jxwz

[jxwz]

“Hunger is the most important thing to know: to be hungry is the first lesson we learn. And the ferocity of what you feel, […] sets you on fire.”

— Miguel Hernández, Selected Poems of Miguel Hernández

[jxwz]

The notion is dismissed with a roll of his eyes before Pieck's even finished saying it. Porco doesn't care to be nice. He doesn't care for the others' opinions of him either. There are only a select few people that he cares about and they all share his blood, the same dirty blood that has controlled and dictated their lives from the very start.

"They think highly of you," he corrects her. Bringing balance with his free hand atop the railing while awaiting Pieck's feet to reach the first step of their descent. "The only care they have for me is whether or not I can help keep them alive on the battlefield."

And he can. And he does. So that amounts positively to his worth in the untainted's eyes. All it would take is one fatal mistake for the whispers of doubt to start surfacing. For those starry-eyed looks to turn into mistrust. And for his position to be scrutinized.

He's not interested in cherishing these relationships when they're all so damn shallow. A weapon of war, that's what he is to them. Not their friend. Hardly even a comrade.

Pieck is different, for the Panzer Unit at least. They work so closely together and have done for years, she's made it impossible for them not to see her and value her worth. They'd be dead a thousand times over were it not for her. But that comes at a cost too.

"How long have they given you?" Porco asks once they're about three steps down. It's getting less and less that he sees her walking around outside of that extra flesh, on her own two feet. She's struggling today, he can tell by the weight she's levying between herself and his arm. Not that he'd hear her complain. That's more his thing anyway.

"Not long enough, I'll bet."

Her back is on fire. She is pretty certain that there is no alternative explanation. She feels her muscles contract to the point of mind-numbing pain as her spine bends unnaturally. The anatomy of her body wages open war against her, and it is winning. Pain on the ladder of progress; after siege weapons, it has no invented long distance missiles. The ache that start in her knees shoots all the way into her shoulder blades. And in between: a field of phosphor.

Still she walks. Still she crosses her field of fire, every hallway. Her crutch knocks against the paper-thin carpet with each step she takes. A soft, absent-minded smile is fixed on her face. That's no surprise to her. She put it there, she screwed it in place. Any juvenile scream has been doused in her throat many years ago. She doesn't even tremble as her vision whites out with one wrong step.

She listens to the chatter of the men around her, their posturing, their braggadocio that goes nowhere. They know a side of her that few others see. She outranks no one else, after all. So they cherish her smiles, knowing damn well they are rarely bestowed. They have earned them, though, after such an accomplished campaign. It makes them giddy, like dogs with a treat. She waves the bone around just out of reach of their yipping snouts.

Eventually she dismisses them, not lastly so she can finally slow down her steps to a less grueling pace. When she turns the corner to the stairs, she expects no audience. It startles her to see Porco there, leaning against the handrail with his gaze lost in the middle distance. It startles her but only because she wonders why she didn't expect it.

He jumps when she calls to him and daringly toes for the first step of the stairs. Then he comes marching to her side. Pieck waits for him to take up his position, his arm angled just so that she can loop her own through it. It is all very elaborate, very subtle.

Without missing a beat, Pieck reaches out to hold onto him. No comment and no thanks, she simply lets him hold her upright. "You should be nicer to them," She chastises him sweetly, her voice airy and light and betraying nothing of the way her joints threaten to burst. "They think very highly of you, Pock."

[jxwz]

Jinx swaggered up to Porco, a mischievous grin spreading across her face as she held a small, wrapped bundle behind her back. She looked him over, her eyes glinting with a mix of amusement and curiosity. "So, Porco," she started, leaning in closer than necessary, "you’re always so serious and grumpy-looking, figured I'd do something about that."

With a dramatic flourish, she pulled out the bundle and held it up to him. It was wrapped haphazardly, with random patches of cloth and string sticking out, looking more like a mess than an actual gift. But inside was a slingshot, one with a sleek frame that looked expertly crafted, complete with a handful of polished stones in a small pouch. She had even scratched his initials into the handle, though it looked more like she’d carved them in with a nail than any real tool.

"You know, just in case you need to let loose or, I don’t know, take out some Titans from a distance—my way." She winked, clearly pleased with herself. "Anyway happy birthday," she said with a shrug, a rare hint of sincerity slipping into her voice.

