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captainofthedauntless · 1 year

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hii i really like your writing!! <33 i was wondering if we could get something for y/n asking their turt to be their valentine? i was gonna ask for bayverse but i saw your rules said you were most confident with writing 2003 so whatever you like best! take as much time as you need!! <333333 p.s. heres a cookie *cookie*

Hi lovely! We're all cool pretending it's still Valentine's, right? Awesome.

I chose Bayverse for now, but plan to do the 03 guys soon! I took the friends-to-lovers route here, I hope you enjoy.

(As always, set post-movies!)

So you want to ask a turtle out.

Don's an observant guy, so it's not that he's completely shocked that you like him. But to have that suspicion, quiet and dangerous in the back of his mind, confirmed? To have you ask him directly? He's mystified. It's one thing to think he might have a chance, but it's another thing altogether to have a chance handed to him on a silver platter.

So when you catch him in between tasks and offer him a box of chocolates- a brand April had brought down one time and he had mentioned really enjoying and you had somehow remembered, because apparently he wasn't the only observant one here- and smile at him, warm and fond and visibly nervous, he's left blinking at you. Then, apparently taking his pause as a lack of understanding- or just trying to fill the silence, he couldn't be sure- you speak.

"Would you be my Valentine?"

And he's gone. Don.EXE has stopped working, would you like to restart? It's like static in his mind for a beat, two, and suddenly he's nodding quickly and a smile is growing on his face and "Yeah! Yeah, of course- yes. I'd love to."

He shares the chocolate with you, and on his, like, seventh piece, he finally works up the nerve to ask you if you meant "Valentine" like romantically, and your laugh is good-natured enough that he can't even bother to be embarrassed.

"Like romantically, yeah."

"Cool, cool. I thought so, but it's not actually an exclusively romantic term and- interestingly enough there seems to be a rise in platonic usage, I was just reading an article about it the other day-"

He goes on for several minutes. You listen patiently, and right as he's about to apologize for the tangent you ask him a question and he's grinning like an idiot and launching into an answer and it's officially the best Valentine's Day ever, and he's already plotting ways to get you back for it.

Leonardo is, honestly, a little irritated. Not because you asked! No, no, he's elated- ecstatic- about that. He's so happy he doesn't know what do with it all.

But you beat him to it, and that's... it's a little frustrating. The turtle was slow, and he's not the biggest fan of the irony.

He had a plan. He had a whole plan- he finally worked up the nerve to tell you he cared for you (he wasn't willing to say the L word just yet, but he did love you, and it was getting to be too much to ignore), he'd convinced April to get him your favorite chocolate (he'd gathered intel from your "secret" stash at your place, where you kept the good stuff out of Mikey's hands. He had been very stealthy and was more than a little proud of himself and a lot in debt to April- he'd be watching her favorite awful TV shows with her for months), and he'd written you a short poem (and edited, and scrapped, and rewritten said poem) and tied it to the heart-shaped box of sweet goodness with a blue ribbon.

He'd proceeded to convince himself that was a little too much, and swapped the blue for silver.

Leo had rehearsed exactly what he'd say. He knew when he'd do it, where his brothers would be (well out of the way, with a clear unspoken threat of extra patrol and training if they went off-plan), and what he would eat for dinner beforehand so that he had the absolute smallest possible chance of his nerves hijacking his stomach.

And then you show up with forget-me-nots and gardenias tied up in blue ribbon, which. First of all, that explains why you wanted to borrow his book on flower language a few weeks back. Secondly, the message of secret love, true love, respect, and shared history, all tied up in his color? It nearly kills him.

"Leo, would you do me the honor of being my Valentine?"

"Stay right here," He says firmly, dashing off to his bed before he could process your owlish blink. He pulls the chocolate box out from underneath it and rushes back, smiling sheepishly at the way your concern immediately melts into fond amusement. "Only if you'll be mine."

"Deal," You laugh, trading him the fragrant bouquet for the heart-shaped box, and he busies himself with inspecting and smelling the flowers while you read his poem.

At the end of the day, he earns himself a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and a Valentine, so maybe you asking wasn't really the issue he thought it was.

Mikey beats you to asking.

He asks you a week ahead of time, and it's a real splashy affair- he goes all out, pestering April into helping him get all kinds of candy and a big, orange stuffed bear with a heart in its little paws and a pink basket big enough for all of it. He begs his brothers and father to give him the living room of the lair for the evening, and even agrees to do Raph's chores for a week and a half in exchange. He sets the basket up on the couch, tries out about three hundred different combinations of the million lights littering the lair to create the perfect "romantic and intimate but not too suggestive but not too dark but not too bright" ambience, and absolutely agonizes over the playlist of easy, romantic R&B.

He's the one to greet you at the metaphorical front door of the lair and guide you into the living room, and when you look at him quizzically- and hopefully, he notes with delight- he takes your hands and a deep breath.

"Angel, would you be my Valentine?"

"Dammit, Mikey..." You grumble, and if it weren't for the grin you were biting back and the way you were squeezing his hands like you never wanted to let go, he'd be pretty damn scared right about now. "I was gonna ask you. I had a whole plan."

"You can still ask me later, gorgeous," He says with a big grin of his own. "I'll totally act surprised."

"How kind."

"That's me. Now, uh, you're kinda leavin' me hangin', here."

"I'll happily be your Valentine, Mikey."

Raph was not going to ask. He did not see this coming, did not see your feelings, did not think twice about his plan to spend Valentine's Day like he always did: with extra-buttery popcorn and rom-coms.

His plan was to basically not think about how you'd probably be spending it with someone, happy and laughing and smiling.

No, you hadn't mentioned having plans. No, you'd never mentioned a significant other- or even a love interest. No, neither of those things stopped him from assuming.

So when you waltzed into his space with a knock at the entryway and a big ol' grin, he was preparing himself for a whole ooey-gooey story about whoever had swept you off your feet. Preparing himself to act like that didn't eat him alive.

And apparently the lucky bastard had gotten you flowers, which was not helping.

"Hey, Big Red," You say fondly, leaning against the wall and fiddling with a flower stem and looking like a daydream, and his heart did something funny in his chest. "You busy?"

"Why, wanna gloat about your night?" He asks, fighting to keep his tone in the realm of playful and away from anything bitter and yearning.

"Was hoping to ask you a question, actually."

He hums a question of his own, now thoroughly confused.

"Would you be my Valentine?" You ask, holding the flowers out sweetly.

