#and mad for not turning on the boiler before showering and waiting too long to eat and not getting anything done today and

[daz4i]

i really truly genuinely cannot go one (1) day without wanting to die

[dontasktheradiodemon]

Snake Bite

Chat log: Alastor learns to dab, Sir Pentious bites Alastor, and a couple of lonely old villains reluctantly talk about feelings and friendship.

If the read more doesn't work for you and you've gotta see this WHOLE LONG CHAT LOG on your dash, 1) you're probably on mobile, and 2) I am very very sorry, it's tumblr's fault and I did what I could.

Sir Pentious

Pentious is waiting outside the Hotel in HIS realm, he's out back in the garden and pacing... well. As well as a snake can pace. He's occasionally slithering in a circle.

Alastor

Alastor's practically scrubbed his skin raw in the shower; he's brushed his teeth until he's numb to the taste of artificial mint; he's picked a bow tie out of the ones Angel gave him—one of the red-and-gold ones designated for "sparkly douchebags" with the matching rose-shaped pin; and he's left something like a will with Rosie, along with a note to put it into effect if she hasn't heard from him by Monday.

He doesn't know what to expect.

He knows biting is going to be involved. He knows Sir Pentious wanted him to clear his schedule, with no indication of how long he was supposed to clear it for. Everything else is a mystery. Interpreting Sir Pentious's words literally, he's going to get bitten, writhe around for a while in excruciating pain, and then go home.

But knowing Sir Pentious—knowing his own—it might be a plot to disable Alastor so Sir Pentious can gloat over him for an hour before taking off his head with an exterminator's blade. And knowing the population of Hell in general, it might all be a euphemism for something far more salacious that he was simply expected to assume. All he knows for sure is that Sir Pentious is going to be very close, and aside from that it's going to be very unpleasant.

He could have asked for clarification. But asking for clarification would imply that his answer would change depending on Sir Pentious's.

It won't.

So here he is. Painfully clean, absolutely clueless, braced for anything, looking around the lobby, and realizing he's actually braced himself for anything EXCEPT the possibility that he might be stood up completely.

A few minutes after one, he sends out a few shadows as espionage—to Sir Pentious's room, to the boiler room, to the hotel's public areas—and finally, relieved, heads to the garden. He wasn't expecting outside. Maybe Sir Pentious wants to show off his big victory over the great Radio Demon.

When Alastor finally sees him, by way of greeting he calls out, "So how DOES one perform a 'dab'?"

Sir Pentious

Pentious awaited him in the garden, merely to avoid the eyes of that Weird Cat and the others who hung around the Hotel. The outside was brighter, and provided much more ominous lighting. Upon seeing Alastor and hearing his voice, he perked up quite suddenly, hood raising.

The question gets a scoff out of him.

"THE DAB? YOU DON'T KNOW??? IT'SSS LIKE THISS!" Stretching one arm out to the right, he bends his left at the elbow, and dunks his head towards the bend in his arm, holding the pose for at least three seconds.

Alastor

"Like this?" He copies the gesture, a mirror image of Sir Pentious's. A new weapon in his arsenal. "Ha. Like Dracula trying to hide from the sun." He plays a sizzling bacon-in-a-frying-pan sound, like vampire skin burning in the day.

Sir Pentious

Pentious claps his hands together, clearly amused.

"YESSS, JUSSST LIKE THAT! THEY HATE THAT ONE THE MOSSSST."

Alastor

The applause sends a jolt through his chest that he studiously ignores. "I'll add it to my catalogue of torture techniques."

He'd stopped walking far enough away from Sir Pentious that they're out of arm's reach of each other but close enough that they can talk at a normal volume—he wants to get so much closer and stay so much farther away, and this is the point where the impulses barely balanced out. Doing his best not to sound as awkward as he feels, he says, "So, speaking of Dracula..." He spreads his arms: here I am, ready and willing. "Were you planning on having this bite out here? Fine weather for it."

Sir Pentious

Pentious eyes him--he's happy with this distance, too. Satisfied, though, he wants to get closer too... his fangs ache a little, watch the other spread his arms. Yes, they had agreed upon that... At the time, he really didn't think that Alastor would agree. And now here they were! His head darts around some, the cobra looking him over.

"YOU AREN'T GOING TO TRY TO SSSLITHER OUT OF THISSS, ARE YOU, DEEREST ALASTOR?"

Alastor

The jolt is replaced by something more like a knife at the punny term of endeerment. He thinks he kept his wince off his face, but he's not totally sure. He lets his arms drop. "If I was going to be a coward, I would have gotten it over with before agreeing to meet and wasting both our time. I even dressed up for the occasion." He tilts his head, calling attention to his new bow tie.

The trophy Sir Pentious is showing off in his own attire hasn't escaped his notice.

Sir Pentious

"AH, I NOTICED. SSO HAVE I."

He pulls on the bow-tie gift from Alastor, truly VERY smug about it.

"THEN HOLD SSSSTILL..." He moved closer, quite suddenly--the rapid and threatening striking of a snake, his tongue flicking as he was mere inches away from the other.

Alastor

Alastor's eyes widen, he leans back, and his hand flies halfway up to his throat; and then he freezes. Damn. So much for acting completely unflappable.

Sir Pentious would enjoy seeing him flinch, at least.

So. Outside it is. Sir Pentious is probably hoping half of Hell will hear him make the Radio Demon scream.

Alastor completes the motion of his hand up to his throat, but only to undo his tie and fold down his high collar. When was the last time he'd been this close to Sir Pentious? Alastor can see individual scales on his face. He forces himself to make eye contact, offers a wan smile, and says, "Ready when you are."

Sir Pentious

He certainly does enjoy it.

His tongue flicks again, the appendage briefly touching the other's cheek. He didn't MEAN anything weird by it, but he certainly got a scent of him.

Pink hellish slitted eyes focused on the other, and he opened his mouth, baring those enormous fangs. Not yet dripping with venom, but oh the threat was there... Not allowing for anymore hesitation, he lunged--SINKING his fangs into Alastor's neck, deep and piercing.

Alastor

Alastor's eyes automatically squeeze shut as Sir Pentious licks him, his breath freezing. Before he has a chance to process the what the hell that means—

He gasps in sharply, a noisy crackling sound, as Sir Pentious's fangs sink in; but the gasp itself is buried under the sound of his voice stuttering across several stations, bursts of overlapping songs—a few incoherent notes of "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" and " Snake Eyes" and "Black Snake Moan." The pain from the bite alone is excruciating. Focusing. Focusing him primarily on the fact that Sir Pentious's face is pressed between Alastor's shoulder and his throat.

Sir Pentious

Pentious didn't really know what to expect upon sinking his fangs in, but the radio sounds should have been first on his guess list. It was definitely jarring to hear them so close to his head. Pentious places his hands on both of Alastor's shoulders, now digging his claws into his suit. Just claw him up! Why not!!!

At this closeness, it was all too easy to hear that raspy, human like breathing that cobras made. Like he was going to devour the Radio Demon whole.

Alastor

If Sir Pentious wants to take a strip of Alastor's throat with him when he pulled back—hell, if he wants to take Alastor's whole shoulder—Alastor isn't going to complain. He has to bite his lower lip hard enough to make it bleed to fight the urge to bite Sir Pent back—he's RIGHT THERE, it would be SO EASY to taste his blood—but that would be the end of this trust exercise.

At times it's struck Alastor that Sir Pentious's hissing sounds more than passingly close to a radio's static—and that's even more evident now, hearing his breathing like a rush of wind over a microphone, blowing over his neck. Alastor tries to steady his stuttery station-jumping breath. He leans into the pain cutting up his shoulders and curls his claws into the fabric at the waist of Sir Pent's jacket.

Sir Pentious

He can taste Alastor's blood, and it fills him with madness.

Pentious draws back, blood coating his fangs, as he holds the other up.

"HHMMM.... YOU REALLY DIDN'T MOVE. HAD YOU TRIED, I WOULD HAVE INJECTED YOU WITH MY VENOM!!!"

... But also, the lack of trying to escape, of trying to turn this into some sick broadcast... It resonated with the inventor. Pentious looked over his former ally, and frustration filled his gaze. Frustration and longing.

"... Why couldn't you have ssstayed?"

Of course, this wasn't the same Alastor. Not his own, but... whatever. A moment of vulnerability, just one.

Alastor

Alastor leans longingly after the retreating fangs before catching himself and straightening back up.

At the question, for a moment, his smile almost cracks. His brows draw closer, the corner of his bloody mouth twitches. When he replies, the constant distortion overlaying his voice dies. He almost sounds like a person. "Because I'm a coward."

He didn't mean to say it. He would never have said it under any other circumstances, but he's dizzy and lightheaded and euphoric from the pain and the close contact, and sick guilt he's spent over half a century trying to suppress is buzzing in his chest—and he's said it now.

Sir Pentious

The admission causes Pentious' hood to flare out--whatever he was expecting to hear then, well, just as before, it completely caught him off guard. He couldn't take it at face value, he couldn't trust him. His hand immediate shoots to Alastor's neck, grabbing him and pulling him closer.

"ARE YOU MOCKING ME, ALASSTOR? TELLING ME WHAT YOU THINK I'D WANT TO HEAR??? YOU??? A COWARD??? YOU MUSSST THINK ME A FOOL!!!"

Not that it sounded any which way! But... Pentious was angry to hear it, all the same. It's like he wanted the other to deny it, he wanted him to make up some sort of joke and play him for a fool. He wanted an excuse to tear him apart--but hearing this vulnerability in return put a sense of mortality in him he hadn't known in so, so long.

He'd been betrayed by his only friend, after all, and the serpent struggled so much in trying to make any.

It had been years since then, but still... It hurt him in a way he hadn't thought possible for his old black heart.

Alastor

His hands immediately fly up to the hand around his neck, claws digging into the wrist, prepared to wrench it off—and then, just as abruptly, he forces himself to let go. No, damn it, he's not here to fight.

"You don't want to hear this! I don't think there's a single answer you'd trust out of me but whatever's the cruelest thing I could think of to say—no matter what the truth is." Wasn't that the point of this exercise? To get around the limitation of words, the fact that Sir Pentious couldn't trust and Alastor couldn't be trusted?

So much for that. Hadn't Alastor already known there were no such thing as second chances? Let him be torn apart, it would heal in a few days and he'd learn an important lesson.

Sir Pentious

"CAN YOU BLAME ME!?"

Pentious' voice cracks as he speaks, and he eyes where he'd bit him. He had to think of Valera's words... He seems lonely. She'd compared the two, made them sound so similar... Could trusting him really be a good idea?

... He really did enjoy that visit they had together, eating pasta bolognese and drinking brandy. It had been so... familiar. Pentious frowned, frustration and... distress pulling at every part of himself. His claws flexed, but he pulled them away from Alastor's neck... and he looked down, pulling at his hood like he were considering covering his face with them.

