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chrancecriber · 9 months

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Antenne Vorarlberg Chillout Lounge (August 18, 2023)

23:58 Pirra Feat. Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas Remix - Limousine Lies 23:51 H. Garden Feat. Joi - Gentle Rain 23:42 Moby - Too Much Change 23:36 Sirius & Nyla - Infinity (Remastered Remix) 23:32 Los Alamos Country Club - Children (Ambient Remix) 23:28 Dennis Kruissen Feat. Liza Flume - Another Soul 23:20 Super Flu - Mygut (Solomun Remix) 23:14 Themba & Nico De Andrea Feat. Tasan - Disappear 23:10 Ac Venture - Penang Waltz (Roberto Sol Remix) 23:01 Sina Vodjani - Vision Of Mahakala 22:59 Blank & Jones Feat. Coralie Clément - Cest Mieux 22:52 Blank & Jones - White Light 22:45 Fc Kahuna - Hayling 22:42 Alok & Timmy Trumpet - Underwater Love (La Vision Remix) 22:39 Filous - Let It Snow (Original Mix) 22:35 J-walk - Soul Vibration 22:32 Mike Candys & Jack Holiday - Saltwater (Rework) 22:28 Sound Nomaden - The Morning After 22:23 Nikko Culture - Break My Heart 22:17 Joachim Pastor & Signum - Something You Need (Extended Mix) 22:14 Pascal Letoublon - Feelings Undercover 22:11 Mike Posner - I Took A Pill In Ibiza (Seeb Remix) 22:05 Deep Dive Corp. Feat. Dennis Le Gree - Water 22:02 Melosense - Polarization (Original Mix) 21:59 Sofi Tukker & John Summit - Sun Came Up (Radio) 21:54 Kidsø - Fir 21:49 Arnej - People Come, People Go (Chillout Mix) 21:46 Hbz, Anna Grey & Agent Zed - Aloha Hey 21:43 Lost Frequencies, Zonderling & Kelvin Jones - Love To Go 21:36 Tom Novy & Milkwish - Dream Catcher (Extended Mix) 21:33 Jelly & Fish - Appreciation 21:28 Enui - Adieu (Arielle Lb Remix) 21:22 Enfant De Luxe - La Tete Dans Les Nuages 21:17 Eelke Kleijn - Woodstock 21:15 Nathan Evans - Wellerman (220 Kid X Billen Ted Remix) 21:11 Fon.leman - Constant Religion (Intro Mix) 21:08 Glockenbach - Dirty Dancing 21:04 Beatkonexion - On Air 21:01 Reece Lemonius, Munich Monstrs - Miss You 20:56 Christopher Von Deylen - Free 20:53 Lost Frequencies & Zonderling - Crazy 20:47 Beyhude - Akasha 20:44 The Hitmen - Turn Off The Lights 20:40 Kayu Feat. Gabs - Waterfalls 20:37 Dvine - Ever After 20:34 Nora Van Elken - Mount Fuji 20:27 Levitation - More Then Ever People 20:24 Parov Stelar - Fire 20:20 Edx - Vommuli 20:14 Jody Wisternoff Feat. Sian Evans - The Bridge (Chicane Rework) 20:08 Deep Dive Corp. & Setsuna - Transatlantic 20:04 Alphawezen - Gai Soleil 19:56 Dino Lenny Feat. Artbat - Sand In Your Shoes 19:53 Glockenbach Ft. Clockclock - Brooklyn 19:48 Lux - Secret Fish 19:44 Julian Wassermann - Painfully 19:41 Vievie - Blue Island 19:37 Andy Caldwell - Quiet Nights 19:33 Magnofield - Lupino 19:29 2raumwohnung - Wir Werden Sehen (Paul Kalkbrenner Remix) 19:26 Hearts & Colors - Lighthouse (Andrelli Remix) 19:23 Lost Frequencies & Elley Duhé - Back To You 19:19 Kyla La Grange - Cut Your Teeth 19:16 Chubbanak Club - Candysnow 19:13 Klingande, Wrabel - Big Love 19:09 Topic Feat. Nico Santos - Home 19:06 Lost Frequencies X James Arthur - Questions 19:03 Fritz Kalkbrenner - Kings & Queens 18:58 Maa, Seven24, R.i.b. - Frozen 18:55 Nora Van Elken - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) 18:53 Yves V X Bashkar - Halfway (Feat. Twan Ray) 18:47 Blank & Jones With Claudia Brücken - Unknown Treasure 18:41 Hakan Kayis, Furkan Sarikas, Cinar Gedizlioglu - A Night In Alacati (Original Mix) 18:38 Felix Jaehn & The Stickmen Project Feat. Calum Scott - Rain In Ibiza 18:33 Finland & Aaskoven - La Balbianello (Dosso D'aveto Mix) 18:30 Clément Leroux - Memories 18:27 Tinlicker & Helsloot - Because You Move Me 18:23 Armin Van Buuren Feat. Josh Cumbee - Sunny Days (Original Mix) 18:20 Hanns Feat. Lu - Chemistry 18:15 Loopaland - Born To Be Alive 18:12 Nore En Pure - In Your Eyes 18:09 Sono - Trusting You 18:03 Nova June - More 18:00 Kamrad - I Believe 17:55 David Guetta, Robin Schulz, Cheat Codes - Shed A Light (Blank & Jones Remix) 17:47 Royksopp - Sordid Affair (Maceo Plex Mix) 17:44 Mefree - Horizons 17:41 Alan Walker Ahrix - End Of Time 17:37 James Newton Howard Feat. Jennifer Lawrence - The Hanging Tree 17:34 Mike Candys & Jack Holiday - The Riddle Anthem Rework 17:32 Sum Wave - Passing Clouds 17:28 The Underdog Project - Summer Jam 17:24 Nora Van Elken - Sumatra (Lstn Remix) 17:19 Ive Mendes - Nao Vou Fugir 17:15 Tonenation - Hijo De La Luna 17:12 Mousse T. - Boyfriend (Alle Farben Remix) 17:09 Adele - Skyfall 17:04 Schiller Feat. Jael - Tired (Live) 17:00 Robin Schulz & Alle Farben & Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Somewhere Over The Rainbow / What A Wonderful World 16:52 Aural Float - Dreamer's Dream 16:49 Valerie Dore - The Night (Zyx Edit Remastered 2021) 16:46 Fedde Le Grand Feat. Vince Freeman - Devils 16:43 Mandalay - Beautiful 16:39 Blank & Jones - Alone In This Rhythm 16:34 Lyke - Stay With Me 16:31 Ed Sheeran - Photograph (Felix Jaehn Remix) 16:27 Klangkarussell And Givven - Follow 16:24 Deep Chills Feat Emma Carn - Blinded 16:22 R3hab X Lukas Graham - Most People 16:19 Christopher Von Deylen - She Never Told Him Her Name 16:13 Hazy J - Silver 16:09 Kygo Feat. Will Heard - Nothing Left 16:03 Rodriguez Jr. Feat. Liset Alea - What Is Real 15:58 Ivan Jack - The Dock Of The Bay 15:55 Above & Beyond Feat. Justine Suissa - Little Something 15:50 Schiller - White Nights (Don't Let Me Go) 15:43 The Normalites - The Sun Rising (Shur-i-kan Vocal) 15:39 Fritz Kalkbrenner - Daylight Is Falling 15:36 Sans Souci - Condor 15:32 Nora En Pure - Diving With Whales (Daniel Portman Radio Mix) 15:28 Sum Wave - Backyard Stories 15:22 Jan Blomqvist - The Space In Between 15:18 Nihoni - After Sun 15:12 Consolidation Feat. Moguai - Ode To Joy 15:09 Arizona - Oceans Away (Sam Feldt Remix) 15:05 Passenger 10 - The Lonely Boy Who Wanted To Make Friends 15:01 Above & Beyond - Is It Love? (1001) (Original Mix) 14:55 Prodoxo - Bailanduna 14:51 Schiller - Summer In Berlin 14:48 Mila Feat. Uwe Worlitzer - Teil Von Mir 14:45 Calvin Harris Feat. Sam Smith - Promises 14:42 Younotus Feat. Chris Gelbuda - When I Think About You 14:39 Klangperlenspiel - Fraction Of Your Love 14:33 Bedrock - Beautiful Strange 14:27 Beyhude - Rüzgar 14:23 Blank & Jones With Jan Loechel - Secret Hideaway 14:20 Majestic & Boney M. - Rasputin 14:17 Lunax - I Like 14:15 Hagen Feetly - Not The One 14:07 Christopher Von Deylen - Opaque 14:05 R3hab & Marnik - Candyman 13:58 Plus Minus - Meeting Of The Worlds 13:54 Armin Van Buuren & Avira - Illusion (Mixed) 13:50 Elderbrook & Bob Moses - Inner Light 13:46 Leslie, Ben E, Falki - Help Myself (Original Mix) 13:43 Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano - Let It Lie 13:40 Blank & Jones Feat. Mick Roach - Magnolia 13:34 Morcheeba - Trigger Hippie 13:31 Tomas Skyldeberg - Outside The Window 13:27 Alan Walker & Gavin James - Tired (Kygo Remix) 13:24 Kamrad - Feel Alive 13:22 Gibbs & Code X - Close To Your Heart 13:16 Alex H - Seeking Agapism 13:14 Sons Of Maria - A Kiss Like This 13:12 Buchs Feat. Nokyo - Cheverolet 13:08 Justin Bieber - What Do You Mean? 13:05 Klingande & Bright Sparks - Messiah 13:01 Kid Massive, Yuji Ono, Dtale - Pray (Wolf Krew Remix) 12:54 Jan Blomqvist - Maybe Not (Rodriguez Jr. Extended) 12:52 Viva La Panda, Finding Molly - Chances 12:48 Passenger 10 - Serving The World 12:44 Sylvering - The Sun Always Shines On Tv 12:41 Sam Feldt Feat. Lateshift - The Riddle 12:37 Robin Schulz & Marc Scibilia - Unforgettable 12:35 Jeremy Loops - Til I Found You 12:31 Ck West - Aldebaran 2021 12:22 Schiller - Empire Of Light 12:18 Scotty & Wilcox - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (Wilcox Extended) 12:15 Bernward Koch - Flowing Colors 12:11 Five Seasons - Her Almond Eyes 12:07 Schiller & Tricia Mcteague - Guardian Angel 12:01 Christopher Von Deylen - Euphoria 11:55 Jazzamor - Je T'aime 11:50 Victoriya - Nothing Remains 11:43 Colyn - Lightyears 11:36 Chris Zippel Feat. Tusnelda - Blade 11:34 Topic, Robin Schulz, Nico Santos, Paul Van Dyk - In Your Arms (For An Angel) 11:30 Sia - Alive 11:27 Zoe - C'est La Vie 11:24 Tiesto - Lay Low 11:19 Syntax Error - Träumen Im Gras (Syntax Experience Mix) 11:15 Neptune & Moonnight - I Need A New Love (Original Mix) 11:12 Portishead - Revenge Of The Number 11:05 Joris Voorn - Ringo 11:01 Above & Beyond Feat. Zoe Johnston - Treasure 10:59 The Holy Santa Barbara Feat. Madugo - The Sailor Song 10:55 Minnie Riperton - Lovin' You 10:52 Nora En Pure - Sign Of The Times 10:49 Above & Beyond - The Inconsistency Principle 10:43 The Funky Lowlives - Time To Let Go 10:40 Kygo With Avicii & Sandro Cavazza - Forever Yours (Tribute) 10:37 Faithless - Insomnia 10:34 Sans Souci - Take My Breath Away (Original Mix) 10:29 Fritz Kalkbrenner - Good Things 10:25 Fine Young Cannibals - Johnny Come Home (Mousse T. Cocktail Mix) 10:21 Dvine - Unknown Reality 10:18 Hein Klein & Cheyenne - Every Breath You Take 10:12 Spooky - Shelter 10:05 Monolink & Zigan Aldi - Fidale (I Feel) Vocal Version 10:00 Mike Candys & Jack Holiday - La Serenissima 09:58 Lost Frequencies Feat. Sandro Cavazza - Beautiful Life 09:55 Matoma Feat. Jonah Kagen - Summer Feeling 09:51 Goldfish Feat. Nate Highfield & Dan Silver - Forever Free 09:46 Boozoo Bajou - Lava 09:43 Blank & Jones - Swept Away 09:37 Ensaime - No Me Contesta 09:35 Agatino Romero - I'm Feeling For You 09:31 Le Shuuk Feat. Xilions - Goodbye 09:27 Blank & Jones Feat. Cathy Battistessa - Happiness (Milchbar Terrace Mix) 09:21 Twocolors - Together 09:15 Exstra - Comet (Extended Mix) 09:09 Tosca - Suzuki 09:06 Eelke Kleijn Feat. Josha Daniel - Oscillations 09:03 Sans Souci - Fenton 08:57 Parra For Cuva Feat. Anna Naklab - Wicked Games 08:54 Bolier - Another Blue 08:51 L'imperatrice - Peur Des Filles (Montmartre Remix) 08:48 Mark Brown - The Journey Continues (Acoustic Version) 08:45 Dimitri Vegas - Pull Me Closer 08:41 The Chainsmokers & Coldplay - Something Just Like This 08:38 Brendon Moeller - Emerging 08:33 Golden Tone Radio - Glück 08:28 Blank & Jones - 10.000 Emerald Pools 08:25 Famba Feat. Brando & Mkla - Games We Play 08:23 James Carter & Ofenbach Feat. James Blunt - Can't Forget You 08:18 Schiller - Rubinrot 08:14 Nora En Pure - Life On Hold 08:11 Robin Schulz & David Guetta - On Repeat 08:08 Lost Frequencies - Sun Is Shining 08:05 Melonia - Sweet Child O' Mine 08:02 Gesaffelstein & The Weeknd - Lost In The Fire 07:56 Uttara Kuru - Neyuki 07:52 Jan Blomqvist & Bloom Twins - High On Beat (Sofi Tukker Remix) 07:49 Massive Attack - Three 07:46 Amely & Lvndscape - Losing My Mind 07:43 Gamper & Dadoni Feat. Joe Jury - Satellites 07:38 Sonic Adventure Project - Waters In Motion 07:34 Lstn, Arya Noble - Desert Walk 07:28 Tebra - Suton 07:24 Kabanjak - The Rain 07:19 Lazy Hammbock - Surround Me 07:14 Joachim Pastor Feat. Nathan Nicholson - Saint Louis 07:09 Nebu Mitte Feat. Jaselle - With You (Oriano Remix) 07:05 Nora En Pure - Tantrum 07:03 Sam Feldt & Sam Fischer - Pick Me Up (Vavo Remix) 06:56 Fous De La Mer - Clairs De Lune 06:50 Soul Button - Circadian Rhythm (Hraach Remix) 06:45 Elmara - Transit 06:43 Sanah - Invisible Dress (Maro Music X Skytech Remix) 06:39 Gamper & Dadoni - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! 06:34 Disclosure - You & Me Ft. Eliza Doolittle (Flume Remix) 06:31 Sneaker Pimps - 6 Underground 06:28 Dize Feat. Aurii - Wenn Ich Nicht Mehr Weiss 06:20 Chris Coco & Captain Bliss - Harmonica Track (Deep Mix) 06:17 Armin Van Buuren & Garibay - Phone Down 06:14 Trinix - Soweto 06:07 Nikolay Mikryukov - If It Were Easier (Original Mix) 06:04 Blank & Jones Feat. Kyle Pearce - All Of Me 05:57 Blond:ish Feat. Shawni - Wizard Of Love 05:53 Alejandro De Pinedo - Raindrops 05:45 Jan Blomqvist - Empty Floor 05:42 Lily & Madeleine And Ofenbach - Come To Me (Ofenbach Remix) 05:37 Schiller - Free The Dragon 05:30 Nora En Pure - Cognitive Fadings (Club Mix) 05:26 Blank & Jones - Flaming June 05:23 Alex Zind Feat. Lisa Schwab - Cruel Summer 05:21 Rita Ora - You Only Love Me 05:16 Mind Against, Dyzen - Freedom 05:12 Sofi Tukker X Mahmut Orhan - Forgive Me 05:08 Robin Schulz - Moonlit Sky (With The Void Pacific Choir) 05:06 Sam Feldt, Lucas & Steve Ft. Wulf - Summer On You 05:03 Nightcall X Henri Purnell Feat. Eke - When The Morning Breaks 05:00 R3hab, Timmy Trumpet, W&w - Distant Memory 04:56 Rudimental Feat. Ed Sheeran - Lay It All On Me 04:51 Lamb - Wonder 04:48 Nightmares On Wax - You Wish 04:45 Vize & Alan Walker Feat. Leony, Edward Artemyev - Space Melody (Edward Artemyev) 04:41 Armin Van Buuren Feat. Angel Taylor - Make It Right (Trinix Remix) 04:37 Rüfüs Du Sol - No Place 04:34 York - On The Beach (Kryder & Jenjammin Sax Edit) 04:30 Blank & Jones - Sunshines Better (Feat. Mick Roach) 04:24 Dario G - Voices 04:20 Above & Beyond - Out Of Time (Original Mix) 04:15 Tinlicker Feat. Nathan Nicholson - Always Will 04:08 Electribe 101 - Talking With Myself 04:05 Robin Schulz - Never Know Me (Radio Mix) 04:01 Sum Wave - Malin's Song 03:56 Jasmon - Bamboo Queen 03:49 Armin Van Buuren & Avira Feat. Sam Martin - Mask 03:45 Lost Frequencies Feat. Flynn - Recognise 03:42 Hagen Feetly - Cry 03:38 Alex Breitling - Faith 03:35 Lemongrass - Comme Toujours 03:28 Rìfìs Du Sol - On My Knees (Oliver Schories Remix) 03:23 Atb & Anova - Route 66 03:20 Sam Feldt - Be My Lover 03:17 Wave Wave Feat. Evie - Real 03:13 Moli - Cloud No9 (Montmartre Remix) 03:05 Sébastien Tellier - La Ritournelle 03:02 Purple Disco Machine - Hypnotized 02:59 Thrdl!fe & Sleepwalkrs - Outta My Head 02:54 Mirage Of Deep - Cloudless Sky 02:49 Thomas Lemmer & Andreas Bach - Deep Ocean 02:46 Madison Park, Beechkraft - Parts Of Me (Original Mix) 02:43 Thomas Gold Feat. Bright Sparks - Seventeen 02:36 Atb - No Fate 02:31 Tosca - Gute Laune 02:24 Jean-michel Jarre - Equinoxe, Pt. 4 02:20 Christopher Von Deylen - Heliotrope 02:16 Levitation Feat. Cathy Battistessa - More Than Ever People 2015 02:11 Good Guy Mikesh Feat. Filburt - Place Of Love (Mp Edit) 02:02 Blank & Jones - California Sunset 01:59 Erik De Koning - Dream Flight (Chillout Mix) 01:55 Klangkarussel & Poppy Baskcomb - This Love 01:51 Moguai, Vize, Anna Grey - You're Not Alone 01:44 Claptone - No Eyes Feat. Jaw 01:41 Topic Feat. Nico Santos) - Home (Alle Farben Remix) 01:36 Chicane - No Ordinary Morning 01:33 Brando - Don't Call Me (Galantis Remix) 01:30 Dj Antoine Feat. Chanin & Jona Xx - Dancing In Tulum 01:26 Jazzamor - Song For Maggie 01:22 Robert Manos - Silver 01:15 Avira & Diana Miro - The Worship (Mark Knight Extended) 01:11 Chris Coco - Before Sunset (Original Mix) 01:08 Vinai - Hide Away 01:05 Tomas Skyldeberg - Chillin With You 01:02 Trinix - Rodeo 00:58 Valante - Rissa 00:54 Sum Wave - Milkyway 00:49 Moby - Natural Blues (Lulu Rouge Vs Stella Polaris Remix) 00:45 Lstn - Sky & Sand 00:38 Chris Zippel - Around, Arrived 00:31 Beyhude - Alabora 00:27 Claptone Feat. Dizzy - Queen Of Ice 00:24 Calum Scott - You Are The Reason (Tiësto's Aftr:hrs Remix) 00:17 Röyksopp & Jamie Irrepressible - The Next Day (Mind Against Remix) 00:11 Armen Miran & Hraach - Gravitation 00:08 Norman Feller - Retrospective 00:00 Martin Roth - An Analog Guy In A Digital World

#Antenne Vorarlberg Chillout Lounge #Chillout #Lounge #Downtempo #Ambient #Trance #Deep House #2023 #August 2023

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this-darkness-light · 7 years

Text

Bad Clothes Sunday

Pairing: Gritz, Fritz Howard/Gavin Baker

Rating: T (for language and suggestive dialogue)

Summary: The fashionable Mr. Baker has a sartorial secret he doesn’t want anyone to find out about. So of course Fritz does.

Word count: Like 2,660-ish

Tags: Fritz Howard/Gavin Baker, Gritz, Fritz Howard, Gavin Q. Baker III, fluff, humor

Read it on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12299103

Note: for @brieflymaximumprincess, who gave me the prompt and is also like one of three who ship this crazy, random (but also very sexy ship) with me. ((hugs))

-.-.-.-.-

Adjusting the brim on his pilfered baseball cap so it dips low over his forehead, Gavin plasters himself to the wall and peeks around the corner. The young security guard patrolling the corridors ambles down the hall in front of The Law Offices of Riley, Melkinson & Baker, munching on what looks like the remnants of a maple bar while flicking his thumb across his phone. Happy, colorful music burbles through a silence disturbed only by the low rumble of the building’s industrial air conditioner. Even though the guard is obviously lost in the digital world of Candy Crush or Angry Birds or whatever silly little games kids are playing these days (Gavin beat both games like fifty times already and got bored with them), his heart stutters in his chest and adrenaline courses through him like liquid ice.

If this guy sees him, rumors will fly and oh, he’ll never hear the end of it from whoever he tells, because if he’s worked here for at least a week he’ll know that this right here is most definitely worth telling. Not to mention the shining opportunity for blackmail. Only an idiot or a saint would pass up a shining opportunity like this. Or Fritz, who’s just a little bit of both, bless his sweet, innocent little heart. But screw Fritz, he’s never finding out. Gavin will keep this shame a secret and take this secret shame to his grave.

Humming off key, the guard stuffs the rest of the doughnut in his mouth and rounds the corner at the far end of the hall, absently swishing crumbs from his fingers. Still plastered to the wall, Gavin holds his breath and strains his hearing to make sure the guard isn’t suddenly going to come back and suck up the tiny doughnut droppings speckling the blue carpet like a hungry vacuum. Only after the soft footfalls and cheerful beepey boopey bling blang bling of whatever game the guard is playing have long faded away does Gavin dare move.

