#System Boiler Engineer

[megaflolondon]

Megaflo Installation & Repair in London | G3-Certified Expertise You Can Trust

Quiet, pressure-perfect hot water—engineered for London’s most demanding homes. At Megaflo Service London, we don’t just install unvented cylinders—we restore confidence. Whether it’s an emergency leak in a Notting Hill townhouse or a full system upgrade in a South Kensington villa, our G3-certified engineers deliver clean, compliant installs with zero fuss. Trusted by managing agents, landlords, and high-end homeowners across the capital.

Featuring insights from Yassin, our Gas Safe Senior Engineer with over 20 years’ field experience.

Need discreet servicing, same-day repair, or a pressure audit? We’re ready.

Book now → megafloservicelondon.co.uk contactno:- 020 7205 4884 | 💬 24/7 Emergency Callouts

[alancoservices01]

The Role of Expert Heating Engineers in Maintaining Residential Heating Systems in Earls Court

In the heart of London’s historic district, Earls Court is home to a unique blend of traditional Victorian properties and modern developments. Whether you live in a period terrace or a contemporary apartment, one thing remains consistent — the need for a reliable, efficient, and well-maintained heating system.

At AlanCo Services, we specialize in delivering top-tier heating solutions to homeowners throughout Earls Court and surrounding areas. Our team of Expert Heating Engineers in Earls Court is trusted for our technical knowledge, reliability, and commitment to safety and energy efficiency.

Why Residential Heating Maintenance Should Be a Top Priority

Most homeowners rarely think about their heating system — until it stops working. But by the time your radiators turn cold or your boiler breaks down, the damage has often been done. Proactive maintenance is essential for:

Extending the lifespan of your heating system

Ensuring safety by preventing gas leaks or carbon monoxide exposure

Improving energy efficiency and reducing energy bills

Maintaining compliance with UK safety and building regulations

Preventing unexpected breakdowns, especially in colder months

Regular maintenance isn’t just a precaution — it’s an investment in your home’s long-term comfort, safety, and value.

What Do Expert Heating Engineers Actually Do?

At AlanCo Services, our expert engineers take a structured, detail-oriented approach to every heating system we service. Here's what a typical maintenance visit may include:

1. Comprehensive Boiler Inspection

We check for pressure levels, corrosion, leaks, and operational issues. If you're using a combi, system, or conventional boiler, we ensure every component functions optimally.

2. Flue and Ventilation Checks

A blocked or poorly functioning flue can pose serious risks. We inspect flue systems to ensure proper ventilation and safe exhaust of gases.

3. Gas Safety Tests

As Gas Safe Registered engineers, we carry out all necessary checks to confirm that your system is operating safely, and we issue certificates when required.

4. Radiator Balancing and Bleeding

Uneven heat distribution in your home? We assess and balance your radiators for even warmth and maximum efficiency.

5. System Diagnostics and Troubleshooting

Using advanced diagnostic tools, we detect underlying issues and resolve them before they turn into major repair jobs.

Why Choose Local Heating Engineers in Earls Court?

Hiring a local heating engineer offers more than just convenience. It brings a deeper understanding of the area’s homes and heating challenges.

Fast response times during heating emergencies

Familiarity with older heating systems found in period properties across Earls Court

Tailored recommendations for insulation, efficiency, and system upgrades specific to local housing types

Support from a team who cares about the community they serve

AlanCo Services operates from 2-4 Kenway Rd, London SW5 0RR, placing us right at the heart of Earls Court — ready to respond quickly and reliably whenever you need us.

The AlanCo Services Advantage

As a leading name for heating engineering in Earls Court, AlanCo Services stands out with a reputation built on trust, professionalism, and long-term client relationships. Here’s what you can expect when you work with us:

✔️ Fully Certified & Experienced Engineers

Our team holds full Gas Safe registration and years of hands-on experience in both modern and traditional heating systems.

✔️ Transparent, Honest Pricing

No hidden charges or surprise fees. You’ll always know what to expect.

✔️ 24/7 Emergency Support

Heating issues don’t follow a schedule. Neither do we. Our team is available around the clock.

✔️ Personalised Maintenance Plans

We tailor our services based on your system’s age, usage, and property type to maximise lifespan and performance.

Case Study: Reliable Heating for a Victorian Townhouse in SW5

One of our long-standing clients in Earls Court had an ageing central heating system in their Victorian property. They were facing recurring issues with radiator inefficiency and boiler pressure drops. After a full inspection and power flush, our team rebalanced the system, serviced the boiler, and installed a smart thermostat — improving both efficiency and comfort.

The result? A 25% reduction in heating bills and a much warmer, cozier home — even during peak winter.

Booking a Service is Simple

If you’re a homeowner in Earls Court looking to protect your property and your peace of mind, we’re here to help.

📍 Visit Us: AlanCo Services, 2-4 Kenway Rd, London SW5 0RR 📞 Call Now: 07511 116121 🌐 Website: www.alancoltd.com ✉️ Email: info@alancoltd.com

Our heating engineers are ready to schedule your maintenance, perform a full inspection, or respond to emergencies — 24/7.

Final Thoughts

Your heating system is one of the most essential components of your home. Don’t leave its performance to chance. Whether you're dealing with aging equipment, rising energy bills, or planning ahead for winter, AlanCo Services is your trusted partner for expert heating system maintenance in Earls Court.

Let our certified professionals keep your home safe, warm, and efficient — year-round.

[arolesbianism]

Shaking and crying as I finally start working on some more long term oxygen production systems as if it's much more complicated than building a room with like 5 buildings inside all of which you can unlock without even building an advanced science station

[plumbingandgas]

Best Dublin Plumbing Services

Dublin, A city of vibrant streets, Guinness galore, and… plumbing emergencies? Fear not, weary citizen, for MPH Plumbing & Heating is your knight in Dublin Plumbing Services, shining boilers, ready to conquer even the most villainous leaks and blockages!

More Than Just Pipes:

While fixing leaky faucets and unclogging drains is our plumbers’ forte, we at MPH are much more than just wrench-wielding warriors. We’re home comfort architects, crafting solutions that turn your Dublin abode into a haven of tranquility and warmth.

Our Arsenal of Expertise:

Emergency Plumbing: Burst pipes got you in a tizzy? We’re Dublin’s leak-stopping SWAT team, arriving swiftly to quell the deluge and restore order to your waterworks.

Boiler Battles: Is your heating system singing the blues? Our boiler whisperers diagnose and rectify any thermal woes, ensuring your home stays toasty even on the frostiest Dublin mornings.

Bathroom Bliss: Cracked tiles and malfunctioning faucets? We’re bathroom renovation alchemists, transforming your tired tub into a spa-worthy sanctuary.

Central Heating Champions: From power flushing to system upgrades, we keep your central heating humming like a finely tuned Irish jig, banishing chills and embracing cozy contentment.

Gas Safe Guardians: We treat gas with the utmost respect, ensuring your appliances operate safely and efficiently, keeping you and your loved ones warm and worry-free.

What Makes Us Dublin’s Finest Fixers?

Expertise That Runs Deep: Our team boasts years of experience tackling Dublin’s diverse plumbing and heating challenges. We’ve seen it all, from temperamental Victorian radiators to quirky modern marvels, and we have the know-how to conquer them all.

Emergency Speed, Friendly Deed: Plumbing emergencies don’t wait for business hours. That’s why we offer 24/7 emergency callouts, ensuring a friendly face arrives promptly to banish your woes.

Transparency Above All: We believe in clear communication and upfront pricing. No hidden fees, no cryptic diagnoses — just honest advice and transparent quotes so you can relax and focus on what matters most.

Community Champions: We’re proud to be Dubliners, through and through. We support local businesses, sponsor community events, and treat every customer like a neighbor, not just a number.

So, the next time your pipes cry foul or your boiler throws a tantrum, don’t despair! Just remember, Dublin has a hero — MPH Plumbing & Heating. We’ll be there, wrench in hand, ready to restore harmony to your home and leave you singing hymns of praise (or at least humming a happy tune in a toasty shower).

Contact MPH Plumbing & Heating today and let us be your Dublin plumbing and heating services.

[thermodynamicservice]

STP Plant for Hotels/Hospitals and ETP Plant for Industrial Use

Welcome to Thermodynamic Services, your trusted partner for industrial air compressor solutions, air compressor installation services, Thermax products, industrial steam boilers, steam system engineering, hot water generators, STP plants for hotels and hospitals, ETP plants for industrial use, and RO plants for hotels and hospitals in Uttar Pradesh. We are your authorized dealer for top-notch Atlast Copco and Thermax products. Our commitment is to provide reliable and efficient solutions for your industrial needs.

Industrial Air Compressor and Installation Services:

At Thermodynamic Services, we offer a comprehensive range of industrial air compressors and professional installation services throughout Uttar Pradesh. Our team ensures that your air compressor system is installed efficiently, optimizing your production processes while reducing energy consumption.

Thermax Dealer in Varanasi and Lucknow:

As the authorized Thermax dealer in Varanasi and Lucknow, we bring you cutting-edge solutions for heating, cooling, and power generation. Our Thermax products are renowned for their quality and efficiency, ensuring that your industrial processes run smoothly.

Industrial Steam Boiler Manufacturer in Uttar Pradesh:

Our state-of-the-art industrial steam boilers are designed to meet the highest standards in performance and safety. We are the top industrial steam boiler manufacturer in Uttar Pradesh, offering tailored solutions for your specific requirements.

Steam System Engineering Services:

Thermodynamic Services specializes in steam system engineering services. Our team of experts will analyze, design, and implement the most efficient and cost-effective steam systems for your industrial operations in Uttar Pradesh.

Hot Water Generators for Hospitals & Hotels:

For hospitals and hotels in Uttar Pradesh, we provide high-quality hot water generators. These systems ensure a continuous and reliable supply of hot water, meeting the demands of your customers and patients.

STP Plant for Hotels/Hospitals and ETP Plant for Industrial Use:

We offer sustainable solutions for waste management with STP (Sewage Treatment Plant) and ETP (Effluent Treatment Plant) installations. Ensure your business is environmentally responsible and compliant with regulations.

RO Plant for Hotels and Hospitals:

Our RO (Reverse Osmosis) plants are ideal for hotels and hospitals, providing clean and safe drinking water. We prioritize the health and well-being of your guests and patients.

Conclusion:

Thermodynamic Services is your one-stop solution for all industrial needs in Uttar Pradesh. We pride ourselves on offering top-quality products and services that enhance your industrial operations. Partner with us to ensure efficiency, compliance, and sustainability. Contact us today for all your industrial requirements and enjoy the benefits of our trusted solutions.

conatct us on 91 78600 24711 or https://thermodynamic.co.in/

[vedaengineering]

Utility engineering company in Maharashtra

Welcome to Veda Engg, your trusted partner for comprehensive engineering solutions in Maharashtra. As a premier EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) company, we specialize in utility engineering, serving a diverse range of industries. Explore our expertise as an authorized Thermax dealer, steam boiler and thermic fluid heater supplier, hot water generator manufacturer, cooling tower specialist, and provider of steam accessories and systems, along with reliable operation and Manning services throughout Maharashtra.

EPC Company in Pune, Maharashtra:

Veda Engg stands as a leading EPC company in Pune, Maharashtra, offering end-to-end engineering solutions. Our expertise spans across diverse sectors, providing innovative and customized solutions to meet the unique requirements of our clients.

Utility Engineering Company in Maharashtra:

With a commitment to excellence, Veda Engg excels as a utility engineering company in Maharashtra. Our solutions are tailored to optimize utility systems, enhancing efficiency, sustainability, and overall operational performance for industries across the region.

Authorized Thermax Dealer in Maharashtra:

As an authorized Thermax dealer, Veda Engg brings you cutting-edge technologies and solutions from one of the industry leaders. Our partnership with Thermax ensures that you receive high-quality products and services, meeting the highest standards of performance and reliability.

Steam Boiler Supplier/Manufacturer in Maharashtra:

Veda Engg takes pride in being a trusted steam boiler supplier and manufacturer in Maharashtra. Our steam boilers are designed to deliver optimal performance, efficiency, and safety, making them the ideal choice for various industrial applications.

