#killing staling layouts
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The Lost Swan - Chapter 21
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Prologue
/Finally finished writing this chapter. This took me a while and fight scenes can be such a bane to me but glad I can write Krauser getting some proper fight action.
Enjoy reading!/
Mentions of: Blood, killing (duh), needles at the end
Hawthorne Trinity was something Krauser had expected when he came upon the iron gates. A derelict mental asylum by its exterior appearance and all but on the inside it could have been modernised to meet with the technology standards. Or maybe everything he’s seeing from an outside perspective was entirely abandoned to hide the fact that there’s a large facility built deep below the building itself.
Nikki has done her job in finding the blueprints and layout to the building for him and it was as expected. She was originally going to head for R.A.S abandoned facility to find the rumoured caravan but instead Krauser ordered her to follow him and focus on destroying the inner circle and Dr. Rowland’s works for good.
The informant watched him pull the padlock off with inhuman strength and kicked the gates open with awe. Krauser meanwhile was impressed by her choice of gear. She wore her old R.A.S uniform complete with an armoured vest and the visored helmet and armed herself with the standard shotgun, two handguns, and a combat knife. She was provided with grenades by Krauser for safety measures consisting of flash grenades and regular grenades.
“I’ll go in first.” Krauser said as Nikki proceeded to lockpick the doors while he checked his magazine of his submachine gun once more and inserted it back in. “Find another way inside to avoid any detection and by fifteen minutes you get yourself inside the facility, unless you hear gunfire. You remember where the other entrance is?”
“Centre courtyard. Secret elevator underneath the gazebo. Better make sure it doesn’t require any puzzles or special key to call it up.” She stood up and pushed the door open.
“Good work, Bernhardt.”
“Call me Banshee.” She tucked the lockpicks away. “Dull gave me that codename when I started working for her.” Had it not been for the visor obstructing her face, Krauser would see the mischievous grin on her face. “You’ll understand why eventually.” She stepped away from the door and gave him a salute. It wasn’t unlike her to mock him for all of the sudden, creating a genuine gesture from her and it surprised him. “Good luck, Major.”
He nodded his head once. “Stay sharp, Banshee.” As soon as he entered inside the decrepit building, Nikki closed the door behind him and waited for her time to come. Under the illusion of an abandoned place, the air wasn’t stale and boards that were once hammered to the windows were taken down to allow light and air in. The surroundings and each place he has entered has been cleaned and free of obstacles, but they left the walls to decay and the wallpapers to peel away. Broken floor tiles that were not swept away made the slightest noise whenever his feet hit them. The secret entrance he’s searching for is located at the operating theatre at the end of the building.
A static from a speaker came to life.
“Welcome to Hawthorne Trinity, Jack Krauser.” The voice of a welcoming but grating man he guessed as Alexei Rowland greeted Krauser, almost reminding him of Salazar and he was the annoying type when he was Saddler’s follower. “I’ve been waiting for your arrival.” Krauser continued to make his way towards the theatre in silence to keep his calm and focus on the thought of Dullahan waiting for him.
“Of course, you’re not here to meet me.” Dr. Rowland’s voice continued to speak. “You’re here for her.” He could hear the venom in the other man’s voice without saying Dullahan’s name. “What’s the point of saving her, Mr. Krauser? She’s an ungrateful kind, using men’s love for her own gain and then proceeds to break their hearts when they’ve done their job. Once you save her, do you know what she’ll do to you? She’ll make sure you’re left for dead here among the dead you’ll soon kill in this place.” Krauser continued to ignore the man’s talking as he finally reached the theatre and there was no one inside to stop him. No matter, he always kept his guard up as he proceeded to find the secret entranceway.
The theatre consisted of the operating table in the centre, a dreadful thought in the mercenary’s head if Dullahan was tortured on this very table and if there were people who watched it happen. No signs of blood and the table was cleaned free of dust. Columns of seatings took up most of the space and there were no other doors but the entrance he came from. The designs in the room were symmetrical and too large if they were going to entertain a large number of people over the course of years.
Unless…
The operating table was spotless when Krauser inspected it at first. In fact, the design of the table doesn’t match the interior designs of the room. That would explain why the table was quite clean. He ran his fingers underneath the table, to conclude his curiosity, until he felt bumps and knew exactly what he was looking for. He pressed the button and soon he heard groaning coming from the seatings. They were pulled away right before his eyes, the floor beneath the columns also disappearing, replaced with stairs appearing from below, making its way towards a large iron gate.
“Major Krauser.” Nikki’s voice cackled from his walkie-talkie. “Major, this is Banshee. I’ve found the gazebo and bad news on my end, I need to find something. Whatever it is, it's not destroyed based on what I’m looking at, but I need to find it.”
“Copy that, Banshee. I’ve found mine and I’m going in. Going radio silent.” He turned off his comms, took a deep breath, exhaled, descended down the stairs, and opened the iron gates. Lights were switched on automatically, revealing a long hallway towards an elevator at the end. The voice of the obnoxious Dr. Rowland returned when Krauser entered the elevator and pushed the only button available: down.
“I know what you did back at Valdelobos and I don’t think anyone knows what you have. What you possessed. I’ve lost two of my good men but with you working for me, maybe-” Dr. Rowland never got to finish his sentence when Krauser decided to fire at the speaker to shut him up for good and shoot at the little camera he spotted in the corner. He was almost at the desired floor and he needed to be ready for the welcoming party.
Soldiers in black stood in the hallway, their guns aimed at the door, waiting for Krauser to step out and empty their weapons on him by Dr. Rowland’s orders. The light indicating how many floors left has reached the end and the door slowly opened. No time was wasted for the soldiers to immediately open fire at the elevator until their magazines were empty. Half of them proceeded to reload while the other half processed the result they'd created, noticing there’s no blood splatters inside the elevator but bullet holes and more importantly there’s nobody inside at all.
A single flash grenade was thrown from above towards their feet and none reacted as fast as they could when the grenade was set off, blinding and deafening the soldiers. Krauser jumped down from the elevator shaft and began his own killing by slashing their throats with his knife and his inhuman speed. Their blood splashed against the wall and spilled on the floor when they fell down. He dipped his fingers into the pooling blood and smeared it across his face, mimicking the same pattern he painted on his face years ago.
This was a war against the doctor.
More soldiers were coming. He got his SMG out, emptying his whole magazine into as many as he can, and soon resorted to saving his ammo and going close combat on them. Krauser threw an uppercut at the soldier, then grabbed his arm that held the gun and twisted it hard to force him to drop it. He turned the soldier around, pinning the arm behind the back, and used the man as a human shield, eventually throwing the dead body towards the rest to stagger their movements and throw down punches and kicks hard enough to kill them.
The numbers of soldiers were dwindling with the numbers of bodies Krauser was leaving behind were increasing.
The floor where the laboratories are a couple of floors down. There were no elevators but stairs and Krauser wasn’t complaining about it so long it’s not blocked by more soldiers or the path destroyed which could delay his reach towards Dullahan.
On the second floor before he could reach the desired floor, he was greeted by the sight of three people standing in his view. A man was wearing a lab coat over his shoulders, part of his face bandaged, and his left arm in an arm sling. Two soldiers with visor-like helmets to obscure their faces, and the designs were quite too familiar for him to recognise that the only thing it lacked was the wicked grin on it, stood behind the doctor, hands tucked behind their backs. Krauser instantly sneered, knowing who this man was at first glance.
Dr. Rowland bowed towards him.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you in the flesh, Mr. Krauser. Did you enjoy your warm up upstairs? It was all the men I could offer since Hawthorne Trinity is experiencing staff shortage here. It’s not easy finding the best to work for me, and with you-”
“Shut the hell up.” He interrupted Dr. Rowland’s speech once more and pulled out Dullahan’s gun to fire a few shots at him. Both guards behind the doctor brought one hand out each in front of him to shield him, deflecting the bullets back towards Krauser who dodged them easily. Dr. Rowland can only sighed to himself while his guards pulled their hands away, returning back behind their backs. “Are you always this impatient? Surely you weren’t one during your glory days. You wanted results but you forced patience onto your troops. I’ll need those results when I have you by my side.”
The SMG was replaced with his knife. He could have mutated and ended it instantly, but he rather made his death as agonising as possible. He made that promise to himself, for Dullahan.
Dr. Rowland’s mouth shifted behind the bandages, frowning. “It’s too late, Mr. Krauser. She’s long gone. Give it up now and take over her spot. Or take either one of them here. Last one standing and you can take them away as a replacement and never come back here again.” He raised his good hand and gestured it towards Krauser. The two guards left their position and made a mad dash towards the mercenary with knives in their hands. Every attack they threw at Krauser was also too familiar. The first guard was performing Dullahan’s fighting style and the second guard was performing his own fighting style.
One of them swiped their knife under Krauser’s arm that held his knife, trying to force him to drop it. He let out a wince but didn’t drop it, bringing his knee up to their ribcage hard, hearing that satisfying crunch, and stabbed his knife into the throat, dragging it down to their chest. He pulled it out and stabbed them twice in the heart. The body is used as a shield from the final guard who was throwing slashes at him as if they were fighting him with a sword, an odd choice to try and fight him with a knife but an advantage for him if he’s dealing with someone using Dullahan’s moves. He has seen how she fought and he knew each of her moves by heart and training. The guard threw another slash at him again, this time he grabbed their wrist, twisting it and pushing the hand towards them, stabbing themselves underneath their chin, breaking through the visor. Krauser pushed the knife deeper while at the same time stabbing his knife through the heart for extra measure.
Dr. Rowland meanwhile remained where he stood during the whole fight, deeply frustrated. The amount of facial muscles he’s using caused the stitches to strain and blood to bloom on the bandages.
“Pathetic waste of subjects. They can’t even fight right.”
“No more games.” He flicked both wrists to get the blood off both of the knives. “No more bargains. Take me to Dullahan or die right now.” He marched towards the doctor, looming over him with anger and determination burning in his blue eyes. Dr. Rowland simply blinked his good eye at him, unphased or annoyed to be treated by his attitude despite the threat of death inches away from him.
“She’s never Dullahan.” Dr. Rowland said, watching Krauser’s reaction. “She’s never Natasha.” His eye glanced past him. “She’s always been Subject No. 392. Isn’t that right, 392?”
A sharp needle stabbed Krauser right between the shoulder blades, injected the liquid, and harshly pulled it out. A roar escaped his mouth and he spun around to slash at the person who stabbed him. The dead soldier’s knife was restrained in her right hand, unphased by the pain and her blood dripped onto the floor, and his knife was blocked by her robotic arm. The face of his lover stared back at him with a blank look. Her eye glazed over and half lidded.
“Dullahan…It’s me…Krauser…” Those were Krauser’s last words right as the sedative kicked in and knocked him out cold, falling at her feet and dropping the knives at the same time. None of what he said to her had any effect on her. All she does is stare at the unconscious body, look at Dr. Rowland, and then kneel down onto one knee for him, bowing her head.
#Jack Krauser#Dullahan#Krauser/Dullahan#Hatter's writing#The Lost Swan#Jack Krauser X OC#Krauser X OC#Resident Evil Krauser
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3 _ 16 _ The Inheritor of Despair
First - An Echo Rebounds Through the Silent City
The rain fell the way it always did. Staring up into the swaying tendrils of mist, the choppy pulse made the high stretching buildings sway like trees threading through the gale.
It reminded him of the forest. Though rain never fell across the thicket, and the only moisture clung to grass and dusty ground as dew. The foliage was parched and brittle, the breeze stale and brimming with the scent of rotten meat, and soured water. If he found something to drink, it might kill him faster than dehydration.
Mono pulled off his hat and gave it a shake. Not that it helped. He fixed the sagging seams and punched the fabric out. For a while, the hat would hold its shape. He gave the road a brief scan and collected an idea of the layout, of windows visible through the mist, and any blotchy path that might mean hide. The weather was worsening, but he didn’t want to risk going indoors.
The inner lining of the hat stayed dry, for the most part. A lot of hats didn’t hold up, or didn’t have scratchy lining that bared out a soaking. Some came apart from too much use.
From the vapor somewhere, the rambling crackle of a television garbled beneath the rattle of rain. The pellets drummed on metal canisters, flattened cardboard boxes, and pummeled furniture crushed into the pavement. He glanced across the cluttered road he walked beside, working to decide where the sound threaded from. Wherever the televisions sat didn’t make a difference, the Viewers stopped watching the screens so closely. Reading their movement got harder, or he wasn’t as used to the crazed behavior like the other creatures prowling. The Viewers just knew where he was, despite how quiet he was.
The Viewers used to minded their own business, except when the television stopped calling. Sometimes he dreamed about them lined up on the roof edge, gazing through the downpour.
With each step water rushed over his feet, sharp icy sheets cleaving over his numb toes. The faster he ran the less it burned. He pushed past himself and focused beyond the chatter of rain, he sought the weird warm patches of moldering air.
His sprint petered out among the crushed innards of buildings scattered across the road. While crawling through hidden tunnels and searching for a clear path, he nearly stepped into range of what he thought was a dead adult. No matter how dead something looked, he always kept his distance, but the ruble placed him nearly in reach of the arms – both mangled and unable to grip anything. It swatted at him, giving him a start and reminding him to be more cautious of bloody, crushed bodies. A dying creature could still throttle.
The creature was delirious and didn’t get a second chance to lash out, after he was swatted out of range. He squeezed out of the corral of broken cement walls and kept going. Notches and twisted wooden braces allowed him to climb higher and reach a stable chunk of wall. The slab was mostly a hollowed window frame, but easy enough to balance along the crumbling edge and find a fresh path. It peaked at a gradual incline, and he could leap a short gap to the next patch of shattered surface.
A tremor rippled through the soaked plaster, and his weight sank into the rotted wall. Below, a dull crunch echoed up, and Mono crouched down onto the surface. When nothing happened and the wall didn’t dissolve beneath his feet, he uncoiled and checked the ruin holding sturdy around his current perch.
If he stood a little higher, on his tiptoes, a space of road lay visible beyond a pile of cement. The road broke off, a thick fog swirling above the gaping wound. Careful of the soft material under his feet, he followed the path built on the spine of the building, dropping to lower edges or strafing along narrow walkways where he could.
Sometimes when the rain fell this way, it made him wonder. One day, would the Thin Man disappear? When he told the stories about the Place, Mono got an idea that the Thin Man was sad and full of think about beyond… whatever was beyond them, and company. Him and the Thin Man. Would Mono know if the Thin Man went away for good? What would he do?
The questions didn’t strike much debate in Mono’s head. The Thin Man had many other children to keep and look at, he was so busy when he left Mono. After what happened - with Kost' and the pack - he knew for not follow was better. The Thin Man might find the other kid. But not with Mono, that never worked.
He found a way down from the pulverized bricked, and returned to a solid sidewalk. The road was cleaved through, and no platform or bridge was visible in the woven rain. Whatever trauma tore the road apart, it brought the skyrises down, littering the sidewalks and demolishing the smaller building with heaps of mortar and cement. After exploring the ruins over and under, and some more backtracking, he located pockets to move among tight pathways that did not require a teleport or two. He didn’t need to lean into that power and get trapped someplace, no escape and no food. Lost would be bad.
The lack of food didn’t drive him from where the Thin Man left him. Never. He always kept the place safe, nothing ever found them. If a danger did stumble into the shelter, Mono would do something. He would trick it.
That was, until the ceiling collapsed. Many of the rooms, and the levels too. He couldn’t keep the dwelling safe from itself, and with great reluctance dragging on his body, he abandoned the place and went….
He couldn’t look for the Thin Man. The Thin Man left, and was looking at the children. Something else would happen, and it was better if Mono didn’t go for the Thin Man.
Food things, then. Mono had a deep fear he might stumble onto the Thin Man without meaning too, while the man in the hat was busy and not paying attention. The Thin Man knew everything, but often enough his hat was full of thinking, he lost thought about where was, which child he had, where they were going. They got lost and wandered in the same building not doing scout, but dulled by nothing go anywhere. The Thin Man’s quiet think went ‘round and around, and so did the man in the hat. He hoped the Thin Man would remember Mono and look at him, but the man and his hat had so much busy. Mono worried about the other children too.
The road which led to the chasm was free of debris and barriers, affording him a path to new roads through cluttered alleys. To the winding streets he returned, and the crackling hum of the televisions competed with the steady buzz of rainfall – the weaving hymn near indistinguishable. Through the mist, he is fortunate to spy a pod of Viewers gawking skyward and at the haunting shimmer of a television screen. A barrier of furniture and discarded shopping carts kept them corralled, but the adults rarely cared of obstacles. Some carried damage from falls, and one was missing its arms.
Mono kept as much space between himself and the twitchy figures, sneaking among the bent wire carts loaded with rubbish and piles of clothing, or whatever else was heaped and solid enough to conceal him. That worked well enough but not always.
In a isolated clearing among ruble, another pod of Viewers detached from the drenched television jammed within brick and timber. All but the flashing screen was buried entirely, amongst the addition of mangled bodies – cold and gray and near indistinguishable from the debris itself. The mob shambled alarmingly near the metal canisters, where Mono huddled deep and buried. It never mattered how quiet he was or invisible, and he couldn’t wait around. Upon seeing his best chance, he slipped from the flattened container and squeezed among hollow trackways carved through the destruction. He followed a gutter frothing with rushing water, the whole process a struggle to manage, but the thick gurgling masked his presence. That was what he decided.
The Viewers were none the wiser. He was able to get off the road and sneak into an alley, where the tall buildings and collapsed walls blotted out the harsh weather. Behind a large dumpster, he found a way into a building through an open door. The door itself was cluttered with crumped papers and clothing, but open enough he could squeeze in. The sounds of rainfall and growling thunder cut out when he shoved the door shut.
This placed him within a musty room of not much light, but after listening a bit – deciding nothing was lurking in the dank silence – he wandered toward a faint glimmer a distance away, and followed a muggy draft. With fumbling and feeling around, he stumbled into an large store area full of shelves. He skittered among the lopsided aisles, doing a short scout among the rows for anything missed, any sort of danger left hidden. It gave him an idea of everything, of a different door (not a way out), and the few windows that allowed some light in, along with the gallons of water making one section of the shop kind of scary.
He ventured to the far side of the store and found shelves loaded with packages and bags. With barely a breath, he climbed the shaky slates and went to work, pulling out any container that looked ‘good’, and whatever else he could haul out. After forming a pile on the floor, he dropped down and dove into full attack. As he gnawed away, his head snapped up periodically to survey the two open sides of the aisle where something could sneak in. The food wasn’t amazing or distracting, thankfully?
After some while spent on eating, he distanced himself from the brutalized food and found a place behind some boxes, where he curled down into his coat. It was good cover, and he could stay tuned to the dull growl of the building. Not a thing would search the aisles, and no one would come. Unless the Thin Man brought an other…..
No. Mono was the only one that chased.
Resting didn’t always mean sleep. The man in the hat didn’t understand such things. He could get by on half sleep, or by staying still and quiet and listening. And think.
While the walls creaked and the storm cut through the windows, Mono wondered what the Thin Man was up to. Would the other children be okay? Did some of them hide? Could any be as great and brave like Mono? He didn’t think they could. Mono was Mono, and no child was better – no child did company, or would keep the Thin Man.
He liked to think about what he and the Thin Man did, and what they would do later. It helped him be less startled when the Thin Man came back. Any noise or glimmer of movement could be danger, but the Thin Man – though he wasn’t dangerous – always managed to sneak in close to Mono. And that was annoying!
Following some rest, Mono was ready to leave his shelter and attack more packages – the easier ones that didn't fight. He carried a block of some grainy thing with him to nibble, while on another search through the shop again. If he stood at the end of an aisle and turned a certain way, sometimes kneeling low, the bulbs glint might show prints left on flattened pages. Probably books, or packaging from other food stuff flattened.
The trample speek told him so much. Though nothing appeared out of place on a glance, the aisles had been visited not long ago. A lot of kids, and an adult.
No place was ever really safe. Not for long and never. Kids always kept moving, going where the foods was. Finding a shop full of food stuff and other neat junk was rare, especially empty without other creatures lurking. Sometimes, the Viewers had better rations on busy plates, but that was the most risky. Some kids became the food.
With a shudder, he rushed back to the side of the store where he collected the packages. He didn’t like to think about that. Kids disappearing, and no body. It was taboo. But he could distract himself by thinking about something else and looking around more at the aisles.
Most of the shelves didn’t shelter anything he thought would be worth the energy to retrieve. A lot of boxes and broken containers already lay on the ground for scrutiny, but he couldn’t decide if the contents would be edible or not. Some powders were edible and flavored, but never helped with hunger. He could just eat a box and call it good. Plenty of food containers – with protein mush and bread stuff – looked good, and left no reason to resort to scavenging off hard noodles. Not yet.
He did have a wonderful idea! He could try leaving the hard noodles under a window to get drenched. Just to try it.
Rather leave the container all alone, Mono climbed onto one of the benches and hopped up onto a table. This placed him beside a dingy window (the remains of a window) sheltered from the blight of the storm. Curled down in his coat, he watched the light refracted through the murky glass with each blast and snarl of the storm.
Sometimes a dark silhouette would blot out the tepid radiance, and for a splint second he got excited and plucked his head up!
Though he already knew the shadow was too dwarfed and silly, and did not have the languid stride that the tall thin man had. But he still watched frozen, chest pounding, barely controlling his raspy breathing. Until the clunky shroud faded, melting into the storm like paper.
He still was happy about the shelter and the food. It would be better if he could share it.
The noodles became edible, but they would have been better with red sauce. The Thin Man didn't like noodles soaked in red sauce. If he tried it, then the tall thin man would realize how clever Mono was.
Far opposite of the room he first entered from, he located another door. This new door didn’t go anywhere, it was only a room with more shelving and some large counters. It might make a worthwhile hide place, but only as an emergency. In the center of the floor, beneath one of the center countertops, he found a dip in the floor and a hole. Inside the hole it smelt musty and foul, but that could be a way out.
Various packages lay abundant across the floor, and on some of the shelves set against the wall. Each parcel was wrapped in paper, but he gaged at the stink from the bundle. It might’ve been food at one point, but not anymore. The whole room was repulsive and smelled too alike the forest and the Hunters cabin. He almost wanted to shut the door, but the bent panel hung crooked off the rusted hinges.
On the other side of the store stood racks stuffed with pamphlets, and shelves loaded with books. Mono worked to pull the heavy tomes down and went through the pages. From experience, he knew when the pages drank too much mist they became too soggy to work with. Even with how careful he was, the pages tore apart and it made him nervous.
The books he broke, he dragged each into a distant aisle and covered them with the rubbish laying around.
After so much dragging and failure, and being on the verge of surrendering, Mono at last found a book that was still durable. He could clamber across the pages and turn them easily, and sit in the center of the folds and browse over the marks. He’s… sure they mean something. He’s almost certain the marks haven’t been damaged, and if he watched them hard enough, they would mean something to him.
He studied each page carefully, watching each mark long enough to recall the shape. This focus was always broken by his cautious scrutiny of his surroundings, and his assessment of the sounds whittling through the withered walls.
For all he knew, the Thin Man could be on the other side of the store looking through the shelves too. Not too far. Later, Mono could go visit, and they would have company. But later. At times the Thin Man wanted alone and quiet, and Mono was most busy as well.
It was always important following a rest, to go around the rows and check. Always. Make certain his dozing was not disturbed by a terrible shape garbed in rags, or the clunking boots of some horror. He stays close to the shelves, leaning around the edge enough to check for movement – in case he missed the quaking and snorting.
When his busy is complete, he does more fun exploration. Somehow he missed a sheltered hovel in the corner of the shop, and discovered boxes stuffed with lumpy creatures. Water cascading in from the windows surged through this section of the shop, and drenched all of the plushies. As a result, many squirmed as if they were in agony, and they smelled awful. He did pick up a new hat, and abandoned that place.
Between his rests, a lot of the food had taken a hit. He wore his new hat, while gnawing on his least favorite food concoction – yellow sauce and noodles. He could get why Her was big on jamming biscuit and sweet paste together, it made something soft and tasty. Maybe She hated him for not being happy about her food mixtures? He liked them now. So much more combinations existed, he could have shown Her.
__
Somewhere his thoughts dissolved, and Mono was awake and rushing. His head hadn’t fully cleared from whatever murky haunts glided behind his eyes, but all the same he rushed with all his might to the aisle corner and ducked around the edge.
In time for a hulking, wobbling heap to hurtle into the clutter where he had dumped all his boxes. It was as repulsive as it was frightening, the creature floundered on the floor and snorted at the chewed containers. When it found something it seemed to like, it tried biting it and the tile floor. This pattern the rolling heap repeated – choking, scarfing, and rolling – all while it waddled between the shelves, nearer to where Mono stood locked in disgust.
Mono broke away and made his way through the towering rows, but soon and soundly discovered another one of those gluttonous blobs hunkered down in the aisle of powdered edibles. The few boxes Mono had torn open on the floor, had absorbed the focus of the slathering girth. It shoved all containers into its maw, a foamy coloration of drool spilled down its chin. He’s pretty certain it shoved some nonedible thing into its jaws and began chewing on that—
The blob gave a shrill cry and began rowing its arms, and legs, shuffling entirely on its stomach towards him!
Mono whipped around and sprang from the aisle, taking the center path among the rows. The adult was somewhere behind him, knocking the shelves with its swollen mass and gurgling. He could imagine it rolling after him, but the image of it hurtling at him with its jaws wide and nothing but rows of teeth gnashing, that took his thoughts back to missing packmates.
He only chanced a look back once, when he clipped a corner skidded on his toes. The adult tried to make the sort of tight turn he made, but its greasy body slid over silt and whatever it secreted. A hand lashed out, not close to be narrow but near enough that Mono caught a whiff of its putrid odor.
Struggling to hold it together, he raced to the end of the aisle and came to the door and room that went nowhere. The creature wailed out somewhere in the building, and by the other squealing snarl, and a third?! It was clear the others would soon arrive.
Desperation gave shoddy choices. Not knowing was at times the best choice.
Mono scrambled under the countertop in the center of the room, and slipped down the hole of the drain. He didn’t fall far in the dark, and the impact was broken by the slight curve. Grease choked metal scrapped his backside something good, but nothing to demand attention. Better than staying out there.
When he stalled, Mono rolled over and felt his back, found it dry. Best to go on. A flashlight would be good. He was kind of used to wandering in the bleak rooms, choked by murk and unknown shapes. It never bothered the Thin Man. The amount of times Mono got turned around or misplaced was terrible, despite the clicky steps and the hum of static. When the Thin Man went off, everything became too quiet.
This tunnel went one way. By crouching with his arms outstretched, it wouldn’t take long to figure where he was and how to start. If… it went anywhere. It would open up somewhere. Metal tunnels had to have an opening somewhere.
Sounds tumbled through the narrow and stifled confines of the cylinder. Something like wind whooshing and howling, and water burbling. It was nice and warm, smelled yucky, but the warm was a nice change. The gummy slime coating the bottom made quick movement tricky, and he lost count of how often he tipped backwards or over. Every time, he tried to wrap his coat around his sides, only to protect all his hats and other treasures from getting yucked up.
Openings did appear, but none of them revealed light or outside. It was only branching pipes, which led somewhere he didn’t think would go anywhere. Without depth or difference in the hollow he was in, deciding where to go became impossible. He tried to judge his direction by the grime he crouched in, and if it ‘flowed’ a certain way.
If at any point he passed under an opening in some building, but the light was dim, he wouldn't know if there was a way out by climbing. He knows for certain he never reached outside under the storm, or rain would trickle down. That seemed familiar, though he doesn’t know where the idea came from. Maybe in his rest, a memory or haunt? He’s not certain if he’s rested or not, he’s only sure he’s very far from a way out.
He stumbled over a patch of gummy bones and cloth, and tried not to think about it. A way out wouldn’t drop into his lap, he had to go and find it. He was best at finding. Too good, sometimes.
Distance could be misleading too. He was all scrunched up in the dark, barely stopping. When he climbed out, he would probably still be able to see the buildings he left. Not that he wanted to be near that place, but he couldn’t have gone that far. It would be all right. He just couldn't stop or think about being lost. Straight would lead somewhere.
While he was stopped and trying not to dismay with the doubt, he realized that the sounds had changed. A bit, but enough for him to clue in. Different!