Biting his lip, he oozes around the corner and, eyes glued on the opposite end of the hallway, slinks silently to the office door. His beat-up pair of old black Nike sneakers are so ancient and well-worn they couldn’t squeak and betray his presence even if they wanted to. Honestly he’s surprised they haven’t fallen apart after all these years of loyal service. A good pair of shoes is almost as hard to find as a good man. Lucky for Gavin he seems to have found both, though said shoes and good man will never make each other’s acquaintance.

Snaking a hand into the pocket of his frayed, holey pair of jeans, he slips out his keys and shuffles through them for the one to the office front door, careful not to let them jangle and clang together. He’s just found it and slipped it into the lock when something thumps in the near distance. Stiffening, he goes still and cocks his head to the side, listening. Despite the cool, almost frigid temperature, his ratty old long-sleeved red and white Stanford shirt clings to him like he’s in a sauna. Thump. Thump. Thump. Footsteps. Very heavy footsteps. Shit. Throwing caution aside like last year’s fashion, Gavin twists the keys, throws open the door, and dashes through the entryway and down the hall that leads to his office.

He’s panting by the time he rushes inside, shuts the door, and leans against it. No one tries to follow him in. No pounding on the door or demands to see identification. He did it. Yes! Briefly closing his eyes, he draws in a deep breath through his nose and lets it out quietly as the tension drains from his body. He obviously needs to hit the gym a little more often if such a short sprint did him in, but damn it, he did it.

Well, half of it, at least. Not bothering to turn on the overhead lights — there’s more than enough light from the morning sun streaking through the slats in the window blinds — Gavin takes a crumpled piece of notebook paper from his other pocket, goes to his desk, and rummages around in the drawers for the files he needs, grumbling under his breath at Riley for burying him in an avalanche of work. He’d much rather spend his weekend fucking the socks off his hot FBI boyfriend, but no, he has to write a couple of rejoinders and motions to dismiss and look up case precedents for that hellacious medical malpractice lawsuit with the photo exhibits that make him want to trade in his silk Armani boxers for reinforced steel underwear. Just because Riley isn’t getting any, she has to go and cock block Gavin.

Rude. So very, very rude.

Oh well, at least he’ll get to charge her for it. Billable hours: the balm that soothes all wounds.

Once he has all the files, Gavin tucks the thick stack under his arm and sneaks to the waiting area like he’s a diabetic kid in a pastry shop instead of a law partner in his own office suite. Pausing behind a large fake potted plant, he listens to make sure Doughnut Guard isn’t going to come around the corner anytime soon. Then like lightning he’s out the door, locking it, and speeding down the hall toward the elevator bank and then to his car, praying to whichever god might exist and might be listening that no one he knows sees him.

No one does, and with a mental fist pump he dumps the files on the passenger seat and then slides behind the wheel of his burgundy Lexus, chin high and chest puffed out.

Gavin is still congratulating himself on a heist well done when he pulls into the parking lot for his building. Choosing a spot without any other cars nearby, he gathers the files and strides inside, deciding to take the stairs and get in some more exercise. By the time he reaches his landing five flights later he’s more than a little out of breath. Vowing to reacquaint himself with the elliptical collecting dust in his spare room (as soon as he’s done with this pile of work and does some laundry and takes a nap because he had to get up so hellaciously early), he saunters toward his door, digging around in his pocket for his keys.

And smacks into something solid.

Yelping, Gavin stumbles backward as something hot splashes across his chest. He throws out his arms, more than willing to sacrifice Riley’s stack of busywork to catch his balance and, more importantly, spare his dignity, but nope. The files go flying as he lands hard on his back, knocking all the air out his lungs. Coughing and gasping, he props himself up on his elbows, sprawled in a pile of splayed folders. A couple of loose papers flutter through the air. Still heaving in breaths, he watches as they dance and swirl and then land neatly on his lap, no earthly idea which file they came from and where they go in it .

Well.

Shit.

“Gavin?”

Oh fuck.

It’s Fritz, because of course it is, because the universe hates lawyers, or maybe just Gavin, he’s not sure.

A sudden, heavy coldness hits his core. Breath hitching, Gavin ducks his head and turns away, pulling the baseball cap even lower. Now would be a good time to spontaneously combust. Or instantly die from sudden onset cardiac arrest. At this point he’d take a golf-ball sized meteor randomly crashing through the ceiling and hitting him square in the forehead, he’s not picky. Just as long as the universe stops hating him long enough to kindly put him out of his misery.

“Gavin, is that you? And is that — is that my Dodgers cap?” Fritz’s voice stutters into an incredulous laugh at the end, and oh, this is perfect. Just perfect.

Gavin can practically feel the flush creeping up his neck, burning his face and ears. He has half a mind to bolt down the stairs, work be damned, but that still leaves him with the problem of being out in the open, exposed, unable to get inside his apartment with really nowhere else to hide. Well, okay, technically he could hide in the public bathroom in the foyer, but Fritz has already seen him dressed like a fashion-senseless hobo, so doing that would just add a rotten little cherry on top of his shame sundae. He really, really doesn’t feel like adding a rotten little cherry on top of his shame sundae.

“You okay?” Fritz asks from up above, finally having the decency to sound worried about Gavin instead of snerking up a storm at his expense.

Grimacing, Gavin swallows hard as he rolls over onto his stomach and pushes himself up to his knees. “’M fine,” he mumbles at the floor, collecting the loose papers and pulling the pile of files toward himself, trying to scrape up what’s left of his dignity in the process. Never in the course of their relationship has he ever wished that Fritz would just leave as much as he does right now. Go away, Fritz. Go away, go away, go away…

Two venti Starbucks coffee cups join the pile of papers. The lids are caked with dried coffee, solving the mystery of what new stain has joined the army of ancient set-in stains on his equally ancient Stanford shirt. It’s a miracle none of the hot coffee splashed through one of the myriad holes and burned his skin. “Here, let me help you,” Fritz says as he kneels in front of Gavin, grabbing for a splayed, upside down file folder with its contents bent at weird angles and all jumbled together.

Gavin swats his hand away. “I’ve got it, thanks” he snaps, a little more harshly than he meant to, as he grabs the file away from Fritz. To his credit, Fritz just makes a noncommittal noise and pulls his hands away, holding them up as though proving he doesn’t have any of Gavin’s papers. Swallowing, Gavin unscrunches the documents inside as best as he can and then presses the folder to his chest like a shield. He knows Fritz is just being his kind, helpful self, but still. This is exactly what he didn’t want to happen, so of course it’s happening.

Maybe he should convince himself he doesn’t want a million dollars. With his luck, he just might get it.

Gavin is reaching out to grab another topsy-turvy file folder when Fritz shifts forward, then gently cups Gavin’s face in those big, warm hands of his and makes him look Fritz in the face. Swallowing again, Gavin stares determinedly at Fritz’s smiling mouth (of course he would think this is funny) and the stubble lightly dusting his jawline, refusing to meet his gaze. Fritz just tilts Gavin’s chin up until he has to look him in the eye.

His deep brown eyes are soft and shining with warmth. Stroking Gavin’s cheeks with his thumbs, Fritz leans forward and kisses him. It’s a simple thing really, just a brush of lips against lips, not even any tongue to make it interesting, but it does the trick. All Gavin’s carefully constructed walls come tumbling down and he sighs, eyelids fluttering shut. Tossing the file folder away, he scoots across the others, careless that he’s messing them up even more, and wraps his arms around Fritz’s neck. The FBI agent’s woodsy musk washes over Gavin and he breathes it in deeply, can feel it calming his frazzled nerves.

Far too soon Fritz is pulling away. Gavin makes a little noise of disappointment in his throat at the loss of contact and leans forward to reconnect, but Fritz gently pushes him back. Still smiling, he holds Gavin at arm’s length, giving him a quick once over. Gavin fidgets under his scrutiny, easy though it is, and crosses his arms over his chest, wishing he hadn’t tossed away the file folder.

Then Fritz pecks him on the nose, chuckling as Gavin instinctively scrunches up his face at the ticklish sensation. “You look adorable,” Fritz says, flicking the rim of the ballcap with his fingertips.

Gavin snorts and sucks in his cheeks. “I look like a bum,” he says flatly, pulling back so Fritz can’t thwack the hat.

Fritz just moves with him and continues thwacking the hat. “A cute bum,” he says with a goofy grin. “I knew you had normal clothes somewhere in that huge closet of yours.”

Gavin arches a brow at that, supremely offended at the suggestion that the rags he’s currently wearing have ever besmirched the closet where he hangs his designer suits and shirts with their presence. “These are not ‘normal clothes.’ These are…are…” he flaps a hand around as though that will help him pluck the definition for what he’s wearing out of the air.

“…average? Typical? Regular?”

Gavin shoots him a sarcastic little you-can-shut-up-now smirk before Fritz the handy dandy thesaurus can list off any more synonyms.

Chuckling, Fritz relents. “So why are you wearing them?” he asks as he scoops up some files and starts smoothing out the crimped pages.

Gavin sighs as he mirrors Fritz, quickly amassing a small, neat stack of folders. “Well, I had to make a quick run to the office to get some files, and I just…didn’t have time to plan out a nice outfit.”

Fritz tilts his head at that and squints over at Gavin, eyebrows practically in his hairline. “You didn’t have time to plan out a nice outfit,” he echoes. Shifting in place, he sets aside a file and holds out his hand. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Fritz Howard.”

Gavin huffs, ignoring the proffered hand. “I didn’t,” he insists. “I’m just so overbooked this week, and I have so much to do, and it really was supposed to be just a quick run, so…” he trails off with a shrug, plucking at the worn hem of his coffee-stained shirt. His little spiel reminds him that he really does have a lot of work to do, ideally before tomorrow afternoon, and it’s currently in disarray all over the floor. The beginnings of a headache throb at his temples and he fights the urge to just leave the files out here and hope no one steals them and collapse back into bed.

Preferably with Fritz.

Fritz squeezes his shoulders and presses a chaste kiss to his cheek, his stubble tickling Gavin’s skin. “You know I’m just giving you a hard time because I’ve never seen you in jeans before, right?”

Never let it be said that Gavin Q. Baker ever missed such a deliciously obvious opportunity for a double entendre.

Smirking, Gavin catches Fritz before he can pull away again and draws him into a properly intimate kiss. “Mmm, yes, I do know,” he says, tangling his fingers in Fritz’s short dark hair. “And you can make it up to me —” he swipes his tongue along Fritz’s bottom lip, eliciting a groan from the FBI agent “—by giving me an equally hard time —” he tugs on Fritz’s hair, tilting his head back so he can lick and nibble along his neck “—when I’m not wearing jeans.”

Fritz gives a breathy little laugh. “I guess we’d better take this inside then,” he says, voice husky.

Gavin has never cleaned up a mess faster in his life.

-.-.-.-.-

#gavin baker #gavin q baker #gavin q baker iii #this-darkness-writes #gritz #fritz howard #agent fritz howard #my otp of all time #kissing #fluff #humor

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Downfall of a Dark Avenger Part 2: Shadows of Manhattan

Having finished reading Al Ewing’s El Sombra trilogy and having had enough time to digest it, I’d like to talk about the trajectory of it’s titular protagonist, the character and series’s relationship with it’s influences. Relating to The Shadow and Zorro and general pulp archetypes, and also the way it incorporates Astro Boy’s Pluto into the mix.

This part is focused on Gods of Manhattan and El Sombra’s first appearences in Pax Omega and the ways in which the urban vigilante manifests itself in the books.

In Gods of Manhattan, El Sombra takes a backseat to it’s central players, Doc Thunder and The Blood-Spider. I’ve mentioned how Thunder, while ostensibly a Doc Savage/Superman amalgam, also combines aspects that allow the character to condense the entire history of the superman into a single being, but to a character very much centered on the future and in progressive ideals, described in the book as someone considered both the city’s ultimate savior as well as viewed as "a faggot, a liberal and a miscegenationist”. In that regard, the Blood-Spider becomes his opposite. Perhaps the most comprehensive savaging of the dark detective/The Shadow ever put on paper, that has a larger point behind the questions and criticisms it brings up to what this kind of figure can be.

"You can hardly have a war on crime unless you are the one defining what a crime is. First rule of the war on crime: everyone is guilty or something"

Us am vigilantes! Am us not men? Us use violence to effect social change! Am us not men? Us bring terror to underclass, make streets safer for overclass! Am us not men? Am us not men?

Making them loved rather than feared. Having them fight crime, or the right kind of crime, at least. Created a persona designed to appeal to the worst in people, to bring the citizens of New York around to his cause, his war on crime, which would, of course, then become a war against ‘urban crime’. Or some other little euphemism. ‘Inhuman’, for example. Sounds a lot more relatable than subhuman, doesn’t it? Comes to the same thing, though.

Although The Blood-Spider is an evil take on The Shadow, most of his character traits are taken from characters that followed him. He’s got the moniker, savagery, fright tactics and branded murders of The Spider, he climbs buildings and has a civilian identity akin to Spider-Man’s, with constant name references to characters like Stacey, Jonah and a redhead named Mary Watson, with him sharing a name with Peter Parker as well as Batman villain Jonathan Crane, he’s got Rorschach monologues that are echoed by his associates past his demise in white supremacist organizations dedicated to carrying off Spider’s legacy, predating HBO Watchmen’s take on Rorschach legacy. If Doc Thunder is all about taking the superhero’s past to create a better future with it, Blood-Spider takes the future of the urban vigilante and uses it as a conduit to enact a barbaric and reactionary agenda in service of undoing everything Thunder stands for, even before he’s revealed to be a Nazi agent.

Blood-Spider is what happens when the absolute worst aspects of said characters are brought to the forefront and twisted by a dose of reality. He’s to The Shadow what Plutonian is to Superman, the most sour way said character and legend can be twisted into something horrendous. He’s the Doutrinador in a fedora, everything I vehemently argue that The Shadow wasn’t, and yet seems sadly ever closer to as more and more comics dehumanize the character. He’s Howard Chaykin’s Shadow, naked and raw and exposed for what it ultimately is. An insult and a wake-up call, if a necessary one.

In fact, said poisoning of a legend is explicitly a plot point in the book, because the book establishes that, before The Blood-Spider, the city’s main vigilante used to be a man by the name of Blue Ghost, friend of Doc Thunder and, although a mysterious public figure, still firmly on the side of good. Unfortunately, moral victories aside, “good” alone doesn’t cut it in the world of El Sombra.

You took a look at the Blue Ghost - mysterious masked avenger, operatives all over the place, big fan-following with the working classes, and you figured...we need one of those. Just take away the Japanese orphan kid and replace him with a foxy Aryan chick.

Blue Ghost is almost a textbook Spirit analogue, even defined as being beat up a lot as his main asset, except here, he’s placed as Doc’s counterpart that died before the story began and is now replaced by a darker and more horrendous counterpart, and because The Spirit was influenced by The Shadow, it opens a roundabout connection. You can read this as a comparison between the shift from Adam West’s Batman to Frank Miller’s Batman, or a comparison between The Shadow and earlier more straightforward pulp vigilantes like Jimmie Dale, or a comparison between the pulp/radio Shadow and later iterations of him or analogues to his archetype that upped the nastier aspects. Again, nothing in El Sombra is ever quite just one thing.

And at last we come to El Sombra, who spends much of the book caught in between the duels of Doc, Untergang and players in between. And it’s interesting that here, while El Sombra’s final victories over the story’s major conflict lie in his willingness to team up with Doc, despite knowing of his origins as a Nazi weapon, his victories over Blood-Spider instead come from turning tricks of The Shadow against him. First, when he discovers Spider’s true nature, spying on him by pulling a Fritz the Janitor. And then in the finale, when he schools Spider on what a real shadowy avenger looks like.

"Amigo...that's my sword"

The voice came from the darkness above them, where the gaslight did not reach. The Spider's blood ran cold for a long moment, and then he grabbed hold of his other gun, tearing it from its holster and raising it to fire a volley of bullets into the darkness. "Where are you? Show yourself!" he hissed, turning in place, the gun raised to fire at the slightest sound or movement.

"You're not the only one who can hide in the shadows, my friend. I've got very good at it, over the years."

"Show yourself!" Another volley of shots, with no result. Was he throwing his voice? Was he everywhere at once? Was he a shadow himself? A ghost?

The voice echoed from another place now, continuing his speech exactly where he had left off. And still that mocking voice echoed from the shadows above.

"See, I didn't know if you were a good guy or a bad guy. I mean, sure, you killed people, and you were kind of a dick about it, you know? But I didn't know if you were one of the bastards. I didn't know if you needed to die or not, amigo."

The gun clicked empty. He was out of bullets. He turned again, and there was the man in the red mask. Just standing there, in the middle of the concourse. His smile didn't look human. And his eyes. Oh, his terrible eyes...

"Stay back." The Spider whispered, and his voice sounded in his ears like a frightened, animal thing, waiting to curl up and die in its hole.

The man in the red mask only laughed. A rich, deep, joyous laugh, a laugh that echoed and filled the whole station, bouncing from pillar to pillar, careening through the great vaulted arches. Such a laugh!

Then the laughter stopped, and he fixed the Blood-Spider with a look that would freeze the fires of Hell.

And suddenly - quite suddenly - there was no Blood-Spider. There was only Parker Crane, the Nazi. Parker Crane, the traitor. Who thought he could destroy America, and only managed to destroy himself. Parker Crane. Just a man wearing a mask. He ran, and left the sword behind him.

"Nice trick," Doc murmured, turning to the masked man. "Throwing your sword from up on the balcony - good aim, by the way - then throwing your voice and a little mental suggestion to make him think you were up in the arches where he'd been. Where did you learn that?"

The masked man shrugged, lifting up his weapon. "In the desert. You can learn a lot in the desert, if you put your mind to it."

By the story’s end, once Lars Lomax, Thunder’s arch-enemy and Lex Luthor, takes center stage as it’s ultimate threat, Parker Crane is left a traumatized, broken shell unable to even move, utterly stripped of any mystique or power that his mask and guns may have brought him. And in the end, El Sombra finds him, neutralized and no longer a threat to anyone. And he makes his choice.

El Sombra knew what it was to hate, to hate so hard and so long that you knew nothing else, to hate so strongly that it crossed that line into something beyond reason.

He lifted his sword, resting the blade in his palm for a moment, considering. Crane only stared, weeping and making his soft, mad noises. El Sombra sighed, shaking his head. "You know, I don't know if I can kill a guy who's already dead. Even if he is one of the bastards."

"Don't let him in here." Murmured Crane, his eyes wide.

"Shhh, I won't let him in," smiled El Sombra in response, trying to be reassuring. "You'll never have to face him again. I promise. It's okay, amigo. It's okay."

It was strange. He knew he should feel hate for Parker Crane. It was Djego's job to bear things like pity and doubt, to feel sorrow and shame. That was Djego's role in their team of one. El Sombra was there to take never-ending revenge and to laugh and to never look back. But to know that his murder of Heinrich Donner - his righteous kill - had resulted in so much harm coming to so many... and now to see the leader of Undergang, the man he'd come to New York to kill, just an empty, broken madman, a shell of a person... El Sombra wondered if he was changing.

"Don't," whispered Crane, a tear rolling down his cheek. "Don't let him back in."

El Sombra smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, amigo. I'm going to go and make sure nobody ever needs to see him again. And I couldn't have done it without you." He squeezed lightly. "You didn't mean to, but you did some good. Remember that."

Then, gently, he pushed the tip of the sword through the front of Crane's skull and into his brain.

He was not incapable of pity. But he was who he was, and he did what he did.

And broken or not, the bastards had to die.

We’ve seen El Sombra struggle and be faced with choices, choices between Djego and El Sombra, choices between kindness and violence, between peace and conflict. We’ve seen the conflict in his soul between things that he knows are right, because Djego is a good man with a good soul who wants good things for himself and others, and things he knows he must do, because he is El Sombra and El Sombra was created to kill the bastards that brought his world to ruin and therefore it’s what he must always do. And in the end, El Sombra is simply stronger. He has to be. But strength and violence and hatred can only get one so far.

Gods of Manhattan is the trilogy’s moral compass, the book that most clearly defines the morality the series operates on. And in between the spectrums of justice embodied by Doc and Crane’s approach, between the two urban avengers in The Blue Ghost and Blood-Spider, El Sombra made his choice. And it’s the first choice that dooms him.

Enter Pax Omega, and we learn that, 4 years since the previous book's events, El Sombra joined a squad of agents called Yankee Bravo Seven, who work for an organization named STEAM, who enact missions against Nazis to turn the tides of war. He is joined by several other types of characters, including The Blood Widow, Crane’s former assistant Marlene Lang now having taken up the moniker (just as Nita van Sloan did for The Spider, even with the “Widow” prefix). We see that El Sombra has joined a team of bantering heroes and even formed a friendly rivalry with a man named Savate, modeled after Batroc the Leaper.

But we see that the hunger for vengeance still burns, still burns beyond reason, restless because it’s been 4 years and the war still isn’t over and Hitler still isn’t dead by his sword. And it’s that restlessness that again dooms him, when he once again makes the wrong choice and betrays leader Jack Scorpio, Scorpio who had personally brought him on board and gave him the best shot he ever had at getting to Hitler.

El Sombra frowned. "We need to make our move now."

Scorpio shook his head. "Not yet."

"What?" El Sombra looked incredulous.

"Wait for my signal, I said! Damn it, I need you to trust me!" Jack Scorpio reached up to brush the back of his finger across his forehead, and realised he was sweating.

Through his special glasses, El Sombra's aura was glowing an angry, pulsing red, like a throbbing vein. "Just...trust me. I'm asking you to hold back for just five minutes. There's more going on here than you know."

El Sombra just stared at him, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a cold snarl.

"Trust me. That's all I ask." Jack Scorpio looked into the blazing eyes behind the bloodstained mask, and spoke softly, soothingly, almost desperately. "Can you just hold back for one minute?"

The eyes behind the mask narrowed.

"Can you?"

PERSONNEL FILE: DJEGO "EL SOMBRA". TO EYES ONLY: THIS INDIVIDUAL IS HIGHLY DANGEROUS. IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED HE NOT BE INCLUDED IN ANY OPERATIONS CLASSIFIED ABOVE TOP SECRET OR HIGHER. (I'll take the risk - J.S)

El Sombra spat in Scorpio's face.

"Chinga tu madre."

Then he drew his sword and leaped down into the fray.

After the mission is over, with the base destroyed and a major victory secured, although with Jack Scorpio having been killed, the team disbands. El Sombra continues to wander the forests near the Luftwaffe base for about two weeks, killing as many Nazis as he can, until an explosion blast hits near him, knocking away his mask and portions of his leg and arm, and rendering him unconscious for 8 months. By the time he wakes up, the war has ended, and so has El Sombra for the past 7 years.

