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lily-bisque · 1 day ago

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ＷＡＹＯＵＴＴＨＥＲＥ 𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

volume five — todo a su tiempo

✦ ── pairing: lumberjack!sukuna x citygirl!reader

✦ ── synopsis: taking a hike, alone, in a massive forest to escape your mundane life may not have been the greatest idea you'd conjured up—a realization you'd come to soon after you managed to lose your map miles inland. but when a lumberjack who knows the land like the back of his hand offers you a place to stay, you think maybe your life isn't so tragic after all. besides, for the sake of your safety, who knows what lingers in the shadows after nightfall?

✦ ── contents: lost in the forest au, forced proximity, bantering, angst, trauma/torture aspects, minor injuries, eventual romance, eventual smut, no use of y/n, more tags to be added.

✦ ── a/n: all of the comments and feedback i've received so far has been absolutely amazing, it always encourages me to plow through volumes! i appreciate and love all of you <3

✦ ── word count: 4.9k

archive ─ playlist

series masterlist - previous volume - volume six

art by outdmilk on twt

The following days you could only describe were bliss.

Sukuna and you had established a set—yet, unspoken—routine. You’d wake up, hop to the kitchen, and get breakfast started.

He’d disappear into the bathroom, hacking up a storm with his toothbrush and shuffle into work clothes.

You’d learned how he’d dress his eggs, that he only drank his coffee black which you scowled at upon discovery, and which mug he liked to sip from.

You even started packing him a lunch—which he called unnecessary every single time despite never turning it down.

You got comfortable in the clothing he’d bought you, despite having no sensitivity for fashion outside of red flannels and blue jeans.

If he wasn’t going to accept payment in the form of a wire transfer, you were going to ensure that you were going to pay him back through duties despite still being incredibly indebted to him.

He was a jerk, but a jerk who saved your life.

You dusted off his entire CD collection, reorganized his dining sets after polishing them, and scrubbed his tiles until they shined.

Twice.

From what you could puzzle together, it seemed that he worked down at a sawmill and treaded down the hill to reach his pick-up before heading into work. The extra lumber he’d chop on occasion, he’d leave in a lump come winter time when it’d be too cold to stand outside for long periods of time.

You’d bothered him quite a bit the next day about putting up a clothesline out back, which he found irksome but completed nonetheless that evening, along with fixing the dryer.

You thus called the clothesline useless if he was just going to fix the dryer and he flicked your forehead.

He’d hammer you about checking your bandages and curse you out when you’d forget, and you’d raid his book collection and sit beneath a tree to pass time.

Uraume was quite the companion—plopping on you to rub their mud-covered mane to which you’d giggle at.

You’d both fall asleep beneath the haze of the afternoon heat that hung sweetly in the air. Days were old, nights were young. You’d tan your shoulders, haunted by the melancholy of youth. The sky felt bigger than everything.

You’d scoop yourself three helpings of ice cream that’d dribble down your hand, Uraume lapping it up when it’d muddled around your palm.

The rusted windchimes on the patio became your favorite noise.

Nothing made sense except your virtue for stillness. You knew nothing was okay, but it felt otherwise.

You occasionally found yourself lurking near the shed, toying with the lock and peering between the slivers of cracked wood, but it was completely black inside—further frustrating your curiosity.

You’d argue with Sukuna every here and then—bickering about who’d tracked dirt in, when you’d use all the hot water before he had the chance to shower, or Sukuna telling you that you’d talked too much when you’d feel restless after being cooped up all day, your only friend Uraume who wasn’t of much help since they couldn’t actually speak back to you.

Sukuna was mean but he was sufferable.

“You ever try a root beer float?”

You had your hand resting on the side of his TV, giving it a couple of smacks to get rid of the static. Thankfully he had cable but you could tell he rarely used the old box. “Who hasn’t?”

He grunted at your bluntness, pulling a beer can from the fridge along with a pint of vanilla ice cream. “How about a root beer float with beer?”

You turned to frown at him, obviously not excited at the mixture of ale and milk. “That sounds disgusting.”

“Don’t knock it ‘till you try it, city girl.”

𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

“Where on Earth did you learn this?”

You shoved an orange plastic straw into your mason jar that was both foamy from the sprite and beer can you’d dumped in along with a hefty scoop of ice cream.

You were yet to be sick of ice cream.

You swirled your straw, eyeing it suspiciously as Sukuna had already spooned half of it down.

“Lots of free time,” he smirked, a line of frothy ice cream above his upper lip.

You grimaced, tossing a napkin at him and taking a sip.

You were a little pissed off that you liked it.

“Aren’t these called dirty root beer floats?” You quirked with an emphasis, metal spoon churning the thick cream. You pulled your knee up to your chest, resting your chin against the cap.

He shrugged, adjusting in his seat and reaching a long armover to the fridge. He propped it open, grabbing himself yet another can of beer to guzzle down.

You could only watch in awe at his bottomless pit of a stomach.

Pushing away your glass, you folded your arms over your knee and leaned forward. “Are you an orphan?”

He side-eyed you mid-sip, surprised at your sudden and blunt inquiry, bringing the can down just to crush it with his hand. “What’s it to you?”

You tilted your head, before retreating. “Nothing. Just curious.”

“Stop poking your nose where it ain’t belong,” he scoffed, pushing up from his seat and tossing the mutilated can into the sink.

Your nose scrunched, knowing you’d yet again managed to cross unmarked territory. Your time here was short, and though Sukuna simply seemed to be a hostile and reticent guy, you felt like there was more to him somehow. It was naive to think he’d care to express it, though. You don’t think you’ve ever met anyone more closed off than him.

There was something stewing beneath the surface of his hardened demeanor you couldn’t place.

But that was coming from a woman with forever bubbling emotions that seemed to simmer indefinitely.

You hated small talk—you’d never been able to stomach it. The feigned smiles and comments about weather or formal confabulation. You’d sworn against it after your divorce, severing most ties with a family that indulged in table talk and pleasantries.

His footfalls disappeared into his room and you huffed, peering out the window and feeling a sense of frustration, a moon-struck madness cast upon you.

Until he returned to the kitchen just moments later, a box in his hand that you’d become quite familiar with.

He got to one knee before you, resting your foot atop his muscled thigh as he undressed your ankle.

You pretended not to twitch when his calloused fingers grazed your bare skin, his touch sending shivers down your spine. You didn’t know an ankle could be so ticklish.

“My parents,” he started, nearly mumbling under his breath. “Killed a real long time ago.”

You quirked a brow, something you couldn’t decipher lurching in your chest as you shuffled in your seat.

“Joined the army with my brother. Half-brother. We got into some argument, way back, n’ I haven’t seen him since. Just left him on some mission and never turned back.”

You stayed quiet for a moment, watching Sukuna’s hands still near your ankle as those tightly etched lines on his face only dug deeper, as if the only expression he could reserve was a scowl.

You inhaled sharply, worried that you were treading on thin ice already. “What’s he like? Your brother.”

Sukuna scoffed. “My brother? Real arrogant bastard.” He placed an antiseptic wipe into his mouth just to tear it open with his canines. “Aggressive, unhinged.”

“Like you,” you quickly added with a tug of your lip.

Sukuna glanced up, a sarcastic grin coloring him before he leaned forward to flick your forehead, a gesture he’d gotten incredibly comfortable with executing.

“Ouch!” You yelped, hands flying to shield your forehead as Sukuna snickered under his breath. “The hell was that for?”

“For being a lil brat,” he jeered back, finishing up the dressing.

You slowly lowered your hands, resting them on your thighs and frowning.

“Been quite a few days now,” he started, effectively changing the subject, lowering your leg and peering up at you. “I’ll walk you down the main trail first thing. Had someone pick up my shift.”

You could feel your heart skip a beat, shuffling in your seat as you averted eye contact. “Well, I’m not sure if I’m totally healed and—.”

“If you complain too much, I'll just drag you by the ankle.”

Or in normal, non-Sukuna terms, he’ll carry you on his back like he did up the hill.

��But I-I,” you began to fumble over your words, perturbation spiking. “I haven’t completed my fill yet and cleaned enough—.”

He spoke your name curtly, a volume slightly raised above your own that it had you come to a halt in your rambles, heat warming your cheeks discomfitingly. “Tomorrow morning. Won’t say it again.”

A rock of desperation sat thick in your throat, feeling yourself develop a case of cottonmouth in real time as Sukuna retreated to his room for the evening. You fidgeted with the hem of your shirt, biting the inside of your cheek.

To put it plainly—you didn’t want to leave.

You liked it here compared to your real life in the city. It was stupid to think that you could continue to mooch off of Sukuna by sleeping on his wearing and scruffy couch and cook him two meals and think he’d allowed you to stay.

But he’d done far more than enough. Opened his home to you and fed you and allowed you autonomy with nothing in return.

You didn’t like being indebted, but you did like Sukuna’s shabby little nook in the forest.

Lamentably, your little vacation and respite had come to an end.

In all honesty, you probably could’ve walked down by day three. But you ignored your near-healed injury and deluded yourself into thinking this newfound peace was something you could continue to indulge in.

You plopped down on the couch, crossing your arms over your chest, eyes dialed in on his popcorn ceiling marked with water stains and dust.

It’d only been a few days, and though you hated how abrasive and standoffish Sukuna was, he was possibly the first person to really notice you.

His eyes didn’t rake over you and allow you to blend into the crowd. He treated you like a nuisance at times and your banter was practically never-ending, but you’d oddly found a sense of mutual understanding between each other.

Two people who felt abandoned by the real world.

You shut your eyes, dragging your hands over your face as you pulled the thin sheet over your head, attempting to shake off your plethora of emotions you didn’t have the energy to sort out.

𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

“Don’t even think about forgettin’ nothin’. I’m not coming all the way back up.”

You rolled your eyes, adjusting the rucksack on your back as you shuffled down the wooden steps. “I won’t. You got a switchblade I can borrow?”

Sukuna eyed you as you leaned over to tie your boots, your face shielded from him as your unnecessarily wide-brimmed hat flopped in the early morning haze. “Uh. No. You’re outta luck,” he murmured, shoving a hand into his jean pockets and glancing down the hill.

You looked up at him from the ground, unable to hide your blatant surprise. “You’re kidding. A lumberjack doesn’t own a blade?”

He just shrugged, averting his gaze and narrowing his eyes. “We gonna get goin’ or what?”

You scowled, hopping to your feet and dusting your knees off. “Wow. You really have mastered the art of deflection,” you taunted, walking past him just to nudge his arm.

He flinched at the contact, watching you pad down the trail with a permanent scowl, the ink on his face contorting with each antagonized expression.

“So,” you called out minutes later, only a few feet behind him as he’d overtaken your slow pace easily. You didn’t even try to keep up with his long strides, as if he couldn’t get rid of you any quicker. “What’s the plan if we’re cornered by a pack of mutts again?”

Sukuna only ignored you, but you could see his irritation light up in the way his fingers flexed at his sides.

Just the sound of your voice seemed to infuriate him sometimes.

You jogged up towards him, craning your head up and squinting against the harsh rays of the sun tethered high in the sky, her light filtered through flitting leaves. “No plan? Because a switch blade would be of some real relief—“

“Do you ever stop talking?”

You shrugged, undeterred. “You’ve asked me that before. You should know the answer.”

𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

“Are we almost thereeeee,” you whined out, hands hanging limp at your sides as you dragged your feet.

It felt like your muscles were on fire, tensing with each movement and flaring as your exhaustion only roared on.

“Nope.”

Sukuna was at your side now, irritated that you kept falling too far behind and resigning to your slow tempo.

You continued to huff and puff and bitch and moan, but as much as Sukuna hated to hear your grievances, he also enjoyed seeing you suffer in the afternoon heat.

Sweat beaded across your browline and down your spine, your top clinging to the perspiration. Your eyes hung low, as if you could pass out any moment from heat stroke and your throat had gone dry after chugging all of your water.

Sukuna on the other hand? The guy was in tip-top shape. And it drove you mad. His stamina was one to rival a wolf with.

“C-can’t we take a break?” You groaned out of breath.

Sukuna let out consecutive tsks, watching as your rucksack made you hunch over like you were about to topple a stack of dominoes. “Now how could we when we’re so close.”

You shot him a glare. “You literally just said we weren’t close.”

“Heats’ got me hallucinating,” he sarcastically defended, arching a brow at you with a sharp grin.

You opened your mouth to call him a slew of curses that equated him as crass and crazy, when your foot stalled.

You gasped, effectively tripping over your own foot as you stepped on your undrawn shoe lace, arms flying forward.

Sukuna’s eyes bulged, arms instinctively reaching forward and stepping in front of you.

And as clumsy as you were, your foot caught the back of his, pushing him backwards, your hands smacking against his chest.

You both fell with a timber-like thud, crashing into a pile of brush. You could hear Sukuna wince and grunt as he broke your fall.

His massive hands were around your waist, your face stuffed into the crook of his neck and accidentally taking in his scent—cigarettes and a woody musk so undeniably him.