The flutter of echoes bounced through his ears, confusing but he was sure this path was really going the right way. It was the same flurry of whispering drafts, but the chatter of water was distinct. Something he hadn’t heard in forever!
On his hands and feet he could scrambled swiftly, stalling only to check the walls and let the clatter of flailing diminish. It’s in one of these pauses that he realized, he overshot the rebounding chime of water. And peering up, into the vacant black he was accustomed to, he managed to locate a tight cleft that bent up. He took ahold of the ledge and hoisted himself up, and crawled through the narrow passage. Frigid metal didn't bite at his shoulders, but jagged splinters of cement gnawed at him if he wasn't careful. His hat did shield his brow from raising his head too high, the sporadic knocks did jar him.
He blinked when he turned his head up, and a sliver of light crept under the rim of his hat. Light. Light!
The crevice didn’t go anywhere, or anyplace intact. He crawled out of a hole cleaved into the floor, where a portion of the building dropped into an open chasm.
Mono eased out of the gap torn free from the cement floor, and climbed up onto a solid – and wet – surface. The roof of the building was gone, as well. He didn’t mind. He perched in the hollowed remains of the structure letting the sludge cleave off of his coat and hat. He examined his surroundings, looked up at the churning clouds, and turned his gaze back onto the remnants of decayed walls.
Nothing but a picture frame, a doorframe, and some clothing. Not much shelter, and absolutely no food things.
With a fluff of his coat, Mono stood up and stretched all out. After he got all the pops and creaks out of his spine, he searched for a way out of the 'room', and the ruble. The ruined building extended to a clear flat and a break. On the other side of the yawning chasm, the slanted roof of a building leaned close enough he should be able to reach. He didn't have a better route, unless he risked a descent where the building stood at the edge of the chasm and whatever was beneath the thick smog far below that.
The man and his hat shouldn’t be gone this long. It was never safe, not without together. The other kids couldn’t look after the Thin Man. It was Mono’s job anyway, and he already messed up protecting the place. If he thought Mono wasn’t good enough, the Thin Man might never come back. Maybe the tall thin man already decided.
Mono caught the edge of the roof and hung, the rain washing into his sleeves and chilling his shoulders. He stared at the dark sky, the glittery drops falling through the gleaming light of a distant window. The skyrise moaned against the perpetual storm - was this the time it should fall?
It was impossible to make the Thin Man happy. But sometimes, Mono saw him smile. The man in the hat could never doubt Mono was strong and best, but he knew the tall thin man wanted something else.
He heaved up and climbed the steep incline of the roof. Several times in the hazardous scale, he did lose his footing; a vent or a groove in the textured surface saved him from a reckless slide into oblivion. On the far side of the buildings top and facing a close neighbor, a ladder bent across the side of the building. But only a short ways. From there, Mono could drop to a vent duct further below, which curled around the building.
This was the child’s highway. The ledges and cleaved rooftops, ladders and bubbling gutters sustained faithless through the beginning as they were in the present. On some walls, in little out of the way shelters, he found the evidence of the travelers before him. They didn’t offer anything, aside from the dangers they knew so well.
The Tower. The Eye. A Mirror. A Ladder. The Safe-Er path. And more. Many of the speek had been scrubbed away by water, and in places it was confusing to decide.
The mostly intact fire escape Mono was currently climbing, decided to detach from the entire wall and swung sideways, while collapsing downward. He couldn’t do a thing but cling tightly to the rungs, as it found its new meaning in life as a wrecking ball. The landing section buckled sideways, slamming into a barricaded window and smashed loose the planks. Once in a reprieve, the ladder grated and hummed ominously as the rain cleansed its sins.
Against his palms, the metal ground and hitched. Mono uncoiled himself and climbed, despite the near ninety degree angle he hung at upside down. He pulled up through a break in the stairwells floor, and scrambled up the sloped grate toward the window. The icy metal quaked under his toes and the moment he leapt for the glossy sill, the whole contraption folded downward and sliced against the side of the building.
Mono somersaulted into the room, and pushed himself back against the wall. He examined the shapes everywhere, the door, the lurching shrouds - his head matched what he saw with the assurance this room harbored no danger. A chair. A dresser. Nothing else, aside from the clothing and a couple of cardboards boxes, flattened by rain. The only door of the room was shut.
After collecting himself, Mono went ahead and teleported through the door. See? He did use his power.
He gave the corridor a look through, listening all the while for anything. The few rooms didn’t have televisions, and he didn’t pick up on the rambling jingles. Not in this dwelling, anyway. That was a start.
Following up his general layout of the place, its rooms and noteworthy places of the rooms, he found his way into the bathroom. All the dwellings with rooms had one or more, sometimes the tub had a body laying in it – not usually in the places the Thin Man liked to shelter. This bathtub did not have a body.
It took a lot of effort to get the tub running, just a little. Enough that he could finish scrubbing off the crusty gunk from the tunnel. And check the tail of his coat. All his supplies seemed to be in good order. The weird picture speek of the face was a little damaged, but it still had the strange marks clear. He folded the card up and hid it away.
He still was not graceful at getting out of the tub after soaking and wash, but he didn’t break his face this time. His shoulder took the burnt of his fall and he crawled out of the room.
Another scout of the rooms revealed no dangers. He was not sure which doors would lead to an open corridor or wherever else, but he was focused on if the Thin Man would come back.
The rooms lay dreary and dank, only the few with windows offered the washed out radiance from outside. No humming or crackling of static. He searched and listened, more intently, only stopping in one of the larger rooms.
Yes, the walls held rot and rain glistened in the texture, the carpet was riddled with insects. Nothing of this dwelling was good, and it probably was the ugliest shelter in all the city. The Thin Man would hate it here. Later then, Mono could go find somewhere better. He had gone far, and needed to stop. That was important. Sometimes stop was good.
One of the furthest rooms in the dwelling didn’t have a window, but it did have a recliner beside a bed. Enough radiance from the corridor gave outlines to the the few items inside the room, and made clear no threat lurked, the ceiling wouldn't collapse. He found a nice spot behind the recliner to nestle up in his coat. He was still soggy, but it was too much trouble to nest proper; not when he would be going soon.
He snoozed and picked up his head. Every noise made his chest tight – walls groan, danger? If something stalked the rooms, he would leave and never come back. But he wanted to smell smoke, and hear the buzzing static. He needed to stay still, that was all. Do rest, like the Thin Man always wanted. Head down. Close eyes. Then the Thin Man leaves. But maybe he will come back?
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#little nightmares#mono#feral mono#the thin man#thin dad#fanfic#fanfiction#little nightmares fanfic#little nightmares fanfiction
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The tactics of the Ogre- A look at the gameplay of the super famicon version of Let us Cling Together
Tactics Ogre is built around positioning and maneuvering of your player units.
Battles in the game are all basically the same. The player uses their 10 units against an enemy force of 8-10. If the enemy is led by a leader the goal is to eliminate the leader, otherwise the player has to kill all enemies. The AI moves their unit toward the player consistently.
Victory occurs by maneuvering the players unit so the AI ends up fighting in areas that advantage the player. The game has a robust elevation mechain the player can use to allow their archers longer range and higher damage, and the relative durability of characters means the player can't rely on the counter-attack system to eliminate the front line enemy units.
Contrast this with Tactics Ogre contemporary - Fire Emblem 3 and 4. In those games the player has fewer units than the enemy, but the player units are all stronger than the enemy. The AI in Fire Emblem leans towards not moving unless a player unit is in range. The combination of those two traits means Fire Emblem encourages the player to attack, and attacks where the designer wants the player to. In fire emblem the player is required to consider how to best approach a group of enemy units. In tactics ogre the enemy setup is less important than considering the layout of the map and where on it would be best for the fight.
Builds in tactics ogre are minor and unimportant. While in the abstract there are certain build constraints (magic users should train in magic using classes, agility raising classes are most valuable), these are rarely complex considerations, and class effects on stats is not noticeable until near the end of the game. This is a big gap from other srpgs where victory depends on properly building the player units.
An even bigger gap is how limited unit options are. Front-line melee units absorb damage and deal damage to squishy enemies, their only choice in battle is to do a direct attack, or cast a magic spell that does minor damage. Later remakes to tactics ogre make it fit into the larger srpg market by allowing these units various skills and special attacks, but this removes the focus on positioning and makes more important the management of both unit builds and resources that govern special attacks.
This focus on positioning makes the game feel relatively stale during battle, with every battle being functionally the same, and rarely allow any individual battle to feel different or unique. Fire emblem players talk about their favorite levels in the game, but no tactics ogre players do the same. However the blandness work well for the overall themes of the game.
The players units are all relatively unimportant and interchangeable. The biggest exceptions are unique units the player will protect (the princess, lich and white knight classes which are all in limited supply) but the other units the player will easily sacrifice and easily replace without care, because building a new unit is so simple. This encourages units to engage with tactics ogres permanent death system in a way few Fire Emblem players do.
In Addition, the more simple pleasures of tactics ogre encourages more focus on the narrative of the game. The player can focus on questions of why the battle is taking place and differing motivations because their attention isn't taken away by considering how to beat the next group of enemies.
#wrote up an essay no one will read mostly to get better about always writing something more sturctured#its a good habit to be in so heres something on tactics ogre and FE#Maybe one day Ill do my 'This is why sfc is better than remakes' post but should probably beat remakes first
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⌕ jian + killing stalking headers_
follow ᪤ feelscaos on twitter!
dont repost! like/reblog if u save plss
#messy icons#girls icons#ggroup icons#ggroup layouts#jian layouts#jian icons#jian packs#jian low quality#jian messy layouts#lunarsolar layouts#lunarsolar packs#lunarsolar headers#lunarsolar messy layouts#lunarsolar icons#killing stalking headers#killing staling layouts#anime headers#anime layouts
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You will feel joy, one day
master list for this series
sorry for the wait y'all, I had to torture myself into listening to the same song to get the inspo I needed for this next chapter which is READYMADE - Ado (it has English subtitles btw)
Hope you guys enjoy this!
Summary: It's been clear from the start that you won't go down without putting up a fight, the tone in your voice and stand are nothing but infuriating for Heisenberg, just like his mere presence fills you with annoyance. The factory is enormous and whatever he's doing here could get you killed, but even in this kingdom of oil and rusted metal, there's a bit of kindness.
Right now, you would accept the title of naive, because you were when you thought this man would share his secrets with you, instead...he's giving you a fucking tour of the entire place, wildly pointing and all the doors and doing sharp turns, taking you up and down flights of stairs "I hope you don't get lost, darlin', we don't want you ending in the wrong place, right?" there's mockery in his voice as he speaks over his shoulder, halting to a stop and making you trip and crash against him.
"This is the boiler room, you might want to familiarize yourself with this place in particular" a snarky smile appearing on his lips
Peeking inside makes you go pale and sigh in frustration, it's a mess, you can see cables, crudely fixed with tape, more flammable materials, and so many oil spills on the ground, "I can also familiarize with the rest of the fabric because this dump could explode any day"
His smile falls and that expression of annoyance, that just seems to be for you, comes back in no time. Releasing a cloud of smoke he turns around and starts walking faster, slowly regaining his showman's voice and the exuberance of his movements renew with the occasional laugh, is enough to make you tune him out again, looking at whatever you find more interesting, nose scrunching up with whenever there's something that unsettles or makes you question this man's leadership and care for this place. If you do take the role of helping him, you know you're gonna exploited day and night.
He's not blind or stupid, he knows you are doing everything but listening to him, every time he looks over his shoulder to make sure you are following and paying him some god damn attention, he will always see you eyeing everything, dissecting the place, and doing a face that just speaks volumes of how unimpressed you are by his life's work, but it's not like he will tell you about his plans, it's too soon for that, what if you are just a little spy under Miranda's orders?
It rubs him the wrong way how adamant she was on you being under his orders, super-sized bitch didn't raised too much hell, which also puts him on edge, it just doesn't feel normal for him. In any other situation where Miranda has favored him over Dimitrescu, and it wasn't because "mother" gave her that heartfelt speech Karl being all alone on his iron tower, Moreau is the forgotten child of the bunch and has to beg for almost everything, Miranda is already pissed with Donna and her botanical gig, let alone, the way she uses her cadou to just make dolls move.
That left him in the position akin to a middle child, he's just there, occasionally remembered and rarely to give him treats or surprises. He's used to scavenging for materials, do the occasional grave robbing or take the corpses the other Lords leave behind.
So, why did she left you with him?
"Lastly but no less important! the living quarters"
You have been so lost in thought, you didn't noticed that his "fantastical tour" is over, and you are back to the front of the complex...shit, you didn't even paid attention to where everything is, you're gonna get so lost if you try to navigate this place on your own.
After entering the brute closes the door behind you and goes to the left office, you can hear him mumbling under his breath and things being moved around, you don't know how long he's going to be in there, so you turn your attention to the rest of the room.
From everything you have seen, this place is the cleanest one and it makes you think of the layout in your family's factory. It looks like he repurposed what used to be the waiting area, there's a kitchen in the right corner, a couple of sofas that had seen better days, a lot of blueprints have been left on the coffee table. To the left, it's the main office, a lot bigger and the tinted glass on the door has the name Heisenberg hand-painted on it, classy, you suppose that that's his room? you don't care, opting for getting close to the blueprints, his handwriting is atrocious and there are notes everywhere, how interesting, one of the workers used to say that was a sign of a brilliant mind.
"You are not allowed to go there, a'right?" hearing him so close makes you jump, when did he come back? from the tone of his voice, you might be right, it's either his bedroom "This one, however! this one is just for you" he says oh so sweetly when pointing at the smaller office to the right opening the door rather unceremoniously.
Now you get why the rest of this area is so clean and clutter-free, motherfucker pushed all the trash and old furniture in there, it's dusty and the air, somehow, is stale only in this place, you can see cobwebs "Since I'm being kind enough to let you sleep on this side and not in the cellars, I think is fair that you take care of the mess, don't you think?"
"Can't I just sleep in one of the couches?"
"Of course not, we don't want my precious mechanic to get sick, right?" condescending asshole, he even smiles at you, showing you his teeth in what you identify as an act of intimidation
"Of course we don't want that, my Lord! but, I do must say, you have been ill-mannered, showing me around your domain yet...you haven't told me your name when introductions were supposed to be made long ago" it's your turn to give him teeth flashing smile, his going a bit forced
"Well you see sweetheart, I would have done it earlier, but I came encountered a disrespectful brat that decked me in the face as soon as we met"
"Really now? Perhaps, this brat was done with being manhandled and reacted accordingly to how they felt" the sardonic smile on your face grows and you can see how much it pisses him off, and that shouldn't make you proud.
The man is looking, more like attempting, to look down on you, clicking his tongue loudly and in a dissatisfied manner, with complete derision, he gives you, the closest thing to a respectful bow "My name is Karl Heisenberg and I'm one of the four Lords working under Miranda's orders"
In response, you give him a curtsy and use your best sarcastic tone, just for him "It's such an honor to meet you, my lord. I must say I'm no noble but I do HOPE you may remember the name of this pheasant girl, Y/N, L/N Y/N"
He doesn't appreciate the way you talk to him or how you don't even try to hide how little you respect or fear him, but he needs you alive to accelerate and optimize the factory's production, under other circumstances? he would have thrown you down to let the Sturm have some fun, but he won't, at least for now.
"So, Miss Y/N...let me give you a...welcoming gift" he's harsh when trusting a bundle of crumpled clothes and old boots into your arms, pushing you back hard enough that you almost lose your balance "I don't expect you to always wear my hand-me-downs, this is a momentary arrangement"
"Oh my! so generous of you, to clothe this poor village girl with your own garments, I am so thankful for this, however, if I may ask for a tiny favor...can I know where your bathroom is? I don't what to soil this fine fabric with my dirty body"
You don't like the way he smiles at you, with one hand he grabs your shoulder and with the other he opens the door, pushing you towards what used to be the employee's showers, there's mold and broken mirrors, a lot of the shower heads are gone and the only one that seems to be functioning is leaking.
"Serve yourself, princess, just know this...there's only cold water, the hot water stopped working years ago and I haven't felt like repairing it, I hope you enjoy your shower!"
And with that, he leaves you, finally alone but unnerved on how easily he could come back and just stare at you like a creep. But you need a shower, there's grime and dirt caked to your body and it's starting to get disgusting and itchy. So you swallow your pride and leave the borrowed clothes over the small wall separating the showers from the rest of the place and brace yourself to what might be the worst moment of the day so far.
Later you are cursing him as loud as you can, he didn't lie when he said that only the cold water worked, but you would say it was freezing, his clothes are uncomfortably big on you, and smell of faint sweat and like these were left tucked away for a long time, the boots are the best part, these have been broken in nicely and they fit you...who are you kidding? the damn things are falling apart and you feel like a clown with how big they are.
That has left you with the shining crown of the shit show that's been this whole day! the trash in your new room, you had to box so many useless papers, look everywhere to find one measly broom, and use the remains of the gown you came in with to keep your hair out of your face and as a bandana to cover your nose and mouth.
From all the old furniture in the room, the only useful stuff is the old desk, a sofa that somehow survived without being eating by termites but might be infested with cockroaches, and a lamp. It's not much, but it's something.
All this moving around now has brought a new problem.
You are starving.
You can't remember when Miranda took you, let alone when was your last meal or if you were fed during your time in the cell. But Heisenberg's fridge is empty, there's only a handful of onions and those have roots and sprouts coming out already. There's nothing substantial in the cupboards or anywhere for that matter.
You doubt there might anything to eat in this place, but, you better give it a try, better die trying than going to sleep with a grumbling stomach, right? But, you didn't learn jackshit from him and you can't remember anything from the directions Heisenberg gave you.
Fuck it.
Slowly you creep out of the small apartment and peek outside, looking around assures you that the coast is clear. This could be a great learning experience! no matter how much of a dick this man is, there's something of value in his words and maybe, just maybe, you should pay more attention when he talks...MAYBE.
The place is a labyrinth of stairs, broken walls turned into hallways and sealed doors, you do have half a mind to remember which doors and areas he pointed as "out of bounds" for you, which is a surprise, seeing how massive the place is.
Under the stench of grease and smoke, you notice, the tasty scent of stew...close, very close, your poor stomach twisting painfully and mouth rapidly filling with saliva, you start following the heavenly aroma until you reach an old cargo lift, a large man sits there and for a moment that makes you stop in your tracks.
The man is surrounded by bags and crates filled with stuff from fruits to what you guess are various pieces of machinery and other objects hard to identify in the low light "Aaaaah...a new customer perhaps? You must be Lord Heisenberg's new assistant, are you not?"
He smiles with true kindness and something similar to pity, meaty hands adorned with gold rings beacon you close "Come come, miss...?"
"Uuuuuuuh...I'm Y/N, nice to meet you..."
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance miss Y/N, you may call me The Duke"
There's something infectious in him that makes you relax your shoulders and walk closer to him "So...what do you do here Duke?"
"What? well, I'm nothing but a humble merchant, occasionally I set up shop here in the factory, especially when I have a delivery or things that may spark Lord Heisenberg's interest, and now that you are here, I will make a note to bring stuff you could use too"
"I...I would appreciate the gesture, thanks" the small sincere smile in your face drops when your stomach decides to grumble loud enough to be heard by the Duke, the man laughing at the sound, making your embarrassment worst.
"Would like to accompany me with dinner, dear? I have made plenty and this could be a small...celebratory feast for you"
"Celebratory? no offense, but...there's nothing to celebrate"
"Aren't you alive and able to walk?" he's so careful when serving some stew in a bowl, making sure not to spill a drop "I think that surviving whatever happened to you, is worth celebrating"
The bowl is warm in your hands and the smell is just divine, you take a seat on the floor waiting for the Duke to serve his bowl and then you dig in, sighing in appreciation when the rich taste of the broth fills your mouth, the softness of the meat and the carrots. You can see the Duke smile with pride when you compliment his cooking, enjoying each spoonful to the fullest.
"It's getting quite late Y/N and Lord Heisenberg is one to rise early, I suggest you go to bed or you end up feeling too tired tomorrow"
"Yeah...thanks for the meal Duke, I really appreciate it"
"Don't mention it and remember, the Duke's Emporium is here to satisfy all your shopping needs!"
You bid the man farewell and do the trek back to your room, taking time to memorize the way to the lift and the living quarters, the man might be a merchant but you want to get to know more about him, he seems nice, he's been the nicest one so far.
The living area feels cold and so terribly empty, there's no sign of Heisenberg anywhere, which you are thankful for. Only after entering your room and laying on your "bed", waiting a bit to hear any sound that might belong to the Lord, when only the sounds of the factory echo back to you do you dare to cry.
It starts slowly, your eyes fixated on the ceiling, then the flood gates open and you start to sob and scream, tears running down the side of your face to get lost in your hair leaving wet patches in their wake. But your crying evolves into fear, panic, raged breathing, and asking hands, all the weight of what happened today swallows you whole.
You don't know where to start, the way you growled at Heisenberg in the church, HOW he was able to move heavy metal without touching it? and all those corpses suspended ton hooks...the howls and things banging against the doors, the cruelty in how Heisenberg tossed you around and screamed in your face. How do you even managed to put and kept that brave face on when you were so scared is beyond you, you did it and that's enough.
The rapid and irregular movement of your chest does nothing but make your side hurt, the pain shoots up and down your body, making you curl on your side to alleviate the pressure if only a bit.
You want to die...but not like this, not terrified for your existence, not at the hands of a volatile man that can crush you with his hammer any day.
You want to live, but to live with your life depending on how well you perform your role? that's not a life at all.
Exhaustion and fatigue eventually take you away into a dreamless sleep, your last thought is...what's going to happen tomorrow?
You don't know, but as the Duke said, you survived whatever Miranda did to you and you will survive this too, no matter what, you will live.
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Tanjiro Headcanons
A/n: HI HI!!! I havent posted any Demon Slayer content yet BUT i hope this is okay while i get some more stocked up!
also i will be moving over here from my wattpad so if the layout is ever weird that is more than likely why
✧ Obviously, he's a soft boi. (A/n: my phone tried to change that to soft bi-)
✧ Even before you were dating he made sure to treat you right.
✧ He's a true gentleman.
✧ Seriously, keep this boy around you.
✧ He is a pure ball of sunshine so... he'll keep you happy.
✧ The jokes he tells are borderline dad jokes.
✧ You laugh because of how stale they are.
✧ Not because they're funny.
✧ *Cue one pouty boyo*
✧ Hugs are a must.
✧ What did you expect?
✧ He's one cuddly boi ready to spread his love.
✧ If you somehow are wrangled into a prank with Zenitsu and Inosuke, he takes the fall for you.
✧ "Tanjiro!? Again!? You need to stop taking my punishments! They're in place for a reason..." "But I don't want to see you hurt y/n!" *sigh* "Fine... but let me make it up to you!" "Cuddles and be my partner in training!" "You're too cute Kamado~"
✧ Will give you his haori if you're cold.
✧ Prepare yourself for little adventures in the forest near the Demon Slayer Corps.
✧ And him begging you to go on missions with him.
✧ Honestly, he'll protect from anything that comes at you.
✧ "Y/n! Watch out!!" "Tanjiro? I can handle myself.." "I'm sorry.." *cue cute puppy dog eyes* "S T O P I T"
✧ No demon will want to go near you.
✧ Or human.
✧ He is a scarily overprotective friend so they can only imagine what it's like when you get together.
✧ "Why does Genya look horrified?" "Maybe he did something he shouldn't have." "Tanjiro Kamado! What did you do to him!?" "He was staring at you and practically drooling!" "I swear to the gods... I love you but please stop..." "HUH!? I-I love you t-too y/n..."
✧ C H E R I S H H I M.
✧ He loves you so much.
✧ Protect him as he protects you.
✧ It'll make him melt trust me.
✧ Are you friends with Nezuko?
✧ He'll fall for you more.
✧ You can somehow deal with Zenitsu and Inosuke?
✧ He loves you more.
✧ A past time of his is to lay on some grassland and look at the stars with you.
✧ When he eventually asks you out, he's friccing adorable about it.
✧ *cue a lot of stuttering and blushing* *giggling from you* "I love you too Sunshine~" "Hhhhhh" "AHHHH! SHINOBU!? HELP, TANJIRO PASSED OUT!!"
✧ When you're in a relationship, he calms down a lot.
✧ He has his moments but ehhh, it's cute so. *pterodactyl sounds*
✧ "Inosuke stop headbutting y/n, you idiot!!"
✧ You swearing to turn Nezuko back to a human with him.
✧ "I want to help Nezuko too!" "Ahhh, y/n... you're too kind!" *cue you being tackled by both Kamado siblings*
✧ If you're a girl Nezuko braids your hair and if you're a boy Tanjiro teaches you how so you can braid Nezuko's.
✧ She's like a sister to you.
✧ "You know... I love Nezuko!" "Huh!? B-But-" "Oh my... I love you more dumby~"
✧ Shinobu has practically adopted you at this point so she's protective and extra hard on Tanjiro.
✧ He doesn't mind and says it'll help him get to where he wants to be.
✧ You had to stop her from poisoning him more than once.
✧ "I get you don't like him all that much but can you maybe not kill him??" "cAn yoU nOt KiLl HiM- bitch, how about no?" "... I'm telling oyakata-sama." "Hey, no... y/n? NO STOP-"
✧ Overall, you're the couple everyone is jealous of.
#demon slayer#demon slayer x reader#demon slayer imagines#demon slayer scenarios#demon slayer headcanons#kny#kny x reader#kny imagines#kny scenarios#kny headcanons#tanjiro kamado#tanjiro x reader#tanjiro imagines#tanjiro scenarios#tanjiro headcanons
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Keeping Your Promise - Chapter 29 (NSFW-lite)
Read on AO3 | Read on Wattpad
Read chapter twenty-eight (NSFW)
Title: ASSISTANCE REQUIRED
Words: 5.6k
Summary: I am very uncomfortable with the vibe we have created in the studio Infirmary today...
Warnings: mentions of abuse, suicide
ST Rambles: So... I graduated nursing school. And will be taking my licensure exam next month and start working as well...
In my time away, other than the above mentioned accomplishments, I've been reading a lot of books and even went to see an internet friend just last weekend. Life got insane and I needed to focus on school, and I do appreciate the patience and enthusiasm.
I hope this was worth the wait. I hope the next part will be even more so ;)
[MASTERLIST] || BANNER // @elmidol
Fucking, fuck!
“I know in academy you were told to pierce the skin at a forty-five-degree angle, but it works a lot better if you-,”
“Go in at a fifteen-degree-angle, go parallel to the skin. I know,” you huffed, embarrassment burning your skin. “That’s not the issue. I do that. The issue is-,”
“That is the issue,” Silver corrected, interrupted. Your preceptor-for-all-intents-and-purposes crossed her arms and stared at you with hard, unyielding eyes. “You won’t listen to me,” she spat. “You are the issue.”
Calliope Silvren, or “Silver”, as she’d informed you upon meeting, was everything you were supposed to be. And you hated her for that fact, hated her for that and so much more.
She was intelligent and concise and respected, she knew everything and made sure you were aware that you didn’t. During the past eleven hours, not with so many words, Silver had made it clear that you were never supposed to be here to begin with, that hers was the name in the original provider candidate pool and you were nothing but a fluke, a nobody, nothing.
Compared to Silver, compared to Calliope fucking Silvren, who’d graduated valedictorian, who had star-white hair and golden skin, whose eyes were a harsh sea of frozen cerulean, whose legs were long and lips were full and head was high and posture was perfect – compared to the program’s prototype? What were you other than a fluke? A whim? Compared to her, how were you anything more than the fascination you’d been labeled as from the very start?
As you stared up at her, her height almost that of Kylo’s, and felt the wrath of that frozen sea that resided behind her glare, you couldn’t speak. Every word of defense left you, and your mouth dried and your chest hollowed. Because her words not only rippled through your head but echoed through the unit’s halls so every nurse and physician and maintenance worker had heard them. Heard her and how superior she was, heard how incompetent you were.
Silver knew what she’d done, could feel the eyes of her coworkers gawking at her scolding; you knew by the smallest quirk to her lip, the slightest tick in her platinum brow. She had you trapped and on display, and all you could do was stand here and take it. The Board was watching, and so was Hux – CB-7070 always shadowing ten paces behind – you had no choice but to remain neutral-faced and silent.