He, in a brilliant moment of zero filter, says "What the fuck?" and your smile drops the smallest bit and he very seriously considers tossing himself off of the Chrysler building.

You open your mouth, and he launches himself out of bed before you can get a word out, gently pulling the flowers out of your hand.

"Why?" He asks gruffly, very clearly avoiding your gaze as he studies a delicate petal.

"...Because I... have feelings for you?" You half admit, half ask, sounding as confused as he felt and staring at him with wide eyes. "If I've read this wrong-"

"No." He forces- forces- himself to look you in the eye, which lasts all of about a second before he's counting it as a win and looking back at the flowers. "But I'm not sure it's somethin' you should read."

"I'm not sure I asked that."

And he can't argue with that, because he knows the tone in your voice, knows he'd be better off arguing with the wall. But he can question it, because.... well, for a lot of reasons.

He should ask a lot of questions. Like "why?" and "did you hit your head?" and "is this a prank or somethin'?", but all that comes out is "Me?"

It makes you smile for some reason, and you step forward a little and duck into his line of sight and meet his eyes with about three and a half times the sincerity he could handle. "Who else?" You ask simply.

He has about a dozen retorts to that, but with you holding his gaze and heart hostage, he just nods. "Okay."

#*writing #*headcanons #donatello x reader #leonardo x reader #raphael x reader #michelangelo x reader #donatello #leonardo #michelangelo #raphael #tmnt 2016 x reader #tmnt 2014 x reader #tmnt imagine #tmnt x reader #imagines #headcanons #bayverse x reader #2014 #x reader

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loner4-life · 19 days

Text

Nightmares

Wc: 2k

(+18 NSFW)

MDNI

Tags: slight angst, oral (fem. receiving), mentions of death, praise

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

You rushed into the elevator and clicked the 6th floor. This couldn’t be real? /He was going to be ok right?/ you thought to yourself as the elevator took its sweet time to get you where you desperately needed to be.

The hospital had called you while you were out on patrol. Saying Kirishima had taken a fatal hit from a villain's quirk attack as he tried to protect civilians.

He usually got back up with no issues, but he didnt this time.The elevator suddenly dinged as its doors opened.

You sprinted down the hall to the room the nurse had given you. You soon made it there only to see Bakugou, Kaminari, Sero and Mina waiting outside the room.

“How am I the last one here dammit?” You sighed in irritation as you moved past them to the door, but Kaminari stopped you.

“Wait before you-” You pushed him away and tried to open the door again. Only to be stopped once more by Bakugou. “Listen to us, you can’t go in there.” He said slowly.

You looked at him irritated and confused. “Let me go Katsuki,” you said sternly, shoving him away from you.

You rushed in the room despite words of caution from the four of them. You froze when you saw Kirishima surrounded by doctors.

You quickly analyzed the situation before all the pieces clicked together with three words. “Time of Death 9:23 pm”

Your ears rang as you fell to your knees, Mina slid next to you and placed her hands on your shoulders. “Honey..”

The tears began to fall, “Eijirou!” you screamed as your fists hit the floor. “N-no!” you sobbed.

You sat up before crawling to his side as he laid still. “We’re so sorry ma’am,we’ll give you the room..” the doctors said quietly before leaving the room.

You sobbed loudly into his chest as you gripped his fading warm hand. “Ei, y-you can’t do this to me please.” you cried.

Your heart shattered even more as you saw his expressionless face wrapped in bandages. Your body shook with sobs as comforting hands rested on your back.

Bakugou walked to the other side of the bed, you looked up at him with red eyes only to see tears pooling in his.

This was the first time any of you had seen Bakugou cry. Mina kneeled on your left while Kaminari stood to your right,placing his hand on Kirishima's shoulder.

Sero stood at the foot of the bed trying to stop his tears but ultimately failing.

“You damn shitty hair.” Bakugou gasped as he tried not to let the noise of his cries out.

You sniffed once more as you felt that warm lump in your throat. You gasped to let out a loud sob only to sit up at the speed of light in your shared bed with Eijirou.

“What the fuck?” you gasped, you quickly looked at the clock on my nightstand. It read 1:03 am.

You turned to your other side and put your hand out expecting it to fall on a sleeping kirishima only to hit the mattress.

/That's right/ you thought to yourself. These nightmares had been recurring ever since eijirou left 2 weeks ago for a hero mission.

You couldn't help but feel like they meant something, especially since you haven't been able to get a hold of him for 2 days.

You sat up in bed, running your hands through your hair as you fought the tear that threatened to weld in my eyes.

You heard whining as you looked to Eiji's side of the bed. "C'mon sage," you said, patting the bed. Your huge german shepherd hopped up from the floor and onto the bed before he laid down.

"I know I miss him too," you said quietly as you stroked his fur slowly. After a moment you realized you weren't going back to sleep so you swung your legs over the side of the bed before making your way downstairs and into the kitchen.

Sage followed close behind you, you reached into the cabinet for a glass and filled it with water. You took a sip as you looked around the quiet house.

You were snapped out of thought when sage began to growl. "What is it buddy?" You asked as you watched his hair stand on end as he lurked down the hall towards the front door.

All the terrible possibilities began running through your head as your stomach dropped. You quietly followed sage to see what he was growling at.

Before you could make it down the hall you heard the door creak as it opened. "Hello?," you called as you raised your hands prepared to use your quirk.

You took a few steps as you heard the door shut. You turned the corner swiftly, preparing for the worst, until you saw an exhausted looking kirishima hunched in the doorway as he shakily petted the dog.

"Oh eiji!" You cried as you ran to him and wrapped in a hug. He fell back on the floor as his breath was knocked out.

"Hey honey," he said as he wrapped his arms around you.

The two of you laid on the floor for a while before you pulled away. "I thought you weren't going to be home for another week?" You asked as you got up before helping him up.

"They let me out early. We got the villains.” He explained as he walked past you to the kitchen. You noticed him limping.

"Baby… you're limping." You said rushing to him to help him walk. "I'm okay. It's not as bad as it looks." He spoke as he sat at the kitchen island.

You frowned as you stood next to him. You pulled him close, letting his head rest on your chest. "I missed you so much, eijirou," you whispered as you ran your fingers through his hair.

"I missed you too, sweetheart." He smiled weakly. "Let's get you cleaned up." You said as you helped him upstairs.

You had him sit on the bed as you grabbed your first aid kit you kept under the bathroom sink. You walked out of the bathroom and back to him before you began to clean the cuts on his face.

Small hisses of pain were heard from him as you did so. "A pro-hero and can't handle a little rubbing alcohol?" You teased him.