The two of you were still for a moment—could’ve been mere seconds, could’ve been minutes—until you inhaled sharply and pushed off of him, falling to the side with an unceremonious thunk!

Sukuna stared at the sky, arms flopped to his sides lazily as you scrambled over words, heat rising from your nape all the way to the crown of your ears. “I- Sorry I didn’t mean to—,” you stopped yourself, eyes fixing on his palm.

He seemed to have sliced it open against brush, a bleeding wound the size of your pinky across the front of his hand.

“Oh my god, your hand,” you gasped, fingers reaching out to smooth a finger near the broken skin, but Sukuna seemed to beat you to the punch.

He sat up quickly, tugging his hand away from you like you’d burn him if you came into contact and getting to his feet. “Christ, woman. I’m fine.”

You furrowed your brows, swallowing a thick lump of contrite lodged in your throat. “Are you sure? Your hand looked—.”

“We going or what?” He interrupted, a deep contempt and frustration brewing on his face, like he’d tasted coffee somehow even more bitter than his regular order.

He scoffed at your momentary silence and picked up his pace down the path, fingers flexing at his side again.

You bit your lip, scrambling to your feet and hurrying after him.

Though, you made sure to never fall too far behind this time, just a few paces behind him.

𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

For the duration of what was left, you kept your gaze lowered on the floor before you, occasionally kicking a pebble and watching it scurry away.

Sukuna kept his pace manageable. But he didn’t utter a word to you.

The tension was more than palpable—like a thick, tempestuous cloud hanging over the both of you that neither of you dared to acknowledge.

Your heart never really slowed to a resting pace—whether that be from another unbridled argument with Sukuna or the exertion of the walk. You didn’t dare attempt to decipher which possibility it may be.

You picked at the skin around your nails, feeling like a little kid who’d gotten in trouble and blindly followed their parents around.

Thankfully, this was the last you’d be seeing of him. No more stifling arguments that left your skin flaring.

“My truck is just down the road.” Sukuna suddenly broke the silence, his pace coming to a stop.

“What?” You squeaked out immediately, peering up at him from the rim of your hat.

He gave you a strange look, cocking his head to the side reluctantly. “Uh, we’re here. I wouldn’t mind giving you a lift back to—.”

“No!” You interrupted, shaking your hands in front of you. You hadn’t even noticed how long the two of you had been walking, the rushing sound of cars from a nearby freeway augmenting your senses.

Sukuna narrowed his eyes, gaze dancing across you. If you were any less lucid, you could’ve sworn you’d seen remorse coloring him.

“I’ve got it figured out from here. Thanks, Sukuna,” you breathed out slowly, a wide smile across your cheeks that pinched the skin uncomfortably.

He couldn’t shake off the odd feeling churning in his chest, coughing it away and averting his gaze with his hands planted on his hips. “Suit yourself.”

You glanced at the open road, just past it was a gas station where you’d be able to rest before calling for a ride.

“I’d say see you around but we both know how unlikely that is,” you admitted with a dry laugh, goosebumps littering your body in a cold sweat.

He side-eyed you, jaw clenched as he mulled over something in silence.

But you could barely take it anymore.

“Goodbye, Sukuna,” you whispered, any louder and it wouldn’t be a promise.

He brought a hand over his hat, before bowing his head, real lumberjack-like.

“Bye, city girl.”

𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

You nearly passed out at the rest stop, chugging three bottles of water and splashing your face in the restroom before plopping on one of those window seats.

The cup of ramen you downed had your head lolling, belly satiated and brain fuzzy as you waited for your phone to charge up.

Halfway through day three with Sukuna, your phone had died and you didn’t care to charge it.

Not like you could anyway. You didn’t bring a charger and Sukuna had a phone at least several generations behind with a cracked screen. You wondered if he even cared to use it.

Your phone buzzed on and, lo and behold, fifteen missed calls and twenty texts ranging from your boss to your colleagues.

And one missed call from your mother.

Great.

You skimmed your fingers through your hair, ordering an uber. Truthfully, you didn’t want to deal with any of this until you slept for ten hours minimum but you didn’t have the luxury to ignore all of your issues as much as you’d like to.

So you hopped from your seat and rolled your shoulder, dragging your feet to your rideshare.

𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

“Look who decided to show up.”

You rolled your eyes at your peach-skinned boss, stepping into the shabby building with flickering neon logo lights nestled between a 24-hour convenience shop and a hole-in-the-wall bar and karaoke.

“I already texted you and called to apologize. Please don’t make my migraine worse,” you shot back, rolling your neck as exhaustion still seemed to plague you. You plopped down on the weathered couch, the familiar sinking feeling having you toss your head back and groan. “Is Shoko out on a run?”

She padded over to you, half of her face shielded from the milky braid she was so adamant on wearing all of the time. To be quite frank, you didn’t know what the other side of her face even looked like. Which was odd for the duration you’d worked under her. “She’ll be back in a few. You do understand these are grounds to fire you, yes?”

“My god, Mei Mei. We both know you’re not going to do that,” you sighed, feeling like there were bare canines skimming over your nape, any harder and they make break your irritated skin. “Take three days out of my pay. Happy?”

She bristled, turning on her heel and leaning against her desk. “She was worried sick,” she started, tone flat and monotonous. “Filed a missing persons report and everything.”

You bit your lip, eyes dialed in on the chipped rim across the room beside the grey and lifeless metal lockers. “You sure you weren’t worried sick?” You attempted to break the tension, though you knew the answer.

She scoffed incredulously. “I was. Worried that I’d somehow have to find someone as competent as you looking to be a modern day scullery maid,” she sighed out, peeling documents from her desk to skim over.

You huffed, grabbing your bag and shoving up from your seat to rake through your locker. “When’s the next service?”

“45 minutes from now. Rest up, it’ll be some back breaking work.”

𖠰 ⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧🪵𓇢𓆸

She wasn’t kidding.

Your first day back on the job after your accidental get-away was to some dilapidated house on the edge of town. Some affluent couple with too much free time decided to delve into flipping-culture, enter your cleaning company to fix up the place before they got to work on the infrastructure and furnishing.

For the following five hours, you scrubbed, brushed, mopped, sponged, wiped, squeegeed, buffed, shined, and polished the place until every limb of yours nearly gave out.

Shoko didn’t mind keeping close company the entire time, scolding your ear off and pinching you.

“Do you know how awkward it was to call your mother? Do you?” She huffed between scrapes of the bathroom tub, removing the age old grime. “She said you’d probably gone on some bender after—.” She halted herself mid-conversation, worrying her lip between her teeth.

You glanced over your shoulder with knitted brows, hand stilling against the mirror. “After what?”

Shoko bit the inside of her cheek, slowly continuing her movements like she was inconspicuous, regretting ever uttering a word.

“Sho. What are you talking about?”

She slowly turned to meet your gaze, a sheepish smile on her lips. “Naoya sent her an invitation, too.”

Your mouth hung open, the rag in your hand effectively falling into the sink. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck,” you cursed under your breath, snapping your gloves off. “Of course he fucking did.”

You pulled your phone from your pocket and hurried out of the bathroom, striding into some empty bedroom littered with old couches draped in plastic, heavy drapes shielding any source of light.

The only illumination in the room was your phone, lighting up your face as you frantically searched for her extremely buried contact and hit the call button.

You folded your arms, leg bouncing as you heard the line buzz, before it clicked on.

“Mom! Hi, I just saw your message—.”

“Where on Earth have you been?”

You froze, nails digging into your biceps. “Let me explain, o-over dinner. Tonight?”

You could hear her sigh on the other side, voice nothing but crestfallen. You could imagine her lounging in the living room, legs folded while she perused whatever tabloid she could find around the house resting in her lap, phone pressed to her ear.

All while wondering what she’d done to deserve a daughter like you.

“I have plans. I’m just trying to understand why I could not reach you.”

You swallowed thickly. “I went for a hike, mom. I got lost and—.”

“Is it because of Naoya? Did the wedding invite bother you?”

And God, did you hate how she just knew these things. How could she be so certain and understanding but lacking any sort of sympathy for you?

”No one wants to see a wedding invite from their ex-husband,” you tersely stated, knuckles whitening against the tight grip on your device. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not going.”

You couldn’t mask your dejection.

“Like hell you aren’t. The Zenin’s invited us, and so God help me if we aren’t in attendance. Especially after all they’ve done for us,” she firmly spoke, skimming her fingers through her wiry hair.

Even after your divorce, the Zenins still offered to take care of your family. You’d turned down their hush money since the start, ensuring you wouldn’t spread the fine details of your muddled relationship, but your mother enjoyed her early retirement and stuffing her pockets.

You gritted your teeth, your discomfort only manifesting into blinding anger. Your lips tightened upwards and curled inwards, wrinkles littering the crease in your forehead. You wanted to scream at your mother, incoherent and inconsolable until you couldn’t anymore.

The relationship you held with your mother was too violent for tears. A woman who’d clipped the wings of her offspring and watched her stumble clumsily, never offering a hand to ground her. Built upon your own wreckage. Swallowing the words you so wished you could utter.

She hadn’t been your mother in a long time, really.

You don’t know when it happened. Maybe when she’d haggled you for your too-short skirt when you were thirteen and barely growing into yourself.

Maybe it was when you’d gotten accepted into your dream college and she could barely display an ounce of pride.

Maybe it was before you’d walked down the aisle, expressing your worries of having a small wedding that she only silenced you with a tut of her tongue.

Maybe it was after your father passed. Her blinded by grief and rage brought upon you like a monsoon, shoving you and gutting you beneath the tide.

Maybe it was when you told her you couldn’t bear children, not after trying for months and your husband's tone only becoming more and more clipped with each passing moment.

Maybe it was when you’d come to her at four in the morning, crying when you’d found evidence of his infidelity and she’d only given you that same blank stare she wore, telling you that every man slips up and to turn a blind eye.

You hadn’t understood the severity of the situation you were in until it was too late. Marrying a man who so desperately wanted to continue his lineage.

And when he couldn’t? He’d just find it elsewhere.

Who said you didn’t want that as well? A child to call your own. A pathetic part of you thought this marriage would save you—sweep you out from under your feet and carry you to a higher standing.

You thought that after all those years of gutted self-esteem, that a lavish white wedding would slap a bandaid on it.

It was pitiful.

But what hurt the most was that you had no one on your side. Not your mother, not your father, not even a lover. No one to stand beside you when it all felt like it was tumbling down.

You wiped the vain tears from your cheeks, clearing your throat as you chose not to resign to your emotions, a tactic you’d taught yourself. “Okay, mom.”

You hung up, ignoring her calls of protest on the other line.

There was really no arguing with her, you saw no point in it.

You still had time before the wedding, enough time to build yourself up to someone untouchable by their comments. Comments not just from the Zenin family, but from your own kin.

You shoved your phone into your pocket, sniffling and blinking back the last of your tears.

No use in crying over it now.

Padding back into the bathroom, you watched Shoko spray away the suds she’d worked up. “Hey, I was gonna ask. What was the name of the guy you stayed with?” She queried, wiping her forearm against her forehead.

You averted her gaze, focusing on the sink you needed to bleach. “Sukuna.”

She chuckled to herself, making an ‘ouhhhh’ sound that you smacked her for, drawing a cigarette from her pocket and thumbing the sparkwheel.

No matter your protests, she assumed that this mystery man was your secret lover.

You snagged the lighter from her before she could get a chance to light it.

“Hey! I was using that,” she pouted, lower lip jutting as she frowned.

“Uh huh. No smoking indoors and on the job. Do you want to lose your job?”

She scoffed, snagging the lighter back. “Funny coming from you. Smoke detectors were turned off for cleaning and repairs.”

You huffed, snapping a new set of gloves on.

The sound of fire kindling had your stomach lurching, sent into a volley of somersaults.

The smell was even worse.

Of course she had to be smoking Marlboro Reds.

419 notes · View notes

aventurineswife · 2 months ago

Note

Platonic request⭐️!

teen!reader whose like Jinx from Arcane with Dan heng, Boothill, Aventurine, Silverwolf, and Blade.(All separately)

I’d like to think that the characters just stumbled upon reader at some point and just ended up dragging them along with somehow.(Character casually picking them up as if they were some sad wet cat left in the rain)

Bonus points if you give us a Boothill being a girl dad moment btw.

Some Things Just Stick

Tags: Dan Heng x Reader, Blade x Reader, Boothill x Reader, Platonic Relationships, Found Family, Stray cat energy (Reader), Protective , Jinx (Arcane) like Reader, Banter & Humor, Hurt/Comfort Elements, Implications Of A Rough Past (Reader), Boothill being an accidental dad.

Warnings: Mild violence (mentions of fights, gunplay, and Blade being, well… Blade), Mentions of past trauma (Reader and characters), Implications of neglect/survival struggles (Reader), Boothill casually threatening someone with a gun (protective dad mode), Explosive tendencies (Reader is a little menace with engineering skills), Blade being emotionally unavailable but still taking care of Reader, Dan Heng internally sighing forever, Lots of sarcasm and playful threats.

