#there was spraypaint in the back of the second drawing and i was like. IT'S BACKDRAFT REFERENCE TIME. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ennoshawty · 3 years

Text

HQ CAPTAINS AS THINGS

i was bored and felt like doing a crackfic thing but i didn’t have any solid themes or good ideas

SO I PRESENT TO YOU - THE CAPTAINS. AS THINGS. IDK HOW TO WORD THIS BUT YOU’LL SEE AS WE GO ALONG.

warnings: VERY LONG, slandering a crybaby oikawa (lovingly), mentions f!reader, shitposting, mentions of violence in kita's, (a bit) yandere!kita, cursing, unedited, me being an idiot

officer!daichi

we are: vigilante/troublemaker

loving the enemies-to-lovers trope so much

nah bro you ain’t full criminal (bc my preppy ass could never) you just do the small vandalism things y’know like drawing peepees on government buildings and knocking over bins

u literally confessed to him by spraypainting the entire billboard by his workplace “I LIKE YOU” like way to go girl

He didn’t appreciate the creative graffiti but he rlly likes u so all u had to do was clean it and then next thing u know yall are out on a cute cafe date

but let’s talk about before yall got together

he’d CHASE u thru alleyways when he’d catch you writing “police sux” on the fuckin wall

bro is NOT AT ALL afraid to jump onto the roofs it’s FRIGHTENING to see this huge ass police officer storm after u

HES SO FAST HOT DAMN WOMAN HOW DO U GET AWAY FROM HIM??? USAIN BOLT WHOMST???

you’d almost always get away by a hair - he’s SO SO close

and it frustrates him but excites u oooooo arrest me shawty

and this would continue for a while

but yall have such fun fun banter - you’d tease him and he’d say something back and you’d bolt and he’d chase

some days he’d catch you. but in those times u slip away somehow

he’s having so much fun and doesn’t even know it

and then at one point he doesn’t even care about bringing u to justice anymore. he knows it’s bad for business and it’s unprofessional but he’s so attracted to u

he doesn’t even know it. HES IN DENIAL!!! his mind: “oh i’m just asking about her so that i know her motives” bruh no u just asked about our fav pastry this aint about crime anymore

and when he finally gets it,,,DINGDINGDINGDING SOUND THE ALARMS !!! MAN IS WHIPPED!! he’s more shy around u awww,,,doesn’t even want to chase u anymore but he will still engage in banter w u.

yall get a little peace treaty in the lil crush stage - you both are kinda aware of ur feelings towards each other but don't really wanna mess it up and jeopardize whatever's going on like bros PLEASE JUST KISS ITS INFURIATING

it’s more of a competition to see who will break the other first (and you lost he’s too hot)

he lets u joyride his cop car in an empty parking lot <3 he is the one <3 this is true love

u gotta marry him right now bro no excuses

u are no longer on the crime side of the law,,,u support him and only him fuck the rest of the cops (i’m jk of course...or am i)

u are his badass sidekick <3 unofficially of course until he marries u

u help him with the small things like helping lost children find their parents and helping old ladies cross the street

but you want to do the FUN stuff - chasing thieves and arresting drunkards.

unfortunately, he loves u too much to put u in danger so he keeps u from doing the dangerous things

after some protesting later, he trusts u to take care of urself. and now yall have a competition just like old times - whoever catches the most baddies at the end of the month wins (he WILL scold u if ur too reckless though)

THE TWO OF U ARE JUST GOOD COP BAD COP UHAHAHAHAHAHA

but it’s much more complicated than that - it’s either ur the laidback one and he’s the strict one or ur the fiery one and he’s the person like “calm down”

PLEASE HE HATES BRINGING U TO INTERROGATIONS he’s trying to be serious but you keep making him laugh istg he has to kick u out each time

u still make him laugh when u pout-glare at him thru the glass

bro says he’s not the stereotypical cop but the moment u surprise him with donuts and coffee in the morning he will make out w u right then and there

even though yall dating he still won’t let u play with his equipment

but sometimes u grab his walkie talkie when he’s not looking and prank call the others

and his coworkers know by now they’re like “oh it’s daichis gf” and go along with it HAHAHAHA “this is alpha 1, daichi just contracted ligma, over.” “roger, but what’s ligma? over.” “*inhale* LIGMA-” *daichi takes the walkie talkie back*

his coworkers are chill lmaoooo they love u two as a couple THEY ARE VERY SUPPORTIVE they planned a surprise anniversary party of when u joined the force (unofficially)

the juniors tanaka and noya are jelly ooooo but they respect their captain <3

u loooooove hanging out w the starry-eyed new recruit hinata and he’s bouncing around asking u personal questions “how did you date the commander!!! what’s he like as a bf??” he also accidentally exposes how much daichi talks about u in the office before he drags him away and murders him off camera

he does get u a walkie talkie that’s just connected to his line, tho. for emergencies. it’s ur second phone basically that only has his number in it

daichi LOVES it when u massage him after he’s had a long day but his shoulders are stiff as a statue,,,he’s also super stronk and can carry u anywhere <333

IMAGINE HE HAS A POLICE DOG - he doesn’t, but he’ll get one of his buddies to bring u a k9 unit so u can pet it and when he sees how happy u are he considers getting one PLSSS IT WOULD FIT HIM HELPPP

bro is VERY strict on safety. bulletproof glass in yalls house. alarms + cameras everywhere. trackers on every device. underground bunker. (just kidding lol)

daichi teaches u self-defense and gets u a bejeweled taser for ur bday <333 MARRY THIS MAN RIGHT NOW OR I’LL-

in other words i love daichi and he is husband material WIFE ME UP BUDDY

househusband!oikawa

we are: girlboss sugar mommy

somehow you tamed this bish to becoming your obedient malewife

and by obedient i mean whiny but compliant

IS MORE ATTACHED TO YOUR BLACK CARD THAN TO YOU. I SAID IT. THE TRUTH.

sure, he’s pretty and gives affection sometimes but the only time he’s bein cute and snuggly w u is when a new fendi purse came out and he wants it

his specialty is cooking but he’s so lazy he’s all “just get the maid to do it”

please give ur workers a raise he’s so demanding

when you take him to ur business parties hes ALWAYS bragging about you and ur large house with this and that and his favorite: indoor hot tub. he always brings up the indoor hot tub.

only reason you bring him is cuz he’s pretty and he whines when you leave him alone for too long

yall cant even stay for too long - he’ll practically drag u out of the building and whining that it’s too hot and his suit is too stuffy and to call a limo

he’s not afraid to embarrass u if u dont give him what he wants and he will spit out food at a formal dinner if its not to his liking

probably in competition w househusbands! makki and mattsun about who gets the best house so he’s constantly begging u for an extension to the house “please babe!!! makki has-” “no.”

8/10 times throws tantrums in public and 1465/10 times throws tantrums in the house

he wants to cry for the sake of crying. one time he lost his shirt and he wouldn’t stop bawling for 15 min

please find him a hobby

crybaby . the moment u give him the glare of death it’s over. but he’s got a cute crying face which makes up for his annoying whimpering

like he made the mistake of throwing a temper tantrum in the mall only for you to glare at him with a look that said “we’re discussing this when we get home and you’re gonna get your ass beat” and walk away. immediately stopped what he was doing and he was running after u, sniffling and mumbling apologies

please humble him and have him sleep outside. the couch is too luxurious to banish him to. he made sure of it himself. it’s reclining and has charging ports. he will not learn his lesson that way

does NOT want you to get a pet or a kid or even another sugar baby/househusband - he wants to be the center of ur attention

speaking of which he HATES it when you work for too long or work overseas. when u come back he’ll pout at u and give u the petty silent treatment

don’t bother trying to comfort him he thrives off of it and he’ll keep going so u can keep paying attention to him. if u just ignore him back he’ll come crawling back to u. “WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME IGNORING YOU?? DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME ANYMORE???”

one time yall got into a fight and he was all like “since ur being a rude mommy i’ll just find someone else !!!” inside u were like “oh god finally” but instead u said “okay”

ohmygod he panicked. he was rlly expecting for u to fight for him,,, but he doesn’t want to admit defeat first so he tries to go thru with it but you literally dont care. even when he has his chanel luggage packed and he’s standing by the door ur just like “ok bye bitch”

So he’s trying to stand by the door and wait for u to say that ur joking. ur not.

“fine! I’m leaving now!” “okay.” “...*sniffles*” “tooru, go.” “WAAAAH NO IM SORRY I DONT WANT TO-”

u knew this was going to happen sadly. u even hid the keys to all of the sports cars u own just in case he was actually going to go thru with it

tries to get in the gossip circle with the neighborhood trophy wives but they don’t think he’s cool enough. they like u though. they think ur hot asf and oikawa doesn’t like them no more bc theyre hitting on his ATM. but thanks to that u know all the gossip and shit even though u don’t ask for it

Every time u pass by a store where he thinks he wants something he’ll just cling to u and give the puppy dog eyes. like it could be out of nowhere and u see it and you’re like “where. which store.”

bro once he went luxury he never went back. he wouldn’t EVER step foot into a grocery store ever again congrats he’s been bimbo-ified

beat him with ur gucci belt pls it’s so funny

also please please PLEASE discipline him. tell him it’s NOT okay to just randomly purchase the entire swarovski store or to throw a party at ur house just bc he’s feeling petty about u being at work for too long. ofc he’ll bitch about it but you need to be firm

but don’t worry,,,he’ll get the idea when u take away black card privileges and slap him around (lovingly)

now he has to ask permission like a good boy. he’ll kneel and hug u and give a lil pout and whine

you got a bigass man child i’m sorry maam u should’ve picked tobio or ushi

ceo!kuroo

we are: secretary

bruh keeps it mostly professional during work hours

but that all gets shedded off like a snake when we on break

one minute he’s all “get these papers done by today or i swear on all that is holy i will destroy you” and then later he’s all “hey sweetheart wanna grab a cup of coffee”

flirty flirty FLIRTY FLIRTY AAAAA HES A MENACE

but you’re less than impressed bc y’know when the time clocks out and its time to go back to work he’s ruthless once more

HUMBLE HIM FOOL only when you’re on break though

will NOT stand for anyone else in the workplace bullyin u - NO WAY. only HIM

he’s got TONS and TONS of dirt on everyone in the office - NO ONE is safe so they wouldn’t even dare

RIP janet from accounting

that dumb bitch made the mistake of insulting u to ur face and in front of him. never heard from her again

it’s not even limited to the other employees - he’s not afraid to go off on a potential business partner if they dared disrespect you

bruh tries to call u on ur off days for the most randomest shit and to get ur attention

*picks up phone* “sir?” “ah! my favorite secretary ever! listen, i need you to grab my pens from my desk at the office and bring them to my place.” “...with all due respect, it’s 2 am, sir.”

but u have to comply with his ridiculous demands cuz he’s the bank

and he depends on u completely. as much as he hates to admit it - u have his schedules, itinerary, provide coffee, performance rates, stock info, you name it.

once u were out sick and he had the worst management - he’s not used to working without you

def tries to get some of ur workload off of u bc he’s worried that the stress of working for him made u sick + he doesn’t want to go thru scheduling again

prolly gets bored in meeting rooms and sends u little smirks and wiggles his eyebrows and weird looks while he’s sitting and ur standing in the corner like bruh pay attention

maybe sometimes he’s secretly makin fun of the presenter and doodling on his spare sticky note something funny to make u crack a smile

he’ll tease u for it of course “oh, secretary! you should be paying more attention! what would you do if this was important?” bruh i can multitask now keep airdropping me ur selfies i’m saving all of them (news flash: u dont save his dumbass selfies otherwise his ego will inflate too much)

sometimes likes to pull u aside from work to hug u - you say it’s highly unprofessional but he says it’s his stress reliever

you ALMOST got caught by one of the newbies and he was kabedon-ing you

he tries to play it off (since u were embarrassed too) but u know better,,,DO NOT LET HIM FORGET ABOUT IT he turns red and embarrassed every single time USE THIS TO UR ADVANTAGE !!

never goes into an elevator without you bruh is so attached to u n holds the doors open for you

but you have to open normal doors for him if he doesn’t know how it works (hint: manual doors. “why isn’t it opening on its own?” “sir, there’s a handle.” “but?? what does it do??”)

bruh acts like a dumbass sometimes so you can baby him :/// wtf man just because you’re rich doesn’t mean i’ll- ...wait...how much did you say…? that many zeros? HAND ME THAT FORK YES I’LL FEED YOU COME HERE- HERE COMES THE AIRPLANE BITCH

brings u to overseas trips and he spoils u too

no matter how much you insist that you’re ok he gives u a lot of luxurious items. “think of it as a bonus from me.” NOW YOU JUST HAVE A COLLECTION OF NICE SHOES/BAGS/JEWELRY AND HE LOVES IT WHEN YOU WEAR THEM TO WORK IT MAKES HIM SO HAPPY UGHHHHH

BRUH just a sugar daddy at this point “you have to look presentable for the next focus group so here’s a nice rolex watch” “sir, i don’t need-” “ah ah ah - it’s my treat.”

it’s pointless to refuse him but he still teases u for it like what???? “if i didn’t know any better, secretary, i’d say you’re just doing it for my money and not my fabulous looks and personality.” “exactly.” “hey!”

yall go for drinking parties a lot. whether with the whole branch or just the two of u

KARAOKE W KUROO AFTER A LONG DAY OF WORK <333 becomes a ritual between the two of u

he’s so silly when he’s drunk lmfaoooo goofy ass mf

but that’s only when it’s the two of u. he controls his alcohol around others and his uncool side is only for u <3

also ur the only one he trusts to take him back to his place and handle him

it’s the other way around too - when u drink a lot he looks after you <333

you have a higher tolerance than him and sometimes u have competitions between the two of u on who can drink more but then yall always end up shitfaced

HES the one who has a crush on you

you know the drill - gaslight gatekeep girlboss

he’ll do anything for u but wouldn’t ever admit it he simp

offers u the keys to his estate and offers for you to LIVE with him

bruh just marry me already ok WAIT WE’RE NOT EVEN DATING YOU NEED TO WORK ON THAT SIR-

he’s so awkward tryna confess to u,,,he may be this big hotshot ceo but he’s acting like a schoolgirl in love

probably prints u a confession when he asks u to go to the fax machine lmfao what a nerd

in other words ceo!kuroo is a nerd and you need to top him immediately get that bank

dog hybrid!bokuto

we are: owner

Husky-malamute breed!!! BEEG DOGGIE VERY HAPPY N DROOLY <333

OVERLY HYPER. JUMPS ON ANYONE AND U AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT

he’s well trained i swear but the moment he sees something of interest then i’m sorry you just lost him

please if a robber came in he wouldn’t even attack them he’d just tackle them w hugs

he loves loves loves snuggles <333 u busy? nope!!! hug time!!! cooking something?? oo lemme see!!! whoops look at all those tomatos on the ground. u got a deadline coming up and u really need to focus?? CUDDLE TIIIIIIME- w-wait - huh?? why are u shoving me off?? do you - do you not - huh?!?! WHY ARE YOU LOCKING ME OUT OF THE ROOM?? NO!!!! I LOVE YOU!!! IDK WHAT EXAMS ARE BUT I WANT CUDDLES!!! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME????!!!

the WORST things u could ever do to him is leave him and call him a bad boy

HE CRIES ON THE SPOT </3 HOW COULD YOU </3

soso bummed when u go out of the house without him </333 waits by the door patiently waiting for u to come back </333 sob sob

the moment he hears the door unlock he LEAPS and his tail is wagging like CRAZY

he is SO STRONG. almost always knocks u over whenever he jumps on u

destroys EVERY toy u bring him. u leave him for 5 seconds and there’s stuffing all over the floor and whatever u brought him is nonexistent

tugs on the leash when u walk so much that it SNAPS

loves romping w the other dogs in the dog park but he needs to tone down on his friendliness he almost killed a lil orange chihuahua

gets distracted by EVERYTHING. ooh, squirrel! oo, butterfly! OOO HUMAN CHILD!! MUST EAT!!!

ok while he might be friendly, he still gets super super jealous. you both were outside and u were petting the neighborhood black cat and bruh almost swallowed his head

which u thought was weird bc the two are normally friends and are pretty nice around each other

so now he’s more feisty around him and any other cat that’d get ur attention

If it was a person, then that’s another thing. He’d be very friendly at first but then slowly realize that ur attention is more directed on them than him. then he’d go ballistic

but when u scold him for practically assaulting the poor dude and call him a bad boy,,,he’s lost it

u have to lock him in the other room and he’s crying and whimpering, scratching at the door. all he wanted to do was protect u from that bad bad man who took away his owner’s attention !!!

def snarls at the dude next time he comes into ur house/apartment...dude never came back

“GRRR” “AAAA GET UR FRIGGIN DOG B-” “he don bite” YES IT DO GET UR-”

doggie bokuto rlly tries to be slick...it doesn’t work. like he tries to do that thing when he’s a total demon towards the guy but then act like an angel around u but it doesnt work bc he’s not smooth

doggie intelligence: 2 IQ. one time u got him a puzzle box and hid a treat in it but bruh couldnt figure it out just straight up monched the entire puzzle simply bc he smelled his fav bbq treat in it

speaking of intelligence - he only knows how to say a few words like ur name and incomplete sentences. speaks in barks and whines and sometimes a word

SO BIG THAT HE GRABS FOOD FROM THE TABLE WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING

u had some delicious beef steak? oh dear, where did it go? there’s ur puppy kou with steak sauce all over his lips

big fan of hiking trips, sports, literally anything that involves going out

he LOVES getting dirty outside playing. boi cant control himself from rolling around in the mud

hates baths at first but then he likes how u spray the water on him and giggles awww he likes bath time now

we all know he’s not the brightest pup of the pack but,,,he’s somehow psychic. he knows when ur taking him to the vet

HE THROWS A BIG FUSS ALL THE TIME - sometimes he tries to hide but his huge tail under the couch gives it away

and he knows when ur thinking of taking him on a walk. he also begs u to take him outside by settling his head in ur lap and pouting until u give him what he wants

he likes the big ol doggie sweaters/pjs u buy him...but he always ruins them. no matter how much u buy him, they’re all ruined. he complains how scratchy it is and it feels weird on him

knows LOTS of tricks but if u teach him more than what he already knows he will forget one of them he’s like a damn pokemon

he feels ur emotions :((( if ur mood is down his tail droops :(( and he gives u cuddles and tries to make u feel better

he even likes to make a fool out of himself and be silly if it makes u laugh :((( he’s so precious

in other words i love doggy bokuto

pirate!ushijima

we are: kidnapped

ah yes we’re are captives of the most fearsome pirates of the seas: shiratorizawa

just so you know, tendou was the instigator. he was all “let’s kidnap a noble’s kid and get the ransom money!” (whether you actually are a noble or not is up to you)

thing is, nobody’s willing to pay (if you aren’t a noble) or the pirates really pissed off the folks in charge and are now doing a manhunt

so yeah you aren’t going back anytime soon

but he’s a pretty good sport about it - very hospitable

he notices the little things u like and gets them for u <333 sighs <333

he saw you reading that book? wow look at that, there’s suddenly a stack of them and the same genre he saw you reading

but you definitely shouldn’t test him. he’s SUPER scary when it comes down to it

you saw how ruthless he was with the rogues that had dared to challenge him on sea

mf made them walk the plank

you help on the ship bc u wanna be useful and also shirabu keeps being mean

he asks u to teach the crew how to read cuz theyre dumb as shit and only know water and treasure

speaking of treasure - when he leaves u on the ship to explore a cave, he gets u really pretty jewelry <33 anything u ask for

“oh, welcome back captain. how was your mission?” “i brought back a few trinkets i thought you might like.” *reveals whole chest of priceless gems* “are they to your liking? if not, we can set sail for something else that might interest you.” “I-”

bruh got a pet eagle - u ask the crew and they dont even know how tf it happened

hell, even he doesn’t know how it happened wtf. “oh. one day it flew down to me and i fed it. that’s all.” wtf

equivalent to diluc’s bird - he didn’t even give it a name so he gives u the honors

U name him rigatoni (you got a great naming sense btw)

oh my god oh my god oh my god HE TRIES TO PROTECT U WHEN PPL WERE TRYNA INVADE THE SHIP

it was the first thing he did no cap - burst into ur room and scoops u up <33333

“what the-” “we need to get you to safety. we are under attack.” and holds u close to his chest AAAHSIDHFPSDHFN OH MY LORD YES

HAS THE TEAM GIVE U SELF DEFENSE LESSONS AFTER THAT

tendou tries to give u a sword but ushi says no “she could hurt herself.”

“but ushiwaka! we can teach her not to hurt herself” “...it’s my orders.” “c’mon, be more honest, ushiwaka! what’s the real reason?”

he goes quiet then looks at u “...i’ll always be there to help. she’ll have me.” AOISHSDHFSNDF

HELPPPPP SIOJFDSKFJP HES SO CHARMING AND HE DOESNT EVEN TRY

but the rest of the crew are like “then what’s the point”

but tendou sneaks u a dagger just to be safe

sorry ur apart of the crew now - but they’re like a family even if they did kidnap u

oh whatever your life before wasn’t as cool as this (no offense)

they are given orders to protect u at all costs

speaking of which - ushi isn’t all that great w guns

almost blew his own head off tryna figure out how it works before reon snatched it from him

he brings you with him to towns and cities and he likes taking u to the markets to get you stuff

ushijima tell me your love language is gift-giving without telling me your love language is gift-giving-

he finds out you’re pretty good at bargaining and brings you onshore a lot more

is mesmerized at how you absolutely BERATE the merchant who was tryna rip you off like sis where is this violence coming from??? he loves it??

he also likes to stop by some pretty islands and imagines just settling down in such a nice place w you <333 SIGHS <333 VERY <333 LOUDLY <333

no matter how much he likes you...he will NOT let you drive the boat under any circumstances </3 its his livelihood c’mon man

whenever you have to stay on the ship while he’s away he sends rigatoni to give messages and the two of u talk thru messages

speaking of which rigatoni is fierce and can definitely sink his talons and his sharp beak into any bastard that dares get near you while the captain is away

wakatoshi “swimming is for pussies” ushijima - he’s water resistant

bruh so powerful he walks on water

second coming of christ who

IM JUST KIDDING he does swim but we hardly ever see it

legends say (tendou says) he looks rlly awkward doing it and only knows how to doggie paddle

speaking of our homeboy tendou - he loooves spooking the team (and especially you) with scary stories . don’t worry tho - this is all a ploy to get the beeg pirate husband to comfort u at night ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) he is ur wingman u can count on him. but his suggestions are ridiculous

“Jump off the deck and see if he’ll catch you!” um excuse me- THOU SHALT NOT PUT BIG HUSBAND TO THE TEST

he’s got good intentions...i think…

but everyone literally knows he would dive after you

in other words pirate!ushijima is a softie at heart but goddamn he probably secretly has a pet shark so dont test him or u goin overboard

mafia leader!kita

we are: associate from different group/family

kita highly respects u and yall have been acquainted since u were young with the alliance of ur families

so in a way ur childhood friends but yall do have lil bit of friendly rivalry a bit

arranged marriage whuuuutttt...yeah thats what happened but u love him <3

nobody else knows about ur arranged marriage but you two

POLITE GENTLEMAN <333 !!! HNNNNNNNN his granny raised him right even tho he’s a mafia leader

RICH BOY RICH BOY RICH BOY- ALWAYS DRESSES DASHINGLY AND SMELLS GREAT MMMMMM

he owns the majority of the underground casinos

and has lots of connections with others. countless, might i add.

you on the other hand specialize as an arms dealer so he cherishes your services the most

prob has the traditional tattoos allllll over his back and shoulders w like a dragon or sm and def a fox or kitsune

when u two were little he asked ur favorite flower and GOT THAT TATTOOED ON HIS BACK <3 probably secretly has your initials hidden in there somewhere

u both have a silent understanding of each other and he talks to u more than he does anyone

before he used to smoke but once he figured out that you didn’t like the smell of cigarettes he quit just like that

his underlings, the miya twins are so confused on how kita switches from totally brutal and ruthless to so soft around u

they can’t tease him for it, though, cuz he’d pulverize them

but they want to know more about u,,,you mysterious enigma,,,but kita would kill them if they dared asked about you

so they go to inarizaki’s most secretive informant/cyber mercenary, suna rintarou

and suna knows all about you. he saw you one time and he was curious about who you were and is now rlly scared of you because he dug too deep and you’ve got LOTS of history

he doesn’t dare tell the twins what he found no matter how much they bug him

until they bribe him at just the right price

and when aran finds out and tells kita?? ohhh boy it’s lights out for all three of them

oh my god ,,, would kill for u he loves u so much

one time you were kidnapped and held hostage

bro saw red

MAFIA ANNIHILATION SPEEDRUN ANY % NO GLITCH

he got world record time

wiped out the entire conglomerate behind it - nothing and nobody left behind after that

and of course, made sure you were safe.

yandere? ofc not...i mean...just look at him...so innocent...he would never...sharpening that knife...with splattered blood all over him...

is now joined at the hip with u,,,no matter how much you tell him you’ll be fine now and that you have tons of reliable bodyguards he won’t let it go

“don’t you have to go back to your place?” “this is my duty as both a fellow associate and your future husband.” aww,,,ur so sweet...but BRUH PLEASE GO HOME ARAN IS DOING EVERYTHING OVER THERE

makes sure to build a headquarters DIRECTLY NEXT TO YOURS so that its faster

and it’s not long until he just signs a deal to merge ur factions together (since yall getting married anyways)

and oh my god...ur underground wedding is SO SO PRETTY

absolutely DOESN’T care if he’s smuggling jewels from different countries - he’s having your ring CUSTOM MADE and the way you want it. “the diamond is too small? sure thing, darling, i’ll have it 7 times that size.”

makes sure everything is perfect in ur wedding <333 its very extravagant and even though its not really his style he’ll do anything for you

he absolutely WOULD take your last name if you wanted. FIGHT ME ON THIS

takes you to his private island for ur honeymoon so that the two of you don’t have to worry about work

meanwhile aran is scrambling around the place trying to cover for the both of you

he’s a VERY romantic husband - NEVER takes off his ring even for security. he says its practically a part of him just like you are <3

the ring has a built in tracker connected to an app. possessive? noooo...

in other words this escalated pretty quickly but i aint complaining if it gets me married to kita

--EXTRA EXTRA!! other characters’ roles!!--

officer!daichi:

karasuno squadron consists of:

cops: daichi (duh), asahi (mostly patrol, he hates confrontation), tanaka & noya (mostly accompanied by ennoshita), hinata & kageyama

investigators/detectives: sugawara, ennoshita, yamaguchi, tsukishima, kiyoko, yachi

surveillance: narita, kinoshita, tsukishima too

househusband!oikawa:

makki and mattsun are also househusbands

iwaizumi is a malewife fhasodjkasdhf-

ceo!kuroo:

lev is the newbie that walked in on u two-

janet still a bitch

kenma is his fellow ceo buddy. he also owns a multimillion dollar company and kuroo’s and his have a sort-of contract so you see him a lot in meetings

yaku is like one of the top performing managers so whenever yall have branch meetings he’s there

dog hybrid!bokuto:

kuroo is the black neighborhood cat bokuto almost murdered cough cough i did that on purpose yes i did

kenma is also another neighborhood cat. you don’t see him around that often but now that bokuto got jealous he stays far away.

hinata is the orange chihuahua i briefly mentioned

i couldn’t decide whether akaashi would stay human and be his previous owner or also be a cat/dog/owl. so lets say he’s ur human friend that is your bestie and comes over a lot. bokuto likes him, though. still gets jealous a bit.

pirate!ushijima:

tendou is practically is right hand man

the rest of the team have something to give idk how to explain pirate team members okay-

BUT BUT BUT- they do have sea rivals which are the seijoh pirates. you ran into them one day and oikawa thought you were kidnapped (you were, but you liked it there) so he tried to do you justice and failed miserably. ushijima ragdolled him into the ocean when he flirted w you.

mafia!kita:

the twins are something akin to mercenaries basically. or just plain lackeys.

suna is an informant/cyber mercenary. he gathers information about ppl which is how he knew about you. and he’s a hacker lol.

aran is his second-in-command, omimi + ginjima are his bodyguards

a/n: im going to regret posting this

#haikyuu #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu captains #daichi sawamura #oikawa toru #kuroo tetsuro #kita shinsuke #ushijima wakatoshi #bokuto kotaro #x reader

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himbodjarin · 3 years

Text

LUNAR; CH15

18+ Content: General fluff/angst. Din POV. Word Count: 5138 Pairing: Din Djarin/F!Reader

The Mandalorian is a driven warrior — traversing the galaxy in search of the ancient Jedi — but everyone has their weaknesses, and he’s no different. The Bounty Hunter possessed three in fact. One he’s discovered—The Child. The remaining two, though, he wasn’t aware of their existence. At least, not until he meets a valorous Sharpshooter underneath a moonless night sky; then he’s plummeting down a dark mission of self-discovery, questioning his morals and his Creed while the moon taunts him, the phases of the satellite corresponding to his personal revelations. However, the Girl has a dark past that may come to inflict hardships on the Mandalorian and the Child; it’s up to the Bounty Hunter to decide her fate. Read on AO3 / Series Masterlist / Playlist

EPILOGUE

Whispers.

