down enough that she could catch up and walk beside him. “He was trained. If you want to hunt, then learn how to do it right. Otherwise you’re just going to be upping the body count of whatever you’re hunting.”

Her shoulders slumped. “That would be a lot easier if my mom didn’t shut down the conversation every time I brought it up.”

John considered his response. Ellen didn’t want her hunting, which he understood. Just because his instinct was to train his sons for their own protection didn’t mean Ellen’s feelings were so different from his own. “Maybe someday you’ll have kids of your own, and then you’ll understand that every parent just wants their kid to be safe. What we do to achieve that may be different, but that’s all. She doesn’t want you hunting because she doesn’t want you hurt.”

She slowed down to walk beside him. “And you trained Sam and Dean in the life because?”

“Because I wanted them to be able to protect themselves from whatever might hurt them.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, finally reaching his truck. “I heard what happened to Sam.” He didn’t answer, and she continued. “I’m sorry.”

He grunted.

“So, what do I do? I get that she wants me to be safe, but I can’t just know what’s out there and not do anything about it. You understand that, right?” She looked up at him, hopeful. He remembered being that young, seeing the world with the optimism that good people just needed to take a stand and eventually bad things wouldn’t happen anymore.

He knew better now. “I get that hunting does a lot of good for a lot of people. But that’s not why I hunt. That’s not why most people hunt. Most of us, we lost someone to one of the things that crawls in the dark. And we hunt to get rid of that thing. Some of them get their revenge and keep going, damned determined that no one else is going to get hurt if they can help it. I respect that. Maybe someday I’ll be one of them, but I don’t think so. This was never supposed to be forever. I want to get the demon, and then I’ll be done.”

“You’d really walk away from the life?” she asked, incredulous. “After everything you’ve seen.”

“I would. This fight has already cost me too much. Once it’s done, I’m done.” He didn’t care to elaborate. She wouldn’t understand anyway. “If you’re going to live this life anyway, at least find yourself a partner willing to show you the ropes. Someone to have your back until you know how to stay alive.”

Dean wasn't sure what he was doing in Indiana. Ash had sent him there, saying it was the last person to match the original search criteria. Of course, thanks to Andy they knew that there were more psychics out there who didn't fit the pattern. An unknown, unknowable number. It fucking sucked. But he was here, chasing his last lead while Ash searched for a pattern. Anything to link Weber, aka Ansem Weems, to Andy, Sam and the others. He hoped there was enough data, not that he really understood what it was Ash did. Tracking, he understood. All hunters did. But Ash worked magic on his computer, and Dean wondered, not for the first time, if Sam would have been like that someday. So, technically, he knew what he was doing here. He was gathering data for Ash. It was just that neither of them knew what data he needed.

In truth, it wasn't that different from a regular hunt. They never knew what was relevant until they saw the pattern, heard the keywords. This was just learning new keywords. He'd talk to this Scott guy and see what came up.

He'd considered going to the guy's house, posing as a reporter or new neighbor, but he couldn't quite settle on a ruse that felt right. They all itched under the skin, felt one size too small. He still wasn't used to doing this alone again. Instead, he tracked the guy to a bar, waiting a few minutes before following him in.

It was busy but not crowded. Dean snagged a seat a few down the bar from Scott and ordered a beer. There was music playing off to his right, and he could hear the crack of someone breaking a game of pool. This was his kind of bar, and he felt himself relaxing in spite of himself. He made casual small talk with the bartender for a bit, watching Scott order a double Scotch and then refuse to touch it. He sat silent, staring at his full drink, and Dean figured this was his opening.

“Change your mind?” he said, gesturing at the full glass.

Scott shrugged, pushing the glass an inch further away. “I'm not really supposed to drink.”

Dean eyed the double, almost said it would have been cheaper to stare at a beer, but didn't. “So, bad day?”

Scott huffed a quiet laugh. “Bad year. Feels like it's coming to a head though, and I don't know what to do about that.”

Nodding seriously, he said, “What do you want to do about it?”

“Drink myself stupid and hope that it shuts up the voice inside my head screaming that I'm special. That there's a, a plan for me.” Scott growled and took a big swallow of his drink, wincing as he set it down.

“Plans, huh?” Dean played dumb. “Overbearing parents on you about college?”

“I wish.” Scott rubbed the rim of his glass aimlessly. He glanced at Dean, obviously considering the anonymity of strangers. “I- I have dreams.”

“What kind of dreams?” He kept his voice neutral. Sam's visions had started as dreams.

“Dreams about yellow eyes. Stupid shit, mostly. But the eyes—” Scott shuddered.

“The eyes have plans for you?” Dean said, hoping he sounded curious. Interested, but not too much. Didn't want to scare the guy off.

Scott laughed. “It sounds so stupid when you put it like that.”

“Hey, people dream about weird shit all the time. Doesn't mean they aren't true.”

The guy looked at him then. “True?” He stared a moment, then went back to studying his drink. “I hope they aren't. The eyes want me to fight a war.”

They drank in silence for a bit, then Dean said, “My brother—” He hadn’t talked this way about Sam yet. Telling Ash was different. That guy didn’t give two shits about who Sam had been, just how his data fit the patterns. Scott seemed like the sort of guy to get overly invested in someone else’s dead brother.

He paused so long that Scott prompted, “Your brother?”

Dean coughed, surprised he felt awkward, more surprised that he wanted to share. “He had dreams too. Dreams that came true.”

“Had? Did they stop?” No disbelief in his voice, only curiosity. Like Sam's dreams might hold answers about himself.

Dean shook his head, throat feeling thick with the words he needed to say. “He died. Couple months ago.”

“Oh.” And Dean couldn't blame the guy for the awkward silence that followed. How was he supposed to respond to that? “I'm sorry.”

The whiskey burned, and Dean focused on that. He didn't want this guy's pity. Hadn't brought Sam up to talk about how he was gone. “It wasn't because of the dreams,” he offered. It hadn't not been, either, but he couldn't explain the mess of visions and demons and how they caused a semi to wreck the car. How they made John decide to give up on Sam.

“Oh. Ok.” Scott didn't know what to say, and Dean didn't care.

The silence stretched on a while longer, and the bar around them started filling up in earnest. Dean wanted to get Scott talking. He didn't want to talk about the disaster of his life, but he knew too well that showing his soft underbelly helped. It made others trust him. “He hated the dreams. Visions. They'd happen during the day, sometimes. He thought—” Dean exhaled sharply. “He thought he was cursed. That anything bad that happened was his fault. All because our mom died in his nursery.” He glanced at Scott, saw the awkwardness of a stranger oversharing had turned to rapt attention. So, he added, “Faulty wiring. It sparked a fire. How could that be his fault, right? He was just a baby.”

Scott put the pieces together almost as fast as Sam had back when they'd met Max Miller. “But that's— No. How?”

Dean raised an eyebrow. He knew, but he needed Scott to start sharing.

“That's how my mom died.”

Bingo. “Really? What happened?”

“Fire, in my nursery. Dad said—well. He said a lot of things that didn't make sense, but. He said there was someone else there. Someone with yellow eyes, like in my dreams.”

Dean was surprised. Not that the demon had been there—it had been standing over that baby’s crib in Salvation, after all, and they already knew it was causing the nursery fires. No, he was surprised that Scott’s dad had seen the demon. Seen it and lived to talk about it. “They get the guy?”

Scott shook his head. “He vanished. Dad said into thin air, but I guess he took off. No evidence of arson, so they ruled it an accident.”

“He let your dad go?” That was the piece Dean needed an answer to. If both parents were there, then why only kill the mother?

But Scott just shrugged. “I guess. He doesn't talk much about that night.”

Dean grunted. “Neither does my dad.”

Scott swallowed hard, then looked over at Dean. “Did yours— Did your mom—” He sighed, frustrated with himself. “Was it weird, too?”

“Weird how?” They were close, Dean could tell. There was something more here, and Scott wanted to tell him. Wanted someone else to know. Dean recognized the look from countless victims and witnesses. People desperate to be believed, needing to share with someone who wouldn't brush them off.

“He said she knew the guy. That she was mad, and yelling, but— But not like she was surprised.” He threw back the last of his drink. “I never believed him.”

A cold shiver ran down Dean's spine. If the pattern held—if they were really all linked, all chosen— If they were the same— No. Oh fuck no. She wouldn't have— Except the demon was there, in their house. Coming for his brother. Psychic ability ran in families and there were no psychic Winchesters. Not Campbells either that he knew of. Pieces of the puzzle were fucking launching themselves together, and he needed to get out of here. He needed to talk to Bobby, to Ash. Maybe that lady he and Sam had saved in Iowa. He wanted to talk to John, even, for the first time since Sam.

If the mothers knew the demon, then it wasn't about the babies at all.

#spnproshipbang #wincest #tw mcd #season 2 AU #fic i wrote #spn #sam winchester #dean winchester #ghost!sam

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meant-to-be-a-hero · 2 years

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Season Four, Chapter Nine: The Piggyback

I made it. Somehow, I made it.

The Netflix synopsis upset me even before I started the episode. "With selfless hearts and a clash of metal..." is just Eddie all over, isn't it?

I'm honestly still surprised no one in the Russia story died. I thought for sure the guard or Yuri was going to bite it. Or possibly Murray, but they just made him a regular so that seemed unlikely.

The Hop/Joyce hook-up was a long time coming. They're as bad as Nancy and Jonathan, dancing around each other - you can see where Jonathan gets it from.

Hey, breadsticks and lasagne ARE good!

Ninja!Steve!

This is the last time Nancy, Steve, and Robin see Eddie alive :(

Argyle suggesting the baggage compartment is just...yeah. He does come up with the right solution in the end though, so he gets points for that.

Fucking Jason, ruining everything.

For what is essentially longer than most movies, this episode really does keep you going all the way through. There's a LOT to it, and I never felt like I was getting bored even having seen it once before.

They manage to link the Russia storyline back to the Hawkins stuff pretty well, surprisingly.

Hey, it's Chekov's flamethrower!

Pizza is always the answer.

Oh god, the Argyles are multiplying. I'm sure the other guy is even billed as Other Argyle or something in the credits, I forgot to check.

You should probably lock the door, Jonathan.

Preparations for war take many forms. Guns, guitars, and pizza dough are equally as important.

I'm glad at least some of the pizza ingredients got eaten.

Eddie's final stage :(

Super confident idiot. We love Steve. I'd forgotten about this whole conversation, it really does sum up Steve's arc up to this point.

Of all the things you wouldn't expect to work, appealing to Yuri's better angels is what gets him to buck his ideas up. Huh.

The Lucas/Max scene with the notepads is adorable as fuck. Also Caleb's a lefty.

Good thing Vecna was home and not out for a walk or something.

Oh, it's the sad Will hour.

Jonathan is still Big Brother Of The Decade.

And there's Tear-Up #1 - Will and Jonathan hugging it out set me off.

I hope the water they had MBB laying in was warm, at least.

Sadie Sink really knocks it out of the park this season. She's always been the strongest of the kids, but this season was another level.

Max wanted something bad to happen to her, and she definitely got it. I wonder how she'll feel in Season 5, if she'll think she deserved what happened to her?

The timelines for this last bit are kind of weird. Pretty much everything happens at once, but because they linger on certain scenes it makes it feel like some stuff takes longer than it does - like Steve, Nancy, and Robin are being strangled for like 45 minutes because the prison stuff is so far behind.

The blending of the Billy footage is really good; you'd never know Dacre didn't re-shoot it.

I love that Eddie's reaction when Dustin tells him it's time to go is to rock harder, and not run away.

Couldn't Eddie and Dustin's plot just end there? Let them leave and live happily ever after?

Silly Russians, you should know not to play with evil clouds.

Memory-ception!

Blood balloons. Gross. I know high school dances are bad, but this is kind of ridiculous.

Jason's little minion should NOT have messed with Erica.

Eddie shoving the nail-shield into the ceiling was very clever.

Oh, it's kinky strangle time! Vecna has a choke fetish for Steve, this is like the third time it's happened.

And here we go. Eddie's fucking face when he realises that he has to go back is just...the journey he goes on, it's so painful. This is the part where I realised he wasn't going to make it out of the season the first time through, and it broke me.

"Eddie, what are you doing?!" Yeah, we were all asking that, Dustin.

Crit hit! Go Erica!

Lucas's speech to Jason is A+. "Normal is a raging psychopath" indeed.

If Jason hadn't smashed the cassette player, I wonder if this would have ended differently.

The parallel between how Henry held El in the Rainbow Room vs. how El holds Henry in the Snow Ball is delicious.

There's just so many of those bats, but Eddie stays anyway. What a fucking hero.

"Touch her again, and I will kill you...again." El has entered her BAMF stage. Kali would be proud.

That shattered Creel House set in Vecna's mind is so good, it's smashed to bits, just like Vecna's mind itself.

I do enjoy the Mind Flayer/Vecna dynamic twist. Considering we haven't seen the Mind Flayer at all this season, and we know it's still alive out there.

Also, the Mind Flayer is a giant spider. I never noticed that before, but it is. So clever.

"It was always you." The best kind of retcon is one where it doesn't even look like a retcon. Amazing storytelling.

"Stay still, it'll all be over soon." That's exactly what Billy said to the people that got flayed.

Murray + Flamethrower = <3

Everyone really does play a part in the final fight, even if it doesn't look like it from the beginning.

Just fucking die, Demogorgon, jesus christ.

Epic Kate Bush reprise is epic. Get his ass, Nance!

But of course, he gets away.

Eddie's lifeless eyes, FFS.

Here comes Tear-Up #2 - Eddie's death, and then Max's literally the scene afterwards was just too much, man.

Did Jason deserve to die? No. Am I glad he won't be around anymore? Yes.

God, somehow watching that was worse the second time around. I was a mess even before Eddie died.

Oh, we're going into the final season, let's smash all the sets!

Steve's ass in those jeans at the end is perfection.

God, Vickie and Robin are as bad as each other. What a pair.

And just when I'd recovered from #2, here comes Tear-Up #3 - Dustin's little speech to Wayne broke my fucking heart.

Jonathan's still lying to Nancy. It's not going to end well, bud.

I wonder if, because Vecna apparently absorbs everyone he kills, El might be able to like deep-dive into his mind and pull her out, so she can get back to her body?

That final shot is chilling as hell.

What a great season.

#Lem's Stranger Things Rewatch #Stranger Things #Beware The Liveblogging Lem

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hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

Text

Just a Dream Away

Chapter 2/13 read here on ao3!

for the @harringrovebigbang!

~~~~

The news isn’t any easier to stomach after a whole night to think.

It was hard enough for Steve to cope with this decision on his own, but calling Susan on the phone and asking what she thought about pulling the plug on her stepson was next to impossible. Maybe it was just actually saying it out loud for the first time that made it so hard for him, but he was barely able to get the words out.

“Hello?” Susan sounds confused about getting a call so early on a Sunday morning.

“I need to ask you something.” Steve says quickly. Susan waits on the other end, but the words just won’t come out of his mouth. Steve is thankful she's at least more patient than her husband. “The doctors all think- and I wanted to ask you first even though I’m his representative- they think Billys not doing too good and that we should do some thinking about this but, you know he’s just been in there so long and-“

“I understand, Steve.” She isn’t going to make him say it, the words that had been tumbling around somewhere in his head since the very beginning, and he is thankful for it. “I think, if it’s time to let him go, I support that decision.”

“What about Neil?”

“This is not his choice to make.” Susan sighs, and says simply. She had seen the worst of Neils abuse and knew that, even though things weren’t always so bad, Billy wouldn’t want his dad to have any say in a decision this important had he been able to express his wishes. “You do what’s best for Billy.”

Steve thanks her and hangs up before he could break, her words threatening to ruin the promise he’d made to himself to stay strong. He repeated it over and over in his head that he was doing the right thing and there was no reason to cry or be sad.

He hadn’t caught a wink of sleep, something he was more than used to by now, but last night was especially hard on him. It had set in that he was going to do something impossible, the guilt and the heartbreak washing over him until he just had to give up on sleeping entirely. It felt like he was rushing Billy's death, no matter how much thought had actually gone into this choice of how much time into trying to save him, it would always feel like a spur of the moment decision.

But six long months don’t count as sudden. The countless nights and days dragging on as Billy only got sicker and sicker don’t count as out of nowhere. He’d been suffering and Steve knew that the whole time, he was just too scared to make the call that was sitting heavy in the back of his thoughts the entire time.

Billy was a healthy eighteen year old boy. If he wasn’t already gone, he would have woken up by now, or at least improved in the slightest. All signs pointed to him having given up the fight, or encountered some unseen obstacle keeping him unconscious. Either way, Steve has come to rationalize that it's not right to keep him around, suffering just so he could die later.

Because if he was really being honest with himself, there was zero chance of him recovering anymore, not a small chance or an unlikely one, but none at all, at least not fully enough that he’d ever be healthy or truly conscious or himself ever again, so this was for the best. Goddamn was that so much easier to say than to actually go through with though.

Steve could spend the rest of his life telling himself it was right, but he was going to meet Max and Susan at the hospital, and Billy was going to die. The boy he had fallen more in love with than he had ever been before, the boy he’d even promised himself to each with a ring they’d stolen from their mothers, was going to die.

Driving to the hospital the day before had felt bad enough, but today is worse.

Maybe one day he’d be able to see these last six months Billy spent in the hospital as a blessing, his second chance to get the closure he needed, to let Billy go peacefully instead of on the dirty floor of the ruined mall, but for now, he just felt miserable. Like all he’d done was extend his pain just to kill him anyways.

Pulling into the parking lot, he sees Neil’s truck and Nancy’s car. They were already out of their cars and waiting for Steve, Max hiding her tear stained face in her mother’s coat, and Nancy politely listening to something Susan was saying. She was only here to drop off Eleven, who had been back in Hawkins to visit Dustin on his birthday and wanted to come, and Lucas, who promised Max he’d be there to support her, no matter what he thought of her brother. What surprised them all though, was that Neil had showed up too.

He’s stood away from everyone else, arms crossed tight over his chest and a stone cold look on his face. Steve locks eyes with him through the windshield, and he can see something regret clear in Neils eyes. Maybe it was denial that things would ever get this bad that made him so insistent to not have anything to do with his son while he was sick, the idea that he’d come home someday and he could antagonize him then, but that wasn’t the reality of the situation, and perhaps that is exactly what brought him out today. Steve doesn’t feel bad for him either way.

As he kills his engine and gets out, Susan and Nancy shoot him an identical sympathetic look before the latter scampers back to her own car, wanting nothing to do with this situation. Nobody trusted Steve to drive their kids around anymore, and everybody else was busy but Nancy, so she had to drive the kids. Steve’s not sure if it’s the guilt from aiming a gun at Billy and pulling the trigger without remorse or if she still hated his guts as much as she did in high school, but again, Steve doesn’t care.

Nobody matters to him but Billy today.

The opposite wasn’t true, they were in return worried about Steve. Only a few nurses under a vow of silence and Heather who’d died with the secret ever knew about what he and Billy had, but everyone still understood how close they were, and knew that, other than Max of course, he’d be taking this the hardest.

They let him lead the way, but before they could go into room B-216, Susan stopped him with a delicate hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think I should be in there.”

“I think it’s better if you are.” Steve says, taking in a shaky deep breath, feeling strange comforting Susan of all people. “I don’t want him to be alone.”

A sob from Max echoes through the empty hallway, and that’s what does it for Susan, seeing that her daughter needed her support in there. She nods with a ghastly look on her face, and steps aside to let Steve enter the room first.

Instead of the chair where he usually sat, he sat on the side of Billy’s bed, and Max followed his lead to sit on the other. Eleven took the chair, Lucas sidled up behind Max, and Susan drifted to the corner by the window. Neil stood at the door with his arms still crossed, ever imposing. Steve just ignored his presence entirely.

A nurse had followed them into the room as well, stopping at the door with her little clipboard to say, “Whenever y’all are ready.”

They wouldn’t be ready for six more hours.

To Steve, that time feels almost more torturous than even Starcourt, than helplessly watching from across the room as Billy collapsed to the floor, because this time, he knew what was going to happen. That little gleam of hope he’d gotten when Max screamed that Billy was still breathing was not there this time. He still wasn't ready for what was going to happen now, but he supposes in a way, he should be grateful that it wasn’t the same, and he’ll have the chance to say goodbye.

Steve couldn’t speak for everyone, but he also used the time to think. About Billy, and who he had been, how much he had meant to Steve and the things he wanted in life. About all the things that led them to this moment, and everything that would come after.

It was mostly silent in the room, everyone just a little bit in shock, most of them crying at least once. But Steve swore up and down he was going to keep his composure, he would not let those kids, or his Billy, see him crack.

They make it especially hard to keep that promise though, knowing that Max was mad at him and that Lucas, who he’d never seen be anything other than headstrong and brave, even has a tear on his cheek, and when El is shaking and holding back sobs and Billy is going to die. It feels like he is underwater, with each beep of the heart monitor sinking further and further from the surface, away from his friends and from Billy.

He is in shock too, he guesses. All he can do is focus on Billy. The barely there freckles scattered across his nose, the arch of his lips, the tattoo on his shoulder, his golden curls and his long eyelashes. He wishes he could see the pretty blue eyes underneath.

Somebody says his name, he isn’t quite sure which of them it was. He feels himself turn his head in their direction, but his eyes are glued to Billy, taking in every little detail of his lover before it was too late. Before he’d never see his face again.

At one point, Susan checks the time and suggests they all go down to the cafeteria for a little break, but nobody, including her, moves at all. They all knew the longer they waited to pull the plug, the closer they got to not doing it at all. Steve kind of hopes that will be the case, that they will just keep putting it off and putting it off until visitation hours end, and they’ll have to come back the next day, and the next, and this won’t ever have to happen.

That wouldn’t work though, and in truth, he doesn’t really want it to. They are ready, and so is Billy.

At 5:30, Steve gives Max a look, and she nods sharply, a tear dripping off the end of her nose. He leans forward, and presses the orange call nurse button.

A solemn lady he doesn’t recognize, Billy's doctor probably, knocks on the door and comes in. She asked if they were sure, bringing along even more papers for him and Susan to sign about what would happen to Billy afterwards and to give written consent to pull the plug so they wouldn’t be able to open a case against the hospital for Billy's death.

She explains to them it might not be immediate, that he could live for hours, or even days without the support before he dehydrated or suffocated, but they didn’t think it would come to that. Although his heart had only really been grazed by the initial injury, it was getting weaker with every day that passed, the medicine they pumped into his body slowing its rate, ruining the muscle, and it was estimated that he probably wouldn’t make it through the night, if even for that long.

She worked around Steve and Max, removing IVs, tubes, anything that was artificial, and then it was time to wait. Immediately his heart rate slowed, and Steve felt himself starting to panic, thinking that this was already going to be it, but it plateaued and kept going steady.

Susan’s quiet voice comes from the corner, “Do you think we should talk to him?”

The doctor smiles artificially. “I think that would be the best thing you could do.” She takes the papers back and leaves.

Nobody wants to be the first to break the quiet.

El still struggled too much with her words to say anything, especially since she hadn’t had much practice with something like this. Her dad had been ripped away from her too, without so much as a goodbye. Loss wasn’t something she could articulate, so in the place of words, she holds Billy's hand in her right, and Max’s in her left.

Lucas had his hand on her back, rubbing circles there to calm her down. There were tears streaks on his cheeks, probably from seeing the girls so torn up, but he really didn’t know Billy, and he was uncomfortable enough with Neil looming. He didn’t have anything to say to him, and they all understood that.

It was hard for Max to think of anything to say, every emotion too strong within her to pick one thing to say. She was devastated, that her brother was going to die and she hadn’t been there with him every moment, and angry, that Steve got to make the choice whether he got to live and that her step father was in the room, and somewhere under the surface, relieved that Billy wouldn’t be suffering anymore. It was her best friends’ silent support that gave her the courage to speak up.

“I was supposed to say goodbye to you when you left for work that day, but I didn’t because I was being jerk and I was mad at you for something dumb. I guess this is my chance though so.. bye Billy. M’gonna miss you, or really I already do ‘cause, you know... I'm sorry for not being a good sister, but I don’t think you would’ve liked me if I was.” She chuckles wetly, a sob disguised as much at least, “I love you, bubba. I'm sorry.”

Silence blankets the room except for her sniffling, and Steve knows it’s his turn. Before he’d got there, he was planning out things he could say that would sound as platonic as possible, anything to try to save his image in front of the kids and Billy's parents apparently, but he scraps it all in the moment. These were the last moments he’d ever spend with his Billy, he couldn’t care less anymore who knew about them or not. He just needed him to know how much he loved him.

He wishes he had just a little more time to think, but Neil and Susan have nothing to say to Billy. Figures. Quite frankly, Steve is glad they hadn’t said a word either.

Billy and Susan never got along. He admitted he didn’t blame her for being complacent in his father’s abuse, but he still found it hard to move past her standing idly by while he was getting hurt. He had once swore when he’d turned up at Steve’s front door with a broken wrist that he would never forgive her for just standing by. It was for the best, Steve thinks, that she didn’t speak now.

Then there was Neil, never a man of many words, but Steve thinks he might’ve needed a second hospital bed if he’d opened his mouth. He was in some part okay with the fact that he was here, Billy would’ve wanted him to be present, but he drew the line at him opening his mouth. That man had tortured Billy, had put all kinds of terrible motions in his head about love and his worth and a thousand other things that left Billy confused and hurt, so Steve wholeheartedly blames him for his son's fate. Believes it was Neil and what he’d done to him that made Billy give up the fight.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Steve moves up the bed closer to Billy, and takes his hand in his. He bites his chapped lips and thinks long and hard about what he wants to say, leaving out all the bad, depressing things he could say. He got to choose what his last words would be to Billy, and he would be damned if they weren’t going to be positive.

“Bill, where do I even start? You’ve been so brave. I promised you you would become something great, and you did. You were our hero, but I’m so, so glad I know you as more than that. Because you were, you were an amazing older brother, a determined kid who could have had anything he wanted in life, and you were my partner.” There's a collective intake of breath, a sniffle from Max, and Neil leaves the room entirely, but Steve keeps going, “I’ll have the memories we made forever, and I will hold onto them as dearly as I have you all this time. I love you. I will always love you, Billy.”

The whole time he’d been speaking, his eyes had been flickering back and forth between the heart monitor and Billy’s face, checking for any sign that he could hear him and that they were doing the wrong thing, but there was nothing. Nothing but his too-slow heart beat droning on and on, maybe faltering more often than it should.

Steve knows that means it’s time to let go, so he finishes, his throat tight and his hands shaking, saying what he’d been fearing he’d have to since the very beginning, “You’ve fought hard enough, baby. You can let go.”

Twenty minutes later, at 6:19 on Sunday, January 25th, William Reuben Hargrove took his last breath.

Steve felt Max sob so hard that the bed shook, then stand up and throw herself into Lucas’ arms, and he heard Susan gasp and saw her cover her mouth with her hand and put her shaking hand on El’s shoulder. He heard a nurse open the door so far and so fast it hit the wall, but he didn’t really comprehend any of it. Deeper and deeper he continued under the water, sinking away from this reality he wanted nothing to do with.

He’s still clutching Billy's hand like his life depends on it when Susan says from behind him. “It’s time to go, Steve.”

But he can’t move. Some force is keeping him sitting in that bed next to Billy. His legs won’t work and his hand wouldn’t let go and he regrets this, just knows he can't leave him there alone. The kids are already herded out of the room, all in a huddle out in the hallway as they try to dry their tears.

The nurses wait patiently, heads down and hands crossed politely, for Susan to get Steve out of there, so they could then get Billy out too.

Steve is in shock though, and if it weren’t for the staff and his friends, he probably could, or rather would, stay there indefinitely. He was so distant from what was actually happening, that he hadn’t quite taken note of how quickly Billy had started to go.

Already the color is gone from his lips, and his hand, still held tightly in Steve’s, grows colder by the second. He’d been so weak already, it didn’t take very long at all, and they really don't think Steve should see him like this, lest the images of Billy in life be corrupted.

Susan puts her hand on his shoulder and squeezes, and it was as though he was brought back to reality. Looking up at her with his brown eyes wide and teary, he stands up. He looks back to Billy and gasps softly, stepping forward to press one final kiss just to the side of Billy’s lips, and turns to leave.

Where Susans hand is pressed into the small of his back, she can feel him shaking. As soon as he is out of the door, Max pulls him into a hug tight enough he feels like he could break.

“I had no idea.” She sobs into his shirt, “I’m sorry.”

“S’not your fault.” Steve answers numbly, a lump in his throat.

Max clings to his side, sniffling as they take the stairs down to the first floor. Steve keeps his head down, hating the sympathetic looks they were getting from the staff and from the people in plastic waiting chairs watching them as they left the hospital.

He’s halfway back to his car when Nancy, who’s been waiting to drive Max's friends back home, stops him, offering, “Let me take you home, Steve.”

He looks, and the kids are already loading up into Susan’s truck, and Steve wonders vaguely when they’d discussed this arrangement. “What about my car?”

She had already walked him to her brand new Honda CRX, a gift from her mother in case of an emergency, and opened the door, not taking no for an answer, “You can come back for it tomorrow.”

So he just lets her drive him, too numb to argue or really to drive himself. They pull into his driveway, and he mumbles out a thanks and tries to leave, but she puts her hand on his. “Listen, I don’t think you should be alone right now Steve. I can stay or I could call Robin for you if you’d like.”

“I’ll be alright, Nance.” Steve assures. Neither of them believe it.

“Are you sure, I-“ Nancy starts, but he gets out of the car and closes the door in her face, leaving her to debate with herself whether she should try to stay and force him out of isolation, or if she should leave him to grieve in privacy. Hesitantly, she chooses the latter.

Steve and her are not as close as they used to be, for reasons she does regret dearly, and she knows her company isn’t going to be what he needs right now. Staying in her car, she waits until his front doors shut behind him, and leaves, all the way home wondering if she’d done what was best for him. Ironic, that already people were worrying for Steve in the same way he alone had for the dead boy.

Back at Max’s house, Max goes straight to Billy’s room, taking initiative to claim everything in his space before Neil could come in and throw it out. She had heard about how when Billy’s mother left, Neil had gotten rid of every last one of her belongings, leaving nothing behind for his son but the picture of his mom he kept in a locket around his neck, the one he was still wearing even now, and her ring, which was already safe with Steve. She was going to make sure Neil wouldn’t touch a thing in that room, not even to dust it if she had her way.

Susan is occupied with trying to talk through what had happened at the hospital to her husband, excuse the part where Steve had outed them, watching in frustration as he remained entirely indifferent. It was only on the surface, just as it would be for any father, but still, he’d been so terrible to his son for so many years, he knew he didn’t have the right to be upset. He’d almost been the cause of Billy’s death enough times that, now that it had actually happened, it didn’t leave him devastated in the way it should’ve.

Steve on the other hand, he didn’t get that luxury of only caring with half of his heart. His whole world had been turned on its head, and he’d just lost the only thing that was keeping him going trying to get it back upright. All he had to look forward to was visiting Billy and the prospect of him waking up one day. Now that would never happen. Billy was dead.

That still hadn’t really sunk in, and some small part of Steve wonders if it ever would. Because he knows in his head he’ll never step foot in that hospital again, and that he’ll never have a reason to get ready at five o'clock on the dot every morning and drive to the hospital to stay until ten at night, but it didn’t feel real.

He throws himself down in a random armchair, a half empty bottle of whiskey already on the coffee table in front of him from the night before. He has to remind himself this isn’t that same old routine, that he’s drowning his sorrow and mourning in alcohol instead of getting the liquid courage to do this again in the morning.

The phone rings twice, but he doesn’t answer it either time. He listens to it ring and ring and ring in a tone that's so disgustingly familiar to his ears after waiting up every night and day to calls from the hospital, but he stays where he was. It was just Robin calling to check on him, but he doesn’t want to talk to her, or anybody for that matter.

Billy is dead. And Steve is ruined.

