hey do you all know that banjo patterson's classic australian anthem, waltzing matilda, is about a guy who drowns himself to avoid the cops

australians know this but most english speakers on the internet are not australians

What's Really Keeping You Awake?

Written for @badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: 9-1-1: Lone Star

Characters: T.K. Strand, Carlos Reyes, Nancy Gillian, firefam (mentioned).

Prompt: Arm in a Sling

Summary: When T.K. gets hurt at work he tries to hide the injury from Carlos. But he should have known his boyfriend is always one step ahead.

Links: ff.net - AO3

T.K's fingers tapped impatiently against his thigh as he waited for his call to get picked up.

"Hi, babe, everything okay?" Came Carlos' eventual greeting.

"Hi, yeah, everything's alright. Just wanted to let you know that I won't be going home tonight after shift. Going with Owen instead," T.K. said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Why?" Carlos asked suspiciously. "Is he okay?"

"Nothing special, no issues with his recovery. Dad's just been feeling it since mom left and then we moved in together," T.K. explained.

"Isn't that why Mateo moved in?" Carlos wondered, "I mean, the guy needed a place to live, I get it. But we both know Captain Strand wasn't the obvious choice."

"Yeah," T.K. said, not able to argue that fact. "But Mateo is staying with Paul for the weekend so I just want to keep my dad company."

"Hmm." Carlos audibly sighed. "Are you sure nothing happened?"

"Yes, of course," T.K. said, forcing his voice to stay calm and collected.

"Are you in the hospital?" Carlos blurted out.

"What? No!" T.K's responded, letting out a nervous exhale.

"Tyler," Carlos said in his best threatening tone.

"I promise, I'm not in the hospital," T.K. assured, pursing his lips.

"Are you in an ambulance?" Carlos asked next, wanting to cover all bases.

"I work in an ambulance," T.K. said simply.

"You know what I meant," Carlos grumbled.

"Stop worrying, Carlos. Everything's okay. Just trying to be a good son," T.K half-lied, chuckling to himself as he silently wondered what it said about him that in this situation Carlos' first thought was that he was trying to hide an injury, unlike most others who would have thought he was having an affair.

"Okay, I will see you this weekend then?" Carlos relented, but his tone letting on that he wasn't happy.

"Yeah, I will call you tonight. Love you, baby," T.K. promised, then ended the call, again, just a little too quickly.

Putting his phone back in his pocket, T.K. sighed and turned back to Nancy. "Sorry, you can keep going."

"Carlos is going to kill you when he finds out," Nancy offered helpfully, "but lucky for you, I don't think anything is broken so you won't have to go to the hospital. At least, you weren't lying about that."

"Yeah, lucky me." T.K. rolled his eyes, doing his best to suppress a grunt as Nancy prodded the area around his shoulder.

"But, on second thought... I have to pop it back in, maybe you want to go to the hospital for that?" Nancy questioned, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"You are enjoying this, aren't you?" T.K. asked with a groan.

"Maybe, a little. Not the injury, tho. I'm sorry the patient knocked you off the ladder," Nancy said sincerely, "but I'll enjoy hearing of Carlos' reaction when he finds out," she added with a grin.

"Well, too bad he won't find out," T.K. challenged, "or I'll tell Tommy that you broke her favorite coffee mug. You know, the super cute, purple one her girls got her for mother's day?" His familiar smug smirk now plastered on T.K's face.

Nancy grunted but said nothing, knowing she was beat. "Ready?" She asked instead, knowing there was no way T.K. was voluntarily going to a hospital for a dislocated shoulder.

Suddenly reminded why he was sitting at the back of their ambulance, T.K. instantly lost his smile and blanched a little. Because no matter how many injuries someone has had, popping in a dislocated anything always hurt like a bitch, especially when you couldn't take any painkillers. But still, he nodded, closing his fist around his shirt and bracing for the pain.

"I'll be quick," Nancy whispered and without warning moved her hands to either side of T.K's shoulder and yanked.

"Son of a…" T.K's yelped, his words cut short by a loud pop as his joint set back into place.

"Sorry, Strand," Nancy said, a guilty smile replacing her previous grin. "I know you won't take anything strong, but can I give you some Ibuprofen?"

T.K. just shook his head, his mouth set in a straight line as he tried to breathe through the pain.

"You're going to be sore," Nancy pushed, gazing down at T.K. with a knowing look as she maneuvered his shoulder into a sling.

"I've OTC painkillers at home, I promise I'll take some if the pain gets too bad," T.K. lied, grunting as the movement jostled his injured joint.

"You mean at Owen's house, right?" Nancy asked (not so) innocently.

"You can really be mean sometimes." T.K. pouted, trying to bite down a grin.

"You just make it too easy. But really, I know you won't take anything, so at least ice your shoulder when you get home and remember to sleep on your other side," Nancy directed, wishing she could offer her partner some relief from the pain but knowing that with T.K's history that simply wasn't an option.

"I'll be okay, Nance. Thank you for taking care of it, I'll be careful," T.K promised, then rolled his neck as he got accustomed to the feel of the sling around his arm.

"And no nighttime activities for you," Nancy said softly, looking at T.K. with a knowing smile, "but on second thought, I don't think that will be a problem now." Her grin turning into full-blown laughter.

"You only say that cause you're jealous," T.K. said, sticking his tongue out. Then jumped out of the ambulance, smiling to himself as Nancy made a face and tossed a roll of gauze at him.

As Nancy finished organizing everything in the back, T.K. sat down on the ambo's bumper and sighed, wishing he could go home to cuddle with Carlos instead of to an empty apartment. But he was tired of the trouble magnet jokes and Carlos saying he was taking years off his life, and this was too simple an injury to worry his boyfriend over. So, he would just have to suck it up.

A few minutes passed with the partners just chatting about everything and nothing as they waited for Tommy to get back after dropping their patient at the hospital.

"You okay, Strand?" Was Tommy's first question as soon as she returned to the ER's parking lot.

"I am, Nancy checked it out and we're ready to go," T.K. said and raised to his feet, trying very hard not to cry out when the movement jerked his shoulder.

"Are you sure you don't need to be looked at?" Tommy was still staring at T.K with a worried expression, even when the question was directed to his partner.

"He will be okay," Nancy explained, "nothing got broken and the joint should heal nicely after a few days of rest. Plus, T.K. is not a liar and he absolutely wasn't at the hospital today," she couldn't help add, the corner of her lip tucking upward.

"Do I even want to know?" Tommy asked no one in particular, shooting a curious look to her two, young coworkers.

"Probably not. Let's go," Nancy said with a chuckle, getting into the back of the ambulance and sitting on the bench. "You can sit at the front, Strand. Just don't go getting used to it," she added as a way of response to T.K's raised eyebrows and silent question.

"Thanks, partner," T.K acknowledged, happy with the sort of truce that he had reached with his new partner, and even more with the way that agreement was slowly evolving into a real friendship.

The ride back to the firehouse was spent in comfortable silence, all three paramedics lost in between their thoughts and the low music coming from the speakers. Tommy did her best to avoid any cracks in the pavement but still shot sympathetic glances T.K's way every time he grunted or winced.

Reaching the firehouse, T.K's ignored everyone's concerned stares and just walked quickly to the locker room. Knowing with the sling taking off his shirt would be a pain, he decided to just leave on his uniform and wait until he was home. He would want to shower and better to go through the hassle just one time.

After promising all his teammates that yes, he was okay, and yes, he would call if he needed help, and no, he didn't need a ride (especially when he was planning to go to Owen's and not Carlos'), T.K. was finally able to escape all the mother henning and quietly get into his Uber.

Going up the stairs and inside Owen's apartment was more difficult that it should have been, with T.K. dropping the keys as he tried to open the door with his non-dominant hand and as he continued to fumble with the strap of his duffel bag, which kept rolling down his shoulder. The ordeal left him winded, and with a very big desire to just face plant on the couch and sleep for the next many hours. But he had worked more than half a shift before he got hurt so he was in desperate need of a shower.

So, T.K. just dropped his keys, wallet and phone on the kitchen counter and walked to the guest room, his face losing all color as soon as his eyes landed on the figure sitting on the bed.

"Hi baby," Carlos said cheerfully, even as his eyes narrowed and his lips turned upward into an innocent smile.

Letting his bag fall to the floor with a thud, T.K. had the sudden urge to turn around and run, instead he tried to give Carlos his best apologetic grin as he looked straight into his boyfriend's eyes.

"Want a chance to explain before I start asking questions?" Carlos said, making T.K. wonder if that's how he started interrogations with the people he arrested.

"What are you doing here?" T.K. asked, ignoring Carlos' question and trying very hard not to squirm under his boyfriend's gaze.

"I asked first," Carlos said matter-of-factly.

"Long, boring story I'm sure you don't want to hear," T.K. mumbled, hoping against hope that Carlos would just let it go for now. Then he tip-toed towards Carlos and tried to wrap his arms around his boyfriend, but Carlos just jumped out of the bed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Whoa there, cowboy. Slow your roll cause you're not getting out of this so easily," Carlos quipped, a scowl now adorning his features too.

"What do you want me to say, Carlos? I got hurt at work." T.K. awkwardly raised his injured arm, trying to emphasize his point, before he dropped both shoulders dejectedly, and turned his eyes to stare at the ground.

"I think that part is obvious," Carlos simply stated, "but I'm more interested in the part where you thought it was a good idea to lie to me and hide the injury."

"I didn't lie, everything I said was technically true," T.K. tried, letting out a nervous chuckle.

"In this case, omitting the truth is the same as lying."

"I'm sorry, Carlos. I just didn't want to frighten you again. I mean, come on, we haven't even been really dating a full year and I've already been shot, kidnapped and knocked unconscious with a concussion. I know you all joke that I'm a trouble magnet, but I also know you worry. And you have enough worries at work to also lose sleep over me," T.K. rambled as he paced around the room, "besides, I don't want you realizing that I'm just too much for you," he finished barely above a whisper, sad eyes moving to Carlos' again.

Carlos remained silent for a few minutes after that, seemingly mulling over T.K's words, before his arms uncrossed and he moved towards his boyfriend, engulfing him in a quick hug before he stepped out of his space again.

"First, I'm a cop, babe, do you really think a dislocated shoulder will really scare me? You know I've seen it all, and yes, it's worse when things happen to you, but I know it's the nature of both our jobs."

"I'm sorry," T.K. whispered, cutting Carlos off and taking a tentative step forward.

"Wait, let me finish," Carlos said, raising his hands to stall T.K's movements. "I won't get mad if you get injured, but I don't like you lying to me. Or emitting truths," he amended before T.K. tried to find another loophole, because sometimes his boyfriend really took to his mother. "You once said we made a pretty good team. And you were right, and we have only gotten better with time."

"In more ways that one…" T.K. said smugly, his eyes going to Carlos' lips, and then further down.

Carlos let out an outward moan, even if he would argue it was more like an annoyed groan, as his lips parted on their own volition and he ended up having to bite down on his lower lip as he tried not to give into T.K's charm.

"Yeah," Carlos easily agreed, his deep voice sounding even huskier. "But don't go trying to distract me, you're not out of the doghouse yet. So as I was saying, I don't care about a dislocated shoulder, but…"

"Wait, how do you know about the shoulder?" T.K asked, "and how are you even here?"

"Will you stop interrupting me?" Carlos said, sounding mildly exasperated, "I called Mateo. I knew you were hiding something, and I know Marjan, Paul and Judd would have been more difficult to deal with. Mateo might be a damn good firefighter but that boy can't lie to save his life. He told me what happened, then I called Captain Stra- Owen, and turns out he thought I was working a shift tonight so that's why you were coming here."

"What have we talked about interrogating my team, Officer Reyes?" T.K. wondered out loud, wishing his boyfriend wasn't so good at his job.

"Well, I wouldn't have to if you gave me another choice," Carlos challenged, eyebrows raised. "But again, as I was saying, we're a team T.K. and I can take anything you, or life, throw our way. You might be high maintenance but you'll never be too much for me," he added, a teasing smile now gracing his lips, easing the harshness that had taken over his features.

"I'm high maintenance? I'm not the one that only eats homemade tortillas, can't get veggies that are not from the farmer's market and forces me to get up at dinner and get the salt because God forbids you handle it to me and doom our relationship forever," T.K. mumbled under his breath, the twinkle in his eye showing that his words carried no heat.

"It's not my fault that Latinos have many superstitions. Or that I need to do so much stress cooking because my stubborn and daredevil boyfriend keeps getting in trouble. Which brings me to my last point, I do lose sleep over you, T.K," Carlos began, stepping towards him and moving his hands under his shirt. "But not because I worry about you. I do, always will. But when I go to sleep, with your body next to mine, I tend to have other things in mind." Pushing, T.K. all the way back until he fell onto the bed, Carlos let his lips hover just above T.K's for a moment before he leaned forward, crashing his already parted lips into T.K's waiting ones.

The moment quickly became more heated as they deepened the once sweet kiss, both their hands now exploring every reachable part of their boyfriend's body. That is, until Carlos let too much of his weight fall onto T.K, making the man gasp and groan as his shoulder took the brunt of it.

"Too bad you're injured and I can't show you the type of things I think about," Carlos croaked, pressing a kiss just on the edge of T.K's lips, before he pushed his body away from the bed, and out of his boyfriend's reach.

"Oh come on, babe. You can tease like that and just leave me hanging," T.K. breathed out, trying to grab Carlos's shirt, but his fingers only brushing a bit of exposed skin along his hip.

"Don't pout, babe. It's not a good look on you. Plus you'll get wrinkles and I happen to love your smooth skin," Carlos said, trying to ignore the electricity coursing through his body starting from the spot T.K's fingers had touched.

Not missing the way Carlos' body just quivered, T.K looked at his boyfriend with his perfected shit-eating grin, his eyes practically undressing the other man, just as his boyfriend silently did the same.

"Lucky for you, I have other ideas to show you how being with you could never be too much. In fact, every moment we spend together is just never enough," Carlos said sweetly, like usual being the first to give in. Extending his arm to his boyfriend, Carlos pointed to the bathroom with his chin as his free hand was already removing T.K's belt and unbuttoning his pants.

"I like the sound of that," T.K. rasped out, barely able to form words. He then took Carlos' hand, letting his boyfriend pull him towards him, as his free arm reciprocated, briskly and awkwardly loosening Carlos' sweatpants, and pulling at the hem of his shirt.

"Good. The hot water will be good for your shoulder. Plus, you're still in uniform, I can only assume you didn't shower at the station. It's only natural that we do that before I get you into bed," Carlos explained simply, "so you can rest your shoulder, that is," he added, but his darkened eyes showed that right now taking care of T.K's injury was the last thing on his mind.

Brain short-circuiting, T.K. only nodded as he let Carlos remove the sling on his arm and the rest of the clothing that still got in between their desires, before he let his boyfriend lead him into the bathroom.

Later on there would be time for T.K. to continue apologizing and explain more about how he got hurt, for Carlos to take care of his shoulder and comfort his boyfriend, and for both of them to further promise that they were it for each other, that they were both in it for the long run and there was never a need to hide things because they would always be a team. But for now, all thoughts of T.K's injury and small lie were out of their minds, and Carlos and T.K. just relished the presence of the other, the feel of their bodies pressed together, as they let the steam of the shower dissolve their insecurities and fears, and just got lost in each other.

"Wait, what if my dad comes home?"

"Too bad you will have a lot of explaining to do. There's a reason I asked you to move in with me," Carlos said, finally getting his chance to be the smug one.

And whatever was said next was lost to the outside world, as the door to the bathroom slammed shut, and only T.K's groan and Carlos' laughter could be heard over the splash of the shower.

The Real People of Black Sails!

Here’s a quick(I promise....I promise this is as short as I could make it without leaving out some really choice shit) rundown of all the real historical figures peppered throughout Black Sails! I think I caught them all but if you know of others please mention them and I’ll add them on! Under a readmore because this is....so long y’all.

Pirates & Maroons

Anne Bonny (possibly 1697 – unknown; possibly April 1782) Started life crossdressing at her dad’s behest to avoid his wife(who wasn’t Bonny’s mom), married a guy her dad didn’t like, moved to Nassau. There her husband became a spy for Rogers and Anne was like ‘Not cool bro’. She met Jack, they started fucking, and Anne discovered she was really good at stabbing things. Resumed dressing as a man and started trying to seduce Mary Read who was also dressed as a man. They did indeed fall victim to one of the classic queer blunders. Anyway, Anne’s like ‘it’s not gay I’m a chick!’ And Mary is like ‘really?? Then it’s a little gayer than you realize because I’m a chick too!’ They (probably) start banging. Rackham’s like ‘hang on! I’m the only dick in Anne’s life’ and Mary and Anne are like ‘you sure are’ and Mary shows him her boobs and then they have some sort of complicated and probably not totally consensual threeway. Then they get captured because, Jack is That Guy Who Was Too Drunk To Realize His Ship Was Under Attack and Mary and Anne had to defend the ship against like, a whole other crew. Jack is hung(not a dick joke), but both Anne and Mary plead stays of execution due to pregnancy. Anne disappears but possibly is maybe referred to later. No one knows. Neat!

Edit: According to sources from this post there is a genealogical record that refers to Anne and it records her death as 1782. Very neat!

Israel Hands (c.1701-death unknown) Israel Hands was a real pirate and Blackbeard’s first mate. Not much else is known about where he came from or his life, other than that Blackbeard shot him in the knee at one point while supposedly aiming for another man. ‘Oops my bad this pistol is from like, the 18th century or something.’ While recuperating in Bath he was arrested after Teach’s death but took a pardon in exchange for ratting out the colonial officials who had been bribed by Teach. It’s unknown what happened to him after that although That Book About Pyrites says he died a beggar in London.

Benjamin Hornigold (1680–1719) Horny4gold was one of the most well known and influential pirates of the Golden Age. Most other pirates sailed under him or with him at one point, and he was one of the founders of the Pirate Republic of Nassau. He never attacked british ships during his time as captain so that he could be like ‘but brooooo I was acting in Britain’s Interests!!! Bro!!!!!’ But his co-pirates didn’t like that and eventually voted to replace him with Sam Bellamy. He accepted the king's pardon in 1718 and became a pirate hunter instead. Bummer. He was reportedly killed in a shipwreck.

Okay listen Horingold in any universe is a fucking JOKE I have to share this passage with y’all:

“Hornigold is recorded as having attacked a sloop off the coast of Honduras, but as one of the passengers of the captured vessel recounted, "they did us no further injury than the taking most of our hats from us, having got drunk the night before, as they told us, and toss'd theirs overboard"” WHAT A JOKE.

Dr. Howell - (birth/death unknown) John Howell was a pirate surgeon forced into service by Hornigold sometime in early 1717. He sailed with various pirate crews until October before returning into the service of Governor Rogers.

Ned Low (1690–1724) N’EDWARD. Okay I’m serious again. Born in London, Lowe grew up a thief in a thief family before moving to Boston. His wife died in childbirth in 1719, so he decided ‘fuck it I’ll become a Pirate Captain’ and did just that. He was known for torturing the people on board the ships he captured before murdering them and burning the ship. Interestingly though, Lowe was known to have a huge amount of regret over abandoning his daughter when he turned pirate, and wouldn’t force married men into his service. He also reportedly would allow women to return to port safely. Because of his numerous captures and cruelties, he was one of the most well known pirates in his day. There are differing reports about Low’s death - some say his crew mutinied and marooned him and he was subsequently hung, others say his ship sunk in a storm, and some say he just straight up disappeared. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jack Rackham - (December 26, 1682 – November 18, 1720) Really a pirate, really named himself after a housecat pattern. (No, okay, he didn’t, it was because of his threads. But wouldn’t the cat thing fit too?) Sailed with Vane, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. Was mostly known for being That Guy Who Was Too Drunk To Realize His Ship Was Under Attack and being Anne and Mary’s captain. He was captured and sentenced to hang after the aforementioned Drunk Blunder in 1720.

Mary/Mark Read - (1685 – 28 April 1721) Much like Anne Bonny, Mary dressed as a boy for much of her youth so a parent could swindle someone out of money. From her teenage years on she continued dressing as a man to find work in the military and as a sailor. She did marry but her husband died young and so she decided to become a pirate. Like ya do. She accepted the king’s pardon in 1718, then mutinied on the privateer she was aboard, once again becoming a pirate. Because pirates are sexy. In 1720 she joined Jack Rackham’s crew and sailed with him and Bonny. Cue the whole ‘Hey you’re hot, also I’m a woman.’ ‘Oh, hey, same hat!’ with Anne. In November of 1720, Rackham’s ship was captured. Mary died of a fever in prison(likely due to her pregnancy) in 1721.

Edward Teach - (c. 1680 – 22 November 1718) He started piracy sailing under Hornigold, and built the fleet alongside him and Stede Bonnet until Hornigold retired. COOL fact about Blackbeard is he was a MASTER showman who liked to light slow burning fuses under his hat to scare his enemies, and he relied more heavily on creating an image his prizes feared than violence. He did a lot of cool shit including ransoming the entire town of Charles Town and annoying the shit out of Woodes Rogers before settling in Bath and later dying of like, a shit ton of wounds while battling Lieutenant Maynard. The battle on Roger’s ship is pretty much what happened minues the keelhauling. Afterwards he was beheaded, his head hung from the bow of Maynard’s ship, and his body was thrown in the bay in Bath, where it’s said his ghost still haunts! Funky!

Charles Vane - (1680 – 29 March 1721)  Really a pirate captain! Known for being Not A Nice Dude. Sailed with Henry Jennings, Edward England and Jackie Rackhammie. He led the pirates in resisting Rogers in Nassau, and yeah he really did light a ship on fire and 18th centuryeet it into Rogers’ line in order to escape. There’s a note that he returned to Nassau to get married but I couldn’t find any info on who he married so he’s gay now. That’s a rule I just made up. Anyway so at one point his ship got into a fight with another ship and Vane ordered a retreat and the crew was like ‘this is BOOshit’ and voted him out in favor of Jack Rackham. Ouch. Vane and some of the crew that supported him left aboard the Katherine(I believe) but then they got caught in a storm that said ‘fuck you specifically to Charles Vane,’ and he was marooned on an island. He survived! Just long enough for a British ship to stop at the island for him to attempt to board, get caught, and then hung. Deus ex piratica.

(Honorary mentions)

John Silver + Captain Flint (sort of but I’m not kidding!) Okay so of course there are a bunch of suspected origins of the characters of Captain Flint and Long John Silver, but the one I like the most is of two brothers - one of whom had a peg leg! - who captured an enormous Spanish treasure and buried it near Ocracoke island. Their names were John and Owen Lloyd. (And yes, John was the one-legged brother.) In 1750 a Spanish treasure fleet named the Flotas de Indias attempted to sail from Havana to Spain in late August, and three ships were wrecked during a hurricane. By a stroke of luck, the Lloyd brothers had been blown to the same inlet as the wrecked ships Guadalupe and Soledad , and managed to convince the Captain to hire them to transport the treasure to Norfolk. 

