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ohmygodtheywereparabatai · 3 years

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And I feel Zhao x HappinessInAnyForm in this Chili’s tonight

I borrowed the ship name @guiltyportfolio chose. It’s perfect!

(3.9k and many weeks late...) A young Zhao doped up on seratonin meets unapologetic Pianjeong fluff. But I rake it through the mud before it’s earned. A lot.

It took longer than he would like to admit in later years, nursing a strong, bitter liquid instead of scalding tea while revisiting memories with none the will to pocket them out of sight and mind... to realize he had sharpened a broken tool to the snapping point. That in his militant head, damaged things were only fixed by pressuring them to spring back into service, for some miracle of self-discovery to take hold after the umpteenth squat that burned through the soft muscle in the legs, the last haggard, gasping mile on unforgiving terrain. That such was the nation he served, one that made good youth into disposable markers, on maps with charred-out territories that had already been taken... the dead buried, the soldiers burying a part of themselves deeper in the low croon of drinking songs that stretched into twilight.

Then there was him: that impish boy of gawky height and thin wrists, scraps of techniques off the battle charts of famed commanders, designs for tanks and warships familiarized down to the bolts, oaths of loyalty to the Firelord and vibrant praises burned verbatim on the tongue... shelved away in a mental compendium. Eager adrenaline when he was first placed under Jeong Jeong’s charge. And underneath it, anger.

Anger at everything, the battle charts with weak points that had needlessly prolonged the fighting, the ships and tanks that were on the losing side and cost them precious resources, the Firelord himself for wronging him, anything at all for crossing him... Enraged at an invisible injustice whenever Jeong Jeong glimpsed the heart of Zhao: the fire below the soldier. The fire that ruled a soldier.

The only catch was that a heart existed. His master had failed him in that regard. Jeong Jeong couldn’t identify the source, for the life of him, of whatever bred the anger that tunneled into those bronzed eyes, into the thoughts lit behind them like sparks off a fuse. When the only notion he’d had to bend his mind around was glancing at the wrists Zhao kept hidden under tied sleeves and sturdy braces, ever since the earliest of his battles - a gruesome enemy on equal footing.

He showed him now, by candlelight in the commander’s tent, as the rest of the camp dozed or caroled in a discordant slur.

“I... he was...” Zhao’s tone had deflated from the similar, loose pitch of a tooling young man. He sounded sober now - much too sober.

A curse escaped on Jeong Jeong’s next breath. If breath escaped him at all. His pupil was by no means shy about crowing - he was the type to parade around the stump of a limb, butt into any conversation, ‘Want to hear - want to see?’, sit himself down, and embellish to the extreme. Yet the most glaring scars were ones most soldiers acknowledged, and none shared.

This was neither.

Faded circlets, seared into either wrist, often in place of a traditional ceremony, more often a last act of desperation. A bond of significance that ran deeper than flesh, worn proudly in spite of the decree it defied.

“... a close friend.” Jeong Jeong finished, amending carefully so as not to oust the criminal crouched in front of him.

Zhao sniggered, reclaiming his sleeves. He tipped the cup to his lips. “Yeah. A friend I kissed regularly.”

The commander made a tch sound, his worry spiking. The boy looked up to catch his gaze, then laughed brightly, imitating a suggestive charade to the act. Jeong Jeong was left to bear witness with thinned lips.

“Last words- he said... and get this,” Zhao shook himself with another fit, further from the hole the memory had burrowed - closer to the fiction he’d tried to entangle around it, like dressing a wolf in koala sheepskin, “He made me promise, ‘Win the war for me.’ It was a joke between us... If one of us knew we were first to go, we’d dare the other to do anything. Anything.”

“Except, it was gonna be some stupid shit. Like, kissing a girl.” Move on, make her a wife. “Like setting your hair on fire. I told him I’d set your hair on fire. Bastard left with... ‘Win the war for me.’” Zhao set down the drink, blinking hard.

Answers that drifted at arm’s length, all this time: the bundled, hot knot of grief the soldier hadn’t learned to swallow around. And how could he? He was bound to a lover’s final will.

The commander abruptly reached across, wrested him forward by a bruising grip. The empty cup clinked aside - Zhao nearly shouted in alarm, the mild upset in his stomach lurching in march with a lolling pulse. His arms looped firmly around him, merciless strength still grasping his head by the palm. His master probably wasn’t aware of it, or worse, it was as weak as he’d ever come off. Zhao sensed quaking; his own or his teacher’s, his eyes were heavy, and the line had blurred.

“Master Jeong Jeong...” He huffed in difficulty. Ribs tightening, “Sir...”

As soon as he was released, Zhao scooted back within his bounds, rubbing the dizzied, interrupted train of thought from his face. He was awake, wasn’t he? Last he remembered, his commander was shrouded in smoke and stood over decimated ruins, unmoving, planted like an idol to their vicious occupation. Were they the same men?

When he looked down, a pair of hands were facing him, knuckles down, fists curled. At least the look his superior gave him retained the sternness of command,

See.

Feeling strange and guiltless, moreover entrusted, he reached under the other’s arm - the rough cloth felt like something thatched, ash singed permanently into the cuffs. Zhao pushed back one sleeve, a wave of numbness crashing over him in its wake. He repeated with the left, finding the same, uneven band of skin that had poorly healed... though the marks left weren’t quite the same as a firebender’s, pinching a forefinger and thumb before a circle of light hissed to life. It looked manual in a different way, as if burned by a nonbender - a clever one, handier with the tools of a forge.

His throat had gone dry. It was harmless; Zhao didn’t need a voice to ask.

You...?

Jeong Jeong raised a name, and an offer. Finally bowing to his pupil’s unyielding persistence. It overwhelmed Zhao in the moment, a blind over the realization that it was at once an answer to the question. He leapt for the commander with a cry, a string of thank you’s and I won’t fail him - or you’s buried in the loose embrace, followed by a grunt of displeasure as the old master shrugged free. Discipline tended to scrape out such displays in the Fire Army - his pupil had talent for a lack, more so when drunk. An unseen smile only tugged his lip after Zhao had picked himself up, dusted off, and staggered outside with the first hum he’d heard of the boy in ages.

. . .

“Don’t fidget.”

Before he could dismiss the tic in his fingers, his master, or both - the door slid open.

His eyes bugged of their own accord. And they didn’t dare blink and miss an instant in front of him.

How the hell could he? The swordsman of the century welcomed the commander with open arms and decorum the rest of nobility could only emulate. As genteel in appearance as a time-honored, decorated sheath that hid the steel he was known to steer like a fifth element. Before even gathering the thoughts that were doomed to somersault as soon as he opened his mouth, Zhao glimpsed them lean in, and deepen their embrace. Quickly turning a cheek that flashed red and a heart that raced, doubled.

Then he was in front of Zhao - his bow was low and graceful for his height - he held out a hand, burned circlets visible just over the sleeve - his commander cleared his throat as if to remind him, you’re meant to bow and shake it.

Zhao damn nearly folded at the waist. His arm shot out. “Master... Master Piandao. I’ve heard all about you. This is, it’s- a tremendous honor.” His eyes were starstruck, carrying a faraway twinkle. “You wouldn’t believe- I asked to learn under you almost every day since I discovered you were a close contact of Master Jeong Jeong’s.”

“Oh, if we’ve heard as much as we have of each other, I think I can believe it.” Inevitably, his voice conjured the image of warm, fluffy milk bread. How cake made the young soldier feel, in human form. Im-fucking-possible. “Sit.” He nodded for the commander and his charge, smiling. “I’ll pour the tea.”

The hour was whiled away. There wasn’t a moment that denied years of familiarity between the two, from how often he tallied his master’s laugh, to every occasion their hands came together, rubbing absent circles or just to draw one’s attention - cement a warm and long look into the other’s face. Envy hardly occurred to a third-wheeling Zhao, which was an honest first. Soon after, he was kneeling in the shadows of the branches that rustled outside the terrace. Nape pricked with sweat, despite the calm he leveled on the master - likely Jeong Jeong’s senior by a few years. Trifling details and their such conclusions immersed Zhao’s senses, tensing a high-strung concentration as it was.

“You came all this way. I couldn’t possibly turn you down.” The warmth had, temporarily, been withheld, to a surreal effect. Zhao felt cornered, felt that each answer was colored in more defiance than what was allowed. “Did you think my manners in serving tea to my guests applied to training?”

His stomach vaulted. “No, sir.”

“Then why? You think you deserve to be here, is that it?”

In any case, answer as yourself seemed to be the worst possible advice from Master Jeong Jeong’s end - yet he’d said nothing else. Zhao had no clue whether his prying ears and eyes bored through a blind spot in the windows, or were pressed against the wall as he smothered another chuckle. None of the outcomes struck him as upside.

“I have a war to win.” He resisted sinking a tooth into his lip, any sign of recoil. “And if you’d like to keep the life that I couldn’t, you have a war to win, too. I know you’re happy with the commander, sir. But as long as there’s fighting...”

“Ah, I see.” More strangely, Master Piandao didn’t miss a beat. His slow pace traveled underneath the floor, inching closer. “So you dream of vengeance?”

That seemed to tick him. “They won’t be dreams when I leave this place.”

“You came here knowing you were a bender of remarkable strength and skill. But you wanted the skill to slip a blade between their ribs, to watch them die at a close distance. You wanted your revenge to be cold and personal.”

A tremble stole into him. And I shouldn’t?

“I...” He was transparent. There was no lie to spin.

“Don’t think I’m unimpressed.” Piandao mused, now directly over him. “These are all brave things to admit to fighting for. But what else? What wakes you up at night? What makes you vulnerable, soldier? What haunts your every step?”

Vulnerable? Haunted? “I... don’t...” Answer as himself? The old swordsman turned, seemingly resigned, when Zhao rushed to finish as the words took definite shape,

“I don’t want to die a nobody.” He ripped the weight off his chest, bared for all of half a minute. “I want to be more than - than what they made me. I want them to remember, that when they shipped me off to never come home, I returned... I made history. Not for them. For me.”

For him.

A pause. “Them?”

His frayed nerves broke the surface - more fear than rage, at least. “The... all of them. The nation. The Fire Nation!” Zhao cried, pressed his forehead to the floor, as low as possible. Pride gave, and still, he only half-believed he’d really said it. “... please.”

Anger reeled, flared in the small breath that lit the space between his lips and the ground.

A foot connected under his ribs, turned him over with only so much effort. Zhao started, facing the ceiling... and the tip of a sword beneath his chin.

“Your temper unbalances you. Good for fire, maybe, but not mastery of the blade. I’ve been told you lack a clear head, pupil Zhao.” Piandao arched a brow, his head tilted in doubt. “You’re bound to lose fingers.”

Jeong Jeong had to have been rolling over by now. The soldier twitched, wary of the cold pinch of metal. “I won’t - lose.”

He couldn’t again. Serving an invisible legacy was one thing, lives laid down by the thousands to reap a tomorrow they wouldn’t see; but the war he fought hadn’t been so lonely or beyond fathom. Zhao had seen a clear future when there was someone to share it with. The drone of marching in and out of sleepy towns and provinces flocked with fleeing commoners by day, turned to the darkness when they climbed into treetops and plotted which stars to follow to the edge of the earth. The sunrise wasn’t the same as when their arms tangled and lips pressed together, keeping out of sight as the flush left their cheeks while idling, talking. Their sun had never felt as pale and small as his did now.

Zhao was sick of loss. He’d made a promise.

The sword slid away. An arm reached out for his. Piandao’s mouth was upturned.

“I will train you.”

There was a thud outside the door, as if an elbow had slipped and a body crashed.

. . .

He was well aware his partner had tried, on many occasions, to regret all things but the pupil they taught together.