~~~~

At 6:20 on Sunday, January 25th, Billy Hargrove wakes up.

The last thing he remembers is the Camaro swerving off the road. His head was bleeding and he thinks he called the cops, but everything after that is a blank.

He realizes after he blinks away the blur times in his eyes, that he’s in the hospital, which isn’t much of a surprise, he had hit his head pretty hard and now there's a huge gap in his memory. In his time he’d had enough concussions from playing sports and being roughed up by his old man to know he was at risk for something like this, but it still makes him wonder, how long had he been out for?

The room is freezing, and it looks like it’s snowing outside. He’d crashed his car in June, or was it July? The fourth maybe? He remembered fireworks, but not much else. His dad was supposed to take them all to the festival. Why hadn’t they gone?

He decides, ignoring the sinking feeling that soemthing was wrong, that he’d probably walked away from the car crash, but then one of his stupid hick friends probably blew him up with a fire work or something idiotic like that. The dull pain in his chest would certainly attest to that.

But one thing that can’t be explained is why, despite potentially being out for months now, he isn’t hooked up to anything. As a matter of fact, there is nothing even on for him to be hooked up to. The monitors are completely silent and the ventilator is cracked. Hell, even the lights are off.

Nobody’s here to visit either, not even a nurse to attend to him. Billy knows the trust between Max and him is still shaky, and his parents don’t give a shit, but the fact that even Steve isn’t here confuses him. Makes him wonder for a moment if he’s dead, and this is some strange afterlife he's bound to because he went out with some unfinished business.

He quickly rules that out though, because he can feel the overwhelming cold, the stiff sheets beneath him, and he can hear the wind through the open window, the distant chirps of whatever creatures lurked in the woods that seemed to surround everything in this damn backwoods town. Maybe that’s only because he’s in denial.

He stands from the hospital bed, walking slow on his feet, every muscle in his body aching like he hadn’t done this in a long time, over to the window to see if maybe he could see the parking lot and check for his dad's truck or Steve’s bimmer. It’s then that’s when he realizes this is not just a normal hospital room, albeit somewhat poorly lit, because the window isn’t just open, it’s totally shattered, jagged shards of glass in its frame and scattered on the once pristine floor tiles. Through the hole there are thick black vines that twist around every corner of the room, spreading out over the far wall and wrapping around the hospital equipment, the chair in the corner, all the way to the legs of the bed, like whatever these weird plants were had broken through the window and were slowly taking over the room.

With a shudder, Billy wonders if maybe they would have eventually overtaken him too.

He decides he’s not going to stick around and find that out for himself, so he ditches the hospital entirely. There’s no reason sticking around in a place that felt so, so full of death.

Making his way through the halls, this place is definitely abandoned. Not a single other patient or doctor around, just more flickering lights that reveal even more of the rot and death that he could see from his room, and what had looked like snow outside filling the corridors inside.

Walking out of the hospital is even worse, the entire town seeming like it had just up and emptied out. It’s so dark, no moon or stars above to light his way. Everything is plagued with rot, those same vines from the hospital window taking over absolutely anything they can. From houses, to cars, to the actual roads. There’s no way there is anyone still surviving out here, so what the hell is he doing here?

Of course, there’s nobody around to ask what’s going on, the streets totally empty save for the occasional sound of echoing footfalls in the distance, and more of that chittering he heard before. He assumes it’s just animals, but it's unsettling, to say the least, this feeling that as he wanders the empty town he’s being watched, but he doesn’t let it get to him and he pushes on, looking for answers.

First thing, he has to figure out wherever this hellish place he'd been shipped off to after his accident is, and how the hell he was supposed to get home from here.

The streets are vaguely familiar, which doesn’t mean much, he’d driven through and stayed in countless towns for three days to get to Hawkins from California, but the extent of damage to the town, and his head, makes it nearly impossible to really recognize where he is. At least that is, until he stumbles upon a convenience store he knows for sure he’s been to before, and recently.

He used to buy cigarettes here every Tuesday, Fridays too if he was having a bad week. When nobody could be bothered to go all the way to the next town for groceries, Neil would send him and Max down to that little convenience store with fifty bucks, so there was always a little extra left over he'd pocket for later, or to buy Max candy with.

Last summer he remembers breaking in after dark, broken glass and blood all over the floor tiles, looking for somebody. Somebody he was supposed to kill. Wait, what?

His head hurts just thinking about that last one, memories in his head he can’t begin to understand, so he moves on. Adds that to the checklist of the many things he didn’t understand right now for later. There were more pressing things to worry about right now.

As sure as he is that he’s alive, he begins to have his doubts when he finds the newspaper displayed out front of the store, kept behind cracked and foggy plastic. The only reason he initially thinks of it is to check the date, see if there were any front page stories about the world ending or a bomb dropping on their small town or something, but what he finds instead only makes it all even more confusing.

Because on page four of the paper, he reads his own obituary.

Beneath a small copy of his senior portrait, it reads the usual, that he died on the 25th of January, that was hurt in a fire on the Fourth of July and succumbed to his injuries, where he was born and who his surviving family members were. None of that makes any damn sense to him though, because again, he’s pretty fucking sure he’s not dead. Either way, his funeral is being held next Thursday in the church Susan dragged them to on Sunday’s where he’d been barred from attending after someone at the high school (Tommy, he’s 100% sure it’s was fucking Tommy) let slip that Billy Hargrove might have a taste for dick. He tears the obit out of the paper and pockets it for later. Maybe he’ll be able to find answers there.

There has to be some mistake. Something really bad happened here, so who was updating the papers in the middle of what looked to be the damned apocalypse? And who would lie about him being dead when he’s the only damn person left seemingly in the entire city?

The one, and probably only, good thing about this situation is that he knows his way home from here, so he decides that’s his next goal. He might have no idea what’s going on, but home is still home, and he definitely could use some comfort right about now.

It would normally only be about a ten minute walk, but this cold is starting to get to him, the stabbing pains in his chest and back made even worse by the temperature, making it more like a half hour of dragging himself through the impossible dark back to Cherry Lane, wheezing and wincing all the way. Only when he does finally get home, he finds that it’s a complete disaster.

All of the windows are shattered, the whole front door is missing, everything he can see inside the house from carpet to ceiling is damp and moldy. It’s totally unlivable, but he still tries to call out for somebody. The thought of making it home just to find it completely abandoned, no signs of Max, who he knew somehow would know what to do, or anyone else around, was crushing.

So he tries, “Max?” Nothing. “Dad..?” Still nothing.

Any ideas in his head of hope were gone then. He was clueless and alone and hurting and fucking terrified about this entire situation the more he thought about it.

Whatever had happened, he knew he wasn’t going to just lay down and take it. He’d find his way back to normalcy, to his family and his friends and to Steve. God he missed Steve.

This hellhole isn’t any place for such a pretty boy, but what Billy wouldn’t give to have him by his side right now. But since he isn’t here, he tries to think instead, what would Steve do?

Well, the answer is that he would panic, but after that, he’d devise a plan. Though, a plan usually means that you have at least some idea what is going on or what you need to do, and Billy has none of that. He’s in some backwards version of Hawkins, apparently all by himself, in freezing his ass off and in pain. He figures the best thing to do right now is start with the little things, trying to fix any of those problems he possibly can.

The first he's just going to have to deal with, and the second, he’d already gone looking for people and nobody was anywhere to be found, so that wasn’t getting solved either. He can do something about being cold though, and he does, going off to his room, or what was left of it, to grab a jacket.

The second he opens the door he can tell that isn't going to happen though, there’s nothing in there but more decay. Everything but the bed and the couch are gone, and even that has been stripped of the sheets. Best he’s going to find in here is an old rotten blanket off the floor, so he closes the door and moves on.

Max’s room is next in the hall, and he’s not kidding himself about squeezing into his kid sister's clothes, so he keeps walking, pushing open his parents door. With his clothes missing from their place, he has no choice but to hope his dads haven’t been cleared out too.

Instantly he can tell their room is thankfully less destroyed than his was, the closet at least far enough away from the window it hadn’t really been damaged at all yet. The entire house is still basically a cesspit though, and some of the clothes are unsalvageable. He grabs whatever he can out of there anyways, saving a wool coat, a lined flannel, some denim, and his dad's army jacket.

He has to swallow his pride, which isn’t all too hard when his teeth start chattering from the cold, and put on the bomber jacket Neil had favored last winter, between arguments the one thing he and his dad had agreed on being that Hawkins was way too cold and that Susan was crazy for picking there to move.

It’s familiar and it’s warm and it makes him want to throw up. Makes him wish that even if his dad would probably be kicking his ass right now for wandering around aimless and scared instead of winging it like a real man, that he was here by his side. Just to have someone he knew in all this mess to make things a little easier.

Next thing to worry about once he’s done being misty eyed about a stupid jacket, is the intense aching in his body, more than what he’s used to even after ten years of hair trigger beatings, so he finds the bathroom next in the shell of his house, opening the medicine cabinet to check for some kind of painkillers.

They’ve got plenty between all the injuries that happen in this house, and Susan’s Valium addiction, but that’s something only he knows about, but there’s too much moisture in the air though, and the pill bottles are all full of something sludgey that he’s not putting anywhere near his mouth. All he gets from the bathroom is a dull ache at the front of his skull, and more detached memories like the one at the store, this time of the girl he killed.

Her blood is still on the cabinet, just above the door knob too. The memory of her wide brown eyes and screaming, so much screaming sits heavy in Billy’s mind. Had he done that? Heather was his best friend, there’s no way he would have ever hurt her.

He shakes his head, chasing those thoughts from his mind. If he was unsettled before, now he’s officially freakies the fuck out. Already in a strange place, now his body is wracked with phantom pains he couldn’t explain and memories that didn’t belong to him, leaving Billy feeling like a stranger in his own skin.

What the hell had happened to him?

#harringrove big bang 2021 #harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #max mayfield #susan hargrove #neil hargrove #tw major character death #ej writer #story by ej!#the parts in italics are Billy’s pov #more tags on ao3

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guigz1-coldwar · 2 years

Text

"The fight for Verdansk": Chapter 179 for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out!

Chapter Summary: The next morning after bringing Zasha, Sonya & Bellamy with the group, Yirina is getting alerted by one of them of an imminent threat over Verdansk, prompting everyone to think of a plan that could stop everyone...or die trying...

To read it on AO3, click here!

Words: +5000

Taglist: @snowgoldwaylon , @clxudtea , @efingart, @chrystallenex

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It was the moment I was doubting for since I put my feet back on Verdansk's soil...the moment I was waiting for...the day that we have a chance to stop the Perseus Collective once & for all, to avoid a real Nova-6 attack on the city was now here...for good. It was long to wait for a full day to have it happen but now...here we are...everyone geared up & ready to fight, silently walking inside a forest at least 400 meters from the Duga Array base...everyone was ready...everything needed to go out to plan...the afternoon was going to end...the mission was going to start...

At first, last day, we thought that our attempts into making the CIA & the KGB put their differences aside would not work and that we will have to do it on our own but it happened that it worked pretty well...for a good & simple reason: the KGB officer in charge in Verdansk was none other than Dimitri Belikov himself...the same man that got me the way to leave the USSR months ago...his gratitude went to our help and of course, during the last evening, Sims, still in charge at the CIA's HQ informed us that the unbelievable alliance was created but for only one day, the KGB going off books here...it was enough to give us a good chance to eliminate every Perseus soldiers...& save our friends.

On our walk, my mind was preoccupied with all of my thoughts, trying to know what was going to happen, if we are going to succeed, die trying to save the city and our future. Each one of us wasn't going to turn our feet around, the risks were too high to do that, and everyone have a reason to give the fight straight to Perseus...friends, justice, revenge, hope, freedom...everyone has something, even Bellamy...Park, Zasha, Portnova, Viktoria, Sonya, Bellamy & me...7 people trying their best to do the impossible, it was the day everything will change...the end...maybe...

"Okay, everything knows what to do?" We stopped to gather around in a circle, wanting to see the last details as Park spoke up first, having taken the leadership of the group for the mission. "Portnova, Viktoria, you know where to go?" She demanded, the two going to be the two staying outside.

"I know a point of view over the base, it should be good to lay down until the attack is given," Viktoria nodded, holding in her hands an XM4, another gun of her arsenal. "What's gonna be the signal to launch the attack?" She asked something everyone was unclear on what to do here, the communication has been a bit hard to understand how to proceed.

"Wait 5 minutes after we got in then launch the order to the CIA-KGB task force," I replied to her, giving us a window of 5 minutes max to stop Stitch from the inside...5 minutes...

"5 minutes...Stitch could simply order to kill you all if he sees you," Bellamy commented.

"He won't," Sonya stepped in against Bellamy.

"And why that?" Bellamy narrowed his eyes at them before he made a face of realization, half-surprised, half-unchanged about Sonya, Stitch's sibling. "Do you think it could work?"

"It will work," Sonya affirmed before turning their eyes back at me & Park, looking curious. "Five minutes, it will be enough?"

"We need to know exactly some things before we can strike them so yeah, it's enough," I admitted, unsure to know if 5 minutes is going to be long to know everything but we needed to try. "We should get ready to go now, we can't waste any more minutes to discuss here," I added, looking over my shoulder as the base was in that direction behind me. "Portnova, Viktoria,"

"I'm ready," Portnova breathed, a little nod coming from her before she turned to look at Zasha, seeing them with their eyepatch before she went to blow a kiss on their right cheek, a grin on her face after it. "Stay safe, okay?"

"I will, Yiri," Zasha whispered, eye closed looking down before reopening it again, letting out a sigh. "Good luck," They said, almost with a broken tone in their voice.

"Come on, Portnova, let's go," Viktoria ordered, prompting Portnova to slowly move away from Zasha, the two unable to look away from each other before they broke eye contact after Portnova & Viktoria disappeared behind some trees.

"Okay...okay," Park passed her hand through the hair going out of her black beanie as she turned her body around to face the direction of the base. "We can't fail this...Bellamy...you're ready?"

"I am," Bellamy responded but his curiosity betrayed him by looking at his face, wanting to propose something if I can get it right. "Uhm...may I suggest something?"

"What?" Sonya sighed.

"Well, even if I 'captured' you..." He started, even mimicking some quotations marks with his fingers. "It wouldn't work too well if you still have your guns on you, mainly those rifles & submachine guns," He pointed out at each gun we were holding in our hands. "So, you should dispose of those big guns somewhere, just keeping the necessary with you,"

"So, what? We came here with stuff just to throw it away?" Zasha protested, a bit nervous. "It ain't with my fists that I'm fighting,"

"I said the big guns, you can keep your pistols, knives & your grenades," Bellamy clarified himself with an annoyed tone, everyone of us except him started to look at each other, realizing that he was right...we couldn't go in with those guns in our hands...I was the first one to be convinced by softly dropping my MP5 on the ground at my feet, soon followed by the others. "Good," Bellamy commented, seeing us complying with his suggestion.

"Now...it's your role to come over," Park affirmed, giving an eye towards Bellamy after she dropped her MP5 too next to mine, positioning herself to become a 'prisoner'. "An advice: don't have too much pleasure in that," She advised him, moving her hands behind her head, beginning her act before I do the same, looking forwards.

"Okay, it looks good," Bellamy said, surely watching how we were looking before we saw Sonya & Zasha, both having their hands behind their heads passing through us to get in front and then...I could feel the cannon of Bellamy's gun on my back, at my waist. "Now, move...or I'll shoot you four!" He ordered in a raised voice before its gun cannon made me move forward, going on a walk as a prisoner with Bellamy as the man who captured us...the mission was starting...

It was surely, in all of those months of fighting since I woke up from that coma, the riskiest mission we were going to do...it wasn't like in the American mall, not like in Algeria, not like here in June...not like in West-Berlin or in that gulag...it was more than just that, it was the mission that will tell if Perseus will fall and its threat fully neutralized...or the mission we will fail and that will allow Perseus to live on over us...using ourselves as prisoners to get in was the most dangerous way to get things done but it was our only way...

When we left the forest part to walk over the road leading to the base, this was the real moment where anything could happen to the four of us, we could be shot at by snipers from afar defending the base, Portnova & Viktoria could be spotted before we got in, the attack could start at any moment if something goes wrong...anything could happen and the stress was higher at each step on that road towards the base, not helped by Bellamy's act, his main focus was to get his rifle cannon at my back...

The base's entrance was in our sight after a long minute of walk, seeing the defense of the base from afar and causing me, Park, Sonya & Zasha to be prepared for anything, starting to show the expressions of the anger at being captured on our faces as we were getting close to the base...the soldiers in charge of it at the entrance were numerous and it would have been impossible to do it if we didn't have any support from the CIA and the KGB...

"Hands up!" A soldier posted near the gates shouted towards us as other soldiers were moving at us, their guns up...all fully geared to fight..."Who are you?" The same man asked.

"Bellamy Petrov at your service," Bellamy presented himself with a clean voice as he passes next to me to walk at the soldier who was shouting.

"Petrov? Stitch told us you were dead," The soldier was sounding confused at this, same for us even if we managed to hide it. "Where were you?"

"I was trying to capture a squad tasked to get us," Bellamy replied, pointing his hand at the four of us, the other soldiers moving in a circle to get around us. "I was able to get them in an abandoned building near the stadium, they got separated from their HQ," He went on, giving out a lie and keeping a cool attitude....let's keep it cool...Zasha was a bit stressed but they managed to stay cool...

"You've been tracking them for five days?" The soldier asked, looking curious & mostly confused. "I know that some of us are getting crazy here, don't tell me you got this too," The soldier added.

"Nah, those people were HVTs for Stitch, he tasked me to get them for him, he couldn't tell that publicly" Bellamy admitted, noticing that his tone was seeming less cool than before...as if it wasn't sure here...stay cool..."I even got his sibling back," He scoffed, gesturing his head at Sonya who was just one meter from him.

"Fuck you, Bellamy," Sonya cursed before Bellamy give a sign to a nearby soldier next to them, and then, with the stock of their gun, the soldier strikes down Sonya at their chest...a little strike as it wasn't enough to get Sonya on their knees.

"I'm bringing them to Stitch," Bellamy said, rubbing his gloves together after leaning his gun a few moments against his leg.

"You're sure?" The soldier demanded. "Wraith ordered us that no prisoners should be taken, CIA or KGB,"

"Why that?" Bellamy demanded back at him, curious.

"You know why...what's she planning..." The soldier started to argue before something went to change in his eyes, the rest of his face hidden by a mask. "Okay, if Stitch wants them, better that he got them before the plan goes off," He told Bellamy, moving away from his path to let our group enter the place. "You might need a guard or two, right?"

"I'm good, I know how to deal with them," Bellamy gently argued towards the soldier who then got a bit suspicious of that refusal from him. "What? I got them and keep them still for an hour, I should be good," He defended himself before the soldier let out a loud sigh at Bellamy, stepping aside enough to let us.