But of course because they thought the Spanish SUCKED they said ‘psyche’ and just fucked off with it while the Captain was fighting Bureaucratic red tape in North Carolina. Iconique. Owen Lloyd reportedly buried the treasure on Norman Island and  the pair became folk heroes in the area, particularly in St. Kitts.  (P.s., the Stevenson family ran a sugar production business on St. Kitts, and R.L. Stevenson’s great grandfather worked there as early as 1773 - just 25 years after the epic heist. COOL STORY BRO.)

Captain Throckmorton (Okay not really but I just love this guy’s name) Okay so this guy wasn’t really a pirate captain but he was a Steamboat captain in the 1830s and his name is just too ridiculous for someone to make up. Toot toot, motherfucker.

---------

Queen Nanny(Maroon Queen/Madi) (c. 1686 – c. 1755) The spiritual, cultural, and military leader of the Windward Maroons (who the Black Sails Maroons are based on.) She led them alongside her ‘brother’ Quao although the relationship between them isn’t known. Exact information about her origins are not known but best guess is that she was of royal lineage from present-day Ghana, born sometime in the 1680’s. She did have a husband named Adou(who may have been the same person as Quao? I’ve read conflicting stuff), but they had no children. Many of the guerilla warfare tactics we now think of as common practice were developed by Queen Nanny and the other Maroons in their fight against British incursions. (The trap that Flint lays, covering themselves with paint and leaves, and the pits the Maroons lay in the forest are tactics known to have been used by the Windward Maroons.)

Nanny was a fucking legend okay a LEGENDS ONLY legend. She was one of the most instrumental people in preserving African culture among freed slaves and Maroons, and in encouraging the resistance to slavery in the Bahamas and surrounding areas. She was one of three leaders of the First Maroon War (which the war in Black Sails is based on). She initially refused to sign the treaty offered to Cudjoe because she knew the British were losing and was like ‘Why????? Would I surrender???? In a war??? I’m winning?????’

Anyway Queen Nanny was a fucking badass please read every piece of literature you can find on her. (You should absolutely read her full bio because she was fucking badass.)

Cudjoe (not exactly, but Julius is very close) (c. 1690s – 1764) Likely a freeborn son of one of the original escaped slaves turned Maroons, Cudjoe is hailed as one of the greatest Maroon leaders(after Queen Nanny). Much like in Black Sails, these original Maroons were slaves who escaped or overran their masters, forming free communities in the Mountains of Jamaica. The treaty in Black Sails is based on the one Cudjoe negotiated with the British, wanting an ‘honorable peace’ with the enemy, rather than the continued war and better terms that Queen Nanny and Quao wanted. (sound familiarrrrrr?) I do want to note that by the end of his life he became completely disillusioned with the idea that the British should be reasoned with and basically started fights with every British superior he could.

The English, Spanish, and Scottish!

The Guthries So while there wasn’t ever a female head of the Guthrie clan in Nassau, the Guthries were a Scottish merchant clan who emigrated to Boston around 1652 due to religious and racial persecution. While most of the family stayed around Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, John Guthrie moved to Virginia and his brother James Guthrie moved to Bermuda sometime after 1683.

(James Guthrie of Suffolk County, Massachusetts was listed in the will of John Richardson, dated 7 May 1683, in which Richardson says, “I give and bequeath unto James Guthrie all I have in the world except twenty shillings to buy John Harris a ring and ten shillings to buy John Kyte a ring.” This was witnessed by John Raynsford and John Ramsey.) Fellas is it gay.

Anyway, between Virginia and Boston and James’ ties in the Bermuda islands, the family made a shit ton fencing pirated goods during the Golden Age of Piracy, particularly from the Pirate Republic of Nassau.

A John Guthrie(likely a son of James’) was also a Colonel who was part of the peace talks with Cudjoe and the Maroons. Neat!

James Oglethorpe (22 December 1696 – 30 June 1785) Okay listen Oglethorpe was COOL AS FUCK. He is the founder of the colony of Georgia and is imo who Thomas Hamilton is probably based on. Oglethorpe was a HUGE humanitarian and even before he decided to form an entire colony around people not owning slaves. He advocated for better conditions for sailors, and prison reform. In 1732 he read a letter by a slave in Maryland named Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and on the spot decided slavery was terrible, divested himself of his stock in the African Trading Company, and resolved to include a law banning slavery in Georgia to the colony’s charter. Radical, man.

Speaking of Georgia, and specifically his plantation near Savannah, Oglethorpe actively spoke with the native Yamacraw who populated the land to ask permission and trade for the land he sought to build Georgia on. His plantation was meant to help debtors in London, released without any support, from falling back into debt and offering them a way forward to landownership through indentured servitude. I highly recommend anyone interested in early attempts at an equality based colonial system read up on the original charter of Georgia. (Of course there were still problems, but Oglethorpe was one of the most prominent proponents of a non hierarchical society - including limits to the acreage any person could own based on how helpful that land was to the people who worked it, and communal resources.) Oglethorpe was also a lifelong friend with Tomochichi, the chief of the Yamacraw, and worked very closely with him on colonial-indigenous relations.

Vincente de Raja (birth/death unknown) He was the real Governor and military Captain of Cuba from 1716-1717. He was a devoted pirate hunter and encouraged Spanish privateering against the pirates. Due to an attempt by Spain to increase tobacco profits at the expense of the farmers, there was a large revolt which resulted in many of the Cuban officials, including Raja, being replaced. 

William Rhett (4 September 1666 – 12 January 1723) He was a merchant captain and plantation owner in Carolina who served in the colonial militia and hunted pirates. He captured Stede Bonnet and was probably just as much of an asshole as he is in the show.

Woodes Rogers - (c. 1679 – 15 July 1732) The Governor of Nassau who was largely responsible for ending piracy in the Bahamas. He really did offer a universal pardon, which a large number of the pirates took. Fun fact: before he was Governor, he rescued Alexander Selkirk, who is believed to be the guy Robinson Crusoe is based off of! Neat! He really did have a brother who really did die during his privateering exploits which also really did leave him ‘disfigured’. He got sued by his crew, went bankrupt, wrote a book, got famous for writing the book, and he really did have a wife named Sarah whom he divorced shortly after all this happened. He then became Governor of Nassau for the first time. This first term did end in him being imprisoned for debts incurred defending the island from Vane and Teach and the Spanish, but he was released, helped write that most famous A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, and became governor again in 1728. He died in 1732 of just plain exhaustion from dealing with the bureaucracy. Alexa play tiny violin.

first of all - i really love your characterization of alastor! i saw ur post on 'how alastor would react to a buzzfeed unsolved-type video on his crimes' a while ago and id like to ask - do you think he was ever considered as a suspect? would there even be any real suspects? thank you for all ur writing and ideas :D

tl;dr, my personal headcanon is that he was never considered as a suspect, but have an extremely detailed explanation!

So, until we learn more from canon, here's my overall headcanon of Alastor as a serial killer. Read more (if tumblr cooperates) for a long headcanon post and for brief mentions of the gory things serial killers do.

- His preferred target was hunters and his weapon of choice was a standard hunting rifle. This means that, for a while, individual killings could be brushed off as "some irresponsible hunter accidentally shot another hunter, and either it was a wild shot and the shooter never saw where the bullet went, or he realized he'd accidentally shot somebody and fled like a coward." Unlike more obvious serial killer strategies—example, the Axeman of New Orleans' "people found axed to death inside their own homes" deal—it would take a while for Alastor's killings to be recognized as deliberate murder probably committed by one person.

- Most serial killers have a pretty small hunting ground, somewhere near where they live that's familiar/comfortable to them, and they don't stray far outside it. Compared to the Axeman again—the Axeman primarily attacked people in Italian-American immigrant communities in New Orleans, which made it easy to identify a pattern after only a few attacks. Since the Axeman was never identified, there's no way for us to know whether he lived in the neighborhoods where he killed—but like, he probably wasn't driving in from Houston.

Alastor, on the other hand, broke that pattern by killing at various hunting grounds around Louisiana—and maybe even neighboring states, I haven't decided yet—so it was harder to pinpoint where the killer lived and start searching that area for suspects.

- Many serial killers are identified by the rituals they tend to perform with their victims. Example: Jack the Ripper, who liked to disembowel his victims in a way that made police think he had experience as a surgeon. Desecrating/mutilating bodies in consistent ways is common, as are particular/identifiable body disposal methods. These rituals are typically things that have nothing to do with committing the murder itself, which means the killer just did them for fun. Alastor didn't have these. Shooting was where it started and ended for him. No undressing the body, no mutilating it, no moving it, no stealing trophies—he left them as they fell, sometimes leaving the scene before his victim was dead.

Oftentimes serial killers kill to try to enact some fantasy, and often their kills get more elaborate over time as they find that whatever high they're trying to get from their kill doesn't last. Alastor's fantasies revolved around hunting/killing his equals like game animals—hence his choice of victim, weapon, and crime scene. So I think Alastor's kills would have gotten more elaborate (and thus easier to identify) over time—starting with field dressing the corpse as if it was a deer, and eventually progressing to taking home cuts of "meat" from the victims to eat. (In a recent stream, it was revealed that Alastor wasn't a cannibal while he was alive, only after death; so I've been headcanoning him as having fantasized about cannibalism while he was a serial killer but never having worked up the nerve to perform it.) But Alastor died before he got that far, so his crime scenes were fairly nondescript until his death.

- Because he was killing on hunting grounds, the areas were sparsely populated, which means fewer potential witnesses would ever see him. And if they did, because of how far he was from home, they probably wouldn't recognize him and could only include a vague physical description of him in their list of all the strangers they saw in the area that day.

- Because he'd just kill someone and leave the body there in the woods, it would often be several days before the corpse was found—depending on how long, it might be difficult to identify how long it'd been dead. (Especially if the victim had been camping out there several days so family members couldn't just say "yeah he went hunting on Tuesday and didn't come back," a camping trip means a window of several days the murder could occur.) Oftentimes he'd be back home several days before the murder was discovered and reported, making it even harder to track down who'd been in the area at the time.

- Alastor was killing complete strangers—people he'd never met before, didn't know the names of, didn't even know what towns they were from—which would make it impossible for anyone to find the killer by cross-referencing the victims' acquaintances.

- From early on he started prioritizing coming up with alibis that would put him away from the scene of the crime; because people would rightly become suspicious if they realized that every time he talked about going on a hunting trip and gee wiz he didn't get any game how sad, there was a mention in the papers of another hunter being shot. (Although originally, he started making up cover stories not to hide his crimes but to comfort his mother. "Yes Ma, I know you're worried about all the hunters getting shot lately. No Ma, I'm not going on a hunting trip this weekend, I'm uhhh going to visit Pa's family.")

Initially his cover stories were as simple as just "don't tell people I'm going hunting this weekend." Sometimes he'd make up a story about what he did yesterday in town so that when another kill hit the papers nobody would even think to wonder whether Alastor had been there at the time.

As he got deeper into his murder hobby, sometimes he'd prerecord a radio show and wheedle someone at the studio into playing it for him at his usual hour—which, in the early days of broadcasting, was actually illegal. Radio stations were under an obligation to primarily broadcast live content—otherwise, the radio station wasn't providing a service you couldn't get from a phonograph —with only a few exceptions like playing a rerun of a special broadcast a few days later for people who missed it the first time. As a daily radio host, Alastor's programming would be the sort least likely to be permitted one of those exceptions. Which meant he was gonna get the station in a bit of trouble if anyone outside the couple of sympathetic producers who let him do this found out that he was occasionally broadcasting prerecorded segments; but it also meant that nobody would ever imagine that the guy on the air at 9 am was halfway across the state at 10 am when another hunter was shot.

All these cover stories woulda fallen apart pretty quickly if somebody ever looked into them—but since he never made it onto anybody's list of suspects, nobody ever came around the station to ask where was Alastor on the morning of Monday the 14th, was he really here broadcasting?

- I also headcanon that Alastor started making deals with demons long before he died—I mean, it's not like he arrived in Hell instantly knowing how to make predatory soul bargains without prior practice, right?—so he was probably using them to help cover his trail. Things like "help me not get caught for this murder, and in exchange the murder victim's soul is yours."

So! That's how he killed, and how he avoided being identified as a suspect.

It probably woulda happened eventually. He'd gradually started killing more often, partially because he increasingly craved that violent fix (particularly because he never quite perfected it to his satisfaction, it never quite fully scratched his itch), and partially because he had more demons to pay off with blood; and authorities and hunters in Louisiana were getting wise to the threat in their midst, trying to increase monitoring of people moving in and out of hunting sites, and watching each other more warily if they crossed paths in the woods, thus increasing his chances of witnesses or even of being caught in the act.

But he got shot.

While Alastor was stalking one of his soon-to-be victims, the almost-victim spotted Alastor, mistook him for a deer, and set his dog on him. (Or maybe he shot first and then the dog went charging in, haven't decided yet.) When he realized that this wasn't a deer but An Actual Human Person And Fellow Hunter who was now mangled and bleeding to death, he panicked, his brain went "DESTROY THE WITNESS," and he shot Alastor point blank, and then he panicked again. He was caught trying to hide the body.

There were a few farfetched suspects investigated as potentially being the serial killer based on circumstantial evidence, but to this day the one person repeatedly identified as the most probable suspect is, ironically, the man who killed the real serial killer—because after he was arrested, the killings stopped. He was found not guilty for bullshit reasons (it was a fraught case) but even when the killings didn't resume, the believers think it's because he got spooked after nearly being convicted and decided to stop murdering.

Which also means, in a lot of cold case documentaries/books about the serial killer, Alastor himself is identified as the serial killer's probable last victim—which he finds hysterical.

I have tons of thoughts on Black as Night. They are again under the cut for length and some spoilers for other books.

Per usual, short things first:

"Knowing you, you’ll walk right into some huge mess. And you’ll need me to extricate you from it, again.” - Fish gets that point because, yes, technically he did rescue Bear by sending the police to St. Lawrence’s.

Fish offering to fight Bear for the last roll at breakfast, and Bear just goes “Not a chance.”

“Thank you. I think.”

I'm not sure if it’s significant, but it is kind of interesting to compare Fish’s reaction to Rose’s play here to his reaction a year later in Waking Rose.

The way Fish instantly notices something is wrong at the apartment. Also, he has skeleton keys? I mean, that doesn’t really surprise me, but still an interesting comment, ESPECIALLY because it doesn’t come up when Ben is locked out of the Fairston house at the end (does he only carry them when he's on the streets?).

So, the plants Blanche was watering were herbs. So, who’s the cook - Fish? Both of them?

Fish’s reaction to the DEA agents informing them they’re under arrest - I will, again, point to what Fish says in Waking Rose about going through something awful a second time is worse than going through it the first time because you know how bad it is and what you can endure.

Ahh, yes, the “to be able to give all of himself, without reservation” idea, which will come up again at the end of Waking Rose with Ben.

I love how Bear credits the Briers for helping transform back into himself.

I do appreciate that Bear tried to keep his distance a bit since he wasn’t sure where he was going and he didn’t want to hurt Blanche. Not saying it didn’t cause problems, but I appreciate the intention and the fact that he at least tried to keep some problems from occurring.

“Oh, nothing gets [Ben] down.” Not true, as Bear well knows, but he also knows Ben likes his carefully constructed front, so he’s sticking with it.

Fish getting the taxi always makes me think of Gonzo in The Great Muppet Caper yelling “TAXI!!!” and flinging himself in front of the oncoming one; sadly that moment does not appear to have been giffed or I would add it in here.

Blanche trying so hard to walk the line between being cautious and being paranoid - very relatable.

Bear specifically commenting that Mrs. Foster treated him and Ben like two more sons!

I had forgotten that Ben is the one who takes the lead in introducing Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Brier.

Fish suggests flushing the drugs down the toilet - no evidence, no case. (The Briers do not agree with this, as they should not.)

Bear again regrets getting involved with the Briers, but Fish is the one who says, no, he’s not taking Rose and Jean back to their house while they’re being tailed - it’s not safe.

Fish flips between giving Rose advice about how to work incognito and telling her not to do anything remotely dangerous - not sure if it’s because he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to keep her out of trouble or if it’s him just trying to explain why she wouldn’t make it incognito.

I really noticed this time how everything from Blanche’s perspective never refers to her by name (unless I missed something). I don’t think she thinks of herself as Blanche anymore - at least not until she realises Bear is back. And then, she only thinks of herself as Blanche once, but it still happens.

I also appreciate that the breakthrough with the photographer came from a combination of Rose's insight into jealousy/human nature and Fish's practical comment about the extremity of emotion it would require.

"Did they really say you couldn't even speak to me?" definitely parallels "Did God really say..."

I knew the showdown in the entryway was tense, but I’d forgotten that Rose gets shot at twice - probably further cementing Fish's opinion she should avoid dangerous things - and Bear barely manages to keep Fish from getting shot in the head.

Bear asking Fish if he wants him to come back and help with the paperwork for the Mirror Corporation and Fish telling him in no uncertain terms that he needs to be out there looking for Blanche and not to worry about (tact or not, he doesn’t even hint to Bear that he wouldn’t be much use on the legal side).

Only a few longer comments:

I feel really thick, but it was just in this last reread that I made the connection between “Bear” and “Arthur” (usually attributed to being derived from the word for “bear”). Which made me look up Benedict (“blessed”, which I had guessed based on “benediction”), as well as Alistair (”defending men”, which doesn’t seem significant), Catherine (etymology is unclear, but one association is the Greek word for “pure”, which does seem fitting), and Elaine (unclear, probably derived from “Helen” which could mean “torch” or “moon”). Which doesn’t really tell me much, besides the fact Arthur is fitting and there’s some irony (at least for a while) in Benedict.

I appreciate the flashbacks with fifteen-year-old Fish and sixteen/seventeen-year-old Bear and finding the drugs and being arrested. Fish tries to argue his way out and then asks to call the lawyer, while Bear is confused and uncertain. And then we get a continuation of this in their present-day arrest and interrogation.

I know we wouldn’t have a story if she had, but there’s a part of me that wonders why Blanche never brought up being stalked to Fish. Was she afraid he wouldn’t take her seriously since her mom and Rose didn’t? Could she tell he was really trying to keep his distance and knew he was busy and didn’t want to bother him with what could just be her fears? I just think if he thought there was any basis whatsoever to it (and I think he would’ve treated her comment seriously), he would have dug into it quite thoroughly.

I try not to let it bother me, but I still notice the holes in continuity: Steven is still at St. Catherine’s a year after the Dennistons’ arrest, though per the yearbooks in The Shadow of the Bear he was a senior the year they were arrested. In The Shadow of the Bear, Mrs. Foster says the Dennistons were over all the time with Steve, but in Black as Night, Bear says they met Mrs. Foster when Steve brought them home after meeting them at the subway. Also, it’s Steven in The Shadow of the Bear but Stephen in Black as Night. And the Fosters live in a house in The Shadow of the Bear, but Bear says the Fosters’ apartment was their temporary home for years.

Fish's attitude is really informed by a) him thinking only he and Bear (and appropriate professional legal and law enforcement members) should be involved in messy situations and b) "I do not want to be the person responsible for depriving the world of Rose Brier." It wasn't his fault but he definitely felt responsible last time (been there, done that, no repeats please).

At the end, Bear thanks Fish, saying he's always indebted to him (which is great, but also - Bear has saved Fish before too). But, Fish thanks Rose - and there is a pattern in Fish being critical in saving Bear, and Rose being critical in Fish being able to do that. Fish has been so used to it being him and Bear against that bad guys, that I think the end here is him recognising they’re not enough on their own, at least not always. And so we get him thanking Rose for grabbing the door, and him being thankful for Agent Hunter showing up just at the right time too.

Again, there wasn’t a need in the story, but I still would have liked to see the reunion of Blanche with her mom and Rose.

The Sacrifice

Summary: Dean finds out the reader is a virgin. Based on 3x12 

Characters: Dean x black!reader

A/N: So, I’m basically doing a series rewrite of my favorite episodes. This is is based on the the reader’s and Dean’s relationship through the years. Its based on A Match Made in Hell Series.  I’m not doing this in a linear order, but I’ll make a separate masterlist for this series and put the fics in order.

When you get the chance, you’re putting a bullet right between that British bitch’s eyes. Bela had managed to steal the colt and get the boys arrested by Agent Henricksen. The only reason that you weren’t in a cell with the boys is, that Henricksen could never physically tie you to the boys except for your Stanford connection with Sam.  So, all he could do was call you to “consult” on the case.

“Where are you going Agent Y/L/N?” Henricksen stopped you on the way to the cell. At the sound of his voice, your body immediately went stiff. Agent Henricksen wouldn’t be too bad if he wasn’t so focus on locking up Sam and Dean, but you also understood from his point of view. With his limited knowledge and evidence, it all points to the boys being devil worshipping, psychopathic killers.

“To talk to an old friend and try to figure out how’s he connected to all this. That’s what you wanted me here for, right?” You cocked your head to the side, annoyance clear on your face.

Henricksen slowly approached you, trying to make himself seem bigger to intimidate you. Too bad for him, nothing scares you anymore, but you won’t let him know that. “Yeah, I brought you here so I can see your face when you see that your best friend and your boyfriend are finally locked up in a maximum-security prison.” He searches your face a reaction, but you didn’t give him one. “It may take me awhile, but one day I’m gonna get the evidence and then it’ll be you sitting in a jail cell.”

Throwing up the peace sign, you sauntered off. “Good luck with that, Henricksen,” you yelled over your shoulder.

—

“And why is that a good thing?” You questioned Dean after hearing him brag to Sam that they got a hit out on them.

“Because we’re awesome, that’s why.” You rolled your eyes at his arrogance. “Hey, why didn’t the demon go after you?”

In a blink of an eye, you flashed your eyes to black. “Oh, I forgot, you’re their precious half demon spawn.”

Ignoring his little snub, you pointed to Dean’s gun shot wound. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Eh, I’ll live. That’s if we don’t get killed first.”

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother before turning to you. “Is there any way you can get us out of here, Y/N/N?”

“No,” you sighed deeply. “Henricksen’s watching me like a hawk. He’s ready to throw me in a cell with you guys.”

“Well, ain’t that just peachy,” Dean muttered to the side.

The sheriff walked in on your discussion. It seemed that he was in a daze as he unlocked the boys’ cell, ordering them to leave. All three you were suspicious, and the boys refused to leave.

Before you could order the sheriff to get out Agent Henricksen came to do the same. However, nothing got settled because Henricksen put a bullet in the sheriff’s head.

Sam wrestled the gun away from him and began performing an exorcism while you and Dean held back the deputy.