Alastor

"No! I can't!" His voice is thick, a feedback echo whining under his words. "You have EVERY REASON not to trust me! I'd sooner ask Saint Peter for a second chance than ask you." He flings a hand carelessly in the vague direction of Heaven.

And yet, for a moment he'd been stupid and let himself hope. He had to remind himself who he was here to help. "I'm not ASKING for a second chance. Just—don't fight me. And I won't have to fight you."

He feels colder without Sir Pentious within touching distance. He crosses his arms tightly, biting one corner of his mouth to make sure his smile is still up.

Sir Pentious

It stings.

Pentious knows how he's being difficult. His hands open and close, and he grits his teeth, eyes closed tightly. He wishes he could just... move past this and immediately either be fully friends or fully enemies. This was purgatory like no other.

Agreeing to anything felt like giving up and the snake wasn't good at that either.

He glares at Alastor, "DON'T GO ANYWHERE. LET ME THINK."

Alastor

What is there to think about? How hard is it to decide whether or not to keep starting one-sided fights with someone?

But he collects himself. He takes a deep breath, uncrosses his arms, smooths out his bangs, clasps his hands behind his back, corrects his posture, fixes his smile properly back in place, and tries to look past Sir Pentious's visible turmoil and at the garden. Lightly, he says, "I'm not leaving," and immediately regrets as he realizes how easily he could have followed it up with this time.

Sir Pentious

Sometimes he wants to just... grab him by the face and force that smile OFF. But he'll calm himself...

He can't have him as a rival, or as a nemesis. Their paths were too different, and not only that, they were from entirely different Hells!

So close, yet.... Pentious took a deep breath. You're not losing anything, man. You're not. Why was this so hard?

His gaze travels back to the bite, and he flicks his tongue.

"... WHEN WASS THE LASST TIME YOU ALLOWED YOURSSSELF TO BE ATTACKED LIKE THAT?"

Alastor

He blinks, taken aback by the question—and then has to stop and think.

He's always had an unusually casual relationship with pain—and that only increased after he died and no longer had to worry about any damage being permanent. Hell, he's voluntarily been skinned alive so that he could get his own hide tanned—but that wasn't being attacked, that was more like an extreme cosmetic surgery. He's let people who would otherwise never leave a scratch on him get in a stab wound—but that was so he could lure them in close enough to rip them apart. As a child he'd sometimes been too afraid to fight back—but that's very different from consenting to being attacked, isn't it?

"Never."

Will Sir Pentious even believe that? Probably not. Of course not. Alastor wonders why he bothered to ask.

Sir Pentious

He looks at him a long time... studying his expression. Looking for something to pick apart... but it was always that same damn face.

The hum of radio feedback if he stared too long.

Alastor

There isn't much to pick apart. He meets Sir Pentious's gaze when he feels that sharp stare on him, then almost immediately looks away.

He wants to ask whether he ought to be contributing something to the proceedings or if this thinking Sir Pentious is doing is still a solo endeavor, but he forces himself to swallow his nervous chatter and quietly start playing "Snake Eyes" again to fill the silence.

Sir Pentious

The tune is so jaunty, and Pentious twitches... but this was exactly like Alastor, too. You couldn't have a moment's silence with him... The snake groaned, covering his face. Alright. Alright.

".... ALASTOR."

Alastor

The music snaps off. "Sir Pentious?"

Sir Pentious

... You know, it was. Definitely surprising not to hear "Sir Harold". It takes him a moment.

He takes out a GUN, and aims it at Alastor.

"TELL ME AGAIN WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF THISS, AND I WILL NOT QUESSTION IT AGAIN. YOU HAVE MY WORD ON THE MATTER. DO YOU WANT TO BE MY ... FRIEND? OR DO YOU JUST WANT ME OUT OF YOUR HAIR?"

Alastor

Oh—oh, good god, he hadn't planned on being asked directly. (Or with a gun. But the gun was meaningless, the gun was for emphasis. The gun was an exclamation point.)

Being honest had been the biggest mistake of this conversation so far. The closer Alastor got to telling the truth, the less trustworthy he sounded, the less Sir Pentious was going to take what he said into account. The safe answer was "out of my hair." It was the answer that would make sure Sir Pentious was...

... gone, again. Gone and safe.

But, unless Alastor was completely wrong about everything he thought he knew about this Sir Pentious—

—it sounded like he was, impossibly, offering Alastor a second chance.

He croaked, "Friend."

And then, with the dam broken, more tumbled out: "I give you my word that's not what I came to ask for. I'm only here to try to get myself out of YOUR h—hood. But if— What I want— That's what I WANT."

Sir Pentious

Well, he was damned. Valera was right.

This Alastor, much like himself, was a lonely old man. He wanted to be his friend. The snake could only stare, his arm lowering, and with it the pistol too.

"... Really?" This wasn't a voice of accusation or vitriol, or demanding anything. Just, outright, innocent confusion.

Alastor

Alastor had been half expecting a bullet through his pretty new rose-shaped pin. He HADN'T been expecting that look. Perplexingly, it looked like a sort of expression that suggested that Sir Pentious might actually believe him.

A wild panicked voice in the back of his head tried to tell him to yell JUST KIDDING, drop Sir Pentious through a particularly painful portal, and bolt from the scene like a buck out of Hell.

It was the same panicked voice that had gotten him into this mess fifty-fucking-four years ago. He wasn't going to listen to it again.

He looked for something snappy to say, couldn't find anything, and said, "Yes. Really."

Sir Pentious

VALERA WAS RIGHT AAAAAHe put the weapon away, straightening his Alastor's bowtie, and gave a smile... although it was strained. Struggling. "... YOU REALLY ARE FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION, YOU KNOW. THISS COULD NEVER BE MY REALITY."

Alastor

Bow tie. Right, he should—Alastor straightened his collar back into place and retied his now slightly bloodstained bow. "Nor mine," he muttered, his smile sinking toward a grimace. He could have said the exact same words to his own Sir Pentious—but those words NEVER would have been trusted by someone who knew exactly what he'd done when he left. The only reason he'd gotten this far was because that not-knowing meant he could get the benefit of the doubt.

What could he do, then, but milk it for all it was worth as long as he could?

"I can't do anything about my duplicate in your universe. But any time you care to come to mine... well." Well. Friends.

Sir Pentious

Oh, damn. There was that warm feeling in his chest--it felt like he had internal bleeding. It ached and stung, and Pentious clutched his suit some to try to soothe the pain.

He was too expressive for his own food, clearing his throat.

"DON'T SSOUND LIKE YOU'RE ABOUT TO TAKE YOUR LEAVE, ALASTOR. I TOLD YOU TO TAKE THE DAY OFF, AND YOU'RE GOING TO!"

Alastor

"Am I!" His face lit up. "Why? Are we finally going to get to thar part you promised where I'm crying like a baby from pain?"

Sir Pentious

"WHY DO YOU SSOUND SSO EXCITED?"

"YOU WANT THAT?"

Alastor

"Well, you were so graphic about it, you got my hopes up! I set aside the rest of the week to recover and everything." He paused just long enough to get Sir Pentious time to process that. "KIDDING! No, what did you have planned?"

Sir Pentious

.......... NOW HE'S ADVANCING ON ALASTOR, hood raised and eyes glowing red. That menacing long grin.

"OH, NO, ALASTOR, YOU WERE SSSSO EXCITED. I INSSSISSST!"

Alastor

For a moment, he stares at Sir Pentious, eyes wide. Somewhere beneath his usual static, S.O.S. beeps in Morse.

Then he flatly asks, "Do we have to?" But he's reaching for his bow tie again. One final test would be fair, wouldn't it? Alastor deserves at least that much.

Sir Pentious

Oh no. He looks conflicted!!! This man just told him he wanted to be friends!

",,, ALASTOR! YOU CAME HERE WANTING TO BE BITTEN AND POISONED AND NOW YOU DON'T WANT IT BUT ALSO DO?? BE CLEAR, BE CONSISE!!

Alastor

"I was joking about the poison part!" No more masochistic humor in THIS universe. "It sounds a little bit extreme for my idea of a fun afternoon. I was willing to do it to prove my, ah... sentiments—but if we're PAST that, I'd just as happily move on to something less excruciating."

Sir Pentious

He HUFFS. His fangs ache, wanting to bite into something again, but also... He looks strained.

".... SS... SSSSINCE YOU'RE HERE.... DO YOU WANT TO... COME INSIDE???"

Alastor

Is Sir Pentious disappointed? Alastor eyes him carefully a moment, then says, "Sure." After another pause, even more carefully, he asks, "Are you opposed to letting me see what you've been up to in that boiler room of yours?"

Sir Pentious

Little does Alastor know, Penny is suffering from a dizziness spell. It was a side effect of using his fangs like that, even if he didn't use his venom. He had a lot of physicality issues.

Pentious slithered towards the front entrance, "AH, MY RAIL GUN? SURE, AS LONG AS YOU DON'T THINK YOU CAN TAKE IT FROM ME."

Alastor

"Wouldn't dream of it!" Rail gun! Alastor followed after Sir Pentious, just short of skipping in delight. "What would I do with it, anyway—try to carry it around on my shoulder like a bazooka? Ha! No, no—I just want to see what kind of damage it can do."

Then they went inside to play with dangerous toys, the end.

[savannah-lim]

Room With A Viewing || Savannah & Carrington

Timing: Before No Dead Room Mates Allowed Parties: @carringtonblackwood and @savannah-lim Location: Carrington’s townhouse  Content: Mentions of body horror, compulsion  Summary: Savannah checks out Carrington’s property as she’s thinking of renting a similar one. She gets more than she bargained for. 

If she was honest with herself, Savannah should have moved out of the hotel room weeks ago. At the very least, she should have moved to a different hotel, even a different room. Staying in the same room as your now-confirmed-dead co-worker was pretty freaking morbid, and she really needed to stop tripping over all of Javier’s things when she got up to go to the bathroom in the night. If this stranger knew of a well-priced townhouse downtown, it would have been foolish to pass it up, so she went to his address, ringing the bell and waiting till he answered. Jeez, was everyone in this town handsome? “Hello, Carrington? Mr. Blackwood? I have no idea what you prefer. I’m Savannah. Here for the tour.” 

Carrington answered the door a few moments after the bell rang, smiling warmly at the lovely woman on his stoop. “Carrington is just fine. ‘Mr. Blackwood’ makes me sound like an old man.” The irony was not lost on the 420 year old vampire. But they weren’t here to talk about his age. So Carrington stepped back and swept his arm out, indicating that Savannah should come inside at her leisure. The foyer was bright and clean, white walls against dark floorboards, with a matching staircase that lead up to the second floor. Carrington gave Savannah the general layout of the first floor: foyer, with kitchen to the right (which included access to the short stair-case leading to the single-car garage) and living room to the left. Half bath just under the stairs, and an extra room down the hallway and to the right. Carrington’s piano was housed there currently.