That look on her face is suspicious, is it not? Porco's already eyeing Jinx and her movements before she's ever made it up and into his bubble. She leans in and he stays still with a questioning frown, despite his instinctual urge to reclaim his space. He's just stubborn like that, standing his ground. Not so easily perturbed by the girl.

Now she's got him curious. He's sure she wouldn't be the last to comment on his seriousness or his facial expressions to match, but she is the first to suggest she could do something about it. He'd certainly like to see her try—

Before he knows it, out of her hands and into his, sits a bundle of... something. Porco's sure to spare Jinx another quizzical, somewhat wary glance before he starts undoing the messy wrappings. Sarcastic at first when he mutters, "You shouldn't have..."

But his attitude soon changes when the cloth unveils the gift she'd gotten him. Or rather, he suspects, the gift she'd made for him. A unique-looking slingshot, not just made out of bits of wood tied together and an elastic band, but properly crafted with his initials etched into the handle and even a little bag of ammunition to go with it.

He laughs, looking it over in his hands. Of all the things he could've guessed that she might have handed him, this was never going to be one of them. When was the last time he even looked at a slingshot, let alone one this well-made? Damn... Just in case he ever needs to let loose, Jinx says, and Porco flicks his eyes back up to her unaware that his grumpy-looking face looks far from the part right now, until the titan comment makes him snicker.

They bicker and clash so often, it comes as such a surprise. Porco had been so sure she didn't even like him, not once would he have considered she cared enough to go out of her way and get him something for his birthday, least of all make it herself.

"Anyway," Jinx's voice drops that teasing tone he's gotten used to. "Happy birthday."

"Uh," he stalls, still smiling somewhat while he continues to stare at the slingshot instead. "Thank— Thanks..." He eventually manages with a fixed furrow to his brow and subtle nod. A cleared throat and hesitant shape of his mouth before he asks, "Do you wanna go break stuff?"

[jxwz]

A single red candle sits ever so slightly askew in the middle of the pie, the fitful sputtering of a lighter hovering over the wick. Eren huddles over the hood of the car, fighting the wind and the cold in his fingers until the flame takes. It is a miracle Pock hears none of his struggle to get himself and the candle bearing pie safely into the car. Popping a cassette in, he turns the volume to max, and wakes him exactly as the clock ticks over to 1 a.m.

95% of the time, Pock is ready to fight every time. The remaining 5% is for instances such as these, where he's been lulled into sleep with a sense of safety in the passenger seat of his beloved car while he's trusted Eren to drive them over to the next state. No anticipation of danger, just the cramped comfort of a quiet journey ahead.

So when he's awoken suddenly by a deafening blare of sound, it probably looks like something of an outer body experience to Eren. Porco shoots up with a startled jolt and smacks his arm to the door, alert but confused, before the noisy racket that had disturbed him starts to make a bit more sense to his sleep-addled brain. Then he sees Eren sitting there, beaming his big-ass boxy smile at him with a pie in his hand and a candle poking out of the top.

"Wuh..." It does nothing to aid his confusion.

Thankfully, Eren stops the music. If you could call that music. Personally, Porco can't fucking stand Heat of the Moment and Eren knows this, he's told him enough times, but the desire to throttle him for this horrific wake-up call is hindered solely by that pie.

It takes far too long for Pock to finally realize that it must be his birthday.

Once he does, he groans into his hand as he rubs over his eyes and drags himself up out of his slouch. "That's why you wanted to drive..." Now it all makes sense. Somehow, Eren never forgets. Their variety of gifts on the road might be limited, too, but the kid knows how to strike gold when it comes to Porco's gut.

"Gimme that," he mutters, pinching off the flame with licked fingers before tossing the candle out the open window. A semi-amused I'm not amused look displayed back at Eren before he snags the pie from him and sinks back down in the passenger seat. Quietly huffing a little (hints of his delight) when he thanks him appropriately. "Ass..."

[jxwz]

There is just the ghost of a smile that touches to Porco's lips while Jean complains, already bundling himself deeper inside his hoodie like some disgruntled house-cat before he slots into his usual spot on the bench. He's the strange one here, he knows; Porco's blood still runs hotter than most, even now, so the cold has never really bothered him much anyway. Content in his dark green bomber jacket that he wears pretty much everywhere, in any weather, he sinks himself beside his shivering roommate with a half-hearted hum of agreement.