"Go on but watch out," The soldier suggested to Bellamy before the gates started to open in front of us, Bellamy moving back behind me to keep his rifle cannon at my back to get us moving...we walked some meters inside the base...the main building at least 50 meters from us...a big radar installation...soldiers walking around...

"Good job," I whispered at Bellamy at my back.

"Yeah but we're not inside yet so shut up and stay still until you face that one-eyed bastard, will you?" He ordered with a now nervous tone in his voice, his cannon going a bit higher in my back, near my left lung.

"Nervous?" I murmured.

"Shut up," He repeated, making a tap at my neck with his rifle to keep me quiet before I looked at Park, one of her hands freely moving towards her radio to activate...she was the only one with a radio in our group, Viktoria was the second one..."If you open your mouth once before we meet Stitch, I shoot you," He warned me and his threats could be real with his voice, reinforced by his gun as we were getting closer to the building.

"Okay...everyone's keeping his cool...we're going in," Park murmured to us, a little grin went to me as we were both scared about each other, fearing the worst...

Bellamy went to speak to the guards in front of the building and if those were a bit more skeptical than the guards at the entrance, they allowed him to get inside the building with us only and it was at the moment we got inside that the 5 minutes started...5 minutes where we needed to know some details...if Stitch were going to give them out and work on a plan that could get us to neutralize Stitch...& Wraith...and get Lazar & Dedov back...

If Bellamy seemed a bit lost at first, he was able to find his way and during that little walk, I could feel that...something was off...not in Bellamy's attitude but towards the Perseus soldiers...no one was wearing gas masks, some of them were looking at each other with suspicions as if something happened in the past few days...something intriguing to say...Is the Collective facing internal problems due to the situation?...it was maybe something to ask...or to know...dammit...the more I was walking inside that building, the more I was stressed...

Finally, I managed to keep my stress inside of me when we arrived near a room, passing through a little group of soldiers before we got into that room...a control room with a view over Verdansk...seeing in front of that panel...Stitch with next to him, Freya...and in both sides of the room...Lazar on a side...Dedov in another...both wearing Perseus uniform...

"You son of a..." Zasha was the first one that tried to speak-outs their head looked over Stitch but Bellamy went to stop them by giving a small blow behind their back with his elbow, causing Zasha to almost fall on their knees...

"Must be the voice of Krypto," Stitch suggested in a low voice, hands on the control panel before he started to turn around to face us...the same black outfit...the same face..."Not alone...Sonya...Grigoriev...and Helen Park," He said each of our names and Park's name...caused Freya to look around too...wearing that combat suit she was having...back in West-Berlin...a black mash on her face...

"You...you weren't supposed to be here," She pointed her hand towards me, sounding tense in her voice, moving off the control panel...me trying to look at Lazar, unresponsive, blank stare at us..."You were supposed to die in that place," She added.

"I lived," I said before she got in front of me, seeing her brown eyes filled with incomprehension & terror at my sight. "You tried to fuck us again, you forced us to kill our soldiers,"

"I did what was necessary," She defended herself on this, something that caused Lazar to move a little from his spot. "You weren't supposed to be here, to see it happening but here you are...and worst of all...you came with her," She turned her head at Park, her eyes showing signs of anger just by looking at Park. "You...this Madam Shell...she should have cut your head off years ago,"

"Don't tempt me," Park silently warned her, even making a step forwards at Freya...Park wasn't looking scared at all, she wasn't playing her game here...

"It's enough, Wraith," Stitch ordered at her, both of his fists clenching. "Dedov, what's the situation with our men?" He asked.

"Our groups in the city are doing okay, they occupied most of the strategic points," Dedov replied without any hesitation at Stitch who nodded.

"Listen to yourself, Dedov, that ain't you!" Zasha protested in a voice that could break down at any moment. "They're manipulating..."

"Shut up, Krypto," Bellamy interrupted them again, another strike at their back which, this time, caused Zasha to fall on their right knee. "You ain't..."

"No need to play that game, Bellamy," Stitch suddenly cut him too, a tone that could describe something worse...something that could say that Stitch wasn't buying his act..."I know well of your hatred against me...Wraith," He revealed, having seen through Bellamy's act before Freya kicked Bellamy at his left knee, enough for him to fall on his back between Sonya & Zasha, letting go of his gun...

"What the fuck? I'm with Perseus!" Bellamy shouted, moving his hands at his legs

"You betrayed Perseus," Lazar spoke up in a deep voice, arms crossed as Freya got her pistol pointed towards Bellamy's head.

"Bullshit," Bellamy mumbled.

"Lazar, you ain't with Perseus," I tried to do the same as Zasha with Dedov but it was the same thing...unsuccessful..."They brainwashed you with that crap!" I added...again...

"It won't work, Grigoriev," Dedov said in a clear voice, hands behind his back as he slowly walk towards us... looking at all of us. "The West abandoned him...as I was abandoned too by my family...my friends, we gave him a new purpose," He explained as if it was true...it wasn't true...we never abandoned everyone...

"You made him done the worst thing he could do: turning his back to us," Park told him, almost going to point her finger at Dedov.

"He made his choice clear...and so do you, Sonya," Stitch went on, drifting to give a look to Sonya who didn't speak too much since we got in.

"It wasn't the life I wanted, Vikhor!" Sonya argued, sounding a bit angry in their voice. "You forced me into that life, to do things I didn't want to do...do you think our parents would have approved of that?"

"Don't you dare!" Stitch raised his voice against them along with his finger. "Don't put our parents in that discussion, you made your choice by working with the West...you chose them...over me!"

"They don't try to kill me every day unlike the Collective...to be with a...Norwegian psychopath," Sonya declared and those words caused Freya to change the direction of her gun to aim it behind Sonya's head, Lazar taking her role to aim Bellamy on the ground with a pistol...dammit, Lazar, don't..."You are crazy, brother, why do you want to attack Verdansk with Nova-6?"

"Attack Verdansk? What are you talking about?" Stitch's surprise in this voice was...strange...something that maybe he never thought...what's happening..."Why would I attack a city I tried to save?"

"What do you mean he..."

"Shut up," Freya interrupted me, her gun changing again direction to aim at my face...a sudden change that was making Stitch...confused. Instead of showing scare at Freya's gun, I went to look at it, unfazed.

"Nova-6 barrels all over the city rigged to blow up at any moment," Park explained, Freya, changing again...something was wrong and Freya was in the middle of it...

"I never worked on..." Stitch stopped himself before he starts to drift his eyes towards...Dedov...not seem happy. "You...you know how to make that Nova-6...tell me what's going on...NOW!" His voice wasn't sounding proud but ashamed...Lazar was...sharing that...feeling while Freya & Dedov remained unfazed at Stitch's words...those two were doing something...

"Stitch?" Lazar called him out, his hands looking unsure to continue to aim at Bellamy.

"We're doing what Perseus believed in," Freya spoke up, her muffled voice behind her mask seeming to speak something worse...worse for all of us..."You didn't want to use the only way to destroy Perseus' enemies...we will use it," She explained, one of her hands moving towards her vest to grab a...detonator..."One button...and the gas is released...and goodbye to our enemies,"

"Not the civilians!" Stitch pointed out at her, almost screaming.

"There are no innocents, Stitch," Freya told him, showing him off the detonator while I took a short look at Park...the clock was ticking faster than we thought...and we just discovered that it wasn't Stitch but...Freya & Dedov are behind the plan to attack Verdansk...them...Zasha's brother..."I showed Dedov the true way...you just helped him see better," She added, giving a little nod towards Dedov.

"Dedov, don't do this," Zasha murmured.

"You abandoned me, Zasha, don't tell me what to do!" Dedov ordered at them, pulling out his pistol to aim it at Zasha's head...

"We need to do it," I managed to whisper those words out of my lips to Park, who gave me a nod before gesturing towards my vest...a flashbang grenade on it...a chance to get out of that...

"What's that?" Lazar panicked when the building started to shake before an explosion went to be heard outside....the assault has begun...

"NOW!" Park shouted at me, reacting quickly to pull off the flashbang out of my vest and unpin it before throwing it in the middle of everyone in the room, directly putting my arms in front of my face while turning my upper body away from the flash got heard.

At this moment, when I removed my arms off my face, I could see Lazar & Dedov who got affected by the flashbang, looking in pain with their hands on their face...Sonya also got touched by it as they were leaned forwards, holding their face before my eyes went to meet the cannon of Freya's pistol...her finger ready to pull the trigger before another explosion, closer than the last one, caused Freya to move her pistol away from my face due to the shake, me, Park & Zasha moving to break our act and finally attack...

Zasha went to go on Dedov while Park goes on Lazar... I went over Freya by first trying to remove her hands off her gun but she was the first one to give me a strike by headbutting me with her mask on, making me fall on the ground, feeling my nose bleed out due to that strike in the middle of my face and that mask. But, instead of finishing what she started and pulling a bullet in me, Freya looked over the room and then, fleed away from the room...she can't escape...

"She has the detonator!" Park said loudly as she was struggling with Lazar who was on the ground while Zasha was fighting with his brother against a wall...Stitch nowhere to be seen..."Stop her, we'll take them!" She ordered to me and I nodded, impossible to let Freya get away and start that attack on her own...the CIA & KGB along with Viktoria & Portnova were striking the place...

"I'm on her!" I affirmed, passing my hand below my nose before getting up the floor, grabbing my M1911 in the process, and then, I started to run away from the room with the only goal to stop Freya...

I left the room and looked over the direction we came from...the path was blocked by debris that fell in between, I then looked the other way, seeing the shape of Freya running in a corner away from me, prompting me to run as fast I could to catch her, my M1911 in my right hand. My head was hurting me from that headbutt but my senses were still okay, I was able to know what path Freya took to flee from us...a part of my head wanted to be sure that Park & Zasha are okay in that room but I needed to stay focus...

As I was continuing to run against Freya in a building that was under attack along with the base, I knew that Freya wasn't going to take the front entrance, seeing her running in the opposite direction to get out by a different exit. During my run against her, I met only Perseus soldiers that tried to get in my way but were soon silenced and unable to react with three well-placed bullets with my pistol...making it to 4 bullets now...

Then, the pursuit continued outside the building when I saw Freya getting out of here, taking a side door before running fast inside a nearby forest but I couldn't let her go away with that detonator...letting her just go away...I ran as fast as I could...more than I did inside that damn building to catch her and in at least 20 seconds, I managed to catch her and tackle her down as she was going to faint me behind a tree...

"Fuck off, Yirina...Leave me alone!" She shouted at me in Norwegian as I was getting over to try to get my hands on the detonator she was still holding in her hands.

"Stop!" I ordered her before she used one of her knees to strike me in the back, a hard hit that got me off her, and my finger, unfortunately, pulled the trigger of my M1911...3 bullets...."AAAAAAHHHH!" I then screamed in pain when a knife entered my left arm near my shoulder, Freya has taken the occasion to stab me in that place before I tried to get up, that knife having stayed in my arm.

"You should have died in that mall!" Freya taunted me as she was getting up on her feet, looking exhausted before she decides to remove her mask off her face...nothing was changing..."Less, I should have killed you back in that plane!" She corrected herself as...as the pain in my left arm was hurting me so much when I was able to get on my feet, my right hand still with the M1911. "You betrayed me...I lost that Yirina who believed in me!"

"I did believe in you...but...but...you didn't believe in me!" I growled, slowly moving my right hand towards my left arm, wanting to pull out that knife off me...I could feel the blade pulling out inside of my arm...making me more harm than good. "You...you want me to believe in you because you're forcing me to do so..."

"I did believe in you...but you chose them over me!" She protested, pointing at herself with her hands...both free of anything...the detonator...it's between her feet on the ground..."The West harmed you!"

"You harmed me more than them," I argued back, my eyes slowly moving towards the detonator...and getting ready. "And now..." I could see her head going down...realizing that the detonator was at her feet. "It's over!" I exclaimed, aiming down to that detonator and firing one bullet against it and it was almost long for me...before the detonator broke in pieces by that bullet...one second of it being recovered by Freya..."It's over now," I muttered, keeping the gun up at the same spot...realizing that I saved Verdansk from her...from the Nova-6...it's done..."It's over," I repeated.

"You...why...you...why did you do this?" She asked me, falling on her knees, looking down at the broken detonator. "I was going to free..."

"You were going to kill civilians, families...not on my watch!" I cut her, not wanting to hear that bullshit anymore for her mouth. "You harmed me, you hurt people that I care about...you changed my friends into...murderers...you tried to kill me!" My voice was almost in the urge of breaking down, thinking about everything she did against me. "I tried to save you, to get you on my side but instead, you got blinded by those ideals...you...you're a monster!"

"I tried...so hard...but...you too...blinded by that loyalty...to that Crown...to that agent...to those who changed you!" She told me, raising her head back at me like the hammer of my M1911 was down, ready to shoot.

"They opened my eyes," I admitted, taking a step closer to her, getting the gun aimed between her eyes.

"So...if they opened your eyes...shoot me," She silently ordered me in a whisper, looking ready to be shot. "Please, shoot me, Yirina, show me you got your eyes opened," She added towards me, closing her eyes and...no...even after everything...after what she did...she wasn't worth saving...but she wasn't worth killing...she was maybe close to me...but she changed too much...I only got to put up the hammer of my M1911...decided...I won't kill her...but I won't save her...

"No...no...you're gonna live with what you did," I supposed, lowering my gun off her head..."You became a monster...and I can't let you come..." I closed my eyes for a few seconds while taking a deep breath...getting sure of my choice here and not wanting to regret it at all. "I'll let you go...but now, you'll disappear from my life,"

"You can't do that," Freya pleaded, sounding emotional in her voice. "I love you!"

"No...you don't," I opened back my eyes, shaking my head at those words. "You caused me too much harm that I'll never qualify this as love...never," I affirmed my thoughts here, unable to let her a chance to redeem herself at me...she did enough..."Leave me, Park, my friends, alone...don't fight me because if we meet each other again...I'll kill you," I then drifted my body around on the side, looking in a direction...the sun starting to set down over the region, its rays between the trees...

"Stitch...Stitch left to meet with Perseus...in that direction," Freya then raised her hand in the same direction I was looking at. "You want to talk to him...he's the lesser evil...go talk to him..." She demanded at me in her low voice and that's the only thing...well, I was mixed to talk with Stitch but it was the last person that wasn't caught...and we needed him..."Go now...forgive me...go," She murmured as I was having my eyes on her.

"You hurt me so much, Freya," I said but this time, I said it in Norwegian...Du såret meg så mye...it was enough to have her look back down at her knees...going to cry..."Goodbye, Freya...goodbye," I took another deep breath before I start to walk in that direction where Stitch was but I had to get a last look over her...I could hear the first cries from her...but it was too late...she broke my heart...I couldn't step back, it was hurting me to do that but I had no choice...I couldn't give a smile before I resumed my walk, seeing for the last time the woman I knew as Freya Helvig...the one I once loved...turning my back to hear her distant cries, a small tear on my face falling down as I was trying to think of something else...

We did the impossible today...but it wasn't finished...one more step...one more...

#call of duty cold war #black ops cold war #cod black ops cold war #cod cold war #cod cw #cod bocw #call of duty #cod #fem!bell #helen park #yirina grigoriev

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destiniesfic · 3 years

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132 Hours, Chapter 5:

If I die out here alone, for nothing, I will feel so incredibly stupid.

Note: There is a content warning this chapter for a brief mention of past attempted sexual assault. The mention comes near the end of the chapter.

Read chapter 5 on AO3, or read below:

Despite the damp cool of the basement, I am warm when I finally blink my eyes open to the dim morning light. Cardan has curled up at my back.

Alpha blood tends to run hot, they say. It plays into the general myth that we are opposites in every way: alphas hot, omegas cold; alphas strong, omegas weak; alphas dominant, omegas submissive, and so on. Scientifically the hot-cold theory has a little backing, though we’re talking an average temperature difference of 0.2 to 0.5 degrees max. But with Cardan so close to me, practically radiating heat, I am almost inclined to believe it.

We’re not touching too much. He has sort of nestled his face into the juncture of my neck and shoulder, and if I hadn’t slept in my sweatshirt I could probably feel his eyelashes tickle my skin. His hand found the curve of my waist in the night. But that’s it. The rest of him is a few inches away, like even in sleep he finds it difficult to overcome his revulsion to me.

It’s almost comfortable, if I forget who I am and who he is. Not even what I am and what he is, because Madoc’s position means that if any handsome, eligible alpha bachelors deigned to outright marry an omega, as he had once married our mother, Taryn and I would be the best of the bunch—best-connected, best-educated, best-groomed. No, it’s that he is Cardan and I am Jude, and I have hated him ever since my body put itself at war with my brain, and he has hated me too, just because I was afforded some small amount of privilege without being born into it.

And still, I stay there for a minute, soaking up his warmth. Because I didn’t think I’d have this anytime soon. I didn’t think I’d get to wake up next to a boy cuddling me, not after what happened with Valerian and definitely not after what happened with Locke. And even though these are the worst circumstances, and this is the worst boy, there’s something perversely nice about it.

Or maybe I just like things that are bad for me.

I was thinking of seeing if girls were better when I got to college, but they don’t really explain how alpha-omega girl sex works in school and I am not about to ask Vivi. And now I don’t know if I’ll even make it to college, so maybe it’s not so bad if I steal a moment of peace.

But then the stink of mildew cuts through Cardan’s rich sweet-musky-boy scent and I am forcibly reminded of where we are and why, especially now of all times, I can’t afford to be soft. So I jam my elbow back into his side, and if I do it with maybe a little less force than I normally would, well, it’s not like he knows that.

Cardan awakens with a start. “Ow!” he says, rolling over onto his back and pressing a hand to his side. “What the hell!”

“You’re fine.” I sit up, take down my now grody ponytail, run my fingers through it and begin to put it up again, watching him out of the corner of my eye. “Today’s the day.”

Cardan scowls at me, rubbing his side.

“Do or die day,” I clarify, looping my elastic around another time. “In case you forgot.”

“I remember,” he huffs. “That mattress is terrible.”

“Well, maybe tonight you’ll get to sleep in your own bed. Or maybe we’ll be dead. Or we’ll be locked in this room again and you can sleep on the floor.”

“Such tempting options. However will I choose?”

I roll my shoulders, trying to work the kinks out of my muscles. “My guess is we’re going to be held up with the police for questioning for a long time. You might not have to. Maybe the choice will be made for you.”

“As always, Duarte, I do so admire your rosy outlook.” Cardan finger-combs his hair and sits up all the way, blinking at me. “I’m still worried about the third guy.”

I don’t tell him that I’d been thinking the same thing. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I say quietly. “We have two other bridges to cross first.”

Only a minute or so after I say it, there’s that knock on the door. I glance at Cardan, who needs to play the role of alpha today, and wait for him to speak, even though it sucks to defer to him. He takes his time about it, too, stretching his long legs, running his fingers through his hair once more, like he has all the time in the world, like the person on the other end of the door should be so lucky as to strangle him.

Just as I’m about to strangle him, he calls, “Yes?”

The door opens. The scarred man and his gun are there, along with, absurdly, a little paper Starbucks bag in his other hand. An upgrade. He looks at me and Cardan—we’re now both sitting on the mattress, even though we are a few feet apart—but if he has any comments he keeps them to himself. He shakes the bag like he’s trying to call in a wayward dog. “Breakfast.”

“Thanks,” I say, because it is my place to be deferential.

“No coffee?” Cardan asks.

I whip my head around to glare at him. The man grunts, “Didn’t know how you took it.” Disconcertingly, I can’t tell if he has a sense of humor or if he’s serious.

Airily, Cardan says, “Fine. Put it down wherever.”

The scarred man raises both his eyebrows, but he half-sets, half-drops the bag on the floor and backtracks through the door, closing it and leaving us alone. Cardan goes over to retrieve it and peers inside. “Okay, looks like sausage, egg, and cheddar and… turkey bacon?”

I hold out my hand. “Give me the turkey bacon.”

“Oh, thank god,” Cardan says, and this time he doesn’t take a bite out of it before he hands it to me.

“Not a fan of turkey bacon?”

He scowls. “It’s all healthy. Plus, it’s not like turkeys actually have a belly to cut bacon from. You have to grind it up and make it yourself.”

I snort, but am happy for his judgment if it means my breakfast escapes unscathed. It doesn’t surprise me that Cardan couldn’t care less about eating healthily. From what I know, he has a mostly liquid diet, and the liquid is mainly alcohol. Not that it matters much. He probably won’t be able to keep getting away with it after a few more years, but right now his body takes pretty much everything he consumes and uses it to build him more muscle.

I think of how hard I have to strength train for a fraction of what Cardan gains just by existing, and how some of the training shows, especially in my arms and back, but the rest is buried under a cozy layer of body fat, and I kind of want to strangle him again. Just one of the many downsides of being an omega.

Since I don’t have any fun facts about turkey bacon to contribute, we eat breakfast without speaking. We had agreed that it was important to get our strength up for whatever lies ahead, but I find it hard to chew and swallow, even though the sandwich is lukewarm. I end up offering the last half to Cardan, who takes it despite his complaints.

Then, once enough time has passed, he gives me a look, and I nod and stand, shaking my legs out. Instead of staying in my usual corner, I stand next to the door, tense, waiting. With one last glance at me, Cardan strides over and knocks.

We have a system with our captors now. They know that the knocking means we want out for one reason or another. They either call through the door to find out why or just open it right away. This time, the door simply opens. Cardan stays where he is and does not move to the back of the room.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s that time again.”

It’s the woman’s voice I hear, and I am privately thankful. “Okay, back up.”

“But I was hoping I could go first.”

“Back up.”

Cardan takes one step back. It’s now that she realizes that I’m not in my corner. Just a little further, I think. And she gives me the half-step I need.

“What’d you do with your friend?” she asks.

To answer that question, I grab her by her shirt and drag her into the cell.

Surprise is a legitimate advantage, but a fleeting one. Since she’s armed and I’m not, I need to move fast. I don’t have to think much about it. I jam my knee into her stomach; all of the air leaves her lungs in a startled gasp, and her grip loosens on the gun. I pry it from her hand with one of mine and use the other, still fisted into her shirt, to pull her further into the room—and let go.

It only takes a few seconds. I dart out. Cardan has already gone ahead, as I told him to, and I pull the door to behind me, quickly twisting the lock on the knob. That was phase one.

“Um, Jude,” says Cardan.

I turn, raising my stolen pistol in front of me before I do anything else, finger resting dangerously near the trigger. The scarred man stands on the other side of the table, his gun also raised. But instead of aiming it at Cardan, as we thought he would, he is pointing that barrel at me.

“This is a surprise,” he says.

Behind me, the doorknob rattles as the woman realizes I’ve locked her in.

“Let her out,” the man tells us, voice steady and slow.

“Or what?” I ask. Somehow, my voice doesn’t shake. “We’re both armed. Let us go and I won’t shoot you.”

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” he asks.

“What do you think?”

He cocks his head to look me over, evaluate my posture, my steady grip. “Huh,” he says, and then he moves to point his gun at Cardan instead. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cardan’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I’ll only ask nicely one more time.”

I snort. “Sure. Do me the favor.”

The scarred man raises an eyebrow. Cardan whispers, “Jude?” like he isn’t sure whether or not I am playing a game. I am not sure either. I am intoxicated by the adrenaline pulsing through me.

“We’re not friends,” I clarify. “Shoot him if you want.”

Cardan gives me a panicked look.

“Of course, if you’ve promised to give him back alive, that’s going to cause some trouble.” My palm is sweaty. I shift my grip on the gun. The knob rattles again at my back, and I hear a soft curse, a hand slamming on the door. “It’s your call.”

The man’s lip curls into a kind of terrible smile. “All right, girl,” he says. “You go free. He stays. Leave the gun on the top step.”

I blink. “Really?”

“Final offer.”

I should go right away. Instead, I glance at Cardan, who has gone pale. But he looks at me again, and then, defying all my understanding of him, he whispers, “Go, Jude.”

So I do. Slowly, my entire body quivering with tension, I walk backwards up the stairs, keeping my pistol trained on the scarred man until the last possible moment. I try the knob at the top, and find it unlocked. It seems too easy, but with one last, stomach-churning glimpse of Cardan’s white face, I flee. But I don’t do everything. I do not give up the gun.

The house I step into has obviously long been abandoned—it was probably never even finished. Some of the walls have gaping holes in the plaster, the support beams visible; some were never plastered at all. There is no furniture to speak of. I don’t linger to take it in. I start running, through a hallway, in the direction of what might be the front door. When I find it, I tumble out into bright morning sunlight, and I keep going.

Immediately I know I am well and truly in the middle of nowhere. All around me is a field of overgrown grass. If there is a road, I cannot see or hear it. Still, I have to assume there was once a driveway that led somewhere, so I take off as fast as I can toward a distant line of trees. I do not wonder about Cardan. I do not wonder about anything.

For a minute it is just me, my feet flattening the dew-damp grass, my lungs straining with every breath. I am alone in a way that I haven’t been in days. Then there is a crack from behind me, and then I feel something rush past my face, just missing me. Startled, I drop the stolen pistol, which lands harmlessly in the grass and thankfully does not fire. I don’t stop running for it. Stopping is the last thing I should do, not when I am so close.