A/N: I'm gonna let y’all know this is gonna be OOC because, while I'm writing this, I'm on episode 2 of season 1

[Part 1] | [Part 2]

Dan Heng did not sign up for this.

And by this, he meant the wild-eyed teenager currently sprawled out in the Archives, tinkering with something that absolutely did not belong to them.

"You’re going to break that," Dan Heng said flatly, watching as you poked at a delicate piece of Express technology with a screwdriver you had clearly stolen from the maintenance bay.

"That’s the fun part," you chirped, not even looking up. Your fingers twitched as you adjusted the wiring, blue sparks flying as you laughed, unbothered.

Dan Heng sighed, rubbing his temples. March and the Trailblazer just had to pick up a stray.

You had come aboard the Express by accident—a stowaway found shivering in a cargo bay during a pit stop. Your story had been vague, something about getting "bored" and "wanting an adventure" while heavily implying a past you didn’t want to talk about. March, of course, had immediately decided you were part of the crew now, while the Trailblazer had just shrugged and gone along with it. Dan Heng, however, was still questioning how exactly you had attached yourself to him.

At first, you had been like an untamed animal, skittish and unpredictable, yet stubbornly following him around the Express. Over time, though, you started listening when he told you not to mess with the train’s core systems. You learned to recognize his moods—when to push him, when to leave him be. Somehow, without meaning to, Dan Heng had ended up… responsible for you.

He sighed. "At least tell me what you're making."

You grinned up at him. "Boom."

Dan Heng’s blood ran cold. "Boom?"

"Boom!" You gestured to the mess of wires and circuits. "Just a little one. A harmless one. Probably. Maybe."

Dan Heng pinched the bridge of his nose. "No explosives on the Express."

You pouted but set the device down with a dramatic sigh, flopping onto your back. "You’re no fun."

"I am fun," he said, deadpan. "I just don’t enjoy unnecessary explosions in an enclosed space."

You grinned, clearly enjoying the banter. "Sooo, if I built something outside…?"

"Still no."

You groaned loudly, throwing an arm over your eyes. Dan Heng looked down at you—this stray cat of a person, chaotic and loud yet strangely endearing. Despite himself, he sighed and handed you a book from the shelf.

"Read this instead," he said. "It’s about engineering. No explosives."

You eyed him suspiciously before taking it. "…You really are trying to make me boring, huh?"

Dan Heng shook his head. "No. Just… less likely to blow yourself up."

Blade was used to blood. To violence. To the kind of suffering that never truly healed.

He was not used to… whatever this was.

"Stop staring at me like that," he muttered.

You didn’t. If anything, you leaned closer, peering up at him with unnerving curiosity. "You do blink, right? Like, I haven’t actually seen it happen, and I’m starting to think maybe you’re part statue—"

Blade exhaled sharply through his nose, gripping the hilt of his sword. He should’ve just left you where he found you—half-starved, covered in soot, and scavenging in the ruins of some forgotten world. But something about the way you had laughed despite the wreckage around you had kept him from walking away.

"Why am I still here?" you asked suddenly, rocking back on your heels. "Like, not that I’m complaining, but you seem like the type to leave people behind."

He was that type. Had been, many times. Yet, for some reason, he had not left you.

"You’re useful," he said simply.

You snorted. "That’s a lie, but okay, edgelord."

Blade twitched. "Edgelord?"

You grinned at his reaction. "What, you don’t like nicknames? C’mon, you look like a guy who collects angsty monologues for fun."

Blade inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as if summoning patience from the void itself. Maybe he should have left you behind. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew he wouldn’t.

There was something about you—something reckless, something broken, something that reminded him of himself. He didn’t know why, but he had picked you up like a stray left out in the cold.

And despite everything, he hadn’t let you go.

Boothill had dealt with a lot of things in his life—gunfights, betrayals, bounty hunters, and enough explosions to last several lifetimes.

He had not, however, ever expected to end up with a kid hanging off his arm like an overgrown possum.

"You do know you can walk, right?" he drawled, glancing down at you as you clung to his mechanical arm, feet dangling in the air.

"Yeah, but this is more fun," you chirped, kicking your legs.

Boothill sighed dramatically but didn’t shake you off. He had found you during a raid on an IPC outpost—scrawny, wild-eyed, covered in soot but grinning like you had just pulled the greatest prank in the universe. You had latched onto him immediately, and for some reason, he had let you.

Now, here you were, an extra shadow at his side, jabbering a mile a minute while he tried to track down an IPC target.

"You ever not talk?" Boothill asked, adjusting his hat.

"Mm… nope."

"Figures."

You hummed, watching as he checked the sights on his revolver. "So, like, if you had a kid, would you be, like, a cool dad or a scary dad?"

Boothill blinked. "What kinda question is that?"

"An important one."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "Guess I’d be both."

You grinned. "Yeah, I can see it. You’ve got ‘cool but terrifying’ vibes. Like, you’d let your kid get away with stuff, but if anyone else messed with them, you’d go full murder mode."

Boothill tilted his head, considering it. "Reckon you’re not wrong."

You smirked, still hanging onto his arm like a little gremlin. "Guess that makes you my scary cool dad now."

Boothill stared at you for a long moment before sighing, tipping his hat forward to hide the amused glint in his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, kid. Guess it does."

Boothill had one golden rule—don’t mess with his own.

And right now, some lowlife was doing just that.

"Kid," he drawled, stepping in front of you as the thug sneered. "Y’wanna tell me why this fella’s lookin’ at you like that?"

You shrugged. "I may have stolen his gun parts."

Boothill sighed. "May?"

"Okay, definitely."

The thug growled, stepping closer. "You little—"

Boothill moved faster.

A single, precise gunshot rang out, and the thug froze as Boothill’s revolver hovered an inch from his face.

"Now, now," Boothill said lazily, "let’s not be rude to the kid."

You grinned from behind him, hands on your hips. "Told you I had a scary cool dad."

Boothill just sighed. "What am I gonna do with you, kid?"

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archives-of-a-hidden-writer · 4 months ago

Text

Cruelty & Salvation

Angel Engine X reader

》Typing... |

》 [Entry No.012 - Cruelty & Salvation]|

》 Loading Archive Entry "Cruelty & Salvation" |

》 Location of Entry: Archivial's |

》 Tip: Feel free to support the Archiver |

▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎

》Notice: Cataloged Entry, Part: (I) II

》 Summary: Dr. Goeff Ernstmann had decided to recruit you with little precaution due to past trusts. And so, as he shows you the Angel Engine, he thought and trusted you wouldn't do anything reckless. Yet, it would be the most regretful thing Goeff had decided later on. |

》 Warnings: OOC, self-indulgent, mentions of both the Angel engine and the Antichrist(HE), cliffhanger, high chance of part 2. |

》 Archive Entry Loaded ◇

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

Cruel.

Absolutely cruel.

Those same words repeated in your head as the man in front of you, Dr. Goeff Ernstmann led you around the facility, explaining something that he calls 'Angel Engine'.

You were a new rook in the facility with the scientist trusting you that you wouldn't do anything reckless within the facility. He recruited you with little to no effort, thinking things would be easier considering he trusted you in the past. Yet, he didn't seem to notice the gaze I held while walking through the empty laboratory, only having me, Goeff, and another scientist.

In front of us is a large metal door. You also took notice of how outside the lab, many armed forces lurked, waiting to shoot the moment a single wrong move arises.

Turning your focus elsewhere, you now watched as the other scientist pulled the mental door to the side, slowly revealing the once praised messenger of god now strapped onto wires and metal, basically caging the being who only gave them kindness and help. Not only strapped, but countless of wires are seemingly lodged in its body, siphoning its power.

"Help... Me..." it slowly called, its eyes hollow with black liquid pouring out of it, its mouth in a seemingly permanent smile with a few of the similar black liquid spilling from the corner of its mouth.

When it spoke, you can only watch as all these wires and metal surrounding it like a cage. Its wings are there, but unmoving, lost of its power and strength.

"We ran every test in the book on this guy here, and the results are incredible," Dr. Goeff started, praising the being as if its nothing but something inanimate.

"There doesn't seem to be a limit to its energy output," he explained, a wide grin on his face as he awaited your response to his words. "Which mean...?" You asked rather slowly, your mind still comprehending the angel before you.

"Which means, if our current results are anything to go off of, we could power the whole world for millenia," he answered, yet those words are yet to enter your head as you continued to stare at the angel, and quite frankly, it was, too, staring right at you. It was as if it was coveying a message, and it was.

"Look upon me. Look upon me. Look upon me. You are here for me. Release me. Your wages would be plentiful." It repeated the words as it echoes in your mind, it may not speak physically, but it could still convey messages no human could do.

■■■

As you continue to stare at the angel, Dr. Goeff soon finished with his explanation and ended up noticing your focus was elsewhere and not on him.

"Taking a liking to the engine, no?" He teased, a hidden venom laced in his voice. He had caught you, "... Or, don't tell me, you feel sympathy for... It?" He asked, holding you by your shoulders and holding to there as he lean closer.

"You know that kind of thing wouldn't be considered in here... And could cause this entire project in jeopardy... Right?" He laced, uttering the words in your ear. Yet as he spoke, your eyes remained at the angel as it continues to convey its words to you.

"Found me. Angel, you found," the angel spoke. This strengthens the underlying and unknown resolve in you.

You're going to get that angel out of that thing.

"Just wait...." you thought, hoping he can not only convey messages but also here your own.

■■■

Now, you have a new mission inside of the facility. Save that angel. Would it save the angel? Yes, yet would it be helpful to the world? Possibly not, but do you care? No, after all, this would be the karma they'll feel for caging and exploiting the being who came down to help them.

Little by little, you take your little chances to enter the lab over and over again. Tinkering with whatever you can depending in the time, you went through either the machineries siphoning the angel's powers or try your luck to remove whatever you can off its body.

As you tinker with the metal and wires on him, his eyes, or what you thought were his eyes, followed your every move. Despite already finding you as the human that will save him from this cruelty, he still find doubt and has his guard up for anything that might happen.

You continued tinkering with whatever you can without notice, much to your surprise considering how guarded the facility is.

Everything is going smoothly, you thought as the idea of your mission becoming a success is coming quicker than you imagine.

Yet, you shouldn't have jinxed it.

■■■

As you remained checking the 'results' of the experiments on the angel, Dr. Goeff approached you.

Calling out your name, he waved at you as he approach by, "Hey there, have a minute?" He asked, extending his hand out as if pointing whether or not the papers in my hand is important.

You raised an eyebrow before placing down the papers on a table nearby, "What do you need, Dr. Goeff?" You asked before he motioned you to follow him.

As the two of you walked in utter silence, you slowly came to the conclusion that he might be going to ask you relating the Angel Engine.

Keeping your guard up, you awaited for the man to ask as he asked you to sit down on the chair opposing to his on the other side of the table.

"Let's get to the point," Dr. Goeff started, sitting down before placing both his arms over at the table as if eyeing and shrinking you down. "Recently, the staff has noticed... Slight alterations to the engine, much so when we checked the cameras outside of its chamber..." he paused for a moment, leaning further in front.

"And we saw you, coming in and out of the chamber more times than the staff meant to experiment... Could you explain why?" He slowly asked, tilting his head to the side, a wide, creepy grin plastered on his face.

Of course, you thought to yourself, things under here aren't meant to be easy. And in times like these, you just so happen to know a few cards up your sleeves.

■■■

Soon enough, you manage to get the man off of you, but he did remained to keep an eye on you. This meant you wouldn't be able to tinker with anything in the lab for now, not while Dr. Goeff is up your ass.

For now, you have to stay low and have Dr. Goeff to leave you alone.

Meanwhile, in the chamber/lab the angel was being held for, he felt it. Another being has descended in the world, but without anyone knowing.

He is coming.

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》 Archiver's Notes: I know, I know. This archiver is aware that the story has ai to design it, but I'm someone who likes being in blur of things. Part 2 likely as this archiver got lazy to continue the entry.

#🔷️archives #🔷️catalogs #angel engine #angel #engine #analog horror #angel analog horror #angel x reader

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yourislandgirl · 5 months ago

Text

*:ꔫ:*ₓₒ YOU MAKE IT HOME ˚ ༘♡ੈ✩ || 양정원 x fem!reader || drabble

— KISS ME, DON’T SAY NO series

summary: moving into a new apartment, ready for a new beginning, you find comfort in knowing that home can always be found amongst the gentle presence, the safe haven of your boyfriend, jungwon. and you’ll do everything you can (even subconsciously) to make him feel at home with you too

genres: fluff, romance, non-idol!jungwon x non-idol!reader, est. relationship, serious relationship

warnings: attempts at humour, hints of suggestiveness bcs it’s jungwon and i can’t help myself, pet names

w.c: 1.8k

[archive]

The rain that pattered against the glass windows made the already empty apartment seem more grey and lifeless. Cardboard boxes, yet to be unpacked, were piled around the living room, some opened, some still sealed. You placed your hands on your hips, surveying the room and the inevitable work it would take to organise everything, not to mention make it all pretty and cozy…

There was a low rumble of thunder in the distance, a subtle yet obvious hint that there was no way you’d be able to unpack some boxes and make it to your boyfriends apartment tonight without getting swamped with rain or stuck in traffic. The only option would be to unseal the carefully packed mattress in your soon-to-be bedroom and sleep here.