"I could make a habit of it," he says into the brim of his bottle before taking his next swig. It's refreshing, feeling the chill slip down his throat and spreading with a soft prickle down his arms. Pock smacks his lips with a satisfied gasp then shifts himself to sit a bit more comfortably on the bench, sinking his back and spreading his thighs.

"Or most of it," he muses, watching as the spark of Jean's lighter illuminates his face inside the evening's shadow. The smell isn't too far behind. It's an acquired taste, or so he's been told. Porco just counts them lucky that they're up on one of the higher floors and have yet to receive any complaints from their neighbors. But he can already tell, and says with a smirk, "Too much of that and I'm gonna be on my ass."

In truth, he misses him. The revelation had shocked him—shocked them both, but Porco was the one to have first created some distance between them while he wrestled with the fact that he's been living with the enemy this whole time. It wasn't the enemy that had finally reached out to him though, it was Jean. The only version of Jean that he's ever known, his snarky-ass roommate that he all but adores. Porco doesn't get along with too many people, he never has, but this one had felt special.

They'd shared quite a bond before their world had been pulled out like a rug beneath their feet. He'd never laughed more than Jean could make him laugh, even without the weed's help. He'd never felt so accepted, still, even when he was in one of his foulest of moods and had made no efforts to pretend otherwise. Porco misses him just being here, just as they are now. What can he say? It's been a while...

| Twist his arm, @jxwz says.

His amusement is much easier to be transparent with than the unexpected wash of relief. When had he started hoarding all that doubt-filled anticipation anyways? Maybe somewhere between realizing the warm bump of knees together could make his laugh stutter and realizing that there were ties that bound them harkening back a few several thousand years to an old blood feud. You know, the usual. Funny how the former seems more capable of spiking his heart rate than the latter these days though…

He slips the joint up behind his ear and wipes the clinging condensation off his palm onto his pant leg, an eye kept on Porco’s retreating back. At least he seems to have found the equilibrium with him again. It can’t all be the work of a promising cold beer, anyway. Not when Porco checks to make sure he is on his heels still as if the idea was his own and not Jeans. And there is that relief again. 

“Could be worse.” His first step out onto the balcony challenges those words when his face is slapped with cold wind. 

“Could always be better,” he grumbles, already disappearing inside the defiant yank of his hood over his ears. The small bench with its squashed pillows and weathered wood can hardly bear them both. He fits himself in his usual place, closest to the wall, sheltered by their modest apartment and Porco’s warm bulk.

“This.” The joint and lighter hefted in his hands. “Is better.”

[jxwz]

[jxwz]

Porco is lost in one of those 'trances' again. That's what Jean has started to call them. His odd moments where it looks a bit like his roommate is communicating with the mother ship, all far-off stares and unnerving stillness. He lingers out of sight, tongue pressed to dull canine in thought before coming around to give a friendly, rousing kick to the side of Porco's boot. But words fail him. They usually do lately. Especially around Porco. Instead, he lifts the cold bottle of beer and freshly rolled joint by way of a tactful coercion, the lazy tilt of his head towards their cramped balcony his unspoken request for company.

It's something of a mixture, not enough sleep and too much thinking, that results in these long interludes of absence. His presence, but not present; sitting in the living room while his mind is elsewhere. Where one thought strings seamlessly along to the next and takes him far down the rabbit hole, with who-knows how much time has passed before finally, a tap at his foot is able to shake him out of the head-space and remind him to blink again.

Porco lifts his head, looks at Jean, then at the crisp cold bottle and joint he gestures with before he lets out a thoughtful sigh. The beer is inviting, of course, but Jean's joints intimidate him. Porco's never been too big on the stuff himself, but his roommate is a notorious fiend for it. It usually only takes Pock a couple puffs on one of his smokes and more often than not, he's out for the count for the rest of the night...

Maybe that's not the worst idea he's ever had either.

"Yeah, twist my arm," he grunts as he pushes himself up out of the couch. Takes the bottle from Jean and stares warily at how packed the smoke in his hand appears while he twists off the lid. "...Bad day?" Porco ventures before his sip, glimpsing back at his face while he makes his way around him and the couch. He twists just to make sure he's still sticking close before he wanders off without him. Keen for his company.

"Or, is it a good day? I'm never really sure with you."