Still, my stomach drops. Without slowing too much, I glance over my shoulder back at the house. The second floor is half-intact, and I can kind of see through the wall—there might be a dark shape perched there. A man. The third man.

He’s a sniper.

I swear under my breath, and my panicked heart skips a beat. They chose this place on purpose. There’s no cover out here, giving them a clear view of whoever might be coming or going. Giving them time to move us in case the cavalry arrived. My only choices are to keep running until I am out of range, or stop, and go back. And I am not doing that.

If I die out here alone, for nothing, I will feel so incredibly stupid.

There’s another crack, now unmistakably the sound of a rifle being fired, and this time I feel when it hits—really more of a graze, but it still skims through my flesh about midway up my calf, leaving a tear in its wake. The strange thing is that, at first, being shot doesn’t hurt at all. It doesn’t feel like much of anything. It shouldn’t be enough to make me miss my step. I falter anyway, and when I bring my foot down I land on it wrong and roll my ankle. I drop with a cry into the grass, tears stinging the corner of my eyes.

But even then I keep going, crawling on my hands and knees through the long summer grass, blinking back my tears because I refuse to let myself cry. I don’t look at my ankle or my wound. It is only when I hear the grass crunching underfoot behind me, and a shadow falls over me, that I finally, finally stop moving forward.

I don’t stop fighting, though. The man—Cardan had described him as tall, and he was right—picks me up with some effort and, without a word, throws me over his shoulder like a sack of garbage. After adjusting me a little so my weight is more evenly distributed, he turns to carry me back to the house. All the time I am squirming, trying to kick, pounding at his back with my fists, screaming with the faint hope that someone might hear me. It isn’t enough to get the sniper to loosen his grip on my waist, but I do feel him wince in pain a couple of times, giving me some small, bitter satisfaction.

All I think is, I shouldn’t have dropped the gun.

Despair begins to set in as we reenter the unfinished house, as the sniper shoulders his way through the door to the basement and carries me down the stairs. Cardan is seated in a chair, rumpled but seemingly unharmed, his hands behind his back. Apparently, someone has bothered to tie him up or handcuff him this time. He sits forward when he sees me carried in. “Jude?”

“Are you sure he’s the alpha?” the sniper asks his companions. “He seems to have gone easy on you.” He deposits me into another chair, and the woman is there immediately to cuff my hands, threading the handcuff chain through the chair back so I am well and truly stuck. I see that some of my blood has soaked into the sniper’s black shirt and think, Good. My leg is starting to hurt now, in throbs, like a bad burn.

“You shot her?” Cardan asks, straining against his bonds.

“I’m fine,” I say, avoiding his gaze. I cannot believe he would do something as stupid as give himself up so I could go free. I look at my wounded calf, streaked red. There is an angry-looking tear there, but it could have been much worse. He didn’t hit bone. “It’s a graze.”

“Because he’s good at his job,” says the scarred man.

The sniper shakes his head and disappears into the room beyond the bathroom. He returns with a first aid kit and begins to stoop down next to me so he can clean my calf, but I raise my foot, threatening to kick him again.

“That’s enough,” the scarred man says. “Believe it or not, we don’t want to hurt you kids.”

“Not,” I mutter under my breath.

“Hurting you wasn’t part of the remit unless you misbehaved,” says the sniper. “Is that more believable?”

I scowl and hold out my leg so that he can clean the wound. Cardan’s eyes narrow. “We can’t just trust you,” he says, as a stinging antiseptic pad is applied to the torn skin and I flinch. “We don’t even know who you are. Give us something. Names. Something to call you.”

The scarred man and the woman look at each other. The woman says, “You can call me the Bomb. This is the Roach. That—” She points to the sniper. “Is the Ghost. You can figure out why for yourself.”

“You call yourself the Roach?” Cardan asks. “Wow. I mean, love yourself a little.”

To my surprise, the man grins. “Not my choice, but we don’t get to choose. How’s her leg?”

“The twisted ankle is going to give her the most trouble,” the Ghost replies. He presses a clean cotton pad to the wound and binds it in gauze. Then he starts on wrapping my ankle. He’s efficient; he’s done this before. “Although I’m guessing we don’t want her mobile anyway.”

“I wouldn’t mind if she taught me a couple of moves,” the Bomb says, rubbing her stomach. I wonder if I bruised her. “What was that, karate?”

“Krav maga,” I admit, glaring at the Ghost as he props my foot up on the nearest empty chair. Ignoring me, he stands and leaves to wash his hands. “I’ve been training since I was nine.”

The Roach lets out a low whistle. “Someone didn’t want you getting jumped.”

I turn my glare on him. “For all the good it did me.”

For reasons I don’t understand, the Roach grins and holds up his hands. “This? This is just a paperwork dispute. Once everything’s signed and sealed, we’ll turn you loose.”

“Lot of hassle for some paperwork,” Cardan remarks. “You could have just let Jude go if it isn’t that big of a deal.”

“I’m starting to see it,” the Bomb says to the Ghost. “Although, yeah, I could have sworn the girl was the alpha too for a second there.”

And if that isn’t absurd enough, Cardan leans toward me across the table and asks, “Did they teach you how to slip handcuffs in krav maga school?”

“Do you want to dislocate your thumbs?” the Ghost asks abruptly, reemerging from the bathroom.

I give Cardan a shrug and a nod—that is how to do it—and he shudders.

“Look, we know just about everything there is to know about this guy,” says the Roach, pulling out the last empty chair and sitting across from me. “But now I’m curious about you.”

I blink. “There’s not much to say.”

“He has quite a file on him,” says the Bomb, jerking her head to indicate Cardan, who pulls an innocent face. “But you were nowhere in it. We thought you were a bystander, a fling, or maybe his new girlfriend��”

“His what?” I squawk.

“But you’re way more interesting than that,” the Roach concludes. “Cardan told us this whole little escape plan was yours.”

The Ghost, for his part, leans against the wall, folds his arms over his chest, and says nothing. I decide I would like him best except for the part where he shot me.

“Why don’t you just let Cardan tell my life story, then?” I snap, angry at everything and everyone.

“Gladly,” Cardan says, looking a little too gleeful. “Jude Duarte was born with a chip on her shoulder. She’s glaring about ninety percent of the time and never lets her guard down, ever. As far as I know, she’s only gotten drunk once. She and her sister were the first omegas to graduate from our school, and Jude staged a coup by being named valedictorian, too, as if being first at just one thing wasn’t good enough. Our last semester, she gave a kid a black eye and got him expelled.”

“Why?” The Bomb asks. “What did he do?”

Cardan lapses into an embarrassed silence that I don’t really understand. Valerian had been his friend, once. Maybe still is. I say casually, “He tried to do what alphas always do,” like I don’t still feel the awful weight on top of me, the cheekbone cracking under my knuckles. “So I did what I had to.”

“They expel kids for that now?” asks the Roach. “Huh. Good on them.”

“Jude’s dad made a persuasive case,” Cardan says.

They exchange bemused glances. The Ghost asks, “Who’s her dad?”

Cardan and I look at each other across the table. They really don’t know.

“My adoptive father,” I clarify, because it matters. “He’s a lawyer. Uh, his last name’s Madoc?”

“Oh,” says the Roach. “Shit.”

#jurdan #judecardan #jude x cardan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #the folk of the air #jurdan fanfic #mine: fic #fic: 132 hours

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everythingthatsgoingon · 3 years

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Thoughts about chapter 189 (so, obviously, spoilers)

Okaaay so... I'm starting to find it difficult to think of a way Senku's kingdom could win right now. I mean we're not even sure they have any diamonds or Medusas left after that explosion?! There's no saying if Gen will flee before Stanley's forces arrive and kill him, Xeno is basically already rescued, we don't really know where Max, Carlos and Chrome are at the end either (hopefully they're with Senku and Kaseki). Things sure have taken a turn for the worst. (Damn Stanley's intuition.)

What cards do they still have? Well the best one left seems to be Ukyo. He was following Stanley's people this chapter, so if they didn't leave too many soldiers with the hostages he might be able to free them (I mean the Americans would probably expect the few fighters left to hold down the fort, or anyone following them to have been spotted like the 3 others were, so he might really have a chance). Which means Matsukase rejoining the battle (he could help against grenades, guns would just kill him though) and the possibility for Suika, François or Ginro to help as well.

Ukyo could also buy them (whoever them ends up being, be it just Senku and Kaseki or all of those I already mentioned) time to flee and continue trying to craft that diamond elsewhere; against guns, his bow is the only weapon that might really have a chance. Though if he doesn't want to get shot he'll have to switch spots between each arrow, so who knows how effective that'll be. Besides the Americans seem to be very effective in tracking down their prey, so fleeing might not work that well.

One thing I think would be incredibly interesting would be if Ukyo chose to shoot to kill. Yes, Ukyo is very much against killing, but with 5 of his companions already dead and the idea that the science team will use Medusa to resurrect everyone, he might decide he doesn't have another choice no matter how inconceivable killing is for him. That would be an interesting piece of character development - how would he deal with it afterwards? And even if he doesn't choose to kill, him actually hitting a limb to slow them down would be something new, as I don't recall him ever doing so (probably because they never had the resources to treat grave injuries properly, so he would still risk killing the person).

What other possibilities are there? Well a scientific weapon of course. I don't think a threatening one would be enough (like the nitroglycerin back during the Stone Wars), they'd probably need to actually use it. So something to kill the soldiers without injuring them - poisonous gaz or something - maybe?

Last option is Xeno changing his mind. It's not completely impossible, but it's definitely not done yet ; we'd need a couple more "things" (discussions, events, I dunno... ) to tip the balance. But yeah, I won't hold my breath.

I'm still convinced no one will actually die in the end, and even though I'm a little anxious, it's also thrilling not to have any idea how that battle will end because I'm sure to be surprised.

Despite this not being likely at all, I'm also imagining the manga just - ending there. Senku and everyone (save maybe the hostages, Luna and Chelsea) being killed. The protagonists lost, nothing is resolved and yet boom, the end. It's basically impossible, and I'd be incredibly disappointed not to get answers, but it would also be great from a narrative point of view - so unusual and daring. (Let's pray that doesn't happen though.)

#dr stone #dr. stone

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ironwoman18 · 3 years

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Garvez Moments Part 11

Chapter 11: Hurricane Andrew

“Where is Luke?!” asked Penelope in between contractions “he promised to be here when our baby arrives”

“He’s still in Florida” said Max “there’s a hurricane”

24 hours earlier

“Ok I will order the food while you pick the movie” said Penelope from the couch and with a big baby bump. Her doctor was worry because she developed a high risk pregnancy so the last month will be at home.

Luke took care of her as much as he could due to his job, and when he cannot, Max and her sisters helped. The art teacher and now member of the Smithsonian’s team had more free times than Luke or Spencer so she was there for the former TA of the BAU.

But this last week Luke asked for a few days off to watch over her. And now they will have a relaxing Tuesday afternoon.

“Sounds perfect, I think I will pick a nice movie so Andrew learn what he should be watching”

Penelope rolled her eyes “you mean Richard? Because that will be his name” they decided to know the gender of their baby so they could have the perfect bedroom for him or her.

They gave the letter to Dave and Krystal so they organized the baby shower and let them know. When the blue cupcake was revealing… the battle began.

Penelope wanted her dad’s name and Luke wanted his, so when they talked about the baby, they used the name they wanted and that started fights between them.

“Whatever… I will find the perfect movie” Luke said irritated but did not want to continue because it might put him and his beloved wife in a fight.

Penelope ordered their favorite Thai food, they had been together for a year and a half and he learned to love her food choices and she still has struggles with his, because of the meat products but respect him.

His phone started to ring “oh hell no… I told Emily I will be busy with you and I can’t answer”

“Babe… your job needs you and I’m sure a poor woman is in need because a horrible man is hurting her”

He sighed but answered “hey Emily”

“Oh hey Luke… I’m soo sorry, I know you asked me for a few days off and I know Penelope needs to be in bed for the rest of the ninth month but I really need you here”

“Why? You have JJ, Spencer, Dave, Tara and Matt”

“Actually Matt is sick and JJ sons are sick and Will is in New Orleans” he sighed “and Tara is visiting her father… So I will need you”

“Ok I will be there in a few minutes” he said and hung up “I will ask Max if she can come here while I’m out”

“It’s ok honey. I will call her while you are getting ready” he nodded and kissed his cheek then she got out her phone and call Spencer’s wife. They talked for a while. And Max accepted to be there in ten minutes.

When Luke was ready, he walked out of their room “did you talk to Max?”

“Yes, she accepted to come. It will take her some minutes to be here so you can go to catch the bad boys” she smiled at him “Call me please” he nodded and leaned in to kiss her.

“I love you”

“I love you too” he smiled and left the house.

Present day

“A hurricane?!” almost screamed Penelope “I shouldn’t let him go!” she said a little frustrated.

“I know the feeling, I’m worry about Spence too but we have to wait” said Max holding her hand “trust him, he will be here as soon as he can”

15 hours earlier

“Ok so the unsub is killing black men?” Luke asked and the policeman nodded,

“They are all in good shape and they are young, maybe in their 20s or 30s” commented him “according to the forensic doctor he killed this men with a knife”

“And when did this start?” asked Spencer.

“Two weeks ago”

Spencer’s brain started to work; if you paid close attention to the boy genius you could see and hear it working. He looked at his coworker and the policeman “the hurricane started two weeks ago according to the weather channel”

Luke started to realize what his partner meant “you think this man is doing this because of the hurricanes?”

“In the past the Aztecs, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Incas thought that there was a god that can control weather. So to ask for their good will they used sacrifices to please him. Maybe this man thinks he’s doing the same”

“Maybe it’s time to give the profile” he said looking at the dead man in front of them.

They said that the unsub could be a man in his 20s or 30s, he could be in good shape and very athletic like his victims. He could have polytheistic cultures knowledge and think he is saving Florida because of the sacrifices he is doing. When he realized that they are not working, he will scale and kill more people. They had to stop him sooner.

Present day.

JJ arrived at the hospital, they gave Penelope a room and they are waiting for her time to give birth. She found Max outside with her phone.

“Hey Max, thankfully Will arrived and I could come here” she said to her “where are my godson and goddaughter?”

She smiled “with their grandfather and aunt. They accepted to watch them while I was with Penelope. But now im worry. Spencer doesn’t answer and neither does Emily nor Luke”

“I called Ashley, you know the new TA and she said they were having trouble with their phones due to the hurricane but thankfully they capture the bad guy so they are waiting for the hurricane to move away so they can return”

“Oh thank God…” said the brunette smiling “how are Henry and Michael?”

“Better… they had a cold but I always am worry with Michael especially since Henry had a convulsion when he was about Michael age”

“Oh my… but I’m happy they are better” the blonde smiled.

“I will go see Penelope, you see if you can call Ashley to ask her for them” she nodded and JJ left to talk to her female best friend.

5 hours earlier

The hurricane was getting worse and the unsub had his last victim, this time he captured a woman, younger and beautiful “I’m sure this time the gods will forgive us! I was wrong about using men” he had a crazy look in his eyes.

Before he moved his knife to her throat the team arrived. Spencer was next to Luke holding his gun. He could not help but went to the field to help. He looked at the knife; it was clearly a sacrificial one.

“Back off! I have to save us with this sacrifice!” said him holding the knife.

“Enrique Diaz, I can’t let you kill this woman, it won’t stop the storm” said Spencer with a calm voice “she isn’t the solution”

“How do you know?”

Spencer thought quickly “Because I saw a prophecy” he said putting down the gun, playing along with the unsub “the storm will stop in 6 hours…”

“Because that’s the time a soul takes to arrive to the gods’ palace”

“No, this woman will take longer because she isn’t as pure as you think” he looked at the scared woman, she was confused but decided to remain silence “if you stop killing it will prove them you are committed to let them do their judgement”

“Their judgement?” Spencer nodded “so they won’t stop…”

“No” the man had some tears and dropped the knife. Luke immediately ran to capture the man and spencer helped the victim.

Dave and Emily were at the other door as backup if the killer got crazy.

The rest of the time they stayed at the hotel waiting for the hurricane to past that part of the city.

When it happened the team was able to fly back to Washington DC as fast as the plane could. After the plane touched the land they all left to the hospital just in time to see Luke find out his son was about to arrive into this world.

The nervousness started to run thru his veins. Will be him a good father? Will he be a good support for his wife and son?

“babe you are here” said Penelope after he walked in and sat next to her.

“Yes… I’m sorry chica… a hurricane didn’t let me to be here earlier” he said with a smile “I wish it didn’t happen so I can be here with you”

“its ok my love” she kissed him softly then the doctor started to order her to push. The all peace and love Penelope disappeared and the angry and aggressive one started to treat him to dead for leaving her almost 7 hours in labor while he was in Florida.

Luke knew this was not his chica so he ignored it, she calmed and asked for forgiveness, she was just in so much pain.

A new contraction started and the aggressive woman reappeared “New guy!! You ruined my life… I won’t have another kid with you!”

“You are doing good Penelope. One more and your baby will be here” the doctor said. The couple nodded.

A few seconds later Penelope pushed one more time and they could hear a new kind of cry, the cry of a new person in the world, the cry of their baby boy.

The nurse cleaned him and covered him with a blanked. Then they checked his weight and size.

“You did it great chica, I’m very proud of you” he kissed her forehead.

“Thank you for be here and for helping me with this” she smiled and kissed his cheek then the nurse arrived with the baby.

“Here’s your baby, does he have a name?”

They nodded and when Luke was about to talk Penelope did it first “Andrew Ricardo Alvez Garcia” she smiled and looked at the nurse who smiled and left.

“Andrew? I thought you wanted a different name”

“Yes but you sacrificed a day off to work and you are our hero so that’s your price for doing the right thing, even if that means you weren’t around for a day”

He had some tears and but smiled “I received a lot of recognitions but this is the best I ever get” he kissed his son head “hey buddy. Daddy is here” he smiled big and enjoy his time with his family.

After some more minutes he walked out of the room, all the team and some member of their families were there.

“A new baby boy joined the BAU family. Andrew Ricardo Alvez Garcia” they all smiled and hugged the new father. Kristin handed him a present for the baby and so did the rest of the team.

“You know what is curious?” said Spencer to him “I just heard that the storm we were in its path a few hours ago was named Andrew as well”

“Well my son will be a hurricane then” he laughed and hugged the family he made in the last few years. The members of the BAU were his family in DC.

OOooOOooOO

I hope you liked it. I wasn’t sure what to do exactly for this baby, I had the idea of the hurricane but didn’t want to repeat a case like the one where the unsub was building a body.

This idea of the “old gods” came to me as I was writing; I hope it’s a good M.O. and a “good” reason to kill during a hurricane.

Suggestions are open. Also my stories post season 15 are connected so in this interconnected world The Worst Third Date Ever, Our Most Wanted Date, Double dates and this one are connected and details of Maxcer and the new TA are in the first story, and the evolution of Garvez are in the rest of the stories.

#garvez #penelope garcia #luke alvez #criminal mind #fanfiction

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my-brothers-corrupted · 3 years

Text

Chapter Four - Part 5

Anti is angry Dapper won't come back to his room and warns of consequences. Red decides to get Dapper's medicine back on his own terms, with a little help from his brothers.

Tws for medication refusal, manipulation, slapping, choking, and abuse between brothers.

Part 5 - Haloperidol

Trick watches at the window, so Anti is silent when he comes downstairs.

He watches his boy. Trick’s head stays turned towards the window. One hand on his gun. One hand on Dok’s shoulder as his twin sleeps. Anti’s good guard dog. Always watching.

The others are asleep in the bed, Dapper pressed between the twins, warm with their arms wrapped around him. He is supposed to be sleeping. That’s why Trick is watching, after all - so Dapper can rest, and trust somebody else to guard for Dark for him.

But he isn’t asleep. Anti knows. Anti can tell.

He is a form without outline, his eye glowing red, a hateful and angry form that sends shuddering across the whole of Dapper’s chest. His silver eyes slide open, his mouth pressed tightly shut. He stares up at Anti. Anti stares back. Blue murmurs in his sleep and presses his chest against Dapper’s side, sighing.

Dapper doesn’t let go of him.

“Tomorrow,” signs Anti, silent, silent, even his usual buzzing gone dead. “You will come upstairs.”

“I won’t,” signs Dapper.

“Your medicine is upstairs. You’ll come get it.”

Something cold wraps itself around Dapper’s chest. His Haldol. He has to have it. He has to.

“If I don’t?” he dares to sign.

“You wanted free choice,” answer Anti’s bitter hands. “Choose.”

He glitches away like a TV flickering off. Trick shifts in place and turns his head, glancing around at his siblings. He sees nothing wrong. Dapper shakes against Blue’s body. Dok nightmares of blood and spiders. Red murmurs Max’s name in his sleep.

In Trick’s eyes, all is well.

Anonymous asked: Anti? Genuine question; why do you want him with you? Why not let him be down here with the others?

Anti slams his hands down on the bedside table, staring out the great window of the master bedroom, his eyes dark, alone.

“He,” he begins, and then stops again, shaking his head.

“He belongs to me,” he says finally. Bitterly, he turns his face away. “You think I’m not aware that this is following apart around me? There have to be consequences when he disobeys me. He belongs to me. He should be up here. I - I want him up here! I don’t like sleeping without him! I don’t like that I could wake up and something could go badly and Dapper wouldn’t be here to - to - to undo it! To protect…”

His voice glitches. He touches his face and turns away, growling.

Anonymous asked: You're Anti, for fuck's sake. Aren't you always going on about how powerful you are? What do you think is gonna happen?

“Things have happened before,” he snarls, biting at his teeth like a horse with a bit. “Things I won’t let happen again. If he had been closer to me the night they came to steal him back from me, a lot would be different.”

He grits his hands together, shaking his head. “Jackie and Marvin gave me this fucking fear,” he says, stepping back from the window as a bird descends onto the sill, regarding him with cold black eyes. “It’s never gone away since, no matter how much control I seem to get. It’s never enough. I always need more. Now I’m losing what I had. I have to have it back. And I want him asleep beside me. I need him asleep beside me.”

Anonymous asked: Ah, I see. You got spooked by Jackie and Marvin, and now you need to keep Jameson under your thumb at all times in case something happens again. Well done, Anti, truly impressive. Can you not let them stay together? It's not like any of them can hurt you, and from what you've said about Dark I doubt they would either.

“You all know they’re taking steps away from me. That’s why you want this. I won’t pretend it’s not a big deal. It is a big deal. He’s always slept with me, since he was days old. Anyway, I gave him his choice. He can have his medicine or he can stay with his siblings.”

He snags a laptop from the bed and tears a page from one of Dapper’s sketchbooks in half, scrawling over a drawing of a mouse in a trap.

Red - for you. I’ve reset you since the last time you helped me hack a server to pieces, but you’ll recognize the programming quick enough. Keep an eye out for foreign viruses and set up a firewall. Gigi will try to get into the camera system. The code for you to access it is 3110.

He leaves the computer and the note at the bottom of the stairs. With every step he seems to pace, his eyes sliding, flickering from screen to screen, watching what belongs to him.

Anonymous asked: That's hardly a fucking choice, is it, Anti? Have you even considered not forcing them? This drives them away faster, and after all this time I don't see why you haven't just done the calculations yet and realized that if you're kind to them, they'll want to fight against you much less than how you're handling it now.

Anti snarls with frustration, tugging at his hair. “That’s so stupid, fuck! That doesn’t keep people around! Doesn’t matter what you try to be! Not for me, anyway. I tried to be fucking kind to Dapper when he was first mine! He was all I wanted! He was all I’d wanted for a long time! But no matter what I did - ah!”

Anti screams and slams his foot into the bedside drawer, kicking straight through the wood like it’s cardboard.

“He still wanted to fucking leave! He still - ”

Anti lurches forward. He closes his eyes, looking suddenly pale and in pain, doubling over himself. He heaves once but doesn’t get sick.

“Need Blue back too,” he mumbles, nauseated. “Magic’s kicking up in me again. Still worth it, before you criticize me for that too. Still worth having him under my heel. Knowing he’ll never burn me down to ash and essence ever again.”

He shakes his head out, trying to regain his calm.

“Doesn’t matter what I’ve tried,” he growls, turning his head away. “I was made to be a monster and I’ve never been able to make anyone want to stay without tying them down. It doesn’t fucking bother me. Having control through blood is better anyway, so much better anyway, and I love when they cower and simper for my attention. Like Trick, haha. Even Dok used to whine for my attention like that. The rush of it! There’s nothing like that. I’ll break him down to wanting me like that again. I am still wild powerful. Wild powerful. And when Dark helps me make them stay, everything will be fine again.”

Anonymous asked: You're the one making it into a fight. The harder you push them, the more they'll push back. Give them some time together and they'll be glad for it, Anti. I honestly do not know why you think pushing them until they break will work again. Maybe when you could do it one on one, but now? They'll give you hell for it if you try with any one of them. Give them a bit of kindness instead and they'll be grateful, more complacent.

“I’m waiting for Dark’s help,” says Anti quietly. “But Dapper should be up here. That’s that. I won’t budge on it. He’s mine. He’s the only thing Jack ever meant to make that was mine.”

Anonymous asked: And how exactly will Dark help? Last I heard, they can't go in the fucking house.

“Some of you just aren’t listening,” answers Anti, irritated. “Leave me alone. I already told you and Dark that if they fail to take one of my puppets from me before the week is out, they owe me a favor. We’re just playing games. You all act like Dark’s an enemy. I thought you would like to see them!”