She spoke your name and it was beautiful, a voice like sugar even when it slithered and bit like venom, “We’ll pick up tomorrow. If you absolutely need me, I’ll be organizing my report sheets for the oncoming shift.” When no one was looking anymore, her eyes narrowed and she leaned in. “Busy yourself for the next hour.” A sneer slipped past the benevolent mask she wore. “Don’t need me.”
With a steel spine, she whipped past you, stalking off toward her task, the white of her hair streaking from your periphery. And there you were, clutching an IV starter kit – missing the needle, much like you’d missed the vein – trying your hardest to keep from showing any emotion whatsoever. Less people were gawking now that Silver had left, but you still felt eyes on you. Whatever lay in those lingering stares, pity or humor or apathy, it all burned you, reminded you how temporary you were. Not only in this place – the “Infirmary” as the staff referred to it – but in your life, as well.
Smoothing the skirt of your uniform, you cleared your throat and turned to do as you were instructed, catching CB-7070’s visor for a second before peering around the unit. She faced you, and even though you couldn’t see her face, you knew she may be the only one around who was on your side. The white of her helmet glinted as she gave a small nod in your periphery. Yeah, she wasn’t so bad, no matter who she’d report to the second you got back to the Consulate.
The Infirmary was a large unit, and, unlike any place you’d practiced in since graduation, it was efficiently staffed and stocked. Safe nurse-to-patient ratios, sufficient supplies, and an allocated provider available for any emergent orders or treatments. It was a surreal representation of the “hospital utopia” you’d heard of all throughout school.
But, aside from its apparent perfection, some characteristics of the unit confused you, but you didn’t ask about it because no one else seemed to think it was weird, and Silver didn’t exactly foster a great learning environment.
What struck you first was the Infirmary’s construction and layout. It was all glass, floor to ceiling windows that offered full views of each patient in their respective rooms. You’d watched the sun dance across the sky as the day went on, nothing hindering you from the beautiful view of the sea beyond the fanned-out city below. The only thing that offered a semblance of privacy for each patient was the wall-spanning mirror positioned in front of their beds. None of them saw each other, but it was still odd that there seemed to be no concern towards the errant lapse in privacy policy the design created.
At the center was the nurses’ station, large and circular, a skylight fixed right above. The staff used the lack of patient privacy to their advantage, peering above the counter to make sure their assignments were doing alright. Their assignments who were all under the age of twenty. Some much younger, just grasping at adolescence, others kissing young adulthood – those seemed much worse off, something darker rimmed their eyes, ghosted behind the lifeless face all of them wore.
It was a strange environment to be in, even more so due to how vague the progress notes were, history and physicals extremely short and never too in depth, especially when it concerned anything related to the patients’ family history or living situations. Something seemed off, something that tugged at you and made you yearn to break past the flat affect each patient met you with.
So many were here for a few hours and then gone the next, a constant influx of admissions and discharges. But, so strangely, there was never any patient education given, never any parents or guardians for the younger ones to go home to. They were always escorted from the unit by two “official personnel”. And watching their faces as Silver told them they were done with treatment and could leave, it killed you to see the faintest slash of fear quiver their bottom lips.
Beyond that, beyond seeing these younglings so fearful and defenseless, what clawed at your gut the most was that none of them had a name. They had no birthdate information, no address listed, no family contacts entered or even offered. They were all in the system only by the letters “FL” followed by a code of eight numbers. The nurses would refer to them by their room numbers to make it simpler, but none of them shared your concern for the lack of identity these patients were plagued with.
Yes, something seemed off, seemed wrong here. Something waswrong here, but you feared you would be gone before you ever knew what that was.
From the corner of your eye, you saw a tray left on an isolation cart next to a door. Heeding Silver’s command, you approached it, discarding the IV kit and feeling CB-7070’s focus catch your every step. You’d passed this door frequently, never seeing anyone approach it for longer than a few seconds at a time, assuming it was a closet for extra supplies or scanning machines. But the meal card on the tray indicated differently.
This was a patient’s room. The room number matched, there were no other doors labeled with it that you could see. No staff paid you any attention as you peered around. The only one watching was your white-armored shadow standing against a pane of glass.
Shrugging to yourself, feeling you couldn’t possibly get in trouble for delivering a patient’s food, you said over your shoulder to CB-7070, “I’m taking this in. I shouldn’t be long. Don’t follow me in here.” More to yourself, you sighed, “Even if I am the only one here concerned about privacy, I’d prefer not to violate anyone’s rights on my first day.”
CB-7070 nodded. “Affirmative,” her modulator croaked.
A swipe of your new badge gained you access past the door, a whoosh of air whipping through your skirt as it closed behind you. It was pitch dark, the only light coming from a holo-chart programmed into the wall. It appeared you were in an antechamber, those that often came with isolation patients, but there was nothing indicating this patient had any infection or ailment that necessitated a gown or mask.
The air was stale, like nothing and no one had stirred it in a few days, and the only glass visible was that of a window peering into the room beyond – or, it would be peering, were there not closed blinds on the other side of it.
You saw yourself in that darkened pane, clutching the tray to yourself, the first glimpse you caught of your face since the start of shift. Truthfully, you looked awful. Hair frizzed at your temples, a sheen of oil had gathered on your forehead, and exhaustion was evident in the puffy bags beneath your eyes.
But it was an earned appearance, no matter what Silver wanted you and everyone else to believe. Today you did your best and you interpreted and communicated abnormal findings, you assessed every patient without bias and documented everything you did. There were things you were unsure of, not having performed many skills while being assigned to Kylo, but you always asked for help, even though you realized it would be met with disgruntled aggravation after the first few times.
You had done everything right, understanding the consequences if you didn’t. As far as you were concerned, and even as much doubt as she’s caused you in the singular day you’ve known her, Silver was the problem. Not you.
And, not for nothing, the IV you missed earlier… not entirely your fault.
Kylo Ren picked the wrong day to Force-edge you. Or maybe it was you who really initiated the torture, but he’d been the one to follow through with his threat. Every hour had been memorable.
The first three had luckily occurred when you were away from patients but did earn you a few wary glances from the unit staff, your jaw set firm as you gave them a reassuring nod, hoping they couldn’t see how badly you were shaking as your cunt spasmed toward orgasm, but never got there.
There was something vicious in the rate at which he was forcing you toward the edge. Even though you couldn’t see or hear him, you felt like he was tormenting you with spite in mind rather than pleasure, like something you’d said or thought had angered him.
You didn’t have much time to consider that, though, as the hours went on and you’d begged the stars that the slick slipping from your center wouldn’t go past the hem of your dress. A few times you’d cursed the damned uniform, but quickly turned to cursing Kylo Ren for the ever-so-slightly too high hem. It’d surprised you that he never acted on those silent curses aimed at him, that it hadn’t earn you another hour riding the edge of pleasure while choking down the gasps and moans he’d surely intended to draw from you.
During lunch, you’d found a corner and ate alone, speaking to the wall and scorning Kylo under your breath, spitting empty threats, telling him to stop, to slow down. When that hadn’t worked and the Force picked up in pattern and pressure, nudging your clit just right, your hands had clamped around a plastic fork as you held on for dear life. He was nowhere near you and you’d almost cum four times over the course of your twenty-five-minute break. At that point, you’d considered begging him to let you cum, but part of you knew that would only lengthen his schemes.
Other times during shift, when Silver was rolling her eyes when you’d asked for her help, you’d felt the light, teasing lance of the Force trail along your neck. When you were priming tubing for a new admission, you’d felt the strange, unseen presence caress your ear like Kylo’s tongue might. And one hour, right after the previous had left you wondering if you’d be able to stand the next time you needed to – that hour where you’d traded your curses for pleading, traded the harshness you were spitting for the simple, hushed breaths you needed to outlast the never-ending torrent of pleasure he kept surging through you – the Force was kinder, something sentimental in the way it’d weighted your body like Kylo would, draped itself along your shoulders as sweat dried on your brow and the shaking of your legs settled.
A delicate, “Thank you,” had breathed over your lips when the Force – when Kylo’s teasing – seemed it would let up for the remainder of your shift.
But, of course, that peace had been temporary, a strategy to lapse your guard, to make you vulnerable when you’d most needed a clear mind and a steady hand. It had started with the gentle lulls you’d been left with, a stroking tendril swift over the column of your neck, the tourniquet tight to the patient’s arm as you poked their forearm in search of a vein. And when you informed Silver you’d found one, the Force deftly switched its attention to your pussy.
Silver had been scrutinizing you before, but when your shaking hand and short, shallow breaths appeared as fear instead of the pleasure they were born from, her brow had narrowed that much more. When you’d anchored the vein and aligned the needle – at her all-important fifteen-degree angle – your hand had shifted, jumped as your thighs tightened and you fought to trap a moan in your throat. It was an accident that the needle pierced the patient – and, worse, through the vein – at a greater angle, and it wrought you with emotion. Guilt for hurting the patient, shame for screwing up under Silver’s icy appraisal, and unyielding anger for Kylo Ren for causing your fuck up and not being able to explain that.
So here you were, taking the brunt of criticism and punishment for a mistake you wouldn’t have made had it not been for Kylo Ren, and studying your reflection in the scant light offered from the holo-chart of a patient you hadn’t known existed up until three minutes ago.
“Kylo,” you breathed, reaching for the second badge-scanner, “I can’t look bad here. The Board is watching. Hux is watching.” You glimpsed the radar fastened to your wrist, directing your tired eyes at Kylo’s indicator like he could feel your attention on him. “Give me this last hour and let me be good. Let me do well. Let me prove that I can to everyone who believes otherwise.”
A few seconds passed by as you waited for a reaction. Nothing came. The Force remained absent from you, and your shoulders dropped in relief. With a final glance at the chart, noting the patient’s identifier and checking it against the meal ticket, you swiped your badge and the entrance rushed open.
Darkness met you once more, but this darkness was heavier somehow. Not in the way untouched rooms are usually heavy – not with dust or grime – but a heaviness that clutched at your heart. It pressed into you, taunted you even as you remained a step outside the threshold. It was only shadows, unmoving and unremarkable darkness, but it clawed at you. It writhed at your feet and stirred your heart.
This was the darkness that lived behind each of those younglings’ eyes, but here it was concentrated, like this was the very source of it. Like this was its home.
“Hello?” you croaked, still not daring to pass into the shadow-thick room.
No answer, not even a stir. Nothing but that unyielding darkness.
You cleared your throat. “I, um, I have your dinner.” You took a small step forward. “Sorry for the wait… if there was one.”
More of the same. More of nothing.
A light switch entered your periphery with your next step, and you reached for it, but before you could flip it—
“If I wanted it on, do you think I’d be sitting in here like this?”
The voice was weak, small, but not that of a child. Not even that of an ill person, or an elderly one. It was male, though. Boyish, but not a boy’s. Somehow, the voice was young and old at the same time, as if the boy had lived long years already, and those years had worn him down.
The voice was a singular stream against the dark’s thick, silent wrath, and it was hollow, empty like the shadows before you should be. As the question ended, you found that it wasn’t bitterness or pain that lived in its tone, but rather a broken apathy, like whoever this was had cared and fought for so long but had ultimately lost in the end.
“Not that anyone here is really concerned about what I want,” came the voice again, an edge weighting its words.
Finally, you stepped completely into the room. You had to swallow a gasp when the entrance at your back locked shut. The tray jostled in your arms, but you succeeded at remaining upright.
With a sugary tone, you asked, “How will you eat if you can’t see your food?”
A huffed laugh, tired and bitter. “You should work on that nurse voice. Not very convincing.” A long, deep breath filled a few otherwise silent moments. “Send that tray back. Give it to someone who wants it.”
Without your “nurse voice”, you said, “Why did you order it—”
“—I didn’t. I never do. I’m being kept here, why would I want to sustain myself to make my stay that much longer?”
“Kept?” you whispered.
The longer you stood in place, the more your eyes adjusted. The room was still suffocated by the swamp of darkness, but there was some light after all. Scant, but there, a beam of the setting sun speared the room, and from what you had begun to make out of the body in front of you – a small form curled in the center of a bed – you found he was staring out of the broken blinds from which it came, like he was looking at something. Looking forsomething.
“Kept. Held prisoner. Restrained but not restrained because thatwould make this whole operation illegal, right? Whatever way you want to put it, I’ve made it obvious I don’t want to be here.” A long pause and a sad sigh. “Starvation is a better fate than most here, anyway.”
The more he spoke, the clearer it became that his voice wasn’t hollow, but burning with quiet fury. For what, you weren’t sure, but you realized this was the first patient who had spoken all day. And his tone, his words, only solidified the fact that there was something very, very wrong going on.
You walked closer to him, past the foot of his bed until you saw where the small slant of light was focused, what he continued to brokenly fawn over.
“What are you looking at?” you asked, leaning down so you could match your view with his.
He turned his head from the mostly covered window, the creak of light only possible through a bend in the blinds, and he looked at you, a flash of realization spreading through his features before he reined his expression into a void of dull emotion.
He stared at you as you stared at him, appraising you just the same. He was young, but it appeared as though his youth had been leeched from him. Long dark brunette curls framed his face and teased his shoulders, heavy with oil inherent of unkemptness. An immense sadness lived in the downturned state of his mouth, a contrasting anger set in the crease of his brow. And when you finally found his eyes, you restrained a shiver, as the deep hazel burned with that cleave of sun and struck you with the anvil of pain and desperation that lived in them.
He wasn’t alarmed at your proximity but confused. With a shaky voice, and something of a weak sneer biting at his mouth, he said, “You’re a sick, brutal cunt, you know that?”
“What? What do you—”
“What am I looking at? Do not patronize me!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Are you stupid or just cruel?”
“I’m not either, I—”
“You’re both!”
“I’m temporary! I don’t work here! I’ve been here for one shift! I’ve been on this planet for one day!”
Without missing a beat, but less heated and more restrained, the boy said, “Just stupid then.”
He continued to glare at you, but your eyes wandered back to the break in the blinds, and with narrowed eyes you found something that resembled a racing track. It was far out in the distance, but you knew that was what he had been focused on, sure of it by the way his demeanor shifted when you looked back down at him.
“Help me understand, then, if I am so stupid,” you whispered.
“You aren’t any different from the others, no matter if you’re temporary or not. Whatever that means, anyway.” The boy’s jaw set so firm you swore you heard it crack. “You don’t want to understand. If you did, if anyone cared so much, the Infirmary wouldn’t exist.”
“I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Help me?” the boy barked. He considered you for a moment, sun and shadow warring across the hollows of his cheeks as he did. Those pained eyes narrowed a fraction. “Who are you? What does temporary mean?”
You leaned away from him, straightening your posture and setting his tray on a counter off to the side. You offered your name, just the first, and dragged an absent-minded finger over the embroidery of your uniform. “Temporary means…”
Perhaps it was his already non-existent trust in you, but you did not think that informing him of the real reason you were here – telling him that your license and life were on the line and you were here so the Board of Physicians would have ease in their decision to end your life or not – would do much to foster his confidence in you, you took a second to frame it in a way that would appeal to him.
Clearing your throat, you kept his stare and said, “Temporary means that I’m here for less than two weeks, and I have no loyalties to any staff here. Temporary means that I do care so much, and I do want to help because temporary also means that I’ve seen some weird shit today, and I don’t understand it.” The boy’s brows raised for a fragmented second, but you knew you’d gained at least a small portion of his respect, so you continued.
With a lowered voice and an unbreakable stare, you said, “Temporary means that I am on your side, and if you let me, if you help me to understand what is going on, I will help you as best as I can.”
The boy shifted, ringing a hand around his opposite wrist, toying with the identification band secured there. He never stopped looking into your eyes, and you knew he was searching for deceit, but the longer he stared, the more he came up short.
You offered him your hand, observing how he flinched away from it, but keeping it extended as he considered it for another few moments.
“I told you who I am. Will you tell me who you are?”
It seemed like the darkness that surrounded you was watching with bated breath, watching in awe as the boy’s gaze remained on your extended hand.
He swallowed, and ever so slowly, with a hesitation that struck through your heart, he lifted his hand and clasped it around yours. The light from the broken blinds coiled around your matched hands, and for the first time today, you felt hopeful. And no matter how dim and breathless it was, a flicker of that same hopefulness played through his eyes.
“I…” the boy hesitated, so you squeezed his hand and offered a reassuring nod. His shoulders relaxed with his next breath. “I am Quynnland. With a ‘Y’.”
“Quynnland,” you parroted, trying it out and letting his hand go. “Do you have any nicknames? Like Quynn? Quynnie?”
“No one calls me Quynnie!” he roared. “Nobody calls me that except…” Quynnland shifted in bed, away from you, turning his face back toward that racing track. His bottom lip quivered, and he appeared as if you’d just lashed him with molten plasma.
“Quynnland,” you soothed, “nobody calls you that except who?”
He remained quiet, but he shuddered, and you saw the light glint off a stream that found its way down the slate of his cheek.
“I want to understand. I want to help you.” You swallowed against your throat, which had become markedly thicker since you last spoke. “Please, help me help you.”
Quynnland’s chin rose, his eyes fell shut, and he balled his hands into tight fists. He wasn’t angry, but in pain, and you knew from the sight of how broken he was that he’d been in pain for a long time now. Perhaps, it seemed, he had never known a day without it.
Just when you were about to speak, Quynnland coughed against a sob and whispered, “They won’t let me see him. He’s there on his own. He’s never been alone for this long.” A tight breath whipped into his chest. “They’re keeping me here so I age out. They’re keeping me away from him.”
“Who is he? What are you aging out of?” The more he offered, the more questions you thought of.
“I almost got us out this time,” he whispered. “I almost saved us both, but they caught me and dragged me away from him. He’s young, but that never stopped them before.” A wheeze of pain slipped from Quynnland’s lips. “They probably broke him just enough so he could still work.”
You didn’t know what to say to that, so you kept quiet.
After what seemed like an eternity, Quynnland spoke again. “My brother. That’s who gets to call me ‘Quynnie’. That’s who I tried to save, and that’s who is suffering because I failed.” He pushed an aggravated sound from his lungs. “The only way you can help me, is if you help him.”
“How do I do that?” you asked, watching as his fists relaxed at his sides.
Quynnland opened his eyes and bore the full weight of their pain into yours. He took a long breath and squared his jaw. “You get him away from the wardens, and then you get him out.”
“Where is he?” you asked, needing to know what that racing track he kept glancing toward was.
He went to answer, but a rush of motion sounded beyond his door, and just as quickly, the entrance to his room shot open. Quynnland ducked his head and balled his fists, and you turned to see that it was Silver who stood in his doorway. She wore an unfamiliar face, one of shock and terror, and you went to speak, but her hand whipped out and signaled that you would notbe saying a word until you left this room.
She stared at Quynnland a moment longer, surveying him like she’d never seen him before. “Eat your dinner. I won’t have you starving to death under my license, not now that this will be your last stay here.” Silver more so talked at him rather than directly to him, and her tone was hard and full of disgust.
It gave you another reason to hate her.
You wanted to reach out and take Quynnland’s hand, but Silver snapped at you before you could. “You,” she sneered. “Out. Now.”
The ice behind her eyes had seeped to her tongue, and her words froze the very blood in your veins. She watched you as you stepped around her and into the antechamber, and you glanced the final withering, aghast glare she shot at Quynnland as you did.
When you reached toward the door that opened to the hall, Silver caught your wrist just before your badge met it. She was eerily silent for a moment, and you swore she was practically shaking with rage, but then she settled herself and stared down at you with such concentrated antagonization that it knocked the breath right from your lungs.
“What made you think you could go into this room? I never went near this room with you today. Why would you be allowed to enter it alone?” She was seething, but she hid it behind something of a gnarled smile.
“There was a tray just sitting outside, unattended to. I figured I would find something to do and deliver it to the patient. No harm done.”
She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes on you. “Are you aware what this patient is here for?” she asked sweetly, but it came off as clear condescension.
Silver waited for you to answer, but you wouldn’t give her the satisfaction she wanted from humiliating you again. So you remained silent, and she sneered at you. “Exactly what I thought. So why would you interact with a patient you know nothing about? And did the double security not tip you off that you were somewhere you shouldn’t be?”
“Look, Silver,” you huffed, enjoying the disgust that smeared across her features as you said her name, “I saw a tray. I had nothing better to do. My badge had access to the room. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
She cast you an undying glare, and her eye twitched when she gave you a once-over. “This patient willfully tried to kill himself and his brother last week. Did he tell you that?”
Your heart blackened, and your ears rang with silence as she let her words sink in.
Silver was pleased with your shocked silence. She went on. “Oh, and did he tell you just how many times he’s tried to do this exact thing in the past?” You remained wordless, feeling betrayed for reasons you couldn’t understand. “No? Not even a guess? Well, he’s a unit regular, if that gives any indication.”
She waited again and was once more elated to be met with silence. “It’s the same story every time. The wardens say he takes his kid brother to the shore and plans on swimming out to the Falls and either drowning to death or dying from impact.”
You swallowed in vain, mouth drier than sand. A part of your knew you didn’t want the answer, but you still asked, “How old… how old is his brother?”
A sick, deathly smile creaked across her perfect face. “Of course, we don’t know exactly, but previous scans estimate that he’s no older than seven.”
Seven. A child. Quynnland had tried to kill his brother… had tried to kill himself and his kid brother…
“Next time, don’t poke around business you don’t understand,” Silver cut your panic short, her frigid tone icing your skin with gooseflesh. “Your shift is up.”
She shoved your shoulder on her way past, but before she could activate the door the room filled with bright red light, and a shrill alarm screamed through the ruby darkness.
It was your watch.
Endless, screeching notes sounded from your wrist. Your stomach dropped, and you couldn’t think for a moment, completely thrown back to that last hour on Starkiller Base.
Kylo was in trouble. Kylo was hurt. Kylo needed you and you weren’t there.
When you lifted your arm as your heart sank through the floor and you read the continuous scrawling message, your feet pounded the ground and carried you away from the unit to wherever he was, wherever your radar was guiding you.
All you could think of was him lying under you, his blood slipping along your skin, and his still, comatose body. And as you made your way to him, not seeing the world around you, hardly aware of CB-7070’s footfalls booming behind you, you kept rereading the message that raced along your watch’s screen, and as you turned corner after corner and fled down hundreds of steps and staircases, the simple, abbreviated message taunted you with the past.
ASSISTANCE REQUIRED ASSISTANCE REQUIRED ASSISTANCE REQUIRED
As it scrawled endlessly across the small screen, all you could think of was how this felt too familiar to the day Starkiller exploded. And the only thought that remained, the only one out of the thousand that flooded back from that day, was that you would fight for the future you’d realized you wanted then.
Only now did you admit the full truth of that thought: the only future you wanted was one where you could be with Kylo. The only future worth having, you realized, was the one where you would spend it with him.
So you ran toward your future. Just as you had run that day not so long ago, you ran toward Kylo Ren.
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#17: Risks
FFXIVWrite 2021 Challenge. Day 17: Destruct
Cw for vague suicidal ideation
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Okuni Tomioka loved her job. Really! She did. To have a self-made title, something she could fall back on in the event of a worst-case scenario...well, that was something to take pride in, was it not?
She loved it. She loved the layout of her office and the slightly stale scent of coffee that tended to linger overnight. She loved the little basket on her desk that she used to hold seasonal fruit. She loved the way the carpets depressed just slightly underfoot in a show of how plush and high quality they were.
But what she did not love was how much difficulty she sometimes had in leaving other stresses behind at the door. It made her work that much harder to focus on when her mind remained so fixated on other things. Things like conflict and insurmountable obstacles, feelings of isolation, thoughts about how others were doing, pondering the motivations of enemies and trying to puzzle out other things...
It made it hard to focus on the things right in front of her. These cases, these papers, the clients she met with...they were all matters she could handle, things she could produce tangible results with.
But sometimes she made snap decisions.
When her focus was stuck so tightly in other places, she did not always read the fine print or pay as much attention as she should. As a result, there'd been a number of times that she'd gone off on a job with only the most vague details, only to find herself neck-deep in trouble of the armed and dangerous variety.
She'd been hurt before. Badly, at that, returning to the office after the job with deep wounds and broken blades from having to fight for her life. Sometimes she only barely scraped by with that life intact, trailing blood over the plush carpets that she'd have to scrub viciously at later. On nights like that, having Abel as her assistant came in handy. He never asked too many questions, just patched her up and went on his way despite the look of rather intense concern on his face.
It was rare for her to show at other places with any evidence of her experiences. There wasn't any need to worry anyone. No need to draw attention. But she kept a darker secret to herself, alongside those injuries.
Sometimes she wondered when her attention would lapse to a point of getting her killed.
Sometimes she wondered if that too might go unnoticed.
And sometimes she wondered why that line of thought didn't bother her as much as it probably should.
#ffxivwrite2021#{sea serpent}#cw suicidal ideation#it's quite vague and mild but i feel the warning is warranted anyway
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Ghost
Pairing: Kenny Ackerman/OC
Warnings: Violence, Language. NSFW.
Words: 7k
Summary: Kenny Ackerman had never met someone with a reputation just as bad as his own.
AO3
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Part 4 of 4
Home
Snatching up one of Byren’s men was Kenny’s idea, and it was an idea Kenny executed with such proficiency and tact that it had Leyla shocked, disturbed, and a bit envious.
If she was a phantom, then Kenny was, for all intents and purposes, a predator.
Kenny had instructed Leyla to wait at her shop before he’d dragged the man in, beaten and bloodied to a near pulp, by the scruff of his neck. Leyla had hastily shut the blinds and arranged a chair for Kenny to sit the man in, before tying the man’s hands behind him with some spare rope. He’d fallen silent, by this point, opting to just glare at Kenny, teeth bared. Blood caked his face and the front of his shirt, dried and crusty and flaking away. One eye was swollen, and his lip was busted - the wound was fresh and still leaking. When he spoke, flecks of crimson flew.
“You have some fucking nerve, Kenny.”
Leyla recognized him, suddenly. It was the same guard Kenny had spoken to when he’d helped sneak Leyla inside the Byren estate. His eyes went from Kenny, to Leyla.
“Whore,” he spat. Kenny’s backhand was immediate - the man’s head snapped to the side and he spit out a flesh mouthful of blood, red saliva hanging in strings from his lips.
“You’d do best to speak to her respectfully. Ya’ know what I can do, and I know you’re scared shitless,” Kenny unsheathed his knife. He went to stand in front of the man, waving the knife like a kid waving a lollipop. “You’re gonna’ get real intimate with this if you don’t answer our questions.”
“I’m assuming you want to know about Vibro?”
“This little lady has a bone to pick with him,” Kenny jerked his knife in Leyla’s direction. “She’ll be asking the questions. I’m just here as...encouragement.”
Kenny’s lips curled back over his teeth when he spoke the last word, mouth shifting upwards into a grotesque smile. There was an audible shuffling of feet as the man tried to push himself away, but he couldn’t. He was trapped.
“O-okay.”
“Good,” Leyla said gruffly. She steeled herself for whatever resistance she knew she might face - she was intimidating, she knew, but Kenny was on another level that she’d never comprehend or be able to emulate. “The first thing I need - did Byren snatch a group of girls from the Underground’s orphanage? Five of them? Around twelve to sixteen years old?”
No response. Leyla could tell that he was pondering over how to give his answer, but Kenny grew impatience and promptly slapped him across the face once more.
“Answer her.”
“Yes! Yes. I..we..me and another were told to track them through the market...Byren has had an eye on the orphanage for a while. Getting willing sluts above ground is harder than just taking them from down here.”
Leyla’s stomach lurched. She and Kenny exchanged glances, before Leyla reached over and dragged a chair across the floor, letting it rest in front of the man and straddling it. She stared at him with hooded eyes, lips pulled into a taut line.
“Are they at the estate, still?”
“They’re alive, if that’s what you mean. They’re with the others,” the man gave a ragged cough, spitting out more blood. After he’d cleared his throat, he looked up at Leyla. “That’s all I can tell you. My job was just to grab them.”
The chair creaked as Leyla put more of her weight on its back. The man wasn’t pleading verbally, but she could see in his eyes the fact that internally, he was begging, screaming, for Leyla to show him mercy.