[jxwz]

desire is suffering

Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016; ‘Dream Reveals in Neon the Great Addictions, Frank Bidart ( @wahabibi ) | Dante and Virgil in Hell, William-Adolphe Bouguereau | Vestiges, Ángel García | Blasphemia, Eliran Kantor | So We Must Meet Apart, Jennifer S. Cheng ( @yoursoethereal ) | Prigione di Lacrime, Roberto Ferri | Diary of a Philosophy Student: Volume 2, 1928-9; Sunday, November 4th, Simone de Beauvoir ( @theoptia ) | Ludwig Drahosch | War of the Foxes, Richard Siken ( @elfreys )

[jxwz]

He's had a few days to adjust, time to let the news sink in before the ceremony. Any longer would be an inconvenience, he knows. Marley is eager to have her teeth back.

Porco already sits in his own chair, opposite from the Warchief, with his back pressed to the rest and his arms folded. He watches the older man considering what to say with an unwavering stare and occasional bounce to his knee, wary of the manner in which he intends to approach him. He's seen how he is with Colt and wants nothing to do with it. The wing he's been taken under, the wise older brother figure that he likes to portray. It should go without saying why this wouldn't sit well with the second son of the Galliard family.

Porco has a legacy to protect and his own reputation to build now.

"Of course I'm ready," he all but spits, jigging his leg before readjusting his lap. Never one to miss the opportunity to point out the fact: "I've been ready since I was ten."

How he feels doesn't matter. Zeke is only here because Marley had sent him and Marley only cares whether or not he can prove himself useful, they both know that. Porco isn't naive enough to believe they've put much sensitivity into the thought of him inheriting the Jaw from his brother's killer. Perhaps they think it's appropriate. Maybe they see it in some fucked up way as him having the chance to avenge Marcel. Whatever it is, he knows he's supposed to be grateful. He should consider it an honor.

The future Jaw rolls his tongue to the roof of his mouth, in favor of rolling his eyes while Zeke is here to assess him, and navigates his focus onto the cherry of his cigarette instead.

"Is that enough?" He asks, keen to get this over and done with as soon as possible. Straight to the point, nice and concise. "Will that satisfy? Or is the psych test necessary too?"

he is not good at this, he knows. he is acutely aware of the fact as he scrapes the chair across the floor, sits down and arranges himself in it mechanically, crosses one leg over the other and reaches into his pocket to fish for the carton of cigarettes he keeps there.

he is not a man made for heart-to-hearts. he is an automaton of apathy, their war chief. he assesses the best approach, takes a methodical scalpel to the conversation. porco is not like the others — he is bark and bite, all teeth. he does not require the same sensitivity as some of the others do, a deceptive kind of coddling that dissipates the moment their boots step onto the haunted ground of a battlefield. perhaps he would appreciate something more forthright.

zeke props a cigarette between his lips, flicks the lighter beneath the pad of his thumb as porco watches him. he is an actor on a stage, puppeteered here by his superiors who are somehow under the impression porco might glean some kind of wisdom from him. or perhaps they're more interested in sending zeke to pry one last time, assessing whether they've raised their cattle well enough to send to slaughter.

" would you prefer if i were subtle about this — or would you rather i just come out with it? " he says. inhales, exhales, blows smoke in the opposite direction. expensive cigarettes and a nicotine buzz are the only consolations for conversations like this. there will be another pack waiting for him on his bed when he returns for the night, he knows, like a bone for a dog.

@jxwz says: sometimes subtlety is overrated.

he almost smiles. it's the answer he expected — porco has always been tenacious. he tries to conjure the ghosts of all the talks like this that have come before, passed down between a long line, all the nights before marley's chosen warriors inherit her titans. he himself had one not unlike this, many years ago, when ksaver reached the end of his tenure and sat across from the boy he made his surrogate son, the boy whose jaws would come down upon him the next day to applause, their new beast titan. he searches for that conversation now. what would ksaver say?

" they'd like me to ask whether you're ready, how you feel. " he does not give it any sort of sympathy, any kind of pity, the way he might with others. only a blunt kind of understanding, an openness that might sway porco to trust him with any doubts. it isn't to say that he feels none of it at all, only that it isn't the most productive approach. he imagines his conflict might be in a similar vein to his own of many years past, that kind of grief only someone close to a shifter might feel as their heir — the girl is the one who cut marcel's tenure short, after all.