He smiled as he laughed a little. "So everything went well on the mission?" You asked as you pulled out some butterfly stitches.

"As well as it could I suppose, no one got seriously hurt and the villains are in custody" he sighed as he began to relax.

You hummed in acknowledgement as you finished up what you were doing, "there you go, all fixed" you said as you rubbed his cheek with your thumb.

He placed his hand over yours softly as he looked at you. "How was everything here while I was gone?" You thought about lying and said "oh it was fine! A little boring but fine, " but it wasn't.

"I'm gonna be honest, terrible." You said as you sat next to him on the bed. " I've been having nightmares almost every night"

You explained as his eyes grew worrisome. "Oh baby…" He cooed as you leaned on his shoulder.

"they were all about terrible things I thought would happen when you were gone, I had one like 20 minutes before you got here actually"

You laughed dryly as you nuzzled into him. He stroked your head with his free hand comfortingly. "I'm sorry baby" he said as he kissed your head.

"It's not your fault don't apologize, it was just really scary" you said. He hummed as he pulled you into a hug. You sank in with no resistance as he held you.

“I'm here now baby..let me take care of you.” He said softly as he pulled away and looked at you.

He held your gaze for a moment before leaning in and kissing you. You whined softly as he did so, realizing just how much you missed him and the way he made you feel.

“Eiji…please” you said softly against his lips. He hummed as he kissed up your jaw before nipping at your earlobe as he whispered in your ear.

“What do you need babygirl?” He murmured in your ear before leaning back to look you in the eye. You practically came then and there.

“Can you..use your mouth..please” You responded with reddened cheeks. "Absoulutly," Kirishima said before eagerly lifting and guiding you back on the large bed without a second thought.

He grabbed the waistband of your pajama bottoms before quickly taking them off and revealing to him you weren't wearing any underwear.

“Fuck baby..this is all I could think about for the past 2 weeks” he mumbled as he made his way on his stomach between your legs.

He gripped your thighs as he pulled you close, putting your legs over his shoulders leaving your dripping pussy mere inches away from his face.

Having kept you waiting long enough he closed the gap as he pressed his tongue flat against your folds, gathering your taste before delving in further.

His tongue prodded at your entrance slightly before making its way to where you wanted it most.

His tongue swirled on your clit precisely making you whine and moan. “Eiji~..” you moaned as your hand reached for the pillow behind your head.

“You're so wet baby~” He slurred as he slurped up your juices and licked your clit sloppily. He couldn't help but rut into the mattress at your sweet noises.

“fuck..mm~ don't stop..” you whined as your back arched in a delicious curve. He moaned against your clit at your pleas, “couldn't even if i wanted to..you taste so fucking good~”

He breathed heavily as he practically drooled into your cunt. You felt your orgasm approach quickly as you sank your fingers into his hair to ground yourself.

“fuck.. eiji~” you gasped as you balled the sheets in your other hand. He could help but tease you a little as he slowed his movements making you whine.

“You're so close, aren't you sweetheart?” He asked even though he knew the answer. “Please…please eiji..I'm right there~” you pleaded.

“God when you beg so sweetly, how can I resist?” he muttered with hungry eyes as he lapped at your clit before wrapping his lips around it and swirling his tongue in circles.

Your climax hit you like a train as you cried out his name in pleasure, unable to prevent your legs from squeezing his head but he wasn't complaining.

Once you caught your breath you legs fell apart releasing kirishima from the vice grip you had him in.

He gasped slightly as you let go, sitting up before scooting forward to kiss you. You moaned as you tasted yourself on his lips.

He licked his lips once he pulled away, his shark teeth almost glistening in the light as he did so.

“You're so pretty when you feel good baby” he purred as he kissed you neck, you hummed in desire as you felt his erection press against you through his pants.

“All because of you eiji~” you cooed sweetly in his ear before you kissed his cheek. “Now let me-” your words were cut off by a bark.

You both looked behind yourselves and saw Sage standing there, his tail wagging as he waited to be let outside.

“Sage buddy, you're killing the mood man,” Kirishima groaned as he rested his head against your shoulder in defeat.

You patted his back as you sat up and reached for your previously discarded pajama pants. “Let me let him out real quick” you said as you pulled your bottoms on as you stood up.

You reached for his face before cupping his cheek lovingly. “Then I'll show you just how much I missed you too” you smirked before giving him a quick peck on the lips.

After you pulled away, you smiled at him before walking out of the room, Sage eagerly following behind you.

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#my hero academia #kirishima fluff #kirishima imagine #kirishima smut #kirishima eijirou #kirishima angst #kirishima x reader #mha eijirou #eijirou x reader #eijirou smut

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sixhours · 1 month

Text

One Day at a Time - Chapter 7 - Birth

Series Chapter Index | Read on AO3 | Complete

Rating: Explicit, 18+, here be smut Series tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel Miller x f!OFC, Joel & Ellie, mostly follows canon, SMUT, gratuitous smut, dubious consent (drunk sex), unplanned pregnancy, fluff, references to past miscarriages, angst, hurt/comfort, romance, age gap (~21 years), childbirth, fluffy baby stuff, I've probably forgotten some so please let me know <3

~*~

It’s December. They passed the date Joel circled on the calendar three days ago and the waiting is slowly driving them mad.

Charlie wakes up restless and frustrated, unable to get comfortable, exhausted but unable to sleep. The baby is restless, too–kicking her ribs, pushing against her lungs, making it hard to take a deep breath. She’s snappish and moody and leaks tears over the smallest things.

They’ve run out of fruits and have settled on calling the baby Pumpkin because it’s the biggest, even though Charlie hates it, she tells him, because the idea of pushing a fucking gourd out of her vagina makes for a horrible mental image.

She’s ready for this to be over.

He’s not ready at all.

On the fourth day, Joel radioes Tommy and tells him to find someone to cover his patrol shift. Something tells him he needs to stay home. He putters about looking for things to do to fill the time. He nails down the loose floorboard in the upstairs hall and patches the tack holes in the wall and fixes the dripping faucet in his bathroom and oils the squeaky hinges on the doors. When that’s done, he goes looking for projects in Ellie’s garage, but she turns him away at the door.

“Nuh-uh, nope. Not happening. The last time you were in here to ‘fix’ something it took three weeks and I ended up with a wall of bookshelves.”

“But you love your shelves,” he says. He looks over her shoulder, eyeing a mostly empty corner. “You could use more storage–”

“You don’t have that kinda time now, dude.”