Din is subjected to whispers surrounding him and clinging to his beskar like seafoam on his boots; sensitive and hushed tones aimed to show their condolences, their pity, regarding the absence of light beside him. They raise their voice no louder than whispers out of fear, not sympathy—sterile beskar contaminated with the sun’s liquidised crux intimidating them into tight-lipped smiles.

Sorrow radiates off him in potent waves that roll over the settlement to drown them in his grieving. It doesn’t need to be voiced. There’s a plenitude of evidence that stacks up against the presumption; the reclaimed rifle adhered to slippery beskar as opposed to cradling its framework into soft flesh, a tattered cloak that now only stretches across one side of his back, broad shoulders appearing so compact in on themselves, and a heavy-footed stride that simply speaks anguish.

If those factors aren’t indication enough, the blood does it.

Dried blood that coats his tan appendage but not his gloved—funny, how he always seems to dirty his hands—thick streaks that have yet to reach that dry point smeared against his armour, dark patches on his flight suit that adheres to the skin beneath.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but the scene of The Mandalorian—a stoic warrior capable of pulling the tides that’ll swallow their settlement whole—so vanquished and mourning the woman he loved in such dreaded silence is worth a million and then some.

The element of a bare hand no longer pining to envelope itself from intrusive eyes is grisly. Abnormal. Eerie, all most, as if Mando’s resolve will snap before their inspections. Children are guided behind the adults with a subtle hand but it doesn’t pass unnoticed.

Din suspends in the maelstrom of the locals, helmet burdensome on his shoulders, vacantly swaying side-to-side as though struggling to remain awake on his feet; struggling to not let slip of his eyelids and succumb to the mud that’ll pose as his eternal resting grounds. If it weren’t for the slumbering speck of green nestled in the arms of Omera, perhaps he would allow himself to sink to his knees for the second time that night, no—third. Third time.

There’s no communication between them, no are you okay’s or I’m so sorry’s, just a simple exchange of glances that reads she’s gone, my girl is gone when Din recovers the Child from her arms. Familiar weight in the nook of his elbow, the same elbow her head resided as she lay dormant, he reverts back between the compound aisle of onlookers.

It’s all the same expression—that pouted bottom lip and upturned eyebrow, colourful eyes attentive to his exposed hand and gory armour; anything besides the chilling black slit of his visor, the red thumbprint of a much larger hand impression sitting in the corner of his view field—Din’s chin descends to his chest to avert his eyes from the hands on their loved ones, pulling them to a warmth he’ll soon forget the feeling of, the silent declaration of adoration upon seeing such a depleted man without his.

Voices are deteriorating before him, echoing and remote as if they were isolated across a vast canyon—everybody’s tone blending into one heaped bulk he can’t decipher who or where they’re coming from; a procedure his mind conducted to dissociate from the pity timbres.

Caben…

...I know.

Beskar wrenches their route, initiating eye contact with the two farmers his love died to save—died so that they could live fulfilling lives while she’s devoured by parasites—and his fist clenches by his side. Din doesn’t blame them for her demise, not really, she never would’ve inflicted such a gnarly wound if it wasn’t for the fact the Guild was after him; the fact that rescuing a helpless child would lead to a chain of events that brings him such an acquainted feeling of despair.

And he’d do it all over again if the situation arises—that’s what causes his slitted fingers to curl into his palms and draw blood out the gaps between. Din had breached many rules, some of his Creed’s and others his personal pledges; do not fall victim to a girl’s loving touches. They were there for good reason. Din’s not mad at Caben and Stoke nor Omera for informing him of their situation. Din’s mad at himself because, despite knowing the outcome of it all and despite how her name has been carved into his ribs, he would never not rescue the Child.

Even if that statement alone induces a thousand scenarios in which his beloved dies in his arms. Perhaps it’s his private method of torture; a way to inflict damage onto himself that doesn’t bruise skin but the sensitive heart beneath it all.

Caben and Stoke quiver underneath the leer of a visor blemished with vermillion—someone so black and white touched with the coloured essence of a cherished one—he’s never donned so much vibrancy. Not even when he wore his shoddy spraypainted duraplast armour had he been so rich in hues that no eyes should witness.

Din takes mercy on the men and tears his helmet away, feet falling with a burden into the forest haunted with a spirit that’ll never be able to rest.

It takes a day of being in hyperspace to reach overfamiliar craggy rocks and whipping sand granules—a day of being confined within his home, now a duralloy prison, with a fallen star coursing ripples of glacial bursts. The corpse of his sweetheart had been covered with what little material remained of the cloth on his back for the Child’s sake, not his. Din could never want that pretty face cloaked even with the browning plasma cracking on the surface of her cheek, the dark crescents beneath eyes that holds overtones that now only live in his head and windburned lips that once felt warm and smooth against his own roughened.

There’s a steep drop to his death waiting for a mere slip of his boots against the coarse siltstone—internal bleeding upon the impact that would cater his physique with that unaccounted heat one last time—but Din is versatile and makes it down with limited injuries; some grazes into the paddings of fingers and a sore ball of the foot where he’d dug his boots into an uneven surface a little too vigorously.

Soft sand sits beneath his feet in contrast to the grittiness above, a result of the lack of rays that reach between the gorge. It’s darkened down these parts, plagued with skeletons of unfortunate victims to the brittle canyon edgings.

A mote of black pokes upright from the golden ground, the end of a matte-finished cylinder storing pale grains into its blueprint. The ground swallows his knees whole and adheres itself to his flight suit where it’ll reside in the empty space that’s left behind for journeys to come.

Din combs the sand with cupped hands, bare digits burrowing deep and bandaging around the target to wedge free of its tenacious grip. It extracts from the planet’s crust with falling particles from its bore reuniting with its sum beneath his weight—a shattered chamber decays in his clutch. The stock, its untethered support deeper in the terra, withdraws into his idle grip.

It’s a straightforward design—a barrel he’s stared down into more times than he can account for—but there’s sentimental value in its mere existence, despite Din never having any interest in the dark oil encrusted with scratches and weathered patches around a jammed trigger. Such a stocky weapon for arms crafted of supple beams. The tide could easily harness such a defying artifact; digest the barrel whole into the belly of its trenches, the increased pressure simply too great for it to ever leave. Not the beams, though—they should never be required to carry such unstable weight, such compactness.

The amban rifle was perfect for those hands; nimble and delicate, easy to employ.

Salvaged firearm in hand, Din finds himself before the entrance of a shoddy dome shack; a flap of shroud swaying one with the wind eased to the side with the back of his knuckles, helmet dipping as he sets a lagging foot inside. The sparseness, the emptiness, drowns his lungs and constricts his airways—it’d been ransacked, by Jawas presumably, all of the deconstructed mechanics that should be gathering dust pinched from the schism-riddled wooden slab.

Disconnected halves of a rifle are gently laid to rest on the surface, the skeleton of a shattered Creed shortly following. Its critical gaze eats at the delicate man frontwards, toned eyes melting to a bubbling molten transparisteel that scars his assaulted morals. Three tan fingers spin the helmet on its axis to face the duracrete, allowing the pang in his temples to subside.

Din’s calves encased with his duraplast greeves butt against the edge of a mediocre cot, not too contrasting to his own—cramped with little to no support, but it’s stable and it works—he envisions a bandaged figure curled up on the durasteel, nothing but an oversized poncho to supply warmth that wasn’t necessary on such a heated planet. He sinks to the bunk and pursues the comfort of a merciless prod in his waist, a sweat-slicked forehead pressing into the wall.

If he closes his eyes and breathes deep he’s rewarded with a faint whiff of a rich syrup that combats the stale crux on his platings—the point of a pinky muscle stimulated with a fleeting taste of his favourite flavours. Sand particles deposited by the gusts of winds flood his ventilators from the cot beneath him, slicing through the linings of his insides. In lieu of coughing and spluttering Din deeply exhales and laxes his muscles; the overwhelming requirement for rest inevitably forcing his mind to disable and his breathing to even out.

Kuiil and his craftsmanship came up short as expected.

Even with the labour of three lifetimes, I cannot fix this. I have never seen something this shattered be repaired before. Perhaps you are not supposed to restore its properties.

Din respected the Ugnaught too much to vocalise his thoughts—what a load of bantha—and opted to depart from Arvala-7 before its granular claws burrowed into him more than they already had; his boots packed to his ankles with hot grit that converts the soles of his feet to blisters, flight suit drenched in sweat and blood.

Rather than dedicating a whole five minutes of changing attire, rather than finally ridding himself of the constant reminder of his dead lover clinging to his skin and clothes, he punches the navigation and activates the auto-piloting to his next destination.

The Child has developed some independence in the peak of Din’s mourning, often finding himself entertained with a drifting gear knob in the vacancy of the air before him—he almost appeared aware of the situation, aware of the black hole in Din’s chest narrowing his interiors and destabilising his balance—and he no longer needed assistance to vacate from the Crest when the hatch extended.

His guardian, on the other hand, wasn’t so eager to leave his penitentiary. It was quiet and cold in comparison to the hustle and bustle outside the duralloy cell, the loud exclaim of a snappy mechanic, no matter how late into the night it had to be, scolding her droids.

Are ya looking to get shot at? You know the drill, back away from it!

Din straightens himself out from the floor between the cockpit and the hold’s ladder, the one place he didn’t encounter the phantom of waning memories; they plagued these walls beyond belief. Recollections of brief intimate instances strewn throughout the hold, his bunk, the cockpit—it made operating his spacecraft a difficult chore.

He does his utmost not to glimpse at the emptiness atop the crates, the browning streaks that run down the slopes of the cubes and into the grooves of the Razor Crest’s base, but there’s only a limited measure of self-control residing within him and its line has been blurry as of late. Submitting to the gravitational pull of his eyes is inescapable and he risks a peak; a raggedy cloak that concealed gelid mounds now servicing as a blanket for the bare inventory containers.

Shoulders tighten and footwork falters as he maneuvers to the hatch, the idle purring of a preservation machine in the far corner a reminder of what he’d gone and done—guilt and grief goading his esophagus but he swallows it, greets the sting in his walls with a gruff clear of his throat.

What’s the big idea of stationing yourself here? She doesn’t appear in bad shape at all. I ain’t free parking, ya know.

Shiny credits are flung in her direction, the satchel containing the remainder of what was once a reimbursement to the bisected rifle in his leathers, he doesn’t allow him the privilege of feeling sorrow upon parting with them. Din doesn’t deserve to experience such sensitive emotions when he’s the trigger that snapped against a guard—a cherry bolt of a hand jabbing through the wind and tossing delicate goods down a ravine.

Peli eyeballs the exposed spinal plating of the Mandalorian and compiles the fragmented pieces of his physique, slotting in each individual aspect from his impaired posture down to the crust on his steel. Shards of a rusting man relocate, twisting and turning—no, not there...not quite...oh...—until it connects, a brittle sharp-edged outline of a man receding.

But that’s all it is.

An outline. Incomplete. His jam-packed insides—his essence, his life, his love—has been swindled from within leaving a husk of an exhausted bereaved soul ricocheting off the internal boundaries of beskar in search of its partner.

Din deposits himself in a corner of the hangar tucked away where the shadows push and pull his limbs, steering his appendages across the surface of an eroding strongbox showcasing the deconstructed blaster. Phantoms of apprehensive hands ghost overhead, their primary function programmed to destroy and slaughter not replenish and recover.

Reparations are out of the question. It’s beyond demolished; hardly decent for a mantlepiece let alone functional. It’s laid out like a butchered tip-yip primed for roasting, components scattered and misplaced; a muddle not even the greatest gunslinger could capitalise from.

Engravings on the stock of the rifle stabilise him, a gorgeous aluminium that shines beneath all the oil and base of obsidian. Its lines paint a picture of nothing, overlapping and crossing into a mess, but it fires a brisk bolt against his heartplate all the same. Bare fingers spelunk its origins for its quirks, its stories of a stubborn girl entrapped within it; utilising the elongated barrel like a third arm, a trigger snappy as her words, the scenic stock a mirror to the beauty beside it.

Roughened fingers were a by-product of being consistently handsy throughout the decades but when perceiving the sun rays they were reborn entirely. Soft and smooth and careful. Now that the sun no longer responds to his touch, now that he’s left with cool inscribed metal, they’ve reverted to their nature. Sandy. Sharp. Aggressive.

Aggressive fingers that match the stained violence of his Creed—his beskar that simply won’t return to that elegant silver shine no matter how desperately he rubs against the surface. Water sloshes back and forth in the modest trough of a sink, a tainted red-brown colour accumulating at the bottom provoking an ache in the tender organ residing in his centre.

He’d practically been forced into the shoddy refresher by the mechanic—you got the kid all anxious, just look at you, go get that gunk off yourself.

That’s all it can be perceived as by others; nothing more than filthy smears required to be rid of simply for presentation—to preserve the comfort of others no matter how intense the guilt chews against his muscles as her pith dilutes. Gunk.

Din muffles a sob. It’s her.

She’s abandoning him for a second time. What little of her refuses to part from him is so encrusted it’s become a part of his armour, inserting herself into the nicks and grooves of his platings his fingers fail to penetrate.

Mindless hands shift to his lesioned flesh, unsteady digits summarising the hills of rashy bumps visible only through the lens of steamy caf. Phantoms of lingering touches mark tan terrain in the shapes of slender fingers and cottony lips on his chest, his stomach, neck and face; everywhere that’d been blessed with the loveliest of kisses and nips from the Sun now scarred over.

Pendant held firmly in place pulses a scorching burst through the tissue on his sternum, the beskar skull leaving its claim. Its fraying thread drifts to thick fingers and lays loose between them, irritable skin of a palm flaring at its exuding heat and crisp pang; none of its physical but it’s as though he’s brushed with a hand of a million degrees all the same.

Shiny silver occupies the empty space beside him, a lithe barrel glittering in the substandard lighting of a crummy Tatooine refresher; heckling the helmetless man but he could never glance its way in any sort of negative class.

It hurts to connect with the beskar pendant and perhaps he deserves to hurt, but he can’t sustain it, can’t confront that sting in his throat and eyes each time it shifts against his chest.

Din weaves the lace of his material initiation through the metal perch beneath the shiny stretch of a barrel; dangling and showcased on the paired rifle of his Sun where it’ll reside—operating as a threatening symbol to partner his visor against enemies who dare glance his way.

And it did, far more successful than he could’ve imagined; rumours of his descent traversing parsecs faster than his Crest could vie with.

Did you hear about that Mandalorian—supposedly lost his lover and went rogue. I heard he turned berserk, he’s killed a town’s worth of criminals! Someone ought to lock him up before he turns on us. He’s a threat to us all!

Din didn’t much care for the presumptions. It wasn’t as though he frequented locations to be overwhelmed with the local’s support, though it made discreetly getting around a challenge—no longer were the days he could enter a cantina with a few intrigued eyes devising a way to lay claim to his beskar before returning to their booze.

But now it was people confronting him in false hope he’d be too deep in mourning to fight against their attacks. It never did end well for them.

He’d become a magnet for death, even of his own.

It wasn’t righteous to die in that common house. Not when those disproportionate black eyes observed from the arms of a droid; deep, dark masses that depicted more emotion for his guardian’s condition than perhaps they should. He’d been selfishly greeting his emerging end with an inconsiderate let me have a warrior’s death. It’d be a lie if he was to deny its translation; let me see my beloved.

As is his entire life, Din’s been allocated with responsibilities far out of his expertise but he’s not relinquishing his guardianship to the kid that easily. It’s not as if he could be transferred to any other old sucker either; not everybody has the same compassion for a floppy-eared bounty worth their retirement funds.

No, it wasn’t his time to rest. It’ll come when it’s merited.

That night after the events that’d transpired, Greef Karga bestowed some unusually wise statements underneath the moonless canopy of speckled stars patterning the abyss. Simply reminding Din of its existence; the constant celestials that’ll never desert him no matter what dodgy planet he dwelt.

A new moon is approaching. As a child I had been told stories of a cosmic reset at the commencement of a new cycle; an opportunity to start anew. Perhaps it was all just folklore but it’s fascinating all the same, wouldn’t you agree? I always did like shiny things.

It’d been the vulnerability that encouraged his Guild’s leader to utter those words—that unmistakable change in demeanour since they’d last met, that insecurity swallowing an iron stomach upon hearing a dead name chanted amongst an army of Stormtroopers—Din knew without it being conveyed.

He had been stripped of his privacy and put in the spotlight in front of dozens of lifeforms. A name reserved for a benevolent tone now recognised by the enemy, trespassing on those memories of all the situations it’d been murmured into his bare flesh as if labelling him as a person; a real breathing blood-pumping person and not the Creed he fought for.

Gideon was his name, the man who spoke of his identity as though he crafted it himself. As though he nursed the bruises and traumas of his title and being—not gentle hands that’d remain uncomplaining despite how little Din offered in return.

If Din had inspected his fallen TIE fighter for life, perhaps he could’ve avoided the forthcoming events.

With the naive belief of security, Din encouraged the pursuit of his aspirations rather than the concern of his violations towards his code. His relationship with the Creed had been on thin ice and he’s not quite willing to pardon its strict principles.

An opportunity to start anew.

His brain requests a rebalance—the interest for the Child’s consideration prodding needles into the fleshy mass—demands his sentiments to be torched, cremated until they are stardust particles drifting through the celestials above. They crack and pop in tune to the sizzle of a droughted driftwood pyre bearing the corpse of his lover, profitably filling two needs with one deed; a clear state of mind to focus on his ongoing responsibilities and to allow depleted beams to finally rest across the horizon.

She’d endured suffering enough; receiving punishment from those she trusted, the guilt and onslaught Din presented as a by-product, sustaining wounds until it’d finally become too much.

Even in death, she wasn’t permitted serenity.

Her fucking body is still with me!

It slipped out of his mouth back on Tatooine.

I had to - had to put her in carbonite...she was fuckin’ rotting in my ship. I didn’t know what else to do. What are you supposed to do with the body of your-... I can’t just - just ditch her on some shitty planet all alone like that!

Peli had been of assistance; providing Din somewhere to rest his eyes without breathing in the stench of decaying flesh. She’d even gone ahead and supplied him with a pair of gloves to preserve his corrupted honour though she wouldn’t admit it,—prefer not to recognise you as human, makes it hard to dupe you outta credits if I’m too busy pitying you—she wasn’t repelled by his grieving, the unusual depictions of a man underneath all that shiny steel.

She’d been of more assistance than he could thank her for.

Being on Tatooine facilitated the idea of his Sun’s disposal.

Kote Kyr’am.

It’s the best memorial he could devise. A ceremony he’d attended countless times as a foundling watching his elders fall in battle. The very same elders who’d knock Din upside the head for constructing such an ancient farewell for an aruetii but she’s worthy of nothing less; more, perhaps, but there are no alternatives in the vacancy of his helmet adequate for the burial of a star.

Din’s lips are chapped, his skin is on fire, there’s a rumbling in his stomach. He’s watching his beloved burn to ash underneath the new moon and yet he feels as though he’s the one succumbing to the flames; the heat just as powerful as the dormant embodiment it’s consuming.

Velvety skin he’d allocate his hands, his tongue, and time, never enough time, to now blister and contract, tear and melt, crackle and—

He heaves over, helmet rim caught on a scrunched forehead, and readies his throat for the bite of acid. It doesn’t come. Not even a trickle of saliva disperses. Instead, his lungs impale themselves on his ribcage, contracting and expanding so rapidly he fails to recognise his cheeks are devoured with a downstream.

The salt probes his tastebuds though it’s insufficient to dominate the heavy particles of ablaze flesh. It’s so rich, so potent that it’s evolved to a taste rather than a scent. Din could withstand the odour, his filters stripped the majority, but the taste is intolerable and it just so freely floats in through his agape mouth to nestle among his tongue - as if it belonged there - as if a contrasting sweeter taste didn’t.

Din’s skin reddens from Navarro’s meanspirited terrain but it’s not enough motivation to rise to his feet. He sits there, steel dwelling amongst the molten, and waits because he can’t continue his journeys for two without that flicker of confidence she’s at peace.

He’ll take a crumb of assurance, it’d be plenty for him to muster up the strength and return to the Crest where the Child awaits.

Usually, as is Mandalorian custom, he’d be stripping the shell of armour from her corpse as a keepsake of a life well-lived - to preserve the name of her clan but all Din had of her’s was a shattered rifle that’ll remain in the vacuum of a satchel.

Not to mention the chants—the gruff Mando’a words designed to ensure their warrior’s spirit may join their fallen. Din had his fair share of howling war cries through the years but not this time - it’s not right.

An aruetii wouldn’t be welcomed.

Besides, his Creed had stolen his spirit. It doesn’t qualify to steal hers.

It isn’t until a final blow of wind carries her skywards that Din raises to his feel, latches his helmet back in place, and returns to work.

Din likes the skies, no—loves the skies; the magnificent blues and pinks and oranges that blend as one, the swollen cushiony whites that conceal his naked face from the shell whatever planet he’d roam, but above all else Din loves how the sun blessed him with its astral kisses.

That unmistakable warmth flushed over him; the remnants of his extinguished star’s touches.

There was a peace up there that’d never reach the conflict of the galaxy; serenity that allowed for a moment of buoyancy—floating among the cornflower identical to how one might in the colossal depths of the ocean without the intimidation of anchoring oneself by weighted platings.

It was a real sight to behold up there; unfamiliar without the confines of his Crest.

Din had forgotten the thrill of the sweeping winds through his limbs, the freedom rising in his chest upon cutting through white puffs. But it had been the horizon that lured his attention inwards—the bends and slopes of a shimmering orange star smiling at the returning glint in his visor.

It was the first time he’d genuinely smiled since the loss of His Star. It had something to do with the warmth; the sunbeams managing to penetrate past beskar and into his flesh and organs so intimately, so overfamiliar to delicate fingers stroking the muscles of his chest or the bones beneath his cheeks.

It became sort of a custom in his travels to visit the heavens at least once on each planet. Often times bemused squealing would accompany him. Grogu—Grogu...the kid had a name—had been adamant about participating in his encounters and Din now has no doubt that was his abilities, the Force as Ahsoka mentioned, enabling him to perceive his intentions; his ambition to be touched by someone who no longer lives. It’d be easier to go up against seven Krayt dragons than to convince a power-wielding typhoon to remain on land, thereby he’d hoist Grogu up and above the overcast where the beams kissed the peak of his fuzzy forehead.

Renouncing his guardianship to Grogu had been challenging. Losing another lifeform so that he’d be entirely alone wasn’t a consideration as he journeyed in search of a Jedi, but it was to be expected. The kid was powerful and Din didn’t possess the knowledge to help him wield his abilities. Didn’t make saying goodbye any easier, though.

The situation resurfaced ghoulish remembrances of draining light in his arms; how he never presented his emotions without the guise of his helmet. So, encircled with copious lifeforms, Din removed his Creed before Grogu—introducing that vulnerability and love for a toddler who’d swindled his affection so effortlessly. A claw on his face wasn’t the same as gentle fingers but he didn’t love it any less.

The ordeal was absolving despite the moisture in his eyes.

Din’s ambivalent about what he’ll pursue from here with no mission, no ship, no love, but he doesn’t much care when he’s brushed with the warmth of his lover’s thumbs on his eyelids. It’s his favourite space; lingering above the clouds, head craned backwards with his helmet loosely held in his leathers, savouring how the beams kiss his skin until it’s pink from its spice.

Some days he simply wishes to take a peak, a small little glance to quench him until the desire builds up again. Some days he remains in the skies until his jetpack whines and runs into failures; until it makes its descent and is replaced with a shimmering orb.

He’s envious of the moon; how it so easily recovers its glossy shine and integrity, neglecting to address the events of the eclipse. Its radiance chips away at his armour but the sunshine restores it—realigns the shards and offers a toasty kiss to the steel, commending it for protecting her Mandalorian.

Din suspends in a herd of clouds and sighs into the air. It’s quiet except for the monotonous bursts of thrusters from behind. Sunshine is greeted with lukewarm caf, a partnering smile tugging his lips.

“Beloved Girl,” Din’s voice is raspy from inactivity but so loud, so clear in contrast to everybody else’s he’d consulted.

There’s too much he wants to say but he determines to voice them all. Din expresses his thoughts he’d been too stoic to admit, ranging from whispers to shouts at the sun as if it was a sentient being listening to his passion.

He tells her of how much he longs to see her, to taste her on his lips, to provoke that sparkling smile he loved so dearly. He communicates his guilt and how he loves her more than he can fathom—mentions the successful end of his journeys with Grogu and how he now has zilch but an undesired blade to show for it.

There’s nothing but a sway of wind whipping his eardrums in response and Din hums, accepting it.

Din cherishes the splinters of beams as she comes to rest beneath the horizon and he too sinks from the skies, obscured dimples in his cheeks as he recounts the memories of his beloved wrapped in his arms.

One last thing, Cyare, keep an eye on the kid for me, will you?

taglist: @ohhersheybars, @greatcircle79, @northernpunk, @tanzthompson, @djarrex, @omgreally, @spideysimpossiblegirl

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expansionarchives · 3 years

Photo

“Silverspoon”

Posted by Jacques Simmons on March 12th, 2023

I ended up sleeping in today, I’d never hung my hammock so high before and I might have been a little afraid to climb down. Regardless, I eventually did and packed everything up, hoping to reach a water source before evening. It was around 11 AM when I had eaten breakfast and began hiking, by the way.

Despite spending more than a month in the wilderness it still creeped me out how everything I saw the previous night, from the treetops, was now totally different. I got a closer look at that house from before, the windows were broken and the thing look really overrun so either it was abandonded or whoever lived there died in the chaos. Scary stuff, but I knew I’d find it eventually if I just headed North.

With that in mind, I continued, sure to keep track of my compass and GPS so I wouldn’t lose my sense of direction. I think my GPS just confirms my suspicions, I can walk for an hour and it’ll say I haven’t moved at all, but then I’ll walk for 10 minutes and it’ll say I’ve moved 8 miles. Whatever’s going on with the wilderness right now, it’s in a state of uncertainty, like it can’t decide how long distance actually is. That and it only takes place at ground level, I heard the news of the helicopter pilots seeing the ‘distortion’ disappear once they got high enough as well, so I’m feeling confident in this theory.

Thinking I’ve solved the puzzle didn’t really do me much good, though, because things like distance on the ground are irrelevant. I just gotta trust that I’ll get there eventually, whether it takes a couple minutes or a couple days.

Anyhow, I trekked through low grasslands for most the afternoon, I’d occasionally spot ground squirrels and seed-eating birds dart around the underbrush but beyond that things were boring. I wasn’t listening to music or the radio because I was looking for a stream or something, and wanted to keep my ears perked for it, and eventually--Around 5 PM I think, I heard it. The sound of flowing water.

My waterbladder had emptied and I had to dig into my emergency water bottle by that time, so once I knew it was it earshot I rushed towards it. I eventually made it to the shore of a clear stream, and quickly brought out my filter to refill my bladder as well as try for some fish. I didn’t manage to catch any, but I saw something better.

See the drawing I included with this update? Yeah. I had to draw this from memory, though, as the actual encounter was so short. If I ever get to see it again I’m whipping out my Ipad immediately. I was at the edge of the river when I suddenly heard this loud, lowish chirping sound. It made me think of like, the sound of a robin that was slowed down so that it was longer and deeper. I looked towards and sound and saw this weird thing.