[jxwz]

Happy fight the children for candy day! I'm going for the bicycle kicks

[jxwz]

— Yves Olade, from “Belovéd.”

[jxwz]

[jxwz]

“Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.”

— Lisa Kleypas, Sugar Daddy (via wordsnquotes)

[jxwz]

The black-clad soldier pushes in through the smoke with his rifle drawn ready, stomping heavy boots right over the blasted metal doors of his target's bunker. His rudimentary calls for command loud and clear above the crumbling rubble and crackling of the dying radio that can still be heard coming from somewhere inside.

With enough intel gathered from their previous corroborations with some (now deceased) witnesses, it's been safe to assume the target's holed up here alone and his retrieval should be an easy, one-man task. Porco gets all the fun jobs, you see. They do love setting him out on the hunt for a traitor. He's one of their favorite bloodhounds when it comes to picking up the runaways, because it's a simple principal to him. He'd been born and bred (purely) to understand the fact: if you're not with the Enclave, you're against them.

Mitchell 'Solomon' Ross, according to his log, is just another example to be made of now. He is to be apprehended with any and all sensitive materials that he may have decided to take home with him gathered as well, where both of which will then be transported back to their main base of operations and handed over to the appropriate authorities.

Or at least that's how this objective was supposed to go.

But it's all pretty fucked from the start when on the other side of that cloud of smoke, slumped heavily askew at the kitchen table, sits the rotting body of the very man that he'd been sent to collect. His face still just recognizable enough from his picture despite the bloody mess that's been made of it, split right down the middle, caved in with some force by the looks of things. Porco is quick to snap his attention about to the rest of the room, directing his reflexive sights to the next closest sign of movement where he shouts.

"Hold it right there!" Taking aim at the humanoid mixture of nuts and bolts that cowers away at his presence and threat as though it weren't one in itself. Solomon didn't bash his own skull into all those tiny fragments — so here must be his killer, his very own creation; a daintily-made, overtly feminized looking version of the more basic Gen 2 type synth. Dressed unnervingly like all the pin-up posters seen of one of America's most ideal sweethearts, complete with the little housewife's apron to match. Fucking scientists. "Hands up, android, before I blow your damn head off!"

The only reason he hasn't done so already is because it's unarmed, defenseless and seemingly aware of the fact as it stares back at him with its uncanny blue eyes, trying to resemble something akin to fear — and filling it full of bullets would only damage any potential data that it might be storing. Although he won't be letting his guard down, but with Solomon unfortunately already removed from the picture, gathering all the information possible has suddenly become top priority. It is a robot, after all, and that's as good a walking, talking memory card if ever Porco's seen one before.

"Your compliance going forward will determine whether or not I think that's necessary." Keeping it intact might be preferable but it isn't necessary. Their tech whizzes better not be getting called that for no reason, anyway. With a gesture of his rifle inciting it to stand up properly, Porco asserts with some real intent to test the waters and instructs it to, "Identify the name of your creator. State the purpose of your creation."

starter for @jxwz !!

The radio warbles soothingly, plays its five and a half songs on endless repeat. She's learned to structure her days around the soft, static-y crooning of Billie Holiday. By the tenth time she has heard Crazy He Calls Me, it is time to get started on lunch. She delicately makes her arrangements, sweeping past the spotless counter tops of her small kitchen nook. She is well confined. Her kingdom is manageable. A single lightbulb crackles overhead as she whirls past, humming an agitated, out-of-tune accompaniment to Mighty Mighty Man. That's Roy Brown, she knows.

She smartly wipes her hands on her apron and crouches down to retrieve another can of Pork n'Beans from the cupboard. They are running dangerously low, but she's heard no complaints about the food in a while. Marvelous, marvelous, what the mind will invent when pressed. Hers must be no different. She was created with an image in mind, after all. She pauses in front of the dingy stove and frowns at it. Did she forget to turn off the gas last night?

Silly her!

Miriam turns it off and whirls away again, nervously fiddling with her hair, with the short puffed sleeve of her waist-tight dress. It is pretty, always has been. And spotless. It sports a sunny yellow, though she's got no point of reference there. The sun, it's been explained to her, is quite dangerous to look at. Best to stay inside. But a window, she tells herself. She must at least open a window. Gas is no good. Who is supposed to breathe that?