Djego was afforded the best of medical care at the hospital in Venice. El Sombra was nowhere to be found.

His mask had been torn off in the explosion, along with some of the meat of his leg and arm. He walked stiffly, now, with a pronounced limp, and his left arm was all but useless, hanging limply at his side. The Wildcat crew had salvaged his sword, but Djego had little interest in using it.

Gradually, he regained his mobility. The back of his head itched constantly, and he suffered from horrendous mood swings, when he would rage against the Fuhrer and the bastards, or weep helplessly, like a child. But gradually, he found his personality stabilising in the gentle, antiseptic atmosphere of the hospital. He found that Djego - so long despised as a weakling, a coward and a fool - was capable of a kind of gentle, melancholic wit that made him popular.

Djego healed and grew, and the itch in the back of his skull began to subside, as El Sombra relinquished his grip.

Djego felt his heart seize in his chest. The cloth was missing a scrap at the end, and there was mud ground into the fabric along with the old bloodstains; but it had two evenly-spaced holes in it, and was unmistakably a mask. It seemed to be looking at him.

He takes up gardening and establishes himself in the city of Brandenberg, he becomes a fixture of the city and a friend of it, he enters a relationship, and El Sombra never appears again.

Until a mysterious stranger named Leonard Lorraine, walks through his door one day, saying he’s got a mission to fulfill, and hands him his mask. And, once again, El Sombra is simply stronger, and he makes the wrong choice again.

Djego shook his head and tried to step back from it, but his legs wouldn't move.

"No," he whispered. "No. Please"

"I was happy," pleaded Djego. "Doesn't that matter to you?" He picked up the cloth in trembling fingers, looking into the empty eyeholds. "Doesn't that mean anything?"

There was no answer. The patrons of the bierkeller did not even notice anything was happening.

"I was happy," Djego choked, and then, in one spasmodic motion, he pulled the mask onto his face, and secured it tightly, so that the knot once again rested in the back of his head, where it belonged: so tightly that it might never come off again.

El Sombra looked at his hands.

He prodded his belly, amused at the rounded shape of it, and took a couple of steps back from the bar. The limp was gone.

He laughed, very softly, so as not to disturb the patrons.

Djego and Lorraine walk through the desolate streets of Berlin, which in the years since has completely sealed itself from the outside world through an impossibly thick dome, and Djego discovers the city completely bereft of life, with only a few lobotomized robotic citizens aimlessly wandering and chewing on the mountains of corpses in the city, as their Nazi ideology reached it’s inevitable outcome of total annihilation of any and all that the party could find an excuse to slaughter in the name of purity, which eventually included it’s few remaining members. In this world, Hitler has been a brain inside a robotic contraption ever since 1945, and it’s amidst this scenario that El Sombra, while thinking about how his final confrontation with Hitler would play out, eventually finds what’s left of Hitler.

All around them, there were the sounds of machinery, but the Mecha-Fuhrer was completely silent, utterly motionless. In the centre of its chest rested a tank of toxic green fluid, and on the surface of the fluid, a human brain floated, like the corpse of a goldfish.

It was quite dead.

El Sombra stared at the Fuhrer for a long moment. Eventually, he spoke, and his voice was cracked and raw, and choked with rage. "Is...is this a joke?"

De Lareine smiled his terrible smile. "The Fuhrer's body needed a great deal of maintenance and repair, you know. After two years, one of the processes delivering oxygen to his brain failed...and there was nobody left to repair it. He died, slowly." There would have been some pain, at the end".

El Sombra slammed his fist into the great iron throne on which the massive body sat, shattering his knuckles and tearing the skin from them. He didn't seem to notice. "Some pain," he choked, through gritted teeth."

El Sombra was still staring into the empty, dead eyes of the Fuhrer.

El Sombra again chooses poorly. It’s this moment, above all else, that truly damns him to his fate, as we come to see what is it exactly that a persona created for the purpose of vengeance has, when said vengeance is robbed from it. Like Parker Crane, his persona crumbles completely to expose the petty, ugly little feelings that drove it to such grandstanding antics in the first place, and the allmighty El Sombra is exposed for the all-too human failings that damned him once and for all.

"This isn't right," he said, eventually, in a strangled voice. "How...how can it end like this?"

"Why shouldn't it?" De Lareine shrugged. "Here's a thought. Maybe, despite his twenty-year tantrum and all his dressing up, spoilt little Djego is not the centre of the universe -"

El Sombra turned, face red, tears streaming from his eyes, and charged at De Lareine, slashing his sword. El Sombra crashed down onto the floor, into the soot scattered about, as De Lareine walked around him.

"Did you really believe Adolf Hitler would wait around for your sword? Did you not imagine that it might be better for him to seal himself off in a hole to die, instead of murdering and enslaving continents until you finally got around to him? Did you think you were the hero of your own little story, El Sombra, with your mask and your laugh and your-"

"Shut up!" El Sombra cried out, scrambling to his feet, the sword shaking in his hand, tears and snot running down his face. "He was mine! He was mine to kill!" He lifted the sword, the tip trembling. "Bring him back," he screamed, "do you hear me? Bring him back to life!"

De Lareine had to laugh at that.

And in the end, El Sombra is crushed, spiritually and physically as his spine is shattered by Lareine, who begins to experiment on him as he lays dying, ready to fulfill fate’s greater purpose for El Sombra. Ready to become not just the perfect machine Pasito’s conquerors intended, but a superior design. Ready to abandon his former life, ready to abandon everything that defined him, ready to shed any and all traces of Zorro and Shadow and pulp hero in his system, because the age of pulp heroes and superheroes has passed.

The metal man emerged from his hole, dragging the corpse of the Fuhrer behind him.

The brain in the metal man's chest would, perhaps, live for thousands of years. He wondered how he would spend the time.

He remembered little of his former life; he had been a man named El Sombra, or perhaps Djego. He had been stupid - he realised that now - but that was something he would never be again.

Apart from that, there was only a succession of faces, the memory of laughter and of a final, awful betrayal that had destroyed him. But there was also the sense that a great and terrible mission had ended at last, and it was time for a new life to begin.

The metal man took a last look back at the great dome of Fortress Berlin. Somewhere in there, the Leopard Man was hunting, freed from his own mission. And in the Fuhrer's old office, the empty, lifeless clay of El Sombra - or was it Djego? - lay, discarded, like a butterfly's cocoon.

The metal man thought on this, as the Fuhrer rusted at his feet and the tanks began to approach from over the hills ahead.

He would need a new name.

It’s now the age of Pluto.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #al ewing #el sombra #pluto

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verifiedaccount · 4 years

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25 more movies (and one miniseries) you can watch on youtube

I posted 11 movies that are on youtube yesterday (Part 1) but since things are really starting to get shut down here’s more worthwhile movies and a miniseries you can watch for free on youtube right now

Leave Her To Heaven (1945): Gene Tierney is Ellen, a woman whose only crime is “loving too much,” and also all the other crimes she commits to make sure there are no competitors for husband Cornel Wilde’s affections in John M. Stahl’s incredibly lurid and entertaining technicolor melodrama.

M (1931): Fritz Lang’s masterpiece is the basis for every subsequent movie about hunting a serial killer and it’s still the best one.

The Naked Kiss (1964): Here’s the jacket copy from Criterion: “The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller, perverse secrets simmer beneath the wholesome surface. Featuring radical visual touches, full-throttle performances, brilliant cinematography by Stanley Cortez, and one bizarrely beautiful musical number, The Naked Kiss is among Fuller’s greatest, boldest entertainments.”

Underworld USA (1961): Dave Kehr on the film: “Sam Fuller's harsh, obsessional 1960 crime drama is narrated in the style of a comic book gone berserk. Cliff Robertson is the neurotic hero, bent on avenging his father's death by infiltrating and destroying a crime syndicate that operates under the redolent name “National Projects.” Corruption is all-pervasive in this vision of America, and Fuller disturbingly suggests that only a madman can make a difference. One image from Underworld—of a heavy striking straight at the camera—prompted Jean-Luc Godard to describe Fuller's films as “cinema-fist.” There is no more apt phrase.”

Pickup on South Street (1953): Another Sam Fuller. Here’s Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo on the film: “Richard Widmark manages to portray himself as twisted, conniving, pathological, sleazy, tragic, vulnerable, and handsome all at once in most of the movies I’ve seen him in, and never more exquisitely than in this, one of my favorite film noirs.“

Journey to Italy (1954): Richard Brody on the film: “One of the most quietly revolutionary works in the history of cinema, Roberto Rossellini’s third feature starring Ingrid Bergman (his wife at the time), from 1953, turns romantic melodrama into intellectual adventure. [...] From Rossellini’s example, the young French New Wave critics learned to fuse studio style with documentary methods, and to make high-relief drama on a low budget.”

The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973): A satirical thriller based on the Sam Greenlee novel about the CIA recruiting a token black agent who quickly realizes they have no intention of letting him advance to a meaningful position and decides to head back to Chicago to teach the black revolutionaries all the latest guerrilla warfare tactics. Despite playing to packed houses the film was quickly pulled from theaters with little explanation and remained out of circulation until a DVD was issued in 2004.

The Big Combo (1955): Dave Kehr’s capsule: “This 1955 film noir borders on total abstraction for most of its length and then achieves it in an astonishing final scene—a shoot-out in the fog that suggests an armed and dangerous Michelangelo Antonioni. Where the usual noir takes place in a nightmare world, this one seems to inhabit a dream: there's no longer fear in the images, but rather a distanced, idealized beauty. With Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy, and Richard Conte; the director is Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy).”

The Stranger (1946): Orson Welles’s film concerns an FBI agent (Edward G. Robinson) tracking Nazi war criminals whose search takes him to a small Connecticut town where the local schoolteacher (Orson Welles) is not what he seems. It’s the most conventional Welles film, reportedly intended to prove he could turn in a movie on time and on budget, but it’s still plenty entertaining.

F For Fake (1973): Orson Welles documentary/essay/whatsit about forgers and frauds, specifically Elmyr de Hory, who became famous as an art forger because instead of forging existing paintings he painted new ones in the style of famous artists, and Clifford Irving, who wrote a best-selling book on Elmyr and then was busted for a fraud of his own, the fake Howard Hughes autobiography. A wildly enjoyable, incredibly edited, one of a kind mindbender.

Citizen Kane (1941): It’s Citizen Kane. You just have to put up with hardcoded Korean subs.

Detour (1945): Roger Ebert on the film: “Detour is a movie so filled with imperfections that it would not earn the director a passing grade in film school. This movie from Hollywood's poverty row, shot in six days, filled with technical errors and ham-handed narrative, starring a man who can only pout and a woman who can only sneer, should have faded from sight soon after it was released in 1945. And yet it lives on, haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.”

A Woman Under The Influence (1974): Dave Kehr: “John Cassavetes's 1974 masterpiece, and one of the best films of its decade. Cassavetes stretches the limits of his narrative—it's the story of a married couple, with the wife hedging into madness—to the point where it obliterates the narrator: it's one of those extremely rare movies that seem found rather than made, in which the internal dynamics of the drama are completely allowed to dictate the shape and structure of the film. The lurching, probing camera finds the same fascination in moments of high drama and utter triviality alike—and all of those moments are suspended painfully, endlessly. Still, Cassavetes makes the viewer's frustration work as part of the film's expressiveness; it has an emotional rhythm unlike anything else I've ever seen.”

Opening Night (1977): Another Cassavetes masterpiece, again starring the great Gena Rowlands, with Gena as an actress mentally disintegrating as she tries to prepare for an upcoming play. Easier to start with this one than A Woman Under The Influence. Richard Brody on the film: “Though there isn’t a movie camera anywhere to be seen—and Cassavetes, with his tightly sculpted, uninhibitedly intimate images, is a master of the camera—Opening Night captures with astonishment and boundless admiration the uninhibited ferocity of the art that brings life onto the screen. (In fact, Cassavetes had originally planned to take the role of the play’s director.) It’s one of the greatest tributes ever paid by a director to an actress.“

Magnificent Obsession (1954): It’s not necessarily Douglas Sirk’s best technicolor melodrama but this adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas’s ridiculous bestseller is the most melodramatic one. From Cine-File: “Produced in the wake of Henry Koster's CinemaScope adaptation of Douglas' THE ROBE, Sirk's 1954 remake of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is, by any standard, an absolutely batshit movie. (It's the kind of film where a lecture about the radical power of kindness compares the crucifixion of Christ to the act of turning on a light bulb.) It's not so much an adaptation of Douglas as a third-hand amplification of his aura. "Ross Hunter gave me the book," Sirk recalled, "and I tried to read it, but I just couldn't. It is the most confused book you can imagine.” As Geoffrey O'Brien asserts in his essay for the film's Criterion release, Sirk earnestly examines that which he admits to finding absurd, forcing such questions as, "What if this weren't crazy? What if it were real? What sort of a world would that be, and how different would it be from the one we inhabit?" Therein lies the genius of Sirk's glorious melodrama, one certainly worth seeing in all its Technicolor magnificence.

All That Heaven Allows (1955): Geoff Andrew on the film: “On the surface a glossy tearjerker about the problems besetting a love affair between an attractive middle class widow and her younger, 'bohemian' gardener, Sirk's film is in fact a scathing attack on all those facets of the American Dream widely held dear. Wealth produces snobbery and intolerance; family togetherness creates xenophobia and the cult of the dead; cosy kindness can be stultifyingly patronising; and materialism results in alienation from natural feelings. Beneath the stunningly lovely visuals - all expressionist colours, reflections, and frames-within-frames, used to produce a precise symbolism - lies a kernel of terrifying despair created by lives dedicated to respectability and security, given its most harrowing expression when Wyman, having given up her affair with Hudson in order to protect her children from gossip, is presented with a television set as a replacement companion. Hardly surprising that Fassbinder chose to remake the film as Fear Eats the Soul.“

Written on the Wind (1956): Dave Kehr: “One of the most remarkable and unaccountable films ever made in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk's 1957 masterpiece turns a lurid, melodramatic script into a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life. Sirk's highly imaginative use of color—to accent, undermine, and sometimes even nullify the drama—remains years ahead of contemporary technique. The degree of stylization is high and impeccable: one is made to understand the characters as icons as well as psychologically complex creations.“

His Girl Friday (1940): Geoff Andrew’s capsule: “Charles Lederer’s frantic script needs to be heard at least a dozen times for all the gags to be caught; Russell’s Hildy more than equals Burns in cunning and speed; and Hawks transcends the piece’s stage origins effortlessly, framing with brilliance, conducting numerous conversations simultaneously, and even allowing the film’s political and emotional thrust to remain upfront alongside the laughs. Quite simply a masterpiece.“

Bringing Up Baby (1938): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on the film: “Possessed by an overwhelming sense of comic energy, Howard Hawks’ screwball masterpiece heaps on misunderstandings, misadventures, perfectly timed jokes, and patter to the point that it’s easy to overlook how rich and fluid it is a piece of filmmaking, effortlessly transitioning from one thing into the next.”

Underworld (1927): Dave Kehr: “The first full-fledged gangster movie and still an effective mood piece, this 1927 milestone was directed by the master of delirious melodrama, Josef von Sternberg. George Bancroft is the hard-boiled hero, granted tragic status in his final sacrifice. Ben Hecht wrote the script, and many of the same ideas turn up, in a very different moral context, in his screenplay for Howard Hawks's 1932 masterpiece, Scarface.“

Q - The Winged Serpent (1982): In Larry Cohen’s cheapo classic, Quetzelcoatl terrorizes New York. Michael Moriarty plays a bumbling, unlucky small time crook (the robbery he participates in goes hilariously wrong; losing the keys to the getaway car is just the start) who accidentally discovers the monster’s nest and realizes he’s stumbled into the opportunity of a lifetime. He’s willing to help the authorities, including cops played by David Carradine and Richard Roundtree, but they’re gonna have to pay for it. Very goofy and very fun.

Stalag 17 (1953): Billy Wilder’s classic mixes POW drama with comedy as a group of prisoners in a German POW camp try to figure out who in their barracks is a rat while they plan their escape.

Hellzapoppin (1941): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky: “The opening reel may be the most manic stretch of go-for-broke gonzo comedy to come out of studio-era Hollywood, with the zoot-suited duo of Olsen and Johnson introduced tumbling out of a New York taxi into the bowels of hell (“That’s the first taxi driver that ever went straight where I told him to!”) in the midst of a musical number about how “Anything can happen / And it probably will.” Dozens of throwaway gags—including the first Citizen Kane reference in film history—and an argument with the projectionist (once and future Stooge Shemp Howard) follow, before the movie snaps into something vaguely resembling sanity. From there, Hellzapoppin’ finds Olsen and Johnson wandering in and out of a musical comedy that’s seems to be on the verge of falling apart and tussling with such comedy ringers as Martha Raye and Mischa Auer, the latter cast as a real Russian nobleman who’s trying to pass as a fake Russian nobleman. It’s like a Marx Brothers movie playing at triple speed; it eludes easy summary—it’s a real “you have to see it to believe it” kind of movie—and often stretches the limits of the Production Code. True to its absurdist sensibility, Hellzapoppin’ ended up getting nominated for an Oscar by mistake, for a song that doesn’t appear in the movie.”

Outrage (1950): Directed and cowritten by Ida Lupino, this was one of the first Hollywood movies after the implementation of the production code to deal with rape and one of the first to tackle its psychological aftermath (the censor office actually made them take the word “rape” out of the script so it’s never uttered in the film). Richard Broday on the film: “Outrage is a special artistic achievement. Lupino approaches the subject of rape with a wide view of the societal tributaries that it involves. She integrates an inward, deeply compassionate depiction of a woman who is the victim of rape with an incisive view of the many societal failures that contribute to the crime, including legal failure to face the prevalence of rape, and the over-all prudishness and sexual censoriousness that make the crime unspeakable in the literal sense and end up shaming the victim. Above all, she reveals a profound understanding of the widespread and unquestioned male aggression that women face in ordinary and ostensibly non-violent and consensual courtship.“

The Hitch-Hiker (1953): Another Ida Lupino joint, this one a lean and mean film noir. J. Hoberman on the film: “The “Hitch-Hiker” script, written (uncredited) by the socially conscious journalist Daniel Mainwaring, was inspired by an actual case: Two buddies (Frank Lovejoy and Edmond O’Brien) pick up a murderous psychopath (William Talman) who forces them to drive him to Mexico. It’s a brutal story handled by Ms. Lupino, one of Hollywood’s very few female directors, with the same steely determination and emotional sensitivity found in her strongest performances.”

And the miniseries:

The Singing Detective (1986): Here’s the entry from the BBC’s list of the top 100 British television programs, where it placed number 20: “For many Potter's masterpiece, this extended six-part filmed drama series mixes flashback and fantasy to create a psychological profile of a writer of detective fiction hospitalised by a crippling skin disease. Though not, the writer stressed, autobiographical, the drama features many elements from both Potter's own life (the disease, the childhood setting) and his body of work (particularly the use of popular music from the war years). As usual with Potter, it also caused controversy at the time for the frankness of its sex scenes, though its position as one of the most challenging and inventive of all TV dramas is secure.“

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ty-talks-comics · 4 years

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Best of Marvel: Week of January 8th, 2020

Best of this Week: Excalibur #5 - Tini Howard, Marcus To, Erick Arciniega and Cory Petit

There are monsters in the streets, Druids under the Earth and only Excalibur can stop them.

After the last issue, the Excalibur team are split up and handling separate issues either, under Britain, in Britain or at the groups Lighthouse base of operations. Everything is hectic after Shogo, Jubilee’s adopted son, accidentally weakened the barrier between Otherworld and England. Unfortunately, this allowed creatures from the ralm of magic to flood into the Earth, causing nothing but destruction in their wake. This issue was a ton of fun with all of the locales, action and dramatic character moments within.

Rictor, who hadn’t had much control over his powers as of late, ventures with Gambit to find a power source for Apocalypse that could be used to help awaken a comatose Rogue and open the Krakoa gate to Otherworld. The pair discover the power source, but then have to try to escape from a group of Druids underground. Unfortunately while the druids worship Rictor for his powers over the Earth, they cast Gambit into a chasm and the Earthy mutant has to save him.

Marcus To does an amazing job of capturing the absolute terror on Gambit’s face as he falls into the hole and couples that with comedy as Gambit hits many walls on his way down with Rictor making jokes. Soon enough, Rictor has to make use of the power source crystal to channel his powers, as they’re still on the fritz, to save his Thief friend. Arciniega struts his coloring skills as most of this section of the book has a green hue to it from Rictor’s cloak to the bubble of energy he creates to make structures.

At the same time, Captain Britain, Betsy Braddock, is in the streets of London and defends her people from multi-headed, fire breathing dragons with MI-13 Agent Pete Wisdom. What I found to be best about this bit of the book is how believable Betsy could be as a solo hero with a normal guy foil in Wisdom. They bounce off of each other well and Marcus To draws Captain Britain to look like an absolute hero, blocking the dragon fire with only her shield and whatever psionic ability Wisdom himself has. Wisdom’s flirtations and Betsy’s sense of duty adds depth to both and an intriguing dynamic for both.

In the middle of everything, however, we also get a glimpse into the dreaming mind of Rogue as she travels her dreamscape, on the cusp of waking from her magic coma. It’s a strange scene as it’s not quite what I expected from Rogue’s mind, but the imagery given implies that Apocalypse absolutely had some part in her incapacitation as part of some larger plan - this is especially true as a giant statue of him appears amongst the Easter Island-esque statues of Sentinels and blasts her with blue light.

Apocalypse had been working on getting all of Excalibur back to the Lighthouse where he and Jubilee had been defending as part of his plan, but those plans make an unexpected change as Gambit reveals that he knows that Apocalypse was up to no good of some sort. The two begin to argue as the monsters attack and this leads to a fight between the two as Rogue slowly awakens with the help of an adorable orange pup and an emerging sword and throne.

The bad blood between Gambit and Apocalypse goes back for years - back to Gambit’s days as one of Mister Sinister’s Marauders and his time as Apocalypse’s Horseman of Death. With Rogue being his wife and seeing her being used by Apocalypse as some sort of power conduit, it makes sense that Gambit would be understandably pissed off. To and Arciniega do a gret job of making the short fight seem spic through dynamic posing and epic lighting. Both of them cock their fists back, Gambit’s glowing with his kinetic energy and Apocalypse being the regal blue giant that he is, however Apocalypse ends the fight in an instant by planting Gambit into the ground with one punch to the head.

With his plans in shambles and Captain Britain being the only one to defend his actions, he chastises Rictor before being attacked by a reawakened Rogue who seems to have been roused by Apocalypse’s attack on Gambit. In a fury, she begins to drain Apocalypse of his power and he encourages her to do so. To and Arciniega work in tandem to show the intensity of the situation.