Thermic Fluid Heater Supplier/Manufacturer in Maharashtra:

Count on Veda Engg as your reliable thermic fluid heater supplier and manufacturer in Maharashtra. Our heaters are crafted with precision, ensuring the smooth operation of your industrial processes with efficient heat transfer capabilities.

Hot Water Generator Supplier/Manufacturer in Maharashtra:

Experience uninterrupted hot water supply with Veda Engg as your preferred hot water generator supplier and manufacturer in Maharashtra. Our generators are designed to meet the diverse hot water requirements of industries, ensuring reliability and energy efficiency.

Cooling Tower Supplier/Manufacturer in Pune, Maharashtra:

For top-tier cooling tower solutions in Pune, Maharashtra, turn to Veda Engg. Our cooling towers are engineered to deliver superior heat dissipation, optimizing the performance of your industrial processes.

Steam Accessories & System in Maharashtra:

Veda Engg offers a comprehensive range of steam accessories and systems in Maharashtra, enhancing the efficiency and reliability of your steam-based operations. Trust us for cutting-edge solutions that meet the highest industry standards.

Operation & Manning Services in Maharashtra:

Ensure seamless operations with Veda Engg's operation and Manning services in Maharashtra. Our experienced team is dedicated to providing reliable and efficient services to keep your systems running smoothly.

Conclusion:

Choose Veda Engg as your preferred engineering partner in Maharashtra. With our expertise as an EPC company, authorized Thermax dealer, and supplier/manufacturer of various industrial solutions, we are committed to delivering excellence in every aspect of your project. Elevate your engineering experience with Veda Engg - where innovation meets reliability.

9130099434 

vepl@vedaengg.com

[ayeforscotland]

What is Dataflow?

This post is inspired by another post about the Crowd Strike IT disaster and a bunch of people being interested in what I mean by Dataflow. Dataflow is my absolute jam and I'm happy to answer as many questions as you like on it. I even put referential pictures in like I'm writing an article, what fun!

I'll probably split this into multiple parts because it'll be a huge post otherwise but here we go!

A Brief History

Our world is dependent on the flow of data. It exists in almost every aspect of our lives and has done so arguably for hundreds if not thousands of years.

At the end of the day, the flow of data is the flow of knowledge and information. Normally most of us refer to data in the context of computing technology (our phones, PCs, tablets etc) but, if we want to get historical about it, the invention of writing and the invention of the Printing Press were great leaps forward in how we increased the flow of information.

Modern Day IT exists for one reason - To support the flow of data.

Whether it's buying something at a shop, sitting staring at an excel sheet at work, or watching Netflix - All of the technology you interact with is to support the flow of data.

Understanding and managing the flow of data is as important to getting us to where we are right now as when we first learned to control and manage water to provide irrigation for early farming and settlement.

Engineering Rigor

When the majority of us turn on the tap to have a drink or take a shower, we expect water to come out. We trust that the water is clean, and we trust that our homes can receive a steady supply of water.

Most of us trust our central heating (insert boiler joke here) and the plugs/sockets in our homes to provide gas and electricity. The reason we trust all of these flows is because there's been rigorous engineering standards built up over decades and centuries.

For example, Scottish Water will understand every component part that makes up their water pipelines. Those pipes, valves, fitting etc will comply with a national, or in some cases international, standard. These companies have diagrams that clearly map all of this out, mostly because they have to legally but also because it also vital for disaster recovery and other compliance issues.

Modern IT

And this is where modern day IT has problems. I'm not saying that modern day tech is a pile of shit. We all have great phones, our PCs can play good games, but it's one thing to craft well-designed products and another thing entirely to think about they all work together.

Because that is what's happened over the past few decades of IT. Organisations have piled on the latest plug-and-play technology (Software or Hardware) and they've built up complex legacy systems that no one really knows how they all work together. They've lost track of how data flows across their organisation which makes the work of cybersecurity, disaster recovery, compliance and general business transformation teams a nightmare.

Some of these systems are entirely dependent on other systems to operate. But that dependency isn't documented. The vast majority of digital transformation projects fail because they get halfway through and realise they hadn't factored in a system that they thought was nothing but was vital to the organisation running.

And this isn't just for-profit organisations, this is the health services, this is national infrastructure, it's everyone.

There's not yet a single standard that says "This is how organisations should control, manage and govern their flows of data."

Why is that relevant to the companies that were affected by Crowd Strike? Would it have stopped it?

Maybe, maybe not. But considering the global impact, it doesn't look like many organisations were prepared for the possibility of a huge chunk of their IT infrastructure going down.

Understanding dataflows help with the preparation for events like this, so organisations can move to mitigate them, and also the recovery side when they do happen. Organisations need to understand which systems are a priority to get back operational and which can be left.

The problem I'm seeing from a lot of organisations at the moment is that they don't know which systems to recover first, and are losing money and reputation while they fight to get things back online. A lot of them are just winging it.

Conclusion of Part 1

Next time I can totally go into diagramming if any of you are interested in that.

How can any organisation actually map their dataflow and what things need to be considered to do so. It'll come across like common sense, but that's why an actual standard is so desperately needed!

[thebibliosphere]

Joy I have to ask - what temperature do you think it is inside Wayne Manor?

Is it essentially outside temperature except where the fireplaces are? Does Alfred have a one man war against climate change? Is that why Bruce spends so much time in the basement?

Depending on which timeline you follow, Wayne Manor was built in the late 1800s. Having worked in giant historical homes, I'm telling you now it's a fucking pain in the ass to update the heating systems in those buildings. I know we've got comic book logic to contend with, and they've got massive generators in the basement to keep the cave running (sometimes it's turbines powered by the water flowing through the caves), but I also think it's plausible that to avoid damaging the historical facade of the building, you might walk around the house and see box fans shoved into the window frames during the summer because fuuuuck trying to install modern AC through 18th-century brickwork.

As for heat, well, for a frame of reference, the James J Hill house up here in MN—built roughly around the same time during the Gilded Age when the Waynes were pioneering industry in Gotham—was forced to rely on a boiler roughly the size of a steam engine to heat the house and used 250 tons of coal each year to keep it warm. That boiler provided hot water and ambient heat through steam radiators, but they also still had fireplaces in almost every room to try and compensate for the winter. The house was updated for modern heating and air conditioning within the last 40 years, but with a house that size and ceilings so tall, it's not particularly efficient. They still rely on box fans and space heaters to keep the space habitable during summer and winter.

New Jersey is not as far north as Minnesota, but the temperatures can still drop comparably low, especially when you factor in the seafront Gotham is on. So, while I do think they likely upgraded the heating systems at some point (they can't keep guzzling through coal like that), I also can't help but feel it's got to be cold as hell in that house unless they're being meticulous about lighting fires and airing every room out to prevent damp.

Because that's another thing. If you're not keeping your stone house warm, you risk damp and water damage, and I feel like Alfred would rather gnaw off his own arm than let Wayne Manor crumble to dust with black mold festering in the original French plaster.

So he's not so much fighting a one-man war against climate change as he's fighting a one-man war to keep the house dry. He's walking through rooms no one even uses, making sure the steam radiators are working and opening the windows a crack to let the condensation out.

Is he also turning off all the light switches as he goes? Yes. Is he always yelling, "Why is every screen in this house turned on if no one is using them?" also, yes.

Is Bruce also down in the cave huddled under an extra cape, overclocking the batcomputer to stay warm? Also a distinct possibility.

[riality-check]

ao3 link

Biology is the worst class Viktor takes in his time at the Academy.

It is, respectfully, a stupid requirement for engineers, especially for engineers of his inclination: the ones who would rather their hands smeared in axle grease than blood. It is a frustratingly macroscale discipline, frequently causing Viktor more questions than answers.

He asks these in lecture, of course. He is not obnoxious, at least not any more so than the girl who inquired, as his professor handed out the first exam, as to whether humans were animals.

Lecture is for questions, especially since Viktor would rather work on his projects, both personal and for his engineering courses, than waste the time going to the office hours for a class in which he has earned perfect marks on every weekly quiz.

After lecture one day early in the semester, he is kindly but firmly referred by his professor to the chemistry department so that his questions can be better answered. So, he takes the trip to a nostalgic building, a building with floors so slanted he spots students rolling marbles to calculate the impossible angles by which they slope. There, his questions as to why the biological processes for which he has endured incomplete explanations occur in the ways they do are answered, but his questions regarding how are not.

The physical chemistry professors exchange a glance and tell Viktor that the physics department would be better able to describe those forces to him. So, he takes the trip to a building he has seen closed more often than open, where he has heard other students complain about fire scares repeatedly - something about a faulty boiler.

Viktor wonders why the Academy has not bothered to have it fixed yet. They certainly have the funds.

He has fixed more complex machines with less. Perhaps he could have a crack at it.

He concludes swiftly after his arrival that he rather likes the physics department. There, everything makes sense. It is all motion, with the atoms of the world moving in harmony. And when they are not, disruptions can be calculated and corrected.

Much better than the chaos of a body. There are far more complex ways to fail in a living system and far fewer solutions to correct those failures.

On the rare occasions in which the physics does not make sense, particularly when he has questions regarding certain derivations, he is warmly and excitedly referred further.

The math department is, inexplicably, housed in a building so labyrinthine that one of the illegible maps on the wall has “GOOD LUCK” scribbled across it. It shares the building with at least two other departments. As Viktor walks past offices organized seemingly without rhyme or reason, he finds that one of those other departments is the linguistics department.

He hears snatches of his native language between the soft thuds of his cane on the carpet. The speakers are heavily accented, but his heart clenches nonetheless.

How long has it been since he has had a full conversation in it? The answer is the same number of years it has been since his parents departed, and that is one number that Viktor would rather not think about.

That semester, he becomes as much a fixture within the math and physics departments as he is in his home department of engineering. He talks with professors he will have in later classes, and they offer him friendly smiles when they see him.

No one besides Heimerdinger has done that for him at the Academy. He did not realize how much he missed it until he lost it and got it back.

If that was all Viktor got from biology, he might be inclined to say it was a good course, though not in any traditional sense. But that was not the case.

Instead, it reminded him of everything that was wrong with him.

They… “take it easy” in one lecture the day after an exam. They discuss abnormal physiology for fun, and Viktor wants to throw something.

“Many defects,” his professor explains, “are characterized by a childhood lack.”

She changes out her slides, one by one, explaining that while these conditions are no longer as common in Piltover as they used to be, they still occur often enough, and the students on the pre-medical track should be aware that they do.

Every slide has a picture of someone from the Undercity.

They are sad. Empty. Small mouths and wide eyes. Too-large mismatched clothing and hunched postures. Canes. Prosthetics. Wheelchairs. All cobbled together from scraps, from whatever can be deemed suitable at the moment.

If Viktor were not so transfixed on the way these people, these living, breathing, human beings have been transformed into clinical examples in black-and-white, he would steal a look at his new cane and think back to his old one from the Undercity, tucked into a corner of his room.

But he cannot stop looking.

Because he recognizes some of the faces.

Not many. The Undercity is a big place; unless someone is well known, like Vander or Babette, one can remain relatively anonymous. Faces and names tend to blend. People have their own communities to focus on.

But Viktor recognizes a few. The old shopkeeper with a smile like broken windows who was so good at making the street children laugh is used as an example of Vitamin C deficiency. His smile for the camera is false. Artificially widened to display all his missing teeth.

The drunk who used to sit on the corner by the square and offer advice - usually pretty sound, all things considered - or sing a song in a shockingly smooth baritone, so long as someone handed him a coin or sip from a flask, is reduced to nothing more than his addiction. 

There is no mention of how he would stay up at night to make sure the girls at the brothels made it home safely, or how he would let the children pet his dog. It was a rascal of a mutt, but always well-behaved and clean. It loved children. Viktor had pet that dog many times.

It is not in the picture. The image is only of the man. His half-full bottle is centered.

One of the slides has an image of a young girl with long dark hair and pretty light eyes. This time, Viktor knows her name. It was Ana. She was the only other person Viktor knew his age who used anything like a cane. She had two forearm crutches, as neither of her legs functioned very well.

They did not see each other often, were not nearly close enough to be friends, but there was something shared in the way they smiled and nodded at each other when they passed. A solidarity of sorts.

He stopped seeing Ana when she was young. He always wondered what happened to her. 

The caption of the slide says she passed at a single-digit age. The image of her is nothing like how Viktor remembers her.