Perfect.

Brushing back your hair, you made your way to the kitchen counter and finished the last of your soda, the empty glass bottle clinking as it was placed back on the laminate surface.

And you got to work. Cutting through double or triple layers of tape, pulling out steel utensils, kitchen appliances, pots and pans, before carefully sorting them into the drawers and cabinets. You knew you’d pull them all out again in a week to resort and reorganise them anyway but regardless, the boxes needed the go. That musty smell was getting to you.

You’d managed to finish three when there was a strong knock at the door. Heavy and a bit daunting.

You froze, fingers twitching, ready to reach for something sharp.

more under cut !!

“Hey!”

Your shoulders dropped, relaxing in an instant at the familiar voice.

“Y/N it’s me! Let me in! My hands are kinda full.”

You jumped over a couple boxes, sliding in your socks as you reached the door and pulled it open to see Jungwon standing there, hands full with an umbrella, a shopping bag and a bouquet of flowers. Peonies. Your favourite.

“Happy new apartment day!” He smiled brightly, handing you the bouquet and leaning forward, his lips pressing softly against your forehead.

You held the flowers close to your chest, eyes shutting quickly to savour the sweetness of his presence. You whispered a soft “Thank you” before reaching for his now free hand and pulling him inside.

“What’d you buy?” You asked while taking the empty soda bottle and washing it a few times before filling it with water for the peonies.

Jungwon walked through the kitchen, smiling at your recent unpacking and organising, knowing full well it would not last a week. “Oh just a small house warming gift,” he shrugged.

“Huh?” You smiled over your shoulder, carefully arranging the pink flowers in the bottle and placing it in the middle of the open counter. “I thought these were the house warming gift.”

“Nope, they’re just a little something for you, but this,” Jungwon reached inside the shopping bag and pulled out a new lamp; it was a lovely little star shaped bulb, the wiring visible through the glass, giving it a vintage feel despite the modernist urban charm of the lamp itself. “This is for your new house. And also for your hoard.”

“My collection.”

“It’s a hoard.”

You smirked, your fingers glided over the smooth glass while you observed the new lamp you would be adding to your ever growing collection — and yes, no matter what Jungwon said, it was a collection — an assortment of various lamps and night light and fairy light strings, little sources of brightness, the key to ambience and atmosphere in your opinion. Any excuse to not use the big lights.

You slid past your boyfriend, towards the living room’s power sockets. Usually they’d be used for a tv but given the circumstances, aside from charging your phone or laptop, you might as well use them to test out the lamp.

As soon as you pressed the switch, it was as if new life had been breathed into the space, the somber drear of the outside world wasn’t so overpowering anymore. You could actually appreciate the relaxing sound of the rain without having to feel bleak and bland.

The walls were bathed in orange and yellow, the shadows added dimensions to the currently bare walls, even in the blatantly empty room, filled only with half unpacked boxes and the presence of a young couple, it didn’t feel so empty.

“So?” Jungwon’s voice was soft, you hadn’t even noticed that he had crouched beside you, observing your reaction. “Do you like it?”

Your smile was answer enough, you pulled him closer by his arm, huddling with him around the lamp like it was some source of warmth. “I love it.” You gently kissed his cheek.

“Good.” He rested his head against yours for a few seconds before sighting and getting up, pulling you with him. “Okay. Let’s get to work. What can I do?”

After about forty five minutes to an hour of solid productive work, you and Jungwon had retired to the random couch cushions you’d found in one of the many boxes you’d unpacked. Cracking open two new bottles of soda, the two of you leaned against the wall, watching the rain get heavier and heavier.

“Babe, if we want to get to my place, we need to leave soon. As in now.” Jungwon set the bottle down, stretching a little.

You looked around at the room once more, some decent progress has been made, but you didn’t really want to leave just yet. “Actually, I was thinking I’d stay here tonight. Open the mattress and crash on that.”

“What? No. No, you’re coming with me.”

“But I’ve got cushions and blankets in the box inside the room. Plus all my skin care is in my bag anyway. And I don’t need to worry about food because I stocked up this afternoon from the convenience store a few blocks down.”

Jungwon furrowed his brows, admittedly remembering the sight of said convenience store while on his way to your apartment.

He took another sip of his drink, contemplating, before giving you a little pouted smile. “Fine, we’ll stay here tonight.”

“We?”

He scoffed, “Obviously? I’m not letting you sleep on some bare mattress on your own.”

Your eyes rolled involuntarily, a defence to hide the way your heart raced at his words. You stood up, gesturing for him to do the same. “Let’s set up now, before we make dinner.”

Jungwon hummed, following suit.

You felt a lightness in your chest as walked towards your new room. As unfinished as it may be, it was still your new room.

You knew this apartment would bring about new beginnings, new memories. And it excited you beyond words. And of course, the only person you really wanted to tell it all to was Jungwon.

“I can’t believe it took me this long to move,” you started. You knew he remembered the struggle of your old apartment, the distance between the two of you, as well as the achingly long commute to your campus and your job. All things considered, your old living situation wasn’t as good. It did the job, but this new place would only do it better.

Before you’d realised, the mattress had been unfurled, some blankets had been thrown over it like makeshift sheets, the couch cushions as your pillows, and Jungwon had gently guided you to sit down on the soft mattress while he went around the room, switching on a few of your other lamps.

The room’s atmosphere morphed into a mixed hue of muted pink and purple of a sunset lamp, blending into a lightly saturated orange of yet another sunset lamp, finally topped off with the watery wave-like reflection of an ocean lamp.

After all of that, he sat down beside you. Smiling at the energy with which you spoke, the clear excitement for new opportunities evident from the way your eyes shone.

“I’m really happy for you, Y/N.” Jungwon wrapped an arm around your shoulder.

“I haven’t even told you the best stuff.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“The convenience store? It has your favourite ice cream! I talked to the guy at the register, apparently the shop owner loves it too so it’s always in stock.”

Jungwon chuckled, opening his mouth to respond but you placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, indicating that you had more to tell.

“Another thing, there’s a park not too far from here, it’s dog friendly. Dog friendly!! I double checked the signs and everything. There’s so many cute dogs running around, it’s good space, perfect for Maeumi!”

Your hands moved in an endearing yet animated fashion, demonstrating just how big the park was, completely unaware of Jungwon’s dazed expression, the way he was drinking in your radiance.

You were too busy explaining more of the wonders you’d found: “And, and, just wait because I can’t wait to show your mum the antique store I found in this small corner of the neighbourhood. She’s gonna love it!”

“I love you.” Jungwon breathed out his words, his eyes darting back and forth between yours.

“Hm? I love you too, baby.”

“No, like, I love you. You’re here starting a new chapter of your life, in a new place, something that should be for yourself. And you still found ways to make it feel like home for me.”

Frowning slightly, you wondered why he felt so shocked by this. He did the same for you — keeping your favourite chocolate in his pantry, calling you every time he went to the bookstore near his place in case you wanted something, always having a pack of your favourite brand of sanitary pads in his bathroom in case the need arises — he made his world feel like home for you.

“You do this all the time though? The least I can do is reciprocate.”

He tucked away the pieces of hair framing your face, “Only you would think something so thoughtful and special was inherently normal.”

You felt your eyes shut as he leaned his forehead against yours.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he whispered, tilting his head to kiss you. He tasted of soda and spearmint, an odd combination but it made your head spin.

You pulled away slightly, taking in a couple of breaths to regulate your heartbeat. “You’d probably run out of ice cream,” you muttered.

His smirk quirked up on one side, your stomach fluttering at the sight. “Wow, you’re so funny, I wanna be just like you when I grow up.”

You scoffed, “No ice cream for you.” With a quick push, he fell back against the mattress, seeming totally unfazed.

“That’s fine by me.” He pulled you down next to him.

a.n: fourth instalment of the kiss me, don’t say no series !! not only is it JUNGWON DAY !!! but i’m glad his instalment was number four as in 04 as in the year he (and me) were born !!! happy jungwon day everyone <333 hope you liked this one xx

taglist: @oceanstide — @sheepsgf — @itsrinsdrs — @enjakey

2025 © yourislandgirl

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #fiber #broadband #physics #public goods #utah #utopia #red states #ole bub

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inbabylontheywept · 11 months ago

Note

So I found one of your (nonfiction) stories and read the one about the refrigerators, and it made the librarian part of me very curious (and a bit horrified) and I have so many questions!! (Feel free to entirely ignore this, and I really don’t intend to ask anything classified) Are there still refrigerators being used for document storage? Did the refrigerators keep reasonably consistent temperature/humidity? (Because those are both things you want in anything resembling archival storage) How long were documents stored in refrigerators? Do you have any actual document storage/retention guidelines?!

Thank you so much for sharing all your stories, they are hilarious!!!

Naw, it's surprisingly difficult to even ask questions about classified material. We're encouraged but not technically required to be vague about the tests and their purposes, but the fridges are fair game.

Anyway, from the top:

Are there fridges still being used for document storage? At the time that I wrote the fridge piece, we were down to four (4) file storage fridges. At present, we are down to a single (1) file storage fridge, and parts to repair it are on backlog. Then we're going to have to build another filing cabinet. Not looking forward to that.

Did the refigerators keep things reasonant consistent for temperature/humidity? Yes. The temperature in the building does not fluctuate very much (they have relic computer systems that are absolutely, terrifyingly irreplacable) and keeping them happy is a major concern. The fact that it preserves paper is just a convenient side benefit. Humidity is likewise kept low in the basement (like, single digit percent low), for the benefit of some machines that dislike it strongly. We do occasionally raise the humidity in certain location while handling ESD sensitive materials, but those tend to be far from the fridges.

How long were the documents stored in refigerators? We have some facility documents that date back to 1972. We do occasionally have to reference those documents to answer such thrilling questions as "Why does overloading the machine hydraulics downstairs sometimes cause the microwave clock to reset upstairs?" (The answer is that, for reasons no one can explain, they ran 125 feet of wire off the test cell's breaker specifically upstairs, to the one outlet that powers the microwave.) (Seriously.) (And then they recorded this, as if their confession could expunge this kind of sin.) (Engineering does not follow Catholic God's rules- we do not have to forgive someone just because they fessed up.)

Do we have any actual document storage/retention guidelines? Sorta. The guidelines for disposal of documents refers to both positions and specific people that have been gone for years. In theory, someone could take it upon themselves to champion a new disposal process, but that would be boring bureaucratic work whose reward would be doing more boring bureaucratic work, and the machines that we work on here are the coolest shit in the world. Everybody loves working on the machines. Nobody likes sorting through papers. So we just kind of keep punting that one down the road. We'll probably do that until we get someone in who actually prefers doing paperwork to badass science (basically impossible), we get someone from outside the group who arrives to assure document compliance (theoretically possible, ridiculously arare) or until we run out of space (actually impossible, we add space more quickly than we can fill it with papers). We do have guidelines on storage safety. I do not know a lot about what they are. I'd be surprised if the fridges weren't kosher though. The official cabinets have some parts flimsy enough to put through with a can opener. Those fridges could be dropped from an airplane and not get a dent. They're beautiful devices.

#Babylon-Lore

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withinthecode · 1 year ago

Note

Drop lore? What happens after transmission is lost?

The transmission was less lost as the signal was dropped. But the conversation that followed may have looked something like this.

WARNING. CORRUPTED DATA. SOME INFORMATION MAY NOT HAVE SURVIVED.

(Asa) Not really. Do we know if the bug on the line is dropped yet?

(Sahra) Just was actually. Arsaa truly is a lifesaver with getting the tracers off our back

(Asa) and our code. But anyways, now that we have no extra listeners on our line, I have some basic things to report.

(Sahra) does any of it have to do with the fact that my younger sibling has been in a frenzy? Because I can’t say I don’t want to know that.

(Asa) I do have that information, but let’s save it for the non-official conversation. Anyways, the leak I mentioned from Kyarr is accounted for. It’s Arsaa, we were finally able to get another message to her. She’s been working to find a trail on Naas, but it’s well hidden. They really don’t want us to find him.

(Sahra) well Akiil. I was really holding out hope that it had managed to escape their notice that there was at least one of us in secret. Do we know who they have information on?

(Asa) as of now, we only know that there is a chance Kyarr knows of the two of us, Jaz and Jax, and that I have siblings. everyone else has done a really good job of staying out of the light, it was just that transmission that revealed things.

(Sahra) We made that choice. It may be a major regret later, but we needed to make sure no suspicion fell on ‘saa. It’s too soon after. But the plan was only to have them know of us?