He seems to calm a little, turning back to the window as he sits down on the side of his bed, staring out. The darkness is a blanket over the forest, deep and warm and familiar.

“I’m glad to see them,” he murmurs. “We’re playing games again. They always played the best games. And then, at the end of them… mh.”

Something in his eyes softens like butter.

He seems to realize it a moment later, because he turns away.

“Leave me be,” he says. A flicker of his hand and the lights turn off. “I let them be for the night. Let me be.”

Anonymous asked: One last question; will they be harmed, if Dark takes them?

“What’s Dark going to do? They’ve done as I asked since we started to know each other better. They understand I keep puppets. They wouldn’t hurt them beyond repair. All Dark does is… twist things a little.”

Anti smiles. Cold and bitter in the darkness.

“Manipulation isn’t just a talent with them. It’s a magic. And when Dark is done with them, well - they’ll all know there’s much worse things to fear than me.”

It would make a dramatic end to the night if he could just ignore you and fall asleep. But despite his words, despite his determination, despite his anger, Anti is still alone.

You can see him lying awake in bed for long hours, staring at the wall and digging his fingers into the empty space on the mattress beside him.

bupine asked: what exactly is dark to you, anti? if i'm allowed to ask that?

Anti watches the sun come up and the shadows go. He scowls at the message, going slightly pink.

“Dark’s not anything to me. I just want their help with this, that’s all. Dark’s not anything to me. Most of the time.”

He plays with Dapper’s medicine bottle, rolling it between his hands.

“They were such a fucking joke at first. Fucking hated them. Sick creep growling at me all low. But they had a fascination with me, and I was… alone. So we started fighting. And then I kept coming back to fight with them again and again. Then we weren’t fighting. Just playing. We could beat each other down to essence and still be playing. I trusted them to tear me apart and leave me bleeding. There was something good about it. And then, sometimes, they would touch their hand to my body as they passed me. Touch their hand to my skin. Not afraid of my body.”

A glitch shivers through him. He puts his chin down on his knees.

“I like power,” he says. “I don’t like humans. I like things that can match me. I’m attracted to things that can match me… and things that are desperate to have me, cause otherwise, what’s the fun? So I’m not often attracted to anyone. But they… proved themselves.”

He shivers again, a smile curling on his mouth, though it lacks its usual smugness. He opens up his hand to let the light dance through it, setting Dapper’s Haldol back in the drawer.

“I like Dark. Dark thinks I’m fascinating. They always want me and I - I like that. Every year or so, I make time for them, and they purr and gloat over me. I let them think they own me for a couple days. It’s fun. They’re beautiful. Sometimes, they make me feel good. And less alone. We fight and snap at each other for fun. That’s all.”

He turns and shoots you a glare. “So don’t call them my lover, you little sixteenth-century dweebs. I rarely even call them a friend. Besides, Dark was important to me because they - they don’t live alone. And they don’t feel anything but hatred for their creator. And I think I wanted something more like what they had. Have. It looked so much easier. Though I am definitely not jealous of that stupid backstory. That’s one thing I don’t mind being neglected on. I’ll stick with just having popped into existence, thanks very much.”

He sighs, tucking his chin into his hand. Then he catches himself, scowling, shaking his head.

“You don’t need to know, though. You’re not Dap. I just don’t have anyone to talk to. Go away. Dark’s not anything to me.”

aether-mae asked: Have you met any of Darks masters other creations? You said he wasn’t alone, does he control those creations or live peacefully with them?

“Yeah, I’ve met a bunch of them, but most of them are mostly human, so I’m not really interested. Especially since Mark creates jokes just for his own entertainment. Jack’s power would run out of control because he would fixate too hard on one of us for months on end and create without control over the final product - Mark’s is out of control because he gets a thought into his head and five minutes later, boom, new baby.

“Dark controls them, but the others think they live peacefully. As if Dark couldn’t make them do anything they wanted them to do, ha.”

He works rapidly on his computer, his shoulders pulled tensely towards his body and his mouth smiling tightly. “Bet they try something today,” he growls, grinning and stressed at the same time. “Them or my Carver getting into trouble. Trying to take what’s not theirs. I wish he’d just come get his fucking medicine. Stubborn little brat. He gets that from me, goddamn.”

“He’s decided he’ll go without it,” says Henrik, pale in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. “His medicine.”

“He’s determined this time,” mumbles Red, plucking at the keys of his computer. “Let me know when Anti gets pissed enough to come drag him upstairs and I’ll see what I can do.”

Henrik steps forward and shuts the laptop on Red’s legs, forcing him to look up at him, surprised.

“Red,” he implores, eyebrows creasing with worry. “He needs his medicine. Just because he’s not being tortured directly doesn’t mean this isn’t going to hurt him, badly. You want to see him psychotic again?”

“What do you want me to do?” protests Red.

“I don’t know! Something!”

Henrik paces around the door. Red shakes his head, trying to think. “Maybe I can convince Anti. Is that even worth trying?”

“I don’t know. This is just… this is all bad, Red. I’ve never seen him act like this. Have you?”

Red sighs. “Anti’s losing patience, Dok. He’s only going to get angrier. And his anger is the same as his violence. We just need to try and keep our heads down and ride this out.”

“No,” answers Dok firmly. “No. Not anymore. We have to do something.”

Red sighs again, even deeper, glancing out at the window. He can’t go to the store or the hospital while the monster’s in the woods.

“Going to go take Blue swimming,” mumbles Dok, his eyes shadowed and angry. “Just… I’ll think. Please, Red. You promised me back in Peru you’d always help me make sure he has his medicine. It’s torture for him without it. You know that.”

Anonymous asked: red, this is a genuine question, what do you think will happen if you go along with what anti says?

Red bites at his nails, thinking, his eyes flickering across the floor.

“My job has always been to minimize the damage,” he says quietly. “But even when I haven’t been able to do that, the worst things I’ve ever seen Anti do are steal Blue’s magic, chain Dok up by the throat, separate twins from each other, sometimes cut or beat us up. But I don’t remember before Norway.”

He steps out into the hall, looking around. He can hear Trick’s side of what must be a conversation with Dapper in the kitchen and Dok trying to get Blue out of bed - without much success. The thought makes his stomach twist.

“I’m scared to see Dapper psychotic again,” he says. “The last time he was…”

Red closes his eyes, putting a hand on his heart, as if that can keep it quiet against the memory of his little brother hanging off over the side of that cliff. He’s been having nightmares. He’s been having nightmares most all the time. He’s tired and he misses Max.

“Well, you were there,” he sighs. “And now I’m starting to get really scared for Blue. I’m scared that if I go along with Anti, even if I do everything I can to minimize… I might still… I might still…”

He steps towards the bedroom. Blue is barely even responding to Dok’s attempts to wake him. He lies stiff in his bed, pale and worn, hugging a pillow to his chest. Dok shakes him gently. Blue does not move.

“I might still lose a sibling. And I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

He turns around again. You see his eyes, dark and alight at the same time.

“If I asked you to,” he says. “Do you think you could find a way to cause a distraction?”

Anonymous asked: maybe. a distraction for what? who would we be distracting? we'd have to know before agreeing.

“Who would you be distracting? Who do you think? I’m on camera here, I need you to make a couple assumptions. Actually… now that I think about it…”

Red wanders back to the living room, flipping the laptop Anti gave him open again. He rereads Anti’s note.

Gigi will try to get into the camera system. The code for you to access it is 3110.

Camera system, huh? Red glances up at you, eyes wary. A few minutes of typing later, he looks up again.

“Tell me if this does anything,” he mumbles, hitting enter.

Half your screens black out. Upstairs, Anti sits up, blinking.

“Red!” he shouts. “What the fuck are you doing!”

“Sorry!” calls back Red quickly. “Just trying to figure this out!”

Anonymous asked: half the screen went black. i doubt that's what you were trying to have happen?

You hear Red’s fingers clacking against the keyboard. Your screens blink back to life. There’s almost fifty of them across the whole of the house - enough that, to see all of them, you have to take the time to flick between different parts of the house.

“Turn the cameras off? Me? Becoming invisible in my own home? Of course that wasn’t what I was trying to have happen… why would I?”

He grins nervously at you, his eyes scanning for cameras.

nikkilbook asked: You beautiful clever boy

Red blinks in surprise, straightening up a little. After a moment, he blushes and shrugs, a smile blooming across crimson cheeks. “Aw, no, ha, no. Thank you, uh. Ha.”

Anonymous asked: now it's back. what are you gonna do next?

“I don’t know,” sighs Red. “Maybe this is dumb. Just causing more trouble.”

“Red!” calls Dok from the other room.

“What, my man?”

“Can you come help me with Blue? He threw up.”

Red gets onto his feet, hurrying towards his twin.

Can’t lose him. Can’t lose him. Can’t lose any of them.

No matter what it takes.

pine-storm-season asked: Blue, you okay?

“I do not feel good at all,” complains Blue thickly, draped half over the bed, held up by Dok’s hands. “I do not… ‘m going to throw up again.”

He lurches forward and is sick, relieved when Red appears and pushes a piece of tupperware beneath his chin, helping Dok hold him. Neither of them react to the vomit, and he’s grateful. This is so fucking humiliating already. Tears drip down his face as he vomits and coughs, hugging his churning, aching stomach.

“It’s okay, Zul, it’s okay,” whispers Red, brushing at his hair and his back. Dok monitors his heartrate carefully, his fingers warm against Blue’s neck. “It’s not your fault, buddy, it’s okay. Here I am.”

“I feel bad all the time,” cries Blue, rocking over the bed. “Why is it getting worse? Why won’t it stop?”

“I think he should see a working doctor,” whispers Dok. “He’s right, he’s getting worse.”

“You know we can’t do that,” Red whispers back, holding Blue’s sweaty head against his chest. “It’s okay, Blue, it’s alright.”

pine-storm-season asked: Has it been getting worse for a while, Blue?

“I was better for a while,” he moans. “But then he started wearing me every night and I - I think I’m losing my mind, I…”

He’s not getting sick anymore, but he’s only crying harder, breaking down despite himself. Everything stinks of sick. He’s disgusting and ugly and weak and useless. He hides against Red’s stomach and cries, listening to his brothers’ reassurances and promises to get him all cleaned up. He can feel Red’s fear and frustration in his own chest and he grips weakly at his twin’s hand, sorry for causing him so much grief.

nikkilbook asked: Okay, this might be an absolutely rubbish idea that could backfire in over a thousand ways, but... I think I might know where you could find a doctor off the grid who has access to everything he’d need.

“I have an off-the-grid doctor with everything we need,” grumbles Red.

“Red.” Dok rolls his eyes. “I’m a heart specialist with next to no resources. I want to take him to a hospital.”

“Man, I love you, but that’s a joke. Trick told me you once got shot and Anti didn’t take you to a hospital.”

Dok flushes, touching the scar in his stomach. “I was fine,” he answers crabbily. “Trick kept me alive. And we knew what the problem was and how to fix it. It wasn’t some weird progressive magic shit I have no idea how to handle.”

“Loving the optimism,” croaks Blue, wiping his mouth on a tissue.

“Red, what if he gets worse?” hisses Dok, trying to lower his voice. “What if his heart gives out or he stops breathing right or he really does start to lose his mind, what then?”

The fear in Red’s eyes is enough to make Dok almost regret saying it. Worse, his older brother has no answer. Red just shakes his head and strokes Blue’s short hair, staring down at him.

“Won’t let that happen,” he mumbles after a long moment.

“There’s nothing we can do to stop it if we’re just complacent,” answers Dok weakly, falling back. “Red, we can’t survive like this. We’re helpless.”

Helpless. Helpless. Red hatesthat. He clings to Blue’s fingers, shaking his head. He’ll find something to do. He’s not helpless. He’ll prove it.

Anonymous asked: Red I have an idea. You're going to hate it, and I don't know if it's a stupid or wrong thing to do, and it may just be trading one demons word for another... but it may get Anti out of the house long enough for someone to run upstairs for the medication.

Red looks up, reading the message carefully.

“I’ll go get stuff to clean this up,” he tells his siblings, stepping out of the room.

“I’m listening,” he tells you. “I was also thinking… well.”

He steps out of the house for a moment and pretends to take in the sights of the forest. Admittedly, it’s beautiful out here - the trees are tall and green and swaying and he can see a shining river cutting through the earth not far away, just past their property and winding deep into the woods. But there’s something else he’s showing you, too - the stones of the outside of the house, the rain gutter, and the great window of the master bedroom, above him.

But not too far above him.

He slips discreetly back into the house. You can hear Dapper whistling in the kitchen, trying to keep his spirits up as he helps Trick make muffins.

pine-storm-season asked: We'll see what we can do, okay, Blue? We'll do our best to make stuff better for you. You're gonna be okay, even though I know it really sucks right now.

“Thanks,” he tells you thickly, blowing his nose and accepting a glass of water from Dok. “Sorry I’m so lame lately.”

“We will look after you,” Dok insists. “We’ll do what it takes, okay?”

Blue looks up at his little brother gratefully, touching Dok’s beard. “My poor tired brother. Probably hurting just as much as I am, aren’t you, darling?”

“Only for moments at a time,” answers Dok, shaking his head. “I don’t spend every hour ill like you do.”

“Either way,” says Blue. “We gotta have each other’s backs.”

“And I do,” says Dok. “I have your back. I love you, Blue.”

“I love you too, Deutsch. It’s not your fault you can’t help right now.”

Dok looks away guiltily, shaking his head.

nikkilbook asked: If you decide to go for it, wait for this Gigi person to try and access the cameras. When they do, ask if you can talk to Dr. Edward Iplier.

“Hold on, hold on,” protests Red. “That’s a step past sneaking around the house. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we got a couple trust issues in this family. Far as I’m concerned, Gigi’s with Dark, and they’re not on our side. I gotta be cautious. I’m trying to get my siblings out of the frying pan without stepping right into the fire.”

Anonymous asked: Okay, I'll rip off the band-aid: run off into the woods with your laptop and screw with the cameras as much as possible before shutting them all off. That should send anti off to find you so he doesn't lose his bet. If you can, double back to the window, or have one of the others get the meds if you don't make it back. I know dark is a huge huge risk, but we're running out of options and time. Remember that this is entirely your choice though, Red.

Red’s eyes widen in alarm. He steps back from the door, staring.

“Just… run into the woods. Where that thing is.”

Their rotting face and cold smile. The great pillar of darkness like a plague sent by angels. The fear they made him feel.

He can’t do that. He can’t. Can he?

“R… right now I just… just need to get Dapper his medicine,” he says, backing away from the door once again. Red has no desire to encounter Dark ever again. His desire to keep his brothers away from Dark is still stronger than his desire to keep them away from Anti.

Anonymous asked: Jackie we don’t know how much longer you can play this safe, Marvin’s on borrowed time right now- anything is better than nothing. But ultimately it’s your decision and whatever you think is best we’ll help you as much as we can.

“I’ll think about it, I’ll think about it,” mumbles Red, picking at his lip. “I, uh. Did set up a pretty fucking clever security system this morning, if I do say so myself. Anti has his own security and then I add a more human flair to it… keep ‘em guessing. But I could maybe shut that down if I needed to. Er - sorry. Let’s not talk about this on camera. Just… if you could distract… a certain someone. The others would help you, I bet. I don’t know. I need to get…”

He glances up at the big master bedroom window again before he moves off to get the cleaning supplies he promised Blue.

Anonymous asked: you don't have to do it, red. and you definitely don't have to do it now. we'll see how stuff goes, okay? it makes sense to not run the risk of coming face to face with them again. i agree, they're kinda terrifying.

“It’s not… a bad idea. It would distract Anti. I won’t forget.”

nikkilbook asked: I honestly don’t know who the fire is in this scenario, bud. I’ve seen a thousand different versions of Dark, and I don’t know which one this is. I know Dap’s scared of him, but I don’t know anything beyond that. I do feel confident saying, though, that there are good people who live under Dark’s protection. A little wacky at times, but good.

“Yeah,” sighs Red. “Well… my family’s a little wacky too. A little fucked up sometimes. But still good.”

Anonymous asked: Yeah but stepping into that fire might make a lot of noise that could help you get them away from Big Brother, alright? I’m not entirely aware how the relations are between those on the other side of the camera but this might be your only chance at getting your voice heard. You might even be able to reach Jack.

“J - he doesn’t even remember who we are,” says Red. “I don’t know if he would help us if we could contact him. Dapper says they were friends. But Anti? Well, he’s told me some pretty messed up stories. And he has good points. Why do we deal with so much shit if someone created us? If he was nice, he would have been nicer to us. Anti says the scar in Chase’s head is from the first day of his life. That’s messed up. But we probably shouldn’t get into it now. We seriously need to shut up. Gah, I’m such a blabbermouth. I know I’m on camera and I still go off. Geez. Let me help get Blue cleaned up and then… if you can help me get where we need to go… yeah.”

He passes Dapper and Trick, smiling at the sight of them arguing over how long the muffins should be in the oven for. Everyone’s okay, for now. But in a couple days?

He really will be helpless. The thought makes his stomach burn.

Anonymous asked: Hey Trick, where's Noodle right now out of curiosity?

“Aw, he stays in the pool room most of the time, I got a little sandbox and everything set up for him. Don’t want him running upstairs while I’m not looking. I’ve seen Anti kick stray cats. He gets scared.”

Trick goes to the door that leads downstairs, where you have a single camera with a view on the pool table and a little TV set up with a couch. Noodle is asleep on the cushions. Trick imitates a meow and his cat perks up instantly, trotting to the stairs to mewl back at him. Noodle runs up to him and Trick pulls him into his arms, hugging his kitten tight and burying his face in his fur as Noodle purrs.

pine-storm-season asked: Yeah, you're both doing really well right now. It's a fucked-up situation, and it sucks, but I think you both are handling it really well. Hopefully stuff gets better very soon.

“Yeah, we’re doing our best, aren’t we?” murmurs Red as he comes back into the room, spreading some of Noodle’s litter on the throw up to dry it out so he can clean it up later. He strips the sheets off the bed and gives Blue a washcloth to clean his face and nose.

“Why don’t I move you to the couch so you can lie down somewhere without a mess instead of just hanging out on the mattress?”

“No, please,” begs Blue, snuggled against his pillow again. “I can’t get up, Red. I’m so tired. Just let me sleep here.”

Red sighs and pushes at his twin’s hair. “Okay, buddy. I’ll crack a window. It’s going to be okay.”

Anonymous asked: Do you think using Blue as a distraction would be enough to get Anti out of his room? I think he might expect you to be by his side though, Red, so maybe Dapper or Trick could climb up?

“Use Blue? Hm. I’d have to tell him what’s going on and see if he’s okay with it, but I could. I think he’d do whatever Dapper needs. What would he do to distract him?”

bupine asked: red, do you think if we bothered anti with the information we know about his past, that could work as a distraction? i want your permission before we do so, because it could backfire and have disastrous consequences. but it also could work to make him yell at us while you did something, i'm not sure. what do you think?

“Yes, that would be okay, as long as you can get him out of his room,” says Red. “I don’t care if he gets mad - he will be mad, really mad, when he finds the you-know-what missing. I’ll tell him I took it then, so he doesn’t punish Dapper.”

Anonymous asked: I think Blue being in the state that he is, just being this sick and getting worse should at least be enough to get Anti's attention. I don't think anti will agree to taking him to a hospital per se, but if he comes down long enough to at least entertain the argument from you and Dok it may be enough time to send trick or dap upstairs and back. And hell, at least putting the idea that blue is immensely I'll in his head has to be good for something, right?

“Yeah, maybe I should go ask him to look Blue over, ask if we can go to the hospital,” murmurs Red, chewing on the nail of his thumb. “Okay… okay.”

He steps cautiously towards the stairs and climbs up one at a time on quiet feet, neglecting his usual enthusiastic stomping around the house. He pauses at the top of the stairs, peering into Anti’s room. His brother is on the couch playing with his laptops, wearing a green-haired form in a band t-shirt.

bupine asked: hey there, anti. how are you? still sick from all the magic stealing?

“Shut up,” growls Anti, who has, in fact, been almost as sick as Blue this morning. He needs a body of his own and never gets one. He kicks his blankets off of himself irritably, shifting into a sulking dog on the bed as he watches old videos of Dapper.

“Hey, Anti,” comes a soft voice.

Anti looks up, irritated to be disturbed by anyone other than his little brother.

“I want to take Blue to the hospital,” says Red, trying to stand his ground sturdily. “Dok says he’s not doing well.”

The dog rolls its eyes, shaking its head. “Don’t be stupid, Red.”

“He’s really looking bad, Anti,” says Ro, squirming in place. “I’m scared.”

“Oh, you’re scared? Stupid fucking…” Anti gets up, turning back into a human and slamming his laptop shut, pacing out to stand at the banister above the stairs, glaring.

Anonymous asked: anti, blue really is getting worse. if it's not possible to take him to a hospital, could you at least see if there's another way to get him medicine or something that he would need? he's really not okay.

“Well, what does Dok say?”

“I don’t know, he’s downstairs with him!”

Anti rolls his eyes hard and grabs Red by the shirt, dragging him downstairs. Anti appears in the doorway of the bedroom and Dok jolts away from Blue, the hair on his arms standing up. He wraps his arms around his belly and backs away for a moment, only to come hurrying back to stand in front of Blue, trembling.

“What’s going on?” asks Trick, passing by with a soda in hand.

“Go get Blue some Sprite for his nausea,” says Anti, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s just got a bad stomach.”

“Sprite won’t help,” spits Dok - or tries to spit, his voice coming out frail.

“Shut the fuck up, Dok. No, actually, tell me what the hell’s got you little idiots so concerned.”

Red backs carefully away, heading towards his laptop and flipping it open in the living room.

pine-storm-season asked: Dok, could you say what's going wrong with Blue? And if you have ideas how to fix it, could you say those too?

“This weakness and constant sickness is absolutely relentless on him. He can’t take all this - ”

“It’s like a chronic illness, Dok. I’m not saying it’s fun, but he has to learn to handle it.”

“If it’s a chronic illness, there’s no reason he should be suffering through it without a proper examination and medicine, and the fact that it’s chronic does not mean it couldn’t be… couldn’t be… deadly.”

Blue shivers on the bed. He just wants to hide from all this. He doesn’t want Anti to touch him. He wraps his blankets over his head and tries to go back to sleep.

“You don’t even know what’s wrong, do you?” sneers Anti, taking a step towards Dok. “Some doctor.”

“I read books while I was with the magicians - ”

“Oh, come on!”

“He won’t get better, Anti! He won’t! He needs help. He struggles in the world. You’re the one who did this to him. He needs his lungs and his digestion and his heart all looked at, I’m scared what might happen!”

“You’re always scared.”

Anonymous asked: (remember, red; when you look for what you need, do you need what holds it? or just the thing itself? if you can leave its container where it is, someone else might see it and assume all is well)

“We’ll have to look at it when we get up there. I think it’s one of those clear bottles, the orange ones.”

He messes with the keyboard and for a second, your screens go black again. He’s turned off three of them - the two in the master bedroom and the one that watches the back side of the house.

“Hold on, I might be able to…”

Your vision returns across the screens, but the three he turned off now have a small symbol in the corner - an eye with a slash through it.

“You should be able to see it,” he mumbles. “But I don’t think he will. Maybe.”

He’s never had time to test it. He does know that if Anti notices the screens are off, he’ll be able to turn them back on immediately, no matter if he has his laptops with him or not. Red can spend time in the camera system, but Anti lives there.

“I’ll hurry,” he whispers, and races out the back door, flipping up his blue hood over his eyes. The river in the woods whispers at him and you see a flash of movement in the trees.

Anonymous asked: Anti if something goes wrong medically due to a chronic condition, I highly doubt Dap will be able to go back far enough to prevent it from being deadly if that's what it ends up becoming. Ignoring symptoms won't improve them.

This makes Anti pause, shuffling on his feet. He’s not used to their injuries being something Dapper can’t fix. Hell, Dapper tells him he’s killed them before just for the hell of it, and he believes it of himself. It makes him laugh.

But permanently losing one of them… well, he wouldn’t want it to happen accidentally. He steps over to the bed, smirking as Dok cowers away from him like an under-sized dog, though he refuses to step away from Blue’s body. Anti sits down on the side of the bed and draws the covers back. Blue doesn’t bother to open his eyes. Anti rakes fingers through his hair, gripping his chin and turning his head back and forth.

“Feel his heart,” mutters Dok.

Anti pushes at Blue’s throat and finds his pulse, weak and erratic. He frowns.

“He was fine in Singapore,” he says. “Just a little weak.”

“He is getting worse,” growls Dok.

“He shouldn’t be,” answers Anti, raising an eyebrow. “Sure you’re not mercy-killing him or something, Dok?”

“Don’t even joke,” hisses his older brother.

“No, I wouldn’t put it past you,” sneers Anti. “Little sadist. You know, they say most serial killers are medical staff.”

Trick comes back with Blue’s Sprite and Anti turns his head to him, cutting himself off before saying anything else.

Anonymous asked: Anti, possessing Blue only helps you feel better because it's his magic you stole. If he dies, sure, you can possess anyone else, but you won't have Blue! The magic's just gonna get worse and worse! Even for purely selfish reasons, you need to invest in Blue's continued survival, and that means q more holistic medical approach than Dok can provide.