He is staring at a ghost while his classmates take note of her rickets, caused by a Vitamin D deficiency.

He has the same condition, one of his many. The professor mentions that it can cause progressive scoliosis as “the patient” ages. His neck prickles as his classmates stare at him, at his cane.

He bites his tongue. He will not leave. He will not cause a scene. He will do the work. He will sit there and learn while people like him are reduced to nothing but hypotheticals for pilates, as examples of the have-nots.

“Characterized by lack.”

Viktor half-expects that an image of him as a child will be presented at some point. He does not remember ever having had his picture taken, but there were enough occasions on which he was too… “out of it” to remember things. Times spent at “doctors’” offices. He would not be surprised if any one of the people who had tried (and they did try, to their credit) to treat him had let in a topsider in exchange for a little extra much-needed coin.

But no such image appears. The last slide, blessedly, shows someone Viktor does not know, but unfortunately, it is something that he is familiar with.

A girl in his class raises her hand as soon as she sees the slide, before Viktor can even begin reading the caption. The professor calls on her, and the girl excitedly chatters about how she had that same birth defect, though less severe, and it was fixed promptly with harnesses and braces physical therapy, and now she is normal.

That is the word she uses. “Normal.”

This girl had a leg like Viktor’s, and she is “normal.”

And he is not.

Because no one in the Undercity knew how to fix it. Because no one thought it could be fixed.

He could have been fucking fixed. If only he had been born topside. If only he had been lucky. If only some other person, a generation before, had the opportunity to be plucked out of the fumes of the Undercity by Heimerdinger as a pet project to make himself feel better, only to be seldom acknowledged after being thrust into a strange world in which, baseline, no one goes hungry.

How fucking strange it is that no one goes hungry here. How odd that no one here seems to want anything necessary, only frivolities and uselessness and toys. How abnormal it is that this is the norm up here, when Viktor learned at a young age to ignore his stomach cramping, ignore the shortness in his lungs, ignore the pain in his legs and his spine and his hands and everywhere else, because nothing will make it better, not the drugs or the doctors or anything, because it cannot be fixed.

Except up here it can. Up here, the Undercity is an unfortunate problem to be photographed and pored over. Its people are reduced to imprints and to ghosts. Theories and hypotheticals.

Because god forbid anyone goes down, and Viktor is the oddity for daring to pull himself up and act like he deserves it when he has better marks and more study hours than the vast majority of his year.

He stands. Class is almost over, but he walks out anyway. His cane is loud on the floor, and he does not care. He holds his head high and ignores his professor and the whispers of other students as he shoves open the door.

Let them see one of their precious photographs come to life.

After, he only returns to that classroom for exams. There is nothing that the professor can teach him that the textbook cannot. He saves his time for more useful things. Math and physics. A new personal project.

It is probably far too late for it to do any good, but Viktor does nothing if not try. A brace should not be too hard to make.

First installment, second installment, latest installment, even more latest installment and another

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

RE: the whole boiler thing, I'm a building services engineer in the UK so I design these systems.

Generally, most homes and a decent proportion of other buildings will have a combi boiler (a boiler that provides water for heating and hot water), usually fueled by gas. They're usually wall mounted, and measurements of 70cm tall, 50cm wide and 30cm deep is fairly typical of a domestic boiler. Larger buildings may have a separate hot water cylinder which may be independently heated or supplied with hot water by the boiler.

In the UK boilers usually provide water at 70-80C - to prevent legionella in the hot water supply it needs to be heated to over 60C.

Radiators have the hot water (not steam in the UK) supplied via pipes and heat the room via convection - they heat the air around them which the circulates. From descriptions the radiators you've seen in media are older cast iron column radiators, which do still exist (typically in older buildings) but modern ones have a different design to increase the surface area of the radiator.

Most buildings in the UK do not have mechanical ventilation (so no air conditioning or forced air systems) and underfloor heating which is fancier than radiators is usually also hydronic (supplied with hot water), although at lower temperatures (45-55C).

How are Australian buildings usually heated?

In my experience, Australian buildings usually aren't heated.

On the farm we always had a fireplace in the home somewhere and if it got cold then everyone would go to the room with a fireplace. In towns people sometimes have an electric or gas heater built into a wall that does the same thing, and in recent years, I've noticed a lot of people have reverse cycle air conditioning. I'm not familiar with any other heating techniques in common use in Australia, although one of my friends did get this cool underfloor heating thing when converting his parents' shed into a granny flat.

The rest of us just buy a space heater from kmart.

[dfortrafalgar]

In Between

Law discovers that your thighs are the warmest part of your body and exploits that information.

Law x Fem Reader

Warnings: slightly suggestive, really just lots of fluff, reader is written to be chubbier but anyone can read this

Also posted on AO3

Law’s teeth were chattering violently as he stomped down the steel hallways of the Polar Tang.  Light barely made it through the portholes with how deep below the surface of the ocean they were, his shadow only existing thanks to the few fluorescent lights that lined the hallways.  He turned a corner near the stern of the ship and pulled open the door to the engine room with an unmatched fury.

“Why the hell is it so damn cold in here?” he hollered, gravely annoyed.

Ikkaku and Penguin were on the floor in front of the ship’s main boiler system responsible for regulating the temperature within the submarine.  The sound of their captain’s voice made them jump and rapidly turn their attention toward him.

“Sorry, Captain, the electrical system for the boiler’s shot.  We’re working on getting it fixed but it might take a few days.”  Penguin waved his hand in front of the mess of the deconstructed boiler on the floor.

“Are there any extra blankets in the bunkhouse closet?” Ikkaku asked, turning her head back to her work.

Law grumbled.  Of course he had already checked.  Every single blanket that existed on the Polar Tang was currently being used by the other 19 members of the crew, huddled in a giant human ball in the common room with Bepo in the center.  They looked like a flock of penguins in a blizzard, with the only difference being the human chatter amongst the group.

With a brief, and quite blunt, goodbye, Law closed the engine room door and held tighter onto Kikoku who held her permanent place perched on his shoulder.  There was only one person he hadn’t seen in regards to the heating issue, or lack thereof.  And he knew exactly where to find her.

---

Being the Captain’s beloved girlfriend came with many responsibilities, but also a great many perks.  Your favorite being your new home in his private quarters.  His bed was so soft and bouncy, and you got a great amount of sleep in it considering your boyfriend rarely did.  He had a decently large space equipped with a small desk and bookshelf where he stored a few of his personal possessions, now shared with some of yours.  Your favorite part, though, was knowing that Law would always return to this very room at the end of each day, and you were always in there waiting.

You were busying yourself with a small broom, brushing away a small pile of dirt, sand, and stray hairs that had accumulated on the metal flooring.  Staying in motion was the best way to stay warm, and you were so warm, in fact, that you had tied the sleeves of your boiler suit around your waist, existing in the t-shirt you wore underneath.  You crouched down with a dustpan to scoop the pile of dirt up and away from the floor when the door to the room was pushed open with urgency, making you yelp in surprise.  You didn’t even hear him coming, but you giggled almost as soon as you saw the man in the doorway.

Law’s usually stoic face was dusted with a deep red along his nose and cheeks, and his teeth were clenched together.  The fingers that were curled around his sword were also bright red.  He didn’t look particularly pissed, more just uncomfortable.

“It’s cold,” was all he said.  When he took note of your boiler suit being halfway off leaving your forearms and neck exposed, mild shock coated his features.  “How are you not freezing without that suit on?”

You smiled as you finished brushing away the pile into the dustpan and dropping it into a nearby receptacle Law kept by his desk.  “I’ve been doing chores all day, so I got kind of warm.  It is a bit chilly though.”

“‘A bit’,” he responded, light-heartedly mocking your nonchalant attitude.  He trudged into his room, closing the heavy door behind him and gently placing his sword against the wall before flopping onto his bed, hat rolling off of his head with the force of his movement.  He immediately curled into a little ball, hands clutched towards his mouth in feeble attempts to keep them warm, which wasn’t working as planned considering even the breath leaving his lungs was tinged with frost.

You pulled your boiler suit back up, buttoning it halfway leaving it open where your chest was.  You laid on the bed next to him, pulling him into your body as best you could with his current ball form.

“I thought you were from the North Blue, you should be used to the cold,” you chided, running your fingers through his mop of black hair.  It was slightly greasy by the roots, he was due for a nice warm shower when the boiler was fixed.

“I have low blood circulation,” he muttered into your neck.  “I get cold easily if I’m not bundled up to the nines.”  Neither of you needed to say it out loud, it was common knowledge.  Law was super lean and a tad scrawny in areas, it made sense why he would get cold more easily.

A smile graced your lips at the mental image of Law as a kid, wrapped in a multitude of warm layers to keep him warm, that grouchy expression lingering for the duration.  He must have been so adorable like that.

“Well, you have me, I can be your personal space heater,” you responded, voice heavy with affection.

Law had to admit, he did feel like he was warming up already.  He uncurled his hands and placed them on your chest to roll you more onto your back so he was on top of you, resting on you with his full body weight.  His leg nestled in between yours and his nose was pressed into your neck, scruffy facial hair tickling your skin.  His hands, following a growing path of warmth that radiated from your body, trailed down your sides to your hips, before dipping in between your bodies towards your crotch.  In the divots of your hip joints, his hands were instantly filled with an almost scorching warmth that rapidly replaced the biting cold in his fingertips.

“Oh my god,” he muttered without even thinking.

You laughed, though your sound came out a bit breathy as his whole body rested atop your chest.  “Warm down there?” 

Law shuffled, rolling off of you slightly to weasel his tattooed hands between your plump thighs.  You were so unbelievably warm in this one specific spot.  He never noticed it until this very moment.  A tiny voice in the back of his head made him wish the boiler could stay broken for longer just so he could keep his frigid hands locked between your flesh.

Breathless, he uttered, “How are you so warm right here?”

Your hands trailed up his own body to play with the wispy black baby hairs behind his neck.  “I don’t know, I’ve always been pretty warm right there.  Sometimes when my hands get too cold I sit on them to warm up.”  You laughed.  It sounded quite stupid when you said it out loud, but it wasn’t like you could deny it.  If you’ve got personal warmth, you use it to your advantage.

And in this case, you let your popsicle of a boyfriend use it to his advantage.

Law was growing uncomfortable in this position, and with a few quick motions, he had you turned so your back was against his torso, becoming the little spoon as his long legs curled around you, one arm encircling your hips to once again dip his fingers into the warmth between your pelvis.  His other arm rested below you, flush between your body and the bed, absorbing all the warmth it could.  You were much more comfortable in this position too, curling your neck back slightly so his nose ruffled your hair.  He took a long, deep inhale, fully relaxing into the moment.

“What time is it?” he lazily asked.

“Can’t be past 2 o’clock yet,” you responded.

The captain sighed.  There was still so much daytime left and now he found himself in the position where all he wanted to do was warm himself with your soft body.  He inwardly accepted the reality that he might be doing this for the duration of the boiler’s maintenance.  Who was he kidding, he’d be doing this for the rest of his life, until you got sick of him, of course.  But with the way you were completely nestled into him, your own hands held close to your chest, he didn’t think you had any complaints.

His previous grouchiness had all but melted away.  He blissfully closed his eyes with his nose in your hair, planting a chaste kiss on the back of your head.

[queenie435]

THE WORLD'S FIRST ELECTRIC ROLLER COASTER

Granville T. Woods (April 23, 1856 – January 30, 1910) introduced the “Figure Eight,” the world's first electric roller coaster, in 1892 at Coney Island Amusement Park in New York. Woods patented the invention in 1893, and in 1901, he sold it to General Electric.

Woods was an American inventor who held more than 50 patents in the United States. He was the first African American mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War. Self-taught, he concentrated most of his work on trains and streetcars.

In 1884, Woods received his first patent, for a steam boiler furnace, and in 1885, Woods patented an apparatus that was a combination of a telephone and a telegraph. The device, which he called "telegraphony", would allow a telegraph station to send voice and telegraph messages through Morse code over a single wire. He sold the rights to this device to the American Bell Telephone Company.