So he leaves, nesting instinct unfulfilled, and finds himself pacing the floor.

“You’re hovering,” Charlie mutters from her place on the couch after he’s asked for the fourth time if he can get her anything. “You should have gone to work.”

“Like hell,” he growls at the idea of being miles away on horseback, outside the walls and away from her.

They still don’t have a name, a cradle, or any clothes beyond the soft yellow sleeper. Maria, recognizing that the situation was delicate, had dropped off a stack of cloth diapers. They sit in a bag next to the front door, untouched.

That night they assume their usual positions; him propped up against the headboard with his reading glasses and the book, and Charlie on her side, pillows tucked around her in a makeshift nest. His hand finds her stomach, but the baby is quieter now, too cramped to move much.

Charlie squirms, grumbles, shifts, and retucks the blanket and pillows. It takes an hour for her to fall into a restless doze, and he keeps reading the same lines over and over, too distracted and keyed up to sleep. Her stomach tightens under his hand, the baby pressing the hard plane of its back into his palm.

Then it happens again. And again. Every few minutes.

He checks his watch by force of habit, forgetting for the millionth time that it hasn’t worked in twenty years. He notes the time on the bedside clock instead, 10:54.

11:06. 11:12. 11:25.

At 11:38, her hand clutches his fingers and she lets out a soft moan.

“Joel…?”

“M’here,” he says, knowing what she’s going to say.

“I think this is it.”

~*~

“I don’t want her here.”

“I know, but–”

Charlie’s eyes are bright and forceful. “Not yet, Joel. I will not deal with that woman. Not yet.”

He gets it. The midwife is the last person he wants to see, either. But she’s the one with the training and experience.

“We have to at least let her know.”

Charlie scowls, then shuts her eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Another one?”

She nods, distracted, and he looks at the clock. 1:03.

“They’re not close together yet,” Charlie says when the contraction passes. “The book says five minutes.”

“The book assumes we can go to a hospital,” Joel counters, and she shoots him a black look. “Look, I’ll tell her to stay put until you’re closer, but–”

“No,” Charlie says, soft but firm. “And would you sit? You’re making me nervous.”

He does then, sitting on the bed, forced to wallow in his terror. Had it been this bad with Sarah? No, because there had been nurses and doctors and an epidural that had eased the way considerably if he didn’t think too hard about the length of the needle and where it went.

He’d also been twenty-two and blissfully ignorant. He hadn’t known loss, hadn’t known just how bad it could get. He sees every little way this could go wrong and the fear clutches at his heart and holds fast.

Charlie takes his hand and squeezes. “We can do this.”

He doesn’t know if he can, but he squeezes back and watches as she folds over her belly in concentration when the next contraction takes hold.

~*~

She labors on the bed, walking around, rocking in the chair, pressing tight fists to her lower back. He fills her water glass from the bathroom tap and washes his hands fifteen times, even though he hasn’t so much as touched her beyond letting her grip his fingers during the worst ones.

Ellie comes in to get breakfast before school. He hears her downstairs, calling for him.

“Go,” Charlie says from her current position, curled on the bed with a pillow between her knees. “She needs you. I’m fine.”

He’s still dressed in pajamas; gray sweatpants and a white tee, hair mussed and eyes red-rimmed. Ellie takes him in, raises an eyebrow in a silent question.

“Yeah, she’s in labor,” he says. “Gonna be a day.”

“I’ll make coffee.”

“You don’t have to do that, kiddo.”

She eyes him up and down, scoffs. “You need it, dude.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m, uh, I’m gonna let Tommy and Maria know…if I can find the damn radio…”

“You brought it upstairs, remember?”

Right. He kept the radio by the bed just in case Charlie went into labor in the night. Of course.

“Thanks, kid,” he says thickly, suddenly awash in gratitude with a lump in his throat.

“Go,” she says, already scooping coffee grounds into the pot on the stove. “I can burn my own toast.”

He doesn’t taste the coffee, or the not-burnt toast Ellie brings up, enough for both him and Charlie.

The midwife shows up sometime before noon and does nothing to put them at ease.

“I need to make this quick. I’ve got another patient across town and it’s not good.”

Joel stands in the doorway with his hands on his hips. “Don’t you have a…a backup or somethin’?”

“Does it look like I have backup?” she snaps.

She proceeds with the exam with her usual curt efficiency as Joel paces.

“You’re three centimeters,” she says to Charlie eventually, shucking her gloves off. “It’s going to be a while. Get comfortable. Stay hydrated.”

And then she’s gone.

Joel wants to follow the woman outside and drag her back and chain her to the radiator until the baby is delivered safely. It’s either that or strangle her. But Charlie’s pitiful moan from the bed douses the flames of his anger immediately.

“Get comfortable? Is she fucking kidding,” she wails, gripping him tight. “I hate her.”

“I know, I know,” he says. “We’ll…figure something out.”

He calls the only other person he knows who has first-hand experience with childbirth; his sister-in-law.

Maria suggests a beer and a bath; something about the alcohol and warm water acting like natural muscle relaxants. Charlie, exhausted and in pain, is willing to try anything. She sips the beer and undresses as he fills the tub, grateful to have something to do.

He helps her into the bath and kneels on the floor beside it, resting his forearms on the rim and watching over her like a sentinel. Her belly rises out of the water, a glazed wet dome, every contraction causing the water to ripple around her as she grimaces and arches and groans.

Sometimes she comes out of her fog of pain and blinks up at him as if seeing him for the first time, and it makes his heart clench.

“I’m glad it’s you,” she murmurs in one of those quiet moments.

“Yeah?” He dabs a washcloth at her temple, urges her to drink while she’s relaxed.

He hears Maria downstairs, probably boiling water and sanitizing things and doing all the things he should be doing but can’t because he can’t leave Charlie’s side.

He’s scared. He’s never been this scared.

He remembers sitting in the hospital and praying when Sarah was born. He wasn’t a praying man, not even then, but it had seemed the only thing he could do. Now he thinks of her, of his first baby girl, and he silently asks for her help. He doesn’t believe in God, but he does believe in her.

~*~

“Joel?”

A hesitant voice at the bedroom door. Joel rouses himself from his place by the tub. Charlie has relaxed a little, but the contractions are still ferocious. Her cries echo in the small space and he winces every time, wishing he could do something, anything to take this away from her.

“Be right back,” he whispers, leaning over to place a kiss on Charlie’s forehead. She nods but doesn’t open her eyes.

Ellie is standing in his bedroom looking small and lost.

“Hey, kiddo,” he croaks. “What’s up?”