“So what brought you to town, Savannah?” Carrington asked, observing her curiously as he moved casually towards the kitchen. “And may I get you something to drink while we look around?”

"Carrington it is." Thank God. Savannah loathed forced formalities. The house was great from the outside, and The Bureau covered her rent up to a certain amount as part of her assignment. In the long-run, it had to be cheaper than staying at a hotel, but the idea that she might afford a place like this, even with White Crest prices, was hard to believe. She followed him inside, looking around. "I'm sorry, and you pay how much for this?" She shook her head in disbelief. "I'm here on a case. An investigation into the disappearance of my colleague. Javier Sterling." God, a drink would be fantastic. "A light beer if you have one, or a vodka and some kind of diet soda?" 

Forced formality had been part of Carrington’s life from the nearly the moment he was born. So it was a blessed relief when he met someone who didn’t seem to mind letting them drop. Carrington gave her a wry look when she asked about his rent. When he gave her the price, he knew it sounded ridiculously cheap, all things considered. “You’d think there might be a catch,” he amended. “But other than the occasional pesky creature deciding to make it’s home in my attic-” He shook his head at the memory of the alghoul infestation. Bloody nightmare that was. “- it’s been pleasant.” The answer to his question gave Carrington a slight pause. But he covered quickly, reaching into the fridge for two light beers (a locally brewed brand that he found quite palatable). He opened them - careful to find a bottle-opener instead of just popping the tops with his hand - and handed one to his guest. He took a slow pull, thinking back on the news he’d heard of an FBI agent poking around. “I remember hearing the FBI was around town, though I never met Agent Sterling myself.” He gestured they should walk back through the foyer to look at the den if she wanted. “I assume  by now you’ve heard the stories people tell about this town? About people disappearing?”

And never coming back. 

“Like… what?” Savannah asked, waiting for the revelation. “Rats? A cockroach infestation?” That was an even bigger deal-breaker than knowing there had been a murder on the premises. Judging by what other people had said, that was true of most places in White Crest At least the crime scene clean-up crew removed all signs of the body. At least the walls were repainted and the floors recarpeted. “Once, a raccoon got inside my old apartment. The sounds I woke up to..” She shivered, sipping the drink Carrington had given her. “They record the statistics of deaths and unsolved disappearances. Both are far above average for a town of this size.” She looked around the kitchen. The cabinets looked new. The stove was spotless. Did he ever do any cooking? “Have you lived here long?” 

“Squirrels mostly,” Carrington assured her. “The occasional family of bats.” The irony of that wasn’t lost on him. He shook his head, glancing up at the ceiling with a long-suffering look. “Bloody menace. And God knows how they’re getting in.” He took a long pull of his drink. “Though I haven’t seen any in awhile, so I think they’ve finally given up. Or found a better attic to roost in.” Her story about the raccoon made him grin in a way that said he shared her pain. “I can say there has never been a racoon in my attic, so small mercies, hm?” Carrington hummed in agreement as she mentioned the statistics. “Yes, they are. Makes one wonder if any of the stories are true. Or-” He made a small gesture with his drink. “- if perhaps they’re more… self-fulfilling?” He watched her as she regarded his immaculate kitchen. He did cook- if she was wondering - but he also tended to be unnaturally tidy. Too much clutter made him feel anxious. “About a year now,” he answered smoothly. “I came for work. And a change of scenery. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it’s been… interesting.” He took another drink, still watching her curiously. “So… what do you think of White Crest so far? Have you been warned to stay away from any particular place yet? That seems to be a favorite pastime of the locals.” 

Savannah nodded thoughtfully. “We had a family of sparrows nest in our roof too once when I was a kid. I’d wake up to the sound of baby birds. It was quite exciting for a young child. Probably less so for my parents.” A year wasn’t too long. She’d already been here a couple of months, and they’d passed in the blink of an eye. “I quite like it. The investigator in me is kind of excited by all the mystery of the place, but logically, I know I should be far more disturbed than I am.” Savannah gave a low chuckle. She looked out the window. A thick fog had rolled in from the sea, seemingly out of nowhere. “Coastal towns and their fog, hm?” she said, making small talk as she headed for the bathroom. As she got closer to the door, she heard water running. “Oh, is there someone in the shower?” 

Carrington smiled at the image Savannah’s story brought to mind, but the town’s oddness quickly became the subject again. “Well, then you’re in for a treat if you hang around for awhile.” He tipped an eyebrow at her. “Should you be? Perhaps you just have an open mind when it comes to… preternatural occurrences?” Or perhaps it was all building to a head, and Savannah would slowly find herself going mad. Carrington sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case. He glanced out the window as she mentioned the fog. It was rather thick this evening, but Carrington didn’t give it much more than a passing glance. “It’s part of the charm,” he quipped as them moved on. But his smirk waned as they neared the bathroom. “No. There’s not.” He approached cautiously, listening for any sounds other than the running water. There was nothing in the hallway to indicate intrusion, and he’d sensed no one else in the house but himself and his guest. But something felt… off. 

Slowly, Carrington opened the bathroom door. Steam poured out, rolling across the ceiling and instantly making the vampire’s pale skin feel damp and sticky. It was so thick that it took a moment to make out the strange shape behind the fogged up glass of the shower. Even then, it took a moment to realize just what he was looking at. And if Carrington’s blood hadn’t already been cold, it would’ve turned to ice right then and there as he saw what was in his shower. “Christ…” 

"An open mind is the most polite way of putting it," Savannah answered with a vague chuckle. More likely she was just a cat about to be killed by her curiosity. The very same curiosity led her towards the bathroom as Carrington confirmed there was nobody else home, and she pulled a gun from beneath her jacket. "Don't worry. I'm FBI," she answered, just in case he was alarmed by his house guest's sudden revelation that they were armed. 

An attempted burglary would be one thing; it was a very nice house, but what kind of thief stopped to use the shower? God, please don't let it be some kind of bunny boiler ex who had let themselves in... No such luck, unfortunately. "ARGHHH!" Savannah screamed. It was Javier, except it wasn't. Scales and tentacles covered his body, his face malformed by something. It seemed to be growing out of his skin. 

"It's not real!" Savannah insisted. "I'm fucking dreaming. It's not real." 

“Well, it’s not always a bad thing.” But curiosity could certainly be bad for one’s health. Especially here. Though Carrington was guilty of it just as much as anyone else. But his move towards the bathroom was more concern than anything. If someone had gotten in without him knowing… When Savannah pulled her weapon, Carrington gave it a glance, and a nod of acknowledgement to Savannah herself, but was otherwise unaffected by the presence of the gun. Though what good it would do was yet to be seen. So Carrington prepared himself for the worst as he opened the door. But that still didn’t prepare him for what was actually on the other side. Savannah’s scream caused the creature to turn it’s grotesque head towards them. It’s mouth opened, and instead of a voice, thick black ichor gurgled up from Javier’s - from the creature’s - throat… spilling down his contorted face and body like oil. It made a shuddering motion, and lurched suddenly in their direction. Without a second thought, Carrington pushed Savannah back into the hallway and shut the door. He held the knob with one hand - the door didn’t lock from the outside - and kept the other in front of Savannah. He turned to her a moment later, hand still on the knob, as she tried to tell herself it wasn’t real. 

“Of course it’s not real,” Carrington said, locking his eyes with hers. They were very blue, and looked at her with a gentle intensity that tightened the corners just so. “It’s not real at all. There’s a raccoon in the bathroom. Like in your old apartment. Remember? You told me that story.” He waited patiently - not caring for the use of compulsion to alter someone’s memories, but in this case it was necessary - to see if his suggestion would work. All the while trying to ignore the way the doorknob shuddered in his grasp.

Savannah’s heart hammered in her chest, beating against her rib cage like an animal that didn’t want to be contained. Her body was hot, palms sweating, muscles tight and tense. Instinctively, she tried to fight Carrington off, beating his chest while she reached for her gun, but it was no use. He was deceptively strong. “What do you mean?!” She practically yelled in his face. “I saw it! I fucking saw him!” But as quickly as the panic had overcome her, something started to calm it. Savannah shook her head, as if waking up from an unplanned nap. “What… what the…?” She cleared her throat, standing up straight. “Sorry. This is embarrassing. I’m clearly not getting enough sleep.” She pointed towards the bathroom door. “You should… call pest control. I’m gonna go.” 

[girls-scenarios]

Burnt Brownies and Warm Hearts

Idol: Jessica (Formerly SNSD/Soloist)

Prompt: Can I request a fluffy scenario where reader and Jessica jung accidentally set off the fire alarm when baking because they're just that bad? If you don't write for her, maybe Krystal then? Thanks and love you guys!

Writer: Admin Kiwi

A/N: I meant to have more requests up by yesterday but I’ve been pretty busy since I got back so I’m sorry about that. I hope you all enjoy, and hopefully I’ll be able to post more requests today!

♡ Tip Jar♡

It had been Jessica’s idea to make the brownies. In fact, she’d already decided that the two of you were going to do it before you even got home, so when you walked in the door, she was already ready with her apron on and the ingredients on the counter.

“I’ve been craving chocolate, so I wanted to make some brownies with you,” she explained when you walked over, your eyebrows raised in surprise. “It can’t be that hard, I printed out a recipe and everything.”

“We’re both pretty bad at cooking,” you said, not totally convinced even as she handed you an apron (although the chocolate already smelled pretty good).

“It’ll be fine! Baking is easy!”

“Have you ever baked?”

She shrugged, undeterred as she moved back over to look at the recipe. “Well, not really. Krystal did most of the work on the cake we made together. But it didn’t seem that hard, and this is brownies! They should be easy!”

“Famous last words.” You grinned as you tied on your apron, shaking your head. “Remember when you said making pancakes wouldn’t be that hard? I was getting pancake batter off the walls for weeks.”

Her cheeks colored and she huffed, holding up her spatula in a threatening position. “That was different! I didn’t have a recipe or instructions then!”

“Okay, true.”

“Now.” She tilted her chin up in the air, a sign that she was trying not to laugh, and you couldn’t help laughing a bit yourself. She was so cute. “Do you want brownies or not?”

Chocolate did sound good after a long day at work. Nodding, you stepped up beside her put your hands on the counter. “Yes I do. You win. Just tell me what to do.”

At first, everything was fine. There was only so much messing up you could do when it came to just mixing ingredients together, and most of it was pretty self-explanatory. Sure, you made a bit of a mess, and you were pretty sure she put in a little too many chocolate chips (meaning she just dumped the whole bag in) but it seemed to be going well.

Then, she had to melt the chocolate. The double-burner method had taken a few YouTube videos to understand, and you could feel your heartbeat picking up as you watched her try and balance the bowl on top of a now-boiling pot of water.