Even then, Piandao had been the foil to Jeong Jeong’s cynical heart, urging him to find the sunlight dappled between grey clouds - run a hand under the few rays of light, and avoid dwelling on memories that would embitter the rest. Admitting that he’d partly acquiesced to the boy that walked circles in his own grief to spite the commander’s expectations had earned quite the laugh. A source of rib ache only for as long as it took the edge off. Piandao had wanted the challenge that he couldn’t surmount.

He took quickly to a variety of weapons, but the gifted swordsman was soon faced with the same plight: discipline. An unorthodox series of lessons and several precise, deliberate blows to the ego later, Zhao’s head had cooled long enough to comprehend the soul of the art. After that threshold in his instruction, it was a test of how well the student embraced it.

“Shall we, commander?”

The afternoon was hot, but not unpleasant. They watched a solitary spar from the steps to the dueling grounds. Smart, surefooted, well accomplished - the root of his motivation had been inexhaustible, dangerously so. The rhythm of Jeong Jeong’s palm cracking a line of knuckles was more than telling of his answer.

Jumped from behind, and in front. Mid-form when a sword came down in a whistling arc, and another sailed straight for his neck.

Zhao nearly careened out of the way, dual swords meeting either steel with a resounding clash. He threw his head up in surprise, arms straining with the effort of bearing two men’s strength, a bemused twitch in his lip. “What are you doing?”

“Pass,” Jeong Jeong sounded enlivened - difficult to think he hadn’t been waiting for this, “and I’ll allow you to set my hair on fire.”

That cocked the edge of his mouth. Abruptly, the opposing swords left, striking the ground in the same spot. His teachers shared astonishing harmony, to the point where seeing it again and again hadn’t taken his awe. The metal points raked forwards in unison, a cloud of dust flung into Zhao’s sight. “Hey!”

“Fire does little to weather the elements.” He was forced to hear footsteps, place voices, a Piandao shifting to the right. “Air may carry it, but only until it’s overcome. Water extinguishes it immediately. Earth can stamp out its path.”

“This is dirty fighting!” Zhao bit down a cough in fear of missing crucial information, narrowly vacating the empty air where they sliced. Just parrying in the nick of time.

“So why then, does it triumph in today’s world?” He blinked out the last, burning traces. Their student veered on a heel and made quick distance, still tailed closely. His reply was a stammer, resetting his own armed grip and stance.

“The... the bender makes the element.”

“So he does. Fire is wielded as fear, and suddenly, it owns the others. It shapes history.” Piandao feinted, jolted upwards to overthrow him. The soldier jumped, catching the steel on his crossguard. Zhao’s fist shook. Jeong Jeong lingered menacingly behind.

“Think of this as the same. You may feel outmatched - but you’re not outsmarted. Not yet.”

And the resulting chaos was ordered into dance. Deception, directness, three minds of cunning that happened to cross blades. The fight wasn’t the focus as much as it was the boy’s dexterity, his footwork which leaped to and from the garden wall and moss-capped stones, the occasional puff of flame that his commander averted with a tch. Smoke and dust were tossed into lazy spirals. Their techniques were a language, and the match, poetry.

Zhao very nearly slipped into the mindset that compelled one to search for meaning outside of war.

Outsmart them? His arm swerved to meet with a clang. Piandao dove for his exposed side, one, two leather straps snapped like kite string. Zhao fumbled over his guard when Jeong Jeong hacked the others, turning too late as it slid free - the commander’s cut was less clean, grazing the skin under his shirt. Blood welled, and his mind raced. But they were extraordinary! People he looked up to since he’d first met them. Before he even met them!

Then there was him, stupid, emotional - without a chest guard - hair and brows flecked with sand.

“Focus, you oaf!” That wasn’t Piandao. “Are you trying to think? That has never been your strength!”

Credit to the nerve of him, Zhao started to laugh. He redoubled his attack, broadswords running into one silver blur. Jeong Jeong was barking something about humor belonging to children, Piandao tried to usher his lover’s infuriated spiel back into the moment, and Zhao’s grin only grew wider, whiter - seeing his first out. Discipline was more or less hung on the laundry line, offense oozing with the arrogance that caught even the upper hand of insurmountable odds by surprise. His entire waist twisted, a sword shot skywards before he kicked out at their feet, rolled under, and caught it unerringly by the handle. Zhao ripped the serrated tip upwards, backed with a sneer. Piandao was forced to halt - step back - glance down at the split front of his robes, navel to collar.

Jeong Jeong paused, grabbed at the other’s arm, staring, uncomprehending, at the sight. Before color could even occur to rise in his face,

“I’m sorry. Nothing’s hurt, right? This reminds me-” Zhao swallowed another bout of laughter. His head tilted, making direct eye contact, “The commander has, on certain nights, provided enlightening commentary in his sleep. My partner and I would overhear how earthbenders couldn’t hold a candle to the sword master’s expert physical condition. Namely,” he damned himself for a win, “how they could only dream of rock as firm as his abdomen. Well, my master certainly could.”

Jeong Jeong purpled - crimson’d, maybe, was the shade - lifting with an arm that had already turned to butter. Zhao lashed out, knocking the other blade loose with learned technique. A square kick sucked the air from the firebender’s lungs, broke his balance, sent him crashing on top of the nonbender. Piandao hit the ground with an oof. Taking in the cool shadow that shielded him and his darling, he craned his neck as the soldier beamed down at him. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll let your hair be.”

Piandao was stalled, a little agape. Then he gave into beating the ground with a fist, howling.

“Ongi!” He clutched at his stomach with a shout. The commander shot to his feet, rose a finger to begin a rapid rebuttal. “I had no idea!”

The boy’s shoulder was taken, steered around to face his instructor. Mostly to prevent Jeong Jeong dislocating the one closer to his reach. Piandao ruffled a dusting of grass, twigs, and sand out of his hair. “You certainly live up to your master’s word. Every one.”

He bowed. His - their - student hurried to mirror the motion, trembling with excitement. As sharp as the first day he’d knelt, and they began.

Back then, the name Zhao held promise. It was their asinine hope that they guided a potential successor to the White Lotus onto the road few traveled.

Few.

. . .

They toasted in private. Zhao was set to the task of keeping the forge, accompanied only by firelight, scorching coal, the sweat and grit of the final leg of his teachings. It was justice, at least.

The commander had been teased until he shut up his other by seizing him around the neck, jerking him down, and sealing the gap. Separated for air, scented breath stirred the chin opposite, eyes meeting across a sea of thoughts. Hopes, doubts, fears - they’d bared much of their souls during their years together, entangled wisdom, sought comfort where it was infinite.

“You didn’t tell him of your plans, did you?”

Jeong Jeong sighed. “I received the promotion. The madness ends before it consumes me as admiral.”

“Be patient. These things require the perfect opportunity. Rarely anyone who deserts so far into their career live.” Piandao sipped carefully, set the glass back down. “Of course, I have complete faith that you will be the first. A hope for any dying cries of fealty in the Fire Army.”

“If only that were the kind of death I’d witnessed.” His voice was low, morose. A heavy palm pressed on his shoulder, thumb rubbing circles.

“Seems to me that you neglect to share a lot with other people. I’ll take a wild stab and guess that the kid still thinks I’m a hero hailed far and wide.” Jeong Jeong made some sullen remark about a wild stab being far from his skill. Piandao chuckled. “At the rate I’m losing face, a battalion is bound to come to my doorstep to collect me.”

“You’ll defeat them all,” was his forecast. “And perhaps, stand a chance of passing into a legend like mine.”

Their hands brushed, scratching the twin scars adorning either wrist. “Oh, we’ll see.”

The doors burst. A servant gestured frantically, piecing together enough information for a gist. Stables, raided - forge, cold - gates, open.

They flew on foot, as if there were a point to the mad dash. Jeong Jeong arrived first, sifting through the soot, kicking aside the abandoned bellows and a shovel dug into the earth. Gone.

“Where-” Piandao’s gaze held his, moonlit in white, unreadable. “Will he be safe?”

Glazed, ghostly. Jeong Jeong’s eyes fell closed. “There has been an error in our judgement.”

“He needs to win the war... not end it.”

#pianjeong adopts a son: a short story #zhao fanboying over every white lotus member without even realizing is the fattest of moods #i blame neffy’s talent for instilling the need to write zhao x seratonin #i SWEAR i ship him with only four people and two of them are ocs #your local clown writes!#YES THIS IS based on those two seconds in the waterbending master when zhao does a fancy twirl with zuko’s broadswords

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bazz-b · 4 years

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THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

MUN NAME: Thomas/Tom AGE: +25 CONTACT: IM, Ask, Discord

CHARACTER(S): Bazz-B, King Baraggan Louisenbairn, Kurosaki Ichigo, Ichibei Hyosube

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Bleach

BLEACH FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR: I have an ATLA and LOK AU for Bazz-B, but no Bleach AUs for external muses

MY LANGUAGE(S): Passable Japanese, Survivable Italian, Fluent English

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY / Science fiction / Horror / WESTERN / ROMANCE / Thriller / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / Erotic / Crime / MYTHOLOGY / Classic / HISTORY / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / Ancient / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD / APOCALYPTIC / GODS / Sport / MUSIC / Science / FIGHTS / ANGST / Smut / DRAMA / etc. (what Bazz-B wants is reflected in italics)

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: one-liner / 1 para / 2 PARA / 3+ / NOVELLA.

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS.

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?: YES / NO only by Mutuals?: YES / NO.

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / casual nothing too deep / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK.

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?: YES / NO.

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. (usually but I need to catch up at the moment)

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ / months / years. /DEPENDS ON MOOD AND INSPIRATION, AND IF I’M BUSY I

I’M OKAY WITH INTERACTING: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates / MY FANDOM / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS.

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING: You can IM me or send an ask, but the tumblr messaging systems SUCK so I encourage y’all to add me on discord and then just go ham. I’ll only turn down a plot if it’s OOC for Bazz-B, but otherwise I’ll usually try anything. If it’s not working out I’ll typically let you know, but I’m game for most things.

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER: Honestly, not a lot. You can be as invested or as chaotic as works for you. You get the urge to suddenly write a specific theme? Hit me with it. The urge goes and you lose interest, that’s fine. Four weeks later and the muse hits you again LETS DO THIS.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?: I don’t typically struggle with this issue. If anything, I’m the lackluster end of the plotting side. I typically run things through Bazz-B as their happening, rarely looking forward. Unless there’s an overarching story we’re specifically working towards I’m pretty weak sauce. Sorry people!

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?: I’ll typically propose an idea and then see where our muses take us. If my partner needs a rough road map, I’m happy to negotiate what we’d each like to see happen. Generally speaking I let Bazz-B take the wheel.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: If you want to drop a thread, I’m completely fine with it. The only reason I’d want to know is so I don’t start panicking and think that I forgot to reply you your latest response to it.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: If I lose the thread, or if I think it’s reach a natural conclusion. I don’t typically abandon one in the middle on purpose.

- WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO.

- AND WHY?: I don’t require a constant, nor deep level of communication, but it’s important to voice concerns. People tend to internalize problems until they become these big ordeals. A friendly message every now and again can save everyone a lot of drama later.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: I BEG for negative feedback. Even if you feel like your nitpicking, it’s the number one thing I crave from writing partners. Tell me what you dislike and I can work on it.

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: To tell a story. Bazz-B is my primary muse, and his entire tale is so interesting to me. The foundations of his identity are flawed and I want to explore that as much a I can, throw him into as many situations as possible and watch him evolve.

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS: My left arm for an entire roster of Sternritter, of course. Bazz-B and Liltotto surviving after the war. A reality where Bazz-B finds happiness and acceptance in himself. A healthy bond with a Shinigami.