She hesitates at the door. “Maria’s downstairs. She, uh, said there’s dinner if you want it. We’re gonna watch a movie.”

He nods. “Good. I’ll eat…later.”

“Maria said you’d say that. She also said to tell you not to wait too long or you’ll pass out like your brother did when Izzy was born.”

Joel snorts. “Alright, I hear ya.”

There’s a groan from the bathroom, a low, primal keen of need that Joel has to physically restrain himself from answering. Ellie’s eyes grow wide.

“You okay, kid?”

She swallows hard. “I just…is this, uh…normal?”

“Yeah, sure, yeah,” he says, trying to imbue his words with a certainty he doesn’t feel. “The first one is always slow.”

“It sounds fucking awful,” she grimaces. “Was it like this with Sarah?”

“A little, I guess. I don’t…honestly remember. We had drugs back then,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. God, what he’d give to live in a world with epidurals again. He’d take a needle to the back himself if it meant Charlie didn’t have to go through this. He’d take worse.

Ellie looks at him then, soulful brown eyes, and her face crumples, mirroring the fear he’s kept an iron-tight grip on all day.

“Baby girl,” he murmurs, closing the distance between them and tucking her against his chest. “S’alright. It’s gonna be fine. Charlie’s doing good. She’s strong. The baby’s fine. Just…takes a while.”

“I’m never having kids,” she mutters in a watery sigh, muffled by the fabric of his t-shirt.

He huffs a soft laugh into her hair, rubbing her back. “Don’t blame you. You don’t have to be scared, though.”

He pulls away, cups her face in his hands, and kisses her forehead.

“S’worth it…can tell you that much.”

She drags a sleeve across her face and nods. “Should I bring up a plate?”

“Yeah. That’d be good, kiddo. Thanks.”

~*~

Hours pass. There’s a cold plate of food on the floor by the door and a melted bowl of strawberry ice cream next to the bathroom sink. Joel had three bites for dinner; chicken, mashed potatoes, and something green. Everything tasted like paste, which was not a slight on Maria’s cooking, only that he couldn’t take his focus off Charlie. She’d opted for the ice cream and had done better than him, eating half the bowl in slow, measured spoonfuls in between contractions.

Eventually, the hot water tank is drained and the bath grows tepid, forcing her out. She stands in the middle of the bathroom, leaning into Joel’s chest as he dries her off and wraps her in a robe.

“You doin’ okay?” he asks, rubbing her back as she shivers. “You cold?”

She shakes her head. “Just tired.”

“Bed?”

She nods, then digs her fingers into his arm as a contraction hits.

“Ohhhh, fuck.”

“I got you,” he murmurs, although he’s swaying on his feet, so tired he’s slurring his words. He’s been up for thirty-something hours; when he tries to do the math, everything gets fuzzy at the edges. Then he remembers he’s not the one with a vise grip rearranging his internal organs. He forces his eyes open.

“Bed,” he says firmly when she’s no longer clutching at him, urging her along.

She curls on her side and he faces her, giving her his hand to squeeze. She tucks it against her cheek, closing her eyes as her abdomen tightens again. The water and the beer seem to have helped; she’s quieter, at least.

“Hurts,” she whimpers, a permanent furrow taking up residence between her brows.

“I know,” he soothes, brushing a damp tendril of hair from her forehead. “What can I do?”

She shakes her head.

At some point, she slides his hand under her robe. The baby moves under his palm. For now, everyone is safe. For a little while, he can pretend this is any other night, just the three of them tucked in bed together.

Then she arches and moans, grabbing at him, drawing out his name into multiple syllables.

“Yeah, I know, baby. I know. M’here,” he says, feeling the panic inside begin to take over. He’s so fucking helpless he could cry.

Then she kisses him, pulling his mouth to hers, urgent and needy, and he tastes strawberries. She grasps at the hem of his t-shirt, urging it over his head, suddenly desperate to feel his skin. When she pushes his hand down to the small furnace burning between her bare thighs, the message is loud and clear.

“You want…that? Now?”

“Mmhm, please,” she moans, a breathy little hitch that, under normal circumstances, would have him rock-hard and struggling to restrain himself. As it is, he’s too tired to protest. He can’t deny her anything.

They’ve done this dozens of times since they started sharing his bed. She’s soft and swollen and slick under his fingers. The orgasms come easily and seem to dilute the pain. Soon she’s stretched out against him, one leg thrown over his hips, nuzzling into his chest, and neither of them can keep their eyes open.

~*~

He’s jolted out of sleep by Charlie’s fierce grip on his hand and a sound that’s almost animal from her throat.

“M’here,” he groans, cursing himself for falling asleep. “Right here.”

He sits up, glancing at the clock; they’d been given an hour and a half of respite.

“She means business,” Charlie mutters through gritted teeth, clutching her stomach and getting to her feet.

“She, huh?”

Charlie doesn’t answer, fumbling with the sash of her robe. “Need…this…off.”

He gets up, helps slide the robe off her shoulders and she leans back into him, naked, hips swaying.

Refueled by ice cream and sleep, she’s restless; no position can bring relief. Time stretches in front of them, a series of back-to-back contractions that force sounds from her throat that Joel has never heard and never wants to hear again.

She finally settles on her knees at the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around him, pressing her face into his neck. Her pained sobs wrench at him, something animal, and it’s all he can do not to cry in frustration. Instead, he babbles outright lies into her hair, doin’ so good baby, s’almost over, almost done, she’ll be here soon .

She , he thinks dully, then the pain comes and her groan into his neck washes the thought away. Her water breaks, a warm gush down her thighs, and he has the sense that things are about to move fast.

“We need to call the midwife,” he whispers, and he knows it’s serious when Charlie doesn’t protest, just nods limply into his shoulder.

He doesn’t remember calling for Maria, but she’s at the door, radio in hand. She meets his eyes over Charlie’s shoulder, gives him a tight look and shakes her head.

There’s no midwife.

Fuck.

“Okay, okay,” he breathes, quashing down his dread. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Time ceases to make sense; minutes pass in seconds, seconds pass in minutes. Towels and blankets appear on the other side of the bed. He’s vaguely aware of Maria’s movements on the other side of the door, thinks he hears Tommy and Ellie’s voices at times.

Charlie remains on her knees on the bed, arms locked around his neck, shuddering against him through every contraction. His back is throbbing from the lack of movement, but he won’t budge unless she tells him to.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that. He closes his eyes and holds her and whispers words he hopes she can hear from the depths of her pain.