In 1887, he patented the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph, which allowed communications between train stations from moving trains by creating a magnetic field around a coiled wire under the train. Woods caught smallpox prior to patenting the technology, and Lucius Phelps patented it in 1884. In 1887, Woods used notes, sketches, and a working model of the invention to secure the patent. The invention was so successful that Woods began the Woods Electric Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, to market and sell his patents. However, the company quickly became devoted to invention creation until it was dissolved in 1893.

Woods often had difficulties in enjoying his success as other inventors made claims to his devices. Thomas Edison later filed a claim to the ownership of this patent, stating that he had first created a similar telegraph and that he was entitled to the patent for the device. Woods was twice successful in defending himself, proving that there were no other devices upon which he could have depended or relied upon to make his device. After Thomas Edison's second defeat, he decided to offer Granville Woods a position with the Edison Company, but Woods declined.

In 1888, Woods manufactured a system of overhead electric conducting lines for railroads modeled after the system pioneered by Charles van Depoele, a famed inventor who had by then installed his electric railway system in thirteen United States cities.

Following the Great Blizzard of 1888, New York City Mayor Hugh J. Grant declared that all wires, many of which powered the above-ground rail system, had to be removed and buried, emphasizing the need for an underground system. Woods's patent built upon previous third rail systems, which were used for light rails, and increased the power for use on underground trains. His system relied on wire brushes to make connections with metallic terminal heads without exposing wires by installing electrical contactor rails. Once the train car had passed over, the wires were no longer live, reducing the risk of injury. It was successfully tested in February 1892 in Coney Island on the Figure Eight Roller Coaster.

In 1896, Woods created a system for controlling electrical lights in theaters, known as the "safety dimmer", which was economical, safe, and efficient, saving 40% of electricity use.

Woods is also sometimes credited with the invention of the air brake for trains in 1904; however, George Westinghouse patented the air brake almost 40 years prior, making Woods's contribution an improvement to the invention.

Woods died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Harlem Hospital in New York City on January 30, 1910, having sold a number of his devices to such companies as Westinghouse, General Electric, and American Engineering. Until 1975, his resting place was an unmarked grave, but historian M.A. Harris helped raise funds, persuading several of the corporations that used Woods's inventions to donate money to purchase a headstone. It was erected at St. Michael's Cemetery in Elmhurst, Queens.

LEGACY

▪Baltimore City Community College established the Granville T. Woods scholarship in memory of the inventor.

▪In 2004, the New York City Transit Authority organized an exhibition on Woods that utilized bus and train depots and an issue of four million MetroCards commemorating the inventor's achievements in pioneering the third rail.

▪In 2006, Woods was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

▪In April 2008, the corner of Stillwell and Mermaid Avenues in Coney Island was named Granville T. Woods Way.

[encachette]

𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒚𝒂 𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒘𝒃𝒐𝒚… ch. 2

ᴀɴ ᴜɴᴛᴇɴᴀʙʟᴇ ᴛʀᴜᴄᴇ!

Ch. 1 here

❣ Dick Grayson x F!reader

❣ cowboy bebop au; neo-noir space western crackfic, loosely follows the plotline of the anime; animal(s) with human-engineered intelligence; science fiction ❣ cw: angst, romantic and existential; begrudging friends to lovers; eventual smut; graphic depictions and themes of violence; mentions of death; nightmares, cop corruption; stress crying ❣ MDNI ❣ Word Count:  6.5 k ❣ Ch. 2 Summary: Dick and Jason welcome pick up meet a mysterious girl who knows more than she lets on, with a connection to their father. As they make room for each other on the Bebop spacecraft, Dick tries to make the best of a mess you’ve dragged him into, despite Jason’s disapproval. You desperately need a goddamn nap and some food. As for Haley, the grey dog with three legs... she just hopes that you’ll buy her some of the name-brand dog food for her next meal.

❣ Author’s Note(s): 

→ [Spike Spiegel, I see you in everyone I’ve ever loved.] → This chapter is more personal than I wanted it to be, but I am too tired to edit. Maybe it’s more dialogue heavy than I’d like it to be but hey, I’ve never written a plot this complex before.  → Mysteries abound! What the hell is everyone hiding? And who’s going to betray who? How badly does Dick wanna fuck you? Stay tuned to find out, babes!

Chapter 2: an untenable truce

⋆｡°✩ ⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊✩₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆ ✩°｡⋆ ･｡

　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

　　　.   　　˚　　 　　*　　 　　✦　　　.　　.　　　✦　˚ 　　　　 ˚　.˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　 　　 　　　　    ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖✶   ✦　　

.⋆⭒˚.⋆☾ .🪐˖☽⋆⭒˚.⋆

One foot in front of the other, you chant to yourself. You’ll be there soon. The light is just in the distance, there has to be shelter over the next hill. You keep forcing yourself forward, but it was as if your arms and legs were stuck in a thick sludge. Time felt like a dense, gelatinous ooze and the more you tried to pump your legs, the farther the light seemed to drift. You don’t know where you are, but you know that the darkness around you is expansive, only more so the longer you try to run toward the light. Keep running. No matter how long you ran, you never got tired, the threat of darkness seemingly fueling your determination to keep moving.

.⋆⭒˚.⋆☾ aboard the Bebop, somewhere in the Solar System˖☽⋆⭒˚.⋆

Two brothers sat idly on a scratchy sofa, face aglow by the television’s blue light. The obnoxious clang of  a cowbell ricochets off of the titanium spaceship, intermittently punctuated by static; no guarantee of service when you’re near the asteroid belt.

“Stop chewing on the cable, Haley,” whistles the shorter, leaner brother, snapping his fingers to call attention to a three-legged, pitiable creature. He lounges back in an insufficiently sized loveseat, eyes scanning the screen with a lit cigarette hanging in the balance, right between his lips. Occasionally, he sneaks a glance over the coffee table to see his brother, larger and bulkier and reclined in what was usually his own sofa of choice. Streaks of hair, tussled vivid white under the harsh fluorescents framed a rugged face, mouth set in a firm line as he focused on the screen, sulking about their predicament chained up in his lab.

Judy, the buxom blonde of Big Shot (For the Bounty Hunters) stood clad in plaid, lewd squeals grating against the eardrums. The grey dog whines and hides its snout under its remaining front paw, canine distress now joining the cacophony. On the TV, Judy is unceremoniously pushed aside by her gratuitously violent costar, voluptuous curves rippling in the wind, barely contained by minimal clothing. Punch starts rattling off active bounties, mug shots scrolling through the screen as he shoots off his pistol, aimless.

“All 300,000 bounty hunters in the star system and not a single one o’ ya coffee-boilers has caught our mighty fine dame of the ‘our…”

When the mugshot wrap ends on a glowering face framed by ginger hair, the younger brother starts muttering under his breath.

“Coulda had her.” 

Irritation floods the man on the loveseat, and he takes a slow inhale. He slams his thumb on the remote control’s power off button, and the Bebop living room is plunged into darkness, lit only by the flaming end of a cigarette. 

.⋆⭒˚.⋆☾ .🪐˖☽⋆⭒˚.⋆

Waves of pounding pressure in your skull. That was the first thing you were aware of when you came to, mouth desert dry and muscles aching with a frozen soreness. Goosebumps rupturing on your skin alerted you to the frigidness shaking your bones. Fighting against your eyelids, crusted shut by the most unrestful sleep, the blur in front of your eyes slowly focuses under the glow of a lamp somewhere in the corner of the room. A weight on your ankle is the second, coherent thing you noticed; a cuff chained to the steel bed frame, igniting a spark of fear. Somber tension reverberated throughout the halls, eeriness bounding off of the metal walls.

Sitting up way too fast, a dizzy rush unsettling your head, you whip your eyes down, making sure that all of your appendages were intact, that you were clothed in the garments you put on this morning — Was it even this morning? How long have I been out? Your spine skitters under your skin, and you taste the bitterness of unfamiliarity. 

Or was it bile? Where the fuck am I?

Panic creeps up alongside every thump of your heart, fighting to overtake reason even though you do everything in your power to focus — assessing your surroundings, reflexively locating an escape route, something to break the shackle. Your gun! You look around the room, seeing your keys and jacket laid out neatly on the solid steel table in the middle of the room. The most important three items, though, were missing. No gun, no rolls of film in sight, no wallet. Bile makes its way up your esophagus as hyperventilation threatens to overwhelm you. You look at the cold metal table, bright medical lights blaring down on it from above. A few tools were lined on a tray next to your belongings: you spy a scalpel and surgical tongs. Fuck. The bile is clawing its way out now. You couldn’t reach any weapons. 

Stupidly, you yank at the chain a few times with all your might. Skin straining against the thick metal of your shackles, your rigorous yanking only leaves you groaning, an anklet of bruises that were sure to cause you hell when you got out of here. If you got out of here. Maybe if you could pull on the chain with your arms? Was the bed frame attached with nails or was it welded? Fuck. You felt the tears sting your skin as they escaped, a desperate sob along with them.

Water, you needed water. You couldn’t scream yet. Your eyes dart around the room, up the walls, tracing the ceilings. There was only one entrance, and maybe a vent behind that industrial shelf? You could crawl through it, probably… There was no way out, though, if you couldn’t get that fucking shackle off of your ankle.

There was a nightstand next to you, with a reading lamp, a cup of water, and some painkillers. Outside your room, you could hear the sniffling of a dog, its snout making whiny little sounds as the sound of blunt nails scratching metal mixes with the general discomfort of the entire situation.

You’d have to face it.

So you scream, every last bit of energy you have left in you put into a brokenly vicious, bloodcurdling scream.

☄. *. ⋆

“This is your fault, Richard,” Jason growls at his older brother, “I am not the one who deviated from the plan and brought some stranger along. A stranger who has a gun and enough contraband to send us to Pluto.” The steam from Jason’s ears was palpable, almost reminding Dick of their father when he was seething but trying to keep a lid on his temper. He keeps his hands busy, cleaning both Dick’s and his guns with practiced precision and muttering under his breath, “Fucking PLUTO, Richard.” 

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Dick attempts to assuage his brother, “I’m sorry, but what was I supposed to do? Leave her there? We don’t even know what Ivy threw at her, she could have died, Jason.” Hands on his hips, giving his brother the “I know best by virtue of seniority” look and waiting for an answer, cigarette in one hand while the other gestured his own frustration.

“You drop goons like maggots on the daily and this is the one person you want to save?” Jason makes no effort to hide his scorn as he glides the microfiber cloth over the barrel of the gun he was cleaning. Your gun.

Quite honestly, Dick doesn’t really know yet why he threw you over his shoulder and back into the safety of the Bebop. Dick and Jason had been a team for years, never letting eyes pry into their partnership, carefully evading ISSP and the Syndicate alike. He had no idea who you were, but he didn’t want to admit to recklessness. 

“First of all, she’s not a maggot. Don’t be rude. She helped me escape, technically. Second, she’s got a fuckton to answer for when she wakes up.” Maybe turning the conversation toward the more interesting matter at hand would distract Jason from being mad at him, Dick reasons. “I don’t know about you, but aren’t you even the least bit interested in what’s on those rolls of film?”

“Nope,” Jason makes sure his voice sounds sufficiently clipped. “Not interested in being executed by ISSP firing squad. None of those pigs can aim, it’d take too many shots to kill me and I’d rather it be done in one go.”

“What’s done is done,” Dick says, allowing a note of contrition through his words. “But better we have her than ISSP, no? And how does she know dad?” Both brothers had combed through your belongings, and found your medical emergency contact card that stated, neatly in print: ‘In Case of Emergency, contact Bruce Wayne at ISSP.’

 Jason’s scowl deepens, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he focuses on wiping the fingerprints from each gun and knife laid out on the coffee table in front of him, his back aching from the lumpy old loveseat. 

“Fuck if I know,” he says stonily, a white streak of hair falling over his eyes as he concentrated on running a cloth over the trigger. “All I do know is that I’m calling ‘not it’ on calling Dad about this.”

“Huh?” Dick’s stony face morphs into one of slight bemusement.

“You know we have to call him. And it ain’t gonna be me, Richard.”

Dick snorts, coming to sit down next to Jason and reassembling his own gun with practiced dexterity. 