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE: I’ll not write rape, it’s understandably triggering for a lot of people and writing it glorifies it, I think. Also racism in a real world setting? I’ve come to terms with it in regards to Shinigami and Arrancar, but they’re fictional groups. I wont engage with it outside of that. Finally, trans-phobia. If a guy like Bazz-B doesn’t engage with that sort of vile nonsense, none of you should either.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: Starters that provide a setting and a purpose are great. The sort of starter that turns it back at the recipient with something akin to “Why are you here” are confining. Also, if in the starter your muse is already pushing away mine.. Bazz-B might just nope outta there.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?: Despite my main muse being Bazz-B (or perhaps in favour of it) I typically write as old men cemented deeply in their ways. Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni, King Baraggan Louisenbairn and Ichibei Hyosube are just some examples. Bazz-B kinda fits the bill too.. I GUESS.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?: Cold, distant, dispassionate sorts. I could never write as the likes of Ishida, Ulquiorra, Haschwalth, etc. They’re all very nuanced characters, they just don’t mesh well with me.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I typically respond lightning fast, my last two weeks or so a poor example of that. I’m passionate, you’ll not find another person so desperately in love with Bazz-B as this fool. I’m easy-going, you can take as long as you want and I’ll still be ready to rumble.

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: Tumblr confuses the hell out of me, I don’t understand a lot of lingo and the big CARDINAL LAWS of writing. I struggle with scene transitioning and limb placement, and my tags are a mess.

DO YOU RP SMUT?: YES / NO/ DEPENDS.

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN?: YES / NO.

- WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?: What I want and what Bazz-B want are wildly different things. This man is planting a flag in the middle of bonezone whether I agree or not. I commonly write smut because it’s what Bazz-B wants, but I prefer to do it for development.

- ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?: I am personally the most vanilla dude you’ll meet. I can google things but it might not translate very well.

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?: YES / NO A characters growth should never be locked to a specific person, but exploring a character in isolation can only get you so far. As people, we grow from one another. Romance is a key factor in formulating a person’s ideals, but that’s no the only form of ship. The eventual friendship between Bazz-B and Liltotto and Giselle is one of the most interesting things to me. A romance surviving Silbern is incredibly powerful in my opinion. The bond of a teacher and a student. There are so many situations that force a character to change how they would typically react.

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO. More and more I’ve been thinking that I’ve been writing Bazz-B in more ships, but that is not the blog’s focus. Ultimately I’m exploring the character of Bazz-B, and that just happens to be inclusive of ships. Some of my most active writing partners also happen to be muses that Bazz-B has excitedly/begrudgingly/unexpectedly fallen for.

DO YOU USE READ MORE?: YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF.

ARE YOU: MULTI-SHIP / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship — MULTIVERSE / Singleverse.

- WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: Individuals who challenge Bazz-B, who force him to rise above what he is, what he thinks he should be. Who tear down complacency and demand better of him in all ways. Whether overtly, intentionally, whatever!

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO. - If you come to me and sell me a story, I’m in. I’m easily swayed by visual art, written lyrics (my ears don’t work so good with music for some reason) and themes.

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: Bazz-B is a fun guy to taunt, and to cause havoc with. But he’s more than just a hothead, you can read any one of my many rants if you wanna find out about that. With a plot to kill God spanning 1000 years, a burning fury and misguided ideals dragged through the mud of “the lesser of two evils”, he’s a real party trick.

- WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?: Muses who, from the start, wish to disengage with Bazz-B. I understand it might be in character, but both Bazz-B and I are gonna struggle to engage if there’s not some allowances made.

- WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, IS THEIR GOAL?: His ultimate goal is the death of Yhwach. In a perfect world that would coexist with a Quincy victory over the Shinigami, vengeance for genocide. But he’ll take the former over the latter.

- WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?: Style, first and foremost. If a Quincy had modified their Wandenreich uniform he’s gonna take notice and make some judgement calls. The rest comes after.

- WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?: Honesty to themselves, and a drive to survive. Not to be buried by what’s expected of them, or what they should do. Free will is one of the fundamental truths of the world.

- WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?: Motorbikes, Pop-culture, Fashion, Movies, Himself.

- WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?: History, loyalty beyond all else, the importance of leadership and hierarchy, lectures of all kinds.

- DID THEY EVER WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?: His family was burned alive by the man who claimed to be their God. Entering a war on the losing side, his kind facing extinction. Hiding in the shadows, surrounded by a extremist military cult.

- WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?: After a certain point in his life, it’s really only Hollows that should fear indiscriminate murder. Unless you threaten his fragile peace, or claim Yhwach was just.

- IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?: Bazz-B hates Hollows, and any Quincy loyalists that stand by Yhwach post-Aushwalen. Anyone who saw the true colors of their progenitor and still deluded themselves into thinking him right.. it’s disgusting.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?: Stoke his ego and you’re usually set for a good few hours.

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: Nothing you cant already find on one of my many ramblings about that greatest Quincy that every lived, Bazzard ‘Bazz-B’ Black!

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by: @equipollency (I got a phantom notification so I rolled with it)

Tagging: @diepower + @zombiequincy + @verzinken + @cheonsaaui + @bleachsthetic + @senboago + any other quincy reading this

#meme: answered #I dunno who has done this so take a mass quincy tag

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tacanderson · 3 years

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Super-Borg Chapter 1

My book, Super-Borg Dies, is out now. You can purchase it here or read the first chapter below. You can also sign up for my newsletter here.

Chapter One

“Stupid wannabe superhero,” a bulky man holding a metal pipe said, swinging it at Super-Borg, “why don’t you go home and read your comic-books?” Super-Borg had already disarmed the man of his gun but was surprised by the man’s resourcefulness when he pulled out a metal pipe.

Super-Borg ducked the wild swing and brought his clenched, reinforced glove up into the man’s jaw, shutting him up. He hated banter. He stood over the unconscious man, catching his breath and wiping rain away from his goggles. His black exoskeleton-enhanced, military-grade personal armor creaked when he bent over and zip-tied the man’s hands behind his back.

As he stood up, two bullets struck Super-Borg in the back. The carbon-fiber reinforced plates in his suit absorbed most of the blow, but it still hurt. He dove behind a garbage can as another shot fired; it didn’t provide much protection. He spotted the shooter standing fifty yards away, which placed Super-Borg directly between the shooter and the Space Needle. Super-Borg bolted from his cover, staying low to the ground.

Even in a crouch, his powered suit allowed him to cover half of the distance quickly. He straightened up and then, as more shots whizzed by, he jumped, letting his suit propel him eight feet into the air. At the peak of his jump he threw a disc, about the size of a hockey puck, at the gunman. The disc struck just above his eye, and he crumpled with a grunt.

Super-Borg landed and slid on the mud, crashing into a bush. He stood up, extricated himself from the bush and picked trash off his mud-caked suit. It wasn’t the most graceful landing, but it worked. Super-Borg sprinted over and zip-tied the man’s hands behind his back. “Let’s hope the cops find you before your friends do,” Super-Borg said to the unconscious man. “And hopefully the cops aren’t your friends.”

A bullet struck the tree next to him, and he ducked instinctively, jumping behind the tree. All this gunfire was bringing more unwanted attention. Yelling echoed through the vacant grounds around the Space Needle. What few lights that worked did little more than create small lighted cones of rain and mist. His disc was at the base of the tree but he didn’t bother to pick it up. He had lost so many that people were collecting them and reselling them online. Periodically he changed the design of the “SB” stamp he put on them, just to make the older discs collectible. People were funny. Even with all the chaos and economic instability, people still collected things.

The Space Needle, with its boarded-up gift shop and graffiti-covered cement supports, loomed ahead. The Neuro-syndicate was a gang specializing in the theft, production, and sale of neuro-enhancing drugs. Neuro enhancers were used by everyone: from corporate employees trying to stay sharp while they put in twelve-plus hour days, to professional gamers looking to get an edge in their next online tournament, or even school kids looking to pass their prep-school admissions tests. While it would be hypocritical for Super-Borg to object to people using neuro enhancers, the Neuro-syndicate killed people, and the stuff they cut their neuro enhancers with caused long-term brain damage and sometimes death. When neuro enhancers weren’t covered by a person’s corporate benefits plan, the black-market stuff was all most people could afford.

Super-Borg was there to stop the Neuro-syndicate from making a major sale, but he did not expect them to have this much armed support. The deal must be bigger than he thought.

“Super-cycle, deploy the drones and release smoke bombs between my location and the Space Needle.” Super-Borg used drones for several purposes. He was surprised more supers didn’t use them. But most supers weren’t rich. Super-Borg wasn’t Bruce Wayne rich, but he was rich enough, and after dropping out of med school he had earned a degree in engineering, so he could build most of his own equipment. He relied on drones to survey his surroundings and record his excursions. He used the recordings to make videos he released online to his followers, to watch for his own personal training, and he occasionally used them as evidence in court. Drones were also invaluable for providing a distraction. He could see the small flock of drones in the heads-up display built into his goggles. Soon dense smoke filled the park.

His super-suit featured large, modified high-tech goggles that provided a heads-up display and video link from his drones, an open-face reinforced motorcycle helmet, and a face mask covering his nose and mouth. The mask was wired to receive his voice commands, amplify and alter his voice, filter out all smoke and toxins, and supply extra oxygen when he was exerting himself like right now. Sensors in his suit adjusted oxygen levels as needed.

People yelled loudly, calling out to each other in the smoke, trying to get a handle on what was going on. An occasional shot rang out when someone saw — or thought they saw — something.

An alert on his display warned him that his heart rate was elevated. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. “Keep it together, SB.” Super-Borg took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. “Someone has to do something. This is what you do. This is who you are,” he said, repeating the oft-invoked mantra. He took a deep breath, “Up, up, and away,” he whispered, and sprinted for the Space Needle.

_____________________________________________

Who brings rocket launchers to a drug deal? Super-Borg thought, running to get clear of the falling Space Needle. Beams, bolts, and concrete built to survive a 9.1 earthquake began to scream as if in unbelief that they had finally failed. As he ran, Super-Borg was still looking up at the falling Space Needle. It was like a bad dream. He was trying to not run directly in the path of the falling mountain of architecture, but there seemed to be no escaping it. He tried to change direction and tripped — over what, he didn’t know — and fell sprawling into the mud. He cursed himself for not watching where he was going, scrambled to his feet — determined to watch where he was running — and kept his head down as he ran. He was so intent on running and watching where he was going, that he failed to see the furniture dropping out of the old top-floor restaurant. A chair slammed on the ground immediately in front of him. He didn’t have time to hurdle it, so he tried to kick it, but his foot got stuck in the armrest and he fell again. Debris and concrete rained down. He curled up into the fetal position as Seattle’s most iconic landmark buried him.

_____________________________________________

Trent was coughing on water and his head was throbbing, but he wasn’t awake enough to open his eyes.

“Trent? Trent, can you hear me?” His father’s voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. “Trent, I need you to wake up.” His head shook slightly, and water sloshed around the side of his face, like it was bobbing in the ocean.

Trent’s eyes snapped open, his head hurt, and he was still coughing.

“He’s awake,” his father said, sounding relieved. “I think he’s okay.” His father was looking at him, but he wasn’t talking to him.

“That’s great, Mr. Daeshaun,” a woman’s voice said from overhead. “Help is on its way, just hang in there.”

It came back to Trent then. Headlights swerving into their lane. His dad swearing. Tires screeching. The world spinning.

“Trent. Buddy. Can you hold your head up? I need to let go.” Trent realized that his head was being held up out of the water by his dad, who was turned around from the driver’s seat — one shaky arm holding Trent’s head up so he wouldn’t drown and one hand pushing against the steering wheel, giving him the leverage that he needed to reach Trent. Trent nodded and lifted his head up.

“Mr. Daeshaun, how are you doing? How are your legs?” the woman asked, with an intentionally calm voice — not emotionless or robotic, but not worried either, just appropriately concerned.