“It’s kind of too small but I don’t have a bigger bowl. Should I just hold it?”

“No! You might burn your hands. That’s not a good idea.”

“Then what do I do? Just let it tilt over and spill all the chocolate out?”

“Let’s see if we can balance it.” You grabbed one of the oven mitts from the nearby drawer and took the bowl from her, tilting it up and focusing hard on balancing it on the rim of the pot. It was difficult, because of course it had to be, but just when you were about to get it balanced....

“The chocolate is melted. I think we can take it off now.”

“Oh thank goodness.” You let out a sigh of relief and pulled off the bowl. Just then, to your surprise, the pot bubbled, splashing boiling water and making both of you yelp and jump back. Thankfully, none got on you, and Jessica rushed forward to turn off the boiler and move the pot off the hot stove before anything else could happen.

For a moment, both of you just stood there, shocked. Then, you looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Apparently melting chocolate isn’t as easy as I thought!”

“That was so scary, oh my god.”

Giggling, Jessica shook her head and leaned back against the counter, relieved that neither of you had gotten hurt. “Well, at least that was probably the worst that could happen. Now we only have to whisk in the melted chocolate and combine our wet and dry ingredients.”

Laughing, you brought the bowl of melted chocolate over the counter, jokingly telling her that she sounded like a professional without a care in the world, believing her words. Oh, how wrong the both of you were.

It all seemed to be going so well. The oven had preheated, the brownie batter was actually looking okay (not professional, but yummy at least) and it hadn’t been too much of a struggle to get it in the oven and set a timer. In fact, the two of you were so confident in your abilities that both of you sat on the couch and turned on your favorite show, waiting for the alarm to go off.

At some point, Jessica looked up and sniffed the air, narrowing her eyebrows. “Does it smell a bit like smoke in here to you?”

You’d been preoccupied with the show, but when you glanced away and smelt the air, you noticed it too. The air almost smelt... burnt. “It kind of does. But I set a timer for the brownies.”

“Right. Maybe we should check anyway.” She reached over to grab the remote and pause the show before standing up and walking into the kitchen with you on her heels. As soon as the two of you stepped inside the kitchen, the burning smell became overwhelming, and immediately, the two of you began to panic.

“Oh my god, what happened?”

“I don’t know, let’s just get those brownies out of there!”

She grabbed a pair of the oven mitts sitting on the counter, and you threw open the oven to reveal blackened, smoking brownies. Thin smoke poured into the room and you let out a gasp, before immediately coughing.

“Babe, be careful.”

“I will be. Hang on.” Jessica quickly reached inside, face nervous as she carefully touched the pan a few times before grabbing it and pulling it out, dropping it on the now-cool stove top as soon as she could.

As you closed the oven, a shrill ring echoed throughout the apartment, and both of you jumped before turning around to look at the smoke detector. Sure enough, it was blinking, the loud ringing exploding from the small box and making Jessica cover her ears.

“Wait, what do we do?”

“Shut it off! Let me grab a chair!” Both of you were yelling over the ringing, and as you turned to grab a chair from the table so that you could reach the smoke alarm, she ran to open the windows, trying to wave as much smoke out as possible. As you reached up to inspect the fire alarm, you tried to remember what you’d done to shut the last one off. You’d pressed a button, right? You were pretty sure this model just needed the press of a button to be turned off, so you squinted at the little box and pressed the only button there, hoping that it was right.

Thankfully, the ringing stopped, and you let out a sigh of relief, quickly jumping off the chair. Jessica came back over, eyes wide as she looked up at the little box, and you pressed your hand to your chest.

“Well. That was eventful.”

She let out a little, nervous laugh. “No kidding. What happened?”

“I have no idea.” Now that you’d calmed down a bit, you walked over to inspect the oven and the brownies. You knew you’d turned on the timer, so what had happened?

“Wait. This timer. It’s for two hours!” Jessica quickly turned off the timer and the oven, and your eyes widened.

“Really? But I tried to do it for twenty-five minutes!”

“The oven timer is different than the microwave timer. You pressed a zero after twenty-five, turning it into two hours and fifty minutes.”

“Oh my god.” You just laughed in disbelief. “That would explain why they burnt! Why do they make these timers so hard to read?”

“To trip up dummies like us, I’m sure,” she said with a giggle, patting your arm. “At least we have a fun story now.” Both of you turned to look at the brownies, now burnt beyond eating, and she wrinkled her nose. “Those are not edible. Let’s just go buy some brownies from the store.”

Grinning, you put your arm around her. Both of you were covered in ingredients despite the aprons, her hair was a mess, and you were pretty sure you smelt like smoke now. But despite the scare, and despite all that, you found that you were still happy.

“I like that idea. Let’s just change first. And maybe take a shower so we don’t smell like we just escaped a house fire.”

“I don’t know, I think I smell more like burnt chocolate than smoke.” She brought up her arm to smell her sleeve. “Kind of like I just escaped a campfire that a bunch of kids dropped their s’mores into.”

“You have a very vivid imagination, you know that?”

She laughed and leaned into your shoulder. “You’re right. Let’s take a shower and change and then go get some brownies. And maybe some s’mores too, now that I think about it.”

“Are you sure that’s safe?”

She grinned up at you, with flour in her hair and a sparkle in her eye, looking as adorable and playful as she had when you came home. You were pretty sure that meant trouble. It usually did. “What, you don’t want any more adventures with me tonight?”

“As much as I love you, no.” You pressed an affectionate kiss to her forehead, holding back your laughter. “I’ll buy you double the brownies, though.”

She locked her pinky with yours before quickly giving you a kiss and a wink. “Then you’ve got a deal, love. We reconvene after twenty minutes.” She then turned on her heel and walked off towards the bedroom, a little skip in her step, and you couldn’t help the smile that spread over your features as you glanced back at the burnt brownies on the stove top. Somehow, you couldn’t say that you were surprised at the way things had turned out. But you weren’t mad at it, either. This wasn’t the first time the two of you had met disaster in the kitchen, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time. You knew you were going to be smelling burnt brownies for weeks now. But it didn’t matter.

Because you wouldn’t trade these little moments moments of disaster with her for the world.

[diego-hargreeve2]

light in the dark

Part Thirty

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)

Ship: Diego Hargreeves x Original Character

Warnings: Language, abuse (emotional and physical), mental illness, violence and, in later chapters, smut. This chapter specifically features talk of blood and menstruation. 

The pain woke her. Cramping twisting pain in her stomach and for a moment she was worried – then just annoyed. Of course.

Perhaps by now, in what were really her late twenties, she ought to be used to this but for Eve it had never happened monthly, had never been regular.

The first time it happened she was fifteen. She’d been in the place they used as a chapel, on her knees and praying. By that point she’d been there for so long, no longer seeking help or forgiveness but just something, a connection – proof she wasn’t completely evil and beyond redemption, a sign that God knew she existed and had not entirely abandoned her – that she had sat back on her ankles when her thighs had started shaking. She had been sore and aching and attributed it solely to the position she was in, she had thought the slight dampness she felt when she stood was sweat from the exertion. But when she left the church another of the women had seen the stain on the back of her dress.

Magda hadn’t touched her – nobody did. But she had beckoned her over and provided her with the briefest of lectures – advising she was a woman now, and as a woman had the curse all women did to atone for her namesake – and some rags to be used and washed each month.

She had learned more in the years since, but it had never appeared every month and in truth she had been grateful. Eve had learned enough to know it was because of her weight and the stress; she had never been fed enough in the Brethren to be regular and living on the streets had been little more stable. In truth she had been grateful.  There had been too many occasions as it was where she’d found herself trying to clean blood stains from clothing in public bathrooms, putting them back on while still damp and stained and relying on her body to dry them. When charitable hostels gifted her new clothes, stuffed and stitched she turned the old into rags, wrapped in plastic bags and hidden at the bottom of her rucksack ready for the next occurrence.

The lack of regularity meant she hadn’t had to deal with this issue with Diego – and it was that thought that occurred first. Sitting up Eve was relieved to see he wasn’t here, that this had started while she napped alone not with him sleeping beside her – but that reprieve didn’t last long. Scrambling up out of bed she looked back and saw a tell-tale stain on the sheets. Yanking down the shorts she wore – his shorts – she found they too had been stained crimson at the juncture where her legs met, and the panic began to rise.

Eve had been taught this was a sin to be ashamed of. A sin inflicted upon her sex, a sign of why women could not be trusted. It had never been discussed in depth, but that was what Magda had inferred and when the Elder lectured on the many short fallings of women it was hinted at.

And now she’d ruined Diego’s sheets.

Her mind racing, Eve began to strip the sheet from the bed, her heartrate spiking again when she saw it had spotted the worn mattress beneath. Throwing the sheet to the floor she yanked the bedding off, dropping it on the pile as she reached for the mattress and turned it over.

One problem – not solved but hidden.

Grabbing up the comforter she checked it, trying to ascertain the level of damage, and the tightness in her chest eased very slightly at finding that it was unmarked. Tossing it back onto the bed she moved away, grabbing at her rucksack and began to rummage through the contents.

The door opened behind her and she froze.

“You alright angel?”

“Yeah I’m fine”. Her voice wavered and Diego frowned, quickening his pace as he headed over to her.

“Evie? What’s wrong?” He caught her arm, trying to turn her around, but she tensed beneath his grip and dropped whatever she had gotten from the backpack as though it had scalded her.

“Nothing. I just – have some stuff I have to sort out” she told him, unable to meet his eyes. Diego slid his hand from her arm up toward her face, fingers under her chin but she resisted lifting her head.

“Babe? Talk to me” he said, bending his knees into a crouch but she turned her head to the side, her cheeks bright red with shame.

“I just – I have to sort some stuff, I’m fine” she mumbled, wishing he’d let her go – and that was, for Evie, a new experience. Normally she wanted him there always, his hands on her skin as though there were a hole inside her that only started to feel full when Diego was holding her. Today she wanted to be alone so she could figure out how to hide all the evidence and fix this before he realised and grew angry with her.

He glanced around, trying to determine what could have happened. When he left Eve was mumbling about being tired and he’d told her to nap whilst he trained in the empty gym, taking advantage of it being Sunday. She had willingly gotten into bed, curling up and warming up the sheets, adorable as she yawned and snuggled into the blanket. He’d kissed the top of her head, smiling as he walked away. Now she was tense and awkward with him, worse than she’d ever been in the early points of their friendship.

The sheet on the floor was crumpled, but the stain showed on the top of the pile and an idea formed in his mind – although why that would bother her so much was beyond his understanding.

“Evie…are you upset because you got your period?” he said, dropping his voice low and trying to rid it of the worry from a few moments ago, trying to comfort and calm her. It didn’t seem to work, the colour in her cheeks deepened and he could feel her growing warmer under his touch. “Angel…look – tell me what you need, I’ll run out and grab stuff while you shower, yeah?”