“Do we know what she got dosed with? Is it contagious?” Dick’s mind flashes back to the moment Ivy blew a handful of dust into your face, the fluidity with which your body collapsed — your head would’ve split open if he hadn’t lunged to ensure your skull would hit his hand instead of the pavement. It wasn’t an active decision so much as a reflex. He hadn’t inhaled enough of that powder to feel anything other than a slight headache and dizziness, but he’d recovered in less than a few hours. You, on the other hand, had slept through the night and through breakfast. Dick had made sure to check in on you every so often, just to make sure you hadn’t died on them.

 “I took a look at the shit Ivy threw at her – it’s a neuromuscular blocker; paralyzes the victim for a few hours depending on dosage. But this one didn’t seem to be particularly high in concentration,” he pauses and looks pointedly at Dick, “So you can monitor her condition. She’ll need lots of fluids and food when she gets up,” he looks down at his watch, “Which should be soon.” 

Only a few seconds later did a blood curdling scream rip its way through the Bebop.

“LET. ME. OUT!” Dick’s eye twitches as your screeches repeat, gradually increasing in volume by the demand. Jason figures that his capacity for tolerating his brother’s antics knows no bounds. “ONCE I’M FREE I’M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS.” Your threat echoes down the hall, reverberating off of the metal walls of the spaceship. Your sonic assault continues for several minutes.

“Make sure you ask her where she got this little number,” Jason adds calmly, holding up your gun and looking at it with the tiniest hint of admiration. 

“What do you mean? I have to question her?” Dick seems to doubt himself for a moment, your wails disturbing the mundane peace of the Bebop’s living room, a profound intimidation keeping him from seeing the pretty girl in Jason’s lab.

“I’m not the one who brought her here,” Jason runs a hand through the white streak in his hair, “and honestly what I did hear during yesterday’s bust doesn’t make her sound like a walk in the park.” 

“Fair,” Dick doesn’t refute his brother. He turns the conversation toward more pressing matters. “She has to stop eventually, right?” he reasons while wiping down one of his switchblades before clipping it back into his left-hand pocket. It’s not like you could keep screaming forever, you’d lose your voice eventually. Haley hides her snout under a large paw and whines, ears cowered as your screams continue.

“I HAVE ENOUGH C4 IN MY SHIP TO FUCK UP THE NICE HANGOUT YOU GOT HERE!” Another ear splitting screech follows.

“Just—,” Jason closes his eyes, breathing through his nose and pointing angrily toward his quarters, where they had you resting on a bed in his lab. “Just go deal with it, I have enough of a headache as is.” Jason grits through his teeth, huffing through his ruffled feathers and silently cursing his luck as he stands up and disappears into his bedroom, leaving Dick to rummage through the fridge for something suitable to give someone who’d just been turbo-dosed by an anesthetic nerve agent. Haley continues to whine, desperate for an end to your distress.

Dick mindlessly wonders if Jason could possibly recreate it in his lab on the second floor of the Bebop; it’d come in handy. Then they wouldn’t have to expend so much energy chasing after violent goons with bounties on their heads and arsenals that only the worst kinds of people possessed.

☄. *. ⋆

You crouch into a defensive position on your bed the second you hear the hydraulics of the steel door slide open, the hoarse scream dying in your throat. 

“Quiet, please!” a man’s voice breeches the entrance before his form, deep, and friendly,  “You’re scaring Haley.” The handsome guy who had intruded on your bust strolled into the room, his boots colliding with the steel floor and doing nothing to calm your nerves. You scoped him, trying to take note of everything, anything you could use to your advantage. You had to escape. 

“What the fuck am I doing here? Uncuff me.” Your voice was vicious under its hoarse strain. As threatening as you could muster in your weakened state.

In his hands was a tray lined with a sandwich, an apple, and a glass of water. No metal utensils for you to grab and use. 

The man was muscular, much larger than you, but you think you could last long enough in a fight with him to escape; especially if you could get your hands on that scalpel. You’d just have to dodge him, dodge every attack until he tired himself out. You clocked the knife in the pocket of his pants, holster under his jacket. 

“Can’t do that just yet, sweetheart,” he flashes you an apologetic smile, placing the tray on your night stand. You look at the food and drink apprehensively, eyes flitting back and forth across the room. “It’s not poisoned,” the guy says gently, lifting the glass and waterfalling a sip into his own mouth. 

You look up at him, watch his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows, readying yourself to smash his nose in if he comes any closer.

“Let. Me. Go.” You demand again, slower. Hoping to God you sounded menacing enough that he’d think at least twice before touching you.

You keep conducting your desperate, pointless search, head swiping back and forth as you look around as you try to find yourself a weapon - maybe if you broke the ceramic lamp in a really specific way? The glass of water? 

“I wouldn’t,” the man says again, amused. You whip your gaze toward him again.

“Why am I here? What happened to me?” Oh god, you were going to hurl. A few breaths in. A few breaths out. Breathe, you reminded yourself. An anxious weight pulls under your chest.

“You’re safe. You’re on the Bebop. We took you here after you got dosed with a paralyzing agent by Poison Ivy.” 

You knew better than to trust a good-looking man who assured your safety. 

“Why didn’t you take me to a hospital? Are you perverts? Oh my god, I’m gonna be murdered by perverts,” you wail, near hysterics.

“What? No! You just got dosed with a strong anesthetic — you’ll recover,” he explains. “Probably will be groggy and sore.” He sounded patient, confident in his ability to handle himself. He didn’t seem threatened by you at all as he recounted the events of the past 36 hours to you.  “It was hardly acceptable to bring you into a hospital, I figured you wouldn’t want people to find out about your contraband.” He flashes a winning smile at you, seemingly proud of himself for thinking that far ahead. 

You just stare. Stone still. 

Fuck, were they going to rat you out? Slit your throat and take the rolls of film for themselves? It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tried.

You let yourself slowly pick up the glass of water, eyes never leaving him as you sip, desperate to quench the dry burn in your throat. The man stood there the whole time, just looking at you with such patience that it made you want to start screaming again. After a beat, you ask:

“If you’re not a pervert, then why am I chained up here?” You could tell he was ISSP, or maybe former ISSP, by the way he fired a gun, the way he shifted his weight before pulling the trigger. You remember telling yourself to take note of that as the both of you tried to escape from the basement of C’est La Vie. Maybe you could persuade him to call Bruce to vouch for you.

“I mean, we couldn’t exactly let you loose once we treated you, could we? You had some interesting items in your possession that I’m sure you’d rather stay out of the wrong hands.” 

You could tell he wanted more information, so you kept your mouth shut, trying to think of ways to keep his mind off of the illegal trove caught under your possession.

“What did you say your name was, again?” you start, sipping slowly at your water and calculating your chances of getting out of here alive.  

“I’m hurt you don’t remember, baby,” he runs a hand through his hair, kind of scratching the back of his scalp, a sad excuse for a smolder shot your way.

You sort of sniff, lip curling in menace instead of a response.

“Anyway, my name is Dick,” he continues. “Yours?”

“You took my wallet, you know who I am. Now let me fucking go.”

You have a hard time containing your rage when his grin just grows.

“I’ll let you go once you’ve answered a few questions,” Dick offers.

“Fine, what?” You practically snarl at him, secretly glad for more time to search for a weapon. Keep him talking. 

“Well, first, why does such a pretty girl carry around her death warrant? Second, I lost a pretty penny because you stuck your nose in my business. Third—” He’s cut off as another pair of boots approach your direction. Your head whips toward the door when you hear its telltale hydraulic breath of air. A burlier, taller man with a streak of bright white hair against black, stalks into the room, your gun in one hand, a mug of tea in the other. He couldn’t have been much older than the present company, grey mutt excluded.

“Third,” the man finishes for Dick, “how do you know our father?” He tosses what you recognize to be your emergency contact card you thought you’d hidden deep in your wallet. “Hi, I’m Jason,” the stranger waves to you, coming to tower over Dick.

“You’re Bruce's sons?” Your eyes flit between the two brothers, the way you’re giggling is a little off-putting to them given your state. Your ankle cuff clangs as your body wracks in fitful laughter. “I’d have gone with ‘Richard,’ by the way,” you shoot at Dick, wiping a mirthful tear from the corner of your eye.

“What's so funny?” Dick’s eyebrows furrow, lip pouting though you don’t think he meant to.

“Answer the damn question, girlie,” Jason commands, a little more threatening than his brother, though you don’t think he really means it.

“Thought you’d be quicker on your feet is all, considering you’re the spawn of Bruce Wayne.” You have a hard time getting the words out amidst your giggle fest. Both men look at you like they couldn’t quite process what was happening. 

“Look, I’m not the one chained to a bed with no hope of escaping. Now, how do you know Bruce?" Jason demands again. 

“He’s my handler,” you shrug, struggling to regulate your breath. Slowly, drawing out the action as much as possible, you sip from the glass Dick had sent next to you.

“What do you mean ‘handler’?” The agitation tightens around Jason’s eyes, and you decide it’s best to take him seriously. You heave a sigh, figuring that the only way you could possibly get out of this situation is to reveal more about yourself. Just enough to get out of the situation, but no more. Your situation was tenuous, and it was impossible to ignore the adrenaline pumping through you with each beat of the heart; steady thunder within a body sore and in need of recuperation. 

“Look, I’d rather not get into it. Quite frankly I’m not allowed to. Just call him yourself, tell him my name — he’ll vouch,” you offer. At least you’d hope he’ll vouch; this was a unique situation. “You can let me get back to my business and you can get back to yours.”

“What makes you think that we’d trust someone associated with ISSP?” Jason questions again. 

“He’s ISSP,” you nod toward Dick, whose eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I can tell by the way you shoot a gun — all technique, no raw intuition.”

Dick’s eyes narrow; at once struck by the acuity of your attentiveness and simultaneously displeased at the critique.

“What do you mean, ‘no raw intuition’?” he asks, sour note reverberating off of the metal walls of the room.

“You’re just…” you eye him up and down, this time taking a moment to process his 

“Oh, come on, spit it out,” Dick crosses his arms.

“...stiff.”

You just leave it at that, snooty and shrugging as if you hadn’t wounded Dick’s pride. 

Jason grunts in frustration.

“Fucking Christ, focus, Richard.” 

“Yeah Richard,” you mock Dick, figuring you’d better get on the good side of the larger one; he’d be harder to fight off. Jason’s demeanor loosens just a tad, seemingly amused  as he looks between the two of you with a raised eyebrow. You think that despite being adoptive brothers, they looked strikingly alike standing next to each other.

Truth be told, you had a feeling that Dick’s devil-may-care affability was a carefully constructed façade, the way the hairs on the back of your neck raised when you first met him on that sidewalk with the three-legged mutt. It was a gut feeling confirmed when the two of you laid eyes on each other under C’est La Vie. And ever since, your nerves had been alight with a sense of foreboding — not end-all-be-all foreboding, but a feeling that you were hurling toward something inevitable. And no matter how much you tried to quash it down, it kept fighting its way to the surface. 

“Call Wayne, I won’t say anything else until you do.” Your tone is resolute.

“Alright,” Dick agrees smoothly, “We’ll call him right now.” He turns toward Jason and nods a silent command at him, and Jason, sticking his tongue out at his brother in annoyance, walks over to the two giant computer screens taking up the space of one wall. You hear a few clicks of a keyboard, before a female AI stilted voice calls out:

“Calling: Bruce Wayne, Chief Director, Inter-Solar System Police.”

Silence, save for the dial tone and Haley panting. All eyes were glued to one of the gigantic screens, waiting for an answer that you prayed would get you out of this situation. No weapon in sight, no way out.

“Dick, Jason — what’s going on?”

Bruce Wayne is a formidable figure, imposing in size, but ever so polite. You hated his guts. 

No one has uttered a peep.

“What’s going on?” He repeats his question with the authority befitting his rank, eyebrows arched just the slightest bit when his eyes land on you.

“Yeah, nice to see you too, Bruce,” Jason mumbles to his adoptive father, stone cold. 

“Bruce, hi — sorry we haven’t called in a minute,” Dick starts off… pausing to figure out how he wants his words to come out.

“Well, lads,” you sneer, looking between the brothers, “which one of you geniuses wants to explain to Daddy what happened?” You try to keep yourself calm, stop the panic just as it tries to force its way to your tongue.

Jason raises his palms, shrugging like his job was done and he was off the clock. He makes his way to the exit, a childish smile on his face as he taunts his elder brother. “You can deal with this one, Richard.” 