What the hell is it? I had seen some weird stuff, like those table-shaped rocks from last week, but I had never seen an abnormal living creature. This thing looked like something from a videogame or comic book, but it was real flesh and blood! I’m so sad I couldn’t just snap a photo of it, so I just have to ask you guys to believe me. I couldn’t make this thing up if I tried.

It looked like someone had sliced a giraffe in half and covered it in kinda blue spraypaint. The thing was hairless, but had blue markings around its neck and legs. It also had hoof-like feet that stretched out, kinda resembling shoes. At the top of its long neck was a tiny head with ginormous ears that made the silhouette of a spoon.

It had eyes at the sides of its head, and judging by the giant ears which it certainly used to hear things with, I imagine it’s some kind of large herbivore. Did this evolve somehow in the wilderness? I didn’t think for a second it was some cryptid or some kind of recently undiscovered creature, I knew it was something weird, and something that would only appear in this bizarre expanse. (It also concerns me as to what predators this thing was adapted to avoiding.)

Anyhow, the creature, which I decided to call a ‘Silverspoon’ based on its colour and head, stared at me for a while after making that call. I think it was gauging to see if I would cross the river to come after it. Giraffes in real life are pretty powerful creatures, so I gotta admit I was way more scared of that thing than it might’ve been at me.

I moved slowly, not wanting to startle it or anything. And watched as it kneeled at the river’s edge like a person and dipped its head in. Its neck was so long that its head was basically under the water. After it had finished its drink, the thing turned around and strided away, giving me a glimpse of its small black-tipped tail.

I almost wanted to cross the stream to go after it, but I didn’t want to go too far off course. At the same time I didn’t want to get my chest smashed in by a kick from those legs, so when I had finished my tea I packed up again and headed on my way back in the direction of that derelict house.

Right now I’m in a tree again, I feel like I’ve made good progress and I snared a rabbit for dinner. I’m thinking of making a tutorial series for preparing wild game once I make it back to my house, so tell me what you think about that.

Once I finish writing this update I’ll go to sleep and try to wake up earlier today. My goal is to reach that house by tomorrow, but that’s what I said 3 days ago as well.

If you or a loved one is trapped in the wilderness, remember to give emergency response as exact coordinates as you can. More and more teams are getting choppers together to extract people and put them into the big cities, so be sure to pack up your valuables and stuff for when they get to you.

Signing out, stay safe out there.

#extrafauna #worldbuilding #simmons #expansion #visual

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master-sass-blast · 4 years

Text

Children of the Gods -Part One.

OOOOOOOOOOOOH BABY I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!!! THIS HAS BEEN MY LITTLE PET PROJECT FOR OVER A YEAR!!!!

Summary: There's a new force to be reckoned with on the horizon, a force that goes by the name of Allison Ricci. Having lost her family, she's out for blood and vengeance --specifically, Frank Castle's. And, having taken Karen Page hostage, it seems like she's liable to get it. By teaming up with Frank to save Karen, can you and your friends and family stop Allison's quest for revenge? ...Only one way to find out.

Rating: T for moderate violence, gun violence, and mention of death.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, and Frank Castle x Karen Page.

Set after Hunter and Hunted.

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @starman-canos-thorsus-jock

You eye the abandoned looking warehouse with grim determination. “You’re sure about this?”

“Dead sure,” Nathan says as he checks his gun over. “She’ll be here.”

Your Dad-in-every-way-but-biological and Wade had called in a request to have the X-Force help them with a mission earlier today: rescuing a kidnapped person, retrieving a potentially violent mutation for rehabilitation, nothing too out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t until you, Piotr, Ellie, Yukio, and Russell (the newest X-Men trainee cleared for field work) had gotten on the jet –Neena was hitching a ride with Wade—that Nathan had sent you the rest of the details: that the kidnapped person was Karen Page, the potentially violent mutant was a “victim” of Frank’s punishing sprees, and that Frank was also present to rescue his girlfriend.

Because, you know, nothing’s ever easy.

“You’ve got five seconds to get moving, Summers, or I’m gonna blow this place open,” Frank growls, clad in black and his spray painted tack vest and looking angrier than you’ve ever seen him.

“Patience,” Nathan fires back. “We can’t rush this.”

“I’m gonna rush a few bullets up your ass if you don’t hurry the fuck up.”

“If it counts for anything,” Neena says, eyeing the warehouse uneasily, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

“Easy, Kenobi,” Wade says as he holsters his pistols. “Or would you be Han Solo?”

“I’ve always seen myself as a Leia.”

Wade nods. “Who wouldn’t want to be Carrie Fisher.”

“Wilson, shut your fucking trap or I will shut it for you—”

“Hey.” You step between Frank and Wade before Frank can slug your adoptive brother. “Give my dad two minutes. He’s probably just making sure we aren’t walking into any traps or massive amounts of back up. Karen’ll be fine. Hell, she’s probably already found a way to free herself.”

“Won’t be any back up,” Nathan says as he scans the warehouse. “The target’s name is Allison Ricci, daughter of Andrew Ricci. His recent death—”

“Courtesy of Captain S-and-M here,” Wade interjects, gesturing over at Frank.

“—means that she doesn’t have access to the money that hires extra muscle, considering Mr. Ricci’s accounts were frozen upon his death for criminal investigation.”

“Then what the fuck are we waiting for?” Frank hisses.

“Is there even point in my saying ‘language?’” Piotr asks in a resigned, albeit pointed, tone.

“Probably fucking not,” Ellie says while she taps at her phone.

You bite back a laugh while Piotr merely shoots his mentee a look.

“We’re waiting,” Nathan interjects, regaining control over the conversation, “for me to locate where Allison and Karen are. The less time we waste on this, the better.”

“We’re already wasting time, Summers,” Frank snarls, stomping away from the group. “Fuck it, I’m going in by myself—”

“They’re in a storage room on the West side,” Nathan pipes up. “There’s a bay door there used for unloads. We’ll use that one.”

You quickly follow after Frank as he books it over to the West side of the warehouse, flying low over the ground to keep up with him. “Try to not rush into this. Dad didn’t say anything about Allison’s mutation, which means we don’t know what we’re up against.”

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do.” Frank tries a regular door next to the massive bay door on the West side of the warehouse, then rears back to kick it open when it winds up being locked.

“Holy fuck!” You dive between Frank and the door before he can hurt himself. “Dude! Chill the fuck out for, like, two seconds.” You focus your powers on the doorknob, and within five seconds the lock clicks and the door swings open.

Frank brushes past you brusquely, gun sights aimed on the empty hallway. He scans the space, then advances down the hall when he deems it safe.

You cast a glance over your shoulder to make sure that everyone else is following along, then head in after Frank.

Two steps past the door and you can hear Karen talking to someone else –someone with a higher pitched, noticeably feminine voice.

“That’s gotta be Allison,” you whisper to Frank, who nods back before closing in on the loading bay.

You fly after him –so as not to make added noise—and brace yourself for any number of possible threats: guns, grenades, an arsenal of pointy objects…

But what you see in the loading bay is nothing like what you expected.

Karen is there, yes, sitting on a folding chair and looking pretty good, all things considered. However, the only other person in the dusty concrete and metal room is a young girl with a severe, thin face, dark eyes with darker undereye bags, and dark brown curly hair. The girl –presumably Allison, if Nate’s intel is anything to go by—has a pistol in her hand, aimed at Karen’s head. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a few days, possibly longer.

You blink, stunned. She can’t be older than thirteen.

Frank seems to be taken aback by the sight of the girl as well. He freezes in the shadows for a moment, then lowers his gun a tick before stepping into the light. “Karen.”

The girl’s eyes widen when she sees Frank, and her face contorts with rage as he walks towards them. “You! You fucking bastard—” She presses the muzzle of her gun against Karen’s temple, which makes Karen grimace. “Don’t come one step closer, or I’ll paint the floor with her brains.”

“Easy, kid,” Frank says, much calmer than he would normally address anyone threatening to hurt Karen, which you suspect has everything to do with the fact that he’s facing down an actual kid. “No one has to get hurt.”

“People are already hurt, shithead!” the girl fires back, teeth clenched. “One more won’t make any fucking difference.”

“Hey, hey.” You quickly step between Frank and the girl, hands outstretched. “Let’s just take a deep breath, okay? You must be Allison, right?”

“Who the fuck are you? Are you with him? Stay the fuck away from me, or I’ll—”

“I’m not with him,” you interject quickly, doing your best to be soothing. “My name is Y/N, and I’m with the X-Men. I’m here to help you. Are you Allison? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“No, you haven’t,” Allison fires back, face screwed up in a defiant sneer. “And the only way you can help me is by killing him.”

“No can do, babyface.” Wade skips into the room, borderline irreverent. “The Mutant Boyscouts are pretty big on the whole ‘no killing’ thing. Also, you’re so tiny! You’re practically a fetus! Nate, you didn’t mention we were picking up a literal infant, you inconsiderate dickhole. I would’ve brought the baby clothes from the last time I got my legs ripped off!”

“Sorry, sweetheart, I’ll make sure to mention it next time,” Nathan says, eyes focused on Allison. “Put the gun down, Allison. Enough people have been hurt already.”

“The only person hurt here has been me!” Allison shrieks, erratically aiming her gun at Karen’s head, Nate, Frank, you, then back to Karen. “Stay back! I’ll fucking do it!”

Russell steps forward, looking decidedly nervous but simultaneously determined. “Look, I know you’re hurt. I know you’re scared. I’ve been where you are; I’ve wanted the same kind of vengeance. So take it from someone who knows, it doesn’t help anything. Only innocent people wind up getting hurt instead.”

“You don’t know jack shit,” Allison hisses, eyes narrowed into slits.

“Put the gun down, Allison,” Russell persists, hands shaking but shoulders squared. “The X-Men are good people. They helped me, and they can help you. It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“Oh, this isn’t about ‘have to,’” Allison spits out, voice hoarse and gravelly. “This is about going to. And ‘this’ is going to end with her brains all over this fucking floor!”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Frank shouts, drawing Allison’s attention to him. “I’m the one you’re mad at, okay. Me! Not her. You’re angry at me, and I understand that, but you don’t have to take it out on her.” He nods at Karen. “She didn’t have anything to do this.”

“Did my mom have anything to do with your murder spree? Huh? Did my brothers have anything to do with it? No, no. I wake up, and I find my mom’s and my dad’s and my brother’s brains and blood everywhere, and I find their faces and bodies obliterated by your fucking bullets, and I see your skull fucking spraypainted on the dining room wall, and… no. No! You have to understand, Castle! You have to understand what it’s like to lose everything you ever loved!”

“Isn’t his whole backstory technically about understanding just that?” Wade mutters.

“Shut up!” Allison screams. “All of you!” She cocks the gun, then presses the muzzle against Karen’s temple, holding the other side of the woman’s head to keep her from flinching away. “This conversation is done!”

Karen closes her eyes, lips pursed and brow furrowed but otherwise remarkably calm.

“Hey!” Frank shouts, holding his hand out. “Put that gun down!”

“Yeah, for fuck’s sake, you’re gonna shoot your own hand off if you do it like that!” Wade adds.

The look Frank shoots your brother is nothing short of murderous.

“What? I’m not wrong.”

Fortunately, before Allison can kill Karen or Frank can –temporarily—kill Wade, the loading bay door rolls open, heaved up by none other than your husband.

The ruckus distracts Allison, which gives Nathan the opportunity to yank the gun out of her hand and knock her away from Karen via telekinesis.

Karen practically dives away from Allison as soon as the gun’s away from her head, quickly darting away from her captor and towards Frank.

Frank quickly latches onto Karen and shoves her behind him, effectively acting as a standing shield between her and everyone else. “You okay?”

Karen nods, gaze still fixed on Allison—

Who looks like someone kicked her puppy and stole her ice cream. If the context were different, the expression of frustration on the teen’s face would be adorable.

“God, she’s like some type of… murder baby,” Wade stage whispers. “Cute, yet deadly. Like an ocelot.”

“That is enough of violence and aggression,” your husband says as Yukio and Ellie step out from behind him. “Please. Come with us quietly, and we can help you—”

“I don’t want your fucking help!” Allison snarls as she scrambles her feet, quickly backing away from everyone. “You’re helping him!” She points an accusatory finger at Frank. “He fucking murdered my family!”

Piotr grimaces before quickly regaining his composure. “I assure you, that is not case.” He takes a step towards Allison, hands held up reassuringly. “If you would just come with us—”

Allison bares her teeth in a vicious snarl –and then her eyes start glowing blue. “Stay the fuck away from me!”

“Uh, what do you do when the baby starts glowing?” Wade asks, head whipping between you and Allison.

Before you can answer –or react to Allison’s sudden light display—the thirteen year-old unleashes a blast of energy from her hands, whipping it like a softball straight at your husband’s chest.

Piotr rockets through the bay door with a guttural yell, ripping the sheet of metal off its tracks with a horrific, deafening screech. He bounces across the concrete parking lot, groaning and grunting as he goes.

“Holy shit!” Russell shrieks.

“Uh, Houston?” Wade babbles nervously, drawing his katanas while Allison’s eyes start letting off wisps of blue smoke. “I think we have an angry baby Kryptonian on our hands –shit!”

You duck as Allison shoots a bolt of energy from her eyes, taking a chunk out of the concrete wall behind all of you. “Fuck! Allison, calm down; let us—”

Allison shrieks, then whips another blast of energy at all of you before aiming a beam of energy from her eyes at Karen.

You wind up with Frank and Karen as you all try to stay away from the scorching stream of energy. Concrete chunks fall off walls and rain down from the ceiling, and you shove Frank and Karen out of the way from a truck-sized piece before sending a gust of wind at Allison –only hard enough to knock her off balance. “Allison! Stop! That’s enough.”

Allison responds by gritting her teeth –then screaming before slamming her fists against the ground.

Blue light shoots along the floor and up the walls –and then the building starts to crumble.

“Let’s go!” Frank shouts, partially hunched over Karen to protect her. “This shithole’s coming down!”

You direct Russell, Ellie, and Yukio out the broken bay door –with some help for your husband, who’d gotten up in time to hold part of the collapsing wall up—then turn back to Allison. “Allison! Come on! We need to go!”

By way of response, Allison merely sends more pulses of energy into the ground, speeding up the collapse of the warehouse by ten. “I’m taking you fuckers with me!”

“Kid, we need to go!” Nate yanks on your arm, forcing you to follow him, Wade, Neena, Frank, and Karen out through the steadily collapsing bay door. “Come on!”

Piotr ducks away from the warehouse as the rest of you dart out, then quickly hunches over you and the teens, shielding you all from any flying chunks of rock or rebar.

The warehouse shakes, groans, then collapses with a gut-clenching crunching noises, spewing dust and shards of glass into the air.

You peer over your husband’s steel shoulder when the worst of the cacophony finally settles. “Shit.”

“Did she…” Russell looks up at you, eyes wide. “Could she… is it even…”

You grimace.

The color drains from Russell’s face, and he gulps. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Try to find some grass to upchuck in!” Wade shouts as Russell darts away from everyone. “It’s less likely to splatter against your face if you don’t puke on asphalt!”

“Shut up, dipshit,” Ellie grumbles as she brushes dust and dirt off her uniform. She stands, eyes the wreckage of the warehouse, then shoots a concerned look at her mentor. “Did she… really take herself out?”

Piotr sighs heavily. “Loss can do strange things to people. She was already heavily agitated when we reached her. There likely was nothing we could do.”

You wrap an arm around Ellie’s and Yukio’s shoulders, then glance over in Frank and Karen’s direction.

Surprisingly enough, Karen seems to be the one holding Frank up right now, even though she was the one that was abducted and had a gun held to her head.

But, then, perhaps it isn’t surprising at all. Wade’s told you chapter and verse about how Frank does not like hurting innocents. If he’d thought he was facing off with an adult –someone fully brought into the Ricci crime family—and found himself staring at a teenager instead…

A teenager that appears to have just committed suicide after losing her family to a Punisher spree…

Yeah. This whole situation is fucked.

Neena grimaces, gaze still fixed on the warehouse as she hands newly returned Russell a water bottle. “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel done just yet.”

“Seems done to me,” Frank murmurs hoarsely, looking somewhat shell-shocked.

“We should probably leave,” Wade says, slowly sheathing his katanas. “Don’t wanna be caught near a collapsed building with a dead kid’s body in it.”

Everyone slowly makes to leave, heading towards respective vehicles—

Except Nathan, who is fixated on an electronic readout mounted to his techno-organic arm. He’s frowning, flipping through various future records and completely oblivious to everyone else.

“Nate-y-kins,” Wade says in a sing-songy voice. “We’re leaving. Vamoosing. Gettin’ a move on, pardner. Come on, Gramps, it’s toaster strudel time.”

You brow furrows when Nathan doesn’t respond; he always responds to Wade, and you also know for a fact that Wade just busted out two nicknames that Nate isn’t particularly fond of in front of everyone else. “Dad? You okay?”

“Yeah…” he mutters, still distracted as he keeps flipping through electronic files. “Just… checking…”

“What’s the earliest onset age of dementia for robotic geezers?” Wade stage whispers to you, which gets a few giggles out of Yukio and Russell.

“Neena’s right,” Nate pipes up, silencing Yukio’s and Russell’s laughter. “Something’s wrong. There’s no death date for Allison in her records.”

“Maybe the Matrix is taking its sweet time to update,” Wade suggests, rolling his eyes. “She dropped a building on herself, Cabes. Only person who can come back from that is me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Nathan mutters, redrawing his gun as he starts towards the warehouse. “We need to recover Allison’s body and confirm her death.”

Before he can so much as take another step, though, there’s a brief flash of light around Karen’s feet –and then Allison pops halfway out of the ground, grabs Karen’s legs, and starts yanking her under.

Karen lets out a startled shriek and flails desperately for the closest handhold. “Frank!”

Frank lets out a desperate howl of Karen’s name, diving for her and catching her. He hooks his arms under her armpits and hugs her close, holding her up so everything above her hips is still above ground.

Allison snarls. “Let go!”

Frank catches a bolt of energy to the chest and goes sailing backwards with a grunt, knocking into you and Wade and taking the two of you down to the asphalt with him.

“Oh, god,” Wade groans. “This is not how I wanted to get Frank Castle on top of me. Dude! What did you eat for breakfast? Despair and cement?”

Nathan’s the next closest, since he’s the only one that can fend off Allison’s blasts of energy with his telekinesis. He manages to grab Karen’s arm before her shoulders disappear underground. He clasps something around her wrist, says something in her ear—

And then he releases his grip, and both Karen and Allison disappear underground.

The scream that Frank lets out is heart wrenching, somewhere between a wounded animal and the sound of grief incarnate.

“Why did you let her go?” he seethes, advancing on Nathan in a storm of rage. “I’m gonna fucking rip your limbs off, Summers; I’m gonna—”

“We weren’t going to get her out of the transportation spell without ripping her limbs apart,” Nathan spits out, quickly backing away from Frank while raising a telekinetic shield. “I put a tracking device on her wrist so we can follow her wherever Allison takes her.”

Frank’s hand shakes as he points at Nathan. “If –if anything happens to her… I swear to God, if anything happens to Karen—”

“They’re at Spring Heights Memorial Park,” Nate says once the display on his techno-organic arm pings. “And Karen’s still alive.”

“What direction?” you ask, extending a hand to Frank. “I’ll fly the two of us there. The rest of you can catch up.”

“Northeast, ten miles.”

You nod, then loop your arm around Frank’s waist. The two of you get a running start, then take off into the night sky.

You just hope you make it there in time.

***

The Spring Heights Memorial Park is dark, completely abandoned, by the time you and Frank reach it –but you can hear Karen arguing with Allison as soon as you land at the cemetery’s entrance.

Frank bolts towards the sound of Karen’s voice, weaving through the rows of headstones and plaques with the ease of someone who makes running around in the dark a regular habit.

(You, a person who does not make running around in the dark a regular habit, opt to fly to avoid tripping and faceplanting onto one of the headstones.)

“I understand that you’re hurting, but that doesn’t give you the right to hurt others—”

“You’re dating the fucking Punisher! All he does is hurt people because he got hurt!”

You follow Frank around another tree, then practically run right over Karen and Allison.

(Well, Frank does. You don’t because… you’re flying… yeah.)

Karen has Allison’s gun –she must have wrestled it off of her at some point—and is aiming it at the ground, gaze locked on Allison. Allison looks like she fell and hadn’t thought to get back up yet, and looks somewhat startled by the entire situation.

“Easy, easy,” Frank says when Allison’s face screws up at the sight of him. “You stay right where I can see you.”

“Or what?” Allison challenges, sneering. “You’re gonna shoot me? You’re gonna fucking shoot a thirteen year-old girl?” She scoffs when Frank’s face twitches. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Fucking coward.”

“Here.” You pick up Karen and hover above the ground, well out of Allison’s reach. “That’s that handled.”

There’s the sound of the jet thrumming overhead, then a gentle thump as it lands at the entrance of the cemetery.

“Myshka?”

“Over here, honey,” you reply, projecting your voice so they can hear you.

“To the left!” Wade announces. “Bibbity-bobbity –ah fuck! My fucking shin! Owie! Fucking headstone, getting in my fucking way –ah shit! Branch to the eye! Oh, God, that smarts.”

“Here.” Neena’s voice echoes through the Memorial Park. “I brought a flashlight.”

“Oh, that was lucky of y… dammit! Fucking lazy writing!”

“Get a fucking move on, Wilson!” Frank shouts.

“Suck my cock!”

Allison’s lip curls derisively. “You work with that nutjob?”

“He’s sharper than he looks,” you bite out, somewhat offended on Wade’s behalf.

Nate reaches your little group first, gun already aimed and ready. He stops a few feet away from Allison, eyes locked on her. “Piotr’s outside. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t break the headstones.”

You can’t help but smile, just a little. That’s my baby.

“Enough’s enough, Allison,” he continues, slowly inching towards the young teen while Wade, Neena, and the trainees catch up. “You’re outnumbered and outgunned. Stand down.”

“Fuck you,” Allison growls before flinging her hands towards the ground.

And then the dead start crawling out of their graves.

“Jesus fucking yellow penguins!” Wade shrieks, whipping out a pistol and shooting at the rotting corpses. “Castle! You were a zombie killing cop in another life. Do something!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Frank shouts back, bludgeoning one of the skeletal bodies off him with the butt of his shotgun before shooting it in the head. “Don’t answer that! I don’t want to know.”

“Just shoot them, Shane! Nathan! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me we were dealing with a class five Necromancer?”

“I didn’t know!” Nate shouts back.

“Unlikely! You’re so sleeping on the couch tonight, buster!”

Your head whips back and forth as you try to keep up with all the action –but there’s not much you can do while you’re holding on to Karen. “I need to pass you off for the moment. Piotr!”

Fortunately, your husband’s already close by, having been drawn over by the sound of gunfire. “What is going on –bozhe moi.”

“It’s a bootleg version of the rapture. Here.” You float over the fence and hand Karen to him. “Keep her off the ground. I’m going to get the trainees out.” You quickly lift Ellie, Yukio, and Russell out of the cemetery, then turn around and quickly analyze the fray.

The sheer amount of reanimated corpses is overwhelming –and, worse still, shooting them doesn’t seem to do anything other than slow them down.

They stop working when they’re too broken apart, you realize when Frank shatters a particularly ancient looking skeleton with an onslaught of gunfire –and that gives you an idea.

You stretch your arms outward, creating a shockwave of air that sends the unsteady skeletons flying across the cemetery, bashing into headstones and breaking apart until they’re just rattling bones on the ground.

You grin, triumphant –then grimace when you realize that, while you’ve stopped the undead army, you’ve also spread countless remains across the park. “Oops. That’ll be a lawsuit.”

“Not if we don’t get caught,” Wade points out.

Off to the side, Allison collapses to the ground, panting and covered in sweat. Her eyes revert back to their normal color, and she looks like she’s two seconds away from passing out.

“You about done throwing your tantrum now?” Nate asks.

Allison glares up at him and bares her teeth in a vicious snarl. “Fuck. You.”

And then she tips her head towards the black sky, lets out a guttural scream, and unleashes a shockwave of blue energy.

You recoil, throwing your arms up to brace yourself –but it washes over you harmlessly, less of an attack and more of a smokescreen.

And, when your eyes adjust and you see part of the ground fusing back together, the way it did at the warehouse after Allison took Karen a second time, you realize that’s exactly what it was.

“She’s most likely done for tonight,” Nathan reassures Frank when the black clad vigilante starts scanning the immediate area for the next sign of danger. “She was tired at the end of it. Wouldn’t have had enough left in her for another attack.”

“She’s still out there,” Frank says.

“And that’s a problem for another day,” Nathan fires back, heading towards the Memorial Park’s entrance. “We need to get out of here before the cops show up.”

***

“Her name is Allison Ricci, daughter of Andrew Ricci—”

“Yeah, we know that, skip to the part where she can literally raise the dead!” Wade snaps.

“For the last time: I found out about that when you did!” Nathan fires back.

The lot of you –meaning Wade, Nate, Neena, Frank, Karen, your husband, and you—are gathered at yours and Piotr’s house, post being examined and released by Hank and his team. You’re all sat around the dining room table, in various states of irritation, frustration, and exhaustion.

The last one chiefly goes to Karen –who, after being kidnapped twice and having a gun held to her head, has earned a good nap and a glass of wine (the latter of which you procured for her as soon as she stepped into your home).

As for the other two…

Wade and Frank are arguably the angriest, mostly at Nathan for seemingly having withheld information about Allison and the mission.

You, Neena and Piotr are also irritated, largely for the same reasons –though Piotr is especially pissed that Nate would bring trainees on a mission this dangerous.

All in all, it adds up to your dad having a lot of digging out to do.

“In my time, she’s an agent of Bishop, one of Apocalypse’s henchmen,” Nathan continues quickly, before Wade or Frank can start arguing with him. “I only recognized her name due to her father’s obituary. She preferred staying distant from all of it, staying unseen –which is why I didn’t know about her full set of powers to begin with, and also why I thought it would be okay to bring along Russell, Negasonic, and Yukio. The information just wasn’t there.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve come up short on a mission,” Frank points out, tone lethal. “You could’ve told us –fuck, you could’ve told us she’s just a kid, Summers. That would’ve been good to know.”

“You weren’t in the headspace to listen to anything I had to say, Castle,” Nathan fires back through gritted teeth. “You threatened to snap my neck if I didn’t step to at your fucking pace. I’m not going to waste the time talking if you’re so single minded—”

“The two of you can settle your issues later,” you interject. “Right now, we still need to know what we’re dealing with when it comes to Allison.”

Nathan sighs heavily, scrubs his face with one hand. “I was hoping we’d be able to pull with her what we did with Russell. Get her the help and support she needed, change the course of the future. But, since her official kill count hasn’t changed by much, I seriously doubt we didn’t pull that off tonight.”

“‘Hasn’t changed by much?’” Neena repeats, arms crossed over her chest and brows spiking towards her hairline. “What the hell does that mean?”

Nate’s mouth twists into a deep grimace. “Technically… Karen was supposed to die tonight.”

Frank’s face goes pale, and Karen takes another long sip of wine while she holds Frank’s hand.

“About a year later, she would’ve taken out Frank, too. Obviously we managed to save Karen tonight, and considering that Allison’s down two listed kills and there’s no… imminently listed death dates for Karen and Frank –no, I’m not telling you,” Nathan quickly says, shooting a stern look at Frank. “Last thing you need to know is either of your death dates. Anyway, since she’s down two kills and the dates aren’t anywhere in the near future, I’m willing to wager we’ve managed to take you two off her list. The rest of it though…”

“How many does she have left?” Piotr asks, hesitant.

“A little over fifteen thousand,” Nathan sighs heavily.

Shock ripples through the room, evident on everyone’s faces.

“Holy shit,” Frank breathes, face going slack with surprise and horror.

“How is that even possible?” Karen asks, brow furrowed.

Wade shrugs. “Give me enough explosives and I could probably do it.”

“Shut it, Wilson.”

“She asked!”

“You saw her in action tonight,” Nathan interjects, sitting back in his seat. “She’s only going to get stronger as she goes. And once she’s in Bishop’s keep, she’s going to have even more means and opportunities to kill. Not to mention that the number on file is comprised only of officially listed kills. In reality, it’s undoubtedly higher.”

“So, essentially, we’re trying to flip a teenager with comparative lethal abilities of a bomb, whose parents were just killed by him,” Neena says, pointing at Frank.