Leyla felt nothing but disdain for him. She also knew that it was pointless - Kenny wouldn’t let him walk out alive, even if Leyla tried to convince him to.
“Those girls are either going to be sold and trafficked, or die when Byren is finished with them,” Leyla snarled. “They’re children.”
“I told you, I just did my job,” the man replied. “You think I don’t know that they’re kids? You think I would ever fuck one of them? No. What Vibro does...is what Vibro does. There’s no stopping him. People who speak out don’t last long.”
Leyla tensed.
She’d been seven years old when her parents had been killed. She remembered their faces, remembered her mothers soft voice and her fathers comforting touch. But, each year, her memories of them were beginning to fade as time went on and on and on. It was a constant battle, trying not to forget. Trying to remember.
“You’re a coward,” Leyla breathed.
“I’d rather be a coward than be dead.”
Leyla closed her eyes. She let out a sigh, hearing Kenny snort beside her.
“How pathetic,” Kenny said softly. With shocking speed, he slammed the knife into the man’s shoulder, burying it to the hilt. The man let out a blood curdling scream, and Leyla’s eyes snapped open. Kenny continued, “There’s nothing I hate more than a fucking coward.”
“I’ll answer whatever questions you have,” the man sobbed. “Please. Please.”
Kenny flicked the knife with his pointer finger, easing back and letting it stay embedded in the man’s flesh.
With Kenny watching closely in the background, Leyla proceeded to drag as much information from her captee as she could. Locations, names, stockpile information - Byren had several caches of supplies around Mitras, and owned several storehouses out in other districts. She managed to get a rather simplistic, but helpful, layout of Byren’s estate as well. It was enough information to make her feel confident that she and Kenny could take on Byren as a duo, without possible help from a woman Kenny had mentioned was named Traute.
The man was sporting another swollen eyes by the end of it. One to match the other.
“That’s all I know,” he moaned.
“I believe you,” Leyla whispered. “Kenny…”
“No, please n-”
Blood and brains splattered against the back of his chair and across Leyla’s floor. The gunshot was loud, like a crack of thunder. Leyla had become so used to the sound that she barely flinched, watching the man’s body slump forward.
“I thought you’d never fucking ask. Asshole was gettin’ on my nerves,” Kenny let out a groan and rolled his eyes. He glanced at the carnage - bits of bone, hair, and bodily matter clung to the hardwood. “Shit. Sorry for the mess…”
“It’s fine,” Leyla said hallowly. “I’ll clean it.”
“Meet you at home?”
Home. Leyla looked around the shop - the wine bottles were gathering dust and some of the chairs had cobwebs criss-crossing from one leg to the next. It smelled stale.
This was no longer her home, she realized. The blood and brains were just an unfortunate decoration, at this point. Kenny’s apartment had been her place of residence for several months, and it already felt more congenial than the shop ever had. While she’d always love the place, it had been her grandfather’s legacy, not Leyla’s.
While she’d never have a true home with Kenny, she could pretend for now.
“Yeah,” Leyla said, her voice sounding a little less hollow and a little more hopeful. “I’ll meet you at home.”
______________
Leyla usually woke first, something Kenny was eternally grateful for. It gave him one of the most stunning views he’d ever have the pleasure of seeing - Leyla, clad in one of his button-up, white shirts and only one of said white shirts, walking around the apartment. He could see her from his room, reaching up to the top shelf of the cabinet to grab something, the shirt riding up past her thighs and giving him the shortest glimpse of panties and the curve of her supple ass. He’d be staring, and when Leyla caught him, she’d simply smile and slip out of his sight.
Fuck.
Kenny rolled over onto his back, bare chest rising and falling as he let out a long breath. There was an indent next to him where Leyla had been sleeping, and the area was still warm - she hadn’t been up very long. He heard shuffling in the kitchen, and footsteps. A moment later, Leyla entered the room with her arms crossed over her chest.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
Kenny raised an eyebrow. His eyes followed Leyla as she waltzed over to the bed, swinging her legs on either side of Kenny’s waist. She straddled him, leaning down to rest her head against his chest. Kenny basked in her closeness, groaning as his cock twitched beneath his thin sleep pants.
“Don’t care,” Kenny murmured. “Just want you right now.”
Leyla gave a rumbling chuckle. She pressed a kiss against Kenny’s chest, making her way up to his shoulder, neck, and then mouth. He buried a hand in her thick curls, hips bucking when her soft hands slid beneath his pants to grip the base of his dick. She jerked a few times before working on wriggling his sleep pants down past his hips, before doing the same to her panties. He could feel her slick against his thigh and he relished in her soft groans as she curled over him, deftly sliding the head of his cock past her soft walls.
“Sweetheart,” Kenny groaned. “So good...”
Leyla’s whimpers were consumed by Kenny’s questing mouth. He thrust upward, wanting nothing more than to tear as many sounds as he could from her throat. His hands gripped her hips, bouncing her on his dick with furious abandon until he felt his balls tighten and his stomach clench and he was shooting ropes of his cum deep inside of her.
“Kenny,” Leyla sighed, the prime indicator that her own orgasm was approaching - Kenny fucked up into her a few more, final times, before she was clenching around him and riding out her own release. She placed a damp kiss against Kenny’s shoulder, one hand lazily tugging at the grey-laced strands of hair on his head.
They lay together for a few moments, before Leyla rested her palms against Kenny’s chest and pushed herself up a bit. She stared down at him, full lips stretching into a smile.
“We need to eat. Have you decided what you want?”
“I was supposed to decide?” Kenny gave a breathy chuckle. “Show me what we have and I’ll make up my mind.”
Leyla rolled off Kenny, pulling her panties back in place. She yelped when Kenny placed a playful slap against her ass, bouncing away on the balls of her feet and disappearing back into the kitchen.
He did everything he could to remember this moment. Remember how it felt to hold her close and murmur sweet nothings into her ear - the previous night, he’d done his best to sear her touch into the very fabric of his mind. He’d taken his time with her, unwrapping her like a sweet, sweet gift and savoring each little sound he drew from her. It was addicting, but it was an addiction Kenny knew would never last a lifetime, no matter how much he wanted it to.
Kenny rolled out of bed, opting not to don his shirt for the time being. When he padded into the kitchen, Leyla was preparing fruit and slices of ham. She had her back turned and seemed to be caught looking out the window before her at the vast expanse of Mitras as she worked to cut up apples.
Was he making the right choice?
Kenny was beginning to doubt himself, doubt his decisions. It was the first time in a while he felt nervous - not for the blood and carnage he knew would ensue in a few days, but because he was genuinely wondering if the divine beings above, if they even existed, were sending him a sign. Leyla was here, in all her beauty, strength, and wit. Willing to settle with him once the deed of killing Byren was done.
He was going to choose a life of servitude to the King and to the MP’s over her.
There was a house out near Shiganshina for them, waiting.
“You’re staring again, Kenny,” Leyla said softly. Kenny shook his head, snapping out of his trance. He shoved the thought as far into the back of his mind as he could push it, walking over to settle at the table while Leyla brought over two plates arranged with berries, apples, and ham.
“I was just caught up in my own thoughts. Ya’ know how it gets,'' Kenny toyed with an apple slice. “I’m going to run recon on the estate later this evenin’.”
“Thank you,” Leyla said through a mouthful of food. She swallowed, plucking a berry from where it lay and analyzing it. “I want to get this over with. Make it smooth and clean...get those girls out of there.”
“This is a rescue mission now, huh.”
“Something like that,” Leyla murmured. She popped the berry into her mouth, chewing very slowly as she thought for a moment. When she swallowed, she took a second before speaking in a low voice. “I remember what it was like, crawling around the brothel, having to deal with clients...I did it on my own accord and still got treated like shit. I can’t imagine...what Byren is doing to those girls.”
“My sister was like you,” Kenny said tightly. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Same profession. I’m glad you got out.”
“What was your sister’s name?”
“You wouldn’t have known her,” Kenny replied. After a pause, he said, “Her name was Kuchel. I’d visit her sometimes, and I’d come in and see her bruised and battered because she’d refused to fulfill the fantasy of some sick deadbeat.”
“I hope she hit back,” Leyla said.
“Oh, I’m sure she did,” Kenny chuckled. He could tell that Leyla wanted to know more from the way she leaned in, head tilted to the side a bit. It was the first time, he realized, that he’d spoken about Kuchel out loud to anyone. There was a weird weight floating off his chest, and he found himself wanting to speak, wanting to talk more about her. It was weird, it was foreign, but Kenny had never shied away from something new, so he embraced the feeling. “Her kid though...her kid was - is - a damn spitfire. Craziest damn brat I’ve ever known - he hits hard.”
“You have a nephew?”
“Levi,” Kenny chuckled. “You and him would get along.”
“Hm,” Leyla hummed. “Tell me more.”
Kenny did.
The weight was gone by the time he’d finished. He felt free - as free as he felt when he was flying high over Mitras with his gear, soaring above the little ants below, able to go wherever he wanted, however he wanted. He spoke to Leyla of his grandfather, of Traute and the MP’s - of Uri, and the Reiss family. He took it slowly, revealing information bit by bit until he was confident that Leyla understood.
“It’s amazing,” Leyla breathed, when he was finished. “There’s a whole world outside of the Underground that I would have never known, had I not met you.”
“Big picture, sweetheart,” Kenny ran a hand through his hair. “You’re right. The world is much too big, and you’re much too good for it.”
“Kenny…”
“When this is all over, I’m packin’ up my shit with the MP’s and we’re going to find a house near Shiganshina,” Kenny said, chest clenching when Leyla reared back, startled. “Just you and me. We’ll buy some chickens or goats or some shit…”
Leyla covered her mouth as she laughed. She reached out and clasped Kenny’s hand, suddenly. “We said we’d talk about it after, Kenny. You have your dreams as well.”
He had dreams, but he hadn’t disclosed the specifics of them to Leyla during his explanation of Uri’s abilities. She’d taken it rather well, only inquiring once or twice about the nature of the Titan powers. Kenny had told her as much as he could, and he wondered if her apathy towards the situation was due to the fact that, for all intents and purposes, Titans were something Leyla had never had to deal with. If there was one positive thing about living in the Underground beneath the Mitras, it was that death via Titan was last on the list of ways to go.
“I just...fuck, I love you,” Kenny let out a breathy chuckle. He felt Leyla squeeze his hand, and his heart did somersaults in his chest. “If only we had more time…”
“We will have time, Kenny. I promise,” Leyla said sincerely. “We’ll try. I swear, we’ll try. But right now I’m...I’m not ready. I have to do this.”
Kenny said nothing. He’d heard it before - the excuse.
This time, however, it was different.
“I’m scared of being truly alone. That’s why. I stay in the Underground...I push myself to do things like this because even though I’ve always been a loner, I’ve always had the people down there...watching me, giving me a reason to keep going. I’m scared that if I leave, I won’t have that anymore.”
“You’ll have me.”
“I know. That’s why part of me thinks I might be ready, after this.”
Leyla leaned forward and pressed her lips against Kenny’s. He returned the kiss, savoring it - in the back of his mind he found himself beginning to think of where exactly in the city of Mitras he’d find a ring.
_____________
“Make sure your gear is secure,” Kenny tugged on the straps looped around Leyla’s arms and chest. “Wouldn’t want ya’ takin’ a tumble, now would we?”
“No. It would be embarrassing, and I know you’d get yourself shot laughing at me,” Leyla huffed. She grazed her fingers across her chestplate, glancing up at Kenny as he bared his teeth in a smile. “Oh, stop it.”
“Can’t help it. Ya’ make me laugh.”
“Your cruelty knows no bounds, Kenny Ackerman.”
A thumb tilted Leyla’s chin upward. Kenny’s mouth met hers, and she immediately melted into his arms. He nipped at her lower lip when he pulled away, his breath hot against her cheek.
“Ya’ love me anyway.”
“Always.”
The sun had dipped below the walls long ago, and Mitras was now a sprawling city alight with lanterns. The Byren estate was just a pump of air away, and Leyla could see the top of the house from the roof she and Kenny were currently crouched upon. It seemed so close, yet so far at the same time.
The plan was rather simplistic in nature, but one slip up could bring the entire operation crumbling to the ground. It was Kenny’s task to take out any watchguards stationed around the estate while Leyla would soar over and squeeze through to Byren’s room on the top level. Any shootout that ensued after wouldn’t serve to alert any outdoor guards, who, from what their captee had told them, were instructed to signal for backup using flares. They’d come from all over Mitras along with the MP’s, something they - especially Kenny - couldn’t risk.
Byren was still in the dark about Kenny. Their captee had also informed them that, while Byren had his suspicions, he hadn’t seen nor heard Kenny during the initial attack.
Bold. That was the only word for the plan.
“See ya’ on the other side,” Kenny said playfully. He shot his hooks into the adjacent building, gas projecting him forward and out of sight, leaving Leyla utterly alone with only the cool night air to soothe her.
“Showtime,” she murmured. Mimicking Kenny’s actions from earlier, she shot a projectile into the building opposite of her, letting the gas launch her into the sky. Her mind was hyper focused on remembering her training - how to duck, move her body so the gas sent her careening one way, and then the other, then the other...Leyla had the rhythm down. She approached the Byren estate with careful ease, pulling herself onto the rooftop, right where she and Kenny had planned.
The area was dead silent. The lanterns were lit, but then was an eerie stillness to the mansion that sent chills down Leyla’s spine. She peered over the edge of the roof, locating the window where she knew, beyond, Byren resided. She prepared herself, making sure her guns were loaded, before swinging down from above and bursting through the glass. The entire thing was messy, loud, and sudden - if Kenny had finished with his task, there would be no guards alerted.
Byren was right where Leyla had anticipated he’d be, curled up in bed with some woman Leyla didn’t recognize. At the sound of breaking glass, he rolled from bed - Leyla could see him begin to fumble for something in the drawer of his bedside table, and as quickly as she could, she aimed a shot directly above the headboard. The resounding crack, and the impact, caused Byren to pause the search for his weapon and for the woman in his bed to scream and cover her ears.
Byren sunk to his knees at the foot of his bed. He looked up at Leyla, expression blank.
“I knew you were more than just a whore. Look at you - so brave-”
“Don’t fucking move,” Leyla hissed. She pointed the gun directly at Byren, waiting - as if on cue, Kenny burst through the bedroom door. He was panting, breastplate speckled with blood.
“Hope I didn’t miss anything,” he tipped his hat in Byren’s direction. “Bedroom is secure?”
“As secure as it can be,” Leyla replied. She looked Byren up and down - she could see that his right hand was wrapped in tight gauze, his fingers having been reduced down to nubs from where Kenny had all but vaporized the limb. His face was pallid, and he had dark circles beneath his eyes. There was still that crazed look Leyla had seen when he’d killed Marissa. It hadn’t been stomped out.
Leyla wondered what look he’d given her parents when he’d had them killed.
“I should have known,” Byren gave a breathless, struggling laugh. “You and I never saw eye to eye, Kenny. A shame it had to come to this.”
“This little lady here was far kinder to me than you ever were. Her cause was far more noble than anything you ever employed me for,” Kenny waved his gun dismissively. “It’s a damn shame, but as we all know, this world is cruel. Damn cruel.”
“You could have been anything, Kenny. I always admired you,” Byren bared his teeth. “Your unforgiving ferocity. You could have been like me - we were built for this, Kenny. Inside these walls, where there’s no Titans - people like us are the inheritors of everything.”
“I have my own damn dreams, and they certainly don’t involve whatever fucked up operation you’ve got goin’ on here,” Kenny growled. “Leyla?”
Rolling her shoulders, Leyla’s first matter of business was getting rid of the cowering, shivering prostitute in Byren’s bed. The woman had uncovered her ears and had been listening to their discussion with interest, finally having realized that they weren’t here for her. Her eyes fell across Leyla, and she seemed as if she desperately wanted to speak, but fear was choking her into silence.
So, Leyla spoke to her directly, making sure to soften her tone. “There are more girls here. Where are they?”
“Don’t-” Byren began, but Kenny had his gun aimed before he could make a move towards the woman.
“Downstairs, in the main room.”
“Thank you. Get out of here - take what you need on the way out.”
The woman nodded. She pulled a coat on over her flimsy nightdress, donned a pair of slippers, and ran out the door. There was a moment of silence before Leyla decided to speak again, but her words were interrupted by the sound of hooves against cobblestone, rough voices, and shadows passing through the door and across the wall from outside.
Kenny’s eyes snapped to the source of the sound, and Byren began laughing.
“You’re both idiots. You, especially,” Vibro Byren sent Leyla a death-glare. “Trying to take me on because you're bitter that I blew your parent’s brains out.”
Several things happened at one time. The door to the bedroom burst open, and Byren made a break for it. Leyla fired off a shot that missed and tore through the goose father pillows on his bed, sending tendrils of white flying. Kenny popped off a series of double-shots that embedded themselves in the two guards who were just raising their guns to fire -
As they fell, Byren barrelled past them and disappeared down the hallway.
“Ah, SHIT,” Kenny’s curse was booming. He looked at Leyla for direction, gesturing wildly. “New plan?”
“Go after Byren. Kill him,” Leyla began backtracking towards the busted window. “I’m hitting the lower level and grabbing the girls. We’ll regroup in the courtyard.”
Kenny nodded. He took off after Byren, and Leyla catapulted herself from the window. As she fell, wind tearing at her hair, she shot a hook into the ledge and used her gas to allow herself to float smoothly down to the first floor. The front doors to the estate were abandoned, and two corpses littered the stone stairs. Leyla stepped past them, pushing her way into the building. The great room was just ahead, and she could hear voices - she pressed herself against the wall, peering around the corner.
Leyla recognized Presley immediately. The older teenager had always greeted Leyla with a hug when she’d come to the orphanage - she had a fiery personality and had, on more than one occasion, begged for Leyla to take her on raids.
She was here, now, clad in flimsy lingerie and arguing furiously with one of the guards. Her face was red and Leyla could see a bruise on the side of her face - behind her, four other, younger girls were huddled.
“Sit the fuck down! Byren should be down here in a minute,” one of the men brandished his handgun threateningly. “Don’t make me hit you again!”
Presley reared back and spat a globule of saliva onto the man’s face. His response was immediate, and he swung his gun like a club, catching Presley in the cheek and knocking her flat on the floor.
Leyla broke from cover. She counted three other guards meandering around the room - two by the kitchen, one by the fireplace, and the other, standing over a downed Presley with a sneer on his face. Killing the single guard by Presley was easy, and as her shot hit home, she sent one hook into the throat of the guard closest to the kitchen, using her gas to launch her forward and towards his companion.
Blood gushed onto the hardwood as the hook tore past flesh and cartilage. The man gave a wet, gurgling cry and toppled, accidentally discharging his gun and shattering the lights of the chandelier above. Another buckshot whizzed past Leyla’s face, but her focus was on man still standing and fumbling with his weapon. A single shot was all it took to kill him.
“LEYLA!” Presley’s shriek was urgent, guttural - it screamed danger.
Leyla turned. The remaining guard, the one by the fireplace, had his gun raised towards the girls. A switch went off inside Leyla, and Kenny’s training hit her like a wave - push, click, reload. Kenny would have been proud of her speed, she mused, letting the steaming barrel of her gun hit the floor, the remaining piece slipping into a new barrel with rhythmic precision. She moved before she fired, tossing herself with the aid of the gas in between the guard and the huddled, terrified girls. She wasn’t sure who fired their gun first, her, or the guard, but Leyla’s shot hit home.
As did his.
As the guards head erupted in a spray of crimson, Leyla felt the projectile tear through her. Instead of landing on her feet, like she’d intended, she fell on her side and slid a few yards before coming to a stop against the side of the couch. The impact jostled her, and she felt blood begin to pour from her mouth and nose. She could barely breathe. It felt as if a heavy hand were pressing against her lungs from the inside, twisting and squeezing.
“Fuck.”
____________
Byren was fast, but Kenny was faster.
He’d opted to take a left instead of heading towards the lower floor, bounding down yet another long hallway where more of his men were waiting - the bloodbath had been glorious. The walls were painted with streaks of red, now, and Byren was struggling to stem the flow of blood from the bullet wound Kenny had blasted through his thigh.
Half a dozen corpses littered the floor. Kenny stepped over each, sighing deeply as Byren continued to try and crawl away.
“All your men are dead, Vibro, including the pathetic backup you brought. Give it up,” Kenny couldn’t hold the exasperation from his tone. Byren was all talk and no bite. He’d made one pathetic swipe at Kenny with a knife before a bullet had put him on the floor - utterly hopeless, propped up only by his sadistic demeanor towards those less fortunate. It was why he probably aimed for young prostitutes, Kenny mused.
“She must have gotten into your brain,” Byren threw back his head and laughed, tears brimming in the corner of his eyes from the pain of the hole in his leg. “Is she that good in bed, Kenny? I know she used to be a whore. I could tell the moment she shoved her tongue down my throat.”
Kenny felt something stir in his chest, and he rolled his eyes. He stomped forward and slammed his heel into Byren’s wounded leg, dragging a scream past the man’s lips. It was satisfying, and now, it was Kenny’s turn to laugh.
“You really are good for nothin’,” Kenny raised his gun. “She gave me permission to kill ya’. For her parents.”
“I hope all of this was worth it.”
“For her? Yeah,” Kenny let out a sigh. He locked eyes with Byren, not wanting to drag this out any further.
A single gunshot was all it took.
Byren lay dead with his men. Kenny surveyed the wrecked hallway, and the estate had finally fallen silent. Whatever backup Byren had managed to pull together had been nothing more than a few mooks. No MP’s, though Kenny was beginning to wonder if their absence had been deliberate, somehow. It was rare that they wouldn’t come to the aid of some sniveling noble, especially one as relevant as Byren.
Kenny went and picked his hat up from where it had fallen during the scuffle. Sheathing his guns, he made his way down the stairs and towards the great room.
“...lift her up. No, not like that - keep her head elevated so she can breathe…”
Kenny’s heart began to drop a million miles a second.
Five girls were huddled around Leyla’s motionless body. Their state of sparse dress barely phased Kenny. All he could focus on was Leyla, and how her body was so still, save for the occasional twitch of her fingers and her eyes, which were open and staring and locking onto his own as he sank to his knees next to her.
Her shirt was sticky with blood, so much of it that it caused the fabric to cling to her flesh. The girls had removed her breastplate, and one, the oldest looking of the group, was pressing what looked to be a hand towel against the wound.
Kenny had gauged many, many wounds in his life as a squad leader and serial killer. No amount of medical attention in the world could save her.
Hopeless.
“...Kenny?”
The girls stepped away as Kenny moved closer. They were silent, watching with their heads ducked as Kenny took Leyla’s trembling hand in his own. Glassy eyes searched his face.
“I’m right here, sweetheart. I’m here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize. Ya’ don’t have to,” Kenny let out a ragged breath. He couldn’t cry in front of these girls. It was some code, some unbroken vow he’d made to himself. With a furious wave, he shooed the girls away - the oldest teenager seemed reluctant to go.
“Is...is she going to be okay?”
“No. You girls don’t need to be here to see the aftermath. Go home, back to the orphanage,” Kenny said briskly. When they didn’t move, he barked, “Go!”
They obeyed. When the sounds of their feet had finally faded away, Kenny broke - he leaned down to rest his forehead against Leyla���s, feeling her feebly lift another hand to rest against the side of his face. His tears were wet and hot and his cries were muffled. When he pulled away, there was a smile on her lips.
“This is bullshit,” Leyla gave a wet chuckle. “I wish...I wish we had more time, but I m-made my choice. I...”
“You didn’t waste your life,” Kenny said quickly. “You didn’t.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes,” Kenny looked towards the staircase leading to the upper floor. “It’s done.”
Leyla gave a soft hum of contentment, and the noise damn near broke Kenny’s heart for good. It was the same hum she’d give in the morning, when she’d be trying to wrestle Kenny from bed. The fact that he’d never hear that noise again wasn’t something ready to accept.
She had to live. She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t -
“Don’t sulk,” Leyla said. “Don’t you d-dare fucking sulk. You have...dreams to pursue, Kenny.”
“I understand,” Kenny raised the bloody hand in his palm and kissed it fervently. “Shit, I just…”
There’s so much I want to say to you.
“I know,” Leyla breathed.
____________
He buried her in the cemetery next to her parents.
Kenny dug the hole himself. It took several hours, and by the end of it, he felt no different. He’d thought doing the act would bring him some closure, a feeling of relief.
Putting her in that hole only brought him more grief, though he’d done a good, good job of shutting it in a box and tossing away the key.
Having Leyla violently ripped away from him had only worked to make the self-hate he had for himself resurface tenfold. He knew he shouldn’t be feeling like shit, even though he knew he was shit - he’d always been shit. Kuchel had always been the good one, not him. He’d always believed that Kuchel should have been the one to survive, not him.
He’d walked away from Levi on his own accord. Uri had been taken due to circumstances out of his control. Leyla’s death had been on her own volition, she’d made it very clear that Kenny wasn’t to blame, but if only Kenny had been better. Stronger, smarter, faster.
He had to be better. He would be better in the future.
But now, right now, all he could think about was the fact that Leyla was a cold corpse wrapped in sheets and he was alone.
He slammed the shovel into the ground. The rectangle was big and deep enough, and for a moment, he could only stand awkwardly and shift back and forth on his feet. It was a funeral of one, he realized.
After a while, he placed Leyla in the dirt and began covering her. That task took half as long but was no more painful, no more agonizing. The tombstone he made was wooden, created using floorboards from the shop. He’d simply sketched her name - no birthdate, no last name. Leyla had never told him the first, and he wondered if she even had the latter.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Kenny turned. It was Mika - the older woman had a small bouquet of flowers in one hand. She was bundled up in a jacket, and despite the circumstance, she had a small smile on her face.
“Come to pay your respects?”
“I wasn’t sure who was going to bury her. News from the orphanage spreads fast,” Mika stepped forward, placing the flowers in front of Kenny’s pathetic little headstone. “She’d told me, many, many times, that this was how she’d die. I just...wasn’t exactly prepared for it to happen.”
“I tried to get her to stop. She wouldn’t. Stubborn bitch,” Kenny snorted. Mika just stared down at the grave, lips pressed into an unassuming line. “She would go on and on about how much this town meant to her. I never got it.”
“She saved so many of us. I wanted her to stop, too,” Mika said somberly. “Even though I don’t think a lot of us would have made it…”
“It’s shit, what they do to you down here.”
“Us,” Mika glanced up at him. “I know you lived down here. I’ve heard the stories - Leyla told me who you are.”
“I’m nobody.”
“Everyone is somebody,” Mika reached out and patted Kenny’s dirty arm. “If you ever need a place to stay, my home is open to you. It’s what she would have wanted.”
Mika turned and left. It was the last time Kenny would probably ever see her again.
He stood by Leyla’s grave for a while, before visiting the spot where Kuchel was buried for the first time in almost a decade. Her grave was just as pathetic as Leyla’s, though hers sported a much more impressive headstone.
When he resurfaced and found himself in Mitras. He threw himself into his squad work, ignoring soft inquiries from Traute. The heaviness in his heart did not dissipate, but he wouldn’t let it affect his work - he couldn’t. He had to honor Leyla’s instructions. Honor her by inching closer and closer to his goals.
Two months passed without incident. It was mid-spring when he was called in to speak with Laurens about a potential squad mission. The short, middle-aged man was utterly reprehensible to Kenny, but he was the buffer between the nobility and the interior MP’s - he held an enormous amount of power, but had always respected Kenny’s autonomy, most likely out of fear. Kenny did what he asked, but only when he wanted to.
“I’m very happy that you took care of Vibro,” Laurens snickered and lifted his whiskey to his lips. “I don’t care how you did it, I’m just glad you did something about that menace.”
“I felt like taking the initiative, considering how he’s been a thorn in your side,” Kenny lied. He kept his face neutral, but he’d realized that the absence of MP’s and Traute’s...insistence that she help had, most likely, all been organized. Byren had far less allies than he’d bragged about.
“His sadism was getting out of hand and making us look bad. What’s done is done. I have a new job for you,” Laurens emptied his glass and ran a hand through his thin, balding hair. “There’s been reports of more thieves - five of them, specifically. Doing the same thing as that man or woman from before.”