“I am going to ask you one more time,” the man on the screen says patiently over the metal of Jason’s boots clanking on the floor. Too cool and ready to strike, he says with finality, “I am not going to ask you a third time. What’s going on?”

Would he admit he knows me? Or would he deny association? You felt your cheeks flush with an anxious anticipation.

“You tell me, Bruce,” Dick crosses his arms in a defensive stance, “She has an ID that lists you as an emergency contact. Says she’s your handler and that you’ll vouch for her.”

Bruce just glowers in thought, eyebrows furrowing expressively — a habit that clearly transcend genetic inheritance. You wait, nerves pounding in your skull, the suspense of meeting your end dangling right in front of your nose. Too much time passes before he speaks. 

“Dick,” Bruce sighs, tone much more genuine and somber, “She’s doing work for ISSP.”

Dick freezes, and even in the dim glow of the fluorescence, you see the stiffness that contours his silhouette.

“What work?” Dick barks, causing you to jump.

“That’s classified, son.” 

“What fucking work, Bruce?” He moves closer to the screen, gripping the computer in both of his hands, a stoic panic radiating from his shadow, plunging you even deeper into the hopelessness of your situation. You keep your mouth shut, watching the scene play out.

“Classified. I’m not even supposed to acknowledge her existence.” You couldn’t believe your eyes, but the Big Scary Pig might actually be speaking earnestly in the three years that you’ve known him. “But it’s not what you’re thinking,” Bruce adds, as if it was a secret between the two of them.

Dick just stands there, stone still. You were facing his back, but you didn’t need to see his face to feel the tension in the air.

Finally, he just scoffs at his father, shaking his head as if trying to clear unwanted thoughts flooding into his brain. You knew what that felt like.

“Fine. She says you can vouch for her — can you?” Dick turns back to you, giving you a sardonic, hard look before turning back to his father, the harshness in his features still apparent as he returns Bruce’s severe glower.

“She’s my responsibility, yes. You can trust her,” Bruce confirms in a measured tone, clearly not wanting to upset his son. Despite the viciousness of your hatred toward Bruce, your heart was going to jump out of your throat from relief. 

“See? Now let me go, lunkhead,” you pipe up loudly. Your ankle was bruised underneath the metal of the cuff: a result of your attempts at escaping.

Dick just lifts one pointer finger, and you falter. “Not quite yet,” he says.

“But — “ you start protesting, only for him to cut you off.

“What about the rolls of film she’s carrying on her?” Dick asks bluntly, letting annoyance seep into his tone as he stares down his father. You freeze.

“She is authorized by ISSP for possession of the film. You need to let her go. Do not interfere with her mission. I cannot say anything else.”

Dick shakes his head, annoyance having grown into a simmering anger.

“If she’s ISSP, why is she out bounty hunting?”

Bruce gives another sigh of frustration, like he was dealing with a petulant child.

“She is not an agent. She is under a classified contract. Stop asking any more questions, Dick.” 

“They don’t pay me,” you add, a falsely serene stroke of venom lacing your words. “A girl’s gotta survive somehow,” you shrug when Dick swings around to look at you in disbelief.

“Her mission is not on record. I need your discretion, son.”

Being called “son” only seemed to enrage him.

“Gotta give me something in return, old man,” Dick attempts to bargain.

“Her interactions with Jason will be off record. Jason will have immunity,” Bruce offers, his figure looming on the screen, intimidating to nearly everyone he encounters. Nearly. “That’s all I will give you.”

“Fine.” Dick moves a finger to hover over the keyboard.

“Oh, and, son?” Bruce calls his son to a pause with a dead serious demeanor.

“Hm?” Dick looks like he’s about ready to clobber his father all the way to Pluto, about to hit the disconnect button.

“If for some reason this conversation ever comes to public light, I will deny it ever happened.” The line goes dead before his finger could smash the “end call” button, plunging the room into a dimmer tension than before.

“Yeah, whatever. See ya, old man.”

☄. *. ⋆

“Oh, thank god.”

An almost sensuous sigh of relief escapes you breathlessly the second Dick unlocks the cuff around your ankle. You massage the ache, bruises already getting nasty and puce on your skin. Dick plants himself at the end of your bed, twirling the cuffs in his hands, deep contemplation seeming to have taken over his attention.

“Keys.” Your hand is out, palm up in petulant demand. The handsome man sitting at the end of your bed, makes no move to go and fulfill your command. Instead, he just looks at you, takes you in under the scrutiny of his deep blues. That foreign exhilaration in your nerves light aflame again, and you don’t know what to make of it.

“Keys and the rest of my shit. Now.” You are getting impatient. Desperate to get the fuck away from here and back to your own business. Maybe check yourself into a motel and get a hot shower. You could splurge. A treat for having endured this fucking episode from hell.

“Well, you see,” Dick laughs, more nervousness pouring into his cheeks the more he grasped the gravity of the situation at hand. “You can stay here until you’ve recuperated…”

“Where are my keys, Dick?”

“It got kinda damaged… when we were chasing Poison Ivy…” He’s ready to flinch in defensiveness, afraid you’d deal him the same hand you dealt the goon back at C’est La Vie.

“No, my baby!” you wail, attempting to get up from the bed. No can do; you collapse back down on the bed, struggling to sit as your vision blurs and a dizziness takes over.

“Woah, take it easy.” You feel a pair of hands ease you back to rest in a comfortable position. Warm, large hands. “You can’t be going anywhere in this state, anyway. It’s gonna take a minute to fix your baby given the damage. Time and a hell of a lot of Woolongs.”

You wanted to cry. God, you were going to cry. Cry and humiliate yourself even further in front of these two.

“How much money?” Do. Not. Fucking. Cry. You command yourself internally, silent prayer that things wouldn’t get worse.

“You don’t have enough. We checked through your bank statements.” 

You just let out a wail, face drooping into your palms. 

Dick sits there, awkwardly bringing the plate with the sandwich and apple closer to you, placing it gingerly on the bed in front of you.

“Finish your food.” His request is so soft, as if he was fearful of your next reaction. “I’ll be back with your stuff and I’ll show you around. Come on, Haley Time for a walk.” 

You don’t let a tear fall, but you do follow Dick’s instructions, vision only focusing when you see him exit the room, his trusted dog hobbling after him.

☄. *. ⋆

After he returns your possessions — inspected by you, with everything intact — and shows you to the guest quarters of the Bebop, Dick slumps onto his familiar lumpy couch, an exhale of exhaustion sinking into his bones as he flicks open his lighter. He squares his shoulders and gets ready to explain the situation to Jason, who was perched over a portable microscope and labeling samples from the shit Ivy had used to incapacitate you. Dozens of slides neatly lined the coffee table. Too organized. Meaning Dick was in for a conversation with an agitated former drug lord. Fucking fantastic.

“We need to let her stay for a bit, to rest up,” Dick starts with the least offensive topic first.

“Obviously.” Jason’s voice is clipped, like he was biting his tongue, not wanting to tear  Dick a new asshole until he heard the whole story. “What else?

“She’s working on something for Bruce.” Dick takes a drag of his cigarette and exhales before he continues. “Off the books.” 

“Are you fucking me? She’s ISSP?”

“Keep a lid on it, she won’t report you. You have immunity.” Another drag before he whistles for Haley. “And she’s not an agent. Contracted hire.”

“For what?” “Old man wouldn’t say. Classified. But he vouches for her. Says we can trust her,” Dick muses over this influx of new information, brain processing with heightened clarity with every hit of nicotine hitting his lungs. Jason grumbles, the same bemused expression gracing his rugged features as he scrutinizes his brother.

“What else? Spit it out, Dick.”

“We need to convince her to stay,” Dick’s request pushes through the plume of secondhand smoke. Haley’s wagging her tail next to the couch, ready to appease each and every direction Dick threw at her to the best of her ability. “Grab me a Pippu, girl, go on!” 

Jason carefully sets down the slide he was labeling, then turns off his microscope light before he addresses his brother with measured impatience.

“And why the fuck would we want ISSP anywhere near us? I thought we had an agreement.” 

Dick just shrugs, unable to find more complex words to articulate his compulsions.

“She knows something our father doesn’t want us to know.” Dick just shrugs, unable to find more complex words to articulate his compulsions. “Plus, she needs a place to stay before she can pay for the repairs on her cute little ship, if we’re gonna be practical about it.”

Jason considers the whole damned situation, cursing Dick under his breath. Always disturbing their blissful Bebop peace. Nearly three years since they’d teamed up. Not a day goes by where Jason wasn’t grateful for his partnership with Dick, but fuck if they hadn’t gotten into some rotten situations because his older brother couldn’t resist a pretty face.

“You said you wanted to fix up a ship, learn how to reconstruct the newer models. Fix up hers. It’s rumored to be quite faaast.” Dick dangles that last part mockingly in front of Jason, knowing that his younger brother couldn’t avoid a fast number like the one you owned.With resignation, the white streaks in his hair follow his exasperatingly slow shakes of his head, annoyed with himself because he knew that Dick’s decision would be immovable.

“I’m trusting you on this. She better not try anything when she’s here or I’m dropping you both off on Pluto.”

Dick feigns sarcastic horror at the threat, silently relieved. Not a day went by where Dick didn’t thank his lucky stars for his brother. Haley comes back with a can of soda between her rather menacing teeth, placing it next to Dick’s leg on the couch; cool condensation of the metal almost seeping through his pants and onto skin. He gives his dog an appreciative scratch behind the ears, and she settles her head on her front paw, readying herself for a snooze.

Meanwhile, under the steaming beat of water against your skull, you rub your skin harshly. Red and raw all over, tears indistinguishable from the scald of the shower, you let yourself drown in self-pity, just for the duration of the shower. You think about your situation, chained to ISSP as a disposable assassin, doing their dirty work for them, leaving their hands scott free. And for fucking what? The question is one you’ve struggled to answer since Bruce had pulled you out from one prison and into another. Bruce had what you wanted. The only purpose you could latch onto, held as a bargaining chip by the fucking cops. So long as you completed this mission, he’d give you what you’re looking for.  You think about stupid things you’ve read in books, like transience, the ephemeral. Dreams — you had a fixation. The in-betweenness of your life, everything and everyone simply a pathway to the next stop, but what you’re looking for is never there. 

It’s the same feeling you’d felt since you were defrosted, taken in by Deathstroke. The despair that could wrench right at the heart because of avoided inevitabilities. Seeing two lovers who were destined never to touch — that was how you described this particular sadness. 

By the time you’d emerged from the steam, cheeks plump and red, reality started seeping back in, demanding that you move, continue on with the necessary motions. Immediately, a distraction lays down in front of you, like a black cat begging you to halt in your path, give it a little scratch on the chin.

“GRAYSON!” You use your revived strength to inject as bloodcurdling a scream as you could into the night. “RICHARD DICKLESS GRAYSON. REPORT TO MY QUARTERS!!!”

“You know there’s an intercom system in every room, babe.” You hear his voice over through the speakers in the sealing. “I’ll be there in a second.”

You’d have to admonish him for the pet names.

He calls your name, and it’s the first time you really register his voice. It sends a shiver to your nerves, right to the edge of your fingertips.

“I need a towel.”

“You can have one if you let me sneak a peek at the goods, pretty girl.”

“I’m not in the mood, Grayson,” you warn him. All you wanted to do was sleep for a few days. Reset your body. He doesn’t wither under your stare, despite your expectations.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he just offers a crooked smirk.

“You’re a pervert. I knew it.” 

Dick just chuckles, all boyish charm as fetches your towel. He swears he catches the quickest flash of red ink on the smooth skin of your back before you slam the door in his face.

☄. *. ⋆

[drakulana]

the first spark // trafalgar law x reader

content: sfw, fem! reader, female pronouns, sloooow burn w little resolution, long reader backstory, violence

part 2, part 3

word count: 5.5k

notes: this is my first ever fan fic!!! i’m very proud of it, and i worked on it for a few weeks on and off. i hope you enjoy!!