“We did it with Russell—”

“Russell was an orphan, looking for a family and someone to care about him, and had a strong connection to Wade,” Neena states, staring Nathan down from across the table. “Allison lost her whole family execution style, is trying to cope and grieve on her own, and is clearly more than a little unhinged if tonight’s anything to go by. These are two entirely different ball games.”

“We cannot let child become mass murderer,” Piotr speaks up, conviction strong in his voice and on his face. “She deserves better future.”

Silence hangs in the room as everyone arrives at the same conclusion at their own pace.

Neena sighs heavily. “This barely worked with Russell. And you—” she points at Wade “—had to get shot twice for it to work. He’s—” she jerks her thumb at Nate “—out of time jumping charges, and I seriously doubt that shooting him—” she nods at Frank “—is gonna have the same effect with Allison.”

“We’ll find something,” Karen says, properly joining the conversation for the first time that night.

Neena raises an eyebrow at her. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because we have to,” Karen says quietly. “It’s fifteen thousand plus people that need us to.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Neena sighs heavily. “Alright. Count me in. We’re gonna need all the luck we can get with this.”

“We’ll help as we can, too,” you say, pointing between yourself and Piotr. “But I’m not sure how much the X-Men will be able to assist since the Punisher’s tangled up in this.”

“I will contact my mother,” Piotr adds. “She may be able to help with this.”

Nathan nods, then looks over at Wade. “What about you?”

“I’m with you in all of this, Cabes. Always.” Wade leans over, gently kisses his partner’s cheek, then stands with a groan. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Wade-mobile needs to make a pit stop.”

“You could’ve just said ‘excuse me,’” Neena calls out as Wade heads towards the bathroom.

“Hey! It could’ve been worse! I could’ve said that I’m gonna take the mother of all piss breaks –which, as it so happens, I am!”

You all groan, a mix of annoyance and disgust.

“I’m also gonna take a shit!”

“I think we get the picture, handsome,” Nathan says with a roll of his eyes. “Just –please use the restroom and stop telling us about it.” He waits to make sure that Wade isn’t going to keep talking –or, worse still, narrate his “pit stop” experience—then sighs and looks at everyone else again. “Thank you. Everyone. Allison is a key component in Apocalypse’s upper ranks in the future. If we can flip her to our side, we’ll put a major dent in his abilities to take over the universe.”

“Fucking Christ,” Frank grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just –this kid. Is she gonna keep coming after Karen and me?”

“Possibly. I’ll keep my ear to the ground, and if I hear anything, I’ll let you know,” Nathan promises.

“You’ll let me know everything,” Frank amends, jabbing an accusatory finger in your dad’s direction. “No more of this vague bullshit –or it’s going to be my gun up your ass.”

“Ooh, kinky!” Wade shouts from the bathroom. “Can I get in on that?”

Nathan shakes his head at the same time Frank grimaces, and then he nods at Frank. “Everything I know. You have my word.”

“Your word doesn’t really mean shit right now, Summers,” Frank growls, shoving his chair back as he stands. “Come on,” he says to Karen, voice considerably softer and more caring. “Let’s get you home.”

“You’re coming home, too,” Karen insists.

“Yeah,” Frank agrees, putting his hand on the small of Karen’s back as he escorts her out of the dining room. “I’m going home, too.”

“I will get door,” Piotr murmurs, quickly following after them to escort them out the front door.

Neena stretches, rolls her neck, then sighs. “I’m beat. Think Xavier will mind if I crash in one of the empty rooms?”

You shake your head. “He won’t care. You’re welcome here for breakfast in the morning.”

She grins. “Sounds good.” She hugs you gently, presses a sisterly kiss against the top of your head, then heads out the front door.

You watch her go, then circle around the table and sit down next to your dad. “You can’t keep holding back essential information.”

“I’m not trying to,” Nathan says tiredly, rubbing his temples. “There just genuinely wasn’t much to go on tonight. Plus, telling people information about the future is dangerous. It can alter the course of things irreparably, change the outcome of millions of lives on a catastrophic level. I’m just… I’m trying to figure out the balance of it all. What I can and can’t share.”

“You’ll get it figured out,” you reassure him. “I know you will.”

A ghost of a smile tugs at Nathan’s lips, and he slings an arm around your shoulders. “Thanks, kid.”

***

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You blink at the darkness, then roll onto your side and wriggle across your and your husband’s massive bed until you’re nestled up against his side. “Are you alright?”

“Da.” Piotr wraps one of his massive, muscular arms around you, hugs you against his side, and kisses the top of your head. “Tonight was just… intense. I wish young ones did not have to go through.”

“We’ll know better for next time,” you reassure him. “And Dad legitimately didn’t know all of what was up with Allison. He didn’t mean to get the teens involved.”

Piotr huffs. “Ya znayu.”

“But?”

“I just… Cable is reckless.”

You purse your lips; you know he’s annoyed since he’s using Nathan’s code name. “He doesn’t mean to be.”

“Perhaps, but he forgets we are not all soldiers. That we do not all operate as he does. He is good person –good for you and Wade—and good trainer, but not always good leader. Not for… not for everyone.”

“Not for everyone,” you agree. “But he’s amazing for Wade, you have to admit.”

“I would not deny,” Piotr says, fingers playing absently with your hair. “Cable balances Wade, and verse vice-a. But he is too reckless for X-Men.”

“Which is why he’s not an X-Man—”

“Not my meaning. He may be too reckless to work with,” Piotr clarifies. “We have to meet certain standards to keep licensing to run school, work with children, act as enforcers against mutant criminals. If Cable jeopardizes that…”

“One step at a time,” you remind your husband when his voice trails off. “Nathan takes what we do here seriously. If he sees himself jeopardizing that, he’ll be the first to bring it up, and he’ll be the one to step away so we can keep doing what we do. You know that.”

Piotr sighs. “That much is true.” He tucks you closer to him, then kisses your forehead. “You should rest, myshka. Sleep is very important.”

“I was,” you tease him, smile evident in your voice. “But I had to soothe my husband’s woes first.”

Piotr chuckles, then presses a kiss against the top of your head. “Spokoynoy nochi i sladkikh snov, lyubov' moya.”

“Love you too, sweetheart. Rest well.”

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #nathan summers x wade wilson #frank castle x karen page #tw: gun violence #tw: death mention #ooooh baby i have been WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!#x men fanfiction #deadpool fanfiction

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ravenbrenna09 · 4 years

Text

Unattainable - Chapter Five

AO3

...

You guys know what's coming 😏😏😏

I apologize for such a long wait for this chapter. School started back up this week and I'm TRYING to be a good student/get ahead and keep up on my homework so I won't be completely overwhelmed by homework later on in the semester. I'm going to try and get the remaining chapters written, at least roughly, before the end of this three-day weekend or later this week, but I want to write the best that I can for you guys so I'm not going to stress myself out about it.

But, thank you guys for being patient with me. I'm so glad that all of you are enjoying this story and can't wait to see more.

I love you all. Enjoy!

...

bold = sending; italics = receiving (in terms of texts)

...

“You lost miserably!” Robbe teased, elbowing Jens roughly in the side. His black-haired best friend rolled his eyes, shoving him back in the shoulder as he drew Lucas closer against his body with the harsh winter wind blowing them in the face.

Of the group’s significant others, Lucas had been the only one interested in going to play a round of mini-golf with the rest of the group and Noor had decided to hang out at the apartment, waiting for their arrival. Robbe isn’t sure why Amber hadn’t joined them. Jens’ birthday wasn’t for a couple of weeks but, after Moyo had let it slip about possibly mini-golf, he had exclaimed that he didn’t want to do that on his birthday, he wanted to do it now. So, they had spent the better part of Saturday morning at an indoor, blacklight minigolf place, laughing at the way that their teeth glowed purple and going through a second time when Jens and Moyo tied the first time around.

Though all of them played, Moyo had a higher score of the two (Robbe had technically won the second set).

Lucas drew his arms tighter around Jens’ shoulders, pressing a kiss against his jaw. “Well, you’re my miserable loser.”

Jens laughed, and so did the others, as he turned to press a kiss against Lucas’ lips, gripping his shoulder with one hand as he reached to slap Robbe upside the head with the other. “Thanks, babe.”

“Gross,” Aaron spoke. The comment was light-hearted and he was laughing through it anyways. Both Jens and Lucas shoved him away, causing him to nearly fall over. Of the bunch, Aaron was definitely the most clumsy of them all. “Save it for the bedroom later. This is guys’ night!”

Robbe laughed, moving off to the bench that had long since been claimed as theirs. “As if,” Robbe replied, jumping up to sit on the back of it. Lucas sat between Robbe’s ankles, letting the smaller man drape his arms over his shoulders. “Don’t lie, Aaron. You would have your tongue down Amber’s throat if she was here!”

“It’s true, bro,” Jens replied, hovering on the side of the bench as Aaron flopped down beside Lucas.

Lucas nodded his head, patting his shoulder.

Moyo laughed, nodding his head and wrapping his arm around his chest. “Seriously though, the two of you are physically linked. I’m surprised that she didn’t go with us.”

It’s true. In the four years since Aaron had first started dating Amber, in which the three months before he harbored a seemingly one-sided crush on a girl who refused his affections, the two of them had both grown as people and as a couple. What the rest of them had believed to have only been a high school fascination had quickly grown into something more. Aaron had met most of Amber’s family and vice versa. In all honesty, it was only a matter of time before they went further, taking the next step like Senne and Zoë.

(Unbeknownst to Aaron, they all had a bet going on about when Aaron was going to pop the question. Robbe had his money on next December 20th, which was the anniversary of their first kiss. Moyo was betting on sometime in the summer and Jens was saying next October, back when they went to the beach house. Lucas tried to remain impartial and out of the bet, but Noor had willingly jumped in, saying Valentine’s Day.)

“She wanted to,” Aaron replied.

“Why didn’t she?” Robbe questioned, raising his eyebrows.

“Something is going on with her cousin,” Aaron informed them, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know a lot of the details, but they’ve always been pretty close. She’s pretty worried about him so she wanted to be with him today. She didn’t want to leave him alone so she decided not to come.” Robbe nodded his head and Jens pulled a joint from behind his ear. “But, she did want me to tell you that she’s completely down for another round of mini-golf like next week or whenever her cousin gets better.”

“Hey guys,” Moyo spoke up. The group turned towards Moyo, who was looking off in the distance. There was a slight smile growing on his face, of shock or something completely else. His eyes darted between all of them, before landing on Robbe. “See anything familiar?”

Aaron glanced, letting out an exclamation of “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

Jens turned too, his mouth falling open in shock.

Lucas stood up from between his ankles, giving Robbe the freedom to fully turn around.

Across the river, there stood an abandoned building. The building had always stood across the river from their hang out spot and it had always looked the same, remaining static in their otherwise hectic social and school lives. But, it was different now. And, Robbe’s face was plastered on the side of it, inside of a heart-shaped explosion of the brick wall.

Robbe recognized it instantly from the sketch that Sander had shown him in the apartment.

Chernobyl.

Robbe’s breath caught in his throat.

Imagine it on a big wall with these intense colors.

While Robbe had been flattered at the implication of Sander spray-painting his face on the wall for the world to see, kissing him in the middle of his kitchen, he had never expected the blond Instagram artist to actually do such a thing. But, there it was, for the world to see, in all its bright, intense colors and the implications that strung in Robbe’s core.

If Robbe hadn’t known any better, the entire thing read like a confession of love. It felt like an I love you, but the implication was quickly consumed by the image of a brown-haired girl in the club, her lips on his and his hands on her waist as she pulled him into the dance mob.

“Robbe, did you do that?” it was Moyo, pulling him from diving further into his thoughts.

Robbe gave him a look, knowing that it was a joke. Robbe’s art skills were minimal at best. All he could really do was make a really, really good stick figure and a handful of molecules when he needed to. In fact, he could name a handful of things that he could do better than drawing. Skateboarding is the only one among them that he would ever admit to. As if knowing, Moyo grinned at him.

“That’s absolutely insane,” Jens mumbled, glancing at Robbe. He looked like he was about to say something else before he was cut off by one of the others.

“Who do you think did it?” it was Aaron.

“Looks quite sexy,” Lucas admitted.

Jens looked at his boyfriend with an eyebrow raised. “Is there something that I need to know?” Lucas grinned at him, shaking his head, but Jens didn’t seem convinced. Robbe rolled his eyes. Lucas could play Jens like a fiddle and they all knew it.

“It is sexy. I think it’s something in the look, man,” Moyo agreed, holding up his phone in an attempt to take a picture. To his right, Aaron nodded his head. “I got to send it to Noor. She loves dragging me around the city to look at all the spraypainting.”

Jens sent a curious glance towards Robbe.

“We’ve got to get closer. I’m only getting blurry images,” Moyo announced, tugging on Robbe’s shoulder and gesturing for him to follow. “Let’s go.”

…

“Woah!”

It was Noor, moving towards them and staring at the mural with wide eyes and an open mouth.

Robbe was setting on the edge of the pier, blatantly refusing to be in the photo that Moyo, Jens, and Aaron were taking (Lucas was holding the camera, not wanting to be in it either). It was likely going to be on Instagram within the hour, being tagged in the photo was a definite thing that was going to happen, but Robbe couldn’t stop staring at the mural. From across the pier, it didn’t seem as big as it did right now, looming over the group of them and staring out at the river and the skatepark across the way.

But, it was huge.

The mural easily covered the entire wall and Robbe didn’t want to think about how long it had taken in the cold temperatures that had been hanging around lately because it certainly hadn’t been here last week.

Noor glanced towards Robbe, squatting down beside him. “I feel like I don’t have to tell you that Sander did this?”

For a brief moment, he had forgotten that he had told her and Jens about Sander, about everything that had happened between them. It caught him off guard, but then, he let out a sigh, turning back towards the mural which the boys were still admiring. “Yeah, I know,” Robbe replied, waving at Jens who glanced over. “He showed me a sketch and said something about it, but I didn’t think that he would… Wait, how do you know?”

“I recognize the tags,” Noor admitted, gesturing around vaguely. “We used to spray together back when we were at the Academy. Plus, he was there when I was finishing up the mural.”

“He was?” Robbe questioned.

Noor nodded her head as Jens approached the two of them, his hands in his pockets. Aaron, Moyo, and Lucas were talking, looking over the wall still. Noor continued, smiling at the newcomer, “He walked up to us but you had to step away because your mom called.” Robbe nodded his head. He remembered. If that man had really been Sander, he didn’t have a clue at the time, would’ve noticed. But, he did an excellent job of hiding his identity, wearing a black mask and being surrounded by shadows.

“Yeah, I remember,” Robbe mumbled, running a hand through his hair as he stared at his friends.

Jens glanced at Noor, who returned his gaze.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, spit it out guys,” Robbe spoke up.

“How do you feel with the fact that your face is on a gigantic wall across from the skatepark that you always hang out at?” Jens spoke up.

“Self-conscious,” Robbe admitted.

He had never done well in the spotlight, having all eyes focused solely on him. Even if he genuinely had a good time, the vlogs that they did in high school, and for the first couple years of their college career before they rarely got the chance to do them, were mostly to hang out with his friends and have a good time. Plus, the only people who really saw them were their friends and about a thousand other people that they didn’t really know enough for Robbe to feel that self-conscious.

But, this was something different.

It felt like something intimate, something that should only be reserved between Robbe and Sander, but it was on full display, on a wall plastered for the world to see. Despite Sander’s loving touches and gentle words, he seemed to … love so loud that it was deafening and unwavering and unable to question the sincerity of his words. But, Robbe couldn’t stop thinking about Sander’s actions, both with the mural in front of him but also the texts, the girl…

It made Robbe…

“Confused,” Robbe spoke up. Noor glanced at him. “I’m confused…”

“About?” Jens prompted.

“Everything,” Robbe admitted. “Just everything that’s happened between us. One minute, he’s with me and treating me like… like… I don’t know…” Noor patted his shoulder, sitting down on the concrete, and Jens stood still, listening. “And, then, I get a text saying that we’re moving too fast and that we need to take a break. But, less than a week later, he’s kissing a girl in a club.”

“Maybe he’s afraid,” Jens questioned.

“I don’t know,” Robbe admitted, running a hand through his hair again. “I don’t, I really don’t understand what’s going on or even what his feelings for me are. If I don’t even know that, how is any of it going to work?”

“Robbe,” Noor spoke up, wrapping her jacket tighter around his shoulders. She gestured to the wall in front of them. “No matter what happened, I think Sander just told you how he really feels.”

Glancing at the mural, Robbe knew that she was right. He could feel it in his bones, down his spine, as the other boys moved to leave, pulling Robbe with him. However, before he left, he pulled out his phone, taking a picture of the mural and ignoring Moyo’s comments. Once the picture was taken, he shoved the phone back into his pocket before walking off ahead of them, ignoring his friends’ shouts to wait up.

…

earthlingoddity has posted to his story.

Without even hesitating, Robbe pulled it up.

As his friends moved around him, trying to decide on dinner because they hadn’t gotten that far, as Aaron sent a message to Amber about the mural, he pulled the phone to him, hoping to hide what he was doing from his nosy friends. Robbe didn’t know what he was hoping for in terms of the story. Maybe he was hoping for some sort of indication that he had done it, that he had taken so much time to do it, but Robbe didn’t find anything involving the mural.

Honestly, even though he was slightly disappointed, he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Spray-painting the side of a building was a crime.

There’s a photo of Sander, a croque hanging from between his mouth, and a caption in white letters.

My cousin knows me so well

Robbe swiped to his messages.

He was going to write to him about the mural, ask Sander what he meant by the mural, to get some clarification. But, Robbe paused, his thumbs hanging above the keys, unable to type even a hey. Robbe locked his screen, shoving his phone in his pocket and burying his face in his hands, running one through his hair.

“Hey,” Noor spoke, pulling things out of the fridge. “Is Amber joining us for dinner?”

“No, she and her cousin are having dinner already,” Aaron replied, glancing up from her phone. “But, she might be coming over later. Or, I might be going over there. It depends.”

“Alright,” Noor replied, nodding her head.

“Dinner for six it is then!” Lucas responded, moving to help her.

“Everyone out of the kitchen,” Noor demanded. The Broerrrs all hurried out of there, wanting to avoid Noor’s cooking frenzy. When she was in control of the kitchen, she tended to be mean and she was not opposed to hitting one of them with a spatula if they got in her way.

…

At the top of the messages with Sander, there was a greeting, a “good morning?” from last Thursday, before he had seen Robbe with Senne in the tuxedo shop. Despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that he knew Robbe had been at the club, he had still made the effort. Though Robbe had been angry, and still slightly angry, though the anger had since melted into confusion, it was touching that Sander still reached out to see how he was doing, to wish him a good morning, even when Robbe had not been responding back.

Below that, the messages that he had finally managed to type out and send about an hour ago were hanging beneath his good morning message from last Thursday.

Hey Sander.

Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you yet

But that wall…

That was the drawing you showed me right?

Could you come by?

Or… I could come over to your place, to talk?

The longer that he stared at it, the longer he felt a little desperate to hear back.

But, in all honesty, Robbe wasn’t even certain that he would hear back from Sander.

Robbe had seen the mural on Saturday afternoon, spent the better part of Saturday night staring at the photo he had taken, at Sander’s public, loud declaration. On Sunday, he had spent the evening at the clinic with his mom, but he didn’t want to trouble her with such things so he kept the photo to himself, keeping it from his mother, and trying to pass off the anticipation and stress as something else, stress about a test, or something anything else, trying to remain present with his mom.

“Promise me that you’ll talk about it when you’re ready,” his mother had spoken, mumbling as he started to leave. She had reached out to take his hand, squeezing it gently. “You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders just become I’m in here. You’ve got Jens and the boys and Zoë and Milan.”

Robbe smiled, kissing her forehead. “I know, Mama,” he replied. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“But, I’m going to,” his mother replied, staring up at him from her bed. “You’re my son. I’m always going to worry about you.”

Finally, on Monday, as his brain wandered to Sander in his afternoon class, he finally managed to work up the nerve, opening his laptop and typing out the messages in rapid succession. The anxiousness and anticipation were bubbling in his chest, squeezing him on the inside as he tried to focus on the same paragraph that he’s been trying to read for almost thirty minutes, maybe an hour. Whatever productivity had fostered in his chest last week had vanished, leaving him paralyzed, flat on his back and unable to focus outside of one, singular thought that ran through his mind.

Sander.

The texts.

Robbe ran a hand through his hair, discarding the textbook to the side so he could roll over, burying his face in the sheets. They didn’t smell like Sander, he had never been over here, but, as irrational as it was, Robbe couldn’t help craving his scent right now, wanting to bury his face in the crook of his neck and hold him as tight as could, like he desperately wanted to. He let out a groan, resting his chin on the crook of his arm as he tried to calm his thoughts.

Maybe, Sander was busy.

Maybe, he had a project or a commission that he needed to work on and that was why he hadn’t responded back yet.

But, Robbe might’ve waited too long, trying to figure out what he had wanted for himself, if he was willing to risk giving his heart to someone who had awoken it then stepped back without releasing his heart fully back to his chest. Maybe that’s why it took him so long to reach out, so long to figure out if he was willing to risk it all over again, because Robbe didn’t know if he would be capable of Sander breaking his heart a second time around.

It had taken him days to send the text, to tell Sander that he had seen the mural.

And, at the end of the day, there was only one reason that it all boiled down to why it took him that long to send those six text messages: he was a coward, unable to handle the prospect of Sander rejecting him.

…

“Sander?”

Robbe doesn’t know how he’s there, because he could barely open his eyes and it was hard to tell if they were open or closed, but he could just vaguely see the trusts of platinum-blond hair and the outline of a leather jacket before his lips are on his, his body hovering over him. Robbe clung to him, pulling him against his chest and wrapping his legs around his waist. Sander sunk against him, putting more of his body weight on Robbe, and his long fingers dug into Robbe’s hair, tugging lightly and causing him to sigh into the kiss.

There’s a mischevious smirk on Sander’s face as he pulled back. Robbe doesn’t know quite how he knows that because it’s still hard to tell whether his eyes are open or closed, but he does, and he cranes up to chase his lips, finding them briefly, pressing featherlight kisses against them that should really only be counted as brief brushing of their lips, before Sander was pushing him back against the bed.

Sander’s lips were on his neck, slowly traveling down along his before latching onto his collar bone, as his free hand pushed up his shirt.

Wait, his mind screamed at him. This wasn’t right.

Robbe shot up in his bed, the textbook that had been on his chest falling onto the floor with a loud thump that resounded through his bedroom. There’s movement from across the hall, Jens must still be awake, and Robbe ran a hand through his hair, exhaling deeply, and blindly reaching for his phone as it dinged. Jens.

You okay?

Yeah, just had a bad dream and woke up.

Must’ve fallen asleep with my textbook.

Okay.

Get some sleep.

You too.

Robbe let out a sigh, running his hands through his hair, the dream rushing back to him in an instant. The path of his neck that Dream Sander had followed lit up like a flame, burning beneath his skin. Robbe’s cheeks and chest flushed and he was thankful that the dream hadn’t gone any further or else he might’ve woken up to something else. Yet, at the same time, Robbe had wanted it to be real.

It had been days since Robbe had sent him those messages, asking him to come over and never getting a response back. He still hadn’t heard from Sander and he knew that Sander had seen them, from the bubble of his face beneath the message. If it hadn’t been obvious to him on Monday, it certainly was now as Robbe flopped back on his bed, ignoring the piles of notes that were surrounding him.

Robbe had waited too long.

He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching his nose, as he rested his phone against his chest.

With each passing day, he was more and more convinced that he should’ve gone straight to Sander’s apartment. He didn’t have a key to get into the front gate, but Robbe was nimble and quick enough (and daring enough) to climb the fence, and if all else failed, he could always ask Nick or Clara to let him in. He should’ve gone up to Sander’s apartment, knocked on the door until he answered or waited until he got home from wherever he had been, because he needed answers and needed to see him, to hold him, to kiss him, to know that it was all real, that painting a gigantic mural of his face meant something and wasn’t something of a thing that he decided to do just because.

He needed to know.

But, because Robbe waited too long, it might’ve been too late for him to get the answers that he needed.

Without thinking, he switched to his messages with Sander, staring down at his own words and the six messages that he used to get it all out. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering if he should say something else, but three bubbles popped up.

His heart thumped.

The bubbles were there, indicating that Sander was, in fact, trying to figure out something to say, and they stayed there for several minutes, floating above the keyboard, before they disappeared completely. Robbe waited a couple of minutes for the message to come through, but it never did. Whatever it was that Sander had been typing, he had deleted it.

Robbe let out a breath that he didn’t fully realize he was holding, locking his phone and putting it against his chest. As he sunk further into the sheets, trying to relax enough to go back to see before his class in the morning, Robbe’s mind wandered to Sander, which wasn’t that much of a surprise because it frequently did as such lately. But, now, Robbe couldn’t help wondering if Sander was just as conflicted as Robbe was.

…

At the sight of the mural, Robbe let out a sigh.

It was still there, bright and beautiful across the water, but Robbe couldn’t help noticing the number of stares that were focused in his direction. There were the skaters that they would normally see, parents who had brought their children to the playground to run around and scream to their heart’s content, and even the old man that was always feeding the birds seemed to be staring at him now.

“Why are people staring?” Robbe groaned, kicking his skateboard beneath their normal bench and flopping down on it.

Jens picked up his board, laying it across on his lap as he sat down beside him. “I don’t know, Robbe,” Jens admitted, his face impassive and straight. “It might have to do with the fact that there’s a giant mural across the water with your face on it.”

Robbe snatched the joint behind his ear and placed it in his mouth. Jens let out a muffled protest as the smaller one of them pulled out the lighter from his pocket and lit the end of the joint expertly. Robbe inhaled deeply, the smoke filling up his lungs, and he had no protests when Jens snatched the joint, rolling his eyes at his friends. Robbe exhaled, the smoke pouring from his lips.

“Have you heard from him?” Jens questioned.

“Huh?”

“Sander,” Jens clarified, gesturing across the water. “Have you heard back from him yet?”

Robbe shook his head. “No,” Robbe admitted, not liking how sad his own voice sounded. “But, he’s opened the messages and I thought he was responding back on Wednesday. I saw the bubbles pop up like he was texting but he didn’t send anything.” Robbe let out a sigh, burying his face in his hands. “Then, he randomly liked two of my Instagram posts yesterday. I don’t get it, Jens.”

“Which ones?”

Robbe pulled out his phone to show him and Jens scooted closer to see.

The first photo had been a group photo with the guys at Zoë and Senne’s engagement party, before Lucas had been such an intricate part of their flat dynamic, before Noor had dragged Robbe off to the abandoned warehouse. It was weird to think about, Robbe realized, how quickly Lucas had gone from barely being there, sneaking away before Moyo and Aaron woke up, to always being there.

The next photo was one from years ago, back when they were high school and back when Robbe was still firmly in the closet. Robbe in the picture had his mouth wide open with his head tilted back, two beers in his hand. He remembered the dare, vaguely, to try and pour both of them in his mouth without spilling it. The photo captioned right before he failed miserably, spilling it over his chest, and his friends had laughed out loud, teasing him.

“That’s suggestive,” Jens mumbled, handing him the joint.

Robbe scoffed, inhaling. “You’re the one who took the photo.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah,” Robbe replied, shaking his head. Jens looked at him and Robbe stared straight ahead, unable to look at him. “I don’t get it. I don’t get any of this. I don’t understand him and what’s going on anymore.”

“Do you still want to be with him?” Jens questioned. Robbe opened his mouth but quickly closed it, unable to figure out what exactly he wanted to say. He turned around, looking towards the graffiti that was plastered against the side of the warehouse, his face in all those intense, bright colors, as he inhaled another drag. Jens gained his attention by lightly slapping the back of his head. “Do you?”

Robbe let out a sigh, smoke still falling out. “Yeah. I want answers.”

“Then, you’re going to have to make him choose,” Jens spoke up, propping one foot on his knee. “You can’t keep going like this. It’s too painful, he’s going to have to make a decision. Either he talks to you or he doesn’t talk to you anymore. It isn’t good for anyone. No, you know what, tell him that.”

Robbe glanced towards him. “Huh?”

“Text him. Now.”

“What? Why, now?”

“Yes, now.”

“Weren’t you just paying attention? He didn’t respond to my last texts asking to meet up. Why would he respond to this one?”