“Thieves?” Kenny’s eyebrows shifted ever so slightly.
“Dressed in all black, nabbing rations from the MP’s. Even stole a horse - probably sold it off in the market,” Laurens waved a hand. “I want your whole squad on it. Catch them and kill them-”
“No,” Kenny said.
“Pardon?”
“I haven’t heard any reports of thieves. Things go missing all the time - hell, half the time, it’s the damn MP’s themselves stealing or misplacing rations,” Kenny leaned forward, baring his teeth in a sickeningly sweet smile. Laurens response was just as he’d anticipated; a shuddering gulp, and a raising of both hands. “Come back to me with something less boring. You’re seeing ghosts, Laurens, and nothin’ more.”
“You never say no to a job, Kenny-”
“I’m saying no today,” Kenny slammed a wad of cash onto the table, excusing himself. He began to light a cigarette, letting it hang between his teeth as he spoke. “Drinks are on me. You’re welcome.”
He left Laurens, who remained sitting in disbelief, to go take a stroll through the streets of Mitras.
End
#kenny ackerman x reader#kenny ackerman/reader#kenny ackerman#snk fanfiction#aot fanfiction#snk#attack on titan#shingeki no kyoujin
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Assassins AU wip
So I've been thinking a lot about Southern Raiders Katara, and what her character would be like if she'd been raised to indulge that darkness. And then the thought "Kataang AU but they're assassins" made me laugh out loud in a meeting, and now here we are. But I've written like 10k words and am somehow still at the beginning? How do people write long things? What and how is plot? Ugh. Whatever. Have a chapter.
--
Aang’s eyes skimmed the crowd of Fire Nation nobles moving like a single organism under the ostentatious chandelier. Ozai’s parties were always tense affairs, an enjoyable night as likely as a gruesome public execution, but this one was especially anxious. The guard was double what Aang had seen on previous evenings. They weren’t just stationed at the doors but milling about the crowd, weapons on their hips, daring anyone to step out of line. Another bomb had gone off near parliament that week, and according to Aang’s sources Ozai’s paranoia was calling the shots even more than usual. This function was an expression of that more than anything else, a flimsy excuse to gather the most wealthy and powerful of his citizens and flex his muscles. Remind them of the closeness of his watch, the price of treason.
Aang’s eyes skated over the dance floor and paused. The dancing at these was without fail the most stilted he’d ever seen. He understood that in the Fire Nation, dancing was mostly ceremonial, a way to show respect for their host, an expression of patriotism made at gunpoint. It was the most stiff and joyless part of these stiff and joyless evenings. But this time Aang’s eyes caught on something new.
She was swaying in a sheer, dark red dress that he could just see the outlines of her body through. Thick dark hair swept up into a fashionable loose pile on her head, a few tendrils brushing her dark shoulders. No one thing about her was particularly out of place, other than being of obvious water tribe descent, a relative rarity in the capitol. But everything together caught him. It was the sway of her hips, he decided. The way she moved as if a part of the music, rather than shifting awkwardly alongside it like the other dancers. A fighter, certainly, from the lean definition of her bare back and shoulders. Aang wondered if she was one of the guards Ozai had hidden amongst the crowd. That would be odd, he thought he had files on all of them. And a woman from such far flung colonies would be a highly unusual choice for a palace assassin.
Tsungi horns blared, announcing the entrance of the ruling family, and Aang snapped his attention to the door, frowning at the unusual lapse in focus. The musicians fell silent and an abrupt stillness settled over the crowd. Attendants entered first, followed by yet another unit of guards. Aang wondered dryly if Ozai had ever considered the difference between displaying strength and paranoid weakness. A little shiver went through him as Ozai’s children entered. In studying this family he’d encountered all manner of atrocities, but something about the princess in particular unsettled him. He’d had the chance to observe her in person a handful of times now. Ozai’s heir was haughty and beautiful as always, but as her eyes swept too near to him and he had to concentrate on not tensing visibly. The monks had taught him that every life contains the same precious spark of humanity, and he’d never had cause to doubt this before seeing Azula up close for the first time, looking into her eyes, and seeing absolutely nothing staring back at him.
Ozai finally entered with a few military leaders and Aang’s body ticked into higher alert. He took a deep, stabilizing breath. He was as prepared for this as he’d ever be. Tonight was the result of years of carefully maneuvering himself into the capital’s moneyed elite. Everything was in place, every edge case planned for. If there was ever a chance to remove the dictator for good, it was tonight. He was ready.
--
Katara’s eyes tracked the commanders up the steps to the dias. She felt the familiar heat under her skin as she finally sized up her target in person, taking advantage of the whole room’s focus on him to take a first and only long look.
Ozai was older than he appeared in the propaganda plastered across every city, every textbook, every yuan. Their Glorious Leader. Her lip curled in disgust but she smoothed it into a tepid smile. He had a spray of gray across his temples, a sharp jaw, and deep set eyes hung with dark circles. His posture was slightly askew, probably a shoulder injury. She thought he favored his left leg, but wasn’t close enough to be sure. His expression was tense and he muttered sporadically to the man on his left. He was wearing a military style jacket in a deep red, plush looking material. She could tell from the way it sat against him that he had body armor underneath.
It was strange to finally see him in person, the man she’d spent her whole life training to kill. The corner of her mouth quirked up. She’d never been so ready for anything in her life.
Her dance partner slipped an arm around her waist as the music started back up. “A drink?” he asked. She smiled up at him and nodded, letting him guide her to the bar. It had been embarrassingly easy to get invited to this. After a ten minute conversation with Kazin at the university library she had her in. She’d had several backup plans of course, every piece of intel said getting here would be the hardest part. She rolled her eyes. White Lotus leadership had always had a penchant for dramatics.
Katara leaned against the bar and smiled at Kazin, half listening to him dribbling on about his father’s mining operation and half scanning the room over his shoulder. If security was this insane in the rest of the palace she’d have to rework some of her plans. Idiot militants. What the hell was blowing up a building half a block from a dummy parliament supposed to accomplish? If she ever saw Jet again she’d wring his stupid neck.
“Kazin, my darling, I didn’t know you were back in the city!” An older woman pressed a kiss to her date’s cheek and shot her a curious look. Katara automatically slid her face into a blank and amiable mask.
“Yes, school started last week. Auntie Azina, this is Zaia, from the northern colonies. She’s studying medicine at the university.”
“The northern colonies, how...exotic” the woman finished, narrowing her eyes slightly. “I didn’t know they were admitting colonials now. How times have changed.” Katara let the blankness seep deeper into her, enveloping herself in it the way Master Iroh had taught her. A lie cannot be detected if you make it your truth. Sweet, simple Zaia smiled wider and grasped the woman’s hand a touch too enthusiastically.
“Oh, it’s a dream come true, getting to study in the capital! I’m just so lucky to have been chosen.”
“Don’t be modest. Zaia was the top student at her university.” Kazin puffed up magnanimously. “Why wouldn’t we want the best minds of the colonies enriching our great civilization?”
“Hmm,” Azina had already lost interest in Katara and was scanning the room. “Ah! Ulan!”
A man in his 50s approached their group, kissing Azina lightly on the cheek. “This is my nephew, Zura’s son. Ulan was a dear friend of your father’s. Runs our shipping in the greater kingdom.” Kazin and Ulan exchanged pleasantries, Katara blissfully forgotten. Her attention caught on the quiet young man beside Ulan. She kept her eyes on the conversation, sizing up the newcomer in her periphery.
He was tall and lean, with dark hair shorn close to his scalp, sharp, elegant bone structure, and overly kind eyes that got her hackles up. She knew how to make her eyes kind too, and what sort of situations she did so in. A little too young and a little too handsome to sit right with her as a foreign shipping mogul. Maybe a rich kid working a cushy job for daddy’s company? There were certainly plenty of those in this city. He kept his eyes on the conversation as well, but something about his stance made her uneasy. The way he held himself felt...practiced. Maybe undercover security detail? No, that wasn’t right either. He wasn’t native Fire Nation, he couldn’t possibly work in the palace.
“Ah, how rude of me! This is my emissary from New Ozai City, Azan” Ulan said, gesturing to the young man. Cushy job with daddy after all. Kazin shook his hand as his Aunt flicked her eyes to the ceiling and pressed her lips into a thin line. Guess she didn’t like former colonials any more than current ones. A guard pressed close as he walked past the bar and Karara took a casual sip from her drink, slipping her arm through Kazin’s and angling her body slightly to keep him in view as he passed.
“And who is this lovely thing you have here.” Ulan drew closer than necessary and grinned down at her. He smelled like stale rice wine and the spicy fermented onions sitting in little bowls along the bar. Katara had a strong stomach, but it got a run for its money when he leaned in to kiss her cheek. When Kazin spoke up to introduce her she smiled and ducked her head as if overwhelmed by the attention rather than the smell.
“Charmed,” came a soft, deep voice on her left. Cushy Job Boy gave her a small bow and met her eyes directly, holding her gaze intently until she looked away. She really didn’t like that. She returned the bow with a warm smile and turned her attention back to her date.
“Another dance, Kazin?”
“If you insist, darling” he answered indulgently, as though speaking to a child. He steered her back to the dance floor, launching into a lecture on different types of mineral extractants as she noted the guards rotating their shifts around her.
--
When she saw the first stirrings of the next shift change, she excused herself to the restroom. Kazin barely acknowledged her, deep in conversation with an old general about iron ore. She couldn’t have dreamed up a better mark if she tried.
She’d spent weeks memorizing the palace layout and slipped quickly up a flight of stairs, down a hall, down two more flights, and into a servant’s wetroom near the back of the building. She swung herself up to a vent near the corner of the ceiling, bracing a foot against one wall and her shoulder against the other, and got to work on the screws holding the grate in place. Her ears pricked for the sound of footsteps, her hands made quick work of it with a tool from the small leather satchel that had been pressed between her breasts all night. When the last screw was loose, she dropped back to the floor, pulled her dress over her head, bundled it tightly around her waist, and swung herself smoothly into the air duct, pulling it shut behind her.
The vent was slightly smaller than she’d expected, and it was slow work making her way through. That was fine, she’d left herself plenty of time. The party hadn’t even begun to break up yet.
Much of the journey was directly up, and she inched one foot, then the other, then her back up the metal plates of the ventilation system. It wasn’t particularly taxing; she was in excellent shape and had practiced this a thousand times over the last few months. It would have been boring if not for the thrill of being so close to her target. She’d hunted men before, but it had always felt like preparation for this. None of them were half as thrilling, though she’d thought Yon Rha would have been. It should have been sweet to end the life of the man who had, in every way that counted, ended hers. But for some reason it wasn’t. Maybe he ruined it by begging. She’d been hoping for a good fight.
When she reached the top floor, she pulled herself into a smaller, auxiliary vent and made her way to Ozai’s chamber. It was even more important to be utterly silent now, as she could clearly hear the movements and conversations of the servants below her. Perspiration beaded on her skin as she moved, creeping like a crab in her thin pants and cropped undershirt. Finally, she peered through one of the grates and saw the interior of Ozai’s private chambers. She stretched out carefully so that her limbs wouldn’t fall asleep and settled in to wait.
--
Aang watched Ozai get drunker than usual before retiring from the ballroom. That might make his job easier. When the first waves of people began heading for the exits, he carefully lost Ulan and headed to meet his contact in a half-hidden alcove in the inner hall. Ishran was already there, a slight man with a sheen of sweat on his balding head and a great deal of tension in his shoulders. This was no trained agent. Not for the first time, Aang wondered what had made this man decide to risk so much. It wasn’t the sort of thing one asked.
Ishran gave Aang a curt nod and pressed his fingers into the wall behind him. A servant’s door swung open and they disappeared through it.
“There will be a three minute gap between guard shifts outside his quarters. I hope that is enough, it’s all I could manage.” Despite his shaky appearance, Ishran’s voice was sharp and even as they climbed the windowless staircase. Aang was impressed he’d been able to pull that off. He was assuming he’d have to operate in complete silence.
“That’s more than enough. You’ve outdone yourself.”
A soft hmph was his only response. After several minutes they came to a stop.
“I’ll make sure he’s asleep, then wave you through.” Aang nodded, Ishran was the only one of them who could possibly excuse his appearance if Ozai was awake.
Ishran squinted at Aang for a moment, before turning to the large, stone door.
--
When Ozai finally shuffled in, sweating and stinking of liquor. Katara wrinkled her nose. A drunk target was usually too easy to be fun, but for him she’d make an exception. She spent the first half hour Ozai was asleep going over the layout. A large, canopied bed dominated the majority of the chamber. Gold and red tapestries adorned the walls, embroidered with dragon-dense battle scenes, and an ornate desk sat between the bed and the balcony.
When Ozai had been still for half an hour or so, Katara lowered herself out feet first, dangling for a moment before dropping to the floor without so much as a whisper of fabric to give her away. She felt the adrenaline rise in her. She let it make her stronger, clearer.
Katara crept to the bed. Ozai was already on his stomach. How helpful. She slipped the garrote from her shirt and in a swift, clean motion, had him pinned. Her hands tightened the cord around his throat at the same moment her legs clamped his arms to his body and her ankles locked around his chest. He jerked in her grasp and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. She’d placed the thin, woven wire with surgical precision, blocking not just air and blood, but preventing his throat from sliding into a position that could produce sound. He reared back against her and her back slammed into the wall with more force than she expected, his strength apparently untempered by age or alcohol. The wind was knocked from her, but her hold on him stayed true. He stumbled forward and slammed back again, this time catching her against the edge of the desk. A sharp snap like a whip being cracked split through the silent chamber. She gritted her teeth, pouring all her focus into her hold on him. The second time she hit the desk the snap was more of a wet crunch, and even through the haze of adrenaline she felt pain shattering down her side. He reared forward and thrashed again, but the movements were disorganized now, and she could tell he was losing consciousness. He fell to his knees and was just tipping forward as a soft creak snapped her head to a tapestry hanging on the far wall.
She was on him as soon as his hand slipped out to draw the fabric back from the hidden door. She took hold of the wrist and with a smooth pivot, pulled the intruder forward and swung around to slam her elbow into his windpipe. The last thing she needed was him calling for help. Still holding the wrist, she gave it a sharp twist, snapping it and getting a sharp rasp out of the man’s crushed throat as he doubled over in pain. A knee to the face and he was down. She was just turning back to Ozai’s prone form when a voice hissed from the darkness behind the tapestry..
--
Aang’s eyes darted from Ishran crumpled on the floor to the water tribe girl above him to Ozai’s empty bed. He was moving before he’d finished taking in the scene, not wanting to get pinned down in the narrow staircase.
“You,” she snarled as he lunged forward, putting his body between her and the servant on the floor. She dropped into a low stance and he swung down, hoping to sweep her legs out from under her. She was much smaller than him, he might be able to end this quickly. The chamber’s doors were shut, but she must have a way to signal the other guards.
She leapt easily over his attack and struck out with her heel as she fell. He caught it-- barely-- and shoved her hard. She flew back a few feet and hit the wall behind her, but was on him again by the time he regained his footing. Some remote part of him was impressed with her speed, but the majority of his mind was occupied dodging a flurry of strikes aimed at his head, neck, and chest. He jumped, twisted and lunged, always missing her hands and feet by millimeters. A sense of deja vu came over him and his mind flicked to the hours he’d spent in the training gates at the temple. The lesson was to be as a leaf, pivoting at every resistance, to pass through the storm. And she was very like a storm. When the flurry of blows began he hoped to tire her out before striking, but she wasn’t getting slower, wasn’t getting sloppy.
There was a subtle shift in her weight and saw her next strike coming. He sent a kick out to the side that would be left open by her attack. But she turned on a dime, ducking under his leg and catching his knee, sending him careening face-first towards the floor. He turned it into a roll and sprung up, but before his feet touched the floor he felt a bright shock of pain as she brought her elbow down on his solar plexus. He hit the ground hard, trying not to fight the muscle spasm, which would only prolong the seizing. She slipped a garrotte out of her shirt.
--
This guy was infuriating. She flew at him with everything she had and met only air. She didn’t recognize his form at all, but it certainly wasn’t Fire Nation. Their style was centered around brute force and bold, decisive strikes. It was a style she preferred in her opponents, especially larger ones. She could hurt them more by redirecting their strength than she could with her own. But this guy...this guy fought like it was a goddamn game of keep away. And she was running out of time.
Finally he struck out with his foot, and she used the energy of it to fling him down. While he recovered she managed to land a clean blow to his chest and he grunted and crumpled. She slid the garrote out, wishing for a quicker weapon, but the security at the palace was so tight this was all she’d been sure she could sneak in.
But he somehow recovered instantaneously. He flipped to his feet and circled away, putting himself between her and the door. They were on the far side of the bed now and his eyes fell on Ozai’s prone body. He froze and his eyes grew wide. Ever so slightly, his stance slipped.
“Is he dead?”
“He’s next in line after you,” she spat as she launched herself at him. He was distracted, unable to right his form in time. She feigned a direct hit then twisted in the air, vaulting off the wall and landing on his back.
“Wait” he rasped out, and she realized he’d managed to get a finger between her wire and his neck. Oh for fuck’s sake, would this guy just die already? She was debating just going with the slower, louder process of killing him like this when several things happened at once.
Ozai began to stir on the floor, coughing weakly and pushing himself up on his forearms. The main door to the chamber opened and a hesitant voice called out “Sir?” As she was taking all this in, the fake earth kingdom emissary grabbed her forearm and twisted roughly, ripping her off his back and over his head. The wall rushed up to meet her, enveloping her in a blinding flash of white.
--
The woman’s body slumped against the door she’d collided with. He hadn’t meant to throw her so hard, just needed time to reason with her, to explain. But now the guard was pushing the door back open and Ozai was stirring and before Aang knew what he was doing he’d scooped her unconscious body over his shoulder and slipped through the open window.
#kataang#kataang au#work in progress#avatar#avatar aang#katara#i dont want to post to ao3 till there's an end in sight#fanfic#atla fanfic
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Age of Calamity review that literally no one asked me to give but I am giving it anyway.
Pros:
- still letting me dress link up. You could say it is a dress up game. That's very important to me in a zelda game. Anyone remember triforce heroes ? Anyway moving on
- extremely random but fun selection of playable characters. Obviously there were the story characters but who let the monk be playable ??? Who did that ??????? And the fairy sisters all being in one flower...I want in on that 👀
- genuinely fun gameplay
- a lot of people hate the story (I don't love it) but leagues better than 2014 hw story. Cia and lana being like the good and evil same person or whatever but cia had massive honkers idek
- the layout of the main screen was extremely satisfying like yes I know this map intimately. It was extremely satisfying to do the side quests and mini levels turning things from orange to blue. Loved that
Cons:
- felt extremely uncomfortable fighting a war as a british aligned white soldier. I know that might sound dumb but it feels so evil. And also bokoblins have like war strategy and shit it's not like theyre just animals they have SOCIETIES like they dance...is that not culture??? And then I go and kill 3000 of them all at once. I say this but then men will go play call of duty with absolutely no critical thinking whatsoever
- I put the story in pros but it mostly belongs in cons for obvious reasons. I liked sidon and mipha interacting a lot but all the other champions were like...stale......daruk was like who the fuck are u and yunobo was like um you but weaker. It was cute when it was like "yunobo: diamond in the rough" ok don't even get me started on the time travel. Terakko I think is it's name but why the fuck did zelda make that as a baby ??? But then it's like...from the future ....like...........that could have been explained a lot better....why didn't she remember properly ...bro idgi
- I thought half the cut scenes were cringe. Also I wish Zelda's dad stayed dead
- I cant figure out how to check my completion rate and it's fucking me off. I just want to see how close I am to getting the hw green tunic GOD
- molduga is some basic bitch in this game. So easy to kill, no challenge at all. Very disappointing. Moblins are harder to kill than molduga...smh
That is all for now 🙏
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Last Monday of the Week: 2021-03-01
First Monday of the Month. My boss just quit at work which means I'm now the only formally trained engineer left who has any particular specialization in embedded systems. This week is going to be a doozy.
I also wrote a Very Long set of media updates because I’ve been consuming some stuff that makes me think a lot. Never a good sign.
Listening: I spent all of Saturday playing Minecraft after talking with some friends about it during the week on IRC. Practicing what I preach with regards to my Large Biome Supermacy policy, which does involve a lot of walking. Hence, I started catching up on The Adventure Zone: Graduation again, I'm like ten episodes behind.
https://maximumfun.org/episodes/adventure-zone/the-adventure-zone-graduation-ep-32-by-a-haircut/
I don't really enjoy Travis' DM'ing style. It's very loose and he has a tendency to let players run wild without much structure which is a tricky thing to handle. He does a lot of worldbuilding and character design but doesn't seem to plan much in the way of arcs. That pays off sometimes (returning to the school to realize they broke a promise they made a few sessions earlier and had to deal with consequences, for example) and when it does, it’s really good, but it's finnicky. I know DM's who can do that, but, well, actually I know One Single DM who can do that well and she's absurdly smart.
Reading: Still on Worm, I just got past chapter 8 or so now. It lives in my phone browser so I've mostly been reading it whenever I get some spare time, which is a good sign. If a book doesn't grab me I need to really settle down in a quiet space to avoid getting distracted, but I can read Worm while someone else is on the phone in the same room.
It is a story with a lot of very well-conveyed feelings and events. It's very easy to imagine yourself in it. Characters actually act like they care about what they're doing, I feel like writing this took a lot of care to keep everyone on model.
There's also a certain care given to the superpowers that you'd usually only see in forum posts arguing about an actual superhero story. Everyone always likes to argue about how far you can push a superpower: can you use teleporting to fly? What prevents a speedster from catching fire in the air? Where does the energy for a pyrokinetic ability come from? Worm takes these and runs with them as a way to make absolutely any fight become a series of gambits relying on whether a power can or cannot be used to perform some high-stakes trick.
The world certainly has some underpinning contrivances to explain why no one gets killed very often but I've always considered nitpicking the base contrivances of a setting silly, because that's precisely what they are: contrived, in order to allow the rest of the story to flow from there. Like arguing about Omega’s abilities in the famous thought experi-*I am dragged off stage by the ratblr police for making a by now extremely stale joke*
Watching: I came and edited this section in like an hour before this posts because I keep on forgetting to put it in. I don’t really like watching TV and with my parents stuck at home in Pandemic Times it’s how they pass the time.
I did finish S3 of the Good Place. It’s very funny. I’m glad I’m watching it and I’m going to have to go find S4 because ZA Netflix doesn’t have it for whatever reason. It feels a little like it was written by Phillip Pullman if Phillip Pullman was a comedy TV writer.
I also really enjoyed the PBS Spacetime video about how time causes gravity. Love when an explanation of concepts is good enough that you drawn the conclusion on your own.
youtube
Playing: Visual Novel Hell plus Minecraft.
I spent approximately seven hours in Minecraft over two days. I tend to hop in and out of games for 1-2 hours at a time but there's a handful that can suck me in for an entire day. Minecraft, Warframe, Horizon Zero Dawn, Night in the Woods. Bastion, to a lesser extent. I end up avoiding them because I don't like loosing entire days, but I wasn't really planning on doing anything this weekend anyways.
Minecraft was mostly a long-ass trek to find a saddle, because as previously mentioned, I enjoy playing it with Large Biomes for the sense of scale.
I also completed Act 3 of Psycholonials and Eliza.
Psycholonials is odd. It is doing the thing that Hussie does where it dances around what's ostensibly the story to carry out the actual story. You get used to the trope after your first encounter but it still makes you wonder when the other shoe will drop, and of course, there's no reason it ever has to. The story may remain in suspended animation behind the every growing mess of narrative red tape tying the B-plot together.
Stories about Social Media have no well established norms. I think I might pick up Feed by M. T. Anderson and also perhaps Hank Green's books sometime. See what context they set that in.
Eliza is frustrating to me. It's a game for programmers, by programmers, about programmers. I'm friends with a lot of Capital P Programmers, the types who go to university and get sniped for developer positions at Seattle or Silicon Valley tech companies and who make great and terrible things and then warn you about the deep problems that underpin the slowly rolling ball of venture capital and bloated technology that is the tech industry. But at the same time, it makes me feel like I've burnt out on that conceptually before I even went in. It’s a whole other world that I’m familiar with but very distant from. In fact, that’s kinda how I feel about Psycholonials too. I’m familiar with the social media rat race but I also don’t go there. Parallels!
My cousins (who are halfway to Capital P Programmers, only so much you can do halfway around the world from silicon valley) warned me not to go into CS, because it would bore me, and that's a non-trivial part of why I'm in Engineering. They gave the same advice about Biology and Physics, without that I may have ended up in Microbiology. it’s not my domain, but because of how Engineering is going, you end up a lot closer to programmers than you think. I found out the other day that most of the software developers on my team have no formal tertiary qualifications, which is accepted in CS but of course, right out when it comes to engineering. It’s a whole other world that I kinda expected to skip around. I might go into this another time, since this post is already getting long.
Making: I haven’t done any engineering scicomm posts on here in a while so I started a few blank drafts and finally got one off the ground. With some luck I’ll have that ready this week. What’s it about? Not saying! It might change!
I’ve been doing layout for a custom keyboard, I need to call a laser cutting place and find out what their kerf requirements are so I can adjust the path accordingly. Wouldn’t do to burn a couple hundred rand on an oversized part, I’m paying for this, not my employer like the other times I’ve done laser cutting, so I’m probably not going to spring for getting one of their designers to check my design. At some point I should CAD up a chassis, but at the same time I might just buy some wood and go ham with a router once I get the plates cut.
Computers Slot: I got WeeChat set up properly on my desktop, which technically was just a matter of getting my SSH keys moved over. It’s taking me forever to move in to Cinnabar, in part because Stibnite lost her boot partition and I haven’t bothered to fix it.
So here’s a pitch for WeeChat as a good quality Terminal UI IRC Client. Many of my closest friends live there and it has a good set of tools to help me keep in touch.
WeeChat is very configurable but with perfectly sane defaults, I didn’t configure it for years. The UI is smarter and less arcane than something like irssi, and if you enable mouse support it can be downright modern. Running it remotely like this limits some features but as long as you don’t mind jumping through a few hoops to do filesharing, IRC is really great like this.
One of the big ones is the ability to do that double-pane thing, I can keep an eye on two channels at once (really as many as I can cram on my screen, but usually two) which is great when you want to browse channels while talking in your home channel.
It also has a good array of remote access tools, from what I’m running up there, just weechat running on my server inside tmux connected over mosh for low-latency SSH, to weechat-relay, a relay protocol built in to weechat. At the moment relay only supports android phones and the glowingbear web client, but I’ve never really looked around since both of those cover all my needs. Easily one of the best ways to get IRC on a modern mobile device, barring maybe IRCCloud.
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Xue Yang whisks a solipsistic Lan Xichen off on a murder roadtrip to raise Xiao Xingchen and Meng Yao from the grave. Because that will solve all of their problems, right? AU where Wei Wuxian never came to Yi City and Xue Yang is still running around post-canon disguised as Xiao Xingchen.
Lan Xichen can’t remember most of the day, spent pacing the Chang manor in a state of increasing desperation.
A-Yao had been back.
A-Yao had been in his arms.
A-Yao had been warm. Alive.
Whole.
And now, A-Yao is gone.
XueXiao & XiYao - Rated M - Read on AO3! Tumblr: Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6
a bit of blood here but the violence itself isn’t incredibly graphic...I mean, it’s still rated M!
Chapter 7: bigger than my bones
A-Yao sits up.
“A-Yao!” Lan Xichen falls to his knees beside him, staining his robes with blood from the array. “A-Yao!”
A-Yao stares up at him, dazed. He looks as if he’d just been struck over the head after having been abruptly woken from a drugged sleep.
“Er…Er-ge?” His voice is thick. “Lan Xichen?”
Lan Xichen grips his bare white shoulders. They’re warm. Solid. Real. Two arms— two. Both warm.
Solid.
Real.
A-Yao swallows hard. He’s shaking all over. “Er-ge?”
Lan Xichen whips off his outer robe and drapes it around A-Yao. “It’s me, it’s me, I’ve brought you back, I’ve brought you back—”
Xue Yang clears his throat. “Actually, you just stood there and goggled at me and passed out.”