Later, he’ll blame sleep deprivation for the visions. He sees Sarah, alive and smiling, wearing her favorite Halican Drops t-shirt and handing him a glass of orange juice. He sees Ellie laughing and holding out bright green leaves to a giraffe in the Salt Lake City park. They calm him, silencing the frightened voice inside that reminds him how much he stands to lose.

Eventually, Charlie pulls away, bracing her hands on his shoulders, grimacing.

“I need…I need–”

“Think you need to push?”

“I don’t…know. It feels…different.”

“Different bad? Or different good?”

“I don’t know,” she huffs. “I don’t…I just…”

He urges her backward away from the edge of the bed before another contraction hits. Her fingers tighten on his shoulders and she bears down, a tentative, hesitant little push.

“That was good,” he whispers, grabbing one of the clean towels behind her. “Let’s try again with the next one.”

~*~

The next hour passes in flashes, small moments he will remember for the rest of his life.

Joel’s hand covering Charlie’s as she feels for the baby, her panting as she bears down again and again and again.

The pressure of the baby’s head against his palm, the dark, slick hair emerging from the depths of her body as the baby crowns.

The warm, wet weight of a tiny body sliding into his outstretched hands in a sudden, slippery rush.

Charlie’s awed, trembling whisper in his ear, a girl, it’s a girl .

Clutching the child against his bare stomach with one arm as his other arm wraps Charlie’s waist and eases her back against the headboard.

The endless seconds of silence as he rubs the length of her tiny back with firm strokes, c’mon baby girl, c’mon, breathe for me .

The elation when he feels her first breath, feels her tiny lungs inflate under his palm as their daughter comes to life with a roar.

~*~

He vaguely registers a whooping from outside the bedroom, but his world has narrowed to three people. He’s kissing Charlie’s forehead, whispering nonsense into her hair, did so good, baby, so good, so good .

Then there’s the baby in his arms, his daughter, and she’s shaking, why is the baby shaking?

Then he realizes it’s him, his hands are trembling, the aftermath of the adrenaline rush hitting hard and turning his limbs to jelly. He needs to put her down, he’s terrified he’s going to drop her, but he can’t make himself let go, can’t stop looking at her, squirming, little legs and arms kicking and flailing as she arches against him, so strong, he thinks, she’s so goddamn strong–

“Please–” he grits out, trying to find the words, feeling frozen as the panic creeps back in.

Then Charlie is there, her hands over his, gently extracting the squalling baby and pulling her onto her chest with soft whispers, yes sweet girl, I know, tell us, I know .

He reaches for the closest thing he can find to cover the child–his t-shirt, worn and soft and smelling like him–and tucks it around her tiny frame. Then he grabs a clean blanket from the stack Maria left on the bed and drapes it over Charlie’s trembling shoulders and back, careful not to cover the baby.

Charlie’s silver eyes are bright and shining as she studies the little girl in her arms, drawing a fingertip down the tiny arch of her nose, her ear, the soft fur of her eyebrows. She smiles so big it makes something in his chest splinter and crack.

He wants to make her smile like that for the rest of his life. He wants to cover their bodies with his and hold them still in this moment forever, keeping the rest of the world at bay.

But he can’t, so he tries to make himself useful. He cuts the cord. He fetches warm washcloths, strips the soiled bedding, fusses, and paces until Charlie catches him by the arm as he’s checking her full water glass for the second time.

“Joel, stop,” she says softly. “Look at her.”

He’s afraid if he stops, he’ll break the fuck down, but she pulls him onto the bed next to them.

“Look at her,” she repeats.

The baby turns her head toward her mother, seeking, and Joel watches as Charlie attempts to latch her, the tiny mouth closing over one dark nipple, and his heart feels like it’s going to turn inside out.

~*~

He walks downstairs on wooden legs to expectant faces. Ellie, perched on the couch next to Maria, lights up when she sees him.

The words catch in his throat. “You’ve got a sister.”

The relief on her face is palpable. Then she’s off the couch, meeting him at the foot of the stairs. She almost reaches out, then hesitates, like something might have changed between them.

“C’mere,” he mutters, folding her into his arms, and that’s when the tears finally come, relief and joy and sadness all muddled together. He holds his daughter, a lifeline to his past and a gateway to his future all in one.

He meets Maria’s eyes over her shoulder and gives her a silent nod of thanks. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to do enough work around Jackson to pay for her kindness.

“You can, uh, come up and see her,” he sniffs when he can safely speak again. “Both of you.”

“You go,” says Maria to Ellie. “You need some time together. As a family. I’ll bring Tommy and Izzy by later.”

Joel’s throat closes up again. As a family.

“C’mon, kid,” he chokes out. “Let’s go meet your sister.”

~*~

The midwife misses the birth by three hours. When she finally arrives, she looks haggard, with dark circles under her eyes and her sharp tongue dulled. She assesses Charlie and the baby with her usual efficiency, but she’s quiet about it. Maybe she finally senses Joel’s mood, or maybe she’s just as exhausted as them.

She asks them questions about the birth, examines the placenta, and makes a few notes.

“The bleeding should taper off after about a week. Some cramping is normal, but if you’re soaking more than a pad an hour, you need to tell me.”

Joel still hovers, hulking over the midwife with his arms crossed, biceps flexing, jaw set. If he thought he felt protective over Charlie before, the baby’s presence has made him fucking feral. He’s practically vibrating when Joanie takes the baby to examine her and weigh her, and Charlie’s touch on his arm is the only thing that stops him from growling and spitting like a wild animal.

Joanie unwraps the baby from her bundle and listens to her breathing and her heart, tests her reflexes, and nods, apparently satisfied. Then she swaddles her back up and hands her to Charlie.

“She looks great,” she says flatly. “You’re lucky.”

The unspoken implication gives him pause; others had not been so lucky.

“Put her on the breast every hour,” Joanie continues. “Let her nurse as much as she wants. It’ll help your milk production and boost her immunity. If she starts losing weight or she’s not getting enough from you, there’s a donor program. We don’t have formula, but she won’t starve.”

Then she’s packing up her things, saying she’ll be back in the morning to check in, and to radio if there’s an emergency.

“And congratulations,” she says before taking her leave. Maybe he’s delirious from lack of sleep, but he thinks he sees the old woman crack a smile.

~*~

“So what’s her name?”

That evening, Ellie holds the baby in her lap in the rocker, cradling her bundled sleeping form along her thighs with her head cupped in her palms.

Joel looks at Charlie, raising an eyebrow.