Right before Sam sent the demon to hell, he screamed that it was too late and that more were coming.

“I shot the sheriff,” Henricksen confessed.

“But you didn’t shoot the deputy,” Dean joked, which earned him a kick to the back of his knees from you.

—

*Dean’s POV*

My eyes find her while I’m in the office with Henricksen. She’s talking to the secretary with that warm smile on her face that magically seems to calm everyone down despite being in the worst of situations. I’m too damn worried about her to focus on anything else despite the fact she needs no protection and can kick my ass to kingdom come.

“Scratch that. You just don’t have your brother. You got Y/N.” Henricksen interrupted my thoughts.

“We’re not together. Just friends.” I admitted, even though I wanted so much more than that. Its just my luck to fall in love with a girl when I have less than a year to live.

“Okayyyyyy.” Disbelief was soaking in his response. “What’s the deal with her anyway? How does a rich kid like her end up hunting with you two?”

I stopped cleaning my gun and gave him a hard glare. “Not my story to tell but know this: she’s probably our best way out of this situation.”

Henricksen was about to say something when we heard a loud crash outside. Both us plus everyone else ran to see Ruby caught in the Devil’s trap. Raising his gun to her, Henricksen asked how we kill her.

“We don’t. She’s here to help us.” Sam forced Henricksen’s gun down and opened the Devil’s trap. Me and Y/N traded annoyed looks. Neither one of us could stand Ruby. Y/N just kept her annoyance quiet unlike me. It was already hard to trust Ruby, because she was a damn demon, but if sweet Y/N doesn’t like someone then that’s a major red flag.

--

*Reader’s POV*

Great, there’s 30 demons out there ready to kill Sam and Dean. You’re pretty sure you could get through all of them, but you’ll be pretty banged up in the end. You were tuned out of the conversation, figuring out a plan of attack until you heard Lilith’s name.

“Lilith?” you repeated to Ruby.

“Yup. And she really, really wants Sam’s intestines on a stick. ‘Cause she sees him as competition.” Ruby informed us of Sam’s new nemesis.

“You knew about this?” A very pissed off Dean questioned Sam. “Well, gee, Sam, is there anything else I should know?”

Before they could get any further into an argument, you intervened. “Sam, you should’ve told us. Lilith’s no joke.” You weren’t gonna let Sam off the hook, but also you weren’t gonna rail into him like Dean was trying to.

Sam ignored Dean and looked to you with a face full of guilt. “How do you know about Lilith?”

“My dad talked about her all the time. He always told me that me and her could be a force to be reckoned with.” Just the thought of the many talks you had with your father had you bothered. He always tried to make it appealing that you were some kind of demonic second coming. At least this talk you remembered was helpful.

“I thought your parents were dead?” Henricksen asked.

You looked over shoulder and threw out, “My adoptive parents are. My real dad’s a demon and alive.”

Henricksen, Nancy, and the deputy gasped. You forgot that they just learned of the existence of demons and your lineage could be a bit troubling. “Relax. I’m only half and hate demons probably more than anyone else in this room.” The three of them eyed you cautiously, but that calming effect you had on people led them to believe you.

“Well, now that we got that out of the way. Where’s the colt?” If you had tea at that moment, you definitely would’ve been sipping it. Both of the boys tried to avoid Ruby’s gaze and when she looked at you, you furrowed your brows at her for even questioning you for losing it.

“It got stolen.” Ruby just about had a bitch fit when Sam admitted the truth. She was one insult away from you punching her in her gotdamned mouth, when Dean pulled you back and shook his head no.

But, thank the lucky stars, Ruby knew a spell. It would blow the demons out of the bodies, including Ruby, so it didn’t seem too bad; until she said she needed a virgin, specifically a heart of a virgin. And sweet Nancy still wanted to go through with it, but you couldn’t let an innocent sacrifice herself.

“I’ll do it,” you blurted out. All eyes turned to you and everyone was surprised except Sam. He remembered when you confided to him back at Stanford that you said that you were waiting til marriage.

“No way. Come on, you, you watch porn and you tease me all the fucking time.” Dean claimed.

“One, how else am I supposed to get my rocks off? Virgins are horny too. And two, its fun to see you turn red.”

Ruby seemed a little too happy with your decision to sacrifice yourself, but everyone else was heavily against it, except Sam. Dean tried to dissuade him, but you and him knew it was the best option.

“It’s my decision, D,” you told him.

“Damn straight, cherry pie,” Ruby replied with a smirk.

“Stop! Stop! Nobody kill any virgins!” Dean grabbed your hand and pulled you away and ordered Sam into a hallway for a talk. Normally, you made yourself scarce when they had these talks, but you guessed since you were offering yourself up, Dean thought it must’ve been a good idea to include you.

“Tell me you two are not seriously considering this.”

Sam and you both traded solemn looks. It sucked but it was necessary. “And we’re also talking about 30 people out there, Dean, innocent people who are all gonna die, along with everyone in here.” Sam argued back.

“It’s a numbers game, Dean. 1 life vs. 30. If you were in my shoes, you’d do the same.” Hell, Dean already did it. He’d offered up his life for Sam’s. How the hell is this any different?

“It doesn’t mean we throw out the rule book. I’m not gonna let that demon bitch kill the kindest person I know, who I might add hasn’t even been laid!”

“Then what? What do we do, Dean?”

“I got a plan. I’m not saying it’s a good one I’m not even saying that it’ll work. But it sure as hell beats killing our virgin best friend.”

“What’s the plan,” you and Sam asked simultaneously.

“Open the doors, let them all in, and we fight.”

Dean’s plan may be a little crazy, but it could work. Ruby was pissed at the suggestion and left. Her plan would for sure leave everyone alive except me. Offended that we didn’t go with her plan and refusing to watch us lose, Ruby left.

--

It worked. Dean’s plan actually worked. We were able to trap all the demon’s inside the station and played a tape of Sam saying the exorcism. It helped that you could hold 10 demons on your own, so the rest were left to Sam, Dean and Henricksen.

“Coming with?” Dean asked before him and Sam left.

“Nah, I gotta stay. Technically, I came with the FBI now I gotta write a report on how you two died on the helicopter. Yay me!” You hated writing reports and now this one was going to take longer, because you and Henricksen had to get your lies together.

The boys gave you a sympathetic look and made you promise to contact them once you got home before they left.

The remaining of you, began cleaning the station when a little girl came into the station. Your spidey senses started tingling and you moved a bit closer to Nancy. The little girl said she was looking for two brothers: one’s really tall and one’s really cute.

When Nancy asked her, her name, she responded, “Lilith.” You tried to attack the her, but soon you felt two sets of arms around you and you were teleported out of the station. It was your dad and his lackey, Brixton.

“Get off of me!” You yelled, just in time to see the police station overcome with a blinding white light.

Deep in your soul, you knew Henricksen and the rest were dead. What other reason would your dad save you?

“Calm down, princess.” Brixton said, fighting you off.

It wasn’t beneath your father to use dirty moves, so he grabbed you by your curls and threw you to the ground. “Calm your ass down, before I make you tell me where the Winchesters are and kill them myself!”

Quickly, you got up and wiped the dirt off you. “Why’d you save me?”

“Lilith’s orders. And I suggest you get used to the idea of a life without the Winchesters. Dean’s year is about to be up, and Lilith is gonna kill Sam sooner or later. Its just a matter of time.”

“Not if I can help it.” You claimed.

With a sweet kiss to the top of your head that betrayed his demonic nature, your dad whispered, “It’ll happen. Save yourself the heartbreak, baby girl.” And just like that he disappeared.

--

*Dean’s POV*

Sam and I were relaxing when we heard a knock on our motel door. It was Ruby. Damn, will we ever get rid of her? I’m tired of looking at her bitchy face.

As usual, she came in bossing us around. She told us to turn on the news. Supposedly, there was a gas main rupture that led to explosion at the sheriff’s station. The news anchor said everyone died, but one person did survive.

Please let it be Y/N, please let it be Y/N, please let it be Y/N, please let it be Y/N, I thought. It may be shitty, but I couldn’t bare the thought of losing her. Henricksen, the other FBI agents, the deputy, the sheriff, and even the freaking virgin secretary were dead, but I didn’t see Y/N’s face on the screen.

Just as Ruby was railing into us, there was another knock on the door, and I ran to open it. There she was standing there, tears running down her face. Probably feeling guilty that she was alive while the others were dead.

“I couldn’t save them,” Y/N whispered before her knees buckled. I caught her just before her she hit the ground.

Ruby threw us some hex bags that’ll help get Lilith off our trail. But I wanted to throw it back at her, just to get her to stop complaining how our plan sucked ass.

“And now look, your precious little virgin is having a mental breakdown, because even she knows you guys messed up.”

“Leave.” I ordered. I wasn’t gonna let her upset Y/N anymore than she already was. Ruby got one look at my deadly glare and took the hint, that if she didn’t leave right at that moment, she’d be dead. Sam followed her to make sure she leaves and to give me and Y/N some space. Over time, me and Y/N grew closer, especially now that Sam’s all buddy buddy with Ruby. It wasn’t unusual for her or me to go to the other to find comfort after a bad hunt.

This time I had no words for her. As much as I was hurting that we couldn’t save Henricksen and the rest, I think I would be hurting much worse if it was her, we lost instead, but I can’t tell her that. So, instead I just held her until she cried herself to sleep, hoping that in the morning I can find the right words.

Tags: @titty-teetee @cocooned-butterfly @nervouspetsonanime @thefaithfulwriter @meishaabae @dannixchristian @blacknthemix @mml232

Tales from the Scrap Heap: Nothing to Lose but You

I decided to start “Tales from the Scrap Heap” as a little series on my blog for fanfiction ideas that I never got into print. Because my brain is really, really good at coming up with way more long-form plots than I can ever realistically hope to publish. I have to be picky about which plot bunnies I follow and which I don’t. The stories here are the ones that I considered and ultimately didn’t motivate me as much as what I have up on my AO3 account.

For the first one, I’m aware I’m putting myself in the Discourse Box here but it’s a Voltron: Legendary Defender fic. However, it’s for the absolute only ship I have never seen contested, largely because I don’t think anybody remembers these guys: Vakala/Remdax. Something about them really intrigued me (probably that they’re silly x straitlaced, have a size difference, and bicker constantly, which is almost a full row of JCMorrigan OTP Bingo). If you don’t remember, they’re the two aliens who found clone!Shiro on the ice planet shortly after he escaped (this is when we thought he was real!Shiro) and decided ultimately not to eat him and instead to give him a shuttle to escape back to Voltron. Anyhow, one day I just had too much Worldbuilding Juice and decided to come up with a little history for them, and because they’re rebels hiding in a remote location in a seemingly neverending war, it is one of the darkest story ideas I have. There’s a happy ending for our two leading men, but because this is indeed a wartime story, what I came up with to explain why they were on that ice planet and so willing to even cannibalize any Galra who showed up ended up having elements of colonialism, prison/labor camps, fugitive life, and a worldbuild flavoring that implies some noncon happened somewhere at some point. So if these things are not what you want to read in a hypothetical Voltron fanfiction outline, please keep movin’. Anyway, this is the one story I most regret never finishing because I had so much of it fleshed, but my Voltron muse is long gone and I have no enthusiasm, so here’s what I would’ve written, had I the energy.

·      Title is “Nothing to Lose but You” because the point of this story is these two go through the wringer and are literally all each other have. It’s that kind of story

·      I decided to call the planet Vakala and Remdax are from “Taxalai,” and the name for a resident is “Taxalan.” Taxalan society has a heavy emphasis on technology (which is why Remdax not knowing how to work a computer or being able to remember a password is such an oddity and so frustrating to pretty much any other Taxalan), and pretty much everything is computerized to some degree. Screens everywhere.

·      We open on Vakala, who is living in a mansion that used to belong to his family but has since been taken over by an invading Galra general. This was going to be an OC who I could just make nasty, but then I got re-introduced to Morvok, the Galra’s resident black sheep, and I will take any excuse to write Morvok so let’s just say it was he who took over Vakala’s family manor and just sits on the couch all day regaling people with stories of his greatness (none of which are true).

·      Vakala himself is a servant to Morvok, having to bring him whatever he wants and be at his beck and call.

·      One day, Vakala decides he’s done taking orders and declares he is no longer going to be in a position of servitude in his own house. Morvok simply dismissively says to “Take this one away wherever you take the ones that act up so I don’t have to look at him.”

·      And Vakala is arrested by a Galra squadron and brought to a prison camp many, many miles away.

·      It’s night when he’s delivered, so he’s brought right to the cramped barrack where a bunch of Taxalans who have been there longer are stacked in bunk beds. Vakala’s first night there, he screams and claws at the door that’s been sealed behind him, begging to be let out because he’ll follow orders this time.

·      The other prisoners there are veterans, so they all tell him to shut up because they’re never gonna listen. All but one.

·      Enter Remdax. He’s from another part of Taxalai – Vakala’s voice sounds more American to me while Remdax is definitely British, so I assume they have to come from different parts of the planet. They also have different physical structures that may suggest ethnic divides, though their color palette affirms they’re both of the same planetary origin. It’s also worth noting he has both eyes still at this point. This is very important.

·      Remdax is here because he was part of an anti-Galra rebel squad that was largely made up of his friends and family. The Galra found and closed in on their base, and Remdax ran out and got himself arrested for the purpose of slowing down the Galra officers enough that his friends and family could escape – which they did.

·      Anyway, that exposition would come some time later. For now, what’s happening is Vakala is having a panic attack in the middle of the night and everyone’s telling him to shut up because it’s futile. Except for Remdax. Remdax stands up and essentially says, “We’ve all done the same thing when we first arrived. Let him feel what he feels.”

·      And he approaches Vakala to try and calm him down verbally – just by saying his feelings are validated, and yes, it’s really awful, but he’ll survive, and Remdax will do his best to make sure Vakala survives. But he can’t really tell him it’s “okay” because it is quite clearly not.

·      Vakala eventually gives up and goes to sleep, quite depressed and for good reason.

·      The following morning, Vakala is put to work on an assembly line making Galra weaponry. This is what all the Taxalans in this particular camp must do. It’s very mechanically inclined, not many screens, not the way Taxalans usually work.

·      I don’t know if pacing-wise, it would be better to have this happen the first time or later, but Vakala ends up trying to pick up a cooling metal part way too soon and burning his palm horribly. He has to finish the rest of his shift one-handed.

·      Again, the other imprisoned Taxalans avoid this situation, largely because anxiety is high as-is, but Remdax steps forward once more, trying to care for the burn as best as he can. And he has zero supplies, so the best he can do is run a whole lot of cold water over Vakala’s hand and wrap it up in fabric he tore off his clothing.

·      Vakala ends up underperforming because of this injury and receives some punishment later. I didn’t think too much on exactly what – had I fleshed this out fully, I’d at least imply strongly what happened

·      Remdax has a bit of a crisis over this because he invested in protecting this guy, he failed, and there was literally nothing he could do. He’s in here for self-sacrifice in the first place, so he keeps thinking there’s always something he could do to help someone else if he gives something up for himself. But sometimes, he doesn’t even have an opportunity to do so, and it’s driving him into panic.

·      It’s shortly after this that he starts getting into his head that maybe the only way to help Vakala and himself is if he finds a way to escape.

·      There’s a day in which Remdax and Vakala are assigned to work outside on the grounds, and down comes an inspector from another sector on a shuttle. Remdax sees the opportunity and waves Vakala over.

·      They only have one shot, and it will unfortunately mean leaving the rest of their people behind, which is a horrible sacrifice, but it’s either they go on their own or nobody goes at all.

·      Remdax rushes the Galra inspector and attacks him. They get in a physical brawl while Vakala hurries in and hijacks the ship, which isn’t difficult for his technologically-inclined mind.

·      During this fight, Remdax either knocks out or kills the Galra inspector, but in the process, the inspector stabs one of his eyes completely out.

·      Remdax hops onto the ship and they have to go right away or else lose their freedom and maybe their lives forever. Vakala is freaking out because Remdax’s eye is bleeding, but Remdax is trying to act casual and make jokes about it because Vakala needs to be calm enough to drive.

·      They get off Taxalai on that stolen shuttle and land on the nearest planet, which I never named.

·      They’re aware they’re fugitives at this point.

·      They end up in a metropolitan area, where they check into a hotel so they have somewhere to sleep. I hadn’t worked out how they pay for the first night – maybe with favors, because Vakala eventually ends up a receptionist at this hotel and earns good wages, so maybe he gets his foot in the door by saying “I’ll do anything” and the receptionist is already pulling double duty and just goes “Do the second half of my fourteen-hour shift”

·      They have to finish wrapping up Remdax’s eye in that hotel room as best they can. Thankfully, it doesn’t get infected.

·      Immediately their first thought is to go out and find a way of bringing in income. As I said, Vakala makes a good receptionist and is excellent at filing client data on computers, so he ends up with a good-paying job that way.

·      Remdax takes a job down at a garage working with vehicle mechanics and engines, since that’s what he’s better at. Not in the manufacture of those parts (never again), but in fixing up broken vehicles. (I would’ve made it something more interesting than simply cars for this planet because Voltron planets are all about interesting possibilities for new civilizations.)

·      There’s some down-time where they live rather domestically this way, just earning enough to buy simple food and extend the stay in their small and shabby hotel room, but also bonding and becoming better friends.

·      A lot of people assume they already are a couple. Remdax in particular gets asked about his “husband” at the garage and he has to keep denying it.

·      There’s one night where they’re just having a relatively good time, taking a night to relax and appreciate that they can do nothing and be okay, and Remdax very gingerly brings up he wants to ask something of Vakala that might be too much. Vakala agrees to hear him out, and all Remdax wants is to be hugged for a bit while he thinks about how far they’ve come. So they hold each other, just lying on the bed and muttering to each other about the way things used to be, the way things are now, how lucky they are to have each other.

·      It’s actually some time later that they start seeing each other in a romantic light. Before this, they were a lifeline to each other, and in the heat of the worst moments, they couldn’t even really think about romance – they had to be preoccupied with survival. But now that their life is settling down and they’re starting to pack away funds for a small house, they start thinking…we’re basically life partners. Are we attracted to each other?

·      Answer: yes.

·      They kiss one night over a pretty meager dinner spread out picnic-style on their bed.

·      Shortly after this is when the Galra troops come into the city, looking for the two fugitives who attacked an inspector and fled custody.

·      Vakala and Remdax end up having to escape out the window, flee down the fire escape, and hijack a ship from Remdax’s garage.

·      They’re floating between worlds yet again.

·      They are eventually found by another ship, and they fear the Galra have finally captured them – but it’s a ship of rebels who’ve had similar stories. Vakala and Remdax are two of the Galra’s most wanted, and these rebels realized they would make great additions to the team in exchange for some stability.

·      So they work out a plan where Vakala and Remdax man an outpost on the ice planet, one of the most remote they have, that monitors Galra communications.

·      The rebels drop in supplies regularly and also have left a shuttle in case of emergency.

·      Vakala and Remdax both haaaaate the cold and so use the first week or so as an excuse to snuggle a lot.

·      And things go pretty okay. Remdax is still technologically illiterate and Vakala is just like “Are you even a Taxalan”

·      This is where they start bickering, which they like because finally, finally the stakes are low enough where they can afford to just rag on each other and still like each other at the end of the day.

·      They get more physical at this stage, too, but of course I can’t write a lemon to save my soul so it’s just a lot of implications

·      Things start going wrong when a Galra officer finds the base on a planet. This is far too dangerous and they both know it. If this guy gets two steps further, their location is blown and they are both dead. So Remdax kills him.

·      It’s been a while since their last supply delivery. And they figure it’s best not to waste anything…so they decide the Galra they killed has to go into food reserves.

·      Vakala nearly has a full-on panic attack while cannibalizing another person, even if that person was dangerous.

·      Some time later, another Galra shows up, but this one’s different. She claims to come in peace, and introduces herself as Acxa.

·      Remdax is ready to murder again, but Vakala holds him off because he can recognize Acxa isn’t a full-blooded Galra and in fact, he’s pretty sure there’s Taxalan in her genetic makeup based on how her face looks.

·      Acxa confirms. Her grandmother was a Taxalan and forced to be a servant of a Galra commander who impregnated her (here is the strongly implied noncon).

·      Acxa offers to help, swearing to secrecy. Vakala and Remdax deny her help but let her get away with her life, wondering if they’d made the right decision.

·      A month with no contact and they’re fairly secure Acxa didn’t snitch.

·      Then in comes Shiro, and canon events happen. These would be briefly recapped.

·      The important thing to note is that they let Shiro have their only shuttle, and that was a boo-boo, but it’s okay because the rebels are gonna drop off supplies anyway, so they shouldn’t need it.

·      And then the other rebels never show up.

·      I’m not sure if I’d have them literally be dead or leave it up in the air, but their supplies are cut off. They ration out their remaining food for the next few years. There’s at least one more Galra who shows up that they have to eat. And it does last a few years, until the end of VLD canon.

·      They’re starving to death. Skin and bone. And we get them eating their last ration over the fire and since they’re both used to cannibalizing Galra by now, their minds are on the obvious. Each is ready to kill himself so the other can live longer.

·      For dramatic effect I might have let them get close to pulling the trigger before the sound of someone showing up alerts them

·      They go outside, hoping they’re saved and not screwed…

·      And wouldn’t you know. It’s the paladins of Voltron. Also Acxa.

·      Allura has already been exchanged for the restoration of all realities (which Vakala and Remdax have no idea happened because when you’re in a reality that disappears and reappears, that has no bearing on your memory because you literally did not exist and suddenly existed again with no idea of the gap)

·      Altea and Daibazaal have been restored and now the paladins are working on bringing peace all over the universe

·      And Shiro remembered the two who helped his clone out because of…memory merging?...and Acxa brought up “We really need to check on those two”

·      They get Vakala and Remdax on a warm ship, find them food, get them cleaned up

·      And then bring them back to Taxalai, which has just been liberated from Galra control. We see the more unforgivable Galra getting their due punishment. The camp administrators are now incarcerated. Morvok is doing community service scooping poop at the zoo or something horrible because it’s Morvok

·      Shiro is considering his retirement, but first, he addresses Vakala and Remdax, asking if they want to govern the reclaimed Taxalai and help make it a beautiful place where their people can flourish

·      Vakala is trying so hard not to break down and cry, but it’s Remdax who hits his knees and starts bawling first

·      The final line would be about how they were finally “home” for the first time in their entire lives

JA ONE XTC

JA • • •

KEVIN HELDMAN lives in New York. This is his first piece for "Rolling Stone." (ROLLING STONE,FEB 9,1995)

THE FIRST TIME I meet JA, he skates up to me wearing Rollerblades, his cap played backward, on a street corner in Manhattan at around midnight. He's white, 24 years old, with a short, muscular build and a blond crew cut. He has been writing graffiti off and on in New York for almost 10 years and is the founder of a loosely affiliated crew called XTC. His hands, arms, legs and scalp show a variety of scars from nightsticks, razor wire, fists and sharp, jagged things he has climbed up, on or over. He has been beaten by the police -- a "wood shampoo," he calls it -- has been shot at, has fallen off a highway sign into moving traffic, has run naked through train yards tagging, has been chased down highways by rival writers wielding golf clubs and has risked his life innumerable times writing graffiti -- bombing, getting up.