Lan Xichen ignores him. All he can hear is A-Yao’s breathing, all he can see is A-Yao’s face. “You’re back, you’re back—”
A-Yao slumps forward, pitching against Lan Xichen’s chest. His face is warm against Lan Xichen’s throat, body completely limp against his own.
Lan Xichen turns to Xue Yang in panic. “What happened?! What happened?!”
“How should I know? The last time I did this I killed the man as soon as I confirmed I could do it. Was just trying to see if I was doing something wrong and that’s why it wasn’t working on Xiao Xingchen.”
Lan Xichen feels A-Yao’s throat. There’s a steady pulse, and the skin is warm. “Perhaps he's simply exhausted. It must take a lot out of one, being dead—”
Xue Yang laughs. It’s not a particularly nice sound. "I don't think anyone else has ever spoken those words."
Gently, Lan Xichen scoops A-Yao up into his arms and carries him to the first bedchamber he can find, laying A-Yao under the covers as if putting a newborn to sleep for the first time. He seats himself at the bedside, eyes fixed on A-Yao’s face.
“How many days will it take for those servants you let escape to reach Cloud Recesses?”
Lan Xichen barely hears Xue Yang, too intently focused on A-Yao. He’s too overwhelmed to know how to feel. Elated? Worried? Overjoyed? Terrified?
Xue Yang snaps his fingers in his ear. “Are you in there? How long do we have until those servants tell the Lan where we are?”
Lan Xichen looks up. “With no detours, on foot, two weeks.”
“Then we have that long until anyone comes after us on their swords. Unless they meet Lan cultivators on the road—”
“I told them not to speak to anyone.”
“As if they’d follow your orders if it were convenient not to?”
“I’m the clan leader.”
“Not of their clan.” Xue Yang loses interest. “Doesn’t matter. We need to get moving anyway. As soon as your dimpled little friend is on his feet, we’re out of here.” He stretches, yawning, and gives Lan Xichen a look he can't decipher. “Wake me if anything important happens.”
Lan Xichen sits at A-Yao’s bedside all night, longing to reach under the covers for his hand, hold it, feel its reassuring warmth and weight in his, but he’s too afraid that if he moves, if he touches A-Yao, A-Yao will dissipate in the moonlight pouring in through the open window.
Shortly before daybreak A-Yao stirs.
“Er-ge?”
A-Yao! Lan Xichen wants to say, but his mouth is suddenly too dry.
A-Yao sits up. “Where am I?”
“Chang Manor. Yueyang.” Lan Xichen runs his bone-dry tongue over his equally dry lips. It’s like rubbing sandpaper with sandpaper. “Xue Yang helped bring you back.”
A-Yao looks alarmed. “Xue Yang is here?”
“He helped get you back.”
“Have I any clothes?”
Lan Xichen points to Chang Ping’s clothes and goes to wait outside. His heart is beating fast again, a sick feeling in his stomach.
A-Yao doesn’t want to be back.
Or rather, if he does, he doesn’t care that Lan Xichen was the one to bring him back.
Or else—or else how could he speak so—so mundanely —
A-Yao steps out of the room. His hair is in a simple half-knot, and he’s wearing Chang Ping’s simple, if well-made, clothes and shoes. They’re too large on him, and he looks even smaller than he had when naked, almost frail.
Nothing like Jin Guangyao. Nothing like the man in Guanyin Temple. Hatless, unassuming, with no poisonous red dot between his eyes. Younger, too, as if the years of crushing responsibility, paranoia, and dread have been erased.
He looks , Lan Xichen thinks despite how illogical he knows it is, like Meng Yao.
A-Yao heads straight for the main hall, as if he remembers the manor’s layout from his one visit over fifteen years ago. He stops short when he sees Chang Ping’s body hanging from the hall's rafters, a sticky brown mass of dried blood with dozens of bloated flies feasting on its flesh. There’s far less of that flesh than Lan Xichen remembers, the body whittled down to a mere floppy, fat-coated skeleton, as if most of his flesh and bone and muscle had gone into remaking A-Yao’s fragile new body.
A-Yao looks down at the array on the floor, at the bucket, at the blood still staining Lan Xichen’s knees.
“Oh, Er-ge ,” he says.
Lan Xichen peers at him anxiously. “What is it? What happened?”
There’s sorrow in A-Yao’s large black eyes. “Did you help him do this?”
Blood pumps through Lan Xichen’s head with such force he’s afraid he might pass out again. “I—I—”
“Oh, Er-ge ,” says A-Yao again, and, his beautiful face twisted in agony, he begins to fade, rapidly growing fainter as the first touches of pink sunlight creep in through the front door.
“A-Yao!” Lan Xichen leaps forward, snatching at him, but it’s too late.
A-Yao is gone.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned.” Xue Yang stands leaning against the doorpost. He’s in his green inner robe, collar wet, as if he missed his face when splashing it with water. His glossy black hair is in a messy bun at the nape of his neck, feet bare, dark circles under his eyes. Maskless. He yawns, stretching like a sleepy cat. “He say anything interesting?”
Lan Xichen flies across the room and grabs him by the throat. “You little rat, what did you do, you promised me A-Yao back—”
Face turning purple, Xue Yang desperately tries to pry Lan Xichen’s fingers from his throat, but Lan Xichen is too strong.
“U—gh—uhg—”
Lan Xichen flings him out the door so hard he bounces twice and rolls down the discussion hall steps.
Xue Yang stands slowly, coughing raggedly. He’s a resilient little cockroach, Lan Xichen will give him that.
Lan Xichen flies down beside him. “What did you do, you repugnant little liar—”
Jiangzai appears in Xue Yang’s hand. “I brought him back!” he chokes through bared teeth. He’s bleeding from his tongue, face red with white splotches. “I swear!”
“You bastard, you lied to me—”
“I told you, I’ve never done this before! I swear I did my best! Do you think I wanted this? I need that dimpled little madman too!”
Lan Xichen hits him so hard that the delinquent cultivator is knocked flat on his back, Jiangzai falling with clang. He draws Shuoyue, but Xue Yang has Jiangzai back up, a new light in his eyes.
“Lay one more finger on me,” Xue Yang says, his voice a chilling rasp, “and it will be the last thing you ever do.”
“As if I care—”
Xue Yang spits blood. “I’m the only one who can get him back, and you know it!"
Lan Xichen freezes, then slowly sheaths his sword. “You have until tonight,” he says.
Rubbing at his bruised throat, Xue Yang grins. It’s a grin full of teeth. “Anything for you, my friend.”
* * * *
Lan Xichen can’t remember most of the day, spent pacing the manor in a state of increasing desperation.
A-Yao had been back.
A-Yao had been in his arms.
A-Yao had been warm. Alive. Whole.
And now, A-Yao is gone.
He avoids the main hall, where Xue Yang is holed up with Chang Ping's body. The ground is mere air beneath his feet, the walls and grass and trees and ceilings misty nothings. He tries to meditate but can’t. Can’t eat, can’t drink, can’t rest, can’t think of anything but A-Yao.
The way A-Yao had looked at him.
“Did you help him do this?”
And—
“Er-ge.”
That soft, sorrowful, disappointed, “Er-ge.”
Without giving Lan Xichen time to explain, without letting him explain how Chang Ping had deserved it, and how even had he not deserved it, nothing truly mattered, nothing mattered except getting A-Yao back. A-Yao, the only real thing in a world held together by spider-silk and starlight—
The moon is high in the sky when Xue Yang flings open the doors to the main hall. The day had been unseasonably warm, and a blast of rotting meat and stale blood comes gusting out around him.
“Your little friend is back,” he says shortly. “I’ll be packing. We need to leave this place.” He turns and strides off without so much as a smart remark.
A-Yao steps out of the hall, takes a few steps, and collapses heavily on the steps.
Lan Xichen opens his mouth to speak, then closes it and sits beside him.
“What did he do?” he finally asks.
A-Yao’s head jerks up as if startled. “Nothing, as far as I could make out,” he says, and his voice is the same old voice Lan Xichen remembers, the same…not casual, A-Yao was never casual, not even with him, but what passed as casual for him, the voice he had used while they lived together after he fled the Cloud Recesses. “I…I believe I will disappear every morning, to reappear at night.” He glances down at his hands. They’re lying like baby birds in his lap, shaking despite the night’s unseasonable warmth. Lan Xichen wants to reach out, cover them with both of his, but he’s too afraid to move, to do anything that might result in A-Yao drawing away with a hiss of disgust. “It...it hurts.”
Lan Xichen is crushed by a sudden wave of guilt. “My fault,” he says. “I never should have brought you back…”
“No, no, Er-ge, I—I thank you.” A-Yao darts a nervous glance around at the utter stillness of the courtyard, as if afraid his words might manifest a demon out of thin air to drag him back to his coffin with Nie Mingjue. He takes a deep breath, shudderingly, as if it’s difficult for him to fill his lungs.
On a sudden impulse Lan Xichen reaches out to brush his shoulder with the back of his hand, make sure A-Yao is in fact there, that he’s not a figment of his imagination, and A-Yao flinches at his touch, face blanching.
So Lan Xichen was right. A-Yao does not want to be here. At least not be here with—with him.
He forces himself to speak, say something, anything. To sound friendly, light, casual.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asks A-Yao.
A-Yao closes his eyes and tilts his head back as if to catch the moonlight, painfully, eerily beautiful in its otherworldly silver rays. “I remember everything,” he says quietly. “I wish I didn’t, but I do. But I—I feel—I feel different. Feel like…”
“You look like Meng Yao,” Lan Xichen blurts, then blushes.
A-Yao opens his eyes. “You’ve changed too, Er-ge.”
“Lan Huan,” Lan Xichen hears himself saying. He needs to hear it from A-Yao’s lips just once, just once in case he loses him again, just one time he can look back on and remember. “Lan Huan.”
“Lan Huan,” says A-Yao, and Lan Xichen wants to reach out again, grab his hand, press it to his cheek, feel his warmth as he speaks his birth name, but is too afraid that A-Yao will pull away again. “A-Huan.”
Lan Xichen clasps his hands together in his lap so that A-Yao won’t see how badly they’re trembling. Perhaps if he thinks Lan Xichen is his old calm self then he won’t realize how different Lan Xichen has become, won’t think he’s changed any more than he already knows he has, won’t be disgusted.
Won’t leave him again.
“I am sorry, A-Yao,” he hears himself saying. It sounds woefully inadequate. “I’ve spent the past year trying to…” He trails off. Trying to forget? Trying to bring him back? Moving on? Mourning?
A-Yao doesn’t seem to hear the first half. “A year?” He looks almost anxious. “Is Jin Ling well? Koi Tower is a pit of vipers… Are the Jin prospering?”
“They’re doing well.”
“He must hate me.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.”
“I would, if I were him.”
“Jin Ling is fine.” Lan Xichen doesn’t know how true that is, but lying is nothing compared to the things he’s done. “Jiang Cheng supports him. He’s doing fine…”
A-Yao stares fixedly at the ground. He really does look younger. Almost most fragile, in a way that he never fully had in the past. “And you?”
“I’ve been…fine.” He hates the sound of that word. Fine.
A-Yao bites his lip. His voice is very low, almost inaudible. “I spoke to Xue Yang.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t ask him what exactly Xue Yang told him. Better not to know. Suddenly he’s having trouble breathing, anyway, and isn’t sure he can speak at all. He feels himself drifting, and he reaches down and squeezes the stone of the steps, but it’s soft and formless beneath his palms—
“Hey. Lovebirds.” Someone nudges him from behind. Xue Yang, prodding him with Jiangzai’s scabbard. Shuanghua and its scabbard have been safely tucked away in his qiankun sleeve since he used the blade to carve up Chang Ping. He’s wearing dark blue robes he must have found in the manor. “Time to hit the road.”
“A-Yao is in no shape to travel.”
“Then maybe next time don’t let witnesses escape. I’ll bet you even gave them money. You self-righteous naive types are all alike.” With a curl of his lip, Xue Yang heads off.
A-Yao follows him with his eyes. “Perhaps you haven’t changed so much after all, Er-ge— A-Huan.”
Lan Xichen feels a surge of warmth. “Let me help you up—”
“I’m fine,” says A-Yao, struggling to his feet on his own.
The warmth fades.
Lan Xichen changes into simple rust-colored robes found in one of the manor’s rooms before following the strangely silent Xue Yang up the road to Yueyang. It’s the obvious place for anyone to look for them, but it’s the largest city for miles around and the best place to get lost in.
A-Yao stumbles once, and Lan Xichen reaches out to steady him, briefly gripping his arm before A-Yao pulls away.
He feels better after that. He hadn't been mistaken before. A-Yao is real. Is here.
But for the most part, A-Yao makes it all the way there under his own power, somehow. As resilient, in his own way, as Xue Yang.
He’s had to be.
Lan Xichen remembers A-Yao telling him about how his father had kicked him down the stairs on his fourteenth birthday, how his mother’s client had kicked him down the stairs as a child before flinging his half-naked mother out into the street, how he’d lain in bed for weeks with a concussion that almost killed him. How the client had eventually returned, had pointedly ignored his mother and started patronizing another prostitute. “Why pay for something the whole town’s already seen?” he’d laughed—
It was Meng Yao who had told him that, he remembers. Jin Guangyao had rarely spoken of his past, as if afraid speaking the words aloud, even when cloistered alone with Lan Xichen in the innermost room of his chambers, would remind the entire Koi Tower of his past, would make him less worthy of his position, would form a black stain on his forehead for all to see.
Yueyang isn’t far, but the going is slow. They reach the city at dawn.
A-Yao fades as soon as the sky begins to turn orange and pink, his face a mask of pain.
“It hurts him,” Lan Xichen says, turning to Xue Yang.
Xue Yang tosses a candied peanut in the air, catching it in his mouth. “So? What do you want me to do about it?”
Lan Xichen presses his lips into a thin line. “Anchor him here. Do something !”
“You’re the scholar. You’re the expert on ghosts.”
“On getting rid of them! You’re the one who knows how to—to work your wicked tricks—”
“Ah, the second they’re no longer working in your favor, they’re suddenly ‘wicked tricks.’ ” Xue Yang points to a dodgy-looking tavern on the street corner. “Shall we stop there for the day, rest up, and decide where to go from here? I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.” Whistling, he strolls off towards the tavern, where he orders four bottles of wine up to their room.
“I thought you don’t drink much,” says Lan Xichen. Aside from that one time outside of Qinghe, he’s yet to see Xue Yang drink more than a cup of wine with dinner.
“Everyone has to start sometime. Besides, if you think I can put up with you and that dimpled weasel making eyes at each while sober, you are gravely mistaken.” He takes a deep drink from the wine jar. “Just go and ask the little freak straight out.”
A-Yao is clearly not “making eyes at him” in any possible way—he won’t even let him brush his arm!—but Lan Xichen doesn’t dare follow up on this. “I beg your pardon,” he says instead. “Ask him what?”
“ ‘I beg your pardon’?” Xue Yang mimics. “Just ask the dimpled little freak what he needs done.”
“Needs done?”
“Are all of you Lans this dense? This is demonic cultivation. Everything is the opposite of what you know. The thing that would normally set his spirit at rest will instead bind him to this world. No more disappearing and reappearing.”
“No more pain?”
“I can’t answer that. But I’d guess not.” Xue Yang has already finished one jar of wine. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying it—it smells like dry wine from where Lan Xichen is sitting—but he unstops the second jar and takes a sip, which goes down the wrong pipe. “Not that we can fix what’s wrong with him up here,” he adds once he’s finished coughing, tapping his head. A splatter of blood comes out with the clear white wine, as if the bite on his tongue has reopened. He looks at the blood on the floor, then gives a little laugh. “Guess being locked up for a year with an angry ghost who hates your insides isn’t a lot of fun.”
“What do you mean?”
Xue Yang doesn’t answer, just heaves a long-suffering sigh, rolls his eyes, finishes the jar of wine, and passes out—pretends to pass out?—on his bed.
Lan Xichen would have liked to spend the day pacing, but he’s too tired to do more than nap on the other bed, which is larger than usual for these kinds of inns. His nap is more of a doze than anything else, but he feels stronger when he wakes that night.
A-Yao is kneeling beside his cot.
“Er-ge?” A-Yao whispers. His face is glowing white in the starlight coming in through the window. “Oh, you’re just asleep.” His shoulders relax. “I…” He swallows and looks over his shoulder. Xue Yang is lying sprawled in an uncomfortable-looking position, four empty jars of wine on the floor beside his cot. “You weren’t waiting for me.”
A wave of crushing guilt. Lan Xichen reaches out for A-Yao’s hand, manages to brush it, be reassured of his warmth, of his reality, before A-Yao jerks away.
He continues lying there, A-Yao kneeling beside the low cot with his one arm lightly resting beside Lan Xichen. Close enough to touch him, if he wanted.
Which he clearly doesn’t.
“A-Yao,” Lan Xichen says finally, “what is the one thing tying you to this world?”
A-Yao looks slightly startled, like a baby deer asked who it thought the next Chief Cultivator should be. “I—I don’t know.”
Not me. Of course not.
“I mean, if you were a ghost, and there was one thing you needed done to set you at peace, what would that one thing be?”
A-Yao’s eyes are wide. Lan Xichen has only seen that expression once before—in Nightless City, when he hid behind him from Nie Mingjue, and he feels a sudden twinge of uncertainty.
Not that he has any reason to doubt A-Yao, he reminds himself. This is just his paranoia speaking. A-Yao has made no promises to him. A-Yao is not trying to get out of anything or manipulate him into doing anything. He had been the one to ask A-Yao what it was A-Yao wanted.
Besides, that had not been manipulation back at Nightless City, he reminds himself, no matter what Nie Mingjue had claimed. A-Yao had been ready and willing to die for the terrible things he’d been forced to do to maintain his cover…
“You want to get rid of me?” A-Yao asks. He leans forward slightly, so close Lan Xichen imagines he can feel his breath on his skin.
“Xue Yang says that it would bind you to this world.”
A-Yao glances over at Xue Yang again. “He might be right.”
“You think so?”
“I think it’s worth a try.” He rests his cheek on the rough blanket, closing his eyes. “It’s worth a try…”
Lan Xichen inches over to the other edge of the bed, glancing over at A-Yao across what feels like a vast expanse of mattress. “Are you tired, A-Yao?”
A-Yao opens his eyes at the sound of his name. “In a strange kind of way.”
Lan Xichen takes the one pillow and lays it beside him as a kind of invitation. He doesn’t say anything. They’d shared a bed many times before while hopping from one run-down inn to the other after the destruction of the Cloud Recesses, always with a pillow between them. Does A-Yao remember? Or will he think Lan Xichen is being presumptuous—
A-Yao lies down beside him.
He lies on his back, rigid, like a corpse laid out in a coffin, straight and stiff and still until he finally relaxes into something almost human. Lan Xichen thinks he can feel his body heat, feel it radiating into him, warming him, making the dark shapes of the room come into sharper focus, the cool night air almost alive in his lungs.
“If I had to choose one thing,” A-Yao finally murmurs, in a voice very unlike his usual clear, almost over-enunciated tones, “it would be to kill him.”
Suddenly Lan Xichen knows that his having remembered A-Yao’s story the night before was no coincidence. He knows exactly whom A-Yao is talking about.
“I should have done it myself long ago,” continues A-Yao in that same low, uncharacteristically natural-sounding voice, “but his death would have raised too many questions back then, and after that I had too many things keeping me busy…I owe her this much. I should have long ago…”
“What’s his name?”
“Wu Shen. He’s a merchant in Yunping City.”
“Not…” Not Nie Huaisang?
A-Yao shakes his head. “I have been unfilial.”
“Then I’ll…I’ll go to Yunping.”
He hears A-Yao swallowing hard. Something brushes his hand, very briefly, and then A-Yao pulls away as if he can’t bear to touch the man who rammed a foot of ice-cold steel through his chest.
Lan Xichen doesn’t close his eyes the rest of the night. He lies very still, watching A-Yao sleep, memorizing every flutter of eyelash, every murmur, every twitch. A-Yao seems to be plagued by nightmares, but Lan Xichen doesn’t dare wake him.
“If I had to choose one thing, it would be to kill him.”
Lan Xichen thinks back to those idle days in the Cloud Recesses all those years ago. Lan Qiren’s interminable lectures, Wei Wuxian’s question about pacifying restless spirits: “But what if the wish was to kill many people in revenge?”
Deserving of death, is Wu Shen. As much as Chang Ping had been. And if Lan Xichen were to refuse now, then Chang Ping’s extrajudicial death, his torment, would have all been for nothing. Real or not, his pain had existed in some form.
Lan Xichen raises the hand A-Yao touched, stares at it in the moonlight, presses the spot A-Yao had brushed to this cheek. He has to do this. Prove he’ll do anything to bring A-Yao back fully.
Maybe then A-Yao would forgive Lan Xichen for killing him.
* * * *
The trip to Yunping City takes a week. Fourteen times Lan Xichen is forced to watch A-Yao suffer, fourteen times he’s forced to endure Xue Yang’s intense stare as it happens.
The sun is setting when they arrive in Yunping, bloody red streaks across a sky hung with thick gray clouds. A light early-season snow is beginning to fall as they check in at a reputable inn and hurry up to their room.
“Dinner first, I think,” says Xue Yang after A-Yao has appeared. “Can’t practice demonic cultivation on an empty stomach, now, can we?”
A-Yao gives his head a little shake. He hasn’t eaten anything since he’d been brought back.
“Zewu-jun? No? Suit yourself. Meet back here in an hour, and we’ll head out.” Humming, Xue Yang disappears down the stairs.
Without a word A-Yao follows him. Lan Xichen hurries after them. With every passing night A-Yao has become more and more detached from this world, not uttering a single sound on some nights. Lan Xichen sometimes thinks A-Yao’s skin has grown translucent, at least from certain angles, as if he has begun to fade as his connection to this world weakens.
Tonight will change that.
Lan Xichen wishes Xue Yang hadn’t insisted on eating. Every second, every minute is precious—
But he silently walks beside A-Yao, following him out of the inn all the way to Guanyin Temple. It’s no longer a temple, just a pile of rubble belonging to Jin Ling as A-Yao’s next of kin. He flies A-Yao over the wall into the courtyard, waits outside the temple as A-Yao disappears into the darkness.
Lan Xichen paces the courtyard as he waits. The last time he was here—
The last time he was here —
Don’t think about that. It doesn’t matter, not anymore—
The snow is falling faster now, thick eddies of white whirling around the courtyard, wet powder melting on his hair and robes, but he barely feels the cold.
Tonight—tonight—
There’s a smear of red on A-Yao’s face when he eventually emerges, as if a tear of blood had been clumsily wiped off. A-Yao notices him looking at, reaches up, scrubs the last of the blood from his face.
“I interred her,” Lan Xichen says, very quietly, “near the Cloud Recesses. With honor.”
A-Yao gives a brief nod. No need to tell him of the concessions he’d had to make to Nie Huaisang in order to get him to release A-Yao’s mother’s body.
There would be plenty of time after tonight.
They’re about to leave the temple courtyard when Xue Yang flies over the courtyard walls and lands in front of them, grinning.
“Figured you’d be here,” he says, dumping a man on the thin layer of snow blanketing the ground. A bound, mustached man with a face that it was a crime for him to inflict on the local populace without a license. Xue Yang has placed a Lan silencing spell on him, and the man’s face is bright red with anger as he struggles to tear his lips open.
Lan Xichen darts a glance at A-Yao. A-Yao’s eyes are wide, the rest of his face frozen.
Wu Shen.
“Let’s go inside,” Xue Yang suggests, shaking the snow from his skirts and hair. “Too many eyes out here.”
Lan Xichen glances around at the walls surrounding the courtyard.
Xue Yang sighs. “There are Lan cultivators flying around the area. I saw them on my way over. Besides, it's cold and wet."
They hurry inside the temple. The ceiling is half cratered, the entire place turned upside-down, but the damage isn’t as extensive as it could have been. Humming, Xue Yang moves around the temple, lighting the surviving candles with his Wen talismans.
There, right here, that was where Lan Xichen had stabbed A-Yao—his blood remains on the stone floor; shielded from rain and snow by fallen beams—
A-Yao’s breathing is shallow. Desperate for a distraction, Lan Xichen removes the silencing spell on Wu Shen.
“—sue you all! Unhand me at once! What is the meani—”
Lan Xichen replaces the silencing spell.
“ ‘Unhand me at once’?” Xue Yang snickers. “If you don’t kill him, I will.”
Lan Xichen glances back down at Wu Shen, who’s rolling quietly towards the front door.
Xue Yang places a foot on his shoulder and shoves him down to the floor. Jiangzai is out, slung casually across his shoulders.
“He’s all yours,” he says. He sighs at the look on Lan Xichen’s face. “Our dimpled friend can’t do it, or it would just create more resentful energy,” he explains, answering a question Lan Xichen didn’t realize he had. “You know about these things from your studies, don’t you, Lianfang-zun? Tell the man.”
A-Yao ducks his head in agreement, eyes still fixed on Wu Shen.
Xue Yang prods Wu Shen’s belly with the tip of his sword. Wu Shen gives a silent eep of indignation. Strangely, he seems more angry than scared. “Better hurry, Zewu-jun, before I give it a shot myself and nab all the credit. ‘Unhand me at once’—”
A-Yao looks up for the first time. “Er-ge?”
Shuoyue is quivering in Lan Xichen’s hand. He shoud let Xue Yang do it, he knows he should, but A-Yao had asked him, asked Lan Xichen—this is his one chance to prove himself to A-Yao, be the instrument of his salvation just as he had been the instrument of his destruction—
“Take my advice,” says Xue Yang, leaning on one of the surviving columns, “and get it over with quick. Don’t try to have fun with it this time. I mean, I did my first time, but—”
Lan Xichen plunges Shuoyue through Wu Shen’s heart.
A-Yao watches impassively, then spits on the man’s corpse, a vulgar gesture Lan Xichen would never have expected from him.
Lan Xichen releases Shuoyue’s hilt, leaving the sword stuck deep in Wu Shen’s chest. His hands are shaking, and he can’t take his eyes off the corpse.
He just murdered a man in cold blood, in almost the exact spot he had murdered A-Yao—
Two wrongs to make a right. A-Yao would be back now. A-Yao would have a second chance. Wipe away what had happened here a year ago—
A-Yao turns to Lan Xichen.
“I didn’t think you would actually do it,” he says, very softly. “Xichen, I…” He grips Lan Xichen’s sword hand. “Goodbye, Xichen,” he says. Lan Xichen feels a stinging spark where A-Yao is gripping his wrist. “Find m—”
He’s gone before he can finish, diffused light flowing outward to join the flickering candlelight, a thousand sparks of gold fading for the last time.
Gone. Gone, just like that.
For good this time.
Lan Xichen stares at the spot A-Yao had been standing, at the bleeding corpse at his feet, and drags his eyes up to look at Xue Yang.
Xue Yang glances up from where he’s using Wu Shen’s blood to draw an array on the floor.
He’s grinning.
“That went well,” he says.
“Did you know?” Lan Xichen grabs Xue Yang by the throat. “Did you know he’d disappear? You told me it was different for demonic cultivation; you told me it would bind him here—”
“Better question to ask is if he knew,” Xue Yang chokes out.
“If—if—”
Xue Yang pries Lan Xichen’s nerveless fingers from his throat. “It was a test. You failed it. Gave in right away, as I understand.”
“I—”
Xue Yang is laughing as he rubs the bruises forming on his throat. Lan Xichen has torn his Xiao Xingchen mask, but Xue Yang doesn’t seem to care. He peels it off and drops it to the floor, his disarmingly boyish face mottled with pink and white. “You were the better part of him,” he sneers. “Supposed to be the better part of him. Moonlight in the darkness and all that nonsense.”
“You—you lied to me!”
“I suppose all the beads were put in the looks bucket when you were made,” Xue Yang grins, “without a lot left over for brains.” He clicks his tongue. "What else did you expect from someone as repugnant as me?"
Lan Xichen falls to his knees, palms pressed to the spot A-Yao had been standing as if he can still feel his heat on the stone tiles. The room has faded, and the old weight is crushing his limbs again, keeping him pinned to the ground, barely able to breathe. Squeezing his lungs, threatening to crack his skull, a thousand times worse than it had ever been in the Cloud Recesses. There’s a dark red spot on his hand where A-Yao had been touching him—
“Aw, how nice,” Xue Yang clucks. “He marked you as his own. Can’t decide if it’s like a dog pissing on a tree or—no, I think I’ll go with ‘dog’ on this one.”