"I'm sorry," She tells the man sitting at the kitchen table. "I just don't know where my head is lately."

The man replies nothing. Would be hard to do anyway, what with his skull caved in. There is a massive, corroded gash that splits his face in two. It's knocked out his teeth but she collected those and put them away for safe-keeping. He started reeking a while ago and Miriam doesn't know what to do about that. She knows she's not supposed to disturb her father when he's resting. So she doesn't. He is an important man, ("I'm a mighty, mighty man," she murmurs) and he's got important work to do.

Miriam scurries past him and towards the blinds by the door. She's never seen the other side of it, but there must be fresh air outside. She's felt a draft once.

So she opens the blinds and peers outside, as her father taught her. The sliver of light that her pupils expect never hits them. Instead there is a dark shape, blocking the sky. Through the metal slots, her eyes widen in surprise. It is her only good sense to quickly flinch back from the door, before it gets blown off its hinges.

[jxwz]

That response earns Jean a hardened stare and his wary silence. What does he know of his nightmares? An educated guess or has their sharing a tenancy really bit him in the ass? It's the kind of caution Pock never really had back when Jean was just his roommate. Before he found out the guy had been a part of that world too, it was just a matter of privacy and pride (and not looking like he's fucking insane) that had kept him from sharing that particular detail of his personal life. But now, it could be weaponized.

Before this revelation had so suddenly and simultaneously hit them like a ten ton truck, though. Before he ever knew that Jean was a part of that place, part of the Island Devils, Porco had no reason to stop and consider if he were capable of that. They'd always gotten along so well. Ever since he'd taken him up on the ad for the spare room, from the first night they'd finally decided to sit down and share some beers on this very couch and really get to know each other, he found himself fond of the guy. His match for sarcasm and a dry sense of humor that had tickled his cynical side. It was a trait about him he respected, but now it could be something to bare his teeth at.

Porco's posture shifts with Jean's movement; he sits up slowly from his hunch while he stares as the younger man approaches, subconsciously furling his fists when he makes his way around to the front of the couch. Guarded already, with his defenses growing for the unexpected prod at his weak-spot. Discomfort inside the proximity.

It isn't until Jean drops himself into his usual heap in the spot beside him that Pock really notes his own tension, and how unnecessary it is. And how often they've done this before. He shifts again, planting open palms atop the territorial spread of his thighs while he winds shoulders back loose. Tearing his eyes back last to scowl at the ensuing panic on-screen again, the beach-goers all trampling over each other to get out of the water; he's long since been desensitized to this scene. To the whole movie, really. Now it's just one of his weird comforts. Not the first time Jean's joined him in it either.

This gonna be what it's like from now on?

He doesn't answer that. Doesn't know how to answer that. But the way Jean asks, makes it sound as if it's all up to Pock to decide. He's the one with the issue, not Jean.

Porco doesn't get that... He steers back over his shoulder to look at him, and Jean sounds even more tired now, looks it too with the way he hangs his head back in the cushion. When he says it made sense before, with the song and dance, and the I'm fine shit — but now? Now, Pock can't really think the migraines are gonna cut it anymore.

"Okay. So what?" He asks him, ticking his side-eye down to a point on his chest before raising the wary stare back to his eyes again. This is uncomfortable. Porco's much more use to going for the offense before he ever resorts to his defense, usually. But this is foreign ground they're sitting in, two worlds collided. He preferred it when it was just the one, this one, where Jean would give him shit for his wild obsession with shark movies — and complain that it's not The Meg he's watching because at least that one has Jason Statham in it. "I've gotta explain myself to you, now?"

His eyes are sore from how many times he's dug into the sockets with the balls of his palms, trying to scrub all those images off the lens; which never works. Like drilling deep circles in his temples doesn't work. It must be quite a sight from Jean's perspective. A face as hellish as that staring back at him, illuminated only by the glow of the scene on TV featuring the screeching hoard of fleeing citizens.

"So I get nightmares, is that really such a shocker?" He mutters, furrowing his brow with the slight duck of his head. His glare still fixed on Jean, even if it is bordered behind the arc of tense shoulders. Pock's observant too, though, and perhaps there's a part of him that's lonely enough to make it known. The part of him that still likes Jean, that misses the companionship, who just has to try and reach back when he says, "You gonna tell me you don't?"