“Because, if he doesn’t, then you have the answer that you need,” Jens spoke. “Robbe, you’ve been constantly waiting for him to respond back and it’s painful and he’s fucking with you. If he doesn’t respond back, then that’s the answer that you need. And, if he doesn’t respond back to you, you deserve someone better in your life, someone that actually tries to be there.”

Robbe let out a sigh, knowing that he was right. Despite all the silence and the no-responses, Robbe wanted Sander as much as he did in his apartment, talking about their favorite actors and parallel universes and eating pizza. It hadn’t changed one bit in the two weeks since it all went down. Jens patted his shoulder. “Pull up your messages.”

Robbe did as told.

“Just tell him: I want clarity,” Jens started. Robbe quickly typed the message, following along with what his best friend was saying. “Either, you choose me or it ends for me here and now.”

I want clarity. Either you choose me. Or it ends for me-

Robbe stopped typing.

Jens noticed, waiting.

“And…” Robbe trailed off. “What if he…”

It was in moments like these that he was thankful that Jens knew him so well.

“If he says that it’s really over?” Jens questioned.

Robbe nodded his head.

Robbe didn’t want that to be an option for him, for either of them. It felt ridiculous to Robbe’s logical mind that he would be feeling this way about someone that he had only been involved with for about a week. But, Robbe couldn’t imagine his life without Sander, both as Sander, kissing him and wrapped up in his arms, and as earthlingoddity, through an Instagram profile, who made him laugh in times where he thought it was impossible and made him wait eagerly for his next piece of art that he wanted to share with his fans.

Without even realizing, the intense crush that Robbe had on the guy behind a famous Instagram profile had become such an important part of his life that he couldn’t picture a point in the future where Sander wasn’t involved.

He wasn’t for sure he could handle the heartbreak if Sander didn’t feel the same way.

Jens gave him a sympathetic look. “Then, it’ll be painful,” Jens replied. “But, it’ll be a lot less painful than this shit going on right now. Come on Robbe,” Jens turned, using his board to gesture to the gigantic mural that was hanging behind him. Robbe turned towards it, taking in the bright colors like it was still the first time that he had seen it all over again. “Someone who does something like this for you… He loves you so much.”

“Yeah,” Robbe mumbled. “But…” he trailed off, remembering a conversation that he had with Milan his first year of uni, back when Robbe got in a relationship with a closeted man and had ended it when he didn’t want to come out to his friends, to anyone. “Does he want to admit that?”

Jens didn’t have an answer, holding out the joint between his fingers to place it in Robbe’s mouth. Robbe opened his mouth to take the joint, inhaling deeply, before letting Jens take the joint away. As he exhaled smoke out of the corner of his mouth, he finished typing out the message and pressed send.

I want clarity. Either you choose me. Or it ends for me here and now.

“It’s sent,” Robbe mumbled, sticking his phone in his pocket. Jens nodded his head. “When are you heading over to the Netherlands?” Robbe questioned, eager to change the subject.

“After this,” Jens replied. “My stuff is already at Lucas’ apartment. I told him that you and I were going to go out for a smoke then I would head that way.” Robbe nodded his head. “Tell me if you hear anything from him okay? Just because Lucas and I are in the Netherlands for the weekend doesn’t mean that you have to give me radio silence.”

Robbe laughed. “I know, Jens,” he replied. “I promise to tell you the latest thing that Noor and I have to stop Moyo and Aaron from doing before they burn down the kitchen curtains and you can laugh and tell us that we should’ve recorded it.”

Jens laughed as Robbe stood up. “Tell Mom hi for me.”

“I will,” Robbe spoke, pulling his board from beneath the stone bench. “You should come with me next week. She’s always asking about you and I’m pretty sure she wants to meet your boyfriend too. You know that you’re the second son she never had.” Jens shook his head as Robbe pushed off, shouting behind him, “Have fun in the Netherlands. Text when you guys get there.”

“I will!”

…

It was past nine by the time that his apartment is insight.

His body was tired, his mind even worse, and he felt ready to crash. It was one of his mother’s off days. She had spent the majority of the visit scribbling into a journal and Robbe had watched her, fascinated with the way that her mind worked. She had been resistant to taking her meds, but the doctor managed to convince her to take them. In their meeting, while his mother was in group therapy, her doctor had told Robbe that she thought that his mother would be able to be home by Valentine’s Day.

Robbe had smiled.

He was thankful.

His mother had been upset for missing Christmas (Robbe had spent the holiday with the boys and later the members of their old flatshare), but she would’ve been extremely upset if she would miss Valentine’s Day as well. Since his father had left them, they had a running tradition of going to a restaurant and spending the evening watching movies. It was always just the two of them. Sometimes, Jens and his little sister and father would join, the five of them lounging on the floor as they bickered and argued over which movie they wanted to watch. But, it always ended up the same way, surrounded by friends and family.

But, at least once Robbe got home, he had the place to himself at least until two.

Jens and Lucas had already arrived in the Netherlands, having arrived home at Lucas’s mother’s house while Robbe was with his mother. Jens had FaceTimed, eager to talk to Robbe’s mom and introduce his boyfriend to his “adoptive” mother, and she had relished in the thought of him thinking of her. As a result, Robbe was also introduced to Lucas’ mother, who had been curious about who they were talking to.

As for his other two (three, technically, four if you counted Amber), Noor had an art gallery showing which was taking place a few towns over. Moyo was with her to support her and they were spending the night in a hotel so they wouldn’t have to race to get on a train late at night. On the other hand, Aaron was going out to have some drinks with some of his uni friends that he had met in his various classes. Robbe wasn’t for sure if Amber was with him, but it was likely that she was. She got along with everyone and Aaron loved having her around.

So, he was alone for the night.

Good, his mind spat at him as he stared down at the opened and the read text message on his phone screen.

I want clarity. Either you choose me. Or it ends for me here and now.

Robbe let out a sigh, lowering his phone as he moved across from the lobby.

How was he going to move on?

At least he could wallow in silence.

As Robbe stepped towards the elevator, the door to the lobby swung open, letting in a light burst of winter cold air, but he didn’t pay attention to it, sticking his phone in his pocket, holding onto it, and reaching to press the up button for the elevator.

“Robbe?”

His breath caught in his throat as he turned to the entrance where the bleach-blond had his head poked in the entrance to the lobby, his eyes trained on Robbe.

Sander.

At the sight of him, Robbe was certain that his heart did gymnastics in his chest and he wanted nothing more than to rush at Sander, kiss him as though his life depended on it, but he stopped himself, watching as Sander stepped inside, letting the door shut behind him. The sound seemed to cut off the rest of the world, the rush of the street outside silenced with the slam of the door, and Sander’s eyes were trained on Robbe as he moved closer, his leather jacket creaking as he walked.

Robbe supposed the obvious question would’ve been how did Sander know to come here and it had taken him a second to remember that the blond had hand-delivered Moyo and Noor’s anniversary gift. Plus, Robbe had mentioned they were roommates. So, he guessed that he didn’t need to ask that question.

Robbe stared up at Sander, who was an arm’s length away, within distance for Robbe to reach out and wrap his arms around. His green eyes were staring at Robbe intensely, looking dark and clouded in the dim light of the lobby at night, and Robbe watched him, trying to figure out what he was going to say or do. Was he going to tell Robbe that he wanted to be with him or had he come to end it once and for all?

Sander’s eyes flickered down, to Robbe’s lips, before he was leaning in, their lips slotting together as easily as breathing. It was gentle and sweet, nothing too heavy or frantic on either end, but Robbe could feel the heat pooling through him like an inferno that was ready to burn him down. Sander’s hand was at his jaw, his fingers in his hair, and Robbe pressed his lips back against his.

But, then, Robbe reached up, his hands fisting in Sander’s black t-shirt and pushed him back.

Robbe had texted him because he wanted clarity, about Sander and his feelings, not because of this.

Sander let out a sigh, his exhale brushing lightly over the skin of Robbe’s face. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that Sander understands what Robbe wants.

Glancing at him briefly through his eyelashes, Robbe saw the broken expression on Sander’s face as he leaned against Robbe, his nose pressed against the space between his eyebrows. Sander’s head was heavy on Robbe’s shoulder, gripping onto him tightly, and Robbe let out his own sigh, cursing his own mind and his own uncertainty, but unable to waver. He needed to know.

But, if Sander decided that he had come here to say goodbye to him, give him one final, haunting goodbye kiss, then, at least, Robbe had the moment here, their foreheads pressed together and Sander’s hand on his shoulder, their noses brushing together purposely. Sander’s forehead moved against his, his nose pressing further against Robbe’s and Robbe felt himself mirroring the action.

Inhaling, Robbe opened his eyes fully, training them on Sander’s lips and taking half of a step back. Sander’s eyes were already open, trained on him, but Robbe couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eye. Not right now. Not until he knew.

“You and I,” Sander whispered, catching Robbe’s attention. Robbe glanced up at him, his brown eyes connecting with Sander’s green ones. “One hundred percent, forever.” Robbe searched his eyes for any sign that this was a lie, like his mind was expecting it to be, but, no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find any sign. Sander was telling the truth. “In every universe.”

Robbe felt his eyes fall briefly down to Sander’s lips before he glanced back at his bright green eyes. Sander was watching for a sign, his hand still on Robbe’s shoulder. Robbe felt his heart accelerating a little bit as his racing mind caught up with Sander’s declaration. Sander was here, right here right now, choosing to be here with him, and… There was a look in Sander’s eyes as he watched him, half-lidded and cautious, waiting for Robbe to react.

Robbe swallowed, asking the question that had been on his mind for about two weeks now. “Who was the girl, Sander?”

He could’ve scoffed, told Robbe that he had nothing to worry about and dodged the question, but Sander didn’t do any of that. Instead, he stared at him with a broken expression. “Her name was Laura,” Sander replied. “I thought that… if I was kissing someone, it would make it easier to forget that I had hurt you and pushed you away. But, it didn’t. It just made it worse.”

“Why did you?” Robbe whispered. “Push me away?”

“I didn’t want her to hurt you…”

“Laura?” Sander shook his head. “Britt?” Sander shook his head again. “Then, who?” Sander shook his head for a third time, a pained look on his face. Robbe understood the look. His mom used to give it to him all the time. He didn’t want to talk about it and Robbe hoped that Sander knew that he would be there when he wanted to.

“I mean it, Robbe,” Sander spoke up. “You and I. One hundred percent-”

Before Sander could finish, Robbe closed the distance, pressing their lips together like he had wanted to since he saw Sander last Thursday. Now that Robbe had closed the distance, pressed their lips together and clung to his shirt, Sander reached out, gripping tightly on his sides and holding onto his brown jacket, pushing him back towards the wall. Robbe expected to feel his head collide with the tile on the walls, but Sander’s hand was there, stopping it before his hand cupped his face.

Robbe blindly reached for the elevator button, grabbing onto the lapels of Sander’s leather jacket. When it let out a ding, signaling that it had arrived on the first floor, he pushed the blond in the elevator, separating briefly only to make sure that he hit the right floor number before returning to kiss him desperately.

…

The elevator was empty, thankfully, because Robbe would’ve been embarrassed that Sander pressed him flush against the wall and him, slotting one of his legs between Robbe’s two, and attacked his lips as his life depended on it, his hands fisted in Robbe’s hair, pulling just hard enough to be pleasurable. Once they had reached the floor of Robbe’s apartment and the elevator doors opened, Robbe pushed Sander away, only to guide him out of the elevator and down the hallway so he didn’t run them into any corners or persons that were out in the hallway.

By something of a miracle, the hallway was empty too.

There was a bright, smug look on Sander’s face before Robbe connected their lips back together again. Their kiss was becoming more and more frantic with every passing second and Robbe needed to be inside his apartment with Sander, now, or they wouldn’t make it all the way. Robbe searched for his keys in his pockets, never breaking the kiss. Through his eyelashes, he spotted their apartment number and blindly inserted the key into the lock, pushing the door open and shoving Sander inside. Robbe followed, pulling his keys from the lock and slamming the door.

Once the door was locked and Robbe’s keys were discarded somewhere, Sander’s hands dropped lower to his waist, gripping tightly.

Standing in the threshold of their apartment, Robbe reached up, shoving Sander’s jacket off his shoulders. It slipped down easily, down his arms, but got caught on his wrists. “Off,” Robbe mumbled into the kiss before pressing his lips tighter against the other’s. He heard a laugh in Sander’s throat, felt the coldness on his waist as he reached back to fully take it off, and Robbe took it from him, placing it on the empty hook on the far right which had long since been unanimously Robbe’s. “Shoes,” Robbe ordered, lightly, kicking his sneakers off in the direction of the foot rack.

Sander chuckled, stepping back from him. Robbe whined at the loss, but he spotted that Sander was wearing his Docs. As Sander kneeled down, his fingers frantically and crudely moving to undo the laces, his gaze flickered up to Robbe, who was taking off his own jacket. “Bossy Robbe is hot,” Sander spoke, his voice deep and gravelly which was affecting Robbe more than it should’ve been. Once the Docs were completely and placed with the rest of the shoes, Sander was back in Robbe’s arms, kissing him feverously and gripping at his hair again, as the smaller man pushed him back towards his room.

Robbe waited until his bedroom door was fully shut before he shoved his hands beneath the fabric of Sander’s shirt, running his hands over the warm flesh of Sander’s stomach. His roommates weren’t home and it wouldn’t really matter, but it was more of a personal preference for anything else. But, Sander didn’t seem to have the same hesitations, as his hand had been brushing across his abs even in the elevator. His hands were going higher and higher on Robbe’s chest, pulling at the clothes with the other.

Sander separates their heated kiss only to pull the fabric over his head. Once Robbe’s hoodie and shirt pass over his nose, Sander’s lips are back on his again, his hands still pulling the fabric up Robbe’s arms and discarding them somewhere over his shoulder. Robbe gripped tightly at the hem of Sander’s shirt, pulling it up and over his chest, exposing the wolf tattoo to him once again. Robbe reached out to touch it, running his hand down his chest. Once the fabric of his shirt was high enough, Sander ducked out of it and Robbe tossed it aside, feeling the brush of Sander’s tongue dragging along his lip before their lips officially met again, Sander’s tongue slipping into Robbe’s mouth.

Robbe wrapped an arm around Sander, gripping at his shoulder tightly, as he led him towards the bed.

Once they were close enough, Robbe pushed Sander onto the bed and climbed over him, his hands on either side of Sander’s face and his knees on either side of his hips. A glowing smile crossed Sander’s face, the kind that might’ve broken his face in two, and lit up his entire face by several notches. It was one of those smiles that Robbe hoped was reserved only for him and he only had a couple of seconds to stare before Sander was reaching for him, pressing their lips together and dragging him back against the bed and against Sander.

They both gasped when their hips rolled together.

Dragging his mouth away from Sander’s lips, Robbe trailed his lips against his jawline, pressing kisses and biting down on the skin as he went. Robbe pressed a kiss behind Sander’s ear, left a few marks against the flesh of his neck, and bit down on the flesh where his shoulder met his neck. Sander let out a sigh, his fingers working through Robbe’s hair, gripping tightly at the nape of his neck. But, Robbe didn’t stop, pressing kissing down his chest, pressing one against the bump that he had felt that afternoon beneath the tattoo of the wolf (Sander let out a straggled breathed), and briefly traced the ink as he pressed more kisses along the length of his chest.

It’s only when Robbe hooked his fingers on Sander’s belt, moving to undo it, that he paused.

And, Sander noticed.

“What is it?” he questioned, concerned but not sitting up. Robbe let out a sigh, resting his forehead against Sander’s stomach. “Robbe,” Sander spoke, sitting up and forcing Robbe to do the same. The brunet left his fingers on Sander’s belt and settled down on Sander’s thighs. “What is it? We can stop if you want to...”

“No! No, that’s not it,” Robbe replied, shaking his head. “Um, it’s just that… will you be here in the morning?”

For a moment, Sander was quiet. Then, his hands were on either side of Robbe’s face, pulling him to look up at Sander, into his bright green eyes that were looking at him fondly, and heatedly, if such a combination was even possible. “Of course, I will,” Sander replied, pressing a kiss against Robbe’s lips. Robbe leaned into his kiss, his lips moving with Sander’s, and let out a breath of relief. Sander pulled away, pressing a kiss against Robbe’s cheekbone, whispering. “I’ll be here for as long as you want me.”

“And if it’s forever?” Robbe questioned.

There’s a watery look in Sander’s eyes now, their lips barely touching against the other but not kissing, not yet, and Sander smiled, “Then, it’s forever because from now on, it’s just the two of us.” Robbe smiled and Sander kissed him again, his breath hitching sharply as Robbe undid his belt and pulled it from the loops.

...

I hope I managed to portray Robbe’s confused thoughts during this time justice.

#wtfock fic #rosander fic #sobbe fic #rosander #sobbe #robbe x sander #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #vds #van der stoffels (background)#moyo x noor (background)#aaron x amber (background)#if you squint you can see my favorite wtfock crack theory before i reveal it next chapter #enjoy!#i love you all #also sorry it took so long lol

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wroughtbetwixtfanfic · 4 years

Text

A Place To Call Home, Ch 5.

Fandom: Rosewell, New Mexico.

Summary: A canon divergent take on Roswell, New Mexico, and the relationships between Isobel, Noah, and Rosa; later parts will shift the focus to Michael and Alex, as well as Michael and Noah. What is it like to share a body with another alien? Can broken trust be mended? Do the ends really justify the means?

Rating: M.

Tags: Canon divergence, minor character death, not really character death, body sharing, polyamory, hurt/comfort, addiction problems, sickfic, revenge, fix it, friends to enemies to lovers, lovers to enemies to lovers, Noah is complicated, cw: dubious age stuff for a little bit considering Nasedo/Noah is who-the-hell-knows how old.

Word Count: 2902

The drive to the turquoise mines was long, and silent.

It was late by the time they got there. Without a doubt, people would be looking for them both before long. Neither of them seemed to care, and why would they? Rosa's family didn't seem to understand. Isobel's brothers seemed callous to Isobel's distress. It was just them, the desert, and the stars glimmering to life above them. What more, who more, did they need?

"You're not gonna like, murder me and bury my body here are you?" Rosa asked as they hiked towards the tunnels. "That'd kinda suck."

Nasedo frowned. "I'd never hurt you, Rosa." He paused at the entrance of the mine, the one where his pod-- and true body-- were hidden. Taking Rosa's hand, he gently turned her to face him. "I need you to believe that. Okay? I love you, and I want to keep you safe. Alright?"

Rosa tilted her head. "I love you, too. Izzie, are you okay?"

"We'll see."

He led her into the cave, those four words giving him some sort of hope. I love you, too. There were a few twists and turns, but then the darkness gave way to the soft, silver and gold glow of the pod. Rosa stopped in her tracks when she saw it, her grip on his hand tightening to an almost painful degree.

"Izzie... What... What is that?"

"Nasedo."

"What?"

He closed his eyes a moment, steeling himself. "My name is Nasedo. In 1947, a spaceship crashed in Roswell. I was one of the only survivors, along with Isobel and her brothers. That is a stasis pod. Theirs eventually opened. Mine was damaged, and the only way I can access the outside world is through the mental connection between me and Isobel. We share her body. That's why sometimes she seems different. Because it's me, not her."

No answer. Nasedo risked a glance at Rosa; she was staring at the pod, lips parted and her breathing faster than normal. But she didn't move. She didn't scream, or run, or lash out. She... looked. When she finally moved, it was to step towards the pod. He let go of her hand as she did, watching as she oh so lightly rested her hand on the pod. The light wavered, and for a split second, it was possible to see his body inside.

Rosa let out a gasp and yanked her hand away, spinning around to look at him. "You're an alien. An actual alien."

"Isobel and I both, yes."

"You... You're aliens sharing a body."

"We are."

"For how long?"

"Five years."

"So, this whole time that we've been..." Rosa stopped, pressing her hands to her forehead. For a moment, Nasedo felt a surge of fear. But then she exhaled a long, slow breath and sat down on the cave floor. "Explain again. Start at the beginning."

Well, that was something he could do. Nasedo sat across from Rosa. He started with his people fleeing from war and violence, the stowaway, the crash. How the military came in and killed, as far as he knew, everyone. How he hid the three children away, and managed to hide himself, but withered and decayed with time. Finally hearing Isobel, and trying to save her. Realizing he could enter her body and mind, control the body when Isobel retreated into herself. How they learned, in time, to work together and share a life. How they had both fallen in love with Rosa.

"And here we are," Nasedo said quietly. "I'm sorry that we didn't tell you. We were worried that if we said anything, you'd think we were crazy. Or worse, that you'd believe us and turn us in."

Toying with a loose thread at the corner of her jacket, Rosa stared down at the dirt. She didn't speak at first. When she did, her voice was shaking. "I don't... I need some time to process." Her eyes wandered to the pod. "I won't tell anyone. I'll keep your secret."

It was tempting to ask about their relationship, but Nasedo knew better than to try. She needed time. "Thank you," he replied. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Can we get out of here?"

Nodding, Nasedo led Rosa back out of the cave. At least she let him take her hand; she didn't seem afraid, so much as deep in thought.

Isobel was nowhere in sight. It seemed that he would have to handle the rest of the night on his own, and deal with Isobel's likely anger in the morning; they hadn't discussed this, hadn't planned for it, and he knew that would play poorly with Isobel's anxiety. Not that he blamed her. It was a risky move. At least for the time being, things were okay. Maybe not ideal-- understandable, considering most humans would probably need time to adjust-- but they didn't seem to be in danger.

They were back in the car and heading into town when Rosa glanced at him. "Hey. Do you wanna go to Sander's Auto? He lets me paint up his old scrap cars sometimes. I just... Need something average right now."

He couldn't refuse. The junkyard was familiar, and art was Rosa's release; if it made her feel better, who was he to say no? Nasedo murmured an affirmative, and they pulled into the yard soon after. It was late. No one was there. It didn't matter much, since the man who owned the property was notoriously lax with security, and Michael worked for him in exchange for parking his truck there. Isobel being there wouldn't be suspect at all.

Light from the full moon cast a milky glow over everything it touched. Nasedo looked around as they got out of the car, seeing little hints of Rosa all over as they wandered inside. Flowers doodled on signs, a heart carved into a wooden post, poetry and quotes painted onto rusted out cars. It was a bit like the desert itself. Barren, filled with erosion and decay, but scattered with small moments of beauty.

Rosa found a big van, yellow with dented side doors. She opened the van and set her knapsack inside, pulling out spraypaint. Nasedo sat in the van, watching. Watching and listening. Rosa began to talk about art, her favorite artists and her favorite mediums, what paint she liked best and how some places spoke to her in a away she didn't really understand. The longer she spoke, the stronger she sounded. Less afraid, more passionate. Intoxicating.

"What?"

Nasedo blinked, realizing that he'd been caught staring. "I'm sorry. I love hearing you talk about this stuff. Have you considered going to art school or something?"

"Actually..." Rosa ducked her head and smiled. "I have thought about going to Paris and studying art there. It's a silly dream I've always had."

"It sounds like a beautiful dream."

"Yeah? And what are your dreams?"

"Oh, I don't know." Nasedo brought his knees up to his chest. He peered up at the stars. "My old home, I was a sort of... defender, but I've lost my taste for war. Maybe I'd be a lawyer instead."

"And Isobel?"

"She wants to be an event planner. She watched 27 Dresses as a kid and saw herself in it."

Rosa came back to her knapsack, choosing different paints. Black and red. "Well, who knows. Maybe we'll all make our dreams come true."

Nasedo smiled up at her, then looked to what she pulled from the knapsack next. "You brought a UFO stencil with you in your runaway supplies?"

"Maybe it's silly, but it means a lot to me."

"It's not silly at all. What's the story behind it?"

"When I was little, my friend's mother talked about aliens all the time. We thought she was sick. Maybe she wasn't." Rosa eyed the van, finally finding a place to work. Nasedo followed; he held the stencil in place while she painted. "Mimi would always say that we're not alone. That's why I made this stencil, I guess. And why I wanted to take it with me. As a reminder."

"You're not alone, Rosa."

Rosa sighed. She dropped her arms, eyeing her work before turning to Nasedo. There was conflict in those deep brown eyes, but she just sniffled and shrugged. "Wanna try?"

"She'll kill me if I ruin her dress."

"Blame me."

"Rosa..."

They looked at one another, and for a moment, Rosa stepped closer. But then she stepped past him and headed to the other side of the van. Nasedo followed and chose the red paint, drawing the same symbol he'd drawn on the gazebo post. Circle, circle, circle. Lines connecting.

Rosa leaned against his shoulder, taking the can of spraypaint when he was done. "What does it mean? Really?"

"It's a map of our home. I've never told anyone before."

"Not even Isobel?" Rosa asked. Nasedo shook his head; it was better to not tell her, to give her a chance at a normal life. Sitting in the van, Rosa patted the space next to her. "Tell me about it."

Nasedo curled up next to Rosa, telling her everything he remembered of home. Antar was one of the main star systems of their government, along with Shau and Sarga. Their home planet was in the middle, a picturesque world at one time, ruled by wise and fair leaders. The planet had lush, sprawling gardens, filled with bright flowers and birds and insects. But then a young king took over. Well meaning, but irresponsible. Selfish. He was so blinded by his own way of doing things, he didn't pay attention to the unrest. Finally, he and his siblings were murdered by a rebel leader. Their cells were cloned, and their family fled with the cells maturing in stasis pods.

Somewhere along the way, they had sprawled backwards, holding hands and watching the sky. Every so often, a meteor would breeze through in a shower of green and white. When he spoke of the deaths, Rosa squeezed his hand.

"Died and resurrected, like the holy men of old," Nasedo whispered to himself, squeezing back. "And they have no idea. None. It's why they have no memories. They were a desperate attempt to save our royal line."

"That's awful. Do you remember them, from before?"

"Rath was explosive. Temperamental, stubborn, but protective and good hearted. Vilandra, she was elegant and beautiful. She was powerful. Intense. And Zan, our King... Well, as I said. He was ineffective. There was another, Ava. His wife. But she..." He thought back to the night of the crash and shivered. "She formed a pact with the rebel who murdered the rest. What happened to her, I have no clue."

Rosa nestled closer. They kept talking into the night about his world's music, fashion. Good memories. Happier times. Somehow, Nasedo ended up drifting off; the next time he stirred, Rosa was nudging him with her shoulder. Sunlight streamed through the open doors of the van. It was morning; they had stayed out all night, and Isobel was slowly stirring. God, their neck...

Rosa stroked their hair, pushing it our of their face. "I'm gonna go get us some breakfast, okay?"

"Mmhm..."

Shimmying out of the van, Nasedo could hear the car start and the motor fade away. He sighed, closing his eyes and trying to stretch their back. It had only been five minutes when he heard another car approaching. A familiar rumbling engine. Suddenly, he found himself shoved out of front and to the side as Isobel surged into control. He could feel her panic as she shot up, scrambling for some sort of explanation as Michael and Max approached. They weren't supposed to be there, they shouldn't have been there, why--

"Isobel?" Max yelled. "Oh, what the hell?!"

Michael stopped, pointing at Isobel's hands. "Wait. Is that...?"

Isobel looked down. Their hands were stained a bright red. "No. I think it's paint."

Max narrowed his eyes. "Were you with Rosa?"

"Are you on something right now?" Michael asked at the same time.

"No!" Isobel denied. Her voice was strained; Nasedo tried to get around her, wanting to help, but she pushed him away. "I don't know how I got here."

"Stop lying! That's Rosa's art. We know she sells drugs." Max was clenching his hands. He was loud, too loud. Too demanding. "Just tell us the truth."

Isobel grit her teeth. Panic was being replaced by fury. "You know, my life is none of your business, Max. You've made that very clear."

"We just spent all night--"

"You're leaving me! You're going halfway across the planet. What about me? What am I supposed to do?"

"Live your life!" Max threw his arms into the air. "Grow up! We're not abandoning you."

Grow up. Isobel blinked in shock, trying to process what she'd heard. They had heard Max and Michael say she was just after attention. They had heard Max scoff and dismiss Isobel's problems and worries before. But... Grow up? For years, she had been trying to survive her trauma, keep their secret, deal with their parents, try and try and try to find a place in the world with few people to rely on but her brothers. Grow up? She'd grown up that night, at fourteen.