⋆⭒˚‧₊˚°❀⋆₊⊹ ⋆｡𖦹˚. ͟͟͞☆

The Polar Tang had been under the water for about a month now. Never in a million years did (Y/n) think she’d be in the middle of the ocean, let alone underneath the surface in a submarine, 395 meters down. She had joined the Heart Pirates about 6 months ago and was just now getting used to being underwater for such a long amount of time. She had been having continuous headaches she assumed to be due to the pressure of being underwater for such a long time. They would come and go, some days worse than others. Today was one of the worst days. The chores had been done, and all the tasks were complete. Most of the crew decided to lounge around, hanging out with one another. To (Y/n) it seemed as if all corners of the submarine were occupied, and they all had too much noise to focus. Trying to find some peace and quiet, she made her way down to the boiler room, letting the laughter and chatter of her crew fade as she departed. It was not the first time she had done this, in fact this was her little secret. No one liked to come down here unless it was included in the work that they had to do. Pipes lined the walls, and the low hum of engines from a few doors over buzzed through the room. Finally at peace, she took a deep breath and exhaled.

A week ago, (Y/n) had stashed a book and a blanket down here, along with a pillow and a cushion she found in storage. She tucked herself into the corner, and sat down on the box that had placed the cushion on. She pulled out the book she was reading which was just a volume of some medical book Captain Law had in the library. Principles of Neurology. It was not an interesting read in the slightest, but there really was not a wide variety to choose from in the Surgeon of Death’s library.

Her mind started to wander as she flipped page by page trying to follow along the best she could with what she was reading. An entity of “frailty” has been conceived to encompass the sum of breakdown in multiple organ systems… She read the sentence over a few times. She made a mental note to get a book that was relatively interesting on the next island that they stopped on. Letting out a sigh, she continued to try to read but ended up drifting away with her thoughts. She was still relatively new to the crew, she had been with them for 6 months. Long enough to get comfortable with her crewmates, but not so long that they knew everything about her.

(Y/n) joined the Heart Pirates after aiding Law with intel that he needed about someone he was “researching.” During the process of this, she got caught up with the conflicts of whoever Law was looking into, and was taken hostage. While in hostage, the person pressed her for information of who was after them, how she knew all of their info, who was her informant? Despite the pressure, and the fear of looming death, she did not give out any answers. She chose against ratting out the Heart Pirates. At that moment, she was sure she was gonna die either way. If she gave out the information, the Heart Pirates were sure to come after her. If they were to get a hold of her, she’d have to answer to the Surgeon of Death. However, if she didn’t give out the answers, the man who was holding her hostage could kill her. So naturally, she picked the lesser of the two evils. Her mouth was staying shut. Like hell was she going to answer to Trafalgar Law of all people. She sat back and recalled that day.

She was held in a damp, dim, humid room. She wasn’t too sure on how long she had been there, but it was probably half a day. The interrogation started out like all of them did with questions and threats. After the first few hours of not speaking punches began to be thrown, and weapons were soon pulled out. Somebody’s hasty, she thought to herself as the interrogation took turns for the worst faster than she had anticipated. It was clear the man she had sold out was in a hurry. He was scared. How he found out it was her that sold his information, she didn’t know. All she knew was that this guy found out, and now he was mad and had a dagger. He kept questioning, each unanswered question he got a couple cuts in. Midquestion, a commotion outside the door started. Yelling ensued, then things breaking and then a panicked, “Boss, we have visitors.” The man interrogating you paused his mild torture, faltering as he stepped towards the door, like he was weighing his options. Would he stay in this room, or deal with the inevitable of being confronted by the man who seemed out his information, Trafalgar Law. He turned to the girl who was sitting in the chair. Her hands were tied in front of her, and her feet were tied together. “You,” He pointed an accusatory finger, “this is all your fault!” and you know, he was right, it was all her fault. She gave the intel for a very pretty penny, but how was she suppose to know she was going to get kidnapped and interrogated. How did they even know it was her who gave the intel? Questions zoomed through her head as he stormed towards her with the dagger in his hand. He held it to her throat. “I oughta kill you right here, right now. A life for a life.” The cool edge of the shaky blade pressed into her skin, nicking her in the slightest due to his unsteady hands. Then, with a sharp slice, her warm sticky blood poured down her neck. An involuntary gasp ripped from her throat as she felt the blood gather at the neckline of her shirt, soaking it. This is it, she thought, Here’s where I die. But before he could cut any deeper, the door to the room burst open. A warm yellow light illuminated the room from the hall outside. A tall figure stood in the doorway. It stormed over to the man, grabbing him by the back of his collar, turning him around. The warm light from the hallway casted across the face of the figure, it was none other than Trafalgar Law. Law craned down to the man’s height, paying the woman tied to the chair no mind, “I believe you have something I want,” he said in a low gruff voice. The man trembled in his grasp. “Now why don’t we take a little trip to your laboratory,” Trafalgar Law dragged the man out of the room, leaving the woman in there alone. It was a quick few minutes before she realized she was gonna have to free herself, and this was her only chance.

She looked around the room and spotted the dagger that the man had dropped near the doorway. Seeing her chance of escape, she scooted the chair towards the entrance. She grabbed the knife with her feet. Reaching down with her tied hands, she cut the ropes that bound her. Whoever tied her up did a really shitty job. Finally free, she prepared herself to escape. Dagger in hand, the silver of the blade glinting as she gazed upon the object. She couldn’t help but notice the blood on the edge from the man attempting to slit her throat. She tried to pay no mind to the wet sticky pain that was starting to raidiate down her neck and into her collarbones. Pushing the pain aside, she made her way through the place, careful to avoid anyone who might be lurking. Once she made it out, she let out a sigh of relief. Barefoot and bleeding, she decided she should probably take the alleyways home. She would hate to scare oncoming bypassers, or god forbid someone contact the authorities. Slipping into the alley, she started to make her way home before a voice cut through the night, “And where do you think you’re going?” Her head whipped around, gripping the dagger that she held in her hand. That voice was the one of Trafalgar Law. She met the man’s golden eyes. She quickly took in his appearance. When she first gave him the intel she had noticed his height, but she also wasn’t fearing for her life at the time. The weight of impending doom really added a foot or two to his appearance. “I didn’t tell them anything,” she breathed. “I didn’t say a word, I swear.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, and her voice didn’t sound like hers as it bounced off the alleyway walls. He took a step closer to her, “I know, but I still can’t let you go. You’re hurt, let me look at it,” he stepped closer. Her mouth felt as if it were filled with cotton. She took a step back, “I’m fine,” she gritted while taking one more step back, trying to put enough distance between them just so she’d have a chance of running away. She was just interrogated and borderline tortured, if she had known what the intentions were behind the wanted intel, she would’ve denied the offer. Besides, it wasn’t like the intel was collected for malice in the first place. (Y/n) had a goal, and that goal was to collect the most information she could, and write it all down into a book. This extended from histories of islands, pirates, doctors, scientists, government officials. Few people knew about her knowledges of the world and it’s inhabitants. Every now and then she would get someone wanting some information, and if the price was right she’d give it to them. She never thought it would lead to this, cornered in an alleyway by the Surgeon of Death himself. “I’m a doctor,” Law’s voice echoed off the walls as he slowly stepped forward towards her, like he was trying to approach a scared stray, careful not to spook it. His hands were held out in front of him, as if he meant no harm, however the word ‘DEATH’ tattooed across both his hands stated otherwise.

“I know good and well who and what you are.” Unintentional venom laced her words. She knew all about the reputation that seemed to proceed him. She had done her research whenever she came across his wanted poster a year ago. She never thought she would cross paths with him, he was just another name in her book for the longest time.

“Then you know it’s in your best interest if you just come with me.” With that last sentence from him, she falsely dropped her guard, muttering a small okay. She didn’t think this tactic was going to work, but as soon as she saw him relax his stance, she bolted. Running through the alleyway with no shoes seemed to be a difficult task, impeding her usual speed. Trying her best to avoid glass and nails, she darted in between the buildings, and in and out of the alleyways. She had the advantage, she knew this city. The poorly maintained asphalt stung, but she had no other choice but to ignore it if she wanted to get away.

She finally was able to duck behind a building after what felt like an eternity of turning down random streets and alleys. She leaned against the bricks to catch her breath, gripping the dagger in her hand. Her heartbeat was in her ears, she could feel the blood rushing through every vein. She stilled and tried to stay quiet, the only sound leaving her was a shaky exhale. The adrenaline slightly wore off as the silence of the night settled. The events of the night really started to set into her body. Her arms and legs aches, her lungs burned, her throat was on fire. Despite the pain setting in, she thought she had gotten away by some miracle, but a second later the same low voice she was running from bounced around her again. “You really think you could get away from me that easily?” His voice echoed, giving it a more sinister sound than what he had intended. She met his eyes. She didn’t know if it was the adrenaline making her analyze her situation in full detail, or if she was just delusional, but she found herself taking in every detail of his presence. The eyes that held her eye contact were golden. He had a lean figure, and was undoubtedly in shape. The moonlight poured over his figure, casting an intimidating shadow as he now stood in front of her. She noted the yellow button up that was halfway buttoned, showing a glimpse of the tattoo on his chest. He had on jeans that had spots on them, and a white hat that shared those same spots. Draped over his shoulders was a long navy coat. If she wasn’t running from him, she could’ve admitted that he was quite an attractive man, but in her head he was trying to catch her so he could kill her.

Her grip on the handle of the dagger tightened before hurling it in Law’s direction. The blade rotated in the air before hitting Law in the shoulder. The way the dagger was thrown would’ve been deemed as impressive by him if he wasn’t on the receiving end of the throw. He quickly pulled the dagger out of his shoulder, and threw it to the ground before chasing after her, once again. This time she was only able to make it a few blocks before he finally tackled her to the ground against the rough concrete. She felt the skin of her knees and elbows scrape against the asphalt, surely breaking the skin. Heart racing, and body trembling, the woman underneath him had no choice but to accept her fate. “You’ll be coming with me,” he growled at her, bitterness lacing his tone. He pulled her up and off the ground then led her to the dock on the bay. His grip was more than enough of a reminder that there was nowhere she could go.

The walk to the submarine was silent, and the man next to her was not giving off a very welcoming energy considering he was taking her against her will. Blood slightly bled through his shirt where the dagger had hit him. He walked her down the dock, and onto a yellow submarine that had ‘DEATH’ written on the side of it. Well how lovely is that? She thought to herself. His firm grip on her upper arm never faltered as he guided her down the hallways of the submarine. Several of his crew members moved aside to make way for the two of them to walk down the hall. It was like a walk of shame. Once they reached the end of the hall, he opened a door. The sterile smell of rubbing alcohol and latex filled her nose, as the bright white lights poured out of the room. It was an examination room. “Sit,” he pointed to the examination table. Having no other choice, that’s exactly what she did, she sat.

Without another word, he started inspecting her injuries. He lifted her chin to get a better look at her neck. “This will need stitches,” he said flatly. He examined the other scrapes and cuts on her body. The adrenaline wore off long ago, and pain radiated from her toes to her head. He cleaned the area and prepped his needle. The stitching process was painful. She sharply inhaled when he stuck the needle through. “Be still,” he commanded, “It’ll only hurt worse if you move.” She had to force herself not to flinch at the needle stitching up her wound. Finally having her still, and in front of him, Law couldn’t deny that (Y/n) was very attractive. The way her hair framed her face, the way she held herself with such self assurance. Fear still resided in her pretty eyes, as she stayed as still as possible while he stitched. He ended up doing seven stitches, the cut was sure to leave a scar to adorn her pretty neck. He cleaned the other wounds and bandaged them up. It was silent in that exam room, and then finally he broke the silence. “Why did you run away?” He asked her. She looked at him like asked the stupidest question, and in some way he did. Who wouldn’t run away from the Surgeon of Death? His reputation alone was enough to make a grown man fall to his knees, and she had literally just seen a grown man fall to his knees at the hand of him. After weighing her response, she broke the silence, “Dying wasn’t on my agenda once I got out of there,” her voice quiet, but not weak.

“Why would I kill you?” He asked her. Again, another incredulous look was thrown at him. Was he not aware of the grumbling that went along with his name?

“For knowing too much?” She answered, in a duh tone.

“You don’t know anymore than you did whenever I approached you for intel. I had some of my men go through your files, you have some very impressive intel on multiple pirates including the warlords and emperors. Where do you get all that?”

“Verified sources,” she simply answered, not letting onto her process of gathering information. There was another silence before she broke it this time. “Listen, if you’re going to kill me, just go ahead and make it quick. Medical torture really doesn’t sound appealing.”