JA lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. There's graffiti on a wall-length mirror, a weight bench, a Lava lamp to bug out on, cans of paint stacked in the corner, a large Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) sticker on the side of the refrigerator. The buzzer to his apartment lists a false name; his phone number is unlisted to avoid law-enforcement representatives as well as conflicts with other writers. While JA and one of his writing partners, JD, and I are discussing their apprehension about this story, JD, offering up a maxim from the graffiti life, tells me matter-of-factly, "You wouldn't fuck us over, we know where you live."

At JA's apartment we look through photos. There are hundreds of pictures of writers inside out-of-service subway cars that they've just covered completely with their tags, pictures of writers wearing orange safety vests -- to impersonate transit workers -- and walking subway tracks, pictures of detectives and transit workers inspecting graffiti that JA and crew put up the previous night, pictures of stylized JA 'throw-ups' large, bubble-lettered logos written 15 feet up and 50 times across a highway retaining wall. Picture after picture of JA's on trains, JA's on trucks, on store gates, bridges, rooftops, billboards -- all labeled, claimed and recorded on film.

JA comes from a well-to-do family; his parents are divorced; his father holds a high-profile position in the entertainment industry. JA is aware that in some people's minds this last fact calls into question his street legitimacy, and he has put a great deal of effort into resisting the correlation between privileged and soft. He estimates he has been arrested 15 times for various crimes. He doesn't have a job, and it's unclear how he supports himself. Every time we've been together, he's been high or going to get high. Once he called me from Rikers Island prison, where he was serving a couple of months for disorderly conduct and a probation violation. He said some of the inmates saw him tagging in a notebook and asked him to do tattoos for them.

It sounds right. Wherever he is, JA dominates his surroundings. With his crew, he picks the spots to hit, the stores to rack from; he controls the mission. He gives directions in the car, plans the activities, sets the mood. And he takes everything a step further than the people he's with. He climbs higher, stays awake longer, sucks deepest on the blunt, writes the most graffiti. And though he's respected by other writers for testing the limits -- he has been described to me by other writers as a king and, by way of compliment, as "the sickest guy I ever met" -- that same recklessness sometimes alienates him from the majority who don't have such a huge appetite for chaos, adrenaline, self-destruction.

When I ask a city detective who specializes in combating graffiti if there are any particularly well-known writers, he immediately mentions JA and adds with a bit of pride in his voice, "We know each other." He calls JA the "biggest graffiti writer of all time" (though the detective would prefer that I didn't mention that, because it'll only encourage JA). "He's probably got the most throw-ups in the city, in the country, in the world," the detective says. "If the average big-time graffiti vandal has 10,000 tags, JA's got 100,000. He's probably done -- in New York City alone -- at least $5 million worth of damage."

AT ABOUT 3 A.M., JA AND TWO OTHER WRITERS go out to hit a billboard off the West Side Highway in Harlem. Tonight there are SET, a 21-year-old white writer from Queens, N.Y., and JD, a black Latino writer the same age, also from Queens. They load their backpacks with racked cans of Rustoleum, fat cap nozzles, heavy 2-foot industrial bolt cutters and surgical gloves. We pile into a car and start driving, Schooly D blasting on the radio. First a stop at a deli where JA and SET go in and steal beer. Then we drive around Harlem trying a number of different dope spots, keeping an eye out for "berries" -- police cars. JA tosses a finished 40-ounce out the window in a high arc, and it smashes on the street.

At different points, JA gets out of the car and casually walks the streets and into buildings, looking for dealers. A good part of the graffiti life involves walking anywhere in the city, at any time, and not being afraid -- or being afraid and doing it anyway.

We arrive at a spot where JA has tagged the dealer's name on a wall in his territory. The three writers buy a vial of crack and a vial of angel dust and combine them ("spacebase") in a hollowed-out Phillies blunt. JD tells me that "certain drugs will enhance your bombing," citing dust for courage and strength ("bionics"). They've also bombed on mescaline, Valium, marijuana, crack and malt liquor. SET tells a story of climbing highway poles with a spray can at 6 a.m., "all Xanaxed out."

While JD is preparing the blunt, JA walks across the street with a spray can and throws up all three of their tags in 4-foot-high bubbled, connected letters. In the corner, he writes my name.

We then drive to a waterfront area at the edge of the city -- a deserted site with warehouses, railroad tracks and patches of urban wilderness dotted with high-rise billboards. All three writers are now high, and we sit on a curb outside the car smoking cigarettes. From a distance we can see a group of men milling around a parked car near a loading dock that we have to pass. This provokes 30 minutes of obsessive speculation, a stoned stakeout with play by play:

"Dude, they're writers," says SET. "Let's go down and check them out," says JD. "Wait, let's see what they write," says JA. "Yo -- they're going into the trunk," says SET. "Cans, dude, they're going for their cans. Dude, they're writers. "There could be beef, possible beef," says JA. "Can we confirm cans, do we see cans?" SET wants to know. Yes, they do have cans," SET answers for himself. "There are cans. They are writers." It turns out that the men are thieves, part of a group robbing a nearby truck. In a few moments guards appear with flashlights and at least one drawn gun. The thieves scatter as guard dogs fan out around the area, barking crazily.

We wait this out a bit until JA announces, "It's on." Hood pulled up on his head, he leads us creeping through the woods (which for JA has become the cinematic jungles of Nam). It's stop and go, JA crawling on his stomach, unnecessarily close to one of the guards who's searching nearby. We pass through graffiti-covered tunnels (with the requisite cinematic drip drip), over crumbling stairs overgrown with weeds and brush, along dark, heavily littered trails used by crackheads.

We get near the billboard, and JA uses the bolt cutters to cut holes in two chain-link fences. We crawl through and walk along the railroad tracks until we get to the base of the sign. JA, with his backpack on, climbs about 40 feet on a thin piece of metal pipe attached to the main pillar. JD, after a few failed attempts, follows with the bolt cutters shoved down his pants and passes them to JA. Hanging in midair, his legs wrapped around a small piece of ladder, JA cuts the padlock and opens up the hatch to the catwalk. He then lowers his arm to JD, who is wrapped around the pole just below him, struggling. "J, give me your hand, "I'll pull you up," JA tells him. JD hesitates. He is reluctant to let go and continues treadmilling on the pole, trying to make it up. JD, give me your hand." JD doesn't want to refuse, but he's uncomfortable entrusting his life to JA. He won't let go of the pole. JA says it again, firmly, calmly, utterly confident: "J give me your hand." JD's arm reaches up, and JA pulls JD up onto the catwalk. Next, SET, the frailest of the three, follows unsteadily. They've called down and offered to put up his tag, but he insists on going up. "Dude, fuck that, I'm down," he says. I look away while he makes his way up, sure that he's going to fall (he almost does twice). The three have developed a set pattern for dividing the labor when they're "blowing up," one writer outlining, another working behind him, filling in. For 40 minutes I watch them working furiously, throwing shadows as they cover ads for Parliament and Amtrak with large multicolored throw-ups SET and JD bickering about space, JA scolding them, tossing down empty cans.

They risk their lives again climbing down. Parts of their faces are covered in paint, and their eyes beam as all three stare at the billboard, asking, "Isn't it beautiful?' And there is something intoxicating about seeing such an inaccessible, clean object gotten to and made gaudy. We get in the car and drive the West Side Highway northbound and then southbound so they can critique their work. "Damn, I should've used the white," JD says.

The next day both billboards are newly re-covered, all the graffiti gone. JA tells me the three went back earlier to get pictures and made small talk with the workers who were cleaning it off.

GRAFFITI HAS BEEN THROUGH A NUMBER OF incarnations since it surfaced in New York in the early 70s with a Greek teen-ager named Taki 183. It developed from the straightforward writing of a name to highly stylized, seemingly illegible tags (a kind of penmanship slang) to wild-style throw-ups and elaborate (master) "pieces" and character art. There has been racist graffiti political writing, drug advertising, gang graffiti. There is an art-graf scene from which Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiac, LEE, Futura 2000, Lady Pink and others emerged; aerosol advertising; techno graffiti written into computer programs; anti-billboard graffiti; stickers; and stencil writing. There are art students doing street work in San Francisco ("nonpermissional public art"); mural work in underground tunnels in New York; gallery shows from Colorado to New Jersey; all-day Graffiti-a-Thons; and there are graffiti artists lecturing art classes at universities. Graffiti has become part of urban culture, hip-hop culture and commercial culture, has spread to the suburbs and can be found in the backwoods of California's national forests. There are graffiti magazines, graffiti stores, commissioned walls, walls of fame and a video series available (Out to bomb) documenting writers going out on graffiti missions, complete with soundtrack. Graffiti was celebrated as a metaphor in the 70s (Norman Mailer's "The Faith of Graffiti"); it went Hollywood in the '80s (Beat Street, Turk 182!, Wild Style); and in the '90s it has been increasingly used to memorialize the inner-city dead.

But as much as graffiti has found acceptance, it has been vilified a hundred times more. Writers are now being charged with felonies and given lengthy jail terms -- a 15-year-old in California was recently sentenced to eight years in a juvenile detention center. Writers have been given up to 1000 hours of community service and forced to undergo years of psychological counseling; their parents have been hit with civil suits. In California a graffiti writer's driver's license can be revoked for a year; high-school diplomas and transcripts can also be withheld until parents make restitution. In some cities property owners who fail to remove graffiti from their property are subject to fines and possible jail time. Last spring in St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Antonio and Sacramento, Calif., politicians proposed legislation to cane graffiti writers (four to 10 hits with a wooden paddle, administered by parents or by a bailiff in a public courtroom). Across the nation, legislation has been passed making it illegal to sell spray paint and wide-tipped markers to anyone under 18, and often the materials must be kept locked up in the stores. Several cities have tried to ban the sales altogether, license sellers of spray paint and require customers to give their name and address when purchasing paint. In New York some hardware-store owners will give a surveillance photo of anyone buying a large quantity of spray cans to the police. In Chicago people have been charged with possession of paint. In San Jose, Calif., undercover police officers ran a sting operation -- posing as filmmakers working on a graffiti documentary -- and arrested 31 writers.

Hidden cameras, motion detectors, laser removal, specially developed chemical coatings, night goggles, razor wire, guard dogs, a National Graffiti Information Network, graffiti hot lines, bounties paid to informers -- one estimate is that it costs $4 billion a year nationally to clean graffiti -- all in an effort to stop those who "visually laugh in the face of communities," as a Wall Street Journal editorial raged.

The popular perception is that since the late 1980s when New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority adopted a zero tolerance toward subway graffiti (the MTA either cleaned or destroyed more than 6,000 graffiti-covered subway cars, immediately pulling a train out of service if any graffiti appeared on it), graffiti culture had died in the place of its birth. According to many graffiti writers, however, the MTA, in its attempt to kill graffiti, only succeeded in bringing it out of the tunnels and train yards and making it angry. Or as Jeff Ferrell, a criminologist who has chronicled the Denver graffiti scene, theorizes, the authorities' crackdown moved graffiti writing from subculture to counterculture. The work on the trains no longer ran, so writers started hitting the streets. Out in the open they had to work faster and more often. The artistry started to matter less and less. Throw-ups, small cryptic tags done in marker and even the straightforward writing of a name became the dominant imagery. What mattered was quantity ("making noise"), whether the writer had heart, was true to the game, was "real." And the graffiti world started to attract more and more people who weren't looking for an alternative art canvas but simply wanted to be connected to an outlaw community, to a venerable street tradition that allowed the opportunity to advertise their defiance. "It's that I'm doing it that I get my rush, not by everyone seeing it," says JA. "Yeah, that's nice, but if that's all that's gonna motivate you to do it, you're gonna stop writing. That's what happened to a lot of writers." JD tells me: "We're just putting it in their faces; it's like 'Yo, you gotta put up with it.'"

Newspapers have now settled on the term "graffiti vandal" rather than "artist" or "writer." Graffiti writers casually refer to their work as doing destruction." In recent years graffiti has become more and more about beefs and wars, about "fucking up the MTA," "fucking up the city."

Writers started taking a jock attitude toward getting up frequently and tagging in hard-to-reach places, adopting a machismo toward going over other writers' work and defending their own ("If you can write, you can fight"). Whereas graffiti writing was once considered an alternative to the street, now it imports drugs, violence, weapons and theft from that world -- the romance of the criminal deviant rather than the artistic deviant. In New York today, one police source estimates there are approximately 100,000 people involved in a variety of types of graffiti writing. The police have caught writers as young as 8 and as old as 42. And there's a small group of hard-core writers who are getting older who either wrote when graffiti was in its prime or long for the days when it was, those who write out of compulsion, for each other and for the authorities who try to combat graffiti, writers who haven't found anything in their lives substantial or hype enough to replace graffiti writing.

The writers in their 20s come mostly from working-class families and have limited prospects and ambitions for the future. SET works in a drugstore and has taken lithium and Prozac for occasional depression; JD dropped out of high school and is unemployed, last working as a messenger, where he met JA. They spend their nights driving 80 miles an hour down city highways, balancing 40-ounce bottles of Old English 800 between their legs, smoking blunts and crack-laced cigarettes called coolies, always playing with the radio. They reminisce endlessly about the past, when graf was real, when graf ran on the trains, and they swap stories about who's doing what on the scene. The talk is a combo platter of Spicoli, homeboy, New Age jock and eighth grade: The dude is a fuckin' total turd. . . . I definitely would've gotten waxed. . . . It's like some bogus job. . . . I'm amped, I'm Audi, you buggin . . . You gotta be there fully, go all out, focus. . . . Dudes have bitten off SET, he's got toys jockin' him. . . .

They carry beepers, sometimes guns, go upstate or to Long Island to "prey on the hicks" and to rack cans of spray paint. They talk about upcoming court cases and probation, about quitting, getting their lives together, even as they plan new spots to hit, practice their style by writing on the walls of their apartments, on boxes of food, on any stray piece of paper (younger writers practice on school notebooks that teachers have been known to confiscate and turn over to the police). They call graffiti a "social tool" and "some kind of ill form of communication," refer to every writer no matter his age as "kid." Talk in the graffiti life vacillates between banality and mythology, much like the activity itself: hours of drudgery, hanging out, waiting, interrupted by brief episodes of exhilaration. JD, echoing a common refrain, says, "Graffiti writers are like bitches: a lot of lying, a lot of talking, a lot of gossip." They don't like tagging with girls ("cuties," or if they use drugs, "zooties") around because all they say is (in a whiny voice), You're crazy. . . . Write my name."

WHEN JA TALKS ABOUT GRAFFITI, HE'S reluctant to offer up any of the media-ready cliches about the culture (and he knows most of them). He's more inclined to say, "Fuck the graffiti world," and scoff at graf shops, videos, conventions and 'zines. But he can be sentimental about how he began -- riding the No. 1, 2 and 3 trains when he was young, bugging out on the graffiti-covered cars, asking himself, "How did they do that? Who are they?" And he'll respectfully invoke the names of long-gone writers he admired when he was just starting out: SKEME, ZEPHYR, REVOLT, MIN.

JA, typical of the new school, primarily bombs, covering wide areas with throw-ups. He treats graffiti less as an art form than as an athletic competition, concentrating on getting his tag in difficult-to-reach places, focusing on quantity and working in defiance of an aesthetic that demands that public property be kept clean. (Writers almost exclusively hit public or commercial property.)

And when JA is not being cynical, he can talk for hours about the technique, the plotting, the logistics of the game like "motion bombing" by clockwork a carefully scoped subway train that he knows has to stop for a set time, at a set place, when it gets a certain signal in the tunnels. He says, "To me, the challenge that graffiti poses, there's something very invigorating and freeing about it, something almost spiritual. There's a kind of euphoria, more than any kind of drug or sex can give you, give me . . . for real."

JA says he wants to quit, and he talks about doing it as if he were in a 12-step program. "How a person in recovery takes it one day a time, that's how I gotta take it," he says. You get burnt out. There's pretty much nothing more the city can throw at me; it's all been done." But then he'll hear about a yard full of clean sanitation trucks, the upcoming Puerto Rican Day Parade (a reason to bomb Fifth Avenue) or a billboard in an isolated area; or it'll be 3 a.m., he'll be stoned, driving around or sitting in the living room, playing NBA Jam, and someone will say it: "Yo, I got a couple of cans in the trunk. . . ." REAS, an old-school writer of 12 years who, after a struggle and a number of relapses, eventually quit the life, says, "Graffiti can become like a hole you're stuck in; it can just keep on going and going, there's always another spot to write on."

SAST is in his late 20s and calls himself semiretired after 13 years in the graf scene. He still carries around a marker with him wherever he goes and cops little STONE tags (when he's high, he writes, STONED). He's driving JA and me around the city one night, showing me different objects they've tagged, returning again and again to drug spots to buy dust and crack, smoking, with the radio blasting; he's telling war stories about JA jumping onto moving trains, JA hanging off the outside of a speeding four-wheel drive. SAST is driving at top speed, cutting in between cars, tailgating, swerving. A number of times as we're racing down the highway, I ask him if he could slow down. He smiles, asks if I'm scared, tells me not to worry, that he's a more cautious driver when he's dusted. At one point on the FDR, a car cuts in front of us. JA decides to have some fun.

"Yo, he burnt you, SAST," JA says. We start to pick up speed. Yo, SAST, he dissed you, he cold dissed you, SAST." SAST is buying it, the look on his face becoming more determined as we go 70, 80, 90 miles an hour, hugging the divider, flying between cars. I turn to JA, who's in the back seat, and I try to get him to stop. JA ignores me, sitting back perfectly relaxed, smiling, urging SAST to go faster and faster, getting off, my fear adding to his rush.

At around 4 a.m., SAST drops us off on the middle of the Manhattan Bridge and leaves. JA wants to show me a throw-up he did the week before. We climb over the divider from the roadway to the subway tracks. JA explains that we have to cross the north and the southbound tracks to get to the outer part of the bridge. In between there are a number of large gaps and two electrified third rails, and we're 135 feet above the East River. As we're standing on the tracks, we hear the sound of an oncoming train. JA tells me to hide, to crouch down in the V where two diagonal braces meet just beside the tracks.

I climb into position, holding on to the metal beams, head down, looking at the water as the train slams by the side of my body. This happens twice more. Eventually, I cross over to the outer edge of the bridge, which is under construction, and JA points out his tag about 40 feet above on what looks like a crow's-nest on a support pillar. After a few moments of admiring the view, stepping carefully around the many opportunities to fall, JA hands me his cigarettes and keys. He starts crawling up one of the braces on the side of the bridge, disappears within the structure for a moment, emerges and makes his way to an electrical box on a pillar. Then he snakes his way up the piping and grabs on to a curved support. Using only his hands he starts to shimmy up; at one point he's hanging almost completely upside down. If he falls now, he'll land backward onto one of the tiers and drop into the river below. He continues to pull himself up, the old paint breaking off in his hands, and finally he flips his body over a railing to get to the spot where he tagged. He doesn't have a can or a marker with him, and at this point graffiti seems incidental. He comes down and tells me that when he did the original tag he was with two writers; one he half carried up, the other stopped at a certain point and later told JA that watching him do that tag made him appreciate life, being alive.

We walk for 10 minutes along a narrow, grooved catwalk on the side of the tracks; a thin wire cable prevents a fall into the river. A few times, looking down through the grooves, I have to stop, force myself to take the next step straight ahead, shake off the vertigo. JA is practically jogging ahead of me. We exit the bridge into Chinatown as the sun comes up and go to eat breakfast. JA tells me he's a vegetarian.

IF YOU TALK TO SERIOUS GRAFFITI writers, most of them will echo the same themes; they decry the commercialization of graf, condemn the toys and poseurs and alternately hate and feel attached to the authorities who try to stop them. They say with equal parts bravado and self-deprecation that a graffiti writer is a bum, a criminal, a vandal, slick, sick, obsessed, sneaky, street-smart, living on edges figurative and literal. They show and catalog cuts and scars on their bodies from razor wire, pieces of metal, knives, box cutters. I once casually asked a writer named GHOST if he knew another writer whose work I had seen in a graf'zine. "Yeah, I know him, he stabbed me," GHOST replies matter-of-factly. "We've still got beef." SET tells me he was caught by two DTs (detectives) who assaulted him, took his cans of paint and sprayed his body and face. JA tells similar stories of police beatings for his making officers run after him, of cops making him empty his spray cans on his sneakers or on the back of a fellow writer's jacket. JD has had 48 stitches in his back and 18 in his head over "graffiti-related beef." JA's best friend and writing partner, SANE SMITH, a legendary all-city writer who was sued by the city and the MTA for graffiti, was found dead, floating in Jamaica Bay. There's endless speculation in the grafworld as to whether he was pushed, fell or jumped off a bridge. SANE is so respected, there are some writers today who spend time in public libraries reading and rereading the newspaper microfilm about his death, his arrests, his career. According to JA, after SANE's death, his brother, SMiTH, also a respected graffiti artist, found a piece of paper on which SANE had written his and JA's tag and off to the side, FLYING HIGH THE XTC WAY. It now hangs on JA's apartment wall.

One morning, JA and I jump off the end of a subway platform and head into the tunnels. He shows me hidden rooms, emergency hatches that open to the sidewalk, where to stand when the trains come by. He tells me about the time SANE lay face down in a shallow drainage ditch on the tracks as an express train ran inches above him. JA says anytime he was being chased by the police he would run into a nearby subway station, jump off the platform and run into the tunnels. The police would never follow. KET, a veteran graffiti writer, tells me how in the tunnels he would accidentally step on homeless people sleeping. They'd see him tagging and would occasionally ask that he "throw them up," write their names on the wall. He usually would. Walking in the darkness between the electrified rails as trains race by, JA tells me the story of two writers he had beef with who came into the tunnels to cross out his tags. Where the cross-outs stop is where they were killed by an approaching train.

The last time I go out with JA, SET and JD, they pick me up at around 2 am. We drive down to the Lower East Side to hit a yard where about 60 trucks and vans are parked next to one another. Every vehicle is already covered with throw-ups and tags, but the three start to write anyway, JA in a near frenzy. They're running in between the rows, crawling under trucks, jumping from roof to roof, wedged down in between the trailers, engulfed in nauseating clouds of paint fumes (the writers sometimes blow multicolored mucous out of their noses), going over some writers' tags, respecting others, JA throwing up SANE's name, searching for any little piece of clean space to write on. JA, who had once again been talking about retirement, is now hungry to write and wants to hit another spot. But JD doesn't have any paint, SET needs gas money for his car, and they have to drive upstate the next morning to appear in court for a paint-theft charge.