That wasn’t the reaction she expected if he figured it out and she finally lifted her gaze to his, her shame still present but mingled with confusion in her expression. Eve had anticipated disgust. Men of the Brethren recoiled at any sign of a woman’s curse; wives were often banished to sleep in other rooms until it was over, and bloodstained clothes drew ire.

“You’re not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad?” He asked, mirroring her own bemusement. It wasn’t growing up with sisters that had helped Diego’s relaxed attitude to this, but his dating Eudora. Neither Allison or Vanya had ever discussed the topic, and of course Grace didn’t have to deal with it. But Patch? Patch was firmly of the opinion that it should be discussed and the stigma around the topic destroyed.

When the relationship began, he’d been…not disgusted, but awkward around the topic. Eudora had put a stop to that, talking about it openly and educating him with a strident passion he’d found amusing at times; there was something about watching Eudora lecture when she truly cared about a topic that made him smile for reasons, he never understood himself. One of the things he’d loved about her was her convictions, so he wasn’t mocking her and yet he would still find himself suppressing a laugh when she got out her figurative soapbox.

Now though he could see the point that Eudora had been determined to make; that keeping quiet is damaging and dangerous. Mentally he made a note to try and have Patch talk to Eve. But at this moment his main concern was less dismantling culture that advocated treating it as a disgusting private matter, and more about comforting Eve.

“C’mere” he murmured, pulling her into an embrace and kissing the top of her head. “It’s not a big deal, babe. Go shower” Diego insisted, pulling out the embrace, and looking at the nervous expression on her face repeated it, “Go!”

Eve complied somewhat reluctantly but had to admit once she was under the spray – turned up so hot it would have been unbearable for anyone else – she began to feel better. She lingered there getting clean, watching blood occasionally drip and swirl around the mess of soap around her feet. As she tried to figure out what to do next – how to avoid staining towels and corridors – she heard the door to the locker room open and Diego speak.

“I’ll put the bag here with your clothes Evie”.

She didn’t reply, waiting for him to leave the room, her cheeks pink again from the awkwardness. How he could be so relaxed was beyond her, Eve just wanted to sink into the floor and disappear, never to be seen again. As that wasn’t an option, and she could hardly hide in the bathroom forever, eventually Eve turned off the shower and emerged.

He’d left a paper bag on top of clean clothes and peeking in she smiled despite herself. Diego seemed to have purchased half an aisle of products, and her heart swelled as she realised looking at the selection that he’d grabbed one of each type. Mind you, her own experiences had been with charitable donations – faced with an aisle of choice, Evie suspected she’d have been no more knowledge than Diego and just as likely to panic buy and hope for the best.

When she emerged from the gym locker room – drowning in one of his hoodies and a pair of sweatpants, the cuffs rolled up around her ankles, the paper bag hugged against her chest – Diego wasn’t around, and she made her way back to the boiler room quickly. Even knowing the gym should be empty today – although sometimes Al swung by anyway – she just wanted to go figure out the sheet…but when she opened the door, Diego was already remaking the bed. She froze, gripping the bag tighter so it crackled between her chest and fingers.

It was bad enough to have him to have to go shopping for her – that he’d also had to clean up the mess…

Her cheeks were red for a very different reason other than the heat of the shower, and for the first time since she had moved in part of Eve almost regretted agreeing – if she lived elsewhere she’d still have to deal with everything but it wouldn’t be in front of Diego. It wouldn’t be unattractive and raw in front of the man she loved.

Hearing her enter Diego finished tucking the sides of the clean sheet under the mattress and turned around. The panicked look was back in her eyes and he walked toward her, taking the steps in one stride as he closed the gap between them and reached for the bag she held.

“You okay?” he checked, taking it from her gently and putting it down. When his hands were free he turned back to Eve and reached for her waist.

“Sorry” she murmured apologetically, nodding toward the bed, unable to meet his eyes.

“Sorry for what?” Diego asked, frowning, his hands sliding up from her waist to her neck, thumbs on her jawline trying to tilt her chin upward gently. When that didn’t work, he crouched slightly to meet her gaze and found her eyes full of tears that quivered and threatened to fall.

“Oh angel” he murmured, straightening up and pulling her close.  “It’s fine” he insisted, kissing the top of her head. “It’s all fine. I got painkillers, if you need them. Go lie down – let me shower, and I’ll come and hold you, yeah?”

She nodded very slightly, stepping out his grip as his arms loosened and headed over to the bed, crawling into the clean sheets and burrowing into them.

fun fact about me. i had cervical cancer at 25. i had no idea that the level of pain i experienced wasn't normal and was a symptom. it only got picked up at a smear. ergo - i’m passionate (obsessive some friends say) about talking about women’s health issues, periods and smear tests. on that basis. please have this chapter of evie who is not as loud on the topic as me. and if you’re a lady due a test go call your doctor. 

@lovinglydiego​ @klausbutgayer​ @reblogserpent​ @me125​ @fatbottomedcurls ​ @rhymesmenagerie​ @mrsdiegohargreeves​ @eleventhdoctorsangel​ @carryon-doctor-lock

[captain-ghost-writer-blog]

The birth of Captain Hydra

Screams.   So many screams, people shouting for help. The air was thick and smelled like napalm, explosions and burnt flesh. With wide eyes, the young man with blond hair stood in the middle of all this and looked around. Another explosion went off, not too far from him. Steve ducked and jumped into a dugout. His heart was racing in fear, pumping adrenaline through his veins. His uniform and face covered in dirt. Slowly he looked around, wondering where his team was. Crystal blue hues met grey bluish eyes. A shiver ran down Steve’s spine. “Bucky?” carefully he reached a hand out, tapped on the other man’s shoulder, but there was no life in this body anymore. “Bucky!! No..noo!!” With a startle the soldier awoke in his bed, almost ripping his pillow apart. Body covered in sweat, hands trembling, his heart racing. Slowly he sat up, glancing to the small clock on the nightstand. 7 a.m. Three hours of sleep. One hour less than the night before. A deep breath was taken, fresh air filled up his lungs to full capacity in a try to calm his racing heart. His mind still a mess. He needed a moment to fully understand, that he wasn’t in a war anymore. That Bucky was alive, just captured in a frozen grave in Wakanda. Still, no matter what kind of a nightmare he had, it always ended the same way. With him looking into those dead eyes of his best friend. It always threw him out. Sighing deeply he ran a hand through his short blond hair, finding it sticky from sweating all night. It was time for a nice hot shower and some coffee. He wouldn’t be able to sleep more anyway.   A long time has passed since the incident on the airport in Germany and the following fight in the abandoned HYDRA base. A long time. Was Tony still mad at him? Was Steve?   After getting the rest of the former Avengers out of the Raft, Steven Rogers went into a hide out. Just like Barton, he had prepared a secret and safe place just for him. A place where he wanted to stay for his evening of life. It was a wooden house in the Black Forest in Germany. Old but not ruined yet even though there was a lot of work for him to do. The veranda, the roof, the floor, the sanitary... the list was longer than Steve's arm. A lot of work but this place also offered something to Steven he hasn't been able to find since the moment of his wake up: peace. The silence of the forest was soothing for his nerves. The nightmares still came over him almost every night, but he had all day to settle his mind again and calm down. It wasn't perfect but still better than what he had been like before he came to this place.   What should have been a relaxing warm shower turned out to be an ice cold wake up. Obviously the boiler refused to work on this horrible morning, so Steve just showered fast, bearing the cold water on his skin and all those shivers. The hut was old, older than he was. Of course it needed some caring hands.   After the fight with Tony Stark and teaming up with Bucky Barnes, things have changed and sometimes Steve wasn’t even sure anymore if he has chosen the right side at all. His best friend has decided to go back into cryo and latest news from T’Challa told him that James was still sleeping his frozen sleep. His last update about Bucky was probably months ago though. Still, Steve felt like his best friend was lost again. James was safe and not captured in some maximum security prison, but was he free? A prisoner of his own mind. A man in a frozen grave. Steve wasn’t sure if that was a better solution or a solution at all.   Standing on his veranda with a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, Steven thought of what he could do next. The shower was finally working but still not perfectly. On the other hand it seemed rain was coming soon and the roof was still not repaired. "The shower can wait. Cold water is still a good wake up" he muttered to himself, smiling as the sound of his own voice surprised him. He was alone in the woods and only met people when he drove into the next town to get his groceries or construction material. It was a peaceful life Steven now had. Quiet.   Peep peep. What was this? A confused frown drew into Steven's face and the former soldier needed a moment before he realized that it was his phone that has been peeping. Over months he hasn’t heard this sound at all, it surprised him to hear it now. He never used it but always kept it charged though in case Tony might message him. Taking the small thing out of the pocket of his jeans he read the message and nearly dropped his coffee. Tony was in trouble. ‘Tony Stark in the hands of HYDRA – Request help!’ Swiftly he poured the rest of the black liquid into the flowers, then stepped inside.   It took Steve at least a day to get to the given coordinates. At least Fury has been able to give him his current position. Getting a flight to the right state hasn't been easy at this time of the year. But now he was finally carefully approaching the complex. He was wearing his uniform again. 'If you go into a war then you need a uniform' this has been his own words. And to be honest, he was still standing behind this uniform, at least a part of him was. With a quick look onto his phone he checked the coordinates again, secretly glad that Natasha had shown him how to use these small things. Then he entered the building.   It was quiet, almost too quiet, and for a moment the soldier got the feeling that it was just a trap. The plan was to enter the building and get them both out alive, only with a small team of soldiers. A silly plan, but Nick has promised him to keep the other Avengers in the backhand in case it should fail. Carefully Steven stepped deeper into the building, on his right arm his shield attached. After getting his friends out of the Raft, Natasha went to Tony and got it for him. She never mentioned how she had done it, but in this very moment, the soldier was glad for having it attached to his left arm. Just turning around a corner, a door opened and hit him roughly in the face. Confused for a second or two, he stumbled back but only enough to lift his leg and kick the door back close. He could hear the attacker grunting. Did hurt, right? Swiftly the man looked around while the men on the other side of the door were still collecting themselves. Finding a rather big table, he threw it onto its side and crouched down behind it. Right the next moment the door busted open. Typical. Always shoot first and question later. Steve's heart was racing, pumping adrenaline through his veins. This was far away from his peaceful life and for the split of a second he found himself back in WWII again, hiding in a dugout and staring into his best friend’s dead eyes. With a deep breath he shoved that thought away. He needed his mind in the here and now and not in some wicked nightmare. Bullets smashed against the surface of the table. This was a good thick wood, Steve was save for this moment. But he couldn't hide there forever.   The sound of flying bullets stopped. For a moment Steven listened into the silent, trying to make out what his attackers were doing. A soldier would probably carefully approach the table now. At least this was what Steve would do. And he was right. The first one already peaked around the corner. Fast as lightning Steven grabbed the end of the riffle and jerked the man closer. In the same movement he lifted his shield and let the man ran head first right into it. Then he turned half around, throwing the round Frisbee into the face of the second. Another man jumped forward, followed by a second and third. Steve's muscles moved on their own, all muscle memory coming from years long training. Punches here, kicks there. Dodge. A roll over the floor.   No matter how many he fought down, there were always coming more. Sweat ran in thick pearls down his cheeks, his chest quickly rising and falling in a panting. Maybe it would have been a good idea to contact Natasha before he entered the building. But then again, he had expected Friday had messaged her as well together with the other Avengers.   The shield was lifted to dodge another attack as something suddenly pulled onto his foot. Roughly the spangled man landed on the floor, suddenly feeling for how long he really had fought. Gritting his teeth he tried to get up again, noticing that he couldn't move his foot. Crystal blue hues looked down and searched for the reason of this, widening some as they found a black cable wrapped around his ankle. He would have cursed but bit his tongue instead. Both hands pressed onto the floor he pushed himself up into a kneeling. He fell again as the held of a riffle was roughly hit against his temple. Blood slowly ran down his cheeks, mixing with his sweat.   A painful groan left his lips. Roughly he threw the shield against the man's knees and the moment he fell, he stroked it square of his face. Now on his knees, Steven half turned to take care of that restrain on his foot. Another cable flew through the air, followed by a second and a third. The shield landed with an ear shattering sound on the floor. Hands lifted and curled into tight fists, Steve was now unable to move, but that didn’t keep him from tugging on the cables. Kneeling on the floor and gritting his teeth, he tried to at least move his arms, groaning, almost screaming as muscles worked against the restrains. On the other end of each cable three men who held tightly onto the thick snake and kept the Captain from moving. Another loud groan escaped Steve’s lips. An inch…just an inch or two, then he could get free. But they didn’t move. Only as his muscles threatened to tear apart, he finally stopped, hanging in the cables and waiting for his destiny. Not the place he had planned to die. Chewing on the inside of his lip he turned his head. He needed to get a way out of this, call a backup and then come back with a team.   The thought was just finished as Steven heard footsteps approaching. Heels tapping the floor in a regular rhythm, the sound echoing from the old walls. Surprise hit him as his blue eyes fell onto the form of a woman. "Captain America! How nice of you to visit me" the woman snarled, a wicked grin on her lips. Steven remained silence, glaring at the woman like he could kill her just with a glare.   "I am Madame Hydra, the newest leader" she explained, her words wrapping around Steve's mind like poison. No matter how often they disintegrate HYDRA, they always seem to reorganize. The tapping of heels hitting the floor echoed from the walls again. Observing her seductive movements, Steven kept his eyes on her. She crouched down in front of him, now a little smaller than the spangled man. "Hmmmmmm...you came to save the mechanic, didn’t you? So brave of you… so…stupid.. it was just a trap my dear" a sweet hum vibrated from her blood red colored lips as she slowly ran a finger over his blue mask. Then, in a blink of an eye, she ripped it off his head, revealing his with sweat and blood strained face and messy blond hair. "What a cute face you have. Too bad you hide it behind a silly mask" the woman smiled, their faces now so close, that he could feel her breath on his skin.   Slowly she leaned even closer and, only able to move his head some, Steve leaning back. A delicate, leather gloved finger was brought under his chin, forcing him to tilt his head back. Blue eyes met those toxic green ones of the lady in front of him. By all means, Steve has never been one who would hurt a woman. That was against everything he has learned in his life. An unwritten rule. But in this very moment, he wanted to punch her to the next life. Just as he cursed himself for this thought, she grazed her blood red lips over his, stealing a kiss from him. Steve’s heart stopped for a second. “Welcome to Hydra, my sweet new toy.” A blurry mutter echoed in Steve’s ears, his mind suddenly growing dizzy. Trying to blink his gaze free again, he stared at Madame Hydra, the awareness suddenly kicking him. Poison. Those lips were poisoned. His heart began to race in panic, pumping the toxic only quicker through his system. “What..do you want?” A weak breathless whisper left his lips, eyelids suddenly heavy. “Ohhh Stevie.. are you always so curious? Let’s just say..we both will have much fun.” Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noticed her warmth leaving his. The sound of heels echoed in his ears and he could only assume that she was leaving. Another order was barked at the other soldiers, while Steve was still trying to fight against the overcoming weakness. A man stepped now in front of Steven, suddenly hitting the hold of his riffle into Steve's face. The lip burst open, the head jerking to the side in the impact. Steve could taste blood on his tongue. But the former soldier in the spandex still kept fighting, somewhere in the distance feeling the pain in his face. He held onto it, used it like an anchor to keep him conscious. Another rough hit met Steve's face, causing his cheekbone to break. Blood mixed with saliva dripped down his mouth. For seconds pitch blackness surrounded Steve’s mind, muscles going limp. Suddenly he was pulled up onto his feet, his arms brought onto his back. Steve could feel how thick handcuffs were attached to his wrists. A heavy sigh left the spangled man, his mind dizzy. Held by his elbows he was brought to something that looked a lot like a cellar, his feet draggled over the floor. The door was opened and Steven was pushed inside. Too weak to react, too dizzy in his mind, he stumbled, fell and landed on his shoulder, another loud groan escaping him as he felt and heard how his collarbone cracked. The door was closed again, leaving the man panting in pain. He had no idea if he was alone in the cell and could only guess where the Professor and Bucky were. The mission failed, his small team dead. Hopefully the others would come and get them all out. Finally darkness wrapped around him, the toxic winning the fight over his mind.  