She got up and fled before Nasedo could wrestle control back. How dare he, how could he, what did I do to deserve that, I've only ever tried to be a good sister, what am I supposed to do. Her thoughts were swirling too fast for him to get in a word. She wasn't listening, storming down the dirt road without aim, until a car came their way. Rosa.

"Hey, what..." Rosa poked her head out the window. When she saw their state, she reached to the passenger side and opened the lock. "I was coming back to get you. Hop in."

Isobel slid into the car and slammed the door. The smell of coffee and hashbrowns filled the air; they were starving, but Isobel crossed her arms and folded in on herself, refusing to talk. Rosa didn't press. She turned around and headed back into town. As Isobel started to relax, her rage at Max simmered down to an annoyance at Nasedo; he had shared only enough of his memories to explain, leaving out exactly what had been discussed in the junkyard.

Rosa parked in a quiet lot lined with trees. She unwrapped her breakfast sandwich, nibbling on it and glancing at Isobel in her peripheral vision. Isobel picked up the one Rosa had brought her and stared down at it, trying to calm her mind.

"So," Isobel finally said, "he told you."

"He did."

Isobel tried to reply, but all that came out was a choked sob. "He didn't even ask. No one asks me about anything anymore. I'm sick of everyone deciding my life for me."

"Woah, Izzie. What's going on?" Rosa reached out, resting a hand on Isobel's shoulder. Isobel slumped over, pressing her face against Rosa's shoulder and crying. "It's gonna be okay. I'm here, alright? We'll figure this out together. Promise."

It was difficult to eat, and Isobel didn't allow Nasedo to do it for her. He was, officially, in the dog house. Still, she managed to get it down. Once they were both done, Rosa fired up the car and drove to the Evans' home. No one else was home. It was safe. Rosa walked them to the door; she offered a hug, and Isobel took it. So smelled like dust and sagebrush, and Isobel allowed herself to relax a little.

"Nasedo said I wasn't alone," Rosa whispered. "You're not gonna be alone, either, Isobel."

"You say that now."

"I mean it. I'm not leaving you. Either of you."

Isobel pulled back, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. She tried to smile. It felt flat, but Rosa stroked her cheek and things seemed a tiny bit less dire, anyways. "Thank you, Rosa. For everything."

"I know what it's like to be judged. It's totally not punk, you know?"

Rosa gave Isobel a kiss on the cheek. They said their goodbyes and Rosa headed to the diner, while Isobel headed inside to clean up. Nasedo hung around in the back of her mind, waiting until she felt like addressing him. It took hours, but once she slumped into her bed after a long shower, she sighed and turned her attention to him.

"I wish you would have warned me."

"I'm sorry. You weren't responding and she was going to leave."

"I know, I know..." Isobel closed her eyes and leaned back against their pillows. "She seemed to take it pretty well."

Nasedo fell quiet again, then remembered a tiny bit of conversation that puzzled him. "Isobel, why does the name Valenti sound familiar?"

Isobel opened her eyes. "Valenti?"

"Rosa said some man named Valenti was going to help her get clean."

"All this time and you don't remember? Valenti. Kyle Valenti. It has to be his father, but that's..." Isobel swallowed. "Why would she be involved with him?

"Isobel?"

She bit her lip. "Kyle's father is-- was in the military. He's friends with Alex's dad, that homophobic military bigot. Their ancestors were at the Roswell crash."

Nasedo felt his heart sink. "Do you think she knows?"

"I don't know, but we need to find out. Fast."

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ofthingschanged · 5 years

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Canon Divergence from Descendants

Please note that I have not read the books yet so it is likely to change

Please note that anything that involves her mother or others can be plotted out differently and I will not control the past of our characters!

« Mal does not sing, her mother hates the sound so Mal doesn’t really know that she has a great voice until she is hanging out with the core three (since she is the fourth). « She doesn’t trust Evie, Carlos, or Jay (Jay yes, she sort of trusts him given that I guess in the books they are partners in crime) « Malnourished, underweight since the Isle doesn’t exactly get the fresh food that Auradon does, therefore, some food scraps or next to nothing to eat although Mal and her mother are on top of the food chain so they do get scraps more often than others. « Mal afraid of her mother and all of the power that she holds (even without magic Maleficent owns the Isle in her own special way) « Abusive life that Mal has lead from her mother withholding food because she was not wicked and evil enough to eat, to getting beat for breaking something, to the emotional abuse that she suffered since she was just a little thing. She learned that you had to be mean, cruel, not soft and have no friends because it shows that you are weak. These thoughts and learned behaviors just don’t go away. She learned to be whoever someone wants her to be because it would lead her to less pain which explains why in the second movie she is using magic, trying to be the girlfriend she thinks Ben would want. « The Isle is messy, filled with villains just trying to survive although death doesn’t happen on the Isle anyways. « When her mother wanted her to be her so Mal was NEVER good enough. Being told “That’s my nasty little girl.” makes her feel something amazing like her mother loves her almost so she always craves that next time she says it. « When told to get the wand, it wasn’t on the threat of being grounded but the threat of death or at least a fate worse than death. « She still dates Ben into the second and third film BUT it is a lot of working on the relationship. This is ONLY with Ben’s that ship them as I will adjust Mal as single. etc when other’s don’t ship it or Audrey is with Ben. « Mal is still the daughter of Hades BUT I won’t force this on Hades players « She doesn’t ask where the wand is right off the bat to Ben and the others, she doesn’t play the whole magic here game because duh people would catch on to what was happening or going to happen sooner! « A week is not long enough to really make connections with others. The only person she really has a connection with is Ben when it comes to Auradon. I am willing to do a plot where Ben and Mal get together in between the 1 and 2 films while attending school there. « “You sound just like your mom” both hurts and brings her a sense of pride. « When Mal walks into Jay’s and Carlos’s dorm, she spells it so only the core four can hear what is said inside the room « Mal has small scars littering her whole body and a big one from « In the museum, there is no singing moment, Mal does not stay behind to stare at her mother’s statue.

« She has a huge scar on her stomach where her mother once stabbed her in the stomach

« Mal is an amazing artist and when she gets to stay at the school and does work at an animal shelter does she use that money to buy art supplies. If she is King Ben’s girlfriend, clearly her time to work is like next to nothing but when a rumor is spread that she is great at art does art supplies seem to come in for her to use « Mal’s locker does not have a spraypainted logo on her locker as there was no time to settle in

« She still does Jane’s hair and other’s with magic

« Mal gets a few tattoos that I will write about at some point in time

« Mal gets herself a pet after the barrier goes down in a sense.

« The barrier doesn’t come down like it does in the third movie. The children come over without a background check generally BUT the adults? Are not allowed off the island.

« Mal has PTSD, generalized anxiety, and depression. Has nightmares often that will keep her awake all night long, will avoid things that remind her of past trauma.

« Mal hasn’t dated before but that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t made out with others

« Making cookies and giving one to Ben is more than just one cookie because it would look strange to just give just one. The cookie she takes out of the bag is the one that is filled with magic.

« Going to Ben's game and having him sing to her is amazing. She feels warm and light but she acts less than impressed for sure.

« The date that Ben takes Mal on is the first date she has ever been on.

« Mal can not swim during the first movies time but she learns after that, takes swim lessons

« Mal wants to break Ben’s love spell it makes sense. She didn’t want to be cruel, it proves that she has a heart.

« Honestly, everyone walks around thinking they are better than the VK’s and that the VK’s are horrible just like their parents. Everyone judges their mistakes TEN times worse than if someone from Auradon makes the same mistake

« Mal swears...a lot. Her mother didn’t care if she swore either.

« Going against her mother is the HARDEST thing that she has ever had to do. Breaking the cycle is hard on her as well.

« Mal mostly uses spells on herself such as spelling her hair to be blonde (Dove Cameron’s blonde not the blonde wig that she wore at the start of the second movie)

« Auradon seems to believe in females have their rules and males have another that is the first thing that Mal would ask to change by taking out the whole females aren’t allowed to fence rule.

« Mal giving Carlos the truth gummies and finding out that because Dude at it that he can talk, you best believe when Mal gets a dog that she gives them a truth gummy

« Mal has a habit of calling Uma “Shrimpy” among other sea-related terms

« Apparently there is a sandbox and a few other toys for children of the Isle because Mal wouldn’t let Uma play in her sandbox when they were little

« Mal tends to her pet lizard and let’s just say she spoils her freaking mother “lizard”

« Dizzy doing her hair is a way to be herself and she can pay Dizzy well which is honestly needed. Dizzy and Evie are the ones that do her hair sometimes but for the most part, Mal uses magic to change things about herself.

« Mal goes back to the isle because at least there she knows how things work, she can play the game of life easier.

« Spraypainting things in the hideout isn’t something Mal does given that they are given leftovers so drawing on napkins, old test paper, etc is more likely than getting a brand new spray can and using it against a wall.

« It physically hurts to turn into a dragon because her bones are breaking, shifting, lengthening to become something so much larger than a human. She aches for an hour after she turns back to human form but she truly does love flying around and being free. She can not change into a dragon when she is pregnant so when Ben and Mal decide to have children, it is likely that she will notice she is pregnant because she can’t change into her dragon form.

« The villains are moved to a prison, not an island where magic is useless and they are able to die after the events in d3 is how it goes. Children that are born in prison are taken away from the villain parents the moment it is born

« Mal’s eyes shine a teal coloring not the green in the movies. They are mixed in color because of who her parents are.

« Mal gets wounded when fighting with Uma, it hits her in the stomach where her scar is from her mother, she gets it the last second before Evie throws that colorful bomb. She heals fast thanks to who her father is.

« VK Day is a horrible thing, won’t be happening here! The VKs come over to go to school there, all the kids or none at all in Mal’s book

« Mal doesn’t think the barrier should be taken down BUT she does think that the children should be removed from the Isle and that is what she tells everyone in the room when asked what they should do.

#Long post #Long post for the ts #Long post tw #** ❰Mal Headcanon❱ Rotten to the core

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tinnybelliever · 5 years

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*: ･ﾟ∙ * SUNNYSIDE’S FIRST TASK : ‘ the interrogation ‘

Tinsley smiled politely at the police officer as she sat down in the chair - crisscross apple sauce, out of habit. She could feel there was little room left for snickers and pranks. There rarely was when the adults were talking. And now they stood around her, asking her to do the one thing no one ( including herself ) believed she was capable of: have a grown up talk. Gulp.

is this the first time you’ve been called to the precinct ? do you have a criminal record?

“Well, I think we both know I’ve been here before. I’ve sat in that chair outside at the desk, wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot coco after you guys rescued me from… you know, that immensely tall treehouse. But that visit’s probably not even on record.” Tinsley brushed a hair behind her ear, hoping positive news would ease the officer’s minds. The way she would excite her parents about having made a beautiful drawing before admitting it had been done with marker on their drywall. “I suppose it is on record that I… was also involved in the damaged property of said treehouse a few days after. So yeah, I’ve sat behind the locked cell door over there too. I doubt you’d want me to recall each and every incident on there from breaking a window to spraypainting a wall.”

where were you during the evening of ms. winnipeg sanders’ disappearance ? specifically between the hours of 8 and 11 pm ?

“Last Saturday?” Tinsley coughed, shifting in her seat uneasily. “Uh, let me think for a second…” Luckily they didn’t know the girl well enough to know she would never hesitate to tell about every single one of her memories as if they were all worth the story. This granted her an excuse to ‘think’ and ponder whether how much of the truth she should unveil. “I’m pretty sure I was at home, working on my art assignment, officer.” She nodded as if she’d just decided on that. Anything better than admitting she was a minor at the Clowder, right?

can you describe what you were doing immediately before that ?

“Sure, I was getting ready-” Her breath hitched. Another cough. “For dinner.” She finished curtly.

can anyone confirm your whereabouts at this time ?

“Well, I share an apartment with my older sister. She probably recalls I was home, mhm!” Tins felt bad for throwing her sister on the bus like this. What if the other Bell would accidentally ring the alarm on her? “Though sometimes we get so caught up in our work that we sort of forget about the world. I’m telling you, sometimes we sit with our backs to each other and simply forget the other’s there too until hours later.” At least she could muster up a giggle. The most innocent sound of all.

how well did you know ms. winnipeg sanders ?

“Oh right,” For a second it had slipped Tinsley’s mind that she wasn’t on trial here. She was merely asked to help in an ongoing investigation for the town’s favourite baker. “Honestly, I know I stopped by her store a lot and she always remembered my order somehow. But other than the usual politeness of ‘there you go’s’ and ‘thank you’s’, we didn’t discuss a lot. I asked her to follow me on Instagram once, that’s as far as our personal lives intertwined.”

did you and ms. winnipeg sanders ever have beef, or a quarrel ? have there been moments where you wished – even if it were just in the heat of the moment – to inflict harm on her ?

Did she really sound that nervous? She thought of the lucky socks she was wearing and hugged her legs closer to her body as she softly rocked back and forth on the chair. “No, no, oh my gosh!” Such overreaction may seem suspicious, she realized too late. “I… don’t always agree on her choice of friends, let’s say but that just made me stay away from her. I would never call her out on being wrapped around Wendy Darling’s finger.” Out of force of habit, Tins rolled her eyes at the mere mention of the name.

what was your reaction when you heard about the news ?

“Um, I think it was my mum who told me? But I usually don’t pay that much attention to what she says. I remember that soon everyone was talking about it though. It felt quite unusual that a negative story like this got so much attention around Sunnyside. The papers usually leave out those headlines, want to give people a reason to smile and all that.” She shrugged, almost as indifferent as when she found out some old baking lady stole the spotlight that easily. The only reaction it had brought forth? A long afternoon spent on imagining what it would be like if she, herself would go off the grid for a while. Who would miss her? Who would look for her?

when was the last time you saw ms. winnipeg sanders ? did you notice anything different about her ?

“Well, I can tell you if you promise to keep it between us…” Tinsley leaned forward on the desk with a sugary sweet smile. “I bought some doughnut holes the day before she disappeared. So don’t tell my mum because she believes I only treat myself once a week, tops!” Her eyes actually widened, as if this was the biggest secret pushing on her conscious and she felt horrible for lying to her mother – as every kind, innocent child should. “Ms Sanders seemed alright to me though. Mixed up my order but then again, I usually go for the doughnut, not the holes…” The mere thought that Tinsley’s sullen expression and tiny tantrum outside of the bakery had somehow pushed the lady beyond her boundaries was rather unsettling. For once, she didn’t want to have anything to do with it, to be honest.

do you know anyone who may have had any problems with her ? do you know anyone who may have had it out for her ?

“I’m not really one to point fingers, sorry! Though they do say that it’s usually the people closest to you, don’t they? So then I can only refer back to Wendy if I really must.”

have you noticed anything peculiar since the disappearance ? anything special you think is worth mentioning ?

“A lot of the same people have been hanging around her shop… looking inside or calling out for Miss Sanders. I don’t know, it may just be nothing but it’s a bit icky if you ask me. They seem so convinced Miss Sanders might hear them that it almost looks like they know which way to yell at.” Her name? Cleared. Darling’s name? A little subconsciously sullen. That’s just the way she liked it. One day it would all add up and she’ll have a front row seat to watch it all crumble down.

Tinsley put on a smile once they told her she was ready to go. “Thank you so much for hearing me out!” She beamed ( as if this had been her idea all along. ) “I’ll be on my way now but if there’s a phone number I can call if I think something…” She glanced at officer Nick on her way out, the tiniest of smiles toying on her lips. “I’ll be sure to keep you up to date one way or another, inspector.” Her legs felt wobbly after sitting cross-legged for so long. ( Not to mention the anxiety that had dragged her body down in there. ) So despite wanting to seem helpful and on top of things, Tinsley made sure to skip the hell out of that place before they could call her in for something other than pleasantries.

#sunnyside:task01 #*: ･ﾟ∙ * ⁕ task ⦀ like artwork ; admire me forever #ft. sunnysidepd

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injuries-in-dust · 6 years

Text

Steven Universe Shield

A prop I made for Halloween. Finished today. Two days of work. Since I was winging this for the second half of the build I’ll be admitting my errors, so you know what not to do.

Do note that I was going for passable, rather than a perfect replica of the shield. Mostly due to my limited skill and equally limited funds.

Sorry, I didn’t document every step, I only figured I should when I was in the later stages.

Start with these instructions for making a Captain America Shield, following only up to step 12.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Flying-Captain-America-Shield/

Except you don’t have to use coloured duct-tape due to the painting that will come later, all regular silver will do.

Next, add masking tape to the top, at least three layers, Layer one should criss-coss, to make a union jack, or asterisk, shape. An X on top of a +.

The second Layer should be vertical strips.

The third layer should be horizontal strips.

Do make sure all the strips are long enough so that they can be wrapped around the edge and stick onto the back side of the shield, it helps them be more secure. All of this is because duct-tape is supposed to be water repellant and spray paint may not adhere to the surface.

After this should come the painting. Spray Paint, I found a Fluorescent Pink on Amazon. It may seem too bright to some, but it seems to be the colour most other people choose on their replica shields.

A nice, thick, coating. While this dries, you can begin working on the stencil for the shield. When it’s dry, add a second coat to better cover the masking tape.

Not an easy task. I couldn’t find stencils online, so had to hand draw this using an image of Steven’s shield for reference.

Basic cardstock, A4 size, four pieces attached with masking tape on the front and back.

The size of the shield should come to 56 inches, give or take. Always make sure you have the size of your shield noted down. Pencil, tied to a string, attached to a pin in the middle will give you a nice circle.

Reduce the size of the string by about an inch (I went a little larger, so I know this to be wrong) and draw a second circle inside the first.

Next, I made the centre circle, which was just drawing around an everyday mug. Once that circle was in place, it helped me make the rose design. Draw three straight lines at 11 o’clock, 7 o’clock, and 3 o’clock spots and you can carefully draw lines to attach the three of them.

Keep an eraser on hand and it should go without saying that you should draw in pencil. Gentle curves, take your time and redraw until it looks close to the reference picture.

The spiral can be done easier if you can access a bendy ruler. Also known as a Flexible Curve Ruler. It’s a 12-inch strip of round or rectangular rubber or PVC, usually with a metal wire core, so it can be bent and stay in that shape. Found in most office supply stores. Or, if you don’t have one you can do what I did and make it with a combination of a string as a guideline, and a lot of slow, careful, freehand.

This will be one of the most time-consuming steps.

Using a craft knife and a cutting board, cut out the shield along the inner edge. Cut out the ring along the outer edge and save this for later.

The following is something you shouldn’t do. Taping the central stencil to the shield will not work as the flat surface does not match with the domed shield at all.

Attempting to spray around the stencil in order to create the outer edge of the shield will only result in a messy, uneven border.

For the outer edge of the shield, I chose a spraypaint with the title of Lake for its colour shade. It looked more blue in its amazon picture but, as you can see here, it came out more green. It’s the downside of shopping online for supplies.

A much better thing to do it to create a ring of masking tape. It’s best done by placing the outer ring from the stencil above onto the shield and running along its inner border. Very time consuming but necessary for a cleaner border.

Carefully spraying the edges of the shield will result in this. Some of the paint may mist onto the pink.

While you can do this next step, it is something of a waste of time, as I discovered. I’ll be telling you a better solution later, around the time I figured it out.

What I did was place the ring over the green, to act as something of a shield, and spray the pink again, to cover up the green which had misted onto the pink. It worked well enough, but some pink did land on the very edges of the shield, spoiling the flawless green. At the time I chose to come back to this later.

While All the paint is drying you can start cutting out the stencil. At first, I thought to take this in stages, cutting out a bit at a time, but I quickly found that cutting out the whole thing allows it to sit on the shield much better. Placing loops of masking tape on the undersides of the stencil will better fix it to the surface of the shield for a tighter fit and better protection against the paint escaping the edges.

Before placing the stencil on the shield make sure that the paint is dry. Next peel away the masking tape which had separated the pink from the green. No matter how carefully you do it, some paint will be peeled away. Don’t worry about this, it’s fixable. This is the same fix that will work when you tape down the stencil and will likely peel away some paint when the stencil is removed.

Sadly I did not photo the next step.

You take a plastic cup and a paintbrush. You spray the spray paint into the cup until a sizeable puddle gathers in the bottom of the cup. You can then use this as a normal paint and simply paint the gaps where the paint has peeled away.

It’s also how we will cover any paint which has misted over onto the other sections of the shield.

Do use a different cup and different paintbrush for each colour. Washing them out with hot water doesn’t clean them enough and you’ll end up contaminating one colour with another. Stronger cleaners like white spirit or turpentine will clean the brushes but it takes time and I was working to get it done as soon as possible.

A 1-inch or a 1/2-inch brush will suffice.

What we see here is the beginning of the spiral, when I was trying to take it in stages, one bit at a time, in the hopes of getting some accuracy. I figured quickly that actually cutting the whole thing and placing the whole spiral onto the shield leads to better accuracy.

Note the ring piece is still in place to keep the green clear of the spray paint from the spiral segment. You can’t paint it again after your done to cover any misting that happens to make it through.

The colour of the spray paint I bought was called Amanita. It’s close to flesh coloured and is probably not the right shade of pink. Again, it’s the downside of buying supplies online. It looked fine on its Amazon picture.

When you’ve cut out the stencil, save the circle from the centre and use a large loop of masking tape to affix it to the middle of the shield for the- I’ll call it the- gem-space.

Spray with the nozzle aimed straight down, it can stop the paint getting under some of the edges of the stencil and spreading further than you need to.

After the spiral portion has dried, peel away the stencil and you should, more or less, have something resembling the above.

Using the cup and paintbrush method can cover any spreading, patch any peeled paint and cover any droplets that have landed on a different colour.

In the final stages, you need a permanent marker, some white card and glue. The white card makes the glint of light on the gem and the black marker makes the colours really pop and stand out more.

You may spot a slight purple shade on the 7 o’clock position on the shield. This is where I learned, the hard way, to use sperate brushes and cups. The green and pink mixed into purple and it was impossible to cover up with further layers of pink, the darker colour always bled through. Lucky it was just a small spot.

To finish the whole thing, spray with a Spray Paint Gloss - Clear Acrylic. As you can see, it helps to add a shine to the finished product and adds a layer of protection to the whole thing against some general wear and tear. I can also guarantee that it adds waterproofing against a light drizzle, at least. I’m unwilling to test on a heavier rain.

Like I said, I wasn’t going for a perfect replica of Steven’s shield, what I was aiming for was something that was passable enough to be recognised as Steven’s shield. I think I achieved that quite well and so did others. I’ve received a few compliments on it and people seem impressed when I tell them that I made it instead of bought it.

#prop #craft #build #steven universe #shield #crafts #crafting #building #making #creation #cosplay

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ellmttws · 4 years

Text

KEITH HARING EXHIBITION

22.10.19

Instead of our History of Art lecture, today we visited the second gallery on our list, The Tate. We were primarily going to see the Keith Haring exhibition, and have a talk which gave some background about Haring's life and works. Despite having seen the exhibition before, it was quite different to go around this time after having the talk, it gave me a better insight into his work and the meaning which came behind it.

The man doing the talk started by describing Haring's "casual" approach to art. His work was described as a blend of figurative art, fine art and graphics. However, due to the link to graphics, the man doing the talk mentioned a "snobbery" towards his work, with some people discrediting it and claiming it's "not real art." He mentioned how this exhibition in the Tate is especially interesting due to the curating, and them not shying away from Haring's political views, which greatly links to culture in NYC at the time.

Starting with Haring's early life, he had republican parents who worried about his sexuality and disapproved when he was younger. He used to draw cartoons with his dad, such as; Mickey Mouse, Dr Seuss, and Snoopy. Due to this interest, he joined University with the intention of becoming a commerical artist. He ended up dropping out due to how strict the work was.

He started out working on unconventional canvases; tarpaulin, black paper left behind in the subway, and other found materials. While in art college, he'd pass by grafitti on the way. Haring's subway work could be considered a form of grafitti, just less permenant and created using chalk rather than spraypaint. This could also be considered performance art, people would watch him draw in the subway, and additionally; his studio could also open out onto the street where people could see him create too. He also mentioned how, before drawing, Haring would draw the border around the canvas he'd be using, allowing himself to be familiar with the space he had to work in.

Haring's work can be relatable to anyone in a way. His characters are androgynous, and his work often wasn't titled; leaving it up to the viewer to interpret. I particularly liked this as it's something I also do with my work, and I like the idea that people have came up with lots of different ideas for what my work could be about.

Haring's work progressed into focussing on politics and activism. He'd create posters for various movements, and attend protests in New York. He often portrayed "leaders" as male aggressive characters, representing the toxic masculinity. These could often be seen burning money.

Haring created and opened a "Pop Shop." Here, his work could be sold for decent prices, offering people an alternative way to buying off art sellers. The pieces at the Pop Shop were more like merchandise, featuring T-shirts, hoodies, watches, posters, and lots more.

Towards the end, Haring's work took a darker turn. He protested for better education and health care against AIDS. However, he was able to keep his perfect ballance between funny and serious. The man doing the talk also told us about Haring's sister's book about the boy who never stopped drawing. Apparently, Keith never did stop drawing, and was still working while in the hospital. It was also reporter that Haring never had one million dollars in his bank, as he was constantly putting the money he earnt back into his art work.

After the talk, we could go around the exhibition. It was definitely interesting to look around again after learning a lot more about Haring.

#historyofart1

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gcnenineteen-blog · 7 years

Note

🌈- A memory about when they first fell in love (for Callahan)

Don Callahan fell in love on a hot, sticky Thursday afternoon, smack in the middle of the worst heat wave New York had seen in twenty years, wearing an apron stained with baked beans from a can and listening to Huey Lewis and The News on a cheap Sony radio somewhere across the room.

It wouldn’t be fair to say it was the first time he’d ever done it. God had taken the place of his first love at the age of five or maybe six, and that love had endured into his adult life and swept him easily past all the opportunities for more earthly love that had presented themselves along the way. There had been a few, he thought he remembered that, but he also remembered the familiar urge to run away when things got a little too close to the vest - the drinking was the more tangible problem, but he thought that was the real one, the compulsive need to hit the road before anyone could get in too close. He sabotaged himself, over and over again. We think of the key, each in his own prison. Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.

He realized, with a cynical but appreciative sense of irony, that he had never felt at home until he had found Home. He was nearly sixty, and never in his life could he remember having felt this sense of belonging, this sense of homecoming that sang his restless feet to sleep when the nights grew long and his doubts came to crash against eroding shores. He must have felt that way in his childhood, at least, but looking back that far was difficult, hazy, and at his age he guessed that was natural enough. But Home was now, and he had baked beans slopped down his apron, and Huey Lewis was positing the theory that it was hip to be square. He was nearly soaked through with sweat and he had a headache starting somewhere behind his left eye, and Home was a curiously sluggish madhouse.

All the irritability and nervous energy was there, but it was just too damned hot to get really crazy, and the crowd coming in for the Thursday free lunch restricted itself to a dull roar. Keeping up was hard, but just hard enough to keep the mind and hands constantly busy without losing hold of the throttle, and Don knew he wasn’t the only one in Home’s little ka-tet who needed those conditions to stay sane. Rowan loaded up styrofoam plates beside him, squat and bullish where Don was long and lank, face set in a weary scowl but eyes bright, intent, and focused. In his element, whatever his mouth might say later. They all lived for this, in their way. All craved a little madness to stave off insanity.

It happened while he was asking after Ms. Liebowitz’s dog, of all things. He fell in love while talking about where to get vaccinations done for free, over a plate of mashed potatoes and creamed corn. Lupe came out of the back room with a fresh pot of soup braced in his arms, and for a moment it was like he had never seen him before. Reality seemed to shift on its axis, just a little bit, as if an unfathomably large but impossibly gentle hand was turning his head to see something crucial from an angle he had never examined before. Somewhere in Maine, a man sat down before an electric typewriter, and in New York City just a shade of reality over, Don Callahan looked at Lupe Delgado, and he was beautiful.

He was still wearing his janitorial jumpsuit from the hotel, but had deferred to the heat by stripping to the t-shirt beneath, the jumpsuit’s arms tied around his waist. He would never have done it anywhere else, but at Home the stripes of old track marks mottling the insides of his dark arms were a badge of fellowship, not shame - he wore them freely, to show those at the worst point in their lives that it was possible to find your way back. Here, he could yoke his demons and set them to decent work, use the darkest recesses of his past to inspire hope, and the way both pain and joy made their nests in him was sublime.