“You still haven’t named the poor kid? Sheesh.”

“She’s eight hours old,” Joel grumbles.

“Consider us open to suggestions,” Charlie yawns.

Ellie considers the little bundle in her lap, sizing her up. “How about…Sally Ride? Sally Ride Miller.”

She looks at Joel expectantly.

“Uh…”

Then her lips twitch and she can’t hold back her smile. “I’m just fuckin’ with you, dude.”

“Oh,” he sighs, a hiss of relief.

“They’re too easy, kid,” she murmurs to her baby sister, still grinning. “Too easy. We’re gonna have so much fun, you and me.”

Joel feels his knees hit the back of the bed and he sags down, watching his children. There’s that pesky tightness in his throat and a fullness in his chest, and he distantly feels Charlie’s hand in his.

“But seriously…the kid needs a name,” Ellie says. She considers the baby thoughtfully, then softens. “What about…Anna?”

Joel digs deep into his tired memory. “After your mom?”

“Yeah,” Ellie says, then shrugs. “But she kinda looks like an Anna, too.”

Charlie smiles, squeezes his hand. “Anna? I like that.”

“Anna,” he agrees thickly, the only word he can choke out because he’s fucking crying again.

~*~

The first night passes in shifts. They don’t have a cradle, so they take turns holding the baby– Anna , he thinks, she has a name now, Anna –while she sleeps, in between feedings and diaper changes.

Joel knows he should sleep, but he doesn’t want to miss a second; Anna’s barely there weight in his arms, the way his hand spans her back, the softness of her downy head. She smells like her mother, all warm milk and honey. Sometimes she looks up at him with big, gray eyes that remind him of Sarah’s, and his heart cracks and mends itself and cracks again.

In the morning, he comes out of a doze to the sound of voices and the smell of food downstairs. Charlie is nudging him, baby at her breast.

“We have company. She’s done and I want to shower.”

He wipes at his eyes and takes the baby, holding her to his shoulder to rub her back. He whispers her name, marveling at how perfect it feels on his tongue.

Charlie moves slowly, visibly achy, and he gets up to wrap his free arm around her waist, giving her something to hold as she makes her way to the bathroom on wobbly legs.

“You okay?”

“Just sore. Hot water will help,” she murmurs, but she lets him lead her to the bath and leans on him when she strips out of her clothes.

He stays in the bathroom with the baby on his chest, trying and failing not to hover even when Charlie has stepped into the shower and turned on the water, steam rolling out from behind the curtain along with a groan of pleasure.

“I’m fine, Joel,” she says, poking her head out, then looking down at her feet with a grimace. “It’s a fucking bloodbath in here. You don’t need to see this.”

He leaves reluctantly, keeping the door cracked, then pulls out clothes–sweatpants, one of his t-shirts, underwear, wool socks, one of the thick cloth pads Maria must have brought up with all the other linens.

Anna begins to fuss, so he lays her on the bed and attempts to change her diaper, missing the ease of disposables and their velcro tabs.

“I know, kiddo, almost done,” he mutters as Anna protests the cold, kicking as he fumbles with the folds. It’s coming back to him slowly, the rhythm of the early days with Sarah familiar but also new. Eat, diaper, sleep, repeat.

After a thought, he pulls the yellow pajamas out of the nightstand and dresses her. The outfit is too big, bunching around her legs and arms, but he knows it won’t stay that way for long.

“Better?” he asks when she’s curled against his chest again, warm and soft in the fleecy pajamas. She doesn’t answer, of course, but she quiets, wide eyes blinking at nothing. He finds himself talking to her, low and slow as he paces.

“Been a long day, huh? Think you’ll let your mama sleep for a bit? You did a number on her. And me. Took your damn time,” he murmurs, smiling into her hair. “But that’s alright. Lotta folks excited to meet you, y’know.”

He doesn’t know how long Charlie has been watching from the bathroom doorway, wrapped in a towel, smiling faintly. Her eyes are dark-rimmed and there’s a trickle of blood dripping down her inner thigh, and he thinks she has never looked more beautiful.

She dresses slowly, then reaches for the baby, eyeing the yellow sleeper. “Where’d you get this?”

“Found it at the post a while ago,” he murmurs, ducking his head. “Reminded me of Sarah.”

“It’s perfect,” she smiles softly, then gives him a hesitant sniff, wrinkling her nose. “You need a shower, too.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Mmhm.”

The thought of being separated from them for even a minute makes his skin crawl, but he ducks into the bathroom and shucks off his clothes. He barely feels the water, probably doesn’t get the soap fully rinsed from his body and doesn’t care. Charlie has already taken Anna downstairs by the time he gets out, and he throws on sweats and a t-shirt, not bothering to comb his hair.

He hears their voices drifting up the stairwell—Tommy’s low rumble and Isabel’s toddler giggle and Maria’s soft cooing over the baby, Charlie and Ellie’s lighter tones mingling in.

The sounds stop him on the landing, where he grasps the railing and leans against the wall for support. For one bright, painful moment, he could swear he hears Sarah’s laughter among them.

#fanfic #fic recs #joel miller #the last of us hbo #the last of us #babyfic #pregnancy

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lesserknownwaifus · 5 months

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Pamela Bondani from Patrol 03

#submission

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chaserockypupfan · 2 years

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Zuma Pics #03 - July 06, 2022

#paw patrol #paw patrol zuma #zuma #pup shots #screenshots #03 #sea patrol #surfer zuma month

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octuscle · 10 months

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Another kind of gentrification

For years, this had been a quiet street. With his grocery store, Alfred had supplied the neighborhood with delicacies. And at lunchtime, his guests could sit in the sun on the street. But the peace and quiet was over now. A shisha bar had opened across the street. And that was the end of the peacefulness. The guests drove up in their high-powered luxury cars, accelerated again briefly to 60 km/h, braked with squealing tires, let the engines roar. From 11:00. Until 03:00. And each time Alfred wondered how a young lad in his mid-20s could afford a car for 200,000 euros.

His guests remained loyal to Alfred to a large extent. However, the lunchtime business was slackening more and more. The cheese store down the street had already disappeared. One of the lads had opened a store there selling protein products. And the hairdresser's store had become a Turkish barber's store. When Alfred sat at the window of his apartment above the store in the evening and watched the shisha bar full of hatred, he could see more than clearly that business was being conducted at the tables that was undoubtedly not legal. Alfred had already sent the police once, and they had come. Nothing had happened. But since then, the only policemen patrolling the street were obviously of Arab origin. And they were good customers for protein powder. More and more men with enormous muscles could be seen in the street.