During the ride back uptown the car is mostly quiet, the mood depressed. And even when the three were in the truck yard, even when JA was at his most intense, it seemed closer to work, routine, habit. There are moments like this when they seem genuinely worn out by the constant stress, the danger, the legal problems, the drugging, the fighting, the obligation to always hit another spot. And it's usually when the day is starting.

About a week later I get a call from another writer whom JA had told I was writing an article on graffiti. He tells me he has never been king, never gone all city, but now he is making a comeback, coming out of retirement with a new tag. He says he could do it easily today because there is no real competition. He says he was thinking about trying to make some money off of graffiti -- galleries. canvases, whatever . . . to get paid.

"I gotta do something," the writer says. "I can't rap, I can't dance, I got this silly little job." We talk more, and he tells me he appreciates that I'm writing about writers, trying to get inside the head of a vandal, telling the real deal. He also tells me that graffiti is dying, that the city is buffing it, that new writers are all toys and are letting it die, but it's still worth it to write.

I ask why, and then comes the inevitable justification that every writer has to believe and take pleasure in, the idea that order will always have to play catch-up with them. "It takes me seconds to do a quick throw-up; it takes them like 10 minutes to clean it," he says. "Who's coming out on top?"

Hey! COuld you please write #49 "Who hurt you?" with Bruce/Clint?? (Also could it be a highschool/teenage au or something if it's not too much to ask??)

Clint Barton was professionally known as Hawkeye. He never missed a shot, saved the city multiple times, and even had a small little base of fans. 

In high school, it was a different story. He tripped all over the place, couldn’t focus in English class, and only had one friend, Natasha Romanoff. Nat was scary, could probably kill a man and get away with it even if the odds were stacked against her, and was the best person to have as a friend. 

This morning was rough. He’d had to put more band-aids on the new calluses on his hands. Stupid new bow. Lucky also got too excited for breakfast and tripped on the floor and then made Clint trip and fall by default, which means that Clint has a nasty bruise on his knee and his arm is stiff. 

“Why do you always have the worst luck? Who hurt you?” Natasha asks. She’s currently tearing down another “Aldrich Killian for Student President” poster, tearing it into tiny pieces as she waits for Clint to search for his English textbook and try to balance his coffee. 

“Ask God, I’m sure I did something to piss her off,” Clint groans. “I think I’m honestly going to die because of my own self. I think it’s just that. And I had a run-in last night with some of the downtown dudes. Bad news.” 

“Nah. If you die it’s probably gonna be from Lucky. And you won’t even care because of how much you love that dumb dog.” Nat doesn’t mention anything about the downtown incident, because she’s not stupid and she will take him to the range that night and help him with combat. 

“He’s cute and he likes cuddles, what’s not to love?” Clint asks, slamming his locker shut. “Let’s get to class.” 

He doesn’t really like English all that much. Words don’t make a lot of sense unless Natasha explains it in a way or he can find the movie version of it that doesn’t completely suck. 

But he goes to English because of one person, and that person’s name is Bruce Banner. Bruce is a science nerd who has a very nice voice and is also exactly Clint’s type. Sweet, nerdy, and he has very nice arms. Clint stares too much at those arms. 

He wishes that he could be more like his alter-ego. Hawkeye would walk right up to Bruce, ask him out for ice cream, and sweep him off his feet. 

What he gets is tripping over his own loose shoelace because Bruce got new glasses and they look very nice. 

The class explodes into laughter as Clint slinks to his seat, frowning. He wishes the world would swallow him up. 

“I wanna die,” he mutters. 

“Not yet, we have a dinner appointment at seven,” Natasha says. “You promised to  let me choose a semi-healthy option.” 

“If I have to eat celery I will arrest you.” 

“You can’t arrest me for that, it’s not a felony.” 

“Celery sucks, I’d say it’s a felony,” comes a voice. Clint recognizes that voice. 

It’s Bruce Banner, who’s smiling. 

“Sorry you fell, Clint. Always sucks.” 

“Thanks dude, I appreciate it.” 

That’s the first interaction. Clint smiles at Bruce from across the room before it fades as the teacher assigns a new essay based on Lady Macbeth. 

“I hate this class,” Natasha mutters, looking at the directions. 

“No you don’t, you enjoy breaking the teacher’s spirit,” Clint says. “And if you keep it up, she might be broken enough to stop adding to the final.” Natasha shrugs, admitting it; there was a certain pride in getting shitty teachers to finally back down. 

It surprises when Bruce starts waving to him in the hallway, smiling as they walk into school. 

Clint gets bold and starts striking up casual conversation. Just about which classes are up next, what he brought for lunch. 

Bruce sits next to Clint and Nat in English, laughing about the books and some post they saw on an app. 

“Wait, so you’re telling me Clint will eat anything?” Bruce asks, eyes wide. 

“If you pay for it, then yeah,” Clint says with a shrug. “I don’t turn down food.” 

“You wanna go to the shittiest pizza joint you will ever go to?” 

“I guarantee you it’s gonna be my favorite place in the world,” Clint says. “Shitty pizza is kinda my specialty.” 

As it turns out, he hasn’t been there before. It’s in a small corner, surrounded by abandoned buildings, and even Clint can point out the violations from outside. 

Bruce laughs as Clint looks at the pepperoni they ordered. It looks fine. He just can’t tell if it’ll be good. 

“It’s not about being good, it’s about the experiences,” Bruce says. “Such as maybe getting a mild case of food poisoning.” He then proceeds to take three slices for himself, eats one in quick time, and reaches for the other. 

Clint gets to know Bruce a lot better. Bruce is a nervous guy, likes the way records sound, and his favorite movie is The Sound of Music. They watch it in Bruce’s basement while munching on popcorn and sipping on fruit juice, because Bruce’s mom hates soda. 

“Make yourself at home, Clint,” Mrs. Banner says. 

“Thanks Mrs. Banner.” 

“Please, call me Rebecca.” 

“Okay Mrs. Banner.” 

She laughs at that, tells Bruce she likes his new friend, and they go down to the basement and sit on a couch that is honestly way too comfy to be the basement couch. 

They sit close. Clint notices how nicely TV light defines Bruce’s nose. He then turns to the popcorn and reaches for a few pieces. 

Both their phones buzz with a message saying to stay inside. 

“Another villain,” Clint says weakly. He doesn’t want to leave this, it’s so nice. “I hate it when this happens. My mom wants me home.” 

“It was nice hanging out, but yeah. My mom would want your mom to have you home safe.” 

If they both weren’t so focused, they’d notice that the other is a very shit liar. 

But they didn’t. 

Because Hawkeye runs out to the fray about fifteen minutes later, out of breath and a one-liner about the subway being out of commission due to connectivity problems. 

And then, there’s Hulk. Hulk is cool. he’s a nice guy. Roars a lot, but Clint likes him. 

“What’s the problem?” Hulk asks, voice rumbly and deep. “Skipped out on a date for this, it better be good.” 

“Me too buddy,” Clint says darkly. “But I guess we’re just trying to destroy the robots. I hope Iron Man is back in town.” 

Hulk gives Clint the strangest look, but shakes his head and leaps to a the villain’s minions, smashing the tech to little pieces. Clint counts out his arrows, frowning as he realizes he left four of them at home. 

“Aw man,” he groans, checking the bow. “I’m gonna have to be careful.” He still hasn’t talked to Iron Man about the possibility of homing technology on his arrows. Maybe it would be too complicated, but it’s worth a shot. 

Clint doesn’t really talk to many people other than helping the families get the hell out of the way and one memorable moment from Hulk, who scoops him up in his arms to avoid a car being thrown his direction. 

“Thanks Jadey,” Clint says. “I have an algebra test that I need to study for.” 

“Can’t let you die,” Hulk responds gruffly. “You’re funny.” 

“You say the nicest things.” 

Clint books it after the villain is defeated; no sense in his mom actually getting worried about him being gone. (Not that she usually notices, but still. Natasha might be over.) 

School the next day was rough. Clint had to cover a bruise on his arm (ow) and even worse, endure Natasha’s teasing. 

“You went to your crush’s house. To watch his favorite movie. I think that sounds like you looovvvveee him.” 

“You literally are quite honestly the worst person in the world, Natasha. I should really feed you to the pigeons.” 

“Their best meal yet.” 

Bruce looks really tired in class. He barely talks, eyes are glassy, but he still smiles at Clint. 

“I was wondering if I could tell you something after class at lunch,” Bruce says. “Meet me in the courtyard.” 

“Uh, sure? What’s it about.” 

“You’ll find out.” 

No one likes to hear that they’ll hear something later. It’s usually bad. So Clint worries about it for all of his classes, messes up his math quiz entirely, and tries not to look so nervous come lunchtime. 

He goes to the courtyard. They’ve planted nicer flowers this year, probably thanks to the botanical club. Bruce is sitting on a wooden bench, lunch spread out before him. He has celery and peanut butter. 

“Hey,” Bruce says, smiling. 

“Did I do something bad?” Clint blurts out. “Because if I did, I’m really sorry. Sometimes I say things that are just terrible all the time because my filter only works about twenty percent of the time, and--” 

“Nah,” Bruce says. “Just wanted to tell you something.” 

“What?” Clint asks. 

“I know you’re Hawkeye.” 

Clint drops his lunchbox, and then sits down. 

“Please don’t tell the school.” 

“I’m not going to. But I need to tell you something. It’s a secret. Nat can know, but no one else.” 

“You got it,” Clint says. Bruce breathes deeply, closing his eyes. 

“You know the green monster?” 

“Um, you mean the Hulk?” Clint asks. “I wouldn’t really consider him a monster, he’s considerate about hotdog carts.” 

Bruce blinks and then giggles a little bit. 

“I’m him.” 

Clint blinks. 

“I can see it. You have the same kinda nose. His is just bigger.” Bruce snorts, laughing. He takes a bite of the celery. 

“And here I thought when I asked you out I’d have a hard time explaining that I was considered a superhero.” 

Clint grins, moving closer and kissing Bruce. 

“Not as difficult as you thought, huh?” 

The Village Is a Glow (1/2)

A/N: Merry (belated) Christmas to those of you who celebrate! This was written for my @cssecretsanta2k18 giftee, @eastwesthomeisbest , who expressed an interest in modern au’s with a fantastical element. While this was a bit out of my comfort zone where fic is concerned (and ended up being fairly light on the fantasy), I took suggestions from a few friends and came up with this story based on some of her preferences. This was both fun and challenging to write, and I've so enjoyed interacting with you over the past few weeks! Part 2 should hopefully be up and posted by this time next week.

Special thanks to @profdanglaisstuff for beta’ing, @justanotherwannabeclassic and @forestiyari for helping me think of this idea, and @welllpthisishappening for answering my questions about NYC. (Also, please keep in mind that I’m not a native, so there may or may not be a few things I did less research on that should be taken with a grain of salt.)

Summary: Killian Jones credits moving to the Big Apple for getting his photography career off the ground. He also has it to thank for causing his first run-in with Emma Swan, who makes him question every photo he takes afterward. 

AO3

Three years and a handful of questionable experiences had shown Killian that almost anything was possible in New York.

For starters, there were things like the number of naked people you could spot on a normal day in Times Square, a Storm Trooper getting arrested, and a teenage couple making out while standing in a dumpster. And those were all things he’d seen within the first week after his move. Being a photographer had only given him the opportunity to catch things like this on camera and show them to his friends both in the city and back home in London who didn’t quite buy the odd stories he had to tell on any given day.

Despite the regularity of seeing things that made him wish he had issues with his memory, there was so much Killian loved about his now home that made up for it all. He loved the constant energy and excitement that lived within the city, whether that be in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. The first few weeks after his move, he’d dealt with the jet lag by wandering around at all hours of the night and taking pictures, trying but never fully succeeding to capture the neon lights, hoards of people, and bumper to bumper traffic guaranteed to be found at every corner.

Killian also had to credit the move to New York for getting his freelance photography career off the ground. He’d gotten some attention back in London from friends and colleagues, but it wasn’t until after relocating when he began posting pictures he’d taken around the city that his Instagram account started to receive a considerable amount of attention. He was able to use the site as a way to both market his work and seek out potential clients. Since coming to New York, he’d received offers to shoot everything from weddings and parties to family portraits and sessions for online companies and influencers. He still took a few shifts a month at a local bar to make ends meet, but he was grateful his photography was able to cover most of the costs and requirements that came along with living in New York.

Killian had grown to love almost everything about his new home and tried to encompass as much of it as possible in his photos, but the main focus on his Instagram account over the past year or so had been capturing the lives of mundane New Yorkers like himself on film. Killian had soon learned thanks to comments from his friends back at home that most outsiders saw the city as the home for the rich and famous, and assumed only those that fit one or both of those categories were able to thrive and succeed there. It wasn’t hard to believe that such ideas existed thanks to the typical depictions of New Yorkers in fiction and the media. But, from his experience, the majority were just common people trying to make a life in the city that never slept.

And, yes, many of these people and the pictures he took of them were a little on the unusual side. But he’d never taken a photo that made him question his own sanity, until he met her.

It started on a Tuesday morning. Despite having the ability to create his own work schedule most of the time, he preferred getting out early a few times a week to take photos and observe the city as the work rush began. He’d been walking around with his camera for an hour or so around Tribeca taking snapshots of people and scenes that caught his eye. There was the elderly couple holding hands while waiting at a crosswalk, a young dog walker who looked as if he could barely keep up with his four legged clients, and one he was particularly fond of, a pair of young twins sisters walking their dog in Hudson River Park he couldn’t wait to share after receiving permission from their parents.

It was just after eight-thirty when he decided to wrap things up before he went back to his apartment to edit this morning’s photos and make a call to a client who he was scheduled to do an engagement shoot for that weekend. He wasn’t far from a nearby cafe when he spotted a distinct golden glow coming up from the side of a building. It was probably just the way the early morning sun was reflecting, but it caught his attention enough that he considered it worth documenting for himself if nothing else.

After taking a handful of photos, he was scrolling through the media library on his camera while still walking (something he should have known better than to do in the first place) when he felt himself slam into something just as he was passing the building in the picture.

“Oh!”

Whoops. Not something, a person. The first things he saw were blonde curls and a pair of bright green eyes that didn’t look nearly as angry with him as they should.

“Bloody hell,” he cursed under his breath. “I’m terribly sorry, love. Are you alright?”

“Well, I’m definitely awake now,” she laughed. Killian was grateful she didn’t look ready to strangle him, which seemed fair considering the circumstances. “Just maybe be careful what you do with that thing while you’re walking,” she added, nodding toward his camera. She had to either be a saint or in an exceptionally good mood.

He shoved his camera back inside the bag on his shoulder. “You’re right. I apologize again. Can I buy you a coffee to make up for it?”

“Emma Swan. Make it hot chocolate instead and you’re forgiven.”

He liked this woman already. “Killian Jones. And I believe I can swing that.”

Killian opted for taking her to the nearby cafe he often visited since he knew they served hot chocolate, as well as his own preferred Americano. It was a short walk from where they were now.

“This is neat,” she said when they arrived and she followed him inside. He had stumbled across Gotan in Tribeca not long after his move to the city, and often dropped in at least once a week to drink coffee while he edited photos or answered client calls. The modern, eclectic feel of the place made it enjoyable for working, and hopefully enjoyable for sharing a hot drink with the stranger he’d just inconvenienced.

There surprisingly wasn’t a crowd considering what time of day it was, so they were able to quickly order their drinks. Emma picked out a table near one of the large windows, wanting to sit by the sunlight.

“Tell me something about yourself, Swan. Do you live in the city?”

She nodded. “As of last weekend, yes. I’ve bounced around different areas on the East coast for awhile now, but it was time for a change, and my friend had an extra room in her apartment. So, here we are. What about you?” she asked. “Although the accent kind of gives your roots away.”

“Afraid so.” As the barista approached the table with their drinks, he briefly explained his childhood and life in London and why he’d chosen to move to the city. “There wasn’t much rhyme or reason behind it. I also wanted a change, and to do something with my photography. New York seemed to be the best option. I’ve been here almost three years now; it’s worked out well, at least by my standards.”

“I hope some of your luck is contagious then.” Emma took a sip of her hot chocolate and gave what he hoped was a satisfied smile. He saw then that she’d gotten whipped cream on the corner of her mouth and tried not to laugh, instead handing her a napkin from the stack on the table. “You’ve got a little something there, love.”

She laughed when she caught her own reflection in the window and wiped the mess away. He liked hearing her laugh. Actually, he liked quite a few things about her, he soon realized as they spent the next half hour discussing everything from rom coms to the best restaurants in New York.

“You’re the first guy I’ve ever met who’s willingly admitted to liking Mean Girls.”

Killian shrugged. “I suppose you could say I’ve been personally victimized by Regina George, love.”

It was a bit of a disappointment when she announced she had to leave. “Job interview,” she explained.

“In that case, I hope some of my luck you mentioned earlier is contagious too.” Killian considered asking for her number but decided against it; it seemed too forward and there was a good chance she wouldn’t be up for sharing personal details with someone who was still virtually a stranger in many ways. “Perhaps I’ll be lucky enough to run into you again in the future? Although I’ll try not to make it literally next time.”

“Thanks. And I appreciate the consideration.” She smiled and disappeared around the corner a moment later. Despite being in a city with millions of people, a small part of him couldn’t help but hope he hadn’t seen the last of her.

He spent most of the afternoon uploading the morning’s pictures onto his laptop to see which ones were worth holding onto. Most of them turned out well, aside from a few that were out of focus and one unintentional shot of the sidewalk he’d taken while trying to avoid being hit by a pigeon. The few that stood out the most, though, were the handful he’d snapped of the sun coming around the side of the building where he’d come across Emma Swan. They weren’t particularly great in comparison to some of the others he’d taken earlier, but what he hadn’t seen before was a strange golden glow that seemed to cover the scene like a filter. He must have hit something on his camera that changed the color settings when he and Emma collided. That was the only reasonable explanation.

Even though it was unlike the others and wasn’t his normal style, it was the one he posted on Instagram first after making a few minimal edits.

Kjones87: I’d call it a successful day.

If he noticed the number of likes and comments were higher than on any other photo he’d uploaded recently, he chalked it up to coincidence, or maybe what Emma Swan thought was his good luck.

The scheduled engagement photoshoot plus a local business event he’d been asked to photograph at the last minute kept him busy enough that he wasn’t given a chance to repeat his habit of wandering around the city with his camera until the following week. It was Wednesday when he found himself exploring Tribeca again. He liked the area, and it was close enough to his apartment that avoiding public transportation was typically an option.

His routine followed the same pattern it normally did, simply walking around to take random snapshots of people or things that caught his eye, until two women holding hands approached him at City Hall Park.

“Hi,” said the taller of the two brunettes, wearing a bright shade of red lipstick that matched the streaks in her dark hair. “I really hope I won’t bother you by asking, but is there any way you’d be willing to take a picture of my girlfriend and me?” she asked, holding up her phone and squeezing said girlfriend’s hand, a shorter woman with dark curls and a stack of books sticking out of the bag on her shoulder. “If you don’t have time or you’d rather not that’s totally fine, we just saw you taking pictures and figured you would know what you were doing better than someone else.”

Flattered by the unexpected request, Killian reached for the woman’s phone and then paused, thinking of a better idea. It wasn’t something he would normally suggest in similar circumstances, but they seemed like a sweet couple and why waste the opportunity to do something nice for them? “I can do you one better. Suppose I take several shots of you two on my camera and just email you the final results?”

“Seriously?” the shorter brunette asked. “How much do you charge for doing something like that?”

“No charge. I mean it,” he continued when they both attempted to protest. “I would probably consider posting one or two pictures on my Instagram, with your permission of course.”

Killian spent the better part of an hour following the couple around the park and taking various pictures of them holding hands and embracing in the different picturesque locations. He found out their names were Ruby and Belle, and they had come to the city from Boston for a few days to celebrate their second anniversary.

“Are you sure we can’t pay you?” Belle asked for the umpteenth time when they were preparing to leave. “I mean, we’ve probably taken up a good part of your day.”

“I was glad to do it,” he insisted. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip.” He got both of the women’s contact information and watched as they left the park hand in hand.

He was just walking away when he heard a vaguely familiar voice. “I hope that camera hasn’t caused any run-ins today.”

Killian turned and saw Emma Swan walking toward him, clutching a well-read paperback he couldn’t make out the tile of and a steaming cup of what he assumed was hot chocolate. “Ah, hello, Swan. And, no, I am pleased to report that I’ve succeeded in being aware of my surroundings since our meeting last week.”

“Good to know. Otherwise you’d probably go broke buying hot chocolates for every girl you ran in to in New York.”

“Aye. I’d rather save those for you anyway. I’d offer to buy you another if you hadn’t already beat me to it,” he said, gesturing to her cup, feeling both amused and reluctant.

She shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s almost lunchtime, and I never say no to a grilled cheese.”

He’d be an idiot to turn her down.

Emma chose the place this time, a small diner called Granny’s located a few blocks away. “My roommate got me hooked on this place,” she told him when they walked in and took a booth near the back of the restaurant. As expected, she ordered a grilled cheese with a side of onion rings, and a second hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. “Just because I can,” she explained when he raised an eyebrow at her odd selection. (She laughed when he caved and ordered the exact same thing.)

Killian learned quite a bit about Emma Swan during the hour they spent sharing greasy food and random tidbits of information. She shared that she’d recently been hired at a local bookstore, hence the interview she’d been headed to after their first encounter, had a liking for eighties teen movies, and usually found herself on Amazon Prime when she couldn’t sleep, leading to receiving a number of random items in the mail that she never quite remembered ordering. She asked a question about his photography, which led to him explaining what he did as a freelancer, as well as his occasional work at the bar.

He had just pulled out his phone to show her his Instagram page (which he realized later probably would have looked like gloating) when she had to leave for her shift at the bookstore. “I have a feeling you’ll see me again,” she said, almost as if she knew something he didn’t.

“I have a feeling you’re right.”

He spent the better part of his afternoon editing the photos of Ruby and Belle in the park earlier that day. When he got to the last of them, it was impossible not to notice the golden glow over the couple in the final picture he’d taken of them kissing in front of the fountain in the park.

The last picture he’d taken before meeting Emma.

Just like the last picture he’d taken the week before...right before meeting Emma.

There was a reasonable explanation behind all of this. There had to be. He just had no clue what said explanation was.

One thing was for sure, he needed to see Emma Swan again.