Rogue gives a pained expression as she takes on the energy from Apocalypse and the Mutant God kneels before her with a smile on his face, submitting to her as his plan comes to fruition anyway. All of this causes a surge of purple energy to wash over the panels. The colors are intense, especially in one of the best panels focused on half of Apocalypse’s smiling face as the Krakoa gate to Otherworld is transformed in a bright flash of purple and a faraway shot showing just how powerful Rogue’s absorption is.

She ends up killing Apocalypse in the ensuing moments and learns of his plans and we get one final page stinger that I don’t think anyone would have expected. I’ll give a hint: Anna Sabah Nur.

I have always been a fan of sword and sorcery stuff, so this series is a bit of fun love letter to that wihout being quite as oer the top or violent as Conan, but still with some of my favorite mutant characters. Marcus To and Erick Arciniega make for a dynamic duo of artist and colorist as they bring these pages to life with fantastical scenes of heroism and drama. Tini Howard also has a great feel for every character involved and makes this such an awesome series to get into because of it, even making me enjoy Betsy Braddock better as Captain Britain than as Psylocke.

This book is absolutely worth the time and money, high recommend!

#excalibur #captain britain #apocalypse #gambit #rogue #xmen #mutants #jubilee #tini howard #marcus to #erick arciniega #cory petit

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ila9182 · 5 years

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I wish you would write a fic where there's Sharon or Andy being a hostage or something like that and they still haven't confessed their feelings to each other. Super angsty like only you can do, but maybe with an happy ending? 💜

Thank you so much @allons-y–spaceman for this prompt ask! It has taken me a while to write it and I’m not fully satisfied with the final result, but here it is. It is very long, I am apparently not able to write short stories… I hope this doesn’t suck too much…

Also this isn’t proofread, so mistakes are all mine. Sorry.The story is set somewhere after “Hostage of Fortune” (4x08) and before “Four of a Kind” (4x11).

————————-

“Sharon, I was thinking…” Andy started as he stepped into her office.

Sharon looked up from her laptop. She folded her hands, her upper arms resting on her desk, as she waited for Andy to go on.

“We got Walters in Interview Two; I know the questioning didn’t go well and he hasn’t been very chatty, but I was thinking…” He crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs in front of Sharon, “He wasn’t fully sobered up when you and Provenza talked to him, I can swing by and bring him some ginger ale… I can try talking to him, you know, from alcoholic to alcoholic, maybe he might open up with me…” Andy offered with a shrug.

“I don’t know, Andy…” Sharon replied, hesitantly. Normally she would have thought it was a good idea, but the man had been pretty clear about the fact that he wasn’t willing to cooperate.

“Look, he hasn’t asked for a lawyer yet.” Andy pointed out. “As soon as he asks for one, I’m out of the room.” He promised her with a stern look. “But let me try, maybe he can lead us to Brittany…or her body.” He added, his expression darkening.

Sharon bit her lower lip, considering Andy’s words. The team had been working on the case for twenty hours. It was early morning when they had been called to the scene in Silverlake. A puddle of blood in the living room, bloodstains on the couch and the coffee table, but no body. A woman in her thirties, Brittany Monroe, the owner of the house, nowhere to be found. Her fiancé, Eric Walters, had been found on the scene, asleep in the bedroom, drunk and covered with blood. The man hadn’t been willing to talk and Sharon’s gut was telling her that he had something to do with the disappearance – and probably murder – of his fiancée.

“Okay.” Sharon finally let out and Andy smiled triumphantly at her. She raised a warning finger at him and told him, “But the second he asks for a lawyer, you’re out of the room.”

“Yes, Captain.” Andy nodded with a smile. He stood from the chair and quickly left Sharon’s office, closing the door behind him. He crossed the Murder Room and went to the break room where he took a can of ginger ale and a plastic glass. He then walked back to the Murder Room and pointed at the Interview Two’s door when he told Buzz, “I’m going to have a chat with Walters.”

Buzz nodded and Andy stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. Eric Walters was staring at his hands. He looked up when he heard the door open and then close. Andy walked to the table and put down the ginger ale and the glass before saying, “I thought you might be thirsty… and this can help.”

Andy sat down in front of the man and eyed him. Walters opened the can and poured the ginger ale into the glass. He brought the glass to his lips and gave Andy a nod, “Thank you.”

Walters put the empty glass down and stared at the Lieutenant in front of him. Andy rested his upper arms on the table and slightly leaned forward, as he spoke, “I know what it’s like. You just want a glass and then before you knew it, you’ve emptied the bottle.”

“You do?” The man asked Andy with an arched eyebrow.

“I’ve been there.” Andy replied as he clasped his hands together, “I’ve been sober for 18 years… AA meetings have done wonders, if you’re interested…” he offered.

Walters shrugged and looked down at his hands in his lap. Andy cleared his throat and leaned forward a little more as he went on, “Listen, man, I’ve been wasted God knows how many times. I’ve been so wasted I couldn’t remember what had happened before I passed out.” Andy paused and made sure he had the other man’s attention, “So, if something happened with Brittany while you were under the influence of alcohol, you realize that you can’t be fully held responsible for whatever happened, right?”

“I can’t?” Walters asked, frowning.

“You can’t.” Andy confirmed. “So if you want to tell me what happened, I’m sure we can find a way to… fix things?” He offered with a shrug.

Andy noticed the man’s eyes pooling with tears and his lips trembling. Before Andy even realized it, Walters broke down. The man put an arm on the table and propped his head on it. Walters’s body began shaking uncontrollably as he tried to hold back his sobs. Andy sighed and stood from his chair, slowly walking around the table. He stood next to Walters and put a hand on the man’s shoulder, as he leaned in to whisper, “Hey man, it’s okay.”

Before Andy realized it, the remaining ginger ale in the can was splashed in his face. He let out a yell and covered his burning eyes with his arm. He was about to reach for his gun when he felt something hitting him on the side of his head. Everything went dark.

——————

Sharon looked up from the report she was reading when she heard all the commotion in the Murder Room. She spotted Provenza yelling some indistinct orders and pulling out his gun. Her breath got caught in her throat as she jumped to her feet and rushed out of her office.

“Lieutenant, what’s going on?” Sharon barked.

“Walters, that son of a bitch… he has knocked Flynn out, taken his gun and now he is pointing out the gun at Flynn.” Provenza informed her. He then turned to Buzz and asked firmly, “Buzz, are you ready with the camera?”

“The stream is now on my computer.” Tao confirmed as he turned his computer screen toward Sharon and Provenza.

Sharon neared the screen and she whitened when she saw Andy on the floor and Walters pointing the gun at him. The man was nervous and restless. Sharon knew that this kind of situation – where a nervous person held someone at gunpoint or hostage – was the most complicated and unpredictable one. A trembling hand or a reflex could change the situation dramatically. It could take barely a split second for a gunfire to happen.

“How much time until we have the audio as well?” Sharon enquired, forcing her voice to sound firm.

“Less than a minute, Captain.” Tao reassured her as he typed on his keyboard.

“Amy, call the SWAT. Lieutenant, Julio, I want you two to aim at the door and be prepared.” Sharon ordered.

Provenza and Julio immediately got in position, the Lieutenant leaning against a desk while Julio hid himself behind the cubicle wall. Sharon turned back to the screen when she heard Tao tell her that the video had now the audio as well. She saw Andy trying to move on the floor and she let out a relieved sigh.

At least he was alive, Sharon thought as her throat tightened. She took a deep breath and a shiver ran through her spine when she heard Walters scream, “You just try to move and I will blow your head up! I swear, I will!”

“I need to speak to Walters.” Sharon announced, as she pulled out her gun.

“Captain…” Provenza started.

“Lieutenant, just keep your position.” Sharon ordered firmly. “I know what I am doing.” She added as she walked into the Electronics Room.

The screens were on and she could see Walters pointing a trembling gun at Andy. Sharon rested her hands on the desk and whispered, her voice shaking, “Andy, please, hang in there.”

The tears were starting to pool in her eyes, but she blinked them away. She needed to keep her emotions at bay, she needed to be focused to get Andy out of this mess. Alive. Another shiver ran down her spine as she looked down at her hands. Sharon took deep breaths. When she looked up, determination was on her face as she spoke in the microphone, “Mister Walters…”

Sharon saw the man looking around, trying to understand where her voice came from, and she went on, “This is Captain Sharon Raydor speaking.”

“What do you want from me?!” Walters yelled back.

“You got one of my Lieutenants with you. I want you to put down your gun and let Lieutenant Flynn go.” Sharon firmly replied.

“You mean that asshole?!” Walters shot back, as he kicked Andy in the stomach. “You sent him thinking he will got me to talk, right? That fucking drunk!” He exclaimed, as he kicked Andy once again.

Sharon cringed and briefly closed her eyes to regain her composure, “We don’t need this situation to get more complicated, Mister Walters.” She stated coldly. “If you surrender now, I can promise you this won’t be mentioned in your file.”

“Like I care! I’m screwed anyway!” Walters exclaimed.

“No, Eric, listen to me…” Sharon started.

“You better stop talking or I swear I will shoot your Lieutenant, Captain.” The man threatened her.

Sharon had to comply. She took a few steps back from the microphone and let out a frustrated sigh, as she heard Andy scream, “Sharon, just let them break into the room and shoot that bastard! Don’t worry about me.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Walters ordered and he hit Andy in the face with the butt of his gun.

Sharon froze as she saw Andy’s head hitting the floor again, blood flowing from his brow bone. Sharon gasped and covered her mouth with a hand. This couldn’t be happening. She knew she shouldn’t have sent Andy in there. It was her fault, she was the one in charge and she had agreed with Andy’s plan. She should have known better. Now Andy was threatened by an unstable suspect and she didn’t know how to get him out of there.

“Captain Raydor.” A voice interrupted her train of thought.

Sharon turned around to find Fritz Howard on the threshold of the room. She had no clue for how long he had been standing there. Right now she couldn’t care less. Sharon nodded and said, “Agent Howard.”

“Lieutenant Tao quickly briefed me. How bad is it?” Fritz asked with a stern look.

“Take a look by yourself.” Sharon added with a sigh, as she pointed at the monitors.

Fritz joined her and stood by her side, as he looked at the screen. Walters had forced Andy to sit on one of the chairs. Still aiming his gun at the Lieutenant, the man told him with a grin, “So, Sharon, uhm? No Captain Raydor for you?”

Andy kept quiet, as he threw a deadly stare at the man in front of him. Sharon could tell he was about to implode by the way he nervously clenched his fists. She just hoped for his own sake that he would stay calm.

“You’re screwing her, aren’t you?” Walters went on with an amused smile. “Well, can’t blame you, she got some nice legs and a great ass…”

“Shut the fuck up!” Andy barked.

“Wrong answer.” Walters shot back as he placed the muzzle of the gun against Andy’s forehead. “If you keep this up, your brain will be the next thing splashed on the wall.”

Sharon closed her eyes as she tried to control her fear. She couldn’t bear the fact that she had to helplessly watch Andy getting beaten up. Sharon knew she was too emotionally involved and she realized for the first time the difficulty of juggling her professional with her private life. It was Andy’s life on the line. Andy.The man she had been dating for a couple of months now, the man with whom she had started building a serious relationship, the man who had put her first and made her feel loved. Love,a word she had been afraid of since the failure of her marriage. Yet, here she was, feelings burgeoning inside her and she wasn’t able to silence them anymore. She liked him, she loved him. Sharon turned her attention back to the screen, and blinked back the tears. She truly hoped it wasn’t too late for her to tell him how much she cared about him.

Sharon felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned to find Fritz looking at her with a serious look, “We will get Flynn out of there unharmed.” He reassured her.

Sharon nodded and rubbed her forehead with a hand, as she tried to regain her composure. She couldn’t allow herself to lose it. Fritz went on, his tone softening, “I know how you feel.” He looked at her sympathetically before adding, “You never get used to this kind of situation…”

Sharon nodded and ran a hand through her hair. When she looked at Fritz again, she was back being at one hundred percent the Captain her team needed. “So, what’s the plan, agent Howard?”

—————————-

Sharon paced in the Murder Room while Agent Howard explained the plan to the team. Provenza glanced from time to time to the Captain, hoping she would say something. She didn’t. When Fritz finished his explanation, Provenza turned to Sharon and asked, “What do you think of this, Captain?”

“I think…” Sharon started, emphasizing slowly every word, “that we don’t have any other choice. I know it’s risky, I’m aware of it, but if Walters refuses once again to negotiate, we’ll have to do so.”

“Captain, Flynn could get killed if we break into the room like this.” Provenza shot back, letting her know he definitely didn’t think it was a good idea.

Sharon briefly closed her eyes and sighed. She forced her voice to sound firm when she replied, “Lieutenant, I don’t like this plan either… that’s why I will try once again to speak with Walters.” She paused, locking her eyes with Provenza. “But if Walters won’t comply to my requests, we won’t have any other choice…”

Provenza nodded. Sharon looked at the rest of the team and asked, “Are we clear?”

What happened next was mostly a blur for Sharon. Everything happened in a rush. Sharon went back to the Electronics Room with Fritz and they tried to reason Walters. Unsuccessfully. The man wasn’t willing to listen to them. To make it clear to Sharon and Fritz he placed once again the muzzle of his gun against Andy’s forehead. Sharon reluctantly gave up on her negotiation. When she met Fritz’s gaze, she knew he was silently telling her that they should go on with his plan. Sharon closed her eyes and sighed. Her hands were shaking and she shoved them in the pockets of her blazer to hide her tremor. She then turned to Fritz and said firmly, “Fine.”

They left the room and joined the team in the Murder Room. Fritz announced, “Everybody in position.”

The team immediately complied; Provenza and Julio regained their previous position. Amy and Tao joined them, aiming their guns at the Interview Two’s door. Two SWAT officers were crouching in the hallway. Sharon sat at Tao’s desk, her eyes glued to the screen. Andy was still sitting on the chair, his head down. His lack of responsiveness worried Sharon and she couldn’t help but feel a lump forming in her throat. Their rescueoperation was a risky one; it was a 50/50 chance and she was aware of it. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t think of what she would do if things went wrong. She didn’t want to think about it.

Sharon met Fritz’s stare and nodded. Fritz then turned to the team and the SWAT. He silently did the countdown with a hand and when he gave the final nod, one of the SWAT officers broke the glass wall while the other threw a stun grenade inside. Julio kicked down the door when they all heard a gunshot.

Sharon froze, her breath hitched in her throat. She had her eyes locked on the screen; she had been checking how things were going inside the room during the operation. The glass wall shattering, Walters jumping startled and cursing, the stun grenade rolling on the floor… and then suddenly, something happened. Walters had aimed his gun to the door and Andy had taken the advantage to jump on him. The grenade had gone off and smoke had filled the room. Sharon could barely make out two silhouettes struggling when the gunshot had rung.

Her eyes filled with tears as she sat at Tao’s desk. Sharon couldn’t look away from the screen. As the smoke started dissipating, she recognized Julio and Provenza, the first moving Walters away while the Lieutenant checked on Andy. For a second that seemed to last a lifetime, Sharon was glued to the screen, praying Andy was fine. When she saw Andy on his feet, she let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She looked up, blinking back the tears, silently thanking God.

Sharon stood from her chair and slowly neared Interview Two. She had wanted to rush inside herself, but she knew she couldn’t put on quite a show. She was in charge and couldn’t let her emotions get the better of her. Sharon had been the first to ensure Taylor that her relationship with Andy wouldn’t have influenced work dynamics. She couldn’t now possibly storm into the room, hug and kiss Andy, and tell him how much she loved him.

Sharon held back, shoving her fidgeting hands inside the pockets of her blazer. As soon as Andy walked out of the room, supported by Provenza, he met Sharon’s relieved, but still worried gaze. Andy forced a smile to reassure her. Sharon couldn’t help but smile back. No words were said initially, but their eyes spoke a thousand words. I’m fine. I’m glad to see you. I wish I could kiss you. I won’t ever let you go. I love you.

Sharon felt even more reassured when she finally heard Andy’s voice, “I’m okay, Sharon, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, well this idiot needs to be checked out.” Provenza grumbled. “Always wanting to be the hero, dumbass.” He added, shaking his head. Andy opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t. He merely frowned at his partner’s comment.

Sharon nodded. Her eyes fell on Andy’s split and swollen lip and on the cut on his temple. Andy could have a concussion. “Please, Lieutenant, walk Andy to my office.” Sharon replied, pointing at her office. “The paramedics will be here soon.”

Provenza nodded and complied. While Andy was walking away, he turned to glance at her one last time. Sharon offered him a sweet smile. She let out a breath and ran a hand through her hair. Fritz joined her and told her, “Walters has been shot in the shoulder. Nothing serious. He’s going to the hospital and then, he’ll be back in custody.”

“Thank you for your help, Agent Howard.” Sharon said with a smile.

“Anytime.” Fritz replied. He glanced at Sharon’s office before adding, “I know you’d rather check on Flynn, but Taylor wants to see us in his office.”

“Of course, he does.” Sharon merely replied, holding back an eye roll, as she walked with Fritz to Chief Taylor’s office.

————–

Sharon walked back from Taylor’s office. The Chief had been going on and on about the need of an internal investigation, but Sharon couldn’t care less at the moment. She just wanted to see Andy and make sure he was really fine.

Sharon entered the Murder Room. She found her team waiting for her and she leaned against one of the desks, as she announced, “I think we can call it a day. Go home and rest, today has been an eventful day.” She paused and glanced at each member of her team, offering a smile before adding, “Great work, everyone. Thank you.”

The team started packing their things when Sharon cleared her throat and said, “There might be a FID investigation in the following days…”

“Come on, seriously!” Provenza groaned.

Julio started grumbling as well while Tao rolled his eyes. Sharon gestured for everyone to calm down with a hand, as she went on with a firm tone, “I expect each one of you to give full cooperation to FID.”

The team reluctantly nodded and everyone started leaving under Sharon’s attentive look. She offered a smile to each one of them. Provenza put his jacket on and joined Sharon, “Flynn is still in your office.” He informed Sharon. “Paramedics said he’s okay, they insisted for him to go to the hospital, but you know how stubborn that idiot is.” Provenza complained. “So, he needs constant monitoring to exclude a concussion.”

“I can do that.” Sharon replied, her eyes never leaving the closed blinds of her office.

“I bet you can.” Provenza grumbled, rolling his eyes. He patted Sharon’s shoulder and added, “Grab that dumbass of my partner and go home. You need to rest too.”

Sharon nodded and thanked Provenza. She watched the Lieutenant leave and turned to reach her office. She opened the door and found Andy sitting on the green armchair, his head leaning against the wall, his eyes closed.

“Andy…” Sharon whispered, her firmness being replaced by uncertainty.

Andy stood from the armchair and raised his hands defensively, as he told her, “Sharon, before you yell at me that I should go to the hospital for a quick check, I…”

Sharon quickly joined him. She stood in silence in front of him, studying every inch of his face. She gently reached for his cheek, stroking it before her hand moved to his lips. Sharon traced the outline with a finger, stopping before her finger met the cut on his upper lip. She noticed the lightly swollen spot. Andy briefly closed his eyes and shivered slightly under her touch. Sharon then ran her hand through his hair. Her eyes fell on the cut on his temple. Her fingers brushed the steristrips used to close the wound, and Sharon studied the reddened and swollen spot.

“I’m fine, Sharon…” Andy softly told her as he gently took her hand in his. He dropped a light kiss on it before letting it go.

Sharon didn’t seem convinced. She stared at him silently and slowly brushed her hands down his sides. She remembered Walters kicking him and Andy seemed to have read her mind because he reassured her, “No broken ribs, I’m just sore. I’ll probably have bruises tomorrow…”

Sharon rested her hands on his chest. She didn’t meet his eyes and stared at her hands instead. “I’m sorry…” She whispered.

Andy frowned and slid his arms around her waist. “Come here…” He softly told her as he pulled her against him. Sharon resisted at first, as she was worried she might hurt him. Andy insisted and she surrendered. Sharon delicately buried herself against his chest and Andy tightened his embrace. “What for?” He finally asked.

“I should have never let you go in there…” Sharon muttered against him. “You could have died.”

“Hey, hey stop, Sharon.” Andy firmly, but gently told her. He slightly pulled her back from his chest, so he could look at her in the eyes. “This isn’t your fault, you hear me? I’m the one to blame because I was dumb enough to let myself be fooled by that asshole.”

Sharon shook vehemently her head while tears glistened in her eyes. Andy cupped her face with both hands, as he soothingly whispered, “Hey Sharon…”

“I could have lost you…” Sharon let out with a shaky voice.

Andy wiped away the tears that had started rolling down her cheeks. “I’m here, Sharon.” He replied before he drew her against him again. Sharon clutched the back of his shirt with both hands. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving a wet spot on Andy’s shirt. Andy soothingly rubbed her back. “I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again…” He confessed, his voice above a whisper.

They stood in each other’s arms for a while until Sharon pulled back. She smiled through her tears and looked at him in the eyes. Sharon felt a lump building in her throat in anticipation of the words she was about to say. She wasn’t going to let her fear silence her as she did the other times. Not when she had come so close of losing him today. Not when she had stood in front of a screen with the fear of never having the chance of confessing her feelings to him.

Sharon opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Andy tilted his head and looked at her with curiosity. He put a strand of hair back behind her ear and smiled softly at her. “I-I… uhm…” Sharon stuttered.

“What is it, babe?” Andy urged her, his hand stroking her cheek.

Sharon briefly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she reopened them, she found Andy gazing at her lovingly. “I love you.” Sharon blurted out.

There, she said it. Sharon watched with fear as Andy’s loving gaze changed into a surprised one. What if he didn’t feel that way?Sharon wondered, What if she had scared him with her confession? What if she had ruined everything?

Sharon’s mind was running wild. Her fear grew with each second Andy stayed silent. Sharon looked down and tried to break his embrace. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said this, I…” She muttered.

Andy tightened his grip on her, preventing her from stepping back. Sharon frowned and slowly looked up to meet his eyes. Andy put his thumb under her chin to assure she kept looking at her when he told her, “I love you too, Sharon… While I was in there, I was terrified I would never get the chance to tell you so. I wasn’t worried about me, I was worried about you.” He paused and added with a soft tone, “About you never knowing how important you are to me…”

A choked sob escaped Sharon’s mouth. Andy cupped her face with both hands and leaned in. Their lips were nearly brushing when Sharon whispered, “What are you doing?”

“Uhm, kissing you?” Andy offered with a foolish grin.

“Andy, your lip…” Sharon reminded him with a stern face.