“I still can’t feel my legs. I’m feeling light-headed.” Trent’s dad glanced back at Trent and then added with the best smile that he could muster, “But I’m fine. I got my boy here with me, so everything will be okay.” Trent’s dad was a cop, so he knew how to lie convincingly.

Trent was twelve and knew when his dad was being a cop and when he was being a dad. Right now, Officer Daeshaun was in the driver’s seat, and everything would be okay. Trent knew when his dad put on his work persona in front of him: it was either because he needed immediate and unquestioning obedience, or when he needed to lie because whatever was going on in the world was out of his control and he couldn’t face his son with the truth. For the first month after his mother died, he lived with Officer Daeshaun and didn’t see his dad much.

Trent always thought he looked like a faded version of his dad. He had seen pictures of his dad as a kid and they looked so much alike, except Trent had his mother’s lighter Indian skin. His mother was beautiful, but he had always wished he had been darker like his dad. He spent a lot of time looking at his dad’s complexion and had learned what the subtle changes meant. He could tell when his dad blushed because his cheeks and ears turned a richer color of brown. When he was sick or light-headed, he looked like the chocolate Easter bunny Trent had forgotten about for almost a year that had developed a gray-tinted film over the surface. His dad looked like that now.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

Officer Daeshaun looked back and met Trent’s eyes, “We were in an accident. Help is on the way. It will be okay.”

“Dad, you’re shaking. You don’t look good.” His dad was shivering severely.

“Don’t look good? You calling me ugly?” The laugh that followed was weak — even weaker than the joke. Trent said nothing.

Trent’s dad sighed, “The wreck was pretty bad. We’re lucky to still be alive. My legs are trapped. I also think I lost a lot of blood.”

“That’s why you’re shaking so bad?”

“Probably a combination of shock and the adrenaline wearing off. But the blood loss isn’t helping.”

“Mr. Daeshaun,” the voice spoke from their car speakers, “the paramedics and the police are arriving now.” Trent could see the flashing lights and hear the vehicles pulling up. “I’m in contact with the officer in charge. I will leave the line open until you are both out of the vehicle.” Neither Trent nor his dad bothered to respond. They were both transfixed by the emergency vehicle lights.

“Mike?” They could hear footsteps and the sound of a belt full of equipment bouncing as the officer it was attached to ran toward them. “Mike?” A flashlight moved closer, breaking away from the emergency vehicles parked along the road, like a bright white scout sent out from the hive of flashier, colorful lights.

“Here. We’re here.” Trent’s dad called out. Tears filled Trent’s eyes and he wasn’t sure why, he tried uselessly to wipe them away with a wet hand.

Light filled the windshield and then came around to the driver’s window. The car had rolled into the lake, but they were near the shore where the water was shallow. Trent sat in the backseat, passenger side — his dad still preferred him to ride in the back so the airbags wouldn’t hurt him if they were ever in a wreck. Trent almost laughed as the tears ran down his face. The one time they were in a wreck, and the airbags failed to go off.

“Mike, thank God you’re alive.” It was his dad’s partner, Jose, and Trent knew he was crossing himself. His dad teased Jose about how much he crossed himself and uttered little prayers. Trent was glad Jose was praying for them.

“Jose, Trent’s in the back. Get him first.” The flashlight turned its stare on Trent and panned back and forth.

“Trent, you hurt?” Jose said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Trent, can you unbuckle yourself?”

“I think I can,” Trent said, reaching down until he found the buckle and unlatched it.

“Bring me a stretcher,” Jose yelled back toward the flashing lights. “Trent,” Jose said, in his soft, but still firm, everything’s going to be okay if you do what I say voice, “I’m going to pull you toward me and then out. Okay?”

Trent nodded and slid toward Jose. Large hands reached in and grabbed him. Trent began coughing again.

_____________________________________________

Super-Borg woke up coughing on dust and his whole body was in pain. His mask had come off, it was dark, and dust filled the air. He was trapped and concrete dust coated everything, forming a sticky paste as it mixed with the rainwater. His head hurt and his ribs screamed in pain when he coughed. “Broken rib, great.” The display on his goggles wasn’t working. There was a cold breeze and drops of rain splashed around him. His leg felt trapped, and he didn’t have much room to move, but he was thankful to be alive. Trying to lift the slab of 1960s concrete that trapped his leg proved impossible as there was no power from his suit, and without it he wasn’t strong enough.

A sharp pain in his knee pulsed like someone was stabbing it with an icepick in time with his heartbeat. The concrete rock kept him from bending his leg, but he moved his toes and then his foot. “I don’t think the leg’s broken, that’s good.” There was a large gash on the armor over his chest where a large piece of rubble had bounced off and broken his ribs. He was lucky to be alive.

He coughed again and forgot about the icepick in his knee as pain shot through his chest. He could feel his ribs shifting when he coughed. Between the dust and the broken rib, it was hard to breathe, and he felt light-headed.

“I can’t believe they dropped the Space Needle on me. What the hell?” His voice was rough and scratchy from dust and coughing, but talking to himself helped to keep him calm.

No power in his exoskeleton or in the goggles meant the suit was in sleep mode, out of power, or the impact had somehow shut everything down. It was also possible the suit was critically damaged, but he didn’t want to think about that. Opening the cover of the touchscreen on his arm, he poked at it a few times. Nothing happened. He coughed again and grimaced through the pain. The suit would need a hard reboot.

Lifting a panel built into the armor on his shoulder, he flipped open the small breaker box. Sliding the switch inside to the off position, he counted to three and then slid it back. The slow, electrical whining of his suit waking up filled his little cave. He lay back, exhausted but smiling.

Looking at the screen on his forearm, he could see his suit’s power was at 20 percent. There was also a problem with the right knee joint. All of his drones were still circling the area, collecting data. They reported that his immediate vicinity was clear — the Neuro-syndicate must have bolted. The police weren’t there yet, but an alert told him they were on the way. Super-Borg had no desire to talk to the police. They disliked supers, and Super-Borg was a vocal critic of the privatization of the police force. Whenever he had to deal with the police, they went out of their way to make things difficult for him. He still respected the badge, but he knew even his dad wouldn’t like what had become of the force. His best option was to try and get out of there quickly and quietly, and file his community marshals incident report later.

With the power restored to his goggles, he turned them to night-vision mode and located his mask. He braced himself, then used the power of his suit to lift the chunk of man-made rock off his leg. Even with the suit doing most of the heavy lifting, his ribs still screamed at him. The rock shifted and he stopped, catching his breath, trying not to cough.

Taking a slow breath, he repositioned his hands and lifted again. The concrete slowly shifted, causing a small avalanche of rubble to fall on his helmet.

He slid his leg out and slowly stood, leaning against the same rock that had been trying to crush him. There was a piece of rebar wedged into the knee joint of his suit. The rebar had cut a large gash in his leg. Blood dripped down his suit, mixing with the dirt and rainwater, but he thought how incredibly lucky he was that it had not skewered his knee. He grabbed the piece of metal and pulled it free, inhaling sharply as it dragged across the cut. The mechanized joint on his suit was useless, but he could still bend his knee.

It was only a few blocks to where he had parked his motorcycle. He hoped no video of him limping away from the scene would turn up online.

He made it to the super-cycle without any hassle. He called it a super-cycle, but it looked like any other motorcycle. That was the point. He pulled a large, black hoodie from the storage compartment under the seat and covered himself up. As he rode away, shame and embarrassment flushed his cheeks. This was bad. He would have to call his publicist.

_____________________________________________

Super-Borg Limps Away from Destroyed Space Needle

We are receiving reports that today’s collapse of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle happened during an altercation between the Neuro-syndicate and the community marshal known as Super-Borg. Amateur video of Super-Borg fleeing the aftermath of the fallen Space Needle has been posted online.

Today, Super-Borg has given more fuel to the fire for those who think the community marshals cause more harm than good when he was involved in an altercation that resulted in the collapse of the Space Needle. Losing the iconic Seattle structure has many residents calling for the disbanding of the community marshals. While some call them superheroes, others call them reckless vigilantes.

Fredrick Harman, the owner of a vegan hamburger truck called, Where’s the Beef, who lives in an apartment near the Space Needle, doesn’t see the purpose of the community marshals anymore. “They just run around playing superhero and doing more damage than they prevent. We lost the Space Needle today. Is it worth it?”

Deputy Veishea of the local community marshals’ office has continuously stated that because the police are now privately funded, their priorities don’t always align with those of the public.

The Space Needle is owned by the city and has been condemned for years, so there were no police assigned to the area, but they are looking into the use of banned weapons and explosives that reportedly brought it down.

From The Seattle Wire

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bucciarati-pizza · 4 years

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[ Fic ] - Jumpin’ Jack Flash: Chapter 1

SO IM FINALLY POSTING THIS AFTER DANCING AROUND IT FOR AGES ///

me and my jobro @justjuliainc have been developing this AU fic together. it is a slow burn bruabba where Abbacchio remains a cop, his partner lives, and Bruno is a fisherman along with various other character swaps. and well, without saying much more, I hope you all enjoy the start of this bizarre adventure ;))

A blaring police car spun around a corner then ground to a halt at its final destination. The rain made it hard to make anything out.

“I’m searching the north wing, you do south!,” an officer yelled over the sound of crashing thunder and lightning. Two sets of shoes splashed through the mud the police car was now in. “Got it!,” the other replied back, turning on a flashlight. “You think they’re armed?”

The first officer was already pulling the gun from his belt, answering his question.

Then came the screams. Muffled like someone had covered their mouth, but still clear as ever. They echoed throughout the entire building and out into that terrible rain.

A shudder ran down both their spines. Children’s screams. This shabby abandoned looking cement building on the outskirts of town happened to be an orphanage.

They frantically ran towards the double doors.

“No one, over my dead body is getting away with this shit. Not tonight. Not ever.”

The officer that spoke had a fierce glint of gold in his eyes, illuminated by his partner’s flashlight. He wore a shade of lipstick that nearly matched the stormy night sky.

“Abbacchio.” The man turned to the sound of his name. “I second that, with all my heart.” He kicked the door in with a determined grin, his hat tipping slightly to reveal short brown hair. “Let’s put an end to this!”

Abbacchio nodded, barely having the time to reply, “I’m counting on you too, Michele!” before blindly racing up the stairs.

The sound of screaming got louder the closer he got to the top. His heart raced. The police had been investigating a strange series of kidnappings for weeks now, with no trace of the culprit. A 911 call was made from the orphanage just a half hour before now. Yet no other information was disclosed, both Abbacchio and his partner knew deep down inside exactly who it was. The same one responsible for all the recent crimes. And this time, said suspect had gone too far.

The hall seemed to never end. Abbacchio never questioned why the door he needed to burst in as soon as possible was getting further rather than closer away. Maybe it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. He never questioned why the floor beneath his feet seemed to warp into otherworldly shapes when weight was applied. He didn’t look down.

It seemed like forever when he finally made it. Panting, he tried the door and it was unlocked. The crying ceased the instant he opened it. He had a sudden sinking feeling. “Where are they?” The sinking feeling got worse. “Where the hell are they?!” He pointed gun over flashlight across the small room and found nothing but empty beds.

Impossibile...

Not even a window was open. Just what was going on?

While searching under beds, Michele ran through the door. “I-I didn’t find a thing. I searched every room on the way here too,” he said wearily. “There’s not a single person in here.”

Abbacchio pulled himself out from the bed he was under. “I don’t understand,” he began, shaking slightly.

“Something bizarre is going on. This is the room most of the screaming came from. They were in here”

We’re too late.

His partner turned his head at another sound. It caused them both to shudder. More desperate screaming filled the dark halls of the orphanage.

They both shared a knowing glance and cautiously started for the source of the noise, covering each other’s backs. It was only two doors down. Once again, it seemed to be getting further. It took a few minutes to reach it. “What’s going on? Is this some kind of madhouse?,” Michele hissed, terrified and confused. He looked down at the floor and gasped.