He chuckled lightly at this, but it was not one of humor, “I’m not gonna kill you, but I’m definitely not letting you go either. I know what you’re working on, and I want your intel. Join my crew.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand, and by the way he was talking to her that was very obvious.

“What’s in it for me?” She inquired like she had a choice.

“You can do some more of your research, and we could use your intel,” He stated like it was obvious. “Everybody wins.” Unfortunately, he was right. Going island to island would be great for her research, and it would give her an opportunity to get first count perspective about the things she was writing about. For a pirate, the information that she held would be very helpful, they would never go into a situation blind. However, being a pirate was not appealing. If she joined the Heart Pirates, she’d surely be wanted, especially with the information that she had collected over the years. She had been able to keep the things that she knew on the low, only occasionally being visited by certain people who wanted intel, but the intel always came at a price. It was a very hush-hush thing. Putting aside the fact that she knew more than most about what was going on in the world, she was just an ordinary woman with no devil fruit, no haki, how was she supposed to be a wanted woman? After mulling over his words, she finally spoke up, “I don’t think you know what I do. I’m gathering information to add to a book. I am not a pirate. I don’t have any fighting techniques, I would die as soon as we hit the battlefield. I will slow you down, no information is worth dying for, or putting your crew in danger for,” she argued, trying to convince herself if she made herself look like a burden, she would be let go.

“Your knowledge outweighs your weaknesses,” he stated. He wasn’t budging on this matter. “Join my crew, and you’ll get to gain more knowledge about the world. Think about the intel you could get if you were traveling the seas?” Once again, he did make a very good point.

“What if I say no?” She asked, wondering if he’d confirm her suspicions. A pregnant silence fell over the room again. She knew she wasn’t getting out of this one, and this just might be the death of her.

“You don’t want to say no.” He left it at that, and finished cleaning her wounds and patching her up.

That was six months ago. Six months of being on this submarine. Six months ago and she still didn’t feel as if she belonged, still felt as if she served no purpose. Sure after the first month, her crew mates started to adore her with her little jokes and random fun facts, but what was she really doing out on the open ocean? She sat there pondering until a voice ripped her out of her head. “You enjoying the Principles of Neurology?” It was her dear captain. She didn’t know he had been standing there, watching her unmovingly stare at the same page. She looked up at him, and then back down at the page she had been staring at for what felt like forever. “Sure, I’m having a blast learning about…The Neurology of Aging,” she read out the chapter name.

“What are you doing down here?” her captain asked her, curiosity lacing his tone.

“This is my secret hiding place, don’t tell the others,” she mused at him. Their relationship was very professional, and in fact for the first month and a half she was on the Polar Tang, she hardly said a word to him outside of him asking for information about various people and places. It’s not like she had a choice or not to be on the damned submarine. It still didn’t feel quite right to be there, but in the past few months she had started to let her guard down. She always addressed her captain with a professional tone, but every now and then she’d throw in a bit of a playful tone, and most times he would entertain her antics. “What are you doing down here?” she asked. She looked at her captain, taking in his appearance. She couldn’t lie, he was a very attractive man. Whenever she would have thoughts like this she would kick herself. She would remind herself who he was. He was her captain, and that’s all that was.

He looked down at her, discreetly looking her up and down, “I was looking for you. I would like to discuss some information about an island we will be arriving to in the next few days. There is an epidemic there and I will need all the information you have on the island, and the citizens so that we can take the proper precautions upon arrival.” His voice echoed off the metal walls.

“Oh okay, let me go up and grab my notes,” She said as she got up from her box, folding the blanket and placing the Neurology book on top.

“Meet me in my office,” he ordered, as he turned to go up the ladder. She made her way into her bunk and pulled out a notebook and a binder filled with stuff about all the islands she knew about. They were organized by North Blue, South Blue, East Blue, West Blue, Grandline, and New World. She gathered all her things and made her way towards Captain Law’s office.

She entered the Captain’s Quarters with a binder that was bursting at the seams, holding all her notes. As she walked in she took in her surroundings. It wasn’t the first time she had been in the Captain’s Quarters, but everytime she had been in there it was only for a brief period, usually dropping off files and papers from her research. Papers were stacked high on his desk, and there were files and books scattered across the room. It was messy, but it was not dirty. The room smelled like paper, ink, and Law.

She made her way over to his desk and started to flip through her binder. The binder was as full as it could be, and while the different places were organized, the contents of the binder within her neatly divided sections were scrawls of writing and small sketches here and there. “So, where we going?” She asked, beaming. She loved talking about all the things she had researched. She loved gathering information and putting it all together. Her goal was to write a full encyclopedia on the world and maybe one day she could write about the One Piece, if it was ever found. Without looking up, Law answered, “Bronze Island.” She was aware of the location, and she was also very aware of the disease that spread through the island, almost 60% of cases were fatal.

She flipped to the section where the island’s information was found, hesitantly inhaling before stating, “Uhh… I don’t think you want to go there.” Law looked up at her for the first time since she had entered his office, feigning annoyance behind his eyes. “I do think I want to go there,” He countered. She didn’t argue with him, he was the captain after all, but this island was being raided by pestilence.

“This disease has a high mortality rate, and it’s more contagious than the common cold. It’s an airborne disease. It spread mostly through bodily fluids,” she spouted off. “The island has poor air quality which just adds to the mix, making the citizens’ immune systems weaker. The island’s government is riddled with corrupt officials. There have been many uprisings staged, but none of them have aided in the ridding of the corrupt officials,” She set the paper in front of her captain. “If you have any questions, let me know. I’ll leave the rest of these pages to you,” she took a stack of papers out of the binder and laid them on his desk. There must have been at least 20 of them. The pages consisted of information about the epidemic, information on the citizens, as well the island officials. Law looked through the papers, before setting them back down. She used that as her cue to leave, and went towards the door, “Just let me know when you’re done with them.”

“Where are you going?” He asked her as if it were normal for her to stay. He never asked her to stay after giving him her research. He usually just looked at them and returned them. They shared eye contact for a split second before he answered her unasked question of why. “I’m going to need your help on this one.” Without replying, she turned back towards him and sat in a chair that was in front of his desk. The chair was hardly broken in, and it was obvious her captain didn’t really enjoy visitors all that much in his study, unless necessary. A dull sense of pride bubbled up inside of her, hearing that he needed her help. For a second she was able to push aside the feeling of not belonging on this ship. Her captain picked up the pages that she had given him and handed them back to her. “Let’s start with the island officials.” (Y/n) flipped through the papers getting to the officials section of her research, and started spouting off the names and the roles they played within the island’s government. She didn’t know what her captain was planning, nor did she think she wanted to know what he was planning. She was still new to this pirate thing, new to the notion that sometimes some people will get hurt in the crossfire. Hell, she was almost one of those people.

Brushing off her thoughts she skimmed across the paper, coming across some grammatical errors. “Captain Law?” A comfortable softness laced her tone as he caught her eyes. He had never heard her voice sound so sweet, so warm. His heart almost melted. “Could I borrow a pencil?” She asked him, holding his gaze with hers. He mumbled a quick of course before holding the object towards her. She reached out to take it, the tips of her fingers brushing his. When they touched, a jolt of electricity shocked them both. His golden eyes met hers once again, but lingered for a second too long this time. Long enough for her eyes to travel down to his lips, and then back up to his eyes. It felt as if time stood still. It felt like it was the first time she had really taken a good look at her captain since that night 3 months ago. She pulled her attention away, muttering a quick thank you as she took the pencil, hoping the lighting in his office didn’t capture the slight pink dusting her cheeks. She internally kicked herself for letting her eyes travel, for letting herself put him on a pedestal in her mind, even if it was only for a split second. It was wrong in so many ways, she couldn’t let herself think about him in that way. She couldn’t let her guard down. Mutually ignoring their little moment, they both resumed to what they were doing.

After about 2 hours of going through the information about the island and it’s government, as well as its citizens, they wrapped up their work. “Would you like me to leave you these papers?” She asked him. Without looking up from all of the notes that he had taken, he let a single, “Yes,” fall from his lips. She nodded, and put the papers on his desk. “If you have any questions, you know where to find me,” As she was about to make her exit, she heard her name being called. She turned her head to look at her captain, unintentionally savoring the way her name rolled off his tongue. “Thank you for the help,” he said smoothly, hesitating before continuing, “And if you ever need a place to hide, don’t hesitate to come in here to read or to finish your research.” She smiled and nodded her head as the feeling of belonging settled in her core for the second time that night. “Thank you, if you ever need anymore help I’m more than happy to do so,” she replied trying to sound as professional as possible in order to combat the warm feeling that was starting to bubble in her stomach. She turned on her heel and made her way back to her bunk.

That night, against her will, her thoughts were consumed by her captain and the moment they had shared. She felt guilty feeling this way, it wasn’t right to feel borderline giddy as she recalled such minor events. Sure, maybe their fingers touched, and maybe he made her feel like she belonged for once, but it was a moral dilemma just waiting to happen. Internally, she berated herself for even thinking about her captain in that way. Despite her self berating, she let her thoughts drift to her captain as she stared at the metal ceiling. There was a comfortable air around him, one she didn’t like to acknowledge that often. He felt safe, but she knew he could be dangerous. He seemed sane, but she knew he wasn’t. She was aware the longer she stayed with the Heart Pirates the more she let her guard down, and that included Law. She surely was trusted if he was offering to share his quiet space. She thought about how he offered it to her, with softer words than his usual tone. No matter how hard she tried to shake the doctor from her thoughts she couldn’t. That night, she went to sleep with Trafalgar Law taking up the space where her dreams usually lay.

Down the hall, in the captain quarters, Law mulled over what he had said to her before she left the room. It wasn’t like him to just offer someone a place in his study like that. Law worked alone. It was his space. That was the one place he was guaranteed to get some peace and quiet. What was even more strange was that he didn’t even regret offering his space to her. In fact, he was hoping that she would take him up on it and spend her time there instead of in the boiler room. He pushed his thoughts away, rationalizing his offer as just an excuse to gather more of the information she held. If she were to come to the office for peace and quiet, it was inevitable for her to work there too. He told himself that was the real reason he had offered it, rather not acknowledging the warmth he felt when he was around her. He pushed his thoughts away and buried himself in his work for the night, every now and then thinking about his crew member. The feeling that was tugging in his chest would have to be for another day.

⋆⭒˚‧₊˚°❀⋆₊⊹ ⋆｡𖦹˚. ͟͟͞☆

@drakulana 2023 // i do not give permission to copy, translate, or repost without my consent

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[colynisdead]

Alright, stex headcanon time! These are my personal heacanons on how the trains humanoid bodies work (with guts and stuff)

Engines:

Steam - steamers have a furnace and boiler in their torsos, and they need to drink water and eat kindling to live, they are the only engines capable of consuming water without issue. The air they breathe in goes to fan the flame, and the air they breathe out is mostly smoke and steam.

Diesel - diesel engines have a motor in their torsos, cylinders, pistons and everything. They drink both diesel and coolant fluid, and as long as they know what they’re drinking before they drink it, there’s no issue with the liquids getting mixed up.

Electric - electric engines are the closest to our understanding of robots/androids. Their guts are all wiring and circuitry, and they can absolutely not let any water get into their guts. They don’t need to eat, instead they charge either during the night, or in intervals during the day.

Trucks and coaches:

Coaches - the insides of coaches are typically empty for the sake of passenger space. If the coach has a service purpose, like Dinah and Buffy, they have the equipment needed. Dinah has an oven in her stomach, Buffy has a microwave and compartments for ready made food. Belle has a soft and warm inside, made for her passengers to be comfortable.

Trucks - the insides of trucks are also typically empty, but they’re built differently depending on what type of goods they carry. Hoppers are solid and smooth so nothing will get stuck in crevices. Flat Top has a more square space that fits a large number of brick stacks.

Brake Cars - brake cars are special, as they have a small engine where their heart would be (if they were human) this engine is only for the purpose of putting more power into their braking system. Their guts are made up of cogs, gears, and levers. All made for braking. They have to do weekly maintenance of said gears, cleaning off old grease and applying new.

If anyone wants to hear more of my little headcanons, feel free to ask! I need to talk to someone about this stuff lol :3