“I don’t care. Today was a shitty day and I just want to kiss the woman I love.” Andy replied, in a half joking, half serious tone. “You could never hurt me, Sharon. You are good for me.” He truthfully added.

Sharon closed the gap between them and kissed him gently. Her lips were like feathers against his own, as she was careful not to hurt him. Andy deepened the kiss, making it more passionate. Sharon slightly pulled back, but still brushed her lips against his. “Easy, Andy…” She muttered out of breath. She started leaving a trail of kisses in the corner of his mouth. Andy smiled against her lips; Sharon had the softest touch. She had a healing touch.

Sharon pulled back and offered him a bright smile. Andy kept his arms around her waist when she told him, “Let’s go home… and by home, I mean the condo. I’ve been told that you need constant monitoring, Lieutenant.” She added with a smirk.

#Major Crimes #Sharon Raydor #Andy Flynn #Sharon x Andy #shandy #prompt ask #fanfiction #hostage situation #confessing feelings #ilariawrites

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bookmonsterzero · 5 years

Text

December 2018 in Pictures

Cleopatra (1963/Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

The Night of the Generals (1967/Anatole Litvak)

Madam Satan (1930/Cecil B. DeMille)

The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (1966/André Delvaux)

® Ball of Fire (1941/Howard Hawks)

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938/Anatole Litvak)

Artists and Models (1955/Frank Tashlin)

The Paleface (1948/Norman Z. McLeod)

The Exiles (1961/Kent MacKenzie)

Hi, Nellie! (1934/Mervyn LeRoy)

® M (1931/Fritz Lang)

Lost Horizon (1937/Frank Capra)

Deception (1946/Irving Rapper)

Utu (1984/Geoff Murphy)

The Working Man (1933/John G. Adolfi)

Monsieur Beaucaire (1946/George Marshall)

Child Bride (1938/Harry Revier)

Goodbye Solo (2008/Ramin Bahrani)

Call Me by Your Name (2017/Luca Guadagnino)

Cold War (2018/Paweł Pawlikowski)

Blackmail (1929/Alfred Hitchcock)

The Four Times (2010/Michelangelo Frammartino)

Scream (1996/Wes Craven)

Babes in Arms (1939/Busby Berkeley)

Hôtel Terminus (1988/Marcel Ophüls)

The Spider's Stratagem (1970/ Bernardo Bertolucci)

Dog Star Man (1964/Stan Brakhage)

Too Early/Too Late (1982/Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet)

Méditerranée (1963/Jean-Daniel Pollet, Volker Schlöndorff)

A Throw of Dice (1929/Franz Osten)

Judge Priest (1934/John Ford)

The Big Sky (1952/Howard Hawks)

Ceddo (1977/Ousmane Sembene)

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967/Jean-Luc Godard)

Possibly in Michigan (1983/Cecelia Condit)

I Shot Jesse James (1949/Samuel Fuller)

Come Drink with Me (1966/King Hu)

Oklahoma! (1955/Fred Zinnemann)

Two Rode Together (1961/John Ford)

® Cape Fear (1962/J. Lee Thompson)

Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940/William Dieterle)

The Five Venoms (1978/Chang Cheh)

Jeeves and Wooster: Season 1 (1990)

Attack the Gas Station! (1999/Kim Sang-jin)

Drums Along the Mohawk (1939/John Ford)

Caged (1950/John Cromwell)

Passport to Pimlico (1949/Henry Cornelius)

The Yearling (1946/Clarence Brown)

Juarez (1939/William Dieterle)

The Black Room (1982/Elly Kenner, Norman Thaddeus Vane)

A Very Long Engagement (2004/Jean-Pierre Jeunet)

Boomerang! (1947/ Elia Kazan)

Project A (1983/Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung)

Project A II (1987/Jackie Chan)

Broken Lance (1954/Edward Dmytryk)

Beyond the Forest (1949/King Vidor)

Strait-Jacket (1964/William Castle)

Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928/Herbert Brenon)

He Who Gets Slapped (1924/ictor Sjöström)

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968/Freddie Francis)

It Always Rains on Sunday (1947/Robert Hamer)

Garden of Evil (1954/Henry Hathaway)

Show Them No Mercy! (1935/George Marshall)

The Comancheros (1961/Michael Curtiz)

Scrooged (1988/Richard Donner)

I Died a Thousand Times (1955/Stuart Heisler)

The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936/Jean Renoir)

Born Yesterday (1950/George Cukor)

Middlemarch (1994)

An Actor’s Revenge (1963/Kon Ichikawa)

® Nosferatu (1922/F.W. Murnau)

Drácula (1931/George Melford)

® Dracula (1931/Tod Browning)

Dracula’s Daughter (1936/Lambert Hillyer)

Son of Dracula (1943/Robert Siodmak)

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970/Dario Argento)

Oktyabr (1928/Sergei M. Eisenstein)

® The Mummy (1932/Karl Freund)

The Mummy’s Hand (1940/Christy Cabanne)

The Mummy’s Tomb (1942/Harold Young)

The Mummy’s Ghost (1944/Reginald Le Borg)

The Mummy’s Curse (1944/Leslie Goodwins)

® The Wolf Man (1941/George Waggner)

® Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943/Roy William Neill)

® Frankenstein (1931/James Whale)

® The Bride of Frankenstein (1935/James Whale)

® Son of Frankenstein (1939/Rowland V. Lee)

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942/Erle C. Kenton)

House of Frankenstein (1944/Erle C. Kenton)

Special Agent (1935/William Keighley)

Tuesday, After Christmas (2010/Radu Muntean)

Starting Out in the Evening (2007/Andrew Wagner)

Frozen River (2008/Courtney Hunt)

Everlasting Moments (2008/Jan Troell)

® To Be or Not to Be (1942/Ernst Lubitsch)

Lady Macbeth (2016/William Oldroyd)

® Chungking Express (1994/Wong Kar-wai)

Best experiences in bold, other recommended ones are linked. ® revisited.

#seen 2018

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tachyonpub · 5 years

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Get Bruce Sterling’s provocative, entertaining PIRATE UTOPIA for only $1.99!

Bruce Sterling’s sly, smart, and subversive PIRATE UTOPIA is a Kindle Daily Deal for Monday, February 11.

For today only, the ebook is available for just $1.99!

A Kirkus 9 Great Books to Round Out 2016

An io9 16 Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy Books for November

A Speculition Best of 2016

A Village Voice Must-Read

2016 Locus Recommended Reading List

Who are these bold rebels pillaging their European neighbors in the name of revolution? The Futurists! Utopian pirate-warriors of the tiny Regency of Carnaro, the unlikely scourge of the Adriatic Sea. Mortal enemies of communists, capitalists, and even fascists (to whom they are not entirely unsympathetic).

“Fritz Lang directing Buckaroo Banzai.” —Locus

The ambitious Soldier-Citizens of Carnaro are lead by a brilliant and passionate coterie of the perhaps insane. Lorenzo Secondari, World War I veteran, engineering genius, and leader of Croatian raiders. Frau Piffer, Syndicalist manufacturer of torpedos at a factory run by and for women. The Ace of Hearts, a dashing Milanese aristocrat, spymaster, and tactical savant. And the Prophet, a seductive warrior-poet who leads via free love and military ruthlessness.

Fresh off of a worldwide demonstration of their might, can the Futurists engage the aid of sinister American traitors and establish world domination?

Original introduction by Warren Ellis

Cover, illustrations, design, and design notes by John Coulthart

Afterword by Christopher Brown

Interview with Bruce Sterling by Rick Klaw

[STARRED REVIEW] “Cyberpunk progenitor Sterling’s alternate history novella is bizarre, chock-full of famous people in improbable situations, and wildly entertaining, even when the world-building seems to go a little off the rails. Lorenzo Secondari, a veteran of the recently ended Great War and forever changed by it, is the head engineer of the titular utopia, the Italian free state of Fiume. He and his compatriots build flying boats and fight communism while dealing with American secret agents, including Harry Houdini and Howard Lovecraft (who’s now working as Houdini’s publicity agent after going into advertising). Hitler died saving another man’s life in a bar fight, Wilson was poisoned, and Mussolini’s been disabled by a pair of bullets aimed “where a man least likes to be shot,” so the Europe in which Secondari is attempting to create his radio-controlled airborne torpedoes and other gizmos is already massively different from ours. An introduction by Warren Ellis and an interview with Sterling sandwich the novel, both bearing an air of false gravitas, but the actual story is wacky and fun what-if-ing at its finest.” —Publishers Weekly

[STARRED REVIEW] “Noted sci-fi maven and futurologist Sterling (Love Is Strange, 2012, etc.) takes a side turn in the slipstream in this offbeat, sometimes-puzzling work of dieselpunk-y alternative history. Resident in Turin, hometown of Calvino, for a dozen years, Sterling has long been experimenting with what the Italians call fantascienza, a mashup of history and speculation that’s not quite science fiction but is kin to it. Take, for example, the fact that Harry Houdini once worked for the Secret Service, add to it the fact that H.P. Lovecraft once worked for Houdini, and ecco: why not posit Lovecraft as a particularly American kind of spook, “not that old-fashioned, cloak-and-dagger, European style of spy,” who trundles out to Fiume to see what’s what in the birthplace of Italian futurism-turned-fascism? Lovecraft is just one of the historical figures who flits across Sterling’s pages, which bear suitably futuristic artwork, quite wonderful, by British illustrator John Coulthart. Among the others are Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler, to say nothing of Gabriele D’Annunzio and Benito Mussolini. “Seen from upstream, most previous times seem mad,” notes graphic novelist Warren Ellis in a brief introduction, but the Futurist project seems particularly nutty from this distance; personified by Lorenzo Secondari, a veteran of World War I who leads the outlaw coalition called the Strike of the Hand Committee in the “pirate utopia” of the soi disant Republic of Carnaro, its first task is to build some torpedoes and then turn them into “radio-controlled, airborne Futurist torpedoes,” not the easiest thing considering the technological limitations of the time. A leader of the “Desperates,” who “came from anywhere where life was hard, but honor was still bright,” Secondari and The Prophet—D’Annunzio, that is—recognize no such limitations and discard anything that doesn’t push toward the future. So why not a flying pontoon boat with which to sail off to Chicago, and why not a partnership with Houdini to combat world communism? A kind of Ragtime for our time: provocative, exotic, and very entertaining.” —Kirkus

“A fantastic, comical, alternate historical dieselpunk affair … filled with astonishing characters, fine dialogue, and an abundance of ideas and is packaged with John Coulthart’s cool Futurist-Constructivist-inspired graphics, an introduction by graphic novelist Warren Ellis, and an interview with the author.” —Booklist

“Quite brilliant.” —Michael Swanwick, author of The Dragons of Babel

“Between 1920 and 1924, the Free State of Fiume was a real-world “pirate utopia,” an ungoverned place of blazing futurism, military triumphalism, transgression, sex, art, dada, and high weirdness. In Bruce Sterling’s equally blazing dieselpunk novella Pirate Utopia, the author turns the same wry and gimlet eye that found the keen edges for steampunk’s seminal The Difference Engine to the strange business of futurism.” —Cory Doctorow, Boingboing

“Pirate Utopia is a rollicking, full-bodied, intelligent satire of a country that might have been a world player, had not events conspired against it in real life.” —Strange Alliances

“An alternate history clusterfuck of brilliant, whacky world-building and hilarious, bizarre characters.” —LitReactor

“A wild satire about serious issues. Sterling’s wonder-romp is perfectly matched by Coulthart’s superb designs. The best of their brilliant generation, Sterling and his collaborator have produced a book to treasure. Bravo!” —Michael Moorcock, author of the Elric of Melniboné series and The Whispering Swarm

“Spiky, provocative, drenched in his trademark wit, Sterling delivers us a brilliant and surprising jolt of vividly rendered counter-factualism.” —Alastair Reynolds, author of Revenger and the Revelation Space series

“Imagine if Hunter S. Thompson traveled in time to the Great War in order to write The Futurist Manifesto and you’d come a little closer to envisioning the surreal, madcap—and yet almost entirely factual! —adventure that is Bruce Sterling’s Pirate Utopia. It is sly, smart, and subversive—and also very, very funny.” —Lavie Tidhar, author of Central Station and A Man Lies Dreaming

“Satirically glamorous, Bruce Sterling’s Pirate Utopia captures a comically refined view of the proceedings as only Bruce Sterling can…delightful…engaging…a visual treat.” —Speculiction

“Pirate Utopia may seem to be about an ancient and almost forgotten struggle between Italy and Yugoslavia, but its themes are as relevant as this year’s presidential politics.” —Locus

For more info on PIRATE UTOPIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and illustration by John Coulthart

#bruce sterling #pirate utopia #kdd #kindle daily deal #john coulthart #dieselpunk #alternative history

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mysticalgalaxysalad · 6 years

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Lee and Kidd

Lee: Favourite book?Well, it’s hard for me to tag just one book, because I love reading since my childhood. I’ve read really a lot of books through years; I like The Lost Symbol, Origin, Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Inferno by Dan Brown, The Fifth Gospel by Ian Caldwell, Agatha Christie’s, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, Erle Stanley Gardner’s books, stories written by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Karl May (especially Winnetou stories), The Last of the Mohicans and The Pathfinder by James Fenimore Cooper, Angelology and Angelopolis by Danielle Trussoni, Harry Potter series, Tecumseh - Strahlender Stern by Fritz Steuben, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, The Paradise Lost by John Milton, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccacio, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and also stories about famous agent 007, James Bond, written by Ian Fleming. And many, many others I can’t remember the name of. I really love reading by whole my heart, soul and mind and I’ll never ever give up on it.

Kidd: Do you ‘dog ear’ pages?Heavens, no! Never. I appreciate and love books too much to do such thing. I have a lot of nice bookmarks, so I don’t need to 'dog ear’ pages.

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this-darkness-light · 7 years

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Critical Incident Chapter 1

Read it on Ao3!

Pairing: Fritz Howard/Gavin Q. Baker III Rating: Explicit Fandom: The Closer/Major Crimes Word Count: 10,920 Summary: Gavin is taken hostage by two criminals on the run from the FBI, and it’s up to Fritz to save him.

Tags: AU - canon compliant, Major Crimes era, Fritz is still in the FBI though, because I prefer that, kidnapping, hostage situation, bondage, I’m a sick fuck and I cannot lie, BAMF Fritz, some angst

Warnings: non-consensual touching, but the bastard gets his comeuppance, no rape in this fic!

Tagging: @brieflymaximumprincess -.-.-.-.-Chapter One: The Plot-.-.-.-.- Gavin has waved the last client of the day out of his office and is finishing up the attorney/client contract over a cup of fabulously delicious and much needed espresso when his cell phone rings. Saving his progress, he tugs it out of the jacket of his gray Armani suit and takes a sip of his drink as he checks the caller I.D. Warmth blossoms in his chest when he sees Fritz’s name and picture on the screen.

Smiling to himself, he swipes his thumb to answer and leans back in his leather rolling chair, staring out the far window at the blazing summer afternoon sky.

“Hey babe. What’s up?”

“Have you seen the news?” Fritz says without preamble, sounding like a harbinger of doom.

Gavin frowns and tugs the phone away from his ear long enough to throw it some major side-eye. Rude. “Well hello to you too,” he says, swiveling around idly in his chair. Sunlight glinting off the glass coffee table in front of the brown leather new-client sofa stabs his eyes. Wincing, he turns to face the window to his left and stares down at the cars crawling like ants along the already congested streets.

“Just…if you’re near a TV, turn on the news.”

A dozen questions jumble together on the tip of Gavin’s tongue, but the tone of Fritz’s voice tells him not to ask, just do it. Rolling his eyes and grabbing the tiny porcelain cup, because this is not a conversation he can have without caffeine, Gavin sighs himself to his feet and wanders down the tastefully decorated hall to the breakroom.

But he really can’t help himself. He just has to know. “And why am I going somewhere where I might actually have to interact with my colleagues?” he asks, deliberately slurping the espresso loud enough that Fritz can hear that he’s interrupting Gavin’s post-client wind-down ritual with his gruff, vague orders that put him in danger of having to socialize.

“Are you near a TV yet?”

Gavin clutches the phone harder than strictly necessary and shakes his head as the beginnings of a headache start squeezing his temples. Sometimes dating an FBI agent has its drawbacks. Sure, the sex is great. Fabulous, actually. But moments like these, where Gavin is abruptly slapped in the face with the reminder that he’s a mere civilian while Fritz is a government agent make him —

He loses his train of thought as he steps into the breakroom and finds several lawyers and paralegals clustered around the wide-screen television. Quirking his brows and canting his head to the side, Gavin absently rinses his empty cup and joins the small crowd. Lucky for him he’s taller than everyone else and can see the screen just fine. A female news anchor in a stylish navy blue business suit addresses the camera as pictures of two men fade into view above her left shoulder: a bald, clean-shaven Hispanic man with cold dead eyes like a shark, and a thickset white man whose face is smothered by a tangled, reddish-brown beard. At the bottom of the screen, a ribbon of text reads ‘Breaking: Two Suspects Escape Custody, Three FBI Agents In Critical Condition.’

“ — were arrested under suspicion of engaging in organized crime, including murder for hire, extortion, kidnapping, and drug trafficking,” the newscaster is saying. The screen flicks to an aerial scene outside the FBI field office. Chaos reigns on the ground as people dart to and fro while others huddle in small groups. Black-and-white LAPD squad cars and black government-issue SUVs whisk into the parking lot or back out onto the street, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

The news anchor begins describing “frenzied” efforts to capture the criminals, but Gavin doesn’t need to see or hear anymore to know why Fritz is so on edge. Backing quietly away from the lawyers glued to the screen before anyone can see him and start a conversation, he leaves the breakroom and heads back to his office.

“So,” he says as he sinks back into his chair, “I suppose this means you’ll be working late tonight.” Though why Fritz couldn’t just say that to begin with is beyond Gavin. Chewing his cheek so doesn’t actually say that and make Fritz’s day even worse with his snark, he slips off his glasses and and fumbles around in the side desk drawer for some pain killers.

“Pretty much,” Fritz says as Gavin grabs one of the water bottles displaying the firm’s name on the label (so vulgar) and twists off the cap. “Could you — hold on a second.” Something rustles and scratches across the connection and muffled voices rumble in the background, brisk and clipped and, on Fritz’s part, apologetic. As Gavin pops the pills and gulps them down with a grimace, he realizes that Fritz is probably not even supposed to be talking to him right now. The fact that Fritz took the time out of an undoubtedly stressful and highly classified situation to call Gavin and make sure he knew what was going on makes his chest tighten, and he’s glad Fritz couldn’t hear his mental sniping.

Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, he jerks the computer mouse around to banish the screen saver and gets back to work on the new client contract to give himself something to do while waiting for Fritz. Muffled voices drone in his ear as he finishes it up a few minutes later, prints it out, and slips it into a blue manila file folder for medical malpractice suits. That done, he shuts down his computer and busies himself tidying his desk, humming tunelessly to himself.

He’s in the middle of organizing the top drawer when Fritz comes back on the line. “Sorry about that,” he says, voice rough and quick. “Anyway. I need you to do me a huge favor and go to the Police Administration Building after you get done at work.”

Gavin, who’s organizing the pens by size and color, squints at that. “Why?” he asks, a handful of pens poised in front of him.

Fritz sighs, and Gavin knows he’s scrubbing a hand down his face. “Just do it, please? For me?” he asks, a note of desperation slipping into his voice.

And suddenly Gavin realizes what this is all about. Smiling and laughing softly to himself, he plops the pens into their designated slots and shuts the drawer with a snap, stretching his legs out in front of him as he leans back in his chair. “Sweetie, there are more people in Los Angeles than there are in some states. Some countries, even. I doubt those suspects of yours will randomly stumble across me of all people.”

“I’d still feel better if you were somewhere surrounded by cops.”

The last thing Gavin wants to do is bother Sharon and her team over something so ridiculous. There are bad guys on the loose, hide me! No, Gavin Q. Baker has more dignity than to go running to Sharon like a sniveling little child. Besides, they’re probably involved in the manhunt, supporting the FBI. Showing up there now would be pointless. “Do these people even know where we live? Or where my firm is?” he asks, idly playing with his tie as he stares at the ceiling, imagining patterns in the random splatter of dots on the tiles.

“No, but —”

“Then why does it matter where I go? I’m a grown-ass man, Fritz. I think I’ll be fine by myself for a few hours.”

Fritz sighs heavily. “Gavin. Please, just —”

“Love you, Fritz. Bye-bye.” He hangs up before Fritz can protest and tucks his phone back in his jacket pocket so he won’t be tempted to answer if Fritz calls back, which he does. Humming under his breath, Gavin collects his keys and his wallet and lets the call go to voicemail. Really, Fritz is just being paranoid. It’s beyond silly for Fritz to worry about something so improbable, but his sweet concern for Gavin’s safety makes Gavin feel light and weightless all the same.

After twisting the blinds shut to block out the sun, he flicks off the light switch, shuts and locks his office door, and heads out. As he passes the secretary’s desk in the waiting area, footsteps echoing on the white quartz and black granite tiles, she farewells him with a soft “Be safe, Mr. Baker.” Shooting her a broad smile and a playful wink, he pushes open the heavy glass door and heads for the stairwell, waggling his fingers cheerfully in the air.

Fritz — at least he assumes it’s Fritz — calls three more times on his way to the parking garage. Gavin ignores it, drumming his fingers against his leg as he strides through the lobby and out into the relatively fresh air. Honestly, everyone is being absolutely ridiculous. The escapees have probably crawled back into their dark, sleazy criminal underworld by now and won’t poke their heads back out for a good long time. No matter what Fritz might think, Gavin seriously doubts they’re going to spontaneously swarm his car at a red light and drag him into a white panel van or whatever. As he unlocks the door of his burgundy Lexus and slips behind the wheel, he decides to go home. That way he can tell Fritz ‘I told you so’ when nothing happens, and hopefully goad him into dragging Gavin into their bedroom and pounding him into the mattress. The idea makes him warm and tingly and he smiles at his plans for the evening.

Just as Gavin predicts, the drive home is quiet and criminal-free. He spends most of it singing along with the radio and button-mashing the presets whenever boring songs or commercials come on. Not even the typical rush-hour traffic jams spoil his mood. As he finally pulls into the tree-lined gravel driveway of their Laurel Canyon home, his phone buzzes in his pocket and gives the telltale chirp of a text message. After cutting the engine, he takes a moment to stretch and roll the stiffness out of his neck, then tugs out his phone as he locks the car and strolls toward the house, swinging his keys around in his free hand with a rhythmic jangle.