Ms. Liebowitz had moved on with her plate, and his hands clumsily served the next in line, absurdly mundane in the face of what felt like religious revelation. He was looking at his best friend, sweaty and exhausted and smiling as he greeted everyone he passed by name - because he always remembered, could always recall a face even when months or years of hardship had altered it. His dark curls fanned in a wild halo around his head, and Don fixated on the premature streaks of gray at his temples, the merry creases at the corners of his eyes, and felt lost at sea, as if the bottom had dropped out of the world. Jesus at the feeding of the multitude couldn’t have been more beautiful.

Sick, articulate guilt would eventually succeed this awe, and his mind would want to scour every conversation he and Lupe had ever had for impure intentions on his part, reexamine every touch and thought and word from this devastating new angle. His mind would want to turn this on him and scourge him with it, but in this moment the only feeling that warred with wonder was dread, implacable and overwhelmingly large. The simple, prophetic impression that something had just begun that he didn’t have the power to stop, and that all he could do was hold on and pray. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, and also the most terrible - something that terrified him, but that he wouldn’t have traded if Satan himself had offered to barter back his soul.

“Don, you good?” Rowan put a hand on his ruined arm, and it was only then that he realized it was trembling badly - so badly he could barely get the food onto the plates. He was breathing fast, pulse thudding in his ears, and he realized with the vague knowledge of a man in a decade when a real understanding of psychiatry was only just in its infancy that he was going to have a panic attack. He had had them before, and he recognized the tightness closing his throat, the pain in his chest - things he had at first attributed to asthma, or worse, cardiac arrest. It felt like both, and good old Catholic guilt might have been reason enough for some, but that queer - a watery laugh - sense of significance hadn’t hit him since he’d seen the arms cracked off a plaster crucifix by cruel, invasive hands, and all at once he was tasting rotten fish in his mouth again.

“Any chance you’ve got some cigarettes, Rowan?” He heard himself speak, trying for calm but coming across vacant, and he could see that Rowan heard it.

“Didn’t know you smoked.”

“I quit after highschool.” That came out sounding even vaguer, because all at once it felt like a lie, like he was duck-speaking a factoid he’d been told second-hand, not repeating a truth about his own life. How did he know he had smoked in highschool? He had no distinct memories of holding a cigarette in his hands. What had his school been called? What state had that been in? He thought the mascot might have been a turtle.

“That shit’ll kill ya. I wouldn’t go starting again.” Rowan sounded even more dubious, and he was obviously picking up Don’s slack in the food line, hands moving with the preternatural speed only lifelong line cooks can summon. He had the sense to feel bad for letting up on his line, but nothing felt real enough to evoke a reaction.

“Just give me a goddamned cigarette. Please.” Rowan blinked, frowned, his bushy eyebrows drawing tight together, and then he pulled a wrinkled pack of Camels from his breast pocket and shucked out a slightly bent cigarette. After a moment’s thought he handed over his lighter, too. He didn’t know all that much about Don’s past, and he didn’t care to - around here, everybody had demons, and sometimes it was best to just leave them lie - but he didn’t need to know exactly what Don had been through to know that the old man had been to the wars. Something nasty had chewed him up and spit him out, and godawful as that hand looked, Rowan knew most of the real damage was on the inside.

“Smoke it outside - I’ll take over here. Take fifteen, get yourself together, but we’re gonna need you for clean-up. Can you do that?”

“Sure. I owe you one.”

“More than one, but this one’s pro bono. Get going.” He shuffled his burly frame inbetween their two stations, set those magically swift arms to work again, and thought he heard Don’s shoulder bang against the doorframe as he rushed out back. He caught Lupe’s eyes across the crowded room - the guy had a way of knowing when Don was in a bad way, seemed to feel it the way some old men could feel an oncoming thunderstorm - and when Lupe jerked his head toward the door their friend had left by inquiringly, Rowan sighed and nodded his own. It was too fucking hot for anybody to feel like starting a fight anyway: he could keep the chaos locked down for ten minutes.

When Lupe found him, he was sitting on the curb half a block down, in the shade of a closed street bodega, underneath the spraypainted monogram of BANGO SKANK with a half-smoked cigarette trembling violently in his unmarred hand. He planted his hands on his knees and lowered himself to sit beside him, giving him breathing distance, but close enough that his presence could be felt.

“How bad is it today?” The enormous, all-encompassing ‘it’, the only other two letter word that was a thousand words long. Don’s eyes looked cagey, fearful, and when his voice came it had lost its smooth baritone in favor of something thick and hoarse.

“Pretty bad.” He took another pull off of Rowan’s cigarette, and winced at the taste, but his hands did seem to remember having done this before, even if only in a dream.

“What do you need, Don?” Lupe looked at him, world-worn and earnest and radiating that pure breed of kindness that is only born out of suffering. Somewhere, a rose sang softly, and one of its many voices was his, and Don was lost, but a small, distant voice he had lost contact with for many, many years whispered to him that all might yet be well. One day, all might yet be well.

“I don’t know.” He was terrified and exalted, but for all the condemnation he would heap on himself in the coming weeks, it would never once occur to him to turn those thoughts on Lupe. Why would it? He was sitting next to the finest, most worthy man he had ever known. Looking up from the dirt at the shining stars.

“That’s alright. You’ll figure it out eventually.” And when Lupe’s fingers curled against his, a dark, work-toughened hand locking with the one that marked him out as a sinner without a trace of disgust, Don really believed that he might. He squeezed, tight, and Lupe squeezed back, and no one commented about the haggard-looking men holding hands in the street, because it was too fucking hot to mind anything but your own business. And somewhere inside of Donald Frank Callahan, something that Kurt Barlow had stained long ago finally began to come clean.

#;; DRABBLE #;; MUSE : CALLAHAN #drug abuse mention //#dissociation //#I knew I'd get bit by this bug eventually if I kept the ask in my inbox long enough #here have some sappy shit and the pere coping with ptsd

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gyromitra-esculenta · 7 years

Text

Synchronicity 5

aka ‘take your goddamn meds, Jack’ aka ‘how do you write action sequences’ aka ‘seriously *said in sarcastic voice*’. typical (almost) combat violence, amelie is a little shit, reaps plays games or whatever.

(…)

Then he awoke with a cough and a heave

His heart pound like cannons in mid siege

Vivid echoes of his terrified screams

Guess nothing ever just is what it seems

(…)

Jack wakes up in a hospital bed with a start, few fragmented flashes clinging to his memory, but more importantly, there is something where there was nothing for so long. A sense of purpose hits him with a realization that almost sends him falling to the floor, and he grips the edge of the mattress with desperate strength. It takes him several breaths to orientate and ground.

The room is no different than any other hospital room he was ever in. The tv in the corner displays the emergency broadcast. All is too quiet – no hum of the machines, no signs of human life. There is something wrong with the sky visible through the windows.

He is wearing his fatigues but no armor jacket, no weapons, all stripped, yet in the side pocket there is a white plastic bottle that rattles when he checks it. Jack swallows when he unscrews the lid and slowly spreads the pills on his palm. Four. He should take four with the missed dose.

“You know what to do, Sunshine,” the whisper gives him the nudge, and the Beast rests its jaws on his shoulder as he lets the white pills fall with the clatter to the ground. He steps on them for a good measure while feeling his throat constrict. Crazy or not. “Good,” the Beast murmurs almost affectionately.

On the little cupboard lies his visor and Jack snatches it and puts in on in one move, waits for the system to boot.

“This is bollocks,” Lena groans between the crackle of the interference. “Can someone hear me, lads? Everything’s blocked and bloody barricaded.”

“Morrison checking in,” Jack answers at the same moment as he hears Winston confirm. “We need to meet up.”

“Bloody right. Oxton out.”

Jack moves forward cautiously, the next room is in far worse state than the one he had awoken in. The place looks abandoned and almost ransacked, the papers – medical charts – and furniture thrown about as if someone was trying to leave this place in a hurry.

He creeps along the corridor, taking note of the total absence of sounds signifying anyone’s presence – there is only his own breath, the squeak of his soles on the waxed floors and crinkle of fabric as he moves forward.

Spraypainted red cross on the wall catches his attention with its familiarity. A calling card that freezes his insides. Jack takes a step back, his thoughts spinning in a dizzy torrent threatening to take him with it. A Blackwatch purge, they are all in the middle of a Blackwatch purge, and this is no accident, can’t be an accident, he knows that.

Blackwatch leaves no survivors, no evidence, only ashes. He wants to call up Lena but now, now he can’t really afford to give his position because there is at present a group of bloodthirsty murderers after Lacroix – after them – and they are going to kill everyone and burn this place down to the ground.

He is unarmed. He is panicking. He should have taken the damn pills, because when he turns there is a tall figure made out of shadows, staring at him with piercing red eyes glowing in the darkness.

“Don’t play coy now, Sunshine,” the Beast speaks softly into his ear as the shape dissolves in wisps of drifting ash under the flickering lamp. “We will kill them all. We will drink their blood. We will bury our hands in their steaming entrails.”

“Yes,” Jack answers out of habit, calming himself forcefully, and presses forward, eerie stillness in the air raising hair on the back of his head. He passes another cross on the wall, avoids looking at it and focuses on the bullet holes in the plaster and a pool of smeared blood – no body even if anyone who bled that much wouldn’t be walking away from it.

“Scalpel on the left,” dark hiss informs him and Jack swipes it on the way. The blade scrapes his skin on touch when he climbs the stairs following another trail of crimson, nervous twitch of his fingers not stopping, getting stronger even with each step.

There is a corpse, still warm, leaning over the railing, at the top of the stairs. On the left, the passage is blocked by a makeshift barricade. Bloody footprints lead to the right, to bathrooms, the door ajar, and the sound of whistling carries from inside.

“Remember your training,” the Beast admonishes him and Jack slips through the gap, hands now steady, and stalks toward the open stall, crouched slightly, teeth bared behind curled up lip. He grabs the man, left hand over his mouth and nose – the scalpel cuts through the flesh effortlessly. Jack holds him until the shudders subside and then lowers the body slowly down to the ground. “You did good.”

He feels nothing. Killing humans is easy.

He quickly strips the man out of bloodied jacket and throws it on, the smell of iron pervasive in the air now more than ever, and secures it on his side, fingers ghosting over combat knife pinned on the left. The rifle is empty, no spare ammunition on the body, so he shoulders it, but the Seegert pistol has one additional clip and the loaded magazine is almost full. It’s not much. It will have to be enough.

Jack pats the body down in search of some sort of identification – there is none like he suspected, but the open pack of cigarettes and the lighter are a welcome find. He puts one between his lips and freezes with the flame millimeters away from it.

He has never smoked.

He can’t smoke, not with the medication… With trembling fingers, Jack pockets the lighter, the pack of cigarettes joining it second later, and gets up. The next stall is open too.

“I’m sorry,” Jack whispers to the nurse curled up inside by the toilet bowl, one hand lying palm up on the tiles, the other raised – tangled in her curly hair as if still protecting her head. She had run inside to seek shelter, to hide, but they found her anyway.

“Don’t be,” the Beast spits it out like a curse. “None are blameless in here.”

He stumbles out of the bathroom holding back of his hand against his lips to try and squash the feeling of nausea, it takes several breaths through the nose to regain any facade of stability. It does not help that the furniture blocking the passage is now crushed and broken, ripped apart and strewn around.

Crazy or not, Jack repeats his little mantra.

Past the doors he steps into a completely different place - a hospital no more. The smell of anesthetics still lingers, now undercut with something more acidic and biting, burning wood and plastic.

Over the desks, another red cross marks the wall and all the computers are destroyed – shot from close distance – with several bodies strewn around on the floor. Jack cautiously steps around them, away from blood, his palm sweaty around the pistol’s grip and chest constricting with uneasiness. Each breath is somehow hard to draw.

“A godsend, sergeant Morrison,” Lacroix calls to him from the other side of metal bars dividing the space into a makeshift corridor. Her sidearm is drawn but lowered down.

“Kill,” the Beast seethes and claws at his mind. Jack tries to ignore it.

“Since my poor excuse of a husband wants to erase us all at the moment,” she continues without missing a beat, “I need you in our T.A.C. lab stat. This is crucial.”

“Where is it?”

“I believe that if you follow your current path you will find it,” Lacroix points him to the doors. “Just past the reception area. Regretfully, doctor Ziegler and I became separated, so if you run into her, please do escort her. She is, after all, extremely valuable.”

“No, no, no,” the Beast screams. “We will tear her apart.”

“I will try to remember.” Jack fights the impulse to bring up the pistol and aim it at Lacroix as she passes him. Before she disappears from his field of vision, she turns one last time.

“Did you take your medication, sergeant Morrison?”

“Yes.” The question somehow does not surprise him and he answers holding her gaze as she nods.

“Good. Wouldn’t want you dropping dead on us suddenly,” she laughs haughtily as she walks away. Jack waits for the sound of her heels to die down before he moves again. He is now sure of only one thing – she cannot be trusted. Even if the reception is just right where she said it is.

The tv over the counter works and is tuned into a newscast, showing stills of the mushroom cloud towering over the devastated area. Jack catches the bit about the estimated death toll in thousands and the National Guard moving in to help deal with the disaster, but what captures his attention is the time displayed in the corner of the screen.

Twenty-seven past ten in the evening. Suddenly it all makes sense: the interference, the sky, the layout. This is no hospital at all, this is an underground research facility.

When the ice cold touch moves down his spine, Jack brings his fingers to face and then stares transfixed at bright blood smeared on them. Pain sinks him to his knees.

Claws cover his eyes from behind.

“Hadn’t I already told you, Sunshine, that none are blameless here?” A different voice fills his ears.

#sometimes i write #overwatch #how do i english #fear #fear!au #jack is moody and switches between often #listen there is a reason #supposedly #r76 #reaper76

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quicksilversquared · 7 years

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Hiccup Havoc

When Adrien gets the hiccups and an akuma hits, Chat Noir has to fight while still hiccuping the whole way, throwing off their sneak attacks on the akuma. Add in one frustrated Ladybug who is set on curing Chat Noir's hiccups no matter what it takes, and they're bound to have an interesting fight.

(AO3) (FF.net)

Adrien hiccuped, winced, and then cringed as the eyes of nearly everyone in the classroom turned on him. Marinette found herself wincing sympathetically as Adrien rubbed his chest. He had just started hiccuping a few minutes before and clearly was uncomfortable with both the feeling that the hiccups were causing and the looks he was getting whenever people heard him.

"Dude, you all right?" Nino hissed as Adrien tried to muffle another hiccup and failed. "Do I need to, like, try to scare you or something?"

"I'm fin-HIC!-fine," Adrien insisted. He cringed again.

"No talking during class," Madam Mendeleiev said without turning around. "Any more talking and I'll start handing out detentions."

Nino ducked his head down to focus on his assignment and Adrien muffled another hiccup. Marinette gave Adrien a comforting look- well, she gave the back of his head a comforting look, Adrien didn't actually even see it- and then went back to her own work. She could see his shoulders occasionally give a little jerk as he smothered hiccups, one after another, for the rest of the class. Only a couple more hiccups actually slipped out at full volume, attracting glances from classmates and glares from Madam Mendeleiev. He ducked his head lower every time, cringing until class ended and they could leave.

Adrien had hiccuped his way almost all the way to their next class- study hall- when Alya gasped, bringing their group to a halt.

"What now?" Nino asked as Alya swiped frantically at her phone. "Oh, let me guess- an akuma?"

"Of course! And Ladybug and Chat Noir are going to be there soon- ugh! And I can't go, the teachers would never let me go out to cover it." She perked up. "Maybe the fight will end up coming near the school!"

"You know, that's generally- HIC!- not a good thing," Adrien added. He cringed a little and rubbed his throat before continuing. "Maybe you should wish for a quick end to the fight so that you aren't missing much."

"That's no fun!" Alya protested, even as Nino tugged her forward down the hall towards their next class. "I don't get any original footage then, and then I have to rely on TV recordings to do my reports and that doesn't do the Ladyblog any good."

"Skipping class doesn't do your grades any good," Nino pointed out. They approached the classroom and Nino gently pushed Alya inside, ignoring her pouting.

"I think I'm gonna run to the bathroom before class starts," Marinette said quickly before she could enter the room. She took a quick step back, then another. "I'll, uh, be right back!"

Before anyone could say anything, Marinette turned and dashed away down the stairs towards the bathrooms. She had to get away and transform before the akuma could cause too much trouble.

Ladybug jumped over the Paris rooftops, heading for the highest point close to her so she could try to figure out where the akuma was. She didn't see anything, so she grabbed her yo-yo and pulled up the TV report that was streaming. Madam Chamack was reporting, of course, and she was standing in the shadow of a building near the Louvre. A colorful akuma was rampaging around in the background, darting in and out of the camera frame. Ladybug didn't wait to listen to whatever Madam Chamack was saying, since she knew from experience that the reporter's information usually wasn't terribly helpful to anyone not trying to avoid whatever strange akuma Hawkmoth had created most recently.

It would be easier to just go over there and watch the akuma for a minute before charging in and taking him down.

Snapping her yo-yo shut, Ladybug took off again. She moved quickly over the rooftops, swinging between buildings and jumping over roads as she made a beeline to the Louvre. After months of akuma fighting, she moved way faster (and way quieter) than she had when she first became Ladybug. It took barely any time to get to the Louvre and land out of sight on a nearby building. Ladybug crept closer to the edge, eyes narrowing as she watched the akuma down below. As far as akumas went, this one didn't seem particularly bad. It was just spray painting anything and everything it could reach. Still, appearances could be deceiving. She and Chat Noir would go all-out, just like they always did, and if the akuma was as easy as it seemed then maybe she could get to class before she was missed too much.

It was always nice when she could pull that off.

As the akuma moved down the street, Ladybug prowled along behind. She was focused on the akuma, watching his every move-

"HIC!"

Ladybug shot nearly a meter into the air as she jumped and spun around, sliding into battle position. Her eyes scanned the rooftop, searching for a threat...

...and found a sheepish Chat Noir instead.

"Sorry," Chat Noir said quietly as he crept down the roof to join her. "I can't seem to- HIC!- get rid of my hiccups today. Normally they don't last this long."

"Ah, poor kitty," Ladybug teased as Chat Noir jumped down the last half-meter and together they jogged forward after the akuma. "The hiccups must be going around today. There was someone in my class who was having the same problem earlier."

"Great! I'm not alone in my- HIC!- misery then," Chat Noir managed to joke. He winced. "It's honestly starting to hurt a bit, I've been- HIC!- hiccuping for so long."

"Well, maybe the akuma will scare the hiccups out of you," Ladybug said, pointing to the supervillain down below. Clearly he had heard Chat Noir, because he was looking up at them now with a particularly devilish look on his face. "It looks like he's just painting things, but be careful. The paint might do something to us if we get hit."

"I'm always careful," Chat Noir claimed with a grin on his face. He pulled his baton off of his back and gave it a twirl. "Ready to kick some akuma ass?"

Thankfully, the paint doesn't hurt them at all when they get hit. Still, that doesn't make it harmless. Pressurized paint plus a superhero transformation equals a spraypaint blast that can both dye them bright colors and knock them nearly two blocks away. Charging at the akuma only led to them being blown off of their feet and stumbling back covered in a fresh layer of paint.

And to top it all off, Chat Noir hadn't stopped hiccuping yet. It was throwing them off of their game. He would flinch or pause whenever he hiccuped, or he would give away his position with a particularly loud hiccup. It had happened a few too many times, and Ladybug was getting fed up.

The hiccups had to stop.

There weren't any 100 percent effective ways to stop hiccups, Ladybug knew that. But she knew of some things that sometimes worked. She could insist that she and Chat Noir slip into a restaurant to grab a glass of water for him to sip from, but the akuma probably wouldn't let them slip away. Her father had once said something about sipping hot sauce or honey, but the same problem applied there. A quick search on her yo-yo between attacks suggested sucking on a lemon or eating peanut butter.

Seriously, didn't they have any suggestions that would work on the go, or in the middle of an akuma attack? And why did the suggestions all involve food of some sort?

The fight tumbled across the city, gradually edging in the general direction of Collège Françoise Dupont. Ladybug ground her teeth as Chat Noir hiccuped again, giving away their position for what seemed like the zillionth time. She ducked away in time to avoid the electric blue burst of paint, but Chat Noir was not so lucky. He tumbled away down the street, letting out muffled yelps the whole way.

"This. Is. Ridiculous," Ladybug growled. She snapped her yo-yo open again, scanning the page of hiccup cures. One person suggested scaring the unfortunate hiccup-er, and another person mentioned that holding their breath for a bit helped rid them of hiccups. Both of them wouldn't be easy to do during an akuma attack, but Ladybug was getting desperate.

So when Chat Noir went tearing after the akuma, Ladybug swung around to the side, just out of Chat Noir's field of view. Landing in the middle of the next street over, she raced up the street. Chat Noir's green pawprint locator blinked away on her yo-yo's screen as she ran, intent on gaining enough ground to pull this off right. After a few seconds, Chat Noir slowed for a moment- either he was wondering where she was or was dodging a spray of paint from the akuma- and then he sped up again. It wasn't much of a pause, but it was enough.

Ladybug took a hard right and somersaulted into position.

"I'll paint the entire city!" the akuma bellowed, coating an entire building in electric green and spraying a more focused shot behind him towards Chat Noir before racing onwards. "They can't remove it all!"

"You can't paint walls without permission!" Chat Noir yelled back. "That's called- HIC!- graffiti!"

The akuma howled. "It's art!"

Ladybug watched as Chat Noir shot back a fast retort, drawing ever closer to her hiding spot. His focus was completely on the akuma, so he was sure to be surprised when she shot out. Her sneak attack might add some time to their fight, but then again, if she could get Chat Noir to stop hiccuping...

Ladybug pounced.

Chat Noir yelped as he and Ladybug tumbled across the road. He gave an almighty twist, dislodging Ladybug easily, and flipped to his feet in the same move. His baton whistled as he spun it defensively in front of himself with a yell. Bright green eyes darted back and forth looking for an enemy. They finally settled on Ladybug, sitting stunned in the street.

The baton spun to a confused stop.

"...what on earth," Chat Noir managed, finally putting his baton away. "...what were you trying- HIC!- trying to do, my lady?"

"I was trying to scare the hiccups out of you," Ladybug admitted, accepting Chat Noir's hand. He pulled her to her feet in one smooth move. "Apparently it didn't work."

Chat Noir hiccuped again, then gave her a rueful smile. "Yeah, apparently not. Maybe it's because I was already in fight mode. Like, even if-HIC!- I could see the akuma up ahead, I was kind of expecting side attacks." He paused and frowned. "That's not quite right. It's more like- it's a fight, right? We never know quite what to expect. It's different each time. During some fights, we do have zombies attacking from the sides. We have sneaky akuma that come out from wherever. As sad as it is- HIC!- I'm kind of used to it."

Ladybug sighed.

By the time they caught up to the akuma again, he was spray-painting Collège Françoise Dupont with a slightly fuzzy, out-of-focus version of Starry Night. The school definitely wasn't the best painting surface- the- bricks around the windows stuck out a little, and then the windows themselves weren't holding the paint quite as well as the rest of the building- but it was still a somewhat decent painting.

"What- HIC!- what do we do now?" Chat Noir asked. "Keep trying to char- HIC!- charge him, or do you want to try something else?"

"Try something else," Ladybug decided. "Let's figure out where he'll move next, and then we'll do an ambush attack. If we catch him by surprise, maybe we can get his spray can before he recovers."

"He's moving towards the bakery," Chat Noir pointed out. "Let's go over there. If we run, we can probably- HIC! -probably get around and into an ambush spot without him noticing."

Ladybug gave a sharp nod. "All right. Let's go."

They ran.

"Behind that grey car," Chat Noir panted as they skidded around the last corner. "And then we can move- HIC!- move forward to end up behind the blue car. That should be close enough for an ambush."

"Sound good," Ladybug panted back, and they dove as one behind the grey car. They both tucked into somersaults and rolled past two more cars to come to a stop behind the blue car Chat Noir had pointed out. There they crouched and waited.

"He's coming this way," Ladybug hissed after a minute. "Ready?"

Chat Noir nodded and tightened his grip on his baton.

The spraypainting akuma had decided on painting something modern and abstract on the side of the school building. Neon green sprayed out in a geometric pattern, outlined in black. Over the next minute, he worked his way down the building towards the superheroes' hiding place. They tensed, waiting nervously for the akuma to draw close enough to pounce.

As they waited, Ladybug kept one eye on the akuma and one on her partner. One hiccup could give away their position. So far, he had managed to keep quiet, but-

Oh no.

As the akuma got closer, still hovering just outside of striking distance, Ladybug could see the obvious signs that Chat Noir was going to hiccup again. So without a pause for thought, she lunged. One hand clapped over his mouth, sealing his lips together, while the other pinched his nose shut. Her yo-yo had said something about stopping hiccups by interrupting normal breathing patterns, so if Chat Noir just didn't breathe for a few seconds, maybe-

Rather predictably, Chat Noir let out a startled squeak- muffled, of course- and twisted away, scrabbling at her hands the whole time. Ladybug held on for a second and could have kept her hold longer, had Chat Noir's protest not alerted the akuma to their sneak attack. He spun around and sprayed fuchsia paint at them, and Ladybug had to let go of Chat Noir's face so they could both dive out of the way of the blast.

"What- HIC!- was that for?" Chat Noir hissed as they scampered out of the way of the cars flying through the air. "Are you trying to smother me now? I thought we were partners!"

"The internet said that holding your breath can stop hiccups!" Ladybug yelled back as they retreated to the school rooftop. Down below, students scattered as they tried to find somewhere to hide. "And it looked like you were about to hiccup again!"

"A warning would have been nice!"

"I would have, but Mr. Spraypaint over there would have heard!"

A burst of midnight blue blasted past them, spattering flecks across Ladybug's already paint-covered suit. She sighed and brushed at the paint almost automatically, smearing it across the lemon-yellow color that had hit her earlier.

"If you stand in that spray, your hair might look normal again!" Chat Noir teased as he bounded across the rooftop. He grinned at Ladybug. "Or, well- HIC!- closer to normal than it is now."

Ladybug grumbled as she swung across the courtyard and landed on the other side. Her hair, stiff with paint and still mostly bright pink, stuck up at all sorts of odd angles. Chat Noir's hair was no better. Green, purple, and orange paint made his already messy hair even messier. Some chunks stuck straight up, while other pieces clung to his face and mask. Splatters of turquoise broke up the orange paint that covered his face. His formerly black suit was a patchwork of colors.

"I thought this one would be a fast fight for sure," Ladybug moaned as the spraypainter jumped down and started coating the inside of the school in electric blue. She and Chat Noir dashed into the locker room to get a little space and regroup.

"I'm sorry, I know this would be already over if I didn't- HIC!- have the hiccups," Chat Noir apologized. He cringed. "Maybe I should hang back and only come in if you're having trouble. I wouldn't give- HIC!- away our position that way."

Ladybug was only listening with one ear. She had been busy surveying the locker room for anything she might be able to use to take the akuma down. There were a few abandoned lunches sitting around- had they really been fighting that long?- and her eyes had caught on an abandoned bottle of hot sauce.

If scaring Chat Noir and making him hold his breath didn't get rid of the hiccups, then it was probably a long shot to think that drinking hot sauce might. But Ladybug wanted to end the fight already- and if she were being perfectly honest, the hiccups were really starting to get on her nerves.

Ladybug snagged the hot sauce and trotted after Chat Noir. Her partner realized that she wasn't after him after a few seconds and turned with a puzzled look on his face. His eyes fell on the hot sauce bottle as Ladybug tugged the top off. Chat Noir's eyes widened and then narrowed as he backed away. "No. Nuh-uh. Nope. Not toda- HIC!- not today. Do I even want to know what you're doing with that?"

"My dad says it stops hiccups," Ladybug insisted, bringing the bottle up near Chat Noir's face. "C'mon, you can at least try it-"

Chat Noir made a face and pressed his lips together, leaning away from Ladybug and shaking his head.

"Oh, come on."

He shook his head even more.

"Just a sip?"

"Mm-mmm!" Chat Noir insisted, keeping his mouth shut and shaking his head. Ladybug guessed from the head-shaking that he was still objecting. "Mmm-mmmm-mmmm-mmmm-HIC!"

"It might get rid of your hiccups!"

Chat Noir sent her the darkest look she had ever seen on him and shook his head firmly.