“Well, look, as I’ve told you, I don’t have any way to give the magic back, so don’t stop harping on me about that again,” says Anti. “I, uh - I don’t regret it, but I will admit it was poorly-researched.”

“Ohhh,” says Dok, in a tone like he’s about to say more, but Anti shoots him a look and he falls silent, glaring at the floor.

“But here’s what you’re all forgetting - if this is because of the magic withdrawal, there’s nothing a doctor can do.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” protests Dok. “You said he improved at the hospital in Singapore! If nothing else they could give us more time to figure out how to fix this. And why discard it when we haven’t even tried?”

Anti turns away, thinking.

On the other side of the house, Red leaps up and positions himself between the gutter and the stone of the house. He finds his foothold, adjusts his grip, and begins to climb up towards the master bedroom, his feet finding places in crevices and cracks when they have to, moving like he’s climbing mountains.

pine-storm-season asked: He's scared for a reason, Anti. There's a not-that-low chance that it could kill Blue, he's just getting worse. Anti, he needs help or he might die. and even if you in particular don't care that much about it, the others do. a lot. Blue needs help and you're in charge of getting him some.

Anti sits for a moment, looking at Blue, petting his hair.

“He is so ugly these days, isn’t he?” he murmurs, tilting his head at him. “I tore that dignified pretty boy with all that lovely hair down to scraps and pieces.”

Blue does not move. You’re not sure if he’s awake or not. Dok glances over at Trick, who’s busying himself with adjusting the blinds to let Blue sleep. His brother sees him looking and smiles at him.

“But he is still… hmm.” Anti draws his hand away from Blue’s hair, looking down at him.

Here is someone who has destroyed and hurt him in the past. Seeing him brought low, seeing him cower at his feet, killing Marvin - that was one of the greatest satisfaction’s of Anti’s life. And he’s enjoyed torturing him since. But he belongs to him and he isn’t allowed to slip away or escape, not even by dying. He’s a piece of the puzzle.

“Well, we’re stuck in the forest for a while yet, though I’m sure I could sneak one of you past Dark if I really had to,” says Anti, checking a watch that he makes appear on his wrist. “Four more days of the game, or until he catches one of you. I don’t much mind either way.”

“Anti, please - ”

“He can hold on four more days,” growls Anti, warning Dok into silence. “Don’t fuss so much. He’s just tired. Let him rest. And then - oh, yes, perfect! Ippy can look at him. He’s as nuts as you are, my darling, but at least he has a real clinic set-up, last I checked. He can get a real check-up then.”

Dok opens his mouth to protest, uncertain, but four days is a better promise than nothing.

Upstairs, Red opens the window to the master bedroom and slips inside the room, searching for Dapper’s Haldol.

“Where is it, where is it…”

pine-storm-season asked: So four days or less, and then Blue gets help? Now, I apologize if I'm mistaken, but I don't exactly trust you to keep to that, Anti.

“I don’t exactly give a fuck about any of your opinions,” answers Anti cheerfully.

“Anti,” laughs Trick, appearing behind him and draping himself over his shoulders. “Be nice to the cameras.”

“You two really are twins.” Anti leans back to kiss his cheek, pulling his head close to his own. “What are you up to? Huh?”

“Haha, just cooking most of the time. And playing pool.”

“Mh, yeah. You like playing around, huh? My Trickshot.”

Trickshot laughs as he’s pampered, pressed close to Anti’s body.

pine-storm-season asked: Trick, do you want Anti to stay here a bit? He's usually upstairs, isn't he?

“Hey, yeah, come shoot pool with me!”

“I’m not going to shoot fucking pool, haha. I don’t play pool, Trick.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, that’s dumb.”

“Are you embarrassed you can’t play?”

Anti turns around and flips him over his side, laying him out on the ground. Trick shrieks and then bites down on his lip, laughing.

“We’re going to wake Blue up!”

“Get your ass out of here,” scolds Anti, getting up and pulling Trick after him, shoving him towards the door.

“You are always upstairs, though, you never hang out with me.”

“You can come upstairs,�� says Anti fondly. “I’ll let you play games on the computer or something.”

“Okay!”

Anonymous asked: Cam you at least look into stealing some medical equipment or Something in the meantime, Anti? Thank you giving the chance for an actual checkup in four days, because I think that'll help a lot, but is there nothing you can do before then? Like, even a heart monitor so it's easier to keep track of how Blue's doing, or an oxygen machine, or any of the setup he might get in a hospital? I don't know if you have to stay here to try to keep Dark from winning the game or something

“I’ve been through the shit in the medicine cabinet,” says Anti, turning to look back at Dok. “I’ll unlock for you as long as you don’t get into the fucking sleeping pills like you used to. There’s at least some basic stuff in there for the nausea and headaches, and I think a blood sugar kit and that sort of thing.”

“Okay,” says Dok quietly.

“He’ll be fine, Dok.”

Dok looks up. For a second, it almost sounded like Anti was trying to comfort him.

Anonymous asked: agsjdjdksf trick you're a delight. do you just play pool by yourself? i thought it was usually a multiplayer game. ill be honest i love the idea of seeing anti with a pool cue tryna put some balls into holes. seems a very analog form of entertainment for him hahaha

“Haha, you should play with me, you would like it!”

“No.”

“I’ve been playing with Dap and sometimes Red and Dok. Not going to lie, Dap’s pretty good - but there’s a reason they call me Trickshot, baby.” He winks at you and then laughs.

bupine asked: why are you watching old videos of dapper, anti? don't you have more important things to be doing, like making sure your brothers don't die? like blue, the one you hurt? he's really fucking sick, anti. he's going to die if you don't do anything.

Anti turns on you, his face dark. “None of your business,” he spits, pulling Trick closer to him. “Nosy little bastards. I wouldn’t have a camera in my room if Dap didn’t stay in there, I’ll have you know. Need to start turning the damn things off. Prying eyes.”

Upstairs, Red pauses, looking at the images on Anti’s screen. There’s a young man in a black and white suit pressed against the back of what might be a big dog kennel, trying to keep away from the fingers that are petting at him. He has teal hair and blood on his fingers. Red’s heart aches for a second. His baby brother. It’s like he’s never had a day of relief in his life.

Anonymous asked: Dok, I know we're probably not gonna do much better than 4 days and he just called you a serial killer but Red needs a little time, can you do something to keep Anti down a few moments longer? For dap and Reds sake?

Dok blinks, alarmed. “What’s…?”

He peers out the hallway after his brothers, worried now. Blue mumbles something as Dok gets up and moves after them, trying to think, and almost immediately bumps into Dap.

“Dok? What’s wrong? Look worried.”

“It’s - I don’t know, the cameras said to distract him or something? I don’t know if something’s going on.”

“Oh. Distract Anti? Easy.”

Dapper pulls a knife out of his pocket and slams Dok into the wall with a bang, pressing the blade to his throat. Dok yells in alarm, terrified, and Anti and Trick turn around on the stairs.

“Dapper!” screams Trick, gripping at his chest.

“Carver, stop,” snarls Anti, stalking towards him.

“It’s not Dok! It’s not Dok! It’s not Dok!” screams Dapper’s free hand, his eyes gone wild, and Dok bites down on his lip to hold back an incredulous laugh.

Anonymous asked: Red, we're doing our best to start. If it's not upstairs, it may be on Anti's person in which case we may need a whole new plan but look a little longer, okay? Whether or not we get to the bottom of this, it's not for nothing.

Red scurries around the room, tearing open drawers and searching through the bedsheets, but he doesn’t see it for long minutes. He checks the bathroom - “whew, flower smell! a lot of flower smell!” - and then returns to the main room, leaning down to search beneath the -

“Yes!” he cheers, snagging the pill bottle from under the bed.

pine-storm-season asked: Red, be quick. I think Anti's coming back now. Only take a bit and put it back, too.

“Thank you, a-thank you very much,” says Red in a slightly Irish Elvis impression, quickly pouring some of the pills into his hand, enough to last Dap the week. It doesn’t leave much in the bottom of the bottle, unfortunately, but it’s the best he can do right now. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

He shoves the medicine into his pocket and leaps out the window, beginning to slide down the side of the house.

Anonymous asked: Dok: What do you have? Dap: A KNIFE! Anti: NO!

“Oh, VERY FUNNY,” shouts Anti, putting his hands on his little brother’s shoulders and yanking him away from Dok.

“It is a little funny actually,” says Trick weakly.

“Trick!”

“Sorry.”

Anonymous asked: whoa, dap, hey, it's okay!! it's alright. i know stuff's scary right now but it's okay. you don't have to hurt anyone, right? you're not in danger right now

“What’s wrong with you?” snaps Anti, striking the knife out of Dapper’s hands and pushing his wriggling brother into the wall. “Hey, you cut that out! Stop it, now! I know you’re not having an episode yet! You’ve been off your meds for about twenty minutes!”

“Medication can only do so much,” pants Dok, relieved to see Trick hurrying to his side. His twin wraps him into a tight hug and they stand side-by-side, holding onto each other. “He sometimes has symptoms even when he’s medicated. Especially if he’s been under duress.”

“This is why you should be upstairs with me,” hisses Anti. “You’re out of control.”

“It’s Dark, it’s Dark, making themselves look like my brother!” screams Dapper. “Dark, they’re in my house!”

“Dapper, stop!”

Right behind them, Red drops to the pavement of the patio and slides quickly into the door, pushing his hood off again and trying to stop panting.

Anonymous asked: Uhh Dok you know more about Dap's psychosis and delusions than we do but would it help if you just kinda,,, left the room for a second? So Dap can calm down and not think Dark's in the house? Maybe you can go find Red, last we saw he was having kind of a rough time in the other room, he was worried about Blue. And then when you come back maybe Dap'll have an easier time, especially if Red's with you and trusting you?

“I’m not leaving him alone with Anti if I don’t have to,” says Dok.

“Hey,” says Trick quietly.

“No, don’t try to talk me out of - ”

“Dok, I’ll stay here with him. Go check on Red, okay?”

With Anti there, Dok can’t explain to his twin that Dapper’s pretending. And with the way Trick’s been, Dok can’t explain to him that even if he’s here, Anti could hurt Dapper. He doesn’t think Trick would even recognize that if it happened. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who Trick is these days.

“Hey,” says Trick, and his voice is the same as when he found the dark bruises on Dok’s wrist. “Hey, trust me.”

Dok is trying. Dok is trying.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay.”

He lets go of Trick and slinks away, finding Red in the living room. The two of them stay close at hand, listening for trouble, Red’s hand resting gratefully between Dok’s shoulder blades.

Dapper takes Dok leaving the room as his cue to draw the performance to a close. He lets his breathing slow and the snarl fade from his teeth, though his body still shakes and his eyes stare dead ahead, angry and cold.

“You’re losing it,” growls Anti. “Get a hold on yourself. This is pathetic.”

“You’re the one who brought me back to that monster,” snarls Dapper. “And you were the one who made them scare me so badly I had the first psychotic episode of my life. Dark was the stress that broke my diathesis and you brought me back to them like it means nothing to you. You brought me back to them when I might not be schizophrenic if I never met them. You - ”

Anti slaps Dapper so hard his head crashes against the wall of the house. Trick screams in alarm, rushing forward without even knowing what to do, putting a hand on both Dapper and Anti.

Dapper lets out a dry croak, tears welling in his eyes. All his training, imprinted into him from years of conditioning, seems to rush back to him in an instant. He cowers against the wall, shaking for real now, tears running down his face.

“You’re a fucking brat,” hisses Anti.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” cries Dapper.

“Anti!” shrieks Trick. “Stop it, leave him alone!”

pine-storm-season asked: Anti, he can't control it. Leave him be, okay? He's trying. He's just human.

Anti can feel Trick’s heart pounding in the space where his hand lies on his arm, holding him back from Dapper.

“Whatever,” spits Anti, stepping back. “Whatever.”

Dapper hides his face. Trick pants, staring at Anti, his free hand moving to linger over his heart, the fingers curling uncertainly.

Anti moves back towards the stairs, scowling. His palm stings from slapping Dapper. In the hallway, he sees Red staring back at him. His oldest’s eyes are cold and glittering. Anti bites his teeth, growling.

“Whatever,” he repeats in a mumble, turning away.

bupine asked: anti, this isn't dapper's fault. he's scared and seeing things, ok? he's not in his right mind and if what he just said is true, which i obviously believe it is, you did bring him back to the most triggering person you possibly could have brought him to. can you blame him? it would be like if you were brought back to your old master, put at his mercy. wouldn't that be scary, anti? can you understand now why dapper is afraid?

Anti pads up the stairs, gripping the banister. As soon as he’s on the second floor, he hears Red and Dok and Dap and Trick all rushing towards each other and murmuring together. Holding each other’s hands and kneeling down to be close.

“Jack was the one who made him schizophrenic,” says Anti. “Jack was. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t Dark’s fault. I love… I love… it wasn’t our fault. It was Jack. It was Jack!”

He strikes his door as he passes it and angry cherry blossom branches snarl across the wood, tearing holes in the door that guards his room.

He sinks down beside his bed, pulling a computer onto his lap. He fast-forwards through the video without having to touch it, his eyes flickering as it settles on a few days forward. Dapper, five days old, crawls carefully out of the little cage and takes an orange slice from Anti’s hand. Anti touches his hair. Dapper smiles nervously and puts the orange in his mouth.

Anti slumps down against the bed, holding his head in his hands.

“It’s Jack’s fault,” he mumbles.

Anonymous asked: (hey red, don't forget to undo what you did in the first place that made this whole thing feasible)

“Right, right, thank you.”

Red races to his computer, letting Dok and Trick look after Dapper, and quickly turns all the screens back on. The crossed-out eye disappears. Anti can see everything again.

And then Red disappears too, slinking away, out of the view of the cameras, and when he comes back, he has only one pill in his hand, and the rest are gone somewhere you cannot see.

Anonymous asked: Hey, Dap, Anti's gone now. He went back upstairs. Take as much time as you need because that was scary and awful as fuck, but he's away for a bit. He's not going to hit you again. It's okay.

“He always gets his hands on me again.” Dapper wraps his arms around himself and rocks against the wall, crying hard, though he can barely even tell why. His pain tolerance is high and the slap didn’t hurt, but it scared him. “He always hits me again.”

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Dok is whispering, prodding gently at his face. “This will bruise, but that’s all, that’s all.”

Trick stands numbly besides them, his hand resting on Dapper’s shoulder. He doesn’t feel very well.

bupine asked: this isn't all jack's fault, anti. you and all of us know that. you are aware that jack could have actually loved you, right? just because you were a mistake as a creation doesn't mean you weren't wanted. i believe you're just scared to admit that all of this could have been prevented. that you could have been happy.

“Don’t!” screams Anti. “Say that to me! No, no! No, that’s not true!”

It’s like a storm’s been unleashed across his computers, and for once, Blue’s power does not rise in him at all. Just his own. Just Anti. Every screen is flickering and glitching and every one of the computers in his room shows a different image - Jack laughing at the fake blood on his neck, Jack hugging a younger man with the same soft, downy brown hair as he has to his chest, Jack in a cat mask, Jack and Chase.

The truth is that, because of what Dapper did, many of the images no longer exist and never did in this timeline, but Anti doesn’t know that. He is digital in his nature, down to his core, and his memories transfer into images whether they exist on the internet or not. Maybe that’s why, after a moment, every smiling image seems to turn cold and angry, every version of Jack’s mouth turns down, every glimpse of his blue eyes glares.

“He was a coward! He didn’t want me! He threw me away!”

Anti throws his laptop across the room, shattering it in half, and he tears at his hair, screaming. The antlers are growing out of his skull again, breaking through the bone, and he howls as he tries to snap them off, though today he seems unable to manage it. His eyes are black and blood pours from his throat so fast you hear him begin to hyperventilate, his whole neck splitting open. His head might fall right off his shoulders.

“He made them all just to hurt me, just to protect himself! When he was all I knew! When he was everything I had! Traitor, traitor! He sent them after me and then he watched! He watched as they beat me into essence! He watched and I was screaming for him!”

The lights in the house burst and across your cameras you hear everyone but Blue gasp in surprise as the power goes out. Anti himself yelps, jolting against the bed, and goes quiet as a faint plume of smoke drifts from one of his laptops, curling towards the window.

Anti sits at the foot of his bed, holding himself, staring dead ahead.

“He didn’t… do anything,” he says after a long moment. “Just… just held Dapper. Cause I guess… he was someone worth saving, but not me.”

Anti picks at his lip, his eyes fixed on the wall.

A pause, and then the bitterness comes back to him, like it always does.

“Well, he’s mine now,” he whispers, turning away from you, his eyes dark. “He’s mine now and Jack will never get him back again. He’s mine.”

He tries to sound intimidating, but he is a twenty-three year old with barely any beard and short brown hair, his eyes huge on a pale face, his accent embarrassed and uncertain, alone in a cabin in the woods.

Anonymous asked: Dap, are you calming down? You're okay, buddy.

“Here, come on, we’ll go hide,” whispers Red, returning to his brothers. “Let’s go downstairs with the cat and we’ll hide out, okay? We’ll be real quiet while brother is mad, it’s okay. Dok, take them downstairs, yeah?”

“Yes,” agrees Dok anxiously, shaking from the power outage, pulling his little brothers to their feet. “Yes, come on.”

Neither Dapper nor Trick protests, looking numb and shell-shocked. Red lets them go, glancing around the house. He doesn’t know how long they might have to hide for. If Anti finds out about what he did, things will only get worse. He grabs his laptop and some nuts and bread and fruit and sets them on the stairs that lead to the basement before going back for the most important cargo of all - Blue.

“Here, buddy, I got you,” he murmurs, scooping Blue, blankets and all, into his arms. His twin does not stir. Red quiets the fear in himself and carries Blue gently downstairs, where a small guest bedroom will hold him instead.

“Are we okay?” he murmurs, coming back to his younger brothers, huddled together on the couch in front of the TV.

Dok nods uncertainly, gripping the both of them. Red kneels in front of Dapper and presents him with the pill. “Ta-da!” he says gently, patting his knee.

Dapper lights up immediately, the anxiety washing off him. He clicks his tongue joyfully and throws himself at Red, wrapping a hug around him and making Red laugh, holding his back in return.

“I got you, little man,” he says, patting his ribs. “I always got you.”

Dapper puts the pill in his mouth and swallows, feeling better already. “That was worth it if it gets me my medicine.”

But Trick, on the other side of the couch, doesn’t seem to agree. He’s sitting still and stiff, crying quietly, hugging Noodle to his face.

tristarlolly asked: I can't help but be reminded of the first ask I ever sent through the cameras, Anti. I complemented you on your "dollhouse" and asked about Jack because I knew you were the only one who could answer anything about him. You told me you were happy with what you have and you didn't need him. I don't think that was true then, and I don't think it's true now. You don't know what happiness is and your pursuit of it has only led you in violent circles.

“Oh, fuck,” says Anti, very tired. “I hate circles.”

Anonymous asked: Hey. Anti. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care about how distressed you are, but you need to calm down. It's scaring the others, and sometimes I really fucking pity you, so here; Anti, you've won, you've gotten your revenge. You're in control, and you know this, yeah? Calm down.

“They should be scared. I want to go beat the shit out of that little brat. But it’s never fun anymore. I don’t know when it stopped being fun. Even with Dok, it barely makes me laugh now. Why make me like this and then not even make it fun anymore? I hate him… I hate everything. I want… I… I want Dark. I want Dark to tell me I’m perfect.”

He gets to his feet, almost staggering. “Maybe they’re in the forest. Yeah, I - I’m in control. And you’re… you’re wrong, it is enough. It is enough. I don’t need Jack. I don’t want him. As soon as I’m in control again, it will be enough. I’ll be happy. Fuck, the fact that some of you have been here since the beginning… fuck.”

Anonymous asked: Trick?... How you holding up? If you want to talk, we're here. Your brothers are here. If you need a little time that's fine too.

“I’m having a panic attack,” cries Trick, grasping for Dok. “I’m having a panic attack.”

Dok gets up and surrounds his brother in an instant, alarmed. Trick hasn’t had a panic attack in weeks.

“I’m here. I’m right here, okay?”

“Does he need - is he - ?”

“Just give us some space, alright?”

“Okay, right.” Red backs off, retreating to Blue’s little bedroom, though he listens carefully by the door. Dapper sits uncertainly on the other side of the couch, touching Trick’s wrist.

Anonymous asked: Anti.... if strangers from the internet can't validate your actions and you feel like you can't do the same either.... By all means, feel free to look elsewhere, rinse and repeat, as you've always done, but self-reflection and change aren't outside the realm of possibilities for you to be happy.

Anti just shakes his head, his mouth parted slightly like he can’t find the right words, pacing out towards the woods. These are things he is sometimes - sometimes - aware of. But the fact that he could change is always, always over-shadowed by his fear: that Dapper would leave if he didn’t force him to stay. That all of them would leave if he didn’t force them to stay. That they would go back to Jack and he would be alone for the rest of his life, knowing that they’re happy and he never will be. Besides, there were times when living like this did make them happy, and he never did grasp the idea that cruelty is a fleeting satisfaction. He keeps trying to pursue it and it never sticks around, but he won’t change. He won’t let himself see that. He’s afraid.

“I won’t,” he says.

You hear it as he moves away from the house.

“I won’t. I won’t.”

He slips into a dog’s form and pads away, the grass soft beneath his paws.

He promised Red, didn’t he? This is the last time we try this. And if it doesn’t work… then there’s nothing left for him to stick around for.

And he won’t let the others go running back to Jack, either.

“I won’t.”

bupine asked: anti, i am truly so fucking sorry for what happened to you. that you felt so unloved you'd do all of this. and i so wish there was a way you could have seen how he would have cared for you if you'd given him the opportunity. i wish it wasn't too late for that. because jack didn't hate any of his creations, anti. you just didn't let him love you.

For a moment, it makes him pause.

At the edge of the woods, the body of the huge black dog, tall and proud and beautiful, beautiful, because not everything about Anti is bad. Not everything about anyone is bad, and you are right. About most everything. You are right.

That dog stands at the edge of the woods.

The shadows are cool and deep and dangerous, but he always seems to burn in the sun anyway.

He slips away, and is gone from your view.

Anonymous asked: trick, you okay, buddy? it's gonna be okay, love, just breathe. you have your brothers with you, everyone's okay.

“I can’t think!” Trick cries, gripping at his head. “I can’t - I - there’s walls inside my skull, Deutsch, help me!”

“Hey, you’re alright, you’re alright.” Dok holds his shoulders, shooting a worried look at Dapper, but his little brother has gone quiet and distant, touching the stinging handprint on his cheek and staring right ahead, his posture small.

“No, I’m not alright, everything’s wrong!” screams Trick. “This isn’t right, I can’t think, I can’t see?”

“You can’t see?”

“I think I’m possessed, I’m possessed!”

Dok takes his head in his hands and forces his gaze up, examining Trick’s eyes, but there’s no sign of Anti or anything else. “Trick, I think you just got a shock. My brother, it’s alright now. Everyone’s here and no one’s hurt.”

“No, no, no, that’s not true, that’s lies, that’s lies in between my skull, I think I’m possessed!”

“Just let it out, alright, and then we’ll work on calming down, calming down…”

And Dok is there, as he always is - no, that isn’t right, because wasn’t he gone away from him for a time? But where? And how long? It seems like those days passed in strange blips of time, his memory of it coming and going, his recollection blinking in and out, Blue asking him what’s wrong with him again and again while his brain skips over the thought of his twin and his heart keeps hurting. He digs his nails into his cheeks, weeping; he can feel the imprint of Anti’s hand against his face as he goes crashing to the floor, Blue standing over him and shouting for Anti to leave them alone, and none of it is true, and none of it is right, but all of it is true, and all of it is against the rules.

“No, no!” he hears himself shrieking over the sound of soothing voices. “No, I don’t know, I don’t remember, what’s wrong with me?”

“Trick,” someone begs, and it isn’t even his name. He doesn’t even remember his name. He doesn’t even remember his babies. Soft skin and bumpy infant heads, huge dark eyes and a slobbering mouth using his finger as a pacifier. Cigarette smoke and acrylic nails. The thud of Dapper’s head against the wall.

And it’s gone again.

“Why can’t I think?”

“Trick, you have to stop shouting!”

“My darling, what’s wrong? I’m here, it’s alright.”

“Ohhh, please make him stop, I can’t stand anymore screaming today.”

“Red, go upstairs if you’re over-stimulated, everything’s okay. Trick, we’re okay, we’re just taking a break, we’re okay…”

“In my skull…”

“Trick.”

Firm hands dig into his muscles and push and knead and comfort. Ah, this he remembers. Dok’s hands on him on nights when he’d been sitting so stiff for so long. So desperate to please Anti. Plastered to the window with the great sniper in his hands, watching, watching while Dok massaged at his aching muscles and tried to keep him company, to keep him comfortable. To stay with him. I’m with you.

“Trick. Chase.”

“H… Dok. I can’t…”

“Just be alright. We’re just alright. It’s okay. Here’s your cat. Calm down.”

“He’s not even my real baby.”

Noodle mewls.

Red paces upstairs, rubbing at his face. He needs a break. Trick’s been freaking out for almost two hours.