Porco reacts like a hot lance has speared into his side, bolting to attention, his breath sharp, filling lungs in preparation for a fight that doesn’t come. Jean can see the moment recognition, rather than shock, flickers in his eyes before the flared life in him dulls again. Everything about him dulls. The TV’s light saps the color out of his face, cuts deeper shadows into his exhausted expression as it disappears into the shelter of his palms.

Jean fixes his attention on the movie playing rather than the washed out figure that is his roommate half-curled in on himself. He regretted speaking up the instant Porco’s gaze had snapped to him, when it became clear tonight wasn’t a simple matter of poor decisions and movie binging. Or at least he suspects as much. Unless Porco’s umpteenth rewatch of Jaws is responsible for the zoned out state Jean had found him in, that thousand-yard stare, the punched out shadows beneath his eyes. Somehow Jean doubts it…

He doubts Porco’s reason as well. Migraines don’t usually leave you staring endlessly into a blinding television screen in the pitch dark. But what does he know? What does he really know about Porco at all? The thought rankles with bitterness. An ugly, unprovoked feeling that tempts a self-conscious mull to his jaw and the wander of his stare back to the hall with the thought of leaving him to his ‘migraines’ alone. Would he take it personally? Jean would mean it to be personal. As personal as it had felt the day Porco walked away from him, stepped back over a line that had been drawn in the sand during a whole other lifetime.

“Right…” He is too tired, too hurt to hide the hurt, the eye-rolling doubt, to keep the exasperation from his retort: “I’m sure the nightmares don’t help, hm? The real ones, I mean.”

Just a few days ago, Jean sat on this same couch cushion, grappling with memories of another life better left forgotten, the growing assurance he was about to lose a good friend over circumstances so far outside of their control it is laughable. Y’know, in that ‘This is so fucking stupid’ sort of way… He thought Porco wasn’t going to come back and that if he did, it would only be to pack his shit and leave again. Too entrenched in memories of a thousands of years old blood feud to remain friends with an Island Devil. They have fucking stuff-crust pizza and Minecraft now, who gives a shit about Marley or Paradis or any of it anymore? He had driven himself up the wall wondering why he would care so much to just give up the now, the new…

But Porco had come back in the end. In his own time and his own way. Like the bomb had never gone off at all in fact, making Jean just that little bit more insane. He rakes his fingers back through his hair, twisting at the lengths growing to be too long for his liking, and comes around the couch to drop down beside him in defeat. “This gonna be what it’s like from now on?” 

He drops his arms down to lay limp in his lap, staring without seeing the movie still playing across the TV screen. How many times have they been caught awake at odd hours, spilling an excuse for why while keeping the real reason behind a stiff upper lip? Jean rests his head back, weariness quieting his voice, “Y’know it made sense before. The ol’ song and dance. I’m fine, shit. But now? Can’t honestly think ‘migraines’ are gonna cut it…”

[jxwz]

[jxwz]

His heart has climbed up in his throat. Watching in horror as the abomination passes right by the other man, its stark yellow eyes fixated on him where he stands exposed out in the open. There are orders but then there's instinct too, a foot slid back in the dirt. His heavy, heaving breaths filling all the sound inside his helmet. He's going to be torn limb from limb. Just like his comrades some hours before, but at least their dissections had been fast. Instant death from the mini nuke explosion. Porco is all too slowly going to be ripped apart and shredded like ribbons by those razor-sharp claws.

Its belly is its weakest spot, but that doesn't mean it's weak. Nor does that make his rifle any stronger. Nor does that make it any easier to hit. Its hunched form might be large but its head is larger and the downward spiraling horns act as good a barrier as they do a battering ram. Porco knows he's fucked either way, whether he runs or he shoots.

But from behind the hungry snapping of its voracious jaws, back on the porch (and somehow, over the thundering of his heartbeat in his ears,) he hears the farmer call—

Baby?

A short whistle follows, and Porco can only gape incomprehensibly as the monstrous fucking lizard suddenly stops in its predatory approach towards him and cuts through the kicked-up dust in the air with its horns, turning its enormous head back to the landowner. Listening. But there is no visible device over its eyes or around its neck. There is nothing immediately apparent to suggest that it's being mind-controlled.

"Down boy," says the psychopath on the porch, as if it were his dog. "He's friendly."