A Legacy Left Behind - Chapter -1 - Initial Encounters - Part 5 (Final)

The new beginnings

Briefing Room, Level 27, SGC - Colorado

Next morning at precisely 0800 hrs, John found himself in the spacious Briefing Room which offered an overview of the Stargate and the Embarkation room through its clear glass window. A detailed star map dominated the wall next to the General's office, which was adjacent to the briefing room. There were projector screens, computers and other stationary surrounding the huge conference table that could comfortably seat about 30 people at a time.

"Hi. Good morning. Major John Sheppard, I presume- Cameron Mitchell- Nice to finally meet you in person- You caused quite the stir around here, man!" The Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, who was lovingly fondling the coffee machine near the window, offered a friendly greeting.

"Good morning, Sir." John returned the greeting and made his way to the coffee machine intending to get a cup for himself as well. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

The handsome Colonel flashed him a grin, his blue eyes sparkling with good humor.

"Relax Sheppard; we are not going to feed you to the sharks or anything. It’s just about you telling us your side of the story of what took place so we have the whole picture of the situation. We still have some loose ends to tie up, you see. And for the record, we only really start throwing our guys to sharks or alien versions of nasties after at least their third gate hop." His charming Southern drawl and the easy conversation did help to wash away some of the tension John carried in his shoulders without even realizing it.

He carried his coffee to the seat the Colonel pointed to and they both sat down. They didn't have to wait long as the remainder of the brass walked in for the briefing. John was introduced to Colonel Marshall Sumner, Marine Corps, Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter, Air Force and Mr. Richard Woolsey, liaison for the International Oversight Advisory (IOA). Dr Lam and Sergeant Harriman also joined and completed the gathering. After everybody was properly armed with their caffeine intakes and settled at the table, the General opened the debriefing session.

"Now Sheppard, Marshall plucked you out from the detention facility they have hidden away behind Bagram Air Base. We know they kept you there for five days. Take us through what happened from the beginning, from where you started, who was with you and what your initial mission was. Anything and everything you can remember and give us as many details as possible."

John took a deep breath, cleared his mind and then throat and started his account as ordered.

"I was sent in a Pave Hawk to pick up a CIA agent, Mr. J. Smith, from Kandahar airport. Caucasian, blond, brown eyed, early forties, 5’6”, spoke with a slight German accent. I was to deliver him to Bagram but I was under orders to divert as required if Mr. Smith requested. He was on record as my crew. I was on comms black out as well. He kept on comms with someone on a private channel from the moment I picked him up and I didn't understand any of it- it was mostly code. Thirty-three minutes into our flight, a Black Hawk came out of nowhere and went down hard right in front of me."

He took a sip of his coffee and took a steadying breath and continued. Nobody interrupted him but he had their full attention.

"I followed it down. I sent a quick message to Bagram but didn't acknowledge their reply. Mr. Smith was insisting that we continue our flight but I didn't listen to him either."

He hesitated here, because he didn't know how to put into words the compulsion that took control of him that directed all his actions from there on. The help came from Colonel Sumner, surprising Sheppard.

"This is probably where your biological imperative took hold. Basically your ATA gene came online and one of its rather strong side effects is the urge to annihilate anything Wraith-related. Don't worry son, you will get the full lecture in the near future. Do go on and tell us what you felt and what you did then."

With a grateful nod towards the Colonel, John continued his narrative;

"Like you said Sir, Things started to feel weird just then. Everything sort of came into sharp focus and all my senses sort of elevated to a very high degree. I was on auto-pilot when I landed my bird near the downed Hawk and armed myself. By then everything else was faded to background and in my mind unimportant, the survivors were already piling out of the bird and I could not stop to check on any of them. By then I had three clear targets, a male and a female, 100 yards off to the South of me and a creepy crawly bug/baby/spider hybrid thing that was crawling towards them in a hurry."

The dread, the guilt, and the nausea he had been pushing away resolutely whenever he cast his mind back to it-since he woke up in Antarctica, came back in full force. He hadn't had the time to properly dwell over his actions as he was occupied from the moment he was awake back at the Outpost. He realized that he still didn't know what happened to the survivors of that unfortunate accident.

"Continue, Sheppard."  The order was soft and full of understanding, yet firm.

So he continued, doing his best to keep his voice flat and face neutral.

"I engaged them from a distance first- opened up with the carbine and emptied a full load on both of them but that didn't do anything to them. The male alien- charged me and I stabbed it on the neck and shot its right palm with my hand-gun, the palm with the mouth-like opening, neutralizing it."

"Sheppard, can you describe them, what exactly these Wraiths looked like?"

The question came from Colonel Mitchell. And it was significant for some reason; if the laser-focused looks pointed his way were any indication.

"Well, they were very thin and very tall, easily over 6 and 1/2 ft. They moved way faster than humans and were obviously bullet resistant. They both had kind of long faces, pasty pale, cat like eyes, flat noses and mouths full of pointy teeth. Long white hair that looked slimy. Oh, and really nasty breath. And, um, one of them had, um, curves and, um, breasts and a sort of shrill voice, so I assumed female."

John finished, blushing slightly avoiding looking at anyone. He heard snickers from both Mitchell and Carter.

"Major Sheppard, can you tell us the significance of the way you attacked? How did you know to do that?" The question was from Dr. Lam and she had an intense look on her face. He realized that everybody was staring at him raptly, in varying degrees of alarm and fascination.

"Like I said Doctor, the compulsion that took over my mind sort of gave me all the information. I could see the attack points as if I had an HUD on me. I can't really describe it except to say that I knew what to do and how to do it."

"Sounds like basically your online experience came with some genetically stored information about the Wraith as well. This is extraordinary. I must consult with Dr. Beckett about this at the first opportunity."  The doctor had a gleam in her eyes that made Sheppard want to squirm.

“I need to sit down with him and go through all the weak points of the Wraith, their biology and everything else he can tell me about them as soon as possible Jack." Lam directed the last at the General who looked like he wanted to squirm as well.

“All in good time Doctor, let's hear his story first."

John took his cue to get on with it.

"The female was trying to get into my head by this point. She was hurling attack after attack at my mind and she had me on my knees and squeezing me by the throat. She was trying to keep me alive and get information out of my head. I shielded my mind and somehow managed to throw it all back at her- She wasn't expecting it and I caught her off guard. I managed to stab her the same way I did the male and she died. Then I shot the bug hybrid to pieces. Things went back to normal for me then; the compulsion and the energy and sensory boost faded away and I figured I got them all. I remember having the worst headache I have had in my entire life - The return to crash site is a bit hazy and I think I met Steven- uh Lieutenant McGarrett of the Navy SEALsb- I was arrested and my memory is blank from there. The next clear memory I have is being thrown into a cell I thought was in Bagram."

John gulped the remains in his now cold coffee in one big swallow. The General waved a hand towards the coffee maker signaling him to go for a refill. The Sergeant refreshed the General's coffee; nobody else moved. They were all busy taking notes on their PDAs and laptops.

John sat back down and at the nod from O'Neill he continued his account.

"There were five people in there with me with-in like ten minutes. I had the feeling at least three of them were CIA. Mr. Smith was one of them. One CIA guy sounded like a Texan and over 6'3 while the other was African American with cut glass British accent. The other two looked Chinese but they never uttered a word when they were around me. Smith started asking what I did to the aliens; I think they referred to something called homo-iratus at a point and something about keepers. He was quite insistent that I tell him how I got to know about the aliens and I think he couldn't see what I could when we landed at the crash site. Anyway I had the same sort of strong urge again not to reveal any information. They resorted to physical interrogation techniques soon after."

John fervently hoped that the General wouldn't make him talk about the ensuing five days, he lost track of the things they were doing to him by the second or third day. He could feel a cold sweat starting to break all over his body despite the pleasantly controlled temperature in the room.

"Hmm, I don't see the point in making you talk about the torture now Sheppard, we have all seen the medical reports Carson forwarded that came from the pod. It's SOP for any major incident involving our personnel- Besides I'm sure Dr. Heightmayer will sit down and have a talk with you soon enough. She is the resident psychologist for the SGC."

"Carter, I'm sure we can run a search and get IDs on those CIA goons, yes? Sheppard can ID them for us and we can finally get some headway on the missing agents of the elusive 'Keepers Collective'?"

The Air Force Colonel gave a nod of affirmation and John was sure she was already running a search on the laptop in front of her, along the same lines, before the General even made the request.

"So you want to tell him how we got to him?" O'Neill asked the Marine Colonel.

Sumner started to recount the story with a sip of his freshly refilled coffee.

"This was roughly three weeks ago, may be a day or two before you encountered despicable Mr. Smith.  Apollo, our second BC 304 warship that was on orbit at the time, started tracking a string of coded messages. It got their attention because they caught reference to this 'Keepers Collective'. Now, this is a group of agents we believe are in league with the Wraiths on earth. They have infiltrated many of our government agencies in a very short time. So our people stumbled across a signature of transporter activation. It was heavily encrypted. When we finally managed to get it decrypted, it was a transporter activity that beamed a flying object from its original path to Area 7 in Russia into the middle of Afghanistan. That was where you got your surprise mid air. We think the plan was to get it safely into on of the small villages that had several entrances to a hidden cave system, but the chopper went down. This village was where the transporter signal originated."

"We believed it was the missing chopper that we were actually looking for. We had a team transporting a cryofrozen Wraith hybrid to a secure facility in Russia for study. This was a specimen that we found during a raid on an enemy base. They never showed up at their destination and we were on alert regarding their disappearance. So when we caught on to the fact that our bird was hijacked by the enemy, we deployed teams to locate them." Colonel Sumner paused.

At this point, Colonel Samantha Carter interjected and informed John somewhat apologetically-

"-It took us sometime to pin-point the origin of that signal. I was there with the tracking team in Apollo, We have only really come across this species a few months ago and up to that point, all we had were some obscure reference from the data we retrieved from Antarctica. We didn't even know that they had beaming capabilities until we caught this activity. Saying we were surprised would be an understatement."

She inclined her head at the Marine Colonel, smiling slightly, indicating he should continue with the brief.

"So we beamed two of our teams to recon, to take over and secure this village where they were operating." Said the Colonel. “They took custody of eight agents, all human, and sealed all the cave entrances. They also uncovered a shallow grave area where they discarded the dead villagers after Wraith feedings. Our teams were trying to locate our missing chopper when they caught some of the comms chatter between the SEAL teams. They were about 30 miles from the crash site then, still near the village. Then Apollo's sensors caught another one of those beaming signatures at the same time the radio chatter started. Different origination this time and a different purpose. When they finally reached the crash site, they found the wreckage of the two birds and five confirmed fatalities. Two civilians and three SEALs."

"The SEAL team had already apprehended and taken you away by then and left a marker for body collection. The SGC team was ordered to leave the crash site security operation to naval forces. They never found any traces of your fight with the Wraiths and the bodies had already disappeared by then. So we didn't know that you had engaged the Wraith at this time. We believe your Mr. Smith and his buddies got there and sanitized the site. We only knew that we found our missing cargo transport and assumed the cargo was destroyed."

He paused again, taking in the appearance of the Major. He had grown steadily more pale throughout Marshall's report and was looking shaken and as if he was about to get sick. It was obvious to him that the kid was blaming himself for not saving his fellow soldiers when he had the chance. And this was the first time he heard the confirmation of what happened to the occupants of the Black Hawk. But Marshall knew from experience that there was nothing he could do once he was under the influence of his genetic heritage. John was staring blankly at a point of the table and Marshall knew he was no longer there with them; he was back there in Afghanistan reliving the memory- trying and failing to see how he could've changed the outcome.

Marshall leaned in closer to the table and fixed his gaze on Sheppard.

"Sheppard, listen to me." He didn't raise his voice; but the command in his tone brought John back and he flinched slightly as he focused on the colonel.

"There was nothing you could've done differently. I, the General, Colonel Mitchell and all other ATA gene carriers who came online during combat facing Wraith went through something similar to what you experienced. And none of us even had to face a fully fledged Wraith queen before. Yeah the females are very rare and they are all queens. It was a Wraith drone or a hybrid every time for us. So we know what happened to you was much worse."

"Besides Sheppard, what you couldn't have predicted was the guy in the chopper starting to call for help on all open radio frequencies. They broke their comms blackout directive. And we are positive it wasn't even the first time they did it because that was how the transporter signal locked onto them in the first place to beam them to Afghanistan. That is how your SEAL buddy Steve knew what happened and that was how the second transporter signal locked on to them as well. This time bringing a bomb that blew them up. We don't know if they could have survived the encounter if not for that call but there wasn't anything you could do."

"But what you did do saved a lot of lives, Sheppard. Those Wraiths were feeding on that village and would have just kept on going if it wasn't for you. There were kids in that village. I know it's hard but that is what you have to focus on Sheppard, because when it comes down to it, knowingly or unknowingly you made the only call you could as a soldier. You put the safety of the humans as a species first above that of your fellow soldiers. You went after the much bigger threat because the War we are fighting against Wraith is much more important than any other war. And like it or not, you are a part of it."

He watched Sheppard visibly collecting himself and regaining some of his composure with huge effort and focusing on him more or less. The Major took a sip of water Walter had kindly placed in front of him and gave a barely perceptible nod.

"So the second signal, we tracked to Bagram, of all places. I'm sure Mr. Smith's buddies again had something to do with it. When our ground team got there a few hours later they found an abandoned site- they had cleared out. Around this time, you were already in custody and we still didn't know anything about you or your involvement except for what we intercepted through the radio chatter. We were not focused on the AWOL zoomie who took off after landing his bird and then got himself arrested. Our teams were instead instructed to keep looking for the missing Wraiths that were feeding on the villagers.”

John thought he detected another slight note of apology there. Colonel Carter took over from the Marine Colonel at this point.

"While we were busy tracking the Wraith-related activity, Rodney was following a strange signal that came online around about the same time you came online. Since we never had the Outpost react to anyone coming online as an ATA gene carrier, he didn't know what it was. He was keeping an eye on it but didn't realize he was actually reading your brain activity."

"He contacted us and the SGC on the third day of your captivity in all-out, full-blown panic. He had finally figured out it was human vitals, with the help of Dr Beckett. By this time you were in trouble and the Outpost was reacting to your distress. They had power fluctuations all over the place and McKay was being bombarded with Ancient and English demands to locate 'P1' and bring them in. That was what Terra Atlantus was calling you. On the fourth day the Chair came online on its own and it launched a program onto our network, our heavily encrypted secure SGC network. And within a couple of hours the Outpost had complete control of the whole national grid and soon after that, the global network. The internet, communications, Satellites; it had control of everything. The White House had issued an order to neutralize the Outpost. They issued evacuation orders to both McMurdo and Terra Atlantus after POTUS authorized extreme measures. But McKay refused to move and he figured out what it was telling us."

She paused briefly to hydrate herself. John thought her timing had more to do with adding to the suspense.

"Your location - That was what the Outpost was looking for. So once McKay figured it out, we scrambled the team with Marshall in the lead to go down and get you. Once McKay managed to convince the control at the Outpost that we were retrieving you, it released our networks and went back offline again."

"Yeah that is one debriefing at the White House I'm not willing to ever repeat again." Jack O'Neill said with a theatrical shudder.

"Well, you know the rest- I found you and beamed with you to Antarctica, and the outpost took over your care. I went back to Bagram to continue the investigation. We have three of your captors in custody along with the agents we arrested in the village. They are all detained at Area 51 and undergoing special hospitality. Being in league with an alien species that literally eat humans for sustenance is not your average war crime. We recalled our teams from Afghanistan after a week, when they kept running into dead ends. We are still keeping our ears to the ground for anything regarding Smith and his cronies. But the odds are they have gone to ground now that their operations are compromised." Colonel Sumner finished the narrative.

John was feeling completely overwhelmed and in way over his head. He hadn't known the lengths that an unknown sentience had gone, to make sure of his safety. He shuddered at the real possibility that it would have been destroyed before John even knew its' existence. He realized that he had connected to the sentience in Terra Atlantus at an astonishingly deep level because the thought of its' destruction made him feel like losing a part of his soul. It had buried itself in his mind so thoroughly and completely and John didn't mind one bit. Because as strange as it was, it was home.

"Alright then, I think we got everything covered. We will meet up again if anything comes up that we didn't cover today. But for now I think we are done. I don't know about you people but I'm hungry-" The General remarked, ending the intense debriefing/briefing session.

"Sheppard, meet Walter after lunch- He will have your introduction program and work schedule. So you can get on with your life here. It's gonna be fun-" the General predicted cheerily at Sheppard.

Then he turned to the civilian who was quiet throughout the whole session and remarked sourly.

"Well, Richard, you and I have to brief the White House and IOA, now won't that be fun? No it won't be fun!" With that he got up from his chair and walked towards his office. John heard a muttered comment about 'processing protected assets and future headaches' from Mr. Woolsey as got up and scrambled to follow the General.

John also got up hurriedly from his chair and received an amiable pat on shoulder from Colonel Sumner when he thanked him for the rescue. Colonel Carter did not show any signs of leaving her seat or her laptop anytime soon. Walter had already followed the general out to help prepare for his not fun briefing.

The Mess hall

Colonel Cameron Mitchell appointed himself John's unofficial welcome wagon, taking him to lunch with him. He was introduced around to some of the gate teams who were there. Some of the scientists were eyeing Sheppard like a pack of hungry hyenas and Mitchell deftly maneuvered him around them to a secluded corner where they could eat in relevant privacy.

He gave him a rundown of the chain of command at SGC, responding to John's question as to where he fit in.

According to Mitchell, General Hammond of the Homeland Security had the overall authority concerning all extra-planetary operations; therefore SGC came under his purview and he reported directly to the POTUS. General Jack O'Neill was the base CO and was stationed at the mountain. Colonel Sumner was the head of military for all military personnel in the mountain while Colonel Carter was the head scientist and in charge of all science projects happening at SGC. She had overview of all science related projects concerning all extraterrestrial technology at Area 51as well. She shared that responsibility with Dr. Rodney McKay. Mitchell was the head of gate operations and third in line of the military chain of command. He also led the first gate team, SG-1.

Carter usually wasn’t involved in military operations as she had her plate full with science. John would fit in there after Mitchell. They had four more Majors; two Air Force and two Marines, but John had more time in rank and therefore seniority. There were three captains and eight Lieutenants that completed the officer contingent.

They had fifteen NCOs and over one hundred fifty soldiers belonging to a convoluting mixture of Marines, Air Force, and soldiers from various military branches belonging to five different countries. The IOA provided the civilian oversight and acted as a diplomatic body due to the multinational nature of Stargate Command. They had sixty Scientists based here from several nations as well.

After the meal John was given the information packet regarding his schedule. There were more medical checkups, psych evals, a couple of one-on-one lecture sessions with various military and science personnel for history and information sharing, a ton of reading materials stored in a few PDAs along with all gate mission reports up to date, physical training, flight simulations and new flight orientation and qualification sessions. He noticed he was also on a roster to be beamed to Antarctica on a weekly basis for training, Ancient tech maintenance and related projects.

His life at SGC had officially begun.

Alnwick Castle’s Gunpowder Plotter

If you’ve been watching Gunpowder on BBC One over the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard the names ‘Thomas Percy’ and ‘Northumberland’ – one was a Gunpowder Plotter alongside Kit Harington’s Catesby, and the other part of King James’ council. But Northumberland – or Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland – and Thomas were also both strongly connected to Alnwick Castle. One was its lord and owner, and Thomas was its Constable.

Thomas, who was born in Yorkshire in 1560, was a distant cousin of the 9th Earl; they shared a great-great-grandfather, but while Thomas’ father was a country squire, he was proud of his Percy ancestry. Growing up near Beverley where the family had had great influence, he may have heard stories of famous rebellious forebears like Harry Hotspur, or another Thomas, beheaded for his Catholic faith by Elizabeth I.

He was probably given the role of Constable by the 9th Earl around 1594. Northumberland was looking for someone active, and high-profile, to be his most important northern official; the fact Thomas was a Percy was an advantage, but probably not the only reason for getting the job.

Being Constable of Alnwick Castle meant being an official at the highest level – the Constable was directly responsible to the Earl of Northumberland himself.

Thomas and the earl were similar ages, and both had been reckless and adventurous young men. Thomas once wrote to his cousin about “the errors and idle vanities of my youth”.

When Thomas arrived in Alnwick, he would have been a large, tall man with a blonde streak of hair. There was considerable trouble on the border between England and Scotland at this time, and so one of his first acts was ensuring the tenants of Alnwick had equipped themselves with helmets, shields, pikes and horses so they could defend their interests, and those of the earl, from Scottish attack. He also had to make sure Alnwick Castle had enough brewing, kindling, horse fodder, bedding and other supplies.

However, Thomas himself was suspected of allying with Scotland several times. One of his servants, a man called Davidson, was accused of joining with Scotland, and Thomas himself supposedly sold the bell of Warkworth Castle to the captain of a Scottish ship.

Eventually, Thomas became a messenger of the earl to the court of King James VI in Edinburgh on behalf of English Catholics.

Thomas’ religious beliefs were one reason to take on this role. Though probably not the most devout of the Gunpowder Plotters, he was a Catholic, and both he and the earl hoped for increased tolerance of private Catholic practices once James became King in England too.

(Northumberland himself is known to have said he did not trouble himself much over religion.)

Other reasons why Thomas became a messenger to the Scottish court included Alnwick’s proximity to Edinburgh, his great skill as a horseman, and the fact he had served with the earl’s predecessor as a young man – and the 8th Earl was likely a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Thomas made the trip across the border several times, and it seems that assurances had been made that James would consider some kind of Catholic tolerance in England. Perhaps his failure to do so was what provoked Thomas to join Catesby and the Plotters.

Most of Thomas’ time as Constable of Alnwick Castle appears to have been spent on horseback, travelling around the earl’s territories, chasing thieves and collecting rents. He would write regularly to the earl – his last letter surviving in Alnwick Castle’s archives is dated 19th September, 1605, just a few weeks before Gunpowder, and mentions meeting Northumberland in London on Thomas’ next visit – but by 1602 the earl’s other officials were also writing to complain about Thomas’ behaviour.

Complaints included the unjust imprisonment of tenants in Alnwick Castle, taking bribes, and constantly interfering in matters beyond Alnwick that did not concern him.

The 9th Earl seems to have trusted Thomas, however; at least in his early years as Constable. Surviving letters have him described as “my trusty and well-beloved cousin” and “my loving cousin Thomas Percy esquire”.

Thomas’ letters were studied by former Alnwick Castle Archivist, Colin Shrimpton, for the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Shrimpton describes Thomas as ‘a man of great mood swings. It is hard to put your finger on it, but there is an underlying feeling that he was up to something.’

He definitely was – as we know from the Gunpowder series, Thomas took a leading role in the plan to blow up King James and the Houses of Parliament. Star Chamber, the official court based in the Palace at Westminster at the time, described him as ‘one of the principal conspirators in this… abominable treason’.