It’s a message from Fritz. CALL ME RIGHT NOW. I MEAN IT!! Gavin snorts fondly. Really, all caps and two exclamation points? My my, how dramatic. Fritz should audition for Days of Our Lives; he’d fit right in. Still, he better call before Fritz has an aneurism or starts shitting bricks. Ha. Fritz shitting bricks. He smirks and chuckles at the admittedly childish rhyme as an old navy blue sedan rounds the corner, engine spluttering like the hillside roads are overwhelming the transmission.

The engine groans to a stop behind Gavin. A door opens and footsteps crunch on the gravel as he swipes a thumb through his contacts list for Fritz’s number. But they have neighbors on either side, so he pays it no mind until he glances around, waiting for Fritz to pick up, and realizes that both of the neighbors’ cars are already there. A slight chill shivers down his spine, but he shakes the feeling off. Fritz’s paranoia is rubbing off on him, that’s all. Obviously one of the neighbors is expecting company, he tells himself as he unconsciously lengthens his stride, nothing sinister about that. Stop overreacting.

Fritz picks up after two more rings. “Gavin! Where are you?” His words shoot out in a rapid fire jumble that Gavin barely catches.

“I just got home,” Gavin says as he jogs up the short flight of steps up to the front porch and thumbs through the keys for the one to the front door. Behind him the footsteps quicken their pace, pounding into the gravel, and despite himself his breath hitches as his pulse stutters into overdrive. His palms are suddenly clammy and he fumbles the keys. Swearing under his breath, he snatches them up and jams the house key into the lock.

“Shit. Get inside, right now, and lock the door.”

“I’m trying, I just —” The lock snicks open at the same time something sharp pricks between his shoulder blades. Gavin freezes and grips the keys so hard his knuckles turn white as adrenaline floods his veins like ice water.

“Hang up the phone, blondie,” a deep voice hisses into his ear. Gavin shudders and stares unseeingly at the door, blinking rapidly. Oh god, Fritz was right. He was right. What are the odds? What the hell are the actual odds? A strangled laugh tries to punch out his throat, but he chokes it down.

The man jabs the blade into Gavin’s back hard enough to draw blood, making him flinch and gasp in pain. “I said, hang up the fucking phone.”

Gavin’s hands are shaking so hard it’s a wonder he hasn’t dropped it. Swallowing harshly, he slowly lowers his phone in a series of short, jerky movements, letting it dangle limply at his side. Fritz’s tinny voice echoes in the silence, frantically calling Gavin’s name. Shit. Fritz is probably miles away, and he has no idea what’s happening. Shit, shit, shit.

Before he realizes what he’s doing, Gavin lunges sideways off the porch and lands next to a copse of trees. Jerking the phone back to his ear, he hurtles toward the neighbor’s yard, hoping she’s near a window and can see what’s happening. “Fritz, they’re here, at the house,” he heaves out as he jumps over the row of short hedges dividing their properties. “They —”

Something slams into Gavin’s jaw, snapping his head back. His phone flies through the air and clatters onto the road as he stumbles and trips over his own feet, flinging his arms out to stay upright. If he hits the ground he’s done, he’s dead. Lurching to his right, he manages to catch his balance and flings himself toward the phone, scooping it up — he can’t leave it, it’s his only connection to Fritz — and sprints across the lawn to the neighbor’s house, a cry for help on his lips. But his throat is dry and his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth and nothing comes out when he tries to scream, like he can’t get enough air in his lungs.

He’s almost to her front door when a hulking arm hooks around Gavin’s chest and yanks him back against an equally hulking torso, and the cold, sharp metal of a knife presses against his throat. Gasping, he cringes away from the blade, instinctively clutching at the man’s arm with his free hand and squirming to escape his grasp, but the man’s hold on Gavin is firm. “Stop moving or I’ll kill you right now,” the man hisses into Gavin’s ear. With a twist of his wrist he presses the blade harder against Gavin’s neck, teasing over his jugular. Gavin stills, nearly hyperventilating as his pulse thrashes in his ears.

“Come on, man. We don’t got all day,” a lightly accented voice calls from the sedan. Hispanic, maybe? Gavin can’t really tell, but he doesn’t have the chance think about it too much as the man with the knife yanks him around and drags him toward the old blue sedan. Aside from his captors’ car, the street is empty. Deserted as a church on Monday. Where are the neighbors? Why is nobody seeing this, stopping this, helping him? This is a nice neighborhood, a good part of town. Things like this don’t happen here. So why is this happening? Why?

As they near the car, the man holding Gavin at knifepoint shifts the blade to the back of his neck and shoves him forward. “Open the door and get in.” His tone promises a world of pain if Gavin disobeys.

Gulping in a breath to try and calm himself down, Gavin does as he’s told. He slides across a spliced vinyl seat with chunks of the underlying foam cushion jabbing through the cracks, then flattens himself against the opposite door, clasping his phone to his chest with shaking hands. The inside reeks of sweat and body odor and stale cigarette smoke.

Grinning through the scruffy reddish-brown knots snarling his face, the man who snatched Gavin grabs his upper arm as soon as he’s inside and pulls Gavin away from the door, wrenching a shrill yelp from his throat. He’s brawnier than the mug shot on the news gave him credit for. Bulging muscles strain against the sleeves of his stained black t-shirt.

“Hey there, blondie,” the man says, waggling the knife in Gavin’s face in a friendly reminder that he’s now a hostage. “You’re kind of cute.” He flashes Gavin a yellow, tobacco-stained grin and tugs him close enough that Gavin can smell the acrid stench of cigarettes on his breath. Gavin pulls a face and jerks back, wanting to be next to this vulgar oaf as much as he wants to jump in a sewer in his best Armani suit. The man just snickers and hauls him forward again, wrapping a meaty arm around his shoulders so he can’t pull away and stroking his hand along Gavin’s bicep. A ball of lead forms in his gut and bile burns the back of his throat. He swallows it down harshly, because as satisfying as it might be to throw up on his captor, he’s pretty damn sure he’ll stab Gavin for it or slit his throat or stab him and then slit his throat for good measure, and what little short-term satisfaction he’d get is just not worth dying for.

Sirens howl in the near distance like a pack of wolves on the hunt. The bearded man tenses and squeezes Gavin’s shoulder, looking fixedly down the street as though expecting a throng of cops to swing around the corner. A faint glimmer of hope breaks through the smoggy vapors of fear suffocating Gavin’s chest, and he just knows that Fritz is out there right now, looking for him. Fritz will rescue him. He must have known the criminals were in the neighborhood; that must be why he told Gavin to go anywhere but home, only Gavin was too goddamn proud to listen. Please be out there, he says silently to himself like a mantra. Please, please, please.

To Gavin’s extreme disappointment and the criminals’ obvious relief, no cops show up. The driver jerks around in his seat and scowls back at them, beads of sweat dripping down the sides of his bald head. “Stop fucking around back there and tie him up.” His voice snaps like a whip.

Grumbling under his breath, the bearded criminal forces Gavin to kneel in the foot space amidst a heap of old fast food wrappers and discarded tissues and cigarette butts, then slots himself behind him, far too close for Gavin’s liking. He chokes on the cloud of B.O. and tobacco that shrouds him and tries to pull away, but the cool metal of another knife slides beneath his chin like a dangerous promise. Gavin’s heart snaps against his chest, mind numb and paralyzed with fear, and he hugs his phone to himself like a lifeline.

Of course the driver notices, because Gavin’s luck is currently for shit. Fast as a snake striking a mouse, he snatches the phone out of Gavin’s hands and tosses it onto the passenger seat out of his reach. “Can’t have you calling for help,” he says with a sneer, pinning Gavin in place with his cold, shark-eyed gaze. “Now put your hands up.”

Mindful of the blade pricking at the juncture of his throat and jaw, Gavin gives a small jerky nod to signal his cooperation and slowly raises his shaking hands to the level of his ears. He’s too afraid his voice will crack or jump an octave if he tries to speak. A pained whimper escapes his lips as the bearded criminal wrenches his hands behind his back, cinching them together with something cool and smooth, like a leather belt. It’s so tight he can feel his hands going numb from loss of circulation.

“You look good tied up,” the bearded criminal whispers against the back of his neck as he manhandles Gavin back onto the seat and drapes his massive arm around him again. “I like it.” Gavin shudders and squeezes his eyes shut to block it all out. This is just a dream. Just a bad dream. He fell asleep at his desk and is having a nightmare based on the news. He’ll wake up anytime now and laugh about it later with Fritz while they’re cuddling in post-coital bliss.

A cacophony of sirens and squealing tires explodes in the quiet street. Gavin snaps his eyes open in time to see a pack of squad cars and black SUVs careen around the corner and skid to a halt, surrounding the sedan. Warmth jolts through his body and his breath hitches as uniformed officers pour out of the cars, guns trained on the sedan, screaming orders for the criminals to come out with their hands up. The police! Yes! Oh thank god. Gavin cranes his neck to see if Fritz is leading the pack, or maybe Sharon and her team. Maybe both. Both is good.

Before he can process what’s happening, the bearded criminal yanks Gavin in front of him like a human shield and positions him so he’s behind the gap between the driver and passenger seats, in full view of the cops outside. A muscled arm snakes itself around Gavin’s waist, pulling him flush against the criminal’s chest, and the sharp edge of a knife jabs against his pulse point. “Back off or blondie here’s dead,” the bearded criminal shouts, angling the blade so it catches the late afternoon light.

Gavin winces at the assault to his eardrums. He has no idea if the cops can hear anything, but they get the gist nonetheless. From his new vantage point, Gavin watches as the nearest officers exchange wide-eyed looks and slowly shuffle back, obviously waiting for someone in charge to tell them how to handle this unexpected situation.

For what seems like hours, nothing happens. The cops confer quietly outside, casting furtive frowns at the car. Gavin locks eyes with one of the officers but flushes and quickly lowers his gaze, hating how exposed he is, out on display like he’s some kind of goddamn trophy. Suddenly he’s glad Fritz isn’t here to see him like this, so helpless and weak. Especially after Fritz warned him, practically begged him to go to the precinct. God, he wishes he’d just listened for once instead of being so stubborn.

Movement outside pulls him from his thoughts, and he looks up to see a tall, dark-haired man in a blue FBI jacket striding forward through the clustered uniformed cops, a bullhorn clutched at his side. Gavin’s heart plummets into his stomach as he realizes who it is and he pulls back, needing to hide before he’s seen, but the driver reaches back and grabs a fistful of his hair to hold him in place at the same time the bearded criminal slices the blade deeper into his neck. He flinches as blood trickles down his neck.

Outside, Agent Fritz Howard raises the bullhorn to his lips. “Israel Espinoza. Joseph McCray,” he says in a deep, authoritative voice that would have Gavin burning up for entirely different reasons under very different circumstances. “Release your —” Fritz’s jaw drops and his eyes widen. “Gavin,” he chokes out, voice strangled even with the bullhorn amplifying the volume.

Every eye on the street swivels onto Gavin, burning into him like a thousand laser beams. A hot flood of shame washes over him and he can’t bear to look Fritz in the eye. Biting his lip almost hard enough to draw blood, he hunches his shoulders and stares at Fritz’s shiny black shoes. God, he hates himself for letting this happen. For putting Fritz in this position. At this point he’d give anything to make it all end, to just make it stop.

The driver, whose name is apparently Israel Espinoza, slaps the side of his head, and with a start Gavin realizes that he asked him a question. “I said, you know this guy? Answer me,” he snarls, shaking Gavin when he doesn’t immediately reply. The blade snicks his skin again, and Gavin flinches as another stream of blood joins the first.

“I — yes, yes I know him,” he gasps out. Apparently this isn’t good enough, because Espinoza slaps him harder. “How?”

Gavin knows he should lie and tell them that Fritz is a friend or a distant cousin, anything but the truth, but even now, even here, he just can’t make himself do it. Licking his dry lips, he swallows harshly and says, “He’s…my partner.

”Espinoza’s brows furrow as he glances from Gavin to Fritz and back again. Then a slow, wicked grin settles on his face as he realizes exactly what Gavin means by ‘partner,’ and he grabs Gavin’s phone from the passenger seat, waggling it in the air. Fritz gets the gist and digs his phone out of his pants pocket. Moments later the shrill ringtone fills the car.

“I got your boy here, Agent,” Espinoza says, canting his head at Gavin without taking his eyes off Fritz. A sour taste burns in the back of Gavin’s throat and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, wishing he could spontaneously combust and put himself out of this misery. “You want him back, tell your men to stand down and let us through.”

Fritz is still gaping at Gavin, shell-shocked, the forgotten bullhorn drifting back down to his side. Gavin longs to dive out the passenger door and run to Fritz, letting him know Gavin’s safe, he’s fine, and he’s sorry for being such an idiot, so, so sorry. But he knows even trying will get him killed and that means never seeing Fritz again, and worse, hurting Fritz even more than he already has, and that’s not something he has the strength or the desire to do.

When Fritz still hasn’t said anything a few moments later, Espinoza jerks his head at McCray. The bearded criminal squeezes the handle of the blade and digs the tip further into the juncture of Gavin’s neck and jaw, forcing him to tilt his head back and expose his throat. “Or we can just kill him right in front of you. Your call,” Espinoza tells Fritz. Gavin’s chest is so tight it hurts and he can’t breathe. Being humiliated like this is one thing, but being humiliated like this in front of Fritz? Forget spontaneous combustion. He wishes the ground would bottom out in a sink hole and swallow the car whole.

The direct threat against Gavin’s life seems to snap Fritz out of his shock. Nostrils flaring he takes a few steps toward the car, planting his legs wide, and sweeps the bullhorn back up to his mouth. Several uniformed officers fan out behind him, guns trained at the windshield. “Let me talk to Gavin.” A hot flush burns across Gavin’s face. No, he can’t talk to Fritz. Not when the last thing Fritz said to him was to go to the precinct, and his response had basically been “haha, nope. Bye.” If he’d listened, this wouldn’t be happening. It’s all his fault and he knows it, and he doesn’t need Fritz rub it in.

But Espinoza shrugs and presses the phone to his ear, and Fritz lowers the bullhorn to keep their conversation private.

“Gavin.” Fritz’s voice bursts across the line like sunlight bursting from behind a cloud, and a pang fills Gavin’s chest with yearning. He has to swallow hard twice before he can summon the nerve to reply.

“Hi Fritz.” His voice comes out a shrill, strangled croak. Clearing his throat, he tries again. “Hi.”

Outside, Fritz takes a half-step toward the car, then apparently thinks better of it and aborts the movement. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Gavin honestly has no idea how to answer that. He’s definitely not okay, and he’s a little banged up and bleeding, but otherwise not hurt. “I’ve…been better,” he finally says, since this is the closest to the truth he can get. A staticky sound buzzes over the line like Fritz sighed or laughed into the phone.

Before either of them can say anything else, Espinoza jerks the phone away. “Okay, you talked to him. Now fucking stand down or I’m gonna kill your pretty little boyfriend.” Gavin cuts his eyes at the driver at that. He could die happy if no one calls him that ever again. The unexpected prickle of irritation heartens him and he clings to it like a security blanket, wrapping it around himself to stave off the fear snapping and crackling like a livewire at the edges his mind.

Pursing his lips, Fritz juts out his chin and raises the bullhorn. “How about this. You let him go and then get out of the car and lay on the ground with your hands behind your heads, and we settle this without anyone ending up dead.”

Espinoza just laughs. “You think I’m playing, Agent?”

“No, I don’t think you’re playing, Espinoza. I’m not playing either. I’m completely serious.” Fritz’s voice is calm and steady and strong, like waves rolling against a sandy beach. “Let Gavin go and then slowly get out of the car, and no one gets hurt. It’s as simple as that. What do you say?”

Espinoza’s lip curls and he scoffs at Fritz. “You think I’m stupid enough to fall for that? I ain’t going to prison. If it means I have to kill your boy and run all of you over, I’ll do it.” Signaling the end of their conversation, Espinoza tosses Gavin’s phone onto the passenger seat and revs the engine threateningly, making several of the officers flinch. To their credit, none of them take a single step back.

Gavin tenses and a bead of sweat rolls down his back. He hopes he’s not about to become another collateral damage statistic. Surely Fritz won’t allow that. He won’t let Gavin die here today, not like this. Despite himself, images of his own dead body fill his head, riddled with bullet holes and lying in a pool of blood. It’ll be all over the news, top story for at least a week. ‘Prominent Defense Attorney Gavin Q. Baker III Killed in Police Standoff.’ They’ll show his photograph, the poised, dignified one he took for his picture on the partners’ wall at the firm, and then cut to his corpse on a stretcher, covered in a blood-stained —

He gasps as Espinoza stomps on the gas and guns the car toward the end of the street opposite Fritz, slamming Gavin hard against McCray’s chest. The officers in their path dive out their way as they narrowly squeeze between two squad cars, ripping off a side mirror and bashing in a bumper. Gavin watches in the rearview mirror as the cops behind them surge forward and open fire. Bullets ping off the car, exploding the back window. Gavin flinches as shattered glass cascades around him, but the knife at his throat and the criminal’s arm around his waist keep him from taking cover.

Cackling like he’s having the time of his life, Espinoza flips off the police and whips around a corner. Gavin catches one last glimpse in the rearview mirror of Fritz charging down the street, gun trained on the car, and then he’s gone.

Espinoza weaves through the neighborhood at gut-wrenching speeds and then pulls out onto a main thoroughfare, blasting by other cars and weaving back and forth between lanes fast enough to make Gavin’s stomach churn. Swallowing hard, he braces his feet against the floorboards, cringing at every near miss and dizzying swerve. All he can think is that they’re going too fast and he doesn’t have on his seatbelt, because right now those are the safest thoughts he can let himself have.

Sirens scream to life behind them and soon half a dozen squad cars roar onto the street in their wake, lights flashing. Up ahead even more black-and-whites join the fray, cutting them off. A tiny bubble of hope swells in Gavin’s chest — this is it, this is his rescue — but it bursts as Espinoza veers hard onto a side street, temporarily thwarting the cops’ attempt to corral them.

Despite the high speed chase most of the adrenaline from Gavin’s capture has worn off, leaving him shaky and jittery. Unable to keep himself upright, he sags against McCray and stares forlornly out the windshield. A small part of him longs to ask what they intend to do with him. Surely they can’t hold him hostage forever? But the larger part just wants to pretend like the criminals aren’t even there, like this is some kind of joy ride he’s taking with Fritz, even though Fritz always drives five miles under the speed limit and not like a reckless lunatic.

Besides, he’s pretty sure this is going to end in somebody’s funeral.

Something blunt pokes him in the side, making him jump. “Having fun yet, blondie?”

McCray. Gavin grits his teeth and pointedly says nothing, watching the buildings flash by outside like he’s getting paid to do it, though he does sit up a little straighter and rolls his shoulders to ease the growing ache in his joints.

McCray gives a throaty chuckle that grates on Gavin’s already raw nerves. “Ignoring me, huh? Real cute. I’m gonna have so much fun with you.” Chuckling again, he runs his hand up and down Gavin’s side in a very suggestive manner, making Gavin’s skin crawl. Ignore it, he tells himself. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it. Hopefully the idiot will get bored and leave him the hell alone if he refuses to engage.

Then something hot and wet swipes along the shell of his ear, and he chokes when he realizes it’s McCray’s tongue. Oh god. The sirens swell in volume as Espinoza makes another sharp turn, and Gavin prays the cops catch them before they get wherever they’re going, because he has zero desire to find out exactly what McCray means by ‘fun.’ All the educated guesses his mind helpfully supplies make him want to throw up.

For what seems like a lifetime Espinoza barrels through the city at breakneck speed, followed by what sounds like every cop in Los Angeles. Then the failing sun bleeds out and the day bruises into night, shrouding the city in an almost total darkness that swallows up the navy blue sedan and throws Gavin’s would-be rescuers off their trail. The fear lurking at the edges of his mind grows steadily stronger the darker it gets, shredding his safety blanket of irritation. By the time Espinoza pulls into the back parking lot of a condemned apartment building, Gavin’s pulse is racing again and he’s gulping down breaths to stay quiet.

Espinoza jumps out of the car almost before the tires have stopped turning, leaving him alone with McCray. Gavin half-heartedly hopes they’ll abandon him here with the car and flee on foot, but of course they don’t. McCray flings open the door and then hauls Gavin out. His knees are wobbly and he almost falls, but the bearded criminal catches him under his arms and sets him back on his feet, shoving him toward a dark, dilapidated building that looks like the next earthquake will knock it down.

A few dying street lamps line the street nearby, casting sickly, flickering orange light onto the sidewalk. Shabby buildings huddle together like they’d all collapse if even one of them fell. The area looks completely abandoned, but Gavin can’t let what might be his last golden opportunity to escape, or at least call for help, pass without doing something.

Gathering his nerve, he bolts to his left toward the street, screaming “Help!” at the top of his lungs. Running with his hands tied behind his back is awkward, but damn it, he does it. One of the criminals swears, and two sets of heavy feet pound the pavement behind him. He’s almost to the litter-clogged curb and halfway through his second scream when one of the criminals punches him hard enough to send him tumbling to the ground, scraping his shoulders and knees and knocking the breath out of his lungs as he lands in a sprawled heap. Coughing, he ignores his newest injuries and lurches up to his knees, but before he can take off again a hand fists into his hair and yanks him up with a shrill yelp.

“Shut up,” McCray growls, clamping a huge hand over Gavin’s mouth before he can scream again. But his depressingly short taste of freedom after what seems like hours of captivity has made him wild, and rather than submit meekly like he did before Gavin thrashes in the man’s grip, jabbing backward with his bound hands and kicking at the man’s kneecaps and biting hard on the thick, meaty fingers over his mouth. Howling in pain, McCray releases him and Gavin dashes blindly away, breath bursting in and out of his heaving chest.

He gets maybe ten feet away before someone grabs him and effortlessly flings him onto the pavement, planting a knee into his back to hold him down. Shit. Spitting out gravel and dirt and blood from his newly cut lip, Gavin struggles to throw the criminal off balance enough that he can get away, but the all too familiar feeling of cool, sharp metal slides against his throat and all the fight drains out of him, leaving him gasping and trembling. Even though he just failed spectacularly, there’s no way they’re not going to punish him for attempting to escape. He just knows it.

Right on cue, Espinoza lumbers into view and kicks Gavin in his side, making him cry out as a starburst of pain sends fiery jolts of adrenaline screaming along his nerves. “You little fucker,” Espinoza snarls, kicking him again. “If that FBI agent wasn’t your boyfriend, I’d kill you right here.” Gavin moans and curls as much into a protective ball as he can with McCray’s knee on his back and the knife against his throat. He’s suddenly very, very glad that he told them Fritz is his partner and not just some random friend. Apparently it’s the only thing keeping him alive, though he can’t help but wonder how much longer that will be, FBI agent boyfriend or not. Sirens wail in the distance, and he hopes it’s long enough for Fritz and the police to find him and save him from this nightmare.