Ladybug groaned, finally capping the bottle and setting it back down. "Fine. You win. How about I ambush, you distract?"

"Sounds good," Chat Noir agreed. He grimaced and ran a hand through his paint-covered hair. "I'll be a walking paint blob by the end of- HIC!- this, but it sounds like a plan."

Ten minutes and one Lucky Charm later, the akuma and his can of spray paint had been taken down. Ladybug's Miraculous Cure had washed over the city, removing paint from buildings and people alike.

"I'll get this guy back where he's supposed to be," Chat Noir volunteered as Ladybug's earrings beeped. "It'll only take me a- HIC!- a couple minutes and I didn't use my powers."

"Thank you, Chat Noir," Ladybug said, holding out her fist for him to bump. "And, uh, good job."

Chat Noir cringed, bumped her fist with his, and took off with another loud hiccup, carrying the spraypainting artist back to where he had come from. Ladybug waited until her partner had vanished over the rooftops before she made her own exit.

"That took way too long," Marinette groaned once she detransformed, hidden behind bushes near the school. "I missed all of study hall again."

"Maybe you should have switched up your strategy earlier," Tikki suggested, reaching for the cookie Marinette handed her. "I mean, you did keep trying the same thing over and over for a while."

"Because we would get so close and then Chat Noir would hiccup! It would have worked if he hadn't caught the hiccups today."

"Marinette..."

Marinette's shoulders slumped. "...okay, maybe I got a little too focused on the surprise attack and trying to get rid of Chat Noir's hiccups. I'll be better in the future about not trying the same strategy over and over if it's not working."

Tikki looked satisfied.

Marinette jogged up the stairs to the school as she checked the time on her phone. It was still early enough that she could probably run home for a quick sandwich for lunch and still get back in time for her first class after lunch-

"Marinette! There you are!"

Marinette glanced up in time to see Alya and Nino rushing at her. They skidded to a stop right before they ran into her. "We were worried that you had gone missing too!"

"Too?" Marinette asked, frowning. That didn't sound good. "...are there other people missing?"

Alya nodded. "We can't find Adrien anywhere, and we've been searching ever since study hall got out." She sent a look at Marinette. "Study hall, which a certain someone else also missed. I was kind of hoping that we would find the two of you, y'know, together."

Marinette blushed fiercely at Alya's eyebrow wiggle.

"Maybe we should split up and keep looking," Nino suggested. "We can cover more ground that way. I've texted him, like, seven times, so if he's already gone home he'll know that we're looking for him."

"It should be easier to look now that a lot of people have headed home for lunch," Alya said. She glanced around at the stream of students trotting down the steps. "No one wanted to leave while the spraypainter akuma was on the loose."

"I'll stay here and keep an eye out for Adrien," Nino said. He nodded towards the familiar silver car that had just pulled up. "That's the Gorilla, so clearly Adrien isn't at home yet. I bet he heard the akuma getting closer while he was still in the bathroom and he decided to hide until it was gone. Maybe his father told him to get away from attacks and hide or something. I almost never see him anywhere near them."

"That makes sense," Alya said. Then she frowned. "Uh, how about I watch Adrien's car and you keep looking? I can't check the boys' bathroom, and neither can Marinette."

Nino agreed, and then they were splitting up to search for their still-missing friend. Marinette trotted up the stairs to the library, figuring that that would be a good place to start. There were some study rooms in the back that people sometimes used for group projects or for hiding from akuma. They would be empty during classes, which would make them a good hiding spot.

"Adrien?" Marinette called quietly as she entered the library. It was pretty empty, which was only expected at this time this early in the semester. "Adrien, are you in here?"

"Check all of the tables first," Tikki suggested. "He might have just decided to study or read instead of going home for lunch."

Marinette was fairly certain that Adrien would have had the decency to let his driver know that he wouldn't need the car, but she checked the tables anyway. Adrien wasn't there (and neither was anyone else), so she headed back to the study rooms.

"Adrien? Are you in here? Adrien?" Marinette peered in the first two rooms, one at a time, and found them both empty. She turned to head towards the third one and tripped right as she got to the door. "Adrie- eep!" Marinette stumbled forward. A strange light flickered from the open door she was next to, but she ignored it as she fought to regain her balance, grabbing the doorframe to keep herself upright. It only took her a short second to regain her balance (after all, she had a lot of experience with tripping and recovering), and then she was straightening back up and glancing in the room. Much to her relief, Adrien was in the room and was spinning around in response to her call.

And much to her surprise, he was white as a sheet.

Chat Noir had dropped the painter back off near the Louvre and then hightailed it back towards the school, hiccuping the whole way. He headed for the library, knowing that there would be empty study rooms that he could use to detransform. It took only a second to pry a window open on one of the empty rooms, and then he jumped inside. The door was open, but there wasn't going to be anyone nearby. It wouldn't be a problem.

"Plagg, cl- HIC!- claws in," Chat Noir managed around another hiccup. His transformation came undone in a flash, and then he heard the one noise he had never wanted to hear.

"Adrie- eep!"

Adrien froze and spun around to see Marinette standing at the door, looking a little startled. All of the blood drained from his face in seconds and his breath caught in his throat.

She must have seen him detransform. She knew that he was Chat Noir. There was no other explanation.

Crud. Plagg would be annoyed with him for not making sure no one was nearby before he detransformed. Ladybug would probably be even more upset with him, since if his identity was compromised, she was in danger as well. The room started to spin.

"I- I can explain!" Adrien stammered quickly, even as his brain flailed for anything he could say that might be remotely useful. He wasn't coming up with much. "I, uh-"

Marinette frowned, looking confused even as he floundered. "Explain? Explain what? You don't have to explain anything, you know. People hide from akuma attacks all the time! No one's gonna judge you for that."

Adrien froze as his brain ground to a stop. Hide from akuma attacks? What? He was Chat Noir, of course he wasn't hiding, Marinette would know tha-

Oh. Oh.

She hadn't seen him detransform after all. She must have been looking for him since he had been missing for study hall and the start of lunch, and then she must have tripped somehow right outside the door. She had been reacting to that, not to him detransforming.

"Right, right, of course," Adrien managed after a too-long pause. Marinette's confused look had faded away to concern, and of course he didn't want to worry his friend. Adrien took a couple small steps back so he could lean against the table. He didn't exactly want his shaking legs to give out from under him and make Marinette worry even more. "I just, uh-"

"Oh! If you're worried about making your driver wait, he just pulled up out front. I'm sure he'll understand why you weren't waiting at the door," Marinette said before Adrien could even try to come up with an explanation that was halfway decent. She waved her phone at him. "Here, I'll text Alya and she can tell your driver that you're on your way down- unless you were planning on staying here and studying over lunch?"

"No, no, I'm coming," Adrien said hastily. He didn't move at all. If Marinette turned around and started walking first, then she wouldn't see how his adrenaline-weakened legs were still shaking under him. He'd be lucky if he could make it down the stairs without tripping over his own feet and falling down headfirst. Maybe he should wait a few minutes first before trying to move. "...actually, there was a book I wanted to find while I was in the library. I'll be down in a couple minutes, okay?"

"Okay!" Marinette said cheerfully. She gave him one last curious look and then turned and left. Adrien waited until her footsteps had faded away before he let out the breath he hadn't even known he had been holding and slumped into the chair closest to him. Plagg zipped out and eyed his Chosen warily.

"Are you okay?"

"Ugh."

"At least she didn't find out your identity," Plagg pointed out. "That's good. I really thought she saw you detransforming."

"Yeah, that's good," Adrien managed. His heart was still racing a million miles an hour, but at least the world wasn't spinning anymore. He paused, trying to focus for a minute before he grinned. "And you know what else is good?"

"What?"

"My hiccups are finally gone!"

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrien Agreste #holy hell this is late #but I was sort of busy today soooo......#probably will not be posting writing again for a while since I won't have much internet while I'm in Canada #I will hopefully be able to get some writing done so I should have stuff to post once I get back

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rupertacton · 7 years

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FUCK MY LONDON

Hermit's Cave. Sniff in the bogs. Fucking stinks in here. Camberwell Road. Corrib Bar. Watching football. Landlady said we were welcome back but not to bring any black people with us. Not in those words. Never went back. Walking past venues I played in that are no longer there. Rhythm Factory. Whitechapel Road. Round the corner. Used to be able to buy hash. Private member's club. Pool table. Foreign students. Building gone. Pint in the Castle. One end of Brick Lane. £2 in my pocket. Other end. Got food. Zoot. Beer. Still had some change. In my day this was all fields. Stewart Home. This is my home. I want to leave. Leave home. Chemical Brothers. Prodigy. Brixton Academy. No drugs. 13. Wouldn't go to see either of them now. Fuck them. Tried to get into the 4 Aces. Dalston used to scare the shit out of me. Me and Andrew went to buy an ounce and got robbed. Clapton Square. Got away with the weed but Andrew got his phone and ring nicked. Andrew convinced it was a set up. I'm still not sure. Arrested for criminal damage and possession at Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Station. The free line. Graf everywhere. Me and Mark. He was already on doing more serious stuff. Getting banged up for writing would've been silly. Bumped into him on Cambridge Heath Road. Years later. He was in an X5. Little gaff out in Essex. Kid. Still moving food but not touching it if you get what I mean. Born in Walworth. First wave gentrification. Sitting out in the garden at 6am sharing a joint with one of the Birmingham Six. Reading Ballard. Under the Westway. Subterranea. Black Star and Company Flow. MCD and Scratch Perverts supporting. Mainly crushing fucking boredom though. Africa Centre. Hour of jungle at the end of Funkin' Pussy. Listening to Rudimentary Peni. Carcass. Blak Twang. Rodney P. Heartless Crew. Upfront FM. Fuck it. Listing stuff. I'm sitting in the Barbican. Working. Listening in to an American man having a conversation with an English woman. I sort of hate them. They are probably alright. Vacuous pricks. The lot of us. St James' C of E primary school. Bermondsey. Jamaica Road. Everyone white. Almost. Everyone racist. Almost. What the fuck happened there? Used to play out on the Arnold Estate near the community centre my mum helped found. Found a load of porn out back. Awakenings. You can get a St John Bakery custard donut there now. Arches used to be full of garages. Cut and shut. Dennis was a ticket tout. Got us tickets to the '93 Semi-Final. In the fucking Spurs end. I was in an Arsenal shellsuit. Scarf. Cap. Got let in the Arsenal end. Grew up watching Palace. Everyone at school was Millwall or Liverpool. Why the fuck do I support Arsenal? Questions. Didn't grow up but I got old. Long nightwalks. Getting robbed in broad daylight on my own street. Kids from Kid's Company. Wallet full of cash I couldn't really tell anyone about. My sister wanted to go down there with a kitchen knife. In the end they apologised. Sent a cheque. We all make mistakes. Always carry a glass Lucozade bottle. Middle class grunger to middle class wannabe badman but I never wanted to be anything. Books. So many books. Art was everywhere. Went to Sensation. Load of shit obviously but exciting. Southbank. Mid to late 90's. Never skated. Legendary names. Benjobe. Tom Penny. Hardcore. Hip-hop. Rapping. Kope was working at A1 Stores on Wooly. Bag full of spraypaint. I never painted. Different sort of writing. Exploration. I'm not an urban explorer. Follow the Thames. Richmond to Teddington. Tower Bridge to East India Dock. Trinity Buoy Wharf. Sitting in a lighthouse all day. Hungover. Got chased through Broadway Market. Years before the farmers showed up. London is tiny if your postcode limits your movement. Escape. Fiction is liberating. The truth won't set you free. George Davis is innocent. Frankie Fraser on the 12 bus with his little dog. Chatting to my mum. Richardson's club house and torture chamber on a quaint little square just off Camberwell Road. Pet shop that used to stink of skunk. Dangerous dogs out front. This is what you're moving into. The ghosts will catch up with you. The past is never really the past. I'm past it. Read too many conspiracy theories. Canary Wharf as a beacon of occult energy. Hawksmoor Churches. All mainstream. Pick up the info in Waterstones in the London section. Make up your own myths. Smoking DMT in Blythe Hill Fields. London breathing. Viewpoints. Greenwich Park. Primrose Hill. Parliament Hill. Lunchtime. Out of the stockroom. Packing records all day. Enough to make you hate music. Where's the glamour? Guestlist is standard. Why the fuck would you pay to watch music? I still love it. Astoria. Gone. Plastic People. Gone. We went downstairs and when we went back out everything was covered in snow. Walking back. D Double E and Footsie. Legends. Tubby on decks. I think. All blends into one. But the snow. That happened. Stayed in Hackney. Walked back along a white carpet. These moments we live for. Put up with all the shit. I never really took photos. Stopping traffic at Elephant & Castle roundabout after getting run over. Black cab driver wanting to make sure I was alright. Asked what football team I support. Told him. Said he'd leave me in the road if it was up to him. Banter. Fucked up my Helly Hansen. Driver had no insurance. I told him to drive off but everyone made him stay. Writing is alchemy. You don't have to believe me. Planning is alchemy. London is being remixed. New block of flats named after the pie and mash shop on Westmoreland Road. Some attempt at continuity. Don't worry about me. It's everyone else. The search for authenticity is futile. Tayyabs. Lahore. Needoo. The holy trinity. But don't kid yourself. You can't eat your way to an understanding of lived experience. I'm sitting across the road from Madame Tussauds. This is authentic London even if you think it isn't. Some of my best friends are northerners. GO HOME. Get out while you can. I grew out of the fear of other areas. I moved. I walk from Lesnes Abbey to Grove Park on the Green Chain with my uncle. I walk from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace on the Parkland Walk with my girlfriend. I walk from Limehouse Basin to Island Gardens to Greenwich to Southwark Park with my mate. I walk from my flat to Walthamstow Marshes via the Olympic Park with myself. Memories shadowing every step. An egret and a heron near Stratford Westfield. I'm convinced we're all going to die in a shopping centre. Kingdom Come. Every witness appeal tells a story. Pain. Tragedy. I was watching Therapy? at Brixton Academy when the second riot happened. A venue full of pale faced teenagers insulated from an outpouring of justified anger. I performed with the guy who is supposed to have started the first Brixton riot. When the whole city rioted I walked up the back of Walworth Road watching kids hide stuff in bins. No one even noticed me. This is England. Wembley. Norway. Such a terrible match. The people behind me and my dad making monkey noises whenever Paul Ince touched the ball. Turned me off England for life. I couldn't even enjoy Euro '96. Arch contrarian. Of course I disagree. Got my bank account emptied and lost about £140 of other people's money getting robbed on Churchill Estate. Never trust someone who has just come out of prison for kidnap who says they can get some good food for a good price. Lesson learned. Two kids on the N68 tried to move me up. This was much later. I was wearing a Stone Island. I think they thought I was balling. I'd spent the night doing other people's sniff. I had a shit phone and an Ipod. I explained. We left on good terms. Lesson learned. Even where I used to sign on is gone. RIP Camberwell Job Centre. I fucking hated you but I miss you. Monday night football at the Petchey Academy saved my life. Made me a better person. The Shacklewell before it was cool. When it was cool. Saw Rodigan out back. Felt like a proper shubs. The Haggerston when it was Uncle Sam's. Live jazz. Terrible pints. Sitting in a Polo. UKG. Smoking draw. Just driving around. My room in the attic full of smoke. Entire house stinking. So many lost years. Round to Len's after a night out. Get the chop out. Staggering home. 8am. Mouth so dry. Lying in bed. Zoot in the ashtray. Bottle of water. Normal weekend. The Gramaphone. Commerical Street. Gone. Rushing. Hudson Mohawke and Rustie. Insanely strong pills. Up to the tubes for a weird after party. Everywhere will go soon. Corsica Studios. Summer of ket. Spangled in the smoking area. That rave in Hackney Wick. Bouncer wearing a bally. I was sick into a ballon. I was falling in love. Never wanted a relationship before that. Football. Drugs. Music. Books. Art. Masturbation. Very occasional sex. That was enough for me. I was kidding myself. Obviously. You pick and choose memories. You order the moments. You try to create a coherent picture. There is no coherent picture. Nothing to see here. Move along. First football match. Palace. Millwall. Punch ups in the family enclosure. Scary as fuck. LOVED IT. Grown men screaming cunt. Just got a text saying Whitechapel Bell Foundry is closing. My London is over. Fucked. Done. You can keep it. Do what you want with it. I don't care. If I don't care then why am I crying?

THE CUNTS, FREAKS, CRIMINALS, BOHEMIANS, NAZIS, NUTCASES, IMMIGRANTS, COMMIES, TRAMPS, ARTISTS, VANDALS, MUSICIANS, SHOTTERS, MIDDLE CLASSES, WHITES, BLACKS, WORKING CLASSES, TOFFS, GAYS, CHANCERS, BANKERS, BARROW BOYS, STALLHOLDERS, STAKEHOLDERS, LADS, CASUALS, RUDEBOYS, ANARCHISTS, BELL MAKERS, DRUGGIES, BARISTAS, RAVENS, BEEFEATERS, TOURISTS ETC. ARE ALL GONE. DONE. FUCK MY LONDON.

#london #factual fiction #fictual faction #history #lost #camberwell #walworth #walking #mental health #drugs #music

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adambstingus · 6 years

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5 Things You Learn Professionally Squatting In AWarehouse

When you hear someone talk about “squatters,” you probably think of hobos/borderline hobos stinking up a crumbling old house or abandoned grocery store in the middle of some broken chunk of urban sprawl. Usually their ambitions don’t extend beyond “keep dry” and “have a nice place to do heroin.” But all over the world you’ll find a different kind of squatter community, involving hundreds of people — often artists — who live their lives outside the direct control of the law. Some of these communities have existed right in the middle of major cities for decades.

Why do they do it? How can they get away with it? We went and visited a couple to find out …

#5. You’ve Got To Fight For Your Right To Squat

Let’s say you and a bunch of friends want to take over a patch of land that isn’t yours and set up your own little community. How would you go about keeping the cops from just arresting everyone and sending in the bulldozers? Set up barricades? Armed guards?

Actually, the answer is art. Allow us to explain.

Just don’t ask us to explain the art.

Squatter communities usually involve a bunch of weirdos who spend most of their time making art living rent-free outside the confines of society’s laws. There’s one in Copenhagen, Denmark, that’s been there for almost 45 years, containing about a thousand squatters/artists. There are independent squatter communities in the United States, too — we visited Slab City, California, last year — but they tend to exist well off the beaten path. That’s because, well, what they’re doing is usually illegal as hell. “Squatting” by definition means they didn’t pay for the land they’re sitting on, and in almost every case lots of people are unhappy about it.

The two anarchist-ish squatter compounds we visited were both in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The first, Metelkova, has been around for more than 20 years and hosts a shitload of art from renowned painters, sculptors, etc., from around the world:

This used to be a Yugoslavian army guard tower.

And this used to be a literal nightmare.

The second, Social Center Rog, also contains a shitload of art and — bonus! — a giant skate park.

No one built it. It just sort of appeared.

Why doesn’t the government just come and tear it down? They totally tried.

Metelkova was built over the rotten corpse of an old Yugoslavian military base. As the military pulled out, the area was promised to local artists as a work space by the government. But the government almost immediately decided “fuck that” in lieu of bulldozing the whole thing and selling the land to developers. One of our sources for the article, Natasha, was there when the demolition started. “They brought all these machines, wrecking balls as well … but by coincidence, someone passed by, saw what was happening, and informed all the other members. People gathered and decided to attack to protect the buildings.”

This “attack” took the form of dozens of artists rushing the demolition site and setting up in buildings as they were being torn down. The basic logic was, the government probably won’t kill us all for this land. The squatters erected barricades to keep the government out (which obviously wouldn’t hold them off for long) and started covering everything with art. “Artists just gathered and started gluing ceramic tiles on the wall. The purpose was to protect the building with art … then maybe they won’t demolish it.”

“After all, you never see them bulldoze a spraypainted building, right? Right?!”

OK, so that sounds like about the hippie-dippiest bullshit imaginable. “If we cover the walls with enough art we can melt the government’s hard hearts!” It’s the kind of plan that could have been dreamed up only by people too high to remember that the government has access to things like tear gas and truncheons.

But it worked.

Like the old saying goes: “The Illuminati-baby humping a soccer ball sculpture is mightier than the sword.”

Next, local artists started donating paintings and sculptures, and the squatters began hosting as many concerts and art shows as possible. “In two months, like 200 different events happened.” Natasha’s job during all this was to take clippings from newspaper articles about the squat and different events it held. Several Slovenian intellectuals teamed up with an American architect named Kevin Kaufman and produced the Metelkova Development Plan, a detailed blueprint for the future expansion of the squat.

All of this was meant to establish the squat as a legitimate piece of cultural heritage, rather than just a place where young hippie kids got fucked up. And it worked: The government relented, declared Metelkova a cultural heritage site, and pulled back the wrecking balls and the cops.

Having a spider-tank on their side didn’t hurt.

After more than a decade in operation, Metelkova inspired another squat — Social Center Rog — which began when a bunch of artists started occupying an abandoned communist bike factory. But the Rog had to fight for its existence against a different foe: junkies.

#4. Squatting Means Kicking Out Previous Squatters

“Wait,” you’re probably thinking, “aren’t all of these people junkies?” Shockingly, no. On our second night in the city we attended a “wild” party thrown by the Rog as a fundraiser. The publicly available drugs were beer and wine … that was about it. Nobody got shitfaced, nobody started fights, and, on the whole, it was considerably tamer than Cracked’s annual company Christmas party.

They only had one beer in that fridge, and it belonged to Ganesha.

So folks at the Rog aren’t teetotalers, but it’s not a drug-soaked den of inequity, either, partly because the residents are dirt poor, but mainly because the first big stumbling block in the Rog’s existence was kicking out the dangerous junkies who squatted in the abandoned factory before the artists arrived. One long-time resident told us, “At first it was half artists, half junkies. Some on drugs, some just alcoholics. We kicked out the worst of them until eventually just one old alcoholic was left.”

The squatters managed to force out most of them via a concerted campaign of passive-aggression: making them feel unwelcome and ostracized until they packed up their shit and left for another abandoned building. But that one old alcoholic didn’t respond to social pressure. “Then he got some woman drunk, and we found her outside in the middle of winter — she had turned blue.”

“They can’t attack me if I turn my skin into art!”

The woman nearly died, but the squatters were able to get her medical attention. That near-death gave them the motivation they needed to physically force the last of the former tenants out of the factory. That’s the sort of thing you have to do yourself when …

#3. The Police Stay Out Of It … For Better Or Worse

Metelkova’s international reputation as an art gallery gained squatters a lot of affection within Ljubljana. When the Rog started up, they took advantage of that goodwill. “The police know it would look bad to come in here … so they don’t.”

During that giant party we attended, the cops did show up because of a noise complaint, but they were content to stay outside and give the DJ a 40 euro ticket for being too noisy. The Slovenian cops were actually super polite about the whole “loud squatter party” thing. As they wrote out the ticket, a group of around 40 people formed around the three officers, chanting slogans we assume were not positive about The Man and generally getting rowdy. At no point did the cops call for back-up or draw their weapons. But don’t misconstrue us: This isn’t because Slovenian cops are pacifists. They have riot police who fire tear gas at protesters, just like any country:

The tears just fuel more art.

From our vantage point, it seemed almost like the police were afraid of the squatters. Not that they might get violent, because nobody had any weapons in hand (this being Slovenia, none of them owned guns). The cops clearly did not want to actually enter the Rog and shut down the party because it would’ve been bad PR.

The negative flipside of this is that the police also aren’t willing to enter the squat to arrest people committing actual violent crime. One man we talked to in the Rog was assaulted by a crazed violent teenager and beaten badly with an iron bar. His jaw was broken and his skull was cracked to fuck and back. When he reported this to the police, their response was basically, “He’s your problem.” Hey, you want to live outside the law, you get your wish.

“Live by the squat, die by the squat.”

So, the squatters of the Rog decided to handle the perp themselves. “We dressed up in masks and gloves and showed up in his room in the middle of the night and threw him out. We gathered up all his stuff and tossed it out too.” Oh, hey, it’s starting to look like there might be an ugly side to the squatter artist life …

#2. You’re Only “Off The Grid” Until You Can Steal Your Way Back Onto It

When the first generation of squatters started squatting in Metelkova, they were living in half-demolished buildings with no water and power in the midst of a European winter. “The circumstances were rather hard. Many … just left because they could not bear the conditions. There was no electricity. Winter was coming. It was rather hard, and these people were … adults in the midst of careers. And then other squatters came … punks and people who wanted to party.”

The young punks were spry enough to last a bitter winter. They managed to acquire an old generator to power their concerts and started stealing water from the city. The Rog did the same thing, hijacking a fire hydrant for their own use.

Which isn’t to say things are super fancy there, even so.

Once they had the water, the government couldn’t take it away from them because then someone might die and it’d technically be their fault. As someone in the Rog told us, “The city installed a meter, and now they foot the bill for our water. At least … I hope they are paying the bill. I haven’t gotten a bill!”

OK, so this entry might make these people sound like the lazy suckers-of-government-teat your Trump-voting uncle assumes every liberal arts major aspires to be. But this is the hard reality of living off the grid. You can reject the evils of governments, corporations, and modern society, but you are still an organism that needs water to not die, as well as heat to stave off the winter and electricity to power your guitar. So there is always a point at which someone in the squat comes up with a brilliant idea to make some cash — you know, just enough to keep everyone alive. That’s when you find out …

#1. Going Legit Can Kill The Squat

Metelkova has existed — and grown — for 20 straight years. They’re an official NGO now. Today they’re hooked up to the city water and power grid legally … but that means they have bills. They pay them with profit from concerts and several bars (some of which are operating illegally), which have grown into a sizable revenue stream for Metelkova. “They finance everything; maintaining the building, paying the artists … not much, but something.” Metelkova has actually become successful enough that many folks make significant amounts of money running galleries and holding concerts there. It’s gained international recognition at the cost of, ironically, becoming too expensive for the kind of poor punk artists who founded it. Today it’s a popular place for rich student hipsters to party and feel cool.

The much-grungier Rog still stays true to its roots: Anyone can show up and make art or play music. But since Metelkova has bills, they can’t afford to let just anyone play or set up art: “If a band won’t bring in a lot of people, they won’t sell enough tickets and the bars won’t sell enough beer … so maybe they don’t get to play.” And that seems to be the life-cycle of these squats: They start with a bunch of furious, motivated young artists who want to create a place for themselves and their work. Then they get popular, start making money, and turn into boring ol’ art galleries just as snooty as their more traditional predecessors. That was clearly a major worry of several of the Rog’s “founding” residents. When we first visited, they were willing to give us a brief tour of their facilities …

Including the fake Dracula castle they were building for an independent horror movie.

But they didn’t want to sit down for an interview, and they pointed out several times that “no one is allowed to make money from the art they make here.” They warmed up to us eventually and even offered to sit down with us over coffee and explain their viewpoint.

Their coffee table was an old TV.

They all respected what Metelkova, the older squat, had done for squatter’s rights in the city. But they didn’t like what it had become (“It is in every tourist guide to Europe.”) and they all worried that the Rog would get too popular and become another hip concert venue for rich kids from London and Berlin to use as a backdrop for selfies. One resident pointed out that international companies have already started eyeing the Rog as a location to shoot ads. “Garnier Fructis wanted to pay us to film a commercial here.”

As you can tell from their non-table TV, they aren’t big fans of commercials.

Despite the fact that Garnier put thousands of dollars on the table, and despite the fact that most Rog residents are literal starving artists, they said no. Partly because Garnier tests on animals, they said, and partly because they’re straight-up terrified of getting too popular.

But that’s just how it goes. Over the years idealism melts away, money starts flowing in, and pretty soon what was once an enclave of the counter-culture becomes a commoditized chunk of the regular culture. In the beginning, Metelkova was host to dozens of squatters: Now just one person lives there full-time. The Rog is currently host to anywhere from eight to a few dozen residents, depending on the time of year. But every year they get a little more established, a little more money trickles in, and, eventually, the Rog will likely find its way into tourist guidebooks and become just another place where rich kids pay to party.

“115 of your friends have checked in here!”

And when that happens, a new generation of young artists who can’t afford to pay $50 to see a concert or drink $4 beers at a gallery show will find another abandoned building, fill it with art, thumb their noses at the cops, and the whole cycle will continue on.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-things-you-learn-professionally-squatting-in-awarehouse/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/177107993387

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