Lan Xichen stares at the red spot. Something is pricking at his half-melted brain—something familiar—but his blood is pumping too hard to think. He’s hot, so hot —
“To help find him in the afterlife,” explains Xue Yang. He bites his lip, hesitating, then shrugs. “Better not blow it again the next time, my friend.”
Lan Xichen is on his feet, swaying slightly. “Why did you do this?”
“About time you asked.” Xue Yang removes a folded sheet of paper from his qiankun sleeve. “You really should have asked more questions, my friend.”
The missing page from the book, the one that had supposedly been destroyed in a fire.
Lan Xichen grabs it.
“The ritual calls for the corruption of a soul of equal so-called purity in order to create a proper vessel for me to call the soul into before putting it back in his body,” Xue Yang explains as Lan Xichen stares at the paper, as if knowing Lan Xichen’s thoughts are too hot and flurried to be able to read, his vision blurred. “Not exactly easy to find a person like that in this fucked-up world. Not to mention access to the Lan library and Inquiry.” He shrugs. “You were the very obvious choice. Too bad you didn’t intentionally kill those Lan cultivators when we left the Cloud Recesses or those Nie guards, or I could have saved a lot of time.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Lan Xichen can barely hear his own voice over the blood roaring in his ears.
Twice. He’s killed A-Yao here, in this same temple, twice.
And A-Yao—
He has to find him. Has to explain. Has to be explained to. About why A-Yao would prefer death over life with him—
“Kill Zewu-jun?” Xue Yang twirls a strand of hair around his finger, eyes wide and innocent. He takes the pages back. “I can’t take you down on my own. But I figure they can, which is why I invited them. Right on time, too—”
With a squelching sound Lan Xichen draws Shuoyue from Wu Shen’s corpse and flies at Xue Yang. Laughing, the hooligan easily springs out the way, and Lan Xichen is about to pull out Liebing when he hears a familiar voice from behind him.
“Clan Leader!”
He whirls around. Six high-ranking Lan cultivators have dropped through the ceiling, swords in hand, snow gusting down around them. One has his guqin out and has begun to play the Song of Clarity—
Shuoyue arcs through the air, slicing the guqin in half.
And the cultivator.
Lan Xichen hadn’t meant to kill him but he, Lan Xichen, the top-ranked cultivator of his generation, is suddenly unable to govern his own spiritual energy.
But—
Is it really such a bad thing?
They’re trying to stop him from joining A-Yao. Stop him from killing the man responsible or A-Yao’s death. They're trying to bring him back to the Cloud Recesses—
Something echoes through the blood pounding in his ears.
“Too bad you didn’t intentionally kill those Lan cultivators when we left the Cloud Recesses—”
How many other Lan cultivators has he killed?
No. He couldn’t have killed them—
But he remembers the sound of the cultivator’s bones cracking against the stone as he fled the Cloud Recesses, and something bursts inside him.
A fistful of blood spatters out past his teeth, hot on his chin, speckling the floor with red.
A dozen more Lan cultivators have appeared, flickering around him, laughing, grinning, sneering. Despising him, ridiculing him for his desperation, his weakness, for his having fallen for Xue Yang's lies not once but twice—
Coming to take him home. Coming to lock him up again—
Something inside him snaps.
Blood burns his eyes, his vision half-obscured, but he hacks and slashes at the phantasms around him. There’s not a hint of his old elegance as he spins and whirls and lunges. He’s seized by Nie-like berserker rage as he rips them apart with Shuoyue—(they’re not real, anyway)—he knows they aren’t real—they’re just specters sent to haunt him, to taunt him, inventions of his overheated brain—
(Not that it matters, now. Nothing is real, nothing matters.)
The cultivators' bodies disappear. A dozen more men and women have appeared to take their places—
A face.
Wangji? No. Wangji couldn’t be here—nobody is here—
Sorrow on Wangji’s face— not Wangji’s face—not the real Wangji, anyway; if Wangji were truly here Lan Xichen wouldn’t stand a chance, not in his current condition—
A tear slips down Wangji’s face.
A hand on his shoulder, the first solid thing he’s felt other than Shuoyue’s hilt in—in how long—?
Where is he—
The temple. Still in the temple.
He scrubs the blood from his eyes, looks down. His blue robes are soaked with blood. Fresh blood dribbles from his eyes, his mouth, from the thousand ruptures in his flesh. Blood coats the snowy floor, taints the air, blossoms beautifully on the while robes of the six Lan corpses surrounding him.
Xue Yang looks down at him, watching him bleed out. Xiao Xingchen’s spirit-trapping pouch is in one hand, the Stygian Tiger Seal shard in the other.
For once there is no smile on Xue Yang’s face. “Shall I do it, my friend? The ritual will heal any damage to your body so that he will be whole when he returns—”
Lan Xichen stabs upward with Shuoyue.
Cursing, Xue Yang falls to his knees before the kneeling clan leader, blood spraying out past his teeth, eyes wide with shock. Lan Xichen must have struck an artery, because there’s a rapidly spreading pool of red around him, the hot crimson liquid surrounding the two of them.
Instead of using his spiritual energy to heal, Xue Yang instead begins to laugh, a laugh tinged with more than a touch of hysteria.
His knife is out.
Lan Xichen stares down at the mark A-Yao branded into his wrist, barely visible through the blood.
He looks up at Xue Yang again.
Waits.
“You’re welcome,” says Xue Yang, blood spurting over his chin, and he plunges his knife deep into Lan Xichen’s breast.
Lan Xichen hears a cry from the doorway, a familiar voice.
Or maybe he just imagines it.
The metal blade is cold as it pierces his skin, enters his muscle, scrapes bone. As cold as the mountain stream outside his mother’s house—
Lan Xichen wonders if the crane is still there.
He can almost see it now. Fluffing its wet feathers in greeting as Lan Xichen glides low over the Cloud Recesses—
The faint red light of an activated array comes from far away. Dimly-glowing symbols spin around him, as if someone is pouring the last of their life essence into the array as a soft new presence envelopes Lan Xichen—
The red light fades as he circles the mountain, flies higher into the crystal-clear sky. Frigid air is all around him, caressing his bare arms and legs, but he’s wrapped in warmth, in starlight.
A growing, glowing feeling, as if he’s bigger than himself, as if he’s become something more.
Something new.
He soars higher.
The Cloud Recesses looks so small from up here. So insignificant.
Like everything else.
He’s out among the stars now. Glowing, expanding, leaving a trail of green and purple stardust behind him.
Cosmic light envelopes him.
He melts into it.
* * * *
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. AO3
#The final chapter: Things come to a head#Or: The night sky sure is pretty and stars are cool#Fractured Ice#Lan Xichen#mdzsnet#Xue Yang#the untamed#mdzs#cql#check out Ao3 for the warnings
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—; i’m bad behaviour but i do it in the best way
word count: 6320
pairing: connor | rk800/gender-neutral!reader
genre: fluff; kinda crack treated seriously
summary: « as a wise man once said: “you haven’t lived until you’ve committed at least one blue collar crime”
– wh-i… literally no one said that! he sputtered in bewilderment.
– i just did… you said as you stomped on your cigarette. or are you calling me unwise?
– yes! that’s exactly what i’m calling you! he exclaimed.
you chuckled.
– oh come on… live a little. it’s not even that bad. you consoled. »
the android before you was conflicted. you could tell from his yellow led, which kept flickering and spinning. the guy was seriously debating this.
he’s intrigued. he wants to try it out, you just have to egg him on.
« i won’t tell if you don’t? you offered. »
you’re sure you had a harder time persuading others compared to this detective model android...
a/n: the time has come. i have inspiration. i have motivation. i managed to unblock myself.
i think it’s because of stress? i couldn’t write because of stress lmfao
or maybe it’s cuz of that oc x canon snippet i did idk.
both.
and uh, the story went out of hand and evolved by itself.
ping.
a small popup in the top right corner of his hud caught his attention as he rearranged his folders, neatly putting them in his bag.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ 1 ᴺᴱᵂ ᴹᴱˢˢᴬᴳᴱ: Love ]
> hey im outside waiting for u xx
Noted. <
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he quickly replied and picked up the pace, securing his beanie and wrapping his scarf. grabbing his bag, he excused himself:
« see you tomorrow, lieutenant.
– wait! connor!
the younger man stopped in his tracks, and turned to face the lieutenant.
– just… you know how i feel about [ y/n ]...
the android patiently waited for him to elaborate.
– if you don’t feel comfortable doing what they want you to do, just... know that you don’t have to. he instructed. and if they force you, or hu—
– hank. he gently interrupted.
the older man stopped his tirade, a mix of emotions on his face: surprise. concern. annoyance. mostly concern.
– hank, he restarted. i’ll be fine. he reassured him. i know you don’t trust them, and i can’t force you to, but have a little faith.
“in me” in that last sentence unspoken.
– i… fuck, i know… but- he grumbled. just, if you don’t feel safe, call me. ok?
– of course. he answered. »
before stepping out of the building, the android looked back at his father figure, « take care, see you in the morning. », he did a small wave and threw his best pacifying smile. acute scans heard the older man’s resigned sigh and the twinkle of lingering concern in his features.
once out of the building, his sensors noted the drastic drop in temperature, the warmth and ambient brightness of within was replaced by the cold and windy dullness. it was a rather chilly night, clocking in at 14 degrees celsius, wind blowing rather harshly. wrapping his coat tighter around himself, he heads for where you normally park: take a right from the precinct, a few blocks away.
when he reached you, you were leaning on your motorbike, preoccupied with something on your phone, and only noticing the android through his footsteps.
looking up, you smirked, and stuffed your mobile into your pocket:
« glad to see that they freed you, you said, flicking a cigarette butt away.
– yes… i hope i didn’t make you wait too long? he greeted back.
– nah, it’s fine. »
you chucked the spare helmet you brought towards him—which he caught effortlessly—« come on, i wanna show you something. »
the ride to the destination was uneventful: it was the usual fare. you sped through the traffic, weaving through the different vehicles at a speed connor was sure was much over the speed limit (he has since given up on informing you as you seemed to ignore him, not keen on slowing down anytime soon).
this location seemed to be some distance outside of the city, as the street grew narrower and darker. the sounds of other vehicles no longer accompanying them. all he could hear was the air that you were blazing through and the humming of the motorcycle underneath you.
the cold wind blew from the direction you were heading, and he could feel the rush of air against his body, a sensation that, he figured, would feel chilly and unpleasant if he could “feel” cold. still, he instinctively clung tighter to your body to preserve body heat.
he watched the scenery change, sights buzzing by; the dark sky grew clearer and clearer, until a few bright stars were visible unlike back in the heart of the city.
the motorcycle slowed down to a halt, and he dismounted the vehicle. « here we are, you struck out a hand to dramatically gesture at the building. my usual haunt. »—the android squinted as he scrutinised the place, but before he could get a good look, his sight abruptly turned to black, his eyes not yet caught up with the sudden change in lighting. it was as if someone turned off the light switch, the world suddenly plunged into darkness. and apparently somebody did: you finally joined him after turning off the bike, killing the only light source.
nudging him to alert him of your presence, you pulled out a flashlight from your bag and flicked it on, illuminating the area once more. you headed towards the building, and twirled to face him. « tada! my happy place, where i usually come to relax after weeks of finals. you announced pridefully. »
[ ᴬᴺᴬᴸᵞˢᴵᴺᴳ ]
he regarded the place apprehensively. to say that it was what he expected it to be would be lie: what he expected to be a warm and rustic cottage, one that exudes cosiness, turned out to be the old remains of an unfinished construction, merely the skeleton of what would be commonhold. it was dark and dreary, shadows covering the empty spaces and the walls. some of the surface were left unfinished, making the “building” perforated, cold and unfriendly. brutal, even. It was clearly dirty, not taken care of, with rubble littering the floors.
he analysed the building and was concerned over its structural integrity. it didn’t seem that stable… surely you wouldn’t…?
you noticed your boyfriend’s souring impression and quickly tried to redeem the monument in his eyes:
« that look on you face… you hate this... don’t you? you winced.
your question caught him off guard, causing him to fumble for a recovery.
– i-uh… no! it… has a unique charm.
– you’re allowed to be honest, you know? you sighed.
– it’s … certainly not what i had in mind, he winced.
you bit your lip in a nervous smile. it’s far from prim and proper for straight laced connor, but you hope that this doesn’t end in a disastrous date.
– give it a chance, let me show you up there… you’ll love it! you grinned, trying to lighten the mood. »
entering the structure almost felt like entering a different reality: the white noises of the outside world, the hooting of owls, the chirping and buzzing of insects and the howl of the wind were dampened as soon as he followed you in. it was a different realm, where shade crawled about and reigned, the silence deafening and oppressive.
« mind the step. you alerted him. »
the murk did not deter you one bit, and, knowing the layout of the structure by heart, you led him through different twist and turns, avoiding what he deduced would be multiple deadends. only the light of the flashlight illuminating the way. he followed you obediently, not straying too far away from you, at the risk of becoming lost in this labyrinth. he observed the environment, perturbed. the area contained so many potential hazards, and the thought that you frequented this place often distressed him slightly: though he did not doubt your ability to take care of yourself, he didn’t like the idea that you could’ve potentially hurt yourself every time you went here.
he snapped out of his musing millimetres away from colliding with you and directed his attention to what you were currently preoccupied by: a ledge that led to the second floor.
« hey babe… how much do you weigh?
he took a few moments to answer, but you quickly rephrased.
– sorry, you chuckled, that turned out more personal that i thought. can you give me a leg up? you nodded at the protruding wall. the stairs that lead to the upper floors are blocked by rubble so i’m afraid this is our only way up. »
he simply nodded, you securing your light on your belt as he put himself in position against the wall to boost you up. the climb went through easily, and you quickly turned around to pull him up after his running jump. you both quickly stood up, the android dusting himself, ridding his clothes of soot and dust, before you start your trek once more.
« i was wondering—assuming you usually frequent this place on your own—how do you get over that wall by yourself? he asked.
– with great difficulty, you answered truthfully.
the android rolled his eyes.
– obviously, he says, in that lilt that never fails to make you chuckle.
– yeah? well i hope you’re not too tired today, ‘cause we have a bit more scaling to do. don’t want you slowing me down, you teased.
– as if. he scoffed. »
once on the highest floor, you led him towards an open chamber whose floor was largely intact but had a large gaping hole on one side—one that helped ventilate the room who, compared to the rest of the building, was properly aerated, the air much cleaner and safer to breathe than the musty and stale odor down below. the opening allowed the moonlight to bathe the room in a soft glow, illuminating the occupants with an ethereal white.
a second source of light caught his attention: a small fire that you ignited inside a metal drum, a flame whose heat was a pleasant contrast to the cold, an ember that highlighted the place with a stark, warm, orange glow against the satellite’s smooth, cold, bluish-white light.
you sat down unceremoniously on a worn out and unfinished windowsill—resembling more like a vaguely rectangular opening—the android joining you on the opposite side. lighting a cigarette, you took a deep breath and sighed, leaning back and gazing into the sable sky decorated by a plethora of stars. the man facing you mimicked your movements and gazed at the celestial bodies, little lights twinkling in the dark, innocent and brilliant. able to take his time to view the heavens, he noted that it resembles an elysian painting, tinted an aegean blue.
accompanying the sight was the rumbles of a rock song he wasn’t familiar with, probably from a rock concert a few kilometres away—making a note to find out and identify the venue. he could feel the deep thrumming of the bass and vaguely hear the melody, and though the dampened music made it slightly harder for him to pin it down, he managed to identify it: a hit song from a local indie band.
he turned to face you, your form peacefully resting against the wall behind you, eyes closed; features relaxed. breathing deeply, you blew puffs of smoke with a lazy, yet content, smile.
« so? what d’you think? your eyes were directly on him now. i know you had your reservations about this place... »
there was a small twitch in your smile, a tell he caught that told him of your nervousness. despite his previous opinion of this place, he could see why you liked it, and considered it your happy place: it was a distance away from the big city, the air pollution and the noise. it was quieter and calmer here, without any of the loud colours and chatter that never seemed to cease. the location also provided a good view of the woods around it and the elegant skies above, along with ambient music. one that certainly fit your tastes, but at a distance that didn’t make the atmosphere overbearing. it was a good place to recharge; to rest and to think, away from the cumbersome responsibilities, if only for a little while.
« i like it... it has a unique charm. he found himself repeating himself. it’s a good place to escape.
– do you? as if a switch was flicked, your uncertain demeanour was replaced with a cheeky grin. i’m glad this place grew on you!
you stood up and placed yourself closer to the android, sinking back on him.
– i... like places like these and exploring them… just glad i didn’t bore you away. »
you sighed as you settled comfortably against his chest, his arms quickly wrapping around your waist to cradle your form in a tight embrace.
he replied with a hum of approval. placing a hand on yours, he brings it up and presses a kiss on your palm. you gently caressed his cheek as he did.
« i’m never bored when i get to spend time with you, my love. he says softly, earnestly.
– you’re not half bad yourself, babe. you replied. »
he smacked your arm in faux disdain as you placed a kiss on his jaw, and the conversation ended after that. It was quiet, but it wasn’t an awkward silence; no, it was a comfortable one. no other words uttered. just the two of you, the crackle of the flame, your thoughts and the heavens.
connor is tracing soothing circles on the back of your hand, resting his head on the top of yours—his focus switching from the galaxy above and you—while you simply relish on the warmth of his presence and hum along to the song playing in the background.
though you knew he meant what he said, you notice him start to fidget and become restless. you’re never sure if it was due to the fact that he was a tireless android or if it was simply a tic of his, but he’s unable to simply sit and be. he’s already analysed all that could be analysed in this place, and you know it’s something he can’t help but do. he had a constant need to be up and about, doing something or preoccupying his mind with something.
« beautiful night, tonight, isn’t it? you started, catching his attention.
there was a few moments of silence before he answered.
– but certainly not as charming as you.
– ha. smooth one, anderson. »
the flame in the drum is dying, the heat it brought fading away: an attestation of the time that has passed. it’s been that long huh? the band has changed to a different song, though it shows no signs of finishing anytime soon. you decided it was time to put connor out of his misery and do something else.
snapping up unto your feet—startling the android slightly—you offer a hand and pulled him up:
« i got an idea. and it’s probably going to sound like a terrible, inane idea…
– how foolish are we talking? he asked, unfazed after going through with multiple of your “dates”; including, but not limited to, urban exploration, base jumping, and graffiti (he still doesn’t know why he agreed… he remembers you saying « rebel against the humans! »)
– i mean… it’s pretty tame considering the stuff i proposed before. you shrugged.
he raised a brow in suspicion.
– you... might be charged with criminal trespass… you admit and he looks horrified. but! but! you continued. that’s only if you get caught! which you wouldn’t be if you’re with me! you reassured him.
– what are you planning to do, exactly?
– i was thinking about sneaking in the concert and just bask in the energy. head for the moshpit or something. you’re bouncing off your ideas, hoping it might interest him. have fun, enjoy the music.
– i’ve researched that venue, it’s a private property! do you know the charges that’ll be pressed against you? he asked, perplexed.
– duh! it’s a misdemeanour trespass, as is stated in the michigan penal code: county jail for 30 days and/or a fine. section 750.552.. you answered nonchalantly. it don’t really matter! as i said: we won’t get caught.
– how are so calm about breaking these laws? he questioned, perplexed. for a law student, you seem so adamant to break them…
– look, con. i’m not gonna force you to do this. i love you, and i understand that you have a reputation to uphold, being a detective and all. you assured him. i don’t want you to feel that i’m peer pressuring you into this.
– i… i don’t.. you notice how his eyes shift, looking to the far left, unable to make eye contact. you notice that he’s conflicted, that he wants to do this, but doesn’t.
you sigh.
– look, we can walk back to the bike while you think about it, and you can tell me your decision once we’re there. alright? »
he doesn’t answer, but you know he heard you, so you start to make your way back down, the android following you wordlessly.
once down by your bike, you lean on it—rather similarly to how he met you earlier today—and nod at him:
« so? what’s you’re decision?
– this sounds like a bad idea…
still disagreeing, but not outright denying it. you meant what you said: you don’t want to make him do what he doesn’t want to do, but a partner in crime doesn’t sound half bad.
you huff.
– connor anderson. the connor anderson himself, who snuck into jericho. the same one who infiltrated cyberlife tower in what seemed to be a suicide mission. is scared of a little trespassing? you teased. live a little!
– i don’t see how me committing a crime would contributes to my satisfaction with life.
– haven’t you heard? as a wise man once said: “you haven’t lived until you’ve committed at least one blue collar crime”
– wh-i… literally no one said that! he sputtered in bewilderment.
– i just did… you said as you stomped on your cigarette. or are you calling me unwise?
– yes! that’s exactly what i’m calling you! he exclaimed.
you chuckled.
– oh come on… live a little. it’s not even that bad. you consoled. »
the android before you was conflicted. you could tell from his yellow led, which kept flickering and spinning. the guy was seriously debating this.
he’s intrigued. he wants to try it out, you just have to say the right things.
problem with the rk800 models: they were much too curious for their own good.
« i won’t tell if you don’t? you offered. »
you seat yourself on your bike and turn back to face him:
« so, are you in?
a moment of silence.
the android seemed to have a renewed confidence.
– as a law enforcement officer, what’s stopping me from arresting you right now? his eyes held a newfound determination.
you smirked lazily.
– absolutely nothing. »
he swears to god, or ra9, or whatever higher power there is, that you will be the death of him.
« get off. your ordered.
he followed the command without a word.
– we’re gonna walk the rest of the way. you added. »
the concert venue was now at a reasonable distance away, and it was within eyeshot. however, that also meant that everything was much louder. he could now feel the boom of the loud music, and make out the lyrics.
« so i’ve stalked this place before, and i know an entry. here’s the plan: we’re gonna immediately go to the right side. the fence that side is less guarded, since there’s a ditch that leads there; we can hide in there. however there was a drone, just one, and a cctv camera—and we also need to look out for guards—alors fais gaffe1 ok?
this far along and he still seemed hesitant, so you give one final push.
– too late to back out now buddy. you’ll be fine though. just follow my lead and disable that camera.
– wait! you glanced back at him. once inside, what do we do?
– just act natural and have fun. you grinned. »
and with that, you took off, making your way to the future crime scene.
he sighed, still unsure on how you managed to coerce him into this, but jogged to catch up to you.
you hopped down in the ditch, connor not too far behind, and you quickly mentioned, while pointing at a sign that said “no androids allowed”:
« by the way, you might want to keep that led of yours hidden. i’ve got some bobby pins if you need ‘em. you motioned to the beanie that he was currently adjusting. »
once he seemed satisfied with his changes, you asked him if he could tamper with the camera, which he swiftly disabled. you come out of your little hiding space and start climbing up the chain link fence, telling connor to keep an eye out for the security drone currently patrolling. what you forgot to tell him was the part where you were going to take it out, catching the android off guard as you throw yourself off the top part of the fence you were clinging on onto the passing drone. your swinging and flailing, combined with your weight pulling it down, caused the contraption to crash and the android—who seemed to have snapped out of his stupor—grabbed a metal pipe lying near the barrier and proceeded to smash the machine.
chucking the object to the side, he went to help you up on you feet:
« are you alright?
– i’m fine. you looked at the metallic junk that was once a drone. we make a pretty good team, don’t you think?
he looked back at the destroyed drone.
– i don’t want to keep thinking about it…
– destruction of property. you clicked your tongue. i’m proud of you con. you pretended to wipe a tear off your eyes.
– let’s just go. he turned away , and you follow him up the fence with a chuckle.
– cheer up con. you hopped over the chain. it’s okay… you’ve done worse. »
he was about to retort, when a figure seemed to head your way, and you both managed to duck out into a corner before being discovered by the flashlight.
when it was clear, you snuck out of the hiding spot and proceeded to join the masses. it was different. he’s never been to a concert before. sure, he was a fan of rock, often listening to it with hank, but experiencing it live was so very different. he knew it would be loud, deafening, but he didn’t expect the surge of excitement and vivacity. it was exhilarating, a completely different world: the bright colours, the loud ambiance, the energy of the music. the android couldn’t help, but let himself get a bit excited.
he was glad he decided to come though he’d never admit it to you.
you both floated around the edge of the crowd, the venue being full. it wasn’t a particularly big place, but there were quite a lot of people there, you mused out loud. must be a pretty popular band, their song being catchy enough.
at some point or another, you both cheered along with the crowd (though he was much meeker in his cries), and for some reason, decided to try and wade through the people to get closer to the front—the moshpit—this time, the android seemed to play along with your plan without complaint.
he sort of wished he had now.
you don’t really know when it happened, whether it was when you rummaged through the people or during a collision while moshing, lost in the intensity of the crowd—every member in state of ecstatic delirium.
the beanie came off.
when he realised, he quickly hid his led, which was a disturbed yellow, and notified you. you didn’t have to hear what he said to know what was happening.
you quickly led him towards the “exit”, the immediate crowd—who saw the black sheep—parting like the red sea as you crossed, but as your neared the edge of the venue security finally reached and cornered you.
you quickly placed yourself besides connor, sending across a relaxed body language. you discreetly grabbed his hand, and whispered « play along » which he wouldn’t have heard if he were human.
« how may we help you sir? you asked, flashing your friendliest smile.
– i’m concerned about this friend of yours… his eyes glanced at your boyfriend, but you keep your eyes on him.
connor was unfazed. perhaps because he trusted your ability in getting yourselves out of this mess—awww, you’re flattered—or that his model are used to high stress environment—most likely, but you certainly hope it was also because of the former.
this was a darker area of the place, so it would obscure most of your features, and the band was still playing in the background—ignorant to the revelation—which would somewhat hide your voices.
– what about him? curt and indignant.
– androids are not allowed in this area. he pointed to the anti-android post outside the fence. the fence that led to freedom. i’m going to have to bring him in for trespass, and you for smuggling him in.
androids were recognised as their own sentient species, but laws protecting them have yet to be passed: android-free zones were still legal. most places in the city removed their anti-android signs, but people from the periphery seemed more resistant to change.
fuck.
– oh that old thing? the led? that don’t prove nothing. you shrugged. be cool [y/n]. it’s just a temporary tattoo. motherfucker lost a bet.
you thank whatever gods above that the rk800 models could somewhat control their led colour, so that his remained blue.
– is that so? he turned to connor. you seemed adamant on hiding that led of yours.
the asshat must have a grudge against androids, huh? You wished he’d just kick you out. make life easier for both parties.
– it’s a fake tattoo. he played along. and it’s a bad one at that—i don’t want to be associated with those plastics… he grumbled.
you cackled.
– well, maybe you shouldn’t have lost that bet, michael.
the guard in front of you grunted, displeased. he really wanted to bring in an android huh? prove something to someone? or just pure malice? you never really paid attention in psych class.
– if that’s the case, since you’re both humans, i’d like to see your ticket. »
you went rigid. clenching your jaw you planned your next course of action.
you have your phone in your pocket, but there was nothing. you could surrender it, and run away as he was distracted, but he could then trace it back to you and press charges…
you could fight? the both of you could easily overpower him, outrunning him wouldn’t be a problem either. but you’ll never hear the end of it if you decided to hurt someone when you had a more pacifist option, so you chose to run.
it was abrupt. you were in a standoff, one party waiting for the other to make their move. and all of the sudden you make a break for it and dash off for the fence, your partner running for it too. there was a bit of a scuffle but you managed to fend him off long enough for you to scramble up the fence. the man quickly caught up and yanked your leg—alarming you—though a well placed kick from the other freed you long enough to jump off into the other side, ready to make a dash for your life as you land.
the two of you ran until you reached your bike, which was quite a distance away (thank fuck for that, at least he won’t follow you that far—unless he’s really fucking persistent), where you collapsed on the spot and panted slightly.
the android himself was looking slightly weary.
heavy breathing turned into wheezing laughter as the absurdity of what just transpired settled into your mind.
« i can’t believe that actually happened! you exclaimed between laughs.
– we barely got out of there! he chided. we were almost arrested!