“Come on, let’s go.” Espinoza whirls around and stalks off toward the apartment building. McCray finally removes his knee from Gavin’s back and forces him to his feet.“You’re gonna regret that little stunt, blondie,” he hisses into Gavin’s ear, marching him at knifepoint in Espinoza’s wake. Ice floods Gavin’s veins, but he doesn’t regret his brief moment of rebellion. It proves he still has some fight left, that he’s not completely under their thumbs, knives or no knives. Fritz would be proud. At least Gavin hopes so.

Espinoza leads them down a series of dusty, graffiti-streaked corridors lined with broken glass and flaky chunks of drywall before muscling open the door to what was probably once a nice little one-bedroom apartment. Against all odds, because that’s apparently the shape of Gavin’s luck tonight, the apartment still has electricity flowing through the dilapidated fixtures. Ratty green curtains frame the window, and there’s enough grime on the glass to hide the glare of lights from any curious eyes that happen to wander by in a squad car.

Whoever the previous tenants were must have left in a hurry, abandoning most, if not all, of their possessions. Espinoza goes to the window, flicking back the raggedy curtain and peering through the film of muck into the parking lot. McCray nudges Gavin none too gently toward the kitchenette, where two rickety chairs sit in front of an equally rickety round table. The floor creaks under his feet, making him glad they’re not on the second story, and the musty stench of mold and mildew fills the air with the incense of decay. Something shifts and skitters behind the walls and he grimaces. Rats. Oh dear lord, that’s just fabulous.

“Sit down, blondie.” McCray slams Gavin into one of the chairs before he has a chance to comply.

Apparently satisfied that they weren’t followed, Espinoza joins them in the kitchenette. “Go find something to tie him up with. I’ll watch him.” He unpockets his knife and presses the blade flush against Gavin’s jugular so he can’t make a mad dash for the door. Gavin winces, but at this point he’s too exhausted to do much besides scowl up at the criminal smirking down at him and imagine how he’d look in handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit and a life sentence in a maximum security prison.

McCray nods and disappears. Bangs, clangs and thuds clatter through the apartment as he rummages around. Gavin shifts, trying to get comfortable in the rock hard seat. He fervently hopes they won’t find anything and they’ll have to lock him in the bathroom, which in his very vivid imagination has a window just barely big enough for him to squeeze himself through. He holds onto the daydream until McCray returns to the kitchenette with a thick coil of rope, and his shoulders droop like they’re made of lead.

A heavy sense of hopelessness settles over him as McCray slips the belt-thing off his wrists and yanks them through the slats in the chair, twining the rope around them in a figure eight pattern and cinching it between them so he can’t wriggle his hands free. He straps Gavin’s ankles to the chair legs next, then winds the rest of the rope around his chest and stomach so tightly it digs into his skin, making it hard for him to breathe. That done, McCray steps back into Gavin’s line of sight and leers at him like he’s a free gourmet buffet. The criminal’s tongue darts out and licks along his parted lips like a worm poking itself out of the dirt.

“I’ll take first watch if you want to try and get some sleep,” McCray says without taking his eyes off Gavin.

Espinoza rubs the knuckles of his free hand along his chin, then shrugs. “As long as you quit messing with the hostage and watch out for the cops.”

McCray nods so fast he looks like a dashboard bobble head on a bumpy country road and strides over to the window, planting himself next to a raggedy sofa. “I’ll stay right here the whole time,” he says, obviously trying for earnest and trustworthy. All Gavin sees is a fox trying to convince the farmer to let him guard the hen house. He stares beseechingly up at Espinoza, willing him to see through the ruse and take first watch himself.

Espinoza grunts. “You better. If I come out here and see you anywhere near him, I’ll gut you.” With that he pockets his knife and disappears down the short hallway into the single bedroom. As soon as his boss is gone, the bearded criminal licks his lips and smirks over at Gavin. An icy fist clenches Gavin’s chest. Even though he knows it won’t do any good, he wriggles his hands and yanks at his bonds, trying to find a weak spot he can exploit to free himself, but McCray obviously knew his way around a rope. All his struggling does his chafe his wrists, so with a frustrated grunt he tilts his head back and frowns up at the loops of loose wire drooping from the cracks in the mold-stained ceiling.

Great job, Gavin. No really, great job. Fabulous, even. He huffs a breath out his nose. Goddamn it. How could he let this happen to himself? Better yet, how the hell did this happen at all? There are literally millions of people in Los Angeles. The criminals had a one in several millions-chance of running into Gavin. So of course they did. He’s almost tempted to believe in God, because the series of implausible coincidences that created this situation smacks of divine intervention, and not the good kind. Plus, if God were real, Gavin could hate him and rant and rail at him and make himself feel better.

One thing’s for sure. When he gets out of here alive — because damn it, he is getting out of here alive — he’s making Fritz give him self-defense lessons.

Lights flash outside, and a tiny golden bubble of hope wells in his chest when he recognizes the red, yellow, and blue lights of a police cruiser. McCray stiffens and ducks to the side of the window, flattening himself against the grimy wall. Gavin strains against the ropes to see outside, but he’s too far away and the glass is too filthy for him to make anything out. Two car doors creak open and slam shut, and something flutters in Gavin’s stomach. They got out! Maybe they’ll see the car, recognize it from the APB that’s surely been issued by now, and comb the area for signs of the suspects. His pulse jacks up as muffled voices reach his ears. If he can hear them, surely they could hear him too. Almost giddy with a new surge of adrenaline, he takes a deep breath as quietly as he can.

“HE—”McCray is suddenly beside him, shoving something scratchy down his throat and clamping a hand over his mouth. Gavin gags and jerks his head around to dislodge it, but the criminal’s grip is sturdy. With a growl he grabs a handful of Gavin’s hair and wrenches his head back, holding him still. How is Espinoza not hearing this? He must be deaf or dead to the world.

“Shut up or I swear I’ll snap your neck,” McCray hisses into his ear.

White-hot fury surges through Gavin. His rescuers are right there, right outside, so close. With a muffled snarl he strains against the ropes even as they gouge into him and jerks his hands against the bindings and butts his head back at McCray’s face, earning a sharp yowl, but the man refuses to let go, and the ropes refuse to unravel.

Then the two doors slam shut again and the lights drift off down the street, leaving darkness in their wake.

Gavin’s heart stops and he stares unseeingly at the window. No. No, no, no. They left without even investigating the building, the most obvious place he could be. They could have saved him, could have ended this all now, but they left. They left.

Gavin’s fury abandons him as quickly as it came and he slumps in the chair with a choked sob. His throat burns and with another sob he squeezes his eyes shut against his moldy dump of a prison, not wanting to look at it, not wanting to be here, wishing he was home with Fritz. Hot tears stream down his face, plopping onto his lenses as he breaks down and cries, chest heaving.

He’s so caught up in his own misery he doesn’t register that McCray has moved until rough fingers brush away his tears. Flinching, he jerks his head up to find the criminal squatting in front of him, one hand on Gavin’s knee, the other caressing his face in a mockery of tenderness. “You’re pretty when you cry,” McCray murmurs, running the pad of his thumb along Gavin’s cheek. The hand on Gavin’s knee travels up his thigh and squeezes his hip. Gavin breaks out in a cold sweat and jiggles his leg to shake off the criminal’s grip, but it only encourages him to squeeze again, harder, his thumb sliding between Gavin’s legs. Oh god no. No. No, this can’t be happening. He can’t let this happen, not after everything else. Unable to hold back a whimper as the criminal gropes him, he twists his face out of the man’s grasp and tries in vain to shrink away from the unwanted touches.

“Ah, ah, ah,” McCray says, grabbing Gavin’s chin and forcing Gavin to look at him. “Just relax. Let it happen. You know you want it, been asking for it all day.”

Gavin moans and shakes his head as best as he can. Tears stream down his now burning cheeks as his body hardens against his will. “See? You like this,” the criminal breathes, his eyes blown black with lust. He lets go of Gavin’s chin and slowly strokes him from his neck to his waist, pausing to fondle a nipple beneath his blue-and-white striped Charvet shirt. He presses so close to Gavin that Gavin can feel the man’s hot, rancid breath on his neck.

Breath hitching, Gavin shakes his head again and yells “No! Stop!” as best he can around whatever’s in his mouth. McCray ignores him in favor of leaning in and licking along his collar bone. Gavin shudders as bile burns at the back of his throat, but he swallows it down, has to, unless he wants to choke to death on his own vomit. It’s not at all the way he wants to go, but the way things are going now, it’s looking like a better and better alternative by the second.

He squeezes his eyes shut and bites back another whimper as the man tugs down the zipper to his pants and slips his hand into Gavin’s boxers, coaxing him to further hardness. Another stream of tears cascades down his face. Oh god, he’ll never be able to look Fritz in the eye again after this. If he even gets to look at Fritz ever again. His stomach roils and he sobs, longing to see Fritz, willing him to burst into the room and save him from this. He’ll make it up to Fritz somehow, but if Fritz ends up leaving, he won’t blame him. What kind of freak gets hard when he’s being molested? Even so the idea of being alone depresses him and he dissolves into tears, breath hitching around pained whimpers.

“Shh,” McCray says, pressing closer so their bodies are nearly flush. “Be quiet. You like this. Just be quiet and take it.” Fisting a hand in Gavin’s hair, he tilts Gavin’s head back and bites along his neck. No. That’s what Fritz does. Only Fritz can do that. Gavin struggles to get away, his body clenching with dry heaves.

The criminal’s face tightens and he pulls away, frowning down at Gavin. “Stop doing that,” he says, yanking Gavin’s hair when he doesn’t stop, when he can’t make himself stop retching in fear and disgust. Mouth twisting into a snarl, McCray pulls back and backhands Gavin across the face. He gasps, cheek stinging. Then McCray grabs his face again, hand clenched around his jaw, forcing him to look up at the criminal through watery eyes and splotchy, tear-stained glasses.

“I said stop it,” McCray hisses, “or I’ll —”

The front door flies off its hinges as armed cops swarm into the room.

“Police!”

“Get down on the ground!”

“Drop your weapon!”

“Put your hands over your head!”

Despite the thing gagging him, Gavin’s mouth falls open and he gasps as Fritz barges in on the heels of a uniformed officer, gun drawn and trained at McCray’s back. Their eyes lock for a second, and times seems to slow as Fritz stares at him, eyes widening a fraction. Then Fritz’s entire face hardens and those soft brown eyes narrow to flinty slits. Gavin averts his gaze, hot shame washing over him and soaking him to his core.

“Step away from the hostage,” Fritz barks as a cluster of cops breaks off from the group. Moving in formation down the hallway, they rush into the bedroom, shouting the same orders.

In a heartbeat McCray scrambles around the chair and crouches behind Gavin, pulling his knife back out and slotting it against Gavin’s throat. “I’ll kill him. Won’t think twice,” he says, deliberately nicking Gavin’s neck so the cops know he means business.

Gavin flinches as his skin parts beneath the blade, but at this point his system’s so flooded with adrenaline and he’s so overcome with humiliation he barely feels the pain. Without the criminal blocking the way he’s entirely exposed to Fritz, and surely Fritz must notice the shameful hardness tenting his boxers. He curls into himself as much as he can, but the criminal pulls him back up, forcing his body to unfold.

“Get away from him. Now,” Fritz says, voice like granite.

Shouts erupt in the background followed by a series of thuds. More shouting. Then the group of uniformed cops appears in the hallway, triumphantly dragging out a roughed up Espinoza in handcuffs. Fritz shakes his head and gestures with a hand and they pause, eyeing the situation in the front room.

Behind Gavin McCray gives a sharp, hysterical laugh, breath huffing along Gavin’s skin and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “What’re you gonna do if I don’t? You can’t shoot me or you’ll hit him too. So do both of us a favor and back the fuck up.”

Fritz’s grip on his gun is firm and his aim is unwavering. “I’ll tell you one more time, McCray. Drop the knife and let Gavin go.”

For a second that seems to stretch into eternity, nothing happens. Then everything happens at once.

Bellowing incoherently, McCray jerks Gavin’s head back and slides the knife across his throat. Gunfire erupts from the left and the knife tumbles from the criminal’s hand before it slices more than half an inch into Gavin, clattering onto the stained linoleum. Seconds later a heavy thud echoes its landing and pained wails fill the apartment.

“You shot me,” McCray shrieks. At Fritz’s signal two uniformed cops converge on him and, based on the scraping and grunting, haul him to his feet. “Police brutality,” he adds as the officers drag him into the center of the room and force his hands behind his back so they can cuff him. Blood seeps from his left shoulder, staining his shirt. Seeing his tormentor in handcuffs and obvious agony makes Gavin go limp with relief. It’s over. It’s finally over. Thank god.

No, not god.

Thank Fritz.

As the uniformed cops handle the suspects, Fritz holsters his weapon and rushes to Gavin. Kneeling in front of him, he tugs the gag out of his mouth and tosses it carelessly onto the floor next to the knife. “My god, Gavin. Are you okay? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

Gavin mumbles something vaguely affirmative and drops his chin to his chest, unable to look Fritz in the eye. If he didn’t notice Gavin’s shameful erection before he’s bound to notice it now. His eyes water and burn, but he blinks back the tears even as his chin trembles and his breath stutters like he’s going to start crying again at any second. But he can’t cry in front of Fritz. Won’t. He’s already seen Gavin helpless; he can’t let Fritz see him weak too.

Fritz must sense his distress and runs his hands soothingly down Gavin’s shoulders while making soft, reassuring noises. “Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe now, okay? You’re safe.” Still rubbing calming circles into Gavin’s shoulders and back, Fritz turns toward the cops crowding the front room. “I need one of you guys to come over here and help me untie him.” One of them peels away from the group and instantly starts tugging at the ropes securing Gavin’s wrists.

It’s all a bit too much for him to take in, and he can’t choke back the sob that punches out his throat. “Fritz. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, you have to believe me, I didn’t want —”

Fritz presses a finger to his lip, shushing him. “It’s okay.”

But it’s not okay. He has to tell Fritz, make him understand that Gavin didn’t want it, didn’t want to be touched like that. Fritz has to understand. “He touched me,” Gavin blurts out as the officer untying him finishes unbinding his hands and moves on to the ropes twining around his chest and stomach. The second his hands are free, Gavin zips up his pants with fumbling fingers and folds his hands over his lap. “He touched me and…he made me…” But he can’t finish, can’t admit it aloud. Heat flushes his face and he hangs his head again, biting his trembling bottom lip.

Fritz gently tilts his chin up, brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean he touched you? What did he make you do?”

Gavin whimpers, sounding pathetic even to his own ears, and looks pointedly down at his groin, which is finally, mercifully, going soft. Fritz follows his gaze, and he knows when Fritz understands when his hands clamp down on Gavin’s shoulders and his eyes harden again into the steely gaze of a federal agent. Gavin swallows thickly, but before he can explain himself, Fritz pushes up and spins on his heel toward the front room, leaving Gavin alone in the kitchenette with the uniformed officer.

Squeezing his eyes shut as a tear slides down his cheek, Gavin presses a fist to his lips to hold back a sob and wraps his other arm around himself. Of course Fritz is angry; he has every right to be. Who gets hard when they’re being molested? He’s sick. Disgusting. Fritz is better off —

A meaty thud and sharp cry ring out from the front room. Gavin’s eyes pop open in time to see McCray hit the floor, blood streaming from his obviously broken nose. He blinks, not entirely sure what he’s seeing until several officers converge on Fritz and haul him away from the criminal. Their voices admonish him for striking a handcuffed prisoner while their faces give away the fact that they don’t give a shit. To them, the sleazeball got what he so richly deserved.

Oh.

Well. Looks like Gavin has nothing to worry about after all. The pressure in his chest eases and he takes a deep breath, slumping back in the chair.

“Police brutality,” McCray shouts again to a room full of deaf ears as two cops lug him back to his feet. One of them yanks the ratty curtain off the wall and half-heartedly uses it to staunch the blood flowing down his face into his beard.

Fritz shakes the officers off and strides back to the kitchenette just as the cop finishes untying Gavin. Before Gavin even has a chance to thank the man, Fritz pulls Gavin up into a tight embrace that squeezes most of the air out of his lungs and crushes his side where Espinoza kicked him, making him suck his teeth in pain. “Don’t you ever do anything like that to me ever again,” Fritz says, voice muffled against Gavin’s hair. “I don’t know whether to slap you silly or, or, or kiss you senseless.”

“You could do both,” Gavin manages to squeak out.

Fritz just laughs and does neither, squeezing him harder like he’s afraid Gavin is going to vanish if he lets go. Gavin can’t hide the hiss of pain this time, prompting Fritz to ease up on the embrace and step back, though his hands still grip Gavin’s upper arms like vises. “You’re hurt,” he says, giving Gavin a critical once-over.

Gavin shrugs a shoulder. “It’s nothing.” Honestly, he can’t be bothered to care now that Fritz is here. Whatever’s wrong will heal eventually.

Fritz gives him an ‘I don’t believe you’ look. “It’s obviously not nothing. What happened?”

Gavin shrugs again, but even if he wanted to he can’t make himself lie to Fritz, either directly or by omission. “They kicked me, but I’ll be fine.”

“Because you’re going to the hospital.”

Gavin grimaces. He hates hospitals. Hates the hours of anxious waiting and the antiseptic smell and the endless beeping and booping of machines and, worse of all, the needles. Shots, IVs, those evil things they collect blood samples with, all of them. Just no. Shuddering at the thought, he presses close to Fritz and wraps his arms around him half as a distraction tactic and half as an honest need for comfort after the hellacious day he’s had. “I’ll be fine,” he says again, nuzzling a kiss into Fritz’s neck.

Fritz huffs, but wraps his arms very carefully around Gavin. “Sure. After you go to the hospital.”

Gavin grunts. So much for distraction tactics. He pulls back and looks his beautiful, beloved boyfriend dead in the eye so he knows Gavin is beyond serious about this. “Fritz. I am not going to the hospital.”

Fritz meets his gaze head on. “Yes, you are.”

Gavin glares at Fritz.

Fritz glares at Gavin.

Gavin goes to the hospital.

He ends up staying overnight and most of the next day. After making him suffer through a battery of tests (and the insertion of an IV, because apparently he’s dehydrated and why he can’t just drink water until he’s re-hydrated he’ll never know), the doctors are finally satisfied that he’s not bleeding internally and all his internal organs are fine. Nevertheless, they send him home with strict orders to take the rest of the week off to ‘recuperate,’ because doctors hate lawyers and are probably rubbing their hands in glee at the idea of taking one out of commission. Never mind the fact that Gavin would be the one defending them if they found themselves on the wrong side of a medical malpractice suit.

Ingrates.

He huffs and puffs and throws a fit, but one look from Fritz and he caves, agreeing to stay home until next Monday even though it’s only Wednesday. Shit. Just shit. Gavin can feel the crazy creeping up on him now.

It’s late in the day by the time they let him go. Crimson throbs at the horizon and fades upward to a delicate pink. Wispy white clouds brush across the pale face of the moon, just a ghostly crescent in the early evening sky. Gavin scowls up at it, still too pissed off at the world to appreciate the natural beauty of a gorgeous sunset.

“I can walk, you know,” he grouses as Fritz pushes his wheelchair through the lobby and out to the patient drop-off area where Fritz’s blue Toyota is idling by the curb.

“Standard discharge procedure.” Fritz sounds like he’s about to start whistling a jaunty tune. He’s obviously enjoying this way too much. Gavin rolls his eyes and picks at the large bandage covering the cut on his neck where McCray tried to slit his throat. It itches horribly, but Fritz swats his hand away before he can get any relief.

“Leave that alone.”

“Yes, mother,” Gavin snarks as Fritz parks him next to the car and opens the passenger door for him. He manages to stand up on his own before Fritz wraps an arm around him and guides him into the seat like he’s a newborn foal taking his first steps in the world. He huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, mindful of the tender bruise purpling his side. “I swear to god, Fritz, knock it off. I’m not going to break.” Fritz just smiles down at him, pressing a kiss to his temple before shutting the door and wheeling the chair back to the hospital lobby. The sunset paints his back in soft pastels as the doors swish open to let him in.

Gavin sighs and leans back in the seat. All sniping aside, he’s nothing but grateful to Fritz, and not just for saving his stubborn ass. Instead of rightfully claiming the bust as his own, he graciously let one of the other agents take credit (and the accompanying pile of paperwork) so he could personally escort Gavin to the nearest hospital. Fritz was probably just making sure that Gavin actually went to the hospital and stayed there long enough for treatment, but still, Gavin appreciates it. Especially since he got to squeeze Fritz’s hand to a pulp when the nurse inserted the IV and had someone to talk to during the long, boring stretches of downtime between tests and results.

The doors slide open as Fritz comes back outside, breaking into a light jog as soon as his shoes hit the concrete. The fiery sky burnishes his face a warm bronze, like he’s glowing with an inner light. Smiling to himself, Gavin steeples his hands together and taps his fingers against his lips. Fritz truly is the kindest, most patient man on the planet. And so very, very gorgeous. It’s enough to leave Gavin feeling overwhelmed, but in a pleasant sort of way, like the warm buzz of a good wine. As Fritz slams his door shut and shifts the car into drive, drifting out of the parking lot at a safe and responsible ten miles an hour, Gavin is struck by an aching need to show Fritz how grateful he truly is.

He can think of a few ways.

His lips quirk into a smirk as a delicious little plan starts forming in his mind.

-.-.-.-.-

�

#this-darkness-writes #gritz #fritz/gavin #fritz howard/gavin baker #fritz howard/gavin q baker iii #gavin baker #gavin q baker iii #gavin q baker #agent fritz howard #agent howard

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vampireadamooc · 7 years

Link

Friendly reminder that the FBI Files are publicly available - updated weekly as FOIA Requests are processed.

Direct Links to A-P (August 4th 2017)

The Vault Index

The FBI has converted many FOIA documents to an electronic format (PDF), and they may be viewed below. In the case of voluminous pages, only summaries or excerpts from the documents are online. Subjects are sorted alphabetically by first name. You can also use your browser's find feature to locate subjects on the page.