(Thomas was also married to Martha Wright, the sister of two other Plotters, John and Christopher Wright.)

As seen in Gunpowder, Thomas leased the storerooms under the Lords’ Chamber where Parliament would meet on the 5th November, 1605, and gave Guy Fawkes (using the name John Johnson) to oversee storage of gunpowder and wood there. Thomas also had a watch delivered to Fawkes for correctly timing the lighting of the fuse, but this detail has been changed for the series, as you will see if you watch the final episode!

Thomas himself arrived in London on the 1st November, after collecting various rents in the north, and on the 4th November, he met the 9th Earl of Northumberland at Syon House, one of his London properties (and one that still belongs to the Percys today). Thomas and the earl ate together on the 4th, and probably discussed Border matters, but we don’t know if Thomas also warned his cousin and employer about the Plot and what was going to happen the following day.

Unfortunately for the 9th Earl, having dinner with Thomas the day before Fawkes was discovered underneath Parliament with the gunpowder implicated him in the Plot, whether he was actually involved or knew about it or not.

Evidence given against the earl in the court proceedings following the discovery of the Plot state that on “the Monday [Thomas] went to Syon and then had secret conference with the Earl. And that Monday at 11 o’clock at night Percy sent Robert Keyes, one other of the said traitors, with a clock or watch unto Fawkes”.

One nobleman who was warned about the Gunpowder Plot was Lord Monteagle, who received a letter warning him not to attend Parliament on the 5th November. The Monteagle Letter ultimately led to the discovery and foiling of the Plot, and Thomas, who was an acquaintance of Monteagle, was at one time suspected of having written this letter. If this was true, it would follow that he had also warned his cousin the earl, and that even if the earl was not actively involved in the Plot, he was suspected of knowing about it.

However, Mark Nicholls of Cambridge University notes that the 9th Earl had travelled into London from Syon on the evening of the 4th, and his robes had been prepared for attending Parliament the following day, so perhaps he did not know anything about the Plot. It certainly appeared like he was not intending to avoid it.

When the Plot was discovered, Thomas and the other Plotters fled. On the 7th November, at Holbeach Hall in Staffordshire, a single shot killed both him and another Plotter. Some sources say this was Catesby; he and Thomas were standing back to back defending themselves, and the bullet went through one man and into the other, killing both. Thomas’ head was then cut off and exhibited in London.

When news of the Plot, and Thomas’ involvement in it, reached the region where he had been Constable, one man – George Whitehead, from Tynemouth Castle – proclaimed ‘I wish to God he had never been born.’

Thomas was now dead, but the Earl of Northumberland was still under suspicion. He was immediately suspected of involvement because, as Shrimpton states, he was ‘the Plotters’ likely chosen regent for the realm had the Plot succeeded’.

Nicholls agrees, noting that investigators were ‘convinced that so audacious a plan had wider ramifications’ and arrested several noblemen with known connections to the Plotters. The earl was one of these, and though Nicholls argues the Plotters had not definitively chosen a Lord Protector for their new realm (they had hoped to raise King James’ daughter Elizabeth as a Catholic Queen), Northumberland was a likely candidate. He was ‘a privy councillor, a member of the old nobility, a wealthy man and, though himself a Protestant, representative of one of the foremost Catholic families in England’.

Northumberland was arrested at Syon and taken straight away to Lambeth Palace for questioning before being transferred to the Tower of London (if you watch Gunpowder you may not see this take place on screen!). Star Chamber alleged he was part of the Plot because of his kinship with Thomas Percy, their meeting at Syon on the 4th November, and that while the Plotters were fleeing, the earl’s main concern was not that Thomas was apprehended, but that he didn’t steal his recently collected rents on the way!

The final charge against Northumberland was Thomas’ appointment as a Gentleman Pensioner, the select group of bodyguards that attended the King on ceremonial occasions. The earl was captain of the Gentleman Pensioners, and may have given Thomas the honoured role as reward for his journeys to James’ Scottish court. However, Thomas had never been made to swear the oath of loyalty that went with the position, and the fact that he, now a known would-be killer of the King, had been allowed to carry a poleaxe in James’ presence without having sworn any oath of loyalty was not favourable to Northumberland’s innocence.

(The fact Thomas’ appointment as a Gentleman Pensioner coincided with the time he committed himself to the Gunpowder Plot must not have helped the earl’s case.)

The Star Chamber report explains the situation: ‘he did either maliciously or negligently prefer Thomas Percy, an obstinate papist, into the king’s service to attend as a pensioner; and put an axe of defence into his hands that had formerly sworn to kill the king. To this the earl answered that he had trusted him long and knew no ill in him in that time.’

Thomas Percy was the only man who could clear Northumberland’s name – or condemn him – or in the words of the time, show him ‘clear as the day, or dark as the night’. In fact, the first messengers to reach London from Holbeach reported Thomas was only wounded, not dead. The 9th Earl asked for an immediate examination to take place to show his innocence – but Thomas was dead, and so this could not be done.

The report from Star Chamber declares that ‘some of the lords said that they had known some others convicted of treason upon lesser and more weak presumptions than these. And what this case deserved in regard of that most execrable powder treason, let all nations be mindful, for no tongue can express what ruin and desolation both nocent and innocent had tasted’.

Reports that Thomas had told one of the other Plotters that ‘if the business did miscarry, the Earl of Northumberland would curse him’ must have also counted against his cousin Henry. The 9th Earl of Northumberland was condemned to prison.

The 9th Earl spent nearly 17 years as a prisoner in the Tower of London, but maintained he was innocent throughout. He was also fined £30,000, an enormous sum of money to be raised from his estates.

However, he lived in very comfortable conditions for a prisoner. He could control his own diet, with everything from wine to lamprey pies being delivered to him from Syon. He had his library transferred to his cell, and built both a laboratory for his alchemy experiments and a schoolroom for his two sons to be educated in. His horse was brought up from his Sussex estate for him to inspect and ride, and he could go for walks on pathways he had re-gravelled. He could play games with his sons, bowl in the bowling alley made for his cell, and study military tactics with them using lead soldiers. He also set up a counting house for his auditors just outside the Tower, and could survey and map his lands, leading to a full involvement in the management of his estate that meant he could afford the £30,000 for his release.

By 1622, the earl was free, but confined to his estate in Sussex. He never visited Alnwick Castle again. The Gunpowder Plot, described at the time as ‘that most execrable and dampened powder treason, whereby the political head and many of the principal members of this commonwealth… should at one instant have been suddenly blown up and dismembered to the utter ruin of the whole monarchy’, had had a lasting effect on the castle, and its family. As the 9th Earl’s brother Josceline put it, there is ‘seldom treason without a Percy’.

The final episode of Gunpowder is broadcast on BBC One on Saturday 4th November, or is available to stream with the whole series on BBC iPlayer.

Gunpowder: Trailer - BBC One

The Dream Run: Greg Holzman’s Island Life

 Some questions. Who are you, really? Where do you live? How do you make a living? What turns you on? What frightens you? What do you want from life and what would you sacrifice to get it?  Write your answers down on a piece of paper and then, next to each answer, write down why. Take your time. Think about it. You might discover some surprising things about yourself.

 If you’re a kneeboarder, you’ll have been asked “the question” by someone who’s not. There may be any number of glib retorts tossed off over a shoulder with a laugh, but the question of what keeps each individual kneeboarder surfing in a manner generally seen as archaic, curious or just plain weird, will always have a real answer, one that reveals something about our individuality. Sometimes the answer’s so simple that it needs no explanation. Then again, sometimes the simplest things can be the hardest to grasp. At the most basic level, human motivation has to do with need: food, shelter, belonging. Once needs are met, desire takes over. We become driven by our strongest desires. those to which we ascribe the most importance, and hence the most value. The profile you’re about to read is an object lesson in this principle and how it can shape a life.

 Lately we’ve been exchanging emails with Greg Holzman. If the name’s familiar it’s because he’s the subject of a few drool-provoking photos published here over the last year or more. We’ve known about him for a long time, primarily through shaper and Hawaiian legend Bud McCray, but Greg’s something of an enigma, staying out of sight and quietly doing his thing. A fisherman by trade, Greg’s thing involves finding the best, biggest and emptiest waves he can sensibly contemplate, and riding them with rare style and grace. Here at Legless.TV we reckon that qualifies Greg as a genuine underground hero, though we suspect he’d probably be reluctant to describe himself in such terms. We’re not about to enter the debate about the merits or otherwise of the whole concept of “underground”: our job is simply to record and present to the world what is. Greg’s based on Kauai, the outermost island of the Hawaiian chain. We started by asking Greg for a little biographical background. Oh yeah: that’s us in italics, everything else is Greg.

 My father’s family moved here before WWII, to Honolulu, but my dad met my mom in California, USA.  I lived in La Jolla a few years and saw the Lis fish crew kneeboarding Big Rock and was sure that was the thing to do. Everyone on stand-ups was eating shit there and it was like a gladiator arena.  Then I saw Greenough films in a movie theater in 71/72 - with the barrel shots. My Dad got me a G&S twin-fin fish and I brought it back to Hawaii when we moved to Kailua on Oahu. I remember it sucked, but it got me there. I was a kook for three years, from 12 to 15. I never did surf Big Rock, which was the goal when I started. But then in 1974, Local Motion opened the first surf shop in Kailua, and I was one of the first kneeboarders in there. They had a few nice 5’4” fish twins and I had some Christmas money. I bought a nice Robbie Burns (owner of Local Motion) shaped kneeboard. I took that board to Maui, where I went to 10th grade high school. I got kicked out for putting too much priority on surfing. I was devastated. I went to the school in the summer and begged them to take me back, but they said I wasn’t college material, which was true. I just loved the outer island life in the 70’s.

 Outer Island life in the mid-70s can be seen in surf films of the day: Fluid Drive, 5 Summer Stories, A sea For Yourself. If you were a kid watching those movies in a rented hall somewhere that wasn’t Hawaii, the images of hollow waves in clear, warm water, white sand with palms swaying gently in perpetual offshores was almost too much to bear. Greg was living it.

 It all really started when I was 15. I surfed Maalaea September 1974 and May 1975 with all the guys like Jeff Hakman, Reno Abillera, Sammy Hawk, Owl Chapman. It was like I was in a movie. Just the best swells ever, photos in all the magazines - historical stuff. That was my first real tube riding. I was 15 and I was in these big windy tunnels, trying to figure it out. There was no going back to “normal” pre-surf life after that.  Later on I was scared out of my head some days at Specklesville and Hookipa Lanes. I would duck dive and the wave would just suck me back over as I was so light, but my Duck Feet fins just saved me time after time. I learned to love it, not fear it. By 17 I was in public high school – surfing, cutting class on Kona winds, riding Pipe and a place called North Beach on Kaneohe Marine base.  We would sneak in early mornings and avoid the Military Police.

 Military Police? Really?

 Yeah. I became a master of deception. I got to know the kids on base and would take on their identity. While other surfers were getting busted, I was heading back to my friend’s house where the Mom would be super happy their kid had a friend off base.  These kids were not popular at school! It all worked out and I became the kid that came into school at recess or lunch with wet hair and sandy feet and everyone wanted to know how the surf was.  That’s where I learned to enjoy surfing by myself.  It was cool, and I knew I was a lucky kid who had broken the code. I remember more than once being woken in period 6 by my history teacher all worried I wasn’t getting enough sleep at night, when it was actually I was up before dawn, on my bike through the back of the military range with a flashlight … and then riding to school for my 25 cent taco lunch and 5th and 6th period. I’m not sure how I graduated but I did.

 I became good friends with Buzzy Kerbox, as I was roommates with his girlfriend. We surfed the North Shore a lot through the winter of 78/79. He got me in the know with Pat Rawson, who shaped his boards. Pat made me a few boards and I surfed Pipeline a bunch with Buzzy.  He was on a roll with big wins and it was an interesting time, but I knew it wasn’t going to last. The North Shore was getting very popular and my secret spot at Kaneohe Marine Base was now too risky to sneak on - I had turned 18 and could be arrested and thrown in jail. Something had to change. I got a newspaper, looking at outer island jobs, since I was thinking of going back to Maui. I saw a job for a cook on Kauai. I watched that ad change and the salary get better and then one day my friend and I were with our girlfriends and I just told him “I’m calling these guys up”.  Our girlfriends thought we were kidding but the chefs were desperate. They said they would pay our way over to check it out.  I was 19 and thought I’d just go for the ride. I ended up with a company truck and a condo and my first strike mission. Our girlfriends were just shocked! I told my mom after a month she would have to come to Kauai if she wanted to see me because I was staying for good. It was heaven - even the military base let us on, no sneaking - and the waves were epic.  After a year I bought a Jeep and my life was as good as it gets.  Everyone worked in the restaurants at night and surfed in the mornings.  It was a big party. We all knew we were in the best place in the USA. Nobody wanted to expose it. Photos were not a thing, but a few came up from time to time and as the years have gone by, they’re now showing up.

Then Hurricane Iwa came in November 1982.

 The last storm of the 1982 hurricane season, Iwa struck Kauai hard, with winds of up to 193 kmh, massive swells and storm surge. Hundreds were left homeless, schools were closed indefinitely and President Reagan declared the island a disaster area. Greg was living in a beach house and when the eye passed over, escaped to a friend’s house inland with just two boards and the clothes he was wearing.

 Everything changed after that. Many surfers became construction workers and many got serious about life and money. The age of innocent fun was being tested. Restaurants were closed for half a year. I tried the construction stuff, but I couldn’t work in the day.  I had always worked nights and surfed days.  It just felt wrong. A friend had a boat and took me fishing. First time out, we caught so many fish. In the morning we brought them in, got a slip in the butcher shop and then we went to the cashier at the grocery store and she gave us money ... wow that was different! I was always giving her my money for food.  I thought - this is something I can do on the ocean:  work a few days and make as much as I normally do in two weeks ... I got to get me a boat!  I learned everything I could from this guy, who was a tough old fisherman: it was all in my plan that I was going to get my own boat!

 But things were tough and housing became an issue. I was homeless by 1983 but eventually I managed to find a house on the westside of Kauai. It was three bedrooms for $275 a month. So cheap! I got a roommate and life became pretty easy.  I was fishing about 10 days a month and banking money while surfing the rest of the time. Life was cheap and the waves were good. I had decided I would get a boat and I was ready. My first boat was a disaster – a 50 ft wooden boat that had little chance of getting a slip in the harbor. I found a mooring I could lease in Nawilliwilli harbor and kept her there.  March 1984, she sank trying to deal with a 24-day storm. I woke up to the Coast Guard saying my boat was on the rocks and I needed to get the fuel off before the tank ruptured and I was in real trouble.  That was a lot of work, but lucky for me because that boat would have killed me if it hadn’t sunk. At $10,000 and a year of my dedication it was the school of hard knocks, but it made me learn what I needed to find and how much I was going to have to save to get it.  It took me 5 years, but I finally bought a 26’ Radon hull from Santa Barbara Ca. - an all fiberglass trailerable boat I could leave at my house. I still have it. That boat has been my golden goose for 35 years. Although I’m presently not fishing a lot as I’m focused on surfing, I assume one day I will go again. It’s ready when I need it.  

 With the purchase of his own boat, Greg became able to finetune the way he structured fishing around surfing. The state of Hawaii officially recognises 137 separate islands, but there are many more, many so small they’re not marked on charts. On one of these, Greg had found good waves …  and he began to surf them.

 I wanted to surf and fish in areas of Hawaii few knew of, so I became a solo bottom fisherman. In Hawaii, that means mainly deep sea vertical long line fishing with targeted hooks in deep-water, anchoring in 400 to 1200 ft of water on deep drop offs and seamounts. I was good at this - surfing and this style of fishing help each other.  I became familiar with every sea condition: I’ve been anchored and fished in water that was plain scary. Fishing certainly helped me understand the sea. Like all my endeavours, I took it to the limit.  I became the best and it all came from my desire to surf an uncharted island, a place which I shared but never would photograph. Its Hawaiian name is Wai Uliuli or “blue blue water”. I lived for that and made my fishing an excuse to get to that place. It really only got good on high surf warnings, so it was not for the meek. I was often solo surfing or with a friend or single crew member. Mostly I surfed it alone, and it became a spiritual thing which made me comfortable in heavy water. This spot needs a specific swell direction to work well, and of course the right winds. It was always empty. One time the waves got so big I was forced to spend the night on the beach, digging a hole in the sand and using my board as a blanket. Luckily my crew was able to pull anchor and re-set in deeper water. The waves just rose so quick I couldn’t get back out to the boat. After that I was determined to bury water and supplies on the beach to make sure that if it happened again, I was going to be OK. I was sure to be prepared next time. I promised never to take photos or bring cameras and to this day, few exist from my trips. I was offered big money to get the shots, but I never wanted anything to do with exploiting a place I considered - and still do - sacred and holy. Many friends have been, but never a camera. Of course, this was all before iPhones.

 To Greg, the years from 1983 to 1992 were golden. Great boards, great waves, making a good living from the ocean, travel: he was living a dream life. Bud McCray was a big part of it.

 It was 1983 when I met Buddy McCray. My younger brother Pat was also a kneeboarder, following me into it.  Pat lived on Oahu and he met Buddy in the surf.  Buddy missed nothing and was quick to come over to Kauai that summer, and he brought a board for me.  He recognized that I was willing to test anything, so he sent boards over and I would just give him feedback. His boards got better and better. Sometimes I didn’t like them, but he would tell me to keep trying and many times they did get better, but for me, I kept getting more into the basic no wing, no channel, short fish. I tried pins and squaretails, but it was the basic 5’6” flat bottom Vee that did it for me. In the early ‘80’s surfers were having issues with large waves. I was able to sit inside of them and often catch the sets, because they were constantly under-gunned, but my fins and low center of gravity allowed me in easy. Buddy had me sold pretty quickly on the four-fin set up and by ‘84 things were full tilt. Buddy came over to Kauai regularly the next few years and brought various kneeboarders with him, including Albert Whiteman and an 18-year-old Simon Farrer. Buddy had great timing and we just surfed so much! Every time he came the waves were good.  In 1987 he decided to take Lee Pattison, Mike McGuire and myself to G-land. Buddy was well known in every corner of the world by then, but it was my first trip. Bobby Radiasa had been to Hawaii and stayed with Buddy, so we were treated very well. It was a special time to be there, as many know - that first trip was so eye-opening. Before that, I didn’t feel I needed to go anywhere, but after, I knew the best waves in the world were not in Hawaii: for consistent offshore long-period single swell events, it was all happening in Indonesia.  Once again Buddy had sent me to the happiest place on earth, with three new boards and a surf camp owner who made sure we were taken care of. Anyone who was there will agree it was one of the best times in the history of surfing.

 Greg went back to G-land again for 6 weeks the following year. On his way home he stopped in at the Sari Club in Kuta, where he met Mary, a sweet Californian girl who also surfed – well, of course. Her trip home included a stopover in Hawaii, where Greg showed her around. They had a great time surfing big waves together. Thus began a union that eventually brought them three children.  In 1989 Greg travelled to Jeffreys Bay with Buddy McCray, and in 1991 he went again, and found more than just waves.

 The waves reminded me of home - cold offshores in midwinter, storms hammering the coast and filtering down to a sweeping right: I loved South Africa. I found a plant group - Cycads - that fascinated me. I was lucky enough to be brought in by some great experts in the Cape, who also liked seashells, which I was collecting in Hawaii.  With a bit of horse trading I was taught about these plants, taken into habitat a few years later as a research assistant for the National Botanical Garden and shown around the country by Nature Conservation officers.  This began a 30-year love affair and the beginnings of my own Cycad nursery which today allows me to fund my surfing obsession. This wasn’t always the plan, but I also played a huge role in the study of many newly discovered Cycad species in Panama. I helped in collecting and working to help people better understand this important ancient plant family, the oldest continual seed-bearing plants on earth.  Over 200 million years! Cycads live for hundreds of years and are extremely valuable. They’re threatened with extinction in South Africa from poaching. They are living art and I wanted to help by competing against the black market by growing Cycads from seeds I produced over 20 years: they grow 10 times faster in Hawaii.  It may be the romantic idea of a 30-year-old dreamer, but I achieved a lot.

 Greg’s wife, Mary, had formerly been a competitive swimmer, so it was natural for their three kids to follow suit, at least for a while. Their eldest, Matthew, retained enough competitive drive from all those junior swim meets to become a pro body boarder, but there’s a fair bit of the old man in him.

 Matt loves to kneeboard when the surf isn’t crazy. He was charging huge Pipe at 17 and got waves in contests that made me live another aspect of surfing - that’s vicariously through your kids’ performance. Sean was less competitive, not wanting to have to live in his brother’s shadow, so he became an amazing diver who took on my love of the hunt. From boars to deep-dive spear fishing, he was leading his peer group, so they both had few problems fitting into this racially diverse island life. 

Greg’s daughter is now 15 and can surf, but her Dad reckons she’s become a bit of a landlubber and isn’t getting out in the water. He’s hoping that will change. After all, Greg had a period away from surfing himself not so long ago. He and Mary divorced in 2012, He had been feeling pretty jaded with the surf scene - jet skis and egos and social media, and by the 2013-14 season, Greg stopped surfing altogether - for the first time in his life.

 I quit cold turkey, Greg Noll style. I tried to play tennis for 2013/14 and just concentrated on my kids. Finally, I realized I hated competing. Tennis is usually a very competitive game, and I love watching and coaching competition, but after two seasons it was clear that tennis didn’t cut it in the adrenalin area. Times were changing in Kauai surfing again - times are always changing! By 2015, life was expensive and hard for young families, which got a lot of guys in that 30-something age having to work more. My life was getting cheaper and the kids didn’t need me as much, so I began to surf full time and fish less. The winter of 2015-16 was an amazing season which ended with a bang - double late West swells in April. Buddy had made me a board a year earlier and it worked amazing. The foam was different, but the board’s flex made it magic. I could feel that flex and the thinner board flew in 10ft plus Hawaiian power. I never looked back. When those West swells came in, I was surfing so well I just didn’t want it to end. Buddy made me two new boards and by May I was dying to try them out, so I headed to Kandui and quickly realized that this surf traveling was the greatest feeling of all. With the high-tech forecasts and Facebook etc ... strike missions could become a lifestyle.

Greg has seen a lot change in surfing over the span of his life. From starting out at a time when the introduction of legropes caused major schisms in surfing circles, he has witnessed the birth of professional surfing, the transformation of backyard businesses into international brands, the growth of surf tourism, the age of the sponsored free-surfer and the expansion of surfing into its various power-assisted and highly specialised genres and sub-genres. Just as the humble legrope unexpectedly brought about a fundamental shift in how and where we surf, new pressures and new technology have expanded the scope of surfing and changed how and where we surf yet again. We talked a little about the way things are now.