“No clue, but I’m going in!,” Abbacchio replied as he charged through the door.

“Wait, Abbacchio!”

All he saw was a flash of light before the wind was knocked out of him and he fell to the hard wood floor. He lie there for a few seconds trying desperately to catch his breath, vision blurring. Two bodies tumbled over each other, in the corner of the room, one spitting out rows of curses.

“I’ll fucking kill you! Right here! Agk- I’ll...“

Abbacchio didn’t recognize that voice. Not good! He began to force himself to stand up. A gun went off.

Abbacchio’s heart skipped all it’s beats.

A gun went off and something clanked to the floor.

Abbacchio’s feet moved before his body.

“Michele! Michele!!!”

His partner was hunched over another man, unmoving. A pistol had been slid across the floor. There were bullet holes in the bookshelf in the other corner. Wait.. didn’t that mean..

Michele was only still because he was straining to hold the man’s writs down.

He missed!

“Abbacchio, I’m— sorry I had to push you out of the way so hard. I realized we were being stalked when there was a third shadow on the ground. Somehow, this bastard was behind us and was about to attack you.”

Abbacchio had no words. He panted speechless before them.

“Agh!,” his partner suddenly exclaimed.

“You thought you could catch me that easily?,” the pinned man seethed. He had taken the opportunity to spit in Michele’s eyes. “How do ya like that, eh?” He chuckled maniacally. He nearly got his hands free, when in one swift movement, Abbacchio took over, keeping him held down.

“Cazzo. Don’t dare underestimate us.”

Michele hummed in dissatisfaction once he wiped his eyes, brushing off his jacket. Abbacchio took a moment to look around the room with narrowed eyes.

The thug beneath him was scrawny, yet surprisingly strong, his blonde shoulder length hair tangled into disgusting mats. He looked to be about 30, but was probably a lot younger. He sounded hoarse when he spoke. He managed to kick Abbacchio’s leg hard, trying every mean possible to distract them and escape.

The silver haired cop had enough and roughly put both wrists into handcuffs.

“...Where are they?,” Michele wondered out loud, still looking around.

“Ow! Take it easy on me would ya?! And what the hell do you wanna know?”

Leone gritted his teeth, a growl rising in his throat.

“You know damn well! What happened to whoever was in this room? There.. there was screaming,” he said the last part half to himself.

The man remained silent, glaring between both of them for a second before bursting out laughing.

“You really are stupid, aren’t you! You think I’m the answer? You think you little heroes are doing society a favor by coming here?,” he shook his head, still chuckling while both officers looked on distraught.

“Well, you have no idea what you get yourself into,” he continued voice turning deep and gravely again, “When you stick your nose into places it

doesn’t belong.”

Something about the man’s words gave them both an uneasy feeling about the future. Yet, they couldn’t afford to let it bother them now. The man was eventually taken outside and shoved in the back of the police car. His gun was seized along with him and they would use that too in their upcoming investigation. They were going to get answers.

Neither Michele or Abbacchio really knew what happened that night or even how to explain it.

But a few things were hauntingly certain:

Hundreds of orphaned children had somehow vanished right under their noses.

There were no signs of the caretakers and whoever made the phone call either.

The man they captured wasn’t the ringleader in all of this. If he was, there would’ve been a much bigger show.

Abbacchio’s hands gripped the steering wheel tighter.

And he believed that there were strange forces about.

....

“Idioti!”

Both officers jumped slightly when the hand of their chief slammed down on his office desk.

“Pardon?,” Michele asked, taken aback. Abbacchio looked just as confused.

They had been called into Signor Polpo’s office early in the morning to “discuss last night’s endeavor.”

Polpo was a sight to behold. Morbidly obese, he had to have a special chair made just for him to sit in. He towered over practically everyone at nearly 7 feet tall. No one had ever seen him without a hat, even when on a break from duty. His eyes people say, became so void of a soul that the sclera began to turn completely black. No matter what the reason was behind it, this was somehow true. Bright green irises were surrounded by a beady black that made anyone who met his gaze shiver.

Signor Polpo was the kind of man that made Leone’s blood boil.

“Did you not understand what we reported to you?,” Abbacchio asked slowly, tone dark.

The obscenity hummed briefly, looking between the two like they were mere ants beneath him before replying.

“You both became some of the force’s brightest pupils in a very short amount of time. You flew through training as if it were nothing, and I knew right away I could depend on you to... protect the streets of Napoli.”

The chief’s voice boomed throughout the tiny room and he ended that last sentence with a chuckle.

Abbacchio and Michele didn’t like this one bit. What the hell was he getting at?

“Yet...”

Polpo’s brows were furrowed.

“You had to go on and pull a stunt like this?!”

Abbacchio’s quick temper was about to show. “Wh-“

“No backup. No means of communication. Going to a useless abandoned orphanage by yourselves only to catch a petty street thug. I simply thought I knew you better.”

What?

Michele got a terrible feeling. Abbacchio saw red.

“Abandoned?..”

Polpo didn’t skip a beat. “I think you two are forgetting who decides what you get to look into and when,” he continued pointing a finger right at Leone.

Abbacchio didn’t look up. His fist was clenched at the side of his chair and his jaw was tight.

His partner looked speechless for a few seconds before trying to ask again.

“Abandoned? It.. it was an obvious kidnapping!”

That among various other things.

Abbacchio knew it was no use to bombard the chief with questions when it was already apparent what was going on.

Polpo remained poker-faced.

“I didn’t order you to go there, did I?”

“No, Capo,” replied Michele, looking away.

Abbacchio remained silent, biting his lip to keep from exploding. “They paid him off. He accepted it. They paid him off. The fat fuck is actually in on this,” was all that raced through his head.

“Did. I?,” pressured Polpo, his chair creaking as he leaned closer to Abbacchio’s face. And now he couldn’t even argue.

The officer with short grey hair looked up, his eyes furious but tone neutral when he finally answered.

“...No, Capo.”

Polpo stared at him for a few additional seconds before adding, “Good. I’m glad we can all come to that understanding.”

Abbacchio’s brows twitched. He and Michele had risked their lives continuously for the people. Last night, one or both of them could have died. Came very close, in fact. All the victims of a crime that had yet to be investigated were probably never going to be seen again and any evidence of something gone wrong would be erased. Yet, the whole time, his own chief was in on it? He knew Polpo took bribes and negotiated with criminals. He hated him for that. But this? This was way too far.

The room was dangerously silent.

Polpo narrowed his eyes. “You must understand the certain contradictions that come with this job. It’s how this world works. I expect you to await my command before even putting on your uniforms in the future.” He leaned back in his chair, upturning his long nose. “I’m only looking out for your safety.”

Michele glanced over at Leone. Uh oh.

He knew that look. Wide, twitching eyes. Biting his lip and shaking. If they didn’t get out of Polpo’s office soon, something was going to happen that would end with him beating the shit out of someone. Michele had much to discuss with his partner that wouldn’t dare be brought up in this room.

“Oh and one more thing,” Polpo started with an eerie smile. “You’ll leave this little meeting with your mouths zipped shut. What we just discussed is a secret between you and me. I can trust you... right boys?”

Silent nods.

“Excellent. You’re dismissed.”

Michele bowed customarily. Abbacchio just glared at him, such passion in his ombré eyes that Polpo read it as a warning.

Once the door was shut and their footsteps got further away, Signor Polpo picked up the phone on his desk and dialed a number.

“Send me backup. They’re getting too smart for their own good.”

.............

“FUCK!,” Abbacchio yelled throwing his hat off once he and his partner got onto the street and turned the corner into an alley. “FUCK. FUCK..” He kicked it in frustration, in complete rage by now.

“I’M TIRED OF THIS,” he kicked again, “STUPID... SHIT FOR BRAINS,” more kicks, “FUCKING POOR EXCUSE OF THE POLIZIA.”

Michele stood there with a hand on his shoulder, not quite sure how he should try to begin to calm him.

“I’M TIRED OF IT. I’M,” his movements slowed and he threw himself against a wall, defeated. “..tired of it.”

He slid down against it, pulling his knees to his chest. Lost and vulnerable.

“Leone..”

His partner sighed and bent over to pick up the hat and brush it off before joining Abbacchio against the wall.

“Leo.. it’ll be okay..”

Abbacchio’s gaze remained downwards, staring blankly at the ground between his legs. He hadn’t even registered there was a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“You know what? You know what this feels like, Michele?”

The other officer remained silent for a moment before asking, “What?”

“It feels like we’re in the goddamn mafia.”

Abbacchio looked up.

“I didn’t want to say it. I wanted to push it to the back of my mind. But I can’t... because it’s true.”

Michele took his hat off.

“The way things are going, I have to agree with you... but..”

Abbacchio looked at him hopelessly.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it, right?”

“I don’t.. know what to do. No one is going to believe us over that pig Polpo. But I can’t let the victims die. I can’t... let these crimes continue to happen while the rest of the force sleeps on it.”

Michele nodded.

“It will be stopped. Don’t ask how, but I know.”

No words were spoken for at least a few minutes.

“Coffee?”

“Fuck, do I ever need coffee.”

“I doubt anyone will care if we stop at Libeccio before we get grounded.”

Michele smiled, helping his partner up. Abbacchio’s expression lit up. It was the name of his favorite little restaurant and it had been ages since he even stepped foot in it. He brushed himself off and put his hat back on.

“Let’s go.”

Michele did the same.

“That’s the spirit.”

....

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darkredehmption · 4 years

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Solo written by ‪@OfFeatherNFang ‬

#Solo ‘The Night is for Hunting’

#Part1

Mentions @DamagedBrother and @PanwerePredator

****

As the wind tore at my wings, threatening to push me off course, I said yet another string of curses, each of them lost in the turbulence.

Battling the elements forced me to consider the fact that the universe itself was telling me i should never have left the manse, but of the few things I had to my name, my word, my honour, was among the most priceless. As a Hunter, that meant even more. No one wanted to work with a hunter they couldn’t trust, and hunters that couldn’t be trusted didn’t last long.

So I forced my exhausted body to keep fighting, drawing up whatever dregs of strength I had left to keep myself airborne and heading in the right direction. This would’ve been so much easier if I could just dematerialize, but it was one of the few vampiric traits I’d wanted and not received.

Thinking of vampires only distracted me, my thoughts turning to Zsadist like a sunflower turned to follow sunlight. Leaving the male at the shifter’s bedside had twisted at something deep and primal in me, and now it screamed at the fact I’d left; left, when he was already unsteady from nearly losing his friend.

There was no reconciling that part of me, no soothing it as it tore strips off me inside and berated me with cold words. I could only do as I’d promised - help my hunter friend, and return. Keep my promise to return.

By the time I reached the address Ethan had given me I was ready for that biting wind to blow me over. Landing was more of a bracing stumble, my wings trembling as I tried and failed to fold them to my back. When that didn’t work, my primaries trailing in the mud slick grass, I gave up and retracted them completely. Even that Divine effort cost me as I paused, counting to ten as the world tilted then righted itself.

The house was the very last at the bottom end of a street. It’s closest neighbour was boarded over, the signs of looking even more decrepit than I felt. Stepping over the threshold into the yard, I did the usual sweep. A jet fuelled lawn mower wouldn’t have made a dent in the gardens, the grass too high and wild. The pathway itself was cracked and broken, pieces of cement slowly starting to creep away into that sea of swaying yellow brown. One slab looked like it’d been overturned at some point, dirt flecked across the surface. I managed a tired smile as I realized there was probably some sort of magical ward now painted on the other side.

Though I wouldn’t want to perform an exorcism in my front yard, it helped that there weren’t neighbours too close to witness it.

Reaching the front door, I eyed the windows either side, all covered, and then the frame of the door itself. Kernels of salt poked out from under the door, and I knew the inside would be a thorough line. The heavy duty wards against demons didn’t go uncatalogued as I managed to lift my hand and knock.