Anonymous asked: your brothers are here, trick, they'll keep you safe, they'll help you. you're gonna be okay. i know, it's terrifying and confusing and hard. but your brothers are right here, henrik is right here, you're going to be okay. breathe in, and breathe out, buddy. it's gonna be okay, i promise.

“It’s not alright,” cries Trick, gripping at his brother’s shoulders. “It’s… it’s not…”

“I know,” says Henrik quietly. “I know. It will be.”

“He slapped him… he slapped me…”

“He’s not kind.”

“No, no, that’s not right either, it’s not right. I must have - I must have made him do it, I - ”

“No, Trick,” croaks Henrik, curled around him. “Don’t go away again. You don’t have to start thinking like that again. Please?”

“Maybe if Dapper would just fucking behave - ”

“Trick!”

“He tried to hurt you!”

“No, that’s not what happened! Stop it!”

“There h-has to be a reason! There has to be! I have to make this make sense! Dok, I can’t breathe!”

Dapper stares up at them both from beside the couch. Blue is up on his feet between the four of them. He reaches down to touch Dapper’s head.

Anonymous asked: anti made that decision on his own, trick. it's no one else's fault that he did that. the reason is that he wanted to. it's not your fault, bud. it's no one's fault but anti's.

“Well, then it’s like he says, like he was made like that. His creator made him like that. He has a bad temper and he can’t control it. That’s all that’s all that’s all that’s all. He’ll be nice again tomorrow, I know. I know I know I know.”

Trick isn’t aware that he’s babbling or that his siblings have gone quiet around him. Dok is wide-eyed and silent. He never knows what to do anymore. He can never fix anybody who needs him.

“You’re all such fucking brats,” snarls Trick suddenly, and his voice sounds so much like Anti’s for a moment that Dok can’t help the wave of revulsion that shudders its way up his body. Blue must notice. He tugs Dok away from Trick. Dok wishes he weren’t grateful.

“Asshole, acting like you’re here to comfort us,” growls Trick, eyes squeezed shut, hands digging into Noodle’s fur. His cat mewls in discomfort, squirming on his lap, but Trick doesn’t let go. Noodle is his and he’ll stay where he wants him. “You think I forgot, Blue, when you mashed that pole into my skull just so you could watch Anti fucking burn without me? Fucking traitor. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

“Trick,” Dok begins, but Blue just shakes his head, gripping his shoulders.

“No point trying to reason with him while he’s like this,” he says. “Trust me, we tried in Singapore, the cameras and I. They’re not even his own thoughts.”

“I want my baby,” cries Trick, his voice shattering into a wave of stammering, his heart pounding hard in my chest. “I’m trying to be good, I am! Will he give me my baby back then?”

“Let’s just give him a little time,” murmurs Blue, but Dok doesn’t move, staring at his brother.

He’d rather Trick were as sick as Blue. He’d rather Trick were locked upstairs on his own. He’d rather Trick was with that monster in the woods. Anything but watching him turn into someone else. Anything but this. He touches his necklaces. For the day he’s ready to kill Anti. Anything but this.

Anonymous asked: hey, trick, buddy. it's going to be okay. i don't think he wants to do that now, no matter how much you do what he wants you to, trick. but you're going to be okay, love. can you tell us what's wrong? you're a little all over the place at the moment, so i don't know what would help you best.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” cries Trick. “There’s something in my head and nothing makes sense.”

“Dissociating?” asks Dok gently, creeping forward again to try and touch him. Blue frowns, but he knows better than to get between twins. He glances down at Dapper and tuts at the sight of the handmark on his face, reaching down to touch his beard fondly.

“No, no, I - well, maybe, maybe dissociating, maybe, maybe, cause nothing is right, nothing’s right, I’m f-freaking out, Dok, I’m freaking out. I just want… I just want… I don’t know, I don’t know what I want.”

He presses himself against the side of the couch, groaning and clutching at his cat.

“You want brownies?” offers Dok weakly.

Trick lets out a bewildered, frantic laugh, sharp enough to make Dok jump. “I… maybe brownies?”

“Bet Red would get you one of the ones you made from upstairs,” says Dok. “We just need to ground ourselves, yes? Something to touch and something to see and taste and hear and smell. I’m here, Trick. I’m here.”

cest-mellow asked: will antis magic wear off on him? what’s gonna happen to him?

“There are two problems,” mumbles Blue. “One - Anti still has access to him. Even if Trick is getting free of him moment to moment, nothing can wear off while Anti keeps getting his hands on him again and again. And two - this isn’t just magic, a spell that will fade given time. Anti is actively getting inside his head and changing the way he thinks. Something has to happen to snap Trick out of it, and then he needs space from Anti to stayed snapped out of it. But I… I don’t know.”

“It’s a good thing he’s having a breakdown,” cries Dok, desperate for good news. “Right? It means he’s fighting!”

“Anti’s power combined with the need to please him that Trick has always had - Dok, I don’t know how he’s supposed to get free on his own.”

“Well, I’m here,” vows Dok, turning his attention back to his twin. “Here I am to help, my brother.”

“You know, Anti’s right about you,” snaps Trick. “You need other people to be in pain around you or you can’t even feel good about yourself.”

Dok’s face falls.

Anonymous asked: are you having trouble remembering, bud? is that the problem?

“It’s like… I can’t think straight… like I’ll have a thought and then it’s right, but then a second later it’s wrong, and then it’s right, and then - and no, I c-can’t remember, but I keep getting these flashes, and I can’t hold on to them, and I’m just…”

He buries his face in the couch, shaking his head. “My depression has never felt like this before, my panic attacks have never felt like this before - am I psychotic, Dok? Does schizophrenia run in families?”

“It’s not that, I promise.”

Anonymous asked: try not to figure out if the memories are right or wrong, okay, trick? just try to see what they are, if you can, and don't try to figure out whether the memories are right or not. and if you can't hold onto a memory, let it go, okay? it'll come back. trust dok, okay? i think he knows which memories are right. i promise he just wants to help you.

“You’ll remember for me, won’t you?” he babbles, and you aren’t sure if he’s talking to you or Dok. “He has big big eyes and he’s perfect and warm. And I was braiding hair, I can braid hair, her dark hair. And I was in Singapore and Blue hit me. But Anti hit me too, haha. And I forgot, the next morning, and he kissed the side of my face. And there are fires and knives and girls with dark eyes.”

“Breathe,” Dok reminds him. “Breathe. You know how to get through a panic attack.”

“I can feel you touching me, like you always do when I’m s-scared, and I can hear the air conditioning, and I can smell your coat with green apple detergent, green apple detergent because we finally have a l-l-laundry room. I can feel you touching me like you always do when I’m scared.”

“That’s better,” says Dok. “That’s good.”

Blue hears the door to the backyard swing shut above him. He blinks, looking up to the ceiling.

Anonymous asked: Can someone Please take Nooddle away from Trick, before even his own cat starts to be afraid of him?

“They’re right, Trick, please,” says Blue calmly, reaching forward. “Please give me the cat, alright?”

“He’s my cat!” shrieks Trick. Noodle chirps as he tugs at his fur, barely even aware of the way his kitten is squirming beneath him. “He’s my cat, he’s mine, he’s supposed to be with me - ”

“He doesn’t want to be held!” Dapper signs suddenly, springing off the floor, and he reaches forward and snags Noodle from Trick’s lap before his brother can even make a leap for him. Dapper darts away towards the guest bedroom, Noodle pressed into his shoulder. Trick screams after them, striking the side of the couch with his hand, but he’s too shaken to get up and go after them, and he doesn’t want Dok to be apart from him.

immabethehero asked: Trick be nice! Dok wants to help you! Even if you don’t agree, that doesn’t mean you should be rude!

“Oh, the cameras always know what’s right, don’t they?” snarls Trick, sitting up again, another violent mood-swing back into anger. “You sit a million miles away and you all tell us what to do. Like you know anything about what we’ve been through. Like you know anything about my family! You’ve never liked Anti, I know, I’m not stupid, even if everybody thinks I am. I notice things. I know you were with Dok with the magicians and you told him to stay. I know you say all sorts of things to get him wrapped around your fingers. I know he wouldn’t get in trouble if he would just take these fucking things off!”

Trick wraps his hand around Dok’s throat, necklaces and all, yanking him forward. Blue yells and steps forward, grabbing his hands, but Trick is stronger than he is. His blue eyes bore into his twin’s. Dok stares back at him, eyes wide, choking for air, but his hand only rests on Trick’s, waiting, patient, here. Here I am. Here I am. It’s okay.

Trick blinks. His anger falters away. He lets go of Dok’s throat, shocked.

“Oh, no, Henrik,” he whispers, voice broken. “I didn’t mean…”

Anonymous asked: don't do that, okay, trick? dok's just trying to help. you're doing great otherwise, bud. breathe in, and breathe out, okay? i know, this must be really hard right now. but you're going to be okay. try to stay calm, bud. you're going to be okay.

Trick is just shaking his head. Blue is still standing above him, touching his hands, and Trick reaches for his big brother for a minute, a faint whimper on his mouth, and Blue doesn’t even know how to respond.

“I’m going to take a break,” says Dok, quiet and hoarse.

“Dok,” says Trick.

He means to tell him “I’m sorry,” but his stammer is so bad he can’t get the words out.

Dok gets up. Straightens out his coat. Pads up the stairs. Disappears.

Trick’s hand rests over his heart.

Anonymous asked: I don't mean this to sound mean but I really feel like someone else other than blue should be with trick rn. If he swings back into anger I don't know if blue will be alright to deal with this alone ":(

Blue stares down at Trick. He knows what you’re saying is true. But Dapper’s in the other room if he needs him, you’ll call for help if something happens, and, moreover - Trick looks like he’s broken clean in half.

“You know what,” says Blue.

You have not heard bitterness on his tongue for anyone but Anti in a long time. Trick looks up at him, stunned to hear vitriol in the voice of the sibling who’s meant to be his caretaker. The siblings who’s never called him anything but “my darling,” “my heart,” “my brother.”

“I think he’s done,” says Blue darkly.

Trick turns his face away from him.

Anonymous asked: Blue please don't leave him alone. Don't leave him with only anti to turn to for answers

Blue rocks on his heels, seething through his teeth, trying to find the right course of action.

He wants to leave Trick alone. He’s mad. He knows it’s Anti’s fault, too, but he can’t take that. Trick can’t start doing this. Blue won’t accept it. Won’t pretend nothing just happened. He can’t. He wants to cry. To scream? To hit something? He wants to go back to bed. He wants to leave Trick alone and he hopes that his little brother feels bad. Venomously, he hopes that his little brother feels bad.

But he doesn’t leave him alone.

Blue sits down on the other side of the couch, his hand in his palm, a sigh falling out of his mouth. He’d never forgive himself if Trick hurt himself or scampered back off to Anti.

“Just breathe, Trick,” he says, exhausted. “Can you tell Red it’s quiet again now? Maybe he’s ready to come back downstairs and then I can go off and calm down for a minute.”

Anonymous asked: On one hand, I understand that the bitterness and isolation is justified. But also, guys... if you all leave trick alone how do you expect him to not keep going back to Anti? If you're not careful this is probably going to fuel more ways for him to slither even deeper into his head

“We do what we can,” says Blue. “We’re all doing what we can. I’m ill and I’m angry and I’m still here, aren’t I? We do what we can and if it isn’t enough, we don’t take blame for that. We just don’t. Trick’s actions and decisions are nobody’s fault… well, a little Anti’s, in this unique case, but still. Dok doesn’t have to stay with him after he hurt him. Hell, if he wanted to go and not forgive Trick at all… well, he’d be allowed to do that, and what Trick does afterwards would not be his fault. Dok has to take care of himself too. I think Dok will forgive him, but both of my brothers are hurting right now, both of them are vulnerable - all of us are vulnerable - and we’re all just doing what we can. And if that’s not enough… well.”

He turns his head bitterly away. “It never is, is it?”

pine-storm-season asked: Red, it's quiet now, could you come sit with Trick?

“Hm?” says Red.

From the camera in the backyard you can see him.

Gone very stiff.

Standing on the porch.

Eyes wide.

“Can I… oh, yeah, just, uh… a second, one second…”

He’s staring out the window, towards the forest. Dok pads into the living room and blinks to see him standing there.

“Uh, Red?”

“Hm?”

“What are you looking at?”

Red doesn’t answer.

Dok steps up behind him, letting the backdoor swing open and then closed again, adjusting his glasses and squinting.

“Is there someone in the woods?”

“You see him too?” breathes Red, his cheeks rising with a passionate blush, his eyes shining.

Dok takes another step forward. The pool laps quietly between them.

“Is that… that man you were with? In the marketplace?”

Red is aglow. Red is holding his own heart. Red takes a step forward.

“He found me again,” he says, his voice trembling, but not with despair. “He found me again. I could… Anti is away, we could just… he forgave me. He came back.”

Dok tilts his head, confused, but it looks to be true - there, hiding a little behind the trees, eyes wide and earnest, smiling at Red -

Max.

Jackie takes off at a run down the porch steps.

Anonymous asked: Oh god, this probably isn't Max...

“Shit,” hisses Dok, with one glance at you. “Shit!”

Red isn’t even listening to you, leaping down and racing across the grass. Dok snarls like a wild thing and leaps after him, desperation making his blood pump, reaching out to grab Red, only a few feet past the pool, the trees closer than he’s ever seen them. “Red!” he screams. “It’s not Max!”

“I know him now!” cries Red. “I forgot him once. I won’t do it again.”

“He’s a trick, Red! Don’t you think it’s a little too good to be true that the one person you’ve been longing for for weeks is just suddenly here in the middle of nowhere, grinning at you from our enemy’s hiding place?”

“He was too good to be true!” cries Red, struggling against Dok’s grip. “Dok, please, I’m begging you! He feels real, Dok. My heart!”

It stings at Dok, but he doesn’t let go.

pine-storm-season asked: Red. It's not Max. That's Dark. You remember Dark, right? How would Max get through these woods? He couldn't, Red. That's Dark. Red, come back to the house now.

“They’re right.” Dok grips at his arm, yanking him back towards the house, drawing a low cry out of his brother. “It’s Dark.”

“Dark made me afraid!” Red protests. “Just being near to them, it was like my heart was shaking.”

“Red, that’s what they’re doing now too. Don’t you get that? They manipulate emotions. That’s why you were so scared of them, and that’s why you’re convinced it’s Max now. Red. Red. They’re making you feel that way. It’s not real.”

The energy drains out of Jackie in a moment. He stares at Dok, mouth trembling. “I just… I just…”

“I know, my brother,” says Dok.

Anonymous asked: On another hand... If that is Max you need to shout to him to get out of here, I definitely don't think he's safe in these woods.

“Max, go!” cries Red, something in his chest snapping open and oozing out hurt. “A chuisle mo croi! Before he hurts you!”

He wants him to go. He wants him to turn around and go, and prove that it is him, it’s Max, he’s going and he’ll come back!

But the little figure of Max in the forest does not turn away from him. Red shakes his head, turning to stare at Dok, begging him to make things different. Dok just shakes his head at him, eyes apologizing.

Anonymous asked: red, tell max to come into the house for a minute. okay? harmless request, buddy. just have him come into the house for a few seconds.

“Yes, tell him to come over here,” says Dok, holding Red tight.

“He wouldn’t want Anti to know he was here…”

Dok covers the camera with his hand, blocking your view. “Tell him to come over now,” he suggests.

Red is silent for a long moment. There’s a shift of light as Dok’s body relaxes, letting go of Red’s arm.

He could call out for the fake Max to come over here, but he already knows the truth. Dok moves his hand away. Red is still staring out at the woods, eyes wide.

“Hey,” laughs Max’s clear rich voice, accent and all. “Hey, come over here. I miss you. Hey, come here.”

“My little brother was right about you!” Red reaches down to snag a rock and chucks it towards the woods. “You’re a creep!”

“Well, that’s not very nice,” says Max, laughing too long and too deep. “That’s not very nice, really. Don’t you think it would be fun? Wouldn’t you like to? I think you’d like to.”

“I think you’d love to,” repeats an echo of his voice, and then it wells up in Red so powerfully that it makes him double over, falling to his knees in the grass - affection, warmth, joy, love! Max, his Max!

“Leave him alone!” cries Dok, stepping in front of his brother. “Stop it!”

“What’s this?” purrs Max’s voice, growing deeper and deeper, the accent smoothing out, Americanizing. “What’s this? He doesn’t want to play? Why don’t you feel it, little doctor? Is that what you are? A doctor in his tattered coat? Maybe you’d rather sulk a little.”

Red’s joy turns to grief. He gasps against a wave of sorrow, deeper than oceans, about to tear him open. Dok grabs at him, alarmed, but he doesn’t feel the despair.

“Or anger?”

Red hollers, tearing out handfuls of grass with his hands, shaking his head, gritting his teeth so hard he might break them. Dok pants, nervous in the face of his fury, but he doesn’t move.

“No, how strange,” says Dark, tilting his head back, the daylight around them turning darker and darker. “How strange, that he doesn’t seem to want to share anything at all. What’s protecting you, little doctor?”

“Leave us alone,” snaps Dok. “We’re going back to our house.”

“Are you?” asks Dark.

“Are you?” laughs their echo.

Anonymous asked: blue, it's okay to be angry, and it's okay for dok to need space to calm down, but i think you need to be gentler with trick right now. you said it yourself that he's not fully in control of himself, and can't you see that he's sorry? i know you're tired of this, but he's terrified, and he needs some kindness. he deserves to be forgiven because it's not his fault that he's doing or saying hurtful things right now. he's sick, and anti did this to him.

“Come on!” protests Blue. “I am sitting here with him. What else do you want me to do, dude? Cuddle up with him and tell him it’s okay that he just assaulted the person who loves him most in the world? Tell him lies about how this is all going to be okay? I don’t have any comfort to give right now! I have limits. Aren’t I allowed have limits? Or am I supposed to be their caretaker to the point that I have to crucify myself on their altars even when they’re not in danger? Am I supposed to forgive him before he’s even taken a moment to look at what he did and stop it from happening again? Do I have to pretend it didn’t happen? I’m - I’m mad!

“Maybe you’re right, but I have to feel how I feel about this and Trick’s surviving for now. Can you give me ten minutes at least to be mad before you expect to come in here and kiss it better? I’ll comfort him when my head is clear and I don’t feel like my body is trying to destroy itself, alright? Please… I’m angry. I don’t have any hope to give him right now… I could use some comforting too, you know… but then again that’s all I need lately.”

He buries his face in his hands. “I wish I could make just one of them happy.”

Anonymous asked: Dapper, Dark is outside trying to get Red and Dok to go to him. He's disguised, and screwing with Red's emotions on a bad way. Do you know anything that might help them?

Dapper sits upright so fast that Noodle flies off his lap. The kitten, disgruntled by his long day, mewls as he lands on his feet and licks Dapper’s ankle in protest.

“Outside? With Red and Dok?”

Leaping out of bed, Dapper charges up the stairs without pausing to explain a word to Blue and Trick. He swipes his golden Christmas knife off the ground where Anti slapped it from his hand and races towards the doorway.

“Anti!” cry his hands, slashing across his throat. “Anti, come home now! I need you.”

bupine asked: dark? may we speak to you? we want to know how much you remember of anti. he told us much about you, much of his memories, but we'd like to hear what your side of it is. if that's alright by you.

“If it’s answers you want, I can provide. Just tell these little humans to come closer,” Dark entices, sliding forward, shape-shifting slowly as they go. They are masculine, feminine, feline, shadowed, shifting, but always terrifyingly beautiful, with eyes like dead stars. “I’ll talk to you, little doctor. Come on, don’t be so scared. You don’t look very well, you know. Has someone been hurting you? Skinny thing, pale thing, bruised beneath its shirt. I have food and medicine and shelter. Would you like to have a drink with me? Rich red wine til you’re drunk on it. I’ll give you whatever you need and make you stop wanting for anything at all.”

“You stay away from me!” shouts Dok, dragging Red back towards the house. “We don’t want anything to do with you here!”

“What’s around your throat, little creature? I’d like to see it up close.”

Anonymous asked: red, love, trust dok, go with dok, okay? dok is safe, let's keep you safe too, red. go with dok back into the house and you'll be safer.

“Red, come on,” begs Dok.

His brother is clutching his head, shaking, silent, curled taut against the ground.

“I know it’s a lot, I just need you to stay with me a moment longer! We have to get back to the house!”

“I think we’re close enough to the house,” manages Red in a whisper. “If they were going to attack us…”

“They would have done it by now,” finishes Dok, a little relieved. “Wouldn’t they have?”

Dark lunges forward in a cloud of shadow. Dok yelps as darkness blacks out your camera entirely. Dapper is whistling frantically from the porch.

Anonymous asked: Red and Dok, get in the house, now!

Dok staggers back in the direction he thinks the house is, dragging Red completely, who can’t do much else but holler and shake his head a little too hard to be safe. He slams into someone’s chest and recoils, but hands are already grabbing him and pulling him back. Terror burns across his chest until his fingers are pressed to - hair? Oh! Dapper’s mustache.

“Dapper,” he croaks, gripping his shirt.

“We have to get out of here!” answers a clear British voice. “It’s this way.”

“Oh, nice try, idiot,” snarls Dok, driving his elbow into Dark’s ribs. The fake Dapper falls back, snarling, and transforms. Red shrieks in alarm as gold panther’s eyes burn into them from the shadows - and then Dark is tearing forward, and the teeth of the panther latch into Red’s hoodie and yank.

“Red!” screams Dok in a blackness so deep he can do nothing but stumble forward as he feels his oldest brother tugged away from him. Red screams so hard his throat stings, completely paralyzed by everything happening all at once.

A body slams into both Dark and Red. For a moment, Dapper’s golden knife glints in the light of his own silver irises.

“Get the hell away from my brother!”

Dark lunges at Dapper and bites.

pine-storm-season asked: I know, Blue. I'm sorry. You're trying your hardest, and thank you for that. And it's okay to get fed up with them, and to need a break. You're human. No one should expect you to care for them every minute of every day. This sucks, I know. You're doing incredibly well in an awful situation, but you shouldn't have to be doing this at all. It'll get better, Blue, I promise. I know that's hard to hold on to, and I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you. But it won't be this bad forever.

“No, you don’t have to…” He lets out a deep sigh, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to coddle me or anything like that, I’m just being a fucking mess as per usual. Oh. I mean… thank you, though. Thank you, really, I…”

He runs his hands through his short hair, his fingers loving at the places it’s begun to grow out again. He has an intense desire, almost suddenly, almost painfully, for his old hair back. But… then again, he can’t remember what that was like. He woke up one day in a bathtub, his hair dyed blue, Anti’s fingers against his scalp. There were strangers downstairs and a twin at his side and he was told to look after them. That’s all there ever was. The truth is, he remembers less than anyone of the person he used to be before this all started. He has no glimpses of past lovers, no connections to old friends still searching for him, no random memories to which he can travel for a few minutes of peace, and what time has he had to remember and explore the person he was and will be without Anti hanging over his throat? He’s their caretaker. That’s all.

“And not even a good one,” he mutters, letting his white hair go. “Not even a good one.”

A sharp scream makes him jolt up straight. For a second, there is a flash in his eyes like he might know magic once more - but it’s just the vitriol that lights up in him when he hears his twin cry out.

“Red!”

Anonymous asked: Blue there's something of a ruckus going on out back. With the emotional and physical state you and Trick are in, I don't know the best way to help out or if it's worth putting you two at risk as well. We don't really have a guage on the situation. I thought dap might explain but he just took off

“Fuck! I love that little shit, but he’s gotten way too used to having to clean up everybody’s messes all on his own. Trick, wait!”

Trick is on his feet, staggering towards the stairs. Blue grabs his arm, pulling him to his chest. “You need to sit down!”

“If that thing takes him away I’ll never get a chance to make this right!”

“We’ll go, but carefully!”

“No, I’ll go. You can barely get up the stairs on your own. Stay here, Blue!”

“Hey!”

Trick yanks away from his siblings and races up the stairs, panting and pale, leaving Blue limping after him.

“Where’s my fucking cane?” he hisses, staring in despair at the mountain of the stairs. “You gotta be joking.”

pine-storm-season asked: Trick, Trick, do you have your gun? Your brothers are in danger outside

Trick does have his gun. He always knows where it is. Always, always. Dok’s silver handgun fits venomously against his palm. He pushes outside - nothing but darkness.

The world has gone cold and silent. He stands in the doorway, pupils blown by the shadow, heart thumping in his chest. You can see his back illuminated. His front disappears into darkness.

He can’t see a goddamn thing.

Until Anti’s fire goes up in a blaze of white light, and a huge black dog races towards the jungle cat dragging a struggling figure back towards the trees, a howl of joy and adrenaline and anger all at once tearing from its fiery throat.

bupine asked: dark, you you earlier that we should bring the boys to you. how can we trust you when you're hurting them? i believe there's no way you can be worse than anti, although maybe i shouldn't speak too soon, but you need to stop this, please. don't hurt them.

“Don’t tell them anything!” Dapper says - or you think so. It is difficult to tell with half his arm mangled in the mouth of the panther. “They’re always learning and they’ll use it against every - ”

He cuts himself off as the teeth dig deeper into his wrist, tearing sinew. He throws his head back, eyes rolling from the pain, but not for a second does he stop struggling.

And then Anti is there.