– but we weren’t. told ya’ con. should’a believed me. you tsk-ed, having calmed down from the giggles. i’m insulted to be quite honest.
you exploded into another fit of laughter.
– i don’t know how i managed to get you to do this with me! you howled.
– never again. he stated, a finality in his tone.
– oh come on, you loved it. you rolled your eyes.
he stared at you in silence, unimpressed. it was true, but you’ll never hear that from him.
– i hate you, he frowned.
– love you too babe, you responded, running a hand through your hair. »
he sighed and let himself fall beside you. taking out your backpack once more, you rummaged through and handed him an item: an inconspicuous water bottle.
when asked what it was, you answered « thirium. that’s what you guys drink right? » as you opened your own water bottle, gulping down its content.
he informed you that androids don’t need to constantly replenish the thirium in his body like humans did with water—only drinking them when they have lost a significant amount—but that he appreciated the gesture.
“it’s the thought that counts”.
you huffed, slightly bashful, going into a tirade about how you can’t keep up with the constantly evolving technology.
« you’re starting to sound like hank now. » he chuckled and you grimaced and pretended to vomit in response, though you joined him in his laughter.
you both spent time sitting there. just breathing. coming down from your adrenaline rush.
« wanna crash at my place? you offered.
– i’d be more than happy to, he obliged. »
that night, you both slept like a rock. well, you did. you completely conked out. connor peacefully entered stasis as he usually did. you arrived at your flat sometime in the morning and passed out. barely managing to blearily have a “shower”—dousing yourself in water—before passing out.
come later in the morning—when the light shone softly and the white noise of the city: ambient sound of traffic, chatter, chirping of pigeons—you were sleeping peacefully when you felt someone shift beside you, rousing you slightly from your slumber.
you groaned as your head gains enough coherence to remember about university and the brunt of the waking world. think you’re gonna play hooky today. maybe kenneth can take notes for you… you made a note to ask him later...
unwrapping himself from you, your partner stood up to get ready to go to work—going off to change into neater clothings that he stored in your house and getting decent—and went off to prepare a pot of coffee for you and stick bread in the toaster.
feeling the sudden loss of heat as he went away, your sleep heavy mind blindly felt the portion of the bed that he usually slept on—the right—patting it, looking for the missing presence.
this went on for a few minutes and your limb felt heavy as your tired body fell back asleep. you resigned to simply poke your arm from under the cover, hoping it’d catch someone.
you were half asleep when the reaching hand finally found something, as it was held and gently guided to another’s cheek, yet another kiss pressed on your palm.
you felt your heart melt, and hummed approvingly.
« stay. you mumbled.
he smiled at your naïve request.
– i have to go to work.
– skip work… f… ight the government… you yawned.
– you know i can’t do that, my love.
– i… order you... you sleep riddled mind was struggling to keep up as you slowly dozed again. to…
– i’ll see you again this evening, i’ll be right back.
oh yeah it’s saturday, you reminded yourself. no classes. you mentally cheered.
– okk… you were going to pass out again. »
his warmth left you, and you find yourself yearning for it again.
before he left, he glanced back towards you—practically buried under the duvet, only visible as a lump under the blanket and the hand poking through the right side.
« i love you, [y/n] »
you were too gone to reply, but regardless, he left for work with a small smile.
work went on as usual. filling reports was boring, but it had to be done. at least he could finish them in record time, built to be more efficient at it than your typical human officer. being a detective assigned to the anti-android crimes taskforce, it was rather quiet right now, and though he was grateful that androids weren’t being harmed, it was terribly boring. though colin, who had to start all the way back at the beginning as a beat cop, seemed to be enjoying a peaceful break.
he sighed for the umpteenth time as he fidgeted and fiddled with his coin, having already abused the fun out of his multiple pens and pencils. he missed spending time with you; at least it was exciting and unpredictable (getting to be with you is an enjoyable bonus). he stared blankly at his coin and sighed again.
his father figure gave him a look across the desk—“did anything happen?”. he shook his head.—“no nothing bad or dangerous happened while i was with [y/n].”.
the android then asked if he fancied a cup of coffee from the coffee shop across the road. the old man simply grunted.
« you can just take a walk, you don’t need to use me as a fucking excuse.
– alright. he answered placidly. »
the android thought about walking to stretch his legs. maybe go to that bakery that you fancied so much. you did like the strawberry shortcake a crazy amount. but as he would find out, the slow and easy moments shouldn’t be taken for granted: a very disgruntled man, who stormed in to file a police report, happened to run in with the android, still somewhat deep in his musings. oh boy was he in for a rude awakening.
they both promptly apologise, however, once they saw each other they instantly recognised each other—though the detective kept his face neutral.
« you! you’re the fucking android that trespassed into a restricted area! he accused.
straight faced, he replied calmly.
– i am indeed an android, but i believe you may have accused the wrong one. there often many iterations of the same model. he cursed his stars and the fates that put him in this situation. one that meant he was, as hank would put it, in deep shit. »
he was glad most people didn’t know there were only 2 rk800 currently in circulation: him and his brother, colin, whom he was trying to contact.
as connor continued trying to placate the angry man, and deny his involvement in anything, he heard his brother’s voice come through.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ᵂᴴᴬᵀ'ˢ ᵁᴾ? ]
> [ ᵀᴴᴱᴿᴱ ᴵˢ ᴬ ᴹᴬᴺ ᴼᵁᵀ ᴴᴱᴿᴱ, ᶜᴸᴱᴬᴿᴸᵞ ᵛᴱᴿᵞ ᶜᴿᴼˢˢᴱᴰ, ᵂᴴᴼ ᵂᴼᵁᴸᴰ ᴸᴵᴷᴱ ᵀᴼ ᶠᴵᴸᴱ ᴬ ᴾᴼᴸᴵᶜᴱ ᴿᴱᴾᴼᴿᵀ. ]
he decided to give him a clear picture.
[ SENDING AUDIO-VISUAL FEED TO RK800 #313 248 317-60—COLIN ]
[ LINK ESTABLISHED. WAITING PERMISSION… ]
[ ACCEPTED. ]
> [ ᴬ ᵀᴿᴱˢᴾᴬˢˢ ᴼᴺ ᴾᴿᴵᵛᴬᵀᴱ ᴾᴿᴼᴾᴱᴿᵀᵞ ᴮᵞ ᴬ ᴰᴱᵛᴵᴬᴺᵀ ]
there was a moment of silence before his brother replied.
[ ᵂᴴᴬᵀ ᵀᴴᴱ ᴴᴱᴸᴸ ᴰᴵᴰ ᵞᴼᵁ ᵀᵂᴼ ᴳᴱᵀ ᴵᴺᵀᴼ ᴸᴬˢᵀ ᴺᴵᴳᴴᵀ? ]
> [ ᴵ ᴬᴾᴾᴿᴱᶜᴵᴬᵀᴱ ᴴᴼᵂ ᵞᴼᵁ ᴵᴹᴹᴱᴰᴵᴬᵀᴱᴸᵞ ᴬˢˢᵁᴹᴱᴰ ᴵᵀ ᵂᴬˢ ᵁˢ. ]
connor replied, sarcastic but devoid of humour.
[ ᵂᴱᴸᴸ? ᵂᴬˢ ᴵᵀ ᴿᴱᴬᴸᴸᵞ ᵞᴼᵁ ᵀᵂᴼ? ]
the android, who somehow felt a migraine develop—even though that shouldn’t be possible—sighed.
> [ ᴸᴼᴺᴳ ˢᵀᴼᴿᵞ ˢᴴᴼᴿᵀ, ᵂᴱ ᵀᴿᴱˢᴾᴬˢˢᴱᴰ ᴵᴺᵀᴼ ᴬᴺ ᴬᴿᴱᴬ ᵂᵂ ˢᴴᴼᵁᴸᴰ'ᵛᴱ ᴬᵛᴼᴵᴰᴱᴰ. ]
> [ˢᴱᴺᴰ ᴴᴱᴸᴾ? ]
[ ᵞᴼᵁ? ᶜᴼᴹᴹᴵᵀᴱᴰ ᴬ ᶜᴿᴵᴹᴱ ᴼᴺ ᵞᴼᵁᴿ ᴼᵂᴺ ᵛᴼᴸᴵᵀᴵᴼᴺ? ]
the android could hear his brother cackle at his misery. though outside of earshot, the sound echoes in his mind as the link was not yet severed.
[ ᴺᴬᴴ, ᵞᴼᵁ'ᴿᴱ ᴼᴺ ᵞᴼᵁᴿ ᴼᵂᴺ ᴼᴺ ᵀᴴᴵˢ ᴼᴺᴱ ]
[ ᴳᴼᴼᴰ ᴸᵁᶜᴷ ᵀᴴᴼᵁᴳᴴ. ]
[ ᴴᴬᴺᴷ'ˢ ᴳᴼᴺᴺᴬ ᴮᴱ ᴾᴵˢˢᴱᴰ ]
and with that, his brother abandoned him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
the man was absolutely irate, convinced that he was the one who trespassed in the venue—he wasn’t wrong—be he kept accusing someone of the same profile as him, but named “michael”. you really did him a favour on that one.
it seemed like salvation had come however, as hank intercept the confrontation—the man calmed down after seeing a human officer. his brother must’ve informed the lieutenant (connor wants to thank him, but not), knowing how the appearance of two rk800s would only aggravate the situation.
through a stroke of luck, the man didn’t have enough evidence to successfully file a report—against an rk800 named “michael”... who didn’t exist.
but to say that hank was pissed was an understatement.
thus begins the walk of shame as hank demanded to « talk in private ».
at the end of a severe tongue-lashing, decorated with many “fuck”s and “shit”s, he was in a sour mood and positively fuming. forget the shortcake. he was absolutely going to get back at you for this.
you were snoozing peacefully, off in dreamworld, when you woke up to the buzzing of your phone.
groggy, you ran you hand under the pillows and felt for the object until you found it.
checking it revealed that you 27 missed calls from an unknown number and a few message from them:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
unknown number
[ two missed message ]
> what the fuck did you get connor into?
> ???????
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
bzz. bzz. a new message?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
unknown number
[ 1 new message ]
> i know you saw the messages, fuckibg answer
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
you also had a new message from connor, though his message didn’t bode well for you either:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
connard2 anderson <3
[ 1 missed message ]
> we need to talk.
> ):<
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
the use of the emoji made you chuckle, but you were scared of what the future brought for you. oh boy… you were in deep shit weren’t you…
e͟p͟i͟l͟o͟g͟u͟e͟:
you lived to see another day.
hank gave you an even more brutal scolding than what connor received, and you swore that if this were a shitty choice-that-matters game you’d see a metre for his friendship go down.
not that there was much there in the first place.
connor gave an even more punishing sanction: he gave you the absolute silent treatment for a month. no talking, no hugs nor cuddles, and only the odd texts once in a blue moon. an absolutely miserable 31 days for you, spent by sulking.
safe to say this was a punishment you’ll never forget, and one that will discourage you from ever trying that kind of stunt ever again.
or at least when connor’s around. it’s free game when it’s just you by yourself.
connor knows this and simply sighs in resignation and just hopes you don’t get yourself in potentially future career ruining situation...
f͟o͟o͟t͟n͟o͟t͟e͟s
1. french expression that i was too lazy to translate, essentially means “watch out/stay alert”,,, somewhere along those lines, but informal.
2. connard is a french word pronounced almost like connor, but it means shithead. reader i have a strange sense of humour.
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The Chronicles of the Dark One: Breaking the Curse
Chapter 28: The Middle of Something
He hadn't hit Moe hard. In truth, he'd been aiming more to disorient him than actually to knock him unconscious. But he was out just long enough for him to tie his hands together in front of his enormous belly. With the final knot, Moe French began to come around. He groaned and blinked his bleary eyes looking around to figure out where he was and what was going on when he realized his hands were tied and finally spotted him. His eyes widened in fear, and he felt pride swell up inside of him at the image. It did make him feel like his old self again. No! Better than his old self! Because this was what he'd always wanted to do to Belle's father after he'd heard the news, he'd always wanted to kill him, to make him afraid, to let him feel the same desperation his own daughter might have felt before she'd been compelled to take her own life. And he didn't need magic to do it…glorious.
"What are you going to do to me?"
Anger reared its head again, tearing through him like a dozen knives at those words. Those words…those exact fucking words. They made his chest constrict and tighten as he recalled a moment in time when he perhaps could have changed the course of history, could have spared Belle's life, and changed the outcome of all this.
So, what are you going to do to me? she'd asked.
Love you, if you'll forgive me…how he wished he'd replied with those words. Instead, he was here, leering over a fat old man, and doing the one thing he hated to do…wish.
He ripped a piece of duct tape from the roll he'd just purchased and placed it over the former King's mouth. "We're going on a little trip," he explained as he moved to the driver's seat. "And once we've arrived, we'll have a nice little chat. Unless, of course, you'd like to tell me where it is before we begin?" He glanced over his shoulder only to see Moe watching him with scared eyes. He neither nodded nor shook his head. Coward. "Didn't think so..."
It finally started to rain while they drove out of town. The once former King made muffled noises the entire way as if he was trying to speak with him, but it was useless with the tape over his mouth. He ignored the moans and groans of his cargo, kept his eyes on the road, and continued to drive to what he had already decided was "the perfect spot" for interrogation. It was a place away from others, a place deep in the woods, a place that Moe French could scream all he liked, but no one would hear him.
His false memories told him that this cabin had been in his family since his Aunt had bought the land. His family had meant to start some sort of vacationing business with it, but they kept one of the better cabins for personal use. He had "memories" of coming up to this place as a child, but the truth was that he'd never been here before. Though he knew the layout, knew all the furniture, knew what was inside every single drawer in the kitchen, he'd never stayed here. Mr. Gold wasn't one to take vacations or time off of any kind. He preferred to be working in town. And so, the cabin had gone unused all these years.
As he pulled into the long driveway for it, he smiled. It was good that he'd finally found a decent use for it.
He shut off the truck's engine and pulled his gun out once more to give it a check. Only then did he lower himself down to the ground and begin his stroll to the back of the van. He had a plan, a good plan. But part of knowing how to plan was assessing the riskiest parts of that plan. Getting Moe into the van had been risky. But getting him from the van to the house…that was riskier.
He was smaller than Moe and obviously less mobile. He could only imagine what it would be like if Moe decided to run into the woods. He'd be lost, obviously, or fall and injure himself, and there would be very little he could do from there on his own. He could call Dove, but he wanted to keep Dove and anyone else away from this situation. If he had to bring someone else in, it wouldn't end the way he wanted it to. He had a gun, if Moe decided to run, then he could shoot, but he didn't want the man dead. If he was dead, then his answers were gone. Maurice was a coward. At least that was his assessment of him in their land. Unwilling to do what was necessary until it was too late, unable to make difficult decisions, even unable to chase after his only daughter once she'd made the decision and the sacrifice for him. The monster hadn't even had the balls to send a soldier to do his dirty work. Maurice was a coward. For his sake, he hoped that Moe would be too.
At the back of the van, he pointed his gun at Moe. "Walk!" he shouted, trying to sound as angry and intimidating as possible. He couldn't shoot him, but he wanted him to think that if he tried anything stupid, he would. He watched as Moe edged himself out of the back of the truck, finally sliding to the ground with a weighted "thud." Then, gun pointed at his back, he ushered the large man to the door and pointed him inside.
"You see, here's the thing…" he explained as he let Moe French into the cabin, "I don't normally let people get away."
He slammed the door, letting Moe jump at the noise. Then he took a look around. He'd never been here in his life, not once in the twenty-eight years Storybrooke had existed…and the cabin smelled like it too. It was musty. The air was damp and stale all at once, in desperate need of a breeze and the smell of rain to clear it out. It was dusty too. Everything in his life was dusty. Odd how he'd never noticed that in his life. It would have driven Belle crazy. Now, the dust mocked him. It made her absence so much more palpable than it had been a few moments ago. And just like that, it was as if he could suddenly see the holes, the places in his life that she belonged but were left unfilled. The library across the street from the shop. The dust all around him. Anger and rage that built inside of him unchecked and unsoothed. Conversations he'd never get to have with anyone. Teacups that were unchipped, meaningless. One of those things he had hope he could fix.
He took the duct tape off of the man's mouth and sat him down on a low bench against the wall, one that would ensure he was always taller and capable of towering over him. Then, against every desire he had, he set the gun down. He had to. He wanted too much to kill the man responsible for the death of the best person he'd ever known, the greatest love he'd ever experienced. He wanted him to die just as she had…but he needed him alive. And looking around this place, seeing and feeling the places she was not, even here, he felt his temper stir. He was smart enough to know that if the gun were on him, it would be too tempting to use it if he frustrated him. For getting him to talk, his cane would do the trick. Annoying and cumbersome as it was, over the years, he'd come to find just how effective a tool it could be.
He grabbed a chair for himself and dragged it over to Mr. French as he whined. "Let me explain, okay? Let me explain."
Explain…explain what, exactly? Why he'd stolen items of value and taken one cup that was both worthless and priceless? Explain why he was alone? Explain why the daughter who had loved him, sacrificed her life for him, had been held against her will in a tower for that sacrifice. How she'd been tortured? How he'd stood by and watched that beautiful light inside of her dim to the point that she felt she had no other choice but to throw herself from the tower and jump to her death? He didn't want to hear it. There was no suitable or acceptable explanation for any of it.
"Oh. Well, that is…fascinating. Truly fascinating!" he exclaimed sarcastically. Then took his cane and pressed it into the man's throat.
Poor Moe gagged. He flinched away from it, brought his hands up to defend himself as best he could, but there wasn't much he could do against him. Not much, but listen and give him his answers. If he couldn't have Belle, he would have her cup back. It was all he had left of her. He'd be damned if he was going to take it away.
"I'm going to let you breathe in a second, and you're going to say two sentences. The first is going to tell me where it is. The second is going to tell me who told you to take it. Do you understand the rules?"
Moe didn't respond. Of course, that could have had something to do with the fact that his cane was pressing down on his windpipe. In that case, he'd take his lack of a response as a response.
"Good. Let's begin."
He pulled the cane from his throat, and Moe French eased, gasping in breath after breath of air. He leaned forward and waited. Two sentences. He hadn't been joking. All he needed to hear were those two sentences, and he'd be content. He'd let the man go, or at least that was what he told himself he'd do. He didn't fear persecution from him! Moe French had just as much of a spine as King Maurice had. He just needed to know where Belle's cup was and if it had been Regina who suggested he take it!
Finally, Moe opened his mouth. "I needed that van..."
"Ah-h-h-h!" he interrupted as anger and excitement mingled inside of him, and he took hold of the cane at the bottom, turning it into an altogether different object. In his pocket he felt his phone vibrate, there was a phone call coming in, but he couldn't be bothered to answer because he was in the middle of something. He didn't know how much he'd wanted Moe French to defy him until just that moment. Now that he had, there were a few lessons he'd been dying to teach him.
"Now, you see, that is not a good first sentence!" he cried before bringing the head of the cane down on him.
Lesson one: pain.
"Ow! Gold! Listen!"
"Tell me where it is!"
Lesson two: reward sacrifice, don't kill it!
"Ow!" he screamed as he hit him again. "Stop!"
"Tell me where it is!"
Lesson three: respect.
"Ow! Stop! It wasn't my fault!"
A shiver ran through his body at those words. "'My fault'? What are you talking about, 'my fault'?"
Fault. He wanted to talk about fault?! Fantastic!
Lesson four: whose fault was it that he was alone? Whose fault was it that they were both alone? That he was the way he was? Whose fault was it that so many in Storybrooke would hold their loved ones close tomorrow night while all he held close was a damaged cup made of porcelain?!
His.
"You shut her out. You had her love, and you shut her out!"
Lesson five: good parenting!
French screamed again as he delivered the blow.
"She's gone. She's gone forever – she's not coming back. And it's your fault!"
Lesson six: kindness.
"Not mine!"
Lesson seven: acceptance!
"You are her father!
Lesson eight: personal property!
"Yours! It's yours!"
Lesson nine: strength.
Lesson ten…love.
He lost track of the number of times he hit him after that, completely forgot to remember what the lessons were supposed to be. The world faded away as he administered blow after blow after blow. He didn't know the words coming out of his mouth. He became numb to the ringing of his phone blended together with the yelps coming out of Maurice when he suddenly felt a hand close over his wrist.
Emma Swan.
"Stop!" she ordered.
He looked at Moe, and suddenly, an image surfaced in his mind, a picture of Belle smiling at him after she'd begged him not to kill Robin Hood, and he hadn't. Calm broke over him like a breeched damn at the memory, and the fire inside of him extinguished. He cooled as he remembered her face, remembered the feel of her when she'd thrown her arms around him and what she'd helped him to feel stirring inside the now empty place in his chest.
He stopped. Belle didn't give him a choice. Neither did the Swan.
#Rumbelle#Rumple#Rumpelstiltskin#mr gold#Dark One#Belle#Moe French#Maurice#Emma Swan#ouat#ouat fanfiction#fanfic
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Why not kill two birds with one stone?
---
The way they'd established supply runs was an intricate ordeal. It was an effort split between a group and a solo act of sorts, with the group scavenging for anything useful (like food , tools, or any bits and bobs that might come in handy later) while one lone soul would run around leading the Ink Demon in circles to keep it well away from the supply run's path. That "morning", after the usual breakfast of bacon soup, stale coffee and ink brew, Henry had assigned the roles through the drawing of straws (actually just pieces of paper he'd tried to cut as evenly as possible) among the few toons that did not have a particular task to complete for the day. Norman, Buddy, Shawn and Grant had thusly ended up together as a group, while Sammy was the unfortunate bait of the day. Not that he had any trouble getting around mind you... He could run faster now that he had a stable body, and he knew the layout of the top floors pretty well now that some of his memories as the Prophet ressurfaced. He could also sense the demon's presence more acutely so he could run circles around the damn thing without it realizing it was being duped.
Overall it was a solid team. Too solid even.
Which of course called for some action on 'Wally's part.
'Wally' had it all figured out or at least that's what he liked to think. He was, for a matter of lack of words, a wolf in sheep's clothing... Or... a sheep in wolf's clothing? Or was it an idea in sheepish wolf's clothing?
Ok maybe he didn't have it all figured out, but who cared? He didn't have to do the big thinking anyway because there were two people doing that for him anyways. All he really needed to do was play is part as the clumsy but charming guy that got everyone else to laugh. Get all cozy and cute with these people and get the plot running real smooth without them realizing it.
Simple in theory but very difficult in practice for, you see, 'Wally' was the idea of Wally Franks constructed in the image of an off-model Boris with a goofy grin, a Brooklyn accent, and a love for pranks and foods he'd never tasted before. Every single tape the Ink could find it used to create him. Including one very specific trait: Wally Franks was a bit of a dick sometimes, but he was genuinely nice to those he care for. And it just so happened he cared for all these other dicks who were currently living cartoon characters. Yes even Sammy Stick-Up-The-Ass Lawrence... What a dang predicament...
Sabotaging them on Joey's and the Ink's command was getting harder and harder each time, and both his creators were not happy with this.
He either did as he was told, or he'd be in a world of trouble. He needed to do something big, and fast!
Thus came the idea to sabotage the supply run. A plan that quickly went off the rails big time because he'd turned off his brain for just a second...
Sneaking off was really easy. Tom had told him to fasten some of the bolts on the less stable pipes upstairs and, after some very convincing grumbling under his breath, he'd gone up to do just that. Except he kept on walking right past where his stop was at. He had eyes on a much bigger task than fiddling with some faulty pipework that was gonna burst later anyways.
Sammy was awfully suspicious of him, so 'Wally' made sure to wait around to check where he was headed before searching the upper floors for Norman's crew. The Ink had whispered to him, told him that if he took Polk's reels he'd be able to cut the run short and force them to go back. Then the Ink would simply scare off Sammy by leading the demon straight to him when he least expected it.
He'd stupidly not questioned why taking the reels would force the group back. He'd been too curious to see what was on them anyways to consider they might be important to Norman in a physical sense.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
"Anyone else feeling a bit watched?" Grant whispered as 'Wally' crept around from within the walls, keeping his eye on the prize. Polk had fastened the reels into place before leaving, so snatching them off without being noticed wasn't going to be easy. He wasn't a dull joe, however, so he got around that issue with quite the clever grift.
Some of the walls were rotten from being soaked with ink for so long, so one careful tug was all he needed to make a part of the wall and ceiling collapse.
"Watch out!" The object-head toon turned around to shield his partners, blocking their view and being unable to see as 'Wally' quickly descended upon him and took both items in one swift motion. Using the dust clouds and sound of crunching wood as cover to flee from the scene.
As easy and sweet as pie! He could already hear his creators praising him for the good job. Now to figure out what was so damn important about these dang films that Polk obcessed over them so much...
As soon as he'd found a projector he popped them in and eagerly awaited a show. The first few minutes of footage confused him, as he wasn't seeing cartoons but real human people. Then a few more minutes of this strange "real people film" made him realize it wasn't some fictional bad soap opera that the projectionist had somehow saved.
These were moments in Norman's life. Norman's memories. They were a part of him.
Which is when 'Wally' realized he fucked up. Wait no, that wasn't true. He realized this when a terrifying roar and three terrified screams shook the halls...
---
Sammy's wool stood on end as soon as he heard the roar just one floor below him. The bellowing of the Projectionist when he was still a feral ink abomination. A screech that had followed him and Jack as they ran like their butts were on fire towards the base where a temporary cage awaited the monster Norman Polk had become.
That screech that was somehow ringing downstairs, diverting the demon's attention from the sheep toon. Something terrible had happened and the others were likely in a world of trouble. He had to move.
Rushing down the stairs Sammy listened to the horrific roars and the screams of his coworkers. He then followed the mess left behind. Splintered doors, broken furniture and a trail of ink. Someone's ink.
Someone was injured while the demon was on the prowl.
He turned a corner and stumbled as he walked into 'Wally'. He was surprised at first, unsure why the cartoon wolf would be all the way upstairs, before his eyes landed on two very familiar blank looking reels. It clicked in his mind that the roars and 'Wally' holding these two items Norman had been protective of were connected somehow.
"You..." He snarled, actually snarled, wool turning to bristled fur on the back of his neck and tip of his tail as anger replaced apprehension.
"I... I can explain!"
"What did you do?!"
"I was... I was fixin' the pipes and a wall collapsed! I swear! I found these and... I think they were Norman's? I figured I might need to give 'em back an--"
"Cut the €π@¶, you're a $#!¥ liar mutt..." Sammy hissed furiously as he grabbed 'Wally' by the ears. "I told Henry you were bad news, but did he listen? No!"
"O-ow Sammy that smarts!"
"Trust me once I tell the others, me pulling on your ears will feel like a light spanking..." The sheep toon began to drag the wolf along, continuing his search for his missing teammates.
His anger dissipating as the trail of ink (blood) continued on. And then it stopped. Right in front a little miracle station situated in a trashed room.
Sammy stared at it for a little while before pressing his head to it. He could hear muffled familiar crying.
"Grant, you in there...?" He called, hoping for anything. A meek yes, a sob, anything...
He didn't expect the station to open up and have two child-sized toons tackle him in desperation.
Shawn and Grant were terrified. Worse yet... Buddy was with them and he did not look well.
'Wally' stared at the heavily wounded toon dog, barely able to look at the extensive damage. The kid was missing chunks for Pete's sake!
"What happened?" Sammy tried to get the others to talk.
"A wall collapsed, and... £¢€&... Oh my god..." Grant was hysterical and Shawn wasn't any better.
"It was mad, madness! I can't... And Norman..."
"Words, use your words, come on! What happened? Where's Norman?!" Sammy insisted, shaking the two smaller toons for good measure. They hiccuped and sobbed, and Grant could barely hold up one of his hands to point to a corner, where a lone projector lay discarded. 'Wally's stomach plummeted at the sight, and Sammy's grip slackened as he realized the implications.
"He went n-nuts... He attacked us! Buddy t-tried to stop him... W-we could barely escape into the station and then... Oh god Sammy, the Demon killed Norman! It just..."
"Head straight off, like he was nothin'!"
The reels clattered to the floor, rolling a few feet to meet with the projector that was spurting ink like a macabre fountain piece. 'Wally' had messed up big time.
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