A voice I didn’t recognise answered.

“State your business!”

An understandable request, but after fighting off a narcissistic vampire to save his human servant’s soul and then flying hours to get here in what could only be categorized as aerial hell, I was less than jovial in my response. Besides, I’d already stepped over the demon ward - if anyone was bothering to pay attention that should’ve been hint enough I was, mostly, human.

“I bring good tidings of the word of the Lord,” I called back, sounding as tired as I felt. “He says he can save your immortal souls if you’ll only open the fucking door and get me a beer.”

Indeed the door cracked open, but the strange face that leered out did not look altogether impressed by my banter. Somehow, I mustered up a grin.

“You some sort of smart ass? Donchu know you got about four rifles pointed at you son?”

I huffed a sigh. “Only four? I’m insulted.” His brows drew together in a frown, so I quickly pushed on. “M’ here for Ethan, buddy. He’s calling in a favour and here I am.”

“You’re a hunter?”

His disbelief and sarcasm was only marginally more endearing than his unfaltering skepticism. Lifting one hand, slowly, I braced it on the frame and leant forward. The rifle nosed its way into the gap, pointed right at my chest.

“Look, Chief of Security, I travelled a long way very quickly to be here for /Ethan/,” I repeated his name with emphasis. “So if you want my help, now’s the time to go get him. Otherwise, he can stick his favour and I’ll head on home.”

It was a lie. I doubted my ability to walk to the end of the street at this point, but I needed this shit to move along faster than it was, and after a beat, the guy playing guard dog seemed to agree with me. Backing away from the door, rifle still trained on me, he allowed me the courtesy of stepping in and shutting out the miserable weather behind me.

He hadn’t been lying about the number of rifles. From where they’d been aimed at me in cracks at the windows they now swivelled to track me inside. I didn’t falter, used to the greeting.

“Ethan!” I called.

There was a thump, then a curse, then the scrabble of footsteps as someone hustled from another room.

“F’fuck’s sake, can’t a man get an hour of rest~” He cut himself off as he rounded the corner to catch sight of me. He whistled long n’ low, a grin splitting his face as he ignored all the weapons to step through the group and take my offered arm in a warriors embrace. “You made it here fast.”

Thumping his back, I gave a nod and eased away. The others, at last, lowered their weapons.

“Flew. Wouldn’t have made it here until tonight if I’d taken the car.”

“We’re still waiting on a few faces,” he admitted, eyeing me. “Maybe it’d do you some good to kip as well. You look like shit man.”

“Feel like it,” I agree. “I left that little problem I spoke to you about and came straight here.”

He looked almost guilty at that, nodding his head.

“Sorry to have called in that favour so fast but... we have a situation here n’ I wanted to deal with it before they got wind of us coming.”

I glanced to the other hunters, all of whom were watching and listening carefully.

“You invite a bevy of hunters to one small town n’ you don’t think they’ll notice?” I asked quietly, arching a brow.

“He still needs to be tested!” Guard dog piped up. The way Ethan’s lips thinned let me know that he wasn’t exactly a fan of the guy either, but endured for the hunt. As we all did. He shot me a look and i simply shrugged, waiting for the flask of holy water to be passed over by GD. I took a swig, but like he didn’t believe I’d swallowed (and trust me, I do) he flicked the container at me to spray a little over my chest. I answered by squirting a stream of it back between my teeth.

Ethan snorted as GD jerked away, cursing and scowling.

“Can I get a real drink now?”

Flashing me a grin, Ethan grabbed one from fuck knew where and tossed it over. Then he gestured at the others.

“Our doorman here is Will. That’s Jack, Sarah and Tyrone.

I spared each of them a glance and a nod, before Ethan looked to them and gestured at me.

“This is Malachi.”

“Well, how did Malachi get here if there’s no car parked outside?” Will groused, keeping a firm grip on his rifle even if it wasn’t pointed at me.

The duffel slung over my shoulder felt like it weighed a ton as I shifted it into a more comfortable position. He had a point though; the only things that arrived without wheels in this world were angels and demons.

“Mal is a special breed of help,” Ethan soothed, before I could open my mouth and come up with some semblance of a half decent lie. “Why don’t y’all go back to keeping watch, eh? I got shit to discuss with Mal.”

I wriggled my fingers in a cute wave, Will bristling even as the other three either gave nods or tried to hide smiles. Following Ethan through the house, I noted the towers of books, most occult, the shell compress and trays of silver bullets, as well as the symbols drawn on every available surface. Floors. Ceiling. Walls.

“What is this place?” I murmured, pinning the spot between Ethan’s shoulders with a look.

He glanced over his shoulder at me, pausing before a bedroom with two cots and gesturing in. I stalked to the cot that seemed the least slept in, and dumped my kit at the end of it. The relief of having it off my shoulder was exquisite as my body begged for me to lie back on that creaky cot and close my eyes.

Instead I sipped from my drink and sat, bracing my elbows on my knees. Ethan sat across from me. By the look of the tangled sheets, the thump I’d heard on my entry had been him falling out of this same cot.

“How’d your shifter problem work out?”

His voice was almost guilty, and I shrugged as I glanced to the boarded up, salt lined window.

“I think it worked. He was still alive when I left.”

“Hey… m’ sorry to call in my marker so fast~”

I held up my hand to silence him, shaking my head.

“If you called it in so fast it must be urgent. N’ my people are looking after the shifter. So… it’s fine.” It wasn’t. “I’m here.” Reluctantly…

Ethan nodded, looking at his hands joined in his lap, then back up at me and managing a rueful smile.

“Your shifter could be the first one to live through the bond that I’ve heard of.”

“He’s not my shifter,” I replied automatically, thinking of Hadrian and taking another sip from my bottle.

Thinking of the panwere had my mind turning to Zsadist, and I thought of the vampire with a sharp pang of longing. What had it been, a few hours? And I already felt like some piece of me was missing.

“What m’ I here for, Ethan?” I continue, arching a brow.

Leaning back on his cot until his back was half slumped against the wall, he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The faint light he’d managed to conjure in his eyes, even in such a tired state, faded away.

“Things are moving Mal. Have you heard anything from upstairs?”

I balked at the question, and the fact he’d even bothered to ask. Few knew who and what I was, and even then they tended to know better than to ask if I had any input from the Creator. Shaking my head, I leant back from my braced position, beer forgotten in my hand.

“You know I don’t get office memos, Ethan.”

He made a face, though not at me, as if he resented the fact I was out of the Divine loop.

“There’s a nest of demons here.”

I blinked. “Demons?”

He nodded, finally meeting my gaze again. “At least a dozen or more. It’s as if the local town has become a vessel port. Demons come in and board the ships and sail on into their lives.”

“Cute metaphor,” I muttered. “Then what’s the plan? Exorcism or extermination?”

A calculated look.

“Whatever doesn’t get us killed. I’ve called in a few more markers, and we’re just waiting on them to arrive as well. Then, tonight, we’ll move.”

“Tonight?”

There was incredulity in my voice, and I couldn’t help it. Facing off against a demon horde tonight meant I was still a minimum twenty-four hours from flying back to Zsadist and the Brothers. It felt like forever.

“They meet after dark. And generally when they do, their numbers swell again. We need more bodies to help us but if we wait any longer we’ll be facing a small army,” he explained, raking a hand through his auburn hair and lifting one leg to brace on the cot. “We’ve assessed where, and we have a few plans, but once the rest arrive, we’ll finalize everything. Then we move. Until then?” He arched a brow and looked me over, then tilted his head toward the cot. “You should get some rest. You look like hell.”

Letting out an exasperated noise, I finished my drink and set the bottle beside my cot on the floor. Then I kicked off my boots.

“The dream team out there got this?”

Ethan grinned and nodded, turning and laying back himself to tuck one arm behind his head. I reached for the blanket folded at the end of my bunk and pulled it up and over myself. As I lay back, my exhausted body chirped in gratitude.

“They got this. Get some beauty sleep. Lord knows you need it.”

I flipped him off as I grinned and dropped my head to the pillow. A beat later, I thought of Z, of his golden eyes and the warmth of him at my side in bed.

A beat after that, I passed out.

#sls #black dagger brotherhood

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spoldhamauthor · 5 years

Text

Alina Giuchici posted a prompt a few weeks, maybe even months ago, on a certain social media site. She showed us a picture of very old doors and asked us to write a story based on them. It caught my imagination and so I tried to rise to the challenge. I can't use her picture here as it is not mine, so I hope this one suffices. Because of word restrictions the story is not overly long, but I had fun writing it and I hope someone out there might enjoy reading it too. Thanks Alina for the prompt.

The Great Grey Doors

Legend has it that there is only one who can turn the handle that opens these doors.Back in the mists of time, the town elders used to lay down the challenge far and wide: be the one to come and open the Great Grey Doors!

In return, the successful one could claim one tenth of all the town’s profits; a handsome fortune to be made from oil and olives. Could choose bed-mates of their own preference from any of the town’s young women – or men – or both. Could have the finest, fastest, horses; the largest, coolest house; the deepest, fullest chest of treasure. Best of all, most important of all, the victor could claim rulership over the town.

It sounds a rich prize, but the town elders hid a curse among the blessings. The town was lawless; a hotbed of violence, upheaval and riots, the worst of the trouble always occurring closest to the Great Grey Doors. Anyone eager to claim the prize would be bound to rule; accepting the problems that entailed. All or nothing. The town elders were tired of trying to tame their wild inhabitants. They were bound to their duties until someone willingly took them from them. There was no other prospect of escape. The only way anyone ever left this town was feet first, in a box. The elders wanted, needed, someone to open those doors and lift their burden.

The Great Grey Doors. No one seemed to know when they were fitted, or to whom they belonged. No one could date how long they had been there, or knew where they led. Town records were vague about their creation. It seemed almost as if they simply appeared one day, set firmly into the dusty yellow sandstone walls as if they had always been there. When people first laid eyes on them, there was a moment of curious puzzlement, a brief space in time when their minds knew such a thing was not possible. Then they were accepted, suddenly as familiar as the well in the town square or the steps up to the church. As if the doors refused any further scrutiny than that.They stood there like a challenge, at once daring and defying anyone to try the handles.

Instinct is a strange thing. Most people obey it without even being aware of it. They just get a ‘funny feeling’ or decide that it’s probably best to leave well enough alone. Instinct is also a vital thing, if you have any plans for staying alive and breathing a while longer, that is. Yet occasionally, just now and then, someone is willing to supress it for a chance of a big payload. Either that, or their instinct is repressed by drugs, or wine, or some trick of the psyche that normally picks them out as due any day now to be the next choice of Natural Selection.

The town records showed only two previous attempts at opening the doors. The first was way back, when the roads were little more than mud-tracks, traversed more by free-roaming chickens and bare-footed children noisily playing and pretending they could not hear their mothers calling than by anything else. An elderly man, bent almost double on his walking stick, suddenly declaimed loudly that he was tired of the children’s racket, that he wished to be elsewhere.

He hobbled up to the doors, onlookers watching him with morbid fascination. His veiny hand came to rest on the handle. The old man pushed it down, making a metallic snapping noise in the heat of the afternoon.This was followed by another snapping noise; this one muffled and somehow fleshy.

The people watched as the man’s hand slipped from the handle. He bent over double on his walking stick, his head resting on the sand adjacent to his feet, his spine poking through his coarse woollen shirt where it had snapped clean in two; for all the world as if someone had folded him fully in half. Fat droplets of blood fell like rain to the sand. The flies were on him in seconds.

The other attempt came many years later, when the mud roads were cobbles and children no longer played upon it for fear of being run down by the huge and heavy wagon wheels that travelled up and down. A woman had been walking the streets, trying to earn a coin or two selling her body, even though it was long past its best and she was tired of pretending to like the men who used her.