(Asa) well that plan died when we chose the broadcast with a chance of me finding my brother’s body to be the one hacked, now didn’t it? Corrupted data present. Unable to recover

(Sahra) I’m really sorry Asa. But now is not the time to regret. Any news on the others?

(Asa) ok. Liv is with their sister, Yor and TracDATA LOST, Molly, Tara, and the little with them are correpted data present. Unable to recover and Elena plus Leo are… somewhere. That’s all I have to report. I need to- I’m. Rara please can I call you later I just found my brothers body. Please.

(Sahra) oh Asa. Of course. Be safe, and stay in contact if you need anything. DATA CORREPTED. UNABLE TO RECOVER

TRANSMISSION ENDED

#anon ask #lost transmission #The Wires answer #<- this will be the tag for all asks and other things #Sahra Tolev #Asaan Myer #recovered data #found in: the wires archives

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yourbasicqueerie · 13 days ago

Text

Letters Of My Dreams (f. seward x fosca)

Summary:

Florence, who is now working at a London clinic, comes across an Italian medical journal featuring a clinical study called "The Case of the Hysterical Woman of Piacenza." Outraged by its language and conclusions, she sends a sharp telegram to the author, Dr. Tamborini. Instead of Tamborini, the letter is answered by the patient herself: Fosca. And what can Fosca do if not reply?

Notes:

I wrote this to feed my absurd love for letter writing, it was also absurdly inspired by @anthewitch ‘s gorgeous gorgeus self whom ledes me her beautiful art as a header. I need to dedicate this to @pattisl0ver , because of the half assed emails i wrote to her during exam season (highlights of my day honestly) and having inspired this idea. darkliterotica on ao3 for having created this ship (genius material) and last but not least least emma, for being the best beta reader I could have had for this! I did make a playlist for this fic and you can find it here! ════════════════════════════════════════════════

There were few things left in the world that stirred Florence Seward to rage.

Not the decaying state of the clinic’s plumbing. Not the gas-lamp that flickered each evening like a dying firefly over her desk. Not even the bone-deep exhaustion that clung to her like coal dust, days stitched together with morphine doses and fractured dreams. No, what ignited her now was something colder than anger: contempt.

She read the article a second time.

"The Case of the Hysterical Woman of Piacenza"Published in Il Giornale Medico di Parma , March 1906. By Dr. Emilio Tamborini.

It was printed on heavy paper that smelled of ink and foreign mildew, its edges already curling as if recoiling from its own contents. Florence had received the journal through the hospital’s archive clerk, a favor reluctantly offered after she’d endured three weeks of paper-thin reports from English institutions that seemed more interested in diagnosing hysteria than understanding it.

But this—this was something else entirely. Tamborini’s study was a horrid dissection dressed in the language of detachment: “Subject exhibits classical signs of derangement. Morbid fixation. Cataleptic episodes. Morally compromised.” There was no description of the woman’s voice, her pain, her history. No curiosity, only cataloguing. Like a butterfly pinned through the thorax.

Florence closed the journal, her hands trembled with something close to fury, or perhaps its elder sibling, sorrow.

She stood abruptly, the legs of her mahogany desk chair scraping against the ground in protest. Outside the infirmary window, the gray London afternoon thickened like cream in tea. She wrapped the coal colored fleece tighter around her shoulders, strode to the communications room, and found the telegraph clerk asleep beside his typewriter.

“Wake up, Mr. Lowell,” she said briskly, dropping the journal onto the metal counter. “We’re sending something to Italy.”

He groaned and sat up with a creak. “To Italy, Dr. Seward? Bit far for a prescription, isn’t it?”

Florence ignored him, pulled a blank telegraph form from the stack, and dipped her pen in ink.

May 4th, 1906From: Dr. Florence Seward, Queen Charlotte Hospital, London, EnglandTo: Dr. E. Tamborini, Clinica Medica di Piacenza

Telegram Message:RE: YOUR ARTICLE “HYSTERIA IN THE FEMALE FORM”CONCERNED BY LANGUAGE AND CONCLUSIONS REGARDING FEMALE NERVOUS DISEASE

QUESTIONING YOUR USE OF “DERANGEMENT” AND “MORAL FEEBLENESS” REQUEST CLINICAL CLARIFICATION AND PATIENT STATUS – DR. F. SEWARD

Florence didn’t expect a reply. She wasn’t even certain why she’d sent it. But she felt lighter after the words had been hammered into the wire, fed like a warning through the veins of Europe.

The next day, she had already forgotten about it.

And then, a week later, a letter arrived.

It came wrapped in pale vellum. The handwriting on the envelope (looped, elegant, undeniably feminine) immediately caught her attention. It was not from Tamborini. The name was unfamiliar.

"Signorina Fosca."

The envelope smelled faintly of lavender and sorrow.

Florence stared at it for a long moment in her office, her fingers tingling as if she were about to open a locket left by someone long dead.

She slit the top carefully, like she was handling evidence. Inside there was cream-colored paper, the same elegant hand.

May 11th, 1906Clinica Medica, Piacenza

To Doctor Florence Seward,

Your message arrived not to Dr. Tamborini’s office, but to my room. It was a clerical error, or perhaps the nurse took pity on me, and thought I should see it.

I could not help but laugh, quietly, lest they hear me, for who else but a woman would speak so boldly to the gods of medicine? I know them well. Their coats of starch, their words like scalpels.

I am the woman in that paper.

Not the one you read. Not the specimen. The one who remained afterward.

I read your message many times. It did not feel like science. It felt like rescue.

Allow me to reply fully.

In this clinic, I am sometimes permitted paper and sometimes not. Today, I am permitted.

I was not “hysterical.” I was abandoned.

Yours,

Fosca

Florence read the letter once. Then again. She didn’t sit down: she paced the room with it clutched in her hand, like it might vanish.

The tone was measured, almost cold. But something inside it—beneath it—throbbed with recognition. This wasn’t just a patient’s reply. It was a voice breaking through confinement. A flare through fog.

She glanced back down at the bottom of the page. "Fosca." A name that felt more like a key than a signature.

The air in the office suddenly felt too thin. Florence reached for the armrest of her chair and sat down slowly, as though she'd just stepped off a ship after months at sea.

The woman in the case study had become real. And she had written back.

Florence folded the letter carefully, slipping it into her desk drawer—then paused. No. She took it out again, and instead pressed it inside the small, leather-bound poetry journal she kept hidden in her satchel. Next to the folded paper, she slid in a sheet of unused stationary.

And in her mind, already, her pen was moving.

READ MORE ON AO3

#your basic queerie #patti lupone #fosca (passion)#dr seward #Florence Seward #Seward x fosca #passion #penny dreadful

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copper-caster · 4 months ago

Text

TF Failsafe Coding AU

The concept of this continuity soup AU is that Warframes, particularly warframes with slave coding can trigger a heat/rut through submitting to a stronger opponent in battle.

It makes them limp and pathetic, unable to activate their weapon systems, just about able to string a sentence together between chirrups of binary, the only hard part of them is their spike so it's easier for the victor to cart them off. They'll just mewl and roll around on their back to present their spikes, a failsafe to deter the victor from just killing them. However, if a mech has been on a winning streak & suddenly looses it forcibly activates.

This is inspired by a Tokyo Ghoul Fanfic Series I've been reading particularly the fic ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/48210463/chapters/121576942 ) I recommend reading that entry even if you're unfamiliar with the source material it's absolutely fantastic. Also this is somewhat inspired by my love of the X-Men & Ajin: Demi-human.

Maybe it was something conjured up by the Quintessons during their occupation to deter more violent troops from killing their coworkers because if they lost they'd become docile for a time & if they won they'd end up sparked, harder to cause trouble that way. The quints also found it's excellent entertainment at parties.

Anyway in the modern day Gladiators have to wear chastity devices because there's no way that the arena masters are giving people a free show, instead if a bot drops into heat they'll be carted out of the arena to a private afterparty for the high society bots to attend.

The managers don't want their star champions to end up sparked & have to take a break from performing.

Sometimes Gladiators can even be rented out to private arenas in Senator's homes or high end nightclubs for Fight & Spike parties where the fight is just an appetizer for the main event of watching some hulking warframe present themselves begging to be touched. Ridden or pounded by the victor, often pumped up on aggression inducing drugs, then turned over to the guests. That's all perfectly legal, in the gladiatorial contracts even, ignore that little detail about most of them signing said contracts under duress. What isn't legal is using these Gladiators as studs for the breeding of trafficked unregistered Outliers.

Which is where our intrepid undercover investigative journalist Orion Pax comes in. He's gotten into one of these parties to investigate the possible links to the disappearances of prominent Outliers & civil rights activists on behalf of Senator Shockwave. His cover is that he's some arm candy secretary picked up from the archives for (senator of your choice who Shockwave is blackmailing to go along with it). Orion sometimes works with fellow independent journalists Jazz & Blaster who primarily travel from city to city, event to event, interviewing interesting people with a political bent (think all gas no breaks / channel 5 the youtube channels if you're familiar but Jazz & Blaster aren't sex pests like the hosts of those channels 💀 if you're not familiar I'd recommend looking up someone reacting to one of their videos don't give the og channels views). They're helping him, monitoring the situation & relating his wire to their police contact Prowl who's been kicked off the missing Outliers case for getting too close to the truth.

Thus sets the scene for Orion to meet Megatron. He's aware of the gladiator of course who wouldn't know the face of the reigning champion of the pit, but seeing clips of his fights is not the same as seeing the mech sprawled back on the dancefloor, hazey optic'd & undulating to show off his spike. Whirring & beeping like a mechanimal. Orion has never seen something so hot before in his life & he hates himself for it. Which is about when the host of the party brings out Starscream who's been legally registered as dead for several months. Makes him ride Megatron until he's sparked up. Of course to make sure he's carrying an Outlier spark that's inherited his abilities the host blows a hole through his processor mid second round. After a few seconds Star jerks back into action, this isn't his first rodeo & he wants to get it over with asap before the host gets bored of boasting about his sales pitch, already starting bidding on Star's unborn bitty, & decides to shoot him again for the spectacle of it all.

Megatron is Distressed his heat partner just died, without any fight response he's working himself into hysterics. His processor is mush, energon & fragments of processor boards splashed across his face, whimpering he can't understand it His Mate just died he felt the death flare in his EM field but he can also feel the body is still moving.

Star absolutely loathes those noises & Megatron's expression because it breaks the immersion of all the training he's been through to see himself as an object because this bot is treating him like a person asking if he's hurt in base binary chirps & it makes him hate himself more. Maybe he's got a scold's bridle on so that he can't speak, he's not nicknamed Screamer for no reason.

Orion attends a few of these parties. He also goes to interview Megatron while he's sober after winning a match. Officially it's because Orion is writing a puff piece about Megatron so they have a conversation dancing around the subject, aware they're being monitored. Orion doesn't realise he's been found out as a mole until he's being dragged into the arena ring at a party. Thrown down in front of a drugged up Megatron, he's completely berserk, unable to be reasoned with, going to rip Orion to pieces. So thinking quickly Orion just surrenders mimicking a warframe's defeat induced heat driven to a fever pitch Megatron frags him until the drugs are out of his system. The party goers love it & want an oncore meanwhile Megs is coming back to his senses, an absolutely wrecked civilian mech underneath him. His handler is screaming at him over internal comms to give the ppl what they want & frag his throat open like he just did to that medalling journalist's valve. Orion just tells him " I'm sorry they're making you do this, I will endure it, don't blame yourself for what they're forcing you to do"

Of course they don't just let Orion go afterwards so now he's a missing person. Jazz, Blaster, & Prowl were tapped into Orion's audio visual feed & saw the whole thing up until Megatron crushed his Audials & Optics while fucking his face until it falls apart.

Orion is now being trafficed with the Outliers, his sensors are limited to tactial & olfactory only, luckily most of the trafficked bots know Sign language & Chirolinguistics so they teach him. Both Star & Orion are sparked up so they're housed together. Being moved from safehouse to safehouse. Star decides to use his own parts to try and repair Orion since even if he ripps out an optic it'll just grow back when he resets. His owner doesn't intervene because he finds it funny & it is keeping Starscream occupied. They are planning to repair Orion after the sparkling is born so they can get a repeat performance. But maybe they subject him to empurata since his face is already smashed.

Not sure what happens from here, maybe Jazz, Blaster, & Co decide to break Megatron out of the arena to help them track down Orion & the missing Outliers via his fledgling Sire bond.

I'm making Blurr an Outlier also, quicksilver type shit. He's fairly well-known by the general public as his disqualification from participating in any sporting events was highly publicised. With his fellow Velocitronians finding it to be highly offensive that he's barred, some more zealous individuals believe Blurr's speed to have been a blessing by their colony's patron Amalgamous Prime. He's lapping up being the civil rights movements' poster child. I'm also making Senator Shockwave Velocitronian royalty, rumoured to be a direct descendant of Amalgamous Prime. It's traditional that the royalty of Velocitron are Conjunx to the winner of the race celebrating their coming of age ceremony, whenever they choose to have that celebration after they reach adulthood is up to them, so Shockwave has postponed his in protest until the cybertronian government would recognise Blurr as the winner. They decide to do some fake dating 'the government is forbidding our love from being recognized in the traditional manner of our people' type shit for the tabloids to lap up & sway public opinion. They're a real celebrity couple.