[theessaflett]

To All The Ghosts I’ve Loved Before: A Farewell Letter to 53a

Written by Elisabeth Flett 

Elisabeth perches on the bed mid-move, March 2019.

How do you say goodbye to something that can’t say goodbye back?

That was the question I found myself asking as stood in the middle of my boxed-up flat, my beloved home for the last four years.

To understand the magnitude of this impossible farewell we need to go back to June 2015, when a unhappy, stressed-out 19 year old first stepped inside 53a. Like so many other second year university students these days I was emerging battered and shaken from a disastrous flat-share, my fresher’s week hopes and dreams of a rosy uni experience from the year before long since gone. I was out of my depth, winging it and wearing my best jacket and quite a lot of make-up in the hope that the estate agent wouldn’t realise that I was still a teenager. Nightmarish images of the truly uninhabitable hovels I’d viewed the previous year with my soon-to-be new flatmates had played in my mind on the bus journey there, as had all the warnings from concerned friends that moving into a flat on my own would be a terrible idea. What would happen if I was burgled? What about if I became horribly ill and needed someone to look after me? As I stood there in the empty flat, the estate agent hovering impatiently next to me, I could see that at least the worry of this place being a hovel wasn’t going to be an issue. Okay sure, there were some cracks and peeling paint here and there, but compared to the underground basement off Brick Lane I remembered viewing in 2014 (no windows, mouldy sofa and nuclear bomb-site worthy toilet…the most worrying part was that I genuinely considered it as a possibility because we were so desperate) it was practically a paradise. The shower was in the main room. The toilet was in a tiny cupboard so small that you couldn’t really shut the door if you sat down on the loo.

It wasn’t much. But it would be mine, and mine alone.

“I’d like to put a deposit on the flat,” I said, trying to feel like an adult but only succeeding in feeling like a child pretending to be a grown-up. A truly terrifying amount of money passed hands, and that was it. I was moving into my first ever studio flat. Sure, it was on the same street as two strip clubs and next to a kebab shop, a nightclub and a taxi delivery service, but what could go wrong? Single living, here I came.

It seemed like a great idea until the first night on my own. Lying there terrified, I listened to every creak, every grumble from the traffic, and was convinced that a hundred axe-wielding murderers lay in wait outside my front door. What was that noise from the landing outside? Should I call the police? My parents, wearily supportive, took my hysterical whispered 1am phone call with good grace but suggested that since this was going to be my living situation for the foreseeable future I should find some way to cope with these entirely irrational fears of horror movie break-ins. Thankfully, it didn’t end up being a big problem; one night of not being hacked to pieces was all it took for me to settle down to the idea that I probably wasn’t going to be horribly murdered in my sleep. It was just as well, as not long afterwards I had my first real nighttime “Situation”…

Picture the scene. You’re nineteen. You’ve recently moved into a flat, on your own, into a part of London you don’t know. For all the above reasons, you’re a bit on edge anyway. And then, at 2am, you’re woken by an almighty crash. I’m talking loud. You lie there, wide awake, hoping that it was part of your dream. And then you hear it. The ominous hhhhssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Worried now, you get up, turn a light on, blearily searching for the hissing noise whilst still mostly asleep. You grew up in a house with a gas cooker so in your sleep-ridden state you first check the electric hobs for any suspicious smells, then when that unsurprisingly doesn’t give you any clues you check the boiler in the hallway. It’s not that either. At a loss, you then step into the tiny toilet cupboard, noticing the floor is wet. Something has broken in the toilet, maybe? You idly notice a can of air freshener on top of the toilet cistern, move it out of the way. And then, very dramatically, the bookshelf on the wall - the one your father built himself but didn’t screw in quite enough, the one that had fallen directly down onto the air freshener can and by some mad, wild law of physics was balancing on its nozzle head, causing the air freshener to spray all over the bathroom, the one that now with no air freshener can beneath it continued its downwards trajectory - came crashing down onto my head, with all its contents along with it. Dazed, I lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, surrounded by broken bits of bookcase and battered paperbacks, and mused that this was definitely not on the list of things people had warned me about.

Some of the challenges I had to cope with were a little more expected, if entirely unwelcome.

I have, embarrassingly enough for someone who grew up in the countryside, a very real phobia of rodents, and discovering that I had a few mice for visitors in the winter of 2015 was enough to send me in a state of terror that I found very embarrassing but could do nothing to ease. My Top Two Least Dignified Mice Moments over the years were probably when A) a mouse ran across my floor and I screamed hysterically into the phone to a friend who had to then talk me down from the chair I’d jumped on when spotting the offending rodent, and was still stuck on despite the mouse having run off half an hour previously. B) was a little more traumatising; finding a dead mouse next to my kitchen bin and finding out that I couldn’t “pick it up and put it in the bin” as my Grandma impatiently suggested when I phoned her…because my knees actually gave out when I tried to pick it up and I just fell over whilst hyperventilating. Another London friend of mine very kindly rushed over and came to my aid. I was so grateful I even forgave her when she waved it towards me going,” Look, it’s all stiff!”