“I’ll show you worse,” laughs his voice from every side, the dog crashing into Dark and biting its yellowed teeth. “You clever old gobshite, going for my strongest. I’ll tear your pretty white throat open for that, hahaha. Come on, get a better form out and let’s fight like the mangled excuses for living beings that we are.”

Anti shifts back into Jack’s form, his eyes blazing with color, his throat sopping blood, a huge white smile on his fanged teeth. From the porch, the bang of a gun, and Dark’s shadowed form falls back, dissipating into a heavy, buzzing smoke.

“Dance with me!” shrieks Anti, and he leaps forward, burning with fire and thorn. Whether or not Dark remembers, here is one truth - Anti has learned new tricks since last he saw them.

bupine asked: dapper, get back. are you alright? stay away from dark, get with your brothers to safety. let anti handle it.

“Dap!” Dok wraps his arms around him. Dapper gives a heaving gulp of air in lieu of a scream, struggling. It isn’t Dok’s job to save him. It’s Dapper’s to save them. He can reverse this if he just - if he just -

The pain stabs through him, disorienting any plans for time travel. Dok pulls him back towards the house as Trick grabs at Red, both of them moving towards the porch and hunkering down together, holding each other.

“I don’t want Anti to die,” confesses Dapper. “Especially not to leave us with the Darkness!”

“Stop trying to use your wrist!” cries Dok. “I need to clean this up! Anyway, it looks like he’s burning them down to ash.”

“He’s going to set the forest on fire,” fears Trick.

“They’re learning things about us! If they had really wanted to take one of us, they could have, I’m sure of it! They wouldn’t have come alone - they’re hiding their allies while they learn about all of us!”

“Stop goddamn signing, Dapper, I’m not joking! You’re losing blood! Can we just get inside the house?”

pine-storm-season asked: He's not going to die here, Dapper. Dark won't kill him.

“I don’t trust Dark with anything, anything, anything - ”

Dok pins his arm down against the kitchen table, trying to see the wound through the rapid blood flow. Trick sets an unresponsive Red down on the couch, pulling his brother’s hood up over his eyes before turning back to Dok.

Dok looks at him, putting all else aside for the moment. “I need - ”

“To stem the bloodflow before you can stitch it. I’ll get you a towel and try to find something for the pain.”

Outside, the foliage thickens as plants burst up from the ground, trapping a shadowy figure beneath bluebell and redwood, though it won’t last long.

pine-storm-season asked: Anti's said that Dark won't kill him. They know each other. He's not going to die here and leave you to them, okay? It's okay. You're in the house, you're safe.

“Safe from Dark,” moans Dapper, squirming. “But he has pets of his own.”

“I’ve got you. Just try to stay calm,” says Dok. “I’ll sedate you if I have to, wild man, don’t doubt me.”

“I don’t like them.”

“Dapper, we are all so, so aware of that fact. Acutely aware. Now hush. Doesn’t this hurt?”

It does. But it’s just pain, and Dapper’s had worse. He looks around at the others, checking their bodies for wounds even as his head swims.

bupine asked: dapper, you should all get inside. anti will be fine - he's survived everything up til now, and unfortunately, i doubt this old acquaintance of his will be the one to kill him. i'll be greatly surprised if so. but you guys need to be safe, because while anti can fight him, you can't. get dapper fixed up, doc, can you? everyone else, stay inside and wait for anti to come back.

Dok slams the door shut behind them and locks it - for all your reassurances, he can’t help but wish Dark would just kill Anti, or maybe that they’d both kill each other, like digging your teeth deep into something poisonous. But Dapper seems a little convinced, his eyes roaming the messages, and he goes stiff against the kitchen table, his eyes sliding shut as Dok takes a towel from Trick and applies agonizing pressure to his wrist.

“He can’t lose his hand,” says Trick quietly. “He kind of needs that.”

“You think I am not aware of this? Get me water.”

They always tell patients it’s to make sure they stay hydrated, but it’s mostly psychological - this will help! You’re doing something to stay alive! Good work! Focus on that! Trick knows the drill.

pine-storm-season asked: Everyone's safe for the moment, right? All five of you in the house?

Blue slams open the door to the basement, panting hard, and shoots a glare around at his brothers, though the venom dies in his eyes within seconds and his worry makes him gentle again. He swoops forward on shaking legs to kneel at his twin’s side, staring up at Red’s scrunched-up face.

“Did he scare you again, love?”

Red doesn’t answer, gripping his hood over his eyes. Blue gets up to dim the lights and find blankets.

“We’re okay, we’re okay,” he chants in a loving rhythm. “Here we are, we’re alright. Fuck’s sake.”

He looks out the window, but either the fight has gone quiet or Dark and Anti are too deep in the woods for him to see anything. The birds have begun chirping again, unsure as they peep back out into the open.

bupine asked: trick, are you ok? talk to us if you need to, i understand this is a lot to handle.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he says quickly.

He is good in a crisis, truly. It’s part of the reason he and Dok have always gotten along - trauma and all.

“Just need to help Dap and Red and make sure Anti gets back okay. And he will. That thing doesn’t stand a chance against him. I’ve seen Anti wipe out police squads and gangs in one night. Especially when he’s protecting us.”

For a second, his hand swipes past Dok’s stomach, meeting that familiar old bullet wound in his belly. It’s almost subconscious. Like Dok’s skin is his own. Trick pauses for a moment, staring at the bruises in his brother’s neck. Bruises. He gripped him hard enough to leave bruises. And Dok was just quiet with him. Dok let him grab him.

“Just need to help Dap and Red and make sure Anti gets back okay, yeah,” mumbles Trick, bringing water to Dapper’s mouth. “Here I am, little man. Take a drink. You’ll feel better.”

pine-storm-season asked: Red, you okay? Okay-ish, anyway?

Red is well past the point of answering, stiff and silent on the couch, hiding from everything. Blue does not try to touch him. Red does not hum or rock or fidget. He just wants the buzzing in his head to stop. It’s so much at once that it’s painful. Nobody should be able to feel as much as intensely as he just did. He wants to be under his bed and alone and in the dark - but not dark too deep. Not dark too deep.

“I think he’ll just need a couple minutes,” says Blue. “He usually steadies out pretty fast unless he’s hurt or sick or something. He’ll just be a little brain-dead. I mean – just tired, mentally, you know?”

Red reaches out without opening his eyes to put his hand on Blue’s shoulder. Blue lets him massage at the fabric of his shirt in silence, unmoving beneath his brother’s palm.

Anonymous asked: Dok, what I'm about to say doesn't excuse Trick from what he did to you, this isn't meant to be eye-for-an-eye bullshit or an apology on his behalf (only he can give you that) but you know you've done the same to him months and months ago, because whoever you were seeing wasn't your brother in your eyes. You two have changed drastically but have always stuck by each other and communicated to resolve things. Maybe words aren't as helpful as they once were, but silence and violence won't help

“Okay, you know what, what the hell?” Dok bursts out, turning away from Dapper’s bloodied arm for a second to stare at you in bewilderment. “Silence and violence? I have not for a single second been violent with him today. I walked away from a brother who had just physically attacked me so that I could calm the fuck down and not start sobbing all over him, and you think I did something wrong? Should I have stayed there and kissed it all better? What the fuck?”

“Dok, you have to concentrate,” Trick pants, wiping blood from Dapper’s wrist. “Please?”

“I have attacked him before and I’ve attacked myself too,” cries Dok. “You’re the only one here who’s still holding old grudges, camera. Trick and I moved past that. And goddamn, I’ll move past this too, but I did what was best for all of us by not yelling at him or excusing his behavior or telling him it’s okay, because it isn’t okay! It isn’t okay! None of this is okay, it’s not - ”

“Dok!” cries Blue.

“Can I have five goddamn minutes to step away from him after he fucking throttled me for not being obedient to Anti before you expect me to be telling him he’s perfect? Fuck! I don’t care if he’s changed. He made a goddamn choice and I’m allowed to believe that was wrong! He fucking hurt me! Just like Anti does, just like we’ve always comforted each other through! I used to believe Trick was the only thing in the world that would never mean to hurt me. That’s so fucking unfair to act like I’m the one in the wrong here!”

Trick gives a dry sob, bent over Dapper’s arm, but he doesn’t protest. He doesn’t want you to defend him either. He shouldn’t have done what he did and it’s alright for Doktor to step away from him when he’s being violent with him. Dok responded as appropriately as he could have - and they were genuinely only separate for about ten minutes before Dark attacked, so he doesn’t really know what you mean.

Anonymous asked: Dok I sincerely didn't mean that as an accusation. You aren't wrong for feeling your feelings. All I meant is you guys should talk things out but I'm timing my words poorly and not giving you guys time to process since so much has been happening. My mind is on worst-case-scenario mode and I'm sorry if I'm trying to solve things before I even know what the damage is. I'm sorry for over-stepping

“Some of you are young,” says Dok, his voice shaking. “I don’t want you to think that someone hurting you isn’t a big deal. In most circumstances… I wouldn’t tell you to let that person back into your life. And it’s never your responsibility to make sure other people are making up with each other - I don’t want you to carry the burden of other people’s relationships. Be careful with what you tell people to do just because you want things to go back to normal. Normal isn’t always healthy.”

“I’m worried shit is torn in here, Dok,” says Trick lowly, trying to be careful with Dapper’s arm even as he pushes at the wound. “That was like a whole big cat in his arm.”

“On the contrary, I would expect wounds from a big cat to be far worse,” answers Dok tersely, re-focusing. “Wild it may sound, but Dark was gentle with him.”

Anonymous asked: Whether Dark was being gentle or not, you can fix Dapper up, right? Or does he need to be added to the waiting list for the hospital in four days?

Dok laughs weakly. “Waiting list for the hospital… ah. No, no, it’s alright, I believe. I may not be able to do much, but I can still stitch, disinfect, and bandage as well as any real doctor.”

Trick looks up, blinking. “You are a real doctor.”

Dok is bent low over Dapper’s arm, holding it carefully in place.

“We’ll just have to keep it very clean,” he says after a moment.

pine-storm-season asked: Trick, is everything going okay? Dok knows what he's doing, I'm sure, but is Dapper okay?

“How are you holding up, buddy?” asks Trick, gripping Dapper’s shoulder. He can see the adrenaline fading off his little brother, his eyes getting glassy. Blood soaks into Trick’s socks.

Dapper holds onto his sleeve, blinking slowly.

“Dok, let’s lie him down.”

“On the carpet, then.”

They take him carefully towards Blue and Red. Dapper doesn’t protest when they put him down on the ground, his eyes rolling dazedly back.

“It’s quite a lot of blood.”

“He’ll be alright.”

Trick squeezes Dapper’s good hand. “Just hang in there, tough guy. You can sleep if you need to, it’s okay. Dok’s got you.”

bupine asked: anti, you ok out there?

“They’ll send PEOPLE to the house next, you mark my fucking WORDS.”

Everyone jolts - exception Dapper - as Anti glitches back into the house shouting as loud as he can. And as loud as he can is pretty damn loud.

“What are you going on about?” snaps Dok, hovering over Dapper’s body as Anti leaps through the kitchen towards them, his whole body shivering with computer-error colors.

“Dark!” he yells, clapping his hands together, his hair shifting rapidly between different shades of green and brown. “That was just the pre-game show! Aren’t they clever? Aren’t they FIERCE?”

Blue rolls his eyes, standing up to cover Red’s ears with his hands.

“They’ll send people here?” asks Trick. “I thought you said they wouldn’t come near the house, Anti.”

��No, they won’t, but they have soldiers of their own, and now they have an idea of what’s going on in this house, because SOMEONE had to go looking for his little boyfriend, didn’t he?”

Blue hugs Red to his chest, scared Anti will come over and punish him for it.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” babbles Anti, bouncing on his feet and whirling around, flipping his knife in his hand. “Had to happen, had to happen. If it wasn’t Red, it would have been one of the rest of you.”

“Anti, you’re bleeding,” says Trick.

“What’s blood to me?” hollers Anti, throwing his knife straight up, where it impales in the ceiling and stays. He laughs, rocking back on his heels. “What’s blood at all? Nothing ever kills me, nothing ever makes me die. All part of the game, my darling, and finally there’s someone worth playing with. Ah! I’m not watching the cameras! Be quiet and don’t go in the forest again, you little morons, unless you want to get stolen away, away, away!”

He vanishes in a flash of blinding color, glitching back to his room.

Dok, Trick, Red, and Blue look around at each other, eyes wide.

Anonymous asked: Wait, Anti, do you know if people they send will be able to come into the house? I want to know how alert they need to be to stay safe.

“Why not?” asks Anti. “Only spirits and humans like Jameson are bound by spirit rules. Though, I must tell you, it is never clever to enter a place where a spirit lives without permission. You ever seen that movie Spirited Away? Shit is fucked, man. But anyway, I’m not quite a spirit, am I? Not quite anything. Thank you, creator, for having absolutely no clear ideas in mind when you created me. Now I’m bound to so little, so little. Species have rules they have to follow - fairies fear iron, changelings choke on rowan, spirits respect each other’s spaces, magicians grow weary, demons run from priests, tricksters fool themselves, gods are forgotten, mortal things age and choke and rot away. Me, I’m a glitch in the system. The N/A, does not apply, none of the above option. Fuck you, Jack.”

Glitches buzz down his body. He shifts between Jack’s form and Trick’s, surrounded by a circle of laptops.

“Now lemme alone! I got work to do.”

Anonymous asked: Blue, everything has been so one-thing-after-the-other these days and you've been so sick through it all... I feel like we haven't been able to talk with you in a while. And don't you dare brush yourself of as not as important as the others because I want you to know that despite everything going on, you still are.

“Oh,” says Blue, smiling weakly at you as he sits back down beside Red on the couch. “That’s nice, thanks. It’s not your fault I’ve been tired so much.”

“Speaking of which,” says Trick, looking up at his sibling as Blue leans against Red, the two of them resting together.

“Yeah, it might just be nap time,” sighs Dok, swiping away the last of the blood from Dapper’s arm.

“Is he alright?” asks Blue.

“I think he’ll be fine. Just got to change his bandages a couple times a day and make sure the wound stays clean. He’s always been a fast healer.”

They go quiet after that. Red and Dapper sleep. Trick goes back to the kitchen and cooks - again. The fridge is full of tupperware. The counters are lined with bread and desserts. He still feels scared that they’ll be hungry again soon.

It’s quiet.

No, wait -

How good are your ears?

Turn up the volume. Listen close. On the other side of Dapper’s bed, where Dok is sitting, turned away from you, watching over his patients.

“Guess our first plan isn’t going to work,” whispers Blue.

“None of this is working,” whispers back Dok. “We just need to run, Blue.”

“How can we run from a thing like him?” Exhaustion in his voice. An ache in his voice. “He’ll always find us again.

“Well, how the hell do we killa thing like that?”

No answer from Blue. No answer from anyone.

“Get some rest, Blue. I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

“Me too,” answers Blue quietly. “Me too, Dok. But it’s nobody’s fault. We’ll get through this.”

“Will we?”

No answer. No answer.

“We’ll talk more tomorrow. You need a rest too.”

“Alright. Okay.”

“I love you.”

On the bed, Dapper is not entirely unconscious.

There’s a knock on the door of the bedroom in the basement.

Dok looks up, letting Noodle slip off his lap to go greet the newcomer. “Yeah?” he calls.

Trick opens the door, an uncertain smile on his face. His cat yowls and winds around his legs, licking at his calf and purring like a little motorboat.

“Oh. Hi,” says Dok.

“Hi,” answers Trick. His eyes are slightly red. He steps into the room with a plate full of food. “I, um. I made bratwurst.”

Dok blinks. “Bratwurst?”

“Yeah. And brought you… a beer? And some chocolate cake with strawberry. Which was as close as I could get to, um. Black Forest Gateau.”

A lingering anxiety can’t stop the slow smile that builds across Dok’s face. “Cause I’m German?” he teases.

“Cause you’re German,” Trick teases back quietly, looking down at the floor. “But you don’t have to - ”

“I do,” says Dok, already anticipating what he’ll say. “I’d like to.”

“Do you want me to leave it here or can I eat with you?”

“You can eat with me, my brother.”

Trick sits down on the bed beside him and hands him a fork, setting the beer down on the table. Noodle leaps up behind them both and begins shoving his head into both of their backs, pawing for a bit of bratwurst.

“Should we talk about what happened?” whispers Trick.

“I don’t know,” whispers back Dok. “It wasn’t real, was it?”

Trick bows his head over the bratwurst and cake like it’s a funeral reception meal, picking at his sausage.

Anonymous asked: Apologies, Dok, but do you mind explaining what you mean by that? I don't understand.

“Mmh.” Dok rubs at his face. Maybe he should let the cameras turn away for a few, but ever since Norway he’s felt nervous without you nearby, like something will happen and he won’t find out in time to help. “It just doesn’t feel like it could have really happened. It was too - it was too horrible to have really happened.”

“Es tut mir leid, Deutsch, I’m sorry.”

Trick means it. Dok seems to melt, resting his head against his brother’s shoulder, letting the two of them sit quiet for a moment, close. Noodle seems pleased, sitting between their thighs and purring, the only noise in the quiet.

“Don’t do that to me again, Trick,” pleads Dok. “You are killing me.”

Trick hides against his hair, hugging him to his shoulder.

Anonymous asked: Do you both want a distraction, maybe? We could probably think of something to talk to you about.

Trick and Dok grin, their heads press close together. Sharing a plate and a cat, their bodies side-by-side, they do look like twins. If Dok didn’t have glasses and Trick didn’t have that lawn on his head, you might not be able to tell them apart - though I expect there are intimacies of the both of them you have come to recognize. Burn scars on the back of a pale hand. An uprightness to Dok’s spine. Ice or skylines in respective blue eyes.

“Sure, distract us,” chuckles Dok, putting a piece of cake in his mouth, and it’s rich and soft and sweet.

Anonymous asked: Hmmm... I could tell you a funny thing one of my chickens did when she was a baby? We had a little cardboard tunnel for her and the other chickens, and she was walking along the top of it very elegantly, and she stretched out a wing, and she turned to look at some parsley we had hung nearby, and she kept walking... and then she walked right off the edge of the tunnel like a goddamn cartoon character. (She was completely fine though, just very indignant that she'd fallen.)

“Hahaha. Chickens are dumb, is funny.”

“That sounds like Mr. Pot Noodle,” says Trick, kissing his cat’s head once, twice. “But when he falls off things he just cries like a baby for Papa to come scoop him up, don’t you? Don’t you, baby?”

Dok rolls his eyes at his brother’s coddling, amused.

“Trick!” echoes a voice through the floorboards. “Trickshot?”

Dok’s growing relief vanishes instantly. He shrinks against the headboard of the bed, eyes wide, and even Trick looks worried, setting Noodle down.

“Anti, I’m down here,” he calls back evenly. “I’m okay, what’s wrong?”

Footsteps thump down the stairs. Dok shakes his head rapidly, reaching out to grab Trick’s fingers.

“What’s wrong?”

Dok just shakes his head, mouth gone thin and pale, eyes closed.

Anonymous asked: Anti, is it Dapper? That's the only reason I can think of for you needing Dok.

“I said Trickshot! Pay attention, damn!”

Anti pushes open the door to the guest room. His form, for once, is mostly stable, an older version of his creator with his hair tied back and glasses on.

“Fine, you’re forgiven. What, can a creature not want to see his little brother? Trick, come on, let’s go watch that movie like we were talking about. I mentioned Spirited Away and now I wanna see that big black monster go apeshit and eat a bunch of frogs.”

Trick laughs nervously, glancing back at Dok, who stares up at Anti with wide eyes.

“What?” Anti mocks him, smiling wide. “You wanna come upstairs too, Arzt? You wanna go to your room and hang out with me?”

Dok shakes his head quickly, hugging Noodle against his chest.

Anonymous asked: Dok, you okay, bud? Do you want to go be with Red and Blue, if Trick goes with Anti to watch that?

“Don’t go,” croaks Dok. “Come on, stay with me.”

Doesn’t Trick know he feels farther away from him everyday?

“Dok, I - we’re just going to watch a movie, man. I… I just - we’re just going to watch a movie.”

Doesn’t Dok know he doesn’t have a choice?

Dok lets go of his fingers and turns away. Trick turns back to Anti, who smiles sweetly and takes him by the hand, jumping back as Noodle darts forward to try and follow Trick. Dok sees Trick looking back at him for a moment more before Anti slams the door on Noodle and takes his brother away.

Dok stares down at his sausage and cake. He isn’t all that hungry anymore.

Anonymous asked: I think Trick will come back when they've finished the movie, okay? Do you want to go be with Red and Blue, or stay here and talk to us, or just be alone for a bit?

Dok sighs and picks up his plate, wandering upstairs. Red and Blue, at least, are having some fun time together, playing Mario Kart on the couch and laughing their asses off.

He finds his littlest brother in the bedroom that’s meant to be Red and Trick’s, still napping. Gently, Dok sets his plate down and wakes Dapper.

“Need to clean up your bandages,” he murmurs. “Fresher we keep them, the better.”

Dapper smiles wearily up at him and lets him work.

“How’s the pain?”

“Not as bad as yours, I’ll warrant,” he answers.

“How dramatic you are,” chuckles Dok, brushing a curl of brown hair from his eyes, but Dapper doesn’t smile.

“This is what he does,” he signs slowly, his fingers and hand and wrist all aching.

“What is? Who?”

“Anti. He shows you a false version of himself, first - someone loving and affectionate, if complicated and bad tempered. And you can fall for him. You can love him, really. And then, once you’re in deep already, he starts to show you the awful parts of himself. Slow. One at a time. He normalizes everything, bit by bit. Uses hypnosis when he has to. But more than anything else, it’s just that love of him. Every day you convince yourself, more and more strongly - ‘he’s not really as bad as he acts sometimes. Just a bad temper. Remember how kind he was to me the other day?’ And you get sucked down deeper and deeper. Until you can let him use your hands to murder innocent people, and it won’t even make you hate him.”

Dok can’t meet his eyes. Can barely watch his hands. Slow tears drip down his face.

He thinks maybe Dapper is crying too. He isn’t sure he’s ever seen Dapper cry.

“Is that what happened to you?” asks Dok.

“It’s happening to Trick.”

“I know that,” he whispers. “So tell me how you escaped it.”

“Oh, love,” says Dapper, with a tenderness like a hearth in winter. “Oh, love. I am still stuck, most of the time. But I am trying to hope again. And that, I suppose, is where freedom begins.”

Dok wraps his injured wrist in clean, white bandages, soft linen surrounding the torn arm of his youngest brother. He wants to cry. He wants to surrender.

But he won’t.

He can’t do everything he wants to right now. Can’t save everyone. Can’t heal everyone. Can’t take everyone to safety and show them how much he loves them and how little they need someone like Anti.

But he can wrap Jameson’s wrist up, so he does.

In the clean bandages, his hope, for the moment, sustains itself.

Anonymous asked: Yeah. This is probably one of the hardest things that you all will have to do, getting free of him. But it'll happen, yeah? I believe in you guys. You're doing incredibly well handling all this, and I believe in you.

“Sausage?” asks Dapper.

A smile twitches on Dok’s mouth. “Yeah. Help me eat it?”

He hands Dapper Trick’s fork and his little brother digs in earnestly, splitting the pair of bratwursts with Dok. There are more in the kitchen if Trick comes back, so Dok doesn’t count it as a betrayal. Besides, nobody loves meat better than Dap. He feels he’s owed it after the day he’s had.

In reparation for yelling at Dapper the other day for getting drunk, Dok gets him a beer and they drink together on the bed, tired and worn, but holding together. Dok eats the last of the chocolate cake on his own, focusing on the warmth of the cat on his lap and the close-by younger brother.

“But you don’t know how to get free?” asks Dapper, returning without preamble to the previous conversation.

Dok blinks, looking up at him.

“You want to kill him?”

“Fuck,” hisses Dok, pushing you slightly away. “Dap, be careful, okay? I - I just want to get away from him. And stay away from him forever. And I think maybe the only way to do that is… is… yeah. Yeah.”

The clock on the wall ticks. JJ stares at him, his deep blue eyes rimmed in long, black eyelashes.

“If you did know how to kill him,” he signs slowly. “You would.”

Dok doesn’t know how to answer. He sticks the last bite of cake in his mouth.

“But you don’t know how. You don’t know how.”

“You were listening earlier,” Dok accuses. “When Blue and I were talking.”

Dapper barely seems to register the words.

“You don’t know,” he taps distantly, eyes faraway as he thinks. “You don’t know how.”

“Do you?”

Dapper shakes his head. “No… no.”

Dok deflates again, turning his head away. “Then there’s no point in talking about it, my friend. Let’s not give the master a reason to hit us again tonight.”

Dapper watches him take the plate to the kitchen, leaving him alone in the room. He stares at the floor, lost in thought.

No, he doesn’t know how. He’s seen his brother survive most everything - fire, bullets, knives, being turned into an animal, prolonged starvation, self-harm, electricity, iron and running water, magicians, Jackie and Marvin. No. He doesn’t know.

Could he find out?

“Can I sleep in here with you tonight?” asks a small voice at his door.

Dok has come back. Trick has not. Dapper’s heart hurts with pity for him.

“Yes, of course.”

Dok crawls into bed beside him. Their bodies lock together. Dok sleeps.

Dapper thinks long and hard, but eventually the warm purring of a kitten and the nearness of a safe brother’s body lulls him into deep and unanswering sleep.

#chapter four

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