 The IT revolution, with the advent of smartphones, social media and instant global communication, has been felt world-wide - Kauai is no exception – and short of the collapse of western civilization, there’s no going back to a time before. The local Kauai policy of no photos, no publicity may have been enforceable in the 70s and 80s, but in the 21st century, exposure is inevitable, and it seems that’s especially so if it’s unwanted.

 Yes. The trouble today is that nothing happens without photographic evidence and pictures tell a thousand words. I’m less affected by this on the road, but I tend to be pretty quiet about my backyard. Though it affects me less now. I’m finding that the standard surfers’ taste in waves and priorities can rapidly change, especially if a few friends find it the place to be. Every year is different. Sandbars, swell direction, winds – they all seem to run in groups that will send surfers from one place to another, chasing the in-vogue spots of the moment.

 On Kauai we have serious issues with the use of jet skis during High Surf events. It can be a real issue. Because of our round island, the swells can wrap which - means a lot of the jet-skis end up tow surfing the same waves 50 paddle surfers are riding. An example is a place I surfed for 25 years without a ski around. It’s much like Kirra, with a strong sweep, long walks up the point and long paddles. Now I can’t surf there. It’s just too much a scene. I’ve had waves that I was on and in the barrel and 100 yards down the beach a jet-ski goes and U-turns to swing a guy in. Well, I have ridden right up to the wall of water from their tow-in turn. Hitting water that fast inside big barrels leads to bashings on my back on the bottom. Complete floggings. I have never surfed there again with skis out. Don’t get me wrong. I love tow-ins in the right big-wave situations. I have towed in on days surfers are not out on outer reefs. That’s a different animal, but jet-skis and paddle surfing are not compatible. It’s a complete change in vibe and the tow guys never get less greedy, it’s always more, more, more. I’ve spent a long time campaigning for issues in my surfing on Kauai. From military beach access after 9-11 to Anti-Federal Marine Sanctuary expansions to advocating for jet-ski enforcement in surf areas. The threats continue to grow.

Part two coming soon.

Words: Rob Harwood  (legless.tv wordsmith)

Images supplied by Greg

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

A not so random review...

What’s this, content outside of the periods of October or December? Well, I guess you could call this striking while the iron is hot-ish, and trying to keep the ball rolling after I actually made it through a whole October for once. That and this is laying the groundwork for something a little further down the line.

Summarizing this as ‘the Indian dude from Van Wilder and the Asian dude from American Pie’ almost feels a little lazy but I think that’s literally how it was advertised at the time. Apparently John Cho’s character in Pie is who we have to thank for the popularization of the term ‘MILF’. As for Kal Penn, I had totally forgotten he’d worked under President Obama for like nearly two years.

It’s Cho I’m more familiar with though, primarilly down to his turn on the short lived TV show Off Centre that I would watch in the early 2000’s when it aired in the middle of the night on a Friday/Saturday and I had nothing better to do. That show was notable for having a lot of people from American Pie working on it and doing cameos. That and having Brit Sean Maguire in it for some reason. I think watching Cho on there is how I came to watch this because Chau rules, it says so on the wall. He was on FlashForward too, I keep referencing that. He’s arguably the more succesful of the duo, doing the new Star Treks over the past decade or so and he had that movie Searching last year which I think got a lot of buzz due to him being the lead and that was a first for an Asian-American actor. That and it takes place entirely over computer and phone screens so that’s a bit of a unique presentation. Kinda like Unfriended being done over Skype.

There’s a bit of an odd couple situation going on between Harold and Kumar, Harold being a more repressed, law abiding type (apart from the rampant weed use) and Kumar being the more outgoing, messy type who will shave his pubic hair in your room because you have the full length mirror and wont see any problem in that. After getting high, the pair have a craving for some White Castle and this starts our whole whacky adventure.

An adventure that wont include their stoner neighbours who would prefer to stay home and watch ‘The Gift’ because they get to see a topless Katie Holmes. Dude, it’s 2004, I’m pretty sure you can just look at them online by now. They later describe her tits as the opposite of the Holocaust which is certainly an interesting description. Try that as a chat up line, I’m sure it will end well. Their neighbours being David Krumholtz, notable for his role in Numb3rs or, more pertinent to this blog, the lead elf in The Santa Clause. Then there’s Eddie Kaye Thomas who was also in American Pie and Off Centre, I feel like he kinda fell off the face of the earth after that though.

They serve as an early example of the cameos that this movie will through at you, which I suppose is fitting for a road trip movie, the story is just passing through all these locations so you get a brief look at these new characters before moving on. But there’s a ton of them in here, so many recognisable people from Fredd Willard, Ryan Reynolds, Christopher Meloni and…ugh, Jamie Kennedy. We’ll save the most prominent one though…

I wasn’t really feeling this at first, mostly because it takes a while for anything of interest to happen. Like, one of their early stops is Princeton because they’re trying to score more weed but most of the time is spent with Harold and this really boring group of nerds that seem to idolise him. Kumar hits it off with these two British chicks but we then get a prolonged sequence of fart jokes with them in the toilet playing ‘Battleshits’. I have no clue on how the mechanics of this game work, I guess it’s just whoever gets the loudest fart scores as a hit?

Things pick up when the movie starts embracing absurdity, like when Harold gets bitten by a racoon so they have to go to the hospital and Kumar swipes his Dad’s security pass so they can go steal medical marijuana. Only, they both get ushered into the operating theatre to operate on a guy who’s been shot.

Or the mechanic called Freakshow who has all sorts of boils over his face and a cuckoldry relationship with his wife who he invites our two heroes to have sex with.

Speaking of sex, they also happen to pick up a very horny Neil Patrick Harris who isn’t interested in their talk of White Castle and wants to go get laid at the strip club instead. The wikipedia page for the movie describes NPH as playing ‘a fictionalized version of himself’, would that be the part where he’s off his tits on ecstasy or the part where he’s attracted to women?

For all of it’s cameos, there’s almost an anti-cameo in the form of this cop who writes Harold a ticket for jay walking for taking like a step out into the road at 2am with no cars around. He just looks recognisable in some way but I can’t see that the actor has done anything of note. Maybe it’s just because he looks like a low rent Ron Burgundy.

The movie suddenly decides to develop some social commentary here with this heavy handed display of racial profiling where the police arrest an African-American man for a shooting in spite of the fact he’s at sleeping at the time. They’re processing him in his pajamas and night mask for God’s sake!

This does bring us the dream sequence of Kumar having a love affair with a big bag of weed though. You know the type, the slow motion running into each others arms? Well this goes a step further by having him fuck the bag, get married and then go through this marital strife where he backhands her for making some bad coffee before having to comfort her.

And then the pair get high with a cheetah and ride it around because NPH stole their car. You see what I mean about the absurdity?

Thankfully they do finally make it to White Castle, at about 7am, and indulge in a mammoth order of 30 sliders, 5 french fries and 4 large Cherry Cokes. And that’s just for one of them. Times that order by two and it all comes to $46.75. I know those burgers are only small but they still feels pretty cheap for all that food.

And for as much as this does feel like one big advertisement, they really go the whole hog by having this food seemingly give these characters epiphanies in their lives. Kumar is no longer satisfied with avoiding life, he’s finally going to knuckle down and nail one of those university interviews because as much as a stereotype as it is, there’s probably a lot worse things to be than an Indian doctor. And Harold finally stands up to his jerk boss who dumped all his work on him because those Asians just love crunching numbers.

He even gets the confidence to talk to the hot chick in their apartment building but it sucks that it took him until now to strike up a relationship because she’s going to Amsterdam for the next 10 days. Clearly this calls for another crazy adventure because you can’t just leave things like that for the best part of two weeks, plus you know what’s legal in Holland…only, knowing the title of the next movie, I don’t know if they ever make it that far…

I feel there’s a weird mix of tones with this movie, I think it excels when you have your far out moments of drug related dream sequences or cheetah based road trips but it’s pulled down to reality with these really harsh scenes of just explicit racism and this message of standing up for yourself. Again, knowing the sequel, that whole race thing seems to remain quite a strong focal point of the movie….

The Minneapolis Police Department, in a training manual issued to all new officers, detailed how to execute the same neck restraint that killed George Floyd, lawyers for one of the officers involved in the May 25 incident argued in a Wednesday motion. The training manual, which provided pictures of the “non-deadly” maneuver in which officers put an arm or leg on the back of a suspect’s throat if they are resisting arrest, was filed Wednesday in a motion to dismiss the charges against Thomas Lane—one of four officers charged in Floyd’s death. The manual included a PowerPoint slide with a photo of the restraint in practice under the title, “Ok they are now in handcuffs now what.” It said, “Sudden cardiac arrest typically occurs immediately following a violent struggle.” It advised officers to put suspects in the recovery position to avoid positional asphyxia and call emergency services once the person was in handcuffs.The documents provide new details into the systematic departmental missteps that led to Floyd’s botched arrest, which sparked mass protests in 50 states against racial injustice and police brutality. Lane and his former colleagues, Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, are charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a felony, and with aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence for Floyd’s death. Derek Chauvin, the officer who held his knee on George Floyd’s neck while the handcuffed Black man repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe, is facing several charges including second-degree murder.All four men were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department one day after the explosive footage of the arrest was released.Earl Gray, Lane’s attorney, argued Wednesday his client’s case should be dismissed for lack of probable cause. He said the rookie officer asked twice if they should turn Floyd on his side during the arrest. Chauvin, who was Lane and Kueng’s field training officer, repeatedly said no. Can a New Algorithm Prevent Police Brutality? Minneapolis Wants to Find OutThe motion also contained a transcript of Lane’s interview with state investigators and transcripts of body camera footage from Lane and Kueng. His attorney said both showed Lane’s apprehension toward the neck restraint and proved that Lane was “going off Officer Chauvin’s experience and what he was saying” as a law enforcement veteran. “Officer Lane did not know there was a felony being committed or attempted when Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd,” the motion states. “If in fact a felony was committed or attempted. The training material supports that neck restraint was something taught to officers.”“Lane is a trained police officer who, although new to the job, knew that officers are allowed to use reasonable force when needed,” the document adds. “Based on Floyd’s actions up to this point, the officers had no idea what he would do next—hurt himself, hurt the officers, flee, or anything else, but he was not cooperating.”Prosecutors allege that Lane and Kueng initially responded to a call at 8:08 p.m. on May 25 that Floyd had used a counterfeit bill at a CupFoods.When the two rookies, who had been full-time officers for less than a week, found Floyd outside in his car, along with two passengers, they asked him to get out. The criminal complaint says Lane then pointed a gun at Floyd and ordered him to show his hands. When Floyd put his hands on the steering wheel, Lane put his gun away and pulled the 46-year-old out of the car.“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. God dang man. Man, I got shot. I got shot the same way, Mr. Officer, before,” Floyd told Lane when he drew his gun, according to a transcript from Lane’s body camera footage. ‘He Should Be Here’: All Four Officers Now Face Charges Over George Floyd’s KillingThe motion states that after having a two-minute conversation with the officers outside his car, Floyd stiffened up, fell to the ground and said he was claustrophobic as they tried to put him inside a squad car.“Oh man, God don’t leave me man, please man, please man,” Floyd pleaded to the officers, the transcript states. Lane offered to sit in the squad car with Floyd, roll the windows down, and turn on the air conditioning but Floyd continued to resist, the motion says.“I’m not that kind of guy, man, I’m not that kind of guy... and I just had COVID, I don’t want to go back to that,” Floyd said, a reference to a COVID-19 diagnosis that was later confirmed in an autopsy.Chauvin and Thao then arrived, and all four men tried to get Floyd in the car, but he kept falling down and saying he couldn’t breathe, the criminal complaint states. The four officers ended up bringing the 46-year-old to the ground because “Floyd was out of control,” the motion states. “Lane said, let’s use the ‘MRT’, Maximum Restraint Technique, which is what you use on someone who is handcuffed and not complying,” the motion states, referring to the MPD training manual. “Lane suggested using the hobble because he learned that that is what to use when you have someone who is handcuffed that is physically resisting.”The motion states that “Lane was trying to get Floyd’s legs into a leg cross” for the hobble maneuver but “Floyd was kicking around.” At that point, “Chauvin had his knee up around the [Floyd’s] shoulders and neck area’’ Lane told state investigators. The criminal complaint states that Kueng held Floyd’s back and Lane held his legs—while Chauvin placed his knee on the unarmed man’s neck. The move prompted Floyd to call out for his mother and say several times that he couldn’t breathe. “I’m about to die,” he warned, the complaint states.“All right, all right. Oh my god. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this... Mom, I love you... Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead,” Floyd said, according to Lane’s body camera transcript. Chauvin responded, “You’re doing a lot of talking, man.”Lane asked several times if Floyd should be rolled onto his side, and several times Chauvin told him no, according to both the criminal complaint and Lane’s motion. In one instance, Lane said he was worried about “excited delirium or whatever” after learning “in the Academy when someone is on drugs, they work themselves up and they can have issues from that.” When Floyd stopped moving at around 8:24 p.m., Lane again suggested moving him onto his side, while Kueng checked for a pulse but couldn’t find one. The officers never changed Floyd’s position, prosecutors said. EMTs told investigators that when Floyd was loaded into an ambulance, he had no pulse.According to body-camera footage, Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds—including nearly three minutes in which Floyd was unresponsive.“This was the first day Lane and Kueng rode together as partners,” the dismissal motion states.“During the encounter with Floyd, Lane was ‘going off Officer Chauvin’s experience and what he was saying,’ hold him here until EMS arrives.”“Lane was aware that Chauvin had 20 years on,” the document states, stating that throughout the field training process, officers are told to “trust and go to your senior officers for experience and help on calls, and the best thing to do in a situation, they give direction and you follow their lead. Another expectation is to call senior officers “sir” when you are a new officer.” The Hennepin County Medical Examiner said Floyd died due to cardiac arrest from the restraint and neck compression. The medical examiner’s office report also said there were indications Floyd had heart disease, including “arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease,” and there was fentanyl in his system. An independent report commissioned by Floyd’s family, however, concluded that the 46-year-old was in good health and died of strangulation from the pressure to his back and neck. Both reports determined Floyd’s death was a homicide.“It's not a case where he’s standing by watching another cop pound on somebody's head," Gray told the Star Tribune on Wednesday. “This is a case where my client twice—twice—asked if we should turn him over and the answer from [Chauvin] was no.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

The Ghosn Brand Is Broken. These Spin Doctors Say How to Fix It

(Bloomberg) –Carlos Ghosn captured the world’s attention by being spirited out of Japan in a private jet concealed in a box often used for audio equipment with the help of a security detail led by a former Green Beret. He evaded two trials on charges of financial misconduct. Now he wants to salvage his shattered reputation.

The former head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA appeared as brash as ever at a 2 ½-hour press conference in Beirut on Wednesday. He railed against Japan’s justice system and accused prosecutors and Nissan officials of fomenting a plot to overthrow him, going so far as to compare the shock of his arrest to the Pearl Harbor attack.

The journey back to respectability is an uncertain one. Here’s what the pros of the public relations world think Ghosn should do. (Comments have been edited for brevity.)

Larry Kamer, a crisis management expert at Kamer Consulting Group in Napa, California: “You’d think a guy who has the means and the resources and the imagination to get himself smuggled out of a country in a box would have the brains to listen to some good reputation management and communication people. The sense I got from that press conference was really just him airing his grievances.

My advice would be to do something about the Japanese criminal justice system that you complain so loudly about. Not everyone is fortunate enough to escape prison, but if he’s serious about it — and it’s not just an excuse — he’s got to make good on it. Partner with an organization, put up money, come to the aid of other prisoners. He can make something good come from this. That’s the biggest part of restoring his reputation.”

Trudi Harris Dubon, founder of BeKnown, a London-based boutique PR consultant: “Ghosn needs to focus on being as factual and dispassionate as possible when communicating about his recent experience. We tend to listen more keenly to a cool head and reward them with our consideration. It was Ghosn’s lack of restraint that led him to make the cringe-worthy ‘Pearl Harbor’ comment.

A spot of humility also wouldn’t go amiss. Humbleness has a tendency to disarm detractors and deploying it can often help turn a disaster into an opportunity.”

Jonathan Hemus, managing director of crisis management group Insignia, based near Birmingham, England: “In a crisis, your strategic intent — being clear about what success looks like — should shape every subsequent decision and action. It appears that Carlos Ghosn’s strategic intent is to live the rest of his life as a free man and this single goal is driving his words and actions.

In a crisis, there are no obviously right or wrong decisions. Instead you must consider then select the least bad option in a timely manner. Guided by his strategic intent, that’s exactly what Carlos Ghosn has done. His escape from Japan carried a high degree of risk and a significant downside, but it was better than the alternative of doing nothing.

By calling a press conference, he grabbed the upper hand by communicating his version of events, thereby setting the agenda and leaving Japanese officials to react to his narrative. Ghosn will face further challenges over the coming months and years as he seeks to clear his name, but his actions and words so far suggest that if anyone can pull it off, he can. He is delivering a masterclass in crisis management.”

Rory Godson, the CEO of Powerscourt, a financial PR firm specializing in crisis management: “There is a way out but it needs determination, discipline and nerve. First, stop pre-litigating or re-litigating the facts of your case. People find it hard to be sympathetic to fabulously wealthy bosses complaining that other powerful people are conspiring against them. Comparing yourself to the defenders at Pearl Harbor is crass and offensive to Japanese and Americans.

Instead, keep it really simple. Make the law the issue, not the facts of the indictment. Say the Japanese legal system makes it impossible to get a fair trial. Keep repeating it. Put the Japanese legal system on trial – it will make the Japanese less keen to make noise. Stop doing interviews and press conferences. The Beirut event was a mess. There isn’t a magic interview that gets you clear — ask Prince Andrew.”

Mark Worthington, co-founder and managing director of Klareco Communications in Singapore: “If you’re embroiled in international legal issues and essentially are a fugitive, the odds are stacked against you. You should be thinking about self-preservation first and reputational rehabilitation second.

In terms of crisis management, the most effective way of doing it isn’t going out there railing at authority. It’s about quietly having the right conversations to ensure the right context is being understood by the key people reporting on the issue. And I’m not sure that’s a fit with his personality or the infrastructure he has at his disposal.”

Richard Attias, founder of Richard Attias & Associates: “The Ghosn brand is damaged. To restore it, the solution would be for him to ask for a fair trial in front of an impartial and objective court. In this way, he will not avoid justice and his rights will be respected.”

Here’s what Anne Meaux, head of Image 7, the Paris-based PR agency now working with Ghosn, said about his strategy: This is a man who was deprived of a voice for 14 months. He had a need to express himself and he was able to tell his truth, live, on CNN, MTV, Lebanese TV and so many more.

The public opinion has moved considerably. In France, he’s Largo Winch on social media! There, his image went from a rather wealthy boss to a courageous hero.

He explained a lot about the allegations during his press conference, and we have positive returns and see a change of perceptions. We have echos all over the world. He isn’t seen as sleazy but as somebody who was unfairly put in jail. Somebody who refused to sign off on the accusations and who is strong, who is worthy of admiration.

People realize it was unfair and he didn’t deserve to be jailed — even if they still have questions over the allegations. Now of course we will continue to explain the allegations, and we still have some work ahead of us.

Jason Stein, a director of Finsbury, formerly worked as an adviser to Prince Andrew but departed ahead of an ill-fated appearance on BBC’s Newsnight: “Ghosn’s prospects for rehabilitation seem limited, and at this stage damage limitation is his best way forward. Nonetheless, if he continues to avoid trial, then he has just two very small shots at a partial rehabilitation in the eyes of the world.

First, he or his team of lawyers produce credible evidence of wrongdoing by the Japanese that conclusively exonerates him. Failing that, Ghosn could choose to use his vast wealth to get to grips with some of the challenging societal issues in the new neighborhood he calls home.

Unlike Japan, which has an older population, nearly one in four of Lebanon’s population is aged 0-14. By investing heavily in upgrading education, Ghosn can at least use his resources to try and reinvent himself at home as a philanthropist investing in the country and good causes.”

Emma Kane, CEO of Newgate Communications in London: “Ghosn should accept that his reputation as a global industrial stalwart has changed. For some former business leaders, who may already have their legacies mapped out in their minds, that can be difficult, but it’s essential for the long-term.

Ghosn should look ahead, take time to reflect and start setting up a platform to re-establish as an industrial thought-leader and bring his multi-cultural, multi-discipline management philosophy to the world’s boardrooms. Timing, though, is everything.”

Takashi Inoue, CEO of Inoue Public Relations in Tokyo: “It was appropriate for Ghosn to criticize the Japanese prosecution system, from the standpoint of a foreigner. I have no objection to this because this is the key reason why he left Japan. But he still needs to answer the allegations.

I advise him to be as objective as possible by providing facts and be less emotional. It may be hard to salvage his reputation in Japan — they are closely linked to government offices and to prosecutors.”

Davia Temin, founder of crisis consultancy Temin and Co. in New York: “The world does love an anti-hero. The world does love someone who bucks rules and regulations — if they’re a romantic figure. He has made himself into quite a romantic figure. As tempting as is it to tell his story, more and more, the risk now isn’t just that he will sour public support, but that he will do something to make himself a further target.

He’s one man who is basically fighting a sovereign nation, and their judicial system, their ways of doing business, their way of life. That’s a heavy burden to have taken on. He’s done what he felt he needed to do. I would imagine he’s been in reaction mode up to now — it’s either fight or flight, and he’s done both.

He’s not just re-establishing his reputation, he’s re-establishing his life. It’s really life first, then reputation. Now that he’s not under house arrest, it’s probably better to do some deep contemplation and maybe go from the spy novel to the philosophical novel.”

Mark Flanagan, CEO of Portland Communications and former head of strategic communications at 10 Downing Street: “It is possible for Ghosn to elicit sympathy but I don’t believe he can completely rebuild his reputation. By continuing to highlight the harshness of the Japanese judicial system he could turn attention away from the allegations surrounding himself and onto the risks for westerners and western companies doing business in Japan.

However, the allegations themselves are very serious and the color surrounding Ghosn’s behavior, such as the Versailles party, is so deeply unhelpful that it is inconceivable that he could return to anything like his previous status in the corporate world. Running away doesn’t help either, in terms of his reputation.

He will forever be more famous for escaping Japan in a box than for running a global motor manufacturing company.”

David Rigg, founder of Project Associates, who represented Martin Sorrell after he quit as WPP CEO in 2018:

“I think it’s beyond repair, frankly, and his best bet is to write a book, sell the television rights and have a happy life in Lebanon.”

–With assistance from Angelina Rascouet, Chikafumi Hodo, Takahiko Hyuga, Tsuyoshi Inajima, Komaki Ito, Joe Mayes, Eric Pfanner, Ania Nussbaum and K. Oanh Ha.

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