This makes both of them frequent targets for assassinations & kidnappings. Starscream was a hired guard for Blurr & 'died' in one of these attacks, with the traffickers realising that Star was an Outlier & taking him after watching him wake up from a decapitation. Shockwave goes missing during one of these attempts, carted off to be subjected to empurata, the surgery triggers a mass/shape shifting mutation in him. He breaks out & returns to office hiding the fact that he's now an Outlier himself, maintaining his original form for long periods of time stressing out his body to the point of seizures. Blurr caring for him & helping him hide himself leads them to develop genuine feelings for eachother.

Please send me asks about this au or reblog & add comments please 🥺👉👈

Signed

_ Cu 🐗

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vintagelasvegas · 6 months ago

Text

KENO-AM station at today's 2780 Las Vegas Blvd S. – c. 1950

The first successful radio station in Las Vegas was KENO, founded by Las Vegas promotions pioneer Maxwell Kelch.

KENO went on air 11/1/40, broadcasting from their original studio on the grounds of The Meadows resort. Operations moved in '41 to a new, standalone building shown here, adjacent to El Rancho Vegas, to the south of the resort.

Kelch sold the station to a group of employees in '55. The partnership sold the station in '57 to a group headed by Gordon B. Sherwood. The station moved in '60, months prior to a fire that closed El Rancho Vegas. KENO is now the oldest radio station in Las Vegas, broadcasting in Spanish since the 2000s.

Timeline of 2780 Las Vegas Blvd S.

'41: KENO station built by El Rancho Vegas.

'60: Bought by Bank of Nevada, converted into a bank branchl later known as First National Bank.

'69: Warehouse built behind the bank, location used in Vega$ television series in ‘78-‘81.

'81: Geri Rosenthal withdraws cash and jewelry with police escort at the bank branch, fictionalized in the film Casino.

'84: Bank branch closes.

'86: Bought by Arby’s Village LLC.

'87: Former bank and warehouse demolished, replaced by Arby's restaurant.

'88: Guinness World of Records Museum opens in a new building behind Arby's.

2004: SMK Inc. buys the property. Arby's and the museum demolished in the following years.

2007: Current building completed.

Headline photo: Kodachrome, Vintage Las Vegas collection.

Undated. Manis Collection (PH-00100), UNLV Special Collections & Archives.

El Rancho Vegas with a sign for KENO radio. Photo by Frasher Fotos.

The 2007 building, seen from the back parking area.

Aerial view, 2024.

Sources: Station KENO to go on air early September. Review-Journal, 7/31/40; K.J. Evans. Maxwell Kelch – The Original Live Wire. 1st100.com (archived); Henry Brean. Community activist Laura Belle Kelch dies. Review-Journal, 7/13/2004; George Apfel. KENO-AM 1460. gapfel.com (archived)

#1950 #El Rancho Vegas

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casstheasswrites · 1 month ago

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NO SAINTS, NO SAVIOURS (9)

pairing: frank castle x reader (female)

summary: wrong place, wrong time. he saved her life, she patched him up. that should’ve been the end of it. some nights, you survive. others, you change.

trigger warnings: canon typical violence including blood and death. ptsd, trauma, eventual smut. at times, you get soft!frank. at others, he takes no prisoners. we love the duality of man <3

chapter length: 7.6k

authors note: PREPARE FOR ANGST AND HELLA YEARNING. in case you want more of this story faster, i've got ELEVEN chapters posted on my AO3 (linked below). just going to start double posting here on tumblr too :) i hope you enjoy and pls pls send me a message with your feedback or thoughts, if you have any! thanks a million.

archive of our own / feedback appreciated!

Frank guided you down a flight of rusted metal stairs behind a maintenance gate you never would’ve noticed on your own— half-shielded by ivy and shadows, as if the city itself had tried to forget it existed. You ducked your head as he pulled open a reinforced metal door, the hinges shrieking their protest. He then led you down a series of long, concrete hallways, until finally his footsteps slowed. The floor inclined, just slightly, like you’d moved just barely underground. He led you to an old and rusted green door, with the words MGRS OFFICE affixed to the front in worn letters. There was a keypad lock keeping the door sealed shut, and he made quick work of twisting the numbers into combination and then pushed his way inside. You followed just a step behind.

Inside was nothing but darkness, the air thick and damp like an old tomb.

The moment you crossed the threshold, the scent of old concrete and machine oil wrapped around you like a worn blanket. Cold, metallic, just sharp enough to sting your nose. You winced, unable to stop yourself. It was the kind of smell that would linger on your clothes and in your hair. That told you this was not a place for comfort— this was a place for survival. As if Frank himself hadn’t already warned you.

A soft click sounded, and overhead, a string of bare bulbs buzzed to life. The light was dim and flickering, strung up across the ceiling by stripped copper wire. They cast long, uneven shadows against the concrete of the walls, of the floor, revealing just enough of the room to let your imagination fill in the rest.

It was… small. Not cramped, but close. Like the space itself had been carved out in secret and never meant to be found again.

You turned slowly in place, taking it all in. Utility shelves were piled with supplies, dozens of canned goods and other non-perishables. Upon closer inspection, you noticed several boxes of MREs— your brow furrowed at the sight, your heart clenching within your chest. If this had been how Frank had been living, it was no wonder he’d seemed to savour every bite of the breakfast you’d made that morning.

As you looked around, you somehow managed to keep your expression guarded, neutral. You could feel the weight of Frank’s eyes on you— just for a beat, just long enough for him to step around you, immediately crossing the room. Getting to work. Not a second to waste.

Two small windows sat high on the far wall— thin slits of glass fogged by time and purpose. The panes were clouded, blurred with privacy film or something like it, designed to let light in but keep the world out. You couldn’t see through them— just barely-there hints of shifting shapes, the vague suggestion of movement. Like shadows behind a curtain. If it weren’t night, you figured that sunlight would filter in soft and dull, casting a muted gray glow that would do little to brighten the space. The bunker— that’s what you likened it to— was just a floor below ground level.

Water stains crept like spiderwebs across the ceiling. A military cot sat pushed into one wall, a single gray blanket folded at the edge. There was a sad excuse for a pillow at one end, flat enough that it likely didn’t do much. Two battered metal desks were pushed together near the center of the room, their surfaces buried beneath weapons, maps, and stray boxes of ammunition— some open, others sealed tight. The far corner of the room, across from the door, held a folding chair draped with a flannel shirt, sleeves frayed at the edges, elbows worn straight through. Near it, a mini fridge kicked on with a groan, like even it was reluctant to keep going.

There were no photos. No books. No softness.

You could feel Frank in every inch of it. This was who he was, when you weren’t around.

You stepped closer to the desks, further into the room, careful not to make too much noise. The back wall of the room was completely covered in notes, maps, blurry black-and-white photographs with red circles drawn around faces. Some had Xs through them, others didn’t. You knew what that meant.

Most of the faces in the photos were strangers. A few… weren’t. The men from the subway that first night, weeks ago, were there. Already marked as dead. And the men from the hospital, too. Red marker connected both sets of men— and in the middle— a photo of you. It was a candid shot, taken from distance, just outside your apartment building. It was from before the hospital— so he’d been watching you before that, too. Around your photo there was no red circle, no messy printing with details or crimes, just your first name scrawled beneath. The ink ran a bit around the last letter of your name; like his hand had paused there for a beat too long.

Everyone else on the board had more information affixed to the space around their photo; news articles, print-offs from the web, crimes they’d been accused of. But not you. There was no deep dive, no history searched and shared. Just your name, handwritten in that sharp, slanted scrawl you were starting to recognize. It made something stir in your chest— something you didn’t have the name for. He hadn’t needed more information. He’d already made up his mind about you.

You swallowed the knot in your throat and stepped back again, gaze flicking to the ceiling.

You could hear the city moving just overhead— traffic rumbling, pipes groaning, someone’s muffled footsteps echoing through old infrastructure. On the way over, Frank had told you this place used to be a building manager’s office— tucked in the basement of some forgotten apartment complex on the far edge of Hell’s Kitchen. While people still lived in the many floors above, the basement hadn’t been used in decades and he’d been here for months. Knew every bolt, every blind corner. Every way in… and out. He told you that tomorrow, he would run you through each of them, just in case.

Just as you turned towards him, Frank shifted in your direction, one of his hands lifting towards your back. You paused, waiting to see what he was doing, before you realized— his hand slid over your shoulder and wrapped around the strap of your backpack, giving it a gentle tug until it began to slide backwards. He removed your bag and carried it towards the cot— the one cot— before he set it down at the edge.

Then he turned to you, expression clear in the half-light, waiting. He looked exhausted— not just from the day, but from the weight he always seemed to carry. You knew it well. Still, there was something in the way he watched you. Like he was waiting for you to flinch, or settle, or leave. But you didn’t do any of those things.

“I’ve had worse,” you said, voice a little quieter than you meant it to be.

One corner of his mouth curved, but it wasn’t quite a smile. Just that unreadable expression he always wore when he didn’t want you to see how he really felt.

You weren’t sure what you wanted to see, anyway.

The bunker was cold. That much was obvious, but you imagined it was intentional, too. Frank couldn’t afford warmth. Not in his body, not in his bones, and definitely not in the places he chose to rest his head. Comfort made you soft, slow. And he didn’t survive by being either of those things.

You were grateful for the jacket you’d grabbed before you left. Grateful for the extra layers beneath it, even though the fabric was already starting to cling in the wrong places— damp from exertion, heavy with the day. Still, the chill found its way in. It crept under the hem of your sweater, licked at the delicate skin between your knuckles. Settled at the base of your neck and stayed there. A hint of what was to come.

Without realizing it, your feet had carried you toward the desks in the middle of the room. His base of operations.

You paused a few inches away from the edge of the nearest desk, your eyes drifting across the objects arranged there. Not messy, not cluttered— just deliberate in a language you didn’t speak. Clips. Ammunition. An oversized, cracked radio with the casing half-screwed off. The thing had dial upon dial on it, and you wondered if it might have been older than you were. You’d never seen anything like it before. Next to it, there was a notepad filled with numbers, scratched out and rewritten again. Frequencies, maybe. Paths he’d tried to explore and deemed unworthy.

You didn’t touch anything. You just looked, scanning over his world without stepping into it.

Frank wasn’t far. He’d dropped into the nearby folding chair, a half-turn away from you. One of his pistols lay disassembled in front of him on the other side of the desk, pieces laid out like organs on a metal table. He moved with that same precision of motion he always did— like he was saving every ounce of energy he had for something that might need killing later.

He reached for a small black bottle with no label and uncapped it. The sharp, chemical scent of it hit the air instantly, and your nose scrunched before you could help yourself. It was acrid and bitter, something that didn’t belong in lungs. But Frank didn’t flinch. Instead, he poured a bit onto an old rag, the cloth already dark from past use, and started to press it delicately against specific spots along the exposed barrel. He moved with surgical precision; a man who’d done this a time or two before.

It was like watching a ritual. Not worship, not quite. But familiar. His shoulders stayed low, steady, the way they always did when his mind was a thousand miles away but his hands remembered the route. Autopilot.

You leaned your hip against the edge of the desk, arms crossed loosely over your chest, and watched him for a while.

He looked up once, just for a split second. His gaze met yours, weighted and familiar, but he said nothing.

He just kept going.

When the weapon was finished— clean, reassembled, gleaming beneath the low light— he cleared his throat. He didn’t look at you this time, just tilted his head slightly toward your bag at the foot of the cot.

“Hand yours over,” he said, voice low, steady. “Gotta keep a weapon like that clean. Can’t afford to let it jam.”

You hadn’t even considered it, the idea of cleaning your gun. The idea that you’d need it more than once. But of course he had— of course Frank had already thought through every variable. His back-up plans had back-up plans.

You moved back toward your bag and unzipped the front pocket, fingers closing around the familiar shape of your weapon. When you returned, you didn’t set it down in front of him. You just stood there, waiting. Waiting for him to look up.

And when he did, you held his gaze, a sharp set to your jaw.

“Show me how,” you said. Quiet, but firm. Your voice was steady, even if your insides weren’t. They trembled beneath the weight of what you were asking for— the burden you were willingly taking on. You knew that if Frank taught you, he’d expect you to keep up with it. It would be a job that would be all yours. “I need to learn, don’t I?”

Frank’s eyes held yours for a long moment. He didn’t blink. You could see something working behind those coffee-coloured irises, the amber in them flickering in and out of sight. It was like he was trying to read you, figure out what it meant that you were asking this, and what it might cost. You or him, you weren’t entirely sure.

Finally, he exhaled.

“S’not a bad idea,” he muttered, dragging his hand across his jaw. “Just surprised, is all.”