Her wandering had brought her somehow to the doors. The evening was settling in, bringing a chill with it. She wished she had a door of her own she could open. A door she could hide behind, where she could wash, sleep and eat without fear of disturbance. If asked, she probably could not have explained why she suddenly stretched out her hand to try the handle. But there was no one around to ask her, and she was anyway beyond speech by then.

The handle did not snap this time, her touch being altogether more gentle, less insistent than the old man’s had been. She curled her fingers around it gently, squeezing as she pressed it downwards.

When they found her next morning, the people knew at once she had been murdered. Her face was mottled black and blue, her neck a mass of bruising. As skinny as she was, it seemed someone had squeezed it so hard, it almost met in the middle; like a grotesque hourglass, except it was life that had been drained here, not grains of sand.

A ripple of horror ran through the townspeople, at the prospect of a murderer abroad. But no one made much effort to find the one responsible. She was a street walker, after all. She was always going to meet a bad end. A few people cast uncomfortable glances up at the doors, but no one could explain why.

Many years later, the elders sent out another challenge. Whoever could open the doors, thus revealing what lay on the other side, would win a worthy prize indeed!

Word of this reached eventually reached Brassus. The Strong Man in a travelling fair, Brassus felt morally obliged to take up the challenge and to beat the doors, once and for all. He was a strong man, after all. Even so, he knew he was not getting any younger; best to do it while he still had his muscles. While he could properly enjoy all the fruits of his labours.

So it was that Brassus stood before the Great Grey Doors, pondering. It had to be a trick! Any fool could just reach out and use the handles. Travelling the land as he did, he knew a wile or two, was too wary and experienced to be caught out by something so obvious. So he stood, simply staring at the doors; or trying to, they seemed to repel his concentration if he looked too long.

At last decided, Brassus thought he knew the way to win. He made sure to gather a great crowd, to witness the event so that there could be no challenge when time came to claim his prize. The people huddled, expectant yet subdued, knowing in the depths of their souls that something was very amiss. They did as crowds of people always do, as herds of sheep always do; they stayed mindlessly together. And they watched.

They watched, as Brassus resorted to the tactic that had served him well all his life; brute force. He had taken from the travelling fair a crow-bar, used to prise free the huge pegs that held the circus tent in place in the ground. Allowing himself a wide grin, Brassus did not even bother to touch the handles. Instead, he inserted the crow-bar in the hairline gap between the doors, and heaved.

At first, nothing. Brassus heaved again, and this time, tiny splintering sounds ruptured the silence. Small and spiteful chunks of dry, ancient wood flicked out to land at his feet. Brassus grimaced, changing his grip and heaving more.

The wood resisted, its creaking sounding like a roar of outrage.Brassus grew red in the face, the veins in his neck pulsing and vivid. There came a crisis point when it was not certain which would give; Brassus or the Great Grey Doors. Then a cold wind came wailing, making the people turn away to shield their faces.

Brassus gave a cry of triumph, which quickly became a gasp of horror. All went black and cold as the grave. Then the air lightened, the cold lifted and the people dropped their arms from their eyes to look upon the victor.

Brassus was gone. The Great Grey Doors were there, as whole and untouched as they had ever been. No splinters, no cracks, no crow-bar. They were there, more resolute than ever.Then the weighty silence was broken. A horrible cacophony of screams, of cries of agony, as something splintered; something wet and meaty tore and ripped apart behind the doors.

The people found they could not move, their feet stuck fast where they stood. A tangy, metallic odour reached them; one that was familiar yet abhorrent to them. The stench of blood. Something dark began to ooze from under the door, stretching towards them in gore-ridden waves; a tide of blood, leaving arcs of red upon the ground as it ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed.

All at once, the people turned and fled, their feet free of their entrapment. By the time they reached the safety of their own homes, they could not remember why they were running, what it was they had been so afraid of. They were left feeling faintly embarrassed, though some deeper part of them knew otherwise.

The roads are cement and tarmac now. The town is modern and bright, flooded with electricity, fast-food outlets, restaurants, bars and shops. The town planners did not altogether forsake its history though. Some aspects were kept just as they always were. The old well still stands, protected now, in case some weekend reveller falls down it whilst posing for a photograph. The steps up to the church, and the church itself, both preserved for sight-seers and the religious. And, of course, the Great Grey Doors, set into the wall where people can marvel at the endurance of the wood, wonder at the craftsmanship of the carpenter who had first fitted them.

The planners had tried to protect the doors. They had fitted railings, then a wall of transparent Perspex, even an alarm across its threshold. Nothing worked. The railings simply would not hold in the old and soft brickwork. The Perspex refused to stay upright, falling on its face so many times that in the end it was taken away. The alarm proved useless. Far from sounding at any attempt of tampering, it went off continually, as if something or someone was standing permanent guard at that threshold.In the end, they had to give up trying to protect them, and just hoped that people would show enough respect to leave them alone, which for the most part, they did.

That the town had a higher incidence of missing persons than any in that region did not seem to be in any way connected to the Great Grey Doors. How could it be?One of the planners had shrugged at their failure to protect the doors, and said “I think they can look after themselves.”

The minute he uttered the words, he knew it was a strange thing to say. He felt slightly foolish at having said it. No one laughed at him, or asked him what he meant.

There is a plaque set into the wall, a few feet down from the doors. It tells of the legend, not unlike that of the Sword in the Stone, that there is only one who can turn the handle and open the doors.

It is only a matter of time before someone else tries.

S P Oldham

If you like this, please drop me a line. It is starting to feel like a cold, lonely place out there in the ether...

Thanks!

#prose #dark prose #dark fairytale #prompt #story prompt #indie author

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because-i-say-so · 5 years

Text

AHS Apocalypse Finale Thoughts, Reactions, and Unpopular Opinions (I Think)

So last night was the finale. Overall, I was kind of disappointed with the season in general. A lot of it has to do with the way the storyline played out. Now, let me explain. We were introduced to a bunch of new characters in the first episode, and I was down for it all; a whole new cast of characters, all in the same vein as this anthology series has been. That being said, yes, I was aware that this would be a crossover season, and we’d be seeing other characters from both Murder House and Coven... but let’s be honest, this season was really Coven 2.0. The entire plot was centered around the witches stopping the Antichrist. I wasn’t disappointed with that, on the contrary, I was actually excited because I loved Coven and seeing these characters again was wonderful. What I wasn’t too keen on was that we spent 7 episodes in a flashback. I get it, we needed the flashback to see what happened to get us to the Apocalypse, but did we really need to spend 7 episodes on it? Honestly some of those episodes were just filler and didn’t really push the plot along. While the finale didn’t feel that rushed, I didn’t feel like there was too much thought put into it, kind of like they built the whole season around the finale. Just my feelings. All in all, the whole season was basically fan service, so that I am grateful for.

So on to my episode reaction. Just because I didn’t like the season as a whole, didn’t mean that I was going into the finale without a shit ton of feelings. Absolutely not. I had a lot of feelings going into this episode, that I had my bottle of wine at the ready to help cope with it all.

Myrtle Snow was so, so great in this episode. That woman is not afraid to spill the tea, and has zero regrets doing so. Also, did she plant the idea of purple being a royal color in Ms. Venable’s head? She dressed in purple secretly in the Outpost. She did favor herself as important, because she was the “leader” of the Outpost, but I guess she technically was only “middle management” after all.

I wonder why we weren’t treated to Mutt and Jeff’s deaths.

I love Coco. She really has a kind heart, and damn, I just felt so bad for her when she was going to be placed under the identity spell. She was just so sad knowing that her family was going to die, and then she was just like “fuck no I don’t want to be like Madison.” (Does anyone remember when she was on that show Popular? I was getting Mary Cherry vibes when she was identity spell!Coco.)

So did anyone notice that the remaining witches were hiding out in the Louisiana swamps where they placed the identity spells on Coco and Mallory... and then magically the two are in LA with Madison at the wheel, driving them to Gallant’s salon? I’m sitting here trying to figure this one out... because unless Madison took a fast as hell jet back to the swamps and in the same clothes... Two different states, man.

Also wondering how the hell Cordelia, Myrtle, and Madison survived the nuclear fallout. Protection spell maybe? Louisiana mud was kind of a weak explanation.

MARIE. FUCKING. LEVEAU.

I cheered. Such a nice surprise. Too bad she didn’t survive Michael. Just got back from hell, and now she’s going back. Totally not fair. Actually, she’s still there, torturing Madame LaLaurie, as it turns out... since you know, Cordelia didn’t need to get her out of hell in the end.

Let me talk about Cordelia for a second. We all knew she had to die for Mallory to become the Supreme. I was so sad, and yet I saw it coming a mile away. She, hands down, had the BEST line of the episode.

Cordelia, you are selfless and full of heart. You ARE the FUCKING Supreme.

And now, on to Michael The-Punk-Ass-Antichrist Langdon. I’m sorry, but even though I love this character, he really was a punk in this episode. Cordelia was right when she said he was coward.

He was so sure of himself. When Cordelia offed herself, it was beautiful. I’m guessing he was upset because he couldn’t erase her soul from existence like he did Queenie and Zoe, since he didn’t directly kill her himself? Anyway, this moment was wonderful. Finally, something put legitimate fear into Michael.

Time travel is a tricky, tricky thing. I wish we could have seen what exactly made Constance go savage on Michael in the re-do of the past. Did Mallory do/say something before this to make her rethink her previous decision? I feel like there was some sort of exchange between them for her to just go and kick Michael out of the house like that. Her rant had me SHOOK. (Bravo Jessica Lange, you are still the Queen of AHS.)

Listen, you can’t have a 7-episode character development arc for Michael and have me not catch feelings for this boy. Every chance he got to have a loving family, someone to care for him, any loving contact... it got ripped away from him in the worst way possible. I was on the sympathy train for him, even though he was the Antichrist. Yes, the Antichrist is inherently evil, and I’ve said that before, but the way his story unfolded, it really did feel like he was being controlled by outside forces driving him to end up the way he did. I think that Michael, not the Antichrist, was just a little boy that wanted to be loved and accepted but was denied that at every turn. There wasn’t any other way it could go, either.

So yeah, I felt bad for him. Remember, he’s technically only a 9/10-year-old kid in a grown man’s body an the Outpost. How else do you expect a 9/10-year-old kid to act when that much power is put in front of them?

Then, in a wholly anti-climactic way, Michael was run over by Mallory. Repeatedly. (Why she didn’t just run over his head, I don’t know. Maybe she wanted him to feel pain. Whatever.) And that was it. I was hoping for a showdown, not this emotional sting:

I think that in the end, Michael was the little 5/6-year-old boy Constance wanted to raise. He didn’t understand why this was happening to him, and it’s kind of heartbreaking. When he asked to be taken to the house, though, Constance knew that couldn’t happen... that was the evil talking. She just couldn’t take the chance that the evil could still exist.

Constance, you did good.

And just like that, the Michael we all came to know and love through the entire season was snapped out of existence. Fuck.

((Side note: Cody Fern did a phenomenal job with Michael this season. I could gush like crazy about his acting chops, but I’ll leave it at that. Michael Langdon has cemented himself as one of my favorite characters of all time. I would love to see Cody in another season of AHS playing a completely different character. That is all.))

Oh, and Tim and Emily were always destined to meet, and their “perfect” DNA produces another Antichrist. I guess it’s just inevitable. I wish the end of the episode was just panning out on the shot of the new Antichrist and his parents, with the dead babysitter. It would have felt more full-circle. The appearance of Anton LeVay and his cardinals was just... overkill.