At some point, Alfred had begun to adjust to the circumstances. He sold only beef and no more meat. The young men loved expensive, high-quality beef. Nevertheless, one evening Alfred's mind was blown. It was a hot summer evening. Alfred tried to sleep with the window open. But in the bar, the terrace was crowded. All the windows were open. The music was playing at maximum volume. Alfred put on something and entered the bar, full of rage. Two absurdly muscular policemen were standing at the bar, drinking coffee and talking to the no less muscular bartender, who, however, was wearing only a very skimpy tank top instead of a uniform. Alfred yelled at the policemen whether they were not planning to do anything about this disturbance of the peace. While one of the policemen explained to him that one should have understanding for the young people on such a summer evening, the other one waved the manager over. The manager smiled, invited Alfred to a separee and offered him a cup of tea and a shisha. In life, Alfred would not have smoked a shisha. But a tea was a good idea. And after a sip of tea, he somehow also felt like having a shisha. And then his eyes went black.

Fuck, he had overdone it again with the weights. Ahmad must have fainted for a moment. He took a sip of water and looked at his watch. Almost 04:00. Time to finish the workout. He had to go to the wholesale market, he definitely wanted to be back home before the sunrise prayer. He dried his sweat, put on his work overalls and headed for his van. And as he did so, he ran through his shopping list again in his head. He definitely needed pita bread, sucuk and ayran. Fruits and vegetables and so on. Apple tea, too, probably. And somewhere there was also the order from his boss for the shisha bar opposite his Turkish supermarket.

#muscle tf #male tf #reality change #race change #tank top #revange tf #age reduction #male transformation #muscle transformation

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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Naomi Alderman’s ‘The Future’

Naomi Alderman burst onto the scene in 2016 with The Power, an explosive and brilliant feminist apocalyptic parable. Now, seven years later, she's back with a chunky, propulsive second novel about a very different sort of apocalypse: The Future:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Future/Naomi-Alderman/9781668025680

The Power was a thriller about a mysterious force that gives women the power to administer violent electric shocks – even lethal ones – from the palms of their hands. As this power races around the world, the status quo is abruptly shattered. Abusers get nasty surprises. The Saudi government topples. Parents of teenaged boys demand sex-segregated classes to protect their sons from vicious girls:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/10/10/naomi-aldermans-the-power-in-which-fierce-power-of-women-is-awoken/

In The Future, we get a very different kind of apocalypse: the imagined apocalypse of the prepper. At the core of prepperism is a fantasy: that the world will experience a cataclysm that requires the special skills and supplies of the prepper themselves. Water chemists who turn prepper fantasize about attacks on the water-supply – not because there's any special reason to expect one, but because if terrorists attack the water supply, then water chemists become civilization-rescuing heroes:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/22/preppers-are-larpers/#preppers-unprepared

(And of course, if the world ends in such a way that marauding bandits rove the wasteland, eating their former neighbors, then macho, AR-15-obsessed musketfuckers get to reinvent themselves as warlords who defend the sheeple from "bad guys.")

This is what makes billionaire prepper fantasies just so weird – for most of us, it's hard to imagine how the skills of a billionaire are the one thing we'll need to see us through a crisis. But for billionaires themselves, the necessity of billionaires in rebooting civilization is so self-evident as to be unquestionable.

What's more, billionaires are convinced – more than any of us – that the world is about to end. As Douglas @Rushkoff puts it, these guys want to earn enough money to outrun the consequences of how they're making all that money. This is #TheMindset, the idea that your own position has jeopardized civilization itself, but that also, you must survive the cataclysm, because only you can survive it.

Rushkoff chronicles the real-world fantasies of luxury bunkers patrolled by mercenaries locked into explosive discipline collars in his book Survival of the Richest:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

But billionaires don't just suck at running civilization, they also suck at making up stories about its collapse. One thing that's striking about Rushkoff's ethnography of rich people preparing to outlive the end of the human race is how banal their eschatological fantasies are.

It's not that there aren't any exciting stories to tell about billionaire survival fantasies. The granddaddy of these is, of course, Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 "#MasqueOfTheRedDeath":

https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

I published an updated version with the same title in 2019 in my novella collection #Radicalized:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/14/masque-of-the-red-death/#masque

In The Future, we get a cracking, multi-point-of-view adventure novel about billionaires prepping for the end of the world. Three billionaires, the lords of thinly veiled analogs to Facebook, Google and Amazon, each getting ready in their own way. Stumbling into their midst comes Lai Zhen, a prepper influencer vlogger with millions of followers.

When Zhen becomes romantically entangled with Martha Einkorn, the top aide and chief-of-prepping for one of these billionaires, she finds herself in possession of an AI chatbot that is devoted to protecting a very small number of people from incipient danger. This chatbot determines that Zhen is being stalked by an assassin at a mall in Singapore, and guides her to safety.

The chatbot is a closely held secret among the tech billionaire cabal. It is designed to monitor world events and predict when The Event is imminent, be it disease, war, or other cataclysmic disaster. With the chatbot's predictive powers and its superhuman guidance, the billionaires, their families, and their closest confidantes will be able to slip away before the shit hits the fan, fly by different private jets to one or another luxury bunker, and wait out the apocalypse. Once the fires raging without have died down to embers, the chatbot's billionaire charges will emerge to assume their places as wise and all-powerful leaders of the next human civilization.

As you might imagine, not everyone who finds out about this plan – including various members of the billionaires' families who are fully aware of these rich, powerful people's fallibility – is enthusiastic about it. As we build toward a looming crisis, we cycle between these family members, Zhen and her hacker buddies, and members of an online prepper community where Einkorn is a kind of provocateuse and eminence grise.

Alderman skillfully maneuvers all these power players and blocs into position before detonating the crisis that sets off the book's second act, where we get into some damned fine Masque of the Red Death territory, but clad in Tony Stark mecha survival suits and against a backdrop of total disaster.

I won't give away any spoilers here, except to say that there are lots of twists (that won't surprise readers of The Power, which had its own excellent surprises). But without delving too deeply into the fake-outs, crosses, and turns that Alderman lays, I will say that this is a fantastic and incredibly satisfying comeuppance novel that gets very deep into the ideology of wishing the world would end, and dreaming that when it does, you will finally matter.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/07/preppers-of-the-red-death/#the-event

#pluralistic #naomi alderman #the future #books #science fiction #apocalypse #billionaires #abolish billionaires #big tech #maneki neko #preppers #gift guide

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