You won’t always be around, you wanted to say. But you knew if you did, the words would come out laced with hostility— like you were bitter. And that wasn’t how you meant it; not really. It was more like you had grown… resigned… to that fact. That as much as the two of you had begun to accept this new dynamic, as partners, there was an inevitable expiration date. And each day brought you closer to it.

You knew that no matter when that time came, it would be too soon. Because now that you’d begun to know him, how could you go back to being only strangers?

You swallowed the emotion clawing at the back of your throat, doing what you could to push it down, shove the thoughts away. You could wallow in it all later; for now, you needed to focus.

The bunker around you was quiet, still. The air in here didn’t seem to move much, growing stagnant around you, pinning you down with the weight of it. One of the bulbs overhead flickered, just once, and your gaze briefly darted up towards it. It didn’t flicker again; you wondered, for a beat, if your mind was playing tricks on you. If it was an external representation of the turmoil happening inside.

You set the gun down on the desk before him, next to his own. Frank looked at it for a second, then shook his head. He didn’t reach for it. Instead, he nudged it gently back toward you with one finger, eyes dipping between your face and the weapon.

“Nah,” he said. “Keep your hands on it. This is yours now.”

He reached across the desk, clearing space, shifting aside a rag and an open bottle of that same, bitter solvent. Then he leaned back, and nodded to the gun in front of you.

“Alright. Clip comes out first.”

Your fingers wrapped around the grip and you did as you were told. You heard the clip click free, felt the subtle shift in weight as the metal slipped from the grip. It startled you, for a beat, how easily handling the weapon had become. Your hands were steady, no hint of shakiness.

“Now pull back on the slide, there— yeah, like that. What do you see?”

You squinted, turning it onto its side, peering inside the open chamber. “Nothing… it’s empty.”

“Good. You gotta check that every time. Don’t skip it.”

You nodded, jaw set tight, even as your heartbeat pounded at the base of your throat.

“Now you need to pull the trigger.”

You hesitated, eyes flaring wide. You gaze jolted to Frank’s. “What?”

“There’s no round, no clip, no danger. It’ll click. You gotta hear that. Then rack it again.”

You obeyed, the sharp metallic click breaking the silence between you.

He walked you through the next steps— each motion careful, efficient. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t over-explain. Just simple, spare instructions, delivered in that gravel-worn tone of his. You were clumsy at first— your fingers slipped, fumbled, and you cursed once under your breath when the recoil spring jumped sideways.

Frank stood and leaned into your side, the warmth of his chest brushing across your back, your shoulder. His hand closed gently over yours atop the weapon— not stopping you, just redirecting. He adjusted the pressure you used on the weapon, loosening your grip with a nudge of his fingers over yours.

“Here,” he murmured, voice low enough that you felt it more than heard it. “You’re pressin’ too hard. Let it slide into place. Don’t force it.”

You didn’t dare move. Couldn’t. The heat from his palm bled into your skin, and suddenly everything else in the room blurred into background noise. The hum of the lightbulb above you. The low buzz of the fridge. All of it, gone.

All that remained was the way his fingers wrapped around yours, the steady rhythm of his breath against your temple. His scent settled around you, hints of salt and something warm, like a late-night campfire on the beach, waves rolling against the shore. For another moment he didn’t move, just stood there, hand on yours, like he wasn’t sure whether to pull away or press in closer.

When he finally pulled away, it wasn’t abrupt. More like the kind of retreat that takes effort— like the parting of hands that almost forget they don’t belong there. You watched him as he went, unable to tear your gaze away. His eyes lingered a second too long on your fingers before he reclaimed his seat, jaw tight like he’d given away more than intended.

“You’re getting it,” he said, voice rough again, but not unkind. He watched each of your movements carefully, like a teacher who knew you could do it on your own— but wanted to stay within arms reach, just in case. “Keep goin’.”

You did. You finished the disassembly, with his instructions, and lined up the pieces of the weapon in the same way he had. Next, he handed you the rag he’d used on his own weapon, and you turned your gaze to his, your eyes hesitant, questioning.

“How much do I use?” you asked, teeth digging into your bottom lip. He chuckled and nodded, unscrewing the cap from the solvent for you. Not overstepping, but helping.

“It’s not like WD-40,” he said. “It’s just for slippin’ between the parts. Keepin’ it smooth. A few drops is all you need.”

And so you did as he told you; you dabbed a few drops of the oil in the areas he pointed to with one of those long, thick fingers of his. It took you a beat too long to draw your eyes away from it. He then walked you through how to reassemble the weapon, only stepping in with instruction when you paused, eyes wandering to his, lost. You managed to work your way through a few of the steps on your own, and your eyes flickered to Frank’s when you finished— the warmth in his gaze made your heart soar within your chest.

You handed it back to him for a once-over and he didn’t hesitate. The way the weapon moved in his hands was much different to how it had in yours— to you, it was unfamiliar, a new object you weren’t sure you wanted to learn. But to Frank, it was like an extension of himself, something he knew like the back of his hand.

He checked it through once. Twice.

You waited with bated breath, nerves frayed, eyes locked on his face. And finally, his gaze lifted to yours, and his lips curved just slightly in one corner. You were startled by how much amber had leaked into his eyes— more than you’d ever seen before. The shade of his eyes nearly glowed in the dim light coming from above.

“Atta girl,” he said, the words coated in nothing but warmth. Pride. “Good work. Real good.”

The praise landed like a match to dry grass, a sudden flame that caught too fast. It travelled across your entire body, your cheeks flushing, crimson springing to your pale skin. Then it traced a trail down the center of your body, pooling at your core, burning you from the inside out. Your lips parted, breath catching on nothing, and for a moment, you couldn’t even remember how your hands worked. You were still. There was nothing within your mind, just the echo of those words— “Atta girl”— circling around and around, like a carousel you couldn’t climb off of.

You weren’t used to hearing praise like that. Not from someone like him. Not from anyone. It lodged somewhere deep, unfamiliar— dangerous, maybe, given how much you wanted to hear it again. Like there was a tank that needed to be filled, and he’d just given you the first few drops. You were an addict and he’d slipped you your first taste.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed— how long you’d allowed the room to lapse into silence. When your heart had finally stopped pounding against your ribs, your eyes refocused, and you found that he was still watching you. There was a hint of something on his face, like he was weighing his options again… trying to decide whether or go left or right. Just as your lips parted, about to ask him what he was thinking, he stood from the chair and began to nod his head. He’d made up his mind. Chosen his path.

“Now what do you say I teach you how to use this thing properly, yeah?”

You went still all over again; the gun in your grasp suddenly gaining weight. It shouldn’t have— you’d already fired it once, been prepared to use it a second time, if it hadn’t been Frank who’d appeared in your apartment the day before. But he was right. You didn’t have the first clue what you were doing when that cool metal was pressed into your palm. And if you wanted to keep going on this path, walking alongside him, you’d need to learn.

Who better to teach you than him?

Slowly, you began to nod, a nonverbal confirmation. You were buying in; whatever he wanted you to know, you’d do your best. He was the expert… and you hoped you could be a fast learner. You hoped he might give away some more of those warm words, the one that had you shift your weight again, your insides still overheated.

You wanted to believe that what you lacked in strength, you could make up for with speed and agility. Before the last few weeks, you had regularly been going to the gym, always focused on endurance training and gradually increasing your strength in the areas you needed it. But you’d been losing weight, too, and you had a feeling that a lot of what you’d lost had been muscle. It would take time to build that up again.

“Alright,” Frank said, pulling you from your thoughts. With a jerk of his head, he directed you to back up a few steps, spread further into the room where there were less obstacles. His gaze never left you, even as you moved. It was hard not to shrink beneath the weight of his eyes, because this time, he was looking for something in particular— he was critiquing. “Feet shoulder-width apart. Back foot slightly behind. Put your weight on the balls of your feet— knees soft, not locked.” He paused, waiting for you to do as he’d said.

You adjusted, shifting until you found something that felt like balance. It wasn’t comfortable, not even remotely, and didn’t feel natural. But it felt like you could move in any direction, quickly, if you needed to. That was probably the point.

He approached you, then, and began to move around you in a slow semi-circle. He was quiet, just watching. There was something about the way he moved— measured, assessing. Like he was watching not just your stance, but the way you held your fear. Like he was deciding what kind of fighter you might become.

“Now your grip,” he said and you lifted the gun in your hands, eyes following the movement as you stared at the way you held it in your grasp. “Two hands, dominant one high and tight on the backstrap. Other hand wraps the fingers— thumbs pointing forward, not crossed.” When your hands finally settled as he’d instructed, he hummed, the sound reverberating through his chest. He was somewhere behind you, peering over your shoulder.

He stepped in behind you to guide your hands, then, his palms brushing over the backs of yours. His fingers adjusted the placement of your thumbs, just slightly, his knuckle grazing the inside of your wrist. You committed the placement to memory, flexing the joints of your fingers, getting a sense for how it felt, too.

“You don’t wanna be fighting the recoil,” he murmured, close enough for the sound to settle behind your ear. His smell began to wrap around you again and you held your breath, trying to keep a hold of your composure. Your knees wobbled at his proximity and your eyes pressed shut for a beat, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “Let the gun do what it’s built to do, but keep control of it.”

“Arms out, extend,” he said. “Straight, but not rigid. Shoulders down and elbows unlocked. Your grip’s where the strength comes from, not your arms.”

You extended and he watched. Not just the posture— you. Though you still couldn’t see him, not even from your periphery, you felt the weight of his gaze on every inch of you. Trailing over every area he commented on, ensuring you had it right.

He stepped forward again, fingertips brushing your upper arm. “Relax here. You're gonna tire yourself out faster if you stay tense.”

You tried. Loosened your shoulders. Let the weight of the weapon settle in your hands instead of your muscles.

“Now look down the sights,” he said, voice a little softer now. “Front post sharp. Rear blurred. Focus here—” his finger tapped the top of the slide, just above the front sight, “—and breathe.”

You lined it up as best you could, eyes narrowing, tongue pressed to the roof of your mouth in concentration. When you’d fired at the man in the hospital, you hadn’t even looked— your eyes had been pinched shut, too afraid to watch whatever you had been about to do. You could still feel the pull of that trigger, the slam of the gun in your hand, how your shoulders immediately burned with the effort. You could still hear the echo of it, too, the ringing in your ears. That blind panic, the wet slap of blood against tile. You hadn’t aimed. You hadn’t known how. And it was only luck— Frank— that kept you breathing.

“You want the shot to break at the bottom of an exhale,” he continued, low and steady. “Squeeze. Don’t jerk. Don’t anticipate. Just... let it happen.”

Your breath came out slow. You clicked the trigger. Even with no bullet, the release of tension jolted through your wrist.

Frank gave a low hum of approval, his exhale blowing against the side of your head, jostling a few strands of your dark hair. As if he, too, had noticed it, he reached up with a hand and brushed them away, tucking them back behind your ear. You were frozen solid at his gesture— the tension you’d just managed to release returning ten-fold.

That wasn’t instruction. That wasn’t survival. It was something else entirely, something heavier, something deeper and unspoken. It was something you didn’t know what to do with. Didn’t know if he did, either.

He moved around your side, appearing in your periphery before he was in front of you, just slightly to your left. You relaxed your hold on the weapon, dropped your arms a bit.

Then, without warning, he reached for the gun. “Now let’s see what happens when someone tries to take it.”

Your stomach turned and you flinched back a step, eyes flaring wide. “Wait—”

“You need to know this,” he said, already moving towards you again. “Don’t matter if it’s loaded or not. If you hesitate, you lose.”

He grabbed the barrel, slow and deliberate, watching your reaction. Your fingers froze around the grip. You didn’t move, didn’t react. Just let him grab it.

“You don’t fight the pull,” he said, stepping in close, his hand still wrapped around the front of the weapon. “You turn with it. Pivot your body, break the angle. If you don’t, you’ll end up with this in their hand. Pointed at you.”

He showed you— gentle, controlled— how your grip could be turned against you. How easily he could grab the weapon, pull you in, disarm you. Never once did his fingers grace the trigger— they always remained pointed straight, resting along the side of the barrel. He showed you again, slower. Letting you feel where to move, how to drop your weight, how to own the fight. He gave pointers, telling you where to focus your hits, giving you ideas of how to rattle your attacker. You were fast, you needed to use it— a foot behind an ankle, a hard kick against the back of a knee.

“Try it,” he said, goading you, leaning forward on the balls of his feet.

You hesitated again, not sure how you were supposed to take it all so seriously when it was him coming towards you. The last person you’d ever want to point a weapon at.

He didn’t hesitate this time, or take it slow.

His hand came down again, faster this time, and instinct took over. You twisted your wrist inward, ducked under his arm, pulled your shoulder across the centerline the way he’d shown. You slammed your back into his chest— rougher than you meant to— and he released you just as you moved. You staggered, half from force, half from the sheer charge of it. Then you twisted out of his reach and jolted forward, giving yourself more distance, though you weren’t exactly moving on solid feet.