Other thoughts: Tate and Violet didn’t get their “happy ending.” (Thank God because I didn’t agree with that forgiveness mess at all. Fight me.) But neither did Moira. (That’s a little upsetting, because it was very beautiful, and she deserved it.) Hey the warlocks still exist, but we’re just going to pretend that all the ones we were introduced to aren’t important anymore. Myrtle was never brought back, and while that’s good, her one-liners never existed this season either. Constance is alive! Queenie lives and never goes to the Hotel Cortez! Misty gets brought back and we even got to see Nan again! (Thanks, Mallory.) And poor Madison’s character development never happened because she’s still stuck in retail hell.

The last episode left me... in a mood, and with a half-empty bottle of wine.

#american horror story #ahs apocalypse #apocalypse then #season 8 finale #thoughts #reactions #unpopular opinions?#myrtle snow #coco st. pierre vanderbilt #marie leveau #cordelia goode #constance langdon #michael langdon #i got some questions #this episode kind of fucked me up #not sure if in a good way or bad

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unholyhelbiglinked · 7 years

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The Voicemail||Mace||

I'm not dramatic, nor have I ever found a reason to be. But I can unironically, without a doubt, say that the last words Grace Helbig ever said to me defined the rest of my life. In the non-dramatic way of course.

It was raining that day, I know that much. I remember the storm.... It tore across every single lawn in that pristine little neighborhood that we bought a house in. The grass was something everyone took pride in, most looking at the gradience of color in the blades when the sun hit it- but Grace and I? We only cared about how nice the lawn felt under bare feet.

The pounding condensation had made the lawn soupy, mud piling up against the cement gutters and making the pollen dusted mailbox a bit less grimy. I didn't mind the rain, it's drops pressing against the gutters and sliding across the glass panes of the windows was almost soothing.

My daughter on the other hand hated the rain. She took after her mother, the thunder shaking the house enough to get her to convince me to stay in that small little twin bed of hers. I was tall enough for the blankets to cover all my legs, but leave my feet bare. I held her close though, warmth not an issue.

"What do I always tell you?" I asked her that night, my chin resting on her forehead.

She whimpered at first, her cheek against the naïve of my neck. I could feel her tears against my skin, her fear of storms almost as big as her terror when it came to bridges. She had a tendency to clutch onto Grace or I when it came to both.

"They're angels."

"Right," I let out a small breath, "They're just bowling you know. That's what all that loud noise is."

"I know," She whispered back "They must really suck."

I chuckled softly, taking my hand and moving a strand of hair from her eyes. "Why do you say that?"

"They're crying a lot."

Her words were soft and drowsy. She was beginning to fall asleep, her breath slowing as I continued to absentmindedly run my fingers through her hair. She would get through the storm, her mind most likely taking her somewhere else.

I listened to the water collecting in the gutters, the sound hollow, almost mimicking the thunder that roared through the sky every once and awhile. The room was mostly dark, blue light moving through the blinds in an odd pattern.

"Mamrie," There was a raspy whisper at the door, my eyes lifting to the girl who leaned heavily against the doorway. Her hair fell into her coffee brown eyes, the straw-colored mop messy and sleep riddled.

Grey sweatpants fit against her hips, a random band logo sprawled across the front. It rode up a little, exposing a bit of her smooth stomach as she rubbed the edge of her eye innocently. I lifted my chin, acknowledging her to continue speaking.

The hallway light was a golden yellow against the side of her face, the orange glow creating odd shadows. "Nothing I-"Grace paused "I thought I heard Maya come home."

I knit my eyebrows together. The older girl didn't dare test the limits of her curfew, but tonight was different. I wasn't completely sure if it was because of the storm, or that one guy at school that she had entrusted disclosing to me, but either way- she wasn't here.

Of course I felt the anxiety that came along with the situation, but Grace had already worried enough for the both of us. We were both sitting in the living room in near silence when Emma came down the steps, tears dripping off her chin like the rain.

Grace must have fallen asleep, her voice evident of that. "I'm going to go look for her. It's almost One."

"I know," I answered back, glancing at the girl cuddled into my side. I was careful not to disturb her, she mumbled a bit as I pulled away from her warmth, moving the covers back up to her chin as she settled into the duvet.

Grace smiled slightly as she crossed her arms, flicking the light in the room off as I cracked the door behind me. We always kept the hall light on. Emma was nervous about a lot of things, the dark being one. We had coaxed her into leaving just a small light on instead of having her whole room taken over by the dull yellow glow of a lamp.

She stared at me carefully as we stood in the hallway, a bit of curiosity in her eyes. "What?"

"Nothing," She glanced away "You're just really good with her is all."

"Well I hope." I laughed, running a hand through my hair "Clearly we fucked up the first one."

"Clearly," Grace chuckled, wrapping her arm around my waist. She was warm, her cheeks flushed from the small uneasy sleep she just had. A sweet smell that I'll never forget coated my lungs. It was like honey, honey and mint mixed together from the tea she had beforehand.

"Babe, it's raining," I mumbled, wrapping my arms over her shoulder. "She's probably staying over at a friend's house."

"She usually calls." The blonde haired girl answered, knitting her eyebrows together. "You're not worried?"

"I'm beyond worried." I let out a small sigh, "But you going out there in this storm isn't going to change a thing."

Grace didn't agree, or disagree at this moment. Nor did I have the will to argue with her. Once she had her mind made up about something, she would do it. It would take hours of convincing just to get it off her mind.

Now I know more than anything that I should of fought for her that night. I had fought against everything else in this world- the two of us finally having a loving home. We had two kids, two kids that loved us as much as we loved them. Grace worked for an insurance agency and I held a job as a dental assistant. We were happy.

I went back to bed that night, knowing Grace would be home in less than an hour, Maya by her side and coping an attitude that her mother dragged her from wherever she was. Instead, I got a crack of rolling thunder nearly masking the sound of a loud knock on the door.

It was an officer. One that's grey uniform was soaked through with rain water to the point of being black. He didn't say a word- he didn't have to. I knew. I knew right away by the plunging feeling that hit my stomach almost instantly. I knew by the look of pity in his eyes- one I would see over and over, even after the funeral came and went.

I remember the way I almost collapsed in on myself, the way my adrenaline moved through me as I called Hannah, getting her to watch Emma while I waiting anxiously in the hospital just to make sure Maya was okay. The way she blamed herself for Grace going out an searching in the first place.

I assured her over and over again that it wasn't, but it was just like the looks I got. The pity and the self-reassurance that would never help either of us. We tried to go day by day, each passing second turning into months, then years. None of that seemed to matter after a while.

The girl I fell in love with was still gone. The same girl that tried to cook breakfast and almost burned the house down. The same girl that passed out in the middle of the hospital room halfway through Emma's labor. The same girl who stood by me through everything.

A small sigh moved through my lips as I pressed my free hand to the steering wheel, the phone hot in my palm as I glanced towards Emma's school. The memories always seemed to hit randomly. Randomly and suddenly. I had gotten better lately- the tears not as frequent.

"Hey," the voice said as I let out a small sigh, a shaky one. "I just picked her up. "We should be home soon, Love. Maya is fine. Just.... Pissed. Like you said she would be."

I heard the girl grumble in the background. She didn't sound happy, but it gave Grace a certain edge of a smile to her voice. "Stay good, babe."

I couldn't help the smile that overtook me every time she said that. She said it often- often enough for me to know that the words had so much meaning. It was some quote, one from a cheesy horror movie we saw on our first date.

"I'm trying, Gracie." I mumbled, "I'm trying."

#GraceHelbig #MamrieHart #Mace #Oneshot

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darkredehmption · 4 years

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#Solo ‘The Night is for Hunting’

#Part1

Mentions @DamagedBrother and @PanwerePredator

****

As the wind tore at my wings, threatening to push me off course, I said yet another string of curses, each of them lost in the turbulence.

Though I wouldn’t want to perform an exorcism in my front yard, it helped that there weren’t neighbours too close to witness it.

A voice I didn’t recognise answered.

“State your business!”

“I bring good tidings of the word of the Lord,” I called back, sounding as tired as I felt. “He says he can save your immortal souls if you’ll only open the fucking door and get me a beer.”

Indeed the door cracked open, but the strange face that leered out did not look altogether impressed by my banter. Somehow, I mustered up a grin.

“You some sort of smart ass? Donchu know you got about four rifles pointed at you son?”

I huffed a sigh. “Only four? I’m insulted.” His brows drew together in a frown, so I quickly pushed on. “M’ here for Ethan, buddy. He’s calling in a favour and here I am.”

“You’re a hunter?”

He hadn’t been lying about the number of rifles. From where they’d been aimed at me in cracks at the windows they now swivelled to track me inside. I didn’t falter, used to the greeting.

“Ethan!” I called.

There was a thump, then a curse, then the scrabble of footsteps as someone hustled from another room.

Thumping his back, I gave a nod and eased away. The others, at last, lowered their weapons.

“Flew. Wouldn’t have made it here until tonight if I’d taken the car.”

“We’re still waiting on a few faces,” he admitted, eyeing me. “Maybe it’d do you some good to kip as well. You look like shit man.”

“Feel like it,” I agree. “I left that little problem I spoke to you about and came straight here.”

He looked almost guilty at that, nodding his head.

“Sorry to have called in that favour so fast but... we have a situation here n’ I wanted to deal with it before they got wind of us coming.”

I glanced to the other hunters, all of whom were watching and listening carefully.

“You invite a bevy of hunters to one small town n’ you don’t think they’ll notice?” I asked quietly, arching a brow.

Ethan snorted as GD jerked away, cursing and scowling.

“Can I get a real drink now?”

Flashing me a grin, Ethan grabbed one from fuck knew where and tossed it over. Then he gestured at the others.

“Our doorman here is Will. That’s Jack, Sarah and Tyrone.

I spared each of them a glance and a nod, before Ethan looked to them and gestured at me.

“This is Malachi.”

“Well, how did Malachi get here if there’s no car parked outside?” Will groused, keeping a firm grip on his rifle even if it wasn’t pointed at me.

“What is this place?” I murmured, pinning the spot between Ethan’s shoulders with a look.

“How’d your shifter problem work out?”

His voice was almost guilty, and I shrugged as I glanced to the boarded up, salt lined window.

“I think it worked. He was still alive when I left.”

“Hey… m’ sorry to call in my marker so fast~”

I held up my hand to silence him, shaking my head.

“If you called it in so fast it must be urgent. N’ my people are looking after the shifter. So… it’s fine.” It wasn’t. “I’m here.” Reluctantly…

Ethan nodded, looking at his hands joined in his lap, then back up at me and managing a rueful smile.

“Your shifter could be the first one to live through the bond that I’ve heard of.”

“He’s not my shifter,” I replied automatically, thinking of Hadrian and taking another sip from my bottle.

Thinking of the panwere had my mind turning to Zsadist, and I thought of the vampire with a sharp pang of longing. What had it been, a few hours? And I already felt like some piece of me was missing.

“What m’ I here for, Ethan?” I continue, arching a brow.

“Things are moving Mal. Have you heard anything from upstairs?”

“You know I don’t get office memos, Ethan.”

He made a face, though not at me, as if he resented the fact I was out of the Divine loop.

“There’s a nest of demons here.”

I blinked. “Demons?”

He nodded, finally meeting my gaze again. “At least a dozen or more. It’s as if the local town has become a vessel port. Demons come in and board the ships and sail on into their lives.”

“Cute metaphor,” I muttered. “Then what’s the plan? Exorcism or extermination?”

A calculated look.

“Whatever doesn’t get us killed. I’ve called in a few more markers, and we’re just waiting on them to arrive as well. Then, tonight, we’ll move.”

“Tonight?”

Letting out an exasperated noise, I finished my drink and set the bottle beside my cot on the floor. Then I kicked off my boots.

“The dream team out there got this?”

“They got this. Get some beauty sleep. Lord knows you need it.”

I flipped him off as I grinned and dropped my head to the pillow. A beat later, I thought of Z, of his golden eyes and the warmth of him at my side in bed.

A beat after that, I passed out.

#sls #black dagger brotherhood

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