Various challenges came up over the years: the time that water came through the light fittings and dripped from doorways because a water tank on the roof had burst; the time that water came through the kitchen ceiling; the time that the toilet upstairs leaked into my Toilet Cupboard…three times in four weeks, but who’s counting; the time that my shower, fridge, washing machine and tap all broke in the space of a month; the time that the creepy guy next door tried to persuade me to take him in as a roommate despite there only being one bed in my flat; the time that the floor started to move; the very scary time a group of drugged up guys were hanging out outside the front door and wouldn’t let me in; the time I was stuck in bed with flu for three days and, as warned by those friends when I first moved in, I indeed had to crawl to the sink myself rather croak out a request for water to someone else. The front door was regularly graffitied. The electricity meter could only be topped up by a easily losable key card. The stairs creaked, and got steadily more creaky over the years, the front door lock broke more times than I can count and the street fights stopped being exotic entertainment and starting just being annoying within the first few months. I hadn’t quite anticipated the sheer level of noise the combination of shops and venues on my street would bring, and the long summer nights full of boomboxes blaring at 3am, screamed arguments about who sold who the wrong type of crack and people vomiting onto the pavement outside the apartment were not my favourite times at 53a. By 2016 I was in a relationship and my girlfriend at the time was not at all as keen as I was about seeing the whole thing as an exciting observation on modern society. “I think someone’s being stabbed,” she would darkly mutter to me as we lay in bed trying to sleep despite the traffic noise blaring outside. “There’s not enough screaming,” I would mutter back with a yawn. “That’s just your average fight. Go back to sleep.”  “I would if there wasn’t about fifty cars beeping outside your window. Oh, and now there’s a street cleaning lorry too. I can’t wait for you to move.”

In the end it was our relationship that moved on before I moved out of the flat, but having a second opinion on 53a did cast a few small doubts in my mind about the place. Was the traffic a little too unreasonable? Were the nighttime brawls a little too regular? Despite these musings I continued to love my little hide-away, my safe haven from the world.

How to describe 53a? 53a was:

chipped green paint

neon light

creak of floorboards

lamplight casting soft shadows at 1am

Radio 2 Jazz programmes and the smell of incense

overground train rumble

afternoon sunlight streaming through dusty windows

mug balanced on bed, laptop open

candle flickering,  polaroids on kitchen tiles

evenings full of laughter, mornings full of sleep

first hellos

last goodbyes.

This flat was always so much more to me than just a place to live. It was where I rebuilt myself, where I found the bits and pieces of my soul that had got lost, trampled and hidden along the way during the previous years and painfully, painfully, dragged them back to me until I was whole once more. It was the backdrop for my first love, and my first heartbreak. It saw dinner parties, welcome parties, leaving parties, parties where no-one showed up and parties where everyone showed up and brought a bottle of rum with them for good measure. It was where I practised for my final exams, where I decided what to wear for my first day at work, where I celebrated one year out of university, then two. This place has heard many words, some hard, some soft, and many ghosts live inside these walls.

It was the ghosts, in the end, who helped me decide to leave.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s a difficult thing, leaving. Not for everyone, of course - there are some people out there who find change exciting, crucial to how they live their life. I am not one of them. Or rather; I feel like people who say that they like change just don’t notice enough about the world around them.

It’s almost impossible to “like change” if you begin to take note of every single little thing that is rudely adjusted around you, without the slightest warning or heads-up.

What do you think of when you think of an example of “change”? Chances are it’s something big.

Moving to a different job, maybe. Getting married. Or something a little smaller, like getting a new haircut. This is what I’ll call the “top tier” of change, and it’s the only tier that a lot of people notice as they go about their lives. There are, however, other levels below that “top tier”. Things that, if you’re me, clump together to make life just a little more hard to cope with, just a little bit more stressful.

For instance:

If the old bus stop pole that I’m used to seeing every morning has been replaced by a new, less dented bus stop pole, the seat I usually take has someone else sitting in it, the train comes at 8:57 rather than 8:55, the chair I like in the cafe I always go to has been moved to another table, there’s a different person from normal on the check-out and they’ve changed an ingredient in the drink I always get, I find out that the podcast I listen to on Tuesdays has started releasing new episodes on Wednesdays instead and then I get an email informing me that an upcoming rehearsal I was expecting to happen in one venue has been moved to a different venue that I’ve never been to before… That, for me, is a very stressful morning. Now, take that level of what I’m going to call Change Stress and apply it to something as enormous as moving house, especially from somewhere that has as much meaning for me as 53a. It took the front door breaking again, the thought of yet another summer listening to dubstep outside my window at 3am and a really stellar flat showing to convince me that it was time, but here I was. Moving for the first time in four years. And boy, it was hard work.

My moving house priorities would have seemed very odd to people helping me organise and pack my belongings. (…If they hadn’t been my aforementioned long-suffering parents, that is.) When there’s such a big uncontrollable change looming over someone as change-phobic as I am, I tend to bury into tiny details and get very annoyingly intense about them being just right.  “No, the tea lights go in the left hand corner of this box! We need to unpack everything again now. No no we can’t pack the radio there, it’s the third item that I’m going to put on my desk, next to the pen pot and opposite that picture frame!!!”  A total slide into insanity and Change Stress are hard to differentiate.

“I was walking around my East Village neighbourhood…you know…you live so much life in these very small blocks, and these routes that you take every day…You grow so much, you know, when you think about who you’ve been in this tiny amount of space… you’re living with the ghosts of yourself.”

The singer St Vincent might have been talking about her time in NYC East Village when she spoke these words in an GQ interview about her song New York, but they resonated with me as I watched the YouTube video in early 2019 sitting on my bed in London. It occurred to me that I was also surrounded by ghosts; both ghosts of myself and ghosts of people I had met, been friends with, fallen out of friendship with or had simply drifted away as folk tend to do at the end of university. The streets surrounding my flat were filled with memories, both good and bad, and 53a itself was groaning with the weight of so much life lived under one roof. 2015 was a long time ago, I realised. Everyone else in the polaroids on my wall from parties now long over seemed to have moved on. I should move on too. To have new experiences, to make new memories, and, in time, to make new ghosts.

Now, as the spring sunlight of March streamed through the windows of 53a, I looked around at the boxes and crates and felt a sense of profound loss mixed in with the fatigue and stress of moving and the excitement of what was to come. There was one more thing that I needed to do.

I laid a hand on the wall, breathed in the smell of wood, paint and dust. “Thank you,” I whispered.

It may have just be my imagination but I’m sure, just for a second, that I felt a slight energy through my fingertips, an acknowledgement of my farewell.

Maybe 53a could say goodbye, after all.

[asflowersfade]

Ficlet: XOXO Murdoc

A MacGyver ficlet. A lock of hair, a bouquet of flowers - and a clean headshot. Told from Jack’s POV.

Finally! Jack thought this day would never end. Crawling through sewers - pardon, a drainage system - getting muck all over himself, his clothes and, God, it’s even squishing in his shoes!

But now that he dropped Mac off at home - for once, getting their hands dirty, literally, meant the clean-up was not up to them, a blessing! - Jack can finally relax, take a long and very hot shower - and burn his clothes! He picks up his mail and slowly, tiredly he drags himself up the stairs to his apartment.

He’s so happy that for this job, they didn’t actually have to trudge across the country or, God forbid, across the ocean. This time, all they had to do was pull out the spoiled brat of the governor’s grandson - or was it his godson? Jack’s not entirely sure, by that point he was knee deep in unmentionable things and he really didn’t care - out of the drainage system downtown that the idiot decided to explore on a dare from his drunk buddies and where he got stuck after a flash flood, following a big storm that hit LA earlier that day. Dumb bastard!

Unlocking his door, Jack walks into his apartment and drops his bag on the floor and his mail on the table as he makes a beeline for the shower. Everything will have to wait until he actually feels like a human being again. Yuck!

His long hot shower is cut short, though, when the boiler once again starts making that unholy clanking noise, which meant that Jack’s landlord still hasn’t bothered to fix the damn thing. With a sigh, Jack scrubs quickly, using what lukewarm water there is. He should’ve stayed at Mac’s and used the shower in Bozer’s bedroom, like Mac suggested, since Bozer was saddled with the clean-up at the scene and he won’t be home for hours. Oh well…

Feeling marginally less like a sewer rat, Jack puts on clean - clean! - clothes and decides that coffee’s in order, good and strong - and hot! At least his coffee will be hot, if not his shower. Small blessings and all that jazz.

But on his way to the kitchen, Jack glances at the pile of mail in passing and something catches his attention. The envelope on top, it has no address, no stamp, there’s nothing but one word written on it in big, blocky letters: JACK.

Frowning, Jack stops at the table and picks it up. He can feel something inside. It’s soft and small, definitely no wires, definitely not a bomb or anything like that. So, he tears the envelope open and shakes the thing out, onto his palm. And he freezes, his eyes going wide.

It’s a lock of hair, short and blond, the same shade as…

Quickly, Jack looks inside the envelope and there’s something else in it, a piece of paper. With his heart hammering like crazy, he pulls it out and unfolds it, and when he reads the text, handwritten with a blue pen, his breath catches in his throat.

“Oh, Jack,” the note reads, “not the best bodyguard, are you?”

The lock of hair, it’s Mac’s! And the note…

Murdoc!

On his way back to Mac’s, Jack violates pretty much every traffic rule there is and it still takes him way too long to get there, at least that’s how it feels to him. Because Mac’s not picking up his phone. His cellphone his off completely and his landline just keeps ringing and ringing. Jesus.

He barges inside Mac’s house with his gun drawn, a litany of “not again, please, God, not again!” running through his head. He yells Mac’s name, sweeping his gun back and forth, checking every corner, and his heart’s working overtime because he got careless - again! - and if, as a result, that... that psycho did something to Mac - again! - Jack will never, ever forgive himself.

And that’s when Mac walks out of his bedroom, dressed in a ratty old t-shirt and sweats, carrying a towel in his hand, and with a bewildered look on his face, he asks, “Jack? What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

And Jack just folds. He almost runs up to Mac and he hugs his friend hard, he almost knocks Mac over in his haste and he hangs onto him for dear life. “You’re okay. You’re here. You’re fine…” he mumbles over and over again.

“Yeah?” Mac drawls, just standing there, utterly confused. “Jack, what--”

“Just give me a second, okay?” Jack whispers with his eyes closed as he waits for his heart to climb down from a borderline heart attack. “Just a sec…”

Mac relaxes and lifts his free hand to pat Jack on the back. “Alright. Whatever it is, Jack, it’s alright.”

After a moment, Jack pushes Mac back and holds him at an arm’s length while he studies him closely. Mac just stares back at him, with his eyebrows raised. Then, Jack shakes him sharply and yells, “Why the hell didn’t you pick up your phone?”

Blinking, Mac reminds him reasonably, “My cellphone’s dead. I turned it into a makeshift sonar, down at the scene, remember? And if you called the landline, well, I was in the shower. I couldn’t get the muck off me, I think I still reek of it!”

Jack drops his head and lets out a deep breath. “Jesus…” he whispers.

“Jack?” Mac asks, uncertain. “What happened?”