But there's a leap of hope in Porco's stomach and his breath catches with it. His rifle doesn't leave the creature but his eyes lift back to what little of the man that he is still able to see. What hasn't been blotted out by its beastly silhouette. And he is only just head and shoulders above its large but still juvenile form, thanks to the steps he stands on. That dark head of hair, though patches of it are missing — and that face, even if half of its scarred... It is... It is him. Another one of his former brothers. An old friend.

A goddamn ghost.

Porco springs alert and wary when the deathclaw moves, turning sharp as it charges after the slab of meat it's been thrown, he follows it stiffly with his gun and backs up the other way while it's distracted. It is not going to be distracted for long. The sudden cry of the brahmin he'd forgotten about scares the living shit out of him and springs him back forward a step, spinning him around as if expecting another deathclaw.

But then his name is called — in that voice that he'd never forgotten, that he thought he'd never hear again, and Porco looks back up to the porch. Back up to Bertholdt while he shifts his aim from the two-headed cow cautiously back to the feasting deathclaw again.

"Of course it's me, you goddamn bastard!" He snaps, quick to check back on the lizard in fear of drawing its attention again. Bertholdt was a sniper once, he had good eyes; Porco has no doubt he's locked on the most vulnerable spot in his armor. He could most likely see how rapidly he's breathing too. "Wha-..."

Where the fuck does he even start?

"What- What the fuck is this, man? We all thought you were dead!" Porco doesn't know where to move but everything in his body is telling him to. He decidedly steps one light-footed boot back into the gravel towards Bertholdt. "Instead, you've been living up here? This whole time? Raising mutated cattle and your pet fucking dinosaur?!"

He knows better than to flinch while holding a rifle, but it shows all the same. The atmosphere tips over. What has been brewing tension, the first spittle-licking hounds of violence slinking around their shadows, now disperses into dust. His name is called. It has been years since anybody has called him by his name.

Bertholdt’s expression freezes over in hollow shock as something in his chest contracts to the point of pain. He stands silent as the Deathclaw shoulders past, too stunned to caution the reptilian. Juvenile eagerness meets the dumbstruck horror of experience. The voice that calls to him from beneath the helmet might as well be coming from the other side of a decade. Bert, he calls him, which no one does. No one calls him anything. It is a familiar voice that begs for familiarity. He knows it. Doesn’t he? He’s heard it in mess halls and on front lines, during exercises and after missions. He trusted that voice once; it’s saved him more than once. He trusted that voice to call for him, seven goddamn years ago.

“…Galliard?” He chokes on the syllables, his mouth unaccustomed to the shape and sound. It is almost a gasp. Then he snaps back to reality, the echo of memory still reverberating in his skull. Knocked loose by a chance encounter that’s bound to turn bloody. Bertholdt looks over at the juvenile Deathclaw as it clicks through two rows of bared teeth.

“Baby,” He whistles once, sharp and short. The Deathclaw pauses and turns its massive head, the tips of his curved horns drawing an intimidating arch through the air. There is a certain humor in this, and Bertholdt is not unaware. Imagine the deadliest mistake of nature, a horrid testament to science’s attempt at playing god, with teeth and claws that can rip through power armor like it’s goddamn tinfoil. And now imagine its name is Baby.

“Down, boy. He’s friendly.” No idea if that’s true, but it’s faster than explaining the circumstances to a child. And that is what Baby is, in the end. One hand slides from the grip of his weapon and into the satchel by his belt. As impressive as his new watchdog may be, he is not exactly as disciplined as Bertholdt likes to infer. And he’s entered a territorial phase. Bertholdt pulls out a chunk of dried brahmin meat. “Look here, boy.” He whistles again. The smell of meat in the air does turn the tides. The Deathclaw finally abandons his advance. Bertholdt chucks the meat into the distance, away from them both. It sails far and fast, and the raptor is close behind. With a delighted trill, the large creature trots after this much easier prey. Though it is a marginal difference. With the focus broken, that’ll be that.

Bertholdt turns his attention back to the Enclave soldier before him. He can’t see his face, but he can imagine the look of horror and disgust well enough. He can imagine the smell of fear. The rifle in one hand, caught by the trigger, he regards the other. His head is swimming with each warring impulse. With shock thawing out, melting like a glacier from his features, it starts to show on his face. His one good eye seems brighter than before, softened by recognition, by some undue hope.

“Porco…? Is that you?”