Once you’d regained your footing, you looked up.

Frank was watching you with something unreadable behind his eyes. Not pride. Not quite. Something with a bit more of an edge— something a bit wearier.

“Again.”

Before you could so much as nod, he came for the gun.

You pivoted but this time, he blocked. You tried again. He caught your wrist and spun you with him, showing you how easily control could slip through your fingers. Your stomach dipped at the sudden exchange of power, your pulse racing against your throat.

You fought it. Let the weapon drop to your off hand like he’d told you to. You sent your elbow back towards him, perhaps a bit more force than you’d intended, but his freehand caught your forearm mid-swing.

“Not bad,” he muttered. Impressed.

You didn’t answer— couldn’t, not with the way he moved you. He ripped the pistol from your grasp, tossed it across the room, the sudden sound of metal against concrete making you flinch.

He pivoted behind you, one arm slipping across your chest to trap your movement, the other snaking low around your waist. He kept you there for a beat, anchored tight against him.

You stilled, holding your breath. Your lungs burned in protest.

Every inch of him pressed into you— his chest flush against your spine, his thigh braced between your legs, the heat of his breath grazing the shell of your ear. One of his hands had splayed across your sternum, palm flat, fingers curled ever so slightly where your heart beat wild beneath them. The other rested just above your hip, low and heavy, keeping you grounded or caged— you weren’t sure which.

Finally you had to breathe— a sharp, shallow gasp, your entire chest trembling against his touch with the effort.

“Here,” Frank murmured, voice low and rough, the vibration of it pulsing through your back. “You feel that?” His hand shifted against your chest, not pressing, just… present. “That’s control. You’ve got the power but only if you don’t panic. Move fast. Use their momentum. Stop second guessing yourself.”

You barely heard the words. Not with the blood rushing in your ears. Not with the way every nerve ending had started to scream beneath your skin. Your fingers were wrapped around each of his wrists, tight, beginning to go numb from the pressure. You could feel the outline of his thighs pressing against yours, the steady drumbeat of his pulse against your shoulder blade.

His chin dipped slightly, breath exhaling slow against your neck, and you swore— swore— he lingered. Until slowly, he let go.

Not all at once. Not clean. His hand dropped from your chest first, fingers dragging lightly across the fabric of your shirt as they slipped away. Then the weight at your waist vanished, leaving behind only warmth and pressure and something you couldn’t name.

When you turned to face him, his expression was a wall of stone— completely, utterly unreadable. There was only darkness in his eyes, no hint of the amber you often searched for. His chest heaved with a long, extended breath of air, and then he nodded.

You bent at the waist and retrieved your weapon, rolling out your shoulders before you resumed your stance. It felt more comfortable now, more familiar.

Then it was you who said, “Again.”

Frank didn’t nod, didn’t acknowledge what you said. He just moved. Fast. No longer taking it easy on you.

He reached for the barrel with that same deliberate confidence, trying to test you again. His other hand went for your other wrist. But this time, you didn’t hesitate. You pivoted into him, not away, using the motion of his own hand to bring your body closer before swinging beneath his reach.

Your foot slid, caught behind his ankle. You twisted with the full weight of your hips, dropped your shoulder, and used the angle to pull him off balance. The gun was already halfway behind your back, safe in your other hand.

His grip faltered. Just for a second. But it was enough. You didn’t have the time to peek at his face— knew it would just push you off center. Instead, you shoved forward, into him— not brutal, just enough to unseat him— and he stumbled. Not far. Not hard. But he let it happen. That much you could tell.

And still, somehow, you ended up in his space again— chests nearly brushing, your hand against his wrist, your body angled into his like instinct had made the decision for you.

For a beat, you both just stood there.

The air between you went thick. He stared down at you, lips parted just slightly, breath caught somewhere between restraint and something else. You could feel the warmth of his skin through your sleeves, the flex of his arm beneath your palm.

“Boom,” you murmured, the word barely audible as it brushed past your lips. You wiggled the pistol in your other hand, alerting him to the fact that you had it pointed straight at his stomach. “Your dead.”

His mouth twitched. Barely. Just the ghost of a smirk.

“Good,” he said, voice low, almost gruff. He was nodding as he stepped back, his eyes on the floor beneath your feet. “Real good.”

You stepped back, too, brushing your wrist with your fingers, half expecting to feel a bruise. You didn’t. Just the ghost of his grip, like a mark no one else would see.

“You alright?” he asked.

You nodded, breath catching. “Yeah.”

He glanced at your feet. “Good. Practice makes perfect.”

Your fingers flexed around the grip of the gun; not quite steady, not quite certain. But not as afraid, either.

* * * * *

Time passed, taking you further into the night. The quiet hum of the bunker was your steady companion in the silence. You could count on the dim buzzing of the lights overhead, of the groan the mini fridge let out every few minutes. The rattle against the windows as cars drove past, ignoring speed limits, was just about your only reminder that the outside world continued to exist.

Frank had you run through the drills a few more times, testing you, building up your endurance. He commented and corrected you as he needed to, and gradually, he stopped making it so easy for you to come away victorious. By the time he finally declared you’d done enough for one night, you were nearly panting, your hair clinging to the back of your neck with sweat. Your fingers ached from the unyielding grip you’d held on the gun. And he remained unshaken, not a hair out of place. You were nothing of a formidable opponent for him.

It didn’t give you much hope for how you’d do against anyone else his size. But at least you’d do better than before.

Frank showed you to the bathroom— if you could even call it that— and you got ready for bed slowly, taking your time. You showered, though there wasn’t much in the way of hot water— hell, it hadn’t even reached warm. You were frozen to the bone as soon as you stepped out. You rushed to dress, pulling on wool socks, heavy sweatpants, and a long-sleeved shirt beneath your sweatshirt. Still, your body trembled, seeking warmth that wouldn’t come.

The mirror above the free-standing sink was cracked, the jagged edges of broken glass spreading out across your face, distorting your view of yourself. It was probably for the best, anyways. There was no room for vanity here. You made quick work of brushing your teeth and braiding your damp hair back, away from your face. Then you traced your way back to the bunker, following the hallway Frank had led you down a while earlier.

As you pushed open the door to the bunker, you pulled the sleeves of your sweater low over your hands, clinging to them with your nearly numb fingers. Frank looked up when you stepped inside, but only briefly. He was on the other end of the room, now, crouched to unroll a sleeping bag across the concrete, moving slow and quiet like he’d done this a hundred times before. He’d already told you— in no uncertain terms— that you’d be taking the cot.

Even still, as you approached it, you hesitated. “You sure you don’t want it?” you asked, voice low.

He didn’t look at you this time, just shook his head once. “Nah. It’s yours.”

You opened your mouth to argue. Closed it again. You knew better.

“Alright,” you said, softer now. “Thanks.”

He hummed in response— a vague sound of acknowledgement, maybe approval. You couldn’t tell.

You put away your bathroom items and dirty clothes, shoving them into the backpack that had come to house all of your remaining belongings. All of the things that hadn’t been left behind, locked within the walls of your apartment. A place you weren’t sure you’d be returning to anytime soon.

You climbed into the cot and lay on your side, facing the wall, your back to Frank and the rest of the bunker. The blanket was thin, scratchy. You curled beneath it anyway, tucking your hands beneath your chin. Frank moved behind you somewhere, the sounds distant but distinct: the creak of leather as he kicked off his boots, the muted thud of something set down, the low exhale of breath that carried more fatigue than he’d admit.

Then silence.

For a moment, you thought that might be it. No goodnight, no reminder that he was here.

Then his throat cleared. And into the cool air that enveloped you both, he said, “Get some rest.”

You turned your head, just slightly, until you could see the outline of him in the dark. He’d settled on the floor a few feet away, facing you with his back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. His arms were crossed over his chest.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “You too.”

Sleep came, but only in brief, sporadic bursts. The cold held you hostage, jostling you awake just when you’d thought you’d escaped it. It had seeped in past skin and muscle, lodged itself somewhere deep. The dampness in your hair didn’t help— you wouldn’t shower at night again. Not for a long time.

You shifted, subtly, trying to be quiet. You suspected Frank was the type to wake easily— especially here, especially now. You repositioned your body, curled in on yourself as tightly as you could, tugging your knees into your chest.

It didn’t help.

The shivering started in your fingers, traveled up your forearms. A low, bone-deep tremble that wouldn’t ease. You pressed your palms between your thighs, searching for any ounce of warmth you could find. You tried to breathe through it— mind over matter, right?— but even biting down on your tongue so hard you began to taste blood didn’t help.

Then came the teeth. You tried to hold your jaw still, you really did— but the chatter set in anyway, harsh and helpless and loud in the relative silence around you. Every so often you would press your palm over your mouth and hold your breath, listening for the sound of Frank’s breathing behind you— it remained slow, rhythmic. But you weren’t sure how long that would last.

A beat later, as if you’d asked for it, you heard him shift. You went still, palm still pressed over your mouth, though your teeth continued to grind against themselves involuntarily. His breathing hadn’t changed. Your mind flooded— then emptied. Had he ever been asleep at all?

His sleeping bag rustled and a soft creak sounded, his body rising from the floor. Your eyes pinched shut, your stomach twisting with shame. Your hand slowly lowered from your mouth, instead wrapping around the hem of the blanket, tugging it higher over you.

You tried to stay perfectly still, then, tried to pretend you were asleep. But it was no use.

Muffled, quiet footsteps sounded, him crossing the room towards you. You felt the weight of his gaze on your shadowed figure, but you didn’t turn towards him. Your eyes opened, stayed locked on the concrete wall in front of you.

The cot dipped behind you, the frame groaning under the sudden shift in weight. It startled you— not because you hadn’t expected it, but because you had. You’d felt it coming like a change in weather, like the static in the air before a storm. Your breath caught in your throat, sharp and immediate, your whole body stiffening with the tension of anticipation.

Frank didn’t speak. Not when he climbed in. Not when he tugged the blanket up higher, slow and careful, tucking it around you both like he’d done it before. Like this level of intimacy wasn’t brand new and terrifying for you both.

Then came his arm— slow at first, hesitant. It slid around your waist, that familiar weight settling low, the curve of his forearm bracing itself across your stomach, palm splayed wide just above your navel. As he moved, the hem of your sweatshirt rose, his fingertips brushing the exposed skin beneath. His hand was rough, calloused. Warm. You felt every ridge of it as it curved against you, fingers pressing lightly into the dip where your ribs met softness.

“Jesus,” he commented, voice low, the exhaled air warm against your neck. “You’re freezing.”

“Didn’t want to ask,” you whispered in a rush, the shame crawling up your throat. “Didn’t want to make it weird.”

Frank let out another slow, stifled breath. “Ain’t weird,” he said. “You’re cold. That’s all.”

But you didn’t believe him.

Not entirely.

His chest aligned with your back a moment later, and the contact there was overwhelming— startlingly solid. Like being braced against a wall. His body heat poured into yours at once, devastating in its relief. The contrast stole your breath. Warmth poured through you so fast it felt like pain— sharp and electric. A tremor rolled through your chest, this time from something deeper than cold. Your hips shifted, pressing back into him. Into his— was he—

Oh. He was.

Frank stilled behind you.

“Careful,” he warned, the hand against your stomach moving to your hip, pressing it forward an inch. You weren’t sure if he was trying to protect you, in the moment, or himself.

Your cheeks flamed and your eyes pinched shut. Horror washed over you like a tidal wave and you wished for a sudden, swift death.

“Sorry.”

You felt the slight lift of his chest as he inhaled, then the slow exhale that ghosted against the back of your neck again. Like he was trying to calm his own racing pulse. His hand returned to your stomach, then, fingertips flexing once against your abdomen. Not possessive. Not testing. Just a simple shift, like he was grounding you. Or maybe grounding himself.

Your own hand moved— slow, uncertain— until it hovered over his. You didn’t press down. Just let your fingers hover, shaking faintly from cold and tension and something else. A second passed. Then two.

Then you touched him.

Your fingers found the edge of his pinky first. Brushed the back of his hand. His thumb twitched in response, barely a movement, but it felt like a jolt straight to your sternum. You closed your hand over his gently, not intertwining, just holding. Just acknowledging. A silent thank you.

The cot was too small for both of you. His knees bumped the back of yours, the heat of his thighs bracketing yours completely. His other hand— where was it? Beneath the pillow? Tucked near his chest? You didn’t know. You couldn’t move enough to find out, terrified of pressing into that same, dangerous space you’d already discovered. The space between your shoulder blades and his collarbone shrank with every breath.

His nose brushed your hairline once. Not a kiss, not even intentional. Just the result of motion. But it burned like one.

You closed your eyes, willing your heart to calm down. Willed your breath to stay quiet. Willed your mind to stop cataloguing every inch of him— how warm his bicep was against your ribs, how his breath slowed against your skin, how the weight of his hand made you feel safe and exposed all at once.

You’d been freezing moments ago.

Now, you were burning alive.

But you didn’t move.

And neither did he.

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