Sighing, Jack straightens up and returns his gun back to its holster. Then he reaches into his back pocket and hands the envelope over to Mac. “I found this in my mail. It must’ve arrived after I left for work today because I checked my mailbox this morning and it wasn’t there. And I thought--” He breaks off.

With a frown, Mac opens the envelope and pulls out the note and the lock of blond hair. “That’s mine!” he notices, stunned. Then he reaches up and runs his fingers through his wet, uncombed hair, until he finds a shorter spot in the back and shows it to Jack. “But how…? Who?”

Jack sneers. “Guess.”

Mac’s eyes open wide. “Murdoc?” he breathes out in disbelief. “But when? I’m no Kardashian but I would’ve noticed a chunk of my hair missing this morning!”

“I don’t know!” Jack shakes his head. “It could’ve happened at the site, during the rescue mission? There was a lot of people just milling around, pushing and shoving, and we were focused on getting that idiot out so we didn’t pay much attention to what was going around.”

“But why? I don’t get why he would do something like this?” Mac says, looking down at the lock of his hair, rubbing it between his fingers. “What’s the point?”

Jack snorts. “The point? Mac! Maybe you haven’t noticed but that guy’s pretty obsessed with you. That time he kidnapped you, he used you to get to his target, sure, but don’t tell me he didn’t get off on torturing you. Or that making your life miserable didn’t turn into some sick hobby for him.”

Mac’s life and everyone else’s around him, too, Jack thinks, because Murdoc recognizes a weak spot when he sees it. And he knows that Mac’s weakness are his friends.

Rubbing his face hard, Jack mumbles, “Jesus! He must’ve been so close. So close! And I didn’t notice.”

“Jack,” Mac says kindly, “don’t beat yourself up. I didn’t notice him either and it was my hair he snipped!”

“But it’s not your job, Mac!” Jack protests, glaring at his friend. He’s not really angry with Mac. He’s worried about him - and he’s furious with himself. “Your job is to come up with mad-hatter solutions to problems that would leave the rest of us stumped. My job is to watch your back while you do it, to make sure madmen like Murdoc don’t get anywhere near you, let alone so close they can just snip a lock of your hair!” He ends his tirade on a shout, without even realizing it.

“Jack--” Mac tries again but he’s interrupted by a knock on the door. Frowning, he turns to go and open it, but Jack stops him with a frown and a raised hand, and pulling his gun out of its holster, he goes and opens it himself.

There’s a young boy standing there, pimpled and bright-eyed and with a big bouquet in his hands. “Flowers for... Angus MacGyver?” he asks uncertainly, noticing Jack’s fierce expression.

Jack scans the surroundings - the sun has set and twilight’s crept in while he was inside - but there’s no one else there but the delivery guy and his little truck, puffing at the curb. He hides his gun and grabs the flowers. “Yeah,” he says and slams the door shut in the poor boy’s startled face.

“Who was it?” Mac asks. He came closer and his bare feet were so silent on the hardwood floor that Jack didn’t even notice him.

“You got flowers,” Jack informs Mac suspiciously, turning the bouquet this way and that, as if it might explode in his hands.

“Me?” Mac asks, surprised. Then he pulls out the card from the greenery, and opening it, he reads the content aloud, “This afternoon was fun. Thank you for allowing me to finish my job. See you soon. XOXO… Murdoc.”

Gritting his teeth furiously, Jack turns on his heel, throws the door open and chucks the bouquet out before slamming the door shut again. “What a damn creep!” he mutters, rubbing his hands against his thighs, because even touching those flowers made him feel dirty.

But Mac’s still looking down at the card, a pensive frown his only reaction. “What do you think he meant by that, ‘finish my job’?” he asks Jack, looking up.

Jack opens his mouth to snap that he doesn’t care, that he just wants this guy run over by a truck or something, anything that would get the nutjob out of their lives once and for all. Before he can say it, though, his phone rings and picks it up, barking, “What?!”

When he hears who’s on the other end of the line, though, he dials down his anger a notch. “Sorry, Matty. We have a little bit of a situation here,” he says and puts her on speaker.

“Well, we have ‘a little bit of a situation’ here, too, Jack!” Matty retorts, just as annoyed. “John Liebowitz? The guy you pulled out of the drainage system this afternoon? He’s dead.”

Mac and Jack exchange looks.

“What happened?” Mac asks, the card in his hand forgotten for the moment.

If Matty’s surprised to hear Mac’s voice, she doesn’t show it. “Someone shot him while he was leaving the hospital,” she informs them. “A clean headshot from at least two hundred yards away. It was a professional hit. Whoever did it, must’ve followed the rescue operation closely if they knew when and where to pick him off like that. Cops are looking into it but they don’t think it’s connected to--”

“Oh, it’s connected alright,” Jack interrupts her, his voice dripping with sarcasm, as both he and Mac look down at the card in Mac’s hand.

…This afternoon was fun. Thank you for allowing me to finish my job. See you soon...

There’s a pause, then Matty asks suspiciously, “Jack? What aren’t you two telling me?”

Sighing, Mac rubs his forehead. “Matty, I think it would be best if we explained everything at the office?”

Another pause, heavy with suspicion. “Be here in an hour,” Matty orders in the end and hangs up.

“Well, isn’t that just fantastic!” Jack grumbles, annoyed.

Mac sets the card down and stares at it for a moment. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

Jack frowns. “Hey, this is not your fault, you know that, right?” he states firmly. “Murdoc was hired to kill that Lieb-whatever dude before the fool went and got stuck in the sewers. If we hadn’t saved him, he would’ve drowned and saved Murdoc a bullet, that’s all. And if he hadn’t gone down there in the first place, Murdoc would’ve simply shot him this morning already.

“Mac, his death had nothing to do with us - with you!” he insists. Sure, he feels lousy about the whole thing, too - the guy was a spoiled man-child but he didn’t deserve to be murdered in cold blood - but to see Mac so dejected... well, that Jack simply cannot take.

“Right,” Mac replies quietly, obviously unconvinced. “I’ll just… I’ll get changed and then we can go.” And with that, he turns and walks away, down the hallway and towards his bedroom, his footsteps heavy.

“Fuck!” Jack curses softly, ready to tear that murdering psycho apart with bare hands. For a madman, the guy certainly knows what buttons to push!

… XOXO Murdoc…

“Fuck…”

[peakwealth]

From Malaga: the unthinkable, day by day.

a

Last rites in Malaga’s historic center, Saturday night, March 14, 2020.

1. It seems like it is Thursday today. Not that it matters. I open the window and look outside, the street is just as deserted as it was yesterday. A few days ago I might still have thought it was eerily quiet. Now that would be a silly thing to say. The word eerie is of Germanic origin and still exists in Dutch as the adjective erg, or arg in German, meaning serious or grave. As in: Hoe erg is het? meaning: How bad is it?

Well it is bad, obviously, eerily so, which is why the streets are so eerily quiet, and empty.

When I made my last evening walk on Saturday before the lockdown came into effect, downtown was not quite ghostly yet (the stage after eerie, before surreal and some distance removed from postapocalyptic), but getting there. There was still something faintly (eerily?) comical about the situation. Some people were having a final splurge, two couples sitting in an Argentinian parilla. But many restaurants had already given up. The staff stood outside, smoking or drinking a glass of wine as if waiting for someone to say: "Let's go home, what's the point?"

 It seems a long time ago, a lost world.

On the first full day of the officially decreed lockdown, people took liberties, gingerly going for walks without legitimizing accessories like dogs or shopping bags. That changed after the national police and the army started patrolling. They took up position early in the morning on the main square, Plaza de la Constitucíon, as if to say: don't even think about it.

Clearly this goes against the extraverted grain of a city like Malaga which thrives on noise. Not any more, all that Mediterranean extraversion has drained away. Resignation hangs in the air. The pigeons have the place to themselves.

2. It has been more than three hundred years ago since a couple of Englishmen figured out how to harness the power of steam. Their invention wasn't difficult to figure out: a piston going to and fro inside a barrel, pushed back by pressurized water vapor produced by a boiler. Coal was all that was needed to keep the thing going, a residue from the distant geological past, compressed by evolution and hidden in limitless quantities beneath our feet.

Marine steam engine (1/5th scale model). 1830. Musée des arts et métiers, Paris, February 2020.

It was an amazingly powerful machine, fascinating in its non-stop, back-and-forth, up-and-down simplicity. Before long steam engines had become the essential building blocks of a new world order, based on ingenuity, capital and cheap labour.

They called it progress and it swept across Europe, carried on wave after wave of scientific inventions that ended up shaping the modern world. Steam and power looms kickstarted manufacturing while accurate mechanical clocks made it possible to calculate longitude at sea, a prerequisite for the colonial enterprise to the far corners of the world.

The big prize wasn't steam or watchmaking, though, but electricity and the telegraph, inventions that finally unlocked the planet. Soon large steamships started making regular 'sailings' across the oceans, followed by the first airliners.

The fabulous age of globalization had arrived. And, as if to celebrate this new world of plenty, the world's population started to rise precipitously.

3. When the first steam engines were built, the global population stood at less than 700 million, a fraction of the nearly eight billion people today. Although the age of steam is largely gone, close relatives of those machines are still everywhere, notably the billions of internal combustion engines in use all over the world. Even today, forty per cent of electrical power is coal generated.

We may be slowly moving towards a dematerialized (and thus decarbonized) economy, but the fact is that we still live in a machine driven, material world. You can't eat Facebook and you can't use Whatsapp to take a shower.

Beyond the machines themselves lies the broader frenzy of human industry itself. It never stops. It never sleeps. We share an unquenchable enthusiasm for more of everything, all the more so when we're young. There is or was a mad Elon Musk in most of us.

Until now.

All of a sudden it's as if the fruit of our ingenuity had gone bad. As if the edifice of our greed were crumbling in front of our fearful eyes, outside our locked doors.

We had already noticed that something was terribly wrong, that the natural world was turning against us. Firestorms and starving polar bears had warned us that our man-made world was getting too hot to handle. Humanity was facing a mythical problem that should have sounded familiar: we were getting burnt. But we had no idea of how to contain that fire, how to regain control. All we could see, or guess, was that this incomprehensibly vast, overheating machine which was so central to our daily lives, would have to be turned off.

But how?

Well, now we know. The coronavirus pandemic has already shown us how to do the unthinkable and turn off the tap. It has only taken a few weeks. Shocking and quite possibly cataclysmic as it is, it tells us what it might take to restore the balance of nature, to halt our parasitical lust for more, to clear the air and to save ourselves.

When I look out my back door in the afternoon, I often watch the condensation trails of airliners heading for Morocco, the Canary Islands or South America. Neat trails in the blue sky, precise air corridors, some going, some coming back, one behind the other. Like clockwork, as we used to say. Today I don't see that many. A few more days and none may be left.

The good old days. (Malaga, March 2020)