Al Capone Animal Mutilation Ali Hasan Al-Majid Al-Tikriti (Chemical Ali) Albert Anastasia ACLU Aristotle Onassis American Friends Service Committee Aryan Nation Anna Nicole Smith Anthony Blunt Alfred Kinsey Abner Zwillman Albert Einstein Anthony Spilotro ABSCAM Arthur Flegenheimer (Dutch Schultz) Alcatraz Escape Alcoholics Anonymous Al Gore, Sr. Amerithrax Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Amelia Boynton Abbie Hoffman Adolf Hitler Asian American Political Alliance Amelia Mary Earhart Andrew Phillip Cunanan Anthony Salerno All American Anti Imperialist League American Nazi Party Arthur Rudolph Aryan Brotherhood Atlanta Child Murders Aryan Circle Almighty Latin Kings Abe Fortas Arthur R. "Doc" Barker Arnold Palmer Armando Florez Ibarra Alvin Francis Karpis Attempted Assassination of President Ronald Reagan Alger Hiss Ariel Sharon Art Modell

Black September Bertolt Brecht Billy Carter Bishop Fulton Sheen Bonus March Barker-Karpis Gang Summary Bloods and Crips Gang Bonnie and Clyde Black Dahlia (Elizabeth Short) Basque Intelligence Service Bugsy Siegel Bayard Rustin Benjamin Hooks Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee Black Guerilla Family Black Mafia Family Bernard Baruch Black Panther Party BOMBROB Betty Shabazz Bureau Aviation Regulations Policy Directive and Policy Guide Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn Bettie Page Billy Martin Barker/Karpis Gang

Caryl Chessman Cardinal Francis Spellman Cambridge Five Spy Ring Carmine John Persico, Jr. Custodial Detention Clyde A. Tolson Clark Gable Charles Manson Council on Foreign Relations Charles Lindbergh Clarence Smith (aka 13x) Clarence Darrow Carl Sagan Carmine Galante Conference Cost Reporting and Approvals to Use Nonfederal Facilities Policy Directive 0927D Charlie Chaplin Casey Kasem Cartha DeLoach Christopher (Biggie Smalls) Wallace Charles "Chuck" Wendell Colson Contract for Assistance Regarding Syed Farooks iPhone Charlie Wilson Courtney Allen Evans Claudia Johnson Carlo Gambino Christic Institute Cesar Chavez Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam Charles Rebozo Charles Kettering Claudia Jones Christian Identity Movement Carl Sandburg Charles (Sonny) Liston Columbine High School Criminal Profiling Coretta Scott King Charles Arthur (Pretty Boy) Floyd Custodial Detention Headquarters Carlos Fuentes COINTELPRO Custodial Detention Security Index

Danny Kaye David Koresh Daily Worker Dinah Shore Dorothy Dandridge Duquesne Spy Ring Director Comey Letter to Congress Dated October 28, 2016 Diversity and Inclusion Program Policy Guide Policy Directive 0842D Daniel David "Dan" Rostenkowski Daniel Inouye Daniel Schorr Demonstrations against Lyndon B. Johnson Desi Arnaz Diana, Princess of Wales D. Milton Ladd Dr. Samuel Sheppard Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower Director Comey Letter to Congress Dated November 6, 2016 David Hahn Debbie Reynolds David Howell Petraeus Daniel Patrick Moynihan D. B. Cooper

Erich Fromm Emmett Till E. B. (William) Dubois Extra-Sensory Perception Eliot Ness Electronic Recordkeeping Certification Policy Guide 0800PG Edward Irving "Ed" Koch Elizabeth Taylor Everette Hunt Edward Abbey Elizabeth Arden Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington Elvis Presley Eugene McCarthy Eddie Cantor Eleanor Roosevelt Evelyn Frechette Eric Wright (Eazy-E, EZ E) El Rukns Elijah Muhammad Ernest Hemingway Eugene “Gene” Curran Kelly Explanation of Exemptions

FBI Miami Shooting, April 11, 1986 Frances Perkins Fred Hampton Frank Capone FBI History Francis Gary Powers Frank Sinatra FBI Technical Surveillance Countermeasures Classification Guide Fred W. Phelps, Sr FBI Ethics and Integrity Program Policy Directive Policy Guide FBI Student Programs Policy Guide 0805 PG Fannie Lou Hammer Frank Rosenthal FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) FBI Undercover Operations FBI Terrorist Photo Album Five Percenters Frank Wortman FBI Use of Global Positioning System (GPS) Tracking Frank Malina FDPS FBI Sign Language Interpreting and Reading Program 0889D FBI Seal Name Initials and Special Agent Gold Badge 0625D FOIA DISCLAIMER Fidel Castro Freedom Riders FBI Assistance Provided to Local Law Enforcement During the Black Lives Matter Movement FBI Recreational Association(s) 0465D FOIA Requests Containing the Word Trump Fritz Julius Kuhn Fred G. Randaccio Fred C. Trump

George (Bugs) Moran Greenlease Kidnapping George (Machine Gun) Kelly Groucho Marx Guy Hottel Gov. Edmund Gerald (Pat) Brown, Sr. Gene Siskel German American Federation/Bund Geraldine Ferraro Gangster Disciples Grace Kelly Greenpeace George Jackson Brigade Guantanamo (GTMO) George Burns George Lester Jackson General Douglas MacArthur General Telecommunications Policy 0862D George S. Patton, Jr. Gay Activist Alliance Ghost Stories: Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Illegals Gamergate Gregory Scarpa, Sr George Orson Welles George Steinbrenner

Hugo Black Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken Henry A Wallace Herbert Khaury (Tiny Tim) Highlander Folk School Hanns Eisler Henry Miller Howard Zinn Huey Percy Newton HEARNAP Honoraria Policy 0867D Herman Barker Harold Glasser Hubert H. Humphrey Helen Keller Harland David "Colonel" Sanders Hindenburg Harry S. Truman Hillary R. Clinton Howard Robard Hughes, Jr

Interpol Irgun Zvai Leumi Irving Berlin Impersonation of Bhumibol Adulyadej Imperial Gangsters I Was a Communist for the FBI (Motion Picture) Irwin Allen Ginsberg Ian Fleming Irving Resnick

Jack Soble Jefferson Airplane Jack Benny Jack the Ripper Jesse James James Cagney John F. Kennedy Jr. John Murtha Joseph Aiuppa Jonestown (RYMUR) Summary Joseph Lash John Ehrlichman John L. Lewis John (Jake the Barber) Factor Joseph P. (Joe) Kennedy, Sr. John Steinbeck John Arthur (Jack) Johnson Janis Joplin Jimmy Hoffa Jessica Mitford Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer Jack Anderson John Wilkes Booth Joe Paterno Jay David Whittaker Chambers John Joseph Gotti, Jr James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix James Baldwin Joseph Losey John Siegenthaler Jeannette Rankin Jack Roosevelt Robinson Judith Coplon James Joseph Brown John Wayne (Marion Robert Morrison) Jerry Garcia Jane Addams John Chancellor John Wayne Gacy Jack Roosevelt (Jackie) Robinson John D. Rockefeller, III John Dillinger John (Handsome Johnny) Roselli John Profumo (Bowtie) J. Edgar Hoover Julius and Ethel Rosenberg J. Edgar Hoover Appointment and Phone Logs Jesse Helms Jonestown J. Edgar Hoover Official and Confidential (O&C) Files Joe Louis Joan Alexandra Rivers Jack Dempsey John Denver James Farmer James McDougal John Updike Jerry Heller Josephine Baker Joseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio John Winston Lennon

Kent State Katherine Oppenheimer Kent State Shooting Ken Eto Kansas City Massacre Kiss

Lady Bird Johnson Louis Allen Leander Perez, Sr. Legal Handbook for FBI Special Agents Louis (Lepke) Buchalter Liberace Lyndon B. Johnson Laboratory Reference Firearms Collection Policy LD0020D Louie Louie (The Song) Louis Francis Costello Lucia Stepp Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Lillie Belle Allen League of Women Voters Lillian (Lily) Hellman Lester Joseph Gillis (Baby Face Nelson) Lenny Bruce Lucille Ball Luis Buñuel Louis Terkel Langston Hughes Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev Leon Trotsky Leonard Bernstein Lloyd William Barker

Marilyn Monroe Motion Picture Copyright Infringement Mississippi Burning (MIBURN) Case Michael (Mike) Royko Martin Luther King, Jr. Melvin Purvis Malcolm X Muriel Rukeyser Marilyn Sheppard Madalyn Murray OHair Mack Charles Parker Mexican Mafia Mafia Monograph Morris and Lona Cohen Medgar Evers Moorish Science Temple of America Mary Jo Kopechne (Chappaquiddick) Majestic 12 Marian Anderson Michael Jackson Machine Gun Kelly Murray Humphreys Michael Hastings Michael Whitney Straight Melvin Belli Marvin Gaye Marlene Dietrich Malcolm Little (Malcolm X) Meir Kahane Mario Savio Mohammed Khalifa MAOP Margaret H. Thatcher Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace Miami Boys Mario M. Cuomo Muammar Qadhafi Mattachine Society Meyer Lansky Mickey Mantle MIOG Mark Felt Martin Dies, Jr. Muhammad Ali Marcus Garvey

Nikola Tesla Norman Mailer Neil Armstrong National Rifle Association (NRA) New Alliance Party Nuestra Familia National Security Letters (NSL) National States Rights Party NAACP National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) National Organization for Women (NOW) Nation of Islam Nelson Mandela National Gang Threat Assessment Next Generation Identification Monthly Fact Sheets Non-Retaliation for Reporting Compliance Risks Naming and Commemorating FBI Buildings and Spaces 0910D

Osage Indian Murders Owen Lattimore OKBOMB Original Knights of the KKK

Pearl Buck People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) President Richard Nixon's FBI Application Purple Gang (aka Sugar House Gang) Project Blue Book (UFO) Philip Ochs Protests in Baltimore, Maryland, 2015 Pablo Escobar Patriot Act Paul Harvey Paul Robeson, Sr. Pulse Nightclub Shooting Personal Services Contracts Policy Directive 0957D Percy Sutton Pentagon Spy Case Policy: Custodial Interrogation for Public Safety Policy Directive 0481D Physical Fitness Program Policy Directive and Policy Guide 0676PG

#FBI Files #Research #Resource

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thompsonlawgroup · 5 years

Photo

More happy home buyers closing at Thompson Law Group, PLLC. Trish Carl Fritz with Howard Hannah did a great job as the selling agent for the buyer. Chris Rice with Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group did a great job as the loan officer. Pam Sawyer with the TLG closing power team did an amazing job as the processor. #ClosingNinja (at Thompson Law Group, PLLC) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuwRSeHhlTa/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=g7ti7f6bbrb5

#closingninja

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jethrobartlet · 7 years

Text

ok but for real very special agent fritz howard of the fbi deserved better than blj i want to cry

#she was so manipulative #and always put her career before him and everything else in her life #constantly lying #he deserved better!!!!!#he deserves me! !!!

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josiesparklelove · 7 years

Note

Peruvian lily, dandelion, sunflower.

sunflower: would you like to be a fairy or a mermaid?

A MERMAID. A MMEEEERRRRMAID

peruvian lily: what are the names of your pets?

Andi (after Anders in Dragon Age), Simon Baker (after the hot thing that is actor Simon Baker), Dexter (after the TV serial killer Dexter), and Fritz (after the hot FBI agent from the Closer Howard Fritz). I’m a nerd. dandelion: any special talent that you have?

Special? Nah. I like crafts though. Haha.

#labyrinthofleah

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borntobewinterbyjessieb · 4 years

Text

Risky Rescue

-Steve's POV-

By late afternoon we had made it to interior of the US. camp and made our way to Colonel Phillips tent. A Corporal types. At a desk across the tent, Colonel Phillips signs a stack of letters. I barrel in, Peggy walking right behind me.

"Well, if it isn't 'the starspangled

man with the plan.'What is your plan exactly?" Said the Colonel.

"Azzano. I want to see the casualty

list." I said sternly.

Colonel Phillips points to the RANK INSIGNIA ON HIS COLLAR.

"You don't get to give me orders,

'Captain.'!" The Colonel Phillips said glaring at me.

"I don't need the whole list. Just

one name. Sergeant James Barnes from the 107th" I said with a sigh.

"You and I are going to have a conversation later that you won't enjoy" the Colonel said directing his words toward Peggy.

"Just tell me if he's alive, sir. B-

A-R" I started but was interrupted by the Colonel.

"I know how to spell Rogers." He said with a blank look on his face.

Peggy seems to see my resolve as she turns to the Colonel.

"Sir, Rogers is only on loan to the

USO. Officially, he is still SSR." She says.

Phillips stares at me. Finally, he relents.

"Barnes?" Asked the Colonel.

I nod. Phillips picks up a thick sheaf of letters, leafing through the first few.

"I've signed more condolence letters

today than I'd care to count. But the name does sound familiar. I'm sorry." He sighed.

I feel my face pale, Phillips' words sinking in. I stare at a map of Austria on the wall, alongside aerial photos of a remote facility.

"What about the others? You're

planning a rescue mission?" I asked slightly taken aback at what this man's dictionary apparently forgot... 'No man left behind'.

"Yeah. It's called winning the

war" he grunted out.

"But sir- if you know where they are-." I started.

"They're thirty miles behind the lines. Through some of the most

heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save. I don't expect you to understand that, because you are just a chorus girl."

" Think I understand pretty well sir." I said determined now more than ever.

"Then understand it somewhere else.

If I read the posters right, you've got some place to be in a half- hour."

"Yes sir, I do." I said with one place in mind. Austria,

Deciding I'd had enough of his attitude and determination to not do the right thing. Thirty miles behind enemy lines.

I whistled for Darcy as she let out a low growl at the Colonel, she followed behind me a few seconds later.

We were going on a rescue mission.

-The next day mid afternoon-

"The Hydra camp is in Krausberg,

tucked between two mountain ranges. It's a factory of some kind." Peggy said sitting across from me as we looked at a map. Howard leans back from the controls.

"We should be able to drop you right

on the doorstep." Said Stark.

"Just get me as close as you can." I say the I turn to Peggy saying, "You know, you're both going to be in a lot of trouble when you land."

"And you're not?" She said knowingly.

"Yeah, but where I'm landing, if

anybody yells at me, I get to shoot them." I smirk.

"They're undoubtedly going to shoot

back."

I show her my shield strapped to my back.

"It's got to be good for something."

"Agent Carter, if we're not in too

much of a hurry, I thought we'd stop in Lucerne for a late night fondue." Howard grins. I'm a little tweaked.

"Why is he saying "fondue" like

that? What's fondue?" I ask in my confusion.

"Stark's the best civilian pilot I've ever seen, and mad enough to brave this airspace. We're lucky to have him." She said.

-Darcy's POV-

"Stark's the best civilian pilot I've ever seen, and mad enough to brave this airspace. We're lucky to have him." Peggy said quietly amused.

"Do you, are you two...fondue?" Steve Asked completely oblivious to the truth.

"Take this transponder. Activate it when you're ready and the signal will lead us right to you." She said regaining her business like poster and tone.

Steve looks at the insignia, 'STARK INDUSTRIES.'

"You sure it works?" Steve Asked.

"It's been tested more than you

have, buddy." Stark says a little to smug.

The plane lurches to the left being shot at. Howard executes evasive maneuvers. Steve straps on his parachute and throws open the jump door.

"Rogers, get back here. We're taking

you all the way in!" Peggy tells him as she begins to put a little wolf parachute made especially for me.

Explosions rock the air as Steve realizes what he's about to do.Another explosion is made. He turns to Peggy and says, "ONCE I'M CLEAR, TURN THIS THING AROUND AND GET OUT OF HERE!"

Peggy yells back, " YOU CAN'T GIVE ME ORDERS!"

"THE HELL I CAN'T!" He braces himself in the doorway. "I'M A CAPTAIN!"

Another shot fired as another explosion rang in the air. The plane lurches once more just as...Steve jumps. I run after him and soon pull the parachute string with my mouth.

-3rd POV-

Search lights sweeps from watchtowers. A barbed Wire fence rings a compound of buildings. A factory belches smoke.

-Inside the factory.-

A Hydra tech loads blue cartridge and into a cluster-bomb, then gently loads the clusterbomb into a nose cone.

"As you see, production is

proceeding faultlessly." Zola explains to Schmidt the success of the power exportation.

Zola and Schmidt walk the factory floor.

Catwalks radiate from a control room overhead. DR. Arnim Zola Even in ordnance of this size.

"Good. Increase output by sixty

percent. See to it our other facilities do the same." Schmidt orders.

"But our...workers. I am not sure

they have the strength." Says Zola.

P.O.W.'S labor at gun point . A giant crane loads bombs onto a rail car.

"Then use what strength they have

left, Doctor. There are always more workers." Schmidt smirks not showing an ounce of humanity.

-outside of factory at the main gate of the compound-

Steve peers out at the guards patrolling the main gate, Darcy following him in her human form, wearing a uniform just like Captain America. They drop as headlights sweep the road. Three covered trucks rumble toward the gate. A gate guard checks the drivers' papers. In the background, Steve and Darcy sneak into the last truck.

The trucks roll into the compound, gates closing behind them. GUARDS hurry out to unload the trucks.

At the last truck, one guard peers in curious. A red, white and blue shield stands amongst the supplies.The shield springs out smashing him in the face. The guard clutches at his nose feeling it broken. Darcy drop kicks him in the groin and punches him dead between the eyes as the guard drops. Steve and Darcy emerge from the darkness.

Once the vehicle enters the compound Steve and Darcy jump out of the back of the vehicle and stay under the cover of the darkness. They use the light of the dimly lit sky to see where they're going.

Across from them about 14 feet away.

Hydra guards prod P.O.W.'S across the compound. Steve and Darcy follow, keeping to the shadows. At the barracks, one guard stands watch as the other leads the prisoners inside...

-in the Barracks-

A warden opens a cage and prods the prisoner in. A prisoner in a hat bring up the rear, slow. The warden hits him with a truncheon, knocking off his bowler. The prisoner picks up his hat and puts it back on. the super duo see it's Dum Dum Dugan He stares at the Warden.

"You know, Fritz, one of these days,

I'm gonna get my own stick."

The warder viciously kicks Dugan inside. Down hundred more prisoners are trapped in a the dozen. With multiple rows, and more cages.

The guard steps out to find his partner sleeping against the wall with his helmet over his eyes. He kicks him, but the guard doesn't move. He lifts his partner's helmet to see...he's out cold.

Steve steps up behind him with a truncheon. And knocks the guard upside the head with it. Darcy goes ahead stealthily making her way to the cages.

Four prisoners, Falsworth, Jones, Dernier and Dugan slump on the floor of their cage, exhausted. The warden on the upper floor makes his rounds. He passes out of sight. Then Steve gets spotted as Darcy comes up behind the warden and hits him upside the head. The warden drops on top of the cage, unconscious. The prisoners jump up as Darcy looks down at them and motions for Steve to come over.

"Hello" she says. As Steve comes to her side and waves.

The prisoners stare, stunned. Jones raises an eyebrow at Steve's outfit and shield.

The prisoners' excitement dies.

"And who the hell are you supposed

to be?" Said Jones.

"I'm...Captain America. And this is Wynter."

"Merde." Said Dernier.

-Darcy POV-

We then free them and they began to feee the others. As we also begin to free them. I in particular was looking for one person though. The person who had captured my heart and refused to let it free. The person who conquered my mind and wouldn't let it go. James Buchanan Barnes. The one man who had won me over in so little time. It's been years since I've seen him. And before Steve left, it had only been months...

Freed prisoners follow Steve as he makes his way down the row, opening cages with the guard's keys. I free some of the others with a bobby pin Peggy had given me for my hair. Steve releases Falsworth, Jones, Dernier and Dugan. Dugan spots A Japanese- American Soldier, Morita, already free.

"What, are we taking everybody?" Said Dugan.

"I'm from Fresno, Ace." Morita said with snark in his voice.

Steve searches the throng of prisoners. As I continue looking through the cages for anyone left behind.

"Are there any others?" Steve Asked.

"They did take a number of the men

to isolation ward. I'm afraid we haven't seen them since." Said Falsworth.

I see Steve considers this as the prisoners gather round. Finally, he hands them a pistol and grenades.

"The tree line's northwest, about 80

yards from the gate. From there, just follow the creek bed." Steve informed them.

"We'll meet you in the clearing with anybody we find inside." I continued for him.

Jones stops us. "Wait. You sure you know what you're doing?"

"Sure. I've knocked out Adolph

Hitler over 200 times." Steve says moving out as I follow.

Steve circles the factory, looking for a way in. While I transformed into my wolf. I sniffed at the snow for any scent to find a way in.

-in the factory-

-3rd POV-

A Hydra guard stands watch near a door. He hears tapping. A silhouette appears behind the glass. The guard cautiously opens the door and pokes his head out.

"Ja?" Said the hydra guard.

The door slams,pinning his head. The guard looks up to see Steve's fist coming right at him. He's knocked out cold but Darcy shoots him using a muffler for good measure. They enter the factory, creeping between bombs and crates. Clusters of cartridges bristle inside an unfinished bomb. Steve pulls one out, curious, It glows blue in his hand. He pockets the cartridge and heads for the stairs with Darcy following right behind him.

A guard rushes down the stairs, his jackboots almost crushing Steve's fingers as Steve hangs under the staircase. The guard raises his gun about to shoot Darcy but Steve yanks the guard's ankle. He tumbles down the stairs.

The duo step onto a catwalk, only to be met by another guard pointing a pistol. Steve knocks the gun from his hand and smashes him in the face. The guard falls, flips back up and charges. Steve swings from a beam and kicks the guard in the chest causing him to fall down. As the guard gets back up Darcy roundhouse kicks him in the knees causing them to give in. He falls over the railing and onto the floor below.

Steve looks over the factory floor, taking in the full scale of the bomb-making facility. Just then...TWO MORE SOLDIERS ATTACK FROM EITHER SIDE. The first guard fires. Steve drops and shoots him down. The second guard closes in. Steve whirls and crushes his neck with the side of his shield. Darcy only being able to watch as Steve moved too quickly for her to react.

He then takes on three guards. As four more come forward lunging at Darcy. She ducks and swings a mean left hook into one of their jaws causing him to stumble back. She kicks another in the crotch. Him on his knees she takes her gun and shoots him between the eyes. She elbows another in the throat as the third one recovers from his jaw.

Darcy then flips into the air landing on one of the soldiers backs and twists his neck. After that she sees the two soldiers left, running toward her. Darcy jumps up and does a split in the air kicking the two in the head. One goes down while the other stumbles back cursing under his breath in German.

"verdammte Schlampe, ich bring dich selbst um." He said. [damn bitch, I'll kill you myself]

"Hat deine Mutter dir nie gesagt, dass es unhöflich ist, vor einer Dame zu fluchen?" Darcy replies. [didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to cuss in front of a lady?]

She said kicking him in his knees making him fall on them as she brought her gun to his forehead and took the shot.

Steve hits one guard and kicks another, then uses him to deflect the blast of a third. Steve dispatches the last guard and heads up the stairs leaving